Honey Don't with Mattie Lubchansky

Honey Don’t? Honey probably shouldn’t have. But that’s okay, because Honey, we’re gonna talk about it anyway! Writer and illustrator Mattie Lubchansky joins us to close out our Coens series with Ethan and Tricia’s latest offering from earlier this year. How do we feel about Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza as performers? How do we feel about Chris Evans’ “year of trying stuff”? How do we feel about the threatened third film in this Lesbian B-Movie trilogy, “Go Beavers!”? Well, honey, you’ll just have to listen to find out. Plus - stay tuned after this episode to hear our introduction to The Hudsucker Proxy from our screening at Friend of the Fest at the American Cinematheque! ⁠Read Mattie's books⁠ https://mattielubchansky.com/books ⁠Check out Mattie's Wife Jaya's writing⁠ http://www.jayasaxena.com/?utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAdGRleAOhJL5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAacSGVIUk8C2v1gss7K6PoZBPvLkNmJLK5kbStJcmj7O-FjR6OvTt-HPHYRXtg_aem_mlTn3JQADIxcGGYydXRuaA&utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social ⁠Check out Slow Xmas 5 https://lnk.to/slowxmas5 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://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? 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?

  She only has two desires and one of them is podcast.

• 1:44David Sims?

  And what's the actual answer?

• 1:45Griffin Newman?

  Justice.

• 1:46David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:47Griffin Newman?

  And her first desire.

• 1:48David Sims?

  The other desire is, is sex with women?

• 1:50Griffin Newman?

  I would say the human vagina.

• 1:53David Sims?

  Episode's over. What on?

• 1:56Griffin Newman?

  That's what this movie is about.

• 1:57David Sims?

  Great to be on, guys. Thanks so much.

• 1:59Griffin Newman?

  About.

• 2:00David Sims?

  I'll see you next time.

• 2:00Griffin Newman?

  I guess so. Your Letterboxd log.

• 2:03David Sims?

  You know what? I'm already pumping the brakes at any statement that's like, that's what this movie is about.

• 2:07Griffin Newman?

  Your Letterboxd log for this movie was just the word boobies. And I would push back on that and say this movie is more about vaginas than it is about boobies.

• 2:15David Sims?

  I think it has some naked breasts, right?

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  But I understand that that's a very surface reading.

• 2:20David Sims?

  Including Chris Evans.

• 2:21Griffin Newman?

  That's a surface reading. I'm not denying it has naked breasts, but I think it's about vaginas.

• 2:26David Sims?

  Wow, this is a, the most our listenership will like crash in the first five minutes.

• 2:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm hitting a homerun. This is our best episode ever.

• 2:36David Sims?

  It's like pointing at the stands. You don't even hit a foul ball. You like hit the bat into your face somehow.

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  Honey, don't, but Blank Check do. That's what I'm saying. This is our best episode ever.

• 2:47David Sims?

  This is our last, um... Episode ever? Episode ever.

• 2:51Griffin Newman?

  It is our last episode ever.

• 2:53David Sims?

  This is our last episode in the Coens series. It's sort of like a, an epilogue.

• 2:58Griffin Newman?

  We're basically treating the solo films as bonus episodes on main feed.

• 3:02David Sims?

  Right, because they, they, they're sort of a half step in, half step out situation.

• 3:06Griffin Newman?

  We felt like we had to cover them. We felt like covering them on Patreon ki- it kind of wasn't quite fair.

• 3:11David Sims?

  It was gonna be weird because we would have to like space them out like in a way that was gonna be odd or back end of, I don't know.

• 3:18Griffin Newman?

  The other part of it was, when, when they win March Madness and we commit to covering them, Honey, Don't has not come out. You have not even seen it yet.

• 3:24David Sims?

  No, but we, it was one of those things where like if we had thought about it for five seconds, we would have been like, oh, right, it is coming out. It was, it just, no one was like yelling it from the rooftops like, by the way, Honey, don't!

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  But we were like, there's a new release movie that will come out between when we start doing these episodes and when the series ends.

• 3:40David Sims?

  Do you know this is a midnight movie at Cannes?

• 3:42Griffin Newman?

  I do, and it got a standing ovation, they claim.

• 3:46David Sims?

  Look, everything gets a standing ovation and, you know, it's...

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  Do they count people standing up to leave the theater?

• 3:54David Sims?

  Do they have seats in the theater? They, they, it's standing ovation, everyone's standing and holding a bar or whatever, like, no, I mean, it's like, they, when, when someone says in these ridiculous...

• 4:06Griffin Newman?

  Chris Evans can't, general audience screening.

• 4:09David Sims?

  Can't just standing room only. I, like, when they're like, oh, it got a five minutes, you know, variety tweets at one in the morning, like, oh, Honey, Don't got fi- I'm like, well, it takes five minutes for everyone to stand up and walk out of, are we counting this as

• 4:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:21David Sims?

  Standing ovation that people must, must stand to exit?

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  Also, the standing ovation bullshit used to mean something when it would happen rarely. And now, basically, if a movie gets a three minute standing ovation, you're like, oh, shit.

• 4:32David Sims?

  It's like a D Cinema score. Right, exactly.

• 4:38Griffin Newman?

  Episode already out of juice? Listen, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David.

• 4:41David Sims?

  There we go. I'm David.

• 4:42Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as a run of movies from Blood Simple to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and are given a series of blank checks separately and with their wives to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this has been a mini-series on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen, together and separately, with the aforementioned wives. Today, we're talking Honey Don't, which, yes, is the last in this larger six-month discussion.

• 5:16David Sims?

  I guess we'll be discussing, what's it called, Jack of Hearts, or whatever, the next, uh, Joel.

• 5:21Griffin Newman?

  Jack of Spades, I believe?

• 5:22David Sims?

  Uh, yeah.

• 5:23Griffin Newman?

  Next year.

• 5:24David Sims?

  Yeah, Jack of Spades.

• 5:26Griffin Newman?

  But also, Joel takes his time with post-production. That might not, it might be a 27 release.

• 5:30David Sims?

  I got no fucker.

• 5:31Griffin Newman?

  Who knows? We will have a new release of a solo Cohen's movie next year, and of course, Ethan and Tricia continue to threaten to make Go Beavers.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  I, okay, so...

• 5:42Griffin Newman?

  Their riff on a college slasher film.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  So, when I saw this movie...

• 5:46Griffin Newman?

  You'll never get what the title is implying.

• 5:49David Sims?

  I don't, I don't understand.

• 5:50Griffin Newman?

  Is alluded to. You'll never guess it.

• 5:52Speaker 04

  When I, when I saw Honey Don't, the film.

• 5:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  Um, it was at the Museum of the Moving Image in Beautiful Story, Queens, New York.

• 5:58Griffin Newman?

  Congratulations.

• 5:59David Sims?

  And the images do move.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  The images do move.

• 6:00David Sims?

  This film's got that going for it.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lot of people don't know this, but actually, movies, it's not actually moving. It's a series of images very close together.

• 6:06Griffin Newman?

  Moving images.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  And your brain interpolates the motion.

• 6:08David Sims?

  Right, persistence of vision.

• 6:09Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then if people are talking, you call that a talkie.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  That's right. Um, but I saw it there with a talkback with Joel, or, sorry, Ethan and Tricia, and in it, they had said, they had not even started writing it yet, and I feel like I almost stood up and started clapping, like...

• 6:26David Sims?

  Never do that.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  And he mentioned, like, a little bit, like, "Oh, me and Joel have been talking a little more," and we're like, everyone in the theater was like, "All right, let's just..."

• 6:34David Sims?

  Please keep talking.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  We definitely have a title, though.

• 6:39Griffin Newman?

  And the title is subtle.

• 6:40David Sims?

  I'm asking Joel for notes on Beaver Squad. Or what's it called? Go Beavers!

• 6:47Griffin Newman?

  Exclamation point!

• 6:48David Sims?

  And Joel's weirdly not returning my emails. I don't know what's going on.

• 6:51Griffin Newman?

  Joel's on stage.

• 6:52David Sims?

  Joel replied, "I'm going through a tunnel," but like in an email?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Fran keeps picking up the phone and I call. Haggling up.

• 6:59Griffin Newman?

  I was on the phone with my brother, Jamesy, and he was asking me if I had seen this. And I said, "Yeah," and I was like telling him my problems with it and my frustrations with it. And he was just like, "It's just like so crazy and these like don't make money, right? Like this and the last one." And I was like, "The last one did poorly and this one did significantly worse." And he just went, "How funny would it be if they made a third one?" And he thought he was suggesting the most ludicrous comedic premise imaginable.

• 7:26David Sims?

  Right, right, right, right. And get this, here's my crazy idea. Yeah, they keep going.

• 7:31Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, "James, they are actively threatening." And I believe he laughed for 45 seconds straight, like an out of breath.

• 7:37David Sims?

  And James is like, a belly laugher.

• 7:40Griffin Newman?

  He was like, "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. They're actually gonna keep doing this."

• 7:44Speaker 04

  That's like a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes to get him to laugh that long.

• 7:47David Sims?

  Now, but is it gonna end up like, fuck, what was the final Divergent movie supposed to be called?

• 7:53Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Divergent Allegion Part II or Divergent?

• 7:57David Sims?

  Like where it's kind of like, "We're gonna make it." And then they're like, "It might be straight to TV." And then they're like, "Yeah, it's not happening. You can read the script if you want. Here it is." Like, you know, have fun.

• 8:07Griffin Newman?

  Especially not having a script yet. And we should say.

• 8:10David Sims?

  I mean, these scripts don't take long to write.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  I was gonna, I was gonna actually ask you guys before. Because I was gonna say, I am a writer of fiction, but I don't write screenplays.

• 8:19Griffin Newman?

  This is the transition.

• 8:20Speaker 04

  What I was gonna ask both of you is, should it take longer than the runtime of a movie to write it?

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Because actually, not in the industry, you're the biz, like the two of you are.

• 8:30David Sims?

  The challenge. This is like a sort of a, whatever, like a, you know, make a movie in a day challenge.

• 8:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a 24-hour film festival, yeah. Would it, would it take ChatGPT longer to come up with a Go Beaver script?

• 8:46Griffin Newman?

  Would it be like, I actually need a week to really kind of work out some of the...

• 8:50Speaker 04

  I've actually got act one problems. I gotta start over.

• 8:53David Sims?

  Just to give you, it was gonna be called Divergent Ascendant.

• 8:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 8:57David Sims?

  Based on the latter half, of course, the book Allegiant.

• 8:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so they were making up a new subtitle, not doing a part two.

• 9:03David Sims?

  Yeah, and then it just, it didn't happen. It was gonna be from the director of The Age of Adeline.

• 9:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Lee Tolan-Craggar, who has basically spent 10 years stuck, I say stuck, in a gilded cage of Berlanti and Netflix TV show pilots.

• 9:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  I have a very, very quick Age of Adeline anecdote.

• 9:24David Sims?

  Uh, please give us that anecdote and then we're gonna introduce.

• 9:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay, sure. We have so much to say. I gotta do 10 minutes on Lee Tolan-Craggar.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Just very quickly, 10 years ago, me and my beautiful wife, Jia, were in Italy.

• 9:34Griffin Newman?

  Humble brag.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. And we were getting dinner at this beautiful place and we started getting chatty with this couple that was next to us and it was this older Dutch couple. And the, um, and the, it was a husband and wife, um, cause that can, that's how a couple can work sometimes.

• 9:47Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Sometimes. I mean, not if honey has her way, but, uh, but, um...

• 9:52David Sims?

  Honey O'Donohue.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  Honey O'Donohue.

• 9:54Griffin Newman?

  Honey O'Donohue. That was, that was a good Charlie Day. I don't know if that was intentional.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  It was so good there. Um, but, uh, the, the husband was a KLM pilot and he was like, I'd just like to stop at this restaurant, whatever. We start talking to him and they go, "Oh, our, uh, son is an actor. He lives in New York too." And we're like, "Uh-huh, sure." Like, "Where does he live in the city?" And they're like, "In Union Square." And we're like, "What's your son's name?" And they're like, "Oh, his name is Michael Heisman."

• 10:17Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Michael Heisman.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  And we're like, "Who is that?" And they're like, "He was on Game of Thrones." I was like, "Oh, right. He's the hot Dario Naharis."

• 10:23David Sims?

  He's the second Dario. That's right. After Ed Screen got kicked off.

• 10:28Griffin Newman?

  And he's in Age of Adeline.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  And then the wife looks at us, cause it'd just come out, I think, and she goes, "And he's in Age of Adeline." Like, expecting us to be like, "Wow."

• 10:35Griffin Newman?

  Holy shit.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  And we're just like... Oh, yeah. And she's like, but like lively? And we're like, uh huh.

• 10:41Griffin Newman?

  David is miming someone freaking out. Yeah.

• 10:43David Sims?

  I've never seen the Age of Adal. I know a film that our friend Richard Lawson has always mildly defended.

• 10:48Griffin Newman?

  I've always heard it's pretty good.

• 10:50David Sims?

  Right. Like Harrison Ford actually giving like a committed emotional performance is like, probably Michael Heisman grown up or something. I don't fucking know.

• 10:57Griffin Newman?

  No, it's Harrison. I think.

• 11:00David Sims?

  I will not accept any kind of, no, David.

• 11:04Griffin Newman?

  I think Michael Heisman is maybe Harrison Ford's son. And the whole bit is that she falls in love with him. And she previously had fallen in love with Harrison Ford. And he brings her home and Harrison Ford's like, you're the same woman.

• 11:17David Sims?

  What's going on here?

• 11:18Griffin Newman?

  Why didn't you age?

• 11:19David Sims?

  I haven't been this freaked out since David Blaine was in my kitchen.

• 11:23Griffin Newman?

  Get off my son.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  For those who are home, I'm pointing.

• 11:29David Sims?

  Both good jokes.

• 11:30Griffin Newman?

  They were great jokes.

• 11:31David Sims?

  Both. It's like we hit opposite field doubles in either direction.

• 11:35Griffin Newman?

  We're in sync today. This is what I'm saying best episode ever. Like David and I are just fucking like, we're in the flow.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  Well, it's been a minute.

• 11:42Griffin Newman?

  It's been a minute. Speaking of.

• 11:44David Sims?

  Although we recorded without you, Ben.

• 11:46Griffin Newman?

  Ah, yes.

• 11:47David Sims?

  We went to the zoo.

• 11:48Griffin Newman?

  But speaking of going to Italy with your lovely wife. Our producer, Ben Hosley, just got back from a honeymoon with his beautiful wife in Italy. Yep. And he was telling us how surprised he was by how much he enjoyed the experience of driving down the roads in Italy. Vroom, vroom.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:06Griffin Newman?

  I really had fun with it. I was taking those curves, taking it fast. And I said. But feeling.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  You were saying, you were saying ciao bella and putting your hand at the window doing the little fisting motion.

• 12:16Griffin Newman?

  And then I said it shouldn't have come as such a surprise to him with all the hours he's logged playing Mario Kart. He knew what a great experience it was going to be to be a real Italian driving down roads. And of course I had a show with me. He had a show with him.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  I will say when we had the same trip that we were in Milan. We got off the plane, we went to where we were staying and it was above the mechanic's garage. And the literal first thing I saw was an Italian guy in red overalls with a mustache.

• 12:40Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  And we, and me and Giant just looked at each other like.

• 12:43David Sims?

  We're really in Italy, baby.

• 12:45Griffin Newman?

  And he was like loading banana peels into the front of his car.

• 12:49David Sims?

  Car?

• 12:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Now, I don't want to spend too much time, but I will share that I did plan on burying jeans. It didn't work out.

• 12:56David Sims?

  Oh, you did. You did text about this.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, there was a delivery issue with the ceramic vessel.

• 13:05David Sims?

  Like an urn?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:06David Sims?

  Like you're doing grave goods in ancient Sumer?

• 13:09Speaker 03

  Well, what I use is I use Korean fermenting, um, like vessels.

• 13:14Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Best stuff ever. And so it didn't end up arriving at my hotel. I wasn't able to do it. I also though, had separately delivered a collapsible shovel. I didn't take it out of the packaging. I brought it to the airport. Apparently you're not supposed to travel with a collapsible shovel.

• 13:33David Sims?

  Doesn't shock me.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  So how are you supposed to bury jeans in other countries?

• 13:35David Sims?

  That's why the shoveler has to stay within the lower 48.

• 13:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, also, I mean, he respects the rules.

• 13:41David Sims?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Um, so I tried to explain at the Rome airport, why I had the shovel. They didn't really get it.

• 13:49Griffin Newman?

  Ben's lovely wife, Nellie, sends us a text at 4:06 a.m. And it is a video taken from quite far away. You can't hear anything. Of Ben gesticulating with whatever the equivalent of a TSA agent is, right at the airport.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Carboniary?

• 14:06Griffin Newman?

  And the text is POV, my husband's collapsible travel shovel gets flagged going through at the airport in Rome.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  That's beautiful.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  And Ben's.

• 14:17David Sims?

  Keep it, man.

• 14:18Griffin Newman?

  Ben's response was they threw it out, said I shouldn't have it. I guess this was sent to Marie and I. Um, rude.

• 14:23David Sims?

  Ho bisogna disparlare dei jeans. Apparently that's a, I need to bury some jeans.

• 14:30Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today is a writer who doesn't just have titles. She finishes books. She doesn't just say, we have an idea.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 14:37Griffin Newman?

  That I'm holding a finish. You hear this?

• 14:40Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 14:40Griffin Newman?

  That's a hard cut.

• 14:41David Sims?

  And that ain't her first book.

• 14:42Griffin Newman?

  In the land of simplicity, a novel.

• 14:45David Sims?

  No, it's, it's called simplicity, right?

• 14:48Griffin Newman?

  This is the land of.

• 14:49David Sims?

  Well, that, that is.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  That's a dumb affectation of mine that I insisted doing to make it look more like a book from the 19th century.

• 14:55Griffin Newman?

  I like that though.

• 14:56David Sims?

  We love that.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. If you look, the subtitle is like a paragraph long.

• 14:59Griffin Newman?

  So I should have listened to the meaning of the title and given into the simplicity of just the one word title.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  It is a gift to be simple.

• 15:06Griffin Newman?

  From the author of Boys Weekend, another book that you finished.

• 15:09David Sims?

  Great book.

• 15:10Griffin Newman?

  Manny Luke Shansky.

• 15:11David Sims?

  The books are also good.

• 15:12Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the podcast, first time guest, but friend of the podcast, someone we've both known separately for a very long time.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:17David Sims?

  I suppose that's true.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  I'm so glad to finally be here on Talk2a, I believe, is the name of the show?

• 15:22David Sims?

  Hell, yeah. Is she back? I saw she was like streaming Fortnite.

• 15:25Griffin Newman?

  She should be back.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  I saw she was back the other day and I was like, well.

• 15:29Griffin Newman?

  Bring her back.

• 15:30David Sims?

  Did she endorse Zorin? Is she gonna have Zorin on?

• 15:32Griffin Newman?

  Let's get Sally Hawkins in to bring her back.

• 15:35David Sims?

  Okay, so I see the joke there. So I remember, I know that she was in the Hulu show Chad Powers, starring Glenn Powell.

• 15:43Speaker 04

  Oh, was she?

• 15:44David Sims?

  She's in an episode of that.

• 15:45Griffin Newman?

  Right, where they're comparing notes on being washed up celebrities or some shit to like a meta casting gag.

• 15:51David Sims?

  So maybe she had to.

• 15:52Griffin Newman?

  She is playing herself, yes.

• 15:53David Sims?

  Had to, you know, to come back after her meme coin scandal.

• 15:57Griffin Newman?

  There was a thing where she appeared at VidCon and like 60% of the audience walked out in protest and complained to the organizers because they were offended by how lewd her material was.

• 16:10David Sims?

  Oh, damn.

• 16:11Griffin Newman?

  And I was like.

• 16:11David Sims?

  She was going blue. Not the part where she scammed everybody?

• 16:14Griffin Newman?

  You were not led into this fucking like convention hall.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  At gunpoint. You said, "I'm gonna sit down and listen to the Talk2a girl in conversation."

• 16:26David Sims?

  It's a fair point. It's kind of a dead dove do not eat. I don't know what you were expecting.

• 16:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 16:31David Sims?

  She is famous for an extremely illustrative and colorful, humorous explanation of blowjob giving.

• 16:38Griffin Newman?

  I want to ask each of those people, what is she famous for? Why are you upset right now?

• 16:43David Sims?

  She's famous for being America's sweetheart. What are you talking about?

• 16:46Griffin Newman?

  I forgot. Yes.

• 16:47David Sims?

  Why isn't she in Honey Don't?

• 16:48Griffin Newman?

  Why isn't she in Honey?

• 16:49David Sims?

  Five minutes of pep from Talk2a.

• 16:51Griffin Newman?

  If she's in Go Beavers, are we excited?

• 16:53David Sims?

  Sure.

• 16:54Griffin Newman?

  If they announce.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  I'm there.

• 16:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:55David Sims?

  I'll buy a Beaver coin.

• 16:57Griffin Newman?

  You'll buy a Beaver coin.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  I'm seated day one for Go Beavers if it's got Talk2a.

• 17:01David Sims?

  I'm simply so seated.

• 17:02Griffin Newman?

  Couldn't be more seated.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  It is nothing like can. I'm in a chair.

• 17:05David Sims?

  Exactly. I won't be giving an ovation because I'm seated.

• 17:09Griffin Newman?

  This movie comes out first week of September in the United States of America?

• 17:12David Sims?

  The very hot late August corridor.

• 17:15Griffin Newman?

  Last weekend of August?

• 17:16David Sims?

  Yeah, August 22nd.

• 17:20Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it screens at, uh, Cannes.

• 17:23David Sims?

  It was at the Cannes Film Festival.

• 17:24Griffin Newman?

  You see it around then?

• 17:26David Sims?

  Uh, I was shown it right then, uh, by the, uh, good people of Focus Features.

• 17:30Griffin Newman?

  Right then.

• 17:31David Sims?

  Who were like, are you gonna do like a simultaneous review or are you gonna like? And I was like, oh, maybe, I guess we'll see what I think of it. And then I saw it and I gave a polite, uh, boobs review on Letterboxd.

• 17:43Griffin Newman?

  We'll talk about it on my podcast in six months, glowingly.

• 17:48David Sims?

  I mean, it was very much a sort of like, hey, I kinda like Drive Away Dolls, so fuck, yeah, I'll give it a, sure, I'll give it a whirl.

• 17:55Griffin Newman?

  I like Drive Away Dolls. That episode was recorded before I'd seen Honey Don't. I feel like I had a very genuine defense of that movie on that episode.

• 18:02David Sims?

  Sure.

• 18:02Griffin Newman?

  After now seeing Honey Don't twice, I, I would even defend Drive Away Dolls more.

• 18:07David Sims?

  Yeah, sure, I would agree.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  I didn't like Drive Away Dolls at all when I saw it, but I was like, I'm, I'll, I'll keep, I, I think Mr. Cohen is, is, uh, had enough. I, I, he deserves a second chance from old Matty. Like, what do I know better than him?

• 18:19Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  So I go see the new one.

• 18:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  And now I'm like, is Drive Away Dolls good?

• 18:24Griffin Newman?

  I, I like Drive Away Dolls.

• 18:25David Sims?

  Drive Away Dolls is, uh, is a movie.

• 18:27Griffin Newman?

  It's more than anything else.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  It functions as a film.

• 18:29David Sims?

  Exactly. It's a film where like, I really, like, the beats basically make sense to me. I'm basically with it the whole time. I think there's, you know, uh, there's something to the, the main couple, like, you know, where there's like a connection there that's interesting.

• 18:43Griffin Newman?

  In it that I find affecting.

• 18:44David Sims?

  Honey Don't is basically a movie that I was kind of out on from the start. And then the ending was so bad, like, that it really sort of hurt the, right.

• 18:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, I'm kind of with it until the last 20 minutes.

• 18:58David Sims?

  I, I think that's, yeah, that's.

• 19:00Griffin Newman?

  And it's such a disastrous ending that it, it basically undoes everything I liked about the movie up until that point. We'll, we'll get into all of this. Here's the timeline I wanna spell out. You see it, right?

• 19:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Griffin Newman?

  When I saw the trailer, I was kind of encouraged, cause I was like, okay, it looks a little formally tighter. There's kind of a genre riff happening here. There's seemingly a central plot thread of a mystery. This maybe looks like slightly more of a movie than Drive Away Dolls. A fun lark that I enjoy. Then David sees it and he's like, it is less of a movie than Drive Away Dolls.

• 19:30David Sims?

  I did, I did, I did warn you.

• 19:32Griffin Newman?

  Ooh, okay, so we now have this on the schedule coming up six months from now.

• 19:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:36Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, kind of a, not an exciting way to end a six month series.

• 19:42David Sims?

  But you know, we've had some great apps. And this is a great app, but we've had some, we've discussed some masterpieces.

• 19:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:47David Sims?

  We've had, we've had good times digging through big movies.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  So I'm just glad after a run of giving a lot of smaller artists and people a chance, getting someone really big on like me to talk about this.

• 19:56Griffin Newman?

  Well, here's, Matty, Matty, this is the road I'm paving, okay? Matty! Matty! David's like, who should we have on as a guest? And I'm like, here's what I think we should do. Let's wait until the movie comes out and see if anyone defends it.

• 20:11David Sims?

  Or even just has a reaction, honestly. Because it kind of felt like a movie that was gonna go nowhere. And it kind of was, like, it just came out to shrugs and negativity and was mostly ignored.

• 20:24Griffin Newman?

  And we don't need to like this movie.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 20:26Griffin Newman?

  Despite what some people accuse us of, we never pretend to like movies for the narrative of a mini series.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  I only do that for money.

• 20:33Griffin Newman?

  When the money clears.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 20:34Griffin Newman?

  That's what the money's for.

• 20:35David Sims?

  Right, that's a briefcase.

• 20:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 20:37David Sims?

  Dollar bills.

• 20:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:38David Sims?

  That's what I'm looking for.

• 20:39Griffin Newman?

  Right, we don't do it to make the episodes better.

• 20:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 20:43Griffin Newman?

  But the movie comes out. There are not really vocal defenders that rise. But I see you posting takes that are at least like considerate of like, I struggled with this.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  I tried to like it. And right before we started recording, you were like, we all dislike this, right? I'm not gonna be the one who like yucks everyone's yum.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:02Griffin Newman?

  We're like, no, I just think you seemed very quickly like someone who would at least be interesting to have a conversation about this movie with, rather than just three people being like, ah, whatever, you know? Cause I do think there is stuff to wrestle with in this. I found this movie so deeply frustrating.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  Immensely.

• 21:23Griffin Newman?

  And I find it frustrating in a way that is very different from Drive Away Dolls, which I accept being its own thing. Even if it is kind of a silly trifle of a thing. I think that is what it's intending to do. And I find that movie charming and entertaining to watch and funny.

• 21:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 21:40Griffin Newman?

  It does not like- Go off the charts in any of those areas, but I think it succeeds at its very modest intent. This is a movie that feels like a bad Coen Brothers movie. It is so much closer to what they do together in a way that is just lacking juice. And for the first like 75% of it, I'm watching it and going like, okay, this is like, this is an all right approximation of a Coen Brothers movie. It's frustrating because I know they can do this better together, but whatever. And then the last 20 minutes are just like, they feel like a shrug and a panic. And it kind of reveals that the movie had no idea what it was actually doing up until that point.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, and for me, I think it's so illuminating that like, they really just think they're making the long goodbye a lot. To the point where there's like lots and lots and lots of things pointing directly to it. There's like a cat on an orange counter and there's like a lady playing a piano in a bar, whatever. To the point where I went and watched the long goodbye again because I'm like, I have to. And now I feel even worse about the movie because I watched the long goodbye recently. But like, that movie also similarly has a kind of ending that's like, the first time you watch it, you're like, oh, it's a little bit out of nowhere. And then you think about it, you're like, no, it's actually really.

• 22:53David Sims?

  That was layered in.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  It was layered in and interesting and like, and it means something for this character. That this happened this way, like he's sick of getting dumped on or whatever. Whereas like, this movie is just sort of like, and now it's over.

• 23:07Griffin Newman?

  Here is what is most frustrating about it to me. Is that I think Joel and Ethan together are the kings of an ending that should be unsatisfying.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:19Griffin Newman?

  Right? Of like constructing a story that feels like it's leading into one direction. And then ending on a very messy ambiguous note, letting plot threads completely dissolve, you know? Or just like wander off screen, taking these hard left turns. These things that could be seen as frustrating and sort of flippant towards the audience. But I think are actually, uh, kind of like.

• 23:46Griffin Newman?

  That feel almost intellectually profound to me.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:53Griffin Newman?

  And this movie, my first time watching it, I'm like, why is this doing the same moves, except it's just making me mad? And I cannot find any rhyme or reason or meaning in what they're subverting.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, like you, I've been listening to the series as you guys have been doing it. And you kept talking about like earlier in their career, the way people, critics, some critics were talking about their work where it's like just cruel or whatever. This movie feels like that, the movie those people think they're watching.

• 24:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Where it's just kind of like tonally mean in a way that I don't quite understand. It left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.

• 24:29David Sims?

  It is a surprisingly mean spirited movie, given that it is initially kind of not.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:35David Sims?

  Initially, you're like, yeah, this is a romp. I get it. It's like a very broad satire. And then at the end, you're like, huh.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  There's like two pieces in it.

• 24:40David Sims?

  Weird edge to it.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, like there's a scene where, was it Chris Evans, like?

• 24:46David Sims?

  He's there.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  He finds out that one guy died and they go out and the guy's like dead on the ground. And like, and they do again, like a horrible mutated version of my favorite Coen's thing, which is two people having a regular conversation while something insane is happening behind them or near them.

• 25:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  And they're doing that, but it's not funny. It is like legitimately sad watching this guy weep over his dead son.

• 25:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  And then there's the bit where the guy's like, oh, like, let me suck your dick. And he gets run over by the car. And I'm just like, okay, so you're just like showing a gig. I get murdered by a car? Like, I don't.

• 25:18David Sims?

  You're, you're right that there's.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  It's totally strange.

• 25:21David Sims?

  They, when they work together, that in many Coen movies, that sort of these horrifying or shocking things happen and you're like very in it. It's very in the flow of the story. They manage the tone right. And that stuff does kind of feel like, you know, some guy who's not a Coen brother being like, I know what Coen brother movies are like.

• 25:40Griffin Newman?

  And yet he is a Coen brother. That's. He's one of the two. His whole time, he's been one of the two Coens? I said to you recently, David, that this movie kind of broke me. Yeah, you said that and I was like, this one? Right, and you were like, it can just be bad. You don't need to be fighting over this. Right, right, right, right. You don't need to be like in turmoil. I'm not at war with whether or not I like this movie. Right. I'm at war with like, why doesn't this work? And it's easy to just say it doesn't, but it is bizarre because it's doing things that are so similar to the things I value in Coen's films with, as we said, someone who is a Coen brother. He is, one of the two. On second viewing, I have some thoughts. Facts checked, true. It's hard to make the two.

• 26:22Griffin Newman?

  But I think, I think Coen movies are filled with these kinds of moments where you're just like, that's a story decision no other filmmaker would make, right? Or that's, and on top of that, tonally, that scene is played in the opposite way of how I would imagine anyone else would approach it. In a comedy, this scene is suddenly very violent and dark. In a drama, this scene is suddenly very funny and over the top, right? These things that feel like they should bump on you. And with the Coens, I don't know what degree of it is just the trust they have like earned from us at this point. When a moment like that happens in one of their movies, I lean in and I go, huh, why are they doing this? I like give them the benefit of the doubt and I feel like every other time it has paid off for me. Whether at the conclusion of the movie where I suddenly go,

• 27:06Griffin Newman?

  I get it. This is what it was all about and this was the larger point they were making. This is why they were playing with narrative expectations and uncomfortable feelings. Or if it doesn't work for me the first time, I go back and watching a second time and I go, now I get it. And like, this is one of the only ones, if not the only one, where I'm like, I truly kind of don't get what's going on here. I think this movie has ideas in it. There are things it is contending with that I find kind of interesting and sticky and certainly on the first viewing, and even giving it a second watch this morning and being like, I'm really trying to meet it. On its terms, I was getting re-engaged in some of the things in the first half and then

• 27:47Griffin Newman?

  just like completely pushed off the bike again the second half. Matty, what is your history with the comics?

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Ooh, that's a good question. I, um, I think in college in the early 2000s, uh, the movie theater near my college was playing The Big Lebowski on a big screen.

• 28:04Griffin Newman?

  Another film.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  Another film that this film is maybe trying to be a little bit.

• 28:08Griffin Newman?

  And very indebted to the long goodbye as well.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, this is like, that movie is like, what if Philip Marlowe is like an even stupider? And this movie is like, what if, I mean, this one, it was just like, what if Philip Marlowe was like a young lesbian? And then they kind of, they stopped and they kind of walked away and hope that they came back in the room later and the script be done. Um, and then I just fell in love with it and I had that stupid DVD that's like the bowling ball that on twists.

• 28:31Griffin Newman?

  Big time.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  And then I just got really into their movies from that point. I went back and I just filled in all my gaps and I, and I try, I've seen everything I think first run since then. Um, but I will say like, especially, I want to say Inside Lewin Davis and Hail Caesar and what was the one just before Lewin Davis?

• 28:50Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  True, great, true. Oh, not, that's true, a bit more, um.

• 28:54Griffin Newman?

  Burn After Reading?

• 28:55Speaker 04

  No.

• 28:56Griffin Newman?

  Serious Man?

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Serious Man. Those three. Burn After Reading, uh, I was the only person I knew that liked it when I saw it in the theaters. It was very gratifying to listen to the episode.

• 29:04Griffin Newman?

  Smart lady.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Correct. Thank you.

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Um, but, um, those three in particular, I watched them and I was kind of like, I don't get it. But like, and then I would just be thinking about them for months and I was like, I gotta watch them again. And now those three are like my favorite three, I think.

• 29:18Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is what I'm saying. Like, that was my experience with Hail Caesar the first time.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  I have seen that movie now, I think, 10 times. Like, I love it so much.

• 29:25Griffin Newman?

  Like, same? And I, it completely makes sense to me now. And it was, that was a movie where the first time some of the wrong footing, I was like, I don't get what they're doing here. But when you go back to it, it rewards you.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:38Griffin Newman?

  It, it starts to make sense when you understand what the movie isn't doing and you stop holding those expectations against it that were sort of, are drilled into us by more conventional movies.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, you know, and like for me, it's sort of like, they are, um, you know, they're like, it's not to sound so fucking basic, but like, they're like the first like directors that weren't, uh, Tim Burton or Steven Spielberg that I was like, these are directors that I've heard of. Um, when I was younger.

• 30:02David Sims?

  Yeah, they're one of the first directors that you have heard of if you're our age.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was like them and like PTA were like, okay, here's directors that now when they have new movies, I will go see their movie.

• 30:10Griffin Newman?

  I, I mean, I, I talk about it a lot, uh, but like Tim Burton does sort of make sense as the ultimate starter kit auteur for people of our generation.

• 30:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Griffin Newman?

  Cause it was, it's so easy to understand what his hallmarks are, right?

• 30:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:24Griffin Newman?

  And then Spielberg is the guy you hear everyone in culture cite as shorthand.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:29Griffin Newman?

  For successful.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  He's on the Animaniacs.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  And he's the only director on the Animaniacs.

• 30:33Griffin Newman?

  You know, the name, you know, the visual, you know, the hits and whatever. And there's like Spielberg magic, but also as we've grown up, the definition of a Spielberg movie has changed a bunch.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 30:43Griffin Newman?

  But the Coens are like those directors that you can sort of feel like you're doing the work yourself to understand what their thing is.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:53Griffin Newman?

  Rather than it being like served up to you completely already by pop culture.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Right. And their, and their movies are just so to me, like just so magical, the way that they have so many moving parts that are like unlike anybody else.

• 31:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  And I will say the thing about maybe like the, I was trying to get to the bottom of like, why did this movie leave such a weird taste on my mouth tonally?

• 31:12Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  And I think it's because the other of their movies is two things. I think it's the attention to detail is missing.

• 31:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  And the dialogue isn't there. Whereas like other Coen movies, the dialogue is so special.

• 31:26Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  And sticky and compelling.

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  That when it's not there, when, uh, Chris Evans is saying best sex ever, or whatever. It's like the dialogue wasn't there, the jokes weren't there. I wrote down one of the jokes. It was like driving me crazy. It's like when, in that scene where the, the, the kid dies.

• 31:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  Um, the Australian guy says, my body's a temple. You should see it with a shake weight. And I was like, that's a joke in a Coen Brothers movie?

• 31:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 04

  Like, are you, oh, not Coen, sorry, a Coen Brother movie?

• 31:57Griffin Newman?

  A Coen Cook movie.

• 31:58David Sims?

  But it is.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  You know what I mean?

• 32:00David Sims?

  I know what you mean that it is, it's somewhat disturbing to consider, like, them knowing about Shake Weights. I don't want them to know about that.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  It just feels like a lazy, it's a lazier joke and it's way out of time.

• 32:11David Sims?

  It is.

• 32:12Griffin Newman?

  But once again, like, driveway dolls-

• 32:14David Sims?

  Maybe a slink it joke?

• 32:15Griffin Newman?

  Feels like it's playing- Is, is a sillier movie that feels like it's playing an entirely different game. And I'm not pinging it for not nailing, like, Raising Arizona-esque rat-a-tat dialogue. Whereas this is getting so close that you become more aware of the gap between what it's trying to do and the literally 20 perfect versions of it-

• 32:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:40Griffin Newman?

  You've seen one of these people do before.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, the other thing they also do in a lot of their other movies is like paying homage to stuff-

• 32:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 04

  In a way that is not tired, that is interesting, that has something to say. And this one is just doing big time, remember that stuff?

• 32:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, even like, the home invasion scene of the young boy and his mother being attacked, right? I think is pretty well-directed. And I'm sitting there-

• 33:04Speaker 04

  You're right, yeah.

• 33:05Griffin Newman?

  And watching it-

• 33:06Speaker 04

  Visually, it's good.

• 33:06Griffin Newman?

  Right, and I was just like, okay, this actually like builds tension, it's using like negative space and silence in this very like classically Coens-y way. It remains specific to its character, it has like shocking moments of humor and of violence. And I felt a little electrified being like, okay, so like Ethan, Ethan's like showing up as a director, right? Like, he's like doing something here cinematically. And the scene ends and I'm like, I have seen 15 better versions of this scene done by that same guy. You know?

• 33:40Speaker 04

  And also like the way that the, the grandma gets killed is like another sort of like, to me, a taste level thing. It just feels sort of like unnecessarily mean, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

• 33:50Griffin Newman?

  There was this quote I brought up a lot throughout the series where Ethan has said, you know, when people ask me what a director does, I, I don't have an answer. And over the years, I finally settled on one, which is tone management. And you do look at most of their films and you're like, that is kind of their ultimate magic. Is the tone management of how can they hold these two things at the same time? And how can they put these scenes next to each other with such a wide kind of variance of human emotion and tone? Right?

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:18Griffin Newman?

  And this is a movie where like it just does not coalesce. And there are things in it, if I'm like just watching it on a scene by scene basis where I'm like, I'm kind of into this scene on its relative terms.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:31Griffin Newman?

  And then I get to the next scene and I'm like, I'm feeling whiplash, but I'm gonna trust them? That this is all gonna come together? And then it has what, what our friend Sean Fantasy on their recent House of Dynamite episode referred to as a, uh, kicking the full paint can into the open street ending.

• 34:48David Sims?

  Like the, the person wanted to do that out of anger is what you're saying.

• 34:52Griffin Newman?

  That it just feels like, I don't know, fuck you, whatever. You know, like, like in House of Dynamite has that too, this ending where like, the movie isn't totally working, but I'm like following and some of the scenes are working. And then you're like, let's see if you can pull it together. And then the ending is like, I don't know, fuck off.

• 35:07David Sims?

  The ending's like, okay, we're done. And you're like, oh no, but what about the ending? And they're like, oh no, these are the credits.

• 35:12Griffin Newman?

  I said, I said, we're done.

• 35:13David Sims?

  These people made the movie.

• 35:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 35:15David Sims?

  And I'm like, oh, okay, did they know?

• 35:16Griffin Newman?

  Like the tone is basically just like, eh.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Almost like a bomb falling?

• 35:22Griffin Newman?

  Kind of, just like, it just fades.

• 35:25David Sims?

  I heard on a podcast that we built House of Dynamite.

• 35:29Griffin Newman?

  I heard that too.

• 35:35Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 35:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 35:39David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 35:41Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 35:41David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 35:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:48David Sims?

  Okay.

• 35:49Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:53David Sims?

  Wow.

• 35:54Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 35:56David Sims?

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

• 36:02Griffin Newman?

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

• 36:16David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 36:17Griffin Newman?

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

• 36:23David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 36:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 36:26David Sims?

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

• 36:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:32David Sims?

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

• 36:37Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 36:38David Sims?

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

• 36:40Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 36:41David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 36:43Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 36:44David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 36:45Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 36:46David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, won the Queer Palmitcan. 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 uh, this summer and now it's on Mubi.

• 36:56Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:10David Sims?

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

• 37:15Griffin 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 uh, an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 37:27David 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.

• 37:39Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:44David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 37:50Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 37:50David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 37:51Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:58David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 38:00Griffin 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.

• 38:07David Sims?

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

• 38:13Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:14David Sims?

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

• 38:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 38:24David Sims?

  No.

• 38:24Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 38:25David Sims?

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• 39:12Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 39:13David Sims?

  Yes?

• 39:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:17David Sims?

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

• 39:23Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 39:24David Sims?

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

• 39:32Griffin 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.

• 39:40David Sims?

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

• 39:45Griffin Newman?

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• 39:54David Sims?

  At once. Okay, that's shop.com. You can just go click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 40:03Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:33David Sims?

  Honey, don't. What does everybody think of Margaret Qualley? Because I do think outside of this stuff we're discussing, tone management, Ethan, like, you know, like Cohen, specimally feeling or whatever.

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  And we should acknowledge that much like Drive Away Dolls, this is a movie that by all accounts was completely.

• 40:51David Sims?

  Co-directed by Trisha Cook.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

  In addition to being written and produced, but because of DGA guidelines, much like the early part of their career.

• 40:58David Sims?

  Trisha Cook is very much the co-author of these two films.

• 41:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:02David Sims?

  They are very clear about that in the interviews, et cetera. Margaret Qualley, who plays the character of Honey O'Donohue in this film.

• 41:08Speaker 04

  Honey O'Donohue.

• 41:10David Sims?

  A private dick in Bakersfield, California.

• 41:15Speaker 04

  Great Bakersfield accent, by the way.

• 41:18David Sims?

  She's the queen of accents. What do we think of Margaret Qualley, who is having, I would say, a fairly sustained run at this point of being in movies?

• 41:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  I, so.

• 41:32David Sims?

  So that, I think, that, that noise that Matty just made is right where I am with Margaret Qualley.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  I feel like sometimes I liked her in The Substance.

• 41:41David Sims?

  Sure.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  Otherwise, I'm sort of, I didn't like her in Drive Away Dolls.

• 41:46David Sims?

  A very strong performance, like a real, like, you know.

• 41:49Griffin Newman?

  That's a Marmite performance that I defend, but I cannot argue with anyone who's like, that drove me crazy.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  And I think the other thing is like, okay, it's like the noir thing.

• 41:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  Right? I've been watching a lot of noirs lately in preparation for this because I was like, I gotta get back in the zone.

• 42:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  And. And I was like, okay, so because like a thing that happens all the time in noirs is shit just starts happening and then it stops happening and the movie's over. And maybe sometimes you're Philip Marlowe or whoever, you're Eddie Valiant, you're fucking

• 42:18David Sims?

  Eddie Valiant.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  The dude, whatever, like, just sort of like, it's just like, okay, I'm gonna go home now and the movie's over, but like.

• 42:24David Sims?

  And they're kind of like, oh, another day in this crazy town.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Exactly, but those movies work because the people at the center you care about, or at least they're compelling or whatever.

• 42:32David Sims?

  Sure.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  And in this movie, for one reason or another, I feel like Qualley's sort of like a charisma void.

• 42:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, let me.

• 42:38David Sims?

  Character feels a little cosplay to me, like not Margaret doing cosplay, like Honey doing cosplay, like right where I'm like, this girl's kind of putting on like a show.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  She's a Rolodex, yeah.

• 42:48David Sims?

  Yeah, like where I'm like, this is, what is this?

• 42:50Griffin Newman?

  I want to circle back to her in a second because I think you're raising an interesting point there.

• 42:53David Sims?

  Now, and then not Arizona, not raising that.

• 42:56Griffin Newman?

  No, you, you have not to date raised one of Nathan Arizona's children, correct?

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Those aren't mine, if I'm not giving them back.

• 43:03Griffin Newman?

  That was, that was a test and you just passed. You should not be raising Nathan Arizona's children, they are not yours.

• 43:09Speaker 04

  Unless he asks.

• 43:10Griffin Newman?

  If he asks you to, then you can say yes, but you shouldn't take the initiative.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:17Griffin Newman?

  The Coens are obviously very indebted to that kind of noir filmmaking and, and also obviously like the, the history of American noir enough.

• 43:26David Sims?

  Hard boiled crime novels.

• 43:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  And even in their non noir films, I do think that is a thing they've really adopted across almost all of their work, which is very often the lack of resolution. A conventional resolution is the point for them, right?

• 43:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:43Griffin Newman?

  Things like, uh, uh, Burn After Reading, or No Country, or even Serious Man that feel like they're building and building and building and then completely veer off from the obvious blow up, the confrontation, the moment of closure.

• 44:00Griffin Newman?

  Work for me because they're not just misdirects. It's like, that is the thematic point to them. Much in the way that noirs are about these people who are broken down and cynical, realizing how powerless they are to actually change anything, right?

• 44:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, the universe is cruel and more importantly confusing.

• 44:19Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  And you can never really get your arms around it.

• 44:21Griffin Newman?

  Which is really, I think, like, the core issue of the Coen Brothers' work. That is the thing that all of their movies are really contending with of like, is this meaningless or not? And if it's meaningless, then what's the point? What, what do we owe each other? What do we owe ourselves? How do you find some sort of peace within that chaos and the, the lack of meaning? And so I think all their other endings work because the lack of resolution is the statement they are making, that life doesn't give you that kind of resolution.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:52Griffin Newman?

  Um, and this movie, in being a hard-boiled detective noir riff.

• 44:57Speaker 04

  True.

• 44:57Griffin Newman?

  Should be even more well set up to get away with that kind of ending. And yet, it doesn't. And I do think, I don't think it's her performance that's the problem as much. I like her in this. I was pretty resistant to her when she started out.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Interesting, sure.

• 45:14Griffin Newman?

  I just felt like, I don't know, I don't get what all the buzz is about her without having like a major issue. I wouldn't say I was allergic, but I was like, I don't know.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:22Griffin Newman?

  It was, look, she's, she's an incredibly attractive daughter of a movie star.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 45:27Griffin Newman?

  Who is one of those people who was kind of like in magazines before she had credits, where it felt like there was a slight degree of she's being shoved down our throats as the next big thing.

• 45:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:36Griffin Newman?

  And I always think, I get a little defensive about like, well, let me decide with these people.

• 45:40Speaker 04

  Sure, sure. Sure with the hot, young things.

• 45:42Griffin Newman?

  And over time, I'm like, I like the choices she makes. I like the people she works with. I think she has a lot of like, uh, I, I admire her bravery in terms of not feeling the need to define a thing she does and stick to it. Even if you look at these two Coens movies and The Substance and all the other stuff she does, there's like a tremendous range of what she does. She doesn't feel protective of any sign, kind of like, brand as an actress, which I always admire.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, I liked her in was Kinds of Kindness.

• 46:10Griffin Newman?

  I liked you in Kinds of Kindness. Never saw Kinds of Kindness.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  She's in it very briefly, and I like her in it.

• 46:13Griffin Newman?

  She has a quadruple role in that.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  She did.

• 46:15Griffin Newman?

  I thought she was great in Poor Things, even though that isn't a very large role. I know that's another one that people.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  I'm making the same noises, David.

• 46:23David Sims?

  Yeah, I was.

• 46:24Griffin Newman?

  Pumped on.

• 46:24David Sims?

  My whole thing with her was she, I first saw her in The Leftovers, didn't know who she was. And was like, the, the, the girl playing the daughter, like, has such a look. And then Googled and was like, oh, it's Andie MacDowell's daughter. Well.

• 46:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 46:37David Sims?

  That'll give you a look.

• 46:38Griffin Newman?

  It'll give you a look.

• 46:39David Sims?

  She's a looker.

• 46:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:40David Sims?

  Uh, but she's very good in The Leftovers. And so I was like, you know, check, noted, like, you know? And then when she was in the sort of, the, the nepo, uh, maelstrom that is, once upon a time in Hollywood, I was like, oh, that's, I guess, something Quentin's going for, right? Like, it's like, there's so many daughters of, uh, and sons of famous people in that movie.

• 47:01Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 47:01David Sims?

  It feels pointed.

• 47:02Griffin Newman?

  But he also like identifies like 10 of the next.

• 47:05David Sims?

  He does. I mean, it is crazy that they're all hanging out at the fucking spawn ranch, right? Sydney Sweeney and all those people.

• 47:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:12David Sims?

  Whoever else is in that, I can't remember. Who else is in it?

• 47:15Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Dakota Fanning?

• 47:17David Sims?

  She's great.

• 47:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:18David Sims?

  Love her.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Uh, that Leonardo DiCaprio guy?

• 47:20David Sims?

  Never heard of him.

• 47:21Griffin Newman?

  He's in the, he is in the movie.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  He's in the movie as well, I think.

• 47:23Griffin Newman?

  But she's, she's very good in it.

• 47:25David Sims?

  She's good.

• 47:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 47:26David Sims?

  Uh, and then I have just been like, she is one of the most like, uh, coin flip actors for me since then.

• 47:33Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 47:33David Sims?

  Where I have like performances, others have bumped on. Blue Moon this year, which is a movie I adore, she has this like 15 minute monologue in it that I think she does a good job. And it's sort of supposed to make me feel on edge.

• 47:46Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:46David Sims?

  But it, it really exemplified the Margaret Colly experience for me where I was just like, do I like this? Like, she's pretty and she, she's holding the camera like, but am I, is this a good performance? Or am I just kind of like, is it just kind of sticking out?

• 48:02Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 48:02David Sims?

  In a way that's me, whatever. I don't know. It's hard to, hard to say.

• 48:06Griffin Newman?

  I think her driveway dolls performance as Sandy Cheeks, the astronaut squirrel from, from the, from the land.

• 48:12David Sims?

  Uh-huh.

• 48:13Griffin Newman?

  Is very broad and in quotes and is sort of.

• 48:16David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, for sure.

• 48:17Griffin Newman?

  Consciously cosplaying, right? She's not looking for any sort of like realism in that. In this, just because it was another film from the same team with the same lead actress, I was expecting her to do the same thing. And I think she is, uh, I, I was.

• 48:35Griffin Newman?

  God, I don't want to say I was surprised by how grounded she was, but maybe just in comparison to the previous work.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:42Griffin Newman?

  That I was kind of buying her in this movie, playing it relatively straight. I agree with you that there's an element to it feels like the character is doing an act and is kind of self-stylized as, you know, a hero of her own story.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:56Griffin Newman?

  Which is why you want the movie to like unwind her a little bit. I think that is the ultimate failing is not in her performance and that they actually don't give her fucking anything to play other than like an improv scene genre exercise of Private Detective.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, when I saw it on the, on the big screen, I, I think I got a little fooled by the magic of the movies because I was like, this is, I actually think she's pretty good in it and I was shocked.

• 49:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  Because in general, I, I tend to dislike her in most things. And maybe I'm just holding a grudge because she plays Anne Ryan King and can't dance and Fosse Vernon and Drum and Saint.

• 49:29Griffin Newman?

  I look fair, fair.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Listen, it's a capital offense where I'm from. Um, but, uh, no, I, and, and I watched it on the big screen. I was like, oh, she's actually pretty good. I'm like shocked. And then I watched it again the other day and I was like, I actually don't.

• 49:42Griffin Newman?

  Am I seen through this?

• 49:43Speaker 04

  Am I, was I just like, wow, she's the size of a house.

• 49:47Griffin Newman?

  But sure, but also how much of that is like you go into it knowing that there's no there there for the character, right?

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I was like, I was just so hoping that something would coalesce. More interesting about the movie that wasn't happening that I just found myself so frustrated that maybe I took it out that way. I don't know.

• 50:05Griffin Newman?

  I was looking at your August 18th log of this movie.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 50:08Griffin Newman?

  Seeing it at Mimi, the moment when I pinged David and said, Maddie seems to half like this. We should have her on the show. I don't know if we're going to find anyone more positive than this. We talked about having you on the show. And you said, really loved the first half of this. Everyone was good, looks very good, but feels a lot less than the sum of its parts. Honey, just okay. Honey, fine.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:27Griffin Newman?

  And then I messaged you and you said you were disappointed it wasn't worse because you had better letterbox jokes lined up that you then didn't get to use.

• 50:37Speaker 04

  That's correct.

• 50:38Griffin Newman?

  Uh. Remember any of those?

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Uh, I think it was like, honey, won't.

• 50:42Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  Honey, honey shouldn't.

• 50:44Griffin Newman?

  Honey shant.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  Honey shant.

• 50:47Griffin Newman?

  My favorite was, honey, don't, dot, dot, dot, see it.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, you would, yeah.

• 50:53David Sims?

  Honey's third act problems, right? Was that one of them?

• 50:55Griffin Newman?

  Honey's third act problems.

• 50:56David Sims?

  Yeah, I think, I think that's a, that's a solid one.

• 50:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:00David Sims?

  Yeah. It would be funny if Honey's like, I've solved the mystery. There's third act problems.

• 51:04Griffin Newman?

  But I think watching it the first time, you're like.

• 51:08David Sims?

  Sorry. I was doing a magnifying glass.

• 51:10Griffin Newman?

  This is going somewhere and clearly at some point this character will deepen.

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 51:16Griffin Newman?

  Beyond just kind of an affectation.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:20Griffin Newman?

  Here's what I think this movie is actually sort of trying to be about.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  Vaginas. No, what I actually sort of think it's trying to be about.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  Boobs. The longer boob.

• 51:30Griffin Newman?

  Now you sound like David.

• 51:32David Sims?

  It'd be funny if we were like, the big debate, vagina versus boobs. No, no, okay, okay, what's it about, what's it about?

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  I think it's actually trying to be about examining the ways in which men hold power over women. If you look at the prism of everything happening around her in this movie, right?

• 51:48Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:49Griffin Newman?

  It is sort of like, uh, here is someone who is a private investigator. She works for no one.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  Sure, she's a private dick. But she doesn't have one.

• 51:59Griffin Newman?

  But she doesn't have.

• 52:00David Sims?

  I don't understand this.

• 52:01Griffin Newman?

  But she's dealing with.

• 52:02David Sims?

  A lady doing detective? Sorry, go ahead.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  A lady doing detective.

• 52:07Griffin Newman?

  She's dealing with the, the law, you know? She's dealing with her clients, she's dealing with the criminal element. She is dealing with organized religion, you know, or perhaps cults that are sort of framing themselves as organized religion to become consolidations of money and power and sex and cults of personality. And the relationship with the father, which is the point where I'm watching it the first time and I'm like, okay, is this going somewhere?

• 52:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 52:34Griffin Newman?

  Is there thematically something here in this sort of like, someone who has worked so hard to define herself not in relationship to any man? Not only because that is not how she sexually identifies, but also because she doesn't want to be part of these systems, right? And like the early stuff with her sister, uh, who was Kristen Connolly, who's an actress I like a lot.

• 52:57David Sims?

  Love that actor.

• 52:57Griffin Newman?

  And I, I like that scene, the two of them on the porch together where it feels like there's. There's actually some real emotion here, like where is this going? Her sister who is-

• 53:06David Sims?

  Answer is kind of nowhere.

• 53:07Speaker 04

  Nowhere, when she's in the house.

• 53:08Griffin Newman?

  Her sister has many children.

• 53:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:10Griffin Newman?

  There's like, kind of no solid male figure in sight. She's pregnant yet again and makes a crack about her, her siblings can't even, her children can't even remember how many siblings they have right now, they're not excited for the new baby. And her oldest child is played by Talia Ryder, who's in her rebellious teen phase, is dating a bad guy.

• 53:28David Sims?

  Right, right. An obvious sort of future abusive husband if things go that way.

• 53:34Griffin Newman?

  Right, it's like, a cycle is continuing. You'll later find out that Honey's father, who's trying to make amends, was also abusive. That they've both distanced themselves from him. And that the daughter's lashing out. That she feels like her mother's critiquing her too much and warning her about how badly things are gonna turn out. When she's looking for support, she's getting anger, you know? And how do women end up giving power over to men? Which is, the biggest fucking mess of this movie is, just getting into spoilers, Aubrey Plaza revealing herself to be like an 80s movie slasher villain, who has gone insane victim blaming women who are victims of abuse, because she thinks it's about women being weak enough that they let themselves be abused.

• 54:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I'm going to solve that by kidnapping random teenagers?

• 54:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  And torturing them to death?

• 54:24Griffin Newman?

  That my father abused me.

• 54:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:27Griffin Newman?

  And I now resent

• 54:29Speaker 04

  No.

• 54:30Griffin Newman?

  other people who don't know how to correct that situation because she murdered her father to get out of it, or he died independently? I can't remember.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  In very spot you're standing, Honey.

• 54:39Griffin Newman?

  What's, what's the problem there?

• 54:42Griffin Newman?

  I would say it's not played very well.

• 54:44David Sims?

  So that was what I was about to say. I would say that is a twist that would be tough to get across maybe anyway, because it feels a little out of nowhere and a little convenient, yada, yada, yada. I also think Plaza cannot do it.

• 54:56Griffin Newman?

  She can-

• 54:57David Sims?

  And that's another actor that I make a noise about when I'm like, do I like this actor?

• 55:02Griffin Newman?

  She is way more that for me and I, you had told me like watching this, like I'm, I'm questioning if she can act at all. So I went in watching it and until the final scene, I was like, I actually like her more in this than most things.

• 55:15Speaker 03

  Because she's.

• 55:16Speaker 04

  I liked her a lot in the rest of it because she's really good.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  She's good at that.

• 55:18Speaker 04

  She's good at playing horny.

• 55:19Speaker 03

  Good at playing horny, good at playing flirty, good at playing kind of temptress.

• 55:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, she works so well into the last scene, the whole time like, wow, Aubrey, like, put her in the center of the movie.

• 55:29David Sims?

  Like they didn't tell her the twist until like, like the bit they were rolling in there. Oh, and by the way, you've been the murderer the whole time.

• 55:36Griffin Newman?

  By the way, I'm like, I'm sympathetic to her where I watched that final sequence and I'm like, this feels like an actor being like, well, I'm gonna try my best. This is a tough fucking assignment they gave me. And I'm gonna figure out a way and see if I have any into playing it in a way that is believable.

• 55:55David Sims?

  My thing with Plaza had always been I, I had struggled with some of like, I didn't like her very much in Legion, but I didn't like that show much or whatever. Like, I didn't like Ingrid Goes West as much as some people did. And, but then I did like, like Emily, the criminal, which was a bit of an under seen little gem and like, there were certain things I, I enjoy her in Megalopolis.

• 56:14Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, she gets what movie she's in.

• 56:17Speaker 04

  I love her in Megalopolis.

• 56:18Griffin Newman?

  More than any other actor in the cast. She knows exactly what movie she's in.

• 56:21David Sims?

  Sometimes it hits and then sometimes I'm like, well, this didn't work. And this was kind of a, it was hitting and doesn't work all in one movie.

• 56:28Griffin Newman?

  It's all of it.

• 56:29David Sims?

  Ben, do you have a take here? I feel like, no, no, okay.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  I just kind of have a crush on her.

• 56:33David Sims?

  Oh, interesting.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  So I'm always.

• 56:35David Sims?

  Aubrey Plaza, here, you're the first here.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Sort of always in the bag for her.

• 56:39David Sims?

  Wait, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. You like someone who has a kind of could be mean to me vibe, but I don't understand this. This is not, this is not your track record remotely.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  Something about her cold cruelty.

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  That just for whatever reason sparks something in me.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Does that reflect your wife?

• 56:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 56:55David Sims?

  No, very much so.

• 56:57Speaker 04

  Era.

• 56:57David Sims?

  Kind of, kind of one of the billion reasons we love your wife.

• 57:00Speaker 03

  Sort of a dating history. Yes, that, that conjures up for me.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  That is bright red. A lot of Wows platinum in the past.

• 57:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 57:08Griffin Newman?

  More Emily's the Criminals, I would say, than Wow's Platinum.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  Okay, okay. Listen, Wow Platinum has got some pretty nefarious motives, Fireball.

• 57:16David Sims?

  Wow Platinum is up to no good.

• 57:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:19Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what's crazy?

• 57:20David Sims?

  What's up?

• 57:21Griffin Newman?

  So her character's name is Wow Platinum, right?

• 57:23David Sims?

  That's so true.

• 57:24Griffin Newman?

  And wow is one of the words that is said most often on the Doughboys podcast. And the highest honor they can bestow upon anything is the Platinum Play Club.

• 57:31David Sims?

  So true.

• 57:32Griffin Newman?

  And so I was watching this movie and wondering, does Francis Ford Coppola listen to the Doughboys podcast? Which does make sense, because they're a Coppola goofballs.

• 57:42David Sims?

  Thank you for saying that. And of course, that's something that Nick Weiger said about 400 times last year.

• 57:46Griffin Newman?

  No, I think I'm the first one to say that on any podcast. Have any of you seen Megadoc?

• 57:51Speaker 04

  No, not yet. I need to, because I am very invested in Megalopolis.

• 57:56Griffin Newman?

  It rules.

• 57:57Speaker 04

  A movie I liked.

• 57:58Griffin Newman?

  It rules. It's great as a document. It's great.

• 58:00David Sims?

  Maddie, we're both interested in municipal politics and wacko movies being my mad men.

• 58:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I, look, I-

• 58:06David Sims?

  It's got both.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  It's coming out, baby. Hey, that's a really good point.

• 58:08Griffin Newman?

  Yep. I'm in the same boat as the two of you.

• 58:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:11Griffin Newman?

  I think that movie is fascinating as like a supplemental document to understanding Megalopolis, but it's also like actually a good movie in its own right.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  Well, I understood it perfectly. No problems.

• 58:20Griffin Newman?

  Aubrey Plaza comes out of that movie.

• 58:22David Sims?

  Coherent film. A to B to C.

• 58:25Griffin Newman?

  Looking the best.

• 58:26David Sims?

  She does. She's one of the top, like-

• 58:28Griffin Newman?

  No, out of Megadoc, I'm saying, makes her look even better.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  I thought you meant maybe in the wig, she looks the best.

• 58:33Griffin Newman?

  She does. She is looking pretty good. But you watch that and like both the behind the scenes footage of her interacting on set and rehearsals and whatever, they show all the like fucking weird Francis Ford Coppola acting exercise improv stuff. Like all this footage you haven't seen of her performing in character, that's all great and you're watching raw takes. But also all of her interviews, she comes off funny and smart and like the most transparent about everything that was happening in the ecosystem of that movie.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:03Griffin Newman?

  So I watched that and I'm like, she does kind of get it, undeniably. And also she is someone who versus a lot of her like contemporaries, has really been committed to movies.

• 59:16David Sims?

  Yeah, I I completely agree with that. She she tries stuff. She does interesting projects. She yeah, you're absolutely and honestly, same with Margot Colly.

• 59:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 59:25David Sims?

  I mean, it's like, what I'm giving people respect for working, but I like that they're working like.

• 59:31Griffin Newman?

  But I I think I'll reply as if I can even go a step further in a way that I just like she gets brownie points for me forever. For this, like, does a lot of low budget stuff.

• 59:41David Sims?

  Sure, yeah.

• 59:41Griffin Newman?

  With like first or second time filmmakers where it feels like she's actually producing it, getting it off the ground, calling her friends in, interested in taking like a fifth supporting part in something, you know, just to work with interesting people. And has done a season of White Lotus and did Legion or whatever, but doesn't just feel like she's doing the fucking streaming prestige cash in.

• 1:00:02David Sims?

  Agatha Hall along.

• 1:00:03Griffin Newman?

  You're right. You're right. She's done a couple, but she's like.

• 1:00:06David Sims?

  Was it all the time? I guess all along, in my opinion, the best MCU thing since fucking Avengers Endgame or whatever.

• 1:00:14Griffin Newman?

  She is largely not doing big payday streaming bullshit that doesn't exist, which almost all of the people from her generation. Got caught up doing. Now, speaking of, Chris Evans is in this movie. It represents Chris Evans' try year, 2025, where he decided to try giving a shit again.

• 1:00:32David Sims?

  He got off his ass a little bit. I will say he's been somewhat forthcoming, like I'm aware that I made a bunch of dog shit after Knives Out, right? Like, he's sort of setting it out loud, right?

• 1:00:42Griffin Newman?

  God.

• 1:00:42David Sims?

  Like, because his post, we talked about it, but the sort of like gray man ghosted. Pain Hustlers Red One. Jesus Christ.

• 1:00:52Griffin Newman?

  It's really bad.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  Sorry, is there a movie called Pain Hustlers? Are you saying two different movies?

• 1:00:56David Sims?

  Pain Hustlers is a Netflix film. I mean, that honestly, that's the the most, right, arty thing he did. It's like a biopic about. Uh opioid hustlers. It was Emily Blunt and Chris Evans. It was, you know, I mean, it came and went.

• 1:01:11Griffin Newman?

  From 2019, when he has Knives Out and Endgame and you're like, here we go. This guy's unlocked. He's freed from Marvel.

• 1:01:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:18Griffin Newman?

  And he just killed it in a movie playing a real person.

• 1:01:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's off the leash.

• 1:01:22Griffin Newman?

  Here we go. And then for the next six years, or the, yes, yes, for the next five years.

• 1:01:28Speaker 04

  Uh, sure.

• 1:01:29Griffin Newman?

  Because 2025 is when he gives a shit again.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Griffin Newman?

  For the next five years, he only does streaming bullshit and the only two movies he is in that go to theaters are. Lightyear?

• 1:01:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Griffin Newman?

  In which he played the real Buzz Lightyear.

• 1:01:41Speaker 04

  Well, in the universe of Toy.

• 1:01:43Griffin Newman?

  The man that the toy is based on.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:01:45David Sims?

  It was based on a film that is, of course, disgusting and frazzled Snoop Dogg with its portrayal of lesbianism.

• 1:01:52Griffin Newman?

  It's a devi-.

• 1:01:52David Sims?

  Coming back to Honeydew.

• 1:01:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, just unfair. How's she supposed to explain this?

• 1:01:55Speaker 04

  He should, he should never watch Honeydew.

• 1:01:57David Sims?

  He seems to more be saying that he possibly is too stoned to literally explain homosexual relationships.

• 1:02:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04David Sims?

  And that Lightyear was simply bothering him because it was prompting that? He wasn't even like, get this woke off my screen. He was like, I am too lazy to explain anything.

• 1:02:15Griffin Newman?

  If you have ever taken a small child to see a movie, something I know you now do.

• 1:02:19David Sims?

  I sure have, yeah. And my child has unfortunately seen Lightyear like seven or eight times.

• 1:02:23Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 1:02:23David Sims?

  I told you, I've said this on this podcast before, she calls it grumpy buzz. She doesn't even like it that much, but occasionally she's like, I wanna watch grumpy buzz.

• 1:02:32Griffin Newman?

  I, I don't know if you told me this before. I forgot this.

• 1:02:34David Sims?

  I've seen that movie a lot. She, I mean, she definitely likes socks more than most of the movie because that's at least a cat that's cute.

• 1:02:42Griffin Newman?

  Calling it grumpy buzz kind of underlines the core problem of that movie's existence.

• 1:02:46David Sims?

  She really zeroed in, right?

• 1:02:48Griffin Newman?

  She's right.

• 1:02:48David Sims?

  What the movie is giving you. It's like, it's buzz, but he's kind of grumpy, right?

• 1:02:54Griffin Newman?

  Um.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  Have you seen Lightyear?

• 1:02:56Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 1:02:56Speaker 04

  You can check that one out. Hey, I just have a real quick question for you. Why would I have seen Lightyear?

• 1:03:00Griffin Newman?

  Great question.

• 1:03:01David Sims?

  I mean, I watched a lot of it. Experience the eventual part of Lightyear.

• 1:03:04Griffin Newman?

  I've, I've said this before on the pod, but I was dating a woman and, uh,

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 1:03:09Griffin Newman?

  At the time that Lightyear came out and I went to go see it by myself and she found the stub in my pocket and I think it's not unrelated that I was dumped within days.

• 1:03:21David Sims?

  In your pocket, one used. And she's like, what is this?

• 1:03:24Griffin Newman?

  Is this?

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  I was just checking out grumpy buzz.

• 1:03:26Griffin Newman?

  She was like.

• 1:03:27David Sims?

  My ear stub?

• 1:03:28Griffin Newman?

  Did you take your little cousin here? I was like, nah, I had time after record. I went to go see it by myself.

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  I mean, I'll, I'll watch basically anything. I'll also watch anything animated, basically.

• 1:03:36Griffin Newman?

  Same. My ass back right.

• 1:03:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 1:03:38David Sims?

  Lightyear kind of looks alright.

• 1:03:40Griffin Newman?

  It looks good.

• 1:03:41David Sims?

  Pretty expensive animated film.

• 1:03:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, Pixar kind of lost me is the thing.

• 1:03:46Griffin Newman?

  I think they kind of lost it.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Pixar's not as good as it used to be.

• 1:03:50David Sims?

  Weird thing about Lightyear. There are many weird things about it, obviously, but is that it is, the plot is basically like Diet Interstellar. It's got like this complicated, like, time dilation plot.

• 1:04:01Griffin Newman?

  Exactly what I was gonna say. You take a small child to see any movie, they will ask you a question every 15 seconds about what's going on on screen.

• 1:04:07David Sims?

  At a certain age, yes.

• 1:04:08Griffin Newman?

  So first of all, Snoop Dogg's point isn't validated because it's like, what? I don't want to have to explain this.

• 1:04:13David Sims?

  You also have to explain, like, relativity.

• 1:04:15Griffin Newman?

  You're gonna have to, this is a movie that has such complicated concepts in it.

• 1:04:19David Sims?

  It does.

• 1:04:20Speaker 04

  Does anybody fold the piece of paper and put a pencil through it?

• 1:04:22Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't do that!

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  It's the best science fiction movie since the dawn of time.

• 1:04:26Griffin Newman?

  This is what's so weird, is that Interstellar, a movie for grownups, does that and everyone's like, oh, fucking Christopher Nolan.

• 1:04:32David Sims?

  Thanks for the explanation.

• 1:04:33Griffin Newman?

  Treating us like babies. And then Lightyear's like, fine, we got it. You want to be treated like grownups and doesn't take the time to explain it to children!

• 1:04:40David Sims?

  Let me just say, I had a tangent off this tangent, because we don't need to discuss Lightyear that much, anyway.

• 1:04:45Griffin Newman?

  Juicy fingers. How are you supposed to explain juicy fingers to your children?

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  Sorry?

• 1:04:50David Sims?

  What's that?

• 1:04:50Griffin Newman?

  The worst concept in Lightyear is that in their alternate reality, or their future, their far-off future,

• 1:04:56David Sims?

  Sure, it's the future.

• 1:04:57Griffin Newman?

  They eat inverted sandwiches where the meat is on the outside and the bread's in the middle. And Buzz said, why would you do that? And they go, so you get juicy fingers? That's the best part. When the meat juices get on your fingers and you have to lick them off.

• 1:05:09David Sims?

  Sounds like the kind of sex joke that would be in Honey, Don't.

• 1:05:11Griffin Newman?

  Explain that shit to your grandchildren, Snoop.

• 1:05:14David Sims?

  I haven't explained anything that's happening in Lightyear to my child, who seems to have forgotten that movie exists recently, which is good.

• 1:05:19Griffin Newman?

  Juicy fingers.

• 1:05:20David Sims?

  I had to pivot off of Lightyear. I'm, juicy fingers really, really threw me though.

• 1:05:25Griffin Newman?

  Juicy fingers.

• 1:05:26David Sims?

  Forgetting what it was.

• 1:05:28Griffin Newman?

  Relativity, not explaining, pencil through the paper.

• 1:05:30David Sims?

  David Giazi, or Gias, I'm not sure how you say it.

• 1:05:32Griffin Newman?

  Romilly.

• 1:05:33David Sims?

  Who plays, who plays Romilly in Interstellar, is now in Netflix's The Diplomat, a show that I watch and enjoy.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  Is that the Carrie Russell?

• 1:05:41David Sims?

  That's the Carrie Russell Show, where there's a twist every fucking five minutes and it rocks and it's very silly and frothy.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  It makes me look up from doing the dishes.

• 1:05:48David Sims?

  Exactly. And David Giazi is now playing a hot, British foreign secretary, and it's just always a pleasure to see that guy.

• 1:05:55Griffin Newman?

  It's great.

• 1:05:55David Sims?

  Oh, fucking good-looking. He's also a good actor.

• 1:05:58Griffin Newman?

  Great in Cloud Atlas?

• 1:05:59David Sims?

  Yes, he is.

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  Oh, that guy!

• 1:06:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he rules.

• 1:06:01David Sims?

  He's just got like a really, really great, like, draw, great way of talking, a great furrowed brat, like, he's great.

• 1:06:07Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm. Uh, the only other movie that Chris Evans was in that went to theaters was, of course, uh, Free Guy, where he makes a three-second cameo, seemingly filmed on an iPhone, playing himself.

• 1:06:18David Sims?

  He, he did do that. He is, I mean, Red One, I believe, did go to theaters, didn't he?

• 1:06:22Griffin Newman?

  You are, you are tragically correct.

• 1:06:25David Sims?

  I mean, and like, and I actually-

• 1:06:26Griffin Newman?

  On technicality.

• 1:06:27David Sims?

  I did see Gray Man in theaters, but that was at Four Wall. Red, but Red, Red Run got like a real release, I guess.

• 1:06:32Griffin Newman?

  It did, but it still is streaming bullshit. Yes.

• 1:06:35Speaker 04

  Did he reprise his role as Lucas Lee on the Scott Pilgrim show?

• 1:06:37Griffin Newman?

  He did.

• 1:06:38David Sims?

  He did.

• 1:06:38Speaker 04

  Which, and he was correct. That performance in that movie is so fucking good.

• 1:06:41David Sims?

  He's awesome in that movie.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:42David Sims?

  Chris Evans is a, a good and charming actor who's been working on our screens for more than 20 years at this point.

• 1:06:49Griffin Newman?

  I have always been a big defender.

• 1:06:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:51Griffin Newman?

  And I think you look at stuff like Lucas Lee, like not another teen movie, where you're like, this guy does get it.

• 1:06:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  Like, he is able to poke fun at himself in a way that shows that he doesn't know, he can't contend that he doesn't know what good material is.

• 1:07:07David Sims?

  No, he's got taste.

• 1:07:08Griffin Newman?

  Because he's kinda in on the joke, and he's worked with good filmmakers before.

• 1:07:11David Sims?

  I don't like materialists, but I don't think he's bad in it.

• 1:07:18Griffin Newman?

  I think he's quite good.

• 1:07:19David Sims?

  He's sort of doing his best.

• 1:07:20Griffin Newman?

  I like him a lot in it.

• 1:07:21David Sims?

  Good material I don't really like.

• 1:07:22Griffin Newman?

  That's a movie I obviously, uh-

• 1:07:23David Sims?

  You defend.

• 1:07:24Griffin Newman?

  Defend. Uh, but I also think that movie has a core issue with his performance that I think this movie carries as well. Uh, I have not seen, the third film in his tri-gear trilogy is the Kent Jones film, Late Fame.

• 1:07:38David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, well, I think that hasn't actually, you know, that got like a festival-

• 1:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it's played at festivals. You have not seen it yet.

• 1:07:44David Sims?

  No, I didn't say. I'd like to see it.

• 1:07:45Griffin Newman?

  Um, I don't know what he has lined up, outside of seemingly returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

• 1:07:50Speaker 04

  No, what? They got, they got their hooks back in him?

• 1:07:53David Sims?

  Well, he's, he's very much like, as his like biceps and pecs are bulging out of his like t-shirt on the record, but he's like, I don't think I'm gonna be in that one. And he's like, God, I'm fucking Captain America's shield in that, basically. I mean, maybe if they call me briefly, I might show up.

• 1:08:09Griffin Newman?

  He's wearing the mask.

• 1:08:10Speaker 04

  They've tattooed it on his face. He shaved his head. Yeah.

• 1:08:13David Sims?

  Um, he's in the Romain Gavres film Sacrifice-

• 1:08:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:08:16David Sims?

  Uh, which was at TIFF.

• 1:08:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:08:18David Sims?

  Uh, which, with Anya Taylor-John. I don't know much about it.

• 1:08:20Griffin Newman?

  Two festival movies that haven't premiered yet, right? Yeah.

• 1:08:23David Sims?

  Um, Chris Evans, do we like him in this movie? The thing about him in this movie, in which he plays a sort of, as you say, religious cult leader- The televangelist-y sort of like thing.

• 1:08:33Griffin Newman?

  But the movie introduces you to him, uh, misbehaving before you even see him at the pulpit.

• 1:08:39David Sims?

  He do be misbehaving.

• 1:08:40Griffin Newman?

  It is front loaded with.

• 1:08:42David Sims?

  He's naked a lot in the movie.

• 1:08:44Speaker 04

  You just gave me a look that I cannot describe why you said that.

• 1:08:48Griffin Newman?

  He's got like a fucking strip mall church that is really a front for a drug operation where they're funneling money from the friends, but also.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  Four-way church or something?

• 1:08:55Griffin Newman?

  It's the four-way.

• 1:08:56Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 1:08:57Griffin Newman?

  And he's.

• 1:08:57David Sims?

  Doesn't this, go ahead, finish your thought, and then I have a thought.

• 1:08:59Griffin Newman?

  He also loves to fuck and he fucks everybody and it's basically a sex cult.

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  And he makes all the female prisoners wear like chain bikinis under their robes.

• 1:09:07David Sims?

  And he directs them during sex. So like, yeah, you're like, doesn't this all feel very like eighties, nineties kind of humor about like televangelists and TV priests? It feels tired. Very tired.

• 1:09:17Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is.

• 1:09:18David Sims?

  And you're like, that thing of like, what you don't know is like, religious people can be hypocrites. And I'm like, yeah, we know that. Like, that's, that is done and dusted. That is old news.

• 1:09:27Griffin Newman?

  JJ did not do a dossier for this episode.

• 1:09:30David Sims?

  No, because he's fired.

• 1:09:30Griffin Newman?

  He is fired.

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:09:31Griffin Newman?

  But, uh.

• 1:09:32David Sims?

  Because we told him not to do it, but it was reverse psychology. We wanted him to do it.

• 1:09:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and he failed the test.

• 1:09:36David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  I was hoping to see the giant book get opened up, but I guess not.

• 1:09:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, I'm sorry. It's on the shelf this week. Uh, but I, there were changes made to this versus the driveway doll script remaining untouched and kept as a period piece, right? This was a script that they wrote, that she wrote in, at an earlier point.

• 1:09:56David Sims?

  I believe all of these, including fucking, you know, Beaver Parade or whatever.

• 1:10:00Griffin Newman?

  Go Beavers doesn't have a script. I have to remind you, it hasn't been written.

• 1:10:03Speaker 04

  I know, but they told me personally, it's not written.

• 1:10:04Griffin Newman?

  It's an idea.

• 1:10:05David Sims?

  There may be a, like a treatment or sketch out there somewhere, right? Like, it wasn't just that someone was like, go Beavers, and they were like, put a pin in that.

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  They said that they had the ideas down, but they hadn't cracked it yet. And I was like, what? Are you possibly going to crack?

• 1:10:16Griffin Newman?

  That's my only question is, was this written in full in like 2002 and then dusted off and like COVID reference, you know, updated?

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  I have a, uh, the COVID reference, they talked about it specifically at the talkback because it bothered me.

• 1:10:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:31Speaker 04

  Because that, it's, again, attention to detail shit that was driving me insane.

• 1:10:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Speaker 04

  Where it's like, again, and like in driveway dolls, uh, my lovely wife, who's a food writer, pointed this out to me.

• 1:10:40Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:41Speaker 04

  They order a rosé in the nineties. They would have ordered a plush wine.

• 1:10:44Griffin Newman?

  That's a good call.

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

  Sort of mistake that the brothers together did not make.

• 1:10:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:10:47Speaker 04

  And then it's like, I don't give that much of a shit, but it does like, whatever. And then.

• 1:10:51David Sims?

  Your, your wife is obviously one of the best food writers.

• 1:10:53Speaker 04

  She's America's best food writer, in my opinion.

• 1:10:56David Sims?

  Bless her for noticing.

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  Yes. Um, and then in, uh, in this movie, the COVID thing is like Billy Eichner, if he's that guy that they say he is, which is like a weird joke that I don't care about and it's not very good.

• 1:11:07Griffin Newman?

  His character is introduced as a client who is, uh, methodically, uh, wiping off the chair in her office before he sits in it and they turn to her and goes like, can't be too careful.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  It's still everywhere. And he's like, if he was actually that kind of like very cautious person about COVID, he would be wearing a mask.

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  That is.

• 1:11:26David Sims?

  You're, you're right that it is bizarre and lazy. Exactly.

• 1:11:29Speaker 04

  And they, and the joke is in there, they said, because, um, they wanted people to know that it was not a period piece off the bat.

• 1:11:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:11:37Speaker 04

  And it is there to serve a function, not to actually be funny.

• 1:11:40Griffin Newman?

  There are other ways you can.

• 1:11:41Speaker 04

  I, I.

• 1:11:41David Sims?

  Nope. There's no other way.

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  He watches on iPhone all the time.

• 1:11:48Griffin Newman?

  It, that.

• 1:11:48Speaker 04

  Does someone look at a calendar? I'm always looking at calendars, paper calendars. I'm always, when I greet my friends, I'm always saying the dates to them.

• 1:11:56David Sims?

  I'm always like, and as we all know, it's 2025.

• 1:11:58Speaker 04

  How's your November 4th going?

• 1:12:00Griffin Newman?

  You are right, David, that watching this film, you're like, this does feel like a script that has been sitting on a dusty shelf for 25 years and that you're like, yeah, we've kind of moved past this surface level takedown of, do you know that some Christians are actually bad?

• 1:12:15David Sims?

  Again, I'm not, I'm not saying that Christians are good or that Christians are above reproach in cinematic satire. I'm more just kind of like, did you know priests can be horny and nefarious? Doesn't feel shocking. And this film really seems to think that I am going to be like. I cannot believe that Chris Evans is fucking ladies in this movie.

• 1:12:38Griffin Newman?

  Seventy-five percent of his screen time is probably in that bed fucking somebody, right?

• 1:12:44Speaker 04

  Or nude arguing with somebody.

• 1:12:45Griffin Newman?

  He is often in the buff or in tighty-whities of some sort. Here's my core complaint, and I buy it more for this character than Materialist, where he is playing a struggling theater actor with integrity who doesn't want to sell out. Right. I think Chris Evans has gotten too obsessed with the self-manicuring. I'm sure he's spending a million dollars on physical upkeep a day, right? He looks incredible. Like it's not profitable. But he is. He's running a million a day. Almost getting.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  It's a lot of money.

• 1:13:14Griffin Newman?

  Fifty-two million dollars. He's almost getting to a point where I'm just like, it looks.

• 1:13:19Speaker 04

  Six-five million dollars a year.

• 1:13:20Griffin Newman?

  It looks what? It looks like his beard is being lined up in between words. I think his beard is a little too perfectly cropped. And I feel this way about everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The last two years of it, every time he shows up, I'm just like, you look too good now. It's not a genetic thing. The hair is too well-maintained, your muscles are too perfect, your chest is too shaved, the beard lines are too clean, you know, whatever fucking dermatologist like regiment you have on or whatever work, I'm just like, you are starting to not feel like a real person. It perhaps works for Captain America, but yet I would argue part of what was so successful about him as Captain America is he somehow made that guy feel a little earthbound? And now.

• 1:14:02Speaker 04

  He plays him so corny in a way that's like, whatever, dumb shit. When he's like, oh, here's the movie, the list of movies I gotta watch. It feels like, oh, like here's like a human being.

• 1:14:11Griffin Newman?

  He's like, starting to look like an anime hunk. And I'm truly just like, spend fifteen minutes less in the makeup chair. Like, if you're making an indie, just like, let it grow out a little bit.

• 1:14:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Griffin Newman?

  Cool it a little bit. I get that this guy is vain and self-obsessed and would be this. Well, it makes more sense. In Materialist, it bugged me more. In Materialist, it bugged me. In this, I'm just like. But in Materialist, it didn't matter because it just went handheld when you're in his apartment, and now I know he's poor.

• 1:14:40David Sims?

  Sorry, it's my critique.

• 1:14:41Griffin Newman?

  It's a good movie. It's a good movie. But I'm just like, this, Chris Evans, the actor, has access to treatments that this character does not have.

• 1:14:52Speaker 04

  And a strip mall, yeah, and Bakersfield, yeah.

• 1:14:54Griffin Newman?

  Right, I'll believe that he spends two hours in the mirror every day.

• 1:14:58David Sims?

  But I think what you're doing is nitpicking Honey, Don't. And you did it too, and I've done it already as well. We've all done it. And it's like, we, Driveway Dolls tries this, and this movie tries this too. This kind of like, fucking, this is a chill movie. Man, this is a ramshackle little delight. Like, you know, we just threw this together. Stop being, taking this so seriously. And in Driveway Dolls, I kind of roll with it. In this one, I don't so much, partly because, as Matty pointed out, there's a lot of like grisly, kind of lurid stuff that, you know, I'm bouncing up against much like harder. And so, I don't know.

• 1:15:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, because you want there to be a point to it. Every other time the co-ones have done this, you're like, it is serving ultimately thematic concerns.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, it felt a little bit like watching those like, in the early 2000s, there were a lot of those like pitch black comedies.

• 1:15:51Griffin Newman?

  The post-Herantino kind of crime murder comedy.

• 1:15:54David Sims?

  And they'll spend a night at McCool's.

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  That's correct. And the whole time that those movies are always going like staring at you down the barrel of the camera being like, and we're having fun, right? You're having fun? It's wacky and fun.

• 1:16:05Griffin Newman?

  What are you, offended?

• 1:16:06David Sims?

  I mean, honestly.

• 1:16:07Speaker 04

  Are you bad at what happened to Smoochy? And I'm like, I'm.

• 1:16:10David Sims?

  Poor Smoochy. Death has happened to him. Well, like, death is being threatened.

• 1:16:15Speaker 04

  This movie's giving death to Smoochy a little bit to me, where it's like, it's just a little.

• 1:16:19David Sims?

  A movie that Griffin defends.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  A movie that I liked a lot when I saw it when I was, what year did that come out?

• 1:16:23David Sims?

  2002, and Matty, I was right there with you. I think we're very similar ages. And I was also, I was like, this is twisted. This is dark.

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  It's twisted.

• 1:16:32David Sims?

  I get that that's, that's transgressive, and I'm supposed to be like, good.

• 1:16:38Griffin Newman?

  I will say this, I rewatched it recently.

• 1:16:40Speaker 04

  I also hate society.

• 1:16:42Griffin Newman?

  I rewatched it recently, I still like it. There is no question that the best time to watch Death to Smoochy is when you are a teenager. It will never hit as hard as the ages from 13 to 18. Yeah.

• 1:16:54Speaker 04

  But like, there's like, am I wrong here? It's got like, I was trying to like, think of more examples of funitis. But like, this is a thing that sometimes movies do. And like, I think Drive Away Dolls also did it to some extent, which is just like, it's fun.

• 1:17:06Griffin Newman?

  But we put it up against this with Ladykillers, which is like, another murder comic.

• 1:17:11Speaker 04

  Which I've not seen because I'm afraid of it.

• 1:17:13Griffin Newman?

  But, but is a movie that very much like, maintains the like, this is fun energy.

• 1:17:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:19Griffin Newman?

  And like, honey, don't, it like, has these moments of like, her talking to her sister, you know? Like, the, um, the runner having his mother attacked. Like, these things where you're like, it's slowing down. It's like, investing in character. It's not trying to maintain this like, come on, don't take any of it seriously thing. Which makes you want to believe it is building up to some ultimate point.

• 1:17:47Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:17:48David Sims?

  Yeah?

• 1:17:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:18:05David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:18:06Griffin 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.

• 1:18:29David 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.

• 1:18:41Griffin 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.

• 1:18:49David Sims?

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

• 1:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:53David 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.

• 1:19:00Griffin 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.

• 1:19:14David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:19:16Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:19:18David 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.

• 1:19:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:19:51Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:19:51David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:19:52Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:19:56David Sims?

  When I was younger,

• 1:19:57Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:58David Sims?

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

• 1:20:06Griffin Newman?

  Chime. That's where Chime comes in. Chime.

• 1:20:09David Sims?

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

• 1:20:23Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee-free. We love it.

• 1:20:24David Sims?

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

• 1:20:30Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:20:31David 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.

• 1:20:45Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free?

• 1:20:45David Sims?

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

• 1:21:00Speaker 06

  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.

• 1:21:21Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:21:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:21:22Griffin 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.

• 1:21:43David 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.

• 1:22:03Griffin 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.

• 1:22:19David Sims?

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

• 1:22:51Griffin Newman?

  The end of this movie, just to like skip ahead, right?

• 1:22:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Griffin Newman?

  The basic setup of this movie is honey.

• 1:22:58David Sims?

  I mean, it's getting the premises that honey gets a fucking case. People are dying. Girls are getting killed. What's going on?

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  A woman who had hired her shows up dead in a car crash.

• 1:23:07David Sims?

  It's a classic fucking Raymond Chandler-y kind of setup.

• 1:23:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:23:11David Sims?

  She, you know, like, it's the case she does, she should stop sniffing around, but it's

• 1:23:15Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's over.

• 1:23:15David Sims?

  Intriguing, right?

• 1:23:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. Charlie Day is a local cop who has a big crush on her.

• 1:23:20David Sims?

  Very nuanced performance from Mr. Day.

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  The thing is about, I've been, over 20 years of watching Mr. Day on my screen, both large and small.

• 1:23:26Griffin Newman?

  Same.

• 1:23:26Speaker 04

  I'm inculcated to his fucking shit.

• 1:23:28David Sims?

  Everybody enjoys it.

• 1:23:29Speaker 04

  And every time, every time he's on screen, I'm having a ball. He makes, uh, a problem I have with this movie is that most of the jokes are not very funny.

• 1:23:35Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:36Speaker 04

  He has the one thing that made me laugh so hard in the last scene of the film, where he says sex hookers.

• 1:23:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, it made me laugh, and I was like, you know what? Against my better judgment, I laughed at that joke, and you know what? I'm laughing, so thank you.

• 1:23:48David Sims?

  Charlie Day, AKA Luigi.

• 1:23:50Griffin Newman?

  AKA Luigi.

• 1:23:51David Sims?

  Is, is a funny guy, and I, I'm, I'm pretty much always rooting for him, despite the fact that he is insanely rich and I do not need to refer, he's fine. He does not need my help whatsoever.

• 1:24:00Speaker 04

  If you, if you are quiet for even a moment, he'll die.

• 1:24:05Speaker 04

  If you listen to it at home right now, believe in Charlie Day, please clap.

• 1:24:07David Sims?

  I'm not trying to, I was gonna make the same joke. Not trying to talk shit, but I do think, he seems like the most sort of level and chill of the sunny guys, like.

• 1:24:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:17Speaker 04

  Oh, by a country mile.

• 1:24:18David Sims?

  The other two seem like they've got stuff. You know, they're hardworking guys, they make their show, like, there's, they do a lot of stuff that I like.

• 1:24:25Speaker 04

  Glenn Harrow is in Waterloo, where the vampires hang out.

• 1:24:27David Sims?

  And he fucking crushed that shit.

• 1:24:28Speaker 04

  I loved it.

• 1:24:29David Sims?

  And Rob Mack, I believe.

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  Stop! Don't say anymore! Heartbreaks on that name. Do you know about this, Ben?

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  No, I also don't know about this.

• 1:24:40David Sims?

  Rob McElhenney. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

• 1:24:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, jeez. Not to deadname him, not to deadname him, but he was born Rob McElhenney, and for the 25 years of his career, that is the name he has gone by, right?

• 1:24:52David Sims?

  He's credited that way, and on many episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, his good show.

• 1:24:56Griffin Newman?

  A show he not only, uh, stars in, but he created.

• 1:24:58David Sims?

  And owns, yes, yes.

• 1:25:00Griffin Newman?

  He becomes best friends with Ryan Reynolds.

• 1:25:02David Sims?

  They own it.

• 1:25:03Griffin Newman?

  The funniest man in the world.

• 1:25:04David Sims?

  You might have heard this, but they own a soccer team together.

• 1:25:05Speaker 04

  He's married to that girl from Age of Adeline, right?

• 1:25:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:25:09Speaker 04

  Sorry. Yeah, I heard about the soccer team.

• 1:25:11Griffin Newman?

  Um, and it does feel like he's become somewhat infected by the mogul brain of Ryan Reynolds.

• 1:25:17David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 1:25:17Griffin Newman?

  And wanting to be like Ryan Reynolds.

• 1:25:19David Sims?

  Be kind of like a sort of personality brand in a way that Ryan Reynolds also is.

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  He's doing like the, a more successful run of what Ashton Kutcher was attempting 15 years ago.

• 1:25:28David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:25:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. And.

• 1:25:30Speaker 04

  Remember that?

• 1:25:30David Sims?

  When he was the most followed person on Twitter? Yes, I do.

• 1:25:32Speaker 04

  And he was like starting tech companies or whatever, you know?

• 1:25:35Griffin Newman?

  It's also funny that he was like the person who basically minted Twitter. And then he had one bad tweet that was like, oh no, they fired Joe Pau? What happened?

• 1:25:45Speaker 04

  Do you mean X the everything app?

• 1:25:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Do you remember this?

• 1:25:48Speaker 04

  I do remember this.

• 1:25:49David Sims?

  I do not remember that he was going to the mat for Paterno.

• 1:25:52Griffin Newman?

  Because he didn't know yet about the Sandusky. He saw the headline, Joe Paterno out, and he didn't read the rest of the story. And people attacked him in the comments and he went, got it. I will never tweet again. He actually did it.

• 1:26:05Speaker 04

  Credit to him.

• 1:26:05Griffin Newman?

  Right? Where the first time Twitter bit him, he was like, never mind, log out.

• 1:26:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:26:12Griffin Newman?

  But anyway.

• 1:26:13Speaker 04

  That's really good advice.

• 1:26:14Griffin Newman?

  Over the summer, Rob McElhenney, I think it's like People Magazine or someone breaks that he has legally filed a name change position, uh, petition.

• 1:26:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:26:24Griffin Newman?

  To be Rob Mack, period.

• 1:26:27David Sims?

  Rob Mack.

• 1:26:28Griffin Newman?

  And people are like, what the fuck is going on? And then he posts like a 15 minute video.

• 1:26:32David Sims?

  A real, this is the real Ryan Reynolds-y energy. This video where he's, I don't know if it's actually.

• 1:26:37Griffin Newman?

  Maybe it's five.

• 1:26:38David Sims?

  But it's one of those like, hey.

• 1:26:39Griffin Newman?

  It felt like an hour.

• 1:26:41David Sims?

  My name, you know, is, you know, I have Irish ancestors and like, it's been spelt all kinds of ways and it's confusing and no one knows how to pronounce, like, right? That's kind of his argument?

• 1:26:49Griffin Newman?

  His argument is, I now do a lot of global business and people in other cultures have a difficult time pronouncing my name. And I have lost hours of my life where I could be making money correcting people on my name. That's actually the jokey kind of explanation he gives is like, if you add up every time I've been in a meeting with someone and I've had to say it's pronounced McElhenney.

• 1:27:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:27:14Griffin Newman?

  Over, over years, that is 500 hours that I could have been meeting with VCs.

• 1:27:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:20Speaker 04

  As someone with an actually hard to pronounce last name.

• 1:27:23David Sims?

  Lubchansky.

• 1:27:24Speaker 04

  It's Lubchansky.

• 1:27:25David Sims?

  Lubchansky, sorry.

• 1:27:25Speaker 04

  It's a, you know what?

• 1:27:26David Sims?

  Sorry, Matt.

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  Here, it's like, I don't care. I'm not changing my name to Matty Love.

• 1:27:30Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. Well, well.

• 1:27:32Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, my culture is not your costume, Rob Mack.

• 1:27:35Griffin Newman?

  But his argument of time is money.

• 1:27:37Speaker 04

  That's crazy.

• 1:27:38Griffin Newman?

  And I'm missing out on deals.

• 1:27:39Speaker 04

  And again, it's just a video that.

• 1:27:41Griffin Newman?

  His wife, who he has multiple children with, is like, our children have your name and you didn't talk to us about this.

• 1:27:48David Sims?

  Sounds like a normal relationship.

• 1:27:49Griffin Newman?

  Your name is Rob Mack and they're named Mackleny.

• 1:27:52Speaker 04

  It sounds like the video of that one entrepreneur guy that's like, my days are cut into six hour chunks.

• 1:27:57Griffin Newman?

  This is what it's like.

• 1:27:58David Sims?

  I love that guy.

• 1:27:58Speaker 04

  I love that guy. You've seen that video?

• 1:28:00David Sims?

  Where he like takes, takes baths and bottled water or whatever.

• 1:28:03Speaker 04

  My, my three weeks from now, I've got, I've killed you. I've eaten you.

• 1:28:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:06Griffin Newman?

  The video, the video has the energy of like, I inject my son's blood into my penis to stay young.

• 1:28:12David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:28:12Griffin Newman?

  Like these insane fucking like biohacking, like grindset tech bro shit. He doesn't have to do the legal change. He can just help people to call him Rob Mack.

• 1:28:23David Sims?

  Honestly.

• 1:28:24Griffin Newman?

  He changed it.

• 1:28:25David Sims?

  The, the answer to most things of late is, you didn't, you don't have to do this.

• 1:28:30Griffin Newman?

  Just call me Rob.

• 1:28:31Speaker 04

  This is, um, this is, this is the, the, you know, the worldwide phenomenon of everyone is 12 now, I believe.

• 1:28:37David Sims?

  This is what they call it. Of, why can't I just be 12?

• 1:28:40Speaker 04

  Why can't I just be 12?

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  Um, but anyway, and again, I want to be clear, Rob Mack has made things that I, that amuse me.

• 1:28:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:47David Sims?

  I enjoyed Mythic Quest. I haven't watched the latest season. I feel like everyone fell off with Mythic Quest. But there was a time when I enjoyed Mythic Quest.

• 1:28:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:54David Sims?

  I'm sure Wrexham FC is doing fine. I haven't checked the standings.

• 1:28:58Griffin Newman?

  You're right though, that Charlie Day seems to be very at peace with himself. He's just the chillest.

• 1:29:03David Sims?

  He just made his passion project and everyone was like, eh, and he was like, anyway.

• 1:29:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll show up and be fi- I'll be Charlie Day for five minutes in your film.

• 1:29:09David Sims?

  This feels like the kind of thing of like, again, if you've gotten the call from E10 Cohen, and he was like, hey, do you want to do some bullshit in my bad movie, Honey, Don't? You would have been like, absolutely.

• 1:29:19Griffin Newman?

  That's what he said by the Cohen brother. I, I, I mean, his performance, Chris Evans' performance, and, um, Aubrey Plaza's, Aubrey Plaza's performance in particular.

• 1:29:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:30Griffin Newman?

  Have the energy of, I've always wanted to be in a Cohen's movie.

• 1:29:33David Sims?

  I've always wanted to be in a Cohen Brothers movie and I read this script two seconds ago.

• 1:29:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:29:36David Sims?

  I would say it's those two things.

• 1:29:38Griffin Newman?

  And I'm worried that this is the closest I'll ever get.

• 1:29:40David Sims?

  I gotta take my chance.

• 1:29:42Griffin Newman?

  Well, what if they never get back together again?

• 1:29:44Speaker 04

  And like, you're playing a sleazy priest in a Coen's Brothers movie, a Coen movie, rather, is like so, if, again, that part, I think, would be better if it had any jokes that were funny, or any dialogue that was even medium interesting or good.

• 1:29:57Griffin Newman?

  It is such a first draft character. It never goes beyond what he is revealed to be immediately. And then it's just a repetition of the beat, which I think he plays fairly well.

• 1:30:07David Sims?

  And I think the more they repeat it, kind of the funnier it is in a way. Cause you, especially as the movie gets darker, you're like, oh, here's Charlie doing that again. Okay.

• 1:30:16Speaker 04

  When he show, when Chris Evans shows up in church and there's like the big photos of him behind him.

• 1:30:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:30:20Speaker 04

  I'm like, it got a small chuckle.

• 1:30:23Griffin Newman?

  I do.

• 1:30:23Speaker 04

  From me, the first, the first time I saw it.

• 1:30:25Griffin Newman?

  Same.

• 1:30:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:25Griffin Newman?

  I do feel like if he had figured out a way to add a, a dollop of real menace to this performance, it would have been a little interesting, but also this movie kind of shrugs and goes, this guy doesn't fucking matter. He's shot off screen after being forced to perform the heinous crime of conalingus upon a woman.

• 1:30:47Speaker 04

  Awful.

• 1:30:47Griffin Newman?

  I do kind of like that scene. I'm sorry, I was going by the DJ Khaled playbook there. I do kind of like that scene of his final, uh, uh, sex scene is with the French drug nepo queen.

• 1:31:00David Sims?

  Uh, correct.

• 1:31:02Speaker 04

  Whose name is, uh, is French for honey, isn't it?

• 1:31:05David Sims?

  What is her name?

• 1:31:06Griffin Newman?

  Is her name, uh, Meow?

• 1:31:08Speaker 04

  Meow, which is French for honey.

• 1:31:10Griffin Newman?

  That is French.

• 1:31:10David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:31:10Griffin Newman?

  You're right.

• 1:31:12Speaker 04

  The last beat of the movie where they say that.

• 1:31:13Speaker 03

  She asked for sex American style and he says missionary, which makes me wonder then how do French, heterosexual people have sex?

• 1:31:24David Sims?

  The joke is that missionary is the most boring position and Americans are boring. French people, of course, yeah, they just kind of like blow cigarette and smoke at each other.

• 1:31:33Griffin Newman?

  Un petit mor, uh, de chien?

• 1:31:36David Sims?

  What's that? What's that now? He was trying to do-

• 1:31:38Speaker 04

  Seriously, a little death of dog?

• 1:31:40David Sims?

  He just said dog orgasm.

• 1:31:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:31:42Griffin Newman?

  No, what I- Yeah, that is what I said. I tried to say sex doggy style.

• 1:31:47Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 1:31:48Griffin Newman?

  But you're right, that what I said was closer to-

• 1:31:51David Sims?

  It's not closer to, it's euphemism for orgasm.

• 1:31:53Griffin Newman?

  Kind of fucked that one up.

• 1:31:55David Sims?

  My favorite French euphemism is, and I'm not sure if this is still true, people can let me know, I haven't lived in France in a long time, is that you call a Comstaine a carte de France, because the map of France kinda looks like a-

• 1:32:06Griffin Newman?

  You could say that about kinda any map.

• 1:32:08David Sims?

  Uh, France is very hexagonal, it's very Comstaine-y.

• 1:32:12Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, like, you can't say that about, like, Chile.

• 1:32:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Speaker 04

  Italy. It's something wrong-

• 1:32:16David Sims?

  You don't come a boot.

• 1:32:17Speaker 04

  Is something wrong with you?

• 1:32:17Griffin Newman?

  I think one could come a boot.

• 1:32:19David Sims?

  Alright, well, alright. We do a side podcast that's like coming shapes. What's going on?

• 1:32:26Griffin Newman?

  This is the Patreon app?

• 1:32:27David Sims?

  An hour twenty in?

• 1:32:28Griffin Newman?

  Side podcast?

• 1:32:29Speaker 03

  No, I'm not sure if that's sustainable.

• 1:32:31David Sims?

  Can we go country to country?

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  Also, I would say-

• 1:32:34David Sims?

  And you do it in the country? Coming shapes is about the least podcast-friendly thing possible.

• 1:32:39Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:32:39David Sims?

  Like, in audio form, where like, kinda looks like a boot.

• 1:32:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, guys, I wish you could see this one.

• 1:32:45David Sims?

  Uh, can I pivot to something way, way less controversial?

• 1:32:47Griffin Newman?

  I just wanted to say-

• 1:32:48David Sims?

  Damn it, I was gonna do a good joke.

• 1:32:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay, what's your joke?

• 1:32:50David Sims?

  You ever seen I Love You Daddy, the Louis C.K. movie?

• 1:32:53Griffin Newman?

  Charlie Day is in that.

• 1:32:54David Sims?

  Charlie Day is in that, playing kind of the same role.

• 1:32:57Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:32:58Speaker 04

  Charlie Day?

• 1:32:58David Sims?

  Exactly, like, where it's just kinda like every-

• 1:33:01Griffin Newman?

  Louis, why won't you fuck me?

• 1:33:02David Sims?

  Every, every so often, he just shows up to be kinda loo'd and like that, yes. And it's sort of the same, like, hey, this movie kinda needs, like, a slap on the cheeks, like, for twenty minutes.

• 1:33:12Speaker 04

  Every time the camera fucking, like, tracks into the room and he's doing this with his hands and he yells her name, it's fun. Every time, I'm like, I'm having a good time.

• 1:33:20Griffin Newman?

  He does, he does, I will say, the least annoying version of his bit, that he keeps not- Not even not getting the hint, but just refusing to accept that she is not sexually attracted to men.

• 1:33:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Griffin Newman?

  Every time he quote-unquote politely asks her out on a date, right? And he does play it so guilelessly.

• 1:33:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:40Griffin Newman?

  That the bit isn't creepy or annoying. It is kind of harmless and funny.

• 1:33:44David Sims?

  Yeah, it's kind of like, oh, you.

• 1:33:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, like as a, as like, and sort of like thematically, it almost works as you were talking about before. If like the thing is like the way in which men control women's lives.

• 1:33:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:53Speaker 04

  The first interaction you see or have is him hitting on her.

• 1:33:55Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:33:56Speaker 04

  Right? And it's also the, the last interaction she has with someone who is not the girl on the motorcycle.

• 1:34:00Griffin Newman?

  But even in a non-threatening way, his relationship to her is completely transactional.

• 1:34:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:05Griffin Newman?

  Of all of his kind of cooperation with her is based on when will she agree to go get dinner with me?

• 1:34:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Griffin Newman?

  And when she explains to him why she won't, he goes like, you always say that.

• 1:34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Griffin Newman?

  Which is kind of funny, but yes, it's, it's all about, yes, a woman trying to find an identity that is removed from all these systems.

• 1:34:21David Sims?

  Honey kinda.

• 1:34:22Griffin Newman?

  Kinda.

• 1:34:23David Sims?

  Honey kinda.

• 1:34:25Griffin Newman?

  Chris Evans' final sex scene, he is having sex based on her direction. She is the one giving the commands, telling him what to do. And then he afterwards says, that was the best sex ever. I like a woman who can take charge.

• 1:34:37David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:34:37Griffin Newman?

  There's some subversion.

• 1:34:39David Sims?

  He's subby.

• 1:34:40Griffin Newman?

  And then she shoots him in the head.

• 1:34:41David Sims?

  Bam.

• 1:34:42Griffin Newman?

  While Honey is parked outside or pulling up to his congregation. I should mention the other, the other plot I'm on here is Talia Ryder as her niece.

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  Right. So you got this kind of like domestic plotline and this murder mystery plotline in parallel. So yes, Talia Ryder is the niece.

• 1:34:58Griffin Newman?

  She goes missing.

• 1:35:00David Sims?

  What's the character's name? Corinne.

• 1:35:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. She's running away from her abusive boyfriend. She doesn't want her mom to find out and say, I told you so. Honey is kind of like helping shield her. She goes to a bus stop. She's creeped out by an old man who she doesn't know is her grandfather.

• 1:35:15David Sims?

  Played by, um, that actor's name, Cale Brown.

• 1:35:18Griffin Newman?

  I think he's quite good in his.

• 1:35:19David Sims?

  Yeah, he is. He's got a good face.

• 1:35:20Griffin Newman?

  One real scene.

• 1:35:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:21Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but she's now a second missing person. Are these things connected? And Honey believes that she must have been abducted by Chris Evans and his sex cult. But in fact, Chris Evans is.

• 1:35:35Griffin Newman?

  Shot.

• 1:35:35Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:35:36David Sims?

  Dead.

• 1:35:36Griffin Newman?

  By the, the French sort of emissary.

• 1:35:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, for this, uh, drug.

• 1:35:44David Sims?

  Drug operation.

• 1:35:44Speaker 04

  It's clearly them being like, ah, femme fatale, get it?

• 1:35:47David Sims?

  It's, yeah. I mean, having her be French does not make sense.

• 1:35:51Speaker 04

  And it's like, yeah, the French are running this drug church.

• 1:35:53David Sims?

  Out of Bakersfield. What if they wanted to be on the East Coast? That seems like a long way to go.

• 1:35:58Speaker 04

  I think the.

• 1:36:00David Sims?

  I'm just, I'm just, I'm.

• 1:36:01Griffin Newman?

  No, I agree with you.

• 1:36:02David Sims?

  I'm sorry to poke holes.

• 1:36:03Speaker 04

  They worked backwards from the Vespa, clearly.

• 1:36:05David Sims?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:36:06Speaker 04

  Backwards from like, here's a lady wearing all one pattern on a Vespa.

• 1:36:10David Sims?

  Wouldn't that be funny?

• 1:36:11Griffin Newman?

  This woman looks incredible. She holds the screen. I'm not.

• 1:36:14Speaker 04

  It's a very hot lady.

• 1:36:15Griffin Newman?

  I'm not not enjoying myself anytime she's in the movie, but it's adding to the where is all of this going? Right?

• 1:36:21Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:36:22Griffin Newman?

  Honey pulls up, she hears a gunshot. Chris Evans has been shot. They don't show her discovering the body or anything like that.

• 1:36:27Speaker 04

  She also sees a motorcycle pull away from the gunshot and she's not like, maybe I should do where she's going.

• 1:36:32Griffin Newman?

  She's like, huh? And that's the second point in the movie where she's sort of like driven past this woman, right? But hasn't really engaged with her.

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  It's clearly blind to her as a suspect because she wants to have sex with her.

• 1:36:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then I'm trying to remember how she figures out that in fact Aubrey Plaza is the one.

• 1:36:48Speaker 04

  She just goes over to her house because she's like, I know a cop that can actually help me.

• 1:36:51David Sims?

  It is truly right. She just checks in and Aubrey Plaza is like FYI, it was me all along.

• 1:36:56Griffin Newman?

  And Aubrey Plaza is like, you hate me because I'm poor, right? I bet you hate my house.

• 1:37:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. And she's like, I'm from Bakersfield too.

• 1:37:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then Aubrey Plaza goes like full kind of like serial killer mode, like Pamela Voorhees.

• 1:37:09Speaker 04

  Uh, Qualley sees Honey, Honey Qualley and sees two cups of tea and is like, who are you making tea for?

• 1:37:16David Sims?

  And Honey, uh, sorry, Qualley and Plaza, Honey and MG have been fucking the whole movie. But it's this kind of like forbidden off on like sort of.

• 1:37:25Speaker 04

  That is.

• 1:37:26David Sims?

  Uh, quasi relationship.

• 1:37:28Griffin Newman?

  I think those scenes are all very good and are kind of the closest this movie has to having any real emotion.

• 1:37:33Speaker 04

  There's the scene where they are like basically having sex in the bar in front of all the male cops is like good and, and like interesting. It's like, yeah, these men would not notice. And it's like, it is interesting in a little bit and it is hot, I think.

• 1:37:48Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:37:48Speaker 04

  And then. But then it gets to the another problem I have with both this movie and the last one is, does Ethan think gay people are funny? I don't know. I there's some things in here where it's like, there was a bit while they were talking, when I heard them talking after the movie that I saw, where they were like, there's that scene right after they have sex, where Honey is like cleaning all the dildos and shit. And they were talking about like, the only argument they had while filming, it was like something, whatever, they were editing it. And Ethan wanted to hold longer on the sex toy cleaning because he thought it was really funny. And then Tricia says, but he doesn't understand, as lesbians, sex toys are sacred to us. And I was like, okay, one of you thinks this is too funny and one of you thinks this is too serious.

• 1:38:32David Sims?

  You're both horseshoeing over here. Like, let's relax. They're just dildos.

• 1:38:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, perhaps a sort of double pronged thing happening here, much like a double sided dildo.

• 1:38:43Speaker 04

  Great segue.

• 1:38:44Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. In their split up, it does seem clear that Ethan's the horny one of the Coen brothers, right?

• 1:38:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I my my stupid Letterboxd review of driveway dolls was like, okay, the big experiment's over. Now we know which cone is which. Like, let's get a pizza in here and get them back together.

• 1:39:00Griffin Newman?

  It is frustrating how much this movie plays into the

• 1:39:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:06Griffin Newman?

  narrative of now we can divide the interests and the skill sets.

• 1:39:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. Which the whole thing was that they were supposed to be like this, like, complete singular unit that worked so well without speaking, right?

• 1:39:18Griffin Newman?

  Which I think they are, and I think to some degree versus like, we will see what the second Joel movie is like, right? But Joel feels, seems to be taking their sabbatical from working together as, well, let me explore parts of myself as a director that I never explored.

• 1:39:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:37Griffin Newman?

  And treat them with the same level of seriousness as our work together.

• 1:39:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Griffin Newman?

  And Ethan seems to be specifically on a mission of, I want to not take this stuff as seriously anymore.

• 1:39:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. And you know, and like, you know, Joel had the co writer too, which was in Shakespeare.

• 1:39:52Griffin Newman?

  He did.

• 1:39:53Speaker 04

  He's from England, I think.

• 1:39:54Griffin Newman?

  Bill did a pass on that script. Uh, the new film. Uh, yeah, big, big Bill.

• 1:39:59Speaker 04

  Big Bill de Blasio himself.

• 1:40:01Griffin Newman?

  The new script, there's like not much known about. I think everyone sort of assumes it's a solo writing credit, but no one really knows.

• 1:40:07Speaker 04

  What if he started writing with Fran just to like even that?

• 1:40:09David Sims?

  I mean, that would be fun.

• 1:40:10Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. I don't know, but.

• 1:40:13David Sims?

  Don't know.

• 1:40:15Griffin Newman?

  We talk about this in our Drive Away Dolls episode, which will have come out, but you have not heard. That Trisha Cook was very outspoken when she was promoting Drive Away Dolls, and where that script came from, and the sort of reignited passion to finally put this thing into production, is that especially at the time she started writing this, in the 90s, if there was like gay cinema in America, and especially lesbian cinema, it was almost always very serious. Very traumatic.

• 1:40:43Speaker 04

  And she's right. I don't disagree.

• 1:40:45Griffin Newman?

  Hard to live life.

• 1:40:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:40:47Griffin Newman?

  Coming out stories, getting murdered stories. Even if it wasn't traumatic, it was about adversity. You know, it was about processing shame and fighting for happiness and whatever. And she wanted to, the whole thought experiment of these lesbian B-movie trilogy of riffs, is can I like remove any sense of self-importance from lesbian storytelling? Can I make lesbian movies that are allowed to just be like dumb and messy, right? But this movie is like touching third rails, or at least like trying to touch serious subjects. It's identifying where serious subjects are, pointing at them and saying, but I don't want to talk about that.

• 1:41:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:28Griffin Newman?

  In a way, and I think it extends to the representation of sex, which she's just like, I want to show these things on screen in a way that is not the male gaze.

• 1:41:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Griffin Newman?

  And that normalizes it, right? And that also allows it to be funny, but in a way that isn't a punchline. But I do think the balance is kind of off here.

• 1:41:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, just something feels a little too much like you think the fact, the movie seems to think that it is like a little bit funny when two women are having sex, to me, a little bit. I don't know.

• 1:41:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yes, and I think like, I think Drive Away Dolls.

• 1:42:03Speaker 04

  Which is, to be clear, it is deadly serious.

• 1:42:05Griffin Newman?

  Of course. Sex is very serious.

• 1:42:07Speaker 04

  It's very, very serious.

• 1:42:10David Sims?

  Stone-faced. It's sort of like, I'm like the emoji that's just like line, line, line.

• 1:42:14Speaker 04

  I'm wearing, I'm wearing the gloves that go up your elbows and a full ball gown.

• 1:42:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, very serious. Yes.

• 1:42:20Speaker 04

  The whole time.

• 1:42:21Griffin Newman?

  I think Drive Away Dolls, uh, like, it abstracts, its sex scenes to the point of almost feeling like Three Stooges routines. Where it is successful in being like, we are working past this being erotic, that this is just eye candy for like, young dudes.

• 1:42:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:44Griffin Newman?

  By making it so silly that it's hard to kind of objectify it in that sense. And I think this movie, by having scenes where there actually is some sense of palpable connection.

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  Between her and Aubrey Plaza that is played somewhat real.

• 1:42:59Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:42:59Griffin Newman?

  And there's sort of, this sort of ticking clock within the movie of, these are two women who are afraid of commitment. They like, you know, they like fuck and move on. And they're acknowledging that they're worried about having to hit the end point of disconnecting from each other because they don't want to accidentally land in something that feels more serious and committed. That these are people who try to live without attachments.

• 1:43:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it feels like it's there already. I thought they were pretty good together in a way that, yeah.

• 1:43:31Griffin Newman?

  And, you know, the introduction of Honey is her in bed with a woman getting the call and saying like.

• 1:43:36Speaker 04

  Lock the door on your way out.

• 1:43:38Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. That she just is really like, I'm moving on. And by comparing notes and revealing that they have the same kind of relationship, two relationships, they are unlocking a new level of vulnerability in each other that sort of scares the two of them.

• 1:43:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:52Griffin Newman?

  And is interesting. And then the movie responds by saying, actually, she's insane.

• 1:43:57Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:43:57Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna throw hot tea in her face and turn her into like a scarred Bond villain.

• 1:44:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, she becomes kind of a Bond villain.

• 1:44:03Griffin Newman?

  Who you have to murder.

• 1:44:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:05Griffin Newman?

  I feel like.

• 1:44:07Speaker 04

  Yes. They just, they just don't seem to have that good of a grasp on the material. I don't know.

• 1:44:13Griffin Newman?

  There is a version of this ending that does not redeem this movie for me.

• 1:44:17Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:44:17Griffin Newman?

  But where Margaret Qualley shows up, puts it together, sees her, Aubrey Plaza just breaks down emotionally.

• 1:44:25Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:44:26Griffin Newman?

  Rather than going full fucking supervillain mode.

• 1:44:29Speaker 04

  Right, full like actual psycho.

• 1:44:30Griffin Newman?

  And being like, you've discovered my scheme. I must fight you to the death.

• 1:44:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a little Scooby Doo, except with.

• 1:44:36Griffin Newman?

  It feels very Scooby Doo.

• 1:44:38Speaker 04

  Lesbian murderer, yes.

• 1:44:39Griffin Newman?

  That she's sort of like, I don't know, it got out of hand.

• 1:44:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:42Griffin Newman?

  Right? That you almost like try to deal with the delayed like time release trauma of this woman and what she's gone through. And like her needing to confess this to someone who she's actually let in emotionally.

• 1:44:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that still needs more like. Something earlier in the movie.

• 1:45:00Griffin Newman?

  Agree.

• 1:45:00Speaker 04

  The clue you in this lady is perhaps kidnapping people.

• 1:45:03Griffin Newman?

  And it would be hard to pull off in terms of the aforementioned tone management that this movie does not totally have under control. But it feels like the kind of ending that would at least make this film feel like it had something to say.

• 1:45:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, it would have functioned a little better.

• 1:45:20Griffin Newman?

  Something on its mind versus it feels like such an easy out to be like, well, that didn't like mean anything. Chris Evans didn't kidnap her. She did kidnap the honey's original client. She solved that, but he's already dead, so there's nothing she can do about it. She retrieved her niece, who's now back home. You have the kind of one moment of her waking up in the hospital to her sister and the niece being like, thank you so much. Bow tied on that. Honey drives off.

• 1:45:51Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:45:51Griffin Newman?

  Sees the French lady on a Vespa. Basically, they're fucking each other with their eyes.

• 1:45:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:57Griffin Newman?

  Movie over. So now she's gonna get in bed with a different criminal?

• 1:46:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:02Griffin Newman?

  What, what, what was the point of any of this?

• 1:46:05Speaker 04

  It's a really good question.

• 1:46:06Griffin Newman?

  Women be out here doing it for themselves?

• 1:46:08Speaker 04

  Women, okay. That is true.

• 1:46:10Griffin Newman?

  It is true.

• 1:46:11David Sims?

  It's a crazy world out there and Honey will always be getting a coffee with her trusty assistant, what's her pants? And solving the next case and fingering a lady and I, I don't know.

• 1:46:24Griffin Newman?

  I like the assistant.

• 1:46:25Speaker 04

  No, keep going, keep going.

• 1:46:26David Sims?

  I like the fact she's out there right now. The dust will be blowing down Bakersfield Avenue.

• 1:46:31Speaker 04

  She'll be flicking through that Rolodex.

• 1:46:32David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:33Griffin Newman?

  It's not the only thing she's flicking through. I like, I have to say it. I like, uh, the assistant character and I do like that dynamic. To your cosplaying point of like, she's almost like, honey, like you're doing like the bit. Why do you still have a Rolodex? But that, why are you asking me for coffee as if we're in like some fucking 50's TV show?

• 1:46:52Speaker 04

  She looks like a lesbian from the year 2025. She's got like a Wild Fang shirt on like she's, yeah.

• 1:46:57David Sims?

  Her name is Gabby Beans.

• 1:46:59Griffin Newman?

  Good name?

• 1:47:00David Sims?

  Yeah, great name.

• 1:47:00Speaker 04

  And that's, that, that makes sense because she's really obsessed with the coffee.

• 1:47:03Griffin Newman?

  Hey, no.

• 1:47:03David Sims?

  That's a good point.

• 1:47:04Griffin Newman?

  What were you about to say, David?

• 1:47:06Speaker 04

  For my incredible joke?

• 1:47:07David Sims?

  She was, she's in the upcoming, uh, Steven Spielberg film, which we love to see.

• 1:47:10Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:47:11David Sims?

  And she was in, um, in Romeo and Juliet with, um, with our friend Rachel.

• 1:47:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the Broadway production? On Broadway.

• 1:47:17Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 1:47:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, even just like the opening credits for this, which I think is kind of a cool visual idea of the cast appearing as signage on closed down businesses.

• 1:47:26Speaker 04

  Did they rip that off from Fat City? They said they might have.

• 1:47:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 1:47:30Griffin Newman?

  And I'm just like, it's kind of just executed sloppily.

• 1:47:34Speaker 04

  Can I say something about that? Not to, not to keep being like, and I was at the talk back, but the only three things I remember have all come up. The last one is that they said they had to go film that twice because they fucked up the first time they filmed it. It's the things you always hear about the Coen brothers, when there's two of them instead of just one, is that they don't, they are like, they have like the tightest sets.

• 1:47:54Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:47:55Speaker 04

  You've ever heard of, right? And nothing, there's no mistakes, there's no wasted shots, there's no wasted time. And they had to go film, they, they wasted a day filming the wrong stuff the wrong way to make the credits.

• 1:48:05Griffin Newman?

  Here's the shame. It also feels like they fucked it up the second time. It feels like they should have done it a third time because I like the idea and it doesn't feel like they figured out the right way to make it executed.

• 1:48:15Speaker 04

  It's just, it's badly or something. I don't know what the, yeah.

• 1:48:18Griffin Newman?

  And, uh, someone was, uh, on, on our Reddit was sharing a story of working on a production with someone who worked on Luan Davis. And asking them about working with the Coens and he was like, I got so many stories about how they're the fucking best, right?

• 1:48:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:48:31Griffin Newman?

  Like as guys, as filmmakers, as bosses, as all of this.

• 1:48:34Speaker 04

  Fun stuff, right?

• 1:48:35Griffin Newman?

  But the, the anecdote that really stuck with me was he said he remembered looking at the shooting schedule. And in their notes, it would say like, you know, shot whatever, set up whatever, three takes. And they'd be like, they were allotting three takes and they would get it in three takes. That they're so good at this that they basically can guess in terms of like how they get these movies made under schedule and under budget, which is always one of the most impressive things about them. That they can correctly kind of eyeball, that might take six takes to get right, that one we can probably get in two. And he was like, they were basically always right about that.

• 1:49:12David Sims?

  That's wild.

• 1:49:12Griffin Newman?

  And that's the shit about them that feels magical.

• 1:49:14David Sims?

  Subant magic, right, right, or just experience, but yeah.

• 1:49:18Griffin Newman?

  And then they split up and you're like, this is completely dissipated. What's going on here? Now, what's frustrating about the Go Beavers thing, if we can circle back here.

• 1:49:27David Sims?

  Sure, Go Beavers.

• 1:49:28Griffin Newman?

  Is that when they do interviews now, solo.

• 1:49:30David Sims?

  I just, what's frustrating is that kind of humor is sort of impenetrable to me.

• 1:49:34Griffin Newman?

  Here's a spoiler, I predict that movie will be about vaginas.

• 1:49:38David Sims?

  Or boobs, if you're David.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  That would be a swerve. Possibly.

• 1:49:41David Sims?

  The Beaver movie was about boobs.

• 1:49:43Griffin Newman?

  That's a twist at the end. The camera pans up.

• 1:49:47David Sims?

  Eyes up here, buddy.

• 1:49:48Griffin Newman?

  A little lower, boobs down here.

• 1:49:52David Sims?

  My boobs are up here, buddy.

• 1:49:55Griffin Newman?

  When they do interviews.

• 1:49:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Griffin Newman?

  Which they haven't done a ton of since they've been split up.

• 1:49:59David Sims?

  But they have both, I mean, like Ethan and Trisha did nominal press for this movie. They did more press for Drive Away Dolls because I think they wanted to really underline, like, Trisha was the co-author of this. For Honey, Don't, I think no one was really barking up the tree anyways. I couldn't find a lot of reviews.

• 1:50:15Griffin Newman?

  To that point, I bought the fucking Blu-ray because I'm committed to The Great Project of Blank Check. This, this, I, I, I struggle to even define how much.

• 1:50:26David Sims?

  Criterion edition you got?

• 1:50:27Griffin Newman?

  This feels like a bootleg. The cover feels like it was printed out on like an HP NV900. It's like the, the discard itself was like written on with a Sharpie. It has zero special features. The menu says play setup. It doesn't have a scene selection option.

• 1:50:45David Sims?

  No scene selection.

• 1:50:46Griffin Newman?

  Like, it feels like it's a 1997 DVD.

• 1:50:50David Sims?

  Love it. Does it have a menu that does anything?

• 1:50:52Griffin Newman?

  It has a menu that's just play and setup and it's just this still image. And when you go to setup, the only option is English subtitles.

• 1:50:59David Sims?

  Is music playing?

• 1:51:00Griffin Newman?

  Uh, no.

• 1:51:00David Sims?

  The song Honey, Don't is not playing?

• 1:51:02Griffin Newman?

  Nope, nothing's playing. Right, there's an original song in this movie that's co-written by Ethan, produced by Jack Antonoff, and sung by, uh, Margaret Qualley and, uh, Talia Ryder. There are actually two songs that follow.

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  It's not a cover of the famous song Honey Don't?

• 1:51:17Griffin Newman?

  That also plays, but there are two original songs in this movie.

• 1:51:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:20Griffin Newman?

  That Ethan co-wrote.

• 1:51:21Speaker 04

  Are they in the movie?

• 1:51:22Griffin Newman?

  Yup. There's one in a montage where she's driving around, like interviewing suspects.

• 1:51:26Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:51:27Griffin Newman?

  And watching it this time.

• 1:51:28Speaker 04

  That was just some bad song I never heard.

• 1:51:30Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 1:51:31David Sims?

  Well, that basically is what it is.

• 1:51:33Speaker 04

  I guess it was a bad song I never heard.

• 1:51:35Griffin Newman?

  Watching it, I was like, this sounds like Margaret Qualley. And then I looked it up and I wanna say.

• 1:51:39David Sims?

  It's called Odd Wad Wankers.

• 1:51:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:43David Sims?

  Sorry. The other one's called In The Sun She Lie.

• 1:51:46Griffin Newman?

  There's also another one. Her fake name is Lace Manhattan.

• 1:51:49David Sims?

  The other one's called My Little Black Star, maybe?

• 1:51:52Griffin Newman?

  Lace Manhattan and Dixie Normus are the pen names.

• 1:51:55David Sims?

  For fuck's sake, we gotta call it. I'm playing the box office.

• 1:51:58Griffin Newman?

  No, I got so much more to say.

• 1:52:00Speaker 04

  This just feels like when you talk to like a seven year old and they're like, my humor's a little bawdy.

• 1:52:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:05Speaker 04

  Like it's old. I don't know. It just feels like someone who thinks they are funnier than they are.

• 1:52:11Griffin Newman?

  I agree. Uh, the thing I was gonna say.

• 1:52:13David Sims?

  But he's famously funny. He's one of the Coen Brothers.

• 1:52:16Speaker 04

  There's only two of them. I know.

• 1:52:18Griffin Newman?

  I got tickets to see this play he's got running off Broadway right now. That's like three one act. Everyone who's seen it has said it's actually very good and funny.

• 1:52:26Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:52:26Griffin Newman?

  Aubrey Plaza's in it.

• 1:52:27David Sims?

  Our friend Dylan's in it.

• 1:52:29Griffin Newman?

  Dylan Galula, friend of the podcast. Yes. Uh, it's gotta, it's gotta get casted. Everyone says it's good. And I've asked this to people who felt similar to me about Honey Don't. And they're like, yeah, no, it's actually good. I'm not like grading it on a curve. So it's a little odd because he has done these side writing projects and they have worked on their own terms before. The thing I was gonna say.

• 1:52:50Speaker 04

  You're always grading people on curves. Honey or not.

• 1:52:52Griffin Newman?

  Hey. Uh, in the interviews they have done, they're like, you know, we both felt burnt out. We took some time. Ethan didn't really wanna make stuff anymore. Joel said, maybe I do something on my own. But that we've just been out of sync. That they've been writing something together, but then it was like. Honey Don't got greenlit, so then Joel started writing something else. And then by the time Honey Don't came out and Joel was about to go into production on his movie. So now Ethan has to wait for Joel to be finished with his movie before they could make the next thing together. Where it's like, if they did greenlight Go Beavers tomorrow, it might delay the reunion for another two years.

• 1:53:32David Sims?

  Right, which is the last thing we need.

• 1:53:34Griffin Newman?

  They've been like alternating productions in a way that has fucked us.

• 1:53:38Speaker 04

  I'm getting older all the time.

• 1:53:39Griffin Newman?

  We all are.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  Which is breaking. I didn't realize that was gonna keep happening to me, and it does keep happening.

• 1:53:45Griffin Newman?

  I really thought I was gonna beat the trend.

• 1:53:46Speaker 04

  I'm hitting a big, roundish number.

• 1:53:48David Sims?

  So am I.

• 1:53:49Speaker 04

  This Saturday?

• 1:53:50Griffin Newman?

  This Saturday?

• 1:53:51David Sims?

  Okay, what are you doing?

• 1:53:52Speaker 04

  Leaving the country.

• 1:53:54David Sims?

  Fuck outta here.

• 1:53:55Speaker 04

  I'm not kidding. I'm gone.

• 1:53:57Griffin Newman?

  No spoilers, but is it an age that Judd Apatow is particularly obsessed with?

• 1:54:02David Sims?

  This is.

• 1:54:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, for his film, This Is 29, yeah.

• 1:54:06David Sims?

  The roundest number.

• 1:54:08Speaker 04

  The nine is pretty round. It's a round thing.

• 1:54:11Griffin Newman?

  I didn't realize he has two titles with that age in it.

• 1:54:14Speaker 04

  Does he? Oh, he does?

• 1:54:15Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:54:16David Sims?

  A well, Forty Year Old Virgin.

• 1:54:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:18David Sims?

  Wow. You know what? How did that never occur to me before? Obviously, I know The Forty Year Old Virgin was kinda Correll's idea. But it is funny that he's hung up on forty.

• 1:54:26Speaker 04

  Well, you haven't heard my-

• 1:54:27David Sims?

  He's like, "You better have even either fucked or become a millionaire by the age of forty."

• 1:54:31Griffin Newman?

  Two of his six movies are Forty Pictures.

• 1:54:34Speaker 04

  Huh. Anyways, you know what? As it rapidly approaches for me, I kind of understand the man.

• 1:54:39Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:54:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:41Griffin Newman?

  Your next book is gonna be, are you ready to add to the forty count?

• 1:54:44Speaker 04

  Actually, you know what actually is fucked up about the book I'm working on now? It's a lesbian road trip.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 1:54:49Speaker 04

  I'm not kidding.

• 1:54:50Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 1:54:51Speaker 04

  So I'm challenging Ethan Coen to single combat.

• 1:54:55Griffin Newman?

  I-

• 1:54:55Speaker 04

  With this book.

• 1:54:56Griffin Newman?

  I think this is a bar you can clear.

• 1:54:59Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, what I'm hoping to do is I put in actual jokes.

• 1:55:03Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:55:04Speaker 04

  So I'm hoping that does something about it.

• 1:55:05Griffin Newman?

  Interesting approach.

• 1:55:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:07Griffin Newman?

  Uh, sorry, you were saying something leading up to, as you approach-

• 1:55:11Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm just saying, I'm getting older all the time. They take two more years.

• 1:55:13Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:55:14Speaker 04

  I'm not even gonna be around!

• 1:55:15David Sims?

  And, and look, there's one interview I read with Ethan Trishen. Ethan and Trishen, not Eva and Trishen. What the fuck is going on with me?

• 1:55:22Griffin Newman?

  I thought that's kind of a cute couple name for them.

• 1:55:24David Sims?

  Ethan, E- Ethan, right, E- Ethion. Where, you know, they're asked like, "Hey, so are you gonna do that third movie?" And they're like, "Oh, maybe. Like, you know, we talk about that. We wrote a script with our kid, so maybe we'll do that." Or maybe, and they also say, and Ethan works with Joel and they're doing something and you're like, oh, that sounds good. And like, again, I do not want to begrudge. The audience is going like, wah, wah. People enjoying working with their kids and it's not like that has never produced something interesting. They have. It can, but it does sometimes feel a little like, guys. Name a couple. I would probably have to do some strict Googling and research to unearth the ones that are good.

• 1:56:07Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the George Miller movie where I always get the number wrong, uh, 3,000 years of solitude.

• 1:56:12David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. But his, you know, his, his kid, quote unquote, is, is old. It's like, no offense to that.

• 1:56:18Griffin Newman?

  You gotta have an old ass kid if you're gonna work with them.

• 1:56:21David Sims?

  Um. You know, it can happen. Of course. It's great. Oh, you collaborate with your kid.

• 1:56:25Griffin Newman?

  I, I want the Coens and their families to do whatever makes them happy.

• 1:56:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:56:29Griffin Newman?

  They have earned it. But I also agree with you that they are, uh, soon to both be in their seventies.

• 1:56:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Griffin Newman?

  And the film culture has been lacking from their collaborations.

• 1:56:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:41Griffin Newman?

  And when it was just the narrative of Ethan is tired, he wants a break. I'm like, by all means, take your break.

• 1:56:47David Sims?

  Take your break.

• 1:56:48Griffin Newman?

  But now that we're on the second Lark movie, and in that time, he has also produced an evening of theater. I'm like, it's not like you don't wanna work.

• 1:56:59David Sims?

  No, and I think he has said like, yeah, I'm over that. Like that exhaustion, I, I dealt with it and it was invigorating. Make these movies with my wife and isn't that fun? And I'm like, that is fun. Would love you to make something I like. Perhaps a trite complaint of mine. And like, I do kind of have the thing of like, you owe me nothing.

• 1:57:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:18David Sims?

  You've made a bunch of shit that I love. You wanna make things that don't work for me. That's fine. If you can get the money, go for it.

• 1:57:25Griffin Newman?

  It's not like boobs.

• 1:57:26David Sims?

  Boobs.

• 1:57:27Griffin Newman?

  Vaginas. Uh, it's not like this movie, uh.

• 1:57:31David Sims?

  It's so cheery.

• 1:57:32Griffin Newman?

  Was shot back to back, but they were shot pretty close together, obviously with the same lead actor. And Working Title financed them both and it does feel like Working Title has benefited from, uh, supporting the Coens for decades. They clearly are like, this is a rounding error for us. We owe it to you.

• 1:57:49David Sims?

  It's kinda like, yeah. It all evens out and maybe there's another interesting thing coming or whatever.

• 1:57:53Griffin Newman?

  But like, I think Honey Don't was in the can before Drive Away Dolls even came out. If I'm not mistaken. Now that two of these have been released to a pretty violent indifference from the public.

• 1:58:06Speaker 04

  I, it, it, I don't know a single person that's not an absolute freakazoid that has seen it.

• 1:58:11David Sims?

  Right. Whereas Drive Away Dolls, some people were like, oh, sure. This one, I, nobody was like, I saw Honey Don't and was disappointed by it.

• 1:58:17Speaker 04

  The only person I know that like, saw it, like that was like unexpected of me to, for them to see it was my friend, my, the drummer in my band Ivy that I took to go see it.

• 1:58:26Griffin Newman?

  I have had multiple close friends and family members truly say, you didn't see Honey Don't, did you? When it came out, like in the month after it came out. And I was like, yeah, we're doing them on the podcast right now. And they were like, yeah, but I thought you were going to skip that one. Not just that we'd skip the episode, but they'd be like, that you would not feel a compulsive need to see it.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  You would skip it because like, you have to not see it.

• 1:58:49Griffin Newman?

  People who know me. And know that I couldn't skip it and are like, but you must have skipped that.

• 1:58:54Speaker 04

  That one tweet about David Attenborough narrating Planet Earth is going, skip, skip, don't like this one, skip. Skip this animal.

• 1:59:03Griffin Newman?

  It did feel like this was out of theaters within like, less than two weeks.

• 1:59:07David Sims?

  I think it did two or three weeks in theaters. Uh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:12Griffin Newman?

  I saw it like a week into its release and I remember checking showtimes a week later and being like, it's down to like one time a day at one theater.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Griffin Newman?

  It was, it was going fast in New York City.

• 1:59:22Speaker 04

  A thing I want to think about is, so when I, when I did see it, they were introducing, right after Honey Don't, they introduced The Long Goodbye on the same screen 10 minutes later.

• 1:59:31David Sims?

  Which is a film, even as I said.

• 1:59:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Imagine watching this and then sitting in your, staying in your seat.

• 1:59:40Griffin Newman?

  Not going to make Honey Don't look great in retrospect. I mean, I had a similar experience of.

• 1:59:44David Sims?

  It'll pick you up.

• 1:59:45Griffin Newman?

  I, you know, I just watched this for the second time, but two days ago I went and saw, uh, Wake Up Dead Man.

• 1:59:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:59:51Griffin Newman?

  The new Knives Out movie, which had a little preview screening at the Paris. Uh, I guess we'll be out now by the time this episode comes out.

• 1:59:58David Sims?

  At least in theaters or whatever. I, I can never keep track of what Netflix rollouts are.

• 2:00:03Griffin Newman?

  But I, like, I saw that on Monday or Sunday night. I greatly enjoyed it. And then I was like. That's gonna make this Honey, Don't re-watch significantly worse.

• 2:00:13David Sims?

  That's true in terms of, yeah, right.

• 2:00:15Griffin Newman?

  They're not the exact same movie?

• 2:00:17David Sims?

  No, but, but there's, you know, there's murders that are being solved.

• 2:00:20Griffin Newman?

  And even it's like relationship to like Christian faith in America.

• 2:00:24David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:00:25Griffin Newman?

  It's dealing with some similar stuff.

• 2:00:27David Sims?

  Well, Wake Up Dead Man has the Ryan Johnson thing of it is trying to run at topical shit that sometimes you're a little like, Ryan, this feels on the nose, or Ryan, you're almost too animated by like right now.

• 2:00:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:00:38David Sims?

  But at the other time, you're like, eh, kinda respect you taking the swing versus Honey, Don't being like, isn't, you know, Pat Robertson a hypocrite? You're like, mhm, yeah, he's dead.

• 2:00:48Griffin Newman?

  I will also say this to his credit, all three of these movies, the first time I'm seeing them, about halfway through, I'm like, I get it. This is good, this is fun.

• 2:00:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:57Griffin Newman?

  But that's all you got?

• 2:00:58David Sims?

  And then they, they get you with the...

• 2:00:59Griffin Newman?

  And then they get me, and it's not even like a twist thing where I'm like, oh, you're doing far more than I thought you were underneath the surface. And I feel like the first half of the movie, I was just like, okay, I get it, it's a Trump thing, that's really all you have to like talk about. And then he's like, no, I'm talking about like 20 things.

• 2:01:15David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:01:16Griffin Newman?

  And it's the kind of flowering you want a movie like Honey, Don't to have.

• 2:01:20David Sims?

  What was the talk with J.J. Abrams like?

• 2:01:22Griffin Newman?

  That was the...

• 2:01:22David Sims?

  I thought that was a very interesting ploy.

• 2:01:25Griffin Newman?

  I did too. There were two screenings that day.

• 2:01:27David Sims?

  Oh, so you didn't see that?

• 2:01:27Griffin Newman?

  The one I saw was moderated by Josh Horowitz.

• 2:01:30David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Well, he knows.

• 2:01:31Griffin Newman?

  He was excellent. He's the king of that.

• 2:01:33David Sims?

  He's good at that.

• 2:01:33Griffin Newman?

  They did a surprise of Daniel Craig coming out, the audience exploded.

• 2:01:38David Sims?

  I just thought it was, I, when I saw it was Abrams and Ryan Johnson, I did the double take, like, my first take was, oh, sure, yeah, J.J. Abrams, haven't thought about it. And then I'm like, wait, didn't he fucking make episode nine, which is basically like taking a piss on episode eight? Like, is this like a grand healing moment? Is this a, we've always been friends?

• 2:01:57Griffin Newman?

  I would have loved to have seen it. It did feel like just them sitting on the stage together was meant to be some rebuttal to the like Rock versus Undertaker narrative.

• 2:02:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:06Griffin Newman?

  That the internet has built for the last 10 years.

• 2:02:09David Sims?

  But it's like The Rock versus The Undertaker if, if The Rock was like lying perfectly still on the ground. It's a bit of a hydrogen bomb versus coughing baby situation right now. I mean, I'm all for J.J. Abrams making... Makings, have you noticed? It's like a Twitter... It's an incredible name.

• 2:02:23Griffin Newman?

  I don't think I've caught this yet.

• 2:02:24David Sims?

  I think, I'm all for J.J. Abrams making, first off, anything. He hasn't fucking made anything since episode nine.

• 2:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:32David Sims?

  Second off, would love it to be good. Maybe?

• 2:02:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:36David Sims?

  That'd be cool.

• 2:02:37Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's by all accounts, Back to the Future riff, it is time travel influenced in some way.

• 2:02:43David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:02:44Speaker 04

  Hey, the book I'm working on is also a time travel book.

• 2:02:47David Sims?

  Hey! There's nothing wrong with time travel. Time travel rocks.

• 2:02:54David Sims?

  Look, before we play, uh, we plug Maddie's excellent books, which just reminded me to do.

• 2:02:59Griffin Newman?

  Simplicity.

• 2:02:59David Sims?

  We should play the, we should play the box office.

• 2:03:01Griffin Newman?

  Much like Rob Mack, just stop. Don't say.

• 2:03:03David Sims?

  Simplicity rocks.

• 2:03:04Griffin Newman?

  In the land of, yeah.

• 2:03:06David Sims?

  August 22nd, 2025.

• 2:03:11David Sims?

  Honeytone opens number eight, $3 million.

• 2:03:13Griffin Newman?

  I saw this movie in a double feature.

• 2:03:15David Sims?

  It, it topped out at five.

• 2:03:18Griffin Newman?

  Right. Drive Away, Drive Away.

• 2:03:20David Sims?

  Could not complete its black hat.

• 2:03:21Griffin Newman?

  I want to say Drive Away opened at five and ended at 10?

• 2:03:24David Sims?

  Uh, sure, let's see.

• 2:03:26Griffin Newman?

  So this was already like completely 50% of something that already didn't.

• 2:03:31Speaker 04

  What this bad boy calls.

• 2:03:33David Sims?

  That's a great question. No, Drive Away Dolls also only made five.

• 2:03:37Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 2:03:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:03:39David Sims?

  So.

• 2:03:40Griffin Newman?

  Publicly, they're saying they're like 15 or 20?

• 2:03:43David Sims?

  Yeah, I think that's probably about right. They don't seem like they would take that long to make.

• 2:03:46Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:03:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just remembered another gripe I had.

• 2:03:48David Sims?

  Please go ahead.

• 2:03:49Griffin Newman?

  Throw it out.

• 2:03:50Speaker 04

  Very quickly, during the talkback, Ethan kept saying Drive Away Dykes, which I know was the working title of the film.

• 2:03:54David Sims?

  And that's the sort of secret title of the movie, right?

• 2:03:57Speaker 04

  Hey, man, are you allowed to say that?

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  Well, again, this is why they did the full court press of like, Trisha is a co-equal.

• 2:04:04Griffin Newman?

  I think that's also why the movie was not technically titled that.

• 2:04:07Speaker 04

  He said it so many times.

• 2:04:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:04:09Speaker 04

  And every time I'm like, okay, like, eight years ago, I'd be like, all right, whatever, man. Right, right now?

• 2:04:16Griffin Newman?

  Right now.

• 2:04:17Speaker 04

  Right now.

• 2:04:17Griffin Newman?

  Right here, right now.

• 2:04:18Speaker 04

  Here, like the song says.

• 2:04:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:21David Sims?

  Bring back Fat Boy Slim.

• 2:04:22Griffin Newman?

  Um, it's a good question. He did the, the show with David Byrne that was good. Here Lyle's Love, is that what it was called?

• 2:04:29Speaker 04

  True. Uh, that's a good show.

• 2:04:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, I saw this movie in a double feature.

• 2:04:32Speaker 04

  No, it wasn't. Never mind.

• 2:04:34Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 2:04:34Speaker 04

  There you go. Sorry.

• 2:04:35Griffin Newman?

  I like that show.

• 2:04:36Speaker 04

  I was thinking about American.

• 2:04:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, maybe a top.

• 2:04:38Speaker 04

  Uh, here, here.

• 2:04:39David Sims?

  Here Lyle's Love was very, uh, mixed reception.

• 2:04:41Speaker 04

  I had political issues with it. I won't get into on your movie podcast.

• 2:04:44Griffin Newman?

  I don't, I, I hear that. And I respect that.

• 2:04:48David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 2:04:49Griffin Newman?

  Um, I saw this in a double feature with, uh, Highest to Lowest.

• 2:04:54David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:54Griffin Newman?

  Uh, which was just interesting in terms of it being like, uh, two late movies from American masters that are kind of being dumped and disregarded.

• 2:05:02David Sims?

  Yeah, that are funded by, well, no, actually Honey Don't isn't a streamer, right?

• 2:05:06Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:05:06David Sims?

  It's a focus, but yeah, but yeah.

• 2:05:07Griffin Newman?

  But Honey Don't, I was like, phew, and then I went across the street with my girlfriend. We got tacos, we walked back into the theater, we saw Highest to Lowest, and we were like pumping our fists. And we were like, this isn't perfect, but god, when it hits, it hits.

• 2:05:20Speaker 04

  More like Lowest to Highest, yeah, in that regard.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  It was, well, it does kind of build in that order, but it was sort of like, I wished Honey Don't could have delivered some of this juice.

• 2:05:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:28Griffin Newman?

  What's number one at the box office?

• 2:05:30David Sims?

  It is, uh, speaking of, uh, things that were, uh, on streaming, uh, the streaming sensation of the year, uh, being pushed, uh, onto wider screens, uh, 10 weeks into its theatrical release.

• 2:05:39Griffin Newman?

  Because technically Netflix didn't report the weekend numbers for K-pop Demon Hunters?

• 2:05:45David Sims?

  But it is listed here on the numbers as the number one, uh, uh, movie of this week, making 19 million dollars.

• 2:05:51Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those, depending on what site you check, because it was estimates that were like, sort of, repeated off the record.

• 2:05:57David Sims?

  It was certainly the most viewed movie of the week in theaters, right? No one could really deny this, and it had an insane per-screen average because it wasn't on that many screens.

• 2:06:05Griffin Newman?

  But I believe some outlets reported that Weapons was by technicality the number one movie of the week.

• 2:06:10David Sims?

  Fair enough. So number two at the box office is Weapons.

• 2:06:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:06:13David Sims?

  One of my favorite movies. I know Matt didn't like it.

• 2:06:15Speaker 04

  I, oh, oh.

• 2:06:16David Sims?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:06:16Speaker 04

  I did, Matt didn't like things about it.

• 2:06:19David Sims?

  I know Matt didn't like things about it, because we, I saw Matty Letterboxd about it.

• 2:06:22Speaker 04

  I thought.

• 2:06:23David Sims?

  Or something.

• 2:06:23Speaker 04

  I really, really liked most of it.

• 2:06:25David Sims?

  Mm-hmm. You didn't, you didn't love the, uh, Amy Mattie.

• 2:06:27Speaker 04

  I, I thought she was great. Her performance is great. I liked the movie immensely. I was, I was really locked into it for most of it. I thought the ending was so fucking good. I was losing my mind screaming.

• 2:06:38Griffin Newman?

  Talk about sticking the landing.

• 2:06:39David Sims?

  Talk about paying off like a slav.

• 2:06:40Speaker 04

  It was more like, I didn't like Barbarian that much.

• 2:06:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:06:43Speaker 04

  And the thing.

• 2:06:44David Sims?

  He was dipping in the same.

• 2:06:45Speaker 04

  I felt he was going back to.

• 2:06:47Griffin Newman?

  Repeated some of the things.

• 2:06:48Speaker 04

  Have you heard?

• 2:06:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:06:49David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:06:49Speaker 04

  That I said this on a website I shouldn't have logged into, and I got yelled at for days and days and days and days and days and days and days. But did you know it's very scary when a woman is old? And I think this movie was doing it less than barbarian. I think I was more mad at the moment about it. I think I would revise my stupid Letterboxd review to be a little higher.

• 2:07:08David Sims?

  Sure, fair enough.

• 2:07:09Speaker 04

  And maybe I'll do that.

• 2:07:09David Sims?

  Fair enough.

• 2:07:10Speaker 04

  So no one yells at me. Because now you've loose them upon me, David.

• 2:07:13David Sims?

  I fucking logged a five out of 10 for Frankenstein, a movie that I know Griffin liked, but like hardly was getting like universal praise. And these days you do this on Letterboxd, people are, there's whatever, there's a gaggle of folks who come yelling at you. And I'm not mad and don't put it in the newspaper that I got mad, but I was kind of like, Jesus.

• 2:07:32Speaker 04

  David's holding up a little sign that says, I'm mad. It's like a little wily coyote.

• 2:07:37Griffin Newman?

  It's pointing at him?

• 2:07:38Speaker 04

  It's pointing at himself, which is hard because it's, he's holding it perpendicular to his body.

• 2:07:42Griffin Newman?

  I liked Frankenstein, but also like very much for me, A Gentleman's Six with major issues.

• 2:07:48David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:07:49Griffin Newman?

  That also I went to see after hearing like all of my most trusted friends.

• 2:07:53David Sims?

  Be like, oh, what a disappointment.

• 2:07:55Griffin Newman?

  For two months. And I was like, more of this work than I was expecting.

• 2:07:58Speaker 04

  This is the Guillermo del Toro special. Is everyone I know hates it? And then I go watch it. I'm like, I had a nice time.

• 2:08:03Griffin Newman?

  You were saying, I wish he would make, in a text thread we're on, you were saying, I wish he would make something like Crimson Peak again.

• 2:08:09David Sims?

  Fun.

• 2:08:10Griffin Newman?

  And my thought watching Frankenstein was this is what I wanted Crimson Peak to be. Crimson Peak, I totally bounced off of. I do feel like you and I, you and I land differently on GDT. We're both like hot and cold on him, but we tend to alternate on which ones.

• 2:08:24David Sims?

  I'll also say the Oscar Isaac performance in Frankenstein goes in the bucket I've created with his Moon Knight and Apocalypse performances where I'm like, three question marks, like what?

• 2:08:34Griffin Newman?

  It's, it is weird.

• 2:08:36David Sims?

  Pedal to the metal kind of performance.

• 2:08:37Griffin Newman?

  Not very successful casting.

• 2:08:38David Sims?

  No.

• 2:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Alordi is fantastic.

• 2:08:41David Sims?

  He's great.

• 2:08:41Griffin Newman?

  And that's what works in the movie, not just his performance.

• 2:08:44David Sims?

  I'm the first to notice.

• 2:08:45Speaker 04

  Is he tall?

• 2:08:46David Sims?

  Tall fellow.

• 2:08:46Speaker 04

  He looks taller than Elvis, I think.

• 2:08:48David Sims?

  Tall fellow.

• 2:08:48Griffin Newman?

  You have not seen the film yet, Matty?

• 2:08:49Speaker 04

  Uh, Frank Frankenstein?

• 2:08:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:51Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:08:52Griffin Newman?

  There's this bizarre thing and I was very surprised.

• 2:08:54David Sims?

  Sympathetic to the monster.

• 2:08:55Griffin Newman?

  Guillermo del Toro seems to relate more to the monster character.

• 2:08:57Speaker 04

  That's what the book is.

• 2:09:00David Sims?

  Well, I would say the whole movie is a little bit, that's what the book is.

• 2:09:04Griffin Newman?

  And to be fair, most depictions, most adaptations of the book don't really get at that.

• 2:09:11David Sims?

  I disagree with that.

• 2:09:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, well, but I love that.

• 2:09:15David Sims?

  Sympathetic in all the movies.

• 2:09:16Speaker 04

  A lot of, but like the classic, like, universal monsters depiction is like, he is just a beast. Whereas like in the book, he's like wearing a tuxedo and writing letters, longhand with a feather.

• 2:09:25David Sims?

  Which is how to live your life.

• 2:09:27Griffin Newman?

  That's how to live your life.

• 2:09:28David Sims?

  Honey, don't need more longhand feather letters.

• 2:09:31Griffin Newman?

  Stitched fingers.

• 2:09:32Speaker 04

  Say that, that's a feeder worm.

• 2:09:33David Sims?

  Longhand feather letter.

• 2:09:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:34David Sims?

  Number three, The Box Office Griffin is a film that did pretty good.

• 2:09:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:09:39David Sims?

  A legacy sequel.

• 2:09:40Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:41David Sims?

  Um, that I feel like came out, got mad reviews, and kind of like, you know, cleared almost a hundred mil at the box office. Kind of almost quietly, despite one of its cast members being fucking the loudest person in the world these days. Just enough of her. Maybe I'm being rude.

• 2:10:01Speaker 04

  It was me?

• 2:10:01David Sims?

  She's a legend. Maddie, shut up.

• 2:10:03Griffin Newman?

  Now, I'm the worst in the world, legacy sequel, it's not Sydney Sweeney. It's not, I know what you did last summer.

• 2:10:10David Sims?

  That I did not like. I did not care for that film.

• 2:10:13Griffin Newman?

  When did it come out? What week is this?

• 2:10:15David Sims?

  Uh, this is its third week of release. It came out sort of, uh, August 8th.

• 2:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Beginning of August.

• 2:10:20David Sims?

  My wedding anniversary.

• 2:10:21Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't quite hit a hundred, but it gets close.

• 2:10:23David Sims?

  Ninety-four.

• 2:10:23Griffin Newman?

  Loudest person in the world.

• 2:10:26David Sims?

  She's just, there's been a lot of her lately.

• 2:10:28Griffin Newman?

  She's.

• 2:10:28David Sims?

  And she's off the leash, as am I sometimes, so I respect it. But I do feel like she's felt very empowered to be, you know, a big poissonality.

• 2:10:37Griffin Newman?

  Freaky or Friday.

• 2:10:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:38Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:10:39David Sims?

  Yeah. Where she's like, should I fire off a Charlie Kirk tweet? I'm gonna do it.

• 2:10:43Griffin Newman?

  I.

• 2:10:43David Sims?

  Like, some PR person's like, Jamie, oh, forget it.

• 2:10:48Griffin Newman?

  I defend her Oscar-winning performance. I think she is quite good in everything, everywhere, all at once. I do think nothing good has come from giving her that Oscar.

• 2:10:58David Sims?

  It has certainly empowered her to go to launch. Very, very broad performances, I would say, of late.

• 2:11:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:11:03David Sims?

  I will never forget queuing up that bear episode. That's just her and Abby Elliot's face in close-ups. Want me and my wife watching it for 10 minutes and then me going. I think the whole episode is gonna be this. And my wife going, I mean, no way, come on. And I, and I sort of do the, I like track, you know, I, I hit the Apple remote to see like, see this, the little screen.

• 2:11:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:25David Sims?

  As you try, and I'm like, it's just their faces, just their faces, the whole thing's just their faces.

• 2:11:28Speaker 04

  I will say.

• 2:11:29David Sims?

  You're just like, do we have any diapers to change?

• 2:11:31Speaker 04

  I will say, I will say.

• 2:11:33David Sims?

  Hank, go poop, come on, please.

• 2:11:34Speaker 04

  The, the bear post-season one, a lot of episodes, you're kind of like, is this gonna be the whole?

• 2:11:40David Sims?

  The whole thing's gonna be this, the whole thing's gonna be. And I liked season two.

• 2:11:43Speaker 04

  I liked season two.

• 2:11:44David Sims?

  And season three, there were things I liked, there were episodes I worked for.

• 2:11:46Speaker 04

  Not yet watched four. Much like the Lady Killers, I'm afraid of it.

• 2:11:52David Sims?

  Hmm. Uh, same, uh, or I watched some and then haven't finished it yet.

• 2:11:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:57David Sims?

  Um, Freak or Friday, did you see Freak or Friday?

• 2:11:59Griffin Newman?

  I still have not seen it.

• 2:12:00David Sims?

  Neither have I.

• 2:12:00Griffin Newman?

  I will watch it when it's on Disney Plus.

• 2:12:02David Sims?

  And you saw it.

• 2:12:03Griffin Newman?

  Say what?

• 2:12:03David Sims?

  I'm joking. Uh, you probably didn't see Freak or Friday either.

• 2:12:08Griffin Newman?

  Mm-mm. I feel like everyone I know who's seen it is like.

• 2:12:12David Sims?

  Everyone said it was like, oh, it's fine, it's kind of what you think it is, yeah, right.

• 2:12:15Griffin Newman?

  It, it looks like a shampoo commercial, but it's effective, right?

• 2:12:19David Sims?

  Who directed it?

• 2:12:20Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, what's her name?

• 2:12:21Speaker 04

  Um. Garnier, the brand.

• 2:12:23Griffin Newman?

  The woman who did, uh, Late Night and Blinded by the Light.

• 2:12:26David Sims?

  Uh, uh, Nisha Ganatra, yes, she did.

• 2:12:29Griffin Newman?

  Right, yeah.

• 2:12:29David Sims?

  Late Night, the, um, the great.

• 2:12:31Griffin Newman?

  Who could forget?

• 2:12:32David Sims?

  She didn't do.

• 2:12:33Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:12:33David Sims?

  Come on, that's Garinder Chata, that's a real, that's a real great film.

• 2:12:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:12:36David Sims?

  Uh, but she did do Late Night, and then she did a movie, I think, called The High Note, uh, with, uh, Dakota Johnson, that.

• 2:12:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and Tracey Ellis, Rawlins and Ice Cube.

• 2:12:44David Sims?

  Covid forgotten films.

• 2:12:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:12:46David Sims?

  Um, number four, did you see Freak or Friday?

• 2:12:48Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:12:49David Sims?

  You didn't, you didn't, you didn't.

• 2:12:51Speaker 04

  I didn't get freaky with it, um, yeah.

• 2:12:54David Sims?

  Happy Lindsay Lohan seems to have leveled out or whatever.

• 2:12:57Speaker 04

  She seems fine, she, uh, is in a commercial that drives me insane where she's like, talking about her children's toys or something that I get 85,000 times, I'm trying to watch my shows while I draw, um, and for that, she's dead to me.

• 2:13:09Griffin Newman?

  Accepted.

• 2:13:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:13:11David Sims?

  Number four at the box office is a big superhero film of the year that did probably about the lowest acceptable like amount that a studio wanted it to make. Right, like it squeaked over 500 worldwide.

• 2:13:25Griffin Newman?

  It just narrowly avoided being an embarrassment.

• 2:13:28David Sims?

  But it was not, I think, the runaway bounce back they wanted.

• 2:13:32Griffin Newman?

  No, especially when you consider Deadpool and Wolverine aside. That being their highest grossing film, or their second highest grossing film in years is faint. Praise, right? Cause it outgrossed Thunderbolts, it outgrossed Captain America, Brave New World, all respect to our president.

• 2:13:55Speaker 04

  Wow, I didn't realize he was here.

• 2:13:57Griffin Newman?

  He's right there on our highest shelf.

• 2:13:59Speaker 04

  He's been listening to me the whole time.

• 2:14:01Griffin Newman?

  On our highest shelf.

• 2:14:02Speaker 04

  You gotta warn me.

• 2:14:03Griffin Newman?

  The films before that.

• 2:14:05David Sims?

  I will appoint the leader to every position in the cabinet.

• 2:14:08Griffin Newman?

  The films before that.

• 2:14:10David Sims?

  Adamantium. Remember when that movie is like about like Japan and America negotiating an adamantium mining treaty?

• 2:14:18Griffin Newman?

  Is that one of?

• 2:14:18Speaker 04

  That's the plot of, that's Stephen Sondheim musical.

• 2:14:21David Sims?

  Yeah, it's the plot of a muschet.

• 2:14:23Griffin Newman?

  One of the fallen celestials has become an island with adamantium in its skull. Is there a problem? And the countries are fighting over it.

• 2:14:33David Sims?

  It also outgrossed the Marvels. It did not outgross Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

• 2:14:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:14:38David Sims?

  It did barely outgross Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but that's not what you want it to be doing.

• 2:14:43Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:14:44Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, just imagine being Peyton Reed and you are about to make your 60's Fantastic Four movie and you make Down with Love one of the best movies of the last 30 years, in my opinion.

• 2:14:52David Sims?

  Wonderful movie.

• 2:14:53Speaker 04

  Incredible movie. Shout out to my wife for making me watch it, uh, cause it was her favorite movie in high school. Anyways, a great movie. But imagine being him and you want to make your Fantastic Four 60's movie and nobody likes Down with Love, so they don't let you. And then 20 years later, they make it and it has, uh, it looks like that.

• 2:15:09Griffin Newman?

  Look, I partially defend First Steps, but it must've been really frustrating to him to make Quantumania and then watch someone else make the kind of Fantastic Four movie that he had always wanted to make.

• 2:15:18Speaker 04

  He would've nailed.

• 2:15:19Griffin Newman?

  And not totally.

• 2:15:20David Sims?

  I think he would've done a better job with it.

• 2:15:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:23David Sims?

  Oh, number five at the box office is another animated film, um, sequel.

• 2:15:30Griffin Newman?

  But not a squeak will.

• 2:15:31David Sims?

  No, not that I'm aware of.

• 2:15:33Griffin Newman?

  It's the bad guys too.

• 2:15:34David Sims?

  That's correct.

• 2:15:34Griffin Newman?

  A movie that quietly kind of disappointed. It ended up at eighty?

• 2:15:39David Sims?

  It ended up at the grand total of eighty-two million dollars.

• 2:15:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, like the, the first one out grossed it and that was twenty twenty-two, I want to say, and also was, uh, like when Peacock was putting movies on their streaming service three days after they were in theaters.

• 2:15:56David Sims?

  Uh, take that for what you will.

• 2:15:59Griffin Newman?

  Went to see it with the Urlix?

• 2:16:00David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, I used to saw it.

• 2:16:01Griffin Newman?

  It's his favorite movie?

• 2:16:03David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:16:03Griffin Newman?

  Didn't really move the needle for me.

• 2:16:04David Sims?

  By whatever he's seen lately.

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  The last time I went over there, he was watching it for the eighty thousandth time that day.

• 2:16:11David Sims?

  Um, number six at the box office this week was Nobody Two. It is a lot of like, okay, like stuff in the box office this August.

• 2:16:18Griffin Newman?

  I do like, it, it gives me a little bit of hope for like the health of, uh, cinema going.

• 2:16:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:24Griffin Newman?

  That Nobody Two is kind of what we need more of, which is like, you make a fifteen million dollar movie that makes like fifty worldwide. And Universal goes like, why not make a sequel?

• 2:16:34David Sims?

  Who cares?

• 2:16:34Griffin Newman?

  It's fine. You can make a movie that gets on like second base and people are like, okay, sure.

• 2:16:39David Sims?

  Uh, number seven, James Gunn's Superman, which in its seventh week is out grossing Honey, Don't. Number nine, be great. Naked Gun.

• 2:16:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You see Naked Gun?

• 2:16:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, uh, so when it was funny, it was so funny. Uh, the, the last act kind of lost me.

• 2:16:56Griffin Newman?

  I think there's great bits in the last.

• 2:16:57Speaker 04

  I think there's good, but it was like when the jokes were good. I was like having the time of my fucking life.

• 2:17:02Griffin Newman?

  I will say I saw it a second time in theaters and I found it did not quite have the replay value that for me, I rewatched the fucking three original movies. Once a year.

• 2:17:11Speaker 04

  I grew up watching, we had thirty-three and a third taped off of television.

• 2:17:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:16Speaker 04

  Um, and I watched it until it broke, I think. Like, yeah.

• 2:17:19Griffin Newman?

  The jokes hit still.

• 2:17:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:17:21Griffin Newman?

  On the fiftieth watch for me and I, I liked the Naked Gun, uh, twenty twenty-five a tremendous amount, but I, I did feel a little bit more of its creakiness the second watch. Still. Best studio comedy we've had in quite some time.

• 2:17:33Speaker 04

  I mean, the whole time I was watching it and I was just like, oh, there's like a comedy with jokes in it.

• 2:17:37Griffin Newman?

  I was so.

• 2:17:38Speaker 04

  Can you believe it?

• 2:17:39Griffin Newman?

  So happy while watching it. And even like, you know, just to be clear, watching it the second time, I was very happy watching it. I just wasn't in the ecstatic euphoria I was in the first time.

• 2:17:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I also missed it in theaters. So I watched it at home, which I think maybe to my detriment.

• 2:17:52Griffin Newman?

  Very good movie to see with theaters, in theaters with an audience.

• 2:17:55Speaker 04

  I can imagine.

• 2:17:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:56David Sims?

  Number to the box office, Griffin's favorite film of the year Jurassic World Rebirth.

• 2:18:03Speaker 04

  Is that your review of the film?

• 2:18:05Griffin Newman?

  Number, opening number. Much, it sucks so much.

• 2:18:08David Sims?

  Not a fan, not a fan of that one, were you?

• 2:18:11Griffin Newman?

  Quite poor.

• 2:18:12David Sims?

  It stars people, Sexiest Man Alive.

• 2:18:14Griffin Newman?

  I like him.

• 2:18:15David Sims?

  Yeah, I like him too.

• 2:18:16Griffin Newman?

  He gives the best performance in that movie.

• 2:18:19David Sims?

  Uh, sure. I mean, I suppose.

• 2:18:23Griffin Newman?

  I mean, what's the competition? That dinosaur that's a mix of two different dinosaurs?

• 2:18:27David Sims?

  I think Mahershala gives the best perfor- that guy kinda can't be bad and he, and that movie is like, trying so hard, it's like weighing him down with bad. And he's still like basically fine.

• 2:18:38Griffin Newman?

  I agree that he can't embarrass himself.

• 2:18:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:41Griffin Newman?

  Like he's just got like too much like legitimate presence.

• 2:18:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know what I was watching the other day was Alita Battle Angel.

• 2:18:48David Sims?

  It's a fucking good movie.

• 2:18:50Speaker 04

  A good movie?

• 2:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Mm-hmm.

• 2:18:53Speaker 04

  Too. He fucking rocks it.

• 2:18:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:55Speaker 04

  He looks cool as hell. Remember?

• 2:18:57David Sims?

  How that movie is like, she's like, I'm a big eyed crazy robot and I don't know what's going on with me. And then she's like, I do remember what's going on with me. I was in a moon war. And then she's like, I need to do rollerball fucking cyber sports.

• 2:19:09Speaker 04

  My dad is a rocket hammer?

• 2:19:11David Sims?

  Yeah. So then the end of the movie is like Edward Norton lives in space. And I'm like, yes, he does.

• 2:19:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:16Speaker 04

  I can't believe they never made a second one of those.

• 2:19:18David Sims?

  Christopher Waltz is a giant hammer. Yes, he does.

• 2:19:20Griffin Newman?

  I was genuinely so convinced in my like conspiracy theory addle brain.

• 2:19:25David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:19:26Griffin Newman?

  That when Disney bought Fox, James Cameron was gonna make it a contractual point that they had to greenlight a second Alita for him to keep making avatars.

• 2:19:35David Sims?

  Sure, right, right.

• 2:19:36Griffin Newman?

  No, cuz he had the avatar bargaining chip.

• 2:19:38Speaker 04

  Sell one of his submarines, they can make a new avatar, whatever he wants.

• 2:19:41Griffin Newman?

  I was like, if he wants Alita to happen at Disney, now that they're so invested in the avatar business, it'll happen. And it seems like he's just been like, eh, public doesn't want it.

• 2:19:48David Sims?

  I, well, I think there's a world where there could have been some momentum and then COVID kinda killed it.

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  The momentum is absolutely gone.

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:56Speaker 04

  The momentum was lost in a moon war.

• 2:19:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:59David Sims?

  It's just so good when she's like, "Fuck, I remembered." "Moon War!" And I'm like, "What?"

• 2:20:04Griffin Newman?

  Remember how she has like bespoke porcelain arms?

• 2:20:06David Sims?

  Yes, I do. It's beautiful. I have this steelbook that's her hand, her porcelain hand.

• 2:20:11Griffin Newman?

  That one goes for a pretty penny.

• 2:20:12David Sims?

  I know, baby.

• 2:20:13Griffin Newman?

  Okay, baby.

• 2:20:14David Sims?

  It's all mine.

• 2:20:16Griffin Newman?

  Howdy, baby.

• 2:20:17David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 2:20:19Griffin Newman?

  We should mention also-

• 2:20:20David Sims?

  What a weird way to end our Coen Brothers movie series.

• 2:20:22Griffin Newman?

  Our friends at Super Yaki sent over, uh, very nicely some, uh, co-branded, uh, Focus Features promo Honey Don't, uh, air fresheners.

• 2:20:32Speaker 04

  I'm giving it one more sniff to try and get to the bottom of it.

• 2:20:34Griffin Newman?

  Our windowless studio smells great, right?

• 2:20:36David Sims?

  I had to get it off my desk. It was starting to-

• 2:20:38Speaker 04

  I didn't get a good sniff on the microphone.

• 2:20:40Griffin Newman?

  They're meant for cars and not podcast studios.

• 2:20:42David Sims?

  Well, I would say cars are smaller than podcast studios, but yes. Well, not all podcast studios, though. Not that first one we had.

• 2:20:47Griffin Newman?

  That's true.

• 2:20:48David Sims?

  That was kind of car-sized.

• 2:20:49Speaker 03

  That was very- that was like a van-sized studio.

• 2:20:51David Sims?

  Mid-sized sedan.

• 2:20:54Griffin Newman?

  It's like a smart car or some shit.

• 2:20:55Speaker 04

  Why does Honey, who is like so self-serious, have a Honey Don't license plate?

• 2:21:00David Sims?

  It's a great question. Well, it's her little twist of whimsy, much like ordering the coffee. I don't fucking-

• 2:21:06David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:21:07Speaker 04

  Sorry for mentioning the movie.

• 2:21:08Griffin Newman?

  Ben's Honey Don't thoughts?

• 2:21:10David Sims?

  Yeah, Ben, any, uh, any other thoughts apart from crush on Aubrey?

• 2:21:17David Sims?

  Love it. That should be the review. That should be what I said to the rep as I exited the theater. I just, as I get further, the air is still leaving my body.

• 2:21:26Speaker 04

  Eraser head noise?

• 2:21:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:33David Sims?

  Oh my god. The classic, "What do you say to the rep?" thing of like, where you're like, "It was interesting. I gotta go. I, ah."

• 2:21:41Griffin Newman?

  The projector was on. They did a good job turning that on.

• 2:21:44David Sims?

  That seat was working.

• 2:21:46Griffin Newman?

  It did not break.

• 2:21:48Speaker 03

  I'll say this.

• 2:21:49David Sims?

  Both arms were there.

• 2:21:50Speaker 03

  It passed the time while I did laundry.

• 2:21:54David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:21:55Speaker 03

  Washed it on my phone.

• 2:21:57David Sims?

  As the way it was intended.

• 2:21:59Griffin Newman?

  If you-

• 2:22:00David Sims?

  What if the Oscars give this 14 nominations? That'd be funny. Best phone movie.

• 2:22:06Speaker 04

  You think it'll get an original song?

• 2:22:08David Sims?

  Three. It'll get three, three original song noms.

• 2:22:11Speaker 04

  Right? Like?

• 2:22:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:12David Sims?

  Yeah. What are the, well, K-pop Demon Hunters will clean up.

• 2:22:14Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Imagine them getting an original song nomination for this and not for Mr. Kim.

• 2:22:18David Sims?

  That'd be great.

• 2:22:19Griffin Newman?

  That'd be great.

• 2:22:20David Sims?

  Deserved.

• 2:22:21Griffin Newman?

  It'd be good. Matty?

• 2:22:23David Sims?

  Matty?

• 2:22:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:22:24Griffin Newman?

  When does simplicity come out?

• 2:22:25David Sims?

  Everything that you do, not just your wonderful.

• 2:22:27Speaker 04

  Too many things. Uh, but yeah, please buy my book. I have two books or three books out on the market, but the most recent one is called Simplicity. You can buy it at any, um, your local bookstore, any of the stores online, whatever.

• 2:22:40David Sims?

  It's a somewhat tough story to sum up in a good way.

• 2:22:42Speaker 04

  It is, it is, it is elevator pitchless. It has been out for.

• 2:22:45David Sims?

  It is true. You need that elevator to be going to like the 200th floor.

• 2:22:48Speaker 04

  Like it's fully, I.

• 2:22:50David Sims?

  Local.

• 2:22:51Speaker 04

  This book I finished, I finished writing and drawing this book a year and a half ago. And I'm still like, people are like, what's the book about? And I'm like, ooh.

• 2:23:00David Sims?

  It's really, really good.

• 2:23:01Speaker 04

  Sit down. It's really, I think it's, I'm really proud of it. It's like, but it's about like revolution and love and sex and technology and a lot of, oh, I do know that they, uh, the first printer it was supposed to be printed at in China rejected it because there were too many nude butts in it.

• 2:23:18Griffin Newman?

  It's your in the night kitchen?

• 2:23:19Speaker 04

  It's my, correct. And, um, yeah. And also I have two podcasts, myself. One is about mayors. It's called No Gods, No Mayors, nogodsomayors.com, where every week we talk about a mayor because they're all maniacs.

• 2:23:32Griffin Newman?

  We're recording this on election day itself, not stressed at all.

• 2:23:36Speaker 04

  I'm actually feeling really normal.

• 2:23:38Griffin Newman?

  I lack the ability to have faith in things, but hopefully.

• 2:23:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:23:42Griffin Newman?

  I'll feel good tomorrow morning.

• 2:23:43David Sims?

  I would love to see it.

• 2:23:44Speaker 04

  I would love to see one specific thing happen to one specific older man.

• 2:23:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. We'd all like to see.

• 2:23:50Speaker 04

  Curtis Lee will become mayor.

• 2:23:52Griffin Newman?

  I was going to say in solidarity, don their red berets tomorrow morning. A new era for this city dawns.

• 2:24:00Speaker 04

  I'm gonna be, well, you're gonna know, because you had to wake up and you've been conscripted into building a feral cat colony in a park to encourage cat colonies to take care of the rat problem. But everybody we talk about, it's me and November and Riley from Trash Future, and we talk about mayors, and then I also do another show with my friend Clayton Ashley called Temporal Culture War, where we talk about the early 2000s while we watch Star Trek Enterprise.

• 2:24:24David Sims?

  Wait, how do I not know about this show?

• 2:24:26Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 2:24:27David Sims?

  Right up my alley.

• 2:24:28Griffin Newman?

  It's rude of you.

• 2:24:29Speaker 04

  It's called Temporal, we've been doing it for about a year.

• 2:24:31David Sims?

  It is so funny to me, just to tangent it, and I'm sure you will agree, that they were like, "We fucking need to go back to basics. The show will be a prequel. It will strip things away. It won't have complicated Star Trek, because it's a prequel. It'll be about the Enterprise, the first one. Scott Bakula, we need to be really conservative here. Get the most ordinary, like, you know, straight arrow guy to play the captain." And then like two episodes in, they're like, "There's a temporal war happening with the 30th century. There's bug people." They get so complicated.

• 2:25:01Speaker 04

  They abandoned the time war after a season and a half.

• 2:25:05David Sims?

  Because clearly UPN was like, "Enough!"

• 2:25:07Speaker 04

  No, it's because 9/11 happens.

• 2:25:09David Sims?

  Oh, that's right.

• 2:25:09Speaker 04

  So the whole point of the show is we're watching it, and then every week we also talk about, like, the movies that came out that week, music, TV, and also like the news that week in 2001 to 2005.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:19Speaker 04

  And we're into like the second season right now. But they drop all of it, and it becomes 24 set in space.

• 2:25:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:25:26Speaker 04

  But it's like Republican Star Trek.

• 2:25:28David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:25:28Speaker 04

  It's like, there's a fictional man called Lawrence Kansas, I say, is watching the show in his truck on a little TV.

• 2:25:34Griffin Newman?

  What's T-Pole up to these days?

• 2:25:36Speaker 04

  It is pronounced "T-Pole."

• 2:25:37David Sims?

  T-Pole, Jaleen Blaylock?

• 2:25:38Speaker 04

  I will say, I kept saying "T-Pole" on the show, and one listener wrote in so angry at me and Clayton, and now we have to say it a thousand times an episode to get it cracked.

• 2:25:48Griffin Newman?

  I wish I could relate. I simply never have been criticized online for mispronouncing words.

• 2:25:52David Sims?

  I think Jaleen Blaylock is truly one of those, like, you know, like, makes most of the money just like doing the very consistent Star Trek circuit.

• 2:25:58Speaker 04

  She gets nothing to do on that show.

• 2:26:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:02Speaker 04

  And does so much with it. She's actually kind of astonishing.

• 2:26:04David Sims?

  I think she's good. I like, I like T-Pole. I like that character. I'm always, I'm always pro Vulcans. I love a Vulcan.

• 2:26:09Speaker 04

  Who's your favorite Vulcan?

• 2:26:11David Sims?

  Tuvok.

• 2:26:12Speaker 04

  I was gonna say Tuvok, baby.

• 2:26:13David Sims?

  I fucking love that motherfucker. The episode where he mind melds, the Voyager episode where he mind melds with Brad Durif and he goes crazy.

• 2:26:20Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean, wouldn't you?

• 2:26:21David Sims?

  He's one of my favorite.

• 2:26:22Speaker 04

  It's Brad Dorif. Uh, remember the one where-

• 2:26:24David Sims?

  Brad Dorif plays a serial killer who's like on the Voyager.

• 2:26:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:26:27David Sims?

  And then they're like, we don't know what- Wait, Brad Dorif? Yeah. No, you must be thinking of someone different. They would never cast him to play a serial killer who goes crazy. Oh god, he's really good.

• 2:26:36Speaker 04

  Remember the one where he, uh, he, he, he-

• 2:26:38David Sims?

  He comes back?

• 2:26:38Speaker 04

  He melds with Neelix?

• 2:26:40David Sims?

  Of cour- what?

• 2:26:40Speaker 04

  Tuvix?

• 2:26:41David Sims?

  Of course. Do you know about Tuvix?

• 2:26:42Speaker 04

  It's Mitch Gorfi himself.

• 2:26:43David Sims?

  Do you know about Tuvix? We talked about this in the- No, no, no, we talked about Neelix, who's a character in Voyager.

• 2:26:48Speaker 04

  Okay, I haven't finished that episode yet. You talk about-

• 2:26:49David Sims?

  We talked about Ethan-

• 2:26:50Speaker 04

  I wanted to make sure you talked about Voyager in that episode.

• 2:26:51David Sims?

  But there's an episode-

• 2:26:52Speaker 04

  Correct, man.

• 2:26:52David Sims?

  Voyager where Tuvok, who is the Vulcan on Voyager, and Neelix, who is the bizarre alien chef that they picked up while they're in the Delta Quadrant.

• 2:26:59Speaker 04

  With his four-year-old girlfriend.

• 2:27:00David Sims?

  With, with a girlfriend who, yes, canonically is like three or four years old because she has a 10-year lifespan. He imprint it upon her? Let's not even get into it. Uh, merge in a teleporter accident into one being called Tuvix.

• 2:27:12Speaker 04

  The fly.

• 2:27:12David Sims?

  It's like a mix of them, right?

• 2:27:13Speaker 04

  The fly style.

• 2:27:14David Sims?

  Which is kind of fun, and the episode is kind of about how everyone's like, honestly, I kind of prefer Tuvix to either Tuvik or, like, Tuvok or Neelix. Like, kind of the best of both worlds with this guy, but then at the end of the episode, the doctor's like, so I figured out a way how to like, separate them. And Janeway's like, great news. And Tuvix is like, oh, hi, that would kill me. Like, I'm a new being. Like- Oh, fuck. You can't kill me. Like, that's murder. Yeah. And Janeway's like, got it, got it, got it. Think we gotta do it. And they do it. And then the episode just kind of ends with them being like, oh, that was kind of fucked up. And like, it's kind of never addressed again.

• 2:27:48Speaker 04

  Voyager rocks.

• 2:27:48David Sims?

  Voyager is so good.

• 2:27:50Speaker 04

  I love Voyager. Do you- my project while I drew Simplicity was I watched all of Star Trek.

• 2:27:54David Sims?

  Yes, hell yeah.

• 2:27:54Speaker 04

  All of it, from-

• 2:27:55David Sims?

  Original series?

• 2:27:57Speaker 04

  All the way through.

• 2:27:58David Sims?

  Did you watch the animated show?

• 2:27:59Speaker 04

  I didn't wa- I did not watch the 60s animated show.

• 2:28:01David Sims?

  I have never watched that, and I've always thought I should do that someday. Yeah.

• 2:28:03Speaker 04

  Um, yeah.

• 2:28:04David Sims?

  Would people prefer this podcast if it were hosted by Gravid?

• 2:28:09David Sims?

  Kind of like Gravid. I mean, it's like, again, the iconic Bluey episode, Mini Bluey, in which Bingo, Bluey paints Bingo blue and is like, here's how to be Bluey and like, you know, essentially be obnoxious. And the parents are like, god, this is so annoying. And then they're like, okay, well, there will be two Bingos. Mm-hmm. So Bingo paints Bluey brown. Mm-hmm. And then they're like Bingo, so they're both being good. And the dad's just like, honestly, this rocks. And Bluey is like, that hurts my feelings. And they're like, oh, sorry. And then the episode just- It's so good.

• 2:28:38Griffin Newman?

  That's good.

• 2:28:39Speaker 04

  It's really good.

• 2:28:39David Sims?

  Sorry, had to discuss that. Um, thank you for being with us, Matt.

• 2:28:43Speaker 04

  Oh, do you watch Bluey as a parent of young children?

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  Uh, I watch three episodes of Bluey every single day. I have seen every Bluey so many times, it is absolutely fucking crazy at this point. I can do like the dialogue.

• 2:28:52Griffin Newman?

  How many episodes are there in total?

• 2:28:53David Sims?

  There's about 150.

• 2:28:54Speaker 04

  Every parent I know is putting up me in 1998, watching The Simpsons numbers.

• 2:28:58David Sims?

  Watching Bluey, like, exactly correct, exactly the same vibe. And honestly, Bluey is so good that I am never like, ugh. There's like three Bluey episodes where when my daughter picks it, I'm like, this one. Everything else good. What's up, what's up, Ben?

• 2:29:11Griffin Newman?

  Well, the one where they explain how Bingo got his tattoos? It's a lost stroke.

• 2:29:16David Sims?

  It's a pretty, pretty good joke.

• 2:29:17Griffin Newman?

  It was okay. I was trying to think of shorthand for famously bad episode.

• 2:29:21David Sims?

  A famous skip.

• 2:29:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:23Speaker 03

  Uh, so links to all of Matty's.

• 2:29:26Speaker 04

  Plugs.

• 2:29:26Speaker 03

  Wonderful work.

• 2:29:27Speaker 04

  Good, good work.

• 2:29:27Speaker 03

  Are available in the episode description.

• 2:29:30Griffin Newman?

  Thank you for producing this podcast, Ben.

• 2:29:32Speaker 03

  I also have a plug.

• 2:29:33Speaker 04

  Oh, please.

• 2:29:34David Sims?

  Oh, I know what this plug is for. I've been seeing some IGs.

• 2:29:38Griffin Newman?

  It's the holiday season.

• 2:29:39Speaker 03

  It is of course the holiday season. This episode comes out on December 7th, so it's actually been about a week since Slow Christmas number five, released on all streaming platforms.

• 2:29:52Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps you've noticed shit slowing down around you.

• 2:29:55David Sims?

  Ho.

• 2:29:56Speaker 03

  Ho.

• 2:29:58David Sims?

  Ho.

• 2:29:58Speaker 04

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:29:59Griffin Newman?

  Slow Xmas V?

• 2:30:00Speaker 03

  Yep. This year, it's being served cold brrrr.

• 2:30:05David Sims?

  Unlike, unlike the others?

• 2:30:07Speaker 03

  Bundle up and sip away them holiday season blues with Wintery ethereal tunes. Yummy!

• 2:30:13David Sims?

  Well, love it.

• 2:30:13Griffin Newman?

  I like the implication that the other ones were too hot to touch.

• 2:30:20Speaker 03

  Uh, so a link to that album will be in the episode description as well. And then lastly, here at the end of the episode, before you take us out, Griffin, we're just gonna tack on at the end. We, a few months back when we were in LA, we've mentioned it, I think, in past episodes, we did, uh, we curated a screening.

• 2:30:40Griffin Newman?

  Uh, American Cinematheque, friend of the fest, we presented Hud Sucker Proxy.

• 2:30:44Speaker 03

  And we just did a little intro. They were nice enough to, uh, record that intro.

• 2:30:49Speaker 04

  Oh, cool.

• 2:30:50Speaker 03

  And so we'll just add that here at the end of the episode.

• 2:30:52David Sims?

  Enjoy that. This has been the end of our Coens, uh, series. I think we did our rankings on the Buster Scruggs app out of respect.

• 2:30:58Griffin Newman?

  More of the pomp and circumstance ending.

• 2:31:00Speaker 04

  Did you rank your Ethan?

• 2:31:01Griffin Newman?

  And yeah, here's my ranking of the Ethan Trisha Cook films.

• 2:31:05David Sims?

  Driveway dolls, Honey, Don't.

• 2:31:07Griffin Newman?

  Weird. I actually have in first, Driveway dolls. And in second, Honey, Don't.

• 2:31:12David Sims?

  Haven't watched the Jerry Lee Lewis thing yet. My guess is it's probably in between the two.

• 2:31:15Griffin Newman?

  No, I put it third. Now, let's rank our solo Joles quickly. At number one, I have The Tragedy of Macbeth.

• 2:31:22David Sims?

  Oh, interesting. Me too.

• 2:31:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:31:24David Sims?

  Okay. Uh, next week, we are going to do an episode on the new James L. Brooks movie, Ella McKay.

• 2:31:30Griffin Newman?

  Truly, of all the filmmakers we've covered who are still alive, the one I was least expecting would release another movie ever.

• 2:31:37David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Well, here it comes.

• 2:31:39Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of an exciting treat. And then the following weekend after that.

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  Uh, so this like indie project that's being put out by, I don't know, some studio I've never heard of. Avatar, colon, Fire and Ash. Now, Matty, I know you don't like those movies.

• 2:31:50Speaker 04

  I, okay.

• 2:31:50David Sims?

  Which is fine.

• 2:31:51Speaker 04

  I will get, I will keep, I will keep seeing them in theaters as long as I live.

• 2:31:55Griffin Newman?

  I, I think.

• 2:31:55Speaker 04

  Because I enjoy spectacle. I, I like.

• 2:31:57David Sims?

  You've never vibed with them as much as some.

• 2:31:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:32:00Griffin Newman?

  You don't like them yet.

• 2:32:01Speaker 04

  I have problems with Mr. Cameron's approach.

• 2:32:03Griffin Newman?

  He's gonna keep making them and one of these Aces gonna get you.

• 2:32:07Speaker 04

  Okay. I will say, watching the preview for the new one. Has me the most like, perhaps I will like this one because you, you wanna, you wanna think it's pretty cool is. Fire.

• 2:32:17Griffin Newman?

  Vrang, Ash.

• 2:32:18Speaker 04

  As a former pyromaniac.

• 2:32:20David Sims?

  Oh, so it was recovered, a lapse pyromaniac. I, I will then, I will actually, Griff, we should say, and then in January.

• 2:32:26Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 2:32:26David Sims?

  We will be doing an episode on.

• 2:32:30David Sims?

  Is this thing on?

• 2:32:31Griffin Newman?

  Wait a second. Is this thing?

• 2:32:32David Sims?

  What's going on?

• 2:32:33Griffin Newman?

  Is this thing on?

• 2:32:34David Sims?

  Bradley Cooper's said dad, stand up comedy divorce film.

• 2:32:39Griffin Newman?

  Completing our kind of, uh, in progress Bradley Cooper.

• 2:32:42David Sims?

  Not complaining. I assume we'll make more movies, but continuing.

• 2:32:45Griffin Newman?

  Continuing, sorry.

• 2:32:45David Sims?

  And then we're gonna do an episode on Park Ten Looks No Other Choice. There's lots of blank sheet, blank check directors at this point putting out movies all around Christmas time.

• 2:32:53Griffin Newman?

  It tends to happen this time of year.

• 2:32:55David Sims?

  The timing is pretty good though, because like you'll, these things will hopefully have been expanded enough that people will be able to see them, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:33:01Griffin Newman?

  December 28th is our one dark week every year, but we have a block of, uh, four episodes across five weeks that are all new releases. And then of course, as everyone knows, as everyone has guessed online.

• 2:33:13David Sims?

  Oceans are now battlefield.

• 2:33:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:33:17David Sims?

  Harrison Ford is John Book.

• 2:33:19Griffin Newman?

  Dig up your dead poets because the next mini series on main feed is Lynn Ramsey, you motherfuckers. You don't know shit. I'm doing Lynn Ramsey next, not Peter Weir, you motherfuckers. Peter Weir's after Lynn Ramsey.

• 2:33:32David Sims?

  Lynn Ramsey. We have, uh, we planned this long ago when we found that Lynn was finally doing another movie.

• 2:33:37Griffin Newman?

  One of, in my opinion, the best filmmakers alive and I've been waiting.

• 2:33:40David Sims?

  Has always said, whenever she does a movie, next, we're doing her. We're doing the five films, five feature films from, uh, the, that wacky Scott Lynn Ramsey.

• 2:33:49Griffin Newman?

  That wacky Scott.

• 2:33:50David Sims?

  And then indeed, we will be doing Peter Weir.

• 2:33:52Griffin Newman?

  It has just made us feel so big and special and smart. When people reading the tea leaves are like, so Weir is definitely next, right? And we're like, these fuckers don't even know. We're slipping in a quick five.

• 2:34:03David Sims?

  They might know when I log, like fucking Marvin Cowler or whatever.

• 2:34:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. Hey, fuck it. Since we're talking about 2026, over on the Patreon feed, we're gonna be kicking off the year with a new commentary series. We are.

• 2:34:14David Sims?

  Oh, that's true.

• 2:34:15Griffin Newman?

  The films of Wizard of Oz. Of Oz.

• 2:34:18David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:34:19Griffin Newman?

  The Ozes. They don't all have the wizard in them, although I guess they all kinda do.

• 2:34:23David Sims?

  I think they might all in some form or other. Does Return to Oz have one?

• 2:34:27Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying. I think the wizard does not appear in Return to Oz.

• 2:34:30David Sims?

  That might be the only one.

• 2:34:31Griffin Newman?

  But we are, we are, uh, in a Patreon commentary series, going to, uh, do, uh, Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz.

• 2:34:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:34:38Griffin Newman?

  The Wiz.

• 2:34:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:34:39Griffin Newman?

  Return to Oz, Wicked and Wicked for Good. We are not revisiting Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful.

• 2:34:45David Sims?

  You can, you can check that out.

• 2:34:46Griffin Newman?

  Are you guys gonna have a sphere?

• 2:34:48David Sims?

  I ain't going to no sphere.

• 2:34:49Griffin Newman?

  Matty, I think we should.

• 2:34:50David Sims?

  As much as I ethically support what's going on in that sphere.

• 2:34:54Griffin Newman?

  I just wanna see Phil Dolan in it, my friend and yours. I hear he's so good in it. I hear his performance is so good in it.

• 2:35:02David Sims?

  That harmonica, is Azlai's in there?

• 2:35:03Griffin Newman?

  He should have known. There's a part where he sings, I should have known about the wizard.

• 2:35:07David Sims?

  All right. We need to record ads. I need to go to the bathroom and then go home to my loving family.

• 2:35:10Griffin Newman?

  James Dolan being friends with Harvey Weinstein and then releasing a pop song about his guilt. Do you know about this?

• 2:35:16David Sims?

  I do, but we have, we have to be done.

• 2:35:19Griffin Newman?

  I think we could go another 20 minutes. Matty, thank you for being here.

• 2:35:21Speaker 04

  Oh my god, thank you so much for having me on. This is such a blast.

• 2:35:24Griffin Newman?

  You're the best.

• 2:35:24Speaker 04

  Matty, I love the show so much. It's very important for me that I got to come on.

• 2:35:27David Sims?

  That's very nice of you, and it was good to have you on. I promise you will return to the show not to do Honey Don't. There will be better films in your future, or at least more interesting.

• 2:35:36Speaker 04

  David, you can't promise that we won't ask Matty to do Honey Don't again.

• 2:35:40David Sims?

  It's possible we'll do another Honey Don't. You never know.

• 2:35:42Griffin Newman?

  You can't promise that.

• 2:35:43David Sims?

  A honey double dip.

• 2:35:44Griffin Newman?

  It could always happen.

• 2:35:45Speaker 03

  I mean, we revisited Clifford, so we maybe-

• 2:35:47David Sims?

  Right, and this film's definitely as good as that one.

• 2:35:49Speaker 03

  Maybe we just have to go back and do Honey Don't.

• 2:35:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Matty, you contributed an art piece to our Decade of Dreams art show earlier this year. A really good bits, retired bits hanging up the rafters piece. I just wanted to make sure we vocally thanked you on microphone for that.

• 2:36:05Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. That was such an incredible blast to draw.

• 2:36:08Griffin Newman?

  It was so much fun.

• 2:36:09Speaker 04

  I really enjoyed drawing some buried jeans.

• 2:36:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:36:14Griffin Newman?

  Everyone should read your books and listen to your podcasts.

• 2:36:16Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 2:36:17Griffin Newman?

  And thank you all for listening, and I hope you all have fun checking out these new releases with us, and then Lynn Ramsey in January. And then, of course, we're never covering Peter Weir. Thank you all for listening, and as always, Honey Don't is about vaginas.

• 2:36:40Speaker 02

  Without further ado, please welcome, from Lake Check, Griffin, Beth, and Marie.

• 2:36:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, hello. Oh, wait. Should we be color-coordinating who lives with Mike? Courts? Yeah, okay.

• 2:36:59Speaker 02

  I don't think there's a purple one.

• 2:37:01Griffin Newman?

  Ben's got the- I got the yellow. We maybe can blind a couple colors.

• 2:37:06Griffin Newman?

  Hello, everybody. Now that we got that important business out of the way, thank you so much for coming here.

• 2:37:15Griffin Newman?

  Maybe gonna try to attempt to do the first three-person hula hoop live intro simultaneous performance.

• 2:37:22Speaker 03

  I don't think that we had planned for wired mics.

• 2:37:25Griffin Newman?

  That was not, it was not a consideration. We'd ask for headsets, we'd ask for a headset mic.

• 2:37:30Speaker 03

  Okay, maybe let's try and get a little bit of distance.

• 2:37:32Griffin Newman?

  Okay, maybe this is the solution.

• 2:37:34Speaker 03

  This is great, we're just working it out on the fly.

• 2:37:37Griffin Newman?

  Bree's husband said, "However good you think you are at this, it's a lot harder than it seems." And I said, "I think I'm terrible at this." So it's gonna be a real, okay.

• 2:37:48Speaker 02

  I read that you're supposed to put like one foot in front of the other.

• 2:37:51Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:37:52Speaker 02

  And then like keep your, your top part of your body straight, and then just kinda like this.

• 2:37:58Griffin Newman?

  It's a this thing? I thought it was a hip thing.

• 2:38:01Speaker 02

  It's a, yeah. It's in hips.

• 2:38:04Speaker 03

  Alright, on three, one, two, three.

• 2:38:08Speaker 02

  That was really good, guys.

• 2:38:14Griffin Newman?

  That was really good. It's kind of an A for effort situation.

• 2:38:18Speaker 03

  About as well as I thought it would.

• 2:38:19Griffin Newman?

  Spent forty-five dollars on this.

• 2:38:21Speaker 02

  We bought them at the groves. It was kind of a markup situation.

• 2:38:25Griffin Newman?

  There was an activation happening, free perfume samples. Who here has seen this movie before? And let's, let's do the inverse, who has never seen this film before?

• 2:38:36Speaker 03

  You'll have the hula hoop thing later.

• 2:38:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It'll make sense. It's only a spoiler if you acknowledge that I just told you it was a spoiler. It seemed random. This is, this is one of my favorite movies of all time. One of my ten favorites, which, with our very, very normal listenership online. And when I say this, by the way, all of you are cool and normal. I'm talking only about the Redditors, who aren't in the room. But I've seen a lot of preemptive, "Is Griffin really gonna fucking rank Hudsucker above Fargo?" and no country.

• 2:39:13Speaker 02

  Well, you said on the episode, you were like...

• 2:39:14Griffin Newman?

  I've said this many times.

• 2:39:15Speaker 02

  It's my favorite, but I wouldn't say it's their best.

• 2:39:18Griffin Newman?

  They made Fargo, I know they made Fargo. I'm not an idiot. These guys have made like fifteen masterpieces. But this is a movie that is just so completely on my wavelength. It is, uh, it's, it's, it's just like the pop song I can't help but dance to. Um, I saw it for the first time in thirty-five millimeter at, uh, MoMA in New York City. And I went into seeing it being like, this is the one everyone thinks sucks, right? And from the first shot, uh, e- even those of you who have seen this before, if you haven't seen it on big screen, if you haven't seen it on celluloid, I, I do think it is like genuinely one of the great, uh, film craft movies. Uh, it is like the one time they got to work on a really big budget with entirely analog

• 2:40:02Griffin Newman?

  models and sets and costumes and practical, uh, optically printed effects and all these things that, uh, just kinda make me cry thinking about them existing. We used to make things in this country and if I could just...

• 2:40:16Griffin Newman?

  Hurt me a moment here. Uh, this film was of course shot in, uh, North Carolina.

• 2:40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does feel like a New York movie, which is funny, cause we're in LA.

• 2:40:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:40:29Speaker 02

  And Lebowski is our current.

• 2:40:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:40:32Speaker 02

  Episode, and that's a LA movie.

• 2:40:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but I believe The Crow, which we just covered on our Patreon, also was shot in North Carolina.

• 2:40:40Speaker 02

  The same set?

• 2:40:41Griffin Newman?

  The Super Mario Brothers movie, I think at least one of the Ninja Turtles, there was this weird rush in the eighties and nineties to build your fake.

• 2:40:49Speaker 02

  Like shitty New York in North Carolina?

• 2:40:52Griffin Newman?

  A lot of them are reusing these same things and in particular, this movie, the Coen Brothers tricked Joel Silver into getting Warner Brothers to give him a bunch of money to build these buildings that were reused like a trillion times. Uh, so if you're like, man, I can't believe they let the Coen Brothers build these crazy sets, Joel Schumacher stole them.

• 2:41:13Griffin Newman?

  Batman scaled these buildings many times. You know, even since our episode came out, I've had a lot of people be like, "I really just, I frankly don't get this movie." And I think it's a really interesting one because it seems to split people on... For Coen Brothers fans, who have some hangups with them, they feel like this movie is emblematic of, or they just pastiche. Is it just style? Is it just effect? And is this movie really cynical? Is this movie making fun of all of its characters? Is it all a lark? And I have the read that I think this is quietly their most sincere film. I think they mean everything in it. I think it's a fascinating midpoint between them and Sam Raimi, who they came up with.

• 2:41:58Griffin Newman?

  It is what they tried to do with Crime Wave, obviously one of the best movies ever made. Love that movie. But making a tribute to the kind of films they grew up loving, but infusing it with a modern sensibility and combining different eras and different styles. And I think it is, at the end of the day, a very open-hearted movie about what if the dumbest guy had the best idea? And it's a really, really fun conceit for a film to have the entire audience know that he's right from the beginning. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll learn soon enough. But thank you to the folks at American Cinematheque. Obviously, to be here.

• 2:42:37Speaker 03

  But Griffin, I mean, speaking of sincerity and a really good idea. I actually brought a prototype out here with me today. So I'm just gonna want to say...

• 2:42:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Ben's trying to launch a new product here tonight.

• 2:42:51Speaker 03

  Okay. So what we have here is a chain for bad kids. And you can do a lot of stuff with it. I mean, you look cool.

• 2:43:06Griffin Newman?

  And just quick show of hands.

• 2:43:07Speaker 03

  You can have it swinging around. I mean, there's endless possibilities.

• 2:43:11Speaker 02

  It seems like easy to scale, you know?

• 2:43:14Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:43:16Griffin Newman?

  Quick show of hands now that the chain's been brought out. Who has never listened to the podcast Blank Check?

• 2:43:22Speaker 03

  Again, once you see the movie, you'll get it.

• 2:43:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Maybe not the chain part, but everything else. Thank you for being here.

• 2:43:29Speaker 03

  Thank you, everyone.