I Could Never Be Your Woman with Karen Chee

Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Amy Heckerling and Paul Rudd stars as ????? in a totally normal movie that might actually be a voodoo curse made against Amy’s enemies. Oh, also Saorise Ronan makes her FILM DEBUT. What a picture! The incomparable Karen Chee joins us to talk about 2007’s I Could Never Be Your Woman, a movie that was financed by a French scoundrel, released directly to Blockbuster, and features some of the most dated cultural references we’ve ever come across. Is the film good? No. Is it fascinating? We sure think so! Watch A Man on the Inside on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81677257 Listen to Yo-Yo Ma https://open.spotify.com/artist/5Dl3HXZjG6ZOWT5cV375lk?si=vSrkNe-tQ9OnPU16rNX3FA Check out Paul Rudd’s trick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqayRIIhzLM Follow Karen on Letterboxd https://boxd.it/784X7 Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31David Sims?

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33David Sims?

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37David Sims?

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50David 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.

• 1:10David Sims?

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

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  What's so great about natural?

• 1:40David Sims?

  What?

• 1:41Griffin Newman?

  Think about it. Tobacco is natural. Prozac's unnatural. Earthquakes are natural. Podcasts unnatural. Natural sucks. Now, here's the thing that's interesting about this movie.

• 1:52David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:53Griffin Newman?

  I was quoting lines that are recited by Michelle Pfeiffer.

• 1:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:57Griffin Newman?

  Academy Award nominee.

• 1:59David Sims?

  Not a winner, though.

• 1:59Griffin Newman?

  Iconic movie star.

• 2:01David Sims?

  True.

• 2:01Griffin Newman?

  Playing a character who is the showrunner of a TV show about teenagers. A very clear stand-in for Amy Heckerling, the writer and director of this film. The character she's speaking to. Is Mother Nature.

• 2:14David Sims?

  That's right. You didn't, you followed that, right?

• 2:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. If you, the listener, have not watched this movie, and I can't imagine this being a film you skipped watching before listening to the episode.

• 2:22David Sims?

  It's on Peacock.

• 2:23Griffin Newman?

  You're hearing that conversation, go, what, is this her talking to a friend, a doctor? No. A, a physical human embodiment of Mother Nature, played by Tracey Ullman, in what I will say is one of the most normal movies we have ever covered on this podcast.

• 2:36David Sims?

  So, did you watch it with my wife, this movie? Cause I watch it with my wife. Did you watch it with my wife?

• 2:42Griffin Newman?

  I don't even remember. Okay.

• 2:43David Sims?

  Karen, did you watch it with my wife? I watched it with your wife. Okay, cool. So did she also ask you every 10 minutes, is that character a ghost?

• 2:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:51David Sims?

  Is she with, can anyone see her? Why is she there? Who is she?

• 2:55Griffin Newman?

  I feel like only in the last 10 minutes of the movie, does Michelle Pfeiffer go, you're a figment of my imagination.

• 2:59David Sims?

  Yeah, and I mean, and I had to go to Wikipedia and see that she's listed as Mother Nature, and go like, oh, well, it doesn't make sense now, but at least I sort of, I have some idea of what's going on.

• 3:13Griffin Newman?

  She says it. She self-identifies within her opening monologue, but in a way that is so confusing that you assume she's making a joke.

• 3:20David Sims?

  Yeah, I figured she was just her hippie friend, and then I'm like, no, no, she's a ghost, or, of, right, the embodiment of, of, of a natural person.

• 3:28Griffin Newman?

  This movie opens with footage of animals, nature photography.

• 3:32David Sims?

  That's right, I forgot about that.

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  Of animals attacking and fucking each other. And then cuts to Tracey Ullman seemingly filmed on like, the cameras they shot Jackass on, in the middle of a forest, monologuing directly to camera as Mother Nature.

• 3:47David Sims?

  She's in like a white dress with like some leaves in her hair and stuff.

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  And they got this really soft green kind of glow around her. And then it just cuts to like, we're here making a teen TV show, and you don't, you have no, within five minutes, you're like, I have no bearings on what this movie is. 10 out of 10, perfect film. Thank you all for listening, please remember.

• 4:07David Sims?

  You didn't even tell me what the show is.

• 4:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay. It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 4:11David Sims?

  I'm David. I'm Karen. Yeah, Karen! I was like, is she gonna remember to do that? Karen.

• 4:18Griffin Newman?

  Of course you remember.

• 4:19David Sims?

  Oh my God. Welcome.

• 4:22Griffin Newman?

  This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And then sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce and sometimes they give you a check and then you find out the check is like half of what you thought it was and you have to make it under very weird circumstances. And then it sits on a shelf for three years and goes direct to Blockbuster.

• 4:49David Sims?

  That's what this, do you know, I will tell you Karen.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  That's what happened to this movie?

• 4:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:54Griffin Newman?

  To my knowledge, this is the only instance of this in history. This was Blockbuster being like, fuck Netflix is starting to gain a little.

• 5:01David Sims?

  Yeah, it's when Blockbuster isn't exactly booming.

• 5:03Griffin Newman?

  How do we compete with them?

• 5:04Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, in 2007, did it go to one Blockbuster?

• 5:08David Sims?

  There were a few.

• 5:09Griffin Newman?

  I just want to say this, this movie was filmed in 2005. It had planned theatrical releases from two different distributors canceled in 2006. Then someone new buys it, plans a release, cancels it again in 2007. And then in 2008, Blockbuster is heavily promoting that this is a only at Blockbuster film. This film does not exist in, in any physical form at that point in time, other than you can rent it on a physical disc. You cannot stream it, you cannot rent it digitally, you cannot buy it. Now it is like available on other channels, but Blockbuster had the exclusive rental rights for this movie.

• 5:50David Sims?

  It would be weird if it was still only available at Blockbuster. You'd have to go to like that one that's in Oregon or whatever.

• 5:54Griffin Newman?

  This movie would already be fascinating to talk about because it's unhinged and bizarre. And then you read just a little bit about the story of how it got made and it's three year.

• 6:04David Sims?

  Is it Oregon or Oregon?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  The state?

• 6:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 6:08Griffin Newman?

  I say Oregon.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  I say Oregon.

• 6:09David Sims?

  Oregon. Okay.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  What, what were you saying? Oregon?

• 6:12David Sims?

  No, I said Oregon, but I'm like, sometimes, I know people have a whole thing about how you say it.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's Aragorn.

• 6:19David Sims?

  And when he kicked the thing, he broke his foot. You know?

• 6:23Griffin Newman?

  I always thought it was Portland Strider.

• 6:26David Sims?

  That's pretty good.

• 6:27Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. That's like an okay joke, right? Today, we're talking about Amy Heckerling's 2005, scratch that 2006, scratch that 2007, scratch that 2008 release, I Could Never Be Your Woman.

• 6:38David Sims?

  You couldn't.

• 6:39Griffin Newman?

  You couldn't.

• 6:39David Sims?

  You could never be my woman. A movie where the title references a song that's good, but so old that I bought it on cassette when it came out, White Town's Your Woman.

• 6:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 6:50David Sims?

  In 1997, I was like, I'm gonna get my prepubescent ass to Virgin Megastores to buy this hot single on cassette, Griff. I owned it on cassette.

• 7:01Griffin Newman?

  It is, was it a c- single or was it the full out?

• 7:03David Sims?

  It was a c- single. Yes. It had, it had like one B-side.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  That was a c- single. We were just talking about right before this, David was mocking guests who are quiet during the levels check and then get really loud. And now within five minutes, David is yelling c- single at full volume.

• 7:18David Sims?

  That's right. I had the c- singles. It's a good song. You know that song?

• 7:23Speaker 04

  No.

• 7:23David Sims?

  Ah, for crying out loud.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Wait, was the song in the movie?

• 7:27David Sims?

  It is in the movie quite late.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  Never be a woman. Oh, that's a good one.

• 7:31David Sims?

  I can never be a woman. Yeah, it's, you know, that's what it is. They're, that's what it's based on.

• 7:37Griffin Newman?

  We are at the 20th anniversary of this film being shot, right?

• 7:41Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 7:42Griffin Newman?

  And when it finally came out in 2008, there's an incredible Entertainment Weekly article and Heckerling says, like, this was my nightmare. This film is coming out three years late and all the references don't make sense anymore.

• 7:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 7:53Griffin Newman?

  And I haven't tried to be a hyper topical filmmaker in my life, but there are like 15 jokes that specifically now are meaningless. So then anytime there was like a music cue, I'd be like, okay, so was that a new release song at the time she was filming this? And you look it up and like, a lot of them are 1998. So you're like, it's a movie shot in 2005 with a lot of pop culture references from 1998 that then came out in 2008. It's like two levels of disconnected.

• 8:23David Sims?

  Look, we're gonna talk about it. Karen, you've never seen this movie. Oh, who's our guest?

• 8:27Griffin Newman?

  This is a mini-series on the films of Amy Heckerling. It's called Pod Times at Richmond Cast. And our guest today returning to the show is Karen Chee.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Yay!

• 8:34Griffin Newman?

  The great Karen Chee. I forgot to ask if you want any specific introduction.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I don't.

• 8:38Griffin Newman?

  But you introduced yourself.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  What do you mean? I refuse to be introduced.

• 8:41David Sims?

  Queen Karen.

• 8:42Griffin Newman?

  Queen Karen. Queen of the bit.

• 8:43David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 8:46Griffin Newman?

  So wait, I'm surprised you didn't rent I Could Never Be Your Woman from Blockbuster in 2008?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  No, I should have. What was I doing?

• 8:52David Sims?

  Well, what were you doing? How old were you in 2008?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  I was 13 in 2008.

• 8:55David Sims?

  Okay, so.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:57David Sims?

  You could leave the house.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was allowed to leave the house.

• 9:00David Sims?

  Spending money, probably, right?

• 9:01Griffin Newman?

  You were like Saoirse age. You were practicing slut-shaming parody songs in your dreamy.

• 9:05David Sims?

  You're prank calling Henry Winkler.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  I was being a slut and prank calling Henry Winkler.

• 9:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Being a slut and making fun of pop stars for being sluts.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:14Griffin Newman?

  Taking lessons from your mom on how to be a more effective slut.

• 9:18David Sims?

  I think their relationship is good in this movie. There's a lot of things in this movie that I was like, ah, we're close.

• 9:24Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you.

• 9:24David Sims?

  We're close to cooking.

• 9:26Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you. And like, I feel a way about this movie that I wish I felt more about like, let's say, late period James L. Brooks, where I'm like, I can see it.

• 9:37David Sims?

  Now, Karen, wait, I don't want to blow up your spot, Karen.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Okay. Please do. No.

• 9:41David Sims?

  So I'll be quiet.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  What were you gonna say?

• 9:42David Sims?

  So last time you were on this podcast was for I'm a Cyborg, But That's Okay, the Bon Joon Ho comedy, tragic comedy, whatever you want to call it. When was that, Griff? Like, two years ago?

• 9:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sounds right.

• 9:52David Sims?

  Bon Joon Ho, what was I gonna say? Park Chan Wook. Jesus Christ.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Jesus Christ.

• 9:55David Sims?

  That was very offensive.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  Cancel David.

• 9:59David Sims?

  And you were like, I'm not a huge movie person.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 10:02David Sims?

  Now you are a movie person.

• 10:04Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the transformation has happened.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Deeply movie-pilled.

• 10:06David Sims?

  Karen joined Letterboxd, and she is logging. Karen is every week, there's two or three new logs, and like, broadcast news.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  I love broadcast news!

• 10:16David Sims?

  Is something Karen logged and was like, where's this movie been all my life?

• 10:19Griffin Newman?

  One of the best movies I've ever made. One of my ten favorite movies. But I don't know if you've seen the second half of his career.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't, I don't, I'm still not sure what it means. Well, I mean, I understand what it means. I just don't know where in his career it falls.

• 10:32Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the real follow-up, Spanglish is a film that Ben adores.

• 10:35David Sims?

  Spanglish, um, yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Thank you for your contribution, Ben.

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  How do you know a Paul Rudd film?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:45Griffin Newman?

  Another Kind of Curse production, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson's final film. He's got a new film coming out this year.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 10:53David Sims?

  Who, oh, James H. Brooks.

• 10:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:54David Sims?

  Yes. It's called Ella McKay.

• 10:56Griffin Newman?

  But like, broadcast news is so perfect.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:00Griffin Newman?

  That like, my standards are so high every time he finally makes something new.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 11:04Griffin Newman?

  And I watch it and I'm just like, the faintest glimmers. I can see it there, but how did this guy lose it? This feels like you can fully see the successful version of this movie.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:16Griffin Newman?

  It's just like surrounded in mania and chaos. But it's not even like, oh, fuck, that's like half a good scene. It's like all of the threads kind of make sense from a distance.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think the biggest issue for me with this movie is that I think it would have worked better if Michelle Pfeiffer were less hot, right?

• 11:36David Sims?

  Look, Michelle Pfeiffer should be less hot and Paul Rudd should be less old. God bless Paul Rudd, I love you so much.

• 11:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 11:42David Sims?

  Love you dearly.

• 11:43Griffin Newman?

  Here's, right.

• 11:44David Sims?

  But I, I have to imagine she needed a movie star to get this movie made and she knew Paul Rudd very well, having made another movie with him, and that's how that all happened. I'll open the dossier and look to find out more. But certainly, a movie where Michelle Pfeiffer stressed out about how young Paul Rudd is, should not feature a seasoned 35-year-old Paul Rudd.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:04David Sims?

  Like, I just, I love Paul Rudd.

• 12:07Griffin Newman?

  Well, here's the craziest thing.

• 12:07David Sims?

  And he's the best part of this movie and he's a funny, funny man.

• 12:11Griffin Newman?

  Here's, this movie, if anything, if there's, if there's a central hook to this film, it's successful divorced woman in her late 40s falls for hot, charming, up and coming, struggling actor in his late 20s. And they navigate, can this relationship work despite the age difference and us being in different places in our careers, right? Michelle Pfeiffer.

• 12:39Griffin Newman?

  Ages beautifully.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:40David Sims?

  She's gorgeous.

• 12:41Griffin Newman?

  She had aged beautifully at that time.

• 12:42David Sims?

  She's a stunning luminous creature.

• 12:45Griffin Newman?

  Right? But so in a movie, she's like, everything's falling apart. You're like, God, what I would give for things to fall apart like that.

• 12:51David Sims?

  My wife and I are for 20 minutes like, how could she have been married to Lovitz? What's this situation?

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Love it.

• 12:56David Sims?

  Carry on.

• 12:58Griffin Newman?

  Paul Rudd in this movie is supposed to be 29. That's like a twist. Oh, my God, you're even younger than I thought.

• 13:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. Uh, we all like to joke about Paul Rudd being immortal and aging so well. But he was 35 when they shot this. He was 38 by the time it came out. There is no part of him that feels like a 29 year old. And like most brutally, this movie comes out six months after Knocked Up, which I think there's a dividing line there of like, once Paul Rudd has been reframed in a movie as like, he could be a family man.

• 13:28David Sims?

  Yeah, that's actually fascinating.

• 13:30Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 13:30David Sims?

  What a weird career.

• 13:31Griffin Newman?

  Was shot two years before, but like when you've seen him raising Judd Apatow's children, you're like, this guy's not a boy.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:39David Sims?

  For sure. And but that also just reminds me that when Paul Rudd was in Knocked Up, very good performance. The line on him was still like, no one's figured out what a movie star this guy is. And it's like a year later that we get like role models. And then I Love You Man and stuff. And then it's like, okay, we finally realized. Like Hollywood's finally.

• 14:00Griffin Newman?

  Big part of that. I mean, like Apatow sort of saw it. And then Knocked Up finally gives him the juice to start like developing his own movies and co-writing. I think that's the other big part of it is him not being slotted into shit. And like working with his own collaborators or like helping make the movie.

• 14:19David Sims?

  Oh, my God, there's so much to discuss. This film, do you know in Spain where this film was first released? This film was called El Novio de mi Madre.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  Spain was, I think.

• 14:28David Sims?

  My mother's boyfriend is what it was called.

• 14:30Griffin Newman?

  Hey, Spain's the only country where I think it got a theatrical release?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Wait, what? Why?

• 14:34David Sims?

  It was it was where it first got a theatrical release, not only. Yeah.

• 14:38Griffin Newman?

  But a year earlier in 2007.

• 14:39David Sims?

  2007 it was released in Spain because the Spanish love, you know, industry comedy, like insider sitcom, axe grind.

• 14:48David Sims?

  And shit like that. Yeah.

• 14:51Griffin Newman?

  I bought a.

• 14:52David Sims?

  And this movie does have the overlit insanity of an Almodovar movie.

• 14:56Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna get to it. I bought a Dutch Blu-ray of this movie because I believe it was the only country in which it was released in.

• 15:02David Sims?

  And the tariffs meant that was like forty eight dollars.

• 15:04Griffin Newman?

  I got in pre tariffs. The benefit of us planning the show far in advance. But it's like I would, I'm a dork who wants the physical media of the movies we cover and I'm like, look at the history of our show kind of way.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  I remember this.

• 15:16Griffin Newman?

  And it's used Blockbuster DVDs or Dutch Blu-ray. Nothing in between. Yeah, everything about this movie is fascinating. Karen, I had heard people referring to you as Kenny Chee recently, and I was confused as to why you had gotten that nickname.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Oh, wait.

• 15:34Griffin Newman?

  But it's because your logins on Letterboxd are through the roof. I didn't realize you'd become such a movie fan.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Wait, as Kenny Chee?

• 15:41Griffin Newman?

  Kenny Loggins.

• 15:44David Sims?

  Just did the worst joke of all.

• 15:45Griffin Newman?

  Because you're doing logins. I'm circling back to something David said ten minutes ago.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  The shocking thing is that my dad's name is Kenny Chee.

• 15:51Griffin Newman?

  Is he really?

• 15:52Speaker 03

  I was like, who is calling me that? My dad loves Kenny G so much that when he immigrated to the US in South Korea, he named himself.

• 16:00David Sims?

  Wait, whoa, he took the name Kenny in honor of Mr. G?

• 16:07Speaker 03

  He doesn't understand why this is funny. Like, I talk about it. I just joke about this because he didn't understand. No, he just sincerely loves Kenny G, the musician.

• 16:16David Sims?

  Did he love Kenny G in Korea? Like, he, he was like arriving in America being like, if I know one thing, it's Kenny G.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  Was Kenny G why he came to America? Was he like, the whole country must be guys like this?

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, imagine how disappointed he would have been. No, I don't think that's why, but he's like such a weird goofy guy who's very sincere all the time and I think doesn't realize he's very funny.

• 16:37David Sims?

  Sounds cool. What's his, what does he do? What's your dad do?

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Oh, my dad works in cargo for an airline company.

• 16:42David Sims?

  Hell, yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, cool guy.

• 16:44David Sims?

  One of my sons just did a big poop.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 16:46David Sims?

  I should, I should read it aloud every time I get those texts. I get a text every time my children poop. Not my daughter at this point.

• 16:54Griffin Newman?

  I do too weirdly, and I keep hitting unsubscribe. I keep getting them.

• 16:58David Sims?

  So.

• 17:00David Sims?

  What was I gonna say? I could never be a woman. So Karen, you're coming.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:04David Sims?

  Karen's like, oh, I'm gonna come back to the show.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Right, right. Kenny Loggins.

• 17:07David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, Karen. Yeah.

• 17:10Griffin Newman?

  Karen's a cinephile now. It's the point.

• 17:11David Sims?

  You love cinema now.

• 17:12Griffin Newman?

  You were on, you were like, here are the types of movies I'd love to come back on for.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 17:16Griffin Newman?

  And you were throwing out a lot of children's films.

• 17:19David Sims?

  Right, which is fine.

• 17:20Griffin Newman?

  I love kids' movies.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:22Griffin Newman?

  But you were like, when's the next animated thing?

• 17:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:25Griffin Newman?

  Like, are you gonna do Paddington on Patreon?

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 17:27Griffin Newman?

  That's what you were pushing us towards to keep you in mind for.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:31David Sims?

  And then I text you, oh, we're doing heckling. She's done a lot of rom-coms and stuff, I imagine. You know, and you're like, oh, Paul Rudd, you know, we'll do this movie that no one's ever seen. And you love Paul Rudd. And Karen, you watched The Bakery Girl of Monceau?

• 17:42Speaker 03

  I did.

• 17:43David Sims?

  Isn't it so good?

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:44David Sims?

  You gotta watch all those. You gotta watch them all.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  I gotta, I gotta keep going through.

• 17:48David Sims?

  You're having to. Look at these logs. She's got True Grit, Saving Private Ryan. What made you watch Saving Private Ryan?

• 17:55Speaker 03

  Here's what happened is my mom went back to school like a year and a half ago. And she's taking a US history class and on her syllabus, Saving Private Ryan was like a recommended watch.

• 18:03David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  So she came home, I was visiting home. She came home from school and my dad was like, oh, like, do you guys wanna watch a movie? And we were like, yeah, cute, movie night. She went, we're watching Saving Private Ryan.

• 18:15David Sims?

  I mean, I like Saving Private Ryan. It's just not the chillest watch.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  No, it was really intense, I would say. And I, yeah, we all cried.

• 18:21Griffin Newman?

  It's maybe the most stressed I've ever felt watching a movie.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 18:25David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, great movie. But I mean, just look, look at this, you know, this, this Aaron Brockovich.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:31David Sims?

  Conclave. Chantel Ackerman's News from Home. Like, I love, you know, I like it when a curveball like that pops up.

• 18:37Griffin Newman?

  This is so fascinating because the streets kept on whispering the name Kenny Chee. And I said, Karen's dad? Who works in cargo for airlines? And they were like, no, don't you know that's Karen's nickname now? Cause she be Loggins.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  That's a really good joke.

• 18:52Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  That's a really good joke.

• 18:53Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes you just have to beat it and take a second pass.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't smart enough the first time.

• 18:58David Sims?

  I told you.

• 18:58Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no. I just, I hit a, a level of truth I didn't understand and I had to reframe the joke around it.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  You're right, you're right.

• 19:04David Sims?

  So, um, I told you, we're gonna do this movie. You watched this film. What'd you think of I Could Never Be Your Woman? Just, just, you know, initial impression, that's all. I just wanna hear that.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  It was so bonkers. I guess I have three initial impressions. One is, it was so bonkers.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Two is Saoirse Ronan was incredible.

• 19:24David Sims?

  She's really locked in.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  She's so talented.

• 19:27David Sims?

  It is kind of one of those scenes where like, damn, you lucked out with this casting. Like, 99 out of 100. I know, I know.

• 19:33Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, as wild and bonkers that this movie must have felt in 2008, with every passing year and the evolution of Saoirse Ronan's career, it becomes that much stranger that it's, that's her, she's this good.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. She's so charismatic, like so fun, so charming.

• 19:49David Sims?

  She's great, she's great. Saoirse Ronan is in this film.

• 19:52Griffin Newman?

  But absolute disconnect from everything else for the rest of, like, she does this and then she immediately does Atonement and The Lovely Bones.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 19:58Griffin Newman?

  Like, she does two child performances that are like, yes, this is representative of who she will be as an adult actor. She gets an Oscar nomination for Atonement as a child.

• 20:06David Sims?

  This is her most ladybird-coded performance of the three, you know?

• 20:10Speaker 03

  She wants to be called a different name.

• 20:12David Sims?

  That is true. She does debut that late in the film, doesn't come up with it. She's like, I wanna be called Drew.

• 20:15Griffin Newman?

  Weird Drew.

• 20:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 20:17Griffin Newman?

  Just doing like Weird Al stuff.

• 20:19David Sims?

  Yeah. Anyway, uh, so those are your first impression was bonkers. Second impression was Saoirse Ronan's so good. What was your third impression?

• 20:24Speaker 03

  The third impression was, I was like, Amy Heckerling must have just watched Peep Show and been like, I want those people in my movie.

• 20:30David Sims?

  That was a true, my brain started, where I was like, oh, it's funny, there, there's, there's an English actor.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:35David Sims?

  Sarah Alexander, I know her. And then like, it keeps happening where I'm like, why is everyone English? Like, is this like a trick?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  With Olivia Colman in it with no why.

• 20:43David Sims?

  David Mitchell, obviously, uh, you know, Graham Norton, like, but like, and then you learn, okay, a lot of it was shot in Britain and that helps, you understand?

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  I believe, cause I was, I was trying to watch closely, I believe this was shot entirely in Britain, other than like second unit. Exterior.

• 21:02David Sims?

  Lot that one time where I'm like, they must have gone to the lot.

• 21:05Griffin Newman?

  I think they got like a day on the lot in between sound stages. And then every other exterior shot of LA, you don't see actors in.

• 21:13David Sims?

  Right.

• 21:14Griffin Newman?

  Any shot that is clearly real LA.

• 21:17David Sims?

  And but all the sets, which were so, you know, finely constructed and well lit, like they they were locations, right? They were real places.

• 21:25Griffin Newman?

  Your letterbox log, and for a second I thought I was looking at Karen's page and I said, at Kenny?

• 21:31Speaker 03

  No, keep bringing back.

• 21:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I don't know if that one tracks internally, but you said this film was lit by Satan.

• 21:41David Sims?

  I mean, it's just insane. And, you know, again, my wife, who is less, you know, she's she's watching a film for story and dialogue and, you know, character. But even she was sort of like, why does it look this way? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know.

• 21:58Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 21:59David Sims?

  But I was saying to her, like, Clueless looks incredible. Like, obviously, the great Bill Pope shot Clueless. Great cinematographer.

• 22:05Griffin Newman?

  But you know who shot?

• 22:06David Sims?

  Brian Tofano, who is shot Trainspotting and a lot of Danny Boyle movies.

• 22:10Griffin Newman?

  Like Mike Lee and Ken Loach film.

• 22:12David Sims?

  So I don't know what's going on. My only theory was that Michelle Pfeiffer was like, you must bounce stadium lighting off my face at all times.

• 22:20Griffin Newman?

  I think that is some of it, but I also think this speaks to sort of like the weird mania around this movie, the bonkers feeling, right? And it's just like, this is the kind of shit that like fucks up careers, right? She's got the script she wants to do. Every studio is like, it's a comedy about a woman over the age of 40? Who wants to see that? You know, she's like, I got Michelle Pfeiffer. They're like, Michelle Pfeiffer? She hasn't been in a movie in five years. We don't know if she's valuable. Some weird eccentric guy who we'll talk about deeply in a moment. Once we get to the dossier, he's like, I love this script. I'll give you $20 million to make it right now. Provision. You have to film the entire movie in Great Britain. And you get to these turning points. No, but clearly he found some tie in of like.

• 23:03David Sims?

  He probably got a tax break or something.

• 23:05Griffin Newman?

  And this guy was later, was I think convicted for financial fraud, both right before and right after this movie.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Jeffrey Epstein.

• 23:13Griffin Newman?

  It was Jeffrey Epstein. No, this guy who we'll talk about.

• 23:17David Sims?

  Really, really, really weird if it was Jeffrey Epstein. That would be quite a twist.

• 23:21Griffin Newman?

  That's the one thing that could make this movie more insane is if Jeffrey Epstein financed it just because he liked the script. About a movie about older women.

• 23:32Griffin Newman?

  These moments that like define someone's career where they're like, here's the great news. $20 million, you can make your movie stipulation. You have to film the whole thing in Britain. And you're like, huh, it's a Hollywood industry comedy that takes place mostly on black lot, back lots.

• 23:49David Sims?

  It's true. This is not the best, dude. I mean, Britain has sound stages, but it is true that it is an LA comedy.

• 23:54Griffin Newman?

  They don't call it sunny London town. And so I do feel this sense of a great cinematographer who didn't generally.

• 24:02David Sims?

  Shoot in LA.

• 24:05Griffin Newman?

  But also like didn't shoot like broad comedies. He's got a movie star who has like a lot of stipulations, probably about how she's lit and framed. And then they're just like, we need to overcompensate for shooting in a fucking drab, foggy town.

• 24:19David Sims?

  I guess so.

• 24:20Griffin Newman?

  Let's direct the sun at them.

• 24:22David Sims?

  I mean, the full sun. It's like the space laser from Dying of the Day is on now.

• 24:26Griffin Newman?

  But it also, then you have this entire supporting cast that's like all British actors because it's clearly like, okay. Amy Heckerling got to pick her like six regulars who they would fly over. Right? And then every other part is played by someone from the UK.

• 24:43David Sims?

  It's five. I think she gets, she gets Pfeiffer Rudd, Stacy Dash from Clueless. Have you seen Clueless?

• 24:48Speaker 03

  I have seen Clueless, yeah.

• 24:50David Sims?

  You know, one of her more successful films. Stacy Dash is the best friend in Clueless. She plays the star here, John Lovitz and Fred Willard. I feel like those are the five of them.

• 24:57Griffin Newman?

  You're forgetting Wallace Shawn.

• 24:59David Sims?

  One, one great scene of Wallace Shawn. You're not wrong. You're not.

• 25:02Griffin Newman?

  But you have like, right. Twin Caplin on the couch, non speaking. I think she was a producer on this. Right? So that's not.

• 25:08David Sims?

  But that's about it. I mean, even Tracy Ullman, as much as she's a Hollywood figure, that's a Brit.

• 25:13Griffin Newman?

  It's why Saoirse ends up in this movie, I have to imagine.

• 25:15David Sims?

  Of course, because of child labor shit, right?

• 25:17Griffin Newman?

  It's why the whole supporting cast is like, she has enough taste to be like, if I'm filming in the UK, who are like the 10 funniest on the cusp people of British comedy television?

• 25:28Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 25:29Griffin Newman?

  But it lends a very weird air to this movie where you're like, everyone just sounds a little off.

• 25:34David Sims?

  Do you like Britain?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  I, yeah, yeah, sure. I have been. I, well, I was gonna say, I wonder, because everybody is doing an American accent, except for David Mitchell.

• 25:44David Sims?

  David Mitchell, who I think probably just cannot.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was wondering, I wonder if there's like an audition tape somewhere where it's him trying his best.

• 25:51David Sims?

  Hey, guys, like, he's so English. I just cannot imagine.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  Voice is so English, like, yeah, if he were nasally LA, it wouldn't work.

• 26:00David Sims?

  He has a detective show now. You know how like in Britain, like, if you get to be, you know, you hit your sort of late 40s, early 50s, you're in the mix for like a show where you go to some like gray beach and you're like, oh, you know, they, they killed the old mayor or whatever, right? You know, you gotta solve a crime. He's got one now.

• 26:18Griffin Newman?

  Does he have a hook? Is there a gimmick?

• 26:19David Sims?

  I hope he has a hook hand. That'd be fun.

• 26:21Griffin Newman?

  That'd be a good gimmick.

• 26:22David Sims?

  It'd be called Detective Hook, Detective Show. It's just so, it's called Ludwig.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 26:29David Sims?

  Uh, and he's, oh, yes.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  What?

• 26:33David Sims?

  He's a reclusive puzzle maker who publishes puzzle books under the pen name Ludwig.

• 26:38Griffin Newman?

  This sounds incredible.

• 26:39David Sims?

  This has way too much business. He has an identical twin brother who goes missing.

• 26:44Griffin Newman?

  Played by him as well, I assume. Yep.

• 26:46David Sims?

  And so he has to pretend to be his brother. What? And then he gets, it, bro, this sounds very, very busy.

• 26:51Griffin Newman?

  Going more.

• 26:53David Sims?

  Oh, my God. Because you know, it's always like, oh, they, Richard Griffiths plays like a meat pie maker.

• 27:00Griffin Newman?

  He runs a pie shop.

• 27:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  He's a retired detective who runs a pie shop and people keep luring him back in for one more case.

• 27:05David Sims?

  Or there's this show, there was this, um, British TV show called Rosemary and Time, uh, with Felicity Kendall and, uh, Pam Ferris, two lovely old lady actors, uh, who were gardening detectives. Like, they were like full-time gardeners, part-time, oop, someone's dead in the bushes. We gotta solve the mystery. This is all Britain has.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  There's also, I just saw like new release stills of Thursday Murder Club that's coming out later this year. That's also just like a cast of the cutest old British actors just solving a murder mystery together.

• 27:38David Sims?

  Here we go.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  It's Helen Mirren, isn't it?

• 27:40David Sims?

  Mirren Brosnan, who you, you just have to rattle pennies in front of that guy and he will sign on. I swear to God, Ben Kingsley. Can I sing? Will you let me sing in this one? Fucking hell, Jonathan Pryce. This sounds good.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  It sounds amazing.

• 27:58David Sims?

  Chris Columbus directed it. Who directed it? Chris Columbus. Whoa. Director of Home Alone. Weird. Not discoverer of America. And Christmas Chronicles.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  And one of the Harry Potter movies.

• 28:08David Sims?

  The first two, Harry Potter. First two.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 28:11David Sims?

  He did open the Chamber of Secrets. Yeah.

• 28:15David Sims?

  Cause he speaks parcel tongue. It's a little joke.

• 28:21Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 28:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:22Griffin 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.

• 28:43David 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.

• 29:03Griffin 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.

• 29:19David 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.

• 29:53Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 29:54David Sims?

  Yes?

• 29:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:58David Sims?

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

• 30:04Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 30:05David Sims?

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

• 30:13Griffin 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.

• 30:21David Sims?

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

• 30:44Griffin 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.

• 31:16Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 31:16David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 31:17Griffin Newman?

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• 31:24David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 31:26Griffin 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.

• 31:33David Sims?

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

• 31:39Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:39David Sims?

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• 31:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:50David Sims?

  No.

• 31:50Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 31:51David Sims?

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• 32:37Griffin Newman?

  There's a universe in which they go, hey, you have to film this movie in the UK. And she goes, well, Britain has a big television industry. I can make it about British people making a British show, or one American woman running a British TV show. But it feels like she has, this movie is so much her grinding axes with LA culture in particular, and the like nature of the American show business, like complex, that the moment they're like, hey, we'll make your movie if you agree to film it in a place that will never look like LA.

• 33:12David Sims?

  Yeah, well, not really vibe. Yeah.

• 33:14Griffin Newman?

  Right. I just think she like should have put her foot down. Now, the tough question is if that happens, does the movie never get made?

• 33:20David Sims?

  Movie probably never gets made. And she, she's probably like this, like you're sort of saying, this thing's already gonna feel out of date soon. This is me going through my experiences of the late 90s. Let me talk about it a little bit in the dossier. So we have the appropriate context. So Amy Harkelings, a filmmaker, American filmmaker, Karen. It's made Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Look Who's Talking, Clueless. Then she makes Loser with Jason Biggs and Mina Suvari. It's not a big hit.

• 33:47Griffin Newman?

  And most relevant to this film, after the success of Clueless, she launches the Clueless TV show that runs for three seasons.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  I didn't know there was a TV show.

• 33:55Griffin Newman?

  And it's fairly successful.

• 33:57David Sims?

  You don't know that because it, we all agreed to forget about it. It did okay. It was a TGIF show.

• 34:03Griffin Newman?

  It had one season as part of the TGIF lineup, and then it moved over to UPN for two more seasons.

• 34:08David Sims?

  Bumped to UPN, which was a network back in the day that things would get bumped over to.

• 34:13Griffin Newman?

  Stacy Dash reprised her role.

• 34:16David Sims?

  Yeah, some of the Clueless cast returned. Most of the stars did not. Um, but then she makes loser, which is not a, which is a box office disappointment. And then heckling gets attached to a bunch of stuff. She was in negotiations to write a pilot for Tori Spelling. That didn't happen. Probably good. She was in talks to remake the serene fucking Japanese masterpiece. Afterlife, the Coriada movie.

• 34:45Griffin Newman?

  Stunning discovery from.

• 34:46David Sims?

  Oh, good. Which is a movie you would like if you've never seen.

• 34:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's a great.

• 34:49David Sims?

  It's a movie about when people die, they go to like a waiting room where they um, have a week to figure out like what memory they want to take with them into the afterlife.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 34:57David Sims?

  Basically by making a little movie. It is so cool.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Do you know off the top of your head, what memory you would take?

• 35:01David Sims?

  No, what the fuck? I need seven days.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Griffin, what about you?

• 35:05David Sims?

  I need eight days. You're screwed, Griffin.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  My memories of this taping.

• 35:09David Sims?

  Yes, what if that was it? Ben loves it when we do applause bits.

• 35:15Griffin Newman?

  I, I just, I, I want to throw out, uh, well, A, it's so funny because you're just like, why was she going to remake like afterlife? And then when you describe it, like, give it the five second pitch like you did to Karen right now. It does sort of make sense to go like, there is a wildly different version of that movie.

• 35:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 35:34Griffin Newman?

  There is like an ability to take that log line and turn it into like a 90s studio comedy.

• 35:38David Sims?

  I think so, like a sweet comedy.

• 35:40Griffin Newman?

  And its own thing.

• 35:41David Sims?

  And its own thing, but that uh, doesn't have, Fox was attached with it, doesn't happen. Uh, at one point she's announced to be doing a, um, a comedy pilot at ABC that was going to be kind of a love boat type show with like a lot of celebrity guests.

• 35:57David Sims?

  She was announced in 2003 as the director of a film called Sweat, which was going to be a sort of shampoo style movie set in the world of personal training. About like a lethario who beds his clients. Uh, that never came together. Then she's a, she and Vince Vaughn are going to make a movie called No Place Like Home, where Vince Vaughn was going to play, oh, a cocky character. That's interesting. Uh, who's upwardly mobile and has the world at his fingertips and a deep aversion to his parents, but he breaks up with his girlfriend and has to move into his family home in Long Island. Okay, whatever. Uh, anyway, so that doesn't happen either. So instead, uh, she's thinking about this movie that, that she makes while she's working on the first season of Clueless and raising her 10 year old daughter Molly.

• 36:43David Sims?

  On her own in the mid 90s, Amy Heckerling was a single mom. And she's ambivalent because she's like, I'm working on this show. It's promoting these unrealistic standards of beauty. It's, it's a bad show for young girls or whatever. Like it's a bad, you know, image and I've got this kid. So she should, that clash is what's animating her here. Okay.

• 37:04Griffin Newman?

  Which isn't an interesting setup for a movie, right? Like someone who is professionally continuing to perpetuate a fantasy version of high school life than also going home and dealing with a real child. Where I'm like, that's actually Yeah, I would love to see that movie. The most interesting, unique kind of angle this movie has and like a very personal experience where you're like, oh, she is the person to write this. No one else could tell this story. It does feel like that is kind of the least developed aspect in the final film, despite the fact that search is really good. I also just want to snapshot because I just, I think it's kind of interesting. Like Clueless is so big, right? It's like a surprise hit.

• 37:47Griffin Newman?

  And then when it goes on video, it sells like through the roof. It keeps getting bigger. They get this TV show on the air really quickly versus like Baby Talk, the look who's talking show that she wasn't involved in and Fast Times, which only ran for like eight episodes. This is her third movie spawning a TV show and she's more involved in this.

• 38:08David Sims?

  Right. She is.

• 38:09Griffin Newman?

  She is. And so she like only directed episodes in the first seasons, but like remained an executive producer on this, remained involved in it, which means that like, in a way she is kind of losing the cachet from the success of Clueless by focusing on the Clueless movie. Yeah. Or the series. Do you know what I'm saying? I see what you mean.

• 38:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 38:30Griffin Newman?

  Having success in that she's running her own TV show. Right. But she's also kind of letting the heat dissipate from the fact that she's coming off a hit movie. So by the time she cashes in and she's like, I'm ready to make another movie again, she makes loser, it's a bomb. And now it's like the early 2000s and you're like, well, she's not totally dinged because she's made enough hits that she can keep attaching herself to big shit like this. But suddenly she's in this position where it's like, oh, Amy Heckerling hasn't had a hit movie in almost 10 years. Like it's just kind of. The air is all out of the balloon, you know?

• 39:02David Sims?

  I'm gonna skip all the Chris Catan stuff, it's way too long. I'm not doing that right now. We have, we have to discuss this movie. And also, just, people can Google the Chris Catan stuff. Amy Heckerling denies all the Chris Catan stuff. Chris Catan has his, you guys gotta just read that yourself. It's too much for me to get into, especially because it has nothing to do with this movie.

• 39:20Griffin Newman?

  People theorize that this movie is about Chris Catan, and I strongly do not think it is.

• 39:25David Sims?

  What would it, oh, like, like Paul Rudd is supposed to be like Chris Catan? Interesting. I don't think so. There, well, I don't.

• 39:31Griffin Newman?

  Can I just say the 60 second version of it?

• 39:33David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:34Griffin Newman?

  Chris Catan and Amy Heckerling had an affair during the filming of A Night at the Roxbury, which she was executive producer on. That is uncontested fact.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Whoa, okay.

• 39:44Griffin Newman?

  What is contested is Chris Catan, his book claimed that he was pressured by Lorne Michaels and the studio to have said affair in order to encourage her to direct the movie rather than just produce. And Amy Heckerling and his daughter have a very different series of events. And that he had an affair where he was cheating on Jennifer Coolidge.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  What?

• 40:05Griffin Newman?

  His, at the time, long-term girlfriend, who was also in Night at the Roxbury.

• 40:08David Sims?

  With Eliza Donovan of Clue.

• 40:10Griffin Newman?

  No, of, with Heckerling, and then cheats on Heckerling with Eliza Donovan. So he's sleeping with three different women.

• 40:16David Sims?

  Sounds more like what Mango would get up to.

• 40:19Griffin Newman?

  And that the whole pressure thing doesn't really make sense because she was already working on the film, but they didn't really actually start to get to know each other until after the film was already in production, what have you. All of this is just important to say.

• 40:29David Sims?

  Amy Heckerling's response was, ugh, he's a nut, when she was asked about all this. And she was just like, I'm not gonna comment, I don't wanna help with this book's sales.

• 40:36Griffin Newman?

  Like, what are you talking about?

• 40:37David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 40:38Griffin Newman?

  There's just a lot of information out there. I'll let people get on the rabbit holes.

• 40:41David Sims?

  It would be funny if Lorne Michaels's official statement was, hmm, just that. Like, he called the Times and said that.

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  It just needs to be acknowledged because this movie being such a, like, odd hidden object.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:51Griffin Newman?

  Just sort of ignored. When people started being like, what is this thing a couple of years ago? A lot of people jumped to the conclusions, it's about her and Catan because they had an age difference. I don't think it is.

• 41:01David Sims?

  Um, so she writes this movie. Nobody wants to make it because it's about an older female protagonist and Hollywood isn't really that interested in it. But Michelle Pfeiffer gets her hands on it. Michelle Pfeiffer's career has also been slowing down. I would say post What Lies Beneath. She doesn't really have a big hit, right?

• 41:19Griffin Newman?

  She does What Lies Beneath. She does I Am Sam and White Oleander, which were both sort of meant to be Oscar plays for her that didn't get her nominations.

• 41:26David Sims?

  She's good in White Oleander.

• 41:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 41:28David Sims?

  But it's not a good movie.

• 41:29Griffin Newman?

  And she's good in I Am Sam, and it's not a good movie. I think she's good.

• 41:32David Sims?

  She's fine.

• 41:33Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I always like her.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Is she Sam?

• 41:35David Sims?

  No, no, no.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:37David Sims?

  I Am Sam is the movie where Sean Penn plays a mentally challenged person.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 41:41Griffin Newman?

  Who is raising Dakota Fanning, his daughter.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 41:44Griffin Newman?

  And she's now getting to the age where they think she's progressed beyond him intellectually.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 41:49Griffin Newman?

  And Michelle Pfeiffer is the lawyer who's trying to fight for his rights to retain custody.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  Oh, this is so devastating.

• 41:56David Sims?

  It's a weepy. It's not good. It's very bad. And Sean Penn's performance in it is one of those things where you're like, oh, my God, like, who allowed this to happen?

• 42:04Griffin Newman?

  He got an Oscar nomination and it's the movie that like, presented Dakota Fanning to the world and made her like the child star. So Michelle Pfeiffer kind of gets no bump from that movie.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 42:14David Sims?

  Well, she's also playing a character that she plays a lot in the 90s on, which is the sort of leggy pants suited lawyer or workaholic lady who's like, I'm so gorgeous, but I'm so busy and no one will touch me.

• 42:27Griffin Newman?

  Trying to hold it all together.

• 42:28David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Like, oh, it's so hard to be me. Like, I'm doing this because she's always like, throwing cell phones and bags and stuff around because she's so busy.

• 42:36Griffin Newman?

  Rolling her saucer eyes.

• 42:38David Sims?

  Um, yes. And so after those two movies.

• 42:42Griffin Newman?

  But then White Oleander was meant to be a bit of an Oscar play for her, and it doesn't really go anywhere. And then she takes several years off.

• 42:48David Sims?

  Several years off. And this is the next movie she makes. And she wants to make this movie, obviously, because it's a very big role, meaty, interesting, probably themes that appeal to her. Amy Heckerling's a real director. Philippe Martinez, a French producer.

• 43:06David Sims?

  Uh, has a bit of a checkered past. He had served time in prison for fraud.

• 43:12Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 43:12David Sims?

  In France, though, where you get like baguettes and stuff.

• 43:15Griffin Newman?

  Hey, cool.

• 43:16David Sims?

  I don't know if you actually get baguettes.

• 43:19David Sims?

  And he has a 200 million line dollar line of credit. So he claims, I'm not sure if he does. So he greenlights this film for a $20 million like budget.

• 43:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:31David Sims?

  But Heckling

• 43:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:33David Sims?

  Does send some red flags.

• 43:36Griffin Newman?

  They, they basically, this guy gets out of French prison. Shows up in LA in a chauffeured Bentley.

• 43:43David Sims?

  He's got a big cigar.

• 43:44Griffin Newman?

  Smoking cigars, like storming into meetings, saying like, I have 200 million dollars to spend. People show me scripts.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 43:50Griffin Newman?

  And this is like one of his first big moves. And Heckling's basically said that as the movie was filming, they, she kept getting told that the budget was lowering. She was like, this guy said he had 200 million dollars and was giving me 20 comfortably for this film. And suddenly the number keeps going down week by week. So like the movie is shrinking as they're making it.

• 44:11David Sims?

  He makes them film it in London, which is a problem. Uh, indeed, he does keep saying the budget is going down.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Wait, sorry. So it started off being 200 million dollars.

• 44:22Griffin Newman?

  No, he said he had 200 million dollars to put towards film finance.

• 44:26David Sims?

  Then he started saying he had 100 million dollars, which is less.

• 44:29Griffin Newman?

  It is less. By the time this movie finally came out.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:33Griffin Newman?

  He said he was 100 million dollars in debt. So somehow within three years, he went from, I got 200 to spend to can someone borrow me 100 so I can get back to zero.

• 44:45David Sims?

  Uh, so Michelle Pfeiffer's paid 1 million dollars.

• 44:47Griffin Newman?

  Which is well below her.

• 44:49David Sims?

  Which is below her, below her quote, but she will also get between 10 to 15% of the film's first dollar grosses.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 44:56David Sims?

  Which is very unusual to be giving them actual money versus profit.

• 44:59Griffin Newman?

  But this is right. This is a bit of a problem. Movie financed entirely by some maverick outsider who's willing to do that in order to secure a bigger star who usually would maybe like, would probably take that budget to 30 million dollars on her own, right? If they're paying her full salary.

• 45:14David Sims?

  Heckling is also promised.

• 45:15Griffin Newman?

  This later becomes the beginning of the end for this whole movie.

• 45:18David Sims?

  Issue.

• 45:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:19David Sims?

  Um, the film is then put on the shelf, apparently tested well. Not sure where they tested it. No offense.

• 45:27David Sims?

  And then they're like, we're not releasing this if that's if Michelle gets 15% of the gross.

• 45:32Griffin Newman?

  They screen it, MGM agrees to acquire it, then they find out about this deal. They crunch the numbers and they're like, we estimate the movie's gonna make this amount. And if we have to give away Michelle Pfeiffer that much, then we don't want to do it.

• 45:47David Sims?

  It's not worth it.

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

  So they just hand it back.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 45:49Griffin Newman?

  They spend a year trying to find a new distributor.

• 45:52David Sims?

  At that point, Mr. Martinez has no money, as he, if he ever had any money.

• 45:57Griffin Newman?

  He's got negative money.

• 45:58David Sims?

  So he sold the DVD rights to the Weinstein company, a normal and good company that does normal things.

• 46:04Griffin Newman?

  But he does that first while trying to find a new theatrical distributor.

• 46:09David Sims?

  Yes.

• 46:10Griffin Newman?

  Then he finds this company Freestyle Releasing that was very much kind of the ketchup entertainment of its day. Where it's like, do you just contractually need to get a movie out in theaters? We're like a distributor for hire. They agree to do it. They announce a release date in 2007. It's gonna be released on 1,500 screens.

• 46:27David Sims?

  Freestyle Releasing.

• 46:28Griffin Newman?

  And then like weeks before it's gonna come out, they pull it off the schedule.

• 46:32David Sims?

  Uh, correct.

• 46:33Griffin Newman?

  Because they found out that they didn't have DVD rights, which hadn't been told to them. And at that point, DVD is still really big. And they're like, if we don't have DVD, then we don't want to fucking release this movie.

• 46:42David Sims?

  Heckling calls it like cutting the legs off of a baby and then being like, take my baby, it's still cute. Just kind of a gruesome thing to say. Um, so instead it came out in Spain.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  In Spain?

• 46:58David Sims?

  It grossed $9.5 million globally.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 47:02David Sims?

  Which is very good, but it's not often.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. I wouldn't say no to that amount of money.

• 47:06David Sims?

  Well, lucky for you right here, I have a check here for you for $9.5 million.

• 47:10Griffin Newman?

  He's been waiting for someone to say that they wouldn't say no. He's had the check on the desk for years.

• 47:16David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, so it came out direct to video in 2008.

• 47:20Griffin Newman?

  Weinstein makes the blockbuster deal. And that is the ultimate fate of this movie.

• 47:24David Sims?

  Yeah. And Paul Rudd said he felt bad, it's a real shame. He was afraid some of the jokes would feel stale if it, you know, got, uh.

• 47:32Griffin Newman?

  Was right.

• 47:32David Sims?

  Yeah, uh, sure. The film got poor reviews. And is forgotten, I would say, until a little podcast called Blank Check decided to focus on it.

• 47:43Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, it's hard to say it's forgotten if most people never knew it existed.

• 47:48David Sims?

  Right. It's not really known.

• 47:49Griffin Newman?

  It's not really known. Nathan Rabin did a piece on it for his My Year of Flop series years ago.

• 47:56David Sims?

  What did he give it? Fiasco, flop, or secret success?

• 47:59Griffin Newman?

  I believe he gave it a secret success and said, like, this is much more of a movie than I thought it would be. You can see the kind of shape of it. This is Amy Herklin. She's like a personal filmmaker.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 48:07Griffin Newman?

  It's not perfect.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:09Griffin Newman?

  But there's like stuff in it, which is certainly how I feel. Like, I don't know if I can say this movie is good.

• 48:14David Sims?

  No, I don't think I can.

• 48:16Griffin Newman?

  But it's frustrating how much good stuff there is in it.

• 48:19David Sims?

  There's a lot of stuff in it that I thought was a good idea.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:24Griffin Newman?

  And even like things that are executed well, but then there's stuff where you're just like, the lighting alone is knocking every single element of the movie down a star at every moment.

• 48:36David Sims?

  It's tough. Execution is, is lacking here, I would say. The film, it's, there's an, there's an execution issue, Griffin. Things like Tracey Ullman's character, Mother Nature.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 48:49David Sims?

  Who is never explained, serves no plot purpose.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:53David Sims?

  Doesn't really jive with the story. I don't know.

• 48:56Griffin Newman?

  I need to correct myself. The opening credit sequence goes from nature photography and then just hard transitions to plastic surgery.

• 49:03David Sims?

  Yeah, that's right. That's right. Cause it's like, ah, these days everyone's getting plastic surgery. I'm Tracey Ullman. I won't explain it anymore. And then, ah, da, da, da.

• 49:13Griffin Newman?

  Old ladies are worthless. Fuck you.

• 49:17David Sims?

  And then she's not like, let's meet our, I.

• 49:20Griffin Newman?

  Right. You expect her to be.

• 49:21David Sims?

  Kind of a Greek chorus-y, you know, like, oh, right. You know, let me, I wish everyone could be like me, covered in leaves. But instead, here we are in L.A. Yes.

• 49:31Speaker 03

  No, I was gonna say, no, sorry. Go ahead.

• 49:33David Sims?

  No, I'm, I'm listening.

• 49:34Speaker 03

  I was just gonna say that it, one of the weirdest.

• 49:36David Sims?

  Sorry that I said yes so aggressively to you.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  No, it was really supportive. I really appreciate it.

• 49:41David Sims?

  Really?

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:42David Sims?

  You call that supportive? Vincent Price stuff. Yes.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Um, Tracey Ullman. The weirdest part of the Mother Nature bit is like, there's no consistent visual vocabulary. I guess at one point, when she shows up, everybody else then freezes in time. Whereas before that, when she showed up, they were still continuing in time.

• 49:59David Sims?

  Right. And it's more like she's a great kazoo no one can see or whatever.

• 50:02Griffin Newman?

  The rules of her function within the movie change basically every scene. As you said, sometimes she is Zack Morris Powers, can freeze the whole movie and comment on it. Sometimes she is narrating just to us, the audience, down the lens.

• 50:16David Sims?

  Right. And then sometimes she talks to Pfeiffer.

• 50:17Griffin Newman?

  Right. Other times she's like Pfeiffer's like fucking Paul Bettany in Beautiful Mind, where you're like, is she having a mental breakdown?

• 50:24David Sims?

  Where'd she get those damn chips?

• 50:26Griffin Newman?

  Great question.

• 50:27David Sims?

  So she's eating chips. She go to the store? No one can see her. Do you think, do you think a bag of chips is floating next to Pfeiffer and she's like talking to her?

• 50:35Griffin Newman?

  The imaginary supermarket?

• 50:38Speaker 03

  I wonder if she can digest stuff.

• 50:39Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. But yes, it is.

• 50:41David Sims?

  Can she digest stuff? Well, let's send an email, [email protected].

• 50:46Griffin Newman?

  You're like, any one of those three things could work.

• 50:49David Sims?

  No, could, I guess.

• 50:51Griffin Newman?

  Could.

• 50:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 50:53Griffin Newman?

  It is very confusing when it's jumping back and forth between them and you don't get what it is.

• 50:57David Sims?

  The extent to which this lifts out of the movie. The movie's 97 minutes long. Feels long. You lose Tracy, we're getting closer to 90 minutes. Just get her right out of there. It almost feels like she has this idea and then Tracy Ullman will do it. And then there's this sort of obligation of like, I got Tracy Ullman.

• 51:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:17David Sims?

  Like she's, you know, even though it's the late 2000s and Tracy Ullman isn't quite as hot as she was, it's still like, oh, you got Tracy Ullman, you gotta use her.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  There's also famously a movie we've covered on the show, Death Becomes Her, where Tracy Ullman had a major subplot and 25 minutes of footage. And they just went bloop. Like there are other movies that have straight lifted Tracy Ullman.

• 51:36David Sims?

  So sensitive about getting lifted out of a movie.

• 51:39Griffin Newman?

  She had a no lifting clause in her contract.

• 51:41David Sims?

  Can't lift me.

• 51:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's called the dead weight clause.

• 51:45David Sims?

  Do you like Tracy Ullman? Does Tracy Ullman mean anything to you?

• 51:48Speaker 03

  I don't think I really know much of Tracy Ullman.

• 51:51David Sims?

  I'm gonna be honest, like, I, I don't either, because-

• 51:54Griffin Newman?

  A little interesting, as someone who grew up in both New York and London, that Tracy Ullman means nothing.

• 51:59David Sims?

  Well, it's not like she means nothing.

• 52:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:01David Sims?

  Well, but I'm a little too young for her. Like, I think her, her sort of like TV show, like The Tracy Ullman Show and Tracy Takes On, that had all peaked by the time I was a kid.

• 52:10Griffin Newman?

  We both came after our peak.

• 52:12David Sims?

  And she was still around.

• 52:13Griffin Newman?

  That's the difference. I think when we were young, she was still around. And Karen, you're just enough younger than us that she basically doesn't exist in your purview.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  God, I got you.

• 52:21David Sims?

  HBO kind of treated her like they treat Bill Maher now. I'm not talking in terms of politics, but in terms of they're like, she's in the HBO family as long as she wants to be. If she wants to take a shit on stage,

• 52:32Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 52:32David Sims?

  we will run an Emmy campaign for that. Like, it is whatever she wants.

• 52:36Griffin Newman?

  Right. She had 10 years of like HBO, like, free rein, combined with she was still popping up in movies at that time.

• 52:43David Sims?

  Right, she would pop up in a movie.

• 52:45Griffin Newman?

  But then basically by, I feel like by the year like 2000, she really slows down.

• 52:51David Sims?

  But like, it was one of those things like The Tracy Ullman Show, which I've never really watched. So had The Simpsons came out of The Tracy Ullman Show famously, it was the, the animated-

• 52:59Griffin Newman?

  They were like, oh, we should-

• 53:00David Sims?

  Sidebars.

• 53:00Griffin Newman?

  They were like, we should have animated interstitials on this, on this sketch show.

• 53:05David Sims?

  Yes, Karen.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  Wait, and that became The Simpsons?

• 53:07David Sims?

  Matt Groening was like, oh, I don't know, Homer, like, literally, it was kind of that.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  That's incredible.

• 53:12David Sims?

  It's all part of the lore.

• 53:13Griffin Newman?

  James L. Brooks, everyone was trying to like make an American sitcom for Tracy Ullman. And James L. Brooks was like, no, she needs an old school variety show. Fox has just started. He marches in. He's like, one of those legendary TV creators. He's like, Tracy Ullman Sketch Show. They surround her with like an all-star cast, including several of the voices from The Simpsons. Dan Castor Metta, Julie Cavner, and they're like, we want to make this variety show. It should have animated segments. There are two of them. The other one was Tracy's pick. I forget what it's called, but was a flop. And then James L. Brooks was like, I like this weird cartoonist from Oregon.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  Aragorn.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  This is true. And Tracy Ullman was like, I don't like this Simpson shit. And The Simpsons immediately like hit and turned to a spinoff. She didn't want to voice one of The Simpsons because she was like, I don't like this. And then years later, she sued.

• 54:04David Sims?

  Cause she's like, I

• 54:04Griffin Newman?

  A percentage of the Simpsons profits.

• 54:06David Sims?

  Right. I assume she didn't get it.

• 54:08Griffin Newman?

  She did not.

• 54:09Speaker 03

  That's incredible.

• 54:10David Sims?

  The thing about Tracy Ullman.

• 54:12Griffin Newman?

  Sort of like changing of the guard moment where it's like, the Simpsons are the biggest things in America now, and Tracy Ullman gets to do her stuff on HBO.

• 54:19David Sims?

  I want to say this with all due respect to Tracy Ullman, who I understand is a bit of a pioneer and a trailblazer for women in comedy. And I guess women are allowed to stay in comedy. Not if I had my way.

• 54:30Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 54:33David Sims?

  And I think Tracy Ullman is funny. I have seen her be funny in things. Robin Hood Men in Tights, she makes me laugh.

• 54:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's really funny in that.

• 54:40David Sims?

  Whenever you watch those kind of comedy talk show, that clip show, sort of like retrospect where they're like, oh, and the Tracy Ullman show was so good. Like, you know, and she had her character, like, you know, Mrs. Whatever. And then she's going like, ah, it's me. And I'm just like, was this funny? Like, this doesn't look that funny.

• 54:57Griffin Newman?

  I'll say this too.

• 54:58David Sims?

  You know, sometimes you watch old comedy and you're like, brilliant. Like, it works. And then sometimes they're like, oh, mind your, mind your feet. And you're like, Jesus.

• 55:08Griffin Newman?

  She played.

• 55:09David Sims?

  Is she funny? Just tell me.

• 55:11Griffin Newman?

  I think she's funny.

• 55:12David Sims?

  Okay.

• 55:12Griffin Newman?

  I think she is, she's really big, right? Like Tracy's like huge unsubtle energy. And I think that when it's five degrees off, it's like insufferable. I think when Tracy Ullman misses, it's rough. I don't like watch classic Tracy Ullman and like.

• 55:34David Sims?

  It's funny that we're talking this much about a character who's in the movie for five minutes.

• 55:37Griffin Newman?

  I don't.

• 55:38David Sims?

  That is not relevant.

• 55:39Griffin Newman?

  I don't watch classic Tracy Ullman and like fucking raffle cop her on the floor.

• 55:44Griffin Newman?

  But I do, I do think she's funny, but I'm also like, I've seen her like strike out. And especially in things like movies where you're just like, when she, when she had her on TV projects and she could build an entire universe around her, and it's just showcasing her, you're like, this is impressive as like, just a style of performance. And then sometimes when you drop her into a movie like this and you're like, she is not harmonizing with anyone else. She is just doing her own thing in a very specific register. I don't think she's bad in this, but like, it just adds to the chaos of this movie where you're, the element is so strange.

• 56:23David Sims?

  She does not matter to this movie. The movie is about a character called Rosie, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who's the showrunner of a bad sitcom called You Go Girl, where the joke is that all the actors, Ben hated this movie so much. Oh, my God, look at this.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Ben is crying.

• 56:39Griffin Newman?

  No, look who's talking now.

• 56:41David Sims?

  Stacy Dash plays the lead actor. And the joke is like, everyone's too old, right? Like.

• 56:47Griffin Newman?

  Stacy Dash was 29 when they shot The Clueless movie. So she's on The Clueless TV show into her early 30s. And then this movie is almost 10 years after that. So the joke is right. She's like 40.

• 57:00David Sims?

  But she's, it's now, it's, it's sort of the same thing. She's actually too old. Like, you're watching this, you're like, who on earth would think Stacy Dash could be a teenager? Like, and I sort of get the joke of like, oh, it's heightened, I guess. But I wasn't, it couldn't, I couldn't really get there.

• 57:17Griffin Newman?

  Also, is it the other guy?

• 57:18David Sims?

  The whole thing feel like a dream you're having like on drugs.

• 57:21Speaker 03

  There's no grounded reality. There's no like consistent reality.

• 57:24David Sims?

  Even though it's supposed to be about this sort of grounded thing of this woman's trying to claw out some romance in life and she's mothering and it's hard. But then it's like, she lives in cuckoo land and I feel like I'm on fucking Xanax watching this movie or something. Cause everything's just kind of like vibrating and everyone's a little off.

• 57:44Griffin Newman?

  It is a weird fever dream movie. Like it has that kind of like old dogs chaos to it.

• 57:49David Sims?

  A great example being when Paul Rudd's character is introduced. So Paul Rudd plays Adam, the young actor they cast in a guest role, who becomes a sort of breakout star. And then she starts kissing him. He comes into the audition and then he like is jerked sideways like a cartoon.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:08David Sims?

  And they all go, how do you do that? And then he comes back in, but it's like, but it's not a dress.

• 58:14Griffin Newman?

  It's a Johnny Dangerously gag.

• 58:15David Sims?

  Right. It's like this crazy sort of out of proportion, physical humor.

• 58:21David Sims?

  But nobody even says if that was, did she imagine that? Did he actually do that? Doesn't seem possible.

• 58:25Griffin Newman?

  Paul Rudd is an incredible physical comedian.

• 58:27David Sims?

  Very funny physical actor.

• 58:28Griffin Newman?

  And he can do shit like that in a movie and be like, this is this character doing this. It's not betraying the laws of gravity in this film, right? This is a guy who can do goofy movements. The way that moment plays out in the film, he is clearly rigged by wires.

• 58:45David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 58:45Griffin Newman?

  It is not something a human being could do.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  And also, when it first happened, I was like, oh, this is gonna come back in some satisfying way.

• 58:52David Sims?

  But he'll do it again, right?

• 58:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it never is mentioned.

• 58:54Griffin Newman?

  Cause they call it out, it's like, this guy has a superpower.

• 58:56David Sims?

  But they call it out, like, how do you do that? And then they don't ask him or talk about it again.

• 59:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 59:01David Sims?

  And it's a great example of what I'm talking about in this movie. We were just like, I feel like someone needed to figure that out.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  You know what it is? Is I feel like this movie, it reads as though, you know, when you're like filming something and you do the take as written and then you're like, you know what? Just do one for fun. And then they just stitch together all the for fun takes.

• 59:21David Sims?

  It's heavy on, and sometimes, sometimes it's funny.

• 59:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:26David Sims?

  Like, look, the highlight of this movie is something that has lived on in gif form to audiences that don't know what it's from.

• 59:34Griffin Newman?

  Zero idea.

• 59:34David Sims?

  Which is Paul Rudd dancing around like a lunatic at the bar, which is so funny out of context, cause Paul Rudd dancing around like a silly guy, it feels like Celery Man or whatever.

• 59:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 59:46David Sims?

  From, uh, I Think You Could Leave.

• 59:48Griffin Newman?

  There is.

• 59:48David Sims?

  What's it called? Jesus, Tim and Eric.

• 59:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Uh, I think it was for.

• 59:52David Sims?

  Were you like, him just going like, you know, it is funny.

• 59:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think it was either for role models or I Love You Man. And as you're saying, the 2008 year where like Paul Rudd figures it out. He figures out his movie star leading man thing. Where he went on Conan, Paul Rudd's Conan appearances, of course, just like all bangers. But they play whatever music, I think they played Badlands. Uh, to his entrance and Paul Rudd just like rather than sitting down on the couch starts clapping and then starts dancing and he and Conan dance for like three minutes.

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  That's so charming.

• 1:00:24Griffin Newman?

  And it's so charming. It's one of my favorite clips and watching this film for the first time, I was like, oh, five of the moves he does in Conan are direct quotes of this.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 1:00:34Griffin Newman?

  Where it almost felt like he knew, I did really fucking dancing in that movie and no one saw it. I gotta find a way to reproduce those dance moves in a medium that people will actually see. But it's, yes, the dancing is incredible.

• 1:00:49David Sims?

  Uh, it's really funny.

• 1:00:50Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about Paul Rudd a little bit in a focused way?

• 1:00:53David Sims?

  Yes, we can, but first I want to ask about the dancing.

• 1:00:57David Sims?

  So I see that and I want to fuck him. Like, and I'm saying, like, I want to get him naked and have sex with it. I'm not saying like, oh, I want to fuck him like I'm on Twitter. Like, no, it's hot.

• 1:01:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07David Sims?

  Would Michelle Pfeiffer want to fuck him after watching that? Because in the movie she does. But Michelle Pfeiffer still almost feels a little too classy to be like, oh, you goofball.

• 1:01:16Griffin Newman?

  I'll repeat an anecdote I said just like two episodes ago. My gay friend was testing how straight I was, thinking that he could maybe talk me into hooking up. And he said, like, like, you don't find any guys attractive? Like, if you could fuck one guy, who would it be?

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Griffin Newman?

  And I said, Paul Rudd. And he went, oh, you are straight.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:01:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But I had the same thing where I'm like, Paul Rudd is a, in my mind, I'm like, that's the most attractive guy.

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  I think you're correct.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  And that is exactly what I wish I could look, sound, move, and think like.

• 1:01:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I'm like, well, that's the masculine ideal is Paul Rudd.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  I actually bet Michelle Pfeiffer, I bet that did turn her on.

• 1:01:51David Sims?

  It, I, I, cause it's supposed to.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  Also, cause he's.

• 1:01:54David Sims?

  Cause he's just so loosey goosey, silly guy.

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  So loosey goosey and so like inviting and so like doesn't care about social norms. Yeah.

• 1:02:01Griffin Newman?

  But I also think this movie makes him kind of dumb.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:02:06Griffin Newman?

  In a way that is weird. Like, I think when Paul Rudd.

• 1:02:08David Sims?

  Oblivious. Like, like mega oblivious.

• 1:02:11Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing that I think Paul Rudd is really good at is like. Certain comedy stars who then need to have a love interest. And you're like, this beautiful actress would not be attracted to this guy, even if he looks like a movie star because he's behaving like a maniac. Right? Like if Maura Tierney has witnessed the way that Jim Carrey behaves in Liar Liar, she can never see him as a sexual creature ever again. Now, it's a broad comedy and it doesn't need to be based in that sort of reality, but you're just like, I don't know if she sees him as like a viable option. Right? Paul Rudd can do shit. And it probably has to do with the fact that like, he became a comedy star in a moment

• 1:02:52Griffin Newman?

  when the broad, high concept comedy was going away and things became more relationship and conversational, whatever. But something like the slapping the bass scene in I Love You, Man, which is so funny. And it's just Rudd doing a riff for like four minutes and moving weird and making weird voices. I watch it and I'm like, I still think Rashida Jones is gonna fuck him in 30 minutes. He is a goofball, but in a way where you're like, this is the way that like people pick people up at bars. You know, like this is the way where people are like, man, women love a guy with a sense of humor. Like if he looks like Paul Rudd and he can commit to the bit this hard and he's this affable and he gives the smile at the end of it, you're like, fuck, it's kinda hot. Right?

• 1:03:33Griffin Newman?

  This movie makes him dumb though, in a way where when he does those sorts of bits, and I think part of it's probably the disconnect of him being 35 and playing 29. And if he was 29, it would register as just kind of like puppy dog cluelessness. And in at 35, you're just like, is this guy a moron?

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:54David Sims?

  Karen, what do you want to say?

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I was gonna say, well, it was weird because when he, the first or second time he shows up, he like throws a jelly bean at the assistant woman's butt.

• 1:04:03David Sims?

  He does, that's another sequence that I was like, is this a dream?

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, why? It was so off putting that I think if he had been even 5% less handsome, I would be like, I hate this guy. But he only gets away with it because he's Paul Rudd and you choose to forget about that.

• 1:04:18David Sims?

  But it doesn't really track with how the character later.

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:04:22Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of a gentleman for the rest of the movie.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  Yes, he's so thoughtful. I think that. That is an example of a scene where like the last take they did, he's like, this is gonna be funny. I'm gonna do it. And then like, we're gonna keep this take for the movie.

• 1:04:31David Sims?

  Or they're like, we have to roast low rise jeans. Like, we must. And so there had, this scene's gotta make it in, Ben.

• 1:04:39Speaker 04

  Maybe he made the jelly bean on the first shot, cuz it's impressive.

• 1:04:43David Sims?

  It is impressive.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  No way. It absolutely has to be rigged.

• 1:04:47Griffin Newman?

  This sequence has like five setups in it. It's not just like he walked into a wide shot.

• 1:04:53David Sims?

  You're through and jelly bean for fun and was surprised.

• 1:04:55David Sims?

  Goes over the fence and taken and there's like 18 cuts.

• 1:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, this was like a thing that they had like a stunt supervisor come in. They had storyboards.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, a jelly bean coordinator.

• 1:05:07Griffin Newman?

  Like, this is a constructed sequence. And then she stands up and you think the joke is like, oh, she's got a jelly bean in her ass crack. And she's not even aware. And she turns around and is like, next time, aim higher. Or it's like.

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  It makes no sense cuz she was turned around. So it's like, next time, aim on your back? Like, what? You're, what?

• 1:05:24Griffin Newman?

  It's so strange.

• 1:05:25David Sims?

  And despite that, she then is so desperate to fuck him, she resorts to multiple Photoshop crimes.

• 1:05:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Sarah Alexander, who's a wonderful actor.

• 1:05:35David Sims?

  So Sarah Alexander.

• 1:05:36Griffin Newman?

  And in this film is playing the role of Thanos.

• 1:05:39David Sims?

  She's not very sympathetic in this film.

• 1:05:41Griffin Newman?

  This is like, maybe, I know we covered Schindler's List very recently on this podcast, but I'm gonna say this is in the top 10 least sympathetic characters we have ever had to discuss on this show.

• 1:05:57Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:05:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Griffin 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.

• 1:06:15David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:06:16Griffin 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.

• 1:06:39David 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.

• 1:06:51Griffin 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.

• 1:07:00David Sims?

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

• 1:07:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:07:03David 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.

• 1:07:10Griffin 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.

• 1:07:24David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:07:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:29David 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.

• 1:07:44Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:59David Sims?

  So Sarah Alexander is a very big part of my life because I grew up in Britain. I forget if Karen knows that, but I do, I did grow up in Britain and she was on, you know, Smack the Pony and like Green Wing, all and Coupling was her big thing.

• 1:08:14Griffin Newman?

  She was kind of the British Jennifer Aniston, is that?

• 1:08:17David Sims?

  No.

• 1:08:20David Sims?

  The whole thing that happened with Coupling, which was a sitcom that aired on the BBC, was that everyone was like, this is the British Friends and it's going to be brought to America and they'll do an American coupling so that like we'll have a new Friends because Friends was coming to an end, speaking of Paul Rudd. And famously, the American version tanked and lasted like two episodes or whatever. But Sarah Alexander was sort of the Rachel of coupling.

• 1:08:45Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:08:46David Sims?

  Coupling was never

• 1:08:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:08:47David Sims?

  A friend's size thing.

• 1:08:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:08:50David Sims?

  And I would say stuff like Smack the Pony and Greenwing. I know when you say smack the pony, you truly do sound like a stereotype of someone talking about Britain.

• 1:08:59Griffin Newman?

  Smack the pony and Greenwing.

• 1:09:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Griffin Newman?

  Say both of the.

• 1:09:03David Sims?

  You would really like Greenwing. Greenwing's really funny.

• 1:09:06Griffin Newman?

  I, I believe that. I, by the way, I think she's a great actor. Fan of hers in everything I've ever seen.

• 1:09:13David Sims?

  She's very funny. Smack the pony was a A sketch comedy show spearheaded by the great Sally Phillips that was, I mean, again, it was one of these like women do comedy now.

• 1:09:26David Sims?

  Greenwing was a more sort of focused thing. Sally Phillips is also in Greenwing. That was like sort of a sitcom set in a hospital, but had like a lot of surreal elements. Very, very good. She's not, yeah, Sarah Alexander, I think a bit undersold by this movie.

• 1:09:42Griffin Newman?

  A little, you think a little.

• 1:09:43David Sims?

  A little one dimensional as a character and it is one of those things, not to talk about women writing things or whatever. Where I'm like, you're, you're creating this sort of three dimensional character in Michelle Pfeiffer. That's like about your experiences, right? That really has like flaws and is interesting, you know, like that's the idea. But then like, there's literally like an evil shrew, like young bitch character. So evil that they grab each other's hair and have a cat fight for a second where I'm just like, is this sending us back a little bit with your complex female protagonist to have her around? Like, is this good, Amy?

• 1:10:23Griffin Newman?

  It feels like the Bridezilla assistant moment in Jurassic World.

• 1:10:27David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:10:27Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm like, someone did something to you.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  Yes, I felt the same way.

• 1:10:32David Sims?

  Yes, it does.

• 1:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Everything about this character is you settling some score.

• 1:10:37David Sims?

  What was your take on Sarah Alexander's character, uh, genie?

• 1:10:40Speaker 03

  Well, it was weird because I felt like Michelle Pfeiffer's character was set up to be a person who would be looking out for.

• 1:10:46David Sims?

  Sure. Would be like, hey, you want to make stuff?

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48David Sims?

  I'll help you.

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  And then it kind of seemed like that in the beginning, but then immediately they just became enemies in a way that felt very stereotyped.

• 1:10:56Griffin Newman?

  The quickest overview of this character's quote unquote arc, right? I believe we are first introduced to her shooting a line of dialogue for the TV show. So I'm like, oh, Sarah Alexander is playing an actress on the TV show. Then the next time you see her, it's Michelle Pfeiffer walking into her office and saying, hey, bad news, they cut your line of dialogue. And you're like, oh, this is her secretary who's trying to get a leg up, get in front of camera, and she's been foiled again. Then the next 20 times you see her, she is like pulling reverse parent traps, doctoring images, playing games of like telephone to trick people into thinking that everyone's cheating on everyone else and saying bad things about everyone else and trying to seduce everyone into her web.

• 1:11:42Griffin Newman?

  It takes Michelle Pfeiffer the entire movie to figure out, hmm, maybe she's a bad person. What she does in a sequence that's like Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes, like we literally go inside her brain.

• 1:11:54David Sims?

  Her mind palace.

• 1:11:54Griffin Newman?

  And her synapses fire and she replays all the moments in her mind like she's figured out who Kaiser Soze is. And then, yes, they like pull each other's hair after she walks in on her.

• 1:12:05David Sims?

  And Fred Willard is like hot.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  Yes, I forgot about that.

• 1:12:09David Sims?

  She do be blowing Fred.

• 1:12:10Griffin Newman?

  She walks into Fred Willard's office and says, you need to fire her right now. Fred Willard stands up from his desk, buckles his pants and goes, oh, well, that's gonna be difficult. And she goes, why? Unclear why she can't just fire her.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:22Griffin Newman?

  Why she's asking the head of the network to fire.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  Her personal assistant.

• 1:12:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and then Sarah Alexander comes out from underneath the desk in a catfight.

• 1:12:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31David Sims?

  And Fred Willard is turned off.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  It does feel like somebody who Amy Heckerling tried to once help wronged her. And now the moral of the story is never help any woman younger than you.

• 1:12:41Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:12:41David Sims?

  Never, they'll just Photoshop your ass.

• 1:12:44Speaker 03

  Wait, but so good at Photoshop, I was genuinely impressed.

• 1:12:47David Sims?

  That's the thing, someone should take advantage of this person's skills.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, she should be in graphic design.

• 1:12:52David Sims?

  Exactly, get her over to some other department, she can Photoshop Paul Rudd in your car in a traffic cam or whatever.

• 1:12:59Griffin Newman?

  She hates Stacy Dash, presumably because she's the lead on a TV show instead of her.

• 1:13:05David Sims?

  Sarah Alexander.

• 1:13:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes, so she starts photoshopping.

• 1:13:09Griffin Newman?

  Her head on less flattering images.

• 1:13:12David Sims?

  Right. First she's doing that. That's right.

• 1:13:14Griffin Newman?

  Just making like printout memes for fun and showing them to people being like, huh? Look at this mean Photoshop I made. Then one day she is sitting at her desk Googling naked pictures of Stacy Dash. She finds a porn like nude celebrities.org website.

• 1:13:31David Sims?

  Which I think is not, well, who knows? Whatever.

• 1:13:33Griffin Newman?

  It looks like a fake website.

• 1:13:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:13:35Griffin Newman?

  An image that is clearly photoshopped where she is not naked. Right? Where it's just Stacy Dash, holding a towel, but clearly her head photoshopped onto a different body.

• 1:13:44David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:13:44Griffin Newman?

  Then she notices that Paul Rudd has left, or the props guy comes in and goes, I accidentally took Paul Rudd's real phone. Sarah Alexander takes out her, his flip phone, takes a picture of the screen so that Michelle Pfeiffer will think that he was in bed with her.

• 1:14:02David Sims?

  I'm not yawning because this is so boring.

• 1:14:05Griffin Newman?

  Why was she on the website in the first place?

• 1:14:07David Sims?

  I don't know. I don't know. It's not very, very clear. And it also kind of could also lift out of this movie because the movie's real conflict is whether or not, I guess whether Michelle Pfeiffer can handle dating someone who's a lot younger than her. Is it the start of his career versus where she's in in her career? She's got a kid, whatever. This is the sort of rich emotional content of the movie that is mostly not addressed.

• 1:14:33Griffin Newman?

  Also, just like you watch this, you're like, there's actually no, no movie I can think of that actually kind of represents what like being a TV showrunner is.

• 1:14:42David Sims?

  Right. And it does do a good job of right, all the bullshit she's getting asked about and.

• 1:14:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure. There's enough to work with there.

• 1:14:50David Sims?

  But here's how the movie mostly addresses the age gap is kind of them in the car.

• 1:14:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54David Sims?

  And Michelle going like, how old are you? And he's like, oh, yeah. She's like, I was kind of young. Like, that's basically it.

• 1:15:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Sarah Alexander will like perpetuate lies, will like trick him into trying to fuck other people. Tell Michelle Pfeiffer that he's trying to fuck her. Try to convince him truly to fuck her. Like she's working like 20 angles.

• 1:15:16Speaker 03

  It's weird.

• 1:15:17Griffin Newman?

  Just an absolute agent of chaos.

• 1:15:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. If we just had the two things where it was like the A plot was her and Paul Rudd, and the B plot was her and her daughter.

• 1:15:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  That would have been a great movie.

• 1:15:29Griffin Newman?

  Whole movie. So right, and obviously, regular check-ins from Mother Nature herself.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Right, yeah, you must have that.

• 1:15:34David Sims?

  More of her, every two minutes.

• 1:15:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36David Sims?

  She's like, I'm still here. All right.

• 1:15:38Griffin Newman?

  I got Fritos this time.

• 1:15:40David Sims?

  So, the, the best stuff in this movie is her and her daughter, for sure. That is the stuff that basically all just possibly because it's very lived in because she raised a kid at that time who was this age. It just feels like not cheesy.

• 1:15:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57David Sims?

  The daughter's interests feel like sort of appropriately kind of in that blurry like pubescent, kind of like she still likes some kid shit. She likes, you know, she's starting to get interested in more grown up shit.

• 1:16:07Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sometimes she dresses like my chemical romance.

• 1:16:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:16:10Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes she dresses like Avril Lavigne.

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  She dresses like David Foster Wallace.

• 1:16:14Griffin Newman?

  That's also true.

• 1:16:15Speaker 03

  I've lost my mind.

• 1:16:17David Sims?

  The head, the bandana, and the, yes, oh my god. Oh, I hope my daughter has a David Foster Wallace face.

• 1:16:23Griffin Newman?

  This is another thing.

• 1:16:24David Sims?

  Just, just fashion-wise.

• 1:16:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, good clarification.

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  Really bad at writing.

• 1:16:29David Sims?

  Yeah, I hope she stinks at writing.

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  Unlike David Foster Wallace.

• 1:16:33David Sims?

  Thank you. Yes.

• 1:16:36Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:16:36David Sims?

  Saoirse Ronan plays her daughter, of course, whose name is Izzy, although later she wants to be called Drew. That is not explained.

• 1:16:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay. What I was going to say.

• 1:16:45David Sims?

  What were you gonna say?

• 1:16:46Griffin Newman?

  Is that.

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  Tell us. What were you gonna say?

• 1:16:49David Sims?

  Tell Karen first, and then tell me.

• 1:16:50Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:16:51David Sims?

  And then tell Ben.

• 1:16:51Griffin Newman?

  Karen relay this to Ben and David. A thing that feels very specific in this film that I like, and Hector Ling's talked about this, is like she was this dark, cynical, pessimistic New York girl who made Clueless, which was this sort of experiment for her, starting out writing these people in a way that she thought was satirical.

• 1:17:10David Sims?

  But Clueless is her, can I make a sunny movie?

• 1:17:12Griffin Newman?

  And then she starts to like fall in love with these characters, and she's like, this is so far off from me. I like the thought experiment of imagining being this optimistic, this positive, this sunny, this bright, and then likes living in that world. She moves to Hollywood. She's a Hollywood player, right? But now she's raising a young girl who is more like her, who is this kind of like oddball, alternative, dark girl.

• 1:17:35Griffin Newman?

  While she is spending her days making like the most candy coated teen show possible. So it's not just that there's like the, the reality of the difference of the two. It's also like them being on a very similar wavelength, what she does for a living, being on a different wavelength. And her trying to balance these two notions of like what a modern young woman is. All of that's interesting on paper.

• 1:17:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, there was a scene that I thought like could have potentially been incredible. Like the beginning of it really tugged at my heartstrings where they're like trying on clothes at the store. And the daughter, Izzy, is like, oh, this doesn't look good on me because I'm ugly. Like I'm ugly and you're beautiful, mom. And I was like, I bet this is a real thing. And like, I, I feel like as a young girl, I always thought I was like the ugliest person in the world. And like, it's a conversation that girls have with their moms often.

• 1:18:24David Sims?

  Because that's the, the intimate setting of the mom dragging you to your mall, to the mall or whatever.

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  Right. Or like feeling like you're compared to your mom, maybe subconsciously. And then instead of doing anything with it, Michelle Pfeiffer just goes, no, I'm ugly. Look at me, I'm hideous. As she's like sitting with perfect posture, looking gorgeous.

• 1:18:42David Sims?

  Which is kind of funny, but you're right that we're, we're exiting any deeper residence.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:18:48David Sims?

  Cause it is also funny when Saoirse Ronan is like, my stomach is so fat.

• 1:18:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you're like, what?

• 1:18:55David Sims?

  Faye little child.

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  Unbelievably adorable.

• 1:18:58David Sims?

  Funny and, and like appropriately a little darker, you know?

• 1:19:01Griffin Newman?

  I also think like Amy Heckerling is someone who by the time her movie career started, had her look really figured out.

• 1:19:10Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 1:19:11Griffin Newman?

  Right? Was kind of like dark alternative lady making it in Hollywood. But like the way they style Michelle Pfeiffer in this, outside of like her being blonde and Heckerling being like darker haired, raven haired, is very similar of the sort of like suit jacket and the wide collar shirt and the loose tie and the hair with the pen in it. Like that's Heckerling's look in all these things. And like, here's someone who's been like the weirdo girl and has figured out a way to like make it into success. I also think there's something interesting to that of like, yeah, the kind of shit that kids would mock you for when you're 13 and Everyone's worried about being normal ultimately can become an asset and become your like defining

• 1:19:50Griffin Newman?

  characteristics and a thing you can own and Saoirse dressing kind of similarly to her mom and looking at her and being like I'm ugly and you're pretty.

• 1:20:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:00Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, no, it's more reflection of like the different stages of life.

• 1:20:03Speaker 03

  Oh, that's sweet.

• 1:20:05Griffin Newman?

  There.

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:06Griffin Newman?

  But then, yes, it turns into Michelle Pfeiffer complaining about like, my face is falling.

• 1:20:10David Sims?

  But there, but there is funny stuff there, like to like, right, like Saoirse, a running plot in the movie is that she has a crush on a boy and she's always describing to the mom, the harebrained schemes that she and her friend are cooking up to like, get her to go on a double date with the boy or get her in the same room as the boy and they're playing a video game because they know the boy likes the video games. They have to learn.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  I totally did that.

• 1:20:32David Sims?

  Secrets which video game.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  I'm actually realizing it wasn't a video game, but I had a crush on this guy in middle school who loved Invader Zim. And then I was like, I have to go home and watch Invader Zim.

• 1:20:41Griffin Newman?

  I wasn't that into Invader.

• 1:20:43David Sims?

  Okay. All right. All right.

• 1:20:44Griffin Newman?

  I like.

• 1:20:45David Sims?

  It always seemed pretty funny to me.

• 1:20:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:47David Sims?

  Do you like?

• 1:20:48Griffin Newman?

  There were people who made it their entire personality.

• 1:20:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it might've been more like his entire personality.

• 1:20:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what it's like. If you had to watch it in order to get his attention, that sounds like an entire personality.

• 1:20:58Speaker 03

  He also one day like offhanded was like, oh, you should join the tennis team. I play tennis. And I was like, yes, I will.

• 1:21:04David Sims?

  Did you join the tennis team?

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I did. And I actually, the nice takeaway is I still play tennis.

• 1:21:08David Sims?

  That's great. We should play tennis this summer. Every year I'm like, I'm gonna play tennis this summer. I used to play tennis.

• 1:21:14Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:21:15Griffin Newman?

  Ben? Our Fast Times episode came out. The great Marie Barty asked, hey, can you guys share high school photos? So we can share them on social media. It's like a fun flashbacky thing. We're doing high school movies on the podcast. You pulled up your, was it your senior page?

• 1:21:29David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:21:30Griffin Newman?

  And tennis was listed as one of your main interests.

• 1:21:34David Sims?

  Well, no, it was one of your extracurriculars or whatever.

• 1:21:37Griffin Newman?

  But you only listed two. It was like banned tennis.

• 1:21:40David Sims?

  Now, that was the only two things that I participated. We know you rocked that tuba.

• 1:21:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44David Sims?

  And were you still on the tuba by senior year or had you switched? No, no. You switched off tuba. I had, I had dropped the tuba for a joint of marijuana. Well, wait a second. That's not a musical instrument at all.

• 1:21:57David Sims?

  No, where were you playing in band?

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  I played a lot of different instruments, but the main instrument was the trumpet.

• 1:22:04David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  I could see Ben being very cool in high school.

• 1:22:08David Sims?

  Well, from, here's my take on Ben.

• 1:22:10Speaker 04

  Stoner kid.

• 1:22:11David Sims?

  I think Ben was kind of like a cute stoner.

• 1:22:13Griffin Newman?

  He looked like Elliot Smith.

• 1:22:15David Sims?

  He's kind of doing his own thing, maybe, but like if you hacked away at it, you could get his attention. But maybe he just wants to, what did you want to do? Like if we were, if I'm like, well, let's hang out senior year. What are you, what are you going to want to do?

• 1:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Smoke weed.

• 1:22:28Speaker 04

  Smoke weed. All right.

• 1:22:29Griffin Newman?

  But I-

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  You're gonna take me somewhere? Take for a ride.

• 1:22:33David Sims?

  Oh my God.

• 1:22:35Speaker 04

  I-

• 1:22:35David Sims?

  Slow ride, baby.

• 1:22:36Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I have never heard you invoke tennis.

• 1:22:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:40Griffin Newman?

  Why do you still talk about your band days a lot? And I didn't know you were a tennis kid.

• 1:22:44Speaker 04

  I played tennis all four years. I love tennis. I still play from time to time.

• 1:22:50David Sims?

  How's your, you know, what's your game? Like are you a baseline guy? How's your drop shot?

• 1:22:53Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm really rusty.

• 1:22:55Griffin Newman?

  What's your handicap? Are you good at three pointers?

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  But no, I, I was like, uh, I was like third position in singles. Like I was a pretty good player. Yeah.

• 1:23:04Speaker 03

  You were great.

• 1:23:06Speaker 04

  I don't know what I would say my, my game is. Uh, my game is getting angry and like screaming at myself.

• 1:23:13David Sims?

  So you're kind of a John McEnroe type.

• 1:23:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:15David Sims?

  Uh, I loved racket sports because I was better at them than I was at hand eye. Like I wasn't kicking the ball while-

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  You're not supposed to do that in tennis?

• 1:23:25David Sims?

  You're not, but in soccer you are.

• 1:23:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:23:28David Sims?

  And I really struggled to, to kick that ball in a way that was, you know, with force and accuracy and all the things you want in soccer. It wasn't really my thing.

• 1:23:37Griffin Newman?

  In high school, in terms of sports, I'm checking my notes here. I excelled at physio ball.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  Wait, what?

• 1:23:43Griffin Newman?

  That big rubber ball that you use to do like stretches.

• 1:23:46David Sims?

  Uh huh. You mean like a medicine ball?

• 1:23:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, like a Lamaze ball.

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  You were like lying down on top of a ball.

• 1:23:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, or like bouncing on top of it and stuff.

• 1:23:53David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:23:53Speaker 03

  Okay, that's awesome.

• 1:23:54Griffin Newman?

  I almost failed it.

• 1:23:55David Sims?

  Karen, were you an athlete?

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  I did play a lot of soccer.

• 1:23:59David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:23:59Speaker 03

  And I did a lot of Taekwondo, which I think is why I'm always like kind of ready to fight somebody, but nobody will duel me.

• 1:24:05David Sims?

  Well, I would duel you if I knew any Taekwondo, but I don't. What was your soccer position?

• 1:24:11Speaker 03

  Um, I was right wing. I was forward. Yeah. I would be really small and, and then just running.

• 1:24:16David Sims?

  Running down the wing.

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18David Sims?

  How were your, were you a good crosser?

• 1:24:20Speaker 03

  I think I was. I actually think I was pretty good at soccer. And then I got diagnosed as concussion prone and I couldn't play soccer.

• 1:24:27David Sims?

  Concussion prone?

• 1:24:28Speaker 04

  So you can't have balls hitting your head.

• 1:24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  But how do they identify? They're basically, they can diagnose that you are more susceptible to getting concussions?

• 1:24:37Speaker 03

  I think basically I got two concussions in three weeks.

• 1:24:40Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So you'd already been getting them.

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  Neither time I had hit my head. I just sort of like lurched a little and then gotten a concussion. So they were like, you actually should not be.

• 1:24:47Griffin Newman?

  You're hypersensitive.

• 1:24:48David Sims?

  Oh no, you're not allowed to move.

• 1:24:50Speaker 03

  No, but and then so I couldn't go on roller coasters for a while.

• 1:24:53Griffin Newman?

  Fuck.

• 1:24:53Speaker 04

  That'll, sure, that does seem, if you're lurching and getting a concussion, you don't get on a roller coaster.

• 1:24:59Griffin Newman?

  Can you go on them now?

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  I can go on them now. Now I won't stop. I'm on one currently.

• 1:25:05Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:25:06David Sims?

  Wait, what changed?

• 1:25:08Speaker 03

  I think at one point they were like, hey, I think your brain tissue has completed.

• 1:25:11David Sims?

  Oh, okay. You're like, your, your head kinda, right?

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. My head is huge now. What happened?

• 1:25:17Speaker 04

  I was throwing a snowball at a 10 year old.

• 1:25:20David Sims?

  Now he knows the 10 year old.

• 1:25:21Griffin Newman?

  He does. Yeah. Karen, before you get worried.

• 1:25:24David Sims?

  This 10 year old, I will say, lives rent free in that concussed brain of his. But he does know him.

• 1:25:29Griffin Newman?

  Karen, before you get concerned, he knows that 10 year old very well because that 10 year old is his mortal nemesis.

• 1:25:35David Sims?

  Yes. That 10 year old owns his ass.

• 1:25:38Griffin Newman?

  Years of rivalry between him and a 10 year old.

• 1:25:41Speaker 04

  He instigated a snowball fight with me, so I came back at him hard. Okay? And I was jumping up to bean his ass.

• 1:25:48David Sims?

  Your age here is 10, right Ben?

• 1:25:50Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:25:51David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 1:25:52Speaker 04

  I'm in my late twenties. My very late.

• 1:25:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Just imagine the latest you could be in your.

• 1:25:59David Sims?

  That's where Ben's at.

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  Also, you said nemesis for years, which means you started this when he was like six?

• 1:26:05David Sims?

  I think, I think he's been in your head a couple of years.

• 1:26:08Speaker 04

  I think, no, it's been going like a couple of years. So since he's been about eight.

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah. Yeah. A fully grown man then. Yeah.

• 1:26:14Speaker 04

  He famously took a look at my earring. I re, you know, got my ear pierced at 38.

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  Yes, I remember this. Yeah.

• 1:26:21Speaker 04

  And he said, oh wow, that's pretty basic, man.

• 1:26:26David Sims?

  And the thing that about that, when he said that is it bounced right off of Ben. It didn't affect him at all. He doesn't remember the word.

• 1:26:33Speaker 04

  I wasn't bothered by it at all for days.

• 1:26:36Griffin Newman?

  He wrote Ben up a mean birthday card that we have here in the office.

• 1:26:40David Sims?

  Somewhere around here.

• 1:26:42Speaker 03

  How do you know this?

• 1:26:43Griffin Newman?

  He is the son of our editor on the podcast.

• 1:26:47Speaker 03

  Incredible. Okay.

• 1:26:48Griffin Newman?

  But Ben, just to be clear, Ben did not get a concussion because this kid hit him really hard with a snowball. Ben got the concussion because he threw a snowball so hard at the kid that he threw off his own center of gravity and fell.

• 1:27:03Speaker 04

  Well, it was, it was, I, I, so I'm in the air. I, I throw the snowball. I come down. I immediately lose my footing.

• 1:27:12Griffin Newman?

  Like I did like a jump throw and like spun his whole body.

• 1:27:16Speaker 04

  And so with all the momentum of like me coming down from jumping, I slip and then fall on the back of my head.

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:27:24Griffin Newman?

  We've made him tell this story like five times on the podcast and I swear it gets funnier every time.

• 1:27:27David Sims?

  I mean, I feel bad because he did hurt his head.

• 1:27:29Speaker 03

  No, I don't feel bad at all. This is a joy.

• 1:27:32David Sims?

  Yeah, it's pretty funny.

• 1:27:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have to go get an MRI soon.

• 1:27:36Speaker 03

  Oh, wait. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry.

• 1:27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. I got your ass, Karen.

• 1:27:41Griffin Newman?

  And just to be clear, Ben.

• 1:27:42Speaker 04

  No, I'm totally fine.

• 1:27:43David Sims?

  More concussions than you.

• 1:27:44Griffin Newman?

  Concussion prone.

• 1:27:45Speaker 04

  I'm, I have two now.

• 1:27:47Speaker 03

  Wait.

• 1:27:48Speaker 04

  In my lifetime.

• 1:27:48Speaker 03

  So the second one, the one where it's the snowball, are you currently concussed?

• 1:27:52Speaker 04

  Well, when do you stop?

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  Wait, when does this happen?

• 1:27:56Griffin Newman?

  It was like.

• 1:27:56David Sims?

  Like three months ago.

• 1:27:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  Oh, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah.

• 1:28:00David Sims?

  Just don't like be a quarterback or whatever.

• 1:28:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I can avoid doing that.

• 1:28:04David Sims?

  Right, exactly.

• 1:28:05Griffin Newman?

  And Ben, just to be clear, when you fell to the ground, hit your head, of course, this 10 year old boy came to your side and helped heal you.

• 1:28:12Speaker 04

  No, he fucking Nelson from Simpsons my ass.

• 1:28:16David Sims?

  He's laughed at you.

• 1:28:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:18Speaker 03

  This is amazing.

• 1:28:19Speaker 04

  I know. It's so good.

• 1:28:20Speaker 03

  I, I'm obsessed with this kid.

• 1:28:22Speaker 04

  Oh, he's cool.

• 1:28:23Speaker 03

  I want to Venmo this kid some money.

• 1:28:24David Sims?

  Sure, I'll give you his Venmo.

• 1:28:26Griffin Newman?

  He's really funny.

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's gonna love hearing this.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  Gotta be honest, I'm imagining just like a younger version of Griffin.

• 1:28:33David Sims?

  He's not, he's honestly, he kind of looks like Dennis the Menace.

• 1:28:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:38David Sims?

  Like he's kind of got like an American Dennis the Menace vibe.

• 1:28:41Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 1:28:42David Sims?

  Like not the British kind.

• 1:28:43Griffin Newman?

  We went out to dinner and he, we got like chips and he made a double dipping joke. And I was like, oh, have you ever watched Seinfeld? He goes, no, what's that? And I go, it's really funny. You'd actually like it. It's like, that's where the double dipping comes from. It's a show made up of like, observations like that. And he went, I don't know. Who's on that show?

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  That's so sweet.

• 1:29:04Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, Jerry Seinfeld. He went, no, that's not who I'm thinking of.

• 1:29:10Griffin Newman?

  He meant to, like, he wasn't trying to be funny.

• 1:29:12Speaker 03

  No, of course.

• 1:29:12Griffin Newman?

  I'm thinking of someone else.

• 1:29:14Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:29:18Griffin Newman?

  Here's another thing I like in this movie.

• 1:29:20Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 1:29:21Griffin Newman?

  On paper. We're talking about like her coaching her daughter through like, how to engage.

• 1:29:27David Sims?

  Boy drama. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:30Griffin Newman?

  That it like speaks to this sort of like loop I'm talking about of like, the weird edgy girl made good come into her own, where she's sort of with reflection, now applying the knowledge of like, no, this is how you actually get people interested in you. It's not like the dumb shit that like peer pressure tells you you need to do in order to like rope in a boy or like catch his eye, which is just such an interesting contrast to her day job being that she's writing a show about teenagers that is like very boilerplate and is caught up in sort of like 90210 style like drama, right?

• 1:30:11Griffin Newman?

  That there's this sense of like, Amy Heckerling, her success is so much that she was like able to relate to the perspective of a teenager that she could reactivate it for 20 years out of high school and make these movies and TV shows that like really connected with a younger generation, but even still knows like that's different from reality. And like, to my daughter, I'm telling her the things I wish I had known at the time, which is mostly like, be funny.

• 1:30:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:30:38Griffin Newman?

  Don't try to like play dumb. Don't like,

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:41Griffin Newman?

  you know, flatter him or whatever it is.

• 1:30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. And she like encourages her daughter to sing out at the end. I was like, that's very sweet.

• 1:30:47Griffin Newman?

  Own the note.

• 1:30:48David Sims?

  They have a good relationship.

• 1:30:50Griffin Newman?

  Can we also say that her? Accent is impeccable.

• 1:30:55Speaker 03

  Oh my God, it's amazing.

• 1:30:56David Sims?

  I mean, this is the whole thing. Clearly it's like, okay, we have to make this movie in Britain. We need a British, well, she's Irish, but we need a UK and Ireland child actor. So I guess we're gonna have to get like the best one available because they're gonna need to do a killer accent.

• 1:31:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:10David Sims?

  And so that's how they luck into they're like, you have to get me number one.

• 1:31:14Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:31:14David Sims?

  You have to get me the person with like the 100 rating.

• 1:31:16Griffin Newman?

  They successfully identified.

• 1:31:17David Sims?

  We dug up this future five time Oscar nominee.

• 1:31:20Griffin Newman?

  One of the best actors of the last 25 years. Like it's astounding discovery.

• 1:31:24David Sims?

  She got passed over for playing, I don't know if you actually care about Harry Potter. I made the parcel tongue joke earlier and nobody laughed.

• 1:31:31Speaker 03

  I didn't know she was, wait, she's.

• 1:31:33David Sims?

  She got passed over for Luna Lovegood.

• 1:31:35Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:31:35David Sims?

  She was the runner up and obviously makes a lot of sense for Luna Lovegood. But probably good that she didn't get it because then she would have been stuck making those goddamn movies.

• 1:31:43Griffin Newman?

  Also, that actress is very good who plays her in the movie. But also basically gets stuck as Luna Lovegood for the rest of her life.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, and so instead she gets this role. This is her first role, but of course it's not released until after Atonement. Have you seen Atonement?

• 1:32:00Speaker 03

  Yes, I read and watched Atonement over the winter.

• 1:32:03David Sims?

  Yeah. Incredible book.

• 1:32:04Griffin Newman?

  But that's.

• 1:32:04David Sims?

  And a pretty good movie.

• 1:32:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly how I felt.

• 1:32:07David Sims?

  Good.

• 1:32:07Griffin Newman?

  By the time this movie is on blockbuster shelves, she already has an Oscar nomination.

• 1:32:13Speaker 03

  That's nuts. That's bonkers.

• 1:32:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:32:16Griffin Newman?

  That's insane to consider.

• 1:32:17Speaker 03

  She should have gotten an Oscar nom for this movie.

• 1:32:20Griffin Newman?

  Kind of.

• 1:32:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:21David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 1:32:22Speaker 03

  She was phenomenal in it, I thought.

• 1:32:23David Sims?

  So it would be the 2008 Oscars, right? It was when it was finally.

• 1:32:27Speaker 03

  Who would she have been up against?

• 1:32:28David Sims?

  DVD release.

• 1:32:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:30David Sims?

  The Oscars are like, we're making an exception. DVD of that movie is allowed. Well, the winner of that year, of course, was Penelope Cruz for Vicky Christina Barcelona. A film, a performance at the tone of I Could Never Be Your Woman Sometimes. Uh, Amy Adams in Doubt, Viola Davis in Doubt.

• 1:32:49David Sims?

  Taraji Henson in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler, kind of a funny five, five perfectly good performances. It is, yeah, huh.

• 1:33:00Griffin Newman?

  Tomei?

• 1:33:01David Sims?

  Well, I'm dropping Adams, I'm sorry. That movie sucks. She's totally fine in it.

• 1:33:05Griffin Newman?

  I think she's very good in it.

• 1:33:07David Sims?

  She's good in it, like, but I just, whatever, I don't care for that movie.

• 1:33:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you, it's weird, you've never invoked it.

• 1:33:13David Sims?

  I have such doubts about that movie. My five, you wanna know my five?

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:19David Sims?

  Totally different.

• 1:33:20Griffin Newman?

  Who would your, your winner from that five would be?

• 1:33:24David Sims?

  It would probably be Penelope Cruz. I think that performance is fucking hilarious, but I think Tomei is really good. And I'd be like, pretty satisfied with Tomei.

• 1:33:33Griffin Newman?

  Tomei's pretty excellent, huh?

• 1:33:34David Sims?

  The thing with Tomei is it's kind of like, yeah, she's good. She's fucking Marisa Tomei. I guess by, I guess when she was in The Wrestler, it was a little bit like, Marisa, we haven't seen you in a second, like, it's nice to see you. My five were Diane Weest in Sinectica in New York, who's my winner, an amazing performance, Rosemarie DeWitt and Rachel getting married, amazing performance. I do have Tomei, Adele Hennell in Water Lilies, which is an amazing performance. And I guess I, I guess I'll just toss in fucking Sherri Ronna. No, Beyonce Knowles was my fifth.

• 1:34:07Griffin Newman?

  For Dreamgirl? No.

• 1:34:09David Sims?

  For Cadillac Records. She's amazing in.

• 1:34:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's a good five.

• 1:34:12Speaker 03

  Are these your top five performances by women by that year?

• 1:34:15David Sims?

  Yeah, supporting actresses.

• 1:34:17Griffin Newman?

  David has a spreadsheet for every single year of what he would nominate in every category.

• 1:34:22Speaker 03

  David!

• 1:34:23Griffin Newman?

  Down to craft awards.

• 1:34:24Speaker 04

  How he earned the nickname the Spread Master.

• 1:34:28Speaker 03

  Gotcha, and that's what everybody calls him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:32David Sims?

  Only in bed.

• 1:34:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:34:34David Sims?

  No, I've never had sex, I made the spreadsheet and said.

• 1:34:37Griffin Newman?

  When he's on a subway car, those knees are tight together. He never manspreads.

• 1:34:41David Sims?

  No.

• 1:34:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:43Griffin Newman?

  He's the Spread Master when he opens up Google Drive.

• 1:34:46David Sims?

  I love to wedge myself into that, um, you know, the L-seat on the subway, the, the window seat.

• 1:34:51Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 1:34:52David Sims?

  But my legs are always too long, so I'm always like, sitting.

• 1:34:54Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:34:55David Sims?

  I have two long legs.

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  I've never had an issue where my legs were too long.

• 1:34:58David Sims?

  You're a little shorter than me.

• 1:34:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:00Griffin Newman?

  Wait, actually, can you guys stand back to back?

• 1:35:02Speaker 03

  Can you tell us a bar?

• 1:35:05Griffin Newman?

  With, with the shoes on, or?

• 1:35:08David Sims?

  Yeah, Karen is in one foot platforms right now.

• 1:35:13Griffin Newman?

  Karen's dressed like Bart Simpson in the radioactive man episode.

• 1:35:16Speaker 03

  That's why I'm one foot taller than David.

• 1:35:20David Sims?

  Yes, exactly. So what other things should we talk about for this?

• 1:35:25Griffin Newman?

  Well, oh, here's, here's the thing I want to say.

• 1:35:27David Sims?

  Please, please.

• 1:35:28Griffin Newman?

  So like, Saoirse's accent is immaculate, right? If she had never acted again, you would just believe they found some American kid.

• 1:35:36David Sims?

  They found some valley girl or whatever.

• 1:35:38Griffin Newman?

  And she is like showing herself basically, I think she can do anything. Like she's basically as versatile. And I think.

• 1:35:44David Sims?

  She's a very good actor. I'd love her to make a really good movie again.

• 1:35:47Griffin Newman?

  Same. A lot of the actors in this, like Graham Norton, who has such a distinctive Irish brogue, right? Like, sounds like a little leprechaun.

• 1:35:56David Sims?

  What he's doing is interesting.

• 1:35:58Griffin Newman?

  This is what's fascinating, is he shows up, I'm like, oh my God, they're gonna make Graham Norton do an American accent. This is not gonna work. And then he starts talking and I'm like, huh.

• 1:36:08David Sims?

  He's kind of just tweaking it 5%.

• 1:36:11Griffin Newman?

  This is what I think I finally landed on, because I was like, what's going on? Something is unnerving me. And I'm like, I think he's actually, on a technical level, doing a pretty spot on American accent. The problem is, he still is speaking with the musicality of his Irish accent. So it's like, he's going like, well, I don't know, we gotta get you out of that outfit.

• 1:36:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:36:34Griffin Newman?

  There's like this weird, like, I love Graham Norton.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Griffin Newman?

  And like, you watch the clips of him on the talk show and like, talking my la minute and like,

• 1:36:43Griffin Newman?

  you know, and he's like, taken all the Irish inflections out.

• 1:36:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:48Griffin Newman?

  But he still sounds like he's like, you'll never catch me in my pot of gold.

• 1:36:52David Sims?

  Pretty much his only film role.

• 1:36:56Griffin Newman?

  As a face actor.

• 1:36:57David Sims?

  Not as, uh, playing himself for a voice.

• 1:37:00Griffin Newman?

  He's quite good in soul.

• 1:37:02David Sims?

  Uh, sure. That's right. He is. He's good in soul.

• 1:37:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Where he is allowed to use his natural voice.

• 1:37:07David Sims?

  Yes. I grew up with Graham Norton. He hosted a, well, first he was on Father Ted, which he's very, very funny on. He's Noel Furlong. He always jokes how terrible he is on Father Ted, but he's very funny. The joke is he's the most annoying person on earth.

• 1:37:18Griffin Newman?

  But it's like David Letterman always shitting on his own acting work. Right.

• 1:37:21David Sims?

  Uh, and then he hosted So Graham Norton. Did you grow up? No, no one else grew up with Graham Norton.

• 1:37:25Speaker 03

  I wish a lot of Graham.

• 1:37:27Griffin Newman?

  America.

• 1:37:28David Sims?

  There you go.

• 1:37:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I watched him. Yeah.

• 1:37:30Speaker 03

  I was like all watching him on YouTube.

• 1:37:32Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing. Right. Now, once YouTube hit, his stuff is like everywhere.

• 1:37:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:37David Sims?

  And it was, but he was truly one of those guys. I'm 12 and I'm just like, this is one of my guys.

• 1:37:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:43David Sims?

  I'm gonna follow this guy to the top. And then he went to the top and I was like, I'll just leave him at the top. He seems to have figured it out by himself. And it's not like I dislike Graham Norton now, but now I only digest him in YouTube clips that come across my, it's not like I sit down and I'm like, I want to watch all of his interviews, like front to back.

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and the clips are good.

• 1:38:01David Sims?

  No, he's very good. They, they're very good at their job there, like getting the big, long stories out of the actors and all that.

• 1:38:07Griffin Newman?

  So many American talk shows have ripped him off in the last 10 years.

• 1:38:10David Sims?

  So who's ripping him off the most?

• 1:38:11Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I think Corden ripped him off the most.

• 1:38:13Speaker 03

  With the couch.

• 1:38:14Griffin Newman?

  Because I think Corden came from the UK to American offices and was like, oh, they won't know what I'm ripping off because they haven't seen this.

• 1:38:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:22Griffin Newman?

  And the whole like couch with multiple guests at the same time and being like, I'm just trying to spark them into having interesting conversations with each other. Like that is wholesale Graham Norton.

• 1:38:31David Sims?

  You're right. You're right.

• 1:38:33Speaker 04

  Mulaney.

• 1:38:34David Sims?

  Now, Mulaney's doing something fucking bizarre.

• 1:38:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:37David Sims?

  Because he's also doing like Dick Cavett.

• 1:38:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:38:40David Sims?

  And he's doing Bill Maher in the 90s. He's doing.

• 1:38:43Griffin Newman?

  He's also doing Cable Access.

• 1:38:44David Sims?

  Yes. He's doing this weird grab bag thing.

• 1:38:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:47David Sims?

  And the thing about that show as it's gone on, that we're talking about his Netflix show, is you're watching it come together. Cause the first couple of episodes, it lurches from thing to thing and you're like, no one has figured out the connective tissue. And so it said, he's like, all right, we're gonna go do this now. And you're like, okay. Like, and he sits down a bunch of people. It's like cruise ships. What do you think? If they're like, I don't know, we've never been on one. And you're like, did anyone talk to anyone?

• 1:39:11Griffin Newman?

  But I think that's what he's really going for is like

• 1:39:13David Sims?

  Chaos.

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  Watching old talk shows from the seventies or watching cable access shows and being like, oh, they haven't figured all of this out. They didn't prepare. Like shit just can happen. And there's that like danger of like a bit might just fall or a conversation might just end. Versus I think Graham Norton like

• 1:39:31David Sims?

  The one where Pete Davidson on it and he just doesn't want to talk. And fucking Lunel is like, I want to fuck you. And he's like, I don't want to do that. Sorry. I've been kind of obsessed with that show because it's interesting.

• 1:39:43Griffin Newman?

  It's just so funny that Graham Norton in this is like, it feels like he is specifically playing like a queer eye.

• 1:39:49David Sims?

  Yeah, he's right. He's a fabulous costume designer.

• 1:39:52Griffin Newman?

  But it's also like Carson Kreasley, like very specifically of that moment.

• 1:39:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:58Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, maybe just let him be Irish.

• 1:40:00Speaker 03

  It was a moment though where because he's such a cheery, positive guy that I, as I was watching was like rooting for him as an actor. I was like, yeah.

• 1:40:08David Sims?

  I had the exact same feeling. Right. I'm like, you're doing it great. You know what? Basically makes sense in this movie. It's not incongruous.

• 1:40:16Griffin Newman?

  But it speaks to, there's like something just a little weird. He's not doing anything wrong.

• 1:40:21David Sims?

  It would be fine if there was just one. It's just the fact that every five minutes, there's another person from a British sitcom.

• 1:40:27Griffin Newman?

  Every conversation's like that.

• 1:40:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:28David Sims?

  So we start, you see Pemberton shows up and then he's gone. He's a really funny, Mike, Mackenzie Crook has that one scene.

• 1:40:34Speaker 03

  Randomly and then never comes back.

• 1:40:36David Sims?

  Never comes back. And that scene is kind of stinks and doesn't make any sense.

• 1:40:40Griffin Newman?

  What's the name of the League of Gentlemen guy?

• 1:40:42David Sims?

  Steve Pemberton. And he's so funny, but like, again, I'm just sort of like, hi. And then he's gone and I'm like, I'll see you later. It's nice to see your face, I guess.

• 1:40:51Speaker 03

  I wonder if they were like filming on set in Britain, like on a stage and they're like, oh no, we haven't cast this role.

• 1:40:57David Sims?

  Grab someone. Go, go, go over there.

• 1:40:59Speaker 03

  Mackenzie Crook's on a break, bring him in.

• 1:41:02Griffin Newman?

  I, I'm, I want to put something forward. And I'm just gonna like, say this as broadly as I possibly can, right? I knew that people like mapped the Catan thing onto this, had never seen the movie.

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  Now, you're saying Chris Catan, not Settlers of Catan, which of course has a map.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  Immediately what I thought.

• 1:41:20Griffin Newman?

  I knew, I knew of course that there was, and I could never be your woman edition of Settlers of Catan.

• 1:41:25Speaker 03

  Of course, of course, yeah.

• 1:41:26Griffin Newman?

  I'd never played.

• 1:41:26David Sims?

  They, they released it, but weirdly sold quite poorly. No one understood.

• 1:41:30Griffin Newman?

  I also knew that people projected that this in some way was inspired by the Catan relationship, right? And I'm watching it.

• 1:41:36David Sims?

  That rumor, sure.

• 1:41:37Griffin Newman?

  And obviously, like, people can make autofiction in which they're combining and compressing events from different points of their life, pushing it all into one space to make a movie more exciting. But I'm like, the intricacy of this narrative feels so specific in the like, she discovers a guy on her show as her show is kind of declining, and he starts to pop, and then he gets more successful than her and is like, going off and being pushed ahead by the network head who is starting to dismiss her, and her writers are jumping ship over to this guy. So I just started digging into like, male guest stars on the Clueless TV show. And I'm not going to make any direct accusations or guesses.

• 1:42:21David Sims?

  Cool.

• 1:42:21Griffin Newman?

  But like, I-

• 1:42:22David Sims?

  I'm glad you're not making any accusations.

• 1:42:24Griffin Newman?

  I just found a couple guys who were, several.

• 1:42:28David Sims?

  Who kind of like broke out after Clueless?

• 1:42:30Griffin Newman?

  Who not only like, were on Clueless and then got fed strongly into the TGIF lineup. Right after-

• 1:42:39David Sims?

  Okay, who are we talking about? All right, who you got?

• 1:42:41Griffin Newman?

  From TGIF. You want, I mean, the specific one I thought was interesting. The guy who plays Josh, the Paul Rudd character.

• 1:42:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:49Griffin Newman?

  On the first season of Clueless.

• 1:42:51David Sims?

  Before they write him off the show, basically.

• 1:42:52Griffin Newman?

  They write him off the show when the show is dropped by ABC and moves to UPN. That guy then immediately gets fed into Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

• 1:43:00David Sims?

  Yeah, David Lash.

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  Becomes the new love interest on Sabrina the Teenage Witch for three seasons.

• 1:43:06Griffin Newman?

  And a bunch of the writers and producers of Clueless jumped over from Clueless to Sabrina.

• 1:43:12David Sims?

  Yeah. So if you, did you watch Sabrina, the teenage witch?

• 1:43:14Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:43:15David Sims?

  So later in Sabrina, the teenage witch, she shifts from she's in high school, learning to be a witch and a high schooler dilemma. To she runs like a coffee shop.

• 1:43:23Griffin Newman?

  She works.

• 1:43:23David Sims?

  Oh, I guess she were, and she's in college now.

• 1:43:26Griffin Newman?

  Girl, but there's like a central perky kind of.

• 1:43:28David Sims?

  And they replaced the adorable Harvey Kinkle, her high school boyfriend with the incredibly boring Josh, also called Josh.

• 1:43:34Speaker 03

  Oh, his name is still Josh?

• 1:43:35David Sims?

  Yeah, they didn't even bother to change his name.

• 1:43:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39David Sims?

  Very poor, very bad. Sabrina's only good when she's in high school, IMO.

• 1:43:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I agree. I just thought.

• 1:43:44David Sims?

  Thank you for agreeing.

• 1:43:45Griffin Newman?

  I just thought it was interesting.

• 1:43:46Speaker 03

  David only likes girls when they're still in high school. Sorry, Griffin.

• 1:43:50Griffin Newman?

  On the record.

• 1:43:52Griffin Newman?

  Girls, women shouldn't get jobs.

• 1:43:54Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:43:54Griffin Newman?

  They should never grow up.

• 1:43:55David Sims?

  They shouldn't be in comedy. That's for sure.

• 1:43:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Griffin Newman?

  There were just a couple other guys I found who also fit. That's the main one, but I was just like, if you look at the timing of that in terms of this movie, having the access to grind of like, the network thinks I'm not hip anymore. People I'm discovering are jumping off. They're threatening to cancel my show. You know, I was just like, I, I think this show, this movie is truly about her experience working on the Clueless TV show.

• 1:44:24David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Of course it is.

• 1:44:26Griffin Newman?

  And I think the romance I want, I imagine is also based on experiences within that.

• 1:44:31David Sims?

  Maybe, uh, or at least having a crush on, I look, I don't know.

• 1:44:35Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 1:44:36David Sims?

  She claims to be thirty seven and then she admits she's forty. Shel Pfeiffer, I think was more like forty five. Michelle Pfeiffer is eleven years older than Paul Rudd. I looked it up. Michelle Pfeiffer is eleven years older than Paul Rudd. This movie, Michelle Pfeiffer, I guess is supposed to be more like.

• 1:44:52Griffin Newman?

  Twenty, nineteen.

• 1:44:53David Sims?

  No, it's, I guess if she's forty and he's twenty nine. Is supposed to be like the correct age gap. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, she plays essentially his mother.

• 1:45:02Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 1:45:03David Sims?

  I mean, like she plays the mother of the Wasp.

• 1:45:05Griffin Newman?

  Believe I did not till this moment.

• 1:45:08David Sims?

  I halfway into the movie.

• 1:45:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh my.

• 1:45:10David Sims?

  Turned to my wife and I'm like, wait a second. In fucking Ant-Man, she's, I mean, she's not his mom, but she's the Wasp's mom.

• 1:45:17Griffin Newman?

  She's his mother-in-law.

• 1:45:18David Sims?

  Yes, she becomes his mother-in-law.

• 1:45:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:45:20David Sims?

  And she's got like gray hair. Yeah, now you have to marry your mother. No one in this had a car with a wheel and fling out of it.

• 1:45:29Griffin Newman?

  No good car ideas in this movie.

• 1:45:32David Sims?

  And he is so telling of like, Michelle Pfeiffer hit whatever 55 and they were all like, grandma, like that's it. I don't care how old you are anymore. You live in the fucking quantum realm and when we pull you out, you're old. That's it.

• 1:45:46Griffin Newman?

  Cause right, Paul Rudd is now in his mid 50s and is still playing like a superhero.

• 1:45:52David Sims?

  He's playing like 40s. Like it's like, it's kind of the how old are you? It's like 40.

• 1:45:56Griffin Newman?

  40. Yeah. Right. But like Michelle Pfeiffer.

• 1:45:59David Sims?

  And he can pull it off.

• 1:46:00Griffin Newman?

  Michelle Pfeiffer is pointedly playing someone who used to be a superhero in the Marvel Universe.

• 1:46:04David Sims?

  Michelle Pfeiffer is 13 years younger than Michael Douglas, who is her husband in the Ant-Man movies.

• 1:46:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  It's just, there's, I'm not, I don't know. All I'm doing is saying people's ages. This isn't like insightful, but it is just weird.

• 1:46:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:46:18David Sims?

  Just kind of like crazy how this happens. This movie is about like the, like when Mother Nature is coming in and being like, hey, Paul Rudd's gonna want to have a kid. You're not gonna be able to have a kid. Like you're gonna have to deal with that, right? You know, where it's like, and Michelle Pfeiffer's like, oh yeah, shoo, Mother Nature. But you're like, yeah, no, these are interesting dilemmas for a woman that age.

• 1:46:36Griffin Newman?

  I feel like it's Meryl Streep has the quote that the, the day she turned, the week she turned 50, she got three different offers to play a witch.

• 1:46:44Speaker 03

  On Grant Martin.

• 1:46:45David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:46:46Griffin Newman?

  And she ends up doing Into the Woods.

• 1:46:48David Sims?

  Yeah, that was her being like, I shall finally play a witch.

• 1:46:51Griffin Newman?

  Best witch. But she was like, and then people talk, like actresses are like, the second I turn 30, I got handed five scripts in which I'm the mother of a teenager.

• 1:46:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Griffin Newman?

  And not like someone who had a teenager in high school.

• 1:47:02Speaker 03

  That's nuts. There's also, wait, what was that movie with Anne Hathaway where she was in love with a younger man?

• 1:47:07David Sims?

  The idea of you?

• 1:47:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:47:09David Sims?

  God, that movie was so annoying.

• 1:47:11Speaker 03

  That also feels like this, but the same issue where it's like, but Anne Hathaway is so hot and beautiful.

• 1:47:15David Sims?

  That movie.

• 1:47:16Speaker 03

  He would be so lucky to be with her.

• 1:47:17David Sims?

  That movie's insane because Anne Hathaway is snatched in that movie. And you were like, this is not a dilemma.

• 1:47:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:47:24David Sims?

  The fucking Nicole Kidman Zac Efron movie, which is pigs will. Can't remember what the name of it is. That one.

• 1:47:31Griffin Newman?

  Family affair?

• 1:47:32David Sims?

  Is that what it's called? What a gross title.

• 1:47:34Speaker 03

  I have not seen that.

• 1:47:35David Sims?

  It's so bad. Yes, it's called A Family Affair.

• 1:47:38Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 1:47:38David Sims?

  It was on Netflix, I think.

• 1:47:40Griffin Newman?

  It's Joey King as Nicole Kidman's daughter, who's a personal assistant to Zac Efron.

• 1:47:46David Sims?

  Correct.

• 1:47:46Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:47:47David Sims?

  And he's like, you know, a self-absorbed actor guy.

• 1:47:49Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then he's like, that's your mom. Look, look, look.

• 1:47:52David Sims?

  And that movie, I mean, that movie felt like it was directed by like, you know, malfunctioning AI or whatever.

• 1:47:59Griffin Newman?

  Richard LaGravenese?

• 1:48:00David Sims?

  Yes, it is. Um, eh, that one, at least you're kind of like, well, Nicole Kidman's not a young woman. Like there's some kind of like, yes, she's old enough to be your mother, I suppose.

• 1:48:11Speaker 03

  I see, I see.

• 1:48:12David Sims?

  I don't know. I mean, even that movie I was like, can never, but the idea of you was ridiculous.

• 1:48:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:17David Sims?

  Where she's like, oh, I'm just such an old bag. And I'm like, no, you're not.

• 1:48:20Griffin Newman?

  What do you want to do with me?

• 1:48:22Speaker 03

  The hottest woman alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:25David Sims?

  God, Hollywood's so broken. Can you fix it? You work in Hollywood.

• 1:48:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I should. I never thought about fixing it.

• 1:48:30David Sims?

  You've been living in LA.

• 1:48:31Speaker 03

  Now I will.

• 1:48:32David Sims?

  You don't want to go fix it?

• 1:48:33Griffin Newman?

  Fix it. Go fix it.

• 1:48:35David Sims?

  All your sleeves up.

• 1:48:36Speaker 03

  You're so smart.

• 1:48:38David Sims?

  Jeez.

• 1:48:39Griffin Newman?

  But talking about this movie not needing like fake, artificial outside conflict, right?

• 1:48:44David Sims?

  Well, it's gotten a Photoshop conflict to begin with, but yes.

• 1:48:47Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't need the Photoshop conflict.

• 1:48:49David Sims?

  It sure doesn't. Yeah.

• 1:48:50Griffin Newman?

  There's, what I think is kind of the most interesting to work, thing to work on. And I think like in theory, on paper, this should be what is like, kind of the source of driving her like, I don't know if we can be together kind of thing is.

• 1:49:11Griffin Newman?

  She's being told basically that her career's winding down, right? Not just that like society-

• 1:49:17David Sims?

  You're gonna lose this show and that's kinda it.

• 1:49:18Griffin Newman?

  Right, that she's already dealing with this sort of like, I'm of an age where society starts valuing women less and starts ignoring us or belittling us. But I'm someone who's always focused on my career and my independence and I'm a single mother and I'm doing it all and I don't need the approval of men. And now it's sort of like, your show maybe isn't hip anymore. And here's this guy she discovers and everyone's like, you're the future. And he's at the beginning of what's probably gonna be a decades-long career. All the offers are starting to come to him and she's in a world where she's starting to make concessions and having to scrape and cut. You know, he says like, the show isn't hip anymore. And she went, yeah, you keep cutting the budget. When he cut the budget, the first two things to go are wardrobe and soundtrack. And now the show isn't cool anymore, right?

• 1:50:01Griffin Newman?

  And she's like, fighting to stay cool and relevant.

• 1:50:04Speaker 03

  That is a really cool idea for a movie. If it's like, cause I feel like we're now seeing women who got, who have the choice to, who are able to choose career over family.

• 1:50:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:14Speaker 03

  And it's sort of like, okay, but once your careers are taken away from you, who are you and what is your life? That could have been this movie.

• 1:50:20Griffin Newman?

  Totally. For a guy whose career is about to, the movie seems to set up like, go like a rocket ship, right? Like even if he ultimately doesn't pan out and become like an A-list movie star, this guy probably has five years of getting worked through the machinery of everyone being like, he might be a star. And to be in a relationship with someone who is at such a radically different point in their life is to me, more interesting than the literal like age difference. And that's there. It's set up in the movie. And instead, the two characters don't talk to each other for 30 minutes because Sarah Alexander like tricks her into thinking she has a photo of a traffic jam.

• 1:50:56David Sims?

  Just as this movie is kind of building to a head in their like, should we, how serious should we be conflict?

• 1:51:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:03David Sims?

  She's like, yeah, I'm gonna stop talking to you because right, I saw the weird photo shops of you.

• 1:51:06Griffin Newman?

  And then it's basically a thing that's resolved the second she asks him one question.

• 1:51:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:11David Sims?

  Well, I mean, so annoying.

• 1:51:12Griffin Newman?

  And then they make the joke where he's like, how do you know I wasn't lying? And she went, cause you're not that good of an actor. And you're like, why didn't you have this conversation two months ago?

• 1:51:21David Sims?

  There is this sort of, you know, the, the, the final plot, the thing is that Hugo Gerges canceled her terrible show.

• 1:51:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, this looks like.

• 1:51:28David Sims?

  It looks like.

• 1:51:29Speaker 03

  It does look really bad.

• 1:51:30David Sims?

  Yes. And, uh, he gets a spinoff show called The Shizzle. It's like, again, these are all jokes. It's true that even by 2008, feel stale, would have felt stale enough in 2005.

• 1:51:41Griffin Newman?

  Right. Um, and, uh, Funny People's the year after this and Yo Teach feels like a much better version of this.

• 1:51:48David Sims?

  And, but even Yo Teach is a little bit like, right, you're, you're knocking an earlier kind of sitcom.

• 1:51:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:54David Sims?

  And, uh, The Shizzle, you know, Fred Willard's like, oh, you know, it's what's hip, it's what's now, he's going to get the show. And he insists on Michelle Pfeiffer being the writer, like he stands his ground.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  No one in the industry is giving her credit for discovering this guy, but this guy doesn't want to work without her. And it just, it's like, the whole second half of this movie is like, based on misunderstandings, miscommunications, or the lack of one conversation where you're just like, why not just like, call him up and ask him this directly?

• 1:52:26David Sims?

  Why not? Why not?

• 1:52:27Griffin Newman?

  There's this whole notion that like, is he lying to me about getting set up for this success and is he hiding it from me because he's just using me as a stepping stone? And then you find out that like, he thought they told her?

• 1:52:40Speaker 03

  Right. I forgot about that.

• 1:52:41Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff like that where it's just like, these characters, I mean, she certainly seems emotionally intelligent enough in the way she talks to her daughter about how to relate to men you're interested in, that I don't buy that she keeps on falling for the dumbest shit in the world.

• 1:52:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right. That's so true. Also, why does her ex-husband just walk into her house all the time?

• 1:53:03Griffin Newman?

  Her ex-husband is John Lovett.

• 1:53:05David Sims?

  Who's John Lovett?

• 1:53:05Griffin Newman?

  Keeps getting work done.

• 1:53:07David Sims?

  One, one joke is right. Yeah, initially he has something on his forehead and then he's getting a chin thing.

• 1:53:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's getting chin, he's getting a chin implant because if you make your face longer than you don't need a facelift.

• 1:53:18Speaker 03

  Incredible.

• 1:53:19Griffin Newman?

  There are like good little jokes in this.

• 1:53:21David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, Lovett's just fine. He's doing, he's doing what's asked.

• 1:53:23Griffin Newman?

  I was looking at the IMDb quote page, trying to pick out what to read. And like, you read the quote page for this movie and like, there are some things that are deranged.

• 1:53:30Speaker 03

  There are, okay, there are, there's no consistent style of humor in the movie.

• 1:53:35Griffin Newman?

  But there are like four line exchanges where I'm like, that's funny and well written. If I'm just reading that, that's.

• 1:53:39David Sims?

  There are some funny jokes, but right, it ranges.

• 1:53:43Speaker 04

  Fun jokes.

• 1:53:45Speaker 03

  They all feel like they're plucked from different screenplays and put into one movie.

• 1:53:49David Sims?

  I agree with you.

• 1:53:51Griffin Newman?

  Which is also fascinating because this doesn't feel like a movie that got like noted to death. It's like she made it independently. She is the only writer on it. She's the director. Like, it's always the kind of thing I find more interesting is watching like one person's calamity versus a movie that's bad because it was made by committee. Where you're like, well, this sucks because too many people got involved and like no longer. The idea is it's like mashing different puzzle pieces together. But something like this where you're like, this came out of one person's lived experience and like thoughts and hopes and dreams. And then it just all ends up feeling odd and disjointed.

• 1:54:27David Sims?

  I'm just looking at the quotes page to see if there's anything that's making me laugh. Eh, not really. I did like when Paul-

• 1:54:36Griffin Newman?

  Smiling.

• 1:54:37David Sims?

  A lot of things that are funny are like when Paul Rudd danced. When Paul Rudd does an extended bit about the Home Alone poster.

• 1:54:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:54:45David Sims?

  I was doing my, you know.

• 1:54:46Griffin Newman?

  He did the face.

• 1:54:47David Sims?

  Face thing.

• 1:54:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:48Speaker 03

  He did a really good job for anybody listening.

• 1:54:51Griffin Newman?

  It was-

• 1:54:52David Sims?

  Uh, that's it. I mean, I think it's cute at the end when, when Saoirse sings her anti-Bush Alanis Morissette ironic cover, but it's not funny, just kind of cute. And like, then it's cute that she, uh, you know, the boy, I think it's funny that the boy, that Dylan, the boy she has a crush on introduces himself by saying, hi, I'm Dylan and I'm alcoholic. That actually made me laugh because he's like 11 or whatever. I don't know. If like, if I'm like in the, you know, the audience, you know, with the parents, I'm like, ah, it's funny.

• 1:55:21Griffin Newman?

  But then like, okay, Saoirse Ronan, at one point in the movie, they cut to her in her bedroom mirror, singing, oops, I got a career by shaking my rear and making guys leer. Oh, baby, baby, oops, I'm going to sing more and dance like a whore. I'm just not talented. And then the movie basically cuts away and you're like, what the fuck was that?

• 1:55:43David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:55:43Griffin Newman?

  And then they set up later, much later.

• 1:55:46David Sims?

  That she's working on these parody songs.

• 1:55:48Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then she wants to perform them at the school talent show. But also there is like a hostility in that song towards Britney. Spears.

• 1:55:55David Sims?

  But there was a hostility at the time.

• 1:55:56Griffin Newman?

  I understand that was in the culture, that that was just a fucking thing. But it also is just like that jumping in in a movie where Sarah Alexander is like twirling her mustache and being like, I must destroy older women.

• 1:56:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:12Griffin Newman?

  It's like she's making a film about her own insecurities and then she keeps on being like, but these young women are the actual problem, which feels very like, I don't know, ungenerous? And kind of beside the point?

• 1:56:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you could totally lift it out of the movie and it would be better for it.

• 1:56:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:30David Sims?

  Yeah, there's a movie, a sort of calmer, more confident movie that's better. You know, like that's, that's about, but like, no one's gonna make that movie, I guess, would be her argument. Or just make that movie for no money. You know, like make a $5 million movie, like make a, you know, a true indie about like being a show. I mean, I don't know.

• 1:56:49Griffin Newman?

  No, but that's an interesting thought that like she's writing this screenplay, trying to imagine the version of this movie that a studio will greenlight because that's what her whole career was.

• 1:56:57David Sims?

  Yes, it's like, I'm making a studio rom com, like, give me 30 million bucks.

• 1:57:01Griffin Newman?

  And trying to put big enough sequences in it and jokes and imagining that's gonna be bright and shiny and everything. Then every studio turns it down. This weird financial criminal comes and is like, here's $20 million. And but you have to film in England.

• 1:57:12David Sims?

  Monopoly money, right?

• 1:57:13Griffin Newman?

  What she should have done by that point is gone, like, what is the $10 million version of this movie? That is not even trying to be a studio comedy.

• 1:57:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, what did I actually really want to make?

• 1:57:23Griffin Newman?

  Right, like, maybe I make the Nicole Hall of Center scaled version of this.

• 1:57:27David Sims?

  But that's kind of not what she ever did.

• 1:57:29Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 1:57:30David Sims?

  And I don't, I haven't seen.

• 1:57:31Griffin Newman?

  20 years in the studio system.

• 1:57:32David Sims?

  She only made one of the movie after this, Amy, uh, Amy Karen, uh, called Vamps, which was also a bomb.

• 1:57:39Griffin Newman?

  And also barely got released.

• 1:57:41David Sims?

  Also barely released, starring Alicia Silverstone and Kristen Ritter. It's like a vampire rom com. I have not.

• 1:57:45Griffin Newman?

  It's a post Twilight vampire rom com that we will be talking about next week, but I have not seen.

• 1:57:49Speaker 03

  It was a post Twilight vampire rom com?

• 1:57:51David Sims?

  Yeah, it was called Vamps.

• 1:57:52Speaker 03

  That's nuts.

• 1:57:53Griffin Newman?

  Stacked cast.

• 1:57:54Speaker 03

  It wasn't huge.

• 1:57:54Griffin Newman?

  Dan Stevens is the love interest, I believe.

• 1:57:56Speaker 03

  From Downton Abbey?

• 1:57:58Griffin Newman?

  Like one of his first post Downton things, though.

• 1:58:01Speaker 03

  I love him.

• 1:58:02David Sims?

  I love him.

• 1:58:02Griffin Newman?

  Sigourney Weaver's the villain? Cool.

• 1:58:05David Sims?

  It's a good ask.

• 1:58:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm excited to watch it too.

• 1:58:07David Sims?

  But I was that also made it a sort of studio scale? I know it was a bomb. That's the only one I don't have the answer to.

• 1:58:13Griffin Newman?

  Look, I have heard a lot of people say that movie is kind of a hidden gem in a way that has me excited to watch it. But everyone's ding on it is the one big issue is you can tell she didn't have the money.

• 1:58:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:58:25Griffin Newman?

  That it clearly like should be a $20 million studio comedy and she had to make it for like six. But that's like a higher concept genre comedy that needs like makeup and effects and stunts and shit.

• 1:58:36David Sims?

  But it's the one time she tries that.

• 1:58:38Griffin Newman?

  In theory.

• 1:58:39David Sims?

  No, it doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm gonna, we're gonna play the box office game. Now, this film wasn't released in theaters.

• 1:58:45Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  But we're gonna play it anyway, I guess.

• 1:58:47Griffin Newman?

  Can we do the Spain weekend? What do we do? Do we do the weekend it goes to Blockbuster?

• 1:58:51David Sims?

  I think we do the weekend it goes to Blockbuster.

• 1:58:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:58:53David Sims?

  Don't you think?

• 1:58:54Griffin Newman?

  I mean, here's an interesting question.

• 1:58:56David Sims?

  I love interesting questions.

• 1:58:57Griffin Newman?

  Is it possible to find what the top rental or home video sales were the weekend it went to Blockbuster?

• 1:59:03Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 1:59:04David Sims?

  I mean, I don't, I don't know.

• 1:59:06Griffin Newman?

  Ben is looking at me so angrily.

• 1:59:09Speaker 03

  Ben keeps crying the whole time.

• 1:59:12David Sims?

  I don't think so. I don't know where to find those.

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  Respect the idea.

• 1:59:16David Sims?

  I don't mind the idea. I just would need, I think, to prep for that because I have no idea how to.

• 1:59:21Speaker 03

  It was a really cute idea.

• 1:59:22Griffin Newman?

  Thank you, Karen.

• 1:59:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:23David Sims?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:59:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, applause break.

• 1:59:25David Sims?

  Participation.

• 1:59:26Griffin Newman?

  Pat myself on the back, literally.

• 1:59:28David Sims?

  So this film came out on DVD in America in 2008.

• 1:59:34Griffin Newman?

  Rentals only.

• 1:59:34David Sims?

  On February something, right? I'm gonna look it up. February, come on IMDb, don't let me down. I'm not talking about when it premiered at the Maui Film Festival, February 26th.

• 1:59:46Griffin Newman?

  Okay, one week after my birthday.

• 1:59:48Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 1:59:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:49David Sims?

  So you could have gone to see it if you wanted to.

• 1:59:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, I could have gone to rent it. There was a Blockbuster near my dorm at Cal Arts. I was still there at the time.

• 1:59:59David Sims?

  Or at 2008, how old are you, Karen?

• 2:00:01Speaker 03

  I was 13 and I know one movie that came out in 2008.

• 2:00:04David Sims?

  You know, one movie that came out in 2008.

• 2:00:06Speaker 03

  The one I know for certain, well, actually now that I say it, I don't know if it's true.

• 2:00:09David Sims?

  Throw it out there. Can't wait.

• 2:00:10Speaker 03

  Is it Mamma Mia?

• 2:00:12David Sims?

  I think Mamma Mia came out in 2000. Yes, it did. It did, but it didn't come out. It didn't grace our screens until July. Of course.

• 2:00:19Griffin Newman?

  It was counter programming to The Dark Knight.

• 2:00:21David Sims?

  It's a pre Mamma Mia world. So instead, we're going to do the weekend of February 29th on 2008. A new film this week is a comedy, kind of a bad comedy, a sports comedy. It's new this week.

• 2:00:35Griffin Newman?

  It's not semi-pro.

• 2:00:36Speaker 03

  Is it like Air Bud 5?

• 2:00:38David Sims?

  It's not Air Bud 5. It is semi-pro, opening to $18.9 million.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  You know what I'm realizing?

• 2:00:45David Sims?

  What's that?

• 2:00:46Griffin Newman?

  I dropped out of Cal Arts the day before my birthday. So this is the first week of me being back in New York. My brother and I went to see semi-pro and I'm like, I'm back seeing movies in New York multiplexes.

• 2:00:57David Sims?

  So did you drop out because your birthday was approaching?

• 2:00:59Griffin Newman?

  I dropped out because I was violently depressed and then I was just like, I'm setting the date of February 18th to get the fuck out of here. Cause I want to go back, returning to New York for my birthday.

• 2:01:12David Sims?

  As we say.

• 2:01:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. High fiving people. And then people were like, what's your plan? I was like, I don't fucking know.

• 2:01:19David Sims?

  Well, you went to see semi-pro, which just isn't that good.

• 2:01:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I just had to adjust in my mind because I was like thinking what movies would I have seen at the Valencia Town Center 8?

• 2:01:28David Sims?

  But now I'm realizing. Opinion of semi-pro.

• 2:01:30Griffin Newman?

  It sucks. It's really weird.

• 2:01:31David Sims?

  Yeah, it's not good.

• 2:01:32Griffin Newman?

  What's weird about it is it is.

• 2:01:33David Sims?

  Have you seen semi-pro?

• 2:01:34Speaker 03

  No, should I?

• 2:01:35David Sims?

  It's, it's based on a true story. No.

• 2:01:37Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 2:01:38Griffin Newman?

  Loosely.

• 2:01:39David Sims?

  Incredibly loosely, but it's in that vein of the Will Ferrell comedy vehicle of the 2000.

• 2:01:44Griffin Newman?

  The Will Ferrell sports comedy was reigning supreme.

• 2:01:47David Sims?

  Screaming, your plays of glory.

• 2:01:48Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, here's the next one in that great lineage, semi-pro, Will Ferrell with an Afro doing 70s basketball.

• 2:01:55Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:01:56Griffin Newman?

  And the bizarre thing about the movie is that Woody Harrelson is second billed and is like the lead of the movie.

• 2:02:02David Sims?

  And he's playing kind of like a, right, like a washed up NBA guy who's fallen into this, it's like sort of the ABA.

• 2:02:07Griffin Newman?

  Right. But he's kind of playing it like a real guy and he's sort of doing like in a more grounded, like sports dramedy.

• 2:02:14Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 2:02:15Griffin Newman?

  And then they just interweave it with like Will Ferrell hijinks where he's the manager of the team who's also a player, but he's bad.

• 2:02:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:22Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, kind of just an attention whore. And so he does all these stunts to get people in the crowd. So then there'll be like a big Will Ferrell set piece. And then it's like Woody Harrelson going to his ex-wife, more a tyranny and being like, look, I know I fucked up, but I'm trying to make good again. It's a very strange movie.

• 2:02:39David Sims?

  Not a good movie.

• 2:02:40Griffin Newman?

  Not good.

• 2:02:40David Sims?

  Uh, Ben, did you see Semi Pro? No. Okay, number two at the box office is a political thriller.

• 2:02:50Griffin Newman?

  Um, February 2000. It's not Vantage Point, is it?

• 2:02:56David Sims?

  It is Pete Travis's Vantage Point Griffin. You are so sick and weird.

• 2:03:03Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. How many Oscar winners are in the cast of Vantage?

• 2:03:06David Sims?

  You've got two.

• 2:03:10Griffin Newman?

  Of course, what occurs, Zoe Saldana.

• 2:03:12David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. Zoe now has an Oscar. Three Oscar winners. Those two plus, um, William Hurt.

• 2:03:18Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:03:19David Sims?

  Uh, and then of course Sigourney Weaver's in it.

• 2:03:21Griffin Newman?

  Nominee.

• 2:03:21David Sims?

  Multiple nominee.

• 2:03:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:23David Sims?

  Uh, Dennis Quaid.

• 2:03:25Griffin Newman?

  Never.

• 2:03:25David Sims?

  Never got a nom.

• 2:03:26Griffin Newman?

  Never got a nom.

• 2:03:27David Sims?

  Snub for Far From Heaven.

• 2:03:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, snub for The Parent Trap.

• 2:03:29David Sims?

  Snub for The Parent Trap, of course.

• 2:03:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, because they didn't have the hottest dad in the history of movies category yet.

• 2:03:35David Sims?

  Best winery.

• 2:03:36Speaker 03

  That, you guys should have me on when you do an episode about all the hot dads in cinema.

• 2:03:40David Sims?

  Well, we have done a Parent Trap episode.

• 2:03:42Speaker 03

  I know. It's really upsetting that I.

• 2:03:43David Sims?

  It's a tragedy that you weren't on.

• 2:03:44Speaker 03

  I gotta do it again.

• 2:03:46Griffin Newman?

  My sister, who I think is about the same age as you. Yeah. Uh, we took our little cousins to see Parent Trap at the Nighthawk recently.

• 2:03:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:03:54Griffin Newman?

  And Dennis Quaid came on screen and my sister turned to me and she was like, I'm realizing this performance kind of fucked me up for the rest of my life.

• 2:04:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Griffin Newman?

  I haven't really processed it until this moment.

• 2:04:04Speaker 03

  It's true. There are actually so many dads like that where you go back and you. Um, Captain Von Trapp.

• 2:04:10Griffin Newman?

  Well, kind of the original hot dad.

• 2:04:12Speaker 03

  The dad in Totoro absolutely fucked me up.

• 2:04:14David Sims?

  Okay, but the dad in Totoro is a different vibe and I love the dad in Totoro.

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:18David Sims?

  That's sort of like bookish, warm, you know, sweetie pie.

• 2:04:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, jacked.

• 2:04:24David Sims?

  Hot, jacked, naked. Karen just like starts taking us down this road. I'm like, he's so sweet with his kids and Karen's like, yeah, sweet in a hot way.

• 2:04:32Speaker 03

  He's in a hot tub.

• 2:04:33David Sims?

  He does get, which was for a long time I, my mother, uh, my mother, my, I don't know what my mother thinks of Totoro. My daughter's favorite part of the movie was when they were all in the tub together because they yell.

• 2:04:43Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:44David Sims?

  And she likes how they yell because they're trying to scare off the script.

• 2:04:46Griffin Newman?

  So wait, who else, Karen? Uh, Timon and the Santa Claus.

• 2:04:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:04:49David Sims?

  Santa Claus two.

• 2:04:51Griffin Newman?

  Timon and the Santa Claus three.

• 2:04:52David Sims?

  Santa Claus three.

• 2:04:54Griffin Newman?

  Timon and Jungle Jungle.

• 2:04:56Speaker 03

  Jamal voicing Buzz Lightyear.

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  You see a chin on that guy?

• 2:05:02David Sims?

  Um, Vantage Point. Have you seen Vantage Point?

• 2:05:05Griffin Newman?

  I've not.

• 2:05:05David Sims?

  It's like a Rashomon-esque thing, like there's an assassination attempt and we learn all of the Vantage Point.

• 2:05:11Griffin Newman?

  Keep seeing it from different Vantage Points.

• 2:05:12David Sims?

  Haven't seen it.

• 2:05:13Griffin Newman?

  Neither have I.

• 2:05:14David Sims?

  Uh, okay. Well, we're going to move on then to a costume drama that is.

• 2:05:19Griffin Newman?

  The Other Bollin Girl.

• 2:05:20David Sims?

  Horrendously bad.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  Other Bollin Girl?

• 2:05:23David Sims?

  Justin Chadwick's The Other Bollin Girl.

• 2:05:25Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 2:05:26David Sims?

  In which Natalie Portman plays Anne Bollin and Scarlett Johansson plays that hussy Mary Bollin, who we all forget Henry first had the affair with before he trained his sights on Anne.

• 2:05:38Griffin Newman?

  This is a period of releases that I remember so vividly.

• 2:05:40David Sims?

  Eric Bana, at the end, tail end of his movie star career, like stomping around as Henry the Eighth, fucking embarrassing himself.

• 2:05:47Griffin Newman?

  I had like spent like six, seven months in a suburb outside of California where I could take a bicycle to the one multiplex and only see things that were playing there, or I had to talk to someone who's driving me to a theater if there was something else I wanted to see. And this is like the first week I'm back in New York and I'm like, I have autonomy.

• 2:06:04Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 2:06:04Griffin Newman?

  I'm riding trains.

• 2:06:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:06Griffin Newman?

  Everything's playing. So I remember every fucking movie that came out in this time period.

• 2:06:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:06:11David Sims?

  Have you seen The Other Bollin Girl?

• 2:06:13Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:06:13David Sims?

  Do you care to learn about British history, Henry the Eighth?

• 2:06:16Speaker 03

  I love.

• 2:06:16David Sims?

  And all this stuff?

• 2:06:17Speaker 03

  Like Wolf Hall?

• 2:06:18David Sims?

  Exactly. So stick with that. I would say The Other Bollin Girl isn't going to offer you more shading. No, I'm just saying Wolf Hall is a little more humanist, realistic. That's good stuff.

• 2:06:25Griffin Newman?

  Also just like, is it going to make sense if I haven't seen the first Bollin Girl? Now you want to talk about the other one? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

• 2:06:34David Sims?

  Number four at the box office is an adaptation of a young adult fantasy series. No.

• 2:06:40Griffin Newman?

  Is it in the 10? Is it in the 10? Is Inkheart in the 10?

• 2:06:43David Sims?

  No, no.

• 2:06:44Speaker 03

  Oh, but I love Inkheart.

• 2:06:45Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. I think Inkheart came out January 2008?

• 2:06:48David Sims?

  Yeah. And like, so you thought Inkheart made it all the way to late February? That thing fell out of theaters.

• 2:06:54Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:06:54David Sims?

  It came out.

• 2:06:55Griffin Newman?

  Foolish.

• 2:06:56David Sims?

  It came out January 2009, so it's not out till next year. No, no. This is sort of similar to Inkheart. Inkheart, though, I feel like has the, the page masters.

• 2:07:05Griffin Newman?

  Is it?

• 2:07:07David Sims?

  He doesn't let me finish. The Spiderwick Chronicles is the correct answer. Mark Waters is the Spiderwick Chronicles starring little good doctor himself, Freddie Highmore. Never seen it.

• 2:07:18Griffin Newman?

  David Strathairn, Mary Louise Parker. It's got a weirdly good cast. I've never seen it.

• 2:07:22David Sims?

  Yeah, Seth Rogen's in it, apparently. He must be a voice of some creature.

• 2:07:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm a goblin. Something like that.

• 2:07:27David Sims?

  Yep, he's a bird eating hobgoblin called the Hog Squeal.

• 2:07:32Speaker 03

  That was incredible. That was such a great, yeah.

• 2:07:35Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen Spiderwick?

• 2:07:36Speaker 03

  No, I haven't.

• 2:07:37Griffin Newman?

  You haven't opened the Chronicles?

• 2:07:38Speaker 03

  No, I haven't, but you know what? I have opened the other Chronicles of Narnia.

• 2:07:42David Sims?

  Hell, yeah. A bigger deal.

• 2:07:44Griffin Newman?

  What about Riddick? You heard those tales?

• 2:07:46Speaker 03

  No, wait, what?

• 2:07:47Griffin Newman?

  This guy can see so well in the dark, it's nuts.

• 2:07:51Speaker 03

  Wait, okay, random. Do you guys, did you guys ever read Charlie Bone?

• 2:07:55Griffin Newman?

  Charlie Bone?

• 2:07:55Speaker 03

  I was trying to describe this to somebody and it felt like I was making it up.

• 2:07:58David Sims?

  Yeah, that sounds like you hit your head, got one of your famous concussions and came up with a young adult story.

• 2:08:03Speaker 03

  My friend was like, are you trying to describe?

• 2:08:05David Sims?

  Children of the Red King, a series of ten fantasy books.

• 2:08:08Speaker 03

  Yes, and it's, but when I was describing it aloud, it just sounds like someone mistakenly, like having a bad memory trying to recall Harry Potter. It's like-

• 2:08:15David Sims?

  Ten year old Charlie Bone discovers he has a special power. So far, we're in Harry Potterland.

• 2:08:19Speaker 03

  He goes to a magic school, but it's a weekly school where he comes back home on the weekend.

• 2:08:23David Sims?

  Dude, this sounds good.

• 2:08:24Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 2:08:25David Sims?

  Boars Academy?

• 2:08:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:08:26David Sims?

  Mr. Ominous and his three magical cats? Is it good?

• 2:08:30Speaker 03

  I loved it as a kid. I haven't forgotten.

• 2:08:31Griffin Newman?

  They never made a movie of this stuff, right?

• 2:08:32Speaker 03

  I don't think so.

• 2:08:33David Sims?

  So, Griffin's not aware of it. Well, I'm seeing on Wikipedia the film annotations tab. Let's see. Into any 23, Amazon announced that it was in the works. Joseph Fiennes, Carmen Ijogo.

• 2:08:45Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:08:46David Sims?

  Who knows what's come of it since then?

• 2:08:48Griffin Newman?

  Series or film?

• 2:08:49David Sims?

  Film.

• 2:08:50Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, this is the era 2008 where it's like everyone trying to identify what the next Harry Potter is, and all of them either basically tap out at two or the first one bombs. There's a lot of these. And then I feel like 10 years later, it becomes, we're gonna do it for TV instead.

• 2:09:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:09Griffin Newman?

  But the sort of like Percy Jackson hits a wallet too.

• 2:09:12Speaker 03

  Yes, I loved Percy Jackson.

• 2:09:13Griffin Newman?

  Mortal Instruments that never gets off the ground.

• 2:09:16Speaker 03

  Right, Artemis Fowl?

• 2:09:17Griffin Newman?

  Artemis Fowl, I mean, that's a long time.

• 2:09:19David Sims?

  There's a lot of these, though. You're absolutely right.

• 2:09:20Speaker 03

  Aragon?

• 2:09:21David Sims?

  Aragon.

• 2:09:22Speaker 03

  Wait, I recently-

• 2:09:23David Sims?

  The whole thing with Aragon was that it was like, a child wrote this, and you're like, don't brag about that.

• 2:09:30David Sims?

  It's fine for adults to write, we don't need to hand them over to- And children.

• 2:09:34Speaker 03

  Also, I recently realized that Aragon is just dragon, but the first letter swapped and I was so upset.

• 2:09:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You know what that sounds like?

• 2:09:42David Sims?

  Like a 10 year old will come up with it. They're like, just print it.

• 2:09:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:45David Sims?

  This shit sells.

• 2:09:47Griffin Newman?

  Yo, this book was written by a teenager. You'll never believe it, but he was homeschooled. Yeah, checks out.

• 2:09:52David Sims?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:09:53Griffin Newman?

  Makes sense.

• 2:09:54David Sims?

  So, but no one's ever done the tripod trilogy. There's like, there's certain like young adult shit I read as a kid that has never been. Bruce Coville has never been done in a proper way.

• 2:10:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. You love.

• 2:10:04David Sims?

  I fucking love those books.

• 2:10:05Griffin Newman?

  A lot. But they did them for TV.

• 2:10:07David Sims?

  They did a TV movie once or whatever.

• 2:10:09Griffin Newman?

  They did a couple of them.

• 2:10:10David Sims?

  But it's like, come on, like there's still stuff on the vine. Ben looks so upset at me. Okay. Number five of the box.

• 2:10:15Speaker 04

  The tripod trilogy.

• 2:10:17David Sims?

  Tripod trilogy is cool.

• 2:10:18Speaker 04

  It's awesome.

• 2:10:18David Sims?

  Spooky.

• 2:10:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:19Griffin Newman?

  You hear they're doing a gender swapped holes?

• 2:10:22Speaker 03

  Oh, I did hear about this, but I was excited because the main character is one of the girls from the babysitter's club.

• 2:10:26Griffin Newman?

  Look, they announced good people. I, I did have a little bit of a, what are we doing here? Reaction where I'm like, was this a leftover memo from 2018? Where they were like, I don't know, holes, but girls.

• 2:10:37David Sims?

  But the thing with holes is it's like, the book's good and the movie's good. Must we?

• 2:10:41Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:10:42Speaker 03

  That's a good question.

• 2:10:43David Sims?

  I don't know. Like, it's like, we kind of did it right, right? We all agree that holes is good.

• 2:10:47Speaker 03

  Quick roundup of David's points during this thing.

• 2:10:49David Sims?

  Karen's about to nail me with the wall.

• 2:10:51Speaker 03

  Women should not be a comedy.

• 2:10:52David Sims?

  Some of those are jokes.

• 2:10:52Speaker 03

  The only girl, the only good women are high school girls. No gender swapping. Keep the boys, boys.

• 2:10:58Griffin Newman?

  Women can't dig holes.

• 2:10:59David Sims?

  I'll, I'll say that I've never read holes.

• 2:11:01Griffin Newman?

  It's a great book.

• 2:11:02David Sims?

  I know it's well loved and I like the movie. I only saw it the one time, but I know it's beloved. Right? People still talk about that movie fondly.

• 2:11:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:11:10David Sims?

  But yeah, maybe. What is it? They dig hole? They're in like a younger, they're like in a correctional, like it's like a kid.

• 2:11:16Griffin Newman?

  I don't want to spoil holes, but the plot threads come together very well. It's like told cross cut between that and the stories of this like old west outlaw lady. Right. And then the, it's all the threads come together in a very satisfying way, but it is right. It was an excellent book. I feel like it's one of the most kind of like now beloved.

• 2:11:35David Sims?

  Classic.

• 2:11:36Griffin Newman?

  Long form children's books.

• 2:11:37David Sims?

  It's like, it's like a, the giver. It's on that. It's on the.

• 2:11:39Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of on the immortal list. And then they made a movie where everyone was like, wow, pleasantly surprised. They adapted this well. They hired good people. And you're like, just doing it with girls instead doesn't feel like, oh, we have a really new in.

• 2:11:53David Sims?

  Karen roasted us. I feel like we should just support it. We should just say it's good.

• 2:11:57Griffin Newman?

  Full girl boss gang.

• 2:12:02David Sims?

  Remember when they made a movie of The Giver and it stunk? That was so annoying.

• 2:12:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but they tried to make The Giver in the style of all the movies we're talking about.

• 2:12:08David Sims?

  I know. They were doing like a young adult fantasy sort of.

• 2:12:11Griffin Newman?

  They did it as if it was like divergent.

• 2:12:12Speaker 03

  No, I didn't watch this. Really?

• 2:12:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:14Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 2:12:15Griffin Newman?

  Cause in The Giver.

• 2:12:16David Sims?

  Meryl Streep is in it and Jeff Bridges is like.

• 2:12:18Griffin Newman?

  Jeff Bridges. And Taylor Swift is.

• 2:12:20Speaker 03

  Wait, what?

• 2:12:21Griffin Newman?

  But they aged them all up to like teenagers so it could be more like post Twilight, moody, drama, romance.

• 2:12:28David Sims?

  Look, what's important is that Fifth at the Box Office is another book adaptation, kind of young adulty, little more mainstream action, kind of franchisee.

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  It's not Jumper, is it?

• 2:12:41David Sims?

  It is Jumper. I mean, how the fuck are you doing this?

• 2:12:43Griffin Newman?

  I told you this is a very.

• 2:12:45David Sims?

  I know. You were leaving Crolledge. It was a big moment in your life.

• 2:12:48Griffin Newman?

  I was leaving Crolledge.

• 2:12:50Griffin Newman?

  I made the bad choice to go to University of Crawling.

• 2:12:55Griffin Newman?

  I was just like, why am I going backwards? I already learned how to walk.

• 2:12:58David Sims?

  You know what? I was living in Paris at the time.

• 2:13:00Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:13:00Griffin Newman?

  This is the sexiest period where he went to Paris. He lived in Paris and he was a bartender.

• 2:13:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have to be understanding because in Paris they call college Crolledge.

• 2:13:09David Sims?

  Crolledge.

• 2:13:10Speaker 03

  So, you know.

• 2:13:11David Sims?

  I go to Crolledge.

• 2:13:14David Sims?

  Yeah, Jumper, which is also bad.

• 2:13:15Griffin Newman?

  Really bad.

• 2:13:16David Sims?

  Yeah, Doug Liman's job. Have you seen Jumper?

• 2:13:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:13:18David Sims?

  Hayden Christensen plays someone who learns to teleport.

• 2:13:21Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 2:13:22Griffin Newman?

  And our friend Jamie Bell plays a bit of a Rapskalian.

• 2:13:25David Sims?

  He's another jumper.

• 2:13:26Griffin Newman?

  Named Griffin. The other thing with that movie, it's the same fucking thing as The Giver. The characters in the book are like 12. They announced it. It was cast with 12 year olds. And then like a month before filming, the head of Fox went to Doug Liman and is like, 12 year olds aren't cool.

• 2:13:42Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 2:13:42Griffin Newman?

  Don't you want this to be a blockbuster? Cast older.

• 2:13:46David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:13:46Griffin Newman?

  And they dropped the whole cast. It starts the first 15 minutes with them as 12 year olds and then it like jumps ahead. And then he was like Hayden Christensen is box office gold. Rewrite this for Hayden Christensen and I'll give you an extra $20 million in the budget.

• 2:14:00David Sims?

  Jesus.

• 2:14:01Griffin Newman?

  And the movie sucks.

• 2:14:02David Sims?

  Yes, and Hayden is not good in it.

• 2:14:05Griffin Newman?

  But it's stuck in a weird zone between being like a YA thing and trying to be like a cooler, edgier, like Matrix-y thing.

• 2:14:12David Sims?

  Right. So that's the top five. Number six of the box office is Step Up to the Streets.

• 2:14:18Speaker 03

  Oh, I watched that. Harry Shum Jr. is in it and I thought he was so handsome.

• 2:14:22David Sims?

  He's Harry Shum Jr. is a very good looking guy who's a very good dancer.

• 2:14:25Speaker 03

  I think I was just really excited to see like an Asian person and then I don't think he had any lines.

• 2:14:29David Sims?

  Well, I mean, lines aren't really the point of the step up movies. It's not really about what they're saying.

• 2:14:35Griffin Newman?

  Steps.

• 2:14:36Speaker 03

  And you know what?

• 2:14:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he did. Uh, one of the greatest titles of all time.

• 2:14:40David Sims?

  Step up to the street.

• 2:14:41Griffin Newman?

  No colon.

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  Yes. Uh, number seven at the box office is the

• 2:14:45Griffin Newman?

  That's what makes it good. No colon. Yeah. Cause you're like, oh, what? It's called Step Up to Colon the Streets.

• 2:14:49Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:14:50Griffin Newman?

  It's a command.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  But it kind of makes you think about having a colon.

• 2:14:53Griffin Newman?

  You to step up to the street.

• 2:14:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:57David Sims?

  Number six of the box office is the flop ish vague flop Fools Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson and they're searching for treasure.

• 2:15:07Griffin Newman?

  You know what's funny about that movie?

• 2:15:08David Sims?

  What?

• 2:15:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's

• 2:15:09David Sims?

  Nothing.

• 2:15:12Griffin Newman?

  Unrepentant dog shit.

• 2:15:13David Sims?

  Who, who made it?

• 2:15:14Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's Andy Flickman, I want to say.

• 2:15:17David Sims?

  Andy Tennant.

• 2:15:18Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, I get Flickman and Tennant confused.

• 2:15:21David Sims?

  Number

• 2:15:21Griffin Newman?

  Did he also do How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? I feel like it was an exact re-team.

• 2:15:25David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Uh, Andy Flickman's the guy who did the one where like the Rock Place Football or whatever.

• 2:15:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right. Yeah.

• 2:15:32David Sims?

  Gameplay. Number eight of the box office is, um, New Country for Old Men.

• 2:15:36Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 2:15:37Griffin Newman?

  Now, that's quite a good film.

• 2:15:38David Sims?

  Which of course is about to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

• 2:15:41Griffin Newman?

  We will be covering it soon on this podcast.

• 2:15:42David Sims?

  That's also true.

• 2:15:43Griffin Newman?

  That's also true.

• 2:15:44David Sims?

  Um, and number nine at the box office, new this week is the, um,

• 2:15:50David Sims?

  Christina Ricci sort of Sundance hit mega flop Penelope.

• 2:15:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, she's a lady with a pig nose.

• 2:15:57David Sims?

  Right? That's what that is, right?

• 2:15:59Speaker 03

  What it's about?

• 2:15:59Griffin Newman?

  A lot of that movie is Christina Ricci has a pig nose and she has to wear scarf over her face so that people don't judge her. And James McAvoy is her love interest and I think Reese Witherspoon plays like a badass biker.

• 2:16:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:16:12David Sims?

  Never seen.

• 2:16:12Griffin Newman?

  Reese Witherspoon produced it.

• 2:16:14David Sims?

  Yes, she did. And number 10, The Box Office, which I did see this one. I think I saw it in France, but I'm not sure. My scene in England was the somewhat charming romantic comedy, Definitely Maybe.

• 2:16:26Griffin Newman?

  That movie is pretty charming.

• 2:16:28David Sims?

  And Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks.

• 2:16:30Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:16:30David Sims?

  It's kind of cute.

• 2:16:31Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it, but it sounds like something I would really like.

• 2:16:34David Sims?

  It's kind of like what we, you know, Reynolds at his most calm.

• 2:16:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:16:39David Sims?

  This still doing a little bit of his like bullshit, but not over the top.

• 2:16:42Griffin Newman?

  I was so all in and Ryan Reynolds. And I was like, what do I have to do to get the public on board with this guy as a movie star?

• 2:16:49David Sims?

  And the public was like Deadpool.

• 2:16:52Griffin Newman?

  And now I live in a hell of my own wishing. I don't like anything he does anymore. And we've like, lost, like this era of like Just Friends, Definitely Maybe, fucking Adventureland, which is his best performance.

• 2:17:06David Sims?

  You were just saying this in a group chat of ours, where you were like, ah.

• 2:17:10Griffin Newman?

  Just Friends is coming out on Blu-ray and Alex Rast Perry was joking like, who is going to buy this?

• 2:17:15David Sims?

  Ever buy this?

• 2:17:16Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, I've been writing letters to Congress for years.

• 2:17:18David Sims?

  And you were like, I dreamed of a world where this was the kind of thing he did in Alex. And I dream of a world where he doesn't exist and never did.

• 2:17:27David Sims?

  So that was a good rejoinder. How do you feel about Ryan Reynolds?

• 2:17:31Speaker 03

  Oh, I think I always forget he exists. And then when I relearn about him, I'm a little bit annoyed.

• 2:17:35Griffin Newman?

  There you go. That's a great.

• 2:17:37David Sims?

  That's how I felt when he popped up on SNL 50, where I was like, oh, and then I was like, all right, can we be done?

• 2:17:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:44David Sims?

  You like Ryan Reynolds? He's your favorite actor, right? You told me that recently.

• 2:17:47Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:17:49Speaker 03

  Ben is currently wearing a Ryan Reynolds T-shirt.

• 2:17:52David Sims?

  Yes, he is. And it says like Deadpool.

• 2:17:54Speaker 04

  It's him crossed out.

• 2:17:56David Sims?

  Oh, no. You've also got Juno still hanging around in the box office.

• 2:18:01Griffin Newman?

  What's Juno up to at this point?

• 2:18:02David Sims?

  A hundred and 35 million dollars.

• 2:18:04Griffin Newman?

  So it's still gonna make another 30. That's crazy.

• 2:18:07David Sims?

  You've got the Martin Lawrence, is it Martin Lawrence? Yeah, Martin Lawrence film, Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins.

• 2:18:13Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:18:14David Sims?

  And you've got Be Kind Rewind.

• 2:18:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. My most anticipated movie of 2008 did not live up to expectations.

• 2:18:20David Sims?

  Not a very good movie.

• 2:18:22Griffin Newman?

  Now an interesting curio, but at the time I was like, Michelle Gondry is gonna make a fucking Jack Black most deaf movie.

• 2:18:29Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:18:30Griffin Newman?

  Where they have to remake all the most popular blockbusters of the last 50 years.

• 2:18:36Griffin Newman?

  It did. I mean, look, it kind of.

• 2:18:38David Sims?

  It's a great premise.

• 2:18:39Griffin Newman?

  It's a great premise and like it does have the lasting legacy of people doing the thing.

• 2:18:45David Sims?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 2:18:45Speaker 03

  Rewinding.

• 2:18:46Griffin Newman?

  Making your own like low budget cardboard shot for shot recreations. Yeah.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  Even that feels kind of out of date.

• 2:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it lasted for a couple of years.

• 2:18:55David Sims?

  Karen, what's up with you? What should we plug?

• 2:18:57Speaker 03

  Oh, nothing.

• 2:18:58David Sims?

  What?

• 2:18:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:18:59David Sims?

  What have you been in LA doing?

• 2:19:01Speaker 03

  Oh, I have been working on a show.

• 2:19:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it was a lot like this movie.

• 2:19:06Speaker 03

  I worked on a show called A Man on the Inside. It's like a sweet, a little mystery comedy starring Ted Danson and he's having a pretty good time.

• 2:19:14David Sims?

  It's on Netflix, right?

• 2:19:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. Season one is on Netflix. I've been working on season two.

• 2:19:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:19:18Speaker 03

  When hopefully will also be on Netflix.

• 2:19:20David Sims?

  Champion your will be weird if it wasn't.

• 2:19:22Speaker 03

  I, it would be strange. Um, but I would love to plug, I think I would just love to plug Yo Yo Ma. He's amazing.

• 2:19:31David Sims?

  Guy doesn't get enough.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  It's actually rude. We've never had him on the show.

• 2:19:35Speaker 03

  It is.

• 2:19:36David Sims?

  Funny.

• 2:19:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:37David Sims?

  Anytime Yo Yo Ma does a little cameo or a little like talking head thing, I'm like, Yo Yo Ma's funny.

• 2:19:41Griffin Newman?

  Does he like Vamps? Has he seen Vamps?

• 2:19:43David Sims?

  Yo Yo Ma, you like Vamps?

• 2:19:47David Sims?

  My friend was at Carnegie Hall recently and he said the cello cases or the cello, the things holding cellos are orange now.

• 2:19:54Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  And he was disturbed by this.

• 2:19:56Speaker 03

  Was he at the Yo Yo Ma concert on Thursday?

• 2:19:58David Sims?

  I think he was.

• 2:19:59Speaker 03

  Wow. Incredible.

• 2:19:59David Sims?

  I don't know. He was talking to me about this. But it was, I don't have enough for you on this. I'm sorry.

• 2:20:04Speaker 03

  That's okay.

• 2:20:05David Sims?

  We can cut that out of the episode.

• 2:20:06Griffin Newman?

  Keep it in a double up then.

• 2:20:09Speaker 04

  Can I share a little Paul Rudd story?

• 2:20:11David Sims?

  Please. Was he at the Spotted Pig one time?

• 2:20:14Speaker 04

  Um, I don't think so.

• 2:20:16David Sims?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 2:20:17Speaker 04

  My friend Nate, who has been helping me out with getting to the gym. Shout out to Nate.

• 2:20:24David Sims?

  You've been, are you saying Nate's your trainer or?

• 2:20:26Speaker 04

  You've been working.

• 2:20:26David Sims?

  It's more, you're making it sound like Nate's sort of like.

• 2:20:28Speaker 04

  He's like a accountability buddy, but he also knows his way around the gym in a way where like, I'm so rusty and just like, I feel out of sorts. So I just need someone to be like, do this.

• 2:20:38David Sims?

  And what's the address of your gym and, and when do you go there?

• 2:20:40Griffin Newman?

  I just want to say, Ben says, I have a story to share. I look over at Karen. Karen mouths to me, I have to go.

• 2:20:46Speaker 03

  I'm so sorry.

• 2:20:47Griffin Newman?

  And it's like comically.

• 2:20:48David Sims?

  Get out of here.

• 2:20:49Griffin Newman?

  Ben starts telling the story in the slowest way possible.

• 2:20:53Speaker 03

  The calendar said we'd be done at four. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 2:20:55Griffin Newman?

  Our podcast is built on lies.

• 2:20:57Speaker 03

  That's okay. Can I use the bathroom? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, thank you.

• 2:21:01Griffin Newman?

  So you use the bathroom will tell you whether or not the Paul Rudd story is worth hearing when you get out. Okay, finish the story.

• 2:21:06David Sims?

  Nathan's been keeping you accountable at the gym.

• 2:21:08Speaker 04

  Yes, and so Nate used to work for stuttering association for the young. Paul Rudd is really involved with that nonprofit. He had like a role, like a Broadway show, Three Days of Rain and got involved with the organization.

• 2:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Which was Willie Roberts and Bradley Cooper. One of the most stacked Broadway casts ever, weirdly.

• 2:21:28Speaker 04

  And so he now does an annual fundraiser where he basically has like a bowling event. Yeah, and like gets celebrities to come out. And so Nate was running that event and got to hang out with Paul Rudd a bunch.

• 2:21:44David Sims?

  And he sucks and is really mean?

• 2:21:45Speaker 04

  No, he's like the butt, best fucking guy.

• 2:21:48David Sims?

  He usually hear pretty good stories about Paul Rudd.

• 2:21:50Speaker 04

  But so Paul Rudd though showed him about this bit that he's been doing.

• 2:21:55Griffin Newman?

  Is it the finger thing?

• 2:21:55Speaker 04

  Yes. Do you know about this, David? All right, so I'm texting.

• 2:21:59Griffin Newman?

  I know he has a bar.

• 2:22:00Speaker 04

  Thread.

• 2:22:01Griffin Newman?

  Well, he's got like.

• 2:22:02David Sims?

  It's like an invite only bar.

• 2:22:04Griffin Newman?

  It's not like an actual business. It's like he's built an Irish pub in the basement of his house, which I've heard is rad as hell.

• 2:22:11David Sims?

  I go there.

• 2:22:11Griffin Newman?

  That's awesome.

• 2:22:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. So he has this bit that he's been doing where he holds his finger up in front of the, the camera of the cell phone in just a way where it looks like a butt.

• 2:22:22Griffin Newman?

  It looks like a butt with, and then he has a modified version of it where he can make it look like you're seeing the back of a ball sack underneath the butt.

• 2:22:30Speaker 04

  And so to bring up Graham Norton, he tells the story on the Graham Norton Show.

• 2:22:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yes. I remember seeing him on some talk show give the walkthrough of how to do it.

• 2:22:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I sent over a couple of pictures that Nate illustrated how you do it effectively.

• 2:22:47David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, we can post those to social, of course.

• 2:22:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay, will you text this one with Ben's face to Karen right now?

• 2:22:53David Sims?

  I'll text it.

• 2:22:54Griffin Newman?

  And then this is gonna be, right, without context because you missed the story. Let's just see how you respond to this. Karen, thank you so much for being here.

• 2:23:02Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 2:23:03David Sims?

  Sorry we kept you so long.

• 2:23:04Speaker 03

  No, it's okay.

• 2:23:05Griffin Newman?

  Do you want to drop that Letterboxd handle or are we trying to keep that private?

• 2:23:07Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, no, it's just my name. My name is Karen and my last name is Chi.

• 2:23:11David Sims?

  Pretty sure it's Kenny Chi, but.

• 2:23:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right, because you'd be logging.

• 2:23:14Speaker 03

  Right, right, right, right, right. I should change it to I be logging.

• 2:23:17Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:23:17David Sims?

  We just sent you a picture of Ben doing a finger trick that looks like a butt.

• 2:23:20Griffin Newman?

  Don't give it away!

• 2:23:21David Sims?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 2:23:22Speaker 03

  Wait, what do you want me to look?

• 2:23:23David Sims?

  Just look at the photo.

• 2:23:24Speaker 04

  Just look and smile.

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  It's a Paul Rudd thing.

• 2:23:27Speaker 03

  Oh, a what?

• 2:23:28David Sims?

  That's why I was preparing her. It seems a little aggressive to text out of context.

• 2:23:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a trick where you hold your finger in front of the lens and it looks like there's a butt.

• 2:23:35Speaker 03

  Oh, you know what? This doesn't really look like a butt.

• 2:23:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I don't know how well Ben did.

• 2:23:42Speaker 04

  Okay, well, those are just examples. Paul Rudd, I'm sure, is like a pro at it.

• 2:23:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's the best at everything.

• 2:23:49Speaker 04

  Do you want to do another round? Do you want to try it again, but be nice about it?

• 2:23:53Speaker 03

  I'm so late to meet my aunt, though I do have to go.

• 2:23:55Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening.

• 2:23:56David Sims?

  It is so funny that you have a busy schedule today, that it's of your aunts. And you gotta go see your aunt, so get out of here.

• 2:24:03Griffin Newman?

  Big ups to Karen's aunt.

• 2:24:04Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:24:05Griffin Newman?

  Tune in next week for Vamps with our friend Caroline Franke. She returned to the show for the first time in way too long.

• 2:24:10David Sims?

  Way too long.

• 2:24:11Griffin Newman?

  And as always.

• 2:24:14Speaker 04

  Fuck.

• 2:24:15David Sims?

  All right.

• 2:24:16Griffin Newman?

  Don't say all right, help me out here.

• 2:24:18David Sims?

  Kenny be logging.

• 2:24:19Griffin Newman?

  Kenny be logging.

• 2:24:21Speaker 03

  Kenny be logging.

• 2:24:22Speaker 04

  The butt story was worth it.

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:24:24David Sims?

  So worth it, so worth it. I mean, glad to hear he's a nice guy.

• 2:24:33Speaker 04

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas. And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:25:18Speaker 04

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.