In the Blink of an Eye with Joey Sims

Did you know that Andrew Stanton released TWO movies this year? Toy Story 5, of course, but also the centuries-spanning sci-fi yarn In the Blink of an Eye?! This episode is dedicated to the latter - kind of. Theater critic and brother of the show Joey Sims joins us to chat about a BUNCH of things, not limited to In The Blink of an Eye; Off-Broadway plays, caveman movies, Power Rangers, and the status of the Lost in Space IP. It's a tangent-heavy listen, folks. Listen to Joey’s Pod: House Closed: Theater We Saw https://open.spotify.com/show/5qxwpVWKpe5RdPvLvhi6Xx Read about how Off-Broadway's PERFECT CRIME and THE OFFICE halted performances due to theft of pipes at the theatre https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/Off-Broadways-PERFECT-CRIME-and-THE-OFFICE-Halt-Performances-Due-to-Theft-of-Pipes-at-the-Theatre-20220124 Check out the Hayden Planetarium at the New York Museum of Natural History https://www.amnh.org/research/hayden-planetarium 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.

• 0:21Griffin Newman?

  All we share and all we experience podcasts across time.

• 0:28David Sims?

  Uh, echoes across time is the, is the tagline.

• 0:32Griffin Newman?

  I'm surprised there's no IMDb quote page for what I believe holds the record for the most existent film of 2026. This is a fun recurring game when I tell people.

• 0:43David Sims?

  Like movie that least exists that we've covered.

• 0:46Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no.

• 0:46David Sims?

  Oh, you tell people that we're covering Andrew Stanton this year.

• 0:50Griffin Newman?

  I go, we're, we're actually doing Andrew Stanton. Oh, that's exciting. So wait, so it's what? So it's Finding Mom Wally, right? John Carter. Oh, right. And then what since then? And I go Finding Dorian. They go, sure, sure, sure. And in the blink of an eye. And they go, what's that?

• 1:04David Sims?

  In the what of a what?

• 1:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I go, he made like a smaller live action sci-fi, we're all connected drama. And they go, what year did that come out? And I go, well, here's a surprise for you. In fact, mere months ago, it premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

• 1:21David Sims?

  Heard of it.

• 1:22Griffin Newman?

  And went on Hulu February 27th of 2026. Yep.

• 1:28David Sims?

  I found myself taken aback all over again, literally last night when I looked it up.

• 1:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33David Sims?

  On Wikipedia. I was just like checking something and at the top it said 2026. And I, I again had a renewed moment of like, wait, that's, that can be right. That's this year.

• 1:42Griffin Newman?

  It's not even a, oh my God, this year's been so long that in the blink of an eye was 2026.

• 1:49David Sims?

  You know, in some ways this year's kind of gone past me in the blink of an eye.

• 1:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, actually, is this the most relevant movie of 2026 because of how fast things move?

• 2:00David Sims?

  Ah, so fast.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03David Sims?

  February, yeah, yeah. It came out and I rushed to Hulu and then I was like, well, I'm gonna cover it on the podcast anyway. So I guess I'll let it simmer.

• 2:13Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I were supposed to go to the premiere of this film.

• 2:16David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:16Griffin Newman?

  In New York City.

• 2:17David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  That did not happen because of the snowstorm.

• 2:21David Sims?

  Oh, that's right.

• 2:23Griffin Newman?

  So it was like, it premiered at Sundance and then there was supposed to be.

• 2:26David Sims?

  The coward so around closed the subways.

• 2:29Griffin Newman?

  The proper New York premiere.

• 2:30David Sims?

  20 inches of snow. What's the big deal?

• 2:32Griffin Newman?

  The following week.

• 2:33David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  And it was like six hours before the premiere. We got an email that was like, never mind.

• 2:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:39Griffin Newman?

  The Regal Union Square is closing. The event is not happening.

• 2:43David Sims?

  Fun fact, on the same day, if we're talking about the same weather event, because there were two.

• 2:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48David Sims?

  Um, but on the same day, I was supposed to attend a marathon play reading session of the five, I think it was five different works of, uh, the playwrights, uh, the playwright Tracy Letts.

• 3:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well.

• 3:04David Sims?

  For the end of the show, he is, that's where you stay. Coming in next week, in fact.

• 3:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:11David Sims?

  I, I, now that Tracy has become a full-time podcaster, I'm also just kind of like listening to Tracy Letts every day. I'm beginning to assume like, you know, parachute into the sports podcast I listen to. He'll just kind of be like ever present. He just like lives in the Ringer offices now.

• 3:27Griffin Newman?

  Reviewing Quiznos on Doughboys.

• 3:29David Sims?

  And it's like, you know, fun fact about that guy, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, in fact, on top of all his great podcasts.

• 3:35Griffin Newman?

  He likes to make that joke of like, that stuff, that's my hobby. This is my real job.

• 3:39David Sims?

  My job.

• 3:39Griffin Newman?

  And increasingly it's starting to feel like he's, he's actually proving that.

• 3:43David Sims?

  Wait, Joey, okay. Well, they were gonna read five Tracy Letts plays back. Don't quote me on the five. They were gonna, they were gonna do like an all day marathon Tracy Letts.

• 3:53Griffin Newman?

  Bug, August, Osage County, Seussical the Musical. What were the other two?

• 3:58David Sims?

  Now, wait, now I need to look up what they were. Killer Joe, I would assume is one of the big ones. We got Killer Joey.

• 4:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, we do have Killer Joey on this episode. That's a bit of a spoiler.

• 4:09David Sims?

  Superior Donuts, which I should bring up to Tracy next time I see him and ask him, when is the next CBS sitcom adaptation of one of his plays going to premiere?

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  So funny that happened.

• 4:17David Sims?

  It would just be so funny if CBS was like, we're gonna do a bug sitcom. It's about a wacky motel.

• 4:22Griffin Newman?

  It's a little like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, where you're like, that spawned a network sitcom that ran for years.

• 4:28David Sims?

  Look, her name's Alice. She's a waitress. After that, we kind of did our own thing.

• 4:33Griffin Newman?

  Superior Donuts, same thing where you're like, I don't know, guy owns a donut shop, people show up.

• 4:37David Sims?

  Well, I've never seen the place Superior Donuts, but Superior Donuts is, you know, is, is a lighter.

• 4:42Griffin Newman?

  It's lighter.

• 4:42David Sims?

  It's a bit lighter, relatively speaking. The plays included.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 4:46David Sims?

  In the festival, which was never rescheduled, I'm sad to say.

• 4:49Griffin Newman?

  Rude.

• 4:50David Sims?

  Was Tracy gonna be there or was just? I don't know. Presumably, you could ask me about it. Uh, August, Osage County, we're gonna open with that. Uh, Killer Joe, Linda Vista, The Minutes, and Man from Nebraska. That's funny that it was, yeah, no bug, no, no donuts. No bug, no donuts. But, you know. But all of his regulars were slated for this day long thing. Margot Martindale was gonna be there. Lily Ray, Thomas Sadowski. This is a. There's a whole, Matthew Lillard was gonna be reading one of them.

• 5:21Griffin Newman?

  Most incredible cultural event in New York City that night.

• 5:24David Sims?

  Yes.

• 5:25Griffin Newman?

  Behind Ben and I attending the blink of an eye premiere. Uh, yeah, interesting that you chose not to go bug nuts. Uh, neither bug nor donuts.

• 5:32David Sims?

  I guess bug is like, it's like, wow, you can go see that on Broadway. But it was probably because bug was, was playing on Broadway.

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  And Superior Donuts, you can scale Paramount Plus. You can climb the mountain and watch all.

• 5:43David Sims?

  Let's find out. Can you?

• 5:44Griffin Newman?

  How many episodes of Superior Donuts do we think there were? Of course, the Tracy Letts sitcom adaptation starring Judd Hirsch and Jermaine Fowler.

• 5:52David Sims?

  I'm gonna guess 26. I mean, uh, yeah, like two seasons of 13 each is my guess, but I'm not sure. I think. Do you wanna, does anyone else wanna? Wait, is that a bit or was it actually renewed for a second season? It was, there was two seasons of Superior. There were two seasons? I thought it was like two episodes canceled type.

• 6:07Griffin Newman?

  No, I'm gonna guess 40.

• 6:10David Sims?

  Yeah. Anyone else wanna, you know, Price is Right, you know, kind of close this without going over? 32. All right, all right, 30, I hear 32. I think I said 26, you said 40, Ben?

• 6:19Griffin Newman?

  33.

• 6:20David Sims?

  The answer is 34. Ben.

• 6:27David Sims?

  So there were.

• 6:28Griffin Newman?

  So what do I get?

• 6:29David Sims?

  Uh, you got a Superior Donut to be named later. You'll, you'll get one at some point.

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  One.

• 6:33David Sims?

  You are now responsible for rescheduling the Tracy Letts marathon.

• 6:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 6:38David Sims?

  And producing it.

• 6:39Griffin Newman?

  It was. And the blink of an eye premiere, you have to reschedule that.

• 6:42David Sims?

  We gotta do that. The first season was 13 episodes. The second season was a full network season, 21 episodes.

• 6:48Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 6:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Griffin Newman?

  And then they canceled it.

• 6:49David Sims?

  Uh, and then they canceled it. Um, let's see, uh, along with Kevin Can Wait and, uh, some of my other favorite shows, Nine J K L.

• 7:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that was a Mark.

• 7:01David Sims?

  Biblically? What the fuck is this shit?

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. Living biblically, I think was, um, it was based on that book, The Year of Living Biblically, and it's sort of like Bible yes man, where a guy has to.

• 7:12David Sims?

  Catholic decides starring J R Ferguson.

• 7:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:15David Sims?

  From Mad Men.

• 7:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes. This is before he basically became a regular on, uh, The Connors, of course, the Best American Comedy Series.

• 7:24David Sims?

  And then they also canceled Dan Koppelman's Me, Myself and I, which was the Bobby Moynihan sitcom, I think.

• 7:29Griffin Newman?

  That was the big splashy show that I think was the first cancellation of the season. It was.

• 7:34David Sims?

  Didn't he leave SNL for that show?

• 7:36Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 7:37David Sims?

  Wait, what? Moynihan? No.

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:39David Sims?

  What's really?

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:40David Sims?

  Or maybe not for it, but like it was the first thing he did at least. Yeah, I guess you're right. Damn, yeah. 2017?

• 7:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. No, that was, I mean, it, talk about a different time, nine years ago.

• 7:48David Sims?

  Bring him back.

• 7:49Griffin Newman?

  Bring Bobby back.

• 7:50David Sims?

  Why not?

• 7:51Griffin Newman?

  He's busy.

• 7:52David Sims?

  We gotta have him on someday. I would.

• 7:55Griffin Newman?

  Bobby?

• 7:55David Sims?

  I would love to have Bobby Moynihan on. I feel like Bobby's taste, like my friend Bobby, who I'm referring to by his first name, is like, you know, we, we'd want a movie that he's passionate about. Like, you know, he loves the, he loves the goofy stuff, the silly stuff, the sci-fi stuff.

• 8:08Griffin Newman?

  He loves the Muppets. We do handsome.

• 8:09David Sims?

  He does love the Muppets. Sure.

• 8:11Griffin Newman?

  He's on the, the, whatchamacallit. He's on the, um, Daniel Radcliffe, uh, Tracy Morgan Show.

• 8:16David Sims?

  I know. I need to watch that.

• 8:18Griffin Newman?

  He's constantly on ATV.

• 8:19David Sims?

  Oh, I know Bobby's busy. It's just that Bobby loved SNL so much.

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  Bobby booked him busy.

• 8:23David Sims?

  Bobby, B B B, and he's Hoppers. He's the mayor.

• 8:26Griffin Newman?

  George, he's the king of the box office this year.

• 8:28David Sims?

  Did you see Hoppers? No, I didn't see Hoppers. Why not?

• 8:31Griffin Newman?

  You'll like King George.

• 8:31David Sims?

  You know, I haven't, I haven't been inside like a movie theater in a few months.

• 8:35Griffin Newman?

  Why not?

• 8:36David Sims?

  I don't know if I have a lot going on. I guess so. You, you gotta go see some movies.

• 8:41Griffin Newman?

  Inside a movie theater in a few months. So you saw Michael early.

• 8:45Griffin Newman?

  You went to several test screenings and gave them notes?

• 8:48David Sims?

  Yeah, I was a consultant on Michael. There's Hockum. That's the Adam Scott nonsense. It's all nonsense. It's Hockum. Which of course is a synonym for nonsense.

• 9:00David Sims?

  You haven't seen, wait, come on, wait a second. Now I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get righteously mad. Yeah, this is blank check.

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  The goat. You don't know the goat? You haven't seen the goat hit the court for baseball?

• 9:09David Sims?

  Or Who is Sylvia? What are you, oh goat. Yeah. It was, it was, it was an animated, that's, that shows you how your brain works. There's an animated, uh, adaptation of Edward Albee's The Goder Who is Sylvia, my daughter's favorite movie of the year. Um, yeah, you didn't see, uh, uh, what else we got? Did you see Nirvana, the band that showed the movie?

• 9:27Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 9:28David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:28Griffin Newman?

  I like that.

• 9:29David Sims?

  Yeah. The whole joke of Nirvana. An amazing.

• 9:32Griffin Newman?

  Nirvana?

• 9:33David Sims?

  Well, it's like, it's spelled like that because that's how Canadians say Nirvana.

• 9:37Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 9:37David Sims?

  And that's why it has the double N, Nirvana.

• 9:39Griffin Newman?

  I feel like you're pronouncing it really hard. Nirvana.

• 9:43David Sims?

  Simply, I'm simply going with their bit.

• 9:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was just, it was interesting.

• 9:46David Sims?

  Yeah. So I saw that. Was that my last? Did, did you see The Bone Temple? Yeah. No, yeah, I saw.

• 9:53Griffin Newman?

  So January and February, you were getting shit done.

• 9:55David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  And then you fell off.

• 9:57David Sims?

  And then, well, things. Undertone? Scary podcast?

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  Late at night.

• 10:01David Sims?

  I was actually intrigued by Undertone, by the first wave of reactions to Undertone, where people were like, scariest movie ever. And then there came a second wave. Yeah, it's so interesting how that happens with independent horror films that the first reviews from like user, I've been paid money on Twitter is like, The Exorcist is a fucking baby compared to this. You, I'm dead. I'm dead. Here's my death certificate. It killed me.

• 10:25Griffin Newman?

  Screen.

• 10:26David Sims?

  Dead in the theater.

• 10:27Griffin Newman?

  At screen till you shock underscore XXXX.

• 10:31David Sims?

  And then Undertone, which is a movie I did not like hate, but it was, I found a lot, is a lot of like, what was that?

• 10:38David Sims?

  A lady in a, did I hear something? David is looking behind him in that direction.

• 10:43Griffin Newman?

  Made like 30 million domestic on like a $1 million budget.

• 10:46David Sims?

  I don't think it got that far, but it did. It's cert, I'm sure it made people money. Like, let's see, where did it get to?

• 10:52Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those.

• 10:52David Sims?

  19 domestic.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those movies where I was like, that didn't pan out. And then you see the return on investment and you're like, 824 made a ton.

• 11:00David Sims?

  It was probably like 80 cents on that thing. It said at a fucking table.

• 11:07Griffin Newman?

  Well, they had to work overnights.

• 11:09David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, right. They had, they had to film it at 3am when she is of course logically recording a podcast. Uh, there is some, there's some shoe leather about like, oh, he's in a different time zone. That's how they explain that away. Did you see?

• 11:22Griffin Newman?

  It cost half a million dollars. So it made 40 times.

• 11:25David Sims?

  Nice work if you can get it.

• 11:26Griffin Newman?

  Budget. Yeah.

• 11:27David Sims?

  Super Mario Galaxy?

• 11:28Griffin Newman?

  Did you?

• 11:28David Sims?

  My daughter's other favorite movie?

• 11:30Speaker 02

  You're just naming children's movies.

• 11:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:32David Sims?

  What about the Christopher's? That's good. Go see that.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  I do want to see the Christopher.

• 11:35Griffin Newman?

  Joey, you like the Christopher.

• 11:37David Sims?

  I know I would love the Christopher. Button. Everyone must have a tape.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  The drama, I nearly made it.

• 11:42Griffin Newman?

  Buttons being pulled.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  I nearly, nearly made it to the drama.

• 11:46David Sims?

  And then what happened?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Um, I just went back and watched all four seasons of 13 Reasons Why instead because you know, it dealt with a lot of the same.

• 11:53Griffin Newman?

  Previous hot button.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Lot of the same material.

• 11:55David Sims?

  Right. Mother Mary. You gotta meet mother.

• 11:57Griffin Newman?

  You gotta meet the mother.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  No, and I wanted to see that too. But you know, look, Christopher's Mother Mary. Look, these are movies that I am representative of sadly, the average, the average audience member.

• 12:07David Sims?

  Exactly. They need Joey, Sam.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  I know, but we were like, yeah, I want to try to find my, try to, try to find time for that. And then.

• 12:14David Sims?

  But you're gonna see Mortal Kombat 2.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Well, actually yes, because I saw the first Mortal Kombat in the AMC Empire 25. And which is, I believe is where you're going to see Mortal Kombat 2.

• 12:26David Sims?

  This is priorities, guys. This is, this is the right thing to do.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  I had a great time.

• 12:31David Sims?

  Of course. Scorpion was there, Sub-Zero.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  So much fun.

• 12:34David Sims?

  Most of the Trump cabinet.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  I'm having fun.

• 12:38David Sims?

  You didn't see Project Hail Mary? All of America saw that one.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  That's the kind of crazy one.

• 12:42David Sims?

  He's got a little rock buddy.

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with this, this gentleman named Rocky.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Rocky, no, and then I, he was puppeteered by an artist who I.

• 12:52David Sims?

  The cow guy.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Who I know well.

• 12:54David Sims?

  Yeah. The cow guy, right?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  James Ortiz, who did, exactly, who did, um.

• 12:57Griffin Newman?

  He was the cow guy.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Uh, he did the.

• 13:00David Sims?

  Into the Woods. He was the cow.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  He comes from the theater world. He did, um, yeah, Milky White for the Into the Woods.

• 13:05David Sims?

  The best guy I ever saw. Rocky was like a Broadway guy before he made his transition to movies.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  To space? Yeah. So Rocky, Rocky operated.

• 13:14David Sims?

  Rocky is real. Yes, I know that. He's one of my good friends.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Friend of the pod.

• 13:21David Sims?

  Wuthering Heights? Did you weather?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  I did weather.

• 13:24David Sims?

  You scaled the heights?

• 13:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  I did.

• 13:25David Sims?

  The bride. Did you marry her?

• 13:28Griffin Newman?

  It's a fun game.

• 13:29David Sims?

  I know. I'm just having fun. Can you tell I'm not like that eager to talk about this?

• 13:34Speaker 02

  The Bride, when I thought The Bride was a musical, I was like, well, I gotta go see that.

• 13:38David Sims?

  It has a dash of that.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:40David Sims?

  There's a dash. They put on the Ritz for 20 minutes or whatever.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:44David Sims?

  You didn't see it?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:46David Sims?

  Oh, interesting. Uh, Return to Silent Hill. Did you return to Silent Hill? Did you get in the iron lung? I'm just, I'm getting deeper now.

• 13:52Griffin Newman?

  This is a game I like. This time of year, we're recording this episode in, uh, May. It will come out in July. Is that correct?

• 14:00David Sims?

  It's not the closet.

• 14:01Griffin Newman?

  So the summer just kicked off and it means it's the final moment where the top 10 box office movies of the year is still kind of wacky, right? Where it's not like, there are movies that can be in the top 10 that were not blockbusters.

• 14:15David Sims?

  Sure.

• 14:15Griffin Newman?

  Uh, so Reminders of Him is currently the 10th highest grossing film of the year.

• 14:20David Sims?

  We love it.

• 14:20Griffin Newman?

  Just yet another Colleen Hoover.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Is that a Hoover joint?

• 14:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but the drama might overtake it. The drama might briefly be the 10th highest.

• 14:29David Sims?

  Cause the drama's really been, uh, had staying hold instead.

• 14:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Griffin Newman?

  But, but right now, yeah. Super Mario Galaxy, Project Hail Mary, Michael Hopper's Devil Wears Prada 2. Haven't seen?

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Uh, oh no. Yeah. I do need to see that.

• 14:42Griffin Newman?

  Scream 7, Goat, Wuthering Heights, Send Help.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  I saw Send Help.

• 14:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So you saw two out of the 10.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 14:50Griffin Newman?

  This year's needed Joey in the cinemas.

• 14:52David Sims?

  This, you're seeing too many dang plays.

• 14:55Griffin Newman?

  You're seeing too many dang plays.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  March and April is the height of the, of the.

• 14:59David Sims?

  Of the theater season.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  The theater.

• 15:00David Sims?

  Tony season.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  But I'm usually not totally absent from the movie theater. Something went wrong.

• 15:06David Sims?

  You work in the theater district, not, again, not to duck you.

• 15:08Griffin Newman?

  You host a theater podcast, House Closed.

• 15:10David Sims?

  About, it's called House Closed?

• 15:12Speaker 02

  It's called House Closed Theater We Saw.

• 15:14David Sims?

  Theater We Saw.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Yes, which I host with my friend Connor Scully.

• 15:17David Sims?

  But, and we'll talk about that and we'll introduce what this show is in one second. But because you work in the theater district, you are near the two busiest.

• 15:23Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 15:24David Sims?

  Theaters and movie theaters in New York are like, you know, the AMC Empire, you know, what's on screen 25, baby?

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Well, this is what I used to.

• 15:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  This is what I used to do. This is how my life used to be structured when I had different part-time jobs in Midtown is that it would be like, I'd go in in the morning, do like a shift at one job, go to the Empire, AMC Empire 25.

• 15:45David Sims?

  Take off your Aladdin outfit. Joe used to wear an Aladdin outfit.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  It didn't work.

• 15:48Griffin Newman?

  You'd ride the carpet just down the block.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  I was an usher at Aladdin.

• 15:51David Sims?

  Did you have like a hat or something?

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Uh, I think you're conflating it with, with when I worked concessions at Elf the Musical and I wore, um, uh, like a.

• 16:01Griffin Newman?

  A little elf hat?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  A little, a little elf hat. Yes. And yeah, I wore like a uniform as an usher at Aladdin.

• 16:07Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  But just like, you know, uh.

• 16:09Griffin Newman?

  But you, you, you'd ride the carpet down to the end of the block.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  I'd ride the carpet down. And then I'd have a few hours before, uh, my evening work. So then, yeah, I'd slot in whatever was playing and screen 24 at the 25, you know? So that was how I saw a lot of.

• 16:26David Sims?

  Wow. George Wendt originated Santa Claus in Elf the Musical?

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was, I, my first job in the city was doing concessions at the.

• 16:34David Sims?

  Revival.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Broadway, the second engagement.

• 16:38David Sims?

  Wayne Knight was Santa.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Of Elf, of Elf the Musical. I would, it's not, was not a revival. It was just them.

• 16:43Griffin Newman?

  It was a season.

• 16:44David Sims?

  It is technically, it was just them. Revival on Wikipedia.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  I guess it is, uh, you could, it was basically just them doing the same thing again.

• 16:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Just like a second engagement of the same.

• 16:52Griffin Newman?

  Cause it was.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Production.

• 16:53Griffin Newman?

  It was, this will only run eight weeks a year. It will come back only in the holiday window, right?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  They brought it back two years in a row and then they brought it back again a few years. And then like, if they don't bring it to Broadway, then it tours over the.

• 17:05Griffin Newman?

  The Grinch musical is the same thing.

• 17:07David Sims?

  Done on the West End four separate times.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:09David Sims?

  And it's not even set in England.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Who have the British Santas been?

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Was Santa my, just my Santa, my, for my one, for the second one was, um.

• 17:17David Sims?

  Wayne Knight.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Wayne Knight.

• 17:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Great.

• 17:19David Sims?

  The only Santa I recognize of on the British revivals is the third time. Oh no, I'm sorry. No, I don't know any of the British ones. The third time they did it on Broadway though, it was Sean Astin. Now, do you like getting that call as Sean Astin where they're like, we think you're Santa-sized now. You know, Sean?

• 17:36Griffin Newman?

  Also like Santa.

• 17:38David Sims?

  We saw you recently. Yeah. And sort of Santa age. Like, are you ready to put on the beard?

• 17:42Griffin Newman?

  And George Wendt both have years on him.

• 17:44David Sims?

  They do.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Do credit to Sean Astin. Wendt and Knight did the original.

• 17:49David Sims?

  The national president.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  The original, yes, exactly. The original Santa track of that show, which is he pops up basically at the beginning and at the end, and that's it.

• 17:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  So for them, they're like, great, easy gig, Broadway money, whatever.

• 18:02David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  For Astin, they reworked it so that he had a second role.

• 18:07David Sims?

  You're right.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  In the show that he, uh, played for significant bits of the middle part.

• 18:11David Sims?

  Mr. Greenway.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  It was the, he was like the evil boss, you know, the one who's like, you're.

• 18:16Griffin Newman?

  The publishing company.

• 18:16David Sims?

  That kind of, that's thematically precedent. Like he's good and bad.

• 18:20Griffin Newman?

  It's a, it's a Captain Hook, Mr. Darling kind of thing. Interesting. No, no, no, not the father. You're saying he played the James Caan character's boss?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:30Griffin Newman?

  Michael Lerner's role in the movie.

• 18:32David Sims?

  I suppose that, I'm just saying like sort of father figures, but I guess you're right. The James Caan is more of a father figure to, Caan and Asner are the two big father figures to Buddy the Elf.

• 18:42Griffin Newman?

  They are. But everyone forgets that Academy Award nominee, Michael.

• 18:45David Sims?

  A great actor. For the first time in his life, played an ordinary boss?

• 18:48Griffin Newman?

  Get me a tablet, fuck. I want that Buddy the Elf feeling.

• 18:53David Sims?

  Do you think Michael Lerner maybe contributed to a sort of negative stereotype over the years? The amount of bosses he played behind desks yelling?

• 19:05David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 19:06Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 19:06David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 19:06Griffin Newman?

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

• 19:09David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 19:09Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce baby, and sometimes they vanish into the ether.

• 19:24David Sims?

  They do. In the blink of an eye.

• 19:26Griffin Newman?

  In the blink of an eye.

• 19:27David Sims?

  Truly, this was a one blink movie.

• 19:29Griffin Newman?

  Blink, blink, blink.

• 19:29David Sims?

  This one blinked. I almost was like, has it left Hulu? And then it was like, no, it's there. Okay. Phew.

• 19:34Griffin Newman?

  It is wild that twice he has had this ultimate get out of jail free card of like, guys, don't worry. Toy Story 5 is coming out in months.

• 19:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Griffin Newman?

  Mere weeks from now.

• 19:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Griffin Newman?

  I will have one of the highest grossing films of the year.

• 19:48David Sims?

  Well, I also feel like John Carter was an actual like much discussed bomb, whereas this is more just something like no one ever really knew it happened. So it's less, it'll stick to him a little bit.

• 19:58Griffin Newman?

  It's an interesting, right? Is it, is it worse to have the most existent bomb in history or a true tree falls in the middle of the woods and no one's there to hear it movie?

• 20:08David Sims?

  Right. I think it's better to have the, I made a movie that didn't exist. Like Chris White's, who's been on our show and discussed this. He made The Golden Compass, a movie that bankrupted a studio. God bless. Love you, Chris. Uh, and then.

• 20:21Griffin Newman?

  Love you, New Line. Rest in power.

• 20:23David Sims?

  Yeah. Rest in power. Now you're a shingle. Uh, went, went to the great shingle area in this guy. Uh, and then he made Afraid.

• 20:30Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:31David Sims?

  That's how I refer to it.

• 20:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:33David Sims?

  Afraid.

• 20:33Griffin Newman?

  Afraid.

• 20:34David Sims?

  You see, you don't even know what happened.

• 20:35Griffin Newman?

  Afraid.

• 20:36David Sims?

  Yeah. He made a movie called.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  I don't even, and I know about these movies that don't exist.

• 20:40David Sims?

  He made an AI horror movie called Afraid, but the AI in Afraid is capitalized.

• 20:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:46David Sims?

  Afraid!

• 20:47Griffin Newman?

  Not his title. It had a different.

• 20:48David Sims?

  No, it had, it was called They Listen.

• 20:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:50David Sims?

  And then Sony was like, it should be called Afraid!

• 20:53Griffin Newman?

  Afraid.

• 20:55David Sims?

  And he has copped to its non-existence on this very show. He made a movie that didn't exist.

• 20:59Griffin Newman?

  He went through a Barton Fink-esque, uh, atonement. Yes. Um.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Also, this movie premiered at Sundance and then dropped on Hulu like a month later.

• 21:10Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Like, which, so it's on, so I don't know all the behind the scenes, but that doesn't give a feeling of them being like, oh, we want to try to get someone to put this in theaters.

• 21:19Griffin Newman?

  That was always the exact plan and he has been transparent about when they greenlit this movie. They were like, it's going to Hulu.

• 21:26David Sims?

  It's a Hulu original. I think the Sundance premiere, if anything, was sort of a, a gesture of goodwill or a kind of like, but you can be at a festival. That's cool.

• 21:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It was, right. We, that is the way to give this movie a launch. I, I don't know how much of an effort they would put into a traditional marketing campaign if not for, we can go to Sundance and you could do a bunch of interviews and a screening with a bunch of press there.

• 21:50David Sims?

  It can happen that the film debuts at Sundance and people are like, we don't like it.

• 21:54Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 21:54David Sims?

  And then that'll, that's bad.

• 21:56Griffin Newman?

  But I know, I know the date was set for when it was dropping on Hulu before it went to Sundance. In my memory, there was sort of an all-in-one announcement of this will premiere at Sundance and go to Hulu on February 27th. Uh, it's called In the Blink of an Eye. It's a film made by Andrew Stanton, whose films we're covering and the many stars we're calling Podsea.

• 22:21David Sims?

  You don't like that?

• 22:23Griffin Newman?

  Joey, it's gonna.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  I don't wanna, I don't wanna derail the series.

• 22:26Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna look really good.

• 22:27David Sims?

  Pretty far along, too.

• 22:28Griffin Newman?

  It's look really good on the graphic.

• 22:30David Sims?

  We've only got 245 left, right? Yeah, yeah. So you better like it.

• 22:34Griffin Newman?

  Joey, I.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  So we've done, you guys have done John Carter.

• 22:36Griffin Newman?

  We, we leaped across that one. Yeah.

• 22:39David Sims?

  Of course.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Who's the John Carter guest?

• 22:41David Sims?

  Matt Singer.

• 22:41Griffin Newman?

  The great Matt Singer.

• 22:42David Sims?

  Great episode.

• 22:43Griffin Newman?

  Are you, are you a John Carter, uh, fan interrogator?

• 22:49David Sims?

  Joey Sims of Mars?

• 22:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  You know, I rewatched a chunk of it ahead of this episode. I didn't, wasn't able, I didn't have time to get through the whole thing. It didn't play as well to me as the first time I watched it. I remember watching it a few years ago and being like, this is kind of like a glorious mess. Like, wow, this is like a crazy, like, obviously this doesn't work, but what ambition? And I thought I would be revisiting that feeling. And then I watched it again and was like, oh, Jesus, this is like, just the way it starts is like so rough.

• 23:24David Sims?

  I think the bookends are tough with that one. I think there were some notes on that from, from me in the episode, the, the non Mars stuff.

• 23:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is a similarly ambitious movie. I mean, this is not like a.

• 23:37David Sims?

  That's true.

• 23:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:38David Sims?

  It's less, uh, right. Like the scale of it is more suggested than shown, but right.

• 23:43Griffin Newman?

  But, but it does, it is, I would say narratively and emotionally ambitious. And it does feel like on paper, a high risk movie. Hey, if you don't get this right, it's gonna be embarrassing kind of movie.

• 23:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 23:57David Sims?

  Who's our guest?

• 23:58Griffin Newman?

  Our guest, as I said, Joey Sims, a host of House Closed, which I, I Googled to make sure I was getting the name of the podcast correct. And are you aware, Joey, that there is another podcast hosted by a man named Joey Sims? I assume not you. I assume you're not doing double duty called Healing Word. Join Joey Sims as we are challenged by studying the Bible to grow in our relationship with God and encourage to apply God's word in our life. It sounds like ripe material for a Jay Ferguson sitcom.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, House Closed.

• 24:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Theater we saw with Simpson Scully.

• 24:37David Sims?

  Big two.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  My co-host, the big two, my co-host being the lovely Connor Scully, a theater producer. And we see, yeah, I'm, I'm doing my plug.

• 24:49David Sims?

  Do your plug.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Uh, we see two shows together. Sometimes a guest will also have seen the same two shows.

• 24:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  That are either currently running like Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, whatever. And then we talk about those two shows. Or in our latest episode, the fourth episode that we just did, it was three, it was three shows. So we're four episodes in and we already broke our format.

• 25:12David Sims?

  You people are.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  But.

• 25:13David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 25:14Griffin Newman?

  How many of your episodes have been MJ the Musical so far?

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Well, we're saving MJ the Musical. So over the summer, when things slow down in the theater world, we'll do a 10-episode series.

• 25:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Analyzing MJ, MJ the Musical.

• 25:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  All of the decisions that, uh, that, that, uh, that happened there.

• 25:34David Sims?

  Will you during the slow months, like check in with more long running shows?

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're trying to figure out like over the summer, like what like fun things can we do? Like, we want to do like Perfect Crime, you know, that show that's been running off Broadway for a million, you know about Perfect Crime.

• 25:47Griffin Newman?

  I, I have been really tempted to go see Perfect Crime. And in fact, Zach Cherry, very recent guest on this podcast, most recent guest on this podcast.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 25:55Griffin Newman?

  He and I have been strategizing to go see Perfect Crime together because he didn't know about it. And I told him and he's, he's fairly obsessed now.

• 26:02David Sims?

  New York's longest running play.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  I haven't seen it. It bills itself as New York's longest running play. It is this like god awful, like murder mystery.

• 26:11David Sims?

  How dare you? What if it's good?

• 26:12Speaker 02

  The Theater Center.

• 26:14David Sims?

  Says here, it's perfect.

• 26:15Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. What, what used to be the Snapple Theater.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  What used to be the Snapple Theater is.

• 26:19David Sims?

  That used to have the Fantastics.

• 26:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Many, many years ago.

• 26:22David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 26:22Griffin Newman?

  And, and the venue is owned now by the lead actress, right?

• 26:27Speaker 02

  Um, I guess I believe she owns the venue. Yes, that is correct.

• 26:31David Sims?

  Content warning, suicide. This sounds dark.

• 26:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's a spoiler alert.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  And she has appeared. She stars in the show, produces the show, like hands, hands out the playbills, you know, like one of those. She's been doing it since it started. Uh, I think she claims she's never missed a performance. I'm not sure if that's.

• 26:48David Sims?

  No, yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 26:50Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  They're dark on Wednesdays, though. Lazy. And they were like uninterrupted, you know, up until.

• 26:56Griffin Newman?

  Until the pandemic. I know, I know she's like griped about that a lot, but there's

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. She didn't want to close. She was like.

• 27:02David Sims?

  Oh, good.

• 27:04Griffin Newman?

  But she's like missed family members' weddings.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:08Griffin Newman?

  And there was a.

• 27:08David Sims?

  Her children don't know her.

• 27:10Griffin Newman?

  There was a point that she was appearing in another play at the same time and she was still doing perfect murder. Like, what's.

• 27:16David Sims?

  For crying out loud, how dare you talk about the best show on earth?

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  But she would like do her walk on in the other play and then run over to the Snapple Theater and do, I, let me know when you actually make plans to go see it. Cause I.

• 27:30David Sims?

  It has done 15,000 performances.

• 27:32Griffin Newman?

  I've been really eager to go and I, I need the kick in the butt.

• 27:36David Sims?

  It's been running as long as I've been alive, essentially. It started a year after I was born, probably in my honor.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  I should clarify, they were, their performances were interrupted one other time by a very iconic event. I remember this press release so well, so I was just pulling it back up to remember. Uh, Off Broadway's Perfect Crime and The Office, the musical, because the, The Office parody musical runs in the same building, halt performances due to theft of pipes at the theater.

• 28:02David Sims?

  Someone just stole some copper pipes?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  I just want to find this. Um, burglars broke.

• 28:08David Sims?

  I'll fix your pipes for you.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Burglars broke into the vacant restaurant below, made their way to the basement of the building, disconnected and then stole every piece of copper pipe they could find. This is quoting from the press release that the show put out, leaving the building without any access to water. The criminals returned in the early hours today, smashing the front doors. They've not yet been, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so they were also interrupted when all their, when all their copper pipes were.

• 28:36Griffin Newman?

  What year was that?

• 28:37David Sims?

  We're pipeless.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  That was in 2022. And I don't know if the, if these, if these hoodlums were ever identified.

• 28:43David Sims?

  Did you know that after the end of the show, you are given a two-page answer sheet to explain the show because it's complex?

• 28:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:51David Sims?

  Is that because people were complaining like, I don't understand the ending?

• 28:56Griffin Newman?

  Here's some other facts. It's, it's run in eight different theaters since 1987.

• 29:00David Sims?

  Right. It premiered off broad, like in the West Village at the grow, the Courtyard Playhouse.

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

  If in November.

• 29:06David Sims?

  May not exist anymore.

• 29:07Griffin Newman?

  2016, Gary Busey spent two weeks in the role of Lionel.

• 29:11David Sims?

  Two fantastic weeks.

• 29:13Griffin Newman?

  November 2016, kicking America while it was down.

• 29:18David Sims?

  Why did he do that?

• 29:21Speaker 02

  They've star cast other people. John Schneider was briefly in Perfect Crime recently.

• 29:25David Sims?

  One of the, um, one of the Dukes of Hazzard.

• 29:28Griffin Newman?

  Perfect Politics.

• 29:29David Sims?

  But wait, isn't he the one, who, isn't the other one worse? Or are both Dukes?

• 29:34Griffin Newman?

  No, Schneider's, Schneider's a bad one.

• 29:37David Sims?

  Is Schneider the one who was in Smallville?

• 29:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, she's never taken a sick day. She's missed only four performances, Catherine Russell, the last in 1995 to attend her brother's wedding. That was the last time she was willing to go to a wedding over doing the show.

• 29:54David Sims?

  So the Snapple has two theaters, two stages.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  No longer the Snapple. So it used to be sponsored by Snapple.

• 30:00David Sims?

  It's eternally the Snapple to me.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  No, well, no, because there used to be this big.

• 30:04David Sims?

  There was the Snapple sign.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  The Snapple signs, the caps that would go around and around.

• 30:08Griffin Newman?

  I'd scale the building to try to see the fact underneath because it wasn't facing the street. I.

• 30:12David Sims?

  And it was like, Perfect Crime, $60. Come on.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Don't steal our pipes.

• 30:19David Sims?

  Pipes not for sale.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  And they took them off. They took them off. Now it is just.

• 30:25David Sims?

  Well, do you think they were like, hey, Snapple, do you want to sponsor the theater?

• 30:28Speaker 02

  They were like, we sponsor a theater.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  I will say, if you go to the Wikipedia page for the Theater Center, the image it shows you immediately is Snapple.

• 30:36David Sims?

  Yeah. You can't shake that.

• 30:39Griffin Newman?

  You can't shake.

• 30:39David Sims?

  But I know that the, one of the theaters is the Jerry Orbach Theater.

• 30:42Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:42David Sims?

  After the great Jerry.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  That's where Fantastic ran for many, many years. Yes.

• 30:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:47David Sims?

  He was in the original.

• 30:47Griffin Newman?

  And that's where I guess the Office musical is, the Anne L.

• 30:51David Sims?

  I know that. I go every night.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, right now they have Perfect Crime, The Office parody musical, and they have one other parody musical going right now.

• 30:58David Sims?

  It looks like they also have, um, Friends, the unauthorized musical parody.

• 31:02Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 31:03David Sims?

  Singfeld, which is an unauthorized Seinfeld parody musical.

• 31:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, well.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  I saw also a sadly now closed Love Actually parody, uh, musical at the same, at the same venue. Um, I, it was actually not long after theaters reopened after COVID that I went to see that show.

• 31:26David Sims?

  You were happy.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  And, uh, my main memory of it was that the Alan Rickman character was performed by a guy who was in full like Snape garb. And like anytime anyone would talk to him, he'd pull out his wand and you get it. It was kind of funny.

• 31:41David Sims?

  Expecto adultery.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 31:45Griffin Newman?

  Perfect Crime opened, it reopened April 2021. It was the first show in New York City to get approval from Actors Equity to resume performances. You just imagine that Catherine Russell was like.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, De Blasio.

• 31:58Griffin Newman?

  Scratching her thighs for 14 months, like digging her nails and being like, when can I get back on the fucking stage?

• 32:04Speaker 02

  De Blasio appeared at their first performance. I think he like made, gave a little speech.

• 32:08David Sims?

  There's Fiorello, the musical, of course, which is about LaGuardia, right? It's the famous, uh, Broadway musical. When will we get our De Blasio musical?

• 32:15Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 32:16David Sims?

  Bill.

• 32:17Griffin Newman?

  Is there?

• 32:17David Sims?

  Tall Bill.

• 32:18Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, who's the tallest musical theater actor we have right now?

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Tommy Tune.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Um.

• 32:28Griffin Newman?

  Like, do we have to put Norman Leo Butts on stilts to do the?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Norbert.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  Fuck.

• 32:32David Sims?

  Who, yeah, who is the tallest?

• 32:34Speaker 02

  The tallest.

• 32:35David Sims?

  Well, I'll just Google it. Who is the tallest Broadway actor?

• 32:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  You bring me on.

• 32:41David Sims?

  Well, Tommy Tune did come up.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  For exactly this type of insight.

• 32:46David Sims?

  Uh, Harold McGillen, I can tell you.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 32:49David Sims?

  Who is a long time Phantom is six, four. Pretty good. Not as tall as Bill, who's six, seven.

• 32:55Griffin Newman?

  Tommy Tune's six.

• 32:56David Sims?

  And then Timothy Hughes, that's the big man from Hades.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  I was thinking of the big guy.

• 33:01David Sims?

  Now, he's more of an ensemble player.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  He's, you know, very hot.

• 33:05David Sims?

  But I remember that with Hades Town where there was the one big guy.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, the tall.

• 33:08David Sims?

  Cause they've got all the guys in this with the big hammers who are like, you know, in industrial hell.

• 33:14Griffin Newman?

  I mean, you're also saying he's more of an ensemble guy. This is maybe his breakout. This is the thing that, that makes him a leading man.

• 33:20David Sims?

  I mean.

• 33:21Griffin Newman?

  De Blasio.

• 33:22David Sims?

  You know what? Get him out there. Um, yeah, you know, first act, De Blasio is mayor. Second act, De Blasio is horn dog.

• 33:30Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say entire.

• 33:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 33:32Griffin Newman?

  Second act is just sitting down with the New York Times for that piece.

• 33:37David Sims?

  Just like De Blasio, like on the apps, you know, it's just like De Blasio being like, field, eh?

• 33:42Speaker 02

  I'll get him at one of these days.

• 33:46Griffin Newman?

  Even if they hire, uh, someone like this Hughes guy, they should still put the actor on stilts and make him so tall that his head is not visible in the proscenium arch.

• 33:55David Sims?

  That'd be good.

• 33:55Griffin Newman?

  It should be like Police Squad style. He's out of frame.

• 33:59David Sims?

  Um, you know, this film came out, uh, in the blink of an eye. Uh, so, so look, look.

• 34:05Griffin Newman?

  Look, look, look.

• 34:06David Sims?

  There weren't, there was nobody out here who was like, when are you guys covering in a blink of an eye? And can I be on the show?

• 34:12Griffin Newman?

  Literally nobody.

• 34:13David Sims?

  Nobody. Uh, Joey has a new show. He has a new podcast. It's a show, a show about shows. He's my brother.

• 34:21Griffin Newman?

  And to mention the credits, longtime brother.

• 34:23David Sims?

  Long time.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Of yours.

• 34:23David Sims?

  Hey, and, and uncle.

• 34:25Griffin Newman?

  And.

• 34:25David Sims?

  He is my uncle.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Uncle.

• 34:28David Sims?

  He's my, the uncle to, he's a wonderful uncle to my children. How are my kids doing?

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Uh, you're, one of your younger sons has some anger issues, but, um, but overall, overall, they're doing great.

• 34:38David Sims?

  Got a lot of rage.

• 34:39Griffin Newman?

  It's Rocksteady?

• 34:41David Sims?

  No, Bebop.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Oh, they have names too.

• 34:45David Sims?

  Well, yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  It's so funny to watch him do the.

• 34:47Griffin Newman?

  To do the math. Yes. It's why I tee him up every time. Cause I like that he has to like seriously remember the canon he's containing.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah.

• 34:57David Sims?

  Yeah. And so you were like, I'd love to, you know, uh, plug, uh, my show on the podcast. So, you know, like what's coming up, like Scorsese, could I do Hugo? And I'm like, you know, Hugo's a 2027 episode for us.

• 35:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 35:08David Sims?

  It's gonna be a while.

• 35:09Griffin Newman?

  A while's away.

• 35:10David Sims?

  You know? And I was like, look.

• 35:12Griffin Newman?

  You know what's coming up in a blink of an eye?

• 35:14David Sims?

  I got an empty spreadsheet cell right here in front of me for a much more recent episode. If you'd care to fire up Hulu, H U L U dot com.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  It fell sort of in keeping with my, you know, some of my appearances so far on the show.

• 35:29Griffin Newman?

  Lost in space.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Was Lost in Space.

• 35:31David Sims?

  A great.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  As a sibling's choice.

• 35:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Ratatouille.

• 35:35David Sims?

  And right, actually great movie.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Ratatouille and actually.

• 35:37David Sims?

  A double sibling episode.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Yes, but then Polar Express.

• 35:40Griffin Newman?

  A cancer you infected us with.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  That one I requested.

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And now, now David has seen that movie like 80 times and has like fucking Stockholm syndrome. Um.

• 35:51David Sims?

  Yeah, I kinda like it. Never let, never, never.

• 35:53Griffin Newman?

  It is fun. I was.

• 35:54David Sims?

  It was fun in theaters.

• 35:55Griffin Newman?

  I was thinking about, you know, the, the, the era of the siblings choice, a thing where we needed to fill slots on the schedule. And we were like, what are fun ideas for episodes? Both of my siblings' choices got 20 years later, legacy sequels.

• 36:11David Sims?

  Uh, right. That, that's a good point, right? We just had, uh, Romilly on the show because Devil's Brothers two.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Devil's Brothers two.

• 36:16David Sims?

  Space Jam, of course, got the perfect and well-remembered, uh.

• 36:20Griffin Newman?

  They started a new legacy. Yes.

• 36:22David Sims?

  And how's G Rhythm up to lately?

• 36:25Griffin Newman?

  Uh, so.

• 36:25David Sims?

  Running for 2028 public nomination.

• 36:28Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say. He's the entire cabinet.

• 36:31David Sims?

  Greenlit Michael?

• 36:32Griffin Newman?

  Where he's selecting the captain.

• 36:34David Sims?

  G. See Space Jam in your like.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  This is, this the Don Cheadle AI thing?

• 36:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes. His name is Al G Rhythm.

• 36:41David Sims?

  He's an Al G Rhythm.

• 36:42Griffin Newman?

  Connor Rattler has a running bit where he insists on calling that character the king of content, even though he's never seen the movie and he won't be corrected on it.

• 36:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, oh, what are the chances? We get a Lost in Space legacy sequel? And you're like, they're actually zero. We got the Netflix series. But I think with Hurt Dead.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, that's the top reason.

• 37:04Griffin Newman?

  That's the top reason.

• 37:07Griffin Newman?

  Who's gonna bring the herd if not Big Bill?

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Goldman is after, after amassing power at Paramount, Goldman is like calling up the execs. He's like, listen, I wrote a draft of Lost in Space two.

• 37:18Griffin Newman?

  Wait a second, David. I think I know what you're gonna say.

• 37:20David Sims?

  Well, I mean, I was trying to point to one. I was trying to point to our president, Red Hulk is over there, but we're.

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  Bought a new shell.

• 37:25David Sims?

  We're remodeling the office. I'm not sure where President Hulk is right now. Do we know, Ben? Okay.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  I'm not, I'm not certain. He was, he was respectively stuffed away.

• 37:34David Sims?

  He's our president!

• 37:36Speaker 02

  So, yeah.

• 37:37David Sims?

  And I did salute him.

• 37:38Griffin Newman?

  Let's say he's visiting Camp David.

• 37:41David Sims?

  Uh, yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Gotta see the blossoms.

• 37:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Liv Tyler, where are my pills?

• 37:47Griffin Newman?

  So are you suggesting?

• 37:48David Sims?

  Like fucking recast.

• 37:49Griffin Newman?

  Harrison Ford.

• 37:51David Sims?

  Swap him in. Be like, we got Ford, we got Ford. Everyone else is back. Mimi Rogers.

• 37:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 37:57David Sims?

  Matt LeBlanc.

• 37:59Griffin Newman?

  Lacey Chabert.

• 38:00David Sims?

  The fucking kid who played the kid.

• 38:02Griffin Newman?

  Blar.

• 38:03David Sims?

  Blar. They're all back.

• 38:05Griffin Newman?

  Jared Harris. We don't let him talk.

• 38:08David Sims?

  We will re-dub him again.

• 38:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:10David Sims?

  Gary Oldman only in Spider four.

• 38:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:14David Sims?

  Oh, Heather Graham.

• 38:15Griffin Newman?

  Heather Graham?

• 38:16David Sims?

  She's probably the most like, still looks like herself of all the people I just mentioned.

• 38:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:22David Sims?

  Like she's aged into, yeah, you're like, oh yeah, she's still Heather Graham.

• 38:25Griffin Newman?

  She's doing the new White Lotus season.

• 38:27David Sims?

  Is she on that?

• 38:28Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 38:29David Sims?

  Did you see our friend Max Miguel is on it?

• 38:30Griffin Newman?

  I did see that.

• 38:31David Sims?

  Well, well, well.

• 38:32Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, checking in. Ding ding ding.

• 38:35David Sims?

  But, uh, Lost in Space two, I'd love to see it. Uh, it does, it does seem unlikely. I also feel like Stephen Hopkins has not worked of late.

• 38:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:43David Sims?

  Space.

• 38:44Griffin Newman?

  What was his last film?

• 38:46Speaker 02

  I don't think he did anymore.

• 38:47Griffin Newman?

  Old Stevie.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  Films. Didn't he just retreat back to television?

• 38:49David Sims?

  No, you are wrong. And I remember his last film, of course, because it was Race, the, um.

• 38:54Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right.

• 38:55David Sims?

  Jesse Owens biopic that came out 10 years ago that has a lot of Lenny Riefenstahl. Like you watch it and you're like, this is gonna be a Jesse Owens biopic. And they're like, yeah, yeah, sure. He ran the race. Lenny Riefenstahl, though, played by Chris Van Houten, is like a big part of the movie because of course it's about the 36 Olympics. But like, it's maybe a little too concerned with her, probably because she's a fascinating figure in history, but you're kinda like, isn't this the Jesse Owens movie?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Well, they have a little bit of a will they won't they thing going, you know, so.

• 39:27Griffin Newman?

  Talk about insane filmography, though. Dangerous Game, Nightmare on Elm Street.

• 39:31David Sims?

  Right. He was a solid genre director.

• 39:33Griffin Newman?

  Predator two, Judgment Night, Blown Away, The Ghost in Darkness.

• 39:36David Sims?

  Ghost in Darkness or him leveling up to like a bigger scale genre.

• 39:39Griffin Newman?

  Then Lost in Space is like, you get to do a big fucking special effects.

• 39:43David Sims?

  This is a giant special effects studio movie.

• 39:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:46David Sims?

  Right? You know, it was new line, but still, you know.

• 39:48Griffin Newman?

  And then Under Suspicion.

• 39:50David Sims?

  Never seen.

• 39:50Griffin Newman?

  Of course, the big three, Hackman, Freeman, Belucci.

• 39:54David Sims?

  Oh.

• 39:54Griffin Newman?

  Then the Life and Death in Peter Sellers HBO movie.

• 39:57David Sims?

  Which is like, not bad.

• 39:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:59David Sims?

  But it's TV.

• 40:00Griffin Newman?

  The Reaping, the Hillary Swank.

• 40:02David Sims?

  That's the Hillary Swank, Ten Plagues of the Bible movie.

• 40:04Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 40:05David Sims?

  Where she's like, I have two Oscars and a like, then why are you fighting Locusts?

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Hillary.

• 40:13Griffin Newman?

  That is, that is a brutal rhetoric.

• 40:15David Sims?

  You know what I mean?

• 40:16Griffin Newman?

  Then why are you fighting Locust?

• 40:18David Sims?

  Not like all about Steve where Sandra Bullock's like, look, I filmed this right before I won the US. It's like, it's three years after Million Dollar Bay. I'm like, you have two Oscars.

• 40:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:26David Sims?

  You had to do The Reaping?

• 40:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:29David Sims?

  And then.

• 40:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then Race. Yeah. Then there's nine years between The Reaping and Race and he hasn't made a film sense.

• 40:34David Sims?

  He's made some TV sense.

• 40:45Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 40:45David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Is that the city has cow?

• 40:50Griffin Newman?

  The city has cow is back.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:58David Sims?

  Okay.

• 40:58Griffin Newman?

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

• 41:03David Sims?

  Wow.

• 41:03Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 41:06David Sims?

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

• 41:12Griffin Newman?

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

• 41:24David Sims?

  Yes.

• 41:24Griffin Newman?

  My favorite movies of the year.

• 41:25David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 41:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 41:32David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 41:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 41:36David Sims?

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

• 41:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:40David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 41:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:42David Sims?

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

• 41:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 41:48David Sims?

  Legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 41:50Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 41:51David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 41:53Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 41:53David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 41:54Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 41:56David Sims?

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

• 42:06Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:20David Sims?

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

• 42:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:36David Sims?

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

• 42:49Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:54David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 42:59Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 42:59David Sims?

  Yes.

• 43:00Griffin 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.

• 43:21David 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.

• 43:40Griffin 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.

• 43:56David Sims?

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

• 44:33David Sims?

  You're here to discuss Andrew Stanton's In the Blink of an Eye. I want, this came out February 27. Then I thought, oh, Leap Day. And then I'm like, oh, no, no, Leap Day's February 29. Then I had to thought, what movies came out on February 29? Because that's rare.

• 44:46Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 44:46David Sims?

  I found three.

• 44:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 44:48David Sims?

  Want to hear them?

• 44:48Griffin Newman?

  Yep, please.

• 44:49David Sims?

  Semi-pro.

• 44:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:51David Sims?

  February 29, 2008.

• 44:52Griffin Newman?

  Not a good movie in my memory.

• 44:54David Sims?

  No. The other Berlin Girl, also February 29.

• 44:57Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 44:58David Sims?

  2008.

• 44:59Griffin Newman?

  Same year.

• 45:00David Sims?

  Yes. Here's the most important, because it's so every four years.

• 45:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:03David Sims?

  Here's the best one.

• 45:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:04David Sims?

  An extremely goofy movie.

• 45:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 45:06David Sims?

  February 29, 2000.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  That was pretty funny.

• 45:08David Sims?

  Was it?

• 45:10Griffin Newman?

  That's a DTV, though.

• 45:12David Sims?

  It was, it was direct.

• 45:13Griffin Newman?

  But that's a wonderful film. That's a, that's, it's a pretty excellent picture, if you ask me. What if, it's goofy movie back to school. It's Max is like, finally, I get to move out and be my own man.

• 45:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 45:27Griffin Newman?

  And Goofy's like, you'll, you'll, I'm signing.

• 45:29David Sims?

  What the dean?

• 45:32Griffin Newman?

  He decides he wants to take classes and bring disco back.

• 45:36David Sims?

  Ah, of course.

• 45:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. So there's a lot of shake your groove thing in that movie. Bibi Newworth plays a hot beatnik, love interest for Goof.

• 45:44David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:45David Sims?

  Max have a love interest?

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

  He does. I'm trying to remember.

• 45:48David Sims?

  He's gay. It'd be pretty awesome if they'd done that.

• 45:51Griffin Newman?

  It'd be pretty awesome if in the year 2000.

• 45:55David Sims?

  Fucking get over it.

• 45:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember who voiced. I'm sure it was like someone who was on a fucking Fox or WB drama at the time. In the Blink of an Eye came out this year.

• 46:07David Sims?

  I'm seeing here that Vicky Lewis is the charismatic.

• 46:09Griffin Newman?

  You're right.

• 46:10David Sims?

  And Bibi Newworth is a librarian. Just, just to let you know.

• 46:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so Vicky Lewis is the beatnik who is Max's love interest, and Bibi Newworth is the librarian who's the dad's life.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Age-wise, but I was, I wasn't.

• 46:23David Sims?

  No, I'm here to tell you that Vicky Lewis plays PJ's love interest.

• 46:27Griffin Newman?

  Weird.

• 46:27David Sims?

  Who the fuck is PJ?

• 46:28Griffin Newman?

  PJ is the best friend.

• 46:31David Sims?

  Forgive me for not remembering who PJ Goofy is.

• 46:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, of course. He's Pete's son.

• 46:36David Sims?

  Oh, he's the, the, the chunkier one, the bigger boy.

• 46:40Griffin Newman?

  But then wait a second. Does, does Max not have a love interest?

• 46:42David Sims?

  He's an incel.

• 46:44Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 46:44David Sims?

  Okay. He starts looking for a chance.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  I can't believe that I'm doing this.

• 46:48David Sims?

  Okay.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Can we?

• 46:49David Sims?

  We're about 45 minutes.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  All right, all right.

• 46:52David Sims?

  You know what? This is gonna be a 90-minute episode anyway, so let's talk about In the Blink of an Eye. I do have a dossier if you want me to open it.

• 46:57Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes, please.

• 46:58David Sims?

  Incredibly, JJ did research on this movie.

• 47:00Griffin Newman?

  This is, that is astonishing.

• 47:01David Sims?

  It's a, look, it's a feature film.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  Looks sciency.

• 47:03David Sims?

  That's true. I'm sure they built sets and stuff. They didn't just like make it in his backyard. 2016 Andrew Stanton made Finding Dory. 2026 he made In the Blink of an Eye. So that's 10 years.

• 47:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:16David Sims?

  What did he do in between?

• 47:17Griffin Newman?

  Many things.

• 47:18David Sims?

  Live action television.

• 47:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 47:21David Sims?

  I think basically post-Dory, his, he basically was like, I want to make live action stuff, and there's lots of TV, and like, it's a way to do it.

• 47:28Griffin Newman?

  He did a recent interview, uh, leading up to Toy Story 5, where he said that he intends for Toy Story 5 to be his final animated film. And he said, it's just that these movies take so long, and I love animation, but I was never primarily an animation person. I grew up like working at an art house theater in high school, and that's when I really love, fell in love with film. And I'm into all different types of movies, and it's been a great blessing to work at a place like Pixar and have that sort of freedom and leeway. But you can get a lot more done in live action. And I think there was a hope that, well, Finding Dory resets the board a little bit from the stink of John Carter, and now I will try to make a smaller budgeted live action film. And there are many scripts that

• 48:11Griffin Newman?

  he has options and signed up for, but to sort of get his reps in, meanwhile, he did a tremendous amount of live action TV.

• 48:19David Sims?

  He directed Episodes 5 and 6 of the second season of Stranger Things. I haven't seen them because Barb's not involved. Obviously, my stance on Stranger Things is no Barb, no David.

• 48:26Griffin Newman?

  I'm Barb purist, a Barb absolutist, in fact.

• 48:30David Sims?

  Yes.

• 48:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 48:31David Sims?

  Uh, you watched Stranger Things?

• 48:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:33David Sims?

  Do you remember Andrew Stanton's work on Stranger Things?

• 48:35Speaker 02

  I mean, Stranger Things has a pretty solid, like, established visual style that I feel like even, even when you're bringing in like Stanton or even like Frank Darabont.

• 48:45David Sims?

  Inside of him. Is it Vecna or fucking, what is it? The wildebeest?

• 48:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's Vecna.

• 48:51David Sims?

  Demogorgon?

• 48:52Griffin Newman?

  Vecna, Vecna lives on top of that tummy floor. He lives in the tummy. The tummy is Vecna's home. That was the twist. Joey, I have never watched Stranger Things. I believe, just because I try to keep tabs on Stanton's stuff, he directed the 11, like, punk episode.

• 49:09David Sims?

  Oh, did he do that one?

• 49:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  That, that one that they kind of, well, it was like a.

• 49:13David Sims?

  Did he?

• 49:14Speaker 02

  A, a second season, yeah, like, almost a, like, failed backdoor pilot.

• 49:19Griffin Newman?

  A little bit of a, a kind of one-off self-contained.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  A one-off self-contained story.

• 49:23David Sims?

  No, he didn't direct that one.

• 49:24Griffin Newman?

  He didn't? Okay.

• 49:25David Sims?

  That was Rebecca Thomas.

• 49:27Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 49:28David Sims?

  He directed Episodes 5 and 6, and I can tell you, like, Hopper, Hooper, Hopper?

• 49:32Griffin Newman?

  Hopper?

• 49:32Speaker 02

  This is season two?

• 49:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  And that's all, yeah.

• 49:35David Sims?

  Yeah, he got lost in a tunnel and, uh, you know, um.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:41David Sims?

  Some, 11 appears to be involved.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  I'm sure he did a good job. You know, I gotta say, the only ones that I ever remember noticing, like, oh, there's a bit of extra flavor here, was when Darabont directed a couple of episodes in the last, in the last season of Stranger Things. And you noticed a few things where you're like, oh, okay, that has a little swish to it, but.

• 50:00David Sims?

  Now, this is a show I never stuck with. I only watched the first season, but I know you watched Pinata, the sixth episode of the fourth season of Better Call Saul.

• 50:07Griffin Newman?

  It's an excellent episode. I, and Better Call Saul is a show I adore.

• 50:11David Sims?

  Yeah, you're a big fan. I know.

• 50:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I think it's like a masterpiece. But that's a very good episode. He directed an episode of Legion.

• 50:18David Sims?

  Legion. Uh, he did the fourth episode of Tales from the Loop. He did four total episodes of a show I love called For All Mankind on Apple TV, including, in my opinion, its best ever episode.

• 50:28Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 50:29David Sims?

  Uh, he did the third episode. It's the one where fucking, I mean, I don't remember like the names of the episodes, but like, where Joel Edgert, I mean, not Joel, Joel Kidman, God bless. There's a lot of Joels out there.

• 50:39Griffin Newman?

  Robert Cobb.

• 50:40David Sims?

  Where, where his adoptive daughter decides like she wants to be an astronaut. They have this huge fight, or she wants to be in the military or whatever, you know, like following in his footsteps. And they have this huge fight in a living room, him and his wife and the daughter. And the camera like sticks with it, moves all around, and it's so good. And it's so beautifully acted. It's the show at its peak. I mean, that show.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  I gotta start watching the show.

• 51:01David Sims?

  It's fallen off a little. Season 5's a little, it's kind of like, guys, I think you're done, you know, full of ideas.

• 51:07Griffin Newman?

  Our friend Alan Sepinwall, in a, in a text, recently revealed to me.

• 51:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Griffin Newman?

  That they are about to launch a spinoff show that is retelling everything that's happened on For All Mankind so far, from the perspective of the Russians. They're just.

• 51:22David Sims?

  This is correct.

• 51:22Griffin Newman?

  Resetting.

• 51:23David Sims?

  City. It seems like, I don't think it's gonna run five seasons, put it that way.

• 51:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That's just a wild idea to be like. Triumphant run. We're wrapping up. By the way, the spin off is starting in three months and it's just going back to the first point of the story.

• 51:40David Sims?

  I'm like, we know what happened. So what do you like? What do we? Anyway, whatever. Who knows? It's also in English, despite all the Russian scenes in the show being in Russian in the main show, but clearly they were like, well, the whole show can't be in Russian. Then I'm like, well, then what are you doing?

• 51:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, we fucking, maybe don't make it.

• 51:55David Sims?

  He also directed an episode of Three Body Problem and he wrote two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

• 52:00Griffin Newman?

  A show I recently watched for the first time and I will admit, I think is quite terrible.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Quite bad, but he's like, the credits on that are like, you know, he's like one of like a million names that like went in and out the door.

• 52:12Griffin Newman?

  Who knows? Exactly. Those Star Wars shows have a lot of wacky credits attached to them because at one point this person was supposed to do this, or this was supposed to be a movie.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Right. If you would like, put him as an example, put Stanton in charge of like, hey, you're our like guiding vision for this show. Maybe it would have been better, but I don't think it was that.

• 52:30Griffin Newman?

  No, it's odd because right. He gets credited as a writer on two episodes, but I don't even think he's a producer and he didn't direct any. And it made sense.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  It just feels like you like stumbled into a writer's room for two weeks and then you were like, oh, fuck this.

• 52:42Griffin Newman?

  But it's also wild because it's not like he worked in a writer's room on any other shows from the time he starts.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  No, but like, I feel like that's kind of like what being in the Pixar brain trust is though. They just don't get credited that way.

• 52:55Griffin Newman?

  And I also think it makes sense that that moment Obi-Wan is where they're really starting to widen the aperture of like, maybe we're going to make a ton of stuff for Disney plus. If I'm Andrew Stan, I'm like, I just want to get in the door at Lucasfilm. I want to fucking talk to them about Star Wars shit.

• 53:09David Sims?

  And I think a lot of people who worked on the Star Wars TV shows were basically like, I'd like to do something to do. I'd love to be on a set with a lightsaber. Like it would just be awesome. Like I grew up with Star Wars, like this rock.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Obviously he makes sense.

• 53:21David Sims?

  He does.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  To have done something.

• 53:22David Sims?

  And a show that made sense was Obi-Wan Kenobi, a perfect mini series that made sense.

• 53:27Griffin Newman?

  Sense. I assume I will have griped about this on Mandalorian.

• 53:30David Sims?

  Down the camera and was like, this makes sense.

• 53:32Griffin Newman?

  And Grogu episode, but it is astonishing to me that almost all of the Disney plus Star Wars shows are about a person with a child being chased by someone.

• 53:43David Sims?

  Yes. Being chased by the fourth most important evil Jedi adjacent dark side guy like in this sector.

• 53:53Griffin Newman?

  They present someone.

• 53:54David Sims?

  Ray Stevenson, R I P. God bless him. Shows up and he's like, and I'm also not a Sith.

• 53:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:00David Sims?

  But I kind of like him and I'm not a Jedi either, but I have a lightsaber and I'm like, well, what are you? He's like, I don't know.

• 54:05Griffin Newman?

  I was just like, how are these all the exact same premise where you're like semi stoic lead, younger, more vulnerable, sort of like under the wing, you know, they have to protect. They're looking for something and someone else is chasing them and the person who's chasing them is established as really evil. And the longer things go on, you're like, they're only kind of half evil.

• 54:31Griffin Newman?

  They're all that, save for Andor.

• 54:35David Sims?

  Which is probably the best one. I mean, Ahsoka is pretty good.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Has anyone thrown that, that, that take out? I don't know. People are like.

• 54:45Griffin Newman?

  And we might want to cut that out just because.

• 54:48David Sims?

  Well, my microphone's on fire.

• 54:51David Sims?

  You've watched Ashoka, right? Ahsoka? Ahsoka?

• 54:54Speaker 02

  I watched Ahsoka.

• 54:55David Sims?

  I'm going to watch season two. Why not? I love punishment.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. I want to see what happens with, um, what's the, what the hell is the blue guy? Who like?

• 55:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  I think Ahsoka is so fascinating.

• 55:04David Sims?

  I swear to God, they're like, get ready to meet the scariest villain in the world. He's fucking Joe Biden in that show. He's so quiet. He's like.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  I just, the end of that season one is so wild to me because it's Filoni basically being like, I am setting up this Thrawn guy.

• 55:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  As like, yeah, this is it. Like this is the new guy.

• 55:21David Sims?

  Right. Cause the show mostly has other smaller villains that she's dealing with.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  No, no, but just, not just in the show. Like to me, it felt like it was suggesting like, we are, this is your new bad.

• 55:30David Sims?

  He's standing.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  The engine of the Star Wars. Extended to other shows. Like I want to make movies and I'm sure he probably does want to do all this, but I'm watching it and I'm like, there's no fucking way that's happening. So what the hell is this?

• 55:42Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 55:44David Sims?

  Do we have to watch season two for the?

• 55:47Speaker 02

  You don't have to do shit.

• 55:48Griffin Newman?

  Well, I know that. Season two hasn't happened and won't come out.

• 55:51David Sims?

  Yeah, it won't come out by next week. Thank God.

• 55:54Griffin Newman?

  Cause that's your.

• 55:56David Sims?

  Season two, it doesn't even have, yeah, it doesn't even have.

• 55:59Griffin Newman?

  But it has been filmed and Rory McCann replaced Ray Stevenson.

• 56:03David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, the man died. Look, look, I mean, we should say it was not the problem.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Exactly. Actually was the best part of the show. He was the best performer.

• 56:11David Sims?

  Was you were kind of like, there's something to this idea.

• 56:14Griffin Newman?

  There's something.

• 56:14David Sims?

  Right. You know, to like the idea of what he's playing. Obviously the big problem with Ashoka, Ahsoka, Ahsoka is just like, she's a non-character.

• 56:24Griffin Newman?

  She's a non-character.

• 56:24David Sims?

  And like, I know in the cartoon, she's like a spunky teen who's like, I'm a rebel or whatever. But by the time the show, like now that she's a grown up, she's just like, her vibe is she's serene.

• 56:36Griffin Newman?

  Every character is like that. I mean.

• 56:38David Sims?

  That's, yes. Yeah. I mean, they're all kind of just like, we are your friend, Ahsoka.

• 56:41Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So we haven't, we haven't, we haven't seen Mando and we haven't recorded yet. So I'm going to burn some of these takes here and just remind me to not make these complaints in the Mando episode. Okay. My takeaway watching Ahsoka was like, this feels like watching children perform Shakespeare where they don't know what they're saying.

• 57:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 57:00Griffin Newman?

  And the only direction they're being given is play it seriously.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  And say it slow.

• 57:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes. So everything is like, your character motivation is serious. And I think that is partially that Filoni ran these cartoon shows. I have not watched much of Clone Wars, but I watched the majority of Rebels, which I really liked and was a show that was fun and had defined characters. And so much of Ahsoka is him being like, I'm bringing all my Rebels characters into live action and then zapping them of any personality because I'm trying to fight the perception that these are children's characters. So everyone is just like saying things really slowly and quietly.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Even fucking like Ezra shows up who's been built up as, and by the way, it's, you can't have a character called Ezra in Star Wars. It's ridiculous. But um, he shows up and he's been built up as like, oh, wow. Oh, crazy, wild Ezra. He's so fun. And then he's just as pretty much just as dead eyed as the rest of them.

• 58:01Griffin Newman?

  Elizabeth Winstead, who I always love. I think basically never misses. And we've talked about David, like she's someone who can single-handedly elevate dog shit.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 58:11Griffin Newman?

  And in this, she is so boring and lifeless. Everyone is bad. The villains.

• 58:17David Sims?

  The whales.

• 58:19Griffin Newman?

  The whales are fun.

• 58:20David Sims?

  The whales are good.

• 58:21Griffin Newman?

  The whales are good, but everyone had told me the whales were good. I skipped the show when it aired years ago. And I remember at the time, people being like, the whales kind of feel like classic Star Wars magic. I got to the whale sequence in the season and I was like, that was good. But if you're telling me that's the high watermark and I have four episodes left to go, I'm terrified. I agree with you. The whales are like the one chunk that I felt a little something. Anyway, that's my, that's my Star Wars rant all. Also, Ahsoka's like basically not the lead character of that show.

• 58:52David Sims?

  She's not.

• 58:53Griffin Newman?

  She's dead for half the season.

• 58:55David Sims?

  Not dead. She's a lot more.

• 58:57Griffin Newman?

  She's in a fucking.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  In between.

• 58:58David Sims?

  She's in the Anakin verse.

• 58:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. She's in the limbo, the Anakin verse. It's just everyone being like, we gotta find Ezra. Ezra will know.

• 59:06David Sims?

  Have you watched Skeleton Crew yet?

• 59:08Griffin Newman?

  I'm watching it right.

• 59:08David Sims?

  That one at least has energy.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  What? Did they renew Skeleton?

• 59:12Griffin Newman?

  No, no, that's the one.

• 59:13David Sims?

  I think Skeleton Crew is done. That's basically like.

• 59:15Griffin Newman?

  Ahsoka's the only thing that's coming back.

• 59:17David Sims?

  When they've announced.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  And that'll be the end of it.

• 59:19David Sims?

  Like it's over. They're.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Filoni will be shot in the middle of time.

• 59:22David Sims?

  Probably.

• 59:23Griffin Newman?

  Everyone forgets, but they, they announced that Filoni was going to direct a movie that was the culmination of all the.

• 59:31David Sims?

  The Filoni, what I mean, I think he thought that was happening.

• 59:33Griffin Newman?

  That was happening. And I think there was a little bit of, we've changed our priorities. Let's just put Grogu on a screen.

• 59:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  And see what happens.

• 59:41Griffin Newman?

  John directs that. We're sorry. We'll let you make Ahsoka season two to wrap up those threats.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. I honestly think they should just let him, just not for theaters, but like in Disney, but let him make whatever crazy fucking movie he wants to make where he brings back all of them through AI. Like, you know, Luke, Leia, Han. No, I, he wants to do this. Let's be real. And he wants to correct everything that he thinks they did wrong in the sequel series of like, these guys should have been fighting together and they should be fighting Thrawn, I guess. Like let him make this shit of shit.

• 1:00:14David Sims?

  Yes, right.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Like Disney YouTube fan movie.

• 1:00:18David Sims?

  It's in, on the Disney plus app. It's in a garbage can. You have to like lift up the lid and they're like, really? And you're like, yeah, what's in there? They're like, all right, we'll get it out for you. It's like covered in banana peels.

• 1:00:30Griffin Newman?

  If you press play, the fucking FBI breaks down your door.

• 1:00:35David Sims?

  It's just a spinning wheel and it just turns into a question mark. And it's like, come on, that wasn't gonna.

• 1:00:39Griffin Newman?

  Chris Hansen shows up. Oh, so you decided to watch the Filoni movie?

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  You watched the Filoni movie and in the blink of an eye. What's, what's going on?

• 1:00:47David Sims?

  We will talk about this. I'm like two months prior to this, but yeah, I do wonder if they have like a hail Mary guy, like the James Gunn DC thing. Kathy has retired. Filoni.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  We're winding down.

• 1:01:00David Sims?

  He's going to go to some cartoon world.

• 1:01:01Griffin Newman?

  Filoni is in charge of the whole thing.

• 1:01:03David Sims?

  I know. But after Mando does poorly, do they go like, I don't know. We want a new steward and it's, but then I don't know who the answer to that question is.

• 1:01:10Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I think I know the answer, which is it's, they already announced, uh, Simon Kimberg is sort of like overseeing.

• 1:01:21David Sims?

  That ain't it, my friends. Let's do it again.

• 1:01:24Griffin Newman?

  But they're like, Filoni is in charge of operations, which I also think is partially being like, maybe, maybe you don't write and direct the stuff as much anymore. And that Simon Kimberg is the guy who's sort of like, you gotta figure out the movie problem. Everything's really good over there.

• 1:01:39David Sims?

  We're just interested in his career.

• 1:01:42Griffin Newman?

  I know the two movies that he came close to making, the one was Revolver. Is that correct, Sims?

• 1:01:47David Sims?

  All right. Well, let me, let me just continue.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Philosophical.

• 1:01:50David Sims?

  Yeah, he was gonna remake. Uh, okay. So Stanton, just to note, uh, he is on the Pixar senior creative team. He was the narrative guru for, literally credited as the narrative guru for Ralph Breaks the Internet.

• 1:02:01Griffin Newman?

  Hey, Ben.

• 1:02:02David Sims?

  Okay, okay. Good work.

• 1:02:04Griffin Newman?

  Because this is where, uh, once Disney has bought Pixar, they start to send the Pixar brain trust out to other projects of the other tendrils to give advice.

• 1:02:14David Sims?

  Toy Story four, uh, he is the writer, uh, alongside Stephanie Folsom. Uh, so he created Forky. So obviously he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for that work.

• 1:02:24Griffin Newman?

  It was in that same recent piece. Toy Story four was originally announced as a John Lasseter movie. Weirdly enough, Rashida Jones was writing it with her partner, Will McCormick, her writing partner. It was the Woody Bo Peep reunion movie, but a very different version of it that didn't work for years and years and years. And they kept pushing it back. And then, uh, Lassiter steps down, hands off directing Lassiter. Lots of Huggin' Lassiter is pushed out of Pixar entirely. And they basically go to Stanton and they're like, can you take a crack at this? Toy Story four is a disaster and we cannot cancel it because there is so much money tied up in the idea of marketing and merchandising and the promise to our shareholders that we will have another Toy Story movie.

• 1:03:09Griffin Newman?

  And as he put it, he like, you know, locked himself in a room and within like six hours was like, I think I know what the movie is. Um, that he is the, the Toy Story genius and he is the one

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  Who he knows that, yeah, that's what they, what's he and Joss Whedon did all those years ago, right?

• 1:03:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  When the first one was a disaster and then they locked themselves in a room.

• 1:03:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Joss Whedon was gone after like a week and then he continued to just fix everything. And that, yes, he came up with Forky, right? And he went to the Nobel.

• 1:03:36David Sims?

  I mean, his, his first big take was like Bo coming back and okay, if three was the end of Andy's story, should four be kind of like, well, then what does Woody do now?

• 1:03:44Griffin Newman?

  The other thing he said, which I think this is real genius with the Toy Story stuff is the problem they kept butting against with Toy Story four, and I've read at least one or two of the scripts that have floated around for the canceled Toy Story four. They were like, well, we want to tell a love story. We want to make a rom com. We want to make a movie about like Bo and Woody getting back together. And people kept writing movies where they were like, this has nothing to do with them being toys. You're just writing a romance between two characters who happen to be toys. And Stanton's always been like, you have to start from the perspective of what are the experiences that are unique to them? And he was just like, well, like, how do Woody and Bo Peep get split up? What is uniquely traumatizing about that that would be connected to them being a toy?

• 1:04:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Bo gets donated because the sister has a different relationship to her toys than Andy does, yada, yada, yada. And then the story comes from there.

• 1:04:46David Sims?

  May 2020, he was attached to something called Chairman Spaceman, which is a adaptation of a Thomas Pierce short story that was published in The New Yorker, uh, that he was gonna do for, well, Simon Kimberg's, uh, genre films for Searchlight, which is about a corporate raider who renounces his wealth and signs up for an interplanetary mission to colonize the solar system. I don't know. Sounds somewhat interesting. It sounds like In the Blink of an Eye is sort of like the other heady sci-fi script that he, that then got going.

• 1:05:17Griffin Newman?

  Correct. These were the two.

• 1:05:18David Sims?

  To that one.

• 1:05:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And obviously Hulu, Searchlight, all owned by Disney, who owe Stanton for the billions and billions of dollars he's made them.

• 1:05:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:28Griffin Newman?

  But I, he put it as like, those were the two things I was really serious about. And in the blink of the eye, it came together a little faster. Revolver is.

• 1:05:35David Sims?

  Revolver, a romantic coming of age comedy starring Ethan and Maya Hawke, uh, written by a Stranger Things writer, Kate Treffry. Treffry.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Sure. She's the one who ended up writing the Stranger Things Broadway play.

• 1:05:48David Sims?

  Ah, of course, in which we saw the first shadow.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  The first.

• 1:05:52David Sims?

  And they explained the floor thing in that one.

• 1:05:56Griffin Newman?

  Well, stages traditionally have a floor.

• 1:05:58David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:58Griffin Newman?

  Does Vecna live in a theater?

• 1:06:00David Sims?

  Is it back there?

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  Inside, inside your stomach, there is a fact of, yeah, there's a flat floor and people are just walking around.

• 1:06:05Griffin Newman?

  Hardwood.

• 1:06:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Griffin Newman?

  Moldwall carpet.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Uh, it was. Be careful of the spikes. Oh, there's spikes. Cause there are spikes and that's how they'll get you. They'll get you right.

• 1:06:15David Sims?

  You watched this.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  This is how they killed it.

• 1:06:17David Sims?

  Right. They got back.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  They, that fucker. Throw him into his.

• 1:06:19David Sims?

  And what did Vecna do?

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  Big spike.

• 1:06:21David Sims?

  Recession? The recession happened?

• 1:06:23Griffin Newman?

  It was one of the craziest fucking things in the world.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  A big fan of gay, uh, of gay people. Yeah. So that was why he was after, that was why he was after Will all those years. And I am, that's barely a joke. That is basically what they imply in the last season, among many other things.

• 1:06:35Griffin Newman?

  It is so insane that people dislike that ending so much that within a week they were like, no, no, no.

• 1:06:41David Sims?

  There's another episode.

• 1:06:41Griffin Newman?

  The ending's bad on purpose because it's an augmented reality experience. It's meta textual and there's a secret episode that's coming out. They would never just whiff this, this hard earnestly.

• 1:06:54David Sims?

  Uh, Revolver, it's a 60s set thing in which Maya Hawke is a teenager in Anchorage, Alaska, and, uh, a flight to, uh, from to Japan, carrying the Beatles is forced to stop in Anchorage. And, uh, she just decides to fuck George Harrison.

• 1:07:11Griffin Newman?

  That is her.

• 1:07:11David Sims?

  That is, that is the plot of the movie.

• 1:07:13Griffin Newman?

  That is her goal.

• 1:07:15David Sims?

  Uh, she, Stanton wanted to make that for like five years. Eventually it just never happened. Now, Colby Day, the writer of this movie, who also wrote Spaceman on Netflix.

• 1:07:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes. A movie I like a lot. Yeah.

• 1:07:27David Sims?

  He, uh, starts writing In the Blink of an Eye when living in New York in the mid 2010s. He goes to the planetarium. Heard of it? In the hidden planetarium, it means natural history. And, you know, they've got a big map of the timeline of the universe. It's a, you know, it's a cool place to go. Big bang and blah, blah, blah. And he said, it gave me an existential crisis, which that can happen when you start thinking about the, the vastness of the universe. So he's like, I think when you start to zoom out and you think about what does it mean to be here for not that long, you start to find the meaning of life. He wanted to talk about the idea that even if we don't get much time, the things we do ripple through it. So he's trying to reassure his own anxiety.

• 1:08:07Griffin Newman?

  That's certainly what this movie is about.

• 1:08:09David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:08:12David Sims?

  Uh, so he's like, you know, initial concept is just that he wanted to write about time. So the initial story began with the big bang, the first thing in time.

• 1:08:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. Kind of the ultimate prequel.

• 1:08:27David Sims?

  He also was much more rigid about moving from past to present to future in that order. But I think Stanton pushes it more to like be fluidly jumping between them all, you know?

• 1:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:39David Sims?

  Not like his three segments.

• 1:08:41Griffin Newman?

  This movie was in development for years. It also, you know, from the time that Stanton came attached to the script, was it a blacklist script?

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  It was on the blacklist.

• 1:08:49David Sims?

  So that's.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  In like 2016.

• 1:08:50David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, yes. It was on the blacklist in 2016, number six. But you know, you get put on the blacklist, everyone comes a calling, but they're also like, by the way, we have to change everything.

• 1:09:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:09:04David Sims?

  Or whatever. Um, Stanton read the script years later though. Uh, and was like, I'm jealous of whoever wants to try and make this, realizes no one's making it and decides to jump on board.

• 1:09:18David Sims?

  He calls Colby and says, you love Cloud Atlas as much as I do. And Colby Day says, uh, yeah, I do. I love story circles. That was my goal was doing a kind of a Cloud Atlas-y thing. Stanton also loves The Fountain, another movie I would say that is trying this kind of thing. Um, and he likes a trip dick. He says, he's like, you know, you go to the roots of all that and there's something deep that all of us connect to about trifectas. Of course he might be thinking about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I don't know. Famous trifecta.

• 1:09:52Griffin Newman?

  Father, son, holy ghost.

• 1:09:54David Sims?

  So he starts revising. I don't know.

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  I mean, this is.

• 1:09:58David Sims?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest with you guys.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  Obviously, obviously it's super Cloud Atlasly, Cloud Atlas-y.

• 1:10:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  It is kind of like a, the, a very.

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  A small scale, if you could call it that, or not small scales isn't right, but a like a very, a more intimate version of Cloud Atlas. It's like, what if we did what Cloud Atlas is trying to do, but we really

• 1:10:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it's

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  tone it down to just these like, like three or so, like core relationships.

• 1:10:31Griffin Newman?

  And a kind of really clean line of cause and effect. This is sort of one narrative thread that's touched in three different eras.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Yes. And very, just very small lives, like in each of these, I mean, yes, he is placing them in a canvas where it's like, look how huge they're, the impact of these small lives actually is.

• 1:10:53Griffin Newman?

  That's in the contrast.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  But they are, you know,

• 1:10:55Griffin Newman?

  The three stories.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  Little story.

• 1:10:57Griffin Newman?

  Modest is a good way to put them, uh, to put it. Um, this was announced in October 2022. It was shot in 2023 and then just sort of was in stasis for three years. I've obviously wanted to do Stanton forever. So from the moment this movie was announced, I was like, well, when this comes out, we'll cover him. And then it kept on getting like knocked down the schedule. And it is ideal that this and Toy Story five are coming out so close together. And we can do a series that doesn't end on this movie and that has the contrast to both of them in the same year. I did not like this movie went to Sundance and was, I would say critically ravaged and then has gone to Hulu with basically like no impact whatsoever.

• 1:11:39Griffin Newman?

  I had, uh, you know, after the snowstorm, uh, canceled the premiere, I was like, word's not great. I'm gonna have to watch this for the podcast. If I watch it now, will I even remember it by the time we record? Let me just hold off until it's actually time to do this episode. And so I've been dreading it. I did not dislike this movie. I cannot say I liked it, but I felt a little more neutral on it than I was expecting with how negative the word was. I think Joey, you and I are maybe in a slightly similar space of like, nothing really works for me, but there wasn't anything I bumped on too hard. And I like what it's trying to do, even if I don't think it gets there.

• 1:12:20David Sims?

  It's a fart sandwich, but it's a sandwich.

• 1:12:23Griffin Newman?

  This is Ben's review is that it's a fart sandwich.

• 1:12:25Speaker 02

  This is fart sandwich.

• 1:12:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  But he's just upset that he didn't get to voice the, uh, the AI friend. I think the movie would have been a lot more fun if Kate McKinnon's AI friend had been, had been voiced by you.

• 1:12:35Griffin Newman?

  Ben would have been very good.

• 1:12:36David Sims?

  Who did voice the AI?

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  I spent the whole movie for some reason, thinking that some narrative connective tissue they were doing was that the AI was voiced by Rashida Jones.

• 1:12:46Griffin Newman?

  It sounded

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  It is not Rashida Jones. It's some random actor.

• 1:12:49Griffin Newman?

  It's a little confusing.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  But, um, uh, although I don't, yeah, I don't know what that would have meant. Anyway, my experience was like, in the first 20 minutes or so, especially the very start of the movie, you're, I was like, oh, boy. Cause it starts with like the Sylvia Plath quote, you know, remember, remember this is now and now and now. And you're like, oh, boy. And then we open in, uh, you know, like 45,000 B.C. with cavemen making sparks. And again, you're, you're like, all right.

• 1:13:20David Sims?

  Obviously, if you're gonna be invoking 2001, A Space Odyssey, you gotta be careful. That's the best science fiction film. So you're inviting quite a comparison there if you're gonna be doing that. So, so obviously, so, and you know, intensely.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  So you're starting with that and I'm, and then you're going into these two other, introducing us to these two other stories, the Rashida Jones and Devi Diggs, uh, and in the present day, and she's a research scientist and they're flirting at college and then

• 1:13:53David Sims?

  She's a doctoral candidate in anthropology.

• 1:13:56Speaker 02

  She'd do bones.

• 1:13:57David Sims?

  And then Greg, question mark from statistics.

• 1:14:00Griffin Newman?

  Ah, right.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  It's cute.

• 1:14:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. Um, two actors I like a lot. They are, what, what is that face you're making?

• 1:14:09David Sims?

  I'm trying to think what I like Rashida Jones in, like of late.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  I, I like her in this movie, but we'll get there.

• 1:14:15David Sims?

  Yeah, she's all right in this movie. Sure. I mean, I found this movie just kind of inert. That was my, like, I was not like raging about this, like, oh my God, this is, but it just felt like low energy. I mean,

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  Complete my thought, like, complete my thought. Then you're introduced to the middle and then you're introduced to Kate McKinnon in the future.

• 1:14:33Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  And she's on a spaceship and she's on a, a mission to like save humanity by taking all of these, um, like new

• 1:14:41David Sims?

  Babies in a bag.

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  Babies, babies in a spaceship to a new home. And I think for the first like 20, 30 minutes, you're just like, wow, this is like, like you said, David, this is very low energy. This is very inert.

• 1:14:53Griffin Newman?

  It's cross cutting between all of them really quickly.

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  Right. And you're like, you are taking me right into cross cutting between three stories and they all seem pretty boring.

• 1:15:02Griffin Newman?

  It's got a little bit of, of the Ahsoka thing of like, it feels like the tone of this is quote unquote, serious, right? And I also think it's not even, you know, Cloud Atlas opens like this where you're weaving between all the really quickly as they're setting it up. The Cloud Atlas has twice as many threads and they're further apart. They're not as thematically linked in, in an apparent way from the get go. And then after the first like three or four minutes, which is also more symphonic and stylized, it settles down into like, we will focus on one for

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  Spend some time.

• 1:15:35Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then go to the others to situate. The first like 25 minutes of this just continue to just keep ribboning in a way where you're like, the energy and the pacing are pretty low and slow.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  Well, it's like, you're gonna, okay, you've gone right into, we're jumping between these, but you never, but you didn't first establish like, here's why you should care about

• 1:15:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  any of them.

• 1:15:56Griffin Newman?

  And, and like, right. The, the prehistoric one is like, uh, you know, it's, it's nonverbal. They speak in, uh, it's, it's very much him doing like

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  Huttenes, I believe.

• 1:16:08Griffin Newman?

  It's like a quest for fire, you know? Um, it is, it is actors in prosthetics.

• 1:16:15David Sims?

  Yeah. Cause they're Neanderthals. So they, uh, you know, uh, or they're paleolithic people of some sort, but

• 1:16:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's about the meeting of

• 1:16:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:16:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Cro-Magnon and, uh, yeah. And right. Then there's the, the present set, uh, graduate school section. But I was gonna say, I like both of these actors a lot. It is an interesting casting choice to hire two people who are decades older than the characters they're playing.

• 1:16:38David Sims?

  Yeah. You know, I was just watching The Wizard of the Kremlin, the, uh, the hottest movie of 2026, which is a movie where that begins with Paul Dano playing like his character when he's like 18 years old. And he's like, I'm at college. And I was just like, just, just don't show me this. Like I just, I can't buy this. And it's taking me out of the movie right away.

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  It's the Ellen McKay thing for me where I'm like

• 1:17:00David Sims?

  The case of a good recent example.

• 1:17:02Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm like,

• 1:17:03David Sims?

  As we know, we're all teenagers right now. And you're like, okay.

• 1:17:07Griffin Newman?

  But, but also it's like cast, cast for the age, the character is going to spend the majority of the movie.

• 1:17:13David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:17:14Griffin Newman?

  This movie jumps ahead. Eventually we get to a point where Devi Diggs

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  See why they did it.

• 1:17:18Griffin Newman?

  And Rashida Jones are playing their own age, but I'd say it's a pretty short chunk of the movie.

• 1:17:22David Sims?

  Yeah. And by that point, the movie is moving along, uh, time wise, quite fast.

• 1:17:27Griffin Newman?

  And then it even goes beyond that to them with old age makeup. So you're like, you know, 60% of their screen time is them in their twenties.

• 1:17:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:17:36Griffin Newman?

  And they are 44 and 50.

• 1:17:38David Sims?

  They are. I mean, look,

• 1:17:39Griffin Newman?

  I know this is a good looking people.

• 1:17:41David Sims?

  Like

• 1:17:41Griffin Newman?

  They're good looking people. They've aged really well. And I thought the graduate school stuff.

• 1:17:44David Sims?

  But I didn't totally buy Rashida Jones. He's like, I'm just getting started in grad school.

• 1:17:48Griffin Newman?

  There is like

• 1:17:48David Sims?

  With my bones.

• 1:17:49Griffin Newman?

  I think what is actually pretty fucking effective CGI de-aging on the two of them that I noticed was very subtle. And a lot of that is they're two people with very good genes who have aged very well. But there is like an energy thing of you just feel the two of them playing 20 something in a way that feels a little school play at times.

• 1:18:09David Sims?

  Makes it confusing how much time is going by.

• 1:18:11Griffin Newman?

  Correct. It does.

• 1:18:12David Sims?

  Cause I couldn't really, I'm like, hearing you say she's in her twenties makes a lot more sense to me now.

• 1:18:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, cause also it's like, you can obviously be in your mid forties and go to graduate school. So you watch it and you're like, I'm not immediately rejecting that Regina Jones could be in this program, but the longer it goes on, you're sort of like, I think she's supposed to be like 27. You know, there's sort of context clues that develop. And then there's the, the Kate McKinnon section, which is right. She is on a spaceship by herself with an AI friend.

• 1:18:43David Sims?

  Year 2417.

• 1:18:46Griffin Newman?

  Right. So it's like 400 years in the future. And yeah, she's got an AI that is pretty Pretty, I would say like personable is not a how is actually like conversational and feels friendly and human in its tone, its demeanor. But she's basically in isolation. It's, it's a very kind of Wally setup of you're alone on a spaceship, looking for the planet that is inhabitable. Where, where life could restart.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  There's no like, and this is deliberate, but there's no like great tension to her mission because I believe they've identified the planet. They know where she's going.

• 1:19:26Speaker 03

  They're terraforming.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  They're terraforming it. They have a whole plan. She's just got to get there.

• 1:19:31Griffin Newman?

  It should be done by the time I get there, but that's happening. That's not my job.

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Dealing with a, yes, she is dealing with a problem, which is that there's something's gone wrong in the, in the ship's systems. But it's all played pretty, all played pretty low key. And they are also very, they really drip out the information in a way that I actually kind of liked about like what her deal is.

• 1:19:53David Sims?

  I was gonna say, right. The big mystery is like, how is she alive? And like, cause she's, she's not gonna go in hypersleep. Like, how's she gonna just?

• 1:20:00Speaker 03

  The thing is though, is I-

• 1:20:01David Sims?

  Cause they keep stressing like, she's doing this for a hundred and blah years.

• 1:20:04Speaker 03

  I rewatched it and it's, it flies over your head.

• 1:20:08David Sims?

  You rewatched this movie?

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  Well, I'm saying, I just skipped to, I skipped to see the, the intro of each character.

• 1:20:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  It says longevity enhanced pilot.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  Oh, does it say that?

• 1:20:19Speaker 03

  I did not notice that at all.

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  I think I just, I don't, I don't know. I just, I mean, one of her first pieces of dialogue is something about like, oh, how many years do I have? Until we get there.

• 1:20:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  And with the suggestion of the way she's saying it of like me, you know, not like my kids, like me. So you're like, okay, there's something going on with, with you.

• 1:20:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm just gonna, let's just say the thing, right? This movie is about humanity identifying basically the cure for death. Right? Like scientifically identifying-

• 1:20:49David Sims?

  To stop aging.

• 1:20:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:50Speaker 03

  But not like you're immortal.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  You will vent, you will, she, yeah, we see her getting old at the end. You will eventually die.

• 1:20:58David Sims?

  Very slow.

• 1:20:59Griffin Newman?

  Beyond, right. Curing illnesses, we have like identified a way to combat the gene that causes the degradation of, of aging, you know, and to slow it down.

• 1:21:10Speaker 03

  And everything works out.

• 1:21:11Griffin Newman?

  Crawl. Well, well, I mean-

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  So the movie is very sketchy about a lot of details. And again, in a way that I didn't entirely hate. One of the things that is kind of left to our imagination, unless I missed something, is that she is doing this mission to find us a new home because our current home presumably Earth is no longer habitable. But what is left vague is, did, did that just happen naturally?

• 1:21:38David Sims?

  No. I, I got the impression it was because people stopped dying and that created a huge overpopulation issue.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  And that created like havoc.

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  But they don't really get into it.

• 1:21:49Speaker 03

  But she says like, we decided that people should not actually stop aging.

• 1:21:54David Sims?

  Like when she's talking to the kids about it. It's definitely the most interesting scene in the movie.

• 1:21:58Griffin Newman?

  I, I think everything about that scene, I, first, I think McKinnon's good in this movie.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  She is.

• 1:22:03Speaker 03

  I, she's, yeah, she's, she's, yes, yeah.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  She's up to the assignment. I, there were moments with her when I was moved by like on I, the first moment in the movie after it was kind of going by very glacially. And I was like, oh, boy. The first moment where I like locked in a little bit is when she has to turn off the AI, her AI friend. And she's like, turns it off. And then, you know, she's like, you were my only friend. And then it's like sad about, and I, I don't know, just cause she played it so well. I was like, oh, okay.

• 1:22:32Griffin Newman?

  But this is my-

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  I'm feeling something there.

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  I, I agree. This is my biggest take with the film and I understand, you know, this whole movie generates from thinking about the big bang and the ripple of time and the story circles and, you know, all of that. I'm like, the whole movie should have been McKinnon. I'm like, this is the interesting story. And actually the reveals that are interesting within her story are deflated somewhat by the other two narratives.

• 1:22:57David Sims?

  That's it. You're right. You're right. Cause like the other two narratives just are pretty juiceless.

• 1:23:01Griffin Newman?

  They are.

• 1:23:02David Sims?

  They just are.

• 1:23:02Griffin Newman?

  They really are. And they're, you know, they're little moments, they're little flourishes and touches. But when you actually step away from the movie, and especially when it doesn't really connect all of its threads until the end and go like, this is what's fucking been going on the whole time.

• 1:23:15Speaker 03

  Fucking nut. Get out of here.

• 1:23:17Griffin Newman?

  The acorn.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  Get that nut out of here.

• 1:23:21David Sims?

  I would possibly get the nut out of here.

• 1:23:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Um, but you're just sort of like, the whole interesting story is the Kate McKinnon thing. And actually, if you remove the other two narratives and you're slowly realizing what's going on with her, the same doling out of information gradually, but it not being supplanted by the other two. That's the movie that feels like it has a little more intrigue to it. I like this implication that it's basically like, we're watching sort of the turning point of humanity, the sort of notion of the two species and one outlived the other. And this was the merging of them. And this is sort of the missing link sort of moment.

• 1:24:00Griffin Newman?

  And then Rashida Jones is trying to, she has discovered the, uh, the, the, the remnants of this missing link. Uh, what's the character's name? It's not Thorc or Thog.

• 1:24:12David Sims?

  It's Thorn and Hera.

• 1:24:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes. If you look on IMDb, it's something I really like is, uh, Thorn is played by someone who is primarily like a stunt performer and a physical performer.

• 1:24:22David Sims?

  Jorge Vargas.

• 1:24:23Griffin Newman?

  His photo on IMDb is just him as a Power Ranger.

• 1:24:27Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 1:24:27Griffin Newman?

  His face is not even visible. It's fucking awesome. Uh, and Tanaya Beatty, who's that? It's an awesome picture.

• 1:24:35Speaker 02

  He's like-

• 1:24:35Griffin Newman?

  It's just a full body Power Ranger.

• 1:24:38David Sims?

  Power ranging.

• 1:24:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Uh, Tanaya Beatty is an actor I really like. Yes. Uh, who plays the, the, his wife.

• 1:24:49Griffin Newman?

  But, uh, yeah, you're seeing this sort of like, this is where humanity kind of starts, right? Then Rashida Jones has recovered the remnants of this guy and believes like this missing link might help us understand where we came from, understand our own DNA more in a way that could lead to the breakthroughs of curing diseases, this and that. While this is happening, her mother is dying rapidly from a very aggressive form of a terminal cancer. She is starting this sort of relationship with Davide Diggs, who clearly is all in on her. And she's kind of keeping him at arm's length. A, because she's so focused on her work and B, because she's got the burden of caring for her mother. And she's sort of like, I don't know if I can take this on. And you're watching this developing relationship

• 1:25:32Griffin Newman?

  where she's keeping him at a distance. Then she drops out of school to go be with her mother. So the relationship is mostly happening over Zoom. You know, she's in isolation there and he's committed to her. And eventually, you know, they, he, he comes, he moves in with her, they get married, they have kids. And you realize that their son, who they homeschool and they raise in the grand tradition of science is able to build on his parents' work and what she studied to actually crack the code.

• 1:25:59David Sims?

  Pure death.

• 1:25:59Griffin Newman?

  To cure death.

• 1:26:00Speaker 02

  So the whole time of this, of their story.

• 1:26:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  You're, a part of you is wondering like, what the hell is this? Cause like, nothing is happening.

• 1:26:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, like for introduction.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  You finally get to, when you get to the end, you're like, okay, the idea, the overarching idea he has like is here is that she and she's especially, but and Davide are like, they were just another little step.

• 1:26:22Griffin Newman?

  The link in the chain.

• 1:26:23Speaker 02

  Along the chain.

• 1:26:24Griffin Newman?

  And she has the moment, can you believe we made him?

• 1:26:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:26:26Griffin Newman?

  The, the guy who cures death.

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  There is something, as, as their relationship, Rashida and Davide think, like, as I gradually settled into, I was like, okay, this is just what this is gonna be, the whole movie. This, this like very quiet, you know?

• 1:26:45Griffin Newman?

  He's the most patient, understanding, gentle.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  Mostly over video calls, which is kind of a crazy choice for a movie. But as I settled into it, I was like, okay, there are some nice moments. There's a, there's a very lovely moment where they're just sitting together on, standing together on the phone silently while she's sitting by her mom in bed. And they, it's a wordless scene. And like, there are little moments where like that, where you're like, okay, that was, that was good.

• 1:27:13Griffin Newman?

  He is a very good visual storyteller. And even in a movie like this, that can't quite find itself, there will be moments like that where something kind of interesting and specific is conveyed.

• 1:27:22Speaker 02

  Right. And where you feel a sense of what he's going, what they're going for with their dynamic of like, they're so in love and like, despite all these problems they have in the fight she has, and like at one point she tries to break up with them. It just kind of like, doesn't come to anything because he's just like, no, like you love me, I love you. Like, we're gonna be together forever.

• 1:27:39Griffin Newman?

  I think that's kind of fun where she's really trying to break up with him because she's just like, this isn't fair to you. It doesn't matter that I'm in love with you. And then he starts laughing and he's like, I got you to admit that you're in love with me.

• 1:27:49Speaker 02

  Speaks to the weird writing style of the movie that in that particular scene is kind of charming where it's like, you think this is about to be a dramatic moment and then it's not. Because he's just like, no, enough of that.

• 1:27:59Speaker 03

  The key thing here is kinda, kinda, kinda. Now, let's say-

• 1:28:04David Sims?

  I just want to say something right now. Jorge Vargas played Blake Bradley, AKA the Navy Thunder Ranger. Okay. In Power Rangers Ninja Storm.

• 1:28:15Griffin Newman?

  I'm glad you've been doing a deep dive on this while you and I talk about the movie.

• 1:28:20David Sims?

  Who is the Blue Ranger. But it's just funny how like at the start, they're like, yeah, we got a Blue Ranger, we got a Green Ranger. And now they're like, he's the Blue, the Navy Thunder Ranger. Like, so we had that like kind of Lands End style colors description.

• 1:28:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:34David Sims?

  Uh, but he's in 36 episodes. Like, and it's him.

• 1:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:38David Sims?

  Like his human face is seen too.

• 1:28:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 1:28:42David Sims?

  I don't have any more. Do you want me to get more news for you on Ninja Storm Rangers?

• 1:28:45Griffin Newman?

  No, what I was gonna say is.

• 1:28:47David Sims?

  Maybe I will anyway, though.

• 1:28:48Griffin Newman?

  If you remove the other two plotlines and just sort of unpack, like, this is what happens in the Kate McKinnon plotline, right? She is a woman who is on a spaceship by herself. Her only connection seems to be this AI robot, and she's like, holding on to hundreds, thousands of embryos.

• 1:29:09David Sims?

  Yes, in bags.

• 1:29:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:29:10David Sims?

  You grow them in bags.

• 1:29:11Griffin Newman?

  That she is trying to protect while also having a sort of sunshine-esque green room to be able to provide oxygen for the ship. Uh, there is a fungus breakout. Uh, there is not going to be enough oxygen for her to get to the planet that's being terraformed. There's sort of the mystery of like, why is this one woman in isolation, carrying so many embryos to repopulate humanity by herself? And, uh, you know, you have this sort of, I don't know, a bit of a trolley car problem, but not really of, there's not enough oxygen to get her there. She's like, I should kill myself. You're AI, you can handle the mission on your own. All that's important is that the embryos

• 1:29:54Griffin Newman?

  get to this planet and you can sort of activate everything. And the AI sacrifices itself to be like, you need a human being with like reasoning and feelings and the X factor of human experience. You know, it shouldn't be done by a machine. And so the AI basically convinces Kate McKinnon to deactivate it so that they can use the extra room to plant more to create a second supply of oxygen.

• 1:30:20David Sims?

  Because they have to isolate.

• 1:30:21Speaker 02

  To avoid the.

• 1:30:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  Play.

• 1:30:23David Sims?

  Have a separate room with the plant life isolated so that it doesn't also get diseased.

• 1:30:28Griffin Newman?

  All of this is kind of like a runaround where I was sort of like, the fuck, where are we going with this? Until the moment, as you said, where I think McKinnon plays really well, the loss of like, oh, this was the only connection she had to something that even felt like humanity was speaking to this computer. And now she's got to do the rest of this mission alone. And she activates the one child that she can like raise and have a relationship with. And she starts talking to her. And then you realize like, this is the last human being alive. We like killed ourselves with overpopulation. She is functionally, if not literally immortal, close to it. And as she's raising this child, she explains this thing, what I think is the best scene in the movie that in both in terms of being well performed and well written, but also the ideas of it being so

• 1:31:10Griffin Newman?

  interesting of, we solved the thing that felt like the great tragedy of humanity, our own mortality. And in fact, we realized this is not good. It's not good. Not only did it just like fuck us up infrastructurally as a species, but also like, people shouldn't live this long. It actually sucks. It's a curse and it's a burden. And we're restarting humanity. You will age normally. We're going to go to a new planet. We're going to try to get it right. And I'm the last freak alive, trying to like, reset everything.

• 1:31:40David Sims?

  It is important, though, that the company that did this to us is also the company that is now in charge of the ship.

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  Right. This is where the movie trips up and also is very like, not built for our, for this moment, is that it has this, lands in this very optimistic play. You could argue about whether it's optimistic, because of course, the, the happy ending that we see is preceded by like, the collapse of civilization.

• 1:32:06Griffin Newman?

  Well, you're like watching the son's breakthrough as he gives the press conference to reveal that he's cured death at the same time as Kate McKinnon is basically explaining, this was a mistake. It fucked everything up. And now we're trying to reset everything back to how it was. You will age normally. And so you have like, Davide Diggs and Rashida Jones being like, can you believe it? Our son changed the world. And Kate McKinnon being like, the world's a nightmare. And now I have to try to do a hard reboot.

• 1:32:35Speaker 02

  Right. But then they're trying to, the mood of the thing, this is what you're saying, is that this, that is all a disconnect from the, the mood. The mood of the thing is very much like, but we figure it out, you know, like, we figure, we realize, we made a mistake, and now we're pulling back. And, you know, we figured out a new way. And that's what you're seeing with this, Kate McKinnon storyline. And then alongside that, also she has this lovely AI friend who is like really nice and like helps her with everything, but and who, and who the AI gives voice to like, no, humanity is the most important thing. And like, having you, having your X factor of being a human, that is the most important thing, more important than me. And not to like place other

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  things that are like going on in the world right now onto the, but you do, you can't avoid it. And I'm just watching that scene. And I'm like, well, this is a little bullshit. Like, that's not what, that's not like reflective of, that is not what we're learning and seeing about how these technologies operate. That's just you fantasizing.

• 1:33:35Griffin Newman?

  No, in fact.

• 1:33:36Speaker 02

  About like, maybe one day it will be like that.

• 1:33:38Griffin Newman?

  We have the opposite issue, which is like, AI convincing people to kill themselves, not AI being like, I should deactivate so humanity can persist.

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  Right. So I was just like.

• 1:33:50Griffin Newman?

  It also, I mean, it's, it's the whole like.

• 1:33:52Speaker 02

  And, and Stanton was out, I read an interview with him where they were asked about this and they were like, it takes a very like optimistic view. And his answer was just like, well, what else can you do? But, but, but just have hope and have optimism. And I was like, well, that's a lame answer.

• 1:34:05Griffin Newman?

  I find his worldview really interesting in general, because it feels like he is a guy, and I relate to this really hard, where he is like, there is a constant fight between like, an overriding cynicism and like, an attempted optimism, that he like, doesn't want to drown in the cynicism, even though it's its innate state. And there is a sort of like, sappy emotionality to him, that he's a little bit embarrassed by, right? And I think that's a lot of like, the Toy Story magic comes from that sensibility. It feels like this movie puts the thumb down too hard on the optimism, even when it's doing something that is a little bit ominous. And it's trying to like, create the friction between like, well, here's this amazing accomplishment in

• 1:34:47Griffin Newman?

  human existence that we have this breakthrough, but also, we're watching the business end of what was a mistake by it. But then the optimism is, but, but they're gonna fix it eventually. And you're like.

• 1:34:57David Sims?

  So, but that's why the end of the movie is really odd with like, wow, I can't believe we made him. And I'm like, history's greatest villain. Like, it seems like he maybe was.

• 1:35:06Griffin Newman?

  This was a mistake and this was a curse. And I'm like, I sort of don't even to know about that guy. It's more interesting to just spend time with Kate McKinnon, the one person who's the representative of why this was a mistake, you know? And especially her doing that in isolation.

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  But it's also like fixing it at the same time.

• 1:35:22Griffin Newman?

  Interesting to me, I also think, I think like, there was a review I read at Sundance that was critiquing her casting and saying like, her sort of what they described as her finger guns comic energy is an ill match for this movie. And then I was like, oh, is she gonna be doing like Ghostbusters?

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  No, not at all.

• 1:35:39Griffin Newman?

  No, I think she's giving like, a good dramatic performance, but I think her being.

• 1:35:43David Sims?

  A little sedate, like, and it's like, she has high energy.

• 1:35:46Griffin Newman?

  Gives her more energy than any of the other performers in the movie, even though she's playing it straight. She has a little bit of that offwire energy, which I think helps. I think it could have helped to have more of the casting be on those lines.

• 1:35:58David Sims?

  I think if you're gonna have a character in the future, make him talk weird. She loves shit like that, too.

• 1:36:05Speaker 02

  You mean like, do a Cloud Atlas thing, like the true true?

• 1:36:07David Sims?

  Yeah, come on.

• 1:36:09Griffin Newman?

  She's kind of doing her like cowboy kind of, you know, Kate McKinnon sort of thing.

• 1:36:13David Sims?

  Here's what I can tell you.

• 1:36:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:15David Sims?

  Ninja Storm was the 10th.

• 1:36:16Griffin Newman?

  Okay, this is.

• 1:36:17David Sims?

  Power Rangers series.

• 1:36:18Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:36:19David Sims?

  The, the ones, the one before was Wild Force, which I guess, uh, they turned into like, animals, like lions and eagles and stuff. And the one after, a one we all know well, is Dino Thunder, where they were just like, fuck it, they're dinosaurs. Again, I guess. I don't know. Cause the originals are kind of dinosaurs.

• 1:36:37Griffin Newman?

  I, I just.

• 1:36:37David Sims?

  Ninja Storm, though, they were ninjas. Ninjas. I, I tell you. There was a red.

• 1:36:42Griffin Newman?

  Were they ninja dinosaurs?

• 1:36:45David Sims?

  No, just regular old ninja.

• 1:36:46Griffin Newman?

  That's kind of interesting. There's a more interesting.

• 1:36:50David Sims?

  And I was like, do they have Zordon? And it's like, no, they have a sensei who gets turned into a guinea pig.

• 1:36:56Griffin Newman?

  So it's going into G-Force territory, sort of.

• 1:36:58David Sims?

  Sounds possible.

• 1:36:59Griffin Newman?

  I think there is a more interesting version of like passengers in this, with her activating the one embryo so as not to be alone and go crazy. And then.

• 1:37:09Speaker 02

  I don't think I even really clocked, if your reading is right, that that was a thing where she like, was going against the mission or anything. I thought that was just part of the mission.

• 1:37:16Griffin Newman?

  That's, the other part of it is like, now she needs help because she doesn't have the AI.

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  I think that was part of the plan.

• 1:37:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But then it's like, she's forming this emotional relationship that wasn't part of the plan because she needs that. And in raising a child now, and actually like, kind of being a mother in a way, she wasn't supposed to be. And this movie ends with a scene, I think Kate McKinnon also performs well, of like, her holding the funeral for this child on the reborn earth. And she has barely aged, you know, she looks like five years older.

• 1:37:46David Sims?

  Little.

• 1:37:47Griffin Newman?

  And it's like.

• 1:37:47David Sims?

  Crinkles in the.

• 1:37:48Griffin Newman?

  She succeeded in the mission, but like, her curse is that she also now has to like.

• 1:37:53David Sims?

  Just to watch her kids die.

• 1:37:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. And she's like.

• 1:37:56David Sims?

  They lived a long life.

• 1:37:56Griffin Newman?

  She wasn't really my child. You know, I'm not technically her mother more so than any of you, but she's the one I felt the most connected to.

• 1:38:03David Sims?

  These are interesting heady ideas. I feel like the movie shies away from ever getting too emotional, getting too kind of like, worked up about any of it. And so at the end, I was kind of like, eh, okay.

• 1:38:16Griffin Newman?

  It's just the one idea I like is, yeah, if we, if we could live forever, it would suck.

• 1:38:22David Sims?

  Sure, I'm.

• 1:38:22Griffin Newman?

  It would cause a thousand problems.

• 1:38:24David Sims?

  My favorite show, New Amsterdam, when they like Costa Wanda, remember?

• 1:38:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:38:28David Sims?

  He was old.

• 1:38:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:38:30David Sims?

  Young.

• 1:38:31Griffin Newman?

  Wasn't there also a different Yoan Gruffait one where he was?

• 1:38:35David Sims?

  That one was where every time he dies, he wakes up in the East River or something. And he's still, and it was called like eternal or forever.

• 1:38:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:38:44David Sims?

  Uh oh. Called uh oh.

• 1:38:46Griffin Newman?

  It was that he would like ground hug day, but the next day.

• 1:38:48David Sims?

  It was called forever. It was called forever.

• 1:38:52Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:38:52David Sims?

  Can tell you.

• 1:38:53Griffin Newman?

  The day wouldn't reset. He would just be reborn.

• 1:38:56David Sims?

  He's in the East River again.

• 1:38:57Griffin Newman?

  So I guess it's a little being John Malkovich where they would just spit him out.

• 1:39:01David Sims?

  What I liked about New Amsterdam was like in the pilot, he like meets with like an old man who's his son. And he's, the old man's like, wow, you really don't fucking age, dude. He's like, yeah, it's my thing. Off to solve a mystery. Cause that's the best thing about all network shows. They're like, he's immortal, fascinating. And he solves mysteries. Everybody be like, don't worry, he solves mysteries. Don't worry about it. There's an engine.

• 1:39:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:39:23David Sims?

  Yeah. You know, the ideas are interesting. I just, I also find the design a little bland of the spaceship and all that. Like where I'm just like, it's just got this kind of vague Apple-y.

• 1:39:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:33David Sims?

  You know, sort of look to it that is not very distinctive.

• 1:39:37Griffin Newman?

  Her clothes.

• 1:39:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:39:38Griffin Newman?

  Like boring. It was another thing I caught.

• 1:39:41David Sims?

  Watching that movie Spaceman, which Colby Day wrote.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  Has a very different look.

• 1:39:45David Sims?

  Has a look like I found that movie also a little sleepy, but like that, that movie at least was very heady.

• 1:39:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:51David Sims?

  Looking.

• 1:39:52Griffin Newman?

  I like that movie a lot. I, I think.

• 1:39:56Griffin Newman?

  Rewatching Wally for the first time in a while, it was interesting because that did feel. New. The whole visual design language of Wally, both the sort of busted, rusted, old by and large stuff. And then when you get to the axiom and making everything that Apple influenced, you know? It's a year before Star Trek, which does the similar and redesign of like. The enterprise is now kind of Apple store coded and all of that. Now this has just sort of become the default language for what spaceships look like. And it's not interesting to do. And it feels like someone needs to like shake up. The formula again.

• 1:40:32Speaker 02

  About the visuals in the movie. Nothing is bad. The movie looks fine, but it's all just very like default. And all very, I mean, that is all really all kind of summed up by the fact that for a score, they were like, I know Stanton is, has worked with them before.

• 1:40:45Griffin Newman?

  It's his number one guy.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  They were like, call up Thomas Newman and have him deliver the same.

• 1:40:49Griffin Newman?

  Have him do the thing.

• 1:40:52Speaker 02

  That you've heard a million times.

• 1:40:54Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen, uh, Quest for Fire or Clan of the Cave Bear.

• 1:40:59David Sims?

  I recently watched Clan of the Cave Bear.

• 1:41:01Griffin Newman?

  Tell me about it.

• 1:41:02David Sims?

  Because I'm trying to watch, it's not very good.

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:41:05David Sims?

  And I'm trying to watch every 1986 film for the big picture.

• 1:41:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure. Our inevitable. Yeah.

• 1:41:11David Sims?

  And.

• 1:41:13David Sims?

  I got to this point where I was sort of like, you know, at this point, I've probably seen most of the major films of 1986. But then I was like, all right, well, what was nominated for an Oscar?

• 1:41:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  That I haven't seen yet. The answer was. One was Clan of the Cape Bear, which got a, a makeup nomination. It was a gigantic bomb, that film. A huge, huge bomb. It's Daryl Hannah plays a cave woman.

• 1:41:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:41:34David Sims?

  It's great stuff.

• 1:41:35Griffin Newman?

  But coming off of, uh, uh, Quest for Fire being a surprise hit.

• 1:41:39David Sims?

  Exactly. They were like, we'll keep it with the cavemen. You've also, I also watched Franco Zeffirelli's, uh, uh, adaptation of the opera Otello, which features Placido Domingo in makeup. I was playing that one at work on my iPad and I was like, hmm, I might have to turn this one off. And I also watched Crimes of the Heart, which got three Oscar nominations. Bruce Berris for film. Fucking sucks. What were they doing in the eighties?

• 1:42:05Griffin Newman?

  Bruce was, it's a weird career.

• 1:42:07David Sims?

  These, based on a play.

• 1:42:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:10Speaker 02

  How does, let's go ahead. How is any of what we're talking about right now? How did we transition into?

• 1:42:17David Sims?

  This movie has a bit of a Clan of a Cave Bear vibe. Anyway, Crimes of the Heart is just a lot of Southern bells going like, oh, my mama never loved me.

• 1:42:25Speaker 02

  I lost the.

• 1:42:25Griffin Newman?

  There was an eighties micro trend of, we're going to try to make cavemen movie that are ostensibly a little more quote unquote accurate. And no one's going to talk. And it's sort of like a dramatized nature documentary sort of vibe. I mean, sometimes this movie in a negative way feels like a 30 minute film you would watch at a planetarium or something.

• 1:42:48David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, a little bit.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  Well, it's very, very hard to do any version of that caveman thing that isn't that, especially if you're going to decide to be. Accurate about it.

• 1:42:59David Sims?

  Like it's hard, there's hard to see them discover a whistle.

• 1:43:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04David Sims?

  And be like, whoa.

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 1:43:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't care. They should be, do a caveman movie. That's like Chris Nolan doing the Odyssey where they're just like, hey, what's up? I'm Homer. Like, you know, like daddy.

• 1:43:15David Sims?

  Can I, sorry, one more tangent. I just watched the movie Whistle. It's a horror movie. It came out in February.

• 1:43:21Griffin Newman?

  You blew the whistle.

• 1:43:22David Sims?

  That's enough. Don't blow it. Great tagline. That was the tagline.

• 1:43:25Griffin Newman?

  That's actually really fucking good.

• 1:43:27David Sims?

  We're in a high school. I'm jam Daphne Keen from Logan. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a little, got some drama. I'm bisexual, maybe blah, blah, blah. What's this Aztec death whistle?

• 1:43:39David Sims?

  Don't blow the fucking whistle. Like, what if I blew it? No, don't do it. I just love any movie where it's like, there's a scary whistle. And I'm like, don't tell me someone blows it. And they're like, oh no, they blow it. All right.

• 1:43:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there is, it was.

• 1:43:51David Sims?

  Not very good.

• 1:43:52Griffin Newman?

  Quest for Fire then leads to Conquest, Iron Master.

• 1:43:55David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:43:56Griffin Newman?

  Iceman and Clan of the Cave Bear. There were like five of them.

• 1:44:00David Sims?

  Iceman wasn't about Bobby Drake?

• 1:44:02Griffin Newman?

  Not yet. We were too afraid. That's a Timothy Hutton, Fred Skepsy movie.

• 1:44:07David Sims?

  Of course, the big two.

• 1:44:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:10Griffin Newman?

  But that's, that's more of an unfrozen.

• 1:44:12David Sims?

  Figured out that I have a nervous tic where if anyone says two names on this podcast or three names, I just say the big two immediately. Because I think it's always funny.

• 1:44:21Griffin Newman?

  It's always funny. That was a, uh, he's Timothy Hutton, following up the Oscar win is the caveman who discovers fire. And then he is frozen and then he is revived. It's like serious and seen on man. But it was, there's, this was like a big trend for the era and these movies were popular. Quest for Fire certainly was a very well regarded.

• 1:44:44David Sims?

  Clan of the Cave Bear was such a huge bomb and probably ended the, uh, the whole.

• 1:44:48Griffin Newman?

  The whole thing.

• 1:44:49David Sims?

  Trend. I would say.

• 1:44:50Griffin Newman?

  No one has really dared to touch this in 30 years.

• 1:44:52David Sims?

  It's a good point. So this has caveman stuff.

• 1:44:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55David Sims?

  Are, have there been any other recent caveman dramas?

• 1:44:59Griffin Newman?

  This, I'm looking on Wikipedia, the two recent ones they've mentioned are, there's a French movie called A O, The Last Hunter. Literally A O, colon, The Last Hunter. And then there was the, um, uh, I forget which Hughes brother directed it, Albert Hughes, Alpha.

• 1:45:18David Sims?

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:45:19Griffin Newman?

  McPhee and a wolf.

• 1:45:21David Sims?

  Right. For the listeners at home, Joey and I just shared a look.

• 1:45:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:24David Sims?

  Milling look.

• 1:45:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:25David Sims?

  As you were, uh, going through this tangent.

• 1:45:29Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure. And then they had a new awakening. What was the crude, crude sequel subtitle?

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  The January 6th. The crude stormed the capital. No, I don't know.

• 1:45:38Griffin Newman?

  Crude was one of those movies where it like.

• 1:45:40David Sims?

  A new age.

• 1:45:41Griffin Newman?

  A new age. It came out on drive-ins only in like.

• 1:45:45David Sims?

  2020.

• 1:45:46Griffin Newman?

  August 2020.

• 1:45:46David Sims?

  They were like, there's a crudes movie and Cuomo was like theater staying closed.

• 1:45:49Griffin Newman?

  It's secretly.

• 1:45:51David Sims?

  Opening for that.

• 1:45:52Griffin Newman?

  The crudes, a new age might've come close to Titanic's number of consecutive weeks at the top of the box office. Cause it had like four months where nothing else was coming out.

• 1:46:01David Sims?

  Like Florida's open.

• 1:46:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. And you'd be like, the crudes racked up another robust $5,000 to be number one at the box office this weekend.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  Yeah. Look, in the blink of an eye, I, I, I found the caveman stuff like unsuccessful.

• 1:46:15Griffin Newman?

  I found it. Yeah.

• 1:46:16David Sims?

  It's.

• 1:46:17Griffin Newman?

  That was the least successful.

• 1:46:18Speaker 02

  Again, as with a lot of the other elements, as with the other three elements of the movie. It like, it gets to a thing right at the end.

• 1:46:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:26Speaker 02

  Where like, where he's like, where there's a, a baby that's been born.

• 1:46:30David Sims?

  Right. It's like, oh, it's about this.

• 1:46:31Speaker 02

  Dad is like, oh, he's like, has this happy moment and then dies. And again, it's hitting at that same idea of like, he was just a, a link on the chain. And it's like, okay, all right, I get, that's, I get it.

• 1:46:43Griffin Newman?

  And that's sort of like the first man being born, the first modern.

• 1:46:48Speaker 02

  Right. But I'm like, but you, but that was all for that. I mean, again, I admire in a way, the smallness of it. I'm like, you know, this is not the type of screenplay that exists anymore in that, in that sort of, in that smallness, but, um.

• 1:47:03Griffin Newman?

  Our, our buddy Bill had a good review of this movie and he was sort of calling out like how much he admires the ambition of it. But when you make a film like this, you're like drawing those comparisons directly to 2001, which is a challenge.

• 1:47:16David Sims?

  Like I said.

• 1:47:17Griffin Newman?

  And he said, like, the other one, this movie like really draws a line to is the tree of life in this sort of like. You know, the small interpersonal drama of today is linked to our origins as a species and whatever. And there is something a little mathematical in the structure of this screenplay. And down to just what I'm saying of like, maybe this movie should just be all Kate McKinnon of like, the need to have. The prehistoric section be an equal third of the story. It feels like a mistake to me where I'm like, this could be three scenes and it's an interesting addition to the movie.

• 1:47:55Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't need to have 30 minutes of screen time divided across the film, because what's interesting about it can be conveyed very quickly. And it's the same way that like tree of life is like, you get one dinosaur scene. And it kind of shakes your system where you're like, whoa, there's a dinosaur scene in a Terrence Malick movie. But he's not like, well, the dinosaur is an equal lead with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. These are the three narrative strings of this movie.

• 1:48:20David Sims?

  More dino, less man.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  There was actually even a moment early in the movie where our main, uh, I think he was our main like, uh, guy from, from the pill or times or whatever.

• 1:48:29Griffin Newman?

  The Navy Ranger.

• 1:48:31David Sims?

  Fucking Navy Thunder Ranger.

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  Navy Thunder. He like, he falls as he's climbing.

• 1:48:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:36Speaker 02

  And he like lands on a rock. And it's like dunk. And then it cuts away from him. And I was like, did he just die? Like, was that the, well, because I thought for a second, I was like, was that like, the point of that being in this movie was just like, sometimes it's just like that. You're a guy.

• 1:48:50David Sims?

  Blink of an eye.

• 1:48:51Speaker 02

  Living in.

• 1:48:52David Sims?

  Blink of an eye.

• 1:48:52Speaker 02

  Blink of an eye, bed. You live in a. You fall, you dead. That's it.

• 1:48:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  But no, then he gets up.

• 1:48:58David Sims?

  He actually gets hit by a bus later in the script where they cut that.

• 1:49:01Griffin Newman?

  I have to go to therapy. We should play the box office game.

• 1:49:03David Sims?

  Great.

• 1:49:04Griffin Newman?

  And Lord knows I need it.

• 1:49:05David Sims?

  You do?

• 1:49:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:06David Sims?

  Tuesday therapy.

• 1:49:07Griffin Newman?

  Things have been changing.

• 1:49:08David Sims?

  This is crazy, Griffin.

• 1:49:10Griffin Newman?

  Changes.

• 1:49:11David Sims?

  You gotta keep it on Thursday.

• 1:49:12Griffin Newman?

  It's a one off thing. No, it's usually Thursday. It's not like I'm playing fast and loose. I, yeah.

• 1:49:27David Sims?

  Well, the box office game, of course, this film did not actually premiere in theaters, but we can still cover the box office of February 27th, 2026.

• 1:49:35Griffin Newman?

  Bad weekend, a lot of theater closures because of the snowstorm, I imagine. Was this the week after that?

• 1:49:39David Sims?

  Uh, this might be the week after that. I can't remember. Who knows?

• 1:49:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:45David Sims?

  What's important is that number one at the box office is a giant hit.

• 1:49:49Griffin Newman?

  It is Wuthering Heights?

• 1:49:50David Sims?

  No.

• 1:49:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:49:51David Sims?

  That came out.

• 1:49:52Griffin Newman?

  Valentine's Day, of course it did.

• 1:49:53David Sims?

  No, it stars your friend and mine, Timothy Hitmaker Simons. I think he's the lead role. I haven't seen it yet. Uh, it's a sequel horror film. It's Scream seven.

• 1:50:02Griffin Newman?

  You didn't see Scream seven?

• 1:50:04David Sims?

  I didn't make the screening for reasons I can't remember, but probably my boss was like, you're not reviewing it. So I was kind of like, not that motivated. And then the reviews were really bad. And I just was kind of like, I think I might be waiting for Paramount Plus on this one. Like, because like, I quite enjoy five and six. I like the Scream franchise, but because this is actively rejecting five and six.

• 1:50:27Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:50:27David Sims?

  I wasn't too pulled in by like, we've got Neve Campbell. I'm like, yeah, I've seen her in a Scream movie before. Like, this isn't like, oh, she's been missing. She wasn't in one of them.

• 1:50:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, congrats on not being a scab.

• 1:50:40David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Also, fuck Timothy Simons. No, I'm kidding. I assume, isn't he like a professor and they throw him out a window? So I haven't seen it yet.

• 1:50:46Griffin Newman?

  Sounds good.

• 1:50:47David Sims?

  That sounds fun. Uh, big hit. Did you see it, Joey Sims?

• 1:50:51Speaker 02

  No, I felt the same as, yeah, as you. And I was also like, yeah, fuck them.

• 1:50:56David Sims?

  Who directed that? Oh, Williamson directed.

• 1:50:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58David Sims?

  Yeah. Also not incredible size.

• 1:51:00Griffin Newman?

  No. Uh, number two at the box office.

• 1:51:04David Sims?

  Number two at the box office is my daughter's favorite film of 2026. No.

• 1:51:09Griffin Newman?

  Oh, goat.

• 1:51:10David Sims?

  They play.

• 1:51:10Griffin Newman?

  Roar ball. I was thinking about the ball.

• 1:51:13David Sims?

  Roar?

• 1:51:14Griffin Newman?

  Roar ball.

• 1:51:15Speaker 02

  Roar, the, isn't that the name of the, the movie?

• 1:51:17David Sims?

  Tatum O'Neil movie where they live with Tiger. Where they were like.

• 1:51:21Griffin Newman?

  There, there were 10 to 12.

• 1:51:24David Sims?

  Ryan Mullings.

• 1:51:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26David Sims?

  Most movies have.

• 1:51:27Speaker 02

  Had like half his.

• 1:51:29Griffin Newman?

  Production was a wild success. It only took five years and a minimum of three scalpings.

• 1:51:36Griffin Newman?

  It's the most insane film I've ever made. Uh, no, I was thinking so much.

• 1:51:39David Sims?

  Production ever made. Like, is the, the movie's weird.

• 1:51:42Griffin Newman?

  It's weird.

• 1:51:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's weird. Yeah.

• 1:51:44David Sims?

  No, the film is Goat.

• 1:51:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:46David Sims?

  Uh, Joey, you didn't see Goat? No. Made $103 million domestic. Very, very solid hit for Sony. Um, a movie I really enjoyed. I've seen it a few times.

• 1:51:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I liked it. Okay.

• 1:51:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:57Speaker 02

  Okay. He plays basketball?

• 1:51:58Griffin Newman?

  No, he plays roar ball, Joey. It's very different. It means that sometimes

• 1:52:02David Sims?

  Roar ball.

• 1:52:03Griffin Newman?

  The court is ice and sometimes it's lava.

• 1:52:06David Sims?

  Uh, that is true. Number three at the box office, a romantic drama adaptation of a novel.

• 1:52:11Griffin Newman?

  Is it the Colleen Hoover? It's.

• 1:52:13David Sims?

  No, no, no. Come on. You just brought it. You said it was number.

• 1:52:15Griffin Newman?

  It's called Reminders of You.

• 1:52:17David Sims?

  No, no, come on. You said.

• 1:52:18Griffin Newman?

  Wuthering Heights. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

• 1:52:21David Sims?

  Uh, a film that I quite like.

• 1:52:23Griffin Newman?

  I do too. And I, our buddy.

• 1:52:26David Sims?

  Yelled at.

• 1:52:26Griffin Newman?

  Has the exact take I have on the movie, which is it's an adaptation of a 15 year old reading the book in high school.

• 1:52:33David Sims?

  Uh, I, yeah, I, I, did you see?

• 1:52:35Speaker 02

  I, yeah, I, I quite liked it.

• 1:52:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:37Speaker 02

  I dug. Into the, I, I have not stopped thinking about the shot where she goes back after her, her awful dad dies. And it like cuts to his like. Dead body in the chair. And there's just like, an insanely high pile of bottles of empty, of empty alcohol.

• 1:52:55David Sims?

  I wonder what did him in?

• 1:52:58Speaker 02

  You know, it's hard to, it's hard to tell what the movie is saying there. No, I was just like, the excess of it. I was just like, hell, yeah.

• 1:53:03David Sims?

  That's funny to me when people are like, this movie's over the top. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's going for that. Yeah, that's sort of the idea.

• 1:53:09Griffin Newman?

  No, like you're, you're in high school and you read a great book, you know, one of the, one of the most important works of literature and it says like, she walks in to find her father surrounded by bottles. And you're like, if you're 15, you imagine, oh, it's 8,000 bottles. There's a wall. There's a bone temple. So what if?

• 1:53:28David Sims?

  Number three, sorry, four at the box office, new this week.

• 1:53:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:31David Sims?

  Is a concert film, uh, centered around a band. I confess, I didn't know this existed.

• 1:53:38Griffin Newman?

  Was this the BTS movie?

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  No.

• 1:53:41Griffin Newman?

  No. You didn't know this existed. Is it a band I would know by name?

• 1:53:44Speaker 02

  This is a real band.

• 1:53:45David Sims?

  A real band? Uh, possibly. I think so. They're famous.

• 1:53:48Griffin Newman?

  Is it a K-pop band?

• 1:53:49David Sims?

  No, they're like a rock. I don't know. Are they rock? Yeah, alternative rock, electro pop.

• 1:53:56Griffin Newman?

  It's not Imagine Dragons.

• 1:53:57David Sims?

  No, it's sort of like that. I mean, imagine them.

• 1:54:01Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to just pick what this is.

• 1:54:03David Sims?

  Oh, fuck. I wish I knew.

• 1:54:05Griffin Newman?

  I don't think Imagine Dragons, anyone said that.

• 1:54:07David Sims?

  Ben, Ben, what, what is this band? What is it? Tell me what they are. I don't, I know their name, but I don't actually know what the kind of music is.

• 1:54:15Griffin Newman?

  Wait, I can't see.

• 1:54:16David Sims?

  Oh, for crying out loud. Come on.

• 1:54:19Speaker 02

  Ben is going over and.

• 1:54:21David Sims?

  Like what? I don't know what their actual deal is.

• 1:54:25Griffin Newman?

  You just.

• 1:54:26David Sims?

  So the band is, uh, 21 Pilots.

• 1:54:29Griffin Newman?

  That's very close to Imagine Dragons.

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  It is. I agree with you. I just don't really, what, what is their vibe?

• 1:54:34Griffin Newman?

  Ben laughed at me so much for saying Imagine Dragons. I was scared to guess 21 Pilots.

• 1:54:38David Sims?

  You should have guessed it.

• 1:54:39Griffin Newman?

  They're a little bit more of a fun period.

• 1:54:42David Sims?

  As far as I'm concerned. The movie is called 21 Pilots, More Than We Ever Imagined.

• 1:54:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:54:47David Sims?

  It made $3.7 million in its opening weekend.

• 1:54:50Griffin Newman?

  I would describe their vibe as.

• 1:54:51David Sims?

  In your pipe.

• 1:54:52Griffin Newman?

  Imagine Dragons. I'd say they're very.

• 1:54:54David Sims?

  What's their song?

• 1:54:55Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 1:54:56David Sims?

  I just know that there's a band called 21 Pilots. That's, that's where my knowledge ends.

• 1:54:59Griffin Newman?

  Same.

• 1:55:00David Sims?

  Uh, and number five is another concert film, sort of, uh, not, not of a recent figure, but a, a deceased figure.

• 1:55:06Griffin Newman?

  Is this epic?

• 1:55:08David Sims?

  Epic Elvis Presley in concert.

• 1:55:09Griffin Newman?

  An incredible title.

• 1:55:10David Sims?

  Which I, I did not get to see, but I was told was kind of rad.

• 1:55:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:14David Sims?

  I've heard we'll cover on Patreon whenever we do Buzz, Buzz Lerman. Uh, you've also got number six, a movie that I, I wanted to love and thought was okay. Crime 101.

• 1:55:26Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure. I need to watch that.

• 1:55:27David Sims?

  Fine 101.

• 1:55:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  That was your Letterboxd review.

• 1:55:30David Sims?

  Yeah, it's pretty good. Probably did numbers.

• 1:55:33Griffin Newman?

  Here's a twist. I'm gonna let you finish the episode.

• 1:55:37David Sims?

  Okay. You know what? I'll see you later. Uh, get out of here. Go away. Well, you gotta go. I'll tell you the next. I can only imagine. Two.

• 1:55:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:45David Sims?

  What's that?

• 1:55:46Griffin Newman?

  That's based on a song the guy wrote about his dad not being nice. And this is the sequel where the songs are hit. The dad's like, I still don't know if I want to be a nice guy.

• 1:55:56David Sims?

  Sounds pretty good. I'll check it out. Uh, number eight, Sam Raimi's Great Send Help, which you saw that, you saw that, right?

• 1:56:02Speaker 02

  Of course. Great movie.

• 1:56:03David Sims?

  Uh, number nine, How to Make a Killing, uh, the fairly bad, A24 Glenn Powell remake of Kind Hearts and Cornet, Kind Hearts and Cornets. And number 10, Zootopia 2, hanging out for its like fourth month. Highest grossing film of 2025. Highest grossing film of 2025. Uh, yeah. Uh, you've also got Solo Mio there, number 12. That's the Kevin James Wants a Wife movie. Grif's going to therapy. He is going to therapy. He's out of here.

• 1:56:33Griffin Newman?

  Wow. Maybe Joey should take over. What should we do? A coup?

• 1:56:37David Sims?

  Sure. I mean.

• 1:56:39David Sims?

  I've done it before.

• 1:56:40Griffin Newman?

  This has never happened.

• 1:56:40David Sims?

  I have left or because we went for, you know, four hours about fucking Cabbage Patch Kids or whatever.

• 1:56:47Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:56:48David Sims?

  But I don't think Griffin's ever left before. There was a time he threw up.

• 1:56:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:56:51David Sims?

  But he came back, left, threw up, came back.

• 1:56:54Griffin Newman?

  No, he's normally the one who.

• 1:56:56David Sims?

  Who makes it too long.

• 1:56:57Griffin Newman?

  Makes it too long, shows up late.

• 1:56:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:56:59Griffin Newman?

  Let's, you know what? Let's hear some grievous.

• 1:57:02David Sims?

  Let's talk about it.

• 1:57:02Griffin Newman?

  We got.

• 1:57:05Griffin Newman?

  So this is kind of, yeah, a unique position. We've never been here before.

• 1:57:08David Sims?

  Yeah. I have to see Mortal Kombat 2 in an hour.

• 1:57:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm going, uh, later this evening, but I'm, I'm, I'm very excited.

• 1:57:16David Sims?

  Do you have work? Talking to my brother.

• 1:57:17Speaker 02

  No, I'm, uh, I have a few hours. I'm gonna maybe try to hang out with Lane, Lane Montgomery.

• 1:57:23David Sims?

  Friend of the show, composer of the theme song and prior past future guest, uh, your former roommate.

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  My former roommate. Uh, we've been looking for a time to grab like a late lunch. So I'm gonna see, but he may, he may have been held up at work. It's unclear. So, no. And then tonight I'm seeing Giant on Broadway. The, um, the play.

• 1:57:41David Sims?

  That's the Roald Dahl, not so nice.

• 1:57:44Speaker 02

  Roald Dahl, anti semi John Lithgow play.

• 1:57:48David Sims?

  You excited?

• 1:57:49Griffin Newman?

  Do you sound excited?

• 1:57:50Speaker 02

  Getting that one in.

• 1:57:51David Sims?

  Did he get the?

• 1:57:53Speaker 02

  I'm excited to see him. We love to see John Lithgow take on a big mammoth role on Broadway. Who doesn't? The play from, from what I've heard is, I don't know. I'm not that excited by that.

• 1:58:01David Sims?

  Now, but Trumpy Dumpty.

• 1:58:03Speaker 02

  Right. So it is after the giant concludes, then we all remain in the theater. The doors are locked and John Lithgow reads, reads the entirety of Trumpy Dumpty.

• 1:58:15David Sims?

  Are you aware that, that Don Lithgow wrote a New York Times bestseller called Dumpty, uh, which was a series of, uh, comical nursery rhymes about Donald Trump. Then he wrote a sequel called Trumpy Dumpty Wanted a Crown. And my guess in that one, he turns around and he says, Trump not so bad. Wait, you're telling me he doubles down on how Trump is bad? And then would you, would it shock you to learn that there's a third book called A Confederacy of Dumpties?

• 1:58:43Griffin Newman?

  Who's that for?

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  What do you mean? Children? They love John Lithgow's, uh, hectoring poetry.

• 1:58:54Speaker 02

  And I think it's, he only needs to write one more, which hopefully he's working on in between shows and then that's gonna, that's gonna do it.

• 1:59:00David Sims?

  That'll, then Trump will be like, he got me.

• 1:59:04Speaker 02

  He's rhymed.

• 1:59:05David Sims?

  I didn't think he'd do, he's spitting on fire.

• 1:59:10David Sims?

  All right, Joey, just one more plug, of course, for your podcast.

• 1:59:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. So my podcast, thank you, Theater We Saw, which I don't know what episode we'll be on by the time this comes out. Um, you know, as I'm talking about it, it's very new. It releases bi-weekly. We talk about two shows, uh, each episode, two new shows, but maybe we'll do some fun episodes as I, as I mentioned, such as about the, the, the pipe robbery at Perfect Crime. And, um,

• 1:59:39David Sims?

  You have guests on occasionally?

• 1:59:41Speaker 02

  We have cool guests on. We just had Grace Walker, who's a great, like, theater TikToker on. We're gonna have more cool people on, including non-theater people. A big hope of ours going forward is to start having some people who are not like theater-specific people, but like comedians who are like, who are into theater, because many of them are, whether they proudly admit it or, or not. Um, so we're hopeful to have lots of different types of guests on. And, uh, yeah, it's fun. Give it a, give it a listen.

• 2:00:11David Sims?

  There's a link in the episode description. And wait, this is also a first. You have to take us out. Oh, okay. Um, yeah. So in the, when I, uh, listen to Joey's podcast, um, next week on the show is Toy Story, Toy Story 5. Of course, which at this point has already come out because the Stanton series premiered a little later, but we have yet to see. But I'm told there's an iPad. Uh, so that's next week. And then we will be starting our series on some fuck called Martin Scorsese. So looking forward to that. Uh, and, uh, as always, um, Well, no, you gotta rate, review, subscribe.

• 2:00:52Speaker 02

  Rate, review and subscribe.

• 2:00:53David Sims?

  We have a Patreon. Yeah, sure. We got, okay. Blank Check special features. Uh, yeah. Blank Check special features. We got, uh, we're starting our Resident Evil commentary series.

• 2:01:03Speaker 02

  Fun.

• 2:01:04David Sims?

  We're gonna watch the Resident Evil movies. Paul W. S. Anderson, his universe of six movies, and then the risible Resident Evil Welcome to Raccoon City. And then I guess we will touch on, uh, the Zack Kraker movie as well at some point. Uh, I don't know. Like, yeah, we'll, we'll talk about it. That's patreon.com/blankcheck. We also have a newsletter on Substack, Checkbook. It's a weekly behind the scenes look into the world of Blank Check. I think we've done all we need to do as far as housekeeping. So, and as always, David.

• 2:01:39Speaker 02

  As always, uh,

• 2:01:42David Sims?

  Do something about the nut.

• 2:01:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's, there's an acorn.

• 2:01:47David Sims?

  Golden nut.

• 2:01:48Speaker 02

  That's a golden acorn.

• 2:01:49David Sims?

  Even I have.

• 2:01:55Speaker 03

  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 L.A. Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:02:40Speaker 03

  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.