No Country for Old Men with Leslye Headland

The Two Friendos, plus “Masterpiece” Leslye Headland and “I would have had no problems handling that bag of money” Ben Hosley take on one of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century in this week’s episode. It’s No Country For Old Men week on Blank Check! We’re chatting about Anton Chigurh’s strange physicality, Tommy Lee Jones’ tired resignation, and Josh Brolin’s career breakthrough in this episode, all while lavishing praise on the Coens’ practically perfect film. Now tell us - what’s the most that you’ve ever lost on a coin toss? Check out the SNL Jumanji Sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cdBcfLhJVY Read Cormac McCarthy's Books https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/19680/cormac-mccarthy/ Check out the Brooklyn Kolache Company https://www.brooklynkolache.com/ Check out Every Frame a Painting https://www.youtube.com/@everyframeapainting Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

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

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

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

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 03

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

• 1:39Speaker 04

  What's the most you've ever lost in a podcast?

• 1:43David Sims?

  I don't know, four hours or so.

• 1:46Griffin Newman?

  I'm teeing you up on that one.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Was that Count Dracula?

• 1:49Speaker 04

  What is the most you've ever lost in a podcast, blah, blah, blah?

• 1:53David Sims?

  Call it, call it.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:57David Sims?

  Yeah, how do you do him? Remember that was the, that was the trailer? Just so much of him, friend.

• 2:03Griffin Newman?

  We are, we are the two friendos.

• 2:07Griffin Newman?

  The two friendos.

• 2:08David Sims?

  All right, warm me up, warm me up.

• 2:10Griffin Newman?

  There we go, come on.

• 2:11David Sims?

  Griff's moving the skillet around.

• 2:13Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yes. That, that scene is David slapping himself in the face.

• 2:18David Sims?

  I'm every scene of, not just that scene, every scene of Anton Chigurh talking to a random Texan who basically starts the conversation with nice weather we're having and ends with, am I looking into the face of Satan?

• 2:32Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you.

• 2:33David Sims?

  It's so good.

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  Every one of those scenes is crack.

• 2:36David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:37Griffin Newman?

  But the convenience store is mega crack.

• 2:39David Sims?

  Of course, that's the, that's the peak.

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  I could wa- lock myself in a room and watch that scene on endless loop every day for the rest of my life. I would be thrilled.

• 2:47Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 2:47Griffin Newman?

  I find that scene to be the most activated thing in the world.

• 2:54Speaker 05

  Well, why, why?

• 2:56Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is what we're here to dissect, perhaps. It, it feels like the perfect distillation of what this movie is doing. So much of it is his performance. Uh, the guy whose name I want to call out right off the bat.

• 3:08Speaker 05

  Oh, Gene, Gene. My wife did a, a play with him. Yeah.

• 3:12Griffin Newman?

  Um, he's kind of what?

• 3:14David Sims?

  Gene Jones is the actor's name?

• 3:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and his character name is?

• 3:18David Sims?

  Gas station proprietor.

• 3:19Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yes.

• 3:20David Sims?

  And it's his first film credit.

• 3:22Griffin Newman?

  That's what, right.

• 3:23David Sims?

  Done a couple of TV shows.

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 3:26David Sims?

  But it's his first film credit.

• 3:27Griffin Newman?

  A lot of theater and then, yes, he, he has kept working. He was, uh, the lead of, uh, The Sacraments, right?

• 3:33David Sims?

  Yes, which I think he actually got like a, like a, you know, a golden chainsaw award or whatever.

• 3:39Griffin Newman?

  He probably got that chainsaw, yeah.

• 3:41David Sims?

  Um, I never saw that one. That's the Ty West movie with, uh, Joe Swanberg?

• 3:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:46Speaker 05

  And it's a, wow, Joe Swanberg. Wait, what did she say?

• 3:49David Sims?

  I said, sounds normal.

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the Anton Sugar, the mom of course.

• 3:55Griffin Newman?

  This movie, I feel like the magic of the Sugar performance, right?

• 4:00David Sims?

  He's played by Javier Bardem in this film.

• 4:03Griffin Newman?

  Aren't you sure about that? That doesn't sound right.

• 4:05David Sims?

  Absolutely. The Spanish actor.

• 4:06Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I would have known of it.

• 4:07David Sims?

  Javier Bardem, and he won an Academy Award for this.

• 4:09Griffin Newman?

  He did win an Academy Award for this, yes. The magic of that characterization, and as you said, every one of those scenes where he's face to face with someone who's just greeting him with gentle charm.

• 4:22Speaker 05

  Like a human, a human interaction.

• 4:25David Sims?

  Every single time, like, how's it going? Like, what's the weather like?

• 4:29Griffin Newman?

  Pleasant trees.

• 4:30David Sims?

  Where are you going tonight? You know, like, how's the day been so far, essentially?

• 4:34Speaker 03

  I gotta say, though, I kind of relate to not wanting to have small talk. It's like a real trigger.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  You think that's the driving force of this? Do you think the battery of this film is just this guy being like?

• 4:44David Sims?

  I'm not that, I'm not, I haven't been to the South that much, but I do think if you hate small talk, you probably shouldn't go there, right? Because I feel like that is part of the social contract.

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  Stay in the big, mean cities.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah?

• 4:53David Sims?

  Right, right, right. A little bit more, I feel like there's more chit chat, right? You, don't you think so?

• 4:57Speaker 05

  I, I don't know. I've never been to Texas because of the thin blue line. I'm just not going.

• 5:03David Sims?

  But you're worried that you'll get thin blue lines?

• 5:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:05David Sims?

  You'll like go to a convenience store and then like you're fucking doomed unless Errol Morris makes a movie about you.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  I was like, I'm never going.

• 5:11Griffin Newman?

  It's like the SNL Jumanji sketch.

• 5:15David Sims?

  I'm not saying it's like overbearing. I think it's just like, there's a little bit more.

• 5:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, hi y'all, yeah.

• 5:20David Sims?

  It's also, how's your day? How's your fucking day?

• 5:23Griffin Newman?

  It's also the thing that Tommy Lee Jones says.

• 5:24Speaker 05

  That's not a read, by the way. That's not a read.

• 5:27Griffin Newman?

  There's the scene with Tommy Lee Jones where he's talking to the older cop and they're comparing notes and he's like, these kids with the bones in their noses and all this sort of stuff.

• 5:34David Sims?

  Green hair.

• 5:35Griffin Newman?

  Right, and Tommy Lee Jones is just like, the second people stop saying like ma'am and sir.

• 5:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 5:40Griffin Newman?

  It was all slipping away, right? And most of the people that Sugar is dealing with are older.

• 5:46David Sims?

  Older, older people.

• 5:46Griffin Newman?

  Right, and this feeling of like, there is a sense of like polite civility.

• 5:51Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 5:51Griffin Newman?

  And a sort of like attempt to engage with all people with a good face that is perhaps like eroding in culture. I think the Jean scene is the longest one. It is the most sustained. It is such a perfect, like, kind of like rubber band pulled to its absolute breaking point.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 6:06Griffin Newman?

  And then the bizarreness of, rather than letting it snap, slowly putting it back into position. You know, the lack of release of tension in that scene in either direction.

• 6:18Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 6:18Griffin Newman?

  Is so bizarre, but I also think he plays the, the fear of it so well.

• 6:25Speaker 05

  Well, Javier did a interview where he said, you know, that scene is really great because of Jean.

• 6:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 05

  You know, he said, I'm just saying it, and he's playing the fear and the nervousness and the terror.

• 6:38Griffin Newman?

  He's an incredible listener. He's not overplaying it.

• 6:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:41Griffin Newman?

  He still wants to be, uh, I don't want to say gentlemanly.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:46Griffin Newman?

  But he's trying to treat this man with kindness with every answer as his fear is increasing.

• 6:51Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 6:51Griffin Newman?

  But he won't give that up.

• 6:53David Sims?

  He's not gonna be like, what's your fucking problem?

• 6:56Griffin Newman?

  Get the fuck out of here.

• 6:57David Sims?

  It is also very. He is trying to engage with him.

• 7:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:01David Sims?

  It's very funny that he keeps being like, you married into this? And he's like, kind of blank, like, not getting it.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  He chokes on the sunflower seeds at the notion that he inherited a thing from his wife's dad. And Jean doesn't respond with any defensiveness. He doesn't do like a, well, well, well.

• 7:17Speaker 05

  No, he's like, yeah, if you want to put it that way.

• 7:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  He goes, and there is no way to put it.

• 7:22Griffin Newman?

  And even just down to, I think it's the final shot of the scene of Sugar putting the sunflower seed bag.

• 7:31David Sims?

  I love that shot.

• 7:32Griffin Newman?

  On the desk.

• 7:32David Sims?

  Crumpled up and then it slowly uncrumples.

• 7:35Griffin Newman?

  Expands.

• 7:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's the, because it's the, the tension.

• 7:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:38Speaker 05

  And then the release.

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 7:40Speaker 05

  You know, of just like, we are so tense. And actually oddly, the release of that is like why you remember it.

• 7:46Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  Because you're hoping for that. Like, you're hoping that that's gonna.

• 7:50Griffin Newman?

  But also, much like the bag, you release it and then it's still just like a crumpled mess, right? You don't go like, oh my god, you never see Jean again.

• 7:57Speaker 05

  Nope. Bye, Gene.

• 7:58Griffin Newman?

  You're relieved that Gene didn't die, but you're also like, nothing has been solved here.

• 8:03Speaker 05

  No, not at all.

• 8:04Griffin Newman?

  And it's in fact, almost scarier where you're like, this is so completely random and meaningless for him.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:11Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:11Griffin Newman?

  That he throws the coin toss into it and it doesn't feel like an element of like perverse fun. It's not like he's a fucking James Bond villain with a gimmick of the coin. He's not Two-Face, right?

• 8:22Speaker 05

  No, no. Two-Face? No, no.

• 8:24Griffin Newman?

  He's not getting any joy from

• 8:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:26Griffin Newman?

  the idea of staking it all on that. It just feels like this guy, right? He's just, he's pure evil.

• 8:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:32David Sims?

  Uh, hmm, no.

• 8:34Griffin Newman?

  Or, or he's pure, this is what we need to break down.

• 8:37David Sims?

  So, well, so with Two-Face, to To- Toothface.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  Toothface.

• 8:40David Sims?

  Toothface is a new villain I'm pitching, which is a guy who's faces are

• 8:43Griffin Newman?

  All teeth.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Keep going. Yeah.

• 8:45David Sims?

  I love Two-Face, not to get too deep into fucking comic book talk, right? But it's like, his, his, uh, he's so traumatized by what happened to him. He cannot handle making any decision without, uh, flipping a goddamn coin.

• 8:59Griffin Newman?

  He needs fate to decide which side of his trauma response takes over.

• 9:02David Sims?

  But I think Anton Shiger is doing a little bit of that where he's like, um, it's not all me. That, no, this is, this is faded or not faded. And like, I am merely an instrument of something I don't understand. And that's why it's so important that Kelly McDonald says to him like,

• 9:19Speaker 05

  It's interesting that you say

• 9:20David Sims?

  You're saying it's the coin, but it is definitely not the coin.

• 9:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:23David Sims?

  Like, it is you, my friend.

• 9:24Speaker 05

  It's interesting that you say instrument, cause so in the book, this is essentially word for word.

• 9:29Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:29Speaker 05

  It's essentially word for word, this scene, including putting down the rapper.

• 9:33Griffin Newman?

  It is funny that they won a screenplay Oscar for this, cause they have been so open about the fact where

• 9:37Speaker 05

  It's just a cut and paste.

• 9:39Griffin Newman?

  Right. I think there's a line where they were like, uh,

• 9:41David Sims?

  They said, one of us holds the book flat, the other one types.

• 9:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then they talk about how much they consolidated and things they preened and

• 9:48David Sims?

  As a big fan of this book, they did, they did, they did a great job adapting.

• 9:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:52David Sims?

  It is not transcription.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  They definitely, no, they definitely did the

• 9:55David Sims?

  But you're right that the dialogue is

• 9:56Speaker 05

  The dialogue is the same. The, you know, I wouldn't say cut and paste, because there are many things. One of the things they didn't include, and you don't need to because of the visuals, is anything can be an instrument. Shiger said, small things. Things, things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day, there's an accounting. And after that, nothing is the same. Well, you say, it's just a coin. For instance, nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see, the problem, to separate the act from the thing, as if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes, that's true. Is it?

• 10:37Griffin Newman?

  So that's, I mean, beautiful writing, but also, what a great underlining of...

• 10:42Speaker 05

  The whole thing.

• 10:43Griffin Newman?

  And also, and also, that the value of this movie is, as you just said, they don't need that because they're able to convey that through repeated visual patterns.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Yes, to the visuals, yeah. And the performance, yeah.

• 10:55Griffin Newman?

  This movie came out in the very brief tenure in which I was attending film school before I dropped out and ruined my entire life. Or fixed it. Unclear.

• 11:03David Sims?

  Doing great now.

• 11:04Griffin Newman?

  Jury's still out.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  You're doing very well.

• 11:06Griffin Newman?

  Jury's still out.

• 11:07David Sims?

  Fucking film school. Nobody ever learns anything out of those.

• 11:09Griffin Newman?

  Sure. But this is the period of time where I'm just like, all I need to do all day is watch movies and break them down because I'm trying to like, figure out how to engineer these things myself.

• 11:18David Sims?

  That's work. That's your work.

• 11:19Griffin Newman?

  And this movie comes out that fall. Basically, in the one semester and change that I'm in film school. And I'm in Valencia, California. If there's an artsy movie I want to see a more limited release, I need a friend with a car to drive me to the fucking landmark. Or the Arc Light or something.

• 11:37Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 11:38Griffin Newman?

  But no country is mainstream enough that it goes to the Valencia Town Center 16.

• 11:43Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 11:44Griffin Newman?

  And plays there for months. And I saw this movie so many fucking times.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  In the theater?

• 11:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And I just would see it. I'd just be like, this is the blueprint. This is the best constructed movie I have ever seen. I saw it so many times, I hadn't watched it in quite a while because I was so obsessed with it in its year.

• 12:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:03Griffin Newman?

  Where I was just, and, and I was just like, well, this is just the pinnacle of everything.

• 12:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:07Griffin Newman?

  And I watch it now, and I'm like, I don't know where I'm gonna rank it in their filmography. There's definitely a ton I put above this. I don't think it's their best movie, but it might be one of the best made films ever. It is just so perfectly made.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I saw it three times in the theater.

• 12:24David Sims?

  It's a lot.

• 12:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:25David Sims?

  I saw it once or twice. And I've seen it several times since then. It's a movie I admire. Uh, it's a book I love.

• 12:32Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 12:33David Sims?

  And it's an author I love.

• 12:36David Sims?

  I do love Cormac McCarthy. Perhaps it's a little fucking, you know, boring of me.

• 12:42Speaker 05

  Why would it be boring?

• 12:43David Sims?

  I don't know. I feel like so many 20 something boys have a Cormac McCarthy face, right? Maybe not. Maybe, maybe I'm being too rude.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  You're kind of built like the description from Blood Meridian.

• 12:55Speaker 05

  I was gonna say, I do think there's like, Blood Meridian is like a gateway drug to something.

• 13:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:01David Sims?

  I-

• 13:02Speaker 05

  I don't know what, but-

• 13:03David Sims?

  Love him.

• 13:04Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:05David Sims?

  And I love how he clearly, how he behaved his whole life totally normal. I love that. Uh, no, but I do, I love-

• 13:11Speaker 05

  Well-adjusted.

• 13:12David Sims?

  And he's one of those guys who, uh, his books, I mean, the Border Trilogy, this, All the Pretty Horses and Crossing, and, you know, those books are my favorite. And they will just, once every two or three pages, just have a moment, have some line where you're just like, that's the best thing I ever-

• 13:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 13:27David Sims?

  Like, that's the most incredible, beautiful-

• 13:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 13:30David Sims?

  Evocation of like, light going through a fucking window-

• 13:33Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:34David Sims?

  That I've ever seen. And you put the book down and you just soak it in. And that's why I do feel like he's hard to put on film, and they did such an incredible job putting him on film.

• 13:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:42David Sims?

  And so that's what I-

• 13:43Griffin Newman?

  Cause I also-

• 13:44David Sims?

  Love about this movie the most.

• 13:45Griffin Newman?

  This movie, watching it-

• 13:46David Sims?

  And we haven't even introduced this podcast yet.

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  No, and I'm good doing a second, but this movie, watching it, I feel the way you just described reading Cormac McCarthy books, where like, every three minutes, there's something that happens where I'm like, that's just, that's the greatest visual storytelling I've ever seen.

• 13:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:59Griffin Newman?

  That's the greatest evocation of a feeling-

• 14:03Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 14:03Griffin Newman?

  A moment, a communication of an idea.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  I agree, yeah.

• 14:06Griffin Newman?

  Whether it's thematic or plot.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:09Griffin Newman?

  This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 14:13David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 14:13Griffin Newman?

  We're the two friendos, and 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 products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce friendo. I'm just gonna keep saying friendo. Um, this is a mini-series on the films of Joel and Ethan Coan. Today, we're talking about the titular film in our series.

• 14:38David Sims?

  Pod Country for Old Casts.

• 14:39Speaker 05

  Oh, the titular, yes, yeah.

• 14:42Griffin Newman?

  It is, it is.

• 14:43David Sims?

  No Country for Old Men is the film.

• 14:44Griffin Newman?

  The pinnacle of their career within the industry, certainly like within the arc of their career.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  Agreed.

• 14:50David Sims?

  It's interesting, it is both a pinnacle and a comeback.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Yes, it is a comeback. That's right, because Lady Killers is right before that.

• 14:57Griffin Newman?

  And In Talbot Coolty is right before that.

• 14:59David Sims?

  It's sort of them, it's them as, look, when you two released All That You Can't Leave Behind.

• 15:04Griffin Newman?

  We talk about this all the time.

• 15:06David Sims?

  You interested in me talking about this right now? Sorry, anytime I bring up you two.

• 15:09Griffin Newman?

  Ben is holding a cattle gun to his head.

• 15:12David Sims?

  They had just, they had made Zeropa and they had made Pop and they were kind of, you know, they were a little down and they were like, we're, we're auditioning, we're re-auditioning for the role of like best rock band.

• 15:23Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure.

• 15:24David Sims?

  And this is the Coens being like, we're, we're re-auditioning for like the best directors working.

• 15:28Griffin Newman?

  This, the other thing I was thinking about. How'd it work out for you two?

• 15:32David Sims?

  I don't know, millions of records sold, biggest tours ever, won fucking Grammys and shit.

• 15:37Griffin Newman?

  But they never got Ben's respect. The ultimate prize.

• 15:43Griffin Newman?

  I was thinking, within the same year, this is very similar to the moment of Spielberg going from 1941 to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 15:53David Sims?

  That's interesting.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 15:55Griffin Newman?

  Which, and that episode I said was like kind of one of the greatest comeback moments, movies in Hollywood history. Not moments, because his, his cold streak was not sustained.

• 16:04Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no.

• 16:05Griffin Newman?

  But it was a real, like, we're ready to knock this guy down to size.

• 16:08Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:09Griffin Newman?

  And he just kind of like pulled himself up and was like, I gotta make something just like kind of so lean and focused and undeniable.

• 16:15Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 16:15Griffin Newman?

  And this feels similar to that where I'm like, I don't think Raiders is Spielberg's best movie.

• 16:19Speaker 05

  B movie, nail it, yeah.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  It might be his best made film.

• 16:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:23Griffin Newman?

  Like, he's just like, I just gotta make myself undeniable here.

• 16:26David Sims?

  Sure.

• 16:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:27David Sims?

  I mean, of course, the Coens are just gonna be like, no, we like the book. I mean, I'll, I'll look at what they said in interviews.

• 16:32Griffin Newman?

  They never talk about that strategy and they talk about.

• 16:34David Sims?

  We needed to fucking punch Hollywood in the face and knock everyone's teeth out.

• 16:37Griffin Newman?

  They talk about a deeply normal man, Scott Rudin, begging them to do it. And I'm being like, I don't know, who's gonna adapt Cormac McCarthy?

• 16:43Speaker 05

  Right.

• 16:44Griffin Newman?

  But this also comes in a three-year gap after Lady Killers. There was this feeling of like, are they just cooked?

• 16:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:50Griffin Newman?

  Where did they go? And we were saying, right before we recorded, the great Leslie Headland, returning to the show. Hey, Leslie.

• 16:56Speaker 05

  Podcast. Hey, guys, good to be back. Leslie Nation, rise up.

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  Cult of Love.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  Cult of Love recently on Broadway. Broadway, girl.

• 17:05Griffin Newman?

  Soon to be.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  A film, yes.

• 17:08Griffin Newman?

  In front of cameras, a movie picture.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  Soon to be in front of cameras, yeah.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  Adaptation. We'll see what happens. It's certainly not gonna be this.

• 17:15Griffin Newman?

  But we were saying, like, in, you said, "How's the series been going?" And I said, "Great. Every one of these movies is a delight to re-watch." Every night when I'm like, "Oh, fuck."

• 17:25Speaker 05

  That was what I was wondering.

• 17:26Griffin Newman?

  "I gotta watch a Coen movie tonight." I'm just always thrilled.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, you're thrilled.

• 17:29Griffin Newman?

  Always thrilled.

• 17:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. For different reasons.

• 17:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 05

  Because it might be just a disaster. And then it might be, yeah, one of the greatest film adaptations ever.

• 17:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But also, as we've been tracking the critical response of these movies.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:46Griffin Newman?

  It was like, there was such a skepticism about them. Then it's sort of squashed by Fargo. And then, right after Fargo, everyone's like, "Fuck, no, we were right."

• 17:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:56Griffin Newman?

  And there's a feeling of getting twice as angry as them. And then, from this movie on, everyone was like, "I guess they're undeniable." It did feel like they so completely won the argument.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  I think it was so interesting, too, that, like, one-two punch of Fargo. We, you know, exactly what you said. Lebowski, which, at the time, everybody.

• 18:16Griffin Newman?

  People were furious.

• 18:18Speaker 05

  Furious. And it's just so funny that that's the film that is culturally.

• 18:23Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely, they're biggest.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  I mean, of course Fargo is, but Lebowski has completely surpassed it in that sense.

• 18:30Griffin Newman?

  It will be the movie in their obituary.

• 18:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:33Griffin Newman?

  Unquestionably, right? They will never make something that has a bigger cultural impact than Lebowski.

• 18:37Speaker 05

  That's what it is, yeah. Is it their best movie? No, like, not at all, but, but there's no, although, you know what? I asked my assistant, um, I have an assistant.

• 18:50Speaker 05

  I asked her, like, I quoted the movie, and she was like, you know, she's my assistant. So she's like, "Uh-huh."

• 18:58Speaker 05

  And, uh, and I said, well, you know, have you, have you seen The Big Lebowski? And she was like, I mean, I've heard of it.

• 19:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 05

  It's not necessarily a next generation watch, but this is my point.

• 19:12Griffin Newman?

  What age is your assistant?

• 19:14Speaker 05

  She's, um, late twenties.

• 19:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 19:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:16Griffin Newman?

  Cause my sister's 27 and I'm also wondering now, has she maybe never seen Lebowski?

• 19:21Speaker 05

  But she knows it. Like she understands that it's something in the world. Yeah.

• 19:26Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. It is just kinda universal shorthand.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:29Griffin Newman?

  There is sometimes a question our, our listeners love to throw out of like.

• 19:33David Sims?

  There's sometimes a buggy.

• 19:35Griffin Newman?

  There's sometimes a buggy?

• 19:36David Sims?

  I'm invoking, uh, Mulholland Drive, which was the last time.

• 19:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is what I was gonna say, David. Who, what guest has had the best run of movies?

• 19:46Speaker 05

  Mine.

• 19:46Griffin Newman?

  You are a relatively recent addition to our regular guest canon, but you have exclusively covered three of the most important American films of the last 25.

• 19:55David Sims?

  Not only that, but three films that are sort of like seen by many as the best.

• 19:58Speaker 05

  Of, in.

• 19:59David Sims?

  Zodiac.

• 20:00Griffin Newman?

  Our in conversation of.

• 20:00David Sims?

  Mulholland Drive.

• 20:01Speaker 05

  I've honored.

• 20:02Griffin Newman?

  Pemic filmmakers.

• 20:03Speaker 05

  I can't believe it happened this way.

• 20:04David Sims?

  You're out of control is what I'm trying to say. Next time you're getting a piece of shit.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, please get me the.

• 20:11Griffin Newman?

  Get a bowl of diarrhea.

• 20:12Speaker 05

  I was thinking like, first of all, I was thinking that and like how honored and excited and like blessed I feel. Thank you all so much, um, for, um, boosting up my ego. Um, but I also thought how similar those three movies are in terms of especially, uh, in terms of structure. Like you're, you're just, again, you're like, wait, which scene is coming next? Like there's this world that you live in rather than, um.

• 20:39David Sims?

  Absolute straight line.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  Absolute straight line. Like I was buying a book at a bookstore. I was getting a Coen Brothers book and they, and the lady was like, oh, this is, you know, so blah, blah, blah. And I said, oh, I'm doing this podcast about No Country For Old Men and, um, I previously did, uh, Zodiac and.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Mulholland Drive. And she said, oh, those are really interesting movies about time.

• 21:04Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 21:04David Sims?

  Zodiac, very much so. Obviously Mulholland Drive. Yeah, no, absolutely.

• 21:08Griffin Newman?

  Also, not to be reductive, but I think all three movies at their core are about touching the membrane of like absolute darkness, right?

• 21:18David Sims?

  Yes.

• 21:19Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 21:19Griffin Newman?

  And this feeling of like, can you make it through the other side?

• 21:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the other side of the. That's the other side of the coin in inviting me.

• 21:26Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  You know, is that I get to do the, I get to do the best movies, but also the, the flip side of the coin is you're here for the darkest shit.

• 21:33Griffin Newman?

  I also think that you and I are similar. It, it's interesting. Look, your friend Zach Craig, who we had on the Fargo episode.

• 21:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:39Griffin Newman?

  The two of you got engaged in your own calling toss.

• 21:42Speaker 05

  We did.

• 21:42Griffin Newman?

  Trying to pick between those two episodes and you were going back and forth. And we said, look, we're gonna win either way, however this lands. We're happy to have either of you on either one.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:50Griffin Newman?

  Figure it out amongst yourselves.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  And we, we hooked up and, you know, connected and, and he said, you know, I really love to do Fargo. Cause I kind of went like, oh, Fargo's available. Let's do it. Um, and then he, you know, he said, hey, you know, I really want to do Fargo. I have this personal connection to it. I love the film. And, uh, clearly he's a filmmaker. And I said, yeah, man, I just thought you'd want to do No Country.

• 22:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 05

  I just wanted to give you that because it's there, you know, it's, it's everything that you're saying. It may not be the best film. I think we can talk about why it's a superlative, very influential in their being taken seriously, Best Picture, et cetera. And he really was like, oh, do you think that? You know, not in a derogatory way, but he certainly was like, oh, I, I would consider Fargo. Like that's the one that I would.

• 22:37Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Lean toward.

• 22:38David Sims?

  It worked out because that episode comes out, uh, close to the release of his film and that's fun.

• 22:43Speaker 05

  Oh, that's good.

• 22:44Griffin Newman?

  Everything worked out, but when you were texting with us about it, you were like, I mean, does it make more sense for me to do Fargo, like female protagonist?

• 22:52Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 22:53Griffin Newman?

  It has the sort of like black humor.

• 22:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:55Griffin Newman?

  Right? Versus like, is Zach seen as a little more highbrow and thrillery and sparse? And you were sort of like talking over the sides of it.

• 23:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:04Griffin Newman?

  What I was gonna say, I think you and I are similar in this respect is like. This feeling of constantly thinking about the absolute worst things in the world. And like needing to combat that with some sense of humor.

• 23:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think that's right.

• 23:20Griffin Newman?

  That isn't avoidance.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:21Griffin Newman?

  That is like trying to push through it, which is a thing I think the Coens do really well.

• 23:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:25Griffin Newman?

  I think all three of the movies you've covered are funny in bizarre ways.

• 23:30Speaker 05

  In certain ways, yeah.

• 23:31Griffin Newman?

  I think this movie is very funny in bizarre ways.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:35Griffin Newman?

  I think like Fargo is more explicitly funny. And has the sense of like, we are going to place goodness at the center of this. We're going to remind you that it exists in a very pure way.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, I agree. And I think that when I was thinking of the three of them, and then I am curious, your guys feeling like the Fargo versus this movie. But like, very quickly, I was thinking about the three of those movies. And how like, in a personal way, yeah, there was just this like delving into darkness and the, you know, at the times that those films came out, like.

• 24:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  I said on Zodiac that like, you know, I watched it every day for a while because I was so depressed.

• 24:10David Sims?

  And it's comforting.

• 24:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's very comforting. And Mulholland Drive, like I said, you know, lesbian working in Hollywood with suicide ideation. That's me. I totally relate with that. What's interesting is that I couldn't really figure out why this movie hit me so hard. So I'm excited to talk about it.

• 24:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 05

  I don't know how, why it hit me so hard at the time and why it hit me so hard rewatching it.

• 24:34Griffin Newman?

  I think that was part of it for me in this non-conspiratorial way. Cause I like that the movie doesn't create some insane interconnected web of stuff, right? Like, to a certain degree, the, the events of this movie are kind of meaningless.

• 24:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:48Griffin Newman?

  In a way, they love.

• 24:49David Sims?

  They, yeah, so the events of this movie revolve around things that are really not our business.

• 24:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 24:54David Sims?

  Yeah. And like, Llewellyn, the only sort of quote unquote, kind of, you know, normal guy in it.

• 25:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:03David Sims?

  He just shouldn't have gotten involved in this business. Now Ben's about to say if he stumbled across a bag of money. He would have escaped scot-free with no issues whatsoever.

• 25:11Speaker 05

  He'd own a castle.

• 25:12David Sims?

  Have been on a Mai Tai somewhere, for sure.

• 25:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it's been interesting in the episodes we've done leading up to this. And when No Country Gets Invoked, several different guests have gone, it just always drives me crazy that he goes back and gives the water. That makes zero sense.

• 25:28Speaker 05

  Absolutely, yeah. I was, when I was rewatching it, my wife was like, so stupid.

• 25:32Griffin Newman?

  Bring it up as such an urgent, like, I still haven't gotten over this. As if it's like the kind of slam against a horror movie of, why would he go in there? That's so dumb, right?

• 25:42Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 25:42Griffin Newman?

  But I think it's like, the core of the movie is why it is so effective and maddening, is you're like, the guy is basically doing the save the cat thing, and it ruins his entire life.

• 25:53Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, it's also like the, the, what he, what Sugar says to Woody Harrelson.

• 25:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  If the rule that brought you here, it's like, if, if the rule that brought you here, what, what use was the rule?

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:05Speaker 05

  Right? So the, the rule of you bring water to a dying man?

• 26:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:10Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? What was the use of that?

• 26:13Speaker 05

  After everything that comes after it.

• 26:14Griffin Newman?

  As you said, David, he never should have been there. He shouldn't have gotten into this, right?

• 26:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:18Griffin Newman?

  But of course, he would have been in a better place if he actually just took the money and ran. And the fact that he goes back and does the moral thing to, in his mind, kind of balance it, fucks him to a far deeper degree.

• 26:30Speaker 05

  In a very intense way.

• 26:31David Sims?

  Well, it's, you, sort of, but also he should have just looked in the bag. There's a fucking tracker in the bag.

• 26:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Okay, can I just?

• 26:38Griffin Newman?

  Clever about the carve out.

• 26:40David Sims?

  He's clever too, though. He's, you know, he's supposedly, he has clever moments.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Cause I don't want to make it seem like I wouldn't, like, I have humanity. I would feel for this person.

• 26:49Griffin Newman?

  Deeply moral man.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would have empathy. So what I would have done is grabbed a cactus. Cause you know, they're, they're full of water.

• 26:57David Sims?

  And I was gonna say, they're also famously easy to grab.

• 27:00Griffin Newman?

  Grabbable.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, you know, I would get like, I would, uh,

• 27:04David Sims?

  Ben is making hand movements.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  I would make it happen.

• 27:08Griffin Newman?

  Also famously easy to do.

• 27:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was gonna say, like, what is happening?

• 27:12Speaker 03

  And then once I've now got the bag back home, here's the thing I would definitely do.

• 27:17Griffin Newman?

  You go through every bag.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  I would dump it out on the bed because I want to roll around in that frigging money.

• 27:22David Sims?

  You're not even dumping it out to sort of take a closer look. You're like, I need to Scrooge McDuck it right away.

• 27:27Griffin Newman?

  And in doing that, you would end up discovering the tracker.

• 27:30David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 27:31Griffin Newman?

  Not because you're that smart, but because your instincts.

• 27:33David Sims?

  Yep.

• 27:34Griffin Newman?

  Are that kind of in tune.

• 27:35David Sims?

  I want it thrown up in the air. I want to make it rain.

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And would maybe make it work.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:41Griffin Newman?

  Um, I think similarly, like spoilers for No Country for Old Men.

• 27:45Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 27:46Griffin Newman?

  But like, the most fascinating thing this movie does, and the thing that Coen Brothers said was the thing that made them ultimately decide, fuck, we should adapt this.

• 27:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:55Griffin Newman?

  Is the feeling of this kind of wrong footed thriller where the lead characters never meet each other.

• 28:02David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:02Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 28:03Griffin Newman?

  And it all ultimately feels a little meaningless.

• 28:05David Sims?

  It's a movie that seems to promise a showdown, and the showdown never really arrives.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  It feels like it's all building towards these three characters ending up in a good, the bad, the ugly style standoff.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 28:16Griffin Newman?

  And instead, and I, you know, as someone who just kept seeing this in the suburbs of Valencia.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:21Griffin Newman?

  And would just feel the audience go like, what do you mean he's dead? The moment you cut to Josh Brolin on the floor, and there's this feeling of like, there must be a misunderstanding. He's, he's pulling a Hannibal Lecter, someone else is wearing his face, whatever it is. There's no way the movie has just, and it's got 30 minutes left to go.

• 28:39Speaker 05

  It's such a weird shot as well. It's really in a place where you can't quite see his face.

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  The angle is odd.

• 28:46Speaker 05

  The angle is wild.

• 28:47Griffin Newman?

  You're like under his jaw, and then it's not really until Tommy Lee Jones takes off his hat and Kelly Mc Donald cries that you're like, I guess this is.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  I guess that was him.

• 28:55Griffin Newman?

  I guess it's real.

• 28:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:56Griffin Newman?

  But the moment before, it's sort of.

• 28:59Speaker 05

  What I'm saying is like, there's no veneration of him.

• 29:01Griffin Newman?

  No, of course.

• 29:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's, yeah, that's what.

• 29:02Griffin Newman?

  It's, he has to get a hero's death, and you get this slow fade out. And then the next thing you see is the police arriving, right?

• 29:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:10Griffin Newman?

  And the dissolve comes after a woman sitting by the side of the pool, promising him beer.

• 29:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:16Griffin Newman?

  Hitting on him.

• 29:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:18Griffin Newman?

  And he keeps going like, my wife is coming.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:20Griffin Newman?

  I'm a married man. I don't want to.

• 29:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, you keep wondering, is this a morality test that he's gonna slip?

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:28Griffin Newman?

  And in the universe of this movie, that is what causes his death.

• 29:32Speaker 05

  That's a good point.

• 29:33Griffin Newman?

  Right, not that she's a temptress, a siren of evil or whatever, but that it's. It's a sense of this guy.

• 29:38Speaker 05

  Right, but but is it like, is it like the water where he if he's punished for the good thing? Perhaps he turns her down. Do you know what I mean? Like punished for that.

• 29:49David Sims?

  In the book, obviously, that character is more major.

• 29:51Speaker 05

  She is. She's like a runaway.

• 29:53David Sims?

  Yes, they have a whole long section that all gets cut.

• 29:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:57David Sims?

  But no, his, his, no, it's his grandma, uh, his, sorry, mother-in-law is the one who gets him killed too. She gives him away.

• 30:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, she gives him away.

• 30:06David Sims?

  He shouldn't have called his wife.

• 30:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 30:08David Sims?

  Um, he, look, his biggest mistake is he stays in a fucking motel. Stay in a hotel with a desk, a concierge, that like assassins can't just knock on your fucking door. Like, you just want like one layer of people to get through.

• 30:26Griffin Newman?

  That's a very good call.

• 30:27David Sims?

  Instead, he's like, what's your cheapest motel? I'm like, you have a bag of money.

• 30:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:31David Sims?

  You can spring for a presidential suite.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:34David Sims?

  I get the idea of like, I don't want anyone seeing me. I don't want CCTV, whatever, you know, like.

• 30:39Griffin Newman?

  What the A C vent is clever.

• 30:41David Sims?

  That's the thing where I'm like, you're kinda smart, you know?

• 30:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:45David Sims?

  What's.

• 30:45Speaker 05

  And when he's looking at the, sorry, when he's looking at the, um, uh, you know, the guy underneath the tree, you know, the way that he waits, the way that the time is expressed to us via the wristwatch. Like, you get a sense of like, oh, this guy was in Nam. Like, you get it. Like, you get that this is somebody that does have some sort of, um, street smarts, right? But then exactly what you're saying, David, it's like, then he makes choices that you're like, I'm so sorry, what?

• 31:11David Sims?

  Because he's not that.

• 31:12Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't belong in this movie.

• 31:13David Sims?

  He's not that good at this stuff. Exactly.

• 31:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's dealing with an entirely different league of person.

• 31:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:19Griffin Newman?

  But to your point, it's like, I, I think, especially by cutting out all that backstory of that character, right?

• 31:25Speaker 05

  Yes, it's, it's better. It's a good.

• 31:27Griffin Newman?

  A moment of a choice.

• 31:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

  And that choice doesn't gain him anything in the same way that doing the kind thing to the dying man doesn't gain him anything.

• 31:35David Sims?

  I want to open the dossier.

• 31:36Griffin Newman?

  Please do.

• 31:37David Sims?

  In a second, but I do want to know, read, read what all you guys are saying. That's why I was, on the one hand, mildly surprised that on, in the year of 2007, a big year for movies, Zodiac among them.

• 31:48Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 31:48David Sims?

  This one Best Picture, and one Best Picture over There Will Be Blood, which is kind of like a magnum opus from PTA, obviously. Michael Clayton, what were the other big 2007 movies?

• 31:58Griffin Newman?

  Juno and Atonement were the five nominees?

• 32:00David Sims?

  Yeah. Is, yeah, yeah.

• 32:02Griffin Newman?

  Atonement got Best Picture, but then Julian Schnabel got the Joe Wright slot in director.

• 32:08Griffin Newman?

  David is miming, um, praise, applause, taking a bow. Oh, no, he's jerking off a giant dick.

• 32:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, what's the giant dick about? Sorry?

• 32:17David Sims?

  Schnabel, I don't like Julian Schnabel.

• 32:19Griffin Newman?

  I don't like Julian Schnabel. I, I like that movie a tremendous amount. That is an ultimate, uh, onion, uh, heartbreaking, the worst guy you know just made a good point movie for me. Where I'm like, oh, she did kind of do this well.

• 32:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  Although I give more credit to.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  Broken Clock is right twice there, yeah.

• 32:35David Sims?

  This movie is obviously incredibly compelling and well-made, but it is not satisfying, as you're saying, in the sort of, you know, maybe traditional Hollywood-y, Western way you might expect.

• 32:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:46David Sims?

  And so it is sort of surprising to want Best Picture. You watch There Will Be Blood, which has Daniel Day-Lewis screaming, "I abandoned my boy." It's not like There Will Be Blood is like an easy movie.

• 32:56Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 32:56David Sims?

  But you watch it and you are like, this is the kind of thing you would think like would kind of triumph. It's so epic.

• 33:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:03David Sims?

  It's so, the acting is so big, like in all this. And I just remember when this movie came out, and I feel this way to this day, I have never seen a film be as well-received as this film.

• 33:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:14David Sims?

  And I, since then, lots of movies have come out to praise.

• 33:18Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:18David Sims?

  You know, I remember when the reviews came out for this, I was like, I think this is essentially getting a 100 from everybody.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  Wait, I'm sorry, you, you're saying that for.

• 33:24David Sims?

  No country for old men.

• 33:25Speaker 05

  You're saying that for, forever? Like in all perpetuity?

• 33:29David Sims?

  Since then. I've never seen a film as well-received as this.

• 33:31Griffin Newman?

  No one question.

• 33:32David Sims?

  And I don't think people really remember how well this movie went over.

• 33:35Griffin Newman?

  And I, I think there was a bit of, this and There Will Be Blood were very much pitted against each other.

• 33:40David Sims?

  There Will Be Blood's an amazing movie, but like, there were some people that were, it was a little more divisive.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  That would be me, yeah.

• 33:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:47David Sims?

  Leslie weighed in, she said, "What a piece of shit."

• 33:49Speaker 05

  I just, you know.

• 33:50David Sims?

  "There will be poop," was your review.

• 33:52Speaker 05

  Sound off in the comments, yeah.

• 33:54Griffin Newman?

  No, I was a little colder on that movie at the time, and I have grown to like it more, but um, I, I do agree with you that these two films are pitted against each other. There was weird synchronicity between them. They're both set in the same place.

• 34:09Speaker 05

  They were shot in the same place.

• 34:11Griffin Newman?

  Martha simultaneous.

• 34:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, but in the same place they were shot, yeah.

• 34:15Griffin Newman?

  And they were shot at the same time.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:18Griffin Newman?

  Like, they talk about that the crews were having to avoid each other. Like, to like, negotiate who got what location when.

• 34:25David Sims?

  That's wild.

• 34:26Griffin Newman?

  Um, and they were both like American autors who had kind of disappeared, and it was like, what are these guys doing? And it was seen as the sort of like, here's the next chapter.

• 34:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:36Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 34:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:37Griffin Newman?

  But you're right that this movie is bizarre in how sort of bracing and unsparing and like deliberately unsatisfying it is. And yet it ended up being the sort of like more populist pick, I think, relative to "There Will Be Blood," which was seen as almost more.

• 34:59Speaker 05

  Denialistic, yeah.

• 35:01Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 35:01David Sims?

  "There Will Be Blood" is somewhat punishing.

• 35:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 35:04David Sims?

  And, but, and just, just when you just think about it, it's like, right, how does this movie end? "The Well and Moss" gets shot by unrelated Mexican gangsters.

• 35:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 35:11David Sims?

  Offscreen.

• 35:11Griffin Newman?

  Then Tommy Lee Jones spends 20 minutes being like...

• 35:13David Sims?

  Tommy Lee Jones is like, "I'm having this dream," and generally, I'm kind of bummed out by the world.

• 35:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 35:18David Sims?

  The end.

• 35:18Griffin Newman?

  But there's 20 minutes in between the death and the dream.

• 35:21David Sims?

  And he's like, "Oh, Jesus, that hurt." And you're like, and that's it, that's how he's...

• 35:27Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, "Does the car kill him?" No, he limps away.

• 35:28David Sims?

  No, he's in pain.

• 35:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:30David Sims?

  And you're like, "Okay."

• 35:31Griffin Newman?

  What were you gonna say, Leslie?

• 35:32Speaker 05

  Well, I was just curious.

• 35:33David Sims?

  I like all those endings, to be clear. I think they're great.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Oh, same, same, yeah.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

  David's eating a hot dog and a croissant?

• 35:38David Sims?

  A colochi.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  Okay. I was curious, when you finished eating, David. Why do you think this was sort of universally acclaimed? Especially because you're claiming that it's, you know, 100% and then since 2007.

• 35:56David Sims?

  There's been nothing like it. I mean, um, I think partly there was this vibe of like, the Coens are back. Thank God.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:02David Sims?

  You know, it's basically been since Fargo.

• 36:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:05David Sims?

  Every single thing they've made since Fargo, people had been hot and cold on. Like even your Lebowski's or your Oh Brothers, you know, those movies had more fans, but at the time, both got the reaction like, huh, this, this kind of goofy thing is what they want to do?

• 36:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:21David Sims?

  They'd been in such a goofy mode. And then they're just like, uh, we just made the most like psychotic, cold-blooded like crime thriller you ever saw.

• 36:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:30David Sims?

  That's also shot through with like Tommy Lee Jones furrowed brow about what has happened to this, you know, world that we live in. And people were just like, I've never been so electrified. That's how I felt.

• 36:40Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 36:41Griffin Newman?

  It's like a Swiss watch construction film that is still somehow explicitly built around themes.

• 36:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:48Griffin Newman?

  And ideas, you know?

• 36:50Speaker 05

  And this is right before Obama.

• 36:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  This is right before. So we're all kind of worn out.

• 36:56David Sims?

  We're pretty worn out.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  We're kind of worn out. What were the, what were like the four best pictures leading up to that?

• 37:02Griffin Newman?

  That's a great question. So 2006 was Departed.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Yikes, right.

• 37:07Griffin Newman?

  2005 was?

• 37:11David Sims?

  Crash.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  Crash, Jesus Christ, yeah.

• 37:14Griffin Newman?

  2004 was Million Dollar Baby.

• 37:16David Sims?

  Which is a great movie.

• 37:17Griffin Newman?

  And 2003 was Return of the King.

• 37:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 37:20Speaker 05

  Right, okay.

• 37:21Griffin Newman?

  And then what? Then Chicago.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it all feels like very.

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  Gladiator.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Sorry, but it's all very like kind of genre-y.

• 37:28Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  You know, like it's not, the, the crash win is just so sort of bizarre. Everyone's, I mean, from, I think the people who want, I mean, I think Paul Haggas was like, sorry, what? Like, I mean, you know, Brokeback was really, you know, seen as the frontrunner until, you know, gay people happened.

• 37:44Griffin Newman?

  It is absolutely a, um, a defensive best picture win.

• 37:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a. Yeah. And then Departed is kind of like this afterthought win for Scorsese. Who's made seventeen thousand better movies than that.

• 37:57Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, exactly. And that was even the line at the time of like, is it a little silly that we're gonna give it to him for this? And yet, they were like, it's kind of a weak year. This movie was a big hit. Why not this year?

• 38:08Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 38:09Griffin Newman?

  Versus this film being seen as like, is this the Coen Brothers towering achievement? Is it their magnum opus? And I think it was, I think David's right, the fact that there was this feeling of comeback. The fact that the movie is sort of just like so clean and undeniable in its craft.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  It's also the, a throat slit of a movie.

• 38:29Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  Like, it is not, it is like, I mean, we're like, hey, Departed, and, you know, of course, very violent.

• 38:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  You know, but also very mainstream, you know?

• 38:39David Sims?

  Departed is also incredibly funny and like, wacky.

• 38:42Speaker 05

  Wahlberg handles it at the end, you know what I mean? Like, he handles it. So it's not like, as nihilistic as the quote ending of that movie is. We still get the guy at the end shoots the other guy.

• 38:53Griffin Newman?

  I find this movie very comforting, but it is the kind of movie where I usually am on that island and other people are like, what the fuck are you talking about? Why do you wanna live in that headspace?

• 39:04Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 39:05Griffin Newman?

  And like, Mulholland Drive was wildly acclaimed, but was also like, for a certain type of person.

• 39:12Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 39:13Griffin Newman?

  Big flashing warning signs above that movie of like, hey, if you don't love David Lynch, you're probably not gonna like this.

• 39:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:19Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 39:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:19Griffin Newman?

  And Zodiac was like, not totally recognized in this same year.

• 39:24Speaker 05

  You're not gonna like this.

• 39:25Griffin Newman?

  And this is him going like, very procedural, and it's really dark, right? But in a way, without the stylization and the pulp of something like Seven.

• 39:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:33Griffin Newman?

  And this movie, everyone was just like, yeah, kinda undeniable. And I also think it's interesting that 2007 was such a humongous fucking movie year. And one that we keep pointing back to is like, was that the last time we were just kind of firing on all cylinders?

• 39:46Speaker 05

  Wait, can I say something about There Will Be Blood that I just thought of when you were saying that? I wonder if the There Will Be Blood thing is that it's so arms-length?

• 39:54Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 39:54Speaker 05

  You know, I mean, it's incredible performances, but in a weird way, you're sort of just watching them.

• 40:01Griffin Newman?

  A character study about a man you cannot understand.

• 40:03Speaker 05

  Exactly, like no one is watching.

• 40:05David Sims?

  I understand him, he wants oil.

• 40:06Griffin Newman?

  Well, if you say he's an old man, I would agree.

• 40:08Speaker 05

  I would be, I would be interested to challenge anyone to say, did you empathize or, um, uh, maybe not even empathize, but did you recognize or empathize, uh, the journey of that character? And I think seventy to eighty to ninety percent of the people would be like, no, he was just an asshole. And it was an interesting character study because of that, but there's.

• 40:31David Sims?

  He's a flawed guy. I'll allow that.

• 40:33Speaker 05

  But I don't think that you're, I don't think you leave that movie being like, uh, Citizen Kane. Right? You don't leave that movie going, oh, that guy, you know, at least I didn't.

• 40:43Griffin Newman?

  I remember, I remember that movie first screening and some people going, that might be the best movie ever made. Like there were those people and then there were also people who were just like, I don't fucking get it. And there were people you were never gonna get to sit down and watch it, right? And there's something about this, even though it is purposefully withholding the kind of denouement you want out of a movie like this.

• 41:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:07Griffin Newman?

  I, I just think there was something about being like, a guy finds a bag of money that he shouldn't have and someone's chasing him.

• 41:13Speaker 05

  That's exactly right, yeah.

• 41:14Griffin Newman?

  The film is so like to the bone as much as it is throat slit. There's like a framework of it that is so recognizable.

• 41:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:24Griffin Newman?

  That helps people recognize what it's doing well.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  What's it called?

• 41:28David Sims?

  Kajachi.

• 41:29Griffin Newman?

  A kajachi?

• 41:30David Sims?

  Yes, it's a Czech, uh, thing, I think, but it's very popular in Texas in the south. Uh, shout out my kajachi eaters on this podcast, I'm sure there's a few. It's basically just like a savory sort of pastry thing.

• 41:42Griffin Newman?

  With a hot dog in it?

• 41:43David Sims?

  Sometimes it has a hot dog.

• 41:45Griffin Newman?

  Yours did, didn't I?

• 41:46David Sims?

  It sure did.

• 41:47Speaker 05

  Were you just eating it?

• 41:47David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, but sometimes, you know, you could put like eggs in there or jalapenos or.

• 41:52Griffin Newman?

  But they do sweet ones as well.

• 41:53David Sims?

  They have sweet ones as well. Very nice. Brooklyn Kajachi Company, Decalb in Bedford. Anyone wants to go there? I go there all the time.

• 42:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I just think there's something to the sturdiness of the genre setup of this movie.

• 42:09Speaker 05

  I agree, and I think that like, in the 2007 of it all, we're kind of all over it.

• 42:16David Sims?

  I mean, my favorite, my second favorite president, sorry, Donald's with us now, of course, but at the time, my favorite president, he was just winding down a-

• 42:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, your first favorite president is-

• 42:25David Sims?

  George W. Bush.

• 42:26Griffin Newman?

  Donald 45, your second favorite's Donald 47.

• 42:28David Sims?

  Okay, you're right, okay, but my current, my favorite president at the time was winding down a second, perfect term with no issues whatsoever. Mission accomplished. Every mission had been accomplished. No, you're right, there's a lot of malaise.

• 42:40Griffin Newman?

  Crazy how quickly we solved that one.

• 42:41David Sims?

  Uh, it's an interesting era because it's like, it's a year before the recession where all the chickens have come home to roost.

• 42:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:50Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 42:50David Sims?

  Right, you know, so it's like, the country is ostensibly like, in like, okay shape, I guess, but like, everyone's just already like, nah, man, like, the milk is spoiled, like, we suck. This has been years of us sucking.

• 43:03Speaker 05

  It's the guy at the, in the wheelchair at the end, like, it's like, can't stop what's coming.

• 43:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 43:08Speaker 05

  You know, it's like, in a way, it's foreshadowing what we all already know.

• 43:12David Sims?

  Yeah, we're like, Jesus, we've just been like, hearing about the fucking Iraq war and Katrina and like, all this shit.

• 43:18Griffin Newman?

  This wins, it is anointed, but yet, you step back and look at 2007, which is studied as a year of just like, we got everything, right?

• 43:26Speaker 05

  Yes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:27Griffin Newman?

  And the slate of the great movies of 2007 do not all reflect that feeling. It is not a year you look at where you're like, there's something in the air-

• 43:36David Sims?

  Right, I can perceive amongst all of these-

• 43:39Griffin Newman?

  ...in different ways, right?

• 43:40David Sims?

  It's such a good year for movies.

• 43:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but I'm like, Zodiac and There Will Be Blood and No Country Are On A Spectrum, but then you're like, Atonement and Juno are in Best Picture. Michael Clayton is a little closer to that earlier batch.

• 43:52Speaker 05

  Is that, Michael Clayton feels like the Departed of that year.

• 43:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  You know?

• 43:56Griffin Newman?

  But also is very much like, that we're gonna keep running the corporations, they might not have our best interests-

• 44:03David Sims?

  They have our best interests. I can't believe you would say that.

• 44:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm just raising the question. Ratatouille.

• 44:09David Sims?

  Yeah, Ratatouille's about the corporations, you gotta watch out for those guys.

• 44:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:12David Sims?

  No, I don't know.

• 44:18Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 44:19David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 44:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:27David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 44:28Griffin Newman?

  It's supportive, comfortable, and just what my body needs after a long day. It makes crawling into bed on a chilly fall night feel like luxury.

• 44:36David Sims?

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

• 44:42Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:42David Sims?

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

• 44:49Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:52David Sims?

  No.

• 44:53Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 44:54David Sims?

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

• 45:40Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 45:40David Sims?

  Yes.

• 45:41Griffin 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.

• 46:02David 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.

• 46:22Griffin 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.

• 46:38David Sims?

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

• 47:12Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 47:12David Sims?

  Yes?

• 47:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 47:17David Sims?

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

• 47:23Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 47:24David Sims?

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

• 47:31Griffin Newman?

  You get gifts for everyone on your list, or get yourself something a little merry and bright. Find exactly what you're looking for at shop.com.

• 47:41David Sims?

  Got stocking stuffers, maybe. The sickest luxury items.

• 47:44Griffin Newman?

  Cookware, to kicks, toys to high tech, even tinsel and tree toppers.

• 47:50David Sims?

  Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once. Okay? That's shop.com. You can just go, click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 48:03Griffin Newman?

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

• 48:33David Sims?

  All right, I'm opening the dossier. Okay, in the late 1980s, Cormac McCarthy, normal guy.

• 48:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:38David Sims?

  Started working on a screenplay. Chill dude, chill dude from minute one. Started working on a screenplay. I mean, God, like, the whole thing where his first wife married him when he had no fucking money. And they lived in like a shack with no electricity or whatever. And he was like, you have to go make money because I'm writing my books.

• 48:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:53David Sims?

  Normal guy.

• 48:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:54David Sims?

  And like, he fucking got away with a lot of shit just by writing masterpieces. That, you know, like, there's other guys who probably do that and they write unreadable shit.

• 49:04Griffin Newman?

  It also took, it took quite a bit of time, right?

• 49:06David Sims?

  It took him a long time, I think, for, uh, to get noticed. Like, his books, even his early books are very good. Like, he's a very interesting writer, but like, yes, it took him a minute.

• 49:14Griffin Newman?

  Can you just imagine this guy with this headspace being unsuccessful?

• 49:19David Sims?

  Just not gonna eat a lot of beans.

• 49:20Griffin Newman?

  Like, I gotta make this fucking work.

• 49:22David Sims?

  Uh, so in the eighties, he starts writing a screenplay called No Country For Old Men. He couldn't find any funding for it and he puts it on the shelf. Uh, in 2005, of course.

• 49:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, before writing the novel?

• 49:33David Sims?

  Long before.

• 49:34Griffin Newman?

  Oh, so he, he originally was like, this is a movie?

• 49:36David Sims?

  That is why that novel is so goddamn readable. Some of his novels are pretty tough to crack. And like, it is so dialogue heavy.

• 49:43Griffin Newman?

  Damn.

• 49:43David Sims?

  It's a little more propulsive and plotty or whatever. And, uh, you can find, if you go to Texas State, uh, University, where I think like all his fucking documents are.

• 49:53Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:53David Sims?

  You know, a lot of fragments of this screenplay or whatever. But he eventually turns it into a book, comes out in 2005. And the, uh, reviews even note, like, this feels like a Coen Brothers movie. You know what I mean? Like, they're also like, oh, in general, like, oh, it's quite cinematic and like, I can see its origins or whatever.

• 50:14Griffin Newman?

  When's The Road come out? It's right before, right after?

• 50:16David Sims?

  The Road is right after.

• 50:17Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 50:17David Sims?

  And so the whole thing with Cormac McCarthy is in 2005, when he releases No Country For Old Men, he is a major novelist. But one year later, he releases The Road and becomes basically like a celebrity and one of the most famous writers alive.

• 50:29Griffin Newman?

  It is kind of his No Country, the movie moment where everyone's like, okay, we all agree.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, it's a back to back.

• 50:34Griffin Newman?

  You're the president of literature.

• 50:36David Sims?

  And he suddenly is like, he's getting dragged onto Oprah and he's like a guy who's like never done any fucking press and he's, but like, it's like, he cannot avoid the phenomenon that that book is.

• 50:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, and just him becoming a late in life parent and being like, oh my God, it's a Cormac McCarthy novel with, uh, surface level emotion.

• 50:56Speaker 05

  But here it comes.

• 50:57David Sims?

  The Road also has, The Road is about two people walking down a road.

• 51:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 51:01David Sims?

  And it's a post-apocalyptic book and it's about a father and son. It's so easy to get your hands around.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  That's exactly right.

• 51:07Griffin Newman?

  The I Love My Son of It made him an Oprah Book Club guy for the first time because it's like Oprah can't be like, look, I like this, but this might freak you guys out. The Road has that core. I mean, The Road, phenomenal book.

• 51:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, phenomenal.

• 51:19David Sims?

  It is. It's very good. It is not my favorite by far, but it's very, very readable. Uh, anyway, um, Scott Rudin, normal guy.

• 51:26Speaker 05

  Normal guy.

• 51:26Griffin Newman?

  Normal.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:27David Sims?

  Uh, gets the rights to this book, I think, before it even releases and he, uh...

• 51:32Griffin Newman?

  As he was want to do.

• 51:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:34Griffin Newman?

  Basically, this era is just like a fucking vacuum cleaner.

• 51:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  For any kind of buzzy manuscript.

• 51:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:40David Sims?

  Um, he has been working with the Coen since Raising Arizona. Uh, he was oversaw production at the age of 28 on that movie. And, uh, this, but this is the first time that he is the producer, the lead producer of a film of theirs. And he does their next three, I want to say.

• 51:57Griffin Newman?

  That sounds...

• 51:58David Sims?

  He does Burn After Reading and True Grit.

• 52:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Does he not do Lewin Davis?

• 52:04David Sims?

  No, I think not.

• 52:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 52:06David Sims?

  Let me double check.

• 52:07Griffin Newman?

  Certainly True Grit.

• 52:08David Sims?

  No, he didn't do Burn.

• 52:09Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 52:09David Sims?

  I, I want to, I want to get this right.

• 52:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:12David Sims?

  Uh, he did, but he...

• 52:13Griffin Newman?

  He did do Grit. We talked about it.

• 52:15David Sims?

  No, he definitely does Grit.

• 52:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:16David Sims?

  I just can't remember what the third thing he does is. It is, uh, Lewin. So those are the three movies he worked with them on.

• 52:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:22David Sims?

  Um, he gets them to commit to writing. He's hoping he can convince them to direct it.

• 52:27Speaker 05

  And this is their first adaptation, right?

• 52:29David Sims?

  Yes. I mean, you could call Oh Brother an adaptation of sorts because it's The Odyssey, but they would say they never even like opened The Odyssey.

• 52:36Griffin Newman?

  But when they, when they win best screenplay, Joel makes the joke of the only two authors we've ever adapted are Homer and Cormac McCarthy, which feels right.

• 52:45Speaker 05

  Which feels right.

• 52:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  Um, just very quickly, the, um...

• 52:49David Sims?

  The Lady Killers is also an adaptation, I will say.

• 52:51Speaker 05

  Oh, that's true. Remake, remake. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 52:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 05

  I just think it's, it's interesting, this sort of like forethought of normal guy Scott Rudin, um, to approach the Coen brothers when they don't really adapt. You know, a lot of the appeal of their films is their language.

• 53:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 05

  And how funny they are and tone and, you know, commanding performances that are based on their scripts.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Here are a couple of things at play, though. One is Scott Rudin is so fucking hungry to win an Oscar. This is the movie that finally gets him Best Picture.

• 53:31Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 53:31Griffin Newman?

  And it felt like he had been running his entire life to get to that moment onstage.

• 53:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 53:36Griffin Newman?

  And he gets onstage and goes, oh, my God, what a surprise. And I'm just like, my guy? You've been giving this speech in your bathroom mirror.

• 53:42Speaker 05

  Yes, for a long time.

• 53:44Griffin Newman?

  Day of your life. And as David said, this movie has been on like a golden run from the moment it premiered at Cannes.

• 53:50David Sims?

  But it was a tough year. I'm sure it was a hard fought campaign or whatever. Especially because it was, I mean, Miramax is somewhat behind it, but it's a Paramount Vantage movie.

• 54:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:00David Sims?

  And I don't know how much Paramount Vantage like was, you know, sharp elbowed in the campaign sphere.

• 54:05Griffin Newman?

  Basically, the final stages of post Weinstein Miramax, which will completely dissolve before, once again, getting revived within a couple of years.

• 54:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:13Griffin Newman?

  And Vantage is shut down basically within two or three years of this.

• 54:17Speaker 05

  Actually, I think that Miramax, actually, I think that, I think that 2006, 2007 time period is when they end the partnership with Disney.

• 54:30David Sims?

  Uh, that sounds about right.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  They stop being touchstone and they go to Weinstein Company.

• 54:34Griffin Newman?

  I know the Weinstein, because Grindhouse is this same year.

• 54:38Speaker 05

  That's right, yes.

• 54:39Griffin Newman?

  And that was a Weinstein Company movie. So definitely, they had left before this.

• 54:44David Sims?

  So.

• 54:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:47David Sims?

  Right. I mean, they officially basically shut it down in 2009, Disney did.

• 54:52Griffin Newman?

  But Weinstein Company is 05 or 06.

• 54:54David Sims?

  Yeah, well, it's Fahrenheit 9/11 is the whole flashpoint. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  It doesn't matter, but just point being, it's the end of that run.

• 55:02David Sims?

  Fahrenheit 9/11, of course, the film that lied about my great president, George Bush.

• 55:06Griffin Newman?

  Your third favorite president.

• 55:08David Sims?

  Sorry, Leslie.

• 55:09Speaker 05

  No, I was just gonna say, like, this is the end of the Miramax run and the birth of Scott Rudin.

• 55:14Griffin Newman?

  This is a weird co-production of two companies that are in transitional stages.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, but also transitional.

• 55:20Griffin Newman?

  And they're about to close down.

• 55:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:22Griffin Newman?

  Stuck between eras of two different tyrants, as we said, right?

• 55:25Speaker 05

  Normal guys, yeah.

• 55:27Griffin Newman?

  But Scott Rudin's playbook for so long. Beyond throwing things at people and demanding string cheese was that he would just get, in his mind, the most talented auteurs under his wing.

• 55:40Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 55:40Griffin Newman?

  After they had proven themselves, or once they needed some support.

• 55:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:44Griffin Newman?

  And he was basically a human version of like Richard Kelly's The Box, right? Where he'd be like, "Just don't look, and if you need something, push a button and maybe someone gets hurt, but you don't have to know about it."

• 55:54Speaker 05

  But you don't have to know about it.

• 55:55Griffin Newman?

  Right, "I'm just gonna fight all your fights for you and insulate you from this." But his favorite thing to do was like, find the material.

• 56:02Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 56:02Griffin Newman?

  Find the director, or be like, "What do you want to do next?" And all of it felt like, in the grand scheme of things, uh, one of these days, this is gonna pay off in me winning Best Picture, right?

• 56:12Speaker 05

  Yes, the bathroom speeches begin, yeah.

• 56:14Griffin Newman?

  Right, I'm trying to find the right confluence of elements. So I think that's part of it, he's just constantly looking for what might have the juice, and looking in unconventional places to his credit. The other part of it is, post-Lubowski, when they're kinda knocked down, they start taking for hire writing jobs for the first time.

• 56:31Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:32Griffin Newman?

  And so there's a lot of uncredited stuff.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  I didn't realize that, yeah.

• 56:34Griffin Newman?

  But Lady Killer starts out as a script that they were not supposed to direct, and Talbot Cruelty was a rewrite job they were not supposed to direct. They get talked into both of those, and then there's like, the Gambit remake that someone else ends up making, there's some other stuff. So they're in this zone where they're a little for hire.

• 56:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:51Griffin Newman?

  And Rudin's going by that playbook of...

• 56:53Speaker 05

  Oh, I see.

• 56:54Griffin Newman?

  If they now...

• 56:55Speaker 05

  So it's a little more like, set up than Rudin having the foresight of...

• 56:59Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 57:00Speaker 05

  Uh, Coen Brothers could write this.

• 57:01Griffin Newman?

  Now, the last two times this happened, it didn't work out for them. But I think he's going, "This feels like a better match for them, and if I can sneak them through the back door of, 'Just try adapting this,' maybe they will once again fall in love with the material, agree to direct it, and this will actually work for them."

• 57:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:18David Sims?

  Um, so, uh, obviously, the only real Cormac McCarthy adaptation that had appeared in theaters before this is All the Pretty Horses, which is basically the greatest book ever written, the movie is not very good, supposedly there's a better cut out there somewhere.

• 57:34Griffin Newman?

  Right, it's a contested, uh, certainly, the movie that was released in theaters was not what anyone wanted to make, and the question is, was there a version of it that would have worked?

• 57:43Speaker 05

  Well, I think that Billy Bob Thornton, by his own admission, essentially screened an assembly, that's what he said.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 57:51Speaker 05

  And that everybody freaked out.

• 57:53David Sims?

  Everyone was like, "Right, exactly, exactly."

• 57:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:58David Sims?

  That book is also poetic, spare, difficult to adapt, like silently care, you know, like whatever.

• 58:06Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 58:07David Sims?

  This is a pulpy.

• 58:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 58:09David Sims?

  Thriller. Like, and the Coens are like, we're very aware of McCarthy, but like this felt like something we could get our hands around much more. Uh, but they love that it's a, a pulpy book that's a out ordinary straightforward treatment of a crime story. And then the ending is so weird.

• 58:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 58:26David Sims?

  They like the three quarters in, suddenly they're like, main character's going to disappear. You know what I mean? So that they like the chase story, then getting subverted.

• 58:35Griffin Newman?

  There's another thing they love, which is that for the first half, the 2000s, their big dream project was To the White Sea. It's covered extensively in our friends Ray and Jordan's podcast, which was a novel adaptation that is mostly in the one character's head that doesn't have a ton of dialogue. And is this sort of odd take on a survival film? And they could never get that off the ground, right?

• 58:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:57Griffin Newman?

  But they, in reading this book, link back to that, the same thing that animated them, which is having a character who barely talks, who you get to define by his actions within a survival situation.

• 59:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 59:12Griffin Newman?

  Right? That it is circumstantial behavior. Can you paint a full character portrait through that? That this guy speaks so rarely, he's at the center of the story and we're only seeing him in a very specific set of circumstances. And we're learning who he is through how he tries to game out his continued survival.

• 59:29Speaker 05

  That is what's up.

• 59:31Griffin Newman?

  And so, right.

• 59:32Speaker 05

  That is what's up.

• 59:33Griffin Newman?

  They try to make the movie that is just all that, and it's a little too wild and a little too expensive.

• 59:38Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 59:39Griffin Newman?

  They had Brad Pitt, he fell out. They were like, it's not getting greenlit if you don't have him, right? Suddenly it's like Rudin's bringing them this, it's a smaller budget, it's a cleaner sell.

• 59:50David Sims?

  They.

• 59:50Griffin Newman?

  But it's got the same juice that they had wanted to play with.

• 59:54David Sims?

  JJ thinks this and I agree with him that it is a lot. It, it, there's a lot of it that reminds me of Miller's Crossing.

• 59:59Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:00David Sims?

  Both adapting writers, Miller's Crossing inadvertent or like more indirectly.

• 1:00:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05David Sims?

  Doing Dashiell Hammett, not as specific. But like, as they would put it, like, they like how Cormac McCarthy, this is a quote from Ethan, refuses to tell you what people are thinking and just describes what people are doing.

• 1:00:16Speaker 05

  I am so into that.

• 1:00:18David Sims?

  They like the lack of interiority. They're like, that's engrossing. That's like interesting in a movie. Um, and they, you know, you have in this book, a bad guy, Anton Chigurh. I don't know if you guys agree he's a bad guy.

• 1:00:33Griffin Newman?

  I think he raises some interesting ideas.

• 1:00:35David Sims?

  Marketplace of ideas. Uh, you have a sensibly good guy, Sheriff Bell.

• 1:00:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39David Sims?

  And then you have Llewellyn in the middle, who's kind of a gray guy, kind of a sort of like, he's not malevolent, but he's kind of, you know.

• 1:00:46Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, he's like, he's driven by greed, which we all can relate with. He likes his, he loves his wife, which we're all kind of down with. He does some stupid things where, you know, as the outsiders, we can definitely be like, I wouldn't do that. But like, you don't know, you're kind of, you know, we're all kind of stupid.

• 1:01:03David Sims?

  Relatable. Yes. Hundred percent.

• 1:01:05Speaker 05

  And then, you know, just, uh, the classic, um, uh, in too deep, in over his head.

• 1:01:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:01:12Speaker 05

  Uh, recognizable, beginning, middle and end to your everyman storyline.

• 1:01:17Griffin Newman?

  And you start out with this triangle of like, kind of an unlikely protagonist, right? Thrust in the middle of the wrong story.

• 1:01:26Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:01:26Griffin Newman?

  Being chased by an unstoppable force.

• 1:01:28Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:01:29Griffin Newman?

  And the cop who is slowly narrowing in on it all from a distance.

• 1:01:33David Sims?

  Circling around it, slower and closer and closer.

• 1:01:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:01:36David Sims?

  Uh, they make it clear to Rudin, like, hey, this is gonna be violent. Like, just making sure you're cool with that. Right. And he's like, yeah, yeah. Uh, they have the line of one of us.

• 1:01:47Speaker 05

  It sounded a little different than that, but yes.

• 1:01:49David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.

• 1:01:52David Sims?

  One of us types into the computer, the other holds the spine of the book, uh, flat. That's very funny. With the book, every other chapter is narrative and then every other chapter is an interior monologue from the sheriff.

• 1:02:04Speaker 05

  From Bell.

• 1:02:05David Sims?

  They get rid of a lot of his monologues.

• 1:02:08Griffin Newman?

  You only really do the opening and then some of it, he says out loud in dialogue. But that's the only voiceover.

• 1:02:13Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 1:02:14David Sims?

  Basically, they strip out dialogue wherever they can. They like-

• 1:02:17Speaker 05

  Yes, they do.

• 1:02:18David Sims?

  The least possible dialogue.

• 1:02:20Griffin Newman?

  Which is another interesting thing of this movie because they are, perhaps, they are certainly in the conversation of the best dialogue writers alive.

• 1:02:27Speaker 05

  That's the thing.

• 1:02:27Griffin Newman?

  Their movies are so talky.

• 1:02:29David Sims?

  Certainly.

• 1:02:30Griffin Newman?

  I think their films have always been consciously, I think they're never really defining their characters through their language in a traditional way because one of the things I think they're so smart about as dialogue writers is that their characters are usually using dialogue to lie.

• 1:02:48Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:02:49Griffin Newman?

  Right? If not for like devious criminal means in like saying who they want to be or how they want people to see them.

• 1:02:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a really good point.

• 1:02:58Griffin Newman?

  And they've always been defining through action. And what's interesting is the clash between the action and the words, right? I think in terms of why this movie just connected with everyone, there's something about them pulling back the dialogue a bunch.

• 1:03:12Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:03:13Griffin Newman?

  That I think sometimes their detractors would get distracted by the tap dancing of the verbiage and going like, who are they trying to impress?

• 1:03:25Speaker 05

  Well, this is the thing, right?

• 1:03:26Griffin Newman?

  Is this too clever?

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is the thing. Like, I am struggling with this because there are a lot of reasons I would call this a masterpiece, a lot of reasons. But the last two times that I've been on this podcast and I've gotten the opportunity to talk about masterpieces, I, and I've always felt this way, that a masterpiece has to have something personal about it. And these like Minnesota-

• 1:03:53Speaker 05

  Jewish guys.

• 1:03:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Speaker 05

  It's like, if I'm, if I have that criteria, which I made for myself, by the way, so I can absolutely break that. But what I will say is that what this movie does, because the script is so faithful to the source material, is that it shows you what phenomenal filmmakers they are.

• 1:04:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:04:17Speaker 05

  It does not, there's nothing covering it, there's nothing going like, but also we smoothed it over with this thing and like, we created a character that represented that and like, you know, and then, because you could say Barton Fink, you could say Fargo, you could say Miller's Crossing, for fuck's sake. Like, there's also an argument for a serious man, for sure. Like, so I think, but what's so energizing about it, and I think it's exactly what you're saying about everywhere one was like, they're back.

• 1:04:44Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:45Speaker 05

  Is that you really get to see, my fucking god, they can shoot a movie.

• 1:04:51Griffin Newman?

  Better than anyone else.

• 1:04:52Speaker 05

  Better than anyone else.

• 1:04:53Griffin Newman?

  And basically from the beginning.

• 1:04:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Griffin Newman?

  Like, just right out of the gate.

• 1:04:57Speaker 05

  Boom. Gorgeous shot.

• 1:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:04:59Speaker 05

  I was sheriff of this, boom, you know, like, it just...

• 1:05:02David Sims?

  Some of the most amazing, like, shot making in this movie. It's, look, it's pretty. It's a really pretty movie.

• 1:05:10Griffin Newman?

  It's really pretty.

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  It's all the pretty movies.

• 1:05:12David Sims?

  It's a dramatic part of the country. It looks really cool.

• 1:05:15Griffin Newman?

  There will be blood wins cinematography this year.

• 1:05:18David Sims?

  And there's nothing wrong with that win. Ellsworth is a genius.

• 1:05:21Griffin Newman?

  But let's acknowledge the tricky thing that happened.

• 1:05:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Griffin Newman?

  Double Deek. Deekins was nominated against himself.

• 1:05:28David Sims?

  For Jesse James.

• 1:05:29Griffin Newman?

  For Jesse James in this.

• 1:05:30David Sims?

  The thing with, so this, I think, is...

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  So then it splits the vote?

• 1:05:33David Sims?

  I think a little bit of that. It's like this...

• 1:05:35Griffin Newman?

  No disrespect to Ellsworth, who, once again...

• 1:05:37David Sims?

  He's a great DP and that movie looks very good.

• 1:05:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:40David Sims?

  Uh, that movie's also got some shot making. Uh, but, uh, no country, I think, as Deekins, you know, just like tweaking the knobs perfectly, right? Like, it is not a showy... A piece of, you know, cinematography.

• 1:05:55Griffin Newman?

  Jesse James.

• 1:05:55David Sims?

  Exactly. Jesse James is like, you're like, every single frame, you're like, good lord. Like, I'd like that framed, please. Like, actually hang that in my house. It's an amazing looking movie.

• 1:06:04Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps his prettiest movie.

• 1:06:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05David Sims?

  It's a bit machete times, as is everything in that fucking movie. Uh, which I like. I do like that movie. Um, but right, I'm sure he split the vote against himself. This should be his crowning moment.

• 1:06:16Griffin Newman?

  Flavors of himself.

• 1:06:17David Sims?

  He should be winning with the Coens.

• 1:06:19Griffin Newman?

  It takes another 10 years for him to win cinematography?

• 1:06:22Speaker 05

  Jesus.

• 1:06:23Griffin Newman?

  For the first time. And that, and then he won three in a row. It was the same thing they did to Lubesky.

• 1:06:28David Sims?

  Ooh, I think.

• 1:06:29Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:06:30David Sims?

  He won for-

• 1:06:30Griffin Newman?

  It was Blade Runner in 1917?

• 1:06:33David Sims?

  He won for, uh, Blade Runner 2049.

• 1:06:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37David Sims?

  Uh, which is an amazing looking movie.

• 1:06:39Speaker 05

  Gorgeous.

• 1:06:39David Sims?

  That rocks, but it, I think at the time, people were like, kind of a bummer he won for like a sequel to a movie he wasn't the DP on.

• 1:06:46Griffin Newman?

  But it was also like, guys, please, can we get this over with?

• 1:06:49David Sims?

  Yes. And then he won again for 1917. Uh, and that's a movie that is loud cinematography, obviously, because it's a single shot and all that. And it was this sort of technical achievement, and that was a fine win, but I, it's, you know. He should have won with the Coens when they won Best Picture.

• 1:07:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it would have been.

• 1:07:08David Sims?

  He's more tied to the Coens than any other filmmaker.

• 1:07:10Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 1:07:10David Sims?

  And this is a triumphant work that he made with them, but whatever. I mean, I don't fucking know. Maybe I should just go sit in a chair.

• 1:07:17Speaker 05

  No, I'm with you. I have a theory.

• 1:07:18Griffin Newman?

  The one behind the microphone in the office is where we record.

• 1:07:21David Sims?

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:07:21Griffin Newman?

  The podcast.

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  But here's my, here's my, here's what I would say about that. Here's why, there's a possibility this is why that he may not have won, right? Yes, there are gorgeous shots in this movie. Yes, there are beautiful landscapes. Yes, there's, you know, a lot of what I would call, yeah, beautiful showy shots, right? And this is not my idea. It's, uh, actually from the YouTube channel, Every Frame a Painting. But great YouTube channel.

• 1:07:45David Sims?

  Check those guys out. Not that they need podcasts.

• 1:07:47Speaker 05

  Check them out, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:07:48Griffin Newman?

  But they're, his video on specifically-

• 1:07:51Speaker 05

  The Spielberg wonder?

• 1:07:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, that, but the Coens one, where he talks about the way they shoot conversation.

• 1:07:55Speaker 05

  So he talks about shot, reverse shot.

• 1:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:07:57Speaker 05

  So he says, you know, this is how they work, essentially. Uh, that's where they shine, right? And Deakins, in that video, makes the point that with the Coens, he uses the long lens. For the coverage of the characters.

• 1:08:12Griffin Newman?

  He is basically always inside the conversation. You're almost never getting over the shoulders. The camera is in between the people talking.

• 1:08:18Speaker 05

  It's in between the people.

• 1:08:19David Sims?

  Sonnenfeld loved a wide lens and Deakins is the one who's like, guys.

• 1:08:23Speaker 05

  Guys, let's do it. And I think that, and I think that, for example, the coin toss scene.

• 1:08:29David Sims?

  Freendo.

• 1:08:30Speaker 05

  As great as Freendo is in terms of dialogue, which by the way, that's what they shine at.

• 1:08:36Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 1:08:37Speaker 05

  The, what really kills me in that scene is the framing of them.

• 1:08:43Griffin Newman?

  The sense of space.

• 1:08:44Speaker 05

  The sense of space. We don't need an establishing shot that tells you everything about that space. You see how out of place Sugar is?

• 1:08:53Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:53Speaker 05

  And you see how much Gene Jones lives in that world.

• 1:08:59Griffin Newman?

  And there's something even haunting about Gene being in this very busy frame, behind the counter, all the stuff hanging behind him on the wall, and then the window behind him.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:10Griffin Newman?

  And the sense of kind of endless emptiness behind him.

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  Yes, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:15Griffin Newman?

  It's constant reminder that these big action sort of moments in this film are happening in spots in between emptiness.

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

  That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. And so.

• 1:09:25Griffin Newman?

  You're in the middle of nowhere.

• 1:09:26Speaker 05

  And I think that's my, my point about Deakins is that he just doesn't, like, in this film, he's doing perfectly what they do.

• 1:09:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:36Speaker 05

  Their editor is doing perfectly what they do, which is the.

• 1:09:40Griffin Newman?

  Their editor, who is them.

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, who is them, right?

• 1:09:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:09:43Speaker 05

  The, the rhythm of the dialogue, they understand, even if it's not what they quote unquote wrote.

• 1:09:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Speaker 05

  It is what they do best.

• 1:09:51Griffin Newman?

  It's a good match.

• 1:09:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. So it just, yeah, I wonder if that's why he just didn't have the, you know, the landscapy, beautiful, I just, I don't know if, but I agree that he should have won with them, is my point. He did the apex of what they do.

• 1:10:07Griffin Newman?

  I also think.

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  Understood the assignment, as the kids say.

• 1:10:10Griffin Newman?

  I've said this in other episodes. I think no one.

• 1:10:12David Sims?

  And I do think he's aura farming. Anton Sugar is aura farming a bit.

• 1:10:16Griffin Newman?

  I don't even know what this term is.

• 1:10:17David Sims?

  It's the new things the kids say. It basically seems to mean like being aura, like A U R A. You know how kids are always saying that like people have aura?

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  It's like, I guess it's just any scene in a movie where you kind of stand there looking cool. Everyone's like, bro is aura farming.

• 1:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:10:33David Sims?

  Like I've just, I've been seeing it.

• 1:10:34Griffin Newman?

  You're trying to get the clout for establishing great vibes or whatever?

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, reaching out to a new audience.

• 1:10:42David Sims?

  It's both praise and slightly derogatory, I guess, where it's like, okay.

• 1:10:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and just to be clear, we're trying to make our show catch on more with the TikTok generation. Is Llewyn Moss sigma? Can we talk about this?

• 1:10:54David Sims?

  I do, I do think.

• 1:10:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm pointing up at the word sigma.

• 1:10:57Speaker 05

  I'm like throwing myself off a bridge.

• 1:10:58David Sims?

  He's having a brat summer.

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

  Podcast over.

• 1:11:01Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, Sugar is having a brat summer.

• 1:11:02David Sims?

  He is, he's quite a brat, actually.

• 1:11:04Griffin Newman?

  He is serving.

• 1:11:05David Sims?

  It would be funny if Woody Harrelson was like, Sugar is having a brat summer to like Steven Root or whatever.

• 1:11:12Griffin Newman?

  I, uh, two things about Dickens. One, I think he's better at shooting actors than anyone else alive, period.

• 1:11:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Griffin Newman?

  And it's so much his background as a documentary cinematographer, not being able to compose and block.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:29Griffin Newman?

  He just has a really good instinct of understanding exactly where he needs to be in relation to the performer to capture best what they're doing.

• 1:11:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Griffin Newman?

  So there is that kind of very unshowy, camera's always just in the exact right place.

• 1:11:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Griffin Newman?

  To make everyone pop because basically every performance is good in a movie that Roger Deacon shot.

• 1:11:47Speaker 05

  And he knows that the thing that is going to be scary about that scene is not the camera.

• 1:11:51Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:11:51Speaker 05

  The camera is not going to make the scene scary.

• 1:11:54Griffin Newman?

  He understands always that he's in service of the thing, right?

• 1:11:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Griffin Newman?

  And then secondly, he is able to shoot inanimate things with, I was gonna say inanimate things, but it just non-people. Things that are not faces.

• 1:12:08Speaker 05

  Things that are, yeah.

• 1:12:09Griffin Newman?

  With a sense of innate power and dread.

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  Agreed.

• 1:12:12Griffin Newman?

  He shot early on in the movie of the scuff marks left from the boot.

• 1:12:17Speaker 05

  Jesus, yeah.

• 1:12:18Griffin Newman?

  Of the sheriff that Sugar has choked out with the handcuffs is just like one of the most striking images in this film.

• 1:12:26Speaker 05

  I agree, I agree.

• 1:12:27Griffin Newman?

  And.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  And it also is the moment, the first time I saw it, it is the moment where it's like, get on board?

• 1:12:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:12:34Speaker 05

  This is the fucking movie.

• 1:12:36Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:12:37Speaker 05

  There's no fake out.

• 1:12:38Griffin Newman?

  We're starting here.

• 1:12:39Speaker 05

  There's no, it's just, we're starting here. It's only gonna go, we're starting at 11. Get excited.

• 1:12:44David Sims?

  I do think it's weird there's no bloopers at the end.

• 1:12:48David Sims?

  Like, he flips the coin, he's like, ah!

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  That was the mid 2000s, by the way. Yeah.

• 1:12:55David Sims?

  Life is a highway, whatever, just, you know.

• 1:12:58Griffin Newman?

  Every time he-

• 1:12:59Speaker 05

  This is the dawning, yeah.

• 1:13:01Griffin Newman?

  Every time Deacon captures the, um, uh, the, the key lock being shot through with the cattle gun. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 1:13:12Speaker 05

  Wait, say it again?

• 1:13:12Griffin Newman?

  Whatever, the cylinder.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:13Griffin Newman?

  The cylinder of the key at the fucking door.

• 1:13:17Speaker 05

  Jesus, yeah.

• 1:13:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and there's the one time, maybe it happens a couple of times, the one time I remember distinctly, where he quickly cuts to a shot of the impact, the imprint left on the back wall of the motel room.

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:29Griffin Newman?

  And stuff like that is somehow like the most upsetting imagery in the movie.

• 1:13:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Griffin Newman?

  More than the stuff that is aggressively bloody.

• 1:13:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:13:39David Sims?

  All right, just to wrap up the dossier, uh, the dossier. Uh, McCarthy did visit the set, but I think they basically just described him as amiable and gracious, not like there to render judgment.

• 1:13:50Griffin Newman?

  They talk about him coming to a screening.

• 1:13:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:13:53Griffin Newman?

  Early on, and they heard him laugh a couple of times.

• 1:13:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:13:55Griffin Newman?

  And they went, I guess that means he approves.

• 1:13:58David Sims?

  I mean, famously, that means the Coens like to take.

• 1:14:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:02David Sims?

  I've heard that from multiple people. I feel like someone just texted us that, that like, like, they don't really give a lot of notes. And then you do the take, and if they're like, ha, ha, ha, then it's like, all right, I guess we're done.

• 1:14:11Speaker 05

  Wrapping up, yeah.

• 1:14:12David Sims?

  In unison.

• 1:14:13Speaker 05

  Moving on, yeah.

• 1:14:14Griffin Newman?

  And does not need to be a funny scene. They just like giggle maniacally and they like what's happening.

• 1:14:20David Sims?

  Uh, so this is a crazy, okay, this is interesting, just behind the scenes stuff. Uh, so Rudin is in the final stages of his deal at Paramount when he gets the rights to this novel. Paramount is turning Paramount Classics into Paramount Vantage, which is now Paramount Nothing. Paramount Cowards, or Paramount MAGA, or whatever Paramount's up to these days.

• 1:14:38Griffin Newman?

  It was just so funny when it went from Paramount Classics, which was like, this is a, the most erudite version of our, like- Archway, right?

• 1:14:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:14:48Griffin Newman?

  Like, it felt like it was the Paramount, like, gates framed by, like, flowers and shit. And this, like, dainty, like, calligraphy kind of thing. And then it was replaced with, like, fucking punk rock, bar, bathroom, label maker. The sticker isn't even staying, it's carved. Vantage.

• 1:15:10David Sims?

  Anyway, um, so he, uh, will then move on to produce films at a number of studios, including post-Harvey Miramax.

• 1:15:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 1:15:21David Sims?

  To deal with this transition, he proposes that both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, a movie he also executive produced, be set up as co-productions of Paramount, Vantage, and Miramax.

• 1:15:31Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, they have, they, they're flipped.

• 1:15:34David Sims?

  Miramax essentially being, of course, a Disney label, you know, in the dying days of that.

• 1:15:38Griffin Newman?

  But isn't it, No Country was Miramax domestic, Paramount overseas, and, and There Will Be Blood was the opposite?

• 1:15:46Speaker 05

  I feel like-

• 1:15:47David Sims?

  Something like that.

• 1:15:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:49David Sims?

  Well, no, you're gonna say.

• 1:15:50Speaker 05

  No, I just, I feel like knowing Miramax-

• 1:15:52David Sims?

  Yeah, you're right, Griffin.

• 1:15:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:15:54Speaker 05

  Oh, you were, that's what it is? Okay, nevermind.

• 1:15:55David Sims?

  It was Miramax had domestics on, domestic on this and international on Blood and vice versa for-

• 1:16:00Speaker 05

  Copy that, yeah. I cannot believe you knew that. I can't, my broken-

• 1:16:04Griffin Newman?

  Broken, my broken fucking brain.

• 1:16:07David Sims?

  Rudin also produced Darjeeling Limited and Margot at the Wedding in 2007, so he's just working with a lot of auteurs making, but making difficult movies, like Darjeeling is a bit of a difficult swing for Anderson that doesn't go over perfectly. Margot is an insanely difficult swing for Bonback that goes over horribly.

• 1:16:24Speaker 05

  Horribly, yeah.

• 1:16:25David Sims?

  And is still, I feel like, the movie, when people are like, "I like Noah Bonback," I'm like, "Margot at the Wedding?" And there's the 5% of psychos who are like, "Oh, my favorite," and the others are like, "I never saw it," or "I hated it." It was like drinking poison.

• 1:16:36Griffin Newman?

  The Rudin magic was that he was like a fucking mafia boss who was like, "If this is what you want to make, yeah, I will searle anyone who stands in the way."

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:44Griffin Newman?

  I got you 100%.

• 1:16:45Speaker 05

  I mean, it's a really good strategy.

• 1:16:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:16:48Speaker 05

  If you think about it.

• 1:16:49Griffin Newman?

  It's how he attracted the best directors, because he was just like, "You will be protected."

• 1:16:54Speaker 05

  It's actually like, you know, actually Netflix kind of did that in its early days.

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  We're not gonna give you notes.

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  We're not gonna give you notes, just come in here and fucking do it, and you know.

• 1:17:02David Sims?

  And now they still don't give notes, right? They're normal.

• 1:17:05Griffin Newman?

  No, the Netflix thing was, for so long, what is the movie?

• 1:17:09Speaker 05

  They're super chill.

• 1:17:10Griffin Newman?

  They're super chill.

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  They're all about artistic vision, for sure.

• 1:17:13David Sims?

  And then, right, they like everything to look however it should look.

• 1:17:15Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:17:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:17:16Griffin Newman?

  And they never demand that every movie open with an overhead helicopter shot of the city.

• 1:17:24David Sims?

  Where they're basically like, guys?

• 1:17:26Griffin Newman?

  They have some numbers that tell them if that isn't the opening shot, then people won't finish a movie.

• 1:17:30David Sims?

  They're like, fucking Trader Joe's dinner on their table with their mug, you know? Like, they don't want to pay attention for 35 minutes.

• 1:17:36Speaker 05

  No, thank you.

• 1:17:38Griffin Newman?

  Same. But yes, the Netflix strategy, first is the ruined thing. I feel like the Netflix strategy was, for years, them being like, what is the script everyone else has turned down?

• 1:17:48Speaker 05

  Yes, well, that's what it is.

• 1:17:49Griffin Newman?

  We will let you make it here with a lot of money and no notes. And then some of those came out and you were like, oh, I get why everyone turned this script down.

• 1:17:58David Sims?

  No Country, they write, by the way, just to point out, they write at the same time as A Serious Man and burn after reading. I think it's important to note that because it's like, they hadn't made an original movie in a long time.

• 1:18:08Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:18:08David Sims?

  At this point, and it's not like this is them and then they're like, oh, maybe we should. It's like, they do have these original ideas cooking at the same time.

• 1:18:16Griffin Newman?

  But also, this period of, like, profound productivity for them, they, they start being like, once a year guys.

• 1:18:24David Sims?

  For a little while.

• 1:18:25Griffin Newman?

  This run of bangers that all came out of the same, create a bubble.

• 1:18:29David Sims?

  An interesting fact about this movie is that apart from Steven Root, I think everyone in it is someone they've never worked with before. And it doesn't feel that way. Everyone in it, you're like, oh, these feel like Coen guys.

• 1:18:39Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:18:40David Sims?

  And obviously, they worked with Brolin again, two times. Uh, did they ever work with Bardem or TLJ again, though?

• 1:18:48Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:18:48David Sims?

  I feel like, did they ever use Garrett Dillahun again? He's another guy that feels like they would have used him like, five times.

• 1:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you know, he auditioned for Llewellyn five times.

• 1:18:56Speaker 05

  For Llewellyn, yeah, yeah, five times?

• 1:18:58Griffin Newman?

  That's what I read, and he could not be more perfectly used in the place he is.

• 1:19:03Speaker 05

  Who should have been, yeah.

• 1:19:03Griffin Newman?

  It is also funny that he is also in Jesse James and kind of plays a very similar role.

• 1:19:08Speaker 05

  What happened with the Heath Ledger of it all?

• 1:19:11Griffin Newman?

  They said, he was their first choice, which makes- Perfect sense after Brokeback, but also I think it would have felt a little repetitive. I'm sure he would have figured out a way to make it a distinct performance.

• 1:19:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

• 1:19:25Griffin Newman?

  But you're casting him off of the strength of the thing he just did really well, which is Cowboy Who Doesn't Say Much.

• 1:19:30Speaker 05

  However, you know, you've got Joker in the midst of all of that. So you do-

• 1:19:35David Sims?

  Yeah, it would be an amazing in-between if he'd been in this.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. I just wonder, yeah, I just wonder if that would have impacted it at all. Probably not.

• 1:19:46Griffin Newman?

  Dark Knight comes out like eight, nine months after this.

• 1:19:49Speaker 05

  Oh, it's after this.

• 1:19:50Griffin Newman?

  I wonder if he had said yes to this, if he would have been able to do Dark Knight. He said he turned it down because his daughter had just been born and he wanted to spend time with her.

• 1:19:58Speaker 05

  I see. Yeah.

• 1:19:59Griffin Newman?

  Which makes sense. And then after nine, 10 months, whatever, he accepts the Dark Knight role. It feels like everything landed where it should have.

• 1:20:09David Sims?

  It's just unfortunate that he passed away.

• 1:20:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, very much.

• 1:20:13David Sims?

  Brolin famously was shooting Planet Terror, which he's really good in.

• 1:20:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:17David Sims?

  A really funny performance. He should do more of that. He does. He works a lot. I shouldn't really complain. And famously got Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino to help him with his audition tape. And the Coens, when they got it, said, "Who lit this?" Not joking.

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:35David Sims?

  And they liked it.

• 1:20:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:38David Sims?

  How it was lit. They didn't like him and they said no. And he said that like-

• 1:20:44Speaker 05

  Burn, drag them.

• 1:20:44David Sims?

  He thinks it hurt that he was like really big and he had this goatee for the role in Planet Terror. And he thinks he didn't look right, but he was also just like, "I don't think they liked me. Like, it's fine. Like, I wasn't vibing for them."

• 1:20:55Griffin Newman?

  Let's also talk about-

• 1:20:56David Sims?

  But they couldn't cast this role.

• 1:20:58Griffin Newman?

  Right. Let's talk about Brolin's status at this point, right?

• 1:21:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

• 1:21:02Griffin Newman?

  Because obviously, he's like a teen actor, a son of an actor.

• 1:21:05David Sims?

  He's a nepo baby. His dad is a pretty famous actor. I feel like maybe people don't put enough respect on James Brolin's name anymore, but he's in, the Coens would certainly like know that.

• 1:21:16Griffin Newman?

  But he was kind of like an A+.

• 1:21:21Griffin Newman?

  B-list star, if that makes sense.

• 1:21:23David Sims?

  He was very similar to James Garner to me. Like where it's like a big TV actor and a sort of solid-ish movie actor.

• 1:21:29Griffin Newman?

  Had the absolute leading man vibes.

• 1:21:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Griffin Newman?

  Never clicked as a movie star.

• 1:21:33Speaker 05

  Handsome, handsome, yeah.

• 1:21:34Griffin Newman?

  Was famously very close to being James Bond. He was almost the only American James Bond.

• 1:21:39David Sims?

  And of course, he's been married to Barbra Streisand for many years.

• 1:21:41Griffin Newman?

  For a very long time.

• 1:21:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:21:42David Sims?

  Uh, which I'm sure is normal as well. We're talking about so many normals.

• 1:21:45Speaker 05

  Super, super normal.

• 1:21:46Griffin Newman?

  He has this run of like thrashing and goonies and all his teen performances, right? Where he has just kind of like out of the box charisma as a kid. And then talks about that he hit a point where he was just like, I want to get good at doing this. And tried to really like study, learn how to be better. And then yet was still stuck in kind of like a true B-movie fourth lead zone.

• 1:22:11Speaker 05

  It's a Jessica Lange moment.

• 1:22:13Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:22:14Speaker 05

  Right? Like it's a King Kong, hold on a second.

• 1:22:17Griffin Newman?

  Yep, like.

• 1:22:17Speaker 05

  One moment.

• 1:22:19Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:22:19Speaker 05

  You know, Oscar.

• 1:22:20David Sims?

  In 2000, right.

• 1:22:22Griffin Newman?

  But he was stuck there for a while.

• 1:22:23David Sims?

  Well, 2000, he's in Hollow Man as like the guy where you're like, hey Hollow Man, bash this guy's fucking head and he sucks.

• 1:22:30Griffin Newman?

  He was always like.

• 1:22:31David Sims?

  What's the matter girlfriend? You're like, fuck it, I can't wait for the invisible man to waste this guy.

• 1:22:35Speaker 05

  Fuck this guy up.

• 1:22:36Griffin Newman?

  He always had kind of like.

• 1:22:37David Sims?

  He's gonna die like second.

• 1:22:39Griffin Newman?

  Right, fake lead.

• 1:22:40Speaker 05

  Get him out of here.

• 1:22:41David Sims?

  And then he's in like fucking nothing, like in 2000.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Into the Blue.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  Right, it's the, in 2004, apparently he's in Melinda, Melinda. I haven't, I don't remember that. I did see that film. 2005, he's the villain in the Paul Walker, Jessica Alba shirtless film Into the Blue. One of those films where it was like, what's the plot? And they're like, shirtless.

• 1:22:58Speaker 05

  Shirtless, yeah.

• 1:22:59David Sims?

  Big suit.

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  Hair.

• 1:23:00David Sims?

  Um, 2006, he was in The Dead Girl. That didn't win a Emmy. And then in 2007.

• 1:23:06Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:23:06David Sims?

  He's in Grindhouse, In the Valley of Allah, the movie that Tommy Lee Jones gets an Oscar nomination for. No Country for Old Men, An American Gangster. And he's also in the Coen Brothers short film.

• 1:23:18Griffin Newman?

  To each his own cinema.

• 1:23:19David Sims?

  To each his own cinema.

• 1:23:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:23:20David Sims?

  The next year, he does W.

• 1:23:22Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:22David Sims?

  Where he plays my favorite president.

• 1:23:24Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:23:24David Sims?

  It's historically established, besides the later one.

• 1:23:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:23:27David Sims?

  Not a woman.

• 1:23:29Speaker 04

  Nacho?

• 1:23:30David Sims?

  No, it is Joe. It's a joke.

• 1:23:32Speaker 05

  It's a joke.

• 1:23:33Griffin Newman?

  It's Joe.

• 1:23:34David Sims?

  We're back on. Crazy motherfucker. And Milk, which he is phenomenal.

• 1:23:38Griffin Newman?

  His final.

• 1:23:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:39David Sims?

  And he gets an Oscar.

• 1:23:39Speaker 05

  Very, very good in that.

• 1:23:40Griffin Newman?

  His first Oscar.

• 1:23:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Griffin Newman?

  His only?

• 1:23:42David Sims?

  Only. And then after that, he has kind of a weird, uh, are you a star thing where it's like Jonah Hex? It doesn't work.

• 1:23:51Griffin Newman?

  He for a long time was one of those actors.

• 1:23:53David Sims?

  And in Black Three, like he's good in it.

• 1:23:55Griffin Newman?

  He was.

• 1:23:56Speaker 05

  The, the old boy remake.

• 1:23:57David Sims?

  Old boy remake.

• 1:23:58Speaker 05

  It's just so misguided, you know?

• 1:24:00Griffin Newman?

  He felt quietly like box office poison for a while where anytime he was in a supporting part, it worked and anytime a movie was pinned on him, it was a disaster.

• 1:24:08Speaker 05

  It was a disaster.

• 1:24:09David Sims?

  A little bit. But he's a working actor.

• 1:24:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:24:11David Sims?

  He's a working actor and then he played Thanos and it was one of those things where you're like, that feels like a bummer for him.

• 1:24:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18David Sims?

  And like Marvel's not gonna pull that off and God bless them, they pulled that off.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:22David Sims?

  And he pulled that off.

• 1:24:23Speaker 05

  It was when Ruffalo was, um, cast as Hulk.

• 1:24:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  Same sort of feeling, right? You're like, what?

• 1:24:28David Sims?

  Why is he doing that?

• 1:24:29Speaker 05

  Why is he doing that? But to your point. And then fantastic.

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  To your point, it's the fact that he pulled it off, that people were like,

• 1:24:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:36Griffin Newman?

  He actually gave a real performance here.

• 1:24:39Speaker 05

  He really did.

• 1:24:40Griffin Newman?

  Only reason this shit is working.

• 1:24:42David Sims?

  I mean, he has this run that's like inherent vice.

• 1:24:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:44David Sims?

  Sicario, which he's great in.

• 1:24:46Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 1:24:47Speaker 05

  He's able and just very good in that.

• 1:24:48David Sims?

  He's one of the 10 people trying to climb Everest.

• 1:24:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:51David Sims?

  Hail Caesar, which he's great in. Only the brave, he's phenomenal in that movie. And then the fucking two Avengers movies, there's a Sicario sequel. And then the Dunes.

• 1:25:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:00David Sims?

  Which he's wonderful in.

• 1:25:02Griffin Newman?

  No, I think he's totally figured out his thing now.

• 1:25:04David Sims?

  But he's been a little quieter lately, but now he's in Zack's movie. He's in the new Knives Out.

• 1:25:09Griffin Newman?

  He's thrilled about that.

• 1:25:10David Sims?

  He's in the Running Man, the Edgar Wright movie, uh, and he's in this Ridley Scott movie called The Dog Stars, that's like a post-apocalyptic movie with like Jacob Elordi and him. I'm sure that'll be fun.

• 1:25:21Griffin Newman?

  I, I, yes. I, it's just, it's funny how there was.

• 1:25:25Speaker 05

  He was like, fine, fine.

• 1:25:26David Sims?

  Ridley Scott shot it like two days. He just set up a bunch of cameras in a circle and was like, go on fucking, ah!

• 1:25:32Griffin Newman?

  That moment in 2007 where suddenly it was like, Josh Brolin is in five movies this year, working with all major directors.

• 1:25:39David Sims?

  Right. Who, who made a phone call?

• 1:25:41Griffin Newman?

  And it's sort of, right. Like what we were talking about in our Mahal and Drive episode of like, why did Hollywood just suddenly all decide this guy?

• 1:25:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Griffin Newman?

  And then you see the performances and you're like, this guy figured his thing out.

• 1:25:51Speaker 05

  That's the thing.

• 1:25:51Griffin Newman?

  Right? This wasn't like some concerted press effort.

• 1:25:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:55David Sims?

  Brolin. Famously was like day trading, make money.

• 1:25:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:25:59David Sims?

  Uh, all the way up to Making No Country.

• 1:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Was married Diane Lane, was mostly at this point the guy who stands next to Diane Lane while she's having a second act.

• 1:26:07Speaker 05

  True.

• 1:26:08Griffin Newman?

  Sort of revival. Yes.

• 1:26:11David Sims?

  He says he had a great agent.

• 1:26:12Speaker 05

  Unfaithful was like 2001?

• 1:26:14Griffin Newman?

  He's sitting next to her at the Oscars.

• 1:26:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, so five years he's sitting next to her. Yeah.

• 1:26:18David Sims?

  I love that movie so much when she's so horny that the wind just fucking blows her across the street. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. That is a movie where people are like, oh, isn't it bad? And I'm like, watch it again.

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  It is.

• 1:26:28David Sims?

  Sit your ass down.

• 1:26:29Speaker 05

  Oh, it is a fantastic movie.

• 1:26:30Griffin Newman?

  That's the horny version of Sandra Bullock being so racist she falls down the stairs and crashed.

• 1:26:36David Sims?

  It truly is. That is what happens in Crash. You can't convince me otherwise. She's so goddamn racist, the floor is like, down you go, bitch.

• 1:26:43Griffin Newman?

  These people.

• 1:26:46David Sims?

  I truly said to my brother, I remember on X, he's there, I was like, am I supposed to take away that she was so mean to her maid? That the maid like cleaned the floors too hard and that's why she fell down this year?

• 1:26:56Griffin Newman?

  She's so racist.

• 1:26:57David Sims?

  What?

• 1:26:57Griffin Newman?

  She lost her center of gravity.

• 1:27:00Speaker 05

  Oh my god, you guys, you're gonna kill me. I'm gonna have a heart attack.

• 1:27:05Griffin Newman?

  Roland, but Roland talks about that he had the clarity of just being like, I know this is my part. I like see how to do this.

• 1:27:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is me.

• 1:27:13Griffin Newman?

  And I've like had something in me that I haven't gotten the chance to show and this is the vehicle and I have to figure out how to get through it.

• 1:27:18Speaker 05

  And I gotta figure out how to get it. Yeah.

• 1:27:20David Sims?

  And he, he said like, I had a very good agent who was very persistent, who wasn't like, he's perfect for the part, but was just like, can you just meet him?

• 1:27:28Griffin Newman?

  And especially as they're not finding someone else, they could wait back and hold back six weeks later, go like, you want to take another look at Josh?

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, I guess we have to, yeah.

• 1:27:37David Sims?

  He puts it is, finally, they're like, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. He can come down. He says, I studied a few scenes, I came down and met them, there was really no reaction in the meeting. I walked out being like, well, it was really nice that I met the Coens. I'm a big fan. And by the time he got home, he got the part. You know, he was told he got the part. Ethan says like, they had just.

• 1:27:57David Sims?

  Talked to both Tommy and Javier that day and he comes in and that combo helped them be like, yeah, these three guys circling each other kind of makes sense to us.

• 1:28:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:10David Sims?

  Um, and I think there's also the kind of like, it's weird. It's like Tommy Lee Jones is a major star, but obviously he's not exactly like a guaranteed box office guy at that point.

• 1:28:21Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 1:28:21David Sims?

  But he's a major star.

• 1:28:22Griffin Newman?

  But like fucking Man of the House had come out to pin drops two years before this.

• 1:28:27Speaker 05

  Pin drops.

• 1:28:28David Sims?

  Javier Berdeme is like a respected actor who is certainly not a box office guy yet.

• 1:28:34Griffin Newman?

  He's got one schnabel Oscar nom under his.

• 1:28:37David Sims?

  For Before Nightfall.

• 1:28:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  But this is his first English speaking movie.

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  Uh, he's in collateral in like that one scene, but that's about it.

• 1:28:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:46David Sims?

  He is largely a Spanish actor.

• 1:28:48Griffin Newman?

  During the press tour for this, he did not speak much English.

• 1:28:51David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:52Griffin Newman?

  And his Oscar speech he gives is a minute and a half and half of it's in Spanish. Like it was that thing where you were like, oh, he kind of learned this phonetically.

• 1:28:59David Sims?

  I've never seen.

• 1:29:00Speaker 05

  When I did, when I did Acolyte, um, Li Zhengjie did the entire show phonetically.

• 1:29:06David Sims?

  That's so interesting.

• 1:29:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08David Sims?

  That might've helped his performance in a weird way, just because like Jedi are so remote and his characters obviously kind of, you know, where it's like, that's sort of an interesting thing to hand an actor.

• 1:29:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:21David Sims?

  But this probably seems hard though.

• 1:29:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I think with Javier in this movie, what's great is that he's, it again, it helps like he, he doesn't need to speak until he needs to speak.

• 1:29:33Griffin Newman?

  And there's also something about the unease of the language.

• 1:29:36Speaker 05

  So everything is, well, Sugar, as you know, uh, and you're probably about to read David. Um, uh, Cormac, uh, wanted to create a character that was ethnically ambiguous.

• 1:29:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:29:50Speaker 05

  You didn't read it and imagine a human person.

• 1:29:54David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:29:55Speaker 05

  Right? So I think that was also, and I don't know if this is ignorant on their part, the Coen brothers, but they, it seemed to me that they certainly wanted someone that looked ethnically ambiguous, like what, you know? And what accent is that? Which is why the phonetic.

• 1:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think so too.

• 1:30:14Speaker 05

  That is good, you know, like, um, the fact that, yeah, it, when he spoke late, much later, I think actually, it was, I told them I don't. I don't like violence. And I don't drive.

• 1:30:28Griffin Newman?

  He talks about that he loved the Coen brothers so much, he said yes to this, even though he was like, I don't get this.

• 1:30:33Speaker 05

  I don't get what it is. I have no idea what's happening. Yeah.

• 1:30:36Griffin Newman?

  This isn't in my wheelhouse.

• 1:30:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:38Griffin Newman?

  But he, he has, uh, one of the most unique faces.

• 1:30:44Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 1:30:44Griffin Newman?

  I feel like he has talked about, like, uh, thank God I broke my nose at a young age.

• 1:30:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:51Griffin Newman?

  Like, I don't think I would have been a movie star.

• 1:30:53Speaker 05

  Oh, have you guys seen Hamon Hamon, by the way?

• 1:30:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:30:56Speaker 05

  You have.

• 1:30:57David Sims?

  I absolutely have.

• 1:30:57Griffin Newman?

  One of the wildest looks anyone has ever had.

• 1:30:59Speaker 05

  You know, there's this, there was this thing in the nineties, as I was a burgeoning cinema fan, and I realized there was this sort of, these Spanish films in the nineties. Yeah.

• 1:31:07David Sims?

  Involved insane amounts of sex and nudity. I don't know if you guys are aware of this.

• 1:31:11Speaker 05

  Insane.

• 1:31:12David Sims?

  Bigas Luna, one of these guys who'd be like, mm, titties, you know, like, or I would just sort of be like, ah, pulling that off your library shelf.

• 1:31:20Speaker 05

  But it is very funny to see him.

• 1:31:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:31:23Speaker 05

  You know, well, first of all.

• 1:31:25David Sims?

  That's young Javier Berdán.

• 1:31:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's him and her. It's him and Penelope, who's eighteen, I think. And she, and he's like twenty-four.

• 1:31:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31:32Speaker 05

  But actually, in that movie, I think it's.

• 1:31:34David Sims?

  He's very like skinny and sexy in it.

• 1:31:35Speaker 05

  Exactly. And it's, he's very aware of how his physicality is defining his character, right? Like, there's a lot of shots of his cock, um, no, no, sorry, his cock in, in underwear, sorry, to be cleared for the viewers.

• 1:31:49Griffin Newman?

  His bulge.

• 1:31:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, his bulge is, is heavily featured. He's very much, um, uh, objectified by, uh, some of the characters in the film. You know, specifically, you know, if you don't know the plot of this movie, you don't really need to know it. It's, everyone's having sex.

• 1:32:06David Sims?

  Yeah, it's like a relationship that turns disastrous quickly.

• 1:32:09Speaker 05

  Soap opera, yeah, like, it's whatever. So, um.

• 1:32:12David Sims?

  It's called Hamon Hamon, which of course means ham.

• 1:32:15Griffin Newman?

  Ham.

• 1:32:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:32:16David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:32:17Speaker 05

  But point being, I think that was kind of his first.

• 1:32:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:20Speaker 05

  Roll.

• 1:32:20Griffin Newman?

  That was his calling card.

• 1:32:21David Sims?

  That's his calling card, and then he does Live Flesh, which, uh, rocks.

• 1:32:25Griffin Newman?

  Perdido Durango with Rosie Perez.

• 1:32:27David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:32:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:28David Sims?

  Uh, he does the, Before Night Falls, obviously, is the big breakout, uh, and then, um.

• 1:32:35David Sims?

  The See Inside, another fucking paralyzed guy movie. Sorry to be like painting with a broad brush. That and Diving Bone Butterfly, uh, but, uh.

• 1:32:44Griffin Newman?

  There, there's something to him.

• 1:32:45David Sims?

  He's very good. That's a movie where you were like, he's very good in this.

• 1:32:49Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, yes, exactly.

• 1:32:50David Sims?

  The movie is, is fine. It's a, it's a solid.

• 1:32:52Griffin Newman?

  But I think the whole Bar Dem thing is that like his, his energy, his look, his voice are all constantly like teetering on this very, very delicate edge between terrifying sexy and silly.

• 1:33:07Speaker 05

  Absolutely. That's what it is.

• 1:33:08Griffin Newman?

  It takes like one degree for him to swing so wildly the other way.

• 1:33:12Speaker 05

  That is what it is.

• 1:33:13Griffin Newman?

  And it doesn't make sense that he can kind of hold all three.

• 1:33:17Speaker 05

  There is something.

• 1:33:20Speaker 05

  It's gonna sound weird, but there is something that is silly about the Sugar performance.

• 1:33:26Griffin Newman?

  I think that's what they're smart about.

• 1:33:28Speaker 05

  It's like 5%.

• 1:33:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:30Speaker 05

  But if you, as an actor, well, the only thing that's said about him in the book is that he doesn't have a sense of humor.

• 1:33:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:35Speaker 05

  There's no description of him. There's no like inside his head, what's going on? He thought blah, blah, blah.

• 1:33:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Speaker 05

  Or he does, it's a little bit, but I think you have to have a sense of humor to play him.

• 1:33:47Griffin Newman?

  I agree. And I also think that's so much of the styling, which they talk about.

• 1:33:52Speaker 05

  The hair.

• 1:33:52David Sims?

  The hair. I was just gonna say, the hair is like.

• 1:33:55Griffin Newman?

  And they put him in the outfit. They do a camera test and he's like, is this a prank? Are you fucking kidding me? Why would I look like this?

• 1:34:02David Sims?

  It's so goofy.

• 1:34:03Speaker 05

  Silly. That's a silly haircut.

• 1:34:06Griffin Newman?

  They were laughing hysterically. I thought they were bullying me.

• 1:34:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:10Griffin Newman?

  I thought they were setting me up for failure, but the thing he does smartly is understand the funniest thing he could do is not play the look at all. Right?

• 1:34:20Speaker 05

  And he does not. He lets it speak for himself.

• 1:34:23Griffin Newman?

  He knows it's funny.

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:34:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. And that's the sort of like conflict within it of just, I cannot get my head around this guy.

• 1:34:30Speaker 05

  And they, they found that hair from a, in a, they found the hair from a photograph of a guy in, what, in the seventies? Who's had a brothel.

• 1:34:40David Sims?

  Book that Tommy Lee Jones had supposedly. I just love the idea of like, hey, fellas, wanna wanna read my book?

• 1:34:48Speaker 05

  That is a great accent.

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  Violence, he does hate violence, but.

• 1:34:54Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't drive.

• 1:34:55David Sims?

  He doesn't drive, but uh, but he would.

• 1:34:58David Sims?

  He would apparently like, he says like, I managed to drive myself into the park to become evil, to become deaf. When the camera stopped rolling, I would bed the Coen, bed the Coen brothers like, alright, alright, can you get the gun out of my face? And said, he said, they would just be giggling. I mean, which is just like the story of reactors.

• 1:35:17David Sims?

  The haircut, yeah, supposedly a photograph of a guy in a bar at a Texas border town in 1979. Their haircut is acting by itself, Bardem says. You don't have to act weird.

• 1:35:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, don't play the hair. No, you haven't.

• 1:35:32David Sims?

  To me, he looks like, and this is the thing they thought about it, but he looks like a fucking monk or knight from like the crusade.

• 1:35:38Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:35:38David Sims?

  Like, that's like what people look like in paintings from the 10th century.

• 1:35:41Griffin Newman?

  I feel like they also joke about Dorothy Hamwell, but that's part of it of like.

• 1:35:44David Sims?

  It just looks like he walked out of another dimension.

• 1:35:47Speaker 05

  That's, that's what it is.

• 1:35:48David Sims?

  That's just what it is, where you're like, this is a human person and he does bleed and shit. Like, it's not like he's the Terminator exactly.

• 1:35:54Speaker 05

  I agree, yeah.

• 1:35:55David Sims?

  But you are just like, is this someone from, yeah, just like another world?

• 1:35:59Griffin Newman?

  Here's.

• 1:35:59David Sims?

  Like Venus.

• 1:36:00Speaker 05

  An alien or something.

• 1:36:01Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing I will admit that makes me sound stupid, because I am stupid.

• 1:36:04David Sims?

  You're a big stupid idiot.

• 1:36:05Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, I'm a little stupid idiot. Very petite.

• 1:36:09David Sims?

  You're physically small.

• 1:36:10Speaker 05

  They're certainly like.

• 1:36:11David Sims?

  Mucha grande.

• 1:36:13Speaker 05

  When I speak to you, I mean, the first thing I think of is ignorance.

• 1:36:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes, absolutely. First and foremost, I remember watching this movie for the first time. And getting to the gravestone at the end and being like, oh, this was a period piece?

• 1:36:27David Sims?

  Yeah, right. It's 1980.

• 1:36:28Griffin Newman?

  And every time I watch it.

• 1:36:31Speaker 05

  The first time I felt that too.

• 1:36:32Griffin Newman?

  I still get so caught up in it, I forget it was not set in 2007.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:36:37Griffin Newman?

  Until the Vietnam line.

• 1:36:38Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:36:39Griffin Newman?

  Which somehow I just didn't clock the first time I wasn't doing the math on.

• 1:36:42Speaker 05

  The production design is astonishing.

• 1:36:44Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. And they're not playing period that hard.

• 1:36:48Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:36:48Griffin Newman?

  Right? And it's like, the earmarks are the lack of certain technology, what have you, right? But there is something kind of timeless about it. And yet, Sugar is the only character who is kind of styled specifically

• 1:37:01Speaker 05

  of that time.

• 1:37:02Griffin Newman?

  To the 70s in a way that is then so jarring.

• 1:37:06Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:37:07Griffin Newman?

  Why is this guy like a weird amalgamation of trends? You know?

• 1:37:11Speaker 05

  Oh, of trends. Yes, yes, yes. I see what you mean. Yeah.

• 1:37:13Griffin Newman?

  And not like high fashion trends, but you're like, he sort of got like a Canadian tuxedo thing going on.

• 1:37:19Speaker 03

  He's got very 70s boots on.

• 1:37:22Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. The costume designer talked about how she wanted the boots to feel like

• 1:37:28Speaker 05

  a weapon.

• 1:37:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:29Speaker 05

  Like knives, basically. And she said, she was like, no one else in the movie is wearing this style of boot.

• 1:37:35Griffin Newman?

  No, their pants are even kind of like slared out.

• 1:37:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:38Speaker 05

  It's got a heel to it, sort of.

• 1:37:41Griffin Newman?

  But there's the moment late in the film when he's trying to extract the bullet from his leg. And they cut to him sitting in the motel bathroom, right? With his legs crossed.

• 1:37:52Speaker 05

  Gorgeous.

• 1:37:52Griffin Newman?

  Using tweezers to try to pull out a bullet shard. And he's like bending down. And he looks hot, but also he's not posing in a naturally menacing way, right? There's something as if, he is posed as if he is painting his own nails.

• 1:38:07Speaker 05

  He, this is what I mean.

• 1:38:09Griffin Newman?

  And he's like slouched over.

• 1:38:10Speaker 05

  And I think it starts with Hamon Hamon, right? Is that I think this is a man who understands that a lot of acting is the neck down.

• 1:38:19Griffin Newman?

  He's got a tremendous amount of body. He cuts just a big figure, right? And he's really smart about knowing how to subvert what you expect him to do, or how you expect him to play a scene without just feeling like he's being... Uh, flippant. Yeah. You know, or like contrarian or whatever. Yeah. And it's like, right, somehow the fact that he's not playing that scene tough makes it tougher. Somehow the fact that he's like I agree. slouching over in a way where there actually are tummy rolls, rather than later when he stands up in the towel and you see him looking pretty cut, makes him look more sexual. Yeah. But also makes it more otherworldly where you're like, it's even weirder to see this haircut on a naked body.

• 1:39:04Griffin Newman?

  You know?

• 1:39:12Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:39:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:39:19David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:39:19Griffin Newman?

  On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:39:30David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:39:32Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:39:54David Sims?

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

• 1:40:06Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called the best rendering of the footage ever seen.

• 1:40:15David Sims?

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

• 1:40:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:40:18David Sims?

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

• 1:40:25Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:40:39David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:40:41Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course.

• 1:40:42David Sims?

  Yes, but that's more of a hobby. Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot podcast is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:40:59Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:41:16David Sims?

  Tommy Lee Jones, obviously, I would say, is the most root one casting decision in this movie.

• 1:41:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:41:23David Sims?

  Like, we're gonna have Tommy Lee Jones play a Texas sheriff who's a little over it.

• 1:41:26Griffin Newman?

  And yeah, I think this performance was greeted as a, like, welcome back.

• 1:41:31David Sims?

  Yeah, and it's an amazing performance.

• 1:41:34Griffin Newman?

  I was stunned.

• 1:41:35David Sims?

  They, they wanted this character to be tart, like, they didn't want, like, a sort of good old boy, essentially, and that's what TLG, TLG is so good at.

• 1:41:43Griffin Newman?

  Also, what he's good at is-

• 1:41:44David Sims?

  He's from, like, the, he's from where it's set. They're like, he's the real thing for the region. He just checked every box. And then, you know, there's some interview where someone's like, is he scary? And Ethan says, he's a big pussy cat. And Joel says, let's just say he doesn't suffer fools gladly, but he is fine.

• 1:42:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I, I also think-

• 1:42:02David Sims?

  Famously, he sued Paramount and got, like, a fucking ton of money from them because they fucked him on some contract thing.

• 1:42:07Griffin Newman?

  For this?

• 1:42:08David Sims?

  Yes. They gave him, like, 15 million dollars.

• 1:42:10Griffin Newman?

  That kind of, yeah.

• 1:42:11David Sims?

  Yes, but that was not a Coens thing, obviously.

• 1:42:13Griffin Newman?

  But I think, right, he, he waved his quote for some backend that then they tried to withhold from him.

• 1:42:18David Sims?

  They messed with him.

• 1:42:19Griffin Newman?

  I was going to say, I think a lot of people they could have cast would then try to play, as you said, like, tart, rough.

• 1:42:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:42:27Griffin Newman?

  Haggard, you know? And what's smart is, they, like, hire Tommy Lee Jones, that's his default setting, and then they're sort of saying, like, can you make this your most emotional performance ever?

• 1:42:38Speaker 05

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:42:39Griffin Newman?

  And that's the magic of it.

• 1:42:41Speaker 05

  It's really magical, yeah.

• 1:42:42Griffin Newman?

  From the get-go, there's something disarming about starting a movie inside Tommy Lee Jones's head, where he's basically admitting to the audience, like, I, I just don't even know anymore.

• 1:42:53Speaker 05

  I mean, if you think about like, you know, him in pop culture, obviously, he's acted in a gajillion things since The Fugitive, but like, that's his, you know, you look at him, that's what you think, right?

• 1:43:02Griffin Newman?

  It's the defining role in many ways.

• 1:43:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, you think high status, you think, you know, barking orders, you think, yeah, of course, like, you know, being the good guy at the end, but almost sort of reluctantly, right?

• 1:43:12Griffin Newman?

  But like, post-Fugitive.

• 1:43:14Speaker 05

  I killed my wife.

• 1:43:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:43:15Speaker 05

  I don't care, you know, like, it isn't even, I don't believe you, yes, you did, it does not matter to me because I'm the Anton sugar of this movie.

• 1:43:24Griffin Newman?

  That line reading wins him the Oscar, and from that moment on, every time he is cast, they are either leaning into that or trying to subvert it.

• 1:43:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:32Griffin Newman?

  Right? Like, it becomes the unavoidable comparison point of this is, as you said, this is what people have in their mind when they think about Tommy Lee Jones.

• 1:43:40David Sims?

  I think so.

• 1:43:41Griffin Newman?

  And he's not a guy who transforms himself, so he's gonna be used differently, but you're never gonna be like, that was Tommy Lee Jones?

• 1:43:47Speaker 05

  I also think, I'm just realizing this in this moment, that actually, it does help the narrative of the movie because there's this understanding that he, in his iconic role, tracks down the bad guy.

• 1:43:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:43:59Speaker 05

  Quote-unquote, right? Like, he is excellent at that. So you do continue to think, even subconsciously, he's gonna catch this guy.

• 1:44:08Griffin Newman?

  And not only that, you start with his interior monologue, and then he's basically not on screen for like, 20 minutes.

• 1:44:15Speaker 05

  Oh, is that true?

• 1:44:15Griffin Newman?

  And his screen time increases as the movie goes on, but he's pretty backloaded. So it's important to be like, here's the big movie star, you know who this guy is.

• 1:44:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Griffin Newman?

  You're setting expectations based on him being in a movie with this kind of setup.

• 1:44:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:30Griffin Newman?

  We're pinning him at the beginning, you're never gonna forget about him.

• 1:44:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:35Griffin Newman?

  You're keeping track of him the entire time, even when he is

• 1:44:38Speaker 05

  That's a really good point, yeah.

• 1:44:39Griffin Newman?

  elusive from the story.

• 1:44:40Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:44:41Griffin Newman?

  Because we're gonna have to get back to him at the end, and he needs to have been felt the whole time.

• 1:44:45Speaker 05

  Jesus, yeah, he's, yeah, incredible performance.

• 1:44:48Griffin Newman?

  And of course, right, he doesn't get nominated for this, he gets nominated for In the Valley of Allah, a movie that's completely forgotten.

• 1:44:52David Sims?

  It is. He's, it's not, in my opinion, a maybe something movie, but he is unsurprisingly very good in it.

• 1:44:59Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:44:59David Sims?

  And it was kind of a combo nom.

• 1:45:01Griffin Newman?

  And everyone knew that Bardem was basically walking away with supporting actor, so I think they didn't.

• 1:45:07Speaker 05

  Just quickly, who was, just a couple, a couple vibes of who the other guys were?

• 1:45:11Griffin Newman?

  For, uh, okay, so lead that year is Daniel Day-Wins.

• 1:45:15David Sims?

  He wins.

• 1:45:15Speaker 05

  Yes, right, right, right.

• 1:45:16David Sims?

  I'm a man, my boy!

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  Uh, George Clooney?

• 1:45:19Speaker 05

  I mean, that is cunt.

• 1:45:20David Sims?

  George Clooney and Michael Clayton, did you see that interview he gave about it? That was so funny, it was on one of the talk shows. Where he says, like, the thing Clooney says, like, the thing I get the most praise for from, like, people now is the final scene of Michael Clayton just drive.

• 1:45:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:36David Sims?

  Right? And he's like, the reason I agree with them is that entire fucking scene we were shooting. Have you seen this interview?

• 1:45:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it's incredible.

• 1:45:43David Sims?

  Like, what people on the street were going, "Hey, George Clooney!" They were seeing it in the window, like, "Oh!" Because it was just filming live.

• 1:45:51Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, we had one take of that. It was like, one mag, we weren't gonna get a second shot.

• 1:45:56David Sims?

  So he's like, "I am trying so hard not to laugh the entire scene."

• 1:45:58Griffin Newman?

  And people are like, "What is he thinking of?" Like, the blankness on his face is so profound, and you're like, "That guy's just trying to hold his shit together."

• 1:46:05David Sims?

  "Hey, George!"

• 1:46:07Speaker 05

  There's a, there's a story like that about, um, De Niro and Robin Williams in Awakening.

• 1:46:14Griffin Newman?

  My favorite story.

• 1:46:14Speaker 05

  Which I'm not gonna say on this podcast.

• 1:46:16Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I was gonna say.

• 1:46:17Speaker 05

  Oh, you can do it, but the listeners-

• 1:46:18David Sims?

  I feel like I can't say it.

• 1:46:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, the listeners can look it up, yeah.

• 1:46:21David Sims?

  Wait, what is it again? Robert De Niro?

• 1:46:23Speaker 05

  It's Robin Williams. It's Robin Williams and, um, De Niro in Awakenings.

• 1:46:28Griffin Newman?

  And it's in a-

• 1:46:29Speaker 05

  It's a similar vibe.

• 1:46:31Griffin Newman?

  It's a sequence in the movie in which De Niro has not yet awakened.

• 1:46:34Speaker 05

  That's correct.

• 1:46:34Griffin Newman?

  So he is a man trapped inside a body.

• 1:46:36Speaker 05

  And we've got bystanders.

• 1:46:39Griffin Newman?

  He's back of a car.

• 1:46:40Speaker 05

  You know, screaming, "Hey, De Niro!", you know, like this.

• 1:46:42Griffin Newman?

  And he's just keeping his stillness.

• 1:46:44Speaker 05

  That's correct.

• 1:46:45Griffin Newman?

  This character cannot react.

• 1:46:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:48Griffin Newman?

  And then, because David asked.

• 1:46:50David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:46:51Griffin Newman?

  A guy yells out, "Hey, Bobby, you still like that black pussy?"

• 1:46:57Speaker 05

  Can you imagine?

• 1:46:59David Sims?

  And De Niro's just like-

• 1:47:00Griffin Newman?

  No, De Niro breaks.

• 1:47:01David Sims?

  Oh, okay, okay. That guy.

• 1:47:04Griffin Newman?

  Williams was like, "It was the only time I ever saw him break."

• 1:47:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:06Griffin Newman?

  Where he had to be like, "Yeah, I do."

• 1:47:08Speaker 05

  It's so, it's, it's-

• 1:47:09Griffin Newman?

  You got me there.

• 1:47:10Speaker 05

  It's dark, but it's a, it's a fucking, it's a, it's a story. We'll say it's a story, we'll say that.

• 1:47:16Griffin Newman?

  Guys got me.

• 1:47:17David Sims?

  Uh, the other nominees for best actor of the year is a very strong year because Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises, which is another one where you're like, is this like a lizard from Jupiter? Like, you know, this guy who shows up is just like, I cut off hands and feet. And you're just like, I want to.

• 1:47:30Griffin Newman?

  A perfect description.

• 1:47:31Speaker 05

  I believe you. Yeah.

• 1:47:33David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:47:34Griffin Newman?

  Lizard from Jupiter.

• 1:47:35David Sims?

  And then Depp in Sweeney Todd, which is this sort of divisive performance, but it's him, you know, trying something.

• 1:47:41Griffin Newman?

  It is. It is. Okay. And then supporting is totally normal guy.

• 1:47:46David Sims?

  Just, it's the most, we're seeing so many normal people.

• 1:47:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And we love talking about Depp on this time.

• 1:47:52David Sims?

  Supporting actor, we do. We've never done it.

• 1:47:53Griffin Newman?

  No, it's never.

• 1:47:54David Sims?

  Bardem, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War. He had just won an Oscar, but that's a showy supporting performance.

• 1:48:00Griffin Newman?

  So, I mean, the one scene.

• 1:48:03David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:48:03Griffin Newman?

  It's just lights out.

• 1:48:04David Sims?

  Tom Wilkinson and Michael Clayton, arguably a worthy winner, incredible performance, obviously.

• 1:48:09Griffin Newman?

  Casey Affleck, Jesse James.

• 1:48:11David Sims?

  Yes, total category fraud. He's a lead, but he's supporting to pit, but really, really good performance.

• 1:48:18Speaker 05

  Another normal, totally normal.

• 1:48:19David Sims?

  Um, and Howl Hole Brooken into the Wild, which is a career nom, but a great performance.

• 1:48:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yeah. Right. And I think was seen as it might be his year in a gold watch, kind of, thanks for a great career.

• 1:48:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:32Griffin Newman?

  But the sugar was just like, it felt like.

• 1:48:35Speaker 05

  It doesn't sound like the strongest year to me in terms of competition for him. That, that was sort of the question behind the question.

• 1:48:42Griffin Newman?

  I also just think.

• 1:48:43Speaker 05

  Like, was anybody giving him a run for his money?

• 1:48:46Griffin Newman?

  No, I, I feel like he basically had this lock from the moment the film premiered. And I also think, I remember saying to people when this came out, like, this is the most iconic villain that anyone has created since Hannibal Lecter.

• 1:48:59Speaker 05

  I agree with that.

• 1:49:01Griffin Newman?

  Perfect, like.

• 1:49:02Speaker 05

  Excellent.

• 1:49:03Griffin Newman?

  The voice, the look, the behavior, scene for scene.

• 1:49:07Speaker 05

  Excellent. Yeah.

• 1:49:08Griffin Newman?

  This is just, this character is so fucking sticky.

• 1:49:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:10Griffin Newman?

  And I said to a friend in film school, like, people are going to be parroting this character for 20 years.

• 1:49:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:15Griffin Newman?

  It is to my great relief that I feel like what happened is, one year later, the Joker comes out.

• 1:49:21Speaker 05

  Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:22Griffin Newman?

  And that becomes the villain that basically everyone is sort of trying. Trying to chase for the next 20 years.

• 1:49:28David Sims?

  It would be funny if like dank meme lords started like Anton Shigering overall, you know what I mean? Like if he became their like guy.

• 1:49:35Griffin Newman?

  It is to culture's great gain that somehow Shiger.

• 1:49:39Speaker 05

  That's a really good point, yeah.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  Got spared the memification that would have kind of flattened him a little bit.

• 1:49:45David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:49:46Griffin Newman?

  Based on the Joker like nine months later.

• 1:49:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:49Griffin Newman?

  Just becoming the thing. And then also like most other villains after that are sort of trying to iterate on what Ledger did.

• 1:49:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:49:57Griffin Newman?

  And it still makes Bardem in this feel like this very unique bizarre lightning in a bottle thing.

• 1:50:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Griffin Newman?

  Also with the benefit of not being like, and then Hopkins played Lecter three more times, you know?

• 1:50:09Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, exactly, exactly. We suddenly throw that person in the lead and it's like, no, thank you.

• 1:50:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, cuz I just still, I watch this and I go like, where the fuck did this come from?

• 1:50:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:50:19Griffin Newman?

  And it still feels fresh to me.

• 1:50:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:50:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:23David Sims?

  Um, so, uh, uh, wait, back to the, Kelly McDonald, amazing in this.

• 1:50:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh, unbelievable. So good.

• 1:50:31David Sims?

  Uh, kind of a swerve casting wise, obviously.

• 1:50:35Speaker 05

  It's a little bit like a Helena Bonham Carter Fight Club situation where you're like, the girl from Trainspotting?

• 1:50:41Griffin Newman?

  The most Scottish woman alive?

• 1:50:45Speaker 05

  Just dropped in the middle of, yeah, this like.

• 1:50:49Griffin Newman?

  She's, she's so.

• 1:50:50Speaker 05

  She's excellent.

• 1:50:51Griffin Newman?

  And just like, talk about perfect characterization in few words, their first exchange on the couch of the trailer, right?

• 1:50:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:00Griffin Newman?

  Where he's like, you keep talking like that, I'm gonna have to take you back and fuck you.

• 1:51:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:03Griffin Newman?

  And then she.

• 1:51:04Speaker 05

  She's like, big talk.

• 1:51:06Griffin Newman?

  Big talk. And then he just sits there and continues to drink beer and you see it on her face of like.

• 1:51:10Speaker 05

  Keep it up.

• 1:51:12Griffin Newman?

  I wish he would.

• 1:51:12Speaker 05

  I know, I'm like, let's go, cut to that, not the fucking water.

• 1:51:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:51:16Speaker 05

  Um, Kelly McDonald, much, much better than the character in the novel.

• 1:51:21David Sims?

  I would agree with that.

• 1:51:22Speaker 05

  If there's any real kind of.

• 1:51:23Griffin Newman?

  And the character in the novel is, is much more overwritten.

• 1:51:27David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:51:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:27David Sims?

  Uh, mother in law is Beth Grant, the iconic.

• 1:51:30Speaker 05

  Oh, you know.

• 1:51:31David Sims?

  Always good at playing a baddie lady.

• 1:51:33Speaker 05

  Absolutely. I'm starting to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

• 1:51:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:37Speaker 05

  And that is iconic behavior.

• 1:51:40Griffin Newman?

  And is the, um, pageant, uh, head in Little Miss Sunshine as well, having the freak outs.

• 1:51:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:47Griffin Newman?

  Is, is very good at that.

• 1:51:48Speaker 05

  Steven Root being Steven Root.

• 1:51:54Griffin Newman?

  Is he the actor they have worked with the most? I was sort of trying to do a little count in my head.

• 1:52:01David Sims?

  Who? Steven Root?

• 1:52:02Griffin Newman?

  I'm like McDormand, Buscemi.

• 1:52:04David Sims?

  But I mean, like, McDormand, right, is obviously up there.

• 1:52:06Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:52:07Griffin Newman?

  Roots in so many of them.

• 1:52:08David Sims?

  He's in, let's find out.

• 1:52:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11David Sims?

  So many.

• 1:52:12Speaker 05

  Remember him in True Blood?

• 1:52:14David Sims?

  Uh, fantastic in True Blood.

• 1:52:16Speaker 05

  Isn't he incredible?

• 1:52:16David Sims?

  Yes. I mean, but he's always good.

• 1:52:18Speaker 05

  He's always good, but that was a, that was a moment where I was like, oh, I was unfamiliar with your game, Mr. Root.

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  Right, he'll do something that's another string to his bow. You're kind of like, oh, I thought you played this kind of guy. Uh, is Oh Brother his first Coens, though?

• 1:52:32Griffin Newman?

  Is that possible?

• 1:52:33David Sims?

  It looks like it is. And then you have Lady Killers.

• 1:52:37Speaker 05

  He's great in that scene.

• 1:52:38David Sims?

  No, conjure he is. Uh, Scruggs.

• 1:52:41Griffin Newman?

  Scruggs. Okay.

• 1:52:43David Sims?

  Four?

• 1:52:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, four.

• 1:52:44David Sims?

  I don't know, that was a cursory glance.

• 1:52:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:46David Sims?

  Uh, McDonald, one thing that's interesting about, uh, the her though is that she's sort of, she's so peppered in the movie. She said she would like shoot for a day and then be off for like two weeks.

• 1:52:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:54David Sims?

  Then shoot for another day and be off for another couple of weeks. And she mostly just like hung out in South Texas.

• 1:52:58Griffin Newman?

  So the energy of the character who's just sort of like, I don't totally know what this whole movie is going on here. Right? Something's happening that I'm not.

• 1:53:06Speaker 05

  I have no reference for, you know.

• 1:53:08Griffin Newman?

  Privy to.

• 1:53:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:09Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the other notable performance to call in this movie is like, they kind of save Woody Harrelson from the wilderness with this film.

• 1:53:16Speaker 05

  I think that's him.

• 1:53:17David Sims?

  It's the start of, yes.

• 1:53:19Speaker 05

  It's a nice little Janet Leigh, right? Like, it's a little like, oh, here comes the, he's dead, you know?

• 1:53:24Griffin Newman?

  And 10 years earlier, you're like, he would have played Llewellyn.

• 1:53:27Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 1:53:28Griffin Newman?

  And he definitely felt a little dinged at this moment. I remember even seeing him in the trailer and going like, Woody Harrelson, that's interesting.

• 1:53:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:34David Sims?

  They think he has, they just from this, like, major pecking paw energy. And they're like, he gives us.

• 1:53:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41David Sims?

  Uh, like, you know, the sort of whatever, like that, that thing.

• 1:53:45Griffin Newman?

  It's just like a perfect three scene arc. Like, there's an entire movie in his performance.

• 1:53:51Speaker 05

  Bubonic plague.

• 1:53:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:53David Sims?

  Um.

• 1:53:53Griffin Newman?

  What? And he says, like, compared to what? The bubonic plague?

• 1:53:57David Sims?

  Film cost about $30 million. Much of the film was shot in New Mexico.

• 1:54:04David Sims?

  But, uh, also Texas.

• 1:54:06Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:54:06David Sims?

  As we mentioned, Marfa, Texas, um, and, uh, Marfa famously kind of an arty town. They got a lot of, you know, boutiquey little galleries and stuff.

• 1:54:15Griffin Newman?

  They got the Prada store, right?

• 1:54:17David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:54:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:18Speaker 05

  Oh my god, I forgot about that photo. My god.

• 1:54:23David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, right. And of course, there, uh, no, There Will Be Blood is shooting at the same time.

• 1:54:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:30David Sims?

  And there is a time they're shooting Brolin in like remote west Texas and across the like horizon is Paul shooting like oil on fire or whatever.

• 1:54:38Griffin Newman?

  Just insane. Right.

• 1:54:40David Sims?

  It's very cool.

• 1:54:41Speaker 05

  It's insane.

• 1:54:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But yeah, no, I mean, this, we, we've talked about a bunch of the scenes out of order, but you're really just dropped into the middle of it. Tommy Lee Jones's head and then the cop trying to call in about sugar immediately kills him. And then you're out in the road and you're seeing the first use of the, the cattle gun. Is that the right term?

• 1:55:02David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, it's a cattle prod or a bolt pistol or whatever you want to call it.

• 1:55:05Griffin Newman?

  I mean, just such an incredible choice.

• 1:55:08David Sims?

  Yeah, it's right out of the book.

• 1:55:09Griffin Newman?

  Going back to the power of objects, right? This idea that he takes this thing that is obviously menacing and dark. It is a thing we use to like exert power.

• 1:55:21Speaker 05

  It's like a supervillain weapon, right? You're like, what the fuck is that?

• 1:55:24Griffin Newman?

  But yet in farming, it's used in a like, well, this is just the nature of my job.

• 1:55:29Speaker 05

  And it's also, yeah, there's a, there's sort of a quotidian thing to it. And also, uh, people are cattle.

• 1:55:35Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. Exactly.

• 1:55:36Speaker 05

  They're animals.

• 1:55:36Griffin Newman?

  There's, there is an innate dehumanizing in the fact that he is using this to kill people, even though that is what is meant to do to take lives.

• 1:55:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:44Griffin Newman?

  And, and just the, the eeriness of him telling the guy to stand still.

• 1:55:49David Sims?

  A thing to, uh, note about this movie is that it sounds really good.

• 1:55:55Griffin Newman?

  Now, all Colin Brother movies.

• 1:55:56David Sims?

  Sounds good. But Skip Lee would say, of course, their, uh, sound editor, uh, really takes some pride in this one. Uh, they did a lot of on set sound.

• 1:56:06Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:56:07David Sims?

  Um, rather than sweet and stuff in post. Um. Leslie, sorry, this is a complete tangent, but you did make the Acolyte.

• 1:56:16Speaker 05

  Please, please help me.

• 1:56:17David Sims?

  When you're doing lightsabers and the Acolyte has a lot of lightsabers.

• 1:56:20Speaker 05

  A lot of them, yeah.

• 1:56:20David Sims?

  You know, I just watched Dandord, no fucking lightsabers.

• 1:56:23Speaker 05

  That's correct.

• 1:56:23David Sims?

  Which is fine, like, it doesn't need any lightsabers.

• 1:56:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, no, it's not, yeah.

• 1:56:26David Sims?

  What do they have now? Do they have like a full lightsaber? Or is it like, still like a glowy stick where like a lot of the work's staying done? You know, like, how much?

• 1:56:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:35David Sims?

  How complicated is it?

• 1:56:36Speaker 05

  It's the, so, for our show, we were doing an immense amount of fighting and specifically Wooja.

• 1:56:43David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:56:44Speaker 05

  Influences and, and so, uh, the, the, um, the action choreographer, Chris Cowan, and I were creating sequences where the lightsabers were used very quickly and swiftly, the way they are in the prequels, right? The prequels, uh, obviously utilize an enormous amount of, uh, VFX to, uh, create the lightsabers.

• 1:57:07David Sims?

  Those suckers, yeah.

• 1:57:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. You guys, are you familiar with, uh?

• 1:57:10Griffin Newman?

  Never seen them.

• 1:57:11Speaker 05

  Have you, yeah, 1999?

• 1:57:13Griffin Newman?

  Never.

• 1:57:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:57:16Speaker 05

  Ewan McGregor?

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  We've, we've talked about it.

• 1:57:17Speaker 05

  The guy from Strainspotting? Oh, um, uh, so, for our show, it was very different, um, uh, I won't get too in the weeds about it, but when I went to the, the, I said, okay, I want specific lightsabers that can do that. Um, who could, that can be light and, and, and, uh, fought with that, that quickly.

• 1:57:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:57:38Speaker 05

  And I also want a lightsaber that has a shoto that you can unlock and, and pull out.

• 1:57:43David Sims?

  Am I incorrect?

• 1:57:44Speaker 05

  They lost their minds. They were like, what are you talking about?

• 1:57:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:48Speaker 05

  We cannot create lightsabers that are that light, that are that lightweight.

• 1:57:54David Sims?

  My understanding.

• 1:57:54Speaker 05

  We cannot do that. We cannot, we cannot do the lights, um, I also said I want the lights within, I, like, I want it to be practical.

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  You wanted the actual mechanics, yeah.

• 1:58:04Speaker 05

  So that you can actually see the light on the actors' faces.

• 1:58:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:58:07Speaker 05

  The shoto was a big deal because they were like, it doesn't make sense for the handle to be that long. So they, the, these are guys, by the way, these are guys that I respect, they are doing their job.

• 1:58:18David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:58:18Speaker 05

  But I did have to essentially change the way. That they had been thinking about lightsabers for, um, you know, the Disney reboot slash television.

• 1:58:30Griffin Newman?

  Am I incorrect in thinking that in the seventies and eighties?

• 1:58:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:33Griffin Newman?

  They were basically using a lot of reflective tape.

• 1:58:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:58:37Griffin Newman?

  To be able to light them and get the glow and then extensive post work to do the coloring. And to actually give it the sort of power it needed, but that way there was a kind of light source and reflective off of it.

• 1:58:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:47Griffin Newman?

  And in the prequel era, it was more just sticks that were emanating no light. And the light was entirely a post effect.

• 1:58:53Speaker 05

  And therefore you could have faster.

• 1:58:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:58:56Speaker 05

  Battles.

• 1:58:57David Sims?

  Famously, Ewan broke a lot of the sticks. Yes.

• 1:59:00Griffin Newman?

  And you wanted there to actually be interplay in camera between the actors and the weapons and the light.

• 1:59:06Speaker 05

  And the sticks had to hit each other.

• 1:59:08Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:08Speaker 05

  Over and over again.

• 1:59:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:10Speaker 05

  So these were not like, we're, you know.

• 1:59:12Griffin Newman?

  That is interesting.

• 1:59:13Speaker 05

  So everything, so here we go.

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:15Speaker 05

  Every, all of the lightsabers are much, much heavier than they can be for the actors. The first round is actors going and action choreographers going, these are too heavy. We cannot, the poor actors are like, I can't lift this. Like let, let alone, you know, except for Manny Jacinto, who was like, I just, I don't know what the fuck was going on in terms of how, how deeply he was able to, to adjust and create that character and, and do that much stuff. But so, sorry, long story short, we, we had to essentially create lightsabers that aren't usually lightsabers.

• 1:59:55David Sims?

  I just, you can't say this, you can't agree with me and that's fine. You can't say anything on this, but like a lot of the post Disney Star Wars stuff has not had good lightsaber fighting.

• 2:00:06Speaker 05

  Agreed.

• 2:00:07David Sims?

  Okay. She can't agree with me.

• 2:00:08Speaker 05

  No, I agree. And part of it is because the lightsabers are so heavy.

• 2:00:11Griffin Newman?

  This makes sense.

• 2:00:12Speaker 05

  Truthfully, like that's what it is.

• 2:00:14David Sims?

  Sequel films, the lightsaber fights are very kind of like, kind of old fashioned medieval, like.

• 2:00:18Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 2:00:18David Sims?

  Swing in these heavy fucking swords.

• 2:00:20Speaker 05

  That's exactly it. If they're medieval, they're not ninja or samurai.

• 2:00:23David Sims?

  And the characters are removed from the High Republic shit.

• 2:00:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:00:28David Sims?

  But original trilogy.

• 2:00:29Speaker 05

  Is samurai, but the, it's not, yeah.

• 2:00:32Griffin Newman?

  In original trilogy, they barely move, right?

• 2:00:34David Sims?

  It's a lot of big swings.

• 2:00:35Griffin Newman?

  Everyone moves way too much.

• 2:00:37David Sims?

  But it works, but it's a lot.

• 2:00:39Griffin Newman?

  This tough thing of like, what exists between those two poles?

• 2:00:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:42Griffin Newman?

  Between Alec in a standing planted and just swinging one time.

• 2:00:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:00:46Griffin Newman?

  And Hugh McGregor being able to do like backflips and like basically becoming devil's sakes.

• 2:00:51Speaker 05

  And I want to say like, these guys, um, I'm not talking, you know, shit about how they do their job. It's in and create their lightsabers. It's just they're like, this is how, they're just incredible. They're just like, this is how lightsabers work.

• 2:01:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:06Speaker 05

  You know, like, and they were very, very accommodating and willing to go with what my vision was. And so I will always be grateful to them for that because I think it really overstepped what their understanding was.

• 2:01:19David Sims?

  Uh, I just think the Acolyte was the first post Disney Star Wars thing I saw that had good lightsaber fighting. I'll just say it.

• 2:01:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:26David Sims?

  And, you know, some of this post Disney Star Wars stuff has not emphasized that at all.

• 2:01:31Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 2:01:32David Sims?

  But other stuff and lightsaber fighting has really bummed me out.

• 2:01:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:36David Sims?

  Uh, and I know it's hard. It's hard. It's hard to fucking choreograph.

• 2:01:39Speaker 05

  Well, you gotta like do all those types of things, you know, the actors have to, you know, I was like, uh, we were talking before, I was not willing to do any face replacement, you know? So a lot of these people learned their, a lot of these actors learned, um, you know, not the wirework, obviously, and the, you know, but, but they did a lot.

• 2:01:57Griffin Newman?

  But it, right, you're, it's a tremendous amount of work to figure out how to solve problems that you're creating, right?

• 2:02:03Speaker 05

  That's filmmaking.

• 2:02:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yes.

• 2:02:05Speaker 05

  That's our job. Like, that's exactly, oh my God, I've never heard.

• 2:02:08Griffin Newman?

  If you want to do it right, if you're like, it needs to be this.

• 2:02:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:12Griffin Newman?

  And if I'm planting my feet down and saying, it's gotta be this, then people are circling back and going, here's all the reasons that's impossible.

• 2:02:19Speaker 05

  That is exactly what my job is. My job is solving problems I created. Yeah.

• 2:02:23Griffin Newman?

  So here's my question off of this, I, I think a good on-ramp back into The Sound of No Country, which I have a point to make about.

• 2:02:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:29Griffin Newman?

  How weird is it to be sitting on set, watching extended lightsaber fights and just hearing like?

• 2:02:38Griffin Newman?

  Like, obviously, so much of it is the sound effects.

• 2:02:40Speaker 05

  Is the sound effects, yeah.

• 2:02:41Griffin Newman?

  Which are done in post, and when you're there watching it and you're like, "That looks great," does it always fundamentally feel a little silly when they're just going like...

• 2:02:48Speaker 05

  Well, because what... and I... listen, I appreciate the compliment, and David and I am so glad that you had that experience with it because that was my intention and...

• 2:02:58David Sims?

  I also think it was one of the only things that really engaged with the prequels in a meaningful way.

• 2:03:01Speaker 05

  That's what I was... again, you know, thank you.

• 2:03:04David Sims?

  Fan of the Acolyte over here.

• 2:03:06Speaker 05

  Thank you, thank you very much. I... a lot of work went into that, David, a lot of, like, Legends work went into that.

• 2:03:14Griffin Newman?

  But that's weird, I thought you'd never seen Star Wars.

• 2:03:16Speaker 05

  It was... well, of course I have, I haven't, I just, you know, a lot of the disappointment that I felt was that, you know, that there wasn't enough acknowledgement of that, David, if I'm being honest.

• 2:03:28Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:03:28Speaker 05

  You know, I just kind of thought, you know, I put a lot of work into this.

• 2:03:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:03:31Speaker 05

  And into canon and involving, like, video games, which, by the way, are canon. And, you know, creating...

• 2:03:40David Sims?

  No, it's a weird world that you have to contend with.

• 2:03:42Speaker 05

  It's a weird world, right? And the cartoons, the cartoons and the video game...

• 2:03:45David Sims?

  Those books aren't allowed, but maybe we can bring some back.

• 2:03:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. We're allowed to bring some back.

• 2:03:48David Sims?

  Those video games, weirdly, are all canon.

• 2:03:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:03:50Speaker 05

  And so there were a lot of, like, Legends stuff that I dropped in, and, you know, like, the Tracker character is an alien from that, like... anyway, point being, and we were engaging in those prequel kind of, you know, all of that. So I was a little disappointed that the show didn't get, like, a larger sort of, you know, what's the word, like, pat on the back for that, you know? Like, I don't think people need to, like, fawn over it, but it just... anyway, point being, the... because you asked me about that.

• 2:04:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:21Speaker 05

  I think that's how this started.

• 2:04:22Griffin Newman?

  The dull sound.

• 2:04:23Speaker 05

  Is that you were asking about that. I think because the choreography that Chris Cowan created, and then the Sun Team, and then First Team, was so astonishing, that I very rarely was kind of thinking about it. I was just so impressed, like, I was just like, "Jesus, this looks like The Matrix, this looks like Wooja, this looks like Crouching Tiger," like, this is... so it was very goofy, for sure.

• 2:04:44Griffin Newman?

  But then when you put the sound on top of it, it becomes magical.

• 2:04:46Speaker 05

  Exactly, yeah.

• 2:04:47Griffin Newman?

  On top of something that already was impressive.

• 2:04:49Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:04:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:50Speaker 05

  And the thing that I think is so impressive about the sound in No Country is that it's exactly what you're saying, David, there is not this reliance in post-production

• 2:04:58Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:04:58Speaker 05

  to create the sound of New Mexico.

• 2:05:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:05:03Speaker 05

  You know, they are doing it right there. I'm assuming, right? Like, the fully is all...

• 2:05:08Griffin Newman?

  I want to say one final thing about Star Wars.

• 2:05:10David Sims?

  Fine. Go ahead.

• 2:05:13Speaker 05

  Fine.

• 2:05:13Griffin Newman?

  That there is always this response to any modern Star Wars thing of, "That's not what we want. If they could just do this, we'd all be happy."

• 2:05:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:05:20Griffin Newman?

  And of course, anytime that happens, there is a contingent of people who are very loud, who are equally angry.

• 2:05:27Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:05:27Griffin Newman?

  And go, "Not that, this."

• 2:05:29Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 2:05:30Griffin Newman?

  And I have contended with friends of mine who are Star Wars fans who will say things like that, like, I genuinely think.

• 2:05:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:05:35Griffin Newman?

  It is somewhat unsolvable, right?

• 2:05:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would agree.

• 2:05:38Griffin Newman?

  Not that you can't make great Star Wars stuff.

• 2:05:39Speaker 05

  No, I would agree with that.

• 2:05:40David Sims?

  But it's hard to make something for everybody.

• 2:05:41Griffin Newman?

  The cultural relationship to Star Wars is so intense in that way, right?

• 2:05:45Speaker 05

  And I think that's why it's hard for them to reach out in terms of an audience, because so many people who are not Star Wars fans, you know, I would say to them, like, well, okay, before I started writing, it's like, "Okay, well, why are you not a Star Wars fan?"

• 2:05:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:05:56Speaker 05

  And they would say, "Well, I just don't know enough about the stuff."

• 2:05:58Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:05:59Speaker 05

  And I was kind of like, "God, that is so the opposite of 1977."

• 2:06:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and there is this weird battle between, is the goal here to make something for everyone? Is the goal here to make something for people who don't think they like Star Wars? Is the goal to make something for specific subsections of fandom?

• 2:06:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:17Griffin Newman?

  And all of it gets this weird, intense response.

• 2:06:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:20Griffin Newman?

  There has not been any ability to allow Star Wars to become a thing that can be prismatic.

• 2:06:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would agree with that, yeah.

• 2:06:28Griffin Newman?

  And not have to represent all of it at once, because the magic of those original movies is like, "Holy shit, it's everything all at the same time."

• 2:06:34Speaker 05

  That's exactly right.

• 2:06:34Griffin Newman?

  Which is impossible to replicate, because it didn't exist before then.

• 2:06:37Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly right.

• 2:06:38Griffin Newman?

  It was like, "You're in a bottle shit," right? And all of this exists in the wake of it. The clearest distillation of this I have ever seen, and then we'll get back on to No Country For Old Men, is the thing where they discovered the fucking 70-millimeter print of the original theatrical release of Star Wars, and they were like, "We didn't think this existed." And they screened it in London at the BFI, and Kathleen Kennedy showed up, and she was like, "We've been searching for this, we're so happy." And they screened it, and like, five different journalists wrote reviews where they were like, "It looked like shit." And these are the exact people for 50 years have been like, why won't they give us a theatrical cut? Get rid of the special editions. If they just gave us theatrical, we'd be happy.

• 2:07:17David Sims?

  I'll confess it.

• 2:07:18Griffin Newman?

  This fucking sucks. This is like dog shit.

• 2:07:21David Sims?

  There are certain things, because you'll watch those despecialized editions of your, where you're like, oh, fuck that. Are the X-Wings look like that? I kind of got used to them looking like that. You know, there's certain things where you're like, I don't need there to be a Looney Tune playing out in the background with a fucking cartoon, you know, elephant.

• 2:07:37Griffin Newman?

  Undeniably improved.

• 2:07:38David Sims?

  Right. But then there's, yeah, there's some of the sort of like little bits of cleanup. You're like, oh, yeah, that kind of works.

• 2:07:43Griffin Newman?

  But now that dialogue has shifted to like, what we want is someone cutting some of George's things.

• 2:07:48David Sims?

  I'll say it. I'll say it. I'll say it. I always say this is just always, what they want is to be 12 again. I got it. So do I.

• 2:07:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. So same, same.

• 2:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Here's what I'll say about The Sound of No Country. The other big part of this and why I think-

• 2:08:00David Sims?

  My allowance was like two pounds a week or whatever. I mean, when I was 12?

• 2:08:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:05David Sims?

  I don't think I was getting up to much.

• 2:08:06Griffin Newman?

  You know, it took five years to buy a CD-ROM. I remember doing that math, like getting a catalog and being like, how much do CD-ROMs cost?

• 2:08:15Speaker 05

  Five years. Oh, God. That's true.

• 2:08:19Griffin Newman?

  I'd get a fucking Aunt Tom Sugar pocket full of change every week.

• 2:08:23David Sims?

  I was getting like two pounds.

• 2:08:24Griffin Newman?

  I'd say to my dad, I'd be like, isn't my allowance like 45 cents? And he'd be like, I don't know. It's what I have on here.

• 2:08:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:08:31Griffin Newman?

  The day you remember to ask, um, this movie has, uh, no score until the end credits.

• 2:08:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:36Griffin Newman?

  That's the other part of it.

• 2:08:38David Sims?

  It's where Burwell's least-

• 2:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Stands out even more because the sound, the noises, and especially in a movie that has less dialogue than their films usually have.

• 2:08:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:08:47Griffin Newman?

  The sounds are the soundtrack.

• 2:08:49Speaker 05

  But it's, they must be augmented in some way, right? You know what I mean? Like they're not, so it's orchestrated, but that's true. You know, there's no music.

• 2:08:56Griffin Newman?

  The skip leaves say magic is that he knows how to just overcrank everything just a little bit.

• 2:09:02Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:09:02Griffin Newman?

  To make it feel hyper-real.

• 2:09:05Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 2:09:05Griffin Newman?

  And in the vacuum of stoic characters, lack of Carter Burwell's score, that becomes even more evocative.

• 2:09:13Speaker 05

  Right. I see what you're saying. Yeah.

• 2:09:15Griffin Newman?

  Um, but it, but it is a movie where you're just like, everyone walks differently. You you hear and feel the differences in everyone's footsteps.

• 2:09:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09:26Griffin Newman?

  You know, and every surface they're standing on, it's just like incredible, incredible shit. And it's part of what makes this movie, um, like eerie in such a sustained way for me.

• 2:09:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09:38Griffin Newman?

  Is, you know, I think they showed to Cara Burwell and he's like, this doesn't need music. Right. They were not intending it to not have a score. And he was like, I think the best thing I can do here is not do anything. Right. I'll write something for the end credits if you want, but like.

• 2:09:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yeah.

• 2:09:53Griffin Newman?

  There's a sustained tension from being like, why isn't this being cut by anything else?

• 2:10:01Griffin Newman?

  No country for old men. Um, what do we want to say about it that we haven't been saying already? We've been talking about the the ethnic ambiguity of Sugar as a character, right?

• 2:10:12Speaker 05

  Right, yeah.

• 2:10:13Griffin Newman?

  There's something in hiring a Spaniard.

• 2:10:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:10:16Griffin Newman?

  In a Western set in Texas, and then basically giving him like Tim Burton makeup. On top of how weird his styling is in the hair and the outfit and everything.

• 2:10:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:10:27Griffin Newman?

  And just being like, man, this guy's wearing a lot of dark colors for like brutal sun.

• 2:10:32Speaker 05

  It's very true.

• 2:10:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm like looking at an image on my iPad right here and you're like, they like pancake him with paleness. Right. On top of his natural skin tone and then this like deep redness around his eyes and his lips.

• 2:10:45Speaker 05

  Oh, I didn't even think about that. Yeah.

• 2:10:46Griffin Newman?

  That also makes it feel like, is this guy a ghost? Like, how is he not getting sunburned?

• 2:10:51Speaker 05

  That's true. Yeah. There is this like otherworldly thing to him, which we've already talked about. But I think like in terms of the rest of the narrative, which I think we're, you know, going to chat about now is like, hopefully.

• 2:11:04Speaker 05

  No, but meaning like, I think, you know, there has been this online debatey idea that Sugar is, um, you know, Satan is the is the personification is Joe Black, you know, it's like the personification of Jeff, uh, Deaf.

• 2:11:19Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:11:20Speaker 05

  The personification, you know, you guys, please make that the title of this. Personification of Jeff.

• 2:11:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I I go back and forth every time I watch this and whether I think.

• 2:11:33Griffin Newman?

  He is, if not supernatural, at least explicitly kind of allegorical.

• 2:11:39Speaker 05

  I would agree with that.

• 2:11:40Griffin Newman?

  Actually meant to be processed as a real human being.

• 2:11:44Speaker 05

  I think the ending says human being, and I agree with you that it's allegorical.

• 2:11:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it's somehow holding both simultaneously.

• 2:11:53David Sims?

  Like, Sugar, here's my thing. The movie begins with him getting arrested and strangling the deputy. The deputy like sits him down, and like, you know, so right, the big thing in this movie is it's like this country, it's just not for old men anymore. That makes sense.

• 2:12:08Griffin Newman?

  That's kind of a big take.

• 2:12:09David Sims?

  And it's Tommy Lee Jones, basically just brushing against evil or whatever, but also just brushing against a world where he's just like, I don't know where to begin with this. I don't know how to, this isn't like crime, like that sheriffs deal with where it's like, hey, why'd you do that to that guy? Well, he stole my, alright, well, you can't do that.

• 2:12:30Speaker 03

  He even shares that his, his grandfather and his father were both sheriffs and they used to not even wear a gun.

• 2:12:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:12:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:12:37David Sims?

  Like, it's like you, and like, everything about Tommy Lee Jones's character, it's like, he knows everybody, right?

• 2:12:42Griffin Newman?

  This can be reason.

• 2:12:43David Sims?

  He knows everybody, he knows everyone's name. Like, you know, when he's at the diner, he knows the name of the waitress. When he sees Llewellyn's car, he's like, I know this car, this is Llewellyn's car. I'm like, bitch, you must, he must be in charge of like a thousand acres of land. Like, it's like deep south Texas, like, you know, but nonetheless, like, he's whatever, you know, he's like basically trying to sort of like, keep an eye on the community, right?

• 2:13:05Griffin Newman?

  He has the line, the exchange with Garrett Dillahun, I think it's when they go to the first crime scene and he goes, so it seems like they died of natural causes. And Garrett Dillahun says like, there are like 40 gunshots here. And he goes, well, natural in relation to the line of work they were in, right?

• 2:13:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:13:20Griffin Newman?

  The idea that this guy is like, not numb, but it's like, he's seen it all.

• 2:13:25David Sims?

  But the, the great line that I think is in the trailer where like, Dillahun's like, do you think he's got any notion of the sort of people who are chasing him? He's like, he ought to, he's seen the same things I have.

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  Hey.

• 2:13:35Speaker 05

  And it's certainly made an impression on me.

• 2:13:37Griffin Newman?

  But this guy is increasingly going like, this is not something I understand. There is something happening here that feels like emblematic of a cultural.

• 2:13:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do think we need to keep moving forward, obviously, but in the book, it's very, it's explained later on that he's a veteran.

• 2:13:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:13:56Speaker 05

  So in a way, saying like, this level of violence, I can't understand. I'm a little bit like, but you can, you know?

• 2:14:03David Sims?

  He can, but it's also something he's so haunted by.

• 2:14:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:07Speaker 05

  And the desertion and all of that.

• 2:14:09David Sims?

  Right, and he's just like, and right, in the book, there's this specific memory he has of this terrible thing that happened during the war. And like, but in this, it's just like, what happened? Uh, but we don't even know, but like, a, a drug deal was going to happen. And something went wrong. We don't know what, right?

• 2:14:26Griffin Newman?

  Shootout that Llewellyn stumbled upon just because he's hunting.

• 2:14:29David Sims?

  Leaving behind an incredible amount of drugs.

• 2:14:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:33David Sims?

  And a bag of money.

• 2:14:34Griffin Newman?

  Array of guns.

• 2:14:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:14:35David Sims?

  Quite a lot of guns.

• 2:14:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:14:37David Sims?

  Um, and it's one of those things that like, no one is even, nobody cares that this happened, if that makes sense.

• 2:14:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:14:46David Sims?

  Everyone is basically like, basically some version of a cost of doing business thing.

• 2:14:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  You know?

• 2:14:51Griffin Newman?

  Natural causes.

• 2:14:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:14:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:53David Sims?

  And Llewellyn is foolish enough to try to skim the money.

• 2:14:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:57David Sims?

  And, but like, it's like, you don't feel like Sheriff Bell is like, I'll solve this.

• 2:15:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:15:03David Sims?

  Right? Like, he, almost immediately, he's basically just like, I know Llewellyn's gonna die. I'm gonna try and find him.

• 2:15:09Griffin Newman?

  I think Brolin's first line of dialogue in the movie is, he's, you know, slowly surveying the situation. He finds the dying guy, he finds the bag. He's sitting down at the tree next to this dying guy, or no, that guy's fully dead, right?

• 2:15:22Speaker 05

  Yes, oh yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:23Griffin Newman?

  Opens the bag, he sees the money, he lifts his head up, and then he goes, yeah. And it's such a good piece of writing that this guy's like, of course, it's a bag of money.

• 2:15:32Speaker 05

  Brolin claims that he improvised that.

• 2:15:34David Sims?

  That rocks.

• 2:15:34Griffin Newman?

  That makes sense.

• 2:15:35David Sims?

  Good for him.

• 2:15:35Griffin Newman?

  And then similarly, when he wakes up in the middle of the night and it's like, huh.

• 2:15:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:15:39Griffin Newman?

  You know, to go get the water. This guy's kind of silently in this monosyllabic conversation with himself.

• 2:15:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:15:45Griffin Newman?

  About like, of course, I gotta do this, or of course, this is what would happen.

• 2:15:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:15:50Griffin Newman?

  I think, as you're saying, this is the kind of thing that Tommy Lee Jones has seen before. What's, what's activating him isn't, I've never seen this level of violence before. It's, this doesn't make sense to me.

• 2:16:01Speaker 05

  Well, I think-

• 2:16:01Griffin Newman?

  I think that there's this clash internally between- Sugar is killing so many people he doesn't need to kill, right?

• 2:16:10Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:16:11Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, he's trying to, Tommy Lee Jones is trying to solve this as a guy trying to clean up loose ends of a crime gone wrong. And yet Sugar is also kind of behaving like a serial killer.

• 2:16:21Speaker 05

  Yes, he is.

• 2:16:22Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, if a guy is a professional, why would he be this sloppy?

• 2:16:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:16:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:16:26Griffin Newman?

  I think that's sort of what is unspoken of like, it doesn't make sense, the level and nature of the violence that is unnecessary.

• 2:16:35David Sims?

  Right. And like the Woody Harrelson character who shows up later feels like a more old school, whatever you want to call it, contract killer, fixer, whatever. Right. Where he tries to solve the problem of being like, can you just, can we just fucking figure this out?

• 2:16:50Griffin Newman?

  Right. Can we be gentlemen about murder?

• 2:16:52Speaker 05

  Like, let's get over it, yeah.

• 2:16:53David Sims?

  Sugar seems to have some weird, you know, like, you know, code in his brain.

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:16:59David Sims?

  Because like, why does he kill Kelly McDonald?

• 2:17:02Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't.

• 2:17:02Speaker 05

  Well, he said that he was going, he claims that he told Llewellyn that he was going to.

• 2:17:08David Sims?

  Right. But it's like, like, obviously, the money is not a problem anymore. She doesn't fucking know anything.

• 2:17:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:17:15Griffin Newman?

  No, and so many of the people-

• 2:17:16David Sims?

  And like, he has to go out of his way to do it.

• 2:17:18Griffin Newman?

  So many of the people he cattle guns, he doesn't need to kill them in order to get what he needs out of them.

• 2:17:23David Sims?

  And then there are other people-

• 2:17:24Griffin Newman?

  They're not stopping him.

• 2:17:25David Sims?

  But then there are other people that he lets live.

• 2:17:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:17:28David Sims?

  And one time he flips a coin, but other times he just clearly has this moment of like, yeah, I mean, whatever.

• 2:17:34Speaker 03

  There's this woman in the hotel where he tries to get information. She's like this great, like-

• 2:17:39David Sims?

  Love her.

• 2:17:40Speaker 03

  Great character. She's like, perfect.

• 2:17:42David Sims?

  She looks like she's like painted into the floor. You know what I mean? She's just this like, she just sort of swivels around. Like, she's like a costume character at a theme park.

• 2:17:50Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, she's an electronic robot. That can't stand up.

• 2:17:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:54Speaker 03

  But she's almost like-

• 2:17:56David Sims?

  I'm not giving out information.

• 2:17:57Speaker 03

  She's almost like intimidating like, like him in this weird way.

• 2:18:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:18:01Speaker 03

  And he almost respects her, it feels like.

• 2:18:03David Sims?

  Yes, I think he fully respects her. He's like, of course I could kill this woman, but that actually might be a problem.

• 2:18:08Speaker 05

  Did you not hear what I said? I think too that she's, you know, it's when, um, uh, I don't know, you guys, I don't know physics. I didn't know we were gonna have to, but it's like- You know, uh, force meets immovable object.

• 2:18:19David Sims?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:18:20Speaker 05

  So, in a way, like scientifically, he can't- Continue. I mean, Gene sort of folds right away, right? He's just like, ugh, you know, and she's like, get the fuck out of here.

• 2:18:29Griffin Newman?

  Which like disarms him that Gene doesn't have more pride.

• 2:18:33Speaker 05

  That's true. Yeah, that's true.

• 2:18:35David Sims?

  Shiger, we don't even know who hires him, but we assume it's one of the cartel.

• 2:18:38Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:18:39David Sims?

  And I assume the other cartel or someone else is the people who've hired the various Mexican gangsters that eventually do kill Llewellyn. Um, like, I don't think they're in league. Maybe they are. I have no idea. Shiger gets the money.

• 2:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's also the Steven Root Harrelson contender.

• 2:18:54David Sims?

  They, right.

• 2:18:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:18:57David Sims?

  I don't know who they.

• 2:18:58Speaker 05

  I have no clue.

• 2:18:59David Sims?

  They, someone mentions, like, did you hire a bunch of Mexican gangsters? And like, they're like, yeah. So like, I guess this is like their friend. Shiger is like, I am the instrument for this. You know what I mean? Like he has.

• 2:19:09Speaker 05

  Yes, he says that, yeah.

• 2:19:10David Sims?

  And he does get the money, which I guess is the goal.

• 2:19:13Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:19:14David Sims?

  Right? That's the fundamental thing that's wanted of him.

• 2:19:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:16David Sims?

  He's the only person who figures out that it's in the duct. Right? This all happens off screen essentially, but that is what happens.

• 2:19:24Griffin Newman?

  Which another fucking great shot of him seeing the, the trails in the dust, in the vent of the fingers.

• 2:19:32Speaker 05

  Yes, I love that.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  And knowing, clocking for later, that's where he hides it.

• 2:19:35Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 2:19:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:37Speaker 05

  The whole thing, like the tent poles and stuff, it's just exactly what you said. It's like you learn about the characters by what they're doing.

• 2:19:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:44Speaker 05

  You know?

• 2:19:44David Sims?

  Yeah, that's, well, right, exactly.

• 2:19:46Speaker 05

  Okay, he's an idiot for going back with the water.

• 2:19:48Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:19:49Speaker 05

  But God, that vent thing was smart.

• 2:19:51David Sims?

  He has practical, like, cause he's like a welder, which they don't really establish in this, but like that is.

• 2:19:57Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 2:19:58Griffin Newman?

  You, you established earlier that Llewellyn's, or not Llewellyn, Shiger is gonna use the coins for the screws on the vent so that later you can just cut to a shot of coins on a desk table.

• 2:20:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:09Griffin Newman?

  And know what it means. Like, that's the shit in this movie that when I was 18, I was like, holy fucking shit filmmaking, where you can like build up a language where then like 40 minutes later, you cut to an insert shot of an animated object.

• 2:20:23Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:20:23Griffin Newman?

  And go like, I understood exactly what just happened in the last 20 minutes without a line of dialogue.

• 2:20:27Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 2:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:29David Sims?

  Um, so, right, like, Llewellyn, he's kind of stupid for going back with the, he's stupid to take the money too, I would say.

• 2:20:39Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:20:40David Sims?

  He doesn't really.

• 2:20:41Griffin Newman?

  Opportunity knocks.

• 2:20:42David Sims?

  I know, but he takes the bag and he doesn't think that hard about it. He probably should search the bag or get the money out of the bag and put it in something else.

• 2:20:49Griffin Newman?

  Or dump it out, make it rain.

• 2:20:50David Sims?

  It's like, there's like 20. There's like twenty dead people. There's not like two dead people.

• 2:20:56Griffin Newman?

  No, there's a lot.

• 2:20:57David Sims?

  There's so many vehicles.

• 2:20:58Griffin Newman?

  There's a lot.

• 2:20:59David Sims?

  And so he, like, clearly he's kind of overwhelmed by it, which I would be too. And he's like, I'm just gonna go home and maybe like, you know, fuck my wife.

• 2:21:08Griffin Newman?

  But also not fuck my wife, make a joke about fucking my wife.

• 2:21:11David Sims?

  I think he fucks her.

• 2:21:12Speaker 05

  I think he definitely fucks her.

• 2:21:15Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. I, I also think.

• 2:21:17Speaker 05

  I mean, her face, I think, says it all. At the, she's like, you know, got that little smile.

• 2:21:21Griffin Newman?

  But I view that as her being disappointed that he's not gonna follow through on what he's saying.

• 2:21:25David Sims?

  I think he's gonna follow through. I'd follow.

• 2:21:29Speaker 05

  We're moving on.

• 2:21:29Griffin Newman?

  I think unlike a lot of Coen idiots, who get in over their head and refuse to acknowledge it, right? He's constantly feeling the pressure of.

• 2:21:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:21:39Griffin Newman?

  Am I in too deep, right?

• 2:21:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Versus these guys who are just like, ah, I'm gonna get this, right? I'm gonna make this all work. And it also is, the guy lives in a trailer, but he is not set up with a pressure like, say, uh, fucking William H. Macy in Fargo, where it's like, this guy needs the money now, where it's built into his backstory.

• 2:22:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:04Griffin Newman?

  It's this sense of opportunity, but it's not a like, I can't turn this down.

• 2:22:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:22:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh, or at least that is not explicitly said to us, which also makes it this game for him of like, is this worth the squeeze?

• 2:22:16Speaker 05

  I actually didn't realize like how similar he is to other, until you just said that. Like even Lebowski, it's like, I'm getting pulled into a thing I don't know.

• 2:22:25Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:22:25Speaker 05

  I just wanted my rug back. Yeah, that's really interesting.

• 2:22:28Griffin Newman?

  I think they love when it's, it's a confident moron, which he isn't quite. He's like not the smartest guy, but he's smarter than a lot of their protagonists. And he also is more scared than a lot of their protagonists, right? Even though he is a fairly stoic man, you're feeling the tension of him in his situation, not knowing if he's gonna be able to pull this off.

• 2:22:54Speaker 05

  When they sic.

• 2:22:54David Sims?

  He doesn't pull it off, by the way.

• 2:22:55Griffin Newman?

  He folds the screws tightening.

• 2:22:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, by the way, just spoiler.

• 2:22:57Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 2:22:58Speaker 05

  When they sic the dog on him and he's swimming through the thing. And then he shoots him. Um, that was the kind of what you were saying about the tracks being, that was the moment for me.

• 2:23:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:23:09Speaker 05

  Where I was like, masterful, like as the sun's coming up, all of that is timed so that by the time he shoots the dog.

• 2:23:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yeah, it's, it's just like exquisite.

• 2:23:19David Sims?

  Unload the final bullet, get loaded back up. Yes. Yeah.

• 2:23:23Speaker 05

  Beautiful.

• 2:23:25Griffin Newman?

  You saying that, uh, TLG, TLJ's character is coded as a veteran. It's also interesting that Roland is as well, but in like wildly different wars.

• 2:23:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:23:36David Sims?

  Roland served in NOM, TLJ served in World War II.

• 2:23:39Griffin Newman?

  Right. So they both have a certain mentality and instincts and resources.

• 2:23:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:23:45Griffin Newman?

  That come out of that experience, but in like wildly different situations that would have formed their worldview very different.

• 2:23:51David Sims?

  Also part of a quote unquote righteous war that like fought against evil.

• 2:23:55Speaker 05

  And Josh Brolin's like, I was sent to a terrible place where I suffered, which is the experience.

• 2:24:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yes. Right.

• 2:24:03David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, you know, I came back and everyone thought that sucked. I mean, there's the moment, obviously where he has the bond with the other NOM veteran. Who like lets him go through because he's like.

• 2:24:13Griffin Newman?

  Who doesn't want to let him through because he's worried he's a Mexican.

• 2:24:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:24:16Griffin Newman?

  And then he's basically able to flash the NOM thing. Yes.

• 2:24:20David Sims?

  Wish I could do that.

• 2:24:21Speaker 05

  In the book, he says.

• 2:24:21David Sims?

  Just in a cool movie way.

• 2:24:22Speaker 05

  In the book, he says, uh, you can't go to war like that about Vietnam. You can't go to war without God. I don't know what is gonna happen when the next one comes. I surely don't.

• 2:24:31Griffin Newman?

  It's a guy who just quietly is sort of like, world doesn't really make sense and I kind of got a shitty hand without being self pitying.

• 2:24:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:24:39Griffin Newman?

  Which is why I think he sees a bag of money and it's like, not, don't I deserve this?

• 2:24:45Speaker 05

  No, yeah.

• 2:24:46Griffin Newman?

  But like, is there any reason for me not to try?

• 2:24:51David Sims?

  Um, right, right. And.

• 2:24:52Griffin Newman?

  Even knowing the inherent risk.

• 2:24:53David Sims?

  Ben, that's the Ben feeling.

• 2:24:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  I don't know. Give it a whirl. But I would, of course, then say.

• 2:24:59Griffin Newman?

  Only live once.

• 2:25:01Speaker 03

  And then he ended up dead.

• 2:25:02David Sims?

  Yeah, he does die. Uh, I'm so sorry. Here's the money back.

• 2:25:06Griffin Newman?

  That's what you would say.

• 2:25:07Speaker 05

  I'm so sorry, here's the line back.

• 2:25:08David Sims?

  I'm really, really sorry. I, I wanted the money because there's so much money and it's all in just one little bag.

• 2:25:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:25:13Speaker 03

  And it's hundred dollar bills.

• 2:25:14David Sims?

  I so wanted it, so desperately, so I could use it to buy things and such.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps you understand. I like goods and services.

• 2:25:20David Sims?

  And Tons of girls like, let me just, uh, unscrew my little, uh, my oxygen tank. And I'm like, you see, the money, you can buy food, toys, clothes. I mean, there's so many things.

• 2:25:29Griffin Newman?

  The way Sugar is set up from the beginning of the movie, you're like, giving him the money back wouldn't solve anything.

• 2:25:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, it wouldn't. And you already know that, but it's not even Carson.

• 2:25:37David Sims?

  Here is a man who you could not buy off for any amount, right? You couldn't say to him like, hey, I'll give you the money back plus 10 million dollars.

• 2:25:44Griffin Newman?

  What he tries, he's like, wouldn't you rather just, we split it rather than whatever they're paying you?

• 2:25:48David Sims?

  Right. And he's like, that's not how I like to live my life.

• 2:25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's like, nah, it's not gonna happen. Yeah.

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  What I like to do is have the biggest silencer you ever saw and put it on a fucking shotgun.

• 2:26:00Griffin Newman?

  Right. There's, there's the one.

• 2:26:02Speaker 05

  The silencer with the shotgun is also like a great story because, uh, not unlike the Star, uh, the lightsaber story. It's like, you have to create that.

• 2:26:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:26:10Speaker 05

  You know, there aren't like silencers for shotguns, like it's fucking hanging out. Yes.

• 2:26:15David Sims?

  Um, Betty Rocks, uh, my favorite, my favorite kill in the movie is shooting the guy behind the shower curtain. I just like shooting someone where it's such a fucking big gun that like, it's like, you know, like the shower curtain goes like, whoof.

• 2:26:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:26:29Griffin Newman?

  But also the cattle gun's kind of ingenious because the first couple of scenes they survey, they're just like, what do you mean there's no bullet? Right?

• 2:26:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:26:37Griffin Newman?

  There's this bizarreness that they start to figure out through like the damage created in other spaces of like, oh, it is kind of a perfect weapon.

• 2:26:45Speaker 05

  He also never uses it on screen.

• 2:26:47David Sims?

  Uh, he used it once, the, the guy at the start.

• 2:26:49Griffin Newman?

  The very beginning.

• 2:26:50Speaker 05

  Yeah. No, no, that's what I mean. But, but yeah, besides that guy.

• 2:26:52David Sims?

  The only issue with it is that you have to.

• 2:26:54Speaker 05

  But it's hanging over the movie the whole time.

• 2:26:56Griffin Newman?

  And he's carrying it most of the time.

• 2:26:57David Sims?

  You gotta carry around this fucking thing.

• 2:26:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:27:00David Sims?

  Um.

• 2:27:01Speaker 05

  Right, right, right. Yeah.

• 2:27:01David Sims?

  I mean, uh, he, look, he's a bit extra, not to, uh, drag him. I mean, like, for example, when he needs to get some bandages, he, uh, explodes an entire car to distract people.

• 2:27:13Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:27:14Speaker 03

  Well, he's stealing from the pharmacy.

• 2:27:16David Sims?

  Oh, I understand. I just feel like there's, there's other ways to approach that of like, maybe I'll steal some money or maybe I'll like, you know what I mean? And he's like, mm, blow up this car.

• 2:27:26Griffin Newman?

  But isn't that what's kind of breaking Tommy Lee Jones is like,

• 2:27:29David Sims?

  Yes, exactly.

• 2:27:30Griffin Newman?

  I don't understand when this guy is using a scalpel and when he's using a machete. Cause he does both. Sometimes it feels so strategic and thoughtful and sometimes it is so fucking messy. He is perhaps just a messy bitch who lives through the drama.

• 2:27:42David Sims?

  He's actually, that's what he is. And he is having a brat summer, of course.

• 2:27:47Griffin Newman?

  He is having a brat summer.

• 2:27:49Speaker 03

  Can we talk about the milk?

• 2:27:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:51Griffin Newman?

  Another point.

• 2:27:52David Sims?

  He goes to Llewellyn's trailer. He blows the bloody bolt off, you know, uh, thunk, walks around, nothing in there, sits down, jug of milk.

• 2:28:00Griffin Newman?

  It's another.

• 2:28:01David Sims?

  In case you weren't sure he was a psycho.

• 2:28:02Griffin Newman?

  Another great Deacon shot.

• 2:28:04David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:28:05Griffin Newman?

  He sits there with the jug of milk. He's sitting motionless. He hasn't even taken a sip yet. And then it cuts to the reverse shot, which is his reflection in the television.

• 2:28:15David Sims?

  And then we see it again with Tommy Lee Jones.

• 2:28:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:17David Sims?

  And it is, and this interesting moment where like, uh, Sheriff Bell is clearly like, he looked at himself in this mirror. Like, you know, he's putting himself in the shoes of the guy.

• 2:28:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:25David Sims?

  And he's just kinda like, I wonder, you know, like it's just.

• 2:28:27Griffin Newman?

  Cause in that sugar moment, you're like, what is he doing? Why is he just sitting here with a jug of milk, not watching TV?

• 2:28:33David Sims?

  I think his brain's starting to.

• 2:28:34Griffin Newman?

  Looking at himself, you know?

• 2:28:36David Sims?

  Yeah. I think he's just rebooting.

• 2:28:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it does feel like it.

• 2:28:39David Sims?

  Like what's the next target? But like they just, I think they just wisely avoid the Terminator thing.

• 2:28:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  There's moments like him blowing up the car with, you know, walking with the explosion behind him. Like, right. He's like a robot, but not always.

• 2:28:50Griffin Newman?

  And they throw it off the hump with the limp. They throw it off the hump with his look. They're always finding ways to stop him from feeling, yes, completely T800.

• 2:28:59David Sims?

  Um, yeah.

• 2:29:01Griffin Newman?

  And he's not invulnerable, as you said, yeah.

• 2:29:02David Sims?

  Here's my take. You just give me a crack at the Terminator franchise. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna, I'm gonna use Terminator 2 as my jumping off. Well, make a sequel to that one and ignore the rest of canon.

• 2:29:12Griffin Newman?

  How it's hard to please Star Wars fans, but Terminator, I think we can, if we just fuck it down.

• 2:29:16David Sims?

  It's David Cross in Arrested Development caught, talking about non-monogamy where he's like, it really, it could work for, or I'm just like, the sixth time.

• 2:29:24Griffin Newman?

  Guys, if we just commit to not leaving this room for 45 minutes, I think we can walk out of here.

• 2:29:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:29:30Griffin Newman?

  It's 45 and we're done.

• 2:29:31Speaker 05

  And we're done. We're out.

• 2:29:32David Sims?

  Here's my take. Arnie's in it. We'll figure out how.

• 2:29:35Griffin Newman?

  Okay, that sounds good.

• 2:29:36David Sims?

  Playing a Terminator.

• 2:29:37Griffin Newman?

  Here's a bag of money.

• 2:29:37David Sims?

  And there'll be a new Terminator. And what will his vibe be? Eh, I don't know. He's Bugs or something?

• 2:29:42Griffin Newman?

  We'll figure that out later. His vibe is something other than Arnold.

• 2:29:48David Sims?

  Has anyone done Liquid? Oh, yeah, somebody did that one. What if he's a gas terminator? No one's done gas.

• 2:29:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Who's playing John Connor? Someone.

• 2:30:00David Sims?

  Who's an okay actor who nobody really cares about? Let's get that guy.

• 2:30:04Speaker 05

  Ryan Phillippe.

• 2:30:07Griffin Newman?

  God, I was-

• 2:30:08David Sims?

  Talk about someone zero people would be excited about. What did I just watch? Oh, I know what you did last summer.

• 2:30:13Griffin Newman?

  I- I-

• 2:30:14David Sims?

  God, he was a-

• 2:30:14Griffin Newman?

  I had never seen it before.

• 2:30:15David Sims?

  Fucking fillet back then. He is a piece of meat.

• 2:30:17Griffin Newman?

  He was, but also, that movie is-

• 2:30:19David Sims?

  Oh, he's an asshole.

• 2:30:20Griffin Newman?

  Want to meet the most repellent thing you've ever seen.

• 2:30:22David Sims?

  But then he gets eaten by crabs.

• 2:30:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:24David Sims?

  Great stuff.

• 2:30:25Griffin Newman?

  You have not seen the new one, right?

• 2:30:26Speaker 05

  I have not.

• 2:30:27Griffin Newman?

  It is funny how they're just like, "We're just not even gonna invoke him," basically.

• 2:30:31David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, he doesn't come up?

• 2:30:32Griffin Newman?

  No, it's like Prinz and, uh, uh-

• 2:30:35Speaker 05

  He was-

• 2:30:36Griffin Newman?

  Love Hewitt are in it.

• 2:30:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:30:38Griffin Newman?

  And Geller is like, very much part of-

• 2:30:39David Sims?

  Have you seen it?

• 2:30:40Griffin Newman?

  I have.

• 2:30:41David Sims?

  Is Prinz still a fisherman? My favorite thing about those two movies is that Freddy Prinz Jr. plays a working fisherman in those movies.

• 2:30:50Griffin Newman?

  Okay, mild spoilers.

• 2:30:51David Sims?

  He's like, "I gotta go fish." I'm like, "You have never, you don't know what a fish is."

• 2:30:55Griffin Newman?

  Mild spoilers?

• 2:30:56David Sims?

  Uh-huh.

• 2:30:56Griffin Newman?

  He owns a, like, fisherman's bar.

• 2:31:00David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:31:00Griffin Newman?

  I think it is implied that he still fishes, but the primary business seems to be-

• 2:31:04David Sims?

  He's like a commercial fisherman.

• 2:31:05Speaker 05

  That is so good to know, for canon.

• 2:31:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:31:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:31:08Griffin Newman?

  I- he still has a boat, he still seems to fish.

• 2:31:10Speaker 05

  Good, good.

• 2:31:11Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like the town has become very touristy and he now runs, like, the locals' bar that has the fishing ephemera in it. And the billy blue side of the boat is hung up above the bar. Prinz-

• 2:31:22Speaker 05

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:31:22Griffin Newman?

  Looks pretty fucking fantastic in that.

• 2:31:25David Sims?

  He's aged really nicely.

• 2:31:27Griffin Newman?

  He has aged-

• 2:31:28David Sims?

  Yeah, he's a good-looking guy.

• 2:31:28Griffin Newman?

  Beautifully. Yeah.

• 2:31:31Griffin Newman?

  There was a li- I've been, like, watching it and I'm like, "Does Prinz have, like, a Brolin moment?"

• 2:31:36David Sims?

  He's not that good an actor.

• 2:31:37Griffin Newman?

  He's not that good, and yet I was watching it and I was like, "Someone could cast him really well."

• 2:31:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:31:43Griffin Newman?

  He kinda works in this.

• 2:31:45Speaker 05

  But Cohen, brother.

• 2:31:47David Sims?

  He's an iconic Star Wars character.

• 2:31:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:31:50David Sims?

  He's, um- And Jerris.

• 2:31:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's he's very good in that show.

• 2:31:54David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:31:55Griffin Newman?

  He's a good voice actor.

• 2:31:56Speaker 05

  He has a really, sorry, we're we're going off this in a second, but the uh, there's that video of him, David.

• 2:32:02Griffin Newman?

  Talking about Star Wars.

• 2:32:03Speaker 05

  Talking about Star Wars.

• 2:32:04David Sims?

  He loves Star Wars.

• 2:32:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:06Speaker 05

  He has a really great take on it. I'm not.

• 2:32:07David Sims?

  He was fun on uh, one of the Mass Effect games too. He's a good voice actor.

• 2:32:11Griffin Newman?

  What were you gonna say, Ben?

• 2:32:11Speaker 03

  I have a question about the motel where he hides.

• 2:32:15David Sims?

  It's just, this is like no country for old men, you know, Ben?

• 2:32:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what the movie's about. The answer.

• 2:32:19David Sims?

  Okay, the motel where he hides it in a duct and then he rents another room that's like connected to the duct.

• 2:32:24Speaker 03

  But he gets found out, right?

• 2:32:26David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:32:26Speaker 03

  Because he sees that the curtain has been moved.

• 2:32:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:32:29Speaker 03

  I'm assuming that's the the Mexican.

• 2:32:33David Sims?

  Yes, whoever's looking for.

• 2:32:34Speaker 03

  Right, like the other party trying to track him down. Do they have the device? Or are they just figuring out that he's there?

• 2:32:44Griffin Newman?

  That's a good question.

• 2:32:45Speaker 03

  I've never been able to like determine.

• 2:32:48Griffin Newman?

  Cause because Sugar obviously has the receiver.

• 2:32:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:32:52Griffin Newman?

  For the tracker.

• 2:32:53Speaker 05

  Oh, right, right.

• 2:32:54Griffin Newman?

  Right. I don't think they would have one as well. They're maybe tracking Sugar. They might be following his trail. Yeah.

• 2:33:02Speaker 05

  I mean, is the scene with the the suits, the scene with the suits is af- after that or just meaning, I I wonder if that answers your your question. Because if he's, I think it is. I think that we see, I think we see suits.

• 2:33:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:18Speaker 05

  Before that. Suits have a tracker. I wonder if Mexicans also have a.

• 2:33:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:33:23Speaker 05

  Cause they're too separate.

• 2:33:24David Sims?

  They might, I think there's some dialogue that alludes to this.

• 2:33:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:29Speaker 03

  But they also could have talked to the that another great uh, just random character, the woman that runs that motel. Maybe they went in and talked to her, has anyone gotten a room, kind of thing.

• 2:33:42Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:33:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it could be that simple.

• 2:33:44Griffin Newman?

  There there's the moment when he's doing the the air duct trick for the first time.

• 2:33:49David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:33:49Griffin Newman?

  And he's sitting in the room with the gun loaded, waiting for him, with the lights off, right? And he sees the shadow of the footsteps underneath. He's hearing it and he's seeing it and he's seeing him continue to walk. But before that moment, when he's hearing the steps off into the distance.

• 2:34:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:34:08Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he calls, you're like, why the fuck is he picking up the phone? He calls the front desk. Here's the deadline.

• 2:34:16Speaker 05

  Oof, so good.

• 2:34:17Griffin Newman?

  And then hangs up and it's just like, the guy's smart enough to know.

• 2:34:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:34:21Griffin Newman?

  I've studied this guy's behavior.

• 2:34:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:34:23Griffin Newman?

  He's killing the woman at the front desk.

• 2:34:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:34:25Griffin Newman?

  If he's already here, she's dead.

• 2:34:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:34:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. There's just stuff like that I love.

• 2:34:30David Sims?

  I love it too.

• 2:34:31Speaker 05

  I feel like he hasn't encountered Sugar at that point, so there is this like anticipation too with the audience of like, here we go.

• 2:34:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:34:40Speaker 05

  Here we go.

• 2:34:41David Sims?

  They.

• 2:34:42Griffin Newman?

  They never.

• 2:34:43David Sims?

  They've shooted each other, but they don't really interact.

• 2:34:45Griffin Newman?

  It's after that scene is, right. Yes.

• 2:34:48David Sims?

  Um.

• 2:34:49Griffin Newman?

  But they're, they're always quite far from each other.

• 2:34:52David Sims?

  They talk on the phone though.

• 2:34:53Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:34:53David Sims?

  And then after he talks to Sugar, he talks to Harrelson and he's like, you talk too much.

• 2:34:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:58David Sims?

  Um, yeah. Which is kind of funny. Um, but uh, yeah, he does, and Sugar does not get him. I mean, it's just so funny. It's, I'm sorry to keep hitting that point. We just don't get that weird satisfaction. We don't get the defeat of Sugar, obviously.

• 2:35:12Speaker 05

  It is a great, um, shootout, man.

• 2:35:14Griffin Newman?

  It is, and, and.

• 2:35:15Speaker 05

  Really too smart, you know, I, for all of his stupidity, he is a smart guy when he's driving that truck and he's watching the bullet.

• 2:35:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:23Speaker 05

  Holes and the, you know, he, he's smart.

• 2:35:25Griffin Newman?

  The rear view mirror and everything.

• 2:35:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:35:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And just the way they build the tension with the increasing amount of bullet holes around him, but you can never quite track where Sugar is. You can track the trajectory of the gun.

• 2:35:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:35:41Griffin Newman?

  But you're never like seeing him, you know?

• 2:35:43Speaker 05

  You don't get into his, I think if I'm remembering correctly, you don't really get into his POV.

• 2:35:48Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so.

• 2:35:49Speaker 05

  And so therefore it is also a subversion of a hero versus villain. Cause usually you'd pop over to villain and then you pop over to your, you know?

• 2:35:57David Sims?

  Instead, the villain dies and Sugar sort of, you know, completes his mission and moves on wounded.

• 2:36:06Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:36:06David Sims?

  And then Tom Bell sits down with his. Bad?

• 2:36:10Griffin Newman?

  I believe so.

• 2:36:11David Sims?

  Played by the great Barry Corbin.

• 2:36:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:36:15David Sims?

  Uh, who is an actor I mostly think of as playing like yee-haw Texas guys.

• 2:36:22Griffin Newman?

  He was on Northern Exposure.

• 2:36:23David Sims?

  He's great on Northern Exposure, uh, but like he would just like, he was the guy who could swing in wearing a cowboy hat in your TV show being like, wow, I'm from Texas, you know? And he's good at it.

• 2:36:32Griffin Newman?

  His shorthand.

• 2:36:33David Sims?

  And in this, he's like pretty, you know, uh, like calm and quiet.

• 2:36:38Griffin Newman?

  Beaten down.

• 2:36:39David Sims?

  And awesome.

• 2:36:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:41David Sims?

  And then Tom just tells his wife about some stories, uh, some dreams he had. And then he woke up and it cuts to black and I just remember my audience being like, what?

• 2:36:49Griffin Newman?

  What the fuck are you talking about?

• 2:36:50David Sims?

  That's it?

• 2:36:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. They're already.

• 2:36:52David Sims?

  I didn't even know he was done. Was he, uh, he's done? He's done talking?

• 2:36:55Griffin Newman?

  When Llewellyn dies, it feels like, okay, so I guess I was wrong, but the movie is building to a showdown between Tommy Lee Jones and Bar Damn, right?

• 2:37:04Speaker 05

  Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

• 2:37:06Griffin Newman?

  And then you're like, no, it's ending on the guy's dream and it feels like he's sort of like hanging mid-sentence.

• 2:37:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:37:12Griffin Newman?

  Tess Harper, who is so goodness.

• 2:37:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:37:15Griffin Newman?

  With just a few moments from Tender Mercy's, one of my favorite movies.

• 2:37:19David Sims?

  And they also off-screen, uh, do a lot of hand stuff, I will say, in the film.

• 2:37:23Griffin Newman?

  I have no doubt they're fucking. They have a very happy physical.

• 2:37:28Speaker 05

  A great, oh my god.

• 2:37:30David Sims?

  They've got a great relationship.

• 2:37:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:37:32David Sims?

  I just love that she's like, oh, great dream. Want to do some hand stuff?

• 2:37:35Griffin Newman?

  So when you're saying the, the masterpiece personal question, right? And part of it is that it, when you're posing that, and part of it is that this is something they don't originate. It is something they are assigned to, it is something they connect with.

• 2:37:50Speaker 05

  And yeah, like I said, because, you know, so much of the dialogue is Cormac McCarthy and not them. It does feel like this is the, this is the film of just, you know, we are master filmmakers.

• 2:38:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it's a just like skillful interpretation of someone else's voice. I do think this movie kind of in its sparseness, and in a way they maybe couldn't do if they were writing it themselves from scratch, identifies.

• 2:38:17Griffin Newman?

  Some key through line in their worldview. That certainly is reflected in all their films. And when people, especially the early parts of their career, would attack them for being kind of like nasty, cynical, just like setting up idiots to be punished. You know, in like a cruel and kind of merciless world.

• 2:38:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:38:36Griffin Newman?

  I, I do think there is this thing of like, are they just nihilists? Does none of this matter to them? They make these movies that are touching on this kind of darkness. And I do think this movie is kind of their retort. There's a reason why I think Fargo, if not their masterpiece, is their definitive film. Cause it is the ultimate balancing of everything they do, right?

• 2:38:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:38:58Griffin Newman?

  But part of what makes Fargo so, um, uh, powerful is that they're placing this like undeniable figure of good at the center of it, who is cutting through this stuff.

• 2:39:10Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:39:10David Sims?

  And Ed sort of is that, but he's so, so tired.

• 2:39:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:39:13David Sims?

  And he's not gonna fix it.

• 2:39:15Griffin Newman?

  Marge is someone whose life lies ahead of her. She's about to have a child. There's a new exciting chapter that's unfolding.

• 2:39:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:39:22Griffin Newman?

  He just got the stamp, right?

• 2:39:24Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:39:24Griffin Newman?

  There's all this sort of shit and she is sort of like comically good. The movie has that lightness of even.

• 2:39:30Speaker 05

  She is comically, yeah.

• 2:39:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes, even as dark its moments, it's funny.

• 2:39:33Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would agree.

• 2:39:35Griffin Newman?

  And her goodness is funny.

• 2:39:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:39:37Griffin Newman?

  And so it, it is, uh, if not obscuring their real feelings, I think it was adding to this sense of, are they just playing with toys, right?

• 2:39:49Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:50Griffin Newman?

  How much of this is just like genre riffs for them?

• 2:39:52Speaker 05

  Is just them, yes, yeah.

• 2:39:54Griffin Newman?

  In them doing this stripped down, like, uh, subversive kind of, uh, genre deconstruction.

• 2:40:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:40:02Griffin Newman?

  They're doing a more focused version of the kind of thing at the center of Fargo.

• 2:40:09Speaker 05

  That's something I think that I've learned in doing this with you guys.

• 2:40:13Griffin Newman?

  They're re-expressing something.

• 2:40:15Speaker 05

  They're re-expressing something and they're doing, yes, the pinnacle of what they do.

• 2:40:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:40:19Speaker 05

  And because they can't rely on witty dialogue.

• 2:40:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:40:23Speaker 05

  And, you know, like you said, a character like. Marge that will just like cut through all the bullshit. Yeah, I would say I would go so far as to say it's a masterpiece. Because if I use the criteria of the ending of the movie. It did leave me like, you know, Mulholland driver Zodiac where I was like, wow.

• 2:40:46Griffin Newman?

  It's also kind of twinned with the ending of Fargo that also comes back to a couple having a conversation.

• 2:40:52Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:40:52Griffin Newman?

  Right in their constable domesticity.

• 2:40:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:40:55Griffin Newman?

  But for him, it's like this moment of extreme vulnerability. It feels like, like Tommy Lee Jones is transparent in this final scene.

• 2:41:04Speaker 05

  He's incredible.

• 2:41:05Griffin Newman?

  There, there is an like an understated sense of deep sadness and him feeling unmoored and vulnerability in him even sharing this with her. That the scariest thing he could do is ever share his abstract thoughts.

• 2:41:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:41:21Griffin Newman?

  He has not been able to untangle yet, even to the person closest in his life in what seems to be a very healthy marriage. Right?

• 2:41:28Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 2:41:28Griffin Newman?

  And it's sort of this sense of like, unlike Fargo, this is not a universe in which Marge is able to. Stop.

• 2:41:37Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:41:37Griffin Newman?

  The evil, right? Obviously, as she puts it, all that for a little bit of money. She didn't stop it in time. A lot of damage was.

• 2:41:45Speaker 05

  Was done.

• 2:41:45Griffin Newman?

  Was done. Many people died. But ultimately, like, there was some sense of justice at some point.

• 2:41:51Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:41:51Griffin Newman?

  And she gets to look at Peter Stormare at the back of the car and say, and for what? A little bit of money.

• 2:41:56Speaker 05

  A little bit.

• 2:41:56Griffin Newman?

  She at least hopes that that stays in his head. Versus here, the fact that the three people never meet. You kind of come back to Tommy Lee Jones being like, to what end?

• 2:42:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you're right, the villain, you know, Stormare in Fargo is kind of the prototype for Sugar. You're right, because, you know, just, you know, Terminator-esque, has his own code. It's not really even about the trajectory of what he's planned to do. But then in that film, he gets. You know, his kebab comeuppance or whatever. And in this film, you know, you just, you don't know the fate of this guy.

• 2:42:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. And, and in the dreams that Tommy Lee Jones is having, I think he's trying to reckon with these cycles of the stories we tell ourselves of like lawmen and bad guys.

• 2:42:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:42:48Griffin Newman?

  In a kind of idea of an American West where these things can balance themselves out. And he's just sort of like, are we moving into a realm where for better or worse, we don't fit into the model anymore? And then who am I?

• 2:43:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think what's interesting, like in terms of the thesis of the movie and sort of, I think what you take away from you, from it at the end, um, is that, uh,

• 2:43:17Speaker 05

  you know, that all the, the characters sort of get this like, you know, meh, you know, like, like who knows, you know, um, he, you know, the one dead. But I also heard that from somewhere that Tommy Lee Jones did that in one take and only did, you know, one of them and that he also did the fugitive sort of famous, you know, after the train crash speech also in one take.

• 2:43:45Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I'd say if this is take one, I think I go, yeah, we don't need another.

• 2:43:50Speaker 05

  We don't need to do this again. We get it. Like he's just, he's totally embodied the character and therefore the, the, the, I almost said lyrics, but the dialogue is just, is just speaking it, you know?

• 2:44:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And the final shot, his face to me is so heartbreaking where he, he looks so worried at how she is going to respond and what she thinks about what he just said.

• 2:44:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think that, um, yeah, sorry.

• 2:44:15David Sims?

  It's like, I had the weirdest dream. Like I was in class and I had to take a test and I wasn't wearing any clothes. And then my teeth fell out.

• 2:44:23Griffin Newman?

  She's like, that's pretty standard textbook stuff. You're worried about aging.

• 2:44:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:44:27David Sims?

  I had the weirdest nightmare. Donald Trump became president. Fantasy.

• 2:44:32Speaker 05

  Don't mad, don't bad mouth David Skye.

• 2:44:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I'm sorry, David.

• 2:44:36David Sims?

  This film, I'm just. Moving us along.

• 2:44:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:44:38David Sims?

  Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. I'm noting that only because it's an insane Cannes. Because No Country for Old Men is there, Zodiac is there. Stephen Frears and all his wisdom and his jury gave both of those films zero awards.

• 2:44:56Griffin Newman?

  Why did I think No Country won director?

• 2:44:58David Sims?

  Because the Coens have one director.

• 2:44:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:00David Sims?

  But not for that one.

• 2:45:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:45:01David Sims?

  For that one, they won Bupkis. And it's like, Four Months, uh, Three Weeks, Two Days won the Palm. That's a good movie. That's obviously a very like powerful festival film. Like it's.

• 2:45:11Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. We talked about this for, yeah, for Zodiac. Yeah.

• 2:45:14David Sims?

  And.

• 2:45:15Griffin Newman?

  It is an excellent, impossible to imagine watching a second time movie, but if you see it at a festival out of nowhere.

• 2:45:21David Sims?

  You're like, god damn.

• 2:45:22Griffin Newman?

  Hits you like a ton of bricks.

• 2:45:23David Sims?

  But it is a little rude that it just went over like, it got well received. The critics liked it there. But it didn't win anything. Paramount Vantage wanted to film, release this in August, which is.

• 2:45:35Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:45:36David Sims?

  Fucking crazy.

• 2:45:37Griffin Newman?

  Crazy.

• 2:45:37David Sims?

  They were going off of the success in the previous year of The Constant Gardener, which of course did win an Oscar.

• 2:45:42Griffin Newman?

  We've talked about this sort of like August, sort of Labor Day-esque, like focus features, adult thriller slot, where you could have like kind of a modest counter programmer success.

• 2:45:53Speaker 05

  Yes, that's true.

• 2:45:55Griffin Newman?

  Movie is not quite that.

• 2:45:57David Sims?

  Right. The Coens, perhaps wisely, felt strongly about releasing this film in the fall.

• 2:46:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:46:02David Sims?

  Uh, came out in November, uh, and was their biggest hit of the moment.

• 2:46:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:08David Sims?

  True格d Eclipse Zipper made 74 million domestic and won 71 worldwide. And it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I don't know if you know.

• 2:46:17Griffin Newman?

  Director, screenplay, supporting actor.

• 2:46:19David Sims?

  That's right. Uh, it lost for sound editing, sound mixing, cinematography and editing.

• 2:46:25Griffin Newman?

  I watched the three speeches, uh, this morning.

• 2:46:30David Sims?

  Their speeches.

• 2:46:31Griffin Newman?

  Joel tells the story that's very funny about, um, or no, for screenplay, he says, he says the Corrin McCarthy and Homer thing, right?

• 2:46:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:46:38Griffin Newman?

  And then Ethan gets up and he goes like, uh, I, uh.

• 2:46:44Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. And he walks offstage, and then when they win Best Director, Joel tells the story about them growing up, making movies together, and how it feels crazy that their life doesn't feel different from when they were ten in the backyard.

• 2:46:55David Sims?

  And they're like, "We're happy you let us play in this little sandbox."

• 2:46:57Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. "Thank you for letting us have our corner of the sandbox." And then Ethan gets up and goes, "I think, uh..." Basically said everything I needed to say last time. Thank you. It's a perfect bit.

• 2:47:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:47:10Griffin Newman?

  And then, of course, when they win Best Picture, they say nothing. Scott Rudin.

• 2:47:12David Sims?

  Scott Rudin gets on his head and revolves around or whatever.

• 2:47:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:47:17David Sims?

  Scott Rudin throws three cheese strings from the stage. This film, Griffin, came out November 9th, 2007.

• 2:47:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:23David Sims?

  Uh, limited, so it's opening number 15 on a robust $43,000 screen average, though. Number one at the box office is sort of the no-country-for-old man of animated films, though, in its second week at the box office. I'm joking.

• 2:47:36Griffin Newman?

  It is called B-Movie?

• 2:47:38David Sims?

  That's right. It is Jerry Seinfeld's B-Movie.

• 2:47:40Speaker 05

  My god.

• 2:47:40David Sims?

  Now, have you seen B-Movie?

• 2:47:42Speaker 05

  I have not.

• 2:47:42David Sims?

  He's a B.

• 2:47:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's kind of a movie about an old man who doesn't understand it is no longer his country.

• 2:47:47Speaker 05

  My god.

• 2:47:49David Sims?

  That's sort of slowly what Jerry Seinfeld's last 25 years have been about.

• 2:47:53Speaker 05

  Oh, my god.

• 2:47:54Griffin Newman?

  I'm just imagining-

• 2:47:54Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly. Yes, yeah.

• 2:47:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm just imagining the last scene of No Country with Jerry Seinfeld and his wife.

• 2:48:00David Sims?

  This country, deferral men!

• 2:48:01Griffin Newman?

  Just very quietly going, "What's the deal?"

• 2:48:04Speaker 05

  That's pretty good.

• 2:48:04Griffin Newman?

  "With an old man."

• 2:48:06David Sims?

  Uh, number two at the box office is a film that I think was widely tipped as a major Oscar player.

• 2:48:14Griffin Newman?

  American gangster?

• 2:48:14David Sims?

  Right. Did well.

• 2:48:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:16David Sims?

  Is not bad, but certainly underwhelmed on that front.

• 2:48:19Griffin Newman?

  Got only the one nomination for Ruby D?

• 2:48:21David Sims?

  I think it might have gotten like a Haasium nod, but yes, essentially. Uh, but not a bad movie.

• 2:48:25Griffin Newman?

  Not a bad movie.

• 2:48:26David Sims?

  Pretty re-watchable.

• 2:48:27Griffin Newman?

  It was just on paper, you were like, "This is gonna be the greatest shit of all time."

• 2:48:32Speaker 05

  This is it. Yeah.

• 2:48:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:33Speaker 05

  Well, also, it's the year after The Departed, so it makes sense. Yeah.

• 2:48:36Griffin Newman?

  It was.

• 2:48:37David Sims?

  Uh, number three at the box office, new this week. I think, very unhappy for the studio that this is opening number three.

• 2:48:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:48:44David Sims?

  Uh, it's a comedy, high-concept comedy.

• 2:48:47Griffin Newman?

  November 2007. What studio released this picture?

• 2:48:52David Sims?

  Warner Bros.

• 2:48:53Griffin Newman?

  Warner Bros. It is not Fred Claus, is it?

• 2:48:57David Sims?

  It is, unfortunately. Vince Vaughn's Fred Claus.

• 2:49:01Griffin Newman?

  One of the most repellent films I've ever seen. A film that actually embodies pure evil.

• 2:49:06David Sims?

  Right. Now, I remember, of course, this is when I was an intern at People Magazine because I covered the B-movie red carpet in London. I worked in London. I covered the red carpet for this film. I've talked about it a lot on this podcast over the years. This is a huge flop.

• 2:49:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:49:20David Sims?

  Opening new at number four.

• 2:49:22Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:49:22David Sims?

  Drama, serious drama.

• 2:49:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, oh, you're saying this movie is the kingdom?

• 2:49:27David Sims?

  Yes, I did not cover the red carpet for Fred Claus. I did for The Kingdom, but that's not what we're talking about.

• 2:49:32Griffin Newman?

  But this is Lions for Lambs?

• 2:49:33David Sims?

  Lions for Lambs.

• 2:49:35Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:49:36David Sims?

  Where it's just like everyone's in a room going like, but the war, is it good? We don't know. Yes. I've never seen Lions for Lambs.

• 2:49:44Griffin Newman?

  No, I haven't.

• 2:49:44David Sims?

  I covered the red carpet.

• 2:49:45Griffin Newman?

  That is the fundamental yes or no question of our time. Noah, is that thing of like?

• 2:49:51David Sims?

  Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford.

• 2:49:53Griffin Newman?

  The Cruise implosion.

• 2:49:55Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:49:55Griffin Newman?

  Summer Redstone says, we're ending our deal with him at Paramount. And then the big buzzy announcement is United Artists is being handed over to Tom Cruise. It is going to be his studio. He gets to make what he wants. And the first move was, I'm going to play supporting in a Robert Redford talkie drama. And it felt like, is he, is this the next phase of his career?

• 2:50:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:50:17Griffin Newman?

  Is he not interested in being like action star, movie star anymore?

• 2:50:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:50:22Griffin Newman?

  And right after this, he pivots.

• 2:50:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:50:25David Sims?

  So far away from that.

• 2:50:26Speaker 05

  And this is like the couch jumping era. Like this is like, this is a mess.

• 2:50:29Griffin Newman?

  The immediate post couch jump.

• 2:50:31David Sims?

  Everyone's a little sick of talking.

• 2:50:32Griffin Newman?

  How do I reset?

• 2:50:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:50:34Griffin Newman?

  And then his second UA movie is Valkyrie, where he finds Macquarie and that sets the next 20 years of his career.

• 2:50:41David Sims?

  Number five at the box office, Griffin, is a film that matters very much to you and I. Not as a film, but as a thing we used to say to each other.

• 2:50:48Griffin Newman?

  It's a thing we used to say to each other.

• 2:50:49David Sims?

  Film trivia a lot. And you would say it to a lot of people. A line from this film.

• 2:50:53Griffin Newman?

  Put it on my tab?

• 2:50:54David Sims?

  Put it on my tab. What's the film called?

• 2:50:57Griffin Newman?

  It is one of the great. Breakfast starch movie posters of all time.

• 2:51:03David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:51:04Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it is called Dan in Real Life.

• 2:51:06David Sims?

  The Steve Carell film, Dan in Real Life. Have you seen it?

• 2:51:09Speaker 05

  I have not. I have not.

• 2:51:11Griffin Newman?

  It's got one of the most weirdly Photoshop posters of all time.

• 2:51:14Speaker 05

  That, I know the poster.

• 2:51:15Griffin Newman?

  Of his face.

• 2:51:15David Sims?

  We all know the poster.

• 2:51:16Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 2:51:17Griffin Newman?

  Nothing close to that happens in the film.

• 2:51:19David Sims?

  Yes, Ben.

• 2:51:20Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 2:51:20David Sims?

  No, he doesn't sleep on pancakes.

• 2:51:22Griffin Newman?

  But it was clearly like, a kind of like, sub kind of Kasdan-y attempt at a dramedy. That then they were like, how do we sell this to look more like forty year old version?

• 2:51:34Speaker 05

  Oh, right.

• 2:51:34Griffin Newman?

  What can be wacky happening in relation to his face?

• 2:51:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:51:39Griffin Newman?

  A stack of pancakes. Put it on my head.

• 2:51:42David Sims?

  Number six at the box office is Saw IV.

• 2:51:45Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:51:45David Sims?

  Number, that's the one that starts with his autopsy, I believe.

• 2:51:48Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:51:48David Sims?

  Uh, maybe, I think, no, it is. Uh, where they're like, he's dead. Uh, number five, seven is the film The Game Plan. Now, what's that one?

• 2:51:55Griffin Newman?

  That is, The Rock is a football player who finds out he had a daughter.

• 2:52:01David Sims?

  And she likes like ballet. And he's like, what's the game plan?

• 2:52:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:52:04David Sims?

  Or whatever.

• 2:52:04Griffin Newman?

  That's the era where he's like, I am solely family movie star. And he does that Tooth Fairy and Escape to Rich Mountain.

• 2:52:12David Sims?

  Whatever.

• 2:52:12Griffin Newman?

  In a row. And then was like, never mind.

• 2:52:14Speaker 05

  Never mind. Fuck this. Yeah.

• 2:52:15David Sims?

  Number eight at the box office is the, like, sort of okay thriller Thirty Days of Night, the vampire movie with Josh Hartnett.

• 2:52:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, David Slade.

• 2:52:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've never seen it.

• 2:52:23David Sims?

  Uh, number nine is something that I do not remember what this is. P2? The fuck is that?

• 2:52:27Griffin Newman?

  That was a West Bentley, uh, evil parking attendant.

• 2:52:32Speaker 05

  I don't know how you know this.

• 2:52:34Griffin Newman?

  Broken brain.

• 2:52:35Speaker 05

  How do you know what P2 is?

• 2:52:38David Sims?

  We've all parked in a parking lot.

• 2:52:40Griffin Newman?

  But what if?

• 2:52:41David Sims?

  What if it was evil?

• 2:52:43Griffin Newman?

  I think it's Rachel Nichols on West Bentley.

• 2:52:45David Sims?

  You are correct.

• 2:52:47Griffin Newman?

  And I, it was, it was one of those distributors that only existed for like eighteen months.

• 2:52:51Speaker 05

  Who are you?

• 2:52:52David Sims?

  It was distributed, of course, well, it was distributed by Summit Entertainment, so they, they, they're a real company.

• 2:52:57Griffin Newman?

  Maybe it was early Summit.

• 2:52:58David Sims?

  Yeah, but, um, it was Alexandra Ahah. He didn't direct it. He produced it and he found like one of his freaks to direct it. Uh, I would not direct a parking movie. I assume that's what he sounds like. Number ten at the box office is The Martian Child. What is that again?

• 2:53:13Griffin Newman?

  That is.

• 2:53:14David Sims?

  Is John Cusack?

• 2:53:15Griffin Newman?

  John Cusack.

• 2:53:16David Sims?

  And he's like, what if my child was Martian?

• 2:53:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:53:19Speaker 05

  When you hear like all the, the, the log lines.

• 2:53:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:23Speaker 05

  Just. Diminishing returns of like, you know, we're going down to 10 and it's just like, my god.

• 2:53:29Griffin Newman?

  I think it's basically, the movie is like, help, my son is Capex. I have watched this movie on a plane, but it's basically, I think, like, Cusack being like, I don't know, the kid thinks he's a Martian.

• 2:53:40Speaker 05

  Oh my god.

• 2:53:41Griffin Newman?

  And then someone plays the therapist who's trying to get through the kid. I wanna say it has a maybe vaguely tasteless twist, but I might be misremembering that. I think it is one of the rare movies, though, where John and Joan play siblings, if I am not mistaken. That's what I gotta say about The Martian Child, I don't know what to tell you.

• 2:53:58David Sims?

  That's it.

• 2:53:59Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Leslie?

• 2:54:01Speaker 05

  Thank you, guys.

• 2:54:02Griffin Newman?

  Pleasure's all.

• 2:54:03Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thirty for three, I mean, really, that is, those, wow.

• 2:54:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and once again, we cannot oversell how much dog shit we're gonna sell you with next time.

• 2:54:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, you have to. There's no way.

• 2:54:17Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna be the stinkiest shit we've ever recovered on this show.

• 2:54:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. But you guys have been really lovely in terms of essentially offering me or letting me pick, like, really incredible. Oh, we heard you like Zodiac.

• 2:54:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:32Speaker 05

  You know, and then David texted me and was like-

• 2:54:34David Sims?

  That was the weird thing also, where it was like, nobody was going for Zodiac, which is odd, because it's like-

• 2:54:41Speaker 05

  So incredible, yeah.

• 2:54:42Griffin Newman?

  We raised like, the flag to friends and we're like, who likes Zodiac? Why can't we find anybody? Yeah.

• 2:54:48Speaker 05

  I think like, No Country is just, you know, it's just an astonishing movie.

• 2:54:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:53Speaker 05

  So like, those three, I just am like, Jesus Christ, I feel really lucky.

• 2:54:57David Sims?

  You did great.

• 2:54:58Griffin Newman?

  And I, I did, it felt like the pinnacle of their career to me at this time, and yet, I, I think the run that comes right after it is sort of the kind of stuff you can only do when emboldened with this level of success.

• 2:55:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:55:12David Sims?

  It's fertile stuff.

• 2:55:13Speaker 05

  It's a blank check.

• 2:55:13Griffin Newman?

  It's really good shit. They were, they had quite a blank check run right after this.

• 2:55:18David Sims?

  Leslie, are you doing good?

• 2:55:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm doing okay.

• 2:55:22Griffin Newman?

  You're about to go on vacation.

• 2:55:23Speaker 05

  I'm about to go on vacation, I, um, and by vacation, I mean, I'm not gonna be with my wife and my child.

• 2:55:32David Sims?

  As a parent, I understand.

• 2:55:33Speaker 05

  I'm staying here, but I'm not.

• 2:55:34David Sims?

  I understand.

• 2:55:35Speaker 05

  I don't have to deal with it. Um, no, I'm okay. I'm good. I'm good. I'm actually sort of not doing anything right now, which is really lovely.

• 2:55:41David Sims?

  That's great. I feel like I last saw you right before my twins were born.

• 2:55:46Speaker 05

  Yes, that's true. Yeah.

• 2:55:47David Sims?

  You were beginning to spool up on Cult of Love or whatever, you know, like you had stuff on your plate or whatever.

• 2:55:52Speaker 05

  Oh, right. Yeah, I was like about to start rehearsals for it.

• 2:55:54Griffin Newman?

  You had a lot going on. I feel like Akali had just come out and you were starting rehearsals.

• 2:55:58David Sims?

  And then like since then, we will text once a month. It's like, we should really hang out. And I'm like, I know.

• 2:56:01Speaker 05

  And then we never do.

• 2:56:02David Sims?

  I'm so sleepy.

• 2:56:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:56:03David Sims?

  But we should really.

• 2:56:04Griffin Newman?

  And I just wave and I'm like, I got no kids over here. You guys tell me when and where.

• 2:56:07Speaker 05

  I mean, I'm so tired that I'm not even playing like Night Rain with my RPG group. You know, like, I mean, we're just like, we started and then everybody was like, what happened to you? And I was like, I, I just, I can't even bring myself to play a video game.

• 2:56:21David Sims?

  I'm so tired.

• 2:56:22Speaker 05

  That's how tired I am.

• 2:56:23David Sims?

  I started the Donkey Kong game, which is for children. And I was like, this is kind of overwhelming. This is a lot for me right now.

• 2:56:30Speaker 05

  Um, yeah. But yeah, that would, that sums it up.

• 2:56:34David Sims?

  And obviously, you know, everyone should be hanging out.

• 2:56:37Speaker 05

  But yeah, thanks for having me.

• 2:56:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:39Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me. It was wonderful to watch the movie again.

• 2:56:41Griffin Newman?

  No, of course. A phenomenal film.

• 2:56:43David Sims?

  Kind of an easy movie to talk about in a weird way where you're just like, who am I to say anything bad about this movie? Like, it all works.

• 2:56:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, you just kind of like roll through it. It's like absolutely brilliant and.

• 2:56:54David Sims?

  Not in like an uncomplicated way. There's complicated stuff to think about, but it's just kind of like, I'm not really faulting anything here.

• 2:57:01Speaker 05

  One thing that I was gonna say very quickly was, um, uh, the, um, one thing that I love about the novel and the film is that, um, you know, the seventh seal, it's like, I'm playing chess with death. And I just love that this movie is like, it's a coin toss.

• 2:57:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. There's no game to win.

• 2:57:19Speaker 05

  It's a coin toss.

• 2:57:20David Sims?

  I think we also have to mention that this is a dry movie. Well, that's true, Ben.

• 2:57:26Griffin Newman?

  Thank God we said that.

• 2:57:27David Sims?

  Although he does go in the water at one point to get away from the people.

• 2:57:30Speaker 03

  And it looks refreshing.

• 2:57:31David Sims?

  I know.

• 2:57:32Speaker 03

  Cause it's so hot.

• 2:57:33David Sims?

  When he goes in there, I'm like, man, that's what I would be doing all the time.

• 2:57:36Griffin Newman?

  But, but to, to back up Ben's point here, it's a movie so dry that the greatest mistake its lead character makes.

• 2:57:43Speaker 03

  Go by the pool.

• 2:57:44Griffin Newman?

  Is getting a jug of water.

• 2:57:45Speaker 05

  And going by the pool.

• 2:57:47David Sims?

  And getting a jug of water.

• 2:57:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:57:48Griffin Newman?

  The water fun.

• 2:57:49David Sims?

  I was kinda shocked he didn't have water, by the way. I'm like, you're out here like hunting in the desert, you don't have like a fucking bottle of water? Like, you served in the army?

• 2:57:56Griffin Newman?

  Hey, maybe this guy is a fucking moron.

• 2:57:58Speaker 03

  He's dumb.

• 2:57:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:00Speaker 03

  It's a friggin' dry movie.

• 2:58:01Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you all for listening.

• 2:58:03Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you, guys.

• 2:58:04Griffin Newman?

  Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Burn After Reading.

• 2:58:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:58:09Griffin Newman?

  Just a really funny.

• 2:58:10David Sims?

  Somebody?

• 2:58:11Griffin Newman?

  Follow-up movie. Yeah, we'll have that.

• 2:58:12David Sims?

  That's one where like eight guests have rotated out of that spot. We'll see.

• 2:58:15Griffin Newman?

  It's been an interesting, it's, it's been like the crow remake.

• 2:58:18Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 2:58:18Griffin Newman?

  In terms of the number of different names.

• 2:58:20Speaker 03

  The person, the standing name right now is wild.

• 2:58:23Griffin Newman?

  Is what?

• 2:58:25David Sims?

  We cannot say it, but we'll tell you after.

• 2:58:27Griffin Newman?

  We'll see.

• 2:58:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, don't say it, don't say it.

• 2:58:29Griffin Newman?

  What happens.

• 2:58:29Speaker 05

  I'll see you guys for the next masterpiece.

• 2:58:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Penny Marshall's Riding Cars with Boys.

• 2:58:37Speaker 05

  I'm game.

• 2:58:38Griffin Newman?

  David's taking a photo of what? Of the runtime?

• 2:58:40David Sims?

  Runtime. Someone asked me how long this episode was.

• 2:58:41Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's not four. We came in.

• 2:58:43David Sims?

  No, we ain't go four.

• 2:58:45Speaker 05

  A respectful three.

• 2:58:46Griffin Newman?

  A respectful three.

• 2:58:47Speaker 05

  Just under.

• 2:58:47David Sims?

  Leslie, I don't know how you put up with this.

• 2:58:49Speaker 05

  I'm obsessed with this. This was actually like my, my, um, it's my happy place. I love talking with you guys. And I even said, I was like, I just am so happy that I get to do something that I love and I'm not like, and, and it's during a time when I'm not also like under deadline. It's kind of like.

• 2:59:06Griffin Newman?

  That's very kind of you, Sam. And as always, I'm going to promise you that next time, you're gonna get the worst fucking movie ever.

• 2:59:13David Sims?

  Dog shit.

• 2:59:21Speaker 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, Holly 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

• 3:00:02Speaker 03

  for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.