The Last Temptation of Christ with Jamelle Bouie

The controversy. The incredible Peter Gabriel score. The Last Temptation of Christ. This week, Jamelle Bouie returns to Blank Check to talk about Scorsese's long-gestating passion project, and David gets to geek out about the history of Christianity. None of us are particularly religious - yet we all find this movie profoundly moving. God bless Marty, man. Get your tickets to the LIVESTREAM of Blank Check's sold out Bell House show on Fri, Oct 16 at 7:30pm ET! https://www.dynasty.tv/products/blank-check-live-10-16-26-4-30pmpt-7-30pmet Watch our Scorsese-spectacular live with your fellow Blankies or on VOD (for a limited time). Get Tickets to Blank Check Presents: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie on Sun, Oct 25, 7:30pm at the Refocus Film Festival in Iowa City https://tickets.icfilmscene.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=1026937~73f00f5b-a703-472f-975d-5ae901133780&epguid=8214219d-d011-48e5-9822-7cbf57941a30&mdy=10/25/2026& 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. VOTE for Check Book https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/craft/best-podcast-newsletter as Best Podcast Newsletter in the Signal Awards! Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:21Griffin Newman?

  If I was a woodcutter, I'd cut. If I was a fire, I'd burn. But I'm a podcast and I love.

• 0:29David Sims?

  That's good. I like that a lot.

• 0:31Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 0:32David Sims?

  That was the one I figured you would do.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  And I think it's a very good Willem.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  I was doing older Willem.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Christ Willem.

• 0:38Griffin Newman?

  I was doing older, I'll admit. It's hard to do young Willem.

• 0:41David Sims?

  I'm something of a woodcutter myself.

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm something of a woodcutter myself. I feel like I lost it on that one.

• 0:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 0:49Griffin Newman?

  Is that always funny? I think it is, right?

• 0:52David Sims?

  Even though Marvel tried to ruin it by obviously like making it like an applause line in the Spider-Man movie, they can't ruin it.

• 0:59Griffin Newman?

  They can't ruin it.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  I'll say part of what makes it funny is actually, I mean, as a line, it's funny, but it's the face he's making.

• 1:06Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  The kind of like very sort of like, oh, I'm just your friendly neighborhood Norman Osborn.

• 1:11Griffin Newman?

  We, we did a, a Raimi Spider-Man with you, obviously. It was one of those things that Raimi just understood of just like, when to ask Willem Dafoe to smile.

• 1:22David Sims?

  Beyond that, as, as Spider-Man has been back in the discourse and people are talking about the new movie, people, you know, will always post the, the, the fight in the first Spider-Man.

• 1:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31David Sims?

  Where they're just fucking wailing on each other in the churchyard or whatever, right? And people are just like, nothing looks like this anymore in these comic book movies where they're just beating the shit out of each other.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:40David Sims?

  And you're like, yeah, that rocked.

• 1:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42David Sims?

  Date me back, return.

• 1:44Griffin Newman?

  You know what else? I mean, the thing we were surprised by rewatching that movie is there's no fight in that film that lasts longer than like 90 seconds. Like Spider-Man 2 broke that wall of, oh shit, their amount, their amounts of money now invested.

• 1:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:57Griffin Newman?

  In letting these fight sequences go on for 10 minutes. And when you got to the subway sequence, it felt thrilling.

• 2:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  But that church fight is so short.

• 2:04David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:04Griffin Newman?

  It's just brutal and it's direct.

• 2:06David Sims?

  Bang, bang, bang. You're right.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  It's brutal and it feels, because the brutality gives it like these real stakes, like, oh, he'll kill Spider-Man if he can.

• 2:13David Sims?

  He'll, he will. He's crazy.

• 2:15Griffin Newman?

  I'll kill Spider-Man.

• 2:16David Sims?

  He's crazy. I'll say this, but I will say also this.

• 2:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20David Sims?

  When the military is like, we don't want to do your goblin glider. And instead we have like, and then they roll out the worst guy you've ever seen.

• 2:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes, horrendous.

• 2:27David Sims?

  He's like this.

• 2:28Griffin Newman?

  Sung goggles.

• 2:29David Sims?

  Yeah. And they're like, we're gonna, if I'm Norman Osborn, I also am like, the hell guys?

• 2:33Griffin Newman?

  I built this company.

• 2:36David Sims?

  My thing is objectively better than this thing.

• 2:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:39David Sims?

  What are they, are they just doing a coup because he's crazy? Is that what it is? It's like, you're kind of too crazy.

• 2:43Griffin Newman?

  I don't know how to tell you this. You got kind of like a Willem Dafoe vibe that's unsettling everyone. It is.

• 2:48David Sims?

  I didn't foresee Willem Norman talk, but I should have, of course.

• 2:52Griffin Newman?

  We had to. No, because it's, it's obviously Willem Dafoe gets used so much now, the last 25 years, as a villain and or an old coot.

• 3:04David Sims?

  Oh, he's a rent-a-coot.

• 3:05Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:06David Sims?

  Aquaman was kind of like, it's sort of almost coot, but it's the rare, like he's not neither villain nor coot.

• 3:13Griffin Newman?

  That's an attempt at a, at a Gary Oldman Jim Gordon.

• 3:15David Sims?

  Yeah, Mentor. Right, right, right.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  I would, I mean, I would cast, I mean, speaking of old coot, someone should make an old Prospector movie, cast Willem Dafoe.

• 3:23David Sims?

  Wow, he'd be fun.

• 3:24Griffin Newman?

  Live action Woody's roundup, put Willem Dafoe in a fat suit, have him play Stinky Pete.

• 3:29David Sims?

  He really is, he's going coot mode.

• 3:32Griffin Newman?

  He's going coot mode, but this is to say, it just is wild to watch this film from 1987?

• 3:40David Sims?

  Uh, 1988, is it not? Yes, 1988.

• 3:43Griffin Newman?

  And to be like, he was perfect as Jesus.

• 3:46David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, I mean.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  He's so beautiful.

• 3:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  My understanding is that Scorsese had seen him in Platoon.

• 3:51Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Where he plays a very sensitive.

• 3:53David Sims?

  Right. He's an innocent almost. Right.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Character.

• 3:56Griffin Newman?

  And spiritual.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:57David Sims?

  Yes. No, that's, that's a good point. Like it was a different Willem.

• 4:01Griffin Newman?

  But part of him in Platoon is like, is this guy a little scary? There's even, it's tapping into that, which this movie is in a way, in a really smart way.

• 4:11David Sims?

  Yes, of course. Absolutely. Is he crazy? The whole thing is, and I, God, this is gonna be like a blasphemous episode or whatever.

• 4:18Griffin Newman?

  I know.

• 4:18David Sims?

  But like, obviously one must consider if Jesus Christ was, was mentally ill. Like if, if, if one, not, not in this movie so much, but right, yeah, that's an.

• 4:28Griffin Newman?

  Well, some of these miracles I watch and I go, Jesus, you're crazy for that one.

• 4:31David Sims?

  One of my favorite Wikipedia articles because of, because of the image they use, one of my favorite Wikipedia articles, mental health of Jesus.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  He looks sad.

• 4:39David Sims?

  Where they have picked a very sad 15th century painting of him looking very, very crazy.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Such a frown.

• 4:46David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, the question of whether the historical Jesus was in good mental health is a subject of consideration for psychologists, historians and writers. I mean, I guess that makes sense.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I'm, you know, I'm willing to grant Jesus good mental health. But I think of like authors of the Christian Bible who were clearly insane. I'm thinking John of Patmos, who wrote the revelation of St. John, but we know as the book of revelations.

• 5:09David Sims?

  What do you mean? Book of Revelations? This is just.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally normal.

• 5:11David Sims?

  Blockbuster shit. That's just great. Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  One thing, the movie, I mean, I, I imagine we'll talk about this a ton, but one of the things that I, actually if I'm really interesting about the movie, is how much it's trying to capture the strangeness of the ancient Near East.

• 5:28David Sims?

  You said this, I noticed this on Letterboxd. It's like making it an alien place in a way or.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  One of the things that's true to fact is that there were lots of people.

• 5:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Who were like, I am the Messiah. There were lots of people who were like, crazy things are happening in the world around us. It's clearly the end times. I am the Messiah.

• 5:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  And when we meet Jesus in the film, we're meeting him constructing a cross for the crucifixion of one of these people.

• 5:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 5:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 5:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. And that's, that's the immediate anger that they start the movie with Jesus doing something that his disciples would find unforgivable.

• 6:02David Sims?

  I prefer to the Mel Gibson Passion of the Christ thing where Jesus makes, it seems like, is it the first chair in existence?

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:09David Sims?

  Where you see him kind of knock a chair together and he's like, hmm.

• 6:13Griffin Newman?

  The first lazy boy.

• 6:14David Sims?

  He invented chairs. Anyway, moving on.

• 6:15Griffin Newman?

  That's part of Zemeckis is here, right? That you see Jesus making the first chair and then it turns into the first lazy boy.

• 6:21David Sims?

  Here was a, obviously that was a chair heavy film.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Hey, Dever, it's crazy. The guy who made us this chair got crucified. For the chair?

• 6:29David Sims?

  No, no, no, no.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  The chair was good.

• 6:31Griffin Newman?

  The chair was good. The chair was, the chair was pretty good. I, I liked you saying that and I was, I, I watched, I will admit, I watched this movie twice last night.

• 6:41David Sims?

  Hell yeah, man. I, I watched it.

• 6:43Griffin Newman?

  I watched it and then I saw the Criterion had their commentary track, their vintage commentary track on the Criterion channel. And I said, let me throw that on. And it's intercutting between Cox, Schrader, Scorsese and Dafoe. Uh, what were you about to say, David?

• 6:58David Sims?

  I'm just watching the chair scene. He truly is like, I fucking invented something cool for how to eat at a table. It's a chair.

• 7:07David Sims?

  That movie is so bananas.

• 7:08Griffin Newman?

  Did stools exist but not chairs?

• 7:10David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  No one had thought to put a back on a stool.

• 7:13Griffin Newman?

  That's my question. This is major innovation.

• 7:16David Sims?

  When were chairs invented? Okay?

• 7:18Griffin Newman?

  The legs were the invention?

• 7:20David Sims?

  It shipped in around 2800 B.C. So no, they beat Jesus to that one.

• 7:23Griffin Newman?

  They beat Jesus to that one. Um, Schrader said this thing.

• 7:27David Sims?

  People evolved stools by adding a back. That's how the chair was invented. That makes sense. Uh, mostly for pharaohs though.

• 7:34Griffin Newman?

  Schrader said this thing that if you read of that time, people believed they were witnessing supernatural things on a near daily basis.

• 7:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 7:41Griffin Newman?

  That that was part of the weirdness of the time.

• 7:43David Sims?

  Seeing these guys, what, what was the supernatural stuff they were seeing?

• 7:47Griffin Newman?

  Jesus ripping his heart out.

• 7:49David Sims?

  Yeah, that's a crazy thing. No, I'm serious. You know, right? Like, we're talking about like the weather. We're talking about animals.

• 7:56Griffin Newman?

  Know about science.

• 7:57David Sims?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what they would have been seeing, but Schrader, I mean, Schrader's read on that is right. I mean, the thing about the movie is that I, I, I actually wanted to try to do some research on this and I couldn't find anything, but like, it clearly is informed by sort of modern biblical studies. Like just as, as someone who, who studied religious studies in college, like there's a lot, there's a lot in here that's sort of like, yes, someone read a book about first century Judea.

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Before, before they did this movie.

• 8:24Griffin Newman?

  Well, and also that Scorsese grew up obsessed with biblical epics, always wanting to make a biblical epic. When he originally planned this movie, it was supposed to be more of a classical biblical epic. And then there's this blessing in disguise of being told, you can do this right now if you can make it for seven million dollars all in.

• 8:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:43Griffin Newman?

  And whatever it was, 45, 50 days of filming, something like that. And he had to scale it down and it becomes a small town movie. It becomes a ground level movie.

• 8:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 8:53Griffin Newman?

  Which I do think changes the way these stories are told.

• 8:56David Sims?

  I think it's so much better.

• 8:57Griffin Newman?

  Because even most, most modern faith based tellings of the Bible look closer to this than the 40s and 50s epics.

• 9:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 9:06Griffin Newman?

  Passion of the Christ looks closer to this.

• 9:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Griffin Newman?

  In a weird way. When you think about this being like the most sacrilegious movie of all time when it was released.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Which is crazy to me, but we'll talk about it.

• 9:17Griffin Newman?

  I'm so happy you have this take as well because I was watching this and I was like, am I just dumb? Am I just dumb for thinking?

• 9:23David Sims?

  The first 90 minutes is lighter on sacrilege. It's the last hour people were more upset about.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  People were more just upset when they heard about it though. It's not like they watched the movie. Right. Yeah. Even the last hour is only sacrilegious if you're an idiot.

• 9:37David Sims?

  I, I would agree with that, uh, but I'm no expert on sacrilegious. And I probably live my life being very sacrilegious.

• 9:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm the most sacrilegious person alive, but I, I did think watching this, this feels very respectful to Jesus Christ. This makes him a guy I like.

• 9:54David Sims?

  Movie. Yes. I, that is for sure.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  This movie makes me pretty on his side.

• 9:58David Sims?

  But you know what? It's also a movie how, about how people really got riled up about Jesus since he was around. And so I guess it's not surprised that people got riled up because the movie's like, yeah, see? People have always been fucking riled up about this guy.

• 10:13Griffin Newman?

  He just makes people go loco.

• 10:14David Sims?

  Talking about him riles people up.

• 10:15Griffin Newman?

  It's true. And we're gonna have zero trouble talking about him today on Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 10:22David Sims?

  I'm David. Wow.

• 10:23Griffin Newman?

  This is a podcast about faith, about deep spirituality and about filmographies, directors who have massive success. Early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they get denounced by the church, biggie.

• 10:41David Sims?

  Sure.

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  This is the second time Martin Scorsese feared for his life, third?

• 10:46David Sims?

  Well, are we talking about his general health or just kind of like people being after him?

• 10:50Griffin Newman?

  Great question. Okay, so if we're talking about his general health, this is like the one million.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, he seems to me to be quite neurotic about that kind of stuff.

• 10:59David Sims?

  A little sickly, a little neurotic, did too many drugs, you know, at a certain point in his life. What are the, what's the other?

• 11:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, I guess there was a lot of hand wringing around Taxi Driver.

• 11:07David Sims?

  Sure, there was some, yeah, yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 11:10Griffin Newman?

  And then what was the Academy Award ceremony? Oh, it was the Raging Bull year. That ceremony happens the day after the, um, uh, William Hinckley.

• 11:21David Sims?

  Oh.

• 11:22Griffin Newman?

  So he was freaked out that he was gonna get attacked next.

• 11:25David Sims?

  Yes, that, right, nineteen eighty Oscars are even, are delayed because of the assassination attempt on Robert.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, okay, I, I, I guess I kinda get it, still.

• 11:33Griffin Newman?

  I, I agree, I agree. I think people should chill out. I think Martin Scorsese is good at making movies.

• 11:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 11:39Griffin Newman?

  And we should be grateful that he makes them for us.

• 11:41David Sims?

  I mean, I don't know if the podcast can handle that kinda incendiary content, Griffin, you saying he's good at making movies. I mean, come on now.

• 11:49Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm ready to, to rouse some rebels here today. I will also say I had this thought while watching the movie. The fucking cojones on him to make this thing. As much as I just said that I think people's outrage around this was kind of stupid. This is like, he knew what he was fucking getting into.

• 12:06David Sims?

  He claims he doesn't, he didn't though.

• 12:07Griffin Newman?

  Fifteen years of his life.

• 12:09David Sims?

  I know, I know.

• 12:10Griffin Newman?

  Like, tilting at this windmill, beyond the fact that this was just gonna be an impossibly difficult movie to make for an asthmatic.

• 12:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  All that sand.

• 12:17Griffin Newman?

  Horrible conditions.

• 12:18David Sims?

  True.

• 12:19Griffin Newman?

  I just given, I can't think of a modern filmmaker who would take this big of a risk.

• 12:25David Sims?

  Had you seen this film before, Griff?

• 12:26Griffin Newman?

  I had not, this is my first time watching.

• 12:28David Sims?

  Okay.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  And Jamel, I assume you had seen this film before?

• 12:30David Sims?

  Yes, I've seen this a couple times.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  And introduce our guest, please.

• 12:33Griffin Newman?

  This is a mini-series on the films of Martin Scorsese who I think makes good films.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Yep, crazy boy.

• 12:37Griffin Newman?

  It's called Podcast Fellas. It is not called The Pod, The Cast Temptation of Pod.

• 12:42David Sims?

  No.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Cast Temptation of Pod.

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  People wanted that. But today we are talking about.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Siltons. Bringing the pod out the cast, I mean, bringing out the dead.

• 12:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:50David Sims?

  It's a good movie.

• 12:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But it would, people would think it was pretty absurd of us to name our Martin Scorsese series after Bringing Out the Dead. As much as I love that film.

• 12:59David Sims?

  That's what it's called.

• 13:00Griffin Newman?

  Podcast Fellas is what we are. It's who we are at our core. Today we're talking about The Last Temptation of Christ, his most controversial film.

• 13:10David Sims?

  I suppose.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  I mean, they, Kundun, maybe, because of the Chinese government.

• 13:16David Sims?

  I, if you're going by pure numbers, I guess you could go for Kundu, but I don't know how many actual Chinese people were mad about Kundu. Like, I don't know if it really reached the general populace.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  We show up in Shanghai, what do you think about Kundun?

• 13:29David Sims?

  I, I'm not sure.

• 13:30Griffin Newman?

  It was a, he has people protesting outside the theater movie, though.

• 13:33David Sims?

  Yeah. What was I, was there protests about a movie in the last couple of years? I remember being at Lincoln Center and like, there were some nuns protesting a movie. And it was like six nuns.

• 13:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 13:45David Sims?

  You know, it was like really, oh, it was, um, Benedetta.

• 13:48Griffin Newman?

  Benedetta.

• 13:49David Sims?

  And I was like, oh my god. Like, I was not like, uh, disturbed at all. I was like, you're mad about this? Like, there's so much to be mad about.

• 13:56Griffin Newman?

  I think we made this point in our episode where we were like, it kinda shows that they just can't be bothered anymore.

• 14:01David Sims?

  Yeah, it was like six nuns being like, don't have, you know, tits in a Jesus movie. And I was like, yeah, sure, you guys do your thing, I'll see you later.

• 14:09Griffin Newman?

  And Verhoeven said, no, don't worry, give me the money, it's going to be a normal movie about nuns.

• 14:14David Sims?

  About faith.

• 14:15Griffin Newman?

  They will wear clothes over their breasts, give me the money.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  No, they don't, just getting the teacher on display all the time.

• 14:21David Sims?

  Um, so we're here to talk about The Last Temptation of Christ, uh, one of my favorite Marty movies.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  Jamel Bowie.

• 14:27David Sims?

  Big movie for me, oh yes.

• 14:28Griffin Newman?

  The great Jamel Bowie, our friend from the New York Times, returned to the show far too long.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  It's been a minute.

• 14:33Griffin Newman?

  What was the last episode?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  The Hunt for Red October.

• 14:35Griffin Newman?

  The Hunt for Red October.

• 14:37David Sims?

  That's a pretty good movie.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:38Griffin Newman?

  Very similar films.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Very similar films. Well, I mean, you know, I, I, I check in.

• 14:42David Sims?

  Years.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  It's, yeah, true.

• 14:44David Sims?

  Late eighties or something.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Uh, uh, Hunt for October, I think it's ninety?

• 14:48Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 14:49David Sims?

  Yeah, that sounds right, yeah.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  I check in on the Discord and stuff and people were like, well, when is Jamel gonna be back? He'll obviously be back from Master and Commander.

• 14:57David Sims?

  I am sorry about that.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  No, it's, no, I, I think, I just think it's funny that sort of like, well, he did Hunt for Red October.

• 15:03Griffin Newman?

  He's gotta do the other boat.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  One ocean movie.

• 15:05David Sims?

  They're making you the boat guy.

• 15:06Griffin Newman?

  He went under the sea, now he must go atop it.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  On top of the sea.

• 15:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 15:10David Sims?

  Hmm, how many more boat movies are in our future? We'll do Tony Scott, Crimson Tide.

• 15:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you'll do the entire Venom trilogy on Patreon, cause you're our chief Venom correspondent.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Chief Venom correspondent.

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  That is, that is one of my proudest bit runs we've ever done on this show, not to pat ourselves on the back, but Eddie Brock reporter.

• 15:27David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. People ring that up all the time.

• 15:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 15:29David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  Hard hitting.

• 15:31David Sims?

  I mean, we need him back right now.

• 15:33Griffin Newman?

  Eddie?

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:34Griffin Newman?

  He blew this wide open.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Going on.

• 15:36David Sims?

  Like, imagine putting Eddie with like Heska, you know what I mean? Just matching those wits. Like, that'd be fun.

• 15:46David Sims?

  Oh, god.

• 15:46Griffin Newman?

  Eddie interviewing lettuce?

• 15:48David Sims?

  What?

• 15:48Griffin Newman?

  Let me ask you one more question. Why are you giving people diarrhea?

• 15:51David Sims?

  Making everyone poop. Pete, Pete, uh, where are the missiles at? Where, where are all the missiles go?

• 15:58Griffin Newman?

  Just point them, point them out to me.

• 15:59David Sims?

  I had a friend who had the, the poop thing, the lettuce thing.

• 16:02Griffin Newman?

  My sister had it.

• 16:03David Sims?

  Yeah, your sister had it too.

• 16:04Griffin Newman?

  Notable credit.

• 16:06David Sims?

  And, uh, I was like, oh man, what'd you eat? And she was like, well, it was, we, I went on a hike and we ate some lettuce out of a bag.

• 16:12Griffin Newman?

  Oh, come on.

• 16:12David Sims?

  And I was like, wow, that, that probably, that might be the culprit there. It was about the cleanest, like, detective work in possible. It wasn't even like I went to Taco Bell and I like, you know, got like a lettuce wrap or whatever, I don't know.

• 16:26Griffin Newman?

  I know Taco Bell was affected.

• 16:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Griffin Newman?

  But do you think Taco Bell was actually quietly celebrating, being like, it's not just us anymore?

• 16:32David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right, right, right. It's the fucking leaves, it's not our fault.

• 16:35Griffin Newman?

  We've, we've actually moved down the diarrhea rankings.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I mean, I've said this before, not on this podcast, but I've said it in places. If Taco Bell gives you diarrhea, you're not eating enough fiber.

• 16:46Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 16:47David Sims?

  It's, it's, it's so often the case, that it's like, right, like, the mistake was made before.

• 16:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:52David Sims?

  I, I haven't had Taco Bell in a while.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  I get, so when I go grocery shopping on Sundays, there's a Taco Bell right by the grocery store, and I just go by myself, so my, my Sunday, my Sunday treats and myself.

• 17:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Is Taco Bell for lunch.

• 17:03David Sims?

  Well, what do you get?

• 17:04Speaker 02

  I get, uh, a chalupa with beans, uh, and I get either a cheesy gordita crunch.

• 17:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Uh, with beans. I always veganize everything.

• 17:11David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Uh, or I get, um, if you get like a, a bean and rice and cheese burrito. You can get it fresco style, so they're cheese and they put like the, the salsa in there, and then you can ask for a grilled.

• 17:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Uh, and that's pretty good.

• 17:26Griffin Newman?

  The customizability is really.

• 17:27David Sims?

  I haven't been there in a while, yeah, I need to, I think I need to, and the menu hasn't changed much, right? Like Taco Bell's sort of in a.

• 17:32Griffin Newman?

  They're constantly throwing things on. I mean, there was stuff that got backlash for being pulled from the menu, that they've started working back in. They're doing a lot of throwback menu stuff with some classics, coming back.

• 17:43David Sims?

  God, they always have us on the treadmill, these fuckers.

• 17:45Griffin Newman?

  They do, they do.

• 17:47Griffin Newman?

  Here's what I tried the other day that was very good. The tahin cheesy gordita crunch.

• 17:52David Sims?

  You know, I saw that on their website and then, uh, that did look pretty good.

• 17:55Griffin Newman?

  Uh, for the listener at home, because we're not a video podcast, what I just saw is.

• 17:59David Sims?

  Ben did a sort of a.

• 18:00Griffin Newman?

  Three sets of eyebrows hit the ceiling down.

• 18:03David Sims?

  No, that sounds good.

• 18:04Griffin Newman?

  There was collective, ooh. It was, it was good.

• 18:07David Sims?

  This is what I'm saying, we're all, you know.

• 18:09Griffin Newman?

  It's like instead of Doritos Locos, it's a tahin shell.

• 18:11David Sims?

  They're jangling keys on us.

• 18:13Griffin Newman?

  And you could do that vegan stuff, you're smiling, Jamel, I've never seen you smile this big.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Hey, listen, man, I just, I just wanna live moss, that's all I want in my life.

• 18:24David Sims?

  We're trying our best to live moss, as the world is not moss right now, it's.

• 18:28Griffin Newman?

  I wake up every morning and I push myself to think outside the bun. That's all I do.

• 18:34David Sims?

  So, um.

• 18:35Griffin Newman?

  This is an episode on The Last Temptation of Christ.

• 18:37David Sims?

  We're talking about Last Temptation of Christ. It's a big movie for me, uh, big like David Washington in college while he was like studying the Bible as literature, you know? Where I was like, yeah, this is my favorite Marty, I'm so clever, like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I'm making fun of college, David, a little bit.

• 18:54Griffin Newman?

  It's not still your favorite, but at the time.

• 18:56David Sims?

  I think Goodfellas is the best Scorsese movie. I, you know, as I get older, yeah, I'm sort of like, fuckin', some of these things, Goodfellas.

• 19:04Griffin Newman?

  That's how I feel about Taxi Driver.

• 19:06David Sims?

  That's fine.

• 19:06Griffin Newman?

  I think those are both right, right? He's, yeah.

• 19:10David Sims?

  This is a, this is right up there for me, but I think it's a very special movie, and this is a movie I've shown to friends over the years. Uh, and I think this movie is, it's not like a slog exactly, but it's a bit of a slow starting movie. And you're in it for a while being like, wait, I thought this was controversial, and instead I feel like I'm just watching a Jesus biopic, I'm just watching the Bible. And then, of course, it has, you know, the, the Last Temptation of Christ happen in the, in the last act of the movie, and that's intriguing. And then the end comes, and I've had this experience with a few friends where they are suddenly like, very moved by it, and struck by the ending.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  I find the ending so incredibly moving.

• 19:46David Sims?

  It is so transcendent, I think it's one of the most transcendent things he ever captured. And I'm getting worked up just thinking about it. And I listen, I listen to Peter Gabriel's score for this all the time. I also think this is-

• 19:58Griffin Newman?

  One of the most influential film scorers ever.

• 20:00David Sims?

  It totally is. I think this is also like, and we haven't maybe even talked about this, because we've mostly recorded so far seventies Marty, I guess. No, we've done mostly eighties. We've done all the eighties too, right?

• 20:10Griffin Newman?

  This will, this will finish the eighties.

• 20:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 20:12Griffin Newman?

  We've gone relatively in order.

• 20:14David Sims?

  His seventies movies to me, I'm just kidding, you know, it's Mean Streets, Alice, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, and I'm Counting Raging Bull. Like, they all feel-

• 20:23Griffin Newman?

  Seventy-nine production, eighty release.

• 20:25David Sims?

  Partly it's the De Niro, you know, he's running through a lot of them and like-

• 20:28Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:29David Sims?

  Street level, raw, right, you know, like even though New York, New York's a little, you know, you know what I'm saying?

• 20:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:36David Sims?

  And then like his eighties canon, which I love so much, which is King of Comedy After Hours, Color of Money, and this.

• 20:42Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:43David Sims?

  This feels, this is such an eighties movie.

• 20:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. You forgot one other credit.

• 20:47David Sims?

  Oh, go ahead.

• 20:48Griffin Newman?

  So much cocaine.

• 20:49David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the cocaine is, is running-

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  He's trying to kick it, I guess. It's more seventies.

• 20:53David Sims?

  That's more seventies. Like Raging Bull is him kind of being like, okay.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  I gotta, yeah.

• 20:57David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and, but this is like, even though this film is obviously an ancient period piece, it feels so eighties to me in the best way. The score-

• 21:07Griffin Newman?

  The cast?

• 21:08David Sims?

  The looks, the cast, the weird, like eclectic, you know, the special effects. Like, I love all of that about it. And I love Marty's eighties. Because his nineties, that's where he's like, you know, Baroque, right? Like, that's what it's like Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Age of Innocence and Kundun are a little, you know-

• 21:24Griffin Newman?

  He's playing the studio game a little more.

• 21:26David Sims?

  But like bringing out the depth of movies that are just like super high emotion, long, crazy, you know? And then, uh, so I'm, I kind of, I'm very fond of his smaller eighties.

• 21:36Griffin Newman?

  And then two thousands is prestige elder statesman.

• 21:38David Sims?

  Two thousands is the Oscar chase. It's right. It's Gangsta New York, Aviator, Departed. Like, that's it. I think that's his entire two thousands.

• 21:46Griffin Newman?

  Shutter Island is ten or eleven?

• 21:47David Sims?

  Right. And then like his two thousand tens are like beyond Baroque.

• 21:50Griffin Newman?

  Victory.

• 21:51David Sims?

  Shutter Island, Hugo, Wolf of Wall Street, again, Silence, that's sort of-

• 21:55Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 21:55David Sims?

  The one, you know, An Irishman. Like, these are like, where he's like, you can't say no. Like, I can do whatever I want. Every movie's three and a half hours long.

• 22:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:04David Sims?

  The performances are so dialed up. Like, I love these movies.

• 22:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes, same.

• 22:08David Sims?

  They're great, you know?

• 22:09Griffin Newman?

  What's your, what's your Marty history, Jamel?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  My Marty history, my Marty history is just years ago, maybe ten years ago now? I just sat down. I was like, you know, I'd seen Goodfellas a bunch, but I just sat down and was like, I'm gonna watch every single Marty Scorsese movie.

• 22:24Griffin Newman?

  You're like David, where you like a, a watch project.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I just, it's over the course of that year, it was 2017, I just watched every Marty movie.

• 22:31Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  And came away first, like, I mean, this feel, this feels, it feels so cliche to say, or it feels, but I just like, Marty Scorsese is great.

• 22:40Griffin Newman?

  It's really-

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Just, I came away thinking, is he-

• 22:42Griffin Newman?

  You're trying to get canceled on this episode, too.

• 22:44David Sims?

  Something going on with this guy. Yo!

• 22:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:46David Sims?

  Meet the Marty.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  I'll put it this way, I, I had a similar experience recently. I went through a big Duke Ellington thing. And I was just listening to nothing but Duke Ellington for months.

• 22:56Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  And I, at some point, I just thought to myself, I was like, Duke Ellington fucking rocks. And like, on the one hand, it's like, well, of course, of course he does. He's the most influential American musician arguably of the twentieth century.

• 23:11Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  But the, the scale of influence and the import, and his importance can sometimes lead you to almost underrate these people.

• 23:18Griffin Newman?

  It's like when you drink a, a really cool glass of water on a hot summer day.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:23Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, wait a second, water is fucking awesome.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:27Griffin Newman?

  Like, I, I take this for granted.

• 23:29David Sims?

  Yo!

• 23:30Griffin Newman?

  Yo!

• 23:30David Sims?

  You, you took just a glass of water?

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Agua!

• 23:32David Sims?

  Yo!

• 23:33Speaker 02

  I, I think, I think Marty gets taken for granted. It's taken for granted that, that we have, we have, that this, that we have this guy making movies.

• 23:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  And then if you just sit and watch his stuff-

• 23:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  You're like, it's remarkable that this man has this longevity-

• 23:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Has produced this much excellent work, has this much to say.

• 23:53Griffin Newman?

  Endless amounts.

• 23:54David Sims?

  Maybe I need to listen to some Duke Ellington.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  You really, you really got to.

• 23:57David Sims?

  I don't like that guy.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Anyway, so that's, that's basically my, like, my history with Scorsese is I, I had spent a year watching all of his movies, came to really love the work. Um, The Last Temptation is one of the ones that I was particularly struck by, both as a kid who grew up going to church.

• 24:15Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Um, somebody still kind of goes to church. And, but also, also from the level of I, my main knowledge of the movie was that it was controversial.

• 24:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  And then to go in and actually see it and just to kind of be like, I don't understand what's controversial about this.

• 24:29David Sims?

  You, you, if you just like heard about this movie like on the street or whatever-

• 24:32Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 24:33David Sims?

  You were like, okay, so is it about like Jesus and he's like rolling big dice and he fucks hookers?

• 24:39Griffin Newman?

  Smoking fatties.

• 24:40David Sims?

  Right, like, he's just like- He like drives a big car, like where they're just like, oh, is he just like in a gangster movie? Like, because they're just making it sound like it's like, oh, it's disgusting what, like, you know, it's like this filthy movie that-

• 24:52Griffin Newman?

  Did you hear about this horrid film?

• 24:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 24:54Griffin Newman?

  Jesus drives a big car. That was one of your eight examples, David.

• 25:00David Sims?

  He's like a gangster in a big car.

• 25:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, what, what? Like a Mini Coop? Certainly not.

• 25:04David Sims?

  How big?

• 25:07David Sims?

  I'm sorry, we can talk about, but had you seen this movie before?

• 25:11Speaker 03

  No, I had never seen it.

• 25:12David Sims?

  What's your relationship with JC?

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:14David Sims?

  Your dad's, your dad raised you kind of like no religion, right? Yeah, yeah, right, right.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Totally atheist. I've never really been to church. I've obviously been for weddings.

• 25:24David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  But I've never sat through-

• 25:25David Sims?

  No, but if you try to cross the threshold, you're thrown out by an imbecile.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  That's true. I've never been able to actually get through the door.

• 25:31David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a voice goes, I cast thee out.

• 25:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  You shall not pass.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  But I do come from a Catholic family.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  My mom's side of the family, extremely Catholic.

• 25:43Griffin Newman?

  Almost a saint in your, in your lineage. There's almost a saint.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Jamel, there's, there's-

• 25:47David Sims?

  Oh, he's like trying to get that miracle.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Almost a saint, yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  In my, in my mom's side of my family.

• 25:52David Sims?

  What's his name?

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Father McGinnley. McGivley.

• 25:55David Sims?

  Yeah, McGivney.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  McGivney.

• 25:56David Sims?

  Michael McGivney.

• 25:58Griffin Newman?

  John C.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, John C. McGivney.

• 26:00Griffin Newman?

  One of the great JCs.

• 26:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  McGinnley.

• 26:02David Sims?

  Or they're like, the original Scrubs is recognized as a miracle. The reboot! Ooh, we're waiting to see if the Pope approves. Yeah, he's blessed currently.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Yes, he's currently blessed. We'll see, you know, fingers crossed.

• 26:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  But my dad was such an extreme atheist that he also really was against me learning anything about the Bible.

• 26:25Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  So really, all I know is from that Rugrats episode.

• 26:30Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Oh, with the, uh, the Hanukkah episode.

• 26:33Griffin Newman?

  The Maca Baby.

• 26:33David Sims?

  Amazing.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  That's kind of all I got.

• 26:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:37David Sims?

  They're like, they're like, ancient history lessons from like Arthur, Rugrats, like whatever.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  That Rugrats episode might be one of the most important, like, modern Jewish, Jewish texts.

• 26:48David Sims?

  When they had the little, like, the little sort of Bedouin hats, right?

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 26:52Griffin Newman?

  We were just talking to a friend of the podcast, John Bass, the other night.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 26:56Griffin Newman?

  And we were comparing stories. I forget what I said, but the moment in your childhood that you felt proud to be a Jew for the first time, rather than like kind of embarrassed. And he was like Rugrats Passover.

• 27:08David Sims?

  It makes sense.

• 27:09Griffin Newman?

  That was the turning point.

• 27:10David Sims?

  The nineties are very heavy on like, let's actually have sort of Jewish characters-

• 27:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:14David Sims?

  Say they're Jewish.

• 27:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 27:16David Sims?

  Right? Like, his like friends has that too.

• 27:18Griffin Newman?

  And piss their pants and fall down a flight of stairs.

• 27:21David Sims?

  As I've always said, Drew Pickles is a hot guy.

• 27:24Griffin Newman?

  Rugrats is, is very, it's, it's, it was a big win for the people.

• 27:29David Sims?

  Yeah, Rugrats is good. I like Rugrats. I'm trying to go ruin that again soon. Like Ryan Gosling will make a Rugrats movie or something.

• 27:35Griffin Newman?

  They rebooted it with Hitmaker.

• 27:38David Sims?

  They did?

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:39David Sims?

  It's like completely over my head. We, really?

• 27:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:41David Sims?

  Like, animated.

• 27:42Griffin Newman?

  They did a CGI Rugrats. It's, our friend Tim Simons was in.

• 27:45David Sims?

  Who was he?

• 27:46Griffin Newman?

  He was-

• 27:47David Sims?

  Angelica?

• 27:48Griffin Newman?

  No, was he Drew Pickles, maybe?

• 27:50David Sims?

  I'm looking up.

• 27:51Griffin Newman?

  Possibly?

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Anyway, I'll just say that now, later in life, I feel very much left out from these stories-

• 28:00David Sims?

  He was Drew Pickles.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  And these reference points.

• 28:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  But I can't really bring myself around to reading the thing.

• 28:06Griffin Newman?

  Cracking open the good book.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  It's really hard.

• 28:08David Sims?

  The B I B L E?

• 28:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:10David Sims?

  It's long, too.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  The basic construction before leaving Earth, as we learned on, uh, Liquid Swords.

• 28:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:16David Sims?

  Um-

• 28:17Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 28:18David Sims?

  No, I love Liquid Swords.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Last track on Liquid Swords, Bible?

• 28:20Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:22David Sims?

  Jamel, you've read the Bible, or at least-

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I am, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a-

• 28:28David Sims?

  Raised religious.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  I was raised religious. I'm an African American from the South. I was raised religious. My parents are from the South as well. Yeah, I grew up going to church every Sunday and then, uh, took an academic interest in, in, in Christianity in college, so I have more than my fair share. I mean, and also just like by virtue of being somebody who studies US history and like early American history, you kind of have to be somewhat fluent-

• 28:53Griffin Newman?

  Intertwined things.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  In like Christian theology and like the Bible, just because like, that's a major reference point. Like, you can't, you kind of can't properly understand seventeenth century America, for example, if you're not like at least somewhat fluent-

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  In, um, Protestantism, Calvinism, like you, you need to know something. So, yeah, that's, that's, that's my like religious background slash like knowledge of the Bible. Although the interesting thing about this movie is it's very Catholic.

• 29:18David Sims?

  Like, it's not, it's not-

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Unsurprisingly, I suppose.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  I mean, Paul Schrader wrote it and it is-

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  It's a Dutch Calvinist.

• 29:24David Sims?

  Who's a Calvinist, right?

• 29:25Speaker 02

  It's a Dutch Calvinist, right?

• 29:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  But there's, there isn't-

• 29:27David Sims?

  And it's written by a Greek, yeah, I think a Greek Orthodox guy, right?

• 29:31Griffin Newman?

  The novel.

• 29:32David Sims?

  I know it's written by a Greek person.

• 29:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes, the original book.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Like, the Schrader, the Schrader of it is far more, I think, like vibe and mood. Sort of like, you know, when you have, when you have Jesus writhing on the ground with a voiceover about how his, how his life is terrible and he's tormented by his own minds, like, oh, yeah.

• 29:47Griffin Newman?

  A little Schrader in it.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Paul Schrader wrote this, yeah.

• 29:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:50David Sims?

  Yes, man in a room.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  But the aesthetics of it are extremely Catholic.

• 30:05Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 30:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 30:06Griffin Newman?

  Mmm.

• 30:09David Sims?

  Is that the C S cow?

• 30:10Griffin Newman?

  The C S cow is back.

• 30:11David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 30:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:18David Sims?

  Okay.

• 30:18Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:23David Sims?

  Wow.

• 30:23Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 30:26David Sims?

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

• 30:32Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 30:44Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 30:46David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 30:47Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:52David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 30:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:56David Sims?

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

• 31:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 31:00David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 31:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 31:02David Sims?

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

• 31:07Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 31:08David Sims?

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

• 31:10Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 31:11David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 31:13Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 31:14David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 31:15Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 31:16David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, won the Queer Palma Can. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like it obviously has, it was out in theaters uh this summer and now it's on Mubi.

• 31:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:40David Sims?

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

• 31:44Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:56David Sims?

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

• 32:09Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:20Speaker 03

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• 33:06Speaker 03

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• 33:52Speaker 03

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• 34:25David Sims?

  What do you make of, and then we can talk about this movie. This is what I ask anyone who's read the dang Bible, because it's crazy. You read that thing, Griff? No?

• 34:32Griffin Newman?

  I haven't, I'm like Ben where I, I feel left out on this part of culture that most people just kind of have in their back pocket. We were, I, I would say, like, in, in honesty, a fairly agnostic family.

• 34:45David Sims?

  Sure.

• 34:45Griffin Newman?

  But felt the need to go through the Jewish traditions out of a cultural tradition.

• 34:49David Sims?

  Did too, exactly.

• 34:50Griffin Newman?

  So I went to synagogue a fair amount, you know, there were years where it was only on the big holidays. There were years where my parents were trying to be the type of family that went every Sunday.

• 34:59David Sims?

  Cause there's a social element, there's a kind of a, yeah, like community element, right?

• 35:04Griffin Newman?

  But, but the Old Testament I have in my head.

• 35:07David Sims?

  We call it the OT.

• 35:08Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, the OT. Yeah, because we have to call the original trilogy the OT.

• 35:12David Sims?

  Oh yeah, that's true.

• 35:13Griffin Newman?

  That's the most important.

• 35:14David Sims?

  Which is my Old Testament.

• 35:15Griffin Newman?

  Of course. Well, ironically, my Old Testament's the prequel trilogy, the PT. Um, but yes, no, uh, so much of, of the story of Jesus, I just, I only know in sort of like truly like comedy reference points.

• 35:29David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 35:30Griffin Newman?

  Like enough to make my way through an improv scene.

• 35:32David Sims?

  Jim, how, how does anyone deal with the fact? Cause I didn't realize this until I studied the Bible, sort of like in college, like there's the Gospels, right? And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all like, yeah, this is what happened. We all basically agree. And John's like, no, no, it's all different, baby. Yeah. My, my version's different. And everyone's like, and that's, you know, that's, that's the story. And you're like, wait, what do you mean that's the story? They disagree. And they're like, I don't know, like, that's just how it got written down.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Growing up, there was no sense that there were tensions in the gospel accounts.

• 36:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  No sense that like, you know, the Pauline, the Pauline epistles are a lot of ways like a fundamentally different thing than the Gospels. Like there's all treated as just a single unified whole, like this is the Bible and there's not really like temporal or like theological distinctions made, but of course, as you point out, yeah, like.

• 36:26David Sims?

  John's just different.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there's, there's a, there's a, I'm not sure if it's still hypothetical or if they know it existed, but they can't find it. But there's basically sort of like a gospel that does not exist, but there's enough similarities between the Mark, Matthew, Mark and Luke accounts that, and even like language, that there's assumed to be, I think it's called Q, like a, a, a missing gospel that is maybe the source text.

• 36:54David Sims?

  Yes.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  For these other three.

• 36:55David Sims?

  Source.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Q source.

• 36:57Griffin Newman?

  There's a Q source that was written by someone anonymously?

• 36:59Speaker 02

  No, it was written by someone.

• 37:01David Sims?

  We just don't, it's like, it's, yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  It was, it was written, it was written.

• 37:03Griffin Newman?

  It's like you guys a second.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  It was written to torment Picard.

• 37:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, of course.

• 37:09David Sims?

  Oh yeah, that's true. Right. He would snap his fingers and someone would get a cigar and it'd be very funny.

• 37:13Griffin Newman?

  Wear a funny hat.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  But um, and I believe it's like Mark is chronologically believed to be the first gospel written.

• 37:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Uh, then Matthew and Luke.

• 37:24David Sims?

  Yes.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then John.

• 37:25David Sims?

  But then John's just completely different.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  And even like theologically, it's, I mean, John feels influenced by sort of like the Gnostic traditions that pop up uh, in the, in the century or so after the death of Christ. And it's like a very, it's a very different thing. Uh, but I, I, I, that's not something I knew until basically like I took a class.

• 37:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  On sort of like the historical Bible, right? Like let's unpack this thing as like a piece of historical literature.

• 37:50David Sims?

  I just, I remember this is in that, that great graphic novel Blankets, remember that book?

• 37:55Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite books of all time, unsurprisingly.

• 37:57David Sims?

  Right, where it's about how Craig Thompson has this moment where he starts like getting more into the Bible, like, and into religion.

• 38:04Griffin Newman?

  He grew up very religious, yes.

• 38:05David Sims?

  And starts asking those kinds of questions and the, the priest is like, yeah, that's, it's very interesting. And like, let me tell you more about it. And yes, like, let me tell you the, and then that's like shatters everything for him. Where he's like, wait a second, so you guys know this? Like that, like different people wrote the Bible and like that it's, you know, kind of a, and then he's just like, he couldn't get past it, like.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:24David Sims?

  But um, I, I find the Bible so interesting. I find JC pretty interesting.

• 38:29Griffin Newman?

  Shazam.

• 38:30David Sims?

  Uh, and I find this movie wonderful, but like, you know, but like.

• 38:36David Sims?

  It's just like, it's just, I get, I immediately get so, as I guess my brain is like just so caught up in the history of it where I'm like, why did he catch on? Like when no one else, you know, like caught on in the same way, or why was this it?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  I had a, I had a professor in college who, this was like one of her questions to us that was like, it's kind of an unanswerable question.

• 38:57David Sims?

  Cause his life is brief and obviously his life as a rebel is even briefer, right?

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. But it's, it's, that's like the question, like why, why this guy? You know, there are a lot of, and as, as you mentioned, the film shows this, there are a lot of messiahs hanging around, a lot of people.

• 39:12David Sims?

  It's a hot time.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  A lot of, uh, you know, messianic cults, um, all sorts of things. And this is the guy who catches on such that like, within a couple of hundred years, the religion that develops out of his life and teachings becomes like the official state religion of the, of the state that killed him.

• 39:30David Sims?

  Right. Like we're right, we're pretty quickly, right?

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Quickly.

• 39:33David Sims?

  Yeah. And like, I was reading about the first, so this, in this movie, like when Jesus gets old, right? And then there's, they're burning down thing, you know, there's this moment kind of late in the movie, where people start running and they're like, they're fucking, the Romans are fucking everything up. Uh, that's like the first Judean rebellion, which is sort of like this big moment where the Judeans like rise against Rome and get crushed. And it's sort of the beginning of the end for like Judea. Like before then Judea was this place, you know, where the Romans were in charge, but they were kind of like, do your thing. And then after that, it starts to be over.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  I was in Rome and I saw the, um, the arch that depicted them attacking Jerusalem and taking all of the treasures back.

• 40:14David Sims?

  And they destroy the second temple and all this shit.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:16David Sims?

  But like, so I'm reading about that and then I'm sort of scrolling back and I'm being like, so where's Jesus and all this? And it's like, that's 35 years old, but like, there's nothing in the historical record basically beyond like, yeah, we also killed that guy. It's not like they kill him and then they're like, oh, and it really caused us a lot of problems.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  There's, my understanding is that like the historical record, there, there are, the existence of Jesus is attested to by basically like multiple, there are multiple sources that are like, there is this guy, his name was Jesus, he was from Nazareth, he had a following behind him. He was kind of weird. He was crucified.

• 40:45David Sims?

  But, but you know, you know.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  He was kind of weird.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was like a record, like the things around him.

• 40:51David Sims?

  Someone wrote in a big tab with like weird.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Strange guy.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

  He taught me it was okay to be weird in a lot of ways.

• 40:55David Sims?

  He did go on Pete Holmes's podcast.

• 40:57Griffin Newman?

  He did.

• 40:57David Sims?

  Sorry. Jesus made it weird.

• 41:00Griffin Newman?

  He sells brain powder.

• 41:02David Sims?

  Right. There's a little bit of record or whatever.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  There's, and there's enough to basically say, this guy existed. We, that's like actually not really debated anymore.

• 41:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 41:12Griffin Newman?

  Just as a historical man.

• 41:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 41:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  But it's like, yeah, he wasn't of any particular significance to Roman authorities.

• 41:19David Sims?

  Right. It's not like missives are being sent of like, oh my God, we should not have crucified this guy. Everyone's mad. It's starting a religion that's gonna fuck us up.

• 41:28Griffin Newman?

  It's what's so fascinating about the Pontius Pilate.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  I was just about to say, yes.

• 41:32Griffin Newman?

  Which is just treated as like, oh my God, what's this next meeting?

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Right. Can I say, I, when I first time I saw that movie, I was so struck by that performance.

• 41:41Griffin Newman?

  Bowie's incredible.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Bowie is, it's, it's like five minutes.

• 41:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  And Bowie is just, he's, it's exasperated.

• 41:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Tired bureaucrat.

• 41:48David Sims?

  Yes. Somewhat superior in a way that really works for like a pop star.

• 41:53Griffin Newman?

  Full council. It's like he's taking one meeting in a side room with this guy.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he wants to help him. He wants to be like, dude, come on. I don't, you know, there's no reason for me to have to kill you here.

• 42:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  You know, you can go home.

• 42:05Griffin Newman?

  I want a three day weekend. You want a three day weekend.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  And I'll say what was striking, coming, somebody who grew up going to church, in the Christ story, as I was taught it, Pontius Pilate is like a great villain, right? And sort of to portray him in this very humanistic, recognizable way, um, as simply a person who, he is a bureaucrat, nothing more, nothing less. Was really relevatory to me. And then Bowie, Bowie just has like this look of both sort of, I, this is not a part of my job that I particularly like. Kind of compassion for the guy, but also sort of like, oh, that's what you want and that's what you want.

• 42:48Griffin Newman?

  I am gonna speak out of both sides of my mouth here because like, my initial thing is it's stupid that people got this fucking offended by this movie. On the other hand, versus what you guys were saying where you watched it and for the first time up until the sort of dream ballet sequence of him imagining what his life could be, or being shown some quote unquote version of what his life could be.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  He lives that life.

• 43:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think that what, what the movie suggests is that like, no, he actually did live an entire life.

• 43:16Griffin Newman?

  That entire thing happens.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  And then, and then at the end.

• 43:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Jesus is like, you know that's Satan, right?

• 43:24Speaker 02

  That little girl, that's the devil, bro.

• 43:27Griffin Newman?

  Straight up.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  I, I was clocking things throughout the movie, starting from the beginning that I'm like, if I held a certain set of beliefs

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:36Griffin Newman?

  and I was so strident in them, I would be offended by this. I get the small things that this is doing.

• 43:45David Sims?

  All the small things?

• 43:45Griffin Newman?

  All the small things that don't feel designed to be incendiary, but, but like that, where there are people who want Pontus Pilate to be a mustache twirling villain. The only way it makes sense to them is that this was a targeted campaign against the most special man, who self-evidently was special from the very beginning and who never had any doubt about anything. From, the degree to which this movie so early on, Defoe's performance is just caked in him being uncertain.

• 44:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:15Griffin Newman?

  Which to me is interesting, is the most I've ever been able to connect to Jesus as a character depicted in a fictional film.

• 44:24Griffin Newman?

  But if your belief is, I need this guy to have been perfect.

• 44:28David Sims?

  Sure.

• 44:28Griffin Newman?

  Placed on earth, immovable. You know, it's the kind of performance that is usually given that is like incredibly stoic and serene and sort of like straight arrow laser focused.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  I'm trying to have to not, I am Jesus.

• 44:42Griffin Newman?

  Totally. It's a lot of posing and a lot of, you know.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  I'm trying to make my chin look square than it is.

• 44:48David Sims?

  He had a great, he had a great chin, that guy.

• 44:50Griffin Newman?

  He had an unbelievable jaw. But this is, you cast Defoe, and back to sort of our early discussion at the beginning of the episode, this is a guy where there's gonna be innate sort of tension within the performance. Even if you get the most calm, kind of beautiful era of Defoe you possibly can get, and you put him in the lowest register possible, there is a little mania inside that guy.

• 45:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Griffin Newman?

  And there's an itchiness inside of him.

• 45:16David Sims?

  Itchy is good. Yeah. I'm gonna open the dossier.

• 45:19Griffin Newman?

  Do it.

• 45:19David Sims?

  1955, two years before his death, the Greek author Nikos Kazan, uh, all right, let me get this right, Kazan Sakas. I did my best. Published The Last Temptation of Christ in his homeland. Uh, the novel, uh, presented a deeply human Christ contemplating a normal life spent with Mary Magdalene and was instantly controversial. Greek Orthodox Church tried to excommunicate him. I think he might've died before they even got, got that done, but they were mad at him.

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:48David Sims?

  And, uh, you know, this is the guy who wrote like Zorba the Greek, uh, and like other famous works of Greek literature. Like he's not like a nobody, but he thinks it was his best novel. An American translation was published in 1960. In 1961, Scorsese, who is an NYU student, I think maybe at that point hears about it.

• 46:07Griffin Newman?

  Given it by a classmate.

• 46:09David Sims?

  Just mentions it to him. He says he actually didn't read it until David, uh, Carradine gave it to him on the set of Boxcar Bertha in 72.

• 46:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 46:18David Sims?

  And then he says he didn't even read it really until like the end of the seventies. So he had the books.

• 46:24Griffin Newman?

  He said in the commentary that it took him decades to learn how to be a good reader. That he was just like, I grew up in a household without books. My parents both dropped out of grammar school. I learned everything visually. It wasn't until later in my life where I started knowing how to sit down and actually like focus on a book.

• 46:43David Sims?

  There's another book that he likes called King Jesus by Robert Graves. I do not know the book, but, uh, which was another one he sort of thought about in terms of like, if I ever make like a biblical epic, um, but he couldn't stop thinking about this cause it, the battle between the spirit of the flesh is something he really understood.

• 46:59Griffin Newman?

  Let's also call out.

• 47:00David Sims?

  He liked the human, you know, accessible, neurotic Christ, you know?

• 47:04Griffin Newman?

  When Barbara Hershey gives him a book in 72.

• 47:06David Sims?

  John Carradine gave it to him, but yes, sure. He worked, Barbara Hershey's also.

• 47:09Griffin Newman?

  They're married.

• 47:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 47:10Griffin Newman?

  And Hershey says, you better let me audition to play Mary Magdalene.

• 47:14David Sims?

  Well, he did.

• 47:16Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 47:16David Sims?

  Well, we'll get there.

• 47:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 47:17David Sims?

  Okay.

• 47:17Griffin Newman?

  But it's planted in his head by her. Yes.

• 47:22David Sims?

  So he likes the book. Uh, this is a Jesus you could sit down with and have a dinner or a drink. So, you know, which is really.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  I want my Jesus.

• 47:30David Sims?

  I'm gonna be able to have a beer with my Jesus.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I gotta pick between two Jesus's in November and the Jesus I want.

• 47:37David Sims?

  My Jesus likes football.

• 47:40Griffin Newman?

  I don't want the Jesus who orders the gray poupon, who's so stuffy.

• 47:43David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  My Jesus doesn't wear earth tones.

• 47:45Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  A little 2000 election humor for you kids up there.

• 47:50Griffin Newman?

  And my Jesus always shows off his pin with pride.

• 47:54David Sims?

  Uh, the first, uh, Christ movie he remembers seeing is The Robe.

• 47:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. That's the first Panavision movie.

• 48:01David Sims?

  Uh, it's early like 50s biblical epic.

• 48:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But that was the first widescreen film.

• 48:06David Sims?

  Hmm. That's cool.

• 48:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:08David Sims?

  Yes. The first film released in Cinemascope.

• 48:10Griffin Newman?

  Cinemascope. There we go.

• 48:11David Sims?

  Um, so he's long, you know, he's struck by this from a young age. I don't know if you know this, but he grew up Catholic.

• 48:17Griffin Newman?

  I do know that. Yeah. That's come up in some of the earlier episodes.

• 48:20David Sims?

  But Paul Schrader, as we already pointed out, was a Calvinist and he was sort of intrigued by like, what could our sensibilities together produce, right? Like Paul can strip stuff away. Um, it's a long book. If you wrote it all down, it's probably more like a six hour movie. You know what I mean? Like, so he's just like, I needed Paul to kind of like, sort of sand it down.

• 48:39Griffin Newman?

  Cause Jay Cox ultimately ends up doing a lot of the work on this movie along with Scorsese. He doesn't get credit.

• 48:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Schrader says in the commentary, his big thing was to sit down with the book and identify the themes, identify the big scenes, identify the recurring patterns. Um, and then I, I think a lot of the more detailed work came from Cox and Scorsese later.

• 49:00David Sims?

  Um, Paul's first version, apparently he has Jesus taking his heart out. He's a literal version of the Last Supper in terms of swallowing the flesh and blood of Jesus. I took that out. Um, he says that his most important contribution was the outline. He sort of like listed everything in the book, like three or 400 scenes, and then just like, kind of use that approach. He sort of like, was like, what's the most relevant, you know, whatever, screenwriting stuff. Uh, Mary, mother of Jesus is a bigger character in the book that's not really in the movie at all. I feel like they don't really address her. Yeah.

• 49:37Griffin Newman?

  It's, uh, Verna Bloom in this, who's married to Jay Cox.

• 49:41David Sims?

  And who's in, um, After Hours.

• 49:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Has been important to figure throughout Scorsese's life. This is her last performance, maybe?

• 49:48David Sims?

  Uh, I can find out.

• 49:49Griffin Newman?

  There's something kind of interesting to me about.

• 49:51David Sims?

  Essentially, yes.

• 49:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Her and Barbara Hershey do have similar faces and they are styled somewhat similar in this movie. I, I think there's a really strong resemblance between the two of them. That's interesting.

• 50:02David Sims?

  Okay. So he's got a script. Uh, they give it to Irvin Winkler, uh, United Artists. They, uh, turn it down. King of comedy is released and Paramount signs on board, which we talk about this, I think on our After Hours episode. Uh, and his pitch to them, and so it's Katzenberg and Eisner before they go to Disney. They're in Georgia Paramount and he says like, I want to get to know Jesus better. Uh, like, you know, first I was going to be a priest. It didn't work out. Katzenberg and Eisner essentially give him the F Murray Abraham, like, I don't see a lot of money here. And, you know, they're not like, this is blasphemous, but they're just like, you want to get to know Jesus better? It's not really like lighting the world on fire.

• 50:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:40David Sims?

  And they're like, how much money do you want? Uh, and that's where Scorsese starts to be like, I could make it an intimate character study. Like, don't worry. Like, I do not need like a biblical epic amount of money.

• 50:51Griffin Newman?

  But even at that point, it was going to cost almost twice as much as it ultimately did.

• 50:54David Sims?

  13 and then it goes up to like 16.

• 50:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 50:58David Sims?

  Uh, Jay Cox comes aboard. They thought the script was too arty, so they want him to make it a little more regular. Um, the budget starts to go up. Religious groups start to catch wind of what this project is. They start to get angry.

• 51:11Griffin Newman?

  The protests were so immediate that they scared off Paramount from making the movie the first time.

• 51:16David Sims?

  Um, Aiden Quinn, of course, is the original choice for Jesus. He's got a Jesus-y look.

• 51:22Griffin Newman?

  But it's, I think, way too obvious.

• 51:24David Sims?

  Sure.

• 51:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 51:25David Sims?

  But I mean, he looks like a.

• 51:26Griffin Newman?

  He looks like a painting of Jesus.

• 51:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Griffin Newman?

  But I don't think he would have had the inner conflict down.

• 51:33David Sims?

  Sure.

• 51:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 51:34David Sims?

  I mean, I don't want to be rude to Aiden Quinn, cause I'm like, I mean, I've never seen a Aiden Quinn performance where I was like, holy shit. Like, but he's a good actor. I don't know. What's Aiden Quinn in? Legends of the Fall?

• 51:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:45David Sims?

  Practical Magic.

• 51:46Griffin Newman?

  Eric Roberts, which would have been insane.

• 51:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 51:49Griffin Newman?

  He turned it down.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  I would like to watch the movie made with Eric Roberts.

• 51:53David Sims?

  Yeah, that sounds kind of fun, actually.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he turned it down because he thought it was too risky. They did consider De Niro and Schrader said that De Niro's response was, I don't think I can wear a robe. And he's like, I think Bob might be right. I think the audience might not buy it.

• 52:11David Sims?

  Um, so it all starts to fall apart.

• 52:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:13David Sims?

  Uh, the right stuff, which is a Winkler production, is a huge bomb. That's a great movie.

• 52:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:19David Sims?

  I love that movie, but it's a big, long movie. It's an expensive movie and it didn't work. And, uh, they, so they canceled Last Temptation days before shooting is supposed to begin, according to Scorsese.

• 52:30Griffin Newman?

  Sting was also supposed to be Pontius Pilate in that version. He always had the British rock star thing in mind.

• 52:35David Sims?

  I think it's, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a logic to that, right? Um, so then, okay, the French Minister of Culture gets involved. He's trying to, now, now he's like trying to find money anywhere he can, right? Uh, this is a tough point in his life. He says at one point, he told Katzenberg, I'll do Flashdance 2, if you let me make Last Temptation of Christ.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know what?

• 52:57David Sims?

  I'd watch it.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  I would watch the hell out of Marty Scorsese's Flashdance 2.

• 53:00Griffin Newman?

  If they got Beal's back.

• 53:01David Sims?

  Color of Money is sort of him being like, okay, like, it's like a fancier version of like, what's a like, sort of sequel I can do.

• 53:08Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:09David Sims?

  Um, De Palma, uh, all right, this is a quote by Scorsese. De Palma and I were talking about it one night. He'd just shown, uh, Scarface, a Hollywood, Hollywood audience didn't like it. And he said, what do we do? Are we going to become teachers or something? Like, are we done?

• 53:23David Sims?

  Uh, and we were at Hugo's restaurant and I realized honestly, I didn't know what else I could do. I wish I'd learned to write music or paint or express myself in literature. I just don't have anything else I can do.

• 53:34Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  Uh, I find that so relatable. I don't know. I also have occasional nights where I'm like, why am I, why do I do this?

• 53:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Big time.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  I wish I had other skills.

• 53:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:45David Sims?

  Um, they make one effort to shoot it in like Russia with like a $5 million budget. Egypt at one point.

• 53:53Griffin Newman?

  This is where I'm talking about the cojones though, where it's just like, everyone is telling him not to make this movie. His life would be so much easier if he gave up on this. He is so fucking driven to see this thing through.

• 54:04David Sims?

  Yeah. And so he makes After Hours, which is a great movie, but it's obviously him being like, see, I can make movies quick.

• 54:10Griffin Newman?

  I can be responsible.

• 54:11David Sims?

  Right. And then he makes, uh, Color of Money to be like, I can work with stars. I can work with studios. I can make money.

• 54:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:18David Sims?

  Uh, and then he's got good fellas percolating and that looks like it's going to be his next book. That's the Nick Pellegrini book, Wise Guy, you know, that he's working on that. Uh, and then he starts talking to Mike Ovitz, Paul Newman's super agent.

• 54:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:30David Sims?

  The king of CAA, obviously a very important person. And Ovitz poaches Marty.

• 54:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:37David Sims?

  From Harry Upland, who was like his old, like classic agent. Uh, and suddenly Universal's interested, you know, Ovitz works his magic.

• 54:46Griffin Newman?

  Ovitz has some kind of deal with Universal or at least some sort of ongoing conversation to bring them a couple of movies. Um, I think he's able to sort of bundle a couple of things together.

• 54:56David Sims?

  Exactly. And so Universal, according to Marty, is basically just like, do what you want. Like, the budget has to be fairly low, but like, no notes. And then he shows them the movie and they like the movie.

• 55:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:05David Sims?

  They're like, we're moved. It's great.

• 55:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:07David Sims?

  He has a surprisingly, this is the underrated part of this. There's actually surprisingly chill part.

• 55:12Griffin Newman?

  The making of.

• 55:13David Sims?

  Like, once Universal's aboard, Tom Pollock had read the, who's the head of Universal at the time, he'd read the book.

• 55:18Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:18David Sims?

  He's like, interested in religion. He's an admirer of Marty. They foolishly, I think this is the, everyone's being foolish with like, I think we're gonna move people with this.

• 55:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:29David Sims?

  I think this is gonna work. And obviously it's a great movie, you know, like they start to ignore the sort of pressure of like, religious groups are going to be mad at us. Like, you know, they start to be like, no, no, no, no, no. This is good.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Can I just, just to interject real quick, just thinking about the outside world reacting to this. It's like an, it's an odd period in American history and American culture. Cause like the age of the biblical, like biblical epics aren't made anymore by the eighties, right? Like that's, that's a long decade, decades.

• 55:58Griffin Newman?

  Not cool.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Not cool.

• 55:59Griffin Newman?

  Incredibly uncool.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  It's not something that happens anymore. And so you could imagine, you could imagine exactly this movie being made in like the sixties. But like something like this being made in the sixties, I don't think would have been as controversial.

• 56:10Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Precisely because the biblical epic already existed in like the public mind.

• 56:15Griffin Newman?

  It was close enough to that being upstream line of, yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  And so people would just be like, oh, this is just like a weird biblical epic.

• 56:22Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 56:23Speaker 02

  Not like anything to get too upset about. It's just, it's, it's, you know, I can ignore it. I'll just go see Ben Hur again, you know?

• 56:30Griffin Newman?

  This being the first major depiction of Jesus in movies.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  In decades.

• 56:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yes. Puts a lot of pressure on it.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  And then simultaneously in the eighties, this is like, you have the rise of the moral majority and the religious right. So you're sort of like a, you have a newly organized.

• 56:44David Sims?

  With like aggressive.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Aggressive and organized, like religious conservatism.

• 56:48Griffin Newman?

  You also have televangelists. You have, these people have platforms. These people are broadcasting on a daily basis with a larger audience.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Unfortunately for Marty, it's sort of like a perfect storm of the public isn't primed for this.

• 57:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  And the people who are super attentive are insane.

• 57:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yes. Um, can I throw out two things?

• 57:06David Sims?

  Yep.

• 57:06Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Tom Pollock, who you mentioned was head of Universal at the time, Tom Pollock, uh, was producer on draft day. But most notably, he started out his career as an entertainment lawyer and the thing that he made his career on is he is the one who got George Lucas the Star Wars deal.

• 57:21David Sims?

  Okay.

• 57:21Griffin Newman?

  He is the one who got the, if you're not going to pay him his quote, he owns sequels and merchandising forever.

• 57:27David Sims?

  The most famous.

• 57:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. So he's responsible for the.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Contract clauses or.

• 57:31Griffin Newman?

  The greatest entertainment deal of all time. Um, and was, was a very cool guy, you know?

• 57:36Speaker 02

  I mean, he fucking greenlit this movie. Right.

• 57:38Griffin Newman?

  To my point. Uh, the other thing Scorsese said and why Barbara Hershey kept on coming up in his brain while he was making this movie or developing it, uh, beyond the fact that she was one of the people who gave him the book, was that he had to approach, once they finally greenlit it, such a small number, making this movie Korman style. He said like, I never would have been able to make this movie if I didn't have my Korman background.

• 57:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 57:59Griffin Newman?

  And the experience of Boxcar Bertha specifically, that he drew out every single storyboard, every shot of this movie. And he timed out how long they could take to get that shot. Like this shot is going to last this amount of seconds and I'm allotting us three hours to get this shot. And if we're going over three hours, we have to pivot in some way.

• 58:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:22Griffin Newman?

  We have to figure it out. Like he had the whole thing diagrammed out so cleanly because he had no room to fail on this.

• 58:28David Sims?

  And I'm sure it was stressful.

• 58:31Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:31David Sims?

  Jay Cox, just to close that loop, fought for WJR arbitration, didn't get it.

• 58:36Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:36David Sims?

  Says he's very proud of his work and he did a lot of work on the movie. That's cool. Um, so yeah, De Niro was never really interested, as we said. He was also very interested in Christopher Walken, who makes a ton of sense.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Very similar to Defoe.

• 58:51David Sims?

  Right, very similar to Defoe. And same with Eric Roberts. I feel like those guys were, you know, Aiden Quinn, it's like too normal. Walken and Eric Roberts, like too crazy.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:02David Sims?

  Jeff Young is like, okay, we found it. Is this good? Like?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  Walken's almost a little bit too on the eccentric side.

• 59:09David Sims?

  Yes.

• 59:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Eric Roberts potentially too evil.

• 59:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 59:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 59:13David Sims?

  Aiden Quinn had been in this movie called Reckless. I mean, Aiden Quinn's obviously very young at the time, which I've never seen. It's a James Foley movie that I think is like classic horny eighties thriller.

• 59:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 59:22David Sims?

  Uh, he dug him in that. He like liked his intensity. But the, obviously the studio is like, what the fuck? Like, I've never heard of this guy. Uh, Willem Dafoe, obviously he's in Platoon. He's also the villain in To Live and Die in L.A., which he's incredible in.

• 59:36David Sims?

  And so those are the things Scorsese knows him best from. Willem is obviously like, it had never crossed my mind to play Jesus, but uh, Marty's passion was really infectious.

• 59:48David Sims?

  And I believe it when he says this, a very difficult role, Jesus.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  He said an interesting thing in the commentary, which was.

• 59:55David Sims?

  Are they all together in this commentary? Or is it one of those kind of separate tracks?

• 59:58Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those, cause it's like an early like ninety six.

• 1:00:00David Sims?

  Piecing together.

• 1:00:01Griffin Newman?

  Laser disc commentary that's been repurposed. This weird thing Criterion used to do where they would record like five different conversations and edit them together. But he said, what, the first time the project was coming around, the Aiden Quinn version, and his rep said like, Scorsese wants to do a Jesus movie. He's like, no interest in that. Don't submit me. The second time he comes around, they're asking for him, cause his career has obviously boosted up so much. And he went, I don't think that makes sense, but I, why not? I'll take a meeting with Scorsese.

• 1:00:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:00:29Griffin Newman?

  And he takes the meeting with Scorsese and Scorsese tries to explain to him what his version is. And he's like, it sounds insane to say, but like five minutes in, I was like, I think I'm the only person who can play Jesus. That the way he explained it, within minutes, he went from being like, this is probably not something I should do, or would even know how to do, to feeling like he was the only person who understood what he was trying to get at. So then he's pot committed. Yeah.

• 1:00:56David Sims?

  Yes. Bowie filmed it, seen him one day.

• 1:01:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. They said one day rehearsal, one day of filming.

• 1:01:02David Sims?

  Harvey Keitel and Barbara Hershey were part of previous projects. Like he, he brings them back.

• 1:01:09Griffin Newman?

  And Hershey's kind of having a career resurgence at this moment.

• 1:01:12David Sims?

  He does make Barbara test, cause he's like, I don't want to feel obligated, cause like you and David gave me the book.

• 1:01:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17David Sims?

  But she tested for the role. That was fine. I mean, Keitel is obviously bananas casting. Is sort of the most mocked part of the movie, I feel like at the time. Doesn't he get a Razzie nomination?

• 1:01:29Griffin Newman?

  He got a Razzie nomination.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  I mean, again.

• 1:01:31David Sims?

  Yeah. I think it's mostly for the wig. Like, it's like the Razzie was for the wig, right?

• 1:01:34Griffin Newman?

  It's the wig and him sounding like a New Yorker.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Well, that's how Judas is in the Bible, right?

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:39David Sims?

  He has red hair.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  Judas is in Brooklyn.

• 1:01:41David Sims?

  Yeah, that's what I, that's what I was assuming. So I thought that was an, like an authentic capturing of, of the Bible.

• 1:01:47Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent. He's always eating pastrami.

• 1:01:49David Sims?

  But Keitel's sort of, Keitel's, Keitel's energy is like aggression.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:55David Sims?

  Like it.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  The sort of the jealousy, the weird kind of like loathing or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:02:00Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese said that it was like, I wanted him to embody like violence.

• 1:02:04David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:02:04Griffin Newman?

  And anger. Yes.

• 1:02:05David Sims?

  And it's like, it's, it's, I mean, even the red hair in that regard, like it works. It's like, it's a great, I think it's a great performance.

• 1:02:11Griffin Newman?

  I think so too.

• 1:02:12David Sims?

  And I'm not sure the movie quite works without, without Judas being there. And, and you know, the point towards the end where Jesus is like, you need to betray me.

• 1:02:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21David Sims?

  You have to do this. Like, doesn't work unless Judas is this almost like diametric opposite of Jesus, who comes to be devoted to him, right? It's.

• 1:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  Completely, obviously right. I knew nothing of Judas beyond like, he's the guy who betrayed Christ, right? That made, made it make so much more sense to me. Yeah, right.

• 1:02:39David Sims?

  But it's like, we all have to fill a role here.

• 1:02:41Griffin Newman?

  Even that must be.

• 1:02:42David Sims?

  This is your role.

• 1:02:43Griffin Newman?

  Touchy for some people.

• 1:02:44David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:02:45Griffin Newman?

  To round out Judas this much more beyond just being a betrayer.

• 1:02:49David Sims?

  The, the, the, you know, Marty says that the thing that attracts him to the story, it's a struggle between the, the spiritual and the physical and all these things. And the story is about taking seriously the fact that Jesus Christ was a man. But like one, one, one consequence of that is you have to take seriously that everyone in this story is just a human being.

• 1:03:09Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:03:09David Sims?

  And so like, human beings are not one note villains, for the most part.

• 1:03:15Griffin Newman?

  And what makes people interesting is that they are tested.

• 1:03:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:03:19Griffin Newman?

  And that the best people among us are able to resist and persevere. And the most tragic people among us like succumb to these things.

• 1:03:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:03:28Griffin Newman?

  That, that the testing is a big part of it. If you remove the testing from it, then people become uncomplicated.

• 1:03:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:03:35Griffin Newman?

  I also, this is my hottest take on this movie.

• 1:03:37David Sims?

  Uh oh, here he goes.

• 1:03:39Griffin Newman?

  I think this movie is fascinatingly, structurally, so similar to New York, New York.

• 1:03:44David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:03:45Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like a corrective where he figures out, obviously in an entirely different story, how to pull off that type of movie, which is you have like an hour and forty five minutes to two hours, where there's a lot of kind of repeat performances going on. This movie is almost a musical in the series of the miracles and the set pieces that he's doing. And the central relationship between Judas and Jesus, where Judas is trying to suppress Jesus, or at least be like, calm the fuck down, man. Stop it. But you're making the person who has the light within them be the prominent character, rather than letting the person who's trying to stop them overrule the entire movie.

• 1:04:26Griffin Newman?

  And then much like New York, New York, it has its last forty five minutes that are like, well, it's all been building to this.

• 1:04:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Griffin Newman?

  Like now we go into the inner life and the inner mind and explore all the possibilities of what could have been, and what have been and what are, to then get to the final like tragic hammer blow ending.

• 1:04:44Griffin Newman?

  But the central relationship feels, feels very similar to me. And Keitel's presence in this feels like a better version of what Jimmy Doyle is trying to be, without trying to make him charming. And I think it's the modern energy. I mean, this is the other thing he said was, you had so many biblical epics that sort of like take the posture and the language of Shakespeare, and giant humongous sets, and very pronounced, you know, King's English and all of that. And it makes it feel very, very distant and theatrical.

• 1:05:13David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:05:13Griffin Newman?

  And that his whole thing was like, this has to be street level. These have to sound like guys talking on a street corner.

• 1:05:18David Sims?

  We just, you know, this debate is, so happens every single time someone does this. And Nolan had this happen this year with The Odyssey, where people are like, well, I don't understand. They say fuck and dad.

• 1:05:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28David Sims?

  And Nolan's like, I like, anything apart from, Scorsese says here, like, unless they're speaking Aramaic, we're wrong. Like, we already blew it. So yes, I wanted New York, like, you know, you've got Harry Dean Stanton doing kind of his like, little sort of Appalachian lilt, right? Or Southern Baptist like thing, you know?

• 1:05:45Griffin Newman?

  He said the big thing was to give, let the Romans be British.

• 1:05:49David Sims?

  Yes. Do the Ben Hur thing of the Romans are British.

• 1:05:51Griffin Newman?

  But otherwise everyone brings their own American accent.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, it's very funny to me. That's, that seems to be what, what we've decided in movies, is that your evil imperial power, they're British.

• 1:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Of course. A hundred percent.

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  Doesn't matter what, what, what the world is.

• 1:06:05Griffin Newman?

  You're in space.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, in space.

• 1:06:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  In ancient, ancient Judea.

• 1:06:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Does not matter.

• 1:06:10Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  They're all British.

• 1:06:12David Sims?

  It always works. It really always works.

• 1:06:14Griffin Newman?

  Victor Argo, who I think is phenomenal in this movie.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  He is so, he is so good in this.

• 1:06:18David Sims?

  Who plays Peter, uh, as essentially like a fucking stevedore from like Red Hook. You know, like has like a sort of fisherman kind of like, you know, accent.

• 1:06:26Griffin Newman?

  I was, and I was gonna say, has the energy of someone leaning on you to pay back your debts.

• 1:06:31David Sims?

  And according to Scorsese, was smoking a cigar all the time. And then when they would start filming, he's like, oh, right. And he would have to take the cigar out of his mouth.

• 1:06:39Griffin Newman?

  Dafoe said that he was a big smoker at the time of filming, but beyond the fact that Scorsese's so asthmatic and doesn't want people smoking around him. He was like.

• 1:06:47David Sims?

  Jesus shouldn't smoke.

• 1:06:48Griffin Newman?

  He was like, Willem, if people get fucking pictures.

• 1:06:51David Sims?

  Jesus just ripping cigs. I mean, isn't that a thing from the, the Gibson movie though? Where like, everyone still does the memes of like Caviezel in Jesus makeup covered in blood, just kind of sitting on set like drinking a Mountain Dew or whatever. Cause like, I mean, he's gotta drink his Mountain Dew.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  Wasn't there the one with Joaquin going around too? Smoking a cig?

• 1:07:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh my God, I forgot that movie happened.

• 1:07:12David Sims?

  People forget that Joaquin played Jesus in, of course, a movie called Mary Magdalene.

• 1:07:17Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:18David Sims?

  Never seen it.

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  I know nothing about this.

• 1:07:20Griffin Newman?

  The movie where he falls in love with Bernie Mara. Yeah.

• 1:07:23David Sims?

  I was gonna say, just as a quick, a quick thought, and I get this, I kind of already mentioned this earlier, but it's relevant to this.

• 1:07:31David Sims?

  The.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  The movie both does, makes the, or Scorsese makes the choice of having everyone kind of sound like modern Americans and sort of at least try to capture the sense that these are ordinary people. They're like talking in like, you know, vernacular language. Like they're not, it is, it is not Shakespeare. We're not trying to elevate things. But then also, it does this in tandem with the world presented. It's very strange and alien.

• 1:08:00Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  With like customs that we are impenetrable to us.

• 1:08:04Griffin Newman?

  It feels like Mos Eisley.

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:08:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, it feels exactly like Mos Eisley. And to me, the alienness with which the world is presented feels very like Robert Igr's to me these days of like trying to take seriously the fact that the past is truly different than what we experience. Um, and kind of put you there as much as possible.

• 1:08:25David Sims?

  They shoot in Morocco. And Marty says like, when they got there, he's like, I wish I had 10,000 extras. Like, cause this is so beautiful. And like, I could, you know, he thinks about his epic. And then he's like, but it's all in the landscapes. You go from village to village, there's just a few people. Like, that's what it was like. So.

• 1:08:42Griffin Newman?

  There's the scene where the centurions attack them at the town center, like at the marketplace.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:47Griffin Newman?

  And it's five centurions. He only had five centurions. And he's like, this is all we got? He's like, great. This is what we're gonna do. Whip hand to five centurions attacking from this side. Then we're gonna move them to a different place. Whip hand, different direction, five centurions. And he reuses five centurions to make them 25 centurions. You just never need to see them all in the same frame at the same time.

• 1:09:07David Sims?

  Michael Ballhaus, who's cinematographer, who'd already done after hours with them, obviously, is like, and who's his best DP, um, is like, it, it being a quote unquote poor movie like fits the subject. I think it like worked for the movie better. Um, he loved Pee Wee Herman, Marty Scorsese.

• 1:09:25Griffin Newman?

  Marty Scorsese loved Pee Wee Herman?

• 1:09:27David Sims?

  He would tape, he would have tapes sent to him of the show every week.

• 1:09:32Griffin Newman?

  This is like Albert Einstein watching Beanie and Cecil. This is the greatest thing I've ever heard.

• 1:09:36David Sims?

  He would have, he was so into Pee Wee Herman that they would send him like PAL tapes of like that week's show. Yes.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  That's so funny.

• 1:09:43David Sims?

  Yes. Um, and yes, uh, to bring up something brought up by Marion Bell on our Mean Streets episode, yes, it shares a lot of locations with Ishtar, which was made around the same time.

• 1:09:52Griffin Newman?

  It does look very similar.

• 1:09:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:54David Sims?

  Uh, was shot incredibly quickly, uh, 58 days, you know, for a big, uh, movie like this, big, you know, like for an epic movie like this. Uh, he finds the experience very physical, very challenging or whatever. But yeah, I mean, he says it was the worst shoot. Okay. So it's, and there's weather shit. It was bad.

• 1:10:12Griffin Newman?

  It was, it was, it wasn't dramatic, but.

• 1:10:15David Sims?

  And they had no rushes. They like couldn't check dailies.

• 1:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:10:18David Sims?

  Um, and he says he kind of did it blind essentially.

• 1:10:23Griffin Newman?

  But he had it so planned out. It was his most planned movie. So that he went in with such a strong game plan, which was the only way to actually get it done. And like all the stuff in the crucifixion, he could only be up there for like three minutes before any of those actors start to go delirious. So that's like two days on the cross where he just had to be so mechanical about what do we get and for how long. And basically the thing that's just like the greatest irritation of filming is you go, okay, and we're ready, actors in places. And then the second the actor's in place, they go, wait a second, we gotta move this light. This thing isn't working here. The microphone isn't turning on. But if you're doing that after you've put Willem Dafoe up on a cross, you're losing time rapidly.

• 1:11:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  So let's talk about the movie.

• 1:11:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  It's about Jesus. Uh, as my friend Carolyn put it, who's read the book, she's like, the book starts with imagine a guy who sucks and is lame and he's miserable and everyone hates him. And then he goes to a monastery and like starts to freak it. I feel like the movie is a little bit more like starting pretty much like he's, he's kind of knows what to say.

• 1:11:37Griffin Newman?

  But he, it starts him at a point where everyone's pissed off at him because of him making the crosses.

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  Cause he's, you know, you know, he's a, I mean, look, there's no ethical consumption under capitalism.

• 1:11:46Griffin Newman?

  This is true. And this is the most important episode to say that.

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  And Rome was capitalist?

• 1:11:51David Sims?

  No, I, I, you know.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:11:54David Sims?

  I, I don't, I don't know if I'd say that.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:58David Sims?

  Um, no, I mean, you, you meet Jesus. He's not, I mean, he's not quite at the point where he's like ready to begin the ministry, but he's like clearly like a tormented man.

• 1:12:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06David Sims?

  Who, you know, by his own account, uh, doesn't understand why he's being tormented by God and just wants it to stop.

• 1:12:12Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, am I crazy? Is this just nuts?

• 1:12:15David Sims?

  And that's where, that's where I think, you know, Dafoe is right that maybe he's the only guy to play this, play this particular iteration of Jesus. Cause it's like, Jesus, the character is like, am I going insane?

• 1:12:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yes.

• 1:12:26David Sims?

  And Dafoe.

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  I'm either the son of God or going insane. What do you guys think?

• 1:12:31David Sims?

  And Dafoe looking like he's on the verge of insanity at all times.

• 1:12:35Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:12:36David Sims?

  Makes that like sells that. He doesn't have to say anything for you to kind of get, oh, this guy thinks he's losing his mind.

• 1:12:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. And it gets back to like what we were saying about Dafoe earlier is even in his old coot era, like some of those old coots are menacing and some of them are like the one voice of reason this character has in the world, even though they seem crazy.

• 1:12:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:12:56Griffin Newman?

  Like Dafoe at his most still has that wrestling inside of him.

• 1:13:02David Sims?

  Right. Right. Which is great.

• 1:13:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05David Sims?

  I mean, uh, it completely works for the character, but.

• 1:13:08Griffin Newman?

  More like Willem DaSavior.

• 1:13:09David Sims?

  I just remember the first time I, yeah, Willem DaS, thank you.

• 1:13:12Griffin Newman?

  I wanted to give it a shot.

• 1:13:14David Sims?

  What do you think?

• 1:13:15Griffin Newman?

  I think it was a wild success.

• 1:13:19Speaker 02

  I'm a little on the fence.

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  Yeah. I'm trying to think of alternatives to DaSavior.

• 1:13:23Griffin Newman?

  DaSavior.

• 1:13:24David Sims?

  The Lamb, the Lamb of God. That doesn't want to chew word too much.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  The Lamb of God.

• 1:13:28Griffin Newman?

  The Lamb. Willem DaLamb of God is fun.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  I said, huh? He like, he does like really, really boring. My name is Jesus Christ and I'm here to say, it's fun to be, you know, blasphemous and elegant. I don't know. Um.

• 1:13:41Griffin Newman?

  It's fun to be blasphemous.

• 1:13:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, whatever. I don't know.

• 1:13:44David Sims?

  He calls himself the king of blasphemy.

• 1:13:46Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:13:46David Sims?

  I mean, look, he's, obviously he's a troublemaker in the, in the, the Jewish community of Judea, which is a client state of Rome that's sort of run by the Romans, but like it's a backwater, right? Like that's the, that's the history.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  Right, right, right. It's out of any particular importance.

• 1:14:03David Sims?

  Right. I mean, that's the thing with like people like Pontius Pilate, where you're like, well, what does the record say? And it's like, I don't know. It's some fucking guy who got that shit job.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10David Sims?

  Of having to go there. You know what rocked Rome? That's where you want to be. You don't want to be all the way over there where there's like scorpions and whatever and angry Jews.

• 1:14:18Griffin Newman?

  Talking snakes.

• 1:14:22David Sims?

  And, uh, like, I guess like Jesus is part of like a larger Jewish rebellion, but he's just one element. And he's not a very organized element.

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

  It's not even clear he's like part of the rebellion. He's just like, he's just like, he knows people involved.

• 1:14:35David Sims?

  Right. It's like Judas.

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  Judas, uh, who, you know, who, Judas who calls himself a zealot, which is like kind of, this is where I think there's like actual biblical scholarship here because if I have this right, Judas Iscariot, which is sort of the traditional name, Iscariot is like basically a transliteration of like zealot.

• 1:14:52David Sims?

  Right. Okay. And he's like, he is someone who's like sent to deal with Jesus because they're like, this is a collaborator essentially.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  Right. Because the, the zealots were an actual group of like anti-Roman.

• 1:15:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  Jewish or Judean rebels.

• 1:15:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Um, and right. So like, yeah, he's sent, the film implies that they know each other. Like they've known each other for a while. Um, and that part of the issue is that the zealots are telling Judas, you gotta kill this Jesus guy for making the crosses. And Judas, this is not on screen, but you can kind of, kind of guess. It's like, I don't want to, you know, he's fine. He's okay. I can persuade him to stop doing this.

• 1:15:31David Sims?

  And then he starts being, there you go, Messiah. Yeah. Son of God. Right? Like he starts to build, sort of believe in him. He's an early follower, right?

• 1:15:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:41David Sims?

  Um, and we see him saving Mary Magdalene. And like, that's the beginning of him acquiring more follower. I'm trying, I'm trying to.

• 1:15:49Griffin Newman?

  But he's even getting tempted in that first Mary. Well, I guess there's the second Mary Magdalene scene, cause there's a scene where she tries to stone him or at least throws rocks at him.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  So when, so there, when he is carrying the cross to crucify the Messiah, the, the other Messiah that we might meet, she spits in his face.

• 1:16:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Um, we meet her again. So he goes to meet her after, he's in a cave with the priest. He starts into the one priest.

• 1:16:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  And he's like, you know, the priest's like, I've never met God. I'd like to meet God. And like, cause the, the priest who greets him at this place is like, you know, your brother greeted me. And he's like, well, that guy's, that guy's been dead.

• 1:16:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Here he is, dead.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  Uh, you were.

• 1:16:33Griffin Newman?

  Dead for a day.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  You were met by God. Uh, and so this, this sort of like, he's like, Jesus asking, what do I do next? And then he, he's like, I'll go see Mary Magdalene.

• 1:16:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Which the, the dead guy is Robert's blossom.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Uh, that's right.

• 1:16:47Griffin Newman?

  In all the Jonathan Demme movies, but also of course is the old man in Home Alone.

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:51David Sims?

  Oh, great guy.

• 1:16:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, the other crazy one is, uh, Zebedee.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Is Ervin Kershner, director of Empire Strikes Back.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  My favorite moment of the movie when Jesus is like, Zebedee, that widow you've been with? And someone in the back room goes, yells, Judith.

• 1:17:12Speaker 02

  You know, there's a hole up there.

• 1:17:16David Sims?

  The, um.

• 1:17:17Griffin Newman?

  The second Mary Magdalene scene.

• 1:17:18David Sims?

  Well, at first I just want to say, you know, the, the French cartoon, the magic roundabout. It's the British.

• 1:17:22Griffin Newman?

  British.

• 1:17:22David Sims?

  But it's, it was originally French.

• 1:17:24Griffin Newman?

  Oh, really?

• 1:17:25David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:26Griffin Newman?

  The book is French?

• 1:17:27David Sims?

  No, I think it was, all right, now, oh, boy. Now I gotta.

• 1:17:30Griffin Newman?

  We gotta go deep on this.

• 1:17:31David Sims?

  Uh, yes, it used footage of a French stop motion animated show called Le Menage En Chante.

• 1:17:37Griffin Newman?

  Wow, okay.

• 1:17:37David Sims?

  With completely different scripts and characters. So it is the British one, of course, the main character.

• 1:17:41Griffin Newman?

  Power Rangers kind of deal.

• 1:17:42David Sims?

  Exactly. But the main character is called Zebedee.

• 1:17:44Griffin Newman?

  I do know that.

• 1:17:45David Sims?

  Yeah, with the guy with the mustache and the spring for a lower half of his body.

• 1:17:49Griffin Newman?

  I think was voiced by Ian McKellen in the CGI movie.

• 1:17:52David Sims?

  Probably.

• 1:17:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53David Sims?

  Uh, who ends every episode by going, time for bed. And so that's where I learned the word Zebedee, who of course is the, uh, father of James and John, right? Like that is who Zebedee is in, in the Bible. Um, but yeah, it is funny that he's played by Irvin Kershner, who like, did he teach Marty at school too? Cause he wasn't, he was George Lucas's.

• 1:18:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:12David Sims?

  Like, like teacher at USC.

• 1:18:14Griffin Newman?

  Right. But I think he had some connection with him, maybe just through George. I mean, the whole casting of this movie is like a collection of like.

• 1:18:20David Sims?

  His debut as an actor, I can tell you that, yeah.

• 1:18:22Griffin Newman?

  I, I just know all those guys cited him as being really good with actors and teaching them how to direct actors better than others. Um, the, the whole casting of this movie feels like a Martin Scorsese, this is your life. Like he's pulling people from such different directions.

• 1:18:37David Sims?

  The great Andre Gregory, that's John the Baptist, one of my favorite scenes. Um, but, uh, like, is, has my dinner with Andre? Yeah, that's already come out.

• 1:18:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And this is post Mosquito Coast too, right? Yeah.

• 1:18:49David Sims?

  Yeah. So what does Jesus get up to? All right. I'm trying to remember the linear plot of.

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  There's, there's, he meets Magdalene.

• 1:18:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  Um, and we see Magdalene to prostitute.

• 1:18:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  He's there waiting.

• 1:18:59Griffin Newman?

  You just have men who sit like crisscross applesauce on the floor, watching, waiting for their turn.

• 1:19:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:19:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07David Sims?

  And then he gets baptized, right?

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sure. There's a point between that, that kind of gets a little hazy for me, but then he, then he meets John the Baptist, he gets baptized. And then he goes into the desert where he meets, he's tempted the first time.

• 1:19:20David Sims?

  In the book, uh, tempted by a serpent with, uh, human breasts.

• 1:19:24Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:19:24David Sims?

  In the movie, it's more just kind of like some fire and a regular serpent.

• 1:19:28Griffin Newman?

  Snake with a voice.

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  Be very funny if they tried to give the serpent human breasts.

• 1:19:31David Sims?

  Boobies.

• 1:19:31Griffin Newman?

  I would be very into that. I'd learn a lot about myself.

• 1:19:36David Sims?

  I do think Barbara Hershey is fantastic in this movie. Uh, you know, it's not a gigantic role. It's probably the most developed female role in the movie though, and she's great.

• 1:19:45Griffin Newman?

  Apparently the female roles were worse in the book.

• 1:19:49David Sims?

  My friend's biggest review of the movie, uh, when I watched it with her a while ago, cause she'd read the book, but she was like, amazing movie. She was also like way less sexist than the book. The book is very sexist.

• 1:19:58Griffin Newman?

  Um, and even the angel at the end of the movie, or, or the physical form of Satan disguised as an angel was a boy in the book. Um, no, I just want to call out that Barbara Hershey scene because it is a big early scene of her trying to call bullshit on him.

• 1:20:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:14Griffin Newman?

  Before he wins her over and being like, you're just like these other guys. You came here to watch me fuck and you want to fuck me. Which I do understand if you are a very literal minded follower of the Bible. Could be a thing that like clashes against your very beliefs, you know? The, the notion of even depicting a scene like that, putting Jesus in that position.

• 1:20:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:37David Sims?

  Jesus peeping.

• 1:20:38Griffin Newman?

  But, but I do think Defoe plays it as like, there is the part of him that's like, God, do I just have to sacrifice everything? You know, I think Defoe does that really well throughout the movie, which is he's 90% sure that he wants to keep going the way he's going, but also it's so fucking difficult. It's so fucking difficult and there's so much sacrifice.

• 1:21:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:00David Sims?

  Much like the Odyssey, which I'm now thinking about because of that comparison with the language. He, you don't hear like God talking to him, right? Like it's not this kind of, you know, like he's saying like, I'm getting little bits and pieces. Like I'm doing what I, you know.

• 1:21:13Griffin Newman?

  God speaks to me in these different ways.

• 1:21:15David Sims?

  Right. I'm only like a little bit a- ahead of you guys. Like I only like sort of know the next thing to do. The, the desert stuff is so striking. Um,

• 1:21:25David Sims?

  I'm sure it was a pain to shoot, but like, I just love the plainness of it. It's just like empty. Uh, it's rockier, you know, than like your classic desert. You know, it's not, you're like.

• 1:21:35Griffin Newman?

  It's not Lawrence of Arabia.

• 1:21:36David Sims?

  It's not Agrabah.

• 1:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's not Ac- it isn't Agrabah. They thought about filming in Agrabah.

• 1:21:41David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But couldn't get the permits.

• 1:21:43Griffin Newman?

  Well, the tax incentives there are actually really bad in a weird way. You think they'd want to get more production.

• 1:21:48David Sims?

  You know what happens to me?

• 1:21:49Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 1:21:49David Sims?

  Like I'm out there in the desert and like some fucking lion is like, hey, you want some money? I'm like, yeah, please give it to me. Take the hell out of me, baby. I'd be so bad at this. Uh, but then like, then, then he, uh, he does take his heart out.

• 1:22:04Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:22:04David Sims?

  In front of his followers.

• 1:22:05Griffin Newman?

  That was Schrader's biggest idea.

• 1:22:08David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:22:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:09David Sims?

  I don't know. What do you guys make of that scene? Takes out like a rubber heart from his chest.

• 1:22:14Griffin Newman?

  Well, let's say, in the reality of the movie, the heart isn't rubber.

• 1:22:17David Sims?

  I know, but it kind of looks, you know.

• 1:22:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:20David Sims?

  You're like, oh damn, like he has like a little, a little prop heart.

• 1:22:24Griffin Newman?

  But we've also seen a lot of blood in the movie up until this point. There's just constant, this was a thing that I think Cox said in doing his research. He wanted to get in there, which is just like, there are just grates everywhere of blood flowing, of animals being slaughtered.

• 1:22:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:38Griffin Newman?

  There's just like blood constantly running through the streets and the walls and everything. So you've seen like internal organs falling to the ground already at this point in the movie.

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  Correct me if I'm wrong, you know, like that's not in the Bible.

• 1:22:50David Sims?

  No.

• 1:22:50Speaker 02

  Jesus doesn't like pop his heart out and go like, see?

• 1:22:53David Sims?

  No.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  I'm magic, baby.

• 1:22:54Griffin Newman?

  That's a Schrader invention.

• 1:22:55David Sims?

  He does other magic stuff. Yeah. I think it's kind of rude of Schrader. No, I don't know. I don't know if it's in the book. Maybe it is. I don't know.

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  I'm watching it.

• 1:23:03David Sims?

  I don't think so.

• 1:23:04Speaker 03

  Here's my problem. The heart is beating.

• 1:23:07David Sims?

  You want the classic, like the cartoon.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Like, yeah, like a Temple of Doom style.

• 1:23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. It just, it would hit harder for me if that was happening.

• 1:23:16David Sims?

  Uh, then he returns and of course does the most important thing in this movie, which is, uh, the gif. Where he raises a cup, you know?

• 1:23:25Speaker 03

  Is used as a gif?

• 1:23:26David Sims?

  Oh dude, it is, that is a classic gif.

• 1:23:29Griffin Newman?

  I don't think I've seen it in a while.

• 1:23:30David Sims?

  Jesus being like.

• 1:23:31Griffin Newman?

  Giving the toast.

• 1:23:32David Sims?

  You too, brother. Like basically like, uh, just, uh, it's a very funny image to me now. And it's not intended in the movie as funny, obviously.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  He heals a blind man.

• 1:23:42David Sims?

  He heals a blind man.

• 1:23:43Speaker 02

  Doing miracles.

• 1:23:44David Sims?

  He, he attempted the canonical miracles.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:23:47David Sims?

  He turns water into wine.

• 1:23:49Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:23:49David Sims?

  Which I, I do like.

• 1:23:50Speaker 02

  You better check that water. You know, guy's like, it's fucking water. It's like, I don't know, maybe it's wine.

• 1:23:55Griffin Newman?

  That scene is so funny.

• 1:23:57David Sims?

  It's very good.

• 1:23:58Griffin Newman?

  It's so funny.

• 1:23:59David Sims?

  And then when he drinks it, he's like, fuck, it's wine.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  He says, he says, Jesus Christ, cause it's, that's who did it.

• 1:24:05Griffin Newman?

  It will, yeah. It is so funny that it's the one scene where Marty goes into like shine box rhythms. Right? Where it's like two guys on the street fucking with each other, where he's like, do me a favor, check that wine one more time. Check that water one more time.

• 1:24:18David Sims?

  Do you think it's crazy that in the middle of all that, Jesus did raise a guy from the dead?

• 1:24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23David Sims?

  And the guy came out of a cave being like.

• 1:24:25Speaker 02

  It does feel like, it does feel, the miracles feel, you know, water into wine.

• 1:24:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  Kind of closer to a parlor trick.

• 1:24:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  Healing the blind, that's pretty impressive.

• 1:24:37Griffin Newman?

  I, I'd give that like an eight out of 10.

• 1:24:39Speaker 02

  But it feels like, you know, his, his power levels just explode.

• 1:24:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  When he's.

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  When he's, uh, raising people from the dead, he goes, it's like he's going Super Saiyan, Super Christ.

• 1:24:51Griffin Newman?

  Do we need to nerf Jesus's power levels?

• 1:24:54Speaker 02

  That's a power scale Jesus, you know, Jesus versus Superman.

• 1:24:57David Sims?

  John Byrne will come in, right? He'll, he'll reset everything. He can leap over a building. Like he's not, you know, Superman.

• 1:25:04Griffin Newman?

  How are you going to be able to beat Jesus with a Kirby? You know what I'm saying? Like that's not a fair matchup.

• 1:25:10David Sims?

  Uh, Thomas Aranha plays, uh, plays Lazarus. Just shout him out. He's also in Hunfer and October. He's a million things. He's one of those guys.

• 1:25:19Griffin Newman?

  Uh, they said they didn't have the money to dress that scene in a way to get across how disgusting the team was.

• 1:25:27David Sims?

  He's not like totally right. It, it could be, you could go more kind of zombie with it.

• 1:25:30Griffin Newman?

  So this is their like pragmatic problem solving of like, okay, so what's the way we visualize how disgusting the space is? And they were like, oh, it can smell really bad. Every actor just needs to be like, ew, pee, ew. And they roll the boulder out of the way. It's really funny to watch just 40 guys go like, yeah, stinky poo poo. Oh my, my God, the greatest miracle I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:25:54David Sims?

  Um, after that is the temple, where he trashes the moneylenders and all that. And like, at this point, we're 90 minutes into the movie.

• 1:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:02David Sims?

  And I really feel like the first, I was just like, I don't, we're just watching the Bible.

• 1:26:07Griffin Newman?

  This is just.

• 1:26:07David Sims?

  I'm so surprised that anyone thinks this is controversial.

• 1:26:10Griffin Newman?

  Jesus's greatest.

• 1:26:11David Sims?

  Like, sure, there's some nudity. Like, that's like the extent to which I've been like surprised by.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  I mean, I'll, I'll say there's one scene, I, I love this movie. There's one scene that did make me go, I, this, that dialogue could be a little better. And it's when he is first teach, it's before he, he hasn't had disciples yet. It's just him and Judas. And he's speaking to a group of people, some of whom become disciples. And, um, he's about to basically do the Beatitudes and he doesn't quite say like the meek will inherit the earth. He doesn't quite say it. But like the rhythm of the way, like Defoe is delivering the lines feels like he's about to just like say the line. And I had a very sort of like, yeah, this is the Jesus biopic.

• 1:26:48David Sims?

  It's like Paul McCartney singing guitar in the window or whatever and being like, love me do. Yes, right.

• 1:26:54Griffin Newman?

  Why is that guitar gently weeping? There's the counterpoint scene that's so well done, which is the let ye who's without sin, cast the first stone scene where they never say it.

• 1:27:04Speaker 02

  Right, they never say, yeah.

• 1:27:05Griffin Newman?

  Where they actually just show, don't tell.

• 1:27:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:07Griffin Newman?

  The idea.

• 1:27:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, Jesus is weird, cause like, I mean, Jesus was weird. Listen to me.

• 1:27:14David Sims?

  No, you got it. Keep going. He told you it was okay.

• 1:27:16Speaker 02

  Jesus was all right to me, I'll say.

• 1:27:18David Sims?

  That's so true.

• 1:27:21David Sims?

  You read the, like, some of the parables.

• 1:27:24Griffin Newman?

  Good, right. Really good.

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  Ben, Ben's like, bad joke, Jamel. Yeah, I know.

• 1:27:31Griffin Newman?

  If people knew the faces Ben makes during records.

• 1:27:34David Sims?

  Some of the parables-

• 1:27:35Griffin Newman?

  You could put out a coffee table book.

• 1:27:36David Sims?

  Are very obvious and resonant and are things essentially along the lines of like, you should be nice to people and-

• 1:27:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:42David Sims?

  Right. Love your fellow man and help. And then there's the weird ones where he would be like, if you plant a mustard seed, grows a plant. And people are like, should we write that down? And he's like, mm, and they're like, I guess we'll write it down.

• 1:27:54Griffin Newman?

  How much do you like mustard?

• 1:27:55David Sims?

  Two thousand years of scottly debate to be like, what is that fucking one about? And he's like, that's all you got. I can, you know, it is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and put in his own garden. It grew and became a large tree and the birds of the sky watching its branches. And everyone's like, mm-hmm. And he's like.

• 1:28:13Griffin Newman?

  And that and relish are the only things you should put on your hot dog. And they're like, Jesus hates ketchup.

• 1:28:18David Sims?

  No, that's so true.

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  For eight-year-olds.

• 1:28:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's for children.

• 1:28:21David Sims?

  Come on, you gotta, yeah, you gotta. When did you guys get into mustard? I was saying, cause my daughter rejected mustard the other day, which is fine.

• 1:28:26Griffin Newman?

  They all do.

• 1:28:27David Sims?

  She's five years old.

• 1:28:27Griffin Newman?

  They all do.

• 1:28:27David Sims?

  And I'm like, I get it, spicy. I get it, you know.

• 1:28:29Speaker 02

  So I never, I never-

• 1:28:30David Sims?

  But I was like, when did I fall in love with mustard?

• 1:28:32Speaker 02

  I've never, like, when it comes to condiments, on the, on the subject of condiments, I never liked mayo.

• 1:28:39David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  And so I'd always be like-

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  It has its place.

• 1:28:42Speaker 02

  Give me some mustard.

• 1:28:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:43Speaker 02

  Cause you, you have to have a condiment on the sandwich.

• 1:28:46Griffin Newman?

  You must.

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  And I was like, well, I'm not gonna have mayo. I gotta have mustard. So I don't, I've always-

• 1:28:51David Sims?

  So you got there fast.

• 1:28:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got there fast.

• 1:28:53Griffin Newman?

  But it felt like a process of elimination.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:55David Sims?

  Yeah. Cause I was thinking about how in Britain, you know, the mustard is super spicy, cause they got that English mustard, because like, kinda clears your sinuses out.

• 1:29:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03David Sims?

  And so I think I sort of skipped yellow mustard.

• 1:29:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:29:06David Sims?

  And then later found like, you're, you're American, so hot dog mustard.

• 1:29:09Griffin Newman?

  I never liked that kinda mustard. I still don't like that kinda mustard. I think I got into it probably in my early twenties, because along with horseradish, I was like, should I keep this in the fridge to clear my sinuses?

• 1:29:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:29:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And then I started putting it on stuff.

• 1:29:24David Sims?

  It's good for that.

• 1:29:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's good for that.

• 1:29:25David Sims?

  Ben, you a mustard guy?

• 1:29:26Speaker 03

  I love mustard.

• 1:29:27David Sims?

  So good.

• 1:29:28Speaker 03

  Dijon. He's my, my top.

• 1:29:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  Grapefruit pie?

• 1:29:32Griffin Newman?

  President Puppon over here.

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  He's fancy.

• 1:29:35Griffin Newman?

  Ben is wearing a tan suit today.

• 1:29:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I look great.

• 1:29:40Speaker 03

  But I also got, came around to it later in my twenties.

• 1:29:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Speaker 03

  Like, I rejected mustard. I was only ketchup.

• 1:29:46Griffin Newman?

  Your twenties are for mustard.

• 1:29:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:48Griffin Newman?

  Your twenties are-

• 1:29:49David Sims?

  That's your mustard era.

• 1:29:50Griffin Newman?

  It's for experimenting.

• 1:29:51David Sims?

  You're mustard maxing.

• 1:29:52Griffin Newman?

  You're mustard maxing. Mustard mugging.

• 1:29:55Speaker 03

  Maybe a little relish. I don't know. Maybe a little chutney.

• 1:29:59Griffin Newman?

  Relish is for your thirties.

• 1:30:03David Sims?

  Around now is when, uh, Harry Dean Stanton shows up as Paul.

• 1:30:07Speaker 02

  As well as, not yet, as Saul.

• 1:30:08David Sims?

  Saul's Tarso.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:30:10David Sims?

  He's gonna have his road to Damascus later, right?

• 1:30:15David Sims?

  One of those things where it's like, well, this, Harry Dean Stanton belongs in the 20th century. Like, where it's sort of surprising to see him in robes.

• 1:30:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:30:25David Sims?

  But he also does feel eternal to me.

• 1:30:28Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:30:28David Sims?

  In some way. And soulful and, you know, ring, you know, his, his, his permanent wrinkles and his kind of like weird face, like, does kind of make him work in the movie. I don't know.

• 1:30:39Griffin Newman?

  See, it's, it's not an iPhone face cast, but I did think it's a vinyl record cast.

• 1:30:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Griffin Newman?

  They all have vinyl record face.

• 1:30:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:46Griffin Newman?

  All, all of these people have, have dropped a needle on, on the record, you know?

• 1:30:51David Sims?

  Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, do you guys enjoy this, uh, you know, this performance, Harry Dean Stanton? Sure? Yes? No?

• 1:30:58Speaker 02

  I like it. I think, I think when you, I think when we see him again later in the film and he is Paul.

• 1:31:02David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:31:03Speaker 02

  I think that's great. I think it's a really great moment. And sort of-

• 1:31:05David Sims?

  And you kinda need a very recognizable face for that-

• 1:31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:08David Sims?

  Purpose.

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:31:09David Sims?

  For the sort of, like, you see him again. Yes.

• 1:31:11Speaker 02

  I mean, even, even when you meet him the first time, you're sort of like, well, he must be someone important. I mean, there's a, the purpose of casting someone as recognizable as Harry Dean Stanton. Like, this is clearly a significant person.

• 1:31:23Griffin Newman?

  It's also, it's his straight talk quality.

• 1:31:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You know, this is a guy who can't lie on screen, who, who can, who underplays everything.

• 1:31:30David Sims?

  But yeah, the script does not have a lot of like, and I'm Thomas, and I'm always doubting stuff. Or like, it does not, I guess, really, you know, it sort of relies on its, on its audience figuring things out or not worrying about it. Like, you're sort of like, you know Judas, you know Jesus, you know Mary. You can figure out that the rest were followers of some renown or whatever, you know, right?

• 1:31:50Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  And if you know more about the, the Bible, you'll, you'll probably recognize things.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  I do appreciate that it doesn't put like a point on things, like you see, you get the moment where Peter denies Jesus three times.

• 1:32:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:00Speaker 02

  But it's not like telegraphed.

• 1:32:03David Sims?

  No.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  It's not like a zoom in, zoom in, no, I don't know Jesus. Like, that doesn't happen. It's just sort of like, someone's like, hey, I think that guy-

• 1:32:11David Sims?

  Send it for a time.

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  I think that guy is one of Jesus's followers. He's like, no, I'm not. No, I think, I think, I, I swear, I've seen you with that dude.

• 1:32:20Griffin Newman?

  I know him. We all know him.

• 1:32:23David Sims?

  Heard of him.

• 1:32:24Speaker 03

  There's a little counter in the bottom of the screen.

• 1:32:27Griffin Newman?

  I'm friendly with him. I wouldn't say I'm friends with him. I haven't been to his hut. I don't hang out in his cave.

• 1:32:35David Sims?

  Lazarus gets killed. There's the big riot in the temple. Things are popping off.

• 1:32:39Speaker 03

  That's so fucked up. This guy just came back to life.

• 1:32:42David Sims?

  If I'm him, I'm so mad.

• 1:32:43Griffin Newman?

  It's a waste of incredible work.

• 1:32:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Griffin Newman?

  Kinda, kinda the one time that it ever happened and they immediately undo it.

• 1:32:51David Sims?

  Which I don't think is in the Bible either.

• 1:32:53Speaker 02

  I don't think it's in the Bible either.

• 1:32:54David Sims?

  No, like, that's-

• 1:32:55Griffin Newman?

  Did they kill him?

• 1:32:56David Sims?

  Yeah, no, I don't, there's like, you know, we're moving on. Jesus is like, come out Lazarus. He's like, all right, let's keep the road moving.

• 1:33:03Speaker 02

  Come on, damn Lazarus.

• 1:33:05Griffin Newman?

  They don't just kill him. They slice him open like he's a fucking pig.

• 1:33:08David Sims?

  Yeah, they gut him.

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do that.

• 1:33:10David Sims?

  It's rough. The movie is, like you said, Griff, it's, it's violent. It's not violent in the way of like a Marty movie can be like so insanely violent.

• 1:33:18Speaker 02

  There's that Gage of Innocence.

• 1:33:19Speaker 03

  Kicking some guy in the ground.

• 1:33:22David Sims?

  Perfectly.

• 1:33:23Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate display of violence.

• 1:33:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:33:27Griffin Newman?

  Leg-

• 1:33:27David Sims?

  Foot touching flesh.

• 1:33:28Griffin Newman?

  Leg going all the way back and making such a journey to direct impact with muscle.

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  These are, these are cheap jokes, of course, but it is, the fact that it's a Scorsese directed biblical epic, and then you know the rest of his movies. I do like, when I want, when I've watched this, I do think of like, it'd be funny if-

• 1:33:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:46Speaker 02

  There were a scene of like Jesus laughing like De Niro in Cape Fear.

• 1:33:50David Sims?

  Right. Just like, at the temple going, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha.

• 1:33:55David Sims?

  Right. And that's when they have to arrest him, is when he's being too loud.

• 1:33:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:59David Sims?

  Right. And that's when Pontius Pilate's like, there too. And then-

• 1:34:02Griffin Newman?

  Like, he also does that whole thing with Mary Magdalene's retainer.

• 1:34:05David Sims?

  Uh, yes.

• 1:34:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:07David Sims?

  Then there's the Pontius Pilate, you know, which we talked about, but is there more, you know, like, we're just like total stillness. Again, just a spare set.

• 1:34:13Griffin Newman?

  Well, he was such a good actor. You and I both rewatched Prestige recently.

• 1:34:17David Sims?

  Fucking rocks in that.

• 1:34:18Griffin Newman?

  He's so fucking good.

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  And it's the same use of him in Prestige, where it's like, we kinda need someone who just communicates instantly weirdness and like, you know, authority.

• 1:34:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:28David Sims?

  Like, in this kind of peculiar way.

• 1:34:30Griffin Newman?

  But he knew how to not overdo it.

• 1:34:33David Sims?

  And it doesn't overdo it neither. And in fucking Prestige, he's like doing an accent and he's Tesla. He's in a cyber truck.

• 1:34:41Griffin Newman?

  He looks awesome.

• 1:34:42David Sims?

  He looks so good.

• 1:34:43Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's cheering as he drives down the street.

• 1:34:47David Sims?

  That movie's about how Hugh Jackman's trying to make comedy legal. That's, that's the war.

• 1:34:51Speaker 02

  Make comedy legal?

• 1:34:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:52Speaker 02

  Save free speech.

• 1:34:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes. They should remake, uh, Prestige, but about the Austin comedy scene.

• 1:35:00David Sims?

  That's great.

• 1:35:01Griffin Newman?

  That's great, right?

• 1:35:02David Sims?

  That's great.

• 1:35:02Griffin Newman?

  Isn't that great?

• 1:35:03David Sims?

  Yeah, every, yeah.

• 1:35:04Griffin Newman?

  No, I just find it so fascinating that Bowie was able to completely tone down his rock star energy.

• 1:35:11David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:35:11Griffin Newman?

  And just lean into the alienness.

• 1:35:13David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:35:13Griffin Newman?

  And like, you watch The Man Who Fell to Earth and you're like, well, of course, he's great at this. This is the one appropriate time you could cast David Bowie in a movie and it's not distracting. And yet, every time he's putting in like a one or two scene role like this, he just fucking knocks it out of the park and he gives it an energy that no one else could. But it feels like he was a very smart actor. Like, he really understood his moves.

• 1:35:37Speaker 03

  Is he the best rock star actor?

• 1:35:40Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  The best rock star actor.

• 1:35:42David Sims?

  Who are the competitors here? Mick Jagger made real movie Sting, uh-

• 1:35:46Speaker 02

  Kris Kristofferson.

• 1:35:46David Sims?

  Kris Kristofferson.

• 1:35:47Griffin Newman?

  James Belushi. Yeah.

• 1:35:49David Sims?

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:35:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I guess more blue star actor. Yeah.

• 1:35:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bruce Willis.

• 1:35:55David Sims?

  Yes, right.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  Eddie Murphy.

• 1:35:59Speaker 02

  Steven Seagal.

• 1:36:01David Sims?

  Of course, yeah. Jared Leto. Jared Leto.

• 1:36:05Speaker 02

  Come on, let's not forget.

• 1:36:09Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, if we're having the honest question, it's like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger.

• 1:36:15David Sims?

  But Bowie's a very interesting case of like, he actually took these sort of like different roles. Jagger's, I mean, he's good in some like performance and yeah, like, he could be good. You needed to craft around these guys, right, in the right way.

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  I, I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think, cause when I think of musician actors, I actually just think of rappers.

• 1:36:33David Sims?

  Yeah, which, which like.

• 1:36:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, they've taken.

• 1:36:35David Sims?

  Rappers are basically always good at acting.

• 1:36:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:37David Sims?

  Because like, I feel like there's so much performance.

• 1:36:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:40David Sims?

  Like, that you have, there's so much presence you have to have.

• 1:36:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:36:43David Sims?

  Even when you're like essentially performing in like the tiniest scale, right?

• 1:36:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:36:48David Sims?

  How many rappers turned actors were bad is the question?

• 1:36:53David Sims?

  They're all good.

• 1:36:54Griffin Newman?

  It's a good question. I just, I just went to the 25th anniversary of Fast and Furious.

• 1:36:59David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:36:59Griffin Newman?

  Uh, re-release.

• 1:37:00David Sims?

  Sure, Ja Rule wasn't like the greatest actor of all time.

• 1:37:04Griffin Newman?

  He had a little juice.

• 1:37:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:06Griffin Newman?

  There was a reason they wanted him back for the second one and the greatest bag fumble of all time.

• 1:37:11David Sims?

  Oh, is he says no?

• 1:37:13Griffin Newman?

  And then they go like, fine, we'll ask Ludacris.

• 1:37:15Speaker 02

  And Ludacris is great.

• 1:37:16Griffin Newman?

  Ludacris is great.

• 1:37:18Speaker 02

  I, I almost wanna see like Ice T has like limited reign.

• 1:37:21David Sims?

  That's, but he's, he's.

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  Come on, he's got the hours.

• 1:37:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:25Speaker 02

  He's got the hours.

• 1:37:26Griffin Newman?

  He's got the hours.

• 1:37:28David Sims?

  But Ice Cube is a very good act, you know, like Ice Cube has given legitimately good.

• 1:37:32Griffin Newman?

  Ice Cube's a really good actor.

• 1:37:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:33David Sims?

  Mos Def is, Jesse S. Bay is a great actor.

• 1:37:36Griffin Newman?

  I mean, Mos Def should have been like a major star.

• 1:37:39David Sims?

  To me, DMX is the rapper turned actor where I'm like, I don't think anyone ever sat DMX down and taught him how to act. Right? Like, and I don't think he was ever in like a particularly good movie. Anytime DMX is on screen in the movies he made, I'm like, I cannot take my eyes off this guy. This is unbelievable.

• 1:37:54Griffin Newman?

  He's got a couple of good scenes in Exit Wounds, which I don't say lightly.

• 1:37:58David Sims?

  Like, I mean, like, that's the sort of the example where I'm like, right, you know, like, it's just kinda like, I don't know, just point the camera at him, this is gonna work.

• 1:38:04Griffin Newman?

  But I'm like, are there answers where we're just not thinking of them, where I'm like, is the game good, you know?

• 1:38:09David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:38:09Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:38:10Speaker 02

  Other people we should, Madonna.

• 1:38:12David Sims?

  Madonna?

• 1:38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13David Sims?

  Who got a lot of shit, but has given good performances.

• 1:38:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:38:16David Sims?

  Like, she's kinda up and down.

• 1:38:17Griffin Newman?

  Courtney Love a very good actor.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  That's what I was gonna say too, yeah.

• 1:38:20David Sims?

  Courtney Love, we have to shout out.

• 1:38:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Cyndi Lauper, I feel like never got her full.

• 1:38:25David Sims?

  What she, I don't think I've seen.

• 1:38:26Griffin Newman?

  Some of her vibes.

• 1:38:28David Sims?

  Debbie Harry?

• 1:38:29Griffin Newman?

  Debbie Harry.

• 1:38:29Speaker 02

  Debbie Harry, yeah.

• 1:38:30David Sims?

  Video drama and shit.

• 1:38:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:38:33David Sims?

  I don't know, I mean, like, look, you have to have stage presence, like, it makes sense.

• 1:38:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38David Sims?

  Sure, yeah, keep going.

• 1:38:40Speaker 02

  Freaking Meatloaf.

• 1:38:41David Sims?

  Lawrence Welk. Yeah, Meatloaf is a good actor.

• 1:38:44Griffin Newman?

  Meatloaf's a good actor.

• 1:38:45Speaker 02

  Hey, Tom Waits.

• 1:38:46David Sims?

  Tom Waits.

• 1:38:47Griffin Newman?

  But Meatloaf was more of an actor first.

• 1:38:49David Sims?

  Sure, I guess.

• 1:38:50Griffin Newman?

  Musical theater actor who then became, yes.

• 1:38:53Speaker 02

  His name is Bob.

• 1:38:54Griffin Newman?

  Waits is a great answer.

• 1:38:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:56Griffin Newman?

  Waits.

• 1:38:57Speaker 02

  Isn't that the line from Fight Club?

• 1:38:59Griffin Newman?

  Fight Club, yeah.

• 1:39:00David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:39:00Griffin Newman?

  Waits is a good answer.

• 1:39:01Speaker 02

  David was giving me like.

• 1:39:02David Sims?

  Look like.

• 1:39:03Speaker 02

  I was like, no.

• 1:39:03David Sims?

  Ben has lost his fucking mind.

• 1:39:05Griffin Newman?

  No, Ben knows, Ben knows what he's talking about.

• 1:39:07David Sims?

  Eh.

• 1:39:08Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Tom Waits might be the guy who challenges David Bowie in my mind.

• 1:39:12David Sims?

  Tom Waits is very cool.

• 1:39:13Griffin Newman?

  If you look at the breadth of the work.

• 1:39:15David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:16Griffin Newman?

  And the directors he's worked with and how well.

• 1:39:18David Sims?

  Mostly did not take, you know, they, they worked very well, especially in supporting roles and, right. Uh, character roles and his scene is great in this. Oh, oh.

• 1:39:27Griffin Newman?

  Justin Timberlake, Conversation Over. Anyway, so back to Last Temptation of Christ.

• 1:39:30David Sims?

  Performance.

• 1:39:32David Sims?

  Yeah, well, then they crucified Jesus.

• 1:39:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:39:36David Sims?

  Um, you know, they make him, they give him a crown of thorns, which I think is really rude.

• 1:39:41Griffin Newman?

  It's really.

• 1:39:42David Sims?

  They make him carry the cross, which I think is really rude.

• 1:39:43Speaker 02

  A note, a note about these scenes, this is the part of the movie where, I, I really like this part of the movie and I really like that Scorsese seems to linger on the compositions a lot.

• 1:39:53Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:53Speaker 02

  Um, because they do look really incredible, like the, of, of Jesus being, you know, marched down the corridor, the crown of thorns.

• 1:39:59David Sims?

  Crowds and like, yeah, there is a sense of.

• 1:40:01Speaker 02

  When he's coming, when he's coming in to Jerusalem on the donkey is a, is a great sort of like composition as well.

• 1:40:07Griffin Newman?

  Did we talk about the scene where he tries to convince, uh, Judas to kill him?

• 1:40:12David Sims?

  Yeah, like when he's having the dark night of the soul or like right before.

• 1:40:16Griffin Newman?

  And he's also like, I'm going to die, you should just do it.

• 1:40:19David Sims?

  You can just do it.

• 1:40:20Griffin Newman?

  I need to die as a sacrifice.

• 1:40:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:40:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:40:23David Sims?

  Um, but of course he sort of realizes like, no, I have to be like publicly a symbol, like to.

• 1:40:29Griffin Newman?

  Well, Judas, Judas also was like, can you imagine how bad my reputation would be in history if I'm the guy who kills Jesus? I'm not doing that now, I have to take one meeting.

• 1:40:39David Sims?

  Yeah, crucifixion, a bummer. You don't want that happening to you.

• 1:40:42Speaker 02

  Wait, did we pass the Last Supper?

• 1:40:44David Sims?

  You gotta shout out the Last Supper. I gave you the, the gif, but no, yeah, that's pretty good. That's what he did. He had a lot, he had a, it was a seder.

• 1:40:52Speaker 02

  But did they shout out that it's the last one?

• 1:40:55Griffin Newman?

  No, no, they were like, we're gonna do this forever.

• 1:40:58David Sims?

  I'm so full, I couldn't do another one of these. That's what someone should say?

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:03Griffin Newman?

  Guys, meet back here same time next week, right?

• 1:41:06David Sims?

  And so.

• 1:41:06Griffin Newman?

  And let's promise.

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  I feel so great, guys. I'm gonna live forever, man.

• 1:41:13David Sims?

  No one's betraying me, like, Christ is on the cross.

• 1:41:17Griffin Newman?

  No one's betraying me is such a funny thing to announce.

• 1:41:19David Sims?

  Last Supper was such a bummer.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  No one's betraying me.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  Where everyone's like, oh, this is good. And Judas, Jesus is like, why are you gonna betray me by the way? It's like, what? What's he talking about?

• 1:41:28Griffin Newman?

  This guy.

• 1:41:28David Sims?

  God, I hope this doesn't get painted as onto the wall somewhere.

• 1:41:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that would suck to get walled.

• 1:41:33David Sims?

  Christ is on the cross, I'm two hours and five minutes into the movie.

• 1:41:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:38David Sims?

  So it really, The Last Temptation is really the last sort of half hour of the film.

• 1:41:44Griffin Newman?

  This is the happy ending sequence.

• 1:41:45David Sims?

  Right, and you know, a girl approaches him and is like, you did it, buddy, come on down, like.

• 1:41:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Speaker 02

  Can I say real quick?

• 1:41:51Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  There are things, like, I, I always expect this happening, I know it doesn't in the movie, that famously on the cross, there is, there's two criminals being crucified with him.

• 1:42:00David Sims?

  Yes, with unshittier crosses.

• 1:42:02Speaker 02

  Unshittier crosses. One of them is sort of like, ha, ha, look at that guy, he's the king of the Jews, fuck you.

• 1:42:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:42:08Speaker 02

  And the other guy is like, you know, will I be okay? And, and in canonically, in the lore.

• 1:42:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  Jesus says, you know, you'll be with me in paradise. And then, so it's like his last blessing is to this other crucified criminal, which is not in the movie, but is like, it's part of the.

• 1:42:24David Sims?

  But they are there and they are there.

• 1:42:25Speaker 02

  You do see the other, the other crucified man. This, this, this, uh, young girl is sort of like, hey, listen to you this, just like, you know, uh, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He's seeing if you're gonna do it, you did it.

• 1:42:40Griffin Newman?

  You proved that you were ready to do it.

• 1:42:42David Sims?

  It's much like the binding of Isaac of sort of like, yeah, okay, then we believe you that you wanted to do it.

• 1:42:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:47David Sims?

  And so now you are free, essentially. And, uh, here's Mary and you're gonna live a happy life.

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:57David Sims?

  Uh, and he does have sex with her, which people were mad about.

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:00David Sims?

  We will get into this in a second.

• 1:43:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:03David Sims?

  And then she dies and then he just, I just, I mean, it's blasphemous, I suppose, to compare the life of Christ in this film to Star Trek The Next Generation. You can't not think of The Inner Light, the most famous episode of this, of that show. Has anyone, does anyone know what I'm talking about? Okay, do you know what I'm talking about, Jamal? You know this Star Trek guy?

• 1:43:22Speaker 02

  I, you, once you start explaining, I think it'll, it'll jog my memory.

• 1:43:25David Sims?

  Like, start, the starship just like, is like, hey, there's a weird beam, Picard looks at the beam, the whole episode is him living an entire life.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:33David Sims?

  On a village, a very simple life, and then at the end, they're like, hey, what happened? Like, you got knocked out for a second? And it's like, this lost civilization like downloaded its culture into you.

• 1:43:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:45David Sims?

  And you, and he's like, I just lived a whole fucking life, like 50 years. And they're like, oh, okay, weird. You know, and it's an amazing, beautiful episode.

• 1:43:53Griffin Newman?

  What's a conception too? I, I like any story that does this.

• 1:43:57David Sims?

  Of like, right, of someone snapping out of it and like the other person's like, hello? And they're like, I just was gone for 50 years.

• 1:44:03Griffin Newman?

  Sure. Wasn't there recently a story about a, a young woman who was in a coma?

• 1:44:07David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:44:07Griffin Newman?

  And she similarly had like, like a very extreme lucid dream of living an entire lifetime and then woke up and then was like, where are my children?

• 1:44:15Speaker 02

  That's the worst feeling.

• 1:44:17David Sims?

  I don't, I don't like.

• 1:44:17Speaker 02

  I don't like that.

• 1:44:18Griffin Newman?

  It's deeply upsetting.

• 1:44:20David Sims?

  But obviously profound and like, and, and like, that's what happened, Jesus has a, an inner light. He, we watch him in like, you know, yeah, sort of an accelerated pace, like live a whole life.

• 1:44:32Speaker 02

  And he's, he's, he's actually living his life. I mean, the interesting thing in the kind of the tell that this little girl is Satan is she's like, you know, Mary's dead, but like, there's only one woman.

• 1:44:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we, just with different faces.

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  Different faces, so just like find another one.

• 1:44:44Griffin Newman?

  Right, for a second you're like, are Scorsese's gender politics that bad?

• 1:44:47David Sims?

  But then you realize what she's saying.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  That was the devil.

• 1:44:50Griffin Newman?

  I'm the devil.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  Little Andrew Tate right there, that's.

• 1:44:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 1:44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's going on.

• 1:44:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, um.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  Uh, but then he goes, he goes to Mary's sister of Lazarus.

• 1:44:59David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:45:00Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:00Speaker 02

  Who he, he meets earlier, they, after he comes out of the desert after the first temptations, he meets her and her sister Martha and they bring him back to hell. And so he, and, and Mary is clearly interested in him.

• 1:45:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:45:12Speaker 02

  So he returns to her and that's with her, that he has the family, though it suggested that like, it's like kind of a polyamorous situation going on.

• 1:45:19Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 1:45:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:20David Sims?

  Well, Jesus was poly, no, I'm kidding, I don't.

• 1:45:23Griffin Newman?

  This is what I'm saying, or is, is, has everything we've said been offensive? Um, I, I, I think it's important though that it's not like his life is like perfect and idyllic, he has to lose Mary Magdalene.

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  No, he has a realistic-ish, although it's odd and fantastical in a way, but like, right.

• 1:45:39Griffin Newman?

  It's that he lives a normal life.

• 1:45:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:45:41Griffin Newman?

  Is that a, a life of a normal human being without this burden?

• 1:45:45David Sims?

  Fucking kids like coming back from like the market.

• 1:45:48Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:45:48David Sims?

  And then, you know, that's when he sees, um, now Paul.

• 1:45:52Speaker 02

  Preaching about him.

• 1:45:54David Sims?

  About the road to Damascus.

• 1:45:55Speaker 02

  Um, and Jesus confronts him, he's like, I'm the guy you're talking about.

• 1:45:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:59Speaker 02

  He's like, I, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't resurrected, I, I'm a man.

• 1:46:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:46:04Speaker 02

  I'm just hanging out here.

• 1:46:05Griffin Newman?

  I'm just a guy.

• 1:46:06Speaker 02

  I fuck.

• 1:46:07Griffin Newman?

  Isn't there the thing too where he, uh, he does yell that really loudly?

• 1:46:11Speaker 02

  He says, I fuck.

• 1:46:11Griffin Newman?

  He goes, I fuck.

• 1:46:12Speaker 02

  But I guess that's sort of the implication of like, this is imagining a world where like Jesus's myth.

• 1:46:18David Sims?

  Exists, but the real guy is sort of put in parallel with it.

• 1:46:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:22David Sims?

  And then occasionally we'll just realize that that's happening around him of like, people are spreading his gospel and.

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  But also sort of like Paul is preaching and like no one's particularly interested.

• 1:46:31David Sims?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:46:32Speaker 02

  That's, that's.

• 1:46:32David Sims?

  It's not catching on.

• 1:46:33Speaker 02

  It's not catching on.

• 1:46:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:34Speaker 02

  So the message is out there, but the absence of the sacrifice means it's sort of like, you know.

• 1:46:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, also when Mary Magdalene dies and he says like, why can't we bring her back the way you brought me back? And it's like, no, it's not like this. This is God's will. Like she has to go. You get to stay. This isn't a thing you get to horse trade about. Like he realizes the part of the give of living a normal life is he's not in conversation with God.

• 1:47:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:01Griffin Newman?

  And miracles don't happen. He doesn't get to negotiate with reality in that kind of way.

• 1:47:05David Sims?

  Right. And then when he is on his deathbed.

• 1:47:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:47:08David Sims?

  And Ben, we've talked about deathbeds before, if you remember on our Sense and Sensibility episode.

• 1:47:12Speaker 02

  Deathbed, the bed that kills.

• 1:47:14David Sims?

  That is.

• 1:47:14Speaker 02

  We should cover that movie on this show. Don't you think?

• 1:47:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, we can cover that someday. Who, who directed that? John Badham?

• 1:47:21Speaker 02

  I just assume when you say deathbed, that's what we're talking about.

• 1:47:23Griffin Newman?

  It was in the Sense and Sensibility episode at the beginning of the movie. It's Tom Wilkinson's character.

• 1:47:28David Sims?

  I believe so. Someone's on a deathbed.

• 1:47:29Griffin Newman?

  And Ben very earnestly said, we see this old guy. He's on his deathbed and then we never see him again. What happened?

• 1:47:35Speaker 02

  No, I didn't say, I said he was in bed.

• 1:47:38David Sims?

  And we're like, yo, that was his deathbed. You're like, well, no, no one communicated that it was the death.

• 1:47:43Speaker 02

  Wasn't clear to me.

• 1:47:44David Sims?

  Right. It was just a bed to me. It wasn't like made of skulls.

• 1:47:48Griffin Newman?

  Ben wants clear demarcation of what is a bed versus a deathbed, which is a good point. You don't want to get into a deathbed by accident just because you're sleepy.

• 1:47:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:47:56David Sims?

  That's true. You might never wake up.

• 1:47:58Griffin Newman?

  Ben, Ben just looked at me so seriously when he said, right.

• 1:48:02Speaker 02

  And it's what I've been saying. And also people could visit you while you're in bed and you could have a conversation. That's totally fine and normal. Doesn't mean that you're on your deathbed.

• 1:48:10David Sims?

  That's true.

• 1:48:11Griffin Newman?

  No, but that guy was on his deathbed.

• 1:48:12David Sims?

  All right. Well.

• 1:48:13Speaker 02

  Well, Jesus here is on his deathbed and he is very aged.

• 1:48:17David Sims?

  Yes. Uh, and yeah, and they bring in Judas and other guys.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  Then it seems like the rebellion's happening outside. So we hear like, you know, there's fire, you're screaming. And the disciples come in and they all come in and they're sort of like, heard you were dying, wanted to, wanted to see you. Been a long time. And Judas comes in and is like, you fucked up. It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to sacrifice yourself.

• 1:48:43David Sims?

  You got scared essentially. You were about to die and then you got off the cross.

• 1:48:47Speaker 02

  I did my part.

• 1:48:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:48:48Speaker 02

  Why couldn't you do your part? And this is my favorite part. Then he like turns to the, he's like, then, then Judas, Jesus is like, well, I had, I had a guardian, God sent a guardian angel. And Judas like looks over and he's like, bro, that's Satan.

• 1:49:03David Sims?

  Takes one look, one look.

• 1:49:05Griffin Newman?

  Immediate.

• 1:49:06David Sims?

  He's like, have you ever seen a movie, a little creepy girl?

• 1:49:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. What are you talking about?

• 1:49:09David Sims?

  Who's like really calm? That's always a bad guy.

• 1:49:12Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen Resident Evil?

• 1:49:13David Sims?

  Yeah. You ever seen fucking X-Men two? Yeah, come on.

• 1:49:17Griffin Newman?

  William Stryker's in your brain, bro. He's made Cerebro bad, bro.

• 1:49:22David Sims?

  Goes, yeah, I saw X-Men two.

• 1:49:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, of course I saw X-Men two. X-Men United. And he was like, was that the actual title or is that more of a promo title?

• 1:49:29David Sims?

  Title is X two. Title card in the movie is just X two.

• 1:49:33Griffin Newman?

  But I think it's fun to call it X-Men United.

• 1:49:34David Sims?

  Kind of, but how united are they? Actually are fighting most of the time.

• 1:49:37Griffin Newman?

  It is weird that the movie goes into a 15 minute argument about the title of X two between Harvey Keitel and Willem Dafoe.

• 1:49:56David Sims?

  And then so Jesus like runs out, you know, being like, I wanna be fucking Jesus. I'm sorry.

• 1:50:02Speaker 02

  He drags himself out.

• 1:50:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:03Speaker 02

  And it's, it's a great scene. It's also very kind of like, it's a wonderful life scene.

• 1:50:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:50:08David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, no.

• 1:50:11Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:50:11David Sims?

  Well, well, I wanna be crushed by.

• 1:50:15Speaker 02

  That cross looks fun to me.

• 1:50:18David Sims?

  They do a rewind like effect. They're like. They bring it back to it. Would be very blasphemous, but good. Like him like going, like getting rewound, blacked back onto the cross, right?

• 1:50:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:32David Sims?

  And you have that like Marty Zoom of him like back on the cross, right? And he says it is accomplished. This is where I'm starting to freak out like, and I'm just like, oh my God. And then it, you know, it goes to those crazy lights. And that was because and a cameraman exposed the magazine too early.

• 1:50:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50:51David Sims?

  And it fucked up, you know, the film.

• 1:50:53Griffin Newman?

  But it's like Stan Bracken shit almost.

• 1:50:56David Sims?

  That's the thing. And so, and when they shot, they were like, we're, we're screwed because like Willem can only be up there for a minute and like, it's so hard to shoot this shit. And then like they watched it, like they, they, he keeps the damage taken as he's like, it's like, his soul is going to happen.

• 1:51:11Griffin Newman?

  The whole thing.

• 1:51:11David Sims?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's perfect.

• 1:51:12Speaker 02

  I, when I was watching this, I watched this on Tuesday night. Was it, was it last night?

• 1:51:17David Sims?

  Yeah, it was last night. We were recording.

• 1:51:19Griffin Newman?

  I watched it last night.

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I watched it Tuesday night last night and I had like do stuff around the house. So I have it on and I'm like paying attention and watching it, but I'm also sort of doing things where I can. But this last 30 minutes, I'm just like transfixed. And that part, I'm, I'm like, every time it moves me. It's just, it's.

• 1:51:33David Sims?

  Crazy.

• 1:51:34Speaker 02

  It's sort of like.

• 1:51:35David Sims?

  It really gets me.

• 1:51:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's like the movie itself is transcending. Like the film from the camera is like rising to the heavens.

• 1:51:41Speaker 02

  It feels like in that moment that like they captured something very real.

• 1:51:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:47Speaker 02

  And like it can't be expressed through normal beams anymore.

• 1:51:51David Sims?

  And it is one of those things where I'm like, if they could just tell all the people who are mad to watch the whole movie, but they gotta watch it all. They gotta make it all the way to the end. Cause the end really sells it.

• 1:51:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:02Griffin Newman?

  The fact that it's.

• 1:52:02David Sims?

  And then Peter Gabrielgum just popping off. He did the movie basically for free.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:07David Sims?

  You know, cause like Marty and everybody money. And he was like, I loved it. I brought in like voices from like all over the world, like mixing all this music together.

• 1:52:14Griffin Newman?

  As passion music from the last temptation.

• 1:52:16David Sims?

  Great work music. I listen to it all the time.

• 1:52:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. I listen to it quite a bit too. And I'm reading.

• 1:52:20Griffin Newman?

  But like every movie set in the Middle East now sounds like this because of this score.

• 1:52:24David Sims?

  A little bit. Well, there's that 2000 era where there's always just a woman going like.

• 1:52:30David Sims?

  The minute they cut to like the helicopter shot of like Somalia or Saudi Arabia, wherever.

• 1:52:38Speaker 02

  Usually the way it goes is it's like, ah, then like a cut that's like a guy on like the street, like kind of looking.

• 1:52:44Griffin Newman?

  And then it's like drumming.

• 1:52:46David Sims?

  And you see like a market.

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:48David Sims?

  Wow. I feel like I'm in the, in a pitch meeting right now.

• 1:52:52Griffin Newman?

  But I like watched this and I was like, oh, so this is where it all starts. And then I go onto the Wikipedia page for the album and it's like commonly cited as the breakthrough moment for world music in America.

• 1:53:02David Sims?

  No, very much so.

• 1:53:03Griffin Newman?

  So not only is it like, this changes the way people think of scoring films set in the Middle East, but this like popularizes new age world music.

• 1:53:11David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, along with like Graceland, right? The Paul Simon. I'm like, that's sort of like late eighties, kind of like, hey, man, there's music beyond European music, classical. Like there's, there's other continents out there.

• 1:53:22Griffin Newman?

  Which I'm still unconvinced, I'll believe it when I see it.

• 1:53:28David Sims?

  Scorsese. Uh, so this film, okay. In post-production, start to get in a little bit of trouble. There's some demonstrations. They're editing the film. They want to show it to some religious groups, like to screen it, you know, to sort of like get ahead of things. The religious groups don't show up. Instead, the only people at the screening are Marty, his crew, Jack Valenti, head of MPA, I assume at the time.

• 1:53:48Griffin Newman?

  Boom boom Valenti.

• 1:53:49David Sims?

  Uh, Paul Newman. I guess he's just, he's just in town.

• 1:53:53Griffin Newman?

  The king of kings.

• 1:53:54David Sims?

  Color money, right? And a man from Time Magazine. Then they finally got some religious people to see it who are a little hostile, but mostly are kind of into it. Um, you know, demonstrations are getting really ugly. There's a lot of antisemitism directed towards Lou Losserman, who's the head of MCA, who has nothing to do with the movie. You know what I mean? Like there's just a lot of general kind of like hate stuff happening. Schrader's viewpoint is like, this is an anti-intellectual wing of social and political Christianity. Like it doesn't have much to do with like Christian theological thought. It's what you're talking about. This sort of like weaponized political sort of wing of whatever Christianity that's sort of like becoming more and more powerful.

• 1:54:36David Sims?

  The old Schrader script gets sent around. Apparently that has something that sort of suggests that Jesus was maybe gay for a minute there or something and they get really mad about that. And they're like, that's an old script. Like we didn't shoot that.

• 1:54:51Speaker 02

  There's an actual thing called the secret gospel of Mark, which is like in one of the apocryphal gospel texts.

• 1:54:58David Sims?

  That was on ABC Family, right?

• 1:55:01David Sims?

  That's just a terrible, terrible joke by me.

• 1:55:03Griffin Newman?

  Can I, can I get my alt?

• 1:55:05David Sims?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:55:05Griffin Newman?

  And you could read that gospel on Lipstick Alley, right?

• 1:55:08Speaker 02

  That's right. It's correct. Yes.

• 1:55:09David Sims?

  Okay. This, but is, is that gospel? Does that have?

• 1:55:13Speaker 02

  That has.

• 1:55:13David Sims?

  That suggests.

• 1:55:14Speaker 02

  It's, it suggests like, you know, that they have this like moment of ecstasy and like, it's sort of like, well, what does that mean? And one suggestion is a men sort of like an orgy.

• 1:55:24Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 1:55:25Speaker 02

  But like that's, I doubt, I don't, I doubt Schrader's.

• 1:55:27David Sims?

  I mean, look, if they ever want to like, you know, sort of jazz up the Bible for like a new generation, they can throw that in there.

• 1:55:34Griffin Newman?

  Are they sure it wasn't like a literal moment of ecstasy? Like they took half a tab?

• 1:55:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, half a tab.

• 1:55:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:39Speaker 02

  It's me.

• 1:55:39Griffin Newman?

  It's possible.

• 1:55:41Speaker 02

  I mean, just, just the, the, like, we've, we've, we've said this a couple of times already, but the movie really does take quite seriously the.

• 1:55:53Speaker 02

  It positions Jesus as being very strange, a very strange man in that he's in age where the expectation is that the Messiah would be a literal king.

• 1:56:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:03Speaker 02

  A literal guy who would like kill the Romans.

• 1:56:06Griffin Newman?

  And, and right, who would overtake and rule us all.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  Right. That's what people, the expectation is that, yeah, there's gonna be a Messiah. He's gonna show up and he's gonna sort of like beat the Romans to death and establish a kingdom where we can live as we please.

• 1:56:21David Sims?

  That's leadership, basically, in those days.

• 1:56:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:23David Sims?

  I mean, hey, man.

• 1:56:24Griffin Newman?

  Kind of the one way.

• 1:56:25Speaker 02

  And, and the movies, Jesus portrayed as saying, no, it's, you know, the kingdom is already here. It is spiritual. It is like us loving each other, us like, you know, accepting each other as like fully each other. It's recognizing God's limitless and universal love. And everyone's like, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Um, and.

• 1:56:48David Sims?

  Which makes, people die like the age of 32 back then. What are you fucking talking about?

• 1:56:52Griffin Newman?

  Maybe we're like, we should be open to rethinking some of this.

• 1:56:55Speaker 02

  And, and the movie shows like Jesus is so persistent about this. It convinces people. People are persuaded. They believe him and they follow him. And it's, it's a very powerful depiction of both like the radicalism of the message and the way that, yeah, then and now, it's sort of, it's kind of a crazy thing to say.

• 1:57:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:57:15Speaker 02

  And it's like very funny to me that people who like hold, who self-identify as like, you know, conservative Christian, fundamentalist Christian, what have you, would like see this and get angry about it. It's like, I don't, this is quite flattering to the entire system.

• 1:57:31David Sims?

  It's why you assume a lot of them just didn't see it.

• 1:57:34Speaker 02

  Didn't see it, aren't thinking about it in those terms.

• 1:57:37Griffin Newman?

  Also that they've built a relationship with a modern version of Jesus that they have rebuilt to their worldview, that they don't really want to be in conversation with what this guy was originally.

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  And I'll say, I mean, to me, the, the most important line in the movie, theologically speaking, is when he is arguing with the religious authorities. And he says, God is not an Israelite. And that's very much a statement of like universalism, that like God doesn't belong to us.

• 1:58:08David Sims?

  Right. He's not a nationalist figure. He's for everybody.

• 1:58:11Speaker 02

  Given the current political climate, like, I think people would hear that and get very upset, even today.

• 1:58:16David Sims?

  Even that, right.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Right. Like, you know, because quite literally, like the people running the military are like, yeah, God, God's an American and he fucking loves F-35s.

• 1:58:25Griffin Newman?

  You, you wrote this on your Letterboxd log last night, but you said, one final thought. It makes total sense to me that fundamentalists hate this movie. Of course they would. Christ as emissary of total and all encompassing love is in direct tension with the quote unquote Christ of vengeance and domination that is in vogue in this country, which is the thing. It's like.

• 1:58:44Speaker 02

  That sounds really good.

• 1:58:45Griffin Newman?

  It does. It's a good piece of writing right there. That's a nice little write-up. But, but it is, it's, it's that, you know, they, they would hate this guy if they met him tomorrow.

• 1:58:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:58:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:58:57David Sims?

  I mean, it's the same with all this shit. They'd fucking hate Ronald Reagan.

• 1:59:00Griffin Newman?

  They'd hate Ronald Reagan.

• 1:59:01David Sims?

  They'd hate his ass. Nah, he'd win them over.

• 1:59:03Griffin Newman?

  He went to bed with a monkey?

• 1:59:05David Sims?

  So, uh, the film fundamentally also just comes out in August, which is a bit of an odd time to release it, but whatever. Uh, and doesn't make much money. You know, made about eight million dollars.

• 1:59:16Speaker 02

  Would you have done Christmas?

• 1:59:19Griffin Newman?

  Possibly.

• 1:59:20Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:59:21Griffin Newman?

  Easter?

• 1:59:21David Sims?

  When, I mean, I don't know what the eighties landscape, like now you're like, well, this is a prestige movie. Like, you want it in the fall, like blah, blah, blah. Um.

• 1:59:30Speaker 02

  I mean, if you, it's like, if you want, if you're trying not to court controversy, you release it in August.

• 1:59:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It's kind of smart of them to put it out in August, considering, uh, what clamor there was around it. Yeah.

• 1:59:42Speaker 02

  If this were a Christmas movie.

• 1:59:44Griffin Newman?

  People would be up in arse.

• 1:59:46Speaker 02

  Marty would legitimately have good reason to want a bodyguard with him at all times.

• 1:59:51David Sims?

  He says the movie put him in debt and like he didn't come out of it until he made Cape Fear.

• 1:59:57Griffin Newman?

  It did do very well overseas. It made a decent amount of money. It made back its budget, certainly. Cause it ended up making like 30 worldwide. I think 28 or 30.

• 2:00:06David Sims?

  I don't know where you're getting that number, but I believe you.

• 2:00:08Griffin Newman?

  I saw it in a couple places.

• 2:00:10David Sims?

  Um, but sure. I mean, cause then, you know, the box office managers and all that are bad now. Um, but.

• 2:00:15Griffin Newman?

  Internationally grossed 25 million for worldwide gross of 33 was in a variety write-up in 1995. Um, but, uh, as part of the deal of him agreeing to make this movie, he promised Universal that he would make a bigger budget film for them later, which he was planning to make Schindler's Arc, which later became Schindler's List, which turns into the swap that lands with Spielberg giving him Cape Fear.

• 2:00:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:40Griffin Newman?

  And so Cape Fear is.

• 2:00:42David Sims?

  Which is a moneymaker.

• 2:00:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:00:43David Sims?

  Although he says then, then Gangs of New York put me back in debt and then the departed took me out of it again. Like, you know, who knows?

• 2:00:49Griffin Newman?

  But, but yeah, Cape Fear is a direct result of his deal with Universal for this movie.

• 2:00:53David Sims?

  It's a movie like Mulholland Drive. I wonder how many of these movies exist that gets one nomination at the Oscars for best director.

• 2:01:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It's very rare.

• 2:01:01David Sims?

  Kind of the Oscar thing of like, I don't know, man. Good job. Like, fuck, Jesus.

• 2:01:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, Blue Velvet was the same thing.

• 2:01:08David Sims?

  Did Blue Velvet only get the one nom?

• 2:01:09Griffin Newman?

  Only gets the one, I believe. I think Lynch is the only guy to pull that off twice.

• 2:01:13David Sims?

  I need, I need a full list of this if the nerds can tell me of like how many times that's happened. Uh, the film got great reviews. Like it was celebrated by critics, but obviously through, between the controversy and it being a two hour, 40 movie, minute, 40 minute movie about Jesus, you know, it's not a life-changing like sort of success.

• 2:01:34Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:35David Sims?

  It's, it's had a great legacy.

• 2:01:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think, I think.

• 2:01:38David Sims?

  I think it's now so well appreciated.

• 2:01:40Speaker 02

  I think it's, I think, I think most people who like, you know, think about this stuff recognize it as like one of like the highlights of Chris's career. And I think it's given people much more, a greater appreciation for Chris as his just religious pictures, right? Like.

• 2:01:52David Sims?

  Yeah. Right. Cause of course, because he makes Kundun in Silence, he has this kind of loose trilogy.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:59David Sims?

  About faith that is really fun to sort of, right, take in totality. Um.

• 2:02:05Griffin Newman?

  Take as you will. Collider says there are seven movies. The In of the Sixth Happiness in 1958.

• 2:02:12David Sims?

  I don't know where that is.

• 2:02:13Griffin Newman?

  Alice's Restaurant, Arthur Penn.

• 2:02:15David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:02:16Griffin Newman?

  Fellini's Satyricon.

• 2:02:17David Sims?

  Well, that's one for sure.

• 2:02:18Griffin Newman?

  Blue Velvet.

• 2:02:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:20Griffin Newman?

  Last Temptation of Christ, Short Cuts, Mulholland Drive.

• 2:02:24David Sims?

  Short Cuts is a wild one too. Again, where they're just kind of like, look, man.

• 2:02:28Griffin Newman?

  You're back.

• 2:02:28David Sims?

  Maybe too weird for us, but good job doing that.

• 2:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That, that looked complicated. Those cuts were really short.

• 2:02:36David Sims?

  Uh, obviously that's the Rain Man year at the Oscars. Barry Levinson wins best director. Um, let's do the box office game.

• 2:02:42Griffin Newman?

  Barbara Hershey got a Globe nomination.

• 2:02:44David Sims?

  That's interesting. Yeah. I forgot about that. Okay.

• 2:02:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:02:47David Sims?

  God bless her.

• 2:02:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and I think it got picture in director at the Globes as nominations as well. The Globes were friendlier to this movie.

• 2:02:52David Sims?

  Because they were more Euro and I feel like this movie, apart from the fact that like half of Europe was on fire about it, like this movie played better in Europe.

• 2:02:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:00David Sims?

  Um, no, it just got, no, it just got Barbara Hershey in score.

• 2:03:04Griffin Newman?

  Oh, weird. Okay.

• 2:03:05David Sims?

  Yeah. And, you know, that's kind of it. It made like the MBR top 10. Like it didn't, yeah, it was mostly ignored.

• 2:03:11Griffin Newman?

  The rude, uh, Cutel Raspberry nomination.

• 2:03:15David Sims?

  Good. Right. And then of course, like his follow-up is Goodfellas.

• 2:03:18Griffin Newman?

  His follow-up is Goodfellas.

• 2:03:19David Sims?

  Which is like a good follow-up.

• 2:03:21Speaker 02

  Which probably just overshadows it as well, you know?

• 2:03:23David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 2:03:23Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent.

• 2:03:25David Sims?

  The movie comes out August 12th, 1988. It's opening number 13 at the box office, Griffin. So we're not gonna.

• 2:03:30Griffin Newman?

  Unlucky.

• 2:03:30David Sims?

  Yeah, that's true. Number one at the box office is, um, uh, Western.

• 2:03:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a Western in 1988. It's not Silverado, is it?

• 2:03:41David Sims?

  No. I would say it's a, a little, it's a Western with more of like a modern twist. Not in terms of setting, but in terms of like kind of attitude.

• 2:03:49Griffin Newman?

  Young Guns?

• 2:03:51David Sims?

  That's correct.

• 2:03:52Griffin Newman?

  What if guns were young?

• 2:03:53David Sims?

  You know, Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen.

• 2:03:57Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:57David Sims?

  Dermot Mulroney?

• 2:03:59Griffin Newman?

  The big six? How many are we up to at this point?

• 2:04:02David Sims?

  Yeah, that's six guys. Six Reasons Why the West Was Wild. That's the tagline. Never seen Young Guns.

• 2:04:07Griffin Newman?

  Me neither.

• 2:04:08David Sims?

  Um, but, uh, you know, Brat Pack. I guess it's like, it's Emilio Estevez's Billy the Kid, but it's like all made up, right? I think, I think they kind of made it up after that.

• 2:04:16Griffin Newman?

  I think that movie took some liberties.

• 2:04:18David Sims?

  Uh, haven't seen Young Guns 2, but of course that also has the, the, the classic tagline, uh, the West just got wilder.

• 2:04:28Speaker 02

  The Wild Wild West, you mentioned.

• 2:04:30David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, and then of course we were introduced to the Wild Wild West.

• 2:04:33Speaker 02

  Wild Wild West.

• 2:04:35Griffin Newman?

  Tim West, Desperado?

• 2:04:37David Sims?

  Keep going.

• 2:04:38Speaker 02

  Roughneck.

• 2:04:39Griffin Newman?

  No, you don't. No nada.

• 2:04:41David Sims?

  Or I want nada or no nada. I can't remember.

• 2:04:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:43David Sims?

  I remember nada.

• 2:04:44Griffin Newman?

  Nada. We all remember nada. Uh, what's number two at the box office?

• 2:04:49David Sims?

  Number two at the box office is number one the previous week.

• 2:04:52Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:53David Sims?

  It's a big hit. Starring a big movie star. You know, it's a bit of a cult classic. I would say this movie is stupid bullshit.

• 2:05:00Griffin Newman?

  You would say this movie is stupid bullshit, but you say it has rocks for brains?

• 2:05:04David Sims?

  Yes, exactly.

• 2:05:05Griffin Newman?

  That's one of your favorite slams.

• 2:05:06David Sims?

  This movie has rocks for brains is exactly how to describe it. It's pretty fun. Cult classic might be too nice to it. Cause it was a hit. Like it was a huge hit.

• 2:05:14Griffin Newman?

  The big action stars?

• 2:05:15David Sims?

  It's one of the big action stars. It's not an action movie.

• 2:05:17Griffin Newman?

  It's not.

• 2:05:18David Sims?

  No.

• 2:05:19Griffin Newman?

  It's a dumb.

• 2:05:19David Sims?

  But it kind of has an action movie sensibility to it.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  It's not Kindergarten Cop.

• 2:05:23David Sims?

  No, it's even stupider than that.

• 2:05:25Griffin Newman?

  It's dumber than that?

• 2:05:26David Sims?

  It's one of the dumbest movies ever made.

• 2:05:28Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the dumbest movies ever made.

• 2:05:30David Sims?

  Biggest movie stars of all time. What could this possibly be?

• 2:05:34Griffin Newman?

  So it's not, it's not a Bruce, a Stallone or Schwartz?

• 2:05:37David Sims?

  No, no. Okay. No, sorry. Uh, action star was maybe misleading there. No, bigger star than that. A less star.

• 2:05:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:05:43David Sims?

  Kind of early-ish in his stardom, but no, he's pretty famous for this. You know, he's made giant hits.

• 2:05:48Griffin Newman?

  It's not a Hanks?

• 2:05:50David Sims?

  No, you're close.

• 2:05:51Griffin Newman?

  I'm close.

• 2:05:52David Sims?

  Same for his name.

• 2:05:53Griffin Newman?

  Tom Cruise.

• 2:05:54David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:05:55Speaker 02

  Is it a?

• 2:05:56Griffin Newman?

  Tep?

• 2:05:57David Sims?

  That's right. Jemel, where are you gonna go?

• 2:05:58Speaker 02

  I was about to say Cocktail.

• 2:05:59David Sims?

  I mean, the stupidest movie he ever made.

• 2:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:06:01Speaker 02

  Right? That's when he's making a string of these movies. He was like, there's like young hot shot guy.

• 2:06:05David Sims?

  Yeah. It's true. And it's just, it's the classic, like, you know, he's like, so I became the best cocktail guy in the world. And you're like, what does that mean? And he's like, you know how you could mix a drink like this? I don't do that. I do.

• 2:06:16Griffin Newman?

  I do crazy things. A movie based on TGI Fridays.

• 2:06:19David Sims?

  Right. Based on the guy who invented TGI Fridays.

• 2:06:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And how hot that was, that they created a singles bar for the first time. What if bars weren't where men went to not go to therapy? What if bars are where men went to try to get laid? And, and the guys did crazy cocktails.

• 2:06:35David Sims?

  Tom Cruise, Brian Brown. Brian Brown is still alive. Do you think Brian Brown every like six months, like texts him being like, tell two mate?

• 2:06:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:43Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 2:06:44Griffin Newman?

  Cocktail two is when we need to like hold Tom Cruise intervention. The fact that he's prioritizing Color of Money or prioritizing Days of Thunder over Color of Money. I'm like, my guy, if you want to do another legacy sequel over doing Top Gun three, don't do the fucking racing movie when you've already done Top Gun and they've already done F1. I don't think there's anything left to be said there.

• 2:07:09David Sims?

  Yeah, I assume with Days of Thunder, he's just kind of like, you know, car will go fast. People seem to like that, right? Like, I don't know.

• 2:07:15Griffin Newman?

  Do fucking Color of Money with like Kaylee Spaney or some shit. Cast someone I'm not thinking of.

• 2:07:20Speaker 02

  I don't understand. Well, if you were to do a Color of Money legacy sequel, wouldn't it just be the Color of Money again?

• 2:07:26Griffin Newman?

  I think the way you could make it work is if it's somewhat, you flip it back. Cause what works in Color of Money is that there's such different types.

• 2:07:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:36Griffin Newman?

  That you need to think of what's the third type of pool hall hustler? Where Cruise wouldn't quite understand coming from being such a hot shot, how they do it.

• 2:07:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:46David Sims?

  Maybe it's crypto.

• 2:07:48Speaker 02

  Maybe it's crypto.

• 2:07:49David Sims?

  This time.

• 2:07:49Speaker 02

  That sounds great.

• 2:07:50Griffin Newman?

  Crypto, it's in the way that you lose it.

• 2:07:52Speaker 02

  Maybe it's like a Finding Forrester kind of movie.

• 2:07:54Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. David, that was pointed, wasn't it?

• 2:07:57David Sims?

  I like that.

• 2:07:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:58David Sims?

  Um, uh, yeah. So Cocktail's number two. Uh, I've seen Cocktail once. It's a, I mean, what, what movie more has rocks in its brains than Cocktail? Right? Like that's right.

• 2:08:09Griffin Newman?

  It's on the rocks.

• 2:08:10David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, it is on the rocks. Number three of the box office is an action film. It's one of the best movies ever made.

• 2:08:15Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the best movies ever made.

• 2:08:17David Sims?

  Die Hard. There you go.

• 2:08:18Griffin Newman?

  There you go.

• 2:08:19David Sims?

  1988, Die Hard.

• 2:08:22Griffin Newman?

  No question there.

• 2:08:22David Sims?

  Been out for a month. It's doing great. People like it. And it's gonna have a strong legacy as an action film.

• 2:08:29Griffin Newman?

  What's proving to be very popular is its goodness.

• 2:08:32David Sims?

  Is all the stuff that happens in it.

• 2:08:33Griffin Newman?

  The quality of the movie.

• 2:08:36David Sims?

  Number four of the box office is a comedy that is a pretty solid hit and is also nominated for best director at the Oscars in a somewhat surprising.

• 2:08:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Fish Called Wanda?

• 2:08:45David Sims?

  Fish Called Wanda.

• 2:08:46Griffin Newman?

  Had to be.

• 2:08:46David Sims?

  Yes. Uh, which, you know, Kevin Kline also, Charles Crichton, the ealing comedy director, who's very old at that point.

• 2:08:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:08:54David Sims?

  So it's kind of a like, hey, good job.

• 2:08:56Griffin Newman?

  I think his line was like, it's, it's an 80 year overnight success story or something like that. Yeah.

• 2:09:02David Sims?

  Haven't seen it since I was a teenager. Loved, loved it then.

• 2:09:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:06David Sims?

  You okay?

• 2:09:08Speaker 02

  Peanut.

• 2:09:09David Sims?

  Do I have to give you the?

• 2:09:12Speaker 02

  The Heimlich maneuver?

• 2:09:13David Sims?

  I mean, God, this many years in the, we gotta spice things up every, gotta have something crazy happen every year.

• 2:09:18Griffin Newman?

  We all need to save each other's lives.

• 2:09:19David Sims?

  Remember the Heimlich episode?

• 2:09:20Griffin Newman?

  That's how we get another 10 years out of the podcast.

• 2:09:23David Sims?

  Do you like a Fish Called Wanda? Anyone like a Fish Called Wanda? It's funny.

• 2:09:26Griffin Newman?

  I like it. I believe the BAFTAs that year gave their best supporting actor to Michael Palin. And I agree that Michael Palin is the best performance in that movie.

• 2:09:34David Sims?

  He's very funny. Um, they nominated Kline in lead is part of why that happened. But then they gave John Cleese the trophy for best lead.

• 2:09:42Griffin Newman?

  They loved that movie.

• 2:09:44David Sims?

  I mean, it's a very British movie and it was a success. Uh, so I think they're really happy. But Palin's very funny in that movie.

• 2:09:50Griffin Newman?

  I think Palin's phenomenal in it. Palin also just one of my favorites.

• 2:09:52David Sims?

  I was gonna say, you also just love the guy. But Kline's really funny.

• 2:09:55Griffin Newman?

  No, Kline's great in it.

• 2:09:56David Sims?

  And it's the rare, like full comedic performance, winning an Oscar, kind of right? Like where it's like, goddamn, like, we got, and you know what else Kline is in that movie?

• 2:10:05Griffin Newman?

  Hot.

• 2:10:05David Sims?

  Hot as.

• 2:10:06Griffin Newman?

  He's really hot. Kline rules.

• 2:10:08David Sims?

  He does.

• 2:10:09Griffin Newman?

  Jemel, what do you, the scene in Dave, as someone who covers politics. The scene in Dave where.

• 2:10:16Speaker 02

  I've not seen Dave in many years.

• 2:10:17Griffin Newman?

  Oh, really?

• 2:10:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember the scene where Sigourney Weaver walks in on him in the shower?

• 2:10:22Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 2:10:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:10:24Speaker 02

  Is he hot in that though?

• 2:10:26Griffin Newman?

  He's really hot in it. Yeah.

• 2:10:27Speaker 02

  Is Sigourney hot in that though?

• 2:10:28Griffin Newman?

  Sigourney's smoking hot.

• 2:10:31David Sims?

  Isn't she?

• 2:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:33David Sims?

  Even though she's got like a Hillary Clinton haircut and pantsuits or what? She looks great.

• 2:10:36Griffin Newman?

  Remember the basic premise of Dave?

• 2:10:38Speaker 02

  It's like the president's accountant or something becomes president?

• 2:10:41Griffin Newman?

  No, it's just a guy who looks like him.

• 2:10:42David Sims?

  President's a jerk, has a stroke, goes into a coma. Rather than deal with this, they find someone who looks like him. And they're like, you'll just do what we tell you. We, because we just need to get this like budget passed and shit. Right? And Kline's like, okay, well, whatever you want. And then he's like, and by the way, I have some ideas, like, and he starts to be a really good president.

• 2:11:00Speaker 02

  That's so, it's so funny. That, that's funny, but also in reality, when this happens, which it does on occasion, the president has a stroke.

• 2:11:08David Sims?

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:11:09Griffin Newman?

  They pull a Dave.

• 2:11:10Speaker 02

  They do a weekend at Bernie's. No one pulls a Dave. They do like a sort of like, yeah, the president's still alive. Sure. Who gives a fuck?

• 2:11:16Griffin Newman?

  The big thing in Dave is they're like, he's never waking up.

• 2:11:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:11:21Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's like, this is it.

• 2:11:23David Sims?

  Right. Is that then that is true? Or no, he does wake up? No, he dies.

• 2:11:27Griffin Newman?

  They pull the plug.

• 2:11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, they pull the plug.

• 2:11:29David Sims?

  I, you know, I kind of think, you know, we have.

• 2:11:31Griffin Newman?

  Not on Dave, the other guy, but then they pretend that Dave died.

• 2:11:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:11:35Griffin Newman?

  These are Dave spoilers.

• 2:11:37Speaker 02

  If Trump were to be debilitated, I think, I think we get a couple of weeks of a weekend at Bernie's situation.

• 2:11:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:11:45David Sims?

  Like weird tweets.

• 2:11:46Speaker 02

  Before anyone would find out.

• 2:11:47David Sims?

  I mean, it's sort of what people thought was happening with Biden for a while, where like he was so bad at the debate where people were like, is he like fucking dead or something?

• 2:11:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:11:54David Sims?

  Or like a puppet or something? Like what was that? And then it was like, no, he's fine. He has the flu. Don't worry about it. And then like people started being like, I don't know. I got a meeting with him and he like, didn't know where I was. And everyone started going crazy.

• 2:12:05Griffin Newman?

  But Mitch McConnell's really alive, right?

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's totally alive. Never been healthier, never been better.

• 2:12:10Griffin Newman?

  I saw a really fun video of him tap dancing yesterday.

• 2:12:13David Sims?

  The thing where he was holding the day's newspaper in the one picture is the sort of like, my T-shirt is answering questions as, you know, you know what I mean? Where it's still like, I'm still alive. I'm holding this newspaper. It's like, right. We all love to hold the newspaper to prove that we're alive every day. Like that's a normal way to go through life.

• 2:12:30Griffin Newman?

  I hate generative AI, but have you seen this subsection of videos that are like, I'm Mitch McConnell and I'm holding up today's newspaper? And then he takes out a helmet and he like pulls an ollie on like a skate ramp.

• 2:12:41David Sims?

  I have not, but that sounds like a, a use of AI.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  I think that's maybe the most productive use we could come up with.

• 2:12:48David Sims?

  Number five of the box office, one of the great movies in 1988.

• 2:12:51Griffin Newman?

  One of the great movies.

• 2:12:52David Sims?

  Covered it on this show. It's a classic.

• 2:12:54Griffin Newman?

  It's not, broadcast news is 87.

• 2:12:56David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:12:57Griffin Newman?

  88.

• 2:12:58David Sims?

  Also shop in Michael Ballhouse.

• 2:12:59Griffin Newman?

  It's a classic. And what genre?

• 2:13:02Speaker 02

  It's a comedy, I guess, uh, family, but two was really, you know, you know, it's cool and crazy. So like, you know, kind of a classic movie that like scars kids a little bit.

• 2:13:13Griffin Newman?

  It's cool and crazy and it scars kids and it's a classic.

• 2:13:17Speaker 02

  Makes them feel crazy.

• 2:13:18Griffin Newman?

  It makes them feel crazy.

• 2:13:20Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm right. You'll, you'll agree with me.

• 2:13:22Griffin Newman?

  It's not a Lynch movie.

• 2:13:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. It's a kid's movie. It's a Disney kids movie.

• 2:13:26Griffin Newman?

  Oh, no, cause Little Mermaid's 89.

• 2:13:28David Sims?

  The Great Mouse Detective? Nope. Great, great guesses from you both. No.

• 2:13:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a Disney movie that makes.

• 2:13:34David Sims?

  Bigger than this. Big movie, big hit movie, big director.

• 2:13:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a big hit movie from a big, big director. Uh, and it's a kids movie.

• 2:13:44David Sims?

  It is. You're gonna get mad maybe, but it is. It's a kids movie. It's, it's for kids.

• 2:13:48Griffin Newman?

  But it's really horny.

• 2:13:50David Sims?

  It's got, yeah, it is. No one's gonna object. These are good clues.

• 2:13:54Griffin Newman?

  Huh. And we, this is.

• 2:13:55David Sims?

  And it's scary.

• 2:13:56Griffin Newman?

  Main feed director we covered.

• 2:13:58David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. This is my favorite of his movies.

• 2:14:00Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 2:14:01Speaker 02

  I'm right about all of it.

• 2:14:02Griffin Newman?

  Oh, he's right about all of it. This picture is entitled, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

• 2:14:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:14:08Griffin Newman?

  Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Perfect hint.

• 2:14:10Speaker 02

  It's horny and scary. Very horny. It's very scary.

• 2:14:12Griffin Newman?

  One of the best movies.

• 2:14:13Speaker 02

  I watched, I watched that like eight months ago.

• 2:14:16Griffin Newman?

  You sure it's one of your kids?

• 2:14:17Speaker 02

  No, absolutely not. And, um, the scene where the shoe gets to dip genuinely upset me.

• 2:14:23David Sims?

  Up a generation.

• 2:14:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, really. It fucked us all up.

• 2:14:26Speaker 02

  I was very upset by it.

• 2:14:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's one of the most tragic things to happen in the movies.

• 2:14:30David Sims?

  Um, number six of the box office, so we will do this box office again one day, is Francis Ford Coppola's flop, um, Tucker, The Man in His Dream, which is also good.

• 2:14:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:39David Sims?

  Just interesting that Marty and Francis on the same weekend released like Passion Projects and everyone's like, okay, like, you know, like.

• 2:14:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, let's be clear. They weren't saying okay about Last Temptation of Christ. They were saying boo, hiss, he them.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  Audiences, I think, were largely sort of like, you know, pleasantly ignoring this movie. Yes.

• 2:14:57Griffin Newman?

  Sure. But also you have to imagine, if there's that level of protest happening outside the theater, you might not want to go to the theater.

• 2:15:03David Sims?

  I think there wasn't so much of that after a certain point. It was more, more pronounced in Europe, I think.

• 2:15:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:09David Sims?

  Um, Tucker, Man in His Dream, um.

• 2:15:12Griffin Newman?

  Is an awesome movie for cool kids.

• 2:15:14David Sims?

  For cool kids.

• 2:15:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:16David Sims?

  I don't know if you've seen it, Jemel, but it's about Preston Tucker.

• 2:15:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm not.

• 2:15:19David Sims?

  It's about like, you know, like the problem of America, of a guy being like, I think I can do things differently within the system.

• 2:15:27Griffin Newman?

  I can build a better car.

• 2:15:28David Sims?

  Stop it. You know, you're fucking everything up. Like you're not allowed to do that. Great movie, very interesting, but it was a flop. Number seven of the box office is, uh, Coming to America, one of the big hits of the year.

• 2:15:38Griffin Newman?

  It's my favorite. Eddie.

• 2:15:40David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a good movie.

• 2:15:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:41David Sims?

  Um, still haven't seen this sequel?

• 2:15:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 2:15:44David Sims?

  Waiting for a great day. I want to be bummed out.

• 2:15:47Griffin Newman?

  I remember it being fine, but here's what I also remember. It was.

• 2:15:51David Sims?

  None of the COVID pandemic?

• 2:15:52Griffin Newman?

  Early 2021.

• 2:15:53David Sims?

  Exactly. Right.

• 2:15:55Griffin Newman?

  Uh, my brain was engulfed in flames.

• 2:15:57David Sims?

  Number eight is Midnight Run. Great movie. I mean, there's some good movies at the box office right now. Number nine, Penny Marshall's Big.

• 2:16:04Griffin Newman?

  Big.

• 2:16:04David Sims?

  We'll cover it on the show someday.

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that he has a dad in that movie?

• 2:16:09David Sims?

  Uh, sure. What do you mean?

• 2:16:11Griffin Newman?

  You watch that movie and it plays as if Mercedes Rule is a single mother.

• 2:16:15David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 2:16:16Griffin Newman?

  And there's one scene where they go to the carnival where he sees the Zoltar machine for the first time and makes the wish. And there's a guy who's like, hey, don't go far. And you're like, oh, this is Mercedes Rule's shitty boyfriend or something.

• 2:16:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:16:30Griffin Newman?

  There's a director's cut. There's a Penny Marshall cut that's 30 minutes longer, that mostly adds in more Elizabeth Perkins. And I would say makes her character make a lot more sense.

• 2:16:39David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:16:39Griffin Newman?

  Makes her seem far less demented, but also at the same time adds back in the father. And she just cut out every single time the father appears for this one moment.

• 2:16:51David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:16:51Griffin Newman?

  It's fascinating.

• 2:16:52David Sims?

  Uh, we're gonna talk about it whenever we do Penny Marshall.

• 2:16:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, which we will do.

• 2:16:56David Sims?

  Yeah. What's that? Her second film? Yeah, it's her second film.

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Jumping Jack is the first?

• 2:17:00David Sims?

  Yeah. Weird movie. Number 10 of the box office is a film I'm sure you like as well. Michael Keaton stars in Clean and Sober.

• 2:17:05Griffin Newman?

  A movie I love. I defend thoroughly. I was not able to get enough respect for it when I did, uh, Michael Keaton, Mount Rushmore on Big Picture. But I would have made the case for that to be one of his four. He, it's that and Beetlejuice the same year.

• 2:17:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:17:19Griffin Newman?

  And the National Border Review, or was it New York Film Critics Circle?

• 2:17:23David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 2:17:23Griffin Newman?

  I think New York Film Critics Circle gave him best actor for Clean and Sober and Beetlejuice.

• 2:17:28David Sims?

  Uh, I'm sorry you got no respect.

• 2:17:30Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Um, it's a hundred percent what the Oscars should have done this year.

• 2:17:36David Sims?

  Given you respect?

• 2:17:37Griffin Newman?

  No, given a, a trophy.

• 2:17:39David Sims?

  Oh, to, to keep.

• 2:17:40Griffin Newman?

  That was half Beetlejuice, half Clean and Sober.

• 2:17:42David Sims?

  Of course.

• 2:17:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:43David Sims?

  The listeners, give. Griffin, your respects.

• 2:17:46Griffin Newman?

  Give me a little respect.

• 2:17:47David Sims?

  Finally. The National Society of Film Critics did that.

• 2:17:49Griffin Newman?

  There we go. Okay.

• 2:17:50David Sims?

  New York gave him best actor for Spotlight, also kind of a cool win.

• 2:17:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:53David Sims?

  Uh, number 11, opening new this week is Mac and Me. Just wanted to shout that out too.

• 2:17:57Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:17:57David Sims?

  New this week.

• 2:17:58Griffin Newman?

  Great movies up and down the list.

• 2:17:59David Sims?

  Mac and Me, that's the one with the, the Paul Rudd clip.

• 2:18:02Griffin Newman?

  Correct, and a lot of McDonald's.

• 2:18:04David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:04Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:18:05David Sims?

  Where they have the big dance sequence at the McDonald's.

• 2:18:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:18:07David Sims?

  Which kinda goes.

• 2:18:08Griffin Newman?

  And Mac is usually a puppet, but in that scene, it's a little person in a costume.

• 2:18:12David Sims?

  Oh, oh, good.

• 2:18:15David Sims?

  Um, so that's the box office. Yeah. And you know, the, it's, I just, I think, I'm not sure when this movie got its respect. Speaking about giving something proper respect, but, uh.

• 2:18:27Griffin Newman?

  When did this movie have its anti-Rodney moment?

• 2:18:30David Sims?

  You know, I, I think it's very esteemed now.

• 2:18:34Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:18:34David Sims?

  I guess because of Marty's general esteem and because of the run he went on in the 2000s.

• 2:18:40Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:18:40David Sims?

  It's still not like a canonical Marty masterpiece for some.

• 2:18:44Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:18:45David Sims?

  I guess, but it's a very well-regarded movie. It's one of my favorites.

• 2:18:49Speaker 02

  It's interesting. I, I think it's well-regarded. My sense it's well-regarded, but when I think of, when you say canonical Marty movies, it kinda falls out of that because I just don't think, I don't think that people think, this happened a couple of years, this was the thing a couple of years ago on social media. People still think of Scorsese as he's the gangster guy.

• 2:19:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:09Speaker 02

  Right? And so.

• 2:19:10David Sims?

  That's JJ's favorite bit.

• 2:19:11Speaker 02

  Right. People just don't think of The Last Temptation of Christ or Silence.

• 2:19:15David Sims?

  Age of Innocence.

• 2:19:16Speaker 02

  Age of Innocence as being like Marty movies.

• 2:19:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:19:19Speaker 02

  Um, in the same way.

• 2:19:21Griffin Newman?

  But what's like, this, Jesus is as central of this guy's entire filmography as anything.

• 2:19:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:19:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:28Speaker 02

  Going back to Mean Streets.

• 2:19:29Griffin Newman?

  Going back to Mean Streets. Um, Jamel, is there anything you wanna plug?

• 2:19:34Speaker 02

  Anything I wanna plug, uh, you know, my columns every week at the Times. I have a YouTube channel.

• 2:19:40Griffin Newman?

  You've been doing great videos.

• 2:19:41Speaker 02

  That I've been doing.

• 2:19:42David Sims?

  Are you still on TikTok or are you kinda moving over to YouTube?

• 2:19:45Speaker 02

  I'm still on TikTok.

• 2:19:46David Sims?

  I know you were doing TikToks.

• 2:19:46Speaker 02

  I'm still doing TikToks, but the YouTube channel I feel like is.

• 2:19:49David Sims?

  It's called Takes.

• 2:19:49Speaker 02

  It's called Takes.

• 2:19:50Griffin Newman?

  Takes.

• 2:19:51Speaker 02

  Every so often someone's like, you didn't really trademark, cause it's like Takes TM.

• 2:19:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:55Speaker 02

  You didn't really trademark Takes, did you? No, it's, it's a, it's a.

• 2:19:57David Sims?

  No, you didn't. They're yours.

• 2:19:58Speaker 02

  No, I did actually.

• 2:19:59David Sims?

  If anyone does a Take, five bucks to you.

• 2:20:01Speaker 02

  I get, I get a couple of dollars. Um, it's a joke.

• 2:20:03Griffin Newman?

  Well, you make a lot of money anytime I film a movie, cause they're on take five and they owe you 25 dollars.

• 2:20:08David Sims?

  Are you telling me that people on the internet can't take a joke?

• 2:20:11Speaker 02

  I, maybe. People on the internet can't take a joke.

• 2:20:14David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:20:14Speaker 02

  It was, it's my YouTube page. It's just like Jamel Bowie, uh, easy to find. And, uh, check that out. It's sort of like, if you, I understand people have feelings about the New York Times. And so if you don't wanna like read New York Times, then I do kinda basically sort of not the equivalent of my columns, but like, you know, little.

• 2:20:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:20:30Speaker 02

  Seven, eight minute, like arguments, observations, that kinda thing.

• 2:20:33David Sims?

  You're doing some video editing? You're getting, you're getting in the mix here.

• 2:20:36Speaker 02

  I'm getting the mix.

• 2:20:37Griffin Newman?

  Let me also throw this out, not to steal Ben's usual line of compliments here. You've been throwing fits. You've always been a well-dressed man.

• 2:20:45David Sims?

  You're a good man.

• 2:20:46Griffin Newman?

  But, but the last year or so, I think you've stepped up to a whole other level.

• 2:20:50Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

• 2:20:51Griffin Newman?

  You look incredible today. You look incredible in the videos.

• 2:20:53David Sims?

  Yeah, your jacket is great.

• 2:20:54Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:20:55Griffin Newman?

  Amazing jacket collection.

• 2:20:57Speaker 02

  Um, thank you so much. Uh, so that's, that's the main other thing. And, uh, I don't really have anything else to plug. I, you know, they, they released these like three weird flavors of Oreos, uh, chicken and waffles, banana pudding and fried.

• 2:21:11Griffin Newman?

  Banana pudding sounds kind of good.

• 2:21:13David Sims?

  Fried?

• 2:21:14Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna, I, I, I, before I came here, I ordered them and they'll be at my house when I get home and I'm gonna do like a, a stream.

• 2:21:20Griffin Newman?

  That's exciting. Okay.

• 2:21:21Speaker 02

  So if you wanna see me eat weird Oreos.

• 2:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 2:21:24David Sims?

  I am looking at this. This is very interesting.

• 2:21:26Speaker 02

  I'll be doing that too.

• 2:21:27Griffin Newman?

  Amazing.

• 2:21:29David Sims?

  Deep fried. They just call it deep fried.

• 2:21:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, cause that's like the carnival thing.

• 2:21:33David Sims?

  No, I know that, but obviously it looks like the actual Oreo that you're buying though. It's just kind of a, it's kinda like a triple-decker Oreo.

• 2:21:39Griffin Newman?

  But the cream inside is flavored as if there's a fried coating.

• 2:21:43David Sims?

  Sounds a little against God, but.

• 2:21:45Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm genuinely curious about these chicken and waffle Oreos.

• 2:21:48David Sims?

  Chicken and waffles is very interesting.

• 2:21:49Griffin Newman?

  Savory Oreos, I get a little touchy about.

• 2:21:51David Sims?

  Griffin, have I told you about the, the Cityfield Egg Rolls? Have we talked about this?

• 2:21:55Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, I've been to Cityfield.

• 2:21:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:57Griffin Newman?

  With you.

• 2:21:58David Sims?

  So you know, Cityfield has a walk and roll, which is like an egg roll place. And they have a, a different themed egg roll.

• 2:22:04Griffin Newman?

  A very funny egg roll place, we should imagine.

• 2:22:06David Sims?

  Walk and roll.

• 2:22:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:07David Sims?

  Um, different themed egg roll for every visiting team. And so for the Atlanta Braves, they had a chicken and waffles egg roll, which is what I'm thinking about.

• 2:22:15David Sims?

  America's just such an interesting place.

• 2:22:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:17David Sims?

  You know, where they're just like, what if we stuff X into Y is such a brand of.

• 2:22:20Griffin Newman?

  How we nail this.

• 2:22:21Speaker 02

  We're failing across so many different levels.

• 2:22:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:22:25Speaker 02

  But on the question of food innovation.

• 2:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh, food science?

• 2:22:29Speaker 02

  We've never been better.

• 2:22:30Griffin Newman?

  Tahin cheesy gordita crunch.

• 2:22:33Speaker 02

  Cheesy gordita.

• 2:22:34David Sims?

  Actually, we started with this chat. Now we're ending with, obviously you've been on Doughboys several times. I feel like, uh.

• 2:22:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:40David Sims?

  Uh, check out those appearances.

• 2:22:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm jealous of whoever's gonna get the tahin menu as an episode.

• 2:22:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:22:46Griffin Newman?

  Probably Barack Obama.

• 2:22:47David Sims?

  Next week.

• 2:22:49Speaker 02

  Bro, I, I'm actually reasonably confident Barack Obama would go on Doughboys.

• 2:22:53Griffin Newman?

  Do we think he listens? Do we think he's Spoon Nation or Burger Brigade?

• 2:22:57Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know.

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  Good question.

• 2:23:00Speaker 02

  I'm, uh, something of a heat seeker.

• 2:23:04David Sims?

  Next week on Blank Check, Goodfellas?

• 2:23:07Griffin Newman?

  Goodfellas.

• 2:23:07David Sims?

  Haven't recorded that one yet?

• 2:23:08Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:23:10David Sims?

  Over on the Patreon.

• 2:23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, what, what we got?

• 2:23:13David Sims?

  We released New York Stories.

• 2:23:16Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, sure.

• 2:23:16David Sims?

  As well as Amazing Stories.

• 2:23:18Griffin Newman?

  Right. Stories, a double.

• 2:23:19David Sims?

  A double feature of stories. But we're just gonna cover Marty's New York story.

• 2:23:24Griffin Newman?

  Just Marty's segment. Twilight Zone, the movie rules. Uh, so that's happening over there. Thank you all for listening.

• 2:23:30Speaker 02

  This reminds me, I do, I, I have one more thing to plug.

• 2:23:33Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 2:23:33Speaker 02

  My podcast, Unclear and Present Danger, John Gans, about the political and military doors of 1990s. Yeah, so just need to plug that.

• 2:23:40Griffin Newman?

  What, what movies have you covered recently?

• 2:23:42Speaker 02

  This week, we're recording the X-Files movie, um.

• 2:23:45Griffin Newman?

  The new cut?

• 2:23:46Speaker 02

  Uh, no, the old cut.

• 2:23:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay, Fight the Future.

• 2:23:48Speaker 02

  Fight the Future.

• 2:23:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay, but do you know about the new cut?

• 2:23:50Speaker 02

  I've heard about the new cut. I wanted to see the new cut because my main thought on this old cut is that the editing choices are inexplicable.

• 2:23:56Griffin Newman?

  But this is new cut of second movie.

• 2:23:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:23:58Speaker 02

  Okay, new cut of second movie.

• 2:24:00Griffin Newman?

  That's called like Dur Frankenstein? David?

• 2:24:03David Sims?

  Uh, something like that. Look, Chris Carter, I love you. I'm very glad you're getting pushed out on a big boat or an ice floe. And this is the last thing. Like, it so clearly reeks of him, like, he brought back the X-Files, right? And, uh, the first season he brought back was pretty bad.

• 2:24:19Griffin Newman?

  People didn't like it.

• 2:24:19David Sims?

  Everyone was like, God, but it's great to see everyone. And there were a couple of good episodes in there.

• 2:24:24Griffin Newman?

  He's like, I can fix it. I can fix it. I can fix it.

• 2:24:25David Sims?

  Season. And everyone was like, oh my God, enough, enough. You know what? Enough, buddy. And he's like, what? And they just picked it up. He's like, okay, but before you take it away from me, can I recut the second movie and call it, I Want to Believe, uh, Vok Frankenstein? And they're like, well, yeah, whatever. Yeah, fine. Like, go ahead. We'll put it on Disney Plus and that's enough out of you.

• 2:24:46Griffin Newman?

  It's new subtitle is Dr. Frankenstein in German because he's like, I'm like Dr. Frankenstein reconstituting this corpse.

• 2:24:54David Sims?

  All right.

• 2:24:56Speaker 02

  Well, we didn't watch that.

• 2:24:57David Sims?

  No, no, no. Fight the Future is canonical 90s conspiracy thriller. Great movie. I love that movie. It has some weird choices. I agree, but great movie.

• 2:25:06Speaker 02

  So that's, that's all. That's already interrupted.

• 2:25:07Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no. Very important shout out.

• 2:25:09Speaker 02

  You had to plug the pod.

• 2:25:10Griffin Newman?

  Of course, absolutely. And with that having been said, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Goodfellas. And as always, I'd like to try some alts. If I can try some alts quickly.

• 2:25:21David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:25:23Griffin Newman?

  Willem de Redeemer, Willem de Bread of Life, Willem de Lord, Willem de Son of the Living God.

• 2:25:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:38Griffin Newman?

  How about Willem de Carpenter?

• 2:25:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, Willem the Carpenter.

• 2:25:41Griffin Newman?

  Willem de Son of Man, Willem de Image of the Invisible God, Willem de Lion of the Tribe of the Judah? And of course, Willem de Christ.

• 2:25:51Speaker 02

  Willem de Christ.

• 2:25:52Griffin Newman?

  Willem de Christ.

• 2:25:53David Sims?

  Willem de Christ.

• 2:25:54Speaker 02

  Father, Son, no, sorry. Let me try that again. Father, Willem, Willem the Son and Holy Ghost.

• 2:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Willem the Father, Willem the Son.

• 2:26:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, Willem the Father, Willem the Son, Willem the Holy Ghost, because it's the Trinity. They're all one and the same.

• 2:26:08Griffin Newman?

  They are. Beautifully said.

• 2:26:14Speaker 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 Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minic. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:26:59Speaker 03

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.