The Truman Show with J.D. Amato

Good morning! And in case we don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night! JD Amato - often the Christof of Blank Check - joins us for a super-sized episode about Peter Weir's The Truman Show. We're getting into the history of reality entertainment, the implications of Christof's methods, the insanity of this movie's Oscar snubs, Jim Carrey's historic 1990s, and Matt Gaetz's childhood. Did you know that Matt Gaetz grew up in the Truman Show house? Really makes you think. Anyway - we hope you join us for a spirited conversation, but not before you pour yourself a mug of Mococoa Cocoa. ⁠Read David's article with Ed Harris - A New Way of Looking at To Kill a Mockingbird ⁠ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/12/aaron-sorkin-finds-new-edge-to-kill-mockingbird/603652/ ⁠Buy J. D.'s Book The Endless Game⁠ https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Endless-Game/J-D-Amato/9781665927154 ⁠Watch The Undercovers ⁠ https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.ae369afe-28a1-4a3e-964c-2ab6ffd6139b?autoplay=0&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31Speaker 01

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 01

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50Speaker 01

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53Speaker 01

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57Speaker 01

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

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 01

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

• 1:40Speaker 04

  Griffin.

• 1:43Speaker 04

  Griffin.

• 1:45Speaker 04

  You can speak. I can hear you.

• 1:48Griffin Newman?

  Who are you?

• 1:50Speaker 04

  I am the creator of a podcast that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions.

• 1:59Griffin Newman?

  Millions? It sounds a little high. Then, then who am I?

• 2:03Speaker 04

  You're the star, or the sidekick to some people.

• 2:09Griffin Newman?

  Was nothing real? Was this all bits?

• 2:11Speaker 04

  You were real. That's what made you so good to listen to. Listen to me, Griffin. There's no more truth out there than there is in this world that Ben created for you. The same lies, the same deceit. But in our world, you have nothing to fear. We know you better than you know yourself.

• 2:38Griffin Newman?

  I never had a microphone in my head.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  You're afraid. That's why you can't leave. It's okay, Griffin. I understand.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  We've been listening to you your whole life. We were listening when you were born.

• 2:50Griffin Newman?

  Ew.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  We were listening when you took your first step. We were listening when you showed up late the first day to work and the second day.

• 2:58Griffin Newman?

  It was...

• 2:59Speaker 04

  And the third day.

• 3:00Griffin Newman?

  It was a soft noon. It was kind of, we all know, it's more like 12:15.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  It's not. The episode of the podcast where you lost your first tooth. You can't leave, Griffin. You belong here with me and David and Ben and sometimes Marine.

• 3:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, mostly new releases.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Come on, talk to me. Well, say something, goddammit. You're on a podcast. You're live to the whole world.

• 3:33Griffin Newman?

  In case I don't see ya, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  I'm David.

• 3:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a mini-series on the films of Peter Weir. It is called Podnick at Hanging Cast.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  There you go. Normal.

• 3:55Griffin Newman?

  Normal. And today we are talking about The Truman Show. And I swear, I know people aren't gonna believe because there's editing involved, but I swear to you, that was the fifth take.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  That was, that took so long. No joke, the time to which we agreed to start recording this episode and the time it is now, there was an hour difference between those two numbers.

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  Many things happened.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  What things happened?

• 4:18Griffin Newman?

  I was early. JD was late.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Oh, Mike, this is...

• 4:22Griffin Newman?

  We had much to discuss off mic.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  I...

• 4:25David Sims?

  Griffin calling out a guest for being late.

• 4:27Griffin Newman?

  I just.

• 4:28David Sims?

  The height of hypocrisy.

• 4:30Griffin Newman?

  I don't like the framework of.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Insane.

• 4:32Griffin Newman?

  This episode's starting an hour late because of the intro.

• 4:36David Sims?

  Intro took a while.

• 4:37Griffin Newman?

  Intro took a sec. Intro took a sec.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  I can't believe what's happening here.

• 4:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying.

• 4:42David Sims?

  I'm with you JD and I'm gonna let you handle it.

• 4:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  The first time.

• 4:45David Sims?

  Support you.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  The first times when you have been 45 minutes late.

• 4:49Griffin Newman?

  Impossible.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  When I have been here.

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  Impossible.

• 4:51Speaker 04

  And sweet David and Ben, I'm sure they have numerous stories of that. The one time that I'm 15 minutes late.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  I get called out.

• 5:00Griffin Newman?

  I'm not.

• 5:00Speaker 04

  Immediately.

• 5:01David Sims?

  It's a dangerous road to go down.

• 5:02Griffin Newman?

  You being 15 minutes late was turned into a Griff slam.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  This is insane.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  David texted, we'll probably get here before Griffin. And I said, I am here.

• 5:11David Sims?

  Yeah, you were here. You were watching the show. Good job, Ben, getting Griff to watch his special features with you.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Oh, he was here watching.

• 5:19Griffin Newman?

  What are you talking about?

• 5:20David Sims?

  Griffin, I know. I, I'm baiting you. You have to relax. I swear to God. You, Griffin, are chronically late to Blank Check and thus we make fun of you.

• 5:29Griffin Newman?

  This is the first time.

• 5:30David Sims?

  The burden you have to bear.

• 5:31Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 5:32David Sims?

  You are chronically late to this show. We've been doing it for 11 years.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna jump in.

• 5:35David Sims?

  Decade of tree. Okay, that's it. You simply have to accept that you will take some hits on that one. But JD, what were you saying?

• 5:45Speaker 04

  I was just gonna say, you're, you're accounting for Blank Check. I'll represent the rest of Griffin's life.

• 5:49David Sims?

  In other spheres, right?

• 5:51Speaker 04

  Outside of Blank Check. This is not a Blank Check phenomenon, so.

• 5:55David Sims?

  It would be really insulting if it was Blank Check only and everyone else is like, I don't understand.

• 5:59Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I'm being Truman showed. I feel like you motherfuckers are Truman showing me.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  Can I admit something because I didn't do it?

• 6:07Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 6:07Speaker 04

  But I had made plans to Truman Show each of you over the past month that fell through.

• 6:12David Sims?

  Oh, you were gonna like film us from afar and?

• 6:15Speaker 04

  I was gonna have. People walk up to you and talk to you while microphone. It would, it would break two party consent laws for recording in New York state.

• 6:25Griffin Newman?

  Sounds a little creepy.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, the big one that I was gonna do fell through that involved, it was gonna happen while Griff was abroad.

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  Intro, oh, okay, okay.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  We could probably piece together.

• 6:35Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 6:36David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Okay, that's an obvious, I can, I can figure that out. But what about me? I'm more interested in how you were.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Well, I had, I had ideas for each of you. And then when that fell through and then life got crazy, I didn't do it. So.

• 6:46Griffin Newman?

  You were gonna mic all three of David's children.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  Exactly. And then I decided not to do it.

• 6:51David Sims?

  Can you not hit each other? I could push and yell and okay.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Well, and then I decided not to do it because I felt like also morally, ethically, it was not as fun to me in a way that I'm like, that would, that was me doing it with friends. What they did to Truman.

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  What they did to Truman. Let's be very clear because sometimes people consider discussion endorsement. We are not platforming Kristoff on this episode. We in no way condone his actions. We don't think the Truman Show was moral. Just because we're devoting an episode to it does not mean we cosign the actions of Kristoff.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 7:26David Sims?

  Yeah, no, I don't cosign. This is a, yes, this is not a movie that cosigns him either, right?

• 7:32Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing a bit. Have we forgotten how bits work?

• 7:36Speaker 04

  I like, I like a version of, this is actually so fun. I think there's people for whom the Truman Show could be an entry point episode. And who knows? So I do think there's a fun dynamic that today we have chill, happy David and worked up Griffin.

• 7:53David Sims?

  Guess what I did right before I came here?

• 7:55Griffin Newman?

  Took a swim? I guessed that.

• 7:57David Sims?

  Feeling good.

• 7:58Griffin Newman?

  Simply never.

• 7:59David Sims?

  Filed an article, took a swim. Here I am at blank check, talking about one of my favorite movies ever made.

• 8:05Griffin Newman?

  Truman style, I'd be doubled over on, on the fucking diving board.

• 8:10Griffin Newman?

  I would never touch that water, simply never.

• 8:12David Sims?

  Truman probably doesn't even swim laps, right? Like he doesn't go to the pool.

• 8:15Griffin Newman?

  I heard he doesn't drink milk either.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  No, I mean, in the, the fiction of the universe, they would keep him far away from being comfortable in the water.

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:23David Sims?

  Right. That would be bad. That would right for him to learn how to swim. Yes, go, go ahead.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  What you just said, this is one of your favorite movies of all time.

• 8:29David Sims?

  Absolutely. Huge David movie.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  I think it's a movie that is.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Possibly without flaw.

• 8:37Griffin Newman?

  You texted me last night without a flaw.

• 8:39David Sims?

  I think that might be correct.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Well, here's the thing. I'll say this under the guise of.

• 8:42David Sims?

  Which is a different sort of review than like, it's my favorite, or it's the best or whatever. But it is a movie where you're like, yeah, everything went perfectly here. Like, you know, or what everything I'm being presented with.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Oh, he's got a flaw. One thing did jump out at me.

• 8:56David Sims?

  What's that?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  No chance. I haven't watched this since I saw it in theaters and I was a younger man and it was a different time.

• 9:04Griffin Newman?

  But this was basically your first watch in 19 years.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  The stuff where he is freaking out and he puts a knife to his wife up to her throat. The way that domestic.

• 9:19David Sims?

  It's not a knife. It's the slicer dicer.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  It's a sharp thing that could hurt her.

• 9:24David Sims?

  Yeah. And she says, do something.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  The domestic violence of it all was really shocking. And that it didn't play for me at the time as, as being so scary. And like, how there is almost violence committed.

• 9:41Speaker 04

  Yes, this is a man who's not okay.

• 9:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  The movie has to hit that breaking point.

• 9:45David Sims?

  And his wife is an actor and he's gone mad.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  And it's just the thing where then it doesn't feel like, whoa, he almost just really hurt her.

• 9:54Griffin Newman?

  I think it does.

• 9:54David Sims?

  I don't really take it that way.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  I disagree with that. I think it does.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  But that's okay.

• 9:57Griffin Newman?

  That's carries that way.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Just the thing that jumped out to me this time.

• 10:00David Sims?

  She has to scream, do something, right? Like, the point is like, that's the moment where she, she breaks.

• 10:05Griffin Newman?

  And she starts brandishing.

• 10:06David Sims?

  Cause there's a moment where all of them break.

• 10:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:08David Sims?

  The moment where Noah Emmerich breaks is when he goes like, he's gone. Like, which is when they're like, cut transmission, like the, the, the wall is broken, right? You know, and that's when she says, do something.

• 10:18Griffin Newman?

  She also is the one, she starts brandishing it, not that it's like a self-defense move on his part, you know?

• 10:24David Sims?

  And he grabs, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:25Griffin Newman?

  But it's, it's leading to the break in reality of like, he's already sort of like, what's the fucking deal with this knife? You know, he's like called out the like, her selling products like earlier in that conversation.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Who are you talking?

• 10:36Speaker 04

  I agree with Ben, though. I think it's I think it's terrifying.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, scary.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  It it shows that this is not a well man and it's it's not a heroic character in that sense. It's someone who is going through great turmoil.

• 10:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Just piggyback onto that comment as well as when I say this is a movie without flaw. I mean, in terms of the story elements, as I see them today in 2026, obviously, I I can imagine that years from now, there might be stuff that even right now, you could look at and say, there's flaws in that. I just sort of mean, it's a really, I I meant that in a way that it's a very tight movie that everything seems to be accounted for.

• 11:13Griffin Newman?

  JD, let me.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Not that it's a movie without the ability to culturally criticize it.

• 11:16Griffin Newman?

  I get what you're trying to say. Let me let me help you here. JD does endorse the behavior of Truman in the kitchen scene when he holds the knife to his wife's, I'm sorry, slicer dicer.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  Yes, that's what I was. Thank you, Griffin. I appreciate it.

• 11:28Griffin Newman?

  You said, imagine this might be an entry point for new listeners. I think Blank Check is now like the Truman Dome, where there's only a door and an exit.

• 11:41Griffin Newman?

  I think we've trapped a lot of people in our ecosystem.

• 11:44David Sims?

  How do people enter?

• 11:46Griffin Newman?

  Blank Check?

• 11:47David Sims?

  No, true, true. The, the, what's it called? The town?

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 11:52Speaker 04

  The elevators, you see it, you see behind backstage.

• 11:55David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Right. But like.

• 11:57Griffin Newman?

  But also maybe partially.

• 11:58David Sims?

  How many entrances are there?

• 11:59Griffin Newman?

  Maybe partially through that door. There are probably many entrances.

• 12:02David Sims?

  No, it's not through that door because that door is just a little scary.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  It would be insane. If every day to go to work, you had to take a sailboat from.

• 12:09David Sims?

  No, that's my question. Because it's like, if it's a town of, what do we think, like, a couple thousand people or something?

• 12:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:15David Sims?

  Obviously, they live there, like, the people who are there mostly live there.

• 12:18Griffin Newman?

  The main cast, the regulars. If you're on a regular contract.

• 12:21David Sims?

  No, I think, no, no, no, way more than that, because they say they sell property. You can live there.

• 12:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 12:26David Sims?

  And like, I think the idea is like, you're allowed to live here as long as you agree to not, like, run up to Truman and yell at him.

• 12:32Griffin Newman?

  But they also clearly will cast people for new roles.

• 12:36David Sims?

  Right. But but any of these people are. Like, I'm just like, how do they get stuff in? How do they get food in?

• 12:41Speaker 04

  Well, here's the interesting thing.

• 12:42David Sims?

  You know, how do they get all the ecosystem in?

• 12:44Speaker 04

  You guys were just talking about watching the the special features and like the making of thing.

• 12:50Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the privileges of being early to this podcast, is you can throw on a couple special features.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 12:54David Sims?

  Griffin and David.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  There's people who are listening to this episode for the first time, who they think Griffin's whole thing is that he's on time.

• 13:01Griffin Newman?

  It's the second decade of dreams. Punctual Griff.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  But Peter Weir talks about a lot of the, um, the world that they built and how they envisioned this coming to be. And something I thought was fascinating is that they hint at in the movie. And once I heard Peter Weir explain it, I was like, oh, right. This is what they're hinting at. Originally, the Truman Show, as they saw it, started with, with just an infant. It was a way to sell baby products.

• 13:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  And so it was just-

• 13:27David Sims?

  Because you are like, who watched the show when it was just a baby? But then I'm like, at every pass with the Truman Show, I'm like, now I'd watch it. Like every single time, you know, when I was a kid, I used to be like, no one would watch it. Now I'm like, everyone would watch this.

• 13:39Griffin Newman?

  The brilliant thing about this movie is that the internal logic is really tight on, you, it starts, you're like, how could they have constructed all of this? And the answer is, what Christoph had to pitch to someone originally was really small, contained and cheap. We pick, whatever they say, four or five pregnant mothers, we follow them, we follow a baby. If a baby's awareness is so low, we don't have to construct fiction around them in the same kind of way. And then at every age he gets older, the bigger the show becomes, the more money they can raise, the more they can build around him.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Well, then what Peter Weir said was that in their, their internal logic was that they added a garage that you could see the dad coming home so that they could sell garage products to, to men. And then they started like, oh, well, we'll just keep increasing-

• 14:21David Sims?

  We'll make a town.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  And they sort of hint to that and most, you know, they have the flashback when he's a kid and you hear like, construction going on over the-

• 14:27David Sims?

  A hundred percent over the hill, which where they're like, Truman, get off those rocks. The most scary image in all, in that montage is though, is when he's in the crib and he sees the cameras in the, it's so good. I think about, it freaks me out so much.

• 14:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:38David Sims?

  Because it is the, like, the innocence of a baby, like, where they're like, yeah, they wouldn't know what that is.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  You know what I think?

• 14:43David Sims?

  Ugh.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  The single-

• 14:44David Sims?

  Of course, I do watch my child through a camera. I do.

• 14:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:48David Sims?

  But I don't broadcast it.

• 14:49Griffin Newman?

  And your children listen to Blank Tractor, so they're-

• 14:51David Sims?

  No, they do not.

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  Hearing you.

• 14:52David Sims?

  They are certainly not allowed to do that.

• 14:54Griffin Newman?

  Through AirPods or Raycons, maybe if they prefer.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  David's children won't know podcasts exist until they're 18.

• 15:00David Sims?

  I guess so.

• 15:00Griffin Newman?

  I love the idea of David.

• 15:03David Sims?

  I've thought about it.

• 15:04Griffin Newman?

  Out of professional shame, needing to create his version of a we don't have TV in our home.

• 15:09David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, you can watch as much R rated movies as you like.

• 15:12Griffin Newman?

  Radio goes out over broadcast signals. And you have to listen to it at the time.

• 15:17David Sims?

  Ben, don't you put this out over any broadcasts, okay?

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  All right.

• 15:20David Sims?

  No AM.

• 15:21Griffin Newman?

  All right.

• 15:21David Sims?

  No FM.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  I promise.

• 15:24Griffin Newman?

  I think the the single best choice we are makes in a lot of ways with this movie is that Christoph isn't the obvious route one crass TV entrepreneur sleazeball that he is buying his own bullshit of.

• 15:40David Sims?

  Of course.

• 15:40Griffin Newman?

  This was like a conceptual artist.

• 15:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 15:43Griffin Newman?

  Who came up.

• 15:43David Sims?

  The way he dresses, exactly, that he's like some fucking Soho art guy.

• 15:47Griffin Newman?

  And you're genuinely like, this guy was probably doing performance art and large installations and whatever for like 20 years. I mean, he's based off the fucking gates guy, which when the gates happened in New York, I was like, oh, retroactively, that's what Ed Harris was playing. But then he comes up with this idea that's like, this is such a big project, but also I could make money doing it. And he, in his final speech to Truman, is like, really buying his own shit. That this is the most profound work of the human condition.

• 16:13David Sims?

  Truman this for his whole life.

• 16:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 16:15David Sims?

  Like, he's excited to do it. And he thinks, obviously, that Truman will be happy to hear it.

• 16:20Griffin Newman?

  And he thinks he has done something kind for Truman and made humanity better at the same time, while also making the most profound work of art and history.

• 16:26David Sims?

  Maybe he did. Maybe it's good. Maybe I'm reversing my opinion. Truman Show, good?

• 16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:31Griffin Newman?

  Sorry.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Truman Show, good? Truman Show, good. And I think especially the casting of Ed Harris. You could cast someone to say those exact lines and do that exact thing that plays it more like a, hey, I'm a TV director guy, you know? And it would, it would come off.

• 16:47David Sims?

  Big cigar.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  Which was a big 80s trope, right? Of the like, the like, listen, I'm just like a TV guy and it's all about ratings, ratings, ratings and like.

• 16:54Griffin Newman?

  Even Running Man.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  The Running Man.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  Is doing it again in 2025 in a way where you're sort of like, this isn't really the archetype anymore.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  No, and I think, I think the more, more evil than the, uh, ratings go up guy is the, no, no, no, what I'm creating is actually important art.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Because that guy's just like, it's business, baby. Like, people want it, I'm serving them the slop. This guy is so pretentious. And there are also other people, and we'll get to like the hopper thing. But there are other people who could have played the character in this form once we're identified the shape of him. And it would have read more like parody. Versus Harris is so incapable of being sort of tongue in cheek and sincere that he's lending everything he's saying with the most gravitas it could possibly be given.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Yes, I mean, it's, it's, God, this is such a wonderful movie. I love this movie. I also think it's a movie that, I don't even know how to categorize this. And maybe you guys can help me conceptualize this. There are movies that just, when they, they come out, they become their own conceptual entities that feel like they've been around forever. It's like The Matrix, you know what I mean? Where it's like, but when The Matrix comes out, you're sort of like, oh, yeah. Like, that idea that there's this world beneath the world that is operating above and beyond, you know, that it becomes so like, yeah, of course, that's a trope in whatever.

• 18:16David Sims?

  Right, you live in a simulation.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:18Griffin Newman?

  You texted me last night, "The Truman Show, Matrix, One Two Punch was the season ending philosophical cliffhanger that brought us the mess that was the 2000s and set the stage for the 2020s." I agree with that. Now, here's a bigger question that sparked in me.

• 18:34Griffin Newman?

  Has there been an idea that big in movies that has burrowed that deeply into our collective consciousness since those two? Like, has there in the 21st century?

• 18:46David Sims?

  So, I'm just-

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Ernest Goes to Joe was before.

• 18:48Griffin Newman?

  That was before.

• 18:48David Sims?

  I'm just gonna hip pause a little bit because I'm like, The Matrix idea, I think, is the idea you're talking about. The idea that we live in a simulation.

• 18:55Speaker 04

  I just mean-

• 18:56David Sims?

  I, I know it, I want to finish this thought. Like, and I, and I feel like The Matrix, like you say, but they become like a cultural thing. The Truman Show idea, yes, there's the, oh, what if your life was a TV? But I think it speaks to the much deeper feeling that everyone has had at some point, which is, am I the protagonist of reality? Like, everyone's had that sort of fantasy nightmare. It's such a, it's such, it's such a part of being a person.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  Hundred percent.

• 19:22David Sims?

  Especially being a growing person.

• 19:23Griffin Newman?

  It's in the dossier that Andrew McNichol was like, that's where it came from.

• 19:27David Sims?

  Andrew Nichol.

• 19:27Griffin Newman?

  Sorry?

• 19:28David Sims?

  No Mick.

• 19:29Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna make a joke, and then I realized if you just spotlight that part of the name that I got wrong, it sounds like a slur.

• 19:37Griffin Newman?

  For the Irish! Ben Hosley, right here.

• 19:40David Sims?

  Easy.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 19:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm not saying it.

• 19:42David Sims?

  I think everyone needs to settle down.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  I think you really saw, you really, you really saw him by pointing it at someone directly.

• 19:50David Sims?

  Is there an idea since that has entered the cultural consciousness? So I would have to think, I don't know.

• 19:55Griffin Newman?

  I was just reading through the dossier and how Andrew Nickel came up with this idea and talking about it being an extension of when you're a child and you reckon with that, like, am I the center of the universe? You know, your awareness, your understanding expands, but they're always, it lingers as like a paranoia and that he was just like, I wrote this down on a piece of paper and knew I had a fucking bulletproof idea. You know, I sent like one page out to all the studios and people were like, you have struck gold. And I don't know, even just in like, you and I, David, reading fucking deadline and everything. And when there's like the new hot project in town, like the bidding war over this, I

• 20:36Griffin Newman?

  can't remember the last time a movie had like a sentence like this, that immediately everyone went, holy shit.

• 20:43David Sims?

  I would have to think, there's gotta be something.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Well, I, yeah. I also think too, what I meant even more so than just the premise of the, the Matrix and the Truman Show being similar in the sense that there was these sort of alternate universes of just them as artistic objects feeling so primary to culture, like in a way that I think you could throw Titanic in there or something.

• 21:04David Sims?

  What has Batman begun?

• 21:05Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 21:07Griffin Newman?

  We'd only seen him middle before.

• 21:08Speaker 04

  Exactly. Well, because here's the thing with the Truman Show, it's not like this idea hadn't been done before in some ways.

• 21:14Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  Right? There, there, there had been a lineage of TV shows and movies that were sort of like, oh, what if?

• 21:20Griffin Newman?

  It's Gary Shandling Show is a guy knows that his life is a TV show.

• 21:23David Sims?

  What's the BBC series?

• 21:25Griffin Newman?

  Seven Up.

• 21:26David Sims?

  Seven Up.

• 21:26Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 21:27David Sims?

  Right? That had been around.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 21:29David Sims?

  Yes. They're still around.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  Which I

• 21:32David Sims?

  It in every seven years.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  And I also rewatched it after, cause I watched the Truman Show of whatever a couple of months ago, when we agreed to do this. I was like, I watched the Truman Show then, cause I was excited. And then I was like, I want to watch the Seven Up series again, because I was also going down the sort of philosophical rabbit hole of like, how

• 21:50David Sims?

  What does it mean to point a camera at someone and document their life?

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Yes. And how

• 21:53David Sims?

  How does it change their life and all that?

• 21:55Speaker 04

  In what ways have we attempted to do things like this and succeeded in a fair, what, what, what were the real ramifications? And I feel like the Seven Up series is the closest thing to, the closest thing to this that we have

• 22:07David Sims?

  Do you find having, when you watch, so you watch Seven Up, which is just, I just found, find the most like profoundly moving document. It's so interesting. It's such a portrait of Britain, you know, at the time and the class system and all that. And then you, you watch 14 and 21 and you're like, I can't watch this. It's so uncomfortable. These poor kids.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  I would argue.

• 22:26David Sims?

  And then you get past that and then you're like, now it's pretty juicy again.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:29David Sims?

  Like now it's really interesting to see how shit shook out.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  I have always argued

• 22:33David Sims?

  Those middle ones that are tough.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  That Linklater's boyhood has this exact problem where there are a couple of years in the middle where you're like, it is too painful to watch

• 22:40David Sims?

  Get a camera off him.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  Anyone at that age.

• 22:42David Sims?

  It's tough.

• 22:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. And boyhood like just ends when you're like, maybe this guy's chilling out a bit.

• 22:47David Sims?

  There's a French movie called Etre Avoir, a documentary.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. That's a very good film.

• 22:52David Sims?

  It is, um, but there is, which is about a one-room schoolhouse in like rural France, taught by this very like engaging, interesting teacher.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Forgot about that movie.

• 23:02David Sims?

  It's a great movie.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:03David Sims?

  But it is one of those movies where you're like, I think it was fundamentally unethical to make this.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:07David Sims?

  I think this is like, this shouldn't have been allowed.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  I was just listening to our friends, The Big Picture. It will be months old at the time this episode comes out, but they were, did an episode where they were talking through the 2026 best documentary nominees.

• 23:23Griffin Newman?

  And how they were like, every one of these movies feels potentially unethical to me.

• 23:28David Sims?

  Sure. Yeah. Maybe we're all being too woke.

• 23:31Griffin Newman?

  Well, but they were sort of just like in this weird world we live in where now everyone is like public, everyone is like, to some degree, front facing, cameras are everywhere. Somehow also it feels like the lines are more blurred than ever in what is supposed to be a sort of controlled ethical, delineated documentary form. And especially for these like highbrow Oscar docs that are like issues movies. They're like, all five of these are like very, not self righteous, but like this matters and we need to bring light to the subject. And they're like, every one of these I watched tensing up about like, is this actually moral to do to these people? And that just feels like an extension of life at large now.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think, I mean, listen, that pointing a camera at something is a subjective action, no matter what you do.

• 24:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  And that subjectivity is radioactive, no matter what, because it's, it's something that people are projecting onto.

• 24:28David Sims?

  When they pointed a camera at Ed, you know, for his TV, his mom, you know, reveals the affair. Trying to think what else happens in that TV.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  I don't remember all the.

• 24:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, I know Dennis Hopper.

• 24:39David Sims?

  Sleeps with his girlfriend's, his brother's girlfriend, Jenna Elfman.

• 24:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Dennis Hopper plays Ed's dad in that and Martin Landos, his stepfather.

• 24:48David Sims?

  Correct. Uh, uh, Hopper comes out of the woodwork. Like, you know.

• 24:52Griffin Newman?

  It's just interesting that this is a movie where Truman's dad comes out of the woodwork and Hopper was originally cast to play Ed Harris.

• 24:58David Sims?

  We can talk about that, but of course the big difference is that Truman's dad is not his dad.

• 25:02Griffin Newman?

  I know, but I'm just saying, interesting parallel.

• 25:05Speaker 04

  That's the only difference between Ed TV and the Truman Show.

• 25:07David Sims?

  Well, I mean, I think TV must be discussed, obviously, when you're talking about the Truman Show, but it, right. It's the other, yeah, TV is the opposite.

• 25:14Griffin Newman?

  Let's also say Pleasantville. All three of them were lumped together. They're very different, but there's like a tapestry there.

• 25:21David Sims?

  Well, because Pleasantville has the right, they sort of, the American small town, like fantasy thing.

• 25:26Griffin Newman?

  Pleasantville was full magical, like, you know, at one end, what if you lived in a 50s TV show? And TV is just what if a guy allowed people to film him all the time? And then Truman Show is what if they constructed a fake reality that kind of was inspired by 50s sitcoms?

• 25:44Griffin Newman?

  And that was televised unbeknownst to this man. It was just fascinating that all three of these movies came out and it was seen as this real like, what feels incredibly like naive in 1998. We need to reckon with how much cameras are a part of our lives, not knowing how fucking insane things we're gonna get over the next three decades.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Well.

• 26:03Griffin Newman?

  But that it felt urgent enough in 1998 that it's like our relationship to media, to watching other people's lives, to our lives, to the 15 minutes of fame thing, to all of this is hitting a crisis point. And it was abstracted into like three different takes.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, 100%. And I also think it's there's something interesting that after that period of time, what transpired, especially in television, was an exploration of all of these concepts that actually took it, you know, in, in.

• 26:31David Sims?

  In great ways, great directions.

• 26:33Griffin Newman?

  Perfect.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  In really problematic directions, obviously, like.

• 26:38Griffin Newman?

  You don't endorse the actions of television?

• 26:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'm one to speak, you know what I mean?

• 26:45Griffin Newman?

  I, look, I'm not gonna talk in a term, but I've been, JD's been known to make a TV show or two in his day.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  But you know what I mean? Like, I think what's interesting is that a lot of projects start with this idea of observing reality.

• 27:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  And the thing that people find is that reality itself can be both the most fascinating thing, but also is not controllable in the ways that you want. I think that's one of the fascinating things about the 7-Up series, right? Is that the 7-Up series is not the Truman Show, right? It's not necessarily, it's not aspirational.

• 27:17David Sims?

  It's not intruding on them much either, obviously.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  But I mean, in terms of the thematic, what you feel, right? Because you feel this great melancholy. There's this, there's this beauty that, you know, can bring you to tears because you're seeing this, that, that life has these twists and turns and a lot of the beauty of it comes from the simplicity of it and the moments of calm, right? It's not, it's not the big, you know, story moments that are the thing that, that make that interesting.

• 27:43Griffin Newman?

  But also, like, I'm someone who doesn't cry a ton at movies, despite loving movies and being a very emotional person. But if I were to try to actually take a tally of all the movies that like made. Me shed a tear or got me within that zone. I would guess a disproportionate amount of them are documentaries. Because there is an added juice to me of being like, I can't believe they got this. In documentaries, I feel like it, it hits me when I watch a documentary that doesn't feel manicured and manipulated. And something happens that feels so raw and can often be a tiny moment. But I'm just like, the fact that this was actually caught.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Is it the Harvard Ethnography Lab?

• 28:23Griffin Newman?

  Which I'm obsessed with.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  So one of, one of, a film that I put in my top 10 films of all time.

• 28:29Griffin Newman?

  Big Sam.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  And it's a result of Griffin, was that Griffin and I went and saw a screening of Monokamana. When it came out.

• 28:36David Sims?

  You've talked about this on the show before.

• 28:38Griffin Newman?

  Nepalese cable car movie.

• 28:40Speaker 04

  And I honestly, it's a movie where I have not laughed as hard with an audience. We all shed tears at this, like for, for something that is, you know, 10 shots. Doing its best to observe and curate reality in some way.

• 28:56Griffin Newman?

  I brought it up before, but just to, to fill in listeners, because also anytime I say the name, people are like, what the fuck is the title?

• 29:01David Sims?

  It's called Mana Ka Mana, essentially is how you would.

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

  M A N A K A M A N A.

• 29:08David Sims?

  Correct. Which is, it's a cable car in Nepal.

• 29:11Griffin Newman?

  They placed a camera in a cable car in Nepal that goes up and down this mountain. And they literally just, it was months of, you know, doing trial runs and casting other people and whatever. But what you watch are just 10 unbroken takes.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Five trips up, five trips down.

• 29:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Of the loops of this thing.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  And it's one roll of film, no editing, single shot. And yet the curation of those 10 trips. Told the story about the human experience that is.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Still subjective because it's curating those 10 shots.

• 29:42David Sims?

  They're trying to make it is.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 29:44David Sims?

  But they also. The film Leviathan, which is also by the Sensory Ethnography Lab, is a film I really like.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  Stanford, is it Stanford Ethnography?

• 29:50David Sims?

  No, it's Harvard. It's called the Sensory Ethnography Lab.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 29:53David Sims?

  It's the, it's the program you're referring to. It's led by Lucy and Keston Taylor, who's very interested in all this kind of hidden camera, kind of, can we just document life?

• 30:00Griffin Newman?

  But I, I went to see Monokamana because I was like, I'm hearing. Good things about this and I I buy my ticket. I go see it at IFC by myself and I'm three minutes in like, have I made a mistake? Was this me being high minded? I'm about to be fucking bored.

• 30:13David Sims?

  No.

• 30:14Griffin Newman?

  Did I forget? I don't like this stuff.

• 30:15David Sims?

  You gotta, it's the meditative thing of like, you just gotta, you gotta, you know, give yourself over to a chill out for a minute. You guys are floating a tank.

• 30:22Griffin Newman?

  No, never.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Griffin Newman?

  So I.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  I did isolation tank.

• 30:25David Sims?

  Yeah. Did you go to, did you go to Vessel?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:28David Sims?

  Yeah, that place is great.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  It was excellent. I think that, how, how did you like it?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  I, I only did 30 minutes.

• 30:35David Sims?

  Sure. Did you go full black?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say. I had to kind of slowly ease into it. So I started initially with light, while also having some ambient sound, but then removed the light, had a little bit more time with the sound and then, you know, my goal was to do 30 minutes of just complete darkness, no input. It was crazy, but I got into it. I got really lost.

• 31:01David Sims?

  That's what Griffin's talking about. Sorry. Finish your thought, Griffin.

• 31:03Griffin Newman?

  I see this. I totally get on its wavelength. I walk out. I have like one of the most profound like feelings leaving the theater I've ever had from a movie.

• 31:11David Sims?

  What's best about me?

• 31:12Griffin Newman?

  I text you almost immediately and I'm like, JD, I just saw this thing. I, I need to see it again and I really think you need to see it. Can we figure out a day? We go see it again. I see it like twice in one week. And I'm there with JD and I'm sort of like, was what happened here collectively with this audience a one-off experience? I need to test if the exact same arc of this will happen. Watch the first one. There's like no talking. And you're like, is this literally just gonna be fly on the wall of people not communicating in a cable car? And then I think it's the second ride. There's an old man and a little boy.

• 31:42David Sims?

  That's what's on the poster.

• 31:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And like minutes into it, the entire audience all starts laughing at the same time. And nothing funny has happened, but it's like your brain is adjusting to what's going on. And suddenly you're asking all these questions about the two of them. And it's like, what is their relationship? Are they like grandfather and son? Are they strangers? Like, how do they know each other? Have they gotten here? Are they silent because they have no familiarity with each other? Because they have profound familiarity with each other? The little boy, I think, is wearing a Tom and Jerry hat?

• 32:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 32:17Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, wait a second. Does he know what Tom and Jerry are? Do Tom and Jerry exist in Nepal? Why am I asking that question? What don't I know about Nepalese relationships to American media? And suddenly you're projecting all this stuff onto it, asking yourself all these questions. And there is just kind of the funny awkwardness of the two of them sitting there in silence. And then you're like, oh, right. Every movie I watch is communicating like 80,000 things to me at once. Whether intentional or unintentional. The choices of the music and the image and the performance and the costuming and the set dressing and the writing and the dialogue is working like overtime to convey ideas, story, feelings to me.

• 32:58Griffin Newman?

  And I'm watching like two people sitting in silence and suddenly asking incredibly wide-ranging questions.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  And that experience is kind of like, you know, you know, ghost hunters listening to static, right? Where if you just listen to static for a long enough time, you start, you start to pick up on it. But because our life is so full of noise, you don't pick up on these little, little changes. So those changes seem unusual when you focus on them.

• 33:22Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And then like five rides in, it's like two American tourist girls. And they're talking, but you're, you've readjusted to how you listen to people speak because you've been deprived of that. And then there's a ride that's just a bunch of goats. And suddenly it's the most captivating thing you've ever seen because you've met the movie on its level.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  And now you're, now you're like, wow. The way goats interact is not that different than the way humans interact. And like, we are just animals. And what's the difference? Like, you go into all of these places.

• 33:48Griffin Newman?

  Can you imagine Kristoff being like, we're just gonna film a baby? And people are like, film a baby? Well, I gotta tune in to see what this is like. And then they just can't stop watching.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  But here's what I think is interesting that Truman Show taps in on, right? Is Kristoff is not just observing reality.

• 34:02Griffin Newman?

  No, he's there on purpose.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  He is doing the thing that we have, we have done through the history of media, which is we take the beauty of life that we see, which is a bunch of goats riding a cable car. And instead we go, well, surely I know how to make that better. I know how to control that, which is-

• 34:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's doing the bill.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Which is the history of what happened to documentary and reality TV. I mean, we're in a place right now where documentary film is in a really, really dark place because it's been, it's been taken over by this sense of control and ownership.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  We also, and this is something I've been talking to my therapist about, we, we make our own stories up to process our own lives. Like the, the, the, the way that I'm remembering things, but even experiencing things, I've like built up these stories.

• 34:50Griffin Newman?

  Well, also the, the psychological phenomenon that if you tell a story to someone about something that happened to you, your memory of the actual event is immediately replaced with the story you just told. It basically overrides it. So the more you tell a story of your life, the more you're actually remembering your own telling of the story, which is how these things iterate. We're like, we were texting the other day, David, in the blank check thread about Robert Altman losing best director for Gosford Park because Marie was asking, how in the world did Apollo 13 not win best picture? And David and I swing in with our, like, we're ready to answer this. We're thinking about this all the time. Right? And we're like, well, Apollo 13, it was like this and then that. And then of course, like Braveheart's the sort of surprise and it spoke to how powerful Mel Gibson was at that moment. And

• 35:35Griffin Newman?

  Marie was like, so is that why Beautiful Mind won so big? And we were like, there was definitely that element of him being overdue, but also the crow thing and this and that. And then I said, remember how Robert Altman was seen as the frontrunner for best director that year for Gosford Park because it was kind of a lifetime anointment. And then he made a speech at the Golden Globes that was anti-Bush and anti-war and immediately his campaign was tanked. And David was like, yes.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  I was like, yeah, that sounds right. And I

• 36:05Griffin Newman?

  quoted back a thing from it.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Looked up the, no, I didn't quote back a thing, but I looked up the, then I looked up the speech and I was like, no, this speech is totally normal.

• 36:12Griffin Newman?

  You said chickens come home to roost was the thing you remember.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  I wasn't quoting him. I was just saying like, he did, didn't he do like a chickens coming home to roost thing? And that, but that he did, but not at the Golden Globes.

• 36:21Griffin Newman?

  Right. But I said that and you accepted it and we're like, yeah, a hundred percent.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Yes, we are. Yes, we are myth makers.

• 36:30David Sims?

  David's a bit of a Kristoff. Wait, so what, what have you, what have you been exploring in therapy about that? I feel like you didn't finish your.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Um, well, it's just like how I thought of myself as a kid and felt like an outsider. A perfect example is I have this memory of being invited to a birthday party by a cool girl.

• 36:53David Sims?

  Okay. Okay, flex on us, King.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  And I felt humiliated and I still showed up, but I felt like she was taking pity on me. And now I'm revisiting and I'm like, what if maybe this girl was interested in me? What if she actually was like, kind of thought I was funny and I was so in my head and telling my own story about who I am, like I'm an outsider, I'm an uncool kid.

• 37:19David Sims?

  Right. That was your little myth. Like, right.

• 37:22Griffin Newman?

  Was, can I ask, was she wearing a how's it going to end button?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Fuck, she was.

• 37:27Griffin Newman?

  And do you still have her cardigan?

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 37:30Griffin Newman?

  You keep it in your basement next to a collage? You've tried to construct of her face from women's magazines taped behind a portrait of your wife?

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's normal. And of course I'm going to pick up a wet garment.

• 37:43David Sims?

  When did you see The Truman Show? And you saw it in theater?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  I did.

• 37:46David Sims?

  Griffin, I assume as well?

• 37:48Griffin Newman?

  I saw it in theaters.

• 37:48David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:49Griffin Newman?

  My family, we've talked about this before, hated Jim Carrey so much.

• 37:53David Sims?

  They rejected him.

• 37:54Griffin Newman?

  Fell into the classic sort of this guy's an over actor. He's so obnoxious. He's so annoying. It was like when, when that run of Jim Carrey movies is happening where he's the dominant comedy star, they were like, we don't see Jim Carrey movies. Sit there and watch your Steve Martin movies for the 40th time. We went to see this opening weekend. My parents took my brother and I, my brother would have been six. This, like, it felt like a profound cultural moment where even for like Jim Carrey haters, it was like, that's such a good idea for a movie. Peter Weir's a good director and we all want to see if Jim Carrey can actually tone it down, which was so much of the marketing hook of this movie. Like, don't you want to see if he can pull it off?

• 38:35David Sims?

  Sure, he's leveling up to a more serious project. Can he do it?

• 38:39Griffin Newman?

  And at that moment, Hanks is kind of like the reigning king of Hollywood. Jim Carrey's sort of overtaken him as the box office king. But everyone's like, that's the model. Can he like speed run the Hanks thing? You saw this in theaters, I assume?

• 38:52Speaker 04

  No, I feel like I saw this.

• 38:55David Sims?

  I mean, you're probably, how old were you? Like, cause you're

• 38:57Speaker 04

  I was born in 88.

• 38:59David Sims?

  And like, I feel, I was 12 when this came out. You're 10. You know what I mean? It's like, at that point, that's a big difference.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  Well, so it's a funny thing, cause also Ben, I relate to what you're talking about. You know, my family moved around a lot when I was younger and then we landed.

• 39:11David Sims?

  On the run from the law?

• 39:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, there was a lot of law stuff we were trying to get away from. And when it finally caught up to us, we were in the suburb of Chicago. And the thing that was consistent in that was that we would have these like family movie nights. And this was an era of the like video store era, right?

• 39:28David Sims?

  Of course. We're all gonna go to the store and we're gonna pick one movie we can all agree on.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:32David Sims?

  With these.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Or often it would be my mom or dad coming home from work with, you know, the bag of the, you know, the, the blue plastic case VHSs and you being like, oh man, what did they get? And it'd be like, well, two of these are for mom and dad, but one of these is for the kids.

• 39:49Griffin Newman?

  You might like this.

• 39:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  And I feel like The Truman Show was a movie that we watched on, it probably would have been VHS at the time. And I think because of my age, The Truman Show might have been one of the first movies that I remember watching that I was like, this is a grown up movie.

• 40:06David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Right. It's on that edge.

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

  That was another feeling of like, this was released in the summer. It was like a big box office play, but I had the distinct feeling of my parents taking me to see this opening weekend. And feeling like, this is the kind of movie they nominate for Oscars.

• 40:22David Sims?

  Did they like it?

• 40:23Griffin Newman?

  They did, but they were like, I still don't know about Jim Carrey. They kind of were like, maybe Peter Weir tricked him and some of it, he's still over the top.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Well, sure. What's so interesting is

• 40:31David Sims?

  Did I see this with my dad? I feel like I may have just seen this by myself.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  How? So I know Griffin, you're, you know, you

• 40:38David Sims?

  He's over there.

• 40:39Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today, by the way, is J D Amato. He is the writer of The Endless Game.

• 40:42David Sims?

  We gotta plug his book.

• 40:44Griffin Newman?

  The Endless Game.

• 40:45David Sims?

  Jesus Christ.

• 40:45Griffin Newman?

  We're holding copies of his new, do we call it a middle grade graphic novel?

• 40:49Speaker 04

  It's a middle grade graphic novel. It's out now.

• 40:52David Sims?

  Sort of a Scott Pilgrim size.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

  Now, this is an advanced review or copy.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  But your whole thing, but.

• 40:57Griffin Newman?

  I'm being told that final interiors will be full color.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  Yes, it's it's so it's it's whatever.

• 41:03Griffin Newman?

  Starts in color, turns black and white, very pleasant fill.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Well, that's that's this is the advanced copy only. That's the advanced reader.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  It's an uncorrected proof.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  The actual, the book will be, it's like, it's a 250 page middle grade graphic novel, full color, illustrated by the great Sophie Morse, who is an amazing illustrator.

• 41:19David Sims?

  Did you work on, um, what's, what's, uh, what's the show? Did you work on a TV show that the art style is familiar?

• 41:26Speaker 04

  No, this is, this is her, this is her debut.

• 41:28David Sims?

  Okay, okay.

• 41:29Speaker 04

  It's a double debut for both her and I. Simon Schuster in stores now, available wherever you buy books.

• 41:36David Sims?

  Is it available digitally?

• 41:37Speaker 04

  It's avail, uh, actually, I don't know if it's available digitally. I, I don't believe it is.

• 41:42Griffin Newman?

  Nectile, physical, physical media.

• 41:45David Sims?

  Hard copy.

• 41:46Griffin Newman?

  And it's soft, it's a paperback.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:48Griffin Newman?

  But get a hard copy.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  But this is, this is, this is the debut, so I, please, please buy a copy.

• 41:53David Sims?

  Read JD's book.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  And I think it's.

• 41:55David Sims?

  And buy it, too.

• 41:56Speaker 04

  We've been getting very positive reviews, um, and very, very positive feedback. And I think if you have, if you're an adult that likes graphic novels, it works. But also if you have someone that is seven to 12, or, you know, if you're a voracious reader that's younger, that's fine, too. I think it's a, it's a very good, uh, intro that the middle grade graphic novel space is kind of something that didn't exist when I was a kid, which is that, that sort of the step between, you know, comic books and like prose storytelling. So it's a place to sort of explore a story, but not have it just be a wall of prose.

• 42:38Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 42:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 42:43David Sims?

  Is that the C S cow?

• 42:44Griffin Newman?

  The C S cow is back.

• 42:45David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 42:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:51David Sims?

  Okay.

• 42:52Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:57David Sims?

  Wow.

• 42:57Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 42:59David Sims?

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

• 43:06Griffin 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.

• 43:18David Sims?

  Yes.

• 43:18Griffin Newman?

  My favorite movies of the year.

• 43:19David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:26David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 43:27Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:30David Sims?

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

• 43:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:34David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 43:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:35David Sims?

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

• 43:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 43:42David Sims?

  Legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 43:44Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 43:45David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 43:47Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 43:47David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 43:48Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 43:49David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. It won the Queer Palmakan. 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 this summer and now it's on MUBI.

• 44:00Griffin 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.

• 44:14David Sims?

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

• 44:18Griffin 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 an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 44:30David 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.

• 44:42Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:48David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 44:53Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 44:54David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 44:55Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:02David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 45:03Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:11David Sims?

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

• 45:17Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:17David Sims?

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

• 45:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:27David Sims?

  No.

• 45:28Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 45:29David Sims?

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

• 46:16Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 46:16David Sims?

  Yes?

• 46:17Griffin Newman?

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

• 46:21David Sims?

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

• 46:26Griffin Newman?

  I love that, it's very convenient.

• 46:28David Sims?

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

• 46:35Griffin Newman?

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

• 46:44David Sims?

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

• 47:07Griffin Newman?

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

• 47:40Speaker 04

  The question that I have is that I know Griffin grew up with movies and cinema fluency.

• 47:50David Sims?

  Yeah, talking about it constantly.

• 47:51Griffin Newman?

  I would ask questions and they would explain it to me and I was constantly searching for more answers.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  The idea of a director is not something that I even understood, I think, until, you know, George Lucas or Steven Spielberg.

• 48:02David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  You know, what was your guys' childhood? It's like, because again, in my family, it was you'd watch a movie and you'd talk about, was that a good movie? Like, was that a good movie or not? And that was kind of it.

• 48:13David Sims?

  It's a good question. Like, when did I first become aware of directors or what? I'm not sure. My dad was very into movies, but both my parents were. But my dad was very into movies and I feel like I was so obsessed with the Oscars. So I start watching the Oscars when I'm like six or seven. So it's already very present to me, the idea of the director and like the people behind the movies. Because of that, I guess, would be the first thing. But like, I saw The Truman Show because of Jim Carrey. I definitely had not seen a Peter Weir movie.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Well, I also think Peter Weir, and you guys are in the Peter Weir series, is I feel like he is a director that through my.

• 48:50David Sims?

  Maybe I've seen Dead Poets. Oh, yeah, maybe.

• 48:53Speaker 04

  Through my adult eyes, I can look back and go, oh, my, you know, see his career. But he was not someone who was a name director.

• 49:00Griffin Newman?

  The movies were not sold on him.

• 49:02David Sims?

  Not really. I mean, this one sure wasn't, but that's obviously a Jim Carrey movie. You, Ben, I assume also were like, you weren't, you know, it was a big Jim Carrey movie. That's why you saw it.

• 49:12Griffin Newman?

  Definitely.

• 49:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 49:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I remember having a profound, almost light coming out of the sky, reality being changed for me moment. This very year, 1998, when I, my two favorite movies of 98 unquestionably would have been Small Soldiers and There's Something About Mary, probably followed closely by A Bug's Life and then this. But I realized, despite now being like so obsessed with like Joe Dante and the Farrelly Brothers as directors and my idea of like, there's a sensibility now that I can track across multiple movies with these guys who I like. Paying attention to the credits in a rewatch and being like, wait, what the fuck? They didn't write these movies?

• 49:55David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 49:56Griffin Newman?

  And asking my parents, like, what does a director actually do then if they're not writing it? Because in my conception up until this point, probably through seeing this movie, I'm like, well, it's like Kristoff. He's like whispering in a guy's ear, like, say this.

• 50:09David Sims?

  Kind of a classic question. What does the director?

• 50:11Griffin Newman?

  Like, you're improvising a movie in real time and just going like, my ideas are perfect. Go do this, pull this, like.

• 50:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think I, I, you know, for me, I feel like I had that same experience where when I was a kid, what interested me in movies was that, you know, you got to be Luke Skywalker, that that, that world existed, right? And when you, I understood movies were made, but I think that, you know, when you're a kid, you have this sort of fuzzy line between reality and fiction where you're like, right? I get that Star Wars isn't real, but it was, they made it. So like, it's real somewhere. And they're like, yeah, yeah, people made that. And so, so those people get to live in that world. And I feel like there's this, you know, that childlike version of your, you know, very young, where you don't totally understand it. I think that's what led me down the interest of making movies.

• 51:00David Sims?

  I need to learn more.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  And then I think, once you actually start learning the process, it's a very. Tedious, detail oriented, very slow, methodical process. And so I feel like for a lot of people, people that end up in the industry are people for whom those two circles overlap, for whom a tedious, methodical process is fulfilling in the same way that living in a fantasy world is fulfilling.

• 51:21Griffin Newman?

  Right. It can't be, to actually follow through on doing it, it can't just be an obsession with the final product. You also kind of have to be obsessed with the process. But the process has to be a match.

• 51:32Speaker 04

  But I think the thing that a lot of people are always in seek of, in seek of, in search of.

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  Seeking.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  In seek of.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  In seek of. The thing that people are in seek of.

• 51:41Griffin Newman?

  In seek of.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  Is an experience that feels like you get to live in that universe. And what's interesting with The Truman Show is if, hearing a lot of the actors talk about their experiences is that they basically just lived in that town and they would be shooting stuff so much and pulling things that like, they got to live that experience a little bit that was Truman Show-esque of, you never leave set, you never, you're always in this universe, which is, I think, part, for some people, that is a thing that you sort of hope for, which is, I think, why you get the Kristoffs of the world that want to try to control these universes, because there is something interesting.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  I know for myself, as someone who grew up very anxious and very, you know, having moved a lot, I just always felt like I didn't know the rules of wherever I was. And so I sort of felt like an outsider in that way. And so the idea of a limited universe where you can understand the rules feels very, very exciting to me.

• 52:44David Sims?

  Yeah, it's appealing. It's intoxicating, even.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  And I think that's part of what.

• 52:47David Sims?

  I need to boss Paul Giamatti around.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  Yes, which that's what I've been, I've been trying to figure out.

• 52:52Griffin Newman?

  We've all been trying to get to that position.

• 52:53Speaker 04

  I've been, and I, I got there once.

• 52:55Griffin Newman?

  You did. You said, get in that dumpster.

• 52:56David Sims?

  And he was like, a little nicer, please. And you're like, oh, I'm really sorry.

• 53:00Griffin Newman?

  No further context clues.

• 53:01Speaker 04

  Boss, that was a beg. That was begging. It wasn't, I didn't even have the status to make that ass.

• 53:06Griffin Newman?

  You bring up Star Wars, though, right? That's almost like the definitive cultural touchpoint of now. There have been like five plus generations who talk about seeing that movie, it exploding kind of their consciousness in a way. And having this like, how could I be inside of this, right? Whether or not they end up working in film in any way, it does feel like Star Wars remains this kind of like switch flip of like, wait a second, I'm trying to understand what the reality is that I'm seeing here.

• 53:35David Sims?

  Well, that was the Muppets in Star Wars for me. Cause I was like, okay, this is, you know, being very young, being like, what is real? And what is not real if I'm seeing all these puppets?

• 53:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Star Wars is the classic you read or listen to interviews with anyone, particularly the actors who worked on the original film and are filming in like Tunisia in 1976. And like the, the space between a kid watching that and just being like, I just want to be Luke Skywalker and I want to exist in this world. And then Mark Hamill being interviewed about it 50 years later and being like, everything felt ridiculous when we were doing it.

• 54:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 54:13Griffin Newman?

  You know, like the sets ended two inches over here. Darth Vader's voice is like a British bodybuilder. Everything's falling apart. We're hitting each other with sticks. Like the reality of making something like that doesn't reflect the final feeling that you convey onto people who want to live in that world. And the world is not livable in that sense. And part of what Truman Show is providing is like, what if that world was created for you? Isn't that actually a benevolent act? Like, that's what Kristoff's saying is like, what if I could just fine tune a reality for a person?

• 54:45David Sims?

  I mean, he's right.

• 54:46Griffin Newman?

  And create almost a psychological experiment to give someone the influences to be a good person.

• 54:51David Sims?

  He's right. Like he's not, I'm not saying he's morally right, but he's like, I have created a safe world for you in which you are like, you know, your every need is taken care of.

• 55:00Griffin Newman?

  And of course I had to lie to you because if you knew about it, it would destroy your sense of reality.

• 55:04David Sims?

  And so you're going to leave and you're going to go into a world that's much more hostile and all that. Like he's not wrong about that, but it's like, hey, baby, this is why we live life, right?

• 55:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. But it's also, I think that's, that's the thing with all of this, right? Is we can't keep our grubby fingers off reality. And so as much as we try to

• 55:21Speaker 04

  observe it, document it, no matter what, we start putting our spin on it. Just our fingerprints alone are enough to.

• 55:27David Sims?

  We suck. Should give it back to the bugs, Ben.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  So I want to answer your question. I am, I think, different than you guys, right? Where for me, I am not engaging with a movie and then afterwards being like, how did they make it? I'm just like, this is beautiful fantasy. I wish I could live in that fantasy. I want to pretend, I want to imagine I'm in that world.

• 55:56Speaker 04

  You're in the dark alley with spawn.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Not being like, well, how did they make it? Yeah, I'm like, how do I throw on?

• 56:02David Sims?

  I was also a little less, how did they make it than you guys.

• 56:06Speaker 04

  What I was trying to describe is that I wasn't, how do they make it at all?

• 56:09David Sims?

  Yeah, you were like, I want to.

• 56:10Speaker 04

  That wasn't, my dad was a college football player and that was, there was no.

• 56:14David Sims?

  What do you play?

• 56:15Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 56:15David Sims?

  What position?

• 56:18Speaker 04

  He was a quarterback in high school and then he was a receiver. He hated football.

• 56:22Griffin Newman?

  Sounds like a fucking Chad, though.

• 56:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if I showed you, if I showed you a photo, what's that?

• 56:27David Sims?

  Big tall guy?

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Big tall guy, big tall, strong. My dad was the scary.

• 56:30David Sims?

  Tall, strong.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  My dad was.

• 56:31Griffin Newman?

  Here's Nazan.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  I would say my dad was the scary dad among, you know, and like, I feel like a group of friends. You're like, that's the parent that you're like.

• 56:37David Sims?

  I don't want to piss that dad off. He might be like too grumpy or stern or whatever. Yes, I know what you're talking.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  But my dad was also very goofy, but I only, I say that not to disparage him saying he was a college, but to say that there was, there was zero, I would say there was zero level of like, let's talk about the art and craft of this. And it was like, man, it would be cool to have the spawn cape. And it wasn't until teenage and adulthood that I got into.

• 56:59Griffin Newman?

  My, my parents, look, were providing that. And I was, uh, it was talking to fantasy and he was like, it's interesting the way you talk about your dad on the podcast and make it sound like he was disappointed that you weren't a sports kid. But then yet he had like an understanding and the language to talk to you in the thing that you were obsessed with. And I like, don't want to make it sound like I was like, they're like, God fucking damn it. Hopefully the next one's a jock dynamic in my childhood. But there was that thing of like, it's not, it was never his greatest passion. And my mother had like, sort of felt defeated by trying to pursue a career in the arts at the time that like I was born.

• 57:39Griffin Newman?

  But there was almost a sense of like, less than, I'm so happy to share our passion with you. It was more like, thank God, we happen to know the only fucking thing you want to talk about.

• 57:50David Sims?

  Right. We can at least answer your question.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  You know, and like my, my siblings are like more savvy about the industry than most kids would be because they grew up in a household where that was a language. But it truly felt like my parents were like, God, if he were just like fucking into animals and that was the only thing he wanted to talk about, we'd be fucked.

• 58:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I feel like for me, I, I grew up with parents who my dad was a reluctant college athlete who I think wished he could engage more in the weird arts and music and that. I think, you know, I think that's the stuff that he was actually more interested in. You know, my, the, the movies that were on the pedestal in our household were, as I've joked, the Ernest movies, all the Muppet movies. My mom was a huge Star Trek fan. She was the type of kid who like, she would sit outside in her yard and like, wait for the Enterprise to pick her up. Like,

• 58:38David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  It was like, that was our, that was our universe. And then, you know, we would, once, once a week or every couple of weeks, you know, we'd get pizza and rent a movie. And that was like, you know, sacrosanct.

• 58:50Griffin Newman?

  But JD, the only reason your father wasn't a movie guy when you were growing up is because real steel hadn't been made yet.

• 58:57Speaker 04

  Yes. The Griff is referencing the fact that my,

• 58:59David Sims?

  Dad's a big, uh, stealer.

• 59:01Speaker 04

  I would say,

• 59:02Griffin Newman?

  That's an understatement.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Yes. My dad, yes. I just talked to this on Podcast The Ride, but my dad did for my birthday, get me all of the action figures of all the real steel robots.

• 59:14Griffin Newman?

  It's a real Griff move to be like, I got you a present. It's that thing that I like.

• 59:19David Sims?

  I'm going to open the dossier, guys, uh, about The Truman Show because we should look at it because JJ did do all this work, I assume. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he fucking phoned this one in.

• 59:27Griffin Newman?

  Can I front load one thing? I just, I want to say to Ben, because I've been wanting to say this. And it's like part of what's fascinating about how kind of like airtight this movie is and its world building. This movie is this very bizarre set of circumstances wherein, and then we'll jump back to the beginning of the dossier. 1994, Jim Carrey has his crazy year that we've talked about many times, where Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber all come out in the same calendar year, and he immediately becomes the biggest star in Hollywood. He is so in demand that he lines up so many projects right away. So he basically, by the end of 95, beginning of 96, has agreed to Batman Forever, Ace Ventura 2. They're trying to get him to do Mask and Dumb and Dumber sequels.

• 1:00:11Griffin Newman?

  Liar, liar, end this. And so Peter Weir basically knows he has Jim Carrey, who is an automatic green light. The studio is 100% behind it, but he's not going to be able to film for like, two and a half years.

• 1:00:26Griffin Newman?

  And so rarely has someone been given this much runway to just fucking fine tune a thing before filming, with full studio backing. Where you got Carrey as long as you're willing to wait.

• 1:00:38David Sims?

  Before any of that makes Fearless, this is prior film. After Fearless, what do you think of Fearless?

• 1:00:44Speaker 04

  Uh, I have not seen Fearless.

• 1:00:45David Sims?

  Should check it out.

• 1:00:45Speaker 04

  Excellent film.

• 1:00:46David Sims?

  I think it would resonate with you.

• 1:00:48Griffin Newman?

  Major influence on David's recent sunglass purchasing.

• 1:00:50David Sims?

  That's true, there in my other jacket, though. Peter Weir picks up a bad case of the attaches. It's tough. Or perhaps a case of the circlies or the mentionees. All right, JJ.

• 1:01:00Speaker 04

  What is that? What is that?

• 1:01:01David Sims?

  So the attaches is basically like you make a movie people like, or maybe, you know, like suddenly you're attached to a bunch of stuff that never had happened.

• 1:01:07Griffin Newman?

  Guillermo del Toro has terminal attaches.

• 1:01:09David Sims?

  Well, he's shaken it a little bit, but post like Pan's Labyrinth, it was so bad.

• 1:01:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:01:15David Sims?

  Where he was like attached to like 18 super ambitious projects.

• 1:01:18Griffin Newman?

  Every other week.

• 1:01:19David Sims?

  How could you do that?

• 1:01:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20David Sims?

  So, uh, most serious of these is called The Playmaker, based on a novel by Thomas Cnally. Cnally? I can't remember.

• 1:01:28Griffin Newman?

  Cnally, I think.

• 1:01:29David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, which is about the first play ever performed in Australia in 1789, after the year after the colony was founded. Uh, so sort of like an Australian historical drama. Because post, when he comes to Hollywood, he never returns to Australia really to make movies about it again. And he made movies about like Australian like life and identity.

• 1:01:51Speaker 04

  Well, which I think is interesting because we're talking about so much of, our discussion here is about, and through an American context. And I feel like- That's also something you can't, you know, discount about.

• 1:02:01David Sims?

  No, you can't, but it feels like what he never quite got to make the one more sort of like, I really want to make another movie about Australia project. This sounds like that might have been it.

• 1:02:12Griffin Newman?

  We, we talked about this in our episode with Jennifer Kent on Gallipoli, but he is an interesting case of a filmmaker who feels like he has a really bifurcated career, but it's not that the second act of his career is like a disappointment. And we were like, it's sort of like Fritz Lang, who has like all these insane bold German films and then goes over to Hollywood and makes great noir movies, but it does feel like kind of two distinct things.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  There's themes that are, you can tell he's gravitating towards the same themes of these sort of.

• 1:02:42Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure, sure. And a lot of the Australian films, which I'd never seen before, there's so much dealing with the weirdness of the reality of Australia as this kind of like overtaken prison colony, you know, like building a culture on top of the Aboriginal and sort of denying it and all of that. And his movies always have this kind of like realities butting up against each other.

• 1:03:08David Sims?

  Some other stuff, he was briefly the top choice to replace Ron Howard, making The Chamber, John Grisham movie. Eventually that got made by Jim Foley, bad movie. He was attached to The Alienist, which was the Caleb Carr book that was like in development hell for 20 years before it turned into a like TNT mini series.

• 1:03:27Griffin Newman?

  One of the ultimate attachy bait projects.

• 1:03:30David Sims?

  Exactly. He was, I don't know, there, a lot of these are, yeah, a lot of these are kind of variety articles. It's like Peter Weir may direct the moviegoer, the Walker Percy novel.

• 1:03:40Griffin Newman?

  Moviegoer is fascinating because so many major filmmakers have been attached to that.

• 1:03:44David Sims?

  Had Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins attached. Altman was at one point going to do that. Bruce Baer is, I don't know.

• 1:03:50Griffin Newman?

  Malik almost made that the movie he came out of retirement for as well, which is fascinating.

• 1:03:54David Sims?

  Yeah. But I think he's just in that classic place where he's like a really established name who makes good movies. So he's looking at so many scripts and he's bored by most of them.

• 1:04:04Griffin Newman?

  And Fearless was seen as kind of a flop, but not in a way that puts him in movie jail and it still gets an Oscar nomination.

• 1:04:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Griffin Newman?

  But he doesn't have.

• 1:04:11David Sims?

  Weird movie.

• 1:04:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's not holding like a blank check power necessarily at that moment.

• 1:04:18David Sims?

  Maybe not. The way he puts it though, is when people ask, what are you looking for? He'd say, I'm looking for trouble.

• 1:04:22Griffin Newman?

  Wants to be scared.

• 1:04:23Speaker 04

  That's, that's, that's kind of a cool way to play it.

• 1:04:26David Sims?

  And he said, like, all these screenplays I read, they're remakes. If, even if they're not actual remakes, they feel like remakes. There's a lack of what I call unconscious writing. There's very, you know, scripts are very conscious. They're designed to please financiers. Luckily Hollywood has been cured of all of that and none of that pervades in the industry anymore.

• 1:04:41Griffin Newman?

  No, it's good. We fixed it.

• 1:04:43David Sims?

  Scott Rudin, famously normal guy.

• 1:04:45Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, David was holding for applause.

• 1:04:48David Sims?

  Sends him the Truman Show. Andrew Nickel, of course, who is from New Zealand. People forget. So another person from that side of the globe, you know, is a guy who left New Zealand in his twenties. He became a commercial director, starts writing screenplays.

• 1:05:03Griffin Newman?

  He's mostly writing screenplays to try to pin to his aspirations to.

• 1:05:09David Sims?

  To direct, which.

• 1:05:10Griffin Newman?

  To jump to directing.

• 1:05:11David Sims?

  He mostly is a director.

• 1:05:12Griffin Newman?

  Totally. It's just interesting that I feel like he becomes known as the incredible one sentence pitch guy. Where you're like, that feels like an obvious, this guy just has an endless well of ideas.

• 1:05:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:24Griffin Newman?

  But he really was just like, can I come up with hooks that are so good, they have to let me direct? You were going to say the best.

• 1:05:29David Sims?

  Well, the best thing he ever did was the Truman Show, which he didn't direct, which might, might weigh on you if you're Andrew Nickel. I don't know. Cause he made good movies and plenty of bad ones.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

  Well, we're all entirely in control of our careers at all times. Completely autonomous decisions.

• 1:05:43David Sims?

  He pitched this idea to his manager in the early nineties, the Malcolm Show. It was called back then, but it is, it is the Truman Show.

• 1:05:49Griffin Newman?

  You just have to imagine that everyone literally like fucking starts jumping up and down with that one sentence.

• 1:05:56David Sims?

  He wrote this before he wrote Gattaca, which is of course his directorial debut, which comes out before the Truman Show.

• 1:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Because.

• 1:06:01David Sims?

  He wrote this first.

• 1:06:02Griffin Newman?

  The Truman Show period is so long off the heat of having Carrie attached. He's able to set up Gattaca and get it made as a director before this even.

• 1:06:11David Sims?

  I can tell you.

• 1:06:12Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 1:06:12David Sims?

  Scott Rudin buys the screenplay for a million dollars in 1993. Paramount comes aboard. He does a screen test. Nickel directs a screen text with Tess starring Gary Oldman.

• 1:06:22Griffin Newman?

  He's trying to convince him he can do it.

• 1:06:24David Sims?

  They look at the screen test and they say, Andrew, you will not be getting $80 million. I'm sorry to tell you this now, but like, no, we will not let you direct this.

• 1:06:32Griffin Newman?

  This is too big for a first time director.

• 1:06:34David Sims?

  As he puts it, I made the mistake of writing my most expensive film first, which is a good way to put it.

• 1:06:39Griffin Newman?

  And another example of how Hollywood has fixed itself. Now they don't make the mistake of even letting a first time director do a screen test for an $80 million movie. They just give $200 million to first time directors right off the bat.

• 1:06:50David Sims?

  Like who?

• 1:06:52Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the Maleficent guy.

• 1:06:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Joseph Kaczynski. Disney was really

• 1:06:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:57Griffin Newman?

  Kind of very guilty of doing it for a while.

• 1:06:59David Sims?

  Right, right. Uh, so Weir, uh, so some of the people are considered Brian De Palma. Makes sense.

• 1:07:05Griffin Newman?

  Makes sense.

• 1:07:05David Sims?

  Lawyerism.

• 1:07:06Griffin Newman?

  Cameras.

• 1:07:07David Sims?

  Brian Singer. Uh oh.

• 1:07:09Griffin Newman?

  Cameras.

• 1:07:10David Sims?

  Surveillance. David Cronenberg. Again, makes sense, although you cannot imagine him being handed a big budget.

• 1:07:15Griffin Newman?

  The cameras are in your nipples.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  A Cronenberg Truman Show would be fascinating.

• 1:07:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21David Sims?

  It would. It would be interesting.

• 1:07:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And the Brian Singer Truman Show would have gotten 10,000 people arrested.

• 1:07:29David Sims?

  Weir reads the script, thinks it's interesting and is like, I think it's too challenging. I think suspension of belief is just too challenging. Like, I don't think I can convince people that this would exist. Which is the, that, that is the trick with Truman Show, that it kind of does like get you on board with like, yeah, yeah, this is real.

• 1:07:46Griffin Newman?

  And if you're off by a hair.

• 1:07:47David Sims?

  Financially sustains itself.

• 1:07:48Griffin Newman?

  The whole thing is going to collapse. If people are too busy getting hung up on questions that the movie can't answer, the answers aren't satisfying.

• 1:07:54David Sims?

  But he can't get it out of his mind.

• 1:07:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 1:07:57David Sims?

  Can't stop thinking about it. So he says they went through 14 drafts. Original draft is much darker.

• 1:08:06David Sims?

  Uh, in the original script, there was an innocent passenger attacked on a subway as a way to test his courage. Uh, he has a relationship with a, a sex worker who he dresses up as Sylvia. Like, you know, like they make the magazine thing more literal. Uh, the original movie script that he has a drinking problem, like, you know, it was grimmer. And Weir was just like, no one would watch this show. Like, it's too grim. The whole point is the show needs to be attractive to people.

• 1:08:33Griffin Newman?

  Well, also beyond that, like when he pitches it to his manager, the, the quick log line is like Malcolm is the star of a 24 hour continuous soap opera in the future, but he doesn't know it. He has been filmed by hidden cameras every second of his life. The Malcolm Show has been running since his birth. The show has 16 producers. All his family and friends are actors. All the strangers that he sees in the streets are extras. And he immediately goes, obviously this should be a paranoid thriller.

• 1:08:57David Sims?

  Paranoid thriller set in New York City.

• 1:08:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. Starts writing it as, and like pretty quickly, even before directors are coming on, Rudin is like, is that really the tone? And there was like versions of it where it's like, it's a twist that's revealed to the audience halfway through, you know? I think he just kept thinking of it in the most serious execution of that idea.

• 1:09:19David Sims?

  It's funny, though, hearing this, because reality television, the ecosystem of it, isn't it just all basically alcoholics misbehaving? Wait, what? Those guys are up to no good? They're in trouble?

• 1:09:31Griffin Newman?

  And like physically attacking each other?

• 1:09:33David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. Well, what I think it's just so delightful that it's like, well, reality television, people would love to see people being nice to each other.

• 1:09:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:09:40David Sims?

  In a quaint little town. It's like couldn't be completely the opposite.

• 1:09:44Griffin Newman?

  Giant pin in this. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:46David Sims?

  Yes, giant pin in this, giant pin in this.

• 1:09:47Griffin Newman?

  But it, but it's also funny that like, they're like, they had this whole plot line where Truman is like, having a sort of non-physical affair with a sex worker, who he makes wear the cardigan of the Natasha McKellen character and like act like her so he can pretend he's still with her. And he thinks it's his dirty secret, but he doesn't know the world is like seeing him have this sort of emotional affair. And they were just sort of like, this feels like too much for the audience to be like watching and would they root against Truman? And then I'm like, wasn't Scandival the single most important thing? I guess that happened in America in the last 10 years?

• 1:10:22David Sims?

  I have so many thoughts on that.

• 1:10:23Griffin Newman?

  Certainly was treated that way. Anyway, go on.

• 1:10:27David Sims?

  So.

• 1:10:27Griffin Newman?

  Another giant pin.

• 1:10:29David Sims?

  Sure. Just Scandival. We're starts thinking harder about like Kristoff, you know, and like we've talked about this a little bit already. And the vanity of this guy, how he feels like he's creating the ideal human being, the true man, and making a ton of money at the same time.

• 1:10:43Griffin Newman?

  True man, you say?

• 1:10:44David Sims?

  Exactly. And so, you know, he doesn't want it to be like a polemical movie. He wants it to be an entertaining movie, which is great. But I think that's the right approach. Like, I think if it was too hectoring, which I think is the problem with every single Andrew Nickel movie. When Nickel is just in charge of it, that's the problem.

• 1:11:04Griffin Newman?

  What if Time Was Money, though?

• 1:11:06David Sims?

  Sim, Sim one, or Simone, you know, we're like, you know, like all these movies where I'm like, great pitch. And then he's like, do you get my pitch? And I'm like, I, I, I got your pitch. Lord of War, he's made of bullets! Like, you know, just, shh, Andrew, quiet.

• 1:11:20Griffin Newman?

  This is why I'm like pinpointing, spotlighting the thriller thing, right?

• 1:11:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Griffin Newman?

  Is that like all of his movies he directs, I like Attica a lot.

• 1:11:29David Sims?

  Attica is his best movie.

• 1:11:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. But otherwise, you're like, what an incredible concept. And you kind of have the exact wrong approach to what the most interesting version of that story is. The concept is like so powerful. And then like dramatically, he's like attacking it from the wrong angle. And it's not like he's always taking the same wrong approach. It just always feels like his direction was off. And I think this is one of the best examples of good Hollywood development. Like this is the rare case of every starting idea was powerful, but off. And every choice they make off of that massaging it for three years is like what fixes it.

• 1:12:10Speaker 04

  Well, there's a funny meta thing too, because like the discussion you're having right now about that is like, in its own way, a play acting of the discussion TV executives might have over the development of a show like The Truman Show. And what's I think interesting is that no matter how much you try to put a veneer of like, no, no, no, no, it can't be that. It has to be, we have to, we have to make it happy and good and whatever. As we discussed at the beginning of this, like that darkness will find, you know, life, life's gonna find a way through the cracks of whatever you try to patch over.

• 1:12:41David Sims?

  Okay, Ian Malcolm.

• 1:12:43Speaker 04

  Okay, you've called me Ian Malcolm so many times.

• 1:12:45David Sims?

  You haven't been, 5 o'clock shadow, he's kind of an Ian Malcolm being gone on right now.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  Well, listen.

• 1:12:50David Sims?

  Lanky, handsome.

• 1:12:52Griffin Newman?

  I just don't understand why you keep calling me Dennis Nedry. Yes, I'm wearing a raincoat and I'm covered in dinosaur ink all over my face.

• 1:13:00Speaker 04

  Yes, you're wet for no reason.

• 1:13:02Griffin Newman?

  Stay away from me.

• 1:13:04David Sims?

  Before Scott Rudin even starts talking to Peter Weir, he's circling Jim Carrey. But then he does say to Weir, like, look, you might not know who Jim Carrey is. And Weir is like, no, no, no, I like Jim Carrey.

• 1:13:15Speaker 04

  It would be funny for Peter Weir to be like, I've never heard of this.

• 1:13:18David Sims?

  Well, I think Scott Rudin, because remember it's the earlier 90s. I think Scott Rudin's thinking like, you're too crass to have seen like a central, right? I mean, like, sorry, you're not like, that movie's too crass for you.

• 1:13:27Griffin Newman?

  But it's also, it's like within that year when he's exploding. And it's like, is that guy paying attention to like what are seen as juvenile comedies?

• 1:13:35David Sims?

  As Peter Weir. To quote Peter Weir. I'd seen a poster in the video store of Ace Ventura and I liked the look of the guy in it. I sensed an energy I was to see in the film. He says, four minutes into Ace Ventura, it was apparent this man was remarkable. And I thought how fascinating he's interested in the Truman Show. Like, I guess he's basically like, he's got live energy I want to tap.

• 1:13:59Speaker 04

  I imagine that Peter Weir staring at a poster of Jim Carrey talking through his butt.

• 1:14:03David Sims?

  The poster of Ace Ventura is him holding up the card.

• 1:14:06Griffin Newman?

  The big card.

• 1:14:07David Sims?

  The first four minutes of Ace Ventura, which are one of the best parts of the movie, is him with the box. If you remember.

• 1:14:14Griffin Newman?

  The fake UPS guy.

• 1:14:16Speaker 04

  In the opening? In the opening, there's some rough stuff.

• 1:14:19David Sims?

  Wait, really?

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I rewatched it. I mean, I can't remember. I just remember rewatching it in the first four minutes going, uh-oh.

• 1:14:25David Sims?

  Interesting. The box, I remember, that's just like pure Carrie comedy. That's so good.

• 1:14:29Speaker 04

  It's him going full blast.

• 1:14:31David Sims?

  Him getting the blowjob from the client, like, come on, what are you talking about?

• 1:14:33Speaker 04

  There's just a handful. Yeah, listen, who knows?

• 1:14:37David Sims?

  Why I like Ace Ventura now is because it's such a dark, nasty movie. It's so weird. Like, it is, and like, it doesn't, yes, it's problematic.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  It's a movie without flaw, as we've established.

• 1:14:47Griffin Newman?

  We're on the same page about this.

• 1:14:48David Sims?

  I can't believe this was a four quadrant hit. Cause it's like a nasty movie.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  Yes, and I'm sure I, little nine-year-old JD was watching it.

• 1:14:58David Sims?

  And like, all the nasty shit just flew right over my head, like, truly.

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  They made a Sunday cartoon out of it.

• 1:15:03David Sims?

  They did.

• 1:15:04Griffin Newman?

  It's a Saturday morning. They wouldn't put it on the Lord's Day.

• 1:15:07David Sims?

  Yeah, that doesn't belong there.

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  You're right.

• 1:15:09Griffin Newman?

  Ace needs his own day. I mean, this is the other stupid stat I love to bring up when we talk about how big Carrie's 95 was. He has three ginormous hits in one calendar year, all three of which were so big that a year later, they all have Saturday morning cartoons. There was Mask, Dumb and Dumber, and Ace Ventura cartoons airing simultaneously on three different networks.

• 1:15:30David Sims?

  I truly challenge our listeners to clip out the amount of times Griff has said that on this podcast.

• 1:15:35Griffin Newman?

  I hope it's a five time.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  It's a lot. What's, what's the last movie? What's the last adult movie?

• 1:15:42David Sims?

  The last one.

• 1:15:42Speaker 04

  Oh, that's it?

• 1:15:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  Okay, great. The last movie, the last adult movie did become Saturday morning cartoon.

• 1:15:48David Sims?

  Uh.

• 1:15:48Speaker 04

  You know, not, not, because obviously I'm not going to count like Boss Baby or like whatever.

• 1:15:52Griffin Newman?

  The Saturday morning cartoon basically doesn't exist.

• 1:15:55David Sims?

  It kind of doesn't exist anymore, right?

• 1:15:56Griffin Newman?

  I would say the answer is Netflix did do like 60 episodes of a terrible CGI Fast and Furious cartoon.

• 1:16:03David Sims?

  Another thing Griffin's brought up, I would like people to clip out several types.

• 1:16:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm very disappointed with that show. I wish they had brought me in. I had a lot of big ideas.

• 1:16:10David Sims?

  So Peter Weir's interested in Jim Carrey, you know, says he's like a wicked naughty boy in a man's body. He has a real electricity that could crack glass. I mean, that's all interesting.

• 1:16:18Griffin Newman?

  At first you're like surprising and then what suddenly becomes clear and perfectly fits vocabulary I've just been gifted. Is Ace Ventura a bit of a lirikin?

• 1:16:31David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:16:32Griffin Newman?

  Is Jim Carrey a bit of an American lirikin?

• 1:16:37David Sims?

  Uh, lirikin to be clear, uh, J Key, in case you don't, uh, JT, JT, JD.

• 1:16:42Griffin Newman?

  J Key.

• 1:16:43Speaker 04

  I thought you said J King, which.

• 1:16:44David Sims?

  J King.

• 1:16:45Speaker 04

  Help take.

• 1:16:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's only one king and it's the dream man himself.

• 1:16:48David Sims?

  A word for like a rascal, like kind of like a ne'er do well.

• 1:16:53Griffin Newman?

  Jennifer Kent told us and, and now I'm going to use it the way Nick Weiger uses Ungapachka.

• 1:16:59Speaker 04

  That's great. I love it.

• 1:17:00David Sims?

  So first meeting, Jim's kind of nervous and so he says, let's go to the bathroom, let's fuck around. And he does the soap thing.

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  No, that carries like, you know how normal meeting goes. Hey, let's go to the bathroom, fuck around.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  Harry pitches like.

• 1:17:13Griffin Newman?

  Hand stuff.

• 1:17:14David Sims?

  Weir pitches Carrie like, I think your character would be doing weird things in the mirror. And Carrie's like, okay. And they go to the bathroom mirror and he does the soap thing.

• 1:17:22Griffin Newman?

  I walk in, I'm watching deleted scenes. Ben goes, man, this is why you hired Jim Carrey here. And it's just raw footage of him doing extra mirror stuff. And I'm like, Ben, literally, I'll tell you on mic, but it was the first thing Carrie came up with. And like shows him in real time.

• 1:17:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:39Griffin Newman?

  There's the thing in here that, uh, Weir said that makes so much fucking sense to me beyond just like the energy and his talent and his box office viability. But that he's like, there is a kind of like uncanniness to Jim Carrey. He feels kind of like a fake person where even if you tell him to tone down the theatrics, it feels like someone doing an impression of a normal guy.

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  Which I think is why this is such an excellent first foray into non primarily comedic acting work for Jim Carrey is because Truman Burbank's a weird guy. He's not a normal guy.

• 1:18:13David Sims?

  No, how could he be really?

• 1:18:15Speaker 04

  Exactly. And so any inconsistencies in the performance that feel sort of like a little, a little extra fit right in with this character, which is why it's like a perfect casting is because he can be Jim Carrey and bring that Jim Carrey energy. And you're like, yeah, that's how, that's how a kid who grew up in a weird faux 1950s on TV all the time universe would act and behave. And so it fits right into the pocket of excellent performance because even if he veers into Jim Carrey stuff, you're like, yeah, Truman Burbank's a weird guy.

• 1:18:47Griffin Newman?

  Jim Carrey is also just like a peak kind of raised by TV guy, right? Like,

• 1:18:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:18:54Griffin Newman?

  Not, not, he talks a lot about his parents. It's not like they were absentee, but it, you know, it's like that generation of people who were just like, we learned the world through media. We had more media than anyone had ever had before. And here's a guy who like becomes a comedian, getting up on stage and doing impressions of like 70 different actors and making his name off of that. He's clearly in this loop of like referencing and warping the media he grew up in. And yeah, it's like what we're smart about is I, you know, I'm fascinated by like anytime a comedian tries a big dramatic performance for the first time, especially if it's not like, we're gonna put like John Candy in one scene of JFK. It's like a still a vehicle.

• 1:19:37Griffin Newman?

  And the people who survive that translation, people who don't is that often I think without a steady hand behind them, comedians will just be like, got it. I just need to turn down the energy. And then people are just boring, right?

• 1:19:51David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:19:51Griffin Newman?

  They're like, well, I need to play it serious. And then they just like crank their motor down to one and then they're just kind of giving a sleepy performance because they're so

• 1:20:00David Sims?

  Sleepy Carl.

• 1:20:01Griffin Newman?

  Is the ultimate example where I'm just like all, I don't, I think he's a very good actor.

• 1:20:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:06Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like he's self-conscious about not letting the comedy creep into his performances anymore. Whereas like,

• 1:20:13Griffin Newman?

  Little Miss Sunshine is like, to me, an excellent dramatic performance where he's recognizing that that guy has humor in him as a person without being a sketch character. And Truman is like such a smart use of him where it's like, you're not taking Carrie's energy away, you're sort of redirecting it.

• 1:20:29Speaker 04

  Well, I also think we're going to start seeing that less and less because we're in a period of time where, as we were discussing-

• 1:20:35David Sims?

  Comedy is legal.

• 1:20:36Griffin Newman?

  Comedy is illegal.

• 1:20:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. No, but it's what we're discussing before this, which is the state of the television and film industry is such that, you know, being in a movie or on a TV show is not a life-changing step up in your career. And for a lot of comedians especially, it's actually more of a fun thing they do on the side that is separate from the thing that actually makes them their money and is their main career. Because, you know, there was a period of time in the 90s where it was like, you know, the dream was you're this comedian who has this comedy career and then you get absorbed into the mainstream world of film and television and now you're on Easy Street and now you're like a big celebrity and, you know, that's turned on its head.

• 1:21:17Speaker 04

  I think, I think if anything, that exploration to film and TV is more of like a side hobby or an exploration more than it's a chance to level up. Because for a lot of comedians, they're, they make a better living doing the thing that they do.

• 1:21:31Griffin Newman?

  But, right, which can be any number of things, but like the A-list thing too of, and there're like two, three people left who have this, I would say, where it's like, every year I am making one big chess move on the board. I am thinking thoroughly about the weight of what I pick. And that represents like, this is the Jim Carrey movie of this year. And people are waiting and is it going to be building on what we already liked from the guy or is it going to be a subversion? And like part of the whole like weird cable guy backlash was people being like, I don't like this darkness put on top of manic Carrie. And it's like, got it, got it, got it, we're switching, liar, liar, scary part is gone, he's just doing funny stuff.

• 1:22:14Griffin Newman?

  And so it is part of like this movie being announced of like, Carrie wants to like do something different. Everyone is leaning in to see what that is. It means something rather than like, Jason Bateman has done like four different TV shows where he plays a psychopath. And it's never treated as like, holy shit, Jason Bateman went dark.

• 1:22:35David Sims?

  Well, yeah, cuz he's really plausible as a psychopath.

• 1:22:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, yes, but I, but I don't think there's a single person who could do that today and it would be mind blowing. And part of that is we don't have like.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  No one like.

• 1:22:46Griffin Newman?

  A-list comedy movie stars. Right.

• 1:22:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's interesting cuz you're right. It's not even, back then, it wasn't even, oh, you're a stand-up, you're a this and you're going into movies and TVs. He was a comedic movie star.

• 1:22:59David Sims?

  He was comedic movie star, but.

• 1:23:00Speaker 04

  Changing genre.

• 1:23:01David Sims?

  But he's a very fresh one, like as much, you know, so he's still pretty fresh.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's, this is this first batch, like 95 is this weird, like, parallel thinking, the industry is like coalescing around him as.

• 1:23:12David Sims?

  No, 94.

• 1:23:14Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, thank you.

• 1:23:15David Sims?

  95 is Batman Forever.

• 1:23:16Griffin Newman?

  Good scripts, this guy's talented, he doesn't cost much, and suddenly all of those movies like hit, right? And then, right, this lineup of like things that are him trying to test, like, okay, every move I make now is gonna have the eyes of the world on it.

• 1:23:31David Sims?

  Little bit. Well, 95 is Batman Forever, When Nature Calls. When Nature Calls, he's like, ugh, I don't want that to happen to me again. No more sequels.

• 1:23:39Griffin Newman?

  Bows out a mask in Dumb and Dumber 2.

• 1:23:41David Sims?

  Right. Cable Guy, people don't like it that much, bit of a cult hit. He does Liar Liar.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  He becomes the first $20 million star in Hollywood. He becomes the symbol of the top of the pyramid, the guy who, yeah, is covering half the budget just with his salary.

• 1:23:57David Sims?

  Liar Liar, we have to admit it, you can't lie.

• 1:24:01Speaker 04

  I feel like he barely.

• 1:24:03David Sims?

  Lie to us, David.

• 1:24:04Speaker 04

  He barely ever lies in that movie.

• 1:24:06Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:24:06David Sims?

  Why?

• 1:24:07Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  Barely ever lies.

• 1:24:08Griffin Newman?

  Trust me.

• 1:24:09David Sims?

  Trust him.

• 1:24:10Griffin Newman?

  Trust me. We're doing that.

• 1:24:11David Sims?

  Your Honor, I object. Why? For what reason? Cuz it's devastating to my case. That's my favorite joke in Liar Liar. Like, he's so good at all that shit, like the, he's compelled to say the truth shit.

• 1:24:22Speaker 04

  I feel like we've talked about this and forgive me if we've done it before on the podcast, but like, especially in the like.

• 1:24:29David Sims?

  He says overruled, he goes, good call.

• 1:24:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, especially in the early 2000s, there was lines from trailers that are stuck in my mind, and that's one of them, is I feel like there was a trailer where that line pops up. There's also like the, the one that I always love referencing is the like, uh, you put the wrong and fastest on the wrong syllable, which is a movie that like pause listeners. I mean, I think blank check listeners will know, but like the average person's like, I know that line, but what that, what movie is that from? And you're like,

• 1:24:57Griffin Newman?

  Bruno Berettos, A View From The Top, obviously.

• 1:24:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, A View From The Top, duh.

• 1:25:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:01David Sims?

  The golden age of trailers.

• 1:25:03Griffin Newman?

  But that, that's another example of like, that's not a holy shit. They struck like gold, uh, Truman Show, like deep premise, but the second America was told, here's the movie, Jim Carrey can't lie.

• 1:25:16David Sims?

  He can't lie. He was a lawyer and he can't lie.

• 1:25:19Griffin Newman?

  People were-

• 1:25:19David Sims?

  What do lawyers do?

• 1:25:20Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:25:21Griffin Newman?

  They were sending money to the theater in advance. It was, that's all I need to hear.

• 1:25:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:25Griffin Newman?

  I can fill in the blanks. He's just gonna do shit for 90 minutes.

• 1:25:29Speaker 04

  He can't lie, but then what happens if he gets a speeding ticket? Oh my god. Surely in that situation, he'd lie.

• 1:25:36Griffin Newman?

  I like that they were like, everyone loves Jim Carrey for his physical comedy, but this movie is premised on a verbal trait. And they were like, don't worry.

• 1:25:44Speaker 04

  Am I crazy that there's like three movies of that with him that are like, it's like that, me, myself and Irene.

• 1:25:50David Sims?

  Correct.

• 1:25:50Speaker 04

  And then there's another one.

• 1:25:51David Sims?

  Yes, man.

• 1:25:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes, man.

• 1:25:52Speaker 04

  Which are like all very like-

• 1:25:54Griffin Newman?

  You can't say no, he's gotta say yes. Yes, man sucks because yes, man-

• 1:25:58David Sims?

  Yes, man does suck.

• 1:25:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes, man is like, there's a guru. I think it's Terrence Stamp.

• 1:26:03David Sims?

  Yeah, who he's just like listening to the advice.

• 1:26:05Griffin Newman?

  Writes a book that's like philosophy of yes, and he's like, I'm gonna do that, yes.

• 1:26:09David Sims?

  Like, but what's good about me, myself and Irene, which is a flawed movie, but-

• 1:26:12Griffin Newman?

  I don't like that movie.

• 1:26:13David Sims?

  Right. But like the physical comedy is strong because it's like, it is beyond his control what's happening to him. And Carrey can play that very funny. Like that's what he's always been good at.

• 1:26:21Griffin Newman?

  His performance is very good.

• 1:26:22David Sims?

  His body is overtaken.

• 1:26:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:26:23David Sims?

  Cause you know, like-

• 1:26:24Speaker 04

  Me, myself and Irene is like-

• 1:26:26David Sims?

  It's a nuanced portrayal of split personalities.

• 1:26:28Speaker 04

  Yes, right.

• 1:26:28David Sims?

  Yeah, it was a nice one and a mean one.

• 1:26:30Griffin Newman?

  Dissociative identity disorder. It's Charlie and, uh-

• 1:26:32David Sims?

  Hank.

• 1:26:33Griffin Newman?

  Oh Hank is not a nice guy.

• 1:26:35Speaker 04

  Okay, wait, and the premise of Yes, Man is that this is like more of like a self-help thing that he's doing?

• 1:26:40Griffin Newman?

  He goes to a self-help seminar. This guy wrote a book on the power of yes. And he's like, I'm gonna do that. And then the rest of the movie, everyone's like, just stop.

• 1:26:49Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, no. Well, I guess he says, he refuses to answer the question.

• 1:26:54Speaker 04

  And the movie stops right there. Okay, here's a pitch.

• 1:26:58Griffin Newman?

  There's a point in Yes Man where he's gotten himself into like immense legal trouble. And his best friend is Bradley Cooper, who's a lawyer. And he has to show up and say, I'm sorry. He made this stupid deal with himself that he's gonna say yes to everything.

• 1:27:14Speaker 04

  And remind me, liar liar, what's the magical, it's like a birthday?

• 1:27:18Griffin Newman?

  His son makes a wish. When he blows out the candles on his birthday cake for the party that his father didn't attend. His father said, of course I'll be there. And then meanwhile.

• 1:27:28David Sims?

  He says, I wish for one day, like, you know, my dad could not lie.

• 1:27:31Speaker 04

  Okay, I got a pitch.

• 1:27:32David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 1:27:33Speaker 04

  He goes to this self-help seminar. This is gonna be my year of yes. As he is starting that journey, suddenly it's birthday time. Candles go out. He gets liar liar'd in the middle of the year of yes.

• 1:27:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:47Speaker 04

  You're like, what's this man can only say yes to things and he cannot lie.

• 1:27:51Griffin Newman?

  So he's saying no to everything.

• 1:27:53Speaker 04

  So it's, it's chaos is gonna unfold.

• 1:27:55Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't want to say yes.

• 1:27:56Speaker 04

  It couldn't get any crazier than this. And what does he see on the ground?

• 1:28:00Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 1:28:00Speaker 04

  A green mask.

• 1:28:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh my God.

• 1:28:02Speaker 04

  What happens when the mask can't lie and can't say no?

• 1:28:07Griffin Newman?

  This is really good.

• 1:28:08David Sims?

  What would it be called?

• 1:28:10Speaker 04

  It would be called.

• 1:28:11David Sims?

  No, honestly, smoke it.

• 1:28:15Speaker 04

  No, honestly, smoke it. That's what he's, that's his catchphrase.

• 1:28:19David Sims?

  I'm good. All right. Okay. Okay. Everyone shut up.

• 1:28:21Griffin Newman?

  Steve Corin.

• 1:28:22Speaker 04

  Why did this make you mad?

• 1:28:24David Sims?

  Cause we're so off the rails.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  Why did this make you mad?

• 1:28:26David Sims?

  We're good. We're good. Carrie, I want to say this.

• 1:28:30Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:28:30David Sims?

  I think this is important.

• 1:28:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  Carrie's biggest inspiration for his performance in The Truman Show is his father, who he says was very much like that, the kind of like, hi, how are you? You know, starts laughing before like you even tell him how things are doing. That kind of like mega friendly, ray of sunshine affable kind of guy. He said his whole family are like, oh, you're doing that. Yeah, he almost drowned in the water tank. That's a big part of the lore of this movie.

• 1:28:57Griffin Newman?

  Well, he did, and that was when they Replace him with the first Jim Carrey clone.

• 1:29:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:29:00Griffin Newman?

  Who, who runs from 99 to

• 1:29:03David Sims?

  Recently.

• 1:29:03Griffin Newman?

  2005.

• 1:29:04David Sims?

  We're not quite sure when, right?

• 1:29:05Griffin Newman?

  No, cause Hoppers was a new guy.

• 1:29:07David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:29:08Griffin Newman?

  When he popped those

• 1:29:09David Sims?

  And he was settling in.

• 1:29:11Griffin Newman?

  That one was not well calibrated.

• 1:29:12Speaker 04

  Hoppers is like the Bond who did one and then was

• 1:29:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Hoppers is

• 1:29:17David Sims?

  Fucking chuck this one out, it didn't work. Originally cast as Kristoff, as Griffin noted, is Dennis Hopper. Very different energy.

• 1:29:26Griffin Newman?

  Very different.

• 1:29:27David Sims?

  To imagine like Hopper. Come on, you fucking assholes, like just screaming at everyone.

• 1:29:33Speaker 04

  Truman, talk, you can hear me.

• 1:29:35David Sims?

  We're

• 1:29:35Speaker 04

  I can hear you.

• 1:29:35David Sims?

  Weir says, I cast him before I really had an idea of who Kristoff was gonna be. When, you know, by the time it came to filming, differences arose is how he put it. He says that Dennis was

• 1:29:47Griffin Newman?

  Dennis Hopper?

• 1:29:47David Sims?

  He says that Dennis was understanding and gracious.

• 1:29:50Griffin Newman?

  Hopper did film.

• 1:29:51David Sims?

  I think so. I mean, they started filming.

• 1:29:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:54Speaker 04

  Release the Hopper cut.

• 1:29:55David Sims?

  He toyed, Weir toyed with playing the role himself, which is really interesting. Because he's like, as director, it did kind of occur to me that like

• 1:30:04Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 1:30:05David Sims?

  There's like that kind of god complex.

• 1:30:07Speaker 04

  That would have been fascinating.

• 1:30:09Griffin Newman?

  It's also the

• 1:30:10David Sims?

  Director hasn't wanted to say cue the sun is what

• 1:30:12Speaker 04

  I mean, there is, there is, yes.

• 1:30:15Griffin Newman?

  This surprising thing about Weir that we found is that he like basically started in sketch comedy.

• 1:30:20David Sims?

  Yeah, he did. Although it's because in Australia, that seemed to be the only way to do anything in the seventies. What were you gonna say?

• 1:30:25Speaker 04

  Well, it's funny because I'm not that, I wasn't that tapped into Peter Weir in his whole life and universe. And the more I heard about it, I was like.

• 1:30:33Griffin Newman?

  Kind of parallel to you.

• 1:30:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was like, is this, is this kinda, is Peter Weir kinda the career that I wish that I could?

• 1:30:40Griffin Newman?

  Sure. It doesn't sound like

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  I mean, of course it is. He's one of the most incredible directors.

• 1:30:44Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't sound like he ever had like designs on performing professionally, but it does sound like he was performing as much in comedy as you were. At like around the ECB and everything. And then, so you're like, you have to imagine there's some innate ability he would have to just kind of like Hold the camera. He's also so fascinating in interviews. Like he does have such an interesting energy.

• 1:31:07David Sims?

  Good energy.

• 1:31:08Griffin Newman?

  But, but it's the Tootsie thing. The, the Tootsie dynamic where Hoffman like begged Uh, fucking Sidney Pollack to play his agent. Cause he was like, I want to have these scenes be with someone who actually holds power over me.

• 1:31:32Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:31:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:33Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:31:39David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:39Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:31:51Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. 59 years later, a reel of 16 millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything.

• 1:32:00David Sims?

  Wow.

• 1:32:01Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery, told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:32:14David Sims?

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

• 1:32:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:32:34David Sims?

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

• 1:32:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:38David Sims?

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

• 1:32:45Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:32:59David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:33:01Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:33:02David Sims?

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

• 1:33:19Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:33:35Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:33:35David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:33:36Griffin Newman?

  He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, and an A-list cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood as Lucy, David Johnson as Dr. Seward, and many more. That is an all-star cast.

• 1:33:57David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiance, Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 1:34:16Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina may just hold the key to bring down the Count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 1:34:32David Sims?

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

• 1:35:07Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:35:07David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:35:08Griffin Newman?

  People cut the cord. Means the death of the repeat, the rerun. But where do repeats still exist? In your closet.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  Ah, the sweater that goes with everything, Griffin. The tea you somehow always reach for first?

• 1:35:22Griffin Newman?

  It's, we know the feeling.

• 1:35:24David Sims?

  Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. That's what Quince does best.

• 1:35:27Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:35:27David Sims?

  This is true for me. I will say I go to Quince. I buy a thing like a polo shirt, a sweater, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I like that. Guess I'll get a bunch more because now that's what I'm gonna put on.

• 1:35:38Griffin Newman?

  Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day.

• 1:35:53David Sims?

  Love it. They got those 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters. Those start at just $60.

• 1:35:57Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:35:58David Sims?

  Giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand. Without that luxury price tag and look, it's starting to get chillier. You're gonna need layers, right? How about you just do Quince for every layer, huh?

• 1:36:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:11David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:36:13Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:36:14David Sims?

  What?

• 1:36:14Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:36:16David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:36:17Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:36:19David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:36:20Griffin Newman?

  Yep, that's me. David, I like these. They're just clean. They're comfortable. They got the right amount of pockets.

• 1:36:26David Sims?

  Wow. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know. It was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:36:55David Sims?

  We're wanted Alan Alda after Hopper gets fired, which more matches, obviously what they're going for with Kristoff. Sherry Lancing, who ran Universal at the time, I assume, wanted a bigger star. Ed Harris is-

• 1:37:06Griffin Newman?

  Is paramount.

• 1:37:07David Sims?

  Oh, is it paramount?

• 1:37:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it is paramount.

• 1:37:09David Sims?

  Of course. So Sherry, yeah, sorry, paramount. Um, Ed Harris, it is truly like, he's like, I like got a phone call on a Friday. I started working on a Monday.

• 1:37:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:17David Sims?

  You know, like-

• 1:37:18Griffin Newman?

  Incredible in this?

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  It's obviously, it's an incredible performance.

• 1:37:22Griffin Newman?

  One of his best performances?

• 1:37:23David Sims?

  It is. He probably should have won the Oscar.

• 1:37:28Griffin Newman?

  I was thinking the same thing. Is this the Coburn year?

• 1:37:31David Sims?

  It's the Kevin Spacey is the first, he has the Coburn year, which is, you know, honestly, Affliction is a bit of a forgotten movie. Coburn is good in it. Obviously Coburn was a well-known, you know, like it's a bit of a career award, but he's really good in that movie.

• 1:37:47Griffin Newman?

  And, and he doesn't make many films after that.

• 1:37:49David Sims?

  James Coburn?

• 1:37:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:51David Sims?

  No, he was, he was a elderly, you know, he was, he was on the, on the way out.

• 1:37:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying, it was like, there wasn't.

• 1:37:57David Sims?

  He died like three years later.

• 1:37:58Griffin Newman?

  Be another chance to, to give it to him. The other thing.

• 1:38:01David Sims?

  I know, but I, I, look, this is so rude of me to say, because James Coburn's a good actor. James Coburn is not the level of actor where I'm like, he had to have an Oscar before he died.

• 1:38:09Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you. I also think Ed Harris was in this zone at this point in time where people were like.

• 1:38:15David Sims?

  He'll win.

• 1:38:16Griffin Newman?

  He, he's gonna win like any day now. And then it's like, he hasn't been nominated in over 20 years, close to 25. But in the nineties.

• 1:38:24David Sims?

  In, and he got four noms total because it's, it's, so it's a Paul 13 before this, which he also should have won for.

• 1:38:31Griffin Newman?

  Truman Hours Pollock?

• 1:38:33David Sims?

  Then Truman, then Pollock, then the Hours.

• 1:38:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:35David Sims?

  The Hours, I, I don't like that performance very much. The Others, he's an arguable winner every time.

• 1:38:42Griffin Newman?

  But that's.

• 1:38:43David Sims?

  Uh, when I interviewed him, he looked like Kristoffin was so scary.

• 1:38:47Griffin Newman?

  Notoriously, one of the scariest men.

• 1:38:49Speaker 04

  What's the most scared you've been in an interview?

• 1:38:50David Sims?

  That one. Well, without a doubt, I was so scared to interview because I've always heard how scary he is.

• 1:38:54Griffin Newman?

  Uniformly, everyone says he is like the most intense. It's also just like, he's got Ed Harris energy all the time.

• 1:39:02David Sims?

  Super serious.

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  If you're like a P A and they go like, hey, can you tell Ed we're like five minutes away from camera up? They're like shivering just because you have to walk up to that guy.

• 1:39:11Speaker 04

  What's your interview foreplay? Like how, what, when someone's.

• 1:39:14David Sims?

  I, I just kind of like caress the thigh, you know, and then I just kind of, I'm like, is this okay? And then I sort of start to, no, um, you said foreplay. I don't know. I just chit chat and like. Ed Harris was not interested in chit chatting with me, but he wasn't rude. He was fine. Luckily, Aaron Sorkin was also there, who likes to talk. Gap, gap, gap, gap, gap. But like, all of his answers were interesting and he was super chill. He just looked like Kristoff.

• 1:39:38Speaker 04

  Do you write down your questions before you do an interview?

• 1:39:40David Sims?

  No. I, I write down questions that I can refer to if I get stuck.

• 1:39:44Speaker 04

  Cause I was gonna say, sometimes if you get scared, you just like want a piece of paper. You're like, okay, here's the questions.

• 1:39:48David Sims?

  Yes, but I find that, um, so I'm, yeah, like that makes people like uncomfortable.

• 1:39:56Speaker 04

  Jump out the window.

• 1:39:57Griffin Newman?

  I feel like that would make Ed Harris bite your head off.

• 1:40:00David Sims?

  Possibly.

• 1:40:01Griffin Newman?

  What were you interviewing him for? Sorkin?

• 1:40:03David Sims?

  To Kill a Mockingbird.

• 1:40:04Griffin Newman?

  Oh, of course.

• 1:40:05David Sims?

  I was interviewing them to work at my Dunkin' Donuts that I owned at the Fulton Street.

• 1:40:10Speaker 04

  Which, that's the thing that people don't know about David. He does have Dunkin' Donuts at the Fulton Center.

• 1:40:13David Sims?

  I do have a Dunkin' Donuts.

• 1:40:14Griffin Newman?

  He won, he's won.

• 1:40:15David Sims?

  It was for, Harris was taking over from Jeff Daniels in To Kill a Mockingbird. And they pitched me on like, can you interview Sorkin and Harris about like the process of him playing Atticus? And I was like.

• 1:40:28Speaker 04

  The Mockingbird?

• 1:40:30David Sims?

  I was like, yeah, bring out the Mockingbird. I was like, honestly, I just want to interview them so sure. It did rock because we were at the theater, which is one of the greatest, uh, you know, one of the biggest theaters on Broadway. And it was empty and Sorkin comes out first and, and then he's like, check this out. And we walk over, I've said this before on the podcast, I think, to the little step, cause people come in through the audience in that play and in many plays, the tiny little step that gets you from the audience to the stage that's like half your foot max. And he was just like, how do they not fucking follow in this thing? And then like, we get up on the stage and he's walking around and he was just so energetic and like excited about the, which was cool. And he had just finished shooting Chicago Seven.

• 1:41:12Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:41:13David Sims?

  And so he was talking to Ed Harris about that a lot because it was like, he was coming back cause he's not on, you know, the play was running. Harris was the one who was like getting into, and he played Atticus Finch like a terrifying motherfucker. It was a weird performance. It wasn't bad, but it was definitely not like Gregory Peck energy. Anyway, I would give Harris Best Supporting Actor for a Pau 13, which is one of my favorite screen performances of all time.

• 1:41:35Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the problem is-

• 1:41:36David Sims?

  But he's incredible.

• 1:41:37Griffin Newman?

  It's what you're saying of, he would have been a good win in any of those four years.

• 1:41:41David Sims?

  Probably.

• 1:41:41Griffin Newman?

  And he was in borderline auto nomination territory where it's like, we're gonna have so many chances to give it to him. And there kept being some kind of emotional choice above him. And now I, not that he's take it for granted, but I think people like almost autocorrect and assume he won an Oscar 20 years ago. The weird Coburn stat is that he had like debilitating arthritis and basically disappeared for all of the eighties. And then found some miracle cure and comes back in the nineties and there was a big emotional kind of like, Coburn's back. Now he's like a steady elder statesman supporting hand. Now he's given this like dramatic showcase role. But he, I mean Coburn won zero precursors.

• 1:42:22Griffin Newman?

  Ed Harris was not even nominated for the SAG. Like it was a weird supporting actor field.

• 1:42:27David Sims?

  Hmm, I should dig in. I should dig in. But he did lose and he shouldn't have lost. I think it should have been him or Billy Bob, but Billy Bob had just won an Oscar. But Billy Bob's obviously amazing in A Simple Plan, which is that year as well. Um, I don't know. Uh, he-

• 1:42:40Griffin Newman?

  You know what? I'm sorry. Golden Globes gave it to Ed Harris. SAG gave it to Robert Duvall for a civil action.

• 1:42:46David Sims?

  Great performance.

• 1:42:47Griffin Newman?

  And then the Academy gives it to James Coburn.

• 1:42:50David Sims?

  Laura Linney, uh, he'd seen, we had seen her in Primal Fear, uh, which she's very good in. And she did an incredible audition. Obviously Laura, having Laura Linney in this role is just like having like, like fucking Tim Duncan on the like 99 Spurs or whatever. Where you're just like, well, we just got her early. Like-

• 1:43:05Griffin Newman?

  Being that, like seeing this movie as a nine year old, the amount of actors I'm exposed to for the first time, where I'm just like, well, these are people who aren't in movies for children. I'm seeing Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti and Holland Taylor and Noah Emmerich. Like all these fucking like heavyweights and like character actor greats who I love. Uh, who I just still kind of associate with like Laura Linney. Yeah, of course. The wife from The Truman Show.

• 1:43:29Speaker 04

  Well, I, I was watching that behind the scenes featurette thing. And one of the things I think is fascinating that comes through in the performance, but until you hear her talk about it, I did not zero in on. Is that Peter Weir wrote for Kristoff, an entire sort of like backstory and history of Kristoff. And then he had the actors for themselves come up with their own backstories. And her backstory was that her, the actress that she was portraying, that, you know, was cast to be on The Truman Show was like a- Like a

• 1:43:59David Sims?

  I can tell you, I have it here, but you want it?

• 1:44:02Speaker 04

  Go for it.

• 1:44:02David Sims?

  Fail child actress, someone who always wanted to play Annie and never got to play Annie, had become like an Oprah-esque kind of shrewd businesswoman who is like really behind the product placement stuff.

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. So she's who she said, like in her mind, in between when she was on the show, she'd be at like a conference room, working with people to like deal, figure out product placement and all this stuff. She was like a business person.

• 1:44:25Griffin Newman?

  So she basically like secures her position as you are the permanent Truman wife through selling her value to the show in all these other ways. And being like so locked in on the whole business model in a way.

• 1:44:37Speaker 04

  Or like the flip where she uses that role to then become a huge like person, you know, a product spokesperson.

• 1:44:45David Sims?

  I mean, she just plays it like a living animatronic. It's so good.

• 1:44:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:44:49David Sims?

  And just so unreal.

• 1:44:51Griffin Newman?

  I also love that the movie opens with like the opening credits to the Truman Show, the show rather than the movie. And we're watching these direct, direct address statements and you're like seeing how kind of pretentious she is about the art of what she's accomplishing. And you're like, there's this innate sadness to you being like, it's the greatest role of all time and being like, you don't have a life. What are you talking about? You're like in a loveless marriage.

• 1:45:18Speaker 04

  And she kind of doesn't respect or even really like Truman.

• 1:45:22Griffin Newman?

  No, she's disgusted by it.

• 1:45:24David Sims?

  She knows he, she, he knows she hates him.

• 1:45:26Speaker 04

  Right. Which is to that scene that we were talking about, that's so disconcerting is it's the first time you see her mask drop where she's like, she's not concerned about him. She's concerned about herself first and foremost, and this whole thing. And that's why she's, she's willing to.

• 1:45:39David Sims?

  Loved him, you would tell him he was on a TV show.

• 1:45:41Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:45:42David Sims?

  Like right away.

• 1:45:44Griffin Newman?

  It's not to, not to justify the action, but it part of what drives him is that he's increasingly like, there is no universe and what is happening isn't also you're that you're not also a party to what's happening.

• 1:45:55David Sims?

  You have to be a part of it, which makes it even scarier. I mean, the thing that we never actually see him confront totally is that Noah Emmerich is part of it. Which is the most devastating because he has this feature where he's like, I've been your best friend since we're seven years old.

• 1:46:09Speaker 04

  And that was.

• 1:46:09David Sims?

  And it is the most chilling thing.

• 1:46:10Speaker 04

  And that was his character story, that he was like a child actor.

• 1:46:13David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:14Speaker 04

  Who then got cast in this role and because they kept extending it, he kept becoming more and more.

• 1:46:18David Sims?

  He becomes his best friend, like.

• 1:46:20Speaker 04

  And it's actually more villainous in a way that he is unwilling to drop that. In fact, weaponizes it against Truman at some point. Like at least with Laura Linney, she immediately, the moment things get weird, she's like, I'm out. I'm done. This is unprofessional.

• 1:46:32David Sims?

  I would say.

• 1:46:33Speaker 04

  I can't work like this.

• 1:46:33David Sims?

  I would, I would say things got weird before, such as when she married him and lives with him every day.

• 1:46:40Speaker 04

  Yes, but I'm saying it.

• 1:46:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:46:41Speaker 04

  Sleeps with him and it's just, it's so.

• 1:46:44David Sims?

  So crazy. And clearly is like, if I'm going to get pregnant, you better fuck it.

• 1:46:48Speaker 04

  Well, and that's what she says. And the thing is, she's like, she's like, in my mind, every time I sleep with him, I get a pay, a pay bump.

• 1:46:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  The way you're describing her character, I just wanted to say is sort of like an influencer.

• 1:47:00David Sims?

  Yeah, like, like, right, like in the, in the nineties shopping channel kind of way.

• 1:47:04Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:47:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:47:05Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:47:06Griffin Newman?

  But I also think the Noah Emmerich character, what's fascinating is that like, he's a little tragic and that it does feel like these lines are genuinely blurred for him. Whereas she's like, this is a role I'm playing and I'll cross my fingers when we kiss at the altar. I think Noah Emmerich would be like Truman, of course, is my best friend.

• 1:47:21David Sims?

  Because he is.

• 1:47:22Speaker 04

  And because it seems like in the, the world of this film, he was with Truman since they were like.

• 1:47:27David Sims?

  Correct.

• 1:47:28Speaker 04

  Toddlers, whereas she was cast into the role when they were like.

• 1:47:31Griffin Newman?

  And you see the scene where she's trying so hard to be like, how do I pop here? You know, at the high school, the marching band.

• 1:47:37David Sims?

  Right. Maybe it's late high school, but like the idea is Natasha McElhone is an extra who falls in love with him. But of course, anyone who actually liked him again, would be like, well, I have to take care of you. And the first thing we're going to do is get you off of the Truman Show.

• 1:47:50Speaker 04

  Yes, which is.

• 1:47:51David Sims?

  And so they have to find someone who's, you know, at cross purposes with him.

• 1:47:54Speaker 04

  Which is why this movie is so good is because we're able to have this discussion within the bounds of its reality. And for a lot of movies, the moment you start discussing it like this, it falls apart because you're like, well, you gotta take some leaps of logic.

• 1:48:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:06Speaker 04

  It's, it's so fun because you can talk about it with such depth.

• 1:48:10David Sims?

  I think you have to make leaps of logic on, of course, this would not be, you could not.

• 1:48:15Speaker 04

  Wouldn't be financially viable.

• 1:48:18David Sims?

  But like, I think that's a leap of logic you can make, and it's partly satirical anyway, the whole idea of like, you can see it from space or, you know, like. And what I love the most about the Truman Show is that the audience watches and loves it.

• 1:48:33David Sims?

  But is rooting for him to escape it at the end because that is what like watching sports is or watching almost any reality TV is where you're like, this is great and it entertains me. And then when like the scales start to fall off and people are like, I don't like this. People are like, I love that you're saying that. Like Alyssa Lou just now, winning the Olympic medal, which I have watched her skate many times and cried. I don't know what's going on with me. Where she's like, I love that I did that and it was great, but this, this, this world sucks. And I quit it because it was so horrible. Like, and I wasn't allowed to like, drink water because of water weight. And people are like, we love that you're doing that. We also love watching you skate. I don't know how to reconcile those two things. I love Truman. I love watching him be Truman. I want him to overthrow though as well.

• 1:49:18Griffin Newman?

  Alyssa Lou, like this last Olympic run basically had the Truman walking through the door moment. What if I do it my way?

• 1:49:23David Sims?

  I'll try to do it my way. I would like to believe that's exactly what she did. It seems like it is.

• 1:49:27Speaker 04

  But I think that's the aspirational beauty of the Truman show, right? Is that it represents this thing that even within the, even within the fictional construct of what the show represents within the fictional world that it exists, is this idea that we all live in this life that a part, part of what we seek in media sometimes is the idea that maybe we're going to be able to overcome whatever are, whatever the boxes that we are put into. And so like, we just keep trying to find these boxes and see people overcome them in some way. And so even if you find escapism in the comfort of Truman, the fact that he's trying to escape becomes something that you're like, well, that's also engaging to me because I also want or hope or believe that my life is larger than whatever this, my version of a town square is.

• 1:50:12Griffin Newman?

  It is, it is part of the like developed backstory thing, but I also, people have said it was part of the script at one point, like it was developed into the film proper. But the Noah Emmerich character, his sort of established backstory is that this guy has had a years long drinking problem. The actor, largely because of the guilt of how he is being used to contain Truman and that like part of his job being like, I have to fill vending machines around the world was that he'd have to like, be justified to dis- Appear for rehab trips and things like that.

• 1:50:44David Sims?

  There's the.

• 1:50:45Griffin Newman?

  But also that there's this married thing that he's used as a mechanism to sell beer for the show.

• 1:50:50David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:50:50Griffin Newman?

  So that there's kind of like the running segment of, well, when Truman needs like a trusty ear. Of course, Louis is going to show up with a six pack, which then becomes like part of their behavioral mechanism where he's over drinking to deal with the guilt. Over the advice he gives Truman that is actually Kristoff in an earpiece. So then he needs to get like rehab off of the show and then continue selling beer to an audience.

• 1:51:14Speaker 04

  And this is what I think is great about Peter Weir, right? Is there are some people that would put all of that into the movie? And Weir allows a lot of this stuff and I'm, this is.

• 1:51:22David Sims?

  Yeah, to just go unspoken or thought about. I mean, like, there's the line that I love, uh, like parsing this movie because I've seen it so, so, so many times, um, where. He talks about, like, remember when I got pneumonia? And Truman's like, yeah, you were out of school for a month. And they're laughing about it and you don't notice it the first, but like, then you're like, what do you mean he was out of school for a month? Then you're like, oh, that was for some, some, you know, extra.

• 1:51:44Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:51:44David Sims?

  Reality reason, right? And it's just shit like that. But then when I was, so when I first saw this movie. When the rain falls on Truman in a column before it, uh, kicks off, right? One of his many moments of like, reality is not right. Obviously, the first one is the light falling from the ceiling.

• 1:52:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, which happens less than three minutes into the movie.

• 1:52:03David Sims?

  Right away.

• 1:52:03Griffin Newman?

  It is a stop. Yeah, big pen.

• 1:52:06David Sims?

  So many pens. I immediately start being like, well, why can't they just raise Truman to think that rain falls in a column? And why can't they train him to think that like, yeah, there's lights in the sky that might fall down or whatever. Like, why can't they just, and then like, as I grow older, I'm like, right, because then we wouldn't like the show. The show needs to reflect reality.

• 1:52:23Speaker 04

  Because it's not for Truman. None of this was for Truman.

• 1:52:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:52:26Speaker 04

  This was all for everyone else.

• 1:52:27David Sims?

  Yeah, because like if he was just taught in school, like, well, rain falls in a column and you can't get on boats, like, and you can't leave your town. People would just like, you know, whatever, like, it just would break the way that people experience him.

• 1:52:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's also like our relationship to this movie, which is like the buy-in, the suspension of disbelief, right? Like, what are the questions you need to answer, the things you need to explain to get people to accept the rules of your universe? And this is such an excellent example of. It gives you a satisfying answer for just what you need to be able to engage with the story. And it's really smart about when it does, not like info dumps, but like how it distributes the information. So you don't have to deal with 30 minutes of explanation. You don't have to deal with, the last 30 minutes is just uncovering everything. But also, the answers it gives are so satisfying and are so often like, show don't tell, that you start to be able to just infer, you can fill in the blanks.

• 1:53:23Griffin Newman?

  And more than anything, you can tell that there are internal answers that they don't feel the need to communicate to you.

• 1:53:29Speaker 04

  Well, like one thing that I was watching it the second time last night is I was like, oh, how much of the cameras are justified? Right? How much is, how much is an omniscient camera that is the movie's movie? And how much is it justified within The Truman Show?

• 1:53:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:44Speaker 04

  It's mostly all in the world of The Truman Show.

• 1:53:46Griffin Newman?

  I think other than when it goes to like, you know, Kristoff and people watching on TV and whatever. In past times, I'd heard Weir say that was a big thing, that he like tried to design the coverage of where the cameras would be. And previous times I'd watched this movie, I'm like, well, the obvious shots were clearly, that's a weird angle. That's a hidden camera. You see the obstruction of a leaf in front of it or whatever. Now, watching it this time, I'm like, I think basically every single setup within the bubble of The Truman Show, 100% is a very specifically justified camera angle. Even down to when it feels like the movie is doing more traditional coverage, that is coverage in what would be the main locations of his life,

• 1:54:26Griffin Newman?

  in the setups where they would have to invest the time and energy and technology to get a really high quality, unobstructed two-shot.

• 1:54:33Speaker 04

  Well, they showed the trick off in one of the first interactions when the neighbor comes up and talks to him, is that they have a tracking shot that's sort of this handheld tracking shot that walks up to Truman, he's getting into his car. And in my brain, I'm like, well, of course, they wouldn't have tracking shots. And then they obviously cut to the reverse and you see him holding up a trash can with a clearly a big lens that's very obvious on it, to sort of teach the audience, hey, these are always going to be justified. And then throughout this, like, I remember there was the scene where he's running through the hospital and I was kind of like, I was like, alright. Well, here's one place where they're kind of stretching the credulity of that because he's running and there's a camera following him. And then they cut to a lady, a nurse running behind him and you're like, right, there's there, there.

• 1:55:13David Sims?

  And there's cameras in all their clothes, essentially.

• 1:55:15Speaker 04

  Yes, and you can tell they just took the time for every shot to go. Even if they go, we want this coverage to go, okay, but how would we justify that with this? And then they they put it in there in some way, which is such great.

• 1:55:24Griffin Newman?

  When he's in his home, it can be as polished as like friends because they've refined that.

• 1:55:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:55:31Griffin Newman?

  And when he gets into wilder environments, they're improvising, you know? They're like manipulating things, but you start to see the recurring design element of what are clearly the hidden cameras, which are like these black domes, which are in the like the lining of the buildings, the houses on the street, the signposts. You know, they're like all over everything.

• 1:55:50Speaker 04

  Someone's ring, there's one moment where it's like.

• 1:55:52David Sims?

  How are they getting the sound?

• 1:55:55Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's mic'd as well.

• 1:55:56Speaker 04

  It's all ADR.

• 1:55:57David Sims?

  Uh, that's so true.

• 1:55:59Griffin Newman?

  The Truman Show airs at a five minute delay.

• 1:56:02David Sims?

  And it's just like, oh, hi, I'm I'm Truman.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  They probably just have booms hidden all over.

• 1:56:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, you can just do directional mics far away, pointing, you know, everywhere.

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you just get total coverage.

• 1:56:15David Sims?

  Yeah. Seaside, Florida is this creepy, crazy town where they filmed it, obviously, which is a town that was basically built in the 1980s to look like a quote neo-traditional community. It produced Matt Gaetz, who lived in the house that Truman lives in.

• 1:56:27Speaker 04

  Which I.

• 1:56:28David Sims?

  Love. Which makes you happy.

• 1:56:31Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:56:32David Sims?

  Like, you're thinking about him.

• 1:56:33Speaker 04

  Well, I think it's actually a very interesting cultural. I don't even know how to how to describe it.

• 1:56:42David Sims?

  Go off.

• 1:56:42Speaker 04

  The fact that that is the childhood home of a famous, infamous Republican politician.

• 1:56:51David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  Lot of different words you could say here.

• 1:56:53Speaker 04

  Yes, and I'm, you know, I, exactly. So I think it's actually very interesting because.

• 1:57:01Speaker 04

  The whole point of The Truman Show is that it's this enclosed universe that is controlled to make the people in it believe, or one person in it, believe that the world exists in a very specific way. And obviously, we know that, you know, there's a certain positive aspiration of the idea of someone like Truman going out into the real world, and now he's going to get to see what real life is like. But that's actually going to be a very, pretty traumatic process.

• 1:57:25David Sims?

  I think he's gonna be okay. Which I've, I've, I've thought about this a lot over the years because Natasha Eklund's going to get him. Like, and because I used to think, like, oh, he's so fucked. What, he's gonna walk out? Immediately, some agent will approach him. Some, you know, like, and then I remember, like, no, I forget that, like, we're being shown Natasha's going to get him. And she knows him, and she knows what's going to hap- she knows the real world, and she knows his world. And she's gonna be the bridge that will, I think, make him out.

• 1:57:52Speaker 04

  Yes, but it's gonna be like a hairy-

• 1:57:54David Sims?

  But, but all that aside- It'll be, sure. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, it's a very fundamental thing to me in the movie that we're, that their journeys are intercut.

• 1:58:01Speaker 04

  All that aside, I, I think there are strings that you could tie between someone growing up in an environment like Seaside, Florida, that is Truman Show-esque, that then holds beliefs that are very extreme, and maybe don't interact with the full diversity of life as it unfolds in the rest of the country.

• 1:58:25David Sims?

  We should just live in places like Seaside, Florida.

• 1:58:26Griffin Newman?

  Disconnected from most people's realities.

• 1:58:27Speaker 04

  Well, but, yes, and I-

• 1:58:28David Sims?

  They wanted a Norman Rockwell heightened reality, right? Like, I mean, that's what they were looking for.

• 1:58:34Speaker 04

  Yes, and I guess my point is, like, of course, that's where someone like that came from, right? Like, of course, that's, that's, that's one of the issues that we have, right? Is that you can grow up in these bubbles where you see the world in a very specific point of view. And then, when you get into the real world, and that's different, right? And then this thing that has been constructed to make you believe that this is the, the utopian, idyllic life. Yeah, there's, there's gonna be people who react to that different ways. And some of them, it is through, you know-

• 1:58:59David Sims?

  I think Matt Gaitis, he's doing good. Seems really balanced to me.

• 1:59:03Speaker 04

  All right. Well, that's David Sims of the Atlantic.

• 1:59:05Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna say that I don't endorse him.

• 1:59:07David Sims?

  The funniest thing about Matt Gaetz to me is that Trump like, you know, has violated every norm in existence and appointed psychopaths and like, he was like, what about Matt Gaetz? And everyone was like, buddy. And he was like, all right, all right.

• 1:59:17Griffin Newman?

  Not Matt Gaetz.

• 1:59:18David Sims?

  That's fine.

• 1:59:20Griffin Newman?

  That's too far.

• 1:59:22David Sims?

  Like the only one.

• 1:59:23Speaker 04

  I don't know. There's something, there's something interesting about the fact that that's the home that's like.

• 1:59:29Griffin Newman?

  I think it's interesting. I think we should move on.

• 1:59:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:59:32Griffin Newman?

  Can I say, can I just say off the thread of like, I know this is jumping to the end of the movie, but like, is he going to be okay? I was thinking about jury duty while watching this, which we were talking about right before recording, right? And how they have a second season coming out and it's one of those like, how could they possibly pull that off a second time? But everyone who worked on that show talked about that they like shot it two times before it worked. Like I think one time incomplete, one time maybe borderline complete where they like picked the wrong person. I think one time the person figured out and the other time they were just like, this is not compelling television. And then they found someone who was not only compelling, but like, kept kind of making the moral humane choice in these insane circumstances.

• 2:00:16Griffin Newman?

  And then they were like, oh, the show's actually more interesting. If the guy is like passing these morality tests rather than falling into the chaos of the situation. And they're like rewriting it in time in a Truman Show way to try to like guide him towards, like presenting him as like a moral beacon of like, you won this show by being unwavering in your humanity. And then he has talked about when the show ended, he like could not readjust to reality for like a year. And it's not like that was all consuming in the same kind of way. And he knew he was on camera. He thought it was just a documentary series. And by the time the show premiered, he had worked through this and time had passed.

• 2:00:57Griffin Newman?

  But was like, I for like, the next couple of months kept thinking it was still going on.

• 2:01:03Speaker 04

  Right. And that was like, that was like three weeks of this guy's life.

• 2:01:06Griffin Newman?

  Totally. That even when that final episode is like, congratulations, you're a good human. This was a TV show. It's a comedy. Go on. He's like back to spending time with his parents and he's like, but are my parents in on this? Were they in on this? How far did this reach? Would that be an interesting like finale for the show? Or is that the midpoint? And I'm still in it? That, you know, to the Truman point, it's like, you're right that he kind of is set up in the best way he could to transition out of this. But God, is there gonna be fucking damage on him?

• 2:01:38David Sims?

  Of, of course. I'm not saying, I'm saying, the point I was making was not actually, I don't think

• 2:01:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm not fighting you on it. I just, I just think about that guy.

• 2:01:47David Sims?

  I want, I want to say that Peter Weir took the like commercials, wanted the movie to look like commercials. Cause he's like, everything needs to be really brightly lit. Right? Cause again, the way the world would function.

• 2:01:58Griffin Newman?

  How do you light exteriors like their interiors?

• 2:02:01David Sims?

  He had one crazy idea that he wanted a video camera installed in every theater. The film was going to be seen. And when the movie ended, he was going to switch the feed to the people being filmed. Kind of a cool idea.

• 2:02:11Griffin Newman?

  There was a live, interactive.

• 2:02:13Speaker 04

  Love that idea.

• 2:02:14Griffin Newman?

  Adaptive. But I think they were just like, this is impossible.

• 2:02:16David Sims?

  Well, obviously that's ridiculous, but it would be so cool.

• 2:02:19Griffin Newman?

  I like that, like 30 years later, Coppola could barely pull off. A guy stands in front of a screen.

• 2:02:25David Sims?

  And asks like, what do you believe art is? Or whatever that question is.

• 2:02:29Speaker 04

  Well, that, it happened to me twice. Once I was watching, I was at a screening of Gremlins 2. And it was like that they actually, in the film.

• 2:02:37David Sims?

  They set the movie on.

• 2:02:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, they set the movie on fire and then.

• 2:02:40Griffin Newman?

  That is so crazy. The same thing happened to me when I saw Gremlins 2 in the theaters.

• 2:02:44Speaker 04

  When it happened a second time, I was watching the Muppet movie.

• 2:02:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:47Speaker 04

  And.

• 2:02:48David Sims?

  Has anyone done that recently?

• 2:02:49Griffin Newman?

  You know what's even crazier is Gremlins 2, I see it. The gremlins got into the projection booth. They ripped through the film.

• 2:02:57Speaker 04

  You wouldn't believe what happened in mine. Who fixed it?

• 2:03:01Griffin Newman?

  I don't, I don't want to one up you here. I don't want to big dog you, but my screening was the Hulkster.

• 2:03:05David Sims?

  No, no way, dude. Wait a second, guys. I have a question for you to get you off of this. If we do Dante, will you want to do Gremlins 2?

• 2:03:12Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean.

• 2:03:13David Sims?

  Or is there a different Dante? Cause Dante does feel JD.

• 2:03:16Speaker 04

  Dante, I would want to do the explorers.

• 2:03:18Griffin Newman?

  Hell yeah.

• 2:03:18David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:03:19Speaker 04

  That was, that was.

• 2:03:20David Sims?

  That'll give that a boost.

• 2:03:21Speaker 04

  That was a movie that I watched constantly growing up. And that was like.

• 2:03:25David Sims?

  Never seen.

• 2:03:26Speaker 04

  You've never seen it?

• 2:03:27David Sims?

  No. I I haven't seen.

• 2:03:28Speaker 04

  I don't I don't mean that. And I'm just saying that's, I mean, it's.

• 2:03:32David Sims?

  I haven't seen a lot of those eighties kid movies because like I was too young for them. And then I didn't have the like, sort of whatever cable TV American life that I guess like kept the Goonies and it's many.

• 2:03:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was that was video store for me is that we would rent the explorers, never ending story labyrinth.

• 2:03:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:03:50Speaker 04

  Like Goonies like on loop.

• 2:03:52David Sims?

  And like I've seen those four movies a grand total of three times. You know what I mean?

• 2:03:56Speaker 04

  But you haven't seen explorers ever.

• 2:03:57David Sims?

  No, that's what I'm saying. I've seen the others once.

• 2:03:59Griffin Newman?

  Left handed one. The thing with explorers that's interesting very quickly, David, is it basically is like a fucking snowman hairy hole a thing? Where they just didn't let him finish the movie. And so explorers had to be kind of like stitched together. He never got to shoot everything that was written.

• 2:04:13Speaker 04

  Wait, what's the snowman thing?

• 2:04:15David Sims?

  Uh, the movie, the snowman like ran out of.

• 2:04:17Griffin Newman?

  We gave you all the clues.

• 2:04:18Speaker 04

  Oh, that one. I thought you were talking about the animated short film.

• 2:04:21Griffin Newman?

  Oh, no, that's like, I was like, I was like.

• 2:04:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:24Speaker 04

  Cause that one feels finished.

• 2:04:25David Sims?

  That one's pretty finished. It's pretty short, too. You know, snowman.

• 2:04:28Speaker 04

  I will say, no joke, creatively in my life, I, one of my, the references I've referenced the most is the, the 30 second live action opening to the snowman. Because it taps into a feeling that is so specific that I have, it has been a part of several things. I'm like, we want that feeling.

• 2:04:45David Sims?

  You know who's big for me was corduroy, the, uh, the, the TV version of corduroy.

• 2:04:49Griffin Newman?

  With the live action one?

• 2:04:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was really good.

• 2:04:51David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:04:52Griffin Newman?

  A tiered one. Yeah, cause it's also an animated quarter.

• 2:04:54David Sims?

  No, fuck that. I've never seen that.

• 2:04:56Speaker 04

  I don't think I know what corduroy is.

• 2:04:57David Sims?

  Corduroy is that children's book about a little bear, uh, in a toy store.

• 2:05:01Griffin Newman?

  Tim Story was announced to do a big budget.

• 2:05:03David Sims?

  No, he should. Oh, that sounds fun. That sounds like it'd be really calm and relaxing.

• 2:05:06Griffin Newman?

  I, I know we got to get back to Truman Show, but can I just say craziest thing?

• 2:05:12Griffin Newman?

  So I see Gremlins two in the theater, right?

• 2:05:14David Sims?

  So the Truman.

• 2:05:15Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, well, that was fun. It was a fun experience. I'm lucky that I got to see this crazy screen, but I'd love to see what happened in the missing scenes.

• 2:05:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  When they bit through the film. So I rented it on VHS.

• 2:05:24Speaker 04

  And yeah, and you got to see it unbroken all the way through.

• 2:05:27Griffin Newman?

  Shady, the craziest thing happened on the VHS.

• 2:05:29Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 2:05:30Griffin Newman?

  And this is just my tape, my player Gremlins two, the gremlins like broke into the TV.

• 2:05:36Speaker 04

  And it's, did it stay broken?

• 2:05:38Griffin Newman?

  It was like staticky. And then they were like in other movies. They like changed the channels to like Western films and stuff. And then the movie just like went back.

• 2:05:49David Sims?

  Can't do that bit on Gremlins 2 now.

• 2:05:51Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 2:05:52Griffin Newman?

  We'll do it again. Trust me. Five times.

• 2:05:54Speaker 04

  This is a show that's never done a bit twice.

• 2:05:56Griffin Newman?

  David is tightly hugging his baby Joey.

• 2:05:59Speaker 04

  Joey. Who is that?

• 2:06:00David Sims?

  He's from Superman.

• 2:06:01Griffin Newman?

  You see the new Superman movie?

• 2:06:03Speaker 04

  I did not.

• 2:06:03Griffin Newman?

  David loves baby Joey.

• 2:06:04David Sims?

  I love him.

• 2:06:05Speaker 04

  I think Kentucky's are holding him in a way that shows that.

• 2:06:09David Sims?

  Uh, The Truman Show, I'm gonna unpin one of your big pins.

• 2:06:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:06:13David Sims?

  Begins almost immediately with the light falling from the sky.

• 2:06:16Speaker 04

  Which, I've been on this show before ranting about story structure and what I love about The Truman Show is that I think there's a version of this movie where you do this, the like, alright, let's spend 10 minutes with seeing Truman's life.

• 2:06:30David Sims?

  It's the big question.

• 2:06:30Speaker 04

  And it's like, no.

• 2:06:31David Sims?

  How quickly do you start to break it and how quickly do you, you know, unattach from his reality? All that stuff.

• 2:06:37Speaker 04

  And I, what I love about the arc of this movie is that that happens within, whatever, one minute of the movie beginning. Is that immediately it starts falling apart and you're not, we don't have to live in the Truman world for 10 minutes before he starts to notice. It's like, it's risky.

• 2:06:52David Sims?

  Because like, yeah, you do have that fear of like, will audiences accept this reality as we begin to break it, right? Like, but I think you do. I think they do such a good job explaining how everything works.

• 2:07:02Speaker 04

  Yes. And then the movie runs for an hour.

• 2:07:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:05Speaker 04

  And then we take a 10 minute break to have an interview with Kristoff.

• 2:07:09David Sims?

  It's a good, solid time, right before we finally are like, okay, alright.

• 2:07:13Griffin Newman?

  It's the movie has felt like it's about to fall off its hinges. They saved the day and then suddenly it's like, we're actually gonna unpack this now, but they've given you so much information already up until that point. That it's just hard data points you need and it works because it's still dramatized because you're learning about the guy who made the thing. All of his answers.

• 2:07:35Speaker 04

  You don't see Kristoff until an hour into the film.

• 2:07:38Griffin Newman?

  Opening shot, opening shot. And then not until an hour.

• 2:07:41Speaker 04

  And then not until an hour.

• 2:07:42Griffin Newman?

  He's in less than 10 minutes of the movie.

• 2:07:44David Sims?

  Yeah, I think it's one reason he didn't win the Oscar.

• 2:07:45Speaker 04

  Because there would be a version of this movie, right?

• 2:07:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:48Speaker 04

  Where you keep cutting back to him and you're seeing him.

• 2:07:50David Sims?

  Well, the other thing that interests, yeah, of course, that it's about him. But then the movie's more about him, obviously.

• 2:07:55Speaker 04

  Which is what's brilliant because that, that's what the movie isn't about him.

• 2:07:59Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 2:08:00Speaker 04

  Kristoff thinks it's about him, but it's not.

• 2:08:02Griffin Newman?

  But that's the moment when it finally slows down. David is very annoyed.

• 2:08:06David Sims?

  I'm just trying to make a point. I don't want to forget the point.

• 2:08:08Griffin Newman?

  Please make it. Please make it.

• 2:08:09David Sims?

  When they have sex, you cut to Flat Top from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the other guy.

• 2:08:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:15David Sims?

  Where he explains like, but you never see anything. They point the camera.

• 2:08:18Griffin Newman?

  The wind blows, the curtain.

• 2:08:19David Sims?

  Very funny moment. That's one of the very few moments that they cut to the audience before the reality breaks and then we're cutting to them all the time.

• 2:08:26Speaker 04

  And it's the first time. They don't explain it.

• 2:08:28David Sims?

  And they kind of don't do it again for like a long while.

• 2:08:30Griffin Newman?

  Just forgetting they show the bar with Olan Jones because when they get into the Natasha McElhone.

• 2:08:35David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, they show. Yeah, but that's later. That's later.

• 2:08:38Speaker 04

  Yes, this is the first one.

• 2:08:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:39Griffin Newman?

  No, that's the first one.

• 2:08:40David Sims?

  But it's very brief.

• 2:08:41Griffin Newman?

  They add more people post-reveal, of course, Napoleon and such.

• 2:08:45David Sims?

  They do, but they do it slowly, but they do do it before the Kristoff moment, which is the full kind of like, okay, pause.

• 2:08:52Speaker 04

  And what I think is really bold about that cutaway, right, is it's not like, I don't believe, maybe I'm gonna say this and I'm wrong, but as I remember it, it's just a hard cut right to those people going, nah, you never really see anything.

• 2:09:04David Sims?

  Yeah, it is.

• 2:09:04Speaker 04

  It's like, you don't cut to the TV.

• 2:09:06David Sims?

  No, you never see the TV.

• 2:09:08Speaker 04

  You just know that the audience is gonna pick up, they're gonna be jarred for a second to be like, what am I watching? It's like, oh, these are people watching the show.

• 2:09:15David Sims?

  And it's just interesting. And maybe it was a studio note of like, can we please, like just a tiny, tiny, tiny bits of context, please? Like, it's too overwhelming. Maybe not. Maybe they just editing wise were like, no, no, no, it belongs there. Like, we need it a little bit.

• 2:09:29Griffin Newman?

  It feels to me like you need to ease the audience into that as a language that's going to exist because also at that point, the audience is starting to wonder, how do people watch this? Like, what is their relationship to this? That becomes as pressing a question as the reality of how the show is made is like, so are they watching it like it's sports? Are they watching it like it's a soap opera? You know?

• 2:09:54David Sims?

  To me, you would just have it on, right? Like that, like, obviously, maybe sometimes you do lock in with The Truman Show. And I have questions of like, did they do like a highlight reel at any during prime time?

• 2:10:06Griffin Newman?

  So I think it's streaming.

• 2:10:08Speaker 04

  So I think it's what we sort of now have.

• 2:10:12David Sims?

  But then they do the flashbacks.

• 2:10:13Speaker 04

  So what I'm gonna.

• 2:10:14Griffin Newman?

  It's a channel with flashbacks. Yeah.

• 2:10:15Speaker 04

  So this, I'm gonna unpin one of the other big things is that I obviously, one of my, I say, obviously, Griffin, probably some of them, I'm obsessed with the early 2000s era of reality TV and what turned into it. And especially the big, the big swings that turned into disasters in a lot of ways. And what's so interesting is that the state of reality TV now versus what it was in 2003, I think, because there's this sort of like boiling a frog element to it, like you think that it's like always been like this. But if you go back and you watch season one of The Real World or Survivor, you're like, oh my gosh. It feels like a documentary and back then it was, people was like, oh, this is a spectacle.

• 2:10:54Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's even like 20 years past an American family, which was presented as a similarly high minded PBS thing. And people got into like debates of or whether it was exploitative or ethical. And then by the time The Real World premieres, it's like, well, that was an interesting artistic experiment, much like seven up and The Real World is crass and exploitative.

• 2:11:13Speaker 04

  And so there was all these different folds of reality television, which I, I'm fascinated with because I think they're these weird cultural mirrors in a lot of strange ways. But some of them that are interesting is obviously like Big Brother did, played around with the streaming aspect of stuff. I'm not a Big Brother guy. A friend of the show, Zach Cherry, is a huge Big Brother guy and has tried to get me into it.

• 2:11:31David Sims?

  It's the only reality TV show I ever watched, first season of UK Big Brother.

• 2:11:34Speaker 04

  Well, I tried to start watching season one and then Zach got mad at me. He's like, don't watch season one. And so it was a whole thing, but one of my favorite things that then in turn I got Zach into was Utopia. So The Truman Show as it exists, right? Is this, this premise that, okay, there's a show that's on 24 hours a day. I think they would do it like they did Utopia or some other shows. I think Big Brother does a time where you could tune in and watch some of the webcams.

• 2:11:59David Sims?

  The way Big Brother worked was that every day there was a digest, but there was, yes, you could tune to E4 and watch the live stream, which was incredibly boring.

• 2:12:07Griffin Newman?

  And in the States, it was similarly a website where with some censoring, there was more raw feed, but you were getting the edited.

• 2:12:15David Sims?

  It was always so boring because like it's just people sitting around.

• 2:12:18Speaker 04

  Well, so that's the thing is that I think is interesting is that in the fictional reality of The Truman Show, right? This is something people are engaged with. In reality, what transpired is that anyone that tried to do anything like this, it ended up not working in a lot of ways. And that's why I think the closest thing is 7Up because they really, you know, that was a pure, it's a different thing.

• 2:12:36Griffin Newman?

  And 7Up is owning that it's a documentary.

• 2:12:38Speaker 04

  And the thing that's interesting about reality TV is just like our discussion about the Truman Show of being like, oh, it has to be this certain way. People put their fingerprints on it too much, right?

• 2:12:48David Sims?

  Well, they all know they're doing it.

• 2:12:50Speaker 04

  They all know they're doing it, but then also the construct of it is always, there's interference. So Utopia, because Ben, I saw you looking quizzically at Utopia. Utopia was, at the time, it was the highest budget, one of the highest budget reality programs ever made that Fox was putting out. I was obsessed with it as well. I was, I was, me and Emily were two of the five viewers.

• 2:13:13David Sims?

  It was based on a Dutch show, I think.

• 2:13:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:13:14David Sims?

  Yes, which is so often true. Big Brother was also based like the Dutch would start with these crazy concepts.

• 2:13:19Speaker 04

  Yes, that happens a lot. And so the one of the, the premise of Utopia was, we're gonna take a plot of land and we're gonna put people there and we're gonna give them basically like, none of the major things that they have that come from the public constructs, water, gas, electricity, food, and they're gonna have to form their own utopia society and solve these problems. And they can build their own internal government and their own way to make decisions and all this stuff. Right? The idea is cool. You see, you see the vision of it. But then, this was a Fox product at a time when that sort of that Fox reality programming had to be, it had to be about conflict and sex and drama and all of this stuff. And so, number one, they ended up casting people who were diametrically opposed, right?

• 2:14:01Speaker 04

  It would be like, we're gonna form a utopia society and here's a conservative preacher and a woman who is a polyamorous stripper.

• 2:14:09Speaker 04

  Here's a racist guy and here, you know,

• 2:14:11David Sims?

  I'm a racist guy.

• 2:14:12Speaker 04

  I mean, but it's like that was the

• 2:14:13David Sims?

  A hundred percent, of course.

• 2:14:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so, of course, the, the show is just replete with people at each other's throats, arguing and no one can really figure things out. But the premise of it is they spent all this money making this space. It was, it was just outside of Los Angeles and they had cameras everywhere. And like Truman Show, the idea was that you could log in online, watch Utopia 24 hours a day and sort of see what they're up to. And then twice a week, they'd do these digest episodes where they told you what, what big things

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  What did they accomplish?

• 2:14:43Speaker 04

  What did they accomplish?

• 2:14:43Griffin Newman?

  They find the compelling, dramatic strains within all the footage.

• 2:14:48Speaker 04

  So right off the bat, people aren't that interested because it just feels like regular sort of reality shock. That, that's my editorializing of it is that it's just the same people arguing and, you know,

• 2:14:58David Sims?

  Yeah, I think it came to a

• 2:14:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. And then there's people that are online watching it 24 hours a day. And then there's a lot of people that are just like waiting for the women to like take baths and like watch them naked on, it's like that, it's that, it's, it's that level of polarization of like, there's the, the level of interest in this is not Truman Show.

• 2:15:15David Sims?

  I was, I was bath hunter, one, two, three on those boards.

• 2:15:19Speaker 04

  But that's like, that's, that, if you try to find

• 2:15:21David Sims?

  When will they take baths?

• 2:15:23Speaker 04

  Here's the thing.

• 2:15:23Griffin Newman?

  David Bath Hunter is so funny.

• 2:15:26David Sims?

  It's just like such a hilariously kind of old fashioned, like, like fucking Horizon in American Sign. It was like, I like to watch a woman take a bath.

• 2:15:36Griffin Newman?

  It's like Mr. Skin, but it's just about dirty bath water.

• 2:15:39Speaker 04

  Well, it was funny.

• 2:15:39Griffin Newman?

  Tub report.

• 2:15:40Speaker 04

  The other day I met someone and I was, I was describing this show to them and I was describing David and like they

• 2:15:46Griffin Newman?

  Describing blank check to them?

• 2:15:47Speaker 04

  Well, yeah. And they, they weren't piecing it together. I was like, I was like David Sims at Landon. And they're like, that's, then they're like, oh, Bath Hunter. And I was like, oh, I didn't, yeah, yeah. You know him best as Bath Hunter.

• 2:15:58David Sims?

  Right, right. My earlier internet career.

• 2:16:00Griffin Newman?

  I'm picturing.

• 2:16:01David Sims?

  I'm a bath hunter.

• 2:16:03Griffin Newman?

  David dressed up like Dog the Bounty Hunter with a bunch of bath paraphernalia, fucking luft.

• 2:16:08Speaker 04

  With night, night, night, night vision goggles. Um, so anyways, the show, the show is, is not succeeding.

• 2:16:16Griffin Newman?

  Make Bath Hunter.

• 2:16:16David Sims?

  Yeah. It lasted for like 13 episodes.

• 2:16:18Speaker 04

  It lasted for like 13 episodes. What's funny is that if you try to find the episodes online, what comes up is people being like, hey, does anyone have the footage of them taking baths? And it's like David replying, being like, yeah, mate, I got you.

• 2:16:29Griffin Newman?

  And he replies like really, really fast, like even if it's not in like a designated place.

• 2:16:34David Sims?

  See the racist guy?

• 2:16:35Griffin Newman?

  I got a lot of him. He was really taking a lot of baths.

• 2:16:38Speaker 04

  It's a lot of David dropping the address to the Blank Check Studio, being like, meet me here, bring a hard drive.

• 2:16:43Griffin Newman?

  Bring bath.

• 2:16:44Speaker 04

  Bring bath, bring hard, bring water, bring soap, bring hard drive.

• 2:16:48Griffin Newman?

  Many terabytes. You can't upload it. It has to be transferred.

• 2:16:51Speaker 04

  No, exactly. And it's right now in the studio, it's hot because these are on 24 hours a day.

• 2:16:55Griffin Newman?

  We got tops running.

• 2:16:56Speaker 04

  It's like an AI processing.

• 2:16:58David Sims?

  I'm gonna have to ask you to finish this tangent, just so we can discuss other things in the Truman Show.

• 2:17:01Speaker 04

  So Utopia ends up starting to fall apart. One of the, one of the things that I think is fascinating about Utopia is that the people on the show were told this is going to be a Truman Show-esque thing that is going to sweep the nation.

• 2:17:12David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:17:13Speaker 04

  So throughout the show, they keep going, guys, the world is watching.

• 2:17:16David Sims?

  It's crazy how famous we are right now.

• 2:17:18Speaker 04

  Well, they keep going, we have to figure this out. The world is watching.

• 2:17:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:17:20Speaker 04

  And what they didn't realize that this was.

• 2:17:22David Sims?

  1.2 in the demo.

• 2:17:24Speaker 04

  And so then they start trying to do these weird things to sort of bring up ratings. They start having these ads that are like, very like, is someone going to die? Like, one of the last episodes was Halloween themed and the host is dressed like Dracula. And I remember the trade, the, the promo for it was like, will someone die tonight on Utopia? And the answer was like, no, they won't.

• 2:17:42Griffin Newman?

  Of course not.

• 2:17:42Speaker 04

  But it was just like the P T Barnum, like, will you see this? And the show ended after like 10 episodes. It was a disaster. 12 episodes, yeah. But it's fascinating because to me, it's, it's, it's exactly why the Truman Show couldn't exist in real life, right? Because number one, no one would have the patience to actually let real life unfold. And two, if they did have the patience to let real life unfold and not put their finger on the scale, I don't know that people would watch.

• 2:18:06David Sims?

  So I think the Truman Show would succeed.

• 2:18:08Speaker 04

  You do?

• 2:18:09David Sims?

  Yes, because I think the difference, obviously, he doesn't know. He doesn't know it's a TV show.

• 2:18:13Speaker 04

  Yes, I guess that is, that is a point different.

• 2:18:15David Sims?

  Beyond that, so when, when this movie came out, everyone was like, well, this would never, no one would watch it. Too boring, right?

• 2:18:20Griffin Newman?

  Everyone would watch it.

• 2:18:21David Sims?

  And I'm like, no, everyone will watch it because it would be a window into a life we want.

• 2:18:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:25David Sims?

  Like into a fantasy.

• 2:18:27Speaker 04

  Yes, a lot of YouTube, social media stuff.

• 2:18:29Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:18:30Speaker 04

  The Truman Show.

• 2:18:30David Sims?

  Fucking, what's that Japanese show where everyone's nice to each other in a house?

• 2:18:34Speaker 04

  Terrace House, Boys, Girls and the City.

• 2:18:35David Sims?

  Yes, Terrace House. Yeah.

• 2:18:37Speaker 04

  Terrace House, colon, Boys, Girls and the City was the first one.

• 2:18:39David Sims?

  Okay, fair enough. Like, you know, but like those shows where people are like, I crave calm. I crave quiet. And like, it just feels like all the people watching, right? Like the, the audiences, there's like the nice old ladies, there's the, the security guards.

• 2:18:55Griffin Newman?

  Slow TV phenomenon, which is much bigger in other countries than it is here. But then Netflix started licensing it. It's really fucking big.

• 2:19:01Speaker 04

  I just can't get on board with slow, with slow programming.

• 2:19:03David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:19:04Griffin Newman?

  What about?

• 2:19:05David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. 12 hour day. Everyone listened. They put out a new episode recently, didn't they?

• 2:19:08Speaker 04

  As someone who doesn't have those 12 hours.

• 2:19:10Griffin Newman?

  Also, obviously, the holiday season, you want to slow things down in terms of what you listen to.

• 2:19:14David Sims?

  You'd be like, yeah, well, that's a good point.

• 2:19:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:16David Sims?

  You wouldn't you maybe just get home and be like, what's Truman doing?

• 2:19:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:20David Sims?

  You know, flick it on.

• 2:19:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:21Speaker 04

  You, yeah, I, listen, I could see you being someone who would be like, oh, the eight year old Truman's doing homework. I'm gonna turn that on the background while I make dinner.

• 2:19:28Griffin Newman?

  David would be obsessed with Truman and would be like, you guys need to watch this.

• 2:19:32David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm joking. Let's drop that bit.

• 2:19:35Speaker 04

  Why, why are you telling us to drop the bit?

• 2:19:37David Sims?

  Can you drop the bit? No, no, uh, like.

• 2:19:39Griffin Newman?

  Let's focus on the podcast and maybe spend a little less time on your bathtub web.

• 2:19:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, David, I'm gonna shorten, I'm gonna shorten this up so we can get back to the Truman show.

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  Do you figure that there is, because they say like, we've never stopped transmission, right? So do you figure there's like, there's a channel that's just the live show? But then there's maybe another channel that has like flashbacks, old stuff, like, you know, like compilations of what happened today.

• 2:20:01Speaker 04

  This is like the Manning cast and like the like actual football game.

• 2:20:05Griffin Newman?

  I imagine it's like a syndication deal where one of the networks is airing the, the package, the best of, their rerun rotations, and then this channel is the raw feed.

• 2:20:16Speaker 04

  I also think that they.

• 2:20:17Griffin Newman?

  Which then will cut in flashbacks at relevant moments when what he's going through is boring.

• 2:20:21Speaker 04

  Yes, I also think when he's sleeping and stuff, they're playing best of and they're playing, they're, they're.

• 2:20:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:20:26Griffin Newman?

  And any behind the scenes interviews like watching him sleep.

• 2:20:29Speaker 04

  Yes, and it's.

• 2:20:30Griffin Newman?

  But in the movie, we see it's like a picture in picture where they're like showing in the corner, the raw feed of him sleeping while doing the Kristoff interview.

• 2:20:37Speaker 04

  I was recently, I forgot that I did this, but I was recently, it was brought up that I, I did a project back in the day where I would broadcast myself sleeping. And the idea was, it's called, Please Influence My Dreams, where I would sleep and then there's a system where you could come on and you could, if you would take turns being able to speak through speakers that spoke to me when I slept. And people watched it.

• 2:20:59Griffin Newman?

  I wonder why we asked you to be the guest on this episode.

• 2:21:02Speaker 04

  Cause this is, cause, because, because there's a part of my life that I'm like, Kristoff's a bad guy. As I'm like slowly marching my way towards trying to become Kristoff.

• 2:21:11Griffin Newman?

  Kristoff and Truman at the same time. Can I, can I pull down a pen? I, I think what's interesting about this movie is there is something.

• 2:21:21Speaker 04

  He's on the air, on the air unaware.

• 2:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, that was very interesting. And that's why they put it on the poster and it opened to a robust $35 million, $40? I think there's something that feels naive about this movie's understanding of how we'd want to watch other people's lives, which isn't to say that people wouldn't watch, I agree with you. But the way the television industry has curdled and adjusted to what people are telling them they want, and vice versa, has led things into like an insane direction. And I think there is this turning point of Survivor's 2000, and I think the first American Big Brother season is 2001.

• 2:21:57Speaker 04

  Something like that. First UK Big Brother was, I was like 13 or 14.

• 2:22:01Griffin Newman?

  And that concept felt insane of like, we're putting people on an island. There is like not a fake reality, but there's a forced reality on them. We're taking people out of their element and you're going to watch human behavior and how they survive. And Richard Hatch, who ends up winning that first Survivor, comes in and is like, this is a game.

• 2:22:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:22:19Griffin Newman?

  I need to win a million dollars.

• 2:22:20Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 2:22:21Griffin Newman?

  But you watch that first season and most of the people are just like, this is interesting. I hang out in an island and I guess at the end of every week, there's a popularity contest and someone gets a million dollars at the end. That's the bait to get someone to sign up for this. Why else would you do it? And he immediately is like, this is a game, you play it.

• 2:22:38Speaker 04

  People were aghast that Richard was lying.

• 2:22:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:22:40Speaker 04

  I know, it was in Britain, British Big Brother was nasty Nick was the Richard.

• 2:22:44Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing. And then Big Brother has to do the same and people become like, I'm a self-stylized.

• 2:22:49Speaker 04

  Do the same. People just play it like a game because it is a game because there's a prize. But that's why I brought up Utopias, because I generally think if they had just not cast for conflict and they put together a group of people to try to actually do this, I think it might've actually been engaging television.

• 2:23:04Griffin Newman?

  Possibly.

• 2:23:05Speaker 04

  But I, in a television context where they were. Like, no, no, we need conflict drama. We need ratings.

• 2:23:11Griffin Newman?

  The juice of Survivor and Big Brother and the copycat shows ultimately becomes the contestants inside of it manipulating reality, the audience seeing the way that they are working things to their own advantage. Right. And then that, in my opinion, morphs into like the modern era of like the Bravo reality show. And, and the similar shows to that, which are presenting to you something almost as if it is the Truman Show. Where these people are acting like they are not constantly being followed by cameras. Other than when they're doing the direct address moments, they're acting oblivious to it. They're letting people into their homes. Their homes are outfitted with cameras that like both hidden and like right around them. And there are like manipulated plotlines. You have producers going.

• 2:23:55Speaker 04

  Scripted, right.

• 2:23:56Griffin Newman?

  Right. A hundred percent. And it's the fascinating inverse of this where we now have these shows where like, you know, they, they walk among us. It happens in our reality. It is constructed in every step of the way and is presented to us as you're just seeing a raw feed of people behaving. But also it has the same kind of weird gamesmanship inside of it without the prizes of, I need to pop. If I get a two episode contract on this, does it lead to a spinoff? Does that lead to me being able to start my own fucking like lifestyle brand? Right? And I had this moment the other day in the supermarket where I was like buying soda, my beloved like fucking digestive sodas.

• 2:24:37Griffin Newman?

  I'm constantly trying every probiotic soda brand to see if anything fixes my body. And there's like a mother, a father and a young child. And the mother is talking about like, oh, Ollie Pop, I love these sodas, but they're so expensive. We could never buy a six pack here. And then he goes like, well, you don't buy them at Target. Yeah, they're much cheaper at and name some website where you can get them sent direct. And then he calls Cut and he's like, yeah, I think that's good. And she was like doing a Truman Show ad read in real life. And I'm like, this is some family influencer account.

• 2:25:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:25:12Griffin Newman?

  In which they're shopping at big box stores and then acting out scripted scenarios of their deciding prices based on who's paying the most to sponsor buying from them instead. And I'm like, we now, it's flipped into people are acting fake in our real world. Broadcasting that stuff back out to us and we are obsessively watching all of it.

• 2:25:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's The Truman Show without Truman.

• 2:25:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It's fascinating to me.

• 2:25:41Speaker 04

  I hear you.

• 2:25:42Griffin Newman?

  And what we don't want is the like idyllic. Can we just watch a person like grow and learn thing?

• 2:25:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that's I think that's what I why I bring up this the Seven Up series is because I think it's so beautiful in that. It's the it is the irregularity of real life, right? And what's so fascinating is when you watch, especially the most recent one. It's it's really powerful to watch because you realize. Both how predictable, how unpredictable, how fickle, how solid, all of it together is what life is and.

• 2:26:17Speaker 04

  The fact that it goes in these directions that only real life could is what's so fascinating. And the moment you try to control it. It becomes this weird sort of, you know, your your it's a reflection of a reflection of a reflection.

• 2:26:29Griffin Newman?

  Uncanny valley.

• 2:26:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're you're living. It's not even uncanny valley. It's just like on the other side of the graph. It's just not real.

• 2:26:36Griffin Newman?

  This also, this movie comes out the same year as 42 up.

• 2:26:41Griffin Newman?

  You know, it's like Andrew Nickel sells his script, I think, the same year that 36 up comes out.

• 2:26:48Speaker 01

  35.

• 2:26:49Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. I'm not good at math. Which is basically like the age Carrie is when he's doing this movie, like the one model of I'm not saying he was even directly inspired, but the one model of following someone for this long. Is basically concurrent with the age of this character.

• 2:27:03Speaker 01

  Ben, what did you want to say?

• 2:27:05David Sims?

  You put a pin in Scandival.

• 2:27:07Griffin Newman?

  I that was all the stuff.

• 2:27:08Speaker 01

  That pin is gone.

• 2:27:10David Sims?

  Can we talk about the Truman Show?

• 2:27:11Griffin Newman?

  I don't give a shit about Scandival. I didn't watch it.

• 2:27:14Speaker 01

  When you say talk about Truman Show, plot stuff?

• 2:27:16David Sims?

  The movie, yes.

• 2:27:17Speaker 01

  Dive in.

• 2:27:17David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:27:18Speaker 01

  We're at about two hour.

• 2:27:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:27:21Griffin Newman?

  Can I talk about the trailers I saw before?

• 2:27:22David Sims?

  No, you cannot.

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  Silence.

• 2:27:24Griffin Newman?

  I think there was a Rugrats movie teaser.

• 2:27:26David Sims?

  Be quiet.

• 2:27:27Griffin Newman?

  That was Ted Ammoun's big holiday release.

• 2:27:28Speaker 04

  I did not think this would be a long episode. For the for for the record.

• 2:27:32Speaker 01

  So I think we kind of touched on.

• 2:27:34Speaker 04

  Just I think it's an incredible film.

• 2:27:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we're gonna be done in like two minutes. We're so close to ending.

• 2:27:38Speaker 01

  We've literally got to the light fell. So let's pick up there.

• 2:27:42David Sims?

  Exactly what I'm saying. As much as, yes, it can be interesting to talk about reality like in life and all this stuff like we should talk more about the movie, which is. Clockwork construction as as JD pointed out. And just has like a million bits like. That, you know, we should, we got, we should consider.

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  So he drives to work. We see, we get a taste of what his life is like.

• 2:28:03Speaker 04

  Ben angrily going through the plot points of the Truman.

• 2:28:06Griffin Newman?

  May, may I run through some time code things as a way of getting us from plot points? Because it's also just fascinating, like at what moments the movie reveals certain things.

• 2:28:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:28:15Griffin Newman?

  Sure. You open with like the opening credit interview stuff, right?

• 2:28:19Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:28:20Griffin Newman?

  Light falls at.

• 2:28:21Speaker 04

  Score is amazing, by the way.

• 2:28:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:23David Sims?

  The score is weird because it's largely other music. It's largely Philip Glass music from other, from Mishima and from Pavakatsi.

• 2:28:30Griffin Newman?

  But then also some original Philip Glass tracks.

• 2:28:33David Sims?

  No, original Burkhard Dahlwitz is the guy who's doing the.

• 2:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Truman sleeps?

• 2:28:38David Sims?

  That stuff is not, I think, well, now I want to look it up.

• 2:28:41Griffin Newman?

  Cause I met this girl online who told me that she wrote Truman sleeps.

• 2:28:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I, I.

• 2:28:46Griffin Newman?

  Did you get that?

• 2:28:47David Sims?

  I, I didn't. I, I, you have to explain it to me.

• 2:28:50Griffin Newman?

  That is an inciting incident in Catfish, the movie.

• 2:28:53David Sims?

  I have not seen that.

• 2:28:54Speaker 04

  Okay. So Griff has now checked the bingo card of the two things he texted me that he wanted to talk about today.

• 2:29:00Griffin Newman?

  Okay. He's like texting with this woman and he's like, she's a musician. Listen to this thing she wrote and it's fucking Truman sleeps.

• 2:29:05David Sims?

  Stop. Okay. All right. So after, after he goes to work, I swear to God.

• 2:29:10Griffin Newman?

  That was written by Philip Glass, correct?

• 2:29:12David Sims?

  Uh, Truman sleeps is written, but so yes, he must, he must've done some new stuff.

• 2:29:15Speaker 01

  David, what if I got you a crossing guard stop sign with that?

• 2:29:18David Sims?

  That would rock. That would fucking.

• 2:29:20Griffin Newman?

  Truman sleeps written by Philip Glass and that girl from Facebook. The light falls out at three minutes, right? At under 10 minutes, he can't get on the boat. Like you're introducing that.

• 2:29:30David Sims?

  Correct. So that, so he goes to work. He's doing the. Uh, you know, making, tearing out the pages of the, um.

• 2:29:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 2:29:38David Sims?

  Magazine, which you're kind of like.

• 2:29:40Speaker 04

  I thought you were doing a lawnmower motion there.

• 2:29:41Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm. But all of.

• 2:29:43David Sims?

  Peter Kraus that comes over, the great Peter Kraus.

• 2:29:45Griffin Newman?

  Catchphrasey routines of the banter with the magazine guy about for the wife and the greeting to the neighbors.

• 2:29:51David Sims?

  But yes, the, the, he, you know, Kraus that comes out to give him the challenge clearly, it's basically like, here's, here's today's drama. He's going to have to go to the island, you know, to do a sales pitch or whatever, and he can't do it.

• 2:30:03Griffin Newman?

  It is fascinating to consider.

• 2:30:05David Sims?

  By Carrie, the way he like, uh, holds on to the little, um, you know, post.

• 2:30:10Griffin Newman?

  But also fasting to consider that like the way they enforce his fears is to constantly test them rather than push him away.

• 2:30:19David Sims?

  But I also think it's that they need something interesting to happen today. Like he can't just go to work every day. The thing I like the most in that scene is, is that the guys on the boat are like, hey, do you need help? Which is like a normal thing to do. And you're like, they're actors and they're, they're like, what are they thinking about?

• 2:30:33Speaker 04

  Am I wrong though? That also before this Truman starts talking about how he wants to see the world. And so a part of me.

• 2:30:39Griffin Newman?

  It happens right after.

• 2:30:40David Sims?

  It's after. It's basically nothing has happened.

• 2:30:42Speaker 04

  Cause I, cause I, I felt like he made some reference to it. And that's why they're sort of inserting like, remind him that he hates traveling.

• 2:30:47Griffin Newman?

  After that, he has, it just feels like, right? This is a thing they do on some schedule every four months or whatever to like reestablish it, whether for the audience or for him.

• 2:30:57David Sims?

  Because after that is Laura Linney arrives with the dicer slicer, you know? And then it's him and Noah Emmerich. What is his character name?

• 2:31:04Griffin Newman?

  Lewis. But that's when he's like the golf ball talking about wanting to travel.

• 2:31:10David Sims?

  That's when he does the Fiji, does the around.

• 2:31:12Griffin Newman?

  And then the movie gives you the first flashback of his dad drowning. Right? Which at that point in the movie, you maybe think that's just movie language rather than understanding that would be part of the broadcast. But then, as you said, like the security guards are the first audience members you see at like 15 minutes in. They then basically immediately go into, well, he sees his dad.

• 2:31:36David Sims?

  The next thing is he sees his dad. What do you want to say, JD?

• 2:31:38Speaker 04

  I also think, and sees his dad and then talks to his mom right after.

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  No, no, but the, no, the sees his dad sequence is so awesome because it's like you watch reality warp.

• 2:31:46Speaker 04

  Yes. The thing that I want to talk about a little briefly though, is that in the flashback of the dad, the thing that they set up that is like so horrific is it's not just that his dad dies.

• 2:31:55David Sims?

  He begged his dad to take him out.

• 2:31:57Speaker 04

  And that they set it up so that it's Truman's fault.

• 2:32:01David Sims?

  It's the worst.

• 2:32:02Speaker 04

  It's like so horrifying.

• 2:32:03David Sims?

  It, it really upset me watching it this time.

• 2:32:05Griffin Newman?

  But it's also.

• 2:32:06David Sims?

  Like in a new, like freaky way.

• 2:32:08Griffin Newman?

  It is fascinating character motivation shit where they're like, well, you sit down, you write a screenplay. There's nothing immoral about it because you're not fucking dealing with a real life. But at a certain point, they understand this falls apart if he ever has the desire to reach further beyond the reality we can construct. So we have to narrativize. What are the like incidents of motivation that would cripple him this thoroughly?

• 2:32:35Speaker 04

  Which I think is such, it's such a crazy ethical thing to put on screen is because, right, to the actors in it, they're like, well, this isn't real, you know, I'm, I'm performing a role, but to this kid, it is real. His dad, he watched his dad die.

• 2:32:50Griffin Newman?

  But this is.

• 2:32:50Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? Like, like to Truman, this is all real, which is what's so fascinating, because I think that's also a thing that TV uses a lot where it's like, you know, it's like the this is a prank thing where it's like, it's a prank, it's a prank. It's like, well, no, you actually did that shitty thing to that person.

• 2:33:03Griffin Newman?

  But also, this is how we talk about like movies every fucking, you know, several times a week in this room where you're like, do you buy that he's like too scared to travel? And you go like, yeah, because, you know, if it was just that his dad drowned, that'd be one thing. But the fact that he wanted the dad to take him on the trip, that makes it personal. And you're like, right, that's a good writing.

• 2:33:22David Sims?

  Is Holland Taylor's character kind of the most horrifying to consider?

• 2:33:27Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 2:33:28Speaker 04

  That's the dad.

• 2:33:28David Sims?

  The mom.

• 2:33:29Speaker 04

  The mom, sorry.

• 2:33:30David Sims?

  Like, because she's essentially raised this child since birth, but she's not his mom.

• 2:33:36Griffin Newman?

  And she seems to have no lingering guilt about it.

• 2:33:39David Sims?

  No, and she like, she plays all the lies very well.

• 2:33:43Speaker 04

  Well, and she's, she seems very proud of the fact that she's Truman Burbank's mom.

• 2:33:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:47Speaker 04

  Like, like that, that's her role.

• 2:33:49David Sims?

  Good.

• 2:33:49Speaker 04

  Like when he's missing, she has that line where she's like, she's like, let me say his name. He'll like, it's in a way that's like, like, you know, chilling.

• 2:33:56Griffin Newman?

  But it also feels like you don't want to see her do talking head interviews because that becomes too depressing. Like, it's kind of a good judgment on weird.

• 2:34:03David Sims?

  The other thing I think about of like, how often does he see his mom? Let's say once a week, couple of times a week, right? So what does she do otherwise?

• 2:34:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:11David Sims?

  Does she leave?

• 2:34:11Speaker 04

  And that's the question for all of this was, is like, what, what is the, what is the schedule of their lives?

• 2:34:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:34:17Speaker 04

  That's why it's like fascinating when that elevator door opens and you see people in like this little mini green room.

• 2:34:21David Sims?

  Well, that I love, but I love the, the bus driver.

• 2:34:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:34:25David Sims?

  Where I'm like, so do they just sit there all the time in case Truman wants to take a bus? Or did they get kind of assembled there? Or does he drive the bus?

• 2:34:32Griffin Newman?

  My reading.

• 2:34:33David Sims?

  Does he kind of just drive it off and drive it back?

• 2:34:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's the part where he is starting to realize.

• 2:34:38David Sims?

  And he says, I'm the bus driver. Cause I love.

• 2:34:41Speaker 01

  Well, no, I was though more referencing the part where Carrie starts to realize that people are just on a loop.

• 2:34:47David Sims?

  Yeah, people are on loops, right? And they do their loops.

• 2:34:50Speaker 01

  The bus driver just might have his route and he just does it every day.

• 2:34:53Speaker 04

  They have their first position, which clearly is like, oh, this is where we start our day.

• 2:34:57David Sims?

  Six AM, right?

• 2:34:58Speaker 04

  And you probably have an eight hour shift where you do X, Y, and Z.

• 2:35:01Speaker 01

  Wait, and if you think about it, our lives, it's almost kind of like we're showing up to first position.

• 2:35:08David Sims?

  So like, especially when you run a podcast.

• 2:35:10Griffin Newman?

  That's sure. Very true.

• 2:35:12David Sims?

  Slaves to the wage.

• 2:35:14Speaker 04

  When I walked in late, you guys were all frozen in place. And then when I opened the door, you able to start moving.

• 2:35:20Griffin Newman?

  Fifteen minutes in is the mom, right? Then Laurel and he comes down with a slice and dice, sir.

• 2:35:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:26Griffin Newman?

  Takes out the cardigan and that's when we cut to the bar for the first time.

• 2:35:30David Sims?

  And you do the big flashback, uh, right? Long flashback.

• 2:35:32Speaker 04

  We also went over, I know David wanted to talk about seeing the dad for the first time because that is.

• 2:35:36David Sims?

  I just love the way that like, without us listening to Kristoff and watching him direct traffic, we're watching traffic get directed against him.

• 2:35:43Speaker 04

  Yes, it's brilliant.

• 2:35:44David Sims?

  The runners coming out and blocking him, like the way people just suck him into a bus, just like, just paranoia, baby, like, you know?

• 2:35:51Speaker 04

  You're experiencing the world from Truman's point of view, because if you kept cutting to Kristoff and him going, send out the runner, send out the this, you wouldn't be experiencing it, the, you wouldn't be having the same journey Truman's having, which is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is starting to fall apart. Also, what I love about the dad is he's kind of just like standing there in a very strange way, dressed in very, you know?

• 2:36:12David Sims?

  I think he got in pretending to be like a hobo or something.

• 2:36:15Speaker 04

  Right, but he's just standing there.

• 2:36:17Griffin Newman?

  Seemingly not interact with him or he's gauging whether or not it's the right move.

• 2:36:21David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 2:36:22Griffin Newman?

  And then when Truman looks at him, he's like, this is my shot.

• 2:36:24David Sims?

  Right, because he knows if he just ran up to him, then obviously, you know, he'll get taken out.

• 2:36:29Griffin Newman?

  That's part of what's, I think the movie very wisely understands. Almost 20 minutes in, if we start thinking about the immorality of what's happening here, it could get too depressing. And so you need an interception from the outside world to be like, there are people who are morally conflicted about what's going on here. And so the idea that this moment with the dad, you're like, has he been in the system for months or years? Just observing him from a distance? And this is the first time he's actually like gotten close enough to him?

• 2:37:02David Sims?

  I don't think so. I think it's pretty recent.

• 2:37:04Griffin Newman?

  Day five and this has been his plan the whole time?

• 2:37:06David Sims?

  The town is small.

• 2:37:07Speaker 04

  He snuck in that day, yeah.

• 2:37:08David Sims?

  Like, it's like, it's not that big.

• 2:37:11Speaker 04

  And we'll get to it, but one of my favorite details of it that I think answers a lot of those questions in the simplest way possible is they show the two clips of the person parachuting in and the person jumping out of the Christmas present.

• 2:37:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:37:23Speaker 04

  And those are two things that like, the inclusion of those two things implies a whole universe that's happening in the real world of people who are like, this is horrific that you're doing this and you have to stop it.

• 2:37:32David Sims?

  The person who parachutes seems to want to save him a little bit more. Because the person who pops out of the present says, I'm on TV, I did it!

• 2:37:40Speaker 04

  I did it, I made it, I'm on the Truman Show, yeah.

• 2:37:42David Sims?

  The baseball streaker, exactly. Like, the guy who's like, I can't believe it.

• 2:37:46Griffin Newman?

  But even Natasha McElhone.

• 2:37:49David Sims?

  McElhone.

• 2:37:51Griffin Newman?

  The pin feels like it's part of a movement.

• 2:37:53David Sims?

  I think so.

• 2:37:54Griffin Newman?

  That isn't looking to completely destroy the show, but is sort of like...

• 2:37:57David Sims?

  Is obsessed.

• 2:37:58Griffin Newman?

  Is obsessed with the ethics of it.

• 2:38:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:38:01Griffin Newman?

  And that she, she's not waiting for him to interact with her. And in fact, she's sort of freaked out by like, I've clearly wanted this, but I wasn't planning to like breach the seal here.

• 2:38:13David Sims?

  The question of how's it going to end, the implication to me could be like, they're not, you know, they're obsessed with the show. It could also mean that the big question of the Truman Show, which is like, are we gonna watch him die one day?

• 2:38:25Griffin Newman?

  And how?

• 2:38:25David Sims?

  Is that the end of the show? What is it? You know? Now, we're not asking the biggest question.

• 2:38:32Griffin Newman?

  Poop?

• 2:38:32David Sims?

  Sorry to, no, that one doesn't bother me.

• 2:38:34Speaker 04

  What do you mean? Oh, sure.

• 2:38:36David Sims?

  Jacking it. How much is he jacking it?

• 2:38:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, the wind blows the curve.

• 2:38:40David Sims?

  They do, right?

• 2:38:41Griffin Newman?

  He buys women's magazines and makes collage art and he never touches his privates.

• 2:38:45David Sims?

  He might not. I mean, he's a pretty, pretty uptight guy. I don't know.

• 2:38:49Griffin Newman?

  He has rote sex with Laura Linney, who's crossing both, all fingers on all hands crossing her toes.

• 2:38:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's rough out there. A funny detail.

• 2:38:59David Sims?

  Just like the idea where like, oh, he made a show about a guy. You're like, oh yeah, what's it like? Cause he, he jerks off a lot. Like it's especially, what was like 13 to 19? Like he jerked off.

• 2:39:08Speaker 01

  Oh God, yeah, wait, that must have really cut to a lot of.

• 2:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a lot of flashbacks.

• 2:39:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, 13 to 19, we had to hire extra editors. Packages of baseball games and stuff.

• 2:39:19Griffin Newman?

  But there's also.

• 2:39:21Speaker 04

  Truman's remembering his third birthday party again. Interesting.

• 2:39:24Griffin Newman?

  You can ask like dog tooth style questions about the world where you're like, right, rain can't exist in a narrow silo because that disconnects us from our reality. But if these are the things you don't want to show on television, then maybe in sex ed class, they're like, and of course sexual intercourse is when you touch someone else's hand. And then every night he and Laura Linney just like shake hands and he never considers his penises for anything other than peeing. I think these are the big questions this movie asks.

• 2:39:51Speaker 04

  I'm sure there's like fan fiction about it, but it would be interesting like to see the movie from the perspective of like a hired actor who's just like a kid in his class.

• 2:39:59David Sims?

  He's fascinating to consider all that shit. Exactly. Like what was this classroom like? How did those kids not talk to him? It seems insane.

• 2:40:06Speaker 04

  And those kids just had to like show up and live that life. In the same way that like, you know, when you look at child actors, they're like, well, my whole life was on set. I didn't get to have a childhood.

• 2:40:15David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:40:16Speaker 04

  And all these kids not only didn't get to have a childhood, they, they had to have Truman Burbank's childhood.

• 2:40:21Griffin Newman?

  Well, and even the Noemric character, it's like, like Topanga on Boy Meets World was like a one episode character named Weird Girl. And then they were like, weird girl is good. And then they like bring her back for more. And then it develops into a romance and the entire show is about them as a couple. And she spent eight years growing up on like American screens.

• 2:40:39Speaker 04

  They deleted the scene, but there's a scene from the Truman Show where he, um, one of his neighbors comes over and like knocks over a bunch of stuff and is like, did I do that? And then like everyone went nuts and like people were like, people were trying to tear down the dome because they wanted more of him.

• 2:40:53Griffin Newman?

  He like goes inside and then you hear like a lot of machines whirring and then a similar looking guy comes out, but he's really cool.

• 2:41:00David Sims?

  Yeah. So after this sort of first half hour, which is like.

• 2:41:05Speaker 04

  Truman.

• 2:41:06David Sims?

  Like the, the scenes. It's a great bit. It's a great bit. I support the bit.

• 2:41:12Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 2:41:12David Sims?

  But by the bit, I mean, what those guys did on Family Matters. That was so great.

• 2:41:16Griffin Newman?

  Greatest bit of writing. But it's that kind of thing where you must be like, was Noah Emmerich hired to be his best friend?

• 2:41:22David Sims?

  No, I think Noah Emmerich popped.

• 2:41:24Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:41:24David Sims?

  That's what it is. He had chemistry with them and they were like, great. Okay. You'll be their friend.

• 2:41:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:28David Sims?

  So after that first half hour is when Truman, so we were just like, we're in which we vaguely feel narrative. You know, that's right. The scenes of reality.

• 2:41:36Griffin Newman?

  Thirty minutes is the moment where he starts pushing against it, where he's stopping the traffic.

• 2:41:40David Sims?

  Goes through.

• 2:41:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:41David Sims?

  The revolving door comes out the other side. Philip Glass's anthem starts playing the dun dun dun dun.

• 2:41:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:47David Sims?

  And he stops the buses and all that.

• 2:41:49Griffin Newman?

  And we introduced the bar on either side of the sort of flashback thing of them being like, oh, there's a new hire who doesn't, isn't up with the Truman lore and all the other staff members at the Truman bar are like, this is the fuck.

• 2:42:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:02Griffin Newman?

  I can't believe you don't know the plot line about the woman.

• 2:42:05David Sims?

  The great Ollie.

• 2:42:05Speaker 04

  But there's.

• 2:42:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the great.

• 2:42:07Speaker 04

  He starts having that realization because the system starts breaking. The light falls, the radio tuner changes.

• 2:42:14David Sims?

  That happens later, the radio thing, but yes, yeah, absolutely.

• 2:42:16Speaker 04

  There's one or two other things that happen that are.

• 2:42:17Griffin Newman?

  That is two and radio tuner is three.

• 2:42:19Speaker 04

  That is two. That is.

• 2:42:20Griffin Newman?

  What I love, I think this movie is perfectly dialed in on are I hate movies in which people figure things out too quickly, but I hate even more movies in which people continue to not get smart about the reality about them. And I think like a lot of modern horror, elevated horror in particular, has this problem where characters just keep going like, that was weird and then go back to reality. And this is a movie where it's like, if the light flies out of the sky, he doesn't immediately go, oh my God, my life's been a TV show. But when three things happen within two days, it's just enough to start him testing, like, what are the limits of this?

• 2:42:59Speaker 04

  But what I also think is fascinating about this and why I think it resonates so much, right, is that how many systems this is related to, right, where people try to create a sense of control, to create some sort of thing that is this is the way the world works, and then people's journey is that they start to see the cracks of that. And it's that system, it's impossible to create a system that permanently embubbles someone, whether it's religion, or society, or schooling, or family. It's like, that's such a universal feeling that you start seeing the cracks in the seams where you didn't.

• 2:43:29David Sims?

  The more you, you know, enclose, the more people will push back. What do you make of, I love the photo album scene, obviously because the fake Mount Rushmore is so funny.

• 2:43:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:43:38David Sims?

  But then she-

• 2:43:39Griffin Newman?

  It's a whole car ride.

• 2:43:40Speaker 04

  It also-

• 2:43:41David Sims?

  A whole car ride.

• 2:43:42Speaker 04

  It also presupposes that they're sort of like, oh, shoot, we need some of this stuff. And like, we don't really have the budget to really go for this. So like, we can probably just get this out of the way now, right?

• 2:43:52Griffin Newman?

  It's earlier days of the show, and also, can the family go on this many trips so he doesn't grow up and go like, you know, I've never actually been, they can just kind of rely on his fuzzy childhood memories.

• 2:44:02David Sims?

  Where I start, I'm like, but how would he know that families go on trips? But again, I feel like they're just like, everyone should talk to him like he's normal. That, right. Laura Linney, they're looking at the wedding photos, and Laura Linney points to these three girls, and she goes like, Judy, Jody, Joanne. It's a weird gag, because it's never like, but are those like runner up Laura Linney types? Like, who are they? Or they're, they're just like the lame supporting cast she used to have, or maybe not used much anymore?

• 2:44:28Griffin Newman?

  Get to the flashback, and Linney is like faking the injury to fall into his arms. You go like, is this an actress who's really enterprising? Or did she go through all the levels of casting?

• 2:44:39David Sims?

  It feels more like the second.

• 2:44:41Griffin Newman?

  Perfect. You're the one.

• 2:44:42David Sims?

  And now you have to win it over.

• 2:44:43Griffin Newman?

  And they're panicking in real time that he's naturally looking somewhere else.

• 2:44:46David Sims?

  Because like, when they're, when Laura has left him, when, you know, and they introduced the new love interest, clearly, like, she's been pre-selected, because you have to pick someone who will play the game.

• 2:44:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:44:56David Sims?

  Like, you can't just say like, you know what, he has chemistry with Natasha MacAlhoun, now we'll figure it out. So, he keeps pressing against reality. He goes to the hospital to look at the operation.

• 2:45:07Speaker 04

  Which is such-

• 2:45:07David Sims?

  Which is so funny, the guy being like, I'll just-

• 2:45:10Griffin Newman?

  It kind of reminds me-

• 2:45:11David Sims?

  ...incision here now.

• 2:45:13Griffin Newman?

  And he does, because they flinch.

• 2:45:16Speaker 01

  She freaks out.

• 2:45:17Griffin Newman?

  And they put the gas mask on her and he goes, we'll have someone else clean this up.

• 2:45:21Speaker 01

  Someone else will clean this up.

• 2:45:22Griffin Newman?

  And Laura Linney's like, this is really good. You handled that really well. Where it's just like, yeah, an actor has to stay in the reality. If pushed to the limits, you have to make an incision on this one.

• 2:45:31Speaker 01

  The travel agency where every poster is like, you could die.

• 2:45:36Speaker 04

  Lightning striking a plane.

• 2:45:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:45:38Speaker 04

  Uh, I, I, what I also think is fascinating is that.

• 2:45:41Griffin Newman?

  Fiji's booked out for a month. It's the busy season.

• 2:45:44Speaker 01

  Well, I actually sympathize with the fake travel agency there where she's like, we live in some time. You want to go to fucking Fiji? How many flights to Fiji are there?

• 2:45:52Speaker 04

  Well, that's the thing is I'm also, I'm like, I'm like, we live in New York City and it's like, to get to Fiji would be like three planes.

• 2:45:57Speaker 01

  Look it up. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. Let's see.

• 2:45:59Speaker 04

  But I think, uh, something that resonates to me about Truman's experience and being slightly tangential to the immersive theater world in New York and things like that, right? Like everybody's first instinct when they, when they realize there's a system or something to explore is you, you start trying to find the places where you, it could break to see where, where it could go, right? Like when you go to sleep no more, it's like, yeah, there's the instinct where you want to follow the main characters, but there's also the instinct where you're like, I want to go find the room that no one else is in. I want to see where the, where the boundaries of this thing are. And so I love the fact that when he starts realizing what's going on, his instinct is like, let me sprint towards the things that I've never seen or like, let me see where the boundaries of this are.

• 2:46:41Griffin Newman?

  I think it's such a good detail that he's like, I'm running into the office building. That's not the one I work at, the place I'd never have a reason to go into. He pushes the limits. He sees the elevator, people get in, the doors close. Like they were prepared enough for that. What they weren't prepared enough for was the feeling that that wasn't enough because everyone loosens up after that moment. When the security guards are getting through to be like, well, we don't have to fake it again.

• 2:47:07Speaker 04

  Yes. And I also love the idea that it, it, it sort of begs the question. And again, this is all subtext, which is so fun about it is that he goes to the hospital and you can kind of tell everyone's like, oh, normally we just like, kind of hang out here and wait until it's time for, you know, us to interact with Truman again.

• 2:47:23Speaker 01

  I think that's what they do, right?

• 2:47:26Griffin Newman?

  Back to the Holland Taylor question. It's like, okay.

• 2:47:28David Sims?

  What does she do?

• 2:47:29Griffin Newman?

  Does she only like?

• 2:47:30David Sims?

  But she's a higher level.

• 2:47:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:32David Sims?

  Truman could have to call his mom at any point.

• 2:47:35Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:47:35David Sims?

  If you work at the, I feel like the hospital might be empty unless he starts going near it and then they're like, fuck.

• 2:47:40Speaker 04

  Which it seems is the energy at the hospitals. Everyone's like, uh, what's going on here?

• 2:47:44David Sims?

  I love to think about.

• 2:47:45Griffin Newman?

  I think it's more like the people at the hospital are like Broadway standbys. And they're like prepped for this day, but it's rarely tested.

• 2:47:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:47:53Griffin Newman?

  Um, cause it's like, they're ready enough to have someone on an operating table, all the equipment, the set going that deep, like all of that. The thing is that it's just like, they're kind of out of practice. And he usually settles for seeing far less.

• 2:48:07Speaker 04

  What, one of my core childhood memories is a, there's a period of time where I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and a lot of sleep issue stuff. And I worked with a therapist who like, tried to like, get me into like lucid dreaming stuff. And whether I was actually lucid dreaming or if I was like dreaming that I was lucid dreaming, who knows what the difference is.

• 2:48:23Griffin Newman?

  And later you let people influence your dreams.

• 2:48:25Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. Um, but one of the things that I remember, it's a dream that like stays with me and I might've brought this up. People have like, oh, I've had a similar dream. Where it's like, I was in a dream and then I was like, I want to go explore the city. And then like my dream was like, no, no, you're supposed to be in this storyline. But I was like, no, I want to go like, climb a building and jump off of it and see if I can fly. And like the dream kind of being like, uh, uh, you're not supposed to. And so I feel like that Truman experience is this like relatable feeling that's so core of like, all right, there's this path you're supposed to go on and what happens if you just run in a different direction.

• 2:48:56David Sims?

  I looked it up. All right, the flight's in an hour, so I don't think I could make it. But I could go to Fiji.

• 2:49:02Griffin Newman?

  When would you get there?

• 2:49:04David Sims?

  So I would leave now, 4:30 PM from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

• 2:49:09Griffin Newman?

  3:30 PM. You're forgetting daylight savings time.

• 2:49:11David Sims?

  No, what? What do you mean I'm forgetting that? It's already happened.

• 2:49:16Griffin Newman?

  I'm saying it is 3:30 PM.

• 2:49:18David Sims?

  I'm saying the flight's at 4:30.

• 2:49:20Griffin Newman?

  I'm so sorry.

• 2:49:21David Sims?

  It would get me there 5:45 AM, two days later.

• 2:49:24Speaker 01

  There's one stop, just one stop at Dallas Fort Worth.

• 2:49:28Speaker 04

  Is it at Sea Haven?

• 2:49:29Speaker 01

  Yes, it's Sea Haven. American Airlines, and then I switched to Fiji Airways.

• 2:49:34Griffin Newman?

  And how long is the second leg?

• 2:49:35Speaker 01

  It says the entire thing would take me 21 hours and 15 minutes, which is not short.

• 2:49:40Griffin Newman?

  It's not short.

• 2:49:41Speaker 01

  And that the way back, also just one stop, but that one seems to have a longer stopover, so it's a 30 hours.

• 2:49:46Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, I just have to correct you, David. Way back is Peter Weir's final film.

• 2:49:49Speaker 01

  And we will be discussing it in just one, two weeks.

• 2:49:52Speaker 04

  And you know who takes that trip all the time? Jeff Probst.

• 2:49:56Speaker 01

  Probably, right?

• 2:49:57Speaker 04

  He has to go to Fiji all the time.

• 2:49:58Speaker 01

  And it's $1,100, which is not that much money considering you're going to fucking Fiji.

• 2:50:02Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:50:03Speaker 01

  But it's not nothing.

• 2:50:04Speaker 04

  I'm just gonna say it right now.

• 2:50:06Speaker 01

  Economy.

• 2:50:07Speaker 04

  Should we all Truman show ourselves? Should we just get up and go to Fiji right now?

• 2:50:11Speaker 01

  Oh, so to you Truman Show yourself is not like be the star of a show.

• 2:50:15Griffin Newman?

  I love the Truman Show.

• 2:50:16Speaker 01

  Try desperately at all costs to go to Fiji.

• 2:50:19Griffin Newman?

  It's now like a medical term for like a psychological condition and we're gonna take it back and being like, I'm gonna do a Truman Show, just get on a flight to Fiji.

• 2:50:26Speaker 01

  If I'm a travel agent and a guy walks in in shorts with one small suitcase and is like Fiji today, please, I might be like, are you okay?

• 2:50:35Speaker 04

  No, let's all, okay, let's Trumaning pretty hard. Let's do a Truman Show day where we bum rush a surgery.

• 2:50:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:40Speaker 04

  And then try to go to Fiji as fast as possible.

• 2:50:42Speaker 01

  No, no, try to go to Fiji, pivot to Chicago, and then pivot to, I feel like it just kind of pivots to like New Orleans, right? That's his next.

• 2:50:50Griffin Newman?

  I also, I love that Fiji is like a panic improv from the dad, right?

• 2:50:54Speaker 04

  The Truman Show challenge is you, you have to bum rush a surgery and then get away from whatever landmass you're on.

• 2:51:02Speaker 01

  It's like you try plane, then try bus, then try car.

• 2:51:05Griffin Newman?

  Press elevator buttons in a bunch of random office building lobbies.

• 2:51:07Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:51:08Griffin Newman?

  Make sure no one's drinking coffee.

• 2:51:09Speaker 04

  You have to go, you have to go past the security guards in office building, bum rush a surgery.

• 2:51:13Griffin Newman?

  Buy one magazine for your wife.

• 2:51:15Speaker 01

  After the bus.

• 2:51:17Griffin Newman?

  I just want to see the Fiji thing.

• 2:51:18Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 2:51:19Griffin Newman?

  I think that moment is so effective where like Natasha McElhone is like in true conspiracy thriller, this is about to end any moment kind of panic that he's oblivious to. The dad comes, is playing it really well.

• 2:51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, sorry, mentally ill, like, you know, these things happen.

• 2:51:36Griffin Newman?

  You're not the first guy she's taken to the beach.

• 2:51:37Speaker 04

  And the dad does not feel like an actor. The dad feels like he's someone who's part of like the security detail of the show.

• 2:51:43Speaker 01

  He's good, he wanted, actually, he wanted.

• 2:51:44David Sims?

  That year, I'm seeing here.

• 2:51:46Griffin Newman?

  And he's like prepped with the things to say. And then Truman goes like, well, like, can I call tomorrow to see how she's doing? And he goes like, ah, no, I mean, Cam, we're moving to Fiji tomorrow. Like, the Fiji is such a panic.

• 2:51:57David Sims?

  It's why he calls Fiji like directory.

• 2:52:00Griffin Newman?

  But that's why I think it's a bad lie that now has, he's hyper fixated on for 20 years.

• 2:52:06Speaker 04

  Which I love because, yeah, again, I think.

• 2:52:08David Sims?

  Not 20, Truman's not that old. No, no, like 10. Like Truman's maybe 29 or 30. Like, he's pretty young.

• 2:52:15Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 2:52:15Speaker 04

  No, they, they keep, they keep saying 30. That's his 30th year. Yeah. Um, but what I love is that you get the sense that this guy's not an actor. He's not, he's someone who is probably part of the, the security detail.

• 2:52:25David Sims?

  Or something.

• 2:52:26Speaker 04

  And so the fact that in that moment, he's like, she's like, find me. And he's like, trying to figure out how to solve this, but he's not a creative guy. He's like, he's like, we're just going to Fiji. The fact that that becomes now imprinted lore in the history of the show is so amazing.

• 2:52:40Griffin Newman?

  But it's like fucking like kryptonite being invented because the guy doing the Superman radio show needed an excuse to take vacations. So, and they were like, sometimes Superman gets really tired for two weeks.

• 2:52:49David Sims?

  Right. It's day 10,00909.

• 2:52:52Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:52:52David Sims?

  And that's 29 years and eight ish months.

• 2:52:55Speaker 04

  Cause they keep talking in the interviews about our 30th year of doing this show.

• 2:52:59Griffin Newman?

  I guess he's mid 30s when they film it.

• 2:53:01David Sims?

  Maybe, but like the show started. She's like, we're gonna have a baby soon.

• 2:53:04Griffin Newman?

  Or Carrie.

• 2:53:05Speaker 04

  Show started before he was born.

• 2:53:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:53:09Speaker 04

  It started with one camera.

• 2:53:10Griffin Newman?

  That's true. And this movie was filmed before our current Jim Carrey was born.

• 2:53:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:53:15Griffin Newman?

  Jim Carrey five.

• 2:53:16Speaker 04

  Oh, got it. Yes.

• 2:53:17David Sims?

  Right, right. Carrie 5.0.

• 2:53:19Speaker 04

  So wait, okay, got it.

• 2:53:20David Sims?

  Weapon V.

• 2:53:21Griffin Newman?

  Can I say, I just don't understand why that is breaking people's brains where I'm like, every famous person looks weird now.

• 2:53:27David Sims?

  Famous. Well, no, it's not just that. Remember when Tom Cruise looked kinda weird?

• 2:53:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:32David Sims?

  Have you seen pictures of him recently? He looks better.

• 2:53:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. He was at the hockey game and it was like, the work hasn't settled.

• 2:53:36David Sims?

  They get Botox or they get an old, you know, something and like, it looks weird for a bit.

• 2:53:41Griffin Newman?

  He didn't even seem like himself though. It's a different guy. And I'm like, he challenged himself.

• 2:53:43David Sims?

  Jim Carrey, the weirdest person in the world.

• 2:53:45Griffin Newman?

  To give a speech in French, not his native language. He is the weirdest, most ins consistent man in the world who's been very open with his like mental health struggles. Like, the idea that people are like, there is no other explanation.

• 2:53:59Speaker 04

  Well, it's also, I don't think it's any of our business how people choose to look.

• 2:54:02Griffin Newman?

  I don't either.

• 2:54:02Speaker 04

  Any, any of the reason any, any people feel like they need to change their look is because of people commenting and talking about it constantly over and over again, where I'm like, I'm like, it's that self fulfilling thing where you're like, yeah.

• 2:54:13Griffin Newman?

  That's the hell.

• 2:54:13Speaker 04

  You're curious why celebrities are changing how they look because of this conversation.

• 2:54:16David Sims?

  Okay. Uh, Jim Carrey, uh, sorry Truman takes, after all this, takes Laura Linney, uh, in the car to show her the like, the loops, like the cars coming out and disappearing.

• 2:54:28Griffin Newman?

  He's gone from like hospital.

• 2:54:28David Sims?

  Her name is Merrill. Yeah. So the actress is Hannah, the, uh, the character is Merrill.

• 2:54:33Griffin Newman?

  He's gone from hospital to the bus. Like he's tried to escape immediately and then he's right.

• 2:54:38David Sims?

  Uh, and then they drive over the bridge. He still thinks he can maybe trust her. They drive over the bridge together. They're kind of in it together, which I do like.

• 2:54:46Speaker 04

  And she has a moment. She's like, oh Truman.

• 2:54:49David Sims?

  There's that part when, when they hit the bridge where she's like, yeah, you could never do this.

• 2:54:53Speaker 04

  And it's like, I'm kind of sinister like, oh sweetheart.

• 2:54:55David Sims?

  Right. But then they kind of.

• 2:54:57Griffin Newman?

  A good actor where she knows what to say to psychologically manipulate him in behavior, not in like telling him what to do.

• 2:55:03David Sims?

  But she kind of likes that they make it over together. Like he's like, we did it. Yeah. And then there's the fire, you know, they have to like drive through the fire.

• 2:55:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I love that he keeps pointing out like, I look at that timing. It's so perfect.

• 2:55:16David Sims?

  Right. You know?

• 2:55:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. The traffic jam.

• 2:55:18David Sims?

  And then, and no, no, after that, no, then it's the cop. No, the traffic jam already happened. The fire and then the cop who's like, whole area's been evacuated, chemical spill. He's like, all right. The guy's like, no problem Truman, which I just love that you're like, it would happen.

• 2:55:30Griffin Newman?

  It would happen.

• 2:55:31Speaker 04

  Because also these guys, these guys are not called upon.

• 2:55:34David Sims?

  Line of defense.

• 2:55:35Speaker 04

  These guys who are, their job is to show up and eat donuts all day. And then like, oh no, we have to do the thing today.

• 2:55:40David Sims?

  And so then the guys in the hazmat suits get him.

• 2:55:42Griffin Newman?

  He's never been this.

• 2:55:43David Sims?

  He's never been this, uh, yeah, yeah. Paranoid. And then we have the moment Ben called out where he fully like blips out, grabs her, um.

• 2:55:52Speaker 04

  And it's a terrifying moment. You're, it's, it's, it's the moment in which you're like, this is a not well person who's been broken by all of this.

• 2:56:00David Sims?

  I guess maybe I just wanted them to cut to the viewers at home witnessing that. There's just something about it to me that it doesn't feel like it's passing us enough judgment on that action. Ben, I want to say he does not hold the thing to her. He grabs, she's pointing it at him and he grabs her by the arm, uh, you know, and pulls her up to him. But there's the point where. And then disarms her. Where he takes it out. Yeah. He's not threatening her with the blade.

• 2:56:31Griffin Newman?

  She's coming at him.

• 2:56:32David Sims?

  He's grabbing, because she's threatening him. I remember when his friend comes in, he has it pointed at her.

• 2:56:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:56:38David Sims?

  No, no, she, she points it at him, right? Wait, wait.

• 2:56:41Speaker 04

  No, he has his arm like around her.

• 2:56:43Griffin Newman?

  She says, do something, right?

• 2:56:45David Sims?

  Well, no, he's again, he's no, he's not pointing it at her. I know, but he's holding her against. I know. I mean, we're arguing Samantha.

• 2:56:51Griffin Newman?

  And he said, I'm sorry. He's holding her. She says, do something. When she says that he lets go and he's like, what the fuck is going on here?

• 2:56:57David Sims?

  And then she's like, I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything like, you know, and like, is trying to go back to normal mode. And then what I love is how can they expect her to carry on into these conditions? The most like actorly way to put like, I can't do my job anymore.

• 2:57:10Speaker 04

  Right. Then she goes, it's unprofessional.

• 2:57:12David Sims?

  It's unprofessional.

• 2:57:14Griffin Newman?

  When Noah Emmerich comes in, Ben, she's like trying to leave. He's holding her against the wall and he's got the dicer in his hand. So it's kind of in the touchy area of like, he's holding the weapon because he'd had to take it away from her. And he's physically losing it and she feels threatened by the fact that there's a sharp thing near her.

• 2:57:32David Sims?

  Also, he knows that like she's, he's lost his trust in her.

• 2:57:35Griffin Newman?

  But he's never like.

• 2:57:36David Sims?

  Going crazy. And it's important that we're pointing it out. Yeah. Still, you know, upsetting.

• 2:57:41Speaker 04

  Yes, it's upset, I think, supposed to resonate of domestic violence and the feeling, you know what I mean? It's like, it's.

• 2:57:46David Sims?

  We go right to another upsetting thing, which is Noah Emmerich's like, let's go have a beer.

• 2:57:51Griffin Newman?

  Well, and I also just want to say that like, when Noah Emmerich comes in, when he hears the knock at the door and he's like, it's going to be more men in suits or whatever. That's the one time he sticks the dicer out.

• 2:58:00David Sims?

  He does, yeah.

• 2:58:01Griffin Newman?

  Not at her, at the door, where he's like, someone worse is about to come in.

• 2:58:04David Sims?

  But then it's so depressing that it's like, they go sit, they have the beers and Noah Emmerich's doing the usual like, you know, we all feel this way. And we, you know, like, and but you're cutting now to Giomara and Kristoff feeding him the wines. And you're just like, right.

• 2:58:18Speaker 04

  And what he's saying is.

• 2:58:19David Sims?

  There's no sincerity to it.

• 2:58:20Speaker 04

  Is if everyone's in on it, Truman.

• 2:58:22David Sims?

  I would have to be in on it. And then of course they're like, and now here's your dad. Like, like, and that's how that this is where we're going to cut. This is one hour into the movie.

• 2:58:30Griffin Newman?

  It's also like a Mulholland Drive moment where Kristoff's giving him this like somewhat boilerplate dialogue in his ear.

• 2:58:37David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 2:58:37Griffin Newman?

  And Emmerich's also like grounding it in something real.

• 2:58:40David Sims?

  And he changes words and stuff like and it's like clearly he has the latitude to do that.

• 2:58:44Griffin Newman?

  And when you hear him say, if everyone's in on it, that would mean I'm in on Truman. It's heartbreaking because he's found a way to make that line feel honest, but it also probably is reflective of the fact that this guy feels so fucking guilty. That he's having to say this to this guy and he is on.

• 2:58:58David Sims?

  They they have the reunion with the dad and it's like you're you're playing the evil, like the number one card. Your father who died is alive.

• 2:59:07Speaker 01

  He also must be feeling shame because everyone's watching him at home do this shit.

• 2:59:13David Sims?

  And this is where where you like the reality breaks where you're like, Congress, I know Congress isn't always. Number one.

• 2:59:21Griffin Newman?

  But we're coming.

• 2:59:21David Sims?

  But like, wouldn't someone have objected to this like sick freak show?

• 2:59:25Griffin Newman?

  Very close.

• 2:59:26David Sims?

  Like at some point shortly.

• 2:59:28Griffin Newman?

  So when Andrew Nickel pitched this film, it was pitched as in the near future.

• 2:59:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:32Griffin Newman?

  A man lives unwillingly, unknowingly in a 24 hour soap opera. This movie doesn't really make it clear what year it is.

• 2:59:39David Sims?

  No, it doesn't.

• 2:59:40Griffin Newman?

  It's secretly 3057.

• 2:59:41David Sims?

  No, because like everyone seems pretty modern, like regular contemporary.

• 2:59:45Griffin Newman?

  But it's another line of dialogue that we're almost at that I think about so much where Harry Shearer is doing this kind of victory lap interview with Kristoff. To like, address how close the show came to going off the rails and how they like snatched it from the jaws of defeat. And he goes, Truman was the first child legally adopted by a corporation. Isn't that true? And he goes, that's right. And they don't tell you that it's happened many other times since then. But it's presented as like, and people might not remember that was the first time that ever happened.

• 3:00:16David Sims?

  You're right that you could take it that way, right? It's sort of like, was this the beginning of some?

• 3:00:20Griffin Newman?

  The ripple effects of it.

• 3:00:21David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 3:00:22Griffin Newman?

  Especially not seeing broadly the outside world. I'm not like this is happening 80,000 cases all over the place. But when you're like, why is Congress intervening or not? You're like, to some degree, he's crossed all those barriers and continued to get approval collusion, you know?

• 3:00:38Speaker 04

  I I also think with the reunion of the dad and all that stuff, I think part of the point of the violet scene between him and the wife where it's like. It it is violent and scary is that there's no, you can't go back from that. You can't go.

• 3:00:53Speaker 01

  Gone.

• 3:00:54Speaker 04

  You can't go back into normalcy, even the relationship. Your relationship will never be the same if you've had that interaction. And so it's like.

• 3:01:00David Sims?

  Also, if you basically accused your wife of being a pod person.

• 3:01:04Speaker 04

  Well, that's what I'm saying, like, like.

• 3:01:05David Sims?

  An actor.

• 3:01:06Speaker 04

  All of this stuff has, as they've now crossed the line where there's no world in which they can go back to happy 50s universe unless they make quote unquote, major rewrites.

• 3:01:15Griffin Newman?

  Which Kristoff acknowledges where it like, Harry Shearer's like a master stroke. How did you come up with that to bring the dad back? And he's like, look, everything started going kind of sideways because of the dad. So the only way to resolve this was to like, bring it full circle.

• 3:01:28David Sims?

  The best line in the movie though is when it's like, and how are you going to explain? He's like amnesia and they're like, brilliant.

• 3:01:34Speaker 01

  And so the dad wanted to get back on the show.

• 3:01:37David Sims?

  He was doing that independently and obviously Kristoff is like, all right.

• 3:01:40Griffin Newman?

  It's like Kristoff would have said a week ago, that would destroy reality under no circumstances. And now he's pushed into a situation where he's like, we have to bring the dad in.

• 3:01:49David Sims?

  So at this point, there's 30 minutes left in the movie.

• 3:01:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:53David Sims?

  Right. And like, you know, you had the whole, the whole Kristoff sequence is about 10 minutes. This sort of Harry Shearer interview stuff. And you have just a few minutes of like, okay, he's sleeping. Things are back to normal. He does the, you know, the soap in the mirror, right? Like he, you know, like, oh, it's our, Truman's back.

• 3:02:09Griffin Newman?

  Strokes his big face.

• 3:02:10Speaker 04

  Is that, that's after that, the Harry Shearer interview.

• 3:02:13David Sims?

  That's after, that's basically when it's like Truman has woken up. Then we get the impression that maybe a little bit of time has passed because like Laura Linney moves out. Right? So like maybe weeks have passed and he's being normal.

• 3:02:25Griffin Newman?

  I think we were said the movie is supposed to depict the last week of broadcasting on this show.

• 3:02:30David Sims?

  But like he digs a, you know, like, you know, she moves at whatever, you know, something's going, you know.

• 3:02:35Speaker 04

  The Harry Shearer interview serves to give us our first sort of temporal time.

• 3:02:38David Sims?

  Right. We can kind of like take a bit of a break.

• 3:02:41Speaker 04

  Answers a handful of the questions that that's what, that's.

• 3:02:43David Sims?

  How does this work?

• 3:02:44Speaker 04

  The Christmas present guy and all that stuff. Also a great side point of thing that when I was looking up actors last night, they.

• 3:02:50Griffin Newman?

  I hope you say what I want to say.

• 3:02:52Speaker 04

  I think it is with the Matt Gaetz of, Gates of it all. The guy who paraglides into the, uh.

• 3:02:58David Sims?

  No.

• 3:02:59Speaker 04

  Into the homes, his name, the actor's name is Marco Rubio.

• 3:03:02David Sims?

  Are you serious?

• 3:03:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, but with an E. So Rubio or whatever. Yeah.

• 3:03:06David Sims?

  Wow. Fuck.

• 3:03:07Speaker 04

  But it was just funny. Cause I was like, I was like, what, what if it was actually anyways?

• 3:03:11David Sims?

  It should be Marco Rubio.

• 3:03:13Speaker 04

  But I think it's, I think that's brilliant because also at that point, you go from this character having this extremely low, low, this moment where this whole thing is falling apart. And then instead of feeling the panic and stress and the moral and ethical quandaries that this all, it's, it's blowing up. Instead, it is a victory lap. It is a wow, Kristoff, you are a genius.

• 3:03:35David Sims?

  You did a great job. You've solved your problem, but then the next thing is Truman escaping and just being gone.

• 3:03:40Griffin Newman?

  The one thing I wanted to call up quickly, sorry, is there an actress named Una Damon, who is like the woman in the main console board with Kristoff and Giamatti?

• 3:03:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:51Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, why does this woman look so familiar? And she basically has a career in the nineties and early 2000s of constantly being the woman who stares at a screen and explains to the audience what's going on in like Gattaca and Deep Rising and Deep Impact. But the big thing why she's stuck in my brain is she is the person who explains the spider in Spider-Man and that is the tour guide who goes like, 27 radioactive spiders.

• 3:04:16Speaker 04

  That's funny. Well, the reason I was on IMDb is because they have the call-in section there. And one of the callers is like, I forget the question, but it's like, hey, how do you do with da, da, da? And it's like, the voice is so unactively. And I was like, that's someone. And then I looked it up and he's the editor on the movie. So clearly it was a scratch track that they're like, I'll just keep that in.

• 3:04:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But yes, basically from the moment Kristoff has taken his victory lap, Truman, unbeknownst to them, has perfectly planned his escape.

• 3:04:43David Sims?

  He knows.

• 3:04:43Griffin Newman?

  They think that they-

• 3:04:45David Sims?

  He's not believing the dad thing.

• 3:04:46Griffin Newman?

  They think they've reset the board. I love the moment with Giamatti and the other guy where they're watching him talk to the mirror and they're like, oh, fuck, he knows the cameras here. No, he's back to normal. He's playing the role. He's doing a bit.

• 3:04:59David Sims?

  And then he says like-

• 3:04:59Griffin Newman?

  He's talking to the neighbors.

• 3:05:01David Sims?

  That one's for, after the thing, he goes like, that one's for free or whatever. Like, it's like he, yeah, he's, you know.

• 3:05:06Griffin Newman?

  But it's, he's toeing the line just enough that they don't need to flag it to Kristoff.

• 3:05:10David Sims?

  But we, right. But we barely see anything. Cause then it's just, he's sleeping. No, yeah, yeah. And then, and then what I love is the no Truman section. Cue the sun, the moon turning into a spotlight, the actors just patrolling, like just like the reality of the world completely falling apart.

• 3:05:26Griffin Newman?

  Like arm in arm, all just like marching.

• 3:05:28Speaker 01

  Like the twins are like so mean.

• 3:05:31David Sims?

  Yes, I love those twins.

• 3:05:32Speaker 04

  Well, cause there's also, there's a version of this, right? Where great escape version of it, where we see Truman escaping and we see him hatching his plan. We see him pull it off.

• 3:05:41David Sims?

  Totally.

• 3:05:42Speaker 04

  And you don't.

• 3:05:43David Sims?

  No, he dug a tunnel. He figured out the tape recorder thing. Like, yeah, right.

• 3:05:47Speaker 04

  And the big narrative shift that's happened is the first hour, we're seeing the experience from the POV of Truman. The moment we do the Kristoff interview till the end, we are now seeing the experience from Kristoff's.

• 3:05:57Griffin Newman?

  We're inside the moon looking down at Truman.

• 3:05:59Speaker 04

  Yes. And I, I think it's, I mean, both in terms of how they shot it and how like the, the, the moon turning into a spotlight obviously is great, that the moment of turn on the sun is like such a beautiful iconic moment of that, you know, it's just like so, and that, that shot, how they got, you know, like, just like, oh, that's a practical effect. They are, they are moving a light on a crane past it. You know what I mean? It's like, it's so cool to see.

• 3:06:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:24Speaker 04

  And the fact that all the actors are arm in arm and it's like, it, it feels like Disneyland where the ride is shut down. You know what I mean?

• 3:06:31Speaker 01

  Earlier in the movie too, they show a model that's so important to give you a sense of the geography.

• 3:06:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:06:36Speaker 01

  Because when he then tries to escape, you understand that, right? Like.

• 3:06:40Speaker 04

  There's nowhere to go.

• 3:06:41Speaker 01

  There's nowhere to go.

• 3:06:42Griffin Newman?

  And they say in the Harry Shearer thing, that it's the only manmade structure, or one of only three manmade structures, but it's, it's the Great Wall of China and the Truman Dome, basically, or the only two.

• 3:06:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's fascinating. And then the fact that they're walking around, and then that's where you start seeing the masks drop of a lot of these actors and you start seeing, I love the fact that Emmerich, basically, you can tell he's kind of like stage manager, that they've sort of entrusted him. I'm sure he gets a producer credit on the show in some way, because like, they're talking to him as though he is like the problem solver, boots in the ground guy. And then I also love that you get that moment where they're all trying to find Truman. And then you have both the mom and dad having this moment.

• 3:07:22David Sims?

  He'll listen to me.

• 3:07:23Speaker 04

  Having this moment of vanity where the mom is like, well, surely if I say his name.

• 3:07:27David Sims?

  Griffin mentioned this, I feel like, yeah.

• 3:07:29Speaker 04

  And then I love that the dad chimes in too. And you can, you know, he's newly back in the cast, but now he's so proud of himself. And he's like, Truman, boy. And you're like, oh my God, these people are disgusting.

• 3:07:40David Sims?

  Well, and they try the three things. They look for him. Then they find he's in the boat. Okay. They do the weather. They try that to scare him.

• 3:07:47Speaker 01

  And the crew though is disgusted. Kristoff is pushing it way too far, but even Giamatti's character at one point earlier, he's looking at the classified section. He's done with this job. It's awful.

• 3:07:58David Sims?

  Cause he's slide, he's quietly training the guy, uh, where he's, when he's sitting in the pizza, he's like, cut to this. And then Kristoff shows up and he, Giamatti has this little bit of lines where he's like, I was just trying to get him ready. You know, and it's clearly like, oh, he's on the way out.

• 3:08:12Speaker 04

  He's sick of this. And, and Kristoff comes in and is like, I want to review the footage for the big insurance conference tomorrow. The, the, the camera angles or whatever. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:08:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:22Speaker 04

  But then what I also like about that storm section, number one, we are in a world where practical water effects are less and happening less and less, right?

• 3:08:32David Sims?

  Sure. They shot this in a tank. Like I said, they almost drowned Jim Carrey because they did misinterpreted his, I'm in distress signal, which was a closed fist. They thought he was just acting. But carry on. Yes.

• 3:08:42Speaker 04

  But I, but it's beautiful to see because it, there's, there's, there is a, an animal part of our brains that's seeing water like that. Like there's something beautiful and captivating about it and wind and all that stuff together.

• 3:08:54David Sims?

  I just love Kristoff's godhood melting away. Like where he's like, oh, well, I'll scare him with the water, like harder, harder. And then he's like, realizes like, oh, this is now just down to, do I kill him or not?

• 3:09:05Speaker 01

  Cause Truman would rather die than not know the answer.

• 3:09:08David Sims?

  Right. Yeah.

• 3:09:09Speaker 04

  And I love the moment.

• 3:09:10David Sims?

  But then he tries his last thing, which is saying like, what if I just told you that you are safer here? Like.

• 3:09:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:09:16David Sims?

  You have to believe.

• 3:09:17Griffin Newman?

  The outside world sucks and I care about you.

• 3:09:19Speaker 04

  The also thing that I think is important is that he tells Giamatti to turn it up and Giamatti doesn't do it.

• 3:09:24David Sims?

  Yeah, he does it.

• 3:09:25Speaker 04

  Kristoff does it.

• 3:09:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:26Speaker 04

  Which is, I think, it's a small thing, but I'm like, it's important that Kristoff is the one. And it's like, everyone else is at this point like, hey.

• 3:09:33David Sims?

  Just.

• 3:09:34Griffin Newman?

  I think Giamatti literally says there's nothing left to do but kill him.

• 3:09:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:09:37Griffin Newman?

  Like, or something like that, like if I turn it up anymore. Yeah, and you're right.

• 3:09:41David Sims?

  Perfect image of the sky turning into a painting, like the edge of the wall where it just looks a little shitty.

• 3:09:48Griffin Newman?

  Well, the end of the ship puncturing through.

• 3:09:51David Sims?

  It's all.

• 3:09:51Speaker 04

  I just want to say, to that end.

• 3:09:53Griffin Newman?

  The ship, the boat.

• 3:09:54Speaker 04

  This is a film that I think has like six or seven like iconic images.

• 3:09:59David Sims?

  Agreed.

• 3:09:59Speaker 04

  That are just, they're ingrained into film history of just like, perfect, beautiful storytelling images. Though, I made a list of us watching it. It raining just on him is the first one that I think is like.

• 3:10:12David Sims?

  Totally.

• 3:10:13Speaker 04

  And then the multiple shots, whether it's them on the pier, on the beach with a friend, and it's like the beautiful sunsets and they're talking. I think those are so, just sort of like, connected to this movie.

• 3:10:24Speaker 04

  The moment when he stops the traffic is like, you know, that's like an iconic.

• 3:10:28David Sims?

  Doing this with the bus.

• 3:10:29Speaker 04

  It's incredible.

• 3:10:32Speaker 04

  Kristoff watching Truman sleep, I think is such a beautiful, when he goes up and he hands, it's like, that is so of that era that I love it. And then, of course, this, the storm.

• 3:10:42David Sims?

  The end of the world.

• 3:10:43Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 3:10:44David Sims?

  And it was a wall.

• 3:10:45Griffin Newman?

  And you walk up the stairs.

• 3:10:46David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:10:47Speaker 04

  And what I love is, I think, when so much of cinema storytelling, right, is that you're trying to create these stories and this context. So that you can have an image that in of itself is abstract, but that because you watch this entire movie, it has all of this meaning. And that it becomes a haiku that represents that entire story. That just the image of the bow of a ship. Cracking through the edge of a, of reality. That's, that's the entire story of the Truman Show. That one shot tells the entire story of the Truman Show.

• 3:11:24David Sims?

  Okay, now, I don't, I don't want to change. Oh, sorry.

• 3:11:26Griffin Newman?

  No, I just, I'm sorry, I need to call out, there's one important iconic image that David would probably add to that list. Terry Camilleri in the bathtub watching the Truman Show.

• 3:11:36David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, some big bathtub action. Now, I don't want to change the movie, I think it's great, but I do kind of feel like it would have been cool if, instead of poking through, he just sailed into whiteness, kind of like Looney Tune style. Like going on the, you know what I'm saying? The way he got out was that he drew a big tunnel.

• 3:11:56Griffin Newman?

  Tunnel, the tunnel.

• 3:11:56David Sims?

  And a train came through.

• 3:11:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:11:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, or if the sailboat took off into the air and started flying into the sky. And then everyone waves as Truman flies away in his skyboat.

• 3:12:06David Sims?

  What have you sent us, you monster?

• 3:12:08Speaker 04

  Okay, so what I sent you is

• 3:12:10David Sims?

  From the Paramount lot?

• 3:12:11Speaker 04

  My parking spot for the past, when I was running.

• 3:12:15David Sims?

  Okay, Mr. Parking Spot got his own parking spot.

• 3:12:18Speaker 04

  Well, when you're the showrunner of a late night show that only exists for a year and a half.

• 3:12:22David Sims?

  That CBS is eager to cancel.

• 3:12:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. So my parking spot was in the tank, which is, now there's, it's interesting because there's, there's conflicting reports as to whether they shot it in the Paramount tank or the Universal backlot. They have, all the official reports say it was Paramount, but people claim it was Universal. And then in an interview I was reading with the DP, he referred to the Universal lot. But Paramount has it on their tour and all of the things online, you will, it'll, people will correct and say it's Paramount. So I'm going to say that it was Paramount. But so every day I would drive into work and I would park beneath the wall where Truman escaped. And it was, you know, there's my first time working at a lot like this.

• 3:13:05Speaker 04

  And it was, you know, one of the fun perks of that job was getting to have that lot experience and feeling like, you know, you're, you're in the movie biz, you're in the TV biz. So anyways, those are photos of my parking spot.

• 3:13:18David Sims?

  Yeah, you were, it was so cool. I mean, you, I talked to you on the phone sometimes when you were like walking the Paramount lot. And I always thought the Paramount lot's so cool. Like, it's like one of the true classic, like. Old school movie lots.

• 3:13:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. And what's funny is, um, you know, I think originally they're talking about where they're going to shoot the film and they looked at all the lots of all the different studios to see, could we shoot it in some of those studio lots? And they're originally going to, and then they found seaside or whatever. But yeah, I would, I would, when I was stressed out and wanted to talk to my friends, I would, I think I've talked to all of you. And I know David, I, I remember walking through the, the back lot and describing the fake New York city. Cause our offices were right across.

• 3:13:55David Sims?

  Uh, I said, I know well, cause it's been used in so many things.

• 3:13:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. It was very, it was very surreal. A funny story that I can tell now, cause I'll never be back there again, was that our staff was an amazing staff of people who loved to have a good time. And multiple times we had staff members get sent to Paramount jail for, we would all go hang out in the fake New York city and you weren't allowed to do that. And so we had multiple members of our staff that got taken to Paramount jail for various reasons. And we had to go like, hide.

• 3:14:23David Sims?

  Freedom.

• 3:14:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. You had to be like, no, they're, no, we need them. They're necessary, no, they're necessary staff. You can't ban them from Paramount forever.

• 3:14:30David Sims?

  Trying to think of who from Paramount would defend Paramount jail, you know, who's on the mountain, Griffin?

• 3:14:35Griffin Newman?

  Who's on the mountain? Uh, John Luke Picard.

• 3:14:37David Sims?

  Picard's there.

• 3:14:38Griffin Newman?

  Eric Hartman, SpongeBob.

• 3:14:40Speaker 04

  And, um, one of the Transformers.

• 3:14:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. I'd say probably Bumblebee.

• 3:14:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. They had a big Bumblebee there.

• 3:14:47Griffin Newman?

  Someone from Yellowstone. There'd be a Dutton.

• 3:14:49Speaker 04

  And then of course, the T-Man himself.

• 3:14:52Griffin Newman?

  TC.

• 3:14:52Speaker 04

  Cruise control.

• 3:14:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Would it be all of his characters together? Or would you pick one as a representative?

• 3:14:58Speaker 04

  I think it's him as a human man.

• 3:14:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:00Speaker 04

  I think that's his actual job.

• 3:15:01David Sims?

  All right.

• 3:15:02Speaker 04

  So wow, we got to a point where Ben is wrapping us up.

• 3:15:05David Sims?

  Ben, why?

• 3:15:06Speaker 04

  You know, you're in uncharted territory when Ben is wrapping things up.

• 3:15:10Griffin Newman?

  Just saying that like, for how great.

• 3:15:11Speaker 04

  When Mr. Slow Christmas himself is like.

• 3:15:13David Sims?

  Be quiet, Jamie. Be quiet.

• 3:15:27David Sims?

  No, the film ends with good afternoon, giving you good night. I mean, is there anything you guys want to say about the Truman's closing triumph? Before we talk about the reactions to this?

• 3:15:37Griffin Newman?

  No, it's just great that it you I to mirror what you said earlier, that you are cross cutting between him.

• 3:15:44David Sims?

  And the viewers.

• 3:15:46Griffin Newman?

  And and then working Natasha Makaloni and really closely.

• 3:15:49David Sims?

  I think.

• 3:15:50Griffin Newman?

  We've been cutting to her intermittently, but it starts to become almost like an unknowing conversation between the two of them and her like rooting for him.

• 3:15:57Speaker 04

  You see the bar that we keep cutting to. It's like packed now.

• 3:16:01Griffin Newman?

  Truman and the security guards. You're like cutting back to all your established people.

• 3:16:05Speaker 04

  Truman. We love Truman.

• 3:16:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that they like love that, like even unknowingly Truman understands how to end the show.

• 3:16:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:16:13Griffin Newman?

  That he like understands the most kind of like dramatically poignant, kind of like concise narrative closure.

• 3:16:20David Sims?

  What if it turned out they switched to another channel that's like a shittier Truman show where they're like, yeah, it's like six warehouses in fucking Louisiana. This is like the Jim show and it's like, he kind of knows it's a TV show. We've done our best.

• 3:16:34Speaker 04

  The Jim show and Jim's kind of aware of it and everyone's kind of like.

• 3:16:37David Sims?

  Like there's like knockoff Truman shows. Anyway.

• 3:16:40Speaker 01

  He just plays paintball all day, shooting people.

• 3:16:43Griffin Newman?

  Well, according to Jim, now this just sounds like.

• 3:16:45Speaker 04

  I mean, we're getting towards what YouTube is.

• 3:16:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:16:47Speaker 04

  Pretty much. You're right. Yes.

• 3:16:49Griffin Newman?

  Um, no, I just think it's great that he walks through the door that we don't see anything of what is beyond that frame for him. And then it's just like, it's an obvious joke, but it is the only way to end the movie is just people going, what else is on?

• 3:17:02David Sims?

  Yeah, of course, but it's a great, it's perfectly.

• 3:17:04Griffin Newman?

  It's perfect. It's perfect.

• 3:17:05David Sims?

  Cause it's just flat top. The guy from.

• 3:17:07Griffin Newman?

  It's just, yeah, of course, flat top, Dick Tracy.

• 3:17:09David Sims?

  I don't understand how this film did not get a nomination at the Academy Awards for Best Picture.

• 3:17:15Griffin Newman?

  It gets three nominations.

• 3:17:17Speaker 04

  Well, that's a big year for movies.

• 3:17:18David Sims?

  It's a big year for movies, but I'll tell you who got Best Picture.

• 3:17:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:17:21David Sims?

  Who will be like, what?

• 3:17:22Speaker 04

  What were the nominations?

• 3:17:23David Sims?

  Uh, so Truman's gets three nominations, as Chris said.

• 3:17:26Griffin Newman?

  Director screenplay.

• 3:17:28David Sims?

  Correct. And and supporting actor.

• 3:17:30Speaker 04

  What are the best picture noms then?

• 3:17:31David Sims?

  I'll tell you in one second, but I just want to say that this film got no craft nominations is pretty insane.

• 3:17:36Speaker 04

  That's wild.

• 3:17:37David Sims?

  It's like a pretty like high level craft accomplishment and just things like editing is but you know, like.

• 3:17:42Speaker 04

  Well, I think weirdly there was obviously the like. I think there's a spillover distaste for TV at the time.

• 3:17:47David Sims?

  Maybe. I think, obviously, the Carrie was snubbed was like a huge story. He won the Golden Globe, wasn't even nominated. I don't know who snuck in, but I guess it was Nick Nolte. It's a fairly strong.

• 3:18:00Speaker 04

  Sneaking everywhere.

• 3:18:02David Sims?

  Don't mind me.

• 3:18:05Griffin Newman?

  It felt like a classic not yet.

• 3:18:08Speaker 04

  Real bath under behavior.

• 3:18:09David Sims?

  But I mean, like.

• 3:18:10Griffin Newman?

  Like Jim Carrey refused to let you have everything.

• 3:18:13David Sims?

  It was a, you can't just, right, be a movie star and an Oscar, like, but it's like fucking crazy. Because of what a cultural, like, smash the movie was. The five actor nominees are Roberta Bonini for Life is Beautiful.

• 3:18:27Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:18:28David Sims?

  Which, who wins? Which it's like, in retrospect, that's obviously all just really silly. But he was gonna be.

• 3:18:33Griffin Newman?

  When he won.

• 3:18:34Speaker 04

  Surely he, I was about to do the exact same bit. I was about to do the exact same bit.

• 3:18:37David Sims?

  I accept tastefully.

• 3:18:39Speaker 04

  I was gonna say.

• 3:18:40David Sims?

  I walk up to the stage normal.

• 3:18:43Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, yeah, but of course, when he won, he just walked up like a normal person.

• 3:18:47David Sims?

  I display have one to do things to say.

• 3:18:50Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, when he won, he planted his feet on the ground and kept them there.

• 3:18:53Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 3:18:55Griffin Newman?

  Took one floor step at a time.

• 3:18:57David Sims?

  Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan.

• 3:18:59Speaker 04

  Italy.

• 3:19:00David Sims?

  Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters, which was obviously.

• 3:19:03Griffin Newman?

  Probably who should have won of the.

• 3:19:04David Sims?

  A great performance and a shoe and, and, you know, sort of like time for Ian McKellen to get recognized. Edward Norton in American History X, which is a very big visceral performance from a young actor. And then Nolte in Affliction, who I feel like is the.

• 3:19:16Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:19:17David Sims?

  Nicky, yeah, but. Best Picture, Shakespeare in Love wins, obviously controversial in its own right, great movie, though. And a big hit.

• 3:19:25Griffin Newman?

  Beats Saving Private Ryan.

• 3:19:26David Sims?

  Saving Private Ryan. The Thin Red Line, which it's kind of rocks that it got a bunch of Oscar nominations because it's a masterpiece.

• 3:19:32Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 3:19:32David Sims?

  Life is beautiful. Okay.

• 3:19:34Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:19:35David Sims?

  Like, that's one of those things where I'm like, I don't like that movie. I can at least understand the spell that was cast.

• 3:19:40Griffin Newman?

  It was a phenomenon.

• 3:19:41David Sims?

  You know, by Harvey and they, it's a Holocaust film and yeah, there's nothing like it. And the fifth one is Elizabeth, which is a movie I think is pretty good. Like, it's a pretty good British costume drama with a good performance, but you're like. What crack was being smoked that they were like, I think Elizabeth needs to make the five.

• 3:20:00Griffin Newman?

  Also, like, Truman Show is in, like, psych textbooks for the rest of time.

• 3:20:05David Sims?

  And like, made 200 million. Like, it's just like, what the fuck are we doing?

• 3:20:08Speaker 04

  This is maybe the first Oscars that I watched and like tracked as a kid.

• 3:20:12David Sims?

  Right, sure, makes sense.

• 3:20:13Speaker 04

  Because The Truman Show is a movie, because it might be, Truman Show might be the first movie that I was like, oh, I know that movie.

• 3:20:19Griffin Newman?

  I think that sometimes weirdly, the Academy has a hive mind, and we'll talk about them like they're one person, when obviously it's a bunch of disparate voters. But you think more of like, the hive mind of the highest level people in Hollywood deciding how they communicate to the public what represents them. And, and Carrie just being a like, this guy kinda came out of nowhere, he wasn't selected, he runs the industry, and now he wants to be serious too.

• 3:20:45David Sims?

  Right, he was in stupid movies basically up until this year, I'm sorry.

• 3:20:48Griffin Newman?

  He pays our bills, but we refuse to treat him seriously. And the noms that the Oscars give it feel backhanded towards Harry.

• 3:20:56David Sims?

  We think Peter Weir and the script were great. Obviously, Ed carried all his stuff.

• 3:21:00Griffin Newman?

  Peter Weir did a good job toning Jim Carrey down. The screenplay was a good concept, and Ed Harris grounded the film. Jim Carrey is just kind of like, they, they treated him almost like he was like, uh, uh, an animal performer. Where it's like, they somehow tricked him into being a little bit normal. But you look at the other bodies and it like, it wins actor, supporting actor, and score at the Golden Globes. They nominate it for, uh, picture, director, screenplay. The BAFTAs nominates it for film director, supporting actor, screenplay, cinematography, production design, special effects. It wins director, screenplay, and production design. Like, everyone was kind of more generous to it than the Oscars who felt like,

• 3:21:42David Sims?

  Oscars kind of.

• 3:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Don't tell us we have to treat this seriously.

• 3:21:45David Sims?

  Yeah, rude.

• 3:21:47Griffin Newman?

  And also that it was partially like, it's a big summer hit, and all the critics are sort of going like, is Jim Carrey gonna win an Oscar? And they're like, don't fucking tell us. Don't make up our mind for us.

• 3:21:59David Sims?

  The film opened June 5th, 1998. Number one at the box office, $31 million. Big, big hit, uh, makes, uh, 264 million worldwide.

• 3:22:10Griffin Newman?

  How much did it make domestic?

• 3:22:11David Sims?

  130 something.

• 3:22:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:13Griffin Newman?

  It's a lot of money.

• 3:22:14David Sims?

  Lot of money, 1998. Big hit. Number two, the box office is also new this week. It's a thriller for grownups. Our friend Sean Clements was just texting us about it.

• 3:22:24Griffin Newman?

  Our friend Sean Clements, fuck, I'm not up to date on the texts.

• 3:22:27David Sims?

  So crazy to me.

• 3:22:28Speaker 04

  We think Truman Show would be direct to Apple TV in 2026.

• 3:22:31David Sims?

  Don't even fucking talk about it. I'll tell myself right here.

• 3:22:34Griffin Newman?

  They're gonna fucking like announce it tomorrow.

• 3:22:35David Sims?

  Yeah, Truman Show, 14 part Peacock come.

• 3:22:39Griffin Newman?

  Right, and the first season ends with Christoph being born.

• 3:22:42David Sims?

  Peacock is now straight to come. It's just when you come, you see it in the come.

• 3:22:50David Sims?

  I've been broadcasting for three hours.

• 3:22:52Griffin Newman?

  They've done such a poor job.

• 3:22:54Speaker 04

  I just like the silence we all gave David to just like work that out.

• 3:22:57David Sims?

  You know, it's just like, what if we could put TV on to vomit? Lynn Boo, anytime anyone vomits, they watch an ad. Like, you know what I mean?

• 3:23:05Griffin Newman?

  Guys, we spent six or seven years trying to get people to sign up and pay money for Peacock, and they're not biting.

• 3:23:11David Sims?

  So we go pivot to come.

• 3:23:13Griffin Newman?

  Give it to them for free in their come. We're buying ball real estate. What is this bit? It's like the U2 album. Don't worry about it, it's free. You come, you get a little Peacock.

• 3:23:22David Sims?

  I'm just so depressed by the state of modern media.

• 3:23:24Speaker 04

  But how do we make money? Well, every time they vomit, we show them an ad.

• 3:23:28David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying. That was my joke.

• 3:23:29Speaker 04

  It's free in the come, but when you vomit, you see that.

• 3:23:32David Sims?

  I will say this about number two, the box office.

• 3:23:34Griffin Newman?

  It's a thriller.

• 3:23:35David Sims?

  I, it, I would say somewhat of a forgotten movie. It's a remake of a classic, uh, you know, it has movie stars in it or whatever, but.

• 3:23:41Griffin Newman?

  It's not the Jackal.

• 3:23:41David Sims?

  No, uh, it's just one of those movies where like, I don't think anyone really remembers this one. It made $70 million domestically, 128 worldwide, like for a pretty forgotten movie. Now it had a big star and the big star, the, the big male star is someone who knows his way around to sort of grown up thriller.

• 3:23:58Griffin Newman?

  It's not a Ford, it's not a gear.

• 3:24:00Speaker 04

  Big male star, I mean, Mr. McFeely.

• 3:24:03David Sims?

  Wow.

• 3:24:06David Sims?

  That was pretty good.

• 3:24:07Griffin Newman?

  It was really good.

• 3:24:08David Sims?

  It was better than my cum thing.

• 3:24:09Griffin Newman?

  No, the cum thing is good.

• 3:24:11David Sims?

  The big female star is going to win an Oscar this year.

• 3:24:14Griffin Newman?

  She's gonna win an Oscar.

• 3:24:15David Sims?

  She's on the up and up, and this is her big star year.

• 3:24:18Griffin Newman?

  It's a Helen Hunt?

• 3:24:19David Sims?

  Nope.

• 3:24:19Griffin Newman?

  No, no, it's the year before. It's Gwyneth.

• 3:24:22David Sims?

  Year after, Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 3:24:23Griffin Newman?

  It's a perfect murder.

• 3:24:24David Sims?

  A perfect murder.

• 3:24:25Griffin Newman?

  You're right. I did catch those texts.

• 3:24:26David Sims?

  Which is an Andrew Davis remake of Hitchcock's Dullum for murder.

• 3:24:30Griffin Newman?

  I always forget it's a remake.

• 3:24:32David Sims?

  With, uh, with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and a youngish Vigo Mortensen. I say youngish because he actually had been around for a while, but you know. But it's just one of those things where like no one remembers that. I'm like, I'm kind of made money. Number three of the box office is a film that I'm sure we all as children were very excited about. And maybe we enjoyed it. Maybe we were disappointed. I was pretty into it.

• 3:24:52Griffin Newman?

  Summer 98.

• 3:24:53David Sims?

  Yeah. Big, big, big, big blockbuster.

• 3:24:55Griffin Newman?

  It's a big hit. It does. It works.

• 3:24:58David Sims?

  It was a hit. I think it's pretty quickly recognized as not big enough of a hit, but it made $136 million domestic, close to 400 worldwide.

• 3:25:06Griffin Newman?

  It's not Batman and Robin.

• 3:25:07David Sims?

  No, that's the year before.

• 3:25:10Griffin Newman?

  Disappointment.

• 3:25:10David Sims?

  It's the latest, it's a reboot-ish of a franchise, I guess.

• 3:25:15Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:25:15David Sims?

  Sort of.

• 3:25:17Griffin Newman?

  It's not Godzilla.

• 3:25:18David Sims?

  It is.

• 3:25:19Griffin Newman?

  It is Godzilla.

• 3:25:20David Sims?

  Old Emmerich's Godzilla.

• 3:25:21Griffin Newman?

  It is Godzilla.

• 3:25:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:22Griffin Newman?

  It is a movie I watch basically every five years and go, am I gonna like it this time?

• 3:25:26David Sims?

  And you go, it's kind of like, it's okay.

• 3:25:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I, there are things about it.

• 3:25:30David Sims?

  Some fun stuff.

• 3:25:31Griffin Newman?

  That I really like in its jankiness, and I have such a role in Emmerich's soft spot, but I always go like, has the nostalgia cycle hit where I'll just appreciate everything in its brokenness for just representing this time?

• 3:25:43David Sims?

  I.

• 3:25:43Griffin Newman?

  And some of it is so insane.

• 3:25:45Speaker 04

  That's a movie that I remember. I, I can see me watching it on my TV with my mom and my sister.

• 3:25:51David Sims?

  Totally.

• 3:25:52Speaker 04

  And me, and me questioning how Godzilla's size keeps changing so much.

• 3:25:56Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 3:25:57Speaker 04

  Throughout the film.

• 3:25:57Griffin Newman?

  Wild. It's one of many problems.

• 3:25:59David Sims?

  He's like, sometimes he's skyscraper size, sometimes he's much smaller. It's very strange.

• 3:26:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's also.

• 3:26:04Speaker 04

  Sometimes he's like a man.

• 3:26:05David Sims?

  Also, he's a she.

• 3:26:06Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. That's the great Matthew Broder performance where he's like, testing all the, the blood samples they got. And they're like, so what do you know about him? And they're like, well, he's 8,000 feet tall. He weighs 400 pounds and he's pregnant?

• 3:26:20David Sims?

  Ben, do you like Godzilla? Big.

• 3:26:23David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 3:26:24Speaker 04

  Ben's lost it.

• 3:26:24David Sims?

  Fourth at the box office is a movie about girls.

• 3:26:30Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I'm listening.

• 3:26:32David Sims?

  Sort of a, you know, chick flick, classic chick flick.

• 3:26:35Griffin Newman?

  It's a classic.

• 3:26:35David Sims?

  Romantic drama.

• 3:26:37Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's not how Stella got her groove back.

• 3:26:40David Sims?

  No, that's a good movie. I would say this movie I've never seen. It's got an interesting director in a way, an actor.

• 3:26:47Griffin Newman?

  It's not Hope Floats?

• 3:26:48David Sims?

  It is Hope Floats.

• 3:26:49Griffin Newman?

  It is Hope Floats.

• 3:26:50David Sims?

  Sandra Bullock.

• 3:26:51Griffin Newman?

  Do you know who directed Hope Floats?

• 3:26:53David Sims?

  Harry Connick Jr.

• 3:26:54Griffin Newman?

  Ben, JD, do either of you want to wager a guess as to who directed Hope Floats?

• 3:26:59Speaker 01

  No, I don't.

• 3:27:00David Sims?

  I'll tell you, it's the guy who directed Waiting to Exhale.

• 3:27:03Griffin Newman?

  It's the same director you're saying?

• 3:27:04David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:27:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Does that solve anything for either of you?

• 3:27:07Speaker 04

  It doesn't hit me.

• 3:27:08Griffin Newman?

  He was fired off of directing the Fat Albert movie.

• 3:27:11Speaker 01

  Bill Cosby?

• 3:27:13David Sims?

  No, bye, Bill Cosby.

• 3:27:15Griffin Newman?

  And he, he did rebound by directing First Daughter, the Katie Holmes.

• 3:27:21Speaker 04

  I'm not getting this.

• 3:27:21Griffin Newman?

  President's daughter comedy.

• 3:27:23David Sims?

  It's crazy.

• 3:27:24Griffin Newman?

  Forest Whitaker.

• 3:27:24David Sims?

  Forest Whitaker.

• 3:27:25Griffin Newman?

  Forest Whitaker just directed all of those movies.

• 3:27:29Speaker 04

  I had no idea.

• 3:27:30David Sims?

  Forest Whitaker had a, you know, a side career directing like, you know, pretty good kind of female centric, like romantic dramas, like for a while.

• 3:27:39Griffin Newman?

  It felt like he's like steady studio hand. He gets fired off of Fat Albert.

• 3:27:43David Sims?

  Keep bringing this up.

• 3:27:44Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, oh, is his directing career kind of over? And then just like fuck him wins an Oscar for best actor for playing Idi Amin, getting a fart pushed out of his body.

• 3:27:52David Sims?

  Uh, and also he, he was in Rogue One.

• 3:27:55Speaker 04

  Great career. Enviable. Enviable.

• 3:27:59David Sims?

  Uh, Hope Floats is number four. So that one, it's like Sandra Bullock is a housewife and then her mean husband reveals that he's cheating on her on like Ricky Lake, like a Ricky Lake show. And so she goes to her small town where she grew up and she's got this old friend, like Harry Connick Jr.

• 3:28:19David Sims?

  And like, are they gonna fall in love?

• 3:28:21Griffin Newman?

  And she's got like a big box of hope in the basement and she's like, fuck this. I gotta get rid of this. So she goes to the river and she's like, I'm just gonna throw this over.

• 3:28:29David Sims?

  I will say.

• 3:28:29Griffin Newman?

  To the bottom.

• 3:28:30David Sims?

  If I love Sandra Bullock, it feels like one of those movies where I'm like, that thing could have made twice as much money if you didn't call it Hope Floats.

• 3:28:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:37David Sims?

  Cause you're kind of like. There's gotta be a better title out there.

• 3:28:40Speaker 04

  This is also that era, like you're saying, where there's all these movies that you're like, have you ever heard of this movie? It's like, no, it's like, well, it made 170 million dollars.

• 3:28:46David Sims?

  A little bit, a little bit.

• 3:28:47Griffin Newman?

  What was the final total?

• 3:28:48David Sims?

  Sixty. It made sixty domestic, it made one, eighty-one worldwide.

• 3:28:52Griffin Newman?

  It has a terrible title and the poster was just, here is Sandra Bullock. And people are like, that's worth testing out.

• 3:28:57David Sims?

  She's getting a hug from Conic.

• 3:28:58Griffin Newman?

  Is that's all they needed to say?

• 3:28:59David Sims?

  A little Conic embrace.

• 3:29:00Speaker 04

  Is the 2026 equivalent of like, these like YouTube channels that you're like, you've never heard of it, but has four billion followers, like?

• 3:29:08David Sims?

  Sure. I don't know.

• 3:29:09Speaker 04

  Bubby Man has four million followers and he like?

• 3:29:12Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, Bubby Man's earning those followers.

• 3:29:14David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:29:14Griffin Newman?

  He's put in the work.

• 3:29:15David Sims?

  Uh, number five at the box office is another big blockbuster, uh, that also like slightly disappointed.

• 3:29:21Griffin Newman?

  Slightly disappointed.

• 3:29:22David Sims?

  Directed by a woman. Not a lot of those.

• 3:29:24Griffin Newman?

  Is it Deep Impact?

• 3:29:25David Sims?

  Deep Impact.

• 3:29:26Griffin Newman?

  I would say that didn't disappoint. It's just that Armageddon ate its lunch.

• 3:29:30David Sims?

  Armageddon ate its lunch. I think it did okay. It made one forty domestic. My, you know, I think that was seen as like, maybe it's the Armageddon thing of like, okay, you know, like, it's not fair to compare them.

• 3:29:41Griffin Newman?

  There was a feeling that?

• 3:29:43David Sims?

  Could compare them because they are kind of the same thing.

• 3:29:44Griffin Newman?

  I think there was a feeling that one of them would flop. They couldn't both succeed.

• 3:29:48David Sims?

  Yeah, you're right that it did totally good.

• 3:29:50Griffin Newman?

  Deep Impact did well and then Armageddon came in and big dogged it.

• 3:29:53David Sims?

  I, I kind of like Deep Impact.

• 3:29:55Griffin Newman?

  I've still never seen it.

• 3:29:56David Sims?

  I told Mimi when I interviewed her that it was kind of like important to me as sort of a different kind of movie because it's very emotional.

• 3:30:02Speaker 04

  I don't remember the difference between Deep Impact and Armageddon.

• 3:30:05David Sims?

  Uh, the big difference is that obviously Armageddon feels like it was written by monkeys doing coke. But beyond that, Armageddon is?

• 3:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck.

• 3:30:14David Sims?

  Yes, yes.

• 3:30:15Speaker 04

  Armageddon is? What's the story of Deep Impact though? I forget what it is.

• 3:30:18Griffin Newman?

  You know what? We don't have to get into the story of Deep Impact. We're?

• 3:30:20David Sims?

  I keep trying to say it and everyone is just, I could just do it. Armageddon is, there's an asteroid coming. We need to deal with it. And obviously the best way to do that is to hire drillers who yell at each other.

• 3:30:32Speaker 04

  That's Deep Impact.

• 3:30:33David Sims?

  No, that's Armageddon.

• 3:30:34Speaker 04

  That's what I thought.

• 3:30:34David Sims?

  Yes. Deep Impact has this much more like weird unfolding where it's like, it's about a journalist who's on the story of a presidential cover up that she thinks is an affair. And it turns out it's like, no, we've realized an asteroid is going to blow up the earth. And we are basically trying to figure out how to evacuate a million people underground.

• 3:30:49Speaker 04

  Got it. Okay.

• 3:30:49David Sims?

  And then they do sort of stop it, but in Deep Impact, the asteroid hits.

• 3:30:54Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 3:30:54David Sims?

  In Armageddon, spoiler alert, it does not. Uh, also in the top 10, you got the horse whisperer.

• 3:31:03David Sims?

  You've got Bullworth, Warren Beatty's Bullworth.

• 3:31:06Griffin Newman?

  A movie I love, and I hope we get to talk about.

• 3:31:09David Sims?

  We're gonna cover it someday. It's a movie that I have a lot of fondness for. I watched it like, you know, within the last five years and was like, okay, some notes.

• 3:31:17Griffin Newman?

  I am sure.

• 3:31:19David Sims?

  Some note.

• 3:31:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure it's pissing on a bunch of third rails.

• 3:31:22David Sims?

  Yeah, but you know, glad it exists.

• 3:31:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:24Speaker 04

  What was the song from it?

• 3:31:26David Sims?

  Uh, Ghetto Superstar.

• 3:31:27Speaker 04

  Ghetto Superstar. That's the only reason. I've never even seen the movie. The only reason why I know of it.

• 3:31:31Griffin Newman?

  Whole soundtrack is great.

• 3:31:32David Sims?

  Yeah. Number eight is Titanic. Titanic.

• 3:31:35Speaker 04

  Heard of it.

• 3:31:35David Sims?

  Still in there. Still came out in December.

• 3:31:38Griffin Newman?

  So this, yes, seven months in.

• 3:31:40David Sims?

  Number nine is, oh, hell yeah, a movie that should be remade instantly. The crime comedy film, I Got the Hook Up, starring Master P. I have not seen, I don't think ever in full, but I've seen some of it on TV. I think we need to bring back I Got the Hook Up. Number 10, the animated film Quest for Camelot. Which one is that? Which studio is that?

• 3:32:01Griffin Newman?

  Warner Brothers. That's bad Warner Brothers run. That bombed so hard that Iron Giant is basically told like, you're, you're the last one. We're closing up shop. It's like, they found it.

• 3:32:13David Sims?

  He's like, but this one's good. And they're like, shh.

• 3:32:16Griffin Newman?

  Quest for Camelot is like them very much trying to do the Disney model and have like big ballads and emotional romance story in front of a backdrop. But then funny animal characters. Then it's like Iron Giant is him trying to do this thing off to the side. And then I think Osmosis Jones is truly the last one.

• 3:32:34David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 3:32:34Griffin Newman?

  But it's only half animated.

• 3:32:36Speaker 04

  Cause it did too well.

• 3:32:37David Sims?

  Osmosis Jones told too many truths.

• 3:32:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:32:40David Sims?

  About the cops that live in our body.

• 3:32:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:32:42Griffin Newman?

  I, I rewatched that recently.

• 3:32:44Speaker 04

  2026 like that is like what a lot of our society believes is happening.

• 3:32:48Griffin Newman?

  RFK.

• 3:32:49David Sims?

  It's true. We have to stop Osmosis. Chris Rock lives in my body. He's a policeman.

• 3:32:54Griffin Newman?

  RFK is gonna enforce one viewing of Osmosis Jones to every American.

• 3:32:59David Sims?

  Griffin, did you just say you watched it recently?

• 3:33:01Griffin Newman?

  I did.

• 3:33:02David Sims?

  And how was it?

• 3:33:02Griffin Newman?

  It is very odd.

• 3:33:04David Sims?

  I remember that the animated stuff is pretty cool.

• 3:33:06Griffin Newman?

  I would agree.

• 3:33:07David Sims?

  And that the live action stuff is pretty dreadful.

• 3:33:09Griffin Newman?

  The live action stuff is like repellent. There is, Bill Murray.

• 3:33:13David Sims?

  Mostly Bill Murray burping, being like, it feels like Chris Rock's in here.

• 3:33:17Griffin Newman?

  It's like half the movie is.

• 3:33:18David Sims?

  It feels like a buddy.

• 3:33:19Griffin Newman?

  Comedy's happening in my digest.

• 3:33:21David Sims?

  Half the movie is like an animated movie. The other half is like footage of a sick man.

• 3:33:25Griffin Newman?

  Basically. The grossest man who ever lives. He works at like a zoo or something? Correct, Chris Elliott. And his daughter cares about his health and he won't listen to her. And he's eating a hard boiled egg. And he's by the monkey cage trying to feed them. And then the egg slips out of his hand, it falls into the cage. He reaches in the cage to pick it up, takes it out. It's covered in like monkey hair and like dirt and bacteria. And he's like, it's still good and he eats it. And that's the inciting incident of Osmosis Jones is that's what makes him sick. And it is, it is grosser than anything that John Waters has ever put on film. It is the most repellent thing I have ever seen. And the movie is just, yeah, it's very bizarre.

• 3:34:08Griffin Newman?

  But um, I was, I was like gonna do Scott Hasn't Seen and Aukerman sent me the list of movies to choose from. And I was like, Osmosis Jones is on here. I did weirdly watch it in the last 48 hours, but I can't tell if I would not be able to contain my thoughts to four hours. Or if I will run out after five minutes.

• 3:34:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. Where you're like, yeah, it's like what you think it is.

• 3:34:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Osmosis Jones.

• 3:34:32David Sims?

  Yeah, my favorite movie of all time. I'm glad we finally fucking mentioned it.

• 3:34:35Griffin Newman?

  Finally.

• 3:34:36Speaker 04

  This, this was the Osmosis Jones series?

• 3:34:39David Sims?

  Yeah, this is the Osmosis Jones series. We will do Osmosis Jones if we ever do the Farrelly brothers.

• 3:34:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:34:44David Sims?

  Cause they did direct the live action portions.

• 3:34:46Griffin Newman?

  And part of their contract was that the animation director wouldn't get credited as director.

• 3:34:51Speaker 04

  Which I think is good.

• 3:34:52Griffin Newman?

  They are the only directors on the movie, even though they came on and shot one week, eight months after the animation was locked. It's insane. That like the whole structure of that movie was we only have to animate half a movie. And then when we have the animation, we'll shop it around and try to get a fancy live action director to agree to do the other part.

• 3:35:14Griffin Newman?

  Osmosis Jones.

• 3:35:15David Sims?

  Osmosis Jones.

• 3:35:16Griffin Newman?

  JD.

• 3:35:18David Sims?

  Your book is called The Endless Game and it is available. Is there anything else you would like to plug on this podcast?

• 3:35:23Speaker 04

  No, that's it. I mean.

• 3:35:24David Sims?

  One and a half hours into its running time.

• 3:35:26Speaker 04

  Uh, no, I, I, I would really like people to buy The Endless Game for a child in their lives. Uh, it's a really fun book. It's based loosely on my, you know, I moved around a lot as a kid and it's about a kid who moves around a lot and ends up in a town where every kid in the town is part of a game of capture the flag that's been going on for 80 years and passed down from generation to generation. And so this, this entire universe unfolding where kids sort of have to find their role within this game. I think it's a fun story and I think kids will like it. I'd love, I'd love for y'all to read it.

• 3:35:55David Sims?

  There's a link in the description.

• 3:35:57Speaker 04

  Thank you. And watch the undercovers on Amazon Prime Sports.

• 3:36:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh yeah. Do watch that.

• 3:36:03Speaker 04

  It's, it's own little Truman Show in a way.

• 3:36:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Master and Commander.

• 3:36:13David Sims?

  Oh, that's right.

• 3:36:14Griffin Newman?

  It is the wild.

• 3:36:15Speaker 04

  I watched it for the first time.

• 3:36:16Griffin Newman?

  You're right. It's Mando. Next week.

• 3:36:19David Sims?

  Oh boy.

• 3:36:20Speaker 04

  This, this is a wild one-two punch for weeks then.

• 3:36:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Gethard coming on.

• 3:36:25Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh, that's gonna be.

• 3:36:27Griffin Newman?

  To talk Star Wars.

• 3:36:28Speaker 04

  Boy.

• 3:36:29David Sims?

  Fellas looked at the running time and imagined a higher one.

• 3:36:32Speaker 04

  That's a lot of podcasts.

• 3:36:33Griffin Newman?

  Should just get beds for our stations.

• 3:36:36David Sims?

  I think we can just have a break because like we can just be like, all right, and we'll check in with you guys tomorrow, wherever you guys are at in the part, that part of the conversation.

• 3:36:44Griffin Newman?

  That works. It's a 12 hour day crossover.

• 3:36:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's wild. That's, that's a crazy one-two punch of episodes here. I legit thought this was gonna be a short episode because I'm like, it's a, there's so much to talk about, but it's not like a rambly movie, but we just love talking about it.

• 3:36:57Griffin Newman?

  I think it was a really good episode. I think we nailed it.

• 3:36:59David Sims?

  I, I definitely thought this was gonna be a long episode. It's a big one.

• 3:37:01Speaker 04

  Also, I was texting David. I watched Master and Commander for the first time. That is a great movie. I thought it was a different kind of movie. And I watched it and it's so good. I know you're gonna talk about it.

• 3:37:11Griffin Newman?

  I have not seen it since theaters. And at the time I went, not my kind of movie. And so I'm very eager. I've been saving the rewatch, knowing that Weir was inevitable and that it's such a beloved David favorite.

• 3:37:23Speaker 04

  I watch that now and I'm like, Weir is a master.

• 3:37:25Griffin Newman?

  Tune in next week for The Mandalorian and Grogu, a movie we're so excited for.

• 3:37:29David Sims?

  What if it's pretty enjoyable?

• 3:37:32Griffin Newman?

  I would love nothing.

• 3:37:33David Sims?

  Cause like Jon Favreau tends to be okay at making a pretty enjoyable movie.

• 3:37:37Griffin Newman?

  I, I, here's my.

• 3:37:38David Sims?

  I saw the trailer with my daughter in front of Hoppers.

• 3:37:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:37:42David Sims?

  And I was not like, wow, this looks awesome. But I was like, I mean, I guess they'll like fly a spaceship and baby Yoda will eat a cracker. Like, I guess it'll be okay.

• 3:37:49Griffin Newman?

  Before, but every time I see that trailer, I am astounded by how nothing I feel. I'm not like dreading it. I'm not like, this looks like shit. I'm just like, okay. And I, I saw Hoppers with David Erlich and his son. And Erlich just immediately went like, ugh. And his son starts pumping his fists. And I'm like, oh, he, he literally points at the screen and goes, Star Wars, that's my favorite movie. And he's never seen Star Wars in a theater before.

• 3:38:16Speaker 04

  What if Mandalorian Grogu is that there's a transporter ride? You can take the Jabba's pass. It's eight and a half minutes. And so it's just 10 trips, five trips up, five trips back.

• 3:38:26Griffin Newman?

  That should be your Star Wars movie you pitch.

• 3:38:28Speaker 04

  I actually.

• 3:38:31David Sims?

  Um, speaking of new movies, uh, over on Patreon, a few days, we're gonna be releasing an episode. It's the final in our Mortal Kombat commentary series. We're gonna be putting out an episode about the new Mortal Kombat.

• 3:38:43Griffin Newman?

  MK2.

• 3:38:44Speaker 04

  I will say every Mortal Kombat movie's good.

• 3:38:47Griffin Newman?

  Have you watched Annihilation recently?

• 3:38:49Speaker 04

  Yes, I have. And is it not good? Yes. But is it also good? Yes.

• 3:38:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:38:54David Sims?

  Annihilation is not so good.

• 3:38:56Speaker 04

  It's a rough one.

• 3:38:58David Sims?

  With, with respect to all of the.

• 3:39:00Speaker 04

  I've talked about this before. The first Mortal Kombat ending is one of my favorite endings to a film of all time. And I think if every film ended like that, it would be perfect.

• 3:39:07Griffin Newman?

  So you must love the opening of Mortal Kombat Annihilation.

• 3:39:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:39:10David Sims?

  The opening must work, right?

• 3:39:12Speaker 04

  When you were a kid, that is all you want is for a cliffhanger to pick up right in the fucking next movie.

• 3:39:16Griffin Newman?

  That is a good point.

• 3:39:18David Sims?

  Anyway, go over to patreon.com slash blank check.

• 3:39:23Speaker 04

  Do it. That's awesome.

• 3:39:25Griffin Newman?

  And as always, good afternoon, good evening and good night.

• 3:39:31Speaker 01

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy 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, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features

• 3:40:12Speaker 01

  for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

• 3:40:26Griffin Newman?

  All right, I started rolling.

• 3:40:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:40:30Speaker 01

  Are you gonna send it to me, Griff?

• 3:40:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:40:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:40:32Griffin Newman?

  And I trust your improv skills to make the necessary word substitutions?

• 3:40:40Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm not gonna say "the" word, though.

• 3:40:45Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 3:40:46Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, you know what I mean? I'm not gonna say-

• 3:40:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but I think-

• 3:40:48Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna say the P-word.

• 3:40:49Griffin Newman?

  Right, but like, replace like-

• 3:40:50Speaker 01

  Yes, with audio-

• 3:40:51Griffin Newman?

  Camera with microphone-

• 3:40:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:40:52Griffin Newman?

  Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. Great. This is UCB training right here. Okay, where is this?

• 3:41:01Speaker 01

  I kinda act like it's a secret. There's no, nothing secret about it.

• 3:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I'm airdropping.

• 3:41:06Speaker 01

  Except...

• 3:41:09Speaker 01

  This is the actual script?

• 3:41:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:41:12Speaker 01

  Okay. What pa, what page is that on?

• 3:41:16Griffin Newman?

  Let's, let's start on 105.

• 3:41:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay?

• 3:41:24Griffin Newman?

  Ready?

• 3:41:25Speaker 04

  Uh, no, I have to find page one. You sent me an 100-page document.

• 3:41:29Griffin Newman?

  Let's see, original script.

• 3:41:31Speaker 04

  Okay, do you want me to start in 105?

• 3:41:33Griffin Newman?

  No, I'm starting.

• 3:41:35Speaker 04

  Wait, who's who?

• 3:41:38Griffin Newman?

  You're Truman.

• 3:41:39Speaker 04

  Why? You should be Truman.

• 3:41:41Griffin Newman?

  You think I should be Truman?

• 3:41:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, because the whole thing, the whole thing is that you launch into the, instead of good afternoon and good morning and good night, you launch into your thing.

• 3:41:50Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:41:51Speaker 04

  Right?

• 3:41:52Griffin Newman?

  Okay, sure.

• 3:41:53Speaker 04

  Do you need a minute to adjust?

• 3:41:54Griffin Newman?

  No, uh, yeah, just give me one second.

• 3:41:56Speaker 04

  I think there's also, I think there's a line for David in here too.

• 3:42:01Speaker 04

  Or Ben. Which is...

• 3:42:07Griffin Newman?

  Is there a Giamatti in here?

• 3:42:08Speaker 04

  No, in the, in the actual edit, it cuts to someone

• 3:42:15Speaker 04

  watching TV, watching it, and they're like, "Just do it, just do it."

• 3:42:19David Sims?

  I don't think, that's too confusing, I think.

• 3:42:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's-

• 3:42:22David Sims?

  Without the visual element.

• 3:42:23Griffin Newman?

  Let's just do this.

• 3:42:23Speaker 04

  Okay, great.

• 3:42:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay, ready?

• 3:42:26Speaker 04

  Truman. Truman.

• 3:42:30Griffin Newman?

  Hold on, I'm gonna reset. Should it be my name?

• 3:42:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:42:33Griffin Newman?

  Let's, I, I just, it just hit me. Yeah.

• 3:42:35Speaker 04

  Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

• 3:42:36Griffin Newman?

  Okay, ready?

• 3:42:36Speaker 04

  Yep. Sorry, that's not me. I fucked up our-

• 3:42:39Griffin Newman?

  No, no, it's good.

• 3:42:41Speaker 04

  Griffin. Griffin. You can speak. I can hear you.

• 3:42:47Griffin Newman?

  Who are you?

• 3:42:49Speaker 04

  I'm the creator.

• 3:42:51Griffin Newman?

  Creator of what?

• 3:42:53Speaker 04

  A show that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions.

• 3:43:01Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna take that again with podcast.

• 3:43:03Speaker 04

  But it's a show.

• 3:43:04Griffin Newman?

  Make a podcast.

• 3:43:06Speaker 04

  Okay, take it from the top.

• 3:43:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:43:10Speaker 04

  But I was not gonna say the P-word.

• 3:43:12Griffin Newman?

  I think you have to if we're doing it this way.

• 3:43:13Speaker 04

  Okay, fine, fine, okay. Sorry, guys. This is the artistic process at work. The actor becomes the director, okay.

• 3:43:22Speaker 04

  Griffin. Griffin.

• 3:43:26Speaker 04

  You can speak. I can hear you.

• 3:43:29Griffin Newman?

  Who are you?

• 3:43:31Speaker 04

  I'm the creator.

• 3:43:34Griffin Newman?

  Creator of what?

• 3:43:35Speaker 04

  A podcast.

• 3:43:38Speaker 04

  That gives hope-

• 3:43:39Speaker 05

  And joy and inspiration to millions.

• 3:43:43Griffin Newman?

  Millions sounds a little high. A podcast? And who am I?

• 3:43:47Speaker 05

  You're the star or one of them.

• 3:43:52Griffin Newman?

  Nothing was real. It was all bits.

• 3:43:54Speaker 05

  No, you were real.

• 3:43:58Speaker 05

  That's what made you so good to listen to.

• 3:44:01Griffin Newman?

  The eyes are everywhere, ears, not on video.

• 3:44:06Speaker 05

  Listen to me, Griffin.

• 3:44:09Speaker 05

  You can leave if you want. I won't try to stop you. But you won't survive out there. You don't know what to do, where to go.

• 3:44:18Griffin Newman?

  I have a dossier.

• 3:44:21Speaker 05

  Truman, I've watched you here a whole life.

• 3:44:25Griffin Newman?

  Take that again.

• 3:44:26Speaker 04

  Also, that's not in the actual movie.

• 3:44:28Griffin Newman?

  I'm adding certain lines instead of, what do you, oh, oh.

• 3:44:30Speaker 04

  This whole section's not in the movie. They cut it.

• 3:44:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay, we'll just do.

• 3:44:33Speaker 04

  Okay, keep going.

• 3:44:35David Sims?

  Using this script may have been a mistake.

• 3:44:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I. What would you have suggested?

• 3:44:39David Sims?

  The IMDb thing where they just.

• 3:44:40Speaker 04

  Just doing the normal.

• 3:44:41Griffin Newman?

  Is IMDb gonna have all of this?

• 3:44:43David Sims?

  I had no idea, but I would assume yes.

• 3:44:45Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, come on, guys.

• 3:44:47Speaker 01

  Reset, reset.

• 3:44:48David Sims?

  From the top.

• 3:44:49Griffin Newman?

  Should I go to IMDb and try to find it?

• 3:44:52David Sims?

  I, let me find it for you right now. You could have just asked.

• 3:44:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, cuz you famously look it up and offer every week.

• 3:44:59Speaker 04

  I don't look it up and offer every week, but I'm sure I could. I have a computer right here. You just ask. Griffin sent the shooting script that has like.

• 3:45:09Speaker 04

  It still has like Hopper in it. I feel like usually they don't.

• 3:45:13David Sims?

  They don't, I, I, yes, I don't think they have all of it.

• 3:45:16Griffin Newman?

  The back and forth, yeah.

• 3:45:17David Sims?

  I mean, they, yeah, I mean, how many?

• 3:45:19Speaker 04

  Well, at least Ben has the, the cold clothes now. Yes, I do for sure.

• 3:45:25David Sims?

  Yeah, you guys just gotta do what you gotta do. I, you're, you're, uh, you're working off the shooting script, I guess.

• 3:45:31Griffin Newman?

  I know. Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got it.

• 3:45:34Speaker 04

  Is that, okay. I was like, I was like, there's this lines in here that aren't, didn't make the final edit of the movie. I mean, they wisely cut it down. Exactly. Dramatically weighty.

• 3:45:45Speaker 04

  Now, do we wanna? Start from the top or just pick up? No, we're starting from the top. From page one.

• 3:45:50Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I got, I got, I got, I got it. I got it. I got it.

• 3:45:53Speaker 04

  The Truman Show.

• 3:45:54Griffin Newman?

  I got it. Okay, just remember Griffin instead of Truman.

• 3:45:58David Sims?

  Podcast instead of show?

• 3:46:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:46:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 3:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay, ready?