Burn After Reading with Fran Hoepfner

10:02David Sims:Is there a greater, like, no-nonsense, do-the-work actor than Richard Jenkins?

10:07Griffin Newman:I mean, it's an estimable history of guys like that, obviously. There's always been guys like that. And he just has been that guy or was that guy for 25 years.

10:17David Sims:Now he's sort of slowing down. This movie gets accused of being their meanest film. And even sometimes that's... That's my problem with it. This is what I was going to say. Many people who love the Coens throw it out as like, that's the one that gets too mean and too judgy for me. And other people go, I love it. It's their meanest film. Right, of course. It's so pitch black. Which is sort of my take on it. But I think Jenkins is kind of the key to this movie. Like, he is the moral center of the film. But he's a tough Hank.

10:46Griffin Newman:I'm not sure I'd want to hang out with him. I used to feel so bad for him in this movie. And now I actually kind of don't at all.

10:52David Sims:You've grown up. You've matured. You understand his value. I only root for Elizabeth Marvel now. Yes. But her life is fine. She's killing it. Yeah. But yes, that moment of, God, this guy's whole fucking backstory that the movie isn't even going to get into. Greek Orthodox priest in Chevy Chase. It's so funny. And what she says, she goes, that's a pretty cushy job. Yeah, yeah. She immediately locks into like,

11:16Griffin Newman:I could be married to a Greek Orthodox priest. That'd be a good life.

11:19David Sims:I think she says that's a good position. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's our podcast? Our podcast is... Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. 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 burn, baby. This is a main series on the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. It's called Pod Country for Old Cast. That's so true. Today we're talking about burn after reading, pod after casting. Paka.

11:52Griffin Newman:Elizabeth Marvel, this morning, So Griff, I did something you might appreciate. Oh, who's our guest? Our guest today is Elizabeth Marvel. She is a marvel of this world. Elizabeth Marvel.

12:02David Sims:Our guest today. Look, I don't need to say who our guest is today because if you're one of the millions of people tuning in for the first time in over a year, it's because the ultimate blockbuster champ has returned to the ship. The Fran signal has been lit in the sky. The ultimate spike in listenership. the great Fran Hoffner of Fran Magazine. Thank you. And New York Magazine and many other outfits. Yes.

12:28Griffin Newman:So many things I want to say. Hi, Fran. Hi. Did you listen like me to every Spike Lee podcast appearance he did for Highest to Lowest and start to grow comforted sort of in like a lullaby way of the like sort of six like phrases or anecdotes he would trot out every time? Yeah, Dee and Lee. You know, I think of it as more of a reimagining. You know, great jazz musician like the way he was. It was great. He has some of the... I really appreciate it.

12:52David Sims:Greatest speaking rhythms. Yes. Yeah. His story about seeing sinners in IMAX. Yes. Yes.

12:59Griffin Newman:Now this, yeah, I wasn't even supposed to be in LA. That's what he kept, like, that was the thing. Imagine that. I get the call. I'm like, wow, Spike Lee in LA.

13:06David Sims:The craziest place for him to be. But he's a New Yorker. I didn't listen to everyone, but I listened to quite a few. Did you listen to most of them for a while? I listened to like all. This feels like a beat you would be covering. I actually was not on this beat at all. Wow. You were sort of mid on Highest to Lowest. I was mid on Highest to Lowest. You were sort of middle to... Middle to lowest.

13:23Griffin Newman:Middle to middle low. This is Fran's ninth episode. Wow. You're close to 10. 10-year anniversary?

13:30David Sims:It is a decade of dreams. It's been a decade of dreams. Public Enemies. Well, that's her third episode. I'm not going to go in order, but I'm going to try to knock them out. Sure. There was a Twin Peaks, Aliens, with a dollar sign. Was that the first one? That was. Blockbuster episode. Our biggest episode at that point in time. Um...

13:50Griffin Newman:slow it down. Let's keep going. Yeah, great.

13:53David Sims:I got three out of nine.

13:54Griffin Newman:Fuck. All right. The Holiday, which I think is often cited as our best episode. People will cite it as the funniest. It's very much a sort of platonic blank check episode, I would say. It was so fun. Great Mouse Detective. Of course. Bright Star. Of course. Lolita. Of course. And the girl with the dragon tattoo. Girl who does computers. Girl on computer. I, Griffin, made a letterboxd list of everything I own on physical media on disc. I had never, I had tried to do it before and I'd never like finished it. I was like, I'm going to finish it. I'm going to put a note for every single one what the format is to avoid ever fucking doubling up.

14:34Griffin Newman:Because I occasionally will mistakenly, yes. I will do the same thing. And then I give them to usually Amistad fans. Talk about real embarrassing champagne problems. Yes, seriously. So I make a big list and I'm also like, and that will, then I can just fade watched or I can filter and see what haven't I watched, right? And I sort of have a vague idea, but I wanted just to look at it. I do it. I go, show me what I've just seen. And I know I've seen everything on the shelf. It's mostly stuff in the piles, right? But then there is one thing on the shelf I haven't watched. Jason Bourne. The fifth Bourne movie.

15:04Griffin Newman:You had never seen. No.

15:06David Sims:But was part of the box? Yeah, I have the box.

15:08Griffin Newman:You have the box.

15:08David Sims:The stupid steel box. You got the steel box, not the backpack, right? No, I didn't get a fucking backpack. There was a collector's edition backpack. No, no, no. The five movies packaged in a backpack with a flashlight. with like a carabiner or whatever. That's useful stuff. Absolutely. That's true. The fifth one is where he comes back. It's not Renner.

15:26Griffin Newman:It's not. It's the one post Renner where Damon and Greengrass are like, Tony, get a little or I step aside. And then they just shake the camera at you for two hours while Alicia Vikander like browses the other guy. Tommy Lee Jones goes, I don't know about that. Tommy Lee Jones is just there being like, so I'm Albert Finney or whatever. I'm just like, whatever that guy is this time. Brian Gard. Does that movie suck ass? It sucks ass. It's so interesting because I really like pretty much all the other Bourne movies and you're like, wow, this is kind of doing all the same stuff and yet is really bad.

15:53Griffin Newman:It's funny how it's like, you know, there is something, you had to do something right. Like you couldn't just

15:59David Sims:have these elements. We talk about Damon a lot in the True Grid episode coming up soon. I love that movie. He's a great film. Great film, great performance. And then he has a really bad run after that. And you can tell the moment where he and Greengrass sign up for Jason Bourne after it felt like they had walked away was like, fuck, we need a hit. And it was a hit. It made money. But the other thing is, The Martian comes out like eight months before it does. And you're like, he wouldn't have made this movie after The Martian came out.

16:27Griffin Newman:He probably didn't need to like jump off buildings in Greece

16:30David Sims:like for a while.

16:31Griffin Newman:But he was in like post Great Wall panic. Totally, totally, totally. And the reason I thought about this is just that Elizabeth Marvel is in The Bourne Legacy. And I love that she's in that movie. And I'm a big fan of that movie. I think it's very good and underrated. and I love to shout out that she hand-to-hand fights Jeremy Renner in it. People don't talk about how Elizabeth Marvel and Jeremy Renner fight in that movie. Completely forgot that happened. I still haven't seen that one. It's the only one I've seen. It's really good. I'm waiting. Well, I just did the trilogy for the first time over Thanksgiving last year.

17:02Of course. So I'm giving myself some breathing room.

17:04Griffin Newman:You shouldn't because Born Legacy is set between the second and third movies and it's like really like weirdly inside the continuity.

17:12David Sims:This is the whole thing. Five-timers. It's not like we're rebooting. Yeah, Griffiths brought this up a lot. I didn't see the Damon movies, and then the Renner one comes out, and I'm like, maybe this is a clean entry point, and it is the most mid-quilly, deep-in-the-weed shit possible, and I could not make heads or tails of it.

17:26Griffin Newman:It is also, once you watch them all, it is Tony Gilroy going to war with Paul Greengrass. That series is those two at war. It's much like the Hotel Transylvania franchise. Double auteurs fighting. And it is, in my opinion, Gilroy being like, the action does not need to be shaky. Look at my nice, clean action. and you watch it and you're like, yeah, this is better. Tony Gilroy is right. But narratively, maybe that movie? I like that movie. But, you know, I mean, it's an odd duck. For sure. It's an odd duck.

17:56David Sims:Burn after reading. I mean, look, Ludlam is kind of Burn after reading. is one of the things that feels like this movie is sort of riffing on. The thing I remember hearing right before I saw it in some interview with the Coens was on set, our motto was what would Tony Scott do? That that was the prism through which we ran most decisions. And it doesn't feel like they're one-to-one doing, like, a fucking Hot Shots version of a Tony Scott movie. But it's such a fast

18:22Griffin Newman:movie with so many twists and turns and, like, yeah, yeah.

18:25David Sims:I like that they're not, like, actually actively aping the visual language of late-period Tony Scott or Greengrass or any of those guys, but it definitely feels like a movie that is infused with that in the sort of, in the rhythms, in the sort of, like, intensity of what they're presenting. And I think these characters live in a world where Tony Scott films also are. Like, they are processing what's happening to them in a very, like, narrative way. It is one of my favorite types of comedy. It is why I love this movie so deeply, is it is a comedy largely based around characters having the wrong notion of what movie they are in.

19:02David Sims:Right? That, like, if you actually untangle this movie, and it's what's so great about the ending, you're like, what's actually happening is so different than what's happening in everyone's minds. And it's not just a misunderstanding, which a lot of Coen movies are based on. It is based on their inflated sense of self and importance.

19:19Griffin Newman:Right. The initial and driving thing is Osborne Cox, Malkovich, thinking his life story is interesting and his, like, secrets, you know, he holds, like, real... And it's probably... I mean, we never see what his memoir really are. You hear a little snippets, yeah. Right, but it's probably mostly him just talking about random shit that no one would care about. I sort of think it would be interesting. Well. Maybe that's just me. If he did the audio. If he did the audio book. If he did the audio book.

19:46David Sims:I mean, not only does he think it's important, but he's even talking to his like senile father about how he is worried it might be too incendiary, right? Yeah. Like this notion of like, you might see me as unpatriotic, but I think this story needs to be told. And then multiple important offices look at the material and go like, this is not drivel. Not important. Level three clearance.

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21:58Griffin Newman:Burn after reading. I saw this film in theaters. I was living in 2008. It's just the year of Sims in New York with no friends. My friend was the Regal Union Square, where I saw, I think I told you, all of those Richard Jenkins movies in 2008. Richard Jenkins was there for me in the Regal Union Square.

22:17David Sims:You had a Richard Jenkins Regal Union Square punch card. I really did. And when you showed up for Burn After Reading, they gave you a hug.

22:23Griffin Newman:Yeah, they gave me some grandpa glasses. and like I was hyped for this movie obviously because I love the Coen brothers and they had just won Best Picture and I saw it and I didn't like it very much at the time you didn't like it at the time and I have sort of grown to appreciate it but I still I it is the one where I'm just kind of like like when I'm watching it like here's the arc of this movie

22:48David Sims:for me I loved No Country so much as we talked about last week the trailer for this movie was really fucking good. And it was everywhere.

23:00Griffin Newman:And it was everywhere. The whole pit is in this movie thing was also like front and center. And we'll talk about it. I've been talking about all series.

23:07David Sims:He's in this movie and he's doing a thing. Everyone forgets how successful this movie was.

23:11Griffin Newman:It was successful.

23:12David Sims:They sold it as a mainstream movie. It opened number one at the box office. It made a lot of money. It was like a mainstream play in a way that very few of their movies were. And a lot of it's coming off the heat of No Country and also the kind of like 10-year cycle of Lebowski becoming like so totemic and huge. But the ads were everywhere. People were really amped for it. And then it comes out. It does really well opening weekend and almost immediately the response is like from critics, eh, maybe this is lesser Coen's. It's more of a lark. And from general public, like, what is this? This is not what they were selling in the ads.

23:47David Sims:And, yeah, did it get any Oscar nominations?

23:50Griffin Newman:It got a WGA nomination for Best Screenplay.

23:53David Sims:BAFTA nominated Pitt and Swinton in supporting. And the Globes nominated McDormand for Best Actress.

24:01Griffin Newman:We have to also toss it a screenplay nod. Globes nominated for Picture and Actress. Okay.

24:08David Sims:And Baf to give it a screenplay. Yeah, but that was it. Got zero Oscar nominations. I probably saw it about a week into release and was like, people have cooled my expectations a little after being so amped. Saw it immediately. Was like, this thing's a fucking masterpiece. It fucking rules. And I watched this movie like every couple of years. I've seen it many, many, many times. Many, many, many, many times. I think I saw it opening weekend.

24:31Griffin Newman:Yes, Fran, you were a little younger than I. I was a senior in high school. And I went with my friends, including my crush. And we all went to go see this. Like everyone I knew was seeing this movie. And we were 17 years old. And I don't think this was like the first R-rated movie I saw in theaters. But it probably was an early one. But it was a very formative one of being like, I'm driving myself to the movies to see this R-rated movie.

24:53David Sims:A Focus Features release. And that's when I learned to love Focus Features. That's when you learn to settle down when it goes...

25:00Griffin Newman:That's when you learn to settle down when it goes...

25:04David Sims:I remember saying to my dad, isn't this kind of crazy that Burn After Reading is opening number one with like$20 million? And he was like, I mean, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are in it. Yeah, man. And I was like, I had not thought about it that simply. And the trailer just had funny moments and good spots.

25:19Griffin Newman:Yeah. It's also reunites Clooney and Tilda Swinton, and this time they get in bed together, right after Michael Clayton. Michael Clayton and Karen Crowder, of course. Yeah.

25:28David Sims:You never think about that. You never think about that. I was thinking about it the whole time. Okay. I said, there they are. I said, that's Karen Crowder. Well, I love Karen Crowder.

25:37Griffin Newman:Every time I watch Michael Clayton... Do you think Karen Crowder got a bad rap? Do you think Trump should try to pardon her? She did nothing wrong.

25:43David Sims:He's going to move her to...

25:44Griffin Newman:She was just keeping her company afloat.

25:46David Sims:A cushier prison. I think we should check in with her. Yeah, we should check in with her. Do you ever wonder if the tragic events of Michael Clayton could have been avoided if they just hopped in the sack earlier? That all this fighting between the two of them was really just tension that was going unspoken?

25:59Griffin Newman:Is Michael Clayton capable of getting an erection? My guess is no. That man has the weight of a thousand worlds on him. Yeah. This is a good point. I love that movie. It is not a very horny movie. No. Sex is not really present in Michael Clayton. No one's thinking about it.

26:15David Sims:No.

26:15Griffin Newman:I mean, when Pollock's on screen, I'm thinking about it.

26:18David Sims:There's so much with his ex-wife. Right. And you get the sense that like this fell apart because this guy just cannot be present. Like remotely. And now he has no interest in any women whatsoever. Until he met Karen Crowder. Until he met Karen Crowder. If they had just been able to work through. Look, a little bit of sad news. Producer Ben Hosley has COVID. He does. He'll be all right. He'll be all right, but unfortunately he's missing from this episode. Here's some great news. Happy news. Friend of the show. jump in heroically. Producer Ben Frisch. Hey. Filling in the seat. You were saying this is one of your favorite co-ins.

26:55Griffin Newman:Oh, absolutely.

26:56David Sims:Hell yeah.

26:56Griffin Newman:I like that it's a Virginia movie. Okay. I'm from southeastern Virginia, but I grew up with the kids of a lot of spooks. Okay. Because I'm from Williamsburg, where the farm is. Okay. Which is Camp Perry, which is a CIA training center. Yes. They talk about it in movies a lot. I feel like, isn't that where like fucking The Recruit is set? My favorite Colin Farrell movie? Yeah,

27:22David Sims:that's your number one favorite Colin Farrell movie,

27:24Griffin Newman:right? Yeah. Yeah. I've not seen The Recruit. Okay. Well, I'm going to look it up. Carry on. Kind of a boring place to set a series, I think. But, Williamsburg, I mean. But, I love that this movie looks like Virginia, looks like DC. And, And I just think it's so funny. The cast is incredible.

27:47David Sims:Do you want to know one of the craziest things about this movie? It was almost exclusively, if not entirely, shot in New York City. Really? Like over here. That the Coens were like, I don't have to like, can we figure out how to film this at home?

28:00Griffin Newman:Which is funny because it's like, it's a movie about DC. Absolutely. And you'd think they would want to like, whatever. But I don't know if it's... I think shooting in DC can be a pain in the ass.

28:08David Sims:And I don't know if No Country was just such a tough production. And so often, so many times on this podcast, when the production starts with that, you're like, and that's why the movie's bad. They got too lazy, right? They didn't care enough to go to the place and now they're like shooting in the wrong place and it doesn't read right.

28:24Griffin Newman:They did a little bit of Georgetown location stuff to get the streets. The vast majority is like Brooklyn. Yeah, no, it was shot in Brooklyn Heights. Yeah. You know what? I'll open the dossier. But yet it does feel like

28:35David Sims:it kind of gets it right, right? Like I remember the first time seeing it when they go to see the romantic comedy, the Dermot Mulroney movie. that is now the dearly departed 23rd and 8th movie theater. The Clearview Chelsea. The Clearview Chelsea. And I was like, huh, why would they film that there if the rest of the movie is in Virginia? And then I looked it up and it's like, oh, the whole thing.

28:57Griffin Newman:It was the bow tie after it was the Clearview. Do you know the theater I'm talking about? There's the other Chelsea one, though. The other Chelsea. Maybe I'm thinking of this one. I think you're thinking of this one. Same one. It went through multiple names. We saw a movie there, I think the first time we ever met. Yes. You met seeing a movie there? I think so. I wrote it as Sinopolis Chelsea. Oh, that's right in between. Oh, no, it was after.

29:16David Sims:Right. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Right. It was also United Artists at one point. We got egg salad at Murray's. Yep. Sorry.

29:23Griffin Newman:Sorry, girl. Poggi accepted. It was like 10 years ago. What movie did we see? I don't know. Okay. Don't worry about it. And The Recruit is indeed set in the farm. Roger Donaldson's The Recruit, which is just like Pacino's like, ah, you gotta be a recruit. This film, Burn After Reading.

29:41David Sims:I do think it speaks to how well they nailed this, though, that you're from there and it was passing your sniff test versus like half of the fucking Amy Heckerling movies we covered. You're just like, this is Vancouver. Sorry, it's just yes. What's going on, David? Something very exciting just happened on your laptop.

30:04Griffin Newman:we can cut this out if we don't want to include it but we're trying to we pay our guests and we're trying to fill in some backlogs because we got a new person who's in charge of like you know payouts and all this stuff and she very wisely has sent out like you know hey hey like you know checking back and this is the third person this one was Carolyn Framke who's texting me being like this is a phishing scam I have gotten a couple of these two people think that it's now a phishing scam take her money

30:29David Sims:can you send your payment information so we can pay you for an episode a year ago. I've got a couple of those. I'm so screwed.

30:36Griffin Newman:For you, it was a phishing scam. It was actually. What? We made a phishing scam just for you. Okay, so burn after reading. Fascinating thing is that this is...

30:46David Sims:No, what were you going to say? I was going to start the dossier, so you go ahead. You seem to be struggling for the sense that I was going to fill it in. getting the tab open. We're doing great. We're doing great. We're doing amazing. This is really good. We're paying back people from two years ago. I can't wait to get money. It's going to be really good. I'm going to start spending like crazy. Yeah. Because I just know money's coming. Yeah, and it's$50 ,000 per episode now.

31:05Griffin Newman:Oh. That's actually not true. I want to clarify. It's time for me to say this one last time, says JJ. And he's saying it, of course, one last time because he probably knows he's going to get fired. Right. Burn After Reading, 13th Coen Brothers movie, was written during a flurry, unprecedented flurry of activity where they got No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, and Burn After Reading kind of all kind of going at the same time.

31:28David Sims:That is what I was going to say, that this is a fascinating post, like, you know, it's a post-victory lap, no country movie. But it's not.

31:38Griffin Newman:No. Both Burn and Serious Man had been funded and set up before they won Best Picture.

31:43David Sims:At their lowest moment post-Lady Killers, they write these three movies together and get them made three in a row.

31:49Griffin Newman:The true blank check is true grip. Yeah. That's them being like, more money, please. We want to do this properly and we want to adapt a book that was already adapted into an Oscar-winning film. And Scott Rudin is like, why? And they're like, we want to. And he's like, okay, well, I'll go get the rights. I want to say. And he said it that way.

32:06David Sims:He said it that way. Yeah. And string cheese firmly in hand. I want to say, and I'm sure we can verify this or reject this in the dossier, that this movie had finished filming by the time they win the Oscars. Yes. And then I guess. Comes out like six months after that.

32:22Griffin Newman:Or they said they had shot most of it before they won the Oscars.

32:25David Sims:So maybe it was right near the end. But this is like, right. It gets to be the movie after the win, even though it was in no way actually made as the movie after the win.

32:36Griffin Newman:So, Burn After Reading emerges from the Coens desiring to work not just with one actor, a bunch of different actors. Mission accomplished. These parts were basically all written for the actors who played them. So Brad Pitt, George Clooney, this is answering my question from earlier, Frances McDormand, they knew her? They did, they had an end. John Malkovich and Richard Jenkins were all basically purpose-built, you know, in this script.

33:02David Sims:Swinton, surprisingly, is the one they hadn't written it for, and I've never been able to find who they did write it for. If anyone. They were probably like,

33:09Griffin Newman:eh, we'll figure it out. It's just always so funny when, like, it just happened with the new one Joel Cohn is making with Josh O 'Connor, where they're like, it found its female lead. Frances Mook Dorman? Who's that? Huh.

33:27David Sims:James Gunn has added Jennifer Holland to the supporting cast of New Project? Does this need to be its own deadline? What's that, Flanagan's? Oh, yeah. Why Pete Siegel? No, look, no disrespect. No, no, it's fine. When you post the news item as if it's like after a long search.

33:44Griffin Newman:Yeah. So McDormand, Clooney, and Jenkins obviously are Cohen's favorites who they were keen to work with again. Pitt, basically, they have been working with together to try and make To the White Sea happen for quite a long time, so they have a relationship there. And I think with Malkovich, they were just, I mean, correctly, like, I think we could really have fun with that guy. This is my favorite

34:06David Sims:Malkovich performance, and it absolutely feels like a kid on Christmas morning getting the toy they've been dreaming of for months. It's a really outstanding music. Unwrapping it quickly and being like, oh my God, look at all the things you can do with this. They just, you can tell that they're just like, what are the funniest things that come out of his mouth? what are the funniest outfits we can put him in totally and just like how to tap into his

34:30Griffin Newman:kind of seeding energy yeah I think it's my favorite performance of his that's crazy to me but he but it's very funny

34:36David Sims:I think he is so transcendently good in this yeah he's really good he's good is my favorite I don't think so

34:43Griffin Newman:my favorite performance of his is obviously the Vinnie Vedici sketch where he's like I don't talk like that and Hater starts doing him perfectly oh I miss Vinnie Vedici I do too

34:53David Sims:There was also Hayter's weekend update where he was Malkovich and it was after the Madoff scandal and Malkovich had gotten fleeced by Madoff. Right. Right. In real life? Yes. Oh. And he keeps doing this thing of like, how do you feel about it? And he's like, I feel fine. And he's like, you're not going to get upset. And he's like, I know what you expect me to do. You expect me to launch suddenly into a hyper articulate, angry jag. but I'm not gonna do that. And then they just keep trying to egg him on until he explodes. I saw him live once. Malkovich? Doing what? In Chicago?

35:33Griffin Newman:Slam poetry. Well, close. In like a Steppenwolf thing? No, with the symphony. Was he at the Bean? There is, um... Well, it's very close to the Bean. Damn it, Frank keeps responding sincerely to my job! I'm not letting you get one in here. My champ's at the Winter City! I'm not letting you get one in here. There's an Aaron Copland piece called A Lincoln Portrait. that is like music with just excerpts from Lincoln. And Malkovich did the Lincoln excerpts. But they didn't announce ahead of time. Wow. That's fun. Who it was going to be. So it was just him. It was just like Lincoln portrait with guest.

36:05And so I went with my mom.

36:06David Sims:Four and seven years ago. And then he did Lincoln Park after that? Yeah. Crawling in my skin. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. It was crazy. It was crazy to see him. I can't imagine. He's one of those guys. I mean, he's so fascinating because he talks about like acting is easy. I don't understand these people. I show up, I say words, they pay me money. A dog could do it. And like sometimes when people like Brando would say that you're like, you're like trying to hide the scent of the process. You're trying to act like you don't care. Malkovich, I genuinely believe to some degree, it just flows out of him.

36:45Griffin Newman:I guess so. It must. I mean, it's interesting. I wonder what his process is like. he talks about it as if he does not internalize stuff at all. Because it's because like Joan Allen, Gary Sneeze, Glenn Headley, like the classic Steppenwolf people, you think about those as like really sort of like awful actors who wanted to do new stuff with this, you know. And like, is Malkovich right? Just this like alien they found or they were like, oh God, we got to get this guy.

37:08David Sims:Like he's the best. To some degree, like I do get the vibe that like, obviously he has a very unique energy and way of speaking and he has incredible emotional access, right? Like Malkovich doesn't become Malkovich. if he isn't able to tap into that anger so quickly and viscerally. But he, when he talks about it, it's just like, I just learned the script and I do line readings. I like him. I love him. When was I first exposed to Malkovich?

37:34Griffin Newman:Great question. Con Air? Cyrus the Virus? I guess it was that run. I guess it was that mid-90s him as a Hollywood villain guy. I guess that's when I'm like, because I feel like the first time I really cared deeply about him was being John Malkovich, obviously. Yes. For a whole generation. and he becomes something different because of that.

37:51David Sims:I knew who he was by the time The Being John Malkovich came out. I did too. I didn't understand why the movie was about him. I remember my parents having to explain to me like sort of what he represents culturally. That him, just the idea of why he was a funny guy to build that around. Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich. I was trying to figure out the first thing I saw him in.

38:13Griffin Newman:I'm going to guess for you it was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's what it was. Really? Yeah. That makes sense, actually. He's a pretty good one-scene performance. What does he do in that? I don't remember.

38:25David Sims:He plays a leader of an alien race who's like a rival of... I don't know the books. He's barely in it. Oh, yeah. He's got the glasses. Well, it's like that and Aragon, I think, were the two. Oh, sure. Remember Aragon? Yes. Looms large in my home.

38:38Griffin Newman:Looms large in the world. Aragon is a great example of our age difference where it's like, I was way too old for that dragon teen shit. I never read it. But you were just the right age. I knew about it. Like for it to have been thrown right at your age group.

38:51David Sims:But look, here's a perfect example. I feel like the way Malkovich talks about his approach to acting is that he doesn't do anything differently on Aragon versus. A hundred percent. Burn after reading. But I also think they're the same level of real to him. Exactly. That's part of it. I think he's just on a wavelength where he can just read it and be like, yes, I feel this. Go put up the costume on my body. You know, you know who I think is kind of like this also to Mark Strong. Interesting.

39:18Griffin Newman:I was just, what was Mark Strong on standby for? Fuck, what was I just reading about? He was on standby for a flight? There was some... Like a flight? Yeah, he was on standby for a flight. And he just couldn't get a seat.

39:31David Sims:He was hoping to get upgraded to first?

39:33Griffin Newman:There was some role that I was just reading about that was definitively played well by some great actor. I cannot remember. But he was the backup officer. He was the backup because they almost couldn't get this guy. Now I can't fucking...

39:50David Sims:He does feel like he has become Hollywood's number one second choice. Because he's always good. Yes. But it always feels like, huh, did you offer to someone else first who said no, and you realized you could save money in the budget, but also he will knock it out of the park? Someone will tell me what I'm talking about.

40:07Griffin Newman:Okay. But I always like Mark Strong. He's going to be Oedipus. Are you in Oedipus? With Leslie Manville. The sexy Oedipus? This time it's sexy. This time it's sexy. So just for the listener, they're staging Oedipus to play.

40:20David Sims:Blockbuster run in the West End.

40:22Griffin Newman:By Eurypedes, yes. But there's posters around New York telling you to buy tickets to it. And it has, what's the fucking tagline? It's really hilarious. It's like blank is a motherfucker or something. Truth is a motherfucker. Truth is a motherfucker, where I'm like, uh-huh, the truth that Oedipus. Just the idea of taking a thousands-year-old Greek tragedy and being like, you'll never guess the twist is just so funny to me.

40:49David Sims:But I would like to see it, I guess. Oh, I want to see it so bad. They should lean in full Argyle on Oedipus. Right, right, exactly. Don't let the motherfucker out of the bag. Yes. Argyle.

41:00Griffin Newman:Argyle. And Mark Strong was in Kingsman. He's really good in Kingsman. And then he blows up in the second one? He does. Maybe he's in Argyle? No, because they're in the same universe. As we all know, it was very clearly explained at the end of Argyle that they're sort of in the same universe in some way or other. Once I learned Argyle's two hours and 20 minutes, I said, that's not happening.

41:21David Sims:Argyle do be long. Biggest spoiler warning block of all time. Alert, alert, alert. The end of Argyle is the real Argyle showing up and being like, hey, I'm a Kingsman now. No. In a flashback. Sort of. Kind of. Sort of. Kind of. I just know Dua Lipa guns down Ariana DeBose and I said that's crazy but it's like at that level I'm like wow crazy I think that is

41:46Griffin Newman:the first 45 seconds of the movie yeah so the Coens are making Burn After Reading this is I think one of the ultimate the Coens just being like I don't know we just wrote it who cares like in all the interviews because they're like hey we wanted to work with these actors so we wrote to them it's a spy movie we'd never done one before honestly it could have been a dog movie in outer space movie. Funny to imagine them just being like, let's do a dog movie.

42:10David Sims:Movie with a dog. It's also funny to say that when this movie does feel so angry. Like, it feels very pointed in their disdain for many of these people.

42:21Griffin Newman:Totally. Joel says it didn't really turn out as a spy movie, obviously. He's correct. The original idea was one. It's not really meant to be a comment on Washington. It's just about these characters. That's crazy. Right. This is the whole thing where I'm just like, everyone stop interviewing them.

42:37David Sims:Well, it's like, because this movie isn't political as much as it is, like, exposing a deep, deep cynicism for our political system.

42:44Griffin Newman:I guess that's true. For, like, middle-class bureaucrats who, like, sort of run our country, I guess. You know, like, Joel, here's a better quote from him. The quote I was reading from earlier, he literally, in the middle of it, says, Sorry, I lost my train of thought or something. So I'm going to go with this one. Cool. The story is about middle-aged people, all of whom are undergoing professional, personal, and sexual crises, touching on matters of national security. That's what makes it a Washington tale. But they had years and years ago, apparently tried to do an adaptation of advice and consent, the sort of political drama from the sixties.

43:17Griffin Newman:So like, I guess they had sort of thought about a political movie before. That's like a more of a real political movie. But then they also say like, yeah, it's our version of like a Tony Scott movie or a Jason Bourne movie without the explosions. And Joel also says a seven days in May sort of thing. No, it's not what that's like set in the White House. house doesn't matter um but they i think fundamentally griffin this is speaking to sort of what you're saying are like it's a hitchcockian like macguffin movie there's nothing at the center like it's all just people being motivated by nothing and that's what amuses them

43:52David Sims:the most right this is they're all circling a thing they think exists but doesn't exist this is a real, the ending is the conceit movie. And like, I compare this almost to Inherent Vice, which the first time I saw it, I was like so angered by, right? And you get to a final scene where like Martin Donovan kind of unravels the movie and both explains and refuses to explain what's been going on and makes it clear how little the character is actually understood. Right. Tenet. Right. And that... Tenet. Oh. Open doors. in that moment the movie basically says like you're kind of a fucking moron if you were trying to make sense of this film up until this point which the first time I saw it I found very antagonistic right yes me too I have seen it many many times now it is a movie that has grown on me and once I now just submit to it I'm like the story does not matter I enjoy it as a supreme hangout movie I think what is great about Burn After Reading for me and its construction is it doesn't feel overly complicated You can watch it and be like, I think I kind of get what's going on.

44:58David Sims:I'm curious to see how it comes together. And then at the end, when they go like, actually, if you zoom out, none of this really matters. It doesn't feel like a deflation of what happened up until that point. It feels like the ending is the conceit. This is the thesis of the movie. Here's our point. We're hammering.

45:12Griffin Newman:The best thing in the movie is the ending, obviously. Yes. That's the thing everyone remembers best, even though there's lots of other memorable stuff.

45:19David Sims:But it somehow inflates the movie rather than deflates it. Whereas I think often these kinds of endings of... Right, of like, hey, you know what? Turns out this was all bullshit. Well, the movie's not mad at you for caring.

45:30Griffin Newman:No. And it's actually sort of exposing how little these guys care is kind of the point. But you care the right amount, maybe. Also, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but J.K. Simmons is right in this movie. Yeah. All his thought, decision-making is basically correct. Where he's like, no, no, no, get rid of that. Deal with that. Yeah, pay her. I don't care. like where he's just like, let's just make this not messy anymore. But there's also, there's a deep cynicism to how. Yes, of course, because he's like hearing people died and he's like, well,

46:01David Sims:and yet, right, I think this is what they're really drilling on in on is like at the end of the day, these are like weird bureaucratic middle management jobs. Like these things, it's a thing I find very interesting about this movie, especially at a time of just like peak political conspiracy theory culture, right, is I think one of the main like ideas behind this movie is just like, all of this is so much less organized than anyone wants to believe it is in both directions, right? Whether you take comfort in that or you have deep fear of that, even when insidious things are happening, they are most often just sloppy, messy, completely out of control.

46:40David Sims:Just like, it's just idiots stumbling around.

46:44Griffin Newman:Now, they claim this is not a political movie and all that. They will admit that Francis McDormand's character is very inspired by Linda Tripp. Mostly in that Linda Tripp wanted a bunch of cosmetic surgeries, which was sort of like an under, like, current to a lot of Linda Tripp's behavior during the Lewinsky scandal in terms of Linda Tripp wanting money or trying to figure out how to get, like, monetize things or whatever. And so they kind of, like, decided to put Linda Tripp, you know, in a new context. So that's one of those things where I'm like, okay, so yeah, you guys aren't just, like, being like, oh, who cares if it's setting Washington?

47:21Griffin Newman:Like, I'm like, no, you're making fun of, like, these kinds of Washington sort of gadfly, like, lower section of, you know, like, the government kind of people, right? Like, I don't know. Yeah, I also think, look, when obviously she doesn't

47:34David Sims:work for the government, she works at a gym, but she's in D.C. But she's very obsessed with power and stature, as we said. Right, right. Those people in Hollywood would laugh me out of town. To, like, some D.C. stuff. Like, it's like, why would you live there if you don't work for the government. And it's because of, like, an obsession with the culture of government to some degree, I think. Yeah, and it, like, translates onto, like, a Greek Orthodox priest in Chevy Chase. It's just the idea of, like, power through osmosis, some level of status by proximity that she's clearly drawn to. One of these people who's caught in this, like, absolute catch-22 of being miserable about being single, but being so, like, ruthless in her strategizing of what she wants a relationship to be and how she thinks she could be appealing to that type of person versus having it exist on any organic emotional level.

48:31David Sims:Just her like disregarding of other people while also being terrified that other people are going to disregard her. And I think, you know, a lot of the complaints of people who think that this movie just pushes like one step to mean is, is this movie really, really judgmental of this character? and because she is not someone who actually operates a real lever of power, is it like a misplaced cruelty? And I think it's like the fact that they cast Francis is very telling and the fact that the movie keeps going like, you don't need these surgeries. You know, that it is not like, I think there's an argument the movie is shaming the idea of caring about that kind of thing.

49:11David Sims:Which is a whole larger, messier cultural conversation about body modification and what have you. But I think it's more about like a misplaced sense of what is missing in this character's life that unifies almost all of the characters in this movie, right? This sense of like, here's how I want to be seen. Here's how I see myself. Here's how obsessed I am with the idea of my position and what I need to do to maintain that or to continue to reassert that. Yeah. Well, and also because Francis has become so I'm going to the Oscars with no makeup. and like, which I think was not always the case. Correct me if I'm wrong.

49:50Griffin Newman:I think, no, I think that's something true.

49:52David Sims:No, but I think she is like in that very rare group of actresses in like her age class, I think of, Annette Bening feels very similar to me. Nyad. Nyad, where they're just like, we want to play women our own age. Yeah. You know, like we are not trying to look 40 forever. We're not trying to look 20 forever. Yeah, look,

50:14Griffin Newman:the thing about Frances McDormand, and she's very funny in this. Yes. She's playing a Coen's character. It's a mean... The movie is not... Right. It's not fond of this character. No. It's... I think... There's a mild understanding of her pathology, I guess. Yeah. But it's like, you know, it's a pretty mean... But it's meanest to her of at least all the other women. I would... Yes. But she does remind me of other stupid sort of, you know, Cohen's characters with silly motivations. It's not like I'm like, this is the first time they've ever had a character that you're basically like, oh my God,

50:53David Sims:you know, like at their motivations. No, there's kind of a level playing field. And there's also the comparison of like the two other significant female characters in this movie both refer to each other as like ice queen bitches. Yeah, they're higher. I mean, they're way higher status than her too. They're way higher status than her. They have the ability to like fall back on money. Right. Or other comforts that she doesn't have. I think I saw people like in our Reddit litigating this, right? This like recurring thing of like this discussion point of do the Coens hate their characters? Are they judgmental?

51:26David Sims:This and that. And I saw someone put, I think, very well, which is like, no, the key is that they actually like love these idiots. And I think that is big, right? I think that very often they have like an absolute adoration for their silliest characters. that for me, like, really you can feel in the DNA of their films. And I think she is in that vein where they the movie thinks she is very silly, but also does like actually consider her emotional inner life in a way that it does not as much with the bureaucratic characters. I think the mere fact that it's like trying to explore her like internal struggle.

52:05David Sims:But it's also why Jenkins is like the moral center of this movie, because he's the only guy where he's just like, can't everyone just like sort of try to figure out how to be okay with themselves? Totally. And keeps trying to talk to her directly and she just doesn't listen to him. And this is one of those movies where like none of the events of this movie happens if like six direct conversations happen. If like six conversations where people can just actually say what's going on and express themselves intelligently, like with emotional intelligence, all of the incidents basically are preventable.

52:37David Sims:Has this Ewok always been on my desk? I placed it there recently. David's gotten really back into Ewoks and little Ewok butts. We do have some Ewok butt discussion coming up on the show. Have you ever thought about

52:47Griffin Newman:how they have little furry butts? David won't stop saying this. Okay. It's fine. I don't really think about Star Wars. He thinks about it all the time now. The creatures. I had taken a good long break

52:57David Sims:thinking about it and then thought about it again. He rewatched Return of the Jedi and he texted us, do you ever think about how the Ewoks have little furry butts? And now I hear that like three times a week from him. I don't think it's that often. I guess he knows not to text me about that. I'm not complaining, but it's coming up a lot. Yeah, I text you about something else. Yeah. I'm really into Pine Martins lately.

53:16Griffin Newman:Pine Martins? Pine Martins are cool. They're pretty cute. They're like... They're sort of a cousin of like a ferret. Yeah, exactly. Pine Martins? Yeah, they're all over my reels. I feel like... Spelled how it sounds? Martin, like with an E. Okay. I feel like one of his Dark Materials characters, Demons, is a Pine Martin. Oh, sure. Right? Yeah. Is it Pantelayman who's a Pine Martin? I think he becomes one permanently. I like these guys. There's a Scottish woman who feeds Pine Martins on Instagram. You and Emma. Yeah, her name's Tilda Swinton. You, Emma, and I. You know, you never really see her, so it could be.

53:53It could be. She gives them honey and whole eggs, which I'm like, well, I guess you wouldn't like that, but I think that's a great diet. Yeah, I like the first part.

54:01Griffin Newman:Right. It's, yeah, not Scottish, but has Scottish antra ancestry, I believe? Right, yes. Maybe she is sort of Scottish. Tilda? I think she's kind of Scottish. I thought she's Scottish. She's like half Scottish, maybe. Yeah. Right. Well, she lives there. She's from London, but yeah, maybe she lives there now. Right, Matilda Swinton. Is that her? Is her name Matilda? Yes. I've never thought about that. Oh, yeah, because in the Joanna Hogg short, she's credited as Matilda Swinton.

54:25David Sims:And can she like make books move around with her mind? Mm-hmm. As long as Miss Honey supports her emotionally, it's like Topher Grace. Christopher? Yeah, his name's Christopher. And you're like, oh, right, yeah.

54:36Griffin Newman:That one, I think, I guess I knew. You know, just honestly, I haven't been thinking much about him lately. What's he doing? Remember when he was in two movies at Cannes? Nope. Black Klansman? Yep, and Under the Silver Lake. Oh. What a crazy year.

54:48David Sims:He had kind of like a swing back,

54:50Griffin Newman:and then he started... I mean, he's in Flight Risk this year, a movie that he is in the entirety of it. Yeah. It's not like a thing where you're like, oh, Topher swung in for 20 minutes. It's like, no, they're all in that fucking plane. It's not getting going on Flight Risk. He's yap, yap, yap it. Flight Risk. A bigger role than Mark Wahlberg in Flight Risk. Absolutely. That thing is... Depressing. It sucks. I was so mad about that movie. It should have been like fun sucking. Exactly. But it's not even that. To guiltily admire Mel Gibson's Mel Glibson. Well, he is kind of in a way. Mel Gibson's action filmmaking.

55:23Griffin Newman:I was like, this is weird and annoying. What, you're smiling at me.

55:26David Sims:Have I ever told this story that I had my screen test for The Tick? This was fucking 10 years ago, 9 years ago. And I cared so much about it. and I left and I went to my agent's office in LA and I was just like, I really think that went the best it possibly could have gone. I think anything I could possibly do to convince him to give me the part, I did the best performance I could have given and I really feel good and if I don't get it at this point, it was just out of my hands and I was never gonna get it. And he went, that's great. I'm so happy you feel that way and I have even better news. Topher Grace just passed.

56:02David Sims:And I have even better news. Topher Grace just passed. It's like a sentence that lives in my head and infamy where I was like sliver in your mind. Oh, so that whole time I was in there at any moment, Topher Grace could have emailed and said, sure, why not?

56:14Griffin Newman:Topher Grace is like Joaquin Phoenix and gladiators holding his thumb out like this.

56:18David Sims:It is just a perfect snapshot of what it feels like to be a young actor. Right. Where you're like, I'm fighting so hard. And they're like, some guy hasn't checked his inbox in three days. And if he's bored, he says yes. And the part's his.

56:30Griffin Newman:yeah alright but you had to go to Cannes I want to end run through the dossier just so we can talk about the movie so basically the way the Coens work is they send the script to Eric Felner and those kinds of people you know they're producers and I assume they're basically like we can get some actors and everyone's kind of like great well let's do it it probably will cost a reasonable amount of money the budget of this movie was 20, 30?

56:55David Sims:yeah I think that's about right they get everyone to like basically work for scale are certainly well below their quotes. But at this point, if they're going to work in title and they have like a$20 million film where they tell you they can get six actors attached, work in title is like, we don't even need to read the script. Whatever you guys want.

57:14Griffin Newman:Tilda, as you mentioned, one character they hadn't written for anyone, they said. And they just cast it with Tilda Swinton, a good actor. Matilda Swinton, just to correct you. And apparently at the end of the shoot, Clooney touched touchingly and willing, wistfully, sorry, according to Swinton said maybe one day we'll make a film together where we say one nice thing to each other. I like that. Me too. They haven't. I don't know that they've worked together since because George Clooney's been too obsessed with climbing the mountain of mediocrity. She didn't jump in the boat, right? She's in Hail Caesar, but I don't think they interact.

57:50David Sims:They don't. They don't because she's just interacts with Brolin. And interacts with Alden a bunch. She talks about him a lot. I mean, the whole plot of that movie is her threatening to expose him. Right, but they don't, he doesn't, he's really with the communists mostly. But it continues the tradition of they're not saying nice words about each other the entire movie. They're both talking poorly about each other. She's not in J. Kelly, is she? No. I'm missing J. Kelly to be here right now. Wow. You're gonna see it. Yeah, I was like, what am I gonna do, not see J. Kelly?

58:18Griffin Newman:And it's the only time I'm gonna love. I also heard the line was crazy. I heard that too.

58:25Griffin Newman:Tilda Swinton, yeah, enjoys making this movie. The Coens told the actors to embrace their inner knuckleheads. Basically, if this is not part of the idiot trilogy, fine, but it is basically about all idiots. It's oops all idiots. Absolutely.

58:41David Sims:There's that Clooney story we always bring up where Spielberg was watching him work on the set of ER and comes out from behind the monitor and goes like, if you could ever figure out how to stop shaking your damn head, you'd be a movie star. I noticed that in this movie, he never stopped shaking his head. It's like the bad tick that he's been trained out of, he knows makes him look dumb, and he reinstitutes it with a vengeance.

59:04Griffin Newman:He's really doing it, and he's really well deployed. Pitt was, I mean, so Clooney and Malkovich are like, yeah, yeah, we get it. I get it. Big dumb idiot. I get it. Pitt's a little, I guess, taken aback that they're like, we wrote this part for you. This guy's a numbskull. I mean, it must be, but they go into I guess a wardrobe fitting with his hair like that and they just, I don't know, you know, they just decide to, because the hair is very crucial.

59:32David Sims:The story I'd always heard was that they found some earlier commercial he had done at the beginning of his acting career. He'd done this commercial with his hair like that. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A long time ago. Right, that it was sort of, it wasn't like a prank on him, but it was the equivalent of like his, like the rock with the turtleneck and the fanny pack photo. They found like the silliest look publicly available from his early 20s and said like, can we dress you like this? Which I think is a big part of it is like, Pitt is playing this guy like he's 25. Well, yes, but it is 40.

1:00:01Right. Which is why that character is so awesome. It's the key to the character.

1:00:05Griffin Newman:Yes. Clooney grew the beard. He thought that would fit the part. So he just showed up with it. Frances McDormand, this is from Ethan. It's a good quote from Ethan. It's fun to write for Fran, not you, because you know she's good. It's not fun to show the script to her once it's written because she yells at you. As Joel puts it, you've been writing it for another number of months and she'll go, this is it? But we usually work through that. Frances McDormand, quote, in my first scene, the description said, close up on a woman's ass, pale, bare, middle-aged. Why should one even read on? Why would one even consider the job?

1:00:43Funny.

1:00:43Griffin Newman:There you go. Oh, she cracks me up. So, yeah, she cracks me up too. They did almost entirely shoot the film in New York. Clooney was working on another NYC-based project. Don't know what. Leatherheads maybe? Possibly? I don't... 2008?

1:01:00David Sims:Yeah. I don't know. But that was in theory the reason why they worked around that? Yes. Up in the air? No. That's not New York, is it? That's all over. Yeah. They're in the air.

1:01:12Griffin Newman:He's up in the air often. Mostly in plane. It's weird that the working title for that film was called Up in the Plane and nobody liked it. Malkovich said the first scene he did was the phone call with Brad and Francis. that you quoted for your opening of the podcast. He was rehearsing a play in Paris, which is like the most John Malkovich thing to me. Exactly. He's in France? What? Imagine if you're like the CIA and we're like, we have to catch Malkovich. It's like, okay, first, let's go to every play rehearsal in Paris.

1:01:41David Sims:Let's see if he's there. Doesn't he primarily live in France because of taxes? I believe he's one of those guys. He's very much one of those guys.

1:01:48Griffin Newman:He owns a chateau.

1:01:49David Sims:That's the whole thing where he's like,

1:01:50Griffin Newman:I own a chateau in Paris for artistic reasons. Also, I pay no taxes. Also, I designed my blazers here. You know, he has like a clothing line. No. But he's like Michael Jackson. You could say any pretentious thing about him and I would believe you. Right. Like that he has a, you know, a brand of cheese. He makes his own jellies. Yes. So he said he did the phone call in his apartment in his Paris, screaming at the top of his lungs.

1:02:15David Sims:That's funny. So obviously didn't shoot his side of it, but was truly on the other end of the phone. Okay.

1:02:21Griffin Newman:Roger Deakins was busy shooting Revolutionary Road. David's favorite movie. So, this film was shot by Chivo. This breaks the streak of basically

1:02:32David Sims:10 consecutive Deakins movies, maybe? Something close?

1:02:36Griffin Newman:Because Sonnenfeld does the first three, so subsequent eight had been Deakins. Okay. But yeah, Deakins is having his time wasted by Sam Mendes, another unfortunately likely place for him to be. I'll say it.

1:02:47David Sims:Chivo fucking crushes this. Yeah. I like that he's not reinventing the wheel, but he's also not just copying Deakins. Yeah, for sure. What's Shivo done lately? I was just looking at that. Amsterdam. Who was I talking about this with? Shivo!

1:03:02Griffin Newman:I thought this was an

1:03:02David Sims:on-mic conversation. It may have been on-mic.

1:03:04Griffin Newman:He really stopped working. Shivo, yes. I mean, he's shooting the new Iñárritu movie. Which is in the can. But he didn't do Bardo.

1:03:10David Sims:He didn't. He feels kind of crazy. He did, fucking Disclosure, but I think he only did half the season because it went on so long. You mean Disclaimer. That's what I mean. Disclosure is the Quarren series but he he did do that you're right he won three Oscars in a row he sure did and since then he has one released feature film am I correct about that I think Amsterdam is the only one 2022 Amsterdam and then like half of a TV season and a handful of like short films and music videos

1:03:41Griffin Newman:it is always funny when it's like oh we couldn't get Lubezki so we got Darius Kanji like where these guys have to slum it with one of the eight other great cinematographers working today. Kind of like a Mark Strong situation. Right. Yeah. They, yeah, Lubezki, though, had a great time making this movie. Said they have a very close relationship. Ethan was saying in many ways they're complete opposites. They both do amazing things, approaching things in such different directions. Great. Thank you, Chivo. One thing that they built for this movie was the sex machine. One of the greatest props. The George Clooney sex machine.

1:04:14Griffin Newman:They had seen it, something like this, at the Museum of Sex in New York City. My old office, the Atlantic used to be right by the Museum of Sex in New York City, which is on 23rd and Madison. And they said to George Clooney, apparently, like, if you want to go see it, like, 23rd and Madison. And George Clooney was like, the last thing I need is to be coming out of the Museum of Sex with you guys. I'm George Clooney. And then a big part of this movie, I do feel, is Carter Burwell's score. All percussion, right? Like, big drums, big, like, just like, the most sobriety and like bombast possible for like the stupidest fucking shit.

1:04:51David Sims:And yet, I would say there's an emotional theme in this movie that is like one of his sadder themes in a canon of very sad Coen brothers, like motifs. Classical Fran,

1:05:04Griffin Newman:do you have any thoughts on Carter Burwell's scores in general? Or this one? My man does break out like those oboes and clarinets. Yeah, I mean, I think this film has a great score. I like... Carter, a lot of not liked a ton of his more recent stuff, which is starting to get... I mean, some of these guys who have been around forever does start to feel like playing the hits. But I love his score for Catherine called Birdie. I mean, the... Yeah, that is a nice score. The True Grit. He did True Grit. It's the best. That's, I mean, that's like I bought on CD. And I listen to all the time. It's incredible.

1:05:41David Sims:I do feel like the Coens are really good at kind of pushing him each time so that he didn't get stuck in a rut that I agree with you, most legendary composers start to play the hits a little more. And since they have slowed down, he's maybe become a little bit repetitive. I think there was enough of a swing in difference from their movies. And it also felt like they would ask him for different things. He can't reuse Fargo tricks on this, you know? Totally. Yeah. I don't think about the score a lot, I have to admit. I really like it. It works, yeah. Yeah, there's like what I like would colloquially call the loneliness theme in this movie that feels like a very kind of like slowed down piano based melodic version of the intensity of the drums.

1:06:31David Sims:And this kind of like spiral into sadness that's especially played in all the like dating scenes and the sleeping around scenes that I find very effective. and then the rest of it yeah it's like a parody of the kind of score that Crimson Tide would have right

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1:07:44David Sims:How do we go through the plot of this film? Here is what happens in this movie in basic. Go ahead. Try. Osborne Cox is fired primarily because he's a drunk, but also you gather because no one likes working. He's annoying and he's a drunk and he yells at everybody. But he's got this kind of whole John Malkovich thing. Right. He's married to a very high status woman who one of the funnier reveals in this movie is that she's actually a pediatrician. Very late in the film, you realize... It's one of the best jokes. I haven't known what she does. I assume she's also in this world. And instead, she's yelling at a kid to open his mouth.

1:08:18David Sims:That the two high-status ice queen wives both work in children's fields. He decides he's going to kind of rattle the world by writing his memoir, his big expose of his time as a spook. Unfortunately, in finding out that he has lost his job, his wife, Tilda, decides it's time to finally file for divorce. She tries to take financial documents off his computer. When she does so, she also gets his memoir, which is placed on a CD-ROM that is in the gym bag of the aide to the divorce lawyer, who then leaves it at the gym, where it's discovered by... Frances McDormand's character,

1:08:58Griffin Newman:whose name is... Well, that's true. Manolo. You found it on the phone? Hands it over to the other three. Linda Litsky is Frances, and Brad Pitt's character is called Chad. Yes. And Jenkins is, of course, Ted.

1:09:08David Sims:She desperately wants multiple procedures. They're actually separate procedures. They're separate procedures.

1:09:13Griffin Newman:Yeah. It's kind of like face, boob, butt, maybe sort of eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rhinoplasty, they say. Who's that guy playing the plastic surgeon?

1:09:23David Sims:Jeffrey DeMond. He's the best. He's so funny. I love him. One of the greatest. Right. It's Jeffrey DeMond, of course. Yes. And it's a great Coen's move where most of that sequence, you're getting extreme close-ups on her eyes or on the parts of her body, but a lot of it is uninterrupted one-er of Jeffrey DeMond. And you just get to watch. It's a thing the Coens do that I love. You're watching a manipulator beautifully. Beautifully. Yes. But also, like, what you get when you stay on one actor and let the other side of the conversation be off-camera dialogue is you get to watch all the little touches that, like, an expert character actor puts into a scene like that without cutting away for the tiny little moments.

1:10:00David Sims:It's so good. But yes, She has four procedures she wants to get that will not be approved by her Mickey Mouse HMO.

1:10:08Griffin Newman:Right. It is funny that she, I guess you're supposed to be like, she just went and scheduled all this shit and was like, I assume my gym's health insurance covers like$400 ,000 worth of plastic. I think her logic is totally sound. She has a public facing job where she has to look fit.

1:10:26David Sims:Yeah. Why would the company not take control of that? They sense an opportunity that they can use what they think is high-level government secrets to blackmail and get the money for the procedure. Good Samaritan tax. Do you want to see the... They begin trying to blackmail Osborne Cox.

1:10:42Griffin Newman:The first image from Gore Verbinski's movie that's coming out next year. I saw this. This looks pretty good.

1:10:47David Sims:Oh, I didn't see this. I may be going to see this movie this weekend. Oh, really? What? I'm very excited. Oh. Yes. Cool. Yes. I'm very excited. Cool. Gore's back, baby. I hope so. Gore's back. Yes. The other wrinkles in this are Tilda Swinton is already having an affair with George Clooney. Who, what? He was previously... What was his shift in position? He was in private? Yes. Who are we talking about? Private protection. He's always like in PP, private protection. Right. And now he's working for a guy in the treasury.

1:11:17Griffin Newman:Right. He was a U.S. marshal. Then he was... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he carries a gun. Yeah. He carries a gun, but he's never discharged it.

1:11:23David Sims:Tilda Swinton's been having an affair with him. He's been dating everyone. He's been dating everyone. And he's married. Right. And I get the sense that she's been kind of his focused side piece. And the second she's getting primary partner. Yeah. And is starting to push the idea of like, then you should also get divorced. Now he needs to start like expanding his range. I don't think he's ever been hyper focused, but it does feel like he goes back out there in a big way once she's maybe going to be looking for something more serious. So he starts sleeping with Frances McDormand. Are there any primary characters we haven't looped in here?

1:11:56David Sims:No, that's all the main people.

1:11:58Griffin Newman:Yeah, it's not that many people.

1:11:59David Sims:Yeah. Okay. Hijinks ensue. Hijinks ensue.

1:12:05Griffin Newman:But yeah, I guess you need to know that like, Frances McDormand goes on internet dates because she's looking for a partner, whereas Harry Farer is just like a serial philanderer who just, he's always having sex with people.

1:12:17David Sims:Yes, these kind of like intellectual superiors who are weirdly drawn to him, almost in kind of like... He's like a puppy. Yes. And it feels like there's almost a little bit of a sexual charge in how much they can high status him and he won't push back. Right. He's, I guess, a little subby.

1:12:34Griffin Newman:But he is also working on a sex chair. Yeah. Oh, and he has such a good runner about the floors. I forgot about that. He's always asking what a floor is made of or guessing. It's so good.

1:12:44David Sims:He's this kind of like detail-obsessed guy who always wants to ask these tiny follow-up questions.

1:12:48Griffin Newman:in Oh Brother Clooney's thing is the hair and in Tolerable Cruelty's teeth. And in this, I mean it's sort of the allergy thing where his throat I guess but the floor thing is right there with it the weird hyper fixation

1:13:02David Sims:he seems to be you have to imagine he's a pretty proficient love maker yeah I think he's probably really good this is what I'm saying it seems like a fun hang go see the shitty movie with him the movie make me think the movie make me think movie make me think sometimes And in the end, movie make me think. The movie makes me think that he is probably a bit of a jackrabbit in the sack. And yet, the second he's done, he jumps out of bed, gets dressed, and goes, I should run this off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That there's something kind of like Energizer Bunny about him. The scene where he calls Elizabeth Marvel in the car, after spoiler, he has shot Brad Pitt to death.

1:13:48David Sims:And he's just like spiraling out of control. and you're like, oh, this guy is just like so much like uninhibited forward motion. And anything causing him to stop and be introspective is like an absolute crisis for him. And that's like, oh, this is the cornerstone of his relationship with his wife. At some point, she clearly was into the idea of petting his head and making him feel better. And now she does that for children. Yes. Who are interested in government. And also big burly men grab her shoulders as she has affairs with them. Right. She's also preparing to file for divorce from him. So there are divorce lawyer toadies following him around in black cars, which makes him think that he's part of some larger conspiracy.

1:14:30David Sims:What were you going to say, David?

1:14:31Griffin Newman:Brad Pitt's character in this film is like the positive, sunny version of John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. He is like a low status, but high opinion of his own intellect fool who keeps having the, like a bad idea about how to drive the plot.

1:14:50David Sims:And I know how to do this.

1:14:51Griffin Newman:Obviously, Goodman is like, this is a fake, you know, hostage situation and we're just going to give him a dummy. And right. And Brad Pitt is like, oh, he found like weird security secrets. We should just blackmail them.

1:15:02David Sims:They'll probably just pay us like a reward. Well, and especially that like they arranged the meeting and Malkovich is like, let me explain to you, fuck off. Right. And then even when that makes Pitt angrier and makes McDormand even angrier and they push back, Malkovich is just annoyed. It feels like at no point is he ever considering giving them money.

1:15:20Griffin Newman:No, not at all.

1:15:21David Sims:And Paul also doesn't have any. Part of it's like philosophical. Right. Part of it is like logistical. And there's also the just like, this isn't how this works. You don't get to do this. And he knows that he is so much this guy's intellectual superior that he thinks he can logic him out of even attempting to do this stupid thing that he's in over his head on. What was Pitt doing right around now? Well, Benjamin Button's the same year. Yeah. He has the line read of the movie to me. Which is? When she's scrolling on the dating website and is like, oh, he works for the State Department or whatever.

1:15:54And he goes, oh, that's cool. It's so good. I have to wind it back every time I see this movie.

1:16:02Griffin Newman:The key image of this film is his smiling, as the British would say, gormless face in the one second before his brains are blown out. This is like the first time I didn't cover my eyes for that. Because I had not seen this in a while. And you knew something bad was going to happen when you're watching it. Yeah, and I'm so squeamish, but now I'm sort of like, whatever. It's so funny. I'd only ever seen the still of him smiling, but never in actual the movie. It's so funny. The way you're watching his brain work, and Pitt does play it very, very well, of where he's like, okay, I got to hide. And then he's like, maybe if I just come out smiling, you can tell he thinks that's going to work.

1:16:39David Sims:You have this like extended, expertly crafted, no country-esque like quickening. Oh, I'm trying to steal something. Right. And you're stuck in the closet with him seeing the POV and you're like, fuck, how is he going to get out of this? And yes, as you said, the split second decision of if I smile really big, will it disarm this entire situation? There are like 15 things in this movie you want to refer to as obviously the funniest thing in this movie. But that might truly be the funniest thing in the movie.

1:17:09Griffin Newman:I suppose you're right that there's... I mean, I already said that the funniest thing was Jenkins being an Orthodox priest. And the reveal of the sex chair. The sex... They're just like... The sex chair is like a classic Cohen's thing, though, right? Where, like, they built up to something and then it's like the most ludicrous, stupid thing you ever saw. And then her being thrilled by the ingenuity of it. But it's like, it's a serious man with, like, Jefferson airplane or whatever. You know, it's like... I almost think him destroying it is way funnier than the reveal. But I guess you... Obviously, you need that.

1:17:35David Sims:When he takes the bat to the dildo specifically, he's hitting every other part of the chair and then you see him. This is the other thing. There are all these moments like what you're saying with Brad Pitt where you're like, they somehow build such a specific enough character that you can see the gears in their brain turning in a millisecond of what they think they're accomplishing. And he goes like, well, it's not really broken unless I hit the dildo. And then he's just hitting a hard aluminum bat to a rubber dick, which does nothing.

1:18:04Griffin Newman:Now, given how prominent dildos are in driveway dolls. Is this an Ethan Cohen fixation that we're getting the first sort of glimpse of? Perhaps. Yes. It's just funny. Perhaps.

1:18:17David Sims:No, it's just the wonkiness of the chair, how basic it is, the squeakiness, the sound effect on it. Well, and it's like the floors thing of like, he saw this and was like, I can figure this out. This is for me to determine and do it cheaply. He was so offended when he saw the price they were asking for. I can build this for$100 and then he qualifies except for the dildo. He can't build rubber yet.

1:18:42Griffin Newman:Like he hasn't figured that out.

1:18:44David Sims:But it's not like money is tight for him. No, I don't think so. But it's the principle. Which defines most of the characters in this film. Totally. Yes. Their idea of their principles that they have to maintain a line on. So as everything's going wrong,

1:18:58Griffin Newman:we have this brilliant idea to check in with people who are like in charge of monitoring crises of intelligence in America. Yes. David Rasky? Ratchy? I always say his name wrong. I honestly don't know how you say his name. I used to, for a long time, I was like, David Rash, of course. But no, it's Rashi, I believe, is how you say it. And he's an esteemed theater actor. He's been in a billion movies. Sledgehammer, which was an espionage parody show in the 80s. I do feel like he was already so famous and he's so funny in like In the Loop and stuff. Yeah, that's what I know him from. But then like Succession did turn all those sort of middle-aged character actors into celebrities of a new sort, including him.

1:19:45Griffin Newman:But he's very funny and he really plays all this shit perfectly because J.K. Simmons is obviously like, what, what, what? And like every time J.K. Simmons is like, fucking send him to Venezuela. He's like, of course, yes. Like the way his personality is basically like, I assumed you would say that and I will be taking care of that.

1:20:01David Sims:He's so funny. It's such a good double act between the two of them. I also think it's such funny metacasting of like, the Coens obviously love J.K. Simmons have worked with him up until this point. In 2008, if you're putting J.K. Simmons behind a desk as the boss, everyone's thinking J. Jonah Jameson, right? Even if he looks totally different. So the movie makes you think like, oh, he's going to come in, deliver the bad news, and J.K. Simmons is going to like blow his top. He's going to lose it. And to just have the no-sell of him being like, ugh, The Russians?

1:20:31Griffin Newman:Yeah, what? Like the three time he checks like the... Just never mind, never mind. You know? Is this his third, Coen's, or second? Lady Killers? Lady Killers, this, I feel like there's a third I'm forgetting.

1:20:42David Sims:He's in True Grit and a voice cameo, but that's after this. Maybe that's all I'm thinking of. Isn't there another one? Isn't there another one? I'm already forgetting the movies we've covered on this podcast, Blank Check. J.K.

1:20:53Griffin Newman:Simmons in Fox Films. Just kidding, Simmons. Just kidding, Simmons. What does J.K. stand for? Jonathan Kimball. Well, well, well. I did not murder her. You like that. That got me. Let's see. I just feel like there's one other and I'm going to find it. But you guys keep talking about whatever. He's the M &M. He's the M &M.

1:21:15David Sims:He is yellow M &M, of course. Right. Because it was originally John Goodman and John Lovitz for the first year of the commercial campaign.

1:21:24Griffin Newman:Oh, I thought you were about to say, and burn after reading, like that it was Goodman and Lovitz in the CIA scenes.

1:21:29David Sims:That also would work. I mean, kind of funny. That's something I'd like to see. Yeah. Lovitz was originally red M &M. Goodman was originally yellow M &M. I don't think I ever thought about it before. And then I think after a year, they were just like, these guys want movie star salaries to continue playing these roles in an era where that was not the expenditure they were willing to put in. And so it's Billy West and J.K. Simmons are the like downgrade sound alikes. and now it has been so funny to watch J.K. Simmons hold on to the role with an iron grip for 30 years well past being an Oscar winner.

1:22:03Griffin Newman:I don't find a third one so I guess it is just those three. You know, True Grip obviously being a tiny voice cameo. What else do you guys want to talk about? Burn After Eating. Come on. Come on. This is your favorite movie of all time. It's a horny ass movie.

1:22:17David Sims:True. I think you're right at picking at this is maybe a little bit of the Ethan side of things coming through. I'm not mad about it. It's just funny. It is one of the things that is startling about the two Ethan Trisha Cook movies. I haven't seen them. You haven't seen either? Nah. I'd be very curious to hear your opinions. They don't interest me at all. I'm sure I'll get to them.

1:22:39Griffin Newman:They have a lot of dildos. I mean, Driveaway Dolls does. Okay. That's not really... I know. I'm not saying that that should interest you. It's just Driveaway Dolls has multiple sort of visual jokes built around it. The entire plot is built around it.

1:22:49David Sims:They are so outwardly horny while also treating its sex in a goofier way than almost any movie I've ever seen. That's like, I don't like... It's odd. And like, Burn After Reading has a... Not to be sex negative, but... But Burn After Reading has like a version of that more so than the way sex is depicted in any of their other films. Sure, but they're not sexy filmmakers. They're not.

1:23:11Griffin Newman:They mostly are going to be having a little bit of fun and sort of like giggling.

1:23:16David Sims:And even in a movie where people, attractive people are having sex with each other, the only act of sex I think you actually see in the film is Francis McDormand's terrible date. Yes. That's really good. Which is one of the more depressing sex scenes like I have seen. That's really top.

1:23:31Griffin Newman:Whoever that guy is, he rocks. He's like trying not to touch her. It feels like he's sort of like, you know, like sort of doing press-ups where he's got like his hands on the bed so he won't touch her. And he's got this like consternated facial expression.

1:23:44David Sims:It's great stuff. What's the fake movie called? The Dream of the Rumble Running Room? Get Down from the Tree. Coming Up Daisies? No, something daisy. Yeah. I gotta look it up I love Dermot He's so good Claire Danes is on the poster with him after they ended up together in Family Stone Yep But you don't actually see Claire Danes in the movie Coming up Daisy There we go Coming up Daisy But I just love Claire Danes is the female That quick series of we've seen Brad Pitt weigh in on the dates She like kind of like through gritted teeth is like I guess he's fine but she has such disdain for all these guys she's getting right and this dating service and all of this, then meets up with him and is immediately disappointed seeing him in person, even beyond her settled expectations.

1:24:28David Sims:I think his only line of dialogue is when he self-identifies in the park and then you cut to, like, dinner silent, movie, he's not laughing. Right, she's laughing, he's not. Sex, he's, like, in his own universe, not connected to her not speaking. Which I think is, like, one of the areas in which I contend this movie kind of has affection for her is like you don't put that scene in unless you want the contrast of her and Clooney actually have a connection. That like one of the central tragedies of this movie, obviously you wish she would just listen to fucking Richard Jenkins, who's right there, right?

1:25:07David Sims:Well, right.

1:25:08Griffin Newman:I mean, the triumph of this movie is she gets what she wants. She does, I guess, everyone is dead. She wins though. But Richard Jenkins... Clooney's in Venezuela. Right, Clooney's not dead, he's in Venezuela. Richard Jenkins has been hatcheted and Brad Pitt has been shot in the head. So she doesn't really have any friends or like lovers. Osborne Cox is in a coma. Osborne Cox is in a coma not that they ever had much of a connection. I guess Tilda Swinton's doing okay. They could link. Yeah, maybe. Tilda Swinton would hate her. Oh yeah? You think she'd find her a little gauche? I think she'd be negative.

1:25:41I also love there's that brief scene where she's talking to the woman at the gym that she's giving the tour to who's like, oh yeah, my friends got hooked up with guys on that. And it's sort of like, okay, so it's obviously working for some people. It's just not working for her.

1:25:55David Sims:Right, right. But I also, I think it's like, it's not that she's being too picky. It's that she's like trying to exert too much control on the abstract idea of what she wants her love life to be. Sort of a classic dating app thing. Yeah. Yeah.

1:26:11Griffin Newman:What's the app called? I mean, it's a website. Something DC. Yes. Yeah. Meet Me DC or something?

1:26:18David Sims:Yeah. You say the thing of like Pitt thinking, being a kind of more benevolent Walter, or at least a friendlier Walter, his move in the scene in the car, and I guess he does it over the phone as well, but certainly in the car scene, where he clearly thinks that Cox is going to be rattled by him knowing his name. And so he just keeps repeating it with increased intensity as if just saying it is going to make him go like, oh shit. And any time Malkovich kind of like traps him in a logic corner, he just resets to, well, Osborne Cox. Appearances can be deceptive. Right. The way he... I don't think so, Osborne Cox.

1:27:05David Sims:He just keeps starting and ending sentences with it. The thing is, Osborne Cox... The way he's so startled

1:27:11Griffin Newman:by getting hit. Yeah. And then he goes into the car, you know, Francis McGrath picks him up and she's like, where's the money? And he's like, and she's like, what happened? He's like, he hit me.

1:27:20David Sims:It's really good. you think that's a Schwinn is the only thing that makes him break his act and then his like absolute panic, not at being punched, but at like, that thing was only back there with a kryptonite lock. You can break through that thing with a Bic pen. It's a very,

1:27:36Griffin Newman:it's, yeah, it is funny to look at Pitt at that moment where it's like the year before is Ocean's 13, Jesse James. This year is Benjamin Button. The year after is Inglourious Bastards. There's funny stuff in all those performances, except for Jesse James. It's not a very funny movie. That's pretty serious. He's got funny stuff in it. Yeah, but he's like... Right. But those are very serious movies, by and large. Not so much Ocean's 13, I guess, where he's playing pretty tough guys. Right? By and large. And then in the middle of that, he has this. And then he had a break and then Tree of Life Moneyball.

1:28:11Griffin Newman:And it was like, fuck. pit and then it's kind of like forget it for a while. I mean, obviously his personal life disintegrates. Remember that? Remember that one? I mean, yeah, War Machine is way later. I mean, it's sort of like, it's Allied and stuff that you can kind of debate and Griffin loves to debate Allied, of course. Love Allied. Fury, like that, you know, where it's sort of like he plays super stoic, like World War Z, Fury, Allied, you know what I mean? Where it's like, I don't like those performances that much. I don't like Like, none of those performances register that hard for me.

1:28:46David Sims:I've never seen World War Z, but that feels like an ultimate example of him being like, do I need a Jason Bourne, right? Right. That he had been pushing himself so hard for a decade plus to do unconventional stuff, work with interesting people, get more sophisticated movies made at a higher budget level, that he clearly was like, do I need a tentpole to reset my foreign value? and clearly tried to make that movie something more interesting and then everything fell apart. It sort of was a hit and worked anyway. Right. And then I think at the moment that his fucking life spirals out of control and he clearly like hits a fucking wall.

1:29:25David Sims:He seemed to respond with panic of like, do I need to make more conventional movie star moves now? Like now there's been this run of like F1 and money, the fucking bullet train. I almost said money train and what have you. It was a money train. Right. Despite the fact that the guy's now in his late 50s. You're right. And Wolves. Don't forget Wolves. Right. Those are all panic moves.

1:29:48Griffin Newman:A little bit. I mean, he's 61. He's 61. Yeah. I mean, the thing that he's good in is Babylon. I think that's a really good performance, but that movie.

1:29:58David Sims:But Outlier in the run we're talking about. Him showing up, supporting a role, doing something that's kind of self-reflexive versus these other ones where he's playing into the Brad Pitt coolness, which I think he wants to just like sell the narrative as much as possible of like, remember what we all like about Brad Pitt, you know, there's the, yes, it's calculated. My big complaint about F1 where I feel like I've heard a lot of people be like, why isn't he awesome in this? This feels so similar and set up to money ball. And yet like it's not activated in the same way is that like in all of his best performance, there is like the coiled anger that he is clearly trying to suppress in F1.

1:30:38David Sims:That he doesn't want the sense of darkness in F1. So F1, he's basically playing the Moneyball character except without any demons. And even when he talks about... He's got demons in F1. I have a different read, I think. The big emotional scene where he reveals his demons

1:30:51Griffin Newman:is like, yeah, well, you know, I blew it. Yeah, I mean, F1 is a little trifling. I like that movie.

1:30:57David Sims:It's just too fun to watch. But he's removing the core of his character, which is any sense of like torture, you know, the stuff that he does want people thinking about. He's like sleepy in that movie. He's a little, he's a little cowboy. He's old cowboy coming back, but there's no, yeah, there's no rage.

1:31:13Griffin Newman:The thing about F1 that is both, you know, frustrating, but also you can't deny it, where it's like, he's just like, yeah, I can still do this by the way. And the audience reaction was like, yeah, we enjoyed that. And the world's reaction was like, here's money. It was one of those things where it's like, yeah, now he can make movies on that scale for another five years. Kind of autopilot. Yeah. Because he proved it does sort of financially work out. Fran, what's your take? That was my take. It's like Western. Old cowboy comes into Newtown and shows them how to do everything. Old-fashioned, you know, get off your phone.

1:31:42Millennials type movie.

1:31:44David Sims:I think it's sleepy because he's, like, removed what is actually his battery as a performer. Like, his kind of, like, special move. And I think you compare it to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is similarly, like, this guy is, like, the ultimate fun, chiller cowboy. But he's scary. Well, but also in Once Upon a Night, he's playing a really scary person. That's the whole thing he wants.

1:32:04Griffin Newman:And that's what is sort of the juice of the movie. 18 ,000 miles away from F1. And Brad Pitt seems kind of scary. Yeah. Like, you know, and, you know. You know who's so good in F1? Javier Bardem. Yeah. He's amazing. Yeah. When he goes, not yet. Not yet. That is one of those just. We're all talking about Ruben from F1.

1:32:22David Sims:Everyone's talking about Ruben. I've been talking about him all year. It's Ruben's world, and we're all just living in it.

1:32:27Griffin Newman:That is just, he just can do whatever and I will lap it up like a dog lapping up has he become a when's he that has he ever not been like I did I mean I guess I know what you mean in terms of like you're like he's like I'll be in La La Crocodile and kind of start some Oscar you know what I mean maybe one of his five best performances I'm gonna do La La Crocodile and you're like why and he's like oh I don't know maybe check it out actually rise. You know what I mean? He's senior balloons. Yes. I mean, the only thing against it, obviously, in June 1, you know, he pops up at the, you know, he's just peppered in and you're like, oh, sure, Bardem, he makes sense in this.

1:33:09Griffin Newman:And then in June 2, he's like, I'm funny in this. And you're like, you are funny in this, in a very serious movie. Do you like him in Skyfall? I feel like that's the point. I love him in Skyfall. I love him too. Of course. Some people hate that performance. Who? Where? People. Where are they? I don't know. I love it. That performance is like magnificent. Yeah, I think it's a crack. Yeah. And that performance is like, I think so tapped into, that movie is so like, it's the anniversary of James Bond. We're doing like a 20th anniversary. We have to reclaim some of the things

1:33:39David Sims:that we deemed previously too silly for the Craig era.

1:33:42Griffin Newman:Right, a little bit. I mean, the whole push and pull of the Craig movies is like, can we do a little bit more silly? And Craig's just like, just a little bit. But Bardem is striking the absolute perfect balance. That's why it's good. And he's like, I'm going to play all the James Bond villains and I'm going to get at the core of all of them, which is they all kind of wanted to fuck him. And like, that's what's so, the push and pull of that in Skyfall is just so good.

1:34:03David Sims:I think he's fantastic in that. The two I haven't seen are Live Action Little Mermaid and Salazar's Revenge. There is, there is no defensive Live Action Little Mermaid. That's what I was going to say. Those are the only two where I'm like, are those actually just... Some people really like...

1:34:18Griffin Newman:Salazar's Revenge, he's trying.

1:34:19David Sims:He's trying. There's just nothing there. Little Mermaid's autopilot though. I forgot he's in Little Mermaid. I can't tell you a single thing about that movie. I never saw it. Big Dad Nipples?

1:34:28Griffin Newman:Yeah. What? Well, that's apparently a thing I said.

1:34:30David Sims:When we did our episode on the animated Little Mermaid, David said something to the effect of, you know how King Triton has Big Dad Nipples? Sure. I guess I know exactly what you're talking about. Oh, in the cartoon I said that.

1:34:42Griffin Newman:In the cartoon you said that. And you're like, does Javier Bardem have them in the movie? Right, because you have those pepperonis. And I think he does them.

1:34:48David Sims:Those Papa pepperonis.

1:34:50Griffin Newman:It's just so funny when he's like, I did it because my children would like to see that movie. And I'm like, Like, your kids don't want to fucking see that movie. They don't want to see you play King Frighton. They want to see some other shit. They want to see Senor Balloons.

1:35:00David Sims:They want to watch animated Little Mermaid. Probably, exactly.

1:35:04Griffin Newman:But he is, of late, kind of crushing it. I would love to see what he does next.

1:35:10David Sims:I mean, counter to everything we're saying, Pitt, like, finds a different motor in this that is incredibly fun and is not tied to any darkness whatsoever. Like, this is a guy who does not consider darkness. it is incredible how thoroughly he like nails this guy's entire worldview as you said as embodied with

1:35:29Griffin Newman:he's probably only in it for 10 or 15 like everyone is just well in any darkness in the movie really upsets him he's like a clown he feels it all like so purely when he's

1:35:39David Sims:yelled at right right I mean and it's like it's what makes this character worthy of judgment is like if the documents were as important as they think they are, what they're doing is actually very fucked up. I'm not even saying -

1:35:59Griffin Newman:You mean what McDormand and Pitt are doing?

1:35:59David Sims:In an unpatriotic way, right?

1:36:01Griffin Newman:No, it's just kind of insane because they're like, let's threaten him. That didn't work? What is the address of Russia here? Like, let's just go present this to Russia.

1:36:11David Sims:They're out of their depth and the files are like a nothing burger. Yeah. But in their mind, they could be handing over nuclear codes, you know which it's just like if your sense of like self-importance is more important than like global safety it doesn't reflect super well on your moral balance oh that krupa very very funny uh the guy who plays the russian guy love him yes yes another line reading i love where he goes so you are not ideological where he basically just calls them out for having no feeling whatsoever about what they're doing, there's nothing at stake for you. Yeah.

1:36:50Griffin Newman:Jenkins, who, this is his third Coen's, right? He's in... Intolerable. No country. Sorry, man who wasn't there and intolerable, right? That sounds right. Yeah. And he is desperately sad in the film. Also is, I want to assume his gym is just like in total shambles because two of its highest level employees are basically never there. But I don't know if there's much more to say about him except that like, of course, he gets killed with a hatchet trying to steal shit for a girl he has a crush on at the end of the movie.

1:37:27David Sims:Representing hard bodies. Right. Basically, his final words are she's not a moron. Right? Like, he then says no, no as Jenkins, as a knowledge comes towards him.

1:37:38Griffin Newman:Right.

1:37:39David Sims:But, like, all this character wants to do is defend McDormand's honor. You are a special person. Why don't you see that in yourself? You are worthy of love.

1:37:51Griffin Newman:Defend her from plastic surgery

1:37:52David Sims:and from, you know, whatever. Right. Bad boyfriends. That's the root of it. It's like you are worthy of love and she thinks she is not and that she could not possibly be unless she is, she gets these multiple procedures done. Right?

1:38:06Griffin Newman:Yeah. Do you think she's happy after this movie? I hope so.

1:38:11David Sims:Possibly. I do. I was, no, I was going to say, Usain Pit's only in like 10 to 15 minutes. He enters pretty late because McDormand doesn't come in until like 15. I think he comes in around like 25 minutes. A thing I like about this movie is it does have a kind of like relay race narrative structure where the lead is constantly changing. Who's pulling you forward in the story without it being like a traffic-esque here are multiple timelines kind of thing.

1:38:40Griffin Newman:McDormand is probably the closest thing to a true lead yeah Clooney is top build and he's sort of the lead but Clooney's also kind of like second fiddle to everyone he's in a scene with that's what I'm saying

1:38:51David Sims:like each scene has a lead no I know what you're saying and then very often the scenes are grouped together and you're like for these like six minutes you're riding it through them it is the one Coen Brothers movie

1:39:01Griffin Newman:where I do kind of buy that they're like yeah we just kept writing like we thought what other funny shit could happen and then we thought what other funny shit could happen And we were just thinking of what cool actors could play what crazy parts. And like, you know, we've sort of fit it all together. It does the relay thing that you're saying. It does have that energy. Yeah. Yeah. It has an economy too, which is great. It's not overstaying. It's welcome. It's not hitting any beats too hard. It is a gorgeous 96 minutes long. A worse movie would have way more pit because they'd be like, oh, he's so funny.

1:39:32Griffin Newman:We got it all. Yeah. That performance stays so good in part because there's so little of it. Yeah.

1:39:38David Sims:Yes. I also I just like that. I think what is interrogating the sort of anger in this movie, as we're saying, is like. Is is there a fundamental problem in modern government structures where this becomes a position of like social capital versus the idea of these people being like public servants? Like, is this like part and parcel with why our government is constantly failing its people? you know that this idea of like it's it's status more than anything else that all these people are so concerned primarily with their like wine and cheese parties and like who's zooming who and who's got what desk and what book they're going to be able to write on the other end of it versus any of these people actually seeming to care about what they do uh their ideology is themselves.

1:40:30Absolutely.

1:40:31David Sims:And even like Cox, who, you know, he he is the lead for like the first 10 minutes of the movie when we're really sitting with him, has this sad moment where he's talking to his like completely psychologically gone father. And even when he's starting to dictate his memoir, where he is talking about who he thought he was going to be. Right. That he wanted to be one of Murrow's boys and he wanted to like kind of shake. We were young and there was nothing we could not do. Right. And he's like, you know, and it's not what you would have done, Dad, but it's different today than it was when you, you know, this idea that he like entered it too late and he used to be idealistic about it.

1:41:11David Sims:But yet all he wants to do is just like have people view him as important. That's all an extension of that versus any idea of like, this is what I believe. I used to believe I could do for the people. I also just want to call out the memoir bit is exactly how my mother talks. She's now made a paywalled Patreon appearance on our Dire with a Vengeance episode. That's true. Briefly.

1:41:37Griffin Newman:Yes.

1:41:38David Sims:And I forget what the version of it was, but I called it out. But my mother, who is French, but speaks with like a pretty mid-Atlantic accent, will just fall into like and what genre would you say the movie was? Well, your mother has French heritage. Yeah, no, as I said, but she doesn't speak with any French inflections. And then if she is using a word that is part of the American vernacular, but has French origins, she pronounces it so hard. I love that. Yeah, it's great for her. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling, smart move. Another smart move?

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1:42:38Griffin Newman:Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts. Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful. Before we begin to wrap up, you wanted to talk about the theater of the new year, and I don't want to forget about that. Oh, yeah. I just think that this is something that Blank Check listeners should be aware of and would probably like.

1:43:21David Sims:And was vaguely around the same time. It was in sort of 2005.

1:43:25Griffin Newman:It was a sound play created by Carter Burwell, correct? And the Coen brothers. Coen brothers, Charlie Kaufman.

1:43:33David Sims:But Carter Burwell was the one who sort of brought both of them in. I think it was his idea to begin with. He does the music for both. Okay.

1:43:40Griffin Newman:For both of them. Well, actually, there were three. It's a little confusing. So there were a few performances of this. The main ones of which there is a recording. I think this is in the New York performance is two sound plays. They're basically radio plays that were performed on a stage.

1:43:55David Sims:But like with live Foley work and sort of the idea to do a throwback to an earlier 20th century form. Yeah.

1:44:02Griffin Newman:Yeah. The first one is called Sawbones by the Coen Brothers, which is about a frontier veterinarian television show. That is sort of one perspective. And then there's a woman, like a housewife, who watches the show, who falls in love with a traveling salesman, and her husband, who's like in a fire watchtower. And then the second play is the Charlie Kaufman play called Hope Leaves the Theater, which I think is among his best work. Now, yeah. Pardon me for talking to the tales of a schoolkeeper. This Charlie Kaufman play, I'm told that it broke the fourth wall somewhat. It did. stepped out of its own reality.

1:44:44Griffin Newman:And it makes, one of the running jokes in it, which I think is very funny, is that Charlie Kaufman has died and this play was the last thing that he wrote. And so you have Meryl Streep, like tearfully on stage, breaking character. Eulogizing. To talk about how this was the last thing he wrote.

1:45:00David Sims:Am I mistaken for thinking that Anomalisa came out of a later iteration of theater for the new year? Yes, correct. That has never been recorded.

1:45:09Griffin Newman:Right. Sawbones. Yes. was replaced with Anomalisa in L.A. when they staged it in L.A.

1:45:16David Sims:Yes. It was a 30-minute version.

1:45:19Griffin Newman:But it had Thulis Newton and Jennifer Jason Leigh,

1:45:22David Sims:so it had the cast of the interventional movie. Right. And in Charlie Kaufman's frustration of not being able to get another movie made after Frank or Francis fell apart so many times, Dino Samatopoulos, who had started his stop-motion studio, was like, what if you adapt that? And Anomalisa was supposed to be just a 30-minute short at first. And then they went to Kickstarter and raised enough to make it a feature. Very, very, very cool shout out. Those things are absolutely worth listening to.

1:45:48Griffin Newman:100 ,000%. Meryl Streep sings in it. Yeah.

1:45:52David Sims:Also just, I mean, all the kind of Coen Brothers miscellaneous stuff, we keep on sort of scanning around for like, is there something interesting to scrap together to do a bonus episode on Patreon? And none of it really feels episode worthy. But of the stuff we're not covering, I would almost recommend that most strongly. So is it listenable? like is can you find it

1:46:11Griffin Newman:yeah it's it pops up on YouTube every so often I'm not sure I haven't checked today if it's you can find it there it was only broadcast on Sirius like once wow yeah but there are mp3s of it yeah I just downloaded it

1:46:23David Sims:it's around you already downloaded it in the time between asking yep but so many of like the theater projects and whatever are like Ethan's solo things the fact that this is one of the only Joel and Ethan co-written things for a different medium is interesting in and of itself.

1:46:42Griffin Newman:David's biting his neck. I mean, I do that all the time. It's been something I've been doing since I was a very little boy. A pediatrician told me a long time ago that it's no different from any other self-harming behavior and I really should look into it. Still doing it, 39 years. Was your pediatrician Tilda Swinton from this movie? Yeah, I mean, he said it in a nice way, but he was like, you're aware of what self-harm is, right? That's what you're doing to yourself. Because I tear the cuticles up and stuff. And he was like, this is sort of the psychological principle of what's happening. It's the same basic thing.

1:47:09Griffin Newman:and I was like, okay. What age were you? I was probably like a teenager.

1:47:13David Sims:It is fascinating that you remember this verbatim. Oh, yeah. Unpacked it so quickly and still do it.

1:47:19Griffin Newman:There's been like a couple times in my life that I've successfully kicked nail biting for like a longer than like whatever, a few days. And then something will make me anxious and I will start unconsciously doing it. Thank you. I mean, I've gotten married and like maintained a career. two things my mother told me would be really at risk if I kept writing my nails. Yeah. So, take that, mom! I take it back. I'm gonna buy her 4K if I know where I'm going. Yeah. The criteria is putting it.

1:47:53David Sims:As you said, this movie didn't have much Oscar juice. It gets the SAG nomination, but that's very much a classic SAG. Hey, it turns out that six of the top qualifying movies are ineligible, or not SAG, I'm sorry, WGA. There are always a couple weird WGA nominations because other things were disqualified per their specific rules. BAFTA went through it more hardly, but Pitt in supporting, which kind of would have been the obvious play, is overshadowed by Benjamin Button the same year. Tilda had just won. Yes.

1:48:26Griffin Newman:Sort of a bad Oscar year after an incredible one. Yeah. And it's kind of a, like, what is it, 99, where you're like, what a great movie year and then you look at the Oscars and you're like, why did the Oscars not understand that? Look, 2008 is a sort of similar one where you're like, I mean, there are some decent nominations, but obviously it's the one that leads to the multiple I was going to say, I will never miss an opportunity to say that. It is the year that breaks the Academy Award. Where they're like, you guys aren't going to fucking, I mean, but it's not just Dark Knight and WALL-E, which are obviously the big two.

1:48:57Griffin Newman:I put Gran Torino in there as well. I think all three of those movies. Right. Big hits that audiences were like, we like that. And the Oscars are like, Frost and Nixon. You understand me? Here comes the slack. They talked to each other. I like Bruce Nixon. Wow, have you seen it recently? No. It stinks. And I like Peter Morgan. I'm a slut for that stuff. Yeah. But it's not very good. I'm just reading over these nominations. Oh, you know what's in here? Revenge. Ever seen that? Yeah. That movie's good. That movie's good. That's actually crazy. That got a best foreign language nomination.

1:49:29David Sims:I was going to say that was a foreign film. That was one of those like, oh, weird, they nominated something cool. Once in a while, they'll sneak a Cooley in there. They've overhauled the whole process. And now I think it's a slightly better field. But certainly like before 2015, if something that actually was kind of awesome got in, it was astonishing.

1:49:45Griffin Newman:I think you had to like be 95 to vote for that category back then. You know what I mean? Like obviously it's most, I'm joking, but like because you had to watch all the movies, it was all retirees.

1:49:57David Sims:My memory is that in order to vote in that category, you had to attend screenings and check in that were marathons. So it did have to be retirees because it was like Monday through Friday. You're going to have to show up at the Academy and watch five foreign language films in a row and check in to prove you've seen all of them before you vote. And anyone who was busy wouldn't do that. Right.

1:50:22Griffin Newman:Shall we play the box office game? Are there any other things we want to talk about before I do? This movie makes me laugh really hard. I think it's really funny. Frances? You know who's great in just one single scene? Please. It's the guy serving, George Clooney, with the divorce papers, who he tackles in the street. That guy's great. I mean, he's the Ugly Betty guy. What's his name? I couldn't remember who he was. I meant to look it up while watching. He's in a bunch of other stuff.

1:50:45David Sims:Wait, the guy who serves the papers at the bar or the guy in the... Kevin Sussman. Kevin Sussman is the guy I'm thinking of. What's the name of the firm he keeps talking about? I don't know. But it's just funny how mean he is.

1:51:00David Sims:He's phenomenal. I think of him as the wet hot guy, of course. Also great in wet hot. Who can control the weather with his hands. Oh my God, of course.

1:51:05Griffin Newman:I mean, he's in a million things.

1:51:07David Sims:And has made like$8 trillion from Big Bang Theory. I think now is the star of a Big Bang spinoff. I saw young Sheldon once on the street. Really? How is he looking? What age? Youngish. Youngish. This was the problem. That's why the show's not on the air anymore. I will say

1:51:25Griffin Newman:I saw Life of Chuck it's not like Tremblay's bad in it but I do think I'm like can Tremblay I think I need him to wait a few more years for when Andy fully adult Tremblay they bury Tremblay they do in that movie I went to that to see Tremblay he's barely you've got your Tremblay penance

1:51:43David Sims:they sold me a Tremblay picture and here I am waiting until the last two minutes

1:51:48Griffin Newman:you know that movie honestly whatever they would sell you on it you'd probably end up being disappointed because it's got so much shit going on.

1:51:55David Sims:That was a real challenge to market, and yet I think they may be settled on only the worst approaches possible. It's like Tom Hiddleston's gonna hoof it up in this movie. It's a Hiddleston soft shoe picture, and you're like, boy, are you gonna be really confused for the first 45 minutes of this movie? And then very happy, and then confused. And then back to the game. Ooh, but you know who's so good? Lillard. Lillard is phenomenal in that thing. He's amazing. Talk about a great one scene performance. Yeah. Like a real journey. The kind of performance that feels like it's a Coen's thing of just like letting an actor you're very familiar with, but you've never seen get this kind of runway, go on a full journey and show you an entire life within one scene.

1:52:37David Sims:The other guy I like, he's a two scener in this, but Tilda Swinton's divorce lawyer. Oh, yeah. Who loves the kind of excitement of the idea that he's not in the beltway, but he's adjacent to it. Yeah. And the comings and goings. Yeah, you can be a spy too. and then what's the thing where he brags about who his wife saw out at dinner I don't know he's a really good performance anyway

1:53:00Griffin Newman:the also the book the children's book the TV sequence that's very old-fashioned Coen Brothers like Bruce Campbell should probably be in that okay the film made 60 domestic 168 worldwide the worldwide number really does feel like you're kind of George Clooney Brad Pitt number of like it does not matter what the movie is right back then they are going to just get you something.

1:53:22David Sims:But this movie had good marketing materials. It did. It wasn't a total hide the ball, but it was a kind of like reconfigure the elements in a way that is a lot easier to digest. It's funny, though, that they did not go for

1:53:34Griffin Newman:like, I mean, the classic poster was that red poster, the sort of cartoony without their faces, without with no floating heads.

1:53:39David Sims:It's like a Saul Bassie, but giant yellow star names. And then, right, the faces only come in on like the home video release. Number one at the box office on September

1:53:50Griffin Newman:12th, 2002. Never forget. Opening to$19 million. What do you think? This is number two. One. It is number one. Burn After Reading is number one. Burn After Reading is number one. Right. Number two to four are also all new movies. This is a four new movies top five.

1:54:08David Sims:I think it's the other thing that made it surprising that this performed so well. It was not an uncompetitive weekend and it tripled its opening weekend.

1:54:14Griffin Newman:But it is that early September slightly more fallow feel before the big Oscar movies are coming. The other three movies are just like three really different offerings, I will say. So number two at the box office is, it's a work from a director who would produce one to two new movies a year. And it's in his dramatic vein rather than his comedic vein. Okay, he'd do one to two movies a year. Okay, so it's a Tyler Perry. Tyler Perry.

1:54:42David Sims:But it's not a Madea. But he would have... It's a non-Madea. He would have his weekends that he staked out. And I'm sure they thought he was going to own this weekend. Well, I feel like his kind of thing was a February guy. Yeah, okay. So this is a dramatic one and it's not a Medea? It's not a Medea, but Tyler Perry is in it.

1:54:59Griffin Newman:Is it? Among the ensemble. So it's not I could do bad all by myself? It is not about doing bad all by yourself. Although Burn After Reading could be called that.

1:55:07David Sims:Yeah. All these characters have the capacity to do bad all by themselves. They don't even need anyone else to help them. Tyler Perry is in the ensemble. It's not Dine's Little Girls. It's not Good Deeds. It's neither of those. It is.

1:55:23Griffin Newman:And Good Deeds, of course. It was sort of like a Good Will Hunting situation. He was a guy called Deeds who was good.

1:55:28David Sims:Yes. It's not Why Did I Get Married 2? No. And it's not the first one. It's not that. This is fun now. It is. It is. Ben might have a guess. Okay, he's in the ensemble. Ben.

1:55:39Griffin Newman:I was going to guess Why Did I Get Married 2. Nope.

1:55:42David Sims:No, no. Can you tell me who the first build person is? We'll give it away maybe. Alfre Woodard. Is it the family that prays? The family that prays. And now you think this.

1:55:54Griffin Newman:P-R-A-Y. Moving on. No. Subject closed. What?

1:55:58David Sims:P-R-E-Y-S?

1:56:00Griffin Newman:I've never seen it, but I think it's sort of like it's an upstairs-downstairs kind of like there's like a rich family and a poor family. And it's two different religious families. It's Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard as the two matriarchs. Those are the. Yeah. Sanal Athon, Kitty Strickland, Cole Hauser. I bet you he gives a really, really measured performance. Playing a good guy. Right. Rockman Dunbar, who I always enjoy. Yeah, he's cool. Taraji P. Henson's in it. Making$17 million, a very sort of standard Tyler Perry, non-Madea opening. They probably shot it in.5 days and made it for$2. They somehow shot it in negative time?

1:56:36Griffin Newman:Exactly. It was like celery. You gain calories. Somehow Kathy Bates' schedule opened up making that movie. I don't know. I don't know, guys. No, good stuff. Number three at the box office is a movie that is completely forgotten except it has become a catchphrase on the Lonely Island podcast. Righteous Kill. Yep. Just, in my opinion, one of the funniest things De Niro and Pacino ever did. Where they were like, it's so cool how we're in Godfather and don't interact, Godfather 2. And then we're in Heat and we interact for one scene. What if we did a movie where we're in it together all the time and it sucked?

1:57:11Griffin Newman:What if it was dog shit? It's just bad. Yeah. I bet you they literally just like went to a bucket of scripts and were like, just anything with two men in it. Let's get something out of here. Also to go like Coppola, man. Yes. John Avnett. Avnett. Have you seen White Just Kill? Wait for the Irishman. Just wait for the Irishman. I don't know anything about this movie. It's like they're both cops in the New York police department. And someone's going out there killing criminals and leaving poems by their minds. Oh no. But it's like the vigilante that they're hunting sort of seems to be on the right side of the law in a way.

1:57:48Griffin Newman:Righteous law. I've never seen it. It's a righteous kill. I've never seen it. I am sure one of them is doing it. I'm just not sure which.

1:57:57David Sims:But Andy Samberg has a running bit since this movie came out of saying righteous kill instead of righteous. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, righteous, righteous kill. And now he's popularized it on the podcast. It's sort of a runner how they talk about he tried to make it happen for 20 years. Now it actually has. And now it actually has.

1:58:15Griffin Newman:So you didn't see Righteous Kill? Okay. Because you're busy seeing Burn After Reading. This came out in the heart of marching band season so that I could go see a movie. What was your instrument? Percussion, of course. I actually don't. You don't know this? I'm not totally sure that I knew that. I played vibraphone, actually. So I wasn't marching. I was like posted on the 50-yard line. But yeah, but we had like a really robust pit percussion where there were like 20 of us. It was like five marimbos, four vibraphones, two xylophones, a timpani. This is so crazy. It's a huge thing in the Midwest.

1:58:51I know. I know.

1:58:52Griffin Newman:And it's cool to watch. They have people like roll stepping on treadmills in their free time. What was your school called? What was the school? Prospect High School. Cool. I'm sort of doxing myself, I suppose. Oh, we can cut that out if you don't want to. No, it's fine. No, people know where you went to high school. Go Knights. Go Knights. Number four at the box office. New this week. Not probably the least successful of these four films. Still made$50 million. It's a remake of a masterpiece from the golden age of Hollywood. Is it the women? It's the women. There we go. Can you tell me who played the women in the women?

1:59:32Griffin Newman:Okay. Can you tell me? It's five women on the poster, obviously. How many do I have to film? Three of them are going. One of them is going phone. Yeah. I remember being one of the most. One of them is going. photoshopped posters.

1:59:45David Sims:Okay. Eva Mendes. Eva Mendes is there. Annette Bening. She's there. She's on the phone. Debra Messing. She's going. Meg Ryan. She's going. And the fifth one. There's one I'm forgetting. Oh, it's good. The fifth one's good. It's a good one. It's not Jessica Biel, right? No. Give me a hint. Fish Mooney. Well, that's the biggest hint of all. I just wanted to say it. Let me quickly put her name in my mouth.

2:00:14Griffin Newman:Are you ready to sit down at the red table and announce who the fifth lead of the women was? It's Jada Pinkett Smith. The film also has Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher, Cloris Leachman, Debbie Mazar, like Anna Gasteyer. It was kind of like clearly going for that first wives club, like everybody come, have fun. And it just, I remember it being kind of annoying in bad.

2:00:36David Sims:It was a development hell movie for like 20 years to do an all-star of the women remake. And it ended up being made by the, isn't it the Murphy Brown? Yes, Diane English, who is, you know,

2:00:45Griffin Newman:a legend in her own right. But I think by that point, no offense to her, it was a little cooked. Offense taken. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. A woman is cooked? Like she should be cooking in the kitchen?

2:00:58David Sims:You sound like the witch from Hansel and Gretel trying to cook a young woman. In an oven. Is he trying to cook children?

2:01:06Griffin Newman:A young woman. I love the new take on Hansel and Gretel being, that was a young woman in STEM that you tried to cook. Gretel had all kinds of aspirations. That's probably how they're going to do it next. Everything is so child and STEM. It'll be so STEM heavy. The Woman, number four. Number five at the box office is a film that I think had just done like a one month run at number one for pretty much all of August. Tropic Thunder? It's Tropic Thunder. Yeah. Which has made it to$102 million. Because that dethroned Dark Knight

2:01:41David Sims:basically on a one-month run.

2:01:42Griffin Newman:Dark Knight is at number seven. Number six is The House Bunny. Sure. Which was sort of like a solid hit. Sleeper hit. Yeah. Number eight, dropping from, actually from number one. So I think Tropic Thunder jumped the week before to number eight is the Nicolas Cage film Bangkok Dangerous. Quite a poor film and also historically one of the lowest number ones of all time. It was one of those like 4.8 million dollar number one. Exactly. Number nine is Traitor. Is that the Don Cheadle movie? Yeah, which is not bad. Right. Never seen.

2:02:10David Sims:Guy Pearce.

2:02:11Griffin Newman:Yeah.

2:02:12David Sims:Based on an idea by Steve Martin.

2:02:15Griffin Newman:Yes. Right. Weirdly. Number 10 at the box office is the remake of Death Race, which is, I think, a Paul W.S. Anderson that I haven't seen. Oh, it is a movie that fucking rules. I gotta see that one sometime.

2:02:26David Sims:It is so good. It's kind of Death Race, but it's more like Twisted Metal Mario Kart. Great. Yeah, that's... sounds fun. Oh, I never saw his from earlier this year. Land of the...

2:02:35Griffin Newman:I was not a fan of that one. I think he is getting... We gotta take the volume away from him. Yeah. You know what I mean? And a lot of these kind of mid-budgety genre guys, I'm worried that they're gonna get lost in CG.

2:02:47David Sims:Death Race is super practical. Part of it is that they build power-ups onto the Death Race course, so it has hitting mushrooms and shit. And Joan Allen plays the prison warden who's creating the Death Race. You already had me, and then you say Joan Allen is in the mix. Wait, she has a scene. Wait a minute, Griffin. Can Joan Allen play kind of like a steely boss lady? Is that something

2:03:08Griffin Newman:that's in her repertoire?

2:03:09David Sims:David, she has a scene where she's freaking out that like, oh my God, they're beating the system. How is he doing this, right? We're supposed to have them under control. And she says like 14 curses in a row. That feels like it was just a dare to see if they could get Joan Allen to say it. Yeah, it's incredible. This movie is set in New York in the year 2020. It rules. I wonder if anything else happened. It's also technically it's also technically a legacy sequel to the original rather than a remake. It's fun. It starts with the Frankenstein character the Carradine character from the original. Right.

2:03:44David Sims:And Koopa Troopa's in it?

2:03:46Griffin Newman:Yeah. Cool. Just to close out on Burn After Reading it did premiere at it was the opening film of the Venice Film Festival that year and indeed it was a solid hit. It's listed budget about 37 million but still obviously was very successful. Um, and indeed, but as we noted, the reviews were a little mixed and a little heavy on the, it's so sadistic.

2:04:09David Sims:It's also just coming off of their fucking peak. And I think there's this like, uh, this back and forth we've talked about many times now of like the Coens make like a serious transcendent film. And then people are like, why are they doing a larky comedy now? There was a little bit of that, you know?

2:04:25Griffin Newman:Um, next, uh, up, of course, for us is a serious man. What's that I hear in the distance?

2:04:38David Sims:Gates are being locked next week. Marc Maron's on the show next week. Marc Maron's on the show next week. Fran knows this already,

2:04:43Griffin Newman:but she's excited. I love him so much. I know. It's really exciting. I'm despondent that his show, I can't even really talk about it. Because I was sort of, I was a Maron hater and I came around. I think a lot of people had a journey like that. Yes. Or they're right, they like him and then they get a little sick of the show and then they read his story.

2:05:00David Sims:cover and they're like, you know what? Still fucks. Yeah. Did you see that he I don't know if it was on WTF or on one of his like behind the paywall sort of like full ramble episodes talked about recording with us and was like, it was a long talk. It's a long episode. Those guys go long. And then our Reddit was like losing their mind and I had to be like, guys, his standard of long is very different than yours. We got a full episode out of him, but do not get angry.

2:05:26Griffin Newman:There's definitely a moment probably around two hours into the show where he literally just says out loud, I think we're done, right?

2:05:31David Sims:It was well under two hours. It might have been under. And I worked to kind of filibuster it over maybe the two-hour line. I'm clearing my day. I think it's a really great episode. We get right into it. Good. And go deep into the talk. He's the perfect guest for that movie. It was a long time coming and I'm glad it all came together. It was really fun to have him on.

2:05:49Griffin Newman:I hope we can have him back on, because he's got more time, right?

2:05:52David Sims:Yeah. What else is he going to do? Exactly. Yeah. Other than come on Blank Check. Exactly. So yeah, tune in next week for that Fran. Anything you want to plug? Yeah Fran what's up? You work at New York Magazine. Yeah it's my first time on here in a long time that I've not been begging for a job. Yes. Because I have one. You're questioning it. Yeah.

2:06:09Griffin Newman:You're busy. I'm busy. Go to dinner with me more often. I will once I get to the next month of my life. Right you're also getting married. I'm also getting married in a matter of date is ultimately. Congrats. Thank you so much. I'll plug being in love. It's a good plug. Yeah and my work for New York Magazine and Vulture and Fran Magazine. Still going strong. Going strong, still at it. And I'll plug Getting Eight Hours of Sleep, which hopefully I'll return to very soon.

2:06:37David Sims:Fran, it's the best shit in the world. I think it's going to change my life. It's unbelievable. I'm looking forward to the day where you have to Anna Wintour-style announce your successor at Fran Magazine. Yeah. Who is the future Nepo Baby, the equivalent, the black label Nepo Baby like Louis Moll and Candace Bergen's child that you will someday hand over Fran Magazine? That's a great question. Be the Nepo baby you want to see in the world. Can we will one into existence now? Yeah. I'm sure they're at a very expensive preschool right now. But it's got, yeah, it's got to be someone like 35 years younger than me.

2:07:15So, maybe someone who doesn't totally exist yet.

2:07:18David Sims:Maybe if like Michael Hanukkah and Sidney Sweeney want to get on it.

2:07:21Griffin Newman:Is Hanukkah retired? What's up with him?

2:07:23David Sims:He seems to be. Are you going to do one more? I think he's maybe retired. He's 83. He's pretty old.

2:07:27Griffin Newman:Oh. Sorry. I'm not trying to bum you out. No, it's okay. That's okay. The white ribbon too.

2:07:34David Sims:Wait a second. I'm seeing here Michael Hanukkah The ninth continent? attached to Underworld Return of the Likens.

2:07:42Griffin Newman:How great would it be if he's Hanukkah circling Flash reboot. He's just circling it. He has a take.

2:07:50David Sims:There really isn't like a curse project like that anymore. Like for so long we had like Crow reboot Suicide Squad 2 There'll be something eventually

2:07:58Griffin Newman:but yeah

2:07:59David Sims:But is there That's such a good point Right? There's not the one like

2:08:02Griffin Newman:hey man don't sign up for it We need a poisoned chalice to return to Hollywood for like every director to be like

2:08:09David Sims:Chalice drought Can I figure this out? We actually like worked those things out of our system and now we need A little bit A little bit

2:08:16Griffin Newman:But now it'll be like the Candyland movie or whatever It'll be some fucking board game Yeah Michael Haneke is going to do

2:08:21David Sims:Hungry Hungry Hippos They're so hungry Hippos are so hungry thank you for being here thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe hey thank you to Ben Frisch for jumping in thank you Ben Hosley back in in full form feel better Ben yeah I hope ice cream tastes good again to you soon I guess I'm sure he's all listening and as always now we can just focus on writing our memoir memoir I have to pee Griffin I have to poop

2:08:49Griffin Newman:oh well then I'm just gonna get out

2:08:57Griffin Newman: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 Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

2:09:36Griffin Newman:Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. Someone just said, here's what I found. I think that was Siri. A ghost? That was Siri on the record computer.

2:10:01David Sims:I thought Siri was about to correct my pronunciation.

2:10:03Griffin Newman:Siri, go away.

2:10:04David Sims:I love you, but no. No, actually, I don't love Siri.

2:10:07Griffin Newman:Fuck off. You know what? It's true. You know, if you say fuck off to Siri, she'll like reprimand you. Oh, okay. Like, has that ever happened to you where you like accidentally start Siri on your phone and you're like, oh, fuck off. And then Siri goes like, I don't appreciate that. And I'm like, Jesus. No, here's what I do.

2:10:20David Sims:The second I buy a device, Siri off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Disabled. have never used Siri once. I don't like her. I don't trust her. I'm not rude to her, but I don't want to speak to her.

2:10:29Griffin Newman:I just have her, like, do my taxes and stuff. I mostly don't use her. I'm joking. I don't ever do anything. Siri, do my taxes. And I'm like, that's done. I don't like her. Siri is listening. What is she doing? Go away, Siri.

2:10:42David Sims:Siri, disable. Off. I think she's tricky and I think she's mean and I want to make it clear. It's not that she's a woman. That's not my problem.

2:10:50Griffin Newman:It's starting to feel like

2:10:51David Sims:you have a problem with women with small, soft. I find her overly emotional. I don't like all these questions she asks. And it has nothing to do with her being a woman. Do you guys know anyone who has Siri as man? I recently heard someone who used their Siri as man. And I was like, what the hell?

2:11:07Griffin Newman:What if it was like Crocodile Dundee? Like, is there a way to make the voice something

2:11:11David Sims:that I would be amused to hear? Doesn't Amazon Alexa do a bunch of that? You can do celebrity voices. Right. If it was Crocodile Dundee, I'd turn it on.

2:11:19Griffin Newman:Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS.