Drive Away Dolls with mxmtoon

24:54But I guess if all of you listen, I should get into it. But I just brought this up to Ben and David as I think you are the first person we have ever heard of who's like, yeah, blank check. That's the thing my parents told me to listen to. My dad just loves podcasts about movies. So you guys are like obviously one of the preeminent podcasts about movies. Thanks. Yeah. Shout out to your dad. What's your dad's name? My dad's name is Cameron. Shout out to Cameron. Shout out Cameron. So he loves Star Wars. He loves Star Wars. He grew up on Star Wars. Exactly. And grew up waking up to it, blaring over a speaker.

25:27And like that was traumatic. But truly because I think my dad was such a lover of like sci-fi. And my mom, she was like an English teacher most of my childhood. And so she taught like English classes around like Hitchcock movies and stuff like that. So there was a real like gap between like a Hitchcock and watching like Star Wars. And then kind of what I discovered watching the Coen Brothers movies this last like month was really just like, oh, that's why I never watched them was because it was just that's not what they're doing. They're doing capers and yeah, exactly. So it was a lot of fun. Which ones have you seen now?

26:02Okay. So I watched. We think I would need to pull up my letterbox. Let me look at your letterboxes. Oh, thank you, David. Because I'll say, we'd been messaging to try to find an episode to have you on, and there was some stuff next year that was like, oh, some of that might work. And then we were looking for someone for driveway dolls, and I noticed you had a positive log. You said to me, you were like, it was either you were one of the only or the only person with a like on the movie. Possibly. Certainly in the circle of people I follow. I mean, your review was, I mean, yeah, this is a movie.

26:31That was my most recent one. So I rewatched it. That was on the rewatch. Yeah, yeah. you have seen No Country for Old Men you watched that you watched Barton Fink you watched True Grit you watched Fargo you watched Raising Arizona you watched The Hunger Games Catching Fire they directed that they did I think that might be it unless there's another one but that's a lot of the crime caper ones which are the interesting ones to watch exactly for this and you watch all of them in the middle of a sandwich where the pieces of bread are you seen driveway dolls two times in theaters? Yep. Okay. And then again this week.

27:09And you saw it, and I don't want to blow you up, but you did say you saw it because it had, and I quote, lesbians. Yes. And it's because, I mean, like, I think I'm very interested. I identify as bisexual. There are so many queer stories oftentimes in media where like, you know, I want to see a happy end for lesbians as much as the rest of the world. And so I was curious because this is like, I don't know. I mean, there are, of course, lesbians in cars historically in cinema. that you can watch on a screen. But I was curious about this one. And I just lived above an Alamo draft house when I was in New York at the time that this came out.

27:42And so I was just like, all right, let me see what's playing tonight. And that one showed up. And Margaret Qualley, I'm immediately sold to see what she's up to. And then I showed up and I was like, maybe I'm not immediately sold to see what she's up to. I like her performance. I really like her. I like Margaret Qualley. I think she went balls to the walls and like did not care what the end result was. I think that it just didn't land with me. I also think, look, I think that is the approach the entire movie is taking. And not to like pre-fight a straw man, but I anticipate this will be one of those episodes where a contingent of our listeners are like, what the fuck are they talking about?

28:20I get angry comments for giving this movie a mildly positive. A polite three stars. Letterboxd rating every time I log in, which is three times, which I do think is a lot of times to have seen this movie. That is wild. This movie is a very breezy, enjoyable 76 minutes. Exactly. It goes down. Like, it's a movie. It's short. You can't be pissed off. It's a movie. You get to the end and you're like, that was, it had all the parts, you know? This, that was, it had all the parts. This movie is very sloppy. Yeah. In a way that is purposeful. That is not me creating, like, an armor of defense of anything you think is bad about it is on purpose.

29:00but we'll talk about the intent behind this movie. And I just think when I watched this movie, which I've now seen twice, I haven't caught up to David yet. I saw it twice in theaters, once at a press screening. Okay. And then I took my friend Molly to see it because... Your best friend. My best friend Molly, because she was like, let's see a movie. And it was kind of the most Molly sort of appropriate movie out there. It can be tough to find a Molly. The death of the theatrical comedy means there are less Molly appropriate. Like she doesn't want to go see a superhero and she doesn't want to see a horror movie.

29:31Yeah. And that tends to be what's in theaters. Yeah. Especially, when did this come out? This was February. Exactly. Especially in those early months. I think it was February of last year. So I saw it again. And I was like, yeah, still cute in my opinion. And I fired it up for this third viewing. And I was like, okay, I think I might be done with Driveaway Dolls. Not in an angry way, but it's just sort of like, I think I've gone as deep as I can on this one. I was feeling very tired and congested last night. I was supposed to go see Weapons past and future guests at Kregger Best movie of the year I refunded my preview night tickets because I was just like I don't feel up for it I don't want to see Weapons if I'm feeling bad and I gotta watch Driveway Dolls and I got into bed and sometimes look our job is very easy but sometimes you're like what's the fucking movie I have to watch tonight even if it's a movie I like I'm like I'm re-watching this and I gotta watch it closely to talk about tomorrow and I put on Driveway Dolls I'm like, I'm having a good time.

30:29I immediately was. It's not bad. I'm having a good time and I'm still going to get to sleep early. Exactly. Like, you can't be mad at that. I feel like any movie that's like short enough that I can digest it like appropriately without being like dreading how long the watch time is. I got to give it a little credit. I certainly I get that some of this sounds like faint praise awards, but I also think we'll talk about the intent of this movie, which is like, A, I went to see this with my sister who is a little older than you, but generationally similar. and it was another, like, we try to find movies that we can go see together.

31:01Yeah. She likes movies more than maybe Molly does, but also there's a lot of stuff she doesn't want to see. And I was like, let's see Driveway Dolls. And she was like, yeah, that looks fun. Like, girls road trip comedy. Yeah, exactly. And then I think it was maybe not until we got into the theater that she was like, Ethan Coen directed this? I thought she knew that was part of the sales pitch. But she was like, well, that's in Congress with what I thought I was going to see, which is I thought this was a movie made by like a 25 year old. Like someone just out of film school. It does feel like that.

31:32I think in a lot of the ways, which is kind of part of its charm is like, I think that the wackiness of it feels it's obviously very intentionally supposed to be sloppy. And I think that that is why I liked aspects of it. But it's also, I feel like it's Achilles heel a little bit in a lot of ways. We will crack open the dossier momentarily, but I think about Connor Ralph, our friend on our Lady Killers episode made, kept making the joke how Lady Killers, what is basically consensus viewed as their worst film, is the first movie in which the Coens both got credited as director because of weird DGA roles.

32:05Okay, I heard about this. Yes. And because you guys, did you talk about it on another episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they don't start actually being co-credited as directors until Lady Killers. And every slam of Lady Killers, Connor said, but you have to remember this is the debut film of a new filmmaking team, so for a first film, it's pretty good. And I do feel like despite all of Ethan Coen's experience and pedigree, this is like a debut film of a new team and a new register. Right. Like this is him trying to do something, even though it has a lot of shared DNA with especially the Coen crime caper comedies.

32:43It is very much the start of a new thing that is continued. And we will see how long it goes on for or if roads re-diverge later.

32:57David? Yes. This episode is brought to you by Mubi, the global film company that champions great cinema. It champions it. Unlike the others. No, they... Decry it. Barbarian it. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover. With Mubi, each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore the best of cinema. You can log on to Mubi and check out all the movies they got. You know, Art House, you know, cool indie stuff, foreign stuff. Okay, this is awesome. What? There's a movie star movie now streaming on Mubi in the U.S. covered on Blank Check soon. Well, I think that's the headline.

33:36Yeah, Die My Love. Yes. You're going to need to watch it if you want to keep up with the show. True. True. I mean, I guess, you know, do what you want. You don't have to, but we recommend viewing the film. Please view the film. Die My Love, Lynn Ramsey's film. Great film. Came out last year. It was a canon that came out last fall in 2025. It's a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness, starring Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for a Golden Globe, Robert Pattinson. It's kind of mostly those two. They're very heavy on the two of them. Yeah, some top shelf.

34:08Nolte? I was going to say, some seasoning of Nolte and Spacek. Like dry age, let me tell you. Oh. Yeah, you've got them in there. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a big showstopper movie for J-Law. And R-Patz. Yeah. And R-Patz knows. He's playing sack and fiddle. Sure. But then there's like a lemon pepper dry rub of Nick Nolte. I love lemon pepper, guys. I love Nick Nolte. I love Nick Nolte, too. Look, it's Lynn Ramsey making her eagerly awaited filmmaking return. Obviously, that's why we're covering her on the pod. We've been waiting for her to make another movie. and it was on the short list for cinematography at the 90th Academy Awards.

34:50I didn't even know that. That's awesome. It's a passionate, complicated, destructive love story between two major stars in Lawrence and Pattinson who'd never been together on screen before. I know. I guess that's not that surprising, but they are quite a pair. The Bat and the Cat. K-A-T-N-I-S-S. Oh, Cat Nis. Yeah. The Bat and the Steak. Mystique, that is. Oh, sure. Yeah, it's an awesome movie. The Steak and the Freak. Is that something? He's played a lot of Freaks. Sure. Sure. Spoiler alert for the episode, but I was a big fan of the film. I know you were. Yes. Ben, probably. Have you seen it yet?

35:23I haven't seen it yet, Ben. Whoa! You're going to like it a lot. It's also based on a book by Ariana Harwick. Mm-hmm. Anyway. There's so much good stuff to watch on Movie. There's also awesome other good stuff. Look, if you're not a member, this is a perfect month to sign up in order to keep up with the show. To stream the best of cinema, you can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash blank check. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

35:59David? Yes? I am so excited about this episode's sponsor. Yes! Me too! Might truly be the most excited I've ever had for anything to sponsor this podcast. We're excited to like sponsors that tell you how to like help your finances. Hey, easy. Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Easy. Today's episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Marie's here too because everyone's so excited. Yeah. I love this movie. I mean, I love this band, this show, this movie. Yes. Important correction. This film is finally coming to theaters.

36:35February 13th is the start of the theatrical rollout. Yeah. From our friends at Neon. Neon's bringing it out. We have been waiting impatiently for other people to see this film. We saw this at South by Southwest. One of the best screenings of my life. Truly. Truly. It was an unbelievable experience. Ben, you were there. Had a blast. And I had never seen or engaged with this show previously. Me neither. Most of the group. Don't really need it. No. You don't need the context to enjoy. Absolutely. It's a big thing. I think you need to know what Toronto is. Because you knew nothing other than us hyping you up for it.

37:09Well, this was the problem. And we should say, it's a city in Canada. Yes. I went in, you guys had just been like, it's the best thing ever. And not just you, other people. I can't believe how good. And I was like, this is so overhyped. And here's the great thing about David. I'm walking in, like, I felt mad about it. I was just like, they've primed it too much for me. I like that you acknowledge this. Because sometimes if we tell you something's good, I see you go, like, put your fists up. Well, I'm just like, relax, because I need to, I can't go in with too much hype, because that's not good for my critical experience of a movie.

37:38and then I thought it was better than the hype. This is the thing. This movie is truly a miracle. I think it is the funniest movie of the last 10 years easily. And listeners of the show know I am often bemoaning the state of the theatrical comedy. And this is a movie that provides the thing I've been longing for, which is you go see this with a crowd. It is just electric every five seconds, rolling laughter. And the movie just builds and builds and builds. This is a movie for Matt Johnson. Yes. Director Blackberry, one of my favorite movies the last couple of years, him and Jay McCarroll started as a web series, became a TV series, and now is a movie.

38:17But you don't need to know any of that. This works as a clean entry point. It's a movie about two friends who are obsessed with their band playing at one venue. They want to play at the Rivoli. They want to play at the Rivoli. That's all you need to know about these guys. Before the lights went down at the South by Southwest screening, I believe you turned to me and said, what do I need to know? And I said, all you need to know is they want to play the Rivoli. They got to play the Rivoli. I've been to Toronto many times Have you been to the Rivoli? Never, I've stayed on Queen West though And I've certainly walked by the Rivoli many times And I've always been like, oh yeah, the Rivoli It's not Carnegie Hall No, it's a fucking bar What do you mean it's the most important music venue in Canada?

38:54You never see these guys practice their music But all you know is that every episode starts with Here's the plan, here's how we play the Rivoli We gotta play the Rivoli And this movie starts from there and explodes in unbelievable ways I think this movie is truly like a magic trick beyond just how funny it is. And for how much it's caked in the deep lore of this Nirvana, the band, the show universe that's existed for 15 years. You can just go in knowing nothing and be blown away. And for a movie that seems kind of slapdash and roughly made from the start, it starts to pull off genuine like cinematic magic tricks where you cannot believe how this thing was made.

39:31What was my Letterboxd review, Griff? Did you see it? No, please tell me. LOL, how did they make this? Truly. That was how I felt. How did this get made? Serious questions. I was also just like, how did they make this? I don't get it. You don't understand how they're getting away with it legally. You don't understand how it was cleared for release. And there is a melding of scripted and non-scripted, them engaging with real people on the street where the line between what is planned and what is not boggles your brain. It was my favorite thing I saw all of 2025. And now it's coming out in 2026.

40:05Now, listen, I do have to do some talking points. Do some talking points. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie is in theaters February 13th. Get tickets now. We must say this. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. They're very clear that we have to say the title of this thing a few times. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Why? It's a really simple, easy title. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. It really is a kind of like going cold expecting something fun. I don't think you need too much more than that. No. I know it sounds unwieldy or whatever, but just like, I think you're going to have a pretty good time.

40:37If you trust our opinion at all, take this recommendation. Yes. Don't look it up. Go in. And I really, really doubt there is any chance you will be disappointed. In theaters, February 13th. Get your tickets now. Get your tickets now. Nirvana, the man, the show, the movie.

41:01Nirvana, the man, the show, the movie. David, you want to crack open the dossier. Yeah, so Drive Away Dolls. So yeah, so it is, you're right, it is Ethan Coen's feature filmmaking debut in a way, but it's not really. He'd actually made all those other movies with Joel. But the point I want to make here is he has been very upfront the entire time of like, she co-directed this movie with me. She cannot get that credit because the DGA, she's not a member, and I'm already pre-established as part of another team. But much like the early Coen's films, It is written by both of them, produced by both of them, directed by him, edited by her.

41:35But he's like, we did everything together. Trisha Cook. Trisha Cook. Grew up in Southern California in a town called La Mirada. But since no one knows it, she usually says she's from Whittier, which is where Richard Nixon is from, of course. Got it. Born in a somewhat conservative community. But around the age of 15 or 16, she realized that she didn't like boys. and then she attended USC as a theater major and then went to grad school at NYU where it's easier to frequent a lesbian bar, perhaps. Yes. And date other women and she tapped into queer scenes and experienced her queerness in full ways.

42:16And at NYU, she remembers that Joel and Ethan came to screen Raising Arizona and she remembers that she and her friends were not interested. What'd they go to see instead? Koyaanis Katsi. Boom. Which, of course, is a movie that I love very much and that we've covered on this show. This is a little different from Raising Arizona. Less dialogue. A little bit less talky. But after her graduation, she sought a job in the camera department on Miller's Crossing, which was the third Coen Brothers movie. She's like, I wasn't a big Coen Brothers fan, but I needed a job. At NYU, she trained as an editor.

42:50But it's the kind of classic, you're out of film school, you've trained a little bit in everything, you're looking for any position you can get. She gets the camera position and has the boldness to sort of make the play to get into the editing room. And because, right, she's working on it. Once she's in there, she's like, if you have any room, it's like an apprentice in the cutting room. And the Coens are like, yeah, we'll make some room for you. And she works as assistant editor on Barton Fink and Hudsucker Proxy. She's an associate editor on Fargo. She's a co-editor on The Big Lebowski. Oh, brother, where art thou a man who wasn't there?

43:22Of course, the Coens are essentially their own editors at that point under the pseudonym Roderick James. and soon after they met Ethan expressed romantic interest in Trisha Cook and she told him I'm a lesbian I'm not interested and that's the end of the story they never got married or made a film together they got married in 1993 their marriage is non-traditional they're very upfront about it she has a partner Ethan has another partner they've been in this dynamic for over 20 years they have two kids together she said that it was like she was very upfront with him They continued being friends.

43:57And then at some point, to her surprise, she started developing romantic feelings. But obviously, it is a multifaceted thing. Ethan's line that jumped out to me is he said he applies the Alfred E. Newman philosophy to it, which is what me worried. That is correct. That is how he explains his marriage. They have a son named Buster. Buster. Scruggs. And a daughter named Dusty.

44:21And so she slowed down. Once they had kids, She raised the kids a little bit, you know, blah, blah, blah. Started writing more. And essentially, you know, she made whatever. She's sort of like got like a bit of Coen's. She obviously like works with them and all that. Like she's got a little bit of the Coen's in her, but she's got other interests that they don't really explore. Not a lot of queer characters in Coen Brothers movies, period. Right. I mean, Miller's Crossing has like, you know, closeted characters. There are a lot of coded closeted. But yes, like it's not territory. They've really dipped their feet in too much.

45:00No, it's another quote in the dossier that Ethan says, I'm dumb and straight and she's fun and queer. Right. And Joel and I could never make a movie like this because we're both dumb and straight. She worked on a documentary film called Where the Girls Are about the Dinah Shore weekend in Palm Springs. It's a short I've been trying to find online. I've never seen it. Yeah. She came up with the idea for Drive Away Dykes with her friend Mara Molina when they were drinking at a bar. In the late 90s. Early 2000s, but yes. Yeah. That's really all they had. But this screenplay, she starts working on it with Ethan.

45:35They liked the title. They were like, we'll just do an exploitation movie. Right? We'll just do... What kind of movie would have this title? It's also really funny where he was... In interviews, he was like, we want to make our queer homages to Roger Corman movies, even though I've never... Neither of us have seen a Roger Corman movie. And then Trish Cook's like, I've seen Roger Corman movies. Or not Roger Corman, I'm sorry, Russ Meyer. And then she was like, but I think in a way they're more homages to like Doris Wishman. And Ethan's like, even though we've never seen Doris Wishman, and she's like, I've seen Doris Wishman.

46:10The Jamie character in the film, who is played, of course, by Margaret Qualley, is sort of Trish's idealized, like, I wish I could be this liberated and sort of free-spirited and go to the bar and just connect with people and be carefree and have sex all the time. But it's not exactly, it's not her at all, really. It's more of a sort of fantasy hero. And then Marion is the more extreme projection, the opposite direction of the self-fear. This feels like an itty-go movie. Right. Yeah. So they write this thing together. They write it probably in a similar way to the Coen's brothers where they're just in a room talking to each other, typing, whatever.

46:50Yes, I think they write very similarly. And then they put it on a shelf. I never trained as a writer. It's not how I primarily think of myself, but I had all these ideas and characters that were things that Ethan would never come up with himself, and he's so helpful with the dialogue and the structure. They write this together, and it's sort of talked about in a way very similar to their process of writing Barton Fink to get them out of the writer's block on Miller's Crossing of Ethan being like, it's nice to be able to go off and do these side things and like Ethan's written fucking poetry in one act.

47:21I read a short story collection with the ear on the cover. He does a lot of stuff like this that feels like, I just want to like... Get it out. Work things through the system without the same pressure and seriousness of the movies. They have this script. They pitch it to Alison Anders, who's sort of like a fairly legendary indie director of the 90s, I feel. Like less known these days maybe, but Gas Food Lodging was like a big early 90s indie film about women. Yeah. I think she is one of the few narrative filmmakers to get a MacArthur Genius Grant. Wow. If I am not wrong. She did get a MacArthur Genius Grant.

48:00Yeah. I'll tell you that much. They pitch it to her. They call it a naughty comedy. It is announced. Yes. Alessandra is into it. Yeah. To your point, Maya, a big sort of birthing point for this movie. But they never got funding. Is that Trisha Cooke is seeing like like a tiny wave of lesbian stories being made by lesbian filmmakers in the 90s. And she's like, those movies all have some sense of self-importance. They tend to be, right, like sort of more tragic or... An issues drama or even something like, but I'm a cheerleader. Yeah. It needs to be a movie that is like about coming out, about the self-identification and is a comedy that is like so over-cranked to sell that kind of thing.

48:45and she was like, where is like the trashy like 50s B movie where that's just the stated reality? Where that is not the conflict of the film in any way. It is just the starting point for the world and the characters. The other thing is she's like going to NYU in the 90s where there are a lot of lesbian bars. There's a filmmaker, Alina Street, who I've worked with before who's been doing this thing called The Lesbian Bar Project for the last couple of years. That's a documentary series about how much they have disappeared where I think it's like low double digits for the entire country now. And in the 90s and the early 2000s, there were a lot.

49:23It's one of the reasons why, even though it took 20 years to make this film, she decided we should still set it in 1999. Aside from like cell phone tech reasons, she was like, it actually just rings false to be like two women can make a road trip itinerary based on multiple lesbian bars in every town. I did not know that. And that was one of the things that I was thinking about while I was watching the movie He was like, immediately you're hit with the 1999 timestamp at the very beginning. And I felt like while watching it, I at least, because I didn't know about the fact that there is such a lack of lesbian bars now presently in the United States.

49:56I was like 35 or something. And I live near one of them in Nashville. Shout out Lipstick Lounge. But I didn't know that. And so it makes a lot more sense, I think, to have it grounded in the understanding that she had, too, of a road trip planned around that being a primary function of why they were going to certain locations. Yeah. But for 1999, given the timestamp, I felt like while I was watching, I was like, what is indicative about this time period that's like present in the movie? Just because I don't know. For me, it felt like it was hard to be like, what about this is specifically in the 90s?

50:27I mean, whenever I see that, I'm like, first and foremost, I assume they don't want to have to deal with cell phones. Yeah, that's fair. Right. But the bar thing makes more sense. Totally. And I also think it's when she writes the script and it's when it's like this. I wish this movie could exist now. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And even when they're trying to like do it with Alison Anders and everything they always talked about they couldn't get the financing because it was like It wasn't tragic enough It wasn't your you know Mysterious Skin a movie they love which is sort of made around that time Gregoraki Now Gregoraki made you know more flippant films before then But very small But at tiny budgets Mysterious Skin was a small budget movie They wanted a much bigger budget like I'm sure Drive-Away Dolls at this version of it costs what do you think?

51:11They say like 20? Yeah, 15, 20 million dollars. Probably not that much then, but still they wanted too much money. And 2006 or 2005 is when Dirty Shame comes out, which is the last time he's gotten a movie made, and that was the only time he's gotten a budget like that in the modern era, and he is like, I'd love to make another movie, but I'm not going to make a movie for$300 ,000. I'm fucking 70. So I think there was this feeling of like, even when they could get big stars attached, the studio didn't want to give them that amount of money for something that seemed kind of like a lark and I'm sure there were stars who were like hesitant to do it.

51:45It just felt like circumstantially this is not the time that we'll accept this film. Now, the boys make Hail Caesar and Buster Scruggs their last two movies together. But to be clear, they put this movie on a shelf. Essentially, they just have, they're like, we have two and a half scripts is how they described it that we just kind of put in a drawer and said maybe the kids will find them. Honey Don't. Honey Don't is the second script and there's some supposedly a third. Go Beavers. It is called Go Beavers. Okay, cool. It might be a college horror movie. Fine. Okay. But yes. Now, they would just mention, oh, there's this trilogy of lesbian genre films.

52:22Honey, Don't, which is obviously, by the time this is coming out, has been released and forgotten by society, is more of like a hard-boiled detective story. It still has comedy in it, but it is not as light as this movie. And yeah. I mean, it's still funny. Whatever, you'll see it. Probably. Maybe not. Maybe we'll skip that one. We're doing it on the podcast. I might just skip it. Tune in next week. And, but, so, Ethan says, Hail Caesar and Buster Scruggs were very hard movies to make, heavy productions, you know, like, not dramatically so, but just like, you know, they're big, complicated period movies.

53:01Both of those movies are basically eight movies. That's the thing he talked about is, like, Buster Scruggs felt like separate productions. There's a bunch of stories that are not connected. that had to keep resetting. Hail Caesar has all these different Hail Caesar has all the movies within the movies. And also like they, True Grit not too shortly before that. He was like, we did too many westerns. We did too many environmental things. He always sort of talked about it. It was just like, I felt burnout. It was starting to feel more like a job than a joy. I don't want to get stuck in that rut. I need some time away.

53:31Joel sort of felt similarly but maybe not as extreme as me. There was nothing dramatic. They've been very clear that nothing dramatic has happened. They see each other all the time. It's not like there is a schism exactly. It's more that Ethan got really exhausted. Right. Of the actual wear of the production and the pressures and the money and all this sort of stuff. Now, Joel goes off to make Macbeth, which is so clearly what happens to Ethan as well, which is like Francis McDormand wanted to do that. He wanted to do it too, but it's a project that's generating with her. She's sort of challenging him to do something like that.

54:04Ethan would never have wanted to do it. They were both very clear. They both basically do projects with their wives that feel like very deep collaborations of the thing they would never do on their own or with their brother, right? But the timeline is like this sort of whisper, much like the Soderbergh retirement of like, people are saying they might take a break. Then they're being upfront in interviews, right? And they're just like, we're just tired. Ethan in particular is burned out. He wants some space. Then Joel and Francis announced Macbeth. And you're like, okay, cool. Interesting. I guess that's the kind of thing that Joel does while Ethan is on hiatus.

54:39Then Ethan announces the Jerry Lee Lewis movie, which comes about strangely as like their friend T-Bone Burnett had been working on some larger project that included a lot of archival footage that wasn't just about Jerry Lee Lewis, but never quite came together. And he's just like, we have all this material. I know you're a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis, his personal life, not his music. Ethan, to be clear, said the opposite thing. do you want to do something with this? And they were like, in deep lockdown pandemic, I think what happened to a lot of aging filmmakers who were like, I'm getting tired, I'm slowing down.

55:14Then there's like 18 months where they're doing nothing and they're like, fuck. What if I never make anything ever again? So they start editing this during the lockdown and are like, this kind of got, like Trisha and I are doing this together, working with pre-existing material. It's just sort of a construction project. Movie's admittedly very sloppy. but they're like, it got us kind of back into the rhythm of doing it. And so coming out of lockdown, they're suddenly like, do we try to get those scripts made? So even though Ethan was the one who had sort of kickstarted the retirement, or at least the hiatus, now suddenly it's like, we've sold two movies and we're going to shoot them back to back.

55:51So they decided to keep it a period piece, because of course they could have spruced it up, I suppose. When it was prepped in the early 2000s, oh, it's just shocking to learn that Holly Hunter was considered for a role. Doesn't seem like the type. Selma Blair, Christina Applegate, Chloe Savini. I mean, we're just sort of naming actresses. People who make a lot of sense. Indie movies and stuff. When the project was revived, they cast Geraldine pretty much right away based on Blockers, which is a movie she's very funny in. You know what she's very funny in? Literally every movie she's ever done.

56:22She's basically the most luminous, beautiful person in the world. I'm obsessed with her. She is one of those people who I just think is always funny without ever feeling like she's pushing. Also, I never get over her accent. She's a babe. No, but I'm saying that she's Australian. I know. She's got a great accent. She has the most immaculate American accent. That's Australian power. They're always doing all the accents. But she's great in pretty much everything I've ever seen her in. But it is interesting that they cast her in this role off of Blockers because in Blockers, she's sort of like the horny, chaotic one.

56:53And in this one, she's the straight-laced, you know, fuss budget. but so she did audition for, yeah, she auditioned for Marion. Yeah, I don't know. I thought the research threw me. I thought she was, yeah. Margaret Qualley also auditioned for Marion. Okay. Oh. But they loved Geraldine. So she tried again for Jamie and she got the part. Wow. Crazy. JJ really is finding gems here. What are you going to do? They all wanted... He auditioned and received the role. Beanie Feldstein, who's very funny in this movie, I think. She's great. You know, she had a great time making it. Matt Damon shows up for a day.

57:37Ethan had a great quote about Beanie Feldstein. What's his quote? Which he said, there's nothing better than hiring a great actor and just telling them to play angry. Right. And I'm like, that is so much of the Coen's interest. It's someone they think is a skilled actor and then writing like pages of just furious dialogue. I thought that's so fun to be the actor. It's always fun. Yeah. They bring in Miley Cyrus and are like, so I don't know if you've heard of Cynthia Plastercaster, who is basically who she's playing in. And she was like, oh, I'm very aware of Cynthia Plastercaster. And we were like, okay, great.

58:07So then she got it. But yeah, I think Miley and Damon basically are just doing like a day. I assume Pedro Pascal similarly, but they made his head. Yes. You probably got like a lot of Domingo for a week or so. Yeah. Right. I mean, I don't know. Right. Everyone's just kind of dropping in. The first gal above the title, front and center on the poster. Miley Cyrus uncredited. Ben, you had not seen this movie before. No. I assumed you are familiar with the Cynthia Plastercaster legend. Or did you not know about it before this movie? No, I did not. So the Miley Cyrus character is based on this real woman.

58:41The film is dedicated to her. Yes. She died in 2022. Yes. Dedicated to Cynthia Plastercaster, 1947, 2022. We remember is the dedication at the end of the film. but she was this infamous, groupie, I put in very strong air quotes, where her signature was every rock star she slept with, she would take a cast of their erect penis. Frank Zappa gave her a lot of money, but never got his dick cast. He really liked what she was doing, but he never did it himself. He's a real dang ass freak. Famously, Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix is maybe her most famous. I remember that. Maybe Jim Morrison too. Jim Morrison got his dick out for somebody?

59:25Are you sure? That guy? But it's like... I feel like every story about Jim Morrison is like, and then he got the concert ended early because he fucking got his dick out. He took his dick out. It's just all he ever did. The dick wanted to do a jazz set. Rock piano. Probably, yes. Oh my God. I mean... I believe there's a famous museum in Iceland that is like a museum of penises. And I believe some of her most famous works are housed there. What do you mean? it's called the Iceland Phallogical Museum and it is the world's largest display of penises have you been there Maya? no I haven't been there David but I have heard of it is the Rasputin jar there?

1:00:01I don't know there's the infamous Rasputin jar I don't think it's there okay I'll let you guess what's in the jar I'd need more info I would know yeah it is funny that they took so fucking long to kill Rasputin right like the whole thing where they was like they shot him they threw him in the river they stabbed him he was like I'm still alive and they were like Jesus Christ and he's finally dead and they were like, get his dick. Wait a second. They're like pushing him into the incinerator. Hold on. Hold on. I got a jar. Wait, wait, wait. I think this is a very clever thing. What's a clever thing?

1:00:33To reverse engineer a noir caper around. Around Cynthia Plastercaster style. To the twist of this movie that is hidden in the marketing. Right. Is that the entire conspiracy around this movie is that a conservative politician is worried that his reputation could be ruined by a mold that exists of his penis from the one-time quote that he smoked marijuana. And the idea of this briefcase that is five men whose reputations could be ruined as like conservative ball busters by knowing that they had promiscuous use, I think is fun. I just think it's like a fun twist on the like what's in the suitcase thing.

1:01:12It's perfect. To be like, it's the goofiest and most embarrassing thing that these guys are so in their heads about. It's the weirdest form of blackmail that I've seen in a story. Absolutely. But it also speaks to the sort of mission statement of this movie, which is just like, this is silly. This movie is about people shooting each other over a briefcase full of dicks. It's literally a briefcase full of dicks. The Kinsey Institute also has many of her casts. Just FYI. I'm just really... It's a very academic voice here. Yeah. It's funny because it's like I feel like this was this kind of weird underground whim of hers and then culture and society shifted and by the 2000s, museums were like can we get some weird dicks?

1:02:00So many of these dicks died at 27 that it's like we didn't know we weren't going to have them around for this long. Anyway, so they made the movie together. Trish is basically co-director of the movie in every way but name because of as we've said, DGA stuff. Ethan is a DJ member. He can't exactly be joining a new collaboration without a lot of work. So, yeah. He really liked making this movie. To quote Ethan Coen, as someone says in John Carpenter's The Thing, I'm all better now. I think it's Wilford Brimley right before he turns into a raving space monster. It's the thing they kept saying was they were both feeling so run down and worn out that they were like, if we're going to make a movie again, we need to have fun.

1:02:45And this is a movie that's clearly just people being like, let's just have fun. Let's have some fun, yeah. No, I understand it is very frustrating and perhaps perplexing to some people who are used to the very meticulous, intentional, tight craft of the Coen Brothers movies they know to watch a movie that has, like, every fucking iMovie special effect edit in it and, like, basically, like, fart sound effects and feels kind of like, I wouldn't say indifferently constructed, but feels loose. But he very much talks about this. It's his other stuff he does, like these books, like he'll do these nights of one-act plays, his poetry, these things where it's clear, like, I need to let off steam and that stuff doesn't get as much spotlight on it.

1:03:32And this is because it's a movie more studied, you know, in comparison to his canon. the, you know, the crew, you know, are you, Wenger Wenger Wenger oh yes you know is the DP incredibly respected who did power the you know like it's not Carter Burwell of course shows up to do the score like it's not like but a lot of their collaborators are different on this yeah it's like half and half they make it clear that like Deakins probably would not have operated the camera this way had they you know had they used him right they shot it in Pittsburgh even though obviously it's a road trip movie. Many of the bars in the film are inspired by real-life bars that Cook enjoyed like Sugar and Spice.

1:04:23A bar in Brooklyn that doesn't exist anymore called Caddyshack. The Cubby Hole, which is a famous bar. That's one of the last ones still standing in New York. Yeah, well, Ginger is, of course, in Park Slope. Okay. It's the one I have been to, and I love that bar. David put his hands over his heart. I've been going there since I used to live next door to it in like 2008. And one thing you might not have noticed about this film, it's a little different from other Coen Brothers movies or whatever, is it's filled with lesbian sex. Yes. To quote Trisha Cook, I'm very sex positive. I think there's a lot of embarrassment around sex and shame.

1:04:55And if you have too much sex, you're just considered a slut. But let's just embrace love and sex, especially if it's good humor and not crass, though I'm not against crassness. Yes. I will also say this. I would say this film is not exactly crass, but it is, you know, it's juvenile in good, fun ways. It's silly. I also think a lot of embarrassment and shame around sex is how sex is almost exclusively portrayed in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen working together. You know, like sex is usually something that is like embarrassing or is used as like a weapon or something that feels tortured. it's just it is very odd to watch this movie introduce characters like in like states of pure ecstasy which is not a thing that's your usual entry point into the world of like Coen Brothers characters

1:05:50ding ding yes well David you can't say yes it's not an automatic door I have to who's at the door hey how's it going guys and who are you who am I I don't know I'm a cool dude. My name is Rich Young Nephew Pennybags. Okay, so instead of being old Uncle Pennybags, you're sort of like a new, younger, kind of hipped up, poochified. Right. I would say poochie's kind of nephew Pennybags-ified. But yes, Rich Uncle Pennybags from the Monopoly game is my uncle. And, you know, I can't take anything away from his success and his career, but I like to do things a little bit differently. I like your chain wallet.

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1:11:26Let's talk about the film Driverway Dolls. Yes. It's about a couple girls. Jamie and Marion. We open with I've said their names many times. Pedro Pascal. We open with Pedro Pascal. In a gay bar doing full kind of like noir. Wait, is it a gay bar? Or is he just in a regular bar, but he's a gay man, which is why I thought it flips later on in the movie. I thought, oh, you might be right. Yeah, you're right. I was really thrown, because I've never seen that guy in a movie before. Who is he? I don't know. What's he up to? Can we talk about, because this is basically the start of the two-year run of Pedro Pascal being in everything.

1:12:03Okay, yeah. Yes, he's in a lot of things in 2024 alone. In 2025, he's taken a break and only been in three movies that came out within a month of each other or whatever. And then next year, of course, he will be in the Mandalorian Krogu all over it, I assume. Yes, all in it. He's inside. And then he is maybe either the most important Avenger or has five minutes in Avengers Doomsday, whatever they settle on for that one. I just think there was this barrage of him getting announced attached to every single thing. And even the amount of stuff he's dropped out of, like the aforementioned weapons, right?

1:12:36Yeah, he was going to be the lead of weapons. Because his dance card got too full. He was going to be the Brolin role, I assume. I find it funny. and it started with this film that I kept being like, how does he have the time to do all these movies? And then other than Fantastic Four, the answer to every single one of those is he's not in it as much as you think. Because he's not in it. He has been. It's true. Like Materialist, he's very much the third lead. Absolutely. At least screen time. And I liked him a lot in that, but like Freaky Tales, the movie that only I have seen. I know, I watched it.

1:13:04It's good, right? I thought it was okay. It bounced off me a little bit, but I liked it okay. I think he's really good. He's good in it. I think his section's kind of the best. It is. But that's a pure omnibus movie. Yeah, he's only in 20 minutes. Did you like him in Materialist? I liked him in Materialist. I think that I have like a lukewarm take about Pedro Pascal. What's that? I feel like, I think maybe my take about Pedro Pascal is that I have a lukewarm feeling towards Pedro Pascal's performances in some of his movies. I really like him. I think he is like fun to watch on screens, but I would say the people in the movies that he has been in have been people that I've been more interested in watching.

1:13:43Maya, I completely agree with you. And I don't think he's been good in a movie. Period? Whoa! In a long time. And when I, and I don't mean that, like maybe, all right, he hasn't been great, if that makes sense. Like, I think he's usually pretty good. But when I ask people this question, and I have been doing it because he's on everyone's mind, of what is Pedro Pascal's greatest performance, almost everyone says Game of Thrones, which I think is the right answer, but you're kind of like, right. Five episodes. He's still kind of dining out on that. Who the fuck was he on that? He was, of course.

1:14:17Did you watch Game of Thrones? Yeah, I did. I just have no memory. Period. He played... Just generally. He played Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper. He's the guy who shows up in, what is it, season three, from Dorne being like, you killed my fucking, you know, wife. Like I am, sorry, sister, not wife. You know, I have a big spear. I want to have a fight. You don't remember him? And he's like, he's bisexual. He's got a paramour. He's like, he's coming in. Do you care about Game of Thrones? I haven't watched it. Okay. All right. Well, I'm the only Game of Thrones fan here, I guess. I just remember. I remember my brother, James, who was watching it.

1:14:54Who is this fucking guy? Who is this guy? Is this guy going to be a big movie star? Yeah. And he was already at that point. Because what is he? he's 50 now. So he was already like probably 40. Yep. And like he'd been bumming around in movies for years not getting famous. Small parts of things. You know, being in stuff. Yes. And then suddenly it was like he was like great to have as your like third guy. Right? Like Great Wall, Kingsman 2. I mean, Kingsman 2 is like right, Great Wall, he's the second guy. Kingsman 2 is we couldn't get Channing Tatum for the full time so can you do half the part.

1:15:26Triple Frontier, he's like kind of a third guy in that. Right. He does a couple seasons of Narcos. You know, Wonder Woman 84, he's the villain. Beale Street, he's got a good small part, but it's sort of like... And he's always totally solid. It's sort of like he's like high-level character actor with matinee looks and charisma. I was talking about this with our buddy Mike Carlson of Podcast The Ride, where he was just like, am I crazy in thinking? He is the rare case of someone who exploded where you can't point to, and that's the moment where it happened. where it's like exactly what you're saying.

1:16:00Game of Thrones, everyone's like, this guy's good. Then there's like six years of him showing up and doing sturdy work. Being good. And then in like 2019, everyone decided, I think he's the guy now. He's the guy. But there was not the role that made everyone jump to him. I haven't seen the Cage movie, which I know everyone says he's fun in, the unbearable weight of massive talent. He's really good in that. But I know that's sort of a jokey supporting role. And I thought he was good in Gladiator 2, but that's a movie that kind of doesn't know what to do with him. And that seems like the inverse of the Kingsman thing of maybe he wasn't available as much as they wanted.

1:16:32That's exactly what happened with that movie. Because he, I mean, you know, spoiler alert, he dies and I was told by someone like, initially he didn't die and then they were like, oh, he's got to go. Pedro's now kind of a Sean Bean because of scheduling. I mean, the bubble is the worst movie ever made. Oh, God. Don't let us talk about that. Right, it's 20, Freaky Tales, Driveaway Dolls, The Uninvited, Wild Robot, which he's very good in. He's crazy. He's the uninvited. He's good in Wild Robot. That's the movie that fucking Walton Goggins' wife wrote and directed that has every actor in it because of being friends.

1:17:08He hosts SNL. He does the SNL 50th. He does the fucking Spike Jonze AirPods commercial. Eddington. I think he's very well deployed in Eddington. I think that's a good performance. But it's not, again, it's not the crux of the movie. Could we unpack the AirPods 4 commercial? Just talk about some of our favorite standout movies. You want to do a full denim invasion on this? I think we might actually, yeah. You know what? We should just do a separate ad. I feel like that's the moment when that commercial starts playing, that's the moment where everyone's like, okay, too much. Yes. You can't also be in ads.

1:17:40And it's also because since everyone loves him, and the weird answer to this is like, I think he's become more of a star because of press tours than performances. He's lovable. He's good on SNL. He is. He's charismatic. Yeah, et cetera. He's got a great mustache. He does. He does. He's a good looking guy. I think he's fine on The Last of Us, but I think he was not well cast and whatever. That show just kind of went well. I think Eddington and Materialist cast him very well because in both cases, he's kind of a fake movie star in them. That's what I like about it, right? I'm like, this is him acknowledging that the movie is about the idea of him being the guy and he is good at showing how much of a kind of facade it is.

1:18:19Yeah. I think Fantastic Four is like a pretty brutal miscasting. he's oddly cast and or the movie isn't working to like fit the character around him or whatever I was questioning it when they announced him I like that movie a lot more than you did but I cannot deny that like the movie's biggest issue in a way is that he is not the right motor for that vehicle or yeah or just change cast him and then yeah just change the part a little bit I don't know he feels uncomfortable in that movie he does But that movie also is just kind of like earless. But I wonder if part of it is that that's the only movie that's asked him to like really be the guy at the center.

1:19:00Maybe. In a certain way that is maybe not what he's good at doing. Driveaway Dolls did. He's at the center of this movie. For 90 seconds. I mean, this is the thing. When he does stuff like this, I'm like, I love this guy. It's cool that he showed up for a day and did this. And used his cachet. Like that's the part of him I really like. Yeah. And I also think like in 90 seconds with almost no dialogue, you're like, he's having fun here. Yes. You're like, this guy's like making comedic choices. I don't want to oversell this performance, but I'm just like... I thought it was good. He's enjoying the broadness of it.

1:19:34He's unscrewing like a wine cork. Like it's good. He's doing business, but this guy is basically chased down a dark alley with a briefcase and then killed. And then we hard cut to Cunnilingus. Is that correct? Yeah, hard cut to a sex scene. Yes. And Jamie, our character, our hero Jamie, played by Margaret Qualley, is a free-spirited lady in Philadelphia who has a girlfriend, Beanie Feldstein Asuki, but their relationship is essentially imploding because Jamie sleeps around a lot, I guess. She's in the middle of a hookup. Right. And... With a cop? Is that what... Beanie's the cop. Beanie's the cop.

1:20:13This is a friend of hers. Yeah, but I remember all the cop paraphernalia. Yes. Yes. Right. I love a classic answering machine goes off. while you're home. Give you some exposition about the character and how their message works. Another reason for this movie to be set in 1999. You know, that it's just like a tape goes like, beep! I mean... And there's no way to turn it off. The fucking Big Lebowski, the dude is not in. It is a good way to, yeah, to set out the, yeah. Have you seen Big Lebowski? I haven't. Wow. I know. I guess Big Lebowski is the second most sexual film in the canon behind this.

1:20:49And yet... Right, It feels a little overwhelmed by sex. Yeah, but in Big Lebowski, I mean, I just, I love that movie. But it's like Julianne Moore being like, you know, so sexual at him and he's just like, uh-huh. It's funny. And even his sexual fantasies, he has no agency. But, you know, Jamie's a free spirit and she barely wears clothes and she has a great time and then she's got a friend. She has the best look. Go ahead. Her character, I just, I love the cut off sleeves. Yeah. I love the haircut. It's kind of like rocker chick. Like all of her fits throughout. I'm just like, damn, I want to cut my sleeves off.

1:21:31You can, man. I don't know. It's not quite the gun show. You're working on it. I'm working on it. You're working on it. Yeah. I just want to call out, Pedro Pascal is credited at the end of this film as penis collector. I think I saw that when I watched the credits for the first time and I laughed. There are a lot of characters in the movie that don't have proper names. You know, it's the goon, the goon, the chief, penis collector. But we're introduced to Marion at her office job being sort of hit on by a wet blanket dude. She is literally buttoned down. She dresses like office Austin Powers. Yeah, she's very overdressed.

1:22:17I think her intro scene is very funny. Just her manner and the way of shutting the guy down and all that. I think if she has a fastball, a special move, she is better at doing high-energy deadpan than almost anyone else. You know? She's working. You know, she's in stuff. But what can we do to make her America's sweetheart or whatever? Geraldine. To go back to earlier points, she is very much a star where you're like, we don't make the movies that help her. Yeah. You know? And when she like took over the role in Thunderbolts that Io vacated, you're sort of just like, I guess that is good for her.

1:22:58Like just anything to get her more exposure. That role was bigger than I thought it was going to be when you hear like, oh, she's the assistant. You're like, well, that sounds like two scenes. And I like that she's got like flirtation with Sebastian Stan. At least they're letting her not just be a functionary. She's going to be Songbird, right? Isn't that the idea? Does that mean anything to you, Maya? The idea that Geraldine Vizwanathan is going to be Songbird? That was a lot of talking coming at me for just a second. She might be Songbird. She might be Songbird. I actually, I do love the MCU.

1:23:28I fell off after. Did you grow up with the MCU? I did. I had the encyclopedias. I still have the encyclopedias. But were you a comics person or was movie universe the entry? Mostly movies. I think comics kind of came later. But I love the MCU. I went and saw Thunderbolts just because it was like the first movie in a long time that I had heard like, yeah, it's good. It's different than what they'd been doing because I got tired. It's different from what they had been doing, which was bad movies. Yes, exactly. Did you see Fantastic Four? I didn't yet, but it's on my list. I have to do it. I was doing my homework for this guy's.

1:23:58You're doing the song? Yeah, the music. No, look, I like that movie and yet I think you're better off watching seven Coen Brothers movies in a month. I had a great time, yeah. They're rushing to the theater. I'm not going to argue. But yeah, my Geraldine question, right. There's a 10 years ago, hey, you're going to play Mel in this movie, but we have plans for you to be songbird in three more movies. That's exciting. Who knows? Now it's kind of like, oh, you're going to be songbird. And it's like, yeah, in what? Like, what do you actually have going on, guys? To what end? Yeah. She works a lot.

1:24:28She does. And I feel like she gets... She's very funny in Ojai. Good work. She made with Molly Gordon, who I think she's friends with. Yes. She's, you know, she's great. I just want her to be in more stuff. Like Broken Hearts Gallery, was meant to be a theatrical movie. I had movie stunk. I'm sorry. But I remember the reviews at the time being like, when is someone going to ride a good vehicle for her? I watched that being like, there's a lot of that energy around her. A rom-com, let's go, baby. And it was pretty bad. And she's so goodness, and I do think she's like the best reason to see this, is it is the best Geraldine Viswanathan vehicle we have gotten so far.

1:25:01Absolutely. She is very much the heart of the movie. Yes. Even though it's sort of Kuali driving the story. The emotional arc of the movie is entirely her. She's so big. It's like so hard to have the grumpy sunshine, Bert and Ernie vibe of like Geraldine's character. Miriam is such a wet blanket. She's tough. She's a tough thing. But that's what I mean about the high energy deadpan thing. You know, like she still does feel like she exists in this world that is pitched at such a high register. David's hugging baby joy. Is there a point you want to make? Margaret's character, Margaret Colley's character, whose name, of course, and I'm checking now, is Jamie.

1:25:39me. I keep forgetting the name. It's like, yes, does she have an arc? Her arc is that she maybe learns to be 5 % less much, right? Like, it's just like, hey, Jamie, dial it down slightly. Sometimes you go a little overboard. She is, you know, she represents my favorite Ethan Coen thing, which is the character who takes 18 paragraphs to get across a one-sentence idea. She reminds me of Walter in Big Lebowski, but like in a positive energy way instead of a negative energy way. Yeah. Not just in that she won't shut the fuck up, but also in that, like, she will start doing a plan without even checking with anyone.

1:26:16Like, she'll fucking graffiti the car. Like, she'll just sort of do stuff where you're like, why would you do that? That's actively harmful to what we're doing. Those characters are often a little evil or at least malicious and dark. Yeah, exactly. And she's not. It's like the professor of lady killers and all these people, like, I mean, he's well-intentioned, but Nick Cage in Raising Arizona, who's similarly kind of this, like, mischievous. I mean, the, I've had it with love. I know bards and troubadours are high on it, but I don't believe it's relevant to the modern 20th, soon-to-be 21st century lesbian.

1:26:47That kind of, like, sentence that, like, goes off into side directions within it. It's really hard. It's quite a challenge to love an actor. And her arc is that she comes to realize that maybe she actually wants emotional underpinnings in her relationships with people. I feel like, I don't know. No, I wasn't convinced by the end when you get to like, yeah. It's the big question. Yeah. Because this is a movie essentially about Jamie and Marion falling in love and finding happiness with each other. It is two women of the same orientation who share a friend group who've known each other a long time, but have never been romantic or sexual with each other going on this road trip that is sort of driven by this kind of super bad.

1:27:30We got to get you laid tonight. Right. Initially, Jamie's like, OK, forget me. you need to be getting laid right to Marion and Marion's like I don't want to deal with that I just want to read Flaubert or whatever it is but there's a sort of surprising catching feelings thing of they never have seen each other that way then it's sort of like do we need to do this just as means to an end and then have we actually fallen into something deeper I think Geraldine plays that perfectly I think maybe part of what we're getting at is that like the scenes where you need to be sold that Quallie is going through the same kind of or her own parallel transformation are still her just monologuing seemingly unaffected by what any other character is doing.

1:28:18Would you want to marry Jamie? Not marry. Fine. Date Jamie. No. Like be in a serious relationship with Jamie. No. I don't think I would. No. I think it would be so annoying. I would want to hang out with Jamie but nothing more. Jamie's had a great hang. Absolutely. Someone to be crazy with and then be like, okay, Jamie, I'll see you in a couple weeks. See you next week. Is there a slightly better version of this script where in the last 20 minutes, Jamie becomes a little more pulled back and Marion starts to be the one? Maybe. You know, like, yes, instead, do you sell that more if there's a transference of energy rather than them meeting a little bit towards the middle?

1:28:55I think so. Go ahead, Maya. Well, I mean, like, I was struggling so much while watching this movie because I feel like there's kind of When you get to the end of the movie, I was like, that's a fine movie, but it feels like there's something missing. But there's not inherently anything on paper that feels like there's actually anything missing. But when you look at the two main characters, I think there's like, you have Geraldine giving an excellent performance to a wet blanket character who feels like she's playing it so straight. The whole movie with like the wackiness going on around here where Margaret Qualley's character Jamie is like so zany and out there and kind of feels like obviously they're thrown into this the midst of something that they were not supposed to be involved in.

1:29:33And that's the whole point. But I think like the performance from Quali feels like it kind of does. Jamie's character makes it a little bit too left of center. But then Geraldine's character is such a wet blanket to the point that like, you know, Miriam just kind of doesn't feel like she fits into the zaniness of like Jamie. It feels like it's kind of like two things dancing around each other that never kind of meet up. And I think Miriam gets to the middle much more than Jamie does. The midpoint of them. Right. And it's like maybe that is the I don't know. Does this movie not have complete character arcs?

1:30:11No. In a way, you know, the Coen's love in their work together, avoiding the obvious outcome and the kind of like clean cycle and whatever. But when this movie is aiming for far less profound things, you're like, do I want the emotional catharsis of kind of the obvious thing happening at the end? And I do feel like you want the scene at the end where when they're with the two goons, Marion is suddenly able to like fast talk her way around them the way Jamie has before. Like that kind of thing does feel like it would be satisfying. Basically, Mirren wants to go visit her aunt. Right. The purpose, they're both bummed out.

1:30:54Jamie's bored. Jamie's bored and just got dumped and kicked out of her house by Suki. And she knows about this, the notion of the drive away, that there's a car that needs to be gotten from one drop-off point to another. They will pay you money. A one-way rental, but right, you're basically being paid for it. Right. But basically... I feel like this does not exist anymore in any way. No. But it's a very good setup for a movie. Another reason this film has to be set up in the year it is. It's the same premise as Blank Check. The film Blank Check. It's the same? They walk into the business one minute before the person, you know, is supposed to get the thing.

1:31:31like this criminal enterprise has been agreed upon. In Blank Jackets, you will be handed a million dollars or whatever as part of some mob payoff or whatever the fuck is going on in that movie. I already forgot. The kid shows up a minute before and so on. There it goes. In this one, they show up. We want to go to Tallahassee and Curly. Best performance of the movie, obviously. Bill Camp completely crushing it. Has just gotten off the phone. It's like, okay, you're the people taking the special delivery to Tallahassee. Which they're also being so argumentative and unclear with him on the phone.

1:32:04Like this sort of like, do we need to fucking repeat it for you again thing? That when someone comes in 15 seconds later and says Tallahassee, he's just so frazzled by it. Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson as two Coney-heavy, you know, bickering hitman guys. I saw C.J. Wilson in recently. Well, C.J. Wilson, I feel like is an exceptional theater actor. Yes, does a lot of Lonergan stuff. Yes. Doesn't do a lot of movies. at all, or TV. I feel like I saw him show up young in something and had that kind of shock. Well, were you watching, I mean, young? He's in The Intern in Manchester. Yeah, he is in those.

1:32:42No, you know what it was? I was watching... What were you watching? I was re-watching Netflix's The Characters. Do you remember that? Well, yeah, sure. Like when the comedians had like the... Yeah. Yeah, because Tim Robinson had one. Right. That's what I Think You Should Leave comes out of, but that 10 years ago they were like let's give character comedians the ability to make their own half hour special and can be whatever format they want. Tim Robinson's one has the gambling guy. Lady Luck. Lady! Have you seen this? I haven't seen this. He's playing a guy who's like a you know. Is it just like a classic Tim Robinson?

1:33:17Sinatra. He's like hey I'm a gambler. Lady Luck. He's like put it all on like whatever. He rolls the dice. He's like fuck! I lost all my money! It's like three minutes of wind up. I love it. They do like Coachella's Copacabana tracking shot of him knowing everyone at the club and being awesome. And then the first time he bets money. He's like, I'm rolling. And then he just keeps doubling down on her. But this show was like a big flop. But that, his episode was so liked by comedy people. I love it. That like Lonely Island some other folks were like, we'll back you up in doing a Netflix show that no one will ever watch and that became a phenomenon.

1:33:56Anyway, he showed up in that. but this is a lot of the stuff that I love in Coen movies of like these side characters who feel like they are living off entire stories that are happening just to the side. The whole Curly thing of just like this character getting a little more time and investment than any other movie would give him, but also this like odd side narrative to the goons who are similarly going through a weird evil version of the main plot line. It's a funny idea, right? Right. They have their own personal, They don't need to hook up, but they do have some dynamic they need to untangle.

1:34:30But they have hooked up. Right, right. That's the blow up at the end. I know! Is like these two guys are stuck in this car together, like this Fargo dynamic, yelling at each other. And the one guy, the classic Coen's like big guy and little guy thing, yelling at the other guy for not being masculine enough, right? And sort of pushing this like sexuality and this like machismo. And at the end, you realize they like hooked up and both are really freaked out about it. And defensive and they shoot each other. Joey Slotnick has come up on this podcast because Alex Ross Perry is kind of obsessed with him.

1:35:02He was a frequent Craig Kilbourne punchline. Which is a classic Alex Ross Perry. You don't remember that? Everyone remembers that. That was the biggest thing on TV in the 90s. I can't believe you don't remember Joey Slotnick. You weren't watching Kilbourne every night. Everyone watched Craig Kilbourne every night. I'm just laughing at this exceptional impersonation of Alex Ross Perry interrogating you about something. The only time to take a shower is 5 p.m. You're a lunatic if you take a shower today. That is the big argument I had with Alex once. You weren't even at the table. I just... No, but I still repeat that to other people to explain Alex.

1:35:35I just sit down and... Empirically, there was only one correct... I'm like, what? He's like, when do you shower? I'm like, in the morning after I wake up. And he's like, insane. Insane. When do you shower, Maya? You don't have to answer that question. You're a night shower person. I'm a night shower person. Joey Slotnick used to have big bouffant curly hair. And I feel like it was like a definitive part of his like on screen. Like when you would spot him in a movie, you'd be like, oh, yeah, Joey Slotnick. There he is. I believe, did he not play Larry in the Three Stooges TV movie? There was a very austere Three Stooges TV movie produced by Mel Gibson that I think he played Larry in because he looks so much like Larry Fine.

1:36:17You are thinking of somebody else because Evan Handler, the great bald actor Evan Handler. played him. I feel like... You know what I'm thinking of? What are you thinking of? Joey Slotnick has been doing fucking Marx Brothers on stage. Oh, interesting. He does Groucho. Okay. Well, maybe he's good. I think he did a stage duck soup. Okay. That sounds like something I wouldn't want to see. I'm going to be honest with you. But I think he also played... I hate to bring this up. It's so silly. But I must bring it up. Steve Wozniak. Yes. Inventor of Apple. Pirates of Silicon Valley. In the TV movie, The Pirates of Silicon Valley, in which Noah Wiley played Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall played Bill Gates.

1:37:00Yes. I just had to say that. That was a big TV movie. It had billboards all over the place at a time where TV movies were not legion. And I just remember walking by that as a kid and being like, God, the casting could never get better than this. Something about it felt faded. In the late 90s to be like, Wiley and Michael Hall, absolutely. Anyway, but it's just fun to see him here. He's an actor I hadn't thought about much. And he shows up as a grouchy hitman. I thought he was pretty good. So he and CJ Wilson are there. You've got Coleman Domingo as the chief, who's, I guess, the chief of this operation.

1:37:36And he wears a suit. And he has this kind of, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but he's a fairly arresting voice. Delivers lines in kind of a melodic and interesting way. He's very much a guy I could listen to say anything. Yeah. Yeah. And then who else is in the mix? I mean, Bill Camp, we shouted out, and Beanie Feldstein is the grumpy ex-girlfriend who's a cop. That's kind of it. Coleman Domingo kind of has quietly been doing the Pedro Pascal thing, but it's totally working. But I love him. I love anything he's in. But it's a similar thing. If that guy was around forever, I for so long have been like, this is one of the best actors on the planet.

1:38:09And it felt like it's finally growing and he's catching on. this guy quietly without like leading man movie star pressure has gotten two consecutive best actor nominations he has you know like this guy works perfectly as character actor supporting lead lead doing every genre every type of thing he's very very good in Sing Sing I did not like Rustin much at all but I was happy when he got the Oscar nom because it felt like I felt like this is a nice anointment and then Sing Sing I was like oh it's great he's been nominated for something good that he's great Right. Yeah. Yeah. So they get to go on their trip to Florida.

1:38:49Right. They got this car. They get this car just for fun. They're not aware that they're transporting a briefcase of dildos. Right? That's what's in the car. As well as Pedro Pascal. Pedro Pascal's head on ice. Why is that included? I don't know. Like, what is the plausible plot reason to put a head in there? I actually haven't thought about that. Bring me his head. Yeah. I think it's a crew. Just classic. Just classic. Yeah. Okay. There's the part where she mentions... Good enough. I'm not sure I'd buy that, but okay. There's the part where she mentions, like, you know, in her very flowery way, the, like, don't look in the box.

1:39:27I saw a movie where they keep asking what's in the box, and when you look inside, something's terrible. That's, like, meant to be seven, right? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that's what I think of when I think of a head in a box. It's just funny to think of, like, Ethan Coen sitting down and being like, I'm going to make a seven reference. When their movies don't really reference other pop culture, especially not contemporaries? Not usually. Baby Joey's going to sit on my shoulder. Okay, Baby Joey is sitting on David's shoulder. So, they go on a trip. And, of course, boring old Marion just wants to drive down the interstate.

1:39:59And fun, Jamie wants to go to every single lesbian bar she can think of and see the world's largest Dixie Cup. Is that what it is? Yep. Among other things. and they're going to Tallahassee, Florida, which I've never been to, but I do like that Marion is like, it has Spanish moss or whatever. And Miami is trashy. They got to get away from Miami. Right. Right. And, you know, there's not too much plot. There's just happening. This movie is truly 76 minutes long before the credits roll. And it has long interstitials. like it is a thing a lot of people threw out of like how is it 76 and feels padded yeah because of all multiple like wow wow wow wow extended like a power psychedelic interludes crazy yes um there's a universe in which you're like I am loathe to say this because I am all for the power of the movies and the movie as an art form but there's almost a universe in which you're like hey Ethan and Trisha Cook you have like a pile of scripts and like like, side notes, maybe make this, like, an anthology series.

1:41:09Maybe do, like, a couple 45 minutes. You know? We were talking about in one of our group texts, there was the 90s Showtime series where they got a bunch of directors to remake, like, Roger Corman Road pictures, like Dante and Robert Rodriguez and stuff. You could, like, see them thematically fitting together more in that kind of way. That had been said. I don't feel like this movie is like, Jesus Christ, an hour and 15 minutes and they're running out of steam. No, it's not. I do think if it was a minute longer, I would shoot myself in the head though. I don't disagree. It's like, it definitely needs to be done when it's wrapping up.

1:41:50Can we talk about the editing? You're not like, I want more. Can we talk about the editing? Yes, we can. Trisha Cook. Hold on. Let's just cut to a little animated sequence really quick that has no connection to anything. Okay, and we're back. It's call forwards to the state of hallucination that Matt Damon's character was in when his dick was being cast. Yeah, because you start to see Miley Cyrus appear in those before her actual appearance. Yeah. That is the ostensible purpose of them. I guess I did not read that. It's why you need to watch the movie three times, Ben. It's a naughty text. Oh, I see.

1:42:27Okay. It's a naughty layered text. Okay, well, we have that interlude and here's how we're going to cut back to the main conversation.

1:42:39That was me doing my impression of some of the transitions in this movie. That was really good. That was super good. Yeah. Okay, Nicola, quizfrage. Homeoffice-Bastada or Fahrtkosten? What brings us more? Moment, I'll check that out. Oha, Homeoffice wins. It brings us 150 euros more in a year. Yeah, right. But why do you know something? Because why do you show the payment live? That's just the payment app for all cases. Yes, and she also answers questions. 24-7 and without a German. That's just the app that understands us. Save. With Visa, pay for it. Now try it out.

1:43:32right? It's not like Trisha Cook had never edited anything before. This is an experienced person. So I think there's a thoughtfulness to how the movie's being presented to us in terms of like this thing is rickety. It's barely standing on its two feet. Like it's silly. You're supposed to get that it's silly. And I do get that it's silly. They make it very clear. Yes. And I think that's fine. I like the idea that it's ramshackle and that it's this car that's going to fall apart in a minute's notice. And that's like playful. That's just trying stuff. I do understand perhaps some cinema goers sitting down and being like you know I paid like$18 I hired a baby I mean you didn't want to just like think about some of this stuff like for a second like yes but I do think that's the atmosphere of the film but like not expecting this movie to have like a great show awesome job vibe in Bum's world.

1:44:28This is the first Coen brother movie I've ever seen. But I think that's ideal. It was awesome. Right, you're like, oh, so they're just guys who like... Exactly. I literally was like, oh, so this is their deal. Like, they're just wacky, silly guys putting whatever they want in a movie. And like, truly, I walked in, I used my movie pass. That movie cost me$0. It was a last minute decision to go and see Drive-Away Dolls. I walked out being like, yeah, I liked it. Like, it was great. This movie is a perfect argument for movie going subscription programs. Yes. Like you're right, David. If I recommended to someone who does not see movies often.

1:45:04To pay$18. Just to see this. But I'm like, if you're spending$20 a month, make driveway dolls one of your two or three in February. Yeah. When the pickings are slim. Oh God. The pickings were so slim when this movie came out too. Like I remember feeling like, oh well, I guess this is it. Yeah. A little bit. I have this. And you will see, like what's that old tweet of like, oh fuck, let me find the tweet. You say your thought, I'm going to find the tweet. I have this theory and this movie falls into this, right? But it's this sort of old master thing. We were talking about this in one of our group texts the other day of like old filmmakers who contend when people are like, why did you go to digital?

1:45:40Why did you like change your filmmaking style? And they're like, I think this looks as good as any of my films. And you're like, your movies used to look immaculate. And now you're old and people are offering you less money and you just want to get it over with quickly. there's a lot of that vibe where it's just like, I don't want to belabor this in the same way. And you need to judge those movies differently. Of course, it doesn't mean they're better than their best films. But you're like, this is the prism of like, this person's at a stage in their life where they have something they want to say, but maybe they're not as obsessive about the craft and the construction.

1:46:12And I think when Megalopolis was coming out and there was this feeling of like, Hopola is going to return to the main stage and he's ready to make like, you know, it's been decades, but he's going to make another Apocalypse Now, another Godfather. David's hugging Joey very tightly. And then people were alarmed when they saw the trailer and they were like, why does it look like this? Why does it look like a Linkin Park video? All of this shit. And you're like, this guy has not made a normal looking movie in 15 years, right? And I think there's something like late period Wachowskis has a lot of this as well, like Sense8.

1:46:46And what I think threw a lot of people off in Matrix Resurrections were especially people who like early in their career are so obsessive about like technical innovation and craft and visual storytelling and like perfect construction and whatever. And then you get to a point where it's like, congratulations, you have made perfect movies. You have made movies that not only will like go down in history forever, but people will study as every hair on this head is like perfect. How do you challenge yourself at that point? You don't, you make driveway dolls. I really think there is a point of like the only way I can actually push myself and challenge myself now is to sort of try to make something incorrectly on purpose.

1:47:29Which isn't to say make a bad movie on purpose, but like I followed all of the rules and even evolved them. And I got to the end of that. And then I transmuted it onto lateral genre exercises. And I did that as well. What more is there to do other than to sit down and go, well, everyone knows a movie shouldn't be edited like this. but what if I try it the tweet I'm referencing is by Mike Ginn G-I-N-N not sure that's his name and here's the tweet I think about it all the time it's a very famous tweet why must a movie be good is it not enough to sit somewhere dark and see a beautiful face huge and that is how I feel a little bit about driveway dolls so I'm like look at all these pretty people I agree yeah driving around taking their tops off being silly like Because everyone's having fun.

1:48:20I sat in a room and there was a big machine behind me that projected a bunch of light onto a screen in front of my face and then colors moved around. That's exactly what I was here for. Nothing more, nothing less. So, yes. Okay. What are some of the things they do? In this very short movie, it's basically the halfway point. Like the 30-minute mark is when they hook up, which I also like that is not something that has helped to the very end. It's sort of like... They go to a make-out party with a soccer team. High school soccer players. Yes. And they make out. Aren't you a little too old to be at a sleepover?

1:48:52Right. They're in a basement and everyone's making out and then someone blows a whistle and everyone moves one to the right or whatever. I chuckle too. I think the whole thing is funny and obviously this is what, right, gets them to make out because they, you know, they have to move along. And they're like, oh, fuck. We don't, you know. We're just friends. Qualley's kind of like, this is no big deal. It doesn't mean anything. And then there's the moment where Geraldine pushes away and just tearfully says, please don't bring someone back to the motel room tonight. Because we've already set up this thing of like, she's going to pick up a new partner for that night in every single town while Viswanathan sits in the fucking lobby of this shitty motel and reading a novel.

1:49:35Right. Reading Henry James. Yeah. Right. Of course it's Henry James because that's the joke. Henry James is driveway dykes at the end. So that happens. They do hook up. They found the head at some point. she runs away and right Pauly kind of recognizes oh I think maybe an emotional thing happened that I need to reckon with right but then she gets picked up by the cops yes Geraldine does Geraldine gets picked up by the cops for what like vagrancy because she's like walking around in the darkness I don't even know yes but basically they get split up for that night is the point and you have the flashback sequence to her sort of like activation moment which also helps make her feel like more of a character even though these are not like super complicated scenes that there is just like a kind of viewpoint and perspective on it and then yes the arresting thing is just that they get split up for the night but then discover back to like the police officer she's arresting being mouthy discover the dildos call up Beanie Feldstein to try to get her to help them because now they realize we're being chased.

1:50:47We're caught up in something bad. Yes. And then they make it to Tallahassee. The greatest moment, of course. Kind of quicker than you think. What's the greatest moment? The goons going back to kill Curly. Yes. And Beanie Feldstein going to check in on him. And this kind of like cruelty of the universe, Coen's moment in a movie that otherwise is kind of devoid of it. Yes. Of he is lying, dying his final breaths, and he takes all the sheets of paper around him and tries to throw him up just to get her attention before she leaves the window and it doesn't happen. The paper falls back on his chest and he says, no one's going to save Curly.

1:51:21Won't somebody save Curly. Do you think he dies or do you think he's just in pain? I think he's just in pain. My first time I watched this, my Letterboxd review was, rumor has it Curly is still on the floor. Right. So I like to believe he's still with us. I think he's still doing fine. There's no Driveaway Dolls Wiki yet, so I can't check in on Curly's individual character entry. They need to come up with a name for what they're calling these movies. Do you know what I'm saying? Because then we could make a bigger wikia for the universe. I assume they're not interconnected because we already have two qualities.

1:51:54Correct. They are not. Honey Don't has nothing to do with driveway dolls, except that it also feels like it was made very quickly. And has a bunch of famous people in it, which is fun. But right. Being silly. Driveway dolls. Yeah. So they go to Tallahassee. They go to this hotel. is a lot, I realized on my third watch as I've now, you know, become an expert in this movie, I'm the mayor of driveway dolls, like they get to the hotel kind of fast and like then we are in the last act of the movie for almost half of the movie, of this short movie. But that's, I do. Alamo's dropping your check. They are.

1:52:30They are. Yeah. I do like the decision that it's not about them getting to the hookup, that it's like, there's the makeout, then there's the sort of like, we have to reckon with these emotions the dinner at the hotel which is Geraldine doing this like very overwritten what are you saying? I'm saying I want to try having emotions for once. Right. I want to have emotional sex rather than just fun sex. That both I think we should sleep together that I'm the person to get you out of your rut but also maybe me living this life without letting myself get catch feelings for any people is depriving myself of something greater.

1:53:07Falls asleep wakes up Margot Qualley going sicko mode. Yes, I was going to say, I was going to bring this up earlier where it's like Qualley's or Jamie's emotional depth or her evolution where she's like, I simply had to jerk off. I could not contain myself. There's a whole suitcase of Dildos. I cannot wait 20 fucking minutes for you to wake up or whatever. It's not only that, but she plays that scene. Physically, it feels like a cartoon character with their finger in a fucking light socket. Like, they're just being like, and like, that she can't even stop to say, sorry, like, I couldn't contain myself.

1:53:49That she has to continue doing it. That it feels like she's waking up next to someone in bed having a seizure. Like, she's in danger. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. But from that moment on, in the movie, they're like, together. Yeah. And they start having more emotional sex. Yeah. Right? Like, the shower sex. It's like, it's all shot in this kind of like, not Looney Tunes way. It's all very gentle and lovely. It's fine. And Qualley's been doing making her own sidecasts, backups. There's a really funny moment in the shower where Geraldine is like, I would like to, and you think she's going to say something emotional?

1:54:24I would like to also use the dildo. Yes. Everything is still very point of fact with her. And I like the fucking concierge at the hotel a lot. Yeah. His name is Josh Fitter. Fitter. No, he's the bellboy at the end who finds the dildo. Oh, that's right. So, okay. So who plays the guy? Because he is funny. He's funny. And I just like it a lot as like the movie is setting you up to think that this guy is going to be like, well, I never about everything. No, we accept the rainbow card. He just loves everything. He's just super cordial. Yeah. I'm trying to find his name. Yeah. Or I'm trying to find the actor.

1:55:01What do we think his name is? I'm going to find it. Okay, while we're looking, did we talk about the goons and their whole sort of B-plot? We touched on it. Just the game of them, sort of the one being like, I appreciate talking to people. You're so aggressive. I think it's fun with the two goons visiting the previous locations that they've come from. Interacting with the cheerleaders is really fun. That was good. They misdirect them. they end up in this like bar way out of the way from Tallahassee. Oh yeah, that is a funny interlude. Then it just is like a guy who's like starts talking to them about nothing and then it's done and then it never comes back.

1:55:44Well, then he distracts the other guys. John Menchion is that actor. I'm so glad I looked up the conquistador desk clerk. Oh, here he is. His name is Braxton McCollum. Braxton McCollum. What a fucking name. He's only, it's his first role. Yeah. Really? Seems like he only did like short films before that. Correct. Yeah, but he's very good. He's got a funny face. Yeah. But this is like getting to this point of just like, there is no scene in this movie that I don't find pleasant to watch. Exactly. Totally. It can be a bit of a chore on your third viewing, maybe, but it's pleasant. And it's fun. And it's bubbly.

1:56:26And you know what? get off my back three and a half stars on Letterboxd can we talk Maya comments on each log three and a half stars come on buddy this is why I don't do the stars I basically I will only give a star rating if it's a one or a five right and then otherwise I'm like it's binary heart or no heart and heart is basically liked it yeah I do the same thing I used to actually give star ratings and then I was like I think I don't know what I'm talking about when I give a movie like two stars. But if I like it, I'll give it a like. If I don't put stars, it doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's just like not worth being like, wow.

1:57:06I just never want the quibbling of like 3.5. That's the same rating you gave this. Yes, I love that. So like 3.5 is either like the glowing review of like, well, you're rating this way too high or somebody's like, it's fine. Right. It's just, yeah. But I like giving star ratings precisely for this reason to fuck with people. And then I like that I'm constantly adjusting everything in my letterbox. I know it is. Nothing is finite. I'm always thinking about like, okay, how's that movie settled with me? Or how did it do on rewatch or whatever? And I love fiddling with stuff. And I'll see now because people pay attention to me.

1:57:37On Letterboxd, I'm not bragging. People being like, you took it down to a four and a half. What does it mean? What does it mean? I'm like, I don't know. I just liked it a little. Or I'll take a look at my year list and I'll be like. maybe nothing's actually really reached kind of top for me. right and like actually the stuff I like the most is has a bit of a ceiling on it or something I don't know yeah having fun no I like doing it but that's why I'm like I can walk out of Jurassic World Rebirth and confidently be like one star oh you didn't like that one you know and I can like rewatch Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and be like five no question anything in between I just kind of don't want to fucking deal with Distortious Rex you think he's gonna show up in something else did you see Jurassic World Rebirth I didn't oh no because it's as I hear a one-star movie.

1:58:25It's a bit of a... Yeah. Is it a chore? It's not a chore. It's worse than a chore, for sure. I found it very boring. I did, too. There was a point... Very low energy. In my Superman Patreon episode where I went off in the rant, the thing I forgot to mention was there was a moment where I felt like the movie was ending. And I was like, oh, thank God. At least it's almost over. That feels right, right? And then I remembered, oh, the big mutant dinosaur that they show you at the very beginning was all over the marketing has not come back yet. And I turned to my friend and like defeat and I was like, oh, fuck, there's another half hour.

1:59:01There is at least another half hour. And walking out of that movie, I would have been like, that was three hours on the nugget. And it's like 206 with credits. It feels longer. Yikes. Do you like Jurassic Park? I do. I love Jurassic Park. Yeah. Cool. This is what I want to dig into a little more. Okay. Your Cohen's experience with now watching them later. Yes. What has been your experience in watching a handful of the classics now and especially the Crime Capers? Yeah. Really fun. I, of course, have to mention my boyfriend has been a really good guide because he knew that I would be doing the Driveaway Dolls episode and he is well-versed in the Coen's universe.

1:59:40And so he was like, I think these are kind of the closest we can get based off of what their filmography is to what Driveaway Dolls ended up being. And so we watched a lot of the Crime Capers. But I truly, like, every time we watched a new one, And I was like, these guys love law enforcement being present somewhere in a movie. Like, it's very, but that is it. But I had so much fun with it. And I think that, like, it was more fun for me to view these movies with fresh eyes at an adult age than, like, being, I don't know, introduced to them when I was younger and not necessarily getting to, like, understand the full scope of the characters or the worlds that were being crafted or anything.

2:00:17Yeah. I also, I think, you know, the Coen's films are for me so much about like trying to find a way to live in a like cruel, merciless world that lacks meaning. Like they are not completely nihilistic because the characters are fighting to find something through that understanding of the lack of meaning. But this is one of their few movies where it is like, and then they ended up happily ever after. That is so awesome. Where like things can be defeated. Like the cleanness of, oh, Matt Damon is going to be doing the handoff at the same time that Beanie Feldstein is there with the cat and she can shoot him and his whole corruption can be blown open in a newspaper cover story that no one questions.

2:01:06The newspaper cover, I want to find it because it is so funny. Senator shot outside of lesbian bar or something? I want to read every single moment of it, every single line of it, but yes. Verbatim, please. Yeah. Let me find it. Okay. As David looks for this. Keep talking. I was watching the very limited special features on this Blu-ray, which are basically three minute or under YouTube featurettes. They're like so bad and apathetic. But one of them has like the three main actresses talking and Beanie Feldstein talked a lot about like Like the canon of the Coen brothers cop is so big. It is such an honor to be like a cop in a movie.

2:01:43Exactly. Written by Ethan Coen. But then it's also so funny where you're like a lot of times it is like these deeply corrupt, immoral characters or it is Marge Gunderson who is like the ultimate moral good. Yes, exactly. One of the purest characters that has ever existed in film and feels like almost this rebuke to not just real cops, but also the way cops are usually depicted in movies. But that is a character who is like working hard to like fight for some sense of light for like the value of like the three cent stamp. But also she can't solve shit. And like this is going to keep happening and it's happened before.

2:02:18You know, all she can say is like, why all this for a little bit of money? And then in this, the stakes are sort of like even when people get murdered, it is not landing with any actual weight. Even I would say the deaths in Lady Killers feel more dramatic than this. It's definitely some pretty lighthearted death. Senator shot outside lesbian bar subhead. Channel, channel. Oh, that's his last name, I guess. Was carrying human head plaster penises. I can explain. It's a good joke. It's great. But the idea that they could like catch him all in one and be like, here's the weapon. Here's the motive.

2:02:56Here's the backstory. He can explain. Wow. Peacock trying to start up love hurts for me. That's what happened to me when I watched Drive Away Dolls. And I was like, that's the craziest segue into trying to watch Love Hurts. That does feel like a reach for Peacock. Have you seen Love Hurts? I've not seen Love Hurts. That's the KU Quan actioner. I have heard it is quite poor. I have also heard this. I have many friends who went to the film with very open hearts and were just like, I want this to be exactly this guy. What it's being sold as. And they were like, it so fails to deliver on the bare minimum of that idea.

2:03:29That's a bummer. I like him. I mean look he's the main villain in Zootopia 2 I'm sorry I'm checking the title here Zootopia snake in the form of a 2 told my daughter recently I alerted her that there will be a Zootopia 2 and that we will be seeing it I assume yeah she was excited but now she's all in on Spider-Man right now oh wow the amazing friends the baby ones is she watching the one with the dinosaurs now there's one with dinosaurs Jesus Christ. There's a new one. What does that mean? Where the Spidey and friends team up with dinosaurs. What? Why are they doing that? There's like a Spidosaurus Rex and a green goblin Rex and whatever.

2:04:11The multiverse is getting too wide. Exactly. We need a, right, we need a doomsday for the Spidey friends. There's an Iron Man one too that I think. Okay. And my daughter, he's popped up and my daughter's like, who's that robot? And I'm like, it's hard to explain Iron Man, I guess. This guy's got conservative eyes.

2:04:30He's getting radicalized by Baby Iron Man. She loves Hulk, or as she calls him, Hulk. Hulk. Hulk. So it sounds like she's saying Hulk, because he's green and angry. That's sweet. Is that her favorite character? Yeah, she talks about him the most. I think she's kind of transfixed by how he's kind of a good guy, but seems angry. Yeah. He can be angry and be good. He's like a toddler. Yeah, that's true. That's true. You're well-intentioned, but sometimes you just Hulk out. In the Spidey Friends verse, he seems pretty gentle to me. Like he's not so much like, ah, my rage. But he's a little angrier.

2:05:03David, because I can already sense our listeners gripping their armrests, needing the follow-up question. Does Rolk exist anywhere in the baby animation universe? I have not seen him yet, but of course I haven't visited the White House in there. And maybe he's there. He's a little baby president. Did you see that interview with Harrison Ford? Because he's doing interviews for shrinking, I guess. Emmy campaigning or whatever. Where they're like, has Feige gotten you to like... He even said... You know, play Red Hulk again? Nope. Nope. Did you see Brave New World, Maya? No, I didn't. Okay. Okay, maybe not very patronical.

2:05:37I know, guys. Just pay your respects to the office. I'm so sorry. The position still means something. It's been enough time that I feel like I can do a bit of a Brave New World spoiler here. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please. They spoiled the movie in the trailers. I mean, basically. Yes. Here's a non-spoiler spoiler. he does not die in that film okay right and the movie called the Thunderbolts that has already now come out in the comics that is a team led by that character hence why they are called the Thunderbolts it's like he's doing the bad guy Avengers and he's the Nick Fury for the bad guy right he's kind of the Amanda Waller Red Hulk is well Thunderbolt Ross that guy before he became Red Hulk before when he was just Hulk's girlfriend's dad uh huh uh huh So everyone was like, oh, William Hurt dies.

2:06:29It's a lot of words. They hire one of the biggest movie stars of all time. He's going to play General Ross. And they announce a Thunderbolts movie. Multipicture contract for Harrison Ford. And then I kept on hearing from people, he dies at the end of Captain America. He has nothing to do with Thunderbolts. They got him for one movie. He's never coming back. And I was like, that's a weird choice. Liv Tyler was photographed filming Brave New World 18 years ago. Somehow was filmed doing that before she had been in Armageddon. Or The Lord of the Rings. Shooting a funeral scene. Right. Paparazzi photos of her at a cemetery.

2:07:06Right. Seemingly mourning his death. Her father's death. Right. And it's a big plot point in the movie that he keeps trying to call her. My daughter won't pick up. How are you doing? She hates I'm a rook. You guys are good at that. Thank you. Yeah. I've been thinking about him a lot in that movie. At the end of the movie, he... I need my pills. Yes? At the end of the movie, he does not die. No. In a sequence that feels like it was being reshot as you're watching it. Whoa. It's not so good. And then he goes to supervillain jail. Yeah, the rest. And Liv Tyler goes to visit him in jail, and that's the emotional closure of the movie.

2:07:38Hey. Liv Tyler in a performance that absolutely was not done by a physical person on a set. It is very clear that she was like, I can't do the reshoot. If you can't rework that cemetery footage, you gotta fucking constructed some other way. Jeez, my God. And I don't understand why they end that movie with him being alive if they don't ever want to, they know specifically how to use him again. And he's like, I don't want to fucking do that shit again. I mean, they just probably were like, who knows? Maybe we can just have like computer Red Hulk smash someone. Ben, just put like Rolk like spoiler alerts in the edit points in and out of this segment.

2:08:14Rolk! You definitely do not. Rolk! Let's play the box office game for Driveway Dolls. Do we want to say any other things about driveway dolls. I don't have anything more to say on driveway dolls, I don't think. It's fun. Of the coins you've watched now, which is your favorite? My favorite is probably... Oh, man. I loved Fargo and I loved No Country for Old Men. Those are good ones. Those ones do be hitting. Actually, man, yeah, they're all good. It would be funny if you were like, driveway dolls, I think. Driveway dolls, five stars with a like. But those are both bag of money ruins everyone's life movies.

2:08:51Right. And this is bag of money goes great for them. Right. You're right. Well, it's bag of dicks. Bag of dicks goes great for them. Ends up perfectly. Need more movies like that. Yeah. But I liked it. It's fine. I think people just got... I think people... It was marketed for a group of individuals that were showing up expecting something or not marketed, but I think the people that were expecting what it ended up being were obviously going to be disappointed. Whereas people who have never seen a Coen joint could walk in and walk away feeling like they were happy with what they got. I think that's a great point.

2:09:22And I think, understandably, the folks at Universal were like, we have a movie that was co-directed by a Coen brother. We should push that really hard, which maybe doesn't do the movie any favors in its framing. I also just think there is this impatience of like, they are arguably amongst the best filmmakers on the planet. and people are like, are they really never going to make something together again? And it's like, okay, Ethan and Trisha did another one and now like Joel and Francis have announced another one. And then like, can they get back together after this? There's rumors that they are, the brothers are working on like a horror movie together.

2:10:03They have talked about it. As of a year ago, they were writing it. Yes, there is a thing they want to do. And I do kind of feel like, not that this movie is ever going to be reclaimed in a serious way, But I think some of the intensity around like, what the fuck is this? Will be removed if within the next five years we get the Coens doing their thing together. Yeah. And then I'll just be like, this was that weird exploratory period. Yeah, let him have some fun, you know? I agree with that. Yeah. I agree with that, Maya. Why? You know, again, like, it's not right. It's not like he made sort of self-important drivel.

2:10:38That I would really have a problem. That would make me miserable. Right. Exactly. It's like, oh, this is what you were sort of like. And of course, we've talked about it already, probably, and we will talk about it again. But like, it was so interesting to watch Joel go off and make something that is so visually distinctive and like beautifully presented. And then Ethan make a silly bullshit thing about a bunch of idiot criminals. And you're like, right, these are the elements of the Coens. We've like split sodium and chloride into, you know, two separate elements. Right, you know, like, so now we don't have table salt.

2:11:10We have two interesting things. This is a good thing to talk about. is that like when this came out, I do feel people went, oh, so now I know who does what. Yeah. Right? And there was this sense of - Certainly felt that way. All of their collaborators and the actors who worked with them forever would be like, no, they really are like a two-headed director. They do everything together. They finish each other's sentences. They're on the exact same page. It's crazy. And then they made these two movies that felt very like, oh, this guy is adapting the most like proven source material in the world and just going visually ham on it and the other guy is doing the goofiest version of his usual obsessions.

2:11:46And they're both through the prism of their wives and collaborators showing the things they wouldn't do together. And I think the takeaway from a lot of people there is like, oh, okay, so Joel's the director and Ethan's the writer, conclusive. And that Joel needs Ethan to add humor and Ethan needs Joel to add structure or discipline or whatever it is. And I think it's more that like maybe each of them certainly leans a little more in that direction. It just has a little strength in that direction. And then left to their own devices, they're just going to do the hardest, most hardcore version of that.

2:12:25I also think in both cases when people are like, even Macbeth, which was well-liked and we will have discussed, people were just sort of like, this isn't like a knockout in the way all their other stuff is. This is sort of like handsome and impressive. that the juice with them is so much that you have two brilliant filmmakers working together. It's not that I don't think, oh, they can't make things without each other. It's like, right, but they're twice as good as other people when they're working together. David, what are you looking at? The box office game, which we're going to now play. I'm also ordering myself some sushi.

2:12:57Film came out February 23rd, 2024. And it opened at number eight, which I think was not ideal because that's 2300. It's 24. And I believe it opened to two? $2.4 million, which is not a ton of money. No. Made worldwide$7.9. Okay. Which I think was not good. When did they start production on Honeydome? Oh, so you're like, when do they maybe get their keys taken away? I know this was on the shelf for a little bit, because this was also a movie that got pushed back because of the SAG strikes and not having actors to promote it. I think it was supposed to come out summer 23. Honey, don't. Started production a month after this came out, March 2024.

2:13:42Okay. So I just want to quickly salute the fine folks at Working Title for being like, Ethan, Trisha, just keep doing this. It speaks to the level of cachet that they have that it does feel like similar to A24 not just doing Macbeth but also buying the iMovie Jerry Lee Lewis documentary. That it feels like all of the film financiers and distributors in town are still like, we want to be working with you in case you ever decide to go back to doing your thing together again. Yes. We want to stay in the Cohen business. Yeah. But a flop. Number one at the box office is a somewhat surprising success of a member, not huge or anything, but a music biopic.

2:14:26It's a second week at the number one position. Is it Bob Marley, One Love? Bob Marley, One Love. I couldn't remember what the order was, what was before and after the cult. You nailed it. The Reynaldo, Reynaldo, Reynaldo. There you go. Jesus. Marcus Green film starring Kingsley Ben-A-Dir, who is the guy who was Malcolm X in that other movie. He's playing a lot of famous people. This is one of my least favorite trends right now is the Top Gun mavericking of music biopics where I'm like, you get to pick. Either your title is the name of the person. Oh, you don't like the title. Or it's like the song lyric.

2:15:05I don't like Springsteen colon Deliver Us From Nowhere. No, certainly not. But they just announced that title too. And I'm like, you're either calling it Bob Marley or Bob or Marley or Root B, pick a song title. Yeah. Maya, did you see Bob Marley, One Love? I didn't. I'm just not on the music biopic train like entirely. Until they make one about you. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Obviously. Which, of course, it will be called like MXM Toon crying in a prom dress. Who will play you? I was going to say Texas. Who will play me? I'm thinking about this. I'm thinking about Wajian women in movies. I'm thinking about...

2:15:48Chase Zoe Wonders. Oh, yeah. That's actually a good shout. Yeah. I love that. I'd be very honored if Chase Zoe Wonders was me. She's very charming. You have not seen I Know What You Did Last Summer, parenthetical 2025? I have yet to see the new one. Have you seen it? I haven't, but I was watching the studio and my uncle texted me being like, her character reminds me of you. And I was like, wow, thank you. I think it's a compliment. Yeah, she's successful. I don't know. That's another trend I want to die is a legacy sequel that isn't a remake with the exact same title as the original movie. It's very annoying.

2:16:21It's just very confusing for our brains. I agree with that. But she is very good in that movie in a way where you're like, she might be kind of bulletproof because this thing is, disastrous dog shit. And she comes out unscathed. Wow. Bob Marley, One Love, the trend I thought you were going to bring up, which is a trend I do think is a problem, is this sort of, you know, music biopic approved by the estate. So it's sort of like, we get to use the songs, yay. But unfortunately, like we cannot delve too deep on this complicated person. Also a huge issue is the reason the Scorsese Sinatra movie has not been made for 20 straight years because he keeps being like, I'll make this if you give me freedom.

2:17:01And they just want it to be about like, what a gent. I think that is. Never yelled at a lady. I think that is even more of a pox on documentaries now. That is the thing that's driving me insane. It's the celebrity profile documentary that is completely produced by the celebrity and director. You get the access. But it means. Where I'm like, are we never going to get a crumb ever again? Right. Do you like Bob Marley? The musician. I like Bob Marley. I'm less familiar with his whole discography and everything, but I, you know, I saw the trailers for One Love, One Marley, One Love. I haven't checked it out.

2:17:35We also have the trailers. It made a lot of money. It made a decent amount of money. It made almost a hundred million dollars. I mean, in one way, you're like, yeah, well, he's really famous. Like, that's not that surprising. But I just remember at the time, people being like, oh, people are showing up for this. Are you a reggae guy, David? I've had my reggae phases. Yeah. I love reggae. I like that Ross Perry is just rubbing his hands together equally right now. I am no expert on reggae. I grew up in Britain and I do feel like as respected as reggae is here, it is so ingrained in British culture.

2:18:09So, you know, there's just a lot. Right. The ways that the influence on other British music and all that stuff. And I like dance hall music and all this. And then when I went to the Caribbean when I was a teenager, I remember at the airport, I bought a bunch of random discs. CDs. Cool. Because I was like, I bet you there's just kind of like, you know, basically like indie music, right? Like, you know, just kind of like music that will never escape this country. And I still have those discs. They rock because they are truly just guys making fun, silly, you know, dance hall music from the early 2000s.

2:18:45We got to get our hands on what these CDs are. I'll dig one of them up. I mean, my CDs, Jesus, where are those? That is something that truly has been like buried. My reggae. Reggae. It's fine. It's not fine. I don't want to say that in case there's reggae heads listening to this podcast. I'd be like, fine. Why'd she just say fine? I like reggae. I enjoy listening to it. Don't know like too much in the weeds on the genre. I'd say ska is more of my, my vein. Yeah. Big No Doubt fan. Yeah. Do you listen to the, the Lonely Island Seth Meyers podcast? I don't. It is excellent. It is highly recommended.

2:19:23And then, of course, they delve very deep into this. The Ross Trent episode. Yes, which is very fun. But it's just, they go through that song and stop every three seconds. And they're like, offing footnotes. Yes, yes, yes. And they're just like, look, we're just white guys who like reggae a lot. But you're like, that song has 8 trillion references in it that are all very specific. Yeah. Number two at the box office, opening new this week, is a Crunchyroll release making$11.5 million. You will never guess the name of it, but you might guess the series that it's a part of. Is it Spy X Family? No.

2:19:53Fuck. Do you think you know? You might be more equipped to answer this. I will say Demon Slayer. Correct. Okay, do you get the subtitle? No. It is, I think, the third theatrical release of Demon Slayer stuff. It is called Demon Slayer. Kimetsu no Yaiba to the Hashira training. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I don't know anything about this. I'm so convinced. I'm Tim Robinson. I don't know what any of this stuff is. And I'm confused. And I'm scared. The car driving. Yes. I don't know what Demon Slayer is. What is Demon Slayer? I assume it is manga that then became anime.

2:20:35Yeah. Yeah. I'm fairly certain it came from a manga and then turned into an anime. I myself only watched the anime. And I went and saw Mugen Train, which is another theatrical release for Demon Slayer. Mugen Train, right. Mugen Train was also such a big deal because it opened really big in 2021 when people are like, are theaters ever going to come back? And then Mugen Train made$20 million. I'm always right. People are riding the Mugen Train. That started the Crunchyroll thing of like, we are going to put wide release anime. Absolutely. Almost every other month. Jujutsu Kaisen Zero was another one that I ended up seeing in theaters.

2:21:07I love Demon Slayer. It's very good. I watched a little bit of it. Okay, I love it. I only made it through like the first maybe 10 episodes. And then I just like fell off. It's a great show. They Slay Demons? They Slay Demons. They kind of, there's a villain in it that almost looks like Michael Jackson. Interesting. It's very... What era of Michael Jackson? Oh, I don't know the eras of Michael Jackson. Like he's a smooth criminal. Like he's wearing like a fedora type vibe. He's got like kind of curly hair. Smooth criminal. Yeah, smooth criminal. But it's great. But the premise is basically there's like one original demon who keeps then creating more demons and there's like a special team that has to, you know, kill these demons.

2:21:55Number three. Number three at the box office, also new this week, is a Christian inspirational drama film, but kind of a, like, vaguely legit one in that it has, like, you know, Oscar winner in it. And it was, like... Is it the Hilary Swank one? It's the Hilary Swank one. That was also pushed back because of the fucking strikes. This is, like, the dumping ground of movies that were supposed to come out August, September 23, and we're like, we need to wait until stars can do talk shows. it's called Better Angels it's called Ordinary Angels Ordinary Angels what is so weird about it it's her and Reacher yes Alan Richson is in it I haven't seen it it's based on a true story about something that happened during a 1994 like cold weather thing yeah sorry to be dismissive of this real event that I don't know anything about what's weird is that it was written by the actress Meg Tilly that is very strange who people might know from like Agnes of God and the big film and shit.

2:22:53Academy Award nominee, sister of Jennifer. And then, and co-written by Kelly Freeman Craig, who's the great filmmaker who made, you know, Edge of 17 and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. So, you know, it's got like a bit of a, like legit. Who directed it? John Gunn. Of course. Who directed a bunch of Christian, you know, movies. Christian inspiration dramas. What's it opening to? It's opening to$6 million. Oh, great. It's going to make 20 worldwide. What was the drop-off between Demon Slayer? Oh, yeah. Right. So it's 13 for Bob Marley, 11 for Demon Slayer, 6 for Ordinary Angels. Slow week.

2:23:31Number four, The Box Office, I think your favorite film of 2024. Are you joking? The one you watched the most? Sort of. Sort of? I mean, like, I don't think it really was, but you were kind of obsessed with this movie. I was kind of obsessed with this movie. It's called Madame Web. That's right. Rolk! I have seen it, I believe, five times now. Wow. I keep hovering over the purchase button on the steelbook because it has yet to go on sale. And I'm like, my love for this film is not ironic. And yet, do I want to spend$40 on a 4K steelbook? Oh, that's tough. And sometimes I'm waiting for like, is there some deal where I could combo, like buy one, get one kind of thing?

2:24:07Have you seen Madame Webb? Oh, yes, I've seen Madame Webb. The Madame. Have you gotten caught in the web? I have gotten caught in the web. I went and I think I probably saw it opening weekend with my brother, our like favorite thing to do. as we all do with our siblings, is find a movie that we want to go see in theaters, but specifically the shittiest movie that is accessible to us at any time in Madam Web. One of the shittiest movies. It's incredible. It's been accessible to me. We went and saw it. We had the best time ever, rivaled only by seeing Morbius. In person. Yes. When he came to introduce the screening of Madam Web.

2:24:41Exactly. And we had a great time, but I didn't watch it after I saw it in theaters until I came back to my apartment when my family was in town in New York, and I saw my grandpa, who is 81 years old, I think, sitting down on a couch watching Madam Web by himself because he was like not wanting to join us for dinner or something. And he looks at me and goes, this movie is so bad. And I just had to nod and agree. There's a reality distortion field. I also feel like you frame that story with an apology of it took me this long to watch Madam Web a second time. which we just acknowledge culturally.

2:25:21All of us need to watch it a couple times. Absolutely. You cannot get your head around it in one viewing. It's great. Maybe I got to see it a second time. You just want to see it a second time? I have not seen it. I'm being the villain from that. David is doing his impression of. This entire thing is overdubbed. Number five at the box office is an animated film that came out in like December. It's been hanging out for three months. Is it migration? It's the film Migration, which made 127 million domestic. It's a classic. It opened really fucking low. And then it just hung on there like a family of ducks just cruising.

2:25:53Kamail Nanjiani. Yes. Elizabeth Banks. Okay. Now, I'm seeing here that Keegan-Michael Key and Awkwafina provided voice talent. They don't do that kind of stuff. No, no. They are allergic to voiceover booths. If you were to put them in a voiceover booth, it would be like Spock accepting the radiation at the end of Raton. You cannot get them to stand behind a microphone and do a silly voice. I have not seen migration. I haven't either. No. I think DeVito was in it as well. He is. Yes. All people that have never been in a voice. They hate it. They hate it. It was written by Mike White who of course created the White Lotus.

2:26:28Right. And it was on Survivor. Yes. And also wrote the Emoji movie. Yes. His live action canon is very good. It is. I would say basically every live action thing he's written is good. Sometimes you need a check. Yeah. And that's just the reality. He's also credited on Despicable Me 4. Really? The worst one? He's very much in the like Illumination wheelhouse. number six in the box office is and then he's like right I want Jason Isaacs to poison his whole family and I want you know whatever also my dad and I are gonna do the amazing race again or whatever it's an interesting life he lives number six in the box office is Argyle which was a bomb but people forget did make 45 million dollars it didn't make nothing like people went to see it this is the thing I feel like you and I need to push sometimes it's like this movie was a flop but we must acknowledge that millions of people left their home to go and see the movie.

2:27:20Argyle. I saw it with Friend of the Pod, Rachel Lang. Have you seen that? I haven't, but I'm curious, and I could be misremembering this. I feel like there was a wave of this semi, maybe it was a joke, and I was totally misreading the situation, but people who thought Taylor Swift had written the book, and I'm almost curious if that was why there were people showing up was because people were almost like, I'm supporting T. Swift in this. Like a week before it came out, when the reviews came out, they like gave up the goose on the person who wrote the book is the fictional character and here was the ghost writer and whatever.

2:27:53And then it got kind of... It's all because of the cat is Taylor Swift's cat. Right. She's got that cat in the movie. But the reason the cat is in the movie is because that's the cat that Matthew Vaughn has and he based on his real cat but the reason that's the cat he has is because his daughters were so obsessed with Taylor Swift that they were like, we want that cast. That is nuts. It's nuts. That is a movie that is infinitely more interesting to talk about everything around the movie. It's not even interesting to talk about the movie. It's interesting to talk about the bubble around the film.

2:28:28The movie is dog shits. The anti-Madam Webb is actually tedious to watch. I agree with that. Number seven at the box office hanging out after three months as well. Huge hit. Wonka. Wonka. Paul King's Wonka. Very fun movie in my opinion. Driveway Dolls at number eight. Number nine, The Beekeeper. which I preferred to A Working Man, which I tried out last year, this year, which is pretty bad. Maya, have you seen The Beekeeper? I haven't. I do remember when it was rolling out. Have people spoiled anything about The Beekeeper for you? I'm going to guess. About a fucking beekeeper. I'm guessing there's bees involved and maybe a keeper of them.

2:29:02Sort of. But I don't really know. Here's all I'm going to say. I cannot strongly enough implore you to watch this film. Okay. It's pretty fun. It is truly a movie where every 10 minutes you could pause and write down what you think is going to happen and you will never get anything right. That's fun. I like that. You can guess like, oh, he'll get revenge on people. But it has the craziest narrative turns I've ever seen. The way this movie heightens, where it gets to by the end is insane. We're recording this episode very far in advance. All I ask is, if you watch The Beekeeper between when we're recording and November, please send a voice memo.

2:29:38MGM Plus. Of just your feelings on Beekeeper, but I strongly recommend watching it. That is the easiest thing anyone's ever assigned me to do. Yeah, it's pretty easy to watch. It's an easy watch and the end will blow your fucking mind. Okay. Hello, Blankies. This is me from the future. I ended up doing my homework. I watched The Beekeeper the other night and Griffin was right. There was no way I would have ever predicted how high the stakes were going to be by the end of the movie. That was crazy. But as a fan of the Hitman video game franchise, I was majorly rocking with an angry bald guy doing some occupational-based shenanigans on an assassination run.

2:30:18That was pretty fun to see. I'll be tuning in to more Jason Statham job-based cinematic universe movies in the future. I want to just shout out Minnie Driver for showing up for an hour and a half, getting her money and leaving. And also Josh Hutcherson's Perm. Highlights of the movie for me. All right. Back to the bod. Number 10 in the box office is The Chosen Season 4, episodes 4 to 6. I mean, it really is. There's still just a lot of that happening in the box office. Are you aware of this phenomenon of The Chosen? The Chosen is a self-funded TV series about Jesus that I think is now in its third or fourth season.

2:30:55It was the biggest Kickstarter project, I think, of all time and now has outside financing. But every year or every other year when there's a new season, they released the season in theaters first. So they'll be like, this week, The Chosen, season four, episodes one and two, and it will be number three at the box office. And then two weeks later, the next two episodes will come out in theaters. They release them two at a time in theaters. They make millions and millions of dollars. And then they go up on like Amazon Prime or whatever. Whoa, I did not know about that. It is a bizarre thing that's been going on for years that no one talks about.

2:31:30Imagine if any other TV show was released that way. It's very silly. Number 11 is anyone but you just to shout that one out. Perfect. We came back. It's still there. What's it up to at this point? I made a healthy 87 to this point and it ended up at, oh, 88. So it's almost done. Anyone but you where Sydney Sweeney is there and she's got the issues, I assume. I mean, you nailed it in your review of why does she always sound like she just came out of an egg? That is my take on Sydney Sweeney. My take on Madame Webb was that every line delivery feels like it's on a Zoom delay. And my take on anyone but you is Sydney Sweeney literally feels like she just hatched out of an egg.

2:32:10Or you can say, beamed down from a spaceship. Like, it's just like, she just feels like she's never had a handle on dialogue sometimes. She can be very good. Totally. She has given really good performances and shit. And in a way where you're just like, there are obvious ways you miscast her where she is not going to be able to do anything. but the way the times in which she has been good it can't be an accident and yet it feels like it's a very narrow strike zone yeah yeah but normal person all discourse around her she's just not good in that movie being like oh my life is so crazy I mean she's not funny I think that's really it no she's not funny I also always be like a nun who's being terrorized if you want to high schooler who's being terrorized exactly she's great at freakouts she's got those giant fucking eyes.

2:32:58Right. If you want her to be funny in a movie, you have to frame the movie around what she's already good at and then have other characters comment on it rather than having her be like, oh my God, my boss is driving me crazy. I don't even have time to wash my hair. I think about it with David Boreanaz all the time where like, he's in Buffy as Angel where like, what's your job? It's to be good looking, to be mysterious and dark and like, you know, yada, yada, yada. Then they're like, we're going to make a show about you now. You're going to be the lead. And I remember when Angel was announced, I was like, but Angel's boring.

2:33:28He's got to bounce off of. And so, but they correctly were like, yeah, no, no, no, no. Everyone else around him will be kind of goofy and it'll, his straight man shit will be comedy. Like, you know, and he's a bit of a man at a time. And you're like, that's, that makes sense. That's good. And then Bones starts, right? And in Bones, he's a goof. And I'm like, where was this for fucking 10 years of your career? In Bones, he's like, ah, Bones, you're so, you're a dumb nerd. That's very similar to when they offered 21 Jump Street to training Tatum. and he was like, I'm not funny. I don't know how to do comedy.

2:33:59I shouldn't do this. And they were like, we'll build it off of you being the straight man and then you see him get comfortable in that movie and find his moment and then he's just like, I know exactly how to be funny. He's one of my favorites to watch. I love him. He's great. I love him too. What's he doing right now? Well, you know what? I think Roofman will have just come out. Roofman! That was fun. We talk about him a lot in the Hail Caesar episode and wondering what the future of his career is and we weren't talking about Roofman, which I I hope Roofman's a hit Roofman looks fun yeah and of course he's in Avengers Doomsday a film with a plot that's been deciding on what's his fucking line oh we better make a name for us yeah like crazy great but yes no Comedy Channing's my favorite yeah um well that's quite a top 10 uh yeah that's a top 10 and you know who else is top 10 person is Maya MXM Toon What do you want to plug, bro?

2:34:56Oh my gosh. What do I want to plug? That's David's new catchphrase. I should do that more often. That's really good. I like that. Well, bro. Honestly, just hang out. I'm online. I'm there. I'm on Letterboxd. You do a lot of Twitch streams. I do a lot of Twitch streams. I'm a big gamer and a big nerd. And movies have been kind of something that I have always loved. But I think I'm now more in the weeds on it. I'm building the physical media collection, etc. You've been throwing off some good disc stacks. I'm doing my best. Especially when you're touring. You've been finding local shops. and posting some good stuff.

2:35:26Yeah. It's been really fun. So I have really enjoyed that. You can find me on Letterboxd at M-A-I-A-P-O-G, Maya Pog. And on Twitch under MXM Tune, but really anywhere on MXM Tune. What are you streaming? What games? Literally anything. I feel like I'm the queen of side questing. And that's why it's hard to plug stuff because I'm doing everything always. But I've been streaming a lot of Fortnite classically, but I play, I love indie games. That's my bread and butter. So if you know a game that's been made by a singular person who has a hyper fixation. Have you played Blueprints yet? No. What is Blueprints?

2:36:01Oh, you got to check it out, bro. I'm not going to tell you anything. Just play it. David exists in this world a little bit. Our researcher, JJ, every week is plugging some new indie game made by someone with a hyper fixation. That's exactly it. Those are the favorite. We'll start passing along the JJ recommendations. The last thing he needs. Feeling like his knowledge has any value in this world. What's your main Fortnite skin? My main Fortnite skin right now is Chun-Li, but usually it's Xenomorph. Fucking shout out Chun-Li. That's my Street Fighter 2 main. I haven't been playing for a while.

2:36:37You've been playing Fortnite? I didn't know this. I was playing a lot with my little cousin. You gotta play! I do remember that. And now he's gotten too caught up in baseball. He doesn't have time to do anything. He likes baseball? He's really good at baseball. Well, he should call me up. No, you are not meeting him. Oh, okay. Now I haven't taken him to a movie in like months. We don't play Fortnite because he's doing like baseball five days. Like his weekends are very occupied with baseball. He's not. His calendar is very cool. I don't think he's on like a professional MLB track, but he's like at that level where it's like, you're really good at this and you like this a lot.

2:37:06You gotta hone it. Yeah. I don't know. He's told me and I don't know. Well, is he a pitcher or not? I don't think so. Okay. I'll find out. But anyway, come the fall, you know, the season will be over here. We have plans to do a Superman Fantastic Four double feature at the end of the summer. He's been away. But I was playing with him every Sunday. And with our friend Sarah Rubin, past and future guests, we would all do it together. I was doing Chewbacca. Okay. But I was using the accoutrements of the Wasteland. I've never heard somebody say Magneto. Accoutrement? Magneto? What? They did a Marvel event.

2:37:42Yes, they did. And there was a really good Magneto. And you could get like classic Magneto. but there was also this wasteland Magneto where he had like a tattered cape and shit. So I give like Chewbacca the tattered cape and the Magneto like pickaxe and stuff. So it kind of looks like a fucking Mad Max Chewbacca. It's pretty cool, David. I haven't played in months. I played Fortnite once and I didn't like it. Come on, guys. There's four of us here. It's not impossible to create a squad and reframe your enjoyment of Fortnite. Get you back into playing Fortnite. Ben, have you played Fortnite? No.

2:38:15Get my nine-year-old cousin into the squad. I assume it's more fun if you're being social. I would play with you any day. It's more fun. I'd play with you guys anytime. Just say the word. I just loaded it and was like, okay. And it was also years ago. I know that Fortnite has now become very complicated. I'm going to get my nine-year-old cousin's schedule and we're going to figure out a squad. Yeah, I'm so down. A squad night, a squad afternoon. That's the thing I want to plug. That's it. Great. Perfect. When are we going to get our own skins in Fortnite? It feels like that's inevitable. That has to happen.

2:38:46Sounds good. Yeah. Ben with Bone Pickaxe. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Remember to tune in next week for Honey Don't, a movie that David clearly is calling in advance. There's a lot to talk about. Oh, boy. You think Honey Don't is going to make more or less than driveway dolls? It has to be less. It has to be less? I guess it's a low bar, so maybe not. but like I don't think it's gonna be a hit I don't either yeah but I guess but the driveway dolls bar is low I don't know Chris Evans I think it's gonna be higher Chris Evans is there we like him trying we like him trying and he's there is he is not the problem with that movie at all and it's not like a Pedro he's like a proper role he's completing the assignment yeah yeah I mean but it's kind it's not like a Pedro but it is kind of the thing of these movies of like you know they clearly yeah they had him for a few days he did silly stuff and like yeah right yeah I'll go for that Yeah.

2:39:43Sebastian Stan will star in Radu Hudejude. Yeah. Frankenstein. Okay, wrap us up. All right, bye. Another Frankenstein? Yeah, well, that's true. Wrap us up. Oh, okay. Well, you interrupted. Now I'm just spinning on the Frankenstein thought. And as always, more movies should be centered around a literal bag full of dicks. Yeah. Yeah.

2:40:10Blank 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 J.J. 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.

2:40:49Join 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.