Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with John Hodgman

9:32David Sims:It's a great app. And if you wish to inquire, I've just received an email from her mom. Hey. Ship happens brooklyn at gmail.com. That's P-R-O-O-K-L-I-N. Oh, people want to order. Okay. If you want to inquire. She's not, she's 13 years old. Okay, got it. Let's not overwhelm her. Let's not overwhelm her. You can inquire. But we had gone back and forth. We were like, maybe this guest, if the timing worked out, there were a couple options. But we kept being like, but also David, it could be guestless. I think that's a strong move if it's guestless. and then you had popped into my head truly the night before as like, I feel like Hodgman loves that beyond just being a man of the low seas.

10:09David Sims:I think he specifically loves that movie. You sent the text. I side text David. I go, I've been thinking Hodgman for MNC. And immediately David was like, yeah, that makes sense. There was no argument about it. It was absolutely. I like a comforting guest.

10:26Griffin Newman:Well, I aim to be a comfort to you here. I feel sometimes I push my way through into podcasts and sort of try to wrestle control I mutiny do you know what I mean? but today you are oh captain my captain oh relax everyone relax and I am your midshipman hollum just a shameful I was gonna say but that's not the guy you wanna be a shameful and he's worse in the books imposter syndrome guy and at any point I'm gonna jump off this ship with a cannonball he's worse in the books? yeah Yeah, his character is less sympathetic in the books. But we don't have to get into that because this is not, you know, the books.

11:04Griffin Newman:How hard have you gone on the books? I'm not as hard as I could because there's so many of them. So, okay, wait, what's this podcast?

11:12David Sims:This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. My name is Griffin. I am David. Let's put down our violins for a moment and get to podcasting. Which are playing like guitars. Yes. It is a cool moment.

11:27Griffin Newman:It's the greatest ending in a movie ever. This movie? It's the fucking greatest shit that's ever happened.

11:34David Sims:This movie obviously does not mean as much to me as it does to you, but I cannot deny that ending for a millisecond.

11:40Griffin Newman:It's like the greatest ending line. It's phenomenal. Perfect ending line. You're like, oh, I'm so happy. And then they're like, let's fucking, you know, have sex, a.k.a. play our stringed instruments together. And you're like, wonderful. They're doing it. And you're like, this is great. And then he does a little violin to the side. And you're like, oh, this is so saucy. And then they swap it. I mean, and then. And you're like, they're going to have a million more adventures. Like, where else? Where else can this go? Are you going to tell me that the vision is now picking up his cello and playing that like a guitar?

12:09Griffin Newman:He is the vision. Like in this perfect scene, how could it get better? And he does. That's the final scene. My father owned all of these books. He was very, very into these books. And so I have them all in my house. I have read, I would say, I think six of them. I have they are they are something that dads especially are yeah there's 20 books

12:33David Sims:there was a 21st that was unfinished at the time of his death that is unfinished and I think this is by who

12:39Griffin Newman:the author's name is Patrick O 'Brien I think it's a pseudonym and he wrote them the first one's 1969 the last one came out 30 years later so there are 20 books in 30 years

12:48David Sims:and Master and Commander

12:48Griffin Newman:is the first one the name of the first one is Master and Commander okay and the name of the last The name of the 10th one is The Far Side of the World. Got it. This one, the movie, it pulls from various things. They are, as I think our guest John Hodgman, who we haven't introduced yet. Oh, boy. I also haven't finished the intro, but yeah. That's true. The books. They are very heavy on the particulars of naval life and Napoleonic procedure and all of the stuff that goes into being on a fucking boat. The poop decks. Certainly the poop decks.

13:22David Sims:That is exactly what I imagine these books. ropes the knots lines lines ben lines lines ben we all know this lines they're called lines not

13:30Griffin Newman:ropes on a ship they're very interesting what's crazy is that the first book mastering commander is you know what you think it is uh it's aubrey's only uh he's just become mastering commander he used to be a lieutenant uh mastering commander is like a naval rank to be clear it's sort of sort of like a captain basically and it's like him meeting matern and all that the second book is called Post Captain and it's mostly about them on shore while their various shit is happening. Like he's lost money because the debt court is dealing with his seizure assets. And it's kind of like a Jane Austen novel and it's kind of about them both falling in love.

14:07Griffin Newman:You know, like it's just crazy that that was the second book. And then the third book, like they get the HMS surprise. They're back on the seas. Like the books actually do defy what you think of them as just like dad shit. They are really, really awesome and interesting, but I am no expert on them. I'm not. I'm like not an expert on the book. I'm certainly less of an expert than you. And I, you read the first one, you said? I read like six of them. I read about half of the first one and I realized if I go down this road, I will never get off it. Maybe you should read them all right now.

14:34David Sims:You got up to the ampersand and then you give up. I read the master part. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. this is a miniseries on the films of Peter Weir I tried to call it Podster and Castman or the podside of the cast but instead it is called Podnick at Hanging Cast today we are talking about his penultimate film yes which is fascinating only because it is 23 years ago the man is still alive and this has now become at the top tier of the films that he's known for for sure For sure.

15:18But I wonder if he is even known for the film. In other words, I think that people who idolize this film in its reassessment that's been going on over the past half a decade or so, or decade, think of it as a Peter Weir film or just think of it as a master and commander.

15:36David Sims:It's certainly a question we've been interrogating in doing this series is, how many people put these movies together under the vision of one person and how they're filed in their mind? it feels like there are few people who have enough films that loom this large in the culture that the public doesn't really have a sense of. Well, as I've been watching them over the course of listening to you guys do it so far, I'm reminded like he doesn't have a genre. No. He doesn't have like a through line. His defining style is very subtle and is malleable. Yeah, and he's not showy. Right. Even though he is probably one of the most showy, not telly directors that I can think of off the top of my head.

16:24David Sims:But in a very elegant, quiet way. Yeah. I also think... It kind of disappears. It is interesting to me, even just in going through these movies, how few of them at the time were really sold as from the director of blank and blank.

16:37Griffin Newman:You couldn't do that with him because I feel like it would just look weird for this poster with Russell Crowe's fate. to then be like from the director of the Truman Show. People are like, well, I like the Truman Show, but that doesn't affect me wanting to see a boat movie. Yeah, well, I mean, how do you connect the Truman Show? Well, they both have boats. That's true. That's a good point. They do both have sailing scenes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let me just say the Truman Show sailing scene, not very realistic. First of all, it's inside a dome. Well, that's a fair point. The film one might call science fiction.

17:06Griffin Newman:One might. Think about it a little bit. Isn't the shared thing we've been talking about with him, though, is that his films cover small communities. I was about to say. I think that's very insightful. There's so many boat movies. There are so many other boat movies. And I feel like there are so few that are about the ecosystem of life on the boat versus this. Obviously, Pirates of the Caribbean, we understand that they have tentacles, possibly, and have been cursed. And we do get into that life. Yes. But do we hear about Salutin' Day? Okay. No. No. Does, you know, I mean, like, is there a Killick type?

17:46Griffin Newman:No, there's not.

17:47David Sims:No, well, because Jack Sparrow has a$40 ,000 a month rum budget. He does. He's staying up all night with his Hollywood vampire friends. Much. Noodling. Riffing. Yeah. First made Alice Cooper.

18:01Griffin Newman:I wonder, yeah, what Aubrey would make of Captain Jack Sparrow, if he would like the cut of his jib. I feel like maybe not. But it is funny that, right, the same year, you have Pirates of the Caribbean and all the British naval officers in that, which I think is great, are these prigs, right? Are these like stuffy, sort of gray, you know?

18:21David Sims:They're Star Wars Imperial officers. Right.

18:23Griffin Newman:I mean, I know Jack Davenport has a little more flair, and then he gets sexy in the second one, and he's sort of back to being regular. He's got a good narrative.

18:29David Sims:He's got a good arc in those movies. Those movies are good.

18:31Griffin Newman:The first three.

18:32David Sims:Yeah. I mean, not the other one. Pirates of the Caribbean did kind of fuck this movie, right? I mean, obviously this film was well-reviewed, got a ton of Oscar nominations. It did all right. I don't think Pirates of the Caribbean fuckers. But was super expensive. And obviously the ambition was to launch a franchise that didn't happen.

18:47Griffin Newman:This movie is a miracle. This movie is a miracle. It is a miracle. It exists. I agree with that. This movie, it's incredible it exists. It's incredible it was made. It was, right, it was an Oscar contender. Like, yes, should there have been sequels? Certainly. Yeah. If 20th Century Fox had just, you know, had a stiff back about it. Yeah. And just fucking done it. because like it's a movie that had such a long life. Yeah. Has such a long life. For sure. And they could have just seen that coming. And they could have just been like look Crow he's gonna fit into these you know breaches for another six seven years max.

19:20Griffin Newman:Like let's let's try to get another two movies made.

19:22David Sims:Well we always point to

19:23Griffin Newman:Robin Hood as the last time

19:25David Sims:Robin Hood is seven years later. Tightened up. Tightened up a little bit. You wouldn't even look I mean in all respect to Crow's performance in this movie which is good. Mm-hmm. Like it didn't even tempt someone to go, why don't we do a young Jack Aubrey? There have been threats recently. I don't know if you saw this. Yes. But then someone stops and thinks about it and goes, oh shit, we'd have to film it on a boat.

19:47Griffin Newman:I think that's what often happens. How do you achieve it? I mean, I couldn't even, even though I've seen this movie a couple of times, rewatching it for this, the first thing I thought of this movie as a miracle in the sense that I can't believe it existed and it will never exist again. Yeah. In part because those boats are, it's nuts what they did. I also think. And it would be CGI now and it would not. I think that's more rich. You could do it, but it'd probably be a little.

20:10David Sims:But to the credit of the people running 20th century films now, don't you think they know if they made a young Aubrey prequel that was shot in the volume, people would revolt? They know they can't do that. There'd be a mutiny.

20:25Griffin Newman:I don't think they're going to do that. What do you want to say, John Hodgman? Permission to speak. Please. Our guest today is John Hodgman, by the way. Judge John Hodgman. How many episodes have you been on? One, two, three, four, five, six.

20:37David Sims:This is your seventh episode, not including voicemails. You've done some favors. Thank you. The They Live subliminal cut.

20:44Griffin Newman:That's right.

20:45David Sims:You were inside the little door in the Coraline episode. You did, of course,

20:48Griffin Newman:watch Infinity War with us on Patreon. You did. Having watched the movie the night before. I didn't realize we were going to be watching it again. A live show or two. Yeah, you've been in here. I'm a little, I'm much more of an able seaman now. You're a dear friend of the show. I'm more seasoned. in the dialogue of the show. I started out as a landsman, as a lover. You're a pretty... Then I became a normal seaman. You're a pretty consistent kind of one a year on blank check, I will say, looking at your record here. Anytime you wish, I will be here. Well, you're busy, man. All right, let's take it back.

21:23Let's maintain that fiction. I'm going to make this case that if someone at 20th Pictures, like, let's do another master and commander, it would be a failure. And here's why. David put his masterly and commanderly finger on it. This is dad shit. And the thing is, this came out in my thoughts in kind of the last time dads were going to movies. So many dads were seeing Peter Weir movies. There are a lot about dadism.

21:56Griffin Newman:just to get this out of the way. What would happen is a show, not a movie. They would do a streaming series. Yes. Well, that's the thing. Now, dad... And that's what they often are going to do. Like dads are still... And I'm speaking to this from personal experience. Dads are definitely watching YouTube's about sleeper cars on trains across transcontinental sleeper cars. Oh, I love to watch one of those. Right? Gondolas and funiculars. Sure. I would say less so for me. Dead empires. Yeah. Please. And you think I... What were the Hittites up to? Tell me. Exactly. And you think I haven't been going to sleep watching YouTube videos with 3D models of the HMS Victory breaking down a classic British ship of the line of 1805?

22:33Of course. And that's what I'm doing at home. Dads are not going to go to see. Dads stay at home and watch things.

22:38Griffin Newman:You can go see the HMS Victory. That's what I hear. You should go. Well, where is it? It's in Portsmouth. It's Portsmouth, New Hampshire? Unfortunately, my friend, no. It's in the original Portsmouth. I'll stop on the way to Maine. It's kind of in the UK. Yeah. Well, it's a little easier. This is the point. a lot more dads would stay at home and watch a streaming Master and Commander than they would go to Portsmouth to stand on the victory. Unfortunately, I think one day it will happen. More dads would even go to Portsmouth to stand on the deck of the ship where Lord Nelson died, the HMS Victory.

23:09Griffin Newman:Yes, he did die there. The greatest man in the world. Then go to a cinema to watch a Master and Commander movie. I just think it's where we're at. And this is like, the dad shit in this movie is obviously obsession with boats and procedure and all-male worlds, but it's also about the dadly relationship that he has with the young officers. It's all dadism all the way down. I just want to... You know who Horatio Nelson is, obviously. Sure. Okay, only you know a little bit. Yeah, even I'm... And you guys don't know who Nelson is, right? No, absolutely. Who's invoked in this movie a lot. Viscount Lord Nelson.

23:46Yeah. The guy who stands on the column in Trafalgar Square.

23:48Griffin Newman:Well, yes. That's how I often will... Because my wife has watched this movie with me multiple times and every time I'm like, you get who Nelson is, right? And she's like, no, don't know what you're talking about. Like, whatever you told me last time, it's gone again. But like, and I keep trying to be like, he's the most important British person who ever lived. And it's kind of crazy that like, probably. And like, it's crazy. Churchill, I would say is the other. Yeah, that feels like the obvious answer. It's between the two of them. But Churchill is like a, obviously he, you know, he's pretty cool, like, or whatever, but he's a pretty complicated figure.

24:20Yeah.

24:20Griffin Newman:You know, he has some failures. Gallipoli among them in his ledger. You know, he, you know.

24:26David Sims:Guy liked his grog. Yeah. He did like his grog. I mean, but in the morning he'll be sober and you'll still be ugly. But like Nelson is... Fucking five comedy points. Nelson's the guy who beat Napoleon. You want to say something nasty? Sit in a circle with these guys.

24:40Griffin Newman:And it's like one of those things where I'm like, right, like only British, every British child knows who Admiral Nelson is, but like no... Fascinating. No other person really outside of Britain wouldn't care too much. Who is he equivalent to even in like American history? Eisenhower, I guess. Like, who's the most famous? Grant. Grant. Paton. Yeah. Who's the most famous American military leader? It's one of those guys. Yeah. Eisenhower, Patton, Grant, someone like that. Washington. Nelson is the other ship captain they're talking about, right? Yeah. And that's kind of the beauty of all of Peter Weir's storytelling, which, in my opinion, he'll drop esoteric shit.

25:15But he contextual... Well, I mean, if you're an American. But it's contextualized enough for an American and for a lay viewer. that you know this is like the greatest dude that's ever lived and they're all excited just to have him. But you do know... The fact that he sat at a table with him is blowing people's minds. It's crazy, right?

25:31Griffin Newman:You do know that there's the big column in Trafalgar Square in London. Like there's a big column with a guy. He's the guy on top of it. Oh, shit. Because he beat Napoleon. Right, right. Which we kind of... Which we, you know, British people really like to bring up. You know, like that we... I mean, he beat Napoleon the second time. Wellington also beat... Bonaparte. Yeah, Napoleon Bonaparte. Oh, okay. I was wondering. The guy from the water park. Yeah. I mean, sorry. His was the first time. Wellington is the second time. Yeah. Wellington is Waterloo.

26:00David Sims:There are two things I want to say. One about the death of dad cinema, right? It does feel like that is an audience that was lost permanently in the pandemic. That those are people who are just like, I just got used to watching things this way. It is just not a thing I even consider going to theater to see stuff. Right, and I can surround myself with all my dadly comforts. Yeah, and I think even through the late 2010s, there would be dad hits that would punch through. And it feels like those things go straight to streaming now, and one that's really emblematic and feels like a counterpoint of the miracle of this movie being made at this scale by a major studio, this seriousness, close to 25 years ago, versus, like, I think still one of the most watched streaming movies of all time.

26:49David Sims:certainly the number one movie in the history of Apple Plus is Tom Hanks' Greyhound. Good movie. Which was meant to be a theatrical movie. Right, it was a COVID shuttle to Apple TV because of COVID. And he just finished filming a second one. Like, he has made this a franchise for him. And they are movies that just like, unless you are the target audience, you aren't aware this exists.

27:08Griffin Newman:I would say, here are some examples of dad movies recently that I think succeeded. Okay. Top Gun Maverick. But that doesn't totally count, but it still counts. The magic of that is that dad movies, a part of the slice versus the whole pie. Ford versus Ferrari, I think dad movie

27:23David Sims:was a big part of the pie. That's a 2019 though. That's a perfect example for me. But not that long ago. Sully, you know, these are movies that still like made a hundred million domestic. And you're like, this audience is majority dad.

27:44David?

27:44David Sims:Yeah.

27:46Griffin Newman:How you doing?

27:47David Sims:Ugh, I'm doing horribly. You want to know why? Tell. Because I'm remembering what my experience used to be like shopping for glasses. Ah, terrible! Complicated! Ugh, overpriced! And the glasses, the styles themselves, they felt outdated. Now, you don't wear glasses. Uh, no. You wear sunglasses. You like sunglasses. Love a sunglasses. You bought the Jeff Bridges Fearless sunglasses? Sure did. They were the closest approximation. When you're a person with poor vision and you got to wear glasses all the time, Something that some of my friends, such as Sam Rogal, can test. They like to say I'm a faker and a phony.

28:21David Sims:My glasses are off right now. I can't even tell who's who. It's so blurry. This defines me. The thing I wear on my face. The frames around the windows to the sole. It's important. It's a process you want to make as easy as possible. And that's what our friends at Warby Parker do. And boy, I've been a happy customer for many years. A decade probably now at this point with Warby Parker. This is why I'm obsessed with Warby Parker. Yeah, why? You use them. I'll tell you why. Seriously, nothing comes close on quality, price, selection, and customer service. Very affordable. Lots of choice. I got the toddy and tortoise shell.

28:58David Sims:I love these guys. I've had them for years. And with Warby Parker, the options feel easy. The prices are lower. The quality is good. And the virtual try-on is a total game changer. You can literally try on glasses from your phone before you buy. It's wild how well it actually works. I've tried other try-ons, virtual try-ons. I feel pretty janky. But with Warby Parker, you can genuinely tell how the frames are going to look and fit. You just point your camera and boom, you see tons of frames on your face in real time. Pretty cool. You know, you don't have to choose between flimsy, outdated styles or spending half your paycheck.

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30:47Griffin Newman:Post-COVID, the oldies aren't showing up, and we got them to show up. We got to get them to show up, but that's not going to make Russell Crowe 40 years old again. There's no sequel. There's no perfect sequel to Master and Commander by Peter Weir with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany that we'll ever get, but that's okay because we have this movie and it ends so perfectly.

31:05David Sims:This is the second thing I wanted to say to this point. This movie is a miracle. How does it exist? Tom Rothman, who was pretty infamous at this point of being like a pretty brutal kind of mercenary, sort of here's the future of studios. You know, he's not too precious about art. He wants to make entertainment. He's noting everything to death. Now he's in charge of Sony Columbia. Yeah. And he feels like the throwback-y guy who's going out to CinemaCon. I love Tom Rothman.

31:33Griffin Newman:We got to make original movies, you know? He was just at CinemaCon, just like last week, being like, stop having so many fucking ads in front of everything. And all of the AMC people are like shifting in their seat. Windows need to be three or four months. Yeah, right.

31:45David Sims:You know, we need to make things for like different audiences. In the 2000s, he was seen as like, is this guy too crass a businessman? And now he feels like one of the last guys fighting for integrity, but was just sort of a brass tacks guy. Despite being, as everyone said, a big fan of movies, very well educated, but he's like, but my job is to like run this like a business. This was a fucking passion project for him. He was not applying the usual checks and balances in his head to this movie because it was like from the moment he fucking got that seat at Fox, he was like, I'm going to be the guy who's finally going to get the fucking Aubrey movies off the ground onto seats.

32:21David Sims:And can I say something? Yeah. Looking at his biography here, I can tell you that when this movie finally came out, he was 48 years old in real dad territory. He's the dad to two daughters. Yep. He was into this dad shit. He was into this dad shit. He's into this dad shit. Now, here's the weird parallel I was going to say. When the story came out a couple years ago that Foxes maybe or 20th Century is maybe noodling with a Master and Commander reboot. There was a writer attached, no director attached, Young Aubrey, whatever it is. The reason that was happening was not just because this movie has gained such a reputation and a cult.

33:00David Sims:It is because Jason Isbell, who is now the head of 20th Century, his first movie as a junior exec.

33:08Griffin Newman:I think it's Stevens. You're right. Sorry.

33:10David Sims:Jason Isbell is a musician, I believe. Different guy. Okay. I was going to... I mean, I like him as a musician. Steven Isbell is the correct guy. He tears it up online with right-wing weirdos. This was the first movie he ever worked on. And so he has some weird romanticism and nostalgia for this as well. I don't think he gets it over the finish line,

33:27Griffin Newman:but it's the only reason we're even talking about it. Let's move off of that, because we're not talking about that. We're talking about Mastering Commander. We're talking about Peter Weir's film, Mastering Commander. When did you see this film, Griffin?

33:35David Sims:I saw this in theaters. Sure. I believe if not even opening weekend I want to say there was maybe even like a preview possible weekend a week or two early maybe here's my relationship to this movie came out in November right before Thanksgiving

33:48Griffin Newman:2003 makes obviously perfect sense for it

33:51David Sims:I went to see this with the often-voked Derek Simon my childhood friend my oldest friend hi Derek we went to see it opening weekend the movie starts and like three minutes and I was like oh right I don't like this kind of movie sure I sat there and was just like you're a young man you're what are you 14 yeah yeah It's not my kind of thing. I sit there. I respect the craft of it. But there was a little bit of, oh, I just signed up for a class in a subject I'm not interested in. Right? What kind of movie was it to you at that time? What kind of movie was it to you? When you say, I don't like this kind of movie.

34:23Griffin Newman:It's like a history movie. It's a bunch of boys. It's a war movie. You know, like this is not a Griffin movie, especially not Teen Griffin. No, especially not Teen Griffin. There's no monsters or puppets. No. There's no cartoon characters. I don't want to... Let's not make it sound like

34:39David Sims:that's the only kind of thing I like.

34:41Griffin Newman:When you were 14, though,

34:42David Sims:you liked more genre stuff. It's a very stoic film. It's a very emotionally reserved film. It's actually got a light heart

34:48Griffin Newman:with a lot of wonderful humor to it. But yes, that's true.

34:50David Sims:And it's, I think, very earnest. Sure. Right. Pretty earnest. I was not a fan of history in a general sense. It's just one thing after another you might have said. That's what James Gordon says in the history books.

35:04Griffin Newman:Yeah. History boys.

35:06David Sims:Didn't never rewatch this movie because I was just sort of like, I respect it, but it's just not my kind of movie. But you've slowly over the years,

35:13Griffin Newman:like anyone you've noticed, like, huh, that movie gets talked about a lot. 100%. It's got kind of a cult around it. Huh. Beyond cult. At this point, it's sort of like revered or whatever.

35:22David Sims:When we become friends and you tell me this is one of your favorite movies, I'm like, that makes perfect sense. Best movie of 20. It both perfectly aligns with everything I know about you at that point and helps me understand you further. Six or seven years ago, Derek, who I'd seen it with, and we walked out with the same reaction, was like, have you ever seen Master and Commander? And I was like, yeah, we saw it together. We were both bored. And he's like, I've seen it like 20 times now. Clearly it just bounced off me at the time. I rediscovered it. I'm now obsessed with it. I watch it all the time.

35:48David Sims:I'm like, huh, I do need to reassess this movie. But also, Peter Weir is pinned to the board as an inevitable. So I just have kind of held off re-watching it. And also, the 4K only came out recently. There wasn't a good version of it for a while. what have you. So I like set it up for this moment. And I, I will say like simultaneously, I rewatched this and I was like, I totally get this. I completely get this. It makes perfect sense to me. I understand the value of this movie. It is innately not my kind of film, but I was not disengaged from it in the way I was as a 14 year old.

36:21Griffin Newman:But it's the best movie ever made. Ben. David. Or sorry, Mr. Sims. That's, that's how you do it. Mr. Yeah, exactly. had you seen this film yes because of your enthusiasm so you didn't see it at the time I didn't see it at the time but probably two or three years ago I threw it on and I gotta tell you I had a big old smile on my face loved it it is so comforting it's really one of the most likable movies it is incredibly likable for a movie in which like a 12 year old's arm is amputated. Various people die. There's war. There's no women. And I love women. And this is a womanless movie. Consciously.

37:10David Sims:That's a thing I saw the Wikipedia noting that people vaguely complained about at the time only because there are characters in the books.

37:17Griffin Newman:There are women. I mean, yes. They're not on the boats usually, but there's female characters and they have lives at home. Because the whole thing is you go away and then you come back. This is the naval life of like someone has to wait for your ass like if you got engaged to them and you're like anyway I gotta go. You got Laura Linney on the phone. They don't have phones. Don't have phones. They don't have the telephone. They don't even have the mail. Wait Ben you're picking this up. Oh no. Oh well No. You handed us a piece of paper folded and said don't look at it yet. I'm not looking. Ben I gotta say this is unrelated.

37:53Griffin Newman:This chair is so squeaky now. I need my new chair I think. I know We need a squeaky ass chair. What I was going to say is this movie taught me what batten down the hatches means. Okay. It literally means there's a lot of terms. Just hammer the hatches close so the water doesn't come in. Because it's going to be raining a lot.

38:12David Sims:Bat them down.

38:12Griffin Newman:My whole life going through just not even really recognizing what that means. We're going to talk about beating the quarters. We're going to talk about true colors. We're going to talk about giving leeway. all these phrases come from the HMS surprise

38:30David Sims:we should have started this episode by beating two quarters that is true did you Sam see this immediately and love it on close sight

38:37Griffin Newman:at the Odeon Leicester Square with Howard Amos shout out Howard wherever you are probably Scotland where you live my friend we were both 17 years old it was I think it must have been well it wasn't winter break yet I think it came out in Britain at the same time but now I want to find out seeing this in England must have been a very specific fucking insane experience. I was 17 years old, so I am not yet dad. No, but you're surrounded by people who know this. Oh, for sure. It was a big deal. It came out the same week in Britain. It's mid-November. It's November 17th or whatever. That's sort of like mid-November.

39:18Griffin Newman:And of course, we'll do the boxing. This is not like a Westerosi fantasy world. No. Although I love that one. was to American audiences. Sure. Yes. No, no. You're right. It's a much shorter thing to walk. And we all had watched Hornblower on TV in the 90s. Right. What is Hornblower? Oh, man. You'd love it. Hornblower is a series of TV movies based on books, very popular books. George Lucas is a big fan of Hornblower. Don't you watch the Hornblower once a year? No, it's more like once every sort of five, six months with Muriel. Marie. Yeah. David and Elisa. David Ehrlich and his wife. Uh-huh. And of course, David Barty Salinas, who fucking...

40:01Griffin Newman:He might be the biggest fan of the Hornblowers. That is very unsurprising. And then this is about a jazz band? If only. Yeah. It's about... On ships of the line, there were very strange jobs. It's about a young... And one of them was the Hornblower. It's about a young Neve lieutenant called Horatio Hornblower, who... The first one, he's low on the totem pole, but he rises over the series. And it happened because Elisa, David Ehrlich's wife, texted me like, I want to watch a Master and Commander thing, but not Master and Commander because I've seen enough Master and Commander. And I was like, there's not much, but there's Hornblower.

40:37Griffin Newman:And she was like, what's that? And I was like, it's this British TV thing. And she was like, it's not streaming. And I was like, all right. Well, I'm buying the fucking box set. I have it. I bought it now. And we're watching them. So we all watch that. We blow the horn, we say.

40:49David Sims:Is this really like the only modern version of this executed at this level of quality in movies? And when I say modern, I say like anything post-1950. There's got to be some other like, you know, there's other stuff, isn't there?

41:06Griffin Newman:There's sea movies. Sailing ships at sea, doing canon play with each other. Like, here's the thing I felt. Getting feisty with the 25 pounders.

41:15David Sims:Past the opening title cards the moment this movie started, I had a very clear thought. oh yeah, this is the only movie that gets right what it's like to have been on a ship in this time period. I think so. And then I step back and I go, I don't fucking know that. I have no lived experience.

41:27Griffin Newman:No, I mean, I'm looking at like lists of Napoleon. It's like, there's not much. There was more back in the day, back in the sort of 40s, 50s, 60s. But I think most of the Napoleonic stuff back then, it's more the land. Like there's that movie Waterloo, but that's about, you know, okay, well, you should. Do you know what I'm talking about though?

41:44David Sims:That sensation of seeing something in a movie that you have no firsthand experience of... Right. And the creaks and you're just like, yeah, I feel like they got this right. This feels accurate to something I don't know shit about in a way. Like Sunshine, I always point to that movie for me versus other sci-fi movies. I'm like, this is what it feels like to live in a spaceship for a couple years. And I just, I have no knowledge. I can't speak to that with any authority, but I feel the same way about this. I think that one of the things, I mean, look, I did not live during the Napoleonic War era.

42:24I saw this movie for the first time after I had spent a week with my family. I believe in a 90-foot wooden two-masted schooner, sailing schooner, on a course that I took on schooner navigation.

42:45David Sims:Specifically. Yeah, because, you know, it's something that comes up a lot. You'd be surprised at how often you want to know how to sail a schooner. But the Wooden Boat School in Brooklyn, Maine, offered this week on the merry day. And so I had spent time on a wooden boat and learning the pin rail and the sails and all this stuff. And when we got back, I was like, I want more of that. What year is this? This would have been recently. I didn't see this movie when it came out. Wow. This would have been 2018 or 2019. Okay. when I was like, you know, I never saw Master and Command.

43:19Griffin Newman:You're in a boat headspace, right? And you're like, what are the boat movies? And there's only so many. So at that time, I am a dad. At that time, our son was not yet an adult, but was living with us. He had been on the boat. I was like, let's watch some boat shit. Does your son care about this boat stuff? I mean, I think he thinks of it relatively fondly, but he didn't get into it necessarily. Am I wrong remembering that your son went to a boat school? School on a boat? You know, look, I've been coy about this town. Sure. But I've already mentioned it twice. Yeah. So it's Brooklyn, Maine.

43:49David Sims:Yes, you're loathe to mention it. And there are, well, I mean, it's just, you know, it's kind of a long-running joke. Yes. Because E.B. White had lived there, and he wouldn't reveal where he lived. Got it. I'd always say I lived somewhere on the coast of the United States between New Brunswick, Canada, and Cuba. And Vacationland's only available in hardcover, right? No, it's available now in paperback. Oh, that's helpful. Okay, that's helpful.

44:10Griffin Newman:I think I'm going to start talking about my experiencing the movie again. I feel like we got off the rails. No, no, no.

44:15David Sims:I'm driving towards a specific point. I just remember when I first met your son that he was very interested in boating. Yeah, they built... So there's a lot of wooden boat building in that community. Yes. And there was four local kids and summer kids. They all built a wooden skiff together. This is a family interest that runs deep. I understand. But I was... We kind of forced him to do it.

44:36Griffin Newman:Okay. David, please. Yeah, so I saw it with Howard. I thought it was great. I then saw it on a date. It's a bad idea. It was a disastrous date. movie is quite long. It's not that long, really. It's two hours, 20 minutes. And it's about what it's about. Boys on a boat. And did not. My date was not excited by Master and Commander. Did you make out? Probably. We were at 17. I mean, you know,

45:04David Sims:it's all. What did you deem skippable enough for a quick makeout sesh?

45:09Griffin Newman:Oh, during the movie?

45:10David Sims:No. No, no, no, no, no, no. like after I think because I was confused by yeah the idea that you would look away from the screen for even a second no no no not during the movie yeah that didn't sound like it

45:20Griffin Newman:you actually shoot her away I'm like go on yeah yeah we need a quarter yeah yeah she's leaning in but I'm sorry I'm sorry my dear I must watch I really liked this movie but when I was like 17 my favorite movies of that year were Elephant which was a big movie for me then that was a big one for me as well Elephant yeah I'm trying to think David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls like that was a big movie for Teen Day David. Obviously, I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings' epic conclusion and X-Men 2. Yes, that was way up there. 28 Days Later, Kill Bill, Volume 1. These were the big movies. I was at the time foolishly disappointed by the Matrix sequels and Hulk.

45:58Griffin Newman:I would mature. You'd get there. But Master and Commander was a movie I really liked. And my dad liked it, obviously, as a big fan of the books. He enjoyed it. I bought it on DVD right away. But it was not an immediate, this is one of my favorite movies ever. No. And then it just, I think as it was for a lot of people, I just kept going back to it. And they kept making movies that weren't like it, which they have consistently done to this day. Hollywood just keeps making zero movies in which Paul Bettany in a house coat angrily yells at the captain of his ship that he can't go on the Galapagos Islands to look at cormorants because the ship has to go like fight, you know, the French.

46:40David Sims:This is an interesting point. Is this movie's rising cult also a byproduct of a kind of like, the longer time goes on, it is one-stop shopping. This is the only place you can go to this. Paul Bandy's performance in this film is the greatest.

46:53Griffin Newman:I think he's incredible. The greatest performance ever captured by a camera. Kind of the best sideburns too. The best everything. The seriousness of this man, right? Like from moment one, like just like the gravitas, just steadiness, right? You know, like, Aubrey's got more bluster and Maturin's like very calm. And then like, just for an hour into the movie, for him to just show up in that coat with the hat, right? Ready to go. Ready with his wooden cages to capture some iguanas. And finally, finally admit to, you know, like, you know, show some vulnerability when Aubrey's like, we got to fucking go.

47:30Griffin Newman:And he's like, you promised me I could look at birds. I need to look at the birds right now.

47:36David Sims:It may not surprise you to hear that Paul Bettany's character is the one thing I remember connecting with.

47:41Griffin Newman:Of course.

47:41David Sims:Seeing it as a 14-year-old. I mean, he actually got Oscar buzz. I mean, he was in the mix. But I was just like, I get this guy. This is the closest analog to what I would feel like in this experience. I loved him. I was like all in on Paul Bettany at the time. Yeah, exactly. He was such an exciting young actor at the time. He's so fucking good in Beautiful Mind. I feel like with Distance, he's arguably the best performance in that movie. Sure. You know what? that's a movie I have not seen in 25 years. A little bit terrified to rewatch. But I remember my mom and I walking out and being like, who the fuck is that guy?

48:11Griffin Newman:Right. He was brand new. He'd obviously been in Knight's Tale that year too.

48:17David Sims:And Gangster No. 1 was a couple years before that. But seeing this, I was like, well, this clearly feels like an anointment moment where they're going to give him a kind of star is born Jude Law and Talented Mr. Ripley. Best Supporting Actor Nam. You've proven yourself and now you're a leading man. And instead, his career like kind of immediately gets waylaid after this. Well, at that time, I was writing for Men's Journal magazine, which is the very famous national magazine covering the trend of men keeping journals. Yep, of course. And I pitched a profile of Paul Bettany, having not seen the movie.

48:51Just liking him already. But you're like, this character's gonna pop. I'm like, yeah. And they said, no, not that nerd. Wow. Can I tell you that... An insane thing to say about the man who is married

49:00David Sims:to Jennifer Connelly.

49:02Griffin Newman:Although he wasn't yet, right? They were together. They may have been together. Because they met on Beautiful Mind? Yeah. Even though he's a figment of someone's imagination in that movie. So how could they have even met? They also don't have any scenes together.

49:14David Sims:But they did.

49:15Griffin Newman:Because he's a figment of his imagination. He has no scenes with anyone but Russell Crowe.

49:18David Sims:I believe the story is that they had a flirtation and maybe a hookup during the filming of Beautiful Mind.

49:24Griffin Newman:Well, well, well.

49:26David Sims:Then the movie's obviously done and 9-11 happens. and as he tells the story, when he sees the news on TV, he's like, all I want to do is call Jennifer Connelly. You're right.

49:37Griffin Newman:That is on his Wikipedia page.

49:38David Sims:And he called her and was like, should we fucking give this a go? And they were married like six months later, right? They've been married ever since?

49:43Griffin Newman:Yeah. Paul Bettany, the Oscar nominees that year for Supporting Actor were Tim Robbins for Mr. Griffer, Who Wins. Well, in my opinion, not a very good performance. A bad win. Yes, kind of a bad win. Good actor. A lot of good performances. Bad win. Alec Baldwin in The Cooler, it was the Alec Baldwin moment.

49:58David Sims:Yes. But in retrospect, you're just like, that movie doesn't exist. It is so weird. That's his only Oscar. It's not a bad movie, but it doesn't really exist. I remember him being good in it. He's really good. But it also was, it was just the moment of him embracing the character actor thing. Everyone liked him being the bear. Benicio in 21 Grams. He's amazing in that. What I have often contended if he hadn't won for Traffic, he would have won this year. An amazing performance.

50:21Griffin Newman:Yeah, he's a dog shit movie, but he's phenomenal in that. Not a very well-remembered movie. Jaiman Honso in America, a performance I really like, a nom I kind of love. Same. But another one that you're kind of like, huh, like another performance nobody really talks about. Kind of a nomination warning surprise. I forget who he bumped out, but he was not as much in the first. This is what I'm getting to. Bettany. And then Ken Watanabe in Last Samurai, which is a movie I don't love, but a performance I adore. Yeah. Like, and that was kind of a nice, you know, that was a nice. Yeah. The Globes had, right, so like, Peter Sarsgaard in Shattered Glass, who cleaned up the Critics Awards.

50:56Griffin Newman:Yeah. Amazing performance. Yeah. Got snubbed. Rude. Albert Finney and Big Fish got the Globe and BAFTA noms. Seemingly an obvious nom there. Real lifetime achievement. And then the Oscars just like spurned Big Fish generally. Yeah. They were just kind of like, not for us. The BAFTA nominees were at Robbins. Yeah. That's the only one it shares with the Oscars. He was inevitable that season.

51:18David Sims:He cries. There was almost no tension.

51:20Griffin Newman:You know, it's... It also felt like

51:21David Sims:he's had a really big 80s and 90s and here's the anointment moment. and from the moment he gets that Oscar, his career is basically They were like, never employ this man again.

51:29Griffin Newman:Right. Tim Robbins, Mystic River. Ian McKellen, Return of the King. I think that's a bit of a that's a bit of a softball nom, but whatever.

51:36David Sims:And the thing I find very funny is that Ian McKellen often in interviews will say, I believe I'm the only actor to be nominated twice for playing the same character, which is both wrong in that other people have done it and he didn't get the Oscar nomination. No. But he thinks he did because of the Baflare. Because of the Baflare. He'll cite it all. all the time. Gandalf the White and Gandalf the Gray are kind of different characters. In a way. This is true. Yeah. One of them doesn't even remember his own name. Yeah.

52:02Griffin Newman:Ian McKellen, Albert Finney, Big Fish. Yeah. Bill Nighy, who won for Love Actually. Yeah. Which is a little bit of a moment. I think the Brits getting a little too huffy on their own paint. They used to do this though. I mean, he's so fun in that movie and I don't like that movie, but obviously. And it was the Nighy moment. We were all like, ah, Bill Nighy. This is also like

52:21David Sims:my beloved, like Denham Elliot winning Best Supporting Actor for Trading Places.

52:26Griffin Newman:And Paul Bettman was nominated by the BAFTAs. It was the one he did get the nom. But no, yeah, after this he did Wimbledon and it killed his career. It's insane. It's kind of wild. When he gets the Iron Man job, you know, to be the voice of Jarvis, it's kind of like, you don't have any fucking other shit going on, do you, buddy? And that's because

52:47David Sims:it's Favreau in Wimbledon. They were friends from that. I think Favreau's in Wimbledon as an actor.

52:52Griffin Newman:I mean, like, obviously he's like the villain in Da Vinci Code. Like, he was working.

52:55David Sims:This is what I was going to say. Da Vinci in another universe, you're like, if this movie isn't repellent dog shit, is this an opportunity for like a fucking John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire moment? And instead, it feels like there's six years where he's either just doing true paycheck shit, like he's the villain in Firewall. Yep. Or there's like... Right. In Cart's another one where you're like...

53:17Griffin Newman:He's like a guy in Young Victoria. Or it's stuff like Legion where it's like, he is on the poster. but that's like a really odd, junky movie. This is like a$15 million screen gems movie.

53:26David Sims:Wasn't Paul Bettany supposed to be the guy? I like both of those movies. I do too. They're very odd and stylish. I like both of those movies. But it was like, okay, so this guy's neither seen as a serious actor nor a major movie star. And then he just has a run of being like Johnny Depp's... Well, Men's Journal wouldn't profile him. Yes. Hollywood's like, yeah, I guess we gotta take the message. This guy's not for us. It's so strange. He's not gonna break through. And then he has three consecutive Johnny Depp's best friend performances. Mordecai and Transcendence. I'm not sure the other one. And also, why am I blanking on the other one here?

53:55David Sims:I don't know. There is a third one. I believe you. It's The Tourist. Oh, right. He's in The Tourist. Maybe he's a villain in The Tourist.

54:01Griffin Newman:He's good in Margin Call.

54:02David Sims:But that's a small movie. He's really good. But that would be the thing. He'd pop up as like seventh build in a movie with like a good dramatic scene. You'd be like, why is no one fucking using this guy?

54:11Griffin Newman:He says when he got to be Vision that he really was like, like just his career was, his agent was kind of like, it's just not happening for you anymore.

54:20David Sims:He directed a film. starring his wife, Jennifer Connelly, nice work if you can get it, and Anthony Mackie called Shelter about a homeless romance. And he was like, I needed to tell this story and I turned down a lot of jobs and I focused on this for like three or four years and it went to festivals and everyone was like, why the fuck did you make this? And then he tells the story of his reps being like, we're dropping you. Like, you're just, you fucked it up, man. And he's like, literally the same day Favreau called me and was like... No, it's Whedon. Whedon calls him.

54:49Griffin Newman:Isn't he in the first one? He's in Iron Man, but he's the voice. But Shelter came out in 2014. You're right. It's Whedon's then like, hey, by the way, I have this fun idea of you're the voice of Jarvis and it'll make you Vision. And he's like, well, that sounds good. Is that good? And Whedon's like, yeah. That's like in the Avengers. That saved my fucking life. This is purely speculative, but he's been married to Jennifer Connelly for a long time. First person he thought of when the Twin Towers came down. Yep. They seem to have a real marriage. He said he had a crush on her from Labyrinth, which, I mean, you get in line.

55:27I thought he was the only one.

55:28David Sims:But I hear that story, and I'm like, maybe I should have called Jennifer Connelly on 9-11. Hey, can I holler at you, Jennifer? I'm 13 years old. I'm not saying that the vicissitudes of Hollywood were not unkind to him, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously, Men's Journal really fucking blackballed him, but sometimes I feel like when someone is in a good marriage, that maybe his priorities are different.

55:52Griffin Newman:Although she also has had an odd career. Say it again. She has. She's had an odd career too. I know, and maybe that's because they love each other and love spending time with each other and they're not chasing fame in the way that a single hungrier person would be. Yeah, sure, I have no idea. I'm not going to cycle on this. And they're dads and moms too, right?

56:10David Sims:Yes, yes. Connelly obviously wins the Oscar for the movie they did together at the very beginning of their relationship. And then it feels like she has continued to be for the last 25 years, one of these people where I'm just like, why is everyone fucking taking her for granted? Every four or five years, she'll like pop up again in a way. And everyone's like, right, Jennifer Connelly still looks great, is always good. And then she goes back to being ignored for another four or five years. But is she being ignored or is she making a choice to just... I don't know. I don't know. She's like fucking five seasons of Snowpiercer.

56:38David Sims:She did the Snowpiercer show. It's not like she's choosing to not work, but it just feels like the stuff isn't sticky. Yeah. And then she'll be in like fucking Top Gun Maverick.

56:47Griffin Newman:Which she's great. She's luminous. Yes. and she's got incredible chemistry of Tom Cruise in that movie. Sexual chemistry.

56:54David Sims:I actually think it is the most successfully a woman has conveyed. Because she's so good. Yes. She's that great an actress. Yeah. He seems a little uncomfortable

57:02Griffin Newman:but she's so good.

57:02David Sims:I think that movie has the exact right strategy in how to make you buy their relationship and what they show you and the things they're just like, we're not even going to attempt to show you this.

57:12Griffin Newman:I'm going to open the dossier and then we're going to talk about Master Commander. Let's drop anchor and pop open that dossier. All right. In 2000, here's a curious note from a, from, this is not related to Master and Commander, but in 2000, Peter Weir, Wolfgang Peterson, Rob Reiner, Jonathan Demme, the great Brad Silberling, director of your favorite Casper, participated in a creative bake-off to pitch themselves as the director of Harry Potter. Okay. They were all part of, I assume Warner Brothers was essentially like, call a bunch of kind of esteemed-ish directors who've done big productions.

57:46Griffin Newman:Can you run that list again quickly, sir? Wolfgang Peterson. so like obviously he's a big director and had done a lot for Warner Brothers Rob Reiner I mean at that point he's starting to lose his luster but he's still he's made huge movies Demi Demi's kind of a wild choice yeah that would have been very interesting this is like post beloved right but he's still fucking Jonathan Demi he is and Brad Sibberling who you know he's kind of like a I mean they got Chris Columbus right and it's like Chris Columbus is more proven than him really. Right. Columbus is more emotional. So,

58:21David Sims:Berling is a little more technical.

58:23Griffin Newman:But it's also like, Columbus has just made two of the biggest movies ever with like kids in them. I mean,

58:27David Sims:also the other famous story is that like, J.K. Rowling said, my first choice is Terry Gilliam and Warner Brothers said, that's not a conversation. Yeah, Warner Brothers is like, okay, respectfully.

58:37Griffin Newman:Okay, lady. I mean, like, there was like the rumor that Spielberg sniffed and Rowling was... But only wanted to do it with Haley Joel. Right. And Rowling was like, I'm not doing like American Harry Potter. I'm not like, you know, she knew that he would box her out. Like, he's more powerful than her. Yes, he also was like,

58:51David Sims:I'd want to make some changes. And Warner Brothers was like, your job is to adapt the books, Harry Potter, in a way that satisfies all audiences.

58:57Griffin Newman:M. Night Shyamalan, supposedly, was also, like, given a phone call. I've heard that, you know, and, you know, whatever. It ended up with Chris Plum. They went for, like, a very safe... Weir would have been possibly interesting, possibly not. Weir is fascinating. Instead, though, Weir does not win this bake-off, obviously. He gets attached to an adaptation of Master and Commander for 20th Century Fox. Tom Rothman, back when he was president of production at Samuel Goldwyn Company in the 90s, read an Aubrey Maturin book and loved it and asked Samuel Goldwyn, acquire the film rights, please. So that's in 1993.

59:31Griffin Newman:The rights then cycle between Goldwyn and Touchstone, which is, of course, a Disney subsidiary.

59:37David Sims:This movie has three studios attached to it. It has Miramax, Fox, and Universal. It does.

59:42Griffin Newman:Yeah. John McTiernan, at one point, was attached to direct an adaptation for Touchstone makes perfect sense absolutely yeah at one point Goldwyn asked where to do it sometime in the 90s and he says he turned it down because they wanted to do the first book in the series which is like more of a young Aubrey like Aubrey has just gotten his first command by 98 Goldwyn has the rights again and he has a new home at 20th Century Fox and sorry Rothman has the rights again and Rothman's at 20th Century Fox and then Fox he becomes president and CEO in 2000 and it is his passion project. It is like, you know, his, like, as you're saying, Griffin, like...

1:00:22Griffin Newman:This is the one I'm going to be remembered for. And I'm going to ignore the usual studio note-y kind of like, well, you know, anyway. This is the one for him. Weir is always his top choice. Yeah. He's been his top choice since the mid-90s, and since the mid-90s, he's only, like, he's only gotten more obsessed with the books. He's now read, you know, the entire opus. Weir has, you're saying. No. Or Rothman. Rothman. Yes. Patrick O 'Brien dies at the age of 85, January 2000. Okay. As far as he knew, the two towers stood forever. He's lucky in that. He's lucky. We're still hesitant to sign on, but I mean, it just seems like Rothman was basically like, well, here's the story.

1:01:08Griffin Newman:They'd have a meeting and Rothman says, what I really think you should do. And then he pulls out a captain's sword and hands it to him. and says, is take command of the HMS Surprise. And Peter Weir is like, can I keep the sword? And they were like, yeah, you can have the sword. But, you know, go ahead.

1:01:24David Sims:You also have to imagine that Rothman's basically saying to him, like, I'm going to give you full support to make the best version of this movie. You're not going to deal with dumb fucking notes. This is exactly

1:01:35Griffin Newman:what Weir says. Yeah. He says, you could not have made this without a studio executive at the top of the tree who loves the material. Like, you need Rothman at the top every time someone's like, hey, Peter Weir just bought a million more gallons of water. Rothman's like, approved. Right. Give him another

1:01:49David Sims:million. The guy with the stamp, the rubber stamp needs to be someone who understands exactly what these books are and has no temptation to be like, could we add a romantic subplot? Could we do this? Could we do that? Kind of bullshit. Yeah.

1:02:02Griffin Newman:There's a talking parrot. Yeah. That would be fun.

1:02:05David Sims:That was my main note at the time. Yeah. Ben, the name of the boat is the HMS Surprise. Just so you know. Okay. And if you want to know how to drop anchor, I'll tell you sometime. I would. Okay. Put a pin in it.

1:02:19Griffin Newman:Great. So Weir is still like, I don't want to do the first book, which has still mostly been every attempt to adapt it has been working. He's like, I want it to be on the Friendship of Aubrey and Maturin. I want it to be on their longer voyage. You know, I like if we're doing essentially an origin story, we won't really have that. His favorite inspiration is 1984's The Far Side of the World, the 10th book. It's where they get the subtitle, but it is not a strict adaptation. They have some of the first book in there. They have some original stuff. John Colley, a Scottish-born physician and professor whose medical travels had taken him across the world before he settled in Australia, is brought in.

1:02:56Griffin Newman:He's like a novelist and screenwriter as well. He's brought in to help. I don't really know John Colley. What are his other credits? Happy Feet. Really? since here. Wow. He wrote Happy Feet. Happy Feet. I mean, one of the several writers

1:03:11David Sims:on Happy Feet. Along with the lady from The Plumber.

1:03:14Griffin Newman:But this is his first, this is essentially his first movie apart from a movie called Paper Mask, which is based on a book he wrote. And three episodes of Star Cops on BBC Two in 1987.

1:03:27David Sims:What is Star Cops? Do you have any familiar with Star Cops, David? Sounds kind of cool.

1:03:31Griffin Newman:It's a British sci-fi thing from the 90s. Can't say I know this one. I was a Bugs guy if anyone watched Bugs hit me up it was another BBC like kind of sci-fi cop show it was really cool it was set in like the near future because they would computer bugs they would do like hacking shit Star Cops is set in a time when space travels become common mankind is in the process of exploiting colonizing the solar system they need cops it takes place in 2027 do we need cops? yeah I gotta say guys hands on hips I'm gonna yeah a scab all space cops are back. Yeah. Ah! Love that. So, the breakthrough is... Extra ration of God for Ben.

1:04:13Griffin Newman:The breakthrough is, according to Kali, seeing the film as a dialogue about what it is to be a man, we're really writing about a family in which Jack is the dad, Stephen is the mom, Blakeney, Max Perkis, is the kid, the rest of the crew are the teenagers, right? You know, like, that's how they think about it. And, like, I think the Max Perkis character is so vital. The boy, who loses his arm. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's a really good performance. That kid's great. He ended up on Rome. I don't know what happened to him after that. Yeah. But, you know, he was sort of around.

1:04:45David Sims:You know what? In 2016, he was appointed head of acquisitions and distribution at Embankment Films. So it sounds... Oh, cool. So he's just like in the British film industry. That's great. Yeah.

1:04:54Griffin Newman:Because it just rocks that you're like, this is this tender relationship, but it's also a military relationship. Both Aubrey and Maturin have like separate relationships to him. you know like Aubrey has the you know naval and talking about Nelson stuff but then he likes all the bugs and the stuff he does with Maturin and then at the end Aubrey's like you're in charge of the ship and then he is and then he's like we need to fucking storm them and he's got a gun and he's got one hand and he's shooting French people cool it rocks when he walks through the hole in the other ship he's just like he's not and no hand in the other hand it's crazy it's the greatest just do a show about him I could I could do a show about anyone Killick is my favorite my favorite is when he says my favorite moment in Mastering Commander is when he says an extra grog an extra ration of rum and Killick's like we're saving the rum for saluting day he's like we'll drink wine oh we'll drink wine on saluting day and you're like what the fuck is saluting day and they never you don't have to know He's the captain's steward.

1:06:00Griffin Newman:He's the only guy who talks back to, like, apart from, Maturin does it, like, in a very formal way. McKillick is the one guy who's like, I want to save the girl and my run for the lute and day I was. Which is, it will be done when it's done. He's always starting sentences, Which it is, is Soust Hog's face, sir. I love it when he says, Soust Hog's face, and Aubrey is like, yeah, that's my favorite. I love, he loves Soust Hog's face. My mom, my mother loves Soust Hog's face. You would think you hear Hog's face, and you're like, Like, ah, fuck, it's hog face week. When I was a kid and my parents...

1:06:31Griffin Newman:And Aubrey was like, bring it on. When my parents said, what are we having tonight, hog's face? I would be like, again? You soused another face? It sounds disgusting, but what it is is you boil a hog's head. The head. You take off all the meat and then you put it into a mold and all the gelatin that's come out of the skull bones turns it into a terrine and you slice it. Yes, it's cold. You spread it like on toast. Yeah, and my mom would eat it by the slice. I personally, I love a pate. I don't, I don't, like... I've never messed with it. It doesn't sound like the greatest thing in the world. I've never had it.

1:07:10Griffin Newman:I think it was a lot of jellying of things on ships.

1:07:13David Sims:See, for me, when it was Monday at the school cafeteria and they served just up Hogshead, I was excited. But then later in the week when you're like, oh, it's like Hogshead loaf, it's Hogshead surprise. Right, right, when they're using every part of it. I see what they're doing. Hogshead tacos. You're like, I'm tired of it by Friday.

1:07:39All right.

1:07:40Griffin Newman:So the beauty of, Kali says, the beauty of the books is the richness of the technical detail, the correctness of the dialogue. You know, the plots are good, but the incidents, the little stuff, that's why people love these books. Like, they love the detail. and it's perfect for us because we can just achieve all this verisimilitude just by using the books. Like it's all in there already. You don't need to do a zillion. He did all the research for you. The whole point of those books is they are very accurate. Like they are really striving for like this is life. But and Peter Weir is particularly good at capturing the minutiae of worlds.

1:08:17Of communities and worlds. He always is. So, you know, it's a perfect match.

1:08:23Griffin Newman:Take some two years to write a satisfactory screenplay. And then he stops, right? That's my work ethic. Is it satisfactory? Good. Russell Crowe comes aboard and he wanted to beef up their Maturin and Aubrey relationship a little bit more. So Akiva Goldsman, who of course had just written Beautiful Mind, does some rewrites, which is interesting because I think of Akiva Goldsman, of course, as a master of trash, but he's also been involved in things I like. Yeah. And at this moment, he was seen as hyper legit. This is true. Yeah. Weir says his ideal choice would have been Richard Burton. Unfortunately, he was very dead.

1:09:00Griffin Newman:Quite dead. Yeah. And also, before he died, had been a little bit of a handful in those last 20 to 30 years

1:09:06David Sims:of his career. I would go as far as to say that at this point in time, Richard Burton was extremely dead, more dead than most, and that the last 20 years in which he was alive were also kind of death-like. Exactly.

1:09:18Griffin Newman:I don't think Richard Burton would have maybe had his sea legs, one might say. But anyway, he turns to Russell Crowe, who correctly is the closest thing you're going to get to a Richard Burton type in 2000. Yeah. Ish, right? A big, burly fucking man who is a great actor and a movie star. Yes. But who like embodies like a kind of masculinity that a lot of guys don't. I was listening to the Lex G podcast yesterday. Love the Lex G podcast.

1:09:49David Sims:The greatest. What's the name of it? it's called The Lex G Podcast got it the world's greatest commenter has his own movie podcast and he was talking about he was doing kind of a new release roundup and doing this sort of like why do I even see these movies anymore why do I still feel this compulsion to go

1:10:08Griffin Newman:this seems to be the constant why am I seeing Ready or Not 2 opening weekend

1:10:13David Sims:whatever and then he was saying like I'm really trying to like watch more old movies and I'd love to make the podcast more about old movies but I feel like people won't listen but I've been watching Ben-Hur because the 4K just came out and he was just kind of waxing about Ben-Hur and he was like, and fucking Charlton Heston, like we don't have anyone who can do this today. Like no one acts like this anymore. No one can hold a movie like this and sort of know how to be larger than life, but also just steady at the center. And I was thinking, hearing this right before doing the rewatch, Crow's career has been weird.

1:10:46David Sims:Like 2001, right? You're like, Like, this guy is the top of the fucking world. And always will be. He had three consecutive Oscar noms. He won the middle one. Gladiator was a massive blockbuster. Beautiful Man was a massive blockbuster. And it was like, if this guy can do fucking big epics and intimate dramas, then he's everything. This guy's like Mel Gibson and Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston at the same time. And then he has gone off in a thousand weird directions. There is the consistency of like, this was a reasonable hit, although obviously did not make as much as they wanted relative to the budget.

1:11:20David Sims:And then you could basically say the same about Robin Hood and Noah where like people went to see them.

1:11:28Griffin Newman:Yes, they did. And again, it's the dad thing we're talking about of just that audience was bigger.

1:11:33David Sims:He never hit the gladiator thing quite as big. But you were like, this is the only guy I would argue for the last 25 years who people buy doing this type of movie. And when they try to put someone else into this, even when it is a proven actor, like, you get fucking Exodus, Gods and Kings with Christian Bale as Moses and everyone's like, not buying it. Very disappointing. You know? And then, like, Russell Crowe will hire a trainer and be like, I'm gonna try to look like a person again for this one. And everyone's like, yeah, sure, yeah. He's the one guy who can pull this shit off in our modern era.

1:12:05Griffin Newman:Crowe and Weir, obviously, are both from Australia, but they never work together. But obviously, Crowe's at this point a gigantic movie star. He has made Gladiator when he gets signs on here. Beautiful Mind is about to come out. He's committed to Cinderella Man, which is going at that point to be made by Lassa Hallstrom. Ron Howard eventually makes that. That is the movie that comes... That's 2005. So that's his next movie after Mastering Commander. He wants to do Mastering Commander. And he says, can you wait while I do Cinderella Man? Like, can you wait a year? And Weir says, the ship sails with the tide.

1:12:35Nope.

1:12:36Griffin Newman:Not waiting. So Crow decides to postpone Cinderella Man. Yeah. And instead boards the surprise. and that's probably tough on him because like Cinderella Man, he's playing a boxer. Like he's got to have the physique and all that and you probably would want to do that. I mean, how old is Crow? How old is Crow when he makes this movie? That's a great question. I'm going to guess 30.

1:12:58David Sims:Are we going to realize that Crow is significantly younger than I am right now in this film?

1:13:03Griffin Newman:Yeah, Russell Crowe is significantly younger than you are right now. He is 39 when this film comes out. So Crowe is basically just like, I could not stop thinking about it. And he says, did I want to give up a chance to work with Peter Weir? I dreamed about working with Peter Weir my whole career. He immerses himself. He loves the books. He finds that the later books turn off Aubrey into a bit of a buffoon, which he doesn't like. But he loves the character generally. He loves the teacher-student thing with the kids. He wanted to show the responsibility that Aubrey has having these kids on board.

1:13:34Griffin Newman:Because to be clear, the officer class, as I'm sure you know, these are the young boys of aristocracy. Yes. who like it's usually if you're like the fourth son right like son one you're going to inherit the land son two you're the backup stick around son three maybe you marry next door neighbor who's going to inherit their land son four we don't know what to do with you it sounds like you've got some extra sons yeah you send them to be midshipmen yes in the royal navy and if they learn to be officers and if they will rise and all that but you know but just they're so young yeah exactly Ben the absolute madness of like a 12 year old outranking these salty-ass sea dogs.

1:14:13Yeah.

1:14:14Griffin Newman:And the way... The whole microcosm of British class happening on this ship. That there's no... The great subplot of where that does start to get fucked with a little bit with the Jonah. But generally, those lines don't get crossed. And the boys do get to sit at the front, essentially, and order everyone around. And they get to wear those little hats. And everyone's got to touch their hats. and Blakeney and Calumny. Well, Blakeney's got to be 12 or 13. Calumny's maybe 16. And Columny's older. He's a midshipman. Yeah, Columny's a real loser. He sucks. Because he's 36 or something. Yeah, he's just, he's like...

1:14:51You know, his rating mate are all 16, 15, 14, 13 years old. He's just never passed that.

1:14:59Griffin Newman:He's never gotten to jump right to a higher command or whatever. Yeah. A number of historians hired to consult on the movie said that Crowe could actually use his Australian accent, that that would basically be acceptable, considering what British people talk like at the time and things like that. Crowe doesn't agree. Because the Australian accent is sort of a throwback to some time old time. I think that's sort of the idea, right? It's like, you know, that's around when we're starting to fucking send British people out to Australia anyway. When did England stop putting shrimps on the barbie? They call them prawns in England mostly.

1:15:29They do in Australia too.

1:15:31Griffin Newman:So Crowe decides that'll just feel unnatural. So he goes to this kind of British accent, you know, this like solid upper class, you know.

1:15:39David Sims:That does feel like a fascinating version of, even if it's accurate, 99 % of the audience is going to go, oh, so Russell Crowe was too lazy to do a British accent? I may be. You're not going to be able to fight the notion of like, is this guy cheating by using his real voice? I feel like he was pretty well regarded for his accent because like the LA Confidential performance is so good. I'm sure like he, that's part of the juice for him. You know, he's at this point, a very like studious, obsessive actor. It was 2003, so not as many people were eating shit online. There weren't that many commenters who were going to get up in there and start creating a narrative saying that he was too lazy or whatever.

1:16:19Sure. But it's still, I got to say, I hate this phrase, but it would have taken me out of it. I would have been wondering why he's talking. You question it. They made the right call.

1:16:26Griffin Newman:Yeah. Weir is initially resistant to Bettany because of the Beautiful Mind thing. Oh, sure. He's like, is that too obvious? Do we need like a fresh combo? he also thinks Bettany is too tall. Like he's like Matern is supposed to be the physical opposite of Aubrey. Like Bettany's pretty burly.

1:16:41David Sims:I was looking at the Wikipedia and the sort of people complaining the book fans complaining at his casting at the time. And the other thing that in the books he's a spy. Yes. And they remove that element.

1:16:52Griffin Newman:Well they don't remove it because they nod to it. There's a moment early on when he says like they have their spies everywhere and Aubrey's like because yes often Matern goes on spy missions because he's the greatest. Right. Spy, cellist, naturist, surgeon. You don't got to sell me on material. Self-surgeon. Yeah. Auto-surgeon.

1:17:11David Sims:But it sounds like in the books he is described as looking like Timothy Spall. That he's a little gargoyle-esque.

1:17:19Griffin Newman:Obviously, that was never going to happen. Heath Ledger was considered, which makes a lot of sense. It does. Although then you've got double Aussie. Double Burley, too, I think. Bettany, though, obviously is the red shirt. Because even though Bettany's kind of a bigger guy than you think of in the face. He can play delicate. He's got a fine bone-structured face. You're right. Compared to the big hunk of like Easter ham that the crow has for his head. Everyone in the cast, you know, does a boot camp, right? They do a sort of like, you're going to learn how to sail. Bettany is like, no, thank you.

1:17:53Griffin Newman:And instead learns about like amputations and how to cut up fish. Russell Crowe says that everyone and every actor should sew their character's name into their t-shirts according, colored according to rank, you know, as part of like a sort of, you know, like let's get into this. A bonding experience. Right. Bettany refuses to do it. Bettany, he's consciously like, I want to feel apart from everyone. I want everyone to feel a little weirded out by me. You know, because Maturin is kind of an oddity on the boat. Bettany says like, nonetheless, like we all bonded, you know, not in a testosterone-y way, but you're really looking after each other.

1:18:24Griffin Newman:It's like 20 actors. They shoot this mostly in Mexico or off the coast of like Baja, California and stuff like that. That's where the tank was. Right. Yeah. Max Perkis was found at Eton College, Britain's fanciest school. He's a fancy lad. He's a fancy, fancy lad. He's playing a fancy lad and he vibes fancy.

1:18:41David Sims:I was curious, Sims, he doesn't seem to still be working for Embankment, but I was like, what films has he worked on? And that announcement of him being hired to... Malibu's Most Wanted. Okay, so he's hired in 2016. Do you know what the first film Embankment does under his watches, David? Which is that? The Wife. Oh! What if there was one? One of our greatest running bits. He was the one who asked the question, what if we bankrolled the wife?

1:19:10Griffin Newman:I mean, it's one of those movies where there's like 14 production companies. That's a classic TIFF movie where you're like, I can arrive 10 minutes late. The various logos will still be playing of like Jim's films. That's a great way of putting it. Jim's films. If you're at the premiere, there's like, 10 people like, yeah, you know, whatever.

1:19:32David Sims:I found the Screen Daily, Screen International news item about him getting hired at Embankment. And it has this whole thing, you know, we nabbed one, nurtured one of the brightest. We're convinced that he's an industry star of the future. Embankment co-founder Hugo Grumbar and I vividly recall first meeting him and thinking, we've seen that guy before somewhere. Turns out he was amongst the lead actors in Peter Weir's Master Commander. He sure was. It's funny in what is otherwise a pretty staid kind of press release to be like, and we were thinking, oh, who is this guy? His face looks familiar.

1:20:04Griffin Newman:I gotta say, when you Google him, he's got the same face. He's got a baby face. Yeah, he still looks like that. He's got the same face. Did he grow his arm back? Yeah, he did. I mean, the cast rocks. He's got three arms. The cast is, I mean, James Darcy, who I adore, is a great British TV actor. Yeah, by the way, I just gotta say with regard to that, Ben, I mentioned to you the boat is called the HMS Surprise. Okay? It's a smaller boat of the ships of the line. The Victory, which was the flagship Admiral Nelson's boat, was about 250 feet long. Now, the surprise, which was a real boat, 126 feet long.

1:20:38Now, I don't know if that's the length of the hull, Ben, or if that includes the bowsprit, the big long thing on the front, but it's a much shorter boat. You see what I mean? Its beam is only 31 feet. It's got a draft of 14 feet and a half inch. You are reading these off Wikipedia right now. No, it's all off the jump. His eyes are all back into his head, like Stephen McKinley Henderson in Dune. what's surprising about the surprise for a boat that size it's got not one but two Jarvis's on it

1:21:03Griffin Newman:it's a good point thank you for setting that up I was gonna James Darcy is the original Jarvis it was kind of beautiful to watch that wind up and just Jarvis like how I can go to Jarvis I'm ready to go and you know what he's really fun in that show he is you know what else James Darcy is fun in pretty much everything anytime that guy shows up it's amazing in Cloud Atlas

1:21:22David Sims:but yes he was he was original human Jarvis and Agent Carter and then they brought him back in Endgame.

1:21:27Griffin Newman:He was recently in Oppenheimer as the guy who's not nice to Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer almost poisons his apple. Right. Which something in Oppenheimer really did.

1:21:36David Sims:It is this funny thing of like, I think of him as a guy who did not emerge until the 2010s. And I feel like you often have these discoveries watching movies where like the young supporting cast of recent drama school graduates are guys who are a decade away from finally breaking through. He's a classic like... They're all Coronation Streets or neighbors. But like Andrew Scott being in like Band of Brothers where you're like, isn't this way too early for Andrew Scott to be in a thing?

1:22:00Griffin Newman:But they do a lot of BBC costume dramas and stuff. And like Darcy, I feel like is also one of those guys who is always on the Doctor Who list. Like every time it came up. Makes a ton of sense. He rocks. Obviously, it's so nice to see Billy Boyd. I feel like this is Billy Boyd's like other big movie basically.

1:22:17David Sims:Yeah. So I remember Dominic Moynihan doing an interview saying that this was like the peak of his depression. and I think his drinking. Boyd or Monaghan? Monaghan. Right. Because he was like, I have this like double act with Boyd. We make these three movies together. And then I couldn't book a gig for two years. So the movies are coming out, winning Oscars, making tons of money. And Boyd's off on a fucking pirate ship. Not a pirate ship. Ship of the line. Yes. But he was like, I was like, he's going to keep booking and I'm stuck. And then basically right after this, it flips and Boyd gets lost.

1:22:53David Sims:A little disappears. a little bit. And then, yeah, Moynihan's on law.

1:22:57Griffin Newman:Yeah, I mean, it's not like Boyd stops having credits, but I do feel like, you know, you don't really, you don't really see him too much. I gotta say, it was hard. It was, this was a thing that took me out of the movie. You kept being like, to see him steering that ship. What's Mary doing here? He did a terrific job. He's great. You know what I mean? I disagree with you and I think you should apologize. Sure. Okay. All right. Thank you. I don't want to get flogged. The great Robert Pugh, who's the, you know who's Alan you know one of the other officers like there's just Lee Engelby is really good like all the these are all British guys who's the guy who jumps oh the Jonah yes that the guy's name is Lee Engelby yeah it's Lee Engelby oh that's Lee Engelby yeah okay okay sorry yeah he's in he's in one of the oh yeah he's in in Azkaban Harry Potter Prisoner Azkaban he's the guy who drives the night bus or is he the driver the conductor yeah Stan Trump yeah because the driver is I can't remember who the driver is yeah Peter Weir made his first four films or no four of his early films though with Russell Boyd Picnic Wave Gallipoli Dangerously then John Steele has been his guy for a while right I forget who shoots Truman Show who shot Truman Show that's a really good question thank you such a good question by me Peter Bizu interesting who shot Life of Brian

1:24:19David Sims:and a lot of yeah oh that's the thing that kept striking me while watching this movie. One of the guys on the boat looks so much like Eric Idle and looks like Eric Idle in makeup playing an older boatman. You're talking about Killa.

1:24:33Griffin Newman:That's David Threlfall. Okay. You know who he is? Who? He is William H. Macy in the original British Shameless. Ah. Which back, the British one is about, is set in Manchester and is also about a loudish father who can't stop drinking and his four billion children. Right. And every time like one of the kids ages up and it's like, I want to be a movie star and leaves the show. They're like, we found another fucking kid. There's so many kids under couch cushions in this house. But he's the, yeah, he's a great British actor. That makes sense.

1:25:02David Sims:He looks a lot like Eric Idle in this. He looks like Eric Idle. I keep expecting him to wink, wink, wink, nudge, nudge or something. And then at the end of this movie, when they come across the French, I was like, this really feels like the rude taunting Frenchman. Yeah. And he's wearing these weird bandages on his head that look comedic.

1:25:18Griffin Newman:Yes. one day purely by accident Russell Boyd is on an airplane going to Los Angeles and they sit side by side Peter Weir and he they hadn't worked together in many years he wonders if Weir arranged it he didn't realize it was going to happen and he starts saying like on the plane no he starts saying like I'm making this boat movie at Fox it was before 9-11 so you could bring your naval cutlass on a plane at the time it's master and commander he starts explaining it's you know scene by scene and Boyd's like that sounds great. And he's like, let's get dinner tomorrow. I'll drop you to the script.

1:25:53Griffin Newman:And then like, you know, Boyd comes back on board. This is the first time they worked together. And of course, Russell Boyd won the Oscar. Had there been an estrangement? I don't think so. It's just like he started using John Seale, who was the assistant on some of the earlier stuff. And then, you know, he went to Hollywood. Russell Boyd takes good pictures.

1:26:09David Sims:I'm looking at Russell Boyd's 90s, and it's like White Man Can't Jump, Operation Dumbo Drop, Tin Cup, Liar Liar, Dr. Doolittle. None of those movies are poorly shot. No. But I could see that guy being like, I want a fucking challenge again. Not known for their visual beauty necessarily. No, no. And then probably there's cool stuff to see if you were to rewatch them. And the early Weir films were challenging productions that probably activates a guy like this.

1:26:33Griffin Newman:Exactly. That's like, you hear about Picnic and Hang Rock and stuff of him like figuring out how to do stuff with no money. Right, yeah. Okay. Well, I just watched that last night in advance of this and I was like, one of the most visually interesting movies I've ever seen. It's so gorgeous. and they made it for five bucks. And then The Year of Living Dangerously is one of the most completely different but so spectacularly shot. The air. You know, any movie that can make the air feel dense. Yeah. Peter originally wants to do a Waterworld thing. He wants to like shoot the whole thing on the wall.

1:27:04He's also one of history's wettest directors.

1:27:07Griffin Newman:Peter Weir. He is true. Wow. I mean, Last Wave. He gave us the last wave. Truman Show. Yeah. The rain and the green car department. True. Deadpool Society is set entirely underwater. Kelly McGill is taking a bath. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I mean, she's, you know, got to take a bath. They ended up running around all day. 10 days on the actual seas. Well, here we go. So I'm going to tell you, like he wants to shoot entirely on the water and they're like, look, that's Waterworld. We need a floating ship trailing with you. Right. If you're going to do a reverse shot, everyone's got to wait while the ship like moves.

1:27:39Griffin Newman:You know, like it's like, the entire industry learned our lesson on that movie.

1:27:44David Sims:Like everyone took notes from that calamity.

1:27:46Griffin Newman:And so Weir's like, fine, maybe we should build a set, you know, in a tank. And like, I wonder who would know anything about that. James Cameron.

1:27:56David Sims:This is the thing. The other kind of miracle of this movie is just being close enough to Titanic that James Cameron had done the legwork to build out the system to be able to basically shoot this on a gimbal in a tank of a proper set.

1:28:12Griffin Newman:Ridley Scott had made both 1492 and White Squall, I think, in a tank in Gibraltar. but that tank was in disrepair. Like only a few years between like Titanic and White Squall but like it's enough. Yes. Fucked up. Then they're like, are we going to have to build a tank? And Weir's like, I don't want to build a tank. And then James Cameron's like, Mexico. Yeah. I have a tank. Titanic tank. I have a tank. In Baja. It has a deep channel where they could put the set on a big gimbal so you can like move the boat around. It has shallow water so you could put people waist deep if you need to. In Titanic, when the ship sinks nose first, that was on a gimbal.

1:28:47Griffin Newman:That's a spoiler.

1:28:51Griffin Newman:So they had to fuck with things because of the way the Mexican tank was built for Titanic.

1:28:56David Sims:But to your point, David, these things need a lot of maintenance and studios are not making like seven boat pictures a year. Maybe they should.

1:29:04Griffin Newman:Maybe just to keep these tanks usable, they should just make a boat picture every year. I guess there's Perfect Storm and that's crazy tank stuff. like yeah that was a lot of CGI waves I remember when that came out they're great waves but I you know like I remember talking to a visual effects guy before that came out saying waves are the thing when we can do waves that would be the most amazing thing

1:29:27David Sims:and then they cracked it and then they cracked it and that's all I could see shooting inside the ship right yeah I was just gonna say okay sorry go ahead but I just think it's an interesting hypothetical to entertain had the order flipped and Russell Crowe did beautiful or did a a Cinderella man first. They probably would not have had a workable tank.

1:29:47Griffin Newman:Possibly. Might have gotten all fucked up. Like the difference of 18 months. You know? Yeah. I don't. But I will tell you that they didn't... Would have had a scum of algae on the top. They didn't want to remove ceilings and walls. They wanted to use these crampsets to their advantage. Like, let's actually have it be like, let's just shoot inside the ship. They bought a ship for$1.5 million. They moved it out of Bridgeport where it had been a tourist attraction. it had been designed to fight in the seven years war it was in a few existing vessels that they could use then they make it over new engine sails rigging decks then they build a full size replica in the tank so like they have the real ship on the water they have the replica in the tank the real ship I understand to be the Rose does that show up?

1:30:30Griffin Newman:yes the Rose 1.5 million dollars do you have 1.5 million dollars? no I don't but you know I could have it in 2003 I just learned that the the merry day the two masted wooden sailing schooner that I trained on as a midshipman is up for sale for$550 ,000. But then it's like you got to park it. It's like you don't just buy a boat and then you're like, great, I have a boat. There may be some costs associated with maintaining an old wooden boat. I mean, I was going to say, like, if you bought like a fucking plastic speedboat, even that it's like you got to fucking put it somewhere. No comment. But I don't have a plastic speedboat either.

1:31:05But yeah, the good news is gas is cheap because it doesn't have it.

1:31:09Griffin Newman:Sure, you got the only gas you need. You got the air gas. I think this movie was a little bit hard to make.

1:31:16David Sims:Yeah. What? I just want to follow up quickly in you saying that if John had$1.5 million in 2003 money, he could own the rose. Do you know where the rose is today? It was purchased in 2007 by the Maritime Museum of San Diego and officially re-registered as the HMS Surprise. so it exists permanently as the surprise oh fuck I gotta get to San Diego you do my man I think that Patrick O 'Brien I had read somewhere had been on the Rose and he said this is essentially the same ship as the surprise both historically and in his novels because it was a real ship that he sort of adopted to put into the novels and they immediately he said the only thing different is a coat of paint.

1:32:05It does say... And they immediately repainted it as to look like the surprise back then.

1:32:09David Sims:It does say on the Wikipedia by 2024, the ship was in a worn condition with deteriorating paint and timbers. Well, we gotta go spruce up. Yeah. Also, they cast the ship in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. But it's probably like some fucked up boat. The HMS Providence. Yeah.

1:32:29Griffin Newman:But otherwise, it's at the museum. Film has 700 % has 700 plus effects shot, but Peter Weir did not want the film to look like the perfect storm. He wanted to use miniatures and stuff mostly for the storms and all that. Weta built a bigature, right? Like a giant miniature ship, I believe. I saw the Weta. That sounds awesome. I can tell you according to Nathan McGinnis from Asylum, another VFX company, there's not one piece of ocean in that storm sequence that isn't real. Wow. CGI water is obviously more controllable, but I thought this is the more believable solution. So while they're in post-production, fear begins to circulate around the studios.

1:33:07Griffin Newman:They realize the film has no villain. They realize the film has no romance. They could have read the script. Those are usually things that are in a movie. It is fair to say that this film begins with them getting their shit rocked. Then lots of things happen, but there is no more real action. The storm in the middle is an action sequence, but there's no real battles. And at the end, there's an awesome battle. But it is defying, I would say, some Hollywood, you know, kind of like plotting sort of mechanics.

1:33:36David Sims:It also feels like Tom Rothman maybe consciously played goalie to prevent people from noticing this earlier.

1:33:43Griffin Newman:Right, right. And then like the movie's like deep in post-production, the bills are getting sent and they're like, you're telling me there's no woman at all in the movie. It's like, well, a Brazilian lady has an umbrella for five seconds. Yeah, and... They say hi to her. Yeah, he smiles. He's like, no, she smiled at me. That shot is in the trailer, which is hysterical. Yes. Like they clearly were like, can you put it in the trailer? there's there is there's gonna be a colonial romance

1:34:17Griffin Newman:the film was gonna come out in June yes I remember this we're wanting more time for effects so they push it to November that does mean that their lunch gets eaten by prior to the Caribbean or whatever which comes out in July although that was obviously another film that the studio was like why the fuck did we make this boat movie? We're about to be in so much trouble. There was this,

1:34:36David Sims:I remember in the lead up to that movie, Pirates? Yes. It was a curse of pirate movies. Well, beyond just, are they really fucking going to make movies out of rides now? We had no idea how bad things were going to get. Yeah, right. That things would be based off of, movies would be based off things that had even less of a narrative. Naively sniffy about shit at the time. Right. But there was also this, like Disney spending$150 million on a pirate movie. every pirate movie has flopped for the last 40 years. And I remember trend pieces that were like, here's everyone who has tried and failed to make a pirate movie since the 50s.

1:35:10David Sims:This is a losing effort. So the fact that then Pirates of the Caribbean, this is where I argue the movie got a little fucked by it, is that the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean overperformed so wildly then made people go like, oh, the boat curse is gone. Right. Yeah, I mean, but a rising tide did not raise all ships in this case. Right. I think this movie would have been viewed as more successful had Pirates of the Caribbean not raised the tide, the stranger tide.

1:35:34Griffin Newman:Definitely, because it makes 93 domestic, 211 worldwide, and it gets 10 Oscar nominations, which I'm sure Fox was fairly happy about. It wins Best Director at the BAFTAs. Is that right? Here we are one. Is that so? Yep. Is that so? He beat Jackson. I'm not steeped in the financial business of Hollywood, but I would imagine that at that box office, given the amount of investment and the difficulty of making the movie, everyone except Tom Rothman felt like, fuck, we just escaped by the skin of our teeth. I think a little bit. I think the Oscar noms... We did it. Let's move along. I think the Oscar noms made it a kind of like, well, look, we made a prestigious, well-received movie.

1:36:12Griffin Newman:So like, okay. But no, no one is like, yeah, you're right. He wins Best Director.

1:36:17David Sims:I was surprised to see that. This movie also had like an incredibly well-selling DVD.

1:36:24Griffin Newman:No, that's the thing. even as much as the cult grew over time.

1:36:28David Sims:No, no, no. There was that like immediate two disc kind of, this is one of those film school in a box DVD releases with every detail about the making of the movie that sold incredibly well. But I think, yes, it was sort of like, Tom, we let you do this one time. It did not make fuck you money where the argument is over. It would have taken fuck you money to continue making these movies. The other part of it is, right, everyone had a difficult time making it and Peter Weir and Russell Crowe notoriously were always kind of butting heads.

1:36:58Griffin Newman:I think, I mean, there's nothing in the research about that, but I have heard occasionally that Russell Crowe has a bit of a strong personality. Yes. And of course, right, Hawke, Ethan Hawke did say later in life, like, I think working with Jim Carrey and Russell Crowe, like, really, like, broke Peter's back a little bit.

1:37:15David Sims:And Johnny Depp's the other one. On Shantaram, which doesn't happen. Right. But that he did two years of development on Shantaram. Oh, that Ethan Hawke quote. Shantaram. Yes. so the year is I will say no a couple people who have worked on this movie have off the record sent DMs to myself and other people involved with the podcast and have shared Russell Crowe anecdotes that I'm not going to share here but just a lot of like have you heard that story about this fight they got on it feels like they were just constantly locking horns and this is a moment where Russell Crowe feels unstoppable

1:37:45Griffin Newman:it is his apex in terms of that power yeah because like this movie like Beautiful Mind doing so well yeah it's like wow can this guy do anything? Did he almost win two best actors in a row? He almost did. Yeah. And then like Master and Commander does like good but okay. And like the posters his face. Yeah. You know. Then Cinderella Man similarly was like definitely a hit. But not a mega hit. The hit they wanted. He also never gets

1:38:10David Sims:an Oscar nomination again. And this year people were like he's on the bubble he might make it to the five on the strength of the movie. Didn't happen. Cinderella Man it was like he maybe gets in there just because everyone loves Russell Crowe and he got all these precursors. doesn't get in, never gets close to an Oscar.

1:38:25Griffin Newman:I would say he never got even close again. I mean, his best performance after this is obviously The Nice Guys, which he's so incredible.

1:38:32David Sims:But it's also the turning point where you look and it's like, Noah's 2014 and 2016, he shows up in The Nice Guy looking like a grizzly bear and it's like, this is who he is now. That's who he is now. Noah's 2014? 2014.

1:38:44Griffin Newman:And Noah...

1:38:45David Sims:So much later than I remember. That's his last...

1:38:47Griffin Newman:Much earlier than I remember.

1:38:48David Sims:...proper,

1:38:48Griffin Newman:like, Russell Crowe starring in a big hit movie,

1:38:52David Sims:And it's the end of the four of what we're talking about of him being the last of kind of the old school epic movie stars.

1:38:58Griffin Newman:Because like the year after Nice Guys is the mummy where it's like you are second banana to cruise here like at best. And then like he just enters the phase he's in now which begins really when he plays Jor-El in Man of Steel which is the year before. But like of like yeah you play dads mentors, villains if you're the lead it's a trashy movie like Unhinged or the fucking Exorcist one or the other exorcist one. Oh, I never saw the Pope's exorcist. Well, the Pope, I figure he probably hires a good one. He's a little, he's a little different. It's kind of like when the Pope needs a really, really nasty exorcism.

1:39:34Griffin Newman:Is the other one

1:39:35David Sims:called The Last Exorcism? It's just called

1:39:36Griffin Newman:The Exorcism.

1:39:38David Sims:He did another exorcist movie like within two years of The Pope's Exorcist that's about him playing a guy who plays an exorcist in movies, an actor, and then gets drawn into a real exorcism. He needs to make a third now. He can't just stop at two. It's not the same character, though. It's not all part of a different

1:40:02Griffin Newman:relatively forgotten movies. He's a guy who works all the damn time. Yep. It's not like Hollywood's forgotten about Crow and it's not like Crow's forgotten about movies.

1:40:11David Sims:No.

1:40:12Griffin Newman:He works constantly.

1:40:13David Sims:And he still will be in big things. It still kind of means something to be like and Russell Crowe in a movie. Right.

1:40:19Griffin Newman:Shall we set the sails? Yeah, no. Okay, so the year is 1805. Napoleon is master of Europe. Only the British fleet stands before him. Oceans are now battlefields. This is not important to the movie, really. But this is set basically at the sort of peak of Napoleonic power, 1805. It is possible that Napoleon is going to conquer essentially the world. If you know what I mean. like you know him losing the Battle of Trafalgar and by colonial extension the world right like this is Napoleon being like I'm going to conquer the United Kingdom and he loses at the Battle of Trafalgar and that's sort of like that was kind of his Waterloo right well his Waterloo is actually the Battle of Waterloo which happens 10 years later I know it's a great joke I just want some credit for Scotty Pippening you on that one great joke thank you the Napoleonic Wars continue for 10 years like they keep fighting and all that but like this is sort of the moment where it's kind of like is this it?

1:41:16Griffin Newman:you know is Britain finally going to get conquered because Britain had stood on conquered for 700 years basically we're on about 28 guns 197 souls this is true they are in the northern coast of Brazil they sure are it sounds like a lot of guns and souls Ben it's actually kind of a small ship the surprise obviously is supposed to is pursuing the priveteer Acheron the French priveteer the priveteers are kind of shady They're pirates, basically. They've been contracted by governments. Licensed pirates. Unfortunately, I think I might have been a privateer if I was alive in these days.

1:41:56David Sims:I have to admit it. I think, John, with all respect to your skills and your experience. Such as they are. As a boatsman. As an able seaman. I do think Ben would do the best of the four of us if dropped into this time. Oh, I agree. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'd be what do we have to do? I'd be grabbing a cannibal cannonball and running to the side immediately. Right. I would know immediately. I'm thinking a little kid for always being nice to me and then jumping off the side of a ship. That's what I'm doing. I'm like immediately.

1:42:27Griffin Newman:I'm like, point me in the direction of the fucking cannon. Yeah. I'm ready to go. Right. Right. I would not want to be in your job. You would want cannon man. Yeah. Cannon man. Which would you like? You want to light it or do you want to shove the things down? I want to light that fucker. Yeah, right? Okay.

1:42:45David Sims:I think if a wormhole opens and Ben gets dropped onto a ship in this era, he is, within six months, the king of a country. Probably so. Probably so. Oh, you think he would rally the men? I think he could rally anything he fucking wanted. I think he would know how to talk to these people in a way that we would fail.

1:43:07Griffin Newman:We're on the boat. Just throw a dirty joke out. It's creaking in Corona. I just want to say something like we see Killick getting an egg out of like these little pens that clearly have the chickens in them well this is what Peter Weir does so incredibly this is what I'm talking about this guy we see these two boys sets some fucking tables in his movie you know it's the middle of the night so the you know the midshipmen are in charge like Aubrey's taking you know taking some rest taking his rest you know so we've got Hollum and Killick and you know the kids can we talk about the Creeks and Grounds

1:43:40David Sims:The sound of the film is unbelievable. Mr. Hodgman, this film gets 10 Academy Award nominations. Yeah. Unfortunately, this is the same year as Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. Yeah. Which was just, everyone basically decided. That's right. We have to reward the trilogy. We're giving this everything. They spilled their able semen over that movie. It's a clean sweep. Right. As Steven Spielberg said. Yeah. It dominates basically all categories. Add luck for the surprise. There's a Jonah on board. This wins cinematography and sound mixing because those are two of the only categories Lord of the Rings isn't nominated in.

1:44:13Griffin Newman:Oh, really? Yes. I still don't know why it wasn't nominated for sound editing because Lord of the Rings has very good sound editing. I don't really know the answer to that question. Yeah. But this did win that.

1:44:24David Sims:The sound in this is unbelievable. Yes. It jumped out to me really fucking hard watching it this time. It's vital. Well, one of the reasons I think it is so impressive, in the sense that it leaves an impression, is that these boats have no engines. And so it is the balance of silence and sound and the alien feeling of hearing those sounds. Because it is not something that most people have experienced, being on a ship of that size, making those little sounds.

1:44:57Griffin Newman:It is also very important because the reason Hollum is being summoned to the, you know, front of the ship at the start of the movie is the other, the watchman is like, I think I heard a bell. Right. He thinks he heard a ship's bell. Like, he didn't even see a ship. Right. He just heard something. And they're kind of like, you know, all right, what is this? He says, the lead, if you please. What's the lead? So, Ben, the lead is literally a big hunk of lead at the end of a very long line. and there's a depression in the bottom of it. So imagine like, it looks like this can of cold brew coffee and there's a little depression in the bottom of it.

1:45:35And when you want to know what the surface below you is like, you drop the lead. It hits the bottom of the ocean floor wherever you are. It tells you how deep it is. And when you pull it up, the condition of the floor is like, it picks up dirt. Right. You like dirt, right? Sure. This is ocean dirt. Wow. And it might be gravel. It might be mud and shells. This is when you're anchoring. You need to know what the condition of the seafloor is so that you know, first of all, how deep it is. So you know how much anchor road to pay out. The answer is five fathoms. Five fathoms in this case. And a fathom, I think, is six feet.

1:46:13I couldn't tell you.

1:46:14Griffin Newman:I mean, I love that they show you them calculating knots later on. With knots. The fucked up way they had to do that where it's like there's three. There's the rope with the knots tied in it and then a guy doing this. work in this movie is crazy. It's messed. It's incredible. It is perhaps the most impressive rope work ever done. What's the left and what's the right? Port and starboard. Excuse me. At this time, it would have been starboard and larboard. Oh, is that so? Yeah. That's kind of stupid. They changed it to port because they're like, we don't know what we can't hear. Help me out here.

1:46:46Griffin Newman:Forecastle. How did they say it? Foxle. Foxle. Foxle. Like the way, like what, why are they doing that? Why they do it? I do not know. But yes, the front of the boat is called the forecastle, but you spell it F-O apostrophe C apostrophe S apostrophe L-E. Right. Which is sort of pronounced foxle. Or sometimes they spell it forecastle, but you still pronounce it foxle. And the top, top mast is called the top gallant, but they call it the gallant. Now, is the poop deck. And a stun sail is called a stunsel. Is the poop deck what I think it is? No. It's one of my favorite Simpsons lines. when Homer joins he's like in a submarine remember that episode it's kind of like when the Simpsons is starting to get stupid right Homer can do anything right exactly but he says is the poop deck what I think it is and the admiral guy is like I like the cut of your jiff and Homer's like that's a jiff

1:47:37David Sims:may I say a thing about the sound of course when Ben Murray and I went to Los Angeles last summer for the American Cinematheque Friend of the Fest we went to the Academy Museum that has a room to try to explain to you the art of sound in movies, where they show you like a 15-minute featurette with Peter Weir shot like two or three years ago. It's using behind-the-scenes footage from the time of filming, but it's him speaking more recently and all of his team explaining the art of sound design in a movie using this film. It is a thing that I think is exclusive to the Academy Museum, was made for them.

1:48:17David Sims:And they have all these signs saying like, You can only see this here. But the thing he said that has stuck with me was he had his team, you know, they went to the books. They looked through all the books and anytime a sound was described and said, like, that's what we got to replicate. Right. Let's really get into the specifics of what he is trying to evoke of these noises. They sort of put together a test sample. Kind of here's sort of what we're thinking is the soundscape for this movie. And they show it to him and he's like, that's fucking great. I love that. Keep going. awesome. And then they work on it and they refine it and they bring it back to him and they show it to him.

1:48:54David Sims:And he's like, I think the last version was better. And he said the realization he made was that they had with the extra time and giving it, you know, doing the real version had worked really hard to justify every single specific sound. They looked at every element on screen and they were like, we have to account for that and that and this and the timing and this and that versus the rough past version they did was just sort of like, these are the kind of sounds we want to have like circulating around. And he was like, when it became too justified and you were trying to account for everything, it was cacophonous and it didn't work.

1:49:30David Sims:There was something kind of expressionistic to the feeling of what they showed me the first time. And I was like, literally just go back to that version, delete this new file, go back to that and do the rest of the movie that way. So it's kind of freestyled a little bit As much as it's based on a lot of research and with intentionality, he was like, don't worry about completely matching on-screen action. Yeah. And, you know, again, this is a completely world that is pretty alien to our experience in this year. And in a sense, you have to be impressionistic because a lot of the sounds that they might have been larding up the soundtrack with would be sounds that the sailors had stopped hearing long ago.

1:50:14because it's idle background chatter to them. Whereas the sound of a bell in the distance. You hear the bell. This is one of the things. He comes out.

1:50:22Griffin Newman:Hollum can't defend himself. It's an early example of him not having a bit of a backbone where he's like, well, I saw a shape, maybe. Over there? And Aubrey's like, okay. Well, you beat to quarters, but you did the right thing. Everyone's winding down. And then Aubrey does the one, like one last look. You know, right? He's almost done. He's like, hmm. and then you just see the sail for like one second because it's being lit up by the cannon. And it's like they're getting fired on. And you don't hear the cannon. No, which is the best. Which is such an incredible... That's in the books a lot. He really talks about in the books the way the sound would hit after the cannon fire.

1:51:00tends to travel faster than sound. So you see the muzzle flash in the fog and it's just so... It's such an incredible way to open a movie where you're learning so much Right. In such a... Let's see them all go to action now. Yeah. And you're learning so much about how this world works in a completely non-intrusive and non-screenplay-y way. Not only are you learning about who Harlem is immediately, but the efficiency and the economy, which Weir introduces and guides the eye in a way that is not spoon-feeding. To give you an example, some things. It is really sweet.

1:51:35Griffin Newman:You see guys start to man the cannons, right? You get that. You see the guys in red coats. Now, Ben, have you noticed that there are some guys, and Griffin, everyone, you know, in redcoats on the ship. That's the army. They live on the ship too, but they're not in the Navy. They're kind of their own thing on the ship. They're right. Marines. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like they're for fucking invading shit, you know, for battle. So most of the crew on a ship like this would be gunners, your pals, because it takes three or four guys to operate a single cannon. And there are 28 of them. So they're all sleeping in those hammocks above their cabinets because the ship is just packed with these guys.

1:52:17And then there are the sailors.

1:52:20Griffin Newman:Who deal with the sails? Yeah, they're in the Navy, but they're not trained hand-to-hand combatants necessarily. The Marines are the guys who have the bayonets. And they're the ones who literally beat to quarters. When you call beat to quarters, one of the Royal Marines bangs a drum. He beats the drum and quarters describes the rhythm that he beats, which alerts the whole ship that they're going to battle stations. Aubrey, you know, he's like run up her colors. One of the kids is like, yes, sir. Yes, sir. You know, they're putting up and then Killick. I love this. Gives him his hat where it's like, okay, we're going from like, we heard a sound mode to hat mode.

1:52:59Griffin Newman:Yeah. You got to put hat on now. Shit's fucked up moments on the ship. Yeah. Ship happens. And then the guy goes like this. and what's on his hands. So the, oh, the tattoo. Hold Fast. What is that? Who's that guy? He's the guy who gets the dent in his head and then gets a coin and becomes the dread prophet of the ship. Correct. What's his name? I forget his name. He's obviously my husband and best friend. Right. But I don't know his name. Why don't you get that tattooed on your fingers, David?

1:53:28David Sims:That's a really good question. Yeah, that should be your first tattoo. If you were ever going to get a tattoo, I feel like it would be a tattoo.

1:53:32Griffin Newman:I think it might be a little bit stolen valor given that I am not a naval person. That's, hey. I don't think I really have enough of a sort of sea, you know, history. I think it's a general enough term. You can say you did it for a different reason. You can get a little saltier. You can just say I like holding things quickly. You know I'm going to scam you up to Maine one of these days. I'd love to. But the point is, the ocean is a metaphor.

1:53:58David Sims:I'm trying to think, well, this ship is England, of course. And I also heard that oceans are now battlefields. I think the ship is England is technically a metonym.

1:54:08Griffin Newman:Right, right. I'm out. So they get their ship rocked. And it's like very, their ship and their ship rocked. And it's very intense battle sequence. People get bloody, people die. Obviously, you know, boy loses a limb, all this, right? All this insane stuff happens. We're introduced to Maturin where he basically like clears all this shit off the table. because it's like, I'm going to be operating on people, put sand on the floor. Yeah. So you're not slipping around on the blood. So fucking crazy. And also the water. And yet there's also this kind of like, everyone's kind of calm. Like, you know what I mean?

1:54:45Griffin Newman:Like, I'll tell you, I was not calm. I mean, this is just their,

1:54:48David Sims:this is their daily life. This is their life. This is their job. They train for this moment. This is bad. Here's the thing. It's not their daily life. It's not their daily life. But it is bad. But they do train for this moment. Or maybe their monthly or maybe their yearly life. And one of the things that I love about this movie is that unlike any other ship movie that I've ever seen, whether that is a sailing ship or a motor ship or a spaceship or friendship, when you're in space or at sea in that ship, the world is small. You're constantly running into other ships. Sure. There are aliens coming this way or that, whatever.

1:55:22And this movie really captures the vastness of the ocean and frankly, the absurdity of their mission.

1:55:29David Sims:And that a lot of times it's just going to be another day on a creek and ship. Like their mission is to find the, what do they call it in English? The Acheron. Yeah. And then it's Acheron in French or whatever. But it's like this French privateer has been harassing ships. Go get them. Yeah. And you're crossing the Atlantic. Right. Yeah. You know how big the Atlantic Ocean is? I don't know. Like 20 to 30 feet? It's like, yeah, maybe 50. The idea that you're going to find this thing is itself insane. And if it turns out that the Asheron hadn't been looking for them too, apparently, or at least spotting them and wanting to get them.

1:56:07The idea is that, as they sort of allude to,

1:56:11Griffin Newman:is like the Asheron knew where they were going to be, essentially. Right. Like that's what they're kind of guessing at. And these guys... They came upon us in the fog. Right. Right. It's incredible. And the idea that they're even going to find each other, to even bother having this battle is like, it could take weeks or months before it ever happened. And those slow speed chases, it's like it conveys not only the size and the isolation of this wooden world they live on, but also I think all of this humanity, this is what I was thinking of as those cannonballs were coming through, right? All of this human ingenuity that goes into building the ship and manning the ship and sailing the ship and everything, it's all packed into this microscopic dot on the ocean.

1:56:55I love the way they portray the maintenance of it too.

1:56:58Griffin Newman:Yeah. No. It's so interesting and not a thing I've really have ever thought about. And you look at this ship and it's like every, every inch of it is this amazing piece of human craft work. The molding in the captain's day cabin. It's like, and it's all getting blasted to shit by these cannonballs. Which is really rude. All this work has gone into making this thing. Yes. And only French people do that. Human ingenuity and murderous intent. British Navy, they would just say, could you please stop? And people would. You know, they never fired cannons at anybody. I was thinking this during Gallipoli too.

1:57:29Griffin Newman:Nine dead, 27 wounded, just to tell you, is the count.

1:57:32David Sims:What happens in Gallipoli? No, just like the senior officers who you see at like the top of the hill watching the young boys do the basic training. You're like the ornateness of their uniforms. This sort of like lost notion of the military has to look really fucking fancy. Sure. Like there's the battle we're waging, but also it's like we want to impress people with our class. Yeah, you got to have nice uniforms. We want to beat their asses while also seeming more sophisticated and cultured.

1:58:02Griffin Newman:The whole fast guy's name is Place because it's when they're looking at the casualties after. You know, we're in casualty mode now. They drag the boat essentially away with rowboats. What does casualty mode mean? I just mean like it's just like after the fact. Like they're counting. You know, you see the guy who's like pumping water out. You're counting the casualties. Yeah. Nine people are dead. Maturin walks Aubrey around and he's like, you know, Place has got a fucking skull fracture or whatever. He probably will die. Turns out he doesn't. They go see Blakeney. Max Perkis, whose hand, his arm is messed up.

1:58:35Griffin Newman:And Maturin says, like, I know you know this boy's father. Right. Like, I'm doing everything I can. Like, I don't, you know. Does this character show up in the books later? Is this a character from the books? Blakeney. In your memory. I do not want to mess up anything here. I know. I'm sure there are. And there is, of course, an Maturin, an Aubrey and Maturin wiki that I can consult for this. So let me check. William Blakeney. Yes. he is in the movie that's it he's created for the movie he's created for the movie that's what I thought I mean I think there's a lot of characters like this well good job I don't know the full extent I think the O 'Brien fans generally think positively of this movie because imagine how bad an adaptation could have been but I'm sure if you are you know intensely nerdy about the books the movie is it only can do so much for you Matern never does any spy stuff in it blah blah blah you know They never go to shore.

1:59:30Griffin Newman:You never understand the complex nature of being in the Navy and how your money, the money you made was based on like the boats you captured and the treasure you got. That's why they keep talking about the prize. Yeah. The prize that we're going to get if we capture the action. It's not about like making a salary. It's like you earn your keep by like fucking up other ships and stuff. Like it's such a crazy system. You're canoning on commission, Ben. But you're getting rum too. Yeah. But you know why they drink rum? Because they get fucked up. well that's true because it's fucking boring because like you could keep fruit in it and stuff so like it would be you know it's sort of nutritionally good but I think also like it would last right like isn't that isn't that the whole thing with rum I'm not a rum guy I will say

2:00:11David Sims:I like a tiki I'm rarely getting a rum yeah time to time but I I feel like that's the only context I have around yeah I'm kind of the same who was the ship's mixologist on the surprise I mean it was the guy with the wax I feel like we're both going for the same I feel like these days

2:00:27Griffin Newman:It's the guy dressed like Ryan Reynolds in If. Imagine if you were like, what's your drink? And you were like, rum. Like, I would just be like, what do you mean rum? Straight rum? Yeah, what do you get right? Rum on the rum? That's a good point, too. There's rum and Coke. Sure. That's like sugar. It's so gross. That's what I was going to say. It's the same with tiki drinks. I guess I like a daiquiri.

2:00:46David Sims:Anyone who's drinking rum is combating rum with so much sugar and fruit. I mean, like, if I'm at poolside, I guess I'll take a rum drink. But do people, I'm sure the answer is someone, yes. Yeah. But like how many people sit at a bar and go like, can I have four fingers of rum neat?

2:01:03Griffin Newman:I mean, there's aged rum. Maybe I should see what happens. You should be a straight rum guy. And there's like spiced rum and all that stuff that's like, that stuff's nice. Well, we should, of course, pair solutions. Should we pop over to Sunken Harbor after this and just salute them? They certainly, they're keeping the Cardi in business over there.

2:01:17David Sims:It's easy to go yo-ho-ho mode over there at the Sunken Harbor Club.

2:01:20Griffin Newman:So then everyone gathers and they're basically like, look, we rock. We love to be on the HMS Surprise. But the ship that just beat us is a better ship. It's bigger. It's faster. It's more powerful. We cannot try to engage this ship. It's very important, I think, to this movie because it lays out Aubrey and Matern's relationship immediately. Matern's the only one who's kind of like, I mean, pardon me, but like are we not on something of an aged ship? Oh boy, does Russell Crowe get mad at that? It is the best it should be Crowe's Oscar clip for the Oscar he should have won for this film because obviously this film should have won every single Oscar including Best Actress.

2:02:03Griffin Newman:Yeah. They should have given it to the Brazilian Umbrella Lady. Well, Anna Paquin whose role is impactful even though she doesn't speak or the boat, right? Yeah, the HMS Surprise who you know, he says, would you call me an aged man of war doctor? And Matern's like, oh, he's like, Surprise is not old. No one would call her old. She has a bluff bow, lovely lines. She's a fine sea boat. I want to say all this weatherly, stiff and fast. Very fast if she's well handled. Then he touches it, touches the boat, says, no, she's not old. She's in her prime. It's the best line ever delivered by an actor.

2:02:37David Sims:Is this your version of the he loves to pull the cork monologue?

2:02:40Griffin Newman:Absolutely. Yeah. Just like the love, he like touches like a sort of mantle and then he kind of picks at one of the wounds. Well, that's the thing. There's like the fireplace that's been shattered. That beautifully hand-carved mantelpiece has been, just had a fucking cannonball shoved through it. But it's just that like where everyone's kind of like, I think we need to refit. I think we need to go to a port and chill out. And Aubrey's like, yeah. I mean, Mitch Fern's like, yeah, isn't this boat old? And Aubrey's like, this boat is not old and neither am I. Like, and we can do whatever we need.

2:03:08Griffin Newman:And he's worked on this boat for many years. You see that he carved his name into it when he was a midshipman or whatever. and he says his blood is in the boat. So when he was probably 13 or 14. Right. The idea would have been like, he's been on other boats. He's like served other commands and all that stuff. But he's come back to it because yes, he loves this boat. In the books, I believe that's how it goes. See, the HMS Surprise is his main boat. It's not the only boat that he's on. Oh, really? He's got a couple side boats? Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, at sea. And sometimes he'll like capture a foreign boat and then he has to run that boat for a bit.

2:03:42Griffin Newman:Really? Yeah, I mean, that happens in this movie where like they capture the Acheron and then James Darcy gets put in charge of it. Because then you would just be like, now we're going to call it the fucking HMS British sausage. Yeah. You could just change it. Yeah. And just be like, it's our boat now, bitch. Call it the banger. Yeah, exactly. The HMS pie and mash. Should people be allowed to do that with Chipolata?

2:04:03David Sims:Should people be allowed to do that with cars now?

2:04:05Griffin Newman:HMS Bovril. Okay, with cars. What do you mean?

2:04:08David Sims:You beat someone in a fight. Get your car? Then you're just like, here's a surprise. Yeah, and you get to call it, you get to rename it whatever you want. Wouldn't people just be fighting each other all the time? Yeah, maybe that's better than what we have right now. Is it? Maybe. I guess I'm just describing a Mad Max wasteland society. It would be real might versus right situation would break out pretty well. Also, out of me to suggest this, the man without a driver's license. Why am I trying to will this into existence? I don't know.

2:04:36Griffin Newman:You want all of America's bullies to get cars. Yeah. Then you have Blake Knee's arm getting amputated. Tough stuff. Yeah. the bravest patient I've ever had I love that and I just love that it is routine yeah it sucks but it's like Nelson you know it's part of the thing why they keep talking about Nelson is Nelson didn't have one of his arms and I think one of his legs like Nelson he got chewed up he beat Napoleon I think with one arm and one leg and a peg leg and then the other arm was just this you know the sleeve no hook maybe he had a hook for you know Eaton I'd get a hook I would have like a fork not only did Nelson defeat Napoleon yes with one arm, but he kept the arm that had been amputated and tied it to his back.

2:05:20Is that true? So he defeated him with one arm tied behind his back.

2:05:24David Sims:Okay, there we go. I'm just locked in on Ben on this one. He was playing it so straight the first half. It was just for Ben. And then he gave it up with a grin as the punchline came in. But I was really buying the performance at first. I kept thinking about, just because of my broken brain, Hodgman, do you remember the Steve Martin Medieval Barber SNL sketch? Oh, very, very vaguely. Theodora of York, maybe, is what it's called. He had a funny haircut. Yes, he had a funny haircut, and the bit is that no one fucking understood medicine in medieval England. And so he's the barber, but he's also the doctor, and people come over, and he's like, time to amputate, you know?

2:05:58David Sims:Throw some leeches on it. It's the same four things where someone's like, I got a headache. I got the sniffles, let's amputate. Right, time to amputate. and I was thinking about this during this movie but especially in this amputation scene where I think they do such a good job of characterizing and a lot of it's in Bettany's performance as well that this guy is a very good doctor. This is the best guy you could possibly have tending to you even at a time where so much is unknown and the technology is limited. Because Griffin, the following scene

2:06:27Griffin Newman:is the brain surgery scene and that's when all of the guys are gathered and they say like he wouldn't look at you for under 10 guineas on land. Like, this is, we got a real guy here. He's not some surgeon. But isn't he a vet? Well, and if you should know, he's a naturist. Okay. So he's a surgeon, but also he's very into Charles Darwin and stuff, you know, type stuff of like cataloging animals. It's just studying, yeah, species and evolution. It's a separate hobby. I don't know who he is in the books. He's also like a polyglot. He speaks like every language. Yeah. The impression that I got from his character in the movie is that he's a naturalist and he is using this opportunity to travel the world.

2:07:06Yeah. And to see shit and to catalog. And that's how he sort of

2:07:10David Sims:earns his keep on the ship inside the doctor.

2:07:12Griffin Newman:The core tension between him and Aubrey and it comes up in the movie is Aubrey's like, I serve the fucking king. No, but it's like, I'm, you know, his majesty's navy. And Matern's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When can I please look at more beetles? And Aubrey's like, our orders are to kill the French. And he's like, there'll always be Frenchmen to kill, but this beetle is only here. Yeah, but Maturin does also make the case that it's like, well, yeah, but maybe you shouldn't do this anyway. Not just because I want to go see stick bugs and turtles. No, there's a crucial moment in the movie that we'll get to.

2:07:45Griffin Newman:Because we're going to get our ass paced. Where he says, like, are you being too prideful? And that's the classic, you know, any fucking Star Trek has that too of like, there's the one guy who can say like, Captain, we all follow your ring. We'll do whatever you ask. But like, are you being, you know, are you taking this too personally? But there's a relationship between Maturin and Aubrey that is different from Kirk and Bones. And it's different from anyone else on this ship. They have a marriage. They have a marriage. And that's when they're playing the cello and violin together. That's their, you know, that's their whatever, lovemaking.

2:08:18David Sims:Do you know what's really interesting about you making that comparison point? Mick LaSalle. All of it? Yes. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle at that time gave this film one of its most negative reviews, because it was pretty widely acclaimed. His whole angle was on his protectiveness of the books. Sure, right. And he specifically was like, by removing the mature and spy thing or not making it deeply textual. You were effeminizing him, I think. I read that review too. Well, even beyond that. I was at the same conclusion, I think, that you're getting at. This was his exact wording. Their interaction takes on a preening quality reminiscent of the interaction of the Star Trek characters four or five movies down the line.

2:09:02Yeah, but I took that to mean a little bit sort of like too cutesy. Like when Scotty is speaking into the Macintosh mouse and he goes, computer, like that kind of thing. Well, that is one of the funniest things that's ever happened. No, I agree. But I just kind of feel like...

2:09:16Griffin Newman:How does he say nuclear again? What is it? Oh, Jesus. He says it funny. Yeah. And he doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. That is... Voyage Home is a movie. I showed it to a friend recently. Nuclear? Nuclear? It's a lot of Ws. Sorry. Voyage Home. No, I want to look it up now. Yeah. I'll look it up while you're saying it. No, it's nuclear Wessels. It's the Wessels. I knew there was a W. That's just one of those where you show it to a friend who's like seen Star Trek, but maybe not. And you're like, and they're like, and what's this one about? And I'm like, oh, there's some Klingons. Oh, there is?

2:09:46Griffin Newman:Well, actually, no, not really. They're on a Klingon ship. What do they have to do? They travel through time. Oh, okay, to fight Klingons, fight. Oh, you have to save the whales. Meet a lady and save some whales. But mainly we just got to get these characters

2:09:56David Sims:back to vibe with each other and that's about the end of the movie. Like, you know. I mean, we did these on Patreon in Deepest Darkest Pandemic, but it is fascinating to look at the box office spike on four because it was the one movie where they could just market it and be like, you don't need to have seen any fucking Star Trek. Totally. You get it. You know the cultural osmosis of these characters. And you get a fish out of water thing. And if they show up in San Francisco in the 80s, a comedy will answer them. Semi-literally fish out of water because they pull that whale up. This is true.

2:10:23Griffin Newman:Okay, so you see, like, there's all this stuff that you have to watch the movie a million times to really care about. But like, when they start playing the violin and cello for the first time, that's the ship has been healed. You see Killick also cooking. He's making these like kind of grilled cheesy things look really nice. They look really good. He's got that chafing dish. Right. And he goes like, they go scrape, scrape, scrape. You know, but like that to me is like, like basically him acknowledging like, all right, they've made up like there. And then the boat is, the boat is, the sails are fixed.

2:10:52Griffin Newman:The boat starts moving again. The statue is repaired. The statue is repaired. Blakeney, he survived the amputation. He gives in the book with the Nelson stuff and he's like, I fought in one of these, you know. Order has been restored. Right. And you see Aubrey writing a letter to his bride, fiancé, Josephine, you know, like somebody. They both have a little, like, they both got ladies. Core ongoing love interest in the book. Right. You know, you see a little picture.

2:11:17David Sims:Yeah.

2:11:18Griffin Newman:It's not really remarked upon after that. That's when the boys come in and say, we saw the Asheron being built. We've knock together a little model for you. And what a knocked together model that is. It is pretty good. They get an extra restaurant for that. Even though it was intended for Saluting Day. That's right. We'll drink wine for Saluting Day.

2:11:35David Sims:All right, we'll drink wine. Do you guys have Saluting Day plans this year? Or do you try to just kind of play it by ear? I've stopped up rum because I don't want to have to drink wine again.

2:11:43Griffin Newman:What if Trump was like, we're bringing back Saluting Day. Not enough saluting in America these days.

2:11:48David Sims:David, the chances, and we're not recording this episode very far in advance. the chances that will happen before this episode is released. 50-50. Just saw Master and Grant.

2:11:56Griffin Newman:Why aren't they saluting all the time? We're going to make Ocean's Battlefield. This is when the film's incredibly compelling Oscar-winning actress, Lady with Umbrella, makes her appearance. This movie has woman. We all ask who is woman. That really awesome. It is a cool sequence, though, where it's like, right, they're kind of in paradise. Like, they're in South America. People are, like, paddling up and trading, like, mangoes. They're off the coast of Brazil. like I would be 100 % Ben you would do this you would buy a monkey like some trader comes up and he's like I would have been like how much for the monkey I'll give you what do you want like a bag of rice like whatever we got around here he has a little vest

2:12:36David Sims:right because monkeys have little vests this might have been pre-vest that's the story of the you know the bounty right the HMS bounty is like they reach to the South Pacific Island and they're like what the fuck are we doing on this boat? Like we are so, and you know, we are so far away from everything we know of civilization. Why should we continue to follow these horrible rules and be flogged? And that's the other reason that there were Royal Marines on the boat too, which was to prevent mutinies.

2:13:03Griffin Newman:Ben sent us, there were six saluting days a year, at least at this time, it seems for the queen's birthday to, to mark the restoration. So the King Charles II. So the, the, you know, the resumption of the British monarchy, the king's birthday to mark the king's, coronation. Jesus. To mark the king's accession. Jesus. And then just for November the 5th. Remember the 5th of November. Gunpowder plot. Yeah. After this, after the trading, you have, in my opinion, the greatest sequence in any film ever shot, except for it's tied with all the other sequences in this film. Right? Tied to number one. To wives and sweethearts may they never meet.

2:13:39Griffin Newman:It's the dinner. They're having dinner. Just, just, just, what movie does this?

2:13:46David Sims:A lesser of two weevils?

2:13:47Griffin Newman:A dinner scene? Every, just My Dinner with Andre.

2:13:50David Sims:True. Wait a second. Mouse Funt actually has because he's a chef. There's a good amount. That's a pretty gross dinner. There's a cockroach in it.

2:13:56Griffin Newman:Have you rewatched Mouse Funt recently? Not recently, but I remember that scene is burned on my brain because as a kid, I was so grossed out by it. Wow. It's good. I mean, it's a great sequence. There's a dinner scene Green Card 2 with B.B. Neuwirth. Well, we definitely have seen Green Card. That's a really good dinner scene. That's a Peter Weir movie. That's what I'm saying. Oh, right. I'm just saying. Just great charm. But yes, there is something

2:14:18Griffin Newman:movie. They have big battle sequence. Then they play the cello and the violin. And then I feel like Hollywood would be like, all right, can there be a sword fight or something? It's like, no, shush. They're going to tell jokes at dinner. Aubrey's going to make a Chekhov joke. Exactly. Well, I mean, I think it also speaks to the fact that in their, the pace of their lives was very different than we could ever possibly imagine now, which was there's a lot of time sitting around. They can't even binge watch. They can't Netflix and chill at all.

2:14:46David Sims:They don't have a single streaming service. No, wait, wait. They don't. Well, no, no, no. Peacock? No, they don't have Peacock. They don't even have Peacock with ads. They couldn't even dream of getting the supersized fan edition episodes of The Office. Can they watch Dicktown on Hulu? No. John, no. It's still available. On land, they could. Right, right. I hate to tell you this. They couldn't. And this is going to scare you even more. What's that? They didn't have the option to read or listen to Vacationland in any format. Not even in paperback? Not even in paperback? Not even in hardback. No, David.

2:15:20David Sims:They didn't have hardback? They didn't have fucking medallion status.

2:15:23Griffin Newman:What about the audiobook? No.

2:15:25David Sims:That's why I said, or listen to.

2:15:27Griffin Newman:But what if they opened a time tunnel and John read them the book through the time tunnel? They'd be thrilled. Why do you think I was out on that schooner looking for a time tunnel? This is when the youngest, you know, because like basically it's like - The hold was packed with copies of Vacationland and paperback. Aubrey said to Blake me, I served with Nelson, right? So then the second youngest boy, you know, I forget his name. Callumny. Is like, can you please tell me about that? And I just think Crow rocks this. So hard. The way he like, you know, says like the first time he spoke to me, I'll never forget his words.

2:16:01Griffin Newman:And he said, you know, he like builds it up and he says, he leans across the table and he says, can I trouble you for the butter or whatever? The salt. The salt. Yeah. Aubrey, may I trouble you for the salt? It's so funny. They all love it. I love it I'm sitting here laughing I'm gonna say something The date I'm on she's probably like you know put a blanket on she's just got a sleeping cap she's asleep I'm fucking Nelson in The Simpsons

2:16:26David Sims:watching Hank Williams right I do genuinely love how long of a walk it is to Lesser of Two Weevils

2:16:32Griffin Newman:It's such a long walk because then he tells the serious Nelson story about like how Nelson said like the zeal of you know service kept him warm on a cold night and you see Maturing going like give me a fucking break and he's like, I know, I know. It sounds absurd from another man. You would call it pitiful stuff but like with him, I believed it. Hey, you know what? To Nelson. To Nelson. To Nelson. Horatio Nelson, the greatest. I feel like you were about to say something. Well, I was just going to say the lesser of two weevils joke deserves its own conversation. And then he's like, that's a long walk.

2:17:02Then he's like weevils.

2:17:03Griffin Newman:In the style of two Jarvis's. And Maturin, it's like they're the same. They're a fucking weevil. He's a frigging dork. He loves animals. He gives the Latin name for them. He's like, You have to choose. Curly Q. Curculo. Yes. And then Matern puts on his legendary cunty little glasses. Perhaps the cuntyest little glasses ever worn in a movie ever. He originates. He might have. They're so small. They're like comically tiny. Yeah. They're so good. And he's like, I'll find. He puts them on to get small. I pick the big one. And it's just, I mean, the way, if you watch Crow, this scene should be just studied second by second.

2:17:44Griffin Newman:Yeah. Is laughing like, because he's like, I've got, he turns to someone, he's, and then he's like, there I have you. You're completely dished. I should say that to you all the time. You're completely dished. Can I ask? I know in the service, you must, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils.

2:17:58David Sims:May I ask for something from our community of listeners? Of course. Can someone please make a super cut of this lesser of two weevils scene with the crowd response from Bernie Mac's Def Jam? I mean, that's exactly, it's, I mean, everyone also does freak out. Cut it into when Anthony Mackie shows up in Endgame. Yes. You know, when everyone starts, when he says Avengers Assemble or whatever. But I want the raucous laughter when he puts the glasses on. They start tittering, but it doesn't explode until, don't you know, we must always choose the lesser of two weevils. What is the preparation on these weevils?

2:18:32David Sims:They just live in the ship's biscuits. Yeah, they're in the biscuits. They're pests, sure. Yeah. They're not being served as food. Is that what you mean? Yeah, yes. The biscuits, I guess, are what I'm kind of fixated. The hardtack? Yes. Tell me about this. It's basically flour and water and salt, and it's dehydrated, and it lasts forever. It looks aggressive. It's like a puck.

2:18:52Griffin Newman:Yeah. I would say hardtack. I've never had hardtack. I feel like sometimes if you go to those naval museums or whatever, they'll be like, you can try hardtack. Have you ever had hardtack? I've never had hardtack. It kind of makes matzah look very moist. Yeah. You know what I mean? I hear it's a little more palatable when topped with some weevils. Oh, sure. And then soaked in some rum.

2:19:15David Sims:Yeah. I share your admiration for this scene, David. And I would say if I were Peter Weir watching Russell Crowe's performance, I would say to myself, I'm glad Richard Burton's dead.

2:19:27Griffin Newman:A hundred percent. Yes. I don't think Richard Burton. I love Richard Burton. I guess. I mean, I've seen many, but he's good. He doesn't quite have the humor. He doesn't have the humor. Crow is such a sweetie in this movie but not in a way that feels like

2:19:41David Sims:too cutesy or anything. Do you know what else I would say if I were watching this scene be shot? I'd say Jesus cock that's a hot heart attack. Hey thanks for the callbacks. You're welcome. I mean he's the humor is exactly right and the warmth and the childishness. Right. He's a 40 year old man which is old at the time. They're a bunch of boys. But he's still a child. Yeah he's a troop leader.

2:20:01Griffin Newman:All they do is fucking hang out. These boys they gotta entertain each other

2:20:04David Sims:with rebel jokes. All they do is fucking hang out. They don't fuck and hang out.

2:20:09Griffin Newman:Well, wait a minute. I think they did a lot of that. I mean, famously, so Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar. He was shot by a sniper. Oh, I thought he was fucking. Well, famously, maybe you don't know this, his last words were kismet Alfred. Kismet, of course, being the word for, you know. Love. More fate, I would say. Right, fated love. But most people think that he actually, sorry, not Alfred Hardy. That's what I was double-checking. He was talking to Captain Thomas Hardy. Most people think he said, kiss me, Hardy. Oh. That's why Alfred was so mad? Because he wanted to kiss him? No, that the words got changed to kismet because at the time no one wanted to acknowledge that of course all these men had very, like, these relationships.

2:20:56Whether Weir or someone put in the picture that moment when Aubrey is writing to his female acquaintance. And they show the picture just to sort of, in a backward way, tell the audience, don't worry, this guy's not gay. Their relationship with, his relationship with Maturin is not a real marriage. It's a sea marriage. But sea marriages were real and they were often quite intimate. And again, it speaks to the isolation of the wooden world that they were in because they were beyond. This is why there were so many superstitions because it was so dangerous to be on board. But also you were moving.

2:21:35I just read a little novel called Moby Dick. Sure. It's pretty good. That novel really conveys how the crew of the Pequod, which is a much smaller crew because they don't have gunners on it. It's a whaling boat. And they'll be out for years. And they are so far beyond the reach of civilization. They're outside of the eyes of God. And they become a society that is completely different. and so all kinds of taboos on land were broken at necessity or pleasure whether it was cannibalism or male intimacy or whatever.

2:22:07Griffin Newman:Yeah. You're sleeping in a hammock. Yeah. With, I don't know, 40 other guys. Cool. Having a jacket. This sucks. Do you think they just had like a jacket corner? Jack and booth. Yeah. I would hate to be the bottom bunk. Yeah, they called it the head. Or hate to be like the 24th guy in the jack and booth that night. Oh, sure. Just like waiting their turn to go in the jack and booth. The booth is like filled to the brim. Come on, aim out to the sea, Jesus. Don't fill it.

2:22:34David Sims:Have a little window or something. I don't know. Go Mitch style, you know, run some water. And I think the clear marriage that is very coded, you know, sort of hyper-traditionally, heteronormatively, you know, husband and wife between the two of them. Aubrey's the warrior and Maturin's the caring nurturer of the sun and blah, blah, blah. I think it could have made a, if not the Chronicle reviewer, but other reviewers a little confused and uneasy. And I'm not saying that that's a reaction that I had or think, but it came into focus a little bit more like why those, some of the people who love the books be like, you got to have that guy do his spy craft because otherwise he just seems like a nagging wife.

2:23:18David Sims:And I need to know that he docks. And when he docks, he docks. Right, exactly. But I think it's such a beautifully portrayed relationship. I agree. Of friendship and something deeper than friendship. I mean, you just invoked a great novel that you've been reading and how it... Dune Messiah? Well, Moby Dick is the one specifically I was talking about. And how it kind of illustrates the way these ships become their own contained worlds where the rules of social interaction are rewritten. and it reminds me of another serious sober work of seafaring that I look to often, Muppet Treasure Island, in which they are on the ship for so long, they catch cabin fever.

2:23:58David Sims:Yeah, I forgot about that. And it forces them to do like a kind of flamenco number. They all suddenly get like banana hats.

2:24:04Griffin Newman:That is a film I saw in theaters.

2:24:06David Sims:Yeah. I don't think I've seen since. Great movie.

2:24:08Griffin Newman:I've never seen a cabin fever number. I'm sorry I can't play with you on this road to two weevils that you're taking me off. Are you going to be left out of shipping? ship related movies ship stuff Cabin Boy Cabin Boy another example a highly realistic yeah they capture it we studied it a lot in addition to the like 12 13 year old officer cadets that were the midshipmen they also had literal chill boys

2:24:36David Sims:well that's the joke of Cabin Boy much like Get a Life is like what if an adult man was doing this thing right you didn't see them in this though I don't think no Sims what were you

2:24:45Griffin Newman:about to ask can't remember the Acheron surprises them it's fine and you know so they get sort of you know ambushed in a way surprise he doesn't like that but then they pull the whole maneuver in French means irony no it doesn't no the Asheron's like the river of woe or whatever it's like from antiquity I don't know you know but then like then they kind of maneuver around they do the thing where they they put the little fake boat out they create the illusion yeah with like With the mask. Like a miniature version but using the lanterns. Right. Because even though they're separated by great distance and even though they're both moving probably at about 10 miles per hour would be the top speed that they could get.

2:25:3110 knots, 11 miles per hour. They get up to 12. They're inexorably going to catch up. The Asheron has longer guns that can shoot farther. Right. And so they're going to die until Aubrey has this smart idea of what if we pretend that the poop deck is actually further back than it is. Good shit. That's good shit from the flip deck. And then they catch him.

2:25:51Griffin Newman:Then they have him. Then they have the drop on the Asheron and they're going to get him but they get, then the storm happens. Which like, I guess this is the other major action sequence of the movie. And it is awesome and super intense. It just has no gun work. It's all waves.

2:26:05David Sims:And also to your earlier point, this movie doesn't have a villain. No. Even in like an abstracted way. No. A sense of like, I got to get revenge on this guy. Which I love. Right.

2:26:16Griffin Newman:Because that's life. It's like, they wouldn't really know who were on these ships. I mean, I do like that Aubrey has that moment where he's like, did I kill this guy's kid or something? Like, why does he hate me? Sure. But like, but he's obviously just imagining. He's like, I don't know. To me, you're saying about people were complaining or nervous about the fact that there wasn't an antagonist. And what makes this movie special is that the antagonist is a complete mystery. Yeah. And it's like, it's accurate to like the idea. There's a bit of a... there's a big twist at the end. There's a nice little, I would say it's a little twist.

2:26:47Griffin Newman:It's a saucy little twist. It's a saucy, it's a cheeky little twist. It's a cheeky little twist. It's a soused head cheese of a twist. There's this moment, which it is how soused hogs face her. There's a moment where a matern says, like, he fights like you, Jack. A kind of like, you're not so different moment, right? But obviously, like when they're pursuing him, the storm gets them. They have to give up because they had like, the fucking mask gets dry. You know, like they have to cut the mask off because it's like turning into an anchor. There's the whole sequence there. Right. You know what I'm talking about.

2:27:16Well, yeah, because the, all right. Well, that's where we're at. I know. Okay. The guy dies.

2:27:22Griffin Newman:He can't swim back. Yeah. What's his name again? Raleigh or something. He's that beautiful guy. He's one of the two guys who pop in and get the extra rations of rum for showing the model of the Asheron. And he is in charge of the top mizzenmast. Yes. You see the other, it's Worley, I think is his name. Worley. You see the other guy crying and like putting away his stuff and all that. Exactly. But so, Ben, the top mizzenmast. So there are three masts on this boat. It's a three-masted sailing ship. Square-rigged, not fore and aft, Ben. It only really gets speed when the wind is directly behind you.

2:27:58And the first mast is the foremast. The middle mast is the main mast. The aftmost mast is the mizzenmast. He's on the top mizzenmast. He's standing on what's called the fighting top, or maybe he's talking on the cross rails, but he's on a platform way up there. And he's trying to bring in the sail because that sail is how you move the ship, but in bad winds, that becomes dangerous. And he can't get it up, so to speak. And that's why Hollum has to climb up and help him and fails to do so. And does he, is he kind of, he's cowardly.

2:28:32Griffin Newman:Does he sabotage and really actually lead to that sailor's death? He thinks he's responsible. I guess so. I mean, he didn't, like, he should have been up there. right scared to get up there and you know what it's scary it's fucking scary i wouldn't go up there i have not i did not this is how quickly i wash out of the british navy they're like all right welcome you're the fourth son of some lord i'm like hello and they're like go up that thing and i'm like i'm not going up there what are you talking about yeah do you have like a chair i can sit in i mean conceivably if he had gotten up there he would have he would have been able to help what's his name again worley yeah sure help worley furl get you know get rid of that sail and so the wind couldn't take it and pull the mast apart, which is what ends up happening.

2:29:13Griffin Newman:It just snaps the mast off. So after that is when Maturin sits down with Aubrey and is like, are you being too intense? Can I tell Ben one more thing about the mast? Yes. It's a really good instinct, by the way, to deliver all this to Ben. I think it's really smart. Thank you. It's like you're trying to sell Ben on going on a boat. Well, he may be the only one of the three of you that I could probably press gang into coming to Maine because you've got these children and you've got this life. You've got a life. Do I, though?

2:29:41David Sims:But I'm up that way often with my wife's family. There we go. This is true. I would love to come visit you. The boat's maybe the bigger ass. You climb up. To climb up, you climb up, you know, that thing that looks like a ladder. So the mast is held up and held in place by stays. So two long lines that go from the top to the front and back to the stern and the bow. And then shrouds, which are lines that come down to the sides. That's how it stays up in tension. and the shrouds on the sides, they have ladders built into them called rat lines because you climb up like a little rat and then you get to the fighting top, which is a platform about two-thirds up the way of the mast where the sharpshooters would stand and shoot.

2:30:20But to get onto that platform, you have to climb around it and sometimes the boat is tipped over and you're basically upside down. It's really dangerous. There's a trap door to go through more safely, which is called the lubber's hole. And if you climb through that...

2:30:35Griffin Newman:Yeah, I'm definitely a lamb lubber. Boats? I like being on the water. I'm not opposed. It's just, I'm more of a sort of like, everyone else do that. Is there, where's the, you know, portable DVD player?

2:30:45David Sims:Right. I would say I do not like being on boats and I do like portable DVD players. There's a reason. I could make drinks for people. Yeah, that's why Killick, Killick is his name. Yeah, that's why he's one of your favorite characters, right? I fucking love that guy.

2:30:56Griffin Newman:He likes grilled cheese and South House hog space and all that. So then, like, Maturin calls Aubrey out. Aubrey admits, like, I have at this point exceeded my orders. My orders are to try to catch this thing off the coast of Brazil. We've, you know, we've been chasing it longer than I need to. And they're faster, too. And they're going to make it around the Cape to the Pacific. So then he's like, all right, you know what? Killick, make a delicious map of the Galapagos Islands out of jelly or whatever the fuck. What is it? Who knows? Yeah, I mean, it's some kind of aspect. It's like boiled jellies.

2:31:27Yeah, it's like a jelly.

2:31:29Griffin Newman:And essentially, it's like, we can go to the Galapagos Islands. We have a whaling fleet there. I think the French will be heading there anyway. We can try to regroup. And good news to you, Mr. Maturin. Maybe you can look at some animals. That's Galapagos Island. That's why he's in the business. There's penguins and shit. This is alluded to in the movie, but I'll ask Ben, do you know why whaling ships and ships of the line and warships love to go to the Galapagos? Something to do with the stream? Well, you could get fresh water there for sure. You could reprovision there. Or I guess I'm saying the stream of the ocean.

2:32:07No. They wanted to go. There's a specific reason, which is tortoises. Tortoises were good food on these ships. Oh, sure. Yeah, because you could take a bunch of tortoises off an island.

2:32:21David Sims:I guess they don't spoil. They don't spoil and they don't drink water and they don't eat. Okay. And so unlike that goat and cow you have on board for milk, You saw that in the table setting in the beginning. You could take a stack of tortoises and put them down there and just kill them as you went. And they're kind of fun. It's less that they taste good. They're like funny. More that they're just less annoying to... I personally think that 100-year-old tortoises

2:32:47Griffin Newman:taste great, but that's just kind of my taste and I think I should be allowed to eat as many as I want. Well, you love turtle soup. That's why you're constantly trying to... But no, no, it's true. You're right. I mean, look, they were... That's why the whaling fleet would go by there They were not ecologically conscious. And then the privateers were going after the whaling fleet because they were packed up with very, very valuable sperm. So this is the moment. I already alluded to it. They're about... Maturin is dolled up. He's got his house coat. He's got his straw hat. He's got his little like...

2:33:18Griffin Newman:Have you ever dressed like that for Halloween? No, I probably should. Although I think I might just be, you know, escorted to an insane asylum. Weirdly, David does dress like that for sleep. Those are his versions of pajamas. The birds. I want to see those chops. Yeah, baby. And they pick up some guys, right, who are like, you know, who have information, right? Like they're whalers. They're the survivors of a whaling ship that was captured by the Asheron, the albatross. And Jack's like, we got to fucking go. Let's go get it. And they have this fight, which I really like because like, Maturin's sort of right of like, you're, you know, you're too crazy.

2:33:56Griffin Newman:You know, you're too obsessed with the Acheron and we don't need to do this. But Maturin's also totally selfishly like, I want to stay on the Galapagos Islands. I want to look at penguins and stuff. And it's very emotional and well played. It is Maturin kind of, he does kind of act like his wife is yelling at him. Like it is kind of the vibe where he's like, you know, duty, please, you know, we must. And so that's, but he does get to, oh, right, right, right. That's when Blakeney gets him the beetle. he's like if nothing else I found a cool beetle can we like catalog the beetle and that's sort of the beginning of their bond I like all the shots where it's the perspective of the telescope and seeing the different animals and the discovery of the iguana that can swim the way that all just plays out basically alluding to evolution it's awesome the swimming iguana where he's like they don't swimming all these fucking iguas i think it's one of the few non-documentary films to ever shoot at the galapagos indeed they shot at the galapagos which have a very weird terrain david i wouldn't know because i've only ever seen it in the movies and this is like oh yeah remember when the movies used to take you places yeah it's true well maybe we should go wait you can't come to maine and now you're pitching a galapagos expedition well we can go to maine get on your boat sail to the galapagos where are they?

2:35:23You know, you got to go all the way around America.

2:35:25Griffin Newman:Look, you're the captain. I get it. Requirements of the service. It's just, but then we have, then we have the Jonah plot, right? Then they are there. Their wind is gone. It's hot. They're not moving. They can't get into action. And the boys start being mean to, um, Hollum, uh, because they consider him the, the, he's sort of cursed the ship. Well, and also he may or may not have been directly responsible for the death of Worley, and it's Worley's best friend who particularly takes a hatred to Harlem and refuses to salute him. And at one point, you know, Aubrey punishes someone who's not nice to Harlem, right?

2:36:02Griffin Newman:It's that guy. It's that guy. He doesn't salute him. In fact, he kind of checks him. As far as where they're at, the storm was around the horn. Yes, they've gone around South America. They're on the other side. They really are. They're now on the other side. They're on the far side of the world. Because the Apocos Islands are off the coast of Ecuador, or otherwise off the coast, hundreds of miles off the coast of Ecuador. There's this great fight that he has with Matern. I love their fights. Where Aubrey's like, I have to preserve against the mutiny. And Matern's like, these fucking guys are in this wooden prison.

2:36:33Griffin Newman:They've been pressed against their homes. And he's like, you can talk to me that way, but I really hate it when you talk about the service that way. Aubrey's like, I really like being in the Navy. I know you think it sucks and just want to look at birds, but it does rock. and they're both right and they're both wrong because he is absolutely chasing the Asheron for pride. Men must be governed. Often not well, I, you know, admit, but like they must be governed and Matern's like, you know, that's what every sort of, you know, dictator says. It's a great fight. I just love that the movie has room for all of this.

2:37:07Griffin Newman:Yeah. the, the Jonah subplot, like, is the first thing you would be told to lose, I feel like. You're telling me the movie stops two thirds of the way, like the action stops and we just focus on like a side character having like a psychodrama basically like yeah it becomes a psychological thriller and it ends like so perfectly and so sadly with him just like does he grab a cannonball to go down yeah yeah and just holds it like you've always been nice to me anyway

2:37:35David Sims:I find it emotionally affecting that things sucked so hard in this time that basically you would learn to become the best doctor alive in order to get on a boat in the hopes that like once a year, they'd let you go look at lizards for two hours. Yeah, man. And the fact that he does become this good of a doctor and clearly take so much pride in it. I mean, who knows the fucking order of his studies. No, no, he's good. He's good. But I'm saying the naturist thing feels like his real driving passion. That's his passion. Totally, yes. But me invoking the fucking SNL sketch earlier, it was the thing in the amputation scene is without acting like metatextual or like he's a fucking time traveler.

2:38:20David Sims:I think Bettany somehow portrays the delicacy of like looking at this kid and being like, it sucks that this is the only way I can do this. It sucks that all I can offer you is a stick to bite on. You know, I'm kind of the best there is. And none of these options are great. Yeah, this is always going to hurt. and if I see like 20 of my men injured, I might only save three of them and that's a pretty good ratio.

2:38:49Griffin Newman:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then Jonah dies. Okay. Time for action to begin again, right? No. Return gets shot. Yeah. By a guy trying to shoot an albatross.

2:38:59David Sims:An accident. Truly. And kind of an, I mean, I hope he did eventually shoot that albatross and put it around his neck.

2:39:05Griffin Newman:Yeah. It's kind of a Dick Cheney situation, right?

2:39:07David Sims:Yes. Or he's like, fuck, I didn't mean to shoot you. It's embarrassing. And worst of all, a little bit of shirt got stuck in the wound that's the fucked up part

2:39:16Griffin Newman:there's this great moment when Aubrey's like you know because they spot the the Acheron they could try to catch it and Aubrey makes the decision like no we're gonna stay here we have to take him to the stable ground to do the surgery but he's staring at the cello like there's a shot where he just looks at the cello standing there it's like he can't operate without maturing like he knows like I am not going to survive if he dies like essentially like I need my other half I need my sort of better temper, all that stuff. And I would argue that the, you know, I don't think this is his primary motivation, but the crew kind of also need a doctor too.

2:39:50Griffin Newman:Well, this is the thing because the other guy, the assistant, is basically like, yeah, I'm pretty good at operating. I do barf at the sight of open wounds and stuff. Yeah, right. The fact that Matern has pretty shaky hands. Essentially, you see him checking, watching on YouTube about how to perform search. Matern knows that the only way -

2:40:05David Sims:How to remove bullets with shirt. With shirt. Matern knows the only way he's going to survive is for him to do the procedure himself and no one fights him on it. The fact that he says it and everyone's like, yeah, you're right. This is the,

2:40:18Griffin Newman:I can't believe Bettany was an Oscar nominated thing. Where it's like, you're telling me in the middle of the movie he does surgery on himself with a mirror. Right. Like, like...

2:40:26David Sims:But as you pointed out, this was a weird supporting actor year. It was.

2:40:29Griffin Newman:It was. Like, the Oscars were also just dumber back then. I feel like they're more lenient to newer actors and performing. You know, I don't know. Yeah. But good news. What does this mean, John? oh he gets to go to the Galapagos

2:40:41David Sims:yeah they're on the fucking islands he gives them the gift and that's a really beautiful scene of Crow fucking trying to act like he's not a softy and being like no we were gonna stop here anyway I didn't do this for you right I just chose to tell them I didn't actually want to capture that bullet bring you out in a fucking stretcher and walk you around one time yeah it's all good it's all good it's all normal do you think that Aubrey got a little pissed off like three days after they stopped chasing the Asheron and he just got a and took a bullet out of his own belly that he's getting up and walking around all the time.

2:41:11Maybe I'd be like, okay, maybe we should get back on the ship.

2:41:13Griffin Newman:I wouldn't have done this whole ceremony. No, but it's... I thought you were injured. It's the weird fate of it, though, because that's how he finds the Acheron. Right. Because he's on the Galapagos. That's such an amazing... He's measuring tortoises, and he's got his... I like he has this, like, box that he looks into the ocean with, right? Like, the sort of, like, spy box that he can use to look at fish and shit. This is... I've got the time code. It's an hour 40. Like, what fox support... Rothman, I assume, is watching again, like me, like Noah. watching it. Rothman's out there going, can we stretch it out?

2:41:42Can we make it? Other execs are like,

2:41:43Griffin Newman:do we need the iguana measuring sequence? Like, is there not a boat for them to fight? Well, I mean... I hear that Jack Sparrow, like, fences with every member of the cast that fires the Caribbean.

2:41:55David Sims:Right, and also, like, well, certainly, you know, it's a slow burn, but it's going to lead much like the Weevils walk into an awesome showdown with him and the other captain. No, he boards the ship, the guy's dead. But he's not. Oh, sure, sure. But yes, no.

2:42:08Griffin Newman:You're right. I mean, like, the final sequence is very intense and rocks in a theater and all that, but, like, it is not, right, aha, like, Captain Frenchman, and then, like, a big sword fight, like, across the deck of a boat or whatever, you know, all that stuff. I mean, I'll just say this real quick about, you know, and revisiting Peter, we're movies. Sorry, one more thing. Oh, yeah. In the Galapagos, they find the Akron. What else do they find, John? A stick insect. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Which gives Aubrey the idea to disguise his boat. And that's how they capture the Acheron. That's how they get him.

2:42:41Griffin Newman:See? It all, like, you need, this is a breathing organism, this ship, all these people with these different needs and interests. It's a wooden world. It's not a prison. It's a world. If he wasn't listening to all of them, he wouldn't be making, like, the evolved decisions. Because they're privateers and they're greedy. Yeah. Because they're not just engaging with other, you know, naval ships. They're also going after private citizens. A hundred percent. They'll raid anything that looks like a prize. Right. One of the things I've noticed re-watching some of these Weir movies and seeing some of them for the first time.

2:43:11He's like, yeah, Tom Rothman is like, yeah, more Galapagos, please, or whatever. Right. But Peter Weir is so patient as a director.

2:43:19David Sims:In all his films. And there are definitely moments in Witness, certainly in Hanging Rock, where you're just like, oh, yeah, I guess nothing's going to happen. Right. And then all of a sudden something will happen. And you're involved because he's doing the characters. And again, the beauty of it is that he's not sitting there and all of a sudden the Asheron comes around the corner and it's huge. Sure. He sees it and it's tiny, but it's close enough. And that he can go into battle hair mode. That's right. Oh, look at that. Let the locks flow. You bring up the patience. It is one of those things that I often think about and we are choosing to kind of just like step away.

2:43:56David Sims:Right. And even that his last film becomes an independent film and one where he needs foreign financing. This is the last time he works with the studios. is I think he just sort of saw like, they're not going to let me do this anymore. Even if it's not, I'm making a$100 million epic, which he was one of these guys who liked being able to level up and work with those resources. It's also just like, no one lets studio films have this kind of patience anymore. It is a patience that runs across his small intimate dramas to his giant epics. and maybe one of the reasons that people don't think about oh Peter like Peter Weir all the time or like the Peter Weir style movie is this is not a discredit to his talents but he wasn't all that uncommon in commercial filmmaking at the time sure like the opening sequence of you haven't covered well you have covered Green Card by the time this comes out yeah yeah but you know like that opening sequence with the kid drumming in the subway yeah has nothing to do with the plot yeah It's just a creation of a mood and a world.

2:45:03He does it in this movie too, where it's just like little building moments of like, here's what life is like in little tiny five to seven second vignettes. And we used to see that kind of stuff in movies all the time. He was always... There would just be a sequence of like, here's New York City. Here's a guy hailing a cab. I mean, it's opening a dog day. Exactly.

2:45:22David Sims:Right. And now it's the Netflix thing of like, every movie has to open with a helicopter overhead shot of the city. and then immediately into either an action sequence or some kind of big comedic set piece or the beginning of the plot. You know, I mean, they have all this fucking data that's like, if something huge doesn't happen within the first 90 seconds, everyone's going to flip away. And even in theaters where it's not like the risk is someone walking out of the fucking theaters, the thing they're concerned about, you do feel like that concern dictating the edits of these things, even if it's just inevitably this thing is going to go on to fucking streaming.

2:45:57David Sims:You saying he's not... Was he less unique in the moment than it feels like he was now? I think he's a master of that. I think also his uniqueness. But I also think it was not unusual. No, his uniqueness was his consistency, I would say. Yeah. And also the versatility of genre, of size, of tone. Yeah. There are very few people who I think made this transition into the studio system and just basically stayed true to their standards and their ethos. and didn't slip. Because you compare it to Wolfgang Peterson, who goes from making his very serious movies to making top-level popcorn to then making shitty popcorn.

2:46:42David Sims:The arc from Das Boot to Perfect Storm to Poseidon is what often happens to these guys. At some point, they're just fucking picking up the checks. Yeah, we maybe saw it coming and got out of the way. Maybe. To tie it back to a moment to Master and Commander, or a movie that I believe David likes. Yeah, I've heard that. I think that one of the things that's very beautiful about it is that the natural patient pace of a Peter Weir movie marries so quickly with the necessary patient pace of sailing a ship in the Napoleonic Earth. But... Like, it has a completely different mood than we would think.

2:47:17Griffin Newman:What happens when they engage in battle? Shit pops off. It's what I... Like, the craziest part of all this, it's like so much of your life is... What you're talking about is the careful, like how do we maneuver and then it's like when we're next to them everyone has to go insane right you see Killick going insane like during the battle like there's one of the other chefs is like beating someone up with a pot like it's like hitting someone over the head with a pot obviously I already mentioned you know you see Blakeney little 12 year old Blakeney just boarding with a gun well isn't his mission to first he's in charge release the whalers yeah but first so that's Calum the other ones oh sorry no first he's in charge of the boat Remember, he's like, oh, I don't get to be in the boarding party.

2:47:58Griffin Newman:He's like, no, you're going to be in charge of the surprise because we're all, which is an honor. But then there's that moment where they're so close and they both start pointing, like both boats are pointing the cannon right at each other. And Blakeney's like, we have to fire first. Like, you know, they're going to blow a hole in us. He's a good commander of the surprise. And then he says, arm yourself. We must board them. He's a little child. And you see Maturin like grab a gun and cock it. And I'm watching it right now. It's so exciting. And I love what, I love that Blakeney says that because A, he appreciates that it's necessary because he's smart.

2:48:29Yes. But B, he gets what he wants to do anyway. He's like, yeah, you know what?

2:48:31Griffin Newman:I am going to fucking board that boat. The assistant doctor guy, the cowardly, he's not a coward, but the grossed out doctor, he has that moment where he stops a cannon from being fired by putting his hand in between the fuse and the, like the trigger. Oh, and it hurts. It's so good. And it's like, he's like, almost slapsticky moment. It's so good. Maturin picks up a sword and starts fucking with, it's so exciting. It's the greatest thing that's ever happened. Like I said, it's tied with all the other scenes for a greatest scene in a movie. But yeah, Calumny is sent, is tasked with going and rescuing the crew members of the albatross.

2:49:09Because that will

2:49:09Griffin Newman:put the odds in their favor. It gets more guys on their side. And that's when it's over. And then Aubrey sees the surgeon who is actually the captain pretending to be the surgeon operating on the captain who's probably just some dead guy they put a coat on and he says you told me to give you this sword that's what happens yeah that's what happens and it's great you don't know the twist for a while obviously there's the what's his pants dies the sweet boy Callum he dies and he doesn't sew through the nose for him because he's asked for that remember the Blake he asked Blake or Blake and he asked him earlier he gets sewn they get sewn up in their own hammocks also the guy who looks like a blobfish dies love that guy so much the master oh yeah you know he gets shot in the head the master of sail.

2:49:54Griffin Newman:Love him. It's great. It's just, you know, just the right balance of like triumph and misery, right? Like it's sort of like this is life at sea. They bury everyone. They say their names. They sing a little song, right? All that stuff. Would you want to be buried at sea? No. Okay, fine. He gives James Darcy. Okay, great. Really? Ben, break the tie. Yeah. Cool. We're deciding for all of us? Yeah, sure. now we all have to do it

2:50:22David Sims:we're giving Ben power of attorney

2:50:24Griffin Newman:that he gives James Darcy the Acheron right he's like take that to Portsmouth Jarvis take the Acheron to Valparaiso and then we have you there the moment I already freaked out about which is Aubrey realizes like oh shit no the captain's still on the ship right we have to go get them we can't stay at the Galapagos sorry sorry once again your bird fight list not going anywhere funny line right billion dollar gross right yeah the greatest thing that's ever happened and then they they fucking start playing their song then they jam out because what else are they going to do

2:50:57David Sims:while they're going there it's going to take time I was going to make a joke that the the mid credit tease was that they're building a white maturin and then I remember that in the section where he's been shot he basically does he does go kind of white vision he gets yeah yeah gray T mode yeah that's funny thank you

2:51:16Griffin Newman:David how do you feel about this movie It's my favorite movie ever. I love to watch it. I try not to watch it too much because I do, as with all my favorite movies, I try to kind of like let it be special every time.

2:51:27David Sims:Yeah.

2:51:27Griffin Newman:So it's like every year or so.

2:51:29David Sims:How many times do you think you've seen it? Like 20?

2:51:31Griffin Newman:Sure. 15, 20.

2:51:32David Sims:Yeah. Right? Like a good amount. You don't ever put it into an Assassin's Creed style rotation.

2:51:37Griffin Newman:I don't think I do that. That's a Ben thing. I was hearing about that.

2:51:40David Sims:In college, I did that. In college, I would have the movies to fall asleep to

2:51:43Griffin Newman:a little bit more.

2:51:45David Sims:I try to cycle through them. I don't know if you do this as well. It sounds like you didn't with this. But in the same way that I held off on re-watching this because I was like, I should make it fresh for when we do the episode. Oh, I'll do that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are certain movies I look at where I'm like, I'd love to watch that, but there's a good chance we cover that in the next two years. I'd definitely do that, Griffin. And it would be nice to make that feel a little more special. I'm never going to be... I should say I arrived as Griffin finished watching the movie. Look, my memory at this point...

2:52:12David Sims:You're fresh. I'm fucking Dory. You're fresh. You're usually trying to do it pretty soon. It gets out of my brain so quickly that I feel like the specificity of thought, I need to be as close to of just finishing the movie as I can. Now, we mentioned the box office.

2:52:27Griffin Newman:We did. We'll play the game in a second. Can I ask you a question before the box office game? I know you're going somewhere. No, I'm going to the box office game. And you're leading, and you're captaining the ship, so I don't want to take us off course to go to my Galapagos Islands. The overall question is, what's the new thing you've seen in it since you've seen it so many times. And then the prompt might be, how does this depiction of war compare to the depiction of war in Gallipoli? That's interesting. It's got the similar thing in Gallipoli of, it's about like a brotherhood of man a little bit, right?

2:52:59Griffin Newman:And then you don't really know or see your enemy. But like, right. But in Gallipoli, I feel like it's a little bit more like, you know, watching it, if you have even the barest understanding of history. Like these boys have no idea what they are in for. They have been drafted into a war that is pointless. They are being drafted into a, you know, battle that is the famously worst thing that anyone ever tried in World War One, basically. Right. Like one of the biggest disasters. Right. So you kind of have this kind of like innocence is dying here. I don't find that with Master and Command at all.

2:53:31Griffin Newman:No, not at all. I mean, this is like, you know, it's not something maybe somebody proud of, but like, this is part of the lifeblood of this, you know, of this empire, right? It's like, I mean, obviously World War One was a, not, It was a particularly modern war in a way that people didn't understand even when they were joining it because of the kinds of guns they were using, basically. It was just much more fatal war, even though the brutality of war is depicted to a degree in this movie as well. But it's also like, as you mentioned, the triumph is there, too. So it's kind of, it's a romantic film when it comes to this.

2:54:07Hugely romantic. in that way. And Matron is right. There is no reason to necessarily go after the Acheron after

2:54:12Griffin Newman:it gets to the Pacific. No, what? This is not some movie about like... I mean, he gives the great speech where he's like, do you want Napoleon to be your king? Like, where they're all fired up about it. And it's like, yeah, sure. In the broad sense, Britain didn't want to lose to France. Yeah, but this isn't even a French naval ship. This is a... They're contractors. Yeah. You know, they're not going to invade... They're not going to invade England. The Acheron is not going to invade England, nor are they going to continue hunting for the surprise necessarily unless they disguise themselves.

2:54:42David Sims:Hodge, I got a question for you. Turnabout is fair play. I know you've done a great job of explaining and selling Ben on the specifics of Life on the Seas and boating. Yeah. And obviously your experiences with boating are different than what is depicted in this film. Slightly. Are there specific things in this movie that you feel like, wow, this gets it right in a way I haven't seen before. I mean, no way a truly able seaman. Not even like on technical details, but like on feelings and experiential and yeah. I mean, I think that it is profoundly creepy to be sleeping on a boat that makes no motor noise.

2:55:23This is a reason I don't trust boats. That I think it captures very well. I mean, the depiction of what you do in order to make a boat like this go is to the best of my understanding, experience, and reading very accurate. I think that's very cool. Because it required a lot of intelligence and ingenuity and that sort of thing. That thing where they have to escape into the fog and they don't have enough wind, so they get out the boats and they pull. You've been there? No, but that is how you would maneuver one of those boats. Particularly a square bent, a square rigged boat. Okay, alright. No. I'm getting so hungry and we gotta play the box office.

2:56:05I understand. Thank you for letting me talk a little bit about it. But if I may. Please. We've reached the end of our discussion of this film. Oh, yes.

2:56:15Griffin Newman:Oh, Jesus. I forgot to have a piece of paper. It's appropriate to honor it appropriately. Safe and sound at home again. Let the waters roar, Jack. Safe and sound at home again. Let the waters roar, Jack. Long we've tossed on the rolling main. Now we're safe ashore, Jack. Don't forget your old shipmate Take it solo, David Me? No, I don't know It's got your name all over it I don't even know this part We were not prepped for that, there was no editing We just jumped into it Did they say this other part? I don't remember this other part We have worked the self-same gun Quarter deck division Sponger I And loader you Through the whole commission Long we've tossed on the rolling main Now we're safe ashore, Jack Don't forget your old shipmate Polly rody rody rody rody rody rody Did you look this up?

2:57:26Griffin Newman:This is called Don't Forget Your Old Shipmate, this naval song. Do you know what makes Ben best in the biz? I mean, everything, but go ahead.

2:57:34David Sims:99 out of 100 producers would have just texted that to us. and Ben printed it out and folded it cleanly. And I think it mattered.

2:57:40Griffin Newman:I think we locked in right away. Absolutely. It meant something. Do you think it's mean when they're a little mean about the nice singing voice of Harlem? Yeah, I think it's mean when they're mean. I feel like it's a little mean. I mean, they're not like that mean, but they're kind of like... There's a moment before he sings, so this is when he joins in on Farewell and Adieu, You Old Spanish Ladies. And they go,

2:58:00David Sims:you're a little pitchy, dog. Yeah, but right before that, the crew is saying, before he joins in, you see him sort of gamely tapping his his hand to the beat and he's really offbeat and it's just so touching and anyway all of the characters are real people thanks for playing along with thank you very much an extra ration of grog for Ben it's

2:58:22Griffin Newman:November 14th 2003 Master Commander is opening to 25 million dollars number two at the box office

2:58:29David Sims:now I do know what is number one because the Wikipedia entry there was a sub entry of accolades and awards received by Master and Commander. I was just trying to look up the award situation. In the opening paragraph, it says the movie was considered a disappointment coming in number two behind Elf. Is this the second weekend of Elf? How much has Elf dropped from his first weekend? It went up. Did it not?

2:58:52Griffin Newman:It did not go up.

2:58:53David Sims:At least according to the numbers, which everything feels a little unreliable. I remember it having a minuscule... Well, I remembered it going up, but... It goes up in its fourth.

2:59:04Griffin Newman:There we go. It has dropped 15%. Yeah, crazy. So, Elf is number one at the box office with 26 mil. Mastering Commander right behind it, 25 mil. Right behind that is a movie that has dropped drastically. It's a movie we've covered on this show. It's dropped drastically. It opened against Elf. Elf has now taken number one. It has dropped to number three. It opened number one. It is an action sci-fi sequel. Oh, it's The Matrix Revolutions. Yes. Whereas Reloaded had done so well.

2:59:34David Sims:Well, Revolutions opens big, but drops out very fast. Elf was so fucking huge. There's something that feels representative of it being like the thing that Master Commander has to open against. And that was just like, we've got Russell Crowe doing Gladiator on a boat. Isn't that like automatic 40 million opening weekend, like adult fucking entertainment. And it came in soft at the same time that Elf came in so much hotter than anyone was predicting. I'll say I first watched Master and Commander with our son. I don't know if he remembers ever seeing the movie. But our son and my wife, who's a whole human being in her own right, will watch Elf every day together if they're allowed to.

3:00:18David Sims:Yeah. I mean, Elf is a I-watch-it-every-year movie. It has stood the test of time. Every day, I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only, I would argue, it's the last holiday film that basically has been canonized. Yes, absolutely. Right? It's good. It's an excellent movie. And now, Jon Favreau's bringing us The Mandalorian and Grogu.

3:00:39Griffin Newman:And I cannot wait to meet those two guys. Number three is Matrix Revolutions. Number four is a Disney animated film.

3:00:47David Sims:I believe you've never seen it. A thousand three. Oh, it's Brother Bear. Brother Bear. It's one of only two I haven't seen. Brother Bear and Wish. Right.

3:00:54Griffin Newman:Number five, and as we may return to this box office game one day, is a film we will cover. It is new this week. It is opening to$9 million, which is not good. it is a fun movie. It's Looney Tunes back in action. I could have gotten it with fewer clues. Is this where to put this movie? It feels like a summer, not a November. Yeah. I guess they're hoping for a Thanksgiving family thing, but it just kind of feels like everyone's like, we'll just see Elf.

3:01:18David Sims:Right. I think they had no idea Elf was going to be that big. It is crazy that it's also Elf's new line and this is Warner Brothers. Like, they opened against themselves. I just think the expectations for Elf were really low, where it was like, if that movie makes 50 million dollars we're gonna be thrilled and instead it opened to 40 and then had like those those tight spandex legs cause Elvin's up at like 170 180 yeah yeah no I think they fucked up on the release of this but it also like Warner Brothers treated that movie with resentment well yeah Master and Commander had a Jonah on board let's just say yes truly it was it was it's so charmed but it is so cursed at the same time Joe Dante has talked about this where like Like he would get into studio like note meetings on the Looney Tunes movie and they'd be like, now Bugs says this line, what's up, doc?

3:02:08David Sims:What does that mean? Does he need to say that? Oh boy. Where he was like getting noted by people who didn't understand why they were even bothering to make a Looney Tunes movie. Nothing is better for creativity than people justifying their jobs. The movie is kind of about that in a lot of ways. It's like a movie of like development execs being like, does this suck? Now, do we fucking hate the Looney Tunes? Now I will never see it. No, it's really good. It's him. I will not. I will not see a movie about movies ever again. It is a movie made... Sentimental value was the one exception. It is a movie made with contempt for an industry that is overthinking everything and not understand the value of these characters.

3:02:46I'm officially in my weird dad phase if it's not about sleeper trains.

3:02:50David Sims:Sure, we hear you. I think you would love Back in Action. They go to Area 51 and it's Joan Cusack and she has all the great robots. What else is on the box office?

3:02:57Griffin Newman:Number six of the box office is Love Actually. A movie that is a war crime? It's not good, but it is. That is a movie that our daughter makes us watch every Christmas. Yeah. She has extremely good taste in movies and television.

3:03:08David Sims:That is emotional abuse. But she really loves that movie. A lot of people love that movie. A lot of people love that movie. A lot of people voted for Trump. Not accusing your daughter of voting for Trump. Oh, no. She's a MAGA. Oh, sure. MAGA and MAHA. Okay. Number seven of the box office is Scary Movie 3, which has made$102 million.

3:03:25Griffin Newman:Was a big hit. Yep. Number eight is the definitely not embarrassing movie, Radio. No. Whoa. Everyone walked out of that with their heads held high. Number nine is new this week is the Tupac Resurrection movie, which is a sort of like pseudo documentary. Right. You know, kind of.

3:03:41David Sims:I think briefly had the highest grossing documentary. Crowner was close to it. And then obviously the next year, Fahrenheit 9-11 comes out. Hey, Ben.

3:03:49Griffin Newman:He's just went to the bathroom. When he comes back from the bathroom, I'm going to teach him how to anchor. Number 10 of the box. Well, he's about to anchor in that toilet. That's right. It's Mystic River. He might do it wrong. Mystic River. I never saw it. What's it up to at this point? Which has made$45 million on its way to 90. Yeah. So it's going to have a very long run. Yeah. It's light. Well, the thing about it is they save everything for the blooper reel, but they are great. Oh my God. All those scenes are so funny. Is that my daughter in there? Oh, I fell over. I don't know. Yeah. That's the box office.

3:04:18Griffin Newman:We will, I guess, yeah, do this again one day when we do Joe Dante. Because, right? That's Joe Dante. We got to do it. I'm about to get keelhauled by David, but I just got to say this one thing. Please. Now I'm done. so you guys can just chat. Just, you know, I have a better answer for you vis-a-vis. My experience on the seas. Sure, sure. And what I think that this movie captures and I think is part of what the movie is all about is the powerlessness, literal and figurative, of being on a sailing boat. Totally. Right. You have some control but you have a lot of no control. And how much, how much control is overcompensated in, you know, uniform and in ritual and in everything else because they know that it will fall apart if there isn't discipline, right?

3:05:02But also you are at the mercy of truly unseen forces, the wind. Yeah. And if someone else has the wind advantage, they're going to win the battle. And if it dies, you're becalmed and it's this collision of a sense of control and complete lack of control. It is very tense, even if there isn't a love interest or an antagonist, traditional antagonist.

3:05:24David Sims:That is an excellent point, beautifully expressed. and you have finally given me words to explain why I don't like being on a boat. You just described exactly why I don't like it. Powerful and powerless in that you have a bunch of fucking responsibilities and rituals to maintain, which to me sounds like a nightmare. And also you don't ultimately have that much talent. If you ever wanted, and Ben, I'm inviting you as well. Yeah. The wonderful comedic actor and improviser and just straight up great actor, Mark Evan Jackson. He also has the same bug. Oh, sure. The boating bug. The boating bug. And he is a partner in another 120-year-old wooden sailing schooner called the Grace Bailey.

3:06:07Wow. Jesse Thorne and I are going aboard in June for four nights to lead a Judge John Hodgman sailing cruise. Truly. It's, I think, sold out. Okay. But the Grace Bailey is an amazing experience. This is interesting. To sail on. Mark is on it sometimes. Yeah. I'll be going back on it eventually. I'm not refusing the experience, to be clear. It's really, really great. And, you know, I would invite David, if he wants some master and commander type experience, this would be a really fun experience. The Grace Bailey, sail Grace Bailey. Yeah. Now, Ben, here's what you do. What's that? Do they have cannons?

3:06:37They do not have cannons. I'll still go, though. But you'll like this because these schooners, particularly the merry day was purpose-built for passenger travel in the 60s, but the Grace Bailey and a bunch, and five or six other ones, they date back to the late 19th century when schooners were the tractor trailers of the East Coast. There were no roads, there were no railroads. So you wanted cargo moved around, you would fill up a schooner and move it along the coast, up and down, et cetera. So it'd carry tar, rum, coal, paperback copies of vacation land or whatever. And if you wanted to stop the schooner, here's what you do.

3:07:11Any kind of boat, first of all, you drop the lead to see what the quality of the seabed is. Then you drop the anchor, right? And if you know that it's five fathoms deep, for example, you're going to want to let out at least three times and up to seven times that amount of what's called anchor road. The closest to the anchor, it's all heavy chain because it's not the anchor that keeps you down. It's the chain.

3:07:35Griffin Newman:I love it. But you got to pay it out longer because there are tides. Because if it was too short, it would potentially, it would break. There would be too much tension. It's, you put the anchor down and then you lay, essentially you're laying the chain down along the seabed for a length of time. and it's that weight that keeps you if you were just holding onto the anchor it'd pull right out that makes total sense yeah but yeah I love when you see there's like one in in Long Island City there's a huge anchor but then there's also the chain with it which is so impressive that is the chain fucking massive yes and that's how you do it

3:08:11David Sims:Ben

3:08:11Griffin Newman:so cool what's a coxswain coxswain sits when you're it's a rowing thing that's for the coxswain is the little guy who sits at the front of the boat So I could be a cockswing, right? You are the actual perfect bill for a cockswing. You have to be really loud. You have to yell. Oh, famously, I can't do that. I think you can do it. Billy Boyd. He's the cockswing? He's the cockswing. That makes sense. It's also the steersman of the boat. And like a cockswing when you're rowing, when you're, you know, what is it? Crew. You know what I mean? They usually choose little, you know, smaller people to sit in the back of the boat and call out the strokes.

3:08:49That's what a cockswing is. in a rowing crew. And similarly, in Napoleonic War times, you wanted a smaller coxswain to steer the boat and that's why they had hobbits to it.

3:08:59David Sims:Got it. Okay, so I'll be your coxswain sometime. I definitely think the worst job is the crank guys. Well, the worst job is peg boy, but we're not even going to get into that. It's kind of... There's not even an argument there. Ben, the other way they would move the boat if they didn't have wind, you're going to love this. They had a smaller anchor and they would put it in one of their side boats and they would row it way out in front of the ship and then they would drop that anchor way out in front of the ship and then the ship, those crank boys would crank the capstan around and pull the ship to that anchor.

3:09:35That was another way you would move if you had no wind. Sure. Which they, I think at one point, have to do that at the first battle scene. Yeah, they have the boats tow it. But in this case, it's like, it would be like throwing a grappling hook and then pulling yourself along. Right. Or they would tie themselves to a tree and then pull themselves up if they're near land or whatever. So cool. You understand how fore and aft sails work? What?

3:10:02David Sims:Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Hodgman, anything you want to plug? Well, the fore and aft sail is something I'd like to plug. It's an incredible means of propulsion that uses the Bernoulli principle of differentiating air vacuum. Essentially, it works like an airfoil. So, never mind. Also, I would recommend plugging any leaks in the hull of your ship. There you go. There we go. I'll tell you what, I'll plug my substack, hodgman.substack.com. Well, look at that. Because you get news and little musings from me, but you also get me reading Moby Dick aloud in a terrible main accent, chapter by chapter.

3:10:43I've been going, I'm only about halfway through, so the good stuff is yet to come.

3:10:47David Sims:And if, and obviously, you know, I don't want to get people's hopes up too high for something that may never happen. But if, for example, Vacationland ever were released in paperback, I assume that Substack is somewhere where it might be announced. Yeah, you would learn about that probably at hodgman.substack.com. Great. You also get to listen to me read Moby Dick aloud in a terrible main accent. It's not a joke. Perfect. It's a long project that I enjoy. Tune in next week for The Way Back. We're finishing Peter Weir with our buddy Alex Ross Perry. who comes in calm, civil, balanced.

3:11:21Griffin Newman:I honestly, I remember that being a fun episode, but can't say I remember what happened. I can't remember anything. Yeah, like, I mean, I guess we probably litigate

3:11:31David Sims:a bunch of stuff with Alex, because, like, that's usually how it goes. Right, he explains how there only ever been two good movies in history.

3:11:39Griffin Newman:And they're both Super Mario Galaxy. God, he was coming in hot with those galaxies.

3:11:45David Sims:He really was like, yeah, he was, yeah, I think he was trying a little hard, but. No, I think it was natural. It was easy and organic. Anyway, tune in for that next week. And as always, what's the number one boat fact that you didn't get to share that you came in locked and loaded with today, John? Talked about kedging and talk about anchoring. Kedging is when you like get really close to steering the ship, but you. That's right. Cool. it's uh there's a nautical term called gooning yeah sure and glazing yeah and uh only the ablest of semen are capable of all three yeah and it creates some more semen in the process yep that's how that's how it happens that's how it happens and that's how we end our episode yep