O Brother, Where Art Thou? with Emily St. James

9:40David Sims:So is it a, if I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman?

9:45Griffin Newman:I don't even know what that is. That's three doors down. Yeah, it's three doors down. The thing is, a lot of this music, not to pull this card, did not make it to Britain in the same way. Creed absolutely didn't. Yeah. Christian rock was not a thing in Britain. But Old Time Americana album does make it to the UK? Maybe a little bit. I think this was pretty niche in Britain. This whole thing was pretty. But anyway, about Creed, we've got Destiny's Child Survivor. Okay, that's a great album. Alicia Keys' songs in A minor, her first album. Quite a major album. Very good. Stains Break the Cycle, which is reprehensibly bad.

10:18Griffin Newman:So bad. What's the single off that? Oh, you know how you remind me. I know. Fuck, what is it? You know, it's been a while. You know, that was been a while. I just remember that Scott Ackerman, his podcast, they do that joke. Anytime someone says, do you know what I'm talking about, Emily? And then as a joke, they're like, let's actually listen to the whole album. And they go track by track, and it's so tough to listen to. That fucking new metal stuff. Fourth, Enya, A Day Without Rain. Now, this is later Enya. But I was going to say. Is the Lord of the Rings boosted Enya? I think she got a fellowship bump.

10:53It's another post-9-11 thing. Yep. Yeah. Great call, Emily.

10:56Griffin Newman:I guess even though it was released pre-9-11, I think the bump comes post. Because, yeah, we're all looking for solace. Yeah. And then the top three are, of course, the best three albums of 2001. Number three, NSYNC's Celebrity, which is fine. Number two, Shaggy's Hotshot. Hey. Which is the It Wasn't Me comeback. Oh, it's the follow-up? No, no. I'm saying, like, It Wasn't Me was Shaggy's comeback, right? Yes. Like, it was like, Shaggy's returned. Yes. You thought Mr. Boombastic was a one-hit wonder. I didn't know he was gone. Yeah. You didn't know? You don't think Shaggy kind of slightly receded in the public memory?

11:28This is the It Wasn't Me album. For like two years, the person who didn't personally know me before I transitioned, who had misgendered me the last time, was Shaggy. What? Why did he do that? I was at a press conference, and he couldn't see me. And he just was going off my voice. So he said, sir. And I was like, and I was not offended because it was Shaggy. I was like, well, that's a good last misgender. You accused him of misgendering you, and he said it wasn't me. Yeah. Yeah.

11:53David Sims:He's got a kind of airtight alibi. This is the thing. By making himself the It Wasn't Me guy, he can slip out of any accusation. And then some lady at an airport did. And I was like, well, that's it. He used to be Shaggy in The Dreamstead.

12:05Griffin Newman:Tell me Mr. Boom Buster. He's so good. Shaggy? Love him.

12:08David Sims:You should sing more of his canon right now on, Mike.

12:10Griffin Newman:Angel? That was one? My darling, you're my angel. Yeah, that sounds right. Number one, God bless him. I think I've talked to Ben about this. Linkin Park's hybrid theory. their first album which at the time I was so dismissive of I think about this now and I really think it was internalized homophobia a little bit from me a little bit from Simsie unpack this even though I was a woke boy unpack this I think that music is so sincere I listen to it now and I'm like this is special like this is interesting it's not 100 % my thing but it's so emotional man in a tremendous amount of pain exactly yeah and I think at the time I was a little too like too much you know not cool not cool You know, like this is too much emotion, too much feeling.

12:54David Sims:But don't you think that was kind of...

12:56Griffin Newman:He's about to break everything you say to him. But don't you think...

12:59David Sims:Takes him one step closer to the edge. Don't you think that was kind of...

13:02Griffin Newman:And he is crawling in his skin. He's crawling in his skin.

13:03David Sims:That song is pretty good. That song rules. Don't you think that that was kind of the magic that blew up the record charts?

13:10Griffin Newman:100%, but that was all...

13:11David Sims:Is that there was this combination of like, externally, this guy's really tough and hardcore, and his voice is so extreme, and the songs are aggressive. And then there's like such a sensitivity in the center of them. that that clash kind of was able to reach across the aisle. There's so many albums in that top 10 that are like boys being sincere over electric guitars. This was a whole movement that emerged

13:33Griffin Newman:right as I'm a teenager, like 15 years old, and I'm like a little too cool. Even though I wasn't the coolest kid in school. Funky thrash. But I consider myself too cool. And so much of it. For essentially emo music. And so much of it, like Creed, seems like it's sung by a church praise band. Right. And you're like, it's actually just kind of Christian adjacent.

13:51David Sims:And then it also feels like this is on the brink of splintering off into Screamo, which is then like not even pretending to be hardcore is just like emotions first and foremost. Like there's a bifurcation that I think happens. Well, somebody lost that as underground music.

14:08Griffin Newman:And I think a lot of people, that was the thing that they hated about Linkin Park. Right. Is that they were this like homogenized. Right. You know, really. They're bringing it mainstream. Right. But that always happens. And then the underground stuff becomes overground very quickly. Yeah.

14:24David Sims:It's like we talk about how like Spider-Man 2, the whole fucking album is Screamo shit.

14:28Griffin Newman:Sure.

14:28David Sims:And you're like, you can't get more mainstream than this. The list you just read off, though, makes it all the more insane that the O Brother soundtrack exploded that hard.

14:36Griffin Newman:Yeah, O Brother doesn't really fit into what I just read out.

14:39David Sims:Anything. Into anything. It would be weird if that soundtrack went viral today. It does presage Screamo, though. It's very, you know. The O Brother thing. Oh, Brother's screamo. Yobeling? All the way. I am a man of constant sorrow. Pretty emo.

14:56Griffin Newman:Yeah. If you say that, that's emo. I'm a man of constant sorrow? That was the point I was just making.

15:00David Sims:That was the profound point I was just making.

15:02Griffin Newman:Now, I have a couple other threads I want to tie off. Okay, one. Griff wasn't here for this, but we were discussing Taylor Sheridan's Steakhouse, of course. Oh, sure. I'm sure you're very aware of it. Four Sixes, which is in Las Vegas at the Wynn. Emily, your picture is framed on the wall? Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah. Taylor and I, yeah. looked up the old menu. Oh, sure. You know, and they've got your regular steaks, porterhouses, filet mignons. I would imagine. Maybe you want a Cornish head if you're feeling saucy. But, and this is just to speak to Ben and his experience of expensive steaks, they do have a$1 ,000 steak.

15:37Griffin Newman:Now, here's the thing. No, no, I'm lying. It's$9.99 on the nugget. Oh, good. $9.99. No cents? No, no, 90 cents. What? 9-9-9-9. I think it's like 6-6-6-6, but... Okay, so you get to keep a nickel and four pennies. What I appreciate, and that is ridiculous, who would buy that? I mean, I don't know. I'm sure there's people out there who just are real big steakheads. At least the price is listed. That's true. It is listed right here. It's Japanese purebred freedom wagyu tomahawk 48-ounce steak with beef tallow raclette cheese popover. Interesting. Sounds pretty good. That does sound good. That kind of sounds like the, in the, you know, if this is the Bambino, which is an item we've discussed in the past, is the popover like the check?

16:23David Sims:Is it the long pour? You're stepping on my joke. I was going to say that the steak also comes with a signed check by Babe Ruth, a long pour, and a Victrola.

16:30Griffin Newman:And a Bordelais sauce, which is sort of like a whiny sauce.

16:34David Sims:Anyway, so. And also it's grilled by hand by Kevin Costner.

16:38Griffin Newman:Yeah, they get him in there. That's the one thing he'll still do for Taylor Sheridan.

16:42David Sims:I love steak.

16:42Griffin Newman:It'd be so funny if Costner fucked it up just to mess with Sheridan. Like he overcooks it. Did you watch the final season? Of course you didn't watch the final season. They kill Kevin Costner like seven times. Yes. It's just showing his death over and over.

16:55David Sims:And then there are like six episodes devoted to how well Taylor Sheridan fucks. And how well he rides a horse and he dates Bella Hadid. Yeah. Right. Oh.

17:04Griffin Newman:You can tell me anything happened on Yellowstone.

17:06David Sims:Do you know that there's a character played by him who decides to buy the ranch after Costner dies? And every character is like, God, he's so much better than Kevin Costner.

17:16Griffin Newman:Oh, like played by Taylor Sheridan. Played by Taylor Sheridan. Who's an actor?

17:18David Sims:And Bella Haddad is his girlfriend and constantly talks about how good he is in bed. Makes allusions to. There's like five minute sequences of him doing trick riding on a horse. I've seen these super cuts. But there's a, right, he's trick riding on a horse and then one of the other female characters goes like, man, he rides that horse well. And Bella Haddad goes like, you don't even know.

17:40Griffin Newman:I'm sorry, I'm looking up the.

17:41David Sims:Okay, other loops to close. It's Ben's birthday. It's Ben's birthday.

17:44Griffin Newman:Happy birthday, Ben.

17:45David Sims:Thank you. 25 years young. Yep. Decade of dreams.

17:48Griffin Newman:Oh, yeah. Griff walks in here, Emily and I, and we haven't introduced Emily, of course. That's okay. We haven't introduced the podcast.

17:55David Sims:We've talked about the music scene of 2000, 2001 a lot.

17:58Griffin Newman:At least that's somewhat relevant. Absolutely. Deeply relevant. We are discussing the film Transamerica and how the director of that film never made another movie again. Yeah, just a weird one. And then so you, of course, immediately summoned the specter of Mr. Corky Romano.

18:12David Sims:Rewatch Corky Romano just this last weekend, looked up the man who directed it, Rob Pritt, who had zero credits on IMDb previous to this film in any position, and then since then has only made two short films in 2012. And I said, who is this guy? Where did he come from?

18:27Griffin Newman:And so I Googled him, and I found a little interview with him. Mostly works in advertising, which I guess is not too surprising. They're asking him questions like, oh, what was your first advertising project? Yada, yada. Do you guys want some cookies? Yes. That line reading kills. If you were to change professions, what would you choose to do? Here's Rob Pritt's answer, Griffin. Okay. Competition barbecue smoker. I cook a killer 15-hour slow-smoked pork shoulder that I think would do well in a cook-off. It is on Pritt. So if you ever want to roll up your sleeves with the Prittster, enter the Pritt.

19:01Griffin Newman:Not the Pit.

19:02David Sims:Nope, the Prittmaster. Hit show on HBO. He's the Prittmaster. if you want to try his pork shoulder, you should head on over to Taylor Sheridan Steakhouse in Las Vegas. What if Pritt's working there?

19:13Griffin Newman:Yeah, he's behind the smoker. Yeah. And I heard this, that he tried to get a job on the pit and they were like, your name's Pritt. It's too confusing. It's too confusing. Yep. So I think that's all of the loops closed. Thank you all for listening.

19:27David Sims:Remember to rate, review, and subscribe. No, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. That's a classic Gap. That's a classic throwback. David got distracted by something on his year. I was so glad to be here. I sure did get distracted by a very, very annoying question. Vintage. Vintage. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Nice cough. Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce baby. And sometimes their album goes quintuple platinum?

20:01Griffin Newman:Yeah, no, eight. So octuple. Octuple.

20:04David Sims:Octuple Platinum. This is a mini-series on the films of the Coen brothers. It is called... Pod Country for Old Casts? Probably. I think that's right. I couldn't tell you. It's really slipping out of my brain every time. Not just this, but most things. Today we were talking about Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is weirdly their comeback film from the failure of Big Lebowski at the time. what is perceived as an absolute wipeout, but also is more known as the film that spawned one of the biggest albums of the day. Do you think they get a cut of that soundtrack? Here's the thing I... Oh, I'm sure...

20:41David Sims:Well, you know what? Here's the thing I know. Let's find out. What I know is that it's still... George Clooney talks about this in interviews. Tim Blake Nelson made more on this movie than any other... Because he actually sings on it. He's the only one who sings.

20:54Griffin Newman:Right. Only on the second song. Interesting. He doesn't sing on Man of Constant Sorrow.

20:59David Sims:But he also is in the jailhouse now.

21:01Griffin Newman:That's when he sings. That's actually his voice.

21:03David Sims:Is it not his voice doing backup on our brother? It is not. On Constant Sorrow. It is not. Interesting. Yes.

21:09Griffin Newman:I will also share that a lot of this music is not copyright. Yeah, because it's, you know, traditional. It's all traditional music. So I do think that there is definitely potential for like a unique kind of like financial share.

21:24David Sims:Also, like were they producers? I don't think they were.

21:27Griffin Newman:I don't see their name on there.

21:29David Sims:That's another thing that makes this film bizarre is like they work with Carter Burrell on every single movie. He is such a defining part of their film language. He gets some additional music credit on this. But this is really like T-Bone Burnett. And this movie makes T-Bone Burnett a household name. It's just it's too bad that Joel Cohn doesn't get like an envelope from the Spotify Corporation every month with like two dimes taped to an index card. You want to hear that somehow this was their like Star Wars deal. I'm surprised this hasn't become a Broadway musical. This feels like a natural. It's a great call.

22:04David Sims:This is why we bring you in.

22:06Griffin Newman:But maybe, again, that's a Coen's roadblock where they're like, what? No, I don't want to do that shit.

22:10David Sims:But on the other hand, they've always been like, I don't know, go ahead, make your Fargo show. Who gives a shit? That's true. Right? Like, I want to do a Jesus movie. And they're like, fine.

22:19Griffin Newman:Well, that one, they're friends with the guy. With the Fargo show, they kind of, it seems like their reaction was more like, huh? and it was like well we're gonna do it because we can and they were like I think their attitude

22:27David Sims:is very much like we don't block stuff because it's not fucking changing the original movie yeah they're definitely

22:31Griffin Newman:you're right they had also sold off the Fargo TV adaptation rights a long time ago and then they bounced around so I wonder if they have more creative control over this but they should make it a musical

22:40David Sims:they should do it they should no that's really smart and that's the kind of insight you only get from our returning for the seventh eighth time guest Emily St. James I'll look it up I don't know hello Emily From the podcast like it's the 2000s. Yes. From the new novel, Woodward. Writer on Yellow Jackets. Emily St. James. Hello. Munich. Boom. Alice. Boom. Lambs. Which, look, you hold, if you want to view it as a distinction, that is always the default answer I feel like David and I threw out of worst movie we've ever cut on the podcast. I love, I don't listen to that episode because it's under my old name, but I love that episode because we just, it's just tangents.

23:22It's just us trying not to talk about the Futter Wacket.

23:25Griffin Newman:Yeah, and it's not exactly the most, you know, it's not a fucking spun gold narrative over here.

23:32David Sims:I think it's a good episode.

23:34Griffin Newman:Yeah, great episode. Terrible movie. Lambs. Silence of. Not Lions 4. No. We have yet to do Lions for Lambs. Carol. Not Todd Haynes. Christmas Carol. Yeah, you're describing these titles in weird words. Thing. The. Stoker. Yeah. Six. Postman 7. So this is the 8th appearance. My first time I did this show, just because we're reminiscing this year, I didn't know Ben existed, and I was just sitting there listening to you two talk, and this voice popped in. And I was like, who is this man with long, flowing blonde hair? Like, and a beautiful Adonis voice. Yeah. I was like, who the...

24:22David Sims:is that right this was when our uh we recorded in a closet that was so small that if we had a guest ben couldn't be in the room and listened on headphones from the room next door the closet next door the smaller closet yes yes uh and now it's your birthday whoever thought that get your

24:39Griffin Newman:dreams yeah

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26:17David!

26:18David Sims:Yes? Bark, bark. Bark, bark. What's going on? It's the dog days of summer. Augie doggie. August. Okay. It's the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins. And honestly, I'm stroking my chin here and I can't think of a better place to start than my closet. Uh-huh. That's where I want to reset. That's why I love shopping at Quince.

26:41Griffin Newman:Yeah, because they're about fewer better pieces. Their clothes are made with premium materials and they're built to last, designed to ones you reach for day after day. So you don't need to overstuff your closet. I hate overstuffing my closet.

26:52David Sims:I think that's a fair thing. If you're still hanging on to the same worn out basics, and that's me, I'm loathe to reset and restart. Ben's now eyeballing my wardrobe. He's looking me up and down. These are some newer pieces from Quince because Quince makes it easy to upgrade which I need the encouragement to do. They have premium denim and tailored chinos from just$60 with the kind of perfect fit structure and high quality fabrics you'd expect from a luxury designer brand.

27:22Griffin Newman:Yep. I mean, I truly love Quince. You truly love them. You marry them. I've got like 15 polo shirts from them. Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash check. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash check.

27:46David Sims:Oh, Brother War Arthur. An adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey. Yes. By two guys who claim that they have never read it.

27:53Griffin Newman:Yes. I appreciate this. I do too. I do this a lot. I adapt things and don't read them. Yeah. I'm just like, I know this from cultural osmosis. Like, I'm working on a book right now that is ostensibly a riff on little women. And I'm like, I didn't revisit Little Women. I have half memories of it. And I'm like surprised how much of it like got in there.

28:12David Sims:I think their point was like, we have seen so many adaptations and riffs on this that we understand what the basic beats are. The actual text doesn't matter as much to us as the idea of, right, the beats, the structure. Yeah. It's a loose adaptation. Yes. Everything about this movie is odd. It's odd that Big Lebowski was seen as such a failure. that this needs to like dig them out of the hole. That it does that, but is much more of like a commercial play than like respected by awards bodies. Or I even feel like critics were a little like,

28:48Griffin Newman:yeah, it's cute. I think critics were somewhat dismissive. Yeah. To the extent of a Coen's movie where they, you know, they gave it a look. Yeah. But this was pretty quickly minor Coen's and then the cultural footprint arrived a little later. Yes. In a way. did get an Oscar known for screenplay for adapted screenplay. Did it get cinematography? Yeah. That was a tough year for adapted. So they like had, they were filling that category. I did get, yeah. I remember Ebert was very dismissive of it. Ebert was down on this movie. Yeah. You know, he's probably just grumpy. I don't know.

29:22David Sims:Now, David, you and I, I think.

29:23Griffin Newman:There were no hot chicks in it. That's definitely Ebert's hot chicks era. God bless him. I love Roger Ebert, but once the 2000s start, if there's like a hot chick in a movie, he's like, really was into Angel Eyes. And I'm like, oh, where are you, Roger?

29:36David Sims:Yeah, the Lopez run is incredible. There's something about this movie.

29:40Griffin Newman:Something about Lopez as a star that really is, I'm really, really interested by who's an actor. Two stars play this well with the camera behind them. I think he put the cell in his top 10 movies in 2000 and was like, this movie just has an interesting look. And I'm like, it does. It does. The thing is, right, he was sometimes ahead. You know, like the cell is good. It was dismissed and it probably shouldn't have been. Right. But I wonder what Roger's real.

30:04David Sims:That's why he liked the Garfield movies so much.

30:06Griffin Newman:Oh, yeah? Yeah.

30:07David Sims:Because the man was crazy for pussy. So, Oh Brother Where Art Thou was dismissed at the time. David, we established on a previous episode, you and I... Somewhat dismissed, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it was sort of like, okay.

30:19Griffin Newman:It's not like a hudsucker where people are actively a little hudson.

30:22David Sims:No, once again, it was an on-base hit. It was a hit?

30:25Griffin Newman:Oh, it made money, yeah.

30:27David Sims:You and I both think this is the first one we saw.

30:30Griffin Newman:Yeah, in theaters? Yeah.

30:32David Sims:I think without a question. I hadn't seen any of them. I don't think I would have seen any of them.

30:36Griffin Newman:My question is, had I seen one of the earlier ones on video or something? This is absolutely the first one I saw in theaters. I think I saw Fargo on video. I owned both Fargo and this on DVD in the early days of DVD, and I watched them a lot. And this was a good DVD. It had a lot of stuff because of the technical stuff.

30:54David Sims:Which is also funny because the Blu-ray sucks. Oh, does it? It's a bad transfer. They've clearly never updated it. and it feels like it has less features. A lot of bad discs.

31:04Griffin Newman:Yeah. Like there's the handful of criterions where like they've done a good job. But it's like, as I was embarking on the, okay, what discs should I buy? I'm not like you where I like, you know, will buy like a Dutch DVD of, you know, I will never do it.

31:16David Sims:I only do that if there's no other option.

31:17Griffin Newman:Well, that's not me. No, then I'm like, I rented that on iTunes. I don't need to buy a disc. But with the Coens, a lot of the discs felt a little uninspiring.

31:26David Sims:Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think a lot of that is a bunch of their films ended up at MGM, who for a long time really brought up the rear on physical media releases in the high def era. But this one just looks like it's the DVD transfer put on a Blu-ray. I think it was a pretty early Blu-ray release. I feel like it doesn't carry over all the special features. It's a kind of like blocky and artifacty, which is interesting for a movie that was so pioneering in its sort of like digital control of the image that that has not been preserved well yeah you watch i watched it on amazon prime video yeah and uh it was uh yeah the the uh real breakthrough of the images is not really clear anymore it does it doesn't look bad but it is very clear that it is like a very old source being used on every stream platform on every digital retailer and on the disc it is like very overdue for like yeah like a criterion set with the fucking concert film on it and all this other shit.

32:28Griffin Newman:Do they not want to do this stuff because it's kind of like then you're in true retirement mode? Like are they resistant to like okay let's dig through the back catalog. I mean or do they not want to talk to each other right now?

32:39David Sims:I think like a lot of filmmakers of their era weirdly they kind of don't give a shit unless it's Criterion. It feels like if Criterion gives the call they're like we'll show up and we'll do this and they like do features and they oversaw the fucking transfers and everything for Llewyn Davis and Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple. Yeah. Fargo Shout Factory has now and put out a good disc but like the first MGM Shout Factory disc first MGM Fargo disc is so bad. They had to reissue like an apology disc two years later.

33:14Griffin Newman:I remember the apology disc. And then the Shout version is much better. I feel like also if I'm the Coen brothers this is not at the top. I love this movie but it's not at the top of my list to like move up. Yeah, I wonder what they make of this one.

33:25David Sims:But I'm also, like, if I'm them and I'm in, like, semi-Elder Statesman mode, I'm like, maybe let's get Criterion to put all of them out. Well, sure.

33:32Griffin Newman:I mean, there's rights issues, I'm sure. But, like, Buster Scruggs is a movie that I watch where I'm like, oh, these are the guys who made Our Brother. Like, it's not gone.

33:41David Sims:They're very linked movies. And even down to there's so much similar language. Obviously, some of that's time period. But the use of, like, if-in and the structure of the sentences and obviously Tim Blake Nelson.

33:52Griffin Newman:Yep.

33:53David Sims:Yeah. This is a Cohen's mode. This is my favorite movie by them in a mode I don't always like, which I call effortful pastiche. Yes. Like Hudsucker, I just can't get on board with. I'm so sorry. That is certainly a titanic example of that genre. It is my favorite film. And yet, as we are looking forward to the idea of ranking their filmography at the end of the series, I'm like, I don't know if I can put that in the top 10. I love it because they have so many masterpieces. They have a lot of masterpieces. But who knows?

34:20Griffin Newman:Lady Killers is that. Yeah. Which is bad. Yeah. I think Waker was good. But not great. It's one of their weakest. It is their weakest, period. What else is an effortful pastiche? I do. Does Intolerable Cruelty count? I think Intolerable Cruelty is, and I like Buster Scruggs, but I think it's also kind of in that vein. Parts of it, sure.

34:41David Sims:Intolerable Cruelty is so fascinating to me because it's effortful pastiche, but set in present day, which is, I think, why everyone bumped on it so hard at the time. Great movie. That it was like, this is them failing to make a modern studio rom-com. And then I didn't get it until I cracked into like, oh, they are doing Sturgis. It just happens to be 2004. Yeah. But this is so structurally, culturally a movie from...

35:07I think Hail Caesar's that. Like, I like a lot of these movies, but I... I really like Hail Caesar. You know, what puts them over the top for me is when they have that layer of craft and then they add in the Fargo thing, the Llewyn Davis thing, the no country thing of like, oh, this is about people, real people existing in a movie space. That was our top.

35:27David Sims:These are the movies that I think make certain critics like Ebert go like, what are they doing? Are these movies just like making fun of dumb people and showing us how good their tricks are? And they're just sort of obsessed with language. That was his whole thing of just like, right, this is them like playing with toys and not engaging seriously. But my experience seeing this movie in theaters was just like, holy shit, why is everyone not acting like this is the greatest film ever made? Because I had just never seen their filmmaking style before.

36:00Griffin Newman:You're getting a shot of Cohen's. Totally. And you've been like a starving child in the wilderness and someone's giving you like, you know, a bottle of Gatorade.

36:07David Sims:I was in rewatching this. You're like, ah! I do think this was like a foundational building block what I like in filmmaking movie for me in the way I've talked about like Unbreakable being one of those and Rushmore being one of those. All fucking Touchstone releases. Like just weird to think that Disney had an offshoot.

36:25Griffin Newman:This is like a Touchstone Universal co-production or something.

36:28David Sims:Universal got overseas, I think. Touchstone released it domestically.

36:31Griffin Newman:Yeah, but the production companies are Touchstone and Universal. So like I think Universal had more.

36:35David Sims:Because Universal had the working title first look.

36:38Griffin Newman:I love the Touchstone fanfare. Touchstone? It's your favorite. You always shout it out. Like, you know, you don't even know that you're doing, like you oh you love that it's good it's just there's something about it that feels almost

36:49David Sims:comforting yeah but it's great it is crazy to think that like disney bought miramax miramax was their specialty art house division and yet touchstone was releasing movies like oh brother and rushmore that were like we're letting interesting directors make quote-unquote studio comedies and they're like these are a little weird but we're putting them in 2000 theaters

37:10Griffin Newman:yeah well i can tell you about that if i open the um dossier but is there anything else we

37:14David Sims:need to discuss just that i i had that feeling of like this is the most impeccably made movie i have perhaps ever seen wow i'm astounded by the craft and the performance in the language uh and i was surrounded by grown-ups who were just sort of like that's cute and i was like am i losing my fucking mind how is this not winning best picture and then i went back started watching the earlier films and saw every movie they made after this in theaters and i get it now where when i watch this I'm like, I understand how this could be dismissed, but it is kind of a perfect movie.

37:46Griffin Newman:Yeah, it's kind of a I think it runs out of not that's too strong, but like I think it sags slightly in the middle. I don't love I feel so sorry to say this to this man. He's a nice man. Michael Badalucho's performance enough.

38:02David Sims:I like it a lot.

38:03Griffin Newman:I like it. It's fine. But on rewatch, I was watching and I was like, it's fine. It's maybe the weakest section. It is the baby face.

38:09David Sims:the bankrupt um excuse me not babyface his name is i don't remember george george nelson yeah it is uh it is a picaresque and like many picaresques it has some segments yes it has a gear that it gets in and never quite leaves which is fun like it is it they pick the exact right

38:28Griffin Newman:length for all of these episodes you're gonna be out of an episode quickly enough that if it's

38:33David Sims:boring you're kind of like okay it is the fascinating thing for me every time i rewatch it is I remember segments being longer than they are. And I'm such a slut for Picarus.

38:43Griffin Newman:You was a toad. Do not seek the treasure. I think casting Turturro as like a southern yokel is one of their boldest gambits. These three faces on the poster. I mean, the faces are so good. And that's why they cast it. But like Turturro, it's like, this is probably one of the first Turturro movies I see. and then like every later I'm like he's always playing like a racist pizza guy for either Spike Lee or Joel I can't believe I'm turning this into a thread in this episode but John Turturro once seemed to have misgendered me but he had actually misgendered Margaret Atwood wow he said excuse me sir to Margaret Atwood no I was in I was interviewing him and he was talking it was like we plot against America and I was you know I had recently transitioned I was interviewing him and he used he him.

39:35And I thought he was talking about me, but he was trying to remember who wrote The Handmaid's Tale. And he was like, and he was like, he wrote The Handmaid's. No, she wrote The Handmaid's. Oh, but he caught himself. Yeah, he was like, oh, right, Margaret Atwood. So apologies to Margaret Atwood.

39:50David Sims:That is wild. No, you're right. It is odd to cast Turturro in this way, despite how much the Coens love him. They're smart. And also the third person above the title on the poster in this movie is Tim Blake Nelson, who was functionally unknown, semi-retired from acting. And they nailed this so hard. And he's talked so much about the casting process and being like, why the fuck are you offering me this straight? That he basically off this one performance never stops working again. There has been no Tim Blake Nelson fallow period where you're like, that guy just kind of disappeared from screens for five years.

40:25David Sims:I remember he's in Watchmen. He's in everything. And that is like, I'm like, that's kind of like his O Brother performance. Absolutely. It's such a different character. But to have this guy who's like one foot out the door in acting and they're like, you're on the poster next to Clooney. Yeah. And they're just like, thank you for identifying a key element in the next 25 years of cinema and television. This guy has ultimate utility. I think they also figured out a thing that can work about a movie like this that we've seen a lot more of now that movies are made on reduced budgets. which is you can have John Goodman come in for five days and do it.

40:58You can have Holly Hunter come in for five days and do a part of the

41:01David Sims:picker ass magic. But then it's also nice when one of those segments is someone you've never seen before. Like there's such a good balance of like really comfortable sort of familiar stars, great character actors who you're kind of discovering. And then just like some people with great faces, like the woman at the bank who calls him baby face is clearly just a woman they found. Oh, she, she's such, is incredible the guy who says he can't keep the fucking soggy bottom boy albums on the shelves yeah great face just some guy i want to say something about tim blake nelson i just feel like he's been operating in the shadows recently you know sort of pulling the strings what is the

41:40Griffin Newman:joke here it's like he's got a little tablet maybe he's in like a base you know and if he taps the tablet like he can make anything happen in the entire world you think that he's quietly the leader i think he's been pulling the strings it is insane that three times they tried to cast

41:54David Sims:him as a Marvel character. Sure. I'm counting the two Hulks as separate times because they were so split up in such different characterizations, right? Sure, right. And on paper, you're like, Tim Blake Nelson's the leader? Fuck. Tim Blake Nelson as Mole Man? Incredible. They're bringing Tim Blake Nelson back as the leader. He's really going to do it this time? All three times, fucking just mangled it. And it's not his fault.

42:16Griffin Newman:Yeah.

42:16David Sims:Yeah.

42:17Griffin Newman:So, O Brother Where Art Thou was a film that made by the Coen Brothers. and for the first decade of their career, according to JJ, they could basically just make whatever they wanted to make. Hudson Coxy took a little while. They have Suburbicon, which of course they never make, but that's a script they had for a long time and then George Clooney perfected it. It was waiting for its ideal form. But essentially the Coens were saying, in the 90s, we don't have any rejected scripts. We're not sitting on a ton of projects.

42:49David Sims:For the first time, they now have stuff that's not getting off the ground.

42:54Griffin Newman:As J.J. would put it, their first case of the Attachies happens after Big Lebowski. So, to the White Sea, which, of course, our friends Jordan and Ray have covered very extensively. Their most famous unrealized project. They're a great unmade project, yes. Which is based on a James Dickey novel about, what, a guy on the beach or something who gives a shit? Hey! I love being dismissive of this movie. It was going to be a Brad Pitt vehicle. Yes. light on dialogue brutal i remember such a hyped thing this is like the period when ain't it cool news is like the biggest and and they were like like yeah drew mcweeney's like this is the greatest

43:30David Sims:screenplay i've ever read this single best screenplay of all time i mean it reads unbelievably right and if you're reading it while thinking about the 10 coen brothers movies you've already seen at that point you're like how is this thing not a fucking why didn't they make it cowards I think because this is

43:45Griffin Newman:too white for them

43:46David Sims:yeah yep Oscar's too white um they I think it was another case where Pitt pulled it out at the last second this is that big era for him of like the fountain into the white sea they'd already had trouble finding someone to give them money to make it because it was going to be expensive and like not an easy sell so yeah it's a little 1917 not in that it's a one shot but that it's just sort of like one guy surviving in semi real time uh but without dialogue and it's interesting they do this because this is the comedy version of to the white sea in a very strange way yeah yeah in a certain way but i think yeah i think pit either properly dropped out or was like i took troy it's backburnered or whatever i know intolerable is the thing that they make right when they thought to the white sea was about to go but they're obviously trying to get off the ground at this

44:41Griffin Newman:point now uh some other stuff they get attached to um an adaptation of the elmore leonard novel cuba libre which is set in cuba uh in the 1890s before the spanish american war um that would probably have been like a big movie that doesn't happen uh they also were interested in another leonard novel called la brava uh-huh about a secret service agent who gets mixed up with an aging movie star sounds kind of fun um of course famously ethan cohen has a screenwriting credit on the film The Naked Man, the Michael Rappaport movie. J. Todd Anderson,

45:13David Sims:their longtime collaborator, storyboard artist.

45:15Griffin Newman:Yeah. Have never seen. It's like he becomes like a wrestler who is naked.

45:21David Sims:His wrestling costume is like an inside out body. It's the movie spinoff of that Friends character that we never see, right? Yeah, the naked guy. Yeah. Rappaport, of course, was in Friends. Yep. Ray and Jordan, Stan Ford, so it's like a fun, extremely silly unserious

45:40Griffin Newman:and Ethan's sort of like look that was J. Todd's thing but I thought it was so like fun and silly and like I have no sense of ownership over it

45:47David Sims:it's the crime wave drive away dolls in Ethan where sometimes if you go like do you want to make something that has zero prestige to it I think he has a really good time

45:55Griffin Newman:yeah Ethan also released a short story collection called Gates of Eden which I have read wow I remember it being pretty good yeah So they're doing stuff But they start work on Oh Brother In 1997

46:09David Sims:I also just want to call out I don't know the exact timeline Of this But this is certainly All bubbling at this time Gambit Which they write But don't direct Intolible Cruelty And Lady Killers They're hired to write And then end up directing Like this is the period In time where they're Starting to take Assignment work At least to pay the bills Yeah

46:28Griffin Newman:They like period stuff Obviously So Oh Brother Sees them traveling To the 30s they claim they did a little research and they didn't read the Odyssey I find all of that hard to believe I do too there's so much in the soup of this movie that is based on history of the history of the time and the politics of the stuff, you know, whatever I don't think they're just going to like, eh, let's have a clan rally

46:51David Sims:I think they did more research on the era than on the Odyssey

46:56Griffin Newman:certainly they claim that they started with like a three saps on the run movie and then after a while they're like could this be like the Odyssey? You know, like it's like, you know, which I get that in terms of like, what's the ultimate picaresque story, I guess, in a way. The degree to which it's a riffing on Southern politics of the time with some degree of accuracy suggests they like at least read the 1997 equivalent of the Wikipedia entry. The World Book Encyclopedia entry.

47:24David Sims:And Papio Daniels is like very similar to a real guy. Isn't there a guy whose name is 5 % off of that?

47:28Griffin Newman:Yes, and who had a flower-based radio hour. And with Sing You Are My Sunshine. These aren't like, no, that's a different guy. But that's a different Southern populist governor. This is what I'm saying. Like they are, yeah, they're not just like, you know. Even the way the Klan is used in the downfall of Stokes is similar to the way that like the Klan would be a force and then someone would get outed as a member and people would be like, well, we don't talk about it. Right, you're not allowed to actually be so publicly, you know.

47:55David Sims:say what a good storytelling decision to just be like in a picaresque movie tie up all your loose threads by being like and by the way everyone across the movie who was antagonistic to us is a client member we can just knock them all out in one go um they claim everyone claims that the

48:10Griffin Newman:only person involved who actually wrote the odyssey was tim blake nelson who has a degree in classics from brown university yes uh his wtf he definitely talked about this that they would come

48:20David Sims:to him and be like, how does this go in the real story?

48:24Griffin Newman:Obviously, the film is inspired by Sullivan's Travels, the Preston Sturgis masterpiece in that movie. Joel McRae is trying to make Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? which is this parody of a serious movie.

48:35David Sims:Have you ever seen Sullivan's Travels, Ben?

48:37Griffin Newman:I have not.

48:37David Sims:It's one of the greatest comedies of all time, but yes, it's about a successful Hollywood... He's a screenwriter? Yeah. Who makes very successful comedies, but begs for the idea of prestige. and the idea that what he's making is frivolous doesn't matter.

48:53Griffin Newman:And the most important scene in Sullivan's Travels is when a bunch of prisoners are shown cartoons. Yes. And it's about how the power of art is not in fake seriousness. And the prison scene watching the movies, there's so many obvious references to Sullivan's Travels.

49:10David Sims:But it's what I find so fascinating is in that movie, the movie he says he wants to make, that's his big serious issues movie, is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? which is a story of the downtrodden man. and they tell him, you don't know how to relate to this. You can't write this. So then he pretends to be a hobo in order to gain the experience. But then he gets kind of caught and he can't get out of the life. And he's stuck in it and he ends up in prison. He watches these prisoners watch cartoons and he's like, oh, making people laugh has value. I don't need to make something that is self-serious.

49:37David Sims:But this movie has the title of the fake self-serious movie and is having this very interesting kind of cake and eat a tooth thing where it's like, it's a comedy. but also it is actually engaged in the reality of the types of people in a silly way that he's attempting to make oh brother where art thou about if that makes sense it does yeah i think that part of the critical reaction to this movie was based in oh they're they're showing you their hand throughout right they're like they're showing you all the references they're making they're letting you know what they're doing in a way that i think actively turns people off maybe on a first watch sometimes.

50:13David Sims:Don't you think there's also an interesting thing though of like the most film literate people writing reviews dismissing yeah I get it I know all the references. Right. And you're like you're holding it against them that you know the same stuff.

50:28Griffin Newman:It's a it's if I ever teach film criticism don't think you're smarter or don't care that you're smarter than a movie.

50:34David Sims:And also like not to be an asshole but like fucking 90 % of the people who are reading your reviews aren't going to be like oh I get it. George Clooney had made a little film,

50:42Griffin Newman:a little tiny film, as my daughter likes to say when she wants to watch One More Bluey, a little tiny one, she'll say, as if like that, you know. He made this little film called Batman Ampersand Robin. Have you heard of it? I haven't. Have you seen it? We covered it on our Patreon. Well, that's right. And he'd been on ER for five years and he claims he went to his accountant and said like, how am I doing? The accountant was like, if you never work again, you will be fine. You've made money, sir. And George Clooney is one of those guys who I guess was not famous long enough that he's not like, I need endless money.

51:14Griffin Newman:Of course, then he does stumble into a tequila company and make a billion dollars.

51:17David Sims:It is so funny. You always talk about when you interviewed him for Suburbicon, and he was like, the great thing is that now I've struck oil.

51:26Griffin Newman:He was like, I truly, if I am doing something, I'm doing it because I want to do it.

51:30David Sims:Right, but was also like, the tequila company has freed me up where now I don't need to just work to pay the bills. And I'm like, I think you've kind of been past that point, but I understand you've entered a new strata of wealthy now. But I mean, the whole problem with that

51:41Griffin Newman:era of his, where you're like, oh, that's great. You don't need to make money to make the bills. Then the movies he makes, I'm like, I think you need the bills weighing down on you a little bit, buddy. It's a decade of lazy boy filmmaking

51:51David Sims:where I'm like, you're too comfortable.

51:54Griffin Newman:So, right after Batman and Robin, which is a critical and commercial failure. I don't know if you guys knew that. Do you like Batman and Robin? Not as much as I feel like I should. I feel like it's the kind of movie I should be like, yeah. Because now everyone is like, Batman and Robin, where do you say forever though I like forever see I bump on forever and Robin's

52:14David Sims:I love it but that might just be which I saw I just think Bal Kilmer's hot that's literally what it is he sure is he sure was in that film he's

52:21Griffin Newman:yeah so his next three films after Batman and Robin are three kings out of sight and oh brother where art thou right now there's some bad ones in there but they're mostly like cameo there's a mother those are his next three big projects Soderbergh Damon O. Russell but he was you know an exciting young filmmaker and it's a very good film and Joel and Ethan Coen.

52:40David Sims:He talks about that in that era, like post fucking accountant conversation, he's like, if Batman and Robin is how to like do the conventional movie star thing and play to win, I like don't care about maintaining my quote. I'm going to like cut my quote in half. He said like, I think I've been paid my full quote like four times in my entire career past Batman and Robin. I wonder what those are, yeah. I think it's like Tomorrowland, probably Ocean's 13. Yeah, come on. Give him the quote. I think Perfect Storm was whatever the quote was at the time, but that he's like, I'd rather take less up front and bet on the movie and have like a higher stake in the back end and be able to work by not saddling a movie with a 10, 15 million, 20 million dollar salary on top of it, keeping the movie's costs lower so that the return on investment is higher and the film can be stranger.

53:32when and when he leaves er which is around this time too it feels like it's the one time that's a big star leaves a tv show and there's not like a lot of rancor everyone was just like oh yeah he's gonna time for him to look and like he came back in the final season like he's well more

53:47Griffin Newman:importantly he comes back in season six in my opinion the greatest cameo in a tv show ever because nobody knew that was happening that when margulies leaves the show spoiler alert for ER. Right.

53:58David Sims:He comes in and she's delivering.

54:00Griffin Newman:She just leaves. She's like, I'm out of here. She's pregnant with his child but you're like, you know, they're not getting Clooney back. He's fucking, oh brother, we're out there now. And then she just goes to that dock and there he is fishing on the dock. Oh, it's so good. Everyone lost their minds.

54:13David Sims:But there is this kind of interesting fulcrum point here which is like, One Fine Day, Peacemaker, Batman and Robin is like sort of the obvious studio playbook for how to build a movie star career, right? It feels like he hits a bit of a wall Batman and Robin's like the real crash. And then he resets and out of sight fucking rules and is beloved and was the coolest movie. And everyone's like, Clooney's done it. He's convinced us he's a movie star, but that movie doesn't do well. No, it does like fine at best. Three Kings does all right. Yeah, yeah.

54:47Griffin Newman:But it's a challenging movie.

54:49David Sims:Yeah, there was a feeling when this movie came out of like, has Clooney cracked it?

54:54Griffin Newman:Well, you're forgetting it. Perfect Storm was a huge hit. That's the other thing. And that's a summer 2000 movie.

54:59David Sims:But that almost feels like him playing it a little bit safer.

55:02Griffin Newman:He's got the overalls on. He's got the big beard. But he is good. That movie is kind of underrated at this point. People forget about Perfect Storm. I love that the ILM doc gives its due. I told you to watch that for that Perfect Storm show. You know, Decade of Dreams. What the hell is it? Light and Magic? Light and Magic. About just how fucking hard it was to make water in 2000. And then, right. This is O Brother where everyone's like, he's so good in this movie. He's so good. He wins the Golden Globe and it felt like. Yes, it's movie star shit.

55:31David Sims:And his head is held high. He's not doing his usual tics. He's unlocking like new movie star moves.

55:37Griffin Newman:And then next year is Ocean's Eleven, which is kind of everyone just being like, you're

55:42David Sims:never a TV star turned movie star again.

55:44Griffin Newman:You are George Clooney. You have a franchise. You're on the A-list. Yes.

55:47David Sims:Right. You've made yourself now part of the Mount Rushmore of Hollywood.

55:49Griffin Newman:Because that's also him like bazookaing Brad Pitt off the screen. Right. God love Brad Pitt. but like everyone's coming out of that movie horny from George.

55:56David Sims:That's what's incredible about that movie is that Brad Pitt's like unlocks his thing by being like, I don't have to shoulder the weight of being the guy at the center, which makes him interesting for the first time, kind of helps him crack his movie star persona. And then Clooney is like, I'm so ready to be the guy at the center. The thing about this movie figures out about Clooney is that, and out of sight to some extent, is that his movie star persona increasingly is like, I'm one of the most handsome men who's ever lived, But also, I can be like whatever persona I'm playing. Like you would not expect me to be this handsome.

56:29David Sims:And he can subvert the wattage. Like what is incredible about this character and this performance is that he has the confidence of I am George Clooney, I am Danny Ocean, and he's an idiot. Like you talking about how bizarre but brilliant it was to cast Turturro as this yokel. At some point late in the rewatch last night, I was like, is this movie their sort of sideways Three Stooges thing? Sure. But they're changing the power structure versus the characteristics. Because, like, you know, the Three Stooges is like the intellectual, the angry, emasculated leader, and the idiot, right? And this is like Clooney is kind of the curly, but has taken on the leadership role.

57:15David Sims:to Turo is the Mo and is even angrier because he's not but he's almost styled

57:21Griffin Newman:like Mo and yeah for sure

57:22David Sims:and like Turo is so funny in this because anytime they cut to him you're just like he's so mad he looks so furious all the time and then like Tim Blake Nelson is a weird version of a Curly where he just looks agog but Clooney nails so hard playing this sort of confusion of he can't quite get his head around what's going on but he's so committed to his idea of, I got the brains, I'm leading this operation, that he has to adjust on the fly really fast, which is always fun to watch him figure out. It's also so hard to play just smart enough to think you're smarter than you are and, like, actually be a little bit blank.

58:02Griffin Newman:He's not stupid. He's kind of stupid. And the Coens used to talk about their idiot trilogy with this intolerable cruelty and, I guess, Burn After Reading, although Hail Caesar was always, right, Like their promised third entry. But he's not totally stupid. He's got the gift of the gab. But anytime he uses the gift of the gab, I feel like everyone's just kind of waiting for him to stop talking. Like you never really see him charm that many people into what he wants.

58:30David Sims:I just love that the character is overwritten, that he keeps using these hundred dollar words in a way where people actually don't understand what he's saying. His like, his speech is so circular and like flowery and bizarre that it's combined with the speed at which he's delivering it, he's not actually successfully connecting and communicating things to other people. Yeah, he's trying to like reconnect with his ex-wife and just like unable to be sincere for a second. He's just like trying to like establish his claim in a weird way, but like also in a charming way. It's fascinating. You can just see why he shows up on set and they just fucking fall in love with this guy and are like, we can write for him forever.

59:13David Sims:This is our favorite type of character. And no one is better at playing this than him.

59:17Griffin Newman:My hair.

59:19David Sims:Every time he wakes up in the movie.

59:21Griffin Newman:Yeah. My hair. It's so funny. Can I say about his hotness? Yeah. And how it stands out in the period piece? It made me have this thought of, normally you see like an old daguerreotype, those fuckers are busted. Yeah. And they've been, you know, for a daguerreotype, you have to sit there for an hour or whatever. It's probably hot. They just got out of the mines. you know but it made me think like there were smoke shows walking around in those days

59:48David Sims:in a weird way i almost think this is the hottest clune he's ever been in the movie

59:53Griffin Newman:he looks so good it's this era it's the out of sight three kings oh brother prettiness just

59:59David Sims:just actually in the biology of his life yes um but he's also just so charming in this while also being kind of unsavory. Yeah.

1:00:09Griffin Newman:It's a really well calibrated performance. as he said, he basically was just like, yes, you know, like he, he didn't even read the script. Um, he was just like, I know what you guys do and I want to do it. Uh, he was born in Kentucky as he will bring up a lot. If you interview him, um, lived in Ohio for some of his life, but he did go, uh, basically, you know, go back to Kentucky and went to Northern Kentucky university. Um, he gave the script to his uncle Jack. The best story. It's such a great story, who I guess is more of a died-in-the-wool Kentuckian.

1:00:39David Sims:Right. He was like, I want to get the dialect right. Can I send you the script and can you use a tape recorder and do all my dialogue so I can study your dialect?

1:00:47Griffin Newman:Because the Coens are like, look, the character's kind of a hick. We want you to have like a thick accent. Yeah. So Jack sends back the script written, you know, like read out into a tape recorder. Says, well, George, I don't think people talk like that. Like, which is fair. She's probably reading the script being like, what the fuck is this? And he threw the script away and was just using the tape recorder. And the Coens were like, why don't you say hell and damn when you're doing your lines? And he realized that his Baptist Uncle Jack had excluded the hells and dams when dictating the script into the tape recorder.

1:01:22David Sims:He rewrote the Coen brothers. That's Clooney's favorite thing to say. But also that's what he meant by I don't think us people talk like that. His editorialization was we wouldn't take the Lord's name in vain.

1:01:34Griffin Newman:There would be no oaths. Right. Tim Blake Nelson, I mean, he's definitely a guy, but I don't think he's ever been in like a big thing, like had a big role.

1:01:44David Sims:No, he popped up in Little Things. I mean, he was in fucking This Is My Life is his first screen credit. He had done some comedy. He was on that fucking Fox sketch show with Jennifer Aniston and Julie Brown. Was that called The Edge? I think so, yeah. Sounds good. It was like a, you know, a mad TV in living color also ran thing. I think you're talking about the Unnaturals Is that what it's called? No, that's the ABC one That was the Jeremy Renner show That's Noah Hawley of Fargo

1:02:16Griffin Newman:No, no, not that That was way, no

1:02:21David Sims:I'm gonna find this. Yeah, please. But he, um, yeah, he was a fucking, uh, hmm, this is looking like it was the Unnatural.

1:02:30Griffin Newman:It was Siobhan Fallon. Paul Feig.

1:02:32David Sims:Yeah. Okay, but then I think Jennifer Aniston shows the edge and I was confusing them. Oh, he was also on, well, he's only on one episode of House of Bogan, which was Leguizamo's answer to In Living Color. Um, but yeah, he's like, he's popping up and stuff. he's got a larger role in heavyweights but he was a classics major who then went to Juilliard but was also writing his own stuff and at a certain point I think he started to shift to like I do character actor parts to pay the bills what I really want to do is make my films I'm a filmmaker first and foremost

1:03:04Griffin Newman:right because he makes O

1:03:05David Sims:yes the year after this but remember had been shot much earlier and pushed back because of Columbine I think O was in the can and supposed to come out 99 nine and then doesn't come out until two years later he becomes he and his wife become friends with joel and fran through mutual friends and they have dinners together right and it's mostly like sharing notes as filmmakers and his acting career has very much like throttled down in his own internal priority and then as he puts it ethan joel at dinner one night was like we wrote a part for you would you mind first send him the script being like i need your advice on

1:03:43Griffin Newman:this based on the odyssey and then they're like we want you to play delmar it's a straight offer

1:03:47David Sims:they never audition him nope it's the third lead he starts six weeks after rapping oh yeah uh and

1:03:54Griffin Newman:he so he was like this is a mistake you shouldn't have me do this he was doing post-production on set they let him insane yeah um and uh you know tim like no he's great he's so fucking funny in

1:04:07David Sims:this movie he's so fucking funny but it like it unlocks him in a way it is that thing where he's like he is so thoroughly trained as an actor his wtf episode's incredible sure and you're just like oh it's easy to look at him and i think they're seeing him as like the heir apparent to like fucking snits in the buster keaton movies or the one guy i always forget the name of who's got the great face in the fucking preston sturgis like this demarest no the one who's sort of like owl

1:04:37Griffin Newman:like and kind of pencil faces in those movies look what's important is he just knows how to do all

1:04:43David Sims:this he's like perfect at dialects and physical comedy and singing and dancing and everything

1:04:49Griffin Newman:uh john tituro they told him you got to shave your head because they say when we do a movie with john he always starts with the hair so we figured we'd stitch him up on that one that's fine and then they basically show him a bunch of pictures of guys with bad teeth and are like you're gonna have bad teeth so again i think offer like no auditions for these parts he's doing a lot of jaw work too. Yes. You know who else did? No, forget it. What were you going to say? I was going to make a jaw joke, but I couldn't really figure out the way in. I love those guys. They're great.

1:05:19David!

1:05:19Griffin Newman:Yes?

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1:05:38Griffin Newman:Uh-huh.

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1:08:18Griffin Newman:$26 million budget. Highest budget ever for them, even above Hudsucker. That's wild. And they have working title, Studio Canal, Touchstone, and Universal all chipping in. Peased together. So I guess that's how they get the money. It also feels like, you know, George Clooney in an Odyssey adaptation feels sellable. There's something. In a way, yeah.

1:08:40David Sims:Yes. Right, like it's, on paper it's wild that they got $26 million to make this movie, but I still think all those places are like, $26 million for a George Clooney movie sounds like a value. Right. Even if it's a weird one.

1:08:52Griffin Newman:I agree. Shot on location in Mississippi, Deakins is told Roger Deakins is told like we want it to feel like very hot very dry very dusty and Deakins is like I've shot down there he shot Passionfish that's like a bit you know he's like it's gonna be green it's gonna be like lush you're shooting down there in this like verdant season and Joel indeed reports that the Mississippi location was greener than Ireland and that is why the digital coloring stuff comes in because they need to turn the movie sepia essentially

1:09:24David Sims:They try to do like a chemical process and it doesn't work. And Deakins is like, hear me out. I think we can try this. This gets credited as the first like complete DI movie. You know what it just be, right? Chicken run. The first complete movie that was digitally scanned, because I did an article on this for Vox, which everyone can read, called Colors, Where Did They Go? And the first movie that's completely digitally scanned is Pleasantville. But they are doing that for visual effects purposes. For the black and white stuff. So this is the first one where they tweak everything. They're just doing it to tweak the colors.

1:09:57And it's revolutionary in a way that has kind of ruined filmmaking right now.

1:10:03Griffin Newman:It's beautiful here. It gives you so much control over every aspect of the frame. And I think, right, it can drive people mad.

1:10:10David Sims:Every movie is basically manipulated this much now. But now it's manipulated in camera. You're like watching it on a monitor and seeing different color styles. Right, being like, what do I want it to look like? And at this time, like they they're filming it. And Deakins is like, I think I can figure this out in post, which obviously he does. But like, yeah, they are still filming it in a conventional color scheme that he's manipulating. It is wild when you watch the behind the scenes footage and you're like, oh, those shirts were white. That grass was green. Like it's I can't imagine how weird it must have felt to be the actors in this movie and like go to the fucking premiere.

1:10:46David Sims:as extreme as like Star Wars where you're like, wow, suddenly this doesn't look cheap when you put in the sound effects and the special effects. Like this movie just must have looked so different than their lived experience filming it. Sure. And there was such a mood and a tone from the color palette, which is so controlled. But I do think now, beyond the ability to manipulate it at the time, Emily, I also think now people shoot a lot of stuff as like, let's just get the most simple version of the image and we can fuck with it later without having the forethought of like, what are we capturing now and what are we going to change it into later?

1:11:18David Sims:And I think there's not the same kind of like control and continuity of like we have a clear vision for a palette for this movie that we are using as a North Star. What's funny to me

1:11:30Griffin Newman:is that the film is nominated for an Oscar for cinematography like we acknowledge but didn't win. Deakins of course doesn't end up winning an Oscar until Blade Runner 2049. Does Gladiator win? Traffic wins. No, Crouching Tiger wins which is a good looking movie. Yeah. And yes, Traffic was not even nominated. Traffic has the insane color scheme thing that is, in my opinion, a little heavy. We were texting about that the other day, that you watch it now and you're like, oh, we're in blue land. I forgot it's literally like Jolly Rancher land. And it invented the whole Mexico is yellow thing that is still a scourge.

1:12:05We rewatched that for podcasts like it's the 2000s last year and it invented modern prestige television. That's a really good call. By mistake.

1:12:12Griffin Newman:like but in adapting prior press that's funny about it yeah it is not my favorite soderbergh not even close no i really like the cheetel plot which is the least heralded of the three plots i like the del toro stuff at the time it was like my favorite movie and i read when i revisited it i was like i don't quite know like yeah shoots it out of a can it's so much better and at the time of course that was not the thinking no oh brother loses gladiator the patriot which did have it did have a touch of the D it had a touch of the yeah and then of course everyone's favorite movie Malena right which I think there was one thing that people thought was very well lensed in that film yes I don't know if you guys have heard of Monica Belushi giving that a very good

1:12:59David Sims:review

1:13:03David Sims:he suggested that movie should win exactly two golden globes

1:13:08Griffin Newman:two golden legs

1:13:11David Sims:we just did a screening of Matrix Revolutions at Nighthawk we intro'd it and Monica Bellucci on a big screen is quite a thing

1:13:18Griffin Newman:well especially now when she's wearing the insane red dress that's just sort of like pushing her boobs together in the most ridiculous way and she's like he'll die for love he loves you

1:13:28David Sims:this is so good seeing her one scene on the big screen I was like there's a real argument for her being the greatest cleavage actress of all time. I'm not saying she's the largest breasted woman ever to be in movies, but I think her work in the field of cleavage is kind of unparalleled. Should we just let him keep going? I'm sorry, I was just quoting Roger Ebert there.

1:13:50Griffin Newman:Deakins says, I think part of the reason I lost, partly, I'm sure, you know, Crouching Tiger was a big thing, but is that a lot of cinematographers were like, oh, but you know, he used a computer. It doesn't count. And now, of course, everybody does that. And by like... Avatar winning is kind of the big moment. And now it feels like everything is like Life of Pi, all these movies that are...

1:14:10David Sims:Yeah. Avatar winning is such a strange one and feels like it's wild that it took that long for a digital movie to win. And also it feels like that's the type of win that they don't usually do that early. But I remember the year before that, people were like, well, could WALL-E get nominated? Yeah. Because they like ran a serious campaign of like, no, we think about the cinematography in these movies. And Deakins was a consultant on that. Yeah. And then they do the same thing with fucking How to Train Your Dragon. Mm-hmm.

1:14:32Griffin Newman:Right. Um, so the music in this film, of course, T-Bone Burnett, they had worked with him on Big Lebowski a little bit. Uh, and that's how they were introduced to him. I'm going back to the dossier. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, here it's like they're working with him from the start of production. He's curating the music. He's finding all these major stars already, like Alison Krauss, Emily Harris.

1:14:54David Sims:They're baked into the film, so inherently it's not something you can sort of just, like, choose in the edit. Right.

1:15:00Griffin Newman:And most of the stuff Like Big Rock Candy Mountain The session recordings What is this quote The stuff that was redone and produced by T-Bone Is all featured essentially live It's music you see performed in the music itself Okay that's interesting Obviously like Clooney And the Soggy Bottom Boys Are being dubbed That is I can tell you the names of Dan Timinski

1:15:29David Sims:Ricky, right, Pat Enright and Harley Allen. This movie, for my money, has some of the best lip sync acting ever. It's very good. They oversell it in a way that makes it go down more smoothly, in my opinion, where it's like, it's clear that Clooney isn't singing, but he's making so many faces. Now, he was singing live, right? Like, he sang it on set. That's not his voice, I should say. No, I know. Yeah, yeah. He did. He is shower singing in such a compelling way. Everyone who sings on screen who isn't a musician by trade is acting the role of singing too hard in a way that creates a continuity for me that doesn't make me bump out of.

1:16:12David Sims:That's clearly not their voice. He is playing a man who is pretending to be a musician who thinks this is what musicians are like. He nails that. Yep, yep. They also make a really smart choice, which is mostly framing that sequence with his mouth obstructed behind this big fucking can. Yes. And so he's doing all this neck and eye acting and shit, but you're not getting caught up on like, oh, the lips are a second off. Right.

1:16:35Griffin Newman:Of course, Clooney loves to self-deprecate and is like, I know my aunt is this famous singer and I tried to sing, but I was so bad at it. Did win Album of the Year, as we say. It's the fourth soundtrack to win that award. Saturday Night Fever won. Correct. as did The Bodyguard and the third is Henry Mancini's soundtrack for the television series Peter Gunn in 1959. I think we can discard that one.

1:16:58David Sims:But the other two examples are massive hit movies with soundtracks that also became phenomenons in their own.

1:17:04Griffin Newman:You're right. Oh Brother's not a hit on the same level as the two other movies but it is three examples of movies where the soundtrack is maybe more famous than the movie in a way. Yeah. Right? And they all went a zillion times platinum or whatever. Of course The Cow is digital. Mm-hmm.

1:17:21David Sims:I think this is a big movie for them, kind of unlocking a sneaky amount of digital work. And obviously the DI is the most apparent version of that. But all of their movies after this have more digital effects than you would imagine, which they're really good at doing invisibly. You know, a lot of it's fucking like landscape changing.

1:17:42Griffin Newman:I'm glad they didn't shoot cows. You are not even allowed to bring cows near a moving vehicle in a movie because it would startle them. Right. So, of course, it had to be, you know, fake cow. The frog, Ethan notes that people really hate the frog squishing scene. Yeah, it's gross. But he loves it. It's all right to do frog squishing, he says.

1:18:03David Sims:It's funny that Goodman says these things give you warts and then squeezes it as hard as he can in his hand. I understand it's spiteful, but I'm like, man, you're like bruising for warts there.

1:18:15Griffin Newman:So, film premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. normal and regular guy Luc Besson was the chair of that year's festival but won the Palm

1:18:24David Sims:the Palm Door was some girl he saw walking by

1:18:28Griffin Newman:I give the Palm Door to 15 year old the idea no the Palm went to Dancer in the Dark which is a highly controversial choice but is a fairly good choice in that that is an enduring movie and a special movie it's not my favorite I find it to be a tad sad. Have you guys noticed this? The film Yi Yi was in competition, which is basically the greatest movie ever made. It won Best Director. Best Screenplay went to Nurse Betty. Remember Nurse Betty? I loved Nurse Betty. I've never revisited it. At the time, I was like, I have also never revisited it. I have no idea how that holds up at all. So much of Neil LaBute's work has held up normally.

1:19:14One day I will program.

1:19:16Griffin Newman:Yes. a metrograph series of greg kinnear the villain and that will be in there along with mystery men and loser and like a million someone like you yeah um best actress went to bjork best actor went to some sort of rando called tony leung for some i've never heard of this movie in the mood for love i'm just saying it was insanely fuck yeah uh and so her brother was ignored because i'm sure the cancer he was like what is american yeah i don't understand it didn't even win most soggy bottomed boys which is truly kind of insulting um disney i guess is releasing it domestically uh joe roth uh who is a somewhat iconic 90s head of disney had just stepped down people who are coming in are shown the movie and they're just silent apparently they're just like what the fuck is this is this dick cooker i guess so i don't know uh and uh so they was released limited in like Christmas time, which is not a, that doesn't make any sense.

1:20:16Griffin Newman:No. But then the soundtrack starts to kick off. So it has a crazy run, like a really good multiplier makes 45 million domestic. And basically runs through the end of the spring. Yeah. Like it never made more than like$3 million in a weekend. It just chugged along. This is a thing that Hollywood often finds out is you make a movie that's like set in like red state America and it takes a while, but it'll catch on and keep playing and keep going. Like, um, especially back then, this is a different thing, but like breaking bad stayed on there because of that. It's like, Oh, we're getting watched in these places that aren't watching anything else.

1:20:51David Sims:So mind you, I mean, we'll get to it and I might be fine. Get my numbers a little off here, but like true grid opens like something to 36 and then ends up at like 170 domestic. It's sort of like a similar thing, a maximized version. Right. Like that was their biggest opening ever. And then also their biggest multiplier ever.

1:21:07Griffin Newman:um so oh brother art thou um begins with um a chain gang singing oh lazarus yes an old sort of spiritual uh it's such a cool opening i think i love the opening of this movie before they're running with the you know like just the like the sort of slow fade up and the atmosphere and the title card it's really just a prologue that kind of has right doesn't just setting the mood in a way that is uh eerie it's eerier than the film that follows here's a take that there are parts

1:21:37David Sims:of this movie that are very eerie yeah for sure i like the sirens i think this is what blew my mind as a child where i was like how can a movie be this funny look this good it's like mad have the craft of like a blockbuster action film and its precision and also have scenes that are like genuinely sad unsettling like spooky the the ethan cohen tone management thing in this movie is so insane to me and part of it is that it is picker-esque which i'm just kind of a slut for these sorts of structures um but i i also think it handles the transition between these wildly different moods yeah and scenes incredibly well the everything about uh ulysses and penelope is so funny but also like you buy their relationship and that he cares it's like well done uh romantic screwball stuff it's like it all works on all those levels at the same time but this absolutely feels like a drama opening it does not feel like something that should be able to transition into to like slapstick pratfall comedy within 30 seconds.

1:22:35David Sims:Yeah. Which it does. I also, I can't quite crack this take, but there's something to me about the chain gang at the beginning,

1:22:44Griffin Newman:mostly being African-American men

1:22:46David Sims:singing like traditional songs before we transition to our white leads who then become incredibly successful singing old-timey music. Occasionally people think they are, you know, black. Mis-presenting, mischaracterized. Sort of by mistake. Right. And then this movie has this.

1:23:03Griffin Newman:Of course, one of the Soggy Bottom Boys is black. And I assume maybe the two fake members might be black too. We don't know. And his character is referencing Robert Johnson, of course. That famous legend, mythology. Sold the soul to the devil.

1:23:16David Sims:He's like the fourth lead of this movie. I mean, he's like the most recurring character in the story. Chris Thomas King. He's so good. A musician.

1:23:23Griffin Newman:I love his hair. His look is great.

1:23:26David Sims:He's incredible. Yeah. Obviously, the importance of this film's soundtrack. But also, there's something in it. I can't quite totally. If you ask the Coens, I feel like they'd say nothing. I was like close to a thesis that I couldn't quite crack while watching this, but something about like this shift in Americana music of white Americans understanding how to pull things and popularize them. I think. Which is a cycle that then repeats for the rest of time. I think there is this thing that when white people make a story set in this time period, especially in the South. Yeah. They struggle with how to – about white characters.

1:24:01They struggle with how to acknowledge the systemic racism of the time, especially in like a comedy. And this movie, I think, finds – threads the needle pretty well for the most part.

1:24:13David Sims:I agree with you. And it is a thing they get dinged for a lot is how predominantly white their movies are. Yeah. Sure.

1:24:21Griffin Newman:Especially those in the era, I feel like, where they got a lot of questions about it. Yeah.

1:24:24David Sims:And even like, you know, like the Merlin Wayans character in Lady Killers is – not the best. You know, it's like an example of being like, maybe they should only write white people if this is how they write black parts. But this movie, I think, comes close to doing it really well. There's something that they're not overstating. It is mostly using the black characters as set dressing outside of Tommy Johnson. But it also is talking about the ways that like the white characters can get away with certain things. That's the thing for me. And I I think that's what is interesting about the opening to me is that you're starting in this sort of like gallows tone, right?

1:25:01David Sims:Of like men who feel like they have no way out singing songs out of desperation. And then we're so quickly going to three funny guys. Yeah. Who like can experience physical violence like Wile E. Coyote will always recover from it, right? Can like fall off the back of a moving train and get hit with like fucking logs and shit. And they can get out. they can get out they can sort of like shake hands win over the public uh uh turn these songs into something poppier and more fun and more upbeat a song that is about sadness and convert it into something that like um yeah removes the the um the trauma from which it was bred in a way that makes it more palatable and like then is weaponized by a fucking politician like there's something there some of it is also coasting off the real history of country music which is poor white people and poor black people came up with this form of music and everett is literally uh i believe he's a lawyer like he's like right someone who is it's there's a class element too that really helps i think yes but he's a fake lawyer right and like his ability to sort of like smooth talk people just enough yeah but yeah it's something about and i I think it's why the soundtrack for this clicks so much because it's so in conversation with something.

1:26:25David Sims:It is so aware of its own history in a weird way where it's just like all of American music comes out of like slave songs, prison songs, spirituals. Yeah. You know, and everything descends from that. And I think some of that must be T-Bone Burnett's influence. Absolutely. Because he knows this history in a way that.

1:26:41Griffin Newman:But I do just want to add as well that I think there also is influence from Irish and Scottish and English folk music. A lot of folks emigrated to Appalachia. Yes. And also, I think, had a big impact as well in country blues, Americana music.

1:27:00David Sims:Did you see Sinners, Ben? I didn't. And it's a bummer. Sinners digs into that a lot in a way I think you'd find really interesting. I was going to say, there's a lot of vampire music in this movie. Yes, but that's a very good point.

1:27:11Griffin Newman:All I will say is that while watching this movie, I turned to my wife and I said, just FYI, when I'm sometime in my 40s, it's coming. I'm going to have a year where I get way too interested in blues music and start buying records and reading books and shit. Your ass is going to have a 78 fucking player. Exactly. Like I watch like a weird, boring documentary. Your daughter's going to be tan and so embarrassed by you. Exactly. It just feels like something dads do where they're like, there's nothing better than the blues. You know, I'm just. I'm tasting it already. Like, I watch anyone play the blues, and The Sinners has so much of it, right?

1:27:46Griffin Newman:And you're just like, this is the best shit. It's just a guy and his feelings and a guitar.

1:27:52David Sims:Not only that, but you watch it and you're like, man, it'd be really cool to know a lot about this. Exactly. It'd be really cool to be the person.

1:27:57Griffin Newman:Cool in a way that's not cool. That makes everyone roll their eyes. Yes, exactly. When you listen to that sound, the crackling of old records, it sounds like you're listening to a fucking ghost. It's also spooky and depocative. It's so cool. and there's guys where it's like they were never recorded, but like people, you know, oral histories are like, no one would ever better than Mr. B-B-B. And you're like, yeah, he must have sounded like a, you know, freight train or whatever. It's the best.

1:28:24David Sims:Yeah. This movie also has a fascinating balance of like, right, very modern, clean, present day recordings of professional modern singers doing these old standards. And then also like Big Rock Candy Mountain sounding like it was a record pressed on a piece of paper. And when you talk about the tonal shifts, the music is key to that, which is, I think, why the soundtrack took off so much, because you go from O Lazarus to Big Rock Candy Mountain, and it switches on a dime, and you do have the credits helping, because credits are always changing tone. But you have this prologue, then you have the credits, which is like intercutting with the song, the title cards that are very old fashioned and then them sort of on the run.

1:29:05David Sims:And you're very quickly getting into like physical hijinks. These guys being chained together, not being able to get out. And then they go to Del Mar's brother's place. There's the great gag on the train Which is always when I'm like oh I love this movie

1:29:21Griffin Newman:Clooney getting dragged out of the train is very funny And then they Right then they go to the Brothers house and then they get baptized Brothers great love that guy

1:29:31David Sims:Frank Collison Who's in we've covered him a fair amount He's in a bunch of Shyamalan movies Hogwallop He's on Twin Peaks Yes There's another director he works with a lot I was trying to remember Great face Yes, one of the great faces. But he's not his brother. He's his kin. I think he's cousin. I think he's cousin.

1:29:52Griffin Newman:Yeah, sorry. Yeah. And we got to shout out the little rapscallion. I love that kid.

1:29:56David Sims:I curse your name. His wife has R-U-N-O-F-T. A thing that the kid keeps misrepeating. Yeah. Yeah. But he frees them from the shackles. This is the place where I'm always reminded that they are clearly just going off a memory of the Odyssey. because they're like, I think there's pigs in there. Right, right, right. Which I love that like, I think sometimes when these sort of like modernization adaptations get too schematic, the logic starts falling apart even faster when you're worried too much about like, how do I translate every single element onto a comparable thing in a different place in a different time?

1:30:38David Sims:It helps that they're kind of just like picking and choosing. And when you get to Goodman, you're like, oh, right, there was a Cyclops. this is the Cyclops I don't care about every single detail being transmuted no

1:30:51Griffin Newman:it is not even remotely right at making that effort and obviously Ulysses is not coming from Everett it's not coming from a war he's coming from prison but there's just little stuff they mention Babylon at some point the siren stuff obviously he needs to get his wife is going to remarry and he's got to get back before she does. But it takes us a while to know that.

1:31:16David Sims:He's telling them he has a treasure of$1.2 million that they have to go find.

1:31:20Griffin Newman:That he knocked over a bank car or whatever.

1:31:23David Sims:Yes, and that's why he was in jail. Pappy's loosely the king, but also kind of Zeus. Like, it's this thing of, oh, they have, like, they kind of have a memory of this, and then also they probably just, like, looked up a character name list and dropped him in there. Right, there's a different Pappy O'Daniel who had a different first name, but existed at the same time. Oh, isn't his name in the movie like Menelaus? Somebody's name Menelaus. Yes, his name is Menelaus.

1:31:51Griffin Newman:Which, right, King of Troy, right? Who is that? Who does Brian Cox play in Troy? Gotta look it up. I just remember that movie, you know, obviously got Brad Pitt, you know, stunting on people. Yeah. But a lot of it is like Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson, Sean Bean, you know, Peter O'Toole. It's got guys. All these gravelly guys in togas with like beards going like,

1:32:10David Sims:The cast of that movie is so bizarre.

1:32:12Griffin Newman:Brian Cox is Agamemnon and Brendan Gleeson is Menelaus. I got it.

1:32:16David Sims:Sparta, not Troy. Charles Durning, one of my favorite actors of all time. Yeah. This movie, arguably.

1:32:22Griffin Newman:And this is peak Durning. I was going to say, this movie arguably has like three of my ten favorite screen actors. So, Holly Hunter and John Goodman? Yeah.

1:32:32David Sims:I mean, Hunter and Durning are absolutely in my top ten. If Goodman isn't, he's very close. and Goodman is just like showing up knowing exactly what to do giving you just enough Holly Hunter's just doing like this real fun kind of like skill piece exercise as I bet you couldn't think someone could talk faster than Clooney Durning is given like a fucking five course meal to play here he keeps coming back I love that it's like a parallel narrative that is like 30 % of the movie he keeps sort of like overlapping with them and crossing with them but never like too directly interacting with them until the end but we spend time with him and his guys.

1:33:09This movie's like structured as a series of triangles that Clooney is a point in all of them. Yes. Which is a really fascinating choice to me.

1:33:16David Sims:But you're almost watching it going like, why are they spending this much time on this guy and his like campaign struggles and whatever? But in the structure of it, they let Durning do everything he's good at doing. Like what I love about Charles Durning is that he is such a specific guy. He is not someone who can transform, right? He's not someone who can disappear. And yet there is like a bizarrely wide array of applications for him and specific skills he has. And usually people focus in on one. And this is like they let him be charming. They let him be funny. They let him dance. They let him sing.

1:33:51David Sims:They let him be scary, like genuinely menacing. They let him be kind of like comedically gruff. It's so good. There is a non-zero chance, though, that the Coens just heard there was a man named Pappy who had a flower-based radio show. and we're like, we gotta work with that.

1:34:07Griffin Newman:That probably amused them quite a lot. Who's the... Satan? No, that's Hando von Barkin. I know that. Love that guy. Oh, the rival? Homer Stokes? No, his name is... Wayne Duvall. Wayne Duvall. He's Robert Duvall's cousin? He's good. He's one of those guys who's in a bajillion things and little roles or whatever. No, Pappy's got the son, right? And then he's got the two kind of advisors. One of them is the not counting the mezzanine guy That's

1:34:37David Sims:He's the eyebrows guy

1:34:38Griffin Newman:What's his name that guy

1:34:40David Sims:I'm gonna figure it out

1:34:41Griffin Newman:I was just trying to remember that guy's name Because I love that guy's face

1:34:45David Sims:Yes he's incredible

1:34:46Griffin Newman:But anyway so okay what's going on in Oh Brother They get baptized You introduced Tommy pretty quickly It's like

1:34:55David Sims:Because they're introduced Tommy before the baptism No right after Are you sure I'm not sure

1:35:02Griffin Newman:but I can't remember you also

1:35:05David Sims:you set up Daniel Van Bargen pretty quickly he's when they're in the barn because you see him before right with Dan with a dog Dan we're in a tight spot

1:35:13Griffin Newman:of course I feel like it was so remarked on but they break the rule of three he says Dan we're in a tight spot four times the fourth time is so funny yes there's a lot of like them futzing

1:35:25David Sims:with things like that

1:35:26Griffin Newman:with his fucking hair dad yes but Daniel Van Bargen

1:35:29David Sims:as the sheriff is playing the Poseidon role in the Odyssey, but he's also clearly Satan himself. He is Satan himself.

1:35:35Griffin Newman:As much as Papio Daniels called Menelaus, but he's clearly Zeus if you're going by the Odyssey. Yeah. In that he sort of comes and fixes stuff at the end. But I feel like through the Hogswallop, you're getting like the sense of like, okay, the Depression is underway. Yes. Through the baptism, you're like, right, this kind of like big tent revival shit is happening. You know, like this kind of new American Christianity stuff is happening.

1:36:02David Sims:The irony of this movie being like, right, this is a bad time and at the end, Clooney is so confident that this is the beginning of a bright future for the American South. You know, that like, this is going to wash away all our problems and reset. And like, it's toward the end of the Depression. So it is, you know, it is, and they're riffing on the Tennessee Valley Authority and things like in terms of the history of it. So it is, he's not wrong, but also.

1:36:29Griffin Newman:Yes. Yes. um uh they they've get that and then yes they pick up tommy the the baptism does an interesting thing technically that i think is probably a mix of the recording and then live singing which is as you move past the people being baptized you hear specific voices pull up in the soundtrack in a way that like i'm not entirely sure how they did but i i i was struck by that i mean once again

1:36:52David Sims:unsurprisingly uh skip leave say on fucking fire yes the big boy yeah on those ones and zeros so

1:37:05Griffin Newman:they need money so right once they have Tommy that's when they go to the radio station to record as the Soggy Bottom Boys it's never really remarked on why they are so good at music because they're not good at anything else ever but they have no other skill but I guess the muse sings through them right? the muse just channels through them I think that's part of it but

1:37:26David Sims:isn't also the implication that's like right They were fucking incarcerated. They were in a chain gang. They were like forced to sing all the time and study other people. You know, they like got it from osmosis a little bit.

1:37:37Griffin Newman:I have a question about the song and I should know this, but was that written for the movie or is that a preexisting song? It is a preexisting song. Yeah. Right. Do you know anything about it? I can look it up. I don't. It's traditional. But it is a very old, yeah, traditional.

1:37:52David Sims:It rips. It really does. It's pretty good. You know, the song is like highlighted in the trailer. And I even remember seeing the trailer for this movie and being like, I gotta buy this soundtrack.

1:38:03Griffin Newman:It was titled Farewell Song in a Songbook dated to around 1913. It got its current title in 1928. It's had many, you know, sort of versions. Bob Dylan's recorded a version over the years. Joan Baez. A lot of versions are sad. Right. And this one is sort of the pop version of it. I do. It supposedly maybe is from this guy, Dick Burnett, who is like a partially blind fiddle player. And it might be about him, but they're, you know, we're not sure.

1:38:33David Sims:In this era where you basically had to buy an entire album if you wanted one song. Don't you think it was just like the fucking rocket power of this thing was like, I guess I need that soundtrack. Obviously, the music's great.

1:38:45Griffin Newman:Yes, I think so. Because the soundtrack does have a lot of right. Not it has the spirituals and it has these weird, creepy numbers that are awesome. but it's not, you know, put it on at a party.

1:38:56David Sims:I think the surprise for people is that when they bought it for this song, that then they were like, this plays really well as an album. This feels like a classic, you're riding in a friend's car. And like this album's on, you're like, what is this? Exactly. You know, like, cause it's impact being outsized beyond the movie feels like that word of mouth thing. I think of this as being a blockbuster car album. It really feels like this was a thing that like people were buying at Starbucks, right? Along with their Nora Jones album, propelled by that one song that's really fun and punchy. And then you're like, fuck, this is just kind of good music to live my life to.

1:39:28Griffin Newman:It's just crazy that we're like 17 listening to this. This is the era of Starbucks albums pulling off upsets at the Grammys too. They're just winning every year. Like, yeah. Enya, we just mentioned. Yeah. Love Enya. She lives in a castle. She does live in a castle. Cool lady. That is so cool.

1:39:50David!

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1:42:50Griffin Newman:They do the song. Great. They sing in a can. They sing in a can. You should mention, there's also,

1:42:57David Sims:there's the push cart man, the blind sort of seer who predicts everything that's going to happen in the movie. And they immediately dismiss him. But that is like a haunting scene. That is like a weirdly eerie scene coming in between a chain gang and like physical nonsense. Yeah. And like Stephen Runt's not like is a comical version of kind of a weird creepy guy, but he is definitely also playing that element of kind of a creepiness.

1:43:21Griffin Newman:And it's the Odyssey. They're always everyone's always like blind or, you know, there's always something up with everybody when they come across. OK, so they're a pig that after this is the baby face Nelson stuff, stuff I remember hitting really hard at the time. And, you know, Bada Lucho was. Should we have a Bada Lucho corner? Is it time? He's the one of two actors to win an Emmy for The Practice. A forgotten Emmy. Tyne Daly is the other? No, Cameron Manheim. Tyne Daly wasn't on The Practice. I made that up. She's on Judging Amy. Yeah. She was so good on Judging Amy. What are you talking about, Dave?

1:43:55Griffin Newman:What the fuck am I talking about? Right, Cameron Manheim. But that was the thing. It's like, Cameron Manheim and Michael Batalucho were so hot on The Practice for like one year, two years. Matt Batalucha was an upset over Steve Harris who everyone was like he's gonna win they were nominated in the same category and then I feel like the practice it like hit 1999 everyone was like we like the West Wing and the Sopranos now like the practice feels you know famously the practice the practice beat season one of the Sopranos in drama but then like all the actors from the Sopranos like a couple of the actors from the Sopranos won I think well you know what I think I could do this I'm wishing to do an Emmy's Deep Dive, but you guys have to see Eddington.

1:44:38Griffin Newman:I think I can do it off the top of my head. I want to see if you can do it off the top of your head. The Practice win over The Sopranos is, of course, one of the most insane. Like, what were they thinking? It had won the year before over not The Sopranos. So it was season two of The Practice, I think. People don't remember The Practice. It was Dark Alley McBeal. It was David E. Kelly had the hottest legal show in both comedy and drama. The famous David E. Kelly thing of, I'm going to do a show that's serious and real, and by season three, it's bonkers. And Michael Emerson's playing a serial killer who dresses as a nun.

1:45:08And you're like, oh, great.

1:45:09David Sims:Yeah. It's also, at that point in time, he was such a celebrity, like, creator, showrunner in a way that wasn't really a thing.

1:45:15Griffin Newman:There were not many like him, yes.

1:45:17David Sims:And I always fall into the trap of being like, yeah, and I guess he kind of receded, right? And you're like, man works more than ever. He's just not the headline on the shows in the way he used to be. He's still working for sure. He also, you know, married Michelle Pfeiffer, which at that peak of TV was just like, this guy also gets to I feel like there was a weekend update joke about like dude you're married to Michelle Pfeiffer why are you working so much fair question spend more time at home ED1 actress ED1 actress Dennis Franz wins actor

1:45:46Griffin Newman:Franz wins I believe his fourth and final Emmy yeah for lead actor correct and practice won series I don't remember who won supporting I've been trying to crack that in drama do you want to know yeah I would love to know okay well it's oh man this is crazy about the Lucho and Holland Taylor for The Practice. Oh, there we go. So Mannheim must have won the year before. Or the year after or whatever. And again, Holland Taylor in The Practice who, I'm sorry, I love Holland Taylor, but please get the fuck out of here beats Nancy Marchand in The Sopranos. Yes. Which is fucking crazy. Her final chance.

1:46:17Griffin Newman:She's so good. I mean, I think season two is her final chance. But season one is when she's like

1:46:23David Sims:throwing fastballs. Yeah, they're also not going to give her a fucking posthumous Emmy for the CGI episode. Well, that's season three. They should. That's three. wow she's in one and two

1:46:31Griffin Newman:it's just by two I think they have a slightly less they're not quite sure what to do with that character by two by two they know she's dying and they're like we can't work with her as much right yeah and like in one obviously the Tony you know and Livia thing is like the engine of the show more yeah god what a weird era because it's like the practice NYPD Blue these kinds of like robust network dramas that were good but were still like 22 episode like episode you know like case of the week stuff I don't know Yeah And then like Yeah it all goes away Guys want to talk about this more? Okay fine Oh brother where are they?

1:47:07Griffin Newman:Alright what's going on In this Yeah The Batalucho stuff I don't know You like him? You like Batalucho? I do He's playing a real guy Babyface Nelson's a real guy

1:47:15David Sims:Who's got this inferiority complex About not being seen as a big tough guy And he looked like that He had a little hat Yeah

1:47:20Griffin Newman:It was so cool that There were bank robbers Well okay Ben Yes Sure Yeah

1:47:25David Sims:It's a great era Ben raises a great point I also love the bit of him pulling up and asking for directions. The police car's coming from a distance.

1:47:33Griffin Newman:He's like,

1:47:34David Sims:money, get in the car. Them being oblivious. And money is just flying out of the car and Tim Blake Nelson is doing such good work of like trying to catch the dollar bills as if it's like a miracle.

1:47:44Griffin Newman:But he's such an innocent that he's like going to give it back.

1:47:47David Sims:He's just a gog all the time at everything happening. I like that good scene where Tommy plays for them again after the recording by the fire and they all talk about what they're going to do with their money. Yeah. Yeah. I like that scene too. Ben, I got to know who your 1930s bank robber persona is. DeToro's going to open a restaurant and he's going to wear a tuxedo.

1:48:06Griffin Newman:I mean, no matter what, I'm talking like this. Yeah. Okay. For sure. Good. Yep. But then will anyone know what you want? You like walk into the bank and you're like, meh. And everyone's like, huh? I think that's enough because it's such an established thing that everyone knows, yep, this is a robbery. Right. But my persona, I think I would be fucking dressed to the nines You know, just a really well-tailored suit, big old hat

1:48:34David Sims:Fancy Benny Hosley Fancy Benny Or Benny the suit Benny the suit

1:48:39Griffin Newman:Yes, yes Gentleman band Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah Damn This is good I wouldn't rob any banks, personally Seems stressful I might go more for the Totoro, I want to open a big restaurant and wear a tuxedo everyday vibe You're trying to find something

1:48:54David Sims:You know, I was just getting through. You know what I like about the Battle Lucho sequence? Yes. They make it out, and then he plays the deep core of sadness at the fire afterwards. The calm down. It's hours later, and they're sort of like, what's up with him?

1:49:09Griffin Newman:Right.

1:49:09David Sims:It's like this thing, it goes from being.

1:49:11Griffin Newman:And Everett diagnoses him. He's like, when the highs are high, you know, yeah.

1:49:14David Sims:But also that they, like, clock that it's not just that, like, when he's responding in the bank, it's this sort of, like, impotent rage, right? it's just this sort of like knee jerk retaliation to the idea of not being taken seriously and then like later at night this guy's just sad it's not like he's still fuming about like they called me baby face there's like a deep emptiness inside of him

1:49:39Griffin Newman:Brian Reddy is the name of the guy we were trying to call hell yeah who's just one of those guys 2 billion thing including an episode of the practice you get

1:49:47David Sims:to the information that the Soggy Bottom Boys are coming to hit that Stephen Root doesn't have any info on them.

1:49:56Griffin Newman:Right, right. Now, is it this part where the newspaper, they're eating the pie?

1:50:02David Sims:Yes.

1:50:03Griffin Newman:Is that this section?

1:50:04David Sims:Look, it's all good comedies should have at least one instance of people stealing a hot pie. A sill pie?

1:50:13Griffin Newman:Absolutely. I, as a kid watching Looney Tunes, was convinced that adulthood, a big part of it was stealing pies off of windows.

1:50:21David Sims:It's a thing you only get to do when you grow up.

1:50:23Griffin Newman:You make the pie, and then there's that dangerous part where you're like, it has to go on the windows. It has to. And it's almost understood. It can't cool elsewhere. Nowhere else. But it's understood that also you might lose a pie that way. Thieving children roam the backyards of America.

1:50:37David Sims:And tasty smell lines are going to reach all the way to the nearest rapscallions. We're living in a time when we're bringing back too much of the Great Depression era, but we do need to bring back pies cooling in windowsills. This is the only part of Make America Great Again I agree with, is we lost some key element of greatness in our cultural identity the second we closed our windows and let pies cool indoors. That was a big part of Trump's campaign last year. It really was. He brought it up all the time. Put him back on the stone. That and Arnold Palmer's penis.

1:51:12Griffin Newman:Joey and I were doing a whole thing. because you know Maria Hill dies in secret invasion. Kobe Smulders, they just shot her. No one remembers this, obviously, because that's been memory hold. But there was some tweet that was like, she fucking died two years ago. And Joey just started doing Trump being like, wonderful woman, not too tough on the eyes, folks. Maria Hill, we lost a great one. Biden let Skrulls into our country. Let Skrulls!

1:51:38David Sims:Trump talking about random shit that isn't real is still funny. The Trump comedy nerd account, which I loved so much. Yep. And would tweet that kind of thing about like.

1:51:47Griffin Newman:Like Seth Simon tweets.

1:51:49David Sims:Yes.

1:51:49Griffin Newman:Yes.

1:51:50David Sims:But like experiment in Mitch Hurwitz. Tried to reinvent the wheel with season four. And Netflix made him recut it chronologically. Like a dog. Like shit like that.

1:52:04Griffin Newman:Never not funny. It's just unfortunate. I hate that he lives in the world. He's a bad person. And that he has power. But it's funny to imagine talking about Skrulls It is

1:52:14David Sims:We hate the Skrulls folks

1:52:16Griffin Newman:I'm gonna get the Skrulls out Biden let the Skrulls in

1:52:19David Sims:They were fighting the Kree for a long time

1:52:21Griffin Newman:Border porous Skrulls coming in They get The siren sequence is next Where they get turned into They think Pete gets turned into a frog A horny tote

1:52:32David Sims:They're tempted by the fornication

1:52:33Griffin Newman:Another thing, when I was a kid I was pretty sure that I would be regularly drinking Out of a jug with three X's labeled on it I've still never done that. You would like go to the store and that would be on a high shelf. Yeah.

1:52:45David Sims:This whole movie is like Ben's Pinterest board. As a 10-year-old. You mentioned your wife's got a surprise plan for you for your birthday. Maybe that's it. Oh my God. Wow. That would be huge. She's going to take you to the finest window sill in New York City.

1:53:00Griffin Newman:What do you think? Why are Pete's clothes laid out like that? What does happen there? I think he fornicates. Fornicates. Yeah, they lead him off into the woods. And he's caught. Yeah. Mid-fornication? Mid-fornication. Yeah. Show us that, Coens. Yeah. Cowards. Because Delmore's a virgin. He hasn't, he doesn't have time to, he's got to get the family farm back. Really farm. Before he thinks about that guy. And Everett's like, and then Everett makes a baby seemingly every year. With Holly Hunter, right? The math on the babies is like impossible.

1:53:30David Sims:It's so funny when you see. And then it's Holly Hunter. I know. The tiniest frame imaginable. But it's just so funny when you see the girls first. Okay, he's got three children. Right. Then you go indoors. Holly Hunter is holding a new baby and has three additional children with her. You have to tie them all in a line. There's seven in total? Yeah. Yeah.

1:53:50Griffin Newman:Yes. So they think Everett's a pizza toad. So they have a toad now.

1:53:54David Sims:A horny toad.

1:53:55Griffin Newman:A horny toad. I love this song too. The siren sing.

1:53:58David Sims:Yeah.

1:53:58Griffin Newman:It's one of my faves.

1:54:00David Sims:And it's a scene that is like funny. All of the reaction thoughts are funny. Right. Like Totoro seemingly increasingly angered by the seduction. them smushing Tim Blake Nelson's face and yet it's also a little creepy. Yeah.

1:54:14Griffin Newman:I think the sirens are also dubbed by Emmaloo Harris, Alison Krauss, and Gillian Welch. Gillian Welch, yeah. After this is, I guess, the Cyclops. The Bible salesman. Big Dan. Our year of Goodman. Right, Goodman in kind of Barton Fink but just more cartoonish evil mode.

1:54:37David Sims:he's also he is also so clearly evil everett like he's like yes right big talker but right yeah but i like that he's playing the darkness at the forefront from the beginning yes yeah there's sort of an obvious move to have him play more successfully charming and then disarm you with it right more sweet more yes i think this is where the odyssey thing works in their favor because you're like well that's the fucking cyclops like i know what the cyclops does yes you're And the reveal of him turning around, turning towards the camera and showing the eye patch. Oh, sure. Yeah. It's also just funny to watch fucking John Goodman swing a big a big ass branch.

1:55:14Griffin Newman:He fucking snaps that branch.

1:55:16David Sims:When he's the fact that neither of them are putting it together as he's preparing to beat their ass. And then even after he hits Delmo. What are you doing? Yeah. So he's so calmly goes, what are you doing there, Dan? That just keeps going like, Dan, I got a minute. I'm not sure I quite understand the lesson. You said year of Goodman. Is a specific year of Goodman you want to highlight? No, I'm saying 2025 for the Blank Check Podcast. It is the year of Goodman for us. Always King Ralph and five Goodman Coens.

1:55:42Griffin Newman:Many Coens, exactly. But I will say in 2000, he was also in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Of course. He's quite good in that as a Southern sheriff. It sounds like something he might have done. Coyote Ugly, where he's the dad who's like, I'm not sure if I want you going to work at Coyote Ugly. He might also be a Southern sheriff. Probably. Emperor's New Groove where he is a Peruvian farmer. Yeah.

1:56:03David Sims:Who just wants to keep his little hamlet on top of his mountain. Typecasting.

1:56:06Griffin Newman:And What Planet Are You From? Which I haven't seen. Which I have just watched

1:56:10David Sims:for the first time and is, in my opinion, good. Have you ever seen it, Emily? Is that the Mike Nichols one? That's Mike Nichols, Gary Shanley. I'm going to be watching it for 2000s because we're doing Mike Nichols. It is the fucking Larry Sanders blank check can I transfer the heat to movies move. And he gets Nichols in this all-star cast and I'd always assumed it was terrible because it was a flop at the time and it has no reputation. I thought it was pretty solid. Yeah. I watch it back to back with Town & Country, which is worse than people say.

1:56:40Griffin Newman:Oh, wow. Town & Country didn't even deliver on the rock bottom expectations? It is astonishing.

1:56:47David Sims:I want the FBI to release all the Town & Country papers. I have so many questions that will never be answered about how the fuck that movie ended up that way.

1:56:57Griffin Newman:I'll watch it. Yeah. I got a watch. Silverman, Town & Country. I've got to watch all these 2000 era maligned comedies. Okay. Then we get to the big reveal of Holly Hunter and all that. Ray McKinnon, who's such a funny face man. We love Ray McKinnon. Yeah. Deadwood. Deadwood. He Justify. Or Just... No, no. What's it called? Rectify. Rectify. We all forget Rectify. It's a brilliant show. He's the creator and director and it's beautiful.

1:57:27David Sims:Won an Oscar with fucking Walton Goggins. For The Accountant, a little short film. Which then they adapt into a feature film called Randy and the Mob. That I haven't seen. That went nowhere. But he's great. He is revealed to be the campaign manager for Papi O'Donnell. I just love that he fucking laid.

1:57:44Griffin Newman:No, he's the campaign manager for the reformer Homer. But he lays out Everett like so thoroughly. Yes.

1:57:52David Sims:Clooney doesn't land a punch on that guy. Clooney is one of the best at like comedic punch reaction. It's when you talk about like David, him saying like, I'm doing this, I'm in, I know what the Coens are, I know what they want. He so understands the visual language of the Coens as filmmakers that he knows how to like with his body complete the shots that they want of like the angle of the reaction to being hit. The spinning towards the camera or clocking the neck back. Like he has seven or eight times in this movie where he has to react to a hit that are all so fucking funny. This is a bit of a hot take, but George Clooney is not my favorite director.

1:58:31I don't love all his films. He's like Midnight Sky guy.

1:58:36Griffin Newman:There's eight movies I could have busted out there as a joke. Yeah, that all came out in 2021. All on different streaming services? Yeah. But even in his earliest film roles, you see him understanding the camera and how he's going to fill in the frame. He's not a bad director. The movies he makes that I don't like are not ineptly made. It's more that the story tends to be very boring. Like, you know, like he loses me elsewhere. But I agree with you that that is. He works with clever people.

1:59:03David Sims:It's interesting because there are few movie stars who kind of feel more constantly aware of filmmaking than he does without being self-conscious. He's so good at not just like knowing his angles, but knowing what will make a shot pop. And then that doesn't really translate over his directing. Yeah. Yeah.

1:59:23Griffin Newman:He's he's his his visuals and his films are often you look at Midnight Sky, Tender Bar, Boys in the Boat. Yeah. And you're like, Jesus. And then you remember he also did a Catch 22 like mini series on top of that. Yes. Yeah.

1:59:36David Sims:Oh, like in like five years, four years, the four years where like the world is shut down. Yeah. I don't have to work much. I got all this tequila.

1:59:44Griffin Newman:Yes. Right. and yet I do think Confessions is a really strong debut that's fun I love that movie and Good Night and Good Luck rocks and only rocks more on rewatch but then it's immediate drop off then it's like I've actually never seen Leatherheads

2:00:01David Sims:I've tried to get

2:00:03Griffin Newman:through it I think there's like two Leatherhead stands out there in the world I had to march John Krasinski

2:00:08David Sims:and George Clooney

2:00:09Griffin Newman:I guess so yeah I'd to march sucks

2:00:11David Sims:yeah and that's it's just

2:00:12Griffin Newman:Monuments Men is just a

2:00:14David Sims:big old sleeping pill. But is actually anger inducing where it's like how is this not watchable? Yeah, you have so much

2:00:20Griffin Newman:at your disposal here. I feel like that's his entire career now. Yes. It's like how is boys in the boat or whatever not... Yeah. Well, he's... I can't talk about it but he's in a Noah Baumbach movie this year. Uh-huh. Which we like. We like that he's working with like other directors.

2:00:35David Sims:I'm excited he's acting more again. Yes. That was the most annoying part of him making shitty movies for so long is like why aren't you being George Clooney?

2:00:42Griffin Newman:And why are you your only director. You know, like if you're acting, it's because you're directing yourself. Yeah. Which he told me when I interviewed him for Superbocon, he didn't like doing. Yeah. Which I guess it's Midnight Sky. He's not in Tender Bar or Boys in the Boat, I guess.

2:00:57David Sims:No.

2:00:57Griffin Newman:So good for him, I guess.

2:00:58David Sims:But lead in Monuments Men, kind of lead in Eyes of Marshall, though it's really gosling. Right. Leatherheads, yeah. But yeah, Ray McKinnon's the campaign manager for the competition. Homer Stokes, we've been introduced to as the reform candidate who fights for the little man. He's got a little person on stage with him in a broom. It's such a good, like, it's such a good campaign gimmick.

2:01:20Griffin Newman:These are all gimmicks from reality, like from history. There's a guy who did a broom thing. But it's playing

2:01:25David Sims:on your expectations of like, here's Pepe O'Donnell who looks like fucking Colonel Sanders who's angry Charles Durning being like, why are they gonna like this progressive guy? Right? And you're like, oh, he's like the old Southern like stuck in the mud institutional piece of shit. And here's this guy who actually cares about people. and he's leading this groundswell that like Pappy's not going to be able to stop. And then of course you realize that this guy is the grand wizard of Klu Klux Klan chapter. Pappy O'Daniel actually does care. At least somewhat.

2:01:58Griffin Newman:And it certainly is less ideologically motivated. Right, yes.

2:02:02David Sims:But also like there's something to me in the moment where the crowd boos Homer for calling out that he thinks there's a misogyniation going on, right? Yes. They just want to listen to the music. Exactly. And like, there's the moment where Pappy goes like, oh, they don't care. And immediately he's like, actually, let's maybe be more progressive, right? It's like, he listens to the people in a way. People talk a lot about whether the Coens are conservative filmmakers, by which I mean, I don't think they voted for Donald Trump, but the sense that like, they have an inherently conservative view of the world.

2:02:39And, like, I don't think that they do, but I think they have an overwhelming faith in—Fargo's the best example of this—just normal folk who are going to, like, realize, like, the truth of the matter. There's a distrust of institutions and power, and there's a belief in the individual person. And I think that we live in a world that has sort of disproved that notion, but also when everyone's excited that the Soggy Bottom Boys are that good, that they don't care that they're an integrated group. Exactly.

2:03:09David Sims:I also, I just think I've heard people make the argument that they're like neoliberal hacks and that they're like libertarian, like fuck it all guys. And it is interesting that all three of those reads persist in tandem and yet none of them totally fit. Yeah, and it really depends on the project. They just are. They do not think that institutions have the best interests of everyone in mind, which I think is true.

2:03:34Griffin Newman:It's all a little glossed, though. And I think some critics just bumped on that. I think that the clan element of this film, I think, ultimately works. But it is simultaneously playing a silly vibe on something that is horrifying. It is so chilling and yet, right, also a broad comic scene that shot like a Busby Berkeley musical. Yeah. And it is, I mean, to me, it is kind of magic to try something that insane. I agree. I am kind of bewildered by it in a good way.

2:04:03David Sims:But at the same time, it's so chilling to see the clan on screen. The sequence opens with like silence watching them form with the fiery cross, which is so upsetting.

2:04:13Griffin Newman:And this on the O Death song.

2:04:14David Sims:I was going to say it's like two seconds of two seconds, two minutes of unaccompanied music. Yes. That is presented in a very haunting way. And then it sort of gets back into comedy. Like these like pivots the movie is able to make within a scene. It's so silly that they're doing choreo.

2:04:28Griffin Newman:Yeah. Like I think that's like a funny element. But again, it's also so horrifying to see. The silliness is vital. At the same time, you're like, oh, they're going to kill Tommy. Like, they are playing those two things simultaneously.

2:04:41David Sims:But even, like, in when Homer is, like, taken out, right? When he's losing the crowd. Yeah. And he goes, like, look, I have it on good authority that these men interfered with the duties of a lynch mob. I am a member, a high-up member of a secret society I need not even mention name. like you go into the scene thinking oh they're gonna out him some way and the crowd's gonna turn he offers that information up himself and thinks that people will be like oh of course we got your back yeah yeah i think we also need to bring back riding people out of town on a rail yes we gotta bring it back gotta bring it back folks we love the rails the scrolls need to go on the rails there's a book called a fever in the heartland which is is uh quite good uh which is about this period in history when the clan is like this huge organization but also if they're exposed then people are like well we don't want to have anything to do with the clan and it's it's sort of about the downfall the beginning of the downfall of the clan and this movie kind of captured that book i want to read the timothy egan yes that's what i find fascinating about that moment is he's like i know i can't say it outright because we're not supposed to admit it anymore but if i allude to it i think everyone will quietly nod in agreement and go like we all agree to not call out what you're saying.

2:06:00David Sims:And he is surprised that the crowd turns on him. Yeah. And it is also like playing off the theme you mentioned of music being this integrating force, not as strongly as it should have been. But, you know, having this element of, oh, this is how African-American culture moves up into the mainstream. Right. And what Pappy Clark's isn't like these people want progress. It's they don't care. right and it's better to take the less cynical position of just like just don't yuck anyone's yum they're enjoying this song that durning does say that don't yuck he does say yeah yeah

2:06:36Griffin Newman:pappy licks his finger and then sizzles his butt he does do that thing during classically trained

2:06:43David Sims:dancer knows how to soft shoot hell yeah right he moves so well despite being built like the stay pump marshmallow man he's so light on his feet you're right and of course the white

2:06:53Griffin Newman:clothes. Yes. Makes him even more marshmallow-y in this movie. Yes. It was just a real era of him going like like, you know, in everything he was in I feel like.

2:07:03David Sims:But that bit of him that they hit like three times of him being so benevolent to the crowd, right? I love the soggy bottom boys. I'm giving them full pardons. And not only that, they're going to be my brain trust. And then they keep cutting back to the same angle of him turning around his shoulder and going, isn't that right, boys? And he looks scarier than any human being has ever looked on film. He looks scarier than this movie's depiction of Satan.

2:07:27Griffin Newman:Love Charles Derny. The same year he's in State and Maine as the mayor. I feel like it's a somewhat similar role, right? Yeah. And, you know, never got his Oscar, but... Nominated twice. Yes.

2:07:39David Sims:And kind of weird nominations. I mean, he should have gotten the fucking Dog Day nomination. I know, but that was like a... Everyone gets...

2:07:46Griffin Newman:Right. Yeah, everyone's good at that. But I'm like,

2:07:48David Sims:his fucking top ballot for me You have Tootsie Muppet movie, Dog Day. I love the Muppet movies in there. I'm not mad. Doc Hopper is unbelievable. And it's an incredible version of what I'm saying. How does he get away with making this villain actually upsetting in a Muppet movie?

2:08:04Griffin Newman:When Griffin loves someone, I'm not good at that. Remembering that they may have been in a Muppet movie. He is the human lead in the Muppet movie. Yeah, Doc Hopper is the other side of Papio Daniel. They're like the same coin. I've truly seen... I basically dress the same. I think I've seen Muppets Take Manhattan a bunch of times because it must have been on TV or something. I think I've only ever seen... And I've seen Christmas Carol many times. Sure. I love and respect it. And it has Charles Dickinson. But what excuse would you have

2:08:31David Sims:to watch the other Muppet movies? You have zero children and you hate putting on things for them to watch. The fucking insane thing about the Muppets Take Manhattan is the Broadway show at the end of that. Like, I always imagine going to see... Oh, and then the, like, the, like, walls are singing. Right. And you're like, what's... A pig and a frog got married? night two of this.

2:08:50Griffin Newman:Are you going to

2:08:51David Sims:replicate this again?

2:08:52Griffin Newman:Do you think my daughter would like the Muppet movie? Like, is she ready?

2:08:56David Sims:I say this six times a year. Yes, she's ready. I, my kid, I watch random things on YouTube with them and their favorite is Frog Song, which is Rainbow Connection.

2:09:05Griffin Newman:Right, right. Well, Rainbow Connection, it's just right. The more the, right, the whole narrative. I think put on

2:09:11David Sims:some Muppet show first because that's bite-sized. It's a little tiny.

2:09:14Griffin Newman:Yeah.

2:09:15David Sims:Yeah. And it's all on Disney+. She loves Sesame Street. Good callback.

2:09:17Griffin Newman:although isn't it

2:09:18David Sims:is it leaving

2:09:19Griffin Newman:no Disney's not

2:09:20David Sims:letting go no that's fucking Zaslav and Looney Tunes Muppets aren't going right right right so we should be

2:09:25Griffin Newman:wrapping up soon because you guys have to see Enington

2:09:27David Sims:but um it feels like there's such a clean like oh all the racists were in one spot Pappy won the election he's like commuting their sentence everything's good you think the movie's over right there's this bonus the coda mini act of okay like Holly Hunter will shift the wedding the date and the venue are the same the cast is going to change but she demands the ring it's the Dana Carvey you forgot about Satan exactly yeah right and so they have to go back to the family cabin to get the ring and the roll top desk but in fact Satan is waiting there for them he doesn't know that they've been pardoned because he doesn't we don't have radios

2:10:06Griffin Newman:man's law yes right

2:10:08David Sims:he's trying to hang them and then nature intervenes the great flood happens right see a cow on a roof

2:10:14Griffin Newman:yep as predicted uh huh Everett is still fighting with Penny She's like that's the wrong ring But I feel like everyone's gonna get what they want Yeah Like I think Pete will open his restaurant

2:10:26David Sims:I do too

2:10:27Griffin Newman:I sure hope that Delmar will get the family farm

2:10:30David Sims:Give me international pop stars

2:10:31Griffin Newman:And I guess they can earn money that way

2:10:34David Sims:Yeah Delmar's gonna be knee deep and strange The Soggy Bottom Groupies It is funny that they're called the Soggy Bottom Boys Like it's just like the wet ass trio it's a good name for a band and it's funny because that is referencing the fact that they had been

2:10:51Griffin Newman:baptized yes just previously so they show up and they're kind of still a little wet it is it is interesting that the movie raises this question of like your eternal soul and then it's like those were the stakes we had established earlier remember in the last 10 minutes yes yes so why does nature intervene and help. What have they done to earn this?

2:11:13David Sims:Nothing. Well, Clooney's argument is that it's just trying to reset the culture. Sure. That's not about them. Right. That it was fortuitous timing. Right. Because he also doesn't want to believe that any sort of fate that was projected upon them by... Right. He's the master of his own destiny. The sightseer. But then seeing the cow on the roof is the thing that kind of knocks him out of it in wonder. They did accidentally take down a Klan leader. Like, they didn't mean to do that, but they did. You're right.

2:11:37Griffin Newman:so they've done good and then they brought music to the world they did we love music I think God thinks Man of Constance are as a toe tapper it is and they help Tommy with no compunction you know when they see Tommy's in trouble there's no like we shouldn't you know we're gonna get like they're all united on that that's a big point they help everybody they meet even if it's to do bad it's like an interesting view of karma they're helpful people I think this film was quite good yeah To me, it's sort of in that hot sucker thing where I'm like, great movie. Don't think it's in my Cohen's top 10, but that's a Cohen's thing.

2:12:13Griffin Newman:That's 10 masterpieces.

2:12:15David Sims:I have the opposite thing of you, Emily, just because it was the first one I saw where every time I watch it, I'm like, am I going to have that buzzing of I've seen the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life again? And it's sort of the way that Edgar Wright talks about seeing Raising Arizona for the first time and being like, why aren't all movies like this? Oh, that's the first one I saw was Raising Arizona. My uncle showed me that was like, you're going to love this. I was like 14. I was like, what the fuck is this? My parents tried to show me Raising Arizona when I was like six or seven, and it didn't take.

2:12:42I didn't know a movie could do that at the time.

2:12:44David Sims:But I think I felt that way seeing this for the first time. Yeah. And then I went back and watched Raising Arizona and finally got it. This is toward the bottom of my Cohen's top 10, but I think it's like nine. I think it's in there. It's a fantastic film.

2:12:55Griffin Newman:Currently at 11, but we'll see how this list shakes out, I will say. Box office game. Okay, so I do have to go see Eddington. You have to go see Eddington, and I don't want to do the opening weekend, which was like cast away. We've done that. It's Christmas 2000. I want to do its biggest weekend. Okay. So that's February 2nd, 2001, Griffin. A robust 3.5? Correct. 3.6. That is the most money it made in an individual weekend. It's number 11 at the box office. Okay. Number one at the box office is a romantic comedy. February 2001. Yes. One of these stars might have caught Roger Ebert's eye. It is called The Wedding Planner.

2:13:27Griffin Newman:Yes. A really, really bad movie. Yeah. A film I feel you punch a lot. I really hate the Eminem speech in it. It drives me crazy. And I think it's McConaughey sapped of the most juice. Like those slightly later McConaughey rom-coms where he's more of a like rascal.

2:13:45David Sims:Well, 10 Days is the biggest hit. And then it's just like this cursed him into a cul-de-sac of success, of uninteresting success for eight years before he got his mojo back.

2:13:55Griffin Newman:But like in Wedding Planner, he's just this like V-neck sweater loser mother. Have you seen Wedding Planner? I have. And you're a huge fan. I saw it at the time and I was like this should win Best Picture I gave it four stars in the Chicago Sun-Times of course Adam Shankman director you have Disenfanted your former collaborator yes your former boss yeah well I think he considers himself a collaborator number two at the box office is a horror film why is a horror film coming out at this time oh could it be attached to a holiday oh it's Valentine Valentine that's Boreanaz right Boreanaz first build is that his only first build film probably.

2:14:32Griffin Newman:Has to be. Yeah. Before he's like, ah, you can catch me on the silver screen forever. I mean, the small screen. Sorry. Like, you know, I'm going to Bones. The bronze screen. Just quietly, the new Scott Bakula. Just like, quietly, constantly working. You know, what was the thing he did after Bones? Do like another

2:14:49David Sims:fucking CBS show for like 70 years? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of those guys, my dad will see him be like, God, he must have so much fucking money. That was true. There's certain people like that where they're not the biggest stars, but it's like you have been on a show for 25 consecutive years.

2:15:08Griffin Newman:Those Bones guys, especially like the middle cast of Bones, right? Not DeShane. Like, I just think about that all the time.

2:15:13David Sims:But also there was the big Bones lawsuit that I will let people look up in their own time. They all got an additional big payday years later. That Navy SEAL show with Boreanaz had a dog on it. And it was one of my last TCA press tours. And we all wanted to interview the dog's handler. And Boreanaz had to look like this is what's become of my career. It was his kind of...

2:15:31Griffin Newman:Out of the way, Boreanaz. We don't care about you anymore.

2:15:34David Sims:It was his Kelsey Grammer moose moment.

2:15:36Griffin Newman:Yeah. Number three at the box office, as a film I mentioned already, we've covered on the podcast, is a giant hit. It's in its seventh weekend. It's made$203 million. It's Oscar nominated. It's great. It's, I guess, a drama and adventure movie, I guess. Oh, it's Castaway. Castaway. It's Castaway. Number four. Great movie. We love Castaway. We love Castaway. It rolls. It rocks and rolls. Number four at the box office is a teen film. I think there are teens in this one, right? It's a young people romance. Oh, A Walk to Remember? No, that's Shankman. It is not A Walk to Remember. And I think, yeah, that might be like a year prior or after.

2:16:12Griffin Newman:Yeah. It's got dancing in it.

2:16:17David Sims:Is it center stage? No.

2:16:20Griffin Newman:Save the last dance. It's Save the Last Dance. A big ass hit. Julian Stiles, huge hit. A weird, like, out-of-nowhere winter blockbuster. The very cute Sean Patrick Thomas, who never quite, like, you know, got his big star moment. He was great. And a Juilliard movie. Directed by Thomas Carter. Who then later goes on to direct Coach Carter. And they were like, is this movie's very deep all over it? And then, of course, directed my favorite movie, the Cuba Gooding Jr. TV movie, Gifted Hands, the Ben Carson story. You love that film. You voted for that film for president I wrote it in Yeah And number five in the box office is It won best cinematography Griffin At the Oscars

2:17:04David Sims:Crushing Tiger, Hidden Dragon What's it up to at this point? 52 So it's got a ways to go Yeah A crazy run Emily You also got traffic Uh huh Yeah What's head over heels? That was Freddie Prinze and Monica Potter?

2:17:18Griffin Newman:You're correct Yes Monica Potter, Freddie Prinze Jr. Yeah That seems to be about it. Just one of those.

2:17:25David Sims:Emily, we're going to end this episode abruptly because Ben and I have to get to an angst and screening for reasons that are hopefully apparent six episodes ago. Sure. Okay, great. I'm going to do the Emily St. James is available here in like under a minute. I think I can do it. I'm going to put my shoes on while you're doing this. So you can find my work everywhere online. I am at Emily St. James on most platforms, mostly Blue Sky and Letterboxd. uh i am a writer on the tv show yellow jackets which you can find on paramount plus with show time which is a very weird thing way to say something paramount plus with show time uh my novel woodworking out in bookstores right now uh apparently uh people are buying it and reading it and enjoying it and uh i'm so glad of that uh my podcast is podcast like it's the 2000s which i co-host with phil isco when is this episode coming out oh great question and i can definitely tell you that october september we are either doing uh best late august we're oh yeah we're doing Best Director follow-ups We're covering the movies That all the Best Director winners Did as follow-ups So we're probably talking about Ron Howard's The Missing I love this And I might Message you about Which movies are available Which is okay It's okay And then finally You can find my newsletter At episodes.ghost.io And if you just see me in the street Come up and say hi I'll shake your hand You're the best in the biz You're such an important friend In the history of this show It is always a pleasure To have you on And it's always fun When an episode comes together We've weirdly been struggling To find someone for this you message us or like late notice yeah i'm in town in a week yeah and we were like oh brother and you went like i wrote a whole fucking piece on the di yeah that piece you can find at colors

2:19:00Griffin Newman:where where did they go at fox.com so yeah all the links will be in the episode description of course i also just want to do a quick shout out if anyone is interested in listening to any like very old appellation music like all stuff on 78s there was a wfmu show called old kaj with Courtney T. Edison. It's not on anymore, but I'll put a link in the description. You can listen to those back episodes. Really good stuff. Yeah. And then I also just want to shout out for anyone who may be interested in contemporary roots Americana music. Check out the music publication No Depression.

2:19:36David Sims:Hey, and David, Blanchek theme, parenthetical, Sirens edition, which you heard at the beginning this episode, was recorded and produced. Not that kind of sirens. was recorded and produced by our friend Gabe Barreto and performed by Maggie Feldman, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, and friend of the show, past and future guest Academy Award nominee Amy Irving. Their Spotify profiles are included in the episode description and we thank them greatly for taking the time to do that very silly thing for us. Yay. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for The Man Who Wasn't There, correct?

2:20:12Griffin Newman:Yeah, absolutely.

2:20:13David Sims:And as always, I'm a Dapper Dan now.

2:20:17Griffin Newman:Fuck, goddammit!

2:20:24Griffin Newman:and we have to leave time too to for everyone at the theater to sing me happy birthday we do

2:20:29David Sims:that's a really important request i heard the whole cast is gonna come yeah i'm saying you happy i mean i'm fully expecting that do you want me to sing you happy birthday right now

2:20:37Griffin Newman:i will um you know what not right now surprise me all right i will I will now Griff

2:20:46David Sims:are you gonna sing? no okay this movie has so many good quotes I think you should sing I think I think it's not a singer I think I'm definitely gonna sing you could yodel I think in Llewyn Davis oh sure yeah oh yeah Rachel

2:21:05Griffin Newman:will love that yeah she will I'll be like

2:21:08David Sims:damn you're good

2:21:10Griffin Newman:Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

2:21:49Griffin Newman:Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.