The Mosquito Coast with Sean Fennessey

7:43David Sims:Today we were talking about what is his first proper blank check movie? Certainly his first Hollywood blank check. Sure. The success of Witness is immediately rolled into. I'm tying myself to Harrison Ford. It's the passion project. I couldn't get made right before Witness. I can now get made.

8:00Griffin Newman:Success of Witness, movie star, plus the, you know, building credibility of his Australian films, which had almost gotten the movie made before, all put together to make a very tough movie about an unlikable person doing something largely negative and unsuccessful, I guess. And the movie ends with like, yeah, that didn't work out. You know, like, which is not something you can easily pitch in a boardroom. What did you want to say? Sean Fantasy is our guest. The great Sean Fantasy from the big picture.

8:33David Sims:Our friend, excuse me.

8:35Griffin Newman:I know, but I'm speaking.

8:36Sean Fennessey:I'm so happy to be here. for Podnik? Podnik. That's good.

8:41David Sims:Now, I wanted Podster and Castmander, the pod side of the cast. How many times are you going to bring this up? Every episode, basically. And David said, Podnik is the funniest word I've ever heard. Which I think is funny.

8:52Sean Fennessey:Well, that explains it. It is. However, I do think there was a case for Podless.

8:56Griffin Newman:Yeah, but you see, this is... There's, to me, a fine balance between too short, which is what you're doing, and kind of like the joke is just the length.

9:05David Sims:I said, let's go as hard as we can. We're rarely going to get an opportunity to put in two pods and two casts.

9:10Griffin Newman:I don't like it. I think it doesn't roll off any tongues. I also don't like that Mastering Commander has a subtitle. I think that's a huge mistake. What about that movie? Well, they're building a franchise.

9:20Sean Fennessey:Pods have become battlefields. Yeah, but then, okay. Well, now we're just throwing rules out the window. You know, that's right. We can say that. That's what it was at the live show. It was blank check in the big picture. It was. And we were on the pod battlefield. We were in the...

9:33Griffin Newman:Okay, so that's what I wanted to talk about. We did a live show with you guys where we did a draft. by the time this comes out. You can watch it. Sure. And we did a draft and we wisely did New York movies and played to the crowd, all that. But if the initial plan before it was going to be a live show Yes. had been that we were going to do 1986 films. In studio. This is one. Oh, interesting. That's what I'm saying. Okay. And that's my birth year. But it was also basically like one of the one of the like available years. One of the last ones. Exactly. One of the last big ones

10:02Sean Fennessey:that we haven't done yet.

10:03Griffin Newman:And so I was like, hell yeah, 1986. I think I watched 30 movies from 1986. Sure. Like to prepare for this draft that did not happen. Now we may do it eventually. We had the New York idea

10:14David Sims:and you got upset because you said I've already been grinding.

10:16Sean Fennessey:I was just so deep in 1986. We plan to do, I would love to do a draft with you guys every year for as long as we possibly can.

10:24Griffin Newman:I love the year drafts because I like the scarcity. Like I find that the best format because like in terms of the gamesmanship, it's the most interesting. New York drafts is the opposite sort of gamesmanship where it's like, pick of the litter, there's a million movies. what route do you take, right?

10:38Sean Fennessey:But 86 was going to be recorded and New York was always going to be live. So I said, you guys want to come do the live show. But you're right. 86 is a really fun year. And when does Mosquito Coast go in 86?

10:50Griffin Newman:I think it might go, but it would be a later choice. Would you draft it in drama? Well, it ain't a comedy.

10:55Sean Fennessey:I haven't prepared for 86. I guess no spoilers for future drafts.

10:59Griffin Newman:No comedy, no Oscar wins, not a blockbuster. So yeah, it's only a couple spots it goes.

11:05David Sims:I mean, you could sort of call it a thriller, but it's a kind of a wild card. Or if you did an attempt at rebuilding civilization from scratch category, I think it would definitely go there.

11:18Sean Fennessey:I might draft it. It's very possible. I have a lot of affection for this movie.

11:23Griffin Newman:I feel like this is a Sean movie. Not that it's not anyone else's movie, but it's definitely a Sean movie.

11:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's not. It is deeply imperfect. And Ben, I understand. I understand exactly what you mean. It is an anti-smile movie. I love an anti-smile movie. I love a movie that is essentially a confrontation with something that is under the surface of human existence, which is we are fucked. We are so fucked. So with you here. But this movie makes me want to punch it in the face. I think it kind of wants that, right? I think it does want that. And what the author of this book, how he feels about Allie Fox, too, I think is an interesting part of this. and why the filmmaker is interested, why Ford, famously a curmudgeon with a bit of a down look on society, the world, his own success, is all really fat.

12:13Sean Fennessey:All these smart, thoughtful guys arriving at this project is interesting to me.

12:19David Sims:It's very interesting. Ben, you often say when we cover movies in which someone finds a bag full of money and their life spirals out of control, like many of the Coen films we've covered recently, that if you were in that movie, everything would turn out great and it would end with you owning an island. Now, how do you think you would have handled the circumstances of Mosquito Coast? I know they're different because you're not giving the money in the first place, but the design is almost the same.

12:46Sean Fennessey:It would burn down immediately. The town would be burnt in hours.

12:51Griffin Newman:You're not municipal. That's not your direction. No, I'm not a planner. If you were in Mosquito Coast, things would have gone worse.

12:58Sean Fennessey:Yes. I would smoke one cigarette and then it would just go up in flames. And then it'd be like, all right, let's get out of here.

13:06Griffin Newman:But you're also, you're not an ideologue. Like if you meet Spalding Gray, I mean, not Spalding, Andre Gregory, not Spalding Gray. Spalding Gray is another movie I watched recently for Sean's podcast. Killing Fields. Or no, different one. Well, he is in the Killing Fields, but no, Spalding Gray is in Stars and Bars, the forgotten Daniel Day-Lewis film. Oh, wild. It's only pure comedy. Yeah, giving a performance I might describe as a touch broad.

13:28Sean Fennessey:fair to say he's a horny southern judge classic Spalding Gray typecasting while Daniel Day-Lewis is like

13:39Griffin Newman:that's his whole performance

13:42Sean Fennessey:yeah it is Daniel Day-Lewis trying to be Hugh Grant in I don't even know what the in My Cousin Vinny that's essentially the framework and then Hugh Grant said pull my lager

13:54David Sims:and made Mickey blue eyes himself

13:56Griffin Newman:It does feel like, but Daniel Day-Lewis does stars and bars. It's probably like, ah, it didn't work. And then sees Hugh Grant's early. And it's like, right, that's not, that's not a string to my bow. He's got it. Anyway. Yeah. You would meet Andre Gregory, the priest. And you'd be like, yeah, you seem like you can run things. Like, yeah, I don't want to be in charge here. Like, right. Like, yeah, you got some ideas.

14:20Sean Fennessey:I feel like you, this is a thing that's been replicated before in other places.

14:26Griffin Newman:Whereas Allie is like, you guys got an infrastructure,

14:29Sean Fennessey:go off.

14:30Griffin Newman:You are a false god. You know, like Allie just sees, he sees like a stop sign. He's like, I won't stop. Like, that's just his vibe.

14:38Sean Fennessey:This country used to go. This sign can't run my life. Ben, would you kneel before God though? No. I mean, God used to kneel before America. I am not religious at all. Because that's what Andre Gregory wants, right? He wants you to bend the knee to him and to, and to,

14:56Griffin Newman:I just feel like Ben just wouldn't have the sort of energy to be like, nah, fuck you, man.

15:03David Sims:You wouldn't get as riled up. I feel like.

15:05Sean Fennessey:No, I guess. I mean, you're making a great point. I find the missionary practice problematic. You get quite a history there of problematic behavior. More of a reverse cowgirl kind of guy.

15:19David Sims:Ben, I feel like you get very. I really like that. Actually, we need to call that out. That's a, hey, 100 comedy points. Social breakout, yeah. You get riled up, Ben, when people disrespect you.

15:31Sean Fennessey:Sure.

15:32David Sims:And you get riled up when you come up against, like, injustice.

15:37Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

15:38David Sims:But I feel like if someone is arguing ideological points with you in this way, you're just like, I don't have fucking time for this.

15:43Sean Fennessey:If I'm in the jungle and I'm sweating and getting bit by mosquitoes, I think I'm also just going to be like, I can't deal with this. Right. That's the thing with this movie is I'm not going to the jungle. Ever. I will never go into the jungle. There's no way.

15:56Griffin Newman:It's not a climate that appeals. No.

15:59David Sims:The mosquito coast, I'm not. The penguin coast, maybe. I mean, as you put it right there in the title, you're identifying my least favorite kind of insect. I don't like mosquitoes. Living creature on the planet. Quite possibly. I hate mosquitoes. I do, too.

16:12Sean Fennessey:They love me, too. It's the worst. They love me.

16:15David Sims:And you know why, Sean? Because you're so sweet. Thank you. Thank you for saying so. Isn't it always gross when grown-ups would say that? when you like complain about being bit and they'd be like, that's because you're so sweet.

16:25Sean Fennessey:You honestly made me feel gross.

16:26David Sims:It's disgusting.

16:27Griffin Newman:Or they're like, yeah, you taste good. Like, shut up. 1986, I just have considered 1986 in more depth than like other years recently because of this. And you're talking about Harrison Ford, major movie star. I do think he might be inarguably the biggest movie star at the year this comes out. Because this sort of, you know, Stallone's moment is waning. Uh-huh. Schwarzenegger's moment has not like totally solidified Willis is in before we haven't got to Willis yet Cruz Eddie Murphy is curdling slightly Cruz is just beginning with Top Gun is this year you know like so like Cruz is on I think at this moment I would argue it's not close it's not close at this moment it's inarguably him and this is a movie where what were the top three movies of 1986 Top Gun so Cruz is again beginning Platoon which wins this picture and Crocodile Dundee Crocodile D.

17:22Griffin Newman:doing this well is kind of a like we don't have any stars right now. Is this guy one of our two biggest stars? Yeah. Maybe we throw in with Croc?

17:31Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Two things happen in the 80s for him. One, obviously, you've got two Star Wars movies, two Indiana Jones films, right? He has locked down that specific thing. But I think Witness is the clincher. I was going to say this is the movie

17:42David Sims:that confirms this. That's the thing. It's him having two franchises under his belt and then being taken seriously as an actor and his serious adult drama playing, if not like a blockbuster, surely being a hit. It's kind of like, it's that moment that happened with like Jennifer Lawrence where you're like, she has Silver Linings playbook and the first Hunger Games in the same year. You're telling me she's unstoppable.

18:06Sean Fennessey:It's a really good comparison. And he, I think, is doing something in this next stretch of movies that is pretty admirable that great stars do. Where they get passion projects, interesting filmmakers, they balance between genres. You know, his next few movies Mosquito Coast, Frantic, Working Girl, Goes Back for Last Crusade, and then Presumed Innocent, Regarding Henry. That's a really interesting run of movies. Not all of them work. Only one of them, to me, does not work. Regarding Henry? Yeah. But I love that movie. It's bad, but I do love it. Written, of course, by Jeffrey Abrams. JJ.

18:39David Sims:Lil' JJ. I saw some interview with him where he said that he really likes working with directors two times. that he feels like, to a certain degree, making a movie with someone he's never worked with before is to test out whether they can do a second one. Not that the first one's a wash, but that he likes being able to hit the ground running and have that built-in language. And a lot of what you're talking about there, it's like two Weirs, two Nichols, one Polanski. You know, he obviously does three Spielbergs. Two Pollocks. Yeah, like he would double up on people. And all of these are, you know, once you get past Spielberg and Lucas, they're like grown-up directors.

19:20David Sims:They are serious grown-up directors. Philip Noyce. Noyce, too.

19:25Griffin Newman:His 90s, it's not like his stardom wanes and he makes hits, but the movies get worse. There's a lot of bad movies. He has a couple bad things.

19:33Sean Fennessey:The second half of the 90s is a bit of a steep fall.

19:36David Sims:But also, the second half of the 90s, the Star Wars movies get re-released and Han Solo is renewed. Even as the movies are falling off, His stardom is almost more solidified, at least in terms of like Hall of Fame iconography. There's an interview, maybe it's for Return of the Jedi or Empire Strikes Back, I think, where they're interviewing the three stars and they ask them what your first feeling was when Star Wars hit, right? And, you know, Hamill has some gee whiz like, I can't believe it. I grew up watching these. I'm a star now. There are people around the block. and they ask Ford and he just rubs his hands together and goes, let's get to work.

20:19David Sims:And they were like, what do you mean? And he was like, I was like 37. It hadn't happened. It happened overnight. I said, this is my moment. You know, and he's got Star Wars movies lined up. He's gonna get Indiana Jones lined up. But this run we're talking about, the start of it feels like him cashing in what he saw in his eye the moment Star Wars hits is like, so you're telling me I can get movies made now? I know exactly what kind of movies I want to make. I know who I want to work with. I know which characters I want to play. It got delayed a little bit in him having to fulfill sequel obligations.

20:53David Sims:But like this 80s run is let's get to work.

20:56Sean Fennessey:One of the things that I like about this movie from this kind of metatextual perspective that we're talking about it from is that it reveals that when you are a movie star, you are still in a cage. in all of his films. He is either desirable, heroic, or wrongfully imperiled. Except for this movie. This is the one movie where he's just kind of a heel. He's just, he's wrong. Everyone knows he's wrong.

21:23Griffin Newman:He's wrong from the start, too. It's not, yes, it's about a descent into madness, but he's basically no good from the beginning.

21:29Sean Fennessey:Yes, and we are meant to follow him closely and be engaged with his journey. Like, Helen Mirren, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it. Does not have a ton to do She does nothing to do in the movie.

21:38David Sims:No, it's him and it's Phoenix are the two perspective characters. We covered Robert Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath many years ago now. And that movie, the juice of that movie was you're going to go into this so confident that there's no way Harrison Ford could be the bad guy. And when he turns out to be like epically, you know, absurdly villainous, that movie like electrified people and it was a massive, massive hit. And it's a last five minutes reveal. Totally. And that was like, you can't get away with this. But that's like a fun house movie that can have that construction be entertaining to people.

22:16David Sims:This feels like a movie where the public's response to it was, I'm confused. Am I supposed to be rooting for this guy? Because it's Harrison Ford that rather than saying like, oh, it's interesting that he's playing a guy I don't like, people were confused where they were supposed to line up. And I think part of that trickiness, what makes him so good in this role, but what must have just absolutely befuddled everyone, is so much of Harrison Ford's thing at this time is, I seem like an asshole, but I actually care.

22:44Sean Fennessey:See, that's... Okay, so that's the thing that I also think is really interesting about the movie. I don't know Harrison Ford personally. I've certainly seen him on talk shows and in interviews. I don't think he has the same ideas as Allie Fox. I do think he's not that far temperamentally from Allie Fox.

23:01Griffin Newman:He has a slightly antisocial vibe. He likes to fly plane and live in ranch. And crash plane. And crash plane and smoke mountains of ganja, which I don't think Ali is doing that, but like... He could use it. There's a world where Ali should be doing that. Exactly. He should be a weed dad. Yeah.

23:18Sean Fennessey:He's an inventor for fuck's sake.

23:20David Sims:He's the most weed dad ever. Man, I heard a story from a film production driver. I forget what movie it was on, but who had to pick up Harrison Ford every day and said one day he was late coming out the house and he was like, I can't find my bong. Give me five minutes. And then he came out five minutes later with a saucepan. And he was like, what are you doing? He's like, hold on. And he took the lid off the saucepan. He sucked up the smoke. That's awesome. But he was just like, you don't understand how much weed that guy has taken in a day.

23:53Griffin Newman:Well, you certainly hear. Then there's these moments with him now, like there's the famous David Blaine video. Where you see kind of like, because he's a good crank on, like he's a good crank on a publicity tour and all that. He plays into it. He enjoys it. And he's very funny. The thing where Josh Horowitz, right? Is it Josh? Yeah. He's asking about Red Hulk, our president. Our president. Nothing but respect. Yep. You know, about like, do you feel silly? He's like, the money, you know, poof, it's gone.

24:21David Sims:Like, I watched.

24:22Griffin Newman:The Schlansky bits. Yes. I watched, have you ever seen, I assume you've seen the video of Alison Hammond interviewing him for Blade Runner 2049, where he's with Gosling, and you can tell it's like early morning in London. He's doing fucking junket shit. He's not interested. And she's so delightful and funny and silly. And you watch him wake up and be like, wow, I like this woman. You know, the moment where she says, so, you know, when you offered this movie, what do you think? How much? And he goes like, show me the money. And you're just like, there he is.

24:55David Sims:He's a silly guy. I think now he plays into it as a bit. And you look back at all this press I was doing for MosquitoCust talks about how press shy he is, how private he is. And then you watch the actual interviews and he's measured. He's open. He is so fucking articulate. He's not like doing some De Niro like mumble thing, but he's not doing like movie star razzle dazzle. He's speaking as if he's like Gore Vidal. like he's speaking in this very measured thoughtful way and i think that confused people and it was received as he's cold because he's not smiling and telling stories about pranks and now he realized i can just lean into being a crank and people find it funny my favorite forward interview moment ever it's after disney acquires lucasfilm and you know part of the announcement is disney buys lucasfilm episode seven right yeah and he goes on conan to promote whatever movie he had coming out, like a month or two after that.

25:54David Sims:And he says, so there was... Cowboys and aliens. Big news recently, Disney purchased Star Wars and Harrison Ford, like, looks over his shoulder, like, plays like, am I allowed to say anything? You know, cagey. And he's like, now I'm sure you're being told not to say anything, but just to incentivize you. And then Conan takes out like$1 ,000 in cash, hands him like$1 ,000 bills. And he's like, does this make you want to say anything? And Harrison Ford, like grabs the money quickly, counts it, shoves it in the inside of his jacket pocket and then like casually leans into his chair and goes, I, I hear they're thinking about making another one.

26:39David Sims:And it's just destroyed. The audience laughs for a minute straight. And the fact that he can now lean into, I'm a grump, I hate everything and I love making money and that no one thinks he's an asshole, that it's like it scores him brownie points. It's great.

26:54Sean Fennessey:He earned it. I mean, he's freaking Harrison Ford. He's in 20 movies. God, I love this movie.

26:59David Sims:But that's a great way to be. But this has always been the thing of people saying like, oh, he's no nonsense. He's this and that. And then everyone who works with him is like, he cares about acting so much. He cares about the movie so much. It's all this cover. It's what makes him a star with fucking Han Solo is the moment he comes back.

27:16Sean Fennessey:I think he's also just a, he's a gifted actor, probably an underrated actor. Yeah. didn't really get a lot of opportunity. It wasn't challenged a lot because of the work that he was best known for, but a very shrewd movie star. A good picker of projects. By and large. Until that late 90s. It dips. It dips for everybody.

27:32Griffin Newman:And it's the classic late 90s. It's the classic movie star thing of like Harrison, you're getting older. You don't automatically match up with your female leads anymore. Like, you know, it's like, where do you go with this? And then stuff like Random Hearts is him being like, well, Pollock. So I just saw that

27:48Sean Fennessey:for the first time last year.

27:49Griffin Newman:Right. Your favorite movie.

27:50Sean Fennessey:and I had I had a nice time with it sure because it is largely representative of the canard that all all of us say all the time about they don't make them like they used to but they really don't make them like that movie that movie is a very strange morose drama about two sad people that still costs like 60 million dollars

28:09Griffin Newman:and the hearts are random I was gonna say they're so random

28:11Sean Fennessey:it's random as hell yeah and it's not not a very good film

28:15David Sims:the movie is pretty random it's actually a big inspiration for Family Guy yeah people forget the giant chicken is like third build in random heart actually third build is

28:25Griffin Newman:charles s dutton this movie sounds pretty good carry on you haven't seen it no i know the twist

28:29Sean Fennessey:it's fine or whatever that's the least interesting part of it he's just a sad cop for two hours wandering around new york trying to figure out what he should do with his life and it's a it's like a real test of his late period stardom and he couldn't really hold on to it you know six days and seven nights like these movies where he's he's trying to touch all the different strains he's trying to like can I working girl it again? You know can I Indiana Jones it again? Can I Jack Ryan it again? And he can't you know that moment has passed.

28:57Griffin Newman:There's a run because Fugitive is obviously like the best movie ever made and then after that it's like he did Clear and Present Danger does well not a bad movie but then it's like Sabrina mistake devil's own mistake Air Force One not a mistake great idea everyone loves

29:16David Sims:it is so funny that in this movie he has a moment where he says, get off my land.

29:22Griffin Newman:Get off my mosquito coast. He says, get off my land. I know, I know, I know. Six days, seven nights, mistake. Random Hearts, mistake. What Lies Beneath? Good pick, but he's, you know, he's sort of secretly supporting. Big hit, though. Big hit. Huge hit. K-19, The Widowmaker, mistake. Hollywood Homicide, mistake. And that's when he finally clocks. It's like, what, I'm two for ten here. Yeah. I think I'm going to stop being a leading man in this way.

29:46David Sims:Hollywood Homicide is the first time I think he looks embarrassing. Right, he's like,

29:51Griffin Newman:what the fuck am I doing?

29:51David Sims:It's not just that the movie flops. It's that it's like, this looks silly. Why did you do this? What's with the earring? You're dating Ally McBeal. Like, everything about it, suddenly it was like, is Harrison Ford, like, lame dad having midlife crisis? Yes. He lost his cool.

30:07Griffin Newman:And then Firewall is forgotten, but it's this transit moment to like, he's more playing dad, older generation. And then like, it's like from then on, he is grandpa, Crystal Skull, you know, Morning Glory, Cowboys, right?

30:24David Sims:It's like now he's the old guy. It's grandpa, but the other part of it is I'm going to do Blade Runner again. I'm going to do two more Star Wars. I'm going to do two more Indiana Joneses. But Crystal Skull starts there. Yeah, but then it's like

30:35Griffin Newman:Extraordinary Measures, Morning Glory, Cowboys and Aliens, 42 Enders game. You know, like it's like, it takes him a while. Also, I think Force Awakens is when he's like, fine.

30:45David Sims:A lot of him being number two on the poster

30:48Griffin Newman:behind a newer A-list. Daniel Craig, fucking, of course, Brendan Fraser and his... Yeah.

30:55David Sims:So powerful. Just like weird choices. Um, yeah. I mean, I remember, I've invoked this so many times, but it's just such a distinct memory of my broken brain. Asa Butterfield and me, the big two. I think he's the future. Uh-huh. My dad and I walking by a billboard for random hearts. And my dad just going, that's going to be a big hit. And I was like, why? And he went, because Harrison Ford's in it. And I was like, that's how it works. Like certain stars, no matter what they do. And yet that was a moment where it was like, it's proven wrong here. I have invoked this before. And one of the previous times we've talked about Harrison Ford, but his Inside the Actor Studio is amazing.

31:33David Sims:I'm sure I've seen it. I can't remember. They get into Mosquito Coast and Lipton asks him the thing that people love to ask him of like, do you feel like you're stuck in a gilded cage? That your level of stardom and iconography and the blockbusters have become so big that there's certain things the audience won't let you do as an actor. And he, like, is very measured about it, and he basically says, like, I was very proud of that movie, and it was something I wanted to do, and it was very clear that the audiences weren't going to go with me there, and I adjusted, and I'm never going to complain about the fact that people like me doing other things in movies, right?

32:07David Sims:Like, he has an answer that's basically, like, I have no sour grapes over this. I tried. I'm not going to be an asshole about like, oh, they want me to be a different kind of A-list movie star. But it is clear that I think, and this is maybe where things start to fall apart a bit in the 90s, is post Mosquito Coast, he's like, got it. Notes taken. I want to challenge myself. I want to push boundaries. But I've identified a thing you don't want me to do. And like Working Girl is an interesting swing, but it's safer, right? Like other things like that. I think by the time he gets to the mid-90s, he's like, I don't know what I'm trying to prove anymore and it's too early for him to do the grandpa swing where he can really shake off the shackles of his persona.

32:51Sean Fennessey:We don't need to spend like three hours on his last, his 90s movies but I do think that Sabrina the Devil's Own 68, Seven Nights Random Hearts are really instructive because they... We all do okay. Sabrina made 88. Yep. Devil's Own made 140 Six Days and Seven Nights made 165 Random Hearts made 75

33:10Griffin Newman:Who directed Six Days and Seven Nights? Reitman The Tupaculas and the Tupaculas It's kind of like this You're going back to the guys Who were 80s Big shots and are now getting

33:25Sean Fennessey:A little long in the tooth But he is not able to One the material is not as good So Witness probably makes a somewhat similar Amount of money as those movies relatively speaking, but it's not a forever movie the way The Witness is.

33:37David Sims:No, and you compare the interviews for those films to the interviews for Witness, Mosquito Coast, Working Girl, what have you, where there does not seem to be the same animating passion of this is what really spoke to me in this script and why I really wanted to play this character. Right. They feel like, yeah, that's like a, feels like good material. It's an adult movie. Good lineup of people.

33:55Sean Fennessey:Yes, my audience will respond to this.

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34:50David Sims:That's what I like. Just one scoop and it's over with. I dump it into my shaker filled with eight ounces of water. I shake it up and I drink it and it goes down real nice.

35:00Griffin Newman:So go to drinkag1.com slash check to get an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 for free in your AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. Only while supplies last. That's drinkag1.com slash check.

35:25David Sims:Here is a quote I found in that same piece where he is pleading audiences to consider the movie Mosquito Coast after being ransacked by critics. He says, The job of acting is the same in every film regardless of the material. It's storytelling and logical steps. In a good script, it is fairly easy because you have ideas to chain yourself to. Otherwise, it's party tricks. There are few complications to the characters of Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but the demands of playing either of them are no less difficult than playing Fox. In many ways, a character with as much experience as Fox is allowed, is easier to play.

36:02David Sims:You need only to note the variety of his emotions. That is one of the best descriptions of acting in an unpretentious way I have ever read. that is so like just fucking cut through the bullshit brass tacks, this is what it is and explaining the two sides of what he can do well without putting greater importance on either. He's clearly very smart. He's smart. He knows who he

36:27Griffin Newman:is and what he can do. I'm going to open the dossier, but to me, I do think the big question with Mosquito Coast is, is Harrison Ford too sort of inherently Harrison Fordy to play this guy. Like when you look upon...

36:42Sean Fennessey:It's a William Hurt part. Right. You're kind of like, I'm not sure

36:45Griffin Newman:I believe that Harrison Ford would be so kind of like, you know, amoral or sort of, you know, unfeeling towards his family. It's just like, he's Harrison Ford. Can he pull that off?

36:56David Sims:I buy it and I think that innate tension with his persona gives this movie an extra electricity for me.

37:03Griffin Newman:Obviously audiences and I guess critics like we're kind of like, I don't buy it.

37:07Sean Fennessey:I think he's just a really good angry actor. And he has so many great moments of being angry. And this is a very angry character. Get off my plane is an angry moment.

37:18David Sims:I think it's playing with, you're watching him and going, this guy can't actually believe everything he's saying in that Han Solo way. Right? Surely at some point, if his children and his wife plead with him, he will break with this act. And I think that gives the movie a really interesting dramatic tension. I agree. Do you know who we originally wanted to...

37:39Sean Fennessey:Well, let's open the dossier. Let's open the dossier. Let's let David tell us, because these are the conventions of your podcast.

37:44Griffin Newman:Thank you. Author Paul Theroux, uncle of Justin. Yes. Indeed. Who later played Allie in Apple TV Plus' The Mosquito Coast. I tried to watch this.

37:55Sean Fennessey:I didn't.

37:56Griffin Newman:I did not.

37:57Sean Fennessey:Did you know there are two seasons and 17 episodes?

37:59Griffin Newman:This is my question. I'm like, this movie I think is good, but it's a tough hang at two hours long. Why on earth would I want this stretched to TV?

38:07David Sims:David, I have a piece of news that is going to make you slam your own head against the Bible. Go ahead. There is a quote. Let me see if I can find it here from. I thought you're going to say season three coming soon. Yeah, right.

38:20Sean Fennessey:It was Neil Cross, the creator of the TV show, the guy who did loofah. Yes. And Tom Bissell was the co-writer of this series. He was a wonderful writer.

38:27David Sims:In a 2023 interview with Deadline Hollywood, the original novels author, Paul Theroux, hoping for a third season that would segue into the events of his novel, praised the series. The two seasons that exist... It's all set up, baby. ...all laying runway for what happens in the book and this movie. The classic prestige TV thing of, we all know Mosquito Coast, right? What if it takes 50 hours to get to the starting point?

38:54Griffin Newman:From my kind of glance at what the episodes were, yes. I think season one ends with them kind of getting to the Mosquito Coast. Yeah, but there's so much stuff in it.

39:03Sean Fennessey:I mean, I was reading about it last night. It's like there's a hitman who's after Ali and the CIA is involved.

39:08Griffin Newman:It's just so very exemplary of, you know, what went wrong on that side of the game. Yes, give me a hundred random hearts instead of one three-season. I could not agree more. But Paul Thoreau starts working on this manuscript. The book, the novel, was published in 1981. It is a time, of course, existential crisis and malaise for America. Jimmy Carter, you know, interest rates going crazy, oil embargo, and, you know, he talks... It's morning in America. That's what you mean. Well, no, it wouldn't be morning in America until this movie came out. And of course, Ronald Reagan, as noted on the Wikipedia page, did watch this movie.

39:47Griffin Newman:I wonder what he thought of it.

39:48Sean Fennessey:It's dusk in America. It's dusk in America. It's dusk in America.

39:51Griffin Newman:And Thoreau says that, like, the sort of encroachment of Japanese business, I guess, was a big thing. Obviously, that's a thing in this movie. I remember that as a child. So quaint now, but like that he's like, yeah, you would look at your coffee cup and it would say made in Japan or was like automakers as a young kid in the 80s.

40:10Sean Fennessey:I very vividly remember my parents at the dinner table talking about the incursion of Toyota and Honda. And what does this mean?

40:17Griffin Newman:So he creates this character, Ali Fox. He sees him as a quintessentially American character. That's basically like, I hate the government. I hate what's happened. I want to buy my own town and figure it out. Jonestown, Jim Jones. Oh, good guy. Yeah, great. A lot of ideas. Big, big idea guy. Yeah. Would have been a great podcaster.

40:38David Sims:Can you imagine? He had some strong ideas. If he had just gotten that out of his system in the podcast space. It would have been the Jim-osphere. Ayo.

40:48Griffin Newman:Obviously, the Jim Jones experience. The Jonestown massacre is 78, I think. So it's like, you know, the idea of trying to create your utopia in the jungle and it all going wrong

40:59Sean Fennessey:is fresh on his mind. I do like this. I think it's a little bit of a riff too on like Brook Farm and Utopian Societies from the 1800s which is a quite a rabbit hole if you are interested.

41:11Griffin Newman:And I will be starting a Utopian Society in 2026. Haven't whittled all the details down but you know let me know any ideas. Sims City. That's my pivot. Yes. Sims City is en route.

41:23Sean Fennessey:Yeah. What do they have there? What are they what do we do there? Is it a, is it a commune style? Or we all have, we do, we all do the same job.

41:33Griffin Newman:I'm just thinking like things I want where I'm like napping. Yeah. Who's in charge of tweeting? You know, you can do that. Sandwich place. Yeah. Yeah. Subs. Super Nintendo. Just like, what do I want to do? Nothing. I'm just imagining David being with friends.

41:52David Sims:I can't respond to that yet. I can promise you there will be fries. Right.

41:56Griffin Newman:Right. Yeah. Running water. We love that. So he goes to, Thoreau goes to Honduras and China also. I guess just trying to sort of take stock of things. An American author called Moritz Thompson. He meets him in Ecuador. I don't know. You know, a lot of stuff. I'm not going to get into all this, but he is right. He is like focused on like the book will be from the perspective of Ali's son, not Ali. like this needs to be you know not a completely you know just like you're in the brain of this man thing like you're sympathetic to him no you're watching this man go down this path the rights get picked up immediately pretty much by Salzanet's company it's a hugely celebrated novel exactly and Salzanet's company had done Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus so they're you know riding high he's won two of his

42:50David Sims:eventual three best picture Oscars right what was the third? English person right I think it's Zantz yeah sorry yeah sorry it's all Zantz you're right like ants

42:59Griffin Newman:I always yeah yeah yeah Sylvester Sloan

43:03Sean Fennessey:Paul Schrader a great identifier of quality prestige material at that time yes absolutely and was Milos Forman's guy

43:10David Sims:it was like this guy knows how to pick him yeah

43:13Sean Fennessey:and also he knew how to pick the Hobbit which he owned the rights to for a very long time that was an easy check

43:19Griffin Newman:to cash for a while unbelievable his name's on every one of those fucking things yep

43:23David Sims:He made up a contract and he sat on it for 25 years. Paul Schrader. Heard of him? Yes. Another normal fella. I guess I must have known that he wrote this at some deep recess of my brain. And yet when the opening credits hit last night, I was rubbing my hands like Harrison Ford. Let's get to work.

43:42Sean Fennessey:Obviously, of course he wrote this movie.

43:44Griffin Newman:Exactly. It appeals. Obviously, he has fully transitioned at this point to mostly directing, writing, directing. Oh, okay.

43:51David Sims:You meant at this point, not present day.

43:54Griffin Newman:He takes this on, however, only to write. He wants to make Mishima. That's his sort of big... He has just done Cat People. And so he does like it, though. In 2021, he says Fox is an all-American hustler, the con man, the Donald Trump character, the sawdust preacher. He said that in 2021, though. He didn't say that in 82. Oh, okay. He could have said it in 82. Peter Weir, who has made Picnic and Hanging Rock in the last wave and is looking to pivot out of that. We talk about this a lot on Witness, that he maybe was going to direct The Thorn Birds, which eventually turns into a television miniseries.

44:30Griffin Newman:Has Year of Living Dangerously already happened? Or is this kind of contemporaneous?

44:34David Sims:Yeah.

44:34Griffin Newman:But, well, no, it hasn't happened when he's circling The Thorn Birds. That's my question. Right. That's post-last wave. Yeah. That's his first dip into should I do a Hollywood thing. Instead, no. He goes and makes Gallipoli. Year of Living Dangerously is a co-production with MGM, so Hollywood's entering. he reads mosquito book he just mosquito mosquito book and he just loves how bizarre it is he loves how this is like a shakespearean protagonist right like you're just watching him like crack right it's an incredible setup for a movie and it's like to him it is like he's like it's like an american macbeth or whatever right like it's just like the unraveling of a man but this very american kind of man i yeah yeah and so he's into that and he likes the idea of a harrison Ford or someone else.

45:22Griffin Newman:He mentions like John Wayne, Steve McQueen, like taking some American guy. Playing with someone's hero iconography. Yeah. Super cool. Paul Schrader obviously has done the screenplay. They all chat. We're basically sticks to Schrader's script. He had some ideas to futz with it, but I think he ended up basically using what he was given. he printed a pamphlet of Allie Fox's rants from the book that he titled The Thoughts of Allie Fox. I guess just to sort of get into that vibe.

45:59David Sims:Allie Fox, another guy who could have gotten a lot out of his system with a podcast.

46:03Griffin Newman:And to get to what Griffin was queuing up, Jack Nicholson is the early and very logical choice to star in this film.

46:12David Sims:Now, Jack Nicholson, audiences like watching him spiral. Jack. It is appealing to watch Nicholson do anything, especially when the behavior is bad and the psychosis is high. And so I think this movie doesn't work with him as much as it makes sense because he's almost like too charismatic, too compelling. And to watch his life spiral just becomes like jungle shining.

46:38Sean Fennessey:Here's a weird thing about this movie, though. I would argue Harrison Ford's character is more or less consistent through the entire movie. At the very beginning of the film, the piss and vinegar and all the speechifying, he's basically the same guy at the end of the movie. He never really moves off of any position. He doesn't do that thing that you're talking about that Nicholson does, where over the course of 100 minutes, you watch a guy go from normal to completely insane. You know, the Witches of Eastwick-style meltdown. Ali like all the way through his death

47:11David Sims:is a true believer in himself more than anything this guy starts at 100 and he refuses to give up a single percentage point even as he is faced with evidence that he is wrong you know that's the common slam that I disagree with on Nicholson's casting in Shining is that that guy is too baseline crazy for a movie that needs to be built around him dissolving and I think the magic of Nicholson is he can start a movie and you go that's the most guy I've ever seen and then he finds a way to add more yeah

47:41Griffin Newman:that's why Shining's so good

47:43David Sims:but I also think right it's he would

47:46Sean Fennessey:there's too much eyebrow work going on in the first 30 minutes of Shining where you just like just tone down the inherent malevolence of whatever you are doing

47:53David Sims:if Nicholson was playing Allie Fox he would be ratcheting yes he wouldn't stay at the same level where the point is this guy's unbendable he would be going crazy I think he'd be good he's a good actor I'm not saying he'd be bad.

48:07Sean Fennessey:I think he makes a little more sense in the early 80s than he does in the mid-80s as well.

48:11David Sims:I'm just making the case for why I think Ford is the perfect guy because you've already set out this question of

48:17Griffin Newman:was he right? Well, they considered him perfect, but Saul Zantz. Zantz? Zantz. I thought it was Zantz. Is it Zantz? I don't know. Who knows?

48:25David Sims:Zantz like Zantz.

48:26Griffin Newman:I'm trying to remember the pronunciation of the 1997 Oscars. For some reason, thinks himself like as like a kingmaker for Nicholson. He's like, I made your career with Cuckoo's Nest. Cuckoo's Nest at this point is like 10 years old. But it won him his first Oscar. I know, but like Jack Nicholson has gone on to, you know, continue to succeed. And so he lowballs him and Nicholson's like, fuck you. Like, you don't get to lowball me just because like you made a good movie with me a while ago. Right? Like, and so it turns into an ego thing. And of course, what does Harrison Ford get paid? The salary Jack wanted.

49:04Griffin Newman:So it's like, it's all silliness. Schrader calls it a pissing contest. Schrader also says it obviously would have been a much better film with Jack. So I guess we know where Schrader lands on this one.

49:16Sean Fennessey:Well, that's because Ford has been publicly critical of the script that they ended up making. Right. Which is not the script he thought they ultimately should have made.

49:22Griffin Newman:Paul Schrader doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who grinds axes. I don't know what you're talking about. But while this is all happening, the film falls apart, obviously, and Weir goes over to Witness, which is this like go picture that has Ford attached, that has producers, that has studio, you know, Blah, blah, blah. Witness gets made. Right. Rocks.

49:38David Sims:But like halfway through filming Witness, Weir starts like... Weir's like, I got this thing I want to do. Yeah. And Ford's immediately in, goes to his reps. His reps are like, you shouldn't do this. And Ford is undeterred. He's like, I like this guy. I like this character. I like Weir. I want to go.

49:55Griffin Newman:A lot of the stuff I'm quoting is from an article that was on The Ringer in 2021, by the way, Sean. Oh, great. And Ford, you know, and Weir agree, They don't want to be completely slavish to the book. They think in the book Fox is crazy from the beginning. They think they should build up to it. Now, I am not sure they succeeded at that. I agree with what you guys are saying, where I'm like, he's pretty crazy from the start. He's just very ranty. He's got all these philosophizing. Jason Alexander is like, get me out of here. I don't want to deal with you anymore. Jason Alexander, very effective.

50:30Griffin Newman:Yeah, he's good. Yeah. Ford says, found him more right than wrong in what he was saying. There's the complexity of the family story, the relationship between a father and son and husband and wife. There's humor and pathos. I mean, like you say, Ford's very good at talking like in an emotional and complex way about the work he does. He loves Peter Weir. He says he's got vision, you know, like, that's great. And he calls himself an assistant storyteller. He's like, I'm the person who calls for logic and a plotting kind of determination to have all the cards on the table.

51:01David Sims:This is what I was about to say. And we talked about this a lot in Witness, that he really thinks of himself as a storyteller first and foremost, and that's his main function as an actor, especially since he usually plays the steady guy at the center to help carry the audience through the story. I would argue this is the first time he's playing a character where that is not his primary responsibility. Where his primary responsibility is, get this guy right. Because in a certain way, Phoenix is carrying the story more. Weir is really carrying the story. Phoenix is carrying the emotion. Yeah, right.

51:34David Sims:The audience is not being carried by Ali Fox in watching this film.

51:40Sean Fennessey:So, it's a movie where the villain is the hero. It's very uncommon.

51:44Griffin Newman:It's very uncommon, especially, obviously, for a Hollywood movie starring fucking Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The crew is mostly Australian, and this is something I think is worth noting. Both Weir and John Seale agree. If Harrison Ford was an American, he would be Australian. They're like, he's just got a very Australian vibe. He wants to sit in a deck chair. He wants to like, you know, drink beers with the mates. You know what I mean? Like, it's just kind of like an Australian without actually being from Australia. Harrison Ford suggested River Phoenix thought that he looked like him as a young man and had liked him in like Stand By Me and shit.

52:22Griffin Newman:Helen Mirren had only done one Hollywood movie, which is 2010. Normal movie. I guess Excalibur was released by Warner Brothers, but was British. Yeah, and that was all shot in Britain and all that. So she's kind of like a little overwhelmed and starstruck and like, Harrison Ford, this is intense. And, you know, she wants to, she envisions herself as like beautiful and floating through the jungle. And Peter Weir is like, no, you're not going to wear any makeup, bro. Like this is, yeah, this is a dirty movie. They shoot it in Belize, in Central America. and especially back then I think Belize was pretty off grid and so it was like a long sort of humid kind of tough shoot but Ford looks back on it really fondly he's like I had a wooden yacht I mean I don't know that's the Harrison Ford's thing is just like I had a vehicle right

53:15Sean Fennessey:you know what's notable about

53:17Griffin Newman:the time for him he's not

53:19Sean Fennessey:yet a father that hasn't had any kids so

53:22Griffin Newman:So who did he have kids with? Was it Melissa Matheson?

53:25Sean Fennessey:It's the next year. He has five kids. Yeah.

53:28Griffin Newman:Total. Yeah. Is that right?

53:29Sean Fennessey:Am I getting that right?

53:30Griffin Newman:And then if you think about shrinking seasons as his children, it's even more children.

53:35Sean Fennessey:But is he, how old is he when this movie comes out?

53:38David Sims:43? 44?

53:40Griffin Newman:Let's think. Yeah. About, yeah. About that. Yeah.

53:43Sean Fennessey:44-ish. No, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. He's got an, he's got, he has an older son at this point. Okay. I misspoke. because he has two kids in the 80s and then he has one kid with Calista Flockhart as well. He had... All right, I'm going to give it all to you.

53:56Griffin Newman:He had two kids. Okay, two kids. With Mary Marghart. This is sort of like way pre-fame in the 60s. It's with Melissa Matheson. He had two sons in the 60s. Then he has two kids with Melissa Matheson, a son and a daughter in 87 and 90. And then he did have a son with Calista Flockhart in 2001. So he is...

54:18Sean Fennessey:He's a daddy. He's in Allie mode. Yeah. And he is not Allie McBeal.

54:21Griffin Newman:He's daddy.

54:22David Sims:He is daddy. We talked a lot. I had sunglasses somewhere I was going to put them on. We talked a lot in our witness episode with your co-host Amanda Dobbins.

54:29Griffin Newman:Wait, what? We'll delete it. We'll delete it. We'll delete it. I'm sorry.

54:34David Sims:I'm so sorry. You what? I'm so sorry. Is that the hottest he's ever been in a movie? And we basically landed on that or Working Girl.

54:44Sean Fennessey:I'm shocked to hear that that was Amanda's take.

54:46David Sims:he's not obviously appealing in the same way in this film he does look fucking good he does

54:53Sean Fennessey:his hair looks good the glasses work he's just a very strong man he's not diesel he's just a strong man you know when you met a man in 1987 and you're like this guy he's got some strength on him

55:09David Sims:broad shoulders

55:10Sean Fennessey:significant arms

55:12David Sims:he's just a sturdy guy

55:14Sean Fennessey:this man's held lumber in his hands you know he knows what a power saw feels like he knows how to

55:20David Sims:crash a plane

55:21Griffin Newman:that's he really knows weirdly weirdly weirdly close to that one you know they shoot the film as Sean was alluding to there's a lot of push and pull over like to what extent did they just shoot the script Weir's always very like oh you know I like to discover stuff on set and you know like I guess that's sort of the debate of authorship here but you know I mean

55:45Sean Fennessey:Schrader makes this a stranger movie. Paul Theroux's writing, he's one of the great travel writers of all time. He wrote this great book, if you have not read it, called The Great Railway Bazaar. It's considered one of the foremost travelogue, nonfiction, journey movies ever. He makes his name by being a white man from Massachusetts who goes to Africa, goes to Singapore, goes to all over Europe, travels the world, writes about his experiences in this very forthright, but emotional way. A lot of his novels are like this They are emotional pragmatist novels And Paul Schrader is not an emotional pragmatist He's the opposite He is a person of extraordinary Outsized biblical intensity And so there is this clash In what the story is meant to be And how people felt about the novel And where the movie ends up Which is, you know It's one of Schrader's underground men Like that's ultimately what this movie is

56:43David Sims:So if we view like the spectrum of Thoreau, it feels like is creating this Ali Fox character as like a shadow version of himself, right? Interrogating his worst fears of who he is and what he's doing, entering these other cultures and then reporting back to other people. And that the most curdled version of that is going, I know how I could do this better. I could just do this and I'd have it all figured out. And even that scene where they go to the home of the workers and he's showing the kids around and he's like, look at this. They live like kings. We can do this. Right. This weird kind of like exoticism and like putting them on a pedestal in a way that is condescending in its own sense.

57:25David Sims:It feels like Thoreau is like litigating his own concerns about where do I stand on this?

57:30Sean Fennessey:Yes. Right. That's why it's written through the eyes of the child. Right.

57:32David Sims:Then not within this specific world, but as you said, Schrader is a mole man, he's an underground man, and he is someone who digs in and spirals into things like this. This is not his world, but he more closely represents the psychology of someone like an alley fox. And then Weir is all the way on the other end of Thoreau being like, I actually have objectivity and distance from both of you. And Weir is really good at looking at different cultures butting up against each other with a sense of distance. And Ford says that one of the things he loved about Weir is that he finds that a lot of times the best filmmakers at making films about America are the ones who are on the outside.

58:13Sean Fennessey:Well, the other weird thing that you guys I'm sure will be getting to in this series is that most of his best movies are about the relentless power of the natural world. That like getting stuck somewhere or stuck inside of something, you cannot beat Mother Nature. And this is a movie that ultimately becomes most interested in that in the third act. I haven't read this novel, this through novel, so I can't say how much fealty there is. But to me, that's what Weir brings, which is there's a there's a fucking typhoon happening and there's no one better suited to putting that on screen than this director at this time.

58:47Sean Fennessey:But you take those those three interests, right? You take the mole man, you take Harrison Ford trying to subvert. Yes, trying to make a new persona for himself. and you take this great naturalist using this text that is like meant to be, I think a movie about how when you're a kid, you think your parents are heroic and perfect and then you turn a certain age and you realize they're as full of shit as anybody. That's the core emotional turn of this book, which is a great idea that I think most people can relate to. It just so happens that rather than like your parents getting a divorce or moving to a new city or changing jobs or losing their job, he moves them to a different country.

59:31David Sims:This guy is about as full of shit as you possibly could be and the world calls his bluff so fucking hard. Yes, the planet does. Right, an exploded version of what you're saying. I just have to bring this up because the quote is really funny. But Ford talking about his opinion that foreign directors often comment on America better than American directors. And he said, you know, the problem you get into is you work with foreign directors if they don't have a handle on the language, then what they gain in perspective, they're losing the ability to communicate with the cast and crew. And he said, but Peter doesn't have that problem.

1:00:06David Sims:He's Australian, and they speak something close to English. That's a good point. Which is a great Ford joke.

1:00:13Griffin Newman:Good Ford joke.

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1:01:31Sean Fennessey:I recently ordered some trees.

1:01:34David Sims:I am Groot. What's that? Just throwing in some quotes that feel relevant as reactions. Got it.

1:01:40Sean Fennessey:Now, initially, of course, I was going to let Griffin have his pick because it just ended up being that you had too many trees in your yard.

1:01:47David Sims:It's a problem. I mean, I'm all thumbs, green thumbs. I got 10 green thumbs. It's hard for me to do any other task because I'm so busy planting trees and watching them grow so fast.

1:01:58Sean Fennessey:So graciously, he allowed me to select some trees. And so I actually picked some stuff out for my dad. Oh, very nice. Humble brag.

1:02:07David Sims:So he got himself a couple of sky pencil holly trees.

1:02:12Griffin Newman:Oh, cool. I'm going to look these up. Oh, very nice. Oh, yeah. They're sort of like tall, thin boys. Yeah. Yep. and then he also got a lilac shrub.

1:02:23David Sims:A lilac shrub? Is that his favorite color?

1:02:25Sean Fennessey:In this economy?

1:02:26David Sims:Yeah.

1:02:27Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Lilac is through the roof. And I love the smell of a lilac flower. So the whole process was so easy. The thing I really love as far as like the features that are available on this site is you enter in your zip code and it gives you a growing zone. So you're able to pick out the right kinds of plants that are going to thrive in your climate. Mm. He's planted this stuff. Yeah. It all came healthy, like they said. Yeah. And they look great.

1:02:55David Sims:And I bet it planted a big old smile on his face to watch these trees. Absolutely. And now here's the best part.

1:03:01Sean Fennessey:I went and I helped him out and I got to dig a hole. That is the best part. One, two, three.

1:03:05David Sims:Life's a hole. Dig it, Joe Dirt.

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1:03:40David Sims:And I have one last thing to say.

1:03:42Sean Fennessey:Please.

1:03:42David Sims:life is like a box of chocolates poor scum very good thank you

1:03:54David.

1:03:55David Sims:Yes. You like to cook. Yeah, I love to cook. You make food for your family. Yep. How much time does that take? An hour. Too long. I don't have it. I don't have it. David, I'm too busy. You don't understand how busy I am. I need a complete meal that I can digest in 30 seconds. That's the prep time I can allot. Yep. Well, how do you solve this problem? The fine folks at Huel, our new sponsors, the fine folks at Huel sent over a big box of stuff that makes it a lot easier. Okay. Can you tell me about Huel? High protein, zero prep. I feel great after. Huel is the easiest thing I've added to my routine heading into the summer.

1:04:33David Sims:What kind of stuff are they giving you? Okay. They give me a couple different form factors. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah.

1:04:38Griffin Newman:I got this big delivery. Yes. There was powder. Mm-hmm. There were bottles. Yes. There was a big bottle that I could mix stuff in, but there were also cans. That's a shaker. Yeah. Kind of like, you know, Tall Boys. Yes. But of Huel. Yes. Not of, you know, anything else. They have, what? They're gluten-free. I can tell you that. They've got 27 of essential vitamins and minerals. 35 grams of protein. It's a complete meal you can grab and go. My gosh. This is the Black Edition ready to drink. Yes.

1:05:11David Sims:I got those chocolate peanut butter flavor. That's like sort of the equivalent of a complete meal. But then you also got these daily green multivitamin drinks. Oh, and you love those. You love a green drink. The RTDs, the ready to drinks. It's a big, tall can. You put it in the refrigerator. I'm not good at remembering to eat my vegetables. But these things taste pretty good and you just knock it back. No, but I mean, like, are you liking them? I feel like you often really like the, yeah. I genuinely have made this a part of my morning routine. And it's helpful to have it be just a thing in my routine like that rather than just constantly being like, oh, right, I should eat more of this.

1:05:46David Sims:I should balance the diet in that way. So open up the fridge, knock it back. I have a limited time offer for you. That's so kind of you.

1:05:54Griffin Newman:Get Huel today with our exclusive offer of 15 % off online with our code CHECK at Huel.com slash CHECK. That's H-U-E-L.com slash CHECK. New customers only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show. If you're busy, Huel's a game changer. I'm glad you're using it, Griffin.

1:06:20David Sims:Andre Gregory, pretty brilliant casting choice, in my opinion. Yeah, he's really good. My Dinner with Andre, the first movie he's in, period. Sure. He's obviously not someone who, I think, designs on having a movie career. He's an avant-garde theater guy. Right. And then he has this weird arthouse breakout. and by the time we get to the 90s it's like can we plug Andre Gregory into Demolition Man and shit but this is a really smart place to put him it's a different character than he is but it's using his same ability to talk with authority yeah

1:06:55Griffin Newman:he had been in Author Author the forgotten Al Pacino Arthur Hiller movie Author Author he's in the Goldie Hawn cocktail waitress congressional scandal film protocol also somewhat forgotten yes written by buck henry uh right and then this after this he does street smart uh which he's he's good that's a decent movie uh he's john the baptist in last temptation of christ normal performance uh i really love that movie uh paul schrader also took a pass at that one well he wrote it yeah i mean well i guess you know the bible first he took a pass on the bible

1:07:32David Sims:quick dialogue polish on the Bible

1:07:34Griffin Newman:he's a good counter to Ford he is charismatic in his own weird way but in a very different way

1:07:41David Sims:yeah than Harrison it's not movie star energy

1:07:43Griffin Newman:no

1:07:43David Sims:he's not he's a reedy narrow

1:07:45Griffin Newman:yeah

1:07:46David Sims:hectoring it's intellectual titan energy yeah which he was able to translate well

1:07:50Griffin Newman:to movies but yeah the film starts before we even get to Andre Gregory with he's an inventor that's Ali Fox's deal what's the math he's got

1:08:00David Sims:Six patents, three more pending.

1:08:03Griffin Newman:River Phoenix is laying it all out for us.

1:08:05Sean Fennessey:I thought it was nine patents, six pending.

1:08:06Griffin Newman:I think that's right. Yeah. He's trying to build an ice machine that he has dubbed Fat Boy. And he is just kind of a tough hang. He goes to the hardware store and starts yelling about how things are made in Japan, where it's like, okay, buddy, like, it's not fucking anyone's fault.

1:08:25David Sims:Like, have some human compassion. Of Blank Track, incredibly normal guy.

1:08:30Sean Fennessey:He's very angry about the phrase, have a nice day, which I enjoy. This is what's so... That's a great thing to get mad about.

1:08:37David Sims:What's so funny... But if that's what you're... How are you going to just draw a breath every morning? But this is what I think is fascinating about watching this movie for the first time last night, is the targets are different, but in so many ways, it feels like this movie must have been presenting a character of like, look at our creation. We've imagined the least normal, most wound up man in the world. Even when he's right, it's annoying, right? And you're just like, I can't imagine someone being this fucking on their high horse all the time. And then you're like, the targets are different, but he has so much of a similarity to today's like Fox News poison person getting upset about like, they don't even say Merry Christmas at Starbucks.

1:09:18David Sims:Like all of his weird graces.

1:09:20Griffin Newman:So deep in a hole. Ben, what do you want to say?

1:09:22Sean Fennessey:Somewhat triggering for me because it does remind me of my dad. in a very particular way, which is that he always would just spout off about people who drove luxury cars, but in an intense way where he'd be like, fuck this BMW driver. I hope he crashes because the guy who cut him off.

1:09:43Griffin Newman:Right. Mercedes, Lexus. He goes a little... He just was like... He jumps up on the rage scale.

1:09:48Sean Fennessey:...monologuing about how anyone who drives these cars is a piece of shit. And I remember being a kid being like, Dude, chill out. Not to generalize.

1:09:58David Sims:My God. I do feel like everyone's dad has at least one thing like that where you're like, why are you so wound up about this thing?

1:10:06Sean Fennessey:Can I tell you what my dad's is? Yeah. My parents split. My dad got remarried. Married a lovely woman named Colleen. Colleen loves Bruce Springsteen. My dad will not accept that Bruce Springsteen's nickname is The Boss. My dad is like, he's not the boss. I'm the boss. I swear to god my father has said that out loud At least a dozen times

1:10:29Griffin Newman:So he's just like No one but I Can be the boss

1:10:34Sean Fennessey:I think he's like what makes him the boss The boss of what I think he's genuinely rageful About this idea It's a very I mean it's daddish How do you feel about the wrestler boss man The big boss man From Marietta County I think he's a problematic figure? Yeah, didn't he like portraying the police thing? I believe he hit people with batons in the ring. What about the... That's coming back to me now. I think he probably

1:11:04Griffin Newman:wouldn't work now as a heel. Isn't the reason, I only know this because I've been remembering about the movie, the very good Scott Cooper movie that's so... I thought you were going to say

1:11:13Sean Fennessey:the Big Boss Man movie.

1:11:14Griffin Newman:Yeah, I'm writing about the... I'm writing a Big Boss Man. Scott Cooper's doing Big Boss Man. Yeah, exactly. No, it's just, they call him the boss because he did their taxes and shit and finances. And so the E Street band guys would be like, all right, boss. You know what I mean? Because he's the responsible. Yeah. And then eventually that just became the shorthand of like, are you okay, boss? Like, you know, it just, it's funny. Yeah. They weren't like, you're the boss of America's sincerity and integrity. Like, it's like, you know, it was just like,

1:11:42David Sims:oh, boss man over here. My dad is like this with tattoos. Oh, he doesn't like tattoos. If he meets a person with tattoos, he can't get over it. He's like, why did they do that? or what does it mean? Like, what does he focus on? It's like a ding on character. He'll describe someone as like, they look so funky. It's all the tattoos and the thing through the nose. And he describes them like, as if they are like, mutant, like Mad Max wasteland freaks. Right. But I think Ali Fox is, what if your dad was like this about every single thing? That's the thing. He can't, he can't pick one. It's overload.

1:12:19David Sims:It's just gas,

1:12:20Sean Fennessey:like pedal to the metal constantly.

1:12:22David Sims:Because he's already complaining about one thing when Jason Alexander hands him the Japanese pipe and he's like, we're shifting. I'm taking the off-ramp. Now I'm angry about this. Like, he's interrupting his own rants with other rants that present themselves.

1:12:35Griffin Newman:But he's, like, there's a moment where he's like, I can shop somewhere else. You're not the only game in town. I'm like, if you're like this, how are you letting to any store? Like, at a certain point shortly, don't people go, out of here, buddy. Like, no.

1:12:48David Sims:There's a very subtle cut to Jason and Alexander when he enters the store and he underplays it beautifully but he has that air of

1:12:56Sean Fennessey:just a little But for every person that reacts that way, and we've already invoked Jim Jones and Joe Rogan in this discussion but there is a massive appeal of a philosopher king. Somebody who comes in and says, I have a really defined worldview and I am charismatic and propulsive in delivering the way that I see the world. And join me or don't, but if you don't, it may be at your peril. That's a very effective leadership philosophy. Not one that I practice, but one that is very appealing and actually makes sense as a lead character in a big story.

1:13:36David Sims:Now, Allie Fox is not charismatic, but Harrison Ford is charismatic. So even him leaning into the worst of this character, he's charismatic enough for the audience to pay attention. You throw out William Hurt, who's probably a better literal interpreter of this character at this time, right?

1:13:52Griffin Newman:And it's right at the peak of his craft. Yeah, this is in his wheelhouse

1:13:56David Sims:of the type of character he plays. But I think if it's William Hurt at the center of this movie, five minutes in, you're like, well, fuck this guy. He's a bad hang. I know he's wrong. There's just enough Harrison Ford magic for an audience to go like, can he pull it off? Even when the guy's annoying. And I think it's what I've already said that like, you're like, but is he going to kind of come to his senses? William Hurt, you're like, the guy's never going to learn. Yeah,

1:14:23Sean Fennessey:and the movie was DOA because the word of mouth is so bad because he doesn't. Right. I mean,

1:14:28Griffin Newman:I do think fundamentally guys as much as we're, you know, like it's like, there's no version of this movie that is much more successful. There's a version where like it's better acclaimed by critics and it makes a little bit more money. But like, you still see this as, this is like a sort of a$30 million ceiling movie.

1:14:45Sean Fennessey:There is a way to make it a more successful movie, which is at the moment, post-Typhoon, when Mother says we could walk up the beach to Cape Cod, if he says yes and builds a boat that gets them back home, he's inventor power. And if the movie ends in that way, it's a bigger movie.

1:15:07Griffin Newman:Instead, Andre Gregory has to murk him, just absolutely lay waste at him. Like, you don't want to go out at the hands of Andre Gregory. No. That's not good.

1:15:16Sean Fennessey:Pretty lame. Although in the book, his death is very different. Oh, how does he die in the book? He doesn't just die on the boat. He is picked to death by vultures. Oh, that sounds awesome. Which is a recurring theme apparently in the book that he keeps saying, I hate vultures. And he kind of compares...

1:15:30Griffin Newman:I hate vultures too, by the way! Fucking vultures!

1:15:33Sean Fennessey:Get off my flesh! The vultures of...

1:15:38Griffin Newman:Oh my God. Who likes vultures?

1:15:41Sean Fennessey:He keeps saying like the vultures of society and drawing all these illusions. And then he is literally picking... That's a little on the nose. A little bit, yeah.

1:15:48David Sims:Yeah. But I like that within the movie itself, Gregory is charismatic in a way that he is not. Mm-hmm. Yeah. When you're saying... Inside the movie. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. This sort of like philosopher king, like he's able to fulfill that in a way where even though he's actually has, you could argue, less on his mind and less to represent, he is able to sell it more convincingly to people

1:16:15Sean Fennessey:his ideas just don't need to be sold to the audience because it's just Judeo-Christian values that's what he represents and the idea of the missionary as in theory benevolent figure but in practice maybe a little bit more insidious like Ben was saying

1:16:26David Sims:you can autocomplete you can fill in the blanks in knowing both silos of that Martha Plimpton is quite good in this film

1:16:37Griffin Newman:when's she bad?

1:16:39David Sims:never ever. This is the start of her River Phoenix relationship?

1:16:43Griffin Newman:Yeah, I believe so. So she'd been in the Goonies, which the year before, right? That's kind of her breakout, right? Yes. Was there a TV thing? No, there wasn't. Like, that was her breakout. No, I just feel like there was another film I'm forgetting. There is. There's like this movie The River Rat with Tommy Lee Jones, but like, you know, I don't think that was a very big movie. Her breakthroughs, The Goonies. What if there was a River Rat? Exactly. A provocative question. I believe it's her. I think. I'm not sure. And then she popped up on Family Ties at some point, but that's all. This is basically the immediate follow-up to Goonies.

1:17:14Griffin Newman:She's also in Running on Empty. Well, that's true, which she's very good in, but no, she's also in Stars and Bars, our favorite movie that we keep invoking.

1:17:23David Sims:The cast of this movie is freaking insane.

1:17:25Griffin Newman:Griffin, look, Joan Cusack, Keith David. Griffin, you will listen to the big picture episode I did about this months ago. I run through the list just being like, how could this movie Rockets Red Glare? Rockets Red Glare, the possible murderer of Nancy Spudgeon is in it. Yes. Among the other things.

1:17:46Sean Fennessey:It's an insane collection of people who are great and the movie sucks.

1:17:49David Sims:I feel like I invoked it on our present draft episode on Big Pick. But have any of you seen First Family? That is... No. What even is that? I want to say it's the only movie that Buck Henry directed.

1:18:00Sean Fennessey:I was going to say Buck Henry. Yes, I haven't seen it.

1:18:02David Sims:I think it's its only directorial work. But that is a movie I put off watching for so long.

1:18:07Griffin Newman:Unless, like, he has the director credit on Heaven.

1:18:10David Sims:Oh, of course. His only solo, yes. I put off watching it for so long because I had only heard horrible things, and it's the ultimate. It is a White House comedy where the first family is Bob Newhart as president, Madeline Kahn as first lady, Gilda Radner as their daughter, Harvey Korman, Rip Torn, Austin Pendleton, Fred Willard, Richard Benjamin, supporting cast, written, directed by Buck Henry. You put it on, within 10 minutes, you're like, this is the most rancid shit I have ever seen. It is deathly unfunny and racist. It is all about them negotiating with a fictional African nation. And the second it's represented on screen, you're like, holy shit, all of this is wrong.

1:18:50David Sims:And all the funniest actors you've ever seen are like mirthless, anti-smile in it. So it is not a hidden gem. It does suck. Is Stars and Bars like that? Yeah, kind of.

1:19:01Sean Fennessey:Stars and Bars is... It's not like deep. It's broad in its caricature of the South, but it's not offensive.

1:19:07Griffin Newman:Stars and Bars is just DOA. It's just one of these things where you're like, I don't get it, but yeah, oh, there's no way Metcalf. Yep, she's not doing much either.

1:19:14Sean Fennessey:But Martha Plimpton's character in both of those movies is somewhat similar where it's like, this is an underage, teenage girl who's drawing our lead. A precocious girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:19:25Griffin Newman:Which is, I think, obviously, she's, Martha Plimpton is Keith Carradine's daughter. She's, you know, related to George Plimpton in some way. You know, like, She's got this precocious vibe anyway. But in this movie, she's got the tomboy thing. She's got the Jessica Lovejoy thing going on. She is the Reverend's daughter.

1:19:43David Sims:And she's like a little bit of a rapscallion.

1:19:46Griffin Newman:For sure. I love Martha Plimpton. I think if you want to go to the bathroom. What a line that is. Yeah, that's something she says. Yeah. I think I might. All right, see you later. Ben, Ben, think of us when you're in there. Just to set up a little bit more though, you know, Allie Fox, right? Not only does he hate everything he sees, but he also thinks like the world's about to end. Maybe he keeps talking about nuclear war. He tries to build the ice machine for a farmer that ends up with everyone screaming at each other. Like it feels like anytime he gets a job and sort of descends into recrimination.

1:20:19David Sims:It is such a good scene where the guy is like, you know, and he's getting all high and mighty about what he did well and how he's not respected. And the guy just stops him and is like, I agree that you're a genius. That's why I hired you. You are unbelievably good at what you do. But this right here is your fucking problem. You make everything overcomplicated. This is 10 times more than I asked for. And now it's like misfiring. And you're being a dick about it.

1:20:45Sean Fennessey:So, I mean, this is extremely obvious. But the modern day equivalent of Ali Fox is Elon Musk. Yeah, sure. This is an inventor. This is a brilliant person. This is a person whose social and moral ideas are pretty nuts. Yeah, like increasingly conspiratorial and bizarre. It does not matter how smart you are. That doesn't make you good.

1:21:08David Sims:That's an interesting idea. But that the driving force is, I have identified problems in our society, and I think I am the only one who knows how to fix them. And I swear to you, I'm doing this for your good. Right, and he is smart,

1:21:24Griffin Newman:but he has no other applicable or sort of demonstrable skills, reason to be doing what he's doing. He basically dropped out of school. Right.

1:21:34David Sims:And then he's basically like, hey, some of our greatest minds.

1:21:37Sean Fennessey:No offense to anybody who dropped out. It's more that like it indicates a lack of follow through for someone who imagines himself as he doesn't want to play by rules.

1:21:45David Sims:I was going to say, I read it more as can you imagine the fights he was getting into his professors with mid class every day? And you're like, and how did he get a lady? Oh, he's Harrison Ford.

1:21:55Griffin Newman:Right. So that's how he did that. But he decides to just he tells his family like, hey, great news. we're leaving the United States. We're getting on a barge. Andre Gregory and Martha Plimpton are going to be there and we are going to fucking Mosquito Coast, baby. I've identified where to be. We're going to make ice there. People are really going to want ice there.

1:22:13David Sims:It's the immigrant employees at this construction site who he starts like coveting.

1:22:18Griffin Newman:And he buys a village and he's like, this rocks! And everyone else is like, we're doomed. It's not looking great.

1:22:26David Sims:Immediate escalation of get off the boat. Look, it's great. And everyone's like, and then a day later he's like better news I have no money now but I own a town and the town looks even worse than the place they landed the boat. Do you guys watch Survivor? No. I watched the first like five years religiously and I've not in two decades. No.

1:22:46Sean Fennessey:This scene has big Survivor energy. I can do this. Survivor is what happens is all the contestants arrive on a boat to an island. It's now been Fiji for whatever ten consecutive years but prior to that they would travel all around the world and go to different islands and they get off the boat and it's obviously this diverse collection of people, men and women from all walks of life, different ages. And they arrive at, they get broken up into teams and they arrive at their individual camps and their camps are entirely undeveloped. And they have to build. They have to build their camp. They have to start pulling, you know, branches down and trees and palm fronds.

1:23:22David Sims:And they always come in really bullish with so much energy. Yes. This is actually easy. This is better.

1:23:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's good.

1:23:28Griffin Newman:No distractions. Here we are.

1:23:30Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And inevitably, by the end of episode one, there's one team at least that's in over their skis and they're kind of fucked. And then over the course of the next six episodes, that tribe gets radically dismantled. And they're screaming at each other. Right. Yes. And this is that. This is that. Yeah. The arrival at the town and it just sucking so hard made me think of the National Lampoon vacation movies, kind of. You're right.

1:23:56David Sims:It is very much that vibe of look at the hotel room I got us reveal bad hotel room.

1:24:00Sean Fennessey:Look how great this is! You're right. And everyone else is like, oh my God.

1:24:04Griffin Newman:The journey to Wally world is like a very, very mild Mosquito Coast kind of thing. Right.

1:24:10David Sims:But talking about recognizable, relatable dad energy, right? The game with Clark Griswold is he knows this isn't good. And he's in such deep denial. He cannot surrender the idea that he's fucked up this vacation. And so he's lying to all of them to try to make it true. When Ali sees, shows them the city for the first time, the town for the first time, what's so compelling is that you're like, this guy 1000 % believes everything he's saying. Look, it's incredible. There's nothing here. We get to start from scratch. Yeah. It's like the dream to him. It's very convincing. Which I, you know, I spend too much time thinking about this, but I have a belief.

1:24:55David Sims:It's not unique to me, but it's one I've been holding onto very strongly that a lot of these people who like are absolute devotees of of musk of trump of many of these kind of like uh i don't know demagogue fascist assholes yes that that part of it is there and it's connected to this fucking like paleo diet shit and let's roll back restrictions on everything that these people do to some degree want to like reset the clock okay so this is

1:25:24Sean Fennessey:something that i did want to speak to you guys about because i i'm not going with you to the mosquito coast. No, I'm not. Well, just a trip. Just a little trip. One live show. One live show. Jungle draft. We do have ice.

1:25:36Griffin Newman:Ice is available. Big ice. At least there's ice. Big ice. Although, how flammable is your ice building? No. The thing that I... Medium.

1:25:45David Sims:You use the ice to put out the flames created by the ice machine.

1:25:48Sean Fennessey:There's a kernel of alley that I relate to, which is a thing that is hitting me very hard now at this stage of my life. which is I do fantasize a little bit about leaving it behind. It's a big time. I am a little bit like I have signed up for a lot. I've been doing a lot for a long time.

1:26:10Griffin Newman:And how much of this do I actually like at all? I'm detecting a lot of too many projects from you.

1:26:16Sean Fennessey:You know, like my own making my own problem. I blame no one but myself. But when you are like that, when you live like that for a long time, and I've been living like that for about 10 years, there is a part of me that is just like, it doesn't have to be Honduras. It could be a small town north of Seattle.

1:26:35David Sims:Right. That sounds lovely. Is there a way to shrink my life by control?

1:26:39Sean Fennessey:Yes.

1:26:39David Sims:Which I think is like, yes, that is the relatable part of this, which is, and when you're in that kind of state, you get so hypersensitive to all these other indignities of civilization. That's exactly it. And society. Everything else gets more annoying. Which admittedly. It's our fault. those things aren't working well right now. Right. Right. And you're like, okay, so I've opted into too many things that I'm now having regrets about. And then there's all this other shit that I never had the choice to opt in or out of that drives me fucking crazy. The impulse makes sense. And I do think a lot of the anger that causes people to follow these kinds of like insane motherfuckers is that they are speaking to some level of can we burn it all down?

1:27:21David Sims:Right. And even like Make America Great Again isn't about like, can we go back to 1965? But I have no urge to change. We're cavemen better than us.

1:27:29Sean Fennessey:I have no urge to change society or even compel anyone to join me. It's more about my own personal thing. I just want to disappear. Yeah, yeah.

1:27:36David Sims:In a cave with a good home theater system.

1:27:39Sean Fennessey:Yes. With all of my Blu-rays. Great Wi-Fi. And I would like to go with Helen Mirren. I, too.

1:27:45Griffin Newman:Great choice. Sure, why not? River Phoenix, he's a fun hang. Yeah. R.I.P.

1:27:50Sean Fennessey:Now, the cave. like you know there's not gonna be air conditioning well okay let me finish here

1:27:55Griffin Newman:and this planet ain't getting colder no

1:27:58David Sims:no it's not the cave has central air oh I forgot to finish my thoughts sure there is neither sand nor grass as far as

1:28:07Griffin Newman:you are the least outdoorsy guy yeah so living off the grid is really just not for you I feel are you gonna make a fire or how are we cooking food Sean are you outdoorsy electricity I

1:28:18Sean Fennessey:if I had to be I could be but it's not I would like a mid-century modern home. That's what I actually want. I can fuck with that. You know, that sounds nice. With central air sounds useful. Are you sure? I'd like, can I get a playroom for my child?

1:28:33Griffin Newman:But also, well, this is the main thing. It's also right. You have a kid who might be like, hey, a River Phoenix situation of like, I might not be completely interested in what we're doing right now. Like I might have other, you know, feelings and needs. So how quickly do you go like, well, you can't go back. There's been a nuclear war. Yeah. Which is the card that Allie plays. He does. Another thing that's upsetting about this movie is we're seeing the story from the perspective of River Phoenix.

1:28:59David Sims:This guy has too many kids. And the more time you're spending in his son's head with the narration, seeing things through his son's eyes, you're remembering like he's got other kids he's neglecting who are younger, who are less capable of processing this, whose heads we're not even tuned into. Yeah.

1:29:17Sean Fennessey:And the book and the movie are like a pretty gentle social commentary on gender roles and families. And the fact that mother is this like quieted person who has to go along with everything, all of his harebrained schemes. And just make the dresses for everybody.

1:29:31Griffin Newman:It's why this movie is very upsetting. You're watching a family get abused by this parent who is lying to them after forcing him into a situation they don't seem that interested in. And yeah, it's like he hates Reverend Spellgood or whatever. What's this? Yeah, Reverend Spellgood for being a zealot and for, you know, leading a mindless flock or whatever it is. you know, he thinks that's what he really hates is that he has followers. Well, right. But I'm like, you're doing the exact same thing, buddy. Just let's right. You're just doing it only to your family because no one else

1:30:11David Sims:wants to hang out with you. Right. This guy's got a drive in. Yeah. He's got people driving in to hear his words.

1:30:19Griffin Newman:See, my thing reliving off the grid is I don't want to live there off the grid. I want to live on the grid because it has electricity.

1:30:25David Sims:Well, I was going to say you want to live in the literal grid

1:30:27Sean Fennessey:of the world of Tron. Oh, that would be nice. bio-digital jazz. I'm going to see Tron tonight. You are? I was going to go Monday, but then I went to go see Marty's Supreme. Right. I, of course, stuck to my principles and I entered the grave.

1:30:39Griffin Newman:But mostly for your Oscar-watching. Yeah, right. Of course. I was just hearing so much Leto buzz. Yeah. You know, it's a...

1:30:46Sean Fennessey:You liked it?

1:30:48Griffin Newman:Well, it's a fucking dumb movie, but it does look cool. It has light bites in it. It's visually well executed. It's got all the Tron stuff.

1:30:57David Sims:We'll be six months old by the time this comes out. Right. I'm happy to hear that it is watchable. Can I spoil a plot point or do you want to go in cold?

1:31:03Griffin Newman:I mean, I'd rather go in cold, but we're potting. Let's just pod. A thing it does that Legacy didn't do. And I love Legacy. I think Legacy's kind of an awesome movie. JoCo. JoCo. And I also think Legacy predicted the future of all corporate art. Like it just, it's showing you what will happen. If JoCo does Fugitive, are we excited? He's doing Miami Vice instead, right? I know, but I'm saying down the line. Kind of. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, it's like, great.

1:31:28Sean Fennessey:That's a vehicle for a thing you can do. And it has to be a kind of a technocrat. Right.

1:31:33Griffin Newman:Like where are the vehicles?

1:31:34Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:31:35David Sims:He loves vehicles.

1:31:36Griffin Newman:What if it's Tron colon fugitive? That sounds good. A thing that it does that is pure nostalgia bait, you know, is that it goes into 1982 Tron.

1:31:47David Sims:I saw a little bit of this in the trailer and it's the first thing in a year of marketing that has gotten me a little excited for this movie.

1:31:54Griffin Newman:There is everything in that, you know, sequence is again, like I said, it's just nostalgia stuff, but it is so visually well executed that I kind of had to tip my hat to it. And of course, that is where you also get Jeff Bridges just burping. You know what I mean? Like Jeff Bridges just being like, yeah, I am your one legacy character at this point, so I will participate.

1:32:16David Sims:But you're going to get now Bridges. Is he carrying a big barrel with three X's on it? No, but like, it's truly being like, how are you doing?

1:32:25Griffin Newman:And I'm like, this is so far from Is it in the same universe as Legacy?

1:32:30Sean Fennessey:It is. It's a direct sequel to Legacy in ways. Is Garrett Hedlund a part of it?

1:32:33David Sims:They like point to a picture and say like he's off doing his own thing. This is my favorite. He went to the Mosquito Coast.

1:32:40Griffin Newman:It's truly that. It's like Garrett Hedlund, as we know, vanished into the ether with Olivia Wilde. They are not really a part of this movie at all. They have a podcast. And now his company is in the hands of Greta Lee. Yeah. And who's the villain from the first movie? You know, the British guy. I know, but what's the character guy? David Warner's grandson is Evan Peters.

1:33:04David Sims:So is Evan Peters playing Cillian Murphy's son? Because remember, Cillian Murphy is set up as Stark's... Cillian Murphy is not acknowledged.

1:33:12Griffin Newman:Evan Peters is playing Gillian Anderson's son. Okay. But he is a Dillinger, much like Warner. Okay. Yes, he is in that. He's from the Red Guys. Right, Stark Industries, but Dillinger was the... But you know how like Tron, it still boils down to, the blue guys are good, the red guys are bad. And like, just so you can be sure of that, Evan Peters is in a very red room when he's doing his villainy and so on.

1:33:33David Sims:Should our bit for 2026, I'm not saying we're retiring Red Hulk, but listeners being like, well, I know they record these episodes months in advance. It's very funny to listen to June episodes that still have Red Hulk talk because they've just seen it or whatever. And then I've seen our listeners get excited as like, it's October, Red Hulk's still in the convo. They're not giving up on him past relevancy. it wasn't just that it was topical should Tron Aries be our new added we continue talking about Tron Aries for two years yeah please let's talk about Tron Aries I mean I gotta get a bucket we got it I'm sure there will be a very elaborate bucket exactly there are many the arcade machine the cabinet cool there's a bucket that's fucking Aries on the cycle and each wheel has its own

1:34:18Sean Fennessey:popcorn bucket tonight you're getting a bucket um yeah of course put that in my suitcase absolutely one of

1:34:24David Sims:the big the arcade one Which one are you looking at?

1:34:27Sean Fennessey:Let's just look at the bucket. Come on. David, let's look at the bucket.

1:34:29Griffin Newman:I was just going to say one of the big plot points in Ares is, of course, Jared Leto, an actor we all adore. Normal guy. Right. And a guy we adore. An Allie Fox. Right. Plays an AI called Ares that's sort of like a, you know, kind of militaristic.

1:34:45Sean Fennessey:AI? Yeah. What's that? He's a program.

1:34:51David Sims:Awesome intellectual is what it is.

1:34:53Griffin Newman:And the big plot arc of the movie is that he starts to become self-aware and more human and disobeys orders. Right? Right. Can you believe it? There's the popcorn bucket. I looked at it.

1:35:05David Sims:I'm getting it. But then did you see the cycle one? Yeah. Where the popcorn, it goes in the two spaces?

1:35:10Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I'm going to see this movie and then my wife and daughter land at 9 p.m. tonight. So imagine the motorcycle and the arcade cabinet being there waiting for her.

1:35:19David Sims:She-Ra's going to ride that thing. Oh my God.

1:35:21Sean Fennessey:She ever. Really more of a motherboard situation right now.

1:35:26David Sims:Motherboard has Big Tron vibes, though. Motherboard is the tech demon. Yes, she does. Do you know that I've been sending Sean's daughter He-Man toys? I did. Yeah, no, we've touched on it. Kind of a Menchie move. Kind of a Menchie move.

1:35:36Griffin Newman:Great stuff. But just to finish my point, Jared Leto, at his current level of acting effort, if you guys can reflect on his recent... Right. Is totally fine playing a robot, essentially. Uh-huh. Is not so good at the, ah, human emotion is beginning to enter, right? my feelings are emerging. That's an issue with the film, I would say. Another issue is that Greta Lee looks like she wants to just drink poison the whole movie. You know, everyone's just kind of...

1:36:05Sean Fennessey:The Leto thing is bewildering, though.

1:36:07Griffin Newman:We've known. It's because... I know.

1:36:09Sean Fennessey:We've known.

1:36:10Griffin Newman:This project's been in the works for like nine years. It's like a$200 million movie. And Leto's been attached the whole time and I feel like they've just been like, can we get you? And he's like, no!

1:36:20David Sims:I saw a recent interview with him. recent October 2025, not recent next summer when you're listening to this, where he said, and the timeline's crazier than I thought, they write a more direct Tron Legacy sequel.

1:36:33Griffin Newman:It was initially, I think, right, like more tied to Tron Legacy.

1:36:36David Sims:There was a part they offered him in that. He said, no, I'm not interested in this, but this side character you have of Ares, I think is interesting. And then that project fell apart and then they rebooted it, went to him, and said, what if we start the script from scratch and that's the main character and it's you? So it's not just that like they wanted him and he'd been attached for so long.

1:37:01Griffin Newman:And they figured out what to do for him. He wanted to play Ares.

1:37:04David Sims:Him passing on it reset the entire project and they redeveloped it around his taste. That's fucking nuts for a guy that no one likes. A man living in a perpetual mosquito coast.

1:37:19Griffin Newman:It is truly, I will say. And look, this is somewhat of a spoiler, but not really. Don't worry, guys. Because, again, you're not shocked to learn that Ares becomes more human. By the end of the movie, he's gone from, you know, robot, like a programmed red guy to more of a Jared Leto in real life vibes. And I said that he looked like a sentient feather earring. That is really the vibe. It's just like, it's like, ah, right, what emerged was Jared Leto. You got me all geeked up for this right now.

1:37:48Sean Fennessey:Can't wait tonight. Jared Leto. I mean, bucket is by myself in New York City.

1:37:54Griffin Newman:Is this because the film looks like it's going to kind of do OK. It's going to do the classic Tron of like, yeah, it opens like 40 million. And like, that's all right. Tron just always makes a little less than it.

1:38:05Sean Fennessey:It's a little less than we hoped, but it's not a flop between 17 and 27 years. We'll get one more.

1:38:10Griffin Newman:Yeah. But like I was I just I was about to say and to bring it full circle. So then are we done with Lito? But I forgot that he's playing Skeletor. Deletor. Oh, yeah. In fucking the He-Man movie.

1:38:21Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:38:21Griffin Newman:So we're never quite rid of this guy.

1:38:23Sean Fennessey:I'm fucking pumped for Masters of the Universe. I am sure. Travis Knight? Not bad. Funniest moment of CinemaCon by far with Amanda in April, which will now be one year hence. You and Matt Bellamy crying and Amanda just being befuddled. But just as soon as they show the logo, I was like, God damn it. The sword looks right. And she was just so embarrassed.

1:38:45David Sims:Also, all the other casting in that is great.

1:38:47Sean Fennessey:I agree.

1:38:48David Sims:Alison Brie and Idris Elba are like kind of fucking spun on.

1:38:51Griffin Newman:I'm a big Veronica from Riverdale fan. She's in it. Camila Mendes is Tila.

1:38:57Sean Fennessey:Yes.

1:38:58Griffin Newman:A very important character.

1:38:59Sean Fennessey:Tila huge in my home.

1:39:00Griffin Newman:Tila rules. Idris Elba is going to play like kind of like a dad guy. I don't know anything about He-Man. Don't say kind of a dad guy.

1:39:07Sean Fennessey:He-Man is the originating character for my interest in IP genre storytelling. It is the first thing that I fell in love with.

1:39:16Griffin Newman:I mean, you know what it is for me, right? What? I don't know. And I'm just wondering if you know. Oh, oh, oh. Not what He-Man means to you. What was that for you? No, He-Man doesn't mean anything to me, sadly. Trek? Sort of, but no. X-Men. It's very much X-Men. Yeah, like that was the first thing for me where like my six or seven-year-old brain was like, I'm engaging with a property, with a world, with a bunch of characters, not just with like whatever, a simple narrative.

1:39:40Sean Fennessey:I like X-Men. I can't wait for them to kind of ruin it.

1:39:45Griffin Newman:For them to do like, pretty good.

1:39:47Sean Fennessey:That was okay. Right?

1:39:50David Sims:That's sort of the ceiling there. I don't have much faith in their ability to do anything anymore.

1:39:58Griffin Newman:I have total faith in their ability to produce something that is pushing my kid buttons and elicits a 6 out of 10 response. I think the bigger problem... They'll be in the costumes. They'll obey the comics a little more. and so... But I think we're living

1:40:16David Sims:in the wreckage of this issue, which is the more they do that, the more they create a cul-de-sac where there's no actual space to move forward. Possibly. I mean... This is the Deadpool and Wolverine problem. This is them hitting hard, like, who can we bring back? How do we make them look more like the cartoons? This is where X-Men 97 kind of fucked them. Arp and I talk about this a lot, but they clearly thought X-Men 97 was like a throw-off for the nerds.

1:40:41Griffin Newman:Yes.

1:40:41David Sims:And then that's the best-received thing they've done in like five years. And now they're like, fuck, this is what people want. This is not forward thinking. Bringing all the old people back and putting them in Jim Lee costumes is going to be really exciting for Doomsday. That'll be cute. Fuck them in terms of resetting X-Men. I mean, I agree that it's, yeah, it's risky. Because they're doing a double pop of, hey, remember those actors from 20 years ago and remember the comics and cartoons from 20 years before.

1:41:08Griffin Newman:Look, James Marsden's in the Jim Lee Cyclops costume or whatever.

1:41:11David Sims:so then when they put Patrick Schwarzenegger in a new costume that does sound cool though yeah it sounds good we're all gonna have I think I'm gonna mind

1:41:17Sean Fennessey:because all those guys are old I'm like I need the latex to be tighter and brighter this is my whole thing with these movies

1:41:23Griffin Newman:I'm not gonna see Marsden as like whatever 90s Cyclops and be like great 10 more of these I'm probably gonna see and be like I'm glad Marsden put the costume on and I'm bidding him a fond farewell he's gonna take away from the next Cyclops though

1:41:40David Sims:in the same way that like like Jackman re-upping. You're like, at some point, someone else is going to play Wolverine. If it had been, he was off the court for 10 years and then a guy gets to come to it fresh, it's fine. But bringing all these people back for one last hurrah just reminds you. And then they're bringing them back in the way that's like, and this is what Fox wouldn't let them do 20 years ago. And now all the new people are going to have to exist in the shadow. It's the same thing as all the theories that like, is Downey Jr. Doom a multiversal thing? And at the end of it, there will be a new neutral doom who is the actual doom in the Fantastic Four universe.

1:42:15David Sims:And I'm like, well, then that doom sucks. I don't care about second doom. But you're doing hypotheticals.

1:42:20Griffin Newman:All these things, though. Yeah, who knows? Right. I don't know what they're going to do. This is going to seem very quaint when they cut this out of this episode. Because is that movie coming out next year? Doomsday?

1:42:30Sean Fennessey:No, two years from now. Two years. A year from Christmas 27. Right, right. It's still a long time.

1:42:36Griffin Newman:So is...

1:42:37Sean Fennessey:No, it's Christmas 26. Speedo Coast to Thanksgiving 27 and then X-Men. Allie Fox, I need you to distract Thanos.

1:42:46David Sims:Didn't they push Doomsday though?

1:42:47Griffin Newman:Doomsday is Christmas of this year, 2026. Right. When this episode is coming out. And Spider-Man is next summer? Is summer 26?

1:42:56David Sims:Is this summer, Griffin? It's 2026. My birthday movie of 2026. And those are the only two things they have next year. I believe so. By next year, I mean this year. This year. Right. But those are two big things. Yeah.

1:43:08Griffin Newman:A new Spider-Man movie and Avengers Doomsday. Yeah. Those are... It's about as big as they got, right? I mean, yeah. I'm thinking about seeing them.

1:43:16Sean Fennessey:I think I'm going to see them. I'll check them out. I think I'll see them. I'll be there. When's the last Marvel movie you saw? Well, I just had COVID. I'm going to pee for this. A couple weeks ago. You have COVID? No, a couple weeks ago. I just had COVID, though, somewhat recently.

1:43:30David Sims:When you go to the bathroom, think of me.

1:43:32Sean Fennessey:and so normally I'll just binge and catch up on the Marvel franchise every time you get COVID that's what you do no just anytime I'm sick I'm sorry you just gotta work it through your system that would create some odd associations with the Marvel brand I think those are already the kind of associations Ben has okay yeah I mean I just I'm someone who phases and variants I just I find it to be junk food and it's just like something where I can shut my brain off and just spend the next, you know, half a day watching all of these movies. Who's your favorite Marvel superhero? Whoa. That's... In the movies or anywhere?

1:44:11Sean Fennessey:Can I pitch a possibility? The Punisher? Where are you at on The Punisher? Ben loves The Punisher.

1:44:16David Sims:See, The Punisher, though, is too, like, Republican. Now he's been claimed by the wrong people. I feel like you grew up loving Punisher. I've read some Punisher comments. You invoke The Punisher's van a lot that you like that he has a van. Oh, yeah, he has a van. I'm a big fan of the van.

1:44:29Sean Fennessey:It's just full of guns, though. Yeah, I know. But it's still, Oh, it's cool as hell. It's cool as hell. He's got a skull. The skull. Yeah. Yeah. One of the great logos, the Punisher, Frank Castle. And he's got a fucking trench coat. But you know who Ben's number one guy is.

1:44:43David Sims:Spawn.

1:44:43Sean Fennessey:Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's number one. I was happy for you guys. Ghost Rider.

1:44:47Griffin Newman:Ghost Rider, which is sort of like, oh, Ghost Rider. Marvel Spawn is very Hossley. He's so Hossley. Yes. Okay. And are they circling like a new Ghost Rider

1:44:56David Sims:or something like, I feel like that comes up every so often. Once a year, they're like, Like, Ryan Gosling is definitely playing Ghost Rider, and then nothing comes of it.

1:45:04Sean Fennessey:Can I say who my favorite villain is? Please. Juggernaut. Yeah.

1:45:08Griffin Newman:And I don't think they've really captured Juggernaut properly. You didn't find Vinnie Jones getting the gestalt of Juggernaut?

1:45:14Sean Fennessey:He's got to be huge!

1:45:16Griffin Newman:I mean, I remember him being large in the film.

1:45:18Sean Fennessey:I need his ass to be fucking giant. I need him to be like nine feet tall. Deadpool 2 has a giant... Because that's how he's portrayed in the animated series.

1:45:25David Sims:He's very large. Deadpool 2 has a giant CGI Juggernaut that I would say kind of sucks, but does get the size. I forgot about, I really forgot about. I still,

1:45:34Sean Fennessey:more beefier.

1:45:35Griffin Newman:Well, I don't think Ben saw Deadpool 2.

1:45:37Sean Fennessey:No, I did. Oh, you did? And you forgot already. No, I just, it didn't live up to my expectation. Are you fully up? Deadpool 2, good. Deadpool, good. Really? Yeah, you forget that Sean. I genuinely am in pro Deadpool. Yeah. I feel like it's one of the only comic book movies that actually got the comic right. Does nothing for me.

1:45:57David Sims:No. Although I will say, and Ben, you're going to have to cut this out. I don't like any of them. Right, yes. I've heard like a crazy industry rumor and maybe this has come out by the time this episode has come out. No, I don't think you should say

1:46:06Griffin Newman:this kind of stuff on air, Greg.

1:46:07David Sims:If it hasn't come out or it's proven false by the time the episode's released, we can cut it out. I'm really stressed out. I've heard that Deadpool knows that he's in a movie. No! That's crazy! What? That he knows that he's read the script. He knows there's an audience watching him. He knows what studio is releasing the movie and which studios they have acquired. Does he know who runs the studio? He knows who runs the studio. I think the better way to put it, he knows the notes they're going to have. He knows that he's played by an actor and what other movies that actor's been. Does he, does Ryan Reynolds exist in the same universe as Deadpool?

1:46:40David Sims:Sean, are you, I know you're sitting down, but sit down twice as hard. Sit into the ground somehow. Ryan Reynolds not only exists, but Deadpool has some thoughts on some of Ryan Reynolds' previous career choices. I swear to you. Deadpool 1, he knows he's in a movie.

1:46:55Griffin Newman:Deadpool 2, he knows he's in a cinematic universe. Deadpool 3, he knows he's been added to a new cinema.

1:47:00Sean Fennessey:Like those are the evolutions

1:47:01Griffin Newman:of like the Deadpool myth.

1:47:02Sean Fennessey:Right. Yes. He knows he's in a multiverse. And in Deadpool 4, he will have a podcast. He will. Great.

1:47:07David Sims:And he'll take us all down.

1:47:09Sean Fennessey:Good. But yeah,

1:47:10David Sims:I just met Red Hulk. You're fully up to date now.

1:47:13Griffin Newman:Yeah. You saw Thunderbolts? Yeah, which was fine. I don't know. Has there been something since Thunderbolts? Fantastic Four is not on Disney Plus yet. You haven't met the Fantastic.

1:47:23David Sims:You've been taking your first step.

1:47:24Sean Fennessey:I didn't go to the theaters for that one.

1:47:25David Sims:No, I haven't. That is, I do have to say, one of the worst subtitles of all time. I know we hashed out that movie on a couple Patreon episodes. It didn't relate to the film very much.

1:47:34Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Is it Galactus' first steps on Earth? I was so ready.

1:47:39David Sims:I thought the dumb thing at the end of the movie was going to be Franklin taking his first steps and that's why they called it that. And they don't even do that.

1:47:45Sean Fennessey:That would have been good.

1:47:46Griffin Newman:But like,

1:47:46David Sims:given what we've learned about that movie,

1:47:49Griffin Newman:it feels like maybe that was in it and they cut it out. Maybe the last hour was steps. Right.

1:48:03David?

1:48:04Griffin Newman:Yes. Hmm. Great. See what I'm doing?

1:48:08David Sims:You're stroking your chin. Yeah, you know why? Why? What are you pondering? Just this time of year, it forces me to rethink what's in my closet. Oh, my goodness. Rethinking the closet for the spring.

1:48:21Griffin Newman:Do you want fewer things but better ones, like pieces that are well-made but easy to wear all the time?

1:48:25David Sims:That implies that I'm good at getting rid of stuff, which is not accurate. But yes, I do want better things. Quince! Quince. They make high quality, everyday essentials. You know, usually I go to Pamela Adlon when I want better things, but you're right. I should check in with the fine folks at Quince.

1:48:42Griffin Newman:Premium materials, like 100 % European linen. Insanely soft, flow knit, active wear, fabric. Men's linen pants and shirts are lightweight, breathable, and comfortable.

1:48:52David Sims:Should I have a linen shirt, Siri? Hot linen summer. Yeah. I'm also, I just, you know, I live in mortal terror of something that's even 1 % American linen touching this flesh. And I'm so relieved to hear. 100 % European. Pure.

1:49:07Griffin Newman:Their Flow Knit activewear is moisture wicking. It's anti-odor. It's soft enough that you actually want to wear it all day. And their prices are 50 to 60 % less. How? Than similar brands. How is that possible? They work directly with ethical factories. They cut out the middleman. You're paying for quality, not brand markups. and everything's designed to last and make getting dressed easy. I'm wearing Quint socks right now. Tell me about these socks. They're just nice. Yeah. What can I tell you? They're nice and soft. What else do you get lately? Actually, maybe I need to restock. Oh. Maybe I need some of this flow knit stuff.

1:49:37David Sims:Might be time to stroke your own chain, David.

1:49:39Griffin Newman:Well, because it is starting to get warm.

1:49:41David Sims:It is. Right? Yep. So don't you think maybe I should like... We're both men who sweat. This is true. I think it's a lid. I think it's a hot lid.

1:49:50Griffin Newman:I'm really loving this idea. I think it's the right move, Sims. All linen. Head to toe linen. You know, you gotta iron it. Linen shoes. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Linen shoes. Linen shoes doesn't sound too good for these New York City streets. Get a linen laptop case. I have news for you. Rumpled, wrinkled linen is in. Yeah.

1:50:09David Sims:Professor vibes.

1:50:10Griffin Newman:Yeah.

1:50:11David Sims:All right. Okay, I'm doing it. Give yourself a Rip Van Summer. I guess his name is Winkle, not Wrinkle.

1:50:17Griffin Newman:But not bad. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to quince.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash check.

1:50:44David Sims:The Mosquito Coast is a movie about a man who hates the type of conversation we're having in this room right now.

1:50:49Griffin Newman:Oh, you don't think Ali would like the MCU? Stop talking about when I walked out.

1:50:54Sean Fennessey:It's an absolute sin to accept the decadence of obsolescence. Why do things get worse and worse? They don't have to. They could get better and better. We accept things that fall apart. That could be Ali Fox on America in the 1980s or me on the MCU. It is very similar.

1:51:13David Sims:The tone's a little different, but the words are the same. Just like, make me a grilled cheese sandwich, Dad.

1:51:17Griffin Newman:I'm hungry. I don't want to deal with you.

1:51:19David Sims:I think Ford is like so good in this, and it is tied to what you're saying, that he's one of the best on-screen yellers. And even when he's not fully raising his voice, he's so good at saying the thing with intensity and the pointing.

1:51:33Griffin Newman:You definitely believe, as much as this guy's tough hang to begin with, that he is not bullshitting. He believes what he thinks. He's deep in it. To the end of the line. He's not just some con artist who's like, yay, I actually just wanted to live on the Mosquito Coast, and this is how I justify it. He thinks this is what he has to be doing. It's what makes the movie complain to me. And he thinks he has to lie to his family eventually

1:51:51David Sims:about the world ending. It's what makes the performance work. I think you see in Ford that he plays the calculation in his mind. It's a three-second decision of, I'm going to tell them the world has been nuked. And it's not John Lovitz liar panicking. It is like... Now, Lovitz in this role is an interesting concept. Yeah, see? Decade of obstetrics.

1:52:16Sean Fennessey:Yeah, nuclear war. Oh, yeah. Go to Honduras.

1:52:20David Sims:Made in Japan.

1:52:22Sean Fennessey:Yeah. A missionary, you see. It would have been good.

1:52:27David Sims:It would have been good. It's in those three seconds, I think Ford plays. This is actually the only move. And this is the best thing I can do as a father and as a husband. He's deranged, but he fully believes is to the benefit of his family to tell them that the outside world is no longer an option.

1:52:48Sean Fennessey:So I re-watched the Siskel and Ebert episode where they reviewed this movie and they had a fairly... Ebert was very negative on this film. He was very negative on this film. It may come to surprise you to learn that they had a tetchy exchange about the film. What?

1:53:02Griffin Newman:They lived on the Mosquito Coast.

1:53:04Sean Fennessey:Ebert out, right? Ebert out because he finds this to be a very unlikable character. He found the whole movie just like a slog.

1:53:11David Sims:He said, Ali Fox is a bore.

1:53:13Sean Fennessey:Yes.

1:53:13David Sims:Like he praised Harrison Ford for doing his job well, but was like, I don't want to hang with this character.

1:53:18Sean Fennessey:Good performances. It looks good, but not a good hang. Siskel likes it more. He doesn't love it. But he is compelled by the idea of noble wishes gone astray. That there is something him looking for. And he, as he often did, directly connects it to the optimism and hope in the movement of the 60s. Sure, of course. And saying like... It's a curdling. Yes, there's something. And Ali Fox, you could see as a man who was probably educated at that time, as someone who's, you know, participating in various social movements, and there being a lot of hope about what could happen in the world. And I kind of liked that reading.

1:54:01Sean Fennessey:I hadn't thought about the movie in that way. And, you know, I think also Siskel is just doing a little bit of performative jousting for the sake of the cameras, which is something that happens sometimes. Wouldn't know. But I, I, that does help me accept him a little bit more. You know, that he's been a bit broken by, he actually does believe that this, this commercial hellscape that America is transforming into before his eyes is completely corroding his soul and driving him to the brink of a kind of madness. I don't know if it makes him a fun movie character, but it makes him a more acceptable person.

1:54:33Griffin Newman:But that's Ebert's thing probably of like Ebert did at the end of the day, have that Hollywood brain of like, but you know, you're not keeping me involved in the story. This isn't entertaining.

1:54:43David Sims:I wish he was more of a mall cop that I could... Fucked up my own joke. Just go right ahead. Just take as long as you want. Roger Ebert's four star Paul Blart mall cop review where he's just like, am I crazy? This movie is good. Why do none of you get this? And he talks about the cinematic, the visual language of Paul Blart. And he's like, this is made by a real filmmaker. Who made it? I can root for this guy.

1:55:07Griffin Newman:I think it's Steve Carr, maybe? Okay, I wanted to defend Eber. He gave it three stars, not four. But he did call it. This is a great lead by him. Paul Blart Mall Club is a slapstick comedy with a hero who's a nice guy. I thought that wasn't allowed anymore. And I sort of know what he means in terms of like, it's like the very dirt baggy Brat Pack guys are sort of kings of comedy then. The Rogan, you know, Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, you know, and Paul Borden's like, yeah, this guy's fucking, he's a mall cop. He just wants to protect them all. He's alright. It's a John Candy movie, right? Yeah, that was Kevin James' thing.

1:55:42David Sims:The headline of this review is Lone Rider of the Purple Segway.

1:55:46Griffin Newman:I like it. I like it. Ebert popping off. Should Daniel Craig someday retire? I'm supporting Kevin James for the next James Bond. is his kicker.

1:55:55David Sims:I don't know where I am with him on that one. But excuse me, the paragraph leading into that is Paul Blart emerges as a hero and something else, colon, Kevin James illustrates how lighting and camera angles can affect our perception of an actor. In the early scenes, he's a fat schlub, but after he goes into action, the camera lowers subtly. The lighting changes and suddenly he's a good-looking action hero ready for business.

1:56:19Griffin Newman:This is a little bit like Roger Ebert seeing the train come into the station and being like, whoa, I think it's coming into the movie theater. It's like, Roger, yes, we know you can shoot guys more heroically or less heroically.

1:56:30David Sims:Well, why does he feel this way? The next sentence might illustrate it. He demonstrates what fat men have secretly believed for a long time.

1:56:39Sean Fennessey:May have just given away the game a little bit too much. A little bit. Yeah.

1:56:43Griffin Newman:Well, much like as I love to cite every review that he ever had of a Jennifer Lopez movie. She's like, there's something about this lady. I can't put my finger on it. She's got something. But I want to put my finger on it.

1:56:54David Sims:I can't put my finger. It would take two handfuls.

1:56:58Sean Fennessey:Full bear claws. You know, that is interesting that you say that too, because Raj, historically a boob man, you know, just that's, if you read his work closely as I have. Certainly. He, not just the female form, of course, an admirer of the female form, but he, he, he liked, the man likes breasts. That's what I'm saying.

1:57:17David Sims:But I think to continue Sims' analogy, the first time he saw Jennifer Lopez on screen, it was like the caboose backing into the station. And suddenly his worldview was rewrit. Sean, to throw out a fantasyism, I think what you've identified is part of what I really connect to in this movie. One of my go-to, I'm locked in thematic strains of stories is what you're saying. The kind of idealism gone amok, right? And especially if it's coming from a place of like a semi-urne jaded frustration with what is wrong. And I think a lot of other movies that attempt this kind of story, the stakes are lower, right?

1:58:02David Sims:It's something like a movie I love is Tucker, A Man and His Dreams, which is like... Great movie. Pretty similar movie. Absolutely. In much gentler form, but you're watching someone just not get out of his own way. But I think there are a lot of movies like that where they pick a very small, earthbound prism of why do cars have to suck? What if a guy tried to make a better car and this is how the world knocks him down? And that's really easy to get your head around, right? And then there are things that abstract it like Megalopolis and Synecdoche, New York, where it goes into the fantastic and you get to become more allegorical.

1:58:40David Sims:And what I like about Mosquito Coast is it feels like something that would be a true story. While the stakes are about as high as they could be, the fact that it is not a true story and is a pure fictional invention makes me not feel as uncomfortable as I would probably feel if I were watching this movie knowing that real people died or whatever, you know? But yet, it's like the scale of his ambition is so grand that I just immediately get sucked into that even if I'm never on his side. I like that kind of idea.

1:59:12Sean Fennessey:I do think that there's something about a movie like this coming out at this time that also felt very unacceptable. Because if you look at a lot of the writing about the novel, it situates it in this long arc of kind of historical American wayward men. You know, it's like it's Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, but then it's also, you know, Heart of Darkness, Walden, Moby Dick. There are allusions to all of these figures and all of these worlds. And, you know, those are complex, at times unlikable protagonist figures in those stories. And that's not really what Eddie Murphy and Mel Gibson were up to by 1986.

1:59:56Sean Fennessey:That's not what the American movie star was expected to pursue. And so I think there's like there's a lot being held against it because it refuses, even with the biggest star on the planet, to give you one ounce of fun, of the fun that Roger Ebert wants from the movie.

2:00:13David Sims:I also think the antiheroes of this era were also rooted in fun. It was a sort of like, wouldn't it be fun to just be able to like fucking take a machine gun to the baddies for conflicts to be this clean cut for you to be able to be the guy with the snarky one liner? You know, even as there's a rise of these guys who are not playing conventional clean cut hero, it is more the raging id of like throttled masculinity.

2:00:43Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Travis Bickle, right? Travis Bickle is crazy. So we can just, we can assign his insanity to his actions.

2:00:50David Sims:And Travis Bickle is a cautionary tale that within 10 years turns into like the sequel Rambo. Right. Where now it's just pure power fantasy.

2:00:58Sean Fennessey:Right. And this is not that. No. This guy's an asshole.

2:01:01David Sims:And he's wrong.

2:01:02Sean Fennessey:But he's still somebody's dad, you know? He's still just like kind of a dude. You know, he's not, he's not a, he does ultimately do very destructive things and pays for it. But two thirds, through the movie are like, this guy's a little pretty nuts, but like, he is still, he is human.

2:01:16David Sims:Someone's family man. He remains earthbound and he does not ever become like, avenging anti-hero.

2:01:23Griffin Newman:He's fucking handy too. It's impressive. Early on, it's working. He's handy, right? But, so he builds the ice machine to get us,

2:01:32David Sims:you know, through the pot a little bit. It's the cornerstone of his new society. We're going to have ice. We can supply ice

2:01:38Griffin Newman:to others. Like, it's working. But when a bunch of, you know essentially armed men from a near village show up he's not great at the whole interpersonal stuff

2:01:51David Sims:no never has them exactly

2:01:53Griffin Newman:so he goes for hey guys you got to leave there's a lot of ants everywhere that doesn't work so then he pivots right to I'll freeze them to death in my ice building

2:02:04David Sims:yeah he considers going full on Mr. Freeze mode which is has rarely worked out for anyone one. Least of all, Mr. Freeze. True. Often a sad ending for that man.

2:02:15Griffin Newman:So true.

2:02:17David Sims:Mr.

2:02:17Griffin Newman:Freeze is very tragic.

2:02:18Sean Fennessey:It's a pretty bad scheme. Yeah. It's a bad fucking scheme. It doesn't really work out very well. And he doesn't consider that the destruction of the centerpiece of his new civilization could be problematic.

2:02:31David Sims:It is the other part of this movie that I find pretty topically currently powerful is the notion of these guys who are like, if you just let me in there, I'd know how to fix this. I have the right ideas. And they start out with three ideas. And then the first conflict happens. The first thing they have to adjust from their original plan and they short circuit.

2:02:54Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's also that thing too of like the ultimate freedom idea, right? And then what ends up happening is there's some kind of violent conflict

2:03:04Griffin Newman:and it immediately kind of all falls apart because it's just inherent to human nature. He's also gone to a place where everyone kind of wants to do their own thing. And it's hard to coexist with other people trying to do maybe a very different thing.

2:03:18Sean Fennessey:Also, the thing that is revealed clearly in two different ways is that this is ultimately a very pampered middle-class American. You know, that this is a guy who has no idea what he's getting himself into. And that includes encountering a militia force in a land that he doesn't understand, and also nature and those two things combining. And he thinks that those things will work in his favor, that there will be space to move in a land where he's not encumbered by the modes of society that America has built. But also that he's like, I'm a smart guy and I know how to make ice, so I'll be able to handle it when we have mosquitoes.

2:03:52Sean Fennessey:But he doesn't know shit. The whole thing is that everybody who thinks they know what they're doing and that they should take over are full of shit. Agreed.

2:04:01David Sims:Also, much like Survivor, people get off the boat. They look great. They're all shiny. They're TV ready. Then like day three, they unlock a new kind of rugged hot. And they're like, oh, I don't have to give in all these conventions of Western beauty. I'm going on natural. They've dropped the baby fat. Right. By day 10, everyone looks fucking horrible. And it's not just that like their skin's bitten up and they have a weird inconsistent burn. And their like body weight is getting distributed in weird ways. But also they're like behind the eyes. Everyone's losing it.

2:04:32Sean Fennessey:And I've had six scoops of rice in 90s.

2:04:35David Sims:This is one of the most handsome movie stars in history at the peak of his hotness. And you have the same thing where he starts out and you're like, man, this dick is kind of hot. This asshole is kind of compelling to look at. And then like day three, you're like, the dirt kind of looks good on him. Getting a little rugged. And by the end of the movie, you're like, this guy's uncomfortable.

2:04:53Sean Fennessey:Yeah, everyone's ass is stinking.

2:04:55David Sims:Oh, it's a real stinky butt movie.

2:04:58Griffin Newman:This is a stinky, I bet it smell nasty in their movie.

2:05:01Sean Fennessey:I do, no matter where I go, I need plumbing. I need hot water.

2:05:05Griffin Newman:Again, guys, I am with the least off-grid folks around, including me. Just a small town.

2:05:13Sean Fennessey:Toilet situation.

2:05:14Griffin Newman:Oh, like Japanese toilets. You need a toilet that sings to you and heats you. Sean, what you're talking about is the mass New Yorker going to Hudson Valley, Adirondacks. I want a little farther away, though.

2:05:28Sean Fennessey:I want to make it impossible to go back from whence I came. But still in the contiguous United States, you know what I mean? I can hop in the car and drive to a screening room in Beverly Hills where I spend way too much time in my life.

2:05:43David Sims:This is my exact same fantasy except I know I could never actually do it.

2:05:45Sean Fennessey:I'm not going to either. Right. But that's why we're talking about it on the podcast. You guys are so funny. Because I'm full of shit.

2:05:49Griffin Newman:I would say I'm more, I'll go to, you know, the countryside, the woods, the rural places. Could you outdoors it? What are we talking about outdoors again? Well, you asked me. I'm asking you. So let me, like, so like, you know, and I rent like a cabin, like, you know. So we got heat. We got running water. Have you camped? I don't like camping. I haven't really camped since I was a teenager. Camping's fun. No. I don't mind people who camp.

2:06:13Sean Fennessey:It's just not really my thing. and it is my wife's favorite thing. It's like, it is... Did she grow up doing it? Like, is it a nostalgia thing? She's much more outdoorsy than I am. But I... It is one of the... You and I are so similar in many ways. But the beach and camping are two things where I'm just like, they should be exploded from the planet. Get it out of here. Like, I have no idea how these things are so popular and you do this. No, they're not. Well, it's not like your wife's making you... My wife, thankfully, not a huge beach person. I live in California and I would sooner go to the sun than it looks so beautiful.

2:06:44Griffin Newman:What's funny about Sean, I love the beach. I spend as much time on the beach as I can. But Sean, you live in California, in LA, Los Angeles.

2:06:51Sean Fennessey:I live very far away from the beach.

2:06:53Griffin Newman:And I know there's a lot of people that are like, do you get to the beach? And they're like, what?

2:06:57David Sims:It's like an hour from where I live. I had friends trying to convince me to go to Burning Man. I think people attempt every couple of years. And I was talking about it to my girlfriend. You would actually die. I was like, you know this as well as anybody who spends a lot of time with me. The three things I care about the most in the world are sleeping in a proper bed, having a shower with no limits, and a real functional toilet. And if you take those three things out of my ecosystem, I collapse. I basically can't exist with two out of three. If one of those things is in peril, I'm fucked.

2:07:35Sean Fennessey:I would never go to... Here's my quick Burning Man story, okay? I was an editor at Grantland in the 2010s, and my friend Rembrandt Brown did a series called Rembert Explains America. And he drove around America and he went to just different places. So he would go to a giant thimble and he would be like, why is this thimble in Iowa? But then he would also go to more well-known landmarks. And one of the stops on his trip was to go to Burning Man. And he went to Burning Man for a few days. And he had been filing these pieces, these kind of long, digressive blog posts about his journeys. And I was an editor of, frankly, too many writers at that time, but I was writing, I was editing a lot of raw copy every day.

2:08:16Sean Fennessey:So I was looking at thousands and thousands of words every day trying to get them on the internet. And Rem filed his piece via text message with no punctuation. Only Rem because he was at Burning Man. So there's no internet, there's no laptops, nothing works. You gotta get the sentiments out there as quickly as you can. He wrote it in a note on his phone and copy and pasted it and sent it to me. And I spent three hours formatting this godforsaken piece.

2:08:43David Sims:Yeah.

2:08:44Sean Fennessey:And just because of that, I would never even consider going to Burning Man.

2:08:48David Sims:It makes perfect sense to me. I track that logic so cleanly.

2:08:51Griffin Newman:I mean, I have friends who, you know, go to Burning Man and evangelize for it. I also am like, no thanks. But, that's really funny.

2:09:00Sean Fennessey:I think tripping kind of would be fun when they do the effigy burning. That feels like very, like...

2:09:06David Sims:Isn't Burning Man...

2:09:06Sean Fennessey:Such a wicker. This piece is so long.

2:09:10David Sims:Yeah. Yeah, he spent three hours formatting. dude

2:09:14Sean Fennessey:I mean they're all that long God bless Rem I love Rem I love working on that project with him but that one in particular I was like Rem can you please can we just delete this like do we really have to do this and he was like I drove out here

2:09:24David Sims:isn't Burning Man kind of coming out of the same instinct that drives Allie Fox but how do we build this in a way that is actually communal and with like the world's strongest bowling alley bumpers and then we fucking leave

2:09:38Griffin Newman:well but the thing with Burning Man that at least as I understand It's all about community because it's all about doing it all together. Ali doesn't have a community vibe to me.

2:09:47David Sims:He doesn't really want to be with other people. Let me refine this. I'm not saying this in a way that is critical of Burning Man. I think that I get is for other people. But it's more that I feel like when the people I know who love it, wax about it, right? What they're speaking about is the same kind of fantasy that Ali Fox has in a certain way of like, what if we just stripped all of this back? and we got back to how we're supposed to behave, right? And Burning Man is much more animated by like fun and love and drugs and all this shit. But it is the idea of like, can we just have our alternate version of society for like 10 concentrated days and then leave?

2:10:27David Sims:It's also, you know, become a playground for incredibly rich people. But it's the same kind of thing. And the part of why it's been able to survive is that it only has the ambition of existing for a week and change a year. rather than being like, what if we actually found a new country?

2:10:44Griffin Newman:My fundamental thing that I was going to say, by the way, is right. You know, I go upstate, I rent a cabin, I'm drinking coffee, I'm sitting on the porch. I'm like, this rocks. I love this.

2:10:51David Sims:I like one part of what you said. Exactly one part.

2:10:54Griffin Newman:Yeah. You know, I should just move up here. The simpler, just a little slower. It'd be great. I still am like, I mostly would watch movies and cook food. Like, it's not like I'm like, I would work the land. Like, I still want to mostly do the things I like to do. But I think I'm just like, no, this is, I'm being dumb. I think I would get bored. I need friends. I need a lot of social interaction. What I get from the city is what I need or whatever. But I have the fantasy. I have zero Mosquito Coast fantasies. I never want to go to the jungle. I have spoken to enough filmmakers who filmed in the jungle to know that the jungle is never your friend and you cannot conquer it.

2:11:29Griffin Newman:Every guy who goes there is like, I think I know how to deal with the jungle. And then they leave being like, the jungle kicked my ass.

2:11:34David Sims:But David, and this is relevant to our podcast, and with the dossier in front of you, tell me if I'm wrong about this. This, in many ways, seems like one of the least dramatic jungle shoots of all time. It doesn't seem like...

2:11:49Griffin Newman:To Peter Weir's credit... I mean, they call it long, hot, and humid. Like, I don't know that it was, like, pleasant, but it was definitely not disastrous.

2:11:58David Sims:Every other jungle shoot I have ever read about was disastrous. As you said, everyone comes out of it and goes...

2:12:06Griffin Newman:It's a music like we went 80 days over budget, over schedule and like, you know, things like that.

2:12:11David Sims:But most of them are like fine. Right. We tried to kill each other. James Gray is like that was a disaster. I ruined my life.

2:12:17Griffin Newman:Peter Weir is used to filming in the Outback and harsh conditions or whatever already. Like Peter Weir strikes me as someone who can, you know, handle an outdoorsy, rugged shoot.

2:12:27David Sims:I just think this film has an incredible sense of place. I think especially the sound in this film is so effective. the kind of like atmospheric soundscape of the land and the quiet. And then when that is interrupted and the photography is so lush, they're using their location so well that about halfway through, I like stopped myself and I was like, wait, these things are always impossible to film. And they are always accompanied with stories of four people had heart attacks. We were kidnapped. My dad drowned to death. We've heard gunfire, a town over, whatever. Every version of this we've covered, but also like some of the most famously terrible production stories in history.

2:13:12David Sims:You know, it's Predator and it's Sorcerer and it's Apocalypse Now and it's Lost City of Z and all of these. The best case scenario is we lost our minds. Nothing horrible in a demonstrable way happened to us from the outside, but we all went insane and it was impossible. And this movie is like very steady in what it's doing.

2:13:32Griffin Newman:yeah um to uh wrap the plot like to get back to the third act of the movie we talked about the you know ice machine blows up the right the geronimo right the true pivot point into like sort of irredeemable madness is they get to the coast like you say and the family is like thank god we can go home and he's like uh there is no home because there's a nuclear war i just heard you guys aren't allowed to hear about it you know like and then we're just in full cult of personality madness. We're in the final stages of Jim Jones, like passing out. His performance is great in that

2:14:05Sean Fennessey:sequence.

2:14:06Griffin Newman:Yes, it is. Really, really scary.

2:14:08Sean Fennessey:It is scary.

2:14:09Griffin Newman:We gotta call out Mr.

2:14:10Sean Fennessey:Hattie, too. Mr.

2:14:11Griffin Newman:Hattie, the great Conrad Roberts, who's in like, you know, one of, you know, in a million things, right? And yeah, he's sort of a force of sanity to some extent.

2:14:25Sean Fennessey:He really empathizes with the family. Yes, trying to also not go against father. Right. Right. And there's, you know, all of that is a picture of the paternalistic approach that America had to Central America at this time in history. I mean, this is like at the tail end of Iran-Contra. It's a long history of trying to navigate and invade and manage the governmental role of all these countries that are near our borders. Like, all of that is a very purposeful, intentional stuff that all comes from Theroux. you know, writing through the way that he sees societies operating outside of the United States of America.

2:15:03Sean Fennessey:And Ali, you know, we're drawing all these allusions to these present day figures like that's not a mistake. That's that's obviously a huge part of this is that Reagan 80 is a thing that Ali thinks he wants to get away from. He entirely represents. I think where's worldview

2:15:16David Sims:as a filmmaker is like more than anything defined by how hard he interrogates the relationship between the indigenous and the settlers in his homeland. You know, that it feels like, especially of the Australian New Wave, he is someone who really drilled down into that. Oh, yeah.

2:15:37Sean Fennessey:That's all over the last wave.

2:15:38David Sims:Even when he moves away from it being the explicit subject matter, it feels like all of his films are animated by that clash of two different communities, ideologies, people forced to share the same space, that whole kind of thing. You also have Butterfly McQueen in this?

2:15:53Griffin Newman:Yes.

2:15:53David Sims:It's her final film? She would have been, she was quite old, right?

2:15:57Griffin Newman:Yes. 1911, so she's in her sort of late 70s. Yeah. She lives another 10 years.

2:16:04Sean Fennessey:Yeah. She lives 84. Yeah. This is her first Hollywood production, I think, that played theatrically since Duel in the Sun. That seems correct. She does a lot of TV. Which is 1946. Yeah. And she's, you know, she's an incredibly important historical actor, you know, who's in Cabin in the Sky and Mildred Pierce and all these movies, but she's an icon.

2:16:30David Sims:Yep. It's not a big role. Avowed atheist. Butterfly McQueen is. Thought it was funny to play this role. Right, not Miss Kennywick. No, is a devotee of Christ.

2:16:41Griffin Newman:Right, because they end up back with Spellgood. Spellgood is the, you know, back to me. Which is, right, the ultimate insult to the owners of this movie. Yes. I'll do it myself. And he has built a compound. His thing is working. Right. This is the ultimate insult to Ali's sort of intellectual vanity or whatever. He, you know, wants to destroy it. It goes from just like, no, I want to do my own thing or I want to live a certain kind of life to like, no, fuck this guy. I hate Christianity. I hate what he's doing. What are you going to do next, buddy? Just start like blowing up every church you see.

2:17:20Griffin Newman:Like, it's like it doesn't make any sense. I mean, whatever. He's crazy.

2:17:23David Sims:Yeah, but it's also, it's some cost fallacy at this point.

2:17:26Griffin Newman:There's no, this guy can't dig himself out. Like, how many times has Harrison Ford died on screen? Great question. Adam Driver, Merck, Sim, and Force Awakens.

2:17:35David Sims:Spoilers. Just absolute saber through the chest. Sean, we went to see that movie the last night that the Ziegfeld was in operation. So true. With my parents and a bunch of friends. And my mom went to the bathroom during Han Solo's death scene. And I like tried to stop her. And she went and she came back after it was over. and the movie ends and she goes, it's weird that Harrison Ford's just like not in the last half hour at all. They just kind of forget about him.

2:17:59Griffin Newman:Why Chewbacca gives Leia a big hug or whatever. Oh no, he doesn't. It's a rave.

2:18:05Sean Fennessey:I know this is like coming into another team's clubhouse or something, but I still think that death works so well. I think that stuff works so well. I just re-watched that movie

2:18:13Griffin Newman:because I'm doing my thing right now. And there's parts of it now that do, I mean, the episode nine hurts so much of that whole enterprise. Yes. But all the Ford stuff in Force Awakens is bananas. I think it's so good.

2:18:27David Sims:I think it totally works. I think he's so good in it. I think that death works. Yeah, it works great. The stuff that doesn't work in that movie is not the stuff that people tend to point at. Oh, really? Who do people point to? I don't think they point at that, the legacy characters, the Mary Sue shit. Like, they're the four obvious complaints where I'm like, guys, those aren't the problems. The problems are the, like, J.J. Abrams, he built a bad infrastructure thing.

2:18:50Sean Fennessey:It's the foundations of the house. But it's 100%. It's all to me because Kasdan wrote all the solo stuff. Like, and it's, he just knows that character like fucking inside and out. And it just feels like the other films and not everything, even in Force Awakens, feels like the other films, even though it kind of looks and sounds like it. But that stuff to me just, it's the same emotional intensity colliding with fantasy stuff that I think is so good about those movies.

2:19:16Griffin Newman:I like when Maz Kanata calls Chewie her boyfriend.

2:19:20David Sims:I like her. She's good. On The Witness 4K that Arrow put out, there is a daytime morning talk show interview that I referenced a bunch of that episode because it's funny watching Harrison Ford having to like not be actively uncomfortable. And he's talking about expanding and trying to do other things. And then she goes, what about Star Wars 4? So first of all, I like that she calls it Star Wars 4. Makes sense. Right? Right. And he's like, no, I think we're done with those. And she's like, but 20...

2:19:49Griffin Newman:And he's only a year or two removed from Jedi at this point,

2:19:51David Sims:which is a movie he didn't like making. Right. You know, it had nothing to do with it. He goes, I think we told that story. Three is a good number. We completed the arcs of those characters. I'm very proud of them. I owe George Lucas my career. But he's respectfully like, you know. And he frames it as, but the story is done. We said what we needed to say. And the last I've talked to George, I don't think making another Star Wars movie is really in his purview right now.

2:20:13Griffin Newman:And if you see that movie, I'm taking a lot of orders from teddy bears for most of it. Yeah. I'm looking at teddy bear plots. It's teddy bears going like, you know, get over that hill. Okay.

2:20:23Sean Fennessey:Please kill me. Whatever this guy says. I can't wait to show Alice Jedi. That's Ewok being awesome. Oh, my God.

2:20:29David Sims:So then the reporter goes, you say that now, of course. Right. 15, 20 years from now. Not incorrect. Time has passed. It's a smart person. If the price is right. And he just goes, no. Yeah. And she goes, no. And he goes, nothing's going to change my mind. 30 years later. And I'm like, oh, things like this are why he built the reputation of He hates Han Solo. He hates Star Wars. He never wants to do it again. But then it took 30 years and$20 million and Kasdan and everything.

2:20:58Sean Fennessey:It's also just a smart way to keep your quote up. Totally. If you say you'll never do it, you know it's going to cost more to do it. That's just good business.

2:21:05David Sims:I watched him give this reaction where he just says no plainly. And you're like, he's not an Ali Fox spiral. He's just like, no, I actually just know there's nothing they could do to convince me and make another Star Wars movie. And then he says, by the way, I'm going to still keep doing Indiana Jones. We're scripting a new one.

2:21:20Sean Fennessey:We'll do one of those in two years. This is one of my favorite things, especially about big time movie stars. It's true of some actors, maybe many actors, but particularly big time stars. They're on screen and they perform and they show you the most, the deepest, most vulnerable parts of themselves while performing. But they, the ones who are really good, have no desire to truly be understood. And I feel like we live in a time, and I certainly feel this way about myself, where everyone is desperate to be understood, to be heard and to be told. I get it, man. Makes sense. It's going to be okay.

2:21:54Sean Fennessey:We're in it together. And movie stars are like, you don't know shit. Yeah. And I'll lie right to your face.

2:21:59David Sims:The real true movie stars? Yeah. I mean, I think about it all the time, but it was the A24 podcast when Souvenir was coming out. Sure. With Marty enjoying a honk. Correct. Big two. And he asked her like, how are you dealing with this kind of press cycle? You've never had to do this much for a movie before, right? And she's like, God, I hate it. He's like, it's the worst, right? And she goes, how do you put up with it? They ask me these questions. They want me to explain the movie and explain myself. And I don't want to do that. And he goes, here's what you do. They ask you, you don't shut them down.

2:22:31David Sims:You give them something else.

2:22:32Sean Fennessey:Yes. Which I was like, I have received that many a time in my career.

2:22:36David Sims:How do you not feel like you're being cagey and read like you're holding back? Right. Don't just say nothing.

2:22:42Griffin Newman:But if you don't want to answer the question. Right. What's some other piece of information? I have never been more excited and,

2:22:49Sean Fennessey:and I guess wrong footed by a director in an interview than I was with Joanna Hogg when I did my whole, what's the last great thing you've seen thing. She was like,

2:22:57David Sims:I'm not answering your fucking question.

2:22:59Sean Fennessey:She's like, I ate a good sandwich yesterday.

2:23:00David Sims:I gave you something else.

2:23:02Sean Fennessey:You know what I fired up last night? Heat. I love heat. Yeah. I remember directed by Michael Mann. I was like, I was pumping my fist, baby. Really Joanna Hogg? And she was like, yeah. And then, you know, talked about it, you know, smartly for five minutes, but, uh, that just goes to show you.

2:23:15Griffin Newman:I had a great time interviewing the hogster. She's cool. Yeah, she was cool. You went hog wild. I did. And I referred to the hog verse with her because it was Eternal Daughter. So I'm like, at this point, we're getting versey. Phase one. You know, we're entering a verse. Phase two.

2:23:29David Sims:Dads. No, I bring all this up to say. But still Tilda Swinton. Yes. Tilda with a mustache. I bring all this up to say that I think Ford had this reputation of he's not giving us anything. Right? He's holding back and he's not offering up an alternative. I think once he realized he could lean into the crank bit, it became a very successful version of give them something else. There's a game I can play now that feeds into an idea of what public persona Harrison Ford is that still actually guards myself. But you hear modern stars always cite Harrison Ford as the person they wish they could be, not just as an actor, but as like a public persona.

2:24:11David Sims:Movie stars all the time while they were on press tours revealing way too much of themselves are like, I just admire the old school of like Harrison Ford. You keep to yourself. You're not doing a thousand interviews. You're not letting people know. And no one can do that anymore. And I also think it's fascinating that you're like, he is really the prototype for our modern movie star. The modern movie star model is based off of having a Han Solo. And if you're lucky, a Han Solo and an Indiana Jones in your back pocket, right? and it's just like, you're set. You're set, you can always go back to them and then you do the other stuff.

2:24:45David Sims:The problem is now the guys don't do the other stuff or if they do the other stuff, it's like, I'll take a tiny 10-day supporting role in a small indie thing to flex myself a little bit, but they're not cashing the movie star value on building an entire vehicle that's difficult outside of like DiCaprio, who's also the last guy who still kind of does this. For as much as we like to talk about whatever 26-year-old he's dating, we don't really fucking know anything about him. And he's elusive.

2:25:13Sean Fennessey:No, there are a couple of guys who I think operate in a similar way. Like, obviously Adam Driver is like this. I think for the most part, Ryan Gosling is like this. You know, whether you like him or not, Chris Pratt is kind of like this. He doesn't really give you any of his interior life.

2:25:29Griffin Newman:But then you'll get a glimpse and you'll be like,

2:25:30Sean Fennessey:oh, less of that, please. Again, like if you remove the subjectivity of the movies that they make, like he is a kind of restrained star.

2:25:39David Sims:No, I agree. And I feel like Ford has complimented Pratt a lot. Pratt will make the mistake of doing the like, I need to comment on people getting upset about an idea of me that's wrong. And I want to tell them that they don't know me. But I won't put forward anything else. Right.

2:25:56Sean Fennessey:And I'm not mad. I do not put in the newspaper that I am mad.

2:26:00David Sims:You can't do that. I agree that he's a little bit unknowable, but he keeps making it feel like he's hiding something. Right. Which is where you fuck that up. Of course. And yeah.

2:26:09Sean Fennessey:Let me ask you guys about one Harrison Ford movie. Please. Have either of you seen Hanover Street? No. What is that? Okay.

2:26:17David Sims:Oh, is that the one with Amy Irving?

2:26:19Sean Fennessey:This is early. It's Leslie Ann Down. Okay. Post-Star Wars. It's post-Star Wars. Empire. Pre-Empire. It's Peter Hyams film. A Peter Hyams film from 1979, set during World War II. A pilot falls in love with a British woman. and it's like a classical 1947 style post-World War II movie. And it's, I think, a beautiful film. Very underrated. It was the big discovery when we did a big Harrison Ford episode around Dial of Destiny.

2:26:52David Sims:I forgot to call it out in the Witness episode, but my favorite moment maybe in the history of Big Pick is when Amanda is just like, you know, playing grown up through the whole Hall of Fame and then you say Witness and she goes, Grease!

2:27:06Sean Fennessey:she's just been waiting to yell um that this movie actually the energy that he's bringing to witness i think starts here it's like it is his best pure romance film um and it is one of the only films that is like mosquito coast that is sort of like i didn't see that one you know like i skipped that one i missed that one and it's post star wars it's not you know and it's not a tiny movie by any means it's a it's a big old period piece war film and it's really really good and I never see anybody talking about it ever. And so I'm always looking for someone to say like, have you checked that one out?

2:27:38Sean Fennessey:I mean, you know, in 79, he does Hanover Street, Apocalypse Now, and the Frisco Kid. Like he is drafting off of the Star Wars success in a big way. And nobody's fucking seen that movie. Is there a steal? There's, I don't even think there's a Blu-ray right now. Is there a Blu-ray?

2:27:51David Sims:There's not even Twilight Time?

2:27:53Sean Fennessey:Out of print? Looks like there's merely a DVD. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I probably would have acquired that if I could have. You can get a DVD two pack

2:28:00Griffin Newman:with Hanover Street and random hearts. Hey,

2:28:04Sean Fennessey:there it is. I'll say it again.

2:28:05Griffin Newman:Beginning in the end.

2:28:06Sean Fennessey:My forlorn Harrison Ford.

2:28:08Griffin Newman:Yeah. Right, right, right, right. Emo, Emo Ford. I do just, I love him so much. Just to conclude the film, Andre Gregory shoots his fucking ass and they go upstream and he's like, all right, are we, you know, as he's dying, Helen Mirren kind of lies to him and it's like, yeah, yeah, we're getting to where you want to go.

2:28:28Sean Fennessey:And then a thousand vultures descend upon his body. to your point

2:28:32David Sims:is there a version of this movie in which he goes my family is right here's a boat let's sail back to mainland to civilization instead this movie is his family sails off with his dying body and you're like where are they going how are they going to get there and also in five minutes they're going to be with a corpse of a man who fucked them up and they're heading back

2:28:54Sean Fennessey:kind of happy

2:28:56David Sims:they're kind of happy

2:28:57Sean Fennessey:the dad died

2:28:58David Sims:kind of kind of Yeah, he's a tough hang. Like there's a sense of relief. Yeah, but she lies to him. Yeah, she lies to him.

2:29:06Sean Fennessey:And that they're heading back where they came from. They're going to America. Yeah.

2:29:09David Sims:They're getting the fuck out of them. I know, but that's a tough journey they have ahead of them.

2:29:13Griffin Newman:Yeah, but they're going to be okay. Helen Mirren will be a waitress or something. They'll use his dead body as a paddle. Yeah, fucking chop him up. Chop him up. Make a stew. No? Pack him in ice. People aren't into this?

2:29:27David Sims:Send him home. We covered all the Indiana Jones movies. We covered all the Star Wars movies.

2:29:32Griffin Newman:We haven't, excuse me, we have not turned the dial of destiny yet. You're right. I'm sorry. That's the one we haven't done. Will it be about time?

2:29:40Sean Fennessey:Why not? Why haven't you done that yet?

2:29:42Griffin Newman:I mean, we haven't done Mangold. I guess we could. Yeah. Right, of course. We just tried it up not to like... It's not Spielberg.

2:29:47Sean Fennessey:Sure isn't. Yeah.

2:29:49Griffin Newman:You can tell it's not Spielberg because it's not very good.

2:29:51David Sims:Yeah.

2:29:51Griffin Newman:No, I like James Mangold.

2:29:53David Sims:I like James Mangold. I just think that film is not very good. Yeah.

2:29:55Sean Fennessey:I agree. I honestly like it. It's got a couple things. I liked it. I don't regret liking it. I think I like it more than Crystal Skull. I'm putting that out there. I like Crystal Skull. I know you guys like Crystal Skull. I don't really like it very much.

2:30:05David Sims:I think both of them have stuff and fatal fundamental errors in their conception. And for me, I like slightly more of Skull than Dial.

2:30:21Griffin Newman:Oh, and Skull to me is just so much better. Skull has a point of view. And Dial of Destiny, I felt lacked.

2:30:27Sean Fennessey:Very similarly to the if they had done this conversation. I think I said this already, but if Indy stays with Archimedes in the past, I'm like, this movie is amazing. That's the ending.

2:30:39David Sims:This is an amazing way to end this franchise. I'm so with you. I'm like, the cowardice of that movie, is that ending for me is the only reason to go back and make a fifth one.

2:30:50Sean Fennessey:I thought that would have been clever. I got excited. perfect for when they were that man out of his life.

2:30:57Griffin Newman:Again, look, I will argue for this one more time, which I hate doing because I don't like the movie very much. The whole point of the movie is Indiana realizing he does have something to go home to. He's saying, I have nothing to go home to. I want to stay in the past. The movie ends that way. It is a bizarre ending to Indiana Jones' story. It's good and it's brave. It's not brave. It's brave. The whole point is that Karen Allen is like, I know life sucks and I know you're getting old and I know Mutt Williams died in Vietnam ripped like we saluted service but you cannot simply just like turn into a Grecian urn bitch come home with human beings that you love this is why maybe we like the Mosquito Coast and you don't but I do like the Mosquito I think this is a very good movie I think it's a very successful movie I just don't think it was a commercially appropriate movie wasn't a good play yeah I think this movie's great

2:31:49David Sims:I mean in a way it's not a movie I like to rewatch I have talked with people a lot in the last couple weeks about Eddington. Uh-huh. I think something about One Battle After Another, like, knocked Eddington back into people's minds, as you said, when you guys covered it.

2:32:02Griffin Newman:A lot of online chatter of, right, like, that is, like, weird. Their conversation, their two, like, how do we process the last five years movie.

2:32:10David Sims:And, like, I, Eddington hits harder for me because it is a better reflection of my worldview. you. And I don't find the ending of one battle after another false or pushed. I buy it completely. And I, in fact, think it's kind of a miracle that they landed on a Titanic-esque ending that makes you leave the theater feeling good for a movie that should just end in Bummerville in terms of everything it's built for itself. One battle? Why would it end in Bummerville? A lot of bad things are happening in that movie and continue escalating over and over again. Right. And theoretically, you're like, the resolution of the central emotional conflict of the film should not be able to solve the external realities of the world in a way where wherever they've landed, things are still bad.

2:32:59David Sims:And they came up with an ending that makes the resolution of the characters' inner lives feel like a triumph for us, the audience. This is very interesting to me, Griffin, that this... Okay, go ahead. Much like Old Rose going back to the fucking Titanic and you're like... Gosh, there's so much I can't say about this.

2:33:13Sean Fennessey:I'm trying to think of what I can say. What can't you say? just because I know what the original ending of One Battle was, I know a lot of other things. But here's what I can say. One Battle is being called a movie of the moment and being described as a perfect representation because it's got these migrant detention centers and it's got this society in the enthrall to fascism. Right. But it...

2:33:38Griffin Newman:Like the levers of fascism are easy to pull in it.

2:33:41Sean Fennessey:Right.

2:33:41Griffin Newman:It's not like it works perfectly for Mr. Lockjaw. No, but mistakes are made.

2:33:45Sean Fennessey:Hawkshaw is just a functionary inside of a bigger structure. Like he's able to use certain things. So there are things in a, that really resonate with the world right now. For the record, you could probably hear this on the, all the episodes I've done about the movie, but that is not what makes the movie to me at all. Like I actually don't, I think that stuff is, is, is very well executed and very smart and beautifully rendered. But like, I don't care about that stuff as much as I care about the, the characters, the sense of humor, and then the kind of meeting points of those two things. Eddington was made specifically to do what you just said, which is supposed to be literally here's how it felt in 2020.

2:34:25Sean Fennessey:That is not what Paul was doing.

2:34:26David Sims:I am so loathe to revisit 2020 in any way. Ben and I saw that together and I'm just like, this is going so far past poking a bruise. It has like pushed its finger past the layers of skin. It is like scratching nerves. if we're gonna go this deep and this thorough and really interrogate it I'm all here for it it's the ultimate feel bad movie it ends on a conclusion of probably just beyond fucked everything's bad for everyone and I watch it and I'm like I think this movie's pretty honest you know this makes sense to me this all rings true

2:34:59Sean Fennessey:but it has a sense of humor it does Eddington's very funny

2:35:02David Sims:but the humor's rooted in like calling out things

2:35:05Griffin Newman:that we all try to Eddington is very much like the data center will win right like you know and that's great and I love Eddington. I think it's awesome. I think it's a great movie about 2020. One Battle Out isn't really about 2020 though because this movie could have been made 20 years ago. It's about how like, no, no, we don't give up. Right. Like, we have children. We have new generations. They have new perspectives we don't understand. And this will continue probably over time. The whole fucking magic at the ending is that he's using a cell phone. That he's like, I guess I should engage with the world.

2:35:37Griffin Newman:I guess I should belong to whatever's happening here and I should let my daughter go figure it out. But also it's her time

2:35:43Sean Fennessey:to be in charge of this.

2:35:45Griffin Newman:And it's not like she's going to go save the world. She might go get in trouble. She might die. But like, it's like there's an optimism of like, I need to wake up again, right? Like that's the magic of it.

2:35:54David Sims:Can I say one battle? Whereas in Eddington, of course,

2:35:56Griffin Newman:Joaquin is like,

2:35:58David Sims:you know, which I love as well. It's very funny. One battle spoiler warning for people who have not seen this movie is spring of 2016. Right, it came out ages ago. I had someone text me like, hey, can you explain me? I don't know if I'm just dumb or, and I didn't get this, or the movie isn't doing this. Right, and you were like, the Christmas adventure, no, what were you? Are good and right. They just want to get rid of street trash and punks. Note that, you know, you have the emotional reunion of DiCaprio and Chase Infinity. Yes. Father and daughter, right? Bob and Will. Cuts to Terminator Lockjaw.

2:36:34David Sims:Then he's Christmas adventured off the face of the board. and then you go back to the resolution of everything you're saying. But truly the first time I saw that movie,

2:36:42Griffin Newman:when Penn gets blasted in the face, I was like, love that. And then when he's alive, I had this momentary twinge of like, are you sure, PTA? That was a great ending for the character that he gives me the real ending. And I was like, sorry for saying anything. Absolutely love that. Trust you, boss. I won't talk again.

2:36:58David Sims:I agree with your read on the ending scene, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is more what I want to identify. That the text was, explain to me how they're just able to return to normal society. Everything Lockjaw put into motion, wouldn't that not be solved by just taking Lockjaw off the board? And I said, there are a couple interpretations I have, right? You're like, the machinery is all ready. He has created this false flag operation to find them, to track them down, to make up the story of what they've done. He's sicked all of the power of the military against them. Even if he's off the board, how are they okay?

2:37:34David Sims:How do they just go back to the same home and reset to the same life? And I said, you can either accept it as that that is just a device of the sort of level of farce that the movie has reached at that point of like it can be represented in a battle between two people. or, you know, my inner plot justification of that is basically at some point they identified the mess that Lockjaw created, that it was driven by his own personal vendettas, that it was an abuse of power. The Christmas adventurers say that. And that they cover up everything for everyone.

2:38:10Griffin Newman:Absolutely. They are saying in that meeting where they're going to take him out, they're like, and now he's like, there's the line that one of them repeats where he's like, they hit the school. Where you can tell that they're like, this is too much exposure for us. It's too much mess. This is all this mess for no reason, except obviously he wants to be a Christmas adventurer. It's a question then. Which we understand.

2:38:28Sean Fennessey:You walk through dark tunnels to get to this meeting. Right. This is a very secret. With you on that,

2:38:34David Sims:the question on that just becomes, why don't they wipe the two of them out as well? Because they don't care.

2:38:42Sean Fennessey:I think they feel like their work is done. That's my read. I think that the French 75 doesn't interest the Christmas adventurers at all. Not one bit.

2:38:49David Sims:they don't view them as powerful enough to fuck with them.

2:38:52Griffin Newman:Of course not. The first 75 is like defunct at this point, right? It's sort of like a loser.

2:38:56Sean Fennessey:He's there. And they're not, he's not going to make any change against what they're up to. And that is a huge part. I mean, that to me was also a huge part of the point of the movie. And that I think actually makes it somewhat more, um, it's philosophically in connection to Eddington. And I think PTA is definitely like the forces are still more powerful than you. You can have hope, but they're way bigger than what we can do in video games. They're spiderwebs

2:39:21David Sims:in ways you don't even see and all that. AI, big tech occupy the same roles in those two movies. And the difference is that Eddington ends with a guy who you've watched mosquito coast himself into chaos being like a vegetable in a bed having to watch his mother-in-law get fucked. He's the mayor! It's like even the bad guy lives in hell. We're all fucked. And one battle after another is like these two characters have each other and they've learned something from this and they have a good perspective and they live to fight another day and you can't give up hope.

2:39:52Sean Fennessey:The needle drop at the end of Eddington is so good. Like there's a lot of talk about the needle drop at the end of One Battle which is great, very recognizable but the Bobby Gendry song Courtyard which is so haunting as you look out onto the AI center and you're like Ari is really good

2:40:05Griffin Newman:at a final song. Great, really good.

2:40:08David Sims:But also the use of fireworks in that and the Mariah Carey song and Bo. Do we think One Battle has won best picture at the time this episode comes out. Oh, good question. This episode will come out April 19th. Do you think so, Sean? You've seen Marty Supreme, which we haven't. There are no crazy

2:40:21Sean Fennessey:release date changes for new releases. We'll be able to vet this very cleanly in six months, but I did, having just seen Marty...

2:40:28Griffin Newman:Which is the last big player.

2:40:30Sean Fennessey:Yes, which I don't think is the best... I think we'll be nominated for Best Picture, but it's not a contender to win.

2:40:36David Sims:Timmy seems to be whatever we're going to say. I think Chalamet

2:40:38Sean Fennessey:has a very good chance to win.

2:40:39David Sims:We're recording this two days after the first screening of Marty Supreme. I didn't go and went to Tron.

2:40:46Sean Fennessey:I think that Marty and Sinners will siphon votes from one battle that they will not siphon from Hamnet. Well, I haven't seen Hamnet yet.

2:40:57Griffin Newman:I shouldn't be so dismissive.

2:40:58Sean Fennessey:You know, and I've seen Hamnet.

2:40:59Griffin Newman:It just kind of feels like one of the things for the Oscars are like, we have our finger on the pulse and it's saying Hamnet.

2:41:06Sean Fennessey:Yes, I do. I am already preparing for that nightmare scenario.

2:41:11Griffin Newman:Hamnet. Well, the nightmare scenario was last year, Amelia Perez. That would have been the fully mystery. Like Hamlet appears to be a well-regarded film.

2:41:19Sean Fennessey:See, that actually would have been better, at least for my emotional state, because it would have been so absurd. It would have ended the Oscars. This doesn't matter. Like, this is complete nonsense.

2:41:27David Sims:Conan comes out and he's like, well, there are no more Oscars. When Green Book won Best Picture, I was cackling. I was like, they had an opportunity to do the funniest thing. Yes.

2:41:35Sean Fennessey:You're in the hellscape and it's just like, let's dance together.

2:41:38David Sims:And Amelia Perez would have been that times 10.

2:41:40Sean Fennessey:It would have been. This is more like, oh, yeah, there's like 30 of these in Oscar history. I was about to say, it feels like a very obvious Oscar choice, right?

2:41:48Griffin Newman:Yes, it does.

2:41:49Sean Fennessey:And, you know, Amanda and I have been saying that there is a little bit of Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love in reverse. But Shakespeare in Love is funny and charming and has kissing.

2:41:59Griffin Newman:And it sounds like Hamnett is...

2:42:00Sean Fennessey:So does one battle after another.

2:42:01David Sims:I know, right. The inverse is that one battle is the Shakespeare in terms of type of movie. Right. Hamnet is the Spielberg in terms of her.

2:42:11Sean Fennessey:But it has Shakespeare.

2:42:12Griffin Newman:But he's over. Saving Private Ryan was the boomer masterpiece big scale in Saving Freedom.

2:42:18Sean Fennessey:They're the funhouse mirror images of each other.

2:42:20Griffin Newman:Yeah, because Hamnet, I haven't seen it, but it's not that big scale a movie, right? No.

2:42:24Sean Fennessey:And I don't, again, don't hate it and it's not the villain of the year. I do think that that's going to happen pretty quickly where the bros are going to be like, Hamnet, what the fuck, dude? And there are some beautiful things about Hamnet. but it winning over the three movies I named that I would be very I would be unhappy Chloe Zhao need a

2:42:41Griffin Newman:second best picture

2:42:42David Sims:in five years I also think that the people I've spoken to have seen Hamnet I've not seen it yet Hamnet who are the most resistant the most cynical about it no Ham Hat the birthday boy sketch

2:42:54Griffin Newman:that's best picture worthy

2:42:56David Sims:absolutely put it up it never got a theatrical release could you do a limelight and have it qualify this year now carry on carry the people you know who have seen Hamnets the people I know who have seen Hamnets and are the most allergic and resistant to it are like and yet I cannot deny the fucking last five minutes yeah

2:43:13Sean Fennessey:last 20 minutes is powerful I'm sorry

2:43:16David Sims:okay

2:43:16Sean Fennessey:there seems to be a

2:43:17David Sims:last 20 last 10 doesn't she just fire off

2:43:19Griffin Newman:that fucking Max Richter track again though

2:43:22Sean Fennessey:that does happen to me that is I mean obviously that as the wallpaper music that it hits hard right but it's just there's

2:43:31Griffin Newman:the rival did that there's some staging

2:43:32Sean Fennessey:that really works well I haven't read the novel I also didn't know it was coming

2:43:35Griffin Newman:I'm pumped for it because I like Shakespeare yes

2:43:38Sean Fennessey:and if you do this is a good movie about liking Shakespeare

2:43:41Griffin Newman:now I don't like Children in Peril though well that's what I'm a little worried about I have some bad news

2:43:46David Sims:you might have a tough go thanks Mosquito Coast does also has Children in Peril though they all pull through I'm just gonna say that is the happy ending of the movie is the children are essentially out of peril and River Phoenix

2:43:59Sean Fennessey:gets to be Indy because of this movie exactly did we even say that

2:44:02Griffin Newman:for sure that's why that's the connection yes yes yes yes

2:44:05David Sims:he and Martha Plimpton date for years and then it leads to them both being in Running and Empty that's right a movie I adore

2:44:11Sean Fennessey:great movie back in the conversation because of One Battle very similar

2:44:14David Sims:yeah

2:44:15Griffin Newman:this film and we're going to do the oh oh oh one piece of news breaking on deadline I want you guys to hear Saoirse Ronan her to her he's divorcing her husband and wants to get dinner with me nope appears to be happily married and newly has a baby and they've got a great Nuna stroller that I've seen them parading around in paparazzi pictures Anuna Anuna Rava I think it looks like a Rava to me. Love Rava. I personally, I have a Baby Zen. I'm a city guy. I needed a lightweight stroller. We have a Baby Zen as well. They're great. A double? Well, no, our double stroller is a... I forget what it's called.

2:44:48Griffin Newman:I mean, that thing. There's no lightweight double stroller, unfortunately. We got about as lightweight as you can get, but it's a... Saoirse Ronan will be playing Linda McCartney in Sam Mendes' The Beatles, a four-film cinematic event.

2:45:01David Sims:That feels like something she doesn't need to do. I was going to say, the casting seems appropriate, but does she really need to do that? The big four, I get it. Those are plum rolls. No disrespect to the late, great Linda McCartney.

2:45:13Sean Fennessey:A little overqualified. That must tell us specifically what era we're in then.

2:45:17Griffin Newman:But although I think maybe will each film be in a different era or something?

2:45:20Sean Fennessey:I thought that was the idea. Maybe it's over a long period of time. I thought it was, I thought they were going to eat. Or is it like Zyrica, you have to play them all together

2:45:28Griffin Newman:and they all sync up as like a four film?

2:45:30Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Mike Myers is playing all four.

2:45:33David Sims:I hope each movie is one unbroken two-hour close-up shot of the same conversation. A continuous conversation. You gotta see the next three to make sense of this. It's just the meeting where they try to name the band. And so you watch the ringle one, and he only says something once every 25 minutes. He's like eating a sandwich. Oh, this is good.

2:45:56Sean Fennessey:Octopus is good. Don't do the box office game. I need to pee.

2:46:00David Sims:Okay.

2:46:00Griffin Newman:Oh, okay.

2:46:01David Sims:Should we talk while he pees? Yeah. And Sean,

2:46:04Griffin Newman:while you're in the bathroom,

2:46:05David Sims:think of me.

2:46:08Griffin Newman:Griff, have you seen, you've seen any other sort of fall films yet?

2:46:13David Sims:I don't think so. You know,

2:46:14Griffin Newman:I'm a... Yeah, your blankies, your blankies ballot remains, you know, it's just going to start to gather steam. But I'm saying I'm a plebe. I go see films

2:46:23David Sims:with the working people of America. Or occasionally you get invited to a fancy screening. Yeah, yeah. Occasionally. Not that many, though.

2:46:31Griffin Newman:No, I feel like... What's the worst film you've seen this year? That's a good question. Mr. Peanut sitting very happily at the bottom of my list. I still have not visited the Electric State. Believe me, man. You're going to fire that movie up and be like, yes, I know it will be bad, but it's an action movie. It'll be watchable. It will be really hard to focus on it.

2:46:55David Sims:My bottom list, I feel like I did some reorganizing recently. My bottom film I have right now, I got a pretty tight bottom five. And I'd say the order of these five is a little interchangeable. Can I guess that Jurassic World Rebirth is down there? It's absolutely down there.

2:47:14Griffin Newman:Is our president down there?

2:47:17David Sims:No disrespect to our president. Right now, I have Brave New World in the dead last spot. It's a tough one to defend. Where I was even thinking between Jurassic World and Brave New World, and I'm like, Jurassic World is well shot. Yeah, it looks all right. Like Brave New World looks bad. This is true. It has nothing I can recommend. I'm not even like, you know, you know who's good in a supporting role? No one scores it. Ford's better in it than anyone else. And yet I wouldn't be like he punches through. And then the rest of my bottom five is Sneaks, the CGI animated film. Oh, with talking sneakers?

2:47:49David Sims:Correct. I haven't seen that one. Martin Lawrence plays an old timer sneaker in a performance I would describe as Awake? good I'm glad they got them away Snow White is in my bottom five that's in my bottom five too no District War Queen Rachel and then Alto Knights ah right I haven't checked in with those knights yet that's my real like terror bottom five that was my and Sneaks I will admit I had perverse fun watching but I cannot pretend it is good in any way the other four I was like the other four are like major corporate art that failed yes yes for sure

2:48:23Sean Fennessey:you guys are doing bottom fives of 2025 Yeah, I just asked him what he had down there.

2:48:26David Sims:He had to do something or in the bathroom. Best actor field of this year. In the 1980s. I know Ford never had a shot, but I would fucking put him in. But he got, I think he got like a Golden Globe nom, maybe, didn't he?

2:48:38Griffin Newman:Because they wanted him to show up. Yeah, I mean. That was through gritted teeth. I can't believe you would say that the Golden Globes behave in such a craven manner in the 1980s. It looks like it got Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and Best Score. Maurice Jarr, who also did a wonderful score for Witness, which I feel like we didn't shout out. A very synthy Witness score. The Oscar nominees that year, it's a good year. This is the platoon year. Sure.

2:49:04David Sims:But Charlie Sheen does not get a nomination. As Charlie Sheen would put it, I won Best Picture at 20 and I wasn't even warm yet. It is a phrasing I think about all the time. I won Best Picture. Well, you know what phrasing I think about? Flip the menu. Flip the menu.

2:49:18Griffin Newman:Did you hear that? Charlie Sheen talking about experimenting with his sexuality. sexuality.

2:49:23Sean Fennessey:He flipped the menu.

2:49:24Griffin Newman:He said, I flipped the menu, which I just thought was perfect.

2:49:27David Sims:He spent hours looking at the front of the menu and you go, what else is on the back? You haven't watched the doc, right? Flipping the menu is a 10-minute conversation. That sounds good. And he is hot committed to that one metaphor. I'm glad he never goes off of it. It's good. And they're like, so what kind of things did you do with men? And he's like, well, you know, on the back of the menu there's desserts. Everything is filtered through the menu. we saw the poll quote of the menu thing and we were obsessed with it and then it's so much better the way it plays out I gotta watch that

2:49:58Griffin Newman:I gotta flip the menu the Oscar nominees that year were Paul Newman for The Color of Money he wins he wins Bob Hoskins for Mona Lisa who was sort of the critics pick of the year

2:50:07David Sims:a wonderful performance and he was always arguing that in any other year he would have

2:50:12Griffin Newman:I'm a one mate

2:50:13David Sims:yeah I'm Super Mario

2:50:14Griffin Newman:I thought it wasn't for the careers for the performance I'm gonna get King Cooper yeah it's good to talk mushroom makes me a little taller just a little bit yeah like was almost related to me does that make sense oh I think so neither one of us is Italian um you got uh Dexter Gordon for Round Midnight which is a really cool nomination like and that's kind of a cool movie and you know right

2:50:38Sean Fennessey:I like that movie a lot but that it is wild it sticks out a little bit he saxed it up baby

2:50:43Griffin Newman:this guy's playing

2:50:45Sean Fennessey:that same movie um Bertrand Tarbignac great director like it's cool that that movie got acknowledged um

2:50:51Griffin Newman:William Hurt for Children of a Lester God. So I think this is his third nomination in like three years. It's broadcast, Spider-Woman. I think it's maybe Spider-Woman, then Children, then broadcast. I can't remember, but he's in his hot period. He's just won Best Actor the Year Before. Yes, correct. And then James Woods for Salvador.

2:51:09David Sims:Really good performance by a normal guy. A Z Channel nomination. That's part of the big narrative of that doc is that that movie came out and flopped and then found such a second life within six months on Z Channel that it was the big surprise that that got in there.

2:51:24Griffin Newman:He's excellent in that movie. He rocks in that movie. He's an amazing actor.

2:51:27David Sims:Do you not feel like there's...

2:51:28Griffin Newman:But I would sub out.

2:51:29David Sims:You know, I hurt.

2:51:30Griffin Newman:Get, you know, whatever. Get him out of here.

2:51:32David Sims:Do you not feel like to some degree, we talked about, despite him being totally deserving of that nomination, there was something a little condescending in the Academy being like, congratulations, Harrison Ford. We take you seriously now that you're not doing little boy shit, right? With Witness. With Witness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? They're like, we're giving you an Oscar not just for the performance, but for thank you for growing up and being like an adult, serious actor. And this is like, no, no, two adults. Truly. And then they never nominate him again.

2:51:59Griffin Newman:They never nominate him again. My question to that is, when would they have? The Fugitive's the most obvious one. You know, that's the one where it's like, well, that movie got a Best Picture nomination. You know my argument.

2:52:10David Sims:What is it? Best Supporting Actor, Morning Glory. Morning Glory? I need eggs from a chicken.

2:52:15Sean Fennessey:I, you know, his clearest Oscar bait is regarding Henry. That's the film.

2:52:22Griffin Newman:And that movie didn't go over.

2:52:23Sean Fennessey:It didn't go over.

2:52:23Griffin Newman:Like all my Ford noms are like end with Mosquito Coast. Yeah. On my spreadsheet. I just gave him the credit for Han Solo and Indiana Jones and all the shit he deserves credit for. Blade Runner.

2:52:35David Sims:Up until that point and then it feels like Witness they're like congratulations you've entered the room and on Mosquito Coast they're like know your place. Go back to just being a matinee idol.

2:52:44Griffin Newman:My nominees that year are Hoskins and Newman plus Kurt Russell Big Trouble in Little China. Cool. Jeff Goldblum in The Fly and Ford. Yeah. Oh, you do put Ford in there? Yeah. Great. Great. I respect you. I like Gene Hackman in Hoosiers that year, but that's another kind of like... Never been a Hoosiers guy. I really love the first half hour of Hoosiers.

2:53:04Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I know.

2:53:05Griffin Newman:The rest of it, I'm like, it's good, but just the whole guys in a barn, it's five in the morning, all that shit's good.

2:53:12Sean Fennessey:Despite working for Bill Simmons for 15 years, I just have never been into Hoosiers. and Bill likes Hoosiers but I feel like he respects Hoosiers at a time he loved it he has pointed out its many flaws many times but I think he has a big relationship to it

2:53:26Griffin Newman:I like that movie

2:53:27Sean Fennessey:and you know that's a weird one too because Hopper was nominated that year but not for Frank Booth he was nominated for Hoosiers but he's good in Hoosiers

2:53:32David Sims:he provided them with a safer nomination option yes

2:53:36Sean Fennessey:but Frank Booth would have been an absolutely sick demented nomination

2:53:41David Sims:very true the box office yeah no I was going to say the box office this movie did not perform well.

2:53:46Griffin Newman:No, it did not. It opens on Thanksgiving, which I'm not sure how I...

2:53:51David Sims:I'm not sure about that decision. Yeah. Do you like that decision? I think Thanksgiving release didn't mean the same thing it meant back then that it does today. I suppose so. I think that's more of an Oscar confidence. Right.

2:54:03Griffin Newman:And also, of course, it's, you know, limited release. Yeah. But so it's not in the top five, of course. I'm just saying it's not like in 86 they were like,

2:54:13David Sims:we're hoping Mosquito Coast clears 60 million for the five day. No, they were not. It's number one at the box office. But it's not a movie the family's going to want to see together.

2:54:21Griffin Newman:And I think we might have done this box office because number one is a movie we covered on Patreon. It's the fourth film in a beloved franchise which is sort of the biggest hit this franchise has had It's Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home? Wales. Wales. San Francisco.

2:54:35Sean Fennessey:Is Star Trek 4 Plumber or is that 3?

2:54:38Griffin Newman:That's 6.

2:54:39Sean Fennessey:6? Yeah.

2:54:40Griffin Newman:Lloyd is 3. Christopher Lloyd.

2:54:43Sean Fennessey:Okay, okay.

2:54:43Griffin Newman:And 4 is the one where they go back in time to San Francisco and there's whales. Yes, of course. Four is sort of pleasant. Our wicked ways. Like, you know, Four is a movie that anyone can see without really any knowledge of Star Trek required. Four is fish out of water comedy. fish out of water comedy. It's good.

2:55:00Sean Fennessey:Okay. It's good. It's not my favorite because it's the least sci-fi. It's six I love.

2:55:04David Sims:Six rocks. Sean, do you know the story of how they landed on the premise for Four? Eddie Murphy, under contract at Paramount, talks about how much he loves Star Trek and that he'd like to be in a Star Trek movie. And they were like, fuck, what's a premise where we could have Eddie Murphy with the Star Trek bridge crew doing his modern day? He can't be in sci-fi mode. So they were like, oh, they go through a wormhole and come back to 80s San Francisco and Eddie Murphy's there with them. And then Eddie Murphy was like, I don't want to be the fucking fifth lead in a Star Trek movie. And so they rewrite his part to be the mom from Seventh Heaven.

2:55:39Sean Fennessey:Oh, wow. Who is their present day San Francisco ally

2:55:42David Sims:and becomes a love interest. But that was meant to be Eddie Murphy.

2:55:44Griffin Newman:And Eddie said, I'll make Pluto Nash. Well, Eddie said, I'll make The Golden Child, which is his 86th movie. Not a good film. Not a film I like. Not a particularly good film. Watched it for the first time recently. Yeah, more like the Michael Richie.

2:55:58Sean Fennessey:What happened, bro? Ron's Child. Used to be beautiful.

2:56:00David Sims:It's a weird move from Richie.

2:56:02Griffin Newman:Number two is an animated film that is not produced by those cowards at Disney. Is it a Bluth? Yeah. Is it The Rats of Nymph? It's not. It's the second film, I believe. It's not Land Before Time? I think that's third. I can't remember the order now. It must be an American tale.

2:56:18Sean Fennessey:It's an American tale. So, it's so funny you bring this up because my... There are no cats in there. As we are recording, my wife and daughter are flying to New York City from Los Angeles. They're going to see that big green lady out their window. They sure will. And my wife said, can you send me all the letterboxd lists you made regarding Alice? So, there is a public list of all the things that she has seen. and then there are a couple of private lists that are things that she could see at some point. Vetted. Possible Alice movie. I think this will work for her. My wife loves Anastasia. It's Anastasia and wants to show it to her.

2:56:53Sean Fennessey:We have not yet done it. We haven't done any of the Bluths. I was about to say, Anastasia, like all Bluths, it's just a little scarier than those Disney movies. It is. Just a little more intense. But we, so I went, I made a Bluth letterbox list and I was like, where do we go first? Is it, is it American Tale? Is it Land Before Time? I think it's one of those two.

2:57:11David Sims:you start with Titan of course

2:57:13Sean Fennessey:no she's a huge Damon head though so that'll you know it'll really fill out her Damon film and Minnie Driver she loves to Joss Whedon pass on anything

2:57:20Griffin Newman:and Edlund yeah

2:57:22Sean Fennessey:yeah we uh and then I did realize she has seen Thumbelina

2:57:27Griffin Newman:oh that's right which kind of stinks that's a bad one yeah saw it in theaters American Tale's kind of scary though much like Killian Before Time it's just a little scarier it's also emotionally intense yeah

2:57:37Sean Fennessey:it is yeah

2:57:38David Sims:but I saw it when I was a kid and I fucking loved it I loved it

2:57:40Sean Fennessey:American Tale

2:57:41David Sims:yeah Do you start with Feivel going west? Do you go west first? That's so confusing.

2:57:47Sean Fennessey:We're like, we're Sergio Leoning in reverse, right? It's like, you got to go once upon a time in America first. She hasn't met. Then you got to go west. She hasn't met Feivel.

2:57:56David Sims:She doesn't have the reference base. I definitely saw West first.

2:58:00Griffin Newman:I did too because I think it was in theater. You guys are a little younger. Exactly. Yeah. Number three in the box office is a film we've covered as well. And I already mentioned it. It was one of the biggest hits of the year.

2:58:09David Sims:We already covered it? Yep. On Patreon. Only on Patreon. Normal ep. Normal ep? Something went awry? No, we're just being insane in COVID. Okay, so it's a COVID commentary. Yep. It's not Aliens. No, 1986. I mean, Aliens is 1986. I guess. You're correct. Yeah, thank you. 86 COVID and Sandy it's Crocodile Dundee maybe the best single day of podcasting we've ever done absolutely

2:58:34Griffin Newman:we are riding high and then we are not it is like what was the other episode that day Crocodile Dundee 2 and then Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles we did the whole trilogy

2:58:44David Sims:all in one day a thing we used to do

2:58:46Griffin Newman:a little bit more yeah

2:58:48David Sims:basically birth of the first child my memory is that was one of our last records A before your daughter was born and B before the COVID vaccine was announced. That's right. So it was right at that kind of threshold of like, is it another year of this? The woke vaccine, to be clear. Right. And we were like, let's just knock out all three of these in a row over Zoom and we lose our fucking minds.

2:59:11Griffin Newman:First one's good. Have you seen it? Crocodile Dundee? Yeah, of course. The first one is good. I mean, have you seen it lately, I guess?

2:59:16Sean Fennessey:Not since I was 14, but I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Very enjoyable. First one still hit. Two I've seen and thought was okay. Two New York.

2:59:23David Sims:Two opens as well as any movie has ever opened. Fishing with dynamite. It's incredible. In the Hudson River. That's right. That's enjoyable. And then it becomes his bad Rambo rip. Right.

2:59:33Sean Fennessey:And it barely has jokes. That's the origin of that's not a knife. That's a knife. That's the first one.

2:59:38David Sims:That's the first one.

2:59:39Sean Fennessey:They run it on the subway. Do they run it back on the subway? They run everything back. Yeah. Okay.

2:59:44David Sims:But everything iconic happens in the first movie. Nothing iconic happens in the second movie except fishing with dynamite in the Hudson River.

2:59:50Sean Fennessey:Did you know that famed fantasy football expert Matthew Berry wrote Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles?

2:59:55Griffin Newman:We definitely covered that. Yes, we did. To the point that I was like, is Wikipedia misleading? Nope, it's accurate. Like, is this a broken link?

3:00:02David Sims:Those episodes also led to one of Ben's greatest ideas. A key Ben should be running Hollywood. Why is he not in every development meeting? Oh, right. Moment where during Crocodile Dondi in Los Angeles, which is based around him having a young son, Ben said, why isn't his son a knife? Just a giant knife. A knife. A knife with legs and arms.

3:00:22Sean Fennessey:That sounds like something that Sora can make for you.

3:00:26Griffin Newman:Yeah, exactly. Now, easy. No, we want that handmade quality. I assume Sora is like the new head of Ampus by this point. Number four at the box office is a re-release of a Disney film. I assume it's Sean's favorite film of all time.

3:00:39Sean Fennessey:Oh, I know this as well.

3:00:41Griffin Newman:You assume it's Sean's favorite?

3:00:42David Sims:So that's a backhanded joke?

3:00:43Griffin Newman:It's a backhanded joke. Yeah. Song of the South? Yeah.

3:00:45Sean Fennessey:That's right.

3:00:47Griffin Newman:In 1986, Disney decided we need to hear the song again.

3:00:52Sean Fennessey:We, uh...

3:00:53Griffin Newman:What?

3:00:53Sean Fennessey:No jokes now, Griffin? No, this is what I was going to say. I've never seen this film. Clammed right up, didn't you?

3:00:57Griffin Newman:I've only seen Zippity-Doo-Dah, which was included on a VHS that I had that was like a compilation of songs. Couch Potato Video had a ripped Canadian VHS. And I would say to my parents, like, what's this movie?

3:01:09Sean Fennessey:And they would be like, stop asking the question. Same experience. I don't know when the Disney Channel started, but I feel pretty confident that we taped this off the Disney Channel.

3:01:17David Sims:It's probably, you know, and had a VHS copy in our house. It was still being re-released. In the 80s. Right. It just never got an American home video raise. It did in other countries. I saw a bootleg.

3:01:27Sean Fennessey:It is straight up available to rent at Videotech on the east side of Los Angeles right now, if you want to see it.

3:01:32Griffin Newman:I feel like... And doing that doesn't put you on any kind of list.

3:01:36Sean Fennessey:I haven't done it, so I wouldn't know. But I'm just telling people that if they would like to, they can.

3:01:41David Sims:Drew McQueenie shared a story recently on Doughboys about Michael Jackson stealing the Laserdisc copy, the video store he worked at had. No, I was just going to say, when I went into my memory palace, I was trying to think of a good example, but the fantasy joke setup of putting, forcing the opinion on the other person on Mike.

3:02:01Griffin Newman:Right, right.

3:02:01David Sims:You do to Chris a lot. This sort of like CR congrats on Jimmy Kimmel getting kicked off the air. Finally, you're trying to... Big week for you.

3:02:08Sean Fennessey:Please don't demystify all of my moves. I only have three, so I need you to just keep those tight, Ben. If you could just carve that out, I'd really appreciate it. I've got very little to go on these days. Good moves.

3:02:20Griffin Newman:Good moves. number five the box office we've also mentioned it won best actor this year it's like a sequel Color of Mine yep which is really good

3:02:30Sean Fennessey:it is

3:02:30Griffin Newman:that is a movie that I spent my whole childhood thinking was bad or kind of whatever because it's rep was like yeah they gave you know Paul Newman an apology Oscar you had to make a sequel to The Hustler Marty was and then you watch it and you're like better than basically any movie that exists it's one of the most five star movies

3:02:48Sean Fennessey:I've ever seen

3:02:49David Sims:I know we've been going for a while but I now need to ask this question. Okay. What would Harrison's Color of Money be? Obviously, it's not a literal legacy sequel because he's done those and those are sci-fi. He's done every legacy sequel available, right? No, but I'm saying not legacy sequel. I'm saying what is the movie that would make them go, fuck, we have to give Harrison Ford the Oscars. It's John Book. It's a good point, though. Like, bring Book back. I'm like, what is the type of role? Who would he work with? Is there an existing figure, a fucking piece of literary material? Drinking the movie?

3:03:18Sean Fennessey:But doesn't it have to be witness because he already played this character?

3:03:22Griffin Newman:Yeah, I don't know. I'm moving the legacy sequel up. I mean, well, then it's something else. But I mean, I guess you're talking about him working with a real director on a non-legacy sequel thing. Right. He's become the king of the legacy sequel.

3:03:34David Sims:So I'm putting that aside. I'm more saying the feeling of color money coming out and people being like, what are we supposed to do? Not give him the Oscar?

3:03:41Sean Fennessey:I do think that 42 is probably as close as he gets to that kind of thing.

3:03:45David Sims:And he's like a 20-layer ham sandwich in that movie. And that movie is like just okay. I'm the president of baseball. President of the Dodgers. I expect you to not. I just feel like you weren't that locked into the movie. Branch Rickey. Big fucking bushy eyebrows. He's way over the top.

3:04:06Griffin Newman:Yeah. Also the top 10. You've got the Chuck Norris Lou Gossett film Fire Walker. A film I've never seen. A canon film. You've got Francis Ford Coppola's, you know, fairly underrated Peggy Sue Got Married. You've got Soul Man. Chris's other... Sean, fuck.

3:04:23Sean Fennessey:I called you Chris. Sean's other person. You were making a joke that I would make at Chris, but of course now I will make it at Griffin, which is of course a movie that you would like to reclaim right now on the podcast. Before we recorded, you said, you know, I've been thinking about 1986 and the landscape of films and what made me laugh when I first saw it as I was rediscovering.

3:04:39David Sims:I won't let you have a Soul Man. We all know that Paul Newman stole C. Thomas Howell's Oscar.

3:04:46Griffin Newman:Number nine, Stand By Me, a film, I will admit, is sort of similar to The Goonies for me. I have never been able to really get into it.

3:04:55Sean Fennessey:So funny you say that. One of the other podcasts that I did this week was the New York Times book podcast. And the subject was non-horror Stephen King film adaptations. Was it with Gilbert? It was with Gilbert. I was about to say he was a super fan. Of course, Gilbert, one of the world-renowned Stephen King experts. Yes. And a mutual friend of ours. And Gilbert kind of set up the episode by saying the exact same thing. Because for me, I don't really care about Stand By Me that much. It's not a big movie for me.

3:05:21Griffin Newman:It's just, yeah, it's just one of those things where I'm like, well, I wasn't there. I wasn't there for this movie and I wasn't there for the nostalgic era it evokes. I don't think, I think the kids are good in it. Right, and I think it like strikes the correct tone

3:05:36David Sims:by and large. But it's definitely generational past those things. I think many people our age and younger have claimed it as their own after discovering it for the first time as a tenfold or whatever. Yeah, never good for me. Never for me. Talk about a fucking River Phoenix.

3:05:50Griffin Newman:No, 100%. River Phoenix is happening. He's just fully happening. He's really good in that movie. And then number 10 is Top Gun. The biggest movie of the year.

3:05:57Sean Fennessey:Yep, absolutely. And when this was released, Top Gun was number 10 at the box office. Top Gun was released in May.

3:06:03Griffin Newman:Yeah, yeah. It's a different time. We used to be a proper country. Top Gun has made 166 mil domestic at this point. So, yeah. But of course, Mosquito Coast, you would think, made nothing. but actually you know it ends up well no 10 million dollars it's not very good no 14 14 domestic total so yeah pretty bad 40 no it cost like 20 something but still like I think they could not recoup money like you know um which is fine it's okay Harrison Ford tended to make really successful films and weir goes on from this to dead poets or is there something in between no it's Dead Poets yeah

3:06:48Sean Fennessey:who's doing Dead Poets do you guys know

3:06:49Griffin Newman:Nia DaCosta it's already been recorded

3:06:51Sean Fennessey:we can call that

3:06:52David Sims:because it's in the can that's a spoiler

3:06:54Sean Fennessey:is that a big movie for her

3:06:55Griffin Newman:yeah it's a big movie for her and she went to a boarding school like that and wanted to be a poet really she did want to be a poet we get into all of it it's a very literal okay but no that was a good episode we had fun we've been potting so long and I'm sorry Sean you have really been subjected to a lot of us this week

3:07:12Sean Fennessey:no I know you enjoy it and I've been delighting in it

3:07:15Griffin Newman:I know you enjoy it but this is the final of four recordings that I have done with you or Amanda the extended universe

3:07:21Sean Fennessey:yes exactly no I'm I'm very I hope that your listeners are okay with a divorced and double exposed big picture situation well I

3:07:31Griffin Newman:I was like think this actually is timing out well in that the live episode we did is published and then my episode that I did on big picture will come out soon and then these will come out six months later so it's like you know it's not overloading it

3:07:42Sean Fennessey:And then it's big picture week on Blank Check. And then we got to fit. What are you doing next solo? That's a good question.

3:07:48David Sims:I mean, let me get back to you on that.

3:07:49Sean Fennessey:Okay, think about it.

3:07:50David Sims:I might, I might do one. I might look ahead on the release calendar. But yes, no, there will be a back-to-back big picture run on this podcast six months from now.

3:07:58Sean Fennessey:Right. If you guys want to do a deep dive into Harmony Corrine, I'm down. Deep dive like into it. How so? The Hall of Fame? We could just like go through. The new stuff? Where are you at on kids? I'm obsessed. Okay. I bought him the umbrella. The hardback. For listeners at home, they can't see me, but I'm gyrating. Okay. Where are you at on Beach Bum? Beach Bum is like fun. Hasn't stuck with me, that one. I had a good time. It feels very like I've been smoking weed all day. And let's just hang out. Okay, here's the big question. Where are you at on Baby Invasion? Okay, someone recently, because I was talking shit on it.

3:08:36Sean Fennessey:I haven't really watched any of his weird VR, AI, whatever. we're edge lord. Yeah, exactly. I haven't watched any of it, but someone was like, listen, he's always been a cutting edge filmmaker. Give it a chance. Watch the films. Don't just like, sure. Just don't regurgitate what everyone else is saying.

3:08:53Griffin Newman:But there definitely comes a point where, when, if that's your thing and you're getting older, you might not be able to do it anymore. Like be on the cutting edge. Like, yeah.

3:09:01Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It just might not hit in the same way it would maybe for someone who's, you know, Gen Z. I do think, um, I do think that any edge lord production commentary, from you guys would be amazing. Amazing. My head hurts! AggroDrift commentary. I'm leaving! They're like, I am the world's greatest assassin. Have you seen that? Have you guys seen AggroDrift?

3:09:22David Sims:I have not. If Edgelord... If Edgelord... Edgelord. Runs its course soon enough, we could just do Edgelord as a Patreon series. Yeah, if they get like three movies total. I haven't seen Baby Invasion yet,

3:09:33Sean Fennessey:but I saw AggroDrift in theaters. And it was an experience. It was an experience. Very good. Okay, so Harmony Corrine, that's what you want to do? With love. Okay. Those films are like not available. Yeah, it's true. It's really hard to see a lot of them. Gummo is in the Criterion Collection now, but you know. Julian Donkey Boy, where do you get that? YouTube, baby. YouTube. I bet.

3:09:55David Sims:That has to be coming from someone at some point, right?

3:09:58Griffin Newman:Yeah, where's my Dogma box? My Dogma Steel.

3:10:01David Sims:Seriously. My Dogma 95 Steel. Where's my Criterion issue? Oh, well, Dogma, I was going to say. We know where to buy that. Dogma, but Dogma. Umbrella. Dogma. Beanie included. it. Thank you for being here.

3:10:12Sean Fennessey:This is so fun.

3:10:14David Sims:Everyone should listen to Big Picture and Harmony Corrine Month coming to main feed soon. Absolutely. Yeah.

3:10:20Sean Fennessey:A true deep dive, but Ben's solo episodes. We're not going to be on. You and Amanda are both on vacation.

3:10:25David Sims:Especially in a Rafferty miniseries this year. You just let Ben go off about Harmony Corrine twice a week for a month. I'm just doing poppers. I'm just rambling.

3:10:35Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I'll talk to Bill Simmons about that.

3:10:39David Sims:I'll say this this is far off can I do the fucking Masters of the Universe episode with you guys

3:10:44Sean Fennessey:oh I would love

3:10:46David Sims:nothing more I think we gotta do that when is that due out

3:10:48Sean Fennessey:June that sounds so good

3:10:50David Sims:okay so let's say that booked thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe tune in next week for Dead Poets Society with Nia Dacosta Nia Dacosta yeah Queen of the Bone Temple herself you'll have seen it you'll have seen it you'll have moved in bones and as always Am I completely blanking? What are the best bits we've done in this episode? Everyone's just on their laptop now. Yeah, it's just been three hours. Come on.

3:11:18Griffin Newman:It's our president.

3:11:19David Sims:I hope the listener thinks of me when they're going to the bathroom. There you go.

3:11:23Griffin Newman:I mean, look, honestly, they do because it's a podcast and people listen to podcasts while they're peeing. It's turd music.

3:11:32Sean Fennessey: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 J.J. 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.

3:12:10Sean Fennessey: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.