Vamps with Caroline Framke

17:48A thought I had not thought was in that brain. Yeah. And then that you were like, well, we could. There is one. And I'd never been. You'd never been. No. And we wandered in there and I would say that the midday Dave and Buster's wasn't really ready to help us. No. It's not like we walked in there and someone was like, and here's where you get your card and here's how everything works. We kind of had to trial and error.

18:08David Sims:That's what I like about Dave and Buster's is you have to take care of your own ass. See, we did not know that. We walked in. I was like, there is no one here. there were maybe three groups of two children who were... This is what makes Dean B different than Chuck E. Cheese, though. They're not going to hold your fucking hand. This place isn't for babies. Chuck E. Cheese is for gillotons. We wandered around for an embarrassingly long time trying to find anyone or where do we get the card? Do we download the app? Whatever. And then we looked up and there's like a giant fucking... Yeah, like here.

18:38Start here.

18:39David Sims:But it's very large. There are 8 ,000 giant flashing signs. There's a lot of flashing things there. It's hard to know. It's a very pizza planet in a way that I enjoyed, but it was overwhelming. The thing we did. Even though there was no one there. The only thing we did that I regret, no one was there. No one was there. Is that I was like, we both were kind of like, well, we should play one of the gun games. The only thing that you regret was leaving. Was not leaving it. First of all, I wish I was still there. I should still be there. And we're like, you know, we're looking at your house of the deads and you're like, oh God, it's all so intense.

19:05And then, so there was a Tomb Raider one. And I was like, okay, Tomb Raider's kind of a slightly more. And we start playing it. and then they're like, you're being attacked by wolves. You have to shoot the wolves. And so it's just, Carolyn's a dog owner shooting so many dogs, essentially. And I'm like, Carolyn, kill them. I was like, why? No. Like truly almost crying. I'm like, I'm an insane dog owner. I'm attacking my dog. I am. It was very upsetting. It was also overwhelming just because they were trying to get us. They were. They were jumping at the screen. It does put you right on a swivel, those shooting games.

19:37I can't, like that was never, I didn't go to many arcades. We talked about how we went to arcades as a teen. and I didn't really do that. And definitely if I did, my game was not shooting. I feel like it was, you know, I smoked him on basketball, I'll say that much. And Sims is solidly taller than me. So let us all...

19:51David Sims:This is cool. This is cool and I like this. And this is good lore. It was a good time. And then we have gone bowling since. Because we were like, okay, casting around for what are other things I did before I could drink. Yeah. You know, like teen activity. We just started an action figure collection together and didn't invite me. What is... Is there a third... Is there a third thing in the Holy Trinity? Well, for me, and I feel like Ben will understand. Well, I did actually get my ear pierced like a month ago, randomly after I got a great haircut. And I was like, I think I'm fucking going to live forever.

20:22Should I pierce my ear? Oh my God. You were feeling vamped up. I was feeling vamped up. I did not think it through. I'll tell you that much. And I got like the upper thing. And then they were like, you're going to need a sleep pillow. And I was like, what? I'm going to need a pillow? I did not get the pillow. It's like a donut. If you look up like piercing pillows. I get it. I get it. Just stop it. There are some weird piercing pillows. It looks like other stuff. But I sleep on my back, so it's not that big an issue. But it was like, I have to think about things in a way I was not anticipating.

20:47But yeah, I did get my ears pierced. I'll get the other one pierced if you want to do that. But I do feel like the thing I would, my holy trinity in terms of teen activities, it would either be a mall or a diner because I grew up in Jersey. Hell yeah. A diner. Well, and we've been to many a diner together. Well, not the late night diner. I didn't go to breakfast at diners. I did breakfast at night. I get, no, I... Because what else is open? That's teen, very teen. We got to end up at Denny's or whatever because we can't go to a bar. The one like 24 hour place in my town besides for I don't think the diner was 24 hours in my immediate town was a 24 hour combination Baskin Robbins Dunkin Donuts.

21:19So you can stay up, eat some ice cream, feel sick. Where would you go, Ben?

21:23David Sims:If Caroline successfully convinces David to get an ear piercing and then go to a 24 hour chain restaurant afterwards, that feels like he's then stepping in on your territory. A little bit. He should do with you. A little bit. Wow. I'm really taking over. I'm just encroaching the whole thing. That wasn't even one of my power moves. You're not doing anything wrong. The problem is, if Ben or I suggested these activities, what are you guys talking about? You're insane. I'd never do that. A lot of people say a lot of things about me. That's all I'll say. But Fran and I were briefly going to get our nipples pierced for the Dragon Tattoo episode.

21:54Of course. We were like, we're going to go full Lisbeth. Right. But then we, you know, whatever. We didn't get our act together. Like, that was going to be complicated. That was it number one on the priority list? What a shame. Would have been pretty funny. Maybe you wouldn't want the AC as much if you had two fucking metal studs in your chest. I think I'd want it more. What were you going to say? Well, to answer your question, what did I do? Your diner. Or, yeah, sure. What was your, yeah. I mean, pretty much anywhere where you could loiter in the middle of the night. You loiter? Yeah, yeah. Teenage Ben?

22:23Yep. Loitering? Yep. Crime loiter. Reading a big leather-bound book in a cozy corner? Playgrounds, but even just gas station parking lots. Oh, sure. You know, because you could go to the convenience store. those are open 24 hours. We had a 24-hour diner near my town where I grew up. So we would go TikTok. Oh, classic. Oh, yeah. Perfect. Oh, I see it here. I feel like, you know, in keeping with, sort of keeping with this episode, I feel like I have, as I have aged, I'm looking back at like, what did I like to do before my default was going out to a restaurant or going to a bar? Like, are there other activities?

23:03I'm sure there are, you know? And I feel like as a team, And you have to find those other things. Right. That's funny teen stage. You and I have done these teen things in like the smack middle of the day. Yeah. Because that's when there are fewer people there and that's when you're doing stuff. But I do feel like, you know, doing that stuff later at night. But I would often. As a teen, that's where you could go. I would often do it in the day as a teen, I feel like. Right. It was kind of like, how do I feel this weekend day? Yeah. Well, movies. Movies, video games, going to the park. Boo. The park is nice.

23:34What's wrong with the park? I don't know. When I was 14, my guess is I was sort of like... Your grimy London park. So instead I would go to Rowan's, which was a bowling alley and an arcade. And that is a very, very cherished spot in my childhood. And it had a bar and I could order food at the bar. And they had something called the combo platter for five pounds. It was like chicken fingers, fries, and onion rings. All on one big plate. I mean, this is... All the food groups. It's covered. The triangle. Vegetables.

24:05David Sims:starch protein the full pyramid yeah by the way I did briefly consider punishing you for dangling clueless in front of me by bringing back oh I didn't know you grew up in England blah and I did you don't understand that would be too complicated no no I know so I briefly was like I know it's been retired and I was like I'm gonna unretire it forcibly and then I watched I can never be your woman and I was like if there were any episode to do it on that be the once and never mind fuck it fuck we should it's a heavy Brit I was like, I don't think it's funny. I think I just, I think I had a mean moment.

24:37I was like, I just want to see him squirm. And I was like, let's not do that.

24:39David Sims:You even told me at David's birthday that you wanted my help doing a bit to torture him. And then I thought about like what that would actually look like and the conversation I'd have with you to make that happen. I was like, that's nothing. You know what the bit should have been for I should never be your woman? It should have been arguing that David grew up in California. Sure. Being like, no, no, you think that was my boy. That was Los Angeles. No. Sunny? So sunny! The sun! Remember you were surrounded by people with perfect Californian accents? In the world's brightest town. Hello! I'm from San Diego!

25:16David Sims:I just got back from the beach! David Mitchell Wright is the one who's like, I'm not doing that. You don't want to hear what that is. We're not going to do that. I want to step back and do a little table setting here because you've alluded to this. But all this conversation, by the way, was relevant because this is a movie about like, do you want to stay young forever? Right. What is it to be eternally a certain age? Right. Caroline, you had two blockbuster appearances on this podcast. Blockbuster. Covering two huge movies. Yes. Showgirls. A big episode. A big film. I feel like I'm really glad I didn't think that one.

25:50I didn't overthink that one because the second I left, I was like, I feel like that was a big movie.

25:53David Sims:This is what you said at David's birthday. You said like, I never would get an episode like that today. And I didn't even realize how big it was until I left. and we're like, Caroline, every time we put a new miniseries on the schedule, I say to David, what about Frankie? We haven't had Frankie on in too long. And your response is often, I don't want to do something if I don't feel strongly about it. I'm not going to take a slot for someone who would care more about something else. Which I've always thought was very respectable, but you did that in Kiki. But I have thrown two great movies, two great movie episodes.

26:20David Sims:I've thrown you a lot of options. He has thrown me options over the years. And you've usually kind of been like, David Lynch, I don't know that I, you know, I'm engaged enough with that to be, you know, someone like that. I don't want to take it away from someone who really wants to do it. Which is very thoughtful of you. Yeah, like there's something I feel like there would be something interesting about doing like if I were to do a David Lynch, it'd be coming from the perspective of I've never fully engaged with this work in a way that maybe I wanted to and that would be different. But I'm like, but he's there's so much to say about it from a perspective of people who know and love him.

26:52I have so many Lynch obsessives in my life that I was like, I can't, I can't even do that to them.

26:56David Sims:people who would who aren't even in contention to be on the just people to people we put heckling on the spreadsheet i go this feels like a franke moment right david has some offline conversation with you that i'm not part of and then you get slotted in for vamps and it was like that sort of makes sense that feels like a good thing and you'd seen it well that was the thing is that i didn't know that you didn't okay so you didn't know that all right you keep going no you jump with what you were going to say. Well, it's just he asked me like, oh, do you have any strong feelings about vamps? And I was like, oh, yeah.

27:29I mean, I saw it and I liked it. And he was like, so you saw it? Yeah, that was already. I was like, oh. And I was like, yeah. And I guess I did not at that time know the full lore of just how limited this one theater release was. We will get to. We will get to how, you know, how I did see it. But I was like, oh, yeah. And I saw it and he was like, okay, so did you like it? And I said, yes. And he said, okay, great.

27:48David Sims:You're doing that. And I said, fine. I think we knew when we committed to the series that it would be harder to book our final two films. Yes, no doubt. In particular, that didn't get real releases and that you're like, you know, as much as Heckerling is serious, there aren't a lot of Heckerling auteurists out there who like are like, well, of course, I've watched every one of our films. Most people don't know these two movies ever happened, right? Yes. And so when we get to positions like this, there's often this thing of like, look, we can ask a friend of ours who's a good guest to watch it cold for the first time.

28:21David Sims:But it's always better if we know someone who actually has seen it previously and has any feeling about it. Right. And you're not just rolling the dice of someone coming in and being like, it was fine. I mean, right. Love it or hate it. It's better if there's some feeling in history. There's certain things like I Could Never Be Your Woman. where, well, honestly, that movie turned out to be a lot weirder than I thought it was. But initially, I was sort of like, at least it's not a big ask of a guest of like, hey, watch this 90-minute movie with Paul Rudd in it. Like, you'll have an okay. You did ask me if I would be interested in that one.

28:53I was like, between the two, I would rather Vamps. We kept asking people,

28:56David Sims:hey, here's the heckling list, but if you have any relationship to Loser, I Could Never Be Your Woman on Vamps, please let us know. Whereas there are certain movies I feel like where it's like you're making a, you know, a bit more consequential ask of someone to watch some heavy movie that nobody... I don't know. It hasn't come up in a while because we've been doing all these big shots. But these have been true kind of movies that don't exist. So David does not relate to me that you had seen the film. I thought you were doing us a mitzvah, right? That you were like, I like vampires. I like comedies.

29:28David Sims:This feels like a fun thing to watch for the first time. Then we have another past guest, hopefully future guest, reach out to us from out of town. Who doesn't live here anymore. And was like, I might be in town in this exact window. Is there anything you guys could throw at me? And we said, have you seen I could never be your woman? And her response was, no, but I love vamps. And I was like, fuck, here's someone who's passionate about vamps. Do we bump Framke off of vamps? Because I thought you were just doing us a solid, replacing it with passion, right? So then we bump you. David offers Clueless.

30:03And I was like, all right. I truly was like, are you sure? Are you sure? It's huge. You're not going to get someone for Clueless. Consolation prize trade-up. Yeah, yeah. And I truly was like a little stressed about it because I was like Clueless is Clueless, but I will do it. Like, what am I going to say no to Clueless? Like, I'm not going to say no to Clueless.

30:17David Sims:And then this other person's... And now it's aired. Well, then David also relates to me, Fran is kind of bummed that she's not doing VAM, so I'm going to offer her Clueless. And I was like, I didn't realize she actually liked it. Sure, sure, sure. Right. Then the other person's travel plans got changed, was like, I probably won't be here until the fall. And I was like, we got it. we kind of got to move Frankie back to Vamps because no one else will want to do Vamps. And I believe David's text to me was, Caroline, I am on my knees begging you to do Vamps. A little bit. A little bit. No, that's literally what you said.

30:50David Sims:A lot of it. And I was like, all right, so who do you have? We are very appreciative of you. Oh, no, it's fine. And honestly, frankly, I think it did work out. I have, I think, a lot more specific stuff to say about Vamps. And also, it is only spiritually correct that Blonde did Clueless. It's just right. But it's just right. It's not the first time a blonde has taken my thing, and it won't be the last. And dare I say it, a raven-haired snarkster doing vamps. Thank you so much. True, true. Thank you so much. And I don't have my summer tan yet. I'm not Kristen Ritter. I mean, May is just upon us.

31:21The tanning opportunities are just beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, before we dig into the movie proper,

31:25David Sims:I just want to give you a shout-out. Beyond just you doing us a big solid in this crazy musical chairs of booking, for this season, I walk in, you are finishing up a caricature of your own face and taping it to the front of your desk because you're jealous that you don't have a cartoon avatar of yourself. You don't have to say that she's jealous. I mean, I was. It's fine. You go, that's much better now. And then you immediately say, now I need shit on my desk to compete with me. Well, I didn't realize there were desks in general. Yes. I have not been to the studio yet. Last time I was on the show was six years ago for Kiki's Delivery Service.

31:59It was at the old audio boom studio. And I walked in. Ben was the only one here. I beat both of you, which is, again, no, I'm thrilled. because I'm never the first anywhere. Oh, sure. When you walked in those, I was not crying, though. No, not this time. This time, dry eyed.

32:14David Sims:But you very quickly established a good desk spread of the kind of chaos that I enjoy. I'm glad I brought the bag I did today because I had a lot of stuff in it. Three beverages, notebook, novel. Yep. And then vape. No, that's actually lipstick. And this is not a novel. This is Maeve Brennan's The Long-Winded Lady, which is anecdotes from New York City and actually feels very Goody Rutherford in that way. Yes. But she's just like... That's lipstick? Oh, yeah. It's like... Okay. It's like a... Got it. It's one of those. Okay. And then I had an O'Mary Playbill. Yep. I think this might... It's either...

32:47I think this is the tightest one. I saw both.

32:50David Sims:Uh-huh. And then I handed you... And some glow-in-the-dark temp tattoos. You gave me some... Three Beetlejuice plushies and a poppy from Trolls. Yep. And then I have an assortment of Sour Patch Lemonade flavor for sustenance. We're doing great. Yeah. I'm in it for the long haul. Here we go. Ben, why did this movie put you in a weird mood? It's a bit of a weird movie, to be clear. I don't know. There's the quality. The sort of general, like, I'm eating a generic brand versus the RC Cola. It's a little CW. Sure. A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. It takes you back to that time of the aught. A happy time for you?

33:32A chaotic time. A chaotic time. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I was living my life in a certain way where I don't really remember much of that time. Quarter mile of time. You know? Yep. Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at The Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving.

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34:45David Sims:What do you call this era? This is like post-indie sleaze. Has anyone named this area? What's happening in the culture? It's early 2010s core. Because it's not not indie sleaze. It's like the recession era, like, is the problem. It's kind of just like everyone's a little bummed out. Just post-recession, indie sleaze. I feel like this kind of has to be post-indie sleaze. Like, I think no one has earmarked it, but I think some transition has happened that still owes something to indie sleaze. Yeah. I don't think it's been defined really yet. Post-recession is a good stance. Yeah, right. What's the music people are listening to in 2012?

35:21Drake? Jesus. Yeah, let's really junk that here. It's in the bin. It does weirdly feel

35:28David Sims:like Kristen Ritter is the perfect ultimate avatar of early 2010s New York. Not just because she was the bee. The bee. See, we can talk about the bee. This was the right episode for the bee. That show exists because it was just like she's embodying something that we gotta put on television. No one, like, she really wears a chunky necklace well, even though she's got, you know, she's quite in the shape. A skinny frame and a leather jacket. Yeah, yeah, but the The necklaces still don't wear her. She likes a slightly puffed shoulder. We had a lot of like slightly puffed shoulders. Well, so the bee, we met the bee.

35:59We met the bee. In 2012. The year the camps came out. The apartment 23. Yeah, don't trust her. Yeah. Don't you trust her.

36:04David Sims:And I've told this story before, but I lived in a building in apartment 22 at that time. And I kept filling out forms wrong. Kept looking for that bee? No, I truly, when I had to fill out my address, I kept thinking like, I live in apartment 23, right? And I couldn't remember if it was me or the bee. and mail kept getting delivered to my next door neighbor. And they were like, you fucking filled it out for 23 again. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a true story. The bee is supposed to be, she's kind of, she's kind of coming off her indie sleep. You know, she's like a party girl who's sort of like, do I need to stop being sustainable?

36:38No, no, no. The bee? No, the bee loves her lifestyle. That's the whole thing. You're right. She does not grow or change. She's no good because she's the bee. She's the bee. Like she, she's fond of the people she's fond of. her best friend James Van Der Beek playing James Van Der Beek. And it also was plausible that she'd be friends with, you know, kind of post-Austin's Creek James Van Der Beek. I mean, he's so good on that show. It's such a funny bit. And it was Eric Andre and Dreamer Walker? Eric Andre, Dreamer Walker was the nice girl, right? Yes. Yeah, she was the nice girl who moved in as the roommate who won't be.

37:09She won't be bead. She won't be bead. And all the other roommates have been bead. So the bee does begrudgingly respect her. Apparently Eric Andre's character

37:17David Sims:was meek. That's his name? Or the personality? No, he was... The personality! I'm like, Eric Andre seems bad casting. Because he was like Dreamer Walker's... I'm sorry! ...co-worker at Starbucks, basically. Okay. And he liked her. He was an awkward guy. But it was weird casting knowing what Eric Andre is and can do. And I don't think they ever really got a chance to let him do that. It also aired completely out of order. So just like Vamps, it got a very weird release situation, and it never... Was it two seasons or one? Two. Yeah. But the second season aired completely out of order. Okay. Right.

37:47The second season got that... I think it's still out of order on Hulu. You do have to like... ABC sitcom treatment where they were like... But there were some plots. There wasn't a ton of overarching plot, but enough where you're like, wait, what is this? I mean, Happy Endings had the same experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ABC was just always a little bit like, wait, you like these? I liked Happy Endings. I feel like I said this to you, the way a lot of people feel about Happy Endings and being... A lot of people were very devastated by Happy Endings ending. I was sad, but I was so much sadder about the B.

38:15David Sims:Kristen Britter was on her kind of version of a Zooey Deschanel track where she kept playing like best friends and being like, man, she's really good with like the like off the shoulder, like one line responses, the sort of side snark. And then they clearly were like, can we make her a lead? And don't trust the bee was like part of that project. But the fact that the bee didn't change is maybe what made people not totally, you know, get with it. They were like, but she's supposed to grow and change. And she was like, I don't have any interest in that. Once she wasn't really the protagonist of the show.

38:47David Sims:No, it was Dream of. She was the main character. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this thing I think about all the time with her, I think she had several children and kind of like disappeared for a bunch of years. And now, of course, was in Sonic 3 and seems to be working more. But for someone who was so omnipresent, really in like the first half of the 2010s. Yeah, because it was that. It was Jessica Jones. Yes. Yeah. She's so great in Jessica Jones. She's great. She's great. Yeah. Jessica Jones kind of season one of Jessica Jones such an unambiguous success in an era of superhero TV that is largely not so immediately different so right interesting I don't remember the tenet character is so scary he's so great he's kind of the only one of those Netflix seasons that has like exactly I don't remember much about the other two seasons no I kind of forgot there were the two seasons that I'm sure I watched and reviewed them all I don't know guys Iron Fist I mean that guy did have the fist of iron and it stuck with me I remember every part of it.

39:43It was Jessica Jones and it was Daredevil. And now Daredevil's back, but where's Jessica Jones? I was surprised she wasn't on it ever. My guess is they're waiting to do something cool with it.

39:53David Sims:That's another casting that everyone kind of agrees with unambiguously worked. It did work. When it was announced, I was completely not... That's not how I imagined that character. She was not the obvious type. But I like the character a lot in comics. Here's what I was going to say. I have a very vivid memory of this and I think about this way too often. She does Don't Trust the Bee. And it was just sort of like, okay, this lasted two seasons and it made it to air, but it didn't quite work. And it felt like all the networks were like, there's probably a hit show starring Kristen Ritter and we want to solve what it is.

40:27David Sims:She feels like she should be the lead of a hit show. And these are the final years of like the traditional pilot system. Like, let's get you a show. Right. Where like every January before they start auditioning, the networks all start like competing with each other. The pile of script spec scripts that they have acquired being like, if we can attach a big name to this, this is a go pilot. and someone like Kristen Ritter, who was seen as like hot, you know, and had like value and was ready to be the star of a TV show. They're all sending her their like 20 best scripts and being like, do you like any of these?

41:04David Sims:And for, I want to say three years in a row, Kristen Ritter signed on, straight offer, first position, big pilot show that didn't go. And I would, I was stuck in these fucking pilot system runners every year and being like, well, this script's really good and it's got Kristen Ritter. This show's definitely going to happen. Do you remember what any of them were about? One of them, I believe, was written by our friend Leslie Hedlund that was an adaptation of her play, Assistance. Oh, yes. Yes. I remember that. That was sort of loosely fictionalized her nightmare experiences working at the Weinstein Company.

41:38Right. Yes. I remember this.

41:39David Sims:And Alfred Molina was going to play the Weinstein analog. Oh, my God. And was a really good, dark script. Yes. That would be... Alfred Molina. Let's clarify. There was another one that was like, I want to say a 60s NASA space race show. And there's one other one I'm forgetting. But in that era, it's like someone like Kristen Ritter has to make a big choice every January of which pilot she's attaching herself to. And yet it just might not get picked up. And if that's the case, everyone basically goes, cool, we'll see you in a year. Well, the interesting thing about her too is that, I mean, when you mentioned those two things and then mentioning the B, VAMPS, that kind of stuff, her taste is you know a little bit more offbeat than I feel like she might get credit for it's the kind of thing too when I was watching this and when I watched him I can never be a woman for the first time and I was kind of thinking about all the Heckerling stuff just to get myself in the the state of mind I was like oh Heckerling's a fucking weirdo too she's she is it's it's a good complimentary she is she's a little goth weirdo herself right and like you know she like choices like you know all men as mother earth that kind of thing where you're like what are we doing here well that's a choice I might have advised She's very strong.

42:48I agree. Her royal vizier. But it's a strong choice, nonetheless. And it's the kind of thing that it seems like Kristen Ritter really responds to, is this kind of stuff where it's slightly off. And I'm not surprised that the pilots she chose then did not catch up.

43:01David Sims:They were all good. I remember every year being like, well, this is the best script this year, and being astounded when it wouldn't get picked up for who knows what fucking reason. I even think one of them got picked up and then like unpicked up at some point. Yeah, I feel like probably, especially knowing Leslie's, you know, what the plays are like and then what happened. I mean, she did Bachelorette. She managed to make that pretty vicious, but not as vicious, that kind of thing. I think it was trying to do the same thing. I'm sure she got network notes to death. Yes, but like the the old rigid pilot system network TV model at a time where people were still kind of wary of going to cable or going to streaming.

43:38David Sims:And also the money was so fucking good. If you could get on a hit show. There was no off cycle. That was like the calendar of which the thing happened. And if you picked the wrong thing in the spring, you were fucked until the next year. Right. and in between it's like Kristen Ritter's like okay so I do I like play X's snarky best friend again in a Paramount movie or do I play like the lead in a like a lower budget Amy Heckerling movie and the next year hopefully I get another shot at TV and then it felt like she did the Jessica Jones move at the moment where it was like yeah streaming does seem to be the place to go and if you're playing a Marvel character that feels like you're set for your life and the first season totally worked and then like the entire Marvel Netflix experience like dissipates and it's yeah this just like seven year run of interesting energy from Kristen Ritter that then has kind of like pulled back.

44:30I don't know what you're talking about. Did you not hear the echoes? Oh that was a Marvel spotlight wasn't it? No. It was not. What if Orphan Black had an echo? Orphan Black echoed. Was she on that? Or she was the star of it. Has that already come and gone? Of course it you watched it. What if Orphan Black did not have every week on Blank Check you were like, you guys echo tonight? Do you guys hear the echo? Hello if in Black did not have Tatiana Maslany

44:57David Sims:was basically the problem. Well, this is like Hollywood's newest, greatest pitch, Tron Aries. We all know that your least favorite thing about those Tron movies is that they take place inside a computer. Can we get out of that damn boring world and place Tron on the streets of Los Angeles? Look, every time I see that trailer, I laugh and laugh. Right. But it is one of those things where I was just like, that was like truly a great way to wound me. Yeah. Where I'm like, I love the insane logic of the video game world, right? And they're like, no, no, the bike should go on a street, like a highway.

45:29I don't hate the trailer,

45:29David Sims:but it feels so fundamentally perverse to me of being like, don't worry, no circuit boards this time. It's what you do with Tron 8. Yes. Right? You know, anyway. Which Tron is this? Tron Aries. Oh, I'm sorry. In which Jared Leto plays, a computer virus who comes to our world. He sounds fine. That sounds about right for where Jared Leto came from. Yeah, I forgot to mention, it's a documentary. Yeah, yeah. My thing with Kristen Ritter was that she was on Veronica Mars for like eight episodes. And then she was on Gilmore Girls for eight episodes. And then she was on Breaking Bad. And it was one of those things where it's like, huh, that saucer-eyed goth keeps popping up.

46:02And so you did feel it in the air of like, yeah, they're trying to find the thing for her.

46:07David Sims:That's another like sort of Star Trek thing is like giving people good extended arcs. Yes. Right. And it's clear that there's just like we have negotiated for six episodes. Not that she's like being brought back because she's working. like they're like, we have planned an arc that we're pitching to you. And it just felt like she was on the cusp of something bigger for so long. I always like her. And I will say, watching this movie, it stirred things in me that I had not felt in a long time. Oh, you were... I find her very appealing in this. You find a pale woman very appealing? This is what's odd.

46:41David Sims:She is so much my type and yet it was never registering for me previously as hard as it did while watching this. You were in a show with her, were you not? Was she on Political Animals? No. Are you not in Gravity? I am, but I did not work with her. You are right. I was on four episodes of the deeply remembered Starz original series. I think it was Starz first original series. This, of course, is a Starz movie. But yeah, she was the lead of Gravity. And I played a gay computer hacker. Fabulous. That was one of my lines, yeah. I was trying to figure out, remember, who Christian Ritter played on Veronica Mars.

47:17I thought she was the recast of Leighton Meester, but no, she was playing Steve Guttenberg's daughter. Yeah, it's not a good time for the show. She often would appear on these shows when the show's kind of... Or past the peak of the thing. Yes, right past their peak. Well, that was season two,

47:31David Sims:which was kind of a dip and then three was an upswing. Is it two that she's in or three? I think it's two. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Three's the color. Two's the Guttenberg. Interesting. It's flawed. Two's goody. Yeah, it's real goody. Just very clear that it had the one season arc, but anyway, yes. But she's very sweet and vamps. There's one line in it that's so the B that I was like, oh, this is where she was. Where, you know, the introduction of Homeland Security as the big bad comes in, which I have so much to say about. And she just goes, oh, the terrorist ruined it for everyone. Ruined things for everyone.

47:58It was such a beeline.

47:59David Sims:Movie has a lot of good lines. I do think maybe that's part of it, though, is like her thing is usually the like acid sarcasm. And this is the wide eyed innocent here. Right. She's just completely lovely, bubbly. Which she does really well, and yet still has, like, the Kristen Ritter darkness to her. Which I think so much of it is the, like, and we should crack open the dossier, but so much of these interviews we read with Amy Heckerling, like, the ongoing theme of her work is, like, the fight between the pessimist and the optimist. That she inherently feels like this dark, tortured, acidic, critical person, and yet she loves making movies about optimists.

48:37It's also, it's the New Yorker and the Los Angelino, right? Yes. I mean, it's very, what was that, you know, not to go, oh, let's quote a tweet. But the tweet I do think, the one tweet I think about the most is when someone called LA shitty heaven and New York fun hell. And you know what? That's really good. Having lived in both now. Yeah.

49:01David Sims:You're allowed. I just think that there is both of these characters feel like stand-ins for Heckerling in different ways. But there's something in casting Kristen Ritter to play an optimist that feels like you are for the first time physicalizing the innate tension within her work in one character. So Amy Heckerling releases a film called I Could Never Be Your Woman in 2007. It made like two or three hundred million dollars. And so, unsurprisingly, starts to explore the world of episodic television after that because it's such an anonymous film. And so she does direct the sixth episode of the first season of The Office.

49:42The introduction of Amy Adams. Hot Girl. Yes.

49:45David Sims:Arguably the best episode of the first season. I'm just going to say it. Yeah. No. No Office. I won't be discussing that show. It's the new Juilliard. we're never gonna let you live down your fucking Juilliard anger that's fine our Superman episode um you know the thing with the office is oh see I thought we were not discussing the office yeah oh David um I just won't I won't be engaging with that try to show me some nostalgic clip of sure you know some hijinks on the I'm like no I don't wish for that to be in my life anymore it is bizarre not that it was ever a big part of my life because I never loved the show but I certainly watched the show pretty much through the end.

50:25I guess I sort of fell off after Carell left. I'm making a weird face looking at him. The camera's kind of zooming in on you. I'm doing like a crash zoom. Maybe we'll check in with you later in the talking head segment. Yeah, maybe you have something to say later behind closed doors straight to camera. So like when you say the Amy Adams episode of The Office, I'm like, I saw it one time. Okay, but her directing that episode is actually kind of perfect. Is it? She's a pro. Well, because she comes in to sell bags and everyone thinks she's hot. Amy Adams does. Amy Adams does. And it's like she is presented very much as what if Pam were hot is kind of the thing, which is rude to Pam.

51:01Right.

51:01David Sims:And it activates the thing. Like she's her hair is even redder. She's like, you know, her sweaters actually fit like she and Jim get along and there's no obstacle. And that's but it's like that's very good at that. Activates the thing in her of she is still engaged to the fucking guy in the warehouse and is just sort of like having fun, like sort of having this side flirtation. with Jim and then she sees for the first time like the idea of him being with someone else which activates jealousy in her. And she didn't write that. I mean, I can't imagine she wrote that. But there's also that extended, the extended bit, because like there's a fire alarm or something.

51:36Is that? Or no, that's when, that's later. Amy Adams comes back and there's a whole Desert Island movie bit that's different.

51:41David Sims:Amy Adams did a whole little arc across the first two seasons. Wasn't she already, I guess it's sort of like right when she's starting to get bigger, like Junebug era? Correct. It's like she, once she gets the Oscar nomination for Junebug, she unsurprisingly never comes back to the office. Interesting. But she is on it a handful of times leading right up to that. Yes, but Amy Heckerling doing, oh, I'm insecure around this hot woman. Right. That tracks. And like The Office had kind of overqualified directors, especially as it went on. Yeah, I would have people. It was Paul Feig and Harold Ramis and Jason Reitman.

52:12David Sims:And it was just sort of like, this is a cool show. The movie directors can work on and not have it seem like their career slipped down a rung. And there's maybe a larger sea change in the industry happening around that time where like her doing TV doesn't look as bad as it would have five years earlier even. Yes. Well, she does that and then she gets signed on to 1985, which was basically like, do you want to do a Wonder Years? Like an Amy Heckerling Wonder Years. Makes sense. A show that would center on a girl growing up in the 80s, narrated by a woman in the present day. I mean, it sounds fine.

52:49Plans to use music of the period as a bad... It truly is. They might as well just be like Wonder Years. We're going to do a Wonder Years. But none of that came to fruition. And instead, in 2012, we get vamps. Now, in 2005, we get Twilight. In 2008, we get the movie Twilight. 2008, we get True Blood. 2009, we get CW's The Vampire Diaries. Relax, Ben. He has a knife. but Heckerling says she more is drafting off of Buffy as sort of an earlier vampire

53:26David Sims:work and even more specifically that her brother was obsessed with the Buffy movie and she was like I want to do something like this and then she went to the original producers of the movie and pitched it to them and then was like you idiot they're not going to say yes to this if they've already done a thing like this but there was a bit of a micro trend, I feel, in the post-Twilight Vampire Diaries, True Blood landscape. Well, and Buffy was pre-Twilight, and that's where, that was my seminal vampire for sure. Sure. But I think those three things getting big and being cool and sexy, right? You would feel this thing of like, maybe somewhat forgotten directors coming out and being like, Well, I have a vampire script where it felt like, are vampires just innately bankable?

54:16David Sims:Is it easier to get money if you have a vampire hook? Only Lovers Left Alive comes out two years after this? One year after. Yeah. But was a similar thing, I feel like, when he was doing interviews where he was like, this is not a post-Twilight movie for me. I was not inspired by this. This is a thing I couldn't get made until Twilight, which is exactly what happened to her. Makes sense that suddenly it's just a little bit more like, oh, well, vampires are in right now. So sure. Vampires are such an elastic metaphor. It is actually kind of wild how many different pointed ways you can use vampirism to say something, be it personal or cultural, that it makes sense that a lot of different directors would be like, yeah, I can make a personal vampire movie.

54:59David Sims:That's not me just cashing in on trend. That's me Trojan horse and something else I want to say. What was Nostradamus' whole deal? What do you mean? What is my deal? bring him back. Do we all enjoy Sigourney Weaver doing Nosferatu? Yes. She is so tall. She does a lot of bits. She does like a full kind of fucking mad TV audition reel. It's a few racist jokes. Yes. Some of these cultural stereotypes seem antiquated. I understand that's the point of the character. I also get full from Chinese food. I don't know what she's talking about. Dude, that is one of those things where I'm like, Chinese food is very heavy.

55:35I often. This is offensive on two levels.

55:39David Sims:it's culturally regressive and wrong but it is one of those racist old jokes you hear I guess she puts on like a Gilbert Gottfried voice to do it maybe Sigourney's always had a bit of the Gottfried in her I don't know I mean she does she's looking like she's having fun she's basically playing like you know what if Zul had fun right that's very her vibe in the ending scene where she's like floating towards people there's the one scene where they dress her in a way that feels very evocative where they give her the full perm and she's in the kind of gold dress. And there's no way they didn't think of that.

56:10So this is also Mona May, right? The same costume designer as... Oh, really? I think, yeah, this is the same costume designer as Clueless.

56:16David Sims:Yes, that makes sense. Which, like, you know, you can also tell everything's so rooted in time period. There are so many very specific time period things. And that's something, too, that I feel like Heckerling is so... Like, it doesn't surprise me at all that someone tried to get her to do a 1985 movie because each one of her films... And not even just because of the references they make. Like, not even just the references, which are obviously specific. even though the situation has endured. He is a sober father now. He's doing very well. But everything is so rooted in the time period that it's in to a degree that can be uncomfortable if you lived through it.

56:47I get it.

56:47David Sims:It can. And it's also like there's... Pointed contact. I think there is a certain discomfort. I feel watching it and seeing them try to evoke that specifically on such limited resources where it starts to feel like a weird kind of cosplay, hollow evocation, just because they don't have the space to get it right. Like something like Clueless, which is obviously exaggerated in a cartoonified version. And they talk about sort of like we were amplifying and exaggerating the fashion trends. And then they sort of became their own fashion trends. And they were also working with, you know, more expensive clothes in the first place because these kids are rich.

57:25David Sims:Monomé did like a very good job with what she was allotted. But you feel it stuck slightly in a weird space of being like, a little more heightened than realistic, but not heightened enough to be funny. If that makes sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's also, because I feel like sometimes it's a little hard to tell when it is supposed to be. Like, I feel like a lot of the clothes Kristen Ritter wears in this movie are, they are of the 2012s, but through the, like, they are also trying to be through the lens of she was turned in the 80s. So, like, everything is a little exaggerated. Yep. Here's what I think is so...

58:00No silence. I had something to say. What do you have to say? Go ahead. No, no, no. I just imagine you doing the hands that they do in this movie when they're trying to get people to. Let you know when you remember what you wanted to say. I am displeased that Sinners has done better than my movie. I'm so sad I have no choice but to go fuck. I'm horny, slow horny. The kind of horny I am is very slow. I am single and ready to mingle. He's like, he hollers at you, but he's like, he hollers at you by being like, in three days, I will very slowly fuck you. Like, so it's like, it's a long way. It will be great.

58:44Right. But then when he fucks you, he's going to like crawl up the bed. Yes, he's a big edger. God, is he edging?

58:49David Sims:Was your father a baker because it looks like you are smuggling two buns? This is kind of crass to me, but. Let's go. I think Nasratu probably goons. I'm always Gooning in my Casa I have so many tabs Open I owe OnlyFans Thousands of ducats Whatever money I am a pay pig I send more ducats Than they're asking for They're like this will be$10 You can have 15 I'm big like that How much for a dick rating thing. I'm so pleased I get to see that. Of course. Thank you. Oh my goodness. Every vampire has their thing. His is being a sex freak. A lot of vampires are sex freaks. It's interesting that they're not here.

59:43She says is often in vampire stuff, it's sex, true blood and twilight. Obviously, that's the sort of big thing with the metaphor here. But no, she's much more interested in the agelessness, the idea of being eternally young, but from different time periods.

59:57David Sims:Here's the super potent thing in this movie that once I locked into this is what she's doing, I was on board, which is she is commenting on her weird state as a person whose currency professionally comes from Amy Heckerling is good at understanding the youth, the younger generations, what is hip, what is cool, what is new. She has done this across decades, right? Not just that she do it when she was young, but she was able to still lock into it 10, 15 years later. and like what is this weird balance of being someone whose life is about trying to stay professionally engaged with what is young and new and hip when part of her is also just like I like old gangster movies, right?

1:00:40David Sims:Like I don't want to deal with this shit and it's this fight of just being like it is exhausting as much as like people like the idea of staying young forever. How badly do I now just want to let myself be an old woman and just not have to keep up with this shit? Yeah. No goody in the... How long can we just go to clubs every night? Right. And have to worry about the right outfits and knowing the right bands and all this shit. She's a night person, she says. She's always figured such a lifestyle might be fun for a while. Eternal youth in New York. She liked playing around with the slang from different eras.

1:01:15It's kind of fun. Which she's always kind of liked to play around with slang. She doesn't like the Twilight vampires. she doesn't like that they can be outside in the daytime I mean that is the thing like what I didn't I wasn't a twilight you know early adopter girly ironic or otherwise but when I found out that they can go into the sunlight and not only can they but it makes them beautiful twinkling creatures like these are fucking unicorns like these are not excuse me

1:01:45David Sims:Caroline it's not making a beautiful twinkly creature that is the skin of a monster a horny monster Really good fucking Edward Cullen impression I'm Edward Cullen You smell disgusting Let me get up in those guts That's the Edward Cullen in the world where Wallace Shawn is Mr. Van Helsing It took us a long time to get there

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1:03:38Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at The Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. One movie that she kind of liked was, she's obviously seen Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi's Dracula or whatever. Really in this movie that shows no interest in German expressionism?

1:04:21But she really kind of enjoyed Gerard Butler's Dracula 2000. Oh, sure. She says, I liked his take on it. It was as though Dracula was doomed or cursed because he was Judas. And that's why he doesn't like seeing crosses. It's a very different take on Dracula. She does that. She likes monster movies in general. She likes the Wolfman with Lon Chaney. The universal classics. She thinks vampires are a good metaphor for Jews, outsiders that feel disenfranchised from whatever else it's doing. Trying to pass. So that's, I mean, that's the, do you, are you, are you speeding through these or should I?

1:04:52David Sims:Caroline, what gives you that vibe? I feel like he's taking a lot of time and consideration for everything you say. He's got his bullet point. I'm just like. I'm looking at the dossier. It's fucking long. Caroline, what do you, did that spark in you? Well, yeah, I mean, I do, I feel like when I first started re-watching Vans, I don't think I ever said how I watched Vans in the first place. Oh, yes. I was trying to remember how the hell I saw. I had not seen it until yesterday. Really? Okay, so none of you had seen it until this week. No, no. So that's why when David expressed shock that I'd never seen it, I was trying to remember how the hell I saw it.

1:05:22I was in LA in 2012. I moved out there in 2011, and I was like, did I go to the one theater it was released in?

1:05:29David Sims:There was not very thorough box office reporting on this, but Box Office Mojo claims it played in one theater for two weeks. Now, I remember it playing in at least one theater in New York City. I remember intending to go see it, I want to say, at the Village East, and it was gone before I got around to it. It was really like a movie that stars Anchor Bay, primarily a DVD distributor and a television network. of like fancy DVDs, kind of a cheapo DVD distributor. Like mostly like cult horror movies doing like 40 editions of Evil Dead and whatever. Got the distribution rights for this movie sort of a bit after filming had wrapped and they announced it as like vamps getting a theatrical release will be available to rent digitally 10 days later, which in 2012, that did not happen often that the turnaround was that quick and was sort of like screamed contractual obligation to put this in one theater.

1:06:28David Sims:Maybe it was one week in one theater in L.A. and one week in one theater in New York. It's quite possible. Maybe. I mean, but I do think I was trying to trace it and, you know, I don't have a totally satisfying answer to this because I never fully got it. But I asked my friend, Karinza, who I hung out with a lot when I first was in L.A., where we might have seen this because I was sure it was with her because I feel like when I first moved to L.A., you know, the idea was I'm working in TV and I'm going to, like, say yes to everything. Hollywood Framke. Hollywood Framke. Hollywood Fram. and I feel like it must have screened somewhere her best guess and she interesting it might have been like a special screening there was a theater called CineFamily yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah on Fairfax which has since shut down for sex pest reasons uh-huh very familiar but they screened a lot of things and it would not have been out of the question for this something like this to screen there and I feel like because I definitely remember seeing it and we could have rented it but I think we saw it in a theater and I was just going to screenings going to screenings and when she was like do you want to go to this thing it's from the director of Clueless it's about vampires I'm like, what's there not to like about that?

1:07:24And then I just never researched it any further and did not realize it was such a tortured, weird, obscure situation. Until basically David asked me to be on the podcast.

1:07:33David Sims:It was basically a straight to VOD streaming disc. Before that, I didn't even know. I just was like, but again, that was all the pitch I needed. So there was an audience. Yes, CineFamily was the kind of place to be like, we're going to take Amy Heckerling seriously. Right. But I imagine, yes, probably disproportionately the amount of people who ever saw this in a theater saw it at screenings like that versus commercial release. I mean, what is the reported final box office gross for this movie? Ten thousand dollars? Three thousand dollars. It's not amazing. You know what? You're right. It's not amazing.

1:08:12I wasn't going to say before that. Oh, yes.

1:08:14David Sims:But you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. And I feel like what was interesting about revisiting it is that, you know, whenever you talk about any vampire story, Any vampire story, whether it's a teenage thing, you know, a Buffy, a Vampire Diaries, a True Blood, a Sinners, any vampire story, inevitably there's going to be not just metaphors about sex or drugs. I feel like in this movie it's much more drugs than sex until Justin Kirk and Mary Lou Henner have their moment about sex. And Justin Kirk feels like her pointed parody of the over-sexualized vampire. Yes, the over-sexualized for sure. But she's less interested in, I mean, it's basically drugs, but it's kind of, that's not what she's interested in.

1:08:47but I was like this vampires are always a metaphor for marginalized people yes because they you know whether it's queer people Jewish people are in the shadows they're in the shadows you know sinners and the you know black Americans and Jim Crow South there's always that and when I first started this film I was like how weird to watch a vampire story where that's not the case and then um Wallace Shawn King of Homeland Security comes in yeah and suddenly the movie's about the Patriot Act and having to delete people from databases so they don't disappear and how interesting What an interesting moment to watch that.

1:09:19David Sims:As Dr. Van Helsing, head of Homeland Security. Like that full reveal. Like first it's like, oh, here's Wallace Shawn. He's like a New York beat cop or detective. This is interesting casting. And then you realize, oh no, he is. He's Homeland Security. Dr. Van Helsing working for Homeland Security. And there's a very, like that first scene where he's going to find the body of the pizza guy. With Ivan Sergai, right. Yeah, but the, no, no, no, the pizza guy. Well, Ivan Sturgias' partner, sorry, but Taylor Negron reprising implied the same pizza delivery guy from Fast Times. Yes. He's also a delivery man in Johnny Dangerously.

1:09:56Yep. So this is his bit, but Sigourney killed him for real. Mm-hmm. R.I.P.

1:10:00David Sims:Beheaded him. And there's such a funny moment between the cop and Wallace Shawn where the cop, like, disdains him for being Homeland Security. He's like, go find a subway map or an explosive and then we'll call you. Fuck off. And I'm like, Jesus. Well, this movie is very, you know, again, like locked into specifically satirizing things like the Patriot Act. I mean, but that's so interesting. It is. It's just, but it also like locks it in. I had completely forgotten about that part of it. And it does give it something. Yeah. That, you know, I don't know that she 100 % needed to, but I find it really interesting that she wanted to and that she locked in on Homeland Security and the Patriot Act.

1:10:37And, you know. What would vampires fear in modern America? maybe that's what they're here. Well, also because, you know, we're following two vampires who, from the beginning, were like, I have no interest in being a vampire who kills people, who enjoys killing, who likes human blood. I don't want any part of it.

1:10:53David Sims:You're seeing the support group of like, here is the modern progressive vampire that wants to get away from the negative stereotypes. Yes, including Vlad, the Impaler, Tepesh. Yeah, we should mention Malcolm McDowell plays Vlad the Impaler. He does. And he's pretty funny. And he's pretty funny in it. He's very good in it. This whole cast is... That's the thing. But it's just like, these are vampires. Overqualified cast or whatever. Well, he's a chef of caramel apples. The thing is, he's not a chef. New York's finest delicacy. The amount of things she was like, what else could he impale? It's caramel apples.

1:11:22David Sims:Oh, sure. It's him impaling caramel apples. Yeah, for sure. That and knitting. But it's like, these are vampires who want to assimilate, who are trying to assimilate and just be as normal and as unobtrusive as they can be. And they still cannot do that. And that is really, that's the metaphor, right? you can never fully assimilate. It's just not possible. Yeah, yeah. And also the sort of like the never-ending pursuit of hipness of trying to stay relevant. It is like a fucking treadmill that is impossible to keep up with. Well, right. So it's interesting because she seems, you know, it's this weird tension in the film where it's both about relevance and it's about when security's going to get you.

1:12:01David Sims:Right. Like they're trying to stay forever young, but it's not enough to just biologically be forever young. They need to figure out how to be relevant young women, which is this whole fucking game, this like rat race they have to do. And then also, yes, like the Homeland Security thing feels like. I mean, I was kind of pleasantly surprised by it. I was like, this is actually a very interesting route to go down. A lot of things in this movie are interesting. I think basically, I think this script is like borderline great. Like, I think if I read this, I'd be like, holy shit, this thing is going to be a fucking knockout.

1:12:36David Sims:And unlike I Can Never Be Your Woman, where you like step back and squint your eyes and you're like, I see the six good ideas here, but none of them are really executed well. I think in scripting, every idea in this movie is actually executed well. Obviously, there's not enough money for certain things, but there is a bit of a TV janky vibe to some of the transitions. I kept thinking like, oh, this could have been a series like this. Yeah. Like in the, you know, the over explaining in the 21st 20 minutes of like, here are the rules of this vampire world because every vampire world has its own rules.

1:13:07every single one why is Clueless such an incredible piece of filmmaking which I would also argue is true for a lot of earlier movies and nothing after Clueless has the craft side so nailed down is it truly just money and time at the time

1:13:24David Sims:we're recording this we have not yet done our loser app which was her last studio film I think as much as that movie is not as loved as Clueless I think it has a little more of that I've seen some of loser on TV and it certainly looks more like a real movie. I do think, if you want me to unpack this for a moment, he's sort of like a loser. Shape of an L on his forehead. Yeah. Finger in his tongue. A lot of it boils down to, like, time and support. I really do think so, beyond the fact that you're just like, she's got cheaper locations. She probably has, like, harder outs on cast, especially with a cast a pretty large ensemble with a lot of big names, right?

1:14:08David Sims:A lot of these people are probably agreeing if it's like, if you can shoot Sigourney out in two days, you can get her. So now you have like a kind of slapdash location that you're putting her in and you're having to run through these things. Grant's Tomb. Grant's Tomb. I mean, good bet I have not been there. When I love watching whenever fucking DVDs have any sort of BTS footage, not of like, you know, the interviews, but comedy movies being directed. And the Clueless DVD has a fair amount of this. And I remember something about Mary DVD being like, as a comedy movie obsessed kid, like its own mini film school of just watching uncut footage of the director shaping the scene.

1:14:50David Sims:And as much as you can like write it well and visualize it well and cast the right people, so much of comedy is like such a weird, precise tone thing that it's why these movies need like studio funding. Really, if they're going to be more ambitious than like three people talking in a house. If they're going to be more ambitious than like mumblecore shit where you're giving yourself that space and time because the budget is nothing and you just need people to stay in an apartment. Especially for you know, not just a movie that requires special effects, but I feel like I was also reading a couple interviews with her about this movie and how she would have loved to have done more flashbacks or like more, you know.

1:15:26Right, right. A lot of the, what appeals to her is the long life that's been lived. And like period stuff is really expensive. I love when they turn into a bat too. Oh, so you missed that. So you're just sort of like, why no bat? Why no bat? Yeah. That's, you know, that's a fair, that's a fair day. You just think it's a good bit? Yeah. And then they're kind of like talking as a bat. Going bat mode. Oh, sure. You didn't like straw and the rat? I love that. Straw and rat. Okay.

1:15:48David Sims:Very fun. I was like, that feels, that feels Ben coded. If I may close this loop for a moment, right? You watch her directing like Clueless and this footage of her directing like the wedding scene at the end and like the actress throwing out ideas and her finessing it over and over again and things being able to play out in a group shot where you're seeing the real timing of five people like finding a new moment and riffing on it and finessing it and whatever. That is like the thing that like money gets you is the time and space to do that, right? And I have been on so many shoots like this where they're like, we know we don't have that time.

1:16:21David Sims:So this is going to have to be constructed in the edit. We can't spend five hours rehearsing this until it's perfect and then get 20 takes of the whole scene playing out. in a master. They were like, we just have to start shooting. So then you get into this zone where your shots become tighter and less composed because you just need as many editing pieces as you can possibly get. And you need to start getting them fast, just getting fucking footage. And I think that leads to this feeling of it being like TV, which traditionally was always more constructed like that. You hire pros and you get funny line readings from them and you create the chemistry in the edit later versus the best comedy movies, you're feeling like it's like fucking old Hollywood musical shit where you're like, I cannot believe the relationship of these two people moving and speaking in the same frame at the same time.

1:17:10David Sims:And like I that is even more than the effects, because I actually think it is impressive what she got visually considering how low this budget was. Yeah. I mean, the moment when Van Helsing's first kill is pretty horrifying, actually. Right. The burned alive vampire. It's pretty good. I just think she made certain balances of like, these effects are important. I want to shoot enough days in New York, even though a lot of it was Detroit. Yeah, a lot of it was Detroit, but it's also because it's a vampire movie, you got to do it at night. It's a big cast. She clearly spent money on the wardrobe, all this sort of shit.

1:17:42David Sims:It's like the big concession she's making is time. And that leads to this feeling kind of clumsy and in ways. Now, the film, as we say, was made for about$10 million or so because that's kind of what you could get from Lauren Vercel, the producer who had made that movie City Island, another kind of low-budgety New York-y comedy. That was the mini breakthrough. Exactly. Yeah. She also has Red Hour producing this. Stuart Kornfield, her old friend from AFI. Penciller's company at a moment where they were very powerful. Sure. I'm almost surprised that they weren't able to get her even like a couple million more to help out but it also feels like her old friend is doing her a solid let's get Ben on the phone let's get Ben on the phone so he'll be in a good mood the next one one of the funniest things is what was it was he at the Emmys or something or I forget no it was the Oscars it was when he presented the Oscars then he was like tweeting like you know like as he always does like minute by minute through that and they were like aren't you at the Oscars and he was like go next So like, it was like, all right.

1:18:46Alicia Silverstone's in this film. Now she's in Clueless, which is another film that Amy Heckerling made.

1:18:52David Sims:Heckerling. A lot about her performance in that episode. And we talked about the sort of ramp up of her as the Aerosmith girl. We did not talk larger career because the fall off of Alicia Silverstone is culturally one of the more interesting things we've lived through. It's a bit of a boomer. Yes. A boomer. Yes. Obviously she's in Clueless. And then her next real big role, she is in True Crime in a small role or whatever. But that, I think, was shot before. Her next is the 97 double barrel of Batgirl in Batman and Robin and excess baggage, which with Benicio Del Toro being very normal. She, like, immediately after Clueless, signs, I think it was a three-picture, six-million-dollar deal with Paramount, where they were like, we are in the Alicia Silverstone business.

1:19:38David Sims:Or was it with, I think it was with Sony, actually. Excess baggage, I can tell you, It was certainly a film from the great people at Columbia Pictures. So I think that was the first of what was supposed to be her three picture deal. But there was essentially a bidding war. She had a company called First Kiss. This is the thing. The label. Like Clueless is so huge. And people were even like, is she going to get an Oscar nomination? She deserved one. And she very specifically did not do the TV show because she was like, I'm going to do other things. Right. She signs this deal. She's got three movies.

1:20:06David Sims:And they're like, we're giving you autonomy here. Like you are a producer on these films. pick your material, cast them. Then Batgirl comes up, which at that moment probably seems like, well, no shit. They want me to be in a Batman movie? I should fucking do that. So that leaps frogs to her next project. And then her first thing in the Columbia deal is Excess Baggage, where she's like, I want Benicio Del Toro. I'm picking the director. They talk about that the whole movie is like her selecting the things on the soundtrack. This is supposed to be the real moment of like Alicia Silverstone builds a movie for herself and her taste, and it is just kind of like completely ignored.

1:20:42It's an interesting movie. It's not bad, in my opinion. It's weird. And Del Toro is really, really weird in it. They're an odd coupling. Usual Suspects era, Del Toro as the sexy love interest. Again, here's a person who's actually weirder than we thought.

1:20:56David Sims:Yeah, exactly. But for like... Then... Batman and Robin makes her look kind of silly. More than anything, people are like, this is embarrassing. I mean, Batgirl's not a very rich role. But she's... I mean, she's abominable in that movie. And people are kind of like laughing at her. People are laughing at her and people are mean and sexist to her. Like 100%. She is also so fucking bad in that movie. It's kind of crazy because you're like, you're clearly a talented performer. And I get that this is a circus. And no one's good in that movie. Now, now everyone says Uma and Arnold are good in it. And I can kind of go with them in that.

1:21:34But certainly George and Alicia and Chris O'Donnell, but especially George Clooney and Alicia Silverstone. just the line deliveries where they just kind of feel like they're like, did I get that right? And Schumacher's like, I don't know, let's keep going. Like, you know, like onto the next crazy set. I would also say like,

1:21:51David Sims:Chris O'Donnell at least like wears the suit well. Like he understands how to be the action figure. He has a sense of Robin more than the other two. I think it is like the, the reason Alicia Silverstone is dinged harder by Batman and Robin than anyone else is it's a little close to what we were talking about of like when Travolta fucks up, where you're like, you look silly. How do you not have enough self-awareness to sort of like protect yourself from this? But it's also a horrible role. Absolutely. But then it's just immediately followed up by like, okay, but here is her movie. Sure. And people go, and Columbia never cashes in the other two movies in her deal.

1:22:26No, but I will always go to the mat for Blast from the Past. A fun movie. A movie I really like that's kind of also like salty sweet and interesting with Brendan Fraser. I think that movie's fun. An incredible premise for a movie and a premise that only could have worked in the exact year they made the movie. Pretty much. Yeah. I haven't seen it in, you know, 20 plus years. I've rewatched it recently.

1:22:46David Sims:It is okay. She's in the Kenneth Branagh Love's Labor's Lost, which is basically just ignored. Doesn't really make any money at all. And it's, that's it. She does The Graduate on Broadway. Sure. But the boring role. Totally. Yeah, the girl. Yeah. And then NBC's like, we've got Alicia Silverstone. We're putting her on TV. And it still felt like, oh she that's someone who was a movie star that's kind of a big deal I was pumped for mismatch it wasn't just that it was her it was Darren Stone created it right no dude I was way pumped because I was like it was one of the most shows that right and it's like Silverstone is that kind of star where in the early 2000s you were like well they and was she playing a matchmaker of course she was so it's Emma again yeah exactly the whole tone felt right and that show just kind of stayed it just didn't work yeah right and she now like she consistently It's over.

1:23:38Pops up in things, in little parts. But I mean, it's like the idea of her leading a movie is gone. She pops up in Beauty Shop, the great Beauty Shop. Yeah, a strange performance. Funny, strange things.

1:23:51David Sims:She's like Diane Keaton's daughter in the book club movies. She's one of their daughters. Oh my God, she is. And I remember she's in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Right. The Lanthimos movie. And in like a small role, she's Barry Keoghan's mom in it. and when I interviewed Yorgos for that movie I was like Alicia Silverstone he was like yeah I love her Clueless like I love Alicia why doesn't anyone use her like it was great to work with her but more often it's like it was almost like this Greek pervert had to like appear and be like y 'all like Clueless is Alicia Silverstone does anyone have a number for her she got zero bump from that because it's not a big role right and like I think more of shit where it's like she was the replacement mom in Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3 you know what after the original cast left.

1:24:36God bless Yorgos. She's in his new movie. Oh, Begonia. Begonia. Great. And she is also, I don't know that you taped your Clueless episode before the Clueless TV show was announced that she is going to be in. No, but that has been announced.

1:24:51David Sims:But two days after we recorded our episode. Dude, did you know that the cast of Begonia is Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone, and Stavi? Stavi? I did know that. That's crazy. Yeah, because people are like, just get me another Greek pervert. Yeah, exactly. There is a corner of the Internet that is really hyped on the idea of Stavvy being a supporting actor. In a Yorgos movie? I could see magic there. Absolutely. He might just like nail it. Also, he's one of our best comedians. He kind of is. He's great. I think he's basically kind of undeniable. Him swinging into Doughboys and being like, let's talk like nefarious fat guy shit guys.

1:25:32And then being like, let's do it. You know, like, what kind of bad behaviors can we get into here?

1:25:37David Sims:Did you guys hear him on WTF as well? No, I should listen to that. He locked the gates and just basically talked about politics for like 40 straight minutes at the end of the episode and was so fucking smart. Well, he is very smart about this stuff, IMO. She's done a lot of theater, Alicia. She's really good in this. I think she's really good in this. In my opinion, she's really doing a lot of the clueless stuff, the little mouth tug that she does, so cute, you know, like, and the kind of like sweet with a little salty. Curly hair, clueless. What do you think of the makeup? What do I think of the makeup?

1:26:09The vampires is where we've got the eye shadow on.

1:26:11David Sims:Now that of course is an Amy Heckerling staple. Amy Heckerling always has the raccoon eyes. Well, yeah, that's true. Right, that's one of her things. But it does feel very like, okay, so these are the vampires. We're going to like put very intense eyeliner on them. And sometimes. But I will say like of that era, like I was putting a lot of eyeliner on them. So I feel like it was also just like. But I'm guessing you look better than Todd Berry. No offense to the whole time, Barry. Well, thank you so much. But don't we once again think that we're in an exact midpoint of like, you're 10 % over it being realistic, but 20 % under it being funny exaggeration.

1:26:47David Sims:Sure. Where it just sort of maybe looks a little sloppy. I mean, yeah. Definitely like it's smeared. It's not quite there. It's been, that's kind of what it looks like. Can I ask you guys, have you done over your many, many years, how many other vampire movies have you done? Really good question, actually. Not that many. I mean, every episode's in Osferatu. Well, we did the Twilight franchise on Patreon. We did. And we have covered John Carpenter's vampires. John Carpenter's vampires. Okay, that counts. That counts. But for how sturdy a franchise this is, a franchise, a sturdy mythos. Yeah. I mean, it's just there's so...

1:27:21Well, what are the big vampire things we might have done? Let's see. We bought a zoo. Was that vampire?

1:27:26David Sims:Okay. We haven't done Neil Jordan. We haven't done Coppola. We haven't done Jarmo. No. We haven't done Herzog. Herzog. Like I'm thinking of... I'm like, are you... Did you guys like was, you know, if you... As much as you liked monsters or any... I don't know if you were monster boys. Were you vampire boys? Big time monster boy. But you're not as big a vampire boy. I was going to say... You like the... I'm a monster monster. It's not the... I'm a monster. Or like the thing or like King Kong kind of deal. You know, I'd say as a child, I kind of... My mind sparked the most at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

1:27:59David Sims:Okay. That was very big for me, but I also think like Scooby-Doo as a gateway into the monster archetypes. Yeah, but also like Frankenstein's mummies, zombies. And then I was watching the old movies. Are we in the monster mash? What's going on here? Near Dark. Near Dark. A great vampire movie. Another revisionist vampire film. Yes. But I was really into the classical monster types, both the funny versions and the older, quote-unquote scary ones, but the ones that were not modern horror films. Vampires just always interested me less. And it is funny that every time I hear a director I like, and I had this exact feeling when Sinners got announced.

1:28:39Isn't Dark Shadows a vampire? Yeah.

1:28:42David Sims:Another good call. Every time a director I like announces, they're doing a vampire movie. I'm like, what is it with vampires? Most of the time, I enjoy it. And yet, I'm never amped at the idea. And like, I saw Sinners and I was like, fuck there's still juice in this vampire thing there's stuff you can do with it and yet I'm sure the next time someone I like announces a vampire movie I will go why again why another one why do you not like my movies all the movies we listed I basically like you know and I'm like as long as there was some personal point of view like Only Lovers Left Alive is one of my favorite movies of that decade I mean Only Lovers Left Alive is kind of the artier vamps because it's also like we've lived through so many years of society.

1:29:26Here we are just kind of chilling. What do we do with ourselves? America's getting weird.

1:29:30David Sims:I think his metaphor in that movie is more kind of like hipsters not being able to reckon with the fact that they're still alive. Right? It's sort of like that movie's about like... Old junkies kind of being like, geez, we made it and now we live in Detroit and the world's going to shit. There's elements of that, like interview with vampire, that kind of thing. I definitely remember when I first... I gotta watch that show. Everyone's telling me that show is so good. It's good. And I mean, the thing that... And I hear it's a little horny. It's very... David? And Rice is in everything in the park.

1:30:02I know, I know. A little horny? Pump your brakes. I hear it's a little horned up. It is fucking... Yes. Sex? Wall-to-wall. Great. Wall-to-wall. Dicks on dicks, man. Dicks on dicks. I need them on top of each other, like a little sandwich. No docking. Just stacking. No Big Mac, you know, moist maker thing. You want Jenga towers.

1:30:22David Sims:does that ever happen like Jenga is that like a sex act where people go to a sex party and just go like how many dicks can we stack on top of each other let's do a Jenga thing but then you're gonna need like ladders and stepstools yeah it's a complicated system are you talking horizontally or vertically who knows I'm talking vertically let's play around oh I was talking see my brain went to horizontally so we've got a lot of different ways we can go that I feel like is more like building a rope bridge though isn't it like sort of slap by slap oh boy if you're going horizontally I think Jenga tower has to be vertically and it's the same game of like how many guys can stack on top of each other.

1:30:52I will say the mechanics have rapidly run away from it.

1:30:55David Sims:I feel fully in control. Sam Raimi never made one. I'm just looking at all our vampire movies. The other one, Thirst, particularly. Oh, that's another good one.

1:31:08David Sims:David? Yes. Red alert. Uh-oh. There's been an outbreak. Biohazard. Of a new Patreon series. It's contagious. Oh, that's so true. It's been cooked up in the lab for your pleasure. From the fine folks at the Umbrella Corporation, we are covering Resident Evil. The film franchise. Yes. We've got the first franchise. Six movies. Yes. That beautiful second franchise. How many? Six? Seven? It's got the one movie. Oh, it's got the one. We'll be covering all of them on Patreon, doing commentaries on, yes, the Resident Evil, Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife Retribution, the final chapter Welcome to Reconciting This is an exciting time Zach Kregor, friend of the podcast Has a new Resident Evil coming out We thought this was a good opportunity to revisit The history of Resident Evil movies Why not?

1:32:03Why can't we? Why can't we? We can Check in for that August 1st And it's going to be running all the way Through November 1st Followed by your March Madness winner Dracula Dr.

1:32:17David Sims:Acula himself That's so fun. So that's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

1:32:28Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at The Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. I love vampires. I've long loved vampires. Who's your favorite? Well, I mean, I guess. No, no, I wasn't a Dracula girl.

1:33:06I did not like Angel. I did like, I like Spike better than Angel. Angel solves crimes in LA. He does solve crimes. Yeah, he took over a law firm. Actually, you know a vampire I was thinking of a lot during Vamps is Harmony. The blonde vampire from Muffy and Angel. She's a... She's got a Vamps. You're right. She's very Vamps. She's very Vamps. There's a really... I actually rewatched an Angel episode where she like... The great Mercedes McNabb. Mercedes McNabb. And she's working as Angel's like receptionist. And she has like a little montage in the morning where she's getting ready and brushing her fangs and like warming up the rat blood.

1:33:35And it's very Vamps.

1:33:37David Sims:Oh, I have to swing in here for a moment. Hotel Transylvania trilogy. Oh, interesting. That had vampires in it? Thrilogy. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. And that is a trilogy and that is canon and you can mark that down and you can put it right in the book. Yeah, that's great. And vampires always like very much interested me. Definitely, you know, they were sexy in a way where it's like, well, they're not having sex. They're having sex. It's penetrative. It's interesting. Who is your vampire? Is it Buffy? It's got to be Buffy. I think it's definitely Buffy. Was that your activation? Like, do you feel like you were naturally inclined towards vampires as a child and Buffy was the best version of that?

1:34:07David Sims:Or was that when you first locked in? That's when I first walked into like, well, actually, I was going to say that was when I first walked into like narrative TV being a thing that I really fell for. But actually that was Hey Arnold, which got a shout out in this film in a slightly rude way. But I love a Hey Arnold shout out. Just like Jake Fogelness gets a fucking drive by in this movie. Look, some of these be friends with someone, right? That feels really pointed. But all of these references feel like, right, oh, right. The first draft of the script is 2005. Yeah. It's like we're making fun of talking head shows.

1:34:35There's also, you know, something that's always transgressive about vampires. So one of my very best college friends is a drag performer in Brooklyn. I think I probably shouted on Showgirls because that was her favorite. The wonderful Miss Malice. And every January, if you're in Brooklyn, you should go to their vamp-themed show. Every January for their birthday.

1:34:55David Sims:Not a vamps-themed show. Not a vamps. A vampire-themed show. Every year they do it. Every year they find new shit to do. This year there was definitely more Nosferatu stuff. She likes doing vampire lovers, like very classic 60s, like Ingrid Pitt. like vampires because there's that whole genre. There's a really good Lost Boys this year and it's just the kind of thing where being in this room full of like, you know, very like only like queer trans people who are just like vampires are a thing. They live in the dark. They are the thing that people are afraid of. Like, so for that room, it was like, this is queer coded in a way that we all cottoned on to as kids.

1:35:31I, I guess I, you know, I guess I was, I guess I was closeted as a kid. I just don't even think of it that way. But I don't, I, for me, that's not what it was really about. It was more like, this story is so interesting and intricate. And I liked learning the rules of the Buffy vampire world. So I always am interested in how the rules of vampires shift between depictions. And if someone finds a new... A new thing to do. A new way to get at them. The idea that a vampire, like all the vampires... Good dogs like this. Sorry. ...who like, you know, one vampire sired will die if the sire dies is, you know, an older thing.

1:36:04But this, the vamp one... The vamp version and it's very interesting. Of the like, you will age back to the age you were. Right. And if you are too old, you will die. And I think, I was like, that is a really interesting twist on something I have seen many times. And the other thing about not to do my own David bullet points where I'm like, and here are all my thoughts. Do it. One thing I find very interesting about vamps and something I was really trying to think about and I don't think I can think of another example and I'm sure someone listening to this will find it. I cannot think of another vampire thing where the primary love story is between, is a platonic soulmates thing.

1:36:38Because usually vampires are very tortured lovers over time. And it's like very, we are this, you know, like only lovers left alive. It's like we are this couple. We have stated that the hunger is very that. Another great movie. Yeah, love that movie. And if you were the vampire, like all these very tortured lovers over decades. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Or there's a mortal and a not mortal like Twilight Buffy. But the platonic, like we are roommates and we've been hanging out for 20 years, having a good time, is very different. Yeah. and cute. And cute. Here's my vamp's question. They're very cute.

1:37:08Who makes a stem? How do the stems get made? Well, that's where I am just like me. If we had a TV show, we could get into that. Sure. We could get into that. Because the movie does not, correct me if I'm wrong, attempt to explain what distinguishes a stem. Let's do some of the table setting

1:37:22David Sims:of the story because we've been talking around different aspects. Well, sure. I mean, I was going to do more of the dossier, but that's fine. Well, we'll circle back to that. Yeah. Yeah. So, these two women have been living in a St. Mark's Place apartment for 20 years. Goody Brotherford. Played by Alicia Silverstone. Native New Yorker. Yes, and Stacy, played by Kristen Ritter. Who, Goody often is dressed in Heckerling outfits. Yes, and Goody's from the 1840s. Heckerling's sort of like modified Charlie Chaplin couture that you see her doing behind the scenes a lot. Silverstone does like a lot of variations on that.

1:37:55David Sims:They have been vampire roommate friends for 20 years. They live a very simpatico sort of tandem life where they go out every night and try to enjoy themselves. But as we were saying, are kind of starting to feel the wear of having to keep up with these people. Why is the technology changing? Why are the trends changing? It's too hard to keep this all going. I don't know if you folks caught this, but the first scene where they go to a bar, I think the introduction of Renfield, the band that's playing is Molly Israel's band. No, I thought so. Daughter of Amy Heckerland. That's fun. That's cute. And I also love that Renfield is their gay best friend.

1:38:32David Sims:Yes. Yes. The great Zach Ward. The great Zach Ward. The great Zach Ward. I said he was great. I know, but I'm building on that. I'm co-signing it. You're doubling down. He's great. The great, he's three times great. Did you get that then? The fucking look. Yeah, he is great. It's very on point. Oh, the look with the hair? Yeah. Oh, it's tough. The swoopy hair. The like vague Ed Hardy thing. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. For sure. Which I feel like was very like, LA was swamped by Ed Hardy at that time. Sigourney Weaver is the one who turned them. They have an uneasy relationship with her. Yes. Her assistant guy is Todd Berry.

1:39:02David Sims:Yeah. Very funny. You wish there was more of him. Exactly. Todd Berry as a vampire is a good bit, and there's not enough of it. It's money in the bank. He's introduced with fangs, and you're like, holy shit, give me this all day. But they have an uneasy relationship with her. They have found their sort of vampire chosen family in the support group, people like Vlad the Impaler. Who don't want to feed off animals who are like, we will stick straws and rats and be exterminators at night. We found a more humane way to live. It's like B.A. Blood Anonymous. Oh, no, it's Sanguine Anonymous. this. Oh, yeah.

1:39:31David Sims:Right. And they work as late night janitors so that they can have access to dead rats. Pretty solid. There's plausibility everywhere. Like all of this is like these checks out. This is vampire shit you like where it's like any vampire movie getting into the what are the structures of their life? What are the systems they have put in place to be able to like exist and sort of slip by? I mean, you know, and I feel like for especially a comedic vampire thing, It's like very what we do in the shadows where it's like, and they are just living life in Staten Island. And occasionally they'll go to the DMV and that's just what they're doing.

1:40:03The brass tacks of how you stay a vampire.

1:40:08David Sims:They, Kristen Ritter meets Dan Stevens, a handsome young man. Yep. This is the tail end of his foppish era. No, but this is like peak Downton. I was going to say. So Downton starts in 2010. And he's left it by 2012. I just think every movie after this, there was the sort of guest thing of like, fuck, that's Dan Stevens. He changed his look. So the guest is 2014. One of the hottest screen performances of my lifetime. And I like Dan Stevens, and I think he's been good in other stuff. But the guest was kind of one of those things where you're like, oh, a colossal movie star has arrived, right? But I feel like if more people had seen this film, they would have been like, oh, and he's also a freak.

1:40:48Like, why is he not? Like, he's not really allowed to be as much of a freak in this one. That's not his role. But the fact that he's in it at all, is kind of nuts. I think he has great taste.

1:40:56David Sims:I do too. And I think he's really good in this. The fact that he chose to do it is really interesting. doing a funny mocking of how he was perceived from Downton. Sure. Right? Yeah. Whereas after this... He's like the romantic lead with the blue eyes. Yes. And then after this, it's like, no, I'm zagging so fucking hard. I'm going to like reintroduce myself and I'm going to look different and I'm going to have a jawline. So you're talking about Beauty and the Beast, yeah? And I'm going to play Maniacs. Yes, of course. Maniac. He is the Beast. He is the beast. We cannot deny he's the beast. I think he basically always hits now, but it feels like he would not even let himself do something like this today.

1:41:32David Sims:I don't know. That is like conjuring too much how he was originally perceived. But I mean, at least it's like he's surrounded by bat shittery. Like his father is Wallace Shawn, the head of Homeland Security. A hundred percent why he wanted to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this movie is insane and I get to be funny. Yes. Right, right, right, right. And he's very charming in this. Yeah, so he and Kristen Ritter's characters fall in love. Right. He is unfortunately star-crossed classic. The son of Homeland Security Van Helsing. And another thing I love throughout these Heckerling movies is they will set up some sort of dynamic and you're like, oh, fuck.

1:42:07David Sims:So the whole movie is going to be keeping the two of them apart until the very end. I like that basically 45 minutes in, he confronts her. Yes. She's caught. She reveals herself and then they just start to deal with it. Right. And it's like always more interesting when the conflict isn't like external forced things keeping them apart. It's like, what are the struggles of how to be together? Well, it's funny when she's like, so what, do you want like, you want a girlfriend you can go hiking with? You want to like try new restaurants? Like, I'm not going to be that. And he's like, I don't, I don't need to do that.

1:42:37Like, I kind of like these like, I think actually we are compatible in this way. It's not just that I like you. I don't need to go hiking. It's a very funny thing to say.

1:42:44David Sims:The core tension of this movie that kicks in is, A, Weaver's getting increasingly out of control. She's starting. Weaver is a monster. She's a monster and she keeps fucking. And she's sloppy. She's sloppy. She keeps eating people. She's giving vampires a bad name. Page six is all over it. Yeah. But also, Kristen Ritter gets pregnant. Which is so interesting. Like, again, you know, I... Something that's kind of not allowed in vampire logic, and they don't address it for a while, but then they do address it in an interesting way. Well, I actually think... Yeah, I think... I didn't remember how the mechanics of it worked, because I was like, is this like a Twilight thing where it's just like, well, she's special, so that's what happened?

1:43:18I kind of like that Malcolm McDowell, Vlad, as he's poking the apples is just like, yeah, she's pregnant and it won't survive because it can't. So give her a week. Yeah, right. Within a month, it's gone. That just like vampires can get pregnant, but it's not. We can't sustain life, so it's just not going to happen. So I was like, oh, that's actually just a very elegant way of dealing with it.

1:43:37David Sims:Now, Alicia Silverstone has been lying to Kristen Britter. She is the one who turned her. Stacey. Yes. Perfect 90s name. Goody told Stacey that she was basically the same age as her. but like clearly is not has been alive since the 1800s 1840 she's turned in the 1840s but she I don't think she turned she did not turn Stacy no oh sorry so Ciceras turned both of them yes but it's like basically just to what was it there's like a very funny line where she's trying to get them to dispose of her bodies and Stacy just goes like but we're only good for like trying stuff on and like clerical work like that's we are your assistants like that's kind of the vibe a lot of good lines but basically I mean you know there's even a line like towards the very end where, you know, we'll get to and I'll cry, where Goody is like, I was going to walk into the sun before you got turned.

1:44:27Like I was I was pretty much done. But now we've had a great 20 years. But it's like she got a friend is what happened with that.

1:44:32David Sims:It's part of like what I like about Only Lovers Left Alive and a lot of the vampire stuff that I like the most is like the curse of immortality and getting to this point where you're just like, I kind of wish I could die. This is unnatural. I have like had to live through too much and lose too many people and also have like whatever hedonistic pleasures and joys I could like indulge in from a life without consequences. Yeah. I've run through them. What's left? And the interesting thing, I feel like one reason why I actually also don't love the scene that opened this podcast where, you know, she gets mad at the blog.

1:45:11You know, we are famously in the room. But where she gets frustrated about the blog. It's not that I disagree with the sentiment at all. And actually, the more I thought about, the more I was like, yeah, no, maybe I also will shuffle off this mortal coil if I don't have to like check my phone ever again. But I don't think, I think I am glad that that's not the only motivation for her being like, it's okay if I die. Because that's not enough. No, no, no. Right, that's a bit of a huge bummer. Because also like at that point, she's also, we haven't even, God, I'm glad that you are, you know, down to talk for way too long about so many things.

1:45:45Because we haven't even talked about Richard Lewis as the love of her life. We'll get to Richard Lewis. we'll get to

1:45:50David Sims:we'll get to but like my my my grandmother of some age culturing this episode right a lot of my life is now centered around me helping her with devices and it will often be this wild oscillation between like this is incredible thank god this is amazing I can't imagine having lived this long without the resource of being able to watch like any movie at any time in my bed on a thing the size of like a piece of paper, right? Right. And the other half the time, she will say things to me like, I was never supposed to live this long. I can't learn all these things. What am I supposed to do? Why is this no longer a thing I can solve in a phone call or a letter?

1:46:31David Sims:Why do I need to sign up for more stuff, right? And I think it's more like... A fair feeling. There was that feeling of like, Alicia Silverstone's character is secretly 100 plus years old. Older, right. And she's much older than the other one. And one thing I like too is that it's not like she's very nostalgic for the time when she was turned, which we find out, you know, she was brewing cholera and it was like a bad time. it was a horrible time to be a poor person in New York, which I guess she was. And that her go-to dressing style is not that. It's actually the 20s when it seems like she was happiest.

1:47:04When, like, things changed, electricity happened, people were out having fun and she was like, that's what she's nostalgic for. And also the, you know, movies. And I also, she's a cinephile in this.

1:47:12David Sims:It's the very heckling part of it. In a way, that's very heckling. Right. So it's not that she was always resistant to change. No. It's that she enjoyed the change she got and then it just kept happening. Well, so Kristen Ritter inside her coffin has photos of like late 80s, early 90s pinup boyfriends, right? She's got Michael J. Fox and shit inside her coffin. Right. Her taste has remained, you know, static. Right. It's the moment she was turned, right? And it's basically like that feeling of this kind of point in a person's life in between your 20s and your 30s where you're like, I'm out of the control of childhood and there's a level of responsibilities that have not really kicked in.

1:47:53David Sims:And is my life mostly centered around like getting drunk and going out with friends and having dinner and having fun and all this sort of shit, which is what both of them kind of yearn for, right? More than a specific era of history, it's the point in time where they felt that way for the first time, which for Alicia Silverstone, because her lifespan is so much longer, and she was born into a culture that never allowed people to have an era like that, that it makes sense that the 20s would have been the first time that was basically like the equivalent of her being 26 and also culture kind of exploding for the first time.

1:48:30David Sims:And she's nostalgic for feeling that way for the first time in the same way that Kristen Ritter is about like 1992. And Alicia Silverstone has been lying about them being on the same timeline and pretending they're in the same place. Because as you said, basically, finding someone else she can relate to this heart in a platonic way gave her the motivation to be like, I guess it is still fun to be alive. I want to do this, but we have to be on the exact same page about all of this shit. And when Kristen Ritter gets pregnant and she realizes the baby is going to sort of like destroy itself, she realizes there's like a two birds with one stone solution, which is, I need to kill Sigourney to sever the stem, which will solve her like time spray.

1:49:12David Sims:It'll free her. It will free her. Kristen Ritter, you know. They'll revert back to the age they would have been if they had kept aging. It will be the end of me. So Kristen Ritter is going to go from 20 to 40. She turns 40 in this movie, which is also like very specific that she is turning 40 and that when she finds out she's pregnant. That's also such a cute little scene. I feel like Kristen plays it so well too. And so does Alicia because she said it being like, oh, I talked to Vlad and you're just pregnant and it'll be fine. And she's so excited. And she's like, oh shit, you want the baby. And I just didn't even consider that might be something you'd want.

1:49:43And she's like, well, I'm 40. When am I going to get another chance? Like, that's the reason.

1:49:46David Sims:Yeah, it's a good line. And Alicia Silverstone, like, does the math and is like, I can solve this, but the price of it is I will revert to my real age, which will be dead. It is basically a suicide mission. She has to sacrifice herself to this, unknowing to everyone else around her. She's not letting Kristen Ritter know because Kristen Ritter thinks that she's going to turn 40 as well. I always kind of like this dynamic of two characters thinking they're on the same page about something and one person just sort of quietly, stoically suffering in advance of like, I'm ready to do this and I don't want them to know that I'm doing this for them because they will try to talk me out of it.

1:50:23And I feel like, you know, Stacey kind of does suspect it that, you know, they're not quite the same age because good references are not, you know, with it. She loves a drop waist too much even though, you know, you can only say Keira Knightley wore it for so long before. She always claims that she learned something from the History Channel There's a really great gag. Every time I watch the History Channel, it was just about Hitler. That is so true. Which is what the History Channel is. It is still true. I was so glad you wrote it because I was like, that bit is not that great until that line.

1:50:52And the bit,

1:50:53David Sims:the early step of the bit, which also feels very Heckerling, is like the way her old timiness kicks in is she just wants to stop in random corners in New York City and explain. Remember when it was this. Right, there used to be this here. Yeah, right. Right, which is like, I think how like a lifelong New Yorker like Amy Heckerling feels. It's certainly how you and I feel. Absolutely. Talk all the fucking time. My favorite thing to do is to be like, ah, there used to be like a dentist's office there. And it's like, who fucking cares, David? Shut up. Right, she's doing the 1920s version of that.

1:51:21David Sims:And Christopher's like, how do you know this? And she goes like, History Channel. As if History Channel goes through every... What do you want to say, Benny? It just doesn't seem like she was very savvy when it comes to real estate. Because if you've been around that long, get yourself... Why are you in that apartment? Be off the frigging park or something. Come on. Maybe she wants to be in the thick of it in St. Mark's Place or whatever. Or even, I just love the eternal life thing of like you deposit a penny. And then suddenly, yeah. And then like a hundred years later, you're like super rich.

1:51:50I feel like it's very like Interview with the Vampire is kind of like that where they're like, we have figured it out and now we own shit. It's true. She has always been kind of like middle income. It seems like she's never amassed great wealth. Well, they work as like exterminators. Yes. If anything, she should have. You're making good money. She should have made it like some investments.

1:52:08David Sims:I do think that is a purposeful statement, though, Ben, because it's like the whole point is they are relishing being stuck in a stage before you need to start to make future decisions. Oh, that's interesting. Right. Like it's that span of years where you're just like, at one point, am I told I need to start figuring shit out? And they are stuck in like decades of that's for later. So that's one thing that I was thinking about when, you know, she does her little blog rant and then she very shortly thereafter realizes that she's going to have to die if Stacey's going to like be happy or whatever.

1:52:40Is that, you know, for me, I was looking at being like, but you did just have like a very fulfilling moment where you got your ex-boyfriend who's now, you know, I will say a hunky ACLU lawyer who is, you know, down and ready to help. And you got all these people. You're saying Richard Lewis now is hunky. I think in Vance. Well, in 2012. He's now, of course. He's hunkier in the present timeline than he is in that wig in the 60s. Well, the wig is, again, it's not a major studio wig. I just love that that guy, played by Richard Lewis, is the object of Alicia Silverstone's utter... It's a great concept.

1:53:16Very Heckerling.

1:53:17David Sims:If you look at the man of Heckerling's life, and we have not acknowledged she also had a very long relationship with Bronson Pinchot in the 90s. Sure. Richard Lewis, it makes sense that you're like Amy Heckerling when she was 12, probably saw him do stand-up on Late Night and was like, that is my greatest crush of all time. And he plays it pretty straight. The thing, right, that I like about Richard Lewis, I like pretty much everything about Richard Lewis, but in this movie, is that he's like, I'm playing as kind of a tired, sad guy. Like, I'm not going to go... He's an old hippie. He's an ancient hippie.

1:53:47He's an ancient hippie. All right, like, ah, Richard Lewis, you know, like, no, he's quite locked in being not that funny.

1:53:54David Sims:And Richard Lewis also was incredibly good at just maintaining his look. Right. Like you even watch the final season of Curb where he is like so close to death, almost was not on the final season and dies like before it even premieres. And you're like, man, he for 70 years kept the hairstyle. You know, he likes me. And the all black outfits and the attitude like in this sort of vampiric way. All right. He's like a nightclub comic forever. Right. You know, he's. Do you like Richard Lewis, man? You're making a little face. Yeah. I think the thing for me when I remember that this is the way the movie was going is that I had a moment where I was like, but Goody, you just found another gear.

1:54:34Like, this is something you can help people. Like, you change people's... Sure. You connect people. And so I had a minute where I was like, oh, do you really have... Like, this is... It's not all just... It comes a little bit out of nowhere when she starts talking about her kids and stuff. Well, that I... Not out of nowhere, out of nowhere, because there's the scene where she, like, looks at old pictures and stuff. It's layered it. But I just like, that backstory is so good, I think but exactly it's just resonant anyway it's kind of weird that she's telling Dr. Van Helsing why not he's a nice man why is Sean was he a nice man before the scene well he's interested in her in a way that most aren't right because he actually cares about vampires sure and he is like here's a new bit of lore I didn't know

1:55:13David Sims:here's a great runner in this movie and he's learning to be sympathetic to them she changes hearts other than with Sigourney Weaver this movie constantly represents the idea that like any complicated dynamic can be worked out through a very good conversation. Right? Yeah, sure. And like in a way that doesn't feel like sloppy, like whatever, wave it off screenwriting. It's like, can she appeal to Dr. Van Helsing as a person and get her to like consider her as a person rather than as like an abstract enemy in the same way that like Dan Stevens and Kristen Ritter can figure it out. And the Richard Lewis thing, when he's introduced, they're like exterminating at a hospital where his wife, Mary Lou Henner, is like in the latest stages of cancer and Alicia Silverstone clocks him.

1:55:58David Sims:This was like her greatest boyfriend ever, her like political radical college student boyfriend from the 70s who she had to dump because she was starting to get to the point. I think she says it's seven years. It's like after seven years, I have to acknowledge that I'm not aging and that he wanted a family and she couldn't do that. Which also like there's a lot of stuff about motherhood in here too. Yep. Yes. It kind of doesn't make sense that she wouldn't know the deal with pregnancy, you'd think it would have come up at some point, but whatever, it doesn't matter. Richard Lewis sees her, is like, how is this possible?

1:56:31David Sims:And she says like, oh, what are you talking about? And then very quickly creates the cover story of like... I feel like there must be a basic cover story for them. It's like... I must be the daughter. If someone recognizes me I'm the daughter, right? Right. And I'm like, okay, so the movie's gonna be 90 minutes of her lying and pretending that she's the daughter. And then once again, the conversation comes much earlier than you would expect. They dispense with it pretty quickly. Where she's like, I'm just going to fucking own up to you. He's smart enough to figure it out, much in the same way that Dan Stevens was.

1:56:57She stops a robbery and there's no way to.

1:57:00David Sims:And she says, I could like hypnotize you. I think you deserve better. They have this really interesting emotional conversation about like why he she had to leave him. And so you deserve to meet someone else. And did you meet did you meet someone amazing? And he said, yeah, I did. And you're in this zone where you're like, so they're spending so much time together is the idea that they're setting up that now that he's lived a full life with his wife and she is sadly going to pass away, that the door will be open for maybe her and him to be together. Alicia Silverstone and Richard Lewis. And it's just not really.

1:57:36I mean, I also appreciate that there's never actually a moment because I had a minute where I was like, oh, my God, is he going to hit on her? Because even though she's the he thinks she's the daughter and that never happens. No, he's just like your mom was great. Yeah.

1:57:45David Sims:And he's holding a candle for his wife, who is still alive. Yeah. And Alicia Silverstone, in a similar way, like, I think it's not that she has a death wish, but she realizes, like, I could do two great things for the two people I have cared the most about in my entire life. And also, as she says, I have lived so fucking much. Like, I've had my filth. Like, not that I resent still being alive, but I've been, not greedy, but I've been very lucky with how much I've gotten to experience. Well, yeah, her explaining that the reason why she begged to be turned into a vampire, because the, you know, people who are begging to be turned into a vampire is such also like a very, you know, common trope in vampire stories.

1:58:29Like, people who want, seeking it out. Like, you know, like Renfield in this, like, he's like, awaken me. And they're like, that's not how it works. or like, you know, people on Buffy, there's always like groupies or whatever. You know, people always want this or they think they want this. But her reason is also completely different from anyone else. It's not like, oh, I just want to like not die. She's like, I have two kids who will be orphans if I die and I would rather not leave them alone.

1:58:55David Sims:Right, and she talks about that her kids lived until like 80 and 99. I think she says her daughter set the record for the oldest living person. It was just like, yeah, it was unprecedented at the time. And now she has gone on to live like another hundred years past that. But she was like, but the only thing I wanted to do with this was raise them. And I did it. And I did that. So like, what is it now? Right. And I just I'd never I really like I don't love, you know, all the some of the vampire stuff is cheesy in this in a way where I'm like, OK, you know, I don't I don't need like a bloodsuckers anonymous situation, but I get it.

1:59:30Sure. But I do feel like some of the, like, she, Heckerling clearly did a ton of research. I mean, the vampire bat thing alone, where she's like, we have an enzyme in our spit. And I just spit into him. I was like, you have done some Wikipedia hole research and I respect it. But some of her twists on the vampire thing, I think are really interesting and smart in a way that ties back to the themes she's the most interested in, like aging, motherhood, relevance.

1:59:54David Sims:Yeah, those are the big three in this movie, right? And they all track really well onto vampire history and our cultural understanding of them. And yeah, I just like, it was one of those things where as you said, like first 30 minutes, I'm like, okay, there's some funny jokes in this. Yeah, get the concept. This is going to be sustainable. Next 30 minutes, I'm like, fuck, I like care about these characters. And the last 30 minutes, I'm like, she has set up all the pieces on the game board really well and really effortlessly for now this all being like perfectly set up for a very effective finale.

2:00:31Yeah, and it's definitely the kind of movie where I feel like she's so, like it's so close to getting all the tonal mismatches right. Like I feel like, you know, I... And she definitely, she clearly loves like a voiceover, an exposition dump, etc.

2:00:46David Sims:This movie starts with quite a clumsy one. Like it really like... And it starts it off on a note where you're like, oh, okay, here we go. Like I'm sure I can tell that Ben turned this on this morning and was like, okay. Right. Because it starts and you're just like, fuck, is this like a student film? It's just a little bit. It's a little like, and then, you know, then the 60s happened. I was like, oh my God, we're just doing the decades. Like in Photoshopped, like pictures and like dumb motion graphics. Yeah. Right. But it's because she's like, I, she clearly has so many ideas and I only have so much time.

2:01:16Yeah. This is the most efficient way to do it. And of course, then I went to see Sinners yesterday and I was like, well, that's how you do it. He, you know. That opening thing. Like that was, it's crazy beautiful.

2:01:25David Sims:He does the exact same thing in Black Panther. He is kind of the king of doing that. The like two minute animated in an interesting way intro that's like, got it? Got it. Let's go. Yeah. Right. he's figured out how to make that about as elegant as he possibly can and successfully stick a bunch of info in your head that allows the rest of the movie to mostly be emotional. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I just... What was I going to say? Actually, I was reading David Sims' interview with Ryan Coogler. Great guy. Really incredible guy to talk to. David's a great guy. Yeah, you know? What a fun guy to talk to.

2:02:00I really enjoyed it.

2:02:02David Sims:We all love David, don't we? But I was interested, I feel like something... I don't remember why I thought it was maybe... No, I do. I opened my phone and I saw it. One reason why... I think he really encapsulated something that I always... I feel like is the thing I liked about vampires and does come up in every single adaptation. And he really summed it up quite well in your interview. Vampires still have so much of their humanity left, their knowledge, and also they can present as something that's not what they truly are. But, I mean, Sinners is partly about vampires being great lovers of art, right?

2:02:33and being drawn to artistic sort of like framers in the fucking force. They're like oh my god, someone is speaking to the human experience. They can't create it, they can steal it and repeat it in a way. Sure, and like it just rocks that that's sort of like he's thinking about vampires and like he hits on that rather than just like it's scary that they suck your blood, which is scary. Which is very scary. And a little sexy. And a little sexy. I mean, my favorite thing about interviewing Ryan was when... First name basis. Yeah, he's my best friend, was when I was like, you know, can I bring up, you know, From Dusk Till Dawn, obviously, the most obvious sort of like analog.

2:03:18Right, and he was like, can I bring up Puss in Boots, The Last Wish? Well, that's exactly it. Right. Where he was like, dude, obviously I love that movie. I love Robert Rodriguez. And when I talked to Robert about From Dusk Till Dawn, he was like, well, my biggest influence to Spike Lee. Like, I was just trying to copy Spike Lee. I didn't know about this and that or the other thing. I was a 25-year-old or whatever age I was when I'm making these movies. And I love fucking Spike Lee. I love Do the Right Thing is like a 24-hour movie. And then Kugler's like, and I love From Dusk Till Dawn, but what I love is the faculty because the faculty is two genres getting mushed together in a way that shouldn't work and does.

2:03:54David Sims:Like, that's my bigger inspiration. Kugler is not just such a historian and is so smart about the lineage of these things and what he's in conversation with, but also that he's like a fucking omnivore, that his tastes are so varied. And you're like, this guy does just find interesting aspects in everything. And then, so he's talking to me about the faculty. And he's like, and then obviously, Inside Llewyn Davis, Lovers Rock, the Steve McQueen thing. And then he's like, and then the biggest thing for me is this Twilight Zone episode called The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank. And I'm like, what's that?

2:04:22You know, like, and he's like, oh, it's about a small town, you know, and then he's like, and Salem's Lot, the book, not the movie. I've never seen the movie, except for the one shot. And I'm like, the shot of the kid floating in the window. He's like, yeah, the one shot everyone's seen from Salem's Lot. I don't remember

2:04:36David Sims:what interview it was, not to give credit to an interview that you didn't do, but someone else speaking to Ryan Coogler, he talked about how he was, I think, talking to Goranson as they were plotting out the movie about just like, what sort of happened to the blues? I'm making this movie about, spoilers for Sinners, the biggest movie in America, probably still has a big influence by the time this episode comes out. But this lineage he's creating in the history of music and, you know, right. The slipstream of all this stuff, right? Sure, yes. Everything owes something to the blues. There's a big jump, right?

2:05:13David Sims:Yes. You say this in the interview very wisely. I'm so wise. Yes. And he was just like, I'm trying to fill this gap between the blues and hip-hop and funk. What is this missing piece here? And Gorenson was like, grunge. Nice. Grunge was like the 90s big wave kind of capturing the spirit of the blues. And he was just like, I've heard the three Nirvana sounds that are on the radio all the time. But I'm not like a grunge guy. And now he's like, I'm all fucking in on Grunge now. A lot of good shit in there. Right. And it's like drug addicts like struggling with their sadness and being owned by corporations.

2:05:48David Sims:And I mean, that mid-movie sequence, you know, that Warner, just like, you know, just all the different music eras. It's so impressive on 10 ,000 different levels, but it's also like very of a vampire movie. But it's also to see all these different eras. When that happened and I was completely I saw the film very early not to brag because I was interviewing Ryan Kukow did I mention that? David Sims. Go brag. And when that so I was completely unprepared for that sequence I really hadn't watched the trailer for Sinners I just knew there was a big vampire thing. I didn't even know that that sequence was in there I saw it yesterday.

2:06:17That's awesome that it caught you off guard or whatever. It's a sequence you're like damn he rocked that but then you're also like damn B-boys spinning around while blues music played, you know, in an old saloon

2:06:29David Sims:could suck. Like, could not work. It's a humongous swing. And part of what I think is so thrilling about the movie and has really captured people is it's the kind of sequence where you watch it and when it starts, you're holding your breath and you're like, he is so close to fucking this up. Or this is dangerous. The movie does not recover from this. It's like, it's crazy that that's the big, like that things escalate from there. Like, how is that not, like, I mean, it is a peak, but then the things escalate from there. But it is the kind of sequence that underlines why he picked vampires. You cannot do that.

2:07:00You can't do that sequence of the zombie movie. Let's open a saloon. Okay. Zombie movies are so much stricter. Was that what you were going to say? We should get a saloon? Yeah, we're going to open a saloon. Was that what you were going to say? Yeah, that is what he was going to say. No, because I was just talking about zombie movies with my friends who were asking me about the Helen and Staten. I'm like, zombies are not my monsters. And I was like, you know, with zombies, it's like it takes 640 years for Danny Boyle to be like, what if they ran? and people are like, hold on there, cowboy. Zombies behave in one way.

2:07:27You know, it's like there's not a lot of variation with zombie stuff. You know what? And this is interesting. And it reflects usually just one kind of thing, which is an apocalypse.

2:07:34David Sims:Yeah. I am so much more innately drawn to zombies. Interesting. Like, if you tell me that someone's making a zombie movie, I'm excited. Is it because the world has to be different? I don't know. Because the whole world has to be different with zombies. And the whole thing about vampires is that they're trying to be, you know, they're trying to pass unnoticed. And have their space. and have their space and have a good sexy time. I think I do. My gooning tomb. If like zombies could just like live in the world and like just eat leftover dead people parts. Just like toss them a torso. The hit, I'm so sorry Ben, cover your ears, CW's show, I Zombie, does try to do that.

2:08:11David Sims:Yes. I feel like Warm Bodies does a sort of version of that as well with the movie I like. there's only so much you can do with that. Like with vampires, it's very much like they have one face, it's a human face, they have another, it's the vampire face. And they have enough of their memories and they have all their previous knowledge. Like they don't suddenly factory reset in the same way that other monsters do. Like, I mean, and werewolves are kind of that where it's like once a month, but you it's involuntary. But vampires give you so much room to work with in terms of a person's memory, what their relationship to the world is, how that changes.

2:08:44It's yes. It's much richer for storytelling.

2:08:46David Sims:There's more baked in that has interesting potential. I think I do like societal collapse and apocalypse stories and things that get to test human behavior. And like zombies inevitably are that. I think I also like the iconography of rotting people. Like I think if you show me a drawing of a zombie, I'm more engaged. The face is in this room at that. Like of a cartoon than like a guy with fangs and blood dripping down his face. You love a rotting person. But yet. You love rot. I love rot. But yet, like, and I think our buddy David Rees said this on the 20 years later episode. he was like, I can't think of a type of movie I love more with a lower percentage of movies I actually like, you know?

2:09:24David Sims:And I think like I will be pleasantly like entertained by some junky, shitty zombie movie. But like unquestionably, there are more vampire movies that I think are capital G great than zombie movies. And yet I hear someone's making a vampire movie. I'm like, again, I hear someone's making a zombie movie and I'm like, yeah, let's go. Even if it's a two out of 10. That's interesting. I mean, I feel like, you know, because zombie movies are about the humans. They're not about the zombies. Right. Because the zombies don't have thoughts. That's what I like. That it sort of creates a template for an ensemble cast.

2:09:56David Sims:That is the reason for zombie movies being good, obviously. Vampire stories are still very human. And they're more character studies. But usually, the humans themselves are of secondary importance. For sure. You know. They may be doing an interview with them. They could be interviewing them. Right. That's also what you do. Kind of like with Cooler. Perhaps I should interview a mysterious man. Maybe you did interview a vampire. What do they call humans in this movie? Day players. Day players. Is it so funny? That is a film production joke. Day players are what you call an actor or a crew member who's only doing the one day.

2:10:30David Sims:Yes. It's clever. To your point, she realizes that she can get this rush from helping other people. And it sort of gives her a reason to live. But I think it's a really good, unsolvable dilemma, which is like, she's found this new pap in her step and yet she realizes the single best version of that involves her dying. And she also, yeah, it doesn't seem to bother her. She just has to adjust. And she's also like, my friend is about to have the opportunity I already had. I gotta give that to her. To raise a child she wants. Right. And so she then also very generously is like, I can bring in horny Justin Kirk and save Richard Lewis's life.

2:11:10David Sims:He's pretty hot in this. Just marry me. I just think I like that we were just like the energy on this side of the room we were like give us a second to have a moment to have a moment with eyeliner Justin Kirk Kirk Ukrainian he emphasizes over and over again that's a funny joke every time we do that I just think it's funny that that character is basically her being like here's all the shit I'm not interested in with vampires and let me put it into one character and have someone very charismatically play the most annoying guy in the world the most stereotypically annoying vampire-y guy It's like, I'm a black guy who wants to fuck women.

2:11:45It says juicy on her butt, and I am going to take her at her word.

2:11:49David Sims:And he's got the Nosferatu teeth that don't look cool. My roommate was like, why does he have gopher teeth? And I was like, fuck, they are gopher teeth. They're really hard to unsee. The little gopher teeth. But that, I'm sure you have talked, I did listen to your Fast Times episode with Sinner Star Lilla Kirk. Well done there. Humble break. But I'm sure you've talked about many a comedic sex scene at this point because Heckerling likes those. And there are a couple in this one, like there's the sort of, you know, Stacey and Ritter and Dan Stevens rolling off the bed and they're levitating kind of deal.

2:12:24But then like the absolutely...

2:12:26David Sims:It's one of those. I mean, it's not great. They just pull it off well enough in a way that makes you wish it looked a little better. That does actually remind me of one of the bits I like in this where she's just like levitating along the street and Goody's like, oh my God, you can't do that. She's like, it's New York. No one gives a shit. I will every time that joke is made in anything. I would not bat my eye at someone levitating. That joke is, you know, could not be more bread and butter classic. Oh, it's New York. No one cares. It's true every time. Always funny. Works every time. You were right.

2:12:51But the Justin Kirk scene where he's basically good. He's like, before I die, I'm going to give Richard Lewis the option of would his wife, like, would he rather his wife become a vampire and live than die as she is going to? and he thinks about it for approximately two seconds and says yes please and she sends Justin Kirk in there for to ravish her essentially it's that scene is insane I got so dizzy it's drawn out yes it's very and then you know you have the comedic sort of like knocking on it being like it doesn't take that long you are milking it like once he like you know does the slit across his stomach and is like but I'm like then really Henner comes out looking unbelievably hot I'm gonna

2:13:32David Sims:quickly check my notes that I have from the Johnny Dangerously episode I'm seeing I still have written here, hummina, hummina, hummina. A wooga. May we just reiterate. And also, did you clock that the dress she's in is a redone hospital gown? I did, yes. Very well done from Mona May on that one. Fits her like a fucking glove and she brings him, you know, brings him in and that's the last we see of him. But I'm like, that vampire? It's a fine sender. But I was also like, she was like, you have to promise to have her only eat animals and stuff. And then she comes out looking like that and I'm like, you just made a new Sigourney.

2:14:05like she is not gonna play nice look again in the TV version of this there's stuff to plumb that's a full season that's not happening I

2:14:14David Sims:as much as I hope and pray this is not the final film she ever makes there is something in how much she brings back so much of her history of Heckerling company players down to like Brian Backer who's a rat in Fast Times yes being a dentist. Being the dentist who gets eaten briefly. It was nice to see him. Taylor Negron back. Wallace Shawn back. Mary Lou Henner back. Was Kirsten Johnson Alicia Silverstone, obviously. I don't think Kirsten Johnson's in any of the others. She feels like she should have been weird. Well, it definitely feels like a part where she was like, I like you and you should be in it.

2:14:51But then she's kind of doing a not good British accent. I'm kind of like, you didn't. Because it's clear this is a waste, but I'm glad to see you.

2:14:57David Sims:There are two separate things of she obviously wants Wallace Shawn to be Van Helsing. And she wants someone maybe comically taller. Right. in a third block kind of way. Dan Stevens wants to do it and now you need to figure out like who is the woman that Wallace Shawn could have made Dan Stevens with? It's not Kirsten Johnson. I was happy to see her. Yes. But it was a waste. It should be like Joanna Lumley or something. But it is the kind of thing where I'm like if Heckerling had kept making movies after that like she would have been in there. 100%. Was she, maybe she was in like a suburgatory because I know Heckerling went on to do a bunch of suburgatory.

2:15:28Yes. And that feels like something. Did Carrie Diaries. Right. Did the suburgatory. A lot of Red Oaks. yeah ah yes

2:15:36David Sims:Red Oaks and I feel like there's one of the big shows she did a bunch of episodes on yeah so but yeah but it's definitely she directed the Hot Girls episode of The Office but we're not talking about it we're not talking about it David she did she did a Quibi show of course you remember you commissioned that David called Royalties that I've heard is good and is still watchable somewhere oh cool I mean that's awesome everything I commissioned is good she did six Red Oaks one Suburgatory she did a rake three rake with a steak on his face steak on his face But yeah, I hope it's not a curtain call, but it is notable also because, again, she didn't have a budget in that they were all like, yeah, we'll come do it.

2:16:14Like, we'll go to Detroit or wherever. Absolutely. And we'll do it. Yes. For clearly no money. Yes, 37 days in Detroit, but, you know, some New York location stuff, no question.

2:16:24David Sims:And it is often a real Achilles heel of the Amy Hackerling filmography that we keep butting up against as she makes movies set in specific cities and then is told she cannot film in those places. And you have this weird kind of nonspecific doubling that is often then married to what is clearly two days of establishing shots that often don't really have the primary actors in them or only have them in one or two. This there is like she got her. She got her people. She did. She got enough days of actual actors in front of real New York places to make it count to mesh well. Just to tell you some other things before we move on to the end of VAMS.

2:17:03First choice for Sisera's was Michelle Pfeiffer. Who liked the script. But she said, I could never be your vampire. Was busy doing Dark Shadows. Well, well, well. She saw Dan Stevens in a play with Judi Dench called Hay Fever. and then she saw a lot of stuff in England because she was making I Could Never Be Your Woman and that's where she first noticed him and then Downton Abbey helped him and yes indeed they did shoot in Detroit, they did shoot on a type but I'm just making sure I caught everything here and it was unceremoniously dumped, essentially straight to DVD, I mean VOD, but it did according to JJ it was released just at the AMC Burbank 8 ever been there?

2:17:53you may have gone to a press screener or something to be clear the CineFamily story checks out though it does sound right and we went to CineFamily a lot at that time but that's not out of the question for sure I worked up there at the time I worked in North Hollywood then and of course as we noted she has done a bunch of TV but she's not has said that she's not particularly thrilled making episodic TV. She's still like writing all the time. She was going to make a Clueless musical.

2:18:23David Sims:The Clueless musical is opening in the West End this summer. It's supposed to be god awful. She was doing it off Broadway with Dove Cameron in 2020 with the hope it would transfer and then everything shut down. It is now finally opening in the West End and as we alluded to earlier it was recently announced that she is executive producing a Clueless continuation show for Peacock with Alicia Silverstone back. But it's But it's actually going to be written by the Gossip Girl people. It seems like it's a little bit more of a John Carpenter. And she'll be the Margaret Collin of the show. But look, three years ago, they announced that Peacock was developing a Clueless reboot.

2:19:04David Sims:That was like fucking Clueless Riverdale where Cher is missing. And Dion has to solve her murder. And it was going to be dark and gritty. And this sounds like the much better universe of things. But it is like a little bit, it's a slightly damning statement that like Amy Heckerling is here regularly doing interviews and talking about how much she wishes she could get to make her stuff. And the two things she can do are just circling back to Clueless. Yeah. Can I do this as a musical? It's the most juice. Right. Can I get a paycheck for doing this on TV? Well, I think at some point she's just like, if you're going to want to redo this, I'd rather be a part of the residuals.

2:19:42Like, I'd rather get a piece of it. Of course, of course. let her have her money. I don't begrudge Alicia Silverstone doing the legacy sequel either. What's up? Well, no, I've seen, you know, I haven't seen every Heckerling, but what other ones are New York based? Well, the LaCousse talkings, but they are all not really shot in New York. Loser is NYU,

2:20:05David Sims:but shot in Toronto. Okay. Of course. Johnny Dangerously is New York. You know, gangstery. But it's all, it's so soundstagey that it doesn't have the same problem. So basically, Clueless and Fast Times, her most famous works are the LA ones, I Could Never Be Your Woman, is also, of course, set in just a... And then the European vacation film, This Might Stun You, is actually set all over Europe. And what is crazy is... Does that include Britain? Yeah, there's a whole British section and then Germany and France. It's pre-Branx. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good 30 years pre-Branx. It's not Brexit. No. But that film actually like did like filming in five different countries.

2:20:52David Sims:It was a nightmare. Like a nightmare, but it is, you watch it and you're like, holy shit, they flew everyone everywhere. But it's really interesting that this one, you know, if it's her last, which I hope it's not, but it's so much like she's like, I want to tell the entire story, like not the entire story of New York, obviously 1840 wasn't the beginning of New York, but she's like, I'm going to tell you about how this city has evolved and Goody is it's because I feel like so many other vampires will like travel and they'll go other places and Goody's like I've got everything I need it's very native New Yorker where you're just like why would I go and I got it I saw The Shrouds recently which I loved and I think it's already being kind of slept on and misunderstood and I wasn't a huge fan of it I'm sorry I like the themes a lot I think I just did not find it to be the most involving movie I like the theme I like the Tremess I found it very funny.

2:21:43Sure.

2:21:44David Sims:It's kind of funny. It is, to me, a perfect example. I want to defend it because I love him. And I think it's a very interesting movie. He is so important to me. I don't think it's anywhere near his top tier of films. And yet, I walked out of it and said, that's kind of a perfect film if we're unlucky enough that he never gets to make another one. And it feels in a way similar to Pham's. Well, I think he's done. And some other filmmakers where they're just sort of like, Like, it has been getting harder and harder for me to get stuff made. And I have to make every movie with the awareness that this might be my final statement.

2:22:18David Sims:And Vamps does feel like she's just putting so much in it, not pessimistically, but just being like, who knows? Right? It's kind of like her final statement on New York, on youth culture, on like relationships, on motherhood, like all these things. I like Crimes of the Future a lot more as a movie, but I think The Shrouds is a very interesting cuda. I agree with you. to his career. Which I feel, you know, it's interesting. Vamps, I'm putting in the same category where it's like, it's not her best movie, but if it sadly has to be her coda in feature films, it is a pretty good one. I think when Cronenberg movies are mega chatty, it can be a problem, I guess is my take.

2:22:56David Sims:I would say that my read is, in that film, it is a form of knowing self-parody. I think he is mocking his own critics' analysis of his movies being cold and analytical about very emotional things. Sure. That was my read. I will say I also saw it at the Nighthawk in a row with five people who were committed to watching it as if they were doing a Riff Trax commentary. Oh, how fun. And thought they were mocking it and I almost went full Joker mode on that. I would go a little Joker mode. I did turn to this one woman at one point and go, with like the intensity of a thousand burning suns and she was freaked out.

2:23:33Maybe right, right. Because you started high. It was too quick. Yes, right, right.

2:23:38David Sims:But Vincent Cassell took his shirt off in a scene of mourning and she went, Yas, Yas. And I was like, I can tolerate this so long. I mean, that is objectively hilarious that someone said Yas during the shirt. But it was coming off of 45 minutes of a fucking meditation on death. No. Where they kept being like, um, what? Like just doing this sort of performative laughing at like, who talks like this? She saw Vincent Cassell and she flashed, back viscerally to him in Ocean's 12 with his sweatpants very low. I was all for her. Which is the only proper response to that. I was all for her thirsting after Vincent Kassell.

2:24:16David Sims:If I felt like it wasn't done mockingly. We've all been there. It felt like she was mocking the idea of thirsting after him. And I'm like, he is hot and this movie knows it's funny and stop acting like you're smarter in it. Anyway, the film Vamps, directed by Amy Heckerling. Can we talk about the ending? Sure. The ending's lovely. I mean, it's exactly what you want it to be, I guess is the best way for me to put it. It's a very good gag that is also once again not executed. The center of the world? Is that what she said? She said the center of things. It's all happening. I don't know. Did you read them?

2:24:46Look, if you want to see 2010 Broadway musical billboards, watch the last scene of Vamps. It's kind of awesome. Spider-Man turned off the dark. She captured it. I forgot about the women on the verge of a nervous breakdown musical.

2:24:57David Sims:The Sinatra jukebox musical. There's so much interesting stuff. Adam's family. Yeah. Yep. But it's just like she, they kill Sigourney Weaver. They kill Sigourney Weaver in this very, like, it's like the mummy return of the dragon emperor level graphics. Decapitate her, dancing CGI skeleton. Okay, when she comes out of the tomb with the saber and she's a skeleton and she's singing, my eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord. I fully, like, that was the funniest. It was so funny. Here's what I'll say about that as well. Still would. Let me at her. Sigourney with a fucking skeleton. Wielding body.

2:25:34David Sims:I take my chances. Yeah, yeah, yeah. but they don't they kill her they kill her and you have this very good gag that once again you're just like fuck if she had a little more resources this would be impeccable where Kristen Ritter immediately in a series of three shots her butt gets a little flatter a little flatter the lighting changes on her yep and there's oh and her arms start sagging right it's like two wrinkles but it's like pretty well done because it's like she doesn't it's just enough it's just enough and then she's like I stayed out of the sun and I didn't drink or smoke So good for me.

2:26:06Right.

2:26:07David Sims:And that worked for me. Yeah. It's a good joke. Looks over to Lisa Silverstone, who is in not the world's best old age makeup. I wouldn't say so. No. Immediately clocks. You've been lying to me about your age. They bring up the History Channel thing. And like, are you going to stop aging now? Big no. And Lisa Silverstone gives the knowing look of just like, this is just going to advance. You know, clock is ticking until I decay. But I don't want to die here. I want to go to the center where everything happens. And then they go to Times Square and she like looks around at the world's greatest billboards and flashes back to like the history of New York City.

2:26:41She gets a pretzel, which I'm sad for her for. I wanted her to get a hot dog.

2:26:45David Sims:But she... The pretzels are not that good. She doesn't know though. She didn't even get mustard. It doesn't look can't hurt. It's been dry. It's genuinely very... Can you give her a cool DC to wash it down with? Affecting. But it is a really, you know, for as bad as the wig is or as fine as the dust effect is. The music, I don't remember what the song is, but the song and her flashing back to like, you know, all her stuff and her kids and everything. It fucking got me. And also culture. Like, not just her own personal memories, but like everything she's lived through. It's just, yeah, I don't know.

2:27:17I felt very, I felt very touched. And then, you know, obviously, and one of the reasons Stacey's so sad is because she's like, now you'll never meet my baby and we'll never, you won't raise this baby with me. And they hold hands. And it's just a very lovely friendship moment. and I will say an impressively straight vampire movie that I don't hold it against it yeah which is saying something they don't really no there's never that no but I wouldn't expect Heckerling to do that honestly but it's a very it is you know not only do they never have a little moment but she gets pregnant and it's like very straight but it is lovely well fucking

2:27:50David Sims:Dan Stevens will make anyone pregnant you promise it's kind of a knockout ending and it's It's a really good ending. I was a little moved. It was, it was, and you know, Times Square is Times Square, but I think there's a New York Times profile of Heckerling that I'm sure you've referenced, where it's like, you know, she's making the Clueless musical, but she, Times Square is like one of her first memories, like coming out of the subway in a stroller. She's like, and there was Times Square, and it looked like that. And so for her to have this relationship with Times Square, where she's like, this was where every, like she described it as like the center of things.

2:28:24Like this is like, she's, she was like, everything is here. And so for that, There's like such, you know, there's always an analog. Like, obviously, many of these films are personal, but this is such a personal moment. And it's bittersweet because Goody seems to have accepted it and she's happy about it. I am not convinced Heckerling is being like, and now I'm irrelevant and I'm going to die.

2:28:44David Sims:I have always had a real similar affection and obsession with Times Square as a lifelong New Yorker, from how overstimulating and exciting it was to me as a child to even now when every other native New Yorker I know is just like, why would you ever go there by choice? I have always found it weirdly relaxing and serene to just submit myself to the chaos of Times Square and stand in the middle or just wander around, whatever. That's where I went the night after prom, like with my friends from Jersey. We went to Times Square. And I was like, because this is the cool, like this is the busiest, most not New Jersey thing we could do right now is go to Times Square.

2:29:20and get a... Seaside Heights. Oh, I mean, that's good too. I mean... That's the most Jersey thing that you could do. That is the most Jersey thing you could do. Yes, I went the other way.

2:29:29David Sims:It is so insufferable and annoying and impossible to navigate. And yet, when I am there, I do feel like the way this character feels. It feels like I knew you. This is the center of the world. No. Interesting. I am almost always like, get me out of here! I'm presenting myself as the weirdo and the freak and I, in watching these movies and I'm reading all the heckling interviews and in living with her for the last couple months we have in our head, I'm just like, I'm really just kind of on her wavelength. And I found myself defending a lot of her movies that people don't like as much that just kind of work for me.

2:30:04David Sims:And I just feel like I have a very similar outlook on a lot of things to her. And yeah, it's like, in watching this movie, it does feel like the ending is her sort of being like, has my time passed, which globally than just her and her career also feels like this is kind of acknowledging the end of a type of movie that doesn't get made anymore. And the last two films she made were basically made past, like, unburrowed time, right? Like, studios are no longer making these, so now you have to, like, scrape and scavenge and pull together the wonkiest version of this thing. And the thing, too, is that she did have to scrape and scavenge for this, but she did get to do Times Square.

2:30:44Yeah. For one night, she got Times Square.

2:30:46David Sims:She, like, had her three main actors in the middle of Times Square. There's like triumphs in this movie that really got to me. I still think it is like on whole a good movie that I enjoy quite a bit. It is frustrating, as we said, bittersweet that it is not like a triumph, which it should be. But I feel like it dealt with a lot of the I'm really glad that I watched I Can Never Be Your Woman before this because I feel like that one was so close to her experience that I feel like it was I mean, you've talked about it. I won't do it. But I do feel like this movie, I felt like dealt with a lot of the same themes better because she could take a slight step back.

2:31:20It's actually, like, watching it, I was like, I'm actually surprised it took you this long to get to vampires. Like, they are so up the street of everything you want to talk about that I feel like this one, she did get to something there.

2:31:30David Sims:Can I read an extended quote that I found from the other... David! David and Ben are flagging. We're saying goodbye to Amy Heckerling. Come on. We're saying goodbye to Amy Heckerling. Enough. We're saying goodbye to Amy Heckerling. Can you get a sour patch, kid? Yes. I need, like, 20 of them. Come on. What's the quote? Come on. He's getting sour patched. Our friend Hilary Weston, friend of the podcast, Criterion, did an interview with Amy Heckerling, I think around the time that the Fast Times release was coming out. And she was talking about where Clueless came from, these quotes that we've sort of talked about before, the projection of the optimist, right?

2:32:02David Sims:And she's talking about how much she admires the idea of the optimist and running the world and like putting the shine on them. And then she just says, also, a world full of optimists wouldn't be a good idea because what if we all went, ha, global warming, it will be fine. We need pessimists. You can't just say, oh, here's this thing I made. It's great. Although a lot of people that are creative have that. They go, I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And they think everything they do is great. And then there are people who say, you know, this has been done before and here's all the ways it could stink.

2:32:28David Sims:And then you can't write one word without thinking about how bad it could be based on how people could react, how other ways have fallen flat. And then she basically immediately dunks on life is beautiful on the day the clown cried. But I just think that sort of encapsulates the like essential tension between the two sides of Amy Heckerling in her work that is often represented. But also, I think what must feel frustrating to her in trying to get stuff made because there was a point in time where the industry went like, you got it. We want whatever you're selling. And that self-doubt she had was conquered by people begging her to come in.

2:33:11David Sims:and I think in that New York Times profile where she talks about writing all the time, and a similar thing with her having vamps on a shelf for years before she finally got it made, I think she is very self-defeating if people are not banging down her door asking what she has. That's a bummer. She made Clueless, though. Yeah, she made... I didn't make fucking Clueless. Many great films. We don't discuss that enough, that, in fact, you have never directed Clueless, and in that sense, you're a giant fucking failure.

2:33:41No, I didn't try. Didn't even try. Didn't even get off the couch and try.

2:33:44David Sims:Cowardly. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. We have not watched or done or lose her episode at the time of this recording, so we're now going to place in the audio of the rankings that we will record after the fact of her entire career.

2:34:00David Sims:Okay, this is Griffin David. Zooming in from the future. Heckerling rankings. Here we go. David, you want to go first? Number one, clueless. weird surprising number two fast times at Ridgemont High okay normal so far number three look who's talking I have that over Johnny Dangerously in fourth and Vamps in fifth okay and I could never be your woman in sixth wow and who's a her in seventh okay Euro Vacation in eighth look who's talking to bringing up the rear that's maybe the rudest thing you've ever done in a ranking what Mr. Toilet Man alone you're so deserves better than the lowest It's funny because you're like, how could you say that about Luke Who's Talking To?

2:34:42And I'm like, what? And you're like, Mr. Toilet Man. But then you don't have anything else.

2:34:46David Sims:That movie is like the holy mountain. It's like deranged fever dream images. Okay, here's my ranking. You might be surprised to hear we have the same top five, just in a slightly different order. But I think that's basically the argument. Right. So I have Fast Times at number one. Oh! I love Fast Times. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, sure. Clueless, number two. Johnny Dangerously at number three. Luke Who's Talking, number four. Vamp's at five. The number six, exactly where it belongs. Look who's talking to. Jesus Christ. Number seven, National Lampions, European Vacation. Whoa. Number eight, LaHou Zahir.

2:35:23David Sims:Okay. Number nine, I Could Never Be Your Woman. Wow. Fiverr, dead in a ditch. Do you remember that watching that movie feels like staring into the sun? Yes, it's like having a stroke. It has things in it I like. Exactly. There is no movie she's made that I dislike ever. holistically. I would say there's one for me. Which is? A little film with Mr. Toilet. You're, by calling, by referring to it as a film with Mr. Toilet Man, you're proving your entire thesis wrong. He eats poo-poo and pee-pee and he's voiced by Mel Brooks. Okay, anyway, that's our ranking. I like that his spit is blue. Ben's ranking is Look Who's Talking Now 10 times, even though she didn't direct that.

2:36:03It's fun. Okay? And there's animals and they talk in it. It has talking dogs. You don't have to tell me. Okay, back to the episode. We've done this box office game before. We have? Yep. We've done it twice. It's amazing that there is a box office game. Well, that's the thing. It's sort of a nominal box office game. But number one is an animated film that Ben loves. It's an animated film that Ben loves. It is called Wreck It Ralph. Correct. New this week. So Ben was wrecking it. I know you actually first watched that movie on a plane or something, but you were let's think of you I didn't end up seeing it you said you didn't remember yeah you said you didn't remember much but you wrecked it number two is a box at the box office is a serious sort of big scale-ish drama I got a couple Oscar nominations also new this week and we've also covered it on the show we've also covered it

2:36:56David Sims:on the show in the year 2012 it is not a Fincher it's not an Ang Lee it is not a Demi. It's not a Myers. It's not Spielberg. Hmm. It's not a Crow. November 2nd, 2012, by the way. Yeah, I know. November 2nd, 2012. Not a Cameron. It's not a Lucas. It's not Shyamalan. David's spinning his phone cable really fast. Give me a serious Oscar film. Got a couple nominations. Tell me some of the nominations it got. Best Actor. It got Best Actor. Yes. Could have won if this guy hadn't already won an Oscar or two. And Best Original Screenplay. It got Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. And this person had already won two Oscars?

2:37:47David Sims:He sure had. It's not a Denzel. It is a Denzel. It's called Flight. That's right. There we go. Now, number three, the box office wins Best Picture for 2012. Mm-hmm. And what is that? It is... The Artist? Oh, it's... What? Are you saying I'm right? No, you are not. With 2012, that's the year before? Artist is 2011. Okay, so 2012, the Best Picture winner was our Go Fuck Yourself? There you go. Okay. Now, number four, we just had to get to four. I believe has really befuddled you both times. Hmm. I think both times we played this box office game, you took several golf swings at this one. Challenge is fun.

2:38:27It is an action film. It is directed by a first-time director who's better known as a musician.

2:38:35David Sims:Oh, fuck. The problem is I know exactly what this movie is and I always get the wording of the title wrong. You do. Is it called The Man with the Golden Fist? You always say that and it's always... Fuck! What material? Iron. There you go. There's one episode I think where you're like, bronze, brass, stone! It takes you way too long to get to iron. Yes. Despite... Yes, the Rizzo's martial arts film. I believe so. Yeah. despite Ben's love of Netflix's Iron Fist. Of course. Number five at the box office is an action sequel. It's an action sequel. It's number two. It's a deuce. It's a number two. Is it a T-O-O-2?

2:39:15David Sims:No. Heckerling style? No, it's not. It's an action sequel. It's a deuce. Did it keep going after this? Oh, yeah. Or since the end of the road, it kept going. There's a three. What's a sexy voice? Well, I'm doing the guy. No, he's doing the guy. It's not John Wick Chapter Two, is it? But the guy's got a deep voice. This guy should stay around. Okay. Okay. And it's not Butler and it's not Statham. No, older. Older. Who's old? Who's old? Stallone? No, younger. Well, I think a little younger. It's not Ford and it's not Eastwood. No. No, but he's mostly an action guy? Later in life only. Oh. He's got a very particular set of skills.

2:39:56David Sims:Well, I didn't want to do the accent. Of course. This is Taken 2. That's right. Yeah. a movie I often say has one of the best setups ever you love the setup for that movie but it sucks yeah very sucks very bad it's actually a really bad movie for losers exclusively like I think Taken 1 is massively overrated it just has the Neeson juice and like it's kind of something you know what I'm gonna say the thing it's a perfect cultural object it is not a good movie but it's a perfect cultural object and 2 is a dog shit movie for 80 minutes forget it forget it just no cause like what they then figured out is like oh Neeson can just do this kind of thing It doesn't have to be in the Taken verse.

2:40:33David Sims:Right, and then Taken 3 kind of has no hook. Yeah. Yeah, it's just sort of like, right, he's back. I think no one gets taken in Taken 3. It's okay. I'm going to take you. I feel like they should have played around with the titling a little bit more. Taken T-O-O. Taking. Oh, sure. Sure. That's about it, right? Well, hold on. Given back. The third one should be called given back. Yeah. It's good when we're doing return bits. And Ben goes, hold on. That's when you know good stuff's coming. Number six is Cloud Atlas. We've covered. Number seven is Hotel... We've done this box office game three times before.

2:41:10David Sims:No, no, no, because Cloud Atlas isn't new that week. I'm saying Ralph and Flight are both new. Got it. Number six is Cloud Atlas. Number seven is Hotel Transylvania. There we go. Number eight is Paranormal Activity 4, the one with the Xbox. The best one? No, three is the best one. Yeah. Number nine... Four is the connect one. Four is not the best one. Four is not the best one. Maybe the worst one. Yeah. For number nine is Here Comes the Boom. Of course. There it went. What if we remade Warrior one year later with Kevin James? Yeah. And number 10 is the absolutely indefensible Silent Hill Revelation.

2:41:46Sure.

2:41:47David Sims:Now, David, would you do me a kindness? Would you just, just for my own joy, remind me what the numbers were on Ralph and Flight opening weekend? Ralph was$49 million and Flight was$24.9. Yeah, I remember feeling the Ralph opening was lower than I expected. But then it had that Thanksgiving run. It obviously liked it out and had a long tail. So this was November 2nd? November 2nd. They couldn't even give Vamps like a real Halloween weekend? It's close. You know what? You know? Caroline, you're right. But maybe a week before it would have been great theater. At least put it out before Halloween instead of two days after.

2:42:17Let us see it on Halloween. That is rude. We have done the week before's box office because it is Cloud Atlas' first week. Okay. Yeah. Wow. It's just, it could have been Vamps.

2:42:27David Sims:It could have been Vamps. I hope people watch this movie I hope if you thought this is one you could skip and just listen to the episode check it out I will say at the time we're recording this it is on all of America's most free streaming services it is on Tubi it is on Pluto it is on Fubo it's on all of them yeah this thing is Tubi you can watch it on Plex with ads it's everywhere and do please do yeah oh fans I think it's quite a good film next up on our podcast is the Coen Brothers so it's not a surprise no big surprise I keep asking people like being asked by people spoilers but like what's the rest of the year and I remind them the Coen brothers the Coens won and they made 20 movies a lot of their movies yeah are gonna be covered congratulations that's the rest of the year along with new release films oh and David's wearing his congratulations shirt Carolyn thank you so much for coming back thank you so much for having me far too long we'll have you on again sooner yeah you wanna do Blood Simple just come back next week yeah you wanna keep back going just keep this going keep this part going um anything you want to plug?

2:43:29Not really. I hope I have more stuff to plug by the time this comes out. I just want to issue a quick apology for anyone who was at a 2016 show at Little Field that had 12 of us, including Mother of Blanky, Emily Yoshida, taking a track for each Carly Rae Jepsen song on the hit album Emotion. Great song. Great album. Which featured me. I had taken the song Warm Blood and I decided to give a little PowerPoint presentation on lesbian vampires. I did get very nervous and too drunk and I can't imagine that was good. Also, I did take that song away from the very wonderful award-winning national treasure writer Hanifa Durakib who wanted warm blood and whatever he tells the story about that night, he talks about how he didn't get warm blood and he wanted it.

2:44:18What did he get? I don't remember the song. Oh, maybe it was I Really Like You and he put up and the reason why he talks about this is because he put up a screen that just said, tell someone you love them tonight. And he just talked as he can and just gave a wonderful, moving, meaningful speech about telling people you love them. That's nice. And people talk about it all the time and reference it. And I... So stop complaining then. He got a great one. But he always talks about how he didn't get warm blood and that's because it was me talking about lesbian vampires. And I thought this would be a great opportunity.

2:44:48A great forum. To apologize for that because I do feel like there are some people listening who probably went to that. Emily did the LA hallucination song. because she is an LA baby.

2:44:56David Sims:I cannot think of another example of asking someone if they have anything they want to plug and instead they offer an apology for a thing that happened nine years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember? I assume. No offense to that. I'm sure. I mean, I don't. Do you still have any of those PowerPoint slides? I'm sure I do. I think it's probably online somewhere. I have a shirt that I got from it. But anyway, I just felt like, you know, in honor of vamps. You're the best. We owe you big time. Love you, dude. David is just fucking and dropping a celebratory deuce in the episode. And disrespectful to Amy Heckling, but...

2:45:30David Sims:I agree. We gave him air conditioning and Sour Patch Kids. We let him go hog wild this episode and this is how he repays us. God, those Sour Patch Kids hits! Yeah, I'm saying this is... I had them for a reason. This is how I managed to do it. I have to go get a bag for myself. Lemonade Sour Patch Kids. They have apple flavors in the fall. Look them out. I've never tried. It's the only time I've ever ordered snacks off Amazon. Specialty Sour Patch Kids. Get into them. Okay. Not sponsored by me. That's a good plug. Yeah. Thank you for being here. You're so welcome. It's such a pleasure. Thank you all for listening.

2:46:03David Sims:Please remember to rate, review, subscribe, and tune in next week for Blood Simple, the start of the Coen Brothers filmographies. And as always, canonically, and he's not allowed to say anything against this because he waved that right. David is currently taking the world's sloppiest shit. That's how he ended the episode. And if he disagrees, then here's his chance to offer a rebuttal.

2:46:38Blank 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 Bardi Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in The Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

2:47:16Join Find our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list.

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