We Need To Talk About Kevin with Jia Tolentino

5:15David Sims:But you were not crazy about this when it came out. Previously on Park Fan Wook series, which has a lot of child murder. Yeah. Was one where you were really kind of on edge.

5:25Griffin Newman:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That was, which is so funny because I think I said this at the time.

5:30Jia Tolentino:Is there a lot of child murder? I listened to it with yours. A fair amount of his movies,

5:33Griffin Newman:especially the Vengeance movies. I mean, it's especially Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance revolves around the death of a child. And then Lady Vengeance. Is that the stuff film one?

5:42Jia Tolentino:No, Lady Vengeance. That one is unwatched. I can never watch that again. Right.

5:45David Sims:Those are the two. That was the one that I feel like broke you and has held the belt.

5:49Griffin Newman:since then. Where it's just, it's, you know, it's not so much like I have no problem engaging with incredibly challenging work. It's a little bit more like when it's like, fuck, I need to squeeze this into my schedule because I got to record on this. When am I going to be in the mood? So it's kind of like, unfortunately, mood or no, time for me to think and talk about Kevin.

6:08David Sims:We regret to inform you it is time to talk about Kevin.

6:10Griffin Newman:And sometimes, of course, my wife is sitting in the bed next to me being like, what have you put on our television? Like, what on earth?

6:16David Sims:This movie is also so, like, expressionistic, that it is a thing where, like, if you're watching it over your husband's shoulder in bed or you're sitting next to Gio on a plane...

6:28Jia Tolentino:It's like that first scene with the squirming tomato. Any image for three seconds is like,

6:32David Sims:what the fuck are you watching?

6:33Griffin Newman:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, of course, she's such a great conjurer of images.

6:36Jia Tolentino:That's actually when, as soon as the squirming tomato, like, it's like, one of the most joyful scenes in the entire movie is, like, thousands of bodies squirming in tomato flesh, you know? And it really sets the bar for, like, this is what joy is going to look like, is squirming tomato flesh. But it was so beautiful that I was like, actually, I think I'm going to like this movie despite having never wanted to watch it. The beginning is so fucking good.

6:58Griffin Newman:She's such a good filmmaker. It's La Tomatina. That's what it is. That's the name of the festival? It's in Spain. It's the biggest food fight in the world. You know, you get in your swimwear or your undies and you throw tomatoes at each other and ride around. Is it tomatoes only though? I think it's, I mean, La Tomatina.

7:14Jia Tolentino:I think people sneak some other stuff in there. I brought up pepper. is that okay no one's gonna notice right I like Murder at the La Tomatina was kind of a good

7:23Griffin Newman:yeah I know right like it's like oh fuck this guy

7:25David Sims:this shit

7:26Griffin Newman:this guy's been bleeding the whole time you can make a great

7:28David Sims:like giallo film yeah I like that in the grocery store scene where you see her like framed by the wall of tomato sauce cans it's Ma Ramsey's tomato sauce uh huh yeah now that's a reference to Lynn Ramsey

7:46Griffin Newman:Lynn Ramsey director and writer of this picture. Did Ma Raymond... I don't understand. I mean, like... She's made it her own tomato sauce. You know what I'm saying? Sort of Tarantino-ish. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just fun. Okay. There you go. She's fun. Did you talk to her? We'll talk about it.

8:00Jia Tolentino:I did talk to her. I talked to her and afterwards... I mean, I... You know, I hope this doesn't come off anti-Scottish, you know. But I couldn't understand a word she said. And so I was...

8:15Griffin Newman:You're on the phone, I assume.

8:16Jia Tolentino:Yeah, but I needed an interpreter and I didn't have one. So I was just saying, oh, yeah, that's fascinating. Oh, my God. Like, could you say more about that? Like, I've always wondered. And I was I was totally blind by the end. I had no idea.

8:29David Sims:Did you have to like, like feed like the dictation into Babelfish?

8:34Jia Tolentino:It was so quick and the connection was so bad. Like she was like, we were on a bad connection plus the accent. Plus she's a quick, you know, discursive talker. And at the end, I was like, okay, you know, shamefully, the only use of AI in my life is like I use AI transcription. But I was like, I actually think AI, I was like, would a human or would AI translate this?

8:57Griffin Newman:Who's more up to the task here?

8:58Jia Tolentino:And I was like, actually, I always do human. I often do human as a backup for anything important, obviously. And I was like, actually, I think AI is better equipped to do the pattern recognition. Was it? Unless like a human is, you know. Scottish.

9:12Griffin Newman:It has an ear for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:14Jia Tolentino:And like when I had to give it to the New Yorker fact checker was like, okay, I need the audio. I was like, do we know anyone? Do we know anyone that?

9:24David Sims:Is Fat Bastard still freelancing? Yeah, yeah. We, doing this miniseries, have discovered that we have more Scottish listeners than I would have thought. We've all been coming out of the woodwork and saying, let me check my notes here, really kind things about our accent attempts. Oh. But also that they're like, the guys keep talking about how hard it is to parse out the dialogue in these movies and needing to watch it with subtitles. Like, are they overselling this? Like, what are they talking about? I just want to restate, when Ratcatcher was released theatrically in the United States of America, subtitles burned in.

10:02David Sims:The distributor made that decision. There was no option to watch it without subtitles.

10:07Griffin Newman:In America, for sure, yes. And yeah, I mean, look, I went to school in Newcastle. I dated a Scottish person. I have an ear for a Scottish accent. It's tougher on the phone. And I'm rusty, obviously, but now I want the challenge. Now I want to talk to Lynn. and be like, how'd I do with her? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. She seems like a very interesting person to talk to. You need to talk to Lynn. No, I don't think so. What's her podcast? She didn't have kids.

10:33Jia Tolentino:She didn't become a mother until after Kevin.

10:37Griffin Newman:Wild. Wow. Sure. She has one kid, right? With her co-screenwriter, Rory. On this film. Yeah.

10:44Jia Tolentino:Wild. You write this movie and you're like, let's move to Greece and have a baby.

10:49David Sims:Well, okay. I mean, interesting. Pinning that, it does feed a little bit into my read of this movie. This movie feels like a film of anxiety from someone debating becoming a parent. Whoa. More than it is a film about the experience of being a parent, in my opinion.

11:05Jia Tolentino:But all of her movies, right? Like, all of her movies are about innocence, kind of, right? Like, all of... And they're pinned on children, right? Like Rat Catcher, the Joaquin We Were Never Really Here.

11:17Griffin Newman:This. That we loved. Yeah, they're all pinned on. Morvern is the least, and even that, she's a fairly...

11:22David Sims:She's young and she is... Right. She's kind of an innocent creature in a way. She's playing with the tension of, is she an innocent?

11:27Griffin Newman:Yeah. She does chop her boyfriend up. But he already was dead. Yeah. So, you know what? I always forget.

11:33Jia Tolentino:I forget she chopped the boyfriend up. He's got to go somewhere.

11:36David Sims:I'm like, look at this beautiful road movie. What? Chopping? Like, you know? Here's the thing I didn't bring up in the episode. Do you think Robert Durst got his defense from Northern Cal? I love Scottish cinema. But do you remember in the drinks, he's like his landlord, his downstairs landlord at like the place he lives when he's on the run and is like pretending to be an old woman, they like find the garbage bags of the separate body parts chopped up and they were like, so you killed him? And he's like, no, I just chopped him up. And you're like, so how was he dead? And it was like, he shot himself in front of me.

12:06David Sims:And then I took out a saw and I chopped him up and I put it in separate bags. And they were like, why would you do that? And his response was like, I'm standing here. I'm a fugitive. There's a dead body. What else am I going to do?

12:15Jia Tolentino:He's like, you ever seen Morvern Collar?

12:17David Sims:Right. It kind of felt like a... hard to fit into a rubbish bin.

12:22Jia Tolentino:I have one important thing to say about Morvern Collar. You know, the week between Christmas and New Year's. I haven't listened to the entire episode.

12:27Griffin Newman:You mean the worst week in the world if you're a parent?

12:30Jia Tolentino:Yeah, I've got an annual group. Well, yes. Anyway, carry on. We can't even go there. We can't even go there. But I have a group chat that is only active that week every year called Crimbo Limbo, which is, I think, a really good name for the year. Absolutely. And then this year, my friend Emmy brought up that Morvin Colors... Is in that week. It's the official Crimbo Limbo movie. No, that's a great take. Yeah, like there's not that many movies. Like it's a really ripe space for weird things to happen. and more movies where things get chopped up might exist in Crimbo Limbo. Yeah, just throwing that out there.

13:00Griffin Newman:Truly, my Crimbo Limbo this year was, yes, was quite disassociative, to use a word.

13:08Jia Tolentino:I think anything can happen.

13:09David Sims:Even Sans Kids. I think it's just a terrible time.

13:12Jia Tolentino:Well, there's nothing. It's a dog shit week. What's the plan? Get this over with.

13:16Griffin Newman:Yeah.

13:16Jia Tolentino:You might as well go to another country. Leave everything behind, you know.

13:20Griffin Newman:The vibe is to travel and then disassociate, disassociate like on a beach.

13:23David Sims:But the point is you need somewhere different.

13:26Griffin Newman:You're not going to be like, you know what? It's time for me to roll up my sleeves and get everything done.

13:30Jia Tolentino:Yeah, what it says, get out of your apartment during Crimbo Limbo.

13:34David Sims:I distinctly remember like being five or six and my parents having to explain to me that there was actually a week between Christmas and New Year's. And I was like, why would there be? That's a waste. Doesn't it just go from like 25 to 1?

13:47Griffin Newman:Why not just wrap the year December 26th? Let's just fucking... And for me, New Year's Eve was January 4th. I don't know about you, but when New Year's Eve happened, I was like, who cares? There's still five more days of this fucking break. January 4th, I was like, my kid's going to school tomorrow. We're done. The new year begins. Things are happening.

14:05David Sims:I'm ready to talk about Kevin. Come on. Let's get things going. What's our podcast called? We gotta talk about Kevin. Our podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am. David. Oh, fuck.

14:14Griffin Newman:I'm really off, guys. I was late. I had a whole city bike thing happen. New York is. I had to wolf down a... Mediterranean taqueria thing. But kind of hits, right? Oh, it's so good. That's my new spot.

14:26David Sims:We got a new work lunch spot. David, yes, came in very frazzled, still wet from swimming.

14:33Griffin Newman:Yeah, you know.

14:35David Sims:Yes. Exercise. Having dug a city bike out of the snow. Then dug it back in. Yes, that's the real problem. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers or make a couple well-regarded. European art house films. Sure, right. And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Kind of. Kind of. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a very important turning point film in her career. But more than that, this episode is an opportunity to talk about a really weird period in her career surrounding and leading up to this movie.

15:12David Sims:Because it's nine years in between films? Nine years.

15:16Griffin Newman:Yeah, 2002 to 2011. Yes. It's the break between this and Morven Collar. but obviously there's movies in between.

15:21David Sims:There's stuff to go and stuff like that. We're talking about the films of Lynn Ramsey. It's a miniseries called We Need to Pod About Caspin. And today we are talking about We Need to Talk About Kevin. Now, here's a big question. Is this the first movie we've covered where the title is bigger than the film? The title is bigger than the film? I feel like we've talked about certain movies where it's like, oh, people forget that Teenage Dirtbag is from Loser. That music video is bigger than the movie. Oh, like that

15:53Griffin Newman:we need to talk about X has just become like a phrase people use all the time. Yes. I guess I know what you mean.

16:01David Sims:You know, and sometimes you're like, this meme is like, like Jeremiah Johnson is more known as the nodding gif than as a movie as a whole at this point.

16:09Jia Tolentino:I think this is one of the few movies that exists in which the title is more famous than the movie. Right. Like, it's like there aren't, there's almost nothing like this. There's very few examples knows the phrase. Had no one used it before?

16:22Griffin Newman:What do you mean? I mean, obviously, people have said to each other at times, but did Lionel Shriver, genius that she is, think of this?

16:30Jia Tolentino:The book became a bestseller, and I think the title became memed fundamentally. Almost immediately. Kind of pre-meme terminology. Because the novel was...

16:38Griffin Newman:Oh, three. I was in high school, I remember, because it was a big hit in Britain because it won the Orange Prize. Movies 11. And then it became kind of like the kind of book

16:46Jia Tolentino:that when I was in elementary school, student and I was at like Walmart and my mom needed to buy a fridge, I would sit down in the like Oprah's book club, you know, bestseller aisle. And I would read this sort of weirdly commercial literary fiction. That's what it was. It was like a popular. Yeah. Yeah. That always involved violence or sexual. Right.

17:06Griffin Newman:It had feet into that. And that was an especially a thing when I was a teenager, those books that were like, you're like, what's it about? It's like, well, a person whose parents were horrible to him. You're like, that's the whole book. And they're like, yeah, that's the whole fucking book. You just feel bad. A Child Called It. She's come undone. A Child Called It. That's the one I'm thinking of.

17:21Jia Tolentino:Right. And you're like, is it biography?

17:23David Sims:And the answer is, kind of?

17:24Jia Tolentino:Sure, maybe. Yeah, they're like on the shelf next to like Jewel's poetry book, A Night Without Armor, you know? And it's just like, this was what we were doing then.

17:31Griffin Newman:And you know what Jewel was up to, though?

17:32David Sims:Living in that boat. It is interesting that that is such a like, fertile commercial area for publishing. That's SVU core, kind of. Right, yes. But then like, when you pitch a movie like this, people are like, why the fuck would I sit down for two hours and watch that. Like people want to read 20 pages at a time over weeks or months and selectively like dip in and dip out. Was this movie successful?

17:54Griffin Newman:I would say for a movie about a mass murder of children, it was pretty successful. And for a movie directed by Lynn Ramsey, it was pretty successful. And is this your most

18:03David Sims:commercially successful film? Dime I Love, I think, outgrossed this, but also...

18:08Griffin Newman:Dime I Love might have outgrossed it through sheer force of like they just put it on so many screens and made people so angry. I mean, this made$10 million worldwide. But it made much more overseas

18:20David Sims:than here. It did. It was an oscilloscope film who's a distributor I love, but is very small. A tiny distributor. And this was sort of the biggest film they had had up until that point. So it was seen as a victory. It made

18:29Griffin Newman:$500 ,000 more than Die My Love did worldwide. Wow. Okay. That's how bad Die My Love God Bless movie's attempt to show it to the

18:38David Sims:masses there, but how bad that did. But I think oscilloscope getting this movie over$1 million dollars domestic was seen as like they broke through their own glass ceiling.

18:48Griffin Newman:Well, yeah, and this was a movie that got a genuine Oscar buzz, got precursor, you know, she got, Tilda got every precursor until the Oscar. She didn't get the Oscar nom. She got beaten out. I think that was the year where I guess, honestly, I guess it's Rooney Mara kind of sneaks by her at the end for Dragon Tattoo.

19:05David Sims:That was seen as kind of a dead campaign.

19:09Griffin Newman:You Were Never Really Here made 10.8 million worldwide, which is 100 ,000 more. So that's kind of her ceiling is 10. Yeah. She makes 10, but like domestic is under two. Yeah, they're masterpieces. And they do get a lot of critical discussion. And A-listers want to work with her. Right. Good actors want to work with her. And I imagine this one had a decent tail on like at home viewing because like people like this creepy shit. There was a stickiness to it.

19:40David Sims:I could imagine.

19:41Jia Tolentino:Maybe her funniest movie?

19:43David Sims:see interesting.

19:44Jia Tolentino:I

19:44David Sims:huh. Now that's a really interesting I hear

19:47Griffin Newman:Morven Caller is pretty funny at times. I think this is I mean I love is pretty funny.

19:54Jia Tolentino:I think I love is funny. J-Lo's got like bits in it. J-Lo has such

19:57Griffin Newman:great comic energy right like even and so like the shit like where she just starts taking her clothes off when like the suburban mom's trying to talk to the rural mom or whatever the fuck like that's funny. Yes. I guess a lot of Die My Love is her like throwing herself through plate glass windows. Yeah, that part's not really funny.

20:13Jia Tolentino:No, that part's really funny. Are you kidding me? That part's so funny.

20:17Griffin Newman:I mean, all the shit, they're just them like crawling towards each other with knives. And you're like, isn't there a baby over there? And the baby's like, I'm over here.

20:23Jia Tolentino:This movie's funny for a different reason though, right? It's like, Tilda's, she's so dead. The way she plays it is so funny. I should say. In my opinion.

20:32David Sims:Our guest today is Gia Tolentino.

20:34Jia Tolentino:Hello.

20:35David Sims:How are you doing? So happy to have you. Honored, privileged to have you here. Long time. Long time listener. You are. I mean, you are. we found a quote in something else leading up to this episode that Tilda Swinton said she felt like this was her opportunity to give her Buster Keaton performance oh my god that is very that's I think it was a quote that JJ sent me maybe he texted I mean it might be in the dust sure but she was just like I'm gonna try playing as still as possible against the chaos of what's happening against me and Buster Keaton is the image I have in my mind and I'm going for funny The British tagline, by the way,

21:13Griffin Newman:is Mummy's Little Monster. That is the British tagline.

21:17David Sims:Is it spelled M-U-N-S-T-E-R?

21:20Griffin Newman:No.

21:21Jia Tolentino:Mummy's Little Monster?

21:21Griffin Newman:It is not about Mummy's Little Monster. If he was just dressing up like a Frankenstein and reciting sitcom one-liners, I would have no concerns about him. If he was a little monster. If he was just a little monster.

21:33Jia Tolentino:You guys, can I tell you something? When I watched this movie for the first time, again, which was pretty recently, I did not know. I've been trying to break myself of the habit of IMDb-ing like every single thing in the middle of the movie, which is so hard to do. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do it with these Lynn Ramsey movies when I'm re-watching them or watching them for the first time. And I did not know till the movie was over that this was Ezra Miller. Oh, that's so...

21:57Griffin Newman:So is that because Ezra Miller is just not really a face you see a lot? Do you not have Ezra Miller object? So I have a... You're not a DC Universe viewer, I don't think. And you probably never met the Fantastic Beasts.

22:08Jia Tolentino:I love to not know. You're not a Scamander head. I love to not know. You know, like, I would say, like, in general, like, you know, epistemologically, like, I simply love to not know. And so it's like, I love when things are none of my business. And often franchises are simply none of my business.

22:23Griffin Newman:And Ezra Miller pivoted pretty much straight to stuff that is not your business.

22:27Jia Tolentino:And I remember, like, and often, like, and celebrity, like, the celebrity news, knowing, I love, I'm a goth, like, every, you know, journalist, whatever. I'm a huge gossip. I love to know stuff about people I know or that I kind of know. But I never want to know anything about someone I do not know. Yes. Their personal life. I don't fucking care.

22:50Griffin Newman:So you're right. You're not someone who cares about celeb gossip. Like, oh, blah, I was spotted. Who weekly only.

22:55Jia Tolentino:Only non-celebs. Because who weekly is funny. Well, but that's why it's so existentially. It's inherently meaningless. It's all inherently meaningless. And when celebrities are thems and people, This is because, like, when I first started hearing about Ezra Miller, I learned about them as the allegations of violence and abuse were coming out, and I was like, this is none of my business. That's your entire framework.

23:16Griffin Newman:And it's not a great way to first be introduced to a celebrity.

23:20Jia Tolentino:Yeah, and I was like, then I don't need to know what they're up to. This is just none of my business. And so I just deliberately was like, I will not learn about this story or this person. And then I was like, oh.

23:33David Sims:Oh, it was all real. It is such a big part of this movie's weird legacy where you're like, okay, so there's the memeability of the title and then there's like eight years after the movie, it feels like now there's like a second screened experience. There's like an augmented reality game happening in our universe where the actor who played Kevin is doing Kevin-esque shit, which was so bizarre and I think like put more attention on the movie previously, but it also speaks to the weird arc of Ezra's career, which is like, you know, a sort of like building steam of stuff. But then this feels like the movie where in a very Zack Snyder-y move, he watches a very intense drama about like a psychopathic teenager and is like, that's my Flash, the funny guy.

24:20David Sims:Like in the whole defining of the Snyder aesthetic is like, these are serious.

24:25Griffin Newman:Yes, I need very, very serious weight. I mean, because the Ezra Miller, it's this, I know Ezra had done a couple things before this, but nothing

24:33David Sims:Does Perks of Being a Wallflower come out after this? No, that's the year after. Right. Which is I guess

24:37Griffin Newman:sort of the more gentle emo side of this young teen actor who's like so pretty and like has like

24:44David Sims:other features. After School is the debut film the Antonio Campos movie which is a similarly intense film. Oh right. I've never seen that. I will say for our listeners and also for Gia because this does need to be acknowledged. Please. I went to summer camp with Ezra. I kind of grew up with Ezra. I was very close with Ezra for a number of years. We were on a sketch comedy and improv teams together. And you're in a great and very widely seen film. It was in one of the sort of Ezra Miller's on the movie Star Trek films called Beware the Gonzo. Beware the Gonzo. It was a quite bad teen comedy in which I played a character named Horny Rob.

25:16David Sims:And Ezra played Eddie Gonzo Gilman, I think. The Gonzo. I mean, let's just... The titular Gonzo. Yeah, I mean, like... But Zoe Kravitz was in it as well. And Jesse McCartney. A lot of people were in it.

25:27Jia Tolentino:Oh, is that the movie where they started dating? Yes. Gotcha. Yes.

25:30David Sims:A lot of Colby Minfrey, a lot of great actors. That's like an early role for them. Campbell Scott, one of his first roles. Plays one of Ezra's parents. So it's like a thing when we started this podcast that I would evoke, especially when Ezra would come up and we were like covering the DC films and such. I have not spoken to Ezra in like 10 years. And there is this weird kind of almost disassociative thing of like, you can know someone, have them become famous and stay in touch with them. And it feels like you're adapting to their reality shifting, right? Like they change, the way other people perceive them changes, but you're still kind of like in the narrative.

26:12David Sims:You can meet very famous people who to you feel abstracted as icons and then get to know them as a person and be like, oh, now you're like humanized to me. But to have someone who you did know very closely for a while, then become very famous at the point that you sort of lose contact with them, which was not, you know, like any dramatic split off. But at the point that the public kind of spiral is happening, I have not spoken to Ezra in years. And I'm reading the news as if it's just a person. It almost like doesn't bear a resemblance to the person I knew. And it also was this weird byproduct of like, this movie is such a flashy statement.

26:52David Sims:Zack Snyder says you. Warner Brothers, as often happens when like a studio casts a on-the-rise person in a big franchise role, they're like, we're going to tie you down to two other things. So it's like, Ezra's the Flash and Ezra's also this developing villain across the Fantastic Beasts movies.

27:10Griffin Newman:Ezra did three Fantastic Beasts movies.

27:12Jia Tolentino:And then they're a villain.

27:14Griffin Newman:Yeah. It's sort of like the tragic... I mean, those movies are not...

27:19David Sims:It's a bit like Wizard Kevin, honestly. Wizard Kevin! Yes, it is. It's like,

27:23Griffin Newman:what's up with this weird kid? And it's like, turns out there's like a magic cloud inside him of his emotions.

27:29David Sims:But it also felt like they were trying to... Those movies are bad, though? Should I watch it? They are super high. They are horrendous. It felt like they were also going for a Kylo Ren thing. That's kind of cool for me.

27:36Griffin Newman:If you get high and watch them, you will fall asleep right away

27:40David Sims:and have sweet dreamless sleep. I say with some confidence, what you should do is get high and read the Wikipedia synopsis and then that is it. That'll do tonight. Watching them is a worse experience. Yeah, okay. But it's like a wizard Kevin who then also has like wizard Kylo Ren. Oh my God. Is he going to be a redeemed character?

27:58Griffin Newman:Right, because he's like the character, Credence Barebone, I believe. Credence Barebone? And his mother is...

28:05David Sims:Credence... Samantha Morton. Morvan Keller herself. Right? But she's his adoptive mother.

28:09Griffin Newman:Yeah, because she's sort of like a Bible-beating type. Like the whole thing is that it's all like religious repression has made Credence... Credence Barebone.

28:18Jia Tolentino:Religious repression? Like Christian religious repression?

28:21Griffin Newman:Yeah, because you know what J.K. Rowling's like. Like she identifies these villains, you know... There's religion in...

28:26Jia Tolentino:The Harry Potter universe? Yes. She's very... Because it is our world.

28:29David Sims:Yes.

28:29Jia Tolentino:Oh, so it's taking place in the Muggle world. And the Fantastic Beasts movies take place

28:33David Sims:during like the Great Depression? Are they the...

28:35Griffin Newman:Don't make me once again go deep on these. Yes, the first one, the whole joke that I, as a... Like, you know, when these were announced, where they were like, Fantastic Beasts has been announced and it will build to the big battle between Grindelwald and Dumbledore. That was the later announcement. Well, but like, they're sort of like, that's vaguely the idea, maybe, you know, and you're like, oh, okay. And that's in like the 1945, the idea is that it's like World War II. And they're like, anyway, the first movie is 1926. So I'm like,

29:05David Sims:how long is this planned for? It was also, when it was announced, people were like, oh, fun, a standalone story in the Harry Potter universe. They first were pretending it wasn't. And then right before it came out, J.K. Rowling was like, actually, it's a five movie saga that takes you right up to the starting. There have been five movies. No, they gave up. They made three

29:21Griffin Newman:and ran out of patience.

29:24David Sims:the last one was the one you just made.

29:26Jia Tolentino:Creedence Barebone. That's like a blues singer name. That's great. That's good.

29:30Griffin Newman:I don't know if you know this, but J.K. Rowling is famously horrendous at naming her characters. Like Cho Chang. Being the most iconic version of that. But Creedence Barebone is another one. I feel like she spent two minutes on that. Right. Heimel Menor. Isn't that the Jewish?

29:45Jia Tolentino:Samantha Morton. Wow. The Lin Ramsey universe.

29:47David Sims:I mean, like, great cast in that movie. It's so fucking boring. But here are these, like, big Warner Brothers movies that all have, like, productions that will last a year in foreign countries. And even though none of these movies are like Ezra vehicles, they've basically like tied Ezra down for the better part of a decade. Yeah, no other movie. And it's just shuttling like off the grid.

30:06Griffin Newman:Flash credence, flash credence.

30:08Jia Tolentino:Except I'm sure y 'all saw, I guess Ezra was doing like at a Die My Love premiere and gave the thing about how they're working on a...

30:17David Sims:They claim they're working on a movie with Lynn Ramsey. They're saying they're working on a script together. Ezra has a small part in the Mary Herron, Salvador Dali movie, Little Ashes, where I believe Ezra plays young Salvador Dali, but most of the movie is Ben Kingsley. That's right. And there was a Stanford Prison Experiment movie with a bunch of young guys in it. That's from 2015. That's a long time ago. I'm just saying within... It's still like... I'm saying post-heaven. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And apart from that, just Trainwreck. Right.

30:44Griffin Newman:Ezra's in Trainwreck. Yes. Don't remember the role there.

30:46David Sims:Ezra plays the kind of like young, pretty assistant at the magazine who Amy Schumer tries to have an affair with and then finds out is like 15 years old. But yeah, it was like, the industry was like, Warner Brothers is betting hundreds of millions of dollars on this being a star. And the public had so little relationship to them outside of like, like tumblers that were obsessed with Ezra's bone structure. Right, which is unbelievable. Right.

31:14Jia Tolentino:Unbelievable. But it was a lot of that. And it was a lot of... They're so pretty. It was a lot of like this movie

31:18David Sims:where it's like, well, there's like a pretty astonishing level of intensity here. And then Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I think is Ezra's best performance and is the one where there's like a good balance of humor and pain and feeling and what have you. That's the one that I felt. Anyway.

31:34Griffin Newman:The thing about this movie is, and we were talking about this with Drew McQueenie, like there's actually a lot less Ezra than you remember. It's more just like a striking performance, obviously, when it is. but a lot of it's the little Kevin.

31:46Jia Tolentino:The little Kevins are...

31:48Griffin Newman:I mean, this is my... Get rid of him, too.

31:50Jia Tolentino:We gotta talk about these little Kevins. More of them. We gotta talk about the little Kevins.

31:53David Sims:My second piece of necessary airing of context for this movie is, like, I auditioned for this movie, like, four times to play Kevin. Kevin, sure. Wow. And speaking to how much less teen Kevin there is than you think, anytime I watch a movie that I auditioned for over a decade ago, there is the weird thing where every line of dialogue comes back to me. you know back when I was fucking diligent would be off book for auditions when I gave a shit and it'll like come back where I'm like oh right at one point I knew all of this and I knew the

32:22Jia Tolentino:cue lines and whatever do you remember any like what was the most intense of the sides well what

32:28David Sims:I was gonna say is I auditioned so many times that I kept hitting different scenes and I think I basically did the whole thing did every one of these scenes for Lynn Ramsey because I in my memory I think I did two auditions with casting and then two with her and Kinnear. What's his name?

32:46Jia Tolentino:Rory.

32:46David Sims:Rory Stewart Kinnear. But not, yeah. That's why I was doubting myself. And every one of the Teen Kevin scenes, I had some memory of how I played it. Wow. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it also speaks to like... It's not that many. In reality, it's like five dialogue scenes.

33:00Griffin Newman:So they were like jerk off and lock eyes with a hoop in a big diaper. You didn't have to do,

33:04David Sims:but I did like the TV monologue. I did the final speech at the end. Right, where... you're like, I don't know why I did it or whatever. Right. At the diner trying to connect over like, you know, who your crush is or whatever. Like, I just remember doing all of them. But I read this script and was like young and hadn't read that many scripts, had seen Rat Catcher, but also like hadn't seen Marvin Keller at this point. This person hasn't made a movie in like close to 10 years. I read the script and I'm like, the fuck is this? because it's written in like visuals where some of it felt like bad poetry.

33:40David Sims:And I was like, well, this feels like the worst student film scripts I read where people are too in love with the idea of the images they have in their head. How will this work? But then when I got to the dialogue scenes, I thought they were so funny and engaging. And I was like interested. And then meeting her, I found her so funny and so collaborative and so loose where I was like, fuck, this person rules. and then saw the movie and was like, it is almost exactly what she wrote in a way where movies like this sometimes shoot with a very traditional script. And then they do a bunch of B-roll shooting.

34:14David Sims:And then in the edit, they construct it however they want. The structure of this in my memory, and I couldn't find the PDF, was this on paper. I believe it. It opens with four pages of describing the tomato festival. Four pages. Yeah, truly. And like, you know, explaining what the visual metaphors are, which on paper makes it feel clunky because you're like, don't explain the metaphor to me. But also it's like, she's going, this is the movie I want to make. If you want to give me money to make it, I'm going to shoot it exactly like this. And this is why. Like in retrospect, I now having read a bunch of other scripts, understand it's a really fucking good blueprint of making sure your vision is inarguable on paper.

34:53Jia Tolentino:Well, when I was rewatching it, I feel like this is, it's one of the tightest sort of the stream of consciousness. like everything is daisy chained really, really closely scene to scene. Like there's no every associative link, every the all of the intrusive thought structure that feels so loose. Like it's unbelievably tight. You can feel where in the script there would be like this circle is like this circle that evokes this feeling that's with that feeling.

35:18David Sims:It would literally say like and then we like push in on a circle cut to an egg is the same shape as the object we've just seen. You can see it.

35:27Jia Tolentino:And I think it has to be that tight. Otherwise, like, the movie would be annoying almost. Yes. Yeah.

35:32Griffin Newman:You've read the book.

35:33Jia Tolentino:Yes.

35:34Griffin Newman:The book doesn't have that vibe. The book is all letters, right?

35:37Jia Tolentino:Right. It's sort of epistolary. I was curious. I had been curious about the book when I was... Because I think it's interesting that Lynn... Like, all of her movies have been added to issues. Except for Ratcatcher, right?

35:47Griffin Newman:She usually is working off a book. Often, it's something you haven't heard of. But then, of course, in, like, The Lovely Bones is the other book around this time. And we'll talk about it where you're like, right. A book that was sort of, like, highbrow trash.

35:58Jia Tolentino:Yeah. that's the other one right but like clearly

36:01Griffin Newman:she saw like well I know what I would make this look like on screen

36:05David Sims:she makes very specific personal adaptations of books that aren't like the obvious literal right and this book

36:12Jia Tolentino:I think seemed to me like it was you know it's yeah it's epistolary it's written to it's written to Franklin the husband yes it's who doesn't die in the book no who does but you don't find that out till two thirds towards the end you find out that he's dead sooner than you find it's it's not the punch and that it is in the movie but he's you're writing to franklin you think that he has custody of celia and they've just been separated and then and then you find out like yeah maybe two two-thirds of the way through and it's her it is non-chronological in that she's thinking about like her life traveling around and the them fucking so bohemianly you know all this stuff but it's pretty straightforward it's pretty concrete and actually, can I read you guys the one line that I...

36:59Jia Tolentino:Yes, of course. So, the jerking off scene, famously. In the movie, he's just jerking off with the door open and locks eyes with his mother as one never does. Yeah. I would, in fact, honestly...

37:13David Sims:Recommend not to. Simply never does.

37:15Griffin Newman:That's an 0.0 percenter for me.

37:17Jia Tolentino:Never does. You've never done it? No. That hasn't really crossed my mind.

37:22Griffin Newman:I'd like to also just say that's not a thing I've ever done.

37:25Jia Tolentino:Yeah, I'm going to... Guys, I've never done it either.

37:26David Sims:Yeah, No Bits podcast. I've not done it.

37:28Jia Tolentino:Never done it. We've never done it.

37:29David Sims:I've never done it. Actually, you know what? It's weird. I don't have the desire to.

37:34Jia Tolentino:I don't think I do either.

37:35David Sims:It's never kind of like slid across my desk and made me stroke my chin and consider.

37:39Jia Tolentino:Don't say slid across. I'm like, don't say slid across your desk. Yeah, I should have said stroke. Yeah.

37:44Griffin Newman:Yeah, you were thinking about it.

37:46Jia Tolentino:In the movie, that's what happens. So here's what... So it's a repeated action. It's a very, very, very repeated action in the book. And here's the description. And here's the one line that I transcribed. Actually, I transcribed two lines, but here's the phrase. It's it being Kevin's dick is, quote, purple and gleaming. Jesus. Not that. Purple and gleaming with what I first assume is KY jelly, but which the silver wrapper and on the floor suggests is my Land O 'Lakes unsalted butter. There we have it, folks. Oh my goodness.

38:21David Sims:So I'd say like right off the bat, that's a great little like snapshot of why Lynn is good at adapting. Lynn's just like... Garbage. Nothing but net.

38:34Griffin Newman:I don't know. I mean, I don't... I will dig into the dossier to see like what Lynn thinks of this book. I know Lionel Shriver is like kind of almost like, I don't like talking about that book. Like almost dismissive of the book in a way because of its success.

38:47David Sims:Lionel Shriver, who also now has gone like full turf, anti-wo, anti-identity politics. Is she British or not? No, she's American. But she's sort of pseudo-British? Yeah, because all the good turf shit was happening over there. It seems like she reclaimed it. But she got there way before, but then you're right.

39:00Jia Tolentino:Then she really started mixing it up. Her name is something like Kellyanne. Her name is...

39:04Griffin Newman:So like, I will say this. Here's my... I didn't know this until I opened her Wikipedia, which is just... I thought that she was called Lionel Shriver because there's this thing in Britain sometimes where like evil old rich guys have a daughter and they're like, ugh, a daughter. I'll just give her my name anyway just because like I wanted a son like Nigella Lawson her insane name is because Nigel Lawson was like oh I had a daughter well I guess I'll just call her Nigella which is a made up name and but no her name is Margaret Ann Shriver she's from North Carolina and she gave herself the name Lionel at 15 because she wanted a tomboyish like

39:42Jia Tolentino:yeah and she writes so there's an afterword to my addition

39:45Griffin Newman:Lionel is like to me like the name of like an old professor in like a fucking Narnia book. Like, I don't think of that as tomboyish.

39:51David Sims:Can I also just, before I forget, the quote you read was quite disturbing. It only serves to remind me of my least favorite thing that has ever been said to describe such an act, which is in the Glenn Close movie, The Wife, when Jonathan Price says, stroke my tumescent cock.

40:07Jia Tolentino:He says that out loud?

40:08David Sims:He says that out loud. And that movie almost won an Oscar. Thank God. It was in a pretty serious conversation. Many people spent months like at a chalkboard being like, can we give this an Oscar?

40:19Jia Tolentino:Was he, was he, was that a directive or was he saying that someone had like...

40:23David Sims:I daren't rewatch that film. I can't remember if he's asking her to do it or thanking her for having just done it, but it's one or the other. They're lying in bed together with the lights off.

40:31Jia Tolentino:That's real nasty.

40:32David Sims:Yeah, and he puts a lot of English on the delivery.

40:35Jia Tolentino:Tumescent, it's like even saying it is sort of like a vomit. Sucked. It's a terrible word. I never want to hear that word ever. Yeah.

40:51David!

40:51David Sims:What? This episode, don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend. Oh, okay. This episode's brought to you by MUBI. Yawn!

40:59Griffin Newman:Just kidding! Comfortable! Secure! We love them! They are a global film company of champions grade cinema, iconic directors, emerging auteurs, always something new to discover with MUBI. Each and every film hand-selected. So you can explore the best of cinema. Nothing more to say, I guess. Wrong! There's a new film coming to theaters. Yep, movie theaters. February 13th, the first Nigerian film ever in official competition again. That's pretty wild. This is a film by Akinola Davis called My Father's Shadow. It was BAFTA-nominated, poetic, tender portrait of a father-son bond framed within the political landscape of 1993 Lagos in Nigeria.

41:40Griffin Newman:It is about a father and two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, reckoning with their relationship, navigating the city that's in the middle of a democratic crisis, written by real-life brothers, Ekinola Davis Jr. and Wally Davis. Love it, brothers. Co-wrote this groundbreaking feature debut, and you've got Sofei Dorisu. Oh, from Slow Horses. I love him. I hope I'm saying his name right. But he's a really good actor, and he's the star. it's worth seeing. It's in theaters. It's great to go to a theater.

42:16David Sims:It's in theaters. We love that Mubi puts Mubis in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform. Dang right. I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die My Love, of course. Yeah. An important watch, a necessary watch for any blankie. La Grazia. La Grazia, the new Paolo Sorrentino movie, which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. The Great Shall We Dance. Oh. The classic? The original. Oh my goodness. That's fun. Like a restoration. Yeah. And look what they got a collection called Heartthrob Nicholas Cage. It's young, dreamy Cage. Wow. Still dreamy to me.

42:55Hey, you're very open hearted.

42:58Griffin Newman:Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash blank check. That's MUBI.com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. And then go see My Father's Shadow in theaters. Please, thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

43:13David Sims:Thank you. Very kind.

43:25David Sims:Lionel Shriver basically had made like, had written a couple books that hadn't really hit. But sort of like, this is like an interesting book to write from.

43:33Griffin Newman:She endorsed DeSantis. She's deep in the fucking weird shit.

43:38David Sims:She had voted Democrat her entire life. She cited apoplectic loathing for Kamala Harris. I mean, like... But, like, how brainbroken do you need to be to not only, like, switch parties, but also go, like, I think DeSantis has the juice. She kept arguing that DeSantis was so charismatic.

43:57Griffin Newman:You can just be like, I kind of hate, you know, woke people and I've gone insane. You can just say that. You can't be like, I'm really, really into Ron DeSantis.

44:04David Sims:She was buying as much stock as she could in DeSantis.

44:06Griffin Newman:Even, like, right-wing racist psychopaths are like, he's fine, let's relax. He's not that good.

44:11Jia Tolentino:There's an afterword to the Kevin novel. And she talks about... So when did it come out, you said? 2005 in Britain.

44:19Griffin Newman:No, sorry. 2003 in Britain. It won the Orange Prize, which was the... It doesn't exist anymore now. It's called the Women's Prize for Fiction. But it's the literary prize in Britain given to a novel by a woman. Which was a prestigious award. And it was a bestseller. So it was that kind of thing that we're talking about. of like, it was the somewhat lurid bestseller, but it was like somewhat well regarded.

44:44Jia Tolentino:It's well written, but I, but it's like, the movie is much more pleasant to watch than the - I imagine. It's a better movie than the book is a book, but Lionel Shriver is a smart, perceptive, nasty, like the intelligence behind the book, you know, maybe we'll pin it on Eva Kachadorian, not the author, you know, But it is a nasty type of intelligence at work. And there's an afterword where she talks about being raised by, like, hardcore, like, Carter Democrats or something. And that all of her life she had had, I think she describes it as a violent right-wing streak. And so she, like, owns it. She's proud of it already in the mid-aughts when she's writing this, which is kind of an amazing time to be proud of your violent right-wing streak.

45:31Jia Tolentino:I mean, any time is, but especially then. And she hated the book because everyone wanted, like, it's the kind of book that makes you psychoanalyze the author, obviously. Of course, right. It's just about you.

45:41Griffin Newman:Or, yeah, right. What is your relationship with your family, your kids, whatever. Yeah, of course, of course.

45:46David Sims:But she also seemed to have this baseline in like reading interviews with her, this baseline resentment that it was so much more successful than the book she had written before it and that the book she wrote after it never came close. That she was like, I hate that everything is about this one book. She doesn't have kids. interesting. And then by the time they made, they were making the movie, she's like, I don't want to fucking deal with that thing anymore. It was treated like it was her Hotel California. And she's like, I hate that they only asked me to play this one song. The quote I found from her that I thought was interesting was, I'm often asked, did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin?

46:20David Sims:Did I have some revelation or transforming event? The truth is that Kevin is of a piece with my other work. There's nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. it just tripped over an issue that was just ripe for exploration and by some miracle found its audience. So she like hates that it was successful and is like, oh, what? Because I wrote a book about a thing that people are perversely curious about. You all bought this one?

46:43Jia Tolentino:Right, I wrote a thing about a sensational national news event that keeps recurring and no one will write novels about because it's so...

46:49David Sims:Right, and even her like people asked what I was going through when I wrote the book. She wants to just be like, no, I'm just a skilled writer and I sit down and have the same process every time and nothing personal is going on. I am the same level of good writer every time.

47:02Griffin Newman:Also, you don't want to admit like, yeah, look, I wrote a fucking school. It's not shooting because it's bone error, but like a school murder book because I knew that's like hooky and would get people's attention. Like, no one wants to say that. The greater hook of this is, it is one of those things that people... Like, what if your kid was crazy? Like, another hook that everyone is drawn to.

47:20David Sims:What is it like to be a parent in the aftermath of that, right? Right, totally. What do you do?

47:24Griffin Newman:How do you live if your child is the one who... It's only half about that, right? In the book, too, like, it's only somewhat about her life post because it's mostly her sifting through

47:34Jia Tolentino:her memories. Yeah, yeah. It feels like half and half, right? Right, right, right.

47:37David Sims:But it is like a memory play. It's from the perspective of... And I think it's what this movie is trying to get at is like, the basic structure of this movie is like a couple days of her life upon getting this new job. Yeah, maybe a week. And everything that happens within the body of the movie feels like the constant churning in her head that happens on a daily basis of everything.

48:00Jia Tolentino:Starting when she's in her 20s and they're de-aged by she's got bangs and John C. Reilly's wearing a beanie.

48:06Griffin Newman:I mean, Tilda, John C. Reilly, it's a little tougher. Tilda is fairly ageless, although young Tilda is so striking. Like when you see 90s Tilda, like there is nothing like her.

48:16David Sims:But when we've come across young John C. Reilly in movies, you're like, oh, so he was 45 then? And you're like, no, he was like 15 here. yeah

48:24Jia Tolentino:interestingly in the book he's supposed to be a Republican like he's like a hardcore Bruce Springsteen like farmer guy

48:29Griffin Newman:uh-huh he I don't think he's bad in the movie per se but he is weird casting he's weird casting

48:36Jia Tolentino:he doesn't really

48:37Griffin Newman:you just I'm like a million times out of a million I don't think Delta marries John C. Reilly I'm sorry like no matter what characters

48:45David Sims:they're playing it feels like they cast him less for the marriage and more for the function of the father

48:49Griffin Newman:and I think also

48:51Jia Tolentino:it's just like

48:51David Sims:this guy reads as chill and fun Or just like a tragic earnestness. Yeah, just kind of like a guy where you're like,

48:59Griffin Newman:right, he made me, he would be easily duped. But like, it's probably also just, he's a fairly daring actor. He has good taste. And he was like, sure, I'll do that. And they were like, oh, well, he's an Oscar nominated sort of well-known guy. He's like in fucking Talladega Nights. If you got him, you get two extra million dollars.

49:17David Sims:This is still in the period where he sort of seems to be semi-bankable in an ensemble. Yeah, kind of. He's not nobody.

49:22Jia Tolentino:Their relationship isn't supposed to make sense. Like in the... It doesn't make no sense. No. It's not supposed to make sense. Having the kid is always kind of a marginal, like 51 % we're doing it.

49:33David Sims:Yeah, right, right, right. We weren't sure up until the kid was born. It's one of the things I think this movie kind of gets right in my opinion, which is like, it feels like this guy really wants to be a dad because he likes the idea of being a dad. And she does not feel that innate drive and sort of goes like, I guess so. Which is a lot of people do that.

49:52Jia Tolentino:If you have a kid, it'll produce it. I'll feel it. Right. Right.

49:55Griffin Newman:And I know people who felt exactly that way, where they're like, yeah, I was kind of on the fence, and then I had the kid, and I liked the kid. Like, you know, like, I like my kid, even if I don't like all kids.

50:04David Sims:I think the choice Ramsey makes here that is why this movie works so well for me is that it's, like, sort of a nature-nurture chicken-and-egg movie, right? Whereas, like, the obvious version of this story is, oh, my God, what do you do if your child turns out to be a psycho? and it's a ticking clock and it's a matter of time. And Lynn Ramsey's like, no, the question is like, what do you do if you just don't love your child? If you just can never connect with your child and then if your child ends up becoming a murderer, are you going to spend the rest of your life going like, was it always that way?

50:39David Sims:And is that what I was negatively reacting to? the oracle question. Or did I somehow do something? But you are asking the oracle question. Yeah. Did I do that? I thought... I thought you said the oracle question.

50:49Griffin Newman:No, it's the oracle question. Which is which vase?

50:50Jia Tolentino:Did I do that?

50:51Griffin Newman:I'm sorry, Gia, what were you going to say?

50:52Jia Tolentino:Well, I think in the book, it's not like them looking exactly alike. Uh-huh. Right. They also have very similar bone structures.

51:00David Sims:That's like one of the reasons this movie is so funny.

51:02Jia Tolentino:Riley's jeans bounced right off that fucking ova. That is like a constant visual joke starting with the bathwater. Yes. You know, it's like, it actually is so funny. Like when they're sitting across from each other at the restaurant just looking exactly the same. Like the hair decision, like it's really funny.

51:16Griffin Newman:I am imagining like the poor casting agent on this movie, like the casting director. Hey, can you find me someone who looks like Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly had a kid? She's like, no, I fucking cannot. Tilda's Armenian?

51:28Jia Tolentino:Like Tilda's Armenian? Can we get that working? Like at all? Can you mix that in? But when I watched the movie, like I found it really like the most, the most sort of dramatically effective chilling thing about the movie was that Kevin as a literal baby, and this was the other quote that I wrote down from the book, the cry is described like a rape whistle. And the cry, the cry in the movie, it's like, oh, my God. I mean, I would I would be I would be at the precipice of self-harm within 36 hours.

52:01David Sims:The moment when she goes to the construction site to stand by the jackhammer. And her shoulders go down. Right. And it's perfect like Tilda Buster Keaton shit where like she's conveying the emotion through her body language. Her face from the moment he's like quiet, the moment he's crying to the moment she's able to drown it out basically stays the same.

52:19Jia Tolentino:Her face is incredible in this movie. Like it is kind of her face is like a Gumby, you know, when she's like trying to get the job the way like her jaw hangs and her like it's it's unbelievable. But but the thing that chilled me was that Kevin is such a malignant baby, such a profoundly malignant evil baby, straight up evil. I'm gonna say it. I've got small children. Like that would be an evil baby that that Kevin creates her. It's like it's nature versus nurture, but it's also in reverse. right? That like the child has produced the mom of a school shooter. Right. Which is a great way

52:56David Sims:of thinking about it. It's like a really tangled knot. Yeah.

52:59Jia Tolentino:Like they're continually producing each other as this, these cold twins. Right. But it's basically why Riley's like, anyway, here's a bow and arrow. What,

53:07David Sims:the baseball? Do the baseball outside? But it's like this movie implies that like every week of her life is like this, right? Like in the present tense she's like, the fuck do I do with myself? And then in every like kind of idle moment, she's replaying everything. She's constantly like a detective trying to look back on the scenes and make connections.

53:28Griffin Newman:Because this is the thing about this movie, and I think the book too, is the other thing you have to consider is if someone experienced a tragedy like this, their child or committed a tragedy, they would then look at everything in their life in a completely different way, and it's completely unreliable. Now, I watched this movie and I'm like, right, I'm like, a couple years in, orphanage or whatever. Drop this kid into a river. No good. Evil kid. But I'm... The whole point is that every memory she has now is the bad memory. And the struggle I have with this movie is that Kevin is so nakedly discordant with like...

54:07Griffin Newman:And, you know, reality. Like whatever. With politeness. With like society. That I struggle with that. I want it to be a little more ambiguous. As to like, was it there all along? Because you watch the movie and you're like, yeah, I was there all along. He fucking gerbil went in the dumpster. He blinded his sister. These are no good things. Jerking it. I would say. Two massive purple buttercock. Fucking, what else? You know, there's a few other things, right? The pooping.

54:34David Sims:The pooping.

54:35Griffin Newman:I mean, I know children struggle with body. I'm not trying to. No, but this kid. The fucking up hurt room. Yeah, right, right. The maps. Yeah, right. So cruel.

54:44David Sims:Although, Ben, you have to admit, that's kind of like a cool artistic strategy to put paint inside a super soaker. It kind of looks cool. It kind of looks cool. It's kind of a good room.

54:51Jia Tolentino:It kind of looks a little cool. But the way that the middle Kevin is sitting when they're rolling the ball and the middle Kevin is sitting like Kate McKinnon in the Barbie movie. It's just like what? The legs. What would you do if you had? I like it that Kevin is like that. I like the decision that he's unredeemably malignant from literally day one. There's not really ambiguity. You're their parent.

55:17Griffin Newman:You're not allowed to just be like, hey, I think my kid's a school shooter.

55:23Jia Tolentino:Yeah, like what needs to happen to Kevin is like he needs to go into a Black Mirror egg or whatever, you know what I mean? Like that episode where he just gets egged.

55:29Griffin Newman:No, that would produce even the greatest killer of all time. Well, but maybe then we could use this killer

55:34Jia Tolentino:to invade countries. Yeah, like he needs to be in like a VR cage, you know? Like there's no other place. It's like anti-carceral for everyone except for Kevin, you know? And we can make it really good for him. We can do like a cage race to kill someone every minute.

55:47Griffin Newman:And this like very liberal judge who has that opinion. And I know Kevin's when I see him. No one else needs to go to jail, but Kevin's.

55:53David Sims:Yeah.

55:54Griffin Newman:I got a pitch for what we could do

55:55David Sims:with the Kevin IP.

55:56Griffin Newman:What about... This is a tough movie if you're called Kevin. Shout out to all the Kevins out there. I am sorry. It's like being called Karen

56:01David Sims:or whatever, right? You know. What about Alien colon Kevin and Weyland-Yutani That's good. discovers Kevin and they're like, stop going to fucking space. We just got to clone Kevin. Well, no, but the thing is

56:13Griffin Newman:Weyland-Yutani finds Kevin and is like, oh, angular features, you know kind of charm like how bad could Kevin be let's unfreeze him oh you think they make Kevin the captain of a show oh no I'm saying they let Kevin out and they're like so what's up Kevin and then yeah Kevin goes wild look I mean we are luckily this is not about a real thing that happens otherwise we would be making light of a tragedy this movie is about a tragedy

56:34David Sims:this movie is like funny it is like pitch black

56:38Griffin Newman:it's very very very darkly funny gallows humor it has to be

56:41Jia Tolentino:it would be unbearable if it was straight this is the other thing

56:44Griffin Newman:and it would be kind of unbearable in that also that way of like, what's the point? You can't just make a movie about, like it's the rabbit hole of the book, sorry, the play in the movie, which I don't like very much. Another thing I was, that I was almost casting. You were in the mix for, I well know. Yeah, basically boiled down to me and Miles Teller. Wait, but is Miles Teller the play in the movie? Rabbit hole is Miles Teller. Yeah, I've never seen the movie.

57:05David Sims:That was his first breakout.

57:07Griffin Newman:So it's a David Lindsay, a bear play. And someone asked him like, hey, why'd you write? And he's like, well, I thought that like, wouldn't it be interesting how sad it was if your kid died? And they're like, is that it? And he's like, yeah, that's it. I just figured that'd make for a really sad play. And I'm like, there's gotta be something else because nobody really just wants to sit there with that. And it's the same with like, oh, it would suck if your kid was a school shooter. Everyone's like, yeah, I know that. And this is why this is good. This is why the movie succeeds.

57:32Jia Tolentino:I actually think too, like most people, you know, like you people, friends of mine who are lawyers, like people who are in prison settings, like are know people who have done violent things. It's like, people are not like Kevin.

57:48Griffin Newman:No. You know?

57:49Jia Tolentino:Like, people aren't... Kevin is not a human character, really. And that's why, like, allowing Kevin to be so extreme sidesteps, like, kind of usefully, what you would... Kevin's just not human. You don't... Yeah, there's a different movie

58:07Griffin Newman:that's a process movie of like, why did we not stop this? Yeah. Or whatever. Like, that's like a very practical movie about a tragedy like that of like the signs were that, you know, like, and then there's like movies like Gus Van Sant's Elephant where it's like, I don't know why they do it. Like, and if I think back, sure, there was a little of this and a little of that, but I'd never put anything together because the whole point of Elephant is like you're grasping different parts of the elephant.

58:30David Sims:was always Ezra's Toulouse, like 50 % just look, right? And like fitting into the stylization of Len Ramsey's universe. But when I remember auditioning for this and really trying to crack it, and I was like, well, the choice is to go for a kind of like vacant sociopathy, like the shooters in Elephant, right? Like how these people...

58:51Griffin Newman:Tough to project much onto them. Right, and especially because the dialogue

58:53David Sims:is so intense in the scenes where Kevin really confronts her and locks in, that I was like, I think you need to kind of pull back or else it will feel over the top. What I didn't understand was that that's what she wants. He needs to feel like almost a satanic force. He needs to feel like a stylized evil, where it's kind of absurd for anyone to be behaving this way and so gleefully.

59:17Griffin Newman:But only Tilda's character is seeing it.

59:19David Sims:This is the other thing I was going to say to your point, is that it is so much a memory play and her perspective and her replaying it. And when we see Kevin in the present moment in the facility, he is markedly different. And certainly the final scene is like, right, this is a person. This is a person who is like... That's the first scene in which he's a person. ...troubled and has committed horrendous, indefensible acts. But the energy of the performance is totally different. And you can go, well, did something break in Kevin once they finally committed the evil?

59:50Griffin Newman:And also it's like Kevin's about to go to a grown-up jail and is scared of that. Right. Like it's like, yeah, right.

59:55David Sims:Or is this the only stuff we're seeing that is actually representative of an objective reality versus a subjective reality, which is if her playing in her mind, she's just like... But you believe it though, right? The baby crying felt like this all the time.

1:00:10Jia Tolentino:But I think you're supposed to believe that it's... Totally. Like, I don't think you're supposed... I mean, I personally don't think that you're supposed to think, is she retroactively deluded because of this great act of violence? Like, you believe the kid sounded like that.

1:00:21David Sims:You believe it, but it's also, I think the movie is playing in the, you could never really know for sure. And I think she's so good about making these kind of like the way memory and present consciousness works kind of tapestries where you're not doing dumb flashback devices. It's all interwoven. And outside of like their young, young meetings, Tilda basically looks the same in all segments. Her age is basically only conveyed by her body language.

1:00:49Jia Tolentino:The hair. And the hair. The hair. Hair is key.

1:00:52David Sims:And so you're sometimes starting a scene not knowing which temporality you're in until you see if Kevin's there or not or where she's living or things like that. So she's building it in a way where those scenes can meld together. They don't feel like here's an over-the-top scene and here's a real scene. But it is all kind of a soup. What were you... I was going to open the dossier. Oh, no, no, no, no. Correct open.

1:01:10Griffin Newman:Yeah, okay. But just get some research on this movie. Okay, so and Lynn Ramsey's career in between Morvern and this. Obviously, nine years of her trying to make a movie. after Morvernus, which is essentially like... That should be the entree to a slightly bigger art film or smallish Hollywood film.

1:01:30David Sims:At this time, at the very least, that gets you an$8 to$10 million Miramax or Fox Searchlight movie with some major actors who want to show off that they can really act.

1:01:42Griffin Newman:First thing she does is write a script called Rocking Horse, a dark comedy. As you can imagine, a twisted thing. Never been made. She still has it somewhere. Next thing is Lovely Bones. Okay, Film 4, which is the British Indie channel, attached to Channel 4, at the time was a hot company, has Lovely Bones, gives her a galley of just the first few chapters. They don't even give her the whole book. And she's like, I'm all in. This sounds great. I think it's super interesting. in July 2002. So this is even before Morvyn Caller, like that she's like getting sort of moved on to this. The book comes out and is just a smash hit.

1:02:23Griffin Newman:I mean, that book was so huge. I've never read it.

1:02:25Jia Tolentino:Right, she got it before. Yeah.

1:02:26Griffin Newman:Before it even came out. And like, then people start circling it in like an insane way. And, you know, they initially Channel 4, Film 4 is like, no, we're committed to this. We have Lynne Ramsey set up and we're going to do it. and she's an exciting young director.

1:02:43David Sims:If you've seen Ratcatcher and Morven Caller, at that point in time, it makes a ton of sense to go, if we give her this book, this is the kind of thing that might level her up like crazy. She might be ready to deliver a masterpiece.

1:02:55Griffin Newman:Ramsay's basically like, look, I was handed the first part of a manuscript. I have a very loose adaptation I want to do. Now people seem to want the book that is now a huge hit on screen. They just want a translation. I don't really want to do that. she doesn't like the second half of the book, which is like where the girl comes back to her. She's also like, I think, I mean, I've seen the movie once and read the book oh times.

1:03:18David Sims:She is arguing that a lot of stuff that works in the book would not work on film. And they're pushing back and saying, people love the book. You got to do the book. I would argue that history proves her correct.

1:03:30Griffin Newman:Well, right. Because of course, Peter Jackson, Spielberg is one guy who's trying to horn in. He never actually does. And then when Ramsey is sort of pushed off eventually, because they don't like her drafts. Peter Jackson takes on the project, obviously. It's his post-King Kong movie. It is, in my opinion, it's certainly the worst film he's ever made by a long shot. It's an embarrassing work.

1:03:53David Sims:It is so fucking bad. Oh, it's a disaster. It was the worst idea he could have made at that point in time. And I feel like in our Send Help episode, we equated this of like, this is a guy who no longer knows how to make a movie that isn't at the pitch and scale of King Kong and Lord of the Rings again. You see him going, oh, I want to do like another like... Like a Heavenly Creatures again. Exactly. And he just cannot get his head around how to make a movie about complicated issues. I also think there's something baked into this book though.

1:04:20Jia Tolentino:Do you remember that New Yorker piece that came out a couple of years ago about Alice Siebel, the author of The Lovely Bones, right? It's like there's something actually truly malignant about that book in general. Yes, the surety of that book of like,

1:04:33Griffin Newman:she knows what happened to her and she can like from beyond the grave get this guy.

1:04:36Jia Tolentino:Yeah, the luridness of that is coming from an entirely different angle than the luridness of Kevin, which at least is voiced from like a pitiless, you know, like that. I'd take that any day over the like.

1:04:49David Sims:Do you know about this, Ben? Just very quickly.

1:04:52Griffin Newman:I don't know if we can do it quickly, but I mean, you could try.

1:04:55David Sims:No, I just, the quickest version of it is, basically four or five years ago, Alice Sebald had to admit that she wrongfully accused a man of a heinous crime and sent him to jail for decades.

1:05:07Griffin Newman:Yeah, I mean, a hundred percent, because it was, and it was a big part of her, because she'd written a memoir about the crime called Lucky. Yes. Before Lovely Bone.

1:05:16David Sims:It was an assault that she endured and she. And she like pointed at a guy in a lineup and, you know. With complete confidence. Right. And he was completely innocent of it. Right. It was crazy. Yeah. So it just has cast a whole pallor on her whole work up until this point. And certainly the narrative of like a dead girl trying to solve her own murder. But she doesn't even make that movie. Instead, we need to talk about Kevin. I'll write about the book. I was just going to say, too, that like Jackson had kind of as much weight as anyone in Hollywood at that moment. You could argue he's even like the heat is greater than Spielberg at that moment of what does he want to do next.

1:05:53David Sims:And he kept like optioning different properties that were similar to this of like, that's weirdly touchy, difficult literary material. There's this book, As Nature Made Him, that's this very complicated nonfiction book about this whole medical incident, gender identity and whatever, which I remember just being like, how the fuck is he going to tackle this? there were other things like this where it felt like he wanted to touch the third rail, but also clearly couldn't get out of his super commercial instincts when it actually came to making the movie. Lynn Ramsey also talks about that she feels like when they started saying like, we're not happy with these drafts, we're not happy with these drafts.

1:06:31David Sims:Right, that they were basically trying to push her off. That they knew that Jackson was already sniffing and they were looking for a way to be able to legally end the contract they had with her. Totally, totally. So she feels super fucking betrayed by this. She feels bummed out. She's like, ding my confidence. made me feel bad. And that she had put so much into this and felt like this is the perfect vehicle. As the book gets bigger and bigger, even when they're arguing about the way to adapt it, she's like, I now have a crack at like a brand name piece of material. This movie is going to get seen by more people.

1:07:00David Sims:The one other thing I just want to call out quickly, because I saw someone asked this on the Reddit and it is a good question. Like when a filmmaker has nine years in between movies. How the fuck are they staying alive, right? Like, how are you actually making a living during that period of time? And this is a career where there are big gaps. There aren't a ton of films. And it's big gaps in between movies that aren't super commercially viable. So it's not like Peter Jackson takes 15 years off. He has 100 million dollars. Who gives a shit? Like when she's working on Lovely Bones, she's getting paid to develop Lovely Bones.

1:07:36David Sims:You know, if you're getting hired to write, to direct. Yes, you do get paid for these sorts of things. She did a music video. You do music videos. You do commercials. You do a lot of like uncredited, like punch up work on other things. But yes, basically, you know, you might have your own passion project that you're trying to get off the ground. But by and large, you try to sell it to a producer quickly so that someone is paying you to do that work so you can pay the bills until the movie actually gets made, hopefully. Just wanted to answer that.

1:08:14David?

1:08:15David Sims:What?

1:08:15Griffin Newman:Dunno. Oh, boy. Dunno. Oh, his legendary and very old composer, John Williams. It was just his birthday. I know, and he was celebrated.

1:08:26David Sims:He is the man who tried to warn us about the sharks. He said, here is their theme song. If you hear them... Those two notes. Right. If you hear those two notes, suit up. Get safe. hit dry land because it's scary to swim in open waters when there's a risk of a shark attack. And even scarier is going online without ExpressVPN. Would you say that's like scuba diving in a suit made of meat? Yes, it's not. It's even worse than scuba diving in your birthday suit. It's scuba diving in a meat suit. It's begging people

1:08:59Griffin Newman:to attack you. I would say, just for me personally, my birthday suit is a suit made of meat. I got it made for a birthday one time.

1:09:06David Sims:Okay, that's a birthday suit, not your birthday suit. The real lesson here is that, thank God Lady Gaga didn't go for a swim after the Grammys that one year. That one time when she was in the meet. Remember that? And thank God Express VPN exists to keep you safe while surfing the World Wide Web. Exactly.

1:09:26Griffin Newman:This is all a metaphor, but when you think about it, when you're connecting to an unencrypted network, say you're in a hotel or a cafe, an airport, so on and so forth, your online data is not secure. There are sharks, a.k.a. hackers, trying to steal your personal data. It doesn't take much technical knowledge to do it. Just some cheap hardware is needed. Your daily data is valuable. They can make a thousand a person selling it on the dark web. So ExpressVPN, listen, I have some stuff to tell you about it. I can't wait to hear it. It's at its lowest price ever. Prices start at$3.49 a month. That's 12 cents a day.

1:09:57David Sims:12 cents a day.

1:09:59Griffin Newman:That's me flicking a 12 pence at you. A 12 pence? It would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN encryption. And it's easy to use. You fire it up. You click one button. You get protected. That's it. It's been rated number one by top tech reviewers like CNET and The Verge.

1:10:18David Sims:I'm going to go out on a limb and say that one billion years is longer than the average life expectancy for a hacker. I'm going to say most of them will not succeed in getting there. So I use it. It's on my phone.

1:10:31Griffin Newman:It's on my laptop. I have it on my laptop. Yep. Yep. Clicky. Easy. Because I don't know how any of this works. I'm confused by it. It's scary. I'm an old man when it comes to VPNs. I like how simple it is to use. And you too can secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash check. That's expressvpn.com slash check to find out how you can get up to four extra months. Expressvpn.com slash check. expressvpn.com slash check. I did it right. I just... You did it right. Believe in yourself. Letters.

1:11:01David Sims:Yeah, and happy birthday, Johnny Williams.

1:11:10David!

1:11:11David Sims:What? Do you know what that was? Roadrunner. Motivation.

1:11:16Griffin Newman:That's how quickly it comes and goes, baby. I felt like it was more like a Roadrunner, like the cartoon.

1:11:22David Sims:Yeah, but Roadrunners come and go. They go, pshum!

1:11:24Griffin Newman:F1.

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1:11:28Griffin Newman:Ding dong!

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1:13:39David Sims:Yes.

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1:14:26Griffin Newman:We need to talk about Kevin. The book comes out 2003 in the United States. Word of mouth hit. A genuine word of mouth hit. Gets the Orange Prize in 2005. So it takes a while to even get that. But it was like the way Lionel Shriver, unreliable narrative though she may be, describes it as like Upper East Side Mom started like passing the book around. Buy that? Yeah, exactly. Because it's because of the topic matter. And Lynn Ramsey is a fan and basically like bids for it herself, I think, right? Like she was just like interested. She got it through her agent and was just like, I want to do this.

1:15:01Griffin Newman:And the BBC who helped fund this movie, right? This is a national. Yeah. This is a UK Film Council movie. Like, you know, it's got British government money. It's like, oh, like, you know, school murders, like this is too dark, but she wants to do it. Lionel Shriver passes on like, Lynn's like, do you want to collaborate? And Leonard Friar was like, fuck no. I don't want to talk about you.

1:15:25David Sims:We need to talk about

1:15:26Griffin Newman:Kevin. Basically, it's her answer. She does like the movie. She says it's excellent. It's beautifully shot, well cast, thematically loyal to the novel. She was totally happy with the movie. But as you were telling us, it's not like the book is easy to adapt because it's letters. It's not a translatable work without whatever Lynn is doing to make it this impressionistic feeling of the path this, you know, mom and kid take.

1:15:58David Sims:But it's also what we talk about of like how she seems to have a better method of visualizing internal monologues than like any other filmmaker in history, in my opinion. And here's a book that's basically just like what this person is telling themselves without any like objective. and she understands how to like transmute that into something that is the opposite in form, but kind of contains the same core ideas and feelings.

1:16:26Jia Tolentino:It's funny if the book had been titled anything different.

1:16:30Griffin Newman:Such as?

1:16:31Jia Tolentino:I don't know, like it's - Bow and arrow killings. It wouldn't have, yeah, actually the New Yorker fact checker, we spent like 15 minutes being like, can we call it a school shooting? I was like, guys, guys. I mean, he shoots the bow and arrow. Yeah, that was my argument. I was like, we don't have any word space to do. Actually, it was a bow and arrow. I was like, it's a shooting.

1:16:50Griffin Newman:Yeah, I find the bow and arrow thing to be a hat on a hat. I don't like it. I will be honest.

1:16:56Jia Tolentino:In the book, it's because he's like, I don't want to play into your political games. Because the thing about the book is all of this is taking place. The present day timeline is like three months while the Chads are hanging in Florida. And so it's all taking place against this really specific. That's crazy. I know.

1:17:13Griffin Newman:She's mixing all these ideas up together. It's a hanging Chad drama?

1:17:17Jia Tolentino:It's a hanging Chad drama. I was looking at, unbeknownst to myself, because I was trying to, right when we got into this room, I was looking, I was like, what was the thing that Lionel Shriver put on a sombrero to give a speech at a literary conference? And I was looking, I googled Lionel Shriver sombrero and found a piece that I had written about her.

1:17:34David Sims:Yep, 2016. You were the first result. You had to remind yourself like Bill and Ted style.

1:17:39Griffin Newman:I assume as she was tiptoeing up to her later Turfy turns or whatever She's mad about some kid getting cancelled At Bowdoin For having sombreros I don't know

1:17:51Jia Tolentino:She just written a novel where a white man Is married to a black woman who is intellectually disabled And at one point she ends up on a leash So you know it's all pretty

1:17:59Griffin Newman:I'm sorry at one point she ends up on a leash It's not what I expected

1:18:04Jia Tolentino:But she calls herself a renowned In the second line of the speech she calls herself a renowned iconoclast. Me whenever I talk about myself.

1:18:14David Sims:It's one of these things where they always are just like, I'm going to write something really provocative. And then people go like, hmm, is it okay for them to have written this thing? It's like, oh, so now I'm being attacked. Well, now you're forcing me to become radical. Truly. But it's always this like, okay, well, now I'm going to wear a sombrero. Does that make you upset? And they're like, yes.

1:18:36Griffin Newman:I guess so.

1:18:37Jia Tolentino:Right, right. The thing that I found so funny about it then was that she put on the sombrero to make a statement that wearing a sombrero should be less of a statement. I was like, what are we doing? What are we doing here?

1:18:49Griffin Newman:It feels quaint for a sombrero to be...

1:18:54Jia Tolentino:It feels like Shakespeare compared to what we're dealing with now. But it was her version of the Scarlett Johansson

1:19:00David Sims:if I want to play someone who's pink or purple or a tree. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but right. Except it was more like, fuck you. Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:07Jia Tolentino:You know what I was just thinking when you were talking about the book? I find I actually, I've come around to finding the sort of, I'm still on Kevin being like unfreezing in the alien ship. Like, I think it's actually a bit of mercy on her part and like an enormous source of comic relief that Kevin is so cartoonish because like basically what the whole story is about, it's like, what if you were a woman, a kind of woman that I am and have been, which who is ambivalent about having children. Sure. has an ambitious,

1:19:36Griffin Newman:interesting career, does things. Cherishes their independence,

1:19:39Jia Tolentino:wants to be able to go, you know, wants to go fucking throw tomatoes. Go throw tomatoes. And you're like, what if the transcendence and love that awaits me is not there? Like, what if you don't know who your kid's going to be? Well, you don't know. And then people are like, you know what? You have your kid. Caring for your kid makes you fall in love with them. Or the moment of birth makes you fall in love. Like, everyone assures you, like, you're going to have an amazing kid. You two are going to produce an amazing kid, no matter what. They're going to have you as parents. He's so much fun. so smart.

1:20:06Jia Tolentino:Yeah, exactly. Please, they're going to have you guys. They're going to be so... And you're like, well, yeah, you're right. I guess there's no way he's going to be a generational satanic channel of every... It's beyond every parent's worst nightmare to be. It's past the realm of anything that's possible in that way. It's a bit of a relief and mercy.

1:20:31David Sims:He becomes like supernatural, almost science fiction level of evil. like an alien. Lean refers to it as like

1:20:37Griffin Newman:Rosemary's baby, but no devil. Exactly. What if you had a devil baby, but it's not because you fucked the devil? Yeah. Like, you know, by, you know, like, you not, there's no conspiracy. You just happened, you got the devil baby. Everyone else didn't.

1:20:51David Sims:I think that's a great point, though, that the real life version of this type of kid who ends up committing these types of acts is usually like, has anger issues, but also is like, incredibly sad, is struggling, is bullied, like has wild emotional swings. Has hugged you more than once. Is introverted or whatever it is, you know, and you're like a parent fighting through the outburst going like, how do we get him level? And the fact that this kid is just from the beginning basically like playing chicken with her on every single thing. And only respects her when she breaks his arm. There's no level of vulnerability other than when he is sick and or broken.

1:21:34Jia Tolentino:Well, about the sick thing, here, so I was watching, when I was re-watching them, I was like, what would I do? What would I do if I had a Kevin? I would phantom thread the shit out of that kid. It works. I would munch house in him so fucking hard and I would be so justified. But that's the terror.

1:21:50Griffin Newman:It's not like I'm seeing... But this is... You're kidding because... I'm serious.

1:21:53Jia Tolentino:No, I'm not kidding. I know you're not kidding. I'm not kidding.

1:21:55Griffin Newman:You're kidding because we're not allowed to do this in society to essentially say like, nope, this kid is a bad egg and there's nothing. Like society now is just like, no, no, we have interventions. Like we have things you do. There's people you see, there's medicine you take. Like, you know, you can't just be like, I'm stamping a kid.

1:22:15Jia Tolentino:Psycho kids. Speaking of what would actually happen is he would actually be medicated into a stupor. 100%. That was another thing.

1:22:22Griffin Newman:I do bump on it a little bit where I'm like, once again, like once the daughter is getting blinded, like you imagine like someone's coming to the house. Like, you know, who knows? Oh, my God.

1:22:33Jia Tolentino:When he's fucking eating the lychee. Just like a normal lunch with Kevin where you're eating lychee. And the parents are drinking wine at 10 a.m. And there's this weird...

1:22:45Griffin Newman:Like, I like this sort of like... Their house is so ridiculous.

1:22:49Jia Tolentino:The house is so scary.

1:22:50Griffin Newman:Their life is so... Like, you know, like her pretension of like the map room and like her past. It almost feels like this punishment. Like, oh, you thought you could have it all? like you could still be the fancy person, the cool person and raise kids. Well, too bad. Like you get a Kevin. And then you get the worst thing of then you have another kid who's cool. Like, so you actually...

1:23:12Jia Tolentino:He's so sweet as an angel, an angel on Earth.

1:23:13Griffin Newman:You know that it's possible that there actually is a kid you could have that you like.

1:23:17David Sims:And there's tension between the two of them. Only makes Kevin worse. At even having a second kid. And then it's like immediately she feels connected to the second kid. Watching this now, I was like relating certain things to the Nick Reiner situation, which is certainly the most like public sort of discussed version. Yeah, sure. But I think that's a perfect case study in how these things often now do happen in our world, which is like, you just read that it was 36 years of them being like, fuck, how do we help him? You know, what is so tragic about that story is everyone says like they just did everything.

1:23:52David Sims:Yeah, they wouldn't give up on him. And they were just like, when is it tough love? When do we need to support him? When do we need to bring in professionals? When is it medication? When is it this? And like nothing worked. And like the situation goes as horribly as it possibly could have. And everyone goes like, there was a feeling that someday something like this was going to happen. But no one kind of seemingly did anything wrong.

1:24:12Griffin Newman:Well, because no one wants to say like, hey, I think you're... Oh, right.

1:24:14David Sims:Well, yeah.

1:24:15Griffin Newman:You can't just write off a kid. You can't just be like...

1:24:18Jia Tolentino:They're also like a garbage kid. Because kids aren't like this though, right? Because it's like there's not... Like Kevin is not schizophrenic. Kevin is not dealing with addiction issues. Like, Kevin, there is no diagnosable, you know, the movie.

1:24:30Griffin Newman:And Kevin can perform, like, as he does for others. Like, nice.

1:24:34Jia Tolentino:Like, psychopathy, I don't know if it's like, there's no treatment for it. That's the point, though. There's no treatment.

1:24:39David Sims:Right, like, in all the discussion of Nick Renner, they were like, he was good for a couple years. And we were, like, happy, and then he fell off the wagon, and we thought we could get him back on. Versus, like, Kevin comes out with a, like, little pitchfork and horns, and it's like, eh.

1:24:50Jia Tolentino:I actually think that the most compassionate and restorative justice thing to do would be to constantly phantom thread hip. Like constantly expose him to norovirus every few weeks so that he's weak and loves you. I think he would build up a superhuman intolerance to the norovirus. He would just change. I would just be like giving him little norovirus pills. I don't think we have those. I would invent them. I'd invent them. Someone could do it for me. And then he, because I found that so beautiful. Like, I think it's so beautifully acted, that scene where Kevin is sick. and leans his head on her.

1:25:23Jia Tolentino:And for the first time in her entire life, her child has expressed some sort of physical, even comfort with her. And you can tell how much it means to her and how sincerely, how sincerely like a kid.

1:25:38Griffin Newman:Yeah, she's not like, okay, all of a sudden. If every day this was like this,

1:25:42Jia Tolentino:she would have been the happiest woman in the world. I found it so moving.

1:25:45David Sims:Even if like two days a month were like this, she'd understand what she were fighting for. I think part of why she doesn't know how to take like more extreme actions is that he comes out and she's just immediately like something's really wrong here. But to say that would make her sound crazy. And he's because Kevin is pretending for as a child. Right. But even as a baby to be like, honey, I think our baby's evil. Yeah. You can't say that. Right. So as like the signs start to pile up that to her, like self-fulfilling prophecies, I told you so. It just feels like she's like it's a self-confirming bias in his eyes.

1:26:18David Sims:and he's so oblivious to shit. And then there is stuff of like, sometimes he's really sweet with the sister. And you're like, so is he doing that just to spite me? And he's always with the dad. He's like, yeah, let's throw around that baseball. Right. Do they have a connection? I don't understand. Or does he just know that it's part of it?

1:26:36Jia Tolentino:Like, because he's what she would be thinking.

1:26:39David Sims:Yes, that's what she's thinking. And I also think that I remember her saying that they really kind of built the performance around the middle kid and had Ezra study the middle kid. And that part of her conception of the character and how it was even written in the script is like, he reaches this kind of like unresolved anger menace as like whatever it is, a seven or eight year old. And then when he gets to high school, he's just a taller version of that kid. Like part of what is so eerie about him is that he's wearing the undersized t-shirts, that he's got these like childlike behaviors, that it's now in this kind of like pouty, sulky menace.

1:27:16David Sims:but everything about him just feels like a stretched out little boy who's now just being taken somewhat more seriously. Because that kid, at that age, it's still a little like, what's going on here?

1:27:29Griffin Newman:Look, I had a colicky baby. I've had three kids, so I was going to... Colicky baby? Colicky. What does that mean? Colic is when your baby cries for no reason. And it's like, you know, it's like torture. I mean, neither of your kids are colicky. but like but your second kid had like had the expert i mean i've talked a lot about parenting yeah yeah but i had a cocky baby and it is like it is sort of this feeling of like the devil is in this baby like that you cannot i've had to walk away i've had right right where maybe you have to right and sometimes the advice is that it's like you know what the baby's fine yes it's crying but like it can't hurt itself if you put it in a bassinet and you just take five minutes or whatever.

1:28:12Griffin Newman:But what does that feel like to be in the other room just away from her?

1:28:16Jia Tolentino:A baby crying... Better than yelling, what the fuck is wrong with you? Sure, but when you're doing that, I'm sure you're also like,

1:28:21David Sims:why am I feeling... Why am I getting angry at the baby?

1:28:23Griffin Newman:A baby crying, especially your baby, just pushes a button in your brain. It's just like, help the baby. And yeah, I mean, the answer is he was underbaked. He's the littlest twin. He was a preemie and

1:28:36David Sims:the shit wasn't working. Rocksteady. He's, um... Sorry, he's Rocksteady. We use code names for David's children. We named him after...

1:28:47Griffin Newman:You know, and like, you know, he was just underbaked. Like, whatever. It's always, like, there's something going on with him. Colic is this made-up word the doctors came up with to just be like, sorry, like, okay, better. I thought you were just saying, like, cowlick, like your daughter was born with a hair stick. I know you do.

1:29:03Jia Tolentino:That's so cute.

1:29:04David Sims:They're probably going to inherit it.

1:29:05Griffin Newman:I have an insane cowlick. I am waiting. Rocksteady has A Widow's Peak which my dad had one of those Bebop could rock a cowlick he's got curly kind of wavy curly hair

1:29:19Jia Tolentino:it's also it's shocking to be alive it's terrible to be alive and you're not supposed to be alive yet

1:29:24Griffin Newman:you came out too early even if you came out at a regular time we come out too early

1:29:28Jia Tolentino:and none of us chose to be alive I'm quite thankful to be alive every day but I it's hard to fault people for

1:29:36David Sims:It definitely was not. I got no Google survey. Yeah.

1:29:40Jia Tolentino:And Kevin, like, it's like the only source of pleasure he's ever seems to access in life is making someone else hurt. Yes. And in a way, like, you know, what do you do? Like, I, you know, I feel no sympathy for Kevin, but he makes like even as a somewhat demonic character, there's some sort of emotional logic where like he didn't ask for that. But the monologue where he's just like, you guys are all here just watching screens all day, wrapped in front of acts of fictional and real violence. Like, what's the fucking point? All of you are just being fake to each other and not saying like he he loathes his mother for never being honest about the fact that she fucking hates him.

1:30:18David Sims:Right. Right. When you get the flashback of the arm breaking, he was like, that was finally finally an honest moment from you that you wanted to throw me against a wall. I respected you for the first time and I felt comfortable. You know what I would say to him then?

1:30:30Griffin Newman:What? Jesus enough with you you're fucking Jesus you're a lot

1:30:33David Sims:I need to stop talking Kevin

1:30:35Griffin Newman:you're really exhausting me up the wall

1:30:37Jia Tolentino:but don't go to the other kid take your norovirus pill take your pill time for your pill I think norovirus is like

1:30:44Griffin Newman:then they're barfing all the time you gotta deal with the barf well I would take

1:30:47Jia Tolentino:an immunity pill

1:30:47David Sims:of course

1:30:49Jia Tolentino:you're genius yeah yeah yeah smart

1:30:52David Sims:that's where this really feels like a pre-parental anxiety tale though especially from her perspective totally what if this happens which is like do I want to have kids unless I'm 100 % sure that I'm ready to be a parent. What if I get the one in a million? You don't know what you're going to get. Yeah. Right. And there's the version of this is, you know, you you have a child who has like different needs and there's nothing malicious within them. But you're just like the job is immediately exponentially more difficult than you thought it was going to be. You know, you just don't know what you're going to get in any way.

1:31:21David Sims:And you need to be so sure. And people shouldn't have kids who aren't sure that they want to have kids. And that's the fact that she's just Like, as you said, it's like, am I 49 % or 51 %? Like, where am I on this? The kid comes out immediately. It's just like, fuck.

1:31:36Jia Tolentino:And I think she has the kid. Like, you can kind of, it's kind of presented in the movie. She's just, it's really like, it was a spur of the moment decision. Like, she's blackout drunk. And she's just like, it's fine. It's fine. What's whatever. What's one?

1:31:51David Sims:It's the kind of shit that, like, Lynn Ramsey can get away with because she mostly deals in these scene fragments. And if this was a line of dialogue at the end of like five pages of conventionally written scene, I'd be like, boo, fuck you. But when you cut to her in the delivery room and the doctors are saying, stop resisting. And she's like, oh, she doesn't want the baby to come out. You know, there's something right there from that moment, which then in her mind, the second the baby is a problem is like, did I kind of like will this into happening? Is there some sort of like energy I've passed on to this child of you're unwanted?

1:32:25Jia Tolentino:Should I have been giving him a blowjob when he might wake up and have to poop? Also, like, the way... Sorry, like, the way... David's head is in his hands.

1:32:33Griffin Newman:Lock your door or something. I don't know, man.

1:32:35Jia Tolentino:Yeah, no, I mean, just... But also, like, that scene is also so funny because of just the way her head is moving. Like, it's so funny.

1:32:44Griffin Newman:It's incredibly well staged.

1:32:45Jia Tolentino:It is such a perfunctory blowjob. Like, it's... She's, like, she's got her... She's looking at her watch. You know, she's...

1:32:53Griffin Newman:Well, I mean, again, this is the tilt of John C. Wright. I mean, now I feel like I'm being mean to John C. Wright. No, but it's a weird relationship.

1:33:07Jia Tolentino:Say mal, hast du bei der Steuer auch diesen Schwul-Flashback? Einfach irgendwas raten und dann hoffen, dass es stimmt?

1:33:12David Sims:Boah, nee, gar nicht. Wieso Steuer ist so mein Safe Space?

1:33:17Jia Tolentino:Du meinst, damit ist alles sicher?

1:33:19David Sims:Ja, genau.

1:33:39Griffin Newman:To get back to the research just a little bit. Summit Entertainment has just made a ton of money off of Twilight. They're like, we will make this movie for you. We've read your script. She had like a spec script. We'll give you$12 million. You can cast whoever you want. Then after, according to Variety and Lynn Ramsey, they back out after a year, essentially being like, eh, this is too weird. It's so funny when studios do this, where they're like, it's about a kid who kills other kids. And it's just like, yeah, bro, you read the script. But they suddenly back out. They get cold feet.

1:34:11David Sims:It's also the wild, quick arc of like, here's this new upstart distributor. What are they going to make? They're going to make the stuff that the studios don't want to make. Let's get action scripts that the other studios have passed on. What's a little edgy? Twilight was supposed to be an MTV movie. They were like, fuck it. They get it for no money. It makes half a billion dollars. They have a franchise. And suddenly they're like, great. Now we have the money to make a bunch of shit. But also in real time going like, is it worth the fucking risk of making a school?

1:34:39Griffin Newman:And then they call her and they're like, we kind of are thinking we're going to make more Twilight movies. That's kind of what we're going to do.

1:34:44David Sims:And within six years, they're bought by Lionsgate and they don't exist anymore.

1:34:47Griffin Newman:They're just sucked into Lionsgate. Right. so she doesn't give up she retools it she cuts the script essentially the budget of the script in half by like fucking with the script so she had it you know at about a 12 million number I think the movie was made for seven and she just kind of pieces the money together UK Film Council Artificial Eye all these like you know Euro sort of indie companies BBC Films obviously

1:35:12David Sims:I think Paramount had UK on this sure it has like 20 different

1:35:16Griffin Newman:companies Soderbergh is like an executive producer are on it. Acelioscope releases it in America. A distributor I love

1:35:24David Sims:who doesn't get shout out nearly enough. Shout them out. Co-founded or founded by MCA. Yeah. From Beastie Boys. That's right.

1:35:33Griffin Newman:Yeah. But they put out great stuff. She knows Tilda Swinton. Tilda Swinton essentially is just like a fucking magpie for freak directors.

1:35:40David Sims:It makes sense. Like Tilda's basically like I've been hearing about you. Has been blowing up her inbox for 10 years. Be like, give me something.

1:35:47Griffin Newman:And the Buster Keaton thing, you know, like she's very into that. Buster Keaton's her favorite. She says, I'm not good at being articulate. I'm much more wired for looking dumb. And she just liked, like, I can just stand around looking dumb in this movie.

1:36:02David Sims:Yeah. I mean, I think it's more like a numbness that she's playing very well. I think Tilda,

1:36:05Griffin Newman:I think is very like, oh, who knows what I do? Like, who, me? And I'm like, you're one of the most interesting actors who's ever lived.

1:36:13Jia Tolentino:The way, when she's walking down the courthouse steps, her heels. You know, like, it's, she's so funny with her body in this. She really is.

1:36:20Griffin Newman:Dude, I just watched the Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Wish, and The Wardrobe because I've decided this year to read all the Narnias.

1:36:29Jia Tolentino:they're good. I know. They're totally,

1:36:31Griffin Newman:like, they're totally interesting. I was like, you know what? Greta's doing the movie this year. I'm going to read them all. I haven't really interacted with this since I was a kid. And then out of interest, I'm like, I'll watch the fucking movie, which is not that good. But anytime she's on screen, may I say it? serving cunt. I mean, when she's riding around in a chariot pulled by a polar bear with crazy makeup, you're like, she was born for this. No acting required.

1:36:57David Sims:It's the funniest thing when you consider that unsurprisingly that movies announced Disney's going to make a big fucking Narnia line, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Right, it's post Lord of the Rings.

1:37:06Griffin Newman:They're like, what fantasy thing can we make?

1:37:09David Sims:Immediately the story is Nicole Kidman in talks for White Witch.

1:37:13Griffin Newman:right easiest yeah who's the iciest blonde out there right you're like

1:37:17David Sims:there you go slam dunk she drops out they're like Tilda Swinton film freaks are like cool Tilda Swinton get that bag isn't that like a major like did the

1:37:27Griffin Newman:scale of this movie just go way down because it was like they got the I mean Tilda had been in a couple things when they got her but like it's the fucking lady from like Derek Jarman movies like not like you're like Voldemort

1:37:39David Sims:in a movie where like the stars are children and you don't have a big name actor above the title. It comes out within a week of King Kong. Everyone thinks King Kong is going to dominate. Narnia fucking suplexes it. And suddenly, Tilda Swinton is bankable.

1:37:54Griffin Newman:Yeah, and she wins an Oscar two years later. Like, it happens really fast. Can we do, like, a little zoom out here?

1:37:59David Sims:Sure.

1:37:59Jia Tolentino:What did she win the Oscar for?

1:38:00Griffin Newman:For Michael Clayton, which is a great performance. Awesome win. You know?

1:38:03David Sims:And, like, went in seeming like it's an honor just to be nominated. Everyone thought it was down to Amy Ryan or Cate Blanchett in I'm Not Here. Right. And then... Bob Dylan. Yeah, and then like Tilda wins in a total surprise. Right. Year after that, she has Prince Caspian, the second Narnia. She's on that to cameo. And Burn After Reading. She's barely in that one. And Benjamin Button. Yeah, Benjamin Button, she's good in that. Movies she obviously signed up for before winning the Oscar. Right. Then it's Limits of Control. She's doing another Jarmusch. I Am Love. She basically is the first person to be a guarantor for Guadagnino.

1:38:34David Sims:Yeah, she's really, that's a really great performance. She's got an Oscar. She can be the lead. She like launches him as a director. Then third Narnia showing up for another cameo, probably pocketing$2 million. She's a dream in that one. We need to talk about Kevin. I mean, like, literally someone has a dream. Sure. 2011. Moonrise Kingdom. First Wes. Yeah. Only Lovers Left Alive. Another Jarmusch. Maybe her best performance in the convo.

1:38:57Griffin Newman:Have you seen that movie, Gia? I've never seen it. It's about two fucking bored vampires hanging out in Detroit just being like, man, we've been to so many concerts. We're 500 years old. Is there anything left for us to do? It turns vampires into heroin addicts and it's like

1:39:10David Sims:a vampire would just feel like Keith Richards times a thousand. It's just till this point

1:39:14Griffin Newman:Tom Hiddleston just like laying on top of each other naked and thin and just like should you put on some sunglasses and go see some jazz. Snowpiercer?

1:39:25David Sims:Yeah.

1:39:25Griffin Newman:She's great in that.

1:39:26David Sims:Zero Theorem is a wash. And then Grand Budapest Hotel, Trainwreck, Bigger Splash, Hail Caesar. Like that's not only is it her clearly just being like good filmmakers. I don't care the size of the role. I'll show up. I'll do it. almost all of those movies work.

1:39:42Griffin Newman:Yeah, I mean, and also she's always striking. I mean, I love her. I love her so much. I mean, I love that she eventually turns this into, let me start working with Joanna Hogg, my original collaborator, again, and they have such a rich thing now. And she was in the, what else has she been in lately? No, but I mean, Memoria and stuff.

1:40:04David Sims:Yeah, right. She's so loyal to filmmakers. The George Miller movie that I love.

1:40:08Griffin Newman:But you were like,

1:40:08David Sims:She's done like five Wes Anderson's now.

1:40:10Griffin Newman:She's so good in Problemista. Yes. Like, that was like a really, like, she didn't have to do that.

1:40:14David Sims:That's the kind of swing.

1:40:15Griffin Newman:And like, that's, I'm sure, the thing where Julio Torres was like, Tilda, I'm obsessed with you.

1:40:19David Sims:You are my god.

1:40:20Griffin Newman:And she was like, okay.

1:40:21David Sims:Right. Like, you know. Like, she will equally, like, help launch a filmmaker who doesn't have that level of exposure and also be like, yeah, Jarmusch, I'll show up for half an hour and do whatever you want of me.

1:40:34Griffin Newman:And almost all of the movies work. I'm going to read a story that Tilda said on the press tour a lot. Until recently, I had a reputation in my family for having saved my younger brother's life as a child. Actually, I was going to kill him because he was a boy, naturally. I already had two brothers and that was just too much to bear. She was four and a half, entered his room morbidly determined. And then she noticed that he had a ribbon from a baby bonnet sticking from the corner of his mouth. And I started to pull it out and then was witnessed in this great act of love of nurture. So she's claiming like, oh yeah I wanted to fucking kill my baby brother when I was four years old and instead I was seen as saving his life okay so she's pulling from that she's just saying that on the press tour yeah sure I don't know tough press tour

1:41:16Jia Tolentino:yeah crazy you know tough tough press tour one imagines

1:41:19Griffin Newman:it is probably yeah where people sit down like hi I'm from yeah I'm from Hollywood tonight and I love the movie really interesting you know like what do you

1:41:29David Sims:can I call out who is ostensibly the fourth lead of this movie if we you know or fifth lead at least

1:41:35Griffin Newman:Can we talk about Siobhan Fallon? Hogan, sorry. Siobhan Hogan Fallon. Is the boss. Yes. Oh. One of our favorites. A deadpan. You know, she's very good at the kind of like, all right, you know, like doing that kind of thing in a movie for two minutes.

1:41:51David Sims:Like an incredible character actress who fits equally well in a Lynne Ramsey movie and a Farrelly Brothers movie. Like who else is like that? Where you look at her career and it's half like very serious dramas where they're like, you won't be too over the top, but this movie maybe needs a little levity.

1:42:08Jia Tolentino:Yeah, it's like Bridget Everett in the... Totally.

1:42:11David Sims:The Knives Out or whatever. Or she can just go as big as anyone if she wants.

1:42:14Griffin Newman:Do you truly buy that she is just kind of like, yeah, you can have a job. I don't give a shit. I kept waiting for a turn.

1:42:20Jia Tolentino:The office doesn't make it any sense.

1:42:21Griffin Newman:No, I know. For her being like, by the way, I hired you because I'm fascinated by who you are.

1:42:26Jia Tolentino:But it doesn't really come up. The office in general is almost like... That is... This was one of my... this was my main issue with Die My Love is that it's like, you know, it's out of time and place despite being so rooted in the place. Like, it's like the characters, you know, they don't have friends, they don't have cell phones, they don't have, you know, like they...

1:42:46Griffin Newman:Where are we?

1:42:46Jia Tolentino:Who are these people? What time is it? What is she dispected by? Yeah. And the... I mean, I think it works because like aesthetically, the office party, when they're stringing up the tinsel and the sad little... But it's like, you know, you go to the office, it's also like the first time you flashback to her present life where she's like in that strip mall, it says like it's like Asian restaurant. And then it's like 1-800-TRAVEL or whatever. And then you go in and the first poster you see is like Tampa awaits you. It's incredible. It's an incredible detail. But it's like, what year is it inside the office?

1:43:20Jia Tolentino:We don't know. I think what do they do?

1:43:23David Sims:It's part of it. I mean, maybe I'm being generous, right? But like she starts out as a fairly successful travel writer. And you're kind of like, that industry is going to radically transform. Travel writers will still exist, but the idea of a person who can spend like two years writing a book very thoughtfully that sells enough to support a family is like over. And when she's basically cast out of that because no one's going to buy her book because she's the mother of Kevin, she then has to get a job at a travel agency, which is even closer to death. This is a business that no longer needs to exist.

1:43:58David Sims:That's basically just for a clientele that like the last generation that refuses to use the internet who are all going to die in five years. And so are they so desperate that they're like anyone who fucking wants to work here?

1:44:10Jia Tolentino:Should we bring travel agents back? I think they're kind of being brought back. They're coming back a little bit because people are like, I don't want a fucking deal. Right.

1:44:17David Sims:Our friend Stuart Wellington. Yeah. Swears by it.

1:44:20Jia Tolentino:Yeah. Secretly, we all have friends that probably. My mom always used one.

1:44:24David Sims:He's like, now you save a lot of money.

1:44:25Griffin Newman:Right. Well, that's their ostensibly one of their jobs.

1:44:28David Sims:And you just, no stress, everything's sorted out for you, you get a better deal.

1:44:31Griffin Newman:My mom used one when we were a kid. Like, travel agents would help plan our vacations. And she was always like, they knew these fucking awesome places to go. And I'm like, I guess that's what they're there for. They make the reservations, all this shit. John C. Reilly, just to acknowledge essentially what we already guessed, she cast him because she thought he could bring some warmth to the role. You know, sort of like a warm, cuddly American guy. Like, he was just in her head. He's like a teddy bear. And he'd made a list of cool directors he wanted to work with, and she was on it. So when approached, he was like, thumbs up.

1:45:03Griffin Newman:Like, yes, I want to work with Lim Ramsey.

1:45:04David Sims:And if you look at his career at this moment, it's like, Walk Hard didn't work. So the notion of him being a guy who can carry a movie single-handedly kind of dies on the vine right there. But he's still clearly a value add if you're trying to raise your money piecemeal from so many different places. He would still look like a guy where you're like, John C. Reilly's worth like a million dollars. if he's willing to do the movie for scale.

1:45:28Griffin Newman:Yeah. They shot it in Connecticut, Stanford, Connecticut. They shot it in CinemaScope, which sounds crazy, but she's essentially like, you can do two shots instead of one single. Like she just wanted that kind of like epic everyday sort of thing. Just unusual, I would say. They had$7 million. So, you know, everything was really fucking hard. They shot in like 30 days. Yep. La Tomatina, though, they did go. That's cool. because they were like, we can't really fake that. We have to just go. Here's Ramsey with a great story about the masturbation scene. I knew that scene really worked when we were checking the focus in post-production in Connecticut and we had to watch it over and over.

1:46:04Griffin Newman:The projectionist was pissing himself. He kept going motherfucker every time he reran the scene. It was magic. You know you've nailed it when you get a reaction like that. And then Johnny Greenwood does the score. Very cool score as Johnny Greenwood wants. It's all wire strung harp. I love like the idea of calling him being like hey it's about a kid who murders people with a bow and arrow and he's thinking I'm thinking harp and you're like alright Johnny whatever you want to do what else would it be

1:46:32David Sims:can I go back to your is the bow and arrow gilding the lily

1:46:36Griffin Newman:I don't think it's gilding I actually am like I found it almost a little corny and a little implausible that he could kill that many people I was like it's a bow and arrow run up to him

1:46:48David Sims:I like that it's so fucking weird. It's weird. That it makes it a more distinct, like, what the fuck was going on here, down to even, like, the bicycle locks and whatever. It also helps that she's the type of filmmaker where you watch this movie the first time and you're like, we're cutting ahead to these little flashes and I'm dreading the scene where suddenly it's going to, like, play out in real time. Right? Yes, you're dreading a massacre. of like an hour in, we're going to see 20 continuous minutes of the massacre. And she keeps it abstract. It is one of the things I like the most about her is that in her movies, you will have these sort of like flashes when Tilda runs into the classmate who is now a paraplegic in the wheelchair and he's so friendly to her and clearly is like, we both have suffered from this.

1:47:37David Sims:I'm relating to you as another like victim of this tragedy or. Yeah, totally. Someone who has to live in the wake of it. That's how I took it. And she keeps flashing back to him being wheeled out on the stretcher. And you're trained from watching so many worse movies.

1:47:50Griffin Newman:We're going to see the rest of that scene. We're going to see more of it.

1:47:53David Sims:And she just has this confidence. You were never really here does this super well as well, where you're like, oh, these flashbacks that are teasing the trauma of his past, and you're dreading the scene that's going to literalize it and spell it out. And it never does because you're like, I get it. I see this one image. I know exactly what it's conveying. You don't need to show me the rest. I can fill it in.

1:48:14Jia Tolentino:You know what the bow and arrow is actually like in the book, it's bow and arrow because in his 24 hours of psychological pliability from his flu.

1:48:23Griffin Newman:Right.

1:48:24Jia Tolentino:He reads, she reads Robin Hood. Okay.

1:48:26Griffin Newman:And that's how he gets.

1:48:27Jia Tolentino:And he becomes enamored with a bow and arrow from Robin Hood. And so, but I do think that's a little bit corny. Like it's giving MFA. Like it's. I mean, Landon Shriver's a bad writer.

1:48:38David Sims:But also, if you had to see him do it on screen, it would totally break. Totally. Like this is fucking like seven pounds jellyfish in the bathtub shit. Totally. The fact that you don't see it. Do not touch the jellyfish. Don't. That's what they say in that movie. And coaxium, you have to keep it hot. Cold as hell. I'm sorry, we're just getting caught up in our bullshit. The fact that you don't see it helps it. Yeah. And that it feels like a thing that you read about in the newspaper and you're like, he did what? He like, he ordered 50 bicycle locks and then took a bow and arrow into a gymnasium?

1:49:11Jia Tolentino:Well, I think it's also right. we're supposed to kind of perceive that he sees himself as an artiste, you know? Like he's not... Yes, he's pretentious. It requires like finesse and aim. He's making a statement.

1:49:22David Sims:And in the book,

1:49:22Jia Tolentino:he makes actually a list of 10 kids, gives them fake certificates saying they're getting an award, lines them up in the middle of the gym, shoots them. And like some of them he kills immediately. But because it's only 10 of them, like some of them bleed out in front of him for an hour. And it's like, I'm not trying to watch that.

1:49:41David Sims:None of the shit's in the movie. None of that needs to be in the movie. I also love that we just like never see him interact with contemporaries, really, where you're just like, we don't know if he's bullied, if he is bullying, if he just keeps to himself, if he puts on like a sociable face at school that he doesn't when he's at home. Right, you gotta fill in all those gaps.

1:49:59Griffin Newman:You never know. I mean, Ebert's review is actually really clever where he's like, in an ordinary movie, there would be meetings with counselors, there would be stuff in the classrooms and all that. In this movie, they don't talk about Kevin. like nobody's talking about Kevin except for her saying we need to.

1:50:14Jia Tolentino:But she doesn't.

1:50:15Griffin Newman:But even she is mostly being ignored by John C. Reilly and we assume other people, but we don't really see that. I mean, I guess we see the nurse say something like, he's such a brave boy. Yeah. When he breaks his arm. And Tilda should just do it. She should do a jack off motion when she says, sucks. But you're right. Yeah.

1:50:36David Sims:No one is really talking about Kevin. Which is a shame because we were all put on notice.

1:50:42Griffin Newman:I know. Yeah, it's... You know, the first time I saw it, I didn't read the book. I avoided the book when it came out. Like, it was a time when I was certainly reading winners of... Yeah, winners of literary pride. I was old and pretentious enough to do that. And the subject matter was like, oh, I don't want it. And I like that he killed the rest of the family. Like, I'm sure that's the big audience gasp, right? I don't really remember anymore.

1:51:08Jia Tolentino:Yeah, that is wild.

1:51:10Griffin Newman:It's no good.

1:51:11Jia Tolentino:Yeah, it's no good.

1:51:13Griffin Newman:It's just no good. I don't like it. I don't like it.

1:51:17Jia Tolentino:It's really, it's also such a beautiful shot. It's so beautiful.

1:51:23Griffin Newman:It looks like a fucking painting of a saint that got killed. Yeah, it's giving Saint Sebastian. Yes, exactly. It's giving Saint Sebastian, that guy. And why did they do that to him? What did he do? I don't know. He liked Jesus? I assume.

1:51:37David Sims:He was leading a hot crustacean band, wasn't he? Here's the thing you need to understand. We now record this podcast often so many months ahead of schedule and out of order. This episode we're recording the same week. This one's coming out next week. Fast turnaround. I make an almost identical joke in some other episode that will probably come out in September. You know, I've been going to a lot of museums. I've been seeing a lot of St. Sebastian art.

1:51:59Jia Tolentino:Who gets arrowed in a different... What is it? Yeah, why was arrows coming? It was just a hot crustacean band joke.

1:52:05Griffin Newman:Oh, just a hot crustacean band. Something else made me think of a hot crustacean band. We'll find out. We'll find out. Who knows? You know, the pooping. I'm trying to think of anything, any Kevin stuff we haven't. Well, I have a question for you guys. Kevin behaviors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Major movements.

1:52:21Jia Tolentino:So, Lynn Ramsey for me is like, I had friends. I liked I, My Love. I like everything Lynn's ever done. But you kind of know, more than most directors who I think direct masterpieces, I would never like urge someone to see it who I don't know would, you know what I mean? A hundred percent. That's not a thing where it's like,

1:52:41Griffin Newman:you know what? I really dug Dime, My Love. I'm going to tell all my friends to go see that.

1:52:44Jia Tolentino:You would never tell all your friends to see Dime, My Love.

1:52:45David Sims:to communicate this whole miniseries is I think these movies are less punishing than they sound. Yeah. And I would encourage you to give them a shot, but also I will never judge anyone for being like, oh, come back. Not my tempo. Six weeks, I'm back. Yeah, exactly.

1:53:01Jia Tolentino:And you kind of know, like you kind of know when my friends were like I don't know if I'm gonna like that and I was sort of like I don't think you're gonna like it you know and that's cool like I'm not gonna try to convince you it's good or even pleasurable I find it hard to articulate what I find so pleasurable about the movies besides the fact that they you know like they conjure this kind of interior psychological texture in a way that not you know so few like what do you think I have had a hard time explaining to friends why this movie is good and why it's actually enjoyable. Why I actually enjoy it.

1:53:36Jia Tolentino:Like, what can you guys articulate? Chris might have to speak to that.

1:53:41Griffin Newman:Read this movie. Read her movies in general. They are beautifully made in an unsubtle way. And I'm not saying that she's an over-the-top filmmaker. I'm just saying her control of the frame is pretty unusual. And so it is just an aesthetic pleasure watching her movies, right? It is just straightforwardly awesome to see the kind of visuals she wants you to see. Would you agree with that? Yes. You know what I mean? That's a big part of it. Before we're getting to, yes, okay, J-Lo will be crawling towards you with a knife and you might be disturbed or whatever.

1:54:13Jia Tolentino:Is You Were Never Really Here pretty at all? Really pretty.

1:54:16Griffin Newman:Is it?

1:54:16Jia Tolentino:I mean, I love that movie. I've only seen it when it came out.

1:54:19Griffin Newman:It's arguably the prettiest one. It's so dark, right? But it's visually dark. It's less dark than you remember. I think you're thinking of...

1:54:25Jia Tolentino:I remember loving it, but I've never seen it again. It is my favorite.

1:54:28Griffin Newman:Griff will throw that movie on. So you really should speak to it. Yeah, but that is a movie. You throw it on? He throws that movie on. Okay, okay.

1:54:35David Sims:But that is, we'll talk about our length next week. That is a movie that for me is like unbelievably poetic even in how it's sort of depicting or more often just sort of like talking around or exploring the psychological angles of unfathomable things. I think it's a vibe. Right, and that's what she does. She's incredibly good at a vibe. I also think... Yeah, but it's... Yeah. This is my larger theory that every episode I feel like I'm taking a different strike at trying to get across. I keep saying this thing that people think is insane, which is that I find her movies very life-affirming. And what I find very life-affirming about them is that she understands how to depict the inner life or the internal subjective emotional and psychological experience of living through things we just don't want to fucking think about.

1:55:22David Sims:And I think part of what she's able to get at versus these books we're talking about, Adapted and Worst Hands just becomes a kind of like arm's length, emotionally punishing, look at how much this character is suffering thing. And I think what she's so good at is like showing you would still just be a person. You would just be a person living through this. And whether it's structured as a memory or whether it's structured like Morven Caller, where it's like a day by day thing, like part of what's funny about Morven Caller is the balance between the banality of some of the things she's going through and the intensity of the motions that she's not really processing.

1:55:58David Sims:And the same with this, you know? And I think especially in this one where it's so much dealing with a fictionalized version of the kind of true crime thing we're obsessed with. Kevin gives his whole fucking monologue about the world rotates around watching people like me on TV. In the 15 years since this movie has come out, that has become a million times more true. Like multiple industries are all basically balanced on people's bloodlust for this type of story. But it's usually in this very sensationalist way that is just presenting to you and pushing on you the most extreme facts in the most salacious way with the most kind of ominous.

1:56:42David Sims:what's the word I'm looking for? A very kind of like, this is the emotionally intense score and the slow zoom on the image. And it's just, can you imagine what a fucking nightmare? In a way that I think basically flattens there being any real human experience inside of those events. It turns it just into, can you imagine how terrible that would be? It turns it into like a scary story to tell you in the dark, except for grownups because it really happened. And now it's true crime shit. And like part of what this movie gets at is just like, well, if you're the person who raises a kid who goes on to commit this kind of like insane school shooting incident, it's like 16 years of your life.

1:57:27David Sims:And when you're on the other side of living through that, you still have to fucking go to the grocery store and buy shit. And then eat 12 eggs. Right.

1:57:35Jia Tolentino:And then you gotta eat 12 eggs.

1:57:37David Sims:And like her avoidance. I mean, that moment's really funny of like... How many eggs could I eat?

1:57:42Jia Tolentino:She's like, I'll take them. It's not 12. I'll take them all. I'll take them as it is. All 12 are broken. She's picking them out of her teeth.

1:57:49David Sims:That moment at the holiday party for the travel agency where the one guy who's sort of been nice to her at the office... Horrible. and is like flirting with her and trying to get her to dance. And he's like, you dumb bitch.

1:57:59Griffin Newman:I mean, hysterical that that guy's like, I think I'm gonna try it on with Tilda. Even depressed Tilda. I'm like, look, man, this is Tilda Swinton you're reckoning with here. Is there comfort in these bones for you? You know, like she looks like she just walked through like, you know, from another dimension. Like, come on. But it feels like

1:58:15David Sims:when you see these like screenshots of guys on dating apps who are like politely rejected. Yeah, right. Fuck you. You're not even hot. I would never even date a person like you. Where he just feels like, fuck, well, like, I'm a six and she's a ten. But she was responsible.

1:58:32Griffin Newman:But like school shooting gets her to like four.

1:58:33David Sims:Right. I mean, Jesus, right. I'd be doing her a favor. Yeah. And he just so quickly like flips out on her. That scene is like so ugly, but also funny in the absurdity of it.

1:58:46Griffin Newman:She's right. Lynn is exceptionally good at looking at the darkest things we can imagine. Yeah, it's like misery. a bit of fun with it.

1:58:52Jia Tolentino:Misery is kind of the subject of all. Yes. Like, kind of accidental misery is kind of the subject of her.

1:58:57David Sims:Having to actually live in the things that we don't even want to think about. Or if we think about it, we want to think about it only in the major incident, in the didactic ways.

1:59:05Jia Tolentino:That's, like, inherently sort of dehumanizing because it is categorizable or whatever. Right.

1:59:11David Sims:And she's not going to show you that shit. Yeah. Or focus on that shit. It's, like, implied. And it's, like, that scene tells you more than the idea of her, like, going home at night and crying, you know?

1:59:21Griffin Newman:Not to, you know, paint with the broad, broad Scottish people, but it's a cold, dark, oft-conquered country that, like, loves gallows humor, loves to, like, think about the sort of, like, nasty parts of the world in a funny way.

1:59:37Jia Tolentino:They're the best. I learned a new word from Scotland. I'm a fan of the Reddit that is like, what is it like to live there? And it's like a lot of, it's really good. It's often about remote places, really deeply my shit. and there was something about some corner of Scotland and I learned the word dreek. I love it.

1:59:56Griffin Newman:I don't know.

1:59:57Jia Tolentino:It's like apparently, I mean, you said you had a lot of Scottish listeners. I'm sorry.

2:00:01Griffin Newman:It's dark and wet.

2:00:03Jia Tolentino:No, I think it's like gray and wet. Dreek. Yeah, where it's like it won't, where it's cold and it's drizzly and it's freezing and just miserable.

2:00:13Griffin Newman:Relentlessly overcast, cold and drizzly. That's such a good word, dreek. That just sounds like the entirety of Britain. God bless it. I love that weather.

2:00:18Jia Tolentino:which is so good that there's a word

2:00:20Griffin Newman:three

2:00:21Jia Tolentino:r slash how is living there how what is it like to live there I think or how is living there maybe that is it

2:00:27David Sims:I tried searching for what is it like to live there you're right

2:00:30Jia Tolentino:that's more efficient and Reddit auto completed

2:00:33David Sims:with what is it like to have a girlfriend and what is it like I'm sure many Redditors are asking

2:00:39Griffin Newman:Scotland's my favorite place on earth I've already been

2:00:42Jia Tolentino:I want to go I've already been

2:00:44Griffin Newman:called out on the Reddit for not knowing how to pronounce like the names of various like neighborhoods in Glasgow. I'm sorry, guys. My accent is not... I'm not about to pretend that I can deliver a Scottish dialect perfectly. But the greatest vacation I ever took... My mom talks about it all the time. It's like, we moved to England, right? And then she's like, we're going to the Highlands. We're going to go to on vacation to Scotland. I'm probably 10 years old or whatever. I'm like, okay. Then we get to the train station. She's like, FYI, we sleep on this train. This is a sleeper train because it's so far north and I think my reaction as she describes it the age of 10 was basically like I was told I was taking the Polar Express to see Santa I was so happy that's your dream

2:01:26Jia Tolentino:it's so safe to sleep on a train

2:01:27Griffin Newman:especially when you're 10 and like you can just jump into a little bunk bed you know without it being like what the fuck is this like this isn't a real bed my room is on a wheel I love that his glowing recommendation of Scotland is that you can get there he took a sleeper train the Highlands being one of the most No, but that's just the thing. Then we took a sleeper train to Inverness, a wonderful city, stayed there, and then we went all over Scotland. We went to the Isle of the Sky, we went to Loch Ness, and we went to the, you know, all kinds of cool places. And like, as a kid, I just, I mean, I love that weather, love that landscape.

2:02:01Griffin Newman:I like the food. I like the food a lot.

2:02:03Jia Tolentino:Why have we not gotten like a David Lowery Loch Ness movie?

2:02:06David Sims:I'll text him right now. Actually, yeah, let's text him right now.

2:02:09Jia Tolentino:I just watched, when I was at Sundance and kind of depressed, Richard Lawson told me to watch, or I was talking about actually good kids movies, I mean, we'll talk, we have a long conversation to have about this on the side.

2:02:19Griffin Newman:And we're going to keep talking about it because her kids are only getting older.

2:02:21Jia Tolentino:The Cuaron Little Princess. That was Coloma's first movie cry. The best. The Crayal movie. It was her first movie cry and I found it so, and she was almost as, like, she was like, why do I feel so happy? But like, when she was, like, she was like, why do I feel so happy when I cry? I was like, girl. That was a huge, huge theater movie for me. When the dad is being pulled away in the rain and he finally remembers and then she's been yelling daddy and he remembers why. And they run together in the rain. I actually cried when the attic becomes transformed. Oh, sure. I weft at that scene. It's still my favorite of his movies.

2:02:58Griffin Newman:Unbelievable. It was such a Thunderball movie for me as a kid.

2:03:01Jia Tolentino:I had the same experience. It felt like... Yeah, it's unbelievable. The balloon. This is more sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than all the kids' movies I'm seeing. It still is. And when the balloon floats towards her in the study, you know, and then it suddenly, you know... I should show it.

2:03:13Griffin Newman:Bosh, baby. I'm sorry, fucking... Boss Baby. Boss Baby. Boss Baby. I don't see any dog. Can I do a clean pickup

2:03:20David Sims:so Ben can place it in the previous moments? Boss Baby. Great, there you go. I watched the David Lowery

2:03:26Jia Tolentino:Pete's Dragon last night for the first time. We all laid on the floor and watched it. And now I need a Loch Ness one for adults.

2:03:33David Sims:Huge question to part one. Have you ever considered making a Loch Ness movie?

2:03:36Jia Tolentino:I want that so bad.

2:03:38David Sims:Because there is, of course,

2:03:39Griffin Newman:the Loch Ness movie with Ted Danson and Kristen Scott Thomas. I saw it in theaters.

2:03:43Jia Tolentino:Yeah. It's very, very bad. Don't know what that is.

2:03:45Griffin Newman:I don't think it was even released in America. I think America was like, pass on that one.

2:03:50David Sims:I want a three-hour David Lowery Loch Ness. Is the Water Horse movie a Loch Ness movie,

2:03:54Griffin Newman:or is that a different feature? No, that's a Kelpie or whatever. It's a different kind of figure of Celtic folklore.

2:03:59David Sims:It's called Legend Story of the Water Horse.

2:04:02Griffin Newman:I don't know.

2:04:03David Sims:Or Story Legend of the Story.

2:04:06Griffin Newman:Loch Ness is very cool. That was cool. I wanted to go in. My parents were like, It's like fucking minus a million degrees. You can't go in that water. I was like, let's go. Let's swim, baby. Anyway, Scotland's great. Oh, right, right. But of course, this movie's American. We were talking about why we like these movies.

2:04:24Jia Tolentino:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why we like it. They're like impossible to convince anyone to watch.

2:04:26Griffin Newman:I would love her to make another Scottish movie, actually, because she hasn't since Rat Catcher. I mean, Morven Caller, I guess, is Scottish, but like it's mostly not set there. Like, I'd love her to go back there. I have no idea what her, you know.

2:04:38Jia Tolentino:God, what if it's the Scottish vampire? What were you going to say about it? I don't know. I was actually wondering because I like the only I mean, I'm inarticulate about like I I was just like they're they're so good. And either you think the movies are masterpieces or you're like, I not for me. Yes. The simple thing of like no one else. It's it's you're delivered something in a package that you'll never get anywhere else in any way that's remotely close to the way she's doing it. She is one of that alone. She's so unbelievably one of one.

2:05:09David Sims:I would argue she basically has her own language. You can see certain influences, but there's not even like Lynne Ramsey runoff filmmakers. I mean, we're arguing, like Barry Jenkins has talked about how important Ratcatcher was for him. And you see some of her language in Moonlight in particular, but I think all of his work, but it's very much turned into something different and that's just one of the pieces. She exists.

2:05:33Jia Tolentino:Nothing ever feels anything like it.

2:05:35David Sims:No, and she arrived fully formed and she's been able to take multiple different pieces of material, work in different genres, all filtered through her identity. I also think, I mean, I'm every episode fighting to figure out how to verbalize this thing that has been like 10 years of my friends being like, why do you fucking rewatch that movie all the time? Movies that feel like fundamental one-time only watches. And I, you know, in like people trying to write cultural studies on the rise of true crime shit and like the endless power of SVU and everything. It's like it releases some tension to watch the stories about the worst things possible that you live in fear of, right?

2:06:16David Sims:I think a lot of people have that relationship to crime books, podcasts, TV shows, movies, what have you. Exactly. And those are the fact-based versions of it where it's like, and now we're presenting to you the solved case, it's over. And for me, I have no interest in living in that shit. I do find some kind of relief in watching someone explore the emotional dynamics of those things. Because if anything, that's what scares me more. And I feel like when there are horrible tragedies, rather they're large scale or small scale that I read about in the news, my question is always, what the fuck does that person do the next day?

2:06:54David Sims:Like, how do you fucking wake up the next morning and decide what you want to eat for breakfast?

2:06:57Griffin Newman:I know what you're talking about. That sort of, that thought you want to dismiss of like, okay, can I put myself in that person's shoes? And then usually you're like, I can't.

2:07:05David Sims:I don't want to. I can't like live there. And she can place you in that in a way that doesn't feel like an endurance test.

2:07:13Jia Tolentino:I also think it might be, it might have, the reason I like her so much is, might have something to do with the fact that, like, you describe these movies from the outside. You're like, a hitman in the worst day of it. You know, you're like, what? And then, you know, like, a school shooter mom? Like, what? And then you watch it and it's a, you know, it's like kind of a, there's some kind of incandescent quality to it. and also a real severity in the narrative editing. There's something about it that... There's a rigor. Yeah, that's so, so rigorous in some ways. And then it is so loose in others that this thing that...

2:07:46Jia Tolentino:But I think the thing I enjoy about it is almost impossible just to describe the contrast between what these movies sound like and what they feel like to watch if you're a person of a specific temperament.

2:07:58Griffin Newman:I recommend To Die My Love to any friend of mine I had who likes movies, right? And I don't mean like other film critics. I mean like anyone I know who's like, you know what? I'll see anything weird. I can handle it. And they all largely came out being like, I had a good time with that. Or like, that was interesting. Like no one came out being like, why the fuck did you tell me to watch that movie? But right. This and others of hers are not movies I recommend to just anyone. Like, oh, it's good. You should see it because it's good. No, I mean, not everyone's going to vibe with this.

2:08:28David Sims:You know, it's a shame that like retroactively, retroactively, Alice Sebald feels like completely toxic because the Peter Jackson movie is such a fucking wipeout that in another universe, she could have just made a second Lovely Bones movie for five million dollars.

2:08:46Griffin Newman:The Lovely Bones sucks ass. Fuck that thing. I mean, maybe she makes something. You know who's in that movie? Mark Wahlberg. Oh, no. What was happening there?

2:08:52Jia Tolentino:It's like deeply dark sided and I've never seen it. It's so weird.

2:08:55David Sims:It's even stranger when you just remember that it's like he cast Gosling. Gosling was like 25 the character was supposed to be in his late 30s married to Rachel Weisz

2:09:06Jia Tolentino:and who's the girl?

2:09:07David Sims:Saoirse Ronan right

2:09:09Jia Tolentino:and it was like

2:09:10David Sims:what's up with Saoirse Ronan and these sort of

2:09:13Jia Tolentino:why isn't Saoirse Ronan in a fucking Lynn Ramsey movie? I don't if Lynn Ramsey made more movies

2:09:19Griffin Newman:I feel like she would have worked with her by now because yes

2:09:21David Sims:and still might happen

2:09:23Griffin Newman:yeah

2:09:23Jia Tolentino:like all of like the exact guilt innocence sort of

2:09:26Griffin Newman:exactly I mean that's what Saoirse has been good at since she was a child is like taking on those kinds of roles. Yes.

2:09:33David Sims:It's like Gosling post half Nelson. He's so self-conscious about being too young for the character that he just chugs ice cream until he gains 50 pounds. For lovely both? Yes. And grows a big burly beard and he shows up to rehearsal and Peter Jackson's like, this is not how I envision the character. Why do you look like this? Fires him. They offer the role to Mark Wahlberg on a Friday. He shows up on a Monday. He basically casts him off of how good he was in The Departed, which does not feel like a one-to-one and then Mark Wahlberg shows up, puts on like a fucking 70s wig and is like, you killed my daughter?

2:10:04David Sims:Hey, where's my daughter? Where are my lovely bones? I surprised my daughter did. And the movie's a disaster.

2:10:10Griffin Newman:It's a terrible movie.

2:10:11Jia Tolentino:His name is Jack Salmon.

2:10:12Griffin Newman:Oh,

2:10:13Jia Tolentino:right,

2:10:13Griffin Newman:because she's Susie Salmon. She's Susie Salmon, of course. Jack Salmon? Hey, Jack Salmon, you want some salmon? She's my daughter. She's dead. I'll sell you some salmon. They smoked it like rocks. I'm married to Rachel Weisz. She's a total fox. 2011 Rachel Weisz. Nice work if you can get it. This film came out 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Most of her films go there. It was the first time it was in competition, though. Okay. In the main. And I loved, you know, you know who was the jury president that year? Hmm. No. Palme d 'Or goes to Tree of Life. Okay. Terrence Malick. Jury president was De Niro.

2:10:46Griffin Newman:Wow. Who is obviously not a stupid person. Yeah. For one, he doesn't like our president very much.

2:10:53David Sims:He's not afraid to say it. Excuse me. If he felt any negative emotions towards the president, I'm sure he would let me know anytime he was at an award show in front of a microphone.

2:11:01Griffin Newman:But for two, anytime Robert De Niro is interviewed about anything, he's like, yeah, pretty good. And so just imagining him like hosting, like he's like, okay, you are the president of the jury. And he's like, I thought this movie was pretty good. What does everyone else think? Like it's just not saying anything.

2:11:14David Sims:Just 20 consecutive pretty goods.

2:11:16Griffin Newman:Like, do you think he was like discoursing with whoever was on the jury? Like, you know, Olivier Assayas and Uma Thurman, Johnny Toe. Jude Law?

2:11:25David Sims:Fun group. Major update. David Lowery texted back. I said, have you ever considered making a Loch Ness Monster movie? If not, why not? Two-part question. His response was, had to give this movie time to recede in the public consciousness. And then he texted the poster for The Water Horse Legend of the Deep, the movie I was just joking about.

2:11:44Jia Tolentino:Well, his Pete's Dragon, my five-year-old, has never, like... I was like, this is actually such a good lesson in dramatic tension because she can watch anything. I watched Insidious Upstate with Andrew and a friend.

2:11:58Griffin Newman:That was after an hour of texting with Andrew about what horror movie to watch, by the way.

2:12:02Jia Tolentino:And thank you for leading us towards Insidious. And we were like, is that the one with the red guy? And we're like, yeah, it's the red guy. Yeah, it's the red guy. And then she saw the red guy. She was like, what's that guy? And she talked about it all week. She still really wants to know what the red guy is. She's a fearless. She likes sensation. She likes conflict. She likes violence. She's a little freak.

2:12:19Griffin Newman:My daughter is not like that at all.

2:12:21Jia Tolentino:She wants intense. Like her mother, She seeks intensity. And in Pete's dragon, as soon as Pete and the dragon are separated, she became physically apoplectic because she was like, I think I need to stop watching this because I think something might happen that might make me really sad for a really long time. Right.

2:12:37Griffin Newman:She's not upset about a villain being scary. She's upset about something emotionally wrenching. And it was so emotionally powerful to her immediately. It's also really... That's a good movie where you feel for... It's a really good movie, yeah. Even though it's also read for going like, there's a dragon. and you're like, this is crazy.

2:12:53David Sims:I think it was Joe Reed's tweet that I quote all the time of, Robert Redford's really great in Pete's Dragon, but it was a little bit mean of them to not let him know he was in a movie. And just imagine old man Robert Redford, there are dragons in this forest. And he's just driving.

2:13:09Jia Tolentino:He's like, they're like, please stop. And he's like, nope.

2:13:11Griffin Newman:Just catching him on traffic cameras. So yeah, film premiered in competition, got no awards. it's kind of a hot can year but gets good reviews and like we said Tilda gets sad, BAFTA and Golden Globes it's not like I don't think this was ever really like a you know major critics but I feel like it was like a minor critics favorite like it got like very good notices and attention

2:13:42David Sims:there's also now people got it

2:13:45Griffin Newman:people were not like what a And it felt like it was weirdly almost uncontroversial. Like for like such a quote unquote hot button movie, no one was like, this is sick shit. How could you make this? Yeah. People were pretty compelled by it.

2:13:58Jia Tolentino:Amazing feat.

2:13:59Griffin Newman:And again, fucking studio execs see it and they're like, yeah, The Flash, Creed and Sparebone. Line them up. Let's put this lady in Doctor Strange.

2:14:11Jia Tolentino:Is The Flash sinister?

2:14:12David Sims:No, The Flash is like joyful and goofy. He's like the young goofball comic relief. That's what's so weird about it, but Snyder is so intense-minded that clearly even the comic relief character in his movie needed to have, like, demon eyes.

2:14:27Jia Tolentino:Is Ezra Miller this good in every movie?

2:14:31Griffin Newman:Um, I've never been a... It's interesting.

2:14:35Jia Tolentino:Because they're really good in this movie.

2:14:38Griffin Newman:It's a very, like... It's a skillful performance or a skillful use of him or whatever. I think it's laid on a little thick in the restaurant scene,

2:14:45Jia Tolentino:but otherwise, I think it's pretty much perfect.

2:14:48David Sims:Yeah, I think this was kind of, beyond being friends with them at this time, it was like amongst like the young, early 20s, late teens actors in New York City. It just sort of felt like, of course, Ezra's going to get this. This is like the obvious. This is designed. This is the perfect role. Right, the look was so much of it and whatever. But it felt like Ezra had had a background that was mostly comedy. and then because of the look was getting cast in these intense, like, auteur-driven movies where it's like, I can get a lot of mileage out of a close-up of Ezra looking at something. And then it felt like this bifurcation of the funny side and the just intense side.

2:15:28David Sims:And I would say, like, the Fantastic Beasts movies... That's all just intense. Just crying. What if we amp the intense up to 8 ,000 and you're, like, shivering and it becomes really overdone? What are these movies? Insane. They're so weird. They're so good, dude.

2:15:41Jia Tolentino:You're describing something incomprehensible to me.

2:15:43Griffin Newman:Those movies are incomprehensible.

2:15:44Jia Tolentino:crank up the intensity what are you talking about because the whole thing

2:15:46Griffin Newman:about those movies is that the main character ostensibly Newt Scamander played by Eddie Redmayne is an introvert who doesn't want to like be doing anything is this the one

2:15:55Jia Tolentino:that Johnny Depp's in

2:15:56Griffin Newman:yes yes indeed

2:15:59David Sims:in the first movie the villain is played by Colin Farrell he's quite good in a pretty fun performance and you're like oh awesome great Colin Farrell's gonna be the villain across these movies at the end of the first movie there's a twist where they're like this isn't Colin Farrell he's wearing a magic disguise They wave a wand in front of his face and he turns into Johnny Depp with like one albino eye and like a Van Dyke and like pointy fucking white Brian Grazer hair. And you're like, this is the villain for the next fucking six movie? Get ready for this guy. The audience like fucking sighs in real time.

2:16:34Griffin Newman:A gigantic win for Colin Farrell that he got to piece out.

2:16:37Jia Tolentino:I feel like I could develop a real sort of narcotic sort of hypnosis relationship with these movies.

2:16:43David Sims:Then the second one is called Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald. Who in the books is the not, is like the wizard Hitler who predates Harry. And now they're like, we're going to show him. He's in the second movie. He's the title character. Everyone's like, boo. They greenlight third movie, recast him with Mads Mikkelsen. And just give Mads Mikkelsen the Johnny Depp look. Yeah. Which sucks. No, they don't give him the look. They don't?

2:17:09Griffin Newman:No, they completely dropped the look. I thought they gave him the look. Nope, he looks like Mads Mikkelsen. No blonde hair, no weird eye. He just looks like Mads Mikkelsen. It is, they do not address it at all. The look truly feels like... And obviously, Mads Mikkelsen's like 15 years younger, too. They do no work on it. They're just like, it's fucking Mads Mikkelsen now. Who cares? The look feels like a theater camp game

2:17:27David Sims:where they're like, you have 30 seconds in the prop closet and come out and your character is whatever you look like.

2:17:36Griffin Newman:It's only interesting to someone like me who cares about how these franchises just sputter out and die. It's not interesting. I would recommend it to nobody. Yeah, okay. But get stoned and read the Wikipedia. It's fine. I mean, if you want me to come over, and I can just sort of commentate.

2:17:54David Sims:The other thing I was going to say about this movie, and it being kind of weirdly uncontroversial, is we've finally, in the last 10 years, the pendulum has swung. But for decades, there was basically a thing where Best Actress rarely lined up with Best Picture at all. That the movies that were like driven by women first and foremost as a lead character were seen as like performance showcases. Right. Not best. We're not really considered in other categories. And so it makes sense for like a smaller distributor to buy a movie like this and just be like, we are just laser focused on best actress campaign.

2:18:30David Sims:Of course. I mean, you have a beloved person like Tilda and she's giving a like great performance like you've never seen her before. the public knows what they're buying and it doesn't need to be a major crossover hit.

2:18:42Griffin Newman:But it is interesting that there was no Ezra campaign, really. Let's do the box office game. This film came out December 9th, 2011. Limited release, obviously. Definitely saw it opening weekend. I gotta be honest with you. This is such a weird top five. Just in that now I think of December, that there would be kind of serious stuff in the box office and this is just like a bunch of trash. 2011? 2011. Is... Go ahead. Is this the weekend The Tourist comes out? No, this is not The Tourist. So number one is a holiday movie sort of geared towards a holiday that's coming up the end of December.

2:19:23David Sims:Christmas, I would have to guess, is the holiday. You have guessed wrong, my friend. I believe this is a movie I just recently saw in theaters again. It is one of the most demented movies. If you saw this film in theaters, then I am calling 911. one. I saw it in theaters on the day that this film commemorates. Regal was weirdly, they put it back in theaters just for that one day. If I'm correct, I have to be correct about this. Gary Marshall's New Year's Eve.

2:19:44Griffin Newman:You are correct.

2:19:45David Sims:I am bumping up to the top of the want list. Gary Marshall holiday trilogy on Patreon.

2:19:50Griffin Newman:Yeah, those movies are insane. Have you ever seen Valentine's Day or Mother's Day?

2:19:54Jia Tolentino:You could never get me to watch. Mother's Day should get stoned

2:19:58David Sims:in Waterfall 3, Gary Marshall.

2:19:59Griffin Newman:Mother's Day would, you would vibe with if you were on drugs.

2:20:01Jia Tolentino:The wigs on the posters alone are too scary. The wigs? They can hurt me.

2:20:05Griffin Newman:The wig that Julia Roberts wears in Mother's Day is she should sue whoever made it. Do you know what it is? I don't.

2:20:12David Sims:Why would I know what it is? Because you're going to fucking laugh so hard when I tell you this. A lot of major actresses write into their contracts that they get to keep their wigs. Right. Because wigs are so fucking expensive to be made well. And especially if they're fitted to their head, they're like, I could reuse it on a lower budget production or whatever. It is the wig from the cutaway to, in Notting Hill, her being in a shitty sci-fi movie.

2:20:34Griffin Newman:Oh, right. That's what it is. Just to give you a reminder of her. It's the space wig

2:20:38David Sims:from the fake Notting Hill movie that she repurposed. Well, why'd she go and do that? That's funny. Yeah, sure.

2:20:45Jia Tolentino:Have they stopped making, like, I'm uncomfortable. Well, Gary Marshall died.

2:20:48David Sims:Yeah, that was kind of a brutal hit for the franchise.

2:20:51Jia Tolentino:Yeah, but, like, weren't there other...

2:20:53David Sims:Yes, you're right.

2:20:54Jia Tolentino:The people just tried to, like, even... There's definitely...

2:20:57David Sims:The two think like a man movies, what to expect when you're expecting. Right. The kind of like,

2:21:01Griffin Newman:let's get a bunch of name actors. They don't have to work very much because it's a vignette movie. And we'll just write. We'll just kind of like make an easy 60 mil. I've never liked one of them.

2:21:10Jia Tolentino:They're all fascinating. They're all awful. But even like Love Actually or whatever, you know, Love Actually sucks. It's a satanic movie. It's horrible. It's the Kevin of movies. Yeah, yeah.

2:21:19David Sims:Yeah. It is interesting. That entire trend was like, can we like, it's a mad, mad world, towering inferno rom-coms.

2:21:26Jia Tolentino:But no one's ever liked any of them except for Love Actually, too, right? It's like they made so many of them. No one has ever... But people will watch them.

2:21:32David Sims:Yeah, almost all of them were successful.

2:21:33Jia Tolentino:I guess this is number one in the box office.

2:21:35David Sims:Yeah. People will watch them. The Gary Marshall... This one had a major drop-off from Valentine's Day, which was a big hit.

2:21:40Griffin Newman:Valentine's Day, it had Taylor Swift in it. It was about Valentine's Day. This has a big fucking cast there. I know, but nobody gives a shit. Everyone wants to go... Like on Valentine's Day, you want to go on a date and see the movie called Valentine's Day. On New Year's Eve, not that many people are like, oh, there's an ensemble comedy.

2:21:54David Sims:Do you know what kind of the central plot thread, the thing that ties the whole movie together is? Is it New Year's Eve? That New Year's is happening? Hilary Swank, a two-time Academy Award winner, Hilary Swank plays the woman who's in charge of dropping the ball.

2:22:08Jia Tolentino:Oh, that's actually good to me.

2:22:09David Sims:I mean, that is where I would start. If I were like, all right, how do I write a New Year's Eve movie? And at like 8.30 p.m., one of the bulbs dies. Uh-oh. That's good.

2:22:19Jia Tolentino:I would love a real-time sort of like TikTok, like we got 95 minutes and Snooki's in the ball. It's that,

2:22:26David Sims:but then it like cuts away to Katherine Heigl as like a pastry chef catering a record label party. Yeah, we don't need that. Jon Bon Jovi's her ex-boyfriend who's a rock star who isn't Jon Bon Jovi.

2:22:36Jia Tolentino:No, I want speed, but with the New Year's Eve ball. This movie is arranged.

2:22:41David Sims:And I will not ruin for you the twist of who ends up showing up to repair the New Year's Eve ball, but it's the greatest cameo you could possibly drop.

2:22:49Griffin Newman:Is it Hector Alexander?

2:22:50David Sims:Yeah, absolutely. You nailed it. I just nailed that. I didn't even have to look. My name is Kaminsky. I dropped the ball.

2:22:56Griffin Newman:So New Year's Eve is opening to$13 million. So pretty, pretty poor. Number two at the box office also new this week is a... Valentine's open to$50. You know, I know. The drop off is insane. But also they're not opening it on New Year's Eve. Like they fucked up in every way. Number two is a comedy. It's being released after I think being sitting on the shelf for a couple of years. Okay. Interesting. You have a lore with this movie, but I can't remember what it is. your sister auditioned for it or something. In 2011. Is it The Sitter? The Sitter. David Gordon Green's The Sitter starring Jonah Hill but was filmed a couple years prior or whatever.

2:23:32Griffin Newman:It was sort of a post-Superbad project that comes out like four or five years later.

2:23:37David Sims:It's not that extreme, but it comes out after

2:23:41Griffin Newman:Moneyball.

2:23:42David Sims:I was going to say after Jump Street, but it's still pre-Jump Street wait.

2:23:46Griffin Newman:Right, right, right. It doesn't actually come out after but he's already debuted his name. look.

2:23:51David Sims:It's not a good movie.

2:23:52Griffin Newman:No. Have you seen The Sitter with Jonah Hill? Certainly have not.

2:23:56David Sims:It was one of those things where it was like the hottest fucking script in Hollywood and you read it and you were like this is so fucking funny. And then the second you have actual kids on screen doing it, you're like now I just kind of feel bad for the kids. Like reading it, you're like oh he's cursing at these kids and the kids are doing fucked up shit. It's R-rated adventures and babysitting. And then you watch it

2:24:14Griffin Newman:and you're like this is a bummer. Disgusting. Number three of the box office has It's been number one for a couple weeks. It's made$259 million. It's a sequel. It's a big franchise of the moment. Is it Potter? No. It is a... We've discussed this film on our Patreon. It is a fucked up movie. It's pretty good in my opinion, but it is fucked up. It's not a Twilight. It sure is. It is? Yeah. Is it Breaking Dawn Part 2? No, no. Breaking Dawn Part 1. A very fucked up movie. Have you seen The Twilights?

2:24:48Jia Tolentino:Never.

2:24:49Griffin Newman:It's a pregnancy movie. It is funny, Gia, how you are sometimes just like, that's just not any of my business. Like Twilight, you're just like, I don't need to be part of that.

2:24:58Jia Tolentino:There are so... I never... I also don't watch things that I think will be bad. I don't watch anything that I think will be bad.

2:25:06Griffin Newman:Right. You don't... Like, I will text your husband. I am going to watch all of the, you know, name of her, what's the paranormal activities. And he's like, I'm going to do this right along with you. And I'm starting tonight. And he's like, just bought him.

2:25:17Jia Tolentino:Yeah, yeah. He's locked in. And he's put the paranormal diaper on.

2:25:22Griffin Newman:I'm like, he's not like, are any of them supposed to be bad? He's like, we, the, the, the idea is just out here on paternity leave watching bad moms on Netflix.

2:25:30Jia Tolentino:Like he's like watched all of them. And I'm like, and I just, I, I, I either, we have got too much information in our damn mind. You know, I'm not objecting.

2:25:39Griffin Newman:You are, you are allowed to stare at a wall. You are allowed to let things pass you by. I will say I only saw this movie after my you know after having children Breaking Dark Part Warden I had never seen

2:25:51Jia Tolentino:where she gives birth to the crazy ass it's the one where she's pregnant yeah it's the one that ends with birth I know about Renesmee we all know about Renesmee and where they have

2:26:00Griffin Newman:this kind of tricky thing to thread of like the baby has to look mature and lock eyes with a person and they totally land that definitely isn't really weird at all but the whole movie is basically just her being sick and wanting to die because she's got a vampire in her womb. And it's a pretty good movie about pregnancy. About what it's like to be pregnant is how I feel about it.

2:26:19David Sims:You, I support you doing whatever you want in your life, but I will say, I think time has been kind to the Twilight films. No, no, I've heard this. You find them interesting. I will watch them

2:26:29Jia Tolentino:at some point.

2:26:29David Sims:And with Distance now, like a decade on from their like peak, you know, kind of cultural like relevancy, it is wild to watch them and just go like, this was the most popular thing in the world. Yeah, yeah. And all of them are demented.

2:26:43Jia Tolentino:I'm always waiting for like a just see. This is like I kind of am trying to munch house in myself. Like clearly I have sort of a new parent's desire to be, you know, under medical care, but for nothing serious, you know, so that I can finally. Just commit me. Just like I'm in a bed. I want to be committed. Like I want someone to be. We need to talk about Gia and just get, you know, get me like a nice 72 hour. But what I want for the what my dream scenario for the Twilight movies. Well, actually, my friends and I, two of my girlfriends sometimes will, I have one of their college bongs on my mantel.

2:27:15David Sims:What, any particular? Okay, just a giant bong.

2:27:18Jia Tolentino:Just the kind of bong that used to hit every day in college. And you're like, I can't believe I used to live like that.

2:27:22Griffin Newman:How did I have the lung capacity to breathe that much air, let alone smoke? It is crazy as a former pothead.

2:27:30Jia Tolentino:Fucking ice every day. Hitting a bong first thing in the morning.

2:27:35Griffin Newman:It's so crazy. Going to class. It's so crazy.

2:27:37Jia Tolentino:But so we do it like once a month. And we're on the Avid. We watched Avatar. We're going to do the way of water. That's right.

2:27:43Griffin Newman:I've been hearing about this.

2:27:44Jia Tolentino:We're going to lay on the floor and watch Avatar the way of water. And it's either going to be that's where we're watching Twilight or I'm going to be on a work trip to the other side of the globe. I'm going to have a clean 17 hours. Yeah. A couple of wines and watch all of them in a row.

2:27:57David Sims:If Delta has them all and you could just knock them out.

2:28:00Jia Tolentino:Yeah. But that's my dream scenario. I'm going to watch them all at once.

2:28:03David Sims:Let the Zinfandel flow.

2:28:05Jia Tolentino:Yeah. Yeah. yeah number four

2:28:07Griffin Newman:the box office Griffin is a film I'm sure you were deeply invested in it's a reboot of a popular property is this a

2:28:15David Sims:joke deeply invested no I'm sure you were deeply invested it was some stupid shit I care about yes is it baby shit no

2:28:23Griffin Newman:it's good it's good it's good stuff I don't I'm mean about it but I have strong opinions about it certainly yeah of course is it

2:28:31David Sims:the Muppets

2:28:31Griffin Newman:it's the Muppets Jason Siegel Megan the Muppets

2:28:35David Sims:yeah

2:28:35Griffin Newman:the Muppets with Jason Segel and Amy Adams. Yeah. A solid hit.

2:28:39David Sims:Yeah, a movie that I had a very, very... You were... I had a lot of emotions tied up in it. Whereas I saw it and was like, that's pretty good.

2:28:47Griffin Newman:I kind of wanted it to be better. Like, that was like my immediate reaction.

2:28:50David Sims:Yeah, I think the following one is significantly better. Right. And it has a little bit erased the Muppets in my mind. At the time, I would say my relationship to it was like, if suddenly it looked like the Mets had a good lineup. Right. And you were like,

2:29:07Griffin Newman:can I fucking,

2:29:08David Sims:can I start feeling like this might actually, the next 10 years won't be punishing?

2:29:14Griffin Newman:I assume you don't care about the Muppets, Gia.

2:29:16Jia Tolentino:Whenever you guys play this guy, I've never seen any of the movies.

2:29:19Griffin Newman:Number five of the box office is an animated film. Never seen it. It's a CG film from a company that prior to this was not, from a company that's not famous. It's an Aardman film. It's an Aardman.

2:29:31David Sims:Is it Arthur Christmas? It is Arthur Christmas. Anytime I talk about Christmas movies, I like. Some people pop up in the Reddit and they're like, where's the respect for Arthur Christmas? I have never liked it.

2:29:40Jia Tolentino:What are you talking about?

2:29:41Griffin Newman:It's an animated film. James McAvoy plays Arthur Christmas. Yes. Who is... I have no fucking idea.

2:29:49David Sims:Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, maybe. It's animated? It's animated. They're all playing people?

2:29:53Griffin Newman:Yes. It looks like Jim Broadbent is playing Santa. No relationship to Arthur.

2:29:57David Sims:Arthur is one of the sons.

2:29:59Griffin Newman:No relationship to horny old Arthur.

2:30:01David Sims:Okay. Right. Arthur is like Twinkie Santa's son, and then Hugh Laurie plays like militaristic Santa's son, and there's maybe another one. This is what I don't like. It's in this subgenre I would call the Christmas industrial complex, which is like, hey, you know Christmas, that magical shit kids believe in that doesn't make any sense? What if we start explaining it with like business-like precision? Yeah. It turns out Christmas is a job

2:30:24Griffin Newman:that people have. Right. Santa's got

2:30:26David Sims:a fucking app, and they work in a... I hate this shit. It is the least noxious version of this, which like I put Fred Claus and like Red One into just like cursed bullshit territory. But I still just kind of reject it.

2:30:41Jia Tolentino:Arthur Christmas.

2:30:42David Sims:It's like one girl's letter to Santa gets lost and Arthur's the son with her. Like, you'll never do Christmas because his brothers like figured out how to turn Christmas into like, I don't know, fucking Black Rock or whatever.

2:30:53Jia Tolentino:Wait, so the joke is that he's like the fail son named Arthur Christmas?

2:30:55David Sims:Yes, and he's like Twinkie and he wears an oversized sweater and then he like decides to save Christmas for this one girl.

2:31:01Griffin Newman:I better not have to watch this movie eventually.

2:31:03David Sims:It's like, it's all like, what if Elon Musk went in and like doged the North Pole? Like all these movies have that attitude of like, certainly there's a more like economic way to streamline this process. I'm like, I don't know. How about he's got fucking like reindeer and he flies around, wiggles his nose and goes down. Who gives a shit? Let Santa deliver presents.

2:31:22Jia Tolentino:Do you hear about Christmas? Let him eat cookies. I'm a huge Grinch. I'm a huge Grinch about all holidays. I've never... We don't do presents in my house. We don't do a tree. I've got two children. Don't do a tree or Christmas presents. It's amazing that you've resisted this. My kids are spoiled upper middle class fucking children in Brooklyn. They don't need any more shit.

2:31:39Griffin Newman:Your kids who are wonderful and beautiful, they want for nothing. They're very... They want for nothing. Why would I get the...

2:31:45Jia Tolentino:Our friend suggested to Andrew, my partner, that he get me a Kindle for Christmas because I'm reading entire books on my phone to break myself of reading article on phone.

2:31:53Griffin Newman:I'm doing the exact same thing interesting the Kindle's amazing

2:31:55Jia Tolentino:I had one in Peace Corps and I fucking hated it now I love my Kindle so just anytime you have

2:31:59David Sims:the impulse to read an article you go back to whatever book you're in the middle of and to look at app or whatever I'm just like no I'll just load the Kindle app

2:32:05Jia Tolentino:except for Reddit what is it like to live here or whatever how is it here or whatever you actually and Andrew was like I know Amazon's bad and Andrew was like we don't get presents in my house I can't get her like that's how deep it is how do I get her a Kindle I don't think I've ever I hate Christmas I don't like holidays I don't like enforced anything fair

2:32:22Griffin Newman:Yeah, you don't like, right, enforce joy. I don't like enforce anything. Today is the day we will.

2:32:25Jia Tolentino:I have to be freely chosen.

2:32:26Griffin Newman:Look, I never had a Christmas treat till I, you know, married a Christmas lover. So it's new to me. I am a Christmas lover.

2:32:33Jia Tolentino:Well, I'm like, this is traditionally women's labor and that's not something I'm going to take part in.

2:32:36David Sims:I mean, I'm like a Christmas loving Jew. I basically no longer... I'm a Christmas loving Jew. I'm a Christmas loving Jew.

2:32:43Jia Tolentino:Sounds like a Creedence Barebones song. It is a Creedence Barebones revival. He's a Christmas loving Jew.

2:32:49David Sims:I think Ben is the only person I received a Christmas present from this year. That's not true. My girlfriend got me a lovely present. Oh, that's nice. But my family is shattered. Your family's being a little,

2:33:00Griffin Newman:it's a little dramatic right now. My family's being... Family's kind of like an April A24 release. It's the drama. It is, in fact.

2:33:08David Sims:But that's been like several years in the making now. So like, I no longer celebrate Christmas in any meaningful way. And yet, I am such a sucker for like...

2:33:17Jia Tolentino:A feeling of warmth. The pop culture Christmas. What did you get him?

2:33:19Griffin Newman:I got him a Terminator shirt. That's so nice. The thing about Griff is, I don't buy Griff Christmas presents. I don't really buy anyone Christmas presents. So it's no personal. I do get you Christmas presents. You do. You love to give a present, which is great. But you strike me as a pretty easy person to buy a gift for. Because there's a lot of like, you know, goofy pop culture shit I see where I'm like, the only question would be is, does Griff already? I'm just going to say.

2:33:43Jia Tolentino:Fun person to buy like eBay. Yeah, like odd trinkets.

2:33:47David Sims:Would it surprise you that that is often the risk that most times I'm handed a gift. You might already have the preface is I hope you don't already have this. Yeah, it's like,

2:33:54Griffin Newman:look, this is a 1970s kinder toy, but you might have it. Like, you know.

2:34:00David Sims:There's no kind of thing it isn't possible I might have if connected in any way to my interest. It was a great shirt. I got told Fly's shirt the other day while wearing it.

2:34:10Griffin Newman:There you go. I mean, who doesn't love the Terminator? It's a really good shirt. Sure. We gotta post a pic. I also just wanna say Sims. I know better than to get you a gift. Yeah, there's a box of presents. Because there's already a sort of box. My house is not of presents. Seeking additions right now in terms of goods.

2:34:31David Sims:I just want to call out that one of the things in that box is a Lego X-Mansion. Yeah, I bought that. That you bought for yourself 18 months ago. And then to help cushion the blow of you bringing this giant Lego set home, you also bought a Lego set for your daughter and wife and all three are still in this box.

2:34:46Griffin Newman:My daughter's not ready for Legos yet, but we're getting close. But now I have these babies and I can't let them near the Legos. I got your daughter the Duplo set, though. Yeah, well, that's a huge... But these aren't Duplos. She does the Duplos all the time. This is Legos. My daughter can probably handle Legos now. I don't know. I think she can handle Legos. But the problem is the boys, you know, those will go right in her mouth.

2:35:02Jia Tolentino:Well, the real problem is that she's going to ask you for help and you're like, that's not what this is about. This is not what this is about.

2:35:08Griffin Newman:I am resigned to it'll be a year to two of me building Legos for her. I get...

2:35:13David Sims:I think also basically from the moment she was born have said like, I love Lego. The second she's into Lego, I'm going to become Lego. Andrew loves Lego. Well, Andrew is an architect.

2:35:22Griffin Newman:He's an architect. Yeah, it's a real thing. But I love Legos and I can't wait to do Legos. What my daughter will do self-directed the most is draw. That's the thing where you can really just like leave her drawing. And so clearly that's where she's going to go. Like that's where her brain is. Legos is a little more fiddly. She may or may not care. I don't know. Are you going to be creative with Legos? You totally can. That's what I would do. I would make little soap operas happen. that was my thing baby I didn't care like I would build a spaceship but then I would be like what's going on with everyone who lives on the spaceship like I wouldn't build a very elaborate spaceship two Legos are going

2:35:51Jia Tolentino:closer to each other it was a lot of that

2:35:53Griffin Newman:except one's like a wizard and one's a robot because it's like whatever I've got rattling around and the robot's the wizard superior so it's not really clear this is a weird dynamic you know we need to talk about robot number six at the box office is Hugo a good movie yeah number seven is The Descendants kind of a bad movie a movie I've never cared for Number eight is Happy Feet 2. Pretty good movie. That's a good movie.

2:36:17Jia Tolentino:Pretty good movie. Gia's seen that one. The first one on the list that I've seen. And arguably the first one that's been good. The first good one. I think it is. I mean, the Muppets is okay.

2:36:27David Sims:But Hugo, I like. Disrespectful of Hugo. I prefer Happy Feet 2. Happy Feet 2 is a special movie.

2:36:32Griffin Newman:What was Hugo again? Hugo's the Scorsese movie with Paris and the boy. Scorsese magic of film history. 3D. It's not really a Gia movie. Number nine is Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler and Adam Sandler. We both come way around

2:36:46David Sims:and people think it's a bit, but actually... Big fan of that movie. Yeah, the culture has finally caught up.

2:36:51Griffin Newman:The gag where Pacino is dressed like a Hasidic guy to not get noticed at the Lakers game. Really good. Sitting next to Grindelwald, number two himself.

2:36:59David Sims:And number 10 is Immortals,

2:37:01Griffin Newman:the Tarsim Singh, right?

2:37:03David Sims:The movie that basically functions as Henry Cavill's audition tape for Superman.

2:37:06Griffin Newman:Right. It's like a Greek gods movie with a bunch of half-naked men covered in bronze. Right.

2:37:12David Sims:It was Tarso Singh trying to make a 300-style movie because 300 had taken so long to figure out how to make a sequel. Yeah. And then, of course, The Empire Rose. Huh?

2:37:22Griffin Newman:300 colon Rise of an Empire. Oh, that's right. Never saw that one either. Yeah. So that's the box office. Weird, junky box office is all I'm saying. Yeah, it's odd. Yeah. Like, you know, I think it's a year when a lot of shit didn't fly. Like, J. Edgar was a bomb. You know, a lot of the awards-y stuff.

2:37:37David Sims:It's a point you often make which is the Marvel dominance was able to happen because things were so shitty for the couple of years leading up to the Marvel dominance. And this is the year that Thor and Captain America come out and both do okay. And the next year the Avengers comes out. And it felt like the culture was like, great, if this can just be the only three movies I see a year, fine. This feels safe.

2:38:01Griffin Newman:It's a comedy, it's a drama, it's an action movie, great. It's just all of it. Fine, fine, whatever. I'll sign up in advance. And I know you love Marvel movies, Gia, and you have a lot to say about them and I'll just give you some space to do that right now.

2:38:11Jia Tolentino:Yeah.

2:38:12David Sims:You're mostly a Kingo person, right?

2:38:13Jia Tolentino:Yeah. Kingo? Kingo. That's a person? Pew, pew, pew.

2:38:17Griffin Newman:Kingo? Kingo's the character that... He's got fingers that go like this. Kumail Nanjiani played in one Marvel movie. You remember all the Eternals. That's the one he got Jack? He got Jack. Let's just list them together.

2:38:27David Sims:Kingo. Kingo. Druid. Ajax.

2:38:34Griffin Newman:Fastos. There you go. and Fastos isn't the one that's fast no right Fastos is the one who creates who makes atomic bombs

2:38:44Jia Tolentino:right that's what he does he creates 9-11

2:38:46Griffin Newman:well he's like super smart and there's a scene where he's like

2:38:50David Sims:Hiroshima happened yes

2:38:52Griffin Newman:and people made fun of that scene

2:38:54David Sims:I think Ikari is the faster I'm sorry Ikari there's like three more yeah there's a lot of materials Gilgamesh Gilgamesh guilt. Sprite. There you go. Sprite? Sprite. She's really fun. She's a centuries old... See, it's like, this is none of my business, guys.

2:39:15Griffin Newman:That one was none of anyone's business. None of my business.

2:39:19David Sims:She's a centuries old robot that's still stuck in the body of a prepubescent girl, so adult men won't hate her, and she has a real complex about that.

2:39:26Jia Tolentino:Who plays her?

2:39:27David Sims:Some kid.

2:39:28Jia Tolentino:You guys must have such an escalated... One of the reasons that I'm like, Ezra Miller's legal trouble slash violence, none of my business, you know, whatever, is because like, surely you guys have this thought so much more than most people do because you have such encyclopedic jobs in this podcast where it's like, we're going to be on our goddamn deathbeds. You know what I mean? And we're just going to, it's like we're going to be Zendaya Zmichie on our deathbeds.

2:39:53Griffin Newman:I truly am going to be Zendaya Zmichie. You know what I mean?

2:39:56Jia Tolentino:I'm going to be remembering like some guy on r slash meth talking about like, you know what I mean? Like some, like it's...

2:40:02Griffin Newman:Yeah, it's so, I think about this all the time. And it's like,

2:40:05Jia Tolentino:in my waning days,

2:40:06Griffin Newman:will I just be like, look at my TikTok faves from 2019. These were funny. No, you won't even,

2:40:11Jia Tolentino:like they will be playing in your head. Right, right. I'll just be like, we need to talk about Kevin. That will be you, except instead of, you know, La Tomato Ria or whatever, it's going to be like, your TikTok reels from 2019 and Arthur Christmas. It's all in there.

2:40:28David Sims:And you know what I mean? It's permanently in there.

2:40:30Jia Tolentino:My brain is an overstuffed club that is over capacity, that is the lights are flashing at full, you know, it's strobing every second of every day. And if I allow myself to know that it was Ringo, that he got checked for Ringo, like it's just going to burn down. I do, it was Kingo. No, I appreciate your point,

2:40:48David Sims:but let's not be rude to Kingo. He goes pew pew with his fingers. No, I feel the same way. I also am like very deliberate about which things I decide I'm going to completely opt out of. What is it for you that you opt out of? I feel like most of pop music I'm now out of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just can't keep up with it and it feels like that's always the center of the drama, reading the fucking social media. None of this. None of this. I'm just like, I'm not engaging with the two heated rivalry guys. Reality TV.

2:41:14Jia Tolentino:Reality TV, I'm out. I'm out. Never seen a single one.

2:41:17Griffin Newman:I am the exact same way where it's... Reality TV and anime are the things where I'm like... Never gonna learn. Those are bottomless tools.

2:41:22Jia Tolentino:Oh, you gotta watch Arco, though.

2:41:24Griffin Newman:I saw Arco. I liked Arco.

2:41:25Jia Tolentino:Yeah, Arco was good. Did your child see it?

2:41:28Griffin Newman:No, because I saw it like at an award screening or whatever. And I've been wondering if Boss Baby. I did it again. I'm sorry. I keep saying that. Excuse me. Boss Baby. If Boss Baby would like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's cool. I thought it was really good. I think she would dig it. Yeah.

2:41:41David Sims:Cloud people. Rainbows. The text I sent to David Lowery was in a group chat that Sims and I are on with Sean Fennessy, Tim Simons, and Alex Ross Perry. And the testiest things ever get in that group chat is if someone goes, hey, wild fact, in 2015, this person was supposed to make this movie or gave this interview quote. And one of us will inevitably respond with...

2:42:03Jia Tolentino:That's not a wild fact.

2:42:04David Sims:No, we'll respond with, I'm so fucking insulted that you think I wouldn't remember that. Yeah, yeah. Of course I remember that. I think about that every hour of my life.

2:42:12Jia Tolentino:I can imagine.

2:42:13David Sims:And it's always 10 % joke, 90 % real. Don't underestimate me. My brain is full of garbage.

2:42:21Griffin Newman:Gee, yeah. Oh, God, it's so real what you're saying about the dumb shit I'm going to continue to remember years from now and yet not remember my life.

2:42:28Jia Tolentino:Yeah.

2:42:29Griffin Newman:Someone was talking to me

2:42:31David Sims:about traitors and mentioned... The traitors. Or just the general abstract concept of traitors. Oh, no.

2:42:36Griffin Newman:The traitors. Sorry. I've never watched any reality TV as well.

2:42:42Jia Tolentino:People love to talk to you about the traitors, don't they? They do. They love to talk to you

2:42:46Griffin Newman:about the villa

2:42:48Jia Tolentino:on whatever one there's a villa on.

2:42:50Griffin Newman:They're all like kings and they have swords or whatever the fuck is going on. Call me when they're all Kingos.

2:42:54Jia Tolentino:Or the one that's like Casa Bonita. Like Casa... Never mind.

2:42:59Griffin Newman:Casa Bonita reality show I would watch.

2:43:01Jia Tolentino:Well, same. But do you know what I'm talking about? The Casa Island where they... Never mind. I don't even know. Anyway, traitors.

2:43:06Griffin Newman:So someone mentioned Britney Spears' ex is on the show and I'm like, oh, Kevin Federline.

2:43:11Jia Tolentino:And they're like, no. Her other ex. The guy she married at Vegas? Jason Alexander. But that's not Jason Alexander. Good pull. Perfect example

2:43:18David Sims:of why do I still know the thing.

2:43:20Jia Tolentino:This is the thing.

2:43:21Griffin Newman:I pulled Kevin Federline immediately. and I'm like, I don't remember being 27. Yeah, I know, I know. What the fuck? Gone.

2:43:30Jia Tolentino:I don't know what happened in the Odyssey.

2:43:32Griffin Newman:You know what I mean?

2:43:33Jia Tolentino:Totally. It takes a boat. My own brother's birth year often escapes me. Yes. You know?

2:43:40David Sims:My therapist was trying to ask me about traumatic incidents last week, and I was like, I'm having trouble remembering stuff. And then I was like, I know that seems like a psychological overcompensation. I'm blocking out the memories I can't touch. It really is just I have too many Marvel characters in my head. It's just filled with nonsense.

2:43:58Jia Tolentino:And yet we all court this professionally. I'm like, oh, let me see how much I can learn about, you know, yeah.

2:44:03Griffin Newman:It's great. It's great. We fixed it. I feel great. I'm so good. I'm doing so great. We're doing so great. And this year I decided to add Narnia to the old cauldron. So now I'm reading A Horse and His Boy.

2:44:13David Sims:I'm doing like six things at the same time.

2:44:16Griffin Newman:That one's weird. That one is weird. That's weird. It's kind of bracing because you are, because like the first four Narnias, it's basically like C.S. Lewis is like, meet these fucking British kids. I'm like, what are they like? And he's like, they need to go to Narnia. They get to meet Lion Jesus.

2:44:29Jia Tolentino:Horse and his boy, and there's another one. They're like vaguely Orientalist.

2:44:32Griffin Newman:Horse and his boy ain't vaguely Orientalist. That one is extremely Orientalist.

2:44:38Jia Tolentino:I just reread Gone with the Wind because that was like my favorite book in fifth grade. Wild. Let me tell you, it took nothing else I can think about but Gone with the Wind. And I was like, oh, I guess growing up in Texas, being eight years old when I read this, the extent, the racism is the jet fuel that powers this.

2:44:56Griffin Newman:Right. It's not just background dressing for this one.

2:45:02Jia Tolentino:It's the very air we breathe. It's the juice. It's kind of amazing. Anyway, great book.

2:45:08David Sims:Is it known what the other two Narnia books Gerwig would be adapting on? Is she planning on doing three? I think they contractually have her to three. I don't know if there's wiggle room for her to be like,

2:45:18Jia Tolentino:I've decided to hand off. I hope it's like first, fourth, and ninth. Those are whatever it is. Are there nine? There's seven. She's doing... One, four, and seven are the big ones.

2:45:27Griffin Newman:What she's doing for Netflix with the fucking cousins. Again, it's just like he's like, you meet this cousin. I'm like, okay, what's up with her? Well, she goes to a school where she doesn't learn about Jesus. I'm like, let me guess. Aslan's got a roar at her until she fucking gets some manners. It's like, yep. folding table. Aslan's coming to roar.

2:45:46David Sims:Ask me about Jesus.

2:45:47Griffin Newman:And then they're just like, yeah, oh, what's going on with this picture? Oh, we're in fucking Narnia again. Okay, what's going on this time? But they're still good. I mean, the way, the thing I like about them is they sound like he's making them up as he goes along, which is kind of a cool bedside story framing. You know, she's doing The Magician's Nephew, which is the sixth book. Oh, I love that one. I love that one. Right, is the chronologically, the first. And I do think it's cool and weird.

2:46:09Jia Tolentino:Love that book.

2:46:10Griffin Newman:Right. Her deal is...

2:46:14David Sims:Her deal is specifically two. Contractually, she is supposed to both write and direct two movies.

2:46:19Griffin Newman:So she'll probably do this, and then I guess the next one would be Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. No, she should do one of the weird...

2:46:25Jia Tolentino:She should do Silver Chair or something.

2:46:26Griffin Newman:Silver Chair is so weird, dude.

2:46:28Jia Tolentino:That one's actually too BDSM-y. It is. She should do the one about the ship.

2:46:32Griffin Newman:That one's really nice. I love that one. That one's really fun. That one's very Odyssey. Very Homeric.

2:46:37Jia Tolentino:Not that I would know.

2:46:38David Sims:But that's my big question. Does she circle back to the ones that already were done? Yeah, maybe she's like,

2:46:43Griffin Newman:and let me know when you get to the seventh one. I'm sure you guys will. See you later. What's the one that's like,

2:46:50Jia Tolentino:speaking of David, what's one that's like Green Knight where it's like the lady in the...

2:46:53Griffin Newman:That is the silver chair. That's the one where they go into like the subterranean land and there's a guy who's like, don't mind me. I have to be like tied to the silver chair every night and I go insane.

2:47:03Jia Tolentino:Yeah, it's so phoenix. And they're like, oh, okay.

2:47:05Griffin Newman:And then he's like,

2:47:05Jia Tolentino:let me out of the chair. Oh my God, you have to get me out of the chair. And then the demon, like the snake is a sexy woman, right? The sexy woman is a snake. sexy woman correct

2:47:13Griffin Newman:and I assume if they had made that movie when they because they were going to make it Tilda would have played that role they would have just had her do it okay because they never say that it's the same witch but it's sort of the same vibe like another witch

2:47:25David Sims:Ella McKay is the white witch now

2:47:27Griffin Newman:correct she'll be good I mean she'll be fine I don't know imagine her trying to fix her heel imagine a Lynn Ramsey

2:47:33Jia Tolentino:like Don Trotter that'd be great she'd be so good at like with a budget you know no one would ever

2:47:38Griffin Newman:give her a budget because like she's a lot and and she makes movies in an unconventional way

2:47:43David Sims:that scares money people.

2:47:44Griffin Newman:But like, she'd be cool making like a movie with monsters in it and stuff. She would rock.

2:47:48David Sims:You could see her doing a good little princess style. Yeah. Like a gothic kind of kid story.

2:47:53Griffin Newman:In her life

2:47:54Jia Tolentino:of a lonely child kind of movie. Like a Lynn Ramsey secret garden would be kind of sick. I was reading an interview with her at some point, maybe looking at Kevin's stuff and she was talking about the funding thing. She was like, yeah, hopefully I just signed with an agency. Hopefully someone can get me a perfume commercial. And I was like, damn.

2:48:11Griffin Newman:Hey, man. I get it. I get it too. She's got to make that bread. It's the thing I always love to say. they should be throwing

2:48:16Jia Tolentino:perfume commercial offers at Lynn Ramsey. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, at the very least, she should have a hundred Dior, you know what I mean? That whole world

2:48:23David Sims:is so weird to me. And when you find out which respected filmmakers direct which commercials, it will boggle your brain. Yeah. You're like,

2:48:30Jia Tolentino:someone told me that like... Actually, it was Sofia Coppola that was busy doing the Dior commercials, so she couldn't, yeah.

2:48:34David Sims:You know that it's like, James Gray directed all the Maybelline commercials for like five years. You're like, there's not a match of style. Like, occasionally you'll see a, like, Wes Anderson commercial where you're like, clearly they, like, broke out the checkbook to get Wes Anderson to do his Wes Anderson thing. And other times you're like, Sofia Coppola directed the, like, like. Which you are. Right. Right? But those you can kind of feel.

2:48:56Jia Tolentino:It's like. Those you can feel. It's like Lin Ramsey's doing, like, the Delta, like, you know, everyone in the seats on the beach. It's more.

2:49:02David Sims:I guess it's more like you find out that Nancy Meyers directed, like, a Jeep Grand Cherokee commercial that's just, like. the car running through the field. There's some where you're like, right,

2:49:11Griffin Newman:that's how they make their money.

2:49:12David Sims:And they just do the assignment.

2:49:13Griffin Newman:Yeah,

2:49:14David Sims:yeah,

2:49:14Griffin Newman:yeah.

2:49:15David Sims:Gia, thank you for being here. We gotta get Gia out of here. This is crazy. I was half an hour late. We're having a great time. Well, that was a fuck up by me. I would never do something like that. Gia, anything you want to plug?

2:49:24Jia Tolentino:No.

2:49:25David Sims:Hell yeah. Not at all?

2:49:26Jia Tolentino:No.

2:49:27David Sims:Wow.

2:49:27Jia Tolentino:Yeah.

2:49:28David Sims:You don't have like a podcast?

2:49:29Griffin Newman:I'm joking. You do plenty of work.

2:49:33David Sims:You're always doing

2:49:34Griffin Newman:the coolest shit.

2:49:35David Sims:I'm going to plug the Jennifer Lawrence profile.

2:49:37Jia Tolentino:Oh, yeah. I guess I did kind of write about Lynn a bit.

2:49:39David Sims:Yeah, which is, I think, good reading for any listener getting ready to watch Dunbar. I'm really...

2:49:44Jia Tolentino:No Oscar, no Oscar. Nothing. No Oscar, no Oscar. I think it was too weird in a movie. Crowded race, crowded race. Crowded race. I do think she's really good in it.

2:49:50Griffin Newman:I think she's so good in it. I'm really into what she's clearly gearing up for right now. You know what I mean? Like this being the start of whatever phase in her career she's interested in doing. And she's... With you and like in press stuff, it's just like, she's so fucking funny. like and not in a annoying way anymore that's the big thing she's like self aware it's almost like she's

2:50:09Jia Tolentino:too like I had so much material from that piece that like there's like an entire different piece I could have written that was the you know the kind of piece that I have written before for Vogue where it's like you know I mean she has so much her personality is so high octane and so that like you could have filled it with just like ah can you believe it she's so beautiful and she says this you know like but

2:50:31David Sims:that entire profile was just like just gold everywhere yeah I mean I

2:50:35Jia Tolentino:was like okay let me try to write a profile of jennifer lawrence it isn't about her amazing personality because it's like we all know she's unbelievably charming and she and it was almost like with me she was trying to be less because she knows like anytime we would see each other off record it was a like her she was free to be as charming as she actually is not to play into the jennifer lawrence thing and what a horrible thing to have to do like got tired because of overexposure and i'm actually like that like she is like what a painful thing to actually be like

2:51:01David Sims:Well, like after that profile, she just started like doing it everywhere. And everyone was like, oh, right, this rules. And there's a frustrating disconnect of then it not leading to anyone going to see the movie. But all of those interviews she did over the last five months, you're just like, right. She is like the most powerful movie star in just like pure raw charisma. And like, no one's more interesting than her.

2:51:23Jia Tolentino:Yeah, like watching her face, like she never articulates what she's thinking or feeling once in that movie. And did you guys like Pattinson in the movie or no?

2:51:31Griffin Newman:I felt like he was in service of the movie. I didn't love his performance because it did not feel like the guy he's supposed to be.

2:51:39David Sims:I think if that character were a little more cracked, I'd be like, this movie, 10 out of 10, perfect.

2:51:44Jia Tolentino:Yeah, I feel like there were script issues with just the situation of them.

2:51:47David Sims:It just feels a little unsettled.

2:51:49Jia Tolentino:Yeah.

2:51:50Griffin Newman:He's just way too handsome and interesting to be doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that, again, I think Patton's is probably like, no, no, no, I want to work with Lynn Ramsey. I am happy to be second banana here. I'm happy to fuck around but I'm just kind of like I'm interested in you

2:52:03Jia Tolentino:yeah

2:52:04Griffin Newman:and in the movie like we're not really allowed to be that he could more easily

2:52:08David Sims:play the J-Law character in a wig than play just like a guy who's like maybe I get into like drinking beer on my porch and I guess with unspecified

2:52:16Jia Tolentino:part time like truck stop job there's almost and then when he's she's like

2:52:20Griffin Newman:I think you're having an affair with him

2:52:21Jia Tolentino:I'm like he's fucking of course he's Robert Pattinson in like rural Montana yeah you can see seven different condom brands in the thing like he's being

2:52:30David Sims:he's just in his wire cutter phase he's trying to figure out which one's the best to try on with not you no just put him on in the bathroom yeah yeah yeah with the butter throw him out with the butter with the butter this tumescent cock thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe uh tune in next week for you were never really here my favorite yeah with uh Sean Clemens our buddy Sean Clemens the Clem Dog yeah

2:52:55Jia Tolentino:thanks for having me on guys oh such a pleasure

2:52:57David Sims:come on back so long overdue

2:52:58Griffin Newman:I mean you don't have to maybe you had a horrible experience

2:53:01Jia Tolentino:I don't know any of the movies in the box office oh please we'll find something we'll find something

2:53:05David Sims:and as always I just want to call out that on the IMDB page for we need to talk about Kevin in the FAQ section the top question is is Kevin a psychopath and the answer is yes there you go

2:53:25Griffin Newman:Link Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Olly 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.

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