Fargo with Zach Cregger

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack.

So that was Mrs.

Lundergaard and the floor in there?

And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper.

And those three people in Brainerd.

And for what?

For a little bit of podcasting?

There's more to life than a little podcast, you know.

I feel like I went a little too Dennis Farino.

Sure, yeah.

Well, yeah, you were about to order Chicago.

Order a deep dish.

I was going to dip my beef sandwich.

Yeah.

Too many.

lines I can think of.

I am at the point with this movie, and our guest can speak up if he agrees.

Please just talk.

It's kind of you to give him

where there's lines where i'm like iconic line from fargo that i think are just normal expository lines but like i've watched the movie so many times at this point that like prowler needs a jump is one of my favorite lines from fargo yeah i'm not does that make sense well absolutely i'm not gonna say we need to like fully hon

yeah

prowler needs a jump i just like that's funny to me I mean, and it's supposed to be funny, but like, to me, that's like fucking, you know, Dalton Trumbo wrote that.

So to this point, well,

let's check to see if the keys on the typewriter are wet or not.

Let's not accuse Dalton Trumbo.

He's been accused of a lot of things in his time.

I'm not looking to build the canon here.

We've covered a lot of great movies on this show.

10 years, a decade of dreams.

I do think there is a pretty limited canon of like perfect movies.

In the history of cinema, but especially within the limited range of what we've covered in the last 10 years.

And a lot of that is like a lot of movies that I think are masterpieces

have like wooliness or weirdness that I love, that works for me, you know?

But this like part, there is, this is a, a rare movie where you're like, there's not a hair out of place.

And to that end, even like just sort of shoe leather dialogue is so specifically honed in on character and then so nailed in performance that then the rhythm of it feels like, well, that's like an iconic thing.

The fourth time she says, yeah.

He's fleeing the interview.

Yeah.

He's fleeing the interview.

Yeah.

It's true.

Every line in this is a quotable line, kind of like Big Lebowski has that, where like you could pick any line, you throw a dart at the board and it's, and you kind of, you could hear it if you read it.

You know, you, it's like tattooed in the mind.

And this, this movie does that.

I, you know, I was watching it again last night and I was, I was thinking about how perfect this movie was.

And I was looking, I was like, is there a hair on the head of this movie that I would change?

And I have one

moment.

Yeah.

And I don't even think it's wrong.

It's not broken.

It's great.

But it's a weird, there's a weird moment in this movie that I locked in on this time.

And I've seen this movie a thousand times.

And it's more of just a question.

And I wonder if you guys have the same issue.

May I?

Is this okay?

No, no, I love it.

I was just trying to think of you being like, I just don't like that lady who played the cop.

She, I just thought she was kind of off, kind of bad performance.

She's like, that's not too much.

What's with all their accents?

No, but there's a moment where we dissolve from

Steve Bashemi's pounding on the the TV.

He's like, fuck.

Yes.

Yep.

And then we go to the hard cut.

We dissolve to the screen.

We have the bugs on the screen.

And we pull out and we realize that Marge and her husband are watching TV at night.

And, you know, she says, time to turn in.

And he kind of wakes up.

And then we do a dissolve to black.

And then we fade up and the phone rings.

And it's Mike Yanagita.

And I was just wondering, I was like, why?

Why do we go from a scene with them in bed to a scene with them in bed with this dissolve in the middle?

And she answers.

And I was like, I wonder if they were hedging their bets that maybe they would cut the Mike Yanagita out.

Like, maybe they were nervous that, like, this storyline may not work, it's a risk.

So, we're gonna, we got this sexy transition that we love.

Like, because they could easily cut straight to the Mike Yanagita phone call, they didn't have to do that cool TV.

This is what happens when you've been chipping for a hundred viewings, where you start to just be like, Is there right?

Like, you know, you've gone so deep.

I know what you're saying.

I mean, we're also going to spend 40 minutes on Mike Yanagita.

Yeah, we'll spend one hour.

We We have to go deep into Mike Yanagita.

Let's go deep.

I just saw him, Steve Park, right?

The actor's name in the Phoenician scheme, literally two hours ago.

It feels like it is having a bit of a renaissance again.

It's been so reclaimed by Wes.

And

we'll talk about it for an hour.

I'm going to pin that to the board.

Sure.

But that scene in and of itself is a thing that I feel like for a long time people were like, why is this fucking in here?

What is the Yanagita scene?

It's a vital turning point of Marge's character.

Yes.

It's obviously a vital scene.

It is the the scene in the movie.

But I was, I watched it last night.

And then almost immediately after finishing it, I was like, am I going to fucking put this back on and watch this again?

Because I had the impulse to watch it or at least scrub through and study when do they do the fade to black?

They do it.

Are you joking?

You had that same thought about that exact same fade to black and white.

Not that one, but I got kind of stuck on, not like a, in a

bumping screen.

They do, but there's one right at the start of the movie.

Right.

I was like, okay, there are like five or six of them right and is there any pattern i can discern as to when they fade to black as opposed to like cross dissolve or just hard cut and then i was like this is the kind of that they mock when people try to write essays about like why they made the edited choices still care about it they do still so precise and intentional absolutely it's worth exploring this and and wringing your hands about this sorts of things because they're that meticulous this is the fascinating thing about them: I'm sure if you asked them, they would say, it just felt right.

Sure.

We just got in the room and it just felt like a rhythm and energy.

How they talk about things.

And yes, everything in their movies is so perfectly placed and so precise and so controlled, as you said,

and feels so meaningful that you're like, there has to be something for me to solve here.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And I guess, right, you get to, we'll eventually get to Serious Man where the movie is almost

around right.

Them.

Mike Canagita telling you to accept the mystery.

Yeah, same actor.

Yeah,

um,

Fargo is the film, but what's the podcast?

This is blank check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin, David.

Wow.

Who's David?

You're just saying like, you betcha, I'm David.

Okay, I don't know.

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

So when the

sex worker is riding the second, the escort, the second one is riding Carl Carl.

Yeah.

Bashamis.

Trying to get him to ring the bell.

I hear bells.

I'm like, did the Cohens write that?

It is such an odd line.

I love it, to be clear.

Or did she go like, you know what?

Were they like, what would you, you know?

It's like it has to be right.

I think they write everything.

It's got to be.

Yeah, I don't think this is the problem.

There's that story that

Peter, oh my God.

Stormman.

Stormman?

Stormman.

Yeah, right.

Jesus Christ, that would have been bad.

He tells that story about he's shooting that scene and he, and he thought there was a typo in the script for the where is pancake house where is pancake house changed it on take one he goes where's the pancake house and like joel came up and was like hey it says where's pancakes house

yeah like that's they are that specific and and to that point

i'm just like imagine having sex with someone and they go i hear bells sorry go on or or worse than that is where are you where are you where are you still emasculating

where are you jesus william h macy has said that like that girl shep every single stammer is written in that way.

Like, there's no sort of like riffing on the run-up.

There was something he improv that they let in, and I cannot remember what it is.

I'll find it.

But yes, I hear bells.

It feels like that has to be something they heard happen to someone they knew.

that they never forgot and joked about internally and we're gonna like we're gonna put that in a movie someday right right right right um it don't seem like the guys who like hang out with their buddies and talk about like sex stories.

No.

No.

No.

You know what it feels like?

It feels like they overheard a stranger say that at a bar.

One of the few instances

is that he kept calling the Sienna burnt umber, which was not in the script, but the Cohens were amused and let that in.

Because Macy's like a theater rascal.

He likes to, you know, ad lib.

Yeah.

He also did the doodles.

He was just doodling.

I know that.

And they were like, oh, that's funny.

Right.

That was him in between setups just making those sort of like weird geometric patterns.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Listen.

Master Success Early on in the Career Series of Blank Checks and Crazy Passion Projects.

This is their first clear.

This is their first unqualified,

right?

Like this movie was a hit.

This is their first movie that didn't lose money.

They are a rare case of a snapshot.

Racing Arizona lost money?

I don't think so.

Let's look it up.

No.

Blood Simple couldn't have lost money, right?

Racing Arizona cost $5 million and made like 30 worldwide.

I think that would be their first clue.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

But like, right, Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing, Hudsucker all made less than they cost.

But two of those three were like critically adored.

Yes.

And it was like, these guys have the goods.

We have to keep letting them do their thing.

And this obviously breaks through on a whole other.

level.

Of course, this is their 1996 film Fargo, which is based on the popular FX series.

They made an interesting choice at this point in their career to adapt a TV show to film.

Yes, of course.

They love the TV show, I'm told.

They love it.

I'm sure they have never seen Frank.

I am also sure.

Yeah.

And I'm not even saying that in a derogatory way.

I'm just sure they're kind of like, oh, okay.

Right.

When the show was announced, there was this sort of like, and the Coens gave it their blessing.

And then later it came out that they were like, yeah, we don't care.

If you want to do a show, that's fine.

Right.

not that they were dismissive but they were just like we made the movie you do whatever you want um

because there's also the weird

sitcom pilot uh was that a sitcom or edie falco i guess it was no it was like a crime show comedy procedural there was like an nbc pilot directed by kathy bates with edie falco playing marge gunderson yeah really in the 90s like a year or two after fargo no no no Well, oh, yeah, it was in the 90s, right?

It actually aired in the 2000s as part of like a brilliant

cancelled

guest.

And wait, Kathy Bates was in this?

So I guess Kathy Bates did like the Con brothers.

She directed it.

No, thank you, Zach.

Thank you for bringing that up.

And we should introduce our guests.

This is additional ammunition to the idea that there's some quiet feud between Kathy Bates and

she directed the pilot that they had no involvement in.

It almost feels vindictive that she's like, I'll make my Fargo.

You guys don't have the rights.

Yeah, that's that's that's I've never seen it it the um the edifalco thing have you ever seen it i've not seen it either she's pregnant in it i know which is sort of funny yeah like

she's pregnant again yeah is she gonna be pregnant for five seasons yeah i don't know um we're talking fargo our guest today

is the great filmmaker

the director of barbarian yeah the upcoming weapons which will be coming out right around the time

well so this episode drops uh zach on uh let's see august 17th so his weapons just come out it will be out for a week and change.

Wow.

Wow.

You know what?

We did a pretty good job, Mina.

Weapons.

Zach Kreger.

Thank you for

having me.

Sorry for yelling weapons.

I love this show, so I'm really excited.

It's very kind of you to say.

That's really sick and disgusting.

I mean, that's the kind of depraved shit that the director of weapons would say.

I love blank check.

We met last summer.

Wow.

And you said that to me.

And I said, that's stupid.

And your response was, why do you think that's stupid?

I appreciated you like being like, you have a show that people like.

I don't understand why you're immediately turning this into an insult to me and a self-put down.

You like cut through it very quickly.

But it has been a dream to have you on since then.

We have a mutual friend, Leslie Hedland.

Yes, we do.

I said, we're doing the Cohen's.

I feel like this might be a moment to ask Zach.

Texted you.

And you and Leslie both locked into the same two movies.

Right.

Started fighting over them, essentially.

Yeah.

I wanted Fargo because this is, this is quite, quite arguably my favorite movie of all time.

And I think she might feel similarly.

And you guys had offered me no country, which, which is also what an amazing,

I mean, it's an honor.

I, you know, whatever.

But

I don't know.

I just, I love, I, I wanted Fargo really bad.

I didn't know if she cared as much as I cared.

And so we, we had kind of a, a little round and and round about who got what, but she was very cool to give me to give me this.

Look, it's also, it's a win-win.

It's like two masterpieces.

Yeah.

I could see both of you being good on both episodes.

It's funny that Leslie was like, I feel like you should just take the classier movie.

And I was like, which one is classic?

That was hard.

They're both very classic.

I think no country is classier in that it, well, One Best Picture, it's an adaptation of a sort of a novel from a great American novelist.

So it's like maybe mildly quote-unquote, classier.

This movie has a lot of Minnesota accents in it and stuff.

Like it's like a little goofier.

You had just worked with Josh Brolin, of course, in weapons.

So you were sort of like, well, that would be interesting to talk about.

But he's not in Fargo.

Is that right?

He's not?

I don't think so.

I mean, maybe he played the big statue of Paul Bunyan.

I don't know.

There's a bit of a resemblance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah.

But you have worked with Mr.

Brolin, who, of course, is a Cohen's fave.

But is this kind of your like default gun to your head favorite movie?

It would be like a coin toss between this and Boogie Knights.

Okay.

A year apart.

So it just goes to show that, you know, 16, 17, when these movies came out, it's like my formative, you know, film buff years or whatever I'm trying to say.

So yeah, these were, these both hit me in the sweet spot and

made it, made a mark.

Barbarian, it's a phenomenal movie.

It kind of blew me away when I saw it in theaters.

And it felt like had this mini phenomenon of people being like, where the fuck did this come from?

Like it felt like the movie just came out of nowhere.

And I really enjoyed the party trick of telling people when they were like, have you seen Barbarian That Thing Rules?

Responding with like, you know, that was directed by one of the whitest kids you know, which people could not believe.

But you have this arc of

right.

But, but no, but like in a cool way.

And I also think there's this weird cultural thing of like a sketch comedy to a horror movie pipeline that seems to be growing.

But you also go to.

We have two examples.

Is there more?

I guess you got two examples for

Moody.

Yeah, I'd say I'd say

you made a horror movie.

Okay.

So now we're looking at four.

Yeah, why not?

Actually, yeah, Show Walter should try a horror movie.

I'm trying to think of who are big sketch legends now that we could, that we could, who have transitioned to filmmaking.

Chevy Chase should direct a horror movie.

Great sketch comic, Chevy Chase.

I know he was.

I know he was once a great sketch comic.

But you all, that that group formed from all of you guys going to film school together, right?

Well, we were in the same dorm together.

Okay.

So we went to different schools, but we all were in the same spillover dorm in Brooklyn.

That, like, if you were late on your housing application, you lived in the St.

George Hotel.

So it just kind of attracted.

You lived at the St.

George Hotel?

I lived in the St.

George.

George Clark Street station.

You got it.

I mean, incredibly familiar.

That is so funny.

How do I know?

I'm a dork.

I went to high school right by.

What's it like at the St.

George Hotel?

I always wondered.

Well, it was different then.

They've completely redone it now, but it was so bizarre because it was just like animal house every night, but it used to be housing.

And there were tenants that just never were evicted.

So we'd be like drinking 40s and smoking blunts in the hallway.

Oh, yeah.

And then a 90-year-old would get off the elevator and walk sadly through the pot smoke into his room.

I mean, can you imagine 87?

And they're like, we're turning this into a dormitory.

It's just like, I can't imagine.

And the guy's like, I don't give a shit.

I pay 60 bucks a month.

I'm never leaving.

I live in Brooklyn Heights.

I went to high school right by there and I was always like fascinated by the exterior and how much it kind of looked like a Barton Fink hotel.

Like it looked frozen in time.

And I remember with my friend walking by and going like, I need to know, is this like an expensive hotel?

And I walked to the hotel.

Carolyn Monroe stayed there.

Pressure.

Yeah, it was once expensive.

They shot the godfather in the basement.

And then they shot Spig in there, that scene where he's like in the hood and there's like gunshots and sirens and he's afraid, you know?

That's

wild.

Yeah, that's in the St.

George.

Right.

I was like, this clearly looks like it used to be really fancy, but also looks so frozen and amber.

I wonder how much it costs.

So I walked in and was like, how much is a room?

As like a 14-year-old.

And whoever's at the desk was like, this is for college students.

Right.

Go away.

And then I was so fascinated by like, this has the outward appearance of a hotel, but also like rent-controlled senior citizens live there.

Yeah.

It has a crazy history, that place.

It was, I heard it was in a quarantine zone for AIDS patients.

And so a lot of people died in there, like in the 80s.

And I know there was like, it was a junkie, like a flop house shooting gallery at one point.

And you used to walk by and there would be all these like bags on strings hanging out every window, which is where people would hide their heroin.

Like out, it would, it's had a crazy and you know, in the glory days, it burned down and it was built.

It's this cannot be interesting to any of your audience.

I know this is good.

It's kind of fun.

This is really good podcast.

It's cool lore.

But you did not see Fargo in college.

You saw it prior.

You saw it in high school.

Yeah, I saw it in high school.

Did you see it in theaters?

You're older than me.

I did not see it in theaters.

I don't believe I did.

I don't think I did.

I think I saw it on video, unfortunately.

Yeah, well, I mean, like, I would have been, I was, I think, 12 when Fargo came out.

You're, I think you're a couple of years older than me.

Like, I was a little too young to be toddling over to Fargo in the theaters.

Yeah.

This was amazing.

I was 16 when it came out.

Yeah.

You could have, you could have, you could have snuck in.

Could have snuck in.

This was an early DVD for me.

Like, I bought this on DVD and re-watched it over and over and over again.

Yeah.

I feel like I had gotten so Cohen's pilled by the early 2000s that I remember watching this, seeing that it was going to play on cable

and being like, oh, this is my big blind spot.

Already knowing in a pre-no country era that like this was kind of considered their masterpiece.

Yes.

I also, you know, the, the, the Hallowell's Film Guide, which I think I brought up before, which is a gigantic textbook that doesn't exist anymore, but used to get published every year of every movie

and with ratings from zero to four stars.

Most movies hit zero.

Yep.

By a grumpy old fuck called Leslie Halloway, Hallowell.

He gave Fargo four stars.

And like that, he gave like one four stars a year or whatever.

So I knew that Fargo was a big deal, even when I was this little budding student.

It was an infamous Siskel and Ebert movie, too, that it was like a thing they both agreed on.

And we're not only only in agreement, but we're like advocating so hard and we're rapturous about it.

There's the story, I think, maybe JJ put in a dossier of the two of them seeing the screening together and Ebert turning to Siskel and going, like, this is why we do what we do.

Oh, yeah.

And Ebert, like in his initial review, I think, called it where he was like, this is one of the few perfect movies I've ever seen.

And he like elevated it to his great movies list really early, but he just immediately was just like, this, I have rarely seen a film that so successfully achieves its ambitions.

I think it's really odd, though, that he didn't pick on that fade to black off of the TV.

It's kind of a hack.

Yeah, keep your head on a swivel, though.

I mean, Jesus.

Films like Fargo are why I love the movies, is how his review ends.

The thing I was going to say that's kind of funny is the first time I watched it when I'm like 14 or 15, I remember not being underwhelmed by it, but going like, yeah, that's like another Cohen Brothers movie.

Wow, that's fucked up.

It's so fucked up.

And then I basically awful.

I basically have watched it once every two years since then.

And every time I see it, it gets better.

It is one of those rare movies for me that because I haven't yet clocked the weirdness of that one fade to black.

Every time I'm like, I get it more and more.

And there's something just, I think what threw me off when I was seeing it the first time and had been so hyped up in my mind is it is kind of very simple.

It is such a like focused movie in a way.

And I'm always surprised by how short it is.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, all their movies are short.

I mean, by and large.

It is.

It's an economical film.

It gets through a ton of plot.

It's a plotty movie in 98 minutes.

And Marge is not introduced until minute 30 and solves the case by an hour and 20 minutes.

And it never feels rushed.

It feels like kind of it moves at a lazy pace.

And I mean that in the best way, you know, like

they're hanging out in bed talking about stamps, stamps, you know, and you never

you never feel it.

It's, it's, oh, it's amazing.

Yeah.

Um, so Fargo is good.

Yeah, and uh, Zach's here to talk about it.

It is, this is one of those movies.

I'm, I'm serious.

It's like one of those movies where I'm like, yeah, I don't know.

We're not going to be like,

my thing about Fargo is it's actually bad.

Like, no, Fargo is good.

But there is so much to debate about it, though.

Like, dark marge.

Are we going to get into the dark marge?

Zach, I don't know what you're talking about, but I want

you to be talking about.

Yeah, I don't really know it either.

Okay, so do you guys, are you familiar?

There's a, there's a podcast uh no podcast for old men.

Do you know about this?

No, but it sounds like the kind of thing that exists in the world.

I'm surprised you don't.

It's three philosophy professors.

Oh, you know what?

I have they go through, yeah, they go through the Cohen brothers filmography, and each episode is two hours long, and they only talk about them from a philosophical standpoint and the greater themes of every movie.

It's pretty fascinating.

And they, they, they talk, they have a two-episode thing just for Fargo, and they get into

why they consider Marge to be be a dark character.

And I think even Ethan acknowledged in an interview that he thinks of Marge as a dark character, which is really interesting because she's

somewhat angelic in her sort of presentation and her behavior.

So why is she dark?

I must know more.

I'm going to find out if there's more on this.

That she is like

containing, that she is controlling a darkness within her?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, I think that

there's a couple of approaches you could take to the dark marge theory.

One is that she is,

you know, if you look at this movie through the lens of deception, right?

And that applies on a lot of different layers.

You know, the opening text, which I'm sure we're going to get into, is a lie, you know,

and every character is kind of a liar.

And Marge is not immune to that.

You know, her

now, I don't, this is not my point of view, okay?

But this is just me putting the Dark Marge theory out there is that the Mike Yanagita thing, she is just as complicit in the deceit as Mike Yanaga.

Like that she kind of knows it's maybe a little out of pocket to get lunch with Mike Yanagita.

Like you think, like that she's no wide-eyed innocent.

She's like, oh, she probably knows.

Like, oh, Mike had a bit of a crush on me or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

She definitely, and you could even, you know, Mike tells her on the phone he's in the Twin Cities.

Yeah.

And then when that other cop comes, and I noticed it on this watch, that other cop says, um, you know, they made a call to a Shep Proudfoot in the Twin Cities.

And she's like, well, maybe I'll take a drive down there.

And everybody is kind of surprised.

You're going to drive all the way to the Twin Cities on the thinnest on a phone call.

And she's like, Yeah.

And it's like, we can infer that she's going because she wants to see Mike Yanagita.

We can infer that.

I'm not sure I do infer that to be clear.

We could.

Yeah, we could.

And then she's also, you know, she's wearing a lot of makeup.

She wants to go to a dice rest.

She looks nice.

She wants to make a lot of fun.

She wants to wear makeup because you want to look nice.

She does want it to be reasonable, though.

She wants the Marriott to be.

Hey, is it reasonable?

Yes.

But it does feel like, right, there's something self-serving going on there, even if it's only I want the confidence boost.

The whole thing with Fargo is the Mike Yanagita scene.

Yes.

Because, like, the thing with Fargo is that it's perfect.

And the first time you watch it, you're blown away by, you know, how dark it is and how funny it is the entire time, even though like horrible things are happening and all that, you know, and then just how visually striking it is.

And so then you keep re-watching it.

And then you keep, as you keep re-watching it, being like, Mike Yanagita scene's weird.

Yeah.

And then you realize, like, well, no, I see its plot purpose.

It helps her realize realize like that she was lied to.

It helps her, you know, sort of like in like shades like, you know, the deception.

And then you keep watching and then you're like, okay, but like she's a cop.

Wouldn't she know, you know, then you start like asking, you know, it becomes, it is so

simple to read that scene as the Mike Yanagita

exchange makes her realize for the first time that people could be lying.

Right.

Where you're like, no, she's a fucking cop.

Of course she knows that.

Yeah.

I know.

Of course she knows that because she is such a good cop.

She's unfazed by these three dead bodies she finds.

She has no problem getting on her hands and knees and examining the wounds from a completely professional clinical mindset.

She's clearly done this a bunch of times.

Yeah.

And so it's odd that they would put so much shoe leather in to be like, this is the moment she realizes that people can be bad.

People can lie.

And it's like.

What a wild thing to put into a hardened, seasoned gum shoe.

You know, it's crazy, but it works.

So here I was, I was going down some rabbit holes and theories i didn't find the dark marge theory also uh i feel embarrassed that there's a podcast called no podcast for old men and our mini-series is no pod country for old casts yeah who knows whatever who gives a shit awesome me thank you um sorry i did the ice thing you're doing the ice thing man it might be time to take away the cup no i love my ice David loves chewing ice

no if you're gonna do it i have to say it sorry sorry i'm trying not to bite my nails no no what was the theory it almost feels like a thing a character would do in a Coen Brothers movie during a dramatic scene is keep chewing ice and have Skip Leave say just crank the audio off.

Skip Leave say hit that ice hard.

The king.

I was going down different Marge and Mike Yannageda readings.

And

one reading I saw that was interesting was they were saying it's basically the inversion of the scene you have in most noirs where a male hard-boiled detective who is hyper-cynical on the outside meets with a random woman, gets engaged in like a romantic liaison with her, and in the process, uncovers something about the crime that shows how good he is at sussing out information, right?

And this is like a complete flip of that, where it's like

a non-sexual encounter, right?

This encounter of like weird, deep awkwardness and emotion in history where nothing physical happens, that's all about longing and like unrequited love, but also perhaps this like desire to be seen as desirable.

And that it gives her this lesson that is not directly related to the crime she's trying to solve, is more just a philosophical reawakening of like, right, I should take a second look at this and not trust what people are saying, which like it is that simple, but also that's not giving the character enough credit.

And then the thing I read, which I think I'd never heard before, is that scene was not originally in the script, obviously because Frances McDorman is married to Joel Cohen and is more involved in the development of these movies and is probably hearing about them as they're going along and knew that they were designing this character for her

said at some point I don't know if it was reading a finished script for the first time or if she was reading scenes as it went along said can you please give me a scene that can help me define my character that isn't me on the case or with my husband.

She said, there are only two modes I have in this movie.

It is either me in cop mode or me in wife mode.

And I need you to give me one scene of additional context to show me relating to someone else to help me solve what this character is.

And that was the scene they wrote.

And then she said, When I read it, I was perplexed.

I didn't get it.

I didn't get why this is what they wrote, and I couldn't make sense of the behavior in the scene.

And her biggest thing was, and not that it was written differently, but like, I want to avoid the temptation of letting this character be too saintly by being too considerate of his emotions in this scene.

That the firmness she shows in kind of putting down the lines of going like, I'd feel more comfortable if you were sitting on the other side, but even just the energy as she's receiving everything he's saying,

she was like, I can't just be like Mama Earth.

Which makes, I get that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

That's interesting.

It does, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know, Zach, what do you think?

Do you think Marge is

dark, dark Marge?

Is she she going to join the Dark Adventures?

I don't think she's dark.

I think

I can't really embrace the Dark Marge theory.

And I don't know if I've articulated it correctly at all.

Like, I think there might be a more

kind of complex thing behind Dark Marge that I'm completely missing here.

But what I love about the Mike Anagita scene, it's kind of what you just hinted on is that she is writing this really delicate line of like, am I in cop mode?

Am I in person mode?

Right.

You know, he is making this inappropriate advance, and I'm going to keep my Minnesota nice kind of demeanor here, but I'm also going to be firm and keep my, it was, there's just so many things happening with her in that scene.

And it's so funny.

It's just, that scene is a masterpiece because there's so many, there's so many layers happening.

It works on so many levels and it's so fucking funny.

Mike Anagita is holy.

It's an incredible lady.

It's so funny.

Everything I've read about, there's a big interview with C.

Park that you can read.

There's an Entertainment Weekly or something where he was like, I was convinced the scene would get cut because it has nothing to do ostensibly with the movie and then ethan cohen called him and was like your scene like crushes you know everyone laughs and c park was like well i was playing him as like this incredibly tragic person

but like it is a very funny like cringy uncomfortable like i do think it's in this dark very funny but nonetheless dark movie it is an interesting little breathing point yes and that's probably another reason they were like yeah it it functions like don't take it out.

Like, keep the Yanagita scene.

I don't know if this is their best movie.

It is certainly in a top tier for me.

They have made a handful of five-star masterpieces in my mind.

But

this does feel like the ultimate

Cohen's film in the same way we were saying in our Blue Velvet episode.

Like, that's not my favorite Lynch movie, but it is the movie that is the best encapsulation at the right point in the bell curve of the development of power where you're just like, this is every single thing they do well, every theme they find interesting, the holding of like all the tones at the same time.

There's some interview

obsessed with where Ethan Cohen, you know, whenever people ask them, like, what's your directing style or how do you work with actors?

And there's some interview I got to find where Ethan Cohen says, like, I've never consciously directed an actor in my life.

We like don't talk subtext with them.

We write the script.

If we give them notes, they're technical about just like what we need to do to get the take to work or whatever.

And he said, over time and being asked that question so many times, the best answer I've ever come to is that directing is about tone management.

And I think about that so much.

And this movie is like the greatest study in that where you're like, every scene is holding like three tones that should not be able to coexist.

And they've made great films where the power is that they're able to successfully navigate the transitions in tone from scene to scene.

But the like combination of putting the Minnesota nice with the sort of like deep darkness of man noir means that they're doing that tonal balance of like just what we're talking about in the Mike Yamagita scene where you're just like how can it be like these things simultaneously how can it be like this funny and upsetting and confusing and clarifying I mean not to toot Zax Horn but you made a scary movie that was funny yes but not funny in like a whatever you know like not a parody scary like you made a movie where I was laughing the entire time I don't know if you were going for me laughing almost the entire time with barbarian but like it is a movie with a lot of humor in it without sacrificing any of the darkness.

And I think the humor similarly stems from really drilling into like the bizarness of human behavior.

Yeah.

So how'd you do that?

Big jerk.

One of the things that kind of crystallizes what the Cohens are doing and far.

Thank you for that, Kap.

I'll say thank you.

Thank you.

Is you know, the Paul Bunyan shot where it's like underlit and Paul Bunyan, the big statue looks like demonic, you know, and it's that, that one shot is kind of like the perfect, the perfect encapsulation of everything they're doing in this movie, where it's like this, it, first of all, it's crystallizing the location, you know, all of their movies are so location dependent.

It's kind of amazing.

And this, this one is, is almost the most.

And then it's this, it's this big,

kind of joyful thing, and they light it and shoot it like the scariest fucking thing you've ever seen.

The fucking Carter Burwell score.

The Carter Burwell score is maybe his best score, dude.

Just so amazing.

But like, even when Carter Burwell does comedies or has like branched bagpipes on that thing, I just think he, there is always something ominous underneath any piece of music he has ever written.

He does have a bit of a, yeah, sure, like a

gothic kind of like

he's the best, Carter Burwell.

Such a sweetie pie, too.

And this movie, with all of the zaniness that's definitely in here, his score never really acknowledges any of it.

i mean the closest the score gets to anything playful is when they're breaking into um the house you know and he's shattering the the back door yeah and she's running into the bathroom and it's like that it's just that plucky doom doom right boom that's like the build up that's the happiest we get you know

I mean, that, that scene, the break-in, the kidnapping of her is a perfect encapsulation.

We're like, that seems very scary

and very, very upsetting and funny the entire time.

Yes.

And I know it is the most trite observation in the world to say that Pargo is a black comedy.

And nonetheless, I keep saying it, but it is the perfect black comedy.

And I do think it was so transgressive, this movie.

People were just like, I can't believe how funny it is given that people get murdered and families are sad.

Yeah.

There's something about that scene that has to be talked about.

And by the way, are we ever going to start at the beginning and go to the end?

Or do we just go?

No, we were.

And I'm going to open the dossier.

And I'm sorry.

We're jumping on it.

We've got so much to it.

It's just so exciting to talk about that.

Why could wait till we get to that scene?

There's a lot to say

how inept these guys are.

First of all, Shep Proudfoot vouches for Gare, not Show Walter, right?

So he likes Peter Stormer.

He does not know Show Walter, which is really funny.

Incredibly funny to imagine Shep and Gare hanging out.

I could see it.

I

had a lot of time together and like grunted at each other.

We're in jail.

And we're like, you're all right.

But it's just so amazing how fucking terrible these guys are at crime.

Especially, like, every time I watch this movie, it blows my mind that Steve Bashemi knew they were going to like take this car, abduct a woman, put her in the back seat, and drive out of town.

And he didn't have the forethought of like putting the tags on the car that he had.

It's like, oh, I forgot to change the tags.

It's just the tags when they get pulled over.

You know, it's like, that's the first thing you should have done.

You know, they're terrible at crime.

And then he wants to bribe the cop when he could have just shown him the tags.

Okay, so all of that is just lunacy.

But then the front door is open, and yet he puts a ski mask on.

He walks up the back porch, and you can look out that door and see like seven other houses.

A million other houses.

Yes, they're not in the middle of nowhere of what he's doing.

And then he smashes this giant plate glass thing with a crowbar.

It's got to be louder than a gunshot.

It's just so,

such a lack of thought.

It's wild.

And I love it, but it's just crazy how much these guys suck at what they're here to do.

It does feel like it is their single favorite thing to explore in movies

is people who are mediocre

confident that they know how to pull off something that is incredibly complicated.

Yeah.

And it's usually crime.

Right.

But it's also just like anytime someone's like, I think I can figure this out.

What trouble do you think Macy is in?

Is he just underwater already in some other real estate speculation or whatever?

Like, why does he art?

He needs so much money.

And I love that they don't.

They don't.

They don't tell.

He's just like, I'm in trouble.

Well,

I am not going to talk about that.

And it's like a 10% finder's fee on 750 is 75,000.

That's not going to do it no he owes this other guy he's built this other guy out of 350 000 this is 1987 yes in minnesota like he

what have you done how did you get in the hole like this i love the joke about it i mean it's one of the most effective single lines in screenwriting history in my mind

which is when the harv pressnel character says they will never

need for money or what right it's a you know um oh the names of the characters scotty and scotty never have word Scotty and Gene never have to worry.

Right.

It's so perfect because I think from that moment, you can extrapolate.

Willie Mitch Macy has gotten in over his skis, basically, I assume, five years trying to figure out some big scheme to impress his father-in-law and be like, look how much money I made.

And the deeper he gets in the hole, the more he doubles down and tries to find some other way to not only bail himself out, but get out ahead.

And he just keeps falling deeper and deeper and deeper.

And it's like that sentiment, which you just imagine he's been hearing things to this effect for so long, have gotten so deeply in his head.

And yet, that guy's read on him is 100% correct.

Yeah.

The most devastating thing is that he knows the guy knows he's got him pegged.

Does anybody like Jerry?

No, he sucks.

He sucks, right?

Does Gene and Scotty like Jerry?

I don't think they do.

I think they tolerate him.

I think Gene thinks he's all right.

Scotty seems kind of embarrassed by him.

Yeah, although Scotty's like so into accordions.

Yes.

And another

unaddressed thing is that like the two things on his wall are a white snake poster and like an accordion poster.

But the evidence that no one likes him is how quickly all of his customers are like, fuck you.

Yeah.

And his coworker who's chewing the burritos, like he got extra tickets.

And he's like, what the fuck are you talking about?

That is what I think about that guy when all the time that he won't even enter.

He's like, why are you even asking?

He's disgusted that Jerry is asking for a gopher sticker.

He is like a rare example of a guy who everyone in the universe feels comfortable big dogging.

I'm going to open the dossier.

Just being like, You fucking.

Yeah, you definitely suck.

I'm going to open the dossier now.

We can

dig into the sort of genesis of this movie, but I do think the customer saying a fucking liar is the greatest like fuck in history.

The way, like, he's so polite.

He's such a good Minnesota guy.

He's being screwed over so plainly that he's like i think i can call this guy a liar and so but it's hard getting it a liar

decide to cut exactly it's great before you open the dossier can i throw out my big thought i had watching the movie last night it's not a profound thought it's a very it's a very trite thought prowler needs to jump what's your thought i think if anything this movie is about the difference between being nice and being a good person.

Sure, absolutely.

Of course.

That's why that, that is why the setting is the setting.

That's like that.

That's the core attention of the movie.

And that scene's a perfect example where that guy is just like, I have been wronged.

Right.

And I'm trying to decide if I say fuck right now, does that make me a bad person?

And it's like, no, it's impolite, but it's justified.

Right.

Versus a bunch of people being very nice and polite and doing awful things.

David, yes.

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So, this film film comes after the Hudsucker Proxy.

Obviously, the Hutsucker Proxy was a bit of a failure for the Coins.

I don't know your take on the Hutsucker Proxy Zach.

It's a great movie, in my opinion.

It's one of their,

there are only like two Cone Brothers movies that I don't necessarily fully connect with.

And

I want to love the Hudson Proxy.

I've probably seen it seven or eight times.

I always start it, and I'm so dazzled in the beginning, and I always kind of fall off the bike at some point in the middle of that movie.

What's the other one or two out of curiosity?

The other one is,

and

I hate to do any

sort of negative talk about any Coen Brothers movie because

their worst days is still really fascinating and worth

study.

But

Lady Killers, I have a hard time connecting with.

I don't think anyone's really going to wrinkle their nose at you saying the Lady Killers ain't the best.

No.

But

Read Hudsucker.

It's like this movie was not a conscious reaction to that.

They had already been writing it before they shot Hudsucker.

The script was, as I think they're always just kind of like working on the next thing as their projects spool up.

But certainly post-Hudsucker, it wasn't like other studios were saying, you nailed it.

Here's another $40 million to make a big special effects-driven comedy.

Right.

Fargo is, according to the Cohens, and I think this is basically true, like their most realistic script yet.

Like it is contemporary-ish.

It's like, right, it's slightly.

Blood Simple.

Blood Simple is also contemporary.

And it's also very simple.

I mean, honestly, it's kind of their most Blood Simple-y script since Blood Simple.

Yes.

And it feels like them sort of going back to what they were trying to do in that movie with the knowledge they've gained over the years.

But they're like, yeah, we want to use unembellished sets.

We want to use relocations.

And

they did include this title card saying the film.

was based on a true story.

They've sort of said a lot of things over that over the years.

Yeah.

Obviously, this movie's not based on a true story.

Supposedly, somebody maybe died thinking it was based on a true story, which is the basis of the also not true movie, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, which is a great movie.

It's a very cool movie.

Just so conceptually smart.

Have you ever seen that movie, Zach?

I haven't.

I should.

It's a good thing.

It's so fucking good, but it similarly is like starts with the title card and this is based on a true story.

And then is a movie based on an Irvin legend about someone believing that Fargo was true and looking for the bag of money.

The Cohens say they kind of heard tall tales essentially along those lines growing up in Minnesota of this kind of stuff.

Stories that are like little true crime newspaper clippings.

But I think the Paul Bunyan stuff, it's like, like, this is a tall tale, like a little bit, right?

Like, it's a modern

tall tale.

The stories that it seems to be riffing on feel very like, and I swear to God, this happened to my cousin's friend.

Right.

But I kind of think they know, and they do acknowledge it in one interview that, like, saying a movie is based on a true story locks the audience in in a weird sort of a way, where the audience is not going to be like, well, this is fanciful or like that would never happen because they're like, well, they said it was based on a true story.

Like, so I also think they, they, post Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink are aware of the fact that eggheads are trying to overanalyze their movie.

You should do that in front of the Resident Evil movie you're doing, Zach.

You should start with like this is based on a true story umbrella is real and they're up to no good you should recut barbarian to have that in you should just make that like going forward all movies have this is based on

in weapons uh the first line of the movie is this is a true story hell yeah there you go yeah um

so there have been lots of yes i think no no it's because the other incident there was some incident the the circumstances were very different but of a guy hiring people to kidnap his wife to make the ransom money back, all these things that were very loose inspirations in a way that's sort of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre says it's based on a true story.

And you're like, yeah, Ed Gain killed people.

This is not really based on.

It's sort of a true crime movie.

They consider Blood Simple to be more like a James M.

Kane type, you know, noir thriller, right?

Fargo, they wanted to be drier, less hard-boiled.

But then obviously they are also Blood Simple's a Texas movie.

And this is about where they grew up.

Of course, the movie is named after a city in North Dakota, where almost none of the action happens.

It is only the encounter at the bar at the beginning of the film.

And

they just like how Far Go sounds.

And they're right.

It's a great title for a movie.

Right.

They were like, Brainerd's a bad title.

Right.

Yeah.

Working Title Films had

sort of co-produced Hudsucker Proxy, a British production company,

which had become one of their biggest

collaborators.

So a financial

film, yeah.

They um uh financed this film.

Um, I think it cost about seven million dollars.

Like it was not like a mega production or anything like that.

Look, their movies are not losing massive amounts of money up until Hudsucker.

And as you pointed out, a couple of them made a little profit, but our buddy Alex Ross Perry was on big picture recently and was talking about this thing that's kind of disappeared from the American film industry, which is like Wes Anderson makes Bottle Rocket for like $5 million at Columbia and it bombs, but it gets good reviews.

And people are like, okay, you only get 15 to make your next movie at Disney.

Right.

This sense of like, if there's innate talent and there's a voice and actors want to work with this person, that people will keep kind of investing in you in the hopes that it will pay out at some point, which certainly like Circle Films had with them and Working Title had with them.

Many of the roles are written for the actors that play them: McDormand, Bishemi, Stormir.

Had they worked with McDormand properly since Raising Arizona?

No, I'm bad at this.

Is she in Miller's Crossing?

I always forget.

She certainly hasn't done a major role for them basically since Blood Simple.

Yeah, no, she hasn't at all.

Bishemi has been in all of their movies in small movies.

Not all of them, but a lot of them, yes.

Um, stormer they wanted in Miller's Crossing, yes.

Um,

they grew up in Minnesota, they're very familiar with Minnesota Nice culture, which is obviously something that I think was introduced to me and a lot of people via the movie Fargo, which we're discussing today.

I think my exposure point was probably the 1996 movie Fargo.

That's when I said that.

Zach, you're not from the Midwest, right?

Where are you from?

East Coast.

Yeah, right.

So, you so you too possibly exposed to Minnesota Nice type vibes, Swedish friendliness, weird, you know, all this through Fargo?

Fair to say.

Joel's quote about Marge being pregnant and wearing a puffy coat is like he's like, the sponginess is part of it, like for Minnesota Nice.

Everyone's bouncing off of people.

They kind of like, we wanted her to kind of like.

talk funny and wear a funny hat and walk funny because she's pregnant, but not be a clown.

Like, we wanted this kind of cliche cop, but she's a good cop.

Like, she's good at her job and she's very competent despite being this like cartoon nice lady.

Like, like the way she's like toddling around and then being like, ah, you know, like to this like.

grisly, miserable murder scene.

Right.

And like, it's not like they're like, what I, you know, those Swedish dramas about murder that are so popular, they're always like, oh my God, murder in Sweden.

This is so terrible.

Like in a country where no one murders.

They should sort of be saying that here.

One would imagine they're like, we don't see a lot of like insane murders here in fucking Brainerd, right?

But they're never like that.

They're more just kind of like, oh, boy, you know.

But that like speaks to this notion of a dark Marge thing where it's like, she's, this isn't her first day on the job, even if this case, the fucking ice cream.

No, I'm just drinking some water.

Sorry.

I would say

the audio says different.

But you can tell that she has seen many murders.

Yes.

and this is just her job.

And part of her demeanor is to sort of like cope with it and cover it, you know, and not like, I mean, we've talked about other movies, like Manhunter is always the one I think about.

Sure.

Where that for me is a movie about a guy who's just like spent enough time in the darkness that he's actually never going to come out now.

Right, Manhunter.

I mean, Will Graham is like, I'm so good at understanding murderers that my head hurts.

Right.

And I'm

at the point of no return.

Like, I no longer know how to talk to my wife.

The way McDorman puts it about Marge says, she says, there's something scary about Marge that's hard to articulate.

She's simple and on the surface, but she's not naive.

She's not innocent because she's good at her job, which gives her contact with crime and murder, but she has absolutely no understanding of why people do the terrible things they do.

Possibly she represents this certain feeling, which I think Joel and Ethan felt growing up in Minnesota.

But like, she does, she's sort of hinting at, like, yeah, there's something kind of like inherently odd about this character.

That might be the core of Dark Marge is this willful

sort of lack of acknowledgement that that minnesota nice has you know when marge is looking at the windshield at the end of the movie she says and it's a beautiful day and it is it is not a beautiful day it is like sleeting you feel like you're in mongolia you know and it's like the worst day of all and so this just total like i'm just deciding to only see the positive everything is fine and it's an interesting sort of dichotomy with her where she is unfazed by murder and yet she is you know ignoring the darkness that is clearly all around she is maybe

active work into trying to maintain some core belief in humanity.

Here's my thing.

So I've seen Thorgo a million times, so I do not worry about Marge.

Like, I know she's going to make it through the movie.

And I probably always knew that because she does feel indestructible.

But like, when you're with Marge in this movie, I would say, let's maybe put aside the Micana Gita scene.

You're very comfortable.

Like, them being in bed together is so comfortable.

It is one of the healthiest things.

You want to just crawl into that bed and just snuggle off with a Marge.

The first thing I've ever seen depicted.

Gotta eat a breakfast is what her husband said.

I saw someone else call out, by the way, them eating Arby's together.

Usually you're just very happy to be in her presence.

Every scene they have together, they're either eating in bed or both.

Yes, right.

It is literally always some form of like comfort.

And like

I, I wonder about like watching this movie for the first time.

Did you, did it, did people have the kind of like, Marge is, is she going to be okay?

Like she's like kind of moseying into this like awful thing.

Like, but I don't, I'm trying to imagine ever feeling that she's like, I think because she's pregnant, we know this,

they're not gonna do that.

There is some sort of like fundamental, like, no, like, she will not allow to kill the pregnant right there.

Bake innate sort of stakes into it.

It does make your lizard brain sort of on guard.

Like, you feel more worried about her, even though it's hard to think of a movie with a character being pregnant, where you see the belly less in a way, sure, because as you said, she's so bundled, right?

You know, you're sort of aware of it, but they're not constantly like showing you her in maternity pants or whatever.

And they only verbally acknowledge it, I think, twice in the whole movie when she says, carrying quite a load here.

And I think maybe at the end, when they say two more months,

but that's about it.

It's right.

It's no one is ever like, are you okay?

Right.

When Mike Yanagita hugs her too tight, Yes.

She mentions it then.

Bushemi, obviously, is in a lot of their movies.

In Miller's Crossing, is literally hired because they need a motor mouth.

They need someone who can read dialogue fast.

So they write this for him thinking, like, you will be the person who doesn't shut up.

Yeah.

He's also, and Ethan says this, he's the audience.

Yeah.

Like 100%.

He's the one who basically reacts to everyone with like, what the fuck is the matter with you?

To Jerry, to Grimms, to Gare, to Harvey Presno when he meets him.

Right.

Like,

He is an outsider and kind of an alien, and like the only non-Minnesota.

I mean, Gare is sort of like actually Swedish, I guess, but like he kind of counts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Although Steve is, you do get the vibe that he is, if not from this neck of the woods, intimately familiar with these territories.

He knows where to get laid.

Go get laid.

Exactly.

And how.

Yeah.

William H.

Macy is the only sort of star that was cast, like, you know, where they are.

He reads for the deputy detective, for Carl.

Carl, is that his name?

I'm not sure I don't know, Lou, Lou.

Sorry.

Not sure I agree with you 100% on your police work there, Lou.

They like the audition, and the Cohens are like, that was funny.

I mean, because William H.

Macy at this point, I think, is basically just kind of like...

He's like a mammoth theater guy.

He's a theater guy.

He's on ER in like a big recurring role.

He's a Chicago sort of semi-legend or whatever, but he's not like a big movie actor.

And at his audition, the Cohens are like, you should read Jerry.

Like, this was good.

So they send him away and he comes back tomorrow.

And he does his audition and they said, that's real good.

Thanks.

And then he finds out that they're auditioning in New York still.

So as he puts it, I got my jolly Lutheran ass on an airplane and walked in and said, I want to read again because I'm scared you're going to screw this up and hire someone else.

He has said, I want to get his quote here.

He said, I actually said that, you know, you can't play that card too often as an actor.

Sometimes it just blows up in your face.

But I said, guys, this is my role.

I want this.

I like his acknowledgement that most of the time people do those fucking gambits, it is like so beyond destructive and embarrassing to their careers.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

But you hear about the rare examples.

People shouldn't tell those stories because it emboldens people probably to act crazy.

Right.

Right.

They had written the part as like a sort of slovenly guy.

And with Macy, they're like, no, it's like a tightly wound performance, essentially.

That's wild.

Yes.

They had conceived of this as like a slovenly guy.

Like a kind of overweight loser.

Yeah.

That is insane.

They also

would have been right for that.

No one.

The True Coat scene where the guy calls him a fucking liar

is an experience Ethan Cohen had essentially word for word.

Yes.

Like buying a car in Minnesota.

Right.

And never forgot, clearly.

Yep.

Harvey Presnel, who is so amazing in this movie and has a voice like a car engine.

You said this in our Jurassic Park episode, but that the magic of that movie is any scenery watching, whoever's on screen at that moment, you think is the best performance in the movie.

And Fargo's another one of those.

Every time I watch it, I'm like, who's my best supporting actor nominee?

He's so good.

And like some of the one-scene performances, I'm like, well, it's this guy.

The thing with him is he is a sort of a Broadway legend and like a big singer.

Yeah.

And when you realize that about him, because then later in life, he was this kind of gravelly character.

I think this was his first movie in like 15 or 20 years.

I think it was a bit of a resurgence for him because then he's in Saving Private Ryan.

He has an incredible monologue in Saving Private Ryan.

Yeah.

And he does, right?

He does

die, of course.

Yeah, he was funny on this.

He was very good.

But yeah, he does like 10 years of this.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

But I obviously mostly associate him with

Fargo.

But

they had,

they wrote that character basically when they were raising money for Blood Simple.

They met lots of like Texas businessmen, you know, who

were like sort of like sort of little petty

kings.

And this is what that character is, right?

Like a guy who's like made a lot of money, but kind of in like his locality.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, Jerry's like, obviously, the loser version of that.

And this is, and then Joel, John Carroll lynch the great great great john carol lynch uh they just loved his face yeah he's so good so they talking about like the secret edge to marge the hidden edge uh mcdorman i just love this idea that mcdorman felt comfortable enough to constantly push them to be like what's going on under the surface here sure which other actors i think kind of wouldn't

she was like what's our backstory and they were like i don't know you guys figure it out.

Right.

And the thing they settled on was that they met on the force together.

When they decide to get married, they were like, this is too dangerous for both of us.

And he quit because she was a better cop.

But so there's the sick thing about that backstory, though, that doesn't jive

with Mike Yanagita saying you married five that they went to high school together.

Oh, you married old Norm, son of a Gunderson.

Like, Mike knew Norm back in the day.

So I guess maybe they didn't meet on the force, but that they were both cops.

I mean, they also said the Cohens were like, I don't know, whatever, if that makes you guys happier.

But like the way they were playing internally was they both knew that she was the better cop.

It would be absurd for her to retire, even if she's the one who's pregnant.

Deacons,

Roger Deacons shoots this movie.

Absolutely went insane.

Yeah.

Just incredible looking movie.

And yet, coming off of Hudsucker in particular, I was watching some of of his commentary on this.

Yeah, the DVD has a deacons commentary.

Yes.

And his podcast now that he does with his wife, Team Deacons, is so fucking good.

Yes.

This commentary was recorded like 25 years ago, and it feels like he's not super comfortable talking at length about stuff.

Sure.

Not that he's cagey, but it feels like he hasn't, whatever.

But he did say, like.

I read this script and it was just so fucking good.

And the characters are so good.

And they cast such good actors that I was like, I don't need to do anything fancy here.

This location's interesting.

And you just watch it with the commentary.

And he keeps breaking down, like, yeah, this is another scene where it's two setups total.

Well, they initially told him we only want fixed shots.

Like, you're doing nothing.

And then they realized, like, that's maybe a little too puritanical.

But it is.

And they do move the camera and like, you know, there's a little bit of stuff.

But it's a pretty,

in every scene, I was like, no, covering.

What's the simplest way to cover this?

And the only things I care about are like capturing the performance and the performance relative to their environment.

As you were saying, Zach, it's like such a location movie that, and it's also, it's a thing that I find so fascinating about them and especially their work with Deacons that they almost always, if not literally always, shoot inside of the conversation.

You kind of never get over-the-shoulder stuff with the Cohens.

You're always placed in between the people talking.

Yeah.

And that part of it is, I think Deacons talks about, you know, he came out of documentaries first and foremost and his school of thought for how meticulous he's able to like meticulously construct what feels like the perfect frame.

He talks about it being a pretty organic process that for him, it's like figuring out how to do it with the fewest number of lights possible, the fewest setups, like simplify it.

And he's like, my guiding principle is just like, what is the best place for the camera to be to capture what the actor's doing?

Because he's used to that from documentaries of like, you might not get multiple setups.

You just need to be, have the right relationship to the subject in that moment.

And so everything is just kind of like drilled down to like, you want to be right there as if the person is kind of talking to you in the center of the space.

Movies entirely location, basically no sets at all.

There's one bathroom set.

That's it.

And that's got to be the storm air shower curtains.

Right, where they're fucking things up.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

And, you know,

they famously, I feel like it's the most disgusting thing about this movie, had no snow.

They had like a weird mild mild winter, so they had to bring in a ton of artificial snow.

And then they had to like go to North Dakota to

shoot big exterior stuff because they had to go find snow, essentially.

Deacon said the opening credits shot is one of the last things they shot because they finally had given up and were like, we're not getting the snow we need.

We have to travel out and we'll get that last.

Yeah.

Guys.

Do you want to talk about Fargo?

Yeah.

Okay, great.

So, yes, opens with

true story cards.

Yes.

And this negotiation between Macy and Sparky.

I'm not going to debate you there.

I'm sorry.

That's such a big deal here.

And David, I feel like you wanted to slide past it, but I have to put breaks.

1987 is important.

I think that's important.

Why do you think that's important?

I don't disagree with you.

I think it's because it's about the end of the Reagan era.

It's about the financial boom that is coming to an end here.

Like the rugged individualism of Harvey pres of the dad right being like this is my marnie

like i feel like it all feels very 80s very reagan like he's like i'm as i'm this self-made like macho man right and like that's what jerry wants to be yeah also not look reagan was not a minnesota guy no he sure wasn't was not his kind of persona and the way he like built off minnesota

history i will trumpet uh minnesota is the only state that did not vote for ronald reagan in either election it's pretty nice only state pretty nice of them yeah That's wild.

Isn't that crazy?

Now that's partly because Walter Mondale was from Minnesota.

So he did win his home state.

It was the only state he won.

He swept 49 states.

Reagan won 49 states and Walter Mondale won Minnesota and Washington, D.C.

Wow.

Yep.

Wow.

Reagan won by 18 points.

It was a big win for old Ronald.

Both times?

No, for 10 times.

I just think it's interesting that this opening title card doesn't just say this is based on a true story.

It gives the year.

And then it says, says, if I remember correctly, you know, names have been changed to protect the innocent and out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it's heard.

That is a little bravado of stating that of like, yeah, we barely wrote the thing.

This is exactly what happened.

It's awesome.

And it's more convincing.

It's like

they did it perfectly.

But it's also, I mean, it's where like, I don't think this movie is even like incidentally based off of little snippets of news stories as much as it is based on the idea of reading something like this in the paper and being like, that's so bizarre.

Sure.

And you

saw it in a movie, you'd be like, this is overwritten versus telling you this is real.

You're like, I guess weird shit happens.

Yeah.

You do.

You must have seen that clip of William H.

Macy describing the moment he learned it wasn't.

And he's on set.

Like he was already in production.

Oh, yes.

They didn't tell him.

And in his chair.

Yeah.

And he found out it wasn't based on a true story.

And he goes up to the Cohen and he's like, you guys, this is not true.

And they're like, no.

He's like, you can't do that.

And they're like, yeah, we can.

And it's just like, well, mix.

He goes, okay.

It's just like, there's nothing to be said, I guess.

No one's going to like it.

I just found that you would get so deep in the process

and not know.

Want to also just be like, you didn't like research the real guy, but yet you feel betrayed by this?

Yeah.

You didn't want to meet anyone who knew Jerry Lundegard.

You found no like supporting material to like look into.

No, I was just going to say there's something in the like, I mean, it's the fucking the Phil Hartman Reagan sketch.

Sure.

But there's something in like Reagan's public persona that does feel a little adjacent.

to the like Minnesota nice energy of this movie where this guy like phoniness is that the word sure yeah like right used his sort of like old Hollywood folksy like I'm just the gipper kind of thing and like right sold this sort of like it's morning in America how can you argue with this right don't we all want america to be like like it was in the morning um but it's right basking like a very kind of mercenary strategic uh mind yeah and it and it just sets the stage for the for everything that comes after it's like everything is now seen through a different lens you know you you engage with the movie in a completely new way and you indulge these little scenes of of slower pacing because you believe this really happened i just think it's it's you take that out you know you watch this movie without that title card, you have a completely different experience.

I think you're right.

I think it does, right?

It just sort of locks the audience in.

It's another read on the Mike Yanagata scene I love.

Yanagita, sorry,

that I love is that it's in there because it's the kind of thing that would be included in a movie based on its own.

We cut to her talking head and she's like, and then I got lunch with my friend Mike Yanagita.

And it's a little funny.

It was like, no one would write that, but if it was part of the real story, I guess you'd need to figure out how to dramatize it.

So

the first, but the first meeting and Fargo, trying to think what to highlight apart from just like the clash between

Buscemi's kind of like, I'm not going to debate Jerry, you know, energy and Jerry's.

aweshuxness.

Yeah, you're scrolling through the movie here.

One of the interesting thing about this interaction is it's the only window we get into Gare at all beyond this guy's a stone called Psychopath because Gare leans in and he says, Oh, your fucking wife, you know, like he, Gare displays some sort of like moral judgment on Jerry for this, for this scheme.

He's like, You want us to kidnap your own wife?

It's just fascinating because for the rest of the movie, he shows nothing.

Right.

He otherwise seems like the single most scrupulous character.

Because like even Boussemi sort of goes, like, why the fuck would you do this?

You know, as much as I think he prides himself on being a guy who can override any sense of morality, Boussemi clearly has checks and balances in his head and he feels fear from doing the wrong thing,

even if he's like, it's worth it for money.

Versus Gare just kind of seems to be like...

Well, Gare's like a psychopath.

He's a true psychopath and he almost feels like a spiritual demonic force.

Right.

But yeah, I guess Carl is a petty criminal is basically what we're right.

Like that is his general.

like prides himself on I can like do the right kind of stuff.

He's certainly not.

They're not being hired.

No funny stuff.

This is a no rough stuff type of deal.

Yeah.

And but yes, the the idea, of course, is that they're going to get 80 grand and split it.

Right.

We do not realize until way later in the movie, obviously, that the real scheme is that there's a million dollars that the criminals will just get a tiny amount of.

I feel like when you learn that, there's something so brazen about it that you're kind of like, God, that's so smart of Jerry.

And you're also like, that's so stupid of Jerry.

It's

way too much money.

Like, it's crazy.

You know, what would have happened if, you know, when his father-in-law was listening in on the call with Carl, if Carl had said, bring the 80 grand.

Yeah.

His, his father-in-law would have known in that moment.

Right.

Jerry did all of this.

Why am I putting a million bucks in this briefcase when the kidnappers are asking for 80?

And of course, there's so many tension points to this movie.

If people would just kind of be like, yeah, fine, I'll pay you a little extra for the car or whatever.

That like, but that's the magic of the Cohen's, obviously, is he.

But also, to your point, you're like, does he get away with it if it's a million and they're doing a split?

There's no way they get away with it in any circumstances.

You're right.

No, you're right.

Like, there's no way.

You're right.

There is no way that the wife gets returned.

Yes.

And they escape with the money and everyone's like, oh, well, that was weird, but who cares?

But it is right.

I mean, look, the core mistake.

And then Jerry's like, oh, and I bought a parking lot, by the way.

Here's a question.

Let's say that they had killed Gene and yet Jerry got the million dollars.

Right.

Okay.

So like everything proceeds the same way.

It's just that Jerry escapes with the money or he gets the money.

He gets the money and he doesn't even have to flee.

Like he gets the money.

They killed Gene.

He never gets her back.

The police are like, we're so sorry your wife was murdered, but he's a million dollars richer.

Do you think Jerry considers that?

kind of a win?

I mean, is he also a psychopath?

I think he is.

He is, or he's at least the rest of his life with this terrible secret and not be so bothered by it.

He's a bad person.

And I'm not out here to call, you know, to cast judgment, but the moment where,

what's the Stan Grossman is like, how's your son?

And he goes, oh, oh.

Like, and you see it dawn on him like, right, my son's probably pretty fucked up about this.

is so shattering because you're just like, so there's like a hint of like humanity left to Jerry.

He doesn't love that this is happening.

That's why I don't think he's like.

Jerry doesn't want his wife to die.

I don't think he likes her like that.

It has never occurred to him in the weeks and weeks of putting this together.

Like, oh, Scotty might be upset.

It's not until that moment that somebody else brings it to his attention.

I think reinforces that this dude would be fine if Gene died.

He just doesn't care.

I think it's less

completely a sociopath and more that like his innate insecurity and his lack of confidence in how he is perceived relative to like masculinity in the world has completely curdled his brain.

Like it now overrides every other decision he makes.

It's all through the calculus of like, how do I impress people?

How do I look like a guy that people have to treat with respect?

Yeah, I he's whatever.

He obviously prioritizes his own security as well over his wife's life.

Right.

He wants to pay off his debts.

Right.

And I think there's a version of him that's like, if he owns a parking lot and people feel sympathy for him because his wife died and he can get away with it, that's a win.

That's an additional win.

Yeah.

I mean, let's say he never did this scheme.

Let's say he was just on the up and up.

He made some bad investments.

He owes $750,000 or something like that.

And he files bankruptcy.

Yeah.

His father-in-law would probably pressure Gene to divorce him and he would be a divorced dad and he'd live at the Jolly Roger, you know, down

the road.

That, that to him is so unacceptable.

Yes.

That this is the action he takes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's fascinating.

I have no no doubt that Gene's father would try to, even more than before, convince her to leave him.

And yet, as much as we're saying that she doesn't seem to like really love him,

they make a choice to not have her be some nagging rolling pen wife.

I think she would stick with it.

His father-in-law would have to bail him out financially, and it would just be this toxic, poisonous wedge

in that relationship.

But I think that is his ultimate fear.

That's his ultimate fear.

This man will hate me more than he does.

And the ultimate admitting of defeat of this guy owns me because the only reason I'm still in the picture is because he bailed me out.

Yeah.

I couldn't prove myself.

Right.

How they ended up together is also a bit of a mystery.

Like, how did Jerry ever charm anyone in a way?

But she does seem like, she's not like...

a total idiot, but she seems like a bit of a kind of like sweet, simple kind of gal.

I mean, she's laughing at the most vapid

shit that she does.

You know, she's not reading a Russian novel on the couch.

Right.

You know, God bless.

But, and that's the sort of like the classic Cohen's thing where some people are like, are they being patronizing?

Like, are they rude?

You know, do they hate these characters or whatever?

And I'm like, no, they love these characters.

I feel like they even kind of love Jerry.

Like, Jerry's demise at the end of the movie, not to, you know, where he's getting dragged.

There's this like twinge of sympathy for the guy.

You know what I mean?

Where you're just like, I totally disagree.

He's such a loser.

Like, even, he can't even go out like strong.

You know what I mean?

Like, them, like, dragging him in his underwear.

You're absolutely like, yeah, he deserves it.

Like, I'm not like you're like, ah, poor Jerry, but you're just like, God, he's just always a fucking loser, isn't he?

But the fact that they make him do these guttural grunts like the grape stop lady.

That's so crazy.

I mean, God bless Macy.

He like goes for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what I find fascinating?

I don't.

It has basically been confirmed, I think, at this point, that William H.

Macy was the original voice of Marlon and Finding Nemo.

Uh-huh.

And he was like too much of a loser.

Yes.

And they like test-screened it with like story reels before they started animation.

And it was like, the audience hates this guy.

Yeah.

And he was like, I don't know.

I thought this like made sense with the sort of like William H.

Macy worrying persona.

And he was like, I got to get someone who's like comedian first and foremost and can like own this as a joke.

But it makes sense because there's something so contemptible about him in this mode of like pathetic that even when it's funny, it does make your skin crawl.

And think about him in boogey nights.

It's like when he puts the gun in his mouth, it's like we're all kind of like, oh man, what a loser.

You know, he really was on such a run of losers, right?

Between this and the PTA movies.

I know, and Magnolia,

he's the worst in Magnolia.

Magnolia, he's amazing in it, obviously.

But that is a character where, like, compared, like, Jerry is tough, is a tough hang.

Uh-huh.

He's a big loser.

But a fucking Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, you're just like, I can't look at this guy.

Original trivia team name, by the way.

That's true.

Pilot circa CC Pirate

came up with that name.

But like, you can't look at him.

You're just like.

He's with him and Henry Gibson at the bar.

Tragic.

It's like one of the most skin-crawling things I've ever seen.

That's basically what Stanton said is like he was too good of an actor that you couldn't laugh at this guy being an erotic fish dad.

You're just like, oh my God, this guy's fucked up.

And it's funny to watch him in other movies movies where he's he's not a loser you know like i watched i watched jurassic park 3 last week and and he's and he's you know he's not like a hero but but they've jettisoned all pathetic drip out of out of his character in that and it's like what are we doing with this guy like what is what is happening okay now i would need to sidebar here for a second because david and i are both jurassic park 3 defenders but you're making and i am too i i had i enjoyed the movie i like it

uh you're making me realize something for the first time is that movie missing the spice of Macy going full Jerry Lundergaard?

There's a dash of it.

There's a dash, but if that character totally unravels and becomes that pathetic.

But then you need him to get eaten by dinosaurs.

You'd be like, dinosaurs, eat this man.

But I still think we're solving problems here.

But what's interesting, Pleasantville is in the middle of this run as well.

Which he's so good.

He's excellent in that movie, and he's also playing kind of a loser, but a much more lovable character, very sympathetic character.

He can give sympathetic performances.

He's amazing in Air Force One.

Wild Hog's one of the most sympathetic performances in history.

What does he do?

He's good at computers.

He fucks Mirso Tomei.

Great.

Yeah.

In Air Force One, it was you.

You've never, have you seen Air Force One?

I have, but like, it's not, it's not one of my

400 times.

He says it was you.

It's incredible.

Well, also, let's remember his most emotionally rounded and resonant performance.

Sea Viscount?

Yeah.

Guy with all the things that make noises.

He's got a little triangle.

Remember when they nominated him for a Golden Globe for that performance?

Everyone's like, yeah, why not?

Who gives a shit?

So, all right, so Jerry hires these guys.

And then, you know,

we don't mean Marge for half an hour.

So we're just in this immediately unraveling situation, right?

Like, how quickly do we get?

I guess we go from that to sort of set up like Jerry and his family.

I think the beginning of dork Jerry is right, right?

And then it cuts back to the two of them in the car.

And I feel like that's the immediate unraveling is these guys can't get along.

Right.

This is not a chill.

He's chittled by his silence.

Yes.

That he keeps going like, it's fine.

I cannot talk.

Let's not talk all day.

And then he won't stop talking about not talking.

It's so, so brilliant.

It's so good.

Total fucking silence.

Where is Pancakes House?

I too would get sick of pancakes.

I get sick of pancakes usually in the middle of a pancake order.

Yeah.

And the smoking with the windows up.

I mean, that right there.

Oh, would you do that?

The move Storm Air does.

Where when in the murder, in the

you know, the crime, the, I don't know how to describe it, the triple homicide scene, where he like rolls the window down, he just kind of like lets the cigarette out of his hand.

I think about it all the time.

It's so great.

It's so good.

He's kind of like rocking in this sort of like strange, kind of like autistic.

Right, him going into like full psycho mode.

It's beautiful.

It's terrifying.

Yes, it is.

He is so scary.

But even there's something so resonant in the like hard cut to the two of them fucking in parallel beds in a shitty motel and seemingly getting like no joy from it.

There is not even this sort of like kink to

look.

We're doing this together.

Right.

It almost feels like they're annoyed that they just can't afford separate rooms.

Right.

Would

you do that?

It is so crazy that they do that.

Never in a million years.

Someone you, I guess, we're basically, these guys have ostensibly kind of just met, right?

Yeah.

Is that the idea?

Yeah, basically, yeah.

But they don't know each other.

I don't really know.

No, they were like basically set up on a blind crime.

Isn't it kind of the hardened, these guys have probably both done time thing of like,

I'm going to fucking, I need to fuck someone.

I've taken a shit in front of someone in a jail cell.

Like, I don't care.

Like, it's just kind of like, right, I'm just going to, yeah, let me ride it.

Privacy has been beat out of them in

the middle of the market and then we the juice fresh.

It's so crucial to it.

Yeah.

To the sex scene is the cut to them then watching TV.

Yes.

That just rocks.

Yes.

And the tonight show, it's just such a funny thing.

Like, are they going to laugh once on this episode of The Tonight Show?

Right, right.

It's so good.

The way that the Doughboys have turned pulling an autofocus

into a term,

within a group of friends, pull in a Fargo is a jokey throw.

We throw around a little popular

double bed hotel room just kind of like dispassionately have parallel sex and then watch tv it's great that we meet the girls after and they are just so like chill and silly they're so funny i mean it makes so much sense that they wrote this for bushemi but the repetition of just kind of funny looking

just more generally even more funny looking than most how would you describe him because i i would go on the teeth first i'd be like he's got kind of prominent teeth but i guess that's kind of like a weird thing to say about someone but they're right i would start with the eyes i'd be like, yeah, he's got kind of a steep and shemmy eyes.

But this is why.

This is why just kind of funny looking is the right thing because you're like, you ask 10 different people and they each would start with a different thing about him.

Yeah.

His lips are French in a way.

Yeah.

He's got so many different things that on any other person would be their only defining physical characteristic.

So true.

And you just combine it and you're just like, I don't know.

He's just kind of funny looking.

Just kind of funny looking.

Yeah.

But yeah, what else happens?

Why are you pointing at this?

Because you had Fargo up.

Oh, yeah.

This movie is so perfectly constructed.

I'm actually.

Okay, so it's them and Carr.

Then it goes to the first negotiation of the true code.

Yeah, the true code scene, right?

Which is right.

I think just

the depths of how pathetic he is.

Early.

Right.

And then the real failure of that scene is when he admits that the true code is already on it, even though they didn't ask for it.

So he's probably going to have to take the financial hit of not charging them for the thing that he thought he could talk them into.

Like there are all these little indignities that keep stacking up in his life.

What I love about that scene is he makes this like totally phony, pouty, like, I'm a bad boy kind of expression at the end.

You know, when the guy's pulling his checkbook out and he, he's looking down, Jerry's looking down and he's, he's, he's like, you know, mock guilty.

It's really, but he knows this was always the plan.

It's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Like everyone sees through him at all times.

They put that on at the factory factory on what you guys are talking about yeah um

yeah okay so he's a big loser yes and then and then it's the the kidnapping you pretty quickly from there

have the establishment of this previous scam he's running with the license plates right

um where he's what borrowing money on cars that don't exist right that's what he's doing why wouldn't he just send in serial numbers of cars that are on the lot i think i'm too dumb to understand i'm possibly too dumb too but i mean the reason is probably because like that is a crime and would be easily discovered i guess right i don't really know though i mean it speaks to his confidence in something he does not have figured out in that the best i can make sense of his plan is just he thinks he can stall them forever and or

get the cash i think it's more of a multiple find the money somehow and then return the money back to them eventually when he's like well a year from now i'll have two million dollars and then i go oh sorry um but

wait because they are they've it seems like they've already fronted him the money because the guy says, or I'll have to recall the loan.

They've given him the money.

Siri says, I got the money.

The money came through.

And the assumption I feel like is that money is gone.

Right.

Right.

So you got the money and it went wherever it's all going.

Right.

Yeah.

That money went to pay off debts that are still not made whole.

Right.

Even though it was 300.

Where are the debts?

Is he a gambler?

Like, what?

What is it?

I'm dying to know.

That's my question.

Ben, do you have a take?

Yeah, I think he's such a bad car salesman

that

he has not been bringing in any money for his family because it's a commission-based family.

He's just like he's fired, though.

No, well, but he's, it's his father-in-law's dealership.

So he's kind of getting away with being one of the worst car salesmen of all time.

And I really do think he's just like, trapped and he's bad at this job.

And that is basically how he has been generating money for his family.

But I also think he keeps like metaphorically going all in at the poker table, right?

Yeah.

Like he's sort of like one smart move and I get myself like ahead.

Sure.

And it truly could be like this guy went to a casino one weekend and lost $10,000.

And over 15 years, it has spiraled to 2 million.

Like, I think it's just that he keeps doubling down on I'll get the money back.

This is risky, but if it works, then i'm he does yeah he does have some avenue of association with the criminal underworld he knows shep proudfoot i mean i think there's a chance that he maybe rubbed elbows with some unsavory grifter guy who convinced him that he had this you know this get rich quick scheme and it was not all the all the way on the up and up and and you know shep proudfoot was probably adjacent yeah things went south and now shep is his lifeline to maybe a new scheme to get out that is a really good take because this is the exact kind of guy who gets scammed and never recovers from it.

Yeah.

He's a rube.

Right.

He's a rube, and that is a thing that would only emasculate him further on top of then having the financial anxiety of how do I make myself whole again.

Because I just don't think that he could have been bad at his job to the point where he secretly owes over half a million dollars, you know, at his father-in-law's dealership.

It's like, if you suck that much at selling cars, like that's going to work.

That, that's going to, that's on the books, you know?

And I know the reason is I should stop nitpicking and who cares?

But does he ever think about kidnapping the father-in-law?

Who's going to pay?

Stan Grossman?

Maybe Grossman will do it.

Maybe.

Maybe Grossman will free up the funds.

But yeah, no, I don't know.

It's just kind of like...

Can you imagine trying to kidnap Clint Eastwood?

It's just like, it's not going to, right?

It's not going to work.

It's just so callous to obviously to be like, well, my final, final, final bargaining chip is I'm married to someone whose dad is rich.

So I guess I can ransom her.

I just think it's so great that when this movie starts out, you're literally opening with him proposing, you know, or confirming the deal to kidnap her and get the ransom money.

We're already so deep into this scam he's been running with the cars.

Right, which is great.

I mean, this is exactly what we, where we need to be.

We need to be seven-eighths of the way into his doom for him to be doing this.

And he's preparing to pitch the parking lot thing.

This guy's got three things that we know of going on at the same time.

We're in act two on page one.

Right.

You know, yes.

That's great.

Yes.

And just, I'm sorry to just, but like, because it's connected.

Right.

This scene, I find the scene where he's revealed essentially to be kind of right in meaning, you know, where they're like, this is a good deal.

The financials of this do kind of make sense.

Right.

To be so satisfying to watch.

I watch it a lot

because it's the perfect Cohen's thing where like there's this little note of triumph for him where like this guy who clearly resents him for being such a loser and marrying his daughter is like yeah i mean this is a fine deal and he's like great so give me the money and they're like why would we do that we're not a bank the most devastating moment in a certain way is you're like he doesn't have a chance if he just went to a fucking bank not that any bank would give him money he's probably like up to his ears in debt but it's almost the most painful moment in the movie when they go well i hope if you're not interested in pursuing the deal you're cool with us just doing it without you like dude you just lost your finders fee i think they're going to give him the finder's fee i do think they well maybe not i don't know they're pretty ruthless in that scene is he has nowhere to sit you know he's like right he has to sit on the edge of a chair facing the other way it's just like he is always at odds but he's like deep in one scam he's setting up a crime and he's got a plan for like a legit business he does he has a way out but he could never get a million dollars essentially to get out no and by the way like if he's smart what he does is take the finder's fee from it and then go, let me find more things like this.

Let me build a relationship.

He's fucked.

He's not that smart.

I also think that.

I'm not saying if he's smart, that's I also think if he bought the parking lot, he would screw it up sometimes.

He would, of course, he would.

He wouldn't like do it right.

Yeah.

Oh, he's just destined.

Yeah.

He would be this way.

Absolutely.

He was always going to be face down in a bed with two cops and knees in his bed.

In his boxers.

Yes.

I want to say about the deal with the parking lot.

He mentions

if he makes it happen that he wants to actually pull out on the ransom scheme, right?

Yeah, because he goes to chef to try and cancel it.

He thinks he's going to be okay, so he's set it up in a way where he's like, My backup, even though his wife has already been kidnapped, right?

Well, no, he doesn't know that yet.

Oh, okay, but he goes home to her being kidnapped, right?

He's so stupid of him to engage these two guys before he takes a shot at the parking lot.

Like, that should be the backup option.

He only goes to

of drugs.

He's so desperate.

Yes.

He's so desperate.

Well, parking lots kind of feature in this movie a lot.

The most, I feel like the best shot in the movie is him trudging to his car.

Yeah.

And it's like this lone car in the lot surrounded by snow or whatever.

Right.

And then like the scene with Carl having to pay four bucks for the long-term parking.

Right.

And then later of Carl shooting the other, Carl shooting the other parking guy.

Like parking actually pisses everyone off in this movie.

Yes.

It does seem to be this kind of like inescapable money drain in Minneapolis but that's also the moment that is so iconic where he fucking loses it trying to scrape the ice yes off the windshield

so

I'm having a flash dumb fucking hat parking lot Larry yeah look at that parking lot yeah no that's true that's right yeah

So then I think he goes home before we skip the scene where he goes home and his dad is having dinner with them, which is such a great moment where he goes, dad's joining us for supper.

And she's like, yeah.

And you can just see, he's just like, Fuck, another miserable night.

Yeah.

And the kid just wants to go to McDonald's.

They aren't drinking milkshakes, I'll tell you that.

Yeah, yeah.

What does he think they are doing?

The kid does not seem like that bad a bull.

No, no, they're not smoking weed at McDonald's, yeah.

Like maybe they're like bumming one cigarette and like passing it around or something.

I don't know what they're doing.

Not drinking milkshakes is so funny, though.

Yeah.

Um,

so yeah, what else?

So then the kidnapping.

Um, yeah, Which

look, I can quote this movie.

I'm sure you're

like this, Zach, in that, like, it's like, I can quote this movie visually.

You know what I mean?

Like, I remember like scene transit, like shot transitions and like, you know, just like framing and stuff from this movie.

I've seen it so many times.

It is.

When I'm not as good as Peter walks up the porch, it is one of the greatest, terrifying, and funny.

I mean, it is so them.

It just works on every level.

And he kind of presses his face to like peer through the glare at her.

And she's just watching dumbly, like uncomprehending of what this person is doing.

And it's not until the glass breaks that she realizes like, danger, idiot, get up.

You know, it's so good.

Yeah, just her knitting, watching the soap opera, starting to clock him and taking her time to react.

Just kind of being like, it can't be what I think it is.

Yeah.

Right.

Did you guys notice that it's Bruce Campbell and the soap opera?

Yes.

Of course.

And it is an actual soap opera that Bruce Campbell did that they licensed on the traditional tradition.

Oh, is that true?

I was wondering.

I was like, this feels so authentic.

The way the audio sounds and like the dial, it just feels so real.

It was one of his earliest acting jobs that I think they did almost in the same way that Raimi likes to torture Bruce Campbell.

Now, Intolerable Cruelty has a soap opera thing too, right?

But where they like made a fake soap opera.

There's something with that.

Yes,

right?

Where there's something on TV.

I can't remember.

Yeah.

Anyway,

it's amazing in Fargo how many characters are watching television at all times times or trying to watch television it is a massive theme in this movie it's which i think lends itself to the opening title cards you know i think there is something about our addiction to these stories and to this kind of being fed information through a screen that it has to be intentional

escapism thing of these people who are living these very quiet controlled lives and dream of right it's also so cold and this movie is so cold right and anytime someone's outside you're just like go inside right and like, and you, and the movie is communicating that to you.

Like, it's hard to be outside.

Yeah.

And like, you want to just be warm and you just want to be in Marge's bed watching like TV and talking about stamps.

And like anytime anyone's outside, it just looks so miserable.

And it looks miserable in the cabin.

They've got the oven open and you can see Gene's breath coming through the hood.

That cabin is tough.

Yeah.

It's not, that's not the nicest.

White Bear Lake, I wonder.

I mean, Minnesota has a lot of lakes, right?

Famously, 10,000 or so.

The kidnapping, anything we want to say about the kidnapping apart from the AI.

I mean, for how controlled and perfect it is, their ability to stage incredibly clumsy things without it feeling like hyper-precise, like slapstick comedy.

Like part of what's upsetting about the kidnapping and also unnerving about it is that it feels like sort of so mundane and messy.

Right.

In all of their movements, but also like the shot sequencing and there being sort of weird amounts of space, they're they're not being weirdly a sense of urgency to it as much as there was an urgency in her trying to like escape it.

And I think she thinks these guys are there to just fucking kill her.

Uh, they're being so slow and deliberate in their moves.

Uh, yep, yep.

Yeah, Peter Stormer having no concern for anything, you know, he pulls the mask off immediately when he gets bit, you know, and he's his concern shifts from like this felony I'm in progress on to I need to get ointment on my on my body.

I need ungwent, yeah, yeah.

What the hell is ungwent?

Ungwent is just a

name for like a greasy substance, essentially, an ointment.

You know, like it's it's so funny that he uses that word.

It's a very old-fashioned word.

I don't know if the if the Comens just think it's funny or if it's supposed to speak to his kind of like,

you know, uh, second language.

Yeah, I need ungwent.

David.

Okay, okay.

I'll be very quiet.

Oh, I'm used to it.

Producer Ben is sleeping.

Oh,

Hazzy, Hazy boy is

getting some

multiple dashes.

What's he sleeping on?

He's sleeping on one of the new beds we got from Wayfair for the studio for our podcast naps.

But this is a big opportunity for us.

We get to do the first ad read for wayfair on this podcast no no griffin you're clearly not listening to past recordings ben did a wayfair ad for us recently you listen to past recordings yeah sometimes that's psycho behavior it is look he did that when we were sleeping look apparently we need to talk about how when you hear the word game day

you might not think wayfair but you should because wayfair is the best kept secret for incredible and affordable game day fines makes perfect sense to me

absolutely And just try to, David, just if you could please maintain that slightly quiet.

We don't have to go full whisper.

Just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

I mostly just think of Wayfair as some website where you can get basically anything.

Yeah, of course, but Wayfair is also the ideal place to get game day essentials, bigger selection, curated collections, options for every budget/slash price point.

You want to make like a sort of man cake?

Okay, fine.

Okay.

All right.

Sorry.

You know, Wayfair

stuff gets delivered really fast, hassle-free, the delivery is free.

If you, for game day specifically, Griffin, you could think about things like recliners and TV stands, sure, or outdoor stuff like coolers and grills and patio heaters.

Like, that's, you know, that's all the winter months.

David, you have like basically a football team worth of family at home.

You got a whole team to cheer up.

This is true.

You need cribs.

Your place must be lousy with cribs.

I do have fainting beds.

I have cribs.

Sconces?

Chaise lounges?

I'm low on sconces.

Maybe it's time to pick up a few.

This is the kind of thing that would make your home team cheer.

Look, I'm just going to say that Wayfair is your trusted destination for all things game day.

From coolers and grills to recliners and slow cookers.

Shop, save, and score

today at Wayfair.com.

That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.

Wayfair, every style, every home.

David, there's only one shame to this ad read.

Don't wake Hausy.

There's only one shame to this ad raid.

That I didn't find out about this in time before I already purchased coolers, grills, folding chairs, patio heaters, recliners, barware, slow cookers, sports-themed decor merch for my favorite teams, and more.

If all the football team, Cleveland Browns, of course, Donte Mac, no matter what.

Okay, that's the end of the ad raid.

David, what?

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin David podcast about philamographies is brought to you by Booking.com.

Booking.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what I was about to say.

Booking.

Yeah.

From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S., booking.com

has the ideal stay for anyone, even those who might seem impossible to please.

God, I'm trying to think of anyone in my life, perhaps even in this room.

Ben, who's like, what's an example of someone I know who maybe has a very particular set of demands?

Bringing me in, and there's only one other person in the room.

Who's one other person in the room?

This is so rude.

I sleep easy.

I'm definitely not someone who insists on 800 thread count sheets.

No,

that's an example of a fussy person.

Look, people have different demands.

And you know what?

If you're traveling, that's your time to start making demands.

You know, you've got

a partner who's sleep light, rise early, or maybe, you know, like you just want someone who wants a pool or wants a view or I don't know.

Any kind of demand.

Lynn, and I need a room with some good soundproofing because I'm going to be doing some remote pod record.

Sure.

Maybe you're in Europe and you want to make sure that's very demanding to be in Europe.

You got air conditioning.

Well,

think of one person in particular, although it's really both of you.

Yes.

You got to have air conditioning.

I need air conditioning if I'm in the North Pole.

Look, if I can find my perfect stay on Booking.com, anyone can.

Booking.com is definitely the easiest way to find exactly what you're looking for.

Like for me, a non-negotiable is I need a gorgeous bathroom for selfies.

You do.

You love selfies.

As long as I got a good bathroom mirror for selfies, I'm happy with everything else.

Look, they're again,

they're specifying like, oh, maybe you want a sauna or a hot tub.

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Please.

Can I check that book?

You want one of those in the recording, Stupid?

That'd be great.

You want to start?

You want to be

in the sauna when we record.

I was going to say, you want to be the Dalton Trumbo a podcast.

You want to be splish-splash and

good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge.

And while recording, I'm on mic, but you just

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So she gets kidnapped.

It's the cars, the chase, right?

Or is there anything in between the kidnapping and the murder?

I mean,

the thing in between is what I just mentioned, the

Jerry essentially losing the lot.

Right, but then also him coming home with the two bags of groceries and having the sort of processing, walking.

Right.

Being like, right.

They've done it.

It happens.

It happens.

And you don't.

And then rehearsing the phone call, which is so good.

So incredible.

I think that's why.

And fully, speaking to you,

sociopathic.

I think that was a Macy idea I saw.

Oh, really?

That he was like, this is a fun beat.

Right.

And yes, the moment where he's practicing it, you're like, this guy's gotten the performance pretty close.

Yeah.

And then

the hard switch when he gets to the receptionist.

It's great.

I also love the framing of that shot.

We're not in the kitchen with him.

We're like kind of in the hallway and we've got the banister in the foreground.

And it's just like, it's voyeuristic.

You know, we're just watching.

I don't know.

I love that choice.

It's like the fucking taxi driver payphone scene.

Yeah.

Where you're like, you feel like you're shooting.

Yes,

get the camera away from it.

You're seeing something uncomfortable and embarrassing and too intimate.

Yeah.

And then that's one of the cuts to black, I think, fades to black is after

Yahoo Holt.

And then it goes to the.

And then we go to the night driving, right?

Well, then it cuts right to Paul Bunyan at night and the night drive.

Yeah, amazing.

And this is like the biggest set piece of the whole movie, arguably, you know.

And, and it's so, so well done.

So we've gotten into this argument in the past about the

Francis McDorman winning for lead, William H.

Macy being nominated for supporting.

Sure.

The actual affront is the Macy being nominated for supporting.

McDorman is clearly the lead.

It's just, it's just Macy is probably, I mean, I have him in lead.

He's the lead.

I can sort of hear an argument for like everyone else is kind of supporting, but he's in a lot of the movies.

He got, I believe he has 30 seconds more screen time than she does.

I always question the way that people fucking stop watch these things.

Those stats are a little weird, right?

But they at least have basically equal screen time, if not slightly more, towards him.

It obviously becomes her story.

Yeah.

And she's the one who's sort of driving the plot.

But I also think one of the things that's so interesting with the Cohens is that very few of their movies are really driven by one character.

They're almost always plotted either thematically or by an event.

Like the event is sort of the thing you're following and then you're attaching yourself to different characters in the arc of.

Yeah, I can think of a lot of counter examples to that.

Lebowski is obviously character-driven.

Inside

Lewin Davis is True Grit, I would say, is with Maddie.

Serious Man is a lot of their crime movie, I guess, in particular.

Yeah.

But what's your point about Macy?

Like that he should have been nominated in lead?

Where'd they?

Where the cynical calculation of like

it was more that I'm just clocking, we're getting to the final shootout, which means, or, or what you described as the biggest indie spirits put him in lead.

Right.

Basically, no one else even, the globes didn't nominate him.

And SAG put him in supporting.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

I mean, I think his nomination was like a mild and welcome surprise at the Oscars because he was not a very well-known actor at that point.

But obviously, he's so good in the film.

But it does cost Buscemi

his maybe like most obvious chance at an Oscar knob before Ghostworld, which he's also.

Which he's also stuck for.

I just think he remains one of the most egregious, like never knocked out.

I write them a letter every day.

Okay.

And they tell me to stop.

But yeah, no, it's just fascinating to think about how deeply we've gotten to the movie and that we're getting, you're like at the big set piece.

Yeah.

And she has still not been introduced.

True.

That it is like 30 minutes on the dot after the big blow up.

Yeah, this scene of like, once again, like clumsiness, like Bussemi trying to pull the move of flashing the money in the wallet.

So stupid, so unnecessary.

It took me so long to clock that that's what's happening, yes.

Uh, the way and then the way the clock, the cop, like, flips the wallet shut.

Um, but yeah, I mean, but I think Buscemi just thinks that's the only way

Buscemi's stupid.

The stupidest thing he does, we don't see, which is that he brags to the guy in the bar that you killed people.

Right.

And like the way the guy describes what he was doing, like, you're like, like, I can exactly picture Carl like popping off and essentially being like, well, there's, there's a trail of dead people behind me that you don't want to fuck with me.

But a stupid calculation he makes is the moment where the cop says, what's this?

If Boussemi is savvy in any way, he goes, oh, sorry.

Right?

Sure.

Like he acts like it was truly an accident rather than like he quadruples down.

He keeps repeating, what if we just settle it here in Brainerd?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the guy is just not having it at all.

And he's making it worse and worse.

Right.

Yeah.

I think there's no way out of it.

They have a woman in the back seat.

Yes.

Like, if she was in the trunk, do they get away with it?

Do they basically pause?

I mean, he was still going to get in trouble because he's still going to try and bribe the stupid fucking cop.

And that cop was obviously not going to have it.

And he was going to, he was going to get.

Someone was going to get shot no matter what, whether she's in the trunk or in the backseat.

This is what we keep circling back to.

There are so many unforced errors in this movie.

and yet the characters are making errors on top of each other.

Where, even if you're like, Well, if they had just done this one thing differently, that's not accounting for the five things they did around it.

Yeah, I mean, if he just put the tags on the car, right, everything would have been different, yeah, you know, and that's the first thing he should have done.

Yeah, it's crazy, he should put the tags on the car.

Um, so they kill the cop.

The thing I think about the most is the little spurt of blood,

it's so

onto Bussemi's face, yes, yeah, just the little like pathetic fountain.

Yeah.

Like it's more than nothing, but it's not like an insane geyser.

It's just this like,

I just think about it all the time.

I also always think about the way the cop falls out of front.

Yeah.

The way the way they you see him for one second, his head covered in blood, but like literally one second.

Yes.

Yeah.

He falls back on his knees away from the camera.

It's so it's sickening.

We talk about in the Blood Simple episode, but they said so much of their like genesis of that movie is feeling like deaths and movies are always too clean.

Like, even when they're bloody and messy, they're bloody and messy in the sort of like operatic way.

And they're like, death is like really clumsy.

And it like takes longer.

Um, and you just have these sort of like odd embarrassments.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, but yes, how quickly they just

get themselves into like a perfect knot of, well, now there's a dead cop.

Now there's a guy driving by.

There's an eyewitness.

Right.

There's like no way out of this

without just more murder and insanity um

the yeah they're kind of doing what william h macy's doing they just kept digging deeper and deeper and deeper into this into trouble

and essentially a sort of like we'll figure it out mentality uh but yeah the people see them that the shot of the guy's face like you know is so good uh it looks like louis anderson i always think about this kind of look like louis anderson he's got a big orange coat on or something he's like he's got like a bright coat on yes um

and uh

it's just, I mean, I just, again, just imagine being in the theater in 96

and like the shot and the cut to black.

Yeah.

And just that like wave of like laughter and craziness that must have gone through the audience.

So like, what the fuck just happened?

I feel like we talked about this.

And David and I being a little younger than you, Zach, that like for both of us, we think our first exposure to the Coens was watching Billy Crystal edit himself into the Oscar montage this year into Fargo and like sitting in a room of grown-ups laughing at it and both being like, What is this movie?

It's got like broad comedy tone and it's about murder.

And I have a very similar memory of this movie playing in theaters in New York for so long and constantly walking by when my parents would walk me to school, a theater that had the poster up and being so confused by the needlepoint poster and being like, What is this movie that has has this sort of like cutesy depiction what he did was

he he's the other creature

yeah

talking to in in that first scene in the the morning sickness and then he's talking to busceme in the car okay they're like talking to each other yeah he's playing pretty fast and loose with the narrative there yeah yeah

And then it's back to him talking to Jerry McGuire and, you know, there's some great stuff here.

All of that to say, like, our exposure to it was first the pre-digested version of like we all know how funny fargo is versus i wish i could have had the purity of being able to see this in theaters like opening weekend and being like what the is this no one has ever done something like this before

um well it's a good movie uh what happens after

um

um no i basically right the body lying in the snow goes oh you go to marge we go to marge right we go to we're getting to call in bed The camera.

Powler needs a jump.

Yes.

Powler needs a jump.

But the ducks, the painting, supplies.

The camera tracking over to them in bed and her being woken up by the bottom.

The most like, you know, incredible introduction to a character.

First, this.

Yeah.

But then her, the breakfast, you know, got to have a break.

Breakfast is important.

I got to go.

Him being like, got to have a breakfast is another acknowledgement of her pregnancy.

Yeah.

Like, I don't think he's just hitting that so hard because he's her loving husband.

He's like, no, you need to eat.

Like, you're pregnant.

But he knows if he said it that way, she would push back on the idea that she's vulnerable.

So, but then like, yeah, and then just, I'm not sure I 100% agree with you on your police work there, Lou, where you're like, he's such an idiot, but she would never chew him out.

She's being so nice about it.

You know, just her whole approach.

Her whole matter of factness about the homicide, this execution style deal, like the way she's talking about this horrible thing we just witnessed.

That's what's definitely like her, her sense of politeness does not override her doing the correct or responsible thing, right?

She's not going to defer to this guy out of being polite.

She finds the most polite way to push back and explain her own theory.

I also just love the sort of like just get breakfast out of the way vibes, but also them having breakfast in like pitch black darkness.

That feeling of like when you are awake too early doing a thing.

Right.

As if you're like eating before like a red eye flight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I also like that, you know, she gets there.

She hasn't seen the dead trooper.

Right.

She just sees the two bodies there by the upside down car.

And she's, she's good.

She already can like put together exactly what happened.

Yeah.

And she's right.

You know, we got a, we got a shooting over there and then we got a drive-by and they come here.

We get the execution type deal.

Yeah, it's she's great.

But then she has the little and looks like a perfectly nice guy, right?

She has the little aside where she's like,

she's acknowledging that that this is a tragic situation.

Yeah.

She's not blasé exactly.

She's just even-handed or whatever, like, she's just kind of like

even tailored.

But it's like what she's getting at with the last line, her last lines of the movie, which is just like, what could possibly have been worth all this?

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this is.

Yeah, in a way, like, they should be.

I mean, this is a cop killing.

Like, this is crazy.

It's crazy.

Yeah, and it's odd that she didn't have a relationship with the dead cop.

Like, that is never acknowledged, you know?

Like, this is a tiny town.

This is a small police community.

You know, an officer is gunned down in cold blood.

And they don't spend any time talking about that.

Although, I guess it's basically he's from a neighboring precinct and got shut down in the sort of like liminal space between the two cities.

Yeah.

They might explain it.

But he wrote DLR, and that means dealer plates.

And,

you know, I guess she finds the Call Girls first, right?

The first thing they find where she's like, oh, that's a good lead, is that like two guys checked into a motel with Call Girls

in a burnt umber Sierra.

Yeah.

A Sierra is an oldsmobile.

I had to check.

I don't actually, I didn't actually know what it was.

They say Sierra so many times.

It was my first car.

Your first car was a Sierra?

It was a cutlass Sierra.

It was a hand down from my grandpa.

Burnt umber?

but it was not umber, it was a dark blue.

How are the tags?

Interior.

How are the tags?

Yeah.

Regular license plates.

Thank God.

Well, then that's the answer, babe.

Jesus.

How did it drive?

It was a fantastic car.

Okay.

I loved it and unfortunately got into an accident and it got totaled.

Oh, that is too bad.

It drove great.

It was a V6.

It had some power to it.

And it just was so purposely designed designed for like an old man in this really lovely way it had like uh lights built into the um rearview mirrors so you could like you know look at your map oh very nice or it was also helpful for rolling a blunt there we were in the car at night that sierra saw some blunts yes it did um

yeah uh she interviews the ladies well no before that you cut to jerry meeting with the father-in-law and the

strategizing the ransom payoff.

St.

Grossman's a great character.

So good.

That guy's clearly a smart guy.

The smartest guy in the movie.

Right.

In a way, that's exactly who Jerry wants to be.

Even more than he wants to be Harve Press now, like that's the guy he aspires to be, who's just solid as a rock, responsible, has the respect of other men.

He doesn't need to be like the king of Ship Mountain.

No.

But that's what they bring up, like, how's Scotty doing?

Right.

And he's like, right, Scotty.

Yeah, I'll talk to him.

And I think he.

The scene where he tries to talk to him is so miserable.

I think he's doing a fairly good job of keeping a brave face on it.

And yet, every single thing that Scotty's bringing up is clearly something that he hasn't considered until this moment.

Where like Scotty's first question is, what do you think they're doing with her right now?

And his response is, nothing.

These guys, they just want money, right?

Which is him like knowing these guys are just waiting to be paid off.

Right.

But yes, the more Scotty digs into it, the more he's like, you don't know these fucking guys.

They could be doing anything to her.

And I don't get the sense that that is really occurring to him.

He doesn't, he doesn't seem to be that alarmed.

He's more alarmed that Scotty could,

you know, let things slip to his wife's friends.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

That's true.

He actually is trying to maintain OPSEC.

He also thinks that Scotty Scotty is worrying over nothing.

I think he believes what he's saying.

I mean, that's Jerry's.

Right.

Jerry always thinks he's in control of every situation that he's clearly lost total to.

He's like, these three people are going to sit in a room together watching TV until they get the check and they'll bring her back.

The only time he ever says anything is in the first scene where he says, I'm in a bit of trouble.

Right.

And then he won't go into it.

But like those calls where the guy's on the phone being like, well, if you don't send me these numbers, I'm going to, he's just like, yeah, real sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll fax that over to you.

You know, know, like, obviously, you can tell he's stressed out.

He never says, like, God, what the fuck am I gonna do?

My favorite moment is when he goes, like, I sent them in the mail, they should be arriving.

And the guy goes, that may be so, but I'm letting you know.

I'm out of patience.

I don't receive them by tomorrow.

I'm filing charges.

Like, even if they're in transit and they'll arrive two days later, your luck has run out.

Your time has run out.

And his response to it is still so contained.

Yeah, he's like, sure, sure, sure, sure.

That is a moment where you'd expect them to give him another sort of like ice scraper meltdown.

Well, do a damn lot count.

That's him melting down.

No, but he does melt down after that, Griffin, because then we cut to that wide shot through the window and he grabs his keyboard and slams it on the desk.

Yes, yes, you're right.

He does.

You're right.

You're right.

But he stays calm on the phone.

Yes, yes.

Right.

He's still trying to confidence his way through it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

So then, right.

It's

Norm comes to bring her lunch.

You know, there was a scene that they filmed that they didn't put in the movie of Norm ice fishing and they cut it out.

Or so I have been told.

I don't know if that's true or not, but

I don't know why they would shoot it.

I think it probably makes sense that we don't.

They do say, like, I thought you were going up ice fishing at Mill Lake or whatever.

Like, yeah, like, and obviously he needs his night crawlers.

Right.

And that does.

Norm is like the salts of the fucking earth.

Yeah.

And everyone does seem to respect the hell out of this guy.

And then, like, the touch touch that he paints yeah is just like the perfect final touch to this character of like he's got a sensitive like artist side you know what i love too when they're talking about uh i i forget the name but the competition of the other person who's in the running for the stamp yeah i forget his name they don't shit talk them and even marge is like well

he's talented but you're more talented Right.

Yeah.

Like you're better than them.

They're good, but you're better than them.

Right.

It's the circle back to they're good, but you're better.

She doesn't want to put the other person down.

She just believes in him so deeply.

And yeah, this notion that it's like he comes and eats lunch with her every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In the office.

He knows everybody in the building.

Which does sort of speak to maybe he used to work there.

I don't know.

Sure.

Again, it doesn't really matter.

They all

seen are just welcome seasoning for her character as well, obviously.

And that's when Luke comes in with the lead of the two women.

Right, right.

And she talks to the ladies and they're they're so funny.

One of the two who has no screening.

Was circumcised?

Yes.

I think it's that one who has no other screen credits.

Sure.

Was basically a dialect coach on this movie.

Right.

That makes sense.

Like, the one on the left, it's got to be the one on the left.

Yes.

I think was like a local theater actress, but she was the one.

I don't know if they hired her to do this first and then cast her in the role or vice versa, but she said, like, in particular, McDorman credits her.

Larissa

Cockernaut.

With cracking.

Incredible name.

Yes.

And Melissa Peterman, who is the other one, is like a, you know, has been in a zillion things.

She was on Young Sheldon for a zillion years.

Hey, nice work if you can get it.

She's a main cast member.

Oh, no, she's recurring.

I take it back.

Well, huge interesting thing, these two, who are, you know, I presume sex workers because, you know,

yes.

At least part of that.

That's a safe assumption, but they have a completely different attitude.

These women seem untraumatized and like, like, this all in all seems like a good experience.

yeah they don't seem to think they're like in trouble for like you know patronizing these men or anything like that yeah the third woman is unquestionably a sex worker and she is

like does not love this where he's like you find this line of work interesting and she's like the fuck you talking about right she's over the job yeah every other time i watch this i oscillate back and forth and thinking are these two women sex workers or not

I think they are because he knows a place they can get weighed or whatever.

They're kind of like they're girls who at least are like, you know, whatever the bartender knows some gals that might be interesting so blase about everything right

there is like a lack of like it's not just that they're not worn down by the thing in the way that the third woman is but they also just don't kind of seem canny about anything like they just feel like they just go out and they do what they want to do i love when the one is like go bears right talk about her high school

go bears yeah she rocks yeah

um we also see them arrive at the lake house and Jeannie running around with the hood over her head.

Yeah.

Hands tied behind her back.

This is the scene where Carl, it really does show his hand that he is also a psychopath.

You know, Gare is not laughing.

Carl thinks this is the funniest shit in the world.

I mean, that is just actual cruelty that he's displaying.

Yeah.

Here's the thing I think the Cohens are.

I think Gare doesn't find anything funny.

No.

Like he, his brain is like kind of like, there's just like

there's nothing, no, nothing reading in there.

That's why why Carl cannot make conversation with him.

Right.

Like, he is capable of having sex.

Yeah.

So he sort of like has some like animalistic function.

He also doesn't seem to enjoy it even as much as Christina does.

He's like, this is why it's so interesting when he cares.

He seems offended that Jerry wants to kidnap his own wife.

It's just, that's interesting.

Well, I want to circle back to this because I...

I'm thinking about you calling that out.

And I'm like, is he offended as much as he's just kind of intrigued by that being an interesting human behavior?

You know, he clearly disapproves.

There's a value judgment on it, but I'm also like, the only thing that activates him is like what he is perceiving as a level of cruelty that he seems unfamiliar with, if that makes sense.

Like this guy is desensitized to violence, and yet this sort of alarms him as just like, that's fucked up.

He's like, what is the world coming to?

Right.

Everything else he's like numb to.

And that's sort of just just like he cannot ignore.

Right.

This is like his Tommy Lee Jones and no country sort of like conundrum where he's like, I don't even know if I belong in this world.

I think it's also like one of the things that the Cohen brothers are as good at as anyone else is in almost every scene, every character is ostensibly sort of focused primarily on something other than their main.

like textual objective in the scene, if that makes sense.

Right.

Like I think they're really smart about like constructing environments for really interesting behavioral performances.

Right.

Where even when Lou comes in with the lead, Marge is clearly like, you know, on her game,

seizing the opportunity, but also her priority is, I, I got to finish this lunch.

Yeah, I'm eating these French.

She needs her Arby's.

Right.

And the same with like them watching TV while Jerry's wife is running around.

John Carroll Lynch in some interviews said that the only direction he really remembers the Cohens giving him was

in one of the scenes, maybe it's this one.

He was paying too much attention to what Lou and Marge were saying.

And Joel came up to him and said, like, you don't care.

Just finish your meal.

Right.

I love that.

You're not ignoring this, but like, this doesn't matter to you.

Right.

Yeah.

The guy's shoveling his front side, his front driveway when the cop's interviewing him about the interaction at the bar with Carl.

You know, it's like, that's his focus right now.

A perfect example to me of a scene where when I am watching it, I'm like, this guy is the best guy in the movie.

He's so three minutes he's unbelievable.

And of course, the most important thing in that movie is these guys who are wearing fucking space suits being like, it's getting colder.

Like, it's going to be colder tomorrow.

They had the weather combo with like, oh yeah, there's a front coming in.

I'm like, guys, it looks like it's minus 40 degrees.

You never get a clear look at his face.

He looks like fucking Kenny McCormick.

He is so naturalistic that it almost feels like they like hidden camera an actual citizen.

This guy, I dug in a little bit, is like a Minnesota theater legend who started like the most reputable theater company.

Oh, nice.

But I think he's

other one, one other film credit.

I think was sort of the activation point for a lot of the local actors they hired in the film and just kills this one scene.

He kills it.

Yeah.

So I called it in.

Like his story, it's like he's giving this like valuable,

like, he's like,

it's really important information.

But I learned that

and he gets through it and he's like, so I call him and the guy's like, yeah, well, it's probably nothing anyway.

I guess it'll be cold here soon in this fucking frozen hole.

Which almost presented as boring, kind of.

Like a boring story.

But like when the two women at the bar won't stop harping on how funny looking Boussemi was, it's like, well, but they also had like a very intimate experience.

But this guy's also like, yeah, he's just kind of fucking funny.

I mean, mean what they're trying to say is like he looks like a little weasel like what do you walk from how do you define this guy other than that he is unusual if he walked into a room you would immediately and i want to be clear he looks like

yes he has been styled to look like a weasel it's just that you can get that guy to you know to a weasel faster than some actors whose semi i cite a lot as one of the prime examples of like people who are cast to be ugly in movies if you see them in person you're like they are so striking striking and good looking guys because anyone who registers on camera is like innately kind of captivating looking, even if they're unconventional.

But if you see him in, what's that movie he made when he was really young?

That's

lounge.

Well, he's, no, he's amazing in Trees Lounge, but he's obviously playing, playing kind of a rough customer in trees.

That guy's had a couple drinks over the years.

I don't know if you noticed that about him.

But like New York Stories, he's New York Stories is an example, but fuck, what's it?

In the soup, the movie with

Seymour Castle.

Great little movie.

Like, he's so cute in that movie.

He's adorable.

Yes.

But it's right.

What they're really speaking to more than anything is like, look, he doesn't look like anyone else.

He is unique.

Right.

And also, this guy's energy is just weird.

It's what you said.

He's just like, there's something unsettling and weasel about this guy.

Yes.

Ben, you keep coming in and out of the Zoom and it always jump scares me.

It's so funny.

No one's watching the Zoom, obviously.

So it's just me that cares about this.

So we're going to cut that out of the podcast because who cares?

Keep it in double it.

It's just me that cares about this.

So we're going to cut that out of the podcast because who cares?

Also, if you could edit in a little bit of ice clinking, it feels like it's been a while.

Maybe it's another good moment to place it in.

Oh, thankfully, it's melted.

After this, it's Mike Anagita.

I'm saying, but we have to do it.

Do we have more on Mike Yanagita?

Yeah, I got an hour to do it.

Well, we're not going to do an hour, but do we have more on Mike Yanagita that we want to explore?

I mean, Steve Park at this point in time was most known for Do the Right Thing and in Living Color.

Yes.

Right.

He's great in Do the Right Thing.

Yes.

He talks about after this, he did a guest arc on Friends,

experienced an incident of like absurd racism

behind the scenes, wrote an op-ed letter about it

that I think was published in the LA Times in 1997.

Sure.

And says that he was like soft blackballed from the industry for a number of years.

And you look and like the credits dry up for a while, which is absurd because you watch this and you're like, this guy should have become the single most in-demand character actor for the next 10 years.

So funny.

And so he's kind of on ice.

And it takes until the mid-2010s that people start being like, why does no one fucking hire that guy?

Like, it's part of the persistence of Fargo is I think when people re-watch it, they're just like, no one's using this dude.

And obviously the Cohens use him again really well in Serious Man.

They do, yes.

Right.

And then the final segment of Friday.

And I'm embarrassed to say that I am just now putting together that that's him.

That's him.

He's the dash of the student.

Yes.

I did not realize that.

And also we thought you were making like a weird joke when you said he, when you quoted that line from Serious Man, but yeah, okay.

Gotcha.

He's he's like the secret sauce of the final segment of French Dispatch, too.

Your favorite movie.

A movie I like a tremendous amount, but he's like transcendently good in it.

Right.

Yeah.

It's weird to me that he didn't realize that he was funny in that scene and that when Ethan told him that that scene slayed, he was like, but it's so sad.

I think he's, he's in that character, right?

He's like, I'm playing this like truly sad guy who's, well, I guess the question is, does Stephen Park?

Explosively crying, saying, you're such a super lady.

Like, that's funny.

You know,

I'm not with you on that.

You're such a super lady.

I guess my question is.

How does Stephen Park know he's lying?

I guess he probably was told, like, this is not true.

That's a great question.

I don't actually know.

I think he's trying to affect your performance.

Play the guy with a level of psychological realism, even though it's in a weird tone and the language is obviously so specific.

and there's no way to say that without sounding a little goofy.

I think he's trying to avoid being condescending to the character.

Yeah, he's great.

I mean, he does a great job.

In his mind, he's like, I'm not trying to make this scene funny, but of course, the sadder he plays it, the funnier it gets.

Like it is that you, you always talk about the fucking interview you had with Christoph Waltz promoting big eyes where you were like, so you play a bad guy in this movie.

I was like, I might disagree with you on that point.

And I was like, Jesus, I have 20 minutes with you.

We're going to fight about whether your fucking villain character is bad.

No, the problem was that 10 minutes in, he was like, yeah, you're probably right.

And I was like, well, then why'd you fight me on it, Waltz?

He was like a cat playing with a mouse.

Yeah.

I was just this tired little guy, you know, with a low little notepad.

And he was clearly just like, I'm going to fuck with this guy.

Yeah.

Anyway.

I just think, right, like he is a guy who is innately funny.

Steven Park.

Right.

Yeah.

And like has a comedy background and knows knows how to be funny.

And they probably cast him for that reason where they're like, if this guy plays it straight, it will still be funny versus hiring a dramatic actor who might just make it uncomfortable.

It's a scene I sometimes struggle to watch.

It is so uncomfortable.

Yes.

It is sad.

The way she reacts to, not before he's crying, to him moving next to her.

That is the roughest moment.

In the scene for me.

It's like, it gets so much worse and then it gets even worse in retrospect when you find out he was was lying and yet the absolute pit of the flimsiness of him being like how about i sit next to you and her being like oh i you know wouldn't you know i can then i have to turn to look at you just immediately a bad move she's going out of her way to try to find the most polite reasoning for why she's putting a wall down

The thing, too, that would like with finding out later,

it's so insane that he is dressed up and wore a suit.

There's something about that to me that like stuck out on the but she's dressed up too like they are

i feel like they are kind of like well

you want to dress up for the radisson yeah i guess it's radisson you know but he is living with his mom so it's like tough to imagine him like at home like with putting on a suit putting on the suit yeah yeah it makes it so much more sad how old is marge is she like 32 like how old is she like she's not i guess not old 36 is what the number that i like how old is my head but i dormant that that might be too old

but you know what's really interesting though is in the phone call with her friend where she's recounting the the encounter with Mike her friend describes

um that he was really pestering her meaning the the woman that Mike said was his wife yes and it's like that is before back in 1987 they didn't call it what right now yeah he was being fucked up right

and they they use their minnesota nice yeah really bothering her really pestering her and it's like dude what we're seeing is the first step of mike stalking yes possibly getting kind of obsessed with and the fact that he's undeterred by the fact that he knows she's married right to a guy he also knows and is seven months pregnant right yeah right like it is the hyper fixation why there's a whole nother movie here i mean there's a whole fascinating movie he calls her because she was on tv right like he calls her because he saw her on television yeah yes right

which is also so great well how the heck are you it's like such an insanely obnoxious question to ask at 1045 at night

And also when you're in the middle of like fucking investigating a triple homicide.

Sure.

So 96, Frances McDormott was 39.

Right, right.

So when she made the movie, she's about 38 or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That track.

She's in her late 30s.

Right.

About 20 years since they've all graduated.

Right.

So, but yes, it's not that meeting Mike makes her kind of reevaluate that first interview she did with Jerry.

It's hearing on the phone that he, you know, lied to her that does seem to spur her to go back to Jerry and kind of press him a little harder.

And I think in Jerry's a bad liar.

Mike's a better liar than Jerry.

Jerry is a better person.

Mike is the worst inserter.

Yeah.

Right.

It's also interesting.

She does go back and say, how do you know?

But she doesn't seem to clock that he's a liar until he just completely disintegrates in that scene.

He disintegrates under very little.

She wasn't like, I think this guy lied to me.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

She's initially basically just like, well, maybe the car went missing and you you didn't clock it, essentially.

So after the Mike scene on this watch, I went back, rewound, and re-watched.

the first Jerry March scene because I was like, I now want to see what she wasn't picking up on with him.

And I think it's less that Mike makes her realize he could have been lying and more that Mike kind of reminds her that everyone in this culture is putting such performative layer on type of all of their social interactions.

Right.

Yeah.

That she's just like, well, everyone's lying all the time.

Yeah.

I need to like look deeper into their personality and the circumstances of their life.

Cause even when she goes in to see Jerry for the second time, she clocks the photo of his wife on the desk.

She's just like not really considering all the angles of who he is as a guy versus what he's saying to her.

And she's obviously not seeing him as a suspect the first time.

She's just like, there's so many disparate elements here, and I'm just trying to trace them.

Where the fuck do the cars come from?

Right.

Yeah.

And in the first scene, he's not a good good liar, but the only thing he really fucks up is he takes like 10 seconds to answer one question.

There's the moment, I'm trying to remember what the question is, where she asks him something and he just locks in eye contact with her, kind of pleasantly smiling for like 10 seconds.

It's because she says Brainerd.

Yes.

And he knows because he's already had the conversation with Carl who said three people in Brainerd.

Right.

Right.

So blood has been shed, Jerry.

Blood has been shed.

And he's doing the math of trying to decide how much do I pretend I know.

Yeah.

How much can I get away with?

How dumb can I play here?

Yeah.

And even still, she kind of takes him on face value because I think, once again, she lives in a world where everyone is kind of putting on airs all the time.

No, I hear you.

They're always sort of covering their real feelings and masking them.

The second time, he so immediately drops the color.

But he's so fucked anyway at that point.

Like he is like, right.

And she doesn't know how deeply he's involved in all of this, but knows he's covering up something and it might help her get to it.

That the second she starts pushing him and he starts being like, I don't appreciate your rudeness, that's what really triggers her in my mind is her being like, if this guy's dropping the politeness this quickly, he's 10 times guiltier than I thought.

Okay, no, here's the thing.

Yes.

She, she, yes, she busts William H.

Macy wide open and he runs away.

He's fleeing the interview.

Right, right.

He thinks he can just drive away.

And that means that, yes, you can.

He's not under arrest no he's not but he is fleeing the interview but that's also that immediately makes him most even a hundred times worse that doesn't get her to the cabin and there's things that happen in this movie that we don't see they kill his wife yeah we don't ah she starts screaming you know yeah like that's that's the end of that we never see it we don't know how that transpired and re-watching it this time this was the first time i can't believe i've seen this movie countless times it was the first time i noticed the torrent of blood on the stove it's yeah it's awful yeah yeah And like everything disintegrates off screen, essentially.

You know what I mean?

Like, much like in the move they pull in no country.

Yeah.

Of just like, you can figure it out.

Well, it's, I feel like they talk about this, but their process of writing together, they're like, if the idea of writing a scene doesn't seem exciting to us,

then you just don't need to do it in the movie.

Right.

Then like, what's the next scene that's more interesting and how do we get whatever information we need across in a different context?

She doesn't find them because of Macy.

She finds them because she essentially is like, well, before I leave, I'll just kind of drive around those lakes that that guy mentioned

from the bar.

Right.

And she just fucking drives around and then she sees a burnt Sienna.

And that's it.

Right.

And you have that moment.

It's the most like sort of caveman detective work.

Is it Lou over the radio who's like, Margie, be careful?

And you do feel that sense of just like, is she really just going to fucking pull up to the driveway?

Yes.

This is the moment where her pregnancy like becomes a story point.

For real.

It's like, you should not, you are the last person person that should go like storming into this remote place with murderers.

Because he says, like, we'll send a couple cars over and she's just like, I can't blow this.

Yes.

And she, she does a great job.

And she fucking shoots him in the leg and like gets him.

I mean, she does crush him.

It's amazing.

The framing is the same as when that man in the red jersey.

goes running into the tundra away from the upside down car.

Yes.

And now it's Carl.

It's the daytime version.

The exact same

The exact same movement.

And Carl goes for the kill shot and she does not.

She shoots him in the leg.

It's a skill shot.

She like nails it.

You see her take her time, line it up,

fire one bullet.

And she fires twice.

She misses the first shot.

Okay.

But she basically hits him.

It's pretty implausible that she hits him at all.

She's like shooting with like a 29 revolver.

It's another thing that like belies that she is in fact.

She's a little magical.

But also that she's like fucking good.

Right.

You're like, this is someone who's gone through like insane fucking firearm training and has like spent time at a shooting range to nail that shot even in two.

And also she's not trying to kill him.

She's trying to incapacitate him, which she does.

She gets him.

And then she, you know, off camera, goes out on the lake, cuffs him, brings this wounded man back to her car, takes him into custody and drives him into town.

Seven months pregnant.

It's awesome.

And we don't need to see anything.

And it's like, I just solved the murder of.

Five people?

Five, six?

Well, there are six people killed in the movie, five that she knows of.

Right.

so the five are the three you know the the two bystanders and the state trooper the the poor guy at the parking garage that buscemi shoots harvey presnell who

and then and then the wife oh sorry

so seven yeah seven i forgot about the parking attendant everyone forgets about the poor parking attendant yeah who just was one parking attendant too many for carl i feel like you know what i mean sure because like the thing with carl we didn't mention of course that like when they shoot each other which rocks so much like you know uh it's just you know open the fucking gate, you know, it's just him doing that where it's like the guy could probably just open the gate, but clearly, like, the guy's like, huh?

And Carl's like shooting him.

It's the moment the guy said, like, buddy, are you okay?

That's what got him shot.

It is the moment in every

fucking face where I get so

actively annoyed about Bussemi being robbed of the supporting actor nomination because I'm just like him being able to play pique Bussemi irritation, yes, while also playing the like, I cannot talk.

I am bleeding.

He enters the cabin.

He's like, huh?

Get a load of me, right?

It's so good.

And the way he walks out, where he kicks the door open and then stumbles on the step as he's like going down into the yard, it's amazing.

The indignity of him trying to get the paper towels to cover up to stop the bleeding and having the weird scrap stuck to his face with the pattern on it.

But I'm like, in that scene with

Peter Starmer, I'm like, he just doesn't cheat at all in terms of how limited this guy's jaw would be at this moment.

How do you split a car, you dummy?

Right.

Dummy.

And the feeling that, like, not only can this guy barely speak, but the more he talks, the more pain he's in.

And yet, he's so annoyed, he's going to keep fucking monologuing.

And you see, like, his eyes going bloodshot as, like, the longer he's fucking getting to this philosophical argument that he deserves the car.

The more he's like going white with pain.

Yes.

No, it's wonderful.

He never is.

He's not even mad that he killed her.

No.

No.

He doesn't care.

He just wants the fucking car.

He just wants the car.

Right.

You know what else we didn't talk about?

Is at this point, he's already buried the money and put the world's weakest little marker that is obviously not going to be there tomorrow.

It'll be like covered with snow immediately.

Another horrible plan.

Another just like poorly funded.

In the middle of nowhere.

Like, just why not drive

a block away from town, from the house, right?

Put it next to the tree.

A tree, exactly.

But to your point, even if he makes it out of the confrontation with Storm Air ahead, gets the car and is on his way, what are the odds he finds that spot on?

He's going to cut.

What are the odds that the money is still there?

What are the odds he lives for another 12 hours?

Why does he even go to the cabin?

Why doesn't he just take the million dollars and peace out?

That's actually an exceptionally, I guess he wants the car.

Or maybe he he doesn't want Storm Air coming after him.

He's like, I give this guy 40 grand and then I'll go.

I guess there's

no doubt he thinks that way.

Do we think at that moment that he doesn't know that Storm Air killed?

He doesn't know.

Right.

Because he says, what happened?

And he's like, ah, she started screaming.

So he's going back maybe to try to.

I think Zach's right.

He's kind of like, I do not want Storm Air on my ass.

That guy's scary.

Yes.

I'll give him the money.

And then

they haggle, and you're like, stop haggling.

Jesus Christ, give him an extra hand in the car.

Yeah.

Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, this isn't a humble brag.

It's just a fact of the matter.

Despite you being on mic, oftentimes when sponsors buy ad space on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

Right.

They love that they get a little bonus ben on the ad read, but technically, that's not what they're looking for.

But something very different is happening right now.

That's true.

We had a sponsor come in and say, we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

This is laser targeted.

The product.

We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

It certainly is.

And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Avenger.

The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming to theaters August 29th.

Macon Blair's remake of...

reimagining, whatever.

Reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link.

Yeah.

I'm going to see it.

We're

excited to see it.

But, Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks.

It honks.

Yeah.

It's so great.

Let me read you the cast list here in billing orders, they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor Play Page, with Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.

Tremblay is Toxie's son.

His stepson.

His stepson.

Okay.

Wade Goose.

Yes.

Great name.

Give us the takes.

We haven't heard of them yet.

Okay.

You got fucking Dinkledge is fantastic.

He's Toxie.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like David.

David sizzling.

Yep.

And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang-ass freak.

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

Yes, yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches.

Yes.

With my sleazy and sticky friends.

It informed so much of my sensibility.

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and Headbanger.

Yeah, exactly.

Making toxic crusader jokes.

And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I was really emotionally invested.

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut.

But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary.

They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just something that means a lot to me.

And they knocked it out of the fucking park.

Okay.

It somehow really captured that sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that like lo-fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original toxy movies and they have like updated and in this way that it was just i was so pleased with it it's gooey sufficiently gooey tons of blood tons of goo

uh great action it's really fucking funny it just it it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version cinniverse last year released terrifier 3 unrated yeah big risk for them there i feel like it's a very very intense movie.

And a huge hit.

More interesting, yeah, theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years.

Want to make that happen again here?

Tickets are on sale right now.

Advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

So if y'all were planning on seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets.

Please go to toxicavenger.com slash blank check to get your tickets.

Blank check one word.

In theaters August 29th.

Yup.

And Ben, it just says here in the copy, wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says, Summon the Nuts.

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

Summon the Nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new metal band.

Hell yeah.

Who are also mercenaries.

Cool.

And drive a van.

with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill.

And that's all I'll say.

Okay.

And they are the most dang-ass freaks of dang-ass freaks.

I'm excited to see it.

And your endorsement, I think, carries more weight than anyone else's in the world on this list.

Seriously, get your tickets now.

Go to toxicadvenger.com/slash blank check.

Do it.

Do it.

Now, you said there's the moment where he leans in with sort of the shock at Jerry's cruelty in hiring them, right?

When he realizes the plot.

The only other moment where Storm Air has a really big reaction to something and he underplays it is like

when he clocks McDormand.

She's been yelling.

He can't hear her over the wood chipper.

Right.

Then he feels her in the peripheral vision.

He turns slowly and he looks to her like a small child who knows that they've just gotten in trouble.

Right.

He like plays that one moment with vulnerability where he kind of knows he can't beat this woman.

Yes.

And he knows he's caught, like you said.

Yes.

And

he looks scared and he also looks embarrassed.

He looks embarrassed by everything he's done and that she's caught him in this moment not looking cool.

And he obviously throws the log at her.

Yes.

He wants to get away, but like he's got no chance.

He's talking to a leak.

It's like so apathetic at that point.

Yeah.

It's the same as, again, the parallels of Macy and these guys is the same.

They just bad decision compounded on top of bad decision.

And it ends with both of them just futilely running for where they don't know.

You know, just Macy's the same way.

What's he going to do if he gets out that motel window?

Like, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're going to get caught somewhere else.

It's wild.

I don't have that interpretation, Griffin.

I don't, I don't see his expression at the wood chipper as like shame and embarrassment.

I see it as like, oh, there's another person here.

You know, the wizard continues.

But I do think that there is a moment where he shows a little inner life when he's watching the soap opera and the woman says, I'm pregnant.

Yes, and he actually reacts genuinely engaged in surprise.

He is.

And it is, you're right.

It's the only moment he actually seems like to have a human understanding of that.

I can't believe she's pregnant and she didn't tell him.

Even if he's not embarrassed, he is so unflappable in every other moment where he is confronted with

violence.

Right.

I mean, obviously the entire again, I try to think of this entire audience being like, there's a foot in the wood chipper.

Obviously, it became the butt of a million jokes.

Another thing where I knew watching this movie for the first time, you're getting to the iconic wood chipper versus that just being like, what the fuck?

He says it in Monsters Inc.

I think about that all the time.

He says it in Monster Inc.

Shemi's character says, I'll feed you into a wood chipper to somebody.

And wood chipper is part of Monster's Inc.

I just remember I have it on my fucking desk, but this was the promotional novelty snow globe they made of the wood chipper.

Oh, there it is.

It came with the VHS when the movie was released.

Is the snow white or red?

Okay, so this is a reproduction of the vintage one, the snow is white.

The vintage one, the snow was red, but they've all yellowed over time.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Yeah.

So that's why I got a newer one.

Yeah, I think there's some story already.

I knew, like, of this, like, the sort of like meme-fied merchandise version of the wood chipper before I got to just see that scene hit out of nowhere.

It's so annoying that when I search for Fargo on IDB, the TV show comes up first.

Well, yeah, this movie's based on the TV show.

Oh, God.

I was trying to figure out.

There's some like

only Stormer knew how to work the wood chipper.

Like the Cohen's didn't understand how wood chippers worked or something.

I can't remember what it was.

But

yeah.

You get her final monologue.

The final monologue.

And then the coda of him getting the stamp.

Like you walk out of this movie really feeling kind of awesome.

Yeah.

I think that is part of the magic.

Well, she's still

there's something right with the world.

She's speaking in a folksy way in that final monologue, but you can tell that she is like actually disturbed by what she's put together in her head.

The understanding of why did this many people have to die?

Right, right, right, right.

But like, I just feel like you're watching this movie and you're like,

like, the darkness, there is like a sort of some

like resistance to the darkness.

You know what I mean?

Like, she's still here, and there is something like comforting about, like, yeah, like, it's not all not to read too much into it, but like, the last scene is basically a metaphor for what you're saying, right?

Of Norm being like, they gave me the two cent stamp.

Three.

Three.

I'm sorry.

The three cent stamp.

And he's viewing it as this sort of like second place or whatever.

And she's just like, they're important.

When they raise the prices, you need the three cent stamps.

Right.

And it's sort of like, does it feel meaningless for someone like Marge to exist in a world where this many deaths are going to happen and you can't prevent evil?

And it's like, Marge is a three cent stamp.

She is making like some small contribution to trying to like stop the ugliness of the world, even if she's not able to do it holistically.

Because she's not.

She's her optimism is intact.

Yes.

Right.

Right.

It has not curdled her soul.

She is not like truly magical as much as the movie.

Sometimes Sphere is close to framing her that way, but she talks a lot about it like being really important to her that she pull it back from feeling like she is just.

this sort of like impossibly perfect comedic conceit.

Right.

But she's like, right.

She, she is able to hold on to her soul, live a rounded life.

And, like, ACAB, but I watched this movie and I'm like, this is what cops should be.

This is like the only positive prototype I've seen for like in a functional society, what a cop would do, kind of.

Sure.

I guess so.

I don't know.

Short of making robot cops, obviously.

You have, there's a cop in weapons, right?

Alden's playing a cop.

Yeah.

Excited.

He's not as

nice.

he's not as metallic yeah less nice yeah uh but i just had the weapons trailer you know that shot of alden it was just fun fun i i i you know i like a fucked up cop you like a fucked up cop it's a good movie you know like that's that's that's there's juice there a bad lieutenant sure sure tell me this lieutenant's bad what if there was a bad lieutenant um

zach before we wrap to you know fargo's sort of legacy or whatever is there anything else we have not said about fargo we've been talking for a while.

I don't think we praised the score enough.

We praised it, but you know, the score's amazing.

But it's like operatic.

Like for such a minor kind of like story of

dirtbags.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

But you saying like there's the one moment where the score is sort of like playing up and joking with the movie itself.

in the break-in, I think you said.

Well, I'm not saying that it's playful.

I'm saying it's as playful as it gets in that scene.

And it's not that playful.

You know, it's still kind of dark.

Yeah.

I forgot to bring this up in the Blood Simple episode, but there's a really good feature on the Criterion disc of Skip Leuse and Carter Burwell talking and how Skip Luse was the one who brought Carter Burwell in.

Skip Cohen's, yes.

Right.

Recommended saying, I think you could be a good film composer, even though he had no previous ambition and brought him over to the Cohens and thought, like, you guys would match in tone.

And he said that they, he was like, I never thought about doing this for a living.

I should try to study the the art of film scoring.

Yeah.

And so he said the first movie he rented to try to watch through that prism, he was like, Hitchcock movies have good music.

Let me rent some Hitchcock movies.

And he watched the birds, and then only at the end of watching the birds did he realize, oh, this movie has no conventional score.

I picked a weird one, essentially.

That like Herman worked with Hitchcock to intentionally build the soundscape of the sounds of the birds and use it in a way similar to music.

But that is a movie where Herman was like, it's actually better, I think, if you don't have music on this.

And he said that, like, it is complete chance and sort of a mistake on his part that that was the first movie he chose to study when trying to get his head around film scoring.

And yet, he thinks it was so instrumental to him to have the confidence to be like, sometimes the move is to not do it.

Sometimes the move is to like zag.

I shouldn't feel the compulsion to like literally underscore everything and accentuate what is there on the page.

And you're right.

It's like sometimes the score feels apocalyptic, but the quietest sort of like piano version of the main theme is also so deeply sad.

It feels so tragic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

It's a tragic movie.

Yeah.

A lot of people die.

Family gets destroyed.

It's kind of it, I guess.

Most of the other people who die, who cares?

That parking guy I heard he was a jerk.

Yeah.

The indignity of you just saw me pull in here.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You got to pay in the $4.

But that feeling.

But it is another moment where I'm like, pay in the fucking thing.

Pay in the $4.

This guy could talk to you about someone to you.

Yes.

And you just can't let it go.

Try not to stand out.

Yes.

It's wild how bad he is.

The film was

released in March.

Wow.

That is crazy.

It basically takes one year for it to win two major offices.

But beyond that, it didn't premiere at a festival.

Yeah.

Didn't like have any particularly kind of like complicated rollout or whatever.

But it wins Best Director at Cannes two months after it was released in the United States.

Yes.

It played at Cannes.

The jury gave the Palm Door to Francis Forcopola was the chair.

Okay.

Gave the Palm Door to Secrets and Lies.

Michael Lee's Secrets and Lies, but it won Best Director.

And then, of course, it won two Oscars, Actress and Screenplay, and it was nominated for Best Picture.

It got great reviews.

Basically, swept the money award.

I think it won every category.

maybe.

And

I think it's still their, yes, I think it's their move, their most iconic movie.

It's their core movie.

Despite no country, obviously, being the Smash that it was.

I do think you kind of can't argue with Fargo.

And in an interesting way, No Country feels like a less humorous version of Fargo.

They are so similar in so many regards.

And even just this notion of like, is it even worth trying to fight the darkness of the world?

Like, what difference is it going to make?

Obviously, Sugar becomes more mythological and the whole film has this more

sober tone to it.

But Sugar is this evil myth figure.

And

Marge is kind of a good mythic figure in a weird way.

But I was thinking about like, at this point in time, Fargo winning best screenplay is like...

very in line with what they would do in the 90s and the early 2000s of like the movie that is really cool that the Oscar goes for, but they're like, is this a little too weird to actually give it best picture?

Right.

The pulp fiction kind of thing.

And now I think like this movie would win best picture.

It is like completely different world.

And Nora just won best picture.

Exactly, absolutely.

Like you can't imagine them being like, well, it's too funny or it's too slight or any of those sorts of things.

No country has a sense of like overriding grimness that I think finally made it feel like these guys have gotten serious enough.

We could give them the Oscar, which in the 90s, there was like a prejudice of like, is this all kind of a goof for them?

Right.

Despite like, you kind of can't deny the screenplay for this movie.

Uh, it is so like tightly uh plotted, but also it is such a great example of

uh every single line that every character has in this movie could only be said by that one character.

Like every character's voice is so unique and distinct and serves a different function and is like so right there and vivid on the page.

Still beat Jerry Maguire in Secrets and Lies.

Like it was tough competition that year.

Yes.

That's sort of the indie Oscars that year.

That was that's that's the other thing Billy keeps joking about that Jerry Maguire was the only studio movie.

March 8th, 1996, Griffin.

This film's opening on limited 36 screens at number 16.

What was the widest it ever went?

Do you have that?

I'm just curious.

I got to ask questions.

It made $24 million domestic.

It opened 60 worldwide, I think.

51.

It went as wide as about 700 screens.

Okay.

It

is not number one.

Number one is a big hit comedy.

It is new this week.

March 96.

Yeah.

It's a big hit comedy.

It made $180 million worldwide.

Big hit.

It's a big hit with a comedy star.

Primarily comedy star?

It features a major comedy star and then a major serious actor.

Okay.

And then another kind of up-and-coming comedy star, or I don't know how to describe it.

Okay.

Serious actor major comedy star march 96 who was the distributor of this picture uh it is from mgm

it's not the birdcage it is the birdcage it is the birdcage wow okay my gosh it's the birdcage yeah good movie yeah big hit that's what's just crazy about it that you're like that thing was a blockbuster yeah and was like not like a fucking political hot potato yeah that everyone just went to see it and like funny yeah yeah

uh number two is also new this week.

Less of a good movie.

Okay.

A sequel.

Family film.

It's a family film sequel.

Yeah.

It's not like

is it a two?

Is it a deuce?

It's a two.

It's a two.

It's not like Home Alone 2.

Or I'm sorry, Homeward Bound 2.

It is.

Homeward Bound 2.

I got it.

Lost in San Francisco.

The debut film from director.

Do you know who directed Homeward Bound 2?

No.

Oh, David Ellis.

David R.

Ellis.

Director of Final Destination 2.

Final Destination 2.

2 and 4.

I just re-watched all of them leading up to Bloodlines, which I just saw in Rip so fucking hard.

What's so interesting about the Final Destination movies is that he made two, which I think is arguably the best.

Until Bloodlines, I thought it was the best.

The Logs one.

The Log scene is the greatest.

It's not just the greatest Final Destination sequence, and I haven't seen Bloodlines.

So I, and you'll love Bloodlines.

I sure will.

I can't lose your mind.

But that log sequence is that's a masterpiece of anything.

It's just amazing.

I was re-watching all of them and I watched the log scene and I was like, you know what?

I'm not ready to move on from this.

And I restarted the movie from the beginning and just watched the first 15 minutes.

The logs are so good.

It is so incredibly well staged.

Yes, it is.

And the sound design.

But then here's my thing.

He made, in my opinion, what is also arguably the worst one, the fourth one, which is one of those things where you're like, I don't get why this is bad and the others are good because it's not diverting from the formula no it is doing the same thing yeah and yet the tone of it is off it's too nasty yes it all the characters kind of are just annoying you know the kids would say it just feels like the t-mu version of final destination everything just feels kind of off it's just funny that like he made the best one and the worst one anyway uh no i was going down the rabbit hole of him and being like man final destination 2 is so fucking good Where did this guy come from?

And he has one of those.

He died weirdly young in bizarre circumstances that were never explained.

But he has one of these like studio journeyman careers where he was like a stunt performer and then he was a stunt supervisor and then he was a second unit director.

Yeah, he was.

And he just had like 15 years of experience in different positions.

Yeah.

Then directed a fucking talking dog movie and then did Final Destination 2.

My wife worked with him on Shark Knight.

Oh, yeah.

That was his last.

Yes.

And she loved him, said he was just

really great to work with.

It was the star of Shark Knight, was she not?

She was.

Shark Knight 3D.

Let's put some respect on that.

Yeah.

When's our last shark movie?

Is it time for, I guess, the Meg 2.

Yeah.

I guess that wasn't that long.

And there was a 47 meters down sequel.

That seems less.

I just feel like every couple of years, some guy in Hollywood is like, oh, and pulls a lever.

And they're like, it's time for another shark movie.

You know what I mean?

It is weird that.

There's just some guy in the bowels of Hollywood who's like, oh, the shark movie, it's time for another one.

It almost always works.

Yeah.

If you're bugging

slow enough, anytime there's some shitty-looking shark movie that comes out, like 47 meters down two,

and you're just like, no one's going to see that.

And then just quietly makes $45 million.

Number three, the box office is a

romantic drama

with like big movie stars written by like big shots.

Is it the Baldwin Meg Ryan one?

No.

Okay.

That's,

no, you're thinking of Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan.

You're thinking of when a man like you.

No, I'm not.

I'm thinking of Prelude to a Kiss.

Oh, yeah, sure.

No, it's not that.

It's even more prestige than that.

He, he, Baldwin brings up Prelude to a Kiss so much on HBO Max's The Baldwins as if it was obviously his Fargo.

Like every once in a while, you end up on a perfect movie.

And it's so clear that he read the script and thought it was going to be the one that lasted forever, had a great experience making it, and it just didn't connect.

Okay.

I remember like, I saw it the year it came out, so I had to be real, you know, 16.

I remember remember thinking, this is a great movie.

16 year old boy.

I love this.

But it definitely has not lasted.

And he talks about it as if it was like the pinnacle of his leading man career.

Right.

So yeah, Prelude to a Kiss has been on my mind.

Okay, it's more prestigey than that.

The actors involved are, you know, major sort of serious stars.

They're getting a little older.

Like, well, although the female lead is.

It's not Frankie and Johnny.

No.

But it's kind of, is it in that zone?

No, that's based on like a play that people liked.

This is based on Pacino and Fight for his Prestigi.

It's based on a book.

Yeah, it's based on a book that I think was about

a real

person and it's sort of like fictionalizing it.

It is like a forgotten movie.

It is, it was nominated for an Oscar for its song because it has like an absolute banger of a like big love ballot.

It's not like dying young, but is it like that level of weepy?

I don't even know.

I don't know if you need to weep.

Ballads.

I think people die.

Who's the distributor?

Disney, Touchstone.

It's a Touchstone 96.

It's not Phenomenon, which we talked about as in that same year.

And it's obviously based on it.

You know what?

You might not know this movie.

Like, this movie is so forgotten.

It's best known because the people who wrote it wrote a book about writing it and how hard it was to write it.

Give me one of the stars.

Robert Redford.

Oh,

fuck.

It's got a great title.

It's got the kind of title title a grown-up movie had in the 90s.

It's not Havana.

Nope.

Fuck.

It's.

All right.

The other star is Michelle Feifer.

Yup, yup, yup, yup.

The movie was directed by John Avnitz and written by Joan Didian and John Gregory Dunn.

Right.

It's, it's, is it called like blank and blank?

Yes.

Fuck.

I knew, I know it has like a clear personality.

Zach, I assume you don't know the title of the movie.

You know, it's a forgotten movie.

Is it up close and personal?

Up close and personal.

Wow.

Robert Redford.

I had the rhythm in my Michelle Fife.

dun, dun, and dun.

Stalker Channing, Joe Montagna, James Rebhorn.

That's a movie about grown-ups.

That is a grown-up movie.

I don't know what it's about.

I just knew when I was a kid, I was like, but it has the song Because You Loved Me

written by Diane Warren, but performed by Celine Dean, which does rock.

It's like a just like a Diane Warren torch song.

It is fascinating to look through as we're in the 2025 year of our little rock.

Diane Warren losing her 30th Academy Award nomination or whatever.

And I was advocating, like, give it to her this year.

Let's just fucking get this over with.

Sure.

You basically look the first 10 nominations, you're like, all of these would have been respectable wins.

Yeah, because you love me.

And now she's overdue, and every song she's written in the last 20 years has sucked ass.

Number four, the box office is a comedy that I'm sure Ben saw five to seven times on cable.

Okay, now Ben recently brought up to me in confidence that the most offended he has ever been by anything you've ever said on the podcast.

I assumed he did or didn't watch some movie.

You said, Ben, that's definitely one of your big ones.

Well, past Box Office game, one of the movies you described as you must have been a huge

watch this one, sure.

What was it?

No, you made it out to be like, this defined your personality.

I did that.

Malibu's Most Wanted.

Hell yeah.

And you were sure it did it in the last couple of days.

Ben was still griping about this to me, truly, five days ago.

Did you know the Jamie Kennedy guy?

I mean,

we all got X'd at one time.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, America got X'd.

Like, a couple of times, sure, I got X'd.

But I was like,

I'm moving you big jerk fan.

I don't care.

You truly framed it as like, Ben, this must have been size photo.

I am realizing my outfit is giving Malbury marijuana.

Your shirt is looking a little broad.

It is not at all.

You look like you're about to do some b-boy boobs, you know, and everyone.

Well, that's more kicking at old school.

That's a different Jamie Kemp.

This film is a broad comedy starring a sitcom star.

I just need to set up the stakes to see if Ben's going to be offended by this.

No, he definitely isn't.

Let's see.

It's a broad comedy starring a sitcom star.

From a director of movies that Ben loves, other movies.

Is it David S.

Ward's Down Periscope?

Correct.

I believe that is one of your favorite movies.

He's got you passed.

You got it right.

No, you're right.

He's got you picked.

Have you ever seen Down Periscope, Zach?

No.

That's the Kelsey Grammar submarine sex comedy.

I can visualize the cover.

Yeah.

Never seen it.

I personally have it.

We're getting ready.

It will have happened by this point, but to do a live show in New York about King Ralph, one of Ben's favorite movies ever, and a movie we've been threatening to discuss for about 10 straight years.

Ben quietly realized that he is a David S.

Ward, a tourist over the course of doing this podcast, that every movie David S.

Ward, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of the Sting, directed Major League, King Ralph, Major League Two, Down Periscope, and then the program, the sports drama.

I think you don't know.

Okay, I'm not familiar.

Every other one.

James Conn.

Yeah.

I gotta watch The Sting.

Probably like the movie he's known for.

Yeah.

It's pretty good.

Yeah, you should watch it.

Number four at the box office is a horror film.

It's the fourth.

It's the fourth.

Number five at the box office, sorry.

Number five.

It's the fourth.

Okay, it's the fourth film in a series.

Mm-hmm.

In 1996.

I think it's the last theatrical.

Is it Hellraiser?

Hellraiser 4, subtitled.

So 3 is Hell on Earth?

Possibly.

Yes.

4 is.

It's not Inferno?

No, that's 5.

Fuck.

Four

is...

Do you know this act?

Are you like...

Are you a Hellraiser guy, Zack?

I love the first one.

First one's incredible.

Do you know this, Ben?

I don't remember the title.

I'm the only person who knows this.

No, but I know.

That's not true.

This is somewhere in my brain.

Yeah.

I think I'm going to just make you do it.

Is the word hell in the subtitle?

No.

The film is Hellraiser 4.

No.

That has not yet.

There have not yet been one of those.

The film is Hellraiser 4 Bloodline.

Well, like Final Destination.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd never seen it.

That's a film where the director got fired midway through by Miramax and was replaced and shit.

I think it's a completely different.

Because the director was a Cenobite.

That was the first time they tried to do it.

There was pushback of why aren't you letting Cennobites tell their own stories?

Number six at the box office is Broken Air.

I'm just going by that.

Number seven is Rumble and the Bronx.

It's a little funny, and I can still stand the test of time.

This is a fun, trashy time at the movie.

Yes.

You can go see Rumble and the Bronx and then Homeward Bound 2 and Hellraiser 4.

This is just a bunch of garbage.

Happy Gilmore is still hanging around.

Mr.

Holland's Opus, the biggest piece of trash of all of these movies.

Yeah.

No movie you've maybe attacked more in your life than Mr.

Holland's Opus.

Do you like Mr.

Holland's Opus, Zach?

I know you're not.

I haven't seen it since it came out, and I have very little recall of that movie.

I don't remember like take is that the opus sucks.

It's seven hours of this guy abusing his students, his wife, just being an absolute crank.

Yeah.

And then he's like, then they're like, well, you should finally do your opus.

We all actually loved you the whole time.

And they do his opus, and it just lays an egg.

It's the worst opus ever.

The story is that the opus sucks.

The story is that he's always working on his opus and he's so frustrated by how he has to be a teacher.

And he's like, God, I hate being a teacher.

This sucks.

And then at the end, the students are like, well, we loved you and we'll play your opus now.

And then they play shit.

It is a classic example of a movie writing a check for itself to depict a fictional, profound work of art.

And by the time you get to the performance, you're like, am I supposed to think this is good?

And the movie frames it as an artistic tribe.

The movie's like, he did it.

He was just.

His opus.

Yeah.

It's the worst.

I mean, anyone else in that movie, and he got an Oscar nomination.

People like the performance.

He plays it so ornery.

It's crazy.

Number 10.

Yeah, I know.

This might shock you.

Number 10 at the box office Muppet Treasure Island.

One of the greats.

Great movie.

That's much like Fargo, one of the few perfect films.

Not a hair, not a single Muppet fur strand out of place in that film.

Zach, we have kept you for far too long.

Yeah.

Talk about it.

I've enjoyed every minute of it.

Well, that's very nice of you to say.

This is a perfect movie.

It is.

And I assume Weapons is similarly perfect and it's in theaters now, and people should go see it.

yeah

i am truly excited for weapons yeah i i wonder yeah i wonder how this well whatever we'll see

scratch that thought hope

hope it's a good time i hope so too yeah we're very excited zach it's gonna go great yeah it's so it's so stressful you know i'm very i'm very losing release is a is a terrifying time and you're about to enter like insane ramp

yes right you have to promote a movie and deal with the feedback and start your next movie like simultaneously yeah

Sorry.

Which is a comfort because I'll be working on the next one.

Like I'll be in Europe when this comes out.

So I'll have to come back briefly for press.

But, you know, whatever happens with weapons, I hope it goes well.

But no matter what, I'll be able to go back and just, you know, bury myself

in production, which is, you know, right.

But don't drink any like weird vials that you find in any like labs or anything like that.

Okay.

Okay.

Just make sure.

And like, you know, put all the gems in the correct gargoyle eyes and all that stuff.

Yeah.

Use the right color keys.

I met you like a year ago, and you had, I think, basically like locked your cut of weapons, but obviously there was still like post-production finishing stuff to do.

And you knew the release date was a ways off.

And I said, how do you feel about it?

And you just said, I love it so much.

And you said it not with like a level of arrogance.

You were like, I have no idea how anyone's going to receive it.

I don't know if the studio is going to like it.

I don't know if it's going to play well.

But I like, I was like, that must be such a great feeling to like step back and look and be like, man, I made the thing I wanted to make and I'm existing in this state of purity before anyone else has to see it.

Yeah, exactly.

And right now, you know, in that time, I hadn't even done a test screening and it was just my thing.

And it was like, I'm very, very proud because the movie I had in my head when I was writing it is the movie that I see when I watch it.

I was able to do that.

And that's not always the case.

So, so in that regard, I'm, you know, I'm totally in love with the movie.

I really am.

But now it's like, you know, you got to like send your kid to the first day of school and hope no one's mean to it.

Right.

Is everyone going to think your kid's a loser?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

it'll stop being my perfect, pure little, little thing, and it'll start being something that everyone's allowed to have a say on and all that, which is, you know, that's what I signed up for.

That's okay.

But it's

the truth.

This is right, the bill coming due, but it'll be great.

Yeah.

I like the title.

Thanks.

I feel like I get what it's going to be about.

Do you?

Have you seen the trailer?

No.

Okay.

But I am not necessarily a trailer guy.

I'm more of a, I just like to go in.

Yeah.

I love that.

Go in blind.

I too try to go in fairly blind.

I have seen the trailer, but the trailer is pretty mysterious.

Will you go to a theater late that you skip trailers?

I mean, I have.

I mean, unfortunately, I mean, we were talking about this before we got started.

I,

you know, at times will be late.

and so I will miss them.

I can't relate.

Yeah.

But you're not a like, you close your eyes and no, I close my eyes and I go, la, la, la, yeah.

Some people do that.

No, I watch them, whatever.

Well, thank you for being here.

Excited to see weapons.

Encourage everyone to go see weapons in the future where this episode is coming out and it's playing in theaters.

Yeah, we love that.

Yeah.

And thank you all for listening.

Please remember that.

Thank you guys very much for having me.

Truly an honor and privilege.

Look forward to doing it again again if you will continue to tolerate us.

Absolutely.

Yeah, come back anytime and come to New York so we can do an IRL.

You'll come on and talk about the dangerous apartment from Big.

Okay, great.

Tune in next week for the Big Lebowski.

Who's doing the Big Lebowski?

Well, we'll cut it out if he's not actually available, but as far as we know, Seth Rogan.

Yes.

All right.

Another future bet that everything has worked out.

And if not, that will be bleeped out.

We keep booking busy guys, including you.

Yeah, and it's working out so far.

Yeah.

We love our busy guys, don't we?

And as always,

all that just for a little bit of mine.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims.

Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley.

Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas.

And our associate producer is AJ McKeon.

This show is mixed and edited by A.J.

McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J.

Birch.

Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

Our production assistant is Minic.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

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