Vamps with Caroline Framke

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 with Black Jack

It's so annoying you have to keep learning to use new crap that doesn't actually do anything better than the old crap Which is incompatible with the new crap All so that you can have blogs and watch fake teenagers and real housewives.

And it's all happening too fast.

And I'm tired.

I'm just sick and tired of it all.

It's okay.

You don't have to do the podcast.

That's one of my least favorite parts of the movie.

Really?

Yeah.

Anytime the movie is about like blogs, her complaining about blogs, I'm like,

all right.

Because you're Juno core.

You're honest to blog.

I like, it's not that I like blogs, although I have no beef with blogs.

No, it's just the only time where I'm like, oh, it's 2012.

Or it's the time when I'm most like, oh, it's 2012.

Sure.

Well, because like I'm like, oh, there are little did she know what modern horrors awaited.

Like all the things she's complaining about, I'm like, oh, no, those things were pretty good.

This movie is a weird period piece now.

Yeah.

It is carbon dated very much to the exact moment it was made.

And was even a script that she wrote in 2005.

But the most horrifying thing wasn't the Situations book launch party.

That didn't get you.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Didn't clock that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well.

you seem in an irritated mood did you struggle with this movie ben turned off the ac it is it completely shifted my vibe it is insane i'm not joking because

i really you were in a good mood and now you are hostile now you're ready to rant about julie art it's so it's so vital to my to me it's it really is i can't deny it's putting it back we're putting it back i mean ben we just we cannot do this for two hours This is not an option.

I just, I love air conditioning so much.

And when I say this, I'm gesturing to the

red anger lines.

Well,

you know what?

I'm trying to fit him into every episode.

So president roll.

I'm a little rolly.

He was, it is.

Sims had a mood lit right now.

He was in a completely fine mood.

And then within 30 seconds, he was on, on the brink of rolling.

What if

when Harrison Ford, Thunderbolt Ross was getting mad, right?

You know, in that movie, where there's, you might have noticed a scene or two of him going like,

right?

And then he takes his answer.

Instead, he was like, turn the thermostat down.

And they're like, yes, president.

And he's like, okay, okay.

I can't record my podcast unless there's AC already.

And then finally, the leader is like,

and like turns the AC off or turns the heat up.

The leader just fucking writes him a new prescription.

That's all his plan is.

The worst thing about that movie is the leader.

Caroline?

See, here I thought that the most relevant film for me to see this week for this episode would be Sinners, but no, apparently I needed to see Thunderbolt.

That's the name of Sinners.

I thought yesterday for Sinners.

Okay.

And then also to be part of

America's culture conversational discourse.

Yes, exactly.

But I was like, oh, vampire film.

I should see the vampire film before we talk about the vampire film.

And then I saw it and it was kind of a mistake because it fucking ripped.

And then it was all I could think about.

Yes.

Then I had to watch

it.

Vamps again.

I'd already watched it.

And then I watched it again this morning, to be clear.

I like vamps a lot, but they are

different.

And the moods were

wild mood swings.

My whole thing with vamps, and I'm sure we're about to discuss this.

I think you're about to

be funny if my whole thing with vamps is, I just think Red Hulk is.

Women shouldn't talk this much.

Is

the first, what's a 90-minute movie?

The first half hour, I'm like.

Right, the vampires are in the modern world and they don't, they have a Blackberry or whatever.

And then after about half an hour yeah um the t-mobile sidekick is much cooler than a blackberry let's get it straight there was a moment in my life i thought about getting a sidekick i think before i was like i'm just gonna get an iphone that moment was gossip girl gossip girl was that moment gossip girl had blair waldorf had a sidekick gilmore girls has a sidekick episode which is one of the most naked like t-mobile has paid for one episode of your shows would not make me want to get a sidekick did you have an okay engage did you ever engage i i never engaged uh as much as the idea of my telephone calls and my games in one beautiful, perfect, user-friendly package.

Those two things won't clash at all.

Do you want me to come in long-form gaming on a thing that's also going to keep dinging?

No, after a little while, I was like, I think I'm kind of into these characters.

I think I'm a little sold on this movie, to my mild surprise.

I think the first 30 minutes, you're just like, yeah, okay, I get it.

This is like kind of clever, but whatever.

And then I think the remaining hour of the movie is kind of impressively well plotted.

I think

suddenly you're like, fuck, this thing actually is a good narrative.

And the characters are all

great casts.

No money.

That is what I thought you were going to say.

The real thing about this movie

is you watch it and you're like, it is impressive that she made it as good as she did, considering that it's one of those films where you can feel the lack of time.

You can feel every single background like disappearing two inches out of frame.

That is like one of the clearest signs for me of low-budget filmmaking.

Move the camera.

You're like, if you move it an inch, this entire environment's going to fall apart.

Yeah.

Like that stuff bothered me more than actually the special effects being janky.

That's fine.

I think that worked.

She is even then.

I'm like, she is so close to figuring out how to execute the special effects on like an early Tim Burton level, where it's like, oh, the jankiness is part of the charm.

It's stylized in a comedic way.

And yet it feels like she's still 5% short of the budget to being able to execute that properly.

Like everything's just a little under what it should be in a way that makes this movie very bittersweet to watch.

Cause you're just like, God, if they could have just given her like 20% more to work with, time, money, what have you, you're like, this would have been, if not received properly as like a commercial comeback film, it would be a movie our series could end on that would feel a lot more triumphant.

Bittersweet is definitely, I feel like the word especially, we'll get to it at the end is so bittersweet.

I cried both times I watched this film this week.

It's fine.

It's on a little joking.

The ending is very, very emotionally affecting and like beautifully built to and earned.

And yet...

In that final second, you're like, God damn it.

Fuck, this effect sucks.

This emotional moment relies on.

I mean, I grew up on Buffy and I've seen worse.

Like, you know, so that didn't it didn't bother me as much as it should have and also i was thinking about it and not to come in here and be like here's the tv critic ready to relate it to television here we go if she had been three years later with this yeah this would have been a netflix show i kept thinking and i i don't want to say that you know not derogatory i mean like it could have been it's a very the world is defined the characters are good this movie kind of got made at the exact wrong moment Yeah.

And like, what if this is the movie she gets the, well, how much did this movie cost?

I don't know.

I guess we don't know.

It might be be in the dossier, but like, I was like, what if she got the $20 to $30 million she got for her last movie for this movie?

Yes.

Right.

Just like more than the, my guess is less than $10 million she got for this movie.

I don't know.

The quote in The Dossier is $10.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

The quote in The Dossier is $10.

Yes.

It feels like this movie should cost $20.

You're like...

Or just, yeah, somewhere.

Right.

Even 2012.

15 would have made a difference.

But anything would make a difference.

Anything would make a difference.

It feels like if she had waited two years, Amazon either would have given her $30 million to make it as a movie when they were in their sort of Ted Hope-led, we're bringing back the forgotten auteurs and giving them blank checks phase, or Netflix would have done it as a series.

And either way, she would have had the support she needed.

It would have been depressing that that's how it got made.

But like this movie is in a crux point of like, the high concept, larger budget studio comedy has kind of died and things have not shifted over to streaming yet yeah i mean when i was watching again this morning i'd watched it alone the first time the second time my roommate was around and or the some of the effects especially towards the end i was like there's something so specific this reminds me of or something that it's trying to be and she was like oh it's death becomes her and i was like fuck that's it like yeah it's it's close it it's almost that but those effects are practical they're different they had more money but there is such you know we'll get into all right that was the vampire things i love but death becomes her is essentially a vampire movie here's the whole thing with the N-Gage.

The thing they up, and this is what I forgot about this, God was the funny ass of this.

And Ben, just to, you know, when you see this,

you think high-end video gaming, right?

When you see that

device, my heart starts fluttering.

So we can see that.

Can I see this?

Oh, do you not know the end gauge?

I figured you were just, oh, Corona.

Oh, no, no, no.

I've never seen that in my life.

It was just like, we are going to at this

Game Boy.

Right.

And they were like, we will make the world's coolest cell phone and the

Game Boy killer.

They thought they were going to like dominate two industries simultaneously.

I feel like where the buttons are on that stresses me out.

Oh, there's a lot of stressful things about it.

Here's the most stressful.

To change cartridges for your games, you had to open the phone and take out the whole battery.

Oh, no.

Because they forgot, like, oh, right.

Like, the cartridges go behind the battery.

They were sort of using like SIM card logic of like, well, you don't change that very often.

It was like one, which was one of the most classic examples of like you know what year was that uh 2003 wow that late that late it was a competitor to the game boy i was gonna say when was the game boy i'm like that's not replacing the game boy but the advance the advance which had a similar was going wide mode oh i see i never had the advance right but again when you look at this screen Does that screen say wide to you?

It doesn't say wide to me.

It's a skinny actually.

No,

it's the skinny little screen.

It's the skinny screen.

It has the screen of like an original Game Boy that looks like a postage stamp in a screen.

Maybe even smaller.

Handheld.

Can you show Caroline a photo of the Game Boy Advance for comparison?

Yeah, I'm sure you know the Game Boy Advance.

Steven has said this twice, and I've been unfamiliar both times.

But the screen are better.

And also, you will see there was a cleaner screen.

Well, it's one of those things where

a gaming company made that.

Like Nintendo actually has

three

place to put games

in a larger screen.

Yeah, although the Game Boy Advance had its own problems in that it was not backlit it was dark as hell because they wanted to save battery power and they realized that was just sort of not going to work anymore right you had to get the accessory i remember i had a little light

you snap it on yeah yeah yeah there was like uh third-party companies would make little like book lights that would go into the the port you would use for like linked gameplay yeah i believe you're correct yeah yeah

see that i just feel like my hands wouldn't go that way it's not natural the game boy did you ever have those games like when you were really little and your parents were trying to keep you occupied in a restaurant or like you press the

LCD games?

They look, no, not electronic.

They're just like, they look like fish tanks.

Yes, with the press the button and then you're trying to get the fish into the thing.

So I feel like my thumbs were already prepped for that motion.

I feel like the Game Boy Prime made sense to me in that way.

But do you remember the Tiger L C D games that were just sort of like...

Yeah, there's like little, you know, the whole screen.

was just bits that could light up essentially with pixels like battle toads or whatever give that a google while i introduce the podcast i want caroline to see this as well uh yes This is important.

Battle Toads.

This is important to talk about.

Battle Toads was like someone being like, what if I ripped off turtles, human ninja turtles?

Okay, so David.

Open one tab that's Tiger Electronics L C D game and another tab that's Battle Toads so we can write.

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin.

I'm David.

It's a podcast about filmographies.

David's fast again.

Thank God we turned the AC on.

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, this has been a mini-series on the films of Amy Heckerling.

It has.

We are sadly now discussing her final film to date.

For now.

2012's vamps.

I suppose she could make another one.

She's how old?

70 years old.

It's not impossible.

She could make another one.

She speaks of wanting to make more movies.

But yes.

And

these final two films are very much anti-blank checks.

They are movies where you're feeling the tension of the checks being pulled back.

Someone, right, or a check.

Right.

And unlike I Could Never Be Your Woman, where you're like, this movie is stuck in a perpetual fit of mania.

A little compromised.

Yeah, an odd one.

I'm glad I watched it earlier this week, but it did make me feel

yeah.

Yeah, it's a little like, you feel a little nauseous.

It's a little like motion sick.

This has the bittersweet thing where you watch it and you're like, the fuck, this should be one of her masterpieces.

You can kind of see it pretty clearly.

Introduce our guest.

Our guest today, who has

done several power moves that we're going to get into since entering the studio, is the great Caroline Framke.

First time in far too long.

It needs to be said.

Six years.

Caroline, here is an L C D game.

Do you remember these?

I do.

Okay.

And that would just be flicker lights.

Oh, yeah.

I clearly did not know the technical names of any of these.

It was like a still image that basically you could move left or right.

Right.

Little bits of it would light up depending on where you wanted the guy to be.

It was kind of the electronic version of the Water Ring game, and it was that primitive.

Do you remember the Battle Toads?

Because I feel like the battle toads were pretty ben coded i mean that's a really good game yes it's very hard it is incredibly hard are they toads that battle it's truly just them ripping off they're cool guys they have sunglasses their names are rash zit right i think we've talked about this before because i remember us going through their gross names uh i'll look them up um their names of course are

come on now they have to defeat the dark queen we know that pigs i feel like they fight rash zits with a z two z's and pimple yeah there we go They're gross.

Why are they bodily?

Because, like, that was cool, you know?

It's like...

Yeah, boys, like gross things.

They're like mutated animals.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That are absorbing the vibes of other cultures.

I think they fought pigs.

Are pigs the natural enemy of frogs?

Are people good at pigs a lot, right?

Like Minecraft and Angry Birds both go, we got to take down the pigs.

Pigs were, I think, watching that would be quite nice and smart.

And smart.

I would say the Minecraft movie using the piglins is actually a swerve.

Like, those are not the traditional Minecraft villains.

They were introduced a little later.

Pause for one second because Ruda has called me twice.

No boy.

What's up with Ruda?

The fucking dinner rescheduled.

It was just she was doing with an urgency that is not her usual behavior, unless there's a health problem.

No, twice in a row.

Griffin's grandmother is so old that any phone call, I think, understandably for Griffin is sort of like, okay, what's

going to be?

Right.

Yes.

We can keep that in now.

Sure.

Yeah.

Okay.

She is a sort of background character on the show.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Anyway, big announcement, Skloocey.

I will be getting dinner with her sometime

next week.

Well, it's now in flux.

There was a Monday plan that I've now kicked to post-record.

Where does she like to go?

And of course, you don't have to tell me, or we couldn't beep it out.

But like, does she have a spot?

Yeah, she lives on the Upper East Side.

Yes.

And she is of an advanced age.

Yes.

And her favorite is a lot of people who are not going to be a little bit more.

She's not exactly about to go to Bushburg or whatever.

Less than a block and a half away.

Right, right, right.

Of which there are a couple.

Right.

I wish I had a place i mean i do obviously have restaurants i go to or whatever the diner you were just talking about that feels like your place no but imagine the level of like if the diner were downstairs well or more like i walk in and be like david your table you want like a cheer is kind of like

exactly i mean we were just talking the only place i have that is my local bagel place where they do know my name I have that with an Italian restaurant in Parksville.

I know you do.

And it's lovely.

I'm so,

I talk about it all the time because it truly took a lot of work and a lot of money to get there.

I'm not going to name it because we're, but it's a restaurant we were just talking about where they do know my order now.

That's pretty cool.

See, that's nice.

And I'm not going to name it because it's a bit of a hotspot and it is one of the places where I get recognized by Blankies most consistently.

Dave and Buster's.

Correct.

There we go.

They know my order.

And your order is what, like, atomic wings, nuclear level.

And I went to Card with 8,000 credits.

Caroline and I went to Dave and Buster's.

I know.

I told you that.

You and Caroline have been doing a lot of very griff-coated activities

together.

You've been eating like fucking chicken fingers and playing video games and shit.

We did not get chicken.

No, we didn't, but we should have.

You went to DNB because I, well, you can tell the story.

I mean, I don't remember.

Yeah, we got lunch.

We got a hot dog.

You had a weird amount of time before you had kind of stacked a bunch of stuff because now you're like out in the world more.

We're very excited.

You know, the twins are sleep training.

You're like, sleep trained.

They're sleep trained.

Oh, they're sleep-trained now.

See, that was not the case before, but he was out in the world.

He was like, I'm stacking like five things.

They're getting a little lazy now.

They've got to get their asses out of bed.

They are trained to sleep.

So we had like an extra hour, hour and a half before we we had to do a movie

we had a weird gap and he just goes we were talking he's like i just wish there was it was um hard eyes oh yeah yeah that's like hard eyes are there and drop yeah it was hard eyes joshman passing future cast absolutely great a movie i really enjoyed yeah and so he was like i just wish there were like an arcade or something i was like david there's a davin busters well but that is the weird thing that i expressed that thought a thought i had not thought

was in that brain yeah and then that you were like well we could there is one and i'd never been you'd never been and no and we wandered in there um and i would say that the midday Dave and Busters wasn't really ready to help us.

No.

It's like we walked in there and someone was like, and here's where you get your card and here's how everything works.

We kind of had to trial and error.

That's what I like about Dave and Busters is

you have to take care of your own ass.

Dude, we did not know that.

We walked in.

I was like, there is no one here.

There were maybe three groups of two children who were.

This is what makes D ⁇ B different than fucking cheese, though.

They're not going to hold your fucking hand.

This place isn't for babies.

We wandered around for an embarrassingly long time trying to find anyone or where do we get the card?

Do we download the app?

Whatever.

And then we look up and there's like a giant fucking

large thousand giant flashing signs.

There's a lot of flashing things that part of it.

There hate the planet in a way that I enjoyed, but it was overwhelming.

The thing we know there was no one there.

The only thing we did that I regret, no one was there.

No, it was there.

Is that I was like, we both were kind of like, well, we should play one of the gun games.

The only thing you did that you regret was leaving.

Not leaving this.

I wish I was was still there.

I'd be there.

Still be there.

And we're like, you know, we're looking at your house of the deads, and you're like, oh God, it's all so intense.

And then, so there was a Tomb Raider one.

And I was like, okay, Tomb Raider is kind of a slightly more.

And we start playing it.

And then they're like, we're getting attacked by wolves.

Wolves.

Kill the wolves.

So it's just Caroline's a dog owner.

We're shooting so many dogs, essentially.

And I'm like, Caroline, kill her.

She was like, why?

No.

Like, truly almost crying.

I'm like, I'm an insane dog owner.

I can't find my dog.

I am.

You were overwhelmed by it.

It was also overwhelming just because they were trying to get us.

They were.

They were trying to get us.

It does put you right on a swivel.

I can't, like, that was never, I didn't go to many arcades.

We talked about how we went to arcades as a teen.

I didn't really do that.

And definitely, if I did, my game was not shooting.

I feel like it was, you know, I smoked him on basketball.

I'll say that much.

And Sims is solidly taller than me.

So let us all.

This is cool.

This is cool.

And I liked it, Chris.

This is good lore.

It was, it was a good time.

And then we have gone bowling since because we were like, okay, casting around for what are other things I did before I could drink.

Yeah.

You know, like teen activities

together and didn't invite me.

What is, is there a third, is there a third thing in the Holy Trinity?

Well, for me, and I feel like Ben was understand as a jersey.

Well, I did actually get my ear pierced like a month ago randomly after I got a great haircut.

And I was like, I think I'm fucking going to live forever.

Oh, my God.

You were feeling vamped up.

I was feeling vamped up.

I did not think it through.

I'll tell you that much.

And I got like the upper thing.

And then they were like, you're going to need a sleep pillow.

And I was like, what?

I'm going to need a pillow.

I did not get the pillow.

It's like a donut.

If you look up, like, yeah, to stop it.

I get it.

I get it.

To stop it.

There are some weird piercing pillows.

It looks like other stuff.

But I sleep on my back.

So it's not that big an issue.

But it was like, I have to think about things in a way I was not anticipating.

But yeah, I did get my ears pierced.

I'll get the other one pierced if you want to do that.

But I do feel like the thing I would, my holy trinity in terms of teen activities, it would either be a mall or a diner because I grew up in Jersey.

Hell yeah.

A diner.

Well, and we've been to many a diner.

Well, Well, not the late night diner.

I didn't go to breakfast at diners.

I did breakfast at night.

I get no idea.

What else is open?

That's teen, very teen.

We got to end up at Denny's or whatever because we can't go to a bar.

The one like 24-hour place in my town, besides for, I don't think the diner was 24 hours in my immediate town, was a 24-hour combination Baskin-Robbins Dunkin' Donuts.

So you can stay up, eat some ice cream, feel sick.

Where would you go, Beth?

If Caroline successfully convinces David to get an ear piercing and then go to a 24-hour chain restaurant afterwards, That feels like he's then stepping in on your territory.

Shit, he should do with you.

A little bit.

Wow,

I'm really taking over.

I'm just encroaching the whole thing.

That wasn't even one of my power moves.

You're not doing anything wrong.

The problem is, if Ben or I suggested these activities, you go, what are you guys talking about?

You're insane.

I'd never do that.

A lot of people say a lot of things about me.

That's all I'll say.

But Bran and I were briefly going to get

our nipples pierced for the Dragon Tattoo episode.

Of course.

We were like, we're going to go full Lisbeth.

Right.

But then we, you know, whatever.

We didn't get our act together like that was gonna be complicated that wasn't number one on the show what a shame

would have been pretty funny maybe you wouldn't want the a

lot if you had two metal studs in your chest i think i'd wanted more what were we gonna say well to answer your question yes what did i do your diner or yeah sure what was your yeah i mean pretty much anywhere where you could loiter in the middle of the night you loiter yeah yeah teenage ben yep loitering yeah prime loiter yeah reading a big leatherbound book's playground cozy corner Playgrounds, but even just gas station parking lots.

Oh, sure.

You know, you could go to the, yeah, exactly.

You'd go to the convenience store.

Those were open 24 hours.

We had a 24-hour diner near my tower.

I grew up called.

We would go TikTok.

Oh, classic.

Oh, yeah.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Oh, I see it here.

I feel like,

you know, in keeping with...

sort of keeping with this episode, I feel like I have, as I have aged, I am looking back at like, what did I like to do before my default was going out to a restaurant or going to a bar?

Like, are there other activities?

I'm sure there are, you know?

And I feel like as a teen, you have to find those other things.

Right.

We've done these things.

You and I have done these teen things in like the smack middle of the day.

Yeah.

Cause that's when kind of when there's fewer people there and that's when you're doing stuff.

But I do feel like, you know, doing that stuff later at night.

But I would as a teen, that's where you could go.

I would often do it in the day as a teen, I feel like.

Right.

It was kind of like, how do I feel this weekend day?

And then

movies, but if you're movies, video games, going to the park.

The park is nice.

What's wrong with the park?

I don't know.

When I was 14, my guess is I was sort of like, I

you're your grimy London park.

So instead, I would go to Rowan's, which was a bowling alley and an arcade.

And that is a very, very cherished spot in my childhood.

And it had a bar, and I could order food at the bar.

And they had something called the combo platter for five pounds.

It was like chicken fingers, fries, and onion rings all in one big plate.

I mean, this is all the food groups.

We covered

the prime balls.

The vegetables.

Starch.

Protein.

The full pyramid.

Yeah.

By the way, I did briefly consider punishing you for dangling clueless in front of me by bringing back, oh, I didn't know you grew up in England, blah, and I did,

but I didn't want to do that.

No, no, no, I know.

So I briefly was like, I know it's been retired.

And I was like, I'm going to unretire it forcibly.

And then I watched I Can Never Be Your Woman.

And I was like, if there were any episode to do it on, that'd be the one.

So never mind.

Fuck it.

Fuck, we should have done it.

It's a heavy Brit.

And I was like, how did I just?

And I tried, I was like, I don't think it's funny.

I think I just, I think I had a mean moment.

I was like, I just want to see him squirm.

And I was like, let's not do that.

You even told me at David's birthday that you wanted my help doing a bit to torture.

And then I thought about what that would actually look like and the conversation I'd have with you to make that happen.

I was like,

you know what that

should have been for I Should Never Be Your Woman.

It should have been arguing that David grew up in California.

Sure.

Being like, no, no, you're like, that was my boy.

That was Los Angeles.

No.

Sunny, so sunny.

The sun.

Remember, you were surrounded by people with perfect Californian accents.

And the perfectest accents.

Hello.

I do respect the David Mitchell.

We're not.

I just got battles from the beach.

David Mitchell Wright is the one who's like, I'm not.

I'm not doing that.

You don't want to hear what that is.

We're not going to do that.

I want to step back and do a little table setting here because you've alluded to this.

But all this conversation, by the way, was relevant because this is a movie about like, do you want to stay young forever?

Right.

What is it to be eternally a certain age?

Right.

Caroline, you had two blockbuster appearances on this podcast.

Blockbuster.

Covering two huge movies.

Yes.

Showgirls.

A big episode.

A big film.

I feel like I'm really glad I didn't think that one.

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

This is what you said at David's birthday.

You said, like, I never would get an episode like that today.

And I didn't even realize how big it was until I left.

And and we're like caroline every time we put a new mini series on the schedule i say to david what about frankie we haven't had framkey on in too long and your response is often i don't want to do something if i don't feel strongly about it i'm not going to take a slot for someone who would care more about something else which i've always thought is very respectable but you did that in kiki but i have to write movies i've thrown you a lot of options he has thrown me options and you've usually kind of been like david lynch i don't know that i you know i'm engaged enough with that to be you know and then yeah what you've said to me is like, I don't want to take it away from someone who really wants to.

I mean, you know, I feel like thoughtful of you.

Yeah.

Like, there's something, I feel like there would be something interesting about doing, like, if I were to do it, David Lynch, it'd be coming from the perspective of I've never fully engaged with this work in a way that maybe I wanted to, and that would be different.

But I'm like, but he's, there's so much to say about it from a perspective of people who know and love him.

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

People who would, who aren't even in contention to be on the just people.

To people.

We put Heckerling on the spreadsheet.

I go, this feels like a Framke moment, right?

David has some offline conversation with you that I'm not part of.

And then you get slotted in for vamps.

And it was like, that sort of makes sense.

That feels like a good fit.

And you'd seen it.

Well, that was the thing is that he said,

you didn't.

Okay.

So you didn't know that.

All right.

Keep going.

No, you

jump in with what you were going to say.

Well, it's just he asked me like, oh, do you have any strong feelings about vamps?

And I was like, oh, yeah.

I mean, I i saw it and i liked it and he was like so you saw it like

that was already i was like oh and i was like yeah and i i guess i did not at that time know the full lore of just how limited this um one theater release was we will get to yeah we will get to how you know how i did see it but i was like oh yeah and i saw it and he was like okay so did you like it and i said yes and he said okay great you're doing that and i said fine i think we knew when we committed to the series that it would be harder to book our final two films.

Yes.

In particular, that didn't get real real releases.

And that you're like, you know, as much as Heckerling is serious, there aren't a lot of Heckerlingoturas out there who like, are like, well, of course I've watched every one of her films.

Most people don't know these two movies ever happened, right?

Yes.

And so when we get to positions like this, there's often this thing of like, look, we can ask a friend of ours who's a good guest to watch it cold for the first time.

But it's always better if we know someone who actually has seen it previously and has any feeling about it, right?

Where you're not just rolling the dice of someone coming in and being like, it was fine.

I mean, right.

Love it or hate it.

It's better if there's some feeling in history.

There's certain things

like

I Could Never Be Your Woman.

Where you're, well, honestly, that movie turned out to be a lot weirder than I thought it was.

But initially, I was sort of like, at least it's not a big ask of a guest of like, hey, watch this 90-minute movie with Paul Rudd in it.

Like, you'll have an overview.

You did ask me if I would be interested.

I was like, between the two, I would rather.

We kept asking people, hey, here's the heckerling list, but if you have any relationship to loser, I could never be your woman on vamps, please let us know.

Whereas there are certain movies I feel like where it's like you're making a, you know, a bit more consequential ask of someone to watch some heavy movie that nobody, I don't know, like it hasn't come up in a while because we've been doing all these big shots, but these have been like true kind of movies that don't exist.

So, David does not relate to me that you had seen the film.

I thought you were doing us a mitzvah, right?

That you were like, I like vampires, I like comedies, this feels like a fun thing to watch for the first time.

Then we have another past guest, hopefully future guest, reach out to us from out of town who doesn't live here.

Doesn't live here anymore.

And was like, I might be in town in this exact window.

Is there anything you guys could throw at me?

And we said, have you seen I Could Never Be Your Woman?

And her response was, no, but I love vamps.

And I was like, fuck, here's someone who's passionate about vamps.

Do we bump Framke off of vamps because I thought you were just doing us a solid, replacing it with passion, right?

So then we bump you.

David offers clueless.

And I was like, all right, I truly was like, are you sure?

Are you sure?

Are you sure you're not going to get someone for clueless?

Consolation prize trade-up.

Yeah, yeah.

And I truly was like a little stressed about it because I was like, clueless is

clueless, but I will do it.

Like, what am I going to say no to clueless?

Like, I'm not going to say no to clueless.

And then this other person's, and

now it's haired.

Well, then David also relates to me, Frampsy's kind of bummed that she's not doing Fam.

So I'm going to offer her Clueless.

And I was like, I didn't realize she actually liked it.

Sure, sure, sure.

Right.

Then the other person's travel plans got changed, was like, I probably won't be here until the fall.

And I was like, we got to, we kind of got to move Frankie back to vamps

because no one else will want to do vamps.

And I believe David's text to me was,

Caroline, I am on my knees begging you to do vamps.

A little bit.

And a little bit.

No, that's literally what you said.

A lot of it.

And I was like, all right.

So who do you have?

We are very appreciative of.

Oh, no, it's fine.

And honestly, frankly, I think it did work out.

I have, I think, a lot more specific stuff to say about vamps and also it is only spiritually correct that a blonde did clueless it's just right yes it's just right it's not the first time a blonde has taken my thing and it won't be the last and dare i say it a raven-haired snarkster doing vamps thank you true true right

and i'm not i don't have my summer tan yet i'm not i'm not kristen it's i mean may is just upon us the the tanning opportunities are just beginning yeah yeah yeah now before we dig into the movie proper i just want to give you a shout out beyond just you doing us a big solid in this crazy musical chairs of booking for this season.

I walk in.

You are finishing up a caricature of your own face and taping it to the front of your desk because you're jealous that you don't have a cartoon avatar of yourself.

You can say that she's jealous.

I mean, I was, it's fine.

You go, you go, that's much better now.

And then you immediately say, now I need shit on my desk to compete with me.

Well, I didn't realize there was too much shit on my desk.

Yes.

I have not been to the studio yet.

Last time I was on the show was six years ago for Kiki's delivery service.

It was at the old audioboom studio.

And I walked in.

Ben was the only one here.

I beat both of you, which is, again, no, I'm thrilled because I'm never the first anywhere as a master.

You walked in, though.

I was not crying, though.

No, this time you were not.

Dry-eyed.

But you very quickly established a good desk spread.

The kind of chaos that I'm...

I was in the bag I did today because I had a lot of stuff in it.

Three beverages, notebook, novel.

Yep.

And then vape.

No, that was actually lipstick.

And this is not a novel.

This is Maeve Brennan's The Long-Winded Lady, which is anecdotes from New York City and actually feels very goody Rutherford in that way.

Yes.

But she's just like...

It's lipstick?

Oh, yeah.

It's like

a

one of those.

And then I had an O'Mary playbill.

Yep.

I think this might, it's either.

I think this is the Titus one.

I saw both.

Uh-huh.

And then Glow in the Dark temp tattoos.

You gave me a lot of stuff.

Three Beetlejuice plushies and a poppy from Trolls.

Yep.

And then I have an assortment of Sour Patch lemonade flavor

for sustenance we're doing great yeah no i'm i'm in it for the long haul here we go ben why did this movie put you in a weird mood it's a weird movie it is

i don't know

the there's the quality

the sort of general like i'm eating a generic brand uh versus the you know this is the rc cola it's a little cw

sure

a little bit

either i guess yeah yeah yeah um it takes you back to that time of the aughts.

A happy time for you?

A chaotic time.

A chaotic time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would say I was living my life in a certain way where I don't really remember much of that time.

Quarter mile of time, you know.

David, yes.

This episode is brought to you, The Listener.

by Mubi, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe.

From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover with movie each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime anywhere and here's a hand selection here's a here's a spotlight nothing more to discuss here everything's wait what wait what's david

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Through the creak of the door, we have three different visuals going on here.

The glove to hand pick.

Oh,

of course.

David Mussolini, Colin, son of the century.

It is, it is, look,

it's an exciting project, but it's really funny to be like, guys, Mussolini!

Here's what's funny about it.

Just to peel back the curtain for a second.

We get like messages that are like, hey, you guys good with this ad?

Yeah, here's the copy for the ad.

And as shorthand, it was texted to us as, you guys good with the Mussolini ad?

And I was like, Mussolini sponsoring the podcast?

What do you mean?

To be clear, we decry Ilduce Mussolini, Benito Mussolini, the terrible dictator of Italy.

But we celebrate Joe Wright and his newest project.

The filmmaker Joe Wright

has created

an eight-episode series about Mussolini's rise to power.

And I will say, not to sound like a, you know, a little nerd over here, but it is actually very interesting to...

consider Mussolini's rise to power in these times.

You know, he was sort of the original fascist and the way that he sees power in Italy is,

unfortunately, something we should probably have on our minds right now.

I don't not try to be a loser right now.

You sound like me right now.

This is the kind of thing I say.

It's a very interesting part of history.

And I feel like because, you know, other World War II things became

whatever, the history channel's favorite thing, you don't hear quite as much about Western newspapers.

Yes, no, you're right.

Unfortunately, sadly, tragically, frighteningly.

He's not a hugely

time.

And this is a theatrical, hyper-visual tour deforest starring Luca Marionelli.

Martin Eden himself.

Remember that?

Beloved member of the Old Guard.

That's right.

The movie I love.

The episode that people considered normal.

Sequel

checking notes here.

Great.

They start calling it a towering performance of puffed up vanity.

It features an era-bending score by Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers.

That's cool.

Imagine Techno Beat

scoring fascist rallies.

It just sounds kind of Joe Wright-y.

It does.

Joe Wright.

You know, he won't just do a typical costume drama.

He likes to, you know, think about things things in a different way.

Got futurism,

surreal stagecraft, cutting-edge visuals.

Guardian calls it, quote, a...

brilliantly performed portrait of a pathetic monster.

It's part political burlesque, part urgent contemporary warning about how democracies fall.

This is heavy ad copy, guys.

Usually it's kind of like, eh, shorts.

Critics are raving words.

A gripping, timely series, The Guardian.

Remarkable, The Telegraph.

A complex portrait of evil.

Financial Times.

Yeah.

No, it's Joe Wright,

one of the scarier people I ever interviewed.

I've told you that story, right?

He was, he was, he knows he's kind of a cool guy.

We've added him around.

He's certainly gotten interesting.

He's very interesting.

He's very interesting.

And he's made some great movies and he's made some big swings that didn't totally connect.

Totally.

That's really interesting.

He actually is a blank check filmmaker, unlike a lot of some people.

I get suggested.

You're like, sure.

It doesn't fit the model.

This one does.

This one does.

Look, to stream great films at home, you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com/slash blank check.

That's mu bi.com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free.

You can watch Mussolini or you can watch non-Mussolini things.

Yeah, they got lots of movies.

I got a lot of things.

Bye.

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

with 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 finds.

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.

I just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

I mostly just think of Wayfair as a 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 can 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 wants.

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 football.

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.

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Wayfair, Everystyle, Every Home.

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

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 only

Cleveland Browns, of course, Bonte Mac, no matter what.

Okay, that's the end of the Abbrey.

What do you call this era?

This is like post-indie sleaze.

Has anyone named this

truly 2010s core?

Because it's not not indie sleaze.

It's like the recession era is the problem.

It's kind of just like everyone's a little bummed out.

Post-recession, indie sleaze.

I feel like this kind of has to be post-indie sleaze.

Like, I think no one has

earmarked it, but I think some transition has happened that still owes something to indie sleaze.

Yeah.

I don't think it's been defined really yet.

Post-recession is a good stance.

Yeah, right.

What's the music people are listening to in 2012?

I mean, I do.

Drake?

Jesus.

Yeah, let's really junk that era.

In the bin.

It does weirdly feel like Kristen Ritter is the perfect ultimate avatar of early 2010s New York.

Not just because she was the B.

Ah, the B.

We can talk about the B.

This is the right episode for the first time.

That show exists because it was just like she's embodying something that we got to put on television.

No one would, like, she really wears a chunky necklace well, even though she's got, you know, she's quite a skinny frame, a leather jacket.

Yeah, yeah, but

the necklaces still don't wear her.

She likes a slightly puffed shoulder.

We had a lot of like slightly puffed shoulders.

Well, so the bee, we met the bee

in 2012.

Her amps came out.

The apartment 23.

And don't trust her.

Yeah.

Don't you trust her.

And I've told this story before, but I lived in a building in apartment 22 at that time.

And I kept filling out forms.

No, I truly, when I had to fill out my address, I kept thinking like, I live in apartment 23, right?

And I couldn't remember if it was me or the B.

And male kept

my next door neighbor.

And they were like, you fucking filled it out for 23 again.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

That's true story.

The bee is supposed to be, she's kind of, she's kind of coming off her indie sleep.

You know, she's like a party girl who's sort of like, do I need to stop?

Is this the bee?

Oh, no.

No, no.

No, the bee loves her lifestyle.

That's the whole thing.

She does not grow.

Right.

She's no good because she's the bee.

She's the bee.

Like she, she, she's fond of the people she's fond of.

Her best friend, James Vanderbeek, playing James Vanderbeek.

And it also was plausible that she'd be friends with, you know, kind of post, post, post-Austin's Creek James Vanderbeek.

I mean, he's so good on that show.

It's such a funny bit.

And it was Eric Andre and Dreama Walker?

Eric Andre, Dreama Walker was the nice girl, right?

Yes.

Yeah, she was the nice girl who moved in as the roommate who won't be.

She won't be bead.

She won't be bead.

And all the other roommates have been be'd.

So the bee does begrudgingly respect her.

But apparently Eric Andre's character was meek.

He was

or the personality.

The personality.

I'm like, Eric Andre andre seems bad casting because he was like dream of walker's i'm trying co-worker at starbucks basically okay and he like liked her he was an awkward guy but it was weird casting knowing what eric andre is and can do um and i don't think they ever really got a chance to let him do that it also aired completely out of order so just like vamps it got a very weird release situation and it never um

yeah but the second season aired completely out of order okay right the second season got that i think it's still out of order on hulu like you do have to like

but there was some plots.

Like, there wasn't a ton of overarching plot, but enough where you're like, wait, what is this?

Like, I mean, happy endings had the same experience.

Yeah, right.

ABC was just always a little bit like,

what, you like these?

I liked happy endings.

I feel like I said this, like, the way a lot of people feel about happy endings and being, they were, you know, a lot of people were very devastated by happy endings ending.

I was sad, but I was so much sadder about the beat.

Kristen Britter was on her kind of version of a Zoe Deschanel track where she kept playing like best friends friends and being like, man, she's really good with like the like off the shoulder, like one-line responses, the sort of side snark.

And then they clearly were like, can we make her a lead?

And don't trust the bee was like part of that project.

But the fact that the bee didn't change is maybe what made people not totally,

you know, get with it.

They were like, but she's supposed to grow and change.

And she was like, I don't have any interest in change.

When she wasn't really the protagonist of the show, she was the main character.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But this thing I think about all the time with her um i think she had several children and kind of like disappeared for a bunch of years and now of course was in sonic 3 and seems to be working more but like for someone who was so omnipresent really in like the first half of the 2010s yeah because it was that it was jessica jones yes yeah she's so great in jessica jones she's great she's great yeah jessica jones kind of season one of jessica jones such an unambiguous success in an era of superhero tv that is largely not so immediately different so right interesting and the title remember character is so scary so kind of the only one of those netflix seasons that has like

exactly i don't remember much about the other two seasons no i kind of forgot there were the two seasons and i'm sure i watched and reviewed them all i don't know guys iron fists i mean that guy did have

fist of on iron and it stuck with me i remember every part it was like it was just a jones and it was daredevil and those and now daredevil's back but where's jessica jones in my head i'm surprised she wasn't on it ever she my guess is they're waiting to do something cool with it.

That's the kind of casting that everyone kind of agrees with unambiguously, like worked.

It did work, which when it was announced, I was completely like not, that's not how I imagined that character.

The obvious type.

But I like the character a lot in comics.

Here's what I was going to say.

I have a very vivid memory of this, and I think about this way too often.

She does don't trust the bee.

And it was just sort of like, okay, this lasted two seasons and it made it to air, but it didn't quite work.

And it felt like all the networks were like, there's probably a hit show starring Kristen Ritter and we want to solve what it is.

She feels like she should be the lead of a hit show.

And these are the final years of like the traditional pilot system.

Let's get you a show.

Right.

Where like every January before they start auditioning, the networks all start like competing with each other, the pile of spec scripts that they have acquired being like, if we can attach a big name to this, this is a Go pilot.

And someone like Kristen Ritter, who was seen as like hot, you know, and had like value

and was ready to be the star of a TV show, they're all sending her their like 20 best scripts and being like, do you like any of these?

And for I want to say three years in a row, Kristen Ritter signed on straight off her first position big pilot show that didn't go.

And I would, I was stuck in these fucking pilot system runners every year and being like, well, this script's really good.

And it's got Kristen Ritter.

This show's definitely going to happen.

Do you remember what any of them were about?

One of them, I believe, was written by our friend Leslie Hedlund that was an adaptation of her play Assistants.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

I remember that.

Sort of loosely fictionalized her nightmare experiences working at the Weinstein Company.

Right.

Yes.

And Alfred Molina was going to play the Weinstein analog.

Oh, my God.

And was a really good dark

friend.

Yes.

Alfred Molina.

Let's clarify.

There was another one that was like, I want to say a 60s NASA space race show.

And there's one other one I'm forgetting.

But in that era, it's like someone like Kristen Ritter has to make a big choice every January of which pilot she's attaching herself to.

And yet, it just might not get picked up.

And if that's the case, everyone basically goes, cool, we'll see you in a year.

Well, the interesting thing about her, too, is that, I mean, when you mentioned those two things and then mentioning the B, vamps, that kind of stuff, her taste is, you know, a little bit more offbeat than I feel like she might get credit for.

It's the kind of thing, too, when I was watching this and when I watched I Can Never Be a Woman for the First Time, and I was kind of thinking about all the Heckerling stuff just to get myself in the

state of mind.

I was like, oh, Heckerling's a fucking weirdo, too.

She's, she is, it's, it's a good complimentary.

She is.

She's a little goth weirdo herself.

Right.

And like, you know, she like choices like, you know, Ulman is Mother Earth, that kind of thing.

Where you're like, what are we doing here?

That's a choice I might have advised.

Right.

Her royal vizier.

But it's a strong choice, nonetheless.

And it's the kind of thing that it seems like Kristen Ritter really responds to is this kind of stuff where it's slightly off.

And I'm not surprised that the pilots she chose then did not catch up.

They were all good.

I remember every year being like, well, this is the best script this year and being astounded when it wouldn't get picked up for who knows what fucking reason.

I even think one of them got picked up and then like unpicked up at some point.

Yeah, I feel like probably, especially knowing Leslie's, you know,

what the plays are like and then what happened.

I mean, she, she did Bachelorette.

She managed to make that

pretty vicious, but not as vicious, that kind of stuff.

I think it was trying to do that.

I'm sure she got networked notes to diff.

Yes.

But like the old rigid pilot system, network TV model at a time where people were still kind of wary of going to cable or going to streaming.

And also the money was so fucking good if you could get on a hit show.

There was no off cycle.

That was like the calendar of which the thing happened.

And if you picked the wrong thing in the spring, you were fucked until the next year.

Right.

And in between, it's like Kristen Ritter's like, okay, so I, do I like

play X's snarky best friend again in a Paramount movie?

Or do I play like the lead in a like a lower budget Amy Heckerling movie?

And the next year, hopefully I get another shot at TV.

And then it felt like she did the Jessica Jones move at the moment where it was like, yeah, streaming does seem to be the place to go.

And if you're playing a Marvel character, that feels like you're set for your life.

And the first season totally worked.

And then like the entire Marvel Netflix experience like dissipates and it's yeah there's just like seven year run of interesting energy from Kristen Ritter that then has kind of like

talking about did you not hear the echoes

oh that was a Marvel spotlight wasn't it it was not what if Orphan Black had an echo orphan black echo was she on that

she was the star of it has that already come and gone of course it you watch what if orphan black every week

you were like you guys echo tonight?

Do you guys hear the echo?

But Orphan Black did not have Tatiana.

Tatiana Maslani was basically the well, this is like Hollywood's newest, greatest pitch, Tron Aries.

We all know that your least favorite thing about those Tron movies is that they take place inside a computer.

Can't we get out of that damn boring world and place Tron on the streets of Los Angeles?

Look, every time I see that trailer, it looks cool.

Right.

But it is one of those things where I was just like, that was like truly a great way to wound me.

Yeah.

Where I'm like, I love the insane logic of the video game world.

Right.

And they're like, no, no, the bike should go on a street, like a highway.

I don't think

it feels so fundamentally perverse to me of being like, don't worry, no circuit.

That's what you do with Tron 8.

Yes.

Right.

You know, anyway.

Which Tron is this?

This is Tron 8.

Tron Aries.

Oh, I'm sorry.

In which Jared Leto plays a computer virus who comes to our world.

He sounds like that.

You know what?

That sounds about right for where Jared Leto came from.

Yeah, I forgot to mention it's a documentary.

Yeah, yeah.

My thing with Kristen Ritter was that she was on Veronica Mars for like eight episodes.

And then she was on Gilmore Girls for eight episodes.

And then she was on Breaking Bad.

And it was one of those things where it's like, huh, that saucer-eyed goth keeps popping up.

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

That's another like sort of Star Trek thing is like giving people good experiences.

Like longer runs.

Yes.

Right.

And it's clear that there's just like, we have negotiated for six episodes, not that she's like being brought back because she's working.

Like they're like, we have planned an arc that we're pitching to you.

And it just felt like she was on the cusp of something bigger for so long.

I always like her.

And I will say, watching this movie, it stirred things in me that I had not felt in a long time.

Oh, you were.

I find her very appealing in this.

You find a pale woman very appealing?

This is what's odd.

She is so much my type, and yet it was never registering for me previously as hard as it did while watching this.

You were in a show with her, weren't you not?

Was she on Political Animals?

No.

Are you not in Gravity?

I am, but I did not starve with her.

You are right.

I was on four episodes of the deeply remembered Starz original series.

I think it was Starz's first original series.

This, of course, is a Starz movie.

But yes, she was the lead of Gravity.

And I played a gay computer hacker.

Fabulous.

That was one of my lines.

I was trying to figure out, remember who Kristen Ritter played on Veronica Mars.

I thought she was the recast of Leighton Meester, but no, she was playing Steve Gutenberg's daughter.

Yeah, right.

It's not a good time for the show.

She often would appear on these shows when the show is kind of.

Or past the peak of the thing.

Yes, right past their peak.

Well, that was season two, which was kind of a dip, but then three.

She was an upswing.

Is it two that she's in or three?

I think it's two.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting.

It's flawed.

Two's goodie.

Yeah, it's real goody.

Just very clear that it had the one season arc, but anyway.

Yes.

But she's very sweet in vamps.

There's one line in it that's so the bee that I was like, oh, this is where she was.

Where, you know, the introduction of Homeland Security as the big bad comes in, which I have so much to say about.

And she just goes, oh, the terrorists ruined it for everyone.

For everyone.

It was such a B line.

Movie has a lot of good lines.

I do think maybe that's part of it, though, is like her thing is usually the like acid sarcasm.

And this

is the more wide-eyed innocent here.

Yes.

She's just completely lovely, bubbly.

Which she does really well, and yet still has like the Kristen Ritter darkness to her, which I think so much of it is that like, and we shall crack open the dossier, but so much of these interviews we read with Amy Heckerling, like the ongoing theme of her work is like the fight between the pessimist and the optimist, that she inherently feels like this dark, tortured, aggressive, acidic, critical person, and yet she loves making movies about optimists.

It's also, it's the New Yorker and the Los Angeles, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, it's very, what was, what was that, you know, not to go, oh, let's quote a tweet, but the, the, the tweet I do think, the one tweet I think about the most is when called

LA shitty heaven and New York fun hell.

And you know what?

That's really true.

Good.

Having lived in both now.

Yeah.

You're allowed.

I just think that there is both of these characters feel like stand-ins for Heckerling in different ways, but there's something in casting Kristen Ritter to play an optimist that feels like you are for the first time physicalizing the innate tension within her work in one character.

So Amy Heckling releases a film called I Could Never Be Your Woman in 2007.

It made like $200 or $300 million.

Exactly.

And so, unsurprisingly, starts to explore the world of episodic television after that because it's such an anonymous film.

And so, she does direct the sixth episode of the first season of The Office.

The introduction of Amy Adams.

Hot Girl.

Yes.

Arguably the best episode of the first season.

I'm just going to say it.

Yeah.

No.

No, no office.

I won't be discussing that show.

It's the new Juilliard.

We're never going to let you live down your fucking Juilliard anger.

That's fine.

Our Suckman episode.

You know, the thing with the office is...

Oh, see, I thought we were not discussing the office.

Oh, Davin.

I just won't, I won't be engaging with that.

Try to show me some nostalgic clip of

some hijinks on the.

I'm like, no, I don't wish for that to be in my life anymore.

Not that it was ever a big part of my life because I never loved the show, but I certainly certainly watched the show pretty much through the end.

I guess I sort of fell off after Corell left.

You're making a weird face looking.

The camera's kind of zooming in on you.

I'm doing like a crash zoom.

Maybe we'll check in with you later in the talking head segment.

Yeah, maybe you have something to say later behind closed doors straight to camera.

So like when you say the Amy Adams episode of The Office, I'm like, I saw it one time.

Okay, but her directing that episode is actually kind of perfect.

Is it?

Well, because she's a pro.

Well, because she comes in to sell bags and everyone thinks she's hot.

Amy Adams.

Amy Adams does.

And it's like she is presented very much as what if Pam were hot is kind of the thing, which is rude to Pam.

Right.

And it activates the thing.

Like she's, her hair is even redder.

She's like, you know, her sweaters actually fit.

Like she and Jim get along and there's no obstacle.

And that's, but it's like, that's very.

feeling's good at that.

It activates the thing in her of she is still engaged to the fucking guy in the warehouse

and is just sort of like having fun, like sort of having this side flirtation with jim and then she sees for the first time like the idea of him being with someone else which activates jealousy in her she didn't write that i mean i can't imagine she wrote that but there's also that extended um the extended bit was because like there's a fire alarm or something is that or no that's when that's later amy adams comes back and there's a whole desert island she did a bit that

a whole little arc across the first wasn't she already i guess it's sort of like right when she's starting to get bigger like june bug era correct it's like she once she gets the oscar nomination for june bug she unsurprisingly never comes back to the office.

That's interesting.

But she is on it a handful of times leading right up to that.

So yes, but Amy Heckerling doing, oh, I'm insecure around this hot woman.

Right.

That tracks.

And like the office had kind of overqualified directors, especially as it went on.

Yeah, I would have people who had a lot of people.

It was Paul Feigen, Harold Ramis, and Jason Reitman.

And it was just sort of like, this is a cool show the movie directors.

can work on and not have it seem like their career slip down a rung.

And there's maybe a larger sea change in the industry happening happening around that time where, like, her doing TV doesn't look as bad as it would have five years earlier, even.

Yes.

Um,

well, she does that, and then she gets signed on to 1985, which was basically like, do you want to do a Wonder Years?

Like an Amy Heckerling Wonder Years.

Makes sense.

A show that would center on a girl growing up in the 80s, narrated by a woman in the present day.

I mean, it sounds fine.

Plans to use music of the period as a bad.

It truly is, they might as well just be be like Wonder Years.

We're just going to do a Wonder Years.

But none of that came to fruition.

And instead,

in 2012, we get Vamps.

Now, in 2005, we get Twilight.

In 2008, we get the movie Twilight.

2008, we get True Blood.

2009, we get CW's The Vampire Diaries.

Relax, Ben.

He has a knife.

But Heckerling says

she more is drafting off of Buffy as a sort of an earlier vampire

work.

And even more specifically, that her brother was obsessed with the Buffy movie.

And she was like, I want to do something like this.

And then she went to the original producers of the movie and pitched it to them.

And then was like, you already did this.

They're not going to say yes to this if they've already done a thing like this.

But there was a bit of a micro trend, I feel, in the post-Twilight Vampire Diaries, True Blood landscape.

Well, and Buffy was pre-Twilight, and that's where that was my seminal vampire for sure.

Sure.

But I think those three things getting big and being cool and sexy, right?

You would feel this thing of like

maybe somewhat forgotten directors coming out and being like, well, I have a vampire script.

Where it felt like, are vampires just innately bankable?

Is it easier to get money if you have a vampire hook?

Only Lovers Left Alive comes out two years after

one year after.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But was a similar thing, I feel like when he was doing interviews, where he was like, This is not a post-Twilight movie for me.

I was not inspired by this.

This is a thing I couldn't get made until Twilight, which is exactly what happened to her.

It makes sense that suddenly it's just a little bit more like, oh, well, vampires are in right now.

So sure.

And vampires are such an elastic metaphor.

It is actually kind of wild how many different pointed ways you can use vampirism to say something, be it personal or cultural, uh, that it makes sense that a lot of different directors would be like, Yeah, I can make a personal vampire movie.

That's not me just cashing in on trend, that's me, Trojan horse, and something else I want to say.

What was Nasferatu's whole deal?

What do you mean, what is my deal?

Do we all enjoy Sigourney Weaver doing Nosferatu?

Yes, yes, she is so tall.

She does a lot of bitch, she does like a full kind of fucking mad TV audition real quick.

She does a few racist jokes, yes.

Some of these cultural stereotypes seem antiquated.

I understand that's the point of the character.

I also get full from Chinese food.

I don't know what she's talking about.

That is one of those things where I'm like, Chinese food is very heavy.

I often say that.

This is offensive on two levels.

No, it's culturally regressive and wrong.

But it is one of those racist old jokes you hear, I guess.

She puts on like a Gilbert Gottfried voice to do it.

Maybe Sigourney's always had a bit of the Gottfried in her.

I don't know.

I mean, I kind of, she does, she's looking like she's having fun.

She's basically playing, like, you know, what if Zul had fun?

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

That's very vibe.

They even like the ending scene where she's like floating towards people.

There's the one scene where they dress her in a way that feels very evocative, where they give her the full perm and she's in a kind of gold dress.

And there's no way they didn't think of that.

So this is also Moname, right?

The same costume designer as.

Oh, really?

I think, yeah, this is the same costume designer as Clueless.

Yes, that makes sense.

Which, like, you know, you can also tell everything's so rooted in time period.

There are so many very specific time period things.

And that's something too that I feel like Heckerling is so, like, it doesn't surprise me at all that someone tried to get her to do a 1985 movie because each one of her films, and not even just because of the references they make.

Yeah.

Like not even just the references, which are obviously specific,

even though the situation has endured.

He is a sober father now.

He's doing very well.

But everything is so rooted in the time period that it's in to a degree that.

can be uncomfortable if you live through it.

I get it.

It can.

And it's also like there's pointed context.

I think there is a certain discomfort I feel watching it in seeing them try to evoke that specifically on such limited resources where it starts to feel like a weird kind of cosplay, hollow evocation, just because they don't have the space to get it right.

Like something like Clueless, which is obviously exaggerated in a cartoonified version.

And they talk about sort of like we were amplifying and exaggerating the fashion trends.

And then they sort of became their own fashion trends.

And they were also working with, you know, more expensive clothes in the first total because these kids are rich.

Mourneme did like a very good job with what she was allotted, but you feel it stuck slightly in a weird space of being like

a little more heightened than realistic, but not heightened enough to be funny, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's also because I feel like sometimes it's a little hard to tell when it is supposed to be.

Like, I feel like a lot of the clothes Kristen Ritter wears in this movie are, they are of the 2012s, but through the like they are also trying to be through the lens of she was turned in the 80s?

So, like, everything is a little exaggerated.

Yep.

Here's what I think is so.

Um, no, silence.

I had something to say.

What is

that?

No, no, I just imagine you doing the hands that they do in this movie when they're trying to get people to

go.

When you remember, what do you want to say?

I am displeased that Sinners has done better than my movie.

I'm so sad, I have no choice but to go fuck.

I'm horny, slow, horny.

The kind of horny I am is very slow.

I am single and ready to mingle.

He's like, he hollers, but he's like, he hollers at you by being like, in three days, I will very slowly fuck you.

Like, so it's like, it's a long wait.

It will be great.

Right.

And then when he fucks you, he's gonna like crawl

up the bed.

Yes, he's a big edger.

God, is he edging it?

Was your father a baker?

Because it looks like you are smuggling two buns.

This is kind of crass of me, but let's go.

I think Nasratu probably goons.

I'm always gooning in my cast.

I have so many tabs open.

I owe only fans thousands of duckets, whatever they ask, whatever money they have.

I send more ducats than they're asking for.

They're like, this will be $10.

You can have 15.

I'm big like that.

How much for a decorating?

Oh, I'm so pleased I get to see that.

Of course.

Oh, my goodness.

Yes, every vampire has their thing.

You know,

she's a sex freak.

A lot of vampires are sex freaks.

It's interesting that they're not.

She says this often in vampire stuff.

It's sex.

True blood and twilight, obviously.

That's the sort of big thing with the metaphor here.

But no, she's much more interested in the agelessness, the idea of being eternally young, but from different time periods.

Here is the super potent thing in this movie that once I locked into this is what she's doing, I was on board, which is she is commenting on her weird state as a person whose currency professionally comes from Amy Heckerling is good at understanding the youth, the younger generations, what is hip, what is cool, what is new.

She has done this across decades, right?

Not just did she do it when she was young, but she was able to still lock into it 10, 15 years later.

And like, what is this weird balance of being someone whose life is about trying to stay professionally engaged with what is young and new and hip?

When part of her is also just like, I like old gangster movies, right?

Like, I don't want to deal with this shit.

And it's this fight of just being like, it is exhausting.

As much as like people like the idea of staying young forever, how badly do I now just want to let myself be an old woman and just not have to keep up with this shit?

Yeah.

Goody in the

clubs every night

and have to worry about the right outfits and knowing the right bands and all this shit.

She's a night person, she says.

She's always figured such a lifestyle might be fun for a while.

Eternal youth in New York.

She liked playing around with the slang from different eras.

It's kind of fun.

She's always kind of liked to play around with slang.

She doesn't like the Twilight vampires.

She doesn't like that they can be outside in the daytime.

I mean, that is the thing.

Like, what I didn't, I wasn't a Twilight, you know, early adopter girly, ironic or otherwise.

But when I found out that they can go into the sunlight and not only can they, but it makes them beautiful, twinkly creatures.

Yeah.

I'm like, these are fucking unicorns.

Like, these are not

looking.

Caroline, that's not making him a beautiful, twinkly creature.

That is the skin of a monster.

I'm a monster.

A horny monster!

She's really good, fucking Edward Cullen impression.

Yeah, well, I'm Edward Cullen.

You smell disgusting.

Let me get up in those guts.

That's the Edward Cullen in the world where Wallace Sean is Mr.

Van Helsing.

Yep, well,

it was a long time to get there.

David, what?

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin David podcast balphonographies 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

people bringing me in and there's only one other person in the room?

There is 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.

Maybe any kind of demand.

You're traveling and I need a room.

with some good soundproofing because I'm going to be doing some remote pod records.

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, I 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 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 top.

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah, please.

Can I check that?

You want one of those in the recording, Stuart?

That'd be great.

You want to start.

You want to be.

I'll 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 what's going to be fun.

You would look good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge.

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

I'm like,

as I move to the

kinds of demands that booking.com, booking.

Yeah, yes.

You can find exactly what you're booking for: booking.com, booking.

Yeah.

Booking.com.

Book today on the site or in the ad.

Booking.com.

Booking.

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 ads based 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.

A reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not got 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 order, as they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinkledge, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor Puttie, Pete 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 toxic.

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 a snack.

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.

Trump.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches

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, it's 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 Toxie movies.

And they have like updated in this way that it was just, I was so pleased with it.

It's gooey.

It's gooey.

It's gooey tons of blood tons of goo

uh great action it's really 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 one of the 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.

Yep.

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 is in the world on this one.

Seriously, get your tickets now.

Go to toxicadvenger.com/slash blank check.

Do it.

Do it.

One movie that she kind of liked was, she's obviously seen Nasferatu or Pelaluko sees Dracula or whatever.

She really kind of enjoyed this movie that shows no interest in German Expressionism.

But she really kind of enjoyed Gerard Butler's Dracula 2000.

Oh, sure.

She says, I liked his take on it.

It was as though Dracula was doomed or cursed because he was Judas, and that's why he doesn't like seeing crosses.

It's a very different take on Dracula.

She dugs that.

She likes monster movies in general.

She likes the wolfman with Lon Cheney.

Oh, the universal classics.

She thinks vampires are a good metaphor for Jews, outsiders that feel disenfranchised for whatever else is doing.

Trying to pass.

So that's, I mean, that's the, do you, are you, are you speed, speeding through these or should I?

Carolyn, what gives you that vibe?

I feel like he's taking a lot of time and consideration for everything he's saying.

He's got his bullet point.

I'm just like, I'm looking at the dossier.

It's fucking long.

Caroline, what do you, what, what did that spark in you?

Well, yeah, I mean, I do, I feel like with when I first started re-watching it, I was, oh, I don't think I ever said how I watched VS in the first place.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

I was trying to remember how the hell I saw it.

I had not seen it until yesterday.

Really?

Okay.

So none of you had seen it until this week.

Okay.

No, no.

So that's why when David expressed shock that I'd never seen it, I was trying to remember how the hell I saw it.

I was in LA in 2012.

I moved out there in 2011.

And I was like, like, did I go to the one theater

it was released in?

There was not very thorough box office reporting on this, but box office mojo claims it played in one theater for two weeks.

Now, I remember it playing in at least one theater in New York City.

I remember intending to go see it.

I want to say at the Village East,

and it was gone before I got around to it.

It was really like a movie that stars Anchor Bay, primarily a DVD distributor and not television.

A distributor of like

fancy DVDs, kind of a cheapo DVD distributor.

Like mostly like cult horror movies, doing like 40 editions of Evil Dead and whatever, got the distribution rights for this movie sort of a bit after filming had wrapped.

And they announced it as like, Vamp's getting a theatrical release will be available to rent digitally 10 days later, which in 2012, that did not happen often, that the turnaround was that quick and was sort of like screened contractual obligation to put this in one theater.

Maybe it was one week in one theater in LA and one week in one theater in New York.

Quite possible.

Maybe.

I mean, but I do think I was trying to trace it.

And, you know, I don't have a totally satisfying answer to this because I never fully got it.

But

I asked my friend Karinza, who I hung out with a lot when I first was in LA, where we might have seen this because I was sure it was with her.

Because I feel like when I first moved to LA, you know, the idea was I'm working in TV and I'm going to like say yes to everything.

And I'm

Hollywood Framke, Hollywood Fram.

And I feel like it must have screened somewhere.

Her best guess, and she

might have been like a special screening at there was a theater called Cinefamily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

On Fairfax, which has since shut down for sex pest reasons.

Very funny.

But they screened a lot of things.

And it would not have been out of the question for this, something like this to screen there.

And I feel like, cause I definitely remember seeing it in a, we could have rented it, but I think we saw it in a theater.

And I was just going to screenings, going to screenings.

And when she was like, do you want to go to this thing?

It's from the director of Clueless.

It's about vampires.

I'm like, what's not, you know, what's there not to like about that?

And then I just never researched it any further and did not realize it was such a tortured, weird, obscure situation

until basically David asked me to be on the podcast.

It was basically a like a straight to VOD streaming disc.

Before that, I just, I didn't even know.

I just was like, but again, that was all the pitch I needed.

So there was an audience.

Yes.

Cinefamily was the kind of place to be like, we're going to take Amy Heckerling seriously, right?

But I imagine, yes, probably disproportionately, the amount of people who ever saw this in a theater saw it at screenings like that versus commercial release.

I mean, what is the reported Final Box Office gross for this movie?

$10,000?

$3,000.

It's not amazing.

You know what?

You're right.

It's not amazing.

I was going to say before that.

Oh, yes.

But you enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it.

And I feel like what was interesting about revisiting it is that, you know, whenever you talk about any vampire story, any vampire story, whether it's a teenage thing, you know, a Buffy, a vampire diaries, a true blood, a sinner's, any vampire story, inevitably there's going to be not just metaphors about sex or drugs.

I feel like in this movie, it's much more drugs than sex until Justin Kirk and Mary Lou Henner have their moment, done with sex.

And Justin Kirk feels like her pointed parody of the oversexualized.

She's oversexualized for sure, but she's less interested in, I mean, it's basically drugs, but it's kind of, that's not what she's interested in.

But I was like, this vampires are always a metaphor for marginalized people.

Yes.

Because they, you know, whether it's queer people, Jewish people, they're in the shadows.

They're in the shadows, you know, sinners and the, you know, Black Americans and Jim Crow South.

There's always that.

And when I first started this film, I was like, how weird to watch a vampire story where that's not the case.

And then Wallace Sean, king of Homeland Security, comes in.

Yeah.

And suddenly the movie's about the Patriot Act and having to delete people from databases so they don't disappear.

And how interesting.

What an interesting moment to watch that.

Dr.

Van Helsing, head of Homeland Security.

Like that, that full reveal.

Like first, it's like, oh, here's Wallace Sean.

He's like a New York beat cop or detective.

This is interesting casting.

And then you realize, oh, no, he is.

He's homeless.

Dr.

Van Helzing working for Homeland Security.

And there's a very, like, that first scene where he's going to find the body of the pizza guy.

With Ivan Sergei.

Right.

Yeah.

But the.

No, no, no.

The pizza guy.

Well, Ivan Surjai is his partner.

Sorry, but Taylor Negron reprising

implied the same pizza delivery guy from Fast Times.

Yes.

He's also a delivery man in Johnny Dangerously.

Yep.

So this is his bet, but Sigurney killed him for real.

R.I.P.

Beheaded him.

And there's such a funny moment between the cop and Wallace Sean, where the cop like disdains him for being Homeland Security.

He's like, go find a subway map and an explosive and then we'll call you.

Fuck off.

And I'm like, Jesus.

Well, this movie is very,

you know, again, like.

locked into specifically satirizing things like the Patriot Act.

I mean, but that's so interesting.

It is.

It's just, but it also like locks it in.

Like, you know, completely forgotten about that part of it.

And it does give it something

that, you know, I don't know that she 100% needed to, but I find it really interesting that she wanted to and that she locked in on Homeland Security and the Patriot Act.

And, you know,

what would vampires fear in modern America?

Maybe that's what we're talking about.

Well, also because, you know, we're following two vampires who...

From the beginning, we're like, I have no interest in being a vampire who kills people, who enjoys killing, who likes human blood.

I don't want any part of it.

You're seeing the support group of like, here is the modern progressive vampire that wants to get away from the negative stereotype.

Including Vlad, um, the impaler, Tepash.

Yeah, we should mention Malcolm McDowell plays that Vlad the Impaler.

He does.

And he was now funny.

And he's very good.

He's very funny.

He's very good in it.

This whole cast is that's that's the thing, but it's just like these are vampires.

He's a very qualified cast or whatever.

Well, he's a chef of uh caramel apples.

The thing is, it's not even

the amount of things she was like, what else could he impale?

It's caramel apples.

Oh, sure.

It's his impaling caramel apples.

Yeah, for sure.

That and knitting.

But it's like, these are vampires who want to assimilate, who are trying to assimilate and just be as normal and as unobtrusive as they can be.

And they still cannot do that.

And that is really, that's the metaphor, right?

You can never fully assimilate.

It's just not possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also the sort of like the never-ending pursuit of hipness.

of trying to stay relevant.

It is like a fucking treadmill that is impossible to keep up with.

Well, right.

So it's interesting because she seems, you know, it's this weird tension in the film where it's both about relevance and it's about homeland security is going to get you.

Right.

Like they're trying to stay forever young, but it's not enough to just biologically be forever young.

They need to figure out how to be relevant young women, which is this whole fucking game, this like rat race they have to do.

And then also, yes, like the homeland security thing feels like.

I mean, I was kind of pleasantly surprised by it.

I was like, me too.

This is actually a very interesting route to go down.

A lot of things in this movie are interesting.

I think basically, I think this script is like borderline great.

Like, I think if I read this, I'd be like, holy shit, this thing is going to be a fucking knockout.

And unlike I Can Never Be Your Woman, where you like step back and squint your eyes and you're like, I see the

good ideas,

but none of them are really executed well.

I think in scripting, every idea in this movie is actually

executed well.

Obviously, there's not enough money for certain things, but there is a bit of a TV janky vibe to

be like,

oh, this could have been a series.

Like, this,

like, and the, you know, the overexplaining in the 21st, 20 minutes of like, here are the rules of this vampire world, because every vampire world has its own rules.

Why is Clueless such an incredible piece of filmmaking?

Which I would also argue is true for a lot of her earlier movies.

And nothing after Clueless has.

the craft side so nailed down is it truly just money and time at the time we're recording this we have not yet done our loser app, which was her last studio film.

I think as much as that movie is not as loved as Clueless, I think it has a little bit of a lot of that.

I've seen some of Loser on TV, and it certainly looks more like a real movie.

I do think, if you want me to unpack this for a moment, he's kind of like

a little shape of a nail on his forehead.

Yeah.

Right.

Finger in his thumb.

A lot of it boils down to like time and support.

I really do think so, beyond the fact that you're just like, she's got cheaper locations.

She probably has like harder outs on cast, especially with a cast, a pretty large ensemble with a lot of big names, right?

A lot of these people are probably agreeing.

If it's like, if you can shoot Sigourney out in two days, you can get her.

So now you have like a kind of slapdash location that you're putting her in, and you're having to run through these things.

Grant's tomb.

Grant's tomb.

I mean, good bit.

I have not been there.

When I love watching whenever fucking DVDs have any sort of BTS footage, not of like, you know, the interviews, but comedy movies being directed.

And the clueless DVD has a fair amount of this.

And I remember something about Mary DVD being like, as a comedy movie obsessed kid, like its own mini film school of just watching uncut footage of the director shaping the scene.

And as much as you can like write it well and visualize it well and cast the right people, so much of comedy is like such a weird, precise tone thing that it's why these movies need like studio funding.

Really, if they're going to be more ambitious than like three people talking in a house, if they're going to be more ambitious than like mumble core shit where you're giving yourself that space and time because the budget is nothing and you just need people to stay in an apartment, especially for you know, not just a movie that requires special effects, but I feel like I was also reading a couple interviews with her about this movie and how she would have loved to have done more flashbacks or like more, you know, know, right.

A lot of the flesh.

What appeals to her is the

period stuff that's really expensive.

Like I love when they turn into a bat too.

Oh,

so you're just sort of like, why no bat?

Why no bat?

Yeah.

That's, you know, that's a fair, that's a fair deal.

You just think that's a good bit?

Yeah.

And then they're kind of like talking as a going bat movie.

Oh, sure.

You didn't like straw on the rat?

I love that.

Straw on rat.

Okay.

Very fun.

I was like, that feels, that feels ben-coated.

If I might close this loop for a moment, right?

You watch her directing like Clueless and this footage footage of her directing like the wedding scene at the end and like the actors throwing at ideas and her finessing it over and over again and things being able to play out in a group shot where you're seeing the real timing of five people like finding a new moment and riffing on it and finessing it and whatever.

That is like the thing that like money gets you.

is the time and space to do that, right?

And I have been on so many shoots like this where they're like, we know we don't have that time.

So this is going to have to be constructed in the edit.

We can't spend five hours rehearsing this until it's perfect and then get 20 takes of the whole scene playing out in a master.

They're like, we just have to start shooting.

So then you get into this zone where your shots become tighter and less composed because you just need as many editing pieces as you can possibly get and you need to start getting them fast, just getting fucking footage.

And I think that leads to this feeling of it being like TV, which traditionally was always more constructed like that.

You hire pros and you get funny line readings from them and you create the chemistry and the edit later versus the best comedy movies, you're feeling like it's like fucking old Hollywood musical shit where you're like, I cannot believe the relationship of these two people moving and speaking in the same frame at the same time.

And like, I, that is even more than the effects, because I actually think it is impressive what she got visually considering how low this budget was.

Yeah, I mean, the moment when Van Helsing's first kill is pretty horrifying, actually.

Right.

The burned alive vampire, pretty good.

I just

she made certain balances of like, these effects are important.

I want to shoot enough days in New York, even though a lot of it was.

Detroit at night.

Yeah, a lot of it was Detroit, but it's also because it's a vampire movie, you got to do it at night.

It's a big cast.

She clearly spent money on the wardrobe, all this sort of shit.

It's like the big concession she's making is time.

And that leads to this feeling kind of clumsy in ways.

Now, the film, as we say, was made for about $10 million or so because that's kind of what you could get from Lauren Vercell, the producer who made, had made that movie City Island, another kind of low-budgety, New York-y comedy.

I thought that was her mini breakthrough.

Exactly.

Yeah.

She also has Red Hour producing this.

Stuart Kornfield, her old friend from AFI, Penciler's Company, at a moment where they were very powerful.

Sure.

I'm almost surprised that they weren't able to get her even like a couple million more to help out, but it also feels like her old friend is doing her a solid.

Let's get Ben on the phone.

Let's get Ben on the phone.

So, uh, he'll be in a good mood.

The next one, um,

one of the funniest things is what was it?

Was he at the Emmys or something?

Or I forget.

No, it was the Oscars.

It was when he presented the Oscars.

Then he was like tweeting, like,

you know, like, as he always does, like minute by minute through the, and they were like, aren't you at the Oscars?

And he was like, go next.

Like, it was like, all right.

Um, Alicia Silverstone's in this film.

Now, she's in Clueless, which is another film that Tammy Heckerling made.

Heckerling a lot about her performance in that episode.

And we talked about the sort of ramp up of of her as the Aerosmith girl.

We did not talk larger career because the falloff of Alicia Silverstone is culturally one of the more interesting things we've lived through.

It's a bit of a boomer.

Yes.

A boomer.

Yes.

Obviously, she's in Clueless.

And then her next real big role, she is in True Crime in a Small Role or whatever, something.

But that, I think, was shot before.

No, but it's like her next is the 97 double barrel of Bat Girl as Batman in Batman Robin and excess baggage,

which with Benicia Del Toro being very normal.

She like immediately after Clueless signs, I think it was a three-picture, $6 million deal with Paramount, where they were like, we are in the Alicia Silverstone business.

Or was it with, I think it was with Sony, actually.

Excess Baggage, I can tell you, is certainly a film from the great people at Columbia Pictures by Sony.

I think that was the first of what was supposed to be her three-picture deal, but there was essentially a bidding.

She had a company called First Kiss that was the thing.

The label.

Like Clueless is so huge.

And people were even like, if she couldn't get an Oscar nomination, she deserved one.

And she very specifically did not do the TV show because she was like, I'm going to do other things.

Right.

Yeah.

She signs this deal.

She's got three movies.

And they're like, we're giving you autonomy here.

Like, you are a producer on these films.

Pick your material, cast them.

Then Batgirl comes up, which at that moment probably seems like, well, no shit.

They want me to be in a Batman movie.

I should fucking do that.

So that leapsfrogs to her next project.

And then her first thing in the Columbia deal is is excess baggage, where she's like, I want Benicio Del Toro.

I'm picking the director.

They talk about that.

The whole movie is like her selecting the things on the soundtrack.

This is supposed to be the real moment of like Alicia Silverstone builds a movie for herself and her taste, and it is just kind of like completely ignored.

It's an interesting movie.

It's not bad, in my opinion.

It's weird, and Del Toro is really, really weird in it.

Like they're an odd usual suspects era, Del Toro as like the sexy love interest.

Who's actually weirder than we thought?

Yeah, exactly.

Then Batman and Robin makes her look kind of silly.

More than anything, people are like, this is embarrassing.

I mean, Batgirl's not a very

rich role.

But she's, I mean, she is, she's abominable in that movie.

I love it.

People are kind of like laughing at her.

People are laughing at her, and people are mean and sexist to her, like 100%.

She is also so fucking bad in that movie.

It's kind of crazy because you're like, what happens?

You're clearly a talented performer.

Character is a good thing.

You get

yes and no one's good in that movie now

now everyone says uma and arnold are good in it and i can kind of go with them in that but certainly george and alicia and rob uh chris o'donnell but especially george clooney and alicia silverstone just the line deliveries where they just kind of feel like they're like did i get that right and schumacher's like i don't know let's keep going like you know like on to the next crazy set you know

like Chris O'Donnell at least like wears the suit well.

Like he understands how to be the action figure.

He has a sense of Robin more than the other two.

I think it is like the reason Alicia Silverstone is dinged harder by Batman and Robin than anyone else is it's a little close to what we were talking about of like when Travolta fucks up, where you're like, you look silly.

How do you not have enough self-awareness?

to sort of like protect yourself from this but it's also a horrible role absolutely

but then it's just immediately followed up by like okay but here is her movie sure people go echo and but columbia never cashes in the other two movies in her deal.

No, but I will always go to the mat for Blast from the Past.

A fun movie.

Or a movie I really like that's kind of also like salty, sweet, and interesting with Brendan Frazier.

I think that movie's fun.

An incredible premise for a movie and a premise that only could have worked in the exact year they made the movie.

Pretty much.

I haven't seen it in, you know, 20 plus years.

I think I watched it recently.

It is okay.

She's in the Kenneth Brown of Loves Laborers Lost, which is basically just ignored.

Doesn't really make any money at all.

And that's it she does the graduate on broadway sure but the boring role totally agreed the yeah the girl yeah yeah and then nbc's like we've got alicia silverstone we're putting her on tv and it still felt like oh she that's someone who was a movie star that's kind of a big deal i was pumped for miss match it wasn't just that it was her it was darren stone created it right no dude i was way pumped because i was like it was one of the most pleased shows that far right and it's like it's silverstone is that kind of star where in the early 2000s you were like well they they and was she playing a matchmaker?

Of course she was.

So it's Emma again.

Yeah.

Exactly.

The whole

show, right?

And that show just kind of stayed.

It just didn't work.

Yeah.

Right.

And she now, like, she'll, she's over.

Pops up in things in little parts.

But I mean, it's like the idea of her leading a movie

is gone.

Um, when they she pops up in Beauty Shop, the great beauty shop.

Yeah.

A strange performance.

Funny, strange thing.

She's like Diane Keaton's daughter in the book club movies.

She's one of the things that she is.

And I remember she's in

The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

Right.

The Elanthemus movie in like a small role.

She's Barry Kyogen's mom in it.

And when I interviewed Yorgos for that movie, I was like, Alicia Silverstone.

He was like, yeah, I love her.

Clueless.

Like, I love Alicia.

Why doesn't anyone use her?

Like, it was great to work with her.

But more often, it's like, it was almost like this Greek pervert had to like appear and be like, Y'all like Clueless?

Is Alicia Silverstone?

Does anyone have a number for her?

She got zero bump from that.

Because it's not a big role.

Right.

And like, I think more of shit where it's like, she was the replacement mom in Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3.

You know what?

After the original cast left.

God bless.

Yorgo's.

She's in his new movie.

Begunia.

Great.

And she is also, I don't know that you taped your Clueless episode before the Clueless TV show is announced.

That she's going to win.

No, but

it's not announced.

But two days after we recorded our episode.

Dude, did you know that the cast of Begonia Begonia is

Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone, and Stavvi?

Stavi?

I did know that.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because people are.

Yorgos is like, just get me another

king?

Yeah.

There is actually.

There's a corner of the internet that is really hyped on the idea of Stavi being a supporting actor.

In a Yorgos movie?

I can see magic there.

Absolutely.

He might just like nail it.

Also, he's one of our best comedians.

He kind of is.

He's great.

I think he's basically kind of like.

He's getting into Doughboys and being like, let's talk like nefarious fat guy shit, guys.

And then being like, let's do it.

You know, like, like, what kind of bad behaviors can we get into?

Did you guys hear him on WTF as well?

I know I should listen.

He locked the gates and just basically talked about politics for like 40 straight minutes at the end of the episode and was so fucking smart.

Well, he is very smart about this stuff.

I am O.

Well, she's done a lot of theater of the show.

She's really good in this.

I think she's really good in this.

In my opinion, she's really doing a lot of the clueless stuff, the little, you know, the little mouth tug that she does.

So cute, you know, like, and the kind of like sweet with a little salty.

Curly hair, clueless.

What do you think of the makeup?

What do I think of the makeup?

The vampires in the right

eyeshadow.

Now, that of course is an Amy Heckerling staple.

Amy Heckerling always has the raccoon eyes.

Well, yeah, that's true.

Right.

That's one of her things.

But it does feel very like.

Okay, so these are the vampires.

We're going to like put very intense eyeliner on them.

And sometimes.

But I will say like of that era, like I was putting a lot of eyeliner on then.

So I feel like it was also just.

But I'm guessing you look better than Todd Berry.

No offense to old Todd.

Well, thank you so much.

Don't we?

Once again,

think

that we're in

an exact midpoint of like, you're 10% over it being realistic, but 20%

under it being funny exaggeration.

Sure.

Where it just sort of maybe looks a little sloppy.

I mean, yeah.

Definitely like it's it's smeared.

It's not quite there.

It's been, well, that's kind of what it looks like.

Can I ask you guys, have you done over your many, many years, how many other vampire movies have you done?

Really good question, actually.

Not

that many.

I mean, every episode's in a spiral.

Well, we did a Twilight franchise on Patreon.

We did.

And we have covered John.

And as aforementioned, those are vampires.

John's Carpenter's vampire franchise.

That counts.

But for how sturdy a franchise this is, especially...

Franchise.

Smithos.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just there are so.

Well, what are the big vampire things we might have done?

Let's see.

We bought a zoo.

Was that vampire?

Okay.

We haven't done Neil Jordan.

We haven't done Coppola.

We haven't done Jarmush.

No.

We haven't done Herzog.

Her dog.

Like, I'm thinking of.

But I'm like, are you...

Did you guys, like, was, you know, if you, as much as you liked monsters or any, I don't know if you were monster boys.

Were you vampire boys?

Big time monster boy.

But you're not as big a vampire boy.

I was going to say, you like the

monster monster.

Like a frank, like a frank

or like a the thing or like almost a con kind of thing.

You know, I'd say as a child, I kind of, my mind sparked the most at Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde.

Okay.

That was very big for me.

But I also think like Scooby-Doo as a gateway into the monster.

Oh, so like the ghosts?

Yeah, but also like Frankenstein's mummies, zombies.

And then I was watching.

Are we in the Monster Mash?

What's going on here?

God, Neir Dark.

Near Dark Dark.

A great vampire movie.

Another revisionist vampire film.

Yes.

But I was really into the classical monster types, both the funny versions and the older, quote-unquote, scary ones, but the ones that were not modern horror films.

Vampires has always interested me less.

And it is funny that every time I hear a director I like, and I had this exact feeling when Sinners got announced.

Isn't Dark Shadows a vampire?

Yeah.

There you go.

Another good call.

In Burton.

Every time a director I like.

announces they're doing a vampire movie.

I'm like, what is it with vampires?

Most of the time, I enjoy it.

And yet, I've never amped at the idea.

And like, I saw Sinners and I was like, fuck, there's still juice in this vampire thing.

There's stuff you can do with it.

And yet, I am sure the next time someone I like announces a vampire movie, I will go, why again?

Why another one?

Why do you not like my movie?

All the movies we listed, I basically like.

You know, and I'm like, as long as there is some personal point of view, like Only Lovers Left Alive is one of my favorite movies of the video.

That's awesome.

I mean, Only Lovers Left Alive is kind of.

the artier vamps.

Because it's also like, we've lived through so many years of society.

Here we are just kind of chilling.

What do we do with ourselves?

America's getting weird.

I think his metaphor in that movie is more kind of like hipsters not being able to reckon with the fact that they're still alive, right?

It's sort of like that movie is about

junkies kind of being like, geez, we made it.

And now we like live in Detroit and like.

The world's going to shit.

There's like elements of that, like interview with vampire, like that kind of thing.

But I definitely remember when I first, you know.

I got to watch that show.

Everyone's telling me that show is so good.

It's good.

And I mean, the thing that I hear it's a little horny.

It's very damn good.

And Rice is an amazing movie part.

I know.

I know.

A little horned up.

Pump your brakes.

I hear.

A little horned up.

Fucking

sex wall-to-wall.

Great.

Wall-to-wall.

Dicks on dicks, man.

Dicks on dicks.

I need them on top of each other, like a little sandwich.

No dockyard, just stacking.

No Big Mac, you know, moist maker.

But that's you want Jenga towers.

Does that ever happen?

Like Jenga towers.

Is there like a sex act where people go to a sex party and just go, like, how many dicks can we stack on top of each other?

But then you're going to need like ladders and steps.

Are you talking horizontally or vertically?

Who knows?

I'm talking vertically.

Play around.

Oh, I was talking.

See, my brain went to horizontally.

So we've got a lot of different things.

That I feel like is more like building a rope bridge, though, isn't it?

Like sort of slap by slap.

Oh, boy.

If you're going horizontally, I think Jenga Tower has to be vertically.

It's the same game of like how many guys can stack on top of each other.

I will say the mechanics have rapidly run away from me.

feel fully in control.

Sam Raimi never made one.

I'm just looking at all our vampire eyes.

That is the other one, Thirst.

Oh, that's another good one.

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The elevated interior reminds you this is more than an EV.

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You're a guy who just wants to look nice.

The kind of nice where you might get a nice compliment on the niceness of your nice new outfit.

Good thing Men's Warehouse has everything from polos to jeans and yes, suits, plus a team to help you find the perfect fit to make sure you look nice.

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Men's warehouse.

I love vampires.

I've long loved vampires.

Who's your favorite?

Well, I mean, I guess.

Dracula.

No, no, I wasn't a Dracula girl.

I did not like Angel.

I did like, I liked Spike better than Angel.

Angel solves crime in L.A.

Maybe too.

He does solve crime in LA.

Yeah, he took over a law firm.

It's great.

Actually, you know, a vampire I was thinking of a lot during vamps is Harmony, the blonde vampire from Muffy and Angel.

She's a she's got a VAMPS.

You're right.

She's very VAMPS.

There's a really, I actually re-watched an Angel episode.

It's a great Mercedes McNabb.

Mercedes McNabb, and she's working as Angel's like receptionist.

And she has like a little montage in the morning where she's getting ready and brushing her fangs and like warming up the rap blood.

And it's very VAMPS.

Oh, I have to swing in here for a moment.

Hotel Transylvania trilogy.

Oh, yep, very much.

It has vampires in it?

Trilogy.

I'm sorry.

Of course.

And that is a trilogy.

And that is canon.

And you could mark that down.

You can put it right in the book.

Yeah, no, that's great.

And vampires always like very much interested me.

Definitely, you know, they were sexy in a way where it's like, well, they're not having sex.

There haven't sexy.

It's penetrative.

It's interesting.

What was your vampire?

Is it Buffy?

It's got to be Buffy.

I think it's definitely Buffy.

Was that your activation?

Like, do you feel like you were naturally inclined towards vampires as a child and Buffy was the best version of them?

Or was that when you first locked in?

That's when I first locked into like, well, actually,

I was going to say that was when I first walked into like narrative TV being a thing that I really fell for.

But actually, that was Hey Arnold, which got a shout out in this film in a slightly rude way.

But I love a Hey Arnold shout-out.

Just like Jake Focalness gets a fucking drive-by of this movie.

Look, some of these speak friends.

Are they friends?

That feels really pointed.

But all of these references feel like, right, oh, right.

The first draft of the script is 2005.

Yes.

Like, we're making fun of talking head shows.

But there's also, you know, something that's always transgressive about vampires.

So one of my very best college friends is a drag performer in Brooklyn.

I think I probably shouted on Showgirls because that was her favorite.

The Wonderful Miss Malice.

And every January, if you're in Brooklyn, you should go to their vamp-themed show every January for their birthday.

Not a Vamps themed show.

Not a Vamps, a vampire themed show.

Every year they do it.

Every year they find new shit to do.

There's, you know, this year there was definitely more Nurse Ferratu stuff.

She likes doing vampire lovers, like very classic 60s, like Ingrid Pitt, like vampires, because there's that whole genre.

There was a really good Lost Boys this year.

And it was just the kind of thing where

being in this room full of like, you know, very like only like queer trans people who were just like, vampires are a thing.

They live in the dark.

They are the thing that people are afraid of.

Like, so for that room, it was like, this is queer-coded in a way that we all cottoned onto as kids.

I, I guess I, you know, I guess I was, I guess I was closeted as a kid.

I just don't even think of it that way.

But I don't, I, for me, that's not what it was really about.

It was more like this story is so interesting and intricate.

And I liked learning the rules of the Buffy vampire world.

So I always am interested in how the rules of vampires shift between

depictions.

And if someone finds a new sort of new thing to do, like, you know,

the idea that a vampire, like all the vampires

who like, you know, one vampire sired will die if the sire dies is a, you know, an older thing.

But this, the vamp one stems, the vamp version is very interesting.

Like you will age back to the age you were.

Right.

And if you are too old, you will die.

And I think I was like, that is a really interesting twist on something I have seen many times.

And the other thing about not to do do my own David Bullet points, where I'm like, enjoy all my stuff.

Do it.

One thing I find very interesting about vamps and something I was really trying to think about, and I don't think I can think of another example.

And I'm sure someone listening to this is, will find it.

I cannot think of another vampire thing where the primary love story is between, is a platonic soulmates thing.

Because usually vampires are very tortured lovers over time.

And it's like very, we are this, you know, like only lovers left alive is like, we are this couple.

We have stadia that the hunger is very that.

It's another great movie.

Yeah, love that movie.

Interview with the vampire, like all these very tortured lovers over decades.

Yes.

Yes.

And this, or there's a mortal and a not mortal like Twilight Buffy, but the platonic, like we are roommates and we've been hanging out for 20 years, having a good time is very different.

Yeah.

And cute.

And here's my vampire.

They're very cute.

Who makes a stem?

How do the stems get made?

Well, that's where I am just like, if we had a TV show, we could get into that.

Sure, we could get into it.

Because they have the same

flashback.

Correct me if I'm wrong, attempt to explain

what distinguishes.

Let's do some of the table setting of the story because we've been talking around different aspects of the story.

Well,

I mean, I was going to do more of the dossier, but that's fine.

We'll circle back to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

these two women have been living in St.

Mark's place

for 20 years.

Goody.

Played by Alicia Silverstone.

Native New Yorker.

Yes.

And Stacey, played by Kristen Ritter.

Who

Goody often is dressed in heckerling outfits.

Yes.

We've been talking about from the 1840s.

Heckerling sort of like modified Charlie Chaplin couture that you see her doing behind the scenes a lot.

Silverstone does like a lot of variations on that.

They have been vampire roommate friends for 20 years.

They live a very simpatico sort of tandem life where they go out every night and try to enjoy themselves.

And are, but as we were saying, are kind of starting to feel the wear of having to keep up with these people.

Why is the technology changing?

Why are the trends changing?

It's too hard to like keep this all going.

I don't know if you folks caught this, but the first scene where they go to a bar, I think the introduction of Renfield, the band that's playing is Molly Israel's band.

Oh, I'm daughter of Amy Heckerland.

That's fun.

Yes.

That's cute.

And I also love that Renfield is their gay best friend.

Yes.

Yes.

The great Zach Worker.

The great Zach Gorky.

The great Zach Workers.

I said he was great.

I know, but I'm building on that.

I'm co-signing it.

Or doubling down.

He's great.

He's three times great.

Did you get that though?

It's very good.

Oh, the look with the hair.

Yeah.

Oh, it's tough.

The swoopy hair.

The vague Ed Hardy thing.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

For sure.

Which I feel like was very like LA was swamped by Ed Hardy at that time.

So Gourney Weaver is the one who turned them.

They have an uneasy relationship with her.

So Gorney relationship with her.

Yes.

Her assistant guy is Todd Berry.

Yeah.

Very funny.

You wish there was more of him.

Exactly.

Todd Berry is a vampire.

He is a good bit, and there's not enough.

Money in the bank.

He's introduced with fangs, and you're like, holy shit, give me this all day.

But they have an uneasy relationship with her.

They have found their sort of vampire chosen family in the support group, people like Vlad the Impaler.

Who don't want to feed off animals who are like, we will stick straws in rats and be exterminators at night.

We found a more humane way to live.

Blood anonymous.

Oh, no, it's Sanguine Anonymous.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

And they work as late-night janitors so that they can have access to

dead rats.

Pretty solid.

There's plausibility everywhere.

Like all of this is like,

this is vampire shit you like, where it's like any vampire movie getting into the what are the structures of their life?

What are the systems they have put in place to be able to like exist and sort of uh slip by i mean you know and i feel like for especially a comedic vampire thing it's like very what we do in the shadows where it's like and they are just living life in staten island and occasionally they'll go to the dmv and that's just what they're doing the brass tacks of how you stay a vampire um

they uh kristen ritter meets dan stevens uh a handsome young man Yep, this is the real end of his foppish era.

Like this, no, but this is like peak downton.

I was going to say.

So Downton starts in 2010.

Like,

and he's left it by 2012.

I just think every movie after this, there was the sort of guest thing of like, fuck, that's Dan Stevens.

He changed his look.

So The Guest is 2014.

One of the hottest screen performances of my lifetime.

And I like Dan Stevens and I think he's been good in other stuff.

But the guest was kind of one of those things where you're like, oh, a colossal movie star has arrived.

Right.

But I feel like if more people had seen this film, they would have been like, oh, and he's also a freak.

Like, why is he not like, he's not really allowed to be as much of a freak in this one.

That's not his role.

But the fact that he's in it at all is kind of nuts.

This mic has great taste.

I do too.

And I think he's really good in this.

The fact that he chose to do it, this feels really interesting.

Doing a funny mocking of how he was perceived from Downton.

Right.

Yeah.

Whereas

the romantic lead with the blue eye.

Yes.

And then after this, it's like, no, I'm zagging so fucking hard.

I'm going to like reintroduce myself and I'm going to look different and I'm going to have a jawline.

So you're talking about Beauty and the Beast, yeah?

And I'm going to play Maniacs.

Yes, of course.

Maniac.

He is the beast.

He is the beast.

I cannot deny he's the beast.

I think he basically always hits now, but it feels like he would not even let himself do something like this today.

I don't know.

He's like conjuring too much how he was originally perceived.

But I mean, at least it's like he's surrounded by bat shittery.

Like his father is Wallace Sean, the head of Homeland Security.

100% why he wanted to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like this movie is insane and I get to be funny.

Yes.

Right, right.

And he's very charming in this.

Yeah, so he and Kristen Ritter's characters fall in love.

Right.

He is unfortunately.

He's a star-crossed classic.

The son of Homeland Security Van Helsing.

And another thing I love throughout these Heckerling movies is they will set up some sort of dynamic and you're like, oh, fuck.

So the whole movie is going to be keeping the two of them apart until the very end.

I like that basically 45 minutes in, he confronts her.

Yes.

She's like, reveals herself and then they just just start to deal with it.

Right.

And it's like always more interesting when the conflict isn't like external forced things keeping them apart.

It's like, what are the struggles of how to be together?

Well, it's funny when she's like, so what?

Do you want like, you want a girlfriend you can go hiking with?

You want to like try new restaurants?

Like, I'm not going to be that.

And he's like, I don't, I don't need to do that.

Like, I kind of love these like, I think actually we are compatible in this way.

It's not just that I like you.

I don't need to go hiking.

It's a very funny thing to say.

The core tension of this movie that kicks in is A, Weaver's getting increasingly out of control she's starting weaver is a monster she's a monster and she keeps fucking and she's sloppy she's sloppy she keeps eating people she's giving vampires a bad name page six is all over it right

um but also kristen ritter gets pregnant which is so interesting like again you know i something that's kind of not allowed in vampire logic and they don't address it for a while but then they do address it in an interesting way well i actually think yeah i think i i didn't remember how the mechanics of it worked because i was like is this like a twilight thing where it's just like well she's special so that's what happened i I kind of like that, um, Malcolm McDowell Vlad, as he's poking the apples, is just like, Yeah, she's pregnant and it won't survive because it can't, so give her a week.

Yeah, it'll right within a month, it's gone.

That just like vampires can get pregnant, but it's not,

we can't sustain life, so it's just not going to happen.

So, I was like, Oh, that's actually just a very elegant way of dealing with it.

Now, Alicia Silverstone has been lying to uh Kristen Britner, she is the one who turned her Stacy, Stacey, perfect 90s name, or goodie's name, yeah, told Stacy that she was basically the same age as her.

But like clearly is not.

Has been alive since the 1800s.

1840.

1840s.

She's turned in the 1840s.

But she, I don't think she turned.

She did not turn Stacy.

No.

No.

Oh, oh.

So Cicero turned both of them.

Yes.

But it's like basically just to, what was it?

There's like a very funny line where she's trying to get them to dispose of her bodies and Stacey just goes like, but we're only good for like trying stuff on and like clerical work.

Like that's, we are your assistants.

Like that's kind of the vibe.

But basically, basically, and you know, there's even a line like towards the very end where, you know, we'll get to and I'll cry where Goody is like, I was going to walk into the sun before you got turned.

Like I was, I was pretty much done.

But now we've had a great 20 years, but it's like she got a friend is what happened.

It's part of like what I like about Only Lovers Left Alive and a lot of the vampire stuff that I like the most is like the curse of immortality.

and getting to this point where you're just like, I kind of wish I could die.

This is unnatural.

I have like had to live through too much and lose too many people and also have like whatever hedonistic pleasures and joys I could like indulge in from a life without consequences.

Yeah.

I've run through them.

What's left?

And the interesting thing, I feel like one reason why I actually also don't love the scene that opened, this, this podcast,

where, you know,

she gets mad at the blog.

You know, we are famously critics in the room, but where she gets frustrated about the blogs, not that I disagree with the sentiment at all.

And actually the more I thought about it, the more I was like, yeah, no, maybe I also will shuffle off this mortal coil if I don't have to like check my phone ever again.

But

I think I am glad that that's not the only motivation for her being like, it's okay if I die.

Because that's not enough.

No, no, no, no.

Right.

That's a bit of a huge bummer.

Because also, like, at that point, she's also, we haven't even, God,

I'm glad that you are, you know, down to talk for way too long about so many things because we haven't even talked about Richard Lewis as the love of her life.

We'll get to Richard Lewis.

We'll get to.

We'll get to.

But like

my

grandmother of some age called during this episode, right?

A lot of my life is now centered around me helping her with devices.

And it will often be this wild oscillation between like, this is incredible.

Thank God.

This is amazing.

I can't imagine having lived this long without the resource of being able to watch like any movie at any time in my bed on a thing the size of like a piece of paper.

Right.

Right.

And the other half the time she will say things to me like, I was never supposed to live this long.

I can't learn all these things.

Right.

Like this.

What am I supposed to do?

Why is this no longer a thing I can solve in a phone call or a letter?

Why do I need to sign up for more stuff?

Right.

And I think it's more

fair feeling.

There was that feeling of like Alicia Silverstone's character is secretly 100 plus years old.

Older.

Right.

Right.

And she's much older than the other one.

And I, what I love, one thing I like too is that it's not like she's very very nostalgic for the time when she was turned, which we find out, you know, she was brewing cholera.

Right.

It was a horrible time to be a poor person in New York, which I guess.

And that her go-to dressing style is not.

that it's actually the 20s when it seems like she was happiest when like things changed electricity happened people were out having fun and she was like that's what she's nostalgic for and also the you know movies because and i also she's a cinephile in this it's the van in a way that's very heckerling right so it's not that she was always resistant to change it's that she enjoyed the change she got and then it just kept happening well so kristen ritter inside her coffin has photos of like late 80s early 90s pinup boyfriends right she's got michael j fox and shit inside her coffin right her taste has remained you know static right it's the moment she was turned right and it's basically like that feeling of this kind of point in a person's life in between your 20s and your 30s where you're like, I'm out of the control of childhood and there's a level of responsibilities have not really kicked in and is my life mostly centered around like getting drunk and going out with friends and having dinner and having fun and all this sort of shit which is what both of them kind of yearn for right more than a specific era of history it's the point in time where they felt that way for the first time which For Alicia Silverstone, because her lifespan is so much longer and she was born into a culture that never allowed people to have an era like that, that it makes sense that the 20s would have been the first time that was basically like the equivalent of her being 26 and also culture kind of exploding for the first time.

And she's nostalgic for feeling that way for the first time in the same way that Kristen Britter is about like 1992.

And Alicia Silverstone has been lying about them being on the same timeline and pretending they're in the same place.

Because as you said, basically finding someone else she can relate to this hard in a platonic way gave her the motivation to be like i guess it is still fun to be alive i want to do this but we have to be on the exact same page about all of this

and when

kristen ritter gets pregnant and she realizes the baby is going to sort of like destroy itself she realizes there's like a two birds with one stone solution which is i need to kill sogourney to sever the stem which will solve her like

her it'll free her it will free her

you know they'll revert back to the to the age they would have been if they had kept it Which will be the end of me.

So, Kristen Ritter is going to go from 20 to 40.

And Alicia.

She turns 40 in this movie, which is also like very specific that she is turning 40.

And that when she finds out she's pregnant, that's also such a cute little scene.

I feel like Kristen plays it so well, too.

And so does Alicia, because she said it being like, oh, I talked to Vlad and you're just pregnant and it'll be fine.

And she's so excited.

And she's like, oh, shit, you want the baby.

And I just didn't even consider that might be something you'd want.

And she's like, well, I'm 40.

When am I going to get another chance?

Like, that's the reason.

Yeah.

It's a good line.

And Alicia Silverstone does the math and is like, I can solve this, but the price of it is I will revert to my real age, which will be dead.

It is basically a suicide mission.

She has to sacrifice herself to this.

Unknowing to everyone else around her.

She's not letting Kristen Ritter know because Kristen Ritter thinks that she's going to turn 40 as well.

I always kind of like this dynamic.

of two characters thinking they're on the same page about something and one person just sort of quietly, stoically suffering in advance of like, I'm ready to do this, and I don't want them to know that I'm doing this for them because they will try to talk me out of it.

And I feel like, you know, Stacey kind of does suspect it that, you know, they're not quite the same age because references are not, you know, with it.

She loves a drop ways too much, even though, you know, you can only say Kira Knightley wore it for so long.

She always claims that she learned something from the history channel.

There's a really great gag of it.

Every time I watched the history channel, it was just about Hitler.

That is, which is what the history channel is.

But in this history, it is still true.

But that's, that's, I was so so glad you wrote because I was like, that bit is not that great until that line.

And the bit, the early step of the bit, which also feels very Heckerling, is like the way her old timiness kicks in is she just wants to stop in random corners in New York City and explain.

Remember when it was

here.

Yeah, right.

Right.

Which is like, I think how like a lifelong New Yorker like Amy Heckerling feels.

It's certainly how you and I feel.

Absolutely.

Talking time.

It is to be like, yeah, there used to be like a dentist's office there.

And it's like, who fucking cares, David?

She's doing the 1920s version of that.

And Christopher's like, how do you know this?

And she goes, like, history channel.

Yeah.

As if history channels are tough for you.

What do you want to say?

It just doesn't seem like she was very savvy when it comes to real estate.

Because if you've been around that long, why are you in that apartment?

Be off the friggin' park or something.

Come on.

She really needs to be.

She'd be in the thick of it in St.

Mark's Place or whatever.

Or even, I just love the eternal life thing of like you deposit a penny.

And then like 100 years later, you're like super rich.

I feel like it's very like interview with the vampire is kind of like that, where they're like, we have figured it out.

Now we own shit.

But it's true.

She has always been kind of like middle income.

It seems like she's never amassed.

Working as like exterminators.

Yes.

If anything, she should have been making good money.

She should have made it like some investments.

Put together a portfolio.

A purposeful statement, though, Ben, because it's like the whole point is they are relishing being stuck in a stage before you need to start to make future decisions

in that way, right?

Like it's that span of years where you're just like, at one point am I told I need to start figuring shit out?

And they are stuck in like decades of, that's for later.

Well, so that's one thing that I was thinking about when, you know, she does her little blog rant and then she very shortly thereafter realizes that she's going to have to die if Stacey's going to like be happy and whatever.

Is that, you know, for me, I was looking at being like, but you did just have like a very fulfilling moment where you got your ex-boyfriend who's now,

you know, know, I will say a hunky ACLU lawyer who is, you know, down and ready to help.

And you got all these people.

You're saying Richard Lewis now is hunky.

I think in Van Hunky.

Well, in 2012.

He is now.

I mean, he's hunkier in the present timeline than he is in that wig in the 60s.

Well, the wig is.

And I also like that.

It's not a major studio.

I just love that that guy played by Richard Lewis is the object of Alicia Silverstone's like utterance.

The other thing is very, very hecky.

Very hecky.

If you look at the man men of Heckerling's life, and we have not acknowledged he also had a very long relationship with Brunson Pinchot in the 90s,

Richard Lewis, it makes sense

that you're like Amy Heckerling when she was 12 probably saw him do stand-up on late night and was like, that is my greatest crush of all time.

Richard Lewis.

And he plays it pretty straight.

The thing, right, that I like about Richard Lewis, I like pretty much everything about Richard Lewis, but in this movie, is that he's like, I'm playing it as a kind of a tired, sad guy.

Like, I'm not sure if it's a good idea.

He's not, he's an old hippie.

He's an agent, dark, complaining.

Like, like Richard Lewis you know like uh no he's he's quite locked in uh being not that funny and Richard Lewis also was incredibly good at just maintaining his look right like you even watch the final season of curb where he is like so close to death almost was not on the final season and dies like before it even premieres and you're like man he for 70 years kept the hairstyle i know he likes me look and the all black outfits and the attitude like in this sort of vampiric way.

All right.

He's like a nightclub comic forever, right?

You know, he's, do you like Richard Lewis, Ben?

You're making a little face.

Yeah.

I think the thing for me when I remember that that's, this is the way the movie was going is that I had a moment where I was like, but goodie, you just found another gear.

Like this is something you can help people.

Like you change people's mind.

You, you like,

you connect people.

And so I had a minute where I was like, oh, do you really have like This isn't, it's not all just it comes a little bit out of nowhere when she starts talking about her kids and stuff.

Well, that I know.

Not out of nowhere, out of nowhere, because there's the scene where she like looks at old pictures and stuff and layered it.

But I just like that backstory is so good.

I think.

Exactly.

It's just resonant anyway.

It's kind of weird that she's telling Dr.

Van Helsing.

Why not?

He's a nice man.

Why not?

Was he a nice man?

Well, he's interested in her in a way that most aren't, right?

Because he actually cares about vampires.

Sure.

And he is like, here's a new bit of lore I didn't know.

Here's a great runner in this movie.

And he's learning to be sympathetic to them.

Yeah, she's changed hearts and other than with cigourney weaver this movie constantly represents the idea that like any complicated dynamic can be worked out through a very good conversation right yeah sure and like in a way that doesn't feel like sloppy like whatever wave it off screenwriting it's like can she appeal to dr van helsing as a person and get her to like consider her as a person rather than as like an abstract enemy in the same way that like dan stevens or kristen ritter can figure it out and the richard lewis thing when he's introduced they're like exterminating at a hospital where his wife, Mary Lou Henner, is like in the latest stages of cancer.

And Alicia Silverstone clocks him.

This was like her greatest boyfriend ever, her like political radical college student boyfriend from the 70s, who she had to dump because she was starting to get to the point.

I think she says it's seven years.

It's like after seven years, I have to acknowledge that I'm not aging.

And that he wanted

a family and she couldn't do that.

Which also, like, there's a lot of stuff about motherhood in here, too.

Yep.

Yes.

In a way that's kind of stuff that doesn't make sense that she wouldn't know the deal with pregnancy.

You'd think it would have come off at some point, but whatever.

It doesn't matter.

Richard Lewis

sees her.

It's like, how is this possible?

And she says, like, oh, what are you talking about?

And then very quickly creates the cover story of.

I feel like that must be a basic cover story for them.

It's like, I must be the one who's

like,

right.

And I'm like, okay, so the movie's going to be 90 minutes of her lying and pretending that she's the daughter.

And then once again, the conversation comes much earlier than you would expect.

They dispense with it pretty quickly.

Where she's like, I'm just going to fucking own up to you.

He's smart enough to figure it out, much in the same way that Don Stevens was.

She stops a robbery.

And

there's no way to.

And she, and she says, I could like hypnotize you.

I think you deserve better.

They have this really interesting emotional conversation about like why he, she had to leave him.

And said, you deserve to meet someone else.

And did you meet, did you meet someone amazing?

And he said, yeah, I did.

And you're in this zone where you're like, so they're spending so much time together is the idea that they're setting up that now that he's lived a full life with his wife and she is sadly going to pass away, that the door will be open for maybe her and him to be together, Alicia Silverstone and Richard Lewis.

And it's just not really.

I mean, I also appreciate that there's never actually a moment because I had a minute where I was like, oh my God, is he going to hit on her?

Because even though she's the, he thinks she's the daughter, and that never happens.

No, he's not.

He's just like, your mom was great.

Yeah.

And he's holding a candle for his wife who is still alive.

Yeah.

And Alicia Silverstone in a similar way.

Like, I think it's not that she has a death wish, but she realizes like I could do two great things for the two people I have cared the most about in my entire life.

And also, as she says, I have lived so fucking much.

Like, I've had my fill.

Like, not that I resent still being alive, but I've.

like, I've been not greedy, but like, I've been very lucky with how much I've gotten to experience.

Well, yeah, her explaining that the reason why she begged to be turned into a vampire, because the, you know, people who are begging to be turned to a vampire is such also like a very, you know, common trope in vampire stories.

Like people who are

seeking it out.

Like, you know, like Renfield and this, like, he's like, but waking me.

And they're like, that's not how it works.

Or like, you know, people on Buffy, there's always like groupies or whatever.

You know, people always want this or they think they want this.

But her reason is also completely different from anyone else.

It's not like, oh, I just want to like not die.

She's like, I have two kids who will be orphans if I die.

And I would rather not leave them alone.

Right.

And she talks about that her kids lived until like 80 and 99.

I think she says her daughter set the record for the oldest living person.

It was just like, yeah, it was unprecedented at the time.

And now she has gone on to live like another hundred years past that.

But she was like, but the only thing I wanted to do with this was raise them.

And I did it.

And I did that.

So like, what is it now?

Right.

And I just, I I had never, I, I really like,

um, I don't love, you know, all the

some of the vampire stuff is cheesy in this in a way where I'm like, okay, you know, I don't, I don't need like a bloodsucker's anonymous situation, but I get it.

Sure.

But I do feel like some of the, like she, Heckerlin clearly did a ton of research.

I mean, the vampire bat thing alone, or she's like, we have an enzyme in our spit.

And I just spit into him.

And I was like, you have done some Wikipedia whole research and I respect it.

But some of her twists on the vampire thing, I think, are really interesting and smart in a a way that ties back to the themes she's the most interested in, like aging, motherhood, relevance.

Yeah.

Those are the big three in this movie, right?

And they all track really well onto vampire history and our cultural understanding of them.

And

yeah, I just like, it was one of those things where, as you said, like first 30 minutes, I'm like, okay, there's funny jokes in this.

Yeah, I get the concepts.

Is this going to be sustainable?

Next 30 minutes, I'm like, fuck, I like care about these characters.

And the last 30 minutes, I'm like, she has set up all the pieces on the game board really well and really effortlessly for now this all being like perfectly set up for a very effective finale.

Yeah, and it's definitely a kind of movie where I feel like she's so like, it's so close to getting all the tonal mismatches right.

Like I feel like, you know, I

she definitely, she clearly loves like a voiceover, an exposition dump, et cetera.

This movie starts with quite a clumsy one.

Like it, it really like and it starts it off on a note where you're like, oh, okay, here we go.

Like, I'm sure I can tell that Ben turned this on this morning.

It was like, okay.

Right.

Because it starts and you're just like, fuck, is this like a student film?

It's just a little.

It's a little bit.

It's a little like, and then, you know, then the 60s happened.

I was like, oh my God, we're just, we're just doing

the decade.

It's all photoshopped, like pictures and like dumb motion graphics.

Yeah.

Right.

But it's because she's like, I, she clearly has so many ideas.

And I only have so much time.

Yeah.

This is the most efficient way to to do it.

And of course, then I went to see Sinners yesterday and I was like, well, that's how you do it.

He, that opening thing, like, that was, it's crazy.

He does the exact same thing in Black Panther.

He is kind of the king of doing that.

The like two minute animated in an interesting way intro that's like, got it, got it.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Right.

He's figured out how to make that about as elegant as you possibly can.

Uh, and successfully stick a bunch of info in your head that allows the rest of the movie to mostly be emotional.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um

but yeah, I just, what was I going to say?

Actually, I was, I was reading David Sims' interview with Ryan Kuhler.

Great guy.

Really incredible guy to talk to.

David's a great guy.

Yeah, you know, what a fun guy.

We all love David, don't we?

But I was interested, I feel like something,

I don't remember why I thought it was.

Maybe it's because, no, I do.

I opened my phone when I saw it.

One reason why I think he really encapsulated something that I always, I feel like is the thing I liked about vampires and does come up in every single adaptation.

And he really summed it up quite well in your interview.

Vampires still have so much of their humanity left, their knowledge, and also they can present to something that's not what they truly are.

But I mean, sinners is partly about vampires being great lovers of art, right?

Like, and being drawn to like artistic sort of like framers in the fucking force.

They're like, you know, like, oh my God, someone is speaking to

them, they can steal it and repeat it in a way.

Sure.

And like, and like, there's, it just rocks that that's sort of like, he's thinking about vampires and like he hits on that

rather than just like, it's scary that they suck your blood, which is scary.

Which is very scary.

I want to screw up.

And a little sexy.

And a little

sexy.

I mean, my favorite thing about interviewing Ryan was when...

First name-based.

Yeah, he's my best friend.

Was when I was like,

you know, can I bring up,

you know, from Dusk Till Dawn, obviously, the most obvious sort of like analogue.

I He was like, Can I bring up Puss and Boots, The Last Wish?

Well, that's exactly it, right?

But he was like, Dude, I obviously love that movie.

I love Robert Rodriguez.

And when I talked to Robert about From Dust Till Dawn, he was like, Well, my biggest influence was Spike Lee.

Like, I was just trying to copy Spike Lee.

I didn't know about this and that or the other thing.

I was a 25-year-old or whatever age I was when I'm making these movies.

And I love fucking Spike Lee.

I love Do the Right Thing is like a 24-hour movie.

And then Koogler's like, and I love From Dust Till Dawn, but what I love is the faculty because the faculty is two genres getting mushed together in a way that shouldn't work and does.

Like, that's my bigger inspiration.

Kugler is not just such a historian and is so smart about the lineage of these things and what he's in conversation with, but also that he's like a fucking omnivore, that his tastes are so varied.

And you're like, this guy does just find

interesting aspects in everything.

And then, so he's talking to me about the faculty.

And he's like, and then obviously inside Lewin Davis, Lover's Rock, the Steven Queen thing.

And then he's like, and then the biggest thing for me is this Twilight John episode called The Last Rights of Jeff Myrtlebank.

And I'm like, what's that?

You know, like, and he's like, oh, it's about a small town.

You know, then you start.

And like, and then he's like, and Salem's Lot, the book, not the movie.

I've never seen the movie except for the one shot.

And I'm like, the shot of the kid floating in the window.

He's like, yeah, the one shot everyone's seen from Salem's Lot.

I don't remember what interview it was, not to give credit to an interview that you didn't do.

But someone else speaking to Ryan Koogler,

he talked about how he was, I think, talking to Gorinson as they were like plotting out the movie about just like, what sort of happened to the blues?

Like,

I'm making this movie about spoilers for sinners, the biggest movie in America.

Probably still has a big influence by the time this episode comes out.

But this like lineage he's creating in the history of music and, you know, right, the slipstream of all this stuff, right?

Yes.

And he was just like,

there's a big jump.

Right.

Yes.

You say this in the interview very wisely.

And

yes.

And he was just like, I'm like trying to fill this gap between like the blues and hip-hop and funk.

And like, what is this missing piece here?

And Gordonson was like, Grunge.

Nice.

Grunge was like the 90s big wave kind of capturing the spirit of the blues.

And he was just like, I've heard the three Nirvana sounds that are on the radio all the time.

And how he's like, I'm all fucking in on Grunge now.

A lot of good shit in there.

Right.

And it's like drug addicts like struggling with their sadness and being owned by corporations.

And like,

that that mid-movie sequence, you know, that Warner of just like, you know, just all the different music eras.

It's so impressive on 10,000 different levels, but it's also like very of a vampire movie.

Like you see all these different eras.

When that happens, and I was completely, I saw the film very early, not to brag, because I was interviewing Ryan Cook and

mention it.

David Simps.

Go bring him up.

And when that, so I was completely unprepared for that sequence.

I really hadn't watched the trailer for Sinners.

I just knew there was a I didn't.

I didn't even know that the sequence was in there.

I saw it yesterday.

That's awesome that it caught you off guard or whatever it's a sequence you're like damn he he rocked that but then you're also like damn b-boys spinning around while blues music play you know in an old saloon could suck like could not work it's a humongous swing and part of what i think is so thrilling about the movie and has really captured people is it's the kind of sequence where you watch it and when it starts you're holding your breath and you're like he is so close to fucking this up or and if he fucks this up the movie does not recover from this it's like it's crazy that that's the big like that things escalate from there.

Like, how is that not like, I mean, it is a peak, but then the things escalate from there.

But it is the kind of sequence that underlines why he picked vampires.

You cannot do that

sequence.

You can't do that sequence with a zombie movie.

Let's open a saloon.

Okay.

Zombie movies are soon.

Is that what you were going to say?

We should get a saloon?

We're going to open a saloon.

Was that what you were going to say?

Yeah.

Okay.

That is what I was going to say.

No, because I was just talking about zombie movies with my friends who were asking.

I'm like, zombies are not white monsters.

And I was like, you know, with zombies, it's like, it takes six, 40 years for Danny Bull to be like, what if they ran?

And people are like, hold on there, cowboy.

Zombies behave in one way.

You know, it's like, there's not a lot of variation with zombie stuff.

You know what?

And this is.

And it reflects usually just one kind of thing, which is an apocalypse.

Yeah.

I am so much more innately drawn to zombies.

Like, if you tell me that someone's making a zombie movie, I'm excited.

Is it because the world has to be different?

I don't know.

Because the whole world has to be different.

Don't be zombies.

And the whole thing about vampires is that they're trying to be, you know, they're trying to pass unnoticed.

And have their space.

And have their space and have a good sexy time.

I think I can.

If like zombies could just like live in the world and like just eat leftover dead people parts.

Toss them out.

Right.

Toss them away.

I'm so sorry, Ben.

Cover your ears.

CW show, iZombie, does try to do that.

Yes.

I feel like Warm Bodies does a sort of version of that as well.

There's only so much you can do with that.

Like with vampires, it's very much like they have one face, it's a human face.

They have another, it's the vampire face.

And they have enough of their memories and they have all their previous knowledge.

Like they don't suddenly factory reset in the same way that other monsters do.

Like, I mean, and werewolves are kind of that where it's like once a month, but you, it's involuntary.

But vampires give you so much room to work with in terms of a person's memory, what their relationship to the world is, how that changes.

It's yes, it's much richer for storytelling.

There's more baked in that has interesting potential i think i do like societal collapse and apocalypse stories and like things that get to test human behavior like strip down zombies inevitably are that i think i also like the iconography of rotting people like i think if you show me a drawing of a zombie i'm more engaged the face of like a car

than like a guy with fangs and blood you're a rotting person but yet you love rot i love rot but yet like and i think our our buddy david rees said this on the 20 years later episode he was like i can't think of a type of movie I love more with a lower percentage of movies I actually like.

You know, and I think like I will be pleasantly like entertained by some junky, shitty zombie movie.

But like unquestionably, there are more vampire movies that I think are capital G great than zombie movies.

And yet

I hear someone's making a vampire movie.

I'm like, again, I hear someone's making a zombie movie and I'm like, yeah, let's go.

Even if it's a two out of 10.

That's interesting.

I mean, I feel like, you you know, because zombie movies are about the humans.

They're not about the zombies.

Right.

Because the zombies don't have thoughts.

That's what I like.

That it sort of creates a template for an ensemble.

That is the reason for

vampire stories are still very human.

And they're usually

the humans themselves are of secondary importance.

For sure.

You know, they may be doing an interview with them.

They could be interviewing them.

Yes, right.

That's also good to interview them.

You do, kind of like with Kooler.

Perhaps I should interview.

Maybe you did interview a vampire.

What do they call humans in this movie?

Day players.

Day players.

Is it joke, honey?

That is a film production joke.

Day players are what you call an actor.

Who's only doing the one day?

Yes.

It's clever.

To your point, she realizes that she can get this rush from helping other people, and it sort of gives her a reason to live.

But I think it's a really good, unsolvable dilemma, which is like, she's found this new pap in her step, and yet she realizes the single best version of that involves her dying.

And she also, yeah, it doesn't seem to bother her.

She just has to adjust.

And she's also like, my friend is about to have the opportunity I already had.

I got to give you raise a child she wants.

Right.

And so she then also very generously is like, I can bring in horny Justin Kirk and save Richard Lewis's life.

He's just pretty hot in this.

Marry me.

I just think

that we were just like,

the energy on this side of the room, we're like, give us a second.

I like a moment.

Him.

With eyeliner, Justin Clerk.

Yeah.

Kirk.

Ukrainian.

He emphasizes over.

That's a funny joke.

I just think it's funny that that character is basically her being like, here's all the shit I'm not interested in with vampires.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And let me

take one character and have someone very charismatically play the most annoying guy in the world.

The most stereotypically annoying vampire-y guy.

Exactly.

He wants to fuck with me.

It says juicy on her butt, and I am going to take her at her word and he's got the like nosferatu teeth that don't look cool my roommate was like why does he have gopher teeth and i was like fuck they are gopher teeth they're they're really hard to unsee yes yeah the little the little gopher teeth but that

um i am sure you have talked um i did listen to your fast times episode with um sinner star lila kirk well down there

um

but you

i'm sure you've talked about many a comedic sex scene at this point because heckerling likes those

and they're a couple in this one like there's the sort of you know,

Stacey and Ritter and Dan Stevens rolling off the bed and they're levitating kind of deal.

But then like the absolutely

just pull it off well enough in a way that makes you wish it looked a little better.

It does actually remind me of one of the bits I like in this where she's just like levitating along the street and Goody's like, oh my God, you can't do that.

And she's like, it's New York.

No one gives a shit.

I will, every time that joke is not a bad thing.

It's someone levitating.

That joke is, you know, could not be more bread and butter classic.

Oh, it's New York.

No one cares.

It's true every time.

Always funny.

You were right.

You were right.

Yeah.

But that, um, but the Justin Kirk scene where he's, where basically Goody's like, before I die, I'm going to give

Richard Lewis the option of would his wife, like, would he, would he rather his wife become a vampire and live than die as she is going to?

And he thinks about it for approximately two seconds and says, yes, please.

And she sends Justin Kirk in there for.

To ravish her, essentially.

It's that scene is insane.

I got so drawn out.

It's drawn out.

Yes.

It's very, and then, you know, you have the comedic sort of like knocking on it, being like, it doesn't take that long.

You are milking it.

Like once he like, you know, does the slit across his stomach and is like, but I'm like, then Marilyn Henner comes out looking unbelievably hot.

I'm going to

quickly check my notes that I have from the Johnny Dangerously episode.

I'm seeing I still have written here humming a human.

May we just reiterate?

And also, did you clock that

the dress she's in is a redone hospital gown?

I did.

Yes.

Very well done from Mona May on that one.

Fits her like a fucking glove.

And she brings them,

you know, brings him in.

And that's the last we see of him.

But I'm like, that is, it's a fine send-off.

I was like, but I was also like, she was like, you have to promise to like have her only eat animals and stuff.

And then she comes out looking like that.

And I'm like, you just made a new Sigurney.

Like, she is not going to play nice.

I just like that.

Like, again, in the TV version of this, there's stuff to plumb there.

That's a full season.

That's not happening.

I,

as much as I hope and pray, this is not the final film she ever makes there is something in how much she brings back so much of her history of heckerlin company players down to like um brian backer uh who's uh rat in fast times yes being a

dentist who gets eaten briefly it was nice to see him taylor negron back wallace sean back marylou henner back

i don't think kirsten johnson's in she feels like she should have been irony of the Well, it definitely feels like a part where she was like, I like you and you should be in it, but then she's kind of doing a not good British accent.

I'm kind of like, you didn't because they it's clear this is a waste, but I'm glad to see you.

She obviously wants Wallace Sean to be Van Helsing.

And she wants someone maybe comically taller.

Right.

And a third thing.

Dan Stevens wants to do it.

And now you need to figure out like who is the woman that Wallace Sean could have made Dan Stevens with.

It's not Kirsten Johnson.

I was happy to see her.

Yes.

But it was a waste.

It should be like Joanna Lumley or something.

But it is the the kind of thing where I'm like, if Heckerling had kept making movies after that, like she would have been in there.

100%.

Was she maybe she was in like a suburgatory?

Because I know Heckerling went on to do a bunch of suburgatory.

And that feels like something too.

Did Carrie Diaries

do the suburbatory architecture?

A lot of Red Oaks.

Yeah.

Ah, yes, Red Oaks.

And I feel like there's one of the big shows she did a bunch of episodes on.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, but it's definitely...

She directed the Hot Girls episode of The Office, but we're not talking.

We're talking about it, David.

Right, so she did, she did a Quibi show.

Of course, you remember you commissioned that, David, called Royalties that I've heard is good and is still watchable somewhere.

Oh, cool.

I mean, that's awesome.

Everything I commissioned is.

Six Red Oaks, one suburgatory.

She did a rake.

Rake with the steak on his face.

Steak on his face.

But yeah, I didn't.

I hope it's not a curtain call, but it is notable also because, again, she didn't have a budget in that they were all like, yeah, we'll come do it.

Like, we'll go to Detroit or wherever.

Absolutely.

And we'll do it.

Yes.

For clearly no money.

Yes, 37 days in Detroit, but you know, some New York location.

No question.

And it is often a real Achilles heel of the Amy Ackerlin filmography that we keep butting up against.

She makes movies set in specific cities and then is told she cannot film in those places.

And you have this weird kind of nonspecific doubling that is often then married to what is clearly two days of establishing shots that often don't really have the primary actors in them or only have them in one or two.

This, there is like, she got her.

She got her people.

She did.

She got enough days of actual actors in front of real New York places to make it count to mesh well.

Just to tell you some other things before we move on to the end of Bams.

First Choice for Sisters was Michelle Pfeiffer, who liked the script.

But she said, I can never be your vampire.

God damn it.

Was busy doing Dark Shadows.

Well, well, well.

She saw Dan Stevens in a play with Judy Dench called Hay Fever.

And

then she saw a lot of stuff in England because she was making I Could Never Be Your Woman.

And like, that's where she first noticed him.

And then Downton Abbey, you know, helped him be a, and yes, indeed, they did shoot in Detroit.

They did shoot on a type.

But I'm just making sure I caught everything here.

And it was

unceremoniously dumped, essentially straight to DVD.

I mean,

VOD.

But it did, according to JJ,

it was released just at the AMC Burbank 8.

Ever been there?

Oh, God.

You may have gone to a breast screen or something, to be clear.

But maybe Cine Family story checks out, though.

It's a sound rap.

And we went to Cine Family a lot at that time.

But

that's not out of the question for sure.

I worked up there at the time.

I worked in North Hollywood then.

And of course, as we noted, she has done a bunch of

TV,

but she's not, has said that she's not particularly thrilled making episodic TV.

She's still like writing all the time.

She was going to make a

clueless music.

It's opening in the West End this summer.

It was supposed to be god-awful.

She was doing it off Broadway with Dove Cameron in 2020 with the hope it would transfer, and then everything shut down.

Right.

It is now finally opening in the West End.

And as we alluded to earlier, it was recently announced that she is executive producing a clueless continuation show for Peacock with Alicia Silverstone.

But it's actually going to be written by the gossip people.

Right.

It seems like it's a little bit more of a John Carpenter.

And she'll probably, and she'll be the

Margaret Collin of the show.

Like, look, three years ago, they announced that Peacock was developing a clueless reboot that was like fucking clueless Riverdale where Cher is missing and Dion has to solve her murder and it was going to be dark and gritty.

And like, this sounds like the much better universe of things.

But it is like a little bit,

it's a, it's a slightly damning statement that like Amy Heckerling is here regularly doing interviews and talking about how much she wishes she could get to make her stuff.

And the two things she can do are just circling back to clueless.

Yeah.

Can I do this as a musician?

Right.

Can I, yeah, can I get a paycheck for doing this on the queue?

Well, I think at some point she's just like, if you're going to want to redo this, I'd rather be a part of the residuals.

Like, I'd rather get a piece of it.

Of course, of course.

Let her have her money.

I don't begrudge Alicia Silverstone doing the legacy equal either.

What's up?

Well, no, I've seen, you know, I haven't seen every Heckerling, but what other ones are New York-based?

Well, Vancouver

Talking, but they are all

really shot in

New York.

Loser is NYU, but shot in Toronto.

Okay.

Of course.

Johnny Dangerously is New York, you know, gangster-y.

But it's all, it's so soundstage-y that it doesn't have the same problem.

But basically, Clueless and Fast Times, her most famous famous works are the LA ones.

I Could Never Be Your Woman is also, of course, set in just a few years.

And then the European vacation film, This Might Stun You, is actually set all over Europe.

And what is crazy

is, does that include Britain?

Yeah, there's a whole British section and then Germany.

Pre-Francis.

Yeah, it was

a good 30 years pre-Francis.

We had not Brexit.

But that film actually

did

filming in five different countries.

It was a nightmare.

Like a nightmare, but it is, you watch it and you're like, holy shit, they flew everyone everywhere.

But it's really interesting that this one, you know, if it's her last, which I hope it's not, but it's so much like she's like, I want to tell the entire story, like, not the entire story of New York, obviously.

1840 wasn't the beginning of New York, but she's like, I'm going to tell you about how this city has evolved.

And Goody is, it's, because I feel like so many other vampires will like travel and they'll go other places.

And Goody's like, like, I've got everything I need.

It's very native New Yorker.

I'm just like, well, I'd go and got it.

I saw The Shrouds recently, which I loved and I think is already being kind of slept on and misunderstood.

And

I wasn't a huge fan of

the Disney.

I like the themes a lot.

I think I just

did not find it to be the most

involving movie.

I like the theme.

I liked it for myself.

I found it very funny.

Sure.

But it's kind of funny.

It is, to me, a perfect example.

I want to defend it because I love him and I love him.

I think it's a very interesting.

He is so important to me.

I don't think it's anywhere near his top tier of films.

And yet I walked out of it and said, that's kind of a perfect film if we're unlucky enough that he never gets to make another one.

And it feels in a way similar to Vamps.

He's done.

And some other filmmakers where they're just sort of like, it has been getting harder and harder for me to get stuff made.

And I have to make every movie with the awareness that this might be my final statement.

And Vamps does feel like she's just putting so much in it, not pessimistically, but just being like, who knows?

Right.

It's kind of like her final statement on New York, on youth culture, on like relationships, on motherhood, like all these things.

I like Crimes of the Future a lot more as a movie, but I think The Shrouds is a very interesting CUDA.

I agree with you.

His career, which I feel

Vamps, I'm putting in the same category where it's like, it's not her best movie, but if it sadly has to be her coda in future films, it is a pretty good one.

I think when Conenberg movies are mega chatty, it can be a problem.

I guess is my take.

I would say that my read is in that film, it is a form of knowing self-parody.

I think he is mocking his own critics' analysis of his movies being cold and analytical about very emotional things.

Sure.

That was my read.

I will say I also saw it at the Nighthawk in a row with five people who were committed to watching it as if they were doing a Riff Tracks commentary.

Oh, how fun.

And thought they were mocking it.

And I almost went full Joker mode on that.

I would go a little joker mode.

I did turn to this one moment at one point and go,

with like the intensity of a thousand burning suns.

And she was freaked out.

You may be right, right?

Because you're right.

You started

too quick.

Yes, right, right.

But she, Vincent Cattell, took his shirt off in a scene of mourning and she went, yas, yas.

And I was like, I can tolerate this so long.

I mean, that is objectively hilarious that someone said yas during the shrimp.

But it was coming off of 45 minutes of a fucking meditation on death.

No, they did.

Where they kept being like, um,

what?

Like, just doing the sort of performative laughing at, like,

who talks like this?

She saw Vincent Cassell and she flashed back viscerally to him in Oceans 12 with his sweatpants very low.

I was all for

her thirsting after Vincent Cassell.

If I felt like it wasn't done mockingly.

It felt like she was mocking the idea of thirsting after him.

And I'm glad that's unexceptional.

He is hot, and this movie knows it's funny.

And stop acting like you're smarter.

And then anyway, the film Vamps, directed by Amy Heckland.

Can we talk about the ending?

Sure.

The ending's lovely.

I mean, it's exactly what you want it to be, I guess is the best way for me to put it.

It's a very good guy.

We're going to Times Square.

On Sarah is great to see the place.

Executive.

The center of the world.

She said the center of things.

It's all happening.

I don't know.

Did you read him?

Look, if you want to see 2010 Broadway musical billboards, watch the last scene of Vamps.

It's kind of awesome.

Spider-Man's her off the dark.

She captured it.

I forgot about the Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown musical.

The Sinatra jukebox musical.

There's so much interesting stuff.

Adams family.

Yeah.

Yep.

But it's just like...

She, they kill Sigorney Weaver.

They kill Sigorney Weaver in this very, like, it's almost, it's like the mummy return of the dragon emperor level graphics or the temple.

It's a very, you know, death becomes a skeleton.

Okay, when she comes out of the tomb with the saber and she's a skeleton and she's singing my eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the lord i fully like that was the funniest it was so funny here's what i'll say about that as well still would

let me at her

cigordi with a fucking skeleton

wielding body i take my chances

yeah but they don't they don't they kill her and you have this very good gag that once again you're just like fuck

If she had a little more resources, this would be impeccable.

Where Kristen Ritter immediately in a series of three shots, her butt gets a little flatter.

A little flatter.

The lighting changes on her.

Yep.

And there's, oh, and her arms start sagging, right?

I mean, it's like too wrinkles.

But it's like pretty well done because it's like, it's, she doesn't, it's just enough.

It's just enough.

It's like I was, I stayed out of the sun and I didn't drink or smoke.

So good for me.

Right.

And then that worked for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good joke.

Uh, looks over to Lisa Silverstone, who is in not the world's best old age makeup.

I wouldn't say so, no.

Immediately clocks, you've been lying to me about your age.

They bring up the history channel thing and like, are you going to stop aging now?

But no.

Alicia Soroson gives the knowing look of just like, this is just going to advance.

I, you know, clock is ticking until I decay.

I, but I don't want to die here.

I want to go to the center of where everything happens.

And then they go to Times Square.

And she like looks around at the world's greatest spellboards and flashes back to like the history of New York City.

She gets a pretzel, which I'm sad for her for.

I wanted her to get a hot dog.

But she

pretzels are not that good.

she doesn't know though that's the thing she didn't even get mustard what doesn't know can't hurt dry um it's genuinely for a cool dc to wash it down with affecting you know but it's but it is a really you know for as bad as the wig is or as fine as the dust effect is the music i don't remember what the song is but the song and her flashing back to like you know all her stuff and her kids and everything it got me and also culture like not just her own personal memories but like everything she's lived through it's just yeah i don't know i felt very i felt very touched.

And then, you know, obviously,

and one of the reasons Stacey's so sad is because she's like, now you'll never meet my baby and we'll never, you won't raise this baby with me.

And they hold hands.

And it's just a very lovely friendship moment.

And I will say an impressively straight vampire movie that I, and I don't hold it against it.

Yeah.

Which is sad.

They don't really.

No, no, there's never that.

No.

Yeah.

But I wouldn't expect Heckerling to do that, honestly.

But it's a very, it is, you know,

not only do they never have a little moment, but she gets pregnant.

It's like very straight, but it is is lovely.

Well, fucking

dance seems to make anyone pregnant.

You promise?

It's, it's kind of a knockout ending.

Yeah, it's one of those things.

I was a little moved.

It was, it was, and, you know, Times Square is Times Square, but I think there's a New York Times profile of Heckerling that I'm sure you've referenced where it's like, you know, she's making the clueless musical, but she.

Times Square is like one of her first memories, like coming out of the subway in a stroller.

She's like, and there is Times Square.

And it looked like that.

And so for for her to have this relationship with Times Square, where she's like, this was where everyone, like, she described it as like the center of things.

Like, this is like, she's, she was like, everything is here.

And so, for that, there's like such, you know, there's always an analog.

Like, obviously, many of these films are personal, but this is such a personal moment.

And it's bittersweet because Goody seems to have accepted it and she's happy about it.

I am not convinced Ackerling is being like, and now I'm irrelevant and I'm going to die.

I have always had a real similar affection and obsession with Times Square as a lifelong New Yorker, from how like over-stimulating and exciting it was to me as a child to even now, when every other native New Yorker I know is just like, why would you ever go there by choice?

I have always found it weirdly relaxing and serene to just submit myself to the chaos of Times Square and stand in the middle or just wander around.

That's where I went the night after prom, like with my friends from Jersey.

We went to Times Square and I was like, because this is, this is the cool, like, this is the busiest, most not New Jersey thing we could do right now is go to Times Square and get it.

Seaside Heights.

Oh, I mean, that's good too.

I mean, that's the most jersey thing.

That is the most jersey thing you could do.

Yes, they went the other way.

It is so insufferable and annoying and impossible to navigate.

And yet, when I am there, I do feel like the way this character feels.

I'm like,

this is the center of the world.

No, I'm not.

Interesting.

I am almost always like, get me out of here.

I'm presenting myself as the weirdo and the freak.

And I, in, in watching these movies and in reading all the heckling interviews and then living with her for the last couple of months of we have in our head,

I'm just like, I'm really just kind of on her wavelength.

And I found myself defending a lot of her movies that people don't like as much that just kind of work for me.

And I just feel like I have a very similar outlook on a lot of things to her.

And

yeah, it's like

in watching this movie, it does feel like the ending is her sort of being like, has my time passed?

Which more globally than just her and her career also feels like this is kind of acknowledging the end of a type of movie that doesn't get made anymore.

And the last two films she made were basically made past like on borrowed time, right?

Like the studios are no longer making these.

So now you have to like scrape and scavenge and pull together the wonkiest version of this thing.

The thing too is that she did have to scrape and scavenge for this, but she did get to do Times Square.

Yeah.

For one night, she got Times Square.

She like had her three main actors in the middle of Times Times Square.

There's like triumphs in this movie that really got to me.

I still think it is like on hold a good movie that I enjoy quite a bit.

It is frustrating, as we said, bittersweet that it is not like a triumph, which it should be.

But I feel like it dealt with a lot of the, I'm really glad that I watched I Could Never Be Your Woman before this because I feel like that one was so close to her experience that I feel like it was, I mean, you've talked about it.

I won't do it, but I do feel like this movie, I felt like dealt with a lot of the same themes better because she could take a slight step back.

It's actually like watching it, I was like, I'm actually surprised it took you this long to get to vampires.

Like they are so up the street of everything you want to talk about that I feel like this one, she did get to something there.

Can I read an extended quote that I found the other day?

David!

David and Ben.

We're saying goodbye to Amy Heckerling.

We're saying goodbye to Amy Heckerling.

Enough.

We're saying goodbye to Amy Heckerling.

Are you a sour patch kid?

Yes.

I need like 20 of them.

Come on.

What's the quote?

Come on.

He's getting sour patch kids.

Our friend Hillary Weston, friend of the podcast, Criterion, did an interview with Amy Heckerling, I think, around the time that the Fast Times release was coming out.

And she was talking about where Clueless came from, these quotes that we've sort of talked about before, the projection of the optimists, right?

And she's talking about how much she admires the idea of the optimists and running the world and like putting the shine on them.

And then she just says, also, a world full of optimists wouldn't be a good idea because what if we all went, ha, global warming?

It will be fine.

We need pessimists.

You can't just say, oh, here's this thing I made.

It's great.

Although a lot of people that are creative have that.

They go, I'm doing this and I'm doing that and they think everything they do is great.

And then there are people that say, you know, this has been done before and here's all the ways it could stink.

And then you can't write one word without thinking about how bad it could be based on how people could react, how other ways have fallen flat.

And then she basically immediately dunks on Life is Beautiful and the Day the Clown Cried.

But I just think that sort of encapsulates the like essential tension between the two sides of Amy Heckerling in her work that is often represented, but also, I think, what must feel frustrating to her in trying to get stuff made.

Because there was a point in time where the industry went, like, you got it.

We want whatever you're selling.

And that self-doubt she had was conquered by

people begging her to come in.

And

I think in that New York Times profile where she talks about writing all the time, and a similar thing with her her having vamps on a shelf for years before she finally got it made i think she is very self-defeating if people are not banging down her door asking what she has it's a bummer she made clueless though yeah she made clueless many great films that we don't discuss that enough that in fact you have never directed clueless and in that sense you are

uh no i didn't try didn't even try didn't even get off the couch and try cowardly yeah i think so yeah

uh we have not watched your done or loser episode at the time of this recording so we're now going to place in the audio of the rankings that we will record after the fact of her entire career

okay this is griffin david

zooming in from the future heckerling rankings here we go david you want to go first number one clueless weird surprising number two fast times original on high okay

Normal so far.

Number three, look who's talking.

I have that over.

Johnny Dangerously in fourth.

And Vamp's in fifth.

Okay.

And I Could Never Be Your Woman in sixth.

Wow.

And who's a her in seventh.

Okay.

Euro vacation in eighth.

Look who's talking to, bringing up the rear.

That's maybe the rudest thing you've ever done in a ranking.

What?

Mr.

Toilet Man alone.

You're so deserves better than that.

But it's so funny because you're like.

How could you say that about look who's talking to?

And I'm like, what?

And you're like, Mr.

Toilet Man.

But then you don't have anything else.

That movie is like the holy mountain.

It's It's like deranged, like fever dream images.

Okay, here's my ranking.

Okay.

You might be surprised to hear we have the same top five, just in a slightly different order.

But I think that's basically the argument.

It's arguable.

Right.

So I have Fast Times at number one.

Oh, I love Fast Times.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, sure.

Clueless at number two.

Johnny Dangerously at number three.

Look who's talking at number four.

Vamp's at five.

The number six.

Exactly where it belongs.

Look who's talking to.

Jesus Christ.

Number seven, National Lampens,

European Vacation.

Whoa.

Number eight, Lahoo, Zahur.

Okay.

Number nine, I Could Never Be Your Woman.

Wow.

Pfeiffer.

Dead in a ditch.

Do you remember that watching that movie feels like staring into the sun?

It's like having a stroke.

It has things in it I like.

Exactly.

There is no movie she's made that I dislike holistically.

I would say there's one for me.

Which is...

A little film with Mr.

Toilet.

By calling...

By referring to it as a film with Mr.

Toilet Man, you're proving your entire thesis wrong.

He eats poo-poo and pee-pee, and he's voiced by Melt Brooks.

Okay, anyway, that's our ranking.

His spit is blue.

Ben's ranking is look who's talking now 10 times, even though she didn't direct that.

It's fun.

Okay.

And there's animals and they talk in it.

It has talking dogs.

Yeah, you don't have to tell me.

Okay, back to the episode.

We've done this box office game before.

We have?

Yep.

We've done it twice.

It's amazing that there is a box office game for you.

Well, that's the thing.

It's sort of a nominal box office game.

But number one is an animated film that Ben loves.

It's an animated film that Ben loves.

It is called Wreck It Ralph.

Correct.

New this week.

So Ben was wrecking it.

I know you actually first watched the movie on a plane or something, but you were.

Let's think of you wrecking it.

I didn't end up seeing it.

You said you didn't remember.

Yeah, you said you didn't remember much, but you wrecked it.

Number two

at the box office is

a serious, sort of big scale-ish drama.

It got a couple Oscar nominations.

Also new this week, and we've also covered it on the show.

We've also covered it on this show.

In the year 2012, it is not a Fincher.

It's not an Angli.

It is

not a Demi.

It's not a Myers.

It's not.

It's not a Spielberg.

Hmm.

It's not a Crow.

November 2nd, 2012, by the way.

Yeah, I know.

November 2nd, 2012.

Not a camera.

It's not a locust.

It's not a shamelon.

David's spinning his

really fast.

Give me a serious Oscar film.

It got a couple nominations.

Tell me some of the nominations it got.

Best actor.

It got best actor.

Yes.

I could have won if this guy hadn't already won

an Oscar or two.

And best original screenplay.

It got best actor and best original screenplay.

And this person had already won two Oscars?

You sure had.

it's not a den cell it is a den cell it's called flight that's right there we go now number three the box office wins best picture for 2012.

and what is that it is

the artist

oh it's

what are you saying i'm right no you are not a pleasure with 2012 that's the the year before artist is 2011.

okay so 2012 the best picture winner was our go fuck yourself there you go okay now number four we just had to get to four i believe has really befuddled you both times.

I think both box times we played this box office game, you took several

golf swings at this challenge.

It is an action film.

It is directed by a first-time director who's better known as a musician.

Oh, fuck.

The problem is, I know exactly what this movie is, and I always get the wording of the title of it.

Is it called

the man with the golden fists?

You always say that, and it's always

what material?

Iron?

There you go.

There's one episode, I think, where you're like, bronze, brass, stone.

It takes you way too long to get to iron.

Yes.

The resistance.

Despite

the resist martial arts film, I believe so.

Yeah.

Despite Ben's love of Netflix's Iron Fist.

Of course.

Number five of the box office is an action sequel.

It's an action sequel.

It's number two.

It's a deuce.

It's a number two.

Is it a T-O-O-2?

Hacker League style?

No, it's not.

It's an action sequel to Deuce.

Did it keep going after this?

Or was it the end of the road?

It kept going.

There's a sexy voice.

Well, I'm doing the guy.

It's not John Wick Chapter 2.

But the guy's got a deep voice.

This guy should stay around.

Okay.

Okay.

And

it's not Butler and it's not Stapham.

No, older.

Older.

Who's old?

Who's old?

Stallone?

No, younger.

Well, younger.

I think a little younger.

It's not Ford and it's not Eastwood.

No.

No, but he's mostly an action guy.

Later in life only.

Oh,

he's got a very particular set of skills.

Well, I didn't want to do the accent, of course.

This is Taken 2.

That's right.

Yeah.

A movie I often say has one of the best setups ever.

I love the setup for that movie, but it sucks.

Yeah.

Very, sucks very bad.

It's actually really shitty.

A really bad movie.

I don't want losers.

Like, I think Taken 1 is massively overrated.

It just has the Nissan juice and it's kind of something.

You know what?

I'm going to say the thing.

It's a perfect cultural object.

It is not a good movie, but it's a perfect cultural object.

And two is a double

movie for each one.

Forget it.

Forget it.

Forget it.

Just no.

Because what they then figured out is like, oh, Nissan can just do this kind of thing.

Right.

It doesn't have to be in the taken.

Right.

And then taken three kind of has no hook.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just sort of like, right, he's back.

No, I think no one gets taken in taken three.

It's okay.

I'm not going to take you.

I feel like they should have played around with the titling a little bit more.

Taken TOO.

taking oh sure for sure that's about it right well hold on given back the third one should be called given back yeah

it's good when we're doing um return bits and ben goes hold on

that's when you know good stuff's coming number six is cloud atlas we've covered number seven is uh

we've done this box office game no but we no no no because this isn't new that we i'm saying

ralph and flight are both new got it uh number six is cloud atlas number seven is Hotel Transylvania.

There we go.

Number eight is Paranormal Activity Four.

The one with the Xbox.

The best one.

Number one.

The three is the best one.

Yeah.

Number nine is the four is the connector.

Four is not the best one.

Four is not the best.

Maybe the worst one.

Yeah.

Number nine is here comes the boom.

Of course.

Eric went.

What if we remade Warrior one year later with Kevin James?

And number 10 is the absolutely indefensible Silent Hill Revelation.

Sure.

Now, David,

would would you do me a kindness?

Would you just, just for my own joy, remind me what the numbers were on Ralph and Flight opening weekend?

Ralph was $49 million and flight was $24.9 million.

Yeah, I remember feeling that the Ralph opening was lower than I expected.

Valve liked it out and had a long tail.

So this was November 2nd?

November 2nd, man.

You couldn't even give Vamps like a real Halloween.

It's close.

You know what?

You know?

Caroline, you're right.

But maybe

we're going to forward a combined theater.

At least put it out before Halloween instead of two days before.

What is that on on Halloween?

That is rude.

We have done the week before his box office, which because it is Cloud Atlas's first week.

Okay.

Yeah.

Wow.

It's just, it could have been Vamps.

It could have been Vamps.

I hope people watch this movie.

I hope if you thought this is one you could skip and just listen to the episode.

Check it out.

I will say at the time we're recording this, it is on all of America's most free streaming services.

It is on Tubi.

It is on Pluto.

It is on Fumo.

It's on all of it.

This thing is 2B.

You can watch it on Plex with ads.

It's everywhere.

And do, do please do yeah

oh but i think it's quite a good film next up on our uh podcast is the cohen brothers so it's not a surprise no big surprise i keep asking people like are being asked by people what spoilers but like what's the rest of the year and i remind them

the cohen's won and they made 20 movies a lot of their movies yeah are gonna be covered congratulations that's the rest of the year along with new release films oh and david's wearing his congratulations shirt carolyn thank you so much for coming back show.

Far too long.

We'll have you on again soon.

Yeah, you want to do Blood Simple?

Just come back next week.

Just keep this going.

Keep this part going.

Anything you want to plug?

Not really.

I hope I have more stuff to plug by the time this comes out.

I just want to issue a quick apology for anyone who was at a 2016

show at Little Field.

Okay.

that had 12 of us, including Mother of Blank Easy Emily Yoshida, taking a track for each Carly Ray Jepson song on the hit album Emotion.

Great, great song,

which featured me.

I had taken the song Warm Blood, and I decided to give a little PowerPoint presentation on lesbian vampires.

I did get very nervous and too drunk, and I can't imagine that was good.

Also, I did take that song away from the very wonderful, award-winning

National Treasure writer, Hanifa Durakib, who wanted Warm Blood.

And whatever he tells the story about that night, he talks about how he didn't get Warm Blood and he wanted it.

What did he get?

I don't remember the song.

Oh, maybe it was I Really Like You.

And he put up, and the reason why he talks about this is because he put up

a screen that just said, tell someone you love them tonight.

And he just talked as he can and just gave a wonderful, moving, meaningful speech about telling people you love them.

And people talk about it all the time and reference it.

And I stop complaining then.

He got a great one.

But he always talks about how he didn't get warm blood.

And that's because it was me talking about lesbian vampires.

And I thought this would be a great opportunity.

A great forum to apologize for that because I do feel like there are some people listening who probably went to that.

Emily did the LA hallucination song because she is an LA baby.

I cannot think of another example of asking someone if they have anything they want to plug, and instead, they offer an apology for a thing that happened nine years ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do remember, I assume.

No offense to that.

I'm sure.

I mean, I don't.

Do you know why?

Why should you have any of those PowerPoint slides?

Um, I'm sure I do.

I think it's probably online somewhere.

I have a shirt if I go online, but anyway,

I just felt like you know, yeah, in honor of Vamps.

You're the best.

We owe you big time.

Yep.

David is just fucking

dropping a celebratory deuce to end the episode.

And disrespectful to Amy Heckling, but I agree.

We gave him air conditioning and Sour Patch kids.

We let him go hog wild this episode, and this is how he repays us.

God, those Sour Patch kids hit.

Yeah, I'm saying this is, I had them for a reason.

This is how I've managed to do it.

I have to go get a bag for myself.

Lemonade Sour Patch Kids.

They have apple flavors in the fall.

Look them up.

I've never tried.

The only time I've ever ordered snacks off Amazon.

Specialty Sour Patch Kids, get into them.

Okay.

Okay.

Not sponsored.

That's a good plug.

Yeah.

Thank you for being here.

You're so welcome.

It's such a pleasure.

Thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate reviews, subscribe, and tune in next week for Blood Simple, the start of the Cohen Brothers filmographies.

And as always, canonically,

and he's not allowed to say anything against this because he waived that right.

David is currently taking the world's sloppiest shit.

That's how he ended the episode.

And if he disagrees, then here's his chance to offer rebuttal.

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 A.J.

McKeon.

This show is mixed and edited by A.J.

McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J.

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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.

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Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

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