I Could Never Be Your Woman with Karen Chee

Blank Jack with Griffin and David

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

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

What's so great about natural?

What?

Think about it.

Tobacco is natural.

Prozacs unnatural.

Earthquakes are natural.

Podcasts unnatural.

Natural sucks.

Now, here's the thing that's interesting about this movie.

Okay.

I was quoting lines that are recited by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Yeah.

Academy Award nominee.

Not a winner, though.

Iconic movie star.

True.

Playing a character who is the showrunner of a TV show about teenagers, a very clear stand-in for Amy Heckerling, the writer and director of this film.

The character she's speaking to,

is Mother Nature.

That's right.

You followed that, right?

Right.

If you, the listener, have not watched this movie, and I can't imagine this being a film you skipped watching before listening.

It's on Peacock.

You're hearing that conversation.

Go, what?

Is this her talking to a friend, a doctor?

No.

A physical human embodiment of Mother Nature played by Tracy Ullman.

And what I will say is one of the most normal movies we have ever covered on this podcast.

So, did you watch it with my wife, this movie?

Because I watched it with my wife.

Did you watch it with my wife?

Let me remember.

Okay.

Karen, did you watch it with my wife?

I watched it with your wife.

So, does she also ask you every 10 minutes, is that character a ghost?

Is she with, can anyone see her?

Why is she there?

Who is she?

I feel like only in the last 10 minutes of the movie does Michelle Pfeiffer go, you're a figment of my imagination.

And I mean, and I had to go to Wikipedia and see that she's listening to Mother Nature and go like, oh, well, it doesn't make sense now, but at least I sort of.

I have some idea of what's going on.

She says it.

She self-identifies within her opening monologue, but in a way that is so confusing that you assume she's making a joke.

Yeah, I figured she was just her hippie friend.

And then I'm like, no, no, she's a ghost or,

right, the embodiment of a natural person.

This movie opens with footage of animals, nature photography.

That's right.

I forgot about that.

Of animals attacking and fucking each other.

And then cuts to Tracy Yellman seemingly filmed on like the cameras they shot jackass on in the middle of a forest, monologuing directly to camera as Mother Nature.

She's got like a white dress with like some leaves in her hair and they've got this really soft green kind of glow around her and then it just cuts to like

we're here making a teen tv show and you don't you have no within five minutes you're like i have no bearings on what this movie is 10 out of 10 perfect film thank you all for listening please remember

to say what the show is oh okay it's playing check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david i'm carrying

i was like is she gonna remember to do that

Thank you.

Of course she remembered.

Oh my God.

Welcome.

It's a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And then sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce, and sometimes they give you a check, and then you find out the check is like half of what you thought it was, and you have to make it under very weird circumstances.

And then it sits on a shelf for three years and goes direct to Blockbuster.

That's what this, do you know?

I will tell you, Karen.

Karen,

yeah.

To my knowledge, this is the only instance of this in history.

This was Blockbuster being like, fuck, Netflix is starting to gain a little bit.

Yeah, it's when Blockbuster isn't exactly booming.

How do we compete with them?

I was going to say, in 2007, did it go to one Blockbuster?

There was no view.

I just want to say this.

This movie was filmed in 2005.

It had planned theatrical releases from two different distributors canceled in 2006.

Then, someone new buys it, plans a release, cancels it again in 2007.

And then in 2008, Blockbuster is heavily promoting that this is an only at Blockbuster film.

This film does not exist

in any physical form at that point in time, other than you can rent it on a physical disc.

You cannot stream it.

You cannot rent it digitally.

You cannot buy it.

Now it is like available on other channels, but Blockbuster had the exclusive rental rights for this movie.

Well, it'd be weird if it was still only available at Blockbuster.

You'd have to go to like that one that's in Oregon or whatever.

This movie would already be fascinating to talk about because it's unhinged and bizarre.

And then you read just a little bit about the story of how it got made and it's three years.

Is it Oregon or Oregon?

The state?

Yeah.

I say Oregon.

I say Oregon.

Oregon.

Okay.

What were you saying?

Oregon?

No, I said Oregon, but I'm like, sometimes I know people have a whole thing about how you say it.

hairgorn.

And when he kicked the thing, he broke his foot.

You know?

I always thought it was Portland Strider.

That's pretty good.

Thank you.

That's like an okay joke, right?

Today we're talking about Amy Hackerling's 2005, Scratch That 2006, Scratch That 2007, Scratch That 2008 release.

I Could Never Be Your Woman.

You couldn't.

You couldn't.

You could never be my woman.

A movie where the title references a song that's good, but so old that I bought it on cassette when it came out white town's your woman yes in 1997 i was like i'm gonna get my pre-pupes and ass to virtual megastores to buy this hot single on cassette griff i own it on cassette it is was it kasingle or was it

single yes

it had like one b side

we were just talking about right before this david was mocking guests who are quiet during the levels check and then get really loud and now within five minutes david is yelling kasingle at full volume right

i had the kasingle it's a good song you know that song no for crying out loud wait was the song in the movie it is in the movie quite late

oh that's a good one

yeah that's you know that's what it is they're that's what it's based on we are at the

20th anniversary of this film being shot right wow and when it finally came out in 2008 there's an incredible entertainment weekly article and heckerling Heckerling says, This was my nightmare.

This film is coming out three years late, and all the references don't make sense anymore.

Right.

And I haven't tried to be a hyper-topical filmmaker in my life, but there are like 15 jokes that specifically now are meaningless.

So then anytime there was like a music cue, I'd be like, okay, so was that a new release song at the time she was filming this?

And you look it up and like a lot of them are in 1998.

So you're like, it's a movie shot in 2005 with a lot of pop culture references from 1998 that then came out in 2008.

It's like two levels of disconnected.

Look, we're going to talk about it.

Karen, you'd never seen this movie.

Oh, who's our guest?

This is a measure is on the films of Amy Heckerling.

It's called Pod Times at Ridgemount Cast.

And our guest that I returned in the show is Karen Shee.

Yeah.

The great Karen Shi.

I forgot to ask if you want any.

specific introduction.

Oh, no.

I refuse to be introduced.

Queen Karen.

Queen Karen.

Queen of the Peters.

So wait, I'm surprised you didn't didn't rent I Could Never Be Your Woman from Blockbuster in 2008?

No, I should have.

What was I doing?

Well, what were you doing?

How old were you in 2008?

I was 13 in 2008.

Okay, so

you had to leave the house.

Yeah, I was allowed to leave the house.

Spending money, probably

social age.

You were practicing slut-shaming parody songs in your

Frank calling Henry Winkler.

I was being a slut and Frank calling Henry Winkler.

Being a slut and making fun of pop stars for being sluts.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Right.

Taking lessons from your mom on how to be a more effective slut.

I think their relationship is good in this movie.

There's a lot of things in this movie that I was like, we're close.

I agree with you.

We're close to cooking.

I agree with you.

And like, I feel a way about this movie that I wish I felt more about, like, let's say late period James L.

Brooks, where I'm like, I can see it.

Now, Karen, wait, I don't want to blow up your spot, Karen.

Okay.

So

I'll be quiet.

So last time you were on this podcast was for I'm a Cyber, but that's okay.

The Bang June Ho comedy, Tragic Comedy, whatever you want to call it.

When was that, Griff?

Like two years ago?

Yeah, sounds right.

Bon June Ho.

What was it?

A Park 10 Wook.

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

That was very offensive.

Cancel David.

And you were like, I'm not a huge movie person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

Now you are a movie person.

Oh, actually.

Transformation has happened.

Karen joined Letterbox and she is logging.

Karen is every week.

There's two or three new logs and like broadcast news

is something Karen logged and was like, where's this movie been all my life?

One of the best movies.

One of my 15 years.

But I don't know if you've seen the second half of his career.

I don't know.

I don't, I don't, I don't know.

Probably not.

I'm not sure what it means.

Well, I mean, I understand what it means.

I just don't know where in his career it falls.

I mean, the real fall of Spanglish is a film that Ben adores.

Spanglish.

Yeah.

Thank you for your contribution, Ben.

Karen, you're welcome.

How do you know?

A Paul Rudd film.

Yeah.

Another kind of curse production.

Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson's final film.

He's got a new film coming out this year.

Oh.

Oh, James L.

Brooks.

Yes.

Yes.

It's Ella McKay.

Mackay.

Oh.

Broadcast news is so perfect.

Yes.

That like my standards are so high every time he finally makes something new.

And I watch it and I'm just like, the faintest glimmers.

I can see it there, but how did this guy lose it?

This feels like you can fully see the successful version of this movie.

Yeah.

It's just like surrounded in in mania and chaos.

But it's not even like, oh, fuck, that's like half a good scene.

It's like all of the threads kind of make sense from a distance.

Yeah.

I was just going to say, I think the biggest issue for me with this movie is that I think it would have worked better if Michelle Pfeiffer were less hot.

Right.

Look, Michelle Pfeiffer should be less hot, and Tony Rudd should be less old.

God bless Paul Rudd.

I love you so much.

Yes.

Love you dearly.

But I have to imagine she needed a movie star to get this movie made, and she knew Paul Rudd very well, having made another movie with him.

And that's how that all happened.

I'll open the dossier and look to find out more.

But certainly, a movie where Michelle Pfeiffer stressed out about how young Paul Rudd is should not feature a seasoned 35-year-old Paul Rudd.

Yeah.

Like, I just, I love Paul Rudd.

Here's the priest.

He's the best part of this movie, and he's a funny, funny man.

Here's this movie.

If anything, if there's, if there's a central hook to this film, it's successful, divorced woman in her late 40s, falls for

hot, charming, up-and-coming, struggling actor in his late 20s.

And they navigate, can this relationship work despite the age difference and us being in different places in our careers, right?

Michelle Pfeiffer

ages beautifully.

Yeah.

She's doing gorgeous.

She had aged beautifully at that time.

She's used to age.

She's a stunning, luminous creature.

Right.

But so in a movie, she's like, oh, everything's falling apart.

Yeah.

Like, God, what I would give for things to fall apart.

No, instead, my wife and I are for 20 minutes like, how could she have been married to Lovett?

What's this?

Love it.

Carry on.

Paul Rudd in this movie is supposed to be 29.

That's like a twist.

Oh, my God.

You're even younger than I thought.

Right.

We all like to joke about Paul Rudd being immortal and aging so well, but he was 35 when they shot this.

He was 38 by the time it came out.

There is no part of him that feels like a 29-year-old.

And like, most brutally, this movie comes out six months after Knocked Up, which I think there's a dividing line there of like, once Paul Rudd has been reframed in a movie as like, he could be a family man.

Yeah, that's actually fascinating.

Right?

What a weird career.

Was shot two years before, but like, when you've seen him raising Judd Apato's children, you're like, this guy's not a boy.

Yeah.

For sure.

And, but that also just reminds me that when Paul Rudd was in Knocked Up, a very good performance, the line on him was still like, no one's figured out what a movie star this guy is.

And it's like a year later that we get like role models and then I love you, man, and stuff.

And then it's like, okay, we finally realized.

Like, Hollywood's finally realized.

Big part of that.

I mean, like, Appetow sort of saw it.

And then Knocked Up finally gives him the juice to start like developing his own movies and co-writing them.

I think that's the other big part of it is him not being slotted into shit

and like working with his own collaborators or like helping make the movie.

Oh my god, there's so much to discuss.

This film, do you know, in Spain where this film was first released?

This film was called El Novio di Mimatre.

Spain was, I think, my mother's boyfriend, is what it was called.

Spain's the only country where I think it got a theatrical release.

Wait, what?

Why?

It was where it first got a theatrical release, not only.

Yeah, but a year earlier in

2007, it was released in Spain because the Spanish love, you know, industry comedy, like insider sitcom axe grinding and shit like that yeah yeah yeah i'm very yeah i bought a dutch and this movie does have the overlit insanity of an almotivar movie well we're gonna get we're gonna get to i bought a dutch blu-ray of this movie because i believe it was the only country in which it was released in and the tariffs meant that was like 48 i got in pre-tariffs

the benefit of us planning the show far in advance um but it's like i would i i'm a dork who wants the physical media of the movies we cover and i'm like look at the history of our show kind of way i remember this and it's used Blockbuster DVDs or Dutch Blu-ray.

Nothing in between.

Yeah, everything about this movie is fascinating.

Karen, I had

heard people referring to you as Kenny Chi recently, and I was confused as to why you had gotten that nickname.

Oh, wait.

But it's because you're loggins

on Letterbox or Through the Roof.

I didn't realize you'd become such a movie fan.

Wait, as Kenny Chi?

Kenny Loggins.

I was saying that the nickname is just the worst joke of all.

Because you're doing loggins.

I'm circling back to something David David said to me.

Here's the shocking thing is that my dad's name is Kenny G.

Is he really?

I was like, who is calling me Kenny?

My dad loves Kenny G so much that when he immigrated to the European South Korea, he named himself Kenny G.

Wait, whoa, he took the name Kenny in honor of Mr.

G?

He doesn't understand why this is funny.

Like I talk about it.

I used to joke about this.

No, he sincerely loves Kenny G, the musician.

Did he love Kenny G in Korea?

Like, he was like arriving in America being like, if I know one thing, it's Kenny G.

Was Kenny G like that.

When he came to America, was he like, the whole country must be guys like it?

Oh, my God.

Imagine how disappointed he would have been.

No, I don't think that's why, but he's like such a weird, goofy guy who's very sincere all the time.

And I think doesn't realize he's very funny.

Sounds cool.

What does he do?

What's your dad do?

My dad works in cargo for an airline company.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Cool guy.

One of my sons just did a big poop.

Oh,

I should read it aloud every time I get this text.

I get a text every time my children poop.

Oh, okay.

Not my daughter at this point.

I do too weirdly, and I keep hitting unsubscribe.

I keep getting them.

So

what was I going to say?

I could never be a woman.

So, Karen, you're coming.

Oh, man.

Oh, God.

Karen's back.

Kenny Loggins.

Kenny Loggins.

Yeah.

Karen Logins.

Yeah, yeah.

But Karen's a cinephile now.

Is the point because you lost cinema now?

You were on, you were like, here are the types of movies I'd love to come back on for.

Yes, yeah.

And you were throwing out a lot of children's films

right which is fine love kids movies yeah yeah but you were like when's the next animated thing yeah like are you gonna do paddington on patreon yes that's what you were pushing us towards to keep you in mind for yeah yeah yeah and then i i text you oh we're doing hackerling she's done a lot of rom-coms and stuff i imagine you know and you're like oh paul you know we'll do this movie that no one's ever seen and you love paul red karen you watch the bakery girl of monsoon i did that so good yes you got to watch all those you got to watch them all i gotta i gotta to keep going through.

You're having to look at these logs.

She's got true crit.

Saving Private Ryan.

Why do you mean she watched Saving Private Ryan?

Here's what happened is my mom went back to school like a year and a half ago and she's taking a U.S.

history class and on her syllabus, Saving Private Ryan was like a recommended watch.

Oh, yeah.

So she came home.

I was visiting home.

She came home from school and to my dad was like, oh, like, do you guys want to watch a movie?

And we were like, yeah, cute.

Movie night.

And she went, we're watching Saving Private Ryan.

I mean, I like Saving Private Ryan.

It's just not the chillest watch.

No, it was really intense, I would say.

And I, yeah, we all cried.

It's maybe the most stressed I've ever felt watching a movie.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Look, great movie.

I mean, just look at, look at this, you know, this, this Aaron Brockovich.

Yeah.

Conclave.

Chantal Ackerman's news from home.

Like, I love, you know, I like it when a curveball like that pops up.

It's so fascinating because the streets kept on whispering the name Kenny Chi.

And I said, Karen's dad, who works in cargo for airlines?

And they were like, no, don't you know that's Karen's nickname now because she be loggins

that's a really good joke thank you that's a really good joke sometimes you just have to beat it and take a second pass yeah yeah yeah sorry I wasn't smart enough the first time I told you no no no I just I hit a level of truth I didn't understand and I had to reframe the joke around it you're right you're right so um I told you we're gonna do this movie you watched this film What did you think of I Could Never Be Your Woman?

Just, you know, initial impression.

That's all.

I just want to hear that.

It was so bonkers.

I guess I have three initial impressions.

One is it was so bonkers.

Two is Sersha Ronan was incredible.

She's really lucked in.

It is kind of one of those things where, like, damn, you lucked out with this casting.

Like, it is 99 out of 100.

I know.

I know.

And it's like, as wild and bonkers as this movie must have felt in 2008, with every passing year and the evolution of Shira Sha Ronan's career, it becomes that much stranger that it's, that's her.

She's this good.

Yeah.

She's so charismatic, like so fun, so charming.

She's great.

She's great.

Sir Sharon is in this film.

But absolute disconnect from everything else for the rest of like, she does this, and then she immediately does Atonement in the Lovely Bones.

Wow.

Like she does two child performances that are like, yes, this is representative of who she will be as an adult actor.

She gets an Oscar nomination for Atonement.

Like this is her most ladybird-coded performance of the three.

You know, she wants to be called a different name.

That is true.

She does debut that late in the film.

It doesn't come up again.

She's like, I want to be called Drew.

Weird Drew.

Yeah.

She's doing like weird Al stuff.

Yeah.

Anyway, so those are your first impression was Bonker.

Second impression was Sir Sharon and so good.

What was your third impression?

The third impression was: I was like, Amy Heckling must have just watched Peep Show and been like, I want those people in my movie.

That was a true my brain started where I was like, oh, it's funny.

There's an English actor.

Yeah.

Sarah Alexander, I know her.

And then like, it keeps happening where I'm like, why is everyone English?

Like, is this like a trick?

With Olivia Coleman in it with no one.

David Mitchell, obviously, you know, Graham Norton.

Like,

But like, and then you learn, okay, a lot of it was shot in Britain and that helps.

Do you understand?

I believe, because I was trying to watch closely.

I believe this was shot entirely in Britain other than

the second unit exterior.

Well, and there's that on the lot that one time where I'm like, they must have gone to the lot.

I think they got like a day on the lot

in between sound stages.

Right.

And then every other exterior shot of LA you don't see actors in.

Right.

And then any shot that is clearly real LA.

And with all the sets, which were so, you know, finely constructed and well-lit, like they, they were locations, right?

They were real places.

You, your letterbox log.

And for a second, I thought I was looking at Karen's page.

I said, is it at Kenny?

But no, keep bringing back.

It gets better every time.

Yeah.

I don't know if that one tracks internally.

But you said this film was lit by Satan.

I mean,

it's just insane.

And, you know, again, my wife, who is less, you know, she's watching a film for story and dialogue and, you know, character, but even she was sort of like, why does it look this way?

And I was like, I don't know.

I don't know.

Right.

But I was saying to her, like, look, Clueless looks incredible.

Like, obviously, the great Bill Pope shot Clueless.

great cinematographer.

But do you know who shot that?

Brian Tofano, who is shot Train Spotting in a lot of Danny Boyle movies.

And shot like Mike Lee and Ken Lowe.

Yeah.

So I don't know what's going on.

My only theory was that Michelle Pfeiffer was like, you must must bounce stadium lighting off my face at all times.

I think that is some of it.

But I also think this speaks to sort of like the weird mania around this movie, the bonkers feeling, right?

And it's just like, this is the kind of shit that like fucks up careers, right?

She's got the script she wants to do.

Every studio is like.

It's a comedy about a woman over the age of 40.

Who wants to see that?

You know, she's like, I got Michelle Pfeiffer.

They're like, Michelle Pfeiffer, she hasn't been in a movie in five years.

We don't know if she's valuable.

Some weird eccentric guy who we'll talk about deeply in a moment once we get to the dossier is like i love this script i'll give you 20 million dollars to make it right now this is true provision

you have to film the entire movie in great britain wait what and you get to these turning points no but clearly he found some tie-in of like he probably got a tax break or something and this guy was later was i think convicted for financial fraud both right before and right after this movie jeffrey epstein it was jeffrey

no it uh this guy who we'll talk about

It would be really, really, really weird if it was Jeffrey Epstein.

That would be quite a twist.

That's the one thing that could make this movie more insane.

Yeah.

Is if Jeffrey Epstein financed it just because he liked the script about a movie about older women.

These moments that like define someone's career where they're like, here's the great news.

$20 million.

You can make your movie.

Stipulation, you have to film the whole thing in Britain.

And you're like, huh, it's a Hollywood industry comedy that takes place mostly on

lots.

It's true.

This is not the best student.

I mean, Britain has sound stages, but it is true that it is an LA comedy.

They don't call it sunny London comedy.

And so I do feel this sense of a great cinematographer who didn't generally shoot in

LA, but also didn't shoot like broad comedies.

He's got a movie star who has a lot of stipulations, probably about how she's lit and framed.

And then they're just like, we need to overcompensate for shooting in a fucking drab, foggy town.

I guess so.

Let's direct the sun at them.

I mean, the full sun.

It's like the space laser from Die Another Day is on that.

But it also, then you have this entire supporting cast that's like all British actors because it's clearly like, okay, Amy Heckerling got to pick her like six regulars who they would fly over.

Right.

And then every other part.

is played by someone from the UK.

It's five.

I think she gets, she gets fifer Rudd, Stacey Dash from Clueless.

Have you seen Clueless?

I have seen Clueless.

Yeah.

You know, one of her more successful films.

Stacey Dash is the best friend in Clueless.

She plays

the star here.

John Lovett and Fred Willard.

I feel like those are the five of them.

You're forgetting Wallace Sean.

One, one great scene of Wallace Sean.

You're not wrong.

You're not.

But you have like, right, Twin Kaplan on the couch, non-speaking.

I think she was a producer on this.

That's the first movie.

Right.

So that's not.

But that's about it.

I mean, even Tracy Allman, as much as she's a Hollywood figure, that's a Brit.

It's why Sergea ends up in this movie.

I have to imagine.

Of course, because of child labor shit, right?

It's why the whole supporting cast is like, she has enough taste to be like, if I'm filming in the UK, who are like the 10 funniest on-the-cusp people of British comedy television?

That's true.

But it lends a very weird air to this movie where you're like, everyone just sounds a little off.

Do you like Britain?

Yeah, yeah.

Sure.

Have you been?

I have been.

Well, I was going to say, I wonder, because everybody is doing an American accent except for David Mitchell.

David Mitchell, who I think probably just cannot.

Yeah, I was was wondering.

I wonder if there's like an audition tape somewhere where it's him trying his best.

It's not like he's a bad person.

Hey, guys, like, he's so English.

I just cannot imagine.

His voice is so English.

Like, yeah.

If he were nasally LA, it wouldn't work.

He has a detective show now.

You know how, like, in Britain, like, if you get

to be, you know, you hit your sort of late 40s, early 50s, you're in the mix for like a show where you go to some like gray beach and you're like, oh, you know, they, they killed the old mayor or whatever.

You know, you got to solve a crime.

He's got one now.

Does he have a hook?

Is there a gimmick?

I hope he has a hook hand.

That'd be fun.

That'd be a good gimmick.

It'd be called Detective Hook.

Detective Show.

It's just so.

It's called Ludwig.

Ooh.

And he's, oh, yes.

What?

He's a reclusive puzzle maker who publishes puzzle books under the pen name Ludwig.

Oh, my God.

Wait, this has way too much business.

He has an identical twin brother who goes missing.

Played by him as well, I assume?

Yep.

And so he has to pretend to to be his brother.

What?

And then he gets it.

This sounds very

busy.

He's going

more.

Oh, my God.

Because, you know, it's always like, oh, they play.

Richard Griffiths plays like a meat pie.

He runs a pie shop.

Right.

He's a retired detective who runs a pie shop and people keep luring him back in for one more case.

Or there's this show.

There was this British TV show called Rosemary and Time with Felicity Kendall and Pam Ferris, two lovely old lady actors, who were gardening detectives.

Like they were like full-time gardeners, part-time.

Oh, someone's dead in the bushes.

We got to solve the mystery.

Really, all Britain has.

There's also, I just saw like new release stills of Thursday Murder Club that's coming out later this year.

That's also just like a cast of the cutest old British actors just solving a murder mystery together.

Here we go.

Helen Miran is in it.

Mirren Brosnan, who you just have to rattle pennies in front of that guy, and he will sign on.

I swear to God.

Ben Kingsley.

Can I sing?

Will you let me sing in this one?

Fucking hell, Jonathan Price.

This sounds good.

It sounds amazing.

Chris Columbus directed it.

Who directed it?

Chris Columbus.

Director of Home Alone.

We hear into

Christmas Chronicles too.

And Christmas Chronicles.

And one of the Harry Potter movies.

The first two, Harry Potter.

The first two.

Wow.

He did open the Chamber of Secrets.

Yeah.

Because he speaks parcel tongue.

It's a little joke

ben what's up griff this is an ad break yeah and i'm just i'm this isn't a humble brag it's just a fact of the matter despite you being on mic oftentimes when sponsors buy ad space on this podcast the big thing they want is personal host endorsement right they love that they get a little bonus ben on the ad read but technically that's not what they're looking for but something very different is happening right now that is true we had a a sponsor come in and say, we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

What?

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.

Making Blair's remake of...

Reimagining.

Reimagining, whatever.

Yeah.

A reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link.

Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're

excited to see it.

But, Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks.

It honks.

Yeah.

It's so great.

Let me read you the cast list here in billing orders, they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor 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 talking.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the Pocket 2 Man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like

David sizzling.

Yep.

And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang-ass freak.

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

Yes, yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches.

Yes.

With my sleazy and sticky friends.

It informed so much of my sensibility.

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and...

Headbanger.

Yeah, exactly.

Making Toxic Crusader drills.

And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I was really emotionally invested.

It was in limbo for a while while before our friends at Centiverse 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 sufficiently gooey.

Tons of blood, tons of goo,

great action.

It's really fucking funny.

It just, it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version.

Cineverse last year released Terrifier 3 Unrated.

Yeah.

Big risk for them there.

I feel like it's a very, very intense movie.

And a huge hit.

More interesting, yeah, theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years.

Want to make that happen again here?

Tickets are on sale right now.

Advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

So if y'all were planning on seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets.

Please go to toxicavenger.com slash blank check to get your tickets.

Blank check one word.

In theaters August 29th.

Yup.

And Ben, it just says here in the copy, wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says, Summon the Nuts.

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

Summon the Nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new metal band.

Hell yeah.

Who are also mercenaries.

Cool.

And drive a van

with a skeleton.

giving two fingies up on the grill.

And that's all I'll say.

Okay.

And they are the most dang-ass freaks of dang ass freaks.

I'm excited to see it.

And your endorsement, I think, carries more weight than anyone else's in the world on this list.

Seriously, get your tickets now.

Go to toxicadvengure.com/slash blank check.

Do it.

Do it.

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There's a universe in which they go, hey, you have to film this movie in the UK.

And she goes, well,

Britain has a big television industry.

I can make it about British people making a British show or one American woman running a British TV show.

But it feels like she has, this movie is so much her grinding axes with LA culture in particular and the like nature of the American show business like complex.

That the moment they're like, hey, we'll make your movie if you agree to film it in a place that will never look like LA.

Yeah, it will not really vibe.

Yeah.

Right.

I just think she should have put her foot down.

Now, the tough question is: if that happens, does the movie never get made?

The movie probably never gets made.

And she's probably like, this, like you're sort of saying, this thing's already going to feel out of date soon.

This is me going through my experiences of the late 90s.

Let me talk about it a little bit in the dossier so we have the appropriate context.

So Amy Herkeling's a filmmaker, American filmmaker, Karen.

It's made Fast Times Richmond High.

Look who's talking.

Clueless.

Then she makes Loser with Jason Biggs and Mina Suvari.

It's not a big hit.

And most relevant to this film, after the success of Clueless, she launches the Clueless TV show that runs for three seasons.

I didn't know there was a TV show.

It's fairly successful.

You don't know that because

we all agreed to forget about it.

It did okay.

It was a TGIF show.

It had one season as part of the TGIF lineup, and then it moved over to UPN for two more seasons.

Bumped to UPN, which was a network back in the day that things would get bumped over to.

Stacy Dash reprised her role.

Yeah, some of the clueless cast returned.

Most of the stars did not.

But then she makes Loser, which is not, which is a box office disappointment.

And then Heckerling gets attached to a bunch of stuff.

She was in negotiations to write a pilot for Tori spelling.

That didn't happen.

Probably good.

She was in talks to remake the

serene fucking Japanese masterpiece afterlife, the Corrieda movie.

Stunning Discovery from Japanese.

Oh, good, which is a movie you would like if you've never seen it.

That's a great movie.

It's a movie about when people die, they go to like a waiting room where they have a week to figure out like what memory they want to take with them into the afterlife, basically, by making a little movie.

It is so.

Do you know off the top of your head what memory you would take?

No, what the fuck?

I need seven days.

Griffin, what about you?

I need eight days.

You're screwed, Griffin.

My memory is of this taping.

What if that was it?

Ben loves it when we do applause bits.

I just, I want to throw out,

well, A, it's so funny because you're just like, why was she going to remake like Afterlife?

And then when you describe it, like give it the five-second pitch like you did to Karen right now.

it does sort of make sense to go like there is a wildly different version of that movie yeah there is like an ability to take that log line and turn it into like a 90 studio comedy i think so like a sweet comedy and its own thing and its own thing but that

doesn't have Fox was attached, but it doesn't happen.

At one point, she's announced to be doing a comedy pilot at ABC that was going to be kind of a love boat type show with like a lot of celebrity guests.

She was announced in 2003 as the director of a film called Sweat.

which was going to be a sort of shampoo style movie set in the world of personal training about like a Hothario who beds his clients.

That never came together.

Then she and Vince Vaughn are going to make a movie called No Place Like Home, where Vince Vaughn was going to play, oh, a cocky character.

That's interesting.

Who's upwardly mobile and has the world at his fingertips and a deep aversion to his parents, but he breaks up with his girlfriend and has to move into his family home in Long Island.

Okay, whatever.

Anyway, so that doesn't happen either.

So instead, she's thinking about this movie that she makes while she's working on the first season of Clueless and raising her 10-year-old daughter Molly on her own in the mid-90s.

Amy Eckling was a single mom.

And she's ambivalent because she's like, I'm working on this show.

It's promoting these unrealistic standards of beauty.

It's, it's a bad show for young girls or whatever.

Like, it's a bad, you know, image.

And I've got this kid.

So she should, that clash is what's animating her here.

Okay.

Which isn't an interesting setup for a movie, right?

Like someone who is professionally continuing to perpetuate a fantasy version of high school life, then also going home and dealing with a real child, where I'm like, that's actually

the most interesting, unique kind of angle this movie has and like a very personal experience where you're like, oh, she's the person to write this.

No one else could tell this story.

It does feel like that is kind of the least developed aspect in the final film, despite the fact that Search is really good.

I also just want to snapshot because I just, I think it's kind of interesting.

Like Clueless is so big, right?

It's like a surprise hit.

And then when it goes on video, it sells like through the roof.

It keeps getting bigger.

They get this TV show on the air really quickly versus like Baby Talk, the Look Who's Talking show that she wasn't involved in, and Fast Times, which only ran for like eight episodes.

This is her third movie spawning a TV show, and she's more involved in this.

Right.

She is.

She is.

And so she like only directed episodes in the first seasons, but like remained an executive producer on this, remained involved in it, which means that like, in a way, she is kind of losing the cachet from the success of Clueless by focusing on the clueless movie or the series.

Do you know what I'm saying?

I see what you're doing.

Like, yeah, she's having success in that she's running her own TV show.

Right.

But she's also kind of letting the heat dissipate from.

the fact that she's coming off a hit movie.

So by the time she cashes in and she's like, I'm ready to make another movie again, she makes loser.

It's a bomb.

And now it's like the early 2000s and you're like, well, she's not totally dinged because she's made enough hits that she can keep attaching herself to big shit like this.

But suddenly she's in this position where it's like, oh, Amy Huckling hasn't had a hip movie in almost 10 years.

Like it's just kind of

the air is all out of the balloon, you know?

I'm going to skip all the Chris Katan stuff.

It's way too long.

I'm not doing that right now.

We have, we have to discuss this movie.

And also, just people can Google the Chris Katan stuff.

Amy Huckerling denies all the the Chris Katan stuff.

Chris Katan has his, you guys got to just read that yourself.

It's too much for me to get into, especially because it has nothing to do with this movie.

People theorize that this movie is about Chris Katan, and I strongly do not think it is.

What would it be?

Oh, like, like, Paul Rudd is supposed to be like Chris Katan?

Interesting.

I don't think so.

No.

Well, I don't know.

Can I just say the very second version of it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Katan and Amy Heckerling had an affair during the filming of A Night at the Roxbury, which she was executive producer on.

That is uncontested fact.

Whoa, okay.

What is contested is

Chris Katana's book claimed that he was pressured by Lauren Michaels and the studio to have said affair in order to encourage her to direct the movie rather than just produce.

And Amy Heckerling and his daughter have a very different series of events.

And that he had an affair where he was cheating on Jennifer Coolidge.

What?

His at the time long-term girlfriend who was also in Night at the Roxbury.

With Eliza Donovan of Kluz.

No, with Heckerling, and then cheats on Heckerling with Eliza Donovan.

So he's sleeping with three different women

of the production of this movie.

And that the whole pressure thing doesn't really make sense because she was already working on the film, but they didn't really actually start to get to know each other until after the film was already in production.

What have you?

All this is just.

Amy Heckling's response was, ugh, he's a nut.

when she was asked about all this.

And she was just like, I'm not going to comment on it.

And Lauren Michaels has been like, what are you talking about?

There's just a lot of information out there.

I'll let people get on the rap.

It would be funny if Lorne Michaels's official statement was, hmm, just that.

Like he called the Times.

It just needs to be acknowledged because this movie being such a like odd hidden object,

just sort of ignored, when people started being like, what is this thing a couple years ago?

A lot of people jumped to the conclusions that's about her and Katan because they had an age difference.

I don't think it is.

So she writes this movie.

Nobody wants to make it because it's about an older female protagonist and Hollywood isn't really that interested in it.

But Michelle Pfeiffer gets her hands on it.

Michelle Pfeiffer's career has also been slowing down.

I would say post what lies beneath.

She doesn't really have a big hit, right?

She does what lies beneath.

She does I Am Sam and White Oleander, which were both sort of meant to be Oscar plays for her that didn't get her nominations.

She's good in White O'Weal Leander.

Yeah.

And it's not a good movie.

And she's good in I Am Sam, and it's not a good movie.

I think she's good.

She's fine.

I mean, I always like her.

Is she Sam?

No.

No, no.

No.

I Am Sam is the movie where Sean Penn plays a mentally challenged person

who is raising Dakota Fanning, his daughter.

Oh, okay.

And she's now getting to the age where they think she's progressed beyond him intellectually.

And Michelle Pfeiffer is the lawyer who's trying to fight for his rights to retain custody.

Oh, this is so devastating.

It's a weepy.

It's not good.

It's very bad.

And Sean Penn's performance in it is one of those things where you're like, oh my God, like, who allowed this to happen?

He got an Oscar animation.

And it's the movie that like.

presented Dakota Fanning to the world and made her like the child star.

So Michelle Pfeiffer kind of gets no bump from that movie.

Gotcha.

Well, she's also playing a character that she plays a lot in the 90s on, which is the sort of leggy pant-suited lawyer or workaholic lady who's like, I'm so gorgeous, but I'm so busy and no one will

be all together.

You know what I mean?

Like, oh, it's so hard to be me.

Like, I'm doing this because she's always like throwing cell phones and bags and stuff around because she's so busy.

Rolling her saucer eyes.

Yes.

And so after those two movies.

But then White Leander replace the comic replay for her?

And it doesn't really go anywhere.

And then she takes several years off.

Several years off.

And this is the next movie she makes.

And she wants to make this movie, obviously, because it's a very big role.

Meaty, interesting.

Probably themes that appeal to her.

Amy Heckerling's a real director.

Philippe Martinez, a French producer.

has a bit of a checkered past.

He had served time in prison for fraud.

Oh, in France, though, where you get like baguettes and stuff.

Okay, cool.

I don't know if you actually get baguettes.

And he has a $200 million

line of credit.

So he claims, I'm not sure if he does.

So he greenlights this film for a $20 million

budget.

Yes.

But Huckerling

does send some red flags.

They basically, this guy gets out of French prison,

shows up in L.A.

in a chauffeur Bentley.

He's got a big cigar, smoking cigars, like storming into meetings saying, I have $200 million to spend.

People show me scripts.

Wow.

And this is like one of his first big moves.

And Heckerlings basically said that as the movie was filming, she kept getting told that the budget was lowering.

She was like, this guy said he had $200 million and was giving me 20 comfortably for this film.

And suddenly the number keeps going down week by week.

So like the movie is shrinking as they're making it.

He makes them film it in London, which is a problem.

Uh, indeed, he does keep saying the budget is going down.

Wait, sorry.

So, it started off being 200 million dollars.

No, he said he had 200 million dollars

to put towards film finance.

Then he started saying he had 100 million dollars, which is like

it is still a lot.

By the time this movie finally came out,

he said he was 100 million dollars in debt.

Oh, no.

So, somehow within three years, he went from I got 200 to spend to can someone borrow me 100 so I can get back to zero.

So Michelle Pfeiffer has paid $1 million,

which is below her quote.

Which is below her quote, but she will also get between 10 to 15%

of the film's first dollar grosses.

Wow.

Which is very unusual to be giving them actual money versus profit.

But this is

a bit of a problem.

This is a movie financed entirely by some Maverick outsider who's willing to do that in order to secure a bigger star who usually would maybe like would probably take that budget to $30 million on her own.

right if they're paying her full salary echoing is also promised not this later becomes the beginning of the end of the huge issue yeah um the film is then put on the shelf apparently tested well not sure where they tested it no offense um

and uh then they're like we're not releasing this if that's if michelle gets 15 of the gross like they screen it mgm agrees to acquire it then they find out about this deal they crunch the numbers and they're like we estimate the movie's gonna make this amount.

And if we have to give away Michelle Fay for that much,

then we don't want to do it.

So they just hand it back.

Oh my God.

They spend a year trying to find a new distributor.

At that point, Mr.

Martinez has no money, as he, if he ever had any money.

He's got negative money.

So he sold the DVD rights to the Weinstein Company, a normal and good company that does normal things.

But he does that first while trying to find a new theatrical distributor.

Yes.

Then he finds this company Freestyle Releasing that was very much kind of the catch-up entertainment of its day, where it's like, do you just contractually need to get a movie out in theaters?

We're like a distributor for hire.

They agree to do it.

They announce a release date in 2007.

It's going to be released on 1,500 screens.

Freestyle release it.

And then like weeks before it's going to come out, they pull it off the schedule.

Correct.

Because they found out that they didn't have DVD rights, which hadn't been told to them.

And at that point, DVD is still really big.

And they're like, if we don't have DVD, then we don't want to fucking release this movie.

Heckerling calls it like cutting the legs off of a baby and then being like, take my baby.

It's still cute.

Just kind of a gruesome thing to say.

Yeah.

So instead, it came out in Spain.

In Spain?

It grossed $9.5 million globally.

Okay.

Which isn't very good, but it's not nothing.

Yeah.

I wouldn't say no to that amount of money.

Well, lucky for you right here.

I got a check here for you for $9.5 million.

He's been waiting for someone to say that they wouldn't say no.

He's had the check on the desk for years.

And

so it came out direct to video.

Weinstein makes the blockbuster deal.

And that is the ultimate fate of this movie.

Yeah.

And Paul Rudd said he felt bad.

It's a real shame.

He was afraid some of the jokes would feel stale if it, you know, got.

Was right.

Yeah.

Sure.

The film got poor reviews.

And is forgotten, I would say,

until a little podcast called Blank Jack decided to focus on it.

I was going to say, it's hard to say it's forgotten if most people never knew it existed.

Sure.

Right.

It's not really known.

It's not really known.

Nathan Rabin did a piece on it for his My Year of Flops series years ago.

What did he give it?

Fiasco, Flop, or Secret Success?

I believe he gave it a secret success and said, like, this is much more of a movie than I thought it would be.

You can see the kind of shape of it.

This is Amy Herculing.

She's like a personal filmmaker.

Wow.

It's not perfect, but there's like stuff in it, which is certainly how I feel.

Like, I don't know if I can say this movie is good.

No, but I don't think I can.

Frustrating how much good stuff there is in it.

There's a lot of stuff in it that I thought was a good idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And even like things that are executed well, but then there's stuff where you're just like, the lighting alone is knocking every single element of the movie down a star at every moment.

It's tough.

Execution is

lacking here, I would say.

The film lacks,

there's an execution issue, Griffin.

Things like Tracy Ullman's character, Mother Nature, who is never explained, serves no plot purpose.

Yeah.

Doesn't really jive with the story.

I don't know.

I have to correct myself.

The opening credit sequence goes from nature photography and then just hard transitions to plastic surgery.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

That's right.

Because it's like, ah, these days everyone's getting plastic surgery.

I'm Tracy Ullman.

I won't explain it anymore.

And then, you know,

old ladies are worthless.

Fuck you.

And then she's not like, let's meet our.

Right, you expect me to be.

Because there can be kind of a Greek chorusy, you know, like narrator threatening.

You know, let me, I wish everyone could be like me covered in leaves, but instead, here we are in LA.

Yes.

No, I was going to say, no, sorry.

Go ahead.

No, I'm listening.

Oh, I was just going to say that one of the weirdest parts.

I'm sorry that I said yes so aggressively.

No, it was really supportive.

I really appreciate it.

Really?

Yeah.

Call that supportive Vincent Price dog.

Yes.

Tracy Ullman.

The weirdest part of the Mother Nature bit is like there's no consistent visual vocabulary, I guess.

So at one point, when she shows up, everybody else then freezes in time.

Whereas before that, when she showed up, they were still continuing in time.

Right.

And it's more like she's a great gazoo, no one can see.

The rules of her function within the movie change basically every scene.

As you said, sometimes she is Zach Morris powers, can freeze the whole movie and comment on it.

Sometimes she is narrating just to us, the audience, down the lens.

Right.

And then sometimes she talks to Pfeiffer.

Right.

Other times she's like Pfeiffer's like fucking Paul Bettany and Beautiful Mind.

We're like, is she having a mental breakdown?

Where did she get those damn chips?

Great.

She's eating chips.

She's in front of the store.

No one can see her.

Do you think a bag of chips is floating next to Pfeiffer and she's like talking to Piffipip?

The imaginary supermarket?

I wonder if she can digest stuff.

Thank you.

But yes, it is.

Can she digest stuff?

Well,

let's send an email.

Tracy at Ullmond.com.

You're like, any one of those three things could work.

No.

Could, I guess.

Could.

Yeah.

It is very confusing when it's jumping back and forth between them and you don't get what it is.

The extent to which this lifts out of the movie.

The movie's 97 minutes long.

Feels long.

You lose Tracy.

We're getting closer to 90 minutes.

Just get her right out of there.

It almost feels like she has this idea and then Tracy Ullman will do it.

And then there's this sort of obligation of, like, I got Tracy Ullman.

Yeah, like, she's, you know, even though it's the late 2000s and Tracy Ullman isn't quite as hot as she was, it's still like, oh, you got Tracy Ullman, you got to use her.

There's also famously a movie we've covered on the show, Death Becomes Her, where Tracy Ullman had a major subplot and 25 minutes of footage, and they just went bloop.

Like, there are other movies that have straight lifted.

Maybe she's also so sensitive about getting lifted out of a movie.

She had a no-lifting clause in her contract.

Can't lift me.

Yeah.

It's called the dead weight clause.

Do you like Tracy Allman?

Does Tracy Allman mean anything to you?

I don't think I really know much of Tracy Allman.

I'm going to be honest, like,

I don't either.

It's a little interesting.

As someone who grew up in both New York and London, that Tracy Ullman means nothing to me.

Well, it really means nothing.

Yeah.

Well, but I'm a little too young for her.

Like, I think her...

Her sort of like TV show, like the Tracy Allman show and Tracy Takes On, that had all peaked by the time I was a kid.

We both came after our.

She was still around.

difference.

I think when we were young, she was still around.

And Karen, you're just enough younger than us that she basically doesn't exist in your purview.

God,

HBO kind of treated her like they treat Bill Maher now.

I'm not talking in terms of politics, but in terms of their like, she's in the HBO family as long as she wants to do whatever she wants to do.

If she wants to take a shit on stage, we will run an ME campaign for that.

Like it is whatever she wants.

Right.

She had 10 years of like HBO like free reign combined with she was still popping up in movies at that time.

Right.

She was popping up in a movie.

But then basically, by, I feel like by the year, like, 2000, she really slows down.

But, like, it was one of those things, like, the Tracy Allman Show, which I've never really watched.

The Simpsons came out of the Tracy Allman show famously.

It was the animated

sidebar.

They were like, we should have animated interstitials on this sketch.

Yes, Karen.

Wait, and that became the Simpsons show.

Mac Raining was like, oh, I don't know, Homer.

Like, it literally was kind of that.

That's crazy.

It's all part of the lore.

James L.

Brooks, everyone's trying to make an American sitcom for Tracy Allman.

And James L.

Brooks was like, No, she needs an old school variety show.

Fox has just started.

He marches in.

He's like one of those legendary TV creators.

He's like Tracy Allman's sketch show.

They surround her with like an all-star cast, including several little voices from The Simpsons, Dan Castellanetta, Julie Kavner, and they're like, We want to make this variety show.

It should have animated segments.

There are two of them.

The other one was Tracy's pick.

I forget what it's called, but it was a flop.

And then James O.

Brooks was like, I like this weird cartoonist from Oregon.

Aragon.

This is true.

And Tracy Olmo was like, I don't like this Simpson shit.

And The Simpsons immediately like hit and turned to a spin-off.

And she didn't want to voice one of The Simpsons because she was like, I don't like this.

And then years later, she sued because she's like, I don't know.

A percentage of the Simpsons profits.

Right.

I assume she didn't get it.

She did not.

That's incredible.

The thing about that is.

That is a sort of like changing changing of the guard moment where it's like the Simpsons are the biggest things in America now.

And Tracy Ullman gets to do her stuff on HBO.

I want to say this with all due respect to Tracy Ullman, who I understand is a bit of a pioneer and a trailblazer for women in comedy.

And I guess women are allowed to stay in comedy.

Not if I had my way.

Oh, okay.

No.

And I think Tracy Ullman is funny.

I have seen her be funny in things.

Robin Hood Men and Tight, she makes me laugh.

Yeah, she's really funny that.

Whenever you watch those kind of comedy talk show, clip show, sort of like retrospect, where they're like, oh, and the Tracy Oldman show was so good.

Like,

you know, and she had her character, like, you know, Mrs.

Whatever.

And then she's going like, oh, it's me.

And I'm just like, was this funny?

Like, this doesn't look that funny.

I'll say this too.

You know, sometimes you watch old comedy and you're like,

brilliant.

Like, it works.

And then sometimes they're like, oh, mind you, mind you, you have fate.

And you're like, Jesus.

She played.

Is she funny?

Just tell me.

I think she's funny.

Okay.

I think she is,

she's really big, right?

Like Tracy's like huge, unsubtle energy.

And I think that when it's five degrees off, it's like insufferable.

I think when Tracy Ullman misses, it's rough.

I don't like watch classic Tracy Ullman and it's funny that we're talking this much about a character who's in the movie for five minutes.

That is not relevant.

I don't watch classic Tracy Ullman and like fucking Raffle Cops are on the floor,

but I do, I do think she's funny, but I'm also like, I've seen her like strike out.

And especially in things like movies where you're just like, when she, when she had her own TV projects and she could build an entire universe around her and it's just showcasing her, you're like, this is impressive as like just a style of performance.

And then sometimes when you drop her into a movie like this and you're like, she is not harmonizing with anyone else.

She is just doing her own thing in a very specific register.

I don't think she's bad in this, but like it just adds to the chaos of this movie where you're the element is so strange.

She does not matter to this movie.

The movie is about a character called Rosie, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who's the showrunner of a bad sitcom called You Go Girl, where the joke is that all the actors, Ben hated this movie so much.

Oh my God, look at this.

Ben is crying.

Oh, look who's talking now.

Stacey Dash plays

the lead actor.

And the joke is like, everyone's too old, right?

Like Stacey Dash was kind of the 90s when they shot the clueless movie.

So she's on the clueless TV show into her early 30s.

And then this movie is almost 10 years after that.

So the joke is right.

She's like 40.

But she's, it's now it's, it's sort of the same thing with her.

She's actually too old.

Like you're watching this and you're like, who on earth would think Stacey Dash could be a teenager?

Like, and I sort of get the joke of like, oh, it's heightened, i guess but i wasn't it couldn't i couldn't really get there also is it the other makes the whole thing feel like a dream you're having like on drugs there's no grounded reality there's no like consistent reality even though it's supposed to be about this sort of grounded thing of this woman's trying to claw out some romance and life and she's mothering and it's hard but then it's like she lives in cuckoo land and i feel like i'm on fucking xanax watching this movie or something because everything's just kind of like vibrating and everyone's a little off it is a weird fever dream movie like it has that's kind of like old dogs chaos to it a great example being when paul rudd's character is introduced so paul rudd plays adam the young actor they cast in a guest role yeah who becomes a sort of breakout star and then she starts kissing him

He comes into the audition and then he like is jerked sideways like a cartoon.

Yes.

And they all go, how do you do that?

And then he comes back in, but it's like,

but but it's not a dress.

It's a Johnny Dangerously gag.

Right.

It's like this crazy sort of out-of-proportion physical humor, but nobody even says if that was, did she imagine that?

Did he actually do that?

It doesn't seem possible.

Paul Rudd is an incredible physical actor.

Very funny physical actor.

And he can do shit like that.

in a movie and be like, this is this character doing this.

It's not betraying the laws of gravity in this film, right?

This is a guy who can do goofy movements.

The way that moment plays out in the film, he is clearly rigged by wires right it is not something a human being could do it also when it first happened i was like oh this is going to come back in some he'll do it again

right right he it never is because they call it out it's like this guy has a superpower they call it out like how do you do that and then they don't ask him or talk about it again yes and it's a great example of what i'm talking about in this movie where you're just like i feel like Someone needed to figure that out.

You know what it is?

Is I feel like this movie, it reads as though, you know, when you're like filming something and you do the take as written, and then you're like, you know what, just do one for fun.

And then they just stitch together all the four fun takes.

It's heavy on, and sometimes, sometimes it's funny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, look, the highlight of this movie is something that has lived on in gift form.

to audiences that don't know what it's from.

Zero white.

Which is Paul Rudd dancing around like a lunatic at the bar, which is so funny.

Out of context, because Paul Rudd dancing around like a silly guy it feels like celery man or whatever yeah from uh I think you could leave there is no what's it called uh Jesus Tim and Eric yes uh I think it was for like him just going like you know is funny yeah I think it was either for role models or I love you man

and as you're saying the 2008 year we're like Paul Rudd figures it out he figures out his movie star leading man thing where he went on Conan.

Paul Rudd's Conan appearances, of course, just like all bangers.

But they play whatever music.

I think they play Badlands

to his entrance.

And Paul Rudd, just like rather than sitting down on the couch, starts clapping and then starts dancing.

And he and Conan dance for like three minutes.

That's so charming.

And it's so charming.

It's one of my favorite clips.

And watching this film for the first time, I was like, oh.

Five of the moves he does in Conan are direct quotes of this.

Gotcha.

Where it almost felt like he knew I did really

dancing in that movie.

No one saw it.

I got to find a way to reproduce those dance moves in a medium that people will actually see.

But it's, yes, the dancing is incredible.

It's really funny.

Can we talk about Paul Ryder a little bit?

It's so funny in a focused way.

Yes, we can, but first I want to ask about the dancing.

So I see that and I want to fuck him.

Like, and I'm saying, like, I want to get him naked and have sex with it.

I'm not saying like, oh, I want to fuck him.

Like, I'm on Twitter.

Like, no, it's hot.

Yeah.

Would Michelle Pfeiffer want to fuck him after watching that?

Because in the movie, she does.

But Michelle Pfeiffer still almost feels a little too classy to be like, oh, you goofball.

I'll repeat an anecdote I said just like two episodes ago.

My gay friend was testing how straight I was, thinking that he could maybe talk me into a good anecdote.

And he said, like, like, you don't find any guys attractive.

Like, if you could fuck one guy, who would it be?

Yeah.

And I said, Paul Rudd.

And he went, oh, you are straight.

Really?

Yeah.

But I have the same thing where I'm like, Paul Rudd is a, in my mind, I'm like, that's the most attractive guy.

And that is exactly what I wish I could look, sound, move, and think like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like, well, that's the masculine ideal is Paul Rudd.

I actually bet Michelle Pfeiffer, I bet that did turn her on.

Yeah.

Because it's supposed to.

Also, because he's because he's just so loosey-goosey.

So loosey-goosey and so like inviting and so like doesn't care about social norms.

Yeah.

But I also think this movie makes him kind of dumb in a way that is weird.

Like I think when Paul Ruddy is.

Oblivious.

Like mega oblivious.

Here's the thing that I think Paul Rudd is really good at is like

certain comedy stars who then need to have a love interest.

And you're like, this beautiful actress would not be attracted to this guy, even if he looks like a movie star, because he's behaving like a maniac, right?

Like if Maura Tierney has witnessed the way that Jim Carrey behaves in Liar Liar, she can never see him as a sexual creature ever again.

Now, it's a broad comedy and it doesn't need to be based in that sort of reality, but you're just like, like,

I don't know if she sees him as like a viable option, right?

Paul Rudd can do shit.

And it probably has to do with the fact that like he became a comedy star in a moment when the broad high concept comedy was going away and things became more relationship and conversational, whatever.

But something like the slapping the bass scene in I Love You Man, which is so funny.

And it's just Rudd doing a riff for like four minutes and moving weird and making weird voices.

I watch it and I'm like, I still think Rashida Jones is going to fuck him in 30 minutes.

He is a goofball, but in a way where you're like, this is the way that like people pick people up at bars, you know?

Like, this is the way where people are like, man, women love a guy with a sense of humor.

Like, if he looks like Paul Rudd and he can commit to the bit this hard and he's this affable and he gives the smile at the end of it.

You're like, fuck, it's kind of hot, right?

This movie makes him dumb, though, in a way where when he does those sorts of bits, and I think part of it's probably the disconnect of him being 35 and playing 29.

And if he was 29, it would register as just kind of like puppy dog cluelessness.

And then at 35, you're just like, is this guy a moron?

Right.

Karen, what do you want to say?

Oh, I was going to say, well, it was weird because when he, the first or second time he shows up, he like throws a jelly bean at the assistant woman's butt.

He does.

That's another sequence that I was like, is this a dream?

Yeah.

Why?

It was so off-putting that I think if he had been even 5% less handsome, I would be like, I hate this guy.

But he only gets away with it because he's Paul Red and you choose to forget about that.

But it doesn't really track with how the character lives.

Right, exactly.

He's kind of a gentleman for the rest of the movie.

Yes.

He's so thoughtful.

I think that is an example of a scene where, like, the last take they did, he's like, this is going to be funny.

I'm going to do it.

And they're like, we're going to keep this take forward.

Or they're like, we have to roast low-rise jeans.

Like, we must.

And so this scene's got to make it in, Ben.

Maybe he made the jelly bean on the first shot because it's impressive.

It isn't right.

It's a crowd.

It absolutely has to be.

This sequence has like five setups in it.

It's not just like he walked into a wide shot.

You threw a jelly bean for fun.

And then he goes over the fence and taken, and there's like 18 cuts.

Right.

That's what I'm saying.

I'm like, this was like a thing that they had like a stunt supervisor come in.

They had storyboards.

Yeah, a jelly bean coordinator.

Like, this is a constructed sequence.

And then she stands up and you think the joke is like, oh, she's got a jelly bean or ass crack, and she's not even aware.

And she turns around and is like, next time, aim higher.

Or says, like, it makes no sense because she was turned around.

So it's like, next time, aim on your back?

Like, what?

You're what?

It's so strange.

And despite that, she then is so desperate to fuck him, she resorts to multiple Photoshop crimes.

Yes.

Sarah Alexander, who's a wonderful actor.

So Sarah Alexander.

And in this film, is playing the role of Thanos.

She's not very sympathetic in this film.

I know we covered Schindler's list very recently on this podcast, but I'm going to say this is in the top 10 least sympathetic characters we have ever had to discuss on this show.

David, what?

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so sarah alexander is a very big part of my life uh because i grew up in britain i forget if karen knows that but i do i did grow up in britain and she was on uh you know smack the pony and like green wing all and coupling was her coupling thing she was kind of the british jennifer innocent is that

no no

the whole thing that happened with coupling which was a sitcom that aired on the BBC, was that everyone was like, this is the British Friends, and it's going to be brought to America and they'll do an American coupling so that like we'll have a new friends because friends was coming to an end.

Speaking of Paul Rudd,

and famously the American version tanked and.

lasted like two episodes or whatever.

But Sarah Alexander was sort of the Rachel of coupling.

Okay.

But coupling was never a friends-size thing.

Okay.

And I would say stuff like Smack the Pony and Greenwing.

I know when you say Smack the Pony, you truly do sound like a stereotype of someone talking about Britain.

When you say Smack the Pony and Green Wing.

Yeah, Green Wing.

Or you would say both of the creativity.

You would really like Green Wing.

Green Wing's really funny.

I believe it.

By the way, I think she's a great actor.

Smack the Pony.

I'm a big fan of hers in everything I've ever seen.

Her older than this.

She's very funny.

Smack the Pony was a

sketch comedy show spearheaded by the great Sally Phillips that was, I mean, again, it was one of these like women do comedy now experiments.

Uh, Green Wing was a more sort of focused thing.

Sally Phillips is also in Greenwing, uh, that was like sort of a sitcom set in a hospital, but had like a lot of surreal elements.

Very, very good.

Um, she's not, yeah, Sarah Alexander, I think, a bit undersold by this movie.

Um, a little, you think, a little, a little one-dimensional as a character.

And it is one of those things

not to talk about women writing things or whatever.

Going to itself.

Where I'm like,

you're creating this sort of three-dimensional character in Michelle Pfeiffer that's like about your experiences, right?

That really has

like flaws and is interesting, you know, like that's the idea.

But then, like,

there's literally like an evil shrew, like young bitch character who's so evil that they grab each other's hair and have a cat fight for a second.

Where I'm just like, is this setting us back a little bit with your complex female protagonist to have her around?

Like, is this good amy it feels like the bridezilla assistant moment in jurassic world sure where i'm like

someone did something to you yes i felt the same way yes it does everything about this character is you settling some score yeah what was your take on tara alexander's character uh genie well it was weird because i felt like michelle pfeiffer's character was set up to be a person who would be looking out for her sure would be like hey you want to make stuff yeah i'll help you and then it kind of seemed like that in the beginning but then immediately they just became enemies in a way that felt very stereotypey um the quickest overview of this character's quote-unquote arc right i believe we are first introduced to her shooting a line of dialogue for the tv show so i'm like oh sarah alexander is playing an actress on the tv show then the next time you see her it's michelle pfeiffer walking to her office and saying hey bad news they cut your line of dialogue And you're like, oh, this is her secretary who's trying to get a leg up, get in front of camera, and she's been foiled again.

Then the next 20 times you see her, she is like pulling reverse parent traps,

doctoring images,

playing games of like telephone to trick people into thinking that everyone's cheating on everyone else and saying bad things about everyone else and trying to seduce everyone into her web.

It takes Michelle Pfeiffer the entire movie to figure out, hmm, maybe she's a bad person.

She does in a sequence that's like Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes.

Like we literally go inside

her mind palette.

And her synapse is fire.

And she replays all the moments in her mind like she's figured out who Kaiser Soze is.

And then, yes, they like pull each other's hair after she walks in on her.

And Fred Willard is like,

I forgot about that.

She do be blowing Fred Willard.

She walks into Fred Willard's office and says, you need to fire her right now.

Fred Willard stands up from his desk, buckles his pants, and goes, oh, well, that's going to be difficult.

And she goes, why?

Unclear why she can't just fire her.

Right.

Why she's asking the head of the network to fire her.

Her personal assistant.

Yes.

And then Sarah Alexandra comes out from underneath the desk and they catfight.

Yeah.

And Fred Willard is turned on.

It does feel like somebody who...

Amy Heckerling tried to once help wronged her.

And now the moral of the story is never help any woman younger than you.

Never.

They'll just Photoshop your ass.

Wait, but so good at Photoshop.

I was genuinely impressed.

That's the thing.

Someone should take advantage of this person's skills.

Yeah, she should be in graphic design.

Exactly.

Get her over to some other department.

She can Photoshop Poe Rudd in your car in a traffic cam or whatever.

She hates Stacey Dash, presumably because she's the lead on a TV show instead of her.

Sarah Alexander, you mean, yeah.

Yes.

So she starts Photoshopping.

her head on less flattering images.

Right.

First, she's doing that.

That's right.

Just making like printout memes for fun and showing them to people being like, huh, look at this mean Photoshop I made.

Then one day she is sitting at her desk googling naked pictures of Stacey Dash.

She finds a porn like nudecelebrities.org website, which I think is not re well, who knows, whatever.

And it's like a fake website, an image that is clearly photoshopped where she is not naked, right?

Where it is just Stacey Dash holding a towel, but clearly her head photoshopped onto a different box.

Exactly.

Then she notices that Paul Rudd has left, or the props guy comes in and goes, I accidentally took Paul Rudd's real phone.

Sarah Alexander takes out her, his flip phone, takes a picture of the screen so that Michelle Pfeiffer will think

that he was invented.

I'm not yawning because this is so boring.

Why was she on the website in the first place?

No, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's not very, very clear.

And it also kind of could also lift out of this movie because the movie's real conflict is whether or not,

I guess, whether Michelle Pfeiffer can handle dating someone who's a lot younger than her.

Is it the start of his career versus where she's in in her career?

She's got a kid, whatever.

This is the sort of rich emotional content of the movie that he's mostly not addressing.

Also, just like you watch this, you're like, there's actually no

movie I can think of that actually kind of represents what like being a TV showrunner is.

Right.

And it does do a good job of right, all the bullshit she's getting asked about.

And

sure.

There's enough to work with there.

But here's how the movie mostly addresses the age gap.

It's kind of them in the car.

Yeah.

And Michelle going, like, how old are you?

And he's like, oh, yeah.

She's like,

it's kind of young.

Like, that's basically it.

Right.

Yeah.

And Sarah Alexander will like perpetuate lies, will like trick him into trying to fuck other people.

Tell Michelle Pfeiffer that he's trying to fuck her.

Try to convince him truly to fuck her.

Like she's working like 20 angles.

It's weird.

She's an absolute agent of chaos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If we just had the two things where it was like the A plot was her and Paul Rudd and the B plot was her and her daughter.

Yeah.

That would have been a great movie.

The whole movie.

So right.

And obviously regular check-ins from Mother Nature for some

more of her every two minutes.

Yeah.

She's like, I'm still here.

All right.

I'll get her.

So

the best stuff in this movie is her and her daughter, for sure.

That is the stuff that basically all just possibly because it's very lived in, because she raised a kid at that time who was this age.

It just feels like not cheesy.

Yeah.

The daughter's interests feel like sort of appropriately, kind of in that blurry, like

pubescent kind of like she still likes some kids' shit.

She likes, you know, she's starting to get interested in more grown-up shit.

Sure.

Sometimes she dresses like my chemical romance.

Right.

Sometimes she dresses like Avril Levine.

She dresses like David Foster Wallace.

That's also true.

I lost my mind.

The bandana.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

Oh, I hope my daughter has a David Foster Wallace phase.

This is another thing.

Just

fashion-wise.

Yeah.

Good clarification.

Really bad at writing.

Yes.

I hope she stinks at writing.

Unlike David Foster Wallace.

Yes.

No.

Sir Sharon and placed her daughter, of course, whose name is Izzy, although later she wants to be called Drew.

That is not explained.

Okay.

What I was going to say.

What were you going to say?

Is that.

Tell us.

What were you going to say?

Tell Karen first and then tell me.

Okay.

Then tell Ben.

Karen, relay this this to Ben and David.

A thing that feels very specific in this film that I like, and Hectorlings talked about this, is like she was this dark, cynical, pessimistic New York girl who made Clueless, which was the sort of experiment for her, starting out writing these people in a way that she thought was satirical.

But

can I make a sunny movie?

And then she starts to like fall in love with these characters.

And she's like, this is so far off from me.

I like the thought experiment of imagining being this optimistic, this positive, this sunny, this bright.

And then likes living in that world.

She moves to Hollywood.

She's a Hollywood player, right?

But now she's raising a young girl who is more like her, who is this kind of like oddball, alternative, dark girl

while she is spending her days making like the most candy-coated teen show possible.

So it's not just that there's like the reality of the difference of the two.

It's also like them being on a very similar wavelength, what she does for a living being on a different wavelength, and her trying to balance these two notions of like what a modern young woman is.

All of that's interesting on paper.

Yeah.

There was a scene that I thought like could have potentially been incredible.

Like the beginning of it really tugged at my heartstrings where they're like trying on clothes at the store and the daughter, Izzy, is like, oh, this doesn't look good on me because I'm ugly.

Like I'm ugly and you're beautiful, mom.

And I was like, I bet this is a real thing.

And like, I, I feel like as a young girl, I always thought I was like the ugliest person in the world.

And like, it's a conversation that girls have with their moms often.

And it's because that's the intimate setting of the mom dragging you to your mall to the mall or whatever.

Right.

Or like feeling like you're compared to your mom, maybe subconsciously.

And then instead of doing anything with it, Michelle Pfeiffer just goes, No, I'm ugly.

Look at me.

I'm hideous.

And she's like sitting with perfect posture looking gorgeous.

Which is kind of funny, but you're right that we're exiting any deeper resonance.

Yeah.

Because it is also funny when Sir Sharon is like, My stomach is so fat.

Yeah.

And and you're like,

what?

Fay little child.

Unbelievably adorable.

And funny and like appropriately a little darker.

I also think like Amy Heckerling is someone who by the time her movie career started had her look really figured out.

Oh, I didn't really know.

Right.

Was kind of like dark alternative lady making it in Hollywood.

But like.

The way they style Michelle Pfeiffer in this, outside of like her being blonde and Heckerling being like darker haired, raven-haired, is very similar of the sort of like suit jacket and the wide-collar shirt and the loose tie and the hair with the pen in it.

Like that's Heckerling's look in all these things.

And like, here's someone who's been like the weirdo girl and has figured out a way to like make it into success.

I also think there's something interesting to that of like, yeah, the kind of shit that kids would mock you for when you're 13 and everyone's worried about being normal ultimately can become an asset and become your like defining characteristics and a thing you can own.

And Circe dressing kind of similarly to her mom and looking at her and being like, I'm ugly and you're pretty.

Yeah.

And it's like, no, it's more a reflection of like the different stages of life.

Oh, like there's shit there.

Yeah.

But then, yes, it turns into Michelle Pfeiffer complaining about like, my face is falling.

But there is funny stuff there.

Like to like, right, like Sergeia, a running plot in the

movie is that she has a crush on a boy and she's always describing to the mom the harebrain schemes that she and her friend are cooking up to, like, get her to go on a double date with the boy or get her in the same room as the boy.

And they're playing a video game because they know the boy likes the video games.

They have to learn

secrets, which video game.

I'm actually realizing it wasn't a video game, but I had a crush on this guy in middle school who loved Invader Zim.

And then I was like, I have to go home and watch Invader Zimbabwe.

I wasn't that into Invaders.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

It always seemed pretty funny to me.

Yes.

There were people who made it their entire personality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it might have been more like his entire personality.

That's what it's like.

If you had to watch it in order to get his attention, that sounds like an entire personality.

He also one day like offhanded was like, oh, you should join the tennis team.

I play tennis.

And I was like, yes, I will.

Didn't you join the tennis team?

Oh, yeah, I did.

And I actually, the nice takeaway is I still play tennis.

That's great.

We should play tennis this summer.

Every year, I'm like, I'm going to play tennis this summer.

I used to play tennis.

Ben?

Our Fast Times episode came out.

The great Marie Barty asked, hey, can you guys share high school photos so we can share them on social media?

It's like a fun flashbacky thing.

We're doing high school movies on the podcast.

You pulled up your, was it your senior page?

Yeah.

And tennis was listed as one of your main interests.

I know it was one of the

extracurriculars or whatever.

But you only listed two.

It was like band tennis.

Now, bands, the only two things that you're doing.

We talk about band tennis.

We know you rocked that tuba.

Yeah.

And were you still on the tuba by senior year, or had you switched off?

You switched off tuba.

I had dropped the tuba for a joint of marijuana.

Well, wait a second.

That's not a musical instrument at all.

No, where were you playing in band?

I played a lot of different instruments.

The main instrument was the trumpet.

Gotcha.

I didn't see Ben being very cool in high school.

Well, from here's my target.

Ben was a stoner kid.

I think Ben was kind of like a cute stoner.

He looked at him.

So it's sort of like, he's kind of doing his own thing, maybe, but like, if you hacked away at it, you could get his attention.

But maybe he just wants to, what did you want to do?

Like if we were, if I'm like, well, let's hang out senior year.

What are you going to want to do?

Smoke weeds.

Smoke weeds.

All right.

Are you going to take me somewhere?

Take it for a ride.

Oh, my God.

Still ride, baby.

I feel like I have never heard you invoke tennis.

Yes.

You still talk about your band days a lot.

And I didn't know you were a tennis kid.

I played tennis all four years.

I love tennis.

I still play from time to time.

How's your, you know, what's your game?

Like, are you a baseline guy?

How's your drop shot?

I mean, I'm really rusty.

What's your handicap?

Are you good at three-pointers?

But no,

I was like third position in singles.

Like, I was a pretty good player.

Yeah, you were great.

I don't know what I would say my game is.

My game is getting angry and like screaming at myself.

So you're kind of a John McEnroe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I loved racquet sports because I was better at them than I was at hand.

Like I wasn't kicking the the ball while you're not running or do that in tennis you're not but in soccer you are right and I really struggled to kick that ball in a way that was you know with force and accuracy and all the things you want in soccer wasn't really my thing in high school in terms of sports I'm checking my notes here I excelled at physio ball wait what

that big rubber ball that you used to do like stretches uh-huh you mean like a medicine ball kind of like a mock

you're like lying down on top of a ball yeah or like bouncing on top of it and stuff sure okay that's awesome i almost failed it karen were you an athlete i did play a lot of soccer okay um and i did a lot of taekwondo which i think is why i'm always like kind of ready to fight somebody but nobody will duel me well i would duel you if i knew any taekwondo but i don't

what was your soccer position um i was right wing i was looking forward yeah

i would be really small and and then just running running down the wing

how were you were you a good crosser i think i was i actually think i was pretty good at soccer, and then I got diagnosed as concussion-prone, and I couldn't play soccer.

So you can't have balls hitting your head.

Yeah, but how do they identify?

They're basically, they can diagnose that you are more susceptible to getting concussions.

I think basically I got two concussions in three weeks.

Okay, so you had already been getting them.

But neither time I had hit my head, I'd just sort of like lurched a little and then gotten a concussion.

So they were like, you actually should not be

sanctified.

No, you're not allowed to move.

No, but and that's why I couldn't go on roller coasters for a while.

Fuck.

That old shirt, that does seem

if you're lurching and getting a concussion.

Don't get on a roller coaster.

Can you go on them now?

I can go on them now.

Now it won't stop if I'm on one currently.

Right.

Wait, what change?

I think at one point they were like, hey, I think your brain tissue is completed.

Oh, okay.

You're like, your head kind of, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got a concussion tissue.

What happened?

He was throwing a snowball at a 10-year-old.

Wait a little bit.

Now he knows the 10-year-old.

You know.

Yeah.

Karen, before you get concerned.

Yeah, this 10-year-old, I will say, lives rent-free in that concussed brain of his.

But he does know him.

Karen, before you get concerned, he knows that 10-year-old very well because that 10-year-old is his mortal nemesis.

Yes.

The 10-year-old owns his dad.

Years of rivalry between him and a 10-year-old.

He instigated a snowball fight with me, so I came back at him hard.

Okay.

And I was jumping up to be now.

Now, I'm seeing your age here is 10, right, Ben?

You're not 10.

Oh, okay.

11.

Interesting.

I'm in my late 30s.

My very late 30s.

Yeah, just imagine the latest you could be in your 30s.

That's where Ben's at.

He's a year.

Absolute endpoint.

Nemesis for years, which means you started this when he was like six.

I think he's been starting it a couple years.

I think, no, no, it's been going like a couple of years.

So since he's been about eight.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

A fully grown man then.

He famously took a look at my earring.

I received, you know, got my ear pierced at 38.

Yes, I remember this.

Yeah.

And he said, oh, wow, that's pretty basic, man.

And the thing that about that, when he said that, is it bounced right off of Ben.

It didn't affect him at all.

He doesn't remember the words.

I wasn't bothered by it at all for days.

He wrote Ben up a mean birthday card that we have here in the office.

Somewhere around here.

I forget where his name is.

How do you know this?

He is the son of our editor

on the podcast.

Incredible.

But Ben, just to be clear, Ben did not get a concussion because this kid hit him really hard with a snowball.

Ben got the concussion because he threw a snowball so hard at the kid that he threw off his own center of gravity and fell.

Well, it was, it was, I, I, so I'm in the air.

I, I throw the snowball, I come down, I immediately lose my footing.

Like, I just did like a jump throw and like spun his whole body.

So, with all the momentum of like me coming down from jumping, I slip and then fall on the back of my head.

Oh my God.

We've made him tell the story like five times on the podcast.

And I swear it gets funnier every time.

I mean, I feel bad because he did hurt his head.

No, I don't feel bad at all.

This is a joy.

Yeah, it's pretty funny.

Yeah.

I have to go get an MRI soon.

Oh, wait.

Oh, my God.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah, that's right.

I got your ass, Karen.

And just to be clear, Ben.

No, I'm doing more concussions than you.

She's concussion prone.

I have two now.

Wait.

In my lifetime.

So the second one, the one with the snowball, are you currently concussed?

Well, when do you stop?

Wait, when you're a little bit more than a while.

It was a while ago.

It was like

three months ago.

Yeah.

Oh, you're fine.

You're fine.

Yeah.

We can

be a quarterback or whatever.

Yeah, I can avoid doing that.

Yeah, exactly.

And Ben, just to be clear, when you fell to the ground and hit your head, of course, this 10-year-old boy came to your side and helped

heal you.

No, he fucking Nelson from Simpsons, my ass.

He's laughed at you.

Yeah.

This is amazing.

I know.

It's so good.

I'm obsessed with this kid.

I want to Benmo this kid some money.

Sure.

I'll give you his Benmo this money.

He's really funny.

He's going to love hearing this.

I got to be honest, I'm imagining just like a younger version of Griffin.

He's not.

He's so much cooler.

He kind of looks like Dennis the Menace.

Like he's kind of got an American Dennis the Menace vibe.

Amazing.

Like not the British kind.

We went out to dinner and he we got like chips and he made a double dipping joke.

And I was like, oh, have you ever watched Seinfeld?

He goes, no, what's that?

And I go, it's really fun.

You'd actually like it.

It's like, that's where the double dipping comes from.

It's a show made up of like observations like that.

And he's like, I don't know.

Who's on that show?

That's so sweet.

And I was like, Jerry Seinfeld.

And he went, no, that's not who I'm thinking of.

He meant it.

Like, he wasn't trying to be funny.

No, of course.

Yeah.

No, I was thinking of someone else.

Wow.

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Here's another thing I like.

in this movie.

Oh, right.

On paper.

We're talking about like her coaching her daughter through like how to engage.

Boy drama.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That it like speaks to this sort of like loop I'm talking about of like

the weird edgy girl made good

coming to her own where she's sort of with reflection now applying the knowledge of like, no, this is how you actually get people interested in you.

It's not like the dumb shit that like peer pressure tells you you need to do in order to like rope in a boy or like catch his eye, which is just such an interesting contrast to her day job being that she's writing a show about teenagers that is like very boilerplate and is caught up in sort of like 90210 style like drama, right?

That there's this sense of like Amy Hackerling, her success is so much that she was like able to relate to the perspective of a teenager, that she could reactivate it for 20 years out of high school and make these movies and TV shows that like really connected with a younger generation, but even still knows like that's different from reality.

And like to my daughter, I'm telling her the things I wish I had known at the time, which is mostly like, be funny.

Right.

Don't try to like play dumb.

Don't like,

you know, flatter him or whatever it is.

Yeah.

When she like encourages her daughter to sing out at the end, I was like, that's very sweet.

That feels like a good takeaway.

They have

a good relationship.

It felt quite

that her

accent is impeccable.

Oh my God.

it's amazing.

I mean, this is the whole thing.

Clearly, it's like, okay, we have to make this movie in Britain.

We need a British, well, she's Irish, but we need a UK and Ireland child actor.

So I guess we're going to have to get like the best one available because we're going to need to do a killer accent.

Yeah.

And so that's how they look into it.

They're like, you have to get me number one.

Right.

You have to get me the person with like the 100 rating.

They successfully.

It's like, yeah, we dug up this future five-time Oscar.

One of the best actors in the last 25 years.

Like it's just an astounding discovery.

She got passed over for playing.

I don't know if you actually care about Harry Potter.

I made the parcel tongue joke earlier and nobody laughed.

I didn't know she was.

Wait, she got passed over for Luna Lovegood.

Oh, she's a bad person.

She was the runner-up and obviously makes a lot of sense for Luna Lovegood, but probably good that she didn't get it because then she would have been stuck making those goddamn movies.

Also, that actress is very good who plays very well.

But she also basically gets stuck as Luna Lovegood for the rest of her life.

Yeah.

And so instead, she gets this role.

This is her first role, but of course, it's not released until after Atonement.

Have you seen Atonement?

Yes.

I read and watched Atonement over the Winter.

Yeah.

That's an incredible book.

That's a pretty good movie.

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt.

Good.

By the time this movie is on Blockbuster Shelves, she already has an Oscar nomination.

That's nuts.

That's bonkers.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's insane to consider.

She should have gotten an Oscar nom for this movie.

Kind of.

Yeah.

Interesting.

She was phenomenal in it, I thought.

So it would be the 2008 Oscars, right?

It was when it was funny.

It was Code by

a DVD release.

Yeah.

The Oscars are like, we're making an exception.

DVD of that movie is allowed.

Well, the winner that year, of course, was Penelope Cruz for Vicki Christina Barcelona.

A film, a performance at the tone of I Could Never Be Your Woman sometimes.

Amy Adams in doubt.

Viola Davis in doubt.

Taraji Henson in the curious case of Benjamin Button, Marissa Tomei and the Wrestler.

Kind of a funny five.

Five perfectly good performances.

It is, yeah, huh?

Tomei.

Well, I'm dropping Adams.

I'm sorry.

That movie sucks.

She's totally fine.

I think she's very good in it.

She's good in it.

Like, but I just, whatever.

I don't care for that movie.

Yeah.

You, it's weird.

You've never heard Invoked.

I have such doubts about that movie.

My five.

You want to know my five?

Yeah.

Totally different.

Who would your

winner from that five would be?

It would probably be Penelope Cruz.

I think that performance is fucking hilarious.

But I think Tomei is really good.

And I'd be like pretty satisfied with that.

Tomei is pretty excellent.

The thing with Tomei is it's kind of like, yeah, she's good.

She's fucking Marissa Tomei.

I guess when she was in the wrestler, it was a little bit like, Marissa, we haven't seen you in a second.

Like, it's nice to see you.

My five were Diane Wiest and Senectike New York, who's my winner, an amazing performance.

Rosemary DeWitt and Rachel getting married, an amazing performance.

I do have Tomei,

Adele Hanel, and Water Lilies, which is an amazing performance.

And

I guess I'll just toss in fucking Shir Sharona.

No, Beyonce Knowles was my fifth.

For Dream Girl?

No, for

Carl Records.

She's amazing.

And yeah, that's a good five.

Wait, are these your top five performances by women

by that year?

Yeah.

Supporting actresses.

David Attresses.

I have an actress before every single year of what he would nominate in every category.

David!

Going all the way back.

Down to craft awards.

Back to back 1930s.

That's how he earned the nickname the spreadmaster.

Gotcha.

And that's what everybody calls him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Only in bed.

Right.

No, I've never had sex.

I made the spreadsheet instead.

When he's on a subway car, those knees are tight together.

He never man-spreads.

No.

Yeah.

I was the spreadmaster when he opens up Google Drive.

I love to wedge myself into that, you know, the L seat on the subway, the window seat.

I love that.

But my legs are always too long, so I'm always like sitting like this.

Oh, interesting.

I have two long legs.

I've never had an issue where my legs are too long.

Your legs are shorter than me.

Yeah.

Actually, can you guys stand back to back on that?

Can you tell us apart about that?

With the shoes on?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, Karen is in one-foot platforms right now.

Yeah.

Karen's dressed like Park Simpson in the Radioactive Man episode.

So he dog verticals.

Yes, exactly.

So, what other things should we talk about from this week?

Well, oh, here's the thing I want to say.

Please, please.

So like Sergeia's accent is very accurate, right?

If she had never acted again, you would just believe they found some American kid.

They found some valley girl or whatever.

Right.

And she has like shown herself basically.

I think she can do anything.

Like she's basically as versatile.

And I think she's a very good actor.

I'd love her to make a really good movie again.

Same.

A lot of the actors in this, like Graham Norton, who has such a distinctive Irish brogue, right?

Like sounds like a little leprechaun.

What he's doing is interesting.

This is what's fascinating.

Yes.

Is he shows up?

I'm like, oh my God, they're going to make Graham Norton do an American accent.

This is not going to work.

And then he starts talking.

And I'm like, huh.

He's kind of just tweaking it 5%.

This is what I think I finally landed on because I was like, what's going on?

Something is unnerving me.

And I'm like, I think he's actually on a technical level.

doing a pretty spot-on American accent.

The problem is he still is is speaking with the musicality of his Irish accent.

So it's like he's going, like, well, I don't know, we got to get you out of that outfit.

Right.

There's like this weird, like, I love Graham Norton.

Yeah.

He's and like you watch the clips of him on the talk show and like talking mile a minute.

And like, we don't know,

you know, and he's like taking all the Irish inflections out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But he still sounds like he's like, you'll never catch me in my Pantago.

It's pretty much his only film role.

As a

not as

playing himself for a voice.

He's quite good in soul.

Sure, that's right.

He's good in soul.

Yes.

Where he is allowed to use his natural voice.

Yes.

I grew up with Graham Norton.

He hosted a, well, first he was on Father Ted, which he's very, very funny on.

He's null for a long time.

He always jokes how terrible he is on Father Ted, but he's very funny.

The joke is he's the most annoying person on earth.

But it's like David Letterman always shitting on his own acting work.

Right.

And then he hosted So Graham Norton.

Did you grow up?

No, no one else grew up with graham norton i played on bbc america there you go yeah i watched him yeah i was like well watching him on youtube that's the thing right now once youtube hit his stuff is like everywhere yeah yeah and it was but he was truly one of those guys i'm 12 and i'm just like this is one of my guys yeah i'm gonna follow this guy to the top And then he went to the top and I was like, I'll just leave him at the top.

He seems to have figured it out by himself.

And it's not like I dislike Graham Norton now, but now I only digest him in YouTube clips that come across my, it's not like I sit down and I'm like, I want to watch all of his interviews like

front to back.

Man, the clips are good.

No, he's very good at they're so good.

They're very good at their job there, like getting the big, long stories out of the actors.

So many American talk shows have ripped him off in the last 10 years.

So who's ripping him off the most?

I mean, I think Cordon ripped him off the most.

Take a couch.

Because I think Corden came from the UK to American offices

and was like, oh, they won't know what I'm ripping off because they haven't seen this.

And the whole like couch with multiple guests at the same time and being like, I'm just trying to spark them into having interesting conversations with each other.

Like that is wholesale Graham North.

You're right.

You're right.

Mulaney.

Mulaney's doing something.

Mulaney's doing something fucking bizarre.

Yeah.

Because he's also doing like Dick Cavett.

Right.

I mean, he's doing Bill Maher in the 90s.

He's

also doing cable access.

Yes.

He's doing this weird grab bag thing.

Yeah.

And the thing about that show as it's gone on that we're talking about his Netflix show is you're watching it come together because the first couple episodes, it lurches from thing to thing, and you're like, No one has figured out the connective tissue.

And so instead, he's like, All right, we're going to go do this now.

And you're like, Okay, like, and he sits down.

A bunch of people is like, Cruise ships.

What do you think?

And they're like, I don't know, I've never been on one.

He's like, Did anyone talk to anyone?

But I think that's what he's really going for.

It's just a chaos.

Watching talk shows from the 70s or watching cable access shows and being like, Oh, they haven't figured all of this out.

They didn't prepare.

Like, shit just can happen.

And there's that like danger of like a bit might just fall or a conversation might just end.

Versus, I think, Graham Norton, like the one where Pete Davidson is on it, and he just doesn't want to talk.

And fucking Lunel is like, I want to fuck you.

But he's like, I don't want to do that.

Sorry.

I've been kind of obsessed with that joke because it's interesting.

It's just so funny that Graham Norton in this is like, it feels like he is specifically playing like a queer eye.

Yeah, he's right.

He's a fabulous costume designer.

Right.

But it's also like Carson Creasley, like very specifically of that moment.

Yeah.

And you're like, maybe just let him be Irish.

It was a moment, though, where because he's such a cheery, positive guy that I, as I was watching, was like rooting for him as an actor.

I was like, yeah, like I said.

Karen, I got the exact same feeling.

Right.

I'm like, you're doing it great.

You know what?

He basically makes sense in this movie.

It's not incongruous.

But it kind of speaks to there's like something just a little weird.

He's not doing anything wrong.

It would be fine if there was just one.

It's just the fact that every five minutes there's another person from a british every conversation's like that yeah so it starts steve pemberton shows up and then he's gone he's a really funny my mckenzie crook has that scene randomly and then never comes back never comes back and that scene is kind of stinks and doesn't make any sense what's the name of the league of gentlemen guy steve pemberton

and he's so funny but like again i'm just sort of like hi and then he's gone and i'm like i'll see you later it's nice to see your face i guess i wonder if they were like filming on set in britain like on a stage and they're like, oh, no, we haven't cast this role.

Go, go, go over there.

Kirk's on a break.

Bring him in.

I want to put something forward.

And I'm just going to say this as broadly as I possibly can, right?

I knew that people like mapped the Catan thing onto this.

Had never seen the movie.

Now you want Chris Catan, not Settlers of Catan, which of course has a map.

Immediately what I thought.

I knew, of course, that there was an I Could Never Be Your Woman edition of Settlers of Catan.

Of Of course, of course, yeah.

I'd never played it.

They released it, but it weirdly sold quite poorly.

No one understood.

I also knew that people projected that this in some way was inspired by the Catan relationship, right?

And obviously, like, people can make auto fiction in which they're combining and compressing events from different points of their life and pushing it all into one space to make a movie more exciting.

But I'm like, the intricacy of this narrative feels so specific in the like she discovers a guy on her show as her show is kind of declining and he starts to pop and then he gets more successful than her and is like going off and being pushed ahead by the network head who is starting to dismiss her and her writers are jumping ship over to this guy so i just started digging into like male guest stars on the clueless tv show and i'm not going to make any direct accusations or guesses cool but like i i'm glad you're not making any accusations i just found a couple guys who were several who kind of like broke out after clueless who not only like

were on clueless and then got fed strongly into the tgif lineup right after

who are you talking to all right who you got from tgif you want i mean the specific one that i thought was interesting the guy who plays josh the paul rudd character yeah on the first season of clueless before they write him off the show they write him off the show when the show is dropped by abc and moves to UPN.

That guy then immediately gets fed into Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

David Left.

Becomes the new love interest on Sabrina the Teenage Witch for three seasons.

And a bunch of the writers and producers of Clueless jumped over from Clueless to Sabrina.

Yeah.

So if you, did you watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch?

No.

So later in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, she shifts from she's in high school learning to be a witch and a high schooler, dilemma, to she runs like a coffee shop.

She works up.

I guess she works.

And she's in college college now

but there's like a central perky kind of and they replaced the adorable harvey kinkle her high school boyfriend with the incredibly boring josh also called josh uh oh his name is still josh yeah they didn't even bother to chosen that's amazing yeah um

very poor very bad sabina's only good when she's in high school i am o yeah i agree i just thank you for agreeing i just thought it was interesting david only likes girls when they're still in high school sorry griffin on the record yeah

girls women shouldn't get jobs no they should never grow up.

They shouldn't be in comedy.

They shouldn't be in comedy.

Yeah.

There were just a couple other guys I found who also fit.

That's the main one.

But I was just like, if you look at the timing of that, in terms of this movie, having the access to grind of like the network thinks I'm not hip anymore, people I'm discovering are jumping off.

They're threatening to cancel my show.

You know, I was just like,

I think this show, this movie is truly about her experience working on the clueless TV show.

Yeah, sure.

Of course it is.

And I think the romance I want, I imagine, is also based on experiences within that.

Maybe,

or at least having a crush on it.

I look, I don't know.

I don't know.

She claims to be 37 and then she admits she's 40.

Shell Pfeiffer, I think, was more like 45.

Michelle Pfeiffer is 11 years older than Paul Rudd.

I looked it up.

Michelle Pfeiffer is 11 years older than Paul Rudd.

This movie, Michelle Pfeiffer, I guess is supposed to be more like 20, 19.

No, it's, I guess if she's 40 and he's 29, it's supposed to be like the correct age gap.

In Ant-Man and the Wasp, she plays essentially his mother.

What?

I mean, like, she plays the mother of the wasp.

Believe I did not until this moment

halfway into the movie,

turn to my wife, and I'm like, wait a second.

In fucking Ant-Man, she's, I mean, she's not his mom, but she's the wasp.

She's his mother-in-law.

Yes, she becomes his mother-in-law.

Yes.

And she's got like

gray hair.

Now you have to marry your mother.

No one in this had a car with a wheel and fling out of it.

No good car ideas in this building.

And it is so telling of like Michelle Pfeiffer hit whatever, 55, and they were like, grandma, like, that's it.

I don't care how old you are anymore.

You live in the fucking quantum realm.

And when we pull you out, you're old.

That's it.

Because, right, Paul Rudd is now in his mid-50s.

and is still playing like a

he's playing like 40s like it's like it's kind of like how old are you you just like 40?

40s.

Yeah.

Right.

But like, Michelle Pfeiffer.

And he can pull it off.

Michelle Pfeiffer is pointedly playing someone who used to be a superhero in the Marvel universe.

Michelle Pfeiffer is 13 years younger than Michael Douglas, who is her husband in the Ant-Man movies.

Yes.

It's just, there's, I'm not, I don't know.

All I'm doing is saying people's ages.

This isn't like insightful, but it is just weird.

It's just kind of like crazy how this happens.

This movie is about like the like when Mother Nature is coming in and being like, hey, paul red's gonna want to have a kid you're not gonna be able to have a kid like you're gonna have to deal with that right you know where it's like and michelle favorite's like oh yeah shoe mother nature but you're like yeah no these are interesting dilemmas for a woman that i feel like it's merle streep has the quote that the the day she turned the week she turned 50 she got three different offers to play a witch on him

yes

and she ends up doing into the woods yeah that was her being like i shall finally play a witch witch badly she was like and that people talk like actresses are like the second I turned 30, I got handed five scripts in which I'm the mother of a teenager.

Yeah.

And not like someone who had a teenager in high school.

That's nuts.

There's also, wait, what was that movie with Anne Hathaway where she was in love with a younger man?

The idea.

Yes.

God, that movie was so annoying.

That also feels like this, but the same issue where it's like, but Anne Hathaway is so hot and beautiful.

That movie would be so lucky to be correct.

That movie's insane because Anne Hathaway is senatched in that movie.

And you were like, this is not a dilemma.

The fucking Nicole Kidman Zach Efron movie, which is Pigswill.

I can't remember what the name of it is.

That one.

Family Affair?

Is that what it's called?

What a gross title.

I have not seen that.

It's so bad.

Yes, it's called A Family Affair.

It was on Netflix, I guess.

It's Joey King as Nicole Kidman's daughter, who's a personal assistant to Zach Efron.

Correct.

Oh.

And he's like, you know, a self-absorbed actor guy.

Right.

And then he's like, that's your mama.

And that movie, I mean, that movie felt felt like it was directed by, like, you know, malfunctioning AI or something.

Is it Richard LeGruffin Ace?

Yes, it is.

That one, at least, you're kind of like, well, Nicole Kidman's not a young woman.

Like,

there's some kind of like, yes, she's old enough to be your mother, I suppose.

I see, I see.

I don't know.

I mean, even that movie, I was like, can I, but the idea of you was ridiculous.

Yeah, yeah.

Where she's like, oh, I'm just such an old bat.

I'm like, don't worry about it.

What do you want to do with me?

The hottest woman alive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

God,

Hollywood's so broken.

Can you fix it?

You work in Hollywood.

Oh, I should.

I never thought about it.

You've been living in LA.

I will.

You know what I'm saying?

Fix it.

Go ahead.

Fix it.

You're going to pull your sleeves up.

You're so smart.

Jeez.

But talking about this movie not needing like fake artificial outside conflict, right?

Well, it's gotten a Photoshop conflict to begin with.

It doesn't need the Photoshop conflict.

It sure doesn't.

There's what I think is kind of the most interesting thing to work on,

and I think like in theory, on paper, this should be

what is like kind of the source of driving her to like, I don't know if we can be together kind of thing, is

she's being told basically that her career is winding down, right?

Not just that like society.

You're going to lose this show and that's kind of it.

Right.

That she's already dealing with this sort of like, I'm of an age where society starts valuing women less and starts ignoring us or belittling us.

But I'm someone who's always focused on my career and my independence.

And I'm a single mother and I'm doing it all and I don't need the approval of men.

And now it's sort of like, your show maybe isn't hip anymore.

And here's this guy she discovers and everyone's like, you're the future.

And he's at the beginning of what's probably going to be a decades long career.

All the offers are starting to come to him.

And she's in a world where she's starting to make concessions and having to scrape and cut.

You know, he says like the show isn't hip anymore.

And she went, yeah, you keep cutting the budget.

When you cut the budget, the first two things to go are wardrobe and soundtrack.

And now the show isn't cool anymore.

Right.

And she's like fighting to stay cool and relevant.

That is a really cool idea for a movie.

If it's like, because I feel like we're now seeing women who got, who have the choice to, who were able to choose career over family.

Yes.

And it's sort of like, okay, but once your careers are taken away from you, who are you?

And what is your life?

That could have been this movie.

Totally.

For a guy whose career is about to, the movie seems to set up like go like a rocket ship, right?

Like even if he ultimately doesn't pan out and become like an A-list movie star, this guy probably has five years of getting worked through the machinery of everyone being like he might be a star.

And to be in a relationship with someone who is at such a radically different point in their life is to me more interesting than the literal like age difference.

And that's there.

It's set up in the movie.

And instead, the two characters don't talk to each other for 30 minutes because Sarah Alexander like tricks her into thinking she has a photo of a a traffic train.

Just as this movie is kind of building to a head in their like, should we, how serious should we be?

conflict.

Yeah.

She's like, yeah, I'm going to stop talking to you because, right, I saw the weird Photoshops of you.

And then it's basically the thing that's resolved the second she asks him one question.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, so annoying.

And then they make the joke where he's like, how do you know I wasn't lying?

And she went, because you're not that good of an actor.

And you're like, why didn't you have this conversation two months ago?

There is this sort of, you know, the final plot to thing is that Yugo Gergus canceled her terrible show.

Yeah, she looks like this.

It does look really bad.

Yeah.

And

he gets a spin-off show called The Shizzle.

It's like, again, these are all jokes.

It's true that even by 2008, feels stale, would have felt stale enough in 2005.

Right.

Like,

Funny People's the year after this, and Yo Teach feels like a much better version.

And but even Yo Teach is a little bit like, right, you're knocking an earlier kind of sitcom.

Yeah.

And

uh,

this is a, you know, Fred Willard's like, oh, you know, it's what's hip, it's what's now.

He's going to get the show.

And he insists on Michelle Pfeiffer being the writer.

Like he stands his ground.

No one in the industry is giving her credit for discovering this guy, but this guy doesn't want to work without her.

And it just, it's like the whole second half of this movie is like based on.

misunderstandings, miscommunications, or the lack of one conversation where you're just like, why not just like call him up and ask him this directly?

Why not?

Why not?

There's this whole notion that like, is he lying to me about getting set up for this success?

And is he hiding it from me because he's just using me as a stepping stone?

And then you find out that like he thought they told her.

Right.

I forgot about that.

There's stuff like that where it's just like,

these characters, I mean, she certainly seems emotionally intelligent enough.

in the way she talks to her daughter about how to relate to men you're interested in that i don't buy that she keeps on falling for the dumbest shit in the world.

Yeah, you're right.

That's so true.

Also, why does her ex-husband just walk into her house all the time?

Her ex-husband is John Lovett.

He's been John Lovett.

He keeps getting work done.

One, one joke is right.

Initially, he has something on his forehead and then he's getting a chin.

He's getting a chin implant because if you make your face longer, then you don't need a facelift.

Incredible.

They're like good little jokes in this.

Yeah, I mean, Lovett's just fine.

He's doing what's ever.

I was looking at the IMDb quote page trying to to pick out what to read and like you read the quote page for this movie and like there are some things that are deranged there are okay there are there's no consistent style of humor in the movie there are things that are four-line exchanges where i'm like that's funny and well written if i'm just reading that that's there are some funny jokes but

right it ranges fun jokes

They all feel like they're plucked from different screenplays and put into one movie.

I agree with you.

Which is also fascinating because this doesn't feel like a movie that got like noted to death.

It's like she made it independently.

She is the only writer on it.

She's the director.

Like it's always the kind of thing I find more interesting is watching like one person's calamity versus a movie that's bad because it was made by committee where you're like, well, this sucks because too many people got involved and like no longer the ideas, it's like mashing different puzzle pieces together.

But something like this where you're like, this came out of one person's lived experience and like thoughts and hopes and dreams.

And then it just all ends up feeling odd and disjointed.

I'm just looking at the quotes page to see if there's anything that's making me laugh.

Not really.

I did like when Paul smiling.

A lot of things that are funny are like when Paul Rudd danced, when Paul Rudd does an extended

bit about the Home Alone poster.

Uh-huh.

I was doing my, you know, he did the face-face thing.

Yeah.

Really good job for anybody listening.

It was.

Yeah, that's it.

I mean, I think it's cute at the end when, when Sergea sings her anti-bush alandis morris set ironic cover but it's not funny just kind of cute and like then it's cute that she uh you know the boy

i think it's funny that the boy that dylan the boy she has a crush on introduces himself by saying hi i'm dylan and i'm alcoholic that actually made me laugh because she's like 11 or whatever I don't know.

If like, if I'm like in the, you know, the audience, you know, with the parents, I'm like, ah, it's funny.

But then like, okay, Siria Ronin, at one point in the movie, they cut to her in her bedroom mirror singing, oops, I got a career by shaking my rear and making guys leer, oh, baby, baby, oops, I'm going to sing more and dance like a whore.

I'm just not talented.

And then the movie basically cuts away, and you're like, what the fuck was that?

Yes.

And then they set up later, much later.

That she's working on these parody songs.

Right.

And that she wants to perform them at the school talent show.

But also, there is like a hostility in that song towards Britney Spears.

But there was a hostility at the time.

I understand that was in the culture, that that was just a fucking thing.

But it also is just like that jumping in in a movie where Sarah Alexander is like twirling her mustache and being like, I must destroy older women.

Yeah.

It's like she's making a film about her own insecurities and then she keeps on being like, but these young women are the actual problem, which feels very like, I don't know, ungenerous

and kind of beside the point.

Yeah, you could totally lift it out of the movie and it would be better for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a movie, a sort of calmer, more confident movie that's better.

You know, like that's, that's about, but like no one's going to make that movie, I guess, would be her argument.

Or just make that movie for no money.

You know, like make a $5 million movie.

Like make a, you know, a true indie.

About like being a show.

I mean, I don't know.

No, but that's an interesting thought that like she's writing this screenplay trying to imagine the version of this movie that a studio will greenlight because that's what her whole career is.

Yes, it's like I'm making a studio rom-com.

Like, give me 30 million.

Put big enough sequences in it and jokes, and imagining that it's going to be bright and shiny and everything.

Then every studio turns it down.

This weird financial criminal comes and is like, Here's $20 million,

but you have to film monopoly money.

She's done by that point is gone, like, what is the $10 million version of this movie that is not even trying to be a studio comedy?

Yeah, what did I actually really want to make?

Right.

Like, maybe I make the Nicole Hollof Center scaled version of this.

But that's kind of not what she ever did.

No, and I don't

think 20 years in the studio since she only made one other movie after this,

Amy Tip, Karen, called Vamps, which was also a bomb.

And also barely got released.

Also barely released starring Alicia Silverstone and Kristen Ritter.

It's like a vampire rom-com.

I have not seen it.

That's a post-Twilight vampire rom-com that we'll be talking about next week.

It was a post-Twilight Vampire Rom-com?

Yeah, it was called Vamps.

That's nuts, that stupid wasn't huge.

Dan Stevens is the love interest, I believe.

From Downton Abbey?

I love it.

That's one of his first post-Downton things, though.

I love him.

I love him.

Sigourney Weaver's the villain.

Cool.

I'm excited to watch it.

I'm excited to watch it too.

But was that also made at a sort of studio scale?

I know it was a bomb.

That's the only one I don't have the answer to.

Look, I have

a lot of people say that movie is kind of a hidden gem in a way that has me excited to watch it.

But everyone's ding on it is the one big issue is

you can tell she didn't have the money.

Right.

That it clearly like should be a $20 million studio comedy and she had to make it for like six.

But that's like a higher concept genre comedy.

But that's also like makeup and effects and stunts and shit.

But it's the one time she tries to do it.

It doesn't in theory.

No, it doesn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm going to, we're going to play the box office game.

Now, this film wasn't released in theaters.

Okay.

But we're going to play it anyway, I guess.

Can we do the Spain weekend?

What do we do?

Do we do the weekend that goes to Blockbuster?

I think we do the weekend that goes to Blockbuster.

Okay.

Don't you think?

I mean, here's an interesting question.

I love interesting questions.

Is it possible to find what the top rental or home video sales were the weekend it went to Blockbuster?

Ooh,

I play the homebox office game.

Ben is looking at me so angrily.

Ben keeps trying to.

I don't think so.

I don't know where to find it.

I just think respect the idea.

I don't mind the idea.

I just would need, I think, to prep for that because I have no idea how to do it.

It was a really cute idea.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

Applause break.

Participation troops.

Pat myself on the back, literally.

So this film came out on DVD in America in 2008.

February something,

right?

I'm going to look it up.

February.

Come on, IMDB.

Don't let me down.

I'm not talking about when it premiered at the Maui Film Festival, February 26th.

Okay.

One week after my birthday.

Ooh.

Wow.

Yeah.

So you could have gone to see it if you wanted to.

Well, I could have gone to Red Tiff.

It was a blockbuster near my dorm at Cal Arts.

I was still there at the time.

Or at 2008.

How old are you, Karen?

I was 13, and I know one movie that came out in 2008.

You know, one movie that came in.

Well, I mean, I'm sure I know more, but the one I know for certain, well, actually, now that I say it, I don't know if it's true.

Throw it out.

I can't wait for it.

Is it Mamma Mia?

I think Mamma Mia came out in 2008.

Yes, it did.

It did, but it didn't come out.

It didn't grace our screens until July.

Of course.

It's a summer.

It was counter-programming to the dark night.

It's a pre-Mamma Mia world.

So instead,

we're going to do the weekend of February 29th, 2008.

A new film this week is a comedy, kind of a bad comedy, a sports comedy.

It's new this week.

It's not semi-pro.

Is it like Airbud 5?

It's not Airbud 5.

It is semi-pro, opening to $18.9 million.

You know what I'm realizing?

What's that?

I dropped out of CalArts the day before my birthday.

So this is the first week of me being back in New York.

My brother and I went to see Semi-Pro, and I'm like, I'm backseeing movies in New York multiplexes.

So did you drop out because your birthday was approaching?

And you're dropped out because I was

violently depressed.

And then I was just like, I'm setting the date of February 18th to get the fuck out of here because I want to go back returning to New York for my birthday.

Purposes, as we say.

Right.

High five in people.

And then people were like, what's your plan?

I was like, I don't fucking know.

Well, you went to see Semi-Pro, which just isn't that good.

Yeah.

I just had to adjust in my mind because I was like thinking what movies would I have seen at the end of the day.

I understood for eight, but now I'm realizing.

I've been in the opinion of Semi-Pro.

Sucks.

It's really weird.

Yeah, it sucks.

What's weird about it is it is.

Have you seen Semi-Pro?

No.

Did I?

It's based on a true story.

No.

Oh, okay.

Loosely.

Incredibly loosely, but it's in that vein of the Will Farrell comedy vehicle of the 2000s.

The Will Farrell sports comedy was reigning supreme.

Your king of king and screaming, your blades of glory.

And they were like, here's the next one in that great lineage, Semi-Pro, Will Farrell with an Afro doing 70s basketball.

Oh, and the bizarre thing about the movie is that Woody Harrelson is second build and is like the lead of the movie.

And he's playing kind of like a right, like a washed-up NBA guy who's fallen into this

ABA.

Right, but he's kind of playing it like a real guy, and he's sort of doing like in a more grounded like sports dramedy.

Interesting.

And then they just interweave it with like Will Farrell hijinks, where he's the manager of the team who's also a player, but he's bad.

Yeah.

And he's like kind of just an attention whore.

And so he does all these stunts to get people in the crowd.

So then there'll be like a big Will Farrell set piece, and then it's like Woody Harrelson going to his ex-wife Maura Tyranny and being like, Look, I know I fucked up, but I'm trying to make good again.

It's a very strange movie.

Not a good movie.

Not good.

Ben, did you see Semi-Pro?

Nope.

Okay.

Number two at the box office is a

political thriller.

February 2000.

Humble calf.

It's not vantage point, is it?

It is Pete Travis's vantage point, Griffin.

You are so sick and weird.

Thank you.

How many Oscar winners are in the cast of Vantage Point?

You've got

two.

Porse Woodkirker, Zoe Saldania.

Oh, that's right.

Zoe now has an Oscar.

Three Oscar winners.

Those two plus

William Hurt.

And then, of course, the Gournie Weavers in it.

Nominee.

Multiple nominee.

Yeah.

Dennis Quaid.

got a nom.

Never got a nom.

Snubb for Far From Heaven.

Yeah.

Snubbed for the Parent Trap.

Snubbed for the Parent Trap, of course.

Because they didn't have the hottest dad in the history of movies category yet.

Best winery.

People should have me on when you do an episode about all the hot dads in cinema.

Well, we have done a lot.

I know.

It's really upsetting that I'm.

It's a tragedy that you weren't on.

I've got to do it again.

My sister, who I think is about the same age trap.

Yeah.

We took our little cousins to see Parent Trap at the Nighthawk recently.

Wow.

And Dennis Quaid came on screen, and my sister turned to me and she was like, I'm realizing this performance kind of fucked me up for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't really processed it until this moment.

That's true.

There are actually so many dads like that where you go back and you watch Captain Von Trapp.

Child.

Kind of the original.

The Dad and Totoro absolutely fucked me up.

Okay, but The Dad and Totoro is a different vibe.

And I love The Dad and Totoro.

That's sort of like bookish, warm, you know, sweetie pie,

hot, jacked, naked.

Karen just like starts taking us down this road.

I'm like, he's so sweet with his kids.

And Karen's like, yeah, sweet in a hot way.

He's in a hot tub.

He does get, which was for a long time.

I thought my mother, my mother, my, I don't know what my mother used to tell her.

My daughter's favorite part of the movie was when they were all in the tub together because they yell.

Yes, yeah, and she likes how they yell because they're trying to scare off this quick.

So wait, who else, Karen?

Tim Alin the Santa Claus.

Oh, Tama two.

Tim Alin and the Santa Claus.

Tim Alin and the Santa Claus three.

Tim Allen and Jungle the Jungle.

Jamalin voicing Buzz Lightyear.

Yeah.

You see a chin on that guy?

Vantage point.

Have you seen Vantage Point?

I've not.

It's like a Rashamon-esque thing.

Like there's an assassination attempt and we learn all of the vantage points.

I haven't seen it from different fantasies.

I haven't seen it.

Neither have I.

Okay.

Well, we're going to move on then to a costume drama that is

horrendously

Justin Chadwick's The Other Boleyn girl oh my gosh in which natalie portman plays and boleyn and scarlet johansen plays that hussy mary boleyn who we all forget henry first had the affair with before he changed his sights on ann this is a period of releases that i remember so vividly eric bonna at the end tail end of his movie star career like stomping around as henry the eighth fucking embarrassing himself i had like spent like six seven months in a suburb outside of california where i could take a bicycle to the one multiplex and only see things that were playing there or I had to talk someone to driving me to a theater if there was something else I wanted to see.

And this is like the first week I'm back in New York and I'm like, I have autonomy.

I'm riding trains.

Everything's playing.

So I remember every fucking movie that came out in this time period.

Wow.

Have you seen the other Berlin Girl?

No.

Do you care to learn about British history, Henry VIII?

You know, all this stuff?

Like Wolf Hall?

Exactly.

So stick with that.

I would say the other Berlin Girl isn't going to offer you more shading.

No, I'm just saying Wolf Hall is a little more humanist, realistic.

That's good stuff.

I'm also just like, is it going to make sense if I haven't seen the first balloon girl?

Oh, boy.

Now you want to tell me about the other one?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Number four at the box office is an adaptation of a young adult fantasy series.

No.

Is it in the 10?

Is it in the 10?

Is Inkheart in the 10?

No.

No.

When did I come?

I love Inkheart.

Thank you.

I think Inkheart came out in January 2008.

Yeah, and like, so you thought Inkheart made it all the way to late February?

That thing fell out of theater.

Okay, so

It came out January 2009.

So it's not out till next year.

No, no.

This is sort of similar to Inkhart.

Inkhart, though, I feel like, has the page

of the Chronicles, is it?

He doesn't let me finish.

The Spider-Wick Chronicles is the correct answer.

Mark Waters is the Spider-Wick Chronicles starring little Good Doctor himself, Freddie Highmore.

Never seen it.

David Strathairn, Mary Louise Parker.

It's got a weirdly good cast.

I've never seen it.

Yeah, Seth Rogan's in it, apparently.

He must be a voice actor.

I'm a goblin.

Something like that.

Yep.

He's a bird-eating hobgoblin called Dog Squeal.

That was incredible.

That was such a great.

Yeah.

Have you seen Spider-Wick?

No, I haven't.

You haven't opened the Chronicles?

No, I haven't.

But you know what?

I have opened the other Chronicles of Narnia.

A bigger deal.

A bigger deal.

What about Riddick?

You heard those tales?

No, wait, what?

This guy can see so well in the dark.

It's nuts.

Wait, okay.

Random.

Do you guys, did you guys ever read Charlie Bone?

Charlie?

What is this?

I was trying to describe this to somebody, and it felt like I was making it.

Yeah, that sounds like you hit your head

one of your famous concussions and came up with a young adult thing.

Yeah, my friend was like, Are you trying to read?

Children of the Red King,

a series of 10 fantasy books.

Yes, and it's, but when I was describing it out loud, it just sounds like someone mistakenly having a bad memory trying to recall Harry Potter.

It's like 10-year-old Charlie Bone discovers he has a special power.

So far, we're in Harry Potter land.

He goes to a magic school, but it's a weekly school where he comes back home on the weekend.

Dude, this sounds good.

It's amazing.

Bloor's Academy?

Yes, it's a good thing.

But Mr.

Ominous and his three magical cats?

Is it good?

I loved it as a kid.

I never made a movie of this, though.

I don't know.

So I'm not aware of it.

Well, I'm seeing on Wikipedia the film adaptations tab.

Let's see.

In 2023, Amazon announced that it was in the works.

Joseph finds Carmen a Jogo.

Okay.

Who knows what's come of it since.

Series or film?

Film.

I was going to say, this is the era, 2008, where it's like everyone trying to identify what the next Harry Potter is, and all of them either basically tap out at two or the first one bumps.

There's a lot of these, and then I feel like 10 years later, it becomes we're going to do it for TV instead.

Yeah.

But the sort of like Percy Jackson hits a wall at two.

Yes, I loved Percy Jackson.

Mortal Instruments never gets off the ground.

Right, Artemis Fowl?

Artemis Foule.

I mean, that's all.

There's a lot of these, though.

You're absolutely right.

Aragon.

Aragon.

Wait, I recently.

The whole thing with Aragon was that it was like a child wrote this, and you're like, don't brag about it.

It's fine for adults to write.

We don't need to hand them over to children.

Also, I recently realized that Aragon is just dragon, but the first letter swapped, and I was so upset.

Yeah, you know what that sounds like?

Something like the title can be.

Something like a 10-year-old will come up with that.

They're like, just print it.

Yeah.

This shit sells.

This book was written by a teenager.

You'll never believe it, but he was homeschooled.

Yeah, check this out.

Oh, my God.

Makes sense.

So, but no one's ever done the tripod trilogy.

There's like, there's certain like young adult shit I read as a kid that has never been.

Bruce Coville has never been done in a proper way.

Right.

You love.

I fucking love those books.

But they did them for TV.

They did a TV movie once or whatever.

They did a couple of them.

But it's like, come on.

Like, there's still stuff on the vine.

Ben looks so upset at me.

Okay, number five in the box.

That's a tripod trilogy.

Tripod trilogy is cool.

It's awesome.

It's spooky.

Yeah.

You hear they're doing the gender swapped holes.

Oh, I did hear about this, but I was excited because the main character is one of the girls from the babysitters club.

Look, they announced good people.

I did have a little bit of a what are we doing here reaction where I'm like, was this a leftover memo from 2018 where they were like, I don't know, holes, but girls?

But the thing with holes is it's like the book's good and the movie's good.

Must we write?

That's a good question.

I don't know.

Like, it's like, we kind of did it right, right?

We all agree that holes is good.

Quick roundup of David's points during this thing.

Women should not be a comedy.

Some of those are jokes.

The only good women are high school girls.

No gender swapping.

Keep the boys boy.

Women can't dig holes.

I'll say that.

I've never read Holes.

It's a great book.

I know it's well loved.

And I like the movie.

I only saw it the one time, but I know it's beloved.

Right.

People still talk about that movie fondly.

Yes.

But yeah, maybe.

What does somebody dig hole?

They're in like a younger.

They're like in a...

correctional like it's like a kid

spoil holes but the plot threads come together very well it's like told cross-cut between that and the stories of this like old west outlaw lady.

Right.

And then

all the threads come together in a very satisfying way.

But it is right.

It was an excellent book.

I feel like it's one of the most kind of like now below classic long-term children's books.

It's like a the giver.

It's on that.

It's on the it's kind of on the immortal list.

And then they made a movie where everyone was like, wow, pleasantly surprised.

They adapted this well.

They hired good people.

And you're like, just doing it with girls instead doesn't feel like, oh, we have a really new inn.

Karen roasted us.

I feel like we should just support it.

We should just say it's good.

Old girl boss gang.

Look.

Remember when they made a movie of The Giver and it stunk?

That was so uncomfortable.

Yeah, but they tried to make the giver in the style of all the movies.

I know.

Fucking they were doing like a young adult fantasy.

They did it as if it was like divergence.

Really?

Yeah.

Interesting.

Because in the giver.

Meryl Streep is in it and Jeff Bridges, like,

Taylor Swift is in it.

Wait, what?

But they aged them all up to like teenagers, so it could be more like post-Twilight moody drama, romance.

Look, what's important is that

Fifth at the Box Office is another book adaptation, kind of young adulty,

a little more mainstream action kind of franchisee.

It's not jumper, is it?

It is jumper.

Why are you doing this?

I told you this.

This is a very old.

You were leaving crawlage.

It was a big moment.

I was leaving crawling.

I made the bad choice to go to university of crawling.

I was just like, why am I going backwards?

I already learned that.

You know what?

I was living in Paris at the time.

Whoa.

That is Dave McCain's sexiest period where he went to Paris.

He lived in Paris and he was a bartender.

Yeah, we have to be understanding because in Paris, they call college crawlage.

Crawl.

I go to crawlage.

Yeah, Jumper, which is also bad.

Really bad.

Yeah.

Doug Lyman's.

Have you seen Jumper?

No.

Dating Christian plays someone who learns to teleport.

Whoa.

And our friend James

plays

a bit of a rap scallion.

He's another jumper.

Named Griffin.

The other thing with that movie, it's the same fucking thing as the giver.

The characters in the book are like 12.

They announced it.

It was cast with 12 year olds.

And then like a month before filming, the head of Fox went to Doug Lyman and is like, 12 year olds aren't cool.

Oh, no.

Don't you want this to be a blockbuster?

Cast older.

And they dropped the whole cast.

It starts the first 15 minutes of them as 12-year-olds.

And then it like jumps ahead.

And then he was like, Hayden Christensen is box box office gold rewrite this for hayden christensen and i'll give you an extra 20 million dollars in the budget jesus and the movie sucks yes and hayden is not good in it but it's stuck in a weird zone between being like a ya thing and trying to be like a cooler edgier like matrixy thing right

so that's the top five number six at the box office is step up to the streets oh i watched that Harry Shum Jr.

was in it and I thought he was so handsome.

Harry Shum Jr.

is a very good looking guy who's a very good dancer.

I think I was just really excited to see like an Asian person, and then I don't think he had any lines.

Well, I mean, lines aren't really the point of the step-up movies, it's not really about what they're

doing.

But he had his steps, and you know what?

He did, he did.

One of the greatest titles of all time: Step Up to the Streets, no colon.

Yes, uh, number seven at the box office is the that's what makes it good.

No, colon.

I'm talking about that, because you're like, oh, what?

It's called Step Up to Colon the Streets.

No, it's a command,

but it kind of makes you think about asking you to step up to the streets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Number six of the box office is the flop, ish, vague flop, Fool's Gold with

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson and they're searching for treasure.

You know what's funny about that movie?

What?

It's nothing.

Unrepentant dog shit.

Who made it?

It's Andy Flickman, I want to say.

Andy Tennant.

Fuck.

I get Flickman and Tennant.

Okay.

Did he also do How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days?

I feel like was it an exact reteam?

Yeah, sure.

Andy Flickman's the guy who did the one where like the rock plays football or whatever.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

Game plan.

Number eight at the box office is New Country for Old Men.

Ooh.

Now that's quite a good one.

Which, of course, is about to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

We will be covering it soon on this podcast.

That's also true.

That's also true.

And number nine at the box office new this week is the

Christina Ricci sort of sundance hit mega flop Penelope.

Oh, she's a lady with a pig nose.

Right, that's what that is, right?

The plot of that movie is Christina Ricci has a pig nose and she has to wear a scarf over her face so that people don't judge her.

And James McAvoy's her love interests, and I think Rhys Witherspoon plays like a badass biker lady.

Okay.

Rhys Witherspoon produced it.

Yes, she did.

And number 10 at the box office, which I did see this one, I think I saw it in France, but I'm not sure.

Might have seen it in England.

Was the somewhat charming romantic comedy, Definitely Maybe

Ryan Reynolds Pretty Trump and Rachel Weiss and Elizabeth Binks.

Wow.

It's kind of cute.

I haven't seen it, but it sounds like something I would really like.

It's kind of like what we, you know, Reynolds said his most calm.

Okay.

This still doing a little bit of his like bullshit, but this era

I was so all in and Ryan Reynolds.

And I was like, what do I have to do to get the public on board with this guy as a movie star?

And the public

and I dream.

And now I live in a hell of my own wishing.

I don't like anything he does anymore.

And we've like lost like this era of like just friends definitely maybe

fucking Adventureland, which is his best performance.

I'm just saying this in a group chat of ours.

They announced

Just Friends is coming out on Blu-ray.

And Alex Russ Perry was joking, like, who is going to buy this?

Never buy this.

And I was like, I've been writing letters to Congress for years.

And you were like, I dreamed of a world where this was the kind of thing he did.

And Alex, and I dream of a world where he doesn't exist and never never did.

Yes, I thought it was a good rejoinder.

How do you feel about Ryan Reynolds?

Oh, I think I always forget he exists.

And then when I relearn about him, I'm a little bit annoyed.

There you go.

That's a great.

That's how I felt when he popped up on SNL 50, where I was like, oh.

And then I was like, all right, can we be done?

Can we push?

You like Ryan Reynolds?

He's your favorite actor, right?

You told me that recently.

No.

Ben is currently wearing a Ryan Reynolds t-shirt.

Yes, he is.

And it says, like, dead.

It's him crossed out.

Oh, no.

You've also got Juno still hanging around in the box.

What's Juno up to at this point?

$135 million.

So it's still going to make another $30.

That's crazy.

You've got the Martin Lawrence,

is it Martin Lawrence?

Yeah, Martin Lawrence film, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.

Oh, yeah.

And you've got Be Kind, Rewind.

Yeah.

My most anticipated movie of 2008 did not live up to expectations.

Not a very good movie.

Now an interesting curio, but at the time, I was like, Michelle Gondry is going to make a fucking Jack Black Most Def movie where they have to remake all the most popular blockbusters of the last 50 years.

It did.

I mean, look, it kind of.

It's a great premise.

It's a great premise.

And like, it does have the lasting legacy of people doing the thing.

Yeah, whatever.

Rewinding.

Making your own like low-budget cardboard.

shot-for-shot recreations.

Yeah.

Even that feels kind of out of date.

Yeah, but it lasted for a couple of years.

Karen, what's up with you?

What should we plug?

Oh, nothing.

What?

Yeah.

What are you in and LA doing?

Oh, I have been working on a show.

Right.

And it was a lot like this movie.

I worked on a show called A Man on the Inside.

It's like a sweet, a little mystery comedy starring Ted Danson, and he's having a pretty good time.

It's on Netflix, right?

Yeah, season one is on Netflix.

I've been working on season two.

Right.

That when hopefully will also be on Netflix.

Champion Your Would be weird if it wasn't.

Yeah, it would be strange.

But I would love to plug, I think I would just love to plug Yo-Yo Ma.

He's amazing.

That guy doesn't get enough.

It's actually rude we've never had him on the show.

Yo-Yo Ma's funny.

Yeah.

Anytime Yo-Yo Ma does a little cameo or a little like talking head thing, I'm like, Yo-Yoma's funny.

Does he like vamps?

Has he seen vamps?

Yo-yo ma, you like vamps?

My friend was at Carnegie Hall recently, and he said the cello cases or the cello, the things holding cellos are orange now.

Oh.

And he he was disturbed by this was he at the yo yama concert on thursday i think he was wow incredible i don't know he was talking to me about this wow but it was i don't have enough for you on this i'm sorry we can cut that out of the episode no keep it in and double it down

can i share a little paul rudd story please was he at uh the spotted pig one time um

i don't think so okay fair enough uh my friend nate

who has been helping me out with getting to the gym shout out to nate you've been are you saying nate's your trainer or you've been

making it sound like nate's sort of like a accountability buddy but he also knows to stray around the gym in a way where like i'm so rusty and just like i feel out of sorts so i just need someone to be like do this and what's the address of your gym and and when do you go there i just want to say ben says i have a story to share i look over at karen karen mouths to me i have to go

and it's like

ben starts telling the story in the slowest way possible

the calendar said we'd be done at four i'm sorry I'm sorry.

No, it's all podcast is built on lies.

That's okay.

Can I use the bathroom?

Yeah, guys, absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

So you use the bathroom.

We'll tell you whether or not the Paul Rudd story is worth hearing when you get out.

Okay, finish the story.

Nathan's been keeping you accountable at the gym.

Yes.

And so Nate used to work for the Stuttering Association for the Young.

Paul Rudd is really involved with that nonprofit.

He had like a role, like a Broadway show, Three Days of Rain, and got involved with the organization.

With Julie Roberts and Bradley Cooper.

One of the most tech Broadway casts ever, weirdly.

And so he now does an annual fundraiser where he basically has like a bowling event.

Yeah, and like gets celebrities to come out.

And so Nate was running that event and got to hang out with Paul Rudd a bunch.

And he sucks and is really mean.

No, he's like the best fucking guy.

Like, of course.

But so Paul Rudd, though, showed him about this bit that he's been doing.

Is it the finger thing?

Yes.

Do you know about this, David?

All right.

So I'm texting.

I know he has a thread.

Well, he's got like...

It's like an invite-only bar.

It's not like an actual business.

It's like he's built an Irish pub in the basement of his house, which I've heard is rad as hell.

Yeah.

So he has this bit that he's been doing where he holds his finger up in front of the camera of the cell phone in just a way where it looks like a butt.

It looks like a butt with, and then he has a modified version of it where he can make it look like you're seeing the back of a ball sack underneath the butt.

And so to bring up Graham Norton, he tells the story on the Graham Norton show.

Right.

Yes.

I remember seeing him on some talk show give the walkthrough of how to do it.

Yeah.

But I sent over a couple of pictures that

illustrated how to do it effectively.

Yeah, yeah.

We can post those to social, of course.

Okay.

Will you text this one with Ben's face to Karen right now?

I'll text it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then this is going to be right without context because you missed the story.

Let's just see how you respond to this.

Karen, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

So sorry we kept you so long.

No, it's okay.

Do you want to drop that letterbox handle?

Are we trying to keep that private?

Oh my gosh, no, it's just my name.

My name is Karen and my last name is Chi.

I'm pretty sure it's Kenny Chi Ben.

Right, because you'd be logging.

Right, right, right, right, right.

I should change it to IB logins.

We just sent you a picture of Ben doing a finger trick that looks like a paper.

Oh, give it away.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Wait, what do you want me to look at?

Just look at the photo.

Just look and smile.

It's a Paul Rudd thing.

Oh, what?

That's why I was preparing her.

It seems a little aggressive to text it out of context.

It's a trick where you hold your finger in front of the lens and it looks like there's a butt.

Oh,

you know what?

This doesn't really look like a butt.

Yeah, I don't know how well-bent it is.

Okay, well, those are just examples.

Paul Rudd, I'm sure, is like a pro lad.

Yeah, he's the best of everything.

You want to do another round?

Do you want to try it again, but be nice about it?

I'm so late to meet my aunt, though.

I do have to go.

Thank you you all.

I love listening.

It is so funny that you have a busy schedule today that it's your aunts.

And you got to go see your aunt.

So get out of here.

Big ups to Karen's aunt.

Thank you for having me.

Tune in next week for Vamp's with our friend Caroline Framke returning to the show for the first time in way too long.

Way too long.

And as always.

Fuck.

All right.

Don't stay all right.

Help me out here.

Kenny V.

Loggin.

Kenny B.

Login.

Kenny B.

Login.

Buck's story was worth it.

Okay.

So worth it.

So worth it.

I mean, glad to hear he's a nice guy.

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.

Birch.

Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

Our production assistant is Minic.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

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This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.