Loser with Chandler Levack

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

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

I got two tickets to Griffin and David.

Baby,

come with me Friday.

Don't maybe

keep going.

I'm just a

I'm just a teenage podcast, baby, like you.

I got in over my head.

Can you name

the lead singer of Wheatus to me?

No, do you think there's anything I could have done to get people to turn off this episode faster?

I was sort of stuck halfway through.

Brendan Brown is doing his voice, and I feel like that's the one where they have like the female vocalist come in for that one part.

Oh, yeah.

Right?

Uh-huh.

Come with me, Friday.

You're definitely.

I'm off on both.

I was about to say, like, and I'm not here to like defend Wedus's honor, but I do think you're doing them just service.

It's not that bad.

No, I'm making it terrible.

Hey, look, I enjoy that song quite a bit.

I had put it to bed.

You had.

You know, it was in the ground.

You're very good at putting things to bed.

You got to put three kids to bed a night.

You just did it.

Yeah.

And I hear it right over the credits of this film.

Yeah.

And of course, I'm like, and then I'm immediately saying to forking, I'm watching this movie with my wife.

Your wife Forky.

My poor wife.

Utensil wife.

We wanted to finish Andor, but no, no, no.

Forking.

Loser has to take precedence.

And I'm like, right, you remember this song?

This was, this song is from this movie.

No one remembers that it's from this movie.

This song was like 10 times more popular than this movie, but the video does have clips from this movie in it.

Not only that, it has new footage.

It has both.

It has clips from the Amy Heckerling film Loser, and it has Jason Biggs and Mina Savari acting out the plot of the song Teenage Dirtbag, which is quite different from the plot of Loser.

It has a double dose of Biggs and Savari.

And yeah, right.

Yeah.

And

then I was just sort of like, so what, what's the deal with Weedus?

Because were they new?

This was like, it's not like Weedus had been around.

This was their...

Wow.

Yeah.

Is it the movie that broke the band?

Yes.

Or is it the band that broke the movie?

Well, the movie didn't break.

The movie broke nothing.

So that's my question.

It's like, how did this

actually

sort of surpass the movie?

Well, just let me say this.

Okay.

The reason I mangled that song is because to your point, I'm looking at this movie.

I'm looking at the quotes page on IMDb.

I'm like, huh, all of these quotes are very hostile.

These are not fun things to recite.

Is it because they're all about Rahibnal?

Yeah, is it because it's very different?

This is kind of like a rancid movie.

Like, not in even like a

quality way.

Ben and I just

watched this together.

And like, three minutes in, I turned to him and I went, is she trying to do salons?

Kind of.

Kind of.

Oh, that's interesting.

Right.

I mean, like, supposedly she's trying to do the apartment.

Right.

Which I totally see.

Like, which, like, the sort of basic hook is by way of happiness.

But it's with this 90s.

I mean, my whole thing is like at a certain point.

It kind of has a bad Woody Allen movie quality.

It's got a lot of different bad

qualities.

Sorry, sorry.

As bad as anything else, the Woody Allen movie that Justin Biggs is in.

Right.

Oh, a very, very, I have not seen that movie

about it.

We'll talk about Biggs.

But no, no, just around half hour in, I think, for me too.

Me and my wife are yelling at each other.

And not in a way where we're angry at each other.

We are both so thrown by the tone of this movie and the plot of this movie.

But she's also googling divorce on grounds of making me watch loser.

My husband is a loser.

We're just like, I don't understand.

I don't, we're just both like kind of like having a bit of a panicky, like, why is it like this?

And then we see that quote that's on the Wikipedia page from 20 years later where Heckerling's like, well, they wanted it to be an R-rated movie.

Right.

And that sort of settled us down truly.

We were like, okay, okay, maybe that helps us.

Something Something off here.

Sensitive.

Heckerly has said since that it was written, designed, shot, greenlit as an R-rated movie.

And then at some point, the studio panicked and insisted it had to be PG-13.

And she said, that is the one mistake of that movie.

That's not the only

mistake.

But certainly, if you're like, oh, this is an R-rated movie that they dialed down just enough.

to get a rating on it.

But she said didn't lose the tone.

I agree.

With this in the abstract, she said audience can tell when a movie is not what it's trying to be, and that there was just like a rejection of something's broken in this.

And yet, I think even in an R-rated cut, I would still probably have all the same larger questions.

Notes?

I have a lot of questions.

And story and characterization.

Okay, quotes.

I'm like, nothing here.

What's the tagline for this movie?

Dare to be different, loser.

And that's terrible.

This movie isn't remembered.

The only thing it's remembered for is launching Teenage Dirtbag.

So I might as well quote the song from the soundtrack poorly over anything that's actually

in the text of the movie itself.

That Teenage Dirtbag did like 10 times better than this movie.

Teenage Shirtbag is absolutely just a one-hit wonder.

And they totally solved after a week.

I mean, there are things to discuss in the culture around this movie, and that is one of them.

On this podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin.

I'm David.

It's a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers, you start out your fucking career with Fast Times at Richmond High.

Sure.

And are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion products they want.

Sometimes those checks clear, like clueless, and sometimes they bounce like her direct follow-up to clueless

loser.

Tough.

Our guest today, we were talking about this last night and was flummoxed when I told her that this is the direct follow-up.

Right.

That there's nothing in between except the clueless TV loser.

I must have had some kind of cultural amnesia.

Right.

We all.

I mean, there's the clueless TV show.

There's the clueless TV show.

But I will say, and we were recording a little bit out of order.

Wow.

So this is the last Heckerling we're recording, but there are obviously two more that will come out after this.

Two very normal movies.

Two of the most normal movies we've ever covered on this show.

And a fact that I got wrong

that JJ is now corrected in the loser dossier is that she basically stepped back.

during the first season of Clueless.

And by the time it jumps over UPN, she's basically out.

So that

makes even less sense.

Well,

we're going to talk about

it.

Who's our guest?

This is a mini series on the films of Amy Hackerlin.

Whatever.

It's called Pod Times at Richmond Cast.

It's not called Cast Times at Richmond Pod because that would break the cardinal rule of the show, which is that pod has to go before cast.

Is that a cardinal rule?

In my mind, yeah.

I don't think it's ever come up before.

Run it by the cardinal.

They just had their conclave.

Give them a break.

Okay.

So that got them all back together.

So that's why I just picked the Lumalnatti guy.

Fucking Pizza Pope.

The deep dish.

The sandwich pope.

The beef sandwich pope.

It's so funny that everyone's like, hey, a Chicago Pope.

And it's like this serene man who lived in Peru for decades.

He's like, hello, how are you?

And everyone's like, oh, white socks, baby.

Because it's announced that everyone's like, God, the fact that we didn't get a Smigel sketch about this in 96, right?

That Chris Farley couldn't have played Chicago Pope in like a paramount picture.

Like a duh Pope.

Right?

Exactly.

It writes itself.

And then you see the real guy and you're like, this is the calmest American I have seen in decades.

He has no over-the-top characteristics.

I'm like, this guy seems balanced as hell.

Hell, like we did.

10 years, like he would, they exercise the Chicago from him or whatever.

Right.

Today we were talking about Loser.

Yeah.

Not Amazon Grilling's last film, but her last studio picture.

I guess that's right.

Yeah.

Wow.

It's the 25th anniversary of Loser.

Everyone can't stop talking about it.

And today, joining us for the first time on the show.

We have broken the Cardinal rule.

I had to check this.

Okay.

Casted the Podhecans.

Fuck.

I was.

That might be it.

Because listeners have been like, why the fuck wouldn't he do cast times when AST is right there in the title?

A fair question.

And I was like, the rule must be upheld.

But now I'm realizing it was all for not.

We've only casted the podhead.

And that's the thing.

That was an AST.

I had to.

Fuck.

Yeah.

Can I tell you?

Decade of nightmares.

Who's our guest, please?

Our guest today is the great Chandler Levak, director of I Like Movies.

Say your name louder.

I didn't get the last name incorrect, did I?

You did.

Fuck.

I knew you were going to get it wrong.

It's okay.

You brought the biggest loser of them all.

Not true.

Chandler Levac.

Thank you.

Yes.

There we go.

Hard ACK.

Like the Kathy Card.

Kathy.

Back Ak, right, Kathy.

Mars Attacks.

Yes.

Director of I Like Movies.

One of my favorite films the last couple of years, which I've called.

I've shouted out a lot.

Oh, thanks, Griff.

Yeah.

Thank you for the supporting actress nomination at the Blankies.

Very.

Deserved.

Incredible performance.

Another name I believe I mispronounced in that episode.

Romina Dugo?

Dugo.

Fuck.

You're doing great.

I'm not.

I'm a mess.

I'm a mess.

Nothing throws me more than Canadian names, apparently.

Yeah.

I don't know if Romina's Canadian.

She is.

There you go.

Yeah.

Dan, I'm checking for my notes here.

Akiroidi.

He is in this movie.

I don't know if you noticed that.

Oh, yeah.

He's a very doting dad.

Kind of.

Midwestern father.

He kind of brings the thunder for a couple scenes.

I'm going to say it.

He's pretty good.

We're going to talk about it.

Jamie Simpson, though.

That's my guy.

Channel.

Well, there's guys.

And I am.

A couple of guys.

And Zach Worth, who I love.

Okay.

I love Zach Worth.

There's a lot to talk about.

Tom Sadowski.

That's the one where I had

a brain aneurysm.

I I was sent to the hospital for 50 weeks.

And then I came out of it and I was like, you're sure that's Toma Sadowski.

Right.

I was like, this guy, I was certain Tom Sadowski was born at the age of 37

straight into the second stage rep company.

Again, my wife had to witness it when I was, you know, oh, Jimmy Simpson.

And then, because I guess I wasn't paying attention during the credits.

And then I see Sadowski and I'm like, who is that?

Yeah.

Like she's going to know.

And I'm like.

Who is that?

Yes.

And then when I find out it's him, I was like, he looks like this now.

And my wife was was like, okay.

And I was like, you don't understand.

This is so far from what this guy's settled on.

Right.

One of the great normal guy, quote unquote, character.

You know what I love Sadowski in?

What?

Sadowski blocked me on Twitter, by the way.

For what?

I have no idea.

I truly don't think you were going to review Loser.

The premise of the podcast is like, they'll get to Heckerling within a decade.

I just remember that he blocked me on Twitter.

I love him in John Wick.

He never looks back.

Yeah.

He just shows up in that one scene being like, hey, John, how you doing?

Yeah.

Chandler, Ben, are you familiar with who Tom Sadowski?

Hey, do you know who we're talking about?

I don't.

He's one of the three bad guys.

He's the sort of gothy one with the painted nails.

Yes, possibly.

Possibly the most evil of the three.

Yes.

He's the most aggressively evil.

Yes.

He's the most evil.

And then Zach Orth, who's the kind of bigger one, is kind of...

He's evil.

And then Jimmy Simpson is sort of stupid.

And he's become this great character actor who kind of plays like slightly offbeat normal guy types.

Wow.

And is the ultimate just kind of looks like a dude.

He was on the newsroom.

He does a ton of theater.

He was, wasn't he in Always Sunny as a recurring part?

No, that's Jimmy Simpson.

Okay.

Who's one of the McPoyle twins?

Right, right.

This is the guy with the darker hair, and he's like really a pretty boy, and he's got the painted nails and the sort of stud bracelet and whatever.

He's the one who's fully nude, I think, in one scene.

We were trying to parse what, like, his dick was out or something.

I think, again, this is an artist.

That's what Amy Heckerling wants.

She gets to get her fast times retribution.

My, my,

my, under, what I could sort of gauge.

His shirt is open and his nips are out.

I think he's wearing essentially like a sort of G-string, maybe, or something.

You know what I mean?

Like, I think he's wearing a sort of G-string, maybe.

The thing with Sadosky.

Syllable for syllable, perfect.

It was great.

He worded it in a way

perfectly.

It looks like this.

I just couldn't sing it.

It looks normal.

He's the guy in the newsroom, though, who tells

the pilot on a plane that they got

in one of those clips.

Clip recapitulates all scenes the newsrooms.

The point is,

he is such an evil pretty boy in this that's very incongruous with who he turned out to be.

But also, he is married to Amanda Saifried.

That's right.

Yes.

Wow.

They have two children together and live in upstate New York.

She plays her fucking harpsichord.

Go off.

She does.

Yeah.

She plays the harpsichord?

She plays funky instruments.

Oh, yeah.

I saw her Joni Mitchell.

Yes.

Beautiful.

She plays the Dulcimer.

There we go.

That's a nice one.

Here Amanda Safried play Enchanting Joni Mitchell song on the the Dulcimer.

But like, what, on the tonight show?

On the fucking tonight show?

On the tonight show.

Fallon's just like, this is great.

Well, she's like working the dulcimer.

Chandler, you are a writer-director.

Yes.

You are a Torontonian.

Sorry, this is a late night episode, so I'm a little jacked up.

We should say this.

So you are, we can't say what it is, but you are

in the tri-state area.

prepping a new movie.

And because of the absolute opposite schedules of someone who is prepping a motion picture and a podcaster who has three children, the only time we could make this work was 8 p.m.

on Memorial Day.

That's right.

This is our first evening record since like deepest, darkest.

There was a window where David Forky was pregnant.

Yeah.

And there was construction in my building that would run every day.

You had to do it at night.

From like 8 until 3.

And then by the time the construction stopped, your wife was off from work.

Yeah.

Zoom.

Did Zoom work.

And you were like, I have to take care of of her until she falls asleep.

I can't start recording until she's asleep.

Nine o'clock.

There were four months of episodes that would start at noon.

I mean, we didn't have a lot else going on.

No,

no, I would actually say it was quite a bad period of time.

What?

You sure?

But it does feel like the energy, this is an energy we haven't tapped into in a while.

I'm not drinking anything but lemonade.

Soda pop.

Oh, lemonade.

But I am a little joked up.

You are, you are a filmmaker.

You're a Torontonian.

You're here prepping a movie.

The best city in the world.

experience both filming in toronto and now getting ready to film in the tri-state area you told me last night that the apartment is basically your favorite movie of all time it is yeah

and and i love amy hackerling like deeply i heard you had gotten

this job and you were going to be in town and i reached out and it just felt like loser was a good fit and and you were like isn't that one of the big Toronto pretending to be New York movies.

I think I can weigh in on this very situation.

I can tell you on the metro there.

I can tell you every single location and what it actually is but like when he it's so jarring because there is some new york location stuff there is yeah and then he'll be on a subway platform or they'll be an insert shot of a subway of a new york and then they'll cut to the toronto metro yeah it's 100 the toronto well it's union station masquerading is grand central station yes right and then i think he's one no but there's one scene that's in grand central when she falls asleep that's grand in the sort of information yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but and i think they're using it like a sliver of Union Station as like an NYU classroom or library.

For the library, when there's like big chairs.

Yeah, with like the big bus of the heads and stuff.

Yes, absolutely.

Location.

And then you can see like they're in a Timothy's one, and you can see a great Canadian bagel sign, which was like a 90s Torado chain.

The movie store they go to is the review.

It's an old movie theater on the Dick.

David Spade?

Yeah, it's an old movie.

video store that a lot of my friends worked at.

Okay, so here's a question.

Did David Spade work there?

Would he like pop out and be be like, hey, buddy?

And they'd be like, aren't you on Just Shoot Me Now?

Like, I'm like, I'm not going on.

I can't do Spade.

Yeah.

And they walk past Lee's Palace, which is a, you know, famous like rock venue.

Of course.

He's shooting on the day and fourth.

But they say it's Webster Hall.

Like, that's the weird thing is they're picking very specific Canadian places, Toronto locations, and then just like doing 5% of effort to be like, no, it's actually this different version of the city.

I'm going to give them credit.

I think they do 10% of effort.

Okay.

I was, I was, apart from the subway, which you kind of can't fake.

It is just if you're using a different subway, it's going to look like it.

I know you're obviously a big,

you have such a bullshit detector for this kind of thing.

But when you're watching him on a subway car and you're like, there has never been an MTA car that looks like this.

I recognize the Toronto.

Of course.

But then they bother to put up the New York MTA map behind him.

There's always that sort of like, my brain is short-circuiting of like, you're putting

one real detail on the fake thing.

For sure.

That video story you said it's called uh it was called review cinema is it gone it's sadly gone yet but a lot of great canadian filmmakers work there like kazakh redwonski oh cool and uh my friend simon innes yeah yeah um did they do the uh organized by director thing they did i think i heard they had to actually reorganize the cinema for loser to make it more mainstream and wild because it was too art house and they they didn't but he does try to rent the piano yes he's between two blank check movies, The Piano and When Harry Mets Alley.

That's true.

And when David Spade is recommending Simon Birch to him, which Ben noticed is blurred out.

They blurred it out.

And I think they couldn't get the rights.

If they blurred it out in post or they blurred out the prop.

I couldn't tell either, but no, I think it's an actual Simon Birch case.

Just

fuzzy.

But no, then I think probably someone's like, hey, we didn't clear that.

Because there's another thing in this movie.

Is this a Columbia picture?

Yeah.

Sure.

The Coda.

I can't believe you brought a Blu-ray for this thing.

This is the hardest I have ever

worked to track down a physical copy

ever on this show.

Oh, my God.

It's an Australian-only release.

It doesn't have special features.

It doesn't have subtitles.

The menu has one button, which is just play.

It doesn't even have scene selection.

And it was like, I had to set up like so many fucking search alert, Google alert, eBay alerts, because these things never fucking go on sale.

But I got it.

Wow.

He got it.

Oh, was it?

Oh, the, you know, the not to cut to the code of this film, but there's a little post

ending, you know,

infos on like what happened to everybody, right?

There's two typos.

Yes.

And I was just like, did nobody, or was the vibe just kind of like, whatever, man, just get the fucking movie out.

The coda on this has big Mission Impossible Final Reckoning Energy where you're like, was this typed five minutes before I started watching the movie?

Anyway,

Loser.

Loser.

I didn't, I can't believe I didn't see this film in theaters, though.

It's kind of sandy.

Because, like, I loved Amy Heckerling.

I loved Clueless, and I went to see anything back in 2000.

I remember being really excited for it.

I was excited too, and then it got such horrible reviews.

I think I was hooked into the Weedus marketing.

Like, I think Weedis actually

got you.

It really did.

It got me through the door.

Well, asking, like, why did the Weedus song pop when this movie didn't, right?

I do think it is that thing of like having the double force of energy of like a record label that's trying to launch the weedest album and Columbia Pictures also putting their muscle behind it to try to use the song to promote the movie.

It felt like there were two forces pushing what is admittedly a very catchy song out there.

It has dirtbag in the title.

Totally.

I'm just empty.

It was guaranteed to be a hit.

You get a good catchy melody.

You fucking throw the word dirtbag in there.

But it's such a weird song.

It's turning about Iron Maiden.

And her boyfriend brings a gun to school.

It's him.

It's him relating some story from his past.

Yes.

And then they just go, but actually,

everyone's like, yeah, that's the part we like.

But if you've seen that in a karaoke bar

today, everyone will pop up.

It's like lighting in a bottle.

I mean,

are they, I always bring this up.

Like, Semisonic is the example I always think of.

Are they a band that has to open and close with Teenage Turpin?

Yeah.

It's my favorite thing to think about.

Absolutely.

People they come out and people are like

fucking do it right now.

They're like, okay, okay, okay.

And then at the end, they're like, you better do it again.

I'm not walking out of here without it again.

It feels like the song.

I saw Hansen recently.

Did they do Umbov twice?

They did do Umbov twice.

Wow.

Damn right.

And Hansen has at least a few other songs.

Between seven Bill Withers covers.

Like, I was like, I'm trying to see Hansen do Bill Withers songs.

Because Hansen rocks kind of

redone their whole vibe, right?

But they also know they can't do a show without playing with it.

They're actually very depressing and one of the the brother he drummed and ate a sandwich at the same song

um that that does uh rule what i misremembering no there isn't a handsome song in this the this timer like everything else the later hansen song i heard in something the other day where it almost like knocked my socks off this uh um soundtrack includes uh pretty Five for a White Guy by The Officer.

Oh, yeah.

Blue by Eiffel65.

What's My Age Again by Blink182?

Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang.

Two Bloodhound Gang songs.

Wow.

Aurora by the Foo Fighters.

Of course, a performance from Everclear for us.

Oh, S.

Yes.

Out of My Head, Fastball.

Another one hit one.

Yes.

And I don't remember this, but apparently the British boy band Five have a song called

That's when he has the graduation party.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, because I was like, what is this?

Fake fake in-sync song?

Also, like an SAT question.

Five were fake in-sync to a T.

Finished the pattern, of course.

Two further songs on this soundtrack: Scarborough Fair by Simon Garfunkel and Sonata in C major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

I don't know if we have to talk about it.

Those two made the CD.

Not the C D.

We have to talk about the long graduate homage that happens for Don Ross.

There's a long graduate homage.

You see a bit of cabaret performed.

You see it literally, like, right, it's an artifact.

You're watching Cabaret as the original survival.

I turned to Bess now.

I like,

I'm kind of glad they captured this.

It's wonderful.

That's one of the best scenes in the movie.

It is, I think, without a doubt the best scene in the movie.

There's not even anything that comes close.

Here's my favorite part of that scene: when the camera pans away from Jason Biggs and Mina Savari, and then just watches Alan Cumming tear up cabaret.

And then you're just like, fuck.

Fuck, this is real.

I didn't watch this.

You're like, I wish this was it.

The whole, the other, the thing, also, the thing with this movie is, again, I'm watching it with my wife.

Minus Suvari pops up.

And I'm like, this is Mina Suvari.

You know, Mina Suvari?

And she's like, no.

I mean, no.

And I'm like, right.

I guess it was basically like a two-year window.

Like, Minu Suvari's fame was brief.

It's so quick.

She's on.

She's three movies, American Pie, American Beauty, American Virgin.

They're all come out within 18 months of each other.

Correct.

I mean, American Virgin, of course, had Robert Lojan, Bob Hoskins.

Two guys you definitely want in a movie called American Virgin.

I was digging in and she has like three further American titles later.

She's got American two.

Let's not forget that.

And American Reunion.

Is she in that one?

Yeah.

I think she's not in wedding.

She's back for reunion.

Everyone was

back for reunion.

I forgot what reunion was.

I thought reunion was wedding.

No.

I forgot that they did a four.

No, no, no.

Like 60% of the cast is cut from wedding.

Everyone's brought back for reunion at a bargain price.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What was she going to be?

Like when Mina Savari?

It's a great question.

I was thinking

while watching it, because there was certainly a two-year period where we were all the right age to be like, I guess she's important.

And you step back now and you're like, what was the, what was the roadmap people thought was going to play out ahead of her?

I don't.

For her career.

Yeah.

Like, who's like, best case scenario?

There's not really a comp.

No.

And it's also.

Not for as a star.

No.

And I also think, like,

if you go.

Like Sybil Shepard, maybe?

That's incredibly generous of her.

I'm sorry.

Well, I'm just thinking about it.

Sybil Shepard's had a great career.

That is true.

But I'm thinking about like the last picture show and kind of being this like breakout.

Yeah, like a young engineer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like a coming-of-age movie.

She's a much odder version of that in American Beauty.

Like, she's not the conventional.

Yeah.

When you watch American Beauty, it's not like she's bad in American Beauty.

She's totally appropriate for the role.

Like she gets it.

But she's like,

she's not as good as Thora Birch or Wes Bentley anyway.

No, no, they're giving better performances.

I mean, whatever you think of that movie, like it's probably the least compelling performance in the movie.

It's, yeah, it is.

Also, the movie writes her character very unintelligently.

It is a very ungenerous characterization.

Yeah.

But she plays the big scene in that movie really well, which is her, like, you know,

dropping the pedals.

She realizes when the artist arrive on her boobs.

Yeah, when the pedals arrive on her boobs.

I guess, you know what, Griffin, the boat, that's what it was, though.

It wasn't, it was American Beauty.

She was the image of American Beauty.

She's the tummy.

Yes.

I know it's not actually her tummy.

But, you know, but like, and she's the rose, yeah, garnered woman, whatever.

But American Pie.

American Pie comes out that same year.

Yes, but that's the most the worst part of that movie.

I disagree with that.

Yeah, you defend the Chris.

What the fuck is his name?

Chris Klein.

Klein, Mina Suvari part of American Pie.

Oh, that's very sweet.

Thank you.

I like it.

Thank you.

I like when they sing all those show choir songs.

It's just fine.

They're fine.

The worst part of the movie is inarguably Tara Reed and

Thomas Ian Miller.

I completely disagree.

That part of the movie rocks because...

So boring.

Well, they're not very good.

They're so boring.

No offense to the misperformers, but I agree that they're not top-notch.

But I just love that their storyline resolves with they have sex and it's bad.

It's so good.

It's one of my favorite parts of the movie.

They just are on top of each other awkwardly, and they're like yeah that was okay everyone else obviously has like insane you know happen to them well of course being savari chris klein don't have sex they don't have which is what makes them a little different yeah

just have sex david soon and take off motion right it's like you know oh uh what's his pants bang stiffler's mom and jason bigger a pie and the you know those two it's just like yeah we had sex it sucked we're 18 years old we don't know what we're doing and dismissive about two most important things that ever happened in american cinema what was that oh the pie and stiffler's And fucking Stiffler's mom and Jason Biggs' fucking dessert pastry.

It is weird to think about this movie getting financed off those two actors.

Yeah, 100%.

That it's like, okay, fucking American Pie.

Got some American Pies in it?

Great.

It's a movie.

Cool.

You want some money?

So we were talking about this a little bit.

Can we make Union Station look like NYU?

Chandler and I hung out last night.

We were talking about the Safari.

What's the week budget?

One dollar.

One beastly dollar.

The Safari conversation's interesting, right?

And the Biggs conversation is interesting, but you zoom out and it's like, it's hard to actually think of an analog of what happened after American Pie, where that movie was such a big hit and it had such an ensemble cast.

Yes.

Biggs kind of

default lead of young, cute American actors in this kind of American rhythm graffiti sort of way.

Yeah.

Right.

And Hollywood was just like,

math would.

would tell us that at least two of these people are going to end up being major lasting movie stars, right?

And no one could figure out who it was, and none of them worked long term.

We decided that Natasha Leone is the only one.

She is the obvious person.

26 years later,

there is no question that Natasha Leone is, in present moment, the most successful American Pie alum.

And aside from Jennifer Coolidge.

Let's leave Coolidge aside.

Okay,

let's not talk about the Shermanator.

But I was going to say, no, no, Coolidge.

And Alison Hannigan.

Hannigan is two.

I think

number two is true.

No, Hannigan is is two.

We're talking about who's on the

postonic poster of American Pop.

Okay, so number two is Hannigan, but let's talk about.

I'm not talking about bit parts.

Hannigan is kind of semi-retired.

Nonetheless, Hallison Hannigan is in two gigantic TV shows.

Queen of fucking residuals.

She also hosted like eight seasons of Penn and Teller CW show, where she'd show up like two days a year and probably get millions of views.

Ben is making the appropriate film.

Who cares?

That's like a 0.1 W.

I'm saying she has three syndication series.

Leon?

Yes.

Hannigan.

Yes.

Number three is Sean William Scott, right?

No question.

But also a guy who's slowly

way down.

No, no, no.

What about just flutes?

Flutes.

They're back.

Yeah.

And pies.

Okay, and pies, too.

And foreign exchange series.

Let's keep this going.

Okay.

I'm doing the whole poster.

Because this is actually, because I do think it's like Leon Hannigan, Sean Williams Scott is number three for sure.

He's had a career.

He's been above the title.

I'm just saying that Leon's the best right now, and Hannigan and Williams have the best careers after the movie.

Hey, should I rank everyone like Natasha Leon?

Leon had a bad period in between.

I had a bad period in between.

And now she's doing great.

Did I get that

term?

I'm just trying to explore storytelling opportunities.

I think four is bigger.

That's true.

That's sadly true.

Biggs is four.

I think you're right.

I think Biggs is four.

Feels wrong, but I think you're right.

He's a gentleman's four.

He's around.

He's a gentleman's four.

I think.

Now it's tough.

It gets tough.

Now I'm between Klein and Suvari.

I think Klein, because he had the

election bump.

I got to go for Suvari.

She's in a best picture winner.

That's fair.

And she's in Loser, a film we're discussing today.

Yes.

We're not discussing the Chris Klein Uber, right?

Right.

Which we have done before.

We'll do again.

Yeah, we'll do it again.

Yeah.

You'll talk about Chris Key Key.

Suvari has got a ton of credit.

She does.

She keeps working.

But yet, I was looking at her Wikipedia, and I was so ready to discover.

She played Jane Wyman in the Reagan movie last year.

Yes.

Wow.

She's working.

She did some TV show in the last couple of years that also had American in the title.

Yeah, you're really hooked on the American Women or American Woman or whatever.

She has American Woman, it was called an example of: I'm pulling up her Wikipedia and I'm like, I'm about to find out.

that Mina Safari has quietly been on

FBI Seattle

for nine seasons.

Right.

And she has BI Spokane.

She has worked consistently, but there is no thing like that.

No, but she has worked consistently.

She's worked consistently.

Do you think she works in this movie?

You think she's miscast?

Would it be better with Allison Hanigan?

I kind of like her.

I think she knows.

Natasha Leon would be a much better.

I will watch this.

Well, yes.

It kind of feels like it was built for Leone and I kind of been, you know, but I was kind of having a tough time then.

Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, this isn't a humble brag.

It's just a fact of the matter.

Despite you being on mic, oftentimes when sponsors buy ads based on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

Right.

They love it to 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 sponsor come in and say, we are looking for the coveted coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

This is laser targeted.

The product.

We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

It certainly is.

And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Avenger.

The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming to theaters August 29th.

Macon Blair's remake of

reimagining, whatever.

A reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to to see it yet but they sent you a screener link yeah i'm gonna 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 in billing order as they asked which i really appreciate peter dinkledge jacob tremblay trembling taylor page with elijah wood okay and kevin bacon tremblay is toxy's son his stepson his stepson okay uh wade goose yes great name give us the takes takes.

We haven't heard them yet.

Okay.

You got fucking Dinkledge is fantastic.

He's talking about it.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like a snack.

David, sizzling.

Yep.

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

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay.

Well, I'm a Jersey guy.

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

yes yes that's right the original film yep i grew up watching toxy and trauma movies on porches yes with my sleazy and sticky friends it informed so much of my sensibility your friends like junkyard dog and headbanger yeah exactly making toxic crusader jokes and so when i heard that they were doing this new installment i was really emotionally invested

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut.

But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary.

They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just, 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 one of the huge hit.

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

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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.

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But

I think she works in this movie.

I think the character is written a little tough for pretty much anyone to totally.

She's playing it.

My whole problem with this movie, which really, really kind of threw me for a loop.

It was meant to be rated R, and it's PG-13 instead.

That's the only problem anyone could have with this movie.

Laptop.

Is

like both Biggs and Suvari are quite saintly and good in this movie.

Yes, that was my problem.

At the beginning of the movie, he saves the cat like 16 times.

And they never really introduce flaws.

So with Biggs, you're kind of like, bitch, you're clearly smart and nice.

Like, just go meet some people.

What the fuck is the matter with you?

And cut your hair.

Like, you are too smart to be behaving this way.

And I know people, you know, get in bad relationships and do toxic things and like, you know, whatever.

Yeah.

But you're just kind of like, you're not written well enough for any of this to really make sense.

She's kind of too level-headed.

No, and you have no context of who she is outside of Jason Biggs.

Who is she doing on the phone?

Like her mother.

Her mother's just like, okay, get the train when you can.

I could not tell if that was her mom or like a grandma.

The way she talked about her parents, the emancipation.

There's so many questions I have about this movie.

No, and like that's really upset.

A key point of the apartment is when

Shirley McLean's like,

who is the brother-in-law?

She's like, yeah, I haven't seen it in her life.

Comes in and like rescues her, and you get this really interesting snapshot into that character's life.

What's going on with her?

But she just only exists as.

We should just directly say that this movie is an unofficial kind of retelling of the apartment.

It has too much in common to be accidental.

It's inspired by, but then it's got other stuff going on, too.

It's inspired by, it's not legally a remake of the apartment.

And yet, there are things that are legally remakes of other movies that have less in common with the original film.

What concerts do they go to?

In the apartment?

No, they go to an Everclear concert.

Same band.

Yeah, Big Band Everclear.

It's at Webster Hall, too.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Oh, fuck.

I wish I could do Lemon saying, like, hey, do you want to go see Everclear?

I wish I could do Lemon.

Do lemon.

No, but that's a bit of the aim.

Like AM radio.

They're supposed to go to see the Broadway play.

Right, right, yeah.

Right.

It's the same thing.

Yeah.

Supposed to see the music man.

Yeah.

But of course in the apartment, you're like, this is incredibly like.

risque and subversive for the time.

And also it's about grown-ups, like, you know, and it's about guys cheating on their girlfriends and wives and stuff, right?

Whereas in Loser, it's like they're freshmen in college.

This device doesn't make as much sense.

So I just want to say, okay, Ben has never seen The Apartment.

We're watching this together.

We come to the office.

We watch Loser together.

A couple cool guys watching Loser.

Jacking off.

I'm so sad that you had to see Loser before you get to see The Apartment.

It is.

Yeah, you'll watch The Apartment now and you're like, no Loser.

No ever clear, where's Alan coming?

I don't see him.

As I said, I brought over some pizza and some Mountain Dew.

We had to chill in and watch Loser in the office.

And I like, Ben was like, what is this plot?

And I was like, well, it's the apartment.

And then he gave me a blank stare.

and I was like oh have you never seen the apartment here's the basic shape of the apartment a film that by the way won best and it's a good movie it is like

it is kind of considered one of the like crown jewels of

Hollywood filmmaking but it wasn't just a best picture winner it endures because it was for the time a very adult movie like that was you know

Like like ahead of its time.

It is one of the only comedies to ever win best picture.

So it's talked about a lot in that context of like how few have won.

And one of the reasons it won, and I guess it was sort of seen as a surprise, is that it is this movie that does this very deft balancing act of tones where it gets into some really dark and heavy shit and doesn't feel glib about it, but also feels like it gives it an appropriate amount of weight.

The basic setup of that movie is that Jack Lemon is, dare I say it, a bit of a loser.

Cece Baxter,

who's kind of like an underling at sort of just like a clocking and clocking out desk job.

And all the other guys at the firm are always kind of taking advantage of him, much like this trio of truly sadistic

doormates that Jason Biggs has, right?

But this guy's thing he does to get in good with the other guys who don't like him is he offers up his apartment.

He will give them the keys so they can use his apartment to sleep with their mistresses before they go home to their wives.

And so everyone kind of uses this guy as a doormat.

And he thinks eventually this will be rewarded with people giving me the promotion, giving me respect, whatever it is.

He has a massive crush on Shirley McClain, who's kind of like the original.

I get it.

Right.

And it's like her in like pixie haircut.

She's got a sparky attitude.

She's an elevator operator.

She's an elevator operator.

He's in love with her.

She's very sweet to him, but feels like, I don't know, he lacks the edge or whatever.

Right.

And his boss.

says that he will like give him the promotion he wants if he lets him use the apartment as well.

And he slowly puts together that the boss is using the apartment to sleep with Sholi McClint.

Damn.

Just to speak to the apartment's best picture when I realize this is a tangent.

The 1960 Oscars,

it was the only choice.

The other nominees are the Alamo, which is terrible, Elmer Gantry, Sons and Lovers, and the Sundowners, all of which were like okay.

Yeah.

But none are movies that really endured.

Yeah.

But the movie that the Oscars didn't have the balls.

I'm going to say it.

It's 1960 or 1961.

To nominate in 1960 is Psycho, which gets a best director nomination out of kind of a like,

good job with that.

And it gets both supportings.

Did they not nominate Perkins?

No, they,

no, they didn't nominate Perkins.

They only nominated Janet Lee for dying.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Spoiler for Psycho.

Yeah.

She dies.

She does.

But

Psycho, I imagine, was the actual other big smash of the year, but it was a little too lurid for them.

Yes.

But the apartment's a masterpiece.

It is.

Now, like, something like Guess Who, right?

Is like,

in terms of actual structure of contracts, an actual remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner that like does not mirror the plot at all.

Whereas this mirrors it in like such weird ways, but then the ways in which it diverts are so much stranger.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking about Greg Kinnear's character and how he's supposed to be

like the Fred McMurray, you know.

But, you know, in the apartment, that character is first seems like an upstanding guy, like a really good, principled

Greg Kinnear is pure

fucking evil in this movie in this way that I think I will say it, and I love Amy Heckerling.

I love a lot of her movies.

I've criticized some of them on this podcast.

Horribly written because, like, the movie begins with him basically being like, I'm just such a slut for teen love.

I love you.

I'm your professor.

Like, he's saying everything out loud.

Yes.

He's just being disgusting at her.

And you're just like, this guy's completely charmless.

Like, no one would be interested in this guy.

Right.

The fact that Mina Savari is interested in him, him,

Greg Kinnear as a smart English college professor, you can make that work for me.

Totally.

Yeah.

Like him getting a slime ball is a little obvious.

And I'm sure Greg Kinnear kind of sighed when he got the script, like, because he was kind of getting these roles a lot by this point.

Yeah.

But it's like you want

charmless.

He's so nasty to her from the get-go.

It's from the same role.

It's the same role he plays in You've Got Male.

But like in You've Got Male, I mean, he's pretty annoying, but you can kind of see it.

And he's a good-looking guy.

Again, you know, it's like Greg, that's what Greg Kinnear was good at.

And he's awful in this, but I don't think it's his fault because the character is horrible.

Well, like to Chandler's point, like in the apartment, right?

The whole thing that makes the dynamic interesting is it's breaking his heart that he is letting his boss, who he is played by Fred McMurray, who is like a fucking Disney stock company actor.

Yeah, he had never done anything.

Like, I think it was pre-double indemnity.

So it was like very subversive.

A wonderful actor, a guy who kind of was like a little bit of a Greg Kinnear equivalent, where it's just like there's, it feels like something subversive about this guy who looks kind of like a Ken doll revealing this kind of slime, right?

But like this guy is having this, like is dying inside at the notion that he's letting his boss take advantage of the girl that he truly has feelings for in order to sort of like help his career, right?

That he is sort of complicit in this.

We have to drop The Apartment after this because comparing this movie to The Apartment is just going to make us crazy.

That's sure.

But I'm like, having never seen this movie before, I was like, huh, doing college apartment isn't a terrible idea.

Using a dorm room in that way, a teacher sleeping with a student where there's something that needs to be kept secret.

I guess, but teacher sleeping.

Doesn't he really kind of make sense in that casting?

Sure.

Like I just said he did.

I mean, yes, he does, but teacher sleeping with a student is a much bigger

violation.

So you're already kind of like absolutely.

But again, it's more just that he just is mean to her and not mean in like a cute way.

No.

And he seems boring.

And they don't even do anything.

Yeah, and they have no sexual chemistry.

There's no sex in this movie.

Excuse me.

He lies next to her in bed reading the New York Times book review.

They do a lot of things together.

He has that weird library.

He's like, I think my whole body just relaxed.

He's, it's fucking Daniel Bruhl getting asked to play a fifth Nazi.

Kennear's like, who am I?

Oh, I'm another slime ball.

Great.

Yes, great.

I'll do it.

Yeah, that's fine.

Like, it's like, you've got male.

Uh-huh.

Mystery man.

Yep.

Nurse Betty.

Mystery Man, another film with the sort of loser status of All-Star Becomes a Hit.

While the movie's forgotten.

That was a great time.

Incredible time.

His role in Nurse Betty is exactly that, too.

Everyone thinks he's cute, but he's an asshole.

He looks like a loser.

He's a number one right around the gift.

Oh, yeah.

Like, where it's just this, all he, someone like you, which is the next year, the Ashley Judd movie, where it's like, I guess I'll be with, you know, Greg Kinnear, who sucks.

And Hugh Jagman's like, how you doing, Mike?

I know he doesn't have that.

All of his movies for a while were, I'm a nice guy.

Rank.

And then in like 2002, he's like, give me an Oscar movie.

And it's like, great.

Do you want to play Bob Crane?

He's like, isn't that guy who fucking jacked off with his friend?

It's like, yeah, sorry.

What about as good as it gets?

At least he got.

Well, that's before.

Right.

Yeah.

And like, he's awesome in that movie.

So I think it's a wonderful thing.

But that wasn't the thing.

That was his launch.

Here's this guy who's like a talk show host.

And it was like, no one's ever going to take him seriously as an actor because he's like a lightweight talk show host.

He's the fucking talk soup.

He's the talk soup guy.

And then they cast him in Sabrina.

That flops.

Everyone's like, see, that's what you get for casting a talk show, hosting.

No, Sabrina's before.

Oh, sure.

Right.

Sabrina's before.

And then as good as it gets is the moment of like, he proved everyone wrong.

Greg Kinnear's got the goods.

And then what you've just outlined is basically the post as good.

Like it felt like he had won the argument in theory of you deserve to be in movies.

We take you seriously.

And then he got pigeonholed into this sort of thing.

Do you think anyone remembers that he's in Little Miss Sunshine?

I think he's incredibly good.

He's totally good in it, but it's like, is that the most forgotten performance in that movie?

Even weirdly, more than Tony Collette, whose character actually was not written.

Sure.

Every live dialogue she has in the script just says TBD.

She's just good at it.

She's good.

She's good at that shit.

You go.

Yeah.

Do it.

The reason I'm bringing up the apartment thing for Ben's perspective, and I know you don't want to harp on this, is just it is fascinating to me that in the basic setup of this movie, it's not about him working out a deal with the fucking professor.

It's about his like fucking doormates just hazing him for 90 minutes

and then like date drugging the girl and then him having to like save her versus like in the apartment where it's like everything is a lot tighter.

Yeah, they had the apartment right there.

Right there.

We're gonna officially close this discussion with the verdict.

You're gonna put it apartment is better than loser.

Controversial, but I can accept it.

The thing about loser, here's what I knew about loser apart from,

yeah, you knew that her name is Noelle.

Is it though?

No, it's not.

I was like, okay, Jason Biggs plays a loser.

He's got a silly hat.

Take a nail on his forehead.

He falls down the stairs.

A lot.

But there's the big fall down the stairs because I was in like the trailer.

Right.

And what does he say?

He makes some joke about like Jerry Lewis, ladies and gentlemen.

Oh, yeah, that's what Greg Kinnear says.

Yeah.

He's got silly hair.

Boy, does he.

Boy, does he.

Another thing my wife was freaking out about where she was just like, I don't understand the wig.

Right.

Watching this movie makes you want to take a pair of scissors and like try to cut through the teeth screen.

Just stop.

It's so insane.

Her hair is so much better than this.

His hair is finally cut in the last scene of the movie and it's clearly just Jason Biggs' natural hair versus this insane wig of death they're giving him the whole time.

And he shows up with the real hair.

And I turn to Ben and I go, I'm immediately 5% less annoyed with this movie.

Why couldn't it have been this

whole time?

There's a whole makeover montage.

I don't think that in the middle of the movie.

It's actually unconscionable for like an audience to have to look at that hair for a whole i agree it's a terrible wig and like yes and i will talk about it but i all i knew going in was like he's a loser he goes to college people are mean to him he struggles to fit in he figures it out i assume sure right like that's all i knew and instead it starts with like right he meets three Nazi war criminals right he has to live

cruelty in the heart of all men dressed in race start of the movie they're like moving a speaker into his room and I'm like right he has annoying roommates and then quickly you're like oh these these are like irredeemable monsters.

These are like Columbine killers.

Right.

Then the joke gets elevated, escalated so insanely where it's like, not only that, like they dress like Zoolander's friends, right?

Like they're in these insane outfits.

And it's like kind of funny, but the movie's almost too realistic for it to work.

Chandler, you and I were talking last night about The Wedding Singer, which we both love.

Great movie.

Right?

I love it.

And how good in particular the art direction is in The Wedding Singer.

Obviously, it's a period film and it's

the great Perry Blake.

But that's what we were saying is like at the time when they green lit it, people were like, is it too soon to make an 80s movie?

And they were correct in that like it feels like it has just been enough time and Perry Blake like recreates the 80s in a way that it's just like a little accentuated, but it doesn't feel over the top and it feels like American graffiti-esque evocation, whatever.

I say to Ben.

15 minutes into us watching this, this doesn't feel like we're watching a movie from the year 2000.

It feels like we're watching a film from 2025 set in the year 2000.

It feels like such a fake, weird recreation, misremembering of the style of

the moments that charms me.

Maybe it's just Alan coming.

Completely against it.

But there's something about in this moment.

Where she is capturing that year, something is so over the top.

And as you said, like the doormates dressing like the Zoolander roommates and like the fucking soundtrack and all this stuff feels like this is like forced.

And Ben said, well, what it is is someone still making movies about teenagers who is increasingly only getting older.

Yeah.

And it's kind of out of touch.

But it's so weird because she's nails Clueless so hard.

Yeah, I mean, Clueless is like every element of Clueless is like pristine and like classic forever.

And like you watch that movie now and you want all the clothes in the movie.

Right, Clueless is about even though it's so effective.

But that's the difference is that Clueless, by her own admission, is sort of like, I'm going to make up slang words that are even more insane than what the kids say.

Beyond this, I'm going to accentuate the fact that she's

right.

It's the same costume designer and collaborators on this one, like Mona May and Twin Kaplan, her producer.

And I do think Ben's right that she has no grasp on actual like youth.

Maybe she doesn't know men.

Like, maybe that's part of it because it's the world of men.

Women can't write men.

You know, that's my, that's my lesson I've learned from this.

They should be ashamed of themselves to try to write men.

No, and also

the female gaze in this movie is insane the way her camera leers over bigs

um is all all of his bad joupe it's

the track marks of his his words i couldn't even get a handle on and i don't think she ever had a handle on like what is he like what kind of bumpkin is he supposed to be especially with a title like loser you're like you're gonna present to me a very specifically realized version of and since she's like he's from the midwest he has a hat i don't know he's nice i was getting like pennsylvania yokel because i i think she loves i think amy heckerling like really reveres classic hollywood and kind of sure in that yeah so i bet i feel like he's like a frank capra kind of character like mr deeds goes to washington he's a step away from a character i think about too much norbit

what you all think of from the film norbit uh-huh who is an insane character in a movie filled with insane characters who's just like and he's a nice guy like it's like eddie murphy kind of forgot to do norbit when he was he's like, he works on everything else, right?

And then he's like, oh, fuck, who's Norbit?

But that movie is also almost about like biblical trials that will be like, right, exactly.

So then it's like, at a certain point, you're like, can you just do something else?

You're stressing me out, just kind of being like, all right, guys, like, while this is happening to him.

That's what's so weird, though, is as you said, like,

having it just be like small town kid moves to the city, right?

Scholarship kid.

That's a premise.

All these shitty rich kids, and he's just a little too pure, and they all dislike him for that reason.

But this movie's also trying to be like, he's so bizarre and weird that they can't make sense of his hat he wears.

Right.

Outside of him just sort of being like fresh off the bus.

This reminds me, I need to open the dossier.

So let me open the dossier.

1997.

MGM buys a spec script called Molly.

Yep.

Amy Heckerlin gets attached to direct and produce.

I clocked this movie recently as her only producing credit on a film she didn't direct.

And I was like, huh, what is this?

And why'd she end up in this?

And then watch this trailer, which is a nightmare.

Sure.

It stars Elizabeth Shu.

It does eventually get made, not by her, yes.

It's a fact-based comedy about a man who has to take care of his sister when she's released from an institution.

She's autistic, and medical treatment has cured her and turned her into a genius.

This sounds like a sound.

It's like a flowers for Algernon for hell.

Yeah.

It looks so fucking bad.

But she didn't make that.

She didn't.

In 1996, she made losers.

She gets attached to, she and Twin Kaplan are attached to produce a feature film adaptation of the Prometheus and Bob shorts.

Now, would it surprise you to hear that you fucking loved that shit?

And Ben, you gotta rise out of Ben, right?

You remember that.

Oh, of course.

I also remember.

You're about to lose your mind when you hear the other detail of what this movie was.

For listeners who may not remember,

Kablam.

Do you remember Kablam?

Nickelodeon anthology show?

It was broken.

Acclaymation and Cavemen.

What were some of the other recurring shorts?

Well, of course, there was Action League.

Action League Now.

The Flesh, Stinky Driver.

Melt Man.

He has the power to melt.

Just

the Thunder Girl.

She flies like Thunder.

I always thought that was such a good show.

It was so good.

Henry and June hosted the show.

It took place in between the pages of a comic book.

I believe Angela Anaconda started on Cool Angry.

Yeah, which then splashed into a very big Canadian show.

They also had a few things came out of it.

But yeah, it was very fun.

But Prometheus and Bob was a series of.

Angela Anaconda was so weird.

It was good as hell.

Yeah, it was pretty good.

Yeah.

Do you know that Noah Seegan was the voice of Henry on Cablam?

Let's keep going.

Okay.

So Prometheus and Bob was a series of Claymation short films that were, in theory, the discovered tapes of

UFOs' first encounters with human life.

And it was like aliens landed on Earth in the prehistoric age, and this alien tries to teach a caveman how to do stuff.

And they were really fucking funny.

They were funny.

Molly, her daughter, got her into the shorts so that was how she got interested i loved these i vividly remember my dad being like i just read they're making a prometheus and bob movie and it was supposed to star chris farley and david spade oh my god and chris farley died unfortunately that would have been incredible i know but the project stayed in development now the creator of prometheus and bob uh coat zellers did say that the first draft of the film which was not written by him was quote the worst thing he ever read so did they say who wrote the first draft no i don't know and then he tried to to rewrite it, and he said a lot of those ideas ended up getting repurposed for the Jack Black Gulliver's Travels.

I don't know what that means.

That is true.

I don't know.

Yeah, the writers were Nick Stoller and Joe Stillman.

Well, they did Gulliver.

Yeah.

Okay.

So

what does Heckerling actually do rather than these things?

She does, of course, work on the Clueless TV show briefly.

The other thing she works on was A Night at the Roxbury, which she develops and produces.

Now, we address this more on the next episode, don't we?

Yes.

I won't speak of it.

Silence.

I mean, it is just a thing.

Right.

The whole accounting of the Night of the Roxbury thing is very confusing.

And there are a lot of like story pieces that don't fit together.

Dan says, who's in that film, says that she made a pass at him and then Lauren said that he was supposed to have sex with her.

She can read all of that.

She's at one point supposed to direct the movie.

She doesn't end up directing the movie, but does end up producing it.

But I've also heard that she kind of did take over.

That makes sense at some point in production.

And Chris Katan says that he was pressured to have an affair with her by Lauren Michaels in order to help secure her on the movie.

But Chris Katan was sleeping with three different women in the movie at the same time.

She was.

Amy Heckerling's response, and I believe we also talk about this next week, was, ugh, he's a nut.

Essentially, like, I don't want to know what dumb shit he came up with.

I have nothing to say about him or his idiot book.

And Molly Israel's talked about.

This was all when he was selling a movie.

Baby, Don't Hurt Me.

But yes,

another thing that takes up a year plus of her life and has only led to

drama and tragedy.

Yeah.

Certainly bad feelings.

Yeah.

Packerling.

So why did she make Loser?

JJ couldn't find out.

Fire.

Great.

I mean, it does feel as simple as her being like, I love the apartment.

I want to make something like the apartment.

I don't think that's quite.

You don't think that's it?

Well, here's a quote from her.

What?

It's called Loser, and it stars Jason Biggs, Mina Savari, and Greg Kinnear.

Jason plays a guy in college who's hardworking, decent, and has a big heart.

So naturally, people think he's a loser.

Wackiness ensues.

There's a crazy twist ending, and no one's allowed to leave the theater during the last 10 minutes.

What's the crazy twist?

She may kind of be joking.

Because there's obviously.

But also, Biggs having the haircut at the end of the movie, I'm like, was the ending a reshoot?

The coda certainly feels like a last-minute thing in response to audiences being like, we want to see these assholes get punished.

I want to to see Greg Kinnear get fed into a wood chipper.

And they're just like, he went to prison.

I'm like, not good enough.

There is an American graffiti style.

Text what happened to the four most evil characters after the movie ending that truly feels like it's only to satisfy that thing of like audiences needing to see blood.

So Heckling is asked, why, why are you always making films about young people?

She says, I guess I'm always attracted to that age group because everything is so intense and new and that's dramatic and appealing to me.

Yeah.

As is the case with a lot of filmmakers.

I think there's a lot of words from her where she's really kind of, you know, explaining why she made the book.

But I think also, as the case with a lot of filmmakers we talk about, they get so stuck in the thing they've had the most success doing that certainly JJ has dug up the projects she sets up or gets attached to in between each of her films that mostly end up being films about to this is something.

Give it to me.

When she made Clueless, she was fourth rate that she was basing it on the novel Emma by Jane Austen.

Yep.

But when Variety in 2000 reached out to Heckerlink's reps for comment on whether she'd use the apartment while crafting loser, CAA

said

she did not base Loser on the apartment.

Any similarities are coincidental.

Well, here's what I would say to that.

Interesting.

The novel Emma is public domain.

Yeah, no, I know.

And the motion picture, The Apartment, is not.

So

the studio wanted Chris Klein to be the star of this movie.

Whoa.

So the studio is basically just like, we need some of these these guys.

Pick two pioneer cast members and you got a green light.

Any two.

It could be Reed and Nichols.

That's a very different movie and not, I don't think Chris Klein could play a loser.

Well, no, but yes.

He would be doing the election thing again.

Yeah, exactly.

Playing like Lovably Starship.

Which it feels like is what this movie wants this character to be.

He's smart.

He went to, he got a scholarship.

That's the problem, though, right?

Like their conception of why he's uncool.

I think Chandler's right that it's kind of a Frank Capra thing.

thing and he's just like, oh, I have to live at the vet.

Guess I'll be really good at helping animals now, too, right?

He's just like kind of always good at shit.

But I think that requires him to be a level of rube that goes against how smart this character is, right?

Like that's the problem.

It certainly doesn't make the argument.

That's why the scholarship,

like that's why bribing the professor or blackmailing, that you need to have something,

you have to have something on the teacher to make the apartment arrangement, you know?

Right, exactly.

Yes.

And it also just feels like they're not leaning into the level of kind of like

G Shuck's idealism that that kind of character needs.

It also needed like more New York in it.

Like, yes, the apartment is an incredible New York film.

I think that is very true, and I think it's a failing with the three villain boys.

None of them are very New York.

I mean, they're rich kids, sure.

But this movie is like set on Mars, like in the way where you're like, what are these fashion

cabaret?

The movie is called Loser.

The big thing it's asking us to buy is like pointing over to Jason Biggs and be like, this guy cannot fit in, right?

He obviously does not look cool in this movie.

And yet, everyone in this movie looks insane.

So I'm like, his hair is crazy and his hat's crazy.

And everyone looks crazy.

But I don't get everyone pointing at him and being like, what's up with this?

And I get that it's a joke.

Like, it's heightened, but you're right.

Like, they don't make sense.

Because he doesn't look like any stereotype of nerd I have ever seen.

Like, really?

No.

I don't know.

That's quite bad.

That's got his grades up to is so bad.

When she makes him wear the fedora from the movie.

Yeah, when he starts dressing like Evil Spider-Man.

That's truly one of those movies very few people have seen, right?

But if you were trying to describe it to people and you said, Amy Hackerling's loser.

They most likely respond with, oh, the teenage dirtbag movie.

And number two would be the movie with the hat.

Because the poster is his face is cut off below the eyeballs.

It's eyeballs, L on forehead, hat, loser.

As if this movie was like, this summer, get ready to love this hat.

Wait, so do you think when

did Weedus add the line in the shape?

No, sorry, I'm getting confused with Smash Mouth.

The shape of the L on her forehead, Smash Mouth, not Weedus.

But it feels like it could be part of it.

Maybe it was a shot of Smash Mouth.

Should have done a pass on Loser.

They should have done it on the sound.

Oh, on the movie.

On the movie, too.

Anyone should have done a pass on the movie.

Anyway, this movie

resists Klein.

She wants Biggs.

When she meets Biggs, she clicks with him.

She's like, of all the American Pie cast members.

Biggs loves Fast Times of Richmond High.

He says it's his favorite teen movie.

He's very excited to be the lead of a movie, too, rather than American Pie.

He's which is more of an ensemble.

Shooting boys and girls warning sex ruins everything concurrent with this movie.

He's flying back and forth.

Yes, well, that is insane.

That's a terrible movie.

And he has his own hair in that movie.

So he had to wear the wig for Loser.

Every time Biggs left Loser to go film Boys and Girls, he had to have his hair extensions burned off.

Oh, my God.

It's insane.

Why?

Wait, so it's not even a full wig?

It's hair extensions?

Why wouldn't they just give him a fucking wig?

I can't even make a wig.

Or

let him have his normal hair.

I say this out of complete respect, right?

Jason Biggs shows up with his real hair.

No one's going, God, that guy looks too cool to buy as a loser.

Right?

Like, this is Jason Biggs.

That's his stock in trade.

I mean, it just looks like he has Chris Klein hair.

He's got goofball face.

You know what I mean, though?

That middle part?

It's like the exact haircut.

He's got the curtains.

So

just we'll talk about the rest of the plot of Loser in a second, but just to watch.

Did you have that haircut?

Did anyone have a middle part here in the story?

I have an insane cowlick side part.

I cannot middle part my hair at all.

I have crazy hair.

And I wanted cool guy Lars Urich Tom Cruise Mission Possible 2 sweatback hair, and I didn't realize that my hair was curly and thought that at some point it would just start looking.

Ashmouth should have maybe done a pass on your hair, too.

Yeah.

Also, my brain.

Yeah, right.

So Heckerling and her agent Ken Stovetz claimed the movie was ruined in post.

It was really, according to Ken Stovetz, the movie was really good

until the studio said, no, you have to make a PG-13 and ruin the movie.

Of course, now only R-rated comedy.

The irony being, ah, but R-rated comedies became king shit.

And it's like, well, they already had.

That's my,

I want to know what the R-rated things were because there's roofies.

There's a pretty blue language in Loser already.

It's already really dark.

And I can't imagine like their.

Is there more nudity or something?

Right, like cum drinking, like

I'm about to tell you something completely bananas that certainly doesn't make Loser sound like it's was really good in the R-rated.

Okay, share it with me.

In the version in theaters, Biggs's three obnoxious college roommates tricks Minusavari's character into drinking

into they roofie her yes um

what audiences won't see is a subsequent shot of dora awaking on an operating table as the three men use veterinary equipment to remove her clothing

god if only that scene had been in the movie biggs the comedy comes from the perspective of the three guys who think slipping a roofie into a young girl's drink is humorous but then you have me and mina counteracting that by taking it all very seriously i don't think we approach in a light manner at all then

It's just one of these things where I'm like, okay, well, I don't think that made or ruined the movie.

This is why I want more context about Loser because what female director wants to do that scene?

Here's what's odd about it.

Amy says, I didn't want to deal with it in a preachy way.

Look, I'm the mom of a teenage girl.

The fact is, this is something that's going on, and I wanted to make these characters as vile as possible.

So you know, the disgusting guys.

By the time they're roofying her, you already hate the three guys.

Yeah.

The roofie scene is just insane because the movie kind of skates by it.

Yeah.

Not for any other reason.

Right.

It happening.

You're like, whoa, what the fuck?

But then also then they're just kind of like, get, they get, I mean, it's a plot function for him to take care of four days.

Well, and he swaps out their medicine, the pills.

Another like save the cat kind of money.

Right.

I mean, this guy literally saves so many cats in a way where I'm like, I fucking get it.

Yeah.

Like when the grandpa gives him the money and then he like puts it back in his pants.

David, grant me this, just a quick reprieve

and spoiler alert.

but in the apartment, in the fallout of being devastated by the boss not wanting to have a serious relationship with her and leave his wife, she attempts suicide.

And you have this same thing of the last act of the movie, Lemon kind of nursing her back to health and this sort of vulnerability and whatever.

And it's so weird that this is the choice she makes of how to put the Safari character in the same position,

sleeping on his couch, basically.

Is she drugged and like assaulted?

So just to pull.

And yet she wakes up and is like, oh, how long have you been doing?

This has been two days ago.

Okay, cool.

It's unrelated from the fucking Knear thing.

Like the Kinnear factor is just like a whole other part of the movie.

This is not a part of the movie.

It just happens and then is basically not addressed.

And then, you know, right, we just sort of move on.

And there are so many like bad teen sex comedies where there are like boys will be boys behavior that you now look at and you're like, fuck, this is revolting, right?

This movie knows that these guys are evil.

And yet, as Ben said while watching it, they are so horrible.

I cannot laugh.

Well, I just want to say, like, I think it's weird because it doesn't feel like this is necessarily like a feminist movie when I'm watching.

No.

It's not like it's like a commentary on these guys.

And there's some, like, Clueless is so smart.

Yes.

And it, like, understands,

like, like.

the scene where you know share like when elton is trying to basically assault share like that's a very interesting fascinating scene it is because

that actually feels real.

Yeah.

Where it's like, he's being aggressive.

He's an asshole.

It's not comical.

And it's like she handles it and it's not great.

But it's also not like kind of this pure evil shit either.

And like, I mean, obviously the ceiling shot in Fast Times of Richmond High is like one of the greatest, like most interesting interpretations of like what it's like to have sex and lose your virginity.

Like she's like an very incredible like feminist filmmaker when it comes to sexuality, especially.

And then in this movie, it's just like these horrible like cartoons.

They're not really redeemed, except like these actions, they don't really face any consequences, except in a Chiron, right?

Except in the post-credits, right?

And like, I just don't understand.

Is she so much smarter and more clever and more interesting as a director and a writer than this movie is.

So, is that a result of like kind of getting boxed out after Clueless?

Like, I don't fucking know.

She

should have some leeway.

She made Clueless.

It was a big film.

She wrote and directed this film.

She based it on a famous movie.

Away, I'm saying CIA says that didn't happen.

But

she has movie stars.

She is, yeah, stars.

She has actors.

She doesn't have a lot of places to hide on this one.

No, that's, I was going to say, I think it is why the failure of this movie stuck to her so hard for a movie that was not incredibly expensive and is largely forgotten, but it does feel like Hollywood went like, thanks, you're done.

Right.

Like after this, and a lot of it is that I think they were like, we let you do what you wanted and this is what you fucking made.

But I don't know if it doesn't seem like the product of someone who got to do what they wanted either.

It doesn't.

Because like, why do you have to film in Toronto for like 20 of your 25-day shoot?

Right.

And why did it have to be, you know, why did they change the rating thing on?

Yeah, like with Clueless.

God, that's like one of the greatest films of all time.

And it made so much money.

And culturally seismic.

Why do you have to make loser if you make clueless?

Right.

I'm mad.

If someone says to her, hey, no, this can't be R-rated, she can't be like, the American Pie guys are in it.

You told me that movie was R-rated.

Have to hire two American Pie people, basically.

Like, what are you talking about?

And just like point back there.

Like, it just doesn't make sense.

She should have been making Winner.

Okay, Ben, go on.

All right, okay.

And would that be

a popular bakery in Park Slope that has multiple

place called Winner?

Ben, Like Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.

This is

why he's not setting up studio pictures.

Give me your pitch on Winner.

Okay, my pitch is.

Who in American Pie is in it?

Yeah, you got to pick two pie.

Stifler's bomb.

Coolidge.

She's hot.

No, she's hot right now.

She's hot right now.

She's got the shoes.

Right.

Emmy Winner.

And she goes back to school, and everyone loves her.

So far, this is just Rodney Daydraw back to school with Jennifer Coolidge.

But it's kind of a new take.

I'm in.

Melissa McCarthy's wife at the Party, but with Jennifer Coolidge, which is a better film.

Than which.

Than Life of the Party.

Better than Life of the Party, probably worse than Texas Coolidge.

Yes, yes.

And then her roommates are also awful, but they eventually get their comeupps.

She has them sent to Guantanamo.

Exactly.

Yes.

And they're waterboarded.

And you see it, and it's an extended

28 minutes.

This is like the ultimate example of a movie that needs to end with these three guys being hit by a truck, right?

In order for audiences to walk out and not feel

across the screen.

It makes me so sad to think of Amy Heckerling in her like upper west side apartment, like writing dialogue for these guys at like four in the morning, like handwriting it.

Like, why would she even spend her time doing this?

Well, the two films she makes after Loser, I Could Never Be Your Woman and Vamps, are both very messy.

They're better than this film, in my opinion.

You put this dead last?

No.

I put this above two other movies that she made.

I put this above I Could Never Be Your Woman.

Really?

I find I Could Never Be Your Woman more interesting.

And it has Circe Ronin in it.

It does.

And Paul Rudd and Michelle Pfeiffer.

This movie has Mina Suvari and Greg Kinnear.

Sorry to the

activists.

I'll say this.

Like, my three favorite actors in the movie are probably the three demons.

Like, Zach Orth,

Sadowski, and Jimmy Simpson, I always love.

And they actually do what they're asked to do in this very well.

What they're asked to do is just sort of like following Hitler's orders.

I liked Colleen Camp as the hobo who answers the phone.

Ben does turn to me and go, why was that the best performance I've seen in the first 20 minutes of this movie?

It's like the only thing that's popped so far.

It's funny.

Steven Wright asking for pantyhose.

That worked for me.

Yeah, he's.

Taylor Negron.

Spade.

There he is.

Spade.

Brian Backer's back again.

Backer.

back again.

Yeah.

Andrea Martin having like one line of dialogue.

That kind of felt rude to Andrea Martin.

The others, I was sort of like, this is part of her ensemble.

I'm like, Andrea Martin's busy.

Can't show up for this.

David, what?

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

Booking.y.

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

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

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

There's one other person in the room.

This is so rude.

I sleep easy.

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

No.

That's an example of a fussy person.

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That's very demanding to be in Europe.

You got air conditioning.

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

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

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

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You do.

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

Look, they're again, they're specifying like, oh, oh, maybe you want a sauna or a hot top.

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Please.

Can I check that out?

You want one of those in the recording, Stupid?

That'd be great.

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

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You look good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge and while recording, I'm on mic, but you just go back.

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I Could Ever Be Your Woman has this energy.

We will talk about next week, but there are elements of that movie.

which is so clearly autobiographical in so many ways.

There are elements of the movie that feel so axe-grindy of specific grudges that she has has that it feels uncomfortable to watch and also isn't funny.

And I like, I have the same question:

why

design this movie to put like elements that are this fucking unpleasant in it in a way that is like not just oh, a scene that's rough to like balance out the comedy with some heaviness or whatever, but like a consistent streak of like moral morass in this film where the only logic I can apply to it is her being like, you know, there are are a lot of teen sex comedies where, like, boys do horrible things and it's treated as a joke.

Do I want to try to show these people for what they really are?

But then that also feels like a spiteful way to make a movie.

Do you know what I'm saying?

And like, to your point, I'm like, why invest this much energy?

doing it.

I'm not saying you can't put bad people in a movie, but you cannot overstate how much like 40% of the runtime of this movie is these guys fucking with people in a way that actually feels like satanic yeah and and for for someone who just proved that you know like young female characters can make like a shitload of money at the box office yeah and that like people are willing to like people all kinds of people are willing to like show up and and you know like share horwitz became a cultural icon She also talks about this like there's this battle.

You know how the loser became a cultural?

Hey, Mr.

Loser.

The forehead.

What's his name?

What's his name?

Paul something.

Fuck.

I don't even know.

I'm amazed you got Paul.

The only reason I remember,

A, I finished it an hour ago.

B,

I remember that there's a part because Kenner's character is named Peter, and they go, Peter, Paul.

And I'm like, that's weird of her to go.

Oh, his name's Edward, so I don't know.

Really?

Oh, then I think the joke is that he can't remember what his name is.

Okay.

That's the only reason I remember.

Great joke from me.

It kind of reminds me of like that, you must remember this series on Polly Platt.

Oh, yeah.

And how, like, in some ways, the hackerling story is like very sad.

And the more I hear about it from this podcast, the more I'm like, she had a secret baby with Harold Raymond.

No, it's true.

She had to make loser.

Karina, honestly, dig in.

Because I feel like Amy will talk, right?

She's, she's in a sort of retrospective phase of her career anyway.

But it's like

in so many ways, I feel like

female filmmakers, like they're always kind of set up to fail.

Yes.

And even when you have a huge success, like Clueless, it almost get double penalized or something.

Like you're a victim of your own success.

Absolutely.

You, even when you build a franchise, like who's talking, you know, that just makes it so that the cards are stacked more for the next thing you do to be kind of more invalidated.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just like

Hillary West and Criterion did a great interview with Hecker Ling.

There's the Ringer interview we referenced recently.

There was a New York Times profile in 2019.

Like she's done a couple of these sit-downs, and it's not like she like minces words.

And yet I'm like,

in all the very good research that JJ's done, he does keep admitting to us, like, it's hard to pull out stuff on a lot of people.

Because nobody cares about this movie.

So it's like no one's ever really done the, like, okay, can you explain to me what went on with Loser Points?

Apart from like her agent being like, ah, they fucked us.

I don't know how much of it is like the vet scene.

Self-protection.

Self-protection, right?

And like survival, and how much of it is shit, like the weird lawsuits around look who's talking and things she can't talk about.

But it does feel like, even with us spending months, like, you know,

studying her in this way it's like there are just kind of like narrative jumps that are inexplicable to me of just like how does she lose the heat that severely where like the look who's talking movies were so fucking big right the first one is ginormous and yet it was like such an uphill battle for her to get clueless made and off of clueless it should have been like you know what who are we to fucking question this woman right yeah it's the literal concept of your podcast like open up your yes take your should be the blank check, and she got 20 whole million dollars to make it, which is not nothing.

But but she didn't even get to make it in the city that it's set in.

Well,

the failure of this movie hit her as if it was town and country.

Yeah.

And if she had lost $100 million.

But at the same time, the movies are kind of her passion.

This movie is not very good.

And it is, again, it is, it's her movie.

Yeah.

Like, she ruined directed.

Like, I mean, there's only, like I said, there's just not a lot of places for her to hide.

And with I Could Never Be Your Woman, which is the next movie, like you say,

it is kind of weird and personal and ex-grindy in an indie movie way.

It's not a commercial film.

No, I get it.

Like it has movie stars in it.

So it, you know, people were fooled, we'll talk about the production of that film, into putting up money for a movie they thought could be releasable, but it turned out it wasn't.

It feels like one strike that was processed by the industry as three strikes.

I did.

Right.

Where they were like, well, you're on a cold streak.

And it was like, you made one bad movie.

She should have made more movies.

movies i think the other thing with heckerling is she is more an auteur uh-huh so like

like she there's probably like boring projects she could have done that she didn't want she talks about that yeah right and i think and i think a lot of the things she really wanted to do they wouldn't green light because they'd say that doesn't sound like an amy heckerling movie yes and right she was always a little boxed in she kind of reminds me of amy sherman palladino interesting Amy Sherman Palladino.

She's kind of like brassy New Yorkers that are in love with like old-timey Hollywood

things.

And they've like managed to funnel that into kind of like personal art that's a little bit off-center, but like beautiful and

I am someone who is obsessed with Amy Sherman-Powell.

Okay.

I cannot deny it.

Because Film War Girls is obviously the most important TV show of my life or whatever.

And are you Sachet?

What's that show called?

Etoile.

Etoile?

Etoile.

The whole thing that's so weird about her is she worked on Roseanne, which makes total sense.

That like she like vibed on Roseanne, right?

That's where she meets Daniel Palladino.

I'm sorry to do an Amy Sherman Palladino.

It's fucking, I have to do it.

Yeah.

And then she, you know, she works on other sitcoms and she gets Gilmore Girls.

It's a WB show, but obviously she's like an insane auteur.

And you can tell from any interview and every commentary she's ever done, you listen to those commentaries.

There's not very many.

She's, she's a tough customer.

She is intense.

And like, she must have been.

You know, you always hear stories about just how intense she was.

And she's writing these like 120-page scripts, Gilmore Girls with all the dialogue, right?

And the studios are like, this show is so, so insane to make, considering that it's a small-town comedy.

Like, what the fuck?

You know, and they fire her off her own show.

And the seventh season of Gilmore Girls is insane because she's not writing it.

And it's one of the most, it's like Dan Harmony, I was going to say, it's the exact same thing.

Wow.

Everything is like.

We have to fire her because the show can't run with her.

And then they kick her off.

And then it's like, it runs even less now.

It doesn't work without the crazy person at the center.

But then what's so weird about her is like, so her whole career, she's kind of, you know, churning to stay afloat.

And then she makes a fucking show about like a Jewish housewife becoming a comedian in the 60s, wins Emmys, and Amazon's like, whatever you want to do for life.

It doesn't, I don't care how niche it is.

The budget is yours.

You and your top hat have a blank trek.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Like now she's living in luxury.

Like, I mean, whatever.

Yeah, and that's what Amy Heckerling should have had.

Amy Heckerling should have, maybe she was just a little young for prestige TV.

Like maybe she should have gotten a lot of stuff.

I mean, she's obviously she's done a lot of TV directing in the time, but post-loser, right?

And she's done some, like, she worked on Red Oaks, she directed a lot of Red Oaks.

Like, she's done, like, genuine Prestige TV.

I remember when I was working on the tick, and I would talk to the Amazon people about the shows they were working on.

And they were like, in Red Oaks, we're going to our fourth season, third season, whatever the fuck it was, right?

And someone said to me, like, you know, people don't know this, but like, Amy Sherman, Amy Sherman, quality now.

They were like, Amy Heckerling, like, quietly has been directing most of Red Oaks.

She's like kind of taken over it.

It kind of rolls.

And I'm just like, you guys know this is cool.

Why are you not then saying, hey, Amy, do you have a show you want to pitch us?

Yeah.

Like maybe they did, but I'm like, shouldn't that have led to being like...

Did you ever watch Red Oaks?

No.

I never watched Red Oaks.

It's like, it's Heckerling, Hal Hartley.

Yeah.

And it was created by Greg Jacobs.

David Gordon Green.

Oh, yeah.

And Soderbergh, I think also maybe I'm going to be able to do it.

And Soderbergh produced it.

It's like three kind of unbelievable directors, two of whom, like Hal Hartley and Heckerling, are like these like comedy auteurs.

And the dude from Submarine, who's now become a director in his own right, who did the fucking Phantom of the Open or whatever it's called.

Do you know that the kid from Submarine directed the fucking...

David, don't give me that look.

Yeah, I do know that.

You do know that.

You know that.

You know that.

Deep in your heart, you know that.

His name is Craig Roberts.

And he directed Phantom of the Open with Mark Rylance, which won your Putters and Murmurs Award.

And you know that, and you can't deny that.

I don't...

Did it?

I haven't seen that movie.

Really?

I probably just shouted it out as like a movie Mark Rylance was in.

You gave Putters and Murmurs to rylance and something does he probably puts he definitely right was it like bones and all or something well i gave it for bones and all he's definitely putter you were against that performance so you picked a different rylance from that first that same year but what would it have been i don't know it's late oh oh

it was probably the um that horrible movie that about the disaster that the guy who made anchorman did it wasn't that one but he does putter and murmur in that where he plays like don't look up weird bezos yeah yeah he was kind of funny in don't look up I guess.

Here's here's some heckerling, like some larger thoughts I've been having trying to get my head around her career, right?

One is the miracle of Look Who's Talking for Me is that she figured out such a commercial hook to be able to basically smuggle a personal story into, right?

We talked about that extensively, right?

And like that was a thing she kind of didn't figure out how to do again.

I think Ben is right.

I think this is Occam's reason.

She's getting too old for this shit.

And then she does it.

She does a personal story with, I could never be your woman, but it's harder to relate to the plight of a TV showrunner.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, look at that.

And also, I think people didn't.

Didn't studios tell her that Michelle Pfeiffer was too old to be interesting as a viable character?

The film was not released, which was an issue.

Right.

But that really hampered that movie.

Couldn't get married.

Commercial prospects.

No one wants a movie about it.

Yes.

No, my point here is:

what is what is it that look who's talking was her not making way about a teenager was her making a movie about a woman ostensibly the same age as her and being able to like chart what's going on in her life at her moment but couple it with this fucking high concept hook i could never be your woman the hook is here's how i felt making the tv show of clueless and studios were like why would audiences want to go see well studios are also like where's the talk about 2007 right anyway but you know there's like no thing she figured out how to package the story within that made it more like palatable to people.

But I guess Blossers are trying to do that, right?

I guess Jason Biggs is like her Trojan horse.

He's like a likable white male that has no flaws.

And he's a new star, much like Alicia Silverstone was.

Also, based on her, what we've read about her experience at NYU and AFI and her coming up with like Stuart Blumberg.

And I don't think this is based on her life in any way.

I don't think it's based on her life in Incinel.

I think it's based on the apartment.

But I do feel like the Mina Savari character is kind of based on her yeah that's a good point as as a personality me

what really as a personality mina safari doesn't really have a personality in this movie i think well i think mina savari's character at least has more detail than the bigg's character does which is such a blank slate nice guy mina savari's character we haven't talked about this right she's like a cocktail waitress bottle service waitress at like a

A strip joint or strip joint where no one takes their clothes.

Yeah, it's like a fancy trashy club.

Run by Bobby Slayton.

With Twink Kaplan as her mentor.

Yes.

Who is kind of serving?

Twink hot.

Yeah, she's hot.

Realize at some point.

I mean, it's not used to be the Twink Kaplan hot, but like she's banging in this movie.

I did.

Miss Geist no more.

Exactly.

But I also put together like Twink and Mina Safari kind of look similar.

Twink Kaplan and Mina Safari's mom?

They got a similar vibe, right?

You're right.

Sure.

But

the hook of the character, although things are sort of missing or context is missing.

The two main characters of the film are both struggling to survive at a very expensive university surrounded by privileged kids.

So she's trying to

pay her bills.

She's commuting home because her mom doesn't approve of her living in sin, essentially, right?

It's not her mom certainly doesn't know that she's a cocktail waitress.

But the implication is her mom doesn't even know that like she would like be partying, right?

Because that's what the scene with the hobo is But I think money is also part of the equation

But the mom calls being like do would any men come into this women's boarding house It's like the mom is acting like it's 1963.

Yes, okay, right, so she's commuting home.

So she's lying about that So then she decides to get emancipated which makes no sense because she is an adult

So how could she get emancipated for her parents?

She's over 18 years old.

That's what confused me is I was like, is this character supposed to be like a 15-year-old who went to college early?

In which case, Kanner's criminality has gone through the roof?

I think it's trying to sort of say, like, she's a, she wants to be like financially emancipated from her parents so that she can be like legally poor and then get financial aid, I guess.

And Andy Dick is

a scene where he's kind of doing Jamie Lee Curtis and everything everywhere all at once.

And he also won an Oscar for this.

You're going to need some forms, you know.

He like spits on her or some shit.

He's nothing like

a prune on her.

It's, and it's one of those things where I'm like, this is too complicated.

I don't know what this is.

Right.

And she's, then she's got to quit the waitress job.

So, like, all of those things are sort of interesting.

At the same time, she's trying to shack up with Greg Kinnear because she's like, I need somewhere to sleep.

Right.

They are, they have been in a relationship for a while.

You don't want to do that because I'm a fucking weird little creep, you know.

Right.

I don't want to get comfortable.

Right.

Right.

I don't want to get domestic.

All of these are.

Concepts of a character.

These are things that would motivate a character.

Yeah.

I don't see it motivating the actual character on screen much, who's basically just kind of like a nice person who's like, yeah, I don't know.

She's just She just has eyes and fish nets.

She's got big eyes.

She's got big ass eyes.

She does have fish nets.

She's got fun teeth.

Kanner cannot, she can't breathe without Kinnear being like, and by the way, you're dressed like a crazy goth.

Yeah, everything she says.

He's like, and you're stupid and you're,

I'd never want to be with you seriously.

He's so horrible.

And she says something to the effect of, I know that's what he says, but you know, guys don't know what's best for them.

And Biggs has the line where he's like, sometimes when people are trying to tell you, or sometimes when people tell you something, they're actually trying to tell you something.

Which is sort of a good thing.

This guy's not even hiding that he doesn't have respect for you.

And she's just like, I'm going to break him down eventually.

That was actually a good scene.

That scene's

okay.

Because he's kind of...

When he's...

Okay.

This is the big question I have to throw to you guys.

Please.

Is Jason Biggs any good

in this movie and in general?

In general, I think.

Great question.

I do like him.

Is American Pie his best part?

That's a

good thing.

I vlog that question out, too.

I think that's his best performance.

Well, it's sort of like, where do you fall on American, sorry, anything else, right?

Which is such a weird movie.

Sure.

I mean, I feel like Ricci is sort of like the big part in that movie, right?

He's just kind of being.

He was another in that run of just like, this guy seems like an obvious Woody Allen analog, and you're like, getting that assignment is almost always a

death note.

For a while, he had kind of like a zany sidekick run, like in like Saving Silverman and Boys and Girls.

But those are bad.

No, they're really bad.

Saving Silverman is good.

Saving Silverman is good.

Saving Silverman is good.

Are you sure?

Yes.

I remember it being pretty bad.

Did you get roofy?

I have not seen it since 2001.

I may need to re-watch it to see if I can back up this statement, but I think it is good.

It is Dennis Dugan.

Yeah.

It is sort of his blank check for making so many successful Sandler movies.

It's tough when your blank check is saving Silverman.

Yeah.

But it is kind of a movie that is just like unbridled chaos.

Right.

It's kind of crazy.

I remember Amanda Pete is really insane in it.

Yes.

Is Jenna Elfman in that movie?

It's Amanda Pete is in the role that you probably imagine Jenna

playing.

Elfman was circled.

Yes.

But Zahn and Black are really good in it.

Arlie Ermy, I believe, shits in a mailbox, maybe, or he shits on a lawn.

He's in it.

Neil Diamond's in it.

He's listed.

I think you're right.

I think Biggs had like two modes.

He could either be like Zaney Sidekicks or like Woody Allen surrogate.

Well, Saving Silverman's in.

He didn't really fit in either of those.

See, Saving Silverman's a weird one because he is ostensibly the lead and is the romantic lead of that movie, but that is a movie that basically is like, and we don't care about this guy.

It's really about the Zaney sidekicks.

So Zahn and Black, who are the Zany sidekicks, kind of just run the movie.

Do you think that Jason Biggs can carry a movie?

I, you know, I watched all four American movies at some point in lockdown.

You were doing great.

I was doing horrible.

I couldn't have been doing worse.

And I do think he's got a pretty steady hand on those things.

I think the sequels do not work.

And I think like the only thing that kind of works is that he is kind of of fairly sensitively showing the stages of this guy's life as a real person.

Like he's trying so hard to keep it grounded in some level of like relatable human behavior as like the set pieces of those movies become so convoluted.

First one, he fucks up.

Second one, he gets hand stuck to dick with glue.

That's one of the things.

Oh, does the other things happen?

I don't remember.

Yeah, but that's the big one.

That's the big one that happens there.

He jerks off with crazy glue.

Remember that.

Right.

And the third one, he

does the craziest thing of all.

He gets married.

The ultimate gross out gang.

I don't, I think I've seen that.

He shaves his pubes and he throws the pube shavings out the window and they land on the wedding cake.

Oh, yes, I have seen that.

That really seems like a they don't have anything.

Okay, great idea.

Yeah, right.

What haven't we done?

Because Stiffler drinks the cum beer in the first one.

Of course.

Stiffler also fucks Jim's grandma in the third one.

Oh my god.

They start to become like saw traps.

What is the weirdest way that a thing could end up in a place where it's going to happen?

Right, right.

What happens in American Reunion?

American Reunion is trying to like.

It's kind of like the big chill.

They're all just like sitting around.

That's the weird thing.

American Reunion is trying to be like, we're trying to get back to the original movie, which was a lot like smaller and more like sensitively drawn than people remember.

Sure.

But it doesn't quite get there.

there's a whole thing with a young babysitter where he is,

she, he keeps looking like he's taking advantage of her, but he's not.

That's kind of the runner in that movie, which is not super fun.

He keeps getting caught in compromising situations that are actually a perception issue.

I already barely remember this movie I watched in the last three or four years.

Yeah.

Well, anyway, I do think we've decided that I guess American Pie has to be his best performance.

Or is it Loser?

Or is it Saving Silverman?

No, I think he is miscast in this.

I think he's trying his hardest.

I don't think he's bad.

I think he's miscast.

And I think the character is just like not gone.

The person you cast.

I don't think it's Chris Klein.

It doesn't have to be someone in American Pie.

But I will say this.

I think Eddie K.

Thomas would have done this better than Jason Biggs would have.

Rookie of the year.

No, you're thinking of Thomas Ian Nichols.

Eddie K.

Thomas is Finch, who I always thought was the secret MVP of the franchise.

He's very funny in American Pie.

I think he was funny.

I remember him in the other ones.

I remember the first one.

Who are you going to say, Chandler?

Well, okay.

Does it have to be someone from

the business?

No, it can be anybody.

Anybody.

Because my initial thought was Jason Schwartzman.

So Rushmore's just two years earlier.

So Jason Schwartzman is basically like a thousand-dollar Jason Bates, right?

Like it's like a similar vibe.

If you want like a Jesse Eisenberg, like, is it someone who needs to be more like Roger Dodger is two years later?

It's maybe a little early for Eisenberg.

But Schwartzman's interesting to me because I'm like sliding door.

What if Schwartzman is in loser rather than Slackers?

Sure, that's it.

And Slackers is tough.

And Slackers is similarly like being like, we're ready to feed this guy into the studio comedy system.

Oh, or Joseph Gordon Levitt.

That would have been good.

Levitt wouldn't have done it.

He couldn't have done it.

He was kind of doing that thing.

Levitt.

Schwartzmann does feel like the best.

Schwartzman's interesting.

The question is, would they have green lit it with him?

No.

I'm trying to think like who, who's like a TV star, like a toe for grace, but not toe for grace.

Well, Levitt's good because you got the third rock from the sun and you got the heat off.

That's 10 things I hate about you.

That's 10 things heat.

Topher would have been better than Biggs, too.

Topher would have been better.

Topher hadn't made the best.

Biggs, unfortunately, is taking a beating here because I think pretty much anyone is maybe better than Biggs.

But he's not like horrible.

I mean, he's better than Chris Clyde, though.

He's better than Chris Clyde.

Of the American Pie people, he's probably,

I'm going to put forward Eddie K.

Thomas.

What did Eddie K.

Thomas end up doing?

This is what we were talking about last night.

I don't know.

Is that Thomas Ian Nichols had a bigger child career before American Pie?

Right.

He was probably the most established going into that movie.

And he talks about how that movie was designed to be him as the lead.

And everyone else started popping that in the edit.

Right.

It got miscalibrated, which is why those characters are boring because they're meant to just be like the center characters

who don't really have that much conflict.

He does get to get that book out of the library that teaches him how to have sex.

That's the whole point, though.

It's like he gets the book because he's supposed to be the guy.

Yeah, he gets the book of love.

Uh, Eddie K.

Thomas did a TV show, he's doing a lot of stuff.

I mean, he was on Scorpion.

Remember, Scorpio, of course, we all remember Scorpion, he was the third lead.

Don't get stung.

Oh, that's what he is.

What about Ethan Embry?

Embry,

I love Ethan Embry, yeah, maybe too hunky.

No, I don't think he's kind of dorky, but I think any of these also require her taking taking another pass at the script, like casting the right person and then tailoring the part a little more to that guy.

I also think, here's my bigger question.

Why is this movie not basically told from her perspective?

Why is she certainly a more dynamic character than this character, period?

And if you're going to retell the apartment, many would argue a perfect movie, right?

Isn't like part of the reason to try to do a riff on it.

Do a gender flip or something.

So

that's really interesting.

Because that's a much more interesting movie.

Like a a girl that like can't has to commute, can't afford to be at school is like sleeping with the guy so she doesn't have to like sleep at the train station basically.

He's horrible.

This big character.

This feels more like an indie movie though.

Give a nice guy a chance for once.

Yeah.

Right.

Give the nice guy a chance.

He's got the hat.

Yeah.

You'll fix it with a different hat soon enough.

But we said this that the next two movies she makes are indie movies, and they both clearly have the problem of her only knowing how to make things in a studio mode.

They don't know where they are.

She's approximations of a studio movie.

Like she didn't know how to throttle into a different kind of I think she's like because she's sort of caught between two places.

Like she know that she sort of is on the mode to becoming like she kind of could have the career of Penny Marshall.

Sure.

But she has the sensibility of like Elaine May.

So she like doesn't fit in the studio filmmaker box because she's going to like fight and make her own choices that are weird.

And Elaine May was so antagonistic towards the studio and was like, fuck them.

I don't care.

Right.

If they don't want me making things my way, then I won't make movies.

Where Heckerloe could also get, you know, Warren Bay.

The biggest stars in Hollywood.

Heckerling wanted to play ball more.

I think Heckerling liked trying to figure out how do I concede just enough.

For example, perhaps I never shoot in the city where my movie is.

Almost every film I've made is shot in a fake place outside of her two California high school movies.

And European Vacation.

Oh, you're right.

Shot in Europe.

Sure.

But like, what's the balance, right?

I want to try to get these big things, these things made at these big companies.

Yeah.

Make something commercial that people watch.

I also think there is this thing in all these quotes we read of her of her talking about her like innate status as a pessimist and someone who has this very cynical outlook on the world and that she likes when she gets to make movies about positive characters and she feels like she can find this kind of balance in a spicoli or a share Horowitz or whatever it is.

And probably her creating those characters coming from a cynical person helps prevent them from feeling too silly.

She finds some grounding for them.

But I feel like this, I Could Never Be Your Woman and European Vacation all have the same thing where it's like, it feels like the darkness took over.

And they are movies that are all just sort of like, I hate everybody.

I think everyone is stupid and insincere and a piece of shit, right?

Like these movies all have this very like

defensive worldview.

And then when you hear things like the, oh, yeah, we took out this like further degradation scene.

Right.

You're like, we already got that the characters are bad, but that she's like, I want to hammer that home doesn't suggest to me a nuanced outlook.

No, but it's odd.

She like needs to find that tension in her subject.

That's too nice.

He's got to do one mean thing.

The losers?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He changes their medication for Ginkgo pills.

But that's like incredibly nice.

I know.

I'm just kidding.

He forges a note from Kinnear's character.

Right.

He like does Kinnear's character favors.

Right.

I know he's doing it to make her feel better.

He likes the girl.

But he's also helping this guy.

And then when Kinnear's like, I'll give you an A on the paper.

He won't take the A, which is in character for him.

He wouldn't want to.

Sure.

But even then, you're just like, Jesus, this guy is so fucking holy.

Can we say that Ackrid, I do think, is very good in this movie.

It only has two scenes.

He's in the very beginning, and I was like, I'm so excited for this movie to check in with Ackroyd every 20 minutes.

It checks in with him once.

Phone call at the end that she overhears.

Yeah.

But I just kind of a crucial moment, I guess, for her realizing Biggs ain't so bad.

It just made me remember how much I always kind of love character actor Aykroyd.

Yeah.

No, this was a good era for Aykroyd because this is the gross blank era where, yeah, he's a very reliable two, three scenes.

I also, I take a lot of

time because it's very easy to make fun of Dan Aykroyd.

That's easy.

And then I've seen listeners

be like, why does Griffin hate Dan Aykroyd so much?

And I'm like, I love Dan Aykroyd.

Dan Aykroyd means so much to me.

It is so easy to make fun of all of the various weird things about him.

I didn't think Dan Aykroyd would even be like, he knows he's

when we did our Ghostbusters commentary.

People were like getting defensive.

Ackroyd as if I was like not giving him enough credit.

But even like you and I talked about it when we saw Frozen Empire, and you're like, there are like a couple scenes in the middle of that where Ackroyd makes you feel like it's a real movie.

I like that movie.

Just because you're like, this guy cares about Ghostbusters so fucking much.

It's a good movie.

Yeah.

I like it.

Did you see this?

Ghostbusters Frozen Empire?

Speak on this.

You probably have.

Have you seen it?

I haven't seen it.

It's like kind of fun garbage.

It's kind of good.

I like Carrie Kuhn, though.

Glad she's in the Ghostbusters franchise.

I will say this.

I'm glad she's in the Ghostbusters franchise.

Yes.

Here's what she does in Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, Folds Laundry.

Yeah, she's kind of out of the action in the movie.

She goes, guys, come on.

Can I tell you that this film got one award nomination in total?

Was it the Teen Choice Awards?

It was a Teen Choice Award nomination.

But what was it for?

Best Wig.

Best Song.

Both would.

Best Wig would be an outrage.

Best song actually does make sense.

No.

It was nominated in one of my favorite categories.

Wipeout scene of the summer.

They all won the Teen Choice Awards.

Which scene?

Well, I'm assuming it doesn't say, but I'm assuming it's in.

Oh, oh, the literal wipeout.

Yeah, taking a head down the stairs.

Down the stairs or whatever.

Did it win?

No, it did not.

What did it lose to in the year?

Let me tell you the other nominees, and we're going to just have to figure out what the wipeouts are.

Or wait, no, Griffin, do you want to guess?

Well, I'll try to think because Blue Crush was 2001.

Not Blue Crush.

Right.

I'm saying it wouldn't have qualified.

Blue Crush a film that has shouted out in Chandler's film, I believe.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I remember.

Yeah.

Because Chandler's film really.

It's like 2001, 2000.

Right.

It's like you're right there.

Yeah, Loser could have been one of these.

Loser is is one of these movies.

If you're a blank-check listener and you haven't watched, I like movies.

If you want to see a movie about Griffin Newman.

Well, yeah.

There's a reason I like this film a lot.

Yes.

Cause it indicts me in a way that all movies should.

But also, I'm just like, just filled with fucking catnip for people with our kinds of brains and grew up in

the recreate.

That's very sweet.

The feeling of a video store at that time.

Yes.

Anyway.

But

not Blue Crush.

One is a, there's another.

I'm not going to get to the winner.

Yeah.

There's another out-and-out big, broad comedy that was a huge hit, unlike Loser.

In the year 2000.

The Nighty Professor 2, The Clumps?

You're so close.

I'm so close.

Is it a 2?

No, but it's a

popular black comedian dresses as a woman movie.

Big Mama's House.

The other is an action movie.

A Night's Two?

No, a full-on serious action movie.

It's a full-on serious action movie from the year 2008.

It's not the perfect storm.

That's a pretty big wipeout.

That would be funny if they were like Big's falling down the stairs, and then it's like Clooney being like, this is it!

It's like a wave demolishes.

Or like Pearl Harbor.

It is not those two films.

It is a film that the sequel is in theaters right now.

It's a film where the sequel is in theaters, right?

I mean, the many parts.

Is it Mission Impossible 2?

Mission Impossible 2.

I don't know what the wipeout is.

Yeah.

It's not telling me.

These are kind of adult movies for the Teen Choice Awards.

Good point.

Well, the winner is...

These are watching Big Mama's House.

Speaking of R-rated comedies, the winner is an R-rated comedy that was not as big a hit as I think they wanted it to be.

It was still a bigger hit than Loser.

Okay.

It was an R-rated comedy.

It's a bigger hit than Loser.

Perhaps it was a little disappointing.

Was it Me, Myself, and Irene?

There you go.

There we go.

You get it right from that.

Yeah.

Now, again.

I don't remember the wipeouts in that movie.

I don't either.

There's a part where he throws himself down a hill, which I have to

say.

That's something Carrie would do.

That movie is not my cup of tea.

That movie is awful.

I am, you know, I really try to be a Fairleigh Brothers apologist, and there are a lot of them I can't even make up apologies for.

That movie makes me like uncomfortable.

It does.

It makes me

critically

nasty movie.

What's the premise again?

It's Jim Perry is a cop, a nice guy.

One of the most cucked men in America, basically.

The premise is that this guy's been cucked so long and so hard and has suppressed all of his rage and just goes like, well, okay.

He has three giant black black sons because his wife kept cheating on him.

With Tony Cox.

Okay.

So it's Anthony Anderson, and I can't remember who else.

I remember the other one.

I think where Benson Miller might be one of the three.

There is a very funny scene I remember where he loves his kids, which I do like.

Like he just, he's a very loving father.

He's giant

boys.

Good in it.

Where they're all watching Chris Rock and Jim Carrey goes, this is one funny motherfucker.

But he says it like, this is one funny motherfucker.

He's this really nice guy who everyone pushes over and he basically experiences a psychotic break, and this split personality takes over who's his bad side.

Who's evil?

Right.

And he's got to.

He kind of switches between.

Renee Zellweger's a witness in a crime, and he's, or she's out on bail.

He's whatever.

Fuck.

I'm sorry I asked.

He's got to bring her back.

It's a road trip movie, and he's switching between the two guys.

But it's like a nasty R-rated movie.

Like, it's like them going for another, there's something about Mary, but it's very acidic and mean.

It's Gerard Mixon, who's Weency in old school.

Cool.

That's who I was thinking of.

I just remember the only other scene is when he's staring at a boy drinking a milkshake.

And he switches into the evil mode and he goes, what are you looking at, fucker?

And the boy drops the milkshake.

It's seared in my brain.

There's also a scene where he sees a woman nursing a baby and then Renee Zager like walks out and goes like, what?

And then it cuts and he's there sucking on her breast.

It's like, this is the, the movie is like really,

that's the kind of thing where I'm like, that can't have been in like a studio comedy.

But yes, it was.

But that's also the kind of demeanor that Hackerling's trying to play.

And

she has to be part of it.

But that number feels like what we were just talking about: the American Pie sequel thing, where the Fairleigh brothers are just like, fuck, how do we top ourselves?

Right?

Like, we just made something about Mary, and we had the zipper, and we had the hair gel, and we had the dog.

Like, we had these moments that people couldn't stop talking about.

And there are these moments in that movie that are so overly conceived, but also aren't funny and make you feel sick

yeah um

loser i was gonna say

the reason i guessed it was a teen choice award nominee is i feel like the teen choice awards would often nominate movies that came out that same summer yeah it was like arranged with the studios but also clear that they were like nominating from the trailer yeah and being like we hope that by the time the ceremony happens this movie will have been a hit and they're watching the train they're like i guess there's a choice wipeout i don't know

i mean choice wipeout must have been one of those things things where they were like we need categories yes jennifer love hewitt has to introduce her new show what can she present uh get me some wipeouts time of my life yes yeah um

the film made eight fifteen million dollars domestically

got negative reviews in july

yeah came out in late july july 21st gave it a pretty prime not a bad slot wait are we we're done talking about the movie no not necessarily what do you want to say about the movie?

I'm just, I'm checking in.

I mean, I'm fine with it.

Here's the thing I want to say.

It just seemed like you were like, you know, getting off the highway.

There are a couple things I want to say.

Thank you for reminding me, Ben.

Jesus, Ben.

We were almost off the highway.

David, get me, gun, gun, blink, blink.

Rerouting.

Any movie that has people being nice to animals, Ben loves, right?

Oh, that's so nice.

We're watching this together.

They set up this insane conceit, right?

What do you think is going to be the apartment-esque thing of like, how does this guy have a room that has some value?

It's like these three guys fuck with him so hard and then they want him kicked out of their room.

So they bring him to like the dorm.

Like he gets like the only room available, which is, I guess, I think it's supposed to be like the room a vet student would get.

It's insane.

I guess it's

in animal hospital.

I'm watching this knowing it's riffing on the apartment.

And I go, oh, this is a pretty smart way to justify why a character has a solo room.

Right.

Right.

These guys fuck with him and he smartly goes, like, I'll own it.

I'll say that the things they're accusing me of doing are true so I can get out of here.

And these guys can be gone from the movie.

And I think he's just going to get a small solo room that everyone's going to take advantage of.

Instead, they put him in a room in the back of a vet's office that is fully operational.

Not only operational, they're like, and you have to like give the dogs medicine.

He cages in his room.

He becomes like a full veterinarian by by the end of the movie.

He knows how to

remove a membrane from a newborn kid.

Yes.

Right.

That he like knows how.

And he's like, no, that's like Sally, she needs her pills or whatever.

There's like a snake.

There's not even any other vets working there by the end of the movie.

He just is operating the whole clinic by the movie.

When she first walks in there, it's like animal hospital, and there's like a thousand things happening.

And then every other time for the rest of the movie, the place is fucking empty.

It's like.

You got this, right?

Just like 20 cats and dogs that live here.

They're giving him the walkthrough, and Ben goes, oh, what the fuck?

And I go, what?

What just happened, Ben?

And he goes, they're just in the background of the shot.

You see someone doing surgery on a

and their hands are all bloody.

Yeah.

And Ben's like, like, wriggling in his chair.

And he's like, I can't watch this.

Right.

It's like he's watching like eye surgery or something.

Like, he's freaking out.

And he's basically like, if this keeps happening and they don't justify it and it doesn't pay off in some way, I'm going to be so against this movie.

Sure.

And then I see him pick up up the cat.

I'm like, Ben, what if he adopts the cat?

What if he becomes a nice cat dad?

That would start to win you over.

And Ben's sort of smiling.

And you're like, what they decide instead is he becomes the best cat doodler.

Yeah, he's right.

He's good with animals, but he doesn't really adopt one.

No.

Yeah.

But I think it's a thing too that Mina Savari likes having all those kittens around.

She does, but also she's not adopting them.

She's just sort of like, how are they doing?

She doesn't have a home.

So she can't bring one to Greg Kinnear that's already.

I just had this moment where I I said to my wife, like, and I was like, where I was like, I hate that I have to say this out loud, but I don't think this would happen.

I just like, there was just a thought in me where I was like, I had to express, like, this isn't a thing that would happen.

No, and there's like a certain kind of like such a spoil sport.

Yes, there's a certain kind of like 80s New York.

Like, when I first moved here, I paid $40 a month and I slept in a cot in the back of a vet's office.

Right.

I said to sleep like a bat.

I do not fully up to the ceiling.

That NYU says, you know where we can put you?

90s NYU.

Right.

That just doesn't fucking happen.

And what I believe even less is that the three demons come up behind him and they're like, hey, so

run of luck.

I don't know if you heard, but one guy died in our dorm of alcohol poisoning.

He had a hemorrhage, I think they say.

They say he fell into a coma, but then there's a joke that he jumped out of a window and Jimmy Simpson's like, yeah, he fell into a coma.

Oh, he's kind of free.

Jimmy Simpson's good.

Jimmy Simpson's funny.

Yeah.

Um, and so he's your guy, Chandler.

I love it.

He said he was your guy.

I love him.

He rules.

I love him in Zodiac.

He's great in Zodiac.

He's so good in Zodiac.

Debs.

He's good in Debs.

Yeah.

Debs.

We never talk about Debs.

Let's talk about him.

But

these guys are like, we can't party in our dorm anymore because of this fucking inconvenient death.

Right.

So they convinced Jason Biggs to let them throw parties in an active vet spot.

It doesn't make any sense that they would want to.

Hey, I'm just like, he would never talk to these guys ever again.

Sadowski's like, well, we didn't tell you this was all,

we were all in on this together.

We thought you knew.

This is so we could have more party space.

By the way, we're hanging up lights.

And you're like, you know, like fucking like animals have to be operated on here in a daily basis.

And then he just has to clean all of it up.

And then that's where Mina Safari starts living with him.

It's so bizarre.

This movie is 95 minutes long.

Give him a room.

I realize us describing it makes it sound like the sorrow and the pity.

Like, it's like, it's got a lot of stuff happening.

It does.

It does.

And yet, does it?

It lacks connective tissue.

So the stuff kind of just happens one after the other.

Yes.

And then, as we've referenced, it ends with like, and then Biggs and Safari got together.

And you're like, okay, what happened to everyone else?

They're like, oh, Kadir went to jail.

The three guys, don't worry, they're all fucked up.

You know, like like it tries to do jokey, legally blonde style, like post-credits.

The awful fates befell all of them.

Right.

And then it has, it ends on a horrible joke about Mia Savari no longer needs to sell her eggs.

Oh, she's not.

She's saving them for Paul.

Right.

He is dibs.

They're all Paul's.

Jesus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, Jesus.

A little bit.

Yeah.

This is a little bit of an oh, Jesus.

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Chandler, we've been talking about how it is kind of a forgotten thing that the 90s and the early 2000s were quietly a better time for female directors in the studio system

than now or basically any other era.

It was not a great time, but there was this odd wave of like 10 female directors who would get to make comedies with A-list comedians and like launch careers and got healthy budgets.

And you had like Tamara Davis and Betty Thomas and Amy Heckerling and

Efron and like Myers kicking off, but even like Martha Coolidge still doing shit.

Like all

Kenny Marshall was, I mean, as you said, is the example of like, was able to level up, was able to like have have her high-concept movie that got an Oscar nomination, that let her make more serious films and everything.

Yeah, I think SNL, like especially, that was like a great breeding ground for a lot of female filmmakers.

Well, Tamar Davis basically made this thing.

Penelope Spurious, obviously, the other.

Yeah, Penelope's Furious.

But a lot of those SNL comedy pipeline people, those movies were made by women.

And Tamara Davis had this thing where it's like, oh, she's known at helping comedians establish their movie star persona in the transition from TV to film.

And she's making like CB4 and Billy Madison.

And it's like, these are the people who like get to, you know, and in a lot of these cases,

I feel like, what was it?

Well, she makes Crossroads.

She made Crossroads.

She made half-baked.

Let's not forget.

Oh, yeah, she made half-baked.

It's also the same thing.

It's them being like, can you figure out how to make it?

Here are some comedians who were kind of right.

No,

and made a masterpiece.

I mean, it's pretty good.

It did feel like what would often happen was when those people swung and were like, I want to make something a little more dramatic.

They were like, your career is kind of over now.

Right.

Like Betty Thomas makes 28 Days.

And they're like, no one wanted to see your drunk Sandra Bullock movie.

If you want to work again, you have to make the squeakal.

Like all those people kind of just had their careers like taper off, but they did have like.

15-year runs of getting to make Mimi Leader is the biggest example, too.

Oh, yeah.

Like Mimi Leader is like a huge enough filmmaker or TV person, right?

That she gets the two big action movies.

Yeah.

And they both do okay.

Yeah.

But Deep Impact just underperforming, I guess, compared to Armageddon.

It was a big hit.

Just Armageddon outgrossed.

And then she makes Pay It Forward, which is the same thing of like, okay, I'm going to make a serious drama.

Now, to be fair, Pay It Forward is bad.

But then it is just kind of like, right, like you're saying, strike one, two, and three.

Yeah.

It all just happened to you.

It all happened.

I do think if a female director makes a mistake, it is three strikes and more.

Karen Kusama is another one, obviously.

I mean, we're talking.

We were talking about like the sort of like last eight years, like the future of film is female.

Look at these women making big movies again.

Most of the examples are people who were actresses first.

Yeah.

And their careers kind of like hit a wall after two.

You mean like Elizabeth Banks and Olivia Wilde?

Maggie Gylenhall.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, Maggie Gyllenhaus is getting to make a big movie now, but already there's so much hand-wringing of like, why did they give her money to make this?

Yeah, it's also like those $20 million studio comedies just do not exist anymore.

That's what it is.

There were more movies.

There was right.

There was more of a middle ground movie that you could make.

And so, right, there was more space to make a comedy or a half-baked.

I also think there's like a really

insipid thing going on, which is for a while, it was like, well, we don't make low or mid-budget movies anymore.

We're only making $200 million movies.

We can't hire women to direct those because they don't have experience making movies like this.

Then there started being pushback to that.

They started hiring very selectively

and infrequently women to make those movies.

And then when they wouldn't work, they'd be like, well, that's why you can't hire women to direct these things.

And it's like you set up this person to fail.

And it's like, because it's like the nomad land totally.

Whatever that.

What was the Eternals pipeline?

Where it's like, wow, she got to choose an actual sky.

She's a reload tour in the Marvel universe.

Someone.

On our Reddit recently called out.

They were re-listening to her Wonder Woman 1984 episode.

That's a good movie.

And I said,

like,

there is something kind of encouraging about the fact that this movie is hated, and yet Patty Jenkins has three big movies set up, and it feels like no one's holding it against her as like a career ruiner.

And yet, we are now five years later, all three of those movies are dead.

She did.

She has nothing new set up.

Right.

I mean, she did make the mistake, of course, of trying to make a Star Wars movie the hardest kind of movie to make now.

Look, I'll say this.

If you don't.

It's a Black League Cleopatra of movie, which is also historically the hardest kind of movie to make

it.

The goal is to never direct a film.

I tried to

get Cleopatra.

Yes.

If directing a movie sounds like a nightmare, please go in and meet on Cleopatra and Untitled Star Wars.

What's the third thing she was attached to?

Wonder Woman 3.

That's coming right very soon.

I see it on the horizon.

What were you going to say, Chandler?

Oh, I was going to ask about Netflix and like streaming services and if kind of like a loser, loser would now just be like a Netflix original or like straight to Tubi or

like you're talking about.

I do.

I do think that is the majority of like a lot of YA movies or like sort of low-budget streaming comedies.

Kieran and Shifka, America's most like working, hardest working actress.

She's everything.

She had some H, I haven't watched it yet.

What was it called?

I'm looking up.

Sweethearts.

That's like some rom-com.

I haven't seen it yet.

Where it's

her and some guy.

Nico Haraga.

There you go.

The movie with

Caitlin Deaver and Brooksmart.

Oh, there we go.

Okay.

And it was directed by a woman, written and directed by a woman.

Okay.

I haven't seen it.

Yeah.

A couple people have sort of said to me, like, hey, that movie was kind of fun.

And I'm like, oh, when did it come out?

They're like, straight to Max, you know, at Thanksgiving last year.

They all just go straight to Max now or straight to Hulu or straight to, you know.

And a lot of them get a little lost Yeah a little lost.

Yeah

Yeah, it's not like you're become like a tentpole studio comedy director and you work with like the comedians of like your generation No, you kind of like it's like fifth build on stranger things right who is you get the eight of our generation

Who is the comedian of our generation?

Like who are the comedians who are not getting the half?

We were talking about this the other day.

I guess like Brigatsi's like me.

Brigatsi's got a fucking Sony movie set up with a good supporting cast and we're all sort of like, is that it?

Can you fucking figure it out?

And he did this interview where he's like, I might, like, if I can make movies work, I might like wind down on stand-up and start moving over to movies.

Right.

Although he's also like, I'm going to have a theme park.

Yeah.

I guess Apatau was doing it.

He was doing it.

He was like his own pipeline.

He was like, train wreck, king of satin.

But he basically, he had built the like Apatau Industrial Complex, which I talk about so much, basically was like a proto-comedy version of the MCU thing, where he would like test supporting actors out in movies to like see the idea of them being the lead in the next thing.

Totally.

Where you were like introducing in each movie,

you're going to be the next waves of people.

And then he just like slowed way down, started doing more TV.

But like zero movies.

Zero women in that universe, like in terms of directing.

Like it's like Paul Feek, Nick Stoller, you know, whatever other guys.

Yeah.

I mean, he made girls.

He did, but this is a good question.

Did he ever produce a movie directed by a woman?

Period.

Probably.

He produced so many.

Maybe not, though.

Maybe not.

Maybe.

Yes.

You know what?

Dunham was his big one, but it was on TV.

Yeah.

It was kind of at the behest of like a lot of criticism after the fallout of Knocked Up, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, I think Bridesmaids was as well of just like, okay, note taken.

Yeah.

I'm just scanning through now to look at the

Apple Town movies.

Some good.

Quite a few I like quite a bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not all of them though.

I don't think there's one feature film directed by a woman.

Is that true?

Oh my God.

I'm just like double-checking here.

Right, because Big Sick, that's Show Walter.

Look, what's important is...

Jed Appitown, please hire me for yourself.

Yes, exactly.

Yep, that's what's important.

Yeah.

What's important is that the bubble is a transient work about a difficult time in American history.

The bubble might be be the most unwatchable comedy ever made because of what it's about.

Chandler asked me, also it not being very good.

Chandler asked me, have you guys ever talked about doing Apatowee?

And I say, we talk about it all the time.

We think it'd be fun.

The problem is, I feel confident in saying that if we cover him, the bubble will be the worst movie we've ever talked about on this podcast.

It's down there.

It's down there.

Way down in the pits of hell.

And I would like to see him make

anything else.

Any, literally anything else.

Working on something, right?

You get to end with all the nice Gary Shandling documentaries, though.

And

this will

his fucking eight hour

there uh what was the thing he just announced because they had announced he was going to do the coke versus pepsi movie but then there's what something else that superseded that that sounded a little more interesting maybe it sounds like the pop-tarts movie what is interesting about coke versus pepsi they both are fine they make soda right right the announcement just woke up

the announcement was that he and glenn powell are working on something that's fun that they are writing something together that powell would star in an appetite would direct Okay.

What if Glenn Powell is in loser?

Hey, guys.

He's like a little, you know, country boy.

Well, you'd also buy this kid is getting picked on so much if it were what, 11-year-old Glenn Powell?

I don't think he was.

Let me look.

In the year 2000?

Glenn Powell would have been.

14.

He would have been 12.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, so sweet.

Wow.

Glenn Powell's like basically my age.

I know.

It's one of those things where I look at him like, that's a grown man, not like me.

God, I had one of those recently that flipped me out.

I mean, I had the experience watching old school where there's a scene where Luke Wilson is like, we can't start a fraternity.

I'm 30, for God's sake.

And I was like, oh, my fucking

so much younger than me.

Isn't that terrible?

Like, when I watch like old Sex in the City episodes and Carrie Bradshaw is like 34 and they're like, your life is over.

And I'm like, oh.

I know the math doesn't add up, but I watch old school and I'm like, yeah, Vince Vaughan is 67 inches.

It is how I am.

I mean, it's how I am with athletes too, where like, like a famous athlete, I'm still like, well, that person's older than me.

And it's like, no, they're not.

They're like 25.

Like they're, they're so much younger than me.

But I'm like, yeah, no, but look at them succeed and achieve on a grand scale.

That's what grown-ups do, not me.

Yes.

You know?

Yes.

Loser came out on July 21st.

In the year 2000.

It was a pre-9-11 time.

2000.

I hit that note better than the fucking teenage dirtbag.

It opened at number eight, which I imagine was disappointing.

Yeah.

Now you said we've done this weekend this one before.

Main feed or Patreon.

Main feed, the number one at the box office opening to $29 million is a thriller with movie stars.

Is it the movie we covered?

It is.

It is called What Lies Beneath?

What?

They're right beneath.

You've seen Robert DeMeckis's What Lies Beneath?

I have.

And what do you think of it?

I was really scared when I watched it in the back room of a Blockbuster.

That's pretty scary.

Or it's intense.

It's not a film.

Good Harrison Ford performance.

Great.

Great to see Ford playing a Grump.

You were telling me it's not quite the castaway thing, but you're like in the late stages of post-production on a movie you just shot.

Yes.

And active last minute of pre-production.

That's another movie.

On a movie that is going to start shooting in two weeks.

You're in that kind of cool Zemeka Spielberg.

I'm in my Schindler's List, Jurassic Park.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do have a George lucas that needs to help me finish my color correct tomorrow you know who you should ask to do that george lucas he's chilling out yeah

i'm i am in

i am in such a star wars

you've been back in love with star wars i'm back in love because of andor it's so good and it so

understands like what is good about star wars in a way that some recent Star Wars properties maybe have struggled to tap.

And so I'm just thinking about Star Wars all the time.

And I'm just back to thinking about George Lucas being a crazy guy.

You still haven't watched that new ILM Documentary?

No, I got to watch that.

It's so good.

Joe Johnston directed it.

So he's the one doing all the interviews, right?

It rules.

And he got

a lot of good time with George.

And he has such a history with George.

And George clearly respects him.

He actually knows George.

So he's talking 25 years later about the response to Jar Jar, right?

An episode that has a lot of Ahmed best and him talking about his suicide attempt and is like the most bracing version of like trying to talk about the Jar Jar respond.

Running at that.

Truly,

right?

And Ahmed was sort of like, I didn't really feel like anyone knew how to protect or support me during that.

Right.

And they cut to George and they're sort of like, didn't you try to help him at this time?

And he was like, I just told him, you know, I mean, when the original film came out, everyone hated it.

And 25 years, they'll all like it.

And look, see, I was right.

And Joe Johnson's like, but this was kind of different.

And

George's response is,

when the original film came out, everyone felt the same way about C3PO.

And Joe Johnson, this is the value of him driving.

He immediately pushes back from behind camera and goes, George, I don't think anyone reacted that way to C3PO.

And he goes, oh, really?

Okay, well, here's an example.

And then he says the Ewoks teddy bear.

Which is closer.

Sure.

Yeah.

But the difference here is that Amabest is like a guy who people kept shit talking.

Like no one was attacking Warwick Davis on the same level.

Anyway, it was 11 years old, Warwick Davis.

That thing's amazing.

You know who's good?

Warwick Davis?

Wicket.

Wicket's one of my best friends.

I think Wicket's great.

And I'm going to watch all the Star Wars movies again.

I'm just telling you guys this.

It's 10, 15 at night or whatever.

You're going to try it with your daughter?

I don't think so.

I don't know.

I think she's too young for it.

I don't know.

But I'm just going to watch them all again.

Okay.

And I'm just excited to meet Wicked.

I've just been thinking about Wicket.

Yeah, you know who else I love?

Chief Chirpa.

He's all right.

I'm really focused on Wicket's got this little butt.

What about Tebow?

Do you care about Star Wars?

I like the Empire Strikes Back.

It's a good movie.

Do you have a pitch on what your canceled Star Wars movie would be?

Would it be about Wicket's little butt?

What do you mean?

What's a canceled?

Well, I'm saying now.

Everyone's got a Star Wars project.

99 out of 100 announced Star Wars projects are guaranteed to never be made.

They bring people out and they're like, Star, what are you making?

They're like, I don't know.

It's going to have ships or

lightsabers or something.

The little cutie.

BB-8.

Bring him back.

I honestly pull that fucker out.

I think.

Or baby Yoda.

Come on.

Well, he is.

He's a movie coming.

Didn't he go to Hawaii?

He's got a three-picture.

Oh, Krogu goes Hawaiian.

That sounds great.

Really good.

Krogu's got a little cocktail.

I feel like BB

is getting a little forgotten.

Yeah, bring him back out.

Everything from those movies is getting forgotten.

You know what?

He kind of had a Mina Safari moment where everyone was like, this guy's going to be working forever.

You like the family?

Kevin Spacey loves it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what people forget about?

You got to keep, fuck, what is it called?

The coaxium.

Coaxium cold.

People forget that.

You need to keep it really cold.

Are you going to get that coaxium water bottle?

Sure.

Put it in the freezer.

Oh, I was just going to say,

you know, about coaxium or if you remember about keeping coaxium cold.

Coaxium is on the bottom.

I'm a woman, so.

Women don't touch that.

Women don't pick up the check.

They don't open doors and they don't handle coaxium.

Those are the rules.

My gentleman collars can handle the coaxium.

Exactly.

The MacGuffin in Solo a Star Star Wars story is a substance called coaxium that has to be kept very cold.

And it was David's favorite bit for a while.

Because it's the intensity of you need to keep it cold, assuming that it was a thing that was going to be forgotten by everyone else.

And then they opened this like fucking $500 million Millennium Falcon ride at Disney World, and the whole ride is based around coaxium.

Really?

The ride's a flop.

They keep saying, you got to get the coaxium.

And now they're making coaxium merchandise.

Ben, there's literally a newly released coaxium water bottle so you can keep your beverages cold like coaxium.

Brilliant.

Keep it cold.

That's dope.

Number two at the box office.

It's a film that I'm sure you saw in theaters.

I sure did.

Chicken run?

No.

Fuck.

That's number nine at the box office.

Okay.

Right.

That was more of a June, maybe May release.

It is.

It's made $100 million in two weeks.

Was it the motion picture X-Men?

X-Men.

Yeah.

Not only did I see you.

Check that one out.

That was my personality for the year leading up to and following its release.

Have you ever seen Brian Singer's X-Men?

Of course.

Normal movie made by a normal man.

This is amazing to watch in person after hearing it for so long.

The listeners, it's electrifying.

People always say this, right, that I think people who have listened to the show assume, oh, they must be cutting parts out in between the clue and the guest.

You do just see my eyes roll back and then the answer comes.

Men-tat mode.

Yeah.

It's like Leonard Moulton's movie, whatever.

Yeah.

You know, what I would say.

Yeah.

It's the whole, I meet with book people sometimes like, what do you want to write?

And I'm like, I really just want to write Leonard Moulton's movie guide.

And they're like, there's no purpose for those books to exist anymore.

And I'm like, I know.

And let's maybe investigate what went wrong in our culture, when and how and why to make that the case.

Stupid internet.

X-Men doing great.

Yeah.

It was a big hit.

It was a big hit.

Bigger hits were to follow, of course.

Yeah.

But it's the start of something.

Here's a question.

Greg and the X-Men would unite.

They would.

Yeah.

Is Greg Kennier more evil than Magneto and or Harrison Ford and what lies beneath?

I would say yes.

I would say yes.

He's more pretentious and annoying.

And yet he's the fourth most evil character in the movie.

Right, exactly.

He's not even right.

He's probably below the fucking dweebs.

Right.

Like, he's maybe equivalent to Magneto, but the Dweebs are equivalent to Apocalypse, Mr.

Sinister, and Holocaust.

There you go.

Remember Holocaust?

I knew you were going to be happy with the the Holocaust.

What did they retell?

They retell a Nemesis, I think.

They introduced a character in the mid-90s called Holocaust.

And then they were like,

you can't fucking call a villain Holocaust.

And they were like, all right,

dude, they just backtracked it.

Because it's always been Nemesis.

Nemesis.

Number three at the box office is another film.

I was there.

I was there opening weekend.

In theaters.

I was buying a ticket for this film.

It's a sequel.

Was this the opening weekend?

It sure is.

It's new this week.

It's opening to $19.5 million.

Well, it's not 90 Professor to to the Clumps.

No, it's an animated film.

It's a sequel.

Animated sequel.

In the year 2000.

Yes, yes.

In the year 2000.

And it opens.

Ben did it too.

20.

Yep.

It's not a Disney picture.

No, no.

Is it from the fine folks at Fox?

It's being distributed by Warner Brothers, but I think it was

pay-to-play.

This is a movie you definitely saw opening weekend and I did not.

No.

It is called Pokemon the Movie 2000.

That's correct.

I believe the actual title is Pokemon the Power of One, but for American audiences, they called it Pokemon the Movie 2000 in case you didn't know what year it was.

So you were there opening weekend to get the trading card.

I certainly was for the first two.

I didn't see Pokemon 3 in theaters.

There was,

I think by three, they go to Mirror Max.

Sure.

Maybe Warner Brothers won't release the first two.

They go to a meeting.

Peekachua text.

Harvey Weinstein.

Charles Arthur.

Thunderbolt.

Flame broils Bob Weinstein's ass.

My daughter has a pair of Pokemon pajamas.

I don't know where they even came from.

I think they're hand-me-downs from someone.

Maybe Asa, honestly.

Okay.

And so now she will keep being like, who's this?

And I'm like, are there multiple different Pokemon?

There's six Pokemon on her PJs.

Name the big six.

Well, obviously the big three.

Okay, Pikachu.

No, no, not Pikachu.

Charmandaur.

Squirtle.

Yeah.

And then Pikachu's there, obviously.

It's Psyduck in the mix.

No, we've got Jigglypuff.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, who's very amusing, of course, to say.

Her recent album is really good, too.

I don't know how she answered.

It's a Cardi B.

Coleman.

Yeah, she's kind of filling that Lana Del Rey space.

And Eevee,

who's a cutie pie.

Yeah.

Wait, who's your favorite Pokemon?

My favorite Pokemon, big question.

My favorite classically is the Poly Wag evolutions.

I love Polywhere.

Polyworld.

Polyworld and Poly Raph.

Yeah.

I don't talk about Poly Toad.

No, no, no.

But I like a lot of.

I like Mime.

Mr.

Mime.

Yeah, he's in that weird category of Pokemon where you're like, so this is a guy?

Oh, no, no.

He's like, no, no, no.

Here's like four Pokemon that are humans.

Yeah.

And you're like, what's that?

Yeah.

The rest are animals.

You know what?

My favorite.

Who?

Ditto.

Ditto, wow.

That was pretty cool.

I would just play Ditto non-stop because I'd be like, who's going to give me, who's going to put up something I can't copy?

Who's your favorite Pokemon, Chan?

It's my favorite word in the English language.

Snorlax.

It's a great name.

It's a great word.

It's a great word.

It's a great name.

Snorlax is good.

Raising a Snorlax is impressive, too.

All right, number four at the box office is: we'll do the Pokemon someday.

People have been pushing for us to do theatrical Pokemon because that compresses it by a lot.

Then it's just like the first four and Detective Pikachu or something.

Well, I want to say congrats to our listeners because apparently the show is going to run 25 years if we're getting a theatrical Pokemon.

It would be pretty funny.

Imagine you do a theatrical Pokemon before Hal Hartley.

Well, we treat theatrical Pokemon as director series.

I think four was the final.

That was four ever.

Correct.

To make it to U.S.

theaters.

I feel like five.

Five might have.

I remember the five might have gotten a Cinema Village release.

I remember one of them making like tens of thousands of dollars in theaters.

It being kind of astounding before they just started putting them all on DVD.

Yeah.

Number four of the box office is a huge hit from this summer.

It is a comedy, a spoof film.

Oh, it's called Scary Movie.

That's right.

It's humongous.

Yep.

Is it good?

No.

No.

I don't remember it being actually good.

No.

But important in a weird sort of way.

Yeah.

I feel like it's getting a reclamation these days.

It makes sense.

Yeah, it's on Twitter.

I just, I don't love it.

And I like some of the Wayne's Brothers' work a lot, but I'm not crazy about that movie.

Number five of the Box Office?

As much as I love Emma Ferris.

Yeah, and she's funny.

And Regina.

You can say her name slower.

I love Anna.

And Regina.

There you go.

I don't know who that guy is.

Yeah, I liked him.

Okay, he might come back.

The lounge singer, Griffin's new character, lounge guy.

Number five of the box office is a film we've invoked on this episode.

It is a huge hit.

It's based on a bestseller.

It's got movie stars.

Is it the general's daughter?

Nope.

We booked it in this episode.

Okay, it's a big story.

It's been out for a month.

It's made $145 million.

The Perfect Storm.

Yeah.

A totally good movie.

Like a totally solid, like, true story movie where everyone's got a sweater on and they all get fucking killed by a wave.

Sweater core.

Yep.

You've seen The Perfect Storm?

I believe I have.

Wolfgang Peterson film.

Did you know that?

Mark Wahlberg.

He's there.

There's a big wave.

Clooney.

John C.

Rylan.

Everyone's win.

It's like Mary.

Mary Elizabeth, Master Antonio.

And Diane, her last movie, though, Mary Elizabeth.

Yeah, Master Antonio.

She's kind of disappears after.

But Mary and Diane are both like.

This storm seems pretty bad.

And then the boat is Clooney Wahlberg, Riley Fickner, and fucking

Bob Gunton.

Maybe it's a great, it's a great group of guys.

Is Master Antonio?

Oh, John Hawks, too.

There we go.

John Hawks.

Is Master Antonio like another on a different boat?

She's on a different boat.

And Diane Lane.

Diane Lane is on shore and she's like, yeah, she's,

no, she's Wahlberg's girlfriend.

All right.

Diane, get it.

That movie's great, though.

And it is just kind of like, I would like more movies like that.

Sure.

Where they were like, there was a really weird, crazy storm.

Bring him back.

You know?

Yeah.

Bring him back.

Also talked about in the ILM doc.

There's some really interesting intel on that one.

It is an incredible movie from a visual affair.

They were like, that was a real breakthrough movie.

I don't think movies look better than that now in terms of like doing water shit.

Like, it's like kind of still your.

But it was like the one where they finally cracked the code on like physics sims and getting it right.

Yeah.

Number six at the box office is

The Kid, the Bruce Willis movie?

I don't think that's the proper title.

There we go.

Disney was sued at the last second, and they had to call it Disney's the Kid to differentiate it from the Charlie Chaplin movie.

Oh my God.

That is true.

What is that about?

It is about.

Pencil Breslin is like baby Bruce Willis, who's like a vision.

It's like a weird

time travel thing where somehow I've never heard of this.

Child version of Bruce Willis played by Spencer Breslin as a nerd is now in the present with cool businessman Bruce Willis, and he has to learn to love his younger self.

It's a turtle top.

It is indeed.

Is it a body switching?

No, it's like he's an adult man in the present day.

And what is presumably like 1960s child version of him suddenly just like appears at his front door.

It's terrible.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

I remember it not working.

Number seven in the box office is The Patriot.

Oh.

Bad movie.

With Heath, uh, with Heath Ledger.

Yeah.

Heath Ledger?

Yeah.

Heath Ledger.

Yep.

Uh, that's a,

what's his name?

Randall Wallace movie, correct?

Well, I think Randall Wallace wrote it, but he wrote it.

So fucking, uh, Roland Emmerich directed it.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A guy with a really good grasp on American history, as we also saw with Stonewall.

The year 2000, Mel Gibson

had The Patriot, Chicken Run, and What Women Want.

And it was the first time I believe a movie star had $300 million grocers in one year.

And not only that, Patriot had broken the record for the highest an actor had been paid upfront for a movie period.

He's a Patriot.

Could not have been more dominant.

Yep.

And then he has what?

Like right after that, he's got Signs.

He makes signs two years later, and then two years after that.

We were soldiers at the following year.

Signs is two years later.

Yeah.

It's humongous.

Or three years later, whatever it was.

And then he basically soft retires and makes a fucking passion the craze.

Did that thing do okay?

I think he took a bath on it.

Damn.

Eight is loser.

Nine is chicken run.

Ten is me, myself, and Irene.

Wow.

What are your favorites?

What are you at the pictures?

Number 12 at the box office new this week is a film called The In Crowd.

Oh, yeah.

What would you do to get in?

With the in-crowd.

Oh my God, that poster.

I just had like a full Prucey and memory.

Who's the lineup in that one?

Blorp Blueby, Blopbee Blue Blby.

It's just made up people.

I'm just saying, is it like the people from like Brendan Fair or something, like Smallville actors?

It's like one of those movies that had a like Valentine Urban Legend style poster with eight actors' faces.

Eight faces, and it's like, all of these people did get parts on Melrose Place, but for some reason.

Susan Ward.

Susan Ward, yes.

Laurie.

You know Susan Ward?

She's in

like 10 Things I Hate About You.

or like Never Been Kissed.

She's in one of those.

She's in Shallow How?

Talk about Fairlease.

Yeah, not a great one.

She kind of has like a sad face.

Susan Ward.

Susan Ward.

Lori Huring.

Matthew Settle.

This voice directed by Mary Lambert, who I like.

Yeah.

Yes, it is.

Oh, Wait Who Did Pet Cemetery?

Yeah.

Crazy.

Yeah, kind of a legend.

There you go.

Wow.

That's the Amy Heckerling trajectory.

Yeah, but man, this thing was flopping hard.

Well, yeah, what the...

Nathan Bexton, Tess Harper.

Yeah, these sound like made up.

You know what I mean?

And that's how I felt watching Final Destination Bloodlines, which I said to you, Greg.

Yes, it's where we're like, I don't know a single one of these mothers.

There's something kind of refreshing about it.

And then when they're going to bring in the grandma, I'm like, okay, who'd they get for the grandma?

And they're like, surprise, nobody.

Some respectable working actor.

But here's the other thing.

They're all good.

Everyone's good.

They're all totally good.

Like, having

re-watched all the Final Destination movies.

I did not know who they were.

That is often the Achilles' heel of those movies where there will be someone who is like the third lead, and you're like, did this guy win a contest?

Like, he got kind of shooting the lens.

That's also tripping over cables.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead in three is so good in it that you're like, this is almost overwhelming.

The movie, she's actually too lucky.

The lead woman in two is very good as well.

She's good.

A.J.

Cook.

She's more, I would say, in the right zone.

But Bloodlines, everyone is good.

Everyone's great.

Have you seen that movie yet?

No.

Tandler, it rules.

It's kind of ruled.

I love the franchise.

By this bag, if you love the franchise, you will like this movie.

You will watch this one and you'll be like, oh, this is what all of these movies have been trying to be.

They finally cracked it 100%.

Is Devin Sawa in the first one?

Devin Sawa's in the first one.

I just remember there's the thing about putting something in the microwave.

And there was the Mentos in like Coke or whatever.

Yep.

And there's

the tanning tanning bed.

Look, we've had a lot of great kills over the years.

That was the first movie I snuck into that was R-rated.

Yeah.

How'd you get in?

I think I went to another movie and got in.

Yeah.

Illicit.

Devious.

Loser.

We discussed it.

We discussed it.

Fucking Jesus Christ.

Bedtime.

We had to do it.

Remember, like

45 minutes ago when David was like, so I think I'm ending this episode.

And we couldn't, no, no, no, that's not how things work.

You talk much more about the movie.

We talked about a lot of really great stuff, and I think this was a really important episode.

I just want to say to Amy Heckerling or any of the associates, if they're listening, I love you, and you're an incredible filmmaker and

inspiration for many.

And please put Clueless on the Criterion Collection.

There is a 4K 30th anniversary coming out from Paramount.

Not a loser, to be clear.

Let me double-check my notes here.

Yes, it would be nice if it got that kind of respect on it, but it does.

Everyone's sort of like crossing their fingers to see this new restoration because I think they're also putting it back in theaters this summer.

Really?

I think they should.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah.

Look,

I don't even hate this movie because it's so weird.

Yeah, I agree.

Like, it's one of those things where I'm like, I was kind of engaged by it.

This

box log was like, this movie is vile, but I'm not sure I'm saying that as a total movie.

It was

letterboxed.

Deeply bizarre and kind of evil.

Brackets, somewhat complimentary.

Right.

Like, yes.

Kind of an evil movie, though.

It felt evil to me.

There is an evil in this movie.

There is.

It taught me a lot about wigs and how you shouldn't make anybody wear them.

Wigs and bigs.

Wigs and bigs.

Never put a wig on Jason Bigs.

No.

Ever.

Ever.

Big can't wear wigs.

Yeah.

He only wears the hat for like five minutes.

He's wearing the hat.

He's in the hat a lot.

Maybe he's in it more than I remember.

But I'm like, if that's the wig, then he should never have that hat.

I was so relieved anytime the hat came back, and going in, I was like, I bet, I hope he doesn't love this fucking hat too much.

They must have done camera tests.

Like, no one during the camera test was like, you know, it's kind of an unflattering haircut.

Even beyond that, like, the lens didn't shatter when they tried to point it at the wig.

Well, that's why the movie costs so much $20 million.

It kept breaking lens.

But her hair is bad too.

It's so spiky.

Blue lights just catching on fire.

Like, who is the hairstylist?

I don't know.

Chandler, thank you for joining us.

Chandler, I like movies.

It is pretty thoroughly rentable by this point.

Yeah.

It played for six months in Japan.

Hell yeah.

Had a very successful Japanese release.

That rules.

I can see.

I can understand.

Yeah.

It seems like it spoke to people.

Hideo Kojima loved the movie.

Really?

Yeah.

I fucking.

He tweeted about it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Polly.

That's how it got on my radar for the first time.

Sarah Polly kept waxing poetic about it after seeing it at Tiff.

Yeah,

it's it's been unbelievable considering it cost you know the price of Jason Biggs wiggle negative one million dollars

for free, but be careful, it comes with a price.

Is the price your movie will suck,

it will ruin your career.

Oh my god,

oh man.

Um, but yes, rentable, and then the film you're finishing now.

Yeah, it's called Mile and Kicks.

It's my Indy Sleaze movie.

Hell yeah.

Mile and Kicks.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Stars Barbie Ferreira from Euphoria.

Hell yeah.

And Jay Bearshell.

Hey, Canadian Legend.

And Devin Bostic.

Canadian Legend.

Roderick.

And Stanley Simons from The Iron Claw.

Hell yeah.

And Juliet Garapi from Red Rooms.

This is a great cast.

Red Rooms, which, by the way, I mean, that movie rocks.

It's the best movie.

That movie is putting Canada on the map.

It's the best.

That's a country of freaks.

David Fincher movie he never made yet.

Not since Maple Syrup.

Ben, I think it would freak you out, but wow.

It's a cool movie.

It's such a massive red room, as it's called.

And Juliet is scary.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

It's a movie about how the internet is good and normal.

An Indy Sleaze movie is such an exciting opportunity for a soundtrack.

Oh, tell me about it.

And some hair.

It must be like, it's almost intimidating, it feels like.

It's a curse and a joy.

Yes.

It's very expensive and a lot of negotiating and stuff.

But we do have a peaches song,

fuck the paint away.

Oh, you got it.

She's generous.

I wrote her like a very loving letter, and she gave us an amazing deal on it.

That's incredible.

Um, can I make some soundtrack suggestions quickly?

Of course.

Teenage dirtbag.

We fly for a white guy, blue double-dee.

Get down tonight.

How about she's so high?

By Dal Bachman.

That's this movie.

Oh, yeah.

What's my age again?

Thank you for being here, Chandler.

Oh, my God.

It's an honor and a privilege.

A rare blank check after dark.

And thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

Tune in next week for one of the most horrible movies we've ever covered.

I Could Never Be Your Woman with the Great Karen Chi record, returning to the show.

Hush.

That's not true.

Next week.

Is there a new release?

28

years later.

That's what's happening.

I forgot.

And then I could never be a woman with Guarantee, which is great.

Yes.

I'm excited to see those zombies.

Me too.

What are they up to?

I don't know.

But whatever they're doing, it's going to be fast.

Visiting Miramax, maybe.

Much like the Pokemon.

No, we want to send all destructive forces to the Miramax offices.

But tune in for that.

Yep.

Yeah.

And as always.

Goodbye.

And as always,

of the many things that got Ben's ire up while watching this film, I think nothing pissed him off more than seeing several rows of beautifully shiny gold plush velvet seats and saying, is that supposed to be Webster Hall?

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 Minnick.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

Join our Patreon, BlankCheck Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

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This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.