Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me with Arkasha Stevenson

Blank check with Griffin and David

Blank check 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 Check

When this kind of podcast starts, it is very hard to put out.

The tender bows of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.

That's why our episodes end up being three hours long, David.

Okay, why is that?

Because when it starts, it's hard to put out.

Fires aren't.

It's burning, and yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, this one's not going to be three hours.

I'm just telling you that right now.

True, it's going to be 3.30.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

hello three and a half bucks hello hi how are you doing i'm fine me i'm fine i just knocked your water over it's been a tough morning let's just say this yeah let's just say it we've had we've had some some technical difficulties look in the grand scheme of things could be worse watched a movie last night that depicts someone whose life is full of much greater struggles than what we've gone through.

Sorry, actually, we've had technical difficulties.

Okay, that's what's going on.

Sure.

Yes.

It's been a frustrating morning.

He's doing coal, is what he's doing.

Is what he is doing.

Is doing coal.

Yes.

Introduce our show and please introduce our poor guests.

This is 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 and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want.

Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

Sometimes your check clears on television and then it bounces and then you're like, I can catch the check.

And then you bounce it further.

Right.

And then 20 years later, people are like, I think that was a masterpiece.

Right?

That's basically the insane life cycle of this whole movie.

Of this movie and this world.

Yes, absolutely.

We're talking about the films of David Lynch and his television, frankly, to be honest.

To be quite honest.

Today we're talking about

Twin Peaks.

Firewalk with me on a mini-series that we've titled Twin Pods, Firecast With Me.

Yes.

Yes, that's true.

This is the moment where everything's lining up.

We're in an unusual studio.

Yes.

Is this a Black Lodge compared to our Red Lodge?

Black Lodge and White Lodge.

It's okay.

Aren't there three lodges?

No, there's just the Black Lodge and the White Lodge.

Damn it.

The Red Room is the Black Lodge.

They're the same thing.

Okay, well, it's okay.

Don't worry about it.

Well, then maybe this is the Red Room.

No, yes.

Introduce our guest.

Guest today.

Who we're just

putting through.

We put hell.

We're really sorry.

Fantastic filmmaker, director of The First Dominant, Arkasha Stevenson.

Hello.

Hi, Arkasha.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

How are you guys?

Oh, we're fine.

Chill.

The word is chill.

Apparently, Griffin hasn't eaten anything today.

It's 12.50 p.m.

Cool as ice.

I asked for a granola bar.

It's been 45 minutes.

Everything is going

to say everything is going well.

Arkasha is in New Orleans in a podcast studio that is surrounded by saints and Vikings and Pelicans logos.

Yes.

I never traveled without my sports spirit.

Right.

This is your sense message.

Yeah, you brought it.

Yeah.

Here to talk with us about Twin Peaks Firewalk with me.

Arkasha, I heard you on the big picture.

And you talked about how this movie and Wild at Heart are like the two sole reasons you became a filmmaker.

That is not a lie.

It's very true.

Did I tell the story about how I was first introduced to David Lynch on that podcast?

Please tell the story.

Okay.

I had dropped out of college, was living on my mother's couch,

and was at.

You had been studying photojournalism.

Is that right?

This was even prior to photojournalism.

This was when I I was picking my nose and doing nothing important, you know.

Um,

and I went to this bar that is now condemned, but it was called Hell.

And it was this

a wonderful bar.

It's you know, you pee in a trough, both in the men's and women's bathrooms.

It's just an absolute carbon, right?

Wait, where is this bar?

Hell, where is it?

It's condemned, but it was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Chapel Hill.

Yeah, below it's now condemned.

It's condemned.

It's below Bubs, if anybody from Chapel Hill is listening.

Okay.

Yeah.

And they, it was a dance party, and on a projector, they were playing silently by our walk with me.

And so mid-dance, because this is how I dance.

Yeah.

Right.

And for the listener at home, Arakasha's doing probably the best dance I've ever seen.

Thank you.

I saw the scene where

the one-armed man, Mike, is trying to drive Laura and Leland off the road.

And so, you know, people, he's screaming at Laura and there's no sound.

So I'm just trying to read his mouth and his lips.

And I just keep catching the word corn.

And

what the hell is this?

And I actually left the bar and I might be aging myself, went across the street to the video rental store.

Oh, yeah.

And it's like, I described the scene and they're like, that's definitely David Lynch, but that movie's out right now.

Here's Wild at Heart.

And

so I went home, watched Wild at Heart.

My brain exploded.

And

yeah, there's another like

10 hour story from there.

But that, that's the gist.

So when did you watch this movie in full?

It was probably after that, I started devouring every Lynch movie I could find, and it was in the mix of everything.

But it, strangely enough is the movie I watch the most.

I watch it multiple times a year, and but also the film I know the least about

at the same time.

Did you watch it before Twin Peak?

Like, did you ever, you know, go back and watch the whole show as well?

Or like, was the movie kind of separate for you?

Because I feel like to some people, the movie is kind of separate.

I didn't even know there was a show.

I watched this movie.

And then when I realized months later, this is a prequel to a TV show.

I was just like, well,

bow howdy.

This is really exciting.

Because

you're not the only person I know who feels that way, who is like, oh, yeah, I just like that movie.

Yeah.

And to me, I'm like, is this movie?

Like, does it make any sense outside of Twin Peaks, the TV show?

But it must make a strange source.

A lot of people who were diehard fans of the show were furious when the show

came out, came in with loaded expectations, wanting it to be something it wasn't trying to be.

Right.

I, uh, Arkasha, full transparency, I now feel more comfortable admitting this.

When this podcast started, the first year of our show was this incredibly dumb bit that David and I constructed, where we decided we were only going to talk about the Phantom Menace as if no other Star Wars movies had been made.

And we thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

And it was just like, here's a failed franchise that never went forward.

Who knows what the rest of this was supposed to be?

And so sometimes when the opportunity presents itself, and it rarely does, I do kind of like to try to engage with something in the quote-unquote wrong order that is also an order that the narrative of the universe almost is suggesting.

Like, our whole take was: if George Lucas is claiming that you actually should watch this movie first, then let's pretend that the other movies don't exist.

I did watch this before watching Twin Peaks.

Before watching any Twin Peaks at all.

Yeah, I saw this like a month or two ago because it was playing at the Paris Theater.

I had only ever seen the pilot.

And then, after seeing this, I then watched all of the show and then watched it again last night i will say it definitely made more sense to me having watched the show it's so interesting because i had almost the opposite experience where where i probably interesting

no twin peaks is this movie and this world and

and you know the tv show is the shirley temple that you give your child before you start giving them mixed drinks you know it's like yeah i think what was interesting for me was that here's this thing that I've been so aware of for such a long time that I've just never engaged with.

And especially with television, I have like a tremendous amount of blind spots where there are things I feel like I know through osmosis, but I've just never watched a lot of these totemic shows.

And in this weird sense, I had sort of this like a bird's eye view of the reputation of both the show and the movie and ostensibly what both of them were trying to do and how they were different and how they were similar.

And then in reality of actually watching both of them, I feel like my notion of what the series was is actually a little closer to what the movie is.

And my notion of what the movie was is actually a little closer to what the series is.

Right, right.

In that I feel like in cultural reputation, and we talked about this on the season one episode, but like the stuff that like...

jumps out in the sort of like memeification culture is like all of the red room stuff and the weirdest elements.

And then you watch the series and so much of it is like interpersonal soap opera, done with this uncanny David Lynch tone, but it's about the sadness and the social and romantic and sexual entanglements of all these people.

And then it has this layer of weird supernatural stuff kind of happening at the margins.

And then I had always heard that people didn't like the movie because the movie was the swerve of him being like, I'm just going to place you in the last week of this woman's life and make you deal with like the pain and the suffering of her as a real person.

And when I heard that people didn't like it, I assumed that it was like, oh, because he got away from the genre elements.

But in a way, this movie is more about kind of like

the curse of the Twin Peaks universe.

A little.

And the main theme of Twin Peaks for me, which is just sort of like, what is evil?

Well, exactly.

And that's what I love about the movie so much is that it feels it's this priorities get switched, right?

Yes.

To where instead of talking about,

I guess it re-anchors you first and foremost in that Laura is the protagonist of this entire story.

You know, and there's that story that

or that intro that Log Lady gives where she says every story starts with one story.

And I think when you're watching that show, you forget that it's about Laura.

You know, Laura is kind of just this woman, you know, a corpse wrapped in a plastic wrap.

But then,

but then, you know, I was thinking a lot about Blue Velvet for some reason and that line where Comic

says, why are there men like Frank Booth in this world?

And what I love

Firewalk with me is because it says, let's talk about that.

Let's talk about where evil comes from and mine to the core of this whole universe.

Yeah, I do feel like I keep coming back to and watching his movies.

There is this almost like childlike reckoning David Lynch has with like, I don't understand how people are capable of things this terrible.

Right.

And I'm trying to understand like where this energy comes from and especially how someone can like present one way and do things so separate from that behind closed doors.

Like how can both of these things be contained within any single person?

Right.

Bob, we'll talk about it.

We're going to talk about all this.

But right, but I also feel like the genesis of this movie slightly is Lynch's fixation on Laura.

Yes.

Fixation, I mean it in a good way,

that he probably didn't see coming when he conceived of a gigantic soap opera with 45 characters that's about a whole town.

Well, that's the thing.

And then he keeps being like, I just can't get over what happened to Laura.

The thing that I thought of as an impetus for the show, not what the show is.

I feel like the line I've heard a lot of people use is that like the radical act of this movie is that it transforms her from object to subject.

Yeah.

And it does feel like you watch the series and you see Lynch in real time.

And it's the part of just the kind of idea of this movie existing that I find very emotionally affecting, which is what he talked about: of like, he casts this local actor who's mainly just supposed to be a still photo and a prop, basically, and is immediately taken with like, this person has something.

There's like a real actor here, and is working to try to fit her into the show and have reasons to put her in front of camera and give her dialogue and agency.

But all of this is like backed into the corner: we've killed off her ostensible main character.

Sure.

And then you kill off her secondary character, you know.

And it's like, here's him devoting this entire movie that's sort of in real time, he became very connected to like what he felt Cheryl Lee was capable of doing that no one was letting her do and what he felt was profound about Laura Palmer as a character that he felt he needed to put on screen, not just as like other characters talking about her in the past as a plot.

Why people were so upset when this movie came out?

Because people, you know, this isn't just a movie.

It's a character study of a young girl who's experiencing and navigating all this horrible drama.

And when you're used to Twin Peaks, this show, you're like, no, I want more Douglas Cirque.

I don't want to have to deal with this.

And I think that's why I became so obsessed with this film, because I think he portrayed all of this

so accurately and so in a strange way.

You know, it doesn't feel surreal, I think, to have lived the life of a teenage girl and understand how treacherous it is.

And then to watch this movie and say, like, oh, yeah, they're demons.

Yeah, they're evil spirits, you you know.

Um, but it's actually, I was, I was reading um not too long ago.

Uh, have you guys seen the movie Peyton Place?

No, no, I've never seen Peyton Place, never seen the movie Peyton Place, obviously.

Ironically, also made a soap opera based on it, but yes, obviously, it turned into a

TV show, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So, Peyton Place, and do you mind if I do spoilers here?

Attention, attention.

This is a spoiler alert for the 67-year-old movie taking place.

Yeah, no, spoil away.

Well, so apparently,

you know, David Lynch's agent said that before when the idea of Twin Peaks first came about, he hosted the screening of Peyton Place and that this was like the impetus for Twin Peaks, the series.

And Peyton Place is about this like very small bucolic town that is dealing with all this, you know, these horrible scandals and

gossip and trauma.

And there's a girl in this film who is raped by her mother's husband.

And

the town

and impregnated.

And the big scandal is that the doctor in town gives her an abortion.

But she

really, like, she's this beautiful, blonde, sweet girl.

And so after seeing Peyton Place, I couldn't re-watch Firewalk with me in the same way, you know?

Feels like these two films are so married.

And it is right.

It's the most obvious inspiration for Twin Peaks, right?

I mean, he cites it when he's

coming up with the show.

Right.

I think the other thing that kind of disarmed me, watching the movie first, and it's, it makes sense.

I mean, for you to watch the movie first, but not have the awareness of the TV show, whereas I was watching it knowing I was doing the wrong thing and trying to like fit it into the notion of like, so what is the show relative to this?

And the thing that caught me off guard so quickly in just my dumb surface understanding of what the show was, where it's like, I've seen the high school prom photo of Laura Palmer, and I've seen the photo of the corpse, and I know the show is centered around this figure.

And I know the movie is the prequel of the last week of her life.

The thing I didn't know is that, like, I think I assumed, oh, the movie is going to be this tragedy about a woman's life, a young woman's life, going off the rails, ending in her death at the end.

And instead, this movie is about the first week of her life, or the last week of her life, excuse me, but her life is is already fully off the rails.

Like the, you're just watching the end of the spiral.

She's accepted, I think, her death in the first scene, basically.

In the gobble gobble scene.

Like she's already, there's already a sort of serenity to her.

Which, let's say, this is the better gobble gobble movie covered on this podcast in 2024.

We did G Lee recently.

Yeah.

But yes, that's the thing that I think is so disarming about it is you're basically watching a movie that starts with someone pretty close to rock bottom.

And then you're just seeing how it fully falls apart.

And here's the thing.

When I first watched the movie, I didn't know Laura Palmer was going to die.

Like that's how

fresh and clean I came into this.

You know, I was watching it with totally, and there's something so beautiful about the filmmaking to where

I was just accepting every riddle.

And I.

wasn't expecting that to tie into some greater context.

I was just like the gobble gobble scene.

this is a secret language between two lovers, and that makes sense.

And then later, people are speaking in code and in this secret language at, you know, the bar in Canada.

And it just all, I didn't question any of it.

It's such a funny flip, too, of like when the show is airing at its peak and people are loving it.

Right.

The audience is like pumping their fists and hooting and hollering anytime some new weird element is introduced that isn't explained.

By the time they get to this movie and it's a year after the show's been canceled, they're so frustrated that they're not getting answers.

And you have the opposite response to that, which is like the one-armed man shows up in this and you're like, I love this unexplained element.

And everyone else is like, where's my closure on the one-armed man?

And where's my closure on the show?

And the show had this cliffhanger and like then it's,

you know, we can, and we can talk about it.

I mean, we'll talk about it.

And obviously, he thought this was going to be the first of three movies.

Sure.

But it speaks to his priorities where he's like, no, the thing is to remind everyone that like, this is a real person.

And it's the thing, especially in a world, and I think this is part of this movie's reputation improving so much, especially in the last decade, is like our increasingly true crime-obsessed culture often kind of loses the actual victims in a way.

You know, it sort of, even if it's paying attention to them, it does it in a way that sort of abstracts them and dehumanizes them and flattens them.

And this is a movie that, like,

it's, it's a weird comparison point, but there's a clip I'm obsessed with of Bob Odenkirk on the Howard Stern show, where Stern is asking him about Farley and how close he was with Chris Farley.

And he's like still clearly angry about it.

And he's like, the frustrating thing is it was so inevitable and it was so cliched.

You kind of knew where it was going.

Right.

And when there are those stories about celebrities who are caught in this cycle where you're just like, they seem to be just circling the drain and this is going to end bad.

And we all know it.

And I always sit back and wonder, like, how do they not have a support system?

How do they not have friends and family who are physically pulling them back from this and getting them back on the rails?

And this is a movie where Laura Palmer kind of exists in that way relative to her town.

And everyone is just kind of like, I don't know what to do.

And everyone who deals with her is kind of clearly saying like, this isn't going to end well.

I don't know how to pull her out.

And they know she's in trouble.

And she knows she's in trouble.

She knows she's in trouble.

Right.

And there's

a Shakespearean tragedy or whatever.

Collectively across the town.

Well, I don't, and this is going to sound terribly misanthropic.

So just like pull the cord at any point.

I think we can be misanthropic on the firewalk with me episode.

This is a very sad, dark, misanthropic film and lovely in its weird way.

But it is go ahead.

Yes.

I think it's so obvious what state she's in, but nobody wants to deal with it.

And that's a,

I do love this scene.

For some reason, this scene was really

like just pierced my heart when I first watched it, is when the mom allows, she knows she's being drugged.

She knows that Leland Palmer is drugging her at night.

And instead, she still, you know, drinks the milk and then has this beautiful vision of this wonderful unicorn.

And I was like, well, of course she's going to, you know, turn a blind eye to all of this because wouldn't you rather look at this beautiful unicorn than have to face real life and horrible dark fact and so it's it's very like there's a willingness to all of this you know which is i think why all of the evil thrives so fiercely right because people

want to just try to survive rather than fight it which seems impossible which i understand and that is what bob is to me is it's like right it's like we already we talked about this when we talked about the first season of twin peaks but like it's like yes bob you can just be like bob's a monster right like it's like a science fiction monster but it's also just like yeah bob's just like a force yes you can't defeat like he's ineffable or whatever like there's no resisting it like there's or there's no defeating it i don't know whatever you know

the interesting thing is that you know you think about

um this is why i love rewatching this film is because you have this one explanation where evil is coming from the black lodge it's it's perpetrated by spirits meanwhile you have leo and jacques and and all these other really nasty characters who are

perpetrating just horrible cruelty.

And they're not possessed.

There's nothing to indicate that there's something supernatural going on there.

And this is another layer deep, like even more misanthropic, is that you think about like, okay, why is all of this allowed to happen?

And,

you know, Laura is.

When she's in this state, she's easier to take advantage of.

She's easier to control.

She's part of the economy.

She's part of this trade between Canada and

this small town.

You know, it's

very, it's kind of a really damning commentary

on humanity.

Yes.

I mean,

again,

it's hard to talk about.

We're sort of talking about Twin Peaks over many episodes, right?

We're spreading this sort of project of his over the TV seasons and then the return and this movie or whatever.

But I mean, Ben Horn, who I will bring up again, like, is this character who is evil,

but a banal, capitalistic kind of evil guy, right?

Just wants to screw people over, get money, but he also, like, clearly has sex with Laura, doesn't, you know, admits it, but doesn't really atone for it, loses everything, but also isn't punished.

Like, right.

His arc is Lynch talking about like mundane, banal evil.

While there is, yes, also, a black lodge with a monster in it that possesses Leland Palmer and the other.

And I agree with you that he is, in my read, the most evil character across the Twin Peaks

Yes.

But part of what makes him the most evil to me is he is a guy who is not in conflict with his evil.

Like there's nothing supernatural.

He's not like fighting the possession of Bob, which whether you take it literally or allegorically, it's like this guy's just making calculated decisions and living with them.

Ben's not even in this movie, I think.

I mean, he's in the deleted scenes.

Right.

And Ray Wise is so good in this film.

And you read about like how Lynch didn't tell him that he was the one who killed Laura until right before they shot that episode.

He was very unnerved.

That was not how he was consciously playing the character.

Even though if you watch the show, it does feel like it lines up.

It feels like screamingly obvious.

Right.

And he was worried about, like, I've come to like this guy, and now you're going to assign like these horrible actions to him.

And he said that he ultimately felt very pleased with the arc Lynch gave him.

And like, not that the character was redeemed, but that he's like depicted as having this struggle, which doesn't make anything he does more forgivable.

But it's sort of like there are these two sides of the thing where it's like, here's a guy who's like in the throes of madness, right?

Like he is trying to fight these horrible compulsions he has.

There is like a struggle within him versus like Ben Horn who just does shit and like justifies the means.

Right.

Right.

Or doesn't.

Right.

And as you said, like Jack and Leo are just like guys who are kind of creepy.

Like I love the Jack performance so much because it's like, and Leo, to a lesser extent, but especially Jack is like, everyone in this town is kind of like

horrible and is putting a nice face on it.

And Jack is like the one guy who's just sort of like, this is, we all want this.

I'm a scumbag.

We all want sex and drugs.

Right.

Fucked up.

And like.

This is Jacques in a Strange Universe kind of comes full circle, almost like Humphrey Bogard, where Humphrey Bogard is so ugly that he has become extremely handsome.

And Jacques is so off-putting that you're kind of like, do I like this guy?

You know?

Well, also, because you're like, he's sort of the most honest person in the town.

Right.

There's no veneer to Jacques Renault, even compared to like Leo or whatever.

Is that commendable?

But yes, it's all these different like forms of evil and like what drives people to do things.

It's almost an advertisement for just simplicity.

You know, it's

having, and that's what I really love about these, the doppelgangers in the Twin Peaks show, you know, just knowing that it's almost too much for us to fathom that so much complexity exists within one being.

And so it's, it's, it's almost, you know, he's doing us a solid by kind of dividing it up into two different bodies for us, you know, and there's this, um, you know, the moment with Leland Palmer when he, it's after the whole nobody's eating until Laura washes her hands argument.

And then he's sitting on the side of the bed and you, you physically see him switch when Bob kind of leaves his body.

And then all of a sudden he realizes, oh, I did something horrible.

And that

was so brilliant and perfect too.

And helps me really kind of metabolize what was going on, you know?

Well, the moment

at the very end, before the like the actual sort of killing takes place, when Leland says, like, I read your diary.

I'm going to paraphrase paraphrase it, but like,

I didn't realize you didn't know it was me.

Right.

And then he moves out of frame and then Bob enters frame from the opposite side and said, like, I didn't know you always knew it was me.

It's kind of the whole movie to me in a way.

Yeah.

Right.

The hand washing as well.

It's just, it's such a good,

there's so many ways to take the, like, you know, does Leland know he's, you know, corrupted her and wants her to, like, or is he, you know, is it his own like feeling of I need to clean myself?

You know what I mean?

Like, it's, I love all that creepy metaphorical stuff.

Um, I'm opening the dossier.

Okay.

Um,

uh, this is just some research we have on the movie, uh, Arkasha, but um

Pierre Edelman, who is a guy Lynch works with a lot, who is a French guy he meets making Dune, who apparently was kicked off set for being annoying by Rafaela DeLaurentis and made a fortune in blue jeans and also went to prison.

Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, this is what I want more of.

Can we get this back into the film industry?

Just eccentric dungare tycoons.

Yeah, right, weird.

Who are like, you know what?

I like bankrolling weird art.

Yes, he worked for CB2000, which was a boutique French production company.

And

after Wild at Heart does so well, he basically, at Cannes, wins the palm d'Or.

He crashes a party and grabs Lynch and is like, I will make anything you want to make.

Like, you know, what can we do?

Uh, I'll give you money.

Ronnie Rocket is what they think, which is this long gestating, never-made Lynch project is what they think they're going to make.

The way people say life is what happens when you're making other plans.

David Lynch's career is what happens while trying to make Ronnie Rocket.

Like, every single project starts with his plan was to make Ronnie Rocket next, and then instead, we end up with whatever we end up with.

Yes.

So, Lynch accepts, signs a three-picture deal with these guys,

and

Twin Peaks around this time is flagging on ABC basically

after, you know, exploding and, you know, the sort of brief phenomenon of it, the ratings start going down.

I mean, just to snapshot this moment quickly, right?

Like first season of Twin Peaks is like this out-of-the-box surprise phenomenon.

Then like two weeks later, Wild Her premieres at Khan gets booze and wins the palm tour.

Right.

And you're like, there's starting to be like, he's at his absolute cultural peak and people are starting to turn on him at the same time.

And then it's like that fall, Twin Peaks comes back, falls off a cliff, Wild at Heart gets an Oscar nomination, does fairly well commercially for his movies at that time.

But then it's all ready by like 1991.

It's like, are people overall?

Oh, did he go too far up his butt?

And so when Twin Peaks gets canceled, he is like, let's do the third season as a movie.

So they start working on that.

They had a third season idea and it was going to be all about, you know, Cooper's doppelganger.

And there's a lot.

You can read about it.

Like they have, they have a plan.

Yeah.

And then Lynch switches to, no, I actually want to do a prequel.

I want to do everything up to when Laura dies.

And I want it to be called Firewalk with Me.

And that is the point, you know, I guess, at which people like Mark Frost, who obviously co-created Twin Peaks, are like,

I'm done with this.

I'm sort of also had a falling out of sorts at this point, basically, where like.

The way season two went, I think, caused so many

whose fault is this.

And he's sort of taking it back.

And he always talks about like, I was in love with that world and I was in love with those characters and I wasn't ready to let them go.

But it also feels like it makes sense where you do an eight-episode first season where they wrote it all in advance and they had a certain amount of control and there wasn't a ton of oversight and everyone sort of viewed this as a flyer.

And then season season two comes in and the show is forced onto the demands of a 22 episode season.

Now it's time to make the donuts.

How do you stretch this out?

How do you keep it going?

And the thing collapses.

I understand his thinking of like, is the way to bring this back movies?

Can I refocus it back to I only have to deal with two hours at a time?

I can re-exert the control over it.

I'm in my Jerry Lewis phase where the French are willing to give me money.

They like anything I do, even if everyone else is starting to turn on me.

Maybe I can reclaim this.

But what's fascinating is he's making this movie based on some personal compulsion to like reclaim what he liked about this universe.

And the public, I think, assumes, oh, he's going to make a movie to fix this.

He's going to solve the show.

He's going to give us a sense of resolution we didn't get.

And those two things are happening at odds and aren't in conversation at all.

David, yes.

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

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unfortunately something we should probably have on our minds right now i don't not try to be a loser right now you sound like me right now this is the kind of thing i say uh it's just it's it's very it's a very interesting part of history and i feel like because you know other world war ii things became

whatever the history channel's favorite thing you don't hear quite as much about mussolini's rise to power yes no You're right, unfortunately.

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That's cool.

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No, it's Joe Wright,

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I've told you that story, right?

He knows he's kind of a cool guy.

We've batted him already.

He's certainly gotten interesting.

He's very interesting.

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

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That's really interesting.

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Bye.

David.

Okay, okay.

I'll be very quiet.

Oh, I'm used to it.

Producer Ben is sleeping.

Oh,

Hazzy, Hazy boy is

getting some

multiple dashes.

What's he sleeping on?

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

But this is a big opportunity for us.

We get to do the first ad read for Wayfair on this podcast.

No, no, Griffin, you're clearly not listening to past recordings.

Ben did a Wayfair ad for us recently.

You listen to past recordings?

Yeah, sometimes.

It's psycho behavior.

It is.

Look.

He did that when we were sleeping.

Look, apparently we need to talk about how when you hear the word game day,

you might not think Wayfair, but you should.

Because Wayfair is the best kept secret for incredible and affordable game day fines.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Absolutely.

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

We don't have to go full whisper.

I just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

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

Yeah, of course.

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

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Okay, fine.

Okay.

All right.

Sorry.

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I do have cribs.

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I know, Arkasha, you probably came to this movie fresh.

You did not know about all this drama.

But of course, if you watch, it is fairly obvious that

the prologue section of the film with Chester Desmond, that's just supposed to be Cooper.

McLaughlin, Kyle McLaughlin, just doesn't want to do this movie at all, is sick of being Dale Cooper, is sick of like being typecast.

They kind of talk him into like, what if you do just a little bit, five days of shooting, which is what they get out of him.

But also, McLaughlin.

And then they restructure it to just, it's another guy, you know, who's kind of cooperative.

McLaughlin, Fenn, and Boyle, I feel like, have all talked about how raw they felt at the time of feeling like we were abandoned by Frost and Lynch.

Right.

They set the show up.

It took off.

We're young.

Our careers are banking on this thing.

And then it was sort of left to its own devices.

And like Fenn refuses to do this.

Sherilyn Fenn says she was, quote unquote, being a brat.

Laura Flynn Boyle says that she had other stuff going on, so they recast her with Moira Kelly.

Right.

Richard Boehmer was basically did shoot some, was in the script.

It was written, but never shot.

But it was kind of not in.

There's obviously 90 minutes of deleted scenes that now exist as

the missing pieces.

I've watched it.

Yeah.

As have I.

But that is a lot of the supporting townspeople of Twin Peaks stuff that is not in the film at all.

Once you really realize anything that isn't about Laura's story isn't really important to this movie.

But yeah, it felt like you read all three of them, and they were sort of like, I had other stuff going on.

I had conflicts.

I couldn't be in the movie.

And then with Distance, all three of them were like, I was kind of just like bitter about the whole thing.

McLaughlin said the typecasting thing, but I think with Distance was also just like, I felt burned by how everything went down.

The Chris Hise character in this is very much an astronaut Brent in Beneath the Planet of the Apes language.

Sure, sure.

Where you're like, here's a guy who's like so similar to the type of the other guy going through an almost identical arc before the original guy comes in and sort of takes over again.

Right.

Like, Arkasha, what do you make of the prologue, especially as someone not familiar with the show or whatever, like that we don't even really get to Laura initially, and it's instead this odd murder investigation to like kick things off.

Well, first off, with the Kyle McLaughlin thing, that kind of hurts my heart.

I had no idea idea that it wasn't immediately destined for chris isaac and that totally made sense in my mind um beyond that it was like announced they're making the movie kyle mclaughlin says i don't want to be part of it they announce the movie's canceled oh like if he can't do it then they're not going to make it right and then he like comes back and is like i will give you five days right they'll give you a little bit if that will so that's when they sort of bifurcate it and go like we only need him for the sort of restaurant i love chris isaac in this film i don't mind how it turned out but you know you can tell there's sort of odd surgery to it of just like, well, okay, we'll just sort of do a Cooper type.

In this way, that's so odd, where like Lynch has made several works that are clearly working around major logistical issues or like recutting a TV pilot or recasting parts or any of these things and somehow sort of knows how to own it as intentionality.

But like, yeah, it's

it's an odd structural thing because you're like, well, he wants to make the Laura Palmer movie.

You could imagine people said, you can't make a Twin Peaks movie and not have Cooper in it.

So he writes this wraparound of Cooper and then Cooper doesn't want to do it.

But, you know, for somebody who was just entering totally blind, totally fresh, it was almost the perfect entryway because the whole point for me as a viewer with that beginning was telling me like, okay, this.

We're going to be operating in mystery and riddles.

You know, nothing's going to be as it seems.

Nothing's going to be explained to you.

Just like buckle up, enjoy the ride.

And, and that's what I was ready for and I'd been primed for already was that

this was going to be a film that was dealing with that that can't be quantifiable.

And yeah, and that's kind of, I'm already kind of exhausted by that, by trying to be rational and figure out what you're saying in your like daily life.

Oh, yeah, just in life, you know, trying to figure out answers for who, why, when, where all the time when, when really,

you know, I think the Lynchian world, but then also our world doesn't really operate that way.

You know, that's how we try and make sense of the world, but that's not really how things go down.

So

when Lil comes out and she's wearing a sour face and it's all a riddle, I was just like, yes, I'm in.

I don't really know what this means, but.

we're tapping into something like

some sort of childlike way of calculating and functioning in the world.

I was ready to kind of regress to that state and just let this stuff flow.

And then I just love Chris Isaac and Kiefer Sutherland's performance might be one of my favorite of all time.

I think Kiefer is like incredible.

So

fun in this movie and strange.

He's such a great fit.

I don't want to be the negative Nellie.

I do butt up against Isaac a little bit, just in that it's like the feeling of he's so much the Cooper type.

Like, here's another Cooper type.

He's kind of like a grumpier Cooper.

He's got more, he's got a sort of right, a dirtier edge to him, right?

He's more willing to fight.

Like, he doesn't feel.

Yes, he's got less of the boyish sort of enthusiasm.

I think

I think if Chester Desmond didn't vanish,

I would not like the Chester Desmond thing.

I kind of like the Chester Desmond thing because it's sort of like what will happen to Cooper one day, right?

Where it's like, you'll get invested in this inscrutable mystery.

You'll go to kind of

kind of try start puzzling, and then you just go away.

Right.

And where did you go?

Well, you know, we don't know.

Which is another big Twin Peaks thing of like these things just keep happening over and over and over again, these like cycles that don't stop.

The Kiefer character to me is so interesting because he's so different than any like law enforcement agent we've seen across the series so far.

And Kiefer is at such a weird career point in the 90s where you're like, he's sort of this guy who is like kind of a movie star, but seems to prefer playing like supporting parts and being the guy who doesn't have the story weight.

And he's like equally good at playing like unbridled, like id, crazy like guy and also playing like weird, bookish mannered guy.

He perfectly disappears into the role to the point where I almost didn't even realize it was him when I first watched it.

Somebody was like, oh, and Kiefer Sutherland's great.

And I was like, what are you, we're talking about different movies?

And then it was like, the blinking guy.

Because, yeah, I guess at this point, he'd done like young guns and flatliners.

Like, he's, he's...

And Lost Boys, I feel like he's like, obviously that's his launch.

Right.

And he's,

when does the Julia Roberts thing happen?

Not to be.

Right around this time.

Right.

Like, it's sort of this odd moment where it's like, is this?

going to be right because they obviously

rock and roll bad boy parts.

Right, right, right.

And then you're like sort of zooming towards like a 90s where he's going to be the one guy who's unafraid to play like the horrible, unredeemable, racist and like John Grisham movies.

Sure.

But also like

Dark City, which is one of the most insane performances of all time.

Yeah.

I love that performance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's he's he's good at being a little goblin, and this is kind of a little goblin, like a friendly little goblin.

A different type of goblin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A benevolent goblin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But as you said, like, here's this inscrutable like opening scene where Lynch comes in and he's yelling.

And then Lil does this weird dance.

And then like two minutes later in the car, Kiefer's just like, what was that?

And Chris Isaac's like, you didn't get it?

Well, it's just like, isn't it obvious?

Everything, like, from the very beginning, you know, you open up on static.

And so you know, like, okay, this, this is going to be a portrait of an unclear or impenetrable image, you know, and there's going to be a lot of distortion.

And then immediately afterwards, you have, you know, Gordon who can't hear anything.

And so it's,

there's so many setups to let the viewer know, like stop questioning, just feel your way through it.

Because this is going to be a movie about two worlds that are butting up against each other and eventually, you know, permeating into each other.

And

it's probably, I think that's why, you know, it's so interesting.

It's so divisive, just like Steely Dan.

You've got to be careful when you bring it up in bar conversations.

Please bring up Steely Dan.

That's totally cool.

That's totally exciting.

Okay, we're in the right crowd.

Cool.

But people, people, some people hate this movie.

And I think it's because it asks them to let go of control and also enter the POV of a young woman, you know, which also really upsets people.

Yeah.

Yes.

I think, right.

I think the main reason this movie is so profoundly upsetting.

It's one of the more upsetting films I've ever seen.

And so if you, I think some people, somewhat understandably, somewhat not, put up with this force field essentially that was, you know, outwardly just kind of like, well, it's not,

you know, this isn't the Twin Peaks I know.

Like, where's the pie?

Where's the piece?

There's also whimsy.

Right.

There's a feeling of like, is this movie punishing me?

Is it trying to make me feel bad for enjoying old Twin Peaks by saying like, hey, someone was in pain here?

Yeah.

Which I think the key thing, not to be overly pad about it, is like, this is a movie that does not allow you to look at the unicorn.

Right.

It does not allow you to check out.

for most of the i would say at the end it is finally trying to when you know the sort of angelic stuff at the end trying to like be like it's okay like she's she's in a better place it's it's good that she you know moved on from this world in a way like she was in such suffering like but it's not like

you don't feel like happy about it.

You're more just sort of like, there's, there, maybe there's some peace at the end of this.

Like that's the best you can hope for.

Yes.

It's a movie that

says you are looking at a unicorn.

Right.

It lets you know like you are being distracted by pretty things because those are nicer to look at.

Meanwhile, there's existential mold growing in your home, you know?

Right.

In that way, it's like one of those movies that kind of implicates the audience.

Especially if you're someone who is wrapped up in the sort of like pop cultural phenomenon, the water cooler, like guessing of Twin Peaks when it was going on, which is like you're making sport of this, you know?

And in a way, Twin Peaks, the series, is the unicorn, you know?

Yes.

Yeah.

So I definitely think that's a really good way to put it.

I think that's probably why people are so upset.

They feel very implicated.

Right.

It's like, you're making me feel bad for liking the thing that you made.

Yeah.

And I'm always fascinated by things that are sort of punishing of the audience like that in a way that isn't vindictive, but is trying to like sort of litigate our relationship to different works.

But like you read about people being like violently upset with Peeping Tom when it came out.

And you watch that now and you're like, how could anyone be like ripping a chair out of the studs in the theater over this movie?

Which I, you know, whatever.

I understand people being like, I don't like it at the time.

But people were like, how dare you?

This is culturally offensive.

Everyone who worked on this should be in jail.

And the answer is that people were just like, you're making me feel bad for buying a ticket to a horror movie.

People feel judged.

I do also think that.

I feel judged.

Now that he has done Twin Peaks The Return, this is no longer the...

final

thing that came out of that world.

He made a series after this that is darker and more violent and more explicit.

So this no longer feels quite as incongruous.

Like this just makes more and more sense.

But like I've always loved this thing.

So I am not really, I am not the offended Twin Peaks fan of 1992.

I will add on to that.

I think also the legend for so long, the missing pieces didn't come out until the early 2010s, mid-2010s finally got on a DVD release.

There was always this sort of legend of like, there are 90 minutes of deleted scenes that have all the characters who aren't in this movie.

Right.

And I think people pinned a lot on the idea of like, is that the movie I want to see?

Right.

Is there a version of this that gives me everything I want that he just chose to withhold from me?

There's a fucking vault with 90 minutes of the townspeople doing bits.

This movie is two hours and 15 minutes long, which is already long, but

the initial cut that he had was something like four to three and three and a half, four hours.

And they kind of, Mary Sweeney, especially, who's

working on this movie as the editor, big collaborator of Lynch's, has to kind of help David Lynch realize like, it's Laura's story.

Right.

A lot of this stuff just kind of has to go.

If they don't relate to her.

Right.

But it's right.

It's not just like, oh, there's a longer cut of this movie.

It's like there are 15 characters who don't appear in it for a second.

Yes.

And they shot entire scenes.

I mean, it's like so funny where you read like David Bowie was saying he was kind of frustrated with his experience on this movie because he was on tour, I think, and he wanted to play the part, but the scheduling was limited.

And he was like, they had to cram all of my scenes into only five days and it wasn't enough time to get it done.

And then if you're going to see this movie at the the time and you're like, David Bowie appears in three shots, what do you mean five days wasn't enough time to get it done?

Right, right, right.

Um,

so Twin Peaks Firewalk with me.

I have nothing more for you on the production, really.

Making this was not like a complicated experience, really.

I think they did it fast.

They kind of enjoyed it.

Obviously, there are things that were, I think, pressurized.

Like David Bowie has always complained that he didn't have much time to work on his accent.

Yes.

Yes.

Or things like that.

But it was not like a bad experience.

The bad experience is them showing it at Ken.

Like that's when this curdles for them.

But we should talk about the movie.

Akasha, I have a question for you.

And I apologize if this is getting into like

dissecting the frog territory.

And I don't want to demystify your process in this way.

But I'm very fascinated because of, you know, you're talking about this experience you had seeing this movie projected at a bar.

I feel like we've covered movies before in this this show where I will like use that term of like, if this were playing at a bar with the sound off, I would think I was seeing the greatest movie of all time.

I cannot imagine how profound these pieces must be if I had the context, if I had the full awareness.

But this idea of this thing that Lynch is, you know, uniquely capable of doing, of creating these moments, these images, these weird,

these things that can grab you and create some feeling, even sort of split up, divorced,

removed from their proper environment.

And I think you are similarly skilled as a filmmaker, and he talks a lot about, you know, his creative process and where these things come from and not trying to overexplain them.

As someone who like sees this, this is basically the entry point to you becoming obsessed with film.

You then went to AFI because you had heard that Lynch went there.

Like you basically

built an entire road off of like trying to understand the power of what his work meant to you and how you could sort of do that yourself.

Do you now like watch Lynch movies and try to analyze what is it that is making this effective and put that into your work?

Or do you have your own process of just like, how do I filter my obsessions into an image that feels like it could have a similar power and meaning?

Oh, gosh.

I think

I think analyzing film, that's why these podcasts are so dangerous, I feel like, because we're talking.

We're very dangerous.

We're dangerous.

We're kind of the baddest boys in podcasts.

We are.

It's because we are trying to dissect something that can't be dissected or the frog dies on the table once you do, right?

But

you can't help but try and do it.

And I actually, you know,

when I first, I have a really hard time articulating myself.

I'm very shy.

I'm not a very linear thinker.

So I have a very hard time with process, you know.

And then I watched Wild at Heart and Firewalk With Me.

And those films are not interested in those things either.

You know, it was an immediate sort of like, this is my wavelength.

Finally, a movie is operating the way my brain works.

And that was my first time experiencing that, where I was like, I have clicked into this, this, uh,

this way of thinking and communicating that finally makes sense to me.

And I don't feel like such a freak anymore, you know?

And then simultaneously thinking, like, I didn't know you were allowed to make this kind of art.

And like this blew my, you know,

I was aware of like the creme master cycles.

I was aware of Bjorg.

Like I knew that there was some, you know, magical stuff out there.

But for some reason, Wild at Heart really tapped into my, my own heart so strongly to where I was almost scared of wanting to be a filmmaker.

So I, sure, I didn't want to touch it for a very long time.

But instead, it kind of led me into photojournalism.

Yeah.

Because I wasn't looking at Wild at Heart through the lens of surrealism.

I didn't really know what surrealism was.

And

this is going to sound kind of crazy, but a lot of the characters in David Lynch films were not dissimilar from people that I knew in real life.

And

definitely not so once I got into photojournalism.

And so I was like, oh, this isn't a surrealist.

This is somebody who's really interested in fringe populations, you know, and people, like genuinely interested in people.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

Like, like, um, somebody who understands, I think, the mindset of a teenage girl so well

because he's so interested in people.

And so, so that, sorry, I'm kind of rambling now, but no, no.

But once I, I got brave enough and photojournalism definitely forces you to be, you know, to work on your confidence and your bravery.

That's when I was like, okay, now I'm going to go to AFI and try this.

Yeah.

No, I mean, it makes sense to me.

Cause I think there was like

an era of people who clearly seemed inspired by Lynch and were trying to sort of like

retrofit, deconstruct the process and do it themselves.

And it felt like an affect to a certain extent.

And I feel like there's a wave of filmmakers now that I think you're part of, where I feel like you have movies that are able to capture once again that same kind of feeling of like there's something primal here that's not literal that has intense power and I do think it makes more sense what you're saying of like watching this and the turnkey being

oh I can do my version of this not I can make something the way he makes something but if he's able to filter his interpretation of the world into something that is legible to others then I can trust I can communicate that and it can mean something to other people.

That's perfectly said.

It's so empowering for you to get extremely personal, right?

And that doesn't necessarily mean like trauma dump on people, but that, you know, just like personal is in the way your juices flow, you know, and then it's also, I think he's such an exceptionally American filmmaker to where

I think like I find a lot of comfort in 1950s, 1960s iconography.

You know, that's kind of like a pacifier for me.

So

to be watching something like Blue Velvet,

it makes what's so disturbing really palatable because you're simultaneously being comforted while you're watching Frank Booth do these horrible things to Isabella.

So it's,

yeah, just the experience in itself is very

conflicting and confronting.

Not to be glib about it, but it's what can I say?

David Lunch taught me it was okay to be weird.

Yeah, and it works so good.

You know, it's like,

yes.

Um, okay, so this movie opens, yes, with a little thing, as I said, that feels like the closest to sort of like the weirdo, funny Twin Peak stuff that people liked on television.

Like, I wonder if the first four minutes of the movie, people were kind of on board.

Uh, Kimberly Ann Cole is Lil, the interpretive dancer who gives clues to the FBI agents, sour face, right?

Um, before sending them on their way, it does feel to me very like David Lynch the Eagle Scout, too, like where like his idea of being an FBI agent, I think he loves

codes and

being in a secret club, right?

And the fact that Chester knows what a Blue Rose case is, but

Sam Stanley is not allowed to know yet, right?

Like the sort of levels.

It's funny.

I mean, with everything we're talking about, that like so much of Lynch's thing is like, feel it, don't try to decode it.

And then this movie starts with being like, this is a code.

Right.

Yeah, it's true.

It is making fun of, right.

But also, I feel like intuition presents itself to you in codes, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So

they do kind of start to meld.

Yeah.

But I'm sure, yes, if you're a

viewer of the show, you are like, what is going on?

But this is something that is in the show.

You know, this mention of a prior murder that was similar to Laura's murder of Teresa banks

and then we have this kind of odd showdown of them in this hostile mean town with a bunch of nasty sheriffs and deputies that isn't like twin peaks that isn't like twin peaks it doesn't have the surface charming quaintness right versus like versus right cooper wandering into twin peaks and just being like i love this place everyone at the diner something terrible style right harry dean stanton is sad harry dean stanton is mean and sad who's the sheriff who's the local cop Abel.

Right, yeah.

You know, and like, and.

Yeah, they walk into the sheriff's office and they're just like, who the fuck are you guys?

They're just immediately antagonistic with them versus we've talked about on Twin Peaks.

Like, part of the charm is that weirdo Dale Cooper shows up and everyone's like, whatever you say, Dale.

Yes.

We'll throw rocks at bottles if that's what your dream told you.

Right.

The best ongoing gag in Twin Peaks is that everyone's cool with Dale.

Right.

That Truman, the most straight-arrow guy, is into Dale's sideways approach.

Right.

And Chris Isaac's so much less weird than Cooper, and they act like he is the weirdest outsider possible.

He has to prove himself by punching them, like by having a fight with them.

Yes.

And that is one of the missing pieces, a prolonged fisticatre.

The fight.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

Have you seen you watch the Missing Pieces?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Missing Pieces has like a seven, like a they live style fight.

I mean, why did they think that was going to make the movie?

I guess is the question.

It's so long and irrelevant.

It's funny.

Yeah.

To me, I just, yes, you watch the missing pieces stuff and you're like, How could he ever have thought most of this would possibly fit into this movie?

I do wonder if part of it was him just being like, Is this my last chance to play in this world?

As much as the hope was to make multiple movies, right?

He was just like, I have to do everything I can in Twin Peaks while I have the chance.

Just shoot it.

Yeah, I think you're right.

But the trailer park, the fat trout trailer park,

is

very scary.

I watch this.

I've seen this movie many times.

My latest watch, I watched it on my laptop in bed at night, which is not something I do a lot of anymore.

And I was very, to this, I'm still so spooked by Chris Isaac just poking around the trailer park and the car and like just the dilapidation and just the sense of, you know, what Lynch is so good at of like, there's something over your shoulder

or whatever.

whatever, you know, there's a,

there's a question mark thing, yeah.

Right.

Like, it's, he's so good at

monstrous vibes without actually having to show you anything or just showing you Harry Dean Stanton looking bummed out or a weird dirty woman with an ice pack on her face or whatever, you know, things like that.

It's interesting because it feels like very,

I think superficially, it feels simplistic, right?

Like it feels like there's no crazy camera moves, there's no crazy

makeup effects or anything.

But then, you know, re-watching,

re-watching it, you realize that like in an atmosphere like that, in like a trailer park, you don't see a lot of people, but a lot of people see you, you know?

Sure.

And he does that.

There's a simple moment where they are first entering the trailer and Harriet Dean stands standing outside.

And all of a sudden, you just pop out to this wide.

voyeuristic angle and you're just like, oh, yeah, everybody's staring at them, you know?

Right.

Cause there's there's a cop here.

Like, this is, this is a well-dressed man amongst them as well.

Like, this is, he's so out of place.

But also, I mean, that's a good point where, like, in a town like Twin Peaks, where people are spread out, but everyone is converging, everyone's sleeping with everyone else, everyone has a history with everyone else, they're meeting in these common spaces.

You know, they're all like interloping.

And then, like, a trailer park is this very bizarre community where it's like everyone is so close and yet, sort of separated by design.

No one wants to be left alone.

Right.

It's like my home is three inches away from your home,

but like I'm closing my door and I'm staying in my little sardine can.

So you know everything about everybody else, but you don't, you've never spoken to them, you know?

Right.

And then they,

there's that added layer of the electric poles.

Right, sure.

And, and you start to get the sense that, that, okay, there is something supernatural flowing through the electricity.

Like electricity is

this

force that we think we've harnessed, but really, you know, all these other beings are using it for, you know, communication or whatever.

I'm again, dissecting the frog.

But, but that was just another, like, just a simple shot of the power lines.

You're like, oh, there is so much going on that these guys don't realize yet that have to do with bros.

Yeah.

It is the thing I love about Lynch, how much it feels like sometimes his greatest source of like power is him just asking a question a five-year-old would ask

of being like, isn't it weird that there are just like things that travel through like lines in the sky that power everything?

That we all just accept that like electricity flows through everything.

And that's why we should stay away from children.

Yes.

These terrifying questions.

Lynch is, he's always been very interested in electricity, I think.

Like he, you know, he is, he's asking.

That's what I'm saying.

He's like, isn't that crazy?

Electricity has its own story arc in this film.

You know, it starts out as just this hum in the power lines, and then it ends as this massive lightning storm while Laura is realizing that Bob is her father.

You know, just tracking that electricity through this film is pretty fascinating.

Yeah, that's a great point.

So after this is 30 minutes, the sort of cold thing.

It's a sort of mini movie onto itself in a way.

And then at like the 30-minute point, you cut to the Twin Peak sign and the theme song.

Oh, no, sorry.

So in between,

there is this even odd interstitial of the FBI.

Finally introducing Dale.

Dale is there.

Gordon is there.

Miguel Ferreira, you know, Albert is there.

But then David Bowie appears as a guy called Philip Jeffries, who's another agent with a Nolins accent

who went missing and has reappeared and yells about a convenience store.

And there's, you know, that's basically it.

I think actually we see that and then we cut back to

oh, no, then, right, then Cooper goes to the trailer park and sees Let's Rock written on the car.

Right.

That's

saying that no one has any sense of it.

I would say, you know, if you're sitting down watching Twin Peaks Firewalk with me, ready for some Dale Cooper action, and that's what you get, you probably are going to be a little befuddled.

I also find that seem very unsettling.

I don't know.

Is this where we see the convenience store?

I guess almost all the actual convenience store stuff is not in the movie.

It's in the missing pieces.

Like Jürgen Prock now,

as a woodsman, or is that what they're called?

The woodsmen, right?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

No.

Do you know what I'm talking about, Arkasha?

Are these the Norwegians?

So the Woodsman.

So in Twin Peaks of Return, the Woodsmen are these sooty,

you know,

black

creatures with like flannel shirts.

They look like this.

I have a kind of a major part of the show.

I'm moving through all of this.

But the original Woodsman is Jürgen Procknell wearing a big beard.

Sure.

And you see him for one second.

Jürgen Procknell obviously is in Dune.

He worked

and he's in the convenience store where you see Bob eating corn with

the arm and the boy with the pointy face mask.

The jumping guy and all that stuff.

And it just amuses me so much that these were just ideas rattling around in his head.

He tries to get them in there.

And then, like, I just love to think about him calling Jürgen Prockno and being like, do you want to like wear a big beard and sit and have no dialogue for like 30 seconds in my movie?

And he's like, yeah, sure, whatever.

David, what?

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin David Podcast Bell Philographies is brought to you by Booking.com.

Booking.

Yeah.

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

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Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

There's one other person in the room, right?

This is so rude.

I sleep easy.

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

No.

That's an example of a fussy person.

Look, people have different demands.

And you know what?

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

You know, you've got...

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

Maybe any kind of demand.

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

Sure.

Maybe you're in Europe and you want to make sure.

That's very demanding to be in Europe.

You got air conditioning.

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

Yes.

You got to have air conditioning.

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

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

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

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

You do.

You love selfies.

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

Look,

again,

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

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Please.

Can I check that for you?

You want one of those in the recording, Stu.

That'd be great.

You want to start.

You want to be.

I'll be in the sauna when we record.

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

You want to be Splish Splash and what's going to be.

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

And while recording, I'm on mic, but you just were going back.

I'm like,

as I move to the

kinds of demands that booking.com, booking.

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Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, I'm, this isn't a humble brag, it's just a fact of the matter.

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

Right.

They love that they get a little bonus ben on the ad read, but technically, that's not what they're looking for.

But something very different is happening right now.

That's true.

We had a sponsor come in and say, We are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement what this is laser targeted the product we have copy that asks is the product a porch movie it certainly is and what is today's episode sponsored by the toxic adventure the new toxic adventure movie is coming to theaters august 29th macon blairs remake of reimagining reimagining whatever reboot of the toxic Avenger.

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

Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're excited to see it.

But, Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks.

It honks.

Yeah.

It's so great.

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

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor Puttie Page, with Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.

Tremblay is Toxie's son.

His stepson.

His stepson.

Okay.

Wade goose.

Yes.

Great name.

Give us the takes.

We haven't heard of them yet.

Okay.

You got fucking Dinkledge is fantastic.

He's talking.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like a snack.

David sizzling.

Yep.

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

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

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

Trump.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches

with my sleazy and sticky friends.

It informed so much of my sensibility.

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and Headbanger.

Yeah, exactly.

Making Toxic Crusader jokes.

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

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

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

They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just, it's something that means a lot to me.

And they knocked it out of the fucking park.

Okay.

It somehow really captured.

that sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that like lo-fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original Toxie movies.

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

It's gooey

gooey tons of blood, tons of goo,

uh, great action.

It's really fucking funny.

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

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.

Want to make that happen again here.

Tickets are on sale right now.

Advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

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

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

Blank check, one word.

In theaters August 29th.

Yep.

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

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it summon the nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new metal band hell yeah who are also mercenaries cool and drive a van

with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill and that's all i'll say okay and they are The most dang-ass freaks of dang-ass freaks.

I'm excited to see it.

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

Seriously, get your tickets now.

Go to toxicadvenger.com/slash blank check.

Do it, do it.

I don't know.

What do you make of the Cooper interstitial?

Or

it's the most inscrutable part of the movie.

And we do not need to dissect the frog at all.

I'm not asking for fan theories here.

More just sort of it's flow in the movie.

Well,

the really interesting thing that I always hooked on was the first thing David Bowie says is, We're not going to talk about Judy.

Yeah.

Right.

And I was, so then when I did realize that there was a show, I was like, who the hell is Judy?

And she ends up being a concierge at the Great Northern, right?

And she's in one scene and you never see her again.

And then

you realize, like, oh, is he talking about Judy Garland?

Like, what, what is he?

Yeah.

What is that?

it's something that have you seen twin peaks of return have you seen the uh you know yeah i watched it when it came out but i i honestly it felt like i i had malaria for a moment and had all these fever dreams and and so i feel like i need to re-watch it right

it's worth re-watching which i'm doing right now judy is sort of obliquely a part of that too

I don't feel, again, I'm with you on the dissecting a frog.

I'm not going to explain

in some kind of nerdy fan, but Judy is sort of like another Bob, another sort of like thing

that's bad and scary and a monster that they're kind of talking around a lot.

But it's not like someone in that show sits down and is like, so the deal with Judy is that

it's another word they have for a thing they don't understand.

And Jeffrey's, the David Bowie character, clearly encountered.

this other world in the same way that Chris Isaac's character gets zapped to wherever he gets zapped to and that Dale will eventually end up in the Black Lodge.

I just feel like he's

the reason you have so many people in like various aspects of law enforcement who become either like corrupt or sort of like checked out and apathetic and lazy at their job is it is like so painful to imagine building a life around constantly staring into the eye of the worst things happening in humanity.

Right.

It is like a thing that will like, if you're actually open and feeling and engaged with it, even if you're doing that in the name of trying to help people and stop things, it is going to hurt you so profoundly that you go mad or you check out and you create a distance or you need to find some other way to like get your vices to balance that or whatever it is.

And you're seeing sort of like different versions of these agents eventually going over over the edge.

Right.

Right.

This is, and this is like a conspiratorial side tangent on what you just said.

But

when I was a kid, I was really obsessed with hearing gossip about these,

like these CIA programs that would enlist basically empaths or people who were schizophrenic or needed to be heavily medicated and see what was the line that they could tow by reducing their medication to the point where they could still tap into these extrasensory abilities

and not

be, you know, go absolutely mad.

And

yeah, and that's so that's sorry when you just said that, that made me think about that a lot because that's kind of Dale Cooper in a way, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Make a movie about that, Arkasha.

I'm into it.

I know the men who stare at goats or whatever was something along those lines, right?

But like, I love that.

But that's the whole thing.

I love that era of right, like the government being like, should we like do spooky stuff?

Like, I mean, I know that's what the X-Files is eventually, you know, but like, is there, like, should we just devote a billion dollars just seeing if there's anything to spooky stuff?

Maybe there isn't.

Like, let's just take a look.

That's what the Blue Rose thing basically is.

But Dale Cooper, being this guy who does seem to have what you're saying, these sort of like extrasensory abilities, right?

Or this like sense of like feeling and

perception and compassion that allows him to like get clues and dreams and whatever.

And he literally like looks like a Chester Gould illustration.

Like Kamik Law as as a person looks like Dick Tracy as drawn.

And he's like this gee whiz, damn, that's Greg Coffee kind of guy who we're watching be the sort of like funny, steady hand in the show that makes the universe feel right.

And we can sort of watch Twin Peaks the series and believe that he's ultimately going to fix everything.

And we're just like trucking towards this narrative where he's just going to get fucking caught in the red room.

You know, like he goes like one step too far and he can't get out of it.

Which, if if this were a documentary would be what would happen you know somebody would feel just a little too much and it drives them mad yeah yeah and and either right either that happens or you start to construct walls to stop yourself from going mad and in the process you stop feeling as much yeah which is its own problem its own danger yeah um

so from there yes then suddenly We are in Twin Peaks.

The music is back.

But it's true like the aesthetic is back.

Yes.

Sign,

theme song.

You imagine audiences settling in and being like, okay, now is the real movie starting.

Now is he going to do the thing I want?

And

he sort of is.

He's really only engaged with the teenage characters.

Yes, and of course, Donna has been recast with Moira Kelly, who is not bad in the film at all.

I quite love as an actor, but it's so wildly different from Laura Flynn Boyle.

And it is just the recasting problem I always have where it's hard to track it as the same character.

Like I watch this and I sort of think of her as a different character than the same Donna

from the series.

That's sort of how I deal with it.

Yeah.

I'm like, this is almost Laura's view of Donna at this point.

Laura's so lost

or so loopy or so, you know, resigned.

And it's like, or it's like we're viewing Twin Peaks through a slightly darker veil and Donna just kind of feels different because of that.

Because Laura Flynn Boyle's performance is very sort of sweet.

Yeah.

And Moira Kelly's is also sweet, but just a little more, you know, whatever, like tinged with darkness.

Yeah.

She doesn't, she's not bad in the film at all.

No, I think she's quite good.

I mean, she's also, she's a little more like.

I don't know how much of it is literally just their faces, right?

But there's something a little steelier about Laura Flynn Boyle that is exists in an interesting contrast with her playing so sweet on the show and being kind of the one character on the series who's like, this was a person.

You know, I don't know.

Do you have a take on this?

Obviously, Maura Kelly's your first.

She's my first Donna Hayward.

Yeah, she is.

And I

do find Maura really interesting because for me, she seems almost more sweetly naive.

I was going to say, yeah.

And then there's also quite a bit of sexual tension between her and Laura in

Fire Walk With Me, where there it doesn't feel like there's that ever or a hint of that in Twin Peaks, which

is, is, I mean, if we're going to look at kind of the more complex version of things in the film format, that's that's there.

But I mean, because like, as you say, like the, right, the only characters who really matter deeply in this movie from the show are Laura, her parents, right?

And then to a lesser extent, like James, Bobby, and Donna, you know, her friends.

That's basically it.

Like, yes, we see

Shelly or, you know, whoever, you know, like we see other characters.

But really, it's like.

It's her friends at school and her parents.

Right.

And, you know, her relationship with Bobby is, you know, completely sort of busted.

Her relationship with

James is

like.

quite not, you know, she's,

you know, you feel like like she understands him and he's trying to help her.

And she's kind of, you know, like, you know, that dynamic is also almost like a figure of pity for her.

She's just like, you haven't crossed over.

Like, your view of the world is still.

And you think you can protect me, but like, I know that's so, you know, far beyond you.

Yeah.

And it's sweet that you're trying.

And then her relationship with Donna is also protective, where she, Laura is so off the rails.

Yeah.

But she's, you can like, I feel like Donna being there is partly Laura.

We need to understand that laura does have some internal awareness and knows donna can't like go as far as she can go she's sort of like spiraling the drain right the stakes for her are like she cannot let donna get pulled down with her like it's the one thing that kind of snaps her into like reality in the movie is the fear of like am i infecting donna i don't want her to suffer as well i mean it's just interesting how like the series obviously is unfolding the layers and revealing to you the darkness underneath these people.

Right.

This show, Bobby's introduced with, like, his drug running at the forefront.

Yeah.

That is basically his introduction.

Yes.

Laura is introduced doing Coke.

Right.

100%.

Yeah.

The veneer of the show is gone, even though the aesthetics and the music remain.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And James, you know, the whole thing with James being like having the aesthetics of like the biker bad boy, but being the sweetheart, I think this movie even plays it up.

It really makes him like naive and childlike.

Yeah.

How do you feel about James Arkasha?

I was going to, what's so interesting about the movie is that I actually end up liking Bobby so much more because you realize like, oh, he's not trying to be somebody.

He's not.

He's actually quite.

sweet when she's in trouble and and yeah you know realizes oh she doesn't love me she just loves my coke he still gives her drugs you know whereas james which

seems to be the person he he abandons her in the middle of night in the woods and drives off you know and she does scream at him but but you kind of stop liking him because he's the one who's supposedly closest to her sees that she's in a lot of tummel and still

leaves and it's um

that's probably one of the more upsetting moments of the film i think think, is when he drives off.

Bobby is low-key, kind of my favorite character.

Um, in the whole universe, you've said this before.

I think that performance is so special, but I, I like, I like him in this.

I love him in the return.

Um, I also love Garland.

I love the scene in the movie, in the show,

um, where he and Garland have this big kind of like tearful

understanding, which is that's in season two, so we'll talk about it later.

Okay, I think you probably just watched it.

Yeah, um, yes, yes, yes, I have seen that, yeah.

But yes, I agree with you, Arkasha.

Like

it would be easy for Bobby to just be the soap opera teen villain you root against, right?

This is the oh, it's the golden boy, but actually, he's bad, sure.

And instead, he is oddly sympathetic in his patheticness, and he, I think, understands

the rock bottom Laura is at quite well in a way.

He can't do anything for her, right?

Right, But like, there is, there is some self-awareness to Bobby.

It is crazy that he shoots someone in the head in this movie.

Yes.

Like, that seems pretty crazy, especially since it's never addressed again on Twin Peaks.

No.

Bobby straight up murdered someone in the woods and no one found the body.

When Laura says it to James, he's like, what the fuck are you talking about?

That's not a plot point.

Like, it would be the way Bobby has an altercation with a Canadian drug dealer and then shoots him and his head explodes.

You're like, oh, there must be something in the TV show where they found a dead body.

No, no, that just never comes up again.

Isn't it the piece of shit cop that we meet in the beginning?

Cliff.

Oh, yeah, yes.

It's yes.

The guy he shoots is Cliff Howard, who, yes, is the

cop from Deer Meadow.

Not the sheriff, but the

cop.

Yeah.

Yes.

But again,

that doesn't.

It's odd that that happened.

It ties into Fire Walk with Me.

It does not tie into anything that happens in the rest of the Twin Peaks.

I'm not mad about it.

It's just very dramatic out in a movie that is already incredibly dramatic.

They did hide that body well with that film soil.

Clearly.

Yeah, in a time where they're really good at finding dead bodies.

Right.

This one stays there.

The Earth just claims him, I guess.

I don't know.

So, but yes, mostly we're with Laura.

What's happened in this movie, I guess, right?

What's happened is that it's what you said earlier.

It's like Laura has finally realized there's a monster, like, you know, that's part of what's happening, you know, right?

Like,

she has a foot on the other side of reality now, versus before she was just

disassociating when these terrible things were happening to her, right?

Like, and now it's kind of, I feel like, right, like she's, she's up against the membrane.

Uh, when did you say that?

You said, uh, I said that's season one episode, poking the membrane.

Right.

I don't like

that's that's my clearest way of describing Laura's like state of mind in this movie.

Yeah.

Obviously, she's also just generally spiraling and you know, but like it's like there's an awareness and that's what I think is bringing her both clarity and bringing her to the end of the movie.

She's feeling a kind of suffering that you can't unknow that cannot be rolled back.

Oh God, it's so depressing.

Sherily's so good in this movie.

Yeah.

I mean, it feels like you read the response at the time and people were sort of begrudgingly like, I can't deny she gives a very good performance.

But it's an incredibly painful performance because you're just watching someone kind of accurately depict that level of like complete collapse of self.

There's also this interesting idea that...

And throughout the whole film, you're not quite sure, you know, upon first viewing what's a delusion and

what's fantasy and what's not and what's real life.

And so when I first watched um firewalk with me i thought the the shooting was actually just a fantasy like a drug-fueled fantasy i wasn't even sure and then especially now that we we talk about it never coming up in twin peaks it's like oh maybe it was and then also yeah

and this is this is traveling into the dissecting the frog territory but these theories that that Laura and Leland are actually

joined within this shared delusion of Bob that neither of them can really face what's happening.

And it, there is, do you guys remember this movie?

It had Kiefer Sutherland in it.

No, not Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland in it, called American Horror Story.

No, American.

I think it was American Horror Story, but is it called An American Haunting?

An American Haunting.

That's it.

There you go.

Sure.

I do remember that movie, like a sort of

spooky witch movie from the mid-2000s, but I have not seen it.

Yeah, me neither.

Okay.

I saw it.

Sissy Spacek.

And it does,

it

posits a theory about

Salem witch trials and

stories of possession really stemming from really horrible trauma within families.

Like in this

movie,

Donald Sutherland was actually, you know, raping his daughter and his daughter thought that she was being possessed by a ghost.

And then Donald Sutherland thought he was being possessed by the same ghost.

And so they started to meld these weird fantasies together.

And it's interesting thinking about it through that lens of like how two people are trying to explain this.

Right.

We talked about this a little bit already, right?

But like, it's like Bob is.

I think that is

you can just deal with Bob as a metaphor and the movie functions just fine.

Correct.

You can deal with Bob as a spirit or a manifest state, but like he works.

He darkest impulses.

Right.

Our darkest aid.

Yeah.

He can just be a metaphor for the both of them, like realizing the terrible thing that is happening.

And like when they are seeing Bob is when they are thinking about it the most clearly and it is the most distressing.

There is, look, this is all very difficult stuff to talk about, but there was a conversation I had that I think about a lot with someone when, you know, whatever it was, 20.

16, 2017, where there was the first real like kind of wave of reckoning of Me Too within the industry.

And suddenly all these stories were being shared, right?

And the men who were being accused were putting out these denials, these sort of like complete denials of this has no basis in reality.

I support survivors, but everything that's being said about me is false.

And I was talking to someone who was like, Look, this is kind of, it's the sort of thing that's difficult to talk about because no one wants to hear this right now.

And there are obviously people who consciously did something and are choosing to just publicly deny it to save face.

But I remember this friend of mine saying to me, I sometimes think that in some of these cases, the perpetrators have also disassociated from the acts.

That much like their targets, they actually do not have the memory of doing that as themselves.

That they've sort of like bifurcated their consciousness around this thing, knowing they did something so harmful, you know?

Which is not to absolve them of responsibility, but I think that's sort of the tragedy of Leland Palmer is like he is fighting this horrible thing that he is doing and he is removing himself from it.

It's totally, that's, it's exactly what this film is about is, is taking your experiences and your impulses and divorcing them from your physical body and putting them in a little box, right?

It's, there is this really creepy quote

that Ted Bundy said after he was caught in Florida.

And they're like, just just confess and we won't, you know.

whatever.

And he goes, even if I wanted to, my body physically will not allow me to share the secrets I've been harboring for decades.

Yeah.

And that really stuck with me, you know?

Because it's like years of building up those walls have been happening with him.

But yeah,

whether Bob is like a justification or like a fragmentation or whatever it is, there is that kind of split that tends to happen, I think, in these cases where people cross that line into perpetuating such harm upon others.

Absolutely.

And then you have that, I think, so strongly in this movie, especially with Michael Anderson being, you know, he presents himself and introduces himself as the arm.

He is the separate arm.

And it's when you think about how

we harbor guilt in our bodies or evil in our bodies, it is, you know, pretty physical.

But it's really interesting thinking about like the way Mike wanted to rid himself of the evil he was committing was by cutting his own arm off.

And that evil in the form of an arm takes life.

Yeah.

So, okay.

I, I, and I hate to get too theoretical about Twin Peaks, but yes, Michael J.

Anderson is the arm and Mike,

the spirit, Mike, cut off his arm to sort of rid himself of Bob and evil.

Yeah.

But then I'm, I've long wrestled with like what, because the arm is malevolent-ish

in the red room, Michael J.

Anderson.

He's sort of helpful.

Yeah.

He gives weird clues.

He's got this kind of jocular, odd energy.

Yeah.

But he's also scary.

He's somewhat allied with Bob.

And I've long wondered, like,

what

he

represents beyond this little sort of trickster figure.

Like, he doesn't seem like, like, Bob, it's like, Albert calls him in season two, like, the evil that men do.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, Bob, it's like.

The malevolence is so surface level.

And I, I don't know.

I, I mean, I just, I, I don't know what you guys make of the arm, Arkasha.

I don't know what you think his role is or if we even need to think about it.

Like, but I've, I've, I've long wondered how

I sound like such a dork, like how good or bad he is.

I, I know it's so lame to think about Twin Peaks in this way of like, who's the villain?

Who's the good guy?

You know, but I mean, my, my read as a recent, like, you know, a dilettante into this world trying to make my way through it has not spent as much time as you have.

Uh, it's sort of what you said, Arkasha, about like the way our body holds like trauma and memories and pain, right?

There's this sort of feeling of like the red room being the receptacle for all the worst things, the things we don't want to think about, the things we repress, right?

The way like the

compartmentalizing

of the sort of darkness.

And there's this feeling of Mike being like, if I sacrifice my arm to this, do I clean myself of this darkness?

Right.

And yet he's constantly haunted by Bob.

He is now a one-armed man who like lives with Bob.

Right.

It doesn't do anything.

The arm was like this sort of like sacrifice in vain that he said, like, if I surrender this to the room, am I clean of this?

The arm wasn't evil, which is why the arm isn't evil in there.

He's kind of evil, but he's not really.

And he may, Mike is now good, but you're right.

Mike can't do much.

Yeah.

And Bob's still there.

All he can do is say, like, I also see Bob.

Stay away from Bob.

Don't take the ring.

What do you think, Arkasha?

Well, this is definitely not an answer to that, but very great.

You know, years ago, I read this script online, and there's this scene where, well, so, first off, you know, in the red room, the arm does the

thing.

I sound like this.

I sound like this.

Yes.

So then in the script, there's this scene that I don't think was ever shot where

Laura and her two Johns, Buck and

Giggling Man, are driving from the Bang Bang Bar to this bar in Canada.

And they're speeding and they're drinking.

And at one point, Buck turns to Laura and he goes,

And

is this in Missing Pieces?

Or I didn't think it was epic.

I don't think it is.

I know it doesn't sound familiar.

I know that this is a thing talked about in lore.

Yes, the I sound like this noise is made.

Yeah.

And so you just get this idea that whatever this arm is, it's something that's going to permeate throughout.

You know, it's kind of that Ormack McCarthy idea that evil won't hold in one physical form, but it's contagious.

And like, so in Twin Peaks, one of the funniest and strangest in the world of Twin Peaks notions is that, yes, Bob is this creature of evil.

And Garmin Bosia, you know, the pain and suffering is what he gets from what he's doing, which is creamed corn, which we see several times throughout all of the Twin Peaks things, including here.

And it's sort of like food, it's nourishment to these creatures that live in this other world.

And the arm wants the corn.

The arm wants his garman boss.

He wants to eat.

Yeah.

And Bob, it's like, is like malevolent in a crazy way.

And he's out there, whatever, breaking the rules.

I don't know how, you know, like he write, he's out in our world, like

being awful.

Yeah.

And the arm is like some sort of more restricted thing where he's like, I don't do that, but I do need suffering to exist.

Like, I do, you know, like, even though I'm stunted or I'm sort of like only here,

and I don't even maybe like Bob, and I'm sort of working against Bob sometimes, I do need his pain and suffering.

Because at the end of the movie, it's Bob giving him the pain and suffering.

Let me refine my read I was giving, right?

Like the idea that Mike sacrifices the arm to like, well, then that becomes the evil.

The evil is in the arm.

I can be good.

I send the arm to the evil place.

I'm good.

I'm freed of that.

And yet his life is not, right?

By putting all of that on the arm, the arm becomes the idea of the trauma.

Right.

Like he still had the experience of cutting his arm off, which means the arm is now a place of trauma by the nature of deciding it's the problem.

And that's sort of like the conflicted existence of the arm as a character is like, there was no root evil.

It caused no harm, but it became a point of harm.

I almost hate doing all of this because, like I said, I don't need Twin Peaks to write to have superhero logic to me at all.

I think everything should have superhero logic.

I'm on my Easter eggs explained.

But I do, you know, a gunter at heart.

Lynch does

obviously is so fascinated by symbolism and representation of

mystical concepts of consciousness and things like that.

Like he's not doing this just because it's random.

Has he even tried meditation?

I feel like that would maybe chill him out.

If I'm at lunch, I just tell him, try meditation.

And I cannot deny that anytime we are in the red room in any kind of Twin Peaks, I'm so transfixed.

Yeah.

And I'm not parsing it for meaning, but I am.

I am very fascinated by

whatever thoughts he's trying to process.

It was the great surprise of finally watching season one for me that the red room appears one time.

It does.

And I'm like, I was made to believe that this show was like half in this place for how much this is what gets recirculated in the conversation and the imagery.

Yeah.

Do you care about the red room more or less than some things, Arkasha?

Or like, is it more Laura's story that you are taken by?

Oh, I think I definitely became obsessed with the Red Room once I watched the the show.

I think I was so obsessed with Laura initially, but the red room is interesting in the sense that it's another one of those areas where Lynch is able to tap into this universal iconography that allows us to

make everything so intensely personal.

I think that's why people are either fans of Lynch or

not.

And if you're a fan, you're stupid.

Because not answering or having very defined rules about what all this means allows you to really put your own imprint on it.

And the red room is this little cubby hole of hell, you know, and

when we were doing First Omen, we were doing a lot of research on the rules of hell.

Like there's rules, there aren't.

But, you know, reading that there's

hell and Satan will take what...

creates meaning and rip it to shreds and make it formless, you know, and that is the function of Satan and that is what hell is.

And so when you get into this red room and all of a sudden people are speaking backwards and, you know, communication is even more clipped.

And it just felt,

it felt so perfect.

And it felt so like there was so much depth in this space that's very simplistic.

It's there are no walls.

It's just curtains, you know?

Just curtains and a statue and a light.

Yeah, which lets you put even more of your own imagination into it and makes it inescapable.

But that's interesting.

The idea that it's like the most ultimate form of punishment for the human consciousness is things that are inexplicable.

Like so often, hell is depicted as like you are in a fiery pit and there's a little demon and he's poking you with a pitchfork.

Like he's punishing you and people are like, oh, eternal suffering.

But you're like, there are rules to that.

The thing.

It's hot and the guy's poking.

He is poking.

That's a problem versus like...

What's more terrifying than being in the red room being like, I don't know why he's speaking backwards and no one can explain this to me.

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Beyond that, the red room is kind of comforting in a way.

The music is interesting.

The vibe is interesting.

Costello's are expensive, I should should mention.

It's just very overpriced.

In Twin Peaks Season 2, the very extended sequence in the Red Room, kind of the longest sequence he ever did in there, it's just Cooper moving from one room to another through the curtains.

There's like a curtain space in the middle.

And it is such a great idea of hell of like, no, maybe if I just go to this room.

It's the same as the same thing.

If I go to this room, that's that room again.

The only thing that happens in the red room in Twin Peaks Firewalk with me that we haven't talked about really is the ring is there, right?

The arm introduces Cooper to the, there's this ring, and Cooper is very intently like, don't take the ring, right?

He's trying.

Mike says that to her as well.

Exactly.

Well, he's trying, right.

Cooper's like trying to, and

when she puts the ring on, you know, not to jump ahead, but, you know, like when things are going down at the end, she's in the train car.

When she puts the ring on, I think the notion is the ring protects her from Bob.

Bob can't possess her.

If you want to think about this somewhat literally, Bob sort of is ready to move from Leland into her.

And she's warding him off.

And that's why Bob has to kill her.

Right.

And Cooper, in his more simplistic, savior kind of thing, like, doesn't want her to die.

And he wants, like, so much of Twin Peaks is Cooper trying to save Laura.

Yes.

Right.

Like, first he's trying to solve her murder, but as the show goes on, and then in the third scene, you know, it's like him trying to be like, how could I fix it?

How could I save Laura?

But Laura wants to die.

Right.

I mean, I keep going back to this.

This is a movie about someone who's ready to die.

She's a breath tambler.

I'm not suggesting she killed herself.

I'm just suggesting that maybe she let herself be killed.

And

that's why it's sort of good that she puts on the ring and that

we see her in, you know, in an angel form.

And right?

Like, you know, that it's like, I think Lynch is like, there's something, you know, necessary about this, as sad as it is and as tough as it is for someone like Cooper who cannot grapple with that notion.

Yeah.

I don't know, Arkasha, if you agree.

This is such tricky territory, right?

It's very sticky because it's

that if we say Laura wants to die at the end, this is that's a pretty damning comment, I think, especially when,

you know, the prologue of all of this is Laura is representing one of many young women.

And this is really just a story of all the different ways that

we use and abuse young women.

And

so that's almost,

strangely enough, almost too dark for me to think, which is why

it is.

It's horrifying to come.

Yeah, it's terrible.

And we're so relieved when that angel shows up, you know, at the very end.

And it's like, you don't really know what that means, but you really needed it, you know.

At least I did at the end of the film.

And I think that

you, in order to not sacrifice your identity in the name of all the horrible trauma you experience, you have to essentially kill yourself or let yourself be killed.

That's essentially

the message for women at the end of this film.

Right.

Yeah.

You're so broken that there's no coming back is pretty fatalistic.

I think one reason you're laughing is that this was a commercially released film under somewhat of a name brand.

Yes, it was European money or whatever, but nonetheless, like to imagine audiences being presented with this,

especially in the guise of this show that's like, yes, it's dark and yes, it's about a twisted murder case, but also it's like a town where you get to go have your coffee and pie.

I mean, there was a thing that JJ put in the dossier about how like so quickly after season one took off, they signed a four-book deal.

Yes.

And that they were frustrated that the show collapsed so quickly that only three out of the four books got published.

And you're like, right, as much as it wasn't like the fucking MCU, this very quickly was set up as like a multimedia franchise.

You know,

why can't this be a cash cow?

And this movie is the opposite of that approach.

Yes.

This movie's a slaughterhouse.

Well, it's like you said,

it's very confronting.

And I laugh because it's really dark and this isn't like a fun conversation, but it's because I think that's, that's very, you know, very true.

And I think the,

and you brought this up at the beginning of this discussion is that we have this fascination with death.

And, you know, there is, we all, I think, as a

culture have a dead girl fetish, you know,

and that was what was so addictive about the first season is that we were able to indulge in that dead girl fantasy.

And then you find out who killed her and then kind of the air is let out of the balloon, right?

It's yes, it's the saddest answer.

Right.

It's the saddest answer.

Yeah.

It's not like, oh, some crime wave or, oh, some like conspiracy.

It's like this was happening in her home and everyone sort of was just trying to look away from it.

And also not to repeat myself, but the fact that the movie starts at such a low point, that it isn't, here's the week where everything went wrong.

Right.

It's just here's the end of a very long decline.

Yeah.

Yes.

What's What's happened

to Laura is that she's become aware of what's happening to her.

Yes.

And that's what's fueling, I think, somewhat, you know, the destructiveness and the acceptance.

And, you know, that's so hard to consider for the audience.

Yeah.

And that's what's so that was kind of a really depressing thing to watch the season afterwards because you realize like, oh, this was such a beloved

person

and she's been murdered in this horrific way, yet nothing really changes after that.

You know, you get to explore the rest of the town, but but um

but the the drugs keep flowing and the underage prostitution keeps you know,

yes, and like it is notable that Twin Peaks,

the show, yes, they I guess they kind of eventually shut down one-eyed Jacks, kind of,

but it is definitely not a show about Cooper rolling up his sleeves and being like, All right, we're solving this topic.

Yeah, let's, right, let's fix the town.

Right.

Now, because it's an ABC show,

you don't see, you know, it's mostly just spoken of.

You don't see the town continuing to like bump out drugs and prostitution.

Right.

But yeah, I mean, certainly when the return comes around, it's not like Twin Peaks has been fixed.

Well, can we talk about the scene in this movie that I find most upsetting is the scene at the bar that feels like it goes on forever.

Right.

And you have this sort of like musical loop of this live band performance that seemingly is just playing the same 10 notes over and over again for hours, right?

It truly feels like a cycle of hell.

And you're watching, this isn't happening at One Eye Jacks, this isn't happening in the structure of them wearing fucking masquerade masks and being in their like nicely designed, sort of like satin rooms.

And the idea of this being like a proper business, even if it's a business happening in secret.

Right.

It's like this is just a woman sort of like being taken advantage of physically in real time in a room full of other people and no one is reacting.

And it is this thing of like you can sort of track in this way that is incredibly dark Laura's logic of why she's putting herself in this situation, why she's going along with it, which is like to someone who has been commodified this much physically and sexually, in her mind, there is a form of agency to, I am choosing to let this happen, right?

Yes.

Like you can sort of see the sense of control that she thinks she's exerting over her environment by being like, no, but this is the version of this that I'm, I chose to show up here.

Right.

Right, right, right.

And that's why she doesn't want Donna really sinking into it.

I think that this is such, this is such an important part of this film is that the only sort of agency a young woman has is through like self-exculpatory sexism and exactly

and commodification.

It's and what's really

terrible, well, not terrible, but what I think is so well crafted about this part of the film is that it's presented in a way that engages you in a real way.

Like the lighting's super sexy, the music's super sexy.

You're really having fun with it until Donna gets involved.

And Laura starts screaming.

And that really is like the bucket of cold water.

We were like, oh my God, this is

literal hell.

But also, at that point, this scene has been going on for over 10 minutes.

The music is so loud and droning that there are burnt-in subtitles for the dialogue, right?

Where it's like, no, we know you can't hear what she's saying.

This guy sort of like pushes the boundary of like, what if I take her top off while we're dancing?

She doesn't react.

No one reacts.

She pulls it down further.

And then she's just continuing to exist in this room.

She goes into the booth.

She's talking to other people.

She remains topless.

Two things I think this scene captures very, very well are like the weirdness of when something that bizarre and

what's the word I'm looking for?

How quickly things get normalized.

If something that strange happens in a public space and everyone's sort of...

We're either going to confront it immediately or it's just going to kind of be like, I guess we're not going to talk about it.

If it doesn't get confronted immediately, everyone just sort of adjusts to, I guess this is the reality of the room.

And if I don't like it, I'm just going to try to get away from it rather than deal with it.

Right.

And as you said, Arkasha, there's this feeling at this point, like Laura is so beaten down that it's like, everyone views me as a sexual object, right?

I'm like sort of commodified and like fetishized as this like perfect prom queen girl, but I'm like abused by my family and these forces of evil.

I'm like lusted over by all these teen boys.

At this point, she's gotten kicked out of One Eye Jacks.

So now she's doing even like the less structured version of the idea of sex where no newspaper ads or whatever

with randoms.

Right.

And as you said, it's just like, well, the agency I have is choosing the form in which my currency is my sexuality rather than her believing she has any other sense of self at this point.

Right.

The other thing this scene captures so well is like, I think an actual accurate representation of peer pressure.

Where before Donna gets drugged, when it's sort of the four of them standing in a square and you're just watching Donna sort of accept, like, I guess this is how grown-ups behave.

Right.

Donna doesn't seem that into it.

It was more just kind of like, is this what I have to do here?

But there isn't even that much of like, come on, what are you?

A coward?

Right.

No, it's just, yeah.

It's just the overwhelming atmosphere.

I guess I have to do this.

I guess this is normal now.

It's a damning commentary on how desperately we need human connection because that's, this is all in the name of relating to Laura.

Right.

which you know like we've seen so many after school fucking specials where it's presented as a gang of five kids who are like what are you a coward you don't want to smoke this dude and you're like that's not what happens it's you watch three other people doing something and immediately you put it on yourself and go like are they gonna reject me if i don't do this i want to be part of this or if i complain or if i say like you shouldn't do that or why is this happening to you you don't want to be part of it because you think it looks cool you want to be part of it because you want to be part of anything.

And if that's the space you're in right now, you don't want to be outside of it.

And yeah, the fact that like the thing that flips Laura, the one sort of moment in the last hour of this movie where she seems to have some like clarity is seeing Donna, the fear of Donna like falling into this and her immediate response being.

Don't.

like become like me.

No, don't borrow my clothes.

Well, right.

First, the jealousy.

You're right.

You're right.

It picks a different thing to sort of get upset about.

But she does say to Donna, like, you know, like, don't become like me.

Like,

she gets there eventually.

But I think Don't Borrow My Clothes is her version of the unicorn, which is like, it's too painful to actually verbalize her real fear in that moment.

She has to fight to get that statement out.

But after this like very profound, deep conversation, I'm realizing now that at the bar, whenever anybody's not drinking their beer fast enough, my favorite thing to say is chuggalug, Donna.

Chuggalug.

Wow.

Gobble gobble.

Right.

That's the only moment that is someone actually kind of saying to her, Hey, are you cool or not?

Right, right, right, right, right.

Right.

Otherwise, it's just her observing and trying to keep up.

We should wrap up soon.

Our time is coming to a close, not to sound portentious.

It's already portentous.

I mean, we're in an alien studio.

Our kasha screen has gone blank.

We're talking to a disembodied voice.

I've eaten one granola bar all day.

So, um, is there anything we want to say about the ending of the film, the absolutely horrifying train car sequence?

Um,

before we like play the box office game, I should, and I note that yes, this movie premiered at Canned Taboos and Disappointment, and like the entire adventure stops dead.

Yes, like it's like that's that.

Yeah, this movie flops.

It does get indie spirit nods.

Like, there's clearly some awareness.

Yes.

Like, there are some critics who are with it.

Yeah.

But, you know, the Twin Peaks ride is over for a long time.

Right.

A lot of the Cheryl Lee notices for this movie felt a little bit like the Anna de Armis blonde Oscar nomination.

Yeah.

There was a weird sort of patronizing sympathy, even though she loves you went through this suffering.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

But yeah, the ending, Arkasha, you know, I actually find the ending like too difficult to watch, and I usually sort of have to look to the side a little bit when she's just like screaming, you know, in Leland's face and things like in Bob's face, you know, it's just like.

What's the other part of it being wild that he shot 90 minutes of these other scenes where you're like, this movie doesn't have many sequences.

They all go on longer than they feel like they should.

I mean, Arkasha also just made a movie that I watched in a theater with my friend Emmett where we both were, I love the movie, but at times having to do the thing of like, I kind of need blinkers on for a second.

I don't know what's going to happen.

I'm, you know, unsettled thank you but i think this is the the train scene is kind of the core of darkness where i actually when i watch the movie i don't really watch that scene you know it's it's a little too much for me uh although although i i do there is like this wave of relief when this beautiful angel comes um yeah but but yeah i mean what what I was saying before, the horribly dark thing I was saying before is kind of you feel that every time, especially when, you know, for some reason, what's what's most disturbing to me is that you do see Leland Palmer.

It's not just Bob and he matches the two, right?

So you have this feeling of like, oh, is Leland Palmer somewhat aware?

I don't, the, for some reason, the, the little Jimmy Scott song makes me sob like a donkey every time I hear it because it's just this,

you know, it's almost this,

you're all of a sudden in Leland Palmer's point of view and just feeling terrible for him in this horrible act that he wasn't you know he seemingly had no control over so it's almost a little too confronting well you also have the whole we didn't we even talk about it but the sequence in the middle where they're in the car and he's getting all the flashbacks yes of like trying to find a sex worker who reminds him of his daughter it feels like so he can put that energy somewhere else without harming her right and that's Teresa Palmer obviously is part of that but then he almost stumbled into having sex with his daughter in that context right yes

And it's like he's fighting the sort of like growing awareness of what he's done and who he is.

And you're right.

In that sequence, it does feel like he's actually more present.

As much as Bob is there physically, also represented.

It does kind of feel like Leland is in his body in those final moments of the worst things happening.

And then, of course, that's why I feel like we need to have that epilogue where Bob like sucks the blood out of him and puts it on the floor.

Yeah.

Really for internal logic, but also just for our understanding of Leland, where it's like, right, now it's, he's going back into a fugue, right?

Like now that this is over with.

Like, yeah, they're kind of taking that away from him.

Yeah.

And he will exist in the form we know him in the show as this man who's kind of like aware and not aware of what happened.

Right.

If I can try to wrap up a theme I was putting out there, let's see if I can land this plane at all.

But like the feeling of these scenes going on longer than they should, and part of it is just like this is so punishing.

He's not cutting away from it.

We're living in this for so long.

But I also think Lynch kind of uses, and I think he does this in other films as well, but this one he does in a perhaps a more subtle way of like using a sort of incorrect editing, which isn't to say like, you know, crossing the line.

Gaff.

Gaffs, goofs, and spoofs, errors.

No, I mean, like, sort of the obvious, like, new wave kind of like jump cut and continuity errors and things you do to like jostle the audience and that sort of disorientation.

I feel like he creates too much error in scenes on purpose.

He is like slowing down time in the edit

where things are happening at like an unnatural pace.

And I think about a very different movie that is also about coming to terms with death in a certain way, in many ways, overtly, but Mitchell Black, which we recently covered, and is three hours hours long.

And as we joked, and most of our listeners seem to joke when they watch the movie for the podcast, like this movie truly has one hour of pauses in between every single line of dialogue.

There is just a weird silence in response to every single line.

And for a movie like that, that is going for something more whimsical and romantic, even if sad, people are like, this is so bizarre.

And then this is a movie that uses almost a similar technique as like a tool of disorientation.

Right.

I think you're right.

I think this is a, I mean, Arkasha, you make movies.

I don't know if like there is a subtle art to this, right?

How much to push sort of

what you're talking about.

Well, it's interesting because it's, they say, you know, life imitates art or whatever.

It's a, it's, I feel like in the editing room, people are really afraid of these quiet moments and these points that you're not entirely sure what the purpose of this airspace is.

And it almost just really supports the theme of all of his films.

It's like there's a lot that is happening and that is being said that words can't articulate.

And you have to trust yourself enough to into it and feel about the unknown.

And here's a good long cross-the-room stare that's going to last three minutes.

And that's the thing.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of the unease he successfully creates just comes from why aren't people reacting faster.

That's a real, I think,

dangerous thing to be, or seemingly dangerous thing to be doing when you're making making film, because at least on the studio level, you would have to fight tooth and nail for years to keep that airspace.

And it would still get hacked, you know?

Right.

Like, not only is

the sort of traditional rule of editing to cut everything as lean as you possibly can, remove anything that's extraneous, but also most people want to, even when they identify what the valuable can't lose pieces are, you know, you, you cut in late and you cut out early, right?

That's this like whole mantra.

Right.

Right.

And he's always doing the opposite.

He's breaking that rule.

Yes.

And the movie is long, but I never feel like uncompelling.

Like, you know, right?

Like the movie is.

But it's punishing by design.

Yes, it is.

But it's interesting because there's,

I watched Pickpocket not too long ago on Criterion.

One of the best.

And how, and really watching how

there's about eight frames extra at the beginning of scenes where people are about to walk through a door and eight frames left over when people leave.

And

it's in a way creates this like

ghost.

You appreciate the ghost of the person that was there and or this mystery of what this space was like before a person enters.

what energy they're going to bring into the room is really honored.

And you would never have those eight frames now, you know, ever.

No.

Those guys would get hacked right away, but it almost creates, this sounds really, I'm like waxing rhapsodic, but it almost creates a spirituality

to Pickpocket,

especially when it comes to his room and the space that he spends the most time in.

And I like that about Lynch Films.

I feel like he honors that kind of space.

I think that's very well said.

I think we should play the box office game.

Sponsored by Regal Cinemas.

Arkasha, we're going to, this movie came out August 28th, 1992.

Great release date.

Wow.

I do often think that is the single, I think you and I both agree the single two worst release dates that feel still like the absolute dump of punishment are the first week of January and the last week of August.

Right.

They've even sort of salvaged the beginning of September now.

Right.

But

we're going to try and guess the top five.

Griffin is going to try and guess the top five movies.

Because my brain is broken.

Actually, an interesting.

Yes.

Okay.

So.

Okay.

August 1999.

August 28th, 1992.

Oh, 92, of course.

Yes.

Twin Peaks opened number eight at the box office, $1.8 million, and made about $4 million

domestically.

Yeah, not great.

Yeah.

But number one is a film I'm sure you like, a rom-com starring an actor you love.

It's a rom-com starring an actor I love.

Maybe you don't like this movie.

I feel like you do.

Well, it's interesting.

You know, I love the actor, but maybe I don't talk about this movie much.

I don't know if I've ever heard you talk about this movie.

It's a comedy.

It's a comedy.

It's not house guest, is it?

No.

It's not house guest.

I don't know what to give you here.

It's two major movie stars.

And one of them I love in particular?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, he's one of your big guys.

He's one of my guys.

Okay.

The male star is the one who's

not always a comic actor.

Right.

He's going to win an Oscar in like two years.

It's not Hanks.

No.

No, no, no.

Come on, no.

One of your guys.

He's one of my guys.

We're your guys.

And in two years, he's going to win an Oscar.

Why am I not thinking about this?

Come on.

Who are your guys?

Vin Diesel.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Early 90s.

Come on.

Michael Keaton.

Come on.

Lock in.

Lock in.

Keaton's a good answer, but no.

Yeah.

He has a big movie in theaters right now that's making tons of money.

At this present moment.

Yes.

Yes.

Come on.

Why am I not thinking of this?

You've seen like all his movies until it's not Steve Martin.

No.

Because he hasn't won an Oscar.

Who wins an Oscar in the 90s?

And I'm very happy about it.

Nicholas Cage.

Nicholas Cage.

There you go.

Is it Honeymoon in Vegas?

Honeymoon in Vegas.

That movie's okay.

See, it's not one of your favorites.

It's not one of my favorites.

Andrew Bergman movie.

Have you seen Honeymoon in Vegas?

Arkasha, do you care about Honeymoon in Vegas?

Brought me to Vegas and turned me into a whore.

Hey.

Yeah, Con Cage, young Sarah Jessica Parker, an Andrew Bergman movie, who's like kind of

an undersung auteur, yeah.

Cage has his weird early 90s light comedy, rom-com sort of like wave of that and it could happen to you.

And which I kind of like as well.

Like, those are movies.

I kind of like them, yeah.

Yeah.

Guarding Tess is sort of interesting.

He's obviously not rom-com,

but is another like very light comedy.

Honeymoon in Vegas is opening number one, also kind of getting dumped out.

Yeah.

Number two is the best picture winner of 1992.

It's been out for a month.

It's made a ton of money.

In 1992.

Yes.

It

comes out in the summer.

It does, which is odd.

Okay, so wait.

1990 is Dances with Wolves, obviously.

1991 is Silence of the Lambs.

That's right.

1992, is it Unforgiven?

Unforgiven.

Wild.

It's just weird that that was a summer movie.

Yeah, and it takes a year to make 100 million plays for a full calendar year in

main theater.

That's a great movie.

Yeah.

Number three at the box office is a horror sequel opening against Twin Peaks.

What number is it?

Two.

It's a two.

And the last.

And the last.

Yes.

Is it FX2?

No.

It's more of a thriller.

I know.

I was proud of the guess.

I liked the guess.

Commend the guess.

Great guess.

The guess had a certain

female horror director.

Not a lot of those.

It's a Pet Cemetery 2?

Pet Cemetery 2.

I've never seen it.

Mary Lambert.

Have you seen Pet Cemetery 1 or 2, the Mary Lambert films, Arkasha?

I've seen one.

I haven't seen two.

Yeah.

I like one quite a bit.

One's pretty good.

Two is Eddie Furlong.

Yes.

Eddie Furlong.

Pet Cemetery, my favorite Stephen King novel, but I do not know to what extent the sequel is like drawing from that.

Sure.

Number four at the box office is a robust summer thriller.

How to describe it?

It's not like

in the line of fire.

It's an erotic thriller.

Yes.

It's not indecent proposal.

No.

It's not disclosure.

No.

It's not.

But I'm kind of on the right.

More horrory than those.

More horrory.

Yeah.

Huh.

The title is like something that could happen to you.

Sex.

It like becomes a euphemism for something that could happen to you.

You could get this.

Oh, sure.

Fuck.

Single white female?

Single white female.

There we go.

Do you like single white female, Arkasha?

I just watched it recently.

It was on Criteria.

Any reason?

Long ago.

Oh, I was doing,

you know, Karina Longworth's erotic 90s podcast.

Yes.

I was doing my homework.

So it's a bananas movie with a really wonderful performance in it.

It's also dumb as rocks.

It kind of, it's kind of great.

I don't know.

It's a very silly, weird movie.

Great hairstyles.

The hair's very fun.

It's just, yeah, another perfect example of like in the 90s, you had like fucking Barbette Schroeder directed sort of like silly thrillers for grown-ups

that were like taking over the culture.

Roommate from Hell.

Yeah.

Number five in the box office.

It's a film we've covered.

It's a black comedy.

Big movie, star movie.

It's not.

Fuck, fuck.

It's not mixed nuts.

No.

No.

Very special effectsy.

Oh, it's Death Becomes Her?

It's Robert Zimakis' Death Becomes Her.

Okay.

It's a fun five.

Yeah.

You also have a League of Their Own.

You have Twin Peaks.

You have a movie called Rapid Fire, which I've never seen, which is a Brandon Lee action movie.

Okay.

You have Three Ninjas.

And you have a sister act.

Yes.

Wow.

That is the box office.

There are actually kind of a lot of sleeper hits in there.

It's got a lot of options.

There are a lot of movies there that take like eight months to crawl to $100 million.

Yes.

Different time.

Did Sister Act have to crawl to $100 million?

I feel like, I don't know the history of that.

It was just like a revelation.

I feel like Sister Act was like a long play, right?

Sister Act has been in theaters for four months and has made $126 million.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

I mean, that's also one of those movies where the sequel is in theaters within 11 months of the first movie.

Yeah, they're just like, I don't care what it's called or what it's about.

As long as she's in it wearing a habit, it's fine.

As long as she's back in the house, she is back in the habit.

You said, I don't care what happens.

They were very firm about what it had to be.

Is Sister Act 2 better than Sister Act 1?

Lauren Hill is in it?

Debatable.

Debatable.

It's like the godfather question.

Guides the parties.

There's a legitimate argument for Sister Act 2 being better.

I think so.

I think so.

That's it.

We're done.

We're going to wrap up, I think.

Arkasha, thank you so much for doing this very haunted podcast recording.

Arkasha,

you've got to come back on the show.

Hopefully you're in New York sometime and you can just come and see our faces and be in a room with us.

Yeah, in a room we control.

In a room we control.

With no evil and no backwards.

I want to particularly shout out our producer, Ben Hosley, who is a hero who goes above and beyond for this podcast.

He's very relaxed.

People, you don't get this because he hasn't been on Mike much this episode, but he's in a really good mood and everything's been working out really great all day.

But it was so wonderful to talk to you, Arkasha.

First Omen is so fucking fucking good.

It is.

Check it out, everyone.

I feel like it is a rare instance in our current culture of a movie that just kind of like immediately became a cold object.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know if Arkasha is blushing right now.

The screen is black.

I'm

saying real big.

Sorry.

I'm very proud First Disney Vagina Shot.

Spread the word shot.

Huge.

Absolutely huge.

Yeah.

Because they cut it out of Emperor's New Group.

There was one.

It just didn't make the final cut.

A llama hand reaching out of a vagina.

No, it's such a great movie.

It's on Hulu.

It's on Hulu now.

Yeah.

Check it out.

I think it's parked and will be on Hulu for a bit.

Foreseeable.

Watch a 30 Rock and then check in with Satan himself.

Perfect double feature.

No, it's a really awesome movie.

I don't know.

Is there anything else you want to plug, Arkasha, before we wrap?

DVD is coming out soon.

Hello.

There you go.

Physical.

That's my plug.

Great.

Thank you guys so much for having me on.

You, you know, yeah, you can't see me, but I'm having a really good time.

Okay, great.

I'm glad.

And I know you're now going to throw to your New Orleans sports podcast.

You got to weigh in on the Pelicans staying under the cap.

Tough, tough watch.

But Griffin, take us out, please.

Thank you for being here.

And thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

Thanks to my best buddy, Ben Hosley.

We love him.

Keep Ben stuff

going.

Fun time.

Thank you to Marie Barty for helping to produce the show.

Thank you to J.J.

Birch for our research.

Adrian McKeon for our editing.

He's also our production coordinator.

He's going to have his work cut out for him on this episode.

Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song.

Joe Bone Pat Reynolds for our artwork.

You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check special features where we will have done Twin Peaks Season 2.

That's where that lives.

Couldn't do it all on the main feed.

Sorry.

But we're also doing our tabletop games.

Yep.

That's what we're doing.

The most storied franchise in the history of cinema.

Tune in next week for Lost Highway?

Yes.

Right?

That's right.

That's his next film.

Yes.

Next week, Lost Highway, Way, David Lowry returning to the show.

Great app.

An episode recorded four years ago.

But good app.

Yeah, we have some bold predictions about Joe Biden's presidential campaign that will certainly pan out in that episode.

I'm joking.

It's just recorded a long time ago.

We probably don't remember anything we say.

Nope.

Yeah.

And as always,

I need dumplings.

I just need to leave this lodge.