True Grit with Stavros Halkias

Black Jack with Griffin and David.

Black Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

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

You must pay for everything in this world, one way or another. There's nothing free except the grace of Pod.
Okay, so you're doing.

You didn't let me finish. Oh, sorry.
You're doing like

a sincere, kind of like thoughtful, kind of like, you know, sticks with you moment. Yeah, you know why I chose that strategically?

Because I feel like we're going to spend most of the next three hours going,

right? Right.

A saucy line will not get you far with me is something I say to people all the time. Well, you say it that way? No.
How do you say it?

Well, I can't. Can you do LaBeef? Do LaBeef.
Well, this is what I finally cracked watching at this time.

It's Damon doing half a McConaughey.

Damon has a perfect McConaughey.

He'll break out McConaughey on talk shows as like his party trick. Okay.
And his McConaughey is the best I've ever heard. Sure.
And this is him being like, I can't go full Mac.

I can only do McConaughey saying MRI in Interstate. M.R.I.
M.I. M.
M. R.I.
M. R.I.
It's that one moment. Yeah.
Okay. So go ahead and go beat LaBeef.

Let me see. I'm looking for a line here.

And maybe hold your tongue. Yeah.
Do you know how he he did that? This is another, I've watched, I watched a lot of Damon interviews. Not for this, just generally.
He talks. That guy run his mouth.

Yeah. What is he? A podcaster?

He couldn't figure out how to do it and they couldn't figure out how to like build a prosthetic or anything to help him with it because it's the fucking tongue. Like nothing's going to stick.

And he was like helping his little daughters get ready for school and they had like elastic hairbands. Oh, wow.
And he was like, oh, let me try this.

And he was like, I just put three around my tongue. Wow.
That's so weird. Isn't Isn't that weird? Yeah, it's cool.
But he was like, it was the only thing that stuck that wasn't like toxic.

Interesting. Yeah.

I'm looking for a good Lebeaf line here. I mean, what's the one about the lashings?

Where he says that he was fixing for a kiss. You give out very little sugar with your pronouncements.
It's something.

I can't do it. You had it better.
Yeah. While I sat there watching, I gave some thought to stealing a kiss, though you are very young and sick and unattractive to boot.
I'm just loving.

The way they talk, man. It's awesome.
Can we just talk like this again?

can get back to this thought. The dumbest character in this movie speaks better than the current poet laureate of the United States, who I believe is Ben Hoslick.

No, but it is like the guys who are the guys who called, like, right, yes, yes.

And they're still like, yeah, if I'd shot the wreck guy, I'd be. And I'm like, yeah, this is the fucking discussion run for Congress.
Like, I love this guy. Yeah.

Every line in this movie, I mean, they've talked about the main reason they remade this is because they love the book so fucking much. And they were like, We think Portis is like American Shakespeare.

He is. And like, if you just literally put the book on screen and transcribe every line of dialogue, people will be firing pistols up in the air in the audience, which happened.

Someone went, that's like a benevolent joker. Yeah.
He's just like shooting a gun to celebrate. It's rooting to the fucking.
Maybe we should bring that back. We should bring that back.

You can have a gun fire and fire it up. Yeah.
A gun that only fires up. I'm pro.
maybe you have maybe you have like a right if it's like this

a level or whatever yeah exactly

a little bubble yeah that little bubble level and if it's going up you can fire it won't activate

the movie is so heavy on guys firing a shot in the air to mean something right to be like all right i'm out of here how is not everyone deaf i think they kind of are yeah yeah they should all be then constantly screaming at one another basically to hear what each other is saying that is true i mean he like he empties his revolver at snakes in like a cave, like one inch from her head.

Is that like, I don't know how she ever hears again? Brewster, in particular, keeps using his gun as like a multi-tool.

Or sometimes he uses it to like cut a piece of paper, you know, to tie his shoes. Yeah,

I say, I thought you were going to go with, I heard you were a man of pod cast. Oh, sure.
You know, and that way we just go,

we just take the title and this.

It's interesting.

I mean, who knows if perhaps my instincts have dulled at this point.

But I feel like there's a tough balance of there's a level of sweatiness where the actual line has become so abstracted by the way I put podcast in there. Right.

That is funny to me, or it needs to be the line is mostly intact. Right.
You would look at the line. And I put the one for you.
And if you were in a coffin, that would be all right.

Oh, that guy. That guy rocks.
This is another thing. Every guy in this movie.
rocks. This is a movie about how being a guy back then was pretty weird.

Because it's like, if if you're the coffin guy in like the Wild West, that's a weird job. Not only kind of weird, but like basically sucked.
Everything sucks.

Everything's bad. And like, my favorite character is the guy she trades with, right? You know, Dick and Matthews.
Who I always, right.

You always say that he's the one who says he likes to pull the cork, but it's another guy who says that. We'll talk about it.
But Dickon Matthews has the two literal horse trading scenes. Right.

And like, just where he's just like, can I be real with you? Living in this town is sucks. I have like, I'm ill all the time.
I'm sure I'm going to die because I've moved beyond civilization.

And all I do is like haggle about the cost of a horse. Like, I'm just going to fucking die.
I mean, one of our great American philosophers,

a poet laureate in his own right, made the profound statement, there are a million ways to die in the West, and all of them are terrible.

Seth McFarland made an entire movie about this, and it was too trenchant for America. Yeah, they couldn't handle it.
Really ahead of his time. Have you seen that movie? No.
I think it's pretty good.

I have no desire. I think it's pretty good.
Well, I've come around. I don't know.
i've come around though i i did a lot of watching family guy

on tour i bought a i i was on a bus and you were talking about dvds yeah and i bought early family guy and then i bought the star wars family guy i could whatever i would just find dvds at a grocery store that's so funny that it's dvds it's dvd like well because they're streaming because they have the business no wi-fi built-in tv dvd comic you were just saying every town you stopped in you go to goodwill i would go to goodwill and i would find the next four days of entertainment are defined by what they have yes And actually, the Cohens were big.

Those were probably the only good movies we allowed ourselves because it was a lot of dog shit. It was a lot of like late period Seagal.

It was a lot of like, it was a lot of like, you know, we had some Chuck. You get a lot of three packs with Segal, a lot of four packs.
Yeah.

A lot of Chuck Norris three packs that you can find at a Winco in Eugene, Oregon.

We're talking like Segal, like... Russia,

Russia, Order of Lenin Seagal, right? It's right at the beginning of that. Okay, so not the now where he like does it in a chair.
No, exactly. It's not chair, which is a great, yes.

I believe my boy Nick said the donut.

He's got a goatee that's like a donut, like a black, like a chocolate donut, not chocolate donut sagal, right before that, like in between, when he's trying to figure out.

When he's like, shit, I'm out. I'm directing video now.
Like, what is this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel like chocolate donut sagal also has a thing where like there'll be a stunt chase with a guy on a motorcycle and the guy's wearing a helmet. The helmet.

And they've literally superimposed his face over the helmet. Yes.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. They've done that.
Or just printed out and taped it on front of the helmet. Do you remember his energy drink?

Seagal? I don't remember. Steven Seagal's Lightning Ball Energy, and it had two flavors.
I have to look them up because they're so funny: Asian Experience and Cherry Charge.

I think about Asian Experience all the time.

The flavor is Asian experience.

Do you know what's the most interesting thing? That that guy, look, he has his quick rise and fall, right? In the late 80s, the early 90s. 10 years.
Right.

And then it's sort of like this guy, he went crazy. He made, you know, he wanted

what Undeadly Ground is the one that he directed. That's the

one where he's like, we're going to save the environment. Right.
Oh, yes. And everyone was like, this guy's cooked.

And then, like, three years later, Joel Silver takes him out of the junk pile and is like, here's the formula. If we put you with a rapper.
Yes. Yeah.

And he had like four-hit Sagal plus a rapper movie. What's crazy about those movies is like DMX acts him off the screen.

DMX is like out of his gorge.

I saw the DMX with In Theme. No, that's Exit Wounds.
Exit wounds.

And it's pretty good. And then the Cradle to the Grave.

Cradle to the Grave. Oh, no, is that DMX and Jet Lee? That is DMX and Jet Lee.
Right.

Yep. Yep.
I never saw that one. But then there's, what is it called? Half Past Dead? Yeah.
Which is a great title. That's what Ja Ruul.
Ja Ruul. Yeah.
Oh, I got to throw that.

If only we had come across that in the DVD pile. Yeah, that's Ja Rule and Mars Chestnut.
Yes. So who's the real actor? By the way, I've been talking about stuff that sucks.

I love another thing we would watch on tour is Watson, Morris Chestnut, sort of like, what if House was also...

Well, what if House was Watson from Sherlock Holmes?

It's tied into the shit. It's tied into

Morris Chestnut. And he goes back to being a doctor.
And Moriarty is

involved.

Is Randall Park Moriori?

Randall Yardi is Moriarty. Fuck.
And

And, you know, they have twins for no reason. Like, they do the classic two of the people, two of the hot shots, two of the hot shots, doctors that.
Oh my God. Yeah, this guy plays identical twins.

It's so bad, but I can't stop.

But America can't stop watching Holmes. It's so funny that we can.
I know it's because Sherlock Holmes is like public domain or whatever.

That like every two years, someone's like, what if we do something with Sherlock Holmes? We literally can't. And it's like, okay, is it set in like

that? And it's like, no, it's set in Chicago.

at Pittsburgh, actually.

We did that. Someone hasn't watched Watson.

But, like, first of all, you're saying that Watson is

what if House

was Watson? What if Watson? Yes. What if Watson was a sexy black guy? No, what if House was a sexy black guy that used to also be Sherlock Holmes' assistant? But you know,

but DA says Sherlock Holmes, like, yeah, like, I used to work in London. Yeah, right.
In the, in the show, Watson, he was here.

I had, I did miss the first 12 minutes of the pilot. Oh, he was.

But apparently it's one year after Sean Holmes fell down a waterfall. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's, so that's the thing. I, I caught it because it was playing after the NFL playoffs.
Okay.

You know, they were like, oh, after the AFC championship, we got to hit America. This is, we're going to have a lot of eyeballs.
We got to make sure people watch Watson.

I had gone, you know, I was pissed off. The Ravens lost, and I had gone and been fucking sad and whatever.
I left. And then, or actually, wait,

we lost before to the Bills. Actually, the tie-in to Haley Steinfeld, unfortunately,

makes it kind of makes it. That's the only thing that

does tarnish my fandom is that it's another reminder of the every time I look at her, it's like, oh, the Ravens haven't, haven't gone to the Super Bowl.

Like, the Bill, her husband has beaten us multiple times.

But the Bills haven't gone to the Super Bowl either. Yeah, but

I do like Josh Allen. Like, that's, that's, it reminds me of the grudging respect I have for a great rival of the Ravens.

You know, you'd even, even his wife is like insanely talented, you know, and it's like, anyway, whatever.

Let's wrap up the Watson convo before moving on.

You know, it's important we finish this, but

I missed the first 12 minutes, but I was so the context clues.

This show makes no sense with all the information, but imagine being thrust into it and being like, wait a second, what? He's fucking Watson?

Sherlock Holmes. Where the fuck is Sherlock? And then you're like, oh, he died.
Maury already threw him off a... I'm now finding a waterfall.
I didn't realize it was a waterfall

i did see some there are some aquatic flashbacks so this actually makes a thank you so much uh for for making that clear david but yes i and i decided i'm never going to find out how it starts i just need to figure out through beautiful the economy of storytelling of watching i'm going to figure it out that's how television used to work is the crazy thing to think about Television likes to be you started the episode of Law and Order midway through and you're like, I guess this guy's the guy who did it.

I don't know. And you're like, I guess I start watching the show from this point on.
Yeah. And maybe reruns are playing at some point.

And like seven years into watching reruns, you might be like, oh, this is the first episode. Yeah, I guess.
There's no Wikipedia. You can't like just quickly backfill it.
Exactly.

You got that fucking Simpsons episode guide. You're like thumbing through it being like, I hope the B Sharps one comes on someday.
Yes.

No, I hope someday, 12 years from now, I am on Tubi and the pilot episode of Watson comes up. It auto plays and that's what happened.
But it has to happen by chance. It has to happen by chance.

No, that's, I've become a luddite basically where it's like i'm on tube bring it back and i'm just letting or i'll go to those random movie channels and i'll just like you know in glorious bastards was on one of those random movie channels that's what i'm watching right now

yeah that's my whole thing i don't need to detonate society i just want to take us back to the 90s yeah you know what i mean i think you could make so much money if the criterion random is a little too random because it's like look I don't want to watch some fucking black and white Danish shit.

You know what I mean? Like, I, but if I don't want the rant, like, half the random random shit on there is like, all right, I get this important.

You're like, oh, let me throw it on. And like, it's just like Jesus carrying a cross

in like a silent movie. And you're like, well,

they just have the one like criterion 24/7, right? They need a couple to be like channels. Right.
They need like 70s noirs or whatever. Yeah.

I think you would make so much fucking money if you, my big idea, and someone's going to steal it, is just essentially a hard drive and you load it up with a hundred bangers. And it's a random.

Absolute fucking bangers. And of course, for me, it would be like, you know, dumb guy core.
It's like, give me every fucking, give me all the

scorses with guns in them. Give me, give me all the none of the scorses

again. Yes, yes, yes.
I don't want Day-Lewis to be like, ooh, yeah, no disrespect to Age of Innocence, but that ain't going on my fucking hard drive.

I'll watch it, but it's not what we're talking about here, right? Give me Michael May, give me like the Segals, all the rapper Sagal.

Like, you should be able to click a box and be like, or click a list and be like, I want 200 movies randomly playing on this hard drive and i could just hit component and it's essentially gives you like a rate i think that would be you would make so much fucking money criterion should even do it criterion should release random boxes yes and just be like and i want it to be physical right because also i want the quality to be good you don't want you don't want to be a profit you don't want like a

curated roakoustic yes exactly exactly right exactly the fucking scanning through is a nightmare i got to close the loop on this on this watson talk okay And I want to just make it clear.

We absolutely did this run at some point in the last four months and have already forgotten. I totally forgot about it.

Because he already played some other hot doctor called like Redwood or what you like. Morris Chesnut just has a show every five years where you're like, he still has an age? Cool.
He looks

insane looking. Did he play Ironside? We figured this out.
No, no. Blair Underwood played.

He was another guy who basically did. Oh, you're going to talk about pieces of ass.

One of the hottest guys.

But Morris Chestnut did play Redwood or whatever the fuck. It was called, I'm going to find Rosewood.
Dr. Beaumont Rosewood Jr.
And it's like, what's it about? And it's like, he's a doctor.

I don't know. Yeah, you know, get over it.
This is the point I want to make. House is based on.
This is Sherlock Holmes. Yes.
The premise of House was: what if Sherlock Holmes was a doctor today?

Fuck yeah. And there are all these fucking illusions and the number on his office door and the address.

He's an addict, too, right?

It's all supposed to, it's basically like he's asocial, he's got a weird computer brain, he's super smart, but he's also

10 things I hate about you for Sherlock Holmes, right?

And then that leads to the 2010s where you have the two Downey Jr. movies, right? You have Cumberbatch Martin Freeman Show, and you have the Downey Jr.
movies, is right. Downey Jr.

is like, what if Sherlock was a boxer? Big books, right?

The fucking Cumberbatch is like, what if he had a Blackberry, right? Like, that was his big thing. And then the elementary was just like, just Sherlock Holmes in like Chicago.

And I want to be clear, the only media based on Sherlock Holmes that I have ever, including books or movies, is Watson on CBS. I have never read that.
That's where you jumped in.

A single, I've never read. I guess maybe the Wishbone episode where he's Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, that's probably Sherlock Holmes or something.

He has to be. If there's, I don't know if it was Sherlock Holmes, but I distinctly remember Wishbone in a little hat and that pipe.
Absolutely. That's something town in Baskerville.
Yeah.

Oh, maybe that. Exactly.
Maybe. Probably both.
They probably did.

Either way, if there's a Bushbone, Sherlock Holmes, that and Watson, I've never read a book. I've never, so that's all.
And you know what? I love it that way.

So to me, I'm like, whoa, this is pretty fucking good. Yeah.
Watson's fucking cool. Like, Lorris Chestnut just looks like an AI filter where you're like, it can't be too symmetric.
It's so smooth.

Everything's so perfect. You know, it looks like that.
The guy in the newest Saulnier movie, the Rebel Ridge. Yes.
Oh, that guy. Aaron Pierre.
That guy is. His facial features are so extreme.

He's literally to me. That's the uncanny valley.
Yes, it almost hurts to look at him. It's just trying to beat off like dead or alive volleyball.
You know what I mean? It's like, he's too hot. Yeah.

This, like, I'm struggling to draw. You're kicking me off.
How hot he is. I can't call looking at Aaron Pierre.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dead or alive volleyball is such a good example.

Like that is just the pure nonsense where they're like, no, it's a volleyball. It's a volleyball.

And there's like 18 guys by computers like doing boom physics or whatever. But you think back to like like the 90s and the early 2000s and just the like getting horny for just the abstract

didn't take much. Just being like, look, we have not cracked this technology at all.
No, we're, and that's definitely another form of being a Luddite.

We got to get, there's got to be a streaming box of that as well, where it's like, you don't get pornography, you get boobs from a Sears catalog. You get, oh, it's right.

You get like, we have to roll it back to catalog. The seasons of friends where they weren't wearing bras.
You know what I mean? Like charmed, charmed was big. Caroline in the city, man.

Just

every eighth episode of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You just think back to what a like cultural revolution it was: of like, oh my God, Laura Croft is so hot. They have made the first fuckable video game character.

And you look at that first game and she looks like a cyber trap. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely. And people are like, I'm going to go, woo, woo, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You could do the cheat code to get those triangle nipple-less tits out.

Nude, right? And at the time, you're like, yeah.

You're just like, it's so hot. And you're like, oh, what's the game?

It's like, you mostly jump on rocks trying to like it's so annoying it's kind of zelda i guess it's like hot zelda really really extended puzzle solving yeah whatever man all right i gotta ask yeah watson fucks what um yeah he's got a girl watson's ex-wife uh has left him but she's a piece of ass too and now she's she's also by i guess and now she's with a hot woman okay so what it feels like oh it feels like watson's kind of trying to them both but he's out interesting

Yeah, this is something that network TV is doing more and more of without anyone talking about it. Because, like, I threw on that show, Dr.
Odyssey. Yeah, which now canceled R.I.P.
R.I.P.,

but that was like a show where it's like, yeah, it's the love boat with doctors. And you're like, I get it.
And they're like,

three episodes in, they're like, I think they're going to be in a thruple. Yeah.
And then like five episodes in, they're like, they're fully in a thrupel and one of them's pregnant.

Like, it's just, and I'm like, don't grandmas watch CBS. This is on CBS.

This is the Columbia broadcasting system. That is what they are.
Yes, I will say, Watson is a little more chaste. Like, I think he wants, I think, he misses love, right? Oh, sure.

I think that's really like, and so he's really focused. He's also dealing with some kind of

mysterious brain ailment that Maury already seems to be making worse through his

nefarious agents. Yeah, they hit him with a nefarious syndrome gun.
Yeah, shooting weird waves at him. Maury already infected him with the woke mind virus.
Yeah, exactly. Right.

Yeah. Watson is he, they, and that's his big problem, you know? But yeah, there's not an, they use Morris Chestnut, but they don't make him explicitly.
He's just so focused on medicine

and, you know, piecing his life back together that I think he's not. Hopefully season two, maybe, you know, he's made peace with his ex-wife, leaving him for a hot woman.

Then he can move forward and he can fuck in season two. But I think right now it's about.
solving, you know, the mysteries that come his way and maybe thwarting Moriarty as well. It's been renewed.

7 million viewers a week. We wish him all the best.
And

I am one of those seven. I am one of those seven mil.
Hey, this is a blank check with Griffin and David. I'm there, baby.
I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this is a mini-series on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen.
Together and separately.

Ooh, you're doing separate. We're doing the separate.

We're doing the separate.

It is called Pod Country for Old Casts. Today we are talking about True Grit, their blockbuster.
It is. People forget.
That's insane. I didn't realize that.

Fucking big this movie was. This movie made $170 million domestic.
Their second highest grossing film, I believe, is No Country, which made $70. Yeah.
No, it's.

This is their only like fucking four quadrant smash. It's not just that.
It's like that they,

that this is them cashing the no country check. They win best picture and they go to Scott Rudin, normal guy, and they're like, Hey, we want to do true crit.

And he's like, That's like a famous movie that won an Oscar.

John Wayne in it. Was that one of the first one won an Oscar? John Wayne won his.
It was kind of like a fucking

retirement Oscar. Okay, you know, Scott, like a year-old.

I did as well. It was a piece of shit.
I think it's a badness or something. No, no, no.
And like, that's the thing. They're like, yeah, but that movie sucks and we love the book and we want to do it.

And he's like, okay. And they're like, and it can be like a PG-13 Western.
I mean, he's like, okay. And then it's a huge, like, they were totally right.
Like,

like, this like weird niche pitch they throw. And they're like, no, but maybe families will go see it.
Not only.

But their pitch was, hey, the language is in the book is really great. We want to make a more faithful adaptation of the language.
We want a more literary Western.

And then he also was like, the book is solely from the perspective of the little girl. And the movie kind of centralizes it more around John Wayne.
We want to tell it more from the little girl.

And Scoverun's like, great. So now we got to find some fucking 12-year-old who can talk fast and ride a horse.
And

that's an insane pitch because this movie is an absolute banger and it does not work. I mean, Hailey Steinfeldt is so it like when I first watched it, it blew my fucking mind.

I watched it in the context of like,

we weren't a huge movie family, like kind of growing up. And I had this summer where I was, I worked at Blockbuster on the way out.
And

days. Dude, the dying days.
I'm a freshman. I could never be your woman days.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, yeah, it started.
It started when I was still in high school.

And so this is like 2007, right? Like right before when No Country was that year. It was 2007.
2007. Yeah.
Yeah.

And I got into the, like the Cohen brothers were a bit of a blind spot for me. And I, I, in, like, I, I went through and like watched a bunch of their shit.

And I watched this movie as just sort of after that, after no country where I was, and i actually you know it's funny i weirdly which is a bad take in hindsight but i watched all their sick movies right i watched their bangers i watched you know uh lubowski fargo fargo uh the first the first uh blood simple and i'm like holy fuck these guys are incredible and then no i see no country in theaters i'm like these guys fucking rock what the fuck else is next and then thank you uh or um burn after me burn after me comes out and now i love that movie yeah but as a fucking idiot as a 19 year old idiot who wanted fucking sinister killers and shit, I'm like, what the fuck is this bullshit?

And it turned me off of,

so I didn't see True Grit in them. Wild.
Okay, because that's the next one after Burn. Right.
So it pissed me off.

And then so I watched it later as just sort of like, all right, I was, I was wrong about Burn After Reading. Let me fuck after I've been scorned.
Let me go back and watch all this shit I missed.

And I just thought it was going to be solid, but not as good as No Country for Old Men, whatever, because it's like, it feels almost like AI generate Coen Brothers movie, where it's like Western, cool cast, what, you know, revenge, whatever.

It, the second she's on screen, I'm like, what the? I didn't even consider the kid actor being like a part. I thought that would be the worst part of the movie.
Right.

You're like, I'm here to see Bridges with a gun. Dragon whiskey.
Yeah.

You see a little kid on the fucking poster. You're like, this, I hope she's not into that much.
And, and it's like,

and then she's fucking, she is so breathtaking. Just her manner, the vibe, her power.
She's like this, like, there's like her power level, like a Dragon Ball Z. You put the reader on her, dude.

Yeah, she's fucking her power levels are out of control, just standing there, just having a conversation. And it blew me away more than any other aspect, which I don't think is a hot take.

Is that I think did she get nominated for this? She did. Did they put her in supporting the thing they always do with kids, even though she is the lead of the I mean, without question.

Um, and that that blew me. And a movie that fucking rules, she is so fucking good.
So anyway, I'm just astonished. It was crazy.

And the movie the the fact thinking about you thinking about them pitching this and they're like oh yeah and obviously it's gonna star a kid like who the fuck let them make this movie is crazy because was she even an act like who no they just not found her she had like two like sitcom guest spot appearances i believe she's on an episode of Back to You.

Oh, hell yeah.

But yes, no, it was like, that's the craziest part of the pitch, right? Is that like Burn After Reading, I believe they're already, they already have in the can before No Country wins all the Oscars.

They were on a like one a year movie clip. So Burn After Reading comes out like six months after No Country sweeps the Oscars.
But this is the movie they set up with the Oscar cachet.

Yeah, see, if it had been right after No Country, this might have been like my favorite movie. I saw theaters like in the 2020s.
But that was like they already had that in the can.

They go to this pitch. And then it's the craziest part of the pitch is like, and by the way, we can't start making the movie until we find the kid, right?

Like, I feel like they get Damon and Bridges attached really quickly. They've announced this.
And then I think the status, they said they auditioned 15,000. No, they got 15,000 tapes.
Okay.

They didn't audition 15,000, but the crazy thing is they didn't find her until three weeks before shooting. She was

sifted through like so much shit. Yeah.
They said, I mean, the Cohens were obviously like, we didn't watch that. Like our casting person.
Yeah.

Like most of it was just immediate like, no, no, this isn't an actor. And then they find her really late in LA because they're looking across the country.
They're like, let's find some.

And they're also like, her name is Haley Steinfeld.

She's right on paper.

And she's actually like a quarter Filipino or whatever. Like, it's like nothing about her.
And like a quarter African-American.

That, that's part of the sinners thing. Yes.
She's talking about that. No, it's true in the sinners.
No, no, no. That's true in real life.
I think it's true. I think, I think,

sure. It might be one A.
Yes.

She's got a mixed descent. Yes.
She has. Yes.

And they were like, yeah, but she could read the language. Like, that was the whole thing.
Immediately, like, it's like it's this complicated, weird language. Yeah.
And she's just nailing it.

And then there's that story Damon has where he's coming aboard a couple weeks in. The Coens come in, they do a take.
The Cohens come in and give her a crazy, complicated adjustment.

They do the next take, she nails it. And Damon goes over to Roger Deacons and he's like, Is she, this is what she's like? She's this good? And Deacons is like, Yeah, this is what she's like.

She's like right out of the box. Like, she's like, just fucking nailing everything.
You know, in the John Wayne movie. And by the way, I love our guest today is Darros Hawkins.
Oh, yeah, right.

From Starship.

How are we doing? From Begonia. That is true.
Which will be coming out around the time this episode comes in. It comes out out around Halloween, yeah.
Oh, fuck it. Yeah, you're right.

Wait, this is perfect. Yeah, this is perfect.

It's out in a week. You need me doing promo for it for you.
Absolutely. Absolutely.

They were like,

they were like, listen, man.

If you can swing blank check around the release of the movie, we'll let you get the part. And that was a big risk for me because we didn't even know each other.
No, no.

When I got the movie, no, this lined up very well.

Yeah, your ghost is like, so you can do blank check? Yeah. And you're like, yeah, man, whatever.

I can dance. I can do eight accents.
I can fence and jet ski, whatever you need, big dog. Put me in the fucking movie.
You can hang with the two friends. Yeah.

Is Yorghost chill?

I interviewed him once a long time ago, and he's one of the only interviews I got with a press person called me before him being like, hey, just so by the way, just so you know, he's really weird.

Interesting. Like, just like, get ready for like a really weird guy.
Now, that was a long time. I think now he's a man.
No. He's awkward.
Yeah.

I mean, look, the context is different. I mean, I can't imagine like doing press sucks dick.
So

if you're like an auteur who's like, well, I don't fuck, even though, you know, like not a performer. And not a performer yet.

It's like the lobster era, where I feel like the first question everyone probably has still is like, hey, why does every character in your movie talk like a weird robot? Like, what's the vibe?

What are you doing?

What were you smoking? And where can I get?

I assume he just got years of those questions. Yeah, no, I mean, he was the man.
And look,

I know art kids and I know Greek people.

And so like, you know, I grew up around both of that type of type of guy and so it's like your ultimate guy and he's a bad he's a hoops guy he played hoops like we had a lot

he's big he played in yeah there was a big part where we were talking about uh we talked about like hoops and he's a he's a big uh european hoops like he still follows him yeah yeah he literally he thinks which is an insane take but uh yeah oh he thinks it's better he thinks better than the nba do you ever see the i mean like isn't that like where the arenas are just filled with people like shooting off fireworks every 30 minutes okay the vibes are way better don't get me wrong wrong.

The basketball is bad. The basketball is just not as open.
I like a more open game, but what can I say? That was when I really was like, wow, I am Greek American, not Greek.

Like, you actually like to spread the floor. I like it.
Yeah, exactly.

And now, has three-point shooting gotten a little out of control? I think it definitely has. So, as a, so maybe I can see what he's talking about in that, like, the games are harder fought.

But at the same time, I don't want to go back to Piston Spurs finals where it's like 63 to 71. But

you agree, right? Yeah. Well, here's what I I was going to say that I actually can contribute to this.
Yeah. I don't know if you know this.
His brother works in European basketball.

My brother works in European basketball. He works in the French basketball league, but his team has also now become part of the Euro Basketball League.
Oh, they got it.

And the French basketball league, I feel like, has its own contempt. This thing we're saying of like every.

Basketball fandom culture is different and every incredible, right?

And like I go to the Parisian games and there's a drum circle. There's like, he's like, those are the drum guys.
Yeah.

They always buy this corner and they come with 20 drums and they're just banging them. And that's what they do, right? And I'm like, is this a Paris thing? Is kind of a France thing.

But then they'll play the Euro League games and like Turkey will come over and Turkey will be throwing smoke bombs.

And they're like, what is this?

And they're like,

yeah, that's their culture. Any Turkish basketball game you go to, people are throwing smoke bombs.

Like anytime they have a visiting team from a different European country, and some of them are not European countries, but they go into the Euro league because there's nowhere else to go.

They all have their own thing where it's like, yeah, these guys love to throw marbles on the courts. No, no, no.

The Greek championship series was suspended by the police this time. Like the it's so funny that he owns like Division II basketball.

Like the owners were like banned from being there. Like there's like they literally, this has happened multiple times.
And it sucks for me because I'm an Oli Mbiakos fan and Panath Naikos.

unfortunately has been better recently and they're the ones that the that the Kumbo brothers play for and they have like uh there's that there is a great profile about the panath naikos owner uh who's just an insane guy, and you should look that's very funny.

I grew up in England, and it's it's very interesting to hear you pronounce that correctly.

Panathaniacos, yeah, but we're playing fucking parathonikos, you know, because like they're that's the same, the football team's the same, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It'd be like an overarching Olympiakos, oh, yeah, fucking Olympia, Galataserai, you know, all these like sort of like Greek Turkish.

I know, I know, I know every time Arsenal would play Galataserai, yeah, it would be one of those things where like one fan would die, of course, like once a year, like some fan gets stabbed because he like stayed out too late, went to the wrong bar after or whatever.

And you'd just be like, that's fucking welcome to the NBA, baby. And I do remember it.

I'm trying to remember which country it was, but there was some home game of my brother's team that I went to where they made all of the away fans

sit behind their

basket. Yeah, they got to be in like a cage.
No, they truly put a net around it. Yeah.
And they had riot cops. Because like both ways it's bad.

You know, like everyone's going to try and attack them and they might start fights. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then like, yeah, it's just this whole thing in America where it's like, well, what's your thing? It's like, well, we have a brass band. And Britain, it's like, what's your thing?

It's like, we're racist. We're like allowed to be.

It's like culturally acceptable for us to be like screaming Jewish epithets or whatever, like something like that. You're not a real fan if you have all your teeth.
Right.

It's like you got to lose them in a fist fight during

hooligan is a great term. Hooligan's a great term.

And it's just like this country where their emotions are not allowed out until they're in a football stadium and then they just become maniacs. Yeah.

David,

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Here's the thing I'm going to say, yes, to uh a trigger. Yes, please.

Uh, to the point of them finding Haley Steinfeld so late and her being like such a miracle, months and months of auditioning people. I guess, right.

At a certain point, they were just like, we just have to put this thing into motion and hope that we find the kid. I had a friend who was kind of like had a pin in her for months.

She must have been 20 or 21,

but looked kind of young. And they were just sort of like, we're keeping you on hold in case we don't find an actual kid.
Right. There was this notion of like,

there might not truly be a child who can do this dialogue, carry the emotional weight, and handle the stunts. Right.

And so, like, I'm sure they had a couple of those, you know, but it was that close of like, if we can't find a kid, it might be you.

And it could still be a good ass movie if it's a like 19, 17, whatever year old, but it's not the same. It's magical.
It's like magical that you're watching a child do.

And I also think the ending, which to me is the whole thing that makes this movie profound, doesn't work if it isn't actually a kid at the beginning. For sure.

And you watch the John Wayne movie, which is really hokey, but one of its biggest issues is that it's, it's, what's her name? Kim Darby? Kim Darby. She's like 25 or whatever.
Right.

She looks young, but yeah, not like a literal child. But it is a grown-up playing a kid, right?

And in like a 60s film with like, you know, without a sense of like naturalism in its performances, you can kind of get away with her wearing a wig and being like a garland shit. She willakers.
Yeah.

Please, Mr. Rooster.
But you read like, it was supposed to be Mia Pharaoh. Wow.
And then she turned it down after Rosemary's baby. She was, this was supposed to be her follow-up to Rosemary's baby.

Can you imagine after Rosemary's baby, Mia Pharaoh showing up and being like, hi, I'm a 12-year-old.

Right.

And then they go through. They just got fuzzed fighting and saying, right.
They go through like Sandra Locke, Tuesday, Well, John Wayne wanted Karen Carpenter.

They offered it to Sally Field, all of them over 20 years old.

And then you end up with Kim Darby, who at least had the benefit of being an unknown, where there wasn't the previous association in the same way of like, I've seen this person play a grown-up yet.

But it does totally change the vibe of the movie versus this movie starts with her. And you're like, who the fuck is this kid? Which is what the whole story is driven by.

That, like, this is a girl who you believe can like trick fucking deacon matthews into buying back selling her at a discount the horses she just sold him at an up chart yeah and what i love about those i mean the early feeling of like they show how powerful this character is because basically when she's dealing with people that will deal with her at like the danger here is that she's a child she's a girl right it's like two people like the kind of people that are not treated well in the fucking wild west and when people will deal with her as a human being will just a guy trading with her and it's wits versus wits she's more she's fucking she's better than everyone like she's tougher she her only dangers are the most up things possible which is like someone can violence

you know what i mean like yeah yeah like yeah exact exactly and so that it was really cool to they established her as like yeah this only some really up shit can stop this person and she knows she's susceptible to it she's constantly walking this tightrope and she doesn't give a because you know it's bigger than her she has a she has a you know she has a real goal here not to go all thesis but like what is so magnificent about this movie because in the movie i saw in theaters and i was like that rocked loved that western like had a great time and then as i kept watching i kept being like this might be the best movie they ever made this might be like one of the best movies of the century or whatever is i'm just like it's like america then right is like kind of civilization's kind of arrived but everyone who lives lives out here is basically just a weirdo or a criminal or a drunk or some like diseased person or an immigrant who can only operate like, you know, out here in the wild or whatever.

And,

you know,

bad shit happens all the time. Someone argues over a dog and gets shot.
Yep. And it's like, yeah, that sucks.
And we'll kind of deal with it. And she's just like, a great wrong has been done.

And like,

like,

I want this addressed because like a bad, this, this is not fair, like, that this happened to me. And, like, she just slowly infects everyone in the movie.
Like, right.

Lebief is in it for money, like, and he, and pride, and, like, you know, being a, you know, showboat, right? Labief is very interesting. I'd love to really crack it.
We're going to talk about this.

Rooster is in it for whiskey and money. And just like, he just can only do this, right? Like, you know, and it's like by the end of the day.

And everyone's driven by ego as well, the idea of reputation, exactly. Be seen as a big man and a tough one.
Which is what matters out there.

And like, by the end of the movie, Rooster is like, this, like, he, he won't say it out loud, maybe, but you can tell that he's like, this is important that we like do this.

I don't want to say this always works for me. And it's like just this like glimmer of civilization, you know, like in a lawless way.

I don't want to say it always works for me because that's what America is, which is not a great country. I think it is a great country, actually, with no problems.

You know, no, you know, but like that is what is going on. You have to execute it.
Well, I'm not going to go for the shittiest version of it that you haven't earned, but anytime you actually

put put the muscle into building properly, guy who doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone. Right.
And then at the end, he won't say it, but he'll do something that shows

running. Like, you know, the end of this movie gets me so worked up every time.
And it is like John Wayne plays the part a lot more sentimental.

And they treat it much more like this nice guy is helping this little girl, right? And they have this sort of begrudging, like, okay, little girly.

But it does feel like the two of them are much more like, we have to help her. The whole thing in this movie is that these two guys are just like, fuck you.

And then both of them keep accidentally showing their hand. LaBeouf is cornier, right? Like, he'll

open up and give her the respect increasingly over the course of his life. He'll say it aloud because he's a man of cap.
But Rooster will never fucking say it. Yeah.

And him just running with her in his arms. Yeah, her and Rooster really is, I mean, that's the pure shit.
That's the, and, and like, Labef is interesting to me.

Like, your point, David, about it, really, to me, feels like the rooster and Maddie relationship is where you really see it because he is, he really just is a piece of shit.

Like, he's awesome, but he's maybe one of the worst guys of all time, right? Yeah, I mean, he's on trial, and at first you're like, on, you're like, yeah, rooster, tell him.

And then you're like, it does kind of sound like he just shot himself. He definitely killed him.
And he was so drunk. And also, like, it's later revealed that they're both confident, right?

Both our heroes are Confederate guys, right? But he's the type of Confederate that, like, the other Confederates were like, these are bad guys.

Like, LaBeef was like, oh, you were that kind of Confederate, like, which is fucking hilarious.

Like, they give you, and then even at the end, as soon as that motherfucker, like he sobers up, he takes the money, whatever.

Then there's the hilarious part where he finds a little whiskey and he's a piece of shit immediately, right?

Like, he immediately gives into his vices, even though he might have been slowly on the path to like, you know, helping her and growing. The second he gets a fucking bottle of whiskey, that's done.

And he's like, fuck you, boy.

Get the fuck out of here.

Go you and and LaBeef, whatever. I mean, a bottle.
He's put down three or four.

Dare I say this man loves to pull the cord?

I also love my favorite line in the history of three cords of the way into the movie where he's like, I did rob a bank one time. And she's like, what? And he's like, I don't know.

Like, who fucking cares? He fucking wife wanted me to be a lawyer. Yeah.

He's like, yeah, that's what they fuck.

And then there's the story about what a badass he was, where he's charging it to seven guys or whatever. It's like, he's in the wrong there.

He's just such a fucking irredeemable piece of shit. But that is what she's like.
I need a terminator. I need like a.

And it's cool that she, because she hears when they, when they describe the three potential marshals, right? The bet, it's like, one's a good one.

It's like final fight. He ends with like

two guys. And oh, yeah, give me the piece of shit that kills people.
That's reminding me. And she knows that, which to her credit is awesome.
She's like, I'm willing to deal with this kind of guy.

He's a tool I can wield. But yes, that's why seeing him become essentially a good guy.
Not good, but doing the good thing.

The two most crucial scenes are the beginning of the quest where he watches her take the horse over the river, right? And it's just the simplest cinematic language possible.

Cut to rooster, cut to horse, cut to rooster. There's nothing complicated going on at all.

Every time you cut back to rooster, 5% more and Jeff Bridges are like, damn, she's really fucking going across the whole ass river.

And then, no, what he does say when LeB starts spanking her is like, I don't think I will let this happen.

And it's basically like, yeah, you've earned me enough of my respect here. Yes.

And then by the end of the movie, yes, he loves her like a child, like he, you know, because he was mean to his actual child.

Yes. Right.
Another thing that you pick out his monologue, and you're like, what a fuck driving family. And he's like, well, I guess I was a piece of shit.
My boy didn't care for me.

Immediately he's like, well, I guess I did treat him like shit. You know what I mean? He was so clumsy.

Yeah. And he broke somebody in my glasses.
I'm like, you're clumsy.

And this guy who's killed 30 guys, imagine what he thinks is treating someone bad.

What he will even admit is treating someone bad. Like, oh my god.
One of the funniest things, right? He's like, I don't know, I've killed like 12 to 15 guys. The guy's like, I have the number here.

He's like, yeah, I guess it's like 25.

You got me. The court scene rules, too, where he's where he's getting them, where he realizes people are laughing and he's kind of leaning into it.
That little like Jeff Bridge

chuckle. I tend to go backwards.
Yes, go ahead, Gross. All right.
As we said, I get so fired up about this movie. Movie fucking rules.

John Wayne winning the Oscar for this was kind of like a gold watch retirement dude that's exactly what it was it was uh sentiment hey you're you're you're kind of it's a sentiment it was only his second nomination ever he dies like seven or eight years after this yeah in my in my head i'm like oh he died right after and it's like no actually he made a true grit sequel they made a movie called rooster cogbury that's him dealing with catherine hepper and then she's like ah well i never

that is the vibe is so i mean he sucks in it john wayne is an awesome actor he's not good at and listen i know he's not the what's his last It was the shootest. The shootest is his last.

He's incredible in that. Yeah.
That's what. If he was that, if he did that performance, that's the kind of performance this movie needed.
Yeah. He's pretty close.

He's much closer to what Bridges does here.

But Bridges pulled John Wayne out of the water, bro. He's that like when I'm getting into movies, I think of him as a square, right? Because that's what you hear about John Wayne.

It's like, oh, yeah, he was, you know, a conservative and he supported the war and all that shit. And then you'll like watch any John Ford movie that he's in.

You're like, I would fucking, I'll vote for him to get it.

He's the coolest guy I've ever seen. But

searchers he's incredible searchers stoic and violent he's amazing in the searchers but true grit is kind of what he's bad at which is like you know broad kind of goofy well so the thing i was gonna identify is that the moment that people i think give credit to winning him the oscar is the 69 movie's version of that monologue of explaining how he's fucked up his marriages and his son, which in that movie is played as like a real, this guy has let his guard down.

John Wayne is showing emotions, right?

He's like getting vulnerable on camera and they're around a campfire and he's sort of looking off to the middle distance and being like, I guess I wasn't a good father, you know? It's so cool.

And then they announce, okay, Cohen Brothers doing True Grit with Jeff Bridges. At the moment they announce it, Crazy Heart has not come out yet.

So people were like, Jeff Bridges is one of these great overdue. This guy needs an Oscar dudes.

It would make so much sense that True Grit is the kind of the movie that wins him an Oscar in the same way. Then Crazy Heart comes out of nowhere.
Then it would be like playing Joker.

It's like, you want to win Oscar? Fucking play Mr. Cogburn.
Right. Yeah.
Crazy Art comes out of nowhere. He wins.
And people are like, and can you believe he's got true grit next year?

Is he going to win two years in a row? And then the movie comes out and everyone's like, oh, he's playing it like a grotesque. He's not doing the obvious thing you would do to

sweetheart shit. No, no, no.
Which is also like, I feel like what's in the text of the movie is like, this guy's kind of a monster. And not only that, he's like aggressively unsavory.
Of course.

He's like unpleasant. He smells that.
But I mean, obviously, Steinfeld is the absolute A number one secret.

But the second thing for me, what they're incredibly good at is all their movies, all the little characters, all the world. It's like, it feels so, all of them are so realized.
They're so real.

And they're, and everyone is disgusting. Everyone is what? A guy in that time.
They're all sweaty. Everyone looks like shit.

I mean, the scene where they come across the guys in

the little hut and the guy, you know, he shoots the guy in the, they look so disgusting. And especially when you compare it to the, the original, which is a Looney Tunes cartoon.

It's like fucking in Technicolor type shit that you're like, you're like,

this world is fucking terrifying. I also think the choice they make with that.

monologue of roosters like backstory dump is that it's delivered as if he's doing like a fucking deaf comedy jam yeah yeah yeah routine to her largely disinterested right and they do time yeah they do these times how he occupies

and he's not like this is not me being vulnerable this is me being like yeah and i fucked up that marriage too he's like fucking abe simpson like just talking to nobody which tells you even more about him that this guy is revealing his greatest failings in life as like sort of like weird material and it's also but i also think to me it feels like it's nothing to him exactly he doesn't give a which tells you everything to this guy he knows yeah he's not like i rock like when she's like hey i'll give you he's like i sleep in a chinese grocery store yeah yeah on like ropes

just what i do

i happen to be an awesome murderer i have like that's how i get whiskey right so yeah people call me a legend it's a little i mean there's a little unforgiven to this movie too where but unforgiven is so serious like i love that movie so much

but i mean like absolutely they're different but i just mean there's a little, there's, I actually feel a little unforgiven in both Rooster is Clin Eastwood, obviously.

And then LaBeef to me feels like a little bit of the guy.

No, no, no. No,

the guy.

No, Lisbob. No, no.

The kid who's a complete fraud. Oh, yeah, that's him.

Okay,

to me, LaBeef feels so much, like, the big question I have about LaBeef is like, is he good at any of this shit? Is he a complete fraud?

I mean, in Unforgiven, it's way more, it's so much clearer that that character

is a pure fraud, right? And it doesn't feel that way with Labe, right? Labif has definitely gone through some shit.

It's almost like maybe if that character had to go through war and like maybe figure shit out, but he's not, he's not made of the same stuff rooster.

He doesn't have true grit. He doesn't have true grit.
He doesn't have true grit. There's no chance LeBeaf has true grit.
In French name, you can't have true grit.

He looks like a Toy Story cowboy, right?

Like everything about him is like a little too performative. And he's trying to, he's trying to intimidate a child and he can't do it.

You know what I mean? Even though it's like the crazy. life.
I can't decide if I want to intimidate or seduce you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I'm trying to figure out what a guy should do in this situation. And I'm pathetic at both.
Yes. I don't really, you can tell I don't really want to do either of it.
Right.

And it's just, but so it's like, he's such a fraud in so many ways. And even, you know, not to skip it at the end, it's like

you don't,

I love that. I mean, I know it's a hard shot.
And even if you just take it at face value, there is like.

narrative value to him being like he did the he claimed he could shoot from far away rooster told him he couldn't. He pulled off the shot to save Rooster's life.
That has its value. I, I, I watch it.

I'm like, he doesn't know.

This is a complete coin flip. No, she's like telling him to take the shot.
And he goes, too, they're too far and they're moving too fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then finally, the guy, Barry Pepper, stops and he gets the shot. And it is, you're like, yeah, good job, buddy.
Like, what a shabby shot. But also completely lucky is how

he never does anything particularly impressive, but he does like go all the way to fucking wherever the fuck they, you know, deep into Indian territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like he's fine.

He can like, he's fine. I think his life outside of this, you could make him, you could read the character as impressive and whatever.
But in this movie, he's a fuck, he's a complete loser.

He just gets got at every turn. And of course, like the number one thing, as Haley's, as Maddie keeps saying, is like, the guy they're chasing is like adults.
Right. Like when you meet him.
Sucks.

He's bad at everything. Dude, exactly.
And Brolin's so amazing. I mean, mean we're going all over

but no no you're right that part where she's where where he meets her and she's like you couldn't even catch this fucking you wait you've been tracking this idiot for three months three months i'll find him in four days like if and and at the at the time i'm like she's so good at like shitting on people and then you meet the guy and you're like wait How did this guy outsmart LeB for fucking four months?

He isn't

in the wild west. You could just be like, well, I'll just go to this

100 million square acre area that no one lives lives in. It's like the distance.
Except for like a weird dentist with a bear hat.

He was awesome also. I love that guy.
That guy remains that guy. That guy who now would have like a podcast.
100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That guy has his own supplements.

Yes.

Every Cohen's movie has like five guys like that where when they're on screen, you're like, is this the best performance I've ever seen in my life?

The guy fucking the guy who does the animal noises. Love that.

No explanation of why he does that. That guy's awesome.
Eats it dead. That's the answer.
That's So good.

I just like the idea of Barry Pepper being like, I need an idiot, kind of like a cold-blooded murderer. Can we get like an animal guy in here just to keep it lively? Like in my little posse?

Yes, yes, yes.

You didn't get to see this in theaters, but I remember the feeling in the audience when Brolin came on screen. Because, I mean, the posters for this movie are Bridges, Damon, Brolin, right? Yeah.

And they had him in the trailer. They have his face on the poster, but they didn't let him speak.

And you know, the whole movie's structured around like, here's the big bad that they have to go and get revenge on, right? Like a

bill must be settled, right? With this man. And then you get to him and like the Carter Burwell score is swelling and she sees him.
She clocks him.

The second he starts talking, the audience just exploded with laughter. Incredible.
And it just this immediate communication of, oh, this guy's like nothing. Yeah.
This guy is nothing.

What are you doing here? It's like the reverse Spacey and seven. Yes.
It's like the absolute reverse of like. Right, where you're like, this guy's so much more terrifying than I could have imagined.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're just like, this is some random guy who like shot a dude because his ego was threatened.
He was a little scared. Yeah.
Yeah.

And yeah, even the way he's like, he allows, he's like, hey, what are you doing here? You know, like the friendly conversation he's having with this girl who... whose dad he knows he killed.

He knows he killed her dad. She's looking at him like death.
And he's like, murder? Hey, he like literally is like, let me put my gun away.

And then my favorite thing is when she like points the gun him, he's like, nothing goes right for me. This sucks.
He's such a sad sack.

Like, he expects her to be like, I know, man. Yeah, it really sucks to me.
And it's basically, he reveals the only reason he killed her father was because he felt like he made him look weak. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.
Yeah. He felt a little whatever, cucked by Maddie Ross's dad, who I guess the implication in this character is that her dad must have been an exemplar to her in some way.

Like, I don't think like she had some like complete loser dad, right?

Like, there's some sort of stiff Protestant kind of, you know, like frontier like character in her that must be from her dad because she's like, yeah, my mom's home with the babies and she's indecisive.

Like, yeah,

the Wayne movie opens with her sending her father off. You meet the dad, which I thought sucked.
It sucks. It's so much better when he's a mystery.
It's so great that this movie just opened up.

Have any of you read the book, by the way? I know.

I highly recommend it. It is basically this movie.
The Cohens are really good at adaptation in that they just put the movie on the screen, like you're saying.

Like the only thing they really add is the stuff with Dakon Matthews. That's pure Cohen's.

Although there's a version of that scene in the original film. Yes, they they

amp it up.

And I highly recommend all of Portis's books because

there's only like five of them. They all rock.
They all change.

No, most of them are his first book, nor would you would absolutely love, which is like a weird road trip movie about

like a guy who got discharged from the Marines and just meets a bunch of weirdos. Love that.
I just watched

what's the Nicholson movie where he's taking young Quaid to jail. Fucking last Last Detail.
Love that, which is kind of similar to what

the vibe you're talking about there. But like, it's just like every piece of dialogue in his books is so cool.
And that's what this movie is.

Like anytime anyone talks, you're just like, put that on a postcard and hang it on the wall.

I will admit, when I saw this movie the first time, I was a little disappointed by it. And I think it was like

Cohen's running such a heater run in my mind. I was really in.
I forgot, of course, a serious man happens in between Burger Region.

So that's their other cash in of like, what's the least commercial movie we can come up with? Yeah, I watched those two, those two back-to-back later, and I was like, these guys are fascinated.

But that's the era where you stepped away because you were like, are they doing something? Exactly, exactly. Exactly.

But I was so into those three that I felt a little disappointed by this because it felt so much more straightforward to me.

Where I was waiting for the weird Cohen's twist on it, so a second time in theaters immediately was like, What the fuck is wrong with me?

It is a movie that, like, if I can't sleep, I will just like open iTunes and just scrub to any random part and be like, Let me just watch 15 minutes until I pass out.

It has also the most beautiful music. Yes, like the score is so perfect, it's so good-looking.
Deacon's on fire, it looks incredible.

So good, and the dialogue is just like it's musical. Yeah, no, it is

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Let me open the dossier just to tell you, like the thing about a serious man, Griff, is they're like, we had that set up before we won the Oscar.

The Cohens are very upfront like, no, this is us trying to leverage our Oscar. Even still, this movie only costs $40 million.
And like, you know, they don't, they don't go over the top ever, really.

But yeah.

Scott Rudin wanted them to adapt to the Yiddish Police.

He ever read that book. That's a good ass book.
Yeah. I love that book.
And like, it feels obvious, like, Rudin reading that being like, well, yeah, the Cohen's got to make this.

Like, what a weird concept. Like, they'll be.
And like, I think they worked on it, but may have kind of been like, this is actually too obvious for us. Yeah.
There's a reason it never happened. Yeah.

Um, no, no, what do you want to say, Stephanie? No, no, I think that's, I think, I was just going to say that's, they are right about that. It is a little too, oh, that's like what an idiot is like.

The coolant's got to do that. It's like alternate history of like Jewish Alaska.
It's like that. I want to see that.
It's a super cool idea. And it is, it is cool.
And by the way, you make that.

I'm watching it. But the thing is, I think there is a ceiling to that because they can't, I don't know.
Can you squeeze any? Can you, what can you do to make that level awesome? I don't know.

The way they took this, and this feels

now, I haven't read the book, but it feels elevated, particularly after watching the original. Yes.
Well, I completely agree. Rudin pulls them out of their flop arrow, right?

Like, Rudin enters the picture. He's the one who's like, after cover cool time in lady killers, they do know country.
He's sort of like got them at this point.

I imagine at the point he first throws it to them, they're still feeling like we kind of got to win our way back in the public consciousness. By this point, they have nothing to prove.

They don't need to make a movie that someone else wants them to make and

they in classic cohen's fashion apparently both of them read this book to their children

and that's where they're kind of like we should make this a movie and we should center it on the girl which the the the wayne movie doesn't do the wayne movie wayne is the main character right but also why would you rewrite any of this dialogue is their other big thing of like the the wayne movie lost so much of that they do talk so much about reading books together in a way i always find funny And I'm sure in reality, is what's what you're describing of they both go, like, hey, want to read this next, and it's like a brother's book club.

But I always, in the way they talk about it, even like same with no country, where they're like, we were both reading the book and we thought this would make a good movie.

I imagine them like Burt and Ernie in parallel bags with matching pajamas. Yeah, they got the fucking cap, the

one big book dangling between their two bags. Yeah, they've alternating

their fingers.

This movie, and they're like, it needs to be PG-13. Now, this movie does have someone's like fingers getting cut off and someone getting shot.
Snarlish shit. But they kind of, I feel like.

Until you said that,

I didn't even think about it. I know.
I thought, I just assumed it's R. It's one of their only PG-13 movies?

Their other ones are O-Brother is PG-13 and Weirdly Hail Caesar, although that's not a family movie, really, but it's just not that lurid a movie. Yes.

Lady Killers is our Intel Cruelty is PG-13? Intolerable Cruelty is PG-13. And Hudsucker Proxy is PG.

Because that movie is

for kids. For kids, yeah.

But yeah, largely, obviously, they don't care about that. But this one, they're consciously like, no, no, no, we want this to be a movie teenagers can see.
Yeah. Because it's about a teenager.

Or it's about a trainer. 100%.
Like, that is like, I know this sounds so silly, but like, that is that, you know, they basically are like, Maddie is a pill, but like, we're drawn to her.

She's so admirable. We love that like Presbyterian Protestant ethic.
And

they are very clear. Like, we saw that John Wayne movie when we were kids.
We did not revisit it And we told everyone not to watch it. Like, costume designers, production designers.
We're doing good.

Do not watch that movie. Yeah.

They're pretty obviously disdainful of it, though. Like, they're not just like, oh, it's a legendary movie, but who cares? They're like, no, no, no, no.
Like, we don't like that movie.

I mean, it sucks. It's not good.

It's surprisingly bad. It fucking sucks.
Yeah. And not only does it suck, but they also, it sucks in ways they're like, like the way like.

old kung fu movies, night would clearly be day and they just turn the fucking exposure down. They do that in this fucking movie.
It's a fucking John Wayne movie in the 60s.

You can't shoot at fucking night.

I have to look at this blue-ass bullshit. Like, it's crazy how much it sucks, dude.
It's like, I know that's, this looks exactly like fun kung fu movies that are pretending it's nighttime.

It's like, it was, yeah. We need some scope here.
We need like it was so.

I mean, it's a mistake to watch. You watch one after the other.
It's like, this is crazy how much better it is. True Green is a movie to watch TV on TV, the original, like on TV some afternoon.

And you're like, okay. No, it's bad.

If you want to bond with your racist grandfather,

throw that on. You know what I mean?

Just watch the shootist. It's a quiet man.
Some other Johnny Greenmaker.

But anyway, so yeah, Haley Steinfeld, not a seasoned pro, but she is a kid from LA.

Like after they've been like searching across all of the southern United States for their Maddie, they saw a tape of her four weeks outside of production. They cast her three weeks before.

They Seinfeld's like a red on a Saturday, got a cool on call on a Tuesday. And like a week later, I was basically going to set.

And,

you know, it's one of those things where I didn't, obviously, she was unknown to me, right?

And then, like, after this, I

want to talk about the hair. We'll talk about her later, I guess.
Yeah. Okay.
We can talk about it now. I just want to talk about her.

Well, just after this, I was like, oh, is it going to be like Keisha Castle Hughes from Whale Rider, where it's like, oh, they, they, what a lightning in a bottle thing.

And like, that's not an actor who's going to have a long time.

She felt for a number of years like she was it up right in a way where like if someone's this good in something that's this big when they're that young out of nowhere you're like well how do you ever get past this and she starts like a pop career and it's

kind of bad you're kind of like yeah i mean good for you but like this it just felt like right this hits so hard she gets an oscar nomination and then it was like actually what i want to do is music and also pitch perfect sequels and she did like the bad romeo and juliet that no one saw and it felt like everything between true Grit and Edge of 17 kind of was a whiff.

Have you seen that movie? It was little seen. It's great.
It's so fucking good. It's like her one good teen movie.
And it's basically like her doing like...

It's about a girl who's just 17 and is like having a nervous. The opening of the movie is...
But not in like a crazy way, it's just like...

Woody Hurrelson is her like cynical, like disaffected teacher, kind of her rooster cog burn. Interesting.
And she walks in during his lunch break and is like, I want to kill myself.

I'm on suicide watch. And he's like, let me finish my sandwich.
And then the movie is like her recounting how bad her life is. But it's in a very like keen side.

It's like her dad died and her best friend's sleeping with her brother. I mean, I guess it's not normal, but it's like, you know, it's like, sure,

sure. It's such a good movie.
But it's like her doing like the female version of like

80s John Q sack. And then she's

bumblebee, which he's like good. And it's good.
It's like look good. Yeah, well, that's the thing.

So I saw this, like I said, later, and I was like, what the fuck is like, I got to see what this girl. And then I probably looked at, I wasn't interested in Pitch Perfect.
You know what I mean? That's

not my thing. Whatever, which no disrespect.
And, and then, and then everything I saw was like Bumblebee. And then she was in fucking Hawkeye or whatever the fuck.
Right. And I'm like, what?

Like, I remember getting pissed because I was like, what happened? This person fucking rules. And then I guess the Dickinson show, but I don't, weirdly, I just never had Apple TV.

She did two seasons of an Apple TV show that kind of doesn't exist. Three seasons, three seasons of the show.
No, it exists. I'm going to stick up for Dickinson.
I like that show.

I think it is kind of forgotten right now. Well, all those.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But it was like,

you can't get one other, like every kind of, and I guess like, I guess Bumblebee and Hawkeye or whatever is enough to kind of keep stroking the flames. But I was so fucking pissed.

I was like, she is, is someone who has that in them.

And it's like, yes, either it's lightning in a bottle because it could have been so special because there is something about like that kind of childlike confidence that you don't know any better. Yes.

the camera's barely been on you before so you're just exactly like i remember my like i when i was a fat little child in theater i was like before i was like in middle school i was like i'm actually a jock which is hysterical like i quit i quit and like look how my life has turned out i'm clearly a performer but you know i'm like five five fat as i'm like i'm gonna be in the nba i'm gonna quit being in plays so i remember if you had put me in a fucking i think i thought i was like the fucking most talented you know you had nine-year-old in the world The pre-pubescent, like the world hasn't knocked you down

yet. You know, like, I mean, obviously she's like fortunate, but you know what I mean?

Like, there's some, there's some like, oh, okay, this unfortunately could have just been so, you know, the perfect storm of one of the best performances ever, but you hope that's not going to happen.

And then obviously I think Sinners was like, it's so great when somebody that fucking good, well, you know, a director that good just is like, this is an underutilized talent.

I'm going to just fucking line something up for her. That's, cause it, that allowed her to be, to do everything, right? Like

incredible acting, hot as shit, scary as fuck. Yeah.
And then even like a little action. It was like such a perfect movie star put this girl on performance.
So I'm pumped to see what happens.

It's kind of like a start of a second era, it feels like. I mean, I had always just had this feeling of like, has she kind of dropped the ball? Because or does she maybe not give a shit?

Like, you know, sometimes these people also are really good and have really bad taste. Like you meet them and they're idiots and you're like, oh, you don't know what a good movie is.

That's why you keep picking bad ones.

But this performance is so skillful that you're like, it's not just that she's charismatic.

It is so complicated what she's doing here in such a high-level movie that it's like, it can't be an accident. Absolutely.
And then I'm just right.

There's so many of these I like forgot about after True Grit, but it's like, right, Begin Again, the John Carney movie where she's like Ruffalo's precocious daughter, right?

Romeo and Juliet, Hate Ship, Love Ship, Ender's Game, Three Days She Hill,

where she's Costa's precocious daughter, right? Then there's Barely Lethal, and there was also the one term life that she did with Vince. I actually wrote and directed Barely Lethal.

There's like five or six years where you're like, this awful thing with her

sound insane is that she was in the Taylor Swift verse. Like she was one of her friends.
Oh, really? And that's when everyone was obsessed with Taylor Swift's whole life. You're the first star thing.

You're not, why are you trying to do this? She also dated one of the Run Direction guys. Like, she had a whole bunch of people.
She was a celebrity. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

She was never gone from the public

she's the voice of gwen stacy oh yeah that's sort of when it starts coming back i agree right yeah because it's like edge of 17 was sort of like here we go and then she's good in bumblebee but bumblebee ends up sort of being a franchise dead end she's great in the spider-verse movie the thing with dickinson was that it was like hey apple has a show It's a fucking Emily Dickinson, but it's like Gen Z.

And you're like, that sounds like I want to like drink glass. Like, I can't.
They're like, no, no, you don't get it. John Mulaney plays Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I'm like, like, no, Laney.

He is.

You just watch his episode. What are we doing? Oh, no.
He's sorry, I please. He plays Thoreau.
I take it back. Yeah.
Wiz Khalifa plays Death.

And you're like, this sounds like someone spinning some torture wheel. And then you watch the show and you're like, unbelievably, this is tolerable.
Like, this is not that bad. And it's largely her.

She's so goddamn character.

I think she kind of doesn't.

miss in terms of her actual reality. She's always as long as she's in a good fit.

And

it feels like she's now very selective, But there was that thing in Sinners where you're sort of like, you've kind of now set the table perfectly for the next 10 years of her career because you've reintroduced yourself as an adult.

That is like the first time she has played as a grown-up in a movie. And as you said, showed a little bit of everything.
And she feels very exciting again now. Yeah.

Especially in like a time where it's like, how the fuck do you even? There are no movie stars.

She's kind of positioned to be like, I mean, who in her age group, what, you know, what woman is like, who are the real deal bona fide young, you know, female movie stars?

Like, there's a little bit more dudes that come to mind, but even, you know, I mean, like in the 20s class, it is like, it's Florence Pugh. She's right.
Of course, of course.

It's Sir Sha Ronin, who kind of, I guess, Sir Sha Ronin sort of had the run that I think people thought. Hailey Steinfeld was going to have the American version of.

Like, you're a child prodigy, you got an Oscar nomination, and you were just going to continue being a serious actor first and foremost.

Like, even if you're going to do things that are fun and commercial, they are like prestigious movies. And Seinfeld, I did feel was doing the kind of like, I need a blockbuster.

I guess I should do a Marvel. You know, she's fucking great on Hawkeye, but it's one of those like, it's fucking Hawkeye.
That's the thing. By the time it comes out,

you're like, why is Hailey Steinfeld doing six episodes of a Disney Plus show for the least important event?

Yeah. Come on.
She's like on fire in it. I remember watching and being like, right, Hailey Steinfeld.

She's good at it, but you've got a couple scenes with Florence Pugh, and you're like, this is like fucking puccino and de niro going at it and you're like why is this being wasted on fucking hawkeye yeah put her on fucking wanda vision the one everybody was like excited to see by the time hawkeye comes around everyone's like oh wait this fucking sucks and now she'll like show up and end credits and be like i don't know maybe i'll come back yeah like they've just kept her on the birder now right you look like you were about to say something bad or were you just leaning in I was just leaning.

I mean, I don't know. Come on, babe.
Lean in.

Zendaya's on the same group.

Yeah, right. I'm trying to think of the undergroup.
But Zendaya is the example of someone where it's Sweeney, I guess. Yeah, Sidney Sweeney.
What's up with her these days? Yeah.

But Zendaya is someone where she's like, she's got really good taste. She's seeking out big directors she wants to work with, right? She's doing the kind of the movie star plan.

Sidney Sweeney's a little bit more like, she's got some taste. She's not a bad actor, but she'll also be like, should I sell my bathwater? You know, like where you're like,

okay, so you're sort of in the influencer space. She's like an operator where she's like, look, I want to make sure that she's like, exactly.
Like, you know, these strategies.

These twins are going to last. She did things to try to get my good thing made.
And she's like open about that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, look, Jeff Bridges, just to just circle around with the rest of the cast. Obviously, the Cohens know him well.
But only the second time they worked together.

And they're like, we want to make a Western. He's like, well, I'll do a fucking Western.
And they're like, it's going to be true grit. And he's like.

Initially, he is kind of like, what the fuck? Why would I, like, that's John Wayne?

And then he's like, I read the book and I read the script and I was just kind of like, I get it. Like, they're just doing something different.
I didn't think about John Wayne anymore.

I don't really care.

I mean, this is an Ethan Cohen quote here. Like, a lot of people might take Umbridge, but I'm not sure that's an iconic performance from John Wayne.

To think of an iconic because of the Oscar is a mistake. Like, they're up front being like, fuck that movie.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. It's also funny that.

And they're like, and John Wayne's good in other movies. Like, we're not saying John Wayne sucks.
We're not John Wayne haters. This movie just sucks.

But it's also funny that they only do two movies together, the Cohens and Bridges, right? He's a specific guy. Oh, absolutely.

I'm not saying like, there are other roles that make sense that he could have slotted into totally.

But he's such a good star for them in two very distinct performances that are so different from each other. Yeah.
But in certain ways, have become at least like the two big pillars of adult Bridges.

Definitely. Right? Like, I mean, there's like young hotshot Bridges, right? But to a certain degree, it's like Chillstoner Dude and Billy Gogruff.
Yeah. Right.

And they've like come up with the two defining performance for him in many ways, even though he wins his fucking true grid Oscar for Crazy Heart.

I think at the moment they announced he was doing this,

Lebowski was such a big flop at the time. They kind of announced this at like peak Lebowski.

Everyone's cycle. Right.
Iconic. By that time, the idea of he's working with them again was like lightning in a bottle exciting.

Yeah, that's crazy because, again, I didn't even know that it was a flop. You know what I mean? Like for me, it was like the thing everybody talks about in college.

You go to college and everyone's gotta watch one of the five movies. Right.
Yeah. You have Boondock Saints.

Of course. Oh, don't even get.
When you guys do the Boondock Saints episode, I got dibs on that. Please come back.
I have watched Boondock Saints so recently, it's hysterical. I watched

Boondocks. It's been the last 15 years.
It's pretty. I watched Boondock Saints like

back to back. I watched it once on the bus.

And then we watched, me and my buddy watch it the day. We were like, oh, we're probably going to end up watching some shitty movies like Boondock Saints.
And then he started playing it.

And I'm like, ha ha, very funny. Watch the whole fucking thing.
The second you put that shit on, dude.

I remember being like 12 and being like, me and my little brothers having an earnest conversation. We're like, okay, it's Godfather 2 is still better.
Right.

Boondock Saints is like nipping on its heels. Because it isn't a conversation.
It's actually a movie that is like the point of view of a 12-year-old. Exactly.

Where you're like, that's actually how you should approach life and crime and like, you know, clean up the streets and protect your bar or whatever that is. It's a very nuanced

portrayal of what gay people are like. It's a woke movie.
William's gay. Yeah.

The movie's got its head on its shoulders.

Goddamn. Yeah.
The Troy Duffy.

Yeah, that's his name. Yeah, that's his name.
And he keeps being like, I got three ready to go.

Am I wrong?

They keep saying they're going to

look up recently.

It's been in development. I mean, the whole thing is that Norman Ritus' stringy-haired ass is more famous than ever.
Like, he should cash in on it. Yeah.
But

he's never directed a non-boondock movie. No, right? No.
Yeah.

Who's the other guy? It's Norman Ritas. Who's the other guy? Sean Patrick, Sean Patrick Flannery.
That guy must be like, come on.

Because Norman Ritas is like all the dude and while they're death stranding and walking to Sean Patrick, he'll also show up in other shit like the bike riders and basically just be the same thing.

He's literally a ballerina. Right.
He just shows up with the same look on a motorcycle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And does his thing leave. Respect, dude.
No, I think them

announcing Bridges felt like, oh, De Niro and Scorsese are doing the Irishman together, right? It was like,

they're like, it's almost a layup, but you know what? I want to watch that. And that's a perfect old man part for him.

Damon, this is the first Damon Cohen's. Yeah, and the only.
It's the only. It's just so funny that every time they get like an Ocean's guy, Clooney Damon Pitt, they're like, yeah, you're a buffoon.

You played it like a company. I mean, they love making traditional movies.
And Damon's like, I get it. The way he puts it is he's like, I want a guy.
This guy is like presentation of Tommy Lee.

Hilarious that that's who he's thinking of.

The like charm of Bill Clinton, no substance. Like that's how, that's my approach with this guy.
Like he's slick. He's put together.
He's a zero. Like so fucking good in this.

And I, he's litigated it before.

I'm always like, it is astounding he didn't get nominated because he's such a big star in such a like killer scene stealing supporting role in a huge hit movie, but it's yeah, incredibly sad.

So this is they're catching Damon when chronologically. That's a good call.
When is it? Yes, yeah, yeah. Finished the Born trilogy, and in theory, that's in the back seat.

I mean, this is a period where he keeps saying, I want to direct. I think I want to transition more to directing, which ends up being more of a move that Affleck does.

This is a weird time for him because you're right. Like, the last Born is 07.

In 08, he like pops into fucking the Che movie for a second. All right.
You know, in 09, he puts on. He's going to youth without youth.
Yeah.

In 09, he puts on a bunch of weight and he does the informant, which he's great great in. That's a good movie.
Informant's good. Yeah.

And then he somehow loses all the weight, but plays a rugby player in Invictus, which is like a bad movie, but he's fine.

Gets an Oscar nation for that. But that also was kind of like the...
Invictus was like, it feels like just such a prestige for prestige shits for the money. It's an amazing movie.
Yeah, yeah.

I remember that. Yeah, yeah.
And in 2010, he has a really weird year. He does Green Zone, which is a giant bomb, which is sort of his like.
Let him do Greengrass again. Without Born.

Then we do Born, but now it's really about the iraq war right that's the tail end of them being like you don't want like a really serious movie about iraq is fucked up and america's like no never everyone's so dumb with them not interested

is iron man there no not interested yeah

uh hereafter the clint eastwood movie which is in my opinion an incredible movie but he's not really the lead in it well it's like a triptych right yeah uh he's all right you know he's good in it he's actually really good in it it's an amazing movie but it's people they're just like what the fuck is this uh it's about like sidekicks and tsunamis it's so weird and then true grit

the next year he does adjustment bureau contagion we bought a zoo he's margaret finally

kind of like what's my deal right margaret finally comes out in happy feet 2 as well and then he's like i get he's like all right can i not be an action star can i make like you know proper dramas and stuff and like some of them are good Some of them are we bought a zoo.

I need to throw out the other two factors at play here in this era. Okay.

One is that he says, i want to direct promised land which gus van sent ends up directing that he co-wrote with krasinski and still stars in was supposed to be the first movie he directed and there were a couple other scripts he bought that he had announced he was going to direct and in this era very overtly in the press he keeps saying i think i want to transition more directing so when i do a movie now it's really based on me wanting to learn from other directors so there's a certain amount of checklist like am i thrilled about doing invictus i got to work with clint right true grit.

I need to have a Cohen's in my back pocket. I'm trying to study all these people now.
So he's sort of going director first.

And then there's a lot of him returning to his regular Soda Berg, Greengrass, repeating his guys, right?

The second thing is, in this exact era, these are the movies he did instead of Avatar, where he was the first choice for Avatar. And Cameron's.
And they were like, you get a ton of money.

You get a piece of the movie. You do have to live in New Zealand for like three years.
It was, I can't give you the money because the tech is so expensive, but I can give you 10% of the film

of the gross, dude. And he's like, that's going to take me off the board for like three years.
But it was for these fucking movies? Yeah.

Because he would, I mean, look, no disrespect to, you know, Jake Sully, but Damon's Jake Sully is better. It's this weird thing of Damon would have been great.
And I almost wonder if you

don't, I think.

I don't know. He's good enough to

becoming blank.

Dude, that's one of his weird talents is like he, more than other stars, I think can kind of disappear a little bit. bit to his role.

Oh, it's a thing we love to talk about that like you could just program two different Damon series and one is Damon leading man using his movie stardom and then Damon supporting actor is as good a career as his leading man career.

The top tiers of both are unbelievable and true grit is such a good like snapshot of that. I mean, this is that's the only for me the only absolute banger in this, the only banger in this era.

I'd agree with that. What's his next app? Okay, I know we're, but what's his next like well David kind of has right, so then it's behind the candle lobber, which he's incredible.
Is a banger.

Watch that. With my mom came to visit New York, and for some reason, we watched that with her.
Throw it on. We just threw on that while I'm hitting a fucking weed pen surreptitiously.
Oh, yeah.

Way too high. And I'm like, oh, why am I watching this movie with my mother? David's like, I mean,

Michael Ducker's like, shave another 5% off.

Scott. I'm too high to change it anyway.
Then he does Elysium, which is paper. Elysium is him being smart, and unfortunately, the movie's dog shit.
Similarly, Monuments Men. Right.
Same deal, right?

Then Interstellar, which he's unbelievable.

But is a secret performance. Right, right.
Him being in the movie. Veteran being a goddamn movie.
That is LeBron. That is definitely LeB.
He's good at that shit.

Then he does The Martian. The Martian is his.
And it's The Martian is the first one. Yeah.
But that's, yeah, that's 2015.

And then he does the two movies after The Martian that felt like his, I need to get a surefire hit. Yeah.
And both of them don't work. It's Jason Bourne and Great Wall are both successful.

But Jason Bourne made a ton of money. It did.
Just no one remembers it. Great Wall did okay.
That movie's ridiculous. And I unfortunately hurt his feelings.
And I feel really bad about it.

I wrote like a snarky article when everyone was making fun of him.

And then he, in some interview, was like, I fucking love the Atlantic and like ton of messy coats that I saw. Like even they were going after me.
And I'm like, sorry, Damon.

They're like, hey, it's me. It's not any of the internet.

then honestly, some of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like,

he cares about this shit.

And he's like,

he made the movie because he would make a billion dollars in China. 100%.
What are we talking about? And he was like, I wanted to work with Zhang Yi Moon. I'm like, I get it.

But you also wanted whatever. Marshall was such a big hit, right? And gets him another Oscar nomination.
And it's such like, what's good about him. Is a movie built

on his

star power, all of his strengths, right?

The fact that Great Wall and Jason Bourne are the year after that tells me that like two years earlier, he was panicked. Right.
Of like, I have not had a movie star hit since Bourne ended.

And who knows what the Martian's going to be? So here's like a Zhang Yamo, like China co-production at a time where China's taking over Hollywood. And let me go back to Bourne.

And by the time The Martian comes out, it's like, oh, fuck, he's got like two unnecessary movies coming up.

Which, as you said, Bourne like made a ton of money, but in a way that was like people showing up for jury duty. Of course.
And then we're like, yeah, he shouldn't have gone there.

Someone going to say, oh my God, that's Jason Bourne. Someone said it.
Great. Cool.

I mean, I love him. I feel like he's in a good spot now.
Like, Ford versus Ferrari slotted him into his new, like, kind of like, right, I'm just the best. Great.

Kind of dad. Great Oppenheimer.
He rocks in. And listen, am I mad that

he rocks him? Am I mad that no Greek people have been cast in the Odyssey? Yes.

And maybe if this had happened, like, I'm pissed because i feel like maybe if this had happened maybe even two years later it would have been i get to just be like in the background you know some guy that gets killed so fast

can there be like a cut up to the heavens and you're looking dionysus dude yeah like this shit's crazy well first here's where i'm positioned for yeah the scary movie version of the odyssey there when they do the nolan ski the no when they get the the when we get the band back together and they do like a spoof of nolan's movies i get to be killed in the odyssey part of it freedberg and Seltzer's Nolan movie.

Let's get the Seltzers back. Absolutely.
It is. Now that I'm looking at it, it is funny that it's like, can't just fucking get Benny Safdie and John Leguizamo and shit.
It's like one. Who I love.

I love it. Yeah, these are all great.
And look, at the same time, it's mythology. It's cool that it's no one is from anywhere.

Everyone, it's one of everything, but it's like, it should be like the Olympics where the home country gets one, even if they're bad at, you know what I mean?

Not to be rude about Greece, though, but isn't this what Greece pulls once in a while?

We need the Olympics. Well, yes, we do the Olympics.
It's our artistic Olympics, where it's like the home country, even if, like, you know, even if

they do the Olympics, everyone was like, these Olympics aren't that well run. And they're like, give us a break.
Yeah.

It crippled our country. It will cripple our country for a generation.
We have empty stadiums instead of fucking schools, but whatever.

But every time you host the Olympics, you automatically qualify for every sport. Yes.
There should be at least one Greek person in the Odyssey. You can't do the Odyssey without one Greek guy.

And it doesn't have to be me. Who are the big Greek guys in movies, right? We don't really, I mean, we don't, I mean,

is it me? It might be you by the way. Is this by accident? Is it me? But I mean, like, give us, give us, like, you know, Greek, get Nia Verdalos in there, man.
Nia Verdalos. Get Nia in there.

Have you and Nia?

We've DM'd a couple times. Okay, yeah.
I gotta get it.

She's the dream. She's the dream.
Absolutely. She's the dream Stavi's World guest.
Yeah. She's a fucking icon.
I mean, still the most profitable, independent romantic comedy of all time.

Believe me, we talk about it. Still the most profitable romantic comedy period.
Period.

For many years, it was the most profitable comedy, and the only thing that overtook it was Hangover 2, which is bullshit.

That's crazy. I mean, yeah, I'm trying to think of like Greek celebs.
I mean, it doesn't have to be celebs. I did a little Google.
Get an art actor and get one of Yorgas.

My favorite thing about Dog Tooth was I saw that movie. It's a cast of Dog Tooth in all of them.
And they all simulated. It's just the dad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Funny.
Nolan's like, we're taking a break.

Yeah, let's see the dad's cock again.

That was more disturbing than the we the like the siblings having sex, like the dad's dick just hanging out soft watching porn. To me, that pissed me off more.

Dogtooth is one of those things where I saw it. So I was like, oh, this is depraved, but this is really interesting.

That's an interesting movie. And then like you realize, you start, you know, then Greek Greece submits it, you know, and it gets the Oscar nomination.
And then like someone was like.

They threw like a parade in Greece for Dog Tooth. Because like it was their first Oscar nomination for foreign film in like decades.

And I'm just thinking about the national government being like, We love Dog Tooth. What a great movie! Normal.
We love, like, we're spreading Greece around the world, baby. Dog tooth.

That's what we got going on.

I'm a little worried that I've been able to hide my success from my Greek family, but being in a Yorgos movie, it's like, it's over, bro. He's like fucking the king over there.
Yeah.

I'm doing a little Greek actor search. Sure.
Jennifer Aniston. Doesn't count.
Elias Codius. Okay.
Costas Mandalore, David's favorite actor from the Saw franchise. Oh, wow.
That guy. Oh, God.

That guy stinks up the Saw franchise so bad. I don't even know.
Yeah, I don't know. In the later Saws, you know, when Saw, you know, fucking dialogue.
I'm a later Saw guy on Florida.

I'm a later Segal guy. I'm not a later, I'm not a later Saw guy.
You know, the whole problem Saw has is in Saw one, he's like, I have cancer. Right.
So by like Saw three, he's dead.

By Saw Four, they're like, uh, we'll do an autopsy. But like, he's dead.
Yeah. So by Saw Five, it's like his protege who's Costas Mandalore.
Okay. Stinks.
Okay. And it's like three more of him.

I'm going to look. Everyone's just looking up Greek actors.
I know, but this is my point: is that you, you, there's not much of a battle to get to the number one spot. No, I'm trying, bro.
I'm trying.

Again, I don't know how it happened, but I'm trying. I mean, we're this, the movie's going to come out, and I'm so bad in it.

I'm never allowed to fucking act in anything ever.

They just take me off tires. I'm so bad at it.
Yorgos calls us. He calls us.
Yorgos actually deleted from IMP. And then he's like, I replaced you in the movie.

It was a bummer.

Sorry, man.

It's so funny that we've just identified, right, that like like Damon clicked into his perfect like sort of middle-age stage as movie star, which is the sort of like Ford versus Ferrari, still water, air, like he's fucking polo tucked into khaki pants, kind of like this guy just is comfortable being just like dad bod, you know, stuffed shirt, whatever.

Oppenheimer, same thing. And then it's like, right, no, next year he is playing the lead in Nolan's fucking Oppenheimer following.

He's Odysseus. He's crazy.
He's cool as hell. He's going to have his most dominant movie star badass film ever.

I mean, I am really, I'm so curious and excited because this is such a, it's such an insane throwback. Like, this is like, it's so star-studded.
It's a, it's a fucking epic.

It's a, you know, it's like, I think it'll be awesome, but I'm also like, I have a hard time wrapping my head around how it will be so good.

It feels like a really hard thing to fucking pull off, but I believe everyone in it, I believe in, and Nolan is the man, but I am re, it's not like I, I don't think it will fail, but I'm like, how are they going to pull this off?

The expectations are going to be expectations are going to be fucking small. The expectations are sky high.
I have no doubt that it will like deliver visually, right?

That it's going to be like, he's shooting in these beautiful locations on IMAX. It looks crazy.
The production value is off the, you know, all that.

The story of the Odyssey is cool and it's like episodic. So he can have all these fucking Zendaya drops in and does some shit.
I didn't have to waste there, whatever. That's a cool idea.

But like, I just don't know how he's going to do the language. You know, like, because you can do the thing that Troy did, where it's like, yeah, it's like English.
It's like British. Right.

You know, like, just do that. And it's like, that's fine.
But the whole magic of the, of the Odyssey, the poem,

is like the language. And I'm like, is he going to try to crack that? Not really Nolan's.
I don't know. You know, strong suit exactly is like not dialogue.
It's all going to be Bane voice.

Everyone's going to do garbled Bane voice. And Bane Mask.

Cosmo Jarvis had to drop out. Yeah.
So they replaced him with Logan Marshall Green. I'm like, you're just taking one Tom Hardy guy and turning him into another Tom Hardy guy.

I'm just going to go to Tom Hardy.

Nolan and Tom need to patch it up. Whatever happened there, whatever.
We got to squash the beef. I need Hardy to make a good movie again.
Yes.

And I need Nolan to like, you know, have him play some weird stuff. It's just like so funny that because of this beat that we have built for him.
He watches like the Venom movies.

Nolan watches everything. He does.
Of course, he watches the Venom movies.

Because of this beat we build for ourselves, right? It's like when Oppenheimer just keeps going up and up and up, we're like, how the fuck does he follow this? We've covered him years back.

We think about his career a lot. And you're like, he does kind of have this oscillation between him doing like...

nerdy little boy sandbox gee whiz shit and his more prestigey stuff and a little bit of like one for them one for me and then oppenheimer is like a one for me That is him going like highbrow that plays like a fucking blockbuster.

And you're like, so does he do like a tenant now? Or does he do something even headier than Oppenheimer? We couldn't even conceive of what kind of thing he would try to do next.

And when the tweet dropped that

out of nowhere, Christopher Nolan, the Odyssey shot entirely in IMAX, we were like, yeah, you're right. It had to be this or the Bible.
They were the only two things he could have done. Yeah, yeah.

In this position, if you're Nolan coming off of Oppenheimer, you got to do one of those. But that's the thing.

It's like, this feels like, you say the Bible, this feels like the fucking 10 commandments with Heston. This feels like Ben Hur, like he, this is like some,

some shit that like is audacious in the way that movies haven't really been audacious.

Like in the 30s, it's like, how the fuck are you going to pull off a stadium full of people, you know, and they just would do it, whatever.

Now it's like, we have all the technology, we have all this shit, but it's like, this is such a fundamental core text of Western civilization. So star-sutted.
The language is hard.

And by the way, the fucking length. Nolan's movies, you could argue, are too long to begin with.
How fuck? I can't. That's more like a exotic story.

And you know, the language is like, it's just going to be 10 hours long. What the fuck? How do we do this? Hey, Nolan, can we trim it?

Like, he'll just be like, and they're like, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right.
You know what? But everything works.

But I think he was right that, like, the level of cachet he has right now, if he's not doing that, he's playing it safe. Sure.
He's got to go that far. Sure, sure.
What were you about to say?

I was going to say, fuck it. They made wicked two fucking movies.
The Odyssey is going to be one fucking movie.

Like, that's crazy to me. This shit, if anything needs to be a universe,

every dog shit I, no, there's, not, I'm not saying wicked as dog shit. I'm just saying, like, every idea becomes like a fucking

universe. Like, this literally is.

the universe of mythology like this is like if anything needs to be four fucking movies it's the odyssey i mean even the movie that just came out with um uh fucking uh what's his face who's playing old odysseus um

uh fucking I'm blanking, you know,

yeah, they just did that. The return with fucking

movie

ends with a tease. Yeah, that's the movie that's like the fucking last four pages of the Odyssey is a movie, right? How the fuck is the whole Odyssey going to be one movie?

So anyway, that's what I'm worried about. But now, if you told me we get 12 hours of Nolan's Odyssey, I'm the happiest guy in the fucking movie.
I'll do any version of this. I'm there.

But anyway, like they should at least have the kill build treatment of yeah this should be one movie really but we have to for whatever reasons break it up but anyway all that being said I will be there fucking day one in IMAX I can't wait to see it but I'm I just am interested to see how they're gonna pull it off well I mean true grits kind of another version of that where it's like this is them cashing in all their chips for something that sounds like why would you do this and then it's so much more successful than anything else they've done that they come off of this and it's like Great, we'll make your fucking failed angry musician movie.

Yeah, yeah. Right guys are insane.
It It does give them some rope to do some weirder shit for a while. Right.
Because this is the one that should have been their cash.

And instead, it's like a double guarantor. Right.
Right. And like,

it's crazy that's their most.

It's also crazy that in 2010, America was like, yeah, yeah. This is like the kind of Christmas entertainment we're after.
Like we want this. Totally.

I think what I'm realizing is for me, this is such a cultural blind spot because just in my life, I think I was like so depressed and pretending I was going to take college seriously.

This is the year I quit stand-up and like was working really hard in college. And I didn't, I didn't see anything.
That's, that's maybe also why I didn't see this shit in theaters.

I like, you, you guys named all these movies that came out in 2010. I'm like, I don't even fucking remember those.

So you were true. What were you studying? What was your main? Dude, I was a, I was, a, I was a, uh, public affair.

I was in a public affairs scholarship program and I was like, you know, just taking it seriously, taking like, you know, uh, welfare policy seriously.

I was interning at the maryland house of delegates i was like you know trying to lose i was trying to get my life in order trying to lose weight i was you know finally i was like i gotta take shit seriously i gotta be a good student i gotta get a a girlfriend who's a nice person and uh that's always a tough one finding oh yeah nice person yeah and she was she was very nice but i feel bad because we started dating and then in the year that i was lying about who i was like the guy she dated doesn't exist a guy who does his work

dating like a package yeah yeah yeah like yeah check out this package does all it does all his homework does all you know does all you know wears it literally wears a tie whatever and then like a year in i'm like oh can i crash at your place to do open mics and that and not see you i'm gonna come home fucked up at 3 a.m right and then she's like all right well you and like angry about my failure to locate a tag yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you want to hear me rant about this at three o'clock in the morning yeah can you and your friends from grad school come see me bomb at an open mic 40 minutes away like god damn I feel so bad.

But so, yes, I think I was just like at a cultural because before this, I was so

into trying to figure learn about movies, trying to do stand-ups, starting 18 to 20, and then 21 was I was like, I have to fucking become a real citizen.

But so, yeah, I'm kind of relearning all this block. And then, when you start talking about the rest of it afterwards, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is when I start coming.
And you reconnect. Yeah, yeah.

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Would this movie be as big a hit today, Griff?

I don't know. it's another thing and we should talk a little more about the yeah we can talk about let me say a lot more about the meat of the movie itself but david glanced at the clock uh

glance i don't i think we should talk about watson more

it does feel like carry is the voice of sherlock holmes i'm finding oh nice hell yeah there will be these types of movies every couple of years right where like everyone points to it and goes see there's an underserved audience you're not making movies for red state america you're not making movies for older men right there's this audience that will come out if you give them what they want.

But anytime anyone tries to replicate it, it doesn't work, right?

So there are the things like Passion of the Christ and American Sniper and Sound of Freedom and True Grit that feel like weird one-offs where for whatever moment, for whatever reason, an entire audience was just like, actually, we've been waiting for this.

That's supercharged to what was already there. People who have kind of stopped going to the theaters show up in droves for this.

It's not like there were the entire audience for this, but clearly part of this movie doing so well was like 80-year-old John Wayne fans being like, I think so. I think it has to be.

I don't know, man. I think of all the movies you just said, True Grit obviously clears those movies.
They're so much better. So much better.
And, but you're right.

Maybe there was some element to that, but I just think maybe it was the kind of thing of like all the Cohen brothers. Like, maybe it is just.

Even though they had two movies between this and No Country for Old Men, like, I don't know. I just feel like

it was, it was that. It was going to bring Western.
I think there was another thing. But maybe it's Western.
Maybe it is Western, right? Maybe that's where you're going to be.

And them being like, we're doing a classical Western, right? Yeah.

And this movie is so much more classical than any other film they've made. The other thing is that like the Christmas box office is insane.

There is like this 10-day corridor when basically everyone's off from work and school and families are together. And it's a PG-13 movie.
It's a PG-13 movie. And like December 19th.

And we'll do the box office game, the competition. January 1st well this is what i was gonna say

that corridor if you can get a movie in there that sort of becomes the default i guess we all go see this like every day between december 20th and january 5th kind of plays like a friday you just have like a run of fridays and the two big movies that people thought were going to be the big blockbusters that christmas were little falkers which kind of disappointed i did see that in theater so maybe i was a you were that's the era of my life i was in i was like i'm a regular guy me and my girlfriend are going to see little fokkers

we were going to like ruby tuesday yeah absolutely dude we're going to ruby tuesday meet the fokkers and come out in this exact slot six years earlier

but it was not a cultural

game changer wildly outgrossed yeah and there was that thing where like fokkers opened bigger the first weekend and then true grits overtook it the second weekend and stuck the other movie that everyone thought was going to kind of run the table at the end of the day

the box but i have to do it yes was tron legacy yeah this this is because weird as shit. Jeff Bridges

wins his Oscar.

He wins his Oscar March 2010. Right.
And then I remember December 2010, he hosts SNL and he's like, hey man, I got Tron Legacy and True Grit.

And it was like, oh, he's got a big legacy blockbuster and he's got his like Arthouse Cohen movie. Right.
And then like True Grit and Tron Legacy end up at the exact same number.

And Tron Legacy is seen as a disappointment. And True Grit is seen as a sensation.

But in both cases, like Tron opens really big, Little Fockers opens big, and then both of them drop off and True Grit just stays

and just kind of holds. Well, that's weeks.
And that's the, it sucks that a good movie needs so many things working in its favor to just do well. But I think it, maybe it's as simple as that.

Maybe it's not the like, because, you know, the like, they have a cult following built in. Maybe it's as simple as the two things it's up against on Christmas kind of suck.
And true.

And even though they see, they, and actually they suck in a way that's important because they suck in a way that gets people people thinking about going to the movies.

And they're like, that kind of was bad. I was actually excited for this.
Or I liked the old one. I heard this one isn't great.

And then suddenly there's a movie that quietly plays well for grandpa and granddaughter. Right.
And everyone in between. Right, right, right.
I do think in the name value of it.

But yeah, I don't know. I just like,

I'm always.

kind of like heartened by how successful this movie is when I watch it. And I'm like, it's so deliberately paced.
It's so thoughtful. It's so verbal.
You know, it is like a movie that doesn't.

It's not action-packed. It has stuff, but it's mostly walking around.
But you start the movie. I mean, it takes like 15 minutes maybe before Rooster enters.
Right.

You got the slow ramp up of her explaining who she is, her being a little. Her adult narration, which is from the book, that it's framed by the adult version at the beginning and the end.

But you know what's funny?

When you say it's not action-packed, you're never, obviously, you're never bored, but it's like the way you, when you said it's, it's rate, it's rated PG-13, that kind of shocked me.

When you say it's not action-packed, that kind of even shocks me a little bit because so much shit is happening.

And she is, again, this, this performance is so electric that it almost feels like action movie scene. Her bartering feels like it's a fight scene, essentially.
You know what I mean?

I completely agree with you. That's the magic, though.
That's right. Her bartering early on, though, you're just like, I'm all in on this girl.
It's why all my chips are on.

I want her to watch a ball. And it's the magic that that every great Scorsese movie has where he's just like, for me, it's just identifying the tension in every single scene.

So every scene when you're watching

feels like the best scene you've ever seen in a movie. There's some, there's stakes to every scene.
Exactly. That are like internal and that like cumulatively build to a greater whole.

I mean, LaBeef showing up in her fucking bedroom is so weird and fucked up. That, I mean, and it's like, that's just what she has to deal with and she knows it.
Exactly. She's not shaking.

Like, that's nuts. But she's.
She has to sleep with a grandma on the

which, by the way, sick, comedically hysterical. The cuts back to fucking her sleeping with a grandma after she tries to rent a room.
She's like, oh, it's okay. Yeah.

You can sleep with Granny, whatever the fuck. Oh, so funny.

And then, right, has to deal with this stranger coming in a room, harassing her,

being mean.

And sort of threatening to basically cut in on her shit too. Like, she's like, she's on a mission and he's going to mess it up.
The beef keeps messing up their mission. Yes.

And also, I kind of doesn't mean to half the time. Three times? Yeah.

He has three different returns. Yeah, they added some.
In the book, he doesn't depart from them as much. I think they just thought it was like, it gives the movie a bit of a test.
I think it works.

Yeah, yeah. I think it definitely works.
But even just weird shit happened. The bear guy, you know, where there might have been a lull, you get that guy to just mesmerize you.

And then, again, that scene where they come on, they come upon the guys where it's like, what's his face? Gleason.

What did it surprise you to hear this is the only Cone Brothers movie I've ever auditioned for is the guy who gets shot in the leg. It's like a Simpurton coward.
That's fucking hilarious.

You want to crush that scene. It is cool that it's dumb ugly something that you're like, oh, shit.
And I always forget that it's him. And I'm like, wait, because he looks like shit.

So you're kind of like, is that him?

The only cool parts of the original were that that part is played by Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper.
Right. And then who is like a hell raiser by the way? Robert Duvall is

Barry Pepper. So that's the, those are the only two cool parts.
It's also, it's not just that it's cool. And famously, Duvall was a a huge pain in the ass on this.

Well, because you're watching this move.

Exactly. It's like Hopper and Duvall are like starting the new Hollywood movement and different acting styles.
And they're in a far more modern film than everyone else. Yes, for sure.

It's like, well, that looks like a bad gunshot you got there. Yeah.
Hopper's the only one. Even Duval's performance, Hopper's the one where I'm like, this is, he's actually good in it.

And he's the one that would.

fully you could swap him and fucking Gleason and and it kind of makes sense but that's part of what's interesting is it almost is a structure like the Odyssey, where there is a clear end goal in sight.

But from the beginning, everyone's telling her this just might not be possible. No one's been able to find this guy.
This guy's unimportant. You should just drop it, right?

She's got three people, including herself, on this case. And like, they're not making progress.
And a lot of the scenes in this movie are like dead ends.

They keep moving like geographically forward, right? They're moving further and further towards

Comanche territory.

Choctaw. Choctaw.
But yes, there's this feeling of like, this might be in vain. And also these weird, like, sort of side quests that don't necessarily get them any closer to where they want to go.

And then they do just stumble onto the guy. You are not the brief.
Yeah. One of the best.
Just

two of the funniest lines to me. And I was like cackling, and my wife was like, Are you all right?

Like, is one is you are not the brief, and the other is, I do not know this man after she cuts down the guy. It's just like such an anti-climax.

And he's like, nope, no.

Move on. Another great one.
That's not an action scene, but you're fucking, you're like, she's going to die. You're like,

someone's going to find, yeah, so much tension, a little, a little, there will be bloody, where it's like, even where nothing's happening, you're fucking like, whoa, something fucked up is right around the bend.

It's like they're on Venus. Like they're just in this alien landscape.
Like, what is this place?

Like, you know, and like when the first time I watched the first couple of times, you're kind of like, yeah, they have a goal.

they're going towards whatever after a while you're like they're just in the middle of nowhere and there's just like it's basically the map is basically like there's a river right like go near that like that's kind of it and like if they get lost or someone breaks their leg or whatever you're kind of just screwed like all this shit just feels so dangerous the more you watch it and

like you realize when so when rooster says like fuck it what what what's the thing he says over and over again uh i i withdraw it's not that but what's his he has like a catchphrase.

This is the thing. It's hard to quote this movie because the language is so precise that you can't paraphrase it.

Yeah.

You know, that's him being basically like, I had one play, which is I go to my guys, I sniff out if these guys have been around, and then I get the drop on them.

In classic rooster way, I shoot them from far away.

And then maybe I get closer and shoot the rest of them. And if they don't have info, then I don't know.
I got spooked. I mean, they got spooked by Labif.
Now I'm out of ideas.

Like, that was my one idea. I'd like to now return to my rope bed and my like whiskey.
Yes, yes, yes.

And,

you know, in the movie, it's a little bit like, oh, this is the, you know, this is the dip before our triumphant third act. Fine.

But as you watch it again and again, you're like, no, yeah, he's just like, this is the extent of being a good tracker. Yeah.
Yeah.

And I had the same thought of like the on the rewatch this time being like, oh, yeah, you know, oh yeah, here we go. The darkness before the dawn bullshit.
But then you're like, you know what?

This is fully earned. This guy's a fucking drunk.
And we've all been there, right? Where it's like, I've been there where it's like, you know,

you've been trying to go against your nature. And that's a lot of this here, right? It's like, he's like, he doesn't want to do from the beginning.
He doesn't want to do this. She convinces him.

Part of it is about money, of course, but it's like he still is doing something he doesn't really want to do. And then, and you, you give into your vices.
And it's like, you know what? Fuck this.

I am it.

I really am a piece of shit.

I'm an idiot idiot for thinking i could be better i'm gonna this not only has not made me better i am now worse yeah i'm the kind of guy who quits on a little girl i don't give a fuck i'm drunk that feels very real to me yeah and then labeef event essentially being too much of a pussy to do it also feels real to me because it's like this is your time to shine labif this is it and it's like oh no he's a coward he's a piece of shit and it was just like yeah these they would just abandon these are this is the way these two guys would abandon abandon this girl damon and bridges both identify what the real versions of these guys would be not the movie archetype versions of them yes yeah which is what's really smart where you're like these are guys who fashion themselves characters i'll bow out bow out yeah he says like 50 times a bow out Yeah, like it, like it's him saying, I declare bankruptcy.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Where he's like, I'm done.

You find your own way. But like, Labief is all like sort of conscious, forced iconography, right? That he is playing the role and talking the talk of a Texas lawman.

And then Cogburn's the opposite way where you're just like, him having an eye patch isn't cool. Totally.
It's not snake pliskin. No.
It's like this guy's broken, right?

Like this guy's half of his body doesn't work. Of course, of course.
Like he's like a fucking beaten down car. That's why I like that in the cornbread shooting scene.
He does get a couple shots off.

Yeah.

And he also falls on his face one time and like gets tangled up in his horse one time you're like balance yeah this guy's like a you know dnd character where it's like you know he could dice roll kind of a joke but he's not like he also is legit in other ways and one way he's legit is that he's happy to just shoot someone's face off right right and he's not gonna be no qualms whatsoever worried about that yeah and you do hear that yeah he fought with quantral during like bleeding kansas this is all like background that you don't have to think about that hard and he's so unintelligible that the first time i saw the movie i didn't know what he was talking about for half the movie.

Like all of his monologues about New Mexico, like, I don't know what he's saying, it's just funny, but like, he fought with Quantrill, who was like a terrorist, like, who's just going around bleeding Kansas, like, doing insane shit.

And it was like, yeah, he was like a hardened, crazy person.

And that part of history is what Ride with the Devil is about. Remember, we covered it long ago.
Yes. And

like,

Damon LaBeef is like this other, like, Rooster is basically like, I just need to keep going further and further away from civilization to do my shit. LaBeef is like, I'm from Texas.
Like, we're proud.

Like, this is a nation. Like, you know, I'm a Texas Ranger.
I have a badge. I'm proud of my badge.
Rooster's like, I like my badge because it means I can legally steal whiskey. Right, right, right.

And I'm a criminal. I'm a criminal with a badge.
Is Rooster. Yeah, he's like, I'm an officer of the court.
Some asshole gave me this badge. It means I can take your whiskey.

Like, and that has the force of law. Yeah.
Well, the other, I mean, the part of this film that gets me

so much emotionally by the end is that, like,

I think this is a very fascinating, precocious child movie, right? And that the magic trick of her performance is that it doesn't feel like a kid trying to play a grown-up.

And that every scene, the innate tension is her being able to convince someone that she knows what she's talking about.

As you said, it's why it helps to not see the father, that you're getting the sense to someone. You're seeing that tableau right at the start, the corpse.
You see his corpse, right?

But you assume that she must be modeling behavior off of her father, that she must have learned things off of him, and that people at first interact with her as if, like, oh, this is cute.

This is a little girl who's memorized phrases that she's heard cowmen say before, and she can like parrot them back well.

But it's like in her actions and in her consistency and in her quickness, she shows to people, like, oh, I guess I actually do have to treat her like a grown-up because she's proving that she actually does know what she's talking about and can walk the walk, right?

And where this movie gets to ultimately is by her being treated like a grown-up when she was a child and being validated in that way, and then having this insane experience, she basically is frozen amber for the rest of her life.

Like, the sadness of the end of this movie is that you're just sort of like, well, she's just, she never grows past this.

It's almost like that thing of people who get famous too young, and then you're like frozen at 15 because that's when you became a superstar.

It's like the mix of like the highs and the lows of what she experiences in this week of her life of being treated as an adult and then getting exposed to all of this is like she's just stuck there forever.

And so everything that's kind of like funny and charming about this like hard talking coming out of a 12-year-old, when you see it, Elizabeth Marvel as a woman in her 40s at the end, you're just sort of like, wow, this woman's intense.

Yeah. But she's talking the exact same way she has talked in the beginning.
We also, we got to point out at this time, women didn't really have freedom. Correct.
Totally.

So this is maybe an impactful moment where she actually really got to a taste of it. And there is kind of no going back for her.
But then in the future,

she's going to get some fucking husband who like tells her damage. Absolutely not.
Man, how many beans are in this movie? We haven't even talked about the beans. What for the beans?

God, what's the thing, the hominy thing that they have? Like they're making for eight or whatever. Right.
Where he's like, I like a big breakfast. It's like this like tanker.
Yeah, huge beans.

You know what's one of my favorite pieces of business in this movie? That he has the pack of tobacco with the string on it almost like it's a tea bag.

So he holds that in his teeth while he makes the like the roll. Yeah, yeah.
Another tiny detail I love when the lady offers to give her a flower sack for five cents to carry the gun.

Like that's what I think the Wild West is or like the sort of semi-Wild West. It's like everyone is basically always like horse trading.

Every item is usable. It is like a video game where it's like you pick a flower and you're like, I could probably do something with this.
Exactly. Like, this has got to go with my satchel.
Like,

uh, everything's got to be used because, like, it's not, there's nothing, you know, you want to get something from the east. It's going to take like two months, of course.
Even a rotting corpse.

Yeah, well, that guy's like, I got the teeth, which is kind of my thing. If you want the rest,

yeah, I'll trade him back. I'm not going to fuck it.
You guys want to fuck it? Give me a quarter.

If you want me to watch you fuck it, that's two quarters. That's two bits.

No, I just love that guy. Also, incredible guy.
I mean,

the best. Like, where they're like, it's cold.
And he's like, yeah, well, I have my bear thing.

It's like, yeah, yeah, that's unspoken. We didn't need to.
We didn't forget the purpose of the bear thing. I also like that he,

I feel like they're so good at knowing when to do this.

It's the Cohen tone management thing, but that's the one scene where they kind of crank up the broad comedy of like, what if this guy just like sounds like a king of the hill character dude can we get away with two minutes of the guy being like i'm the bear man yeah but dude that's you're but that's the cohen it is the cohen magic because it's not only broad comedy but it's also like mystical it's the most it feels like dungeons and dragons 100 where it's like who the fuck because at first you're like are they is this guy a fucking zombie is a bear gonna kill them right then is some bear wizard gonna kill them then it's like oh it's the funniest guy you've ever seen in your life he's actually so nice and helpful right like he's like yeah that house over there won't be used right now he won't mind much if you you know toddle over the river i also think that's the key to a great cohen's performance is like them being like you know it'd be really funny if a guy sounded like this yeah or if like a killer had a dorothy hamill haircut right yeah yeah and then they hire the person they're like your job is to play this as seriously as possible but i'm giving you something stupid to do yes here's a voice here's a costume here's a look here's a characteristic but then like try to actually ground it as if it's a real guy.

I think about every guy in this movie. Like the guy who runs the bridge, bridge, you know, the damn thing.

That's the guy's job. The lawyer.

The facial hair in this movie, their only form of their lives

are torture and their only forms of expression are weird facial hair.

That's all they have. It's so many mustaches and sideburns and like shapes you wouldn't even consider.
It's crazy. That lawyer is so good.
That's what I would be, right?

Like if you like, you know, because I watched Deadwood, right? Which is like the best show ever. And Deadwood is like 80% of people are basically like, well, I'm into like whoring, drinking, gambling.

And it's like, that's what I do out here. But Soul Star is the guy who's like, these people need fucking hammers.
I'm going to sell them hammers.

Like, there's a couple guys who are like, I'm just going to go all the way out there and have a shop. Right.
And I would be the guy who's like, well, I talk 10% better than everyone else.

So I guess I'll be a Trixie lawyer. You know, like, that'll be my job.
Cause that guy's rocking it. He is.
He's like, how many steps are we talking about? He's out foxing Rooster by the end.

It's pretty unshowy in its craft outside of just like, obviously, you know, the production design, design, the costumes, and everything just being fucking immaculate, right?

Um, but you're introduced to Rooster, you have her knocking on the outhouse first, or is that after the courtroom? Oh, that's first. That's first.
Yeah, that's the thing.

We have a minute of Rooster before all the other stuff happens, right? Behind a closed door while he's taking a shit. That has to be another hilarious bonus.
Yeah, so absolutely.

Rooster spends like 90 minutes in there, right? Like that, he doesn't like just like take care of business quickly. No, I think he's like mad.
I think he's playing emoji in the 19th

century were like a really intense experience. What he's having papa executive privilege.

Think about the types of hemorrhoids a rooster has.

He eats like one fruit a year. It's crazy how fucked up his ass.
Like, we're talking about a baboon's ass. This is a man who's had nothing but whiskey and beans for 40 fucking years.

He eats whiskey and beans. Occasionally, he'll get, I think, what they call back then a steak, which was like some like crispy piece of beef that they like destroyed in a cast iron pan.

And like more whiskey,

i think beans are why people were alive

actually right they do enough for us

i've heard that the more you eat the more cornbread that's what i've heard cornbread peppers maybe just raw peppers yeah i don't know what else what what was people not a lot of greens no

uh stavi my my dad when we were growing up would wake my brother and i up and then go, and now I'm having pop executive privilege time. You guys just got to be ready to go in an hour.
Awesome.

And he had boxers with a bunch of paper towels stuffed in the back hell yeah four newspapers under his arm two mugs of coffee goes into the bathroom closes the door an hour later he comes out he goes it's time for school two mugs of coffee is a move but he posts like i'm not coming out to refill

news

right

he's carrying like 15 inches of news credits

under his arm and the two mugs whatever and just go you guys just figure it out for the next hour like i'm that's how rooster cogburn takes a shit I'm a dad. I can go, you know, into the bathroom.

You're my friend. I'm a top executive privilege.
And I can, like, load up the Wikipedia page for fire and read it. You know what I mean? Like, I have too many things at my, it's too easy for me.
Yeah.

Back in the day, you needed, like, yeah, like Newsweek. Yeah, the rest.
The thing about, and here's the thing: why Rooster, it's, there's nothing. It's just, he is just shitting that long.
Yeah.

That's, it's just his body is that. You don't think he's reading like a Tijuana Bible or something? No, there's no, it is him versus the outhouse.
And it smells bad. He doesn't want to be there.

But he's trying to get done as fast as possible.

It's taking 40 minutes because that's just how it is.

This is one of those movies,

dude. Yeah.
It is

terrible, dude. It's one of those movies where I think.

About how bad every character smells. Yes.
Right? You're just like, this would be the stinkiest. And that's another reason why you don't think about it not being 13.

Like, it feels rated R because it's gross. Because they look gross.
There's a sheen to all of them. They all smell like shit.
They're all sweaty.

The only person who's sort of clean is Maddie, I guess.

Maddie is basically put together and like.

Does he have some fucking like old cowboy

homemade in his hair or whatever? Is he a Dapper Dan man? Right. He's got the cow lick, of course.
Yes.

But like, you know, one of the most touching little moments is when she puts the newspaper in the hat. Like she knows she has to look the part of it.

It's the only time she's literally a cute little kid right is when the hat goes under her eyes it's adorable and then but then she stuffs it in she's like and now she's back to being the character we've known the whole time and she looks like some cormick mccarthy character like that where it's like oh who's that and it's like oh yeah they call her like the cactus and it's like some 14 year old who like takes people's faces you know like she could she's got like this stony intense face but then i love the little moments when she realizes at the campfire that labifa rooster are about to fight and she's like trying to cheer everybody up.

Right, I'll do all the parts. Someone has to be in the car.
She starts to become like the child trying to stop her parents from fighting. Yes.

And she understands that the only thing that unifies these two guys is they don't like the other one being mean to her. Yes.
And like, this movie is bad if she is just Autistic, right?

Like if she's just like a weird robot girl or whatever, you know, like then it's like, that's fine. But like, no, she's a kid.
There's bits of kid in her, like of like whimsy.

Like movies for any sense that she can't.

The movie makes you as a viewer do the same calculation that every character who meets her is doing of like is it possible that she's for real yeah for sure you know you're not calling bullshit on her but you're you're actually going she might actually yeah be what she's saying she is

yeah absolutely which isn't even her framing herself as a wonderkin it's just i get it you don't have to talk down to me i can handle this But yeah, okay, so what are some other, you know, that we talked about the Dakin Matthews, the trial.

I keep kicking the kids off the porch. It's just a fun little moment.
I don't know why. It just seems like he's done it a million times.
They clearly have a rapport.

I need to just call him out by name because I've misattributed it so many times. Leon Russum is the sheriff who recommends the three tracks.
And says he likes to pull the cork.

And says he likes to pull the cork. He's in Lebowski briefly.
Oh, yeah. He's in Star Trek VI Undiscovered Country as chief in command.

I don't remember what that part is, but it is just my favorite chunk of dialogue where she says, who's the best Marshall? And he takes a pause and he goes, I'll have to weigh that.

And the decision to just be like, let me actually think about this before I say it. And then it's William Waters is the best tracker.
He's half Comanche, and it's something to see him cut for sign.

And he's playing it like he's like

in his mind being like, this guy's got the tracking skills. Rooster's the killer.
Blanca's a big green guy and he's got electric power. You got to hit wild.
Del Seam stretches really far.

Yes, absolutely.

The meanest is Rooster Cogburn. He's a pitiless man, double tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking.
Loves to pull a cork. He's moving on, right? The best is probably LT Quinn.

He's like, you know what? Here's the answer. I've landed on it.
But then he says he brings his prisoners in alive.

Now he might let one slip by now and again, but he believes that even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. And without missing a beat, she says, Where can I find this rooster? Yeah.
Yeah.

He's like, not interested. I'm just pumping my fist that whole exchange.
Everything that's happening. Yeah.

So, yeah, like she gets, all right, like she gets Rooster on the Road. I'm just trying to think of stuff.
I'm going through the plots, trying to think of stuff we haven't. Stuff that happens.

Stuff that happens in the movie. You know, I talked about the scene where she kind of wins them over by fording the river.
Awesome stunt. It looks like she literally did that.
Yeah. How did they?

How do you make a horse look tired? It's crazy. At the end, when the horse is like dying, and you're like, that horse is dead.

How do you like fake a horse being tired? You don't know. I don't know.
Horses are crazy.

That's another reason that, by the way, I want to live the actual reason ketamine exists like i know right yeah but it's a horse we found cooler stuff for it but it's not for billionaires

that's why every basically like starting with i don't know the 1850s or whatever i basically want to live in new york if i live in this time because i'm like i need railroads and i'm not gonna learn to ride a horse

and then like feed the horse and like well there's horse in eight you know even new york because that's that's what they had horses the brown that's why brownstones have stairs so you wouldn't you weren't around

right so you're like you're a little bit above the ship that does make sense that's the funniest thing about the gilded age my favorite like gas leak show in the world like is like everyone in it is clean and i'm like they'd be dirty this is a dirty place it's still it's the 19th century yes like there's no running you know there's no flush toilet you're yeah you're you're clean for two hours right two hours a week you're clean if you're rich if you're rich you can't like go home and be like i gotta take a shower like no

that's not gonna happen you want to take a bath eight people have to like start getting shit ready for attendees. I was talking to my girlfriend about how much of a nightmare Burning Man seems to me.

Yeah. And even like any music festival as well, where I'm just like, my

two favorite things in the world are sleeping in a bed with the air conditioning blowing

and taking the longest shits and showers in the world. That's all I care about.
Absolutely. A bedroom that's cold.
And a bathroom that's ready to go.

Yeah. Day three at a music festival, the port of I'm not doing it.
Rough.

But it's my biggest thought when I watch this movie: I'm just like, oh my God, they don't even have like tempurpedic mattresses. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's the other thing.

Like, what's Rooster's fucking back looking like?

Like, dude, I'm fat as shit. And like, if I sleep on the wrong hotel mattress,

I'm ruined for a while. What you just said is my life right now.
It's crazy. Every morning I wake up and I'm like, why am I in excruciating pain?

And it's like, because you didn't move your body for a while. Yeah.
And you're like tall and large. Yeah.
Like Like he's when he's sleeping in that rope bed fucked up off whiskey.

I'm like, this is crazy. He's always drunk, right? Like, that's how he deals with it.
They're in pain. Even still, that makes the balancing act of it even more impressive that he's staying in there.

Yeah.

He is impressive. He refers to it as a rope bed himself.
It's not like we're being rude. No, no, no, no.
Yeah. No, we're not being rude.
He sleeps on a bunch of ropes.

And that's the thing about Rooster as a character. It's like what his greatness is eroding every second.

Like he probably was a specimen that could ride forever, and he could, the cornbread shot, if you catch him 30 years ago, he's nailing all those.

Like, that's the thing about him is that he is the fucking remnants of a fucking Terminator.

Yeah, he's like, when he's one of those terrorists or whatever, he's, he's a fucking machine, but he's a piece of shit.

But it's like, and yeah, he is, you're catching him at like, you know, this is the

last little bit of this guy being a fucking legend. Like living in a world this tough, right? It's going to break break you down one way or another, right? You become evil.

You kind of become broken and crazy like this,

you know, or you become like LaBeouf and you just sort of try to like put your head above all of it and not really engage with it.

But yeah, this is a guy who's just like lived this life for so long that it has kind of taken everything from inside of him, which makes his reveal gradually that he cares about her so touching to me.

Because this guy almost thinks he doesn't have have emotions anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, like it's like, well, I just lost those back in the trail 10 years ago. For sure.
Yeah.

And maybe he has. I mean, maybe he, yeah, he doesn't until he finds her.
And then in terms of shit that just happened, it's like, so you know, we've covered the little fucking

shack, which is one of my favorite scenes. And then Labif getting absolutely got, just not even able to get one.
Like, what did he think was going to happen?

Dragged. Dragged.
And then, like, the humiliation of Rooster being like, uh, should I take your tongue around those mouths? Like,

those dirty ass fingers we were just talking about completely in his fucking mouth

dangling away his already fucked up tongue. It's brutal.
He leaves for the first time after the first night, right? So there's the campfire fighting.

And then the morning, the next, the argument about whether or not he can shoot. He leaves for the first time as soon as she fords the river.
Right. He's like, I'm out of here.

They do the campfire that night, don't they? I guess so. They do do a campfire every day.
And then the next morning is when they do the shooting thing. And then he leaves.

He's like, I just fucking hate this guy. I'm sorry.
I wish you all the best. Then, right, the bear man, the body hanging from the tree, the cabin with Donald Gleason, all that happens without LaBeouf.

Right. And then he interrupts their like.
He fucks the plan up. Yes.
Mine intention. And then comes out of it.
It's so much worse for wear. Right.
And then they're like, I guess we feel bad.

They're like, they don't, they're like, okay, we have to like drag you around now. And well, she feels bad.
That's the moment where she starts to show some like. Because she's like, he

like stood him down. He's brave.
Yeah, exactly. Like he was going to credit where credit's due.
Right. On the what's the Ned Pepper? Another incredible line is: it astonishes me that Mr.

LaBeouf has been shot, trampled, and nearly bitten his tongue off. And yet, not only does he continue to talk, but he spills the banks of English.

Yeah. Which just anytime Rooster says anything that eloquent, it's like,

it's so much funny.

He takes like four minutes to say a line. That was

so.

Anyway.

And then, yeah, we are kind of like, I guess the animosity kind of builds up again and we lead to

the next big fight.

And how out. And which, which the funny thing is, they were right.
They were just a day early. Because this whole plan, he's like,

my only hunch is they're going to the claim, their claim, and they just beat them there. Right.
Because they literally wake up. They do show up.
If they don't have that fight, they're fully.

And by the way, if... if he doesn't get drunk, probably there's no big deal, right? Because the whole thing is.
Because then they would just show up. Yeah.

It's like, all right, let's get a night's rest. And we got the drop on these guys.
Exactly. Exactly.
Really? And instead, Maddie finds Brolin. What's Brolin? Tom Cheney.
Yep. Shoots him.
Awesome.

I love him.

Right. Both times she fires a gun.
She does get knocked on her ass, which is what happened, would happen to me if I fired a gun. Yeah, yeah.
Like, because that is what happens. And,

you know, guns back then sucked. Like, it's shooting like a dumb metal ball at you.
It hurts. It doesn't necessarily like kill you.
And he's just like, my life sucks. I hate you.

But he grabs her and like she's the hostage. And then you've got this like fantastic 10 minutes of Barry Pepper with the crazy

just being an absolute goblin. Looking like the crypt keeper.
And I just love it.

Is the gang called the Pepper Gang? It's the Pepper Gang. It's hysterical.
It's playing the Pepper Gang. I do like that he has the weird kind of samurai thing with Rooster.
Absolutely.

Like where they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to kill a girl.
I'm not like a weirdo. I'm just like a bandit.
I like steal shit and have money. No, no, it's it's true.

It's like it's the most you kind of get the roost roosters like I've we've come across each other as guys.

We've each been on, you know, there's probably been a time where Pepper had a badge and I didn't have a badge. He was technically the sheriff and I was technically the criminal.

Like they clearly have like this long, weird history. And yes, that samurai type honor shit is pretty fucking it is.
It's also, it's the stuff that Traney doesn't have, right?

Like she's so angry at the idea of Traney stealing stealing her father. And yet it's like his death was incidental.
It didn't mean anything. This guy's got no strategy in his head.
Yeah.

He's got no internal belief system. Yeah.
Yeah. He's just like some idiot with a gun.
Yeah.

Like if her dad had done something that warranted and made some kind of mortal insult to a guy and the guy shot him in a duel, she'd be sad, but she wouldn't try and find him. She would be like,

you know, that's life. The fact that it's meaningless is what gets her.
And the fact that when she meets him, it provides no answers or clarity to anything. It only makes it it more meaningless.

And then you're also like, yeah, and this guy's like the number five in this dude's shot. He's so stupid.
He's like unimportant. Yeah.
Yeah.

I love that every time LaBeouf leaves, he also has like his version of the emotional Oscar scene. He keeps doing the thing that Rooster won't do, which is like, hit your special.
Yeah.

I believe in you. Well, that's, oh, yes.
I

like that. He has like two monologues that feel like this is his last scene in the movie.
And he plays them really straight.

But like, here's the important words I have to leave her with, which makes it all the funnier when he comes back. Well, and I think to me, it shows you what a fucking blowhard, yes, this like because

it's when it's that time we're talking about earlier at the campfire where Rooster is being a piece of shit, and he's like, fuck you, I don't, I'm not helping. And this is LaBeef's time to shine.

And not only does he not help, but he gives some meaningless, eloquent speech instead.

And he thinks, saying a, I guess, giving her a heroic speech, that your words are more, they couldn't be less useful. They are the most useless, even it's like the most politician, like

you know, we're gonna give a big speech about how hard it is to fucking, to be, you know, to live in this, you know, everything's too expensive, but we're gonna raise taxes on you, you know what I mean?

Or we're gonna give billionaires a tax break, but we're gonna, it's the most two-faced bullshit. You're special, whatever, whatever.
Not gonna help you, by the way. It's like show don't tell, right?

Like, Rooster is all action. Yes.
And LeBoe is all tell. All tell, Yeah.
He can't do anything without telling you why he's doing it and why it's impressive and why you should be impressed. Yeah.

And like the fact that Rooster never even has a moment of being like,

you're a good kid. Right.
Like he won't give her an inch for a bite. Right.
Right. But he never, I mean, he fakes being like, oh, she's nothing to me.
And you take her.

But in his actions, you can tell. Of course.
He respects her. No, and he's going to go get her back.
Like, and you're weirdly never, it's tense. It's scary that she's with Tom

and like LeBeef saving her is exciting, but you're also kind of like yeah, Rooster's got this. Well, also because you kind of I mean, that is the thing of like starting with the adult.

You know, she lives. Yes, you know what I mean? Like that takes, I do think that it, that took the bite of like, does she actually die? Like this movie is kind of fucked up.

You know, you don't, but you don't know if Rooster dies. You don't know what happens to LaBeef.
You don't know what the fucking, what, what happens.

Well, it's also what she tells you at the beginning, which is like, everything, there's nothing free.

everything comes at a cost there is some give and take in any action you do in this world right and it's like what she doesn't understand is like she got what she wanted and it kind of maybe her up forever and the moment of her having the standoff with cheney and him trying to like sort of frankenstein walk towards her on the cliff and she has the courage to like stare him down and fire the gun and the moment when he shoots uh not gleason but the big guy with gleason

is so good because there's a really quick shot to haley steinfeld of her being like, Oh, I've witnessed a man being shot right in front of me.

And you realize in that moment, this is the first time she's seen this. Totally.
Right? This character, you see her going to a public hanging at the beginning of the film.

It's not like she's never seen a dead body. She's seen her father's dead body.
No. But this kind of like standoff, you know, in a fiery cabin, she's never seen before with like sweaty men.

And so that moment where she's there with Chaney, even though we know she knows how to fire a gun, she knows how to do this, she knows how to do that.

You wonder if she'll be able to do it in that moment.

And she fires the gun, successfully kills kills him, but immediately also is like pushed back into a ditch from the recoil because right immediately she's a tiny girl.

There's like a physical reality here. And now she's the girl at the bottom of a pit surrounded by snakes.
And it's like a child in danger.

Like as at the peak of her triumph and her victory, she's knocked all the way back down to like, you were a child in a dangerous world. Snakes are also really fucked up.
Yep. I said this to my wife.

I was like, snakes feels like something I made up when I'm a kid, like dragons and shit. Yep.
Like those are just real?

Yeah, little tubes that can kill you. Right.
That just like come out of nowhere. You just get into these conversations.
Poison in them? Like, with the voice is crazy.

Do you get in these conversations with your daughter? I feel like look who's talking to as a version of this joke where it's like, wait, so which things are real and which things aren't? Yeah.

You're telling me dinosaurs were real. I'm not.
Dragons are not. Snakes are present.
I'm not getting into that with her yet because I like that she just likes unicorns.

And I had a great convo with her the other day. Did I tell you this? Where like she'd had bad dreams and I was like, dream about something nice.
And she was like, What?

And I was like, Dream about unicorns. And she's like, Okay, you want to know my unicorn's names? And I was like, Hit me.
And she's like, Poop,

poopy, unicorn, pretty Johnny. And I was like, Johnny, Johnny and Poop, Poop, Johnny,

and Johnny Poop. That was the four.
Four beats. She did four beats before.
And I was like, It's one of those things where I'm like, that's kind of funny.

Like, oh, you're like doing slightly more complicated humor now. Like, yep.
Anyway, she's not leaving any meat on that bone either.

She found every

corner.

But yeah, I don't want to tell her unicorns aren't real because, like, I don't know. What do I care? Maybe they are real.
But you're right. Snakes do feel like a thing that should be real.

They feel fake. They're like from the Bible.
And you're like, yeah, that's like a monster from the Bible. That's not really.
So just beyond that, here's this girl at the bottom of a pit, right?

She's immediately scared and crying. Like she's showing vulnerability for the first time basically in the entire movie.

Just from being down there, being hurt, feeling stuck, calling out for a rooster, not hearing any response, being like,

there's a good chance no one ever finds me down here. And what's been powering her the whole thing is this

absolute like mission, you know, locked in. The mission's now over.
Now she is just a little kid in the fucking pit with nothing to drive her, no, nothing in their furnace.

All the coal has been burned. You just fucking killed the guy.
It's Jessica Chastain at the end of Zero Dark 30 being like, What the fuck do I do now? I killed Osama bin Lami.

He is the Osama bin Lamb. He's Osama.
Yep, 100%. And it's also, I will not, it's also the most on-the-nose.

I mean, this, at the, at the core, this movie is one of my favorites of like, I'm a big revenge movie guy. And the lesson almost always is it's not worth it.
It's not going to make it.

It's never worth it. It always fucks your life up more.
And this is, in, they, they hit that in multiple ways. I mean, we, we'll, we talked about it a little bit.

I'm sure we'll talk about the end end a little more. But this in the moment is the most on the nose.
The gun you fire to kill the guy backfires and leaves you in a pit of dead bodies and snakes.

Right. I mean, that's the most like granularly and in the biggest sense.
The metaphor is so loud. Yes.

But the whole thing that's been driving her has suddenly like dissipated, and now she's got nothing and she's in danger. And to like reach for a dead body while she's kind of like whimpering, right?

Like she's clearly like, okay, but I still have enough wits about me to figure out how to get my way out of here. Gotta get the knife.
Hold for a dead body.

It's a fucking skeleton body with a knife and a sheath. And then you reveal tummy full of snakes.
Crazy, velocity. Crazy vision.
There's not one to see. Yeah.

Tummy full of snakes. A knifed corpse full of snakes is a fucked up, fucked up vision.
Not just like, oh, there's one snake hiding here, but like a full belly of snakes. And they're all rattlers.

You hear the rattling. You know they're poison.
It's not just you're going to get bitten. You're going to die.
You're going to die.

And like, the whole, I was, I am like, I was shocked when the first time I saw it because I didn't think I hadn't read the book yet. Like, but I'm like, she loses her arm.
It feels so cruel.

Like I was upset the first time I saw this movie. Now you're just like, yeah, she needs that.
Like, it's like her battle wound.

And, like, it means like she can just be this, like, the woman she becomes, like, rather than having to deal with some gentleman. The guy of it.
Right. It's like Rooster comes down there, right?

He shoots all the fucking. Damn.

He is in Terminator mode. Then, like, then he's in full battle mode.
Like, the last HP or the

fucking clock. Bang, bang, bang, bang.
Yeah. He does the X over the snooze fight with the knife, which I love.
And then spits out.

and spits out the venom, right? Then pulls her back up, and then this thing where like the sky turns into this bizarre Fantasia as the swimmers

swelling. Those shots are like

horseback different levels of sunset. It's just like on the nose, beautiful cinematography.
Like it's so cool. But also, part of the implication is that

she's like hallucinating. Like it looks like starry nights.
Yes, yes. Yes.
And she's just like looking up at the sky as this guy's riding along.

And as he realizes, like, the horse is giving out, I got to stab the horse because the panic from the stab will make it run a little bit faster for shorter periods and she's calling out don't do it.

Don't hurt the horse. This world is too like cruel.
Can't do it. Horse is fucking dead.
He shoots the horse to put the horse out of its misery and then just fucking picks her up. No, it rocks.

And they like make it just in time for him to collapse. fire a gun into the air just enough to get someone to walk outside.
I'm going to start doing that when I show up at the studio.

And you're like, she just made it by a moment. And then you hard cut to she's an adult woman with one arm and has never seen him again.

And it's that, I love the idea that it's like they had a bond or whatever, but it might have almost been too intense for them to see each other.

But also, like, by the time she wakes up, the arm is gone and he is gone. Yeah.
She never communicates to him again. He doesn't want to like look her in the eye.
She can't do that.

He was too emotional. It's too emotional.
And he's shout out, feel your hand, you son of a bitch, which is like the coolest thing anyone's ever said in a movie.

But yes, he, yeah, he's taking the bit in his teeth.

But then, like, I love that also at the end of the movie, what she's going to, those Wild West shows that would travel the country at the turn of the century, it's like that is the end of the West.

Which you saying, like, now it's become this like fossil, we're dealing with the last and it's like these old

toughness this guy has in him, right? He's about to become a novelty, right? And he's going to spend the rest of his life

after this moment, yeah, being like a children's entertainment, like a broken word, just guys being like, I remember I saw Wild Bill Hickok three three times.

The first time he looked me in the eye and he said, you got me sugar, you know, like whatever.

And then they shoot the bottle and everyone applauds. Right.
And then a beard lady comes up.

So she's mad that the other guy doesn't stand up. Is that why she calls him trash? Absolutely great that she just

tears that. The one guy takes his hat off.
Yes.

The other guy doesn't. The other guy's just like.
Yes.

But yes, no, he writes her a letter inviting her to come to the show. And by the time she gets there, they're like, he died three days ago.
Rudolph.

To this point, in the same way that like too hot

they're like it got kind of hot yeah

not really a warm

breeze then you might have made the you might have reconnected with the most important person in your life you were i mean the amount and you get the sense that this is not a woman who like

looks forward to a lot and you and her life has not been easy and yes i i think the biggest tragedy is the heartbreaking part of this is that she peaked this was the best moment this was the most how do you how do you top this week of her life.

It was the most alive she ever was.

And to Ben's point, you're not, you know, like be, she, this is the week that she triumphed over being a woman in the Wild West and being a child.

She escaped the dangers that like being, you know, that, being that kind of person, you were in danger and you overcame all of that. You earned the respect of like tough fucking killer cowboys.

You killed one. You personally fucking killed the guy that killed your dad.
And the, your reward for that is you'll never feel as alive.

You'll never, you'll never feel people won't, you won't be able to relate to people. You probably were kind of a weird person to begin with.
Absolutely.

Who does this girl even become if she doesn't do this? That's the thing. She's probably kind of annoying.
Kind of odd. You know what I'm saying?

The only alternate path for her is if they successfully talk her out of going on this mission in the first place and go, now you got to go to finishing school.

Yeah, no, she can, but there's like this where they're like, put down the fucking gun and the hat.

We're going to teach you how to talk and walk like a proper lady become a school teacher and then marry someone and then like the woman she is at this point the end of the movie you're like she could have been like a sassy lady who owns a saloon and doesn't take any guff but she's almost like that's like a parody of a person i'm just gonna be me right and there's no place for me in this world and she's not elizabeth marvel so good with such little screen time in this but like She won't let on how excited she is to see Rooster.

You can tell. In the same way that she feels like if I shoot Tom Cheney, it will resolve my anger about my father being taken from me.

She clearly thinks if I get to have one final emotional conversation with Rooster, the conversation that wins Jeff Bridges, the Oscar, this will all come together for me.

And she gets in there like, no, just by happenstance, he died three days ago. It was a little too hot.
Life sucks. And then she sort of says, like, I heard that LeBoff's maybe still out there.

He'd be 80 now. Probably.
I never got in touch with him. Probably not.
Right. Yeah.
He's probably dead. And then she just walks off.
And it's just time comes for us all.

That's the best thing that you're just like, oh, that's it. And then you're like, yeah, of course that's it.
There's nothing good.

The ending line, she delivers as if there's more to the sentence. Right.
She

thinks she's about to say one last thing. She goes, time comes for us all.
And you're like, what's the end of the thought? Done. Walks off.
Music swells directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen.

It's a perfect movie, in my opinion. It was, yeah, incredible.
And yes, so heartbreaking.

And yeah, and even the LaBeef thing, she's like, she, even in that, she's like, I would have, I kind of, she's still holding. I hope that at least she'll see LaBeef.

I think even in the way she says that, it's like, you can tell she wants this so bad. And that's, you're right.
The actress's name, you said Elizabeth Marvel. Yeah.
Yeah.

So little screen time and you can, and she never says anything that tells you she wants this. And you, it's palpable how bad she wants this

and how much she's disappointed. And maybe a little of it, a little bit of it leaks out into the like calling the guy trash a little.

But even that feels more like, no, I just dis I will disrespect anyone who's disrespectful towards me. I'm not going to take off.
I'm not going to take off.

But man, being able to communicate how devastating it is for her is, and yeah, and even it, life is bullshit and nothing good ever happens.

And even if you have an adventure where you're the king, you, you figure it out and you, you do everything you possibly want to, it ultimately doesn't make your life better.

It probably makes it worse. You lose your fucking arm over it.
Congrats.

Now you don't have an arm and you're you're you're pissed off and then the end of your life also sucks well here's the other the other quietly so awesome and true quietly profound and depressing thing that happens at the very end of the movie i agree with everything you just said the other quiet and and profound thing that happens at the end of the movie is that it hard cuts from her telling the guy who stayed suit with the hat on to go himself right and then she says she got the casket She tracked down Rooster's body.

She tried to bury him properly. She got it out of that like random cemetery.
Right.

and what's written on the casket says uh cogburn yale county hold at station same thing her dad's casket right it's just got like a fucking shipping label on it that's like trash you know but that's how they labeled her dad's casket yeah yes so she just gets the casket and then it hard cuts to her standing at his grave site in the snow on top of this hill and in that shot she's aged another like 20 years right she's got old age makeup on so it's like 20 years after the moment where she we're not seeing her bury him we're seeing her return to the grave and you can just fill in the blanks and be like i guess she probably just comes back here and checks on it a lot that the closer she never got with this guy she just comes back and was like i need to have him in a place where i can go visit and just stare at him steely-eyed and then walk away right and everyone's like did they you know that's what she you know

did they right right because everyone's like why would you take the casket of a man you didn't even know that well what is this you knew for a couple of days. They don't get it.
They don't get it.

But I get it. It's another funny thing to consider:

you think about how rough a shape Rooster's in for this movie. If she had gotten there three days earlier, he would have been bad.
Yeah, true. Yeah.
Right? That's a rooster 25 years later.

I mean, at this point, he must spend, I don't know, three, probably a blank check episode worth of time on the toilet. And he did like blank check and he did listen to it.

Elf forget the BMs out. I'm a bit of a David dog.

This movie came out Christmas Eve, 2010, Griffin.

Opens number two. You did say numbers one and three, but just to remind us.

Fockers is one. Tron Legacy is two? No, so Falkers is one.
Yeah. True Drayt is two.
Oh, Tron Legacy is three. It has been out for a couple of weeks.
Correct. Yeah.
Those are the big three.

It's not a great time at the movie theater. This is a whole thing where I'm like, True Grit rocks.
Yeah.

I defend Tron Legacy, but obviously it's like a basically baffling movie to release to a wide audience. Little Falkers, dog shit.

Number four at the box office is the, I don't know, like third or fourth in like a fantasy series. I think in the last,

it's not Voyage of the Dawn Trail. It is.

Three. They only made three.

Yeah. Right.
I couldn't remember how many of those they made. Yeah.
But like, that's something where everyone was like, sorry, no, we don't want this. They're like, the Chronicles of Narnia continue.

I was like, no, man. We were kind of out on that from the beginning.

I was talking to my dad about this last night and he was like, so is Greta Gerwig still doing doing like narnia 2 and i was like no she's making her first narnia right and he was like but wasn't there someone else made a narnia like a year or two ago and i was like that was they made three narnia bush administrations 15 to 20 years ago and he was like did anyone like it i was like first one huge hit right people flocking and they were like i guess this is the new lord of the rings second one huge drop off Disney abandons it.

Fox is like, I guess there's still money in this, right? The kids don't cost much. What do you got to pay for? A lion?

And they put that one out and and everyone's like i don't know who gives a really i don't know just abandon it it was like due to lack of interest they never finished the books yeah that's

and she's now those books only get weirder and but she's adapting different books right isn't she doing magician's nephew in theory i have no idea okay that is canonically the first isn't that the most like

harry potter was a big hit we have to just

yeah that's the most classic hollywood should have like reached what else

english magic and lord of the ramp we dig were both launching the same year. It was like, yeah, it was the same year.

They both come out right after 9-11. Yeah.
Wow. And our family is a lot of fun.

Harry Potter is Thanksgiving, Lord of the Rings is Christmas, and America is like, yeah, we love British people doing magic. Yeah.
Right. And defeating pure evil.
Yeah. Yeah.

I saw that. That's another, definitely saw Harry Potter.
I was a big Harry Potter book guy when I was a kid. We're this, I mean, you're a couple years younger than me, but like that's, I was too.

I mean, the book was for our generation.

And now I don't like the book as much, but I love J.K. Rowling's politics.
That's the right thing. I kind of shipped me around.
You got to separate the yacht from the artist.

I'm a big fan of the artist. My problem with the books is that they don't talk about that stuff enough.

I kind of flipping through the books and I'm like, yeah, but where's all the good rows? Someone hasn't really found their thing yet.

The thing that clearly makes you really happy.

You sit back with a cigar and tweet, and I go, What a happy woman! You have the right observation in the world, but like, can't she just buy a yacht? It's crazy, dude. Like, get off your phone.

You want to look at Twitter? It's crazy. that sucks it's crazy that sucks for no matter you you can like

buy anything you want you could like be like roast me a swan and someone be like i'm on it like fine i'll weird for you it's the true grit of like anyone who's got the making of who wants to be rich as

can't chill yeah right you have to be

right

anyone who wants to be president is innately kind of gonna be a piece of a psychopath there's not one good person that's ever wanted to be president not one

Number five of the box office is, oh, yeah, okay.

Kids movie, adaptation of a kids' cartoon. It's an adaptation of a kid's cartoon.
Is it like a kid? It's another dog shit movie. This one's a dog shit time.

Is it a continuation of a cartoon or it's like a later

Flintstones movie-esque that? Live action?

But with a, you know, cartoon. It's not chipmunk.
Like Smurfs. It's not a Smurfs.
It's not Smurfs. But it's one of these.
It's like there's a CGI.

There's some actor who's, you know, wants to kill himself every night. It's not that, but again, you know.
Tell me, the source material is like Saturday morning cartoon. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Castle. December 2010.
I'm trying to think of like what the shitty. And this is one that I imagine just didn't really work.

No, I mean, I don't think the movie is good, but I think it, you know, it probably

is Day of the Lost. It's Yogi Bear.
Yeah. It's Yogi Bear.
Yogi Bear. Yogi Bear.

Aykroyd and Timberland. Justin Timberlake.
Of course Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake are the voices of Yogi Bear.

And like, the who's the real life john kavanaugh is ranger smith but then anna ferris is like

the reporter yeah hell yeah shout out to

the story she's breaking a very story

they're stealing picnic baskets or whatever yeah there's an incredible video It's so well done that people thought at the time was this like a VFX artist on the Yogi Bear movie going rogue and it was just like posted by some anonymous account.

But it is the end of not the end, but the titular assassination of Jesse James

being done with the CGI model. That's really funny.

That is very funny. It's really good.

Where is Anna Ferris, man? She's so funny. It is weird.
She sneaks, man. I mean, she had to come for his.

She is seven years a mom. I guess nobody makes comedies anymore.
That's a big part of it. Nobody makes comedies anymore.
Nobody takes women over 40 seriously.

So I'm still pulling for the comeback. When I was in Toy Story 5, I'm aware she, I believe she's playing the main villain.
Okay, that's fun. Yeah, Lily Pad, I think.

I made a bet to my friend Jake in high school. I was like, she is going to win an Oscar.
Wow. I'm like calling it now.
I mean, I'm a big Ferris guy, but I don't know that I would have made that one.

It was because she had just had the small parts in Lost in Translation

and Broke Back Mountain. Oh, right.
Where it's like, she was in two fucking best picture novels. I mean, she's got it.
I guess you're right. She's kind of got it.
Where she's got small parts.

And I was like, and clearly good directors recognize she's got more she can do.

And I was like, someday someone's going to find the perfect kind of like dramedy role and she'll win supporting actress and it does feel like we've gone a little off course i'm pulling for the comeback there's a there's like a very uh profoundly upsetting new yorker profile on her when what's your number was coming out and it was about how hard she had fought to prove that she was a movie star and how like she was the lead of four scary movies that were all big hits but they were like yeah but that wasn't because of you And she had to fight so hard to get the house bunny.

She was struggling for so long playing like the best friend or the crazy ex-girlfriend or whatever it was, but never got to be the star of the movie. House bunny was her thing, house bunny was dumped.

It was a big hit. And she was like, Great, now I have you, power.
They'll let me do what I want. And she sets up what's your number.

And the whole article is about how they're like, Can you be less weird?

Can you be kind of a little more? What even is what's your number?

I don't even know it. It's like she's like, I had to marry one of the guys.
I've she finds out that she's fucked 20 guys.

And they're like, if you haven't already found the one and you fuck 20 people, body camp scores back in the morning. You're a four and you should be thrown into the garbage.
Right.

So you have to pick from one. She can't meet a new guy.
And she goes back to the previous.

No, it's so much worse. It's that Chris Evans is the new guy she meets who's her next door neighbor.
But

she can't fuck him because she already has 20. And then at the end of the movie, Aziz Ansari leaves a voicemail and he's like, hey, I got your call.
Actually, we never fucked. We just did hand stuff.

And she's like, I'm at 19. I can fuck Chris Evans.
It's directed by Mark Mylott,

who later becomes the main director of succession, directs the menu.

It is like the crassest, dumbest comedy. It's so fucking bad.
That sucks.

And it bombed. And they were like, never mind, you're not a movie star.
And then she goes to CBS.

And the crux of that article is she's like, my dream project is I have been developing comedy single white female. Hell yeah.

And they keep going like, great. We'll give that a green light.
You're, of course, going to play the Bridget Fonda part, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll play her grandmother.
Right.

And she's like, no, I want to be like the weird psycho. And they were like, no, you're a leading lady now.
You can't play weirdos anymore. You have to be like a romantic leader.

But what she would rock. Whatever.
She would rock. Yeah.
Let's bring Ferris back. Ferris back.
Just to give you the other six is the fighter, which is a great

time at the theater. That's another.
I saw that with my girlfriend.

Did you guys have a good time? We did. We loved it.
In fact, I remember

Wahlberg's back gave me body dysmorphia. I was like, fuck, I want to that back leg.
I was talking about how I wanted a back leg Wahlberg in the fighter for like months.

You're like going to Jim's back.

And they're like, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Also, he's like our size. That's the other thing.
He's short.

He's a short king.

Melissa Leo, of course, beats Haley Steinfeld for best supporting actress. Correct.
Correct.

Number. Wow, I really, this is crazy how.
I thought I was checked out on culture. I don't know.
I think I was just mad at

Burn After Reading because I was dumb. How did I not see this in because this year is like a social network, King's Speech ends up winning most of the big awards.
The fighter best movie of all.

127 hours. Kids are all right.
True Grit. True Grit is one of the most nominated movies with zero wins.
It's so weird that I missed this

around this time. It's so weird.
I don't know. I mean, and it doesn't win because they had just, everyone had just won an Oscar.
They're like, well, the Cohen's just won. Bridges just won.

Like, you know, like, that's the reason. Score is disqualified because it uses so much traditional music.
But like,

it not winning cinematography, costume, art director. Who went to cinematography? Well, okay.
Cinematography went to social network, I'm pretty sure.

Like, the thing is, social network's kind of the big critics fan.

I mean, it's good, but I mean, the cinematography

is no argument for me, my friend. I love this movie.

King's speech wins costume.

Is that right? That movie sucks. That movie.
Yeah.

The whole thing with King's Speech is you're like, if that movie won zero Oscars, then I would be like, yeah, it's a fun that King has to do the speech.

They were like, best picture of the, come on up, King. And you're like, no, come on.
Like, especially if you're like,

it's in the Green Book category. Yes.
Of, like, if it doesn't win anything, you're like, this is kind of stupid, but fun. Yeah, yeah.
I mean,

yeah. I mean, like, if Greenbook had won any Oscars, I'd be like, that awesome movie where Vigo eats the whole pizza.
Like, that was good.

Do you remember that thing where there's that movie's kind of good? The really weird room where they do the lessons in King's Speech that has those

cracking paint and all that. And colored walls.
And everyone's like, where did they find this location?

And then guys on gay Twitter were like, I know where they found it, and pulled up that there's like a ton of gay porn that was shot in that exact room. Awesome.
That's fucking awesome.

Just like Twitter was

someone's got to do the like the parody of a king's gay porn parody.

Every time the guy's about to suck dick, he like hesitates. And he's like, No, no, no, focus, open your mouth and suck the dick.
He's got a debilitating stutter that stops him from giving guys head

from deep throat yeah from deep throat he has to be he can only get it from the top of his mouth yeah

david this is good it's very intangible this is good i know we had stavio on the show i agree i'm not mad about it i'm not at all david's head is an issue i just have to tell you that number seven at the box office was tangled Okay, good movie.

A great movie. I watch it all the time with my favorite movie of that era.
Number eight is the, oh, right, New This Week, Giant Bomb, the Jack Black Gulliver's Travel Travis movie. Oh, yes.

Nine is Black Swan. Which he said basically killed his career for like three years.
This is such an interesting era because all the big movies I'm saying, Fokkers, Gulliver's, Narnia, like suck.

But then you have like True Grit the Fighter and at number nine, Black Swan, which are like grown-up ass Oscar movies that make 100 million plus dollars.

You know, like the fighter got over a hundred million. Yes, like they're these like, you know, proper hits for grown-ups.
Right. Now they would all be 10-episode Hulu mini series, of course.
Yes.

And uh, number 10 at the box office, of course, is the tourist with uh Jolie and Pitt. You're right, though.
Like, the expected hits are all kind of bombing, yeah.

And then, actual so, audiences are like, I guess I'll see the movie where the girl like rips her nails off and like makes out with Mila Cunis. This is a movie, fine, I don't want to ignore that.

That was humongous, yeah.

That's not that, like, this was it's just funny that mainstream America was like, Yeah, Black Swan, fine, I'll take a piece of that.

It feels like this was a year where six out of the 10 best picture nominees made over $100 million. It's a stacked year at the Oscars.
Because Black Swan, True Grit, King's Speech, Toy Story 3,

The Fighter, Toy Story. Social Network probably made a lot of money.
It was like 90s.

Of course, Winter's Bone made $400 million.

Inception. Inception.

Like, there's a summer

nominees that is a huge original hit, you know, and all that. But that's the thing that it feels like we've lost is like family together on Christmas.
And they're like, I heard Fokker sucks.

I guess we should go see the Coen Brothers Western instead. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Today you'd be like, I heard Fokker sucks. I guess we stay home and watch YouTube.
Exactly. Yeah, you're right.

Absolutely. This was the first time.
No, let's try seeing something a little off the beaten path. Yeah.
Although, Christmas still might be the one time

where people go to the movies. Because people are tired of staying at home

with all the family. And it's such a tradition of like, go see a movie.
I mean, Nosferati made a ton of money at Christmas. I loved it.

I loved seeing that shit. I'm so excited for that.

Like for

what?

For wolves yeah you're excited for wolves see that that again that to me is kind of like hair ridiculous that the way we're talking about the yiddish policeman's union is two on the nose yeah yeah yeah him being that makes

where was a million which by the way i will again we'll be there day one but it is like where like it's not even the announcement of next christmas Robert Edgar's fast-tracking focus features wolves with a V.

Yeah, yeah. I was just like, my guy, don't play into the I know, but that's all he wants to do.
You're cruising for a bunch of people.

What if he was like, I want to make a movie about like the black experience at the sort of Harlem Renaissance? People would be like, you don't want to be like werewolves, maybe in like Eastern Europe?

What about that? I do think sometimes, though, those kinds of guys gotta fucking whiff that hard, do something they shouldn't do, so that when they go back to Verwolf's, people are like, thank you.

Maybe the producer advice is like, hey, keep that in your pocket, do something with it. Do you want people asking for it rather than like this shit again? And

I love Edgar's and my favorite, but my favorite part is like, I wanted to just stay in the market that Holt is running through to get to work. Like,

he is so good at making these worlds real. It's like the Cohen's in that same way where you're just like, fuck, I'm thinking about this guy in the background.
Yeah, dude, the Roma shit.

Like, the inn and they're dancing and all that shit. Like, oh, it's that stuff is so.
And the rest of the movies are great too. And, you know, but God he is so good at the world, man.
Yes.

He's so good. Yeah, no, that's in a way that he might, he might be one of the only guys that's better than the Cohens at it.
They're in the

Cohens are better at the little characters being more fleshed out, but the actual

setting and the design and all that kind of shit, he might, I think he's better. Well, he's also, I mean, his whole thing is just like obsessive research, which is, it's awesome.

That's my favorite, you know. Like, even like sometimes I want a little more action, a little more meat from his shit, but man, this, the worlds are so good.

Nusaratu for me, I generally enjoy, but the castle stuff, Hult going to the castle and getting fucked with, the weird villagers, the actual

all that shit. I was just like, this rocks.
Once he went back and he was like, there's a vampire coming, I was like, that's fine. But I really just liked him going to see Count Orlock.

Yeah, that was fucking awesome. And then them having dinner and Orlock being like, that picture is so beautiful, your wife.
You know, all that shit. And you know the thing, wife's pussy hair.

Did your wife bring any pussy hair for me

she kind of does right yeah

walk in on your dead wife entangled in a fucking nosfratu's dead body

they die

good yeah yeah i guess we dealt with that

together

all right come on let's wrap this up man

you know the thing about graf wolverlock though what's up he loves to pull the cord cork.

Yeah, it's blood in there, though. Yeah, blood.

On top of pull the cork, another thing I love is anytime you watch an old-timey movie where characters talk about drink. Singular.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right, right.

You've resorted to drink. Well, there's water to drink.
I mean, there was no water. Yeah.
You kind of had to just drink really shitty fucking water down. You're not going to be here in whiskey.

But it's never drinking. It's not he drinks a lot.
He's a man of drink. He drinks.
Yeah. He's a man of drink.
absolutely, singular. Uh, Stoffi, thank you for being here, guys.
Thank you so much.

Yeah, truly a pleasure. This was so fun.
I love the show. I, uh, I discovered

I discovered in a bad time. And I always

people find blankets. Yeah, yeah, I was at my absolute lowest.
I had gone through every other possible podcast. It was the NBA offseason.
There was nothing to, there were no pods to listen to.

Right, exactly,

I think Hattie started listening the second they took her arm off. That's how she got to see.
Wait, I actually want to know, right? What were like, how did you find this?

No, I literally was just like at a point where I had been, it was like, I had worked so hard for so long and I had gotten so like fat and addicted to drugs. And I needed to go dry out in Baltimore.

And I truly was, I couldn't be with my own thoughts. And I also am like, in the last couple of years, I've really, I've always been kind of a movie fan, whatever.

Obviously, like being a little kid and my, we would go to the library and get movies that way.

But, you know, my family was, you know, we're Greek and all the media we consumed was not, we were never huge movie people. And, you know, I'm trying to get into it more and more.

And so, yeah, that summer I was like, I have to lose weight. I don't want to be with my thoughts.
I want to also maybe act a little bit. I want to learn how movies are made, whatever.

I started, I would watch any, I would listen to like movie pods and you kind of, there's not that many of them. And then I just found, I was just looking up that's even though we have,

even though we have like afterwards, it's like, it's clear we have so many mutual friends. And and it's kind of weird.
There was never an intersection before that.

And we, we, we were both kind of in that weird 2016, like we started Cometowns, the Doughboys. There's a weird 2016 wave of podcasts.
And we were all

second wave where we were all kind of like,

there's a lot of podcasts. This won't work.
Comedy Bang, Bang, and Marin already exists. It's like there's eight podcasts.
This American Life, Comedy Bang, Bang, and Marin. Nobody else.

There's no room for anyone else. We're all done.
And so, but for whatever reason, and I found it and I just fucking, yeah, I love the show.

and any, you know, it also kind of the way you guys go about it with the actual directors is really fucking cool. So, yeah, huge fan.
This is

fun. We were talking about how much we love you and how great you were on Doughboys.
And then I was doing the Doughboys live stream

and you were in the lobby of the hotel. And you were like, I saw the show was happening.
I was visiting my parents. I'll just come by.
And we ended up hanging out for the night with my father as well.

My dad's the man, by the way. Who was in town for a funeral? Yeah.
And immediately was like, this guy's the best. Who is this guy? Oh, man.
You are a Pete favorite.

You're the kind of guy.

He truly calls you his hero now. But you immediately said, I'm a fan of the podcast.
And I was like, that's crazy. We'd have you on anytime.
Come on, man. And I said, we're doing Cohen's.

And you'd like grab me by the shoulders. And I've been watching all of them on the live stream.
I love them. I'm so ready to go.
I had just watched, yeah, we just watched No Country.

We had just watched the one I, Miller's Crossing,

which huge favorite.

You know, you got, I understand you got somebody with a similar, who's a similar, a big deal in the movie world as I am kind of someone right around the same hopefully that episode has happened

yeah but no I I love the Cohen so much and you know and this was so this was so fun come back I'd love to

I'm here baby and I'll also say this too I feel like

I keep I've heard several stories of very successful stand-ups and people like you who have huge followings right who get offered like small parts in good movies with good directors and are like why the fuck would I do that I'd make more money on the road.

Oh, I lose money doing that. Without question, exactly.
But talking to you at the bar after the Doughboys show, you were just sort of like, why isn't ever my position wanting to do this?

Why wouldn't you want to be a guy who can pop up for a week

and be part of a fucking great movie and work with great people? It's the and I love that you're entering that stage of your career. And I like watching all these Cohen movies, I'm like,

you're, you're the kind of guy. Polito is who I want to be.
Yeah. Like when I see him pop up, I'm like, that's the

That guy. I think you're on the runway.
Thanks, man. Yeah.
I mean, by the time this airs, I'll have been panned and begoned. I haven't seen it.
I haven't seen it. So I am so worried.

I realized the movie. This movie was so good.

Look at this fucking movie. But you were telling me that you like

your reps and you were like, is it crazy that I think I could be good at doing a couple scenes in a drama? I think I could, can you position me for this?

Which I think people in your position today are not doing. That's my whole, like, it's crazy to have gotten this movie.

And I don't know, maybe my great-grandfather owed Yorgo's great grandfather a goat or something. And that's the real story.

He's just like some villager debts have been cleared this way. But I thought if I'm lucky in 10 years, maybe I get to be, you know, a guy who has a very memorable scene in a diner in a PTA movie.

That's the absolute goal. That's the absolute torque

of what I want to go to. And so.
I hope I didn't blow it.

And somebody else has let me in a movie that I don't know if that's out, you know, I don't know if that that report has gotten out but it's really cool yeah and yeah i love because yeah dude you grow the first your first and even through comedy your first my first exposure to comedy is comedy is john candy is is you know chris farley movies eddie murphy it's just like and then you grow up loving sandler and then you basically reverse engineer how did these people get there like for me like discovering stand-up and sketch and all these things was being like so where does this guy come from where did this guy come from why'd they just let this guy be in movies yeah yeah yeah right you're like he was in dirty dirty clubs for 10 years.

Absolutely. So, yeah, it's funny.
It's, it's, I still don't, I don't understand how any part of my career has happened. And this, the least of all.
It's like stand-up.

It's like, all right, you just fucking, you eat enough shit.

And there's only, there's only like 100 people who are this suicidal and have decided they're willing to sacrifice everything that they'll just work clubs or, you know, do nothing else. Like,

you should just go get a regular job instead of do stand-up. It's a horrible lifestyle.
Bro, we're broken people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But acting is, I don't understand how it's happening.

But yeah, please, hopefully, I didn't blow it in Begonia. And I would love to just be.
And the Cohens are the exact type of, I mean, there's so many dreams. You need them.

You need them to reunite just in time to ask for

who's the Polito of this generation. Dude, that's all I want, dude.
I just, so I can play it. I can play bully, like bullies or cucks.
That's kind of my like,

that's my, that's my kind of, you know, zone. I'm not, this is going to sound rude, but it's not.
Like, you do have the vibe with something that Yorgos

just dreamed up. You know what I mean? Like, Yorgos is like, I'm going to write down another weirdo.
Yeah. He's just imagining you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I'm a, I'm a definitely a, the, I was toothless for a while, and that's when I was sure my acting career was going to take off. I was like, I'm a fat, weird, toothless.
It was a distant cloth.

Throw me in there, but you know, whatever. I appreciate it, guys.

It's an important part of becoming a movie star. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I don't know when this comes out, but I think. It's in October, right when the movie's coming out, October 19th.

So I'm also going to be in Austin, Texas, and I'm going to be in Boston at the Will. Austin, I'm going to be in November, and Boston, I'm going to be in December.

So yeah, come see me. I'm also...

still working on a on a special that i'm very oh actually i got a lot of stuff coming up actually i'm going to be in memphis huntsville chattanooga knoxville asheville greensboro wilmington

myrtle beach tour yeah yeah i did a bus tour this year and I'm doing a minivan tour.

Freaking out.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, I did a really prestigious bus theater tour, did the Chicago theater, 3,000 people.
Now I'm like, give me the fucking comedy Cambana and Myrtle Beach.

Let's get back to our room. You're doing a little red wagon tour.
Dude, it's going to be, yeah, literally, we're all in the tour.

Dude, I'm basically going to be, I'm going to be in a fucking minivan for you. I'm in the,

I'm betting money it's going to be a Chrysler Pacifica

throughout the southeast, and then Austin, Texas on the 22nd, Boston on the

on December 12th and 13th. But yeah, come see me do stand-up, watch a movie.
I have a, if you got, you know, you guys have big movie fans, obviously, I made an indie movie called Let's Start a Cult.

It's on Hulu. You can watch it there.

So yeah, that's where you can find me. Thanks, guys.
You're the best, and we look forward to having you on again. Absolutely.
Yeah, come back. Come do Stavby's World anytime, boys.
Happily.

We got to shout out Eldis. Eldis.
Yeah. You guys are in a, yeah, you're in a fraternity of elite producers with L.
Yeah, Ben and Eldis. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You got, please come do come do the podcast.
We're going to be we're going to be moving into Manhattan, I think, soon. That's fine.
That's fine. I'll go to the big apple.

Come to the big apple. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.
Tune in next week for Inside Lou and Davis.

Correct? Yep. Nope.
Next week, I guess we're covering A House of Dynamite. Okay.
The new Catherine Bigelow movie about nukes.

At the time we're recording this. We think Catherine Bigelow's Netflix movie is coming at around this time.
And if not, we'll have changed this. So we won't be listening to this.

Yeah.

And as always, time comes for us all.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley.
Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas.

And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon.
This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy.
Research by J.J. Birch.
Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel.

With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.
Our production assistant is Minic.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

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