A House of Dynamite

Blank Jack with Griffin and David

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

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

I was listening to this dynamite the other day, and it said we're living in a house full of podcasts.

Now here's what's going on.

Marie sees this movie first of the four of us.

She texts us, oh my god, you guys, the big monologue in the movie, the monologue that provides the title for the film already has the word podcast in it.

Correct.

Ben and I go see the movie like a couple nights later.

That line comes up.

Ben like slaps himself in the face.

He like face palms, right?

Oh, it's not.

If you're going to do the Leo pointing meme,

which I did.

I did my part don't do it after one you've already had the title of the movie appear yeah and then two you've named the third chapter of your movie that as well and had that title appear and and by the way

yeah just just it just kind of felt like itrisalba was like and by the way the metaphor is that it's we've built a house full of dynamite i heard that on a podcast i was trying to do and you just did it well the idris elba thing where it's like 95 perfect american accent

I think he has had better American accents in the past, but always what you're describing where it's like, ah, some vowels are escapable.

Vowels are out.

Yeah, some same words.

Get babe, the sheep pig.

Let's get these vowels back.

This was, I wasn't sure what was going on.

He kind of sounded British to me the whole time.

I was really confused.

I forgot that he was the president.

Where's your mom?

I forgot.

I like saw that he was in the movie.

Oh, you forgot that he was was gonna be in the movie i forgot that he was gonna be in the movies well then the whole time i'm like well who's the president who's the president that's what they reveal and i was i saw this movie at nighthawk so i was like writing things down on my little like you know order cards um and one of the things was like what he sounds like cuomo Like he's got like

Jesus.

You were writing them down for your husband, I assume, you saw the movie with.

And I'm like, is it going to be like some, like, sometimes he sounds a little Trumpy.

Sometimes he sounds like Cuomo.

There's definitely like a New York accent.

There was just like too much going on.

And then when they had the Idris reveal, I was like, oh.

Oh.

Okay.

I am plausible casting as a president.

We're going to talk about it.

There's a lot.

You keep saying we're going to talk about things.

What are we going to do ourselves?

I have to finish my setup.

All right.

You built, you've written a lot.

You built a house for yourself.

Ken's like, no.

We go see this movie also at Nighthawk.

By the way, Marie, I thought what you were going to say is Nighthawk Dine In Theater, you on the little order card wrote down who is playing the president and asked the server to answer.

Well, you know what I did write down for the server?

There was a guy in front of me who was vaping.

Fuck.

He lets out a fucking cloud of smoke in the middle of the movie.

And I'm like, I'm sorry.

This is a civilized theater.

We don't do that here.

This is not a house full of dynamite.

This happened to me on the subway yesterday and I like sat down, woman next to me takes out a vape pen the moment I sit down, blows a puff of smoke.

I'm like, sorry, other side of the car.

I am not sitting next to you.

I don't approve.

I don't vape anymore.

Yeah.

I know at one time I did and I would vape in studio and I've learned my lesson.

You're squeaky clean Benny.

Yes.

You vaped in this studio?

No, when we used to record at the Audioboom studios, I occasionally would take a quick little puff.

I was a little fuck the man.

Now you're the man.

Who are you fucking if you vape in the studio?

That's true.

This line comes up.

We go see the movie of Truck Torrance.

Yeah.

Great artist.

Friend of the show.

Man behind 100% Soft was in town for New York Comic-Con.

And Alan Smithy, anonymous editor of blank check.

And the four of us are talking after the movie.

And you're, I think Truck is like, well, it makes your life easy.

The quote's just there.

Right.

And I was like, I think I want to flip the word dynamite and podcast in the quote.

Because for the first time, we have a quote with podcast in it.

Is it funny to overdo the bit?

And then Alan Smithy was like, you should just say the word podcast 15 times.

And I was like, let me find the exact quote and then I'll do it.

There is no way to find the exact quote.

We saw this in theaters.

No one's writing it.

It's not on Netflix yet.

No, not yet.

We don't have a screen or link.

I was just like, I only remember the one sentence.

I think I got it right.

But also, the three times.

You didn't get it exact, but who cares?

House of Dynamite as title Chiron, line in movie, and title of film are worded three different ways.

It's true.

It's house full of dynamite.

I think that's the chapter heading.

Right, exactly.

It's just

filled with dynamite as one time, I think.

But like, you can't say,

in my opinion, you can actually do whatever you want.

We live in a free country.

For the time.

Yeah, right.

Or maybe not by the time the story comes out.

Sort of.

We live sort of in a free free country.

Kind of.

15 asterisks.

Yeah.

But like, I don't think your movie can have someone say the title and preface it with, I heard this on a podcast.

Oh, my God.

And then it's like, oh, oh, and what, what's the character president of the United States?

And I'm like, I was, I work for a podcast and I was so

embarrassed.

I felt so ashamed.

Anytime a podcast comes up in any movie, I immediately knock it a star.

Right.

And maybe it's, it's self-loathing.

We're in, this is is a room.

Thank God for podcasts.

They saved our lives.

Of course.

I like podcasts.

But the second movies give any weight to podcasts.

I'm like, this movie's dumb.

Well, especially because he's a fucking politician.

He's the goddamn president.

I will say.

Why is he listening to podcasts?

We are saying this in the week, Obama.

That Obama concludes WTO.

Not by that he's listening to podcasts.

Of course he's listening to podcasts.

Debate.

Like, oh, sure, should Obama be doing something different with his post-presidency?

Fine.

Yeah, you should go on Theo Vaughn.

I'm more just saying, yeah, you should go on and be like, what's the matter with you?

What if Obama just went all?

No, he's just like, what's the matter with you?

Yes.

He just said that over and over again.

What's going on?

What's your deal?

Theo, he's got

okay.

Well, we'll not wait into all this and we'll introduce our show in a second.

Obama should go on Joe Rogan.

It's just that the guy's literally being asked, like, hey, so what amount of nukes should we fight?

And he's like, literally taking should we fire?

And he's like, yeah, so I heard something on a podcast once.

I would be like, let's table that until we're in fucking Fort, fort you know

apocalypse we got less than five minutes going on i don't want you quoting any podcast now

here is what does exist on the quotes page for a house of dynamite the new film from catherine bigler first in six years i believe that's right seven okay i think detroit was 2017 2018 i believe so i believe i mean you could tell me anything here

it was 2017.

jesus wow so it's been eight years eight years uh here's what's on the quotes page S-A-I-C-Kencho.

And then in brackets, talking to Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves, the carrier of quote-unquote the football that holds the nuclear launch codes and about how many presidents he's worked for and about the current serving president portrayed by Idris Elba.

End of brackets.

I've worked for three.

They're all narcissists.

At least this one reads the newspaper.

None of that context necessary.

Who is the lunatic who adds that to IMDb?

I don't know.

But they didn't add the line I was looking for.

Look, this is blank check with Griffin and David.

I am griffin i'm david

that's not the kind of rapid response the president

it's ben hosley hello ben and i'm uh commander lieutenant maria bardy salinas there we're kind of more lieutenant commander i don't know

i don't know hands are up my hands are up democratic party bardy well although this movie doesn't pick sides doesn't pick sides i'm technically a registered democrat in new york because you kind of have to be in order to vote for the local primaries but i'm not pegging you as a democrat i'm just trying to come with an analogue for this movie.

Thank you.

You're part of the machine, the Democrat machine.

No, I'm not.

No, I'm kidding.

I dare you.

Years ago, we covered Catherine Bigelow on this podcast tied into the release of Detroit, which seemed like a very exciting new movie.

That was one of the cases where we put someone on the schedule.

You're right.

And it will line up perfectly.

Right.

And we hadn't discussed a lot of women on the show.

She had obvious blank check films in her.

Absolutely.

And she was coming off of a you know, double best picture, yeah, contender type movies.

Yeah.

And Zero Dark was a big

Zero Dark had also made money.

Had made a lot of money.

And you were like, she's in a real prime position.

And people were excited about the trailers for that movie.

And then just kind of like immediate belly flop.

We had our friends from Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood on.

We were just sort of like, this thing just doesn't work.

Feels like Catherine Bigelow needs a reset.

She's done these three Mark Bull movies in a row and something needs to reset.

And instead, just fucking eight-year hiatus.

Talking to someone the other night who was like, Well, what has she made since Detroit?

And I was like, Nothing.

And he was like, What happened in that time?

And I was trying to remember.

We can go into some of it.

There's like an HBO series that she shoots the pilot.

It doesn't happen.

Sure.

She was announced to direct Triple Frontier.

That was obviously a sort of long gestating.

There were

a couple of those, though.

There were a couple.

Here's a hot script.

Bigelow attached with three big names.

It's set up at a studio.

Budget disagreement.

She drops off.

Another year goes by without without a big loss.

Here's the thing.

No, here's the thing.

Triple Frontier was announced after Hurt Locker.

Insane.

She decides to go Zero Dark 30.

Post that,

she continues to court it, but then decides she's going to make a Bo Bergdal movie.

Right.

Which never happens.

Right.

And why do I know that who this is?

Serial season two.

He's the guy who wandered off.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is that the jihadist or whatever?

Am I thinking?

No, I don't know.

A different series that the New York Times Audio did.

Okay, never mind.

I was thinking that serial season two

was basically using the material that Mark Bull had from interviewing to research for that movie.

I think so.

I think there was a little bit of that.

Yeah.

But this is that era where you're just like, maybe she needs to like stop working with Bull.

He was held by the Taliban.

Yeah.

Okay, I remember this.

Sorry.

She did Detroit instead.

Yeah.

But then, yeah.

I don't, I mean, COVID happened.

She's getting older.

She's in her 70s.

It's not like I need Catherine Bigelow to be peddled to the metal, but it is.

Yeah, I mean, she did an Apple commercial.

You're right.

Triple Frontier was 2010.

She was going to do it with Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp.

I also remember a version where Tom Hardy and Will Smith were attached.

I mean, it's a movie with a bunch of guys.

A lot of guys could fit in it.

Miraculous Year was for HBO pilot, but that was also 2010.

And she had a stacked cast.

And it wasn't picked up.

But you're right.

There hasn't even been.

I think she's mostly just chilling.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know what she's doing.

Netflix, she had a film called Aurora that was an adaptation of David Kepp's novel.

I mean, it's even just like reading things like this.

Of course, she was offered the first Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man.

She was offered Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Okay.

She also Mogadishu Minnesota.

That was an HBO thing that sputtered.

Yeah.

The Vikander Tomb Raider.

Okay.

You know what?

Okay.

All right.

I have a bunch of things to say.

One, I don't like, we've introduced the show, right?

Yeah.

Yes, A House of Dynamo.

I don't like the film, and I do feel like it is on the same track, a track I wish she'd leapt off of, right?

And so, in theory, I want her to make Tomb Raider, right?

Because I'm like, Catherine, hi, Octane action.

You used to be the queen of this.

Like, what happened?

Like, let's do this again.

Let's do something goofier.

Let's do something more fun.

But then, like, it is like, I guess the option is like, do you want to do Tomb Raider?

Right?

It's like, you can't go and make probably an original giant scale action movie with ease.

You can do Tomb Raider and try and, you know, have fun with that.

Here's the thought I had like halfway through this movie.

And you're right, that it'd be more depressing if we were just like, wait a second, Catherine Bigelow directed Extraction 3 and they're not even promoting her.

Here was the major thought I had.

Up until this year, when the train came off the rails, I was excited by the direction Mission Impossible had gone in being a Macquarie-driven franchise.

But if we run an alternate history in which it remains a new director every time,

she would have been great.

I feel like we almost definitely would have gotten a Mission Impossible directed by Bigelow at some point in the talk.

At the very least, the call would have been made.

Yes.

Or a Bond, or like any of these things where you're like, can we at least give her like the caviar franchises?

As depressing as that is, maybe that's what she should have done in 2017.

That's like, put me up for the most adult sophisticated franchises.

I, not to psychoanalyze her, but I don't think she wants to do that, right?

She wants to do really serious stuff.

It seems to be what interests her.

I liked, but I'm like, something like Born is the most serious version of a franchise movie.

You know, there are versions of this she can do.

Look, she tried to make a movie called Mogadishu Minnesota about jihadi recruitment.

You know, I just feel like she's just like on this path of like, no, I want to do like docudrama stuff.

I want to do stuff about right now, like you know, what's happening.

Here's my bigger take right off the bat.

I say right off the bat 15 minutes into an episode i like this movie more than the three of you while admitting it's pretty fucking wonky it is also not a great film also courted to direct a reboot of planet of the apes at one point i said that already oh sorry

you said she was was it rise is that the reboot rise rise was the first

the james franco

these were the things she was offered post uh oscar

right right there's there's that list that deadline posted that i love to reference where they said they have four four candidates to take over spider-man this is sony's dream wish list pascal has hand-selected of who she thinks is up to the task of rebooting spanner spider-man and this is that movie was 2012 so like early yeah but this is

2010 2011 announcement right yeah so right after hurt locker the names were catherine bigelow okay david fincher who of course had a chance on the 2002 on the first raimi film

uh wes anderson what who was kind of at like a bad career point, signed to new management, and they clearly were like kind of like post-star dealing, but no, Fantastic Fox, but Mr.

Fox flopped.

Yeah, but

yes, but Moonrise really did kind of like swing him back.

He got new reps, and there was this moment of like, is he going to director for hire?

Can he not do his thing anymore?

And then Moonrise was so much smaller budget, right?

And then the fourth name on the list was Mark Webb.

And they went with Mark Webb.

Was that because his name was Webb?

I think that was a big part of it.

And I think the other thing was the other three directors went, no fucking way.

Yeah, I mean, right.

Is that like me saying, like, I'd like a 10-year, $400 million contract?

Right.

But, like, my actual

desired salary is Mark Webb.

But look, you watch this movie, and I'm like, this is like kind of a gentleman six to me.

It has high highs.

It's got some really dumb shit.

I didn't find it not enjoyable to watch.

I also didn't find it frustrating as much as its failings are annoying.

If she waited eight years and made this, I'm like, you could have made like an okay movie every two years.

This could, this felt like a COVID movie.

This feels like

really depressing.

This feels like her doing like a Netflix series.

I'm like, if this is the level, if you weren't taking the time to really be like, it's got to be the right project, then like fart a couple of these out.

I'll never complain about having one of these

every 18 months on a streaming service.

It feels really nice.

There's like an an interview with her, like where she explains, like, yeah, I just, you know, wasn't that excited about anything.

You know, I just, I wonder, like, what

it's

also interesting to me that I feel like a lot of filmmakers who are getting older and we're in this like,

am I retired?

Do I really have that dog in me anymore?

Do I want to hunt the big projects in 2020 like flipped out?

A lot of filmmakers have talked about this.

In 2020, they're like, fuck.

It could all end tomorrow.

If I never get to make another movie again, what am I making?

And then they like launched projects right out of 2021, you know?

End of 2020.

She still waited another like five years.

It doesn't feel like this movie comes out of fuck.

I'm tired of sitting around.

I just got to do something.

So I'm reading an interview with her in Deadline.

That's what I'm reading right now, too.

And she generated this project.

Yeah.

And was she was like, who could I, you know, like just the very basic idea of like, what does it look like if a nuclear bomb gets launched in America?

And someone connected her with Noah Oppenheim, who, of course, has screenplay credits, you know, to his name, obviously.

He wrote Jackie.

Yes.

He wrote

a movie I like a tremendous amount, but it's also

very silly.

David's making stinks.

I like that movie a lot.

The script is dog shit.

Everything else is good.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

No, I know, I know.

I've stayed my opinion of that script by Noah.

It's a silly mopping.

It's very silly.

Yeah.

He wrote Zero Day, which I think is sort of a House of Dynamite style TV show.

Like, it's very similar to that.

I mean, I like it.

Do people not like that?

Of course.

Yeah.

Of course they don't like it.

Yeah, I'm seeing here that viewers called it bad.

Oh, oh, out of 10.

Like, you know, it's just like, you know,

it's so exemplified what Netflix is now, where they're like, we made a show,

Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Lucy Kaplan, Joan Allen, Connie Britton, Bill Kemp, who's the president.

It's like a huge fucking thing.

We cost so much money, I assume, to make it.

It's about all this shit.

right?

There's like a terrorist attack or something.

Angela Bassett.

Right.

And people are like, oh, is it any good?

And they're like, no, no, no.

It's bad.

And you can't watch it.

You'd fall asleep.

No one will ever watch it.

Robert De Niro will go on off-menu to promote it.

Sat on a shelf for like two years.

Right.

Yeah.

So,

like, he did that.

He did Allegiant and the Maze Runner.

Of course.

That's weird.

But, you know, he has this news background.

Okay, Zero Day.

She calls him.

Excuse me.

Zero Day is cyber terrorist counter.

You know, what if something happened?

But yes.

Another what if something happened movies.

And

so she calls him and is like, you know, you do the research or whatever.

Like, you know, so what would that look like?

And so she did commission this script basically from him.

If I got this script, lands on my desk, I read it, my immediate email back.

to Noel Oppenheim is like, hey, great start.

Here are great research material

of notes.

there's stuff in this.

Griffin, you don't know.

Maybe this was after years of edits and back and forth.

It's possible, but that's what this feels like.

This feels like a decent first draft for something you could really do.

What I want to know

is

the structure of the film, is that something that was present from the beginning?

Or is that something when they were like, hey, actually, we don't have a, if we don't want to show the effects of the bomb, we don't want to show going off, and we also want to like plant you in media res, there really isn't that much we can do.

So I guess we have to repeat it.

This is exactly what I want to say.

I'll say it and then I'll be done.

This movie, right, as you mentioned, does the same thing three times.

It's showing you 18 minutes.

It resets the clock.

Somehow the movie is an hour, 50 minutes.

So I guess the 18 minutes is kind of stretched out.

But right, you're seeing it, though, this incident from three perspectives.

Yes.

You do not know.

But each perspective also kind of contains four or five perspectives within it.

It's very different.

And they overlap, of course.

Yes.

Yes.

But the first act, you're seeing characters only on Zoom.

The second act, you're in the office with them, whatever.

Exactly.

You don't know who launched the nuke.

And you don't know what happens when it hits.

As Marie says.

You've stripped away basically all story, right?

Yeah.

Out of a gas necessity, because that would make it another movie.

If it's a movie about we're at war with Russia, we're at war with North Korea, like that's a different movie, right?

It's just about the agony of human decision-making in this like.

Which is what I like about this movie and the spurts of it that work for me are capturing that.

But yes, it is a movie that doesn't really have a political axe to grind.

It is more saying we live in a world where at any moment this could be activated.

You know, we're sitting in a house full of dynamites.

Here's this movie's take.

That would be hard.

That's it.

Yeah.

That, my friend, is a New Yorker article, and it's not a particularly good one.

That is just not enough.

And I was arguing with someone I work with who works in national security stuff.

You know, it was like, oh, it's so realistic.

It's so good.

And then, yeah, it's about how hard this decision is going to make.

I'm like, that's fine.

I can read about that.

I don't need to see Idris South going, what fucking...

Oh, bangers and mash.

What should I pick?

It is weird that he keeps ordering bangers and mash at a cricket game.

Fucking ill.

Yeah, quick cricket.

He's just the most British guy.

Greg Sausage Roll, should I do, you know, option 18 and 19, mate?

You're starting to sound more like Ossie Osborne.

Oh, fucking remote, mate.

Sharon.

Sharon!

Oh, I have a third child who's not in this show.

You ever think about that?

It is.

Three kids, only two of them are in the show.

I'm watching this movie, and it was like first wave of response out of Venice was Bigelow's back, right?

At a Venice of

a mirror versus Venice.

Everything that was like there kind of faltered out of Venice.

Everything that wasn't like there is kind of, you know, had a bounce back after Venice.

It's so weird.

You recently on the big picture and talked about the flop fall that we're living through.

Yeah, yeah.

The festival season has been very like odd and aberrant.

It's like a calamitous festival season, but I also feel like every first wave of responses I've heard for a movie, the second wave is the exact opposite, and the third wave evens out to, eh, like there's

true.

It arrives like fully cooked on your plate, and everyone's like, yeah, I don't know, C.

It was okay.

But I was hearing, like,

Hamlet doesn't have the juice.

And then I was hearing, like, Hamlet's knocking people out.

And then

it's okay.

Everything's leveling out.

Jay Kelly is like, oh my God, embarrassing disaster.

And then it's a great movie.

The next wave I heard was Sims and 10 other people telling me it wasn't.

But then it debuted, that movie debuted in Venice, partly because that's where Netflix debuts its movie, but partly because it does have scenes in Italy.

Yes.

And I imagine they were like, this rocks.

It's set in Italy.

It's a movie star in Italy.

Let's bring it on the movie star in Italy.

Movie star debut that movie in America.

Whatever.

Nobody listens to me.

I really liked what you said on

that verbatim on Tiffany.

Is it just that?

What do you think?

And I'll be like, Tiff?

Yeah, I know.

I love this idea.

Tell you right.

You just being like some sort of like wizard of Oz type figure behind a curtain.

I'm like, yep, sounds like Tiff.

See you later.

Like, you know, I just, you know, I'm just running.

It did feel like things

were underwhelming and possibs.

And two of the only things that came out with really positive responses were no other choice.

The Park Timbook film, which we will cover on this podcast.

I think in the New Year.

Yes.

And

House of Dynamite, there was a sense of relief of like, it's not a masterpiece, but this thing's really gripping.

Everyone was basically like, it's, you know, it does what it's trying to do.

Yeah.

It's tense.

tense, it's thrilling, it's been something real.

Right.

Exactly.

And

this movie has been sort of ensconced on all the best picture prediction lists.

Right.

And then the second wave of responses is, is this thing really fucking dumb?

We start hearing that from a lot of people.

I started hearing like people are laughing.

Like, you know, and I'm like, wait, I thought it was an incredibly tense document film about ripping after

nuclear war.

And I was like, you know, getting text, like, my screening erupted in laughter at the end.

Did your screening?

Yes.

We had a very, the vape guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This Cape Fear guy, he was like, ah,

no, he didn't laugh.

When the movie cut to black at the end.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Here's my impression of what happened when the vape guy sitting

there.

Directed by Catherine Bigelow comes up, and here's my impression of the sound we heard.

It was a collective screen.

There was like an 80s comedian there, like in front of a brick wall.

We saw the smallest screen at Nighthawk, but it was pretty packed.

Right.

Right.

On a Sunday night.

But it is very much, obviously, just sort of been wedged into some theaters by Netflix in their usual way.

No fanfare.

It was packed, and it was basically the smallest movie.

It's like 20-seater.

But I will say, like, they have it playing simultaneously.

This is very New York.

But playing simultaneously at the Nighthawk, Angelica, and at Paris.

The Paris Theater, which is a little more than they used to be.

It's a little bit more.

I saw it at the Angelica.

Yes.

And

I wanted those realistic Subway Rumbles to investigate.

Did it add to the experience?

Of course.

Yeah.

The movie ends.

And there was this collective, every person in the theater had to go through all three stages of grieving, which is

race.

All at once.

All in one noise.

It was like so weird.

And I'm watching it and I'm like, okay.

You know, Bigelow is kind of a person with high highs and low lows.

She doesn't have much of a middle tier.

She's got a good amount of masterpieces.

Good point.

There's not a lot of like it's just okays from.

And I was like, this is one of her only it's just okays.

And I'm just happy that she's back.

The ending happens.

Directed by Catherine Bigelow comes up.

I'm like, that immediately just went down from like three and a half to three for me.

And I'm being generous.

I feel like for most people

it goes from three to two and a half or lower.

I guess here's my question because this is the debate I had.

And we can just get right to it, you know, because why not?

What is the ending we want, right?

Because I was debating this with my coworker, and I'm like, I understand that there's no good ending here.

Yeah.

It's a fucking nuclear war movie.

Like, what are you going to do?

I would like to see the film melt.

Okay.

That's all folks.

Right.

Oh, that's cool.

That's kind of like

postmodern metatex.

And then the gremlins, you see their shadows in the projection booth, and they're making

them launched it.

And then the hulkster comes up.

Because this is is what I'm saying.

You've stripped out, again,

where did this come from?

What's it leading to?

So I don't know what your ending can be.

I think

they should just repeat the ending of Oppenheimer.

Just put it in there.

Just, oh, like, literally cut to Killian Murphy.

Yes.

And they're like, see, this is what he was worried about.

Yes.

Okay, I want to add to my idea.

Then a piñata comes out and we are handed back to me.

Oh, okay.

Smash.

It's just like, audience.

The movie.

Work your frustration.

The piñata is the poster for House of Dynamite.

Or it's like the film canister.

Yeah, sure.

How about this?

The movie ends with James Cameron direct address to Camera and being like, this represents the cowardice of American filmmakers.

She brings you

after effects.

Yeah.

Wait, speaking of, guys, I'm going to Hiroshima this month.

Did you guys know that?

I love how she's segwaying to this now.

It's just the tone in which

you're going on vacation, Marie, on honeymoon.

Ben and I.

We're We're both going on separate honeymoons to separate destinations with separate spouses at the same time.

Yeah, we'd be switching

crazy.

Right, all together.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you're going to.

Even when we have a blast.

Yeah.

I mean, me, to be clear, Marie's husband.

Yeah, my husband, who's also a name.

Oh, you.

Oh, okay.

All right.

I'm all.

I'm pretty fun.

But no, I'm going to Japan.

Ben's going to Italy.

We love it.

Classic places to go.

But we just booked a one-day or a one-night, two-day little excursion to Hiroshima to go visit the memorial in the museum.

You did lovely city.

You made that transition.

It's like, oh, that reminds me.

You know where we're going.

And I thought you were going to say Tokyo Disney.

See, it was that level of excitement.

I understand that you and your husband love history.

We do love history.

And I am like,

I was very disappointed in this movie because I am fascinated.

by like yeah the what if similarly to catherine bigelow i'm very fascinated by the what ifs of nuclear war i think when this movie works for me,

it weirdly works better at like giving us kind of interesting character glimpses than really outlining for you exactly how this would go down.

Like it does feel like it's lacking in even some of the like brass tacks, like hard, hard details of a Zero Doc 30.

It is because I think this is such a brief thing in a way that there's actually only so much detail.

Right.

Yeah.

And like, I think there's stretches of it where I'm like, I'm actually enjoying watching this through this character's perspective.

This performance works.

I'm getting a little glimpse of their struggle.

In terms of the ending, the problem with the ending is you're watching it and you're going, like, how the fuck is she going to end this thing?

And the ending feels like an actual

admission of defeat.

Like, the ending of the movie feels like, I don't know, I got nothing.

It kind of feels, you're right.

Okay, sorry, we didn't come up with an ending.

Because just full spoilers for people, this movie has these three episodes.

We're spoiling the film.

And every time where you're getting to like one second second left on the countdown, it cuts to black.

There's a sustained like black, and then new title card comes up, and we reset the clock, right?

And in the third act, we're with the president in the back of his fucking SUV.

And the second countdown happens.

We cut to black, and I go, like, so what's she going to do now?

Finally, the three timelines, right?

We end on the president.

What do you do here?

And then it gives us like four random like images, like a soldier, like kneeling, you know well people running to the bunker right you get stuff like that where you're like oh fuck something's happening and then it's like directed by Catherine Bigelow there's like 15 seconds of like MOS footage of characters we don't know reacting to something and I'm like the movie actually is better if when it cuts to black at the end of Idris Elba the credit comes up there it's worse to even give us 15 seconds of something else and have those 15 seconds be like I don't know you know what I even would have preferred what like just a giant wall of text.

Sure.

At the end of the day.

This is the thing.

This is where I was going for with this movie.

But I'm like, if you don't have any.

No, just like, hey, this is, this is like, you know,

this is one scenario.

If you want, you know, we need to focus on nuclear disarmament, like some sort of like, I don't know, just.

Yeah, it doesn't sound good.

It just says we're fucked.

We're fucked.

I don't know.

Just some sort of like,

I don't know.

It's just whatever it is now is bad.

When When they come back up from the black, I'm like, oh, so there's like a bonus act.

They're going to do some kind of fallout thing.

David, what sound is that?

I'm at Gettysburg right now, so.

You might be hearing that on

the audio.

I love that.

I love that.

What's the other thing you want to do?

I'm at Gettysburg.

Okay, why?

Well, it's history.

Okay, so does North Korea have nuclear capabilities?

Yeah, some maybe gun, maybe medium.

You're like, should there just be a fucking series where there's a whole Greta Lee episode or something?

Well, but now

you're talking about what I don't like, of course.

They're stretching it out more when it's less.

Oh my God, every fucking episode is the same 20 minutes.

But then I'm like, do you get to focus on the characters more if each segment isn't loading in like 15 perspectives?

Well, let me do a great impression of a character in House of Dynamite right now.

Say there's a nuclear.

There's a nuclear bomb.

It's going to Chicago.

I have a family member

who lives possibly in Chicago.

Maybe not.

Or I have a pregnant person.

Right, no, but just every song, well, I also have.

I'm like, yeah, everyone's got fucking.

This is very bad.

Yes, everyone would be stressed out.

Ask a question.

What if there's one guy who's like, eh, who cares?

I ain't got no family.

I hate my family.

I'm kind of a lone wolf.

Can't time me down.

David, this episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Square.

And it's hip to be a square.

Hip to be a square.

It's hip-to-be a square.

Don't get defensive.

Okay.

Some of my favorite murderers have told me that it's hip-to-be a square.

I speak of Patrick Bateman, of course.

There are certain businesses that make the neighborhood the neighborhood, Griffin.

And I have found in my travels that your favorite neighborhood spots often run on Square.

Look, I think I probably interact with a Square terminal more than i interact with like a subway you know like turnstile ever you know what i mean like it's just like getting a cup of coffee getting a bagel getting a pizza i live in new york okay okay um like i'm always i'm always tapping my little watch on the square loves doing the tap i do my watch i feel like gregory hines doing a little tap

very good thank you thank you thank you yeah square um these are you know works for businesses that make the neighbor of the neighborhood like i said uh when those businesses thrive the whole neighborhood thrives Money spent in the neighborhood stays in the neighborhood.

So take this ad as an excuse to go support your favorite local spot and have yourself

a day in the neighborhood.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Mariel Heller.

I was going to say Mr.

Rogers.

And look, also, obviously, very often, you go to see a comedy show, you go to a concert, you go to see off-Broadway theater, you're going to be dealing with some square right there.

When we do live shows, we use square to sell our merchandise.

Square makes these businesses a lot easier to run.

Absolutely.

It makes it.

We use Square.

Yeah, that's why this is it.

It makes it so easy for us as a small business to be able to sell merch.

We use that at our recent art show.

Absolutely.

It just makes the whole process so accessible.

It makes the ability to provide these culturally enriching things and spaces a lot more accessible in a very, very

crazy, complicated economy.

Is that what I was trying to say?

Yeah.

You can go to square.com slash go slash check to learn more but before you do go support your favorite neighborhood spot you'll be happy you did see you in the neighborhood

why is angel reese in this movie because it needs it that to me felt like uh oh yeah remember when bush was like teaching a classroom of children on 9-11 like what would the president plausibly be doing during some crisis but when it was at when when she actually fucking showed up in the movie, I started laughing.

Is Jason Clark in this movie by law?

Is every movie like this just require?

I know, obviously, she's directed him before in Serie Dark 30, but like, like, just it's like, where's Jason Clark?

It's like

somebody's one away from a free sandwich.

Would we say he's getting like cucked by employees at his job?

Because he doesn't really do anything.

He certainly is not quite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He gets win in the bunker, but then he has.

confirming DEF CON 4.

We're at DEF CON 4.

Oh, gosh.

Do we have to reset the episode?

Do we have to go back?

You were asking about, oh, Angel Reese.

They never name the president in this.

There is this scene where he shows up to like do a meet and greet with children, right?

And the jumbotron says like Angel Reese in big letters above the court.

And I was like, oh, Angel Reese is a cool name for a president because I didn't know this was a real athlete.

I thought they were saying.

Why don't you care about women's sports?

Excuse me, I went to a Liberty game.

Congratulations.

He talks about this like he climbed Mount Killaman Charl.

Because if you're like the percentage.

He lives, not to Dog Sim, within walking distance of where they play basketball.

Soccer walks.

Of live sporting events I have been to in the last 20 years, going to one WNBA game makes a pretty big sense.

You went to a Mets game last season,

and I know you've been to some Paris basketball games because your brother

I really enjoyed how on the True Green episode, you were able to participate in the conversation about

basketball.

Has that episode come out yet?

Good question.

Yes, by the time this episode came out,

I got into

the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets minor league team, because they do theme nights.

So I went to Seinfeld Night and Hot Dog Day.

Unfortunately, missed Toy Story Day, but did get some of the merch.

Right.

For a markup on eBay.

Who's Angel Reese?

I don't know anything about Angela.

Angel Reese.

She's probably like the second biggest star in

the NBA.

I would disagree with that.

Oh, excuse me.

Excuse me.

Everyone relax.

Obviously, the most famous WNBA player is Caitlin Clark because of her national fame.

I think Angel Reese's.

Angels is way.

Let's not disrespect the NBA.

I'm not saying that

she's the best player.

I'm just saying, in terms of people i

see in my feeds popping up with endorsement deals and because angel repeats

very very big in college much like caitlin clark they were rivals they still have a rivalry she plays bird magic kind of thing going on well yeah but the angel's team sucks okay

that makes sense unfortunately She kind of motherfucked her team this year.

Like, publicly, she was like, my team sucks.

I don't like the players I play with.

I think she soft pedaled it only slightly more than the way I'm putting it right now.

So she's, you know, she's working it out

where her future lies, whether she leaves the team or gets better play.

I don't know.

But she's a famous player.

Do you know that Andrew Reese was born after the first Raimi Spider-Man came out to keep using that as a demarcation time?

As a fan of pro sports.

Doesn't surprise me.

It's one of those things where I'm like,

LeBron James is like a year older than me.

I think I said this on an episode earlier.

LeBron's older than you?

I think he's a year older than me.

Oh, yeah, because I guess

he's like my husband's age.

Right.

I think he was born in either late 84, early

December 30th, 1984.

And, you know, like in the NBA, people are like, a medical marvel.

He walks the court.

This man listened a skeleton practically.

I'm like, right, he's my age.

Yes.

And like, there are guys who are like 29, or guys, like, getting a little long in the tooth.

veteran.

Like, and I'm like, right, that's just, I'm only going to get older.

We did George Zucas talk show recently with Chloe Trost and Emil Wakeem, former SNL cast members, both lovely people, incredibly funny people.

And at some point we got into like, you know, Connor as George was interrogating them about their relationship to Star Wars and what age they were when they came out.

And we realized Chloe was born in 97 and Emil was born in 98.

And I was like,

and they've already been fired from SNL.

That was the part that flipped me out was I was like,

you're under 30 and you're already like in your post-SNL career.

Well, they've got the new, you know, cat, right?

Like the Veronica.

All right.

She was 95.

Baby Gonzo, baby Foster.

Jane Wickline was born in 99.

That is

cutting it close.

Has SNL had a single cast member?

That was my question.

A 2000s.

Yeah.

All right.

Tommy Brennan, 94.

I want to say.

Jeremy Culhane, 92.

Fucking ancient.

Get out of here, old ass.

Tam Patterson, I want to say.

He's young.

I mean, that kid's young, right?

Was he born post-millennium, post-willennium?

April 10th, 1999.

Phew!

Thank God.

He witnessed 9-11.

Like, I have coworkers.

My coworker, Rose, I love her to death.

She's a grown person.

The 9-11.

The 9-11.

And I said to her,

I said to her, like, were you born after 9-11?

She was like, no, I was in a crib.

Yeah.

Okay, by the skin of your teeth.

Oh, Jesus.

Ashley Padilla.

Oh, no, no gear listed for her.

It's a mysterious mystery.

Do you know that Ashley Padilla was Diane Keaton's personal assistant for many years?

And she co-wrote a book with her.

She had some very touching tribute posts.

We have so much to say about

Diane Keaton.

No, we don't.

Be funny if

Diane Keaton in like classic Diane Keaton wear.

R.I.P.

to her.

This was her swan song that the Zoom screen is black for, you know, and then the third act is her with like a big hat being like, I don't know what to do.

Shoot, creamy turtleneck.

Incredible president.

Paint yourself that feels a little rude one.

It's like, yeah, very, very handsome, esteemed.

Okay, yeah, yeah, sure.

But what about like, who's like a weirdo we could put in there?

Arp,

Bob Cat Goldthwaite.

You know, like, who, you know, who's the president?

you could have anybody they actually showed a trailer for um oh my god what's a bobcat movie about horses there's a bobcat oh oh hot for trot yeah because they're screaming that

they showed that trailer at night i believe it's hot to trot you're right hot too that is the the infamous talking horse movie that my father always uses as an example of how to not structure your career dabney's in there and john candy's the voice of the car with the horse i just love in the 80s where they're like who should play the boss i'm kidding i already called Dabney Colvin.

He's already on it.

Dabney quietly was like the fucking Samuel Jackson of the box office in the 80s.

He was reliable.

Yeah.

They like, you know, try to make their pre-shows at Nighthawk specific to the movie they're playing.

They did not do that for House of Dynamite.

No, what are you going to do?

Some bummer shit?

Gonna play a podcast.

The fucking Hot for Trot trailer starts playing, and my husband's like, Wait, what is this movie about?

Like, is there going to be a horse?

Is Bobcat in House of Dynamite?

Are these spoilers?

Here's a question for the group.

I want to hear each of you weigh in on who you think delivers the best performance in this movie.

Oh, good question.

Because there are good performances in this, but there's not an obvious MVP.

I don't think there are good performances in this.

I think they're perfectly great performances.

I think they're perfectly Rebecca.

Well, I think Rebecca's my personal favorite, but I also feel like people like Rebecca and Tracy could do this shit in their sleep.

Yeah, I know, right?

I don't know.

I'm going to say, let's go.

What about Gran Elite?

Let's go.

What?

I'm just, I'm going to say, let's go.

Let's get out of here.

L-E-T-T-L.

Let's.

That's why I tried to start the applaud.

Let's

go, Mets.

Let's go, Mets.

Actually, let's go, Mets.

If everyone else in this film cares about like their pregnant spouse, their child, their mom, but Tracy Letz cares about Francesco Lindor.

He does shout out Francisco Lindor in what was undoubtedly my favorite part of the movie,

which is funny because Tracy Letz was on the big picture and mother fucked the Mets quite loudly to the point that I got kind of

annoyed.

How great would it be if in this movie they went started like texting Sean being like, Tracy Letz is a completely exaggerated idea of the 80s Mets?

Go ahead, yes.

It's heading towards Chicago, and they just push in on Tracy Letts and goes, I have a basement in Chicago with 20,000 blues.

If we take my steel books and put them all around Chicago in a sort of dome, perhaps we can protect the city.

Kino Lorber, first run with slip covers,

Arrow LE with booklets.

I think Gabriel Basso is really good in this movie.

Okay, just make sure that you're doing it.

Yeah, it really surprised me.

You know what?

He's totally solid, but I thought he was like kind of the heart of this.

I'm not familiar with his work because I did not see Hill Billy Ella.

Hillbilly Ella.

Oh, you didn't want to check it out.

I wasn't interested in it.

I wasn't rushing to see it.

He had his church wave.

COVID-19 has swept America.

JD Vance biopic bubbles up on Neville Key.

You know, he was in Super 8, though, and he was

a little boy fan.

Cute, kind of like puppy fat kid, you know,

Night Agent is his Netflix show that's a hitwork.

Tom Hiddleston.

No, that's the Night Manager.

Okay, well what if there was a night manager?

This is a newish show.

It's been on Netflix for two seasons and

a third is coming.

It's Sean Ryan, the S.H.I.E.L.D.

and the unit and all those shows.

I remember him as a Super 8 kid.

Then it's like, he's J.D.

Vance and the new Ron Howard.

Wow, is that like a Toys R Us kid?

A Super 8 kid?

I want to be a Super 8 kid.

And

then, you're right.

The J.D.

Vance thing becomes like a fucking albatross around his neck.

And I like, Night Agent's a hit.

And I kept hearing people being like, he's good.

And I'm like,

I don't know.

I immediately locked into what he was doing in this film.

He's pretty good.

Yeah.

I wasn't as like pumped up about this.

I don't know if it's, if it's a performance thing.

I thought I, you know, just kept his character stuck with me.

Mostly because I'm like, oh my God, he like the one person who kind of knows what's going on in our government is like a millennial.

Here's what I also think he played Jake very well.

This guy's fresh enough and passionate enough.

He's not been burnt down and jaded by all of this, right?

That he's kind of the sharpest tool in the drawer here in terms of how to address and analyze this problem.

And you can tell that he's been like prepping his entire life for this moment, and yet he's having the performance anxiety of, holy shit, every word I'm saying actually matters.

Isn't he thrown into the situation because like his superior is not available?

Or he's like late to the meeting.

Right.

Yeah.

There's something like that.

But the thing about.

He knows his shit, though, but it's like terrifying when you're suddenly like every word I say could have like a humongous effect on humanity.

But he's playing the like he's overwhelmed.

He's playing it.

Like very.

There's a little Rick the intern that I am inclined to, you know,

alike.

I'm not saying he's pulling from me.

I'm saying this character type.

Sorry, I'm just imagining Rick the intern like on the phone with like the Russian defense.

The last place coffees need to get to.

Here's the thing I'm going to say.

Because his Basso's only job in this movie is to inform everyone that the sort of missile interceptor thing has about a 60% chance of working.

It's a coincidence.

And so you have Jared Harris, again, really, really trying with the American accent.

Going, it's fucking cointos, ain't it?

Pie and Mesh.

I got a daughter in Chicago.

I heard this news and I was like, that tech is at six.

I thought that just didn't work.

Right.

I was like, this is good news.

It might work.

I did think, because there's so much ramp up of him not wanting to say the number.

I know.

They really stretch it out because this movie has a lot of time to fill.

I thought it was going to be like 15%.

Right, right.

Like, actually, if I admit it, we'll know.

It's like a one in a million bullet with a bullet.

At that point in the movie, we're in the second chapter, so you know it doesn't

work.

So, why is this the crux of your second alpha?

Can I ask a question of you two?

The Angelica Popcorn was very good.

Thank you for asking.

Good.

I'm glad.

The structure of the film, deciding what to reveal when, what characters to focus in which section.

What is the organizing principle?

I understand the president.

Is there one?

I mean, it's just, I guess you can think about it this way.

Is it like Ferguson and Power?

Not really.

It's sort of like the stages of reaction.

So it's like Ferguson and her team are the team that notices and sends the alert up the chain.

Let's and his generals are the guys who make the military decision to try and counteract and then have to decide what's next.

And then the decision lands on the president's plate in the third act, which is like, okay, this is happening.

Now you have to open the football, which is actually a briefcase filled with documents and pick a retaliation.

And you have Letz going, we have to do something.

You have Basso going, like, I talked to the Russians.

I don't think it's them.

We could try to diffuse this by doing nothing.

Kind of the fail-safe, you know, debate like in that movie i love fail safe we talked about this

final reckoning anytime a movie is able to capture 15 minutes of fail safe juice you got me sure you love that which is the first like what 20 30 minutes of the movie which i would

certainly the first act is the strongest because That's when you're in what's happening the most and it's the most tension.

I'd also argue that Ferguson has maybe become an automatic two-stars person for me.

She is

in at least a third of the movie.

You're already starting out at two stars just from her presence.

This movie, unfortunately, doesn't add a lot on top of the auto two.

I mean, I mean, but except for the snowman, Shroy.

I know you haven't.

I haven't seen the snowman.

Snowman.

You haven't seen the snowman, but we have merch inspired by the snowman.

Yeah.

I mean, that was JD, who that was his crew.

Who's out of control, let's be honest.

Next year, I'm worried about Ferg a little bit.

Next year, she's got Mercy, which is literally like the Tracy Morgan, I filmed that in my my car.

I've not been able to get myself to watch that.

Is that the Chris Pratt?

It's like

this January 2nd, as early as possible.

We are dumping this out.

What if you were in a chair?

Like, that's the movie.

Is it a like, what if emotions were robots movie?

What is the premise?

Let me see what the log on.

In 2029, Los Angeles.

Ooh, future.

Okay.

A detective stands on trial, accused of murdering his wife.

That's Chris Pratt.

Yeah.

He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to the advanced AI judge he once championed before determining.

That's not an AI movie.

That is where Rebecca Ferguson is playing the AI.

It's directed by Timur.

It's a Timur

Bekmam Tov.

I'm sorry.

It's not a Screen Life movie, though, right?

No, but I think it is.

I think it's like him being like, what if I did Screen Life on a bigger scale where I think it's going to be a lot of screen?

You know what I mean?

No one wants this.

Well, he is insistent that people want it.

And Ferguson is the AI dream.

She's the sim one.

She's the exact class.

Jesus.

Fuck that.

And then she's in Dune Part 3, which, like, I'm sure she will crush it, but she has emphasized was on set for

because that character's not even in that book.

But does she have season four of Silo?

Back to the silo.

I believe it's season three.

Yeah, there have been currently how many

seasons of silo.

Not sure when season two.

Have they left silo?

I think they're going deep.

Well, season two was spoilers.

Spoilers, but season two, she goes from the one silo to another silo.

Sounds like a good season.

So, season three.

We've discovered silo B.

What's in there?

Most shows these days don't transfer from one silo to another until season four or five.

You know what?

That's so true.

That is so true.

Season one ends with them just finding a door.

And then season two is, how do we find the kid?

Why they call it siloed?

The whole first season, they're not in the silo.

We found this out.

Well, no, I'm not going to say that.

It's a future episode spoiler.

Marie, what were you about to say?

Have you guys?

That's too bad.

I was excited for you.

Have you guys seen this quote?

Yes.

But she, hold on, I got to find it.

Rebecca Franklin.

Rebecca Fergus?

Rebecca Ferguson.

I'm Googling.

Rebecca Ferguson throw

in front of bus.

Well, she was motherfucking a co-star, right?

I keep saying the word motherfucker.

She's so into motherfucking.

She was saying that she had a very tough co-star she'd worked with, right?

Yes, and she keeps like

going back.

She won't say who it is.

She won't say who it is.

She keeps out Mr.

Blanky, I kiss you.

Not Hugh Robinson, not Timothy Shalamay, not Tom Ferguson.

Not Ryan Reynolds.

There are even some ones where you were like, come on.

As a second-tier guest, and she was like, don't worry, he's not in the mix.

Rebecca Ferguson gets candid.

Quotes.

She hasn't been in that many movies.

I might as well shove someone under a bus to make a boy.

So, who does she mean?

Who is it?

We know who it is.

No, it was every time.

We decided it was Hugh.

If it was Hugh,

it's not not Hugh.

She's worked with him multiple times.

People forget reminiscence.

No, she has openly said it's not Hugh.

Oh, I thought.

Are we going to say who we think it is?

You can tell me.

I forgot.

Everything points towards Jake Gyllenhal in life.

A movie that is completely forgotten.

Yes.

And also, you know what?

A movie that is okay.

Have you heard Jake Gyllenhaus?

Certainly, I have heard one billion stories about what a high-energy individual Jake Gyllenhal is and how that can really go either way.

Oh, really?

Because in my experience, when I worked out as a receptionist, when his mom was editing a movie she made,

he came in.

No, he like wore like a disguise and wouldn't make eye contact with anyone.

There were like 10.

There were like 10 people.

I mean, he was bubble.

He was turtle.

He was like,

you know, had a hoodie on and was like,

but

Maggie was lovely.

And she and she and Peter were talking to everyone.

He was like so nice, you know, but Jake was.

Last night late on TikTok.

I found some rando comedian doing, you know, 900 likes, like, not a big video, doing

Rachel in Dark Knight, like doing Maggie as, and it was just one of those impressions where you're like, I've never thought about like how odd this performance is and how good an impression Rachel does.

Yeah, just like, it just, she keeps like hitting at first, she's doing lines and then she starts doing other, but she's like, I have to go to the mall with Harvey.

Like, she just keeps hitting that.

I'm going to show it.

It's so funny.

Was it Arnold de Chaplin?

Who was the, wasn't there an international filmmaker who did a big story of how he shot in Tyrujek John Wall that got shut down?

Yes.

He's just notoriously, I will just say,

incredibly eccentric in his process in a way that has been known to make things complicated and drive people a little crazy.

He's never given a performance that radiates that energy.

It's just like even something like Ambulance or whatever, where it works.

Yeah, it just kind of feels like it is, to quote Jared Harris, a fucking coin toss.

Whether you're going to get like over the top in a way that kind of overwhelms or over in the top the way that like kind of serves the movie.

Okja being the sort of barometer performance where you're like, Do you like this?

I like that.

Do you even like know what we're talking about?

No.

So she ever

at any point.

Do you know the context of the Rebecca Ferguson stuff?

So like two.

To answer your question, I'd say it's about

50-50.

According to

us.

Margaret Thatcher.

So, like, two full years ago,

if not more,

there's some interviewer they're asking her about her experiences in Hollywood and power and whatever.

And she was just like, I had a co-star, an A-list male co-star.

They were number one on the call sheet, which he would have been in life.

And they broke down yelling at me.

It wasn't my fault, but they were so frustrated.

The process of the movie, they took it all out at me.

And I felt defenseless, like there was nothing I could do.

And I went to the producers and complained and said, I'm not working with him again.

I want to work off a fucking tennis ball anytime we have dialogue.

And they said, you can't do that.

He's number one.

We have to protect him.

And she said, fine, I'll be in there.

But when it's his coverage, he has to talk to the back of my head.

And it was presented this like, you go, girl.

Like, you don't put up with his shit.

But then, of course, everyone's like, who's she talking about?

Everyone comes up with the list.

She's not in that many movies.

It's the A-list star.

It's the male lead.

And then she has systematically for the last two years, just been like circling back.

It's also not Chris Hemsworth in Men in Black International.

She has ruled everyone else out, which is why I feel comfortable presenting my hypothesis that it is Jylen Hall because he's basically the only person.

But is that because Jake was possessed by the symbiote because Life is a Venom prequel?

Yes.

Except it isn't.

But was directed by Daniel Espinoza, who directed Morbius.

Jared Lino's, as I was telling Griffin this morning, biggest hit as a star, Morbius.

That is his highest-grossing film in which he is first built.

Hollywood Reporter was like, Tron Aries may signal that he's no longer an A-lister who can open a movie.

He's never opened a movie.

He's never been an A-lister.

Exactly.

We were like, Jared Leto's best run is a psyop ensemble, right?

It's American Psycho, it's Thin Red Line, it's the True Adventures, and it's Requiem.

Well, Requiem for a Jeff.

Sort of delete.

Sort of delete.

That's the one he is closest to being deleted.

It's such an Freelander player.

Burst and Connolly.

Burston, Connolly, and Leto are the three leads of the film.

Right.

But you're like, that's the best run he ever had.

It is ensemble working with great directors.

25 plus years ago, like a long time ago.

Exactly.

All of those movies are the last of them is 2002, right?

When Angel Reese was born.

That's the last of those movies.

I would disagree a little bit.

I liked when he showed up in ensemble role.

Showed up showing the crucial phrase here.

I, you know, even though he's doing a thing in Blade Runner,

you know.

We talk about this, I think, on future episodes.

That's our new Red Hulk.

We're dissecting the crash out of Jared Leto in like five different episodes.

I enjoyed him in House of Gucci.

He was like one of the people that was dialed into the right place.

I hate that performance.

Oh, I love it.

I like that performance and I like that movie.

I'm not opposed to all.

I'm just saying, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

He's never opened to movies.

He's never been in A-list stars.

Never.

It's a psyop.

It's truly like he got that Tron role.

Yes, it feels like he fucking cast a spell on someone.

But like, look, there's like Heartthrob Pre-Fontaine.

Yes, yes.

You know, with Jordan Catalana.

Then there's the era we just talked about.

Yes.

Which, by the way, it helps that all those movies.

Emerging indie star.

It helps that all those movies have lasted and have only grown in reputation, so it makes him feel more relevant.

And then he was in a big band and won an Oscar.

Well, then he does like six years of dog shit.

Like that fucking...

It's not called...

chapter 27.

Chapter 27, but what's the one where it's he's it's not Mr.

Lonely, but it's a Mr.

Somerset.

Mr.

Nobody?

Mr.

Nobody.

It's like all of those movies don't work.

Then he's like, I've retired from films.

He focuses on the band.

Dallas Buyers Club is him coming out of retirement.

He wins an Oscar that

we're all happy.

I called it

Instant Buyers or Morse Oscar.

Just instant Dallas Ryan.

Exactly.

He took the stage.

Who else was nominated that year?

I don't care if a fucking ham sandwich is on it.

Give it the trophy.

But this is a good exercise.

Who did Jared Leto beat?

All right, okay.

Let's see who he beat first, you know, first and foremost, before we think about anyone else that might have been a contender.

But he beat Barkot Abdi, the captain himself.

Would have been my winner that year, I think.

Bradley Cooper in American Hustle.

That's quite good in that film.

He could have gotten the When Will Bradley get his Oscar thing out of the way.

Michael Fassbender in 12 Years is a Slave, an incredibly powerful.

He's so scary in that movie.

And fucking Joe Dehill and the Wolf of Volta.

It was so funny.

These are way better than Jared Leto.

Barcott

would have been my

amazing performance.

He won the BAFTA?

Probably.

Yeah, I don't, I'm more clear-headed about

Leo winning for Wolf of Wall Street over McConaughey and lead that year.

Hardcore.

Well, obviously.

Hardcore.

But like, at least with McConaughey, you were like, the man was back.

He was giving these big performances.

True detective was Interstellars the next year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Him winning makes sense.

But I think he is fantastic in that movie, and I think Jared Leto was bad in that movie.

Yeah, Jared Leto is bad in that movie.

That's the other other thing.

McConnell is undeniably good in a movie that doesn't do really anything.

Shitty movie, in my opinion.

Kind of a shitty movie.

But I saw it on my first day with my wife.

Oh, wow.

That's kind of crazy.

It's completely insane.

It's the only reason I bring it up.

Just a fucking insane thing to do.

That's how you build a movie letter.

That's a foundation for a marriage.

See, I've said this.

Scene one of that movie, Rough Sex with Two Prostitutes.

Scene Two, You Have A.

This is the first date we are on.

That is how that movie begins.

We exited.

We were like, anyway, it was like with no discussion of the film.

We were like, I don't know.

It was fine.

I just cannot think of another example of someone winning an Oscar and everyone deciding, oh, he's proven himself as three different things he's never been.

Right.

A leading man, an A-list blockbuster star, you know, like, so it's so bizarre.

Jared Leader's in this film, right?

No, he's not.

What are we supposed to say about a house of dynamite?

I just find, I find the writing incredibly clunky.

Yeah.

I find the efforts to like crowbar in character stuff like, oh, I'm worried about this, like just so, so, like, root one, forced so bad.

Like you're saying, like, notes should be getting that, hammering that out right away.

Yeah.

We do not need that level of hand holding of like people in society.

I don't care about them because they're people.

They're just, they're, they're people.

I also don't need to care about them because whatever they experience affects me, hypothetically.

You're also like, this is what the Bowl films excelled at is like not having

overly stylized, overwritten, spell-out the emotions dialogue.

You're right.

Right.

Like, those movies are both character movies.

Obviously, Hurtlock are very much

more a character movie.

It's about this place and about this job, too, but it's about this guy, right?

And then Zero Dark 30, the way they tricked that movie into working is by having like a central character, right?

Versus it being.

total procedure.

And that movie will similarly to this go on like a 20-minute side tangent with a different character.

It's not everything through her.

Jason Clark's got to punch his card.

He's got to punch the card.

He's so close to a toasted sub.

Toasted.

He's going to finish his punch card and then realize that Quiznos is gone.

It doesn't exist anymore.

That's the great shame is unfortunately it is a Quiznos card.

Can I add another complaint?

God, you guys.

No one talks about the tragedy.

Are we so bad?

No.

I wanted to add another complaint that hasn't been brought up yet.

Please.

The Moses Ingram, who I think is a really great actress,

has nothing to do in this movie in a subplot that is just a big old fucking wet fart.

There's something.

What is happening?

Like, we're introducing FEMA.

Are we going to see what FEMA's response is

or what their plan is?

No.

There's just something sort of, it's sort of interesting.

Again, it's sort of like a weird footnote that would appear in an article, like this sort of perversity of like, who gets to go to the survival bunker?

Right.

And Moses Ingram is like, weirdly, I get to because of this and that, right?

Yeah.

And then this other girl who I talked to Bobby Finger about this movie, A Friends Wedding, I'll explain in a second, was like, I'm obsessed with this girl.

It's like, why does she get to fucking go?

She's just been here for like a month.

And we never see that girl again.

Obviously, no check in with this again.

I think there is a game.

So there's something kind of like.

We also get the bunker discussion with Rebecca Ferguson.

And this movie repeats its beats over and over again.

I cannot deny it.

It repeats half an hour.

If If we're going to introduce FEMA and it's like, okay, they're emergency management.

They have to deal with like, I don't know, what's going on on the ground after a scenario?

We're not going to see what's going on.

Are we not going?

But like, we're not going to even learn about what their strategy is behind

a house of hurricanes.

I'm asking Ben.

I'm interested.

House of Plastique.

They introduce her to be like, the fuck is going on?

And they're just kind of getting alert messages.

And she's like, can someone fill us in?

And they're like, we don't have time to fill you in.

It's also repeated with the woman, the young woman in the press room.

Yes.

They introduce the element of press.

Yeah.

And then, oh, are we going to like the movie?

You know, we have such a tight timeline of when we find out that this is happening and when it's going to hit.

Right.

Yeah.

So there's that whole question of like, how, do we inform the public?

What, what do we do?

And it seems like the answer is no, we don't.

But again, like, I, it's going to get out.

Someone's gonna fucking tweet that there's like a,

I hate saying this.

This is the version of me that's like, this would have been better as a TV show where you can just do a full episode that is the press.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, I wouldn't watch it, but I, I know what you're saying.

I also probably wouldn't watch it.

That's not, but yeah, but it's just like why, like, this, they, they kind of introduce

people and scenarios.

They don't explore them.

Yeah.

And we spend a lot of time going over

the

bullet hitting a bullet coin toss.

Now, I understand they can't show the object, right?

They have to keep that as an unknown, but they do launch then the missiles that are supposed to

intersect.

I'm kind of like, what's up with that missile?

You want to see it?

I want to see it.

Do you want to see it just keep going?

Yeah, just give me like three minutes just to chill going through the sky.

What if they raise a little bit of whistling to

put the timeline and a new chapters from the perspective of the missiles?

They're like, oh God, I'm so worried I'm going to fuck this up.

I'm going to fuck this up.

I'm fucking missing this fucking shit.

I'm a fucking coin toss.

What's like a British actor that could have been the voice of a missile, but is trying to do an American actress?

I was going to say, Gary Oldman would kill it as one of the masses.

I was thinking like Ray Winstone, which is more on the Stephen Way.

I don't know about nuclear weapons.

Fuck this.

I'm a fucking missile.

They fucked with Black Widow.

What if we make it a woman?

Woke.

Do you know about this?

Women can beat weapons of mass destruction, too, okay?

Have any of you followed?

Hire more female ESA.

What's up?

We're submitting this episode.

Into nothing.

We're sending it into the sky.

Have any of us followed?

I brought this up to Ben the other day, so he knows this.

It was prompted by an activity we took place in

the Dragonheart franchise.

Well, I know the film Dragonheart starring Dennis Quaid with Sean Connery's is The Voice of a Dragon.

So, like three or four years after that, they make a direct-to-video sequel called Dragonheart: a New Beginning.

Can I ask what activity this was that brought up Dragonheart?

Friend of the podcast, Eva Anderson, was in New York City with her brother, the great Dash Anderson.

Yes.

Shout out.

We went to an immersive

event.

Eva loves her immersives and her.

She does.

She came all the way for immersion, right?

She did like seven things.

I was going to say, like, but she did a lot of immersions.

Yes.

But this one was called Viola's Room.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's at the shed.

Right.

And it's a cool, like, there aren't other performers in it.

It's like a set you walk through with headphones on, narrated by Helen and Bottom Carter.

Shoeless.

You are shoeless like Joe Jackson.

Helen and Bottom Carter could have been the nuke.

So I was going down a rabbit hole with my friends on the Dragonheart franchise.

Ben's giving me the thumbs up.

First movie theatrical.

A couple years later, like 97, there's a directed video, Dragon Heart, A New Beginning, where Robbie Benson,

a famous voice actor,

who you know was so good on Severance.

So great on Severance.

Season two this year.

Also, an excellent NYU professor.

Did you know that?

I didn't.

Yeah, he teaches the film Direct Man.

Okay, we're doing directive video Dragonheart.

There's a new dragon.

It's Robbie Benson, the voice of the beast, right?

I am the dragon.

Then the thing's on ice for like 12 years, and clearly someone at Universal runs in with data.

And they're like, Dragonheart doing weirdly well on DVD.

Well, or it might have just kind of been like, fantasy shit, man, Game of Thrones.

Like Philosopher, we own Dragonheart.

We own Dragonheart.

But they do three Dragonheart sequels within like five years.

And the dragons in those three are Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingsley, and Helena Bonham Carter.

So Ben Kingsley first in Dragonheart 3, The Sorcerer's Curse.

And I think he's a new character, but Patrick Stewart is continuing the Connery character.

Is it the other way around?

Dragon Heart 3, The Sorcerer's Curse, which is directed here.

I'm not looking at the names.

Probably Orson Welles or someone.

Yep, probably.

That is a prequel.

So he's playing the same character of Draco.

Kingsley is playing the Connery.

Right.

Okay.

Then in Dragonheart, Battle for the Heartfire,

that

is

set 50 years after.

Okay.

Yeah.

So in that one, you have Patrick Stewart as Drago.

Okay, so they're both Drago.

And then Dragonheart, Vengeance.

This

begins before the events of the last movie, but ends after them.

What are we doing?

Your godfather chewing it.

And now she's like a lady ice dragon.

Helena Bonham Carter says Siveth.

She's

this is insane.

So I watched this trailer and they, because my friends and I were watching all these trailers, right?

And we're like waiting in each of the trailers for the big names out

of who's the dragon, right?

We get in the booth for one day, let's be honest.

Because especially when we're going like Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingston, we're like, fuck, who's the third in this series?

And the doctor was a woman.

None of us had considered that the dragon could be a lady.

Swinging at a curveball in the dirt.

And that Curveball's name is

Helena Bottom Carter as the voice of Ice Dragon.

And in the trailer, they cut to a five-second shot, clearly filmed on an iPhone, of Helena Bottom Carter wrapped in scarves and bangles in the recording studio going, RARA!

Like actual footage

of her doing it, clearly comprising one-fifth of all the time she spent recording this dialogue.

And then we go to this audio show, and I'm like, she would probably show up and voice the fucking missile.

I think she

will loan the voice to anything for the right price.

Isn't that basically what she does in fucking,

you know, Terminator, whichever one she's in?

Does it salvation?

She's the salvation.

But she's mostly, it's her.

No, she's right.

She's the doctor in the past or whatever.

Skynet.

Yeah.

This is what I'm saying.

I thought she was like the Rebecca Ferguson AI judge.

You see her face in that.

You see her face.

I know.

I know.

Yeah.

On a big screen.

But anyway, we were after the show talking about Dragon Heart for some reason.

Because of Halibon Carter.

Okay, right, right.

You were like, she's pretty good in this.

And I was like, hey, Ben, you want to hear a thing that I talk about anytime I'm given the opening?

I've recently learned a lot about the Dragonheart franchise.

They were also trying to sell me on watching Streets of Fire.

Oh, Ben would love Streets of Fire, right?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, oh, yeah.

Streets of Fire is kind of cool.

I know why you haven't seen it because it was a flop and it's only recently had a cult research, but like, kind of crazy, you've never seen it.

It's like

major scumbum energy.

There's like really fun music in it.

Willem Dafoe is like, I think it's like one of his first

speaking of

the love list.

It's early in either Jackety Willem Dafoe.

Morenas as a bully, we were saying.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Speaking of, I just, I just want to remark on Dragon Heart Vengeance, which apparently takes place both before and after Dragon Heart Battle for the Heart Fire.

I'm glad I've infected you with this sickness.

Well, I'm just talking, so, like, you know, this Halloween, last Halloween, I did the Saw movies, right?

I was like, I'm doing it.

Yeah.

All the songs.

Are dragons spooky enough to

go?

No, no, no.

So this is prompting a new conversation.

This year, I've been doing the paranormal activities.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Of which there are seven.

You recently got marked?

I've been marked.

I've entered the ghost dimension.

I am now,

you know, I have met my next of kin, right?

Next of kin is the Paramount Plus one.

Yeah, I mean, it was intended for theaters, but COVID pushed it.

Well, you scaled the mountain to watch it.

I sure, I watched them all on Paramount Plus.

They were all available there.

And I'm sure they ran smoothly.

Well, I actually use it through Apple, so they do run smoothly.

Fuck.

Which is a smart way that, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

it's just what I love about these things, and it's why I do it

because people will then get on my letterbox being like, David, you don't actually have to watch every paranormal.

I like watching how these franchises trip over themselves to connect backwards.

Yeah.

And, like, how you watch the people behind them, the disparate people usually, fall over themselves, being like, so what is it about the hit long ago at this point that worked?

Right.

What should we connect to?

Because in paranormal activity, they keep fucking like ending up back in the house from Paranormal Activity One.

Like, a fucking tunnel opens and they go there.

And I'm just like, guys, I don't think the audience is like, yay, the house with the staircase.

Like, they don't care.

it is funny how like the big 80s and 70s horror franchises would just be like and this time the monster right tracks someone different it's a guy so it helps to be just like freddy's back joy in a new place but it's just like and here are a new group of characters who are going to be haunted and hunted by this guy you're getting eight kills of varying like levels of gore and fun and all that you get like paranormal activity 10 and the big twist ending is like oh fuck that's how they got the bed sheets this is exactly the factors.

And then the movie ends with, like, hey, we got an extra set of pillowcases.

You want these?

And they're like, those are the cases on the pillow.

And the paranormal stuff started.

Like, my friend Hannah was watching them because I started watching them.

And, like, there's in

four, in four, right?

There's a kid.

Yes.

And then there's another.

There are two six-year-old boys.

That's the Xbox Connect one.

That is correct.

That is, that is right.

And you know that in two, a baby boy boy got kidnapped by the monster lady from one.

Okay.

And then in three, you see the prequel of how those girls grew up, which is the best movie.

And three and four are both catfish.

Correct.

And three is the best of this series, and four is not very good.

Yeah.

I'm almost done.

Okay.

Four has two six-year-old boys.

Okay.

And one of them is in the family and one of them is like a spooky kid who's his friend who's doing lots of weird shit.

Oh, that's going to turn out well.

Right, exactly.

And like, clearly the movie's like, the spooky kid is the the kid who's abducted like the kid right who's been like in the hands of the evil misdirect it's a misdirect and then the other kid is like actually i'm adopted and they're like it was him all along and i'm like so who's the other kid and they're like we don't know don't worry about it i'm like so did he only exist to misdirect and they're like yeah but what a twist he just has

outra tastes

And I'm like, that only exists for the twist.

This is why I really want to do Final Destination on Patreon, especially now that we're in an era where the modern movie is a triumph.

Now, that's a series that I feel like dips in and out of trying to build connections.

And anytime they do, it's so much fun.

It's pretty funny.

I mean, six, the recent one

did a great job basically on every front.

Yeah.

But there's other ones where they're like, yeah, I heard about this.

And that's sort of like the extent.

Yeah.

Well, the fifth one is they try and like retcon.

Like they bring in the plane crash.

I can't remember if I think it's the fourth or is it the fifth one where they I think the fifth one ends with them getting on the plane from one.

And you're like, this whole movie was set in the year 2000.

It's one of those, yeah, where they built to that twist, and you're like, why?

And they're like, I don't know, wasn't it cool when the plane blew up?

I guess so.

I love those movies.

I would like to

do that on rolls.

Bloodlines is great.

I still think that is the best time I've had in a theater all year.

What about House of Dynamite?

Yeah.

A House of Dynamite.

David?

Yes.

I care about sleep.

Deeply.

Ah, Queen, you need your shut eye.

It's maybe my number one favorite thing.

You do love sleeping, and yet sometimes you seem to struggle doing it.

Well, this is why.

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Mm-hmm.

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What did you eat at Nighthawk?

I was trying to remember.

I got, I got two things.

I got tater tots, and I got, you know, I had this tooth removed, and I'm still in a zone where I can't eat popcorn.

Damn.

I got some popcorn.

It was great.

I also got corn red.

Oh, yeah.

Scallion or like green onion dip.

It was so funny.

I remember what I got.

There's a fucking, there's a one battle special item.

Oh, the chicken.

Yes, the chicken lollipops.

Oh, yeah.

It's called finger licking.

Guys.

Yeah.

I almost ordered that.

I kind of wish I did.

I always end up getting like the halal rice bowl situation.

I got like two soft-ish finger foods.

We're at DEF CON 2.

Oh, shit.

Time to reset the episode.

No, I'm just going to walk off the roof.

I'm going to Jared Harris it.

I like averted my eyes momentarily when that

even catch that.

So I didn't need to.

Because their reaction is like, Jesus.

Yeah.

Let's get on the fucking copter, though.

And then I was like, wait, wait, what?

Did something happen?

And Dave was like, yeah, he jumped off.

Jared Harris jumped off the roof.

And no one really follows up on it.

I was just like, wait, which guy just died?

It's the whole problem with this movie.

It's like the stakes at this point are switched to the bottom.

How much do we think Caitlin Deaver got paid?

I hope she got a nice bag.

I love to see her.

I think she's got, it does quite a good job in this scene.

Yes, she does, given, again, to me, the sort of hackneyed nature of the scene.

Yes.

Yes, but she makes it feel like a fucking real thing.

I bought property on Deaver Island to justify season two, and I've got like a lavish hotel at this point.

Yeah.

She's always good.

Gabinga Akinagabe, I believe is his name.

Gabinga.

Love him.

He is so good in this as well.

There's sort of a side conversation.

People I met when I worked as a receptionist at the post facility.

Love that guy.

He's really a great guy.

He's Chris Partlow in the wire.

Yep.

A character I love.

And I love how at the end of The Wire, he survives and he's in prison for all the murders he did.

And he's with, I think, Weebe, who's another of the characters who just survived, you know, and went to prison.

And they're just hanging out in prison.

And you imagine them being both like, yeah, fuck, we did all that shit.

This movie had two members of the wire, two members of the original Broadway cast of Hamilton.

So it's got Renee Goldsbury as a

wife.

It's weird how

we need to talk about it.

But she is.

Nuclear, what?

She is so Michelle in this.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, it's weird.

She's very Michelle-coated in styling and the fact that she's like, you know, her husband is like, oh, yeah, you're kind of my advisor.

I don't know if all presidents are like that.

But also, their banter is so much our public understanding of the Obama marriage.

Right.

And then also you have Idris being like, well, first of all, listening to podcasts and then being like, how's your jump shot?

Anthony Ramos, of course, is the other Hamilton member.

I found him a little distracting, I'm going to say.

I don't like him in anything.

I'm sorry.

I like him.

I like him in.

I do like him in In the Heights.

I don't like him in In the Heights.

I like him in Transformers, Rise of the Earth.

I did not know that one.

I didn't get to rise with those beats.

I get to rise.

I think he's like, the thing that really gets me is him in Twisters when he's positioned

an alternate romantic

romantic option.

I'm like, I'm sorry, Glenn Powell is just rizzing off, he's rizzing in my face.

It's true, he is rizzing in one's face, but it's also like in that one, he's like the guy in the polo shirt who's like, all right, but like, get back in the truck, we got to get back to work.

And I'm like, this is a good use of this guy.

I feel like someone throughout when that movie came out, if you flip him and Corin Swit, both of them are more interesting in each other's role.

With Corin Switzer, I was just kind of like knowing that since he was going to be Superman, the whole time he was on screen, I was like, this guy could be a good Superman.

He looks like Superman, exactly.

Well, and I also was like, oh, this is cool that he's going to be Superman, but he's playing like

the antagonist in this.

I'm like, okay,

whatever.

But yeah, not a fan.

I did like that one girl, though, the one who

worked in the Alaskan

party base.

Tears silently rolling down her cheeks.

Do we know her name?

I didn't clock who but she was good.

You know how she's the one who has to, you know, announce if there was an impact, right?

Yes, yeah.

Uh, Tracy, if her name is here, I don't see it on the big line.

I thought Tracy was good.

Tracy, let's it's kind of just one of those things where you're like, is this the first time he's done this?

Like, he crushes as like a general.

Yes.

Like, give me that all the time.

Yeah.

Can we talk about Idris?

Yeah,

so what is there?

Just Alan Smithy, editor of this this show, is just like

his

vibe as a president is so bizarre and unprecedented in terms of what he's doing, because he really is playing it as President Idris, where like the movie almost needs to stop and explain how he got elected.

And it's part of this, I was saying, was like, we're a little fucked in a Trump era depicting presidents on screen because up until...

Because, right, this movie is about we assume a somewhat competent administration reacting right right up until you know let's say

a little bit Obama but really up until the first Trump presidency right any kind of white guy over the age of 55 with a pretty good jawline and slap a suit on him he's the president could be the president and if you want the president to be evil rinse and repeat with someone who's got more of a character actor face and an interesting voice right but you could just sort of depict an empty suit president on screen without without it feeling like any statement, especially in shit like Transformers or whatever, where you're like, at some point we need to cut to a White House.

You know, Transformers 1 has the bit where there's like a fucking, you see cowboy boots on a desk and a dude doing a bad W.

Bush impression.

Right.

But then I feel like the later Transformers movies are like, hello, I'm president human being.

The Transformers are our friends.

And you're like, there's nothing political about this, right?

Obama kind of breaks the mold in a lot of ways of like, here's someone who, because of our own fucking ugliness as a country, we thought was unelectable, right?

And is such a good communicator and is charismatic and it's not a perfect figure,

but obviously is the best WTF guest of all time.

Mark.

And then Trump, you're just like,

this thing though, where anytime there's a bad present in a movie, people are like, this movie is really going after Trump, right?

Even if they don't resemble Trump in any way.

Idris in this kind of plays like a dilettante.

He doesn't know, like,

was he?

I think he was just elected or something because he keeps talking about how, like, the campaign was so exhausting.

He seems so sleepy.

He seems sleepy, and he seems stressed out, and he seems like a little annoyed that he has to do actual work while not being a bad guy.

But everyone's kind of like, he's really charismatic down to that Ken Choi moment, which is like kind of the most backfill you get on him, which is like, I'm going to miss the show.

It's kind of fun watching the A-listers do their routine, you know?

They're all the same.

They're chronically late and they're narcissists.

And then you just watch this guy absolutely struggle to be like, I haven't learned any of this shit.

I don't know what the fuck to do.

He's turning to fucking Prince Eric from Little Mermaid, being like, Solve this for me.

And you're like, this character is bizarre.

And you can't just in the third act cut to him and be like,

and he's the president.

It's a stressful situation.

He's not even great at the basketball.

No, he misses the shot.

He misses the first shot.

It's kind of the joke, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he's just not like really engaging with the kids very well.

Right.

It gives him a lot of fun.

He's a little full of shit.

He's also bad at the nuclear part.

That's what I'm saying.

But I mean, anyone would be, I think, is sort of the point of the case.

I would be good at it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I'd say this one.

This one.

I'd put it to the menu.

I'd say like rare, medium, and well done.

Jonah Hauer King.

So fucked up.

Who played Prince Eric and

the wonderful Little Mermaid Remake.

Probably my fifth favorite Rob Marshall Disney live action film.

um you know he plays the guy who's holding the football who gives him this right in the back of the car with address yeah

and there's a slightly sinister energy to him that i kind of appreciated exactly where you're like is it just because this guy has this weighty job

is bigelow trying to tell us like it's kind of weird that anyone would have influence at this point even someone who means well like you know this is when the movie works for me and it's why i think the gabriel basso section works where it's just like, when all the fucking cards are down, the stakes of any sentence become so severe.

Right.

That's kind of interesting to think about.

There are times where I think the movie captures that well in a kind of human interpersonal level more than like the logistics of how this shit goes down.

Another thing I think this movie does well is just really illustrate how much Zoom sucks.

You watch the first act of this movie and you're like, these important conversations are happening on a grid of eight faces.

And you're like, this sucks.

This is too weighty to happen over time.

Gabriel Basso is taking a call like from his iPhone as he is.

Like, I'm sorry.

I think that is the best section of the movie.

And not only that, I think it is the most effectively tense section of the movie, especially when he's doing the runaround with the security.

Yeah, no, that's exactly the metal detector.

And he's so stressed out that he can't maneuver like what is the right way to stay on this call.

He lacks the professionalism of some of the other people there to be like, I should mute myself or like, I should turn video off.

And yet, you're like, how bleak is it that like six guys are looking at a computer screen where the president's video is off and he's in the back of a car being like, I don't know, I don't know what the fuck should we do?

Yeah.

Um, versus like a kind of Doctor Strange love,

fuck, this is important kind of thing.

Like, it, I think this movie at times captures a certain modern hell.

There was a part that, again, everything I say that I liked and want more of, it makes it sound like I want, you know, like a limited series or whatever.

Yeah.

But the guy who works in the like White House cafe.

That moment I think is really good.

And because like I, that's what I'm more interested in is like these people on the fringes of these big, insane decisions.

What like.

They're not getting any information.

They're getting drops of it.

How do they respond?

What is life like for them?

A rare moment in this film that is beautifully underwritten.

Yes.

What is the name of that guy who's sort of Rebecca Ferguson's right hand?

Oh, the one who's about to propose to you.

Yeah, did you notice that I feel like it came up at one point that he was about to get married or proposed to his girlfriend?

I think that is better than the amount of people who have a child in a city or the wife is pregnant because it's at least hinging on this idea of this guy's going to regret that he didn't do it.

He doesn't realize that he already missed his one chance to propose, right?

I mean, I guess.

He steps out to the hallway.

He's got the fucking phones.

The cafe guy asks him what's going on.

He takes the pause and he just says, go home.

And I'm like, I wish the rest of the movie had that level of confidence in its writing to not need to spell things out.

Ben, you had a major complaint off of that scene.

Oh, I said he, we should have followed him home.

There should have been a lot of people.

Like, I'm more way more interested in that guy.

Yes.

Than I am in like anything with like Jared Harris and his daughter or like whatever.

Like I would rather, I'm more interested in the people that are more like

tertiary.

The Greta Lee scene, I do think, is kind of interesting in that setup.

Ben did specifically say afterwards, he wished we had an entire chapter based around the cafe guy so we could learn about how long he seeps his tea and such.

So, these are the kinds of questions the movie really needs to answer.

Yeah, maybe like, how does he relax?

Here's another conversation.

Maybe he throws on a Netflix show.

Alan Smithy was like, it's crazy to think Greta Lee, Oscar nominee, and now two years later, she's got one scene in Catherine Bigelow movie.

And I went, no, no, no, my friend.

Greta Lee just missed out on a best actress nomination.

And in the year 2025, we're seeing the difference where it's like, she got the whirlwind of press.

She got like put on the grand stage.

She just missed out on the nomination.

Her level up paycheck gigs are one scene in House of Dynamite and Human Lead in Tron Aries.

She's in a season, what if Morning Show?

Season four of The Morning Show.

I don't think she's a very

great actor actor.

I think she's

a very good actor.

David, do you want to beat the tie bird?

It's interesting.

I really liked her in things.

I like Past Lives.

I think that performance fits that movie well.

It wasn't a performance where I was like, oh my God, I want to see everything this person can do.

She's very, you haven't seen Tron Aries yet?

No.

You haven't met him?

I haven't entered the grid.

You should.

Or I haven't entered Los Angeles.

She's very lost in that movie.

I don't know that that's.

Sure.

That's not her fault, perhaps.

Probably not.

I mean, maybe someone else could have had a little more.

She has like a couple moments.

As someone who's seen every episode of The Morning Show multiple times, I think she is terrible in that show.

I have not done that.

I have never watched The Morning Show.

Can we hold The Morning Show against anyone?

No.

Well,

I think there are people who are very good in the morning show.

I believe.

Billy Cruddup, and I think that Jennifer Anniston as Alex Levy

is great.

And she had sex with John Hamm in space?

No, she didn't go to space.

Reese went in her place, but she did have sex with John Hammond.

And was January 6th in space or were those two seasons?

I hear things about the morning show where I'm like,

she was

three opens with Reese going to space and ends with with her speaking to the FBI about her involvement in January 6th.

Does that sound like the best season of television that's ever been produced?

A lot of stuff.

A lot of stuff goes on.

I think she's fine in House of Dynamite in the Gettysburg scene.

Ooh, we're getting a documentary about the making of the Avatar films on Disney Plus.

Hell fucking.

Yes, can I say this?

I went back to Pandora last week.

Re-release of Way of Water.

Uh-huh.

That new trailer fucking rules.

Yeah, it's so cool.

And there are, I guess, three preview scenes that they have playing an alternation for the re-release that's now done.

The one I got was Stephen Lang meeting Una Chaplin, head of the Ashnavy.

And I want to say I'm pretty ready to let her destroy my life.

I am so all in on this character.

Fire and Ash looks so

fucking good.

Spider can breathe now.

Good for him.

They fucking link him up to the tree, and now now his dreadlocks have the fucking trees.

They gave him those fucking dreadlocks for a reason, baby.

I love it.

He's with the dreadlocks, and he can breathe without an apparatus.

Oh, my God.

Seems like a lot to

throw in the soup.

Game is over.

I'm really excited for it.

Firecon in the trailer, a bunch.

He is all over that.

Yeah, and I just got sent a trailer for Fire and Water colon making the avatar films.

Official trailer, November 7th.

I'm just going to go to the next one.

I can't wait to plug my dreadlocks into that dock.

I think it would be really cool if in 2025

you decide to start growing dreadlocks.

I'm going to push back on this.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you got some notes on that proposal?

The bit ends now.

House of Dynamite.

I do agree that I think it's what I like about the Gratalise section, right?

Is like it's more interesting in a way to see a person have their life interrupted.

get a call that's just like, it's fucking happening, and then have to deal with the fallout of those words being said i think the the moment with rebecca ferguson's husband in the car is like similarly kind of emotionally affective in that way uh rebecca ferguson is very good in this but it is funny how much this movie was like sold the whale style on one image of her standing sideways in like mission control with a phone to her head and you were like it's gonna be a bigelow movie of fucking rebecca ferries and taking names right Just knocking them down, like throwing fire.

It's doing the look.

He's doing the wail.

Now, this is a reference to an episode that I think still hasn't dropped, which is, I think, the Hail Caesar, is where I start that.

That's where we really talk about it.

I'm much more interested in like the fallout of all of Ethan Hunt's good intentions.

And I wanted a scene in this movie where Tracy Letz is like, do we call in the IMF?

A thing that I did right on my night hot order card to show to my husband is Ethan Hunt would fix this.

He would.

Can we talk Bigelow tears for a moment?

Sure.

Tears of the Catherine.

Yes.

I just, just to put it out here, I have not seen Weight of Water or K-19, but I've seen it.

I think water weighs about a pound.

Those are the two worst ones.

Okay.

Really?

I thought people kind of liked K-19.

Crazy.

No, that's.

That's like a myth that's been pushed by the work media.

Yeah.

I have my top 10, my top 10 right here, and I think it's, yeah, it's unchanging, but I should put a house of dynamite on here.

I basically think near dark, blue steel, point break, strange days, hurt locker, and zero dark 30 are all degrees of excellence.

Well, yeah, sure.

What's your favorite?

Point break is my favorite.

Minus Strange Days.

I put Blue Steel at the top of my list when we did our rankings just because I was so...

Do you have like a Ron Silver, I think?

Yeah.

Do you like it when Ron Silver is not chill?

Because he ain't.

Strange Days, I've now seen several more times since we did that series, and I fucking love it.

My top five are Point Break, Strange Days, Hurt Locker, Neer Dark, Blue Steel.

Sure.

Yeah.

Like, she does,

within the can of directors we've covered, and especially for how relatively few movies she has,

she has a good number of, like,

of good movies.

Top-tier movies.

Yes.

And then I have Zero Dark 30, a solid sixth, but the trouble for her is I have the Loveless seventh.

Yeah.

And you want that to be true when you've made seven movies, not 11 movies, because then below that I have Detroit K-19.

I'm going to put a House of Dynamite right at number 10 above the weight of water.

I mean, yeah, even like me defending this movie more, I'm like, my only question is, do I put House of Dynamite above the love list?

Right.

Sure.

Right.

That would be the highest you'd put it.

That's the highest I'd put it.

Yeah.

House of Dynamite might.

It is wild just looking at that fucking gap of like 17 to 20.

Well, Well, and to me, it's also a problem that I'm like, I did not like Detroit.

I think Detroit has so many of the same problems of like, just because something happened or could happen does not mean it's a good movie or it's interesting in material, right?

Like Detroit just gets so lost in its like struggle for like various similitude or what, you know, it's like

you have to understand like all the horrible thing.

Like, no, I don't.

Kurt Lucker and Zero Dark, as you said,

find ways to build really good character stories.

Yes.

To make them character studies within

Detroit has characters that's sort of trying to do that it's the boyga character can lead characters

i think that zero dark 30 is a

it works mostly for me as a like jessica chest whole performance slash queening out she's queening out i owe it a rewatch it's a very flawed movie in my opinion but it's got really good stuff in it's been hit with the urge to rewatch that one just anytime i'm kind of stressed out i just like pratt and fatigues give that guy a semi-auto i want to watch it you joking he's such a a real American.

He is such a real American.

When are people going to stop being mean?

And you know what?

He's not is weird.

Yes.

And I'm going to make a do an interview about how I'm not weird.

Yeah.

Whatever kind of weird thing you think I am, I'm not that.

Yeah.

No further questions.

Yeah.

He just needs to fight the accusations of being kind of lame.

He keeps responding to those as if he's been accused of war crime.

Right.

It's Zachary Levi.

It's not that bad yet.

Yeah.

But like how Zachary Levi keep going on the internet being like, stop saying that I'm weird and fucked up.

Right.

See my movie.

But he likes to believe I had more specific accusations of like, you're faving weird tweets.

Sure.

And Pratt, it was like the thing that started to be a little bit different.

It's mostly you went to a weird church or whatever.

The thing that started the Pratt spiral.

You divorced Donna Ferris, you fool.

Right.

But like someone made the grid of like, pick the best, rank the four Chris's.

Right.

Right.

And overwhelmingly, the internet put him fourth.

Right.

And he felt the need to like sit down with Barbara Walters and be like, why does everyone everyone hate?

And you're like, I don't know.

You're fourth.

You really just love Pine and Hemsworth and everybody.

20 million.

You're doing okay, guy.

Oh, boy.

How's the dynamite?

Would this movie go up on Netflix?

24th?

The 24th of October?

Yeah.

Do you think it's going to get a best picture number?

No, I don't think so.

I think it's over.

No.

Okay.

Right?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm looking at the best picture field and it goes about seven deep that I'm like, okay, these, these all feel plausible.

And then I'm kind of of like, I don't know, man.

Let's do this with our episode.

You have seen way more than the other three of us.

Sure.

What would your 10 be right now on October 15th?

I'll give you what, yeah, like, okay,

one battle after another.

Feels the most locked.

Hamnet.

Yeah.

Sinners.

Yeah.

Marty Supreme.

Sentimental value.

That feels like a pretty ironclad five.

Wicked for good.

And now I am like, I don't know.

yeah so here's the sort of buckets of what's next yeah you've got like avatar fire and ash on its own island of question mark of like hey they always dominated these avatar movies but it's too does fatigue set in are they gonna take it for granted especially when it's not a grand finale right you've got the netflix bucket j kelly frankenstein house of dynamite this sort of like what do they push what do people like the most we can't even tell what like uh does well because there's no box off it.

But a true, like, I could see a world in which

three of those get in.

I could see a world in which none of them get in.

I could see a world in which one of them get in.

I struggle to imagine all three, but one seems plausible and two seems possible.

But also, zero very possible.

I would right now maybe pick Jay Kelly.

I'm still waiting to see on Frankenstein if that goes over better.

No.

It might have that same kind of craft surge and it getting the runner-up at Toronto for all of them.

That was interesting.

Because that's another thing where the first response is to it where it's dog shit.

I'm saying it's a friendlier audience.

Then you've got your acclaimed foreign film bucket.

It was just an accident.

Yeah.

No other choice.

Fucking excellent, by the way.

Oh, I'm excited to see it.

Favorite movie of the year that isn't

One Battle.

So it's your number two of the year is another way of putting it.

But it's sort of like One Battle.

It's kind of like, well, what the fuck am I?

Sure.

But I love that movie so much.

That's phenomenal.

So you got, it was just an accident, no other choice.

And the secret agent sort of of hovering down there.

The sort of neon, you know, like

can favorite.

Also, that it's basically now a,

if not a given, there's almost a kind of standard.

An international director gets in and it gets one of the best pictures in.

It was just an accident in some ways is, you know, not the easiest movie to sell to Oscar Vernon, but in other ways.

He's so compelling.

It feels like it's his most approachable show.

Right.

Like maybe this is the moment that like, yeah, it gets this.

So I went to see it with my dad.

We saw it at the New York Film Festival.

My dad only knows about Panahi from, like, the news.

Right.

Right.

And, and this guy, he's made five films.

Like, he's in movies essentially under house arrest.

Right.

He's smuggled out of the country.

These movies are like an act of protest.

And he just immediately goes, I didn't think it was going to be so funny.

And I was like, yeah, all of his movies are funny.

That's the other thing.

His movies are very political, but they're very human.

They all have really strong hooks.

But this one, especially

has like more of a

straightforward plot that anyone can grab onto versus the last couple, which obviously he made under very intense conditions.

Do you know about this guy, Ben?

I do, yeah.

Yeah.

Can I give you like the one sentence?

This is one of the things I know about David.

Tons of stuff.

Can I give you the one sentence?

What you don't know about is all the bullshit we go on about me and him.

I'm normal.

Exactly.

Well, yeah, but now you've heard the Dragonheart sequel Spiel two times.

Fuck.

Try to argue you're normal.

Can I give you the one sentence on It Was Just an Accident, which will also maybe function as helping to to sell this movie to our sure

throw it out there.

A bunch of guys who are like POWs, basically, right?

We're political prisoners and tortured and blindfolded

and have not recovered from the trauma of that.

One of these guys comes across in the wild who he thinks was his torturer.

They never saw the guy's face, but he thinks from the guy's gait.

The voice, the sound, the gait, the smell, all of this.

And he like blindfolds him, knocks him out, is going to bury him alive.

And the guy makes a fairly compelling argument while he's in the midst of being buried that he's got the wrong guy.

So then the rest of the movie is this guy being like, fucking driving around in his van, going to friends and other people.

Other people who are captured and being like, can I show you something?

Oh, my God.

Do you think this is him?

I think it's him.

And every person he goes to is like, has different levels of like how ready they are to re-litigate their own trauma.

Sure.

But it's just about the absolute uncertainty of like, can you ever know?

And if you've got the wrong guy, then what does that say about you?

And what have you done?

I mean, it sounds heavy, but you're saying it's also funny.

Both, it's really tense.

It's very, very heavy.

It's really funny.

But it is really funny.

Is that not a great premise for a movie?

It is.

Absolutely.

And I knew nothing going into it.

I truly knew nothing.

I'd say a spoiler, which gives exactly that much away.

Then there's Begonia, which I have seen and I don't buy it as an Oscar movie, but obviously they do like Yorgos sometimes.

You've got like the Spring Scene movie.

Does that go over?

It's kind of getting like tepid-y, you know, okay reactions.

You got something like, does the testament of Anne Lee come on strong?

Does weapons like have a surprise?

I put money down on a weapon surge.

Does Bradley Cooper surprise everyone with this thing?

Is the thing going to be on?

How about this?

Does Netflix get trained dreams, which is better than any of the other Netflix movies?

Does Netflix get K-pop demon hunters?

No, I don't think so no no you guys

no but they'll get it in oscar it's going to win first time with you recently i think it's very good marie can you name all of the animated films to ever get a best picture nomination uh first very short is beauty and the beast

i am the beast uh we've got toy story 3 up

the potato head i am the old man

i believe we're at the end of the list oh wow yeah okay It was really like Beauty and the Beast was a phenomenon.

When they went to 10, everyone's response was, oh, this means that Pixar is going to get an auto nomination every year.

For a minute, it did seem that way.

And then Pixar started to lose it.

I don't think there's a fourth one.

Yeah.

Okay.

And there have been other ones like, you know, the Spider-Verse movies, like things like that, where they were like,

this could get into this be the crossover.

Right.

I think for an animated film to get into best picture again, it needs to be like

a true.

It would have to be like Wally.

It would have to be like, this is a giant fantastic addition.

Wally would have made it with and it's getting critics awards.

Yeah.

I mean the thing about it is the only real version of that since the movies we just discussed is Spider-Verse and that probably was just cost by being a Spider-Man.

Yeah, and they still gave it animated.

Would Green Book count just because it's such an animated performance?

I'm not a cartoon, I'm a real guy.

Ben, that is the most sober, realistic way I've ever seen a pizza be eaten on screen.

I don't know what you speak of.

How could you call me a cartoon?

Wow, remember Green Book?

We got to open it up.

Should we re-release Green Book right now?

Someone was making.

Green Book and 40X?

Oh, my God.

The boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Every time he's being racist,

every time Linda Cartolini, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Just the heart of the movie.

Thank you.

When they throw away the glass,

I was reading about the 40X for one battle after another, which I really regret not going to.

I was playing for like four or five years.

But apparently, when Sean Penn gets his little butt play happening, like you're

it gives you a little tickle.

Just a little

lower back, a little, ooh.

You know, that movie's really good.

Yeah, that movie's really good.

One battle after another.

Yeah, it's really good.

And I'll say this right now:

that's my best actor right there.

Leo?

I don't think that's getting beat, my friend.

Not I was thinking about him.

Have you seen Re Supreme?

Haven't seen it.

You're saying personally, or who you think is going to win.

Timothy Chalamay is going to win the office.

I think so, too.

Yes.

But no, no, I think

Timmy's winning for two reasons.

One, I hear he's very good in the film.

Yeah.

Two, Adrian Brody took one step on that stage and everyone's like, why didn't we just shoot

Timmy?

I mean, we got this wrong.

Absolutely.

Brody just like, he just goes like this.

Like, he moves slightly to get out of a seat.

And everyone's like, you know, Chalamy was really good.

David, I'll be a little more generous.

I'll give him five seconds.

Yeah, he took one breath on the seat.

He gets it from the stage.

No, no, no, it's when he throws his fucking gum.

That's when he lost it.

And it's the moment he turns back around and throws his gum to Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife, where people went, oh, fucking no.

Everyone's like, he actually already even has an Oscar.

What are we doing?

Yeah.

Doesn't matter because it seems like this might be the better outcome in a weird sort of a way.

It's kind of annoying when you get your Oscar for playing a musician.

Yeah.

And everyone's like, I love you and I love Bob Dylan.

This one, it's like you threw your whole Timusi into this one.

How old is he now?

He's 29.

Yeah, he's almost 30.

Yeah.

And he will.

He'll be 30 on December 27th.

And he will win best actor, presumably, with three lead nominations under his belt before the age of 30.

It's a good point.

It's pretty shit.

Undeniable.

He's having a good run.

I love my boy.

I'm so excited.

Like, is he going to thank Kylie at the Oscars?

Everyone is so hung up on the normal person he dates.

I mean, I'm just, I'm not against the relationship.

I'm actually very, did you see Gwyneth Paltrow gave some interview recently where she was like talking about how

elite Gwyneth, I don't know what's going on at any point in time shit.

Where she said that she asked him, like, do you have like a girlfriend?

And he was like, yeah.

Yeah, I do.

And then he's like, she's got two kids.

And I was like, oh, that's so nice for a young man to be interested in a woman with children.

And I had no idea it was Kylie Jenner.

It's just like her being like, I'm in Avengers Endgame 2?

I don't think so.

I mean, that one?

Yeah.

No, no, I'm just,

I'm withholding my statements.

Oh, withholding your statements like Kylie Jenner look going into Oscar Newman goes to war with Jenner family when it felt like Brody and Chalamay were neck and neck right and Chalamay had just given his sag speech of like I want to be one of the greats and I like that speech I liked it too I did too but it was a bold kind of thing to so admit like I it's always the risk like do you want to admit how much you care about this shit at these awards or whatever actively engaging publicly with a duel against the notion of being cringe which I like that I feel like he's like you've been trying too hard.

Right.

Fucking, I like, I want to be good.

I'm not doing the work.

I'm not doing that.

Naturally, I'm not trying to do that.

Drop that back, right?

Like, it does mean something to me.

He shows up at the Oscars.

Kylie's there with him in the front row.

And I just immediately thought to myself, he's not winning tonight.

He's in that canary yellow suit.

Where I was just like, it was more of a butter.

I think they don't want to give it to a 28-year-old who's dating a Kardashian.

And when The Rock showed up at Venice and he was really slimmed down, and you were

what is up with this look?

I said he knows there is no universe in which they give him an Oscar if he gets up on stage and he's like bursting out of the suits.

There's certain things where, like, regardless of performance, they're thinking about the moment at the podium.

And I do think those things factor in.

I like that movie quite a bit.

I think his performance in that film is extraordinary.

Which host?

Smashing.

I still have to see it.

I really like that movie and that performance.

Should I go see it in Japan?

My friend texted me last night being like should i go see it and i was like look most people seem to not like it it's kind of a bummer i like it check it out she got there she was like solo viewing yeah it's just me

i feel bad are they gonna give him the nod like out of appreciation or is he even not guaranteed to get i don't think he's guaranteed to get in the five at all because like at this point the narrative is that it failed like it's not just that it underwhelmed or whatever the narrative is like oh it didn't work which is what the movie's about Totally.

Which does make the movie more fascinating.

Well, who's it would be because, okay, Leo,

Chalamay.

I think Michael B.

Jordan is a luck.

I disagree with you on that.

Why?

I would love to see him get dominated.

I'm just not sensing.

people putting enough credit on that performance as a driving force.

I'll put it this way: if the Oscars snub Michael B.

Jordan, it's going to be a tornado of shit for them.

And I'm pretty sure they will not.

I'm pretty sure they will not.

All right.

Well, let's revisit this.

You're going to snub the most famous black actor of his generation for a playing twins performance in a box office sensation that's gonna get the best picture nomination

like involved with the i would be very surprised yeah no that that nomination makes sense to me who else is in there that well and here's why here's the other reason he's getting in there it's again kind of tricky after that well then maybe there is room for the rock well all right let me wagner more yeah

secret agent sure ethan hawk blue moon which

which you said that I'm going to love, David.

Jesse Clemens, Begonia, Jeremy Allen, White, Springsteen, George Clooney, Jake Helly.

This is kind of seen as the top tier.

It's a soft-ish feel after that.

And then because

Stellan's doing supporting.

He's supporting.

Mescal's doing supporting.

Yes, he is.

Somewhat, I think, strategic.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah.

Like, supporting is also.

Supporting actor this year is going to be tough.

Yeah.

I mean, do they, I'm, I, I, you know, how much do they love love one battle?

Do they want Sean and Benicio?

Like, Benicio, to me, is like MVP of the movie.

I agree.

He's pretty, he's pretty amazing.

I think he's unbelievable on that film.

My guess is that both of them get nominated, but both of them getting nominated and both of those guys already having at least one Oscar.

They split it, and then it goes to the film.

I think the Stellen Lifetime Achievement Award, it's hard to argue with that campaign.

I haven't seen the film yet.

You haven't seen Cinnamon.

Oh, you've seen cinematography.

But from what I'm hearing about him, Paul Mesco will be winning.

Really?

He's going to win.

But I thought That's from hearing.

Jesse's.

It's her win.

That has already been engraved, I think.

That is not in question.

But I'm basically just hearing the movie has a major moment where he fucking does Shakespeare.

Right.

And it rocks and everyone cries.

And I'm like, I don't know, man.

I think they might just be like, Timmy and Meskel, baby.

Let's do it.

I read on Elon Musk's ex, whatever.

Oh, the everything website.

The everything website.

A chill just went up my spine.

That there is a line where he is like going to like

kill himself and he goes to be or not to be.

Look, I'm not saying that I think I'm going to love Hamlet.

I will see what I think of him.

You still haven't seen it.

Yeah.

But I,

the thing with me with sentimental value, which is a film I think is very good.

Have any of you seen it?

No, I'm really excited.

I think it will.

I think it will do well at the Oscars because they liked his last movie because Neon seems to be back, you know, right?

But it is not a movie where it's like, oh my God, Stellan just crushed that monologue.

Like, it's an odd, aloof, frosty Norwegian movie about a filmmaker.

Like, it's not like Otto, you know.

But at this point in October, many, many months to go, right?

I think there are basically four people locked in supporting actors.

The two-on-battle guys, it's Mescal, and it's Skarsgaard.

Some would argue with you about Panicio, but I would predict it.

I think Panicio is getting in, right?

Two of those guys have already won.

Paul Meskel's really young, and Stellan Scarsgaard's a legend.

He is.

He is.

And here's another thing to consider.

He's probably about to give us six months of no skips banger interviews.

I think that's going to hurt him more.

It's possible he will put his foot in his mouth, but I'm excited.

Me, I'm excited.

Like, does he show up to interviews in the fat suit from Omamia 2?

That's the best case scenario.

Does he accept the Oscar in the fat suit?

Does he show up as his character from Pirates of the Caribbean?

Bootstrap Bill Sr.

or whatever.

If we're lucky,

right?

Right?

I don't know what he'll do.

Any of it's good.

All the scenarios you just outlined are good.

I would love to see Delroy Lindo sneak in there.

I think he's so fucked up because he's so deserving of a nom at this point.

He's never had one.

Sandler was like.

Sandler is still high on prediction lists.

He's great in the movie.

And there's all, again, it's the kind of like, isn't it time?

We have never nominated him.

Like, does they have to make room for him?

I don't know.

The Oscars, they're silly.

What about the Shark Tank guy?

What about Kevin O'Leary?

Everyone says he's very good.

I think he's probably really fun in that movie.

I don't think the Oscars will care.

Yeah.

Is he Mr.

Wonderful?

That's his name?

Yes.

He's the bald one.

Yes.

I'm a bunch of Shark Tank.

There's the bald one.

What then?

Or a DEF CON one.

Oh, fuck.

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So this film, I guess, came out October 10th, 2025, which was last weekend.

Yes.

Bad weekend at the box office.

It was an underwhelming weekend at the box office.

Now, Griffin, I know you've seen the number two movie.

Of course, the number one movie I have seen, and we love it.

And its name is Tron Aries, starring A-lister.

My favorite A-lister.

The platinum movie star.

A movie I found just this side of enjoyable because of the Tron business.

Didn't find Jared too engaging.

I took my low cousin George to New York Comic-Con.

Sure.

And as we're on the riding the subway over to beautiful Hudson Yards, New York, a real neighborhood.

You know what?

That's what it is.

This is a real neighborhood, goddammit.

He was asking me questions.

You have a hot dog stand and everything.

He was asking me questions about Hudson Yards.

And I was like, this has been a thing

barely, maybe less time than you've been alive.

I was going to say, probably 10-ish years.

He basically broke ground when you were born.

You should just say this was almost a New York Jets stadium, all of this.

Of course, that's what I said to him.

But we kept passing Tron Aries ads, and he was like, Oh my God, Tron Aries is out.

Have you seen it yet?

And I was like, No.

And he was like, Oh, I want to see it.

And I went, Do you like Tron?

And he went, I saw the last one.

I thought it was boring.

And I went, Well, have you seen the original?

And he went, Yeah, I saw that one too.

I thought it was boring.

And I was like, Here's the whole cultural experience of Tron every time, which is they put a new thing up and you're like, That looks cool.

Do I care?

And then we kept seeing Tron Aries stuff at like Comic-Con.

He was like, Oh, those Tron Aries toys are cool.

And I was like, I thought you said you found Tron boring.

And he was like, I do.

But it looks good.

It does look good.

No one's denying how it looks.

I like in the trailer when Jared Leto just dissolves into a bunch of little Legos, little black Legos.

Excuse me, Marie, when he deres.

And Jodi Turner Smith does it too.

That's so cool.

Several times.

I just think that's really cool.

What if it's like some guy at like a Hollywood fucking test panel, right?

You know,

like, what do you like?

Do you like action?

I really only like it when Jodi Turner Smith D-resins.

Oh, okay.

We'll make a whole movie of that, I guess.

I haven't seen any of the Trons.

They're all great.

This is the worst one.

I feel like I probably think they were boring.

Yeah.

Definitely.

No question.

Like, Ehrlich was like, it's okay.

And I was like, that's a pretty high bar.

Right.

Yeah.

Sheridan O'Tron.

I thought this was going to be an atomic disaster.

Sherrod Leto Tron and it's half in the real world.

Like all things from like, no.

And they're abandoning most of the original and legacy.

Yeah.

And Bridges is barely in it.

He's burping, though.

The idea that it's watchable to me is like high praise.

I will go see it and probably think it is fun.

The amount of sort of

noises that Bridges makes makes it seem to me like there were takes that were all of those noise, right?

I love Tron Marie.

Tron Grock.

And I

had just like braced myself for this thing is going to blow chunks.

Patreon Tron?

Patretron?

I've patreoned.

Patreon.

Now that we've got Aries.

Patretron, yes.

And I've got my steals.

I just got them as well.

Boy, that 82 steel looks good.

That transfer.

Ooh, baby.

As Tracy Letts would say, reference quality.

Reference quality, DEF CON one.

Number two at the box office, Griff.

I actually haven't seen this movie, but I know you did, and I think you liked it.

Marie, have you raised the roof?

No, but I really want to.

Roof?

Man.

Now, I've heard.

Griff, can you confirm a complaint I've heard, which is everyone's like a little long, a little shaggy, could have tightened it.

Apart from that, good.

I would have watched it for five hours there you go it has immaculate hangout vibes

he's hanging out on the roof i was genuinely compelled by every single solitary second of that movie first of all i can rarely think it's a limited grouping of artists who become less pretentious while also not just becoming lazy and hacky to see derek si and trance be like you know what i want to make something that's fun right and do it well and be like, you're like nailing a fucking link later movie.

It's awesome.

Tatum is on fire in it.

How's Dunst?

Dunst is so fucking good.

How's Dinklage?

Dinklage is fun, but Dinklage is like playing the pill.

Dunst in her last scene, the whole performance I thought was good, right?

I'm like, Chang Tatum might be like mortal lock on my best actor Blankies category.

And I was like, Dunst is like kind of right there on the supporting edge.

She's really solid in this, but it's really unshowy work.

Her final scene is such a fucking knockout.

She is doing things.

There are facial expressions she is able to conjure up in a scene where she is not saying much, where I was just like, I don't understand how you can have this level.

of fine motor control or be able to conjure up feelings this specific and this deep to get this kind of detail work.

How's Melanie Diaz, an actress I adore?

She doesn't have a ton to do in it.

It was nice to see her.

Nice to see her.

She has not made a movie since 2018, although she was for the last few years on the CW's reboot of Charmed, which nobody remembers.

Here's my complaint about this movie.

It's not a complaint about this movie.

It's a complaint about the state of filmmaking right now.

Films don't get financed unless you have 10 names in them.

There are a series of smaller roles in this, like Ben Mandelson, where you're like, oh, fuck.

Ben Mandelson shows up.

Now there's going to be some.

Not much to do.

Right.

And it's clear that everyone's calling in favors.

And you're like, Uzo Adoba has like five lines in this thing.

Juno Temples here.

Same.

But Keith stands for it.

Keith has a significant role.

Okay.

But the Juno Temple role is like, and I love Juno, and she is good in the movie, but it is the exact kind of role that used to be small enough that movies could take a chance and break a new talent on it.

And instead, you're like, this is a weirdly small role for the woman from Ted Lasso.

I love Juno.

What are you, Paulie Bleaker?

Okay.

I was in the bathroom.

I just wanted to make this joke.

Patron.

Yeah, we made that joke.

I made that joke, but you know what?

We're going to say it again.

Patretron.

Patretron.

You're going to love Roofman so much.

I know.

I'm excited.

It is so good.

Yeah.

It is so good.

I was having a ball of a time.

I was grinning from ear to ear.

I found it very emotionally affecting.

He's grinning.

Yeah.

Channing's the best.

You know, we do a whole long Channing talk in the Hail Caesar episode.

Right.

And right after we recorded it.

Because it's a little bit of us being like.

It happened, but could it have happened more or whatever.

What happened after this?

And that he's been in a weird place since then.

And we recorded that episode, and then like a week later, I was like, fuck, we didn't even mention Roofman.

By the time this episode comes out, Roofman will have come out and he will undeniably be back on top.

And instead, Roofman has like, Roofman is one that should have played at fucking Toronto.

It did play at Toronto, my friend.

Did it?

Yeah.

It did.

It got good reviews.

Yeah.

People liked it.

I think they mangled.

I did too, but it's look, but it's, I can't deny it.

It's tough right now for that sort of a movie, the sort of $15, $20 million, you know, true story dramedy.

Yeah.

Then here's what I want to see.

Here's my new note.

If I were them, I would have held it until January.

I would have premiered it at Sundance and I would have released it in February.

I will say this.

I certainly, it's Paramount, right?

Paramount Mirror Max.

Right.

Yeah.

Two companies, well-run cool guys behind them.

I, you know, they kept pitching me on it.

Like, and I was like, yeah, sure.

Can you show it to me?

And they're like, yeah, maybe.

And I was just kind of like, guys, if you want to build up buzz, but but they were kind of like hiding the ball with it a little bit.

And then I was a terrorist.

I was just really doing a channing movie star push when they really needed to like build up word of mouth because it's just it's a it's a very like it just played like gangbusters with my crowd last night and it's not

it's not doing amazing although you know what it didn't cost a ton of money it opened to eight it'll probably clear you know 1520.

i'm kind of surprised because i assumed it was like getting a smaller release i don't know man than for it to be number two at the box office another thing my baby joey we've like lost the ability to do the like 800 screen release.

The old classic, like slow expansion,

if Roofman were playing on 8,000 screens rather than 2,500, like how many screens did they put it on?

It opened on 3,300 screens.

I believe if Roofman had opened on 800 screens, it would have made the exact same number with a higher per-screen average and would have had a feeling of, oh, Roofman's over-delivering.

And there have been a couple movies recently that I felt that way about.

What else?

Smashing Machine?

Thrashing, thrashing.

That

was an interesting case of the initial tracking on it.

It was like, I guess this play is working.

It's going to open kind of strong.

And like, you made the diversity.

It's just the Dwayne Johnson thing, right?

F-cinema score incoming, right?

Yeah.

And instead, it like opened horribly and got an A-minus cinema score versus opening to 20 and getting an F-I think the thing about it was.

Obviously, it was just hurt by the buzz being kind of tepid, right?

Like you needed the buzz.

In my opinion, one is the Taylor Swift movie completely sides.

That's so true.

She completely did.

Use the term movie really loosely, but that was a weekend that they thought they had all to themselves.

And even though they're not the same audience, they were just going to get some default movie going.

Well, I also think One Battle had led to and it also ate into it.

That's number two.

And also it just took all the excitement in the sort of like film nerd sphere that you needed to be rooting for.

But it got middling reviews at the fests and stuff.

I mean, Benny won the silver lion yeah it was just a weird journey i also think we've talked about how usually the a twenty four hide the ball sell it as a different genre thing helps trick people into going to see the movie right and instead people went like oh this just looks like the rock is really transparently doing right it's an oscar play

and write something the way that you described it to me as like fat city is way more interesting is the closest

benny told me that was the but they fucked up by trying to sell it as something more commercial than it was because it didn't convince the commercial audience.

And film bros were like, oh, this is just sellout shit from Benny Saxon.

Number three at the box office, one battle after another.

He is still doing okay.

You guys, can I say, I just want to say something?

Please.

I'm really enjoying the Cohen's brother, the Cohen brothers series.

You're sad we didn't get to

land that plane right on One Battle Island.

Fuck the fucking One Battle came out.

Our Reddit was inundated with fans being like, I hope you're all happy.

This is what it's like.

it's rules seth rogan was on it you heard of him i know but i'm just i'm just saying it would have been fun to well maybe our democracy is broken it's that's on you we didn't pick we assumed

we assumed pta was gonna win i'm thrilled that the coins won i think

One battle is doing just fine without us, but of course it would have been nice to talk about it, but I think the Cohens have been fun to do.

I'll say this too.

I got a lot of, are you guys really not going to do an emergency episode on this?

Our schedule gets too filled up too.

You know, we're going to do emergency episodes on the 12th movies by O-Turs.

What?

Right.

That's not how the show works.

People are still caught up in like the first couple of years where we'd sometimes try to glom on to a new release to get a ratings bump.

I will say, and we've been sort of planning this going forward.

Next year we have several new releases on the Patreon schedule.

Yeah, we're trying to do that a little bit more.

Things that previously would have been a quote-unquote emergency episode that are tied to things we've covered but aren't straight up.

But, like, why would we do a one-battle emergency episode?

We gotta do a whole PTA series.

One day.

Number four at the box office is a little movie about a dollhouse.

Gabby.

Gabby's dollhouse.

Who's this?

Can you guys tell me?

Who Gabby is?

Yeah, everyone was like, and of course, David, as a parent, you must be excited for Gabby's Dollhouse, the movie.

And I was like, I don't know what that is.

It was a very big DreamWorks live-action CGI hybrid Netflix show.

So it was a Netflix thing.

Yes.

Most of DreamWorks animals.

They didn't have shit in theaters and they didn't put in kpop demon hunt because excuse me

it is a show produced by dream works it's a universal picture for netflix netflix doesn't have the rights well isn't isn't uh the sony did the fucking k-pop movie okay so can i amend some of my sony fix stuff you've i wanted to bring something else up yeah go ahead No, basically, Sony develops more movies than any other animation studio because most animation studios have an agreement with their parent company that's like, we have one slot held for you a year take a picture to maximum

and sony pictures animation basically develops like six or seven movies per year that like fade to us just we all just leave our chairs and the chairs are spinning and grooves just still talking about this the only thing i've never gotten clarification on is

Do they take something like K-pop Demon Hunter and have everyone bid against it and see if someone like Netflix is willing to offer more money than Sony would?

Or do they only shop it around after Big Sony has or you know that meme of like the sports bro talking to his girlfriend in the he's got sunglasses on?

Yeah, yeah, you know what my daughter's obsessed with right now?

What?

Uh, super kiddies.

You aware of this?

My condole.

On Disney Plus,

what is what is this different from like DC's League of Super Pets?

It's quite different.

Very different.

Very different.

Do you know about this, Griff?

You know about the Super Kitties?

I've seen the thumbnail.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, you pretty much got the idea.

I didn't feel the need to look any further into it.

Oh, no.

Super kiddies.

how do you how did you get her back on spidey well she still loves spidey let's not let's not forget spidey but uh no her her bfff her uh her little pal from school we went over to his house for a play date and he was like want to watch some fucking super kids i her up yeah uh gabby's dollhouse i think is a perfect example of like they were truly 18 months late on it yeah like if your daughter was born 18 months earlier she would have been into it and the movie's a little too late and even down to like gabby is now like 17.

right right she's like hey number five at the box office.

It's made $172 million, Griffin.

What is it?

Conjuring last rights.

Yep.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about the disappointing box office, a roof, man, and he said, but hasn't basically every movie flopped this fall?

And I was like, no, they're two humongous hits.

Conjuring and Demon Slayer are both like fucking shattering the backboard.

It's just that more expected things have been underperforming, but there's not a lack of people buying tickets.

But like the only thing that has underperformed to me in a shocking way

honestly is nothing because even Tron, I'm like,

that does happen with Tron.

Like, it always underwhelms me.

This is on you for thinking it would do better than that.

Like, I know it was below tracking.

I hear you.

But at the same time, like,

because people are like, well, Tron Legacy made money.

And I'm like, look at Christmas 2010.

Yeah.

It was the only offering.

And even then, it underwhelmed.

And in our True Grit episode, we talk about it.

We do.

Right.

True Grit fills the the gap.

And you're waiting for

15 years.

If I were greenlighting a third Tron film for release in 2025,

I would have been like, this thing has to be under $100 million.

Then they say to me, good news.

We got Jared Leto.

And I go, great.

It's got to be under $60 million.

You're a Not Morbis.

Sleeping on better ropes.

Number six, a conjuring, though.

I haven't seen it yet.

I will check it out possibly on HBO Max.

Yeah, you might have to.

I might not rush to to the theater because I hear it's kind of bad, but I do kind of want to fill it in.

I'm just really interested in like the,

you know, like that guy with the weird face bought the doll.

No, what are we talking about?

He died.

Guy who died?

Who's that fucking comedian?

Oh, Matt Reif bought the Warren's house.

I thought he bought the doll.

Someone else died

was near the doll.

The house.

And everyone was like,

the house is basically a museum.

Matt Matt Reif and his business partner bought this house.

Matt Reif is apparently really into the occult.

And he's made it very clear that he doesn't own the doll or any of the artifacts.

That what he has bought is the right to be the custodian of the objects for as long as he is in possession of the house.

But the house is basically a national

lived in it.

Is it the house that

was haunted?

It's the house they lived in, which is like a museum of all their spooky objects.

Namely, Annabelle, who I love to remind people was in reality a raggedy and all.

Yes.

It's not a creepy, like a fucking.

It's just a regular ass.

And now,

don't touchy.

Don't touch you.

I'm not saying I'm not scared of the raggedy and all.

Number six at the box office, new this week, of course, is Soul on Fire, Griffin, the William H.

Macy true story in which he plays a guy who helped a kid who had burns.

William H.

Macy has been showing up in Disney Emoji Blitz when I have to watch ads to get free spins on the wheel.

Oh, you're going to say that he had an emoji?

I wish.

He should have.

I fucking wish.

It's like, isn't he like the guy in the Incredibles?

No, but he looks like him, and they haven't done that character yet.

That's a Wallachean.

I'm like, has William H.

Macy done any wild hogs?

If they had wild things.

Okay, but do you remember when William H.

Macy played the fucking Green Lantern villain in the dropout?

Yeah, that's good.

Remember that shit?

Hector Hammond.

When they were like, his hairline could be 80% higher on his hairline.

I really enjoyed that.

That show is good.

Yeah.

I just, anytime they cut to him, I was like, who chose this?

I keep getting this autoplay ad that is William H.

Macy as a surgeon performing open chest surgery on a body and then talking about some fucking cell phone game.

What has happened?

Did he go to jail?

No,

his wife got in trouble.

They had crazy legal films.

No, he was free and clear.

But, like, I'm sure, you know, I get it.

But I'm even like, what is the conversation that leads to like, we have a game about like castle demons that like eat berries?

How do we promote this?

William H.

Macy giving a measured performance as a surgeon.

Sounds good.

Number seven is the aforementioned Demon Slayer, the latest of those.

Now, I know the release of that film is kind of equally split across dubs and subs, I believe.

Oh.

But there was an argument that it has now surpassed Crouching Tiger.

Wow.

Right, right, right, right.

It's kind of a fuzzy stat because some people are watching the American dub version.

But you're like, this is maybe ostensibly the highest-grossing international film at the domestic box office ever.

It's like that's under discussed.

That's kind of fun.

Thank you for discussing it.

Did y'all see that trailer, that weird trailer?

That's like two trailers for Chainsaw Man?

Yeah,

that's also about to fucking overperform, I think.

Very excited for that movie.

Ben likes Chainsaw Man.

Rocks the shit out of that show.

Shout out to Yoshida for recommending.

Demon Slayer Today, the only animated film to make $100 million at the domestic box office.

About to obviously

this year.

Right.

Be beaten by Zootopia.

Bad Guys 2 didn't even make it to Bad Guys 2 fucking.

Sawed out around, what, 80?

Damn.

Dogman's the closest, and it made it to 95.

But yeah, Zootopia 2, that'll write, man.

Zootopia 2 is going to fucking rock the house.

Whatever.

His head is a chainsaw.

His hands are also chainsaws.

And he starts a chainsaw.

Wait.

Doesn't he have a chainsaw dog?

Are you kidding?

I don't know about this.

I'm pretty sure.

Ben just bought another ticket?

He has four now?

I'm just going to lie down in the middle.

He starts pulling up arms.

Hold his own eyes.

I'm glad that I know that you're into chainsaw ma'am because I feel like that's a thing that I can buy you in Japan.

Oh my God.

What are you going to buy me?

What do you want, David?

Wait, Maria, I might have to send you a little bit of a Japan list.

Yeah.

Because I don't do that.

Famously, you love getting various merch and stuff.

I love stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What I want in Japan is to like sit in some like fancy onsen and like look out upon like trees.

This,

you know.

It's the 30th anniversary of Toystery.

Is there like an exclusive?

Oh my god, wait, David just jumped off a roof?

Takara has made a collection of dolls that are woody as samurai, Buzz as Ninja, Jesse as Geisha.

Sounds culturally sensitive.

Woody as ninja.

Woody is samurai, please.

No, sorry, Woody as Ninja.

Number eight is the Smashing Machine.

I'm trying to find a way to get this.

Number nine is whoa, this looks so fucking cool.

Thank you.

Quickness, this is so cool.

Look at this.

Look at this.

It rules, right?

It's really well done.

Culturally sensitive.

I just think this is great.

Look at that.

Look at him.

He's got a little helmet.

It's not from me.

David.

He looks so cute.

It's for me.

Yes, it's for you.

Look at the Jesse one.

Number nine is The Strangers Chapter Two.

A real winning strategy there.

Oh my God.

Her kimono is cow prince.

She can kimono my house.

Oh, no.

It's a Sparks album title.

Jesse Geisha.

Look at you.

We're saying this about geisha, Jesse.

Sparks album title.

Number nine, I said, oh, and number ten is George Marie.

You know what?

I also want to say that

she's not, she's not a geisha.

She's just wearing a kimono.

Okay.

I apologize.

Opening at number 12, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, that one kind of.

Oh, I want to see that as the only person who, you know, supports all of Jennifer Lopez's creative generation.

I've seen kind of mixed things about it.

I think Diego Luna is quite fantastic in it.

And all the buzz out of the festivals was Tonataya, I believe is his name, and J-Lo.

And I was pretty taken by

who kind of doesn't miss.

Are you watching Andor yet?

I'm going to get there.

Oh, okay.

Why did I remember you saying you wanted to discuss something about Andor?

Catherine Hunter?

Can't remember.

Anyway, Diego Luna, when is he bad?

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

I mean, I can't say I saw.

Wow, he hasn't made a lot of movies recently.

I guess he was busy fucking making Andor.

He directed a couple films too.

I feel like he kind of took a step away from acting until Rogong.

He directed like three films.

He's directing something right now called A Mouth Full of Ash.

Okay.

Sounds like a house full of dynamite.

That's what you get.

That's what you get when you stay in a house full of dynamite.

Yeah.

David, can I share something with you specifically that I just started watching and I'm now, I'm going to have to watch the whole thing.

Gilmore Girls is so good.

Ben, what got you on the girls?

It was a show that Nelly was obsessed with.

And she was like, Ben, you've never watched a single episode throw on the pilot.

I'm loving this thing.

Are you kidding me?

It's funny.

It's heartfelt.

I'm all in.

It's a great, it's one of the great things.

The parents stink.

The parents stink.

I'm going to say something controversial.

Marie, don't do this.

Do it, Murray.

Lauren Graham, like, it's her whole, like, I drink so much coffee and I like talk really fast.

Yeah, that's literally what happens in Gilmore Girls.

Yeah.

Describing the whole show.

I literally can't.

I can't.

Look, man, as someone who was a huge Gilmore Girls fan at the time, right?

Like when it was on the WB and then the CW, this was always the thing.

It was always a show that put some people off, kind of auto put people off.

They're talking too fast.

I don't like Lauren Graham.

You know what I mean?

Like, it was always that thing where I'd be like, you know what's secretly kind of the best show on TV?

Gilmore Girls.

Ah, they talk too much.

And then it became like

what it became.

It became like a show that everyone agreed on.

It was like to my total surprise.

Does she stop?

No.

She just, she keeps doing it.

That's considered the show.

Yeah.

It's written 90 pages per episode famously.

Yeah.

I mean, Lauren Graham, talk to her about it.

It's so interesting.

You can see how it haunts her.

I think it was the hardest television show to make, like, because they had to just shoot for such long, like, because the scripts were so crazy.

And you can't fuck up those like crazy, crazy, like, rat-a-tat, like, dialogue things.

And all of those guys are just now starting to do the sort of like, yeah, maybe we had a good time on Gilmore Girls, but you can tell that they, like, really suffered, like, while they were making it.

My mom used to say that we were like the Gilmore girls because she'd be like, I had you young and we're best friends.

I'm like, you had me when you were like 27.

That's right, which was completely normal in the 1980s, but whatever.

Hey, shout out.

I love it.

Sam, right?

Is this diner?

Sam?

Luke, okay.

The coffee shop.

Love that guy.

Yeah.

He's the best.

Just keep watching, baby.

Oh,

I'm all in.

What season are you on?

You're a son season one?

I just watched the pilot.

Well, then you're going to have a great time.

It's only getting better until season seven, which you can avoid that one.

But seasons one to six.

No, season seven is when they fired Amy Sherman.

It's the Dan Harmony, exactly the same as Community Season four, where they're like, we can still do this without the person who wrote all the episodes, right?

And you're like, ooh, this is weird.

And they hired Dan Harmon to take over Gilmore.

They swapped him.

And it was for the exact same fucking reason.

It was like, this show's too expensive.

You take too long.

You know, like, wait, blah, blah, blah.

I was going to say, that's

just another one where you talk to anyone who worked on it, and they're like, we're really proud of that show.

I'm still working through it in therapy.

Right, right.

Right, exactly.

And it's like, well, the product was good, but you, it was really hard to make it.

Yeah, but then you watch the show without the showrunner and you're like, this is like drinking RC Cola.

I'm just like, huh, everyone's here.

Connecticut leaves.

Leaves Connecticut.

And yet, why is this off?

Did they promote Connecticut to regular?

Did they make the opening credits by season seven?

Okay.

Bonda Shepard.

Because they kept kind of fucking Connecticut over in the negotiations.

Yeah.

All right.

We did.

Yeah, we did it.

House of Dinah White.

Here at the end of the episode, I have a little bit of business to attend to.

Okay.

If I may.

Yep.

Yes.

So Marie is sitting.

We all have separate desks.

Marie is sitting at

the guest desk.

Which had, for so long,

without a head.

Of course, you, David, and I have our faces on the front of our desks.

Right.

The likenesses done by our good friend Joe Bowen.

And Caroline Franke in the Vamps episode drew a little picture of a vampire and tapes it to the front of the desk.

And that was

hold on for a while.

Yeah.

Where has that gone?

I don't know.

I have it stashed to me.

Okay.

We should still put it somewhere in the desk.

Put it in the well in the Museum of Blank Czech that one day will be built.

Matt Wright Congressional Library.

And Matt Wright buys it.

And fuck her.

Keeps buying houses.

And so Joe was really kind.

He made us another wood character, but this time of Checky.

We got a check.

Actually, two.

There's a little one up there as well.

It's a little kind of baby Checky.

Checky Jr.

Yeah, Checky Jr.

might be coming to an ad read soon.

So cute.

But I actually don't have an annoying voice at all.

You'd be, hey, I'm tricky.

What's your business, Ben?

So, um, no, it's okay.

I just, I have a little surprise.

Ben has a little surprise.

La la la la la la la la.

What?

Wait a second.

What?

Oh, my God.

Ben is handed over.

Oh, my God.

Marie is blushing.

Marie's face has turned

and we love you.

Wait, I got a head.

Marie got ahead.

I have.

Oh, my God, Joe.

I did not know.

Marie gets a head.

Look at how I look so sassy.

I look like, look at this.

I'm like, you got your little

classic.

You're giving a little DreamWorks face almost.

You're giving a little DreamWorks face.

I'm like, hmm.

Do you really think that, David?

Whatever you say, Marie.

Yes, you look great.

Oh, my God.

Okay, wait.

So I'll leave it here.

And then when I am

activating it.

So moving forward, we'll swap it.

But, yeah, when I wanted to make Checky, and I was like, you know what?

I'm going to put in the order for Marie's head as well.

It's very thoughtful of you, Bram.

Look at my bun.

Got the bun.

Bun head.

Amy Sherman-Pal, you know, bun heads.

And we got a good amount of Marie episodes coming up because we have so many new releases.

We're going to have a guest on at least one of them.

I think we're planning on an Ellen Mackay special guest.

I think Ellen McKay.

That's an interesting way to pronounce it.

I don't know how you say it.

Is it George Mackay?

Is that how you pronounce it?

You know what?

Yeah, that's literally literally why I just said that because he spells it that way.

Ellen McKay.

Right now, though, there is a planned three-episode round.

You're going to be on fire now.

Fire and Ash is this thing on in your life.

You're going to check if this thing is on.

You definitely got to check it out.

And you're going to be making the no other drugs.

I also, we also, you know, the Raimi trailer came out.

You're going to send for it.

I haven't watched it yet.

I'm so excited.

It's, it's, I think it's going to be fun.

Like fucking Rachel McAdams in the dirt.

She's, she's on a beach.

Being haunted?

Well, she's not really being haunted.

Okay, well, I haven't watched it yet.

No,

she's the mousy employee of a really shitty younger boss played by Dylan O'Brien, star of Twinless, that I haven't seen yet.

I wasn't a fan of that movie, and people got really mad at me about that.

But I like him in it and generally.

Yeah.

But yeah, he's like her shitty millennial boss.

Look, two of these are late December platform releases that we're releasing in 26.

But you look at it to 26, here's why we don't do emergency episodes anymore.

We have a Cooper, we have a Park, we have a Raimi, we have the first new Star Wars movie in seven years.

It's back.

And we have a Spielberg and a Nolan.

Yeah, that's true.

That's the summer, baby.

Thrilling.

That's just the first six months.

And don't forget M.

Night Shyamalan coming later, too.

Yep.

He posted that thing on Instagram of his book tour date with Nicholas Sparks and the line to get the book signed was like doubly around the block.

He's candy, man.

When he's like, what do I I do next?

Nicholas Sparks?

He's making a magic eight-ball TV show.

Do you see that?

With M.

Night.

Or no, Sparks doesn't work out this.

Just M.

Night.

No, just M.

Night.

Yeah, that sounds perfect.

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

Possibly Gina Prince Bythewood, Children of Bone and Blood.

Yeah,

that might be

Blood and Blood.

I think that's 2027 is the plan, but I don't really know.

Horizon 2 will sit.

I was about to say that movie is never coming out.

Safely on a shelf.

I love to repeat.

David is confident will come out someday.

Monday.

And

I'm not being like brash about it.

It will be purchased at an estate sale.

Can I read this headline from page six?

Quote, furious over Hollywood reporter profile, Kevin Costner searches for buried treasure, shops, shipwreck show, source.

I forgot to say this.

Can't count cause out.

I forgot to say this in our intro.

The lovely people at American Cinema Tech who had us out there for the friend of the fest to introduce a Hudsucker Proxy, we sent them a list of a bunch of movies as an options of things we would think about.

We're excited at the idea of screening.

And my big push to them was, can you guys get Horizon Part 2?

Yeah, he's been able to play it at festivals.

It's totally log jammed.

We've covered him in the past.

It might take more infrastructural work, but I think if you could get it, there's also a good chance he could show up and we could do it, like talk with him.

Right.

And they said, We have already thought of that and tried and could not do it before this series.

So, I just want people to know: I made an attempt to figure out a way to get more blankies to see this movie.

Griffin himself cannot solve this problem.

I bet you some giant corporation, maybe a bunch of Saudis.

Well, the Saudis said no,

that's the most television.

Maybe some different Saudis.

I don't know.

Yeah.

A source told page six this week of the Yellowstone Star: Kevin Costner is on a deep-sea diving binge to discover sunken treasure.

The insider added, quote, he found gold coins and emeralds recently in the Caribbean.

The thing that's great about Kevin Costner is you start a sentence like that, and I go, Where's this metaphor going?

And you get to the end of it, and I go, Oh, he literally finding emeralds.

I think Costner just on a beach, he just calls his pressure, leak the emeralds.

First of all, you were miming a cell phone, but I think that's a shell.

He's speaking, he's communicating via conk.

Hello, ocean.

It's me, Kev.

I'm uniting with Knuckles on a search for the Chaos Emeralds.

That'd be good.

Costner is the best.

Speaking of Idris Elmra, that's his defining role.

Yeah, what if he plays Amy?

What if he's the voice of Amy the Head?

He's going to be taking the role of Amy in Sonic 3 or 4.

How many of those are there?

I'm voicing Big the Cat, a real American.

Costner has a history of exploring the sea.

Yeah, he does.

He played a Coast Guard.

All right, I'm rapping this.

The Guardian.

We're not just reading Coast Guard.

He fixed the BP oil spill.

Or at least threw out a proposal.

He didn't make it worse.

I'll tell you that much.

Probably not.

Yeah, I just want to say that my husband asked me what time I'd probably be home today, and I was like, I don't know, three.

And he was like, there's no fucking way.

And I was just like.

What time is it?

2.52.

Okay.

For listening.

We will announce our schedule with upcoming new releases as well as the new mini-series very soon.

So look forward.

Next week, of course, is inside Lou and Davis.

Yeah, baby.

Which I'm excited to record.

We're recording that next week.

I've actually been holding myself off from re-watching it.

Me too.

I'm really excited because there is a chance it's my number one.

Good ass movie.

At times, it has been my number one.

What if you watch it and you're like,

it could happen, but I'm just, my question is just, how high is it going to remain with all of these?

Can I ask, are you going to do the please, Mr.

President?

Oh, oh, I don't want to, please don't podcast me in outer space.

I have an embarrassment of options next week.

That's all I'm going to say.

Outer space.

Outer space.

My new bit I do with Asa Ehrlich, because now he loves Star Wars, is I do my impression of Kylo Ren, but I just say lines from girls.

That's good.

And I go, Do you like Kylo Ren?

And then I go, your child, Hannah.

You're a child.

Nothing will stand in our way.

I miss Kylo Ren.

He's a good guy.

Well,

no, he's got debatable.

He's got good ideas.

Sure.

Create an intergalactic fascist force, kind of as a tantrum.

Do everything to win your dead grandpa's love.

Be a school shooter.

He's not a school shooter.

He's a school saber.

And Anakin was worse than that.

Kylo did that.

I thought that was the Anakin thing with the little baby.

I didn't say it in my big prequel.

I think I already said it.

It just cannot earn him killing children.

It is the biggest problem of the movie.

Yeah.

The moment he starts to kill children off-screen, you're just like, nope, I don't buy it.

Sorry.

Even though you've convinced me of the grand evil of the dark side.

When I saw the re-release, people applauded that moment.

Now it's just a meme.

And now it's just like a meme.

Weird.

I'm being.

Okay, I guess we're done.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you all.

And as always, a warning to all filmmakers: if you put the word podcast in your movie, you're immediately getting knocked down half a star.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin.