The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with Paul Scheer & Jason Mantzoukas

Speaker 1 Blank Jack with Griffin and David

Speaker 1 Greg Jack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect.

Speaker 1 All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack.

Speaker 1 There's just gotta be a place up ahead where men ain't low down and poker's played fair. And if there weren't, what were all the podcasts about? I'll see you there.

Speaker 1 And we can podcast together and shake our heads over all the meanness and the used to be.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's nice.

Speaker 1 Very sweet. Yeah.
It kind of speaks to this not being like the most like,

Speaker 1 you know, zingy quotable movie. I think the language in this movie is incredible, but you look at the quotes page and everything is a fucking unbroken paragraph of dense old West.

Speaker 2 It felt like I was walking into a Walt Disney World ride. Like, you know, it has that kind of like, well,

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.

Speaker 1 I I mean, that might be part of why I find this movie so pleasant to watch. What a delight.
I find it so comforting to watch this movie. And yet the most famous line from this movie is first time,

Speaker 1 which is a perfect pithy to the point crushes has become a meme in its own right, which is funny. And despite this being a film that is only, what, seven years old? Uh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I do feel like the first time meme is almost like the Jeremiah Johnson meme, where 99% of people who use it could not tell you what movie it's. I'm going to be be honest, I did not know it was a meme.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. It's a big one.
It's a good thing. I don't know the Jeremiah Johnson meme.
Okay, so that's a good one. That's a big one.
Oh, boy. But you know what? Dude on the board.

Speaker 1 Half an hour of discussion.

Speaker 2 No, but Jason is also not on social media.

Speaker 1 No, it's not.

Speaker 1 It's simply a fact of that I'm not in this world. You've never been on any of the things that would present to you as a sort of a graphical image format.

Speaker 1 History has really proven you right

Speaker 1 on your abstinence. Oh, boy.
So the Jeremiah Johnson meme is just the gif of this from Jeremiah Johnson. Sure, of course.
And might be a legend. Right.

Speaker 1 And I think the thing about it, Paul, you don't need me to show you, right?

Speaker 2 You don't know. Oh, I know it very well.
I actually have it. But what is it about?

Speaker 1 What is it? So you can use it to convey a kind of like grudging,

Speaker 1 admirable feeling.

Speaker 1 It's almost like a that'll do pig. But then

Speaker 1 I don't know what that is. You're blowing it up with that.

Speaker 1 I'm talking James Cromwell and Babe. That was.
Oh, I thought it was another meme. No, no.
It hasn't been memified. But it feels like Jeremiah Johnson represents that kind of feeling.

Speaker 1 But the thing that happens, I will say every so often on Twitter is you'll see someone post, I didn't realize this was Robert Redford.

Speaker 2 That's what I was going to say.

Speaker 1 People think that it's not like that. People think it's

Speaker 1 Jack Galvin Ackett. Everyone thinks it's Jack Jackets.
Or they're just like, oh, it's just some guy because. He looks so like full-faced and stuff.

Speaker 1 And you so rarely see him except that movie with that giant beard. Right.
Well, that movie then kind of disappeared a little bit.

Speaker 2 I feel like I also think it's the sign of the times, right? Because

Speaker 2 there, I remember, this is the thing I always go back to. Uh, during one of the Grammy performances, Kanye brought out Paul McCartney.
So, this gives you how far ago it was.

Speaker 2 And one of the things on Twitter that was going on very

Speaker 2 bigly, as our president might say,

Speaker 2 was that,

Speaker 2 was that people were like, I love that Kanye is giving new artists a chance to come out to the public. Like, who is like, he's using the platform.

Speaker 2 Yes, he's using, like, you've looked, you found this older guy.

Speaker 1 He's a regional talent. This is a liver pudding.

Speaker 2 And so I feel like that, like that, like going one step deeper is amazing. I find that with Jason and I on how did this get made, people were like, you guys were on a show together?

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, well, like, you didn't do, you didn't even do like a brief Google search. Yeah.
Like somebody said to me the other day, and genuinely, I was like an announcement I was in something.

Speaker 2 They're like, oh, that's amazing. You're, you're starting acting.

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 1 all right.

Speaker 2 Like, and I said,

Speaker 2 like, at first, I thought it was a bit. And I was like, it wasn't.
And I was like, great. And I feel like that is kind of the way that a lot of people are approaching life, just blinders on.

Speaker 2 It's like, I like this thing. I'm not going to look to the left or the right.

Speaker 1 Well, it's so siloed. Everybody, everybody receives the thing that they get, and whether it's a meme or a podcast or whatever, they don't care to explore it any deeper or further.
No, no, and right.

Speaker 1 First time is a self-contained statement. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And is first time also

Speaker 2 that this this is the first Cohen Brothers that was not in theaters?

Speaker 1 Drew? Yeah. It got a very, very limited run.
I was even looking at

Speaker 1 right, even before Netflix was making the glass onion type. Exactly.
Like, oh, some of the big shit. But that was funny.
That was the biggest they ever had.

Speaker 1 I still feel like even now, when they give it the perfunctory run at the six theaters they own and a couple others and whatever, it usually plays for like three continuous weeks.

Speaker 1 And this was one week between it playing in three theaters and going to Netflix.

Speaker 1 I'm very desperate to get into the dossier on this one because it had so it went through so many permutations of what this would be.

Speaker 1 This was not meant to be a movie. This was meant to be a series.
This was not meant. So that's what I want to get.
I'll settle those questions. Exactly.
I love this.

Speaker 1 But before we do, before we do, Ben, if you don't mind, hit it.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 1 He came prepared with something? I need it louder, Ben.

Speaker 1 Crank it up.

Speaker 1 On the day True Grit dropped, the blankies all gathered around

Speaker 1 and gazed in wide wonder at all the Greek American actors Griffin Dave found. The two friends spoke up.

Speaker 1 Couldn't think of any off the dome.

Speaker 1 They forgot all about me. That I was Greek to the bone.

Speaker 1 Greek to the bone.

Speaker 1 I got a bone.

Speaker 1 I got a bone.

Speaker 1 A bum ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bone.

Speaker 1 A bum-ba-ba-ba-ba-bone to pick.

Speaker 1 I got a bone to pick. That's it, Ben.
Take it out.

Speaker 1 How dare you?

Speaker 1 How do you dare get really mad at us about this? We had this coming. Now, I'm trying to remember that the exact.
So we were sort of saying like. Can I just interrupt you for a second, David?

Speaker 1 It was Sammy and Yorgos. We were talking about Yorgos.

Speaker 1 And we were asking him,

Speaker 1 how quick

Speaker 1 do you think? What is your run to be the number one? Excellent. That That was very well executed.

Speaker 1 Also, I do want to call out that Ben texted me about an hour before record and said, Weird request, do you have sunglasses? Oh my god. I thought they were for him.
I forgot. I love it.

Speaker 1 But you were just wearing my toy Masters of the Universe sunglasses.

Speaker 1 By the way, this logos on this. And I want to be very clear.
This is a shout out to Zach Cherry. This bit is a Zach Cherry bit from Doughboys.
Yes, he did it perfectly on Doughboys.

Speaker 1 You did it perfectly here. Thank you so much.
I got his blessing to do it. Do not worry.
This is not stolen, Valor.

Speaker 2 And by the way, I was wondering why you were reaching out to Zach Cherry because Jason asked me yesterday: Do you have his information?

Speaker 1 The motivations here. The Uber driver who drove me here for the 20 minutes I was in the car that I was rehearsing, singing along to the track.
You were doing it out loud?

Speaker 1 Out loud, must have thought I was insane. Did you warn him or did you just start? Zero, I talked to him, not at all.
Kudos,

Speaker 1 I don't talk to drivers.

Speaker 2 That's the way he does it. Now, I'm a man of the train.
That's why we started about 30 minutes late.

Speaker 1 And you always talk to the conductor. I always talk to you.
And back on their little room.

Speaker 2 I get in there in just a moment. I know what's going on.

Speaker 2 My mom once told me, my mom works in hospitals and worked with a lot of psychiatric care patients at a certain point.

Speaker 2 And when she was working in New York City, she said, hey, I just want to tell you one thing. Never ride mass transit or get on a bus.
Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2 She said, all those people are suicidal and they're going to, or on drugs. And I was like, well, that really is limited majority of transportation.

Speaker 1 I got to get around.

Speaker 2 But just to say never go on mass transit, never funny.

Speaker 1 Any form. Any form.
But I am inclined to agree vis-a-vis buses.

Speaker 1 I agree with that. I agree with that.
Well, the thing about buses is you're not going to... In New York, you're not going to get anywhere too fast.
No.

Speaker 1 But we're getting off track. We need to settle this issue.

Speaker 1 Okay, and we haven't introduced the show.

Speaker 1 I don't care. I don't fucking matter.

Speaker 1 I don't care. I've got a grievance that I am lodging.
He's got a ba-ba-ba-ba-bone. I've got a bone to pick.
You guys, with Stavi, who I could not be a bigger fan of. Love a guy.

Speaker 1 Are you talking about Yorgos? You're talking about True Great. You're talking about Damon.
And then you segue effortlessly into the Chris Nolan Odyssey that's coming up. Starring.
That was it. Right.

Speaker 1 Because he's saying there's not one Greek. There's no Greeks in it.
And you guys are like, well, who are the Greek American actors who could be in it? And you all came up like blank.

Speaker 1 I am not only

Speaker 1 a regular guest on this show. I am your friend.
And you're not.

Speaker 1 You are American. And I am Greek.
I am American. Patreon.
I'm a subscriber.

Speaker 1 You give us money every month. We are on a text chain together.

Speaker 1 This was a, I felt personally aggressive. It was tough.

Speaker 1 I'll say what I did. I'm going to admit what I did.
Okay. I googled Greek American actors at the time.

Speaker 1 Because I was also trying to do the true, like, who am I not thinking of? And I was doing it off the dump. Who should come? Why defense?

Speaker 1 I believe it was, I believe you guys came up with Elias Codius, who is Canadian. Did we even say Galaxy?

Speaker 1 I I can't remember if we. We did not say that.
That's all that's embarrassing. Nia Vardalos.

Speaker 1 You said, Elias Codius, you said Jen Aniston, who is half Jennifer Aniston is a half-hop when you Google her. Oh, of course.
Did we say Rita Wilson? I don't remember. She's up there.

Speaker 1 She's in there, though, for sure. This is an interesting list.
You didn't say Chris Diamantopoulos. I was going to say that.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a big mess. Very got a name.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 let's be clear. Is Chris Nolan going to use any of us in this movie, by the way? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 I want to see the Odyssey poster with just those names on it just like me just stavi just christy

Speaker 1 nia vardalos it'd be hard to get the text everyone's fitting on i will tell you this um just a text poster i would like the fiona fiona apple album i i heard a great story about the odyssey which i think i can share because it's it's i think i can share okay if it said homer simpson wrote it i think your wires got crossed

Speaker 1 oh wait oh peter griffin wrote it

Speaker 2 wait that way it was a little flashback like this no i

Speaker 2 so i was shooting on the universe a lot and i don't know if you've seen this but on tick tock there was a lot of footage of the big ship from the odyssey in the water because they were shooting it in one of the tanks all practical all practical right yeah and if you got high enough on a hill uh or on the top of a parking structure at universal you could look down at the boat in the water Now, when they were shooting, it was very heavily covered because they had a lot of lighting, equipment, and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Apparently, production was furious that these images of a boat from hundreds and hundreds of feet away were released. And this is that post-trailer.

Speaker 1 Right. Trailer had been released.

Speaker 2 We've seen the boat in the trailer.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That it was suggested that if they want to continue filming, that Universal would have to build a 75-foot-tall wall to block out

Speaker 1 any lookers on from this process bring in mr nolan's wall

Speaker 2 and then when they were told that that was impossible to do build a because it wasn't just like it was a large it was it wasn't even like a put up a screen it was like oh built please build a wall it was build that wall mr trump please build that wall please build that wall to protect this ship it was met with great disdain and anger that they could not immediately build a 75 foot tall

Speaker 1 wall if i had been in that room i have the answer for them take that giant minion yeah move it over where he's like,

Speaker 1 Universal's got this giant

Speaker 1 sphere. You can see

Speaker 1 from the highlights.

Speaker 1 I can just read to you the Greek American actors. Please.
First, I Googled Greek actors and I got, I think,

Speaker 1 from Greece. Yes, of course.
Good. So, Zach, Jennifer, people we would have thought of.
Tina Fey, great. Comes up right away, obviously.

Speaker 1 Someone that you guys have struggled to name in the past, Melina Kanakarides. Melina Kanakarides is about to struggle to literally name seven rows down here, but she's in there.
Yep. John Stamos.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's

Speaker 1 a Greek yogurt.

Speaker 1 I'd like to see him in this one. This one's man.
This one I didn't know. Hankazaria? Didn't know that either.

Speaker 1 Is he like maybe

Speaker 1 half? Let's see. I mean,

Speaker 1 his grandparents on both sides are Sephardic Jews from Thessaloniki. Oh, I love it.
My dad's from Thessaloniki. Two-quarters makes a half.
Yeah. Now, Olympia Dukakis, who is dead? One of the greats.

Speaker 1 R.I.P.

Speaker 1 That's pretty embarrassing.

Speaker 1 There's maybe not an actor with a Greeker name than Olympia Dukakis. But I mean, like, Nolan's not going to, he could could do a lot but he's not gonna revive her

Speaker 1 you're skirting the issue

Speaker 1 right dimitri martin is in the movie yeah yeah he is he does a powerpoint he plays guitar

Speaker 1 so good and he made his own costume uh minu suvari i guess i never thought about it but there you go i didn't know that now this one surprises me betty white is she greek i have no idea that must be a stage name then right um white

Speaker 1 well i think white is her married name that's okay i'm

Speaker 1 no white is her no white is her name. Her name is Betty White,

Speaker 1 and her mother's name was Christine Kachikis, and indeed

Speaker 1 was Greek. I love it.
Okay. All right.
I love that. She's also dead, so cannot appear.
She's dead. Unless there's some scenes with ghosts.

Speaker 2 I mean, but by the way, Nolan has figured out how to bring ghosts back.

Speaker 2 But they can't be photographed on IMAX.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that is the hard thing. That's right because it's too loud.
It's scary. I was about to say, right.
It's not that

Speaker 1 the camera can catch it. They're just like,

Speaker 1 on the episode, you guys even mentioned someone playing Dionysus, which I do play on the Percy Jackson show.

Speaker 1 That also didn't even remind you of it. I haven't watched the Percy Jackson show because I've never read the book.

Speaker 2 Is that show full of Greeks?

Speaker 1 I'm the only Greek on that one, too.

Speaker 1 I was about to say, did they, did they

Speaker 1 play the feta

Speaker 1 representations?

Speaker 1 You know, I apologize. Oh, thank you.
Yeah, I apologize. I want to also say I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I feel like David's been scurrying this issue a little bit and redirecting it back to huh, who are other Greeks who should be. Oh, yeah.
Do you see what he did?

Speaker 1 He went straight to a document as if the document was to blame. Right.
Well, he did say that he googled and got some wrong information. I was trying to see.
It is. I think.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I'm not even on there. I think that's what I'm saying.
I might take this up a little bit. Why are you not on here? Why is Chris Angel on here? No, but he would be great.
Surprising. He would be good.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay, then fine.
Then why is Spyro T. Agnew on here? Yes, a famous Greek American.
Wow.

Speaker 1 He's in a false thing. I guess he lied to the American people.

Speaker 2 I believe that Spiro T. Agnew was in Barney Miller.

Speaker 1 One episode. One episode.
He probably was. He probably was.
I am shocked. Michael Chicklis.
Yeah, Chicklis is green. There you go.
I'm surprised that Zach isn't like so high. I mean, Zach is

Speaker 1 third. Oh, okay.
So you just

Speaker 1 famous. Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 Who's the first person he said? Jennifer Anderson. Jennifer Anderson.
Have you heard of him? Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I do think. Your dad is very Greek.
How many times have you played a Greek guy?

Speaker 1 I think he's Rafi canonically. No.
Oh, no. I've played everything else and Greek only a handful of times.

Speaker 1 You've got the shaloo career. Oh, very much so.
Yes. Very much so.
They just drew a big circle on the world map. And you were like, you're here.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Anything that the Mediterranean touches, you can play. 100%.
Is what casting directors decided. And then they decided it later, you can't do it.

Speaker 1 We are just going to. Forget that.
Forget that. Forget that.

Speaker 1 No, I think I am sorry. I apologize.
Wow.

Speaker 1 And I think especially because I think the ultimate insult of it, if I can take ownership for this, is not only were we listing prominent Greek American actors and we forgot to mention our friend.

Speaker 1 Even friend of the show. Yeah.
Friend of the show, friend of our personhood, but also that in compiling the list that we left you off of, we say to Stavi like, yeah, this list is pretty shitty.

Speaker 1 You could very quickly be the greatest Greek actor in Hollywood. By the way, he could.
He could. I'm not taking anything away from Stavi, who is fantastic.

Speaker 2 Here's what I want to say: I like Stavi a lot. I've been on his show.
He's a great guy. I think this is a Stavi issue because he has, he doesn't know that you're great.

Speaker 1 Stavi should know. You're saying

Speaker 1 that you're not going to know. Stavi should know who's on his show.
You know. Here's what I'll say.
I'm not laying this at Stavi's feet only because I've never even met the man. Okay.

Speaker 1 And David and Griffin and I text frequently. You're not leaving it at his sandaled tooth.

Speaker 1 We need to bridge this. Oh, I do need to bridge.
I guess it's an LA, New York. It is a, I think it is an LA.
But you're here in New York. You're here in Spain.
Maybe we will make your campus.

Speaker 2 I don't think you could handle recording at Stobi's. Is it?

Speaker 1 Oh, why?

Speaker 2 It's in his apartment, and I think that you would have a problem with it. Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 He also lives in an egg factory. Oh, no.

Speaker 2 I've been there and I loved it.

Speaker 1 I think he could have an egg factory.

Speaker 1 So Paul knows Jason very well and he works with him.

Speaker 1 Paul seems to have insight here.

Speaker 2 I could say to you that I don't think that.

Speaker 1 I trust Paul. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I would not say you would feel comfortable going.

Speaker 1 I trust Paul to know exactly what I'm capable of withstanding. Sure.

Speaker 2 A lovely experience in every way, but it's not going to be right up your alley. The show will be great.

Speaker 1 You guys will also, I think, and I know I'm not at all interested in making you feel bad. I'm also just...

Speaker 1 We got to wear this flavor flavor as well. Here's the other thing, as I walk away from this.
I'm also, just so everybody knows, I'm not at all interested in this episode going long.

Speaker 1 In this being some sort of record setter. I'm here to talk about the movie and that's that.
Train on the track. I will tell you that I know.
Oh, sorry.

Speaker 1 I know that you guys don't necessarily listen to our podcast, but you overlapped recently with our podcast because we, in a recent episode, started establishing a group of young actors who are all in a cohort together.

Speaker 1 Okay. That we are calling.

Speaker 1 This is how it began. That we are calling the Geek Squad.

Speaker 1 Okay. Or the G Squad.

Speaker 2 But the G Squad is technically

Speaker 2 a band, a K-pop band.

Speaker 1 It's also Ryan Gosling, fucking Giovanni Rabiste. I'm trying to think of who was in Gangster Squad.
Oh, I know.

Speaker 1 Mackie, Colin, Mackey. I think Sean Penn's the villain.
Oh, Mickey. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Mickey Cohen. Yeah, I think we went down.

Speaker 1 With Jake Johnson, we went down a rabbit hole of who's in the geek squad and who's not. And I feel like you guys did a similar, you guys were creating a similar list.

Speaker 1 So this is something I believe we could really team up.

Speaker 2 And what we have kind of established in which episode was this in by the way this was in the uh it was grizzly to the revenge got it cool and it is primarily a conversation of who is in the geek squad okay we're talking a Jacob Alordi we're talking Florence Pugh we're talking Chalamay there's been a lot of conversation because it was sort of like who belongs who doesn't like we feel like uh like Zendaya is out of the geek like she's kind of a too cool she's on the but the geek squad is not representing nerds.

Speaker 1 No, yeah. I understand what you're saying.
There's people that help. But like Glenn Powell's not in the night, he's not geek squad.
No way. But see, I think what you're getting at is that.

Speaker 1 Even though he's just sort of a peer of these guys. Didn't you see Bratz, the Andrew McCarthy, Brat Pack Doc?

Speaker 1 I saw the movie about the dolls with the big head. Yes, we did.
We did that. We saw that.

Speaker 1 Definitely something with a Z.

Speaker 1 But I feel like they all talk about that, that they got labeled in this way, these people who kept working together and would socialize together, even if not all 15 or going out to the same bar every night.

Speaker 1 And that some of them said, I don't want to be lumped in with this. And I feel like Zendaya is what we were talking about.
Exactly. I feel like Zendaya is kind of the Tom Cruise.

Speaker 1 I would say she's in there, except she has like... absolved herself from Tommy Halley's geek squad.
Well, we were talking about that. He would be if he wasn't with her.

Speaker 2 Well, that's what I think too.

Speaker 2 There's a few things of what we're trying to figure out is, and this is the

Speaker 1 fact that we're in tight episodes. The fact that, and by the way, our fans and followers have a heart out.
What is the best? Naturally, I hated the peach squad. I hated the beach squad.

Speaker 1 I have a heart out at some point. Okay, I will.

Speaker 1 I said to Molly. You still have a family, huh? Are you still doing that? He's still doing that.

Speaker 2 The minute it started,

Speaker 1 it's crazy the degree to which he's doing it, Jason.

Speaker 2 Molly said to me, she said, remember, you have a heart out. And I said, you got it.
And then that's my assistant. And then, and as maybe two minutes into the podcast, I texted her and said, drop that.

Speaker 1 I canceled it. I canceled it.
I canceled my four o'clock. I was like, yeah, you get rid of that.

Speaker 1 We could have gotten you out of here at four o'clock. I don't think so.
I don't think so. Maybe not gotten you somewhere else.

Speaker 1 We haven't even introduced the podcast yet. We got to talk about

Speaker 1 each other.

Speaker 2 Can I tell you the one thing? I had a dream about the podcast, and

Speaker 2 this is what I said. Seek therapy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I said, this is the Cohen Brothers Mad TV.

Speaker 1 This thing.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. This movie.
Great.

Speaker 2 That's great. And

Speaker 2 that was in my dream. And I'm bringing it to you.

Speaker 1 I say this in a nice way. It also feels like them digging through the fridge a little bit.
And I don't mean that in a bad way, but just being like, huh, we have these leftover noodles.

Speaker 1 But I had this exact same thought on this rewatch. I went,

Speaker 1 we all discussed this as the Cohen Brothers anthology film. Is this more the Coen Brothers sketch comedy? Yes.
That's right. Isn't there a Monty Python in the meaning of life?

Speaker 1 It is really sketches around.

Speaker 1 Like you just read The Lord of the Rings, and then there's the appendixes. And the appendixes are interesting.
It's sort of them being like, and here's like, yeah, here's laugh.

Speaker 2 It's like, it's like thumbnail sketches, which I think it's like when you see a great art exhibit, you might see like, oh, this is what they did, you know, before they drew the Mona Lisa, or you see elements of things, and I feel like where it's just Leonardo da Vinci's dick.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it has quite a bit of it.

Speaker 2 It's a lot of dick-based

Speaker 1 just a clever smile.

Speaker 1 Clever smile. It's for me.
This dick's following me around the room. The thing for me is like, like, the, the, the, how would he hole always looking at you regardless of where you are? All right.

Speaker 1 That Urethra is following me.

Speaker 2 Now, that should be a blank check poster.

Speaker 1 A drawing. A small drawing.
Da Vinci's dick.

Speaker 2 Da Vinci's dick.

Speaker 1 Da Vinci's dick. That's a feature with multiple arms.

Speaker 1 It's a new Down Brown novel, and that's important.

Speaker 1 And Tom Hanks is circling. And what were you going to say?

Speaker 2 He's going to come back.

Speaker 1 to reprise that garage.

Speaker 1 And he's meet, it's a crossover with the National Treasure movie. Oh, I love it.
That would be funny if they both are in parallel trying to get something. At odds with each other.

Speaker 1 Kind of like a 21 Jumpstreet Men in Black Lane. I wanted those things.
I wanted that.

Speaker 1 My friend Rodney Rothman was going to write that movie. Like, I'm desperate for somebody to do one of those.
Taylor's been talking it up again recently. He's been saying, I will do it tomorrow.

Speaker 1 The script is great. We still talk about it.

Speaker 2 Here's what I think was interesting. And without having seen Predator Badlands,

Speaker 2 the premise is, you know, the Predator.

Speaker 1 The Predator is in the movie Badlands. Yes.
And it's

Speaker 1 Alex Badlands.

Speaker 2 It's very dramatic.

Speaker 1 I'm waiting for Predator Days of Heaven. That's what I think they're really going to.

Speaker 2 Predator's thin red line. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But there's a

Speaker 2 Wayland.

Speaker 1 There's a few separate characters just played by a Predator.

Speaker 1 Well, I heard.

Speaker 2 There's a Wayland Utani robot

Speaker 2 in Predator Badlands. And I love that.

Speaker 1 That kind of subtle.

Speaker 2 crossover is really nice too because it builds a universe without having to like jam them in there you know and i feel like just like letting universes exist are fun.

Speaker 2 And I feel like, you know, I think that that we miss out on that, but now that everything's owned by three places, it feels like you would have a lot more.

Speaker 1 Oh, please. Four place.

Speaker 1 Come on. A hold on and breaking news.
It's now two.

Speaker 1 Oh boy. It went from four to two.

Speaker 1 This movie, this watch, I absolutely, like all of these movies that I've been re-watching with you guys, some of, you know, these are, for me, like the filmmakers of my gen, of my lifetime.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? The people for whom I started when I was a teenager watching them, discovering them and watching those first bunch of movies.

Speaker 1 Miller's Crossing was the poster that hung in my college dorm. Like truly, the number of times I said to people, take your flunky and dangle, is like shocking.

Speaker 1 Like I just was obsessed with the Cohen brothers. And it helped that they never, with a few exceptions, they never really faltered.

Speaker 1 And they constantly were exploring and examining stuff that I also was interested in. Detective novels, noir, shaggy detectives, like cruelty, man's vice.

Speaker 1 Sendra riffs, shaggy means to interrogate the human condition. And I would argue that

Speaker 2 even the ones where they miss, it was from a pure reason. Yeah.
Like, this is my argument here is I do believe.

Speaker 2 that Netflix gave them a lot of money because it's early time in Netflix and they were like, we want to make a big.

Speaker 2 We want a cred. And I feel like...

Speaker 1 Let's also call out this as Anna Perna. Okay, yeah.
A kind of forgotten,

Speaker 1 very important power player in the 2010s of cinema. Megan Ellison's company that was going to save Ellison.

Speaker 1 That was going to save cinema by bankrolling all of the young auteurs who the studios were like, no more. We're going to give you money.
In a major way. But right.

Speaker 1 There used to be a better Ellison child who, with her father's money, said... She still exists.
Oh, yeah. Anna Perna still exists.
She kind of exists in the shadows, though.

Speaker 1 Like, she's largely pulled back.

Speaker 1 Do they not have Bond anymore? No. They don't.
Okay. No, they don't have anything.
Okay.

Speaker 2 But I felt like this is a movie and I was looking at it and trying to think about it. Not, and I don't want to say it in a, in a, in a way that is

Speaker 2 mean, but it feels like it has a slight element of a cash grab where it's like, we're going to get a lot of money.

Speaker 2 Let's go do this thing that we kind of want to do, but we don't really have, but we can kind of, because it's not in the theater, we can kind of go and make this thing.

Speaker 2 that is a little less formed than our other things. And I actually think that that was great because you get these like seven great vignettes.

Speaker 2 And it's like, it's the only place that's in a weird way how i feel like streaming movies should be it's like oh this is stuff that you can't i'm like

Speaker 1 it should either be like bargain basement action garbage right like dtv kind of stuff or right like kind of like this is the squarest peg and it will not fit like because this is an uncommercial movie

Speaker 1 like you know who's gonna rush the sports for kind of a similar exercise same comp and in that they did an even weirder release

Speaker 1 with them right they brought them up you can listen to you can watch them rather as individual pieces which i would love it if this was as well.

Speaker 1 And in that way that you're calling it a sketch movie, which I agree. But every segment has a punchline.
That's what really jumped out to me. Well, these are funny.

Speaker 1 These are so funny in the way that the Cohens, that Cohen tone is so on display here.

Speaker 1 And the reality is, like, I love the wraparounds because it is like the Cohens, I feel like, are always harkening back to those things of their youth.

Speaker 1 And this is just Western Frontier stories, a book of short stories that are pulpy and fun that might appear in like Field and Stream magazine. Color prints.
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 And I feel like it comes out at a time, correct me if I'm wrong, but in that time where even like Quentin Tarantino is playing around with like doing this like with Hateful Eight or like,

Speaker 1 it happens to everybody after that. Yes.

Speaker 2 And Hateful Eight does another thing when it goes to Netflix. I was thinking about that, where when that goes to Netflix, he chapterizes it and makes it longer.
It makes it longer, but

Speaker 2 it's a TV show. And it's like, interesting.
I love that breaking of form. And that's like the benefit of streaming.

Speaker 1 The trailer for his now connected kill build.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.
Dual playing at the Vista. His whole buddy affair.
Yeah. I was getting

Speaker 1 proper wide 35 and 70 release.

Speaker 1 You know, people pay money. It's

Speaker 2 and it was at the Vista. It was packed all the time, but it had French subtitles because it had only air.

Speaker 1 The only right time they ever did it was like Canada, right? Oh, that's cool. But yes, no, it's the kind of experimentation I would like to see.

Speaker 1 And 2019, 2018, a moment where you're like, oh my God, there are things like Anna Perna coming into the world, going to filmmakers, saying, what's the thing that no one else will let you make?

Speaker 1 giving them the money. And when no one else would release it, Netflix goes, why not? Like it felt like these kind of Maverick forces were actually opening up and letting weirder stuff get made.

Speaker 1 And as often is the case, it was like that's what they used to legitimize themselves before they could just fucking commercialize it.

Speaker 1 Remember when Amazon's entire first batch of shows were all indie filmmakers and like interesting people like Steve Conrad, Wit Stillman, right? Like all

Speaker 1 basically like going to Solomon. It was all

Speaker 1 those guys

Speaker 1 lost there and then they were like

Speaker 1 JK, we made Lord of the Rings for a billion dollars and that's all we do. Well, that was so good.

Speaker 2 I mean that really

Speaker 1 watches everybody.

Speaker 1 I'm watching everybody. People stop me on the street and shake me to talk about the plot points of the Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 1 Stick

Speaker 1 from?

Speaker 1 Griffith David, Ben, Ben, Bonesound Inc. Worldwide, in partnership with Plank Check Podcast.
I've heard with both of those companies. I've heard of both of those companies.

Speaker 1 Are proud to present Ben Hosley's Slow Xmas V.

Speaker 1 Somehow, Slow Xmas has returned? That's right.

Speaker 1 They slow now

Speaker 1 for listeners out there living in a friggin' hole. oh boy.
I've no shade. SX.

Speaker 1 Slow Xmas is an annual compilation album of alternative and off-beat Christmas music. But it gotta be slow.
Now, this is not SSX. No.
The snowboarding. No.
Sometimes it's tricky. This is just SX.

Speaker 1 It could be tricky. It could be tricky.

Speaker 1 Ben, you did in this copy that you've provided us. Written copy.

Speaker 1 Written copy use SX as shorthand. So you're trying to sort of coin an acronym here? This is the first time you've done that.
Can we test it out? Can we call this SXV?

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.
And now, am I wrong? Is this the fifth time you've done this? Is it the sixth? Because wasn't there like an episode zero or something? I started with Slow Xmas Zero. Okay, right.

Speaker 1 The second. It's a natural way to start.
It's a Godzilla microphone. Whenever I'm counting up, I'm like, zero.
Kind of situation.

Speaker 1 Right. The second year's installment was Slow Xmas Volume 1.
Griff, can I read the next line of the copy? Please. This year, Slow Xmas 5 is being served cold.
Brrrr.

Speaker 1 Bundle up and sip away them holiday season blues with wintry ethereal tunes. David Ben, our listeners might be going, yeah, I know, it's that time of the year.
Slow Xmas. What am I going to do?

Speaker 1 Go online and download it? Is that my only release option? No, because now in its sixth year, it is available on vinyl for the very first time. For the very first time, the slowest vinyl imaginable.

Speaker 1 That right, fiscal media baby, available exclusively through our friends over at Mutant right now. The lovely folks at Mutant have released such soundtracks as Sinners

Speaker 1 and now

Speaker 1 Slow X-Mas 5.

Speaker 1 It was pressed apparently on 140 GM. What does that mean? It's the Grams!

Speaker 1 The Grams, that's the weight. And iced out into a translucent ice blue variant.
I like that.

Speaker 1 That's 300 to 500, 500 copies. Offered him 45 RPMs so you can play a regular slower, extra slow at 33 and a third.
Isn't that fun? That's really fun. That's a clear.
That's really, really clever.

Speaker 1 Ben, can you tell us about the lineup this year?

Speaker 1 It's featuring holiday standards and rituals from the Meridian Brothers, Shannon Lay, Zach Cooper of Grammy Award winning, King Garbish, Eric Slick of Dr.

Speaker 1 Dog, Dave Hartley, friend of the show of the war on drugs with his solo project Nightlands, among others. Among others.

Speaker 1 And for the analog hogs, the analog Hawshogs, the majority of the album artwork is practical with an original sculpture by Matthew Rosenquist.

Speaker 1 To get your mittens on this record, go to MadebyMutin.com.

Speaker 1 Also available is a special edition t-shirt featuring Slow Xmas 5 cover artwork. Plus, we have a five-pack of holiday greening cards featuring album artwork across the last five years.

Speaker 1 So you can send along some holiday cheer to friends and family using cards featuring past Slow Christmas album artwork. Isn't that fun? You can explain to them what it is in the card.

Speaker 1 That's a good icebreaker. Ice, cold, brrr.

Speaker 1 And for any worldwide blankies interested, international shipping is available, but for the vinyl record only.

Speaker 1 Once again, all three products are available right now at madebymutant.com. All right.
Anyway, thanks guys. Brrr.

Speaker 1 You know what, Griffin? Why don't you introduce the podcast? Oh, do we have to? We should just. There's something more important we have to do first.

Speaker 1 We have to revisit the conversation about the geek squad. Because for me, oh, yeah.
David's so upset. They're calling up.
David's like, I thought we would. I thought we thought I'd successfully.

Speaker 1 The John Hughes films were kind of just

Speaker 1 partner podcasts. They started the conversation.

Speaker 1 You can't blame our

Speaker 1 to your point. What we were talking about was that a lot of people in that documentary don't want to be associated with the Brad Pack are so butthurt that they are lumped into this thing.

Speaker 1 And some people are like, Yeah, who cares? Well, that's the Brat Pack.

Speaker 2 The Brad Pack to me was the funniest documentary because all of our careers. Yeah.
Yes. And like, but, but not Andrew McCarthy.
And that's who's making the documentary.

Speaker 1 Push back against it the most, which is what's interesting.

Speaker 2 Right, because no one thought they were

Speaker 2 really obsessed with it.

Speaker 2 Yes, well, because he believes that his career was hurt by it right and i feel like he got put in a bucket and he resents it right and and but you could argue oh put me in a bucket

Speaker 1 put me in a bucket of green

Speaker 1 floating how about put me in a greek american actor bucket where you'll never my friends might recognize me

Speaker 1 full of yogurt that's very heavy it's like so much oikos in here

Speaker 2 but yeah i feel like um like i i feel like that's like he also made bad movies like and that's the other thing too it's not like oh andrew mccarthy made these three great films and here's the biggest joke of it all: St.

Speaker 1 Elmo's Fire, not a good movie.

Speaker 2 St.

Speaker 1 Elmo's Fire is ass. That movie sucks.
People are nostalgic for it. And obviously, I wasn't there.
Right.

Speaker 2 But it's like for people of a certain age who are like, this speaks to us, but it wasn't good. It doesn't last.
It wasn't like these are great actors.

Speaker 2 It was like, this is a shitty movie, but it captured a moment where we actually wanted to see all these people together.

Speaker 1 Well, there was a combination of, I think, the word brat felt pejorative to them, and they didn't like the idea that they felt like it was taking them less seriously as actors. Sure.

Speaker 1 Unsurprisingly, you see damien more who's just like look this is an industry that looks for handles and hooks right

Speaker 1 like i if if they want to use this to like identify me then i'm run with it and i'm i'm working harder to prove myself beyond that rather than fighting it off but these labels and remote seemed like so like comfortable oh wow oh my god that was the best time of my life his response to it was comically hilarious like and and i love that judd nelson was like i'm not going to even dignify this with being picked up the phone i'm not yeah, won't even be in it.

Speaker 1 Sorry, what were you saying, David? Well, these names are usually somewhat like Frat Pack was also

Speaker 1 like, it's a bit of a weird label. Geek Squad isn't exactly like the nicest thing to call people.

Speaker 2 Geek Squad, the reason why we call it Geek Squad, because it does, it may be confusing. We're using Geek Squad as the

Speaker 1 person that bites the head off of the chicken at the

Speaker 1 heroes. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 It wasn't.

Speaker 2 We were calling it more like the best buy Geek Squad because they're people who help older people use their technology.

Speaker 1 So these are

Speaker 1 young actors who who are

Speaker 1 older people into this.

Speaker 1 I'm rubbing my hands. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I get it. I see the video.

Speaker 1 You know what the geek squad does? The geek squad plays Bob Dylan so that the boomers go to the movie. Yeah, right.
Exactly. We're talking about it.
And it's like, I like that. I like that

Speaker 1 kid. He's good.
He's good.

Speaker 1 You know who I like? Elvis, the kid who played that. That guy was good.
He looks like Elvis. Classic Austin Butler, Geek Squad.
We've talked about this. I have our list.
You do? I have, yes.

Speaker 1 Can I just say this before you start reading the list? Since I have talked about this, I feel like never never on Mike.

Speaker 1 But for me, the core of what you're talking about, I've never had a name for it, is three concentric circles that makes up the majority. I agree.
It is the cast of Dune.

Speaker 1 Yes. The younger cast of Once Upon Time in Hollywood.
Yes. And Euphoria.
Those are the three central things in the circle.

Speaker 2 And you are, that is perfectly said.

Speaker 1 And I believe that that's where we there might be a few outliers, but for the most part, you got it.

Speaker 1 Chalamet being the number one where any Hollywood producer would be like, zero things about this guy communicate, A-list movie star to me. How does he never fail?

Speaker 2 Well, this is the, like, I'll give you a couple of the names. Yeah.
Timothy Chalamet, right?

Speaker 1 Obviously, right there.

Speaker 2 Austin Butler, right?

Speaker 2 The Bear.

Speaker 1 We decided.

Speaker 1 We took the Bear out. We took Jeremy out

Speaker 1 because of shameless.

Speaker 2 But we put in a Lordy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Margaret Qualey. Big time.

Speaker 2 Jenna Ortega, which we felt like was, you know,

Speaker 2 and then

Speaker 2 there was, and then there was these debates. Like, we, we already said no to Glenn Powell.
He's not a part of that crew. No, Sidney Sweeney, not a part of that crew, even though she's in really,

Speaker 2 she's, because it's like, you need to the movie. She's kind of doing her own thing with that new movie, the boxing movie, it may change it, but I feel like she's on the, she's over here.

Speaker 1 She's also in two out of the three

Speaker 1 of the circles. Yeah.
And I, I also, I'm like, is she like Cusack, where you're like, oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 He was in the movies with them and was doing his own thing that was very lateral to them, but you don't really put him in the movie. She's also best friends with the Pivens.

Speaker 1 She's best friends with the Pivens. She's like,

Speaker 1 yeah, Geek Squad. Only posts great politics.
Oh my God. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Geek Squad is like, and you're right, it is all of these people and all of the kind of infrastructure around them that is making all of these nonsense movies.

Speaker 1 And I think it's important that they work together a lot, that they feel like a class that has risen together, that they're unified by certain filmmakers and certain subjects and whatever, because that's where these things happen of like, there's an energy being transmitted at times the collaboration, at times the competitiveness.

Speaker 2 Well, it was interesting because we talked about Nicholas Holt. And we're like, well, what does he fall into this? And we're like, not really, because he's been around.

Speaker 1 I think like Nick Holt, the Fannings, they've just had huge careers. They're not part of Geek Squad.
And they started young.

Speaker 1 And it also, they were sort of like Geek Squad before there was a Geek Squad. They were sort of running independently because there wasn't.

Speaker 1 To harken back to True Grit, I don't think Haley Steinfeld is a Geek Squad. There's a great Cohen.

Speaker 1 You guys didn't mention.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true you guys didn't mention this in the episode but i i have a couple of cohen stuff that i from different episodes that i just want to mention more bones this is not a bone this is just one of the things that a couple of things that i've loved in interviews that uh like i said i'm obsessed with the cohens um uh in true grit there is a great fresh air interview with them and they talked about how On True Grit, there were more rules protecting them putting the horses in the cold river than there were protecting them from putting Haley Steinfeld under it.

Speaker 1 They were like, she could spend more time in the water than the horses. And that that was like a crazy thing.

Speaker 1 The other thing that I love about them, and this is from years ago, there was a podcast called Creative Screenwriting where the guy would ask the same questions to screenwriters.

Speaker 1 And one of which is, what do you do when you come up against writer's block? And the Cohen's answer was, we go to our respective offices and we take a nap.

Speaker 1 And when we wake up, usually one of us has a solution. I love that.
And they jack it. They're not saying that.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 they jack it down.

Speaker 1 You jack it down. You just got to jack it down.

Speaker 1 No, that's great. You just got to jack it down.

Speaker 2 You got to alleviate your erection to then come back and have a more fun.

Speaker 1 You got to relieve yourself of your power so you can focus on your art. Yep.
Get the poison out. Get the poison out.

Speaker 2 Now, I guess I. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1 Introduce our podcast.

Speaker 1 Quickly. Begrudgingly, I will guess.
It can happen. It can happen.
It's just blanket.

Speaker 2 The last time it was an hour and we're only 30. You know, the first time.

Speaker 1 The first time it never happened.

Speaker 1 it never happened.

Speaker 1 The first time the show was never introduced. That's a good podcast.
Yeah, that is good. That's actually Elite Podcast.
That is that. Was that Use Cars?

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1 Use Cars, Big Trouble. That's it.
Yeah. No, well,

Speaker 1 as the duo. Yeah, each of us have done either.
You guys haven't been on since Big Trouble. What's the other one I'm forgetting? There's another one that we had there last year.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Last Action Hero. Yeah.
Oh, that's right. Oh, that's right.
I'm so sorry. No, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 Well, we've always been on Zoom.

Speaker 1 It's so great to have you guys in the Zudezo.

Speaker 1 In the student. You came in the steude once before for

Speaker 1 a watch-along of a day. Tomorrow Never Dies.
Tomorrow Never Dies. And of course, we talked to Paul a million years ago for Running Scared.
That's true. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 That was the most ever not-in-person episode. Wow.
We carved out an exception only for you. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 And that was, and I'm happy to talk about that movie because I still believe that that is. a great template for action comedy.

Speaker 2 And it's so hard to find that balance still to this day.

Speaker 1 day it has gotten worse in the years since we talked about that movie especially as it become the domain of streaming services well I mean and I'm gonna tell you I have not watched yet so I can speak to it I'm too scared to watch a Shane okay play dirty yeah I've seen it and I'll talk about it

Speaker 1 I talked to uh yeah I talked to Ed Brubaker a bunch about it okay um the great Ed Brubaker the great friend of the show yes the great friend of the show we love him this is the Shane Black play dirty movie that's the that's a adaptation of the Parker

Speaker 1 He knows

Speaker 1 the podcast. I got him distracted.
Go on.

Speaker 1 I just introduced a showing of Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang at the Nighthawks this week. The greatest.
I was thinking about one of the great. True.

Speaker 1 And have you seen Play Dirty? No. And that's what I was saying.
I was like, I cannot believe. He has a movie.
I could watch it on my TV right by.

Speaker 2 But that was my, I was nervous.

Speaker 1 I haven't done it yet. I was nervous.

Speaker 1 I want to recommend the Parker books. I especially want to recommend the Darwin Cook graphic novel adaptations of the Parker books, which are

Speaker 1 unreal and beautiful. And Ed Brubaker helps put them out.
Rest in peace. R.I.P., a legend, Darwin Cook.
His Catwoman is amazing. Incredible.

Speaker 1 Incredible.

Speaker 1 New Frontier. Yeah.
Like a lot of great shit. Next level.

Speaker 2 Anyway. Which I believe New Frontiers is the basis of what James Gunn is going to be.

Speaker 1 He's like,

Speaker 1 seems like. And he's smart.
Yeah. I think so.
I really enjoyed Play Dirty. And the stuff that didn't work for me felt like some VFX stuff was kind of like mushy and not great.

Speaker 1 And I ended up being, there were certain moments that I was like, oh, this didn't need to be so VFX. This could have been a smaller moment.

Speaker 1 But none of the things that nice guys, which I adore, has a couple of those things where I'm like,

Speaker 1 this action sequence didn't mean need to be quite this big.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's it.

Speaker 1 This has

Speaker 2 studio notes going, make it bigger. And then you can see in the product that he didn't really care to make it bigger.
And he's like, yeah, that worked.

Speaker 1 Because it's still a small time

Speaker 1 Parker heist kind of grind and and wahlberg it was supposed to be downey jr yeah it was supposed to be downey jr theatrical and and i don't mind that it's not downey jr because parker is such a fucking asshole good wall parker and wahlberg it parker is a brutal absolute ruthless humorless charmless person and downey jr is not at all that

Speaker 1 and and wahlberg does a good job of that but i have seen and heard criticism where people are like, oh, he's just so unlikable. He's just

Speaker 1 a character. And that's Parker.
But I do feel like that's. Do you have any relationship with Wahlberg at this point? I mean, you made the movie from the movie Infinite, where I played the artisan.

Speaker 1 You did play the artisan.

Speaker 2 And by the way, again, now I'm going to have to come in with a song. And I was in daddy's home.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And that's right.
Daddy's home. But I mean, is he a guy who's like Jason? Nope.
Like, come see Parker. That wasn't on me.
That was on.

Speaker 1 It doesn't seem like it's five. He is not at all a person who is like, hey, Jason.
And I think if you were to show him my picture and be like, who is this? Right. He would be like, I have no idea.

Speaker 1 Would he be like, I might have worked on generic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you always.

Speaker 1 You know what? And you're always changing the way you dress.

Speaker 2 If he was shown a picture of you, I bet you what he would do is prey on it and figure out.

Speaker 1 Probably pray on it. But he throws up on Holly.
He has this nervy vibe on screen now that he didn't.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's always been a little that, but like, I do feel like with him on screen lately, I'm like, are you having fun? Like, you always seem so bummed out.

Speaker 2 This is what I will say about him. Sure.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I, it's with very few actors. They are either great, terrible, or like, you don't know what's going on.
You get your famine. I completely agree.
And it's like,

Speaker 2 and sometimes it's like, I don't even understand. Like, and I think it's a lot about the director.

Speaker 2 And I think if the director is hard on him or put or really has a point of view, you get a great performance. If it's like Max Payne.
And it's like, I'm just going to show up and do my thing.

Speaker 2 Because Sam Jackson can do that. Sam Jackson.

Speaker 1 Max Payne is such a good call.

Speaker 1 He's like the whole movie you can feel being like, what the fuck is this?

Speaker 1 Why am I in this?

Speaker 2 No reason for it. And it's like, and so I feel like that kind of like when he decides he's going to direct himself, I think that's when you get the bad Mark Wahlberg.

Speaker 2 Whereas like Sam Jackson, I think from stories I've heard will decide to direct himself.

Speaker 1 And he delivers. I delivers as well.
I have heard him say out loud at a bar, that motherfucker tried to read my lines to me.

Speaker 2 Oh my god

Speaker 1 about a director the wolberg thing that is interesting to me is like we have covered many films in which an auteur tries to cast him against type to disastrous results right like truth about charlie the happening planet of the apes to a degree uh there was another one i was just thinking about but like lovely bones is obviously one of these that we haven't covered yet right and then there's like smart directors we will have to cover it we will cover it someday that's an f smart directors casting him intelligently right right Understanding.

Speaker 2 Departed is like a great

Speaker 2 deal.

Speaker 1 But the whole magic of departed is he doesn't want that role. Totally.
That's why he's so good at it. You can feel him looking at Leo being like, I could do what you're doing.

Speaker 1 I should be where you are. Similar with fucking Boogie Knights.
He's never stopped apologizing to Jesus for being in Boogey Knights. And it's right.

Speaker 1 The fact that both he and Burt Reynolds do not want to have been in that movie is nuts. That's like a peek for both of them.

Speaker 1 What's fascinating about him is you're like, of course he's bad when directors misunderstand how to use him.

Speaker 1 and of course, he's great when directors are really smart about a slightly unconventional way to use him and to harness his energy.

Speaker 1 The middle is the part that's confounding, where you're like, hey, Mark Wahlberg, play a cop in a movie that costs $40 million.

Speaker 1 He should be okay at this, right? Right. Well, and he just bottoms out.

Speaker 2 I mean, Spence, well, I think the reason why I've had a hard time turning on this film is because of Spencer for Hire, which I was like, oh,

Speaker 1 because it seems to me like what an opportunity.

Speaker 2 What great, like, that could have been a great

Speaker 1 fun franchise. Those, those books, those stories, hard-boiled, Pete Berg.
Like, I was like, I'm going to love the Boston.

Speaker 1 But that was sort of the beginning of me being like, I think Pete Berg might just not be. I used to love the stuff he was doing.
Yeah, when he was a Michael Bay acolyte, you know.

Speaker 2 Pete Berg seems like he likes to fly in LAPD-flown helicopters and show off guns on Instagram. Like, you know, not even in a, just in a way, like, this is cool.

Speaker 1 Like, it's like. And the announcement is Robert Downey Jr.
is re-teaming with Shane Black to do an adaptation of like a legendary noir character for theaters.

Speaker 1 You're like, that's what I want everyone in that sentence to be doing.

Speaker 1 And then when it becomes Shane Black is doing a streaming crime movie with Mark Wahlberg, it immediately feels like, yeah, I know what that is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I've seen that a ton of times, even if it's the better version of that. Totally.

Speaker 1 I have also only heard good things from everyone who's seen it with the like qualifier of there is some stuff in it that feels like streaming bullshit. Is it, is it as a kiss, kiss, bang, bang? Right.

Speaker 1 No, but is it, is it unsuccessful? Not at all.

Speaker 1 I had a black.

Speaker 2 You see, the movie that I feel like I liked that I am now going to be embarrassed to admit it to you all, but because I feel like no one liked it, but it kind of scratched that same itch was, was it called The Instigators?

Speaker 2 It was like a Boston

Speaker 1 Diggins. Yeah, that was something that bounced.
It was a line movie.

Speaker 1 Is that a COVID movie? Did that movie go? No, bounce. No, no.
It feels like it. It does.
It's PCF, like, right. It feels like a 2024 Apple TV movie.

Speaker 1 And I remember being hyped hyped for it, just like trashy fun, and it kind of bounced off me in that streaming way of like, if you don't get me quick, I'm kind of right.

Speaker 2 I think I watch it on a plane.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, I'm okay with the

Speaker 1 good on a plane.

Speaker 2 But I think what the difference is.

Speaker 1 It's a porch movie. It is a well movie.
It's drafts. Well, thank you.
Well, and add it to my list. Because we have two guests in the studio today.
I'm not introducing them. Paul is at.

Speaker 1 Ben's usual desk.

Speaker 2 I know. I feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 Ben has assembled an ad hoc setup, including a mic being held together with duct tape. Oh, you had to mention it.
No, because it has porch vibes in a good way.

Speaker 2 That is a porch vibe thing, and you should have had your can taped to it as well. Like, I feel like, like a can cozy.
Like,

Speaker 2 I feel like there should be like, I made this. I didn't have to buy a cup holder for $2 on Amazon.

Speaker 1 It has like an ad hoc, like, producing engineer setup on the AV cart with a half-built Lego Batman movie Joker Mansion underneath it and a duct tape mic. It's perfect.
The microphone. It looks good.

Speaker 1 And I use the one that Sims broke. Okay.
Well,

Speaker 1 and so

Speaker 1 I had to throw something to get it. It's good.
I love it. During one of his Sims temper tantrums, during I was trashing the place.
I said the word Juilliard and Sims ripped it.

Speaker 2 You're like primetime Letterman after a bad show.

Speaker 1 Look at the pencils in the ceiling.

Speaker 1 But I was going to say. So many people in the audience are like, who's Letterman?

Speaker 1 I was going to say. The guy from the nodding beard meme.

Speaker 1 I don't even know what that is. I'm learning so much about

Speaker 2 the but mark wahlberg is an actor that in a movie that may bounce off you feels like he's giving it his all like and i feel like that's the difference like like i don't ever feel like met mark wahlberg even when he's on entourage

Speaker 1 i'm gonna need you to watch the uh infinite Wait, oh, no, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh,

Speaker 2 I'm saying the wrong person.

Speaker 1 Oh, Matt Damon.

Speaker 1 Sorry, sorry. Matt Damon.

Speaker 2 That's, that's it.

Speaker 2 Sorry. Matt Damon is the guy who I feel like is the anti-Wahlberg because he is, it's always interesting.

Speaker 1 It's like Damon has always given everyone. Well, this is what you guys were saying

Speaker 1 to make it work.

Speaker 1 There are so many different categories of Damon, and he is successful in every one of them. Damon as leading man, Damon as supporting character, as Damon

Speaker 1 Cameo,

Speaker 1 and in a side character in a movie like Interstellar, those are all successful.

Speaker 1 The one thing I'm very interested in, because you look at Wahlberg's career of late, and it's this mix of stuff like infinite, sort of straight to streaming.

Speaker 1 I know that was not intended for streaming, COVID, but casualties.

Speaker 1 It would have been, it still would feel that way if it wasn't. So there's some streaming movie doing in theaters.
Somewhat anonymous action stuff that he's doing.

Speaker 1 Which is shocking because let me be clear, it is an Antoine Fouqua movie that cost well over $100 million

Speaker 1 and was a blast to make. Right.
But that's

Speaker 1 so much fun.

Speaker 2 That's the panic fire. That movie got caught up in the panic fire of everything's streaming.

Speaker 1 It's just

Speaker 1 the only way.

Speaker 2 And thank God for Tom Cruise who's the only one who was able to control. I mean,

Speaker 2 he was the only movie that did not go to streaming that was done.

Speaker 1 Do you remember that announcement? It was like parallel with the Warner Brothers Project Popcorn. Every movie is going to HBO Max day and date.

Speaker 1 Paramount announced that every theatrical release of theirs would be on Paramount Plus within two weeks.

Speaker 1 And they had forced Cruise's hand and made the announcement, or they were trying to force his hand. They publicly announced, and that will also apply to Top Gun Maverick.
And he was like, it will not.

Speaker 1 Like they had tried to get him to throw it on Paramount Plus in 2020, in 2021. He holds it to 22.
And they were like, sure, it comes up Memorial Day. It will be on Paramount Plus by June.

Speaker 1 And he was like,

Speaker 1 no, it will.

Speaker 2 And, you know, and I will say that he continues to hold it tight because even Mission Impossible, the final reckoning,

Speaker 2 he held that from vod for way longer than any other film i spent five months waiting on my still i got my order i got that and i was i came the other day i was like oh wow and you know what i'll tell you this much i was brought in

Speaker 1 i was brought into david's having a great time

Speaker 2 i had to host i didn't have to i was hosting a screening of the final reckoning you had the privilege i had the privilege and i was shown um

Speaker 2 footage of the movie and I had to get my reaction to it. But they showed a documentary about that biplane scene.

Speaker 1 That shit is unimpeachably

Speaker 1 two perfect sequences in that movie.

Speaker 2 Never have seen it since. It's not on the DVD.
It's not on the steel book.

Speaker 1 Fucking thing they showed you. Things they showed me.
I don't know why because it's similar.

Speaker 2 What's on the DVD is similar.

Speaker 2 But the footage is different.

Speaker 2 And I was like, why is this not out there? Because it was one of truly the most thrilling things I've ever seen. Yeah.
It actually makes it look way more dangerous than the documentary does.

Speaker 1 David, will you please get back to what's on the the computer? I wanted to finish my point about Walbert. Walberg.
Yes, before we introduce this podcast.

Speaker 1 So half streaming garbage, half this sort of inspirational stuff he'll do, like Family Plan, Arthur the King, the one where he's with. Family Plan's more dumb family comedy.
It's not inspirational.

Speaker 1 But there's a family drama. It's inspirational.
But it's closer to murder mystery.

Speaker 2 But I mean, where does the movie with Tophur Grace and the airplane fall?

Speaker 1 Well, that's inspirational because Mel Gibson is his Lord and Savior. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 But that was at least, I mean, that movie doesn't work, but I guess that's sort of like, I guess I want you doing this kind of stuff, like playing what I want, being a villain. Yes.

Speaker 1 But he has a movie coming up called By All Means in, I think, 2026, directed by Elegance Bratton, who made that movie, The Inspection,

Speaker 1 a very solid debut, I thought, where he plays Gregory Scarpa, who is like a famous

Speaker 1 mafiosa who went informant in the 70s or 60s or whatever, with like Mark Wahlberg, Yaya, Abdul Mateen. Yes.

Speaker 1 Sounds, you know, I mean, David Struth. This just kind of sounds like something.
Yeah. This is something where I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 Do you think this is the other thing about him and what I've been thinking about with him? I know he's trying to launch that Vegas or that Nevada Warner Brothers or whatever that is.

Speaker 1 Do you think he just had to avoid anything interesting while he was doing this?

Speaker 2 I think he's like, let's shit out as many of the, like, let's boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 1 Just kind of keep the boring Wahlberg pipeline.

Speaker 1 Like raising money working with more investment companies and because they building more capital all feel like some of them feel like real direct to dvd but then you can go oh but a year ago he did a hundred million dollar move like it's like yeah i feel but i feel like that studio has failed it seems like it but it definitely felt like he was trying to start an entire side industry like he was trying to Tyler Perry itself.

Speaker 2 But it was also under the Warner Brothers banner, or it was like it was a big studio banner and they had moved things out there. And it actually, I thought in many respects, made sense.

Speaker 2 Like, all right, well, they have a tax credit, you have land, you can go shoot this thing. And I, I guess maybe at the end of the day, if he's the face of it, maybe it doesn't take off as much.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 1 That's interesting because we have to remember, it's not that long ago that he was considered one of the most successful producers in town.

Speaker 1 Boardwalk and

Speaker 1 Entrage. That whole HBO run was like, oh, Mark Wahlberg and that company are producing on a huge level.
Maybe he he is someone to go in on it with. Introduce our podcast.

Speaker 1 I really kind of wait for the hour, Mark. We have to stop talking about Mark Wahlberg.
He's not in this movie.

Speaker 2 Wait, wait, he's not in this movie.

Speaker 1 He's definitely not on this movie. Can we check the cast of Space? Yes,

Speaker 1 really good. He's not in it.
He's not in The Girl Who Got Rattled. Introduce the podcast.
By the way, can we talk about it? Yeah. We're both doing the same thing.

Speaker 1 He also has a clothing brand called Introduce the Podcast. It's important.

Speaker 2 But by the way, so guys, so when I was at, I went to the Celtics, I went to the Celtics game the other night, and he has a special branding deal with the Bruins and the Celtics, only municipal clothes there.

Speaker 2 And I was like, and I looked at the quality of it.

Speaker 1 I said, that's a good call. Introduce the podcast.
I do want to talk about this movie a little bit. Yes.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about this movie a lot. Well, then you're wasting time.

Speaker 1 I'm getting serious. You're wasting time.
You're not wasting time. You are.
Because I'm going to have to leave and you're wasting time. And what time?

Speaker 2 Ben, can you read what's going on?

Speaker 1 You know when I have to leave. You know how my life works.
Let's

Speaker 1 go. I am now officially really annoyed.
I'm going to be honest.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Let's go.

Speaker 1 Not with you guys with him with me yes with you not with that i said introduce the podcast you're like oh i was really hoping to get to an hour why let's go let's even now you are now you're holding him back now you are i'm who am i holding back uh oh this is blank check the show about filmographies

Speaker 1 the directors and who are given a blank check

Speaker 1 and the the the movies that they make as a as a result uh sometimes those movies hit and sometimes they don't uh baby

Speaker 1 that was basically fine Sometimes they bounce. So sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1 I didn't know I was going to do it. Who are our guests? It's just like that episode with Gethard where he has Jimmy Fallon.
I think about it all the time. Do you remember that one? What?

Speaker 1 You think we're blowing it on that level? No. No, not on that level where I'm like, we have great guests.
And then it's like, we're having to choose the show. We haven't infused them.
Don't you know?

Speaker 1 Here, here's the thing. David, the show has been happening.
The show exists.

Speaker 1 Everyone's been loving it.

Speaker 2 I do feel like this is the problem sometimes with podcasting. It's like, you're not tuning in.
You didn't tune in and go like, I'm confused. You know, it just showed up in your feed.

Speaker 2 You know what you're listening to before you know who the guests are.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's true. You do.
And that always does make me laugh. With like, and we haven't introduced our guests.
And I'm like, the app tells you that I've been doing that.

Speaker 1 You're the one doing that right now. Well, here's what I'm going to say.
The shift to video podcasts.

Speaker 1 Now, I'm looking like when the Doughboys have a guest and the person is on camera sitting there waiting to be introduced. I'm like, introduce them now immediately.

Speaker 1 I never thought about that. Change the format.
I think the first thing has to be that our guest today is. Immediately.

Speaker 2 Or do you have them? Just have a better shot.

Speaker 1 Or do you have Finn later? Like, do you do the talk show thing? Yeah. Like,

Speaker 1 no, just introduce them at the top.

Speaker 1 It's a formality. The show has been happening.
Our show currently has been happening for

Speaker 1 65 minutes.

Speaker 2 Like, podcasts should be podcasts. Video shows should be video shows.

Speaker 2 We should not have. podcasts that are just we put a camera

Speaker 1 blank check that's griffin that's david there we go this is paul Scheer, and I'm Jason Manzugas. We are from How Did This Get Me? Yes, but producer

Speaker 1 Ben

Speaker 1 Producer Ben. Producer Ben,

Speaker 1 the Ben Deucer.

Speaker 1 Boy,

Speaker 1 I mean, I know. Did you come up with one? I don't know.
We don't really do this anymore.

Speaker 1 Ballad of Benster.

Speaker 1 Well, that's

Speaker 1 Drugsley.

Speaker 1 How about Inside Lou and Ben Davis?

Speaker 1 Inside Lou and Ben Davis. Well, now it sounds like it's a Ben David Gravinsky review.
Yep, it is. It is.
Okay, let's get into it. Buster Speaker.
Let's get into it.

Speaker 1 This is a movie that to me I loved because, especially in this rewatch, because I was like, oh, this is not just a movie that is an homage to all of the Westerns and all of the great, the John Fords,

Speaker 1 you know, all that stuff. It's an homage to all of the Looney Tunes episodes that are the homage to all of those.

Speaker 1 Yep. There is so much cartoon, Looney Tunes stuff in here.
Did you go to the Vista?

Speaker 2 Did you go to the Vista when they were playing um

Speaker 1 oh what was the movie where it's the uh where there's a sex pillow and george clooney's carrying it around all the time i forget that i think it's uh ryan gosling is who you're talking oh okay right it's large than the real large than the real no no no this is oh you mean burn after no no no no yeah yeah yeah it's a colin brothers movie burn after reading

Speaker 2 sex chair right yeah yeah and it's like but they they did uh i i thought this was a cool when they played it there they played looney tunes uh cartoons before the screening cohen's did or just the theater oh yeah the Vista.

Speaker 2 And I thought that was a really cool thing.

Speaker 2 It was a great way to kind of

Speaker 2 kind of like there's a lot of people.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of cartoon shit in the city. Have they ever talked about the Looney Tunes? I wonder, because it felt to me like

Speaker 1 they were doing both here. They were both, you know, leaning into some of those great, big, classic Western themes, but then also how we have processed them through cartoons.

Speaker 2 Oh, I mean, well, look, the opening scene is Bugs Bunny. Yes.
I mean, absolutely.

Speaker 2 I would argue, and maybe you guys will disagree with me, that the one segment I don't particularly care for as much as the rest.

Speaker 1 I wonder if it's the same for me.

Speaker 2 Is the second to last one? The one that is

Speaker 1 the longest. Oh, really? I love it so much.
Oh, really?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I find it.

Speaker 1 It's totally affecting. Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's affecting. It's affecting.

Speaker 1 I love that. The one that for me, I find that is the least interesting is the final one.
I agree with that.

Speaker 1 With the great Mark Lynn Bakery. I see.
That is my favorite one. Interesting.

Speaker 1 I really like that.

Speaker 1 What a good episode. Because the last one.
It's a good episode. It's great.
It's been great and it's only getting better.

Speaker 2 Well, because the last one, I think, is like really like.

Speaker 1 I don't know how else this could end without it.

Speaker 2 Right. And it's like, and I feel like it's the Cohens, like the other ones are like, they're doing riffs on it.
And then that one feels like they're really.

Speaker 2 infused. I don't know.
It feels different in tone and style.

Speaker 1 I almost I want them to make another movie, but I almost do want it to be the last thing they ever did, which is them being like time to die. Yes, you know, I agree.

Speaker 1 You know, I agree with you that it does feel like an ultimate artist statement in an interesting way.

Speaker 1 And obviously, like, I think this doesn't work as a movie where you watch it all the way through rather than separate, you know, install

Speaker 1 episodes without that being the end, because that's what it's all building up towards. And it also does feel like this is what our body of work has been about.
What is everyone's favorite?

Speaker 1 I just, just, just say your favorite. Just say your favorite off the top of your head.
Mine is the Tom Waits one. Cause that, that I feel like is Ben's favorite too.
And

Speaker 1 I mean, beyond. It is far and away my favorite.
Heavily features digging. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Digging.

Speaker 1 You know what? It's not just Waits, it's the show. I think Ben and I both enjoy unearthing things.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yep.
In many ways. The only difference is that Ben has buried it first.
That's right. Right, right, right.
And then I returned to the genes. Yes.

Speaker 1 Do you know that Ben was really recently stopped by the TSA?

Speaker 1 This is a real moon on his real moon in Italy because he had a portable travel shovel.

Speaker 2 I was going to joke because he had a shovel.

Speaker 1 You didn't think you could buy a shovel in Italy. I just wanted to be prepared.

Speaker 2 Wait,

Speaker 2 why did he even need a shovel in Italy?

Speaker 1 Because he wanted to pay. He's got some Italian jeans.
He had some digging plans. Did you bring jeans as well, or were you going to buy those there? I brought jeans.
And what ended up happening is

Speaker 1 all of these real. Were you like taking them out of the suitcase and like sort of gesturing with the shovel to them? Are you buying jeans, like, or are you sourcing denim? Like, what do you know?

Speaker 1 No, I buy new Levi's jeans. Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, and then I ordered through Italian Amazon a collapsible shelf

Speaker 1 as well as like a ceramic container to put the jeans in. Got it.
Okay. Oh, you mean kind of like Etruscan vibes? Like, you were going to go full like Chimera, like

Speaker 1 ceramic container? Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Like for organs, for organs and so forth.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. We, we, we, yeah.
The fuck we got, we got there.

Speaker 1 The container didn't arrive in time.

Speaker 1 But now you had to. You had the apologia

Speaker 2 to your hotel? Yes.

Speaker 1 Wow. So then I was like, well, it's a perfectly good shovel.
It's still in the packaging. I love it.
But they had a real problem with

Speaker 1 the shovel. It's a weapon.
And

Speaker 1 his wife texts me POV, my husband arguing with the TSA because they found a portable shovel in his bag. And it's just, it's filmed for a far enough way that you can't hear it.

Speaker 1 And it's Ben just gesticulating. Isn't it like one of those like Karen videos you see on YouTube?

Speaker 1 And she's like investigating a shovel and calling over or something. Well, she kept, they kept being like, why do you have this? And I was like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Did they let you through with it ultimately? No, they didn't. They seized it.
By the way,

Speaker 2 this interaction is very much at the time I was in the Orlando airport and the woman in front of me had a handgun in her purse.

Speaker 1 That was an isolation. Oh, she was in her purse.

Speaker 1 In Florida, that's so weird.

Speaker 1 She was going to Disney World.

Speaker 2 She had like a quilted purse. She did not look like a person that you would think would have a large handgun in her purse.

Speaker 1 Not a Derringer.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 it was a big ass like automatic gun. And she, and when she opened it, she was like, oh, well, yeah, but I, I, she's like, but it's just, it's for me.
It's my care. She was so.
Right.

Speaker 1 She's not, I'm not bringing anyone else to get it. Right.

Speaker 1 The idea.

Speaker 1 Yeah. The idea that it was.
I put it in a Ziploc bag, like they told me to. Yeah, she's like, and it's, I'm not, I'm not, it's, I'm not going to use it for the plane.

Speaker 1 I'm just bringing this gun for me. It's a curiosity.
I personalize it.

Speaker 2 I assure you this was not intended to be used on the plane and i i sat by i was standing behind her watching it and everyone was so calm i was like this is a gun she was like wow you guys are really giving me a hard time about this gun give me the business with this handgun yeah it was she had no like oh my god again

Speaker 1 shoes or cigarettes where you're like oh when did they change the rules it's like you were never really allowed to bring guns every once in a while i'll accidentally arrive at the airport with like a leatherman in my backpack and i'm always like oh no i'm so sorry I'm, I am like, throw it away, please throw it away.

Speaker 1 I'm, you know,

Speaker 1 to the idea that I would accident, that somebody would accidentally bring a gun

Speaker 1 just as absentmindedly is hilarious. And it feels like the way you're describing it, she was treating it as if, oh, I forgot to dump out my water bottle.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Putting it through the metal to say that.

Speaker 2 And she was so, and she was embarrassed about it.

Speaker 1 Like, no, no remorse.

Speaker 2 And also, like, but it doesn't have bullets in it.

Speaker 1 Right. Like, and it was.
You really can't just let me take the water bottle on the plane.

Speaker 2 It was, uh, it was great. So, they took the shovel from you.

Speaker 1 Okay, so, so, digging

Speaker 1 is your favorite. Yeah, Tommy.
What is your favorite?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, and I don't want to, I don't want to shirk it here, but I was going to say that I really do believe the bookends of it are my two favorites.

Speaker 2 Okay, and I, but I would, but Buster's my favorite, yeah, because I think that, like, that opening, like, I feel like it encapsulates in many respects, everything I love about the Cohens in those two.

Speaker 1 Buster Scruggs might be the only one where I have just the tinge of like, this is perfect as a, as a sketch, it's perfect i i i almost just want like give me i want more of it like it's the it's the only way everything else i'm like this is i do but i think but i think that that's short but i think that that's actually the reason why for me it works because you're probably right because i think that like the minute you go oh it could have been a second shorter like you always want to leave people wanting more especially with a comedy thing i feel like you know that's the only one though that feels like it leaves me wanting more because you're like man you could do so many things with this funny thing you want him to come back to see exactly to see him locked in like that.

Speaker 1 And he's always good. I remind you.
Especially when he was controlling the actions of Fred Hulk, our president. Oh, I love it.
Salute our president. Villainous leader.

Speaker 1 I remind you, I gave him. Do you think he has the iPad? The action figure has the iPad? They didn't make one.
No, no, why not?

Speaker 1 Why not? Are we talking about the thinker? The villainous leader. The leader.
The leader. I'm sorry, the leader.
The thinker, of course, is Peter Capaldi. Thank you.
The suicide squad.

Speaker 1 Megan, the suicide squad. But

Speaker 1 no, this is the thing. I was sending David many texts about this that he loved and responded to really quickly about the toy.
The multiple reshoots of

Speaker 1 Captain America. Jean Carlos Esposito completely out of it.

Speaker 2 And you can tell because when they have their conversation, they walk into a dark cave. It's like,

Speaker 2 it's like, come in here. All right, sure.

Speaker 1 And it's caliber.

Speaker 1 It's a Dustin Hoffman Little Falkers thing where he keeps popping up around a corner and going, I need to talk to you about something, but far away from any other principal actor.

Speaker 1 Come on, come on. And then you can go back to the scene you were just in.
Can Can I meet you on your street?

Speaker 2 It is so funny when you look at those scenes, like what's going on in the background, where they have just come from.

Speaker 1 I love it all. All of the merch of Tim Blake Nelson as the leader is an entirely different design than what's in the movie.
Really?

Speaker 1 Because they shot the entire film one time with an entirely different look for the character and then reshot every second of his footage. Wow.
We got to talk to Jesse Falcon about that. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. Talk to Jesse Falcon.

Speaker 1 Oh, sure. Yeah.
Oh, I know.

Speaker 1 you should definitely talk to him about that didn't get a marvel legend but like the funko pop they're like t-shirts wow or it's him with like little glasses and like natty combed hair oh wow and he's like dressed like a college professor versus his like zombie elongated hair right right instead of the like bumpy brain it's just tall head i feel like they i feel like which is the comics the comics

Speaker 1 going for the original comic yeah it's a bummer it's a bummer because i feel like you know i just feel like red hulk had a great domestic agenda and he didn't get to execute it no no and now he's trapped in that island, that island jail.

Speaker 1 And the hard thing for Red Hulk is because of the shutdown, he's not getting any of his policies.

Speaker 1 He's also not getting his pills. Oh, he's got to get those pills.
He's got to get those pills. Give me that.

Speaker 2 By the way, I was so upset. So my son had never seen a Marvel movie.

Speaker 2 My son never had seen a Marvel movie.

Speaker 2 We went to Comic-Con this year. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I met your kids at Comic-Con. Oh, yeah.
Exactly. Yes.

Speaker 2 And so we were, and so there was this moment where we got home. They're like, what is a Marvel? Marvel?

Speaker 1 Yeah, like, how old is your son?

Speaker 2 11. And the other one's 9.

Speaker 1 And also, let's call out the last time you were on the show for Last Action Hero. You talked about that your sons have always been pretty disinterested in movies.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And that was one of the first movies they liked. Yes.

Speaker 2 And Last Action Hero is a big, we've now been big movie now. So it's been working really good for us.
But I watched every, I did a curated selection of it because they really wanted to watch Endgame.

Speaker 2 And I was like, we can't start there. Let's go.
And

Speaker 2 I created a crash course to get us to Endgame. And then we went backwards, but they kept on going, When can we see the Red Hulk? When can we see the Red Hulk?

Speaker 1 This is not a bit. This is not a joke.

Speaker 2 And I was like, We were not going to see that one just yet.

Speaker 1 We're going to do like green Hulks before he gets red. But they think Red Hulk is the fireworks factory.

Speaker 2 They were ready for Red Hulk. And so I was like, guys, we can't.
And I've been watching everyone with them. And I came home one day.
I had done a show.

Speaker 2 And I come home and they're like, we watch Red Hulk. And I was like, first of all, it's the only one they watched without me.
Yeah. And I had already seen it.

Speaker 2 And, and, and I was like, what did you think? And it was funny because it's the first time they were disappointed at that. Like, and it was.

Speaker 1 I remember when you're 10 or 11, you're like, it wasn't quite the five-star experience every film in my life was the first

Speaker 1 movie I had ever seen. I did detect slight cracks in the foundation.
Are movies allowed to be there?

Speaker 2 It's a funny moment that you have when you realize that there's a and like, and they, when they come to me all the time, they go like, can we watch? I go, no.

Speaker 1 Well, why not?

Speaker 2 I don't think you'll like it.

Speaker 2 And it's like, well, is it too adult? I'm like, it's not too adult.

Speaker 1 It's just not

Speaker 2 good.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it's hard to explain why.
Right. Right.
When they see it, they're like, all right.

Speaker 1 Because, right, because you're like, yeah, I don't know. Captain America fights Red Hulk in it.
Like, and you're like, well, that sounds good. And you're like, yeah, it does sound good.

Speaker 1 You're just trying to be the best movie I could ever imagine.

Speaker 1 Salute.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, you may remember I gave Tim Blake Nelson my best supporting actor award in our Blankies episode

Speaker 1 this year for this movie.

Speaker 1 For Buster Strike. And I'd love to mention this.
This segment is so my sensibility. It is, I did see this in the very brief theatrical release.
Oh, cool.

Speaker 1 It was screened for me, I think. I can't remember.
Some of the biggest laughs I have ever had in the theater come from this segment, which is just so funny. My fucking bullseye.
But so cute.

Speaker 1 It's so smooth. It's so small.
But her performance. It's him.
It's his performance. It's the song.
All the physicality. of the tables.
And then you've got Clancy Brown.

Speaker 1 And the perfect silhouette.

Speaker 1 I mean, that is the most cartoon thing of all time the tone of the movie is established when during this segment in the very beginning as he's riding the horse and playing guitar there's a shot from inside the guitar out yeah you are looking at from inside the guitar out through the strings the sound is muffled and i'm like oh this is what they're doing they're having fun this is fun and silly and i think the thing and i when i watched it again and i hadn't watched it in a long time i was like oh but this character comes back yeah this is like the hey He's also the titular.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.
You're right. And, and he.
He definitely does seem otherworldly, obviously. And you're like, maybe he finds a way to

Speaker 1 go backwards and you see him before.

Speaker 2 Or do you like, or do you like, does every character have an interaction with this guy? Because it's almost, that's a movie too, right? You know, and uh, but no.

Speaker 2 And I think that that's what I also feel what you're saying. Like, I want more of it.
Like, I think the movie. might even feel better if there was a little bit.

Speaker 2 Like, maybe if those characters come into that town where he gets killed. I mean, that doesn't quite work.

Speaker 1 But though, where like every other segment is a complete thought that ends at the exact point it has to end to because there is so much a punchline.

Speaker 1 And even the segments that are more dramatic do kind of have an inherent sketch comedy game within them. Right.

Speaker 1 It's all about building this up and knocking it down and getting to that surprising, like, but inevitable conclusion.

Speaker 1 And his is the one where you're like, you could do seven more sketches with this guy. Yes.
That would all be satisfying.

Speaker 1 But also Mortal Remains, right, has Saul Rubinek, the great Saul Rubinik, playing a Frenchman, playing a Frenchman. And then Crumholtz is in Buster Scruggs, the Ballad Buster Scruggs is a Frenchman.

Speaker 1 That's their second crummiest film, I would say. It is.
I think Kale Caesar's still there. That's the crummiest.

Speaker 1 And I had that, I heard the brief, like when I was rewatching, I was like, does Crumholtz come back? Because when I saw him, I was like, it's a satisfactory. And then I was like,

Speaker 1 and like, then I started thinking, like, what if Mortal Remains, like, it's like there was a character in each of them and they're all in the carriage. That's fun.
And then I watched it.

Speaker 1 I was like, right, but that's not what it is at all. Wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't that be cool?

Speaker 2 but the cohens also are i think when you say to them wouldn't that be cool they're like oh i don't know maybe we did something else and i think that the movies that we have watched that are similar and i'm i'm gonna this is a very big thing i'm painting here but like a kentucky fried movie or like amazon women on the moon which i was able to buy in the uk uh

Speaker 2 yeah and blu-ray or dvd blu-ray wow and but like they that the format of these styles the style of film where it's shorts uh they there always is a little bit of a through line a little bit like right you know what's making this all hang together?

Speaker 1 And this is just the milieu. The West.
The milieu. Yeah.
The West Frontier. The, you know, like the themes of going west and a new started or whatever.

Speaker 2 You know, and even though it's the, but the book is, is the, is the book the ballad of button.

Speaker 1 The book, it's based on two different stories. I know you're saying the physical book in the book.
In the book, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Two of the six stories are adaptations. Yes.
Four of them are stories.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know what? I should open the dossier because I actually think

Speaker 1 there are lots of questions. Crack it.
I don't know the total. David, I'm begging you to get to the dossier.

Speaker 2 David, it's an hour and 12 minutes.

Speaker 1 David don't like crack it.

Speaker 1 JJ worked on getting the podcast in motion. The Cohens, of course, had made short films before, a little bit.
Joel made a short film called Soundings in NYU Film School.

Speaker 1 Obviously, they did the Twilery section of Paris Jataine, which is very charming and funny.

Speaker 1 To each his own cinema. And then they did the World Cinema segment to each his own cinema with Brolin, right? Yeah.
Tom might like the Nuri Bilga Silen.

Speaker 1 That's his bit at the end of the show. Oh, yeah, right, it's Cowboy Wanders Into an Arthouse Theater and he really likes climates, the Nurri Bilga Silen movie.

Speaker 1 And he like tips his cowboy hat and goes, tell him I like. I should have seen this.
It's really

Speaker 1 Tricia Cook co-directed a short called Don't Mess with Texas, where Ethan was someone who.

Speaker 1 But anyway, but in the early 2000s, the Cohens start writing something called The Ballad of Buster Scrugs, but they don't

Speaker 1 intend it maybe right away to be a short, but they realize like, yeah, this is like an interesting lark. Maybe

Speaker 1 it could begin to be a collector. They also tell Tim Blake, like, we're writing this for you.
This is this fun idea we're toying around with. You can't be able to get it.
Right, right.

Speaker 1 In a kind of more real, dangerous Western milieu. Is there anybody who, and I mean, I think he has said this outright.

Speaker 1 Is there anybody who has had their career just astronomically catapulted forward than the Cohens and Tim Blake?

Speaker 1 It is so interesting that they look at him and they're like, we know what to do with you. And it's exactly.
all he needed.

Speaker 1 It's all right. It's from O'Brother to this guy.

Speaker 1 It's so varied. I mean, here are the things that are craziest.
One, that they actually don't work together at all between O'Brother and this. Right.

Speaker 1 And in your mind, you're like, he became a statement. Yeah, in your mind, you're like, he's Steven Root.
He's in six of these things, right?

Speaker 2 But the thing about him, too, is I think he also is exploding in a lot of movies that are odd that for the most, for the. The eye test for most people are like, oh, that was a Cohen brothers.

Speaker 2 No, it wasn't, but it feels like.

Speaker 1 or he gave a performance in a movie that felt like it could have been a Cohen performance in a more straight film or whatever.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like he's doing a lot of that weird, not weird work, but just a lot of that. You just associate him with that.

Speaker 1 But also to be a guy who, I'm sorry, David, went to Juilliard, is classically trained. We've talked about Tim, I guess, just Neo Brother.

Speaker 1 But then, like, you know, was like doing character actor stuff, doing comedy stuff, and was sort of like, I think I'm more of a writer and director. That's my main focus.

Speaker 1 I become friends with Joel Cohen through that. Then he offers me this part.
I'm like, I don't really act that much anymore. This is the third lead of the movie.
Should I do this? He does it.

Speaker 1 He never stops working. Right.
It's not even he has had peaks and valleys. No, he's got

Speaker 1 brother on. Everyone is like, we know how to cast this guy forever.
He will be in six things a year. So

Speaker 1 back to the Dusty A because we can talk about, you know, that. So they've done short films.
Well, they've done short films. They write Buster Scrugs.
They start to just write other stuff.

Speaker 1 It all goes in a drawer.

Speaker 1 At one point, HBO, who's the only other possible contender for, I i think making something like this is like we do an anthology like that makes some sense they sort of talk about it it never goes anywhere um and uh ethan says basically at some point they were like we just need to write like one more and it'll be a feature right like they had maybe four or five they were like let's just do it the only when you say buster scruggs are they writing buster first they do buster scruggs the first

Speaker 2 but i mean but oh but always as a story not as like we're gonna write a buster scruggs feature Exactly.

Speaker 1 I think they realize like, no, it's a little trifle and they just keep adding trifles to their story. You tell him about it in like the early 2000s.

Speaker 1 And then they're like, we don't really know what to do with this. And you have this thing we wrote for you.
We don't really know where this would fit into it. They love Westerns.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so they're kind of, as they put it, rummaging around in the Western genre where they're like, well, we never did a stagecoach movie. We never did a wagon train movie.
Like these are all.

Speaker 1 right buster scruggs is like it's about you know dueling right like the gold miner thing the stagecoach thing it all makes sense is like these are things Westerns would

Speaker 1 sub-genres of the golden age.

Speaker 1 They've ostensibly done two feature-length Westerns at this point, yet both of them are unconventional in their own ways, that there are a lot of hallmarks they have not hit at all.

Speaker 1 They write the Mortal Remains, the final piece, as a way of unifying when they look at all their stories. They're like, what is the common theme? And they are like, the common theme of this is death.

Speaker 1 Death comes for us all. Exactly.
Like, and it's like, it may be out of the ordinary or it might just kind of be like, what can you do? Like, you're going to, you know, but like, that is right.

Speaker 1 That is the common theme. So, they write that.
You could also zoom out and argue that is the common theme of their body of work. Well, I know that's the common theme of much art.

Speaker 1 Well, that's what I was going to say.

Speaker 2 The first and last chapter to me represent the full scope of their career, which is like death, but

Speaker 1 cartoon silliness and then like poetic, sort of serious.

Speaker 2 Yes, and sort of like the brutality and beauty. And it's really well, I mean, I think this movie does capture a lot of what they do in very short segments.

Speaker 1 You know, like I think you're right. I think the primary concern of like their careers and their body of work is this is the only guarantee.
And what do you do with that knowledge, right? Yes.

Speaker 1 That most of their stories are animated by how do people process

Speaker 1 the fact that that is the inevitable end goal?

Speaker 1 How do people, what are they willing to do in order to protect their lives? The cruelty of taking away other people's lives. Like all of this, the negotiation.

Speaker 2 I really wish, I also feel like there's no, like their movies are more,

Speaker 2 not more modern, but I feel like they, there's less lying here. Like, people are much more bald here, I feel like, in this film, in this film.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I feel like they kind of man, you're obsessed with bald in this movie. I mean, I think it's great.

Speaker 2 And you're talking about Greek actors, talking about bald actors.

Speaker 1 But I do think it is.

Speaker 2 Oh, I love it. Greek.

Speaker 1 Greek as hell. Greek as hell.
We left him off the list. Well, he is dead.
That's not

Speaker 1 going to say it. I mean, he can't ship off to the audience.
I believe he was Jennifer Anniston's godfather. He was.
Is that right? Is that La Piatella? John Anniston is the dad.

Speaker 2 His vinyl is great. His singing vinyl is great.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I can imagine that guy had some pipes.

Speaker 2 He does a little William Shatner-esque. But I feel like what's fun about this is like these people are who they say they are and what they like.
No one's hiding that much.

Speaker 2 And I feel like a lot of Cohen Brothers movies is about manipulation or covering.

Speaker 1 But I also think that's like a principle of the dramatic idea of the Western, right?

Speaker 1 It is why it is a genre that people are still so obsessed with is it's this notion of like white hats and black hats and men meeting in a town square and looking each other in the eye and saying the thing and these moral lines you know this sort of like this this midpoint culturally between like we built just enough of a society that we're starting to establish rules and structures and idea of how a town works and what jobs are, you know, and dressing it up.

Speaker 1 And yet things are settled by guys shooting each other in the head. Right.
You know, that it's this like exact midpoint in like the human evolution. Right.
So Western getting away from barbarity.

Speaker 1 To what extent has civilization arrived? And then what's civilization?

Speaker 2 And then what they take, they, and then where it manipulates to is people like, oh, I can circumvent the civilization. I can manipulate it.
I can gain, get money from it.

Speaker 1 You know, like what I feel like is part of it is, and Zoe Kazan has that line when her brother has died and they say, do you want to go back or do you want to move forward?

Speaker 1 And she said, there is no back. There is only moving forward.
And that's everybody in this movie, everybody in life is marching forward towards certain death.

Speaker 1 Uh, it's just happening so much sooner in this movie because circumstances are brutal. And these things have to be 15 minutes long as well.

Speaker 1 They basically, all of them average between 15 and 20, other than the Kazam, which is about 35, right? The rattled is the sort of center of 15 minutes later.

Speaker 2 And that's why I feel like that

Speaker 1 why I don't like it as much as the others is because i think it does break the structure too late in the film because it's right at the end like that is the exact thing i like really okay yeah i can see griffin's side of it i agree with you paul that i right am kind of like this this is like a few too many beats and i've been with this movie for a while and you know i don't know i don't know i i want to know why you guys like it eventually okay well um

Speaker 1 uh Then they take this project once they're sort of like, okay, like we've put this all together to Annapurna, as we said. Annapurna sells it to Netflix pretty quickly, according to the cones.

Speaker 1 And it is a mistake of trade reporting that it's reported as a series. And I think it's partly that it was still so new

Speaker 1 for these movies to be on Netflix and it's announced as this anthology of stories that I think, you know, Variety at all are just kind of like, oh, is it like a television mini series?

Speaker 1 Like, that's so hot right now.

Speaker 2 No filmmaker would be going with a film to Netflix at this point.

Speaker 1 You know, like, right? Or well, also, part of that, I mean, kind of like other cards. We've got feature cups, right? But you know, but no, those making sure that's right, right.

Speaker 2 It's like a film, like, uh, I suit you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it felt like Netflix started doing something similar to Annapurna, which was what's the thing you can't get made anywhere else.

Speaker 1 And when Netflix made them, a lot of times you were like, oh, there's a reason no one else made this. The script had problems.
Things like Duncan Jones's mute, right?

Speaker 1 Where you were like, oh, these development hell movies are now going to Netflix as a salvation versus the ones that were good but were challenging.

Speaker 1 It felt like Annapurna was financing and then getting theatrical distribution for it.

Speaker 1 Doing the Scott Rudin thing of like, what's the thing you've been trying to make? We can figure out how to make it for you. If cinema for adults has kind of died, then we'll put up the money.

Speaker 2 But it's kind of also like movies that can't have good trailers, right?

Speaker 1 You can't sell. Movies that would struggle with an opening weekend expectation or whatever.
Right.

Speaker 2 So here you just slap it in Netflix. You open up your app and they're and then you're like, it's there.

Speaker 1 I'm watching.

Speaker 1 But they're absolutely kind of riding high for going to Netflix at this point a lot of the people who are going to netflix are like coming off of a shaky period i guess irishman's the year after this which is another big turning point of like oh fuck here's this movie that the studios were too scared to make right and they're rolling out the carpet for scorsese and irishman the scorsese the thing about irishman and flower moon is like they are very long and very expensive and they were expensive to make they probably still would have made decent amounts of money

Speaker 1 but they're long and expensive i don't think

Speaker 2 i i don't i would have loved to have have seen the Cohen's do Flower Moon. That story is a Cohen.
Like that to me is like a Cohen-A. And it drives me.

Speaker 2 And I love Scorsese, obviously, but that I would love to have seen the humor in that more because that's a movie where you're talking about a lot of this kind of just manipulation. No, for sure.

Speaker 1 There's a way to make it more.

Speaker 1 This is a quote from Joel. I like this about television.

Speaker 1 Thing about TV series I don't understand. I think it's hard for both of us to get our minds around is feature films have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Speaker 1 Oven-ended stories have a beginning and and middle and then they're beaten to death until they're exhausted and they die i do think that's a funny way to talk about really successful television because like oh only a couple shows truly got to end on their own terms well usually if you're successful it's like yay our show rocks you're eventually it's like of your own success we're still going and it's like no like

Speaker 1 you're done except for the uk model which was you know was like yeah no but you're right most most often shows end

Speaker 1 will never end most often shows end unresolved because they didn't get where they wanted to and they were taken away too soon, or they're victims of their own success that are stretched out far past the natural ending point of the story.

Speaker 1 The Cohens also say they are literal about this. They're like, no studio would have financed this film.
Like with the one where it's like, hey, why'd you go to streaming?

Speaker 1 And they're like, why do you think? Nobody's going to make this movie. This is not a commercial movie.
And it's an expensive movie.

Speaker 1 And we see how the industry is changing and they only want to make franchise movies. And like, you know, they're expensive because it's period.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think this movie was like a huge pain in the ass to make because this is the one where Ethan's like, I am really exhausted. It is the reason.

Speaker 1 Yes, the split up in quotes between the two of them is at the end of this, Ethan's like, I'm so fucking wiped out. I don't want to make another movie.

Speaker 1 And Joel goes, I guess if you don't want to do it, can I do stuff solo? Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 And then Ethan ends up getting this second win and deciding that he wants to make very, very serious, complicated lesbian genre. Society.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Society. But he, when it was sort of talked about and people were like, are they talking around a blowup that happened between the two of them? Was there a falling out? Is there an illness?

Speaker 1 Is it an industry thing? Whatever it was, the line was always Ethan saying, we made too many Westerns in a row.

Speaker 1 That

Speaker 1 no country was tough. Some films in between.
True Grid was really tough.

Speaker 1 Some films. And then this, he basically was like, it was an idiotic ambition on our part.
It felt like making six complete movies.

Speaker 1 Even though they were short, it felt like six separate productions in a row. The scope of them is massive.
Right. They're not, they don't feel small.
Not at all.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe in cast, but that's about it. Almost all exteriors.

Speaker 1 He was like, it was just months on uncovered sets. Every couple of weeks, it would basically reset with a new cast.
We'd have to rethink visually the new story.

Speaker 1 So many of these people are old, like Tom Waits. I was watching Tom Waits.
Did he look old to you?

Speaker 1 Do so much on this. I was like, wow, he must have been exhausted.
No, and I think Ethan even said, like, that much time outdoors, uncovered sets, it wouldn't have been a problem when we were young.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But we got ourselves out there.
And even just being like five years older than they were when they made True Grit or more, seven, you know, and that's already a couple years past.

Speaker 1 They were like the additional 10 years between when we started making Westerns and this one, we were just like, I can't handle this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I've got a question for all the gamers out there.

Speaker 1 Are you seriously going to miss out on Alienware's biggest gaming sale of the year? I mean, these are Black Friday prices we're talking about. So it's not just another sale.

Speaker 1 I took a look, and this is some pretty big bang for your buck. Yeah.
You know, it's Alienware with some of the most advanced engineering out there. They got systems at the top of reviewers' lists.

Speaker 1 And what about a gift for yourself? Yeah, you gift yourself a new Alienware 16 Area 51 gaming laptop. I mean, this thing's got performance at the absolute next level with Intel Core, ultra processors.

Speaker 1 And even better, you can get it during Black Friday. Plus, you can save on all kinds of displays and accessories like the Alienware 27 4K QDOL ED gaming monitor for ultimate visual fidelity.

Speaker 1 I might need that. These really are incredible deals on PCs with otherworldly performance.
Here's what I'd do.

Speaker 1 I'd visit alienware.com slash deals soon and grab what you can before their biggest sale of the year goes dark.

Speaker 1 Uh, David? Yes. This episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Warby Parker, our friends at Warby Parker.
And boy, do I have a lot of things to say about them.

Speaker 1 You're a committed Warby Parkerer.

Speaker 1 Who's at the door? Creep.

Speaker 1 I guess I'll have to hold my thoughts for a second. Hold on.
Who is that? Someone's rolling in their own microphone and their own desk.

Speaker 1 Hello. Hello.
This is Ira Glasses.

Speaker 1 Welcome to This American Site.

Speaker 1 This is a podcast about wearables that can improve your eyesight. Glasses, contact lenses.

Speaker 3 Griffin, you talk to this guy.

Speaker 1 You want me to talk to Ira Glasses? All right, what's up, Ira Glasses?

Speaker 1 I'm here with a really fascinating story. It's about a company called Warby Parker.
They use nothing but premium materials in every frame.

Speaker 1 Warby Parker designs every frame in-house, and our collection includes silhouettes, colors, and fits made to suit every face. Do you have anything for this character beyond this voice you're doing?

Speaker 1 Excuse me.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to say. I'm here in good faith, speaking to you about an astonishing story.
A story of human perseverance.

Speaker 1 Everyone knows what Warby Parker is, right? Because it's basically they've got retail locations across the U.S. and Canada.
So you can go in and get styled by an expert advisor.

Speaker 1 They've got glasses that are affordable, Griffin. And you, not Iwa Glasses, who I don't know, you are very, like, you're always using them, right?

Speaker 1 I use their glasses a lot, but I really want to hear what I wear glasses has to say.

Speaker 1 A lot of Warby Parker locations offer comprehensive eye exams starting at $85. That's really cheap.
Yeah, David, I was about to say that. I don't appreciate you refusing to acknowledge that.

Speaker 1 I just don't think the character should just roll in and then verbatim read ad configuration. That's all I'm going to say.

Speaker 1 That's all I'm going to say. This is a story I am breaking.
Okay. It's a story of the human spirit.

Speaker 1 I just feel like usually the character's got like a big thing we have to sort of sort out and then we're going to be able to do it. Oh, really? What's your big thing? What's your big thing?

Speaker 1 I want to be done with the ad.

Speaker 1 Well, we have different approaches to podcasting. My name is Ira Glasses, and this is this American site.
Many Warby Parker locations offer comprehensive eye exams starting at $85.

Speaker 1 I already said that. Well, did you say this? Add a pair and save 15% off when you purchase two or more prescription pairs of glasses or sunglasses.
I do appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 1 Okay, I do think that's a pretty good thing. So maybe I have something to connect to.
And that's available both online and in store. I was going to say.

Speaker 1 And if you're going to buy something online, they got free shipping, they got free 30-day returns, and they got that thing where you take a picture of your face and you can kind of put the glasses on your face.

Speaker 1 Hey, I don't come to your door and knock the microphone out of your mouth. Well, you literally did just do that.
But did I knock the microphone out of your mouth? Well, I mean, I suppose you.

Speaker 1 I came to your door, but let the record show. Did I knock the microphone out of your mouth? No, you're.
No. Okay, so I'll accept that I came to your door.
Hey, Griff, just real quick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, hey, this is Griff in a very different voice. I just wanted to ask,

Speaker 1 like, have you picked out any glasses of Warby Parker? Of course, all my glasses are from Warby Parker. Right now, these are my mains.
I'm wearing. They are the toddy.

Speaker 1 They are the toddy and tortoises shell. I love them.

Speaker 1 I often buy two pairs at once so I can get the same style in two different colors and make one sunglasses, one clear lenses, and I can swap them out if I'm feeling a little saucy.

Speaker 1 But who cares what I have to say? Ira glasses, what do you have to say? I use this product and you should too.

Speaker 1 Okay, Warby Warby Parker has over 300 locations to help you find your next pair of glasses. You can also head over to warbyparker.com/slash check right now to try on any pair visually.

Speaker 1 That's warbyparker.com/slash check. Warbyparker.com/slash check.
Ira, get the hell out of my studio.

Speaker 1 I wear the boatie, that is the pair I wear. Just so you have a visual picture of me in your head, I wear the

Speaker 1 ira glasses. This American sight,

Speaker 1 Tim Blake Nelson, as you say, had been shown this script all the way back when, and then apparently, just once in a while, and he was excited about it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then once in a while, Joe will be like, Hey, by the way, one day we're going to do that. So

Speaker 1 get ready. Yeah.
And then they're like, We're going to do it. So can you do pistol tricks? And can you play guitar? And can you sing? And also, can you learn all this dialogue?

Speaker 1 And Tim was all starting now. Right.
Tim was like, what? And then he had to learn guitar specifically to be in this movie. His son is like a very good musician.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 He has a beautiful singing voice and he learned like singing was part of his training at Juilliard. But he credits his son.
He has a really good WTF episode. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Where he credits his son, where he was like this incredible bonding exercise of me being able to go to my son, who is a guitar prodigy, and be like, I'm hiring you to spend the next six months to teach me how to do all of this.

Speaker 1 And they got very close doing it. Can I give you Zoe Kazan's incredible take on this movie? And she obviously, I mean, like with all these actors, it's like, hey, why'd you do it?

Speaker 1 She's like, I don't know, it was a Cohn brothers movie. Like, what am I going going to not do it?

Speaker 1 She says she thinks the whole thing is all bound together in a really clever way. Each chapter prepares you for the next.
The first one is like, it's going to be a good time.

Speaker 1 People will die, but it's going to be fun. By the third one, that expectation has been reversed.
It's like amusement comes with a price. You know, entertainment is not easy.

Speaker 1 And like, you've watched the deaths of all these protagonists, right? Tom Waits reverses the pattern a little bear, a bit. There's hope.

Speaker 1 And then Gal Who Gets Rattled is the opposite, where you're like, you're in it, you're invested the most, it has the most crushing ending.

Speaker 1 And then the final one is just this dream logic of like, you know, this museum of death. What comes next? Exactly.
We'll get into it more, but that's my love that quote.

Speaker 2 That's a guy.

Speaker 1 She's fucking smart. She's a cutlass.
Everyone who has worked with her says that as well.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think that she and I worked together on the Nia Vardalos movie. I hate Valentine's.

Speaker 1 Jason, you're in.

Speaker 1 Oh, don't you worry. I am.

Speaker 1 Do you go on a date with her? I'm so worried.

Speaker 1 Do you go on a date with her? And she's like, I hate it. No, no.

Speaker 1 Nia Vardalos is falling in love with John Corbett once again.

Speaker 1 And they're four movies together. Yes.
She has a kind of regular lunch group of friends you're one of the kind of downloads with, and it's me, Zoe,

Speaker 1 Dratch, and Judah Friedlander. Guys, they're all the same age.
Yes. Crazy.
The wrecking crew. Yeah, the wrecking crew.
AKA The Wrecking Crew. That movie is not perfect.

Speaker 1 perfect. It is all out.
David, what is it? Aka

Speaker 1 is back.

Speaker 1 It is very gracious of you, David. It is not perfect, but I had the most wonderful time making it.
Everybody was dynamite.

Speaker 1 And it was maybe one of the very first movies I was ever in in a meaningful way. Like multiple scenes.
That's a long time ago.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I will also say that when you just said something about, not about Valentine's Day, but

Speaker 2 the dossier coming up and saying that she read all the pieces, which again, these are two things that surprise me: A, that Netflix didn't approach them, and then B, that they're giving the full script out to everyone because it feels to me it's like, oh, here's the piece we want you to do.

Speaker 2 Don't worry about the rest. It's not important.

Speaker 1 What weird misreporting about this film and the assumption that it was a TV show was also that, like, in some of the trade announcements, they said that it was a project under Anna Perna's new television division.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And also, because Netflix is doing so much playing with format stuff, I have heard conspiracy theories in the past that there was a little bit of deliberate trickery in knowing that Netflix would be more willing to sign off on this, even though their intention was always to make it a movie.

Speaker 1 That is pure conjecture. But they have been very upfront.
Everyone who works on this movie is very upfront that it was like, the script is a finished thing. It is in this order.

Speaker 1 And everyone reads it from beginning to end.

Speaker 2 And this is, you know, when I talked to Quentin Tarantino, he talked publicly on the radio.

Speaker 2 So I'm not, I'm not radio, but on the podcast, he was saying that they kind of tricked harvey uh into kill bill you know to kind of maneuver how they wanted it to be released too so i think that that's just part of good producing and someone was able to trick harvey after harvey tricked so many people yeah 100

Speaker 1 what's up with him you're saying mostly most i haven't heard from him in a minute you're saying mostly just the editing room right his notorious editing room battles

Speaker 1 but i do feel like that like i think that that's all fair play because it's sort of like just get it made go get the thing because it doesn't make a difference for netflix ultimately i don't think no and they've been very clear that it was like this is always what we wanted to be and that's what it was right and whether it was just misreporting because they tend to keep the lid on very tight while they're working on stuff so there's a lot of speculation that leads to like fact

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 2 theorizing getting printed as fact or if that was part of their kind of clever well you blew my mind when you said that he wasn't sick for the breakup i oh i thought whatever i read was that he was sick and then that was

Speaker 1 like i'm really fucking tired and I like need time to recharge and maybe I'll come back to it. I get it.
Yeah. It was a pain to make.

Speaker 1 They shot it in Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, almost all in location except for the final segment, which was shot on a stage. Obviously,

Speaker 1 mostly in its carriage.

Speaker 1 Well, that also

Speaker 2 the first sequence is in the very famous, I've shot there multiple times, the famous old west town that's standing in right outside of Los Angeles. And that you would see Deadwood and

Speaker 2 everything.

Speaker 1 Don't they? Is it in that segment where they refer to Val Verde in this movie, which is right, really? Yeah, which is the famous kind of shared fake

Speaker 1 fake

Speaker 1 South American country that, like,

Speaker 1 in Commando,

Speaker 1 what's the guy, the writer who wrote all those movies? Stephen D'Souza, I believe. Thank you.
It's D'Souza. It's a D'Souza ref.
No, it is actually not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but Val Verde is invoked at some point in this film. There is this like owning of the kind of like collective monomyth of the American West via movies, right?

Speaker 1 Well, also, not for nothing, the fact that in that opening segment, Tim Blake Nelson is killed by Seth Bullock,

Speaker 1 Tim Oliphant,

Speaker 1 you know, putting a Deadwood actor in there, putting like, there's something really wonderful about that.

Speaker 2 I also thought that that opening sequence is movie

Speaker 1 Old West.

Speaker 2 He's in the white cowboy outfit. It's like, it's very, everything else is much more grounded in a more realistic way.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. The adjuxtition of him and Clancy Brown is incredible.
But it's also like, he's like a 40s movie cowboy, and he is killed by like a 60s movie cowboy.

Speaker 1 Both of them are fictionalized, heightened, stylized version of phony cowboys existing in a milieu of like, these are what the actual guys were like. This is basically the Cohen's playing with toys.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, this first one, absolutely.
And like the

Speaker 1 identifying why I'm correct.

Speaker 1 But like the joke of like, okay, or the puzzle of like, you're in the saloon, you're not allowed a weapon. How do you, yes, how do you kill somebody?

Speaker 1 Like, it's what it's seth bullock but also roy rogers um

Speaker 1 but it's also right what griffin is saying of kind of like now your time has come buster like you're gonna you're gonna get knocked off the board because like the western isn't gone but the the type of the trick shots the cheerful singing and all that it's like officially uncool

Speaker 1 it's and it's not it happens before but i loved the sequence where he kills surly joe he's singing the surly joe song and dancing and everyone's getting on board for it but they keep cutting back to Surly Joe's brother coming in and finding

Speaker 1 Surly Joe's real girl. He does.
He's dead. That sequence is so funny.
Every single line of dialogue he has is funny to me. It is funny in the way it's written.

Speaker 1 You can just imagine the Coen's giggling to themselves about like, imagine Tim saying this. There are moments of like pure like elation that I have in this segment.

Speaker 1 I mean, his killing of Clancy Brown is truly, I know I've been using a lot of hyperbole across the series because I love the Cohen so much.

Speaker 1 That is amongst the hardest I have ever laughed in a theater. It's so good.
Yes. I lost my fucking mind.
It's so funny.

Speaker 1 I saw this at the IFC with our friend JD Amato in like one of the five basically unadvertised days it was playing.

Speaker 1 And there was almost no one else in the theater outside of a recently canceled Louis C.K.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 It was like a very odd experience. We walk and we're like, that's him, right? And then we're.

Speaker 2 I'm just singing at anything. He laughed a lot.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah.
He liked it a lot. Because it would be You're talking about the author, right? The novelist.
Yeah. Yeah.
It would be funny if he works in a Western military as well.

Speaker 1 He kicked the board and made him shoot himself once, but that then he does it then six times.

Speaker 1 That's that's funny.

Speaker 1 Six times is the funniest thing I've ever sexually.

Speaker 2 I feel like the image I see when I look at him in this is Bugs Bunny with the guns on his holster. That is like, I feel this image.
It's like everything.

Speaker 2 If you told me this was literally shot for shot of Warner Brothers, Looney Tunes, Garjana Big Black.

Speaker 1 100%. And I even think the dust silhouette and all these things of like establishing cartoon logic, the way at the end when he dies, he becomes an angel with little wings and a harp.
Yeah, that's

Speaker 1 straight Looney Tunes. Oscar non-native song.
He sings an Oscar non-fine when a cowboy

Speaker 1 straights his spurs for wings. Well, he performs it in the movie.
I can't remember if he performed it. I think Gillian Welch did it on stage.

Speaker 1 It's mostly the other guys singing it, but I believe Gillian Welch did it. Oh, David Rawlings.
David Rawlings is the other thing. Wow.
There we go. Do you guys know? I've got those albums.

Speaker 1 Don't worry. I was going to say, it's like Jason does not have like a laptop open.

Speaker 1 a short side tangent that will be worth it, please. I promise you, it's fine.
Uh,

Speaker 1 the movie show, now we're in, yeah, uh, the show has done great. We're actually ahead of school,

Speaker 1 it's so funny. David has genuinely calmed down.
Yeah, the tension was just for the words that begin the show. A little bit, we're doing great.
I love it. We only have five more segments to talk about.

Speaker 1 So, here's my thing.

Speaker 1 David, as

Speaker 2 I'll talk about, as a parent, I feel that pressure.

Speaker 2 I feel it. I've recorded episodes where I've come down, and my wife is like,

Speaker 1 what possibly could you be doing?

Speaker 1 Like the idea of coming down and being like, oh, but we had 18 more minutes on fucking credit cards.

Speaker 1 And we're not resolved on that. Griff and I are like, let's go.
Child and children. Calling bachelors.

Speaker 2 We have nothing to do with that.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm in New York.

Speaker 2 I don't have my family. I'm very happily can stay as long as I like.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We do have a show tonight. Well,

Speaker 1 that was great. And I'm talking about the show.
Oh, really? Oh, my gosh. Well, look,

Speaker 1 we'll talk about it. In Manhattan, right? It's yeah, right, right.
The great New York City.

Speaker 1 The great town hall. Yes.

Speaker 1 George Lucas Talk Show. Yes.

Speaker 1 When we were doing so much of it during the pandemic over a lot of streams, Connor, as he is wont to do, got very into the idea of producing an original soundtrack album on vinyl.

Speaker 1 I remember because there had been enough songs that we like improvised for musical performances.

Speaker 1 Yes. So there were like a couple original songs, but there were times where we ended up doing improvised like covers of other songs.
And Connor, as is his want,

Speaker 1 was like, I'm going to produce like, you know, 300 of these or whatever, but I want to legally clear every single second of it.

Speaker 1 And he spent like a year going through and clearing every kind of musical thing and any artist we had had on the show who had representation from someone else, making sure like no one's going to make money off this, but I want this to all be above board.

Speaker 1 Right. And one of the things was we had someone perform one of the songs from the Star Wars holiday special.

Speaker 1 And there's so much mystery around the Star Wars holiday special because everyone ran for the hills and tried to, you know, eskew credit for that.

Speaker 1 And he was like, we got to figure out who wrote this song. I think it was the B.
Arthur song.

Speaker 1 And Connor did months of digging and found out that it was written by two kind of like go-to 50s, 60s variety show comedy legends who did most of the original songs for the Carol Burnett show, cool, who died decades ago.

Speaker 1 And that Disney has never bothered to copyright the holiday special songs because Lucas disowned it. Fox never did it.
Lucasfilm never did it. Disney didn't do it now.
It's like just out there.

Speaker 1 No one has the rights. And he was like, who is the next of kin for this? These old Borschfeldy comedy writers.
And it was Gillian Welch. Her parents wrote the songs for the Star Wars holiday special.

Speaker 1 And Connor got connected with her. And he was like, weirdest phone call you're ever going to receive in your life.
You actually own five Star Wars songs. Wow.
So like, did you have any?

Speaker 1 Did she have any knowledge of that? No. So like she like made a deal with him for nothing, right? But she was like, thanks for letting me know I like have IP over Disney.
That is wild.

Speaker 2 And I feel like that, well, I mean, that special is amazing. I got to do a documentary about it where I got to read the outline that was given.

Speaker 2 And it is one of the best pieces of, like, it, it's, it's great. I mean, everything about that and how weird it was, I feel like, I feel like it needs to be released like in a, in a, and it's

Speaker 1 remastered. I think George and Harrison may have to depart this mortal coil for like it to actually be like,

Speaker 1 did you hear, though, that they're remastering the original?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I mean, I live in hope.
The story had always been.

Speaker 1 I live in a new hope. Exactly.
The stories had always been

Speaker 1 that contractually, when George sold Lucasfilm to Disney, one of his baked-in conditions was you cannot release the original theatricals.

Speaker 1 That even upon leaving, he was like, You can't do it without me.

Speaker 1 So, something has changed. Something has changed.
Either they convinced him or he

Speaker 1 in a fascinating way.

Speaker 1 But you know that, like, right now, as we record in the Disney parks, they have Chewbacca, the walk-around Chewbacca with the red robe and the life day orb. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Like, they will not let the holiday special out legally, but there's like merchandise.

Speaker 1 And there's references to it.

Speaker 2 Well, because now what they've done is Lego did a, I worked with Disney and a very high-up executive at Lucasfilm.

Speaker 2 I had done a special for Marvel where I did a documentary about this failed comic book called Brute Force. And we went back and we got to do some stuff.

Speaker 2 And Kevin Feige allowed us a little bit of leeway until there was none.

Speaker 2 And then,

Speaker 2 and, but then they were like, can you do this? for the special so we can maybe re-air the special and but that died a much quicker death yeah yeah

Speaker 1 someone catches wind and is like no right squish yeah um i i uh no i just i i love everything about this segment the moment for me that is like i enter a state of nirvana is when in the sort of standoff he turns to the camera It is not the first time he has spoken to the camera.

Speaker 1 He's like, he's like the mirror where he's like, and I'm up and I'm backwards and I'm looking at him. It's before that.
It's the moment that introduces that.

Speaker 1 Because at the beginning, of course, he's on the horse. He's singing.
He's talking to the camera. He's acknowledging it.
Right. But then he's sort of been in his world, entering these tough bars.

Speaker 1 Everyone's laughing at him, being like, what the fuck is up with this guy? And then he reasserts his dominance, right?

Speaker 1 And this whole like Cohen thing of this tension between this guy who seems like an idiot goofball, also being capable of like intense, horrific violence, right?

Speaker 1 The sort of like subtext under the movie-fied cleaned up version of an American myth. And

Speaker 1 he stayed in that reality for like 10 continuous minutes, I feel like. And then he's in the shoot off.
He's done the five fingers, right? He like in this fucking shootout

Speaker 1 decides to shoot all five of the guys' fingers off so that he can't fire the gun. And he's like trying to figure out if he can do it with his left dominant hand, right?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Tim Blake Nelson turns back.

Speaker 1 to the camera that's behind him and goes, I ain't got but the one bullet left and it's with this like bugs bunny ain't i a stinker like he's thrilled at the challenge well what's so fun about this whole segment is it starts off so big in scale and scope and it just gets closer and closer and closer in so that at a certain point especially once he's talking to us it is conspiratorial Tim Blake Nelson is including us in his mischief and us, he's letting us in on what's going on in a way that I was like oh i love it and that he that there are no more narrators that there are no more talking to us that goes away once he dies and what's happening here goes beyond self-defense right what you need to do to survive in the west because even like the clancy brown thing is like the rules of poker you know that's a dead man's hand you have to respect that if he doesn't and when he goes I would appreciate it if you would go and turn your firearm into the the closet over there or whatever, you know,

Speaker 1 the gun check.

Speaker 1 It was so funny. He's just so unfazed by everything.
But at this point, it's like, okay, there's a shootout. He, there is self-defense.
He needs to shoot first. He's actually just torturing this man.

Speaker 1 Well, but to not just shoot him in the head, but to shoot his fingers off one by one. It's not just a white hat 4D thing.
It's violent. It's cruel.
There's a weird dissonance to that that I love.

Speaker 1 And then, as you say, at that moment, after he shot all five fingers off, turns to the audience and is like, we're having fun here, right?

Speaker 2 And they are. And, but this is also like, we talked about Looney Tunes, but that's also Three Stooges, which I think is very much them too.
Like, Three Stooges is violent,

Speaker 1 right?

Speaker 2 And if you were to look at it, it's like you can see it one way, you can see it another way.

Speaker 2 And I think that, like, to your point, Jason, when they, when he's like, my brother, like that, it's like, oh, we, that's this weird line that the whole movie walks where it's like, it is real,

Speaker 2 but we also have him going up with a little angel wings and a harp. And it's like, and that to me, that that's what I love about this.

Speaker 2 Just the, I mean, it's, I would say it's probably the best piece of the entire film because I think it is the most,

Speaker 2 I know, the, the most,

Speaker 2 most thought out, the most beautifully done.

Speaker 1 He has this beautiful moment of like, I got the one bullet.

Speaker 1 Turns around, fucking vanity mirror, silver plated, right? Figuring out the angles of where to shoot. Then he calls out like, it's risky.
I shouldn't get too fancy with it.

Speaker 1 As if he isn't already doing this trick shot, then murders this man in cold blood and then gets challenged to a new duel by this like new Hollywood Western cowboy. Right.

Speaker 1 And this guy is obeying the same rules. The reason why he's able to shoot Buster Scruggs down is because he doesn't do the fucking preamble.
Right.

Speaker 2 He's not talking to the camera. He's not playing the, he's not playing to the thing because he like Buster Scruggs is actually playing to the audience, right?

Speaker 2 Because he's like, he's like, yeah, yeah, we can do the count. Like he, it's almost like someone's calling him off stage.

Speaker 1 The moment where he uses the same mirror to look at the bullet hole in his own head

Speaker 1 is wonderful. And the reveal of the framing of that.
Yeah. And even when this cowboy's walking away and singing this Oscar-nominated song, he's not doing it down the barrel of the lens.

Speaker 1 He's singing, but it's like we shift to like a cat balloon. We have to move on, though.
We do have to move on. We have five more segments to do.
Segment two. You're Algodonius.
Anyone help me? No.

Speaker 1 Okay. Now,

Speaker 1 this is the simplest one-joke like premise, right? Right. It's sort of all building to punchline.

Speaker 1 I do really like it. It does.

Speaker 1 This is the most like it feels like a cute little short story. This is the slightest.

Speaker 2 Wait, which one is it? Tell me. This is the James Cotton.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Steven Rude pants.
I think Franco is

Speaker 1 incredibly well cast in this.

Speaker 1 Galactus is in it.

Speaker 1 He's there. He's there.

Speaker 1 I hunger.

Speaker 1 I don't, I mean, I don't know what you.

Speaker 2 But Kang is there too, right?

Speaker 1 A couple Kangs. There are a couple Kangs.
They're all Kangs.

Speaker 2 I mean, mean, this is the cool thing about this. Everybody in this is a Kang.

Speaker 1 Yes. I loved when the Time Variance Authority showed up.
I love Mr. Timely.

Speaker 1 When's he coming?

Speaker 1 Many things in whatever phase four, five, whatever that was, five, six, where they were like, this makes sense. There's a lot to draft off here.
Where I'm like, you guys have nothing.

Speaker 1 Sorry. Nothing.
In my memory, this was like the first major post-like meeting.

Speaker 1 The Times Up Franco thing, which gives it an interesting air because you're like, here he is not charming at people being an outlaw. Right.
He's really, he's well past.

Speaker 1 It's all about like this guy just barely escaping culpability for his actions. It's kind of the last thing he's done.
He mostly disappears after this. Right.
That anyone really watched.

Speaker 2 I was wondering if this was shot.

Speaker 1 for i think it was shot before but came out quite a bit after because of their post-production similar to the deuce where it's like the deuce wrapped up in 2019 or whatever which is the other sort of last last thing he did of note.

Speaker 1 But this is his last major credit for a good chunk of time. He's such a good comparison to Root in total like gonzo mode.
Oh my god. Stephen Root in like silliest bugman mode.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, incredible. And like, I mean, the gag, the thing.
All right. So the thing about this one is, apart from the gag of first time, which is hilarious, right?

Speaker 1 Which like hit for me so hard and I laughed when I saw it.

Speaker 1 Is that in this one, we're really for the first time seeing like Native Americans, the Comanches, as like classic hollywood villains where they are just like violent and scary and have no character right the movie does this twice because rats like a positive as well right basically and i think it put people off because it's like you don't see this in revisionist westerns basically ever like this kind of like classic cartoony cowboys and indian kind of villain thing and i feel like they're they would the cohens would just be like yeah well this is the milieu we're playing riffing on the history of these types of but it is quite shocking i love the moment in it when the uh when they're attacking and and uh and uh franco's got the noose around and there's one of the one of the uh guys who's trying to hang him uh first gets an arrow in the throat yes yes pulls it out only to get

Speaker 1 a second arrow in the throat i was like these are the jokes this is so good yes but then it's such a funny sequence and then the indians leave and everybody else is dead and it's just franco on his horse the tension between the horse's appetite forcing it further and further, tightening the noose tighter and tighter, that tension is great.

Speaker 2 I love that.

Speaker 2 It's such a great moment because you have this great action scene and it is this, like, it gives it so much more weight because any moment he could also be, his neck could be snapped and it's done.

Speaker 2 And it's like, it's, it's so great. But then that right next to like moments before Stephen Root coming out in pots and pan.

Speaker 1 The silliest get up.

Speaker 2 Right, right. And it's amazing.

Speaker 1 And he's under a whole villain. He's also put it, it's stripped down to the catchphrase.
Yeah. Pan shot.
Pan shot.

Speaker 1 And the glee with which he's screaming pan shot is so funny. What's skillful about this, too, is it's all wind up to one punchline, right?

Speaker 1 It is the like tremendous Cohen's comic irony of a guy being able to be hung for the second time, right? To be the kind of like old sage I've been through this point. Well, he's died, right?

Speaker 1 He's kind of a ghost. And so he's like, when he's not scared to die the second time.
See, I think it's the opposite thing. My read is this guy thinks that he can't be killed.
Oh,

Speaker 1 that's a fair read, right? He's like, I think it's that too.

Speaker 1 I think his first time

Speaker 1 smile. Yes.
I think that's it. I've been here before.

Speaker 1 It will work out.

Speaker 2 Something will work out.

Speaker 2 I do think, though,

Speaker 2 it is a one-joke thing, but I also think the first joke is one of the funniest.

Speaker 1 A bank in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 2 Like it is, there's no town, there's no anything. And it's like that image is

Speaker 1 right. You're right.
We don't even think about it, like the absurdity of this.

Speaker 2 That is such a funny fucking thing. And then, and then it just goes and heightens sight insight.

Speaker 1 Someone making it all the way out there and being like, what this place needs is a bank. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And this awkward notion of like these, these developing proper society of America, right? Like this is how things should be. And yet it isn't quite right yet.

Speaker 2 Yes, no, it's so wrong. And I think that that's like, and that's what I love about like everyone is making these mistakes, but then also,

Speaker 2 you know, it's

Speaker 2 like not doubling down, but it's like, I love how fierce he is to protect himself. Like, of course, right.

Speaker 1 Like, he goes into battle mode. Yes.

Speaker 2 Like, he's an idiot maybe to build that bank there, but he's not an idiot to protect the money

Speaker 1 in the bank. He's in the setup of the shotguns, the scatter guns underneath each teller's window.
He's home alone. His whole fucking thing.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 Are other tellers there?

Speaker 1 That's the other thing I was thinking about. A thousand.
Is he the only one?

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, but it is built up. Like,

Speaker 2 this is a thoroughfare.

Speaker 1 Like, people are coming in and out.

Speaker 1 It makes you ask a bunch of questions about who this guy is in a good Cohen way where you're like, any one scene character, you wish you could learn about their entire life.

Speaker 1 And a lot of that's in casting, but also the details of like, what made him pick this place? Has he ever had other employees?

Speaker 2 Well, like, I guess I was wondering in this whole thing, how much the Cohens talk to their actors about what they want? Because that's also a very big.

Speaker 1 You always hear, like, not that much.

Speaker 2 See, that's, and that's like Clint Eastwood.

Speaker 2 I talked to one person who was in Unforgiven. And he was like, he's like, I went to Clint and I was like, Morgan Freeman.
Morgan Freeman.

Speaker 2 And he was like, I went to him. I was like, I want to do this.
I want to do that.

Speaker 1 And he goes, no, no, no, no. You're the actor.
Right. All right.
You do that. Don't you worry about it.
Yeah. And I was like, so interesting.

Speaker 2 And I wondered if they were like this because it's a great choice. He plays it.
I mean, they're playing very different energies and

Speaker 1 to have that degree of freedom on a Clean Eastwood movie, to have that degree of freedom and know that you're only going to get one take because he's famous for only doing one, maybe two takes.

Speaker 1 That's crazy. Yeah.
I feel more going to take this. I just had an intimate dinner with Bradley Cooper.
Well, well, well.

Speaker 1 By intimate dinner, I mean like me and 20 other people at a dinner for his new movie with him and Will Arnett and the colours.

Speaker 2 What'd you guys have eaten? Wait a second.

Speaker 1 Is this thing on? It was on. This thing was on.
And Bradley, of course, did depart before dinner was over to pick up his daughter from Russian class. Sure.
I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 But I chatted to Bradley Cooper for a bit. And all I wanted to ask him about was Clint Eastwood, because of course I'm obsessed with Clint Eastwood.
And that is what I was asking about.

Speaker 1 And I was sort of like, is it like, is, is it as intense as you imagine? And he was like, not at all. No, no, no.
He was like, he's like, jazz, baby. He's just walking around.

Speaker 1 He's like, why don't you try this? It's all very flowy and smooth.

Speaker 1 and like and he was like and there were a couple times we screwed something up oh interesting and like it was okay yeah like nobody was like me

Speaker 1 didn't get it or something right where it's like yeah no we can relight it we can you know it's like it wasn't quite as severe as you imagine is how he was putting it to me might obviously he's bradley cooper he probably is a little more you know weight to throw but i think that's also like i think the misnomer is if you got it you got it and you move on yeah and i think that that's the difference

Speaker 1 whole thing is is also it's just like i think the more you do it the more you get away from it like that's clint's like philosophy that's what you hear.

Speaker 2 By the way, I was just double-checking. The person that I talked to about Clint is with Saul Rubinik.

Speaker 1 Mine, of course, he's so good in them. Right.

Speaker 2 And then, so I just, it's like, I think it is. Yeah.
And, but that idea being like,

Speaker 2 they, it's like, like, uh, Alfred Hitchcock would talk about. Like, he's like, oh, I've already done the hard part before I get to set.

Speaker 1 I think the coins are closer to that. From what I have heard, without being because they prepare so meticulously for all the visual stuff.
Hitchcock was almost like dismissive of actors.

Speaker 1 Hitchcock is the kind of like he's moving dolls around

Speaker 1 my little playmobile figure. An impediment to his perfect creative vision.
Picturesque, if you like. I think Eastwood is, I hired you, I trust you, do whatever you want.
I am.

Speaker 1 Come prepared. I know your minds.
I expect you to be a professional, but then it's your, this is your space. I'm not going to pull this out of you.
Right. And the problem is when people are great.

Speaker 1 in Eastwood movies, when he's cast them perfectly, they fucking kill it and you see people who are sort of like stranded at sea and you know that he wasn't giving them any help, right?

Speaker 2 Well, and I think that you can also say that for Soderbergh is like that too. Sometimes I think Soderbergh moves very quickly, and sometimes people can really be like pop innocent.

Speaker 1 Not like tending to me. The thing I've always heard about the Cohens is that they just don't want to get into the psychology of it.
It's very objective-based, but they know what they want.

Speaker 1 They love collaboration. But if I go up to them and I'm like, and why am I robbing this bank? They would be like, that's not that.
Yeah. Because you need the money.
Like, that's what they would say.

Speaker 1 You know, that's very

Speaker 1 mammot. That's very like, just say the lines.
They won't let you fuck up. Like, they won't let you drown.
And they will take the time to get it right.

Speaker 2 And that's the difference. It's like there's not, there are very few bad performance, if any.

Speaker 1 Not realistic. Yeah.
Well, that's a triumph of casting. And their scripts are incredible.
I was at, I heard Rogan on the Lebowski.

Speaker 1 I was at that

Speaker 1 reading of Lebowski. The live.

Speaker 1 No, I was in the audience.

Speaker 1 And what blew my mind when watching it, because I know that movie so well, was how much of the ums and ahs, how much of the the

Speaker 1 unique speech patterns for everybody were in the writing. They weren't, the actors hadn't brought that cadence or those things to it.
It was all there.

Speaker 1 That blew me away. If you build up the career like this, you start to enter a magical phase that I think is very similar to Wes Anderson right now, where it's like everyone knows

Speaker 1 what the tone of a performance is in one of your movies, what they like out of actors, how the language should sound

Speaker 1 easy to do the work at home. Security is like, I know you do a good job.
Like if you're on a Wes Anderson set or whatever.

Speaker 1 But you also don't have script is written so specifically and the like proof of concept exists out there. And you go, I think I can figure out what they want and come correct.

Speaker 2 And I think the interesting difference with Wes Anderson, and maybe I'm making a generalization here, but he really does go, I'm going to work with the same people because I don't even want to.

Speaker 2 I mean, there are new people every now and then, but it's like, it feels like these people will deliver this thing.

Speaker 2 Whereas the Cohens feel like they are, there's a stable, but they are bringing in new people and you're, and they're killing it.

Speaker 2 Like, I feel, you know, it's like they don't, they seem like they want to meet new talent.

Speaker 1 Well, and there's a greater variety in their tones.

Speaker 1 They will switch within a couple different modes within versus the Wes Anderson making very different films that all have a very similar sensibility. So you see this film.

Speaker 1 You've watched the first two segments and I feel like you're like, okay. I get it.
This is Cohen Brothers Western like little nuggets being thrown at me.

Speaker 1 And then you watch Meal Ticket because I feel like Meal Ticket has to be the third where it's like a little bit of a like, halt.

Speaker 1 This is not quite, it's not all going to be bandits and Indians and cowboys and banks. And right? Like Meal Ticket is a crazy

Speaker 1 meal ticket was my favorite.

Speaker 2 The first time I saw it Meal Ticket was my favorite because it was

Speaker 2 so, it's, it's so affecting. And I think it even hits harder after the first two.

Speaker 2 Like you're just like, oh, like the scene where he is having sex with like the prostitute and that, and he's just looking down the barrel of the camera.

Speaker 1 I'm like, oh, my God.

Speaker 1 He turned him away. Henry Melling, is that his name? Henry Melling.
Harry Melling. Harry Melling.
I'm so sorry. He said this completely.
He transformed his career.

Speaker 1 Obviously, he's Dudley Dursley domestic.

Speaker 1 Absolutely incredible because the vast majority of this piece is only him reciting all of these incredible monologues. Without the use of most of his body.
Without his extremities.

Speaker 1 And it is just on him. And there is no dialogue until almost the end you know and that yeah

Speaker 1 i mean ancillary dialogue any dialogue between him and liam

Speaker 1 says like a combined 40 words in this thing maximum

Speaker 1 and i feel like harry melling does not have a single line he doesn't stay communicate unless right story he is like he is he is the chicken right right like i mean he is not a human and and and that is so and that's So interesting to me.

Speaker 2 It's like,

Speaker 1 this is about podcasts having to pivot to video, right?

Speaker 1 That's what it's about. That's what the chicken is.
It is. Yeah.
The comedic concept that one, one time is an occurrence, two times it's a coincidence, three times it's a pattern, right?

Speaker 1 It's this is to your point, David, where they're starting to train you to understand, oh, there is a through line.

Speaker 1 All of these stories are going to come back to the same notion of how we negotiate death, right? And that Franco is this guy who, in my opinion, my reading is, he thinks he's above it.

Speaker 1 He starts to think that he's magical, that nothing can get to him, right? Maybe I'm invincible.

Speaker 1 And he has this final moment where he looks at the young girl in the crowd and he's not even concerned about the noose around his neck there's a pretty girl because he's basically as james frankly was wont to do when he sees a young woman in a crowd uh he's basically thinking like oh it'll be great when i go flirt with that woman in like half an hour when i'm down from here i'm gonna the the noose will break and i'll make a run for her he's not like imagining wouldn't it be great if i was there with her he's thinking i will be there well he's there to say death is inescapable and if you think you got away with it you didn't didn't.

Speaker 1 So watching that segment, you don't really know what it's about.

Speaker 1 And the second it ends with his death and then like hard out, that's where they're teaching you, oh, this is going to come for everyone in this segment in some way or another.

Speaker 2 Well, then what is the difference that you see between the first and second like approach to death? Because obviously Buster Scruggs feels invincible.

Speaker 2 He feels like death is never going to come for him. He is never.

Speaker 1 He's not even thinking about it.

Speaker 2 No, he is a showman and he is, you know, almost showboating around it. And that's what gets him killed.

Speaker 2 Then the second one, it's it's like, I guess maybe the difference is that the first person feels like he's unkillable. The second one feels like he can escape death.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the third one is it's inevitable.

Speaker 1 Well, and the third one, you're watching it and you're like,

Speaker 1 what does this have to do with the other two outside of like the brutality of this time, right? I think

Speaker 1 there's something about how

Speaker 1 in each of the first two, you could argue death is coming for them because they are engaged in life and death events.

Speaker 1 they are seeking out or are part of things that lead to people's deaths meling is a true innocent he is seemingly also a pure innocent right so it even comes for the innocent yes the cruelty of this world is that even the innocent even the the artists even the soft are gonna be meling is movie theaters and the chicken is Netflix.

Speaker 1 Okay. And that is that is true.
And Sarandos does have the chicken in his office. I mean, my reading is that this is...
What were you doing?

Speaker 1 No, no, I have a reading reading too, but what's your reading? That this is them commenting on the kind of level of disdain that show business has for the creator. I agree.

Speaker 1 That is under business. They view them as freaks, and their job is to build an industry around their bizarre.

Speaker 2 And also grab the next thing that, like, grab the next thing.

Speaker 1 There's no loyalty to the thing. The second you don't have an audience,

Speaker 1 you are garbage to me. But Neeson is sympathetic, partly because it's Liam Neeson is a great actor, like, but he could do so much with his face or whatever.
But like, he does feel bad.

Speaker 1 But to my point when he's on tosses someone in the red and to what you were saying right of like he seems safe this is not a guy who exists in a world of danger right he has been rescued one of the few full lines that nissan has is when he's going to the can the crowd with the can collecting money and he's patting himself on the back for like isn't it such a sad story look at him i found him in the street like this no arms and legs i saved him like he's giving himself the honor of look at me the hero who discovered the nobility of this man with a poet's heart and the ability to speak to the masses.

Speaker 1 But that's a studio head. Totally.
And then the second he stops drawing a crowd, it's like, this guy's fucking garbage.

Speaker 1 Well, yes, it's somebody who used to care about putting art out and is now concerned with he wants the prestige of standing next to

Speaker 1 beyond everyone's studios takes. And you guys definitely are not annoyed at Hollywood at all in any way.

Speaker 1 Everything in Hollywood is going according to

Speaker 1 A plus A, okay. Our careers are going perfectly and

Speaker 1 exactly how we thought they would play out. It's also like in these ideas of the West, is this like, you know, the, you know,

Speaker 1 white American European culture is encroaching on this like wild land, right? Where they're like, listen, gathered, you know,

Speaker 1 peasants, you know, to the Shakespeare and the Percy Bye. You know, and like, I love those reaction shots of like the old people going, just like, they don't know what he's saying, right?

Speaker 1 Like, it's just, but these like words are so interesting. And like, you know, then there's the brutality, like, yeah, but at the end of the day, they're going to like the chicken more.

Speaker 1 So, like, you know,

Speaker 1 there's always so much simple. But remember when Brian Cox and the actors all came to Deadwood?

Speaker 1 I do. I love that.
I love that sequence of episodes. It is amazing because you're watching Deadwood, knowing season three is the last season.
David Milch doesn't know that, or whatever.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, like with about four episodes to go, suddenly it's about Brian Cox ordering ham.
And you're like, this is one episode, right?

Speaker 1 And it's like, no, this is like three episodes.

Speaker 1 Anyway.

Speaker 2 But I will, but I guess maybe in a broader sense, it's just about how new takes over. Like a mom and pop, a mom and pop store gets taken over by a target, right?

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, and it's, and it's about culture evolving. Somebody figures out, oh, this is a simpler way, an easier way.

Speaker 1 Being replaced by reality TV.

Speaker 1 And that's why we went on strike in 2000.

Speaker 2 And we got everything we needed. But I mean, but I do think that like, Yes, we are looking at it through the lens of like directors and actors, but I also think that that is how society runs too.

Speaker 2 The newer, flashier thing will always overtake.

Speaker 1 I think there are a couple other things going on.

Speaker 1 I mean, we, you know, you were saying that they went to Netflix and they went to Annapurna because they said, what studio is going to green light this?

Speaker 1 But you look at some of the quotes they have from talking about setting up this film and beyond like, well, we're doing something weird and unconventional. So we have to go to an unconventional place.

Speaker 1 They were already saying, it does feel like a kind of grown-up movie has died. It does feel like the industry has shifted.

Speaker 1 It does feel like it's harder to sell anything that isn't marble and these are guys who have been able to do business they've been doing that for 30 years exactly what they want for decades and even while still getting things made they're like we can feel it moving we can feel it moving past us maybe we're harry melling and the crowd's starting to thin out we've not been thrown over the bridge yet but you can see it going down and it's always going to come to the brass tacks of Does it cost less to feed a chicken than a guy?

Speaker 1 Right. Like, that's what's so brutal about this segment is you really see that the calculation in liam neson's mind is like

Speaker 1 i gotta feed him with the spoon i gotta think about his feelings

Speaker 2 you just throw some corn i gotta i gotta hold him i gotta hold him while he shits and pisses right it's the bag of feed is the thing that changes it for him where he's just like it's just this well i think that the image of from behind him with the bird cage looking out into the thing it's like it's it's just it's an easier it's an easier life and it's it's a and it that's he's living a hard life.

Speaker 1 Everything is that opening survive.

Speaker 2 That opening is just like, I'm putting down the thing. I'm putting down the hat.
I'm doing this other thing. It just seems so hard.
But I also wonder, and I don't know if I have an answer for this.

Speaker 2 Why was that guy so willing to sell a chicken? Like, like, you know, like.

Speaker 1 Sure, is this chicken going to die in a year? I mean, it's a chicken. Right.
Like, yeah, it always felt to me like the chicken is a scam. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 1 You know, it does feel like, yeah, this chicken can't actually do much. Because my read is also that Neeson, like, wildly overpaid.
That Neeson basically put his life savings for the chicken.

Speaker 1 Because there is a part of me. He's down to zero.
There's a get-rich-quick scheme.

Speaker 2 There's a part of me, and I think I wanted this moment. Is like that guy had, I mean, this is a full invention, that that guy had a little man underneath that cart to do the math.

Speaker 1 And he's not selling a man.

Speaker 2 And he's not selling a man.

Speaker 1 He's telling them, it's like, because that's the scandal. Or he came with plants, audience plants, too.
Right. Whatever.

Speaker 1 I think the chicken isn't as much of a golden goose as he thinks it is.

Speaker 1 It's not a goose. Okay, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 Chicken is kind of a canard.

Speaker 2 As a kid, I grew up in New York.

Speaker 1 I'm a little friend for duck. Okay, go ahead.
Let me try.

Speaker 2 As a kid, I went with my dad to Chinatown all the time, and I saw this. This is what I saw.

Speaker 2 It was the most exciting, fun thing to ever see. It was so cool.
It was like a chicken that could do math. And they had a game, a tic-tac-toe game, where you would play against a chicken.

Speaker 2 It was like a, it was like a battery-powered game. And it was like,

Speaker 1 and it was like, it was great. Right.
And obviously there was Letterman's Super Patricks. Right.

Speaker 2 yeah i i think quite possibly the answer is now it should have been letterman taking his cabin boy character now that's a universal letterman would have crushed in buster scrucks that's what i tossed him in there i i think letterman in that section might have been fantastic by a monkey

Speaker 1 uh his cabin boy character would fit perfectly in this film i think part of what's going on even if it's not like a little man it's in the building of the cart or it's in the way he trains the chicken i think this guy lee mison's coming up to him offering to pay more and more money And he's like, the chicken's not the thing.

Speaker 1 There's some secret that he's not selling to Liam Neeson. And even if he is telling him the secret, he's like, I can replace the chicken.
Right. The chicken's not the thing.

Speaker 1 If I want to still do the chicken act, right, he didn't sell him.

Speaker 2 He didn't sell him the cart. Right.
He saw the cart. I mean,

Speaker 1 I guess it's

Speaker 2 buyer beware too. I mean, but I guess, but you don't see the buyer beware part.
You just see the shiny new.

Speaker 1 You just see how quickly he makes the.

Speaker 1 You also don't see him kill Harry Melling. You just infer.

Speaker 2 But that drops. That sound effect, that Plant

Speaker 1 is brutal. It's tough.
And I also, I think to what you were saying, David, there's this notion of, oh my God, they're bringing high art to the people, right?

Speaker 1 Here's a sophisticated show and this audience sits rapt attention, you know, giving him ultimate respect and then applauding. But the subtext is.
They're here to see the freak, right?

Speaker 1 Like the fact that he's such a good dramatic orator is the party trick. It's no different than a chicken being able to do math.
The actual thing that's interesting is the creature on stage. Right.

Speaker 1 And that's just the dressing on top of it. And the second, like, the material isn't working, right? The novelty of the guy is out the window and the guy has no value.

Speaker 2 But I also, but I think I would argue that what's interesting is I may not have understood.

Speaker 2 what that guy said and I may not have even gotten the point, but it left me thinking and that was interesting and that was cool.

Speaker 2 and maybe part of that is the body but the other thing is irrefutable i saw an animal do math right i know what i saw right and that again i got a conflict

Speaker 2 right it's like i can tell you what i saw where the other one is like quicker dopamine i felt something i don't know how i felt about it and i can't tell you it's it is it's art it's a difference of art and yeah it's also the difference that this isn't being framed as like a sideshow act, right?

Speaker 1 Like there are guys like Johnny Eck, who's in like freaks, who was the famous half-man who lacked a lower body.

Speaker 2 Right. He's not showing off his, he's showing off his acting skills.

Speaker 1 There were so many successful performers of this time who were born with like different like physical issues, right?

Speaker 1 Who then made their act, watch me roll a cigarette with my teeth, you know, watch me do this without legs. And he's not doing that.

Speaker 1 The fact that he is armless and legless is irrelevant to the material of what he's doing. And yet the harsh reality is they would not be bothering to pay attention to you if you didn't look like this.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah. And I also also feel like they make a really cool choice of not making him like the minute he gets off stage, going, ah, you, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 You know, it's like, you don't do the baby here.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
You don't. You just don't hear him.
He doesn't go. No, he's not.
But you can talk. But what's his thing? It's like a parent who like you put the shit over the

Speaker 2 face and you know that

Speaker 2 that's what I think the emotion is.

Speaker 1 It's why that guy, Harry Melling, is in a lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 Like looking at his face, you're just like, there is a sadness to his existence and his inability to connect. And when he is on stage, he feels like a person.
He is speaking some truth for him.

Speaker 1 And the idea that people are paying attention to makes him feel like he is valid.

Speaker 2 And I actually think, to your point, they might come because he has no, you know, he has this odd body, but that goes out the window

Speaker 2 once it starts. And I think that that's actually a really beautiful thing, too.
It's like, oh, I'm just caught up in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they do. They are moved by him.
It's true. It's also such a funny use of Neeson, who they have never worked with before.
No. Right.

Speaker 1 And And it's just like stripping down everything about Liam Neeson as a movie star culturally, which especially in the late 2010s is like now you've had this whole fucking like Euro thriller.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And it's like, you're taking away that.
You're taking away like dramatic actor Oscar Schindler. You're just like, this guy looks really strange and has a very intense voice.

Speaker 1 Liam Neeson is just a physical presence and a vocal presence that is one of one. And what if you put that in an entirely different context and you're just like, there's a lot going on in this guy?

Speaker 1 Well, Well, it's also he does not, and in a way that Liam Neeson could feel so imposing and so threatening and he doesn't. He feels small.

Speaker 1 And even when he's measuring the depth of the water with the rock, you don't feel like there is cruelty or malice. No.
You feel like he is sad. He is

Speaker 1 sad that he, yes, he's doing an incredible job. And he thinks it's a mercy killing.

Speaker 1 Like, that's part of the tragedy and like the brutality of this movie, you you know, and in his exploration of death as a concept, is that he's doing the math of if he can't bring an audience anymore, then he should be dead, right?

Speaker 1 And it's not as a judgment. It speaks to to a certain extent that he has always viewed him as a little less than human, but he thinks it is an act of sympathy.
I'll put you out of your suffering.

Speaker 1 I also think that

Speaker 2 what I get, I go back to the opening. I think the openings of all these are really interesting because

Speaker 2 you open with putting on the thing, putting, you know, he's setting up the, like, it's hard. And it's like, it's like he is a, yes, he's in show business, but he's doing manual labor.

Speaker 2 Like he, and this is,

Speaker 2 he is, I think, beaten down by it. It's every night, a different town, everything.
It's like, and he's doing actually more work

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 to put on the podcast.

Speaker 2 Yeah, to put on.

Speaker 1 He's setting up the cameras. He's editing clips.

Speaker 2 Right. And it's like, and it's like, and it's, and wouldn't it be easier? Wouldn't it just my life be better? And it's like, and I I think that that's what you see.

Speaker 2 Like, you're not seeing on the day that he found him. You're not seeing on the, like, this is, what, seven years in, whatever it is.
It's like, and you feel those years.

Speaker 2 It's just never going to change. It's never getting better.
And his life is empty and alone. And it's, I don't know.
I think it's a very like, they're both sympathetic characters.

Speaker 1 And I also love that it's not like. packed house and then one night it's empty and he goes for the chicken that you see a real kind of durational the crowd tapering off and they're not coming back.

Speaker 1 And you see like four or five performances that are all losing energy, right? This guy's like sticking it out. Alcohol Canyon is the next one.
Yes, it's basically talk about that one.

Speaker 1 On a Jack London story? It is.

Speaker 1 I don't know much about it apart from that it's a Jack London story. Of course, that's

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 one, which is Jack London's the guy who wrote White Fang and all that, all those police adventures. And this is wild.

Speaker 2 This is like a silent short.

Speaker 1 This is as close to a silent short as i think you can get well they're two great words that get repeated yeah mr pockets but also does have the tim robinson thing not to keep it of like it's so beautiful it's so quiet and then when he gets shot he's like you motherfucker like he won't stop saying you suck yeah why'd you do that yeah you shot me in the back i did all this work like he's just saying we're like we know we know we why don't you do it you know but he's like it really sucked you shot me in the back well also this is like the most innate it didn't hit nothing important uh ben you wanted to.

Speaker 1 It went right through.

Speaker 1 Hit nothing but guts.

Speaker 1 I think Tom Waits is perfect. Agreed.
He's perfect.

Speaker 1 How has he never?

Speaker 1 I was going to say, how has he never been in a Cohen brothers? Were they writing it? I think, I wonder, like thinking of him the entire time. Yeah, I would love to know.

Speaker 2 I would write so.

Speaker 1 Especially even just the choice of the song to kick off the segment feels so just part of his repertoire. And

Speaker 1 that it bookends. as he is leaving through the exact same way that he came.
He's singing the same song again, which I thought was beautiful. Now, this is their first one they shot on digital.

Speaker 1 I didn't mention this.

Speaker 1 After Roger Deacon said he would never shoot on digital. Right.
Well, it's not Deacons. It's Bruno Del Bunel.
Oh, interesting. I didn't notice that.

Speaker 1 I do feel like this is like, obviously, the most like them being like the magnificence, right? Like, you know, it's so beautiful and lush. The crystal clarity of

Speaker 1 the animals and all that. Right.
And like, they're messing with the style in each

Speaker 1 segment. And this is the, like, the true, just like the majesty of the West.

Speaker 1 And it's like, but of course, at the end of the day, it's a weird little Santa Claus just trying to dig rocks out of the ground. Another guy tries to shoot.

Speaker 2 Do you think that there's a connection between like giving a voice to the legless guy from the last, you know, like in this one? Because it's sort of like.

Speaker 2 He is killed for, you know, he's like, he's shot in the back. Like, there's that thing.
Like, you like, how could you do this? It's like, it's, you, you hear the voice of the aggrieved in that moment.

Speaker 2 And I feel like you don't get to hear that in the one before.

Speaker 1 Well, this is the great thing about the segment is that he doesn't die. That after watching

Speaker 1 the optimistic one in a row,

Speaker 1 you're like, I get it. All of these are people marching towards their inevitable death.

Speaker 1 And because of the tension that is built from just how methodical it is, how slow it is, the process of the finding it, the thing with the owl, which starts to feel supernatural, you know, or at least kind of like spiritual in a way, you're just like, how's this guy going to fucking get it?

Speaker 1 But you're watching it and you like this guy so fucking much. Oh, and he's working the eggs like the fish hard, right? And he only takes one egg.
Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 I love to get greedy, but he's like, I'll just take one. He's like, how much can the owl count? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 This thing feels so lush and romantic, and he is so sympathetic that you're just like, oh, Jesus Christ. And he's good at it.
When's the axe going to fall on his head? And I hate it.

Speaker 1 And there's this tense.

Speaker 1 I love the process of digging each exploratory hole. Oh, less, less, less.
Oh, let me go the other way. More, more, more.
Now less, less. Okay.
He's got the market.

Speaker 1 The marvelling is somewhere up here. And the counting of the like three.

Speaker 1 It actually

Speaker 2 reminded me in many ways of the opening of there will be blood in the sense of like

Speaker 2 methodical there. And like, you know, obviously that character goes downhill, but it's like, but you know, with rich, but becoming rich, but this character, I feel like he will not stop.

Speaker 2 Shooting will not stop. Like he will get his thing.
And that's like, that's the same thing. When he breaks his leg in the opening of there will be blood.

Speaker 2 How long was that challenge? For how far was that?

Speaker 1 But for that, you're like, this is what makes a man evil. Like, this is the death of his soul.
This is a guy who perhaps had no morality to begin with.

Speaker 1 And then he's forged in the darkness of this like pit to come out and do whatever he needs to survive.

Speaker 1 And then versus this story, which is like, what if you start with like an old Walter Brennan style coot who's usually just the butt of the joke and the character who maybe gets a little moment of like more emotion?

Speaker 1 But if you really got to live with this guy and his process, it's hard not to start caring about him, especially as something of an innocent versus these other stories. He's working so hard.

Speaker 1 Working so hard, and you're like, God, what a waste when someone's going to come and steal all his fucking gold. You know, that's what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 And this I thought it was crazy when he's digging those holes and he keeps finding jeans because he

Speaker 1 finds

Speaker 1 jeans and he goes, these are even more valuable than the gold. Work thousands.

Speaker 1 Congratulations, YOU.

Speaker 1 David? Yeah. Holiday season is right around the corner.
And speaking of corners, we got this weird corner right here in this office. Mm-hmm.
It's an odd corner. It is.

Speaker 1 It's kind of a Tetris-shaped corner. Yeah, it requires specific measuring, you know, to fit something in there.
I've never known what to do with it. One could call it a nook.

Speaker 1 It's like too small for a couch, too big for just a chair. Oh, what are we going to do? No solution anywhere in sight.
What about the fine folks at Wayfair? That's right.

Speaker 1 We were able to go to Wayfair and quickly and easily find a piece of furniture that would fit that corner.

Speaker 1 It is the simple and stylish five-person corner breakfast nook set and has really updated our office space and made it look so nice and offered basically more space for the various team members who use the space to have somewhere to work.

Speaker 1 And it's like it's a multi-purpose. it's seating, it's a table, it's storage.
Yep, that's right, because it's a bench.

Speaker 1 And then underneath the bench inside, there's a compartment for stuff, you know, like toys, for example, could maybe go there.

Speaker 1 I don't think there are any in the office, but this is, this is a genuine, this is a true story of, we need to find something for this space. And I went, why don't we check Wayfair? Yep.

Speaker 1 And we were able to search by dimensions. Everything.
And it just made it, again, so easy and so quick.

Speaker 1 This copy says says Wayfair is the place to shop for All Things home, but it's obviously also the place to shop for All Things podcast office.

Speaker 1 Everything from sofas to spatulas, Spreadmaster, you name it. They have it and you can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's

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It's a high number and you can get a lot off. And I really want you to know that they make it easy with fast and free shipping.

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Don't miss out on early Black Friday deals.

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Salens December 7th.

Speaker 1 Brrr. Cheddar, chatter, chatter, cheddar, chatter.
It is cold out there. It is for real.
There's truth in comedy. It is currently very cold outside.

Speaker 1 New York has taken a steep drop off into the chilly winter months in November.

Speaker 1 It's a cold day in Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 You know, it may be cold tomorrow. Who knows? This is the kind of day you wake up in the morning and you go, I'm underdressed.

Speaker 1 Do I have the staples I need in my closet to brace myself for the outdoors? And when when you got cold mornings and holiday plans, this is when I just want my wardrobe to be simple, David.

Speaker 1 Stuff that looks sharp, feels good, and things I'll actually wear. I don't like buying clothes that I won't wear.
Give me things I'll actually wear. Yes, absolutely.
And for me, that's Quince.

Speaker 1 Quince is so good. Ooh, I gotta open up Quince.

Speaker 1 Every time we do the Quince ad read, I'm like excited. You might need to get a couple things from Quince.
Look, the bonus for Quince is that Quince pieces make great gifts too.

Speaker 1 So you can buy a little for yourself. You can buy a little for the people you love in in your life.
And this season's lineup is simple, but smart and sexy.

Speaker 1 Channing Tatum? Exactly. I might have to get one of these $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like an everyday luxury.

Speaker 1 Ooh, a wool coat that's equal parts stylish and durable like Channing Tatum. Here's what I like about their

Speaker 1 Mongolian cashmere crew neck sweaters. You feel like you could throw that guy against a wall.
He'd be all right. Remind me a lot of Channing Tatum, right?

Speaker 1 I love a nice soft sweater, but I hate some of the prices these other places charge. And also, some of these sweaters are too thick.

Speaker 1 You and I both run hot, David, despite us having very different bodies. We both run hot.
I want the extra layer, but I don't want one that's going to get me caked in sweat.

Speaker 1 And what about the bottom half your body? You're not going to go commando. You're not going to yogi bear it.

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Speaker 1 Those Mongolian cashmere sweaters sound good to me.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Let's see. I kind of need a jacket or something.
I'm not checking out like a puffer jacket. What about a

Speaker 1 responsible down-hooded parka? I like that the word responsible is on there. I need my clothing to be, to really just sort of, you know, take care of itself.
Be responsible. Like Channing Tatum.

Speaker 1 He keeps his budgets generally at a pretty good level.

Speaker 1 He's producing his films with Reed Carolyn, and he's responsible. I like the look of the Pro Tech golf pants.
I like a nice slack. I like a nice low-key slack.

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Quince.com/slash check. Go Blue Chase.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what to say about this one, except that it's just truly delightful.

Speaker 2 It's delightful. And I think it's like, but I think this is what the benefit, the beauty of this movie is there are some that are very slight.

Speaker 2 And I think that they, they do something that's interesting. It's like, Walter Brennan, here's a twist on Walter Brennan.

Speaker 2 Here's a very simple, you know, what we, a subverting of expectation in two ways: character and your ending, and then boom, and we're fine. And we just move on.
It's like the James Franco one.

Speaker 1 It's like the Franco one's similar. It's like, right, what if you did like a current state bridge, but without the twist.

Speaker 1 Well, I think the other thing going on in this short is him putting back two of the three eggs, right?

Speaker 1 Yes, right. In the words of our great American poet, Seth McFarland, there are a million ways to die in the West.
Right. Okay.

Speaker 1 And as much as there is

Speaker 1 in that, but it's also kind of in the words of one of our great

Speaker 1 navy poets, Nay Tieri, kind of educating Sully on like, only take what you need. Yes.
You know what I mean? Like

Speaker 1 don't Iron Ash? We'll see. We'll see.

Speaker 1 That's because of the way they film the owl, right? Yeah. You're like, oh, this is going to be a story about a man who is cursed for his greed.
Right. Right.
That the owl

Speaker 1 is going to place some kind of curse upon him. But these are like people trying to survive.

Speaker 1 They make terrible decisions, uncharismatic decisions, but it's part of the danger and the lawlessness of this time that you get the sense if he had grabbed three eggs because he, why not? I'm hungry.

Speaker 1 The owl would have like spited him and smited him. Right.
But the generosity of, I get it, you just need to survive. As long as you're only eating one of my babies, well, then I'm looking out for you.

Speaker 2 And I think that there's also a lot of that, like, that care. Like, it's the same thing that happens with Franco with the Native American, like on the horse.
Like, it comes up to him.

Speaker 2 It's like there's, there is

Speaker 2 a sympathy or there is

Speaker 2 connection, right?

Speaker 1 It's a respect for life. Right.
And also, this is the guy who's like in touch with nature, in touch with the land, in touch with the world, you know, and like has some inner sense of joy.

Speaker 1 And the owl's like, as long as you're not taking more than you need, I accept that this is just the give and take of life. Right.

Speaker 1 And then it feels like that is almost supernaturally what makes the bullet go through him, which allows him to like get, you know.

Speaker 1 And everybody who dies so far is taking liberties, right like our first character everyone is taking a little bit more than they need to if it's talking to the camera in the first one if it's you know committed like it's like they're not learning their lesson they are continually well what else can i get and the joy he gets from killing this young guy in revenge is as you're saying david like a principled like i worked this hard and you're just gonna take it from me like that's not how this works just him seeing the movement the shadow movement on the ground in front of him on the hole and knowing there's someone there and he's shot before he even looks is great.

Speaker 2 I love that image too, how his shirt gets more bloody too. Like when you're above it, it's a beautiful shot.

Speaker 1 It's like, I'm old, but you're older. And you're just so happy when he like rides off singing, and you're like, oh my God, he makes it out of this a lot.
Yeah, he doesn't ride off. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 He drags his donkey. I almost, I just love that detail too about the character.
Yeah. Right, right.
Workman like workman.

Speaker 2 Again, it's another like, I'm not leaving anything behind. It's like, you know, it's like, it's, it, I'm thoughtful.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's committed to doing it the old way audio only no video exactly no video just audio like the medium was intended now we've broken the pattern right so it's like this is the first segment in which arguably our central character doesn't die at the end right right so then when you enter the zoe kazan segment get ready for a hammer blow but but but maybe you don't know that that for me is like the value of this and why it does need to be longer because it's like with your whole even like your internal rhythms of like this one feels like it's going deeper than the other one i also misremembered this one too as i was watching because i thought that i remembered her brother dying and then i was like then and the guy the wagon train guy um falling in love with her and i had remembered it as him dying as well What's that?

Speaker 1 And that everybody around her starts to fall. And it wasn't that.
And I was once again like heartbroken at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 He is so good in this. He is.
He's fantastic. But no, you end with the final shot of just seeing, what's his name? Mr.
Andrews? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Riding off in a distance to tell him. Mr.
Arthur. Mr.
Arthur. What am I going to tell Bill Knapp?

Speaker 1 What the line says? Yes.

Speaker 1 I just think it's so good in the way the movie has trained you to feel like you understand how these stories are going to go.

Speaker 1 And then this up ends it by being like, these are the most human characters you have seen yet. We're really investing in their emotional dynamic.

Speaker 1 There is like a sensitivity and a subtlety and a presence to this. It is the least showy cinematically.

Speaker 1 It feels like when they are in conversation, it is like sustained shot, reverse shot mediums where he is like they are letting the actors control the scenes.

Speaker 2 I will also say that these last two pieces are heavily dialogue driven. Yeah.
Right. And it is right, right?

Speaker 1 Versus

Speaker 1 the tranquility of the fourth one.

Speaker 2 And, you know, like all, I mean, throughout, I mean, throughout, they're, they're, they're very, like, I mean, yes.

Speaker 2 And like while that performer is doing these monologues, it's not like, it's not not introduced, it's not a characters aren't talking talking to each other, right?

Speaker 1 And it's like their monologues happening. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I feel like that opening sequence is something like it felt like out of a serious man or something like that. Like, it's entertaining.
It's quick and it's this fight.

Speaker 1 And it's like, oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Like, that.

Speaker 2 I love that opening. I'm like, whoa, what is this?

Speaker 1 But it's also so weird. There's like

Speaker 1 they're doing all the Western stuff, but you're like, oh, wait, is this Johnny Guitar? Is this like a really strange lens to doing Johnny? Because you're like, there's a wagon train.

Speaker 1 There's this notion of an arranged marriage. There's the future out west.
Like, what is the untrustworthy brother?

Speaker 1 You know, what's it, you know, who is going to screw over who? Like, Loomy lying.

Speaker 1 There's a sort of sense of misdirect of you're trying to get ahead of them and go, like, what is this segment? And it takes so long to reveal itself. And because

Speaker 1 Tom Waits. walks off scot-free and because the brother dies early in this, even if you've accepted these are all about death, you go, maybe it's about grieving.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then maybe it's about living in the wake of a death of someone close. You are lulled into a sense of security of this is not going to just be a tragic rug pull of this romance.

Speaker 2 How death can maybe actually create new life? Because that's what you're kind of seeing. It's like, we're going to get married.
We're going to stay here for the homestead act.

Speaker 2 We're going to, and it will be, we'll actually build something better than even going to the other, the new frontier.

Speaker 1 Going on longer and it's living more with these characters, it grows past feeling like a sketch right it starts to feel like they're asking me to invest real emotional weight into this so clearly they wouldn't bite my hand i lose bite your hand speaking of like one of my favorite things in this one is how disliked by everyone the dog is Like

Speaker 1 how to go against the grain of everything else, which is the dog is the villain, you know, like that she even is like, that's not my dog. You could argue.
If everybody's mad at the dog, it's not me.

Speaker 1 You could argue in a long tail way, the dog is the most responsible for her death. Yes.
Right. Oh, yeah.
She doesn't go off if the dog.

Speaker 2 He's not looking at the prairie dogs or whatever.

Speaker 1 But I also. If he kills the dog successfully.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Happy ending. They're married.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, what I also love about it is the way that they seed the punchline, right? Or the setup is. Really kind of beautifully hidden.

Speaker 1 It's like, okay, look, if this goes down like this, you like, you know, like, you're not you hear it and it sounds like very heroic but you're you don't like it's like when you realize that at the end you're like oh right it like it really is a magic trick ending because it tells you what's what's happening it's like if i go down you kill yourself but but his line at the end is like poor girl she didn't know she could have made it yeah you know that it's like this misinterpretation of a sex of a moment yeah of a moment of a movement of a sound but he made her so afraid and gave her the what to do.

Speaker 1 And she told her the story. She just followed through.
Right. And this was the better of two bad options.
And it's like, if he had sat up a second earlier. Well, that's it.
If he had made a noise.

Speaker 2 But you, but here's my thought about it too. She has just gone through death.
Right. And she, and I think that she's quick.

Speaker 2 Like she's not.

Speaker 2 Maybe if she didn't go through death, she wouldn't, she would have waited a moment more. But like, she's like, okay, boom.
I'm like that. She made that choice instantly.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if if that's about grief. I don't know what that, if that's about grief, but I have to imagine that that quickness of the choice feels like she's been there, she knows, and she's.

Speaker 1 Here's what I think it's about. I think this segment is about two characters very, very tentatively and with great doubt considering.

Speaker 1 Has the world reached a state of modernity where we could live a life based on happiness first?

Speaker 1 And the fact that it's all about you have to get in this wagon and follow your shitty dumb brother because he might have a prospect of a man for you to marry because maybe you're seen as a little plain and a little timid.

Speaker 1 No one wants to marry you. And that's your ultimate value as a woman, right?

Speaker 1 There's no notion of marrying for love, marrying for happiness. No, it's like you're making an argument.
You're going to have to survive. Like we're planting footholds out here, baby.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think she plays a beautiful balance of. She's not treating this as she's walking towards her death sentence.
It is what it is.

Speaker 1 I guess I maybe have to marry my brother's friend, but maybe he's not even that interested in in me. Maybe there's not a guy there, whatever.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And she doesn't play, and I was thinking about this, too. She doesn't play it totally either.

Speaker 2 Like, I think a lot of times you see like true, or you see, like, so tentative, so awkwardly, like, oh, no one will like, this is a unlikable thing. She's just kind of

Speaker 2 vanilla. Like, yep, that's it.
You know, it's like she's nice.

Speaker 1 And nice in their odd backwards courtship, which is sort of like

Speaker 1 presented as a marriage of convenience, you know, an arrangement that this is a business proposal, this is a survival mechanism, whatever.

Speaker 1 They are both refusing to really let themselves accept that maybe this is what they emotionally want.

Speaker 1 All of their conversations keep happening in non-emotional terms while there is clearly an emotional connection happening.

Speaker 1 Where the reason she hesitates when he proposes it to her is I think what she plays very well is the notion of, I actually have caught feelings for this guy and him presenting it as, well, I'll just do this because it saves us both money.

Speaker 1 Is that a worse fate for me to end up with a guy who I care about, who is viewing me as means to an end? Or is he doing this out of pity?

Speaker 1 That would hurt me more that they're both feeling each other out of being too afraid to acknowledge, I actually think I just like you because that's not really a thing afforded to people.

Speaker 1 But it's also not what was being done at that time. Exactly.
People weren't marrying for love and for, you know, it was convenience. It was arrangements that made sense.

Speaker 1 And so can you justify, like, like you have to justify your feelings through some sort of balance sheet that this world identifies and says is the right way to do it the tragedy of her brother's death opens up an opportunity of living a life of enjoyment and pleasure right and like self-fulfillment and being understood and seen which both of them feel skeptical about and his whole fear is obviously i don't want to end up like mr arthur this guy's like the best of the west but what he's an old man who like sleeps on rocks, you know, and like what?

Speaker 1 He's going to die in two years. I feel this guilt of leaving him here to do this alone, but also this is probably my only off-ramp to living a quote-unquote normal life.

Speaker 1 Well, a life that is, or a life that could be happy or full of love. And in the last segment, which David, would you like to segue into the last segment? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 The Mortal Remains, my favorite segment, but also a perfect, like I said, capper to their career in a way. We'll say I gave Zoe Kazan a supporting actress nomination this same year.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 She's great. I mean, I'm stunning.
She makes this piece work with every moment she's on screen. She is electric to watch.
Don't want to see her.

Speaker 2 Can I say one thing about, because we just, I just, as you just were talking about that, I just want to hit one thing and we'll go right into five is that idea that, is there also a thing about it's easy to give up?

Speaker 2 Very. And I feel like that, like, cause it's like, she doesn't give up initially, you know, and when her brother dies and she goes, I'm going to move forward.
She doesn't give up again.

Speaker 2 Like, she keeps on not giving up. But then at the end, I was like, it's too hard.
I'm just gonna.

Speaker 1 Yeah, at a certain point, it's like, Jesus Christ. Like, how am I? Like, what's life gonna be like?

Speaker 1 I'm probably in my 20s. I probably have a life expectancy of 40.
Like, what are we doing? Right.

Speaker 2 And already in this like handful of days.

Speaker 1 Like, everything's being, I mean, it's the wishes, the wagon train thing. I can't go back.
Where's back? Yes. Like, there's no future ahead of me, but my past exists even less.

Speaker 1 And then suddenly this, this sliver of hope opens up towards not just a possible future, but possibly a good love-filled future.

Speaker 1 In the final episode, when they're in the, in the thing and the trapper is talking about the woman that he was involved with and someone says, did you love her?

Speaker 1 Like, this is, I think, the first time the word love has been spoken in the entire movie.

Speaker 1 And he's like, what? Like, what are you even,

Speaker 1 what are you even talking about? Like, what is love? Right. That's a love concept

Speaker 1 that doesn't exist for another hundred years. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think you could argue that the characters in the first three segments, segments, I mean, like Tom Waits is obviously a guy who refuses to give up and wins, right? Right.

Speaker 1 But the other three are people who push through some kind of struggle or danger. And you look at their ultimate deaths and you go, would it have been better if they just gave up at an earlier point?

Speaker 1 Right. Like, what are you fighting for to assume that?

Speaker 2 So meanwhile, when she gives up, it was just over the crest of the hill where her life is.

Speaker 1 Her new life is. It was about to happen.
Right. And she gave up because of a misunderstanding, which is, I just think, such a profound tragedy.
Yeah. It's beautiful.

Speaker 1 And this one's loosely based on a couple different pieces. It's based on a story called The Gal Who Got Rattled.
Yeah. By Stuart Edward White.
I don't know much more about it. I mean, that's why this.

Speaker 1 So it's this one that Tom Waits. Yeah, which is why this suck in as an adapted screenplay.
It was some high nomination because no one was really thinking of this as an adapted movie. Right.

Speaker 1 But also,

Speaker 1 I feel like the

Speaker 1 specific story that is cited is also based on kind of a legend of a folktale of similar sort of like a yeah, Western, like this is like a Western

Speaker 1 tropes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I mean, like, and that's why I feel like the end is really

Speaker 2 when you talk about like different, and that, and that I think is why, like, when you leave this movie, it all pulls it. I mean, it really does pull the cords all together at the end.

Speaker 1 Well, the final one, the final one being this kind of so starkly different, both in how it's done, how it looks. It is so insular.
It is almost entirely inside of the carriage. It's in a studio.

Speaker 1 Right. The creepiness of you realize how dark it's gotten, and then, and then the extra creepiness of them being like, stop, stop the carriage.
And they're like, oh, it doesn't stop for anything.

Speaker 1 Like, Tyne Daly might just have to bite it. Like, you know, and then this is an episode of the Daily Show.
We should call it. And this is an episode of See.
No, this is Cagney and Lacey. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 This is an episode of Cagney and Lacey. No, I'm more of a judging Amy guy.
Oh, Brenna. She was so good on that.

Speaker 2 I will also say that this is,

Speaker 2 I think why I lean in a lot here too is like, these are five actors that are just, this is dialogue heavy, and I'm, I am riveted to it.

Speaker 2 And maybe it's also because of the lack of it or this kind of pacing all the way through.

Speaker 1 It's like, yeah. But this is a classic Cohen's juice of just watching like five great character actors so I can cut it up.
Chelsea Ross, who I love. Great.

Speaker 1 The great Chelsea Ross who plays the trapper just gets to pop off for five minutes. Mark Lynn Baker.

Speaker 1 Mark Lynn Baker. Who's Mark Lynn Baker? No, no.
No, no. Who is it? Who is the

Speaker 1 Englishman? No.

Speaker 1 Who do you mean? Saul Rubinik is the Frenchman. Yes.
Tyne Daly is the

Speaker 1 Mrs. Betchman.

Speaker 1 Who am I thinking of? I think you're thinking of John Joe O'Neill, unless you're thinking of Brendan Glease. I always think John Joe O'Neill is Jeremy Strong.
Or not Jeremy Strong, Danny Strong.

Speaker 1 It is not. I know what you're saying.
It looks like. The guy's name is John Joe O'Neill.
He also kind of looks like Marklin Baker. Doesn't he look like Mark Lynn Baker? Yeah, he does.

Speaker 1 He looks like Mark Lynn Baker. Okay.
He looks like a lot of other guys.

Speaker 1 But his name is John Joe O'Neal. He's mostly like an Irish theater actor, but they've all got a monologue, except for Brendan Gleason, who has a song, I feel.
You know what I mean? I love that.

Speaker 1 We're sort of trading off, like everybody gets to talk sort of almost uninterrupted for a bit.

Speaker 1 He's also part of a duo act that can be read very cleanly as a self-insert of the Cohens, or at least kind of thinking about how they are perceived by their critics.

Speaker 1 That is part of my reading of this segment. That you have these people who represent represent this segment is almost like a fucking Pixar's inside out

Speaker 1 argument between

Speaker 1 different positions. Strong kind of philosophies.

Speaker 1 It's a philosophical debate. Each character is representing a side of it, right?

Speaker 1 You have

Speaker 1 the Saul Rubinak character who is like actually just a philosopher. He is a guy who's very caught up in an academic notion of studying theories of existence.

Speaker 1 You have a religious woman who also lives with a kind of shuttered, blinded denial of certain areas of existence.

Speaker 1 And but she's also specifically like, she subscribes to like Chautauqua thought, which was like a big thing right at the turn of the century in terms of what she's talking about, that kind of temperant woman's movement.

Speaker 1 Whereas Chelsea Ross is like, I don't know, I'm a dirty guy with a big beard. She's like a brick man,

Speaker 1 but I realize we're all the same. He's a revivalist.

Speaker 2 But that's the best part about it is no matter what you believe, it all is the same.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Right.

Speaker 1 Chelsea Ross has no theology. He's just like, I fuck a woman.

Speaker 1 doesn't matter i can't talk to her i catch some beevis kind of do some hand signals it's all good it's all good and then you have these two brothers who i think are representing this notion of the cohens as these sort of like mordant tricksters who love like spitefully kind of like mockingly sending characters to their death well and that's what i think is kind of this if it is the they say like we enjoy it we like watching the which is what sorry their critics say right no i know i know exactly putting dumb characters in danger and having them die terrible.

Speaker 1 Well, and that's even oh, go ahead. I was gonna say, they even say, like, oh, you can bring them in dead or alive.
And they're like, Yeah, but we, we only bring them in dead, right?

Speaker 1 Like, don't worry, we kill everybody.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I love that if this is the last one, and whether it was not intentional, probably that they didn't know, it's like not entirely, yeah.

Speaker 2 But this is the first time I feel like you see the two of them represented. I mean, these are very much them, right? I mean,

Speaker 1 yes, yes, and and even down to they are bounty hunters who act whose act is is one guy's a performer

Speaker 1 who distracts so that the other guy can attack, which speaks to this kind of like the two-headed director thing that people talk about with them of like two guys approaching the same motive from different angles.

Speaker 2 I've always heard also that one talks to you about acting and one is worried all about the technical stuff when you were on set. Sure, you know, sure, sure.

Speaker 1 But also that they represent this sort of like in the ideological wheel of this, that they represent this sort of like, we tell ourselves stories in order to live thing, right? Right.

Speaker 1 That like, what is their function death's coming no matter what we're not murderers we're just fulfilling a thing that has already been requested by the universe and we we ease people into that with stories right we we tell them stories we sing them songs these old folk tales well that's most of the stories they tell are are gothic are mordant you know and that's why you have that like i think these bookends it's like the first is like them doing the movie version of how they do it.

Speaker 2 And then this is like the,

Speaker 2 not the commentary track, but the QA afterwards. You know, it's like, it's you have the two perspectives of what they're trying to do.

Speaker 1 A hundred percent. But it's just just one stop on the carriage and everyone's got to get out here.
I fucking love it. And they don't want to.
And they don't want to.

Speaker 1 First, I need help getting down. Like, these are some good bits.
These are some good, I don't want to go bits.

Speaker 1 It's, and it's, it's, and I like saw Rubinik going, like, yeah, all right, like, let me at them. But sorry, Paul, go ahead.

Speaker 2 No, no, I just, I, I, this is something that I just feel like re-watching it, I didn't remember it from the first time as cleanly. And then I saw, I was like, oh, this is, I think, my favorite thing.

Speaker 1 I agree.

Speaker 1 Mark Pease, or I'm sorry, Joshua Pease wrote a piece for the now-defunct birth movies Death on this segment when it came out.

Speaker 1 That's incredibly good about this sort of being what feels like the greatest summation of their worldview.

Speaker 1 Forgive me, because even though I'm such a fan and a regular listener, Patreon member, does the dossier get published? No, it's

Speaker 1 too like

Speaker 1 the sources JJ is pulling, like, it's like commercializing it anyway is a little tricky. You know, okay, okay,

Speaker 1 it's clear.

Speaker 1 What you just said, Griff, is a great example. I would, after some of these things, want to then go and read or listen to or whatever.

Speaker 1 Please do. Yeah, you can get it.

Speaker 2 I like that. I like that idea.

Speaker 1 JJ is such a law-abiding citizen that anytime we see that. The movie we're doing tomorrow night in Philly.

Speaker 1 Are you really?

Speaker 1 Wow. Have I seen that? Is that the Jamie Foxx one? Yeah, Gerard Butler.
Yeah. And it's F.
Gary Gray. Yes.
Oh, is it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I didn't realize that. I haven't watched it yet.
Is that really any good? It was like a hit.

Speaker 2 It was a hit. It was.
I remember when it came out, people were talking, this is the new seven.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, this is like the way it was.

Speaker 2 Like, it was like a

Speaker 1 thing.

Speaker 2 And I think, like, you know, it was like that. Like, I forget who.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it's got a big twist, right? Right. It's like he's done a scheme that's like he gets put in prison and he comes out and he can do bad things or whatever.

Speaker 2 We're going to figure it out tomorrow.

Speaker 1 We watched Monkey Bone today, today uh which wow which has gay gray yeah i mean the problem with that monkey bone is just so normal and regular i wish they'd lose seeds and

Speaker 2 i'm gonna say this tonight on stage i imagine it's the we've been doing this show for 15 years how did this get made it's the first time i literally wrote down in my notes how did this get made like how did it like go past i don't understand how the script was written i don't understand how anyone signed on to it i don't understand any i was like i like and this is not like from the 1970s this is like what we've seen oh yeah no yeah oh they did it on this show

Speaker 1 henry sellick oh wow it's also it's one of the greatest uh uh better all the years of therapy and analysis and

Speaker 1 psychiatric work i've done rarely has someone nailed me to the wall as hard as sims when i was talking about how much i loved this movie when it came out as a child right and he was like it makes perfect sense that the chaos in your brain how if you have described feeling when you were a child that monkey Bone would feel like a relief?

Speaker 1 Monkey Bone calmed you down. That it calms you down.
If only I could be in the underworld. Everyone else is like popping Advil watching that movie.

Speaker 1 And that my brain was like 17 different like cartoon alarm clocks all doing like routines. I was like, oh, monkey balls.
Monkeybone's kind of settling. Monkey balls.
Monkey balls.

Speaker 1 Monkey balls is a good one. Monkeybone is a dick.
I mean, that

Speaker 1 represents the penis. uh jj jj just he uh is has always been like if i were to publish these i would go about them a very different way because he respects.
I get it.

Speaker 2 I think that sometimes it's like, it may just be nice to have just the straight up links to something, like without the, you know, like if the bigger pieces, like the love movies, death, and stuff like that, like drop links in the description.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
We do that as well as the newsletter. Well, the newsletter is great.
Yes,

Speaker 1 the newsletter is great. Just able to sort of hand select some of that.
But some of the dossier gets messy.

Speaker 1 And JJ starts editorializing. Oh, that's great.
I love that. He does.
I like a little JJ aside. Yeah, but just a little bit.
Just a little.

Speaker 1 And we should say that this week he did too much and thus he is fired. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 I guess like sad to let him go. That's a shame.

Speaker 1 He's in the cart. He's in the carriage.

Speaker 1 Next up.

Speaker 1 Drop him in the river.

Speaker 1 How heavy a rock? How heavy a rock is JJ? He is a pretty heavy rock. Here we go.
Yep.

Speaker 2 Now, I'll ask you all a question.

Speaker 2 As

Speaker 2 you talked about on, was the Big Lebowski episode? Yeah, where, you know, Jon Chatura obviously goes off and makes his movie the Jesus movie

Speaker 2 of course Is there a character in this that you would like because I like

Speaker 1 isn't Buster Scruggs? Yeah, oh, I want a movie about now rich Tom Waits

Speaker 1 like Chester Lampwick in the Simpsons episode with the solid gold car or whatever

Speaker 1 He's rich. What how is he different? I love that

Speaker 1 everything has to work out everything,

Speaker 1 but it's like no conflict

Speaker 1 smile. It's him and the owl.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's very Beverly Hills bellies if you think of it, you know, it's like, but a different era.

Speaker 1 Beyond all the obvious reasons why the Waits segment is such like Ben Bate, like, you know, old coot digging. Oh, yeah.
Right.

Speaker 1 Right. Tom Waits himself.
It's a fucking, it's wet, too. Yeah, but it also is a everything works out.
It is a guy who seems destined for failure and death.

Speaker 1 And at the end, he leaves with a bunch of fucking gold. By the way, I'm not.
That's what you're always asking movies to do.

Speaker 2 I will, uh, you know, now I'm not advertising Sora, but I did see a you could, you know, you could get into Sora and just put those genes in there, too. You could actually make this segment

Speaker 1 right up your ass.

Speaker 2 It has to be real because I just saw, which I'll show you a post-episode. Uh, somebody posted uh, Randy Macho Man Savage in Revenge of the Sith,

Speaker 2 and it is

Speaker 1 just the whole problem with AI. They're like, That sounds good.

Speaker 1 And I, and I watch it, and I was like, wow, for a multi-to-wait, is he just inserted or is he taking place?

Speaker 2 It's the final scene with,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 1 it's with Mustafar Lava Battle. Yeah.
It's like, you, Anakin, you were my brother. Oh, yeah.
Well, no,

Speaker 1 he's doing

Speaker 1 the lines.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I'll play a section of it. You can hear a section of it just to hear it.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 he's doing the lines.

Speaker 1 It's so fun. I like you're saying he's doing the lines as if it isn't like fucking CGI necromancy.

Speaker 1 What a fucking bummer. I mean, this is, I mean, what a bummer.
This is so interesting to me. What a bummer.
This sounds awesome. This is another reason you should stay off social media, Jason.

Speaker 1 There's less ability to manipulate you.

Speaker 1 Do not join them. Yeah, bring balance to the force.
That is effective. Terrifying pushes.

Speaker 1 Wait, who's taking the

Speaker 1 Hayden role?

Speaker 2 I think it's a Zay.

Speaker 1 I think it's just Hayden. It's Hayden.
It's like, okay. Oh, that's funny as hell.
Yeah, no, I mean, this is what AI is for. I want to see Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 4 attend the Met Ball.

Speaker 1 I think that happens.

Speaker 2 Anyway, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 That is the one time I'll do this.

Speaker 2 You could redo it.

Speaker 1 I wanted that to happen. All right.

Speaker 1 And our fans have always been so normal about our use of AI. I'd be clear.
We hate AI. We hate AI.
We reject it. I want to be unequivocal about that.
And

Speaker 1 you send me that link.

Speaker 1 I hate AI as it's used in creative pursuits, but boy, am I down for AI in crunching data for medical research

Speaker 1 all manner of other things that it is great at? This is the whole problem.

Speaker 1 It's like there's three things we wanted to do, and a tremendous amount of money is being spent on the exact things we don't need.

Speaker 1 In 10 years, we're about to get a lot of cures for catastrophic diseases and a tremendous amount of dog shit content. That's the problem.

Speaker 2 You're going to get a lot of shit posting. I mean, that 20-second thing is a shit post that it just is.

Speaker 1 What is VM? What is the company that just said they're going to put out 500 AI podcasts? Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's called Eerol. person.

Speaker 1 Baby, we're doing it. No, they're doing so crazy.
They're all going to be. We want to be very clear.
We hate AI. Stay tuned for our slate of AI shows launching 2023.

Speaker 1 You ever want a podcast that's just 500 llamas? Oh, we got one.

Speaker 1 It's AI Marie Barty.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually fed her all the way.

Speaker 1 We just pushed her. We bought exclusive rights to her laugh.
Yeah. We replicated onto other podcasts.
It's her laugh and Seth Rogan's laugh.

Speaker 1 Great laugh.

Speaker 1 Just head to head. It is a shame we didn't have them in the same room.
Do Do you want to wrap up?

Speaker 1 I do need to wrap up soon, but we should play the box office game before we do Cohen's top 10 sheer.

Speaker 1 I want to say to Paul's point, Jesus Rolls is Taturo saying, Cohen's, do you mind if I take this character and run with it?

Speaker 1 If Tim Blake Nelson said tomorrow, hey, would you let me make a full Buster Scruggs movie? I would not be concerned about that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, I think you'd have to figure out

Speaker 2 how does it sustain because

Speaker 2 it is a Bugs Bunny short. Maybe it can.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe maybe it can't i'm not saying he should but i trust him as a writer and director enough that if he said i want to see if i can do buster scruggs on my own i wouldn't immediately say red alert in the way right that taturo announcing i'm making a sex comedy oh the jesus on a road

Speaker 2 was like this is only bad ideas no i agree i feel like there but this is like a world in which

Speaker 2 i wish that they would make more shorts and almost like that netflix would allow like a a colin brothers short channel. Like every, you know, it's like, you know, they make one thing.

Speaker 2 It doesn't have to be big. It's just like a 15 minute.
I mean, it's unrealistic, but I would love to see that kind of collaboration with them.

Speaker 1 Our friend, the aforementioned Connor Atliff, has said that he thinks the high points of this are amongst the best stuff the Cohen's have ever done.

Speaker 1 And that he feels like if it had been released as separate shorts, that it would sort of stand in greater estimation because some of these are just really pleasant to rewatch and really easily revisible.

Speaker 1 And obviously the point is putting them all together and the greater conclusion they come to, right? And the thematic connections and echoes. But some of these are like tough hangs.
Right.

Speaker 1 And you're like, you know, fucking meal tickets incredible, but you don't like

Speaker 1 you're not inclined to fire it up. I have watched the Buster Scruggs segment upwards of 10 times.
This is the second time I've ever seen Meal Ticket. I think that's understandable.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 1 That makes sense. And even Mortal Remains, which I love, I only love it as the capper to this movie.
It doesn't work on its own. You wouldn't watch it on its own.

Speaker 1 But boy, I would send someone the Tom Waits one, the Buster Scruggs. These

Speaker 1 individuals.

Speaker 1 And maybe the Franco one. Right.
And like. But we reduced it to a GIF.
We have the Franco one. It's the most palatable.

Speaker 1 I do hear that Nefro is building a theme park and that the carriage ride will be a part of it.

Speaker 2 By the way, in many respects, the Franco GIF is the chicken.

Speaker 1 The Franco GIF is the chicken.

Speaker 1 And thank you for saying that, Paul. And it is true.

Speaker 1 Well said. Now,

Speaker 1 this film came

Speaker 1 out on the podcast. He did a good job.
He did a good job. Film came out November 9th, 2018.
Louis C.K. and I were seated.
Obviously, Netflix did not report its box office at all,

Speaker 1 but it was not number one at the box office. Number one was an animated film based on a children's classic story, Griffin, that this movie made you feel normal and regular.
It's the Peanuts movie? No.

Speaker 1 I have it.

Speaker 2 Herald and Purple Crane? Nope.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's 2018. 2018.
What month was this? Oh, that was a couple of months, you you said? November. November.
And I tazed out over this one.

Speaker 1 You didn't like some of the things going on in this one. I've never seen it.
I didn't like some of the things going on. You didn't like the star.
You didn't like the voice he was doing.

Speaker 1 Oh, this is Benedict Cumberbatch has the Grinch. This is

Speaker 1 the Illumination, The Grinch. I don't know.
I had a loss of time. I've never seen it.

Speaker 2 I've watched it many, many times.

Speaker 1 It made about $500 million. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 This is right in the wheelhouse of My Kids. Sure.
Tyler the Creator does a song. You're Meanwhile, Mr.
Grinch.

Speaker 2 Here's what I will say. I do.
Yo, yes.

Speaker 2 I do not like the retconning that we like the Ron Howard Grinch.

Speaker 1 They're re-releasing.

Speaker 1 No, the one I like is the fucking

Speaker 1 cartoon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But they are re-releasing that in theaters this Christmas.

Speaker 1 I'm like, no, no, no, no. We didn't.
That wasn't. I agree with you.
I mean, that movie was a colossal hit, the Ron Howard film, the Jim Carrey.

Speaker 2 Because it just people went like it's Ron Howard, Jim Carrey.

Speaker 1 I think it was a little bit like, it's Christmas time. The Grinch is here.

Speaker 1 There is a nostalgia for people of a certain age. Yes.
That that movie aired when they were young, and now they're going to show it to their kids. And I think that

Speaker 1 also, like, that was the highest-grossing film of its year. It was a ginormous blockbuster.

Speaker 2 And they built a section of park at Universal. They have not taken over.
It's still there. Hootville is still there, part of Horror Knights.

Speaker 1 I also think it's interesting that, like, Universal was like, we're going to make this fucking animated Grinch because people have complaints about the Jim Carrey one.

Speaker 1 And maybe we can make a better definitive Grinch movie and replace the stuff in our parks. Like it felt like that was part of the impetus was let's have a new representation of Grinch.

Speaker 1 Because Elimination quietly makes $500 million and Universal has gone back to Jim Carrey Grinch. Like everything

Speaker 1 is versus

Speaker 1 I would never have been able to pull that. I have no recollection of it even existing.
Is that

Speaker 2 I've seen it about 17 times.

Speaker 1 After Boris Karloff did the fucking Chuck Jones animated version, they announced Ben to Cumberbatch and I'm like, makes sense. Perfect voice for Grinch.
I see the first trailer. He's like,

Speaker 1 I don't like Christmas and I'm like why does he sound like me I know

Speaker 1 hire Bennett a Cumberbatch and have him sound like me

Speaker 1 he should sound like smaug he should and say you're a mean one mr smaug I find presents annoying sometimes they bounce baby

Speaker 1 number two at the box office uh is a it was a big hit a film was a big hit one of one oscars one oscar uh it is very bad is it bohemian rhapsody there we go there we go my favorite thing about bohemian rhapsody was when it won best uh editing for uh the oscar well it did have the most editing well that was that was quantity-wise volume

Speaker 1 the volume award it was mind-blowing i because i would not i did not sit through that i did not subject myself to that full this is so weird i just googled who directed bohemian rhapsody and my ipad caught on fire

Speaker 1 i will never forget

Speaker 1 the whole nightmare obviously that movie's production has already unfolded in the press yeah and then they're like come to the press screening i go to you know they're kind kind of like, here's Bohemian Raphael.

Speaker 1 I go to it. I was like, F, that movie.
Like, so glad I don't have to think about this again. And then it won Academy of World.
Can you believe it? That's a giant hit. Does that

Speaker 1 queen is like

Speaker 1 no, no, here's my question because I think about this all the time when I'm listening to you guys talk about it. Does that ever?

Speaker 1 Because I have really, in my adulthood, lost faith in awards, lost faith in

Speaker 1 lost faith in disease communicating cause. These are not,

Speaker 1 these awards do not

Speaker 1 delineate what are the best or most interesting or deserving movies whatsoever. Does Bohemian Rhapsody or Green Book or any of these other awards cause you to lose

Speaker 1 you to lose faith in the institution of the Oscar? I sure

Speaker 2 call my friend gave me a tip many, many years ago to do any Oscar pool, and it's been very good for me, which is just go by,

Speaker 2 look at it and go like, who's the biggest name? What title sounds interesting?

Speaker 2 You'll always win short film because a majority of choices are people that are just like, oh, yeah, yeah, that person's in a show. Great.

Speaker 2 Like, it's, it's the reason why I think SNL is cleaned up in the supporting actor category because it's like, oh.

Speaker 1 Bad bunny was on SNL. Oh,

Speaker 1 I bet Tiffany Haddish did a good job. That sounds like she would have done that well.
Right.

Speaker 2 And it's like, oh, it's, and not that, not that she's not, but it is a funny, interesting thing that I think it is just people just going down. I think there's a lot of people who watch it.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of people care about it, but I think a majority of people are just going on odd gut choices.

Speaker 1 There was that year that Ellen Burston got a supporting actress nomination for an HBO movie from the Emmy's. One second.

Speaker 1 It is a sub-10 second cameo, and she was just like, clearly, they just saw my name on a list and said, she's probably good in that.

Speaker 2 Don Cheeto got nominated for best supporting actor in the Captain America's good in that Winter Soldier

Speaker 2 He walks through a museum and probably on screen for two minutes.

Speaker 1 He's weirdly on screen longer than he was on set.

Speaker 1 No, I think the Oscars are in a weird place where they've made such a push to diversify their ranks and go younger and more international, more diverse and weirder, and try to expand the taste of their voting body because it had become so old and calcified.

Speaker 1 And what happens now is it feels like there's a pendulum swing every couple of years where you get a year like this where you're like all dog shit. Greenboopa.

Speaker 1 But last year,

Speaker 1 right?

Speaker 1 So it's a weird back and forth.

Speaker 2 I also think it's reflective of the time. Like this year is going to be interesting because it's like, what's really out there?

Speaker 2 And what's going to be coming up for most normies is a bunch of movies they don't know. It's like the train dreams and Heda and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 It's going to be like, no one's going to see that, but the movies that the two Yaham net, like it's going to be sinners in one battle.

Speaker 2 And I would argue that one battle, as much as I love it, is not going to be even on most people's radars. Sinners is going to be the only movie this year that is going to make any

Speaker 1 sort of consolation prize. Yeah.
You don't really have a chance of winning nomination. Green Book 2.
Green Book 2 is. stealthy.

Speaker 1 Strong contender. I like it.
I mean, it's fun. It's deeper.
Keep booking.

Speaker 1 It's good.

Speaker 1 Well, Green Book 2 hardly booking.

Speaker 1 Number three at the box office, a bit of a forgotten film. It's new this week.
It's an action horror film. Action horror.
Yes, a period action horror. It's a war horror movie.
It's a war.

Speaker 1 It's not Shadow in the Clouds. Is it Overlord? Overlord? Oh.
A Julius Avery movie. Yes.
I weirdly fell down a rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 Wikipedia last night.

Speaker 1 of Julius Avery was announced in 2020 to reboot Van Helsing. Sure.
I don't remember how I got there. I was going down a Van Helsing thing.
Right. Uh-huh.
But so Overlord doesn't.

Speaker 1 Just get me. Only for that reason.

Speaker 2 I was going to say, we did it last night. Van Herr.

Speaker 1 He since then has done Samaritan, the Nicholas Cage superhero movie that's kind of forgotten. No, was that Stallone?

Speaker 1 Yeah, sorry. What am I talking about? Stallone.
Yeah, not Cage. And then The Pope's Exorcist, of course.
Oh, yes. Which we also did.
Crow on that best book.

Speaker 2 By the way, Samaritan was a direct rip of a movie that I had done, Archenemy,

Speaker 1 that was uh,

Speaker 2 that I was like, it was almost shot. The trailer was cut the same way, too.
It was very interesting.

Speaker 1 Manginello, yes, right, exactly.

Speaker 1 Um, no, the thing about Overlord, which I've never seen and heard was like, okay, kind of like fun, silly, goofy, gory stuff, is that it was initially going to be another Cloverfield.

Speaker 1 It was going to be World War II Cloverfield, and then the response to Cloverfield Paradox was so bad that they were like, let's stop calling things Cloverfield versus it being like, this helps sell original spec script movies if you tie them into the Cloverfield and use that branding.

Speaker 1 They were like, fuck, we ruined the branding.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Number four, The Box Office is a normal Disney family movie.
Everyone remembers. Normal.

Speaker 1 It's not a live-action remake.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 But it has that vibe. Sure.
Is it Nutcracker in the Four Realms? There we go. Wow.
Now, you are House 3 credit. Correct.
Right. Lastly Hallstrom did two of the realms.
Joe Johnston did one.

Speaker 1 I did a Realm. He did a Realm.
It was my joke back then.

Speaker 1 But that was a true, I think, classic Disney where they're like, let's do a Nutcracker movie. And they're like, okay, great.
Any other ideas on casting story?

Speaker 1 And they're like, oh, just start production. Throw a couple of rounds in.
Go figure it out. I don't know what they're going to have gowns and stuff.
Like, it's fine.

Speaker 1 Like, it just, because they fired Hallstrom and replaced him with Joe Johnson, I think. Sensitive reshoots were overseen by Joe Johnson.
Like, Gorgon Freeman's there.

Speaker 1 He's got like an eye patch here in New Zealand. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Never seen it.
Uh, my daughter does love the Nutcracker. I watched the Macaulay Culcin movie.
Sure, that one's fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was good. Uh, number five at the box office.
Oh, Oh, one of my favorite movies of 2018. Truly our favorite movie.
And I just attended an intimate dinner with its director. Bradley Cooper.

Speaker 1 Is it a star is born? A star is born.

Speaker 1 Obviously, a gigantic hit. It's been out for six weeks and it's made $178 million.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did it end up at two?

Speaker 1 It ended up making over $10.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I mean, it definitely.
Yeah, Tuesday.

Speaker 1 $2.15 domestic. 12 domestic.
Another best song

Speaker 1 nomination in here. If you remember the performance of it, a totally normal performance of it.
That poof, that was one of those true, like the Oscars do rock.

Speaker 1 Yes, like, this is insane that I'm watching this.

Speaker 2 And that's, and that is why I feel like the spectacle of the Oscars will still, you'll always get

Speaker 2 something good. Yay! You will get something good.

Speaker 1 I'm especially here. Especially in 10 years when they let Will Smith back in the building.
That's when you're going to be guaranteed something good. I just did my hands out.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like two big slappers.

Speaker 1 Two big slappers.

Speaker 2 I mean, I still, we talked about this on how did this get made. I love his mea culpa to that in bad boys 4, where he does like kind of address this, like, Martin slaps him.

Speaker 2 And it's like, now we've made peace with the slap. And then that was one of the things I've made, and I think it was because of COVID.
Like, I've really made a turn on like, was it that bad?

Speaker 2 I mean, it was.

Speaker 1 It was, but it's one of those things where Paul, he could have killed

Speaker 1 where people got a little too hysterical in the other direction of like the, and I was like,

Speaker 1 you are not allowed

Speaker 1 to charge the stage and start hitting people. I agree, I agree.

Speaker 1 It is categorically insane. It's definitely not the done thing to, when someone is presenting, be like, oh, I think I'm going to come hit you.

Speaker 2 And I think the difference is, is like, look, we were all in COVID. There's a lot of shit going on.
Everyone's going to

Speaker 1 get going on.

Speaker 2 And I do think it just got, it was amped up so much that I think.

Speaker 1 I think less things to talk about.

Speaker 2 Yes. And when I looked at it again or thought about it again, I was like, yes, what you're saying, you should not be charging a stage and slapping anybody in the face, especially,

Speaker 1 you know, don't do that.

Speaker 2 But it was viewed as like

Speaker 2 this man almost like beat, like, like, if you were

Speaker 1 in here, you'd like to beat the shit out of this person. There was a live murder.
Yeah. It was, I, I saw that at Marie Barty's Oscar Party.
Oscar party, right? And it was mostly. Barty party.

Speaker 1 It was a literal Barty party.

Speaker 1 And it was mostly like film people, people who work in film, people who write about film, people study film. Everyone in there was just like a hardcore movie nerd.

Speaker 1 And there was an hour and a half of people as if it was like the Zapruder film. Oh, yeah.
Breaking down, like, wait, what happened and why? I wasn't even watching it.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm like, I'm so out on this stuff. I'm not even from the Oscars.

Speaker 1 I really haven't been watching it. And one of my like film guy text chains blew up.
Hey, are you guys watching this? Did you guys, was that a bit? Do you think that was a bit?

Speaker 1 And I had a fall we were debating. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It felt like there was a collective like hallucination and until he got up to accept the award we were like at some point we're gonna get some answer closure yeah and the second he got up and started crying and said like Richard Williams protect his family everyone just gasped and went oh my god it was real like he said the first line and we went oh my god it was real well I was I am friends with uh Regina with and Will Smith but when she was so she was hosting that year she was she and Schumer right were like get us on stage what the fuck right and so we were, we, the Black Monday cast was on a text chain all like kind of rooting on.

Speaker 1 And then she was great and

Speaker 1 it was like, Joe's normal.

Speaker 2 And then it was like, then I remember, I think if it was, if I'm correct in saying it, we're like, that's a bit, right? And it was like, no. Like, we did get verification.
Hardcore.

Speaker 1 That was not a bit. That must have been an astounding text received from someone in the room.

Speaker 2 It was, because it was like, because the way it was also displayed, I remember like sound dropped out. Yeah.
It was a weird.

Speaker 1 It was a camera cut. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it was like, and then you got up and there was like that shot where it was like somebody was talking to Will Smith in the corner. It was

Speaker 1 Bradley Cooper. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 And you could only re-watch it on the Australian feed. Right.
That was what was weird. I got crikey.
This is mental. That's not a slap.
All right. You beat me to it.

Speaker 1 Number six, just to wrap up, we should do our Cohen's rankings. We've been podcasting for three hours.

Speaker 1 Number six, of course, this week knew this week the very good idea of doing the girl in the spider's web.

Speaker 1 This let's do a sequel to Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by adapting the fourth book written not by the guy

Speaker 1 with a different actor.

Speaker 1 Valuable Cinematrix play. I scored off of it today.
Nobody remembers. No one remembers.
Numbers doesn't exist. Seven is Nobody's Fool.
Is that

Speaker 1 Kevin Hart? No, Tiffany Haddish. That's Haddish.
Regina, is it? Wait, who is it? Who is it? Nobody's Fool. The Paul Newman.
I would say that's the problem. Is it Tika Sumter?

Speaker 1 Tika Sumter, Tiffany Haddish, and Whoopi Goldberg. Amari Hardwick and Whoopi Goldberg.
And she's got a wig on and she's kind of going like this.

Speaker 1 Whoopi Goldberg at the foolishness. Whoopi Goldberg has a bit in the trailer that is so fucking funny.
This is a Tyler Perry film.

Speaker 1 But it was Tyler Perry at Paramount where he didn't usually make his films. Right.
Kind of doing like what looks like a pretty ordinary rom-com kind of thing.

Speaker 1 It's sort of him trying to do more of a like normal comedy in a Tiffany Haddish vehicle and not the Tyler Perry thing. I don't know if it veers into faith-based lessons towards it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, because I was trying to remember, like, that was one of those movies where, again, it's still in the top 10, so it's making money, but it also was like not. No, yeah, it was not.

Speaker 1 And it was just sold as another Tiffany Haddisley.

Speaker 1 There's a bit where they, I believe Whippy Goldberg plays their sisters and plays their mother, I think. There's a bit where they go to visit the mom and they're yelling at her.

Speaker 1 And she starts acting like the phone has dropped out and she can't hear them. That sounds funny.
And then they go, you're not on the phone. We're talking to you through a window.
That's funny.

Speaker 1 That's funny. That sounds funny.

Speaker 1 Really good. I just, that's all I've seen.
She's a national treasure. Whoopee rolls? And I always, someone today just posted the famous thing she said on marriage to some interview.

Speaker 1 I don't want someone to sleep on my phone. No, it's just, I don't want someone in my house.
That's what I think about it all the time.

Speaker 1 Number eight at the box office is Venom.

Speaker 1 He's there.

Speaker 1 He's been doing great. Number nine is the David Gordon Green Halloween, giant hit.
Number 10 is the hate you give, which I feel like was

Speaker 1 they, you know, hoped for hit and wasn't really a hit. The young adult.
It's a young adult movie based on a sort of a hit book. Yes.

Speaker 1 yes and that was a there was a lot yeah mandala starberg yeah regina halls in that and uh i saw it it's okay it's very very serious very it's a it's a shooting right a kid yes yes very like sort of sensitive serious uh teens wrestling with uh deep issues movie it's not very good uh yeah it's it's okay um that is that but griffin i know you're looking at your phone for this reason we this is not our last episode in this mini series because treating the next the cohens three as bonus split up yeah and did three movies, which we will

Speaker 2 ask.

Speaker 1 So you it's not our finale for you do them each gets their own Macbeth gets its own episode.

Speaker 1 Okay, we didn't. We haven't driveway dolls, honey, don't.
Okay. Uh, but we will do our top uh our Cohen's rankings now.
Okay, I have done mine as well in the

Speaker 1 in the last 10 minutes. Fantastic.
I knew you were playing with your phone, and I was like, Jason's up to something. Like, feels terrible.
I'm looking at this list and it feels wrong, but I'm crazy.

Speaker 1 Any move feels like, how could I? There's no right answer here. And let me be clear.
This is what I'm sort of putting as my ranking of what I consider their best works.

Speaker 1 Obviously, Hutsucker Proxy is my favorite film of theirs. You can do one of my favorite movies.
Well, you do what you want. There's a universe in which I put that in the comments.

Speaker 1 Is there a movie before you do your list that rose high during the re-recording of this or that dropped? Or is there anything like that? Like a sort of canonical fave?

Speaker 1 I want to say, I mean, but look, it's so arbitrary. It is a little bit.
I feel like Raising Arizona dropped a little and Lebowski went up for me. I had the exact same reaction.
But I mean,

Speaker 1 both masterpieces, in my opinion. I have Lady Killers Last.
I will say I put Tragedy of Macbeth and Driveway Dolls ahead of Lady Killers. Sure, sure.

Speaker 1 Those are not in my rankings. Yeah, yeah, get them on.
That's right, Master Ranking. I hear you.
I hear you. For the sake of this series, Lady Killers Last.
Then Intolerable Cruelty. Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 No, everything past that. And by the way, I think Intolerable Cruelty is great.
Past this point, every movie I'm going to list sounds like it's an insult to put it this low.

Speaker 1 And it's truly just an embarrassment of riches. I then have Blood Simple,

Speaker 1 Scruggs, True Grit. You're True Grit that low.
Okay, keep going.

Speaker 1 Keep going, keep going, keep going. Raising Arizona.
Okay. Miller's Crossing.
Oh, brother, where art thou? And so now that was, that was 11th. Right.
My 10, Man Who Wasn't There, great movie.

Speaker 1 Nine, Burn After Reading, eight, Lebowski, seven, Barton Fink, six, Hail Caesar. I put Hudsucker at five with me trying to be objective, but it's number one in my heart.

Speaker 1 But then there are four movies that I just think are stone cold, like just undeniable masterworks.

Speaker 1 Number four, No Country. Number three, A Serious Man.
Number two, Fargo, number one, inside Louis Davis. That's where I land.
Wow. That's

Speaker 1 their best film, in my opinion. Hudsucker is my favorite.
That's the distinction I want. Should I do mine? Yeah, you should do.
All right. I have Lady Killers Last, then Burn After Reading.
Sorry.

Speaker 1 Then Man Who Wasn't There. Sorry.
Then Buster Scruggs, then Intolerable Cruelty, all the way up to 14. Then Hail Caesar.
Now we're just in Movies I Love Territory.

Speaker 1 Man, I put Hail Caesar a lot higher than you. Yeah.
And O Brother at 12. Blood Simple at 11.
My 10 are

Speaker 1 10. 10, Hudsucker.
9. Raising Arizona, 8 Miller's Crossing, 7, No Country, 6, Lewin Davis.
My five are very different from yours.

Speaker 1 Five, Big Lebowski, four Serious Man, three, True Grit, all the way up there. Two, Fargo, one, Barton Fink.

Speaker 1 That's me. Nobody yell at me.
Like, our ranking is quite different. It's incredibly different.
And yet, I'm like, I don't think you're wrong about any of that. You're not mad about me.

Speaker 1 So mine falls into the

Speaker 1 truly.

Speaker 1 These are,

Speaker 1 I cannot separate my true love for some of these from

Speaker 1 the distinction are like millimeters. Yeah, you know, especially when we get into that top six or seven.
Lady Killers is obviously number one with the bullet for you.

Speaker 1 Number one, Intolerable Cruelty, number two.

Speaker 1 No, Lady Killers, Intolerable Cruelty are at the bottom for me. Man Who Wasn't There, Buster Scruggs, Burn After Reading.
These all could kind of be in any order, but they are all in that lower third.

Speaker 1 Burn after reading. And then True Grit.
They're chunked to me. True Grit, Hail Caesar, O Brother

Speaker 1 are like that middle category. And then it gets into Blood Simple, Lewin Davis, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink.

Speaker 1 And then for me,

Speaker 1 Fargo, a serious man, no country. Lebowski, Miller's Crossing.
Miller's Crossing. Miller's Crossing is my number one just because it is baked in.
It's the movie.

Speaker 1 It's their movie that I've seen the most. And I've seen Lebowski a lot and I've seen Miller's Crossing more.
Owen Burke, our friend Owen Burke, watches Miller's Crossing every year on St.

Speaker 1 Patrick's Day. He told me this years ago and I've instituted it as well.
And it's a blast. That is a great way to do it.
It's a great revisit.

Speaker 1 And I just, it's one of those movies that I know every line of. It is, I know every corner.
I love that movie.

Speaker 1 Even though I know that many of these movies are inarguably inarguably better movies, No Country especially, Fargo especially, Miller's Crossing just has its hooks in me, as does Lebowski.

Speaker 1 Lebowski is so baked into, like, when I need a feel-good watch to just disappear into, it is always Lebowski. You had Fargo at three? I had Fargo at five.
Wow. Wow.

Speaker 1 Miller's Crossing is one. Lebowski is two.
No Country is three. A Serious Man is four.
Okay. Because I just think that is dynamic.

Speaker 1 And Fargo is five. Yeah.
And I mean, like a lot of these, I couldn't, if you said to me, reorder those five in a different way, I could happily own it, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 These are all unimpeachably just masterpieces by my

Speaker 1 agree with that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is too quick for me to do it. I think that that, that, and I, but I won't, but I think I want to take a moment and say that when you ask men's health what their ranking of the Cohen brothers is.

Speaker 2 I do appreciate yourself. I do appreciate you.

Speaker 2 I think they haven't gone macked, they rate them from one to six abs yes it's an ab schedule uh you know the number one for them is is gonna be fargo that's men's health right now a great uh great one i'm gonna but i'm gonna maybe uh show you like where they go a little bit off the rails maybe you know um uh vulture put intolerable cruelty in the top 10

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that everybody has to kind of do that.

Speaker 2 Men's Health did put Burn After Reading number six.

Speaker 1 You know, some people love burn after reading a lot.

Speaker 1 I really love it, i have no problems with burn after reading yeah before serious men that's that's a little while that's crazy but a little while the light before trivial the jk simmons david rashie scene of that movie is incredible lights out it absolutely makes the movie for me i will say also just to know like ranking cohen brothers movies is like the quickest way at least back when twitter was somewhat usable to just get everyone frothing you would just be kind of like i think barton fink's my favorite cohens and then so you know one hour later, people are like, what's your address?

Speaker 1 I'm going to come kill you.

Speaker 1 Like, and even though we're all arguing over all movies that we all love, basically. I just got a tracking notice from anthrax.com.
I love it.

Speaker 1 So I remember seeing Barton Fink in the theater and being like, what the fuck is going on? I am jealous.

Speaker 1 This is incredible. I think.
Like, I just like the John Goodman performance, because at the time, I hadn't seen him do anything like that. Stan Kyle.
He was, it was unbelievable. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, what a, I loved that movie. Yeah.
No, it's, it's like, what order do I put five-star masterpieces in? Exactly.

Speaker 2 I'm going to make a shocking admission. Never saw Barton Fink.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, you know what? Wait, still? Now you have the best kind of homework. Yes.

Speaker 2 That is, that is, that is, I don't know what it is. I've seen every single Coen Brothers movie.

Speaker 1 But you have such a good one. Okay.
Great night out.

Speaker 1 And as someone, Paul, who works in Hollywood and I feel like knows a lot about how it works and has a lot of opinions on how it should work, Barton Fink.

Speaker 1 And I'm surprised just as a Wallace Beary wrestling fan.

Speaker 2 But it was one of those movies that I felt like, oh, you know what? I do this sometimes. I'm like, I'll wait until I can see it properly.

Speaker 1 I get that. Right.

Speaker 1 I didn't maybe have the godfather movies until I saw them at film forum in New York. So as an adult, because I wanted to wait until I could see it in a theater, I knew it would matter.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I watched it on my Apple Watch. That's

Speaker 1 if you want to see Barton Fink and then you hear really bad feedback from Bart Simpson and his friends and they just completely discouraged you from going and Naked Lunch is why you've never seen Naked Lunch

Speaker 2 the same thing Barton really shit on that one uh it's also great to see like I have a painting of uh hudsucker proxy in my

Speaker 2 yes I love it I love it so much and it was one of those movies that I felt like when I saw it it I liking it made me like because everyone would be like oh raising Arizona raising Arizona

Speaker 1 it's like and you felt like oh there's no but I like nobody's arguing for this one and I love I was see I was part of the, because I'm like a full step older than you guys. Right.

Speaker 1 Hudsucker, to me, felt like a betrayal. That was the, you're rubbing your hands.
You can't wait. The Cohens made a big movie.
And then you're like, what the fuck was that? What the fuck is this?

Speaker 1 And before the lady killers and Talbot Cruelty back to back, it was just like that was the consensus.

Speaker 1 It was a falter. It felt like a misunderstanding.
Have you watched it? Oh, yeah. Many times.
You've been many times. And I think it's wonderful.
But in that moment, I can totally understand.

Speaker 1 I was like, what the fuck, guys? Can I say this as a closing statement? Because we recorded our episode and then we, Ben, Marie, and I went out to L.A.

Speaker 1 and introduced a screening with the American Cinematic. Did this intro and I saw it again, Project on 35.
Anytime I see it screening, I see it, right?

Speaker 1 But these coins movies, as we talk about, every time you watch them, I get different stuff out of them. They go up and down in my rankings at levels of greatness, right?

Speaker 1 But certain elements jump out to me more. I have different readings.

Speaker 1 Maybe I get certain plot details wrong because I'm paying attention to one thing and the other. But watching Hudsucker on the big screen that time,

Speaker 1 something clicked in it for me that I'd never really thought about before. And especially knowing that it was a script they wrote early with Raimi that they couldn't get made.

Speaker 1 And with all their clout, they're like, we get to do this. Is I think that movie is about like how to become successful without becoming an asshole.
Right, right, right, right, right.

Speaker 1 You can't let go of the, yeah. And absolutely.
These guys who people will often mischaracterize as being very judgmental of their characters and condescending.

Speaker 1 I'm like, the way they treat Norville in the section of the movie where he becomes full of his own shit and high on his own supply is like the most disdain they have shown for any character, like even more so in a way than like Anton Sugur, right?

Speaker 1 Where they're like, this is the absolute cautionary tale of

Speaker 1 we just like making hula hoops and we want everyone to enjoy hula hoops.

Speaker 1 And how do we do that and ascend to the levels of success without becoming this guy and needing to like fall off the side of a building and reclaim our humanity.

Speaker 1 And I think you like step back and you look and you're like, these guys had this fucking career working together for 30 plus years, made like basically 20 masterpieces and just like stayed true to themselves the entire fucking time.

Speaker 1 And even like say whatever you want about lady killers. That is very much

Speaker 1 a movie. We have never done a career as nothing's like

Speaker 1 shot for you.

Speaker 1 Here we are at the end of your series.

Speaker 1 Yes, very much. At the end of your series, talking about a movie that, while we might quibble with, you know, it might be a little uneven

Speaker 1 segment to segment, vignette to vignette, whatever. There was still so much in this that was wonderful.
I could have talked for another four hours.

Speaker 1 Have you ever done a series that is but because I feel like by the end of most series, you guys are cooked because now you're stuck with the dregs.

Speaker 1 And this was as long a series as we've done, basically. Pretty much.
I mean, the solos are a little closer to being dregs for us. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 Get ready for those three episodes where we are beginning to grab it. That's that's the end.
But that's a different story.

Speaker 1 You could have not done those or done those on the Patreon as all three of the, or all four of the, or three of those in one episode. Like, sure, they are not the same.

Speaker 1 Maybe these are good ideas that we should have listened to.

Speaker 2 But now, do you, do you feel like in those three films, or do you have any research? And not to tease this for the audience, that they give each other notes on their solo films?

Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. I've heard nothing like that.
I've never heard anything like that.

Speaker 2 That's interesting to me to be like, to have such a close, because I'm also fascinated with

Speaker 1 that. And it's like, you're like, oh, I don't know.
dude.

Speaker 1 The safeties, it's having seen both those movies, it's the same thing as what the Coens were like, I see what each was bringing to the table, right?

Speaker 1 And I think both of the movies they made a loader are really good, and I actually like them more than the balance, but you're just like

Speaker 1 this energy is here, and this energy is over here. And they used to be together, and now we're watching it.
Do we know anything about the movie the Coens are working on together?

Speaker 1 Nothing except that they're working on something that they are, and that it's maybe a horror adjacent horror. I've heard that, but who knows? They tell me that

Speaker 1 also might be a loose starting point. Okay.

Speaker 1 It's exciting to consider. Oh, exactly.

Speaker 1 But if this is their last movie, which is not impossible, it's not possible. I don't mind it.
The last movie. Yeah.
I don't either.

Speaker 1 I think it's a good final film. I hope we are.

Speaker 2 They told a bunch of funny shorts. I mean, short stories.
That's all. Their whole filmography is funny little vignettes.

Speaker 2 I mean, they're movies, but I feel like that's what it's kind of encapsulates everything about them. I love it.

Speaker 1 Sorry, we made you. I have to go.
No, let's wrap it to P. We have to.
We literally have to do a show. Yeah, we gotta have to do a show.
I'll also say, I saw

Speaker 1 I saw Ethan Cohen on the street yesterday. Yesterday,

Speaker 1 right before recording this, our final

Speaker 1 word.

Speaker 1 He looked so fucking cool. Oh, yeah.
Because I think of him as being like the wormy little one. He was wearing sunglasses, a leather jacket,

Speaker 1 cock of the walk. Where? I had like five inches on him easy.

Speaker 1 But he looked cool. Yeah, just walking around with a fucking flat iron.
I love that. Yeah, Nomad.
Looked rat as hell. Thank you guys for being here.
What a pleasure. What a pleasure.

Speaker 1 Glad we made it work. It was new you guys had some New York shows on the books.
We were going to do this episode guest list. And I threw out to Sims, is it crazy if we see if they're free?

Speaker 1 And knowing very often you guys are so busy. I literally canceled everything to be sourced to give an episode its proper space.
Thrilled to have been able to be included in this,

Speaker 1 what is, I think, inarguably the best series you guys have done, both in terms of films and episodes. I think this is my name.

Speaker 2 It's amazing. Yeah.
Really, truly fun.

Speaker 2 And it, like, I love this too because it's a, it's a chance to revisit.

Speaker 1 I feel like the rewatches have been really great. There's no better rewatch assignment than throwing all of Colin Brothers out.

Speaker 1 This has been a black. You guys have to do some dog shit next time.
Yeah. Yeah.
You're doing dog shit next time. I'm joking.
Is there anything specific you guys want to plug? How did this get made?

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know,

Speaker 1 still going strong, baby. Absolutely.
Year 15 or 16 now. I can't remember.
I remember listening to that burlesque episode. That was one of the first.
It was the first one. Like a December.

Speaker 1 When is Old Dogs in the first five?

Speaker 1 It's in the early ones. It's the pilot that we never aired.
And then we did do okay. You have to like follow

Speaker 1 the burlesque just at my old job. What was it? 09? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So we did.

Speaker 2 This December will be 15 years.

Speaker 1 Five old.

Speaker 1 So that's congrats on the iHeart Awards.

Speaker 2 Oh, a decade and a half of victory. You know, look, this is, you know,

Speaker 1 we went out to the iHeart Awards in Austin, Texas. We're all dressed up.
We think they're they're about to present our category. It basically happens in a montage in between awards.

Speaker 1 They go, like, what was it? It was like Jameson asked you to raise a glass to podcast. Award for best ad read goes to Conan O'Brien, award for best, best film TV podcast.
How did this get me?

Speaker 1 And we're just like, oh, they didn't even present it. Oh, my God.
And I assume, oh, they didn't present it because they asked you guys and you weren't going to show up. And I text you guys, congrats.

Speaker 1 And you said, on what? Oh, yeah. And we said, you just won.
And you said, one what? And I was like, the iHeart. And you were like, for what category?

Speaker 1 No No awareness whatsoever. None.
None. Zero awareness.

Speaker 2 Now, I was at the first ever Astra Podcast Awards, and we could talk about that later.

Speaker 1 Oh, heck.

Speaker 1 I want to thank producer Ben for

Speaker 1 helping me with the I've Got a Bone segment. And thanks to Zach Cherry for letting me do it.
And maybe thank me for the He-Man sunglasses as well.

Speaker 1 And thanks to Griff for the sunglasses, even though he didn't know he was doing that for the bit.

Speaker 1 What a blast.

Speaker 1 And thanks to Emma Erdbricht for helping us with

Speaker 1 the tune. Totally.
Totally. And guys, by the way, just listen to those Doughboys.
Those stupid fucking Doughboys. Thanks for the Doughboys.
You're Turbray too. Another long time.
Doughboys.

Speaker 1 Action Boys. All the boys.
Pod boys. Yeah.
Sloppy boys. No.
No.

Speaker 1 Listen, Sloppy Boy. Sloppy Boys.
But also listen to the jerky boys as well.

Speaker 1 I'm sure it's aged beautifully.

Speaker 1 Next week is Tragedy Tragedy Macbeth. Next week is the Tragedy.
And our friend

Speaker 1 Dana Schwartz returning to the show for another witch film. That's right.
Yep.

Speaker 1 We got to plug holes,

Speaker 1 but you know, holes.

Speaker 1 Dig them.

Speaker 1 But also the movie. But when you say plug holes, it sounds like you're telling people to fill them in.
No, don't. So be clear in your language.
Create them. Right.

Speaker 1 So you don't like one of those senators who like fills potholes or whatever. You're like, I'm not voting for that.
Oh, you got a Joe Dirt philosophy of life. So a hole dig it.

Speaker 1 Okay. We are done.
I'm sure this is ranking in our top five length. length at this point who knows

Speaker 1 no there was episodes of just this series that were very long and leslie of course and leslie headland is gonna never that will never the only person capable of doing that is alex ross perry yeah great job in pavements by the way oh thank you that was fun to do what if i promise to make the ad reads really long on this okay

Speaker 1 but no but we don't we already we already did the big trick of the right the juices the hidden straps yeah no i'm not i'm not trying to make i'm not trying to make waves here harp was so angry when he discovered that.

Speaker 1 Did he? Was he? He texted us when the episode dropped and was like, I guess I need to concede the belt.

Speaker 1 And then a week later was like, there's 40 minutes of silence.

Speaker 1 Oh, it was so good. Thank you for being here.
So much fun. Thank you, Premis.
Excited to see you guys talk about Monkey Bone today.

Speaker 2 Please, this is great.

Speaker 1 And as always, smell you later, farthheads. There we go.

Speaker 2 I mean, I introded us.

Speaker 1 I might as well outro us.

Speaker 3 Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostley.
Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas.

Speaker 3 And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon.
This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy.
Research by J.J. Birch.

Speaker 3 Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Speaker 1 Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

Speaker 3 Our production assistant is Minic. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.
Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

Speaker 3 Join our Patreon, BlankCheck Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Speaker 1 Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod.

Speaker 1 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack.

Speaker 3 This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.