28 Years Later

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David - Episode: "28 Years Later" Release Date: June 22, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

In this engaging episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims, along with their co-hosts Marie Barty Salinas and producer Ben Hosley, delve deep into the latest installment of the zombie apocalypse series, "28 Years Later." Building upon their previous discussions of the franchise, the team explores the film's nuances, character developments, and its place within the broader context of post-apocalyptic cinema.

Recap of the Franchise

Marie begins by highlighting the podcast's journey through the franchise:

"Since we covered The Danny Boyle 2002 in the UK, 2003 in the US release. 28 days later. 28 years later."
[00:30] Marie Barty Salinas

This marks the 120th episode on their main feed, emphasizing their commitment to dissecting directors' filmographies.

Behind the Scenes: Office Anecdotes

Before diving into the film, the hosts share a humorous exchange about math and “bones” placed thoughtfully on their desks by producer Ben:

"Ben arranged the bones on each station and tried to match each bone to each person."
[02:22] Ben Hosley

Marie clarifies that these bones are not human:

"Let's just say these are not human bones. They are pig bones."
[02:59] Marie Barty Salinas

Discussion on "28 Years Later"

The core of the episode revolves around the film "28 Years Later," a sequel that continues the story two decades after the initial outbreak. The team discusses various aspects:

Plot and Setting

Marie provides a comprehensive overview:

"It's a movie about how to live with death and pain and tragedy surrounding you and how you can build a life around it."
[30:29] David Sims

She further elaborates on the world-building:

"This is like a post post-apocalyptic movie, where society has rebuilt around the zombie threat."
[30:53] Marie Barty Salinas

Character Analysis

The character of Eric, portrayed by Alfie Williams, is a focal point:

"Eric is like a modern-day Colonel Kurtz—odd, thoughtful, and profoundly affecting."
[39:01] Marie Barty Salinas

Ralph Fiennes' character adds depth to the narrative:

"Ralph Fiennes explains what he's doing as a tribute to the deceased, combining art with survival."
[132:10] Marie Barty Salinas

Themes and Insights

The hosts delve into the film's exploration of British culture and historical references:

"Danny Boyle is questioning British culture and its relationship to history through zombie allegories."
[37:18] Griffin Newman

They also touch upon the film's emotional core, particularly the relationship between the boy and his parents:

"The movie beautifully portrays a father-son relationship strained by survival instincts and emotional turmoil."
[141:00] Marie Barty Salinas

Production and Aesthetic Choices

Griffin praises the film's visual and technical elements:

"Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography is breathtaking, utilizing iPhones to capture stunning 4K visuals."
[32:16] David Sims

The use of tone poems and historical footage enriches the storytelling:

"The film integrates tone poems and archival footage to create a profound narrative tapestry."
[85:17] Marie Barty Salinas

Audience Reception and Expectations

The team reflects on the film's reception and their personal reactions:

"At our screening, the audience was simultaneously amused and perplexed by the characters' portrayals."
[12:48] Marie Barty Salinas

They also speculate on the film's box office performance and future sequels:

"With part two already in the can, '28 Years Later' sets up an expansive trilogy exploring different facets of its universe."
[07:05] Griffin Newman

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

Marie concludes the episode by lauding the film's ability to provoke thoughtful conversations:

"Every conversation about this film has been fascinating, highlighting its depth and the successful collaboration between Boyle and Garland."
[141:45] Marie Barty Salinas

Griffin adds his support for the continued success of the series:

"I agree entirely. The collaboration between Boyle and Garland has truly elevated this installment."
[140:37] Griffin Newman

Upcoming Events and Announcements

Before signing off, the hosts share exciting news about future episodes and special screenings:

"Next week, we return to finish out our Amy Heckerling miniseries with the final two films in her filmography."
[176:55] Marie Barty Salinas

They also announce a VOD premiere for a live show on June 26th, encouraging listeners to join and participate.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "It's a movie that is keeping you in a space of intense sensitivity the entire time."
  [16:40] David Sims

• "Danny Boyle is questioning British culture and its relationship to history through zombie allegories."
  [37:18] Griffin Newman

• "Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography is breathtaking, utilizing iPhones to capture stunning 4K visuals."
  [32:16] David Sims

• "This movie beautifully portrays a father-son relationship strained by survival instincts and emotional turmoil."
  [141:00] Marie Barty Salinas

• "Every conversation about this film has been fascinating, highlighting its depth and the successful collaboration between Boyle and Garland."
  [141:45] Marie Barty Salinas

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Conclusion

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David offers a thorough and insightful analysis of "28 Years Later," blending personal anecdotes with critical evaluations. The hosts' passion for filmography and their ability to dissect complex narratives make this discussion a must-listen for enthusiasts of the zombie genre and post-apocalyptic storytelling.

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

Blank check with Griffin and David. Blank check with Griffin and David.

[David Sims]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[Griffin Newman]

All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is blackjack.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

120 podcasts later.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, so you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It has been 120 episodes on main feed.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Since we covered The Danny Boyle 2002 in the UK, 2003 in the US release. 28 days later.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

120 episodes, like a couple years ago. Then it's about. It's about two.

[David Sims]

2003. Oh, 23. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

2003 was the US release.

[David Sims]

No, I was like, I forgot the two.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

2023 was our podcast release. So we covered 28 days later, 20 years later, and now two years later, we are covering 28 years later. And we were just talking off mic before we start recording. We all love math here.

[Griffin Newman]

We're just all. Well, Ben, are you good at math?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Looking at a group of math heads. You're listening to Math Heads right now?

[Ben Hosley]

Not really.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No.

[Ben Hosley]

I. I always thought it was cool, though, the. The guys who got into, like, really abstract mathematics.

[David Sims]

Goodwill hunting.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I always thought that. I always respected that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is the most bad answer.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he just like people writing in hieroglyphics.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, totally.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I know some math you're good at, Ben. The ones and zeros.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, you only need to know two numbers.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's the. The kind of key thing there, right? You can tap out before you get to 2, 2, 2.

[Griffin Newman]

That's not an audio number.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

All right, there you go. He admit it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He admit it. He admitted.

[Griffin Newman]

Low energy start.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, it's a great start. I just had to start out with some math. You said to me, I don't even know if you know about that. Talking about a bit that was set up. Right. And I came into the studio yesterday to pick up some stuff and noticed that our own producer, Ben, had very carefully and deliberately placed bones on each of our desks.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God.

[Ben Hosley]

I didn't even.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Bones?

[Ben Hosley]

Bones.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's what you were referencing, right, David?

[David Sims]

I didn't even notice that you guys had bones too.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We all had bones.

[Griffin Newman]

The reason that I thought Griffin might not have noticed is that he's got. And I'm not shaming him, a little bit of stuff on his desk, and it's a little more hidden from his view.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I want to make my desk feel like home. But I came around the other side when I walked in yesterday and I got a clear shot of the bones. And Ben has really. He's made specific choices of who has What?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. What do I have exactly?

[Ben Hosley]

I arranged the bones on each station and I, you know, I tried to kind of match each bone to each person, but I wanted to make Marie feel special, so she got the head of.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Let's be clear. Let's just say these are not human bones. I think the listener needs to know because they're not seeing this. Right. These are not human bones.

[David Sims]

It also, we played a bit of a guessing game where I tried to guess what animal these bones came from, and I did not.

[Griffin Newman]

Worse. Worse. A few swings.

[David Sims]

Worse at that than I am at math.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do we have. Do we have an answer?

[David Sims]

Yes, we do.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

These are pig bones.

[Ben Hosley]

And here's the other thing. I. Not all of them, but the. The skull.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I can guarantee is which.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

If you.

[David Sims]

If you saw this, would you think this is a pig skull?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No. The problem is it looks like a giant rat skull. I thought it was a fox, but then once you say pig, it makes sense.

[Ben Hosley]

Now I also would like to add that I consumed that pig.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

He had a whole thing. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So, okay, let's just say this blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. We're not moving away from this. I just think we need to do a little table setting on a fucking new release blockbuster movie episode before we get too deep in our own arc.

[David Sims]

We are recording this episode within the Bone Temple.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they bounce, baby, into the Bone Temple. Two years ago, we did a miniseries on the films of Danny Boyle, a very successful filmmaker. Best picture, best director winner. Has had hits. Has had critically. He's had hits with chemic films.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got an Oscar.

[David Sims]

The only blank check director to have made an Olympic opening ceremony.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Spielberg worked on the. The Chinese one we don't like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He did a pass.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he. What didn't he contribute to that in some way?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He did like a Sin City special guest record.

[David Sims]

When I think of that, I think of the Beijing Olympics. I think of was obviously, he's the auteur. Danny Boyle was the auteur of London 2012.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm backing you up here.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. Well, I'm just. Now I'm like, who Now? I want to know, though, who's done every Olympics opening ceremony?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. My point here is we covered Danny Bole, and at the time we covered him, it like his career had weirdly Kind of ground to a halt in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

In a bit of a sort of. What's he.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, Emblematic.

[Griffin Newman]

What's his move.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Of a larger issue in.

[Griffin Newman]

What's all this?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The industry where it's like. It's weird that he made yesterday. And I remember saying that to you at the time when it came out, and you were like, he can't get anything else made. He's got to attach himself to a.

[Griffin Newman]

He was gonna make that Methuselah movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There's a lot of things that have been announced.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

He also did a lot of tv.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He did two full seasons of FX shows that'll just.

[Griffin Newman]

That'll just eat time.

[Ben Hosley]

Like what shows?

[David Sims]

He did a sex pistol show.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Which was.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, right, I forgot. I watched that. That was. Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Remember the movie all the Money in the World? The movie devoid of controversy and scandal?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, we talked about this when we did the show. He did. Right, the same thing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He did a TV show about the exact same thing that aired six months after that movie came out and bombed.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, yeah, that's. Yeah, that's crazy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It was just a weird thing because we've covered directors where it's like, there's clearly a reason why they're in movie jail. Their career went off a ledge. Right. They're, like, fighting a perception they can't kind of overcome, or directors who have died. And we were like, it is weird that Danny Boyle should still be in, like, the prime of his career, and he just kind of feels a little stuck and on the bench. And. And we end that series by being like, it feels like they should just do another 28. Right. And now here we are. It's happening.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, but it was also. Once Killian took the stage at the Oscars, I do feel like everyone was like, all right, like, making phone calls, being like, let's do some. Some zombies.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And yet today, we are talking about 28 years later, a movie that Cillian Murphy does not appear in. He has an executive producer credit. But a thing that I don't think is being messaged very loudly to the public, and certainly Ben didn't know when we saw it, is that this is the first of a trilogy of new movies. The second one is already in the can. Yes. And the third one is scripted and is basically waiting on this film, having a good opening weekend to officially get the green light.

[Griffin Newman]

And since this film wasn't too expensive, I think, like, it won't take much.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think it's safe, right? I think it's safe. But Killian, theoretically, is in introducing the next one.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think theoretically. They confirmed.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's in it. He's in it.

[Griffin Newman]

They said that his role in it is smaller and that his role in the third one would be larger, but.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There is not a whisper of him in this.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, yeah, that's true. They had a scene where he found the Infinity Gauntlet.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But they cut it and he went.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I guess I'll have to do this myself.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll have to do it. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

As Killian pulling a fucking gauntlet out of a washer.

[Griffin Newman]

Do it himself.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He did do it himself.

[Griffin Newman]

Knows. I'm just saying, like you. Don't we give him enough credit?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David, you said himself. He did have his five children. Proxima. Midnight.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ebony. Ma.

[Griffin Newman]

Keep going.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Call Obsidian.

[Griffin Newman]

I think so.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I.

[Griffin Newman]

Or Obsidian.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Call.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one or the other.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm tapped out. I know.

[Griffin Newman]

They're all pretty good.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

All of them have. One word is a riff on black, and the other word is some other nonsense.

[Griffin Newman]

Great.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. Anyway, Ben, pig bones that you ate. Cor.

[Griffin Newman]

Corvis Clave.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, I was never going to get that one. Gun to my head, I wasn't going to get that one.

[Ben Hosley]

So, my former roommate, Nate Patterson, who's also been helping out, he curates playlists that we put together at the end of each miniseries.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Major friend of the show.

[David Sims]

He also made the chain display.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, is the thing. He made this piece of visual art for you that was a chain display that then at our art show, got modified by him into being a chains and bone display.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, it makes sense.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So it's not like these bones came out of nowhere. These bones have been in the office, but as part of a very controlled installation.

[Griffin Newman]

This is art, baby.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's art.

[David Sims]

Wait, so these. This was part of the. This was part of the chain installation or.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right there, look. You'll see it.

[David Sims]

Are these brand new? No, no.

[Ben Hosley]

This from Repurpose.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

If you look at the chain display, it's low on bones.

[Griffin Newman]

I want to defend Spielberg. He pulled out of working on the 2008 opening Olympics ceremony because in protest of China's support of violence in the Darfur region.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

But Ang Lee apparently also was possibly somewhat involved. He's an Oscar, but he wasn't the main auteur. I'm going through Fernando Merels did 2016, but he doesn't have a trophy. Just a nom.

[David Sims]

But we also haven't covered she Said.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's the. That's the qualifier.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I was just talking about Oscar winners.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just interested.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Both.

[Griffin Newman]

Both, yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Just interesting producer. Remember the French one when it was, like, wet?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It was just, like, raining all day.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And that's when Dion showed up in the end, and you were like, all right. She took it home.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

By the way, though, most French ever.

[David Sims]

It was.

[Griffin Newman]

It was.

[David Sims]

It was so fun.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

If they had, like, hired Godard to, like, do the French ceremony, he'd be like, here's my pitch. It's just raining.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And just do whatever you want to do. In spite of the ra, he would have made that happen in a controlled room.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He would have somehow just glowered enough.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He also would have said it.

[Griffin Newman]

You, more likely.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What were you gonna say? Marie Barty party.

[David Sims]

I'm here. No, not. I was just gonna say that I liked the French opening ceremony. Remember where they had, like, a threesome at one point.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's right. And then all the. The people got mad.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It was too. Libby.

[David Sims]

It was so Libby.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They were cut into the crowds and everyone was struggling to light their cigarettes.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The little Assassin's Creed man with the.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Torch I forgot about.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[David Sims]

That was so cool.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what? Good job. France.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

France killed it.

[Griffin Newman]

Aren't we next?

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's good. Well, but do you know. Do you know what we did as, like, our show of, like, all right, we're bringing it home to America.

[Griffin Newman]

We took the Torch or whatever, Tom.

[David Sims]

Cruise, jump into the stadium and then land on the Hollywood side.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, wait. Great news, though. I'm seeing they've hired a major filmmaker. Oh, no. I was gonna say America's greatest auteur. Roston, Marshall Thurber.

[Griffin Newman]

I just think it'd be funny if he's Macquarie, and he was like, oh, I've cracked the ceremony. I. I cracked it already. It's gonna have 18 flash.

[David Sims]

No, there's gonna be no plan. We'll figure it out.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll explain all the rings being united together over and over and over again.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right, cut to four years later, 8,000 hours of podcasting that all also sound like therapy sessions where he's like, the mistake I made was I was trying to figure out how to not do the Torch. There is no said, is there a way to skip the torch? And then in post, realized, we've made a terrible mistake. I have to undo this.

[Griffin Newman]

Nobody has more turned into a corn cob than Christopher Moir doing that fucking Empire magazine, like, Final Reckoning podcast.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And also happy, sad, confused, and also light the fuse.

[Griffin Newman]

Those I haven't listened To. But I listened to the Empire one, which I said I wasn't going to. And then you were like, david, you got it. And I was like, I think I got it. I think I got to hear, like, what's going on?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I. I basically now started taking the hits, and then you just go text me the highlights.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, because you're doing all the other one, right? I can't listen.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

All just fast. I feel like I'm finally getting answers. But, Ben, you ate the pig, right? We.

[Ben Hosley]

We really need to close out that.

[David Sims]

You ate. You ate the pig.

[Ben Hosley]

We had a pig roast in our backyard. And then, you know, the next day I come home from work and the apartment kind of stinks, and I'm like, what the. And then Nate presents to me a clean, wet pig skull. Which apartment was this when I was in Williamsburg?

[David Sims]

Oh, so these are old ass.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a long time ago.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yep. Yeah, he just.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what else are old bones? These bones right here.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Hey.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, geez. Don't get me started waking up.

[David Sims]

Someone's got a birthday coming up.

[Ben Hosley]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, look very on topic because this is a movie that has some of the best on screen skull washing I have ever seen.

[Ben Hosley]

Incredible.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Incredible, incredible, incredible.

[Ben Hosley]

This is probably peak wet skull there.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ben, am I correct in saying you did not know that much going into this movie?

[Ben Hosley]

I heard whispers.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

What were the whispers.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Now, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

As he walked into the Regal, the guy took your ticket, and you were like, thank you. He's like, this theater, 17 bones.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm sorry, what's there?

[Griffin Newman]

Bones. Also, concessions are only on this floor.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ben, you don't usually care about collectible popcorn buckets, but you were yelling at the Regal employees that there was no collectible bone temple popcorn.

[Ben Hosley]

I grabbed him by a shirt collar and lifted him.

[Griffin Newman]

Is there not a collectible bucket?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't think there's anything.

[Griffin Newman]

It does, maybe. Did they, like, pitch that to Danny Boyle and he's like, you, what are we downing?

[David Sims]

Out of bounds.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think this.

[David Sims]

I think there's so much in this film that is, like, so profound that it would, like, cheapen almost.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, there's always a risk with these popcorn buckets.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. You're interfering thematically.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David. David. Vessels. We've changed the vessels, but in a.

[David Sims]

Way, calling it a vessel makes it a little more respectful. Like, that feels more in tune with the way this movie feels about, like, death, the body, and what remains.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes, I, I. Yes, I agree. This is a movie. You and Marie sat together. Ben and I sat together. It ends. I Look over my shoulder. I. I see that six rows behind us, David is literally dancing in the aisle. And I turn to Ben and I go, he's vibrating. You were so pretty on cloud nine. And I felt it like, 20 minutes in. I was like, fuck, he's going to be losing. This is the simsiest shit. It's checking every box.

[Griffin Newman]

That's interesting. I mean, I agree with you, but. Okay, what are the boxes that you felt at Check.

[Ben Hosley]

Extremely British.

[David Sims]

It's so. This is so British.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And not just extremely British, but it is like, in a way, I need you to kind of parse because I could tell it was doing stuff and I knew I didn't have.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll do my best.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The algorithm to solve all of it, but in a way that I feel Danny Bo does a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Is have, like a pod cover.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Is about British culture. Like, is.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Has, like, insight. Isn't just like, depicting Britishness.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's sort of like.

[David Sims]

It feels like a specific type of Britishness. It felt very, like, Northern.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Set in. It's set where I went to college. Although I then said that to someone. They went, you go to college at the Bone Temple. I thought that was funny.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Full scholarship, right? Yeah.

[David Sims]

I just. I want to acknowledge my privilege in that. Sitting next to David for this movie really added, like, a 4Dx. It was a 4Dx experience that, you know, I. I pity everyone else who's not going to sit next to David.

[Griffin Newman]

It's fun to sit next to Marie, who basically, anytime anyone like, walked in one direction, was just like, oh, yeah, what's going on? Like, what's gonna happen?

[David Sims]

I was. I was. I was pretty freaking out. And he, like. David was like, it's okay. You know, you can. Babadook. Not babadook.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

If you need to. Because I like, you are.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

As you famously watch Skinnamarink largely from inside your jacket, as you described it.

[David Sims]

It's like put. You can put your headphones just, you know, hide inside your jacket and you'll be fine. And I'm like, I can't do that for this podcast. Like, I have to pay. My eyes need to be. I need to witness this film.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So I think this movie. I mean, maybe you're gonna push back on this. I think this movie is intense.

[David Sims]

It is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't think it's, like, profoundly scary.

[David Sims]

It's. It.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I would agree. Well, it's. It can be disturbing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's disturbing.

[David Sims]

But there aren't, like, the jump scares where it's super quiet. Like, there There's a few.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, there's a few. Kind of the classic zombies.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think it is very visceral, and it's also very, like, emotionally intense.

[David Sims]

And the combination cried at this movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Of those two things. It's definitely holding you in a space of, like, in intense sensitivity the entire time. But it's not a movie that's, like, doing things to make you go like, ah, it, like, once every 10 minutes. It is a movie that is keeping you in that space.

[David Sims]

It. I think we were kind of trying to figure out why Sony kept the embargo on this movie. For sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's a bit baffled.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, let's also say that we saw many of our friends, past and future guests of this show, were in attendance at the same screening we went to. Thank you, the folks at Sony Pictures, for helping us see this a little early so that we could get this episode out quickly. And you're literally still dancing while we're outside on the street in Union Square. And then, like, Erlich would walk by and he was like, yeah, I'm trying to get my head around it. And you'd go like, fuck you.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, it's a problem.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, it's interesting. And you were like, nope. Bye.

[Griffin Newman]

That is the thing that I deal with a lot, right. And you guys don't see me press screens where, like, if I am really high on a movie, I do not. Right. You've seen, like, I do not want. Especially my good and dear friend who I truly love. And sometimes I'm a bit too mean about. On this podcast, David Ehrlich.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You did say out loud, fuck Ehrlich.

[Griffin Newman]

Coming near me and being like, sometimes David will out outright dislike the movie and, you know, be like, oh, yeah. And I'm just like, no, no, no. Bad vibes. They're like, shoo, shoo, shoo. You know, because I really just want to walk out of there in a little egg, like Lady Gaga.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And go home in my egg and then hatch out of my egg and write down my thoughts later or whatever.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. Or like, Mork from work. But I think I like this movie tremendously. I have one pumping point on it that we'll talk about surely probably soon. But it is incredibly weird. It is a weird film. It is an odd film in every sense, but especially within the framework of, like, hell, yeah, finally, Danny Boyle returns. He's just not trying. It's not a victory lap movie. It's not a, like, safe kind of, I'm going back to the proven franchise and doing the Same thing again.

[Griffin Newman]

But I would say, obviously he's done this once before. He made T2 Trainspotting. This movie is more straightforwardly entertaining, no question, than that was. That was a real kind of like, oh, you wanted this or that from a train spotting sequel. You're not going to get it.

[David Sims]

I also feel like this can exist. I mean, maybe we'll see how Hillen's.

[Griffin Newman]

Character comes back 100%. I think you're right.

[David Sims]

But this movie does feel like it exists on its own without the legacy of.

[Griffin Newman]

My brother asked me this on behalf of a friend being like, my friend's never seen 28 days. Like, does he need to? And I'm like, no, he.

[David Sims]

No. I mean, I'm sure he knows because of rules.

[Griffin Newman]

But like, I was like, I'm sure he knows the other basics of like, there was a zombie thing. That's all you need to know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I ran into friend of the podcast, past, very recent past and future guest Hillary Buses online for popcorn.

[Griffin Newman]

We love her. And she's of course.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And she said like, I just watched 28 Days for the first time, so I'm like buzzing about ready to go.

[David Sims]

Sandra Bullock movie later.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And she was like, I saw 28 days opening weekend in theaters, but then was like, I didn't get to Weeks. I do you think that's going to be a problem? And I said to Hillary, I would be astounded if anything in this movie directly ties into Weeks in any important way. And I was like, and by the way, I saw Weeks in theaters. We rewatched it for the podcast two years ago. If they made a vague Weeks connection, I don't think I'd pick up on it. And this movie really does kind of stand on its own. I just want, I want to say.

[Griffin Newman]

It makes one reference to Weeks, which I think is mostly Garland cleaning something.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Up that he doesn't like from undoing the Paris thing. Right? Yeah, yeah. Which that ending also felt very tacked on as a like, totally.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just like, okay, if you want another one of these.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Something for the future, that is. That is my only issue with this movie is I am like so fundamentally over the multi. Part sequel thing. I admire how much this movie really largely stands on its own.

[Griffin Newman]

It tells a full story. I would say it the.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The actual ending of the movie is very much a like Marvel post credits.

[Griffin Newman]

Better if it was post credits.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't know. We were having that discussion. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Because everyone's so sick of the post credits. Right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because I'm philosophically sick of the post credits. And yet once it happened, I'm like, I would kind of rather the movie has a really good emotional resolution that doesn't close any doors. That is clearly setting you up in a way where you're like, I'd be really excited to see what happens next with this character. But then the ending is a direct tee up of here's what we're going to pick up from next time. That feels a little like the ending of an episode of Lost, right? Like a crazy thing.

[Griffin Newman]

100%.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You emotionally resolve the conflict of that episode, and then a crazy thing happens in the last two minutes. Ben doesn't know that they have a sequel in a can. He turns to me and he goes, well, that ending was cool, but I kind of wish I could watch a whole movie of that. And I went, ben, I got great news.

[David Sims]

Directed by a friend of the podcast.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And not only that, I said to Ben, and guess what it's fucking called 28 Years Later, Part 2, the Bone Temple. And now Ben is in the aisles dancing, telling her, like, to fuck off. Yeah, I didn't have the 40x experience of the two of you being able to jam on their. Each other's body energy. I did have the moment where I turned to Ben and I. I hit him. And I went, look. And the camera pans out as you see how significant the bone temple is, in particular the pillar. And Ben just did like, Spielberg face. And I felt like he was on the verge of crying. And then just kind of maybe without breaking eye contact from the screen, leaned over to me and said, that's a lot of bones.

[David Sims]

So many bones. But oh, my God, to see them, it's just. It's just. It's so moving.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's moving.

[David Sims]

It's so moving.

[Griffin Newman]

It. That's why it rocks. Yeah, the. The Route 1 take, obviously, is like mountain of skulls.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Cool iconography news, though.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You know, or also just cool visual idea. It's sure prominent in the marketing. It's like the centerpiece of most of the posters. The trailer, which, like, kind of broke YouTube records. This trailer, like, wildly.

[David Sims]

I just want to shout out. Someone sent us a DM on Instagram after I posted a story on our account from the screening saying that they're a listener and they helped cut the trailer.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, the trailer was so good that Boyle put that, you know, piece of the radio, whatever you want to call it, the broadcast of the Rudyard Kipling poem in the movie because of the trailer.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, interesting. It wasn't in the Movie that rocks.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, let's just put it in, like. Because that whole sequence in the movie where it's in there is just kind of him being like, well, I loved the vibe. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's the interesting thing is that the trailer was. Forgive me for being a little lofty here. Kind of just like a tone poem. Like, people were jamming on it. But when we sat down in the theater, I realized right as the lights.

[Griffin Newman]

Went out, this is about.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I actually don't know. I know the 3 title.

[Griffin Newman]

I knew there was. The one thing I knew was there was like, a colony on an island.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And as good as the trailer was, I was not like. And rewatching the trailer going like, I wonder what this is. I, like, let it wash over me. And I was like, yeah, it looks cool. And then I sit down and I'm like, I know finds Taylor Johnson and Jodie Comer in this. I know Killian isn't. And I know Bones are involved. I actually don't know how this is going to play out. And it is a movie that is, like, kind of unconventionally plotted. And I kept every 15 minutes going like, I actually don't know what the spine of this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

What's the next act?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. I do think that's part of. Maybe they're like, embargo fear.

[David Sims]

This is what I was going to get at. That is when we were trying to figure out why they held the embargo for so long. It was it because they didn't want people to know that the main character of the movie was an unknown.

[Griffin Newman]

I think there's some spoiler fear.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It.

[Griffin Newman]

Studios can kind of talk themselves out of building buzz for a movie with that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There are no, like, crazy twists in this movie, but it is a movie that kind of plays off you being like, I don't know where this is going.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. So I sort of get that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I like. Right. That feeling of, like, not only is the marketing not telling you that the little boy is the main character, the movie starts and you're not sure if he's the main character. He's certainly central, but by the end of the movie, he is the guy.

[David Sims]

I. I was like, 90% sure as we were watching the first third of the movie that we would never go back to the island again, that it would just be like a survival thing with Aaron Taylor Johnson and. And. And the little boy. And Jody Comer would. I don't know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I found this whole aspect of it thrilling. I'm watching it going like, I don't know where this is going, I don't understand, like, exactly what the utility of all these characters are. Yet the world building is so incredible, which is a thing where I'm just like, sims must be buzzing.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's also a salute to garlic. Well, we have a lot to talk about here, but I just think Garland is so good at that stuff, this movie. So I was talking to a friend of the show, Chris Ryan, past and future guest. Is. He texted me, being like, you've seen it, right? We gotta talk about it. And we were both saying, like, Garland as writer for hire, essentially. I've missed it a little bit. I like what he does.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Same.

[Griffin Newman]

He's doing interesting stuff.

[David Sims]

I was mad at him, but I.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of like putting some genre guardrails around the guy and being like, you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Can still be weird.

[David Sims]

I'm just gonna say it, like, there's some deeply disturbing shit in the text of this movie. And I feel like Danny Boyle does bring, like, a sensitivity and a heart.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. There's an emotional.

[David Sims]

Emotional filmmaker, which Garland doesn't do. And that's what I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Garland has a very bleak, dim and bleak view of you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Clinical.

[Griffin Newman]

He's very clinical.

[David Sims]

I feel like you gotta. You gotta meet somewhere.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree, but that's why I'm like, look, Garland, when he's doing his own thing, it's a totally different vibe. And that's fine. Hey, I support.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We like it.

[Griffin Newman]

I think that, you know, privileged British guys who grew up in a lot with a lot of culture around them should be making movies all the time. No, I do like movies a lot. And. But then it. Right. It's so interesting to see this former collaborator of his taking on one of his works again. And you're like, right, this was a secret sauce for a reason. Like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And by the way, like, this movie starts, it's 28 years later. It doesn't spend time holding your hand and explaining to you what's happened in between. I think it's very elegantly.

[Griffin Newman]

It does. It gives you what you need to know over the course of the movie. Very, very well.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But is my favorite kind of like, commercial filmmaking, where it's like, it trusts the audience to be like, we're going to show you stuff and let you fill in the blanks. And you can fill in the blanks really clearly. Right. But there's no fudgeing info dump.

[David Sims]

No, but we do. But I do want to say we don't start on 28 years later. We do have the prologue.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which we need to talk about.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll talk about it. We'll talk about.

[David Sims]

No, because we need to talk about. Okay, do the joke. And then we have to go in.

[Griffin Newman]

Go to an aircraft carrier, though, and write down, like, give an envelope that had like the 1st of November 2002 written down on it. You know what I mean? And they open it and it says.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That information is the death of emotion. I mean, this, this is my case is this movie just hits the ground running and you're filling in the gaps and the things you don't have immediate answers to are engaging where you're trying to suss out like, so what is happening here? I think the core animating idea in this movie, which is so obvious, but I didn't think about it even when it was announced, is like, if it's been 28 years later, this means that, like, this is set in a world in which we didn't solve the problem, but we have figured out a way to rebuild culture around it. Right.

[David Sims]

The idea that we're live with it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That we're building this movie around a little boy and you're like, this is the second generation of children to be born. Born into this world.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You start the movie with a prologue set basically concurrent with the first film. That is kids who are experiencing the rage virus overtake. And then you jump ahead 28 years and here's a little kid who like, theoretically is the children of the children.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I guess. Like, how old is ATJ? Mr.

[David Sims]

I think he and I are the. Around the same age.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They're young parents. I mean.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, I know, I know, but. Right. So it would be like, if you think.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, maybe they're playing younger or maybe they're playing people who were five when the rage.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I'm saying. If Aaron Daler Johnson is playing his age, he's playing someone who's about 10, 11 and. Right. And so he did live life before the apocalypse, but only a little.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. They're like the Teletubby kids.

[David Sims]

Yeah. So they sure are so telly.

[Griffin Newman]

And every weeks also begins in the same. Like every movie in this series has begun with a vision of the apocalypse and then cut to black and then 28 blahs.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I also, I just found it like in, in our weird world and the weird years that we've lived through, right? When people go like in a post pandemic and people go like, we're still in the pandemic.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, right, that sounds like a Teletubby noise.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's what this movie is of just like something seismic happens. There's no actual hard end point to it.

[Griffin Newman]

It.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We start to figure out, like, what is the balance of like, what aspects of life can we bring back and what has changed us forever, you know, and like this movie just drops you into that and you're looking at all of what's happening, the things the characters are doing, the actual way the landscape reads on camera and you're going like, oh, so this, they must have made this decision 10 years ago. This stuff that just animates the brain.

[David Sims]

It's. It's a movie about how to live with death and pain and tragedy surrounding you and how you. The ways in which you can. You can build a life around it. You can resort to violence, you can resort to like, like militarism and so like, what happens? Or you can result. Resort to what? To bone temples.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's almost like a post post apocalyptic movie, right? Yeah, it's like, okay, so like societal collapse happens and then rebuilds, you know, and we're like starting this movie in the reset. And when you realize that's the landscape and that the movie's not going to explain it all, you're like, I totally get why they said, hey, we got three movies ready to go because there's so much you can do here. And this movie kind of focuses on one central emotional story that is a good prism for that as its spine. But as we said, it doesn't even touch on Cillian Murphy at the end. It tees up a whole nother idea of things where you're like, right, of course this would happen too. I think we all think it's quite a good film.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's a total triumph. I love this movie. I really like it for all the story stuff that you're talking about, but it also just looks so interesting and cool and it's like, again, the Danny Boyle thing, which was slightly absent in yesterday. We all felt a little thrown by yesterday, but generally his whole thing of, okay, I want to think about a million cool ways to depict all this stuff that you're giving me. Right? Like, I'm not just gonna do, you know, whatever. Whatever is expected of a zombie movie. I want to, like, flip, you know, the visuals as much as I can.

[David Sims]

The colors are so vivid.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, and that crazy motherfucker Anthony Dodd mantle.

[David Sims]

Oh my God. Fucking Dodd mantle, man. Like, whoa.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This movie was exclusively shot on iPhones, which I find so well with.

[Griffin Newman]

Although they say like with lenses and rigs and.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right, but the. But the base of it is all iPhones. And of course, like 28 years or 28 days is one of the original.

[David Sims]

Like, films on a potato, right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Filmed on a potato. Movies that look so bad now. It's so funny. They announced a 4K steel book, and I'm like, what is that going to be?

[Griffin Newman]

But looking bad, as we talked about on that episode, it's so part of. It's a value start of that movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But even that shift of, like, at the time, the aesthetic experiment was film on the worst thing possible. And now, quote, unquote, the worst thing possible looks so good.

[David Sims]

Looks better than like 90% of bigger.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Budget digitally shot colors in this movie alone. You're like, what is the excuse for movies that are shot on, like the fucking most expensive cameras in the world, all looking like fucking wet concrete? And this is like a movie that's like set in the post apocalypse. And you and I were just outside that. They're being like, the greens.

[David Sims]

The greens, yellows, the reds, the blues. My God, it's. It's so beautiful.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But there was this. It went viral. But this image from filming of this insane rig they made where they surrounded one of the zombies.

[Griffin Newman]

This sort of. It's sort of like a budget bullet time.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ben was like, what was that? And I was like, it's like broken bullet time on purpose.

[Ben Hosley]

Because it's very choppy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, well, because the idea of bullet time, obviously, is like they're in a green screen and they have a million cameras that could takes a picture of every single.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's so controlled and fluid. And then you also slow it down.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but this was like, right? If we basically just like take two pictures, you know, in a chain, the skipping is also so cool. It felt like a Mortal Kombat feature.

[David Sims]

It felt like video. It felt like video games, but it didn't feel like the Last of Us is a video game. It felt like when they do that scene in the beach where he becomes like, isn't there like a moment in the beach where it's like a video game style? Like Leonardo DiCaprio is like running the beach.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I thought you were talking about. Yes, yes.

[David Sims]

No, like, then it's very like Game Boy. Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Fury video game inspired to me. And I. I think that's a thing to talk about at some point. But yes, like, that feels like. And Ben was like, what was. What was that? And I'm just like, Danny Paul's like 65 now.

[Griffin Newman]

I can look it up.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Who else, like, works at his level and is actually 68.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yo.

[Griffin Newman]

Bastard. But like, he's still like getting cool music and. Right. Like finding new visual tricks.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But also not just visual tricks. But it feels like every time, maybe save Yesterday, he's going like, why are we limited to like a set language? Why are we trying to like discover.

[David Sims]

Way we can do this, break things.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And remake things and like explore. Like, it always just feels like he's exploring.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. New boundaries and also, you know, to defend him on Yesterday or whatever. Like, DOD Mantle didn't even shoot that movie. And I'm sure he wasn't like, I need to. Right. Put the camera in a blender for this one.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

For all my problems with that movie, that movie looks great.

[Griffin Newman]

It's fine. It's just. It's also just not a movie where you need it to look a little more straightforward.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's a work with a Richard Curtis.

[Griffin Newman]

And then T2 train spotting. Honestly, I remember having some cool like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ideas that has some great stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The ending shot in particular is unbelievable.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right. But. But it's still a more muted. Obviously.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's also riffing on a kind of visual and editing language that he created.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. He's returning.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like this is him being like, look, if I'm gonna do another 28 days later. That movie was so visually challenging. And I was trying, like, I can't just. I gotta try stuff again. And I can't just do like weird DV grain, you know, like I did last time. Because that would feel like TV grain was like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, this makes it feel apocalyptic making a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then this is like in a way that syncs up with the themes of the movie. Like society has moved on, nature has. The consumer camera is now good enough to actually shoot a movie on. That doesn't look like potato.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. But also it's like a movie where like they're going back to the mainland and it's like there aren't people here anymore. It's beautiful and like we. And scary. Little scary. But like, I want to capture the beauty of like this like apocalypse of like. Yeah, people are gone.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But this almost sort of might look nice. Video game structure.

[Griffin Newman]

Occasional.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. The only sort of title card table setting happens at the very beginning where they say like they quarantine the mainland. People have built, rebuilt sort of societies on the fringes. It is this weird sort of modern day medieval sort of like small village, like feudality. Yes, yes. Without like totally losing all our trappings here. The kid still lives in a house with a bedroom that has posters on the wall and Power Rangers action figures. All.

[Griffin Newman]

All of that stuff is frozen right in the. Right in the late 90s, right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's inheriting, right. And. And also, like, Boyle is cutting in these comparison points. He's showing you footage of, like, depictions of medieval culture and movies, right?

[Griffin Newman]

That. The Henry V stuff that we've like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Kind of gone tribal a little bit. And basically there is this video game structure to society, which is like the quarantined area. Like our. Our children age to a point where they can graduate, where they can elect to say, basically, I want to enter the battlefield and it's kind of like mowing the lawn, right? These people go past the gates with bows and arrows and just try to see if they can knock down some zombies.

[Griffin Newman]

And also, you guys would know this, but essentially where they are is Lindisfarne.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is what I need. I need you to break.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is like a tourist place in Britain. It's a. It's called Holy island, which in, like, I think they show you on a map that it's Holy Island. But, like, I think they tried and it's not really Lindisfarne. I do think they shot at least some on the island. On the actual place. They shot it all in the north of England, like, where it's set, Northumberland. But like, that is this weird fucking tidal island off the coast with a causeway that you can only access it every so often. And famously, cars are always getting. Because there's a road you can drive down, but then cars will get stuck. Stuck, and they have to go rescue the cars. And it's funny and like, it is that, like it's hearkening to. I feel like what Garland is clearly interested in what you're talking about. That, like, return to like, feudal British British life where it's like we have a fortress. We're on an island. Britain's like an island nation.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And there is that kind of like sturdiness to like, old Brit, you know, where it's just like, nobody could fucking come here because, like, it's hard to get here. Get all your shit here. The last guys who did it, it happened in 1066 and it never happened again. Did happen in 10.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Here's the other thing and I. We don't need to talk about this for long. But my.

[Griffin Newman]

No. So the Vikings came before them. The Vikings would come all the time. And for a while, if you might like this, most of Britain was under Viking control and it was called the Dane Law, like that part of Britain. But then The Normans came and drove the Vikings away. The Normans are the last to invade. They're from, like, the north of France.

[David Sims]

What about the Goths?

[Griffin Newman]

The Goths were fucking up the rest of Europe, but they never set their sights on Britain.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

No, they fucked up.

[Ben Hosley]

They came back around when, like, you know, Susie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then Hot Topic kind of gave them, like, a safe haven.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Kind of, like, corporatized it. Made it a little bland. Right. It's an old Mulaney joke of, like, you think they wake up in the morning so bummed out because, like, I gotta put all that shit on my face.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What I was gonna say is this movie, in, in the way the great movies do, kind of make you start thinking about a ton of other things, right? They just sort of, like, launch off different streams of thought.

[Griffin Newman]

I, I.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Something was coalescing while watching this of, like, and I'm, I'm not gonna harp on this. Just let me say this for, like, four sentences.

[Griffin Newman]

He's gonna harp on it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There's something in the, like, gotta harp out the messaging of all the weird, like, grifter manosphere.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, my God.

[David Sims]

What?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Let me say this for four sentences.

[David Sims]

Wait, where. How do we.

[Griffin Newman]

This is my egg.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That is about, like, do you have.

[David Sims]

Room for me in. Your egg?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Is about, like, we gotta reset. We gotta get back to our programming, right? Like this, like, Paleo diets. And, like, we need to eat the.

[David Sims]

Way the caveman just explained. Return with a V to you before we got.

[Griffin Newman]

It's funny that you didn't know that one.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, but this is what I'm saying. And, like, the, the obsession with the fall of Rome, Right? And this idea that we've, like, lost our programming and whatever. This movie is kind of going like, okay, like, is this what you guys want? I don't think, I don't think it's a retort. I don't think it's a retort, but you know what I'm saying. I do. I know there is this weird obsession, and I think we're stuck in this time that is very much about, like.

[Griffin Newman]

You'Re beyond four sentences.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm going off into a slight side tangent off of this. Are we, like, living on the precipice of, like, the end of existence, which we've been talking about, like, the Y2K can and having that kind of feeling. Right? And there's this other sort of version of it now, which this movie is just like, okay, here's, like, if things actually collapse, here's what it's like, like two decades later, we have to, like, incorporate, like, feudal England into our daily routine while also having, like, pub hooliganism.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, indeed, yes. I don't think there's no Roman Empire shit here, though.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Nostalgia is for. Right. For medieval Britain. Not in some kind of we need a king way.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

But more in that kind of like. Yeah. The land and the sea.

[David Sims]

And isn't this also, like a Brexit thing too?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, for sake. Is it? Oh, God.

[David Sims]

Well, it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you mean?

[David Sims]

Well, just the whole.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you mean? Like, the whole of Europe does kind of want to draw a line or be like, don't go there.

[David Sims]

This sort of return to, like, British, like, British nationalism and, like, a specific identity. And, like. But I don't think that that is necessary.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie is not about a national identity.

[David Sims]

I don't think it's. Well, I don't think it's explicitly about a national identity in that, like, I think there are. There are illusions to nationalism. The fact that they still have the portrait of the Queen up, which I thought was kind of a funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, but that's one of the many gags Garland's getting at that you're not clocking until the final gag as a Brit of like, right, time stopped in 2002. Yes. Not now.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We're in an alternate timeline.

[David Sims]

Yes. Right. And I also think now, did the.

[Griffin Newman]

Queen get the rage virus she had to have.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Wow.

[David Sims]

But I also like.

[Griffin Newman]

She ate the corgis. Oh.

[David Sims]

No. I also like the sort of the. The long history of, like, British folk horror.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Which. Which Garland is obviously so interested by. And men is so interested in the Green man and stuff like that.

[David Sims]

So, like, you had the. Some of the aspects of. Of this new island society do feel like the masks. It does seem very ritual based, which is. Which to me feels like it's part of, like, that lineage, but also this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sense of ritual of, like, when you are a teenager, if you feel up to it, they go like, okay, you fucking practice your aim long enough, you can try to go take down some fucking zombies. And they give this very bracing speech where they're like, you get what the rules are. Right. If you fall, no one comes back to rescue you. We lost too many people that way. When you walk past this point, you understand that you are ostensibly fending for yourself.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's like you're climbing Everest or whatever, where it's like, look, you'll probably come back, but we're not going to come get You.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But. But it's like, you know, it's a version of, like, a draft. It's a version of a. Like, you know, cultures that didn't allow youth to have a youth where they're like, at some point, we've just decided, like, you're a man now and you gotta solve the problem, and we're throwing you at it as a body.

[Ben Hosley]

It made me think of walkabout.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure, walkabout. Any. Any kind of. Right. Teenage sort of ancient ritual of, like, now this is how you become a man is a vision. Live by yourself for a month or you go into the wilderness or.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, it's all of that, but combined with this, like. And by the way, this is life and death stakes. You know, there being this weird sport to it, because as we've said, it's like, the thing is contained. Right? They're doing this. Like, you. You have to question how much for fun, how much for pride, how much for identity, and how much do they still kind of believe 28 years later? Okay, if we keep chipping away at this, maybe in 50 years, they're all gone. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no, I don't think so. I mean, I don't think so. No. No one on the island. No one in this movie talks about, like, way back to Britain. They're like, we live on our island.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The first movie ends with the notion that the zombies will starve. They mention this, like that. That, like, if we just kind of wait long enough, we can starve them out and, you know, stop whatever the pandemic is, whatever the virus is. And Boyle has had to obviously, with this, be clear, like, no, they figured out ways to survive. They eat worms and shit.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sure. But also us trying to kill them means that we're constantly feeding them. Yeah, but not in the numbers.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, there's not too many people left. I mean, the implication you get, and we'll see what these future movies have, is that, like, the most there is are these little town towns, right? Like, he's like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's like hamlets, the extent of civilization that are isolated.

[Griffin Newman]

And if someone from Europe shows up. Justin. Well, the rest of Europe is still going.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

They're basically the only place that is.

[David Sims]

Still dealing with these conditions that turn.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Back, that reset the clock, basically. Yeah.

[David Sims]

David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We did a live show. No, on stage.

[Griffin Newman]

You're right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I swear to you, it's true.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Ben Hosley]

We celebrated King Ralph.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

An audience with His Majesty.

[Griffin Newman]

Two fans, two people who are like, I was. Okay, Spoiler alert for the show.

[Ben Hosley]

But it was fun.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It was a good show. Let's be clear. You were doing an impression of people reacting to the movie King Ralph, not to our show. Because here's my impression of the audience reacting to our show in real time. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good. And right now, you, the listener. Here's my impression of you. Fomo. Fomo. Wish I could have been there.

[Griffin Newman]

Bent over in pain, my ribs untickled.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We have news for you.

[Griffin Newman]

Me Dickling.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It sounded like you said dickling. My news for you, the fomo. Er, yep. Is that we filmed this show.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, we did.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Professional crew, multi cameras running around, edited.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. We're working with the new company called Stage Pilot and I think we've really upped our game as far as production.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think value goes. I think this is gonna be a great, good video that we are offering up as a vod.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, that's a video that has been demanded.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It has. We are responding to your demand. Ben, can you drop some of the details here?

[Ben Hosley]

VOD will be premiering on June 26th at 8pm Eastern Standard Time.

[Griffin Newman]

And that folks is a Thursday.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is indeed the devil's day.

[Ben Hosley]

The cost will be $15.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But Ben, is this a one night only streaming event?

[Ben Hosley]

No, of course not. It will be available to view and purchase for two months.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You got two month window so closes.

[Ben Hosley]

Out on August 24th. Can watch it unlimited times within that window.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Absolutely. You can goon. Goon our live show until your heart's content put on multiple devices. Goon it.

[Ben Hosley]

So you just can go to stream blank checkpod.com need to get your tickets.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Some exclusive merch offers available there as well. You can get some bundles or some a la carte items.

[Ben Hosley]

We have some limited edition King Ralph inspired merch.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Might resemble a certain Regal hamburger logo.

[Griffin Newman]

How dare you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, we have a poster designed by Nakatomi.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

As well as some Joe Bowen design hats, T shirts and stickers.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's great stuff and let's say honestly, I think we were very proud of how this show turned out. It was a lot of fun music. Dare I admit it? Bits, including one prominent bit that was perhaps unretired for one night only.

[Griffin Newman]

One night.

[Ben Hosley]

We are a family once again. The VOD premiere is June 26th at 8pm Eastern Standard Time. And actually Griffin Newman will be live in the chat.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Did I agree to that?

[Ben Hosley]

You sure did.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, well, well.

[Ben Hosley]

So you can watch along with Griffin Newman and maybe some surprise guests I might join.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Go on.

[Griffin Newman]

Not me. Maybe I will.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't know.

[Ben Hosley]

Please get your tickets now and enjoy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Please enjoy. This movie opens with the Sony Pictures logo and the familiar sounds of the Teletubbies theme song. A moment where I just immediately went for, this thing's gonna be dancing in David's brain already. Boyle is doing the like, what is British culture and what is our relationship to it?

[David Sims]

Please give me your interpretation of the Teletubbies.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then we have this prologue where a bunch of children are told by their parents, like, just sit here and watch this Teletubbies. It is like a really insightful kind of like a scene we didn't get in the previous two films. But like, yeah, if you have kids that small where they can't really wrap their heads around what they're doing, you put all the kids in a room, you go, like, just watch the T show.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't. Doesn't 28 weeks have.

[David Sims]

28 weeks has kids.

[Griffin Newman]

And then that whole opening weeks is so disturbing too. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Because it's like when they run to the boat.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But no, this is very distressing. But indeed, I do think Garland and Boyle maybe, you know, pick Teletubbies for a reason. One, it's period appropriate. But two, Teletubby just is post apocalyptic. I'm not the only person to have this interpretation.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is like these weird creatures have built some new society on the. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Or something. They feel like radioactive creatures because they. They're colorful. They live in a bunker. Right. Like their home is.

[David Sims]

Their tummies are tv.

[Griffin Newman]

Their tummies are television. So they've got this sort of like cyborg like, energy to them. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Best friend is like a mutated vacuum cleaner.

[Griffin Newman]

That's. That's what I love about Teletubbies is that there's no one here, but there's a voice like, that comes through the tubes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And there's a face in the sky.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So there's this sort of sense of, like, friendly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Something happened to Earth.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And we all left. But we're sort of monitoring this weird situation, trying to grow new people maybe.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Is like a beautiful post apocalyptic landscape. You're like, right, this is the brightest sun.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And the greenest grass.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they get these. You know, part of Teletubbies is that they watch videos on their tummies that are of real kids, but it feels.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like transmissions from the past.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. And that's what's so. And then, of course, and they eat goo and pancakes. You know, they eat this like, sort of what feels like, you know, kind of bunker food. Anyway. It's all great. Naughty Noo Noo, of course, is their friend, the vacuum cleaner.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I forgot that was his name.

[Griffin Newman]

Naughty Noo Noo. I remember when Teletubbies debuted in Britain, I was saying this to Marie. You know, Teletubbies, is this like 97 or 97 designed by child psychologists where they're like, let's make a show that actually speaks toddler language rather than like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Pre K. It's one of those shows for when it aired, every grown up who didn't have kids was like, what the is this? And the media had a field day making jokes about how bizarre it was. And then you put any kid in front of it or even turn on a TV with a kid four rooms away. And like a magnet, it was just like, this is speaking directly to my brain.

[Griffin Newman]

I will say I put it on for my daughter once and she did not respond to it very strongly. And my wife was like, turn this off, it's disturbing me. Which I understood. Like, it is a bit odd. I was obsessed with it when I was 11, when it arrived for the, you know, this kind of like, what the is this?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sister Romley was born in 98, I think. It maybe doesn't start airing on.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Probably until 98 or 99. But I would absolutely watch it with her because I was fascinated by how strange.

[Griffin Newman]

And obviously there were the dumb social controversies that emerged from it. But the first controversy was more the kind of thing of like, should children even be watching TV at this age?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because it's sort of what it's advancing is this indoctrination.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, shouldn't getting them addicted to the.

[Griffin Newman]

Screen be in front of a screen at all? Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And it's like a show about screen tummy creatures.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. And it's also very boring to watch because they repeat everything and you're like, why do they repeat everything? Again, the child psychologists were like, you know, toddlers like repetition. Tag yourself. I said to Marie, who are you? I know who you are, but tag yourself Marie. Marie's obviously Lala. That one is not in dispute.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay. You said you got stuck on me. I'm curious to hear how so.

[Griffin Newman]

I am. I feel like unfortunately or fortunately also, I'm very obvious.

[David Sims]

100% Tinky Wink.

[Griffin Newman]

That's not. Those two are not tough. But so then we had.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think I'm Po.

[Griffin Newman]

We agree that you're Po.

[David Sims]

And Ben is obviously dipsy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. So I don't understand what the confusion was.

[David Sims]

Dipsy.

[Ben Hosley]

What's Dipsy?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Tipsy Dipsy's.

[Griffin Newman]

Green.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Pow.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, they all have a thing. And Dipsy's thing is that he has a. A hat that's a cow print. Like a sort of look him up.

[David Sims]

You look so sexy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Dipsy's into fashion.

[Griffin Newman]

Dipsy's fairly extra. Like, tends to have a lot of. And so I was like, dipsy's performative.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Dipsy's got, like, the curly cute.

[Griffin Newman]

No, Dipsy's got a straight point.

[David Sims]

So the thing about Dipsy is, like, if I'm thinking, like, lala is curly, which one of these fucking poets circle would be a sex skateboarder? For me, that is Dipsy. Dipsy would be this, like, the skateboarder. Lala is like, the little.

[Griffin Newman]

Po is the baby.

[David Sims]

Po is baby. But he also is kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a little girl.

[David Sims]

Po is like the center of. And also, we were like, po can't do things. You can't drive.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. Po can't drive, Right?

[David Sims]

Definitely can't drive.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I think Po has a scooter.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Well, we all know Griffin did have a scooter.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I was into scooters and the inline skates.

[Griffin Newman]

Po's favorite object is her scooter, which, of course, she calls Po Cooter.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That makes sense.

[David Sims]

And Ben, are you looking at Dipsy now?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I like his hat.

[Griffin Newman]

His hat's good. I mean, his hat's good. The only thing with Dipsey, I will say, and I will acknowledge this for all listeners, is Dipsy is black. Like, Dipsey's skin is darker.

[David Sims]

Wait, Dipsey's black?

[Griffin Newman]

And Po is sort of Asian. Like, they. They made what? I'm sorry. To blow everyone's mind. They made some effort to acknowledge racial diversity when they created the characters, which is funny because they are aliens.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna say it's one of those things where you're like, huh? But it's very. When you watch it, you're like, yes, Dipsy has darker skin.

[David Sims]

I thought he was just tan.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. They have.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They have different tones. I think to say they are black and Asian is to imply that they can look this up, abide by our, like, society.

[Griffin Newman]

That race, the construct of race. Right. Has made it to the Teletubby world.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I just don't.

[David Sims]

The creators of Teletubby have stated the Dipsy as black. I had no idea.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. This. It was. You know, again, they're like, we want this to reflect the kids are watching, you know, for them to see things. Yada, yada, yada. I'm obviously tinky winky. Who's an absolute unit, who is also a little fabulous, I suppose.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And do you remember the Tinky Winky controversy, Ben Handbag, I kind of recall.

[Ben Hosley]

Please refresh my memory.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Jerry Falwell was like, tinky Winky is gay. He carries a handbag.

[Griffin Newman]

He also. He wears a dress sometimes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He wears a dress, yeah. And did they. Did they have a problem with the triangle? Did they.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, some people thought the triangle was. And the purple coloring was subtle coating.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, the purple, yes. But I'm trying to remember what they read.

[Griffin Newman]

The triangle, I think is a sign.

[David Sims]

The pink. Pink triangle is always Okay. A sign of.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They were just. Basically every part of Tinky Winky is indoctrination.

[Griffin Newman]

Lala's object, of course, is a ball. I just want to point that out. Big ball. You like a big ball. Who doesn't?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is a clean tag yourself, I gotta say.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's pretty clean.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I think we were just unsure if you would recognize that.

[Griffin Newman]

But also Lala and Lala and Tikiwinki were layups that like a child could do. It was just a little bit more.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You know, also lay up dipsy and pow. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, the opening scene's quite distressing. Now, I don't know if you guys agree, but I'm pretty sure the blond child we see in this opening scene is Jack o' Connell. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because of the crosscutters.

[Griffin Newman]

And so initially, of course, I'm watching the scene being like, okay, I guess this is this the origin of one of the characters we're going to spend time with.

[David Sims]

Aaron Taylor Johnson.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I assumed it was Aaron Taylor Johnson, but it's basically a standalone coda that does not tie directly back into anything until the final scene, which is the tee up.

[Griffin Newman]

But it does have this culty overtone when he goes to see the priest.

[David Sims]

Which is his father.

[Griffin Newman]

I wasn't sure about.

[Ben Hosley]

I think it says father, but of.

[Griffin Newman]

Course, one does address a priestess father.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I read it as also being his dad.

[Griffin Newman]

I did too. But then I was second guessing myself. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then the fact that it's a.

[Griffin Newman]

Little chaotic movie doesn't give you clearance.

[David Sims]

The fact that the guy is like really excited about being, you know, mauled to death by rage because he's basically.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, this is God's will. If this is happening, it's because that's crazy, man.

[Ben Hosley]

And then he immediately turns and you're like, what a waste. What a stupid thing you just did.

[David Sims]

No, they all. But that's the thing about the Rage virus. It gets you within seconds, which is why it doesn't spread beyond.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You turn fast, but also then you get to run fast and you get to hang dong.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, if you're very lucky, we get.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Out of this movie, we turn our phones back on, and our thumbs are catching on fire. Texting the doughboys going 28 years later is maybe the hog movie of the decade. And I can't believe we've gone this long without calling it out.

[Griffin Newman]

This is swinging some sledgehammers, you know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Wide release studio picture.

[Griffin Newman]

True. Weird British studio picture, but you're.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There are some absolute units flapping around.

[David Sims]

At one point, I went to David. I was like, forearm. Yeah, forearm. And then I did this. I did this last.

[Ben Hosley]

Big boy. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I also. I said. As always, I said, by the way, sneaky sack movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, no, sure. You're right. You. You spend so much time thinking about the dicks, but there's that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And there's even a couple shots where Boyle's doing some weird camera angles, and you're just like. You're really gonna just let the sack get that close to the lens?

[David Sims]

Do you guys know about Scrotox?

[Griffin Newman]

So is that getting Botox in your.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ball, much like the world building of 20 years later? I don't know about it, but I can start to fill in the gaps with the information I've been given.

[David Sims]

Apparently, someone on this. This Bravo show the Valley, why would.

[Griffin Newman]

You want to smooth out wrinkles? You don't want unwrinkled socks. That's gonna look weird, worse.

[David Sims]

So I thought scrotox. So someone on this reality show got this procedure, which is Botox for your balls, and I thought it was to remove the wrinkles.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So the balls are for the sack?

[David Sims]

I guess. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

It's for the sack. For the scrotum.

[David Sims]

For the scrotum. But it's not just about the wrinkles. It's about keeping them hanging low.

[Griffin Newman]

Why would you want to. Okay, whatever. Wait.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's a temperature control.

[Ben Hosley]

That's gravity.

[Griffin Newman]

That's. It's gravity, but it's also your. Your body heat. You know, if you're like. You know, if you're warmer, they get.

[David Sims]

You get. Women get Botox in their underarms so they don't sweat. I think this just paralyzes the scrote, so it doesn't suck up as much, because I think people find that, like, apparently, it's an aesthetic thing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay, I'm taking out the gavel, and my ruling is, all of this sucks.

[David Sims]

You're not pro Scrotox.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm not mad at you for bringing it to our attention, but I'm mad at it for being the last thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Three or four months. So you gotta keep going back.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Great.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So three times a year I get someone injecting my ball. Sounds worth it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an outpatient procedure according to Health Healthline here.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. And I bet when you walk out, that's a clean walk with zero irritation. I'm glad they don't keep you overnight.

[Griffin Newman]

Because it takes anywhere from two to.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Four rinsing out of there.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

They do recommend that you call a variety of licensed, reputable providers before you get your screw talks done to compare costs. You don't want to just take the first price you're given. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Does Wirecutter have screw talks recommendations? Because it's not just like, go for the cheapest. It just depends on what you want out of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you see Men?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you like it?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. You know what I. I didn't see?

[Griffin Newman]

Remember when he made a movie called Men?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I do.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone was so normal.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I liked it. Okay. I mean, I. I'm like. The thing with Garland is, even when he doesn't totally hit for me, I find the ideas so provocative. And I do think he's become a very good visual stylist. And I'm like, that movie feels a little bit. It has a little bit of Twilight Zone syndrome to me. But also, he's throwing enough in there that it doesn't feel like it's just stalling. One idea, like Twilight Zone syndrome is.

[David Sims]

This is something that can fill 30 minutes of TV, but. Yeah, yeah, okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, yeah. And I think most bad Twilight Zone syndrome movies just stall for time and get you stuck in a middle. Right. And Men, he's just like, well, here's my core animating idea. And that's basically a short story.

[Griffin Newman]

Where was Angus T. Jones films Two.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And a Half Men? The movie's not called Half Men.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's a. It's a.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's called Men.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a sequel. It's. It's set one and a half entries before the sitcom.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And you might remember that Ashton Kutcher, John Cryer and Charlie Sheen all had prominent roles in the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Man.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Angus T. Jones was on the sidelines. I like that movie. All right.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm thinking about it. I mean, some of it I. I really loved. I was thinking about the folklore thing that you said, because that movie has the Green man, which is similar, right? Like, kind of like, let's. Let's think about Britain Even before the Normans came here. Right. Like, think about, like, kind of Celtic Britain. And it has the shield and the gigs.

[David Sims]

I'm so into that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I know. He's into it too. And I'm into it. And I'm going to start a manosphere podcast where I'm like, specifically Kel Stonehenge. Shit. We need that. That's the route to masculinity or whatever. This is the thing, which, again, this movie doesn't have too much of that. But the bone temple stuff, the third act stuff, has a strand of that in its DNA. Although I also think it has this strand of, like, essentially Ray finds doing, like, public art. Right. Like the angel of the north, which is a big.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Just to be clear, I don't think this movie is commenting on manosphere. Watching this movie made me think about the manosphere in a different way, where I'm like, is there this core underlying thing that there is this feeling that existence has become overwhelming and unmanageable.

[David Sims]

So you're saying you relate to this now? You're sort of. You're. You're seeing it from their perspective.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm reacting very differently. But there are pockets where I think the core idea is this, like, do we got to get back to something primal? Right. And I think that's out of a panic. And I think this movie is sort of like contending with those same instincts. Not in the same way, but also, guys we see at the end of the movie have a little bit of manosphere energy. Who knows? I don't know. We'll get to them. We'll get to them. We'll get to them.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, Now, Ashton Kutra has one Screen Actors Guild award nomination.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's got one nomination.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Now it's for an ensemble, you know, but even that sort of surprising for.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

For a movie ensemble.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's crazy that they handed this one out. You'll never, ever get it.

[David Sims]

Wait, no, we're gonna get it.

[Griffin Newman]

No, you're not five Razzie nominated.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That makes sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He doesn't have that many movie roles, so I'm like, it's not. Dude, where's my car? It's not the Guardian. It's not. It's not New Year's Eve.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't think it would be Butterfly Effect.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's not Butterfly Effect.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't think it was Butterfly?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's not Steve Jobs.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he's not in that.

[David Sims]

Is it Cheaper by the Dozen?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He is or he's in Jobs.

[Griffin Newman]

In Jobs.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's not Cheaper by The dozen?

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

Is it one of the Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve?

[Griffin Newman]

No. Screen Actors Guild award nomination for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David, is it a he? His role must be small, right?

[Griffin Newman]

It's an ensemble film, I'll tell you that much. I've never seen it, but I believe everyone's role in it is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, oh, oh, I know what it is because it is one of the most absurd SAG ensemble nominations where you're just like, they truly just went. Most ensemble cast.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Isn't it Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is Emilio Estevez's Bobby, is it not?

[David Sims]

Wait, what?

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God, I forgot about Bobby.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

A movie that has 4 trillion actors.

[David Sims]

In it got Lindsay Lohan in it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It does, but that's why I was like, I don't know for a fact that Ashton Kutcher's in it, but he must be in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct. I don't know what his role is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't even.

[David Sims]

Fisher.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Great.

[David Sims]

That's a scary Nick Cannon. And Harry Bella.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Everyone's in that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Scoot McNary, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

He's been nominated for worst actor three times by the Razzies for Jobs in 2011, a combo of killers in Valentine's Day. And in 2004, a triple combo of Butterfly. Nope. Cheaper by the dozen. Just Married and My boss's daughter.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That was sort of the launch.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I kind of. We're sick of you. And then he also got a worse screen couple nod for just Married and my boss's daughter shared with Brittany Murphy and Tara Reid. That also seems rude to me. And he got a worse screen couple nod for what Happens in Vegas. Like, I'm like, none of those movies are that good. But, like, I mean, like, did they hurt anyone's feelings? Like all those dumb Kutcher rom coms. Fine.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We talk about it a lot. The Razzies are super chauvinistic. They. They hate women's movies, and they hate male stars in women's genres. Right? Like, they. They'll slam like, dumb meathead Stallone shit. But the amount of, like, across the board, major nomination films that are romance films, whether drama or comedy, and especially erotic thrillers, they hate.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. They don't like boobs.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Or they like to yell at people for having them or something.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So 28 years.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This movie jumps ahead after the prologue, the little table setting of the quarantine, the one title card.

[David Sims]

I got so excited.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They used the same font 28 years later.

[Griffin Newman]

Good for them. And also. Right. The exact same iconography, though the fade to black.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The movie's building to, like, right, Point of mania. And that just goes quiet. And the title card comes up. And the main structure we're introduced to is this. The small house in a small village on an island where Aaron Taylor Johnson and Jodie Comer are parents to a young boy. He's 12. What's the. The spike.

[David Sims]

Spike is his name. This guy played by Williams or something? Alfie something.

[Griffin Newman]

Alfie Williams.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He has very few credits before this. I've certainly not seen anything.

[David Sims]

No, I think there's no credit. I think this is his debut.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Boyle from.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Newcastle.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sneaky good with child actors.

[David Sims]

So good with it.

[Griffin Newman]

I said to Marie, I was like, millions, baby, millions.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And Slumdog.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Dog, baby.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, how much of Slumdog becoming a fan phenomenon was just that people couldn't believe how good the kid performances were for the first.

[Griffin Newman]

No. The kids are so cute.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. And right. You're sort of slowly filling in the information of this kid is being prepped for some rite of passage which turns out to be, as we said, this sort of like going past the gate, entering the mainland. What do you. What's the. The term for putting the. The quiver. Yeah, sure, whatever. You.

[Griffin Newman]

What did I do?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't know. I just. I'm angry that I didn't have the language.

[David Sims]

Are you an archer, David?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I. I always found it very hard. And, like, I actually appreciated when they have him draw before he goes out and they're like, yeah, you're not wobbling. Because that's the thing when you're a kid. You're like, yeah, it's easy, right? It's a big string. You just go like this and then you pull it. You're like, huh?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is kind of like, make it look like it's a rubber band and you just go, boing.

[David Sims]

I've never shot an arrow.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's kind of hard.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Hurts your hands.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. I think it sucks. And it's for losers.

[Griffin Newman]

Did something happen to you at summer campers? This is screaming.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

My parents made me go to fudgeing sports camp with my brother, and I had to do all this shit and I hated it.

[David Sims]

But I feel like archery is the one where, like, a kid like, you would have a good chance.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, I was bad. I have no fudgeing arm strength.

[Ben Hosley]

I have thrown a bunch of axes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

And I. And that became such a bougie, you know, Brooklyn Bar thing.

[Ben Hosley]

And I, weirdly, was so bachelor party.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you mean?

[David Sims]

Weirdly? I feel like you would be really good at throwing axes.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean. Yeah. I don't know. I took to it immediately.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. That's not surprising at all. Aaron Taylor Johnson's this kid's young dad who this feels like Aaron Taylor Johnson, trying to bridge the gap between. He has. In the past I've talked about him. He is one of the actors I'm most allergic to. And it was always when Aaron Taylor Johnson is playing charming, I shut down. I'm like, fuck off. The last four or five years, it feels like he's really started to lean into being a little bit of a shit bag and being a little greasy, and he's starting to win me over. And this is sort of putting a. Like, he is fundamentally a good dad into a guy who just seems a little too slick, a little brash slick.

[Griffin Newman]

No one's really slick because it's pretty dirty movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But like, I know what you mean in terms of like, his charm or his kind of, like. Yeah, it'll be all right. You know, like, you know that kind of.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's clean.

[David Sims]

He's a lad.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He's a bit of a Jack the Lad. Yes, he's.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I liked him.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree. I think he's good in the movie. I. I generally have just. I turned around on him with Outlaw King, which was the first time. Yeah. Nobody ever did.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The first time he played. What he's doing now. So, like, big beardy guy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Who's like, ra. And then it was like Tenet.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Bullet Train. Which he's.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But he's really good in both of the leech movies. Whatever complaints.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie kind of irritates me. But he's having fun.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think There was another one.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, the other one's Nosferatu.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I also know. Right. Which him.

[David Sims]

And not. He's every. I don't even know how to describe that.

[Griffin Newman]

Oddly cast in that movie. I didn't hate the performance.

[David Sims]

I mean, I. I thought it was really funny.

[Griffin Newman]

It's such a weird part of that movie is that part.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I mean, I'm thrilled at the notion that Craven the Hunter, which, by the way, I don't think he's terrible. And you still have not seen that movie, Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Which one? No, I keep. Mean, it's on HBO.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

40 texts from you. Yeah. It is the kind of bad movie that you're gonna get hyper fixated on a bunch of elements being like. But fuck, Crow's really good.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's What I want to watch. Have you seen, by the way that Crow is playing? Is it. What. Is it Himmler or. No, it's not Himmler. It's some Nazi.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right, okay.

[Griffin Newman]

They're making a Nuremberg movie.

[David Sims]

Great.

[Griffin Newman]

Which. It's like, we've done that. Perfect.

[David Sims]

We've done that a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, exactly. But I believe for this fall, we're getting a new Nuremberg movie. Oh, he's playing, right, Goring. That's what I just said. They're like, russell, we want you to play one of the Nazis on trial. And he was like, was there a husky? Which Nazi? Like to, you know, pound the steins.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I just think that it. Blessing in disguise for everyone, including atj, that Craven the Hunter seems to have killed his Bond hype. And I'm like, that's the worst thing we could do with him at this point in time. He needs to keep the beard. He needs to constantly play characters who are like two pints in the hair needs to be greasy as hell.

[David Sims]

I agree with you that he shouldn't be Bond, but I don't think that him being Bond is out of the question because they. Whatever, whatever watchmaker, like Omega or whatever, just signed him to a thing which is. They're like, this is the way that they.

[Griffin Newman]

People are freaking about. About the Amiga thing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I didn't clock the Omega thing.

[Griffin Newman]

I have. I mean, everyone assumes that now that Bond is fully in the hands of mgm, Amazon, that an announcement's coming soon because they. They picked two, like, huge producers, obviously.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Pascal and Heyman.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. They're very much trying to be like prestige. Like, we are putting our best people on this. You know, it will surprise me if they pick him. I think he's just. Just a horrible choice. Like, I really like bad.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Bad for him.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing. If I'm his agent, I'm like, you better be really sure you want to do this, because it will completely derail everything you've been doing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And it absolutely felt like, hey, maybe you do.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe you want to be a James Bond.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like eight years actively running for it. But it feels like in the. The effort for him, trying to get that part, he ended up identifying what he actually should be doing, which is the polar opposite of Bond.

[Griffin Newman]

Unless James Bond's about to, yeah, be a mad lad pounding pints rather than drinking martinis.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So that's this character, right? The mother is Jody Comer, who is stuck with some sort of mystery illness, is upstairs in bed. She's almost like a Mrs. Haversham, right?

[Griffin Newman]

She's Hot, like, temperature wise, she's somewhat delusional.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She's having magic mood swings.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. She's sort of slipping in time or whatever.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Seems. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

No one in else in the movie is really talking about. Although it does seem like people are aware because there's the older guy who comes and helps.

[David Sims]

That's his grandfather.

[Griffin Newman]

That's her dad, right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, yeah. Who she talks about later in the film. But. But it is like, it's another good idea of like, hey, you know, what would be the situation 20 years at 28 years later, we like have gotten rid of medicine. We've gotten rid of doctors and health care, you know, and like her dad, the grandfather, this elderly man at some later point refers to a character as a gp. And the kid goes, what is that?

[David Sims]

Okay, but I'm stupid. I also general practitioner. I thought it was a military thing. And then they expect.

[Griffin Newman]

In Britain that's what you call your. What do you call it? Primary care physicians.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Call here and in Britain you just call your GP.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I feel like I always say GP.

[Griffin Newman]

I used to work at a GP's office. I was the receptionist.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God. I'm sure you did a great job.

[Griffin Newman]

I think I did fine.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Did you have an accent at that point or did people go like, who the are you?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I always.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're like, hello, doctor's office here.

[Griffin Newman]

That I did talk like the movie Phone Man. It was weird.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, that's how you had to talk on the phone at that point in time.

[Griffin Newman]

People don't know that I was like 17 years old. So I had my silly accent that I had, which was.

[David Sims]

What accent did you have?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You had your.

[Griffin Newman]

I've called it a transatlantic accent.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're Mark Ronson.

[Griffin Newman]

If you want to watch like home videos of me at the time.

[David Sims]

I do.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll find them sometime. But like, you certainly British people thought I had an American accent. I did. I mean, I had largely.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But American people said, why the are you talking like that?

[David Sims]

Did you sound like Madonna?

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I always say. I sounded like Madonna. Like, I just sounded like an English. An American person who just for one, I spoke in so many British idioms. But for two, there is a weird tinge to my voice.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The mother is just kind of like. And as you said, no one really talks about it because, like, the nature of this reality is, well, there's like no way to cure her. We're not gonna like euthanize her. So she's just upstairs. Right. And it basically feels like they're just Sort of like, well, she'll just run her course. There's nothing we can do. We have no answers.

[Griffin Newman]

And I immediately fell for, I think, a trick that the movie's playing of like, I start to wonder like, does she have the rage virus?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Clearly must be connected in slow acting way.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I didn't think she had the rage virus, but I thought, I'll tell you what my actual fear was. Are they setting up some magic blood thing that she, that she is some weird evolution that they will figure out actually within her physical condition contains what.

[David Sims]

They kind of do in 28 weeks later?

[Griffin Newman]

They do. Because in 20 weeks there's the concept of people who are immune or whatever.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Which again, I feel like Boyle and Garland are like, we don't want to deal with.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. But I was like, well, I could see them doing something where they're like, the immunity comes at a great cost. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The immunity is a sickness that takes away from you. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

To spoil this movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's not doing that at all.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, right? This movie, I think it is the crux of what Garland is doing with the movie and Boyle is doing with the movie, which is basically like, people still die in normal ways too. Like, even though the world has ended, she's sick and it's sad and it's a thing the kid has to go through, but it's.

[David Sims]

Remember, you will die.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is the inciting incident, but it.

[Griffin Newman]

Is not some plot magic and it is not some.

[David Sims]

Do you know what I was thinking.

[Griffin Newman]

The whole time or whatever when it.

[David Sims]

Was revealed that she had had cancer.

[Griffin Newman]

Which Marie said to me early on.

[David Sims]

And I was like, she's got cancer.

[Griffin Newman]

She was like.

[David Sims]

You know, when we talked about Mission Impossible, we were talking about Luther and how we didn't like that he just didn't die from being ill. That he had to die in some like, savior esque way that was like connected to the plot versus connected to themes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Which, by the way, I heard that the reason he's sick is because in order to build the poison pill, they have to build that room around him, which is essentially a giant Faraday cage. So him programming the thing that can stop the entity is the thing making.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is a cool idea.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'll talk about that. Put that out of the movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sorry, Marie, finish your point.

[David Sims]

No, no, my point was just like, oh, this, this movie is doing what we wanted the other movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, because it's just, it's. It's telling the whole story through these characters, you know, and is like telling you what they know and not telling them what they don't know and, like, investing you in the same mysteries, like, drive their lives. The. The real inciting incident of this movie is he goes out for this ritualistic first time on the mainland with his dad, which clearly kind of shakes him.

[Griffin Newman]

And I also love that. It's pretty quick.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, we're. We're on the causeway and then getting out of there within 15 minutes of like, all right, baby.

[David Sims]

I thought that was going to be the movie. I did, too.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. They. They get stuck. Happens.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I. And I am thinking, then, what does Jody Comer have to do in this film? Right. I also was sort of like, are they gonna. Brian Cranston. Aaron Taylor Johnson is the movie. I had that thought, too, because they set up the. So much. You can't go back and save people. And, like, the misdirect is, you think, the kid's in danger. His dad's gonna die in the movie.

[David Sims]

It's gonna be, how does he make it back? Yeah, right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's what I was assuming. Instead, what happens is they go on a run. He kills some zombies. He's overwhelmed by some of it.

[Griffin Newman]

A lot of it kills the easy zombie struggles with the scary.

[David Sims]

Zombies are new.

[Griffin Newman]

The idea is that it's been so long that some zombies have gotten fat because they eat so much worm and.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They, like, walk on all fours. They're, like, pretty cool. We also see they're like.

[Griffin Newman]

They're like worms themselves. They're kind of just like writhing on the ground. Right. Like, moving really slowly.

[David Sims]

Look like the whale.

[Griffin Newman]

Look. It's not a. It's not untrue that they kind of.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Look like the whale, but they're also right.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And at no point does the whale in the movie, the whale goes on the ground.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. I just did a perfect impression.

[Griffin Newman]

But just imagine a horizon.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And, David, remind me, how does killer croc swim in the movie Suicide Squad?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't remember the movement. You just like, the faster. Right?

[David Sims]

So you got the. You got this.

[Griffin Newman]

If you asked a hundred people on the street, like, remember, Killer Croc was in Suicide Squad? They would be like, you don't know. What are you talking about?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Movie won an Oscar for the killer croc makeup. You could argue it was pretty good makeup. It was incredible makeup. But people were like, they gave it a Oscar for the Joker tattoos because everyone is in it.

[Griffin Newman]

He doesn't do anything.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's why they don't remember David. He does this. And by the way, for the listener, we're all doing perfect impressions of the way killer Cox swims. Get David. Get David.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm ordering myself some lunch, by the way.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Jesus Christ.

[Griffin Newman]

Because I'm realizing I'm doing another podcast after this, so I have to.

[David Sims]

Can you do the killer croc thing with your phone in your hand like 28, like years later style?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, yeah. Can we get like a human rig on this?

[David Sims]

Okay, that was good.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They make it back to the mainland, but they have like a pretty scary close call with what we were introduced to as an alpha.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. So, right. We're learning things. We're learning that the wilderness has come.

[David Sims]

We've got really skinny, fast ones. We've got alphas, which are the ones with the big dicks.

[Griffin Newman]

The roided up ones. Can't take them down with a.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

These guys got some real hoes on them.

[David Sims]

We also, they. Something is introduced where we see Griff, a man is being like, hung from like the ceiling.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Letters are carved into his chest.

[David Sims]

Jimmy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. So though you don't see the J, I think they. They kind of do a good job.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They do teasing.

[Griffin Newman]

What that is. It does.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then his head is in a bag that is.

[Griffin Newman]

Has pulled up an anti bitey bag.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I interpreted. They think, why was this human tortured and left for dead? And then they realize that it has turned.

[Griffin Newman]

But I mean, I really liked throughout all of this that Aaron Taylor Johnson is not that careful because I think partly he's like, well, he's going to have to figure it out. And also partly it's just his character. Because in that scene, there's a way for you to be watching that scene where you're like, this sucks. They're taking too long so that we get a jump scare. Right. But you're like, no, that's how you behave. Where he'd be like, yeah, don't get too close to it. Where I'm like, I would be a million miles away from this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But that's where I'm saying they're bringing in a little bit of the ATJ.

[David Sims]

Constantly walking behind him. And I'm like, this is terrible parenting.

[Griffin Newman]

You would want to keep an eye on him.

[Ben Hosley]

It feels like the parent forcing the kid to go on a hunting trip. Far too young.

[Griffin Newman]

A little too young. It's like. It's like he's two years too young. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He can't go on the roller coaster yet. But the dad's like, sneak him on the roller coaster.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And the kid is. He's not that kind of kid. He's really sensitive.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He is I. I mean, look, unsurprisingly, a character detail I love is when he's packing to go on the trip, he looks at the action figure on the mantelpiece. He's like walking out the door, he goes back, he grabs it, and then he puts it down.

[Ben Hosley]

You related to that?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I did. Every morning. If you wonder why I'm late for podcast recordings, it's because I'm looking at the actual figure on the mantle and go, do I bring it?

[David Sims]

Which one did you bring today?

[Griffin Newman]

Good.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, I have my, my McCready from the thing here, courtesy of re.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. I mean, we all agree, like, the kid is a really good kid performance. And like, and if you told me going in like, hey, yeah, the movie is the main character is a kid, I would have been, I would have been like, look, Bo is good at that. I'm not automatically freaked out, but I don't love. I never love to hear that a 12 year old is going to be the big thing in a genre.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, but I. 28 years. It is the two generations later thing. It is that, like, this kid is like 2 degrees removed from a world before this. Which is smart. You're like, that should be the center of the film. It does make sense. But it is obviously a risky proposition unless you find the right kid, which they fucking did. And Bull directs him to perfection. They narrowly make it back the other side of the gate. And then you're sort of like, what is the movie now?

[David Sims]

But while they're there, a couple more things. So they, they clock that there is a. A fire in the distance that looks like signs of human life.

[Griffin Newman]

And Aaron Taylor Jones is like, oh, it must be a fire. And he's like, is it a village? He's like, no, it's not a village. And he's like, what is it? He's like, oh, I don't know. And I don't want to talk about. And don't ask.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Covering a little too fast. It's coming out of a pillar, let's say.

[David Sims]

So there, there's that. There's also the first time I think we see infrared footage.

[Griffin Newman]

So that rocks.

[David Sims]

And I also want it scary and cool.

[Griffin Newman]

And also when they're marching over the causeway to begin their journey is when, right, he cuts in the recitation of the Kipling poem, which was this like 1915 radio broadcast, right? Is what that is. And he's cutting in, like all this footage of like Britain going to war. Medieval World War I, right. You know, like, and I wishing, like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

40S movies depictions of knights.

[David Sims]

It reminded me a lot of the. The opening ceremony where he cut. Cuts to like the Olympic opening ceremony when he cuts to the. Each territory or whatever, scoring a rugby goal or a soccer goal. There's use of, again, tone poems, montage, using archival footage. I was like, oh, this is fucking cool.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But this was rocking because I was remembering our Olympics episode where you're just sort of slamming your fist on the table. Table and going like, this is so British. He gets it right? And he's just saying, like, this is the DNA, right. He's not like, making a statement on the nation in the same way as he's talking about the lineage of the people. In a way. We, We. We reveal this on social media. But we record an episode recently with Marc Marin, a decade of dreams come true that will come out in later months.

[Griffin Newman]

We locked.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We locked the motherfucking gates. But I. I told Marin, because of course he does not know the backstory that David grew up in England. And I believe Marin's immediate response was, it must be nice to grow up in a place with old stuff, that guy. And he was like. Like, he got walls there that are like, older than 300 years.

[Griffin Newman]

We talked about castles for a minute. That's true.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But that's like a thing this movie is getting at is like, this is a place that has history and these, like, it repeats itself and it echoes and it rhymes.

[Griffin Newman]

It's what, to me is charming about America, but a lot of Europeans will make fun of, right? Where America's like, look at this old house. It's from the 19th century. And everyone in Europe is like, all of us just live in houses from then.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I mean, like, what? This is why Margaret is one of the best movies ever made about America. Because it's the one movie that identifies like we are teenagers who think we're grown ups.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, Right, right, right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's what that movie's about for me. Someday we will cover it. Anyway, they make it back and you're sort of like, what is the movie now? Where is this going? Right. Which I love. I love that feeling of I truly don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I know zombies will be involved, I guess.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But there's anywhere this could go, right? Like this. It could go in any direction. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I also just want to shout out the sequence where they are running across the causeway back to Holy island where it's like the northern lights.

[Griffin Newman]

How's. Yes. How is he shooting this?

[David Sims]

I have no idea.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I know there's like, cgi.

[David Sims]

It's so insane. And it's. And it's so striking, I. It took my breath away. And you also just have a. Just giant penis.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. Just flapping in the face.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's got a piece on it.

[Griffin Newman]

Prosthetic, I believe. I mean, it was very. Well, no, I know. I don't know, but the. The physics and the sort of the sheen to use, like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I feel like we had a similar reaction to Yaya Abdul Mateen's giant blue hanger in Watchmen. Watchmen, where you and I are texting back and forth and I'm like, is he just stacked the high heavens? And you were like, it's gotta be fake. But because the actors are already wearing makeup over their body.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's sort of.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's hard to know where the reality is.

[David Sims]

Do they give Billy cred up a big dick in the watch?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Average.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say it was. It was a perfectly. Yes. Blue penis.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But HBO Watchmen, he's got an absolute Pringle skin on him.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just leaving you to this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Anyway, they narrowly escape the dick. They make it back, there's a party, and in. Well, this is the thing in the same time where he's, like, doing this sort of tone poem, like, cutting in historical footage, cutting in movies reenacting different eras of Britain, the footage of them out on the hunt, right? He's also giving you these images that are clearly new stuff from the movie, but you don't know what they are. And you're seeing people wearing masks. You feel like, is this some weird cult thing initially, that. Where is this going? And then finally, you cut into that space properly and you're like, this has been a preview of what's on the other side for him after his first hunt, which is basically, you're a man now. You get to fucking engage with pop culture, right? And it's like some weird version of, like, a bar mitzvah combined with, like, now you get to, like, like, chug pints and, like, be yelled at by people that this is how they've maintained their, like, football hooliganism is, by rebuilding it around the idea of hunting zombies.

[David Sims]

It's just. It's. It breaks my heart that, you know, that Aaron Taylor Johnson's like, my son. He, you know, killed so many.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's clearly so proud of him. He's crying.

[David Sims]

He's so violent. You know, he, like, smashed those guys. He ripped them to shreds. He's so brave. And the kid is, like, very traumatized.

[Griffin Newman]

He's not into it. He thinks he did a bad job. He doesn't like that he was scared. But he also is correctly like that was very fucking. I didn't enjoy it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Basically like maybe nailed two and there were eight where his dad had to step in and he's fixated on the ones that he couldn't.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm with air or I'm sympathetic to Aaron Taylor Johnson because it's like yeah, we live on a tiny island. Like a little village town of. However. What do you think it's like a hundred people or something? You know, like whatever. That's the. Where I'm alive. You know, like it's the only thing that we get to do.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He gets a rush.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't even have the wordle.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They don't even have the wordle.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't even have old ones.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Nary a Cinematrix to be didn't exist. It was created in this universe.

[Griffin Newman]

So frightening to me to think about a world without Wordle.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm joking.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do you think they still have Duty.com though? Please tell me what that do D Y and every day there was a new flash animation about poop.

[Griffin Newman]

This is still going to. I'm gonna guess that that one might have died on the bottom.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I did in the last five years go like, I should check up on duty.com and I can't remember if I had to use Internet Archive to find it. But they're definitely not posting new content. What I was gonna say is I like that you're getting this like preview imagery of the pub party afterwards. That is more terrifying to this kid to be in the center of than being on the mainland with the zombies. Right. He is so overwhelmed. They're making him drink beer. He's vomiting immediately.

[David Sims]

I don't think it's more terrifying. I think they're equating.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They're similar. But it's so over stimulating.

[David Sims]

Yes, it is. And the. The major thing that happens steps outside the puke and he witnesses his father go down on the local hua in an alleyway.

[Griffin Newman]

Just a nice lady. She's at the local hua.

[David Sims]

I mean. I mean she could be.

[Griffin Newman]

Pantoliano has entered the chat.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Thank you.

[David Sims]

That was exactly what I was going.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But a thing that absolutely like destroys his idea of his father. I think it definitely combined with him.

[Griffin Newman]

Feeling the dad a little so freaked.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Out by what he just experienced and.

[Griffin Newman]

Being like, I'm sympathetic to atj. Jody Comer is. Is not really with him anymore.

[David Sims]

Like no, she. And yeah, she doesn't really Exist also, the kid doesn't have all of the context.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I also think that to bring back the manosphere thing is he's more of a DJ Khalid type, where he's like, kings don't do that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Great.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I think that's what he's thinking.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And even though he's still.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a cut scene where he actually.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Says that he's still finding his sense of self. But he knows without a doubt he self identifies as a king. And kings don't do that.

[David Sims]

But okay, so you did say, by.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The way, walking out, you went, what a year for cunnilingus. You did say eating in mainstream studio horror film. And I said, in mainstream studio. Jack o' Connell.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right. Joc. And sits in his rider.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do you think that's.

[Griffin Newman]

If I'm in a movie, someone has to eat a position.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't have to do it. In either case, he's doing it. But do you think that's his first script note when he gets sent something.

[Griffin Newman]

It'S why he never made the mcu. He kept being like, someone's going to get get eaten out. And they're like, what?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, they offered him every Eternal Kingo.

[Griffin Newman]

Come on. I wish I could name another Eternal Kingo.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Gilgamesh.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, there you go.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Druik.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, boy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Icarus. Can I name them all? Sprite.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Fastos.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep, that's Brian Tyree.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Henry. I'm getting hung up on Gemma Chan.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. She's the only one I know because I actually. She's a well known comic character. Well, weller known.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, she's not Cersei.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Angelina Jolie. Okay. Angelina Jolie is Laura Croft.

[David Sims]

Tomb Raider.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, one of them is Ajax.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's Salma. Hayek is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay, Jack, I'm two away. Remember how there were 10 eternals?

[Griffin Newman]

There were a fair amount. They may be over.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think it's 10. Angelina Jolie's character is.

[Griffin Newman]

Athena is just Thena. I think it's supposed to be because.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The idea is that all of them are names that were misinterpreted as okay. And then the only one I don't have is the fast one, Makarin Redlock's character.

[Griffin Newman]

Makari. You did.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

My brain sucks so much.

[Griffin Newman]

No, you just love eternals.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I do love eternals and I watch it every night.

[David Sims]

I'm a little like, embarrassed for you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm embarrassed for me.

[Griffin Newman]

Icarus is the one that really amuses me.

[David Sims]

Who is? Who is. Who's the Irish guy?

[Griffin Newman]

He was Drink.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Bad boy. But he's actually a lover.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right. He probably is the one, the most likely. Let's be honest.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He might be taking a knee, if you know what I'm saying. I do like that. I do like that. She's standing and Aaron Taylor Johnson takes a knee like a gentleman.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Okay, wait.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He bows before his queen.

[David Sims]

I just, I just have like a little follow up thing because I just listened to the. Like everyone else who is listening to this podcast, I just listened to the loser episode. You guys briefly bring up Saving Silverman. I haven't seen it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I have gotten five texts in the week since the episode came out.

[Griffin Newman]

Did I, Did I say all cats.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Saying Saving Silverman is good? And you are right.

[Griffin Newman]

So you're. You're. It's good. And I was like, isn't it bad? I said, I can't remember.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The Saving Solarman is good. And I believe you said, oh, off. It is not.

[David Sims]

I.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You refuse to even enter.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I remember that being like a one star Empire magazine review, but that's not. It's been a little while since I saw Silver.

[David Sims]

I put it on last night.

[Griffin Newman]

We saved it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I will admit I've been watching it in chunks every night when I'm trying to fall asleep. I have not made it to the end yet. Even though it is only watching it Instagram.

[David Sims]

There is like a God tier bit in the beginning where Jack Black is like trying to prove that he's good at training employees of Subway on how to make sandwiches, which is so fucking simple.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But the guy puts the meat on the outside of the bread.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie's a year after High Fidelity. I do remember at the time where I was just like. Like I'm interested in Jack Black. Like, like Jack Black's being peppered into anything. I want to know what it is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

My take on that movie is that that movie is chaos. Like, what's funny about it is like, it is like one of the most deeply misogynistic studio films.

[David Sims]

So I just want to go on the record as saying, like, Amanda, Pete. I get where she's coming from. I think it's amazing that the only sexual activity she will have with. With her boy toy is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Take a guess.

[David Sims]

He just goes down on her.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's the Jason Bakes. She doesn't ask. She tells Jason Bakes to take a knee.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then when he says, you know, there are things that one can do in return, she hands him porno mags.

[David Sims]

Out of her bedside table. Porno mags lotion and says, have fun.

[Griffin Newman]

You'Re not making it sound good. You're making it sound.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Marie agree with me. It's got some juice. Juice.

[David Sims]

It's got some juice.

[Griffin Newman]

I was laughing, you know, like, weird garbage juice.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's weird garbage juice.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, but garbage juice. You're like, doesn't have started with a base of real juice. Also, I know other things have gotten mixed in.

[David Sims]

All of the. All of the Neil diamond stuff is funny, too.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Diamond's really good and sounds really good.

[David Sims]

I basically stopped watching it because my husband was like, actually, can we pause?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So neither of us have made it.

[David Sims]

No, we haven't. No. They just kidnapped her.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, okay.

[David Sims]

Where I stopped. But, like, we stopped watching the movie because you've seen this piece of shit.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Okay.

[David Sims]

My husband.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's actually damning that Ben hasn't said.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Even Comedy Central was like.

[David Sims]

But no, we had. We had to watch the Neil Diamond Storytellers from snl.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's one of the greatest.

[David Sims]

One of the greatest.

[Griffin Newman]

That is. I haven't seen that in a long time.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's so good.

[Griffin Newman]

I like that we're bringing up deeper SNL cuts of like, because I got some Rocket Dog love.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then Houston, we have a dog.

[Griffin Newman]

The Seth Meyers Lonely island podcast talked about it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I know, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Because they were discussing that synchronicity.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I. I've been. I've been jamming on some sort of, like, forgotten side feral sketches. But I remember in a pre YouTube era where I would go to SNL transcripts, JT, and the Neil Diamond Storyteller sketch was one that I would read and laugh out loud because I was like, well, there's no way to rewatch this.

[David Sims]

This. It's on Daily Motion now.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Now what I'm saying, like, 2004, you were like, I just have to read it.

[Griffin Newman]

What is dot, jt?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't know, but it was what that website had.

[David Sims]

I just. I just love, like, the SNL sketch sketches that are, like, not on YouTube. The ones that, like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They're most ones that have music, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah, that. Because Rocket Dog, it's. Life is a Highway is the problem, I think.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right? I think, yes. I found it again on Daily Motion or somewhere, but she's staying.

[Griffin Newman]

I think there's just some conversation that happens. Happens to, like, do we clear life as a highway? And they're like, what? That's like a 1255 sketch.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There's a Paul Rudd Vilman sketch that aired once and has never been legally.

[David Sims]

I guess that makes sense. But in my. In my head, it's like, okay, the ones that are, like deemed too spicy for YouTube, like, we want to scrub them from part of it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But I do think the music is more of it. I mean, they talk about on the Lonely island podcast that when they started doing the digital short and they would sample songs, they were like, yeah, because you make a license that this just airs one time on late night and it costs fucking $5. The second they started putting up on YouTube, they got sued.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I mean, my guess is it's also sometimes someone like Tom Cochran, who of course is the guy who's saying life is a highway might be like, yeah, life is a highway is my whole, like, income stream. I'm asking for the maximum quote. Right? Like, some guys might just be like, yeah, whatever, you can have it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Also, you have to remember, Rocket Dog is post cars. So cars has been like funneling money into his pockets. And he's like, you don't get this for free anymore. I know my value.

[Griffin Newman]

Laugh is a highway. You're gonna have to clue this, man. That was Rascal Flats, right?

[David Sims]

You're going my way. And then I don't know the next lyric.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It might honestly be I want to ride it in my mind, it's I want to ride it.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben.

[Ben Hosley]

What's up, man?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're getting into fashion all the time.

[Ben Hosley]

Yep.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You know me.

[Ben Hosley]

I've been for years.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

For years you've been getting in?

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Media res. I'm not big on trends, as you know. I'm big on clothes that feel good and last.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. You're about comfort.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm about comfort and I'm about ease. And that's why I keep going back to quints. They're lightweight layers and high quality staples have become my everyday essentials. They make me feel like a grown up, Ben. Dressing like a grown up. I'm dressing like a grown up man. You know what I'm saying?

[Ben Hosley]

Yep.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ding dong.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, hold on, Creek.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle.

[Ben Hosley]

You seem to be shaking something in your hand.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Hey, what's going on here? What is this place?

[Ben Hosley]

Who. I'm sorry, Who. Who. Who are you?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm Baby Mikey.

[Ben Hosley]

Baby Mikey.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Look who's talking. Oh, sure.

[Ben Hosley]

Hey, what's up, baby?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Mike, you're.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a little weird because your mouth isn't moving.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's not what I do.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's not really the style.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. I just like, say the things the babies are thinking, you know?

[Ben Hosley]

Sure, sure, sure.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But I don't really say them out loud. I convey them, I guess, via aura.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm hearing you, so, yeah, come on in.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Look who's listening.

[Ben Hosley]

Hey. Hey, Ben.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

What are you here for?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, when I grow up, I want to dress like a. A man.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, right. Well, there's this great service, Quince. We're actually in the middle of doing a ad read for them.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What a Quince getting.

[Ben Hosley]

They have all the things that you would want to wear this summer and I guess something for you little baby.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

To aspire to in summer's future. Now you say all the things. Let me do a little test here to see if they have exactly what I want. Okay, you tell me. They sell Italian swim trunks in various colors.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. Men's recycled polyester stretch tech blazers.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay, but I'm gonna stump you on this one. There is zero chance that Quint sells 100% European linen relaxed long sleeve shirts.

[Ben Hosley]

You are gonna be in for a great surprise.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They do. They don't sell them in chambray, stripe and two xl, do they?

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, that's the thing to aspire to. Hey, would you mind passing in the milk? Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

Here you go.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Wow. Baby sounds.

[Ben Hosley]

The best part about Quint is everything that they make is half the cost of similar brands.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, that's great. And let me, let me guess. They work directly with top artisans and cut out the middlemen. So Quint gives you luxury prices without the markups.

[Ben Hosley]

How did you guess that?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I got a sort of sixth sense for these things.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, you seem like you got maybe a sense for business. Business, yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. And you know, I am the child of an accountant. Listen, Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. Even I know that. And I'm a baby. Hey, Ben.

[Ben Hosley]

What's up, Mikey Gaga Goo Goo.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I happen to notice you're looking pretty fly today.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you, man. Yeah, I gotta say, I've been wearing quints a lot lately. I really love their stuff. Was really nice to just like, get a bunch of new, fresh stuff for the warmer season.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, tell me about those new fits you're throwing, Ben.

[Ben Hosley]

Right now I'm rocking the men's Ultimate Commuter seven inch short. So, yeah, I'm showing a lot of gams, as you can see, but I just. I feel comfortable and I just think that they're really flattering. And, you know, I like to show leg. What can I say?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Hey, man, I'd show them if I had them. My legs are like 3 inches total.

[Ben Hosley]

You'll get there someday.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm a baby.

[Ben Hosley]

You'll get there.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Someday, baby, I might have the streetwise savoir fair of an adult man. But let's remember, I am a baby.

[Ben Hosley]

And I got to tell you too, like with this polo that I'm wearing from them, yeah, it just, it feels like luxury quality, but it's just not breaking the bank.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

These are clothes you're not going to want to feed to Mr. Toilet Man. Let's put it that way.

[Ben Hosley]

That is exactly, exactly the way I would describe how I feel about quints.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Can't think of a better way to put it. Hey, Mikey, this is Griffin again. Do you mind if I just close out the ad with a quick call to action? Basically, we're telling our listeners to stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from quince. Go to quince.com check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That a full year? That's quint.com check. Q-U I N C.com check to get free shipping, 365 day returns. Quint.com check. Hey, one more thing over here.

[Ben Hosley]

What's up, Mikey?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I got something I need you to order for me. Yep, a fresh diaper.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, no.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm sorry. I'm still a baby. David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This episode of Blank Check is brought to you by booking.combooking. yeah, I got confused for a second.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I thought my glasses were fogged up.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because I'm looking across the room at your handsome mug. For a second I thought, is Matt LeBlanc here?

[Griffin Newman]

Why did you think that?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because I'm looking at a man with a plan. I'm looking at a man who likes making plans. You don't like leaving things up to chance?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I hate. I like to plan things very, very carefully.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Actually, you like to organize a trip. And you know what's helpful for that? Booking.com.

[Griffin Newman]

That'S right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S. booking.com has the ideal summer stay for absolutely anyone. Even those who might seem impossible to please, like Phoebe the buffet, who's got very specific tastes.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, whether you're booking for yourself, your partner, your sleep light early rise mom, or your high maintenance group chat. I'm always booking for that group chat.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, well, your family is a bit of a group chat.

[Griffin Newman]

True. You can find exactly what you're booking for on booking dot com.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Tell me. Tell me about your hotel preferences, David.

[Griffin Newman]

I love a sauna and anything spa. I love. You know what I love? A robe. Give me a robe.

[Ben Hosley]

Customized room.

[Griffin Newman]

Give me a fluffy robe.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Now Are we talking hot tub in room? Like kind of comically shaped hot tub? A heart, A big martini glass. Is that what you want in room?

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Some strawberries.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You want strawberries?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. They're always fun.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You want strawberries in your stay, David? You know what I like when I'm on vacation? What do you like a giant bed? I like to get a comically large California king. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. I feel like a Hollywood king.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I get the kind of bed you couldn't fit into a New York City apartment and a bed that is comically oversized for a tiny little man like me.

[Ben Hosley]

And what's great about booking.com is it gives you all of these different filters and options when you're searching for a place to stay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Where you can assign, you know, say, I would like to have the largest bed.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Possible.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Possible. You might be surprised to hear I'm pretty specific in my bathroom preferences as well. Another thing that Booking.com helps me filter out to make sure I got exactly what I need. Here's the thing. If David can find his perfect stay on booking.com, anyone can true.

[Griffin Newman]

Find exactly what you're booking for booking.com booking. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Book today on the site or in the app.

[David Sims]

Okay. So 28 years later, he is His.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

His sort of belief in his father is immediately broken. Right. In this storm of complicated emotions.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's something I appreciate. We get moving pretty quickly. Again, I kept no offense to the town, which is an interesting environment, but every time we were in the town, I kind of had this fear of, like, are we about to do 20 minutes to sort of politics?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He runs home. He has this long conversation with who.

[Griffin Newman]

We assume is the grandpa, which is a lovely scene.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He asks him about the pillar in the fire that he saw, and he's like, oh, your dad didn't want to tell you and says, that guy used to be a gp. And the movie now starts tilting at the character that is basically the Colonel Kurtz of this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Or at least you'll think he'll be cursed.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They're framing him that way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And they're certainly parallels.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Because atj. What the fuck's the character's name? I keep calling my name. Jamie says, like, right. We had one. I had one disturbing encounter with that person a long time ago where I just saw him lining up bodies. And then he, like, wait.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And he was so cheery about it, like, nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

And I was like, that's a psychopath. Now, see it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You see it from A distance. His face is covered.

[Ben Hosley]

You don't strike.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You don't see the guy. But we know there's a third name on the poster. I know who's coming, and I think Ben doesn't know.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You had a real kind of like positive jump scare when the actor shows up on screen and. But I'm like, oh, they're saving Ray. Fine. Yeah. David is one of the first things you said walking out of the theater.

[David Sims]

Third act Rafe.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Third act Rafe.

[Griffin Newman]

Third act. Rafe is huge in Bruges. Hurt Locker, Harry Potter. Is there another one?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I was saying that the reader is kind of a third act Rafe, although most people don't make it to the third act.

[Griffin Newman]

Remember that movie? If they saw it yesterday.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. There has to be another run, though.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. It's.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's a. It's a classy move. It's a gentleman's move, and it's a genius.

[Ben Hosley]

Especially because he's smeared.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. He's. He's really.

[Griffin Newman]

He is covered in iodine. But I mean. Okay, so we don't know that at first.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We think it's like blood or something. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I think I. I guess I was. I sort of. Because they were setting him up so malevolently, I. I did sort of think like, okay, I don't think he's gonna be as, like, the psycho that he's being portrayed as by Aaron Taylor Johnson, because that feels too easy. Right. So then I was. I was trying to puzzle out, like, is it going to be. He was doing something with the bodies to, you know, ward off the zombies or whatever.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We're getting there, and we're both. We're all like, they wouldn't do something that easy. But what's it gonna be? And when Rafe appears on screen, the first six line readings, I would say the first 10 minutes he's on screen, the audience laughed at the. Everything he did because it is so. He is somehow doing something that is so unexpected and yet you still can't pin it down. You're like, this is not who I thought this guy would be. And yet I still can't figure this guy out. And it doesn't feel like he's just doing weird line readings.

[David Sims]

No, he's. It's like, it's. It's a gentleness that's really surprising.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. It's like macabre, sentimental.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I was like, he's doing another actor. Who is he doing? And it took me a moment and then I was like, he's doing Bill Nighy.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Not, like, ripping him off, but it felt like he's capturing that odd energy to Bill Nighy where you're like, is this guy, like, emotionally disconnected or more connected? He's kind of just on his own wavelength.

[Griffin Newman]

He's an another take on. He's gone not crazy, but he doesn't interact with people anymore. And, like, he's not malevolent, but he is odd. He's still polite.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, well, that's the naive part of it, is he sort of, like, makes jokes to entertain himself.

[Griffin Newman]

What Bill Nye performance are you thinking?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think this is not Bill Nye's like, default kind of like, I don't demeanor.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't agree with you. Okay. I love Bill Nye. I just think he usually plays Ridley Morden guy.

[Ben Hosley]

Are we talking about the science guy?

[Griffin Newman]

We're not talking about the science guy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I was talking about the science guy.

[Griffin Newman]

And I love Bill Nye. He. I have no problem with Bill Nye. I don't know him.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I have no problem with him. Give him some crap. Put flowers on that name.

[Griffin Newman]

Do I have to?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, I think so.

[David Sims]

I think it's a little. I think it's a little desperate that he's, like, trying to appeal to the tick tock generation. Well, I haven't been clocking this Bill Nye anyway.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This movie.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Is that he has this information. Hell yeah, brother.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe Bill Nye's taking a name.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think so. And for that, we salute this podcast should. Maybe this is it, the last episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, maybe we gotta wrap it up. Well, we record with all the celebs for the code.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. And we'll just never release them. Yeah. Like five A listers. We're just gonna keep them like Day the Clown cried.

[Griffin Newman]

Just be like, when people ask us why. I'm like, I don't know. We started talking about Bill Nye eating.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Maybe we've run our course. He's his grandfather. Explains that this guy was a gp and he goes, you know, I think all of this experience, like, brings him closer to his mother and this feeling of a need to protect her and a feeling that his father is not. That his father seemingly has kind of moved on. And he doesn't want his mother to be seen as, like, a finished cause. And so he convinces his mother to go onto the mainland with him. There's a couple really good scenes.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, she's kind of. I feel like she's almost in a fugue at this point. She's in the past.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She doesn't understand what is Happening like minute to minute. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he gets her, I feel like, out of there. Because she's just kind of like, yeah, sure, where are we going?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

On the other side.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? And he's like, yeah, mainland. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But he does this whole kind of trick to convince the people at the watchtower there's a fire to put out to get him off the guard. He has this really good scene where he kind of like holds Aaron Taylor Johnson at knife point because he's so angry at his father.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you guys like Comer in this movie?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you guys think of Jody Comer?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Here's the thing. I think she is a phenomenal actress.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. In your favorite movie, Free Guy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But apart from that, I feel like you sometimes feel like she goes a little ham sandwich. And I think she is someone who knows how to make a great ham sandwich. I think they're handing her a pretty extreme part. And like some friends of mine who saw that I logged this on letterboxd were like, how's Comer? I know you're holding Comer stock the way I am. And I'm like, it's not her best performance, but it's like, it's a really tricky part and I do think she does it well. I think she especially nails. The last couple of scenes are phenomenal.

[Griffin Newman]

I think she's fantastic. This.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But I feel like, Marie, I was getting a little. I was getting you and I loved bike riders. And you walked out of the theater and were like, that. The voice, she's doing the whole thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Certainly how I felt.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is high school play.

[Griffin Newman]

That's how I felt.

[David Sims]

I. I think when we were still in the dark as to what her actual illness was, I was not loving her performance because I thought it was a mental issue. And to me it was a little trophy.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. There's the worry of like, Right. Are you doing a little too. Yeah. Like, yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. I. I didn't think it was bad, but I thought it was a little too broad. The more her kind of consciousness comes back, the better she gets. Did any of you see Prima Fachy?

[David Sims]

No. I wanted to.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is just like one of the most impressive things I've ever seen an actor.

[David Sims]

Wait, why did you Fuck that.

[Griffin Newman]

I hate those one person shows on Broadway. And I think it's like, you know, it's impressive. Like, it's like a cool trick.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I mean, I'm like, similarly, like, I don't really want to see Dorian Gray. But that I. I was like, like was one of the most technically astounding Things I have ever seen.

[David Sims]

I was. I bought all of my Jodie Comers and I like, I did watch the first season of Killing Ease.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I never watched Killing.

[David Sims]

I thought was really fun.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I did what everyone did. I thought the first season was good. I watched like one episode of the second season.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And then I'm like, I'm out. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Goodbye.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David's hitting the button.

[David Sims]

But the. I bought all of my Jodie Comer stock after the Last Duel, which I thought she was.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She's unbelievable.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, everyone's in that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're right. It was, it was that and Free Guy in the same year where I was like, Free Guy is rancid dog. And I think she's kind of good in this.

[Griffin Newman]

Like I said, it's your favorite movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And it's my favorite movie. And then Last Duel, I think she is unbelievable. Right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Did I give her best actress that year? I certainly nominated.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone's great.

[David Sims]

She should have been nominated for an.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oscar, maybe should have won. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The people don't ask me.

[David Sims]

I don't know why people need to not sleep on that movie, but you're right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No. Because I hadn't watched Killing.

[Griffin Newman]

People need to not sleep on that.

[David Sims]

People need to wake.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The people need to wake up.

[Griffin Newman]

Time to open your third eye.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're right. That, that was my exact arc, which was. I saw Free Guy without having seen Killing Eve and was like, huh, she's kind of interesting. Then I saw Last Duel and I was like, she's fudgeing. Unbelievable. Is this like actress of her generation? It is the.

[Griffin Newman]

Which I think some people think, like, that's kind of what she is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is the reason I went, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

And you gave it to Rebecca Hall.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a performance I know you love.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, I, I, Yeah, I adore. But I think it's why I saw Prima Fashi, even though I do think I'm kind of allergic to that type of show. Because I was just like, I gotta see her in person.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm sure she was good.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She was incredible. Right? But yes. No, it's, it's think it's, it's a tough performance.

[Griffin Newman]

I think she's really good in the movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think she.

[Griffin Newman]

And I think like you said, those final scenes, the big emotional scenes, it's why you hire.

[David Sims]

And she underplays.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Exactly.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I will say there is, there is a single look she gives in this movie. It is a one second reaction shot where I'm like, that's worth $20 million. You know where I'm just like. It was. Get to it remind me of this. It's in the final moment. But the movie then becomes Act 2. Is this sort of almost like wizard of Oz quest to make it to.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, to the doctor.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. To see this mystery man.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, right. They can't just get to the doctor. So there do have to. And I think the sidetracks are good and are cool.

[David Sims]

We meet a character who we haven't mentioned yet.

[Griffin Newman]

Eric.

[David Sims]

Eric, the Swedish Edwin riding a Swedish soldier. So we're also introduced to the fact that like. Like they retconned the end of 28 weeks later. Like the. They have successfully.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't even fully recon it, but they're like. It was driven back. So whatever you saw, there was not a problem.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They figured it out. Yes.

[David Sims]

So France.

[Griffin Newman]

So good at repairing.

[David Sims]

So.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But it rained and all the zombies went back to the.

[David Sims]

But there is like a. There's like an eu. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Or Macron just greeted them. People like, don't love your.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Eric was getting big laughs in the theater.

[David Sims]

Oh, he's fun. They introduce a really fun element through this Swedish soldier who is stranded after his quarantine boat.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And we. We see them getting annihilated by the zombies. Which is cool.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's the worst survivor.

[Griffin Newman]

There's the whole thing with the alphas where they like pull your head off.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The spinal.

[David Sims]

That was so.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They go full like predator mode.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Predator, Borg, queen, whatever. You know, they like this. The full spine.

[Ben Hosley]

And then they use the spine as a weapon.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I mean they'll do that as a.

[David Sims]

Weapon, but also as a piece of art.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm realizing this movie really feels like Ben was in the punch up room.

[David Sims]

A hundred percent.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There were like six ideas in this movie that like, it doesn't feel like Ben wrote it from beginning to end, but it does feel like they said like, do you have any ideas? And he threw them five and they used all of them.

[Ben Hosley]

If he's ripping out their heads with their spines on it, let him use it.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But also make it an art piece. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

But the. With the Swedish guy, they introduced this element of. Oh yes. The rest of the world is exactly as it is now.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And basically they're just like, yeah, we just don't go there. Eric knows. He does have an iPhone. Eric knows.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's my favorite. I'm sorry. It's my favorite joke in the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, did he show the insane girlfriend.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The picture of his girlfriend. And he goes, what's wrong with her face? And you're like, oh, right. Part of UK culture, like ending in 2002 is that they never had the modern horrors of Love island face. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Or it had only begun. The sickness had not spread.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I feel like I am going insane every time Instagram shows me a person who has that face. I feel like, Ben, you and I have complained about this, that now suddenly, increasingly everyone has the same face and the face freaks me out. I don't like the face. And it's weird that everyone's sort of like, like starting to look identical in this pod person way. And this movie just has the best in for a joke about that I have ever seen.

[David Sims]

I'm trying to remember. There were like three things that the kid, that the Swedish guy referenced that the kid didn't understand because he was talking about Radi. Like, he referenced radio. Was that about the phone? Like, literally the phone itself. He's like, oh, yeah, it's like a radio. Because the kids like, what is. The way. The kid's reaction to seeing a smartphone for the first time was amazing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But the. Also seeing the picture of the ex fiance, he goes, that's what happens to my friend when he eats shells.

[David Sims]

Oh, it was, it was when he was describing his friends, an Amazon delivery driver.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh yeah.

[David Sims]

And he was like, I thought that was shitty. So I signed up to join the Navy and that's how I ended up here in this shitty situation.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And the kids just like, I have no idea what any of.

[David Sims]

What do you mean? A. Like when you order stuff online, I don't know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But also this guy's like, why the did you bring your mom here? Why does your mom seemingly think that you're her husband? Well, you know, her dad or dad. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But I, I think it's interesting that Eric is like, I am doomed. I'm not allowed to go back home. Like, the minute you set foot on this place, that's it. Like, you are considered contaminated. And like, you, there's no, you know, escape.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. And he's just like, you're a child. Your mother does not have her wherewithal. Why would you bring her here? Like, what the is happening? He's angry that he saved them because he's like, you guys are doomed. Why did I bother saving you?

[David Sims]

I wasted bullets.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, again, like, it would be too easy to make him an out and out villain.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And we've. Or like a nice guy with the.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, the Eccleston and all those guys. 100. And like, but he's also not particularly heroic or nice. Spends the kind of the whole time being like, Jesus, like why am I even hanging out with you guys? But he's also clearly, he's like, nothing else for me to do. What am I going to do?

[Ben Hosley]

Just walk into the woods and where it lands in the movie, it sort of settles you a little bit, takes the tension away for a little while.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was, it was nice to have that because they're really. Because of the way that this movie is set up. We don't have the. I love the moment in the grocery store in 28 days later where they're playing the Granddaddy song and there's like a moment of fun and joy and like the closest we get to that in this film is when they're having a picnic and they're eating apples and they're talking about smartphones and it is like this nice little.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's like a reset the membrane. Right. It's like bringing it back to our mentality for a moment by. By bringing in an outsider.

[Griffin Newman]

This is when of course, the pregnant.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Which we've already spotted her pregnant.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I wasn't sure if it was going to followed up on, but I was like, this is another interesting idea. It's like 28 years later, they would of course just basically settle into being their own species. They would start like sexually reproducing. It's the I am legend thing, right? Like not I'm legend, the movie, I'm legend. The original story. The element that every movie has failed to execute, which is like this character realizing like, am I the endangered species? And it's not about me needing to eradicate them to save humanity. They've become something else now and I'm disturbing that.

[David Sims]

I want to talk about something that is like Marie's Griffin morbid pandemic corner. But like not. I mean it's not specifically that, but I am a married 36 year old woman who wants to have a child. And that is something that I am like actively pursuing. But I am constantly like wavering on the ethical implications.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Marie, you and I have this conversation.

[David Sims]

Bringing a new life.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We've had it before. Yep.

[David Sims]

Into a world that feels like it's on the precipice of ending. And to see this movie kind of make the argument for new life will go on in the worst. We exist to live as long as we live.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, the world's been ending.

[David Sims]

The world's been ending forever. And it's was like it was. So the baby is born there's this beautiful moment.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's another scene that Jody Comer destroys. We've seen her sort of, like, weirdly, the further she gets away from home, the more she's out in the world. She starts to. Probably because she's no longer in a bubble, right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's sort of she's coming back to.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Life, realize she's going in and out, and they start asking her questions about her, you know, her comprehension, whatever. But they end up in this, like, trailer where the pregnant zombie is. And is clearly on the precipice of giving birth. And rather than run into.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's in a train. It's in a. Which is a very cool set. That overgrown train.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Jody Comer walks over to her and grabs her hands and sort of, like, in this silent.

[David Sims]

Helps her through labor.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. In this. Sort of through eye contact. Gives the. Like. I get it. I know.

[Ben Hosley]

Offers her hands.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. Helps her give, like, the pressure to push back against you. Right. To, like, exert her. Her effort.

[David Sims]

I thought the baby was going to be born like a little demon. Rosemary's Baby. Rachel.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, like, Eric is having a rational reaction of like, are you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Shoot.

[Griffin Newman]

Destroy. It's a zombie baby. Yes. But they have this kind of elemental, like, no, like, it's okay. We have to. We can't.

[David Sims]

You know, placenta is strong.

[Griffin Newman]

Ray finds.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Does Shadow set up when they, you know, at the checkpoint of the barrier to the mainland? It's like, check the eyes. Make sure the eyes are clean right before you let them in. There's this great tension built into the delivery of the baby, which is. The baby comes out, it's covered in blood and its eyes are closed. So at first you're sort of like, I don't know if the baby's fine. Right. And even if the baby is infected, how do you.

[David Sims]

How do they show. I, like, was like, are they going to show them killing a baby?

[Griffin Newman]

Truly, I. That's the thing. I was immediately like, no. Like, you kind of always know when property is going to make the, like, very, very daring.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The assault from Priest.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. No, Even a kid is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's not a baby. But you know what I'm saying, When a movie is ramping up the. We're about to do something really very transgressive.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, yeah, no, this is not because that would just be because. Not because it's like, that's not allowed. It's just because it's like, yeah, you'll lose the audience. Like, they'll just be so bummed out.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Jody Comer basically draws.

[Griffin Newman]

And it'll be kind of like, why'd you do that?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She draws, Draws the line. Before she can tell.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That the baby isn't infected, there is the first. Like, this is life. We can't kill it. It's an innocent. It's done nothing wrong. And it takes a little bit before they're just like, the baby's clean. Interesting. Eric does get spined.

[David Sims]

He gets spined.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He gets spined.

[Griffin Newman]

So far in just a horror kill that I just always love. Dragged away.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. Bullets firing down.

[Griffin Newman]

Piece of them returns. Like I just always love that. Always just always works for me.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So now they got a baby. Now it's a sick woman. A little boy and a baby.

[Griffin Newman]

I know it's kind of like quiet place where you're like, there's a baby.

[David Sims]

You know, just like, how are they going to get out of this scenario? Because they are trapped in this train with the Alpha with the big dick.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And it's pretty canonical. Like Alpha cannot be killed by bow.

[David Sims]

And arrows or any. You know. And then all of a sudden the Alpha gets tranquilized by our new friend. Ray finds.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ray finds. Who immediately shows up, winks to the camera and goes, hey, Griff, good luck not putting me on. Your best supporting actor blank is valid.

[Ben Hosley]

Not to backtrack, but I just want to quickly because it did feel important. There's the scene where they're hiding out in the church sleeping.

[David Sims]

Oh yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

During the night. And the boy falls asleep, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Trashes one of the.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, he wakes up and they see a zombie just lying there dead. And he goes, how did that happen? And she goes, I don't know. And then it flashes back to her waking up in the middle of the night and bashing his head against a.

[Ben Hosley]

Like some kind of instinctual thing clicking for her. But she doesn't remember doing it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I just felt like there's. Well, see, but my question is, is it that she doesn't remember doing it.

[David Sims]

Or she doesn't want to like ruin the kid by.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right.

[David Sims]

Exposing him?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because also our, our first introduction to her at the beginning of the movie is her in this sort of daze. She knocks over a glass of water. They go upstairs to try to calm her down. Right. And she goes like, why aren't you in school? And Aaron Taylor Johnson says, like I told you, remember, today's the day I'm taking him. And she flips out. He's a 12 year old, he's a boy. You can't take away his childhood like this. They Lie to her and they go do it.

[David Sims]

I interpreted it as she was aware of what she was doing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think it's a moment of cognitive clarity combined with like a mother's instinct that she, in that moment, makes the decision of like, I don't need to sully him with the notion of me having to do something that brutal. I'm trying to still protect him in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you think I'm bigger Splash. He's more of a second act entrance. I guess it's not really third act.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, he's. He's so on fire in that. I certainly gave that a nomination as well. If not win, maybe I might have given him the win.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Look it up, Davey. Look it up.

[David Sims]

So we meet Dr. Kelson. He's covered in iodine. He looks like he's covered in blood, but he's actually covered in iodine, which is a repellent prophylactic.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This guy has basically just been spending decades doing, like, R D, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Sure, I guess so. But it's not just that. He's also been doing art. Land art. There's a scene earlier in the, you know, where they find the angel of the north, which is. This whole movie's set in the Northumberland region. I went to school at Newcastle. Everyone's got a Geordie accent biting through.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

My tongue right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Relax. And the angel of the north is this beautiful piece of public art that was built in like the 90s or the 2000s. It's not bad at all.

[David Sims]

It was built in the, I believe, the early 2000s. It was famously the most expensive valuation on Antiques Roadshow in the uk. Someone had the original maquette.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. It was built in 1998. Sort of symbolizes the northern, you know, sort of resurgence post in, you know, the minor strikes and the all. You know, it's a. It's a beautiful thing. And I feel like that's what fucking finds is doing. He's building this art that will last beyond him, like, but it's also a memorial, Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is like his version of, like, it is, but. But it's like, it's for like, the.

[Griffin Newman]

People, whoever they might be, right? Like, who might one day come across these, like, cairns.

[Ben Hosley]

It's part of the tradition of, like, kind of all human civilizations more or less of leaving these monuments.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like an AIDS course because it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Is about, like each of these was a person.

[Ben Hosley]

Now, what is the medium?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's called.

[Griffin Newman]

The medium is bone. Yeah, the medium.

[David Sims]

So the whole time they're, you know, Being introduced. Introduced to Ralph Fiennes. They're carrying around the spine and head of Eric, our dearly departed Swedish friend.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

Griff, you did not. Oh, no. You nominated him in lead. Yeah. Interesting.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We fought about this. I think he's undeniably the lead because then he runs the table on the movie. They're both leads. I would put them both in lead. Well, you're wrong.

[David Sims]

I'm not wrong, but he kind of. Ray finds. Takes this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Did I give him the winner? I just nominated him.

[Griffin Newman]

You gave him a nom. And you gave Tom Hanks the win for a little film called Sully Smart.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I, of course, gave Ralph Fiennes my Best of the Decade win for Grand Budapest.

[Griffin Newman]

It's so good in that movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Marie. Sorry, go on.

[David Sims]

So they're carrying around Swedish guy's head and, yeah, they hold on to it.

[Griffin Newman]

A little too long.

[David Sims]

And Ralph Fiennes explains to Spike that what he's doing is. He is. He thinks it's important to sort of recognize that death is a part of this existence and recognize, like, it's kind of a beautiful tribute to these people to, you know, de skin their.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's built a whole system of how he fucking cleans them off and puts.

[David Sims]

Them in this beautiful.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, he's had time to.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, he's really refined the process, really.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, he. He gets Comer's head back out there fast.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. But it is like this weird balance of what he's doing is, like, he is friendly, he is sophisticated. He has clearly gone a little mad just in not communicating with other people, but not in a way that feels dangerous at all. Is just hard to sort of figure out how to connect to. And I think, like, Fiennes is quietly one of the best chemistry actors. Not even that he's a great listener, but he just knows so well how to really lock in with any scene partner and can adjust so beautifully to anyone and doing any kind of thing, like understanding what he needs to do to tell the story.

[David Sims]

I think it's such a. It's a beautiful. It's like an additional male role model for this really sensitive kid whose only, like, example of what you're supposed to do with these creatures is kill them. And there's just so much violence and machismo.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is one of the only people in the movie, if not the only one who is fully engaging with the reality of their world, is really thinking about what has happened, what is happening, you know, and he's just.

[David Sims]

He's so, like, sensitively attuned. He's really to it, sensitive and it's, it's, it's so nice.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's phenomenal. The longer the movie, it's just been setting him up, the more I was like, I don't have any doubt he's gonna deliver, but I can't even imagine what he's gonna do. And it just, it was disarming. And as I said, the audience laughs for like the first 10 straight minutes he's on screen at our screening because they're just like, what is this guy?

[Griffin Newman]

And I think there's also the classic horror movie thing of like, I'm so relieved. Yes. That it's. The tone is shifting.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's comfort.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. Even if it's odd.

[Griffin Newman]

I like the ending of 28 Days later, the third act. Right. But a lot of people at the time definitely were like, loses in the third act. I like the zombie movie stuff. I don't like the creepy soul.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The men is the worst of all.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And like, now you watch the movie and you're like, no, it was kind of. It was kind of a lot of money. But I do like that he doesn't do that again.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, third act is emotional.

[Griffin Newman]

It's emotional and it's not. Man is, you know, simply, you know, cannot be trusted.

[David Sims]

They finally get a diagnosis for. For mom.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, he clocks like that the baby is pure. And he says the placenta line. Yes. And then, God, that the scene of him inspecting her is so good because he is not overplaying it. But you get this bit of, he is so happy to be doing this again. You know, like, it is so comfortable for him to go back into doctor mode. A thing he has had to abandon in terms of the actual part of interacting with other people and trying to help them with people who are alive. Yes. Right. Yes. And he does the sort of very gentle, I'm going to have to feel under your armpits and under your breast. Is that okay? And you see her dealing with the intensity. He's asking the questions about, you know, like, are the phases. Marie's like, choking up just thinking about this. But it's, it's, it's really profound stuff. And then they're sitting by the fire and he just says, like, obviously I don't have the equipment to do a proper test. I can't say for certain. It. All of the evidence point towards cancer. I don't know if it was cancer of the body that spread to the brain or cancer of the brain that spread to the body. But that explains the hallucinations and all of this. And you're sort of like, what does the movie do now? And it. Without wasting time, he starts basically transitioning into the bed side conversation for the boy. When she. It's the moment that's. It's the moment that's the $20 million reaction shot for me, right. Is he says, I. I believe it's cancer. And it cuts to Jodie Comer shifting eyeline from Ralphiens over to her son.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And she gives him a look like, well, help. It's a very gentle sort of like, smile of like, well, that's not great. But like, we have an answer. She's like, that.

[David Sims]

She kind of knew.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She kind of knew.

[David Sims]

She kind of felt all the adult. Her husband. They all kind of knew and they just weren't telling the kid.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She's. But she's giving him this look of like, well, we have an answer now. Like, she's sort of trying to make it a little bit lighter while acknowledging, like, not great news. And she's a conveying like 40 lines of dialogue in, like, the tilt of a head of an. Raise of her eyebrows. And it speaks so much to her relationship to her son and why she's tried to protect him. And even in this moment doesn't receive the news before she can even process what it means for herself. She feels the need to say something to him with a look. Right. Like she needs to assuage him immediately. And the movie just immediately gets into this dialogue of, everyone has to die. There are many ways of dying. We. We have the ability to choose the way we die in certain ways.

[David Sims]

And it's not something to necessarily be scared of or to treat as, like.

[Griffin Newman]

The fucking, you know, virus or whatever has not robbed us of that completely.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, as much as the world has ended and changed and all right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And there's this feeling of like, how do you want her to die? Like, are you gonna keep out running the Alphas? Are you gonna let the cancer completely take her?

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like, her brain is obviously right. She's already losing her sense of reality or whatever.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Or now that we know is there.

[David Sims]

Like, a humane, dignified.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

To do it with agency and to not let her suffer anymore and also, like, not let him suffer anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And so they. She, you know, gives her son a big hug as he's hysterical.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's hold. She's holding him in order for Ralph Fiennes to tranq him so he can't fight it. He doesn't totally black out.

[David Sims]

He is lose it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. Lying down with the baby, and we just see her.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like, life, new life, death.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What is her final line to him? I wish I had it, but it might even be something simple as, I love you so much.

[David Sims]

And then she, like, walks Pat, like, away from the fire. And then the next thing we see.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Is he hits her.

[Griffin Newman]

Fines returning.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He hits her with the tranq.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then he does what he needs to do, and he comes back with the skull cleaned and hands it to the boy and says, you need to put it in a really important spot. Or something akin to that.

[David Sims]

Yeah, choose. Choose where to put her on the right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Which, once again, it's like, these are the choices we have are. Are how we die and how we process that death and how we pay tribute to it and all of it. And he climbs up and he places the skull there. And this is the moment where I'm just like, this movie rules. Who else would fucking think to make this their fucking legacy goal?

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's why it's even cooler, right? Like, it'd be cool anyway, but. Right. The fact that it's kind of like, we got to make this sequel after years of, like, nah, no one's interested. And now it's like, okay, people are interested. What do you want to do?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

His career got stuck in a rut, and he's got this magic key, which is like. Like, you know, the reason why it was so hard to see 28 days and 28 leaks at weeks at the time. We did the episode two years ago where it wasn't streamable and it wasn't rentable. They've been taken off of platforms is, like, 20 years later, the rights reverted back to. Yeah, and then they Garland Boyle McDonald, and they didn't resell them immediately because they were trying to do the auction of rights for the previous two, and we have scripts for three more. Right. And he knows, like, this is the hot hand he's holding to be able to get something greenlit. And with that hand, he's, like, making a pretty fucking profound movie about the human condition and our, like, relationship to the actual idea of life and death.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right, right, right. But you know who else has a hot hand? Thanos, when he has the Infinity Gauntlet.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Which he did himself.

[Griffin Newman]

And he did it all himself.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He did it all himself. It's really good shit, in my opinion. And it's also, like, as we're saying, it's, like, perfect. Perfect boil and garland stuff. Neither one of them could have done this without the other.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with you. Absolutely.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I. I like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Why they weren't together exactly. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, you know, I. I think of, like, Charlie Kaufman as well, where I'm like, I love all the movies he has directed. There is still a part of me that's like, can he, like, sure, let Jones or Gandry direct a thing again?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because it's just fun to. Sometimes you get things that are the magic of movies.

[Griffin Newman]

This.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The whole is greater than the parts.

[Griffin Newman]

Totally.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right, right.

[David Sims]

So.

[Griffin Newman]

And by the way, Bo, of course, we should acknowledge. Has been in interviews acknowledging, like, oh, yeah, Garland had, like, Sunshine sequel pitches that were insane.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do you know this, Ben? Like, that in recent press, he's like, what we wrote was a triptych of three movies that were connected and that they were each centered around a different planet in the solar system. They were not literally like Sunshine 2, but they had, like, a Jupiter movie and whatever. And they were like. And then Sunshine bombed. And they were like, well, no one wants these scripts. And he was like, but they were good, right?

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing. Boyle's like, yeah, they were good. I'll let. I'll let Alex explain. And people are like, what?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

No, you explain now. What are you talking. He's like, oh, I don't remember.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But they were cool, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Anyway, nobody liked that movie. And then people like, no, we like it now. And he's like, oh, that's nice.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's also called out that, like, Rothman was the head of Fox at the time that Sunshine came out and mishandled the movie. And he did it and fought him.

[Griffin Newman]

He did it and thought it was too bleak.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Rothman is the guy who bought the.

[Griffin Newman]

28 package now at Sony.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Time heals all wounds, of course, but.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And also, it's like, this guy supported us strongly in what we wanted to do, which was not the obvious thing to do with these movies.

[Griffin Newman]

What is the obvious thing? It's the only thing that I like. It's like. I don't know what I expected.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The obvious thing is, I mean, obviously open on Killian.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's true. Sure.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Eyes opening up. And he's like the badass survivor or whatever, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, even, like, within this story, the obvious thing is the kid makes it past the other side, and rather than Eric finding them at the 30 minute mark, Killian Murphy is the one who finds them and guides them. Or Killian Murphy is the doctor or.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, walking dead thing of, like, right. You find some village where we're like, here's our deal, right? Like, you know, we live this way.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But I think wisely, like, they kind of use Killian Murphy that exact way in Quiet Place Part two. And I, I do think this movie, as you called out, has something in common with the Quiet Place movies, which I remember when you saw it, David, and you were like, look, like. I didn't think I'd give him credit, but Krasinski locked into the right thing, which is like, this is a movie about how terrifying it feels to be in a parent in a world where you don't feel like you can protect your children. Right. And this movie is doing the same thing from a different angle. And it's, it's why it activated the. You're saying Maria Wyatt, like, pokes these bruises is. It's not like fatalistic about it, but it is like, it is scary that we don't ever feel like there's any way to actually keep our children safe. And in a world that is this intense, those fears are now, with all this, the stakes are intensified.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, the movie does have a cliffhanger after all this wonderful stuff. And it does feel like the movie could close here.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But I mean, this emotional day, you mon. The music swelling and he sends the baby back to the border in a basket like a fucking Moses style, like.

[David Sims]

Hi, dad, I'm alive.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Explaining himself.

[David Sims]

This baby is not infected.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm going to stay out here.

[David Sims]

I'm going to stay out here. I have unfinished business.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right? And then it does and I'm like, great ending, right? This movie could go in any direction. And obviously it's opening up like, what does this boy do next? But it does feel like this movie is a complete story. Then it does another 28 days later. And you're like, how. What is this?

[Griffin Newman]

Seeing the text flashes on screen and.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes, it literally does the title card and he is like throwing arrows at.

[David Sims]

And yeah, he's improved his.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's gone a little better, within reason. Right. And he sort of finds himself in a dead end where he's able to take down one, but they're more coming and he's not gonna make it. And who presents himself very loudly at the top of this wall, but Jack.

[David Sims]

O' Connell, the grown up version of the little boy from the Teletubby scene in the beginning of the movie, who.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I did not put it together, but it did blow my mind when you called it out. David. He is dressed like Jimmy Savage and.

[David Sims]

All of his minions, he's with a bunch of other are all dressed like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Jimmy and they're all named Jimmy. And they're called the Jimmy's.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm watching this movie in an audience full of Americans. I am American.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

American.

[Griffin Newman]

I was born in this country. I'm not trying to say I'm, you know, John Bull over here.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Look, the audience reacts. They laughed and they just go like, who the is this, like, weird? And there's no clocking of the semiotics.

[Griffin Newman]

Part of why I'm vibrating as you guys are like, you like that, right?

[David Sims]

I was freaking the out.

[Griffin Newman]

He's dressed like Jimmy Saville. And then I. Then I took me a second to be like, right, right, Alex Garland's. You sick. Has. Has. Is going like, yeah. They wouldn't know that Jimmy Savile was.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do you know anything about Jimmy Savile, Ben? So I feel like I know more about Jimmy Savile than most Americans. And yet I did not get this at all.

[David Sims]

I re. I actually re. Watched. There was like a Netflix.

[Griffin Newman]

You rewatched. Whatever Netflix garbage.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I didn't rewatch it, but I watched it.

[David Sims]

I rewatched after this, after this because I was like, we're gonna go into it, so I need to make sure.

[Griffin Newman]

We don't know to go into.

[David Sims]

Well, the thing that I like forgot about is how, like, important Jimmy Savile was to like, nor like the north of Britain. The fact that he was like a former coal miner from Leeds.

[Griffin Newman]

From Leeds?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yorkshire boy was like, very much like identified with the north of England, which this movie also is.

[Griffin Newman]

That is true. I think he came up in like, even once he started being a DJ and stuff. Like, he was still in the north. He was in Salford or Manchester or wherever. And like. But like the whole thing. I was trying to explain him to people who were like, who are you talking about? And I was kind of like. I guess it was kind of like M. Like Mr. Rogers was a pedophile.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Or whatever, but it's not combined with like Huey Herman and also so philanthropic and all these things. He was this incredibly bizarre, cartoonish.

[Griffin Newman]

That was the whole thing. I was like, it's not quite right. Because Mr. Rogers's whole thing was that he was super normal. And Jimmy Savile was always Was weird. Like, he was cartoonish. And he also did like Top of the Pops.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's like, presenter, a light entertainer and all this sort of stuff. And a personality whose, like, Persona was so bizarre and his look was so bizarre and his energy was so bizarre.

[Griffin Newman]

But he also had this show called Jim Will Fix it for many years. It was just kind of like a make A wish show.

[David Sims]

But they weren't Mr.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Beast. Kind of like, I'm making philanthropy.

[David Sims]

But they weren't always like, sick kids. It would just be like, every little kid would write in and be like. Like, my dream is. One of the things was like, I want my duck to fly. I feel bad that my duck can't fly.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

So much of his cultural reputation is also, like, his support of children's hospitals and things like this. Like, some of the stuff's entertaining, and he always downplays his status. And, like, he's fucking knighted by the Queen.

[David Sims]

And he was, like, the reason why. Like, the. The. Like, the main spinal injury hospital in the uk, like, why they, like, the main source of their fundraising. He was knighted. He was really close with Margaret Thatcher and really close with Prince Charles.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. I mean, he was. Right.

[David Sims]

Like, he advised charity stuff. Yeah, he advised the Prince Charles when Diana died within a very short period. No, sorry, it wasn't Diana. It was Lockerbie. It was. How do we, like, respond to the British public after Lockerbie? And so they're like, in Jimmy Savile's papers, like, all of these, like, notes to Prince Charles about, like, how they should address the public.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Within very few years of his death, it came out that he was just a horrendous.

[Griffin Newman]

It was. But it was like, Cosby, where people knew.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

There were always the Louis Theroux documentary where he asks him about it. Like, it was one of those things that people had just kind of chosen to sort of not think about, but.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, decades of child sexual assault, like.

[David Sims]

Be on talk shows in the 2000s, where he would be like, I'm. Like, Someone would be like, oh, you. You were a wrestler, right? And he'd like, yeah, I'm the most feared, you know, man. In all of the girls schools in England or whatever. Like, he would joke openly and people.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Was a lifelong bachelor, and they sort of, like, presented as sort of a joke of, like, is this guy asexual? And then there'd be the whispers of, like, it's kind of weird. And he would always diffuse it with this attitude of like, I hate children. I don't like talking to children any.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, anyway, the whole thing with this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Movie is like, saying, what if Bill Cosby was never exposed and you had a gang of people who were all wearing Cosby sweaters, and we're like, we're the Huxtables.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know where it's. I.

[David Sims]

But this guy's so important, so disturbing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

He was retired by the time I moved to Britain. He was still known. He was still a figure. He was never that important. He was just sort of famous. Like, in a weird way. He was just a weird famous guy and like a light entertainer. Like, Britain has lots of light entertainer celebrities where you're like, what do you do? Exactly? It's like, I don't know, host TV.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Shows like this, Ben, where everyone in retrospect is like, why weren't we, like, raising flags about this guy all the fucking time?

[Griffin Newman]

And to be clear, like, when he was exposed, it was part of also just this big sort of investigation of a lot of figures who had abused people.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And it was a little similar to the culture of silence scandal here of just like, Right, how systemic.

[Griffin Newman]

What I think Garland is playing with, right, is that it's so disturbing. They're so disturbing. But also, right, this sort of warped sensibility of Britain. Like. Like, had, like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And like, kind of like weaponized, avuncular kind of like friendliness. Right? That is like, feel cheerful.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It's so scary.

[Griffin Newman]

It is quite a thing. Third rail for them to be touching in Britain. Everyone else will just kind of be like, whatever.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And let's be clear, the movie also ends at this point. You're introduced to a whole new silo of culture, including the face of it being a known actor who is then third build in the end credits of the movie. And you're like, okay, so that's the second movie. But it is just like there is a kind of period at the end of a paragraph of him, the voiceover of the letter to the dad and the baby arriving at the gates and everything. And then this is absolutely just a Next week on Lost.

[Ben Hosley]

I love it. It reminded me of, like, the. The filmmaking is kind of like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The way the action is, they're all.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of like doing little jumping cartwheels.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And brightly colored jumpsuits.

[David Sims]

It was. It was so silly and ridiculous.

[Griffin Newman]

You have. What's her name? Aaron Kellyman.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. And there was another known actress who.

[Griffin Newman]

I think is in whatever. She's in the Brutalist in a small role. You know, she's. She's. Come on.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Isn't she the wife? Navola's wife. Am I wrong?

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

But I. That was why.

[Griffin Newman]

Remember the Brutalist?

[David Sims]

No, the sav.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What was that? I'm hearing about this for the first time.

[David Sims]

The Savile stuff is why I thought they kept the embargo, maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Yeah, I. I don't think.

[David Sims]

It would have made a difference in this country, but I have no idea. I haven't read any UK critics. How are people?

[Griffin Newman]

I, I, look, I can't speak to how Sony does business, but in my opinion, they do business a little weird. We're deep enough in the podcast that I can slightly cast Shade on.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, they do this a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I don't know why.

[David Sims]

It's a really good movie. Everyone was like, this movie must be bad because.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But there's. They're not showing it. Instances of this, not just Sony, in the last couple years, when you see a movie, like, it's touchy. Like, you see, there are movies you've seen, like, 36 hours or less before they start screening publicly, commercially, where you're like, why the Weren't they showing this to us three weeks ago? Everyone likes this.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think there's.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This movie's obviously a little more odd.

[Griffin Newman]

There's something about a lot of publicists who I, you know, love and respect. A lot of publicists that I work with. But we're like, like, they seem to think the closer to sort of release that a critic sees the movie, the better. Like a kind of like, well, we need it to be fresh. Like, you need to write your review with, you know, needs to be this sort of excite. And I'm just like, this is the.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Bane of your existence. Where you think a lot of it's.

[Griffin Newman]

Not mine because I'm not like poor David Ehrlich who has to hit every embargo.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's what I'm saying.

[Griffin Newman]

If you work for a trade.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

When I say bane of yours, I think. Not that you feel like you're struggling with it, but. But you feel like it's detrimental to film culture.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I mean, sure. I mean, look, we're all, we all.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Want the best for movies right now, but look, materialists. A movie I liked a tremendous amount. You did not really like Marie maybe is in between the two of us. Right. Marie and I were talking about last night. It is one of the great conversational movies, or rather, let me say conversation movies in recent memory, where every conversation I've had about this film in the last week has been fascinating to me and, like, not even argumentative. I'm like, you know, there's shit like Last Jedi where I'm like, I'm so tired. I know what I think about this, and I'm not interested in litigating it with other people anymore. Whereas materialist, I'm talking to people who I strongly disagree with, and I'm like, this is interesting. And I Think the movie is kind of designed to provoke these conversations. And yet I completely understand why they did not have that film play at a single festival and went wide in the first weekend. Because they were selling it as a thing that it is absolutely the antithesis of. It is one of the most antagonistic, like, bite the hand movies based on the expectations that they sold people. And I'm like, that's a movie that you don't want too many people writing about before the weekend.

[Griffin Newman]

They do that all the time. They've never done it with a comedy before.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

28. It's.

[Griffin Newman]

They usually do with horror movies.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Exactly. It is the first time they have successfully figured out how to do their horror thing on a different genre. But 28 years later is not like that. It's not like, oh, audiences are going to be furious.

[Griffin Newman]

I've had a lot of.

[David Sims]

I am seeing stuff on. On Reddit. Sorry, but like, people being like, oh, I think people are going to be disappointed because it's not as much of a zombie movie this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The.

[David Sims]

The scares aren't there.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a lot of zombie action.

[David Sims]

I was.

[Griffin Newman]

I find that kind of.

[David Sims]

I was stressed out, like, for the first two thirds of the movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's the summertime.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the summer. Summer. Summertime.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David likes to go chill. Sure, you like to chill. You like to go to the beach with a laptop and file reviews.

[Griffin Newman]

That happen.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sometimes that happens. Put on some sunglasses, sunscreen, blast some beach tunes, hit up a volleyball. David has put sunglasses on. These are the items you need to carry along with you in your summer chill out. But you know what? Something you don't want.

[Griffin Newman]

Something's holding me back.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Griffin, there's something you don't want in your pocket. Your old wireless plan.

[Griffin Newman]

Too heavy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You need sunscreen to prevent your skin from getting burned. But how do you prevent yourself, your wallet, from getting burned by your old wireless bill?

[Griffin Newman]

You make the switch to Mint Mobile because Mint Mobile has plans starting at 15 bucks a month.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

David, it's so funny you say that, because what a coincidence. Mint Mobile actually is a sponsor on this episode.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right. And Mint Mobile gives you premium wireless service that's on the nation's largest 5G network coverage and speed. You're used to way less money.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I like that.

[Griffin Newman]

So while your friends are sweating over data overages and surprise charges, you'll be chilling, literally and financially.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. How about the only thing you should be sweating over are those cool beach sports.

[Griffin Newman]

You're gonna use your own phone. You're gonna Bring your phone number, all your existing contracts.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm very attached to these things. I don't want to give them up.

[Griffin Newman]

David and exactly. You'll be ditching your overpriced wireless. You got three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You will feel like David Space, fifth most popular recurring SNL sketch because you'll be saying bye bye to your overpriced wireless plans, jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Mint Mobile's here to rescue you like a lifeguard. Like Baywatch Summer.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, this is what I'd use essentially if I was in search of some savings on my wireless bill. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless wireless [e-mail] check. That's mintmobile.com check upfront payment of $45 for a 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Can I go back to my. My popcorn line conversation with the great Hilary Busis and telling her, I don't think the previous movies are going to tie in that much to this. And I said, you know what I'm really hoping for, like, in this moment of realizing I don't actually really know much about this movie, but I want it to be good, obviously. I'm like, I just want fucking the Romero approach. You know, like every 10 years, George Romero made a different zombie movie. And the connective tissue was, this is a zombie movie made by George Romero. Right. They are basically like anthology films. They're tracking this culture in this world he's built. But we're not following characters. They're not building off the plot of each other. And he is just going like, what's another thing I want to say about the idea of this happening to a society? And I do think that's what this movie's doing first and foremost. Right? It's like Boyle and Carlin being like, like, you know what? We got different we can say about zombies than the very specific we said in 2002. That's what I want. I don't know if people want this to be the kind of like, I don't know. It's an odd question of like, what does 28 days later as like a brand represent in people's minds?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. What do they. Right. What are they? What this? Are they being denied?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're right that it's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I guess.

[David Sims]

But I Think you kind of hit the nail on the head with like, my reaction to rewatching 28 Days later for the Boyle series, where I remember it, I remember it being good and scary from when I first saw the movie. And then as I saw it, I watched it again. I'm like, this is profound. This is political. This is so interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

Our episode with David Reese, very good.

[David Sims]

A great episode discussing all of that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But it's also like a punishing movie. Like a movie that keeps you in a miserable space.

[David Sims]

But as I'm watching it, I'm like, this, this movie's really smart and it does not feel like it is now at the top of my Boyle rankings. But it was like, it doesn't really feel like as much of a classic horror movie to me.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, But I also think that's the Romero approach. And you watch those films and there are less horror films than even like the other straight horror movies that Romero made in his career. And it's like, it's him being like, I have no interest in making Night of The Living Dead 2. I won't make a different zombie movie.

[David Sims]

Well, that's why I'm just like. If you talk about, like, what is the fan, like, what are the fandom expectations? Like, I don't know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because as much as obviously Killian is like, you know, in his like, coronation moment, it's not like Killian Murphy in 28 Days later is like Snake Plissken. Right. It's not like we're dealing with like one of the great icons of horror where people are just like, I want to see him ripping heads.

[Griffin Newman]

A Snake Plisskin. That Alpha, that's like a.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's like a, like a 5D joke. That's a joke. Riffing on a glowing.

[Griffin Newman]

Are we gonna trap the entity in it?

[David Sims]

That's.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's a joke. Riffing on our 20 minute side, tangent of. Do you think Snake Plissen is packing?

[Griffin Newman]

Does the tattoo go on stick too? Is the other question.

[David Sims]

Wait, okay, so we can't really do the box office.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I. I was about to say.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We'Re going to be done to around 30. It's doing very well in pre sales. I'm hoping it over performs, but 30 would be a total triumph for this.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically, it seems like this week's box office is going to be kind of like three movies making around 30, like how to train your dragon. You know, second weekend this and Elio, which is not Italian.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do you guys know about. Ooh, Disney Emoji blitz just started its Elio Event. I've been introduced to a new character named Ooh.

[Griffin Newman]

Like Oo.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, five O's.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And it is a tiny little blue supercomputer that looks like a bubble with eyes and a mouth voiced by Shirley Henderson.

[Griffin Newman]

That sounds all right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I'm like, I'm getting excited about Elio for the first time.

[Griffin Newman]

I've heard Elio's kind of charming.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I've heard it's kind of charming, but Ooh, might have the juice. It just seems to be about to have a mini me summer. Is Ooh gonna do what Claude couldn't?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, one hopes can do. He can at least do what Claude could. Claude didn't. Zilch.

[David Sims]

There is one thing that's not related to Claude has a man. We have to talk about it.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, wait, wait. Just to say the other movies, I think Lilo and Stitch, I guess, is still hanging around Ballerina has sunk like a stone. Mission Impossible held really well last weekend, but is that a Father's Day little Father's Day Pop?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I mean, it's funny for how much they tangled themselves in knots to try to course correct from what they saw as the underperformance of Dead Reckoning, this movie is going to end up within a 10 difference of what Dead Reckoning did at like double the budget.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, but I don't care.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The movie is good and normal and they're not owned and everyone.

[Griffin Newman]

They're not owned. And you know, it has just the right amount of exposition to explain everything. For the emotions.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

For the emotions that pay off.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I made a dismissive face.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We all remember that the last 20 minutes of mission Possible Final Reckoning are akin to Big Fish.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I feel like he thinks that's true or whatever. But wait, I had a point to make about Mission Impossible. I don't need there to be another one, so I don't need it to do well, per se. I mean, I want movies to do.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The great news is McQuarrie's cracked it. He knows what he would do for nine.

[David Sims]

The actual great news is that Tom Cruise will be getting an honorary Oscar.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Now, you text us this and you go, does this mean they're shooting his chances of a competitive in the foot? And I call out. They finally gave Paul Newman the honorary Oscar 12 months before he wins competitively for Color of Money, a film co starring Tom Cruise. And then we clocked a couple other examples. Charlie Chaplin, they give him the very odd kind of multi asterisk limelight award one year before they give him or one year after they give him the honor.

[David Sims]

And then Spike Lee wins screenplay for Klansman after he was given an honorary career award.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I. I think the thing that is. Right, it's bizarre that it feels like Tom is about to transition back into making otur serious acting movies again. So here's a moment where he's maybe going to be gunning for the Oscar again. Why give him the award now? Also, the stunt category is being introduced.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I also think, like, I'm sorry. Like, I. They gotta have this in the ceremony.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is my fucking thing. I'm like, you guys are. Are demented if you're giving Tom Cruise an honorary award and it's going to be part of a clip package that they throw to and go like, no. Six months ago we had a fun dinner.

[David Sims]

Yeah. No.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And he's like, dancing with Debbie Allen on stage. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

No.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay, so Dolly Parton, too. I'm like, Dolly Parton and Tom Cruise getting Oscars.

[David Sims]

Put it on my tv.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't, don't. I'm. I'm. I'm all for it. I support you guys. I'm interested in that production designer, too. Give him 10 minutes.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Seems like a cool guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Everyone worked with Spike Williams. I love honorary Oscars.

[Griffin Newman]

Me too. But I cannot deny that back in the day, even me, who loves the Oscars, you would be kind of in the momentum of, like, okay, it seems like this movie. And then it would be like, screech. 20 minutes of Blake Edwards where you're like, I love Blake Edwards.

[David Sims]

But when he came out and he did a physical stunt in his wheelchair.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, Marie, I remember that. But then he talked for a while.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Remember when Stanley Donan did Soft Shoe? Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, that stuff's great.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Robert Almond talking about his baboon heart. I can't remember if it was a baboon heart.

[David Sims]

Griffin has a really important announcement for the listeners.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Everyone in this room knows.

[David Sims]

Everyone in this room knows.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The David lynch state auction was happening a couple weeks ago when JJ and aj, Our J's were in town. We were all hanging out and looking at our phones and being like, we should have something. Right? It just feels like we should get something from it. And at that moment, the item with the lowest listed price was.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you have to read it aloud? Because he doesn't know what the it's called, even though he spent dollars on it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Excuse me. We spent dollars on it.

[Ben Hosley]

I have to actually bleep.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. How much? I'm a little mad. If you spent the company's Money on that. I will say I like a little.

[David Sims]

Well, we will say we did look it up and face value.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't care.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

More expensive msrp.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't give a.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The. A cola Blue atmospheric water. We can't just be generator. It is a water cooler that makes water from the air. It extracts the moisture in the air.

[Griffin Newman]

That's called a dehumidifier.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, it's not.

[Ben Hosley]

It's called a holo bloom that. We're gonna, I suppose, store it in windows.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Where do you. Where do you think?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. I didn't tell you to buy that. I think this is where me and Ben are gonna be. It's time to have a conversation about stuff that goes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Being litigated on that.

[David Sims]

We have the measurements. It's not that big. But we're not taking it out of the packaging.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't care.

[David Sims]

Because the packaging is addressed to David lynch, care of David Lynch.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I'm aware of that. He must have sent it to himself.

[David Sims]

But isn't that cool?

[Griffin Newman]

No. This whole thing is scammy to me. I find it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This whole thing is scamming.

[Griffin Newman]

The lynch auction thing. I found it all a little like, ooh, sorry, sorry.

[David Sims]

We bought the cheapest lot.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm aware of what you did. Yes, I'm. I'm well aware.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

A cheapest buy a good distance. And to be clear, I put it on my own credit card.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, okay. Well, then I don't care. You can do what you want.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay. But it is living in the studio.

[Griffin Newman]

Where point over there.

[David Sims]

We can put. See the stuff that's like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We'll move the water stand.

[David Sims]

You know, like, we're going to have.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a dirty box with like a weird. I just.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Looks pretty clean to me.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's. People are gonna be really. People are gonna be like, oh, my God, that's the David lynch water.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ben is like rubbing.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, please weigh in, because I feel on an island right now. I feel like I'm on Linda.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, what about, like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

We've been trying to make small improvements to the office.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We've been doing a lovely job.

[David Sims]

The porch now, it looks incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Made it look so nice in here.

[Ben Hosley]

And I think there's a lot of.

[Griffin Newman]

Garbage here, for example, right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yes, yes. There's a lot of other improvements. I think at some point we maybe want to get the arcade cabinet. Like, maybe. I just think, like.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like right there in that little alcove right there.

[David Sims]

Yeah. There's so many spots where the log is that could be the David lynch alcove. We can put the log on top of the box for the water machine.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

47 by 20 by 20.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. I mean, sure. 20. 20 inches. More than a foot. Almost two.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

47 by 20 by 20.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, I need you to join me or else I'll give up.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. I mean, I think.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Listen, there's a reason we're talking about this in mind.

[Ben Hosley]

We're going to have to.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You the listener to weigh in.

[Ben Hosley]

We're at some point going to run out of room.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. It's not that big a space.

[Ben Hosley]

And there's. I have some. I have plans and I want to make some further improvements, especially because we're resigning our lease.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You want to build a bone temple?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean. And we should talk about that. We're resigning our lease.

[Ben Hosley]

You know, there's certain investments and things I want to do. So I would say, how about we compromise and we allow for it to live here for a select period of time.

[Griffin Newman]

That feels like quite the compromise on our side. I here's like, where is it going to go eventually?

[Ben Hosley]

I'm saying that it's not permanent. Here's what I was trying to find. Spot in the middle.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Here's what I will agree to.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

A provisional trial period.

[David Sims]

If we all.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't want it baked in that it is temporary. I will agree to give it some time, and if we all dislike it, I will figure out somewhere else for it to live. But I want it to have its trial period and to be given an honest shake.

[Griffin Newman]

That's all right.

[David Sims]

I forgot. Oh, they're shaking hands. They're shaking hands. I mean, I foresee this as a really important conversation piece. I think people are going to come in to record and be like, oh, is that the David lynch water thing? And you go, yes, look at it.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, wait, wait. Can you continue the conversation or is it kind of wrapping up around there?

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, wow, he delivered it to himself. Cool.

[Griffin Newman]

And also.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, and then what's the next step, by the way?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

If some fucking rage virus takes over.

[David Sims]

Yes, this is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And our fucking water system collapses, it's going to be. And guess what? What? We got this. We can make water useful machine for a hundred dollars plugged into retail price. Have you put this. Have you updated your ball rankings? I haven't. I'm just curious if you put.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I have. And I put it fifth. I put it. So my top four, I feel like, is pretty ironclad of like, jobs, sunshine, train spotting. 28 days later. And I put it fifth. I put it above shallow grave, which I had six and slum. You know, like the sort of next package of like, shallow grave. T2, Slumdog Millions, 127 Hours. The kind of, like, good but not great sort of.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I probably put it at the bottom of that tier. But I like this movie. Tremendous amount. It maybe has more to say about me liking.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, you would put this below, like, 127 hours.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I love 127 hours. I put this.

[Griffin Newman]

I like this way. I love this.

[David Sims]

This is like, maybe number three for me.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I put this below 127. I definitely put it above millions.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Slumdog.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I put it above Slum Dog.

[Griffin Newman]

Shallow Grave.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I put it above Shallow Grave.

[Griffin Newman]

Transpotting two.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I put it below Transporting two, which I also love. That movie hits really hard.

[David Sims]

My. My ranking. I have 28 days later.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The. That's your number one.

[David Sims]

That's my number one. The Isles of Wonder opening ceremonies. I included in my rank at number two.

[Griffin Newman]

And then, I mean, great, great call. I mean, we love it, obviously, this movie.

[David Sims]

Number three. 28 years. Number three. I just really like this world.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Steve jobs, trainspotting, sunshine, T2, slum dog millions, Yesterday Shadow, Shallow Grave, Life Less Ordinary.

[Griffin Newman]

You have Yesterday over Shallow Grave.

[David Sims]

I liked Yesterday. I really liked Yesterday. I just think it's really nice that there's a movie about how the Beatles are really special.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I acknowledge that the Beatles are special.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Can I say it? I. I think our episode helped the reputation of that movie.

[David Sims]

I love that episode.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm not putting the reputation was so.

[Griffin Newman]

Poor that even a lowly podcast episode could be like a shot of a.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Like, Zach Cherry is the Magic Man. It's so hard to disagree with him. As you put it. No one beats the Zacker.

[David Sims]

People clowned on that movie for, like.

[Griffin Newman]

Although I don't think he's helped Rollerball. I will.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, but he was not detecting anything.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's be clear.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He wasn't attempting to Hellborough.

[Griffin Newman]

No, he was sort of like, I had fun.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He was litigating his history with it, whereas I think he was making the case. And I think it made people watch yesterday who hadn't seen it before. And I just increasingly will have people come up to me and say, you know, what's quietly one of the best episodes you guys ever did yesterday? And by the way, I like that movie. I've had that conversation a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Strangers and Friends both.

[Griffin Newman]

President Trump said that to you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You. He did.

[Griffin Newman]

When you had your summit with Him.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I said, I'm hearing this for the first time. Wow.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, here at the end of the episode, I just want to do a quick shout out past and future guest Ben David. Recently, Ben David Ginsky attended a wedding.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes. And do you know about this? I. Did I send this to the group?

[Ben Hosley]

I'm not sure, but I just wanted to shout out. Taylor and Kyle, congratulations. They actually met through their shared love of the podcast.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Taylor was the editor on different man, one of my favorite movies of last year. Wonderful editor and.

[Griffin Newman]

But horribly edited. Just kidding.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Met him. I. I knew he was a listener. I'm a fan of his work.

[Griffin Newman]

I love that, like, this is an old episode where I'm like, love that movie. Except for whatever.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Real weird reliance on star wipes. But he. He had not told me that they bonded over the podcast. And that's. So, yes, congrats to them.

[Griffin Newman]

Speaking of additional.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And also to call out past and future guest friend of the show as of right now on the Calendar January 2026. 28 years later. Part two, Colon the Bone Temple, directed by Nia DaCosta.

[Ben Hosley]

And we're gonna do it, right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We're doing it.

[Ben Hosley]

All right, cool.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, but it's just. It's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I mean, I suppose we kind of have to. I mean, it's not a boil film.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, but I think we have to.

[Griffin Newman]

I think we got it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

If we do it on main feeder Patreon, we have to cover it in some way. It is funny that we had fucking Nia on trance.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Talking Danny Boyle. And then like six months later.

[David Sims]

Did she know? Did he listen to that episode?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Who knows? I have questions, but I don't have answers.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, Danny Boyle, let us know if you know who we are. We love you. Especially David. David really loves you.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Can I say a really annoying thing in my life? I keep getting emails inviting me to screenings of movies I am very eager to see. This is not a thing that has happened often and it's been ramping up the last couple months. They keep sending me fucking LA screenings.

[Griffin Newman]

They just think you're a big Hollywood boy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Who thinks that and why? I try so hard to message to everybody, I'm downtown Griffey News. I'm eating a dirty water dog. I'm walking a pigeon. I'm saluting the Statue of Liberty.

[David Sims]

Hey, Griffin, do you like your bagels toasted?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Well, I feel like I can't answer this because you.

[David Sims]

You have the wrong opinion.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, I have the opinion that's not seen as the Real New Yorkers.

[David Sims]

Right. Which is. You like toasted bagels?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I like, I like toast.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I don't, I don't with.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But I think it's about the water.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you tell them light?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It depends on the place. It depends on the place and depends on how fresh the bagels are. I walk in, I do a sniff test. I hold my hands up, I see what kind of heat is raiding off the bagel baskets. And then I. I lick my finger. I hold it up to the wind and I go 4, 25, 90 seconds.

[David Sims]

Didn't you grow up by Murray's?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. Murray's is a great example of a place where you don't. They have a no toasting rule and with them it's not necessary.

[David Sims]

Well I, that, that because they do their job. That was like okay, the NY Greenwich Village. The bagel spot. So I go to nyu, there's like oh, New York bagels. And that's where I'm like, oh, I could never ask for my bagel to be toasted.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Absolutely. When I walk into Murray's, I'm not like oh God, I hate. They won't let me toast it. I'm like yeah, no toasting necessary. But some if it's a bad bagels.

[David Sims]

Yeah. If I ever eat like a bagel outside of New York City, sure, I'll get it toasted. Because I don't know where that's fucking coming.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Bagels in New York Depends on the place. Look, this has been our episode in 28 years later. A movie about bagels and toasting preference in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's so important. Wow. We went long. Okay. Which is great.

[David Sims]

So much to talk about.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I'm not mad.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The new release, it's a big move.

[Griffin Newman]

Big episode. Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's exciting. Did.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah. I hope it does well. I want more.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But as we said, they're. They're saying that the allin cost on this one was 60 something.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And I think they saved money by shooting one and two back to back. It was like a straight through production.

[Griffin Newman]

The new one has a different cast I imagine.

[David Sims]

Probably weren't that expensive. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think cuz they were hiding the kid in general. But it seems like Rafe is not in the next one.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's like the kids in it for sure. I think Aaron Taylor Johnson is some capacity.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Obviously Jack o' Connell has a much bigger part which is why his billing is so high in this one.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's a name of sorts.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He's having a great comeback before we.

[David Sims]

Sign off, I just want to wish our. Our dear Ben a very happy birthday.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's. It's about to be birthday Benny.

[Ben Hosley]

Yep. Next week.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. And of course, for the record, he is turning 25.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[David Sims]

Forever 25.

[Griffin Newman]

He's. No, he's turning 28 in honor of this movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That is what's nice about that.

[Ben Hosley]

And I. I feel really good about it, and I'm just excited for the future.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't want to call my shop, but I got a great present coming for you, my love. Language is gifts. And I really. I think I. I will say you'll. You'll know it when you see it. And we'll post it on social media because I think it does need to be shared. But it was in conjunction with a friend of the show who was like, you know, what's a good idea? And I was like, yes, let's make this happen together.

[Ben Hosley]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

I can't wait to find out what this is.

[Ben Hosley]

And then, you know, of course I'm gonna have a barbecue.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

On the roof coming up. And I wonder if someone might make insurance.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This isn't a work day for me.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Exactly. You know, I don't go between work.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't walk into someone else's office and try to do their paperwork. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't knock the dick out of my mouth.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Tell me my favorite joke.

[Griffin Newman]

It's so funny.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't go to where you're sleeping and knock the dick out of your mouth.

[David Sims]

Do you have something special prepared for.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ben or for the barbecue?

[David Sims]

For the. For Ben's barbecue.

[Griffin Newman]

I do think.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I don't want to make that about me.

[Griffin Newman]

The best way to complete this bit would be for you to become an expert smoker of meats Live.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

A great news.

[David Sims]

Get you on.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Great news update for you. I'm just saying, like, that bit was completed a decade ago.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, but imagine, like, I don't know how, some event, some podcast event where you successfully, like, you know, smoke 10 pounds of brisket.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What is this weird framing of, like, a future hypothetical radical?

[David Sims]

Do they sell, like, a little smoker at the Target? I'm just gonna buy one for the party, and then we'll set it up.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Really limit the range of flavors on those guys. That's the thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I imagine some disposal. It's probably not gonna be.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

You're not getting the full bouquet.

[David Sims]

I'm just thinking about it from a social media perspective. I feel like, like, that might get us more likes than Marin.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sort of like, is that me like posting and bragging about the fact that I watched a movie for the podcast on my phone. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, that's not the core culture we're trying to present here. You know, I've been around with a lot lately. Is teak.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah, Getting that teak on there.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I haven't cracked it yet, but I. It's interesting. Thank you all for listening. Next week we return to and finish out our Amy Heckerling miniseries Pod Times the Richmond Cast with the final two films to date in her filmography.

[Griffin Newman]

Just reading here that apparently teak, you know, vapors have a strong narcotic effects on the central nervous system.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I said I haven't cracked it yet. I told you I haven't cracked it yet. And I might not, by the way.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm not saying I don't think it makes it fully illegal, but I think it's a. It's a. It's a. It's a. Yeah, I gotta figure out.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

How to harness it. And by the way, if I don't, I'll walk away. It's not ready for public consumption yet, but I just. It's been interesting. It's been interesting. It's been. It's been a. A fruitful spring of experimentation for me, which is fine because I usually tend to lean on the fruit woods. Next week, I could never be your woman. One of the most normal movies we have ever covered in the history of this podcast.

[David Sims]

One is this one that I. That's.

[Griffin Newman]

You just gotta close your eyes and think.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, I mean, like, I imported a Dutch Blu Ray.

[Griffin Newman]

You can rent it on.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is on like 2B Pluto. All right.

[Griffin Newman]

I think I might have watched it on like Peacock.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Might be on the Roku channel. It's actually weirdly prevalent.

[Ben Hosley]

Are you willing to. To give Marie your copy or is it something.

[David Sims]

I don't have an all region player. I know. Which is like, really embarrassing.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah. And that's a shame because the transfer on this one is really bad.

[Griffin Newman]

They worked really hard on that. They pressed a button and went to lunch.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right. To mirror the. The vaseline rubbed on the lens in the filming of the movie. They rub vaseline all over the bottom of the disc.

[David Sims]

Greasy.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Next week. I can never be a woman with the great Karen. She returning to the show.

[Griffin Newman]

Wonderful.

[David Sims]

She's so funny.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

She is the funniest. It's a funny episode about a movie that is. Is funny, I guess. Thank you all for listening. And as always.

[David Sims]

That'S my rage noise.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I was gonna say this zombie has the biggest dick I've ever seen in my life.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley, our Creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producers AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee, research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. 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 it. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.