Burn After Reading with Fran Hoepfner

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: Burn After Reading with Fran Hoepfner
Original Air Date: October 5, 2025
Special Guest: Fran Hoepfner

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the Coen Brothers’ 2008 dark comedy Burn After Reading, bringing in film critic Fran Hoepfner as a guest. Hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims, with producer Ben Frisch filling in for Ben Hosley, explore the film’s performances, production details, its place within the Coens’ “idiot trilogy,” and its thematic undercurrents of bureaucratic absurdity, self-importance, and the comedy of errors. The discussion is peppered with the show's characteristic tangents, humor, and sharp observations, providing rich context both for fans of the film and for those new to it.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Iconic Performances & Underrated Elements

• The hosts and Fran celebrate the cast, notably Brad Pitt’s and George Clooney’s wildly specific, nearly “undefinable” characters (“…but the Clooney character is an archetype of something that it’s a one of one.” – Fran, 03:04).
• Clooney’s portrayal is described as his most underrated work in the Coen canon, often overlooked in favor of Pitt and Malkovich.
• Malkovich’s performance is viewed by Griffin as perhaps his finest: “They just…what are the funniest things that could come out of his mouth? What are the funniest outfits we can put him in?” (34:33).

2. The Film’s Structure & Thematic Concerns

• The movie's plot is a maze of misunderstandings and personal crises, with each character convinced they’re in a much more important movie than reality grants. “It is a comedy largely based around characters having the wrong notion of what movie they are in.” (18:35)
• The hosts compare the film’s structure to works like Inherent Vice and Tenet, where the “ending is the conceit” and renders much of the preceding plot meaningless, but here it feels satisfying rather than deflating.
• J.K. Simmons’ iconic closing scene—the government’s indifferent debrief—is highlighted as the perfect encapsulation of bureaucratic disconnect (46:00).

3. Production Context & Coen Brothers Trivia

• The screenplay was crafted in concert with No Country for Old Men and A Serious Man after the relative critical low of The Ladykillers, disproving the idea that post-Oscar films are always “victory laps.”
• Parts were written almost entirely for their eventual actors (Clooney, Pitt, McDormand, Malkovich, Jenkins), with Swinton as the exception.
• Much of the “D.C./Virginia” movie was shot in Brooklyn, a practical choice after a grueling No Country shoot (28:03).

4. Richard Jenkins Appreciation

• Richard Jenkins, described as the “moral center” of the movie, is celebrated for an extraordinary 2008, having also appeared in Step Brothers and The Visitor—his rising profile leading to around five films a year soon after.
• Fran shares a personal connection: Illinois Wesleyan (Jenkins' alma mater) hyped him as a star alumni during her college visits (09:10).

5. The “Meanest” Coen Movie?

• The film is debated as possibly the Coens' “meanest,” often cited by both critics and fans for its allegedly cruel outlook (10:04).
• Griffin argues that, despite harshness, the Coens "love their idiots"—the film’s sharpness is tempered by a genuine investment in their silliness and pain (51:34).

6. Sex & Banality as Satire

• The group notes the film’s unusually frank (for the Coens) treatment of sex—embodied in the notorious “sex chair,” a prop inspired by a real device from the Museum of Sex (64:30).
• Fran and Griffin discuss how sexual aspiration and disappointment, and the characters’ delusions about status and romance, fuel much of the farce.

7. Character Spotlight: Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand)

• McDormand’s character, inspired in part by Linda Tripp, becomes a locus for debates about the film’s “cruelty” and its understanding of status anxiety in American life (47:50).
• The hosts underline the Coens’ tendency to put empathy and mockery side by side—Linda’s motivations are gently ridiculed but deeply relatable.

8. Box Office & Reception

• Burn After Reading was a commercial success ($168M worldwide), buoyed by star power and clever, if misleading, marketing (23:30, 120:18).
• Awards-wise, it drew some nominations (including WGA and BAFTA for screenplay), but was mostly overlooked at the Oscars, partly due to its timing post–No Country (24:29, 114:47).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Clooney’s Character

• “This is like Clooney’s single most underrated…” – Griffin (02:06)
• “The Clooney character is an archetype… it’s a one of one.” – Fran (03:04)

On the Film’s Structure

• “It is a comedy largely based around characters having the wrong notion of what movie they are in.” – Griffin (18:35)
• “The best thing in the movie is the ending. Obviously, that's the thing everyone remembers best, even though there's lots of other memorable stuff.” – David (45:31)

On Jenkins’ Pivotal Role

• “He is the moral center of the film…” – Griffin (10:18)
• “He's a tough hang. I used to feel so bad for him in this movie, now I kind of don't...” – Fran (10:33)

On the Film’s Meanness

• “This movie gets accused of being their meanest film… and other people go, I love it. It’s their meanest.” – Griffin (10:04)

On the “Sex Chair”

• “The George Clooney sex Machine… They had seen it… at the Museum of Sex in New York City. My old office.” – David (64:32)

On J.K. Simmons’ Performance

• “J.K. Simmons’ iconic closing scene—the government’s indifferent debrief—is highlighted as the perfect encapsulation of bureaucratic disconnect.” (46:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening banter & Brad Pitt impressions: 00:13–01:26
• Celebrating Clooney’s & Pitt’s performances: 02:06–06:12
• Richard Jenkins appreciation: 06:46–10:56
• Is this the meanest Coen film? 10:04–11:43
• Podcast mission & guest intro (Fran Hoepfner): 11:08–13:16
• Production details & “idiot trilogy” lore: 32:24–33:59
• Malkovich & Mark Strong acting process tangent: 37:05–40:35
• Plot/character rundown: 73:04–77:20
• Box Office & 2008 context: 120:56–124:48
• Final reflections & what’s next: 131:05–132:52

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Other Tangents & Running Jokes

• Richard Jenkins at Illinois Wesleyan – Fran’s college tour star, 09:12
• Brad Pitt’s “Oh, that’s cool” scene as the comedic high point (81:06)
• The “sex chair” (and the Coens’ newfound horniness) – 64:30–65:32, 87:35–88:28
• Letterboxd lists and physical media (14:01)
• J.K. Simmons as Yellow M&M (and the Cohenverse of character actors) (86:06)
• F1 and sleepy Brad Pitt – 96:13–97:22
• Mark Strong always as Hollywood’s “number two” (39:43)

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Tone & Style

This is classic Blank Check: infectious enthusiasm, deep inside-baseball knowledge, and irreverent wit. The banter is loose but intelligent, welcoming listeners with a blend of affectionate teasing and genuine critical insight. Fran’s witty interjections fit seamlessly with Griffin and David’s humor-driven, detail-rich deconstruction.

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Summary Takeaways

• Burn After Reading is celebrated not just as a sharp comedy, but as a layered satire on American status anxiety, bureaucratic ineptitude, and the delusions of self-importance.
• The Coens’ affection for their “idiots” tempers the film’s occasionally icy view of human folly.
• Performances—especially those of Pitt, Clooney, McDormand, Jenkins, and Malkovich—are underscored as among their respective bests.
• The movie’s structure and ending are potent examples of the Coens’ ability to blend form and theme: what seems labyrinthine and consequential is, in truth, a farce built on misunderstandings.
• The episode closes with anticipation for next week’s A Serious Man (featuring Marc Maron as guest), and Fran plugging her ongoing work, marriage, and the promise of 8 hours of sleep.

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Enjoy this episode if you love the Coen Brothers, revel in performance-for-performance’s-sake, or simply want to hear three excellent critics bounce from Burn After Reading to Mark Strong’s casting history, the history of VOD/physical media box sets, and back with seamless, hilarious energy.

Transcript

[David Sims]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blankjack with Griffin and David.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[David Sims]

All you need to know is that.

[Griffin Newman]

The name of the Shadow is Blackjack Osborne Cox. I thought you might be worried about the security of your podcast. It's hard to do an impression of him doing the tough guy voice.

[David Sims]

Can you do an impression of him at any other time? He's. He does have a specific delivery in this that is really well worked out.

[Griffin Newman]

I love Karen. Kill him. He did his pit impression on SNL for years that. I never understood you.

[David Sims]

Like, you didn't get what he was doing.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I don't understand what.

[David Sims]

This is where you go.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, do you remember that?

[David Sims]

Yeah, I do. I mean, I guess. Yeah. I guess there was a. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The pit's kind of hard to do these files. No, I can't do it.

[David Sims]

It's not bad. Yeah, it's like the. He's got the little draw.

[Griffin Newman]

I h. But he's also got a little bit of, like, Bill and Ted in him.

[David Sims]

Like, Pit in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where he's stoned at the. You know, where he's high on acid at the end and he's talking to Austin Butler. He's like, yeah, it wasn't that. You know, I wish I could do that. The thing where he's kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

But that's when he gets more grab.

[David Sims]

He's got the. Yeah, but it always feels like he's got that gum in his mouth, which I know is like, that's his tick. Like, But. Yeah, but not in this so much.

[Griffin Newman]

No, he's. He's clear.

[David Sims]

He's doing something in this.

[Griffin Newman]

He's clearing this. I mean, this is. I couldn't quite make it work, but the other thing I want to do for the quote was I really want to just take some time and focus on my paka.

[David Sims]

That's good. I think that's good.

[Griffin Newman]

But I thought. I thought it wouldn't. I need to tee it up in that way. My puck hat. This is what we're here doing today. We're recording our paka.

[David Sims]

I think that doing Clooney in this would be impressive because he also has a very specific thing going on right in this one.

[Fran Hoffner]

Everywhere you look in this movie, someone is doing something completely insane.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Yes. This is a movie built out of incredible performances that are really hard to define. I think this is, like, Clooney's single most underrated.

[David Sims]

I do, too. Just because I think everyone was sort of focused more on Pitt, maybe And even Malcolm.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone. Yeah, everyone over him.

[David Sims]

And. And he's. He'd already worked at the Cohen and all that, but, like, he's so fun. His parts are the parts that make me laugh the most. Just as pure, like, I can't believe what I'm watching.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the most fast. I mean, this movie is now, what, it's 17 years old.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

From the moment I saw this, his first scene, him taking the cheese and asking about, you know, his acid reflux and, like, motor mouthing.

[David Sims]

Yeah, all that stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

I was just like, oh, my go. He's playing such a specific guy in this. He has pinned such a specific type of person and yet I lack the words to describe this kind of.

[David Sims]

But it is. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And in 17 years, I've gotten no closer to describing it other than the kind of guy Clooney plays in Burn After Reading.

[Fran Hoffner]

Totally. It's like a completely undefinable type. And I think it's easy to latch on to Pitt and to Malkovich because we can kind of see, like, that archetype. But the Clooney character is an archetype of something that it's a one of one.

[Griffin Newman]

And yet it feels, like, recognizable and universal. Well, I would.

[David Sims]

He's the only character in this movie. Yes. I'm just looking down the list to make sure that I think I would kind of enjoy hanging with. Because everyone in the movie kind of enjoys hanging with him. He's kind of an easy hang.

[Fran Hoffner]

Just, you know, he wants to go to restaurants.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He. He's sort of like, I'll just take you on a date. He'll enjoy the movie. He'll. He'll. You. And then he'll be like, I'll see you later. You know, like, it's just like.

[Griffin Newman]

That's not what he says. Come on. What he says is maybe my favorite running joke, which is, you cut to woman in bed. Him coming out of the bathroom fully clothed. Checked his watch. I think I can get a run in. They do variations on that, I think, five times.

[David Sims]

And I feel like. I mean, Malkovich doesn't like him. I guess, because Malcolm doesn't like anybody.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But everyone else is kind of like, he's all right.

[Griffin Newman]

And even.

[David Sims]

I mean, I guess, yeah. Tilda's getting sick. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

But it feels like Elizabeth Marvel and Tilda both have utter contempt for him and yet cannot deny him.

[David Sims]

Right. They can't deny that he's kind of fun guy to have around.

[Griffin Newman]

Fun guy to have.

[David Sims]

He's, like, sort of High, low self esteem. Like. Like he's very confident. But he also kind of knows that he's like, you know, just a. Whatever. Does that make sense? I don't know. Everyone else in this movie kind of thinks they're high status and isn't.

[Fran Hoffner]

Well, he's like false modest. He's so proud of the fact that.

[David Sims]

He hasn't fired that he has discharged his weapon. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's to talk about with your. With your psychiatrist.

[David Sims]

I don't have a psycho.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but he says it's so aggressively. It's maybe the most aggressive he is in the entire movies. I don't have a psychiatrist.

[David Sims]

He's just. It's also like, I wonder. I mean, maybe this will be in the dossier. I don't know much about the production of this movie, but obviously they know Clooney and I wonder if they bring him the script. If they're like, is there someone you want to do? Or if they're like, we really like this one.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a good question.

[David Sims]

Well, because he could do other things here. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The other thing was that they're fabled idiots trilogy. Right. Where they duo brother and Talbot cruelty pretty close together. And then they'd always said the third one's going to be Hail Caesar. What Hail Caesar was changed a bunch of times, but it was always this notion of we like the idea of Clooney as a pompous actor. At the time it was doing Julius Caesar, I think. And then this came out and people were like, so is that the end of the Idiot trilogy? Is this its own kind of thing? It wasn't part of their original plan with him. His look in this is so good too. The beard.

[Fran Hoffner]

When he has a beard, the heavy.

[Griffin Newman]

Tan and the little fucking chain around his neck.

[David Sims]

Maybe I'm telling on myself because I know obviously his character in this is a fool, but I'm like, I'm just like kind of hot. Would go on park date with Harry Farrer.

[Griffin Newman]

It's important to the movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. I also think there's.

[David Sims]

And he's not judgy of Francis McDormand like he wants to the high profile DC ladies. But he's also like, I'll go on a date with her. She seems fun.

[Fran Hoffner]

Well, he's like supportive of her surgeries. It isn't like you need them.

[Griffin Newman]

No, he's crazy about her and she's like, it's. I mean she's the only person it feels like he actually connects to intellectually.

[David Sims]

The. The best joke in Burn after eating. And then we should introduce the podcast. In my opinion is just Richard Jenkins being like, I used to be a Greek Orthodox priest. And then not explaining what happened.

[Fran Hoffner]

I forgotten that.

[David Sims]

I also kind of forget about it. And every time I'm like, right. They just glide past it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. I mean, he's like the only solo card actor who is not on the poster called out in the trailer. He's like the secret whatever, seventh lead of this movie. You had not rewatched this in a while.

[David Sims]

No, I mean, I've probably seen this movie like four times. Like, it's not a big movie for me as I am. And I, I, I, I always, like, have a perfectly good time watching it but find it doesn't, like, move me. But I had forgotten about Jenkins.

[Griffin Newman]

You texted Jenkins is on fire in this thing. And I called out 2008 is stepbrothers his first Oscar nomination for the Visitor. And this, he was just like firing in all cylinders.

[David Sims]

You pointed it out and you're right. I just want to point out and yeah, Stepbrothers. Yeah, those three. He also was a voice in the tale of Despereaux.

[Griffin Newman]

He must have been great in that.

[David Sims]

He probably is. I want to shout out how horrendous his 2010 was.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, give it to me.

[David Sims]

I mean, and I love Richard Jenkins and I bet you he's good in all these movies.

[Griffin Newman]

But these were sort of his. This will activate our guest or cash in jobs maybe.

[David Sims]

But I think it's also right. It's like post like higher visibility where like he just suddenly is in like five movies a year every year.

[Griffin Newman]

Director moment. That sometimes happens where the storm brews and you get your Oscar nomination and everyone goes like, thank you for your service. We haven't given you the respect you've deserved for too long. Now we're going to throw everything at you. Is Hall Pass in the grouping?

[David Sims]

The hall Pass was 2011 along in his 2011 is friends with benefits Hall Pass the rum diary. I feel like, you know, whatever, but.

[Griffin Newman]

He is phenomenal in Hall Pass.

[David Sims]

I know you're a big fan of him and Paul hall. You've. You've mentioned this before.

[Griffin Newman]

Hall pass.

[David Sims]

His 2010 is happy. Thank you. More. Please relax. Guest.

[Griffin Newman]

A movie that won the Nobel Peace Prize. Silence.

[David Sims]

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not silencing you. I just, I just knew it would, I would activate you. Happy. Thank you. More, please.

[Griffin Newman]

Actually, the worst movie title of all time.

[David Sims]

Actually the number one possibly Dear John, Eat, Pray, Love. Who's he in that?

[Fran Hoffner]

I don't remember.

[David Sims]

See, like, I bought you a plane ticket, Julia.

[Griffin Newman]

Something like that. Dear John, I want to say he plays Chang, Tatum's dad with dementia.

[David Sims]

That's correct. I mean, he plays Channing, Daniel's dad. It looks like Norman. Not the one you think with Richard Gere. That was like, okay. Some other. With Emily Van Camp.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, how dare you?

[David Sims]

And then I will say one thing that he is good in, which is the Matt Reeves Let Me in remake.

[Griffin Newman]

He's really good.

[David Sims]

That's. That's the one. Saving Grace.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, Just.

[David Sims]

It's just tough that he followed this up with Radner and, you know, it's rough. Pray, love.

[Fran Hoffner]

And can I say something about his 2008.

[Griffin Newman]

You can say anything you want.

[Fran Hoffner]

Was applying to college that fall, including his alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University. And so in 2008, to be visiting Illinois Wesleyan University, they were like, you guys know Richard Jenkins?

[Griffin Newman]

Richard Jenkins? Yeah.

[David Sims]

They were like, we just got a.

[Fran Hoffner]

Like, putting him on the wall.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he was the mascot. They had a guy come out in a big Jenkins foam costume with those sad eyes.

[David Sims]

I will say he is the most, like, Midwest Illinois theater guy. It's like if you were just like, chatgpt. Create like a respected Midwestern theater actor who came out of Illinois. It's like Richard Jenkins just material, greater.

[Griffin Newman]

Like no nonsense, do the work actor than Richard Jenkins. He.

[David Sims]

I mean, it's. It's an estimable history of guys like that. Obviously, there's always been guys like that. And he just has been that guy or was that guy for 25 years. Now he's sort of slowing down.

[Griffin Newman]

I. This movie gets accused of being their meanest film. And even sometimes that's my problem with it. This is what I was going to say. Many people who love the Cohen's throw it out as like, that's the one that gets too mean and too judgy for me. And other people go, I love it. It's their meanest.

[David Sims]

Right. Right. So Pitch Black, which is sort of.

[Griffin Newman]

My take on it, but I think Jenkins is kind of the key to this movie. Like, he is the moral center of the film, but he's.

[David Sims]

He's a tough Hank. I'm not sure I'd want to hang out with it.

[Fran Hoffner]

I used to feel so bad for him in this movie, and now I actually kind of don't all.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you've grown up, You've matured. You understand his value.

[Fran Hoffner]

I only root for Elizabeth Marvel now.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, well, she's.

[Fran Hoffner]

But her life is fine.

[Griffin Newman]

She's killing it. Yeah, but, but, but, yes. That moment of God, this guy's whole backstory that the movie isn't even going to get into. Greek Orthodox priest. So funny in Chevy Chase.

[David Sims]

It's so.

[Griffin Newman]

And what she said. She goes, that's a pretty cushy job. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

She. She easily locks into, like, I could be married to a Greek Orthodox priest. That'd be a good life.

[Griffin Newman]

She says. That's a good position.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's our podcast?

[Griffin Newman]

Our podcast is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they burn, baby. This is a miniseries on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen. It's called Pod country for old cast.

[David Sims]

That's so true.

[Griffin Newman]

Today we're talking about Burn after reading.

[David Sims]

Pod after casting Paka Elizabeth Marvel, uh, this morning. So, Griff, I. I did something you might appreciate. Oh, who's our guest?

[Griffin Newman]

Our guest today is Elizabeth Marvel. She's a marvel of this world.

[David Sims]

Marvel.

[Griffin Newman]

Our guest today. Uh, look, I don't. I don't need to say who our guest is today because you're. If you're one of the millions of people tuning in for the first time in over a year, it's because the ultimate blockbuster champ has returned to the show.

[David Sims]

The. The. The. The Fran signal has been lit in the sky.

[Griffin Newman]

The ultimate signal spike in listenership. The great Fran Hoffner. Fran magazine.

[Fran Hoffner]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

And New York magazine and many other outlets. Yes.

[David Sims]

So many things I want to say. Hi, Fran. Hi. Did you listen, like me to every Spike Lee podcast appearance he did for highest to lowest and start to grow comforted sort of in like a lullaby way of the, like, sort of six, like, phrases or anecdotes he would trot out every time.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Dean Lee, you know, I think of.

[David Sims]

It as more of a reimagining, you know, great jazz musician. Like, the way he. It was great.

[Griffin Newman]

He has some. I really appreciate greatest speaking rhythms.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. His story about seeing sinners in imax.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Now this. Yeah. I wasn't even supposed to be in la. That's what he kept like. That was.

[Griffin Newman]

Imagine that. I get the call.

[David Sims]

I'm like, wow, Spike Lee in la. The craziest place for him to be.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a New Yorker. I didn't listen to everyone, but I listened to a bit Quite. Quite a few. Did you listen to most of them first?

[David Sims]

I listened to them.

[Griffin Newman]

This feels like a beat you were. You would be covering.

[Fran Hoffner]

I actually was not on this beat at all.

[David Sims]

Wow. You were sort of mid on highest.

[Fran Hoffner]

I was mid on highest. Lowest.

[Griffin Newman]

You were sort of middle to middle to lowest.

[David Sims]

Middle to middle low. This is Fran's ninth episode.

[Fran Hoffner]

Wow.

[David Sims]

You're close to 10.

[Fran Hoffner]

10 year anniversary.

[David Sims]

It is the decade of dreams.

[Griffin Newman]

It's been a decade of dreams. Public enemies.

[David Sims]

Well, that's his. That's her third episode.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not going to go in order, but I'm going to try to knock them out. Sure. There was a Twin Peaks, Aliens with a Dollar Sign. Was that the first one? That was Blockbuster Episode. Our biggest episode at that point in time.

[David Sims]

Slow it down. Let's keep going.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, great. I got three out of nine.

[David Sims]

All right. The Holiday, which I think is often cited as our best episode.

[Griffin Newman]

People. People will cite it as very much.

[David Sims]

A sort of platonic blank check episode, I would say.

[Fran Hoffner]

It was so fun.

[David Sims]

Great. Mouse Detective, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Bright Star, of course.

[David Sims]

Lolita, of course. And the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

[Griffin Newman]

Girl who does computers.

[David Sims]

Girl on computer. I, Griffin, made a letterboxd list of everything I own on physical media, on disc. I had never. I had tried to do it before and I'd never like finished it. I was like, I'm gonna finish it. I'm gonna put a note for every single one. What the format is to avoid ever fucking doubling up. Because I occasionally will mistakenly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I will do the same thing.

[David Sims]

And then I give them to usually Amazon fans.

[Griffin Newman]

Talk about real embarrassing champagne problems.

[David Sims]

Yes. Seriously. So I make a big list and I'm also like. And that will. Then I can just fade watched. Or I can filter and see what haven't I watched. Right. And I sort of have a vague idea, but I wanted just to look at it, do it. I go, show me what I just seen. And I know I've seen everything. Like on the shelf. It's mostly stuff in the piles. Right. But then there is one thing on the shelf I haven't watched. Jason Bourne, the Fifth Born movie you had never seen.

[Griffin Newman]

No, because part of the box.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I have the box. I have the stupid steel box.

[Griffin Newman]

You got the steel box, not the. The backpack, Right?

[David Sims]

No, I didn't get a.

[Griffin Newman]

There was a collector's edition.

[David Sims]

Oh, no, no.

[Griffin Newman]

The five movies packaged in a backpack with a flashlight with like a caravan or whatever.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's useful stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[Fran Hoffner]

This is the fifth one is where he comes Back. It's not Renner.

[David Sims]

It's not. It's the one post Renner where Damon and Greengrass are like, Tony Gilroy, step aside. And then they just shake the camera at you for two hours while Alicia Vikander, like, browses the Tommy Lee Jones.

[Griffin Newman]

Because I don't know about that.

[David Sims]

Yeah, Tommy Lee Jones is just there being like, so Albert Finney or whatever. Like, I'm just like, whatever that guy is this time. Brian Cox.

[Griffin Newman]

Does that movie suck ass.

[David Sims]

It sucks ass. It's so interesting because I really like pretty much all the other Bourne movies. And you're like, wow, this is kind of doing all the same stuff and yet is really bad. It's funny how it's like, you know, there is something. You had to do something, right? Like, you couldn't just have these elements.

[Griffin Newman]

We talk about Damon a lot in the True Grid episode coming up soon. And he's great film, great film, great, phenomenal in it. And then he has a really bad run after that. And you can tell the moment where he and Greengrass sign up for Jason Bourne after it felt like they had walked away was like, fuck, we need a hit.

[David Sims]

And it was a hit. It made money.

[Griffin Newman]

But the other thing is the Martian comes out like, eight months before it does. And you're like, he wouldn't have made this movie right after the Martian.

[David Sims]

He probably didn't need to, like, jump off buildings in Greece, like, for a while.

[Griffin Newman]

But he was in, like, post Great Wall panic.

[David Sims]

Totally, totally, totally. And the reason I thought about this is just that Elizabeth Marvel is in the Bourne Legacy and I love that she's in that movie. And I'm a big fan of that movie. I think it's very good and underrated. And I love to shout out that she, hand to hand, fights Jeremy Renner in it. That people don't talk about how Elizabeth Marvel and Jeremy Renner fight in that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Completely forgot that.

[Fran Hoffner]

I still haven't seen that one.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's the only one I've seen.

[David Sims]

It's really good.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm waiting. Well, I just did the trilogy for the first time over Thanksgiving last year, of course. So I'm giving myself some breathing. Breathing room.

[David Sims]

You should, because Born Legacy is set between the second and third movies and it's like really, like, weirdly inside the continuity.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the whole thing. Five timers.

[David Sims]

It's not like we're rebooting, right? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Griffiths I didn't see the Damon movies and then the Renner one out, and I'm like, maybe this Is a clean entry point. And it is the most like mid qu deep in the weeds shit possible. And I could not make heads.

[David Sims]

It is also, once you watch them all, it is Tony Gilroy going to war with Paul Greengrass. That series is con. Is those two at war.

[Griffin Newman]

It's much like the Hotel Transylvania.

[David Sims]

Correct Franchise double OT fighting.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And it is in my opinion, Gilroy being like, the action does not need to be shaky. Look at my nice clean action. And you watch it and you're like, yeah, this is better. Tony Gilroy is right.

[Griffin Newman]

But narratively, maybe that movie.

[David Sims]

I like that movie. But you know, I mean, it's. It's an odd duck. For sure.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an odd duck. I mean, look, Ludlam is kind of after reading is one of the things that feels like this movie is sort of riffing on the thing I remember hearing right before I saw it in some interview with the Cohen's was on set. Armada was what would Tony Scott do? That. That was the prism through which we ran most decisions. And it doesn't feel like they're one to one doing like a hot shots version of a Tony Scott.

[David Sims]

It's such a fast movie with so many twists and turns and like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, I like that they're not like actually actively aping the visual language of late period Tony Scott or Greengrass or any of those guys. But it definitely feels like a movie that is infused with that in the sort of. In the rhythms, in the sort of like intensity of what they're presenting.

[Fran Hoffner]

And I think these characters live in a world where Tony Scott films also are like. They are processing what's happening to them in a very like narrative way.

[Griffin Newman]

It is one of my favorite types of comedy. It is why I love this movie so deeply is it is a comedy largely based around characters having the wrong notion of what movie they are in. Right. That like, if you actually untangle this movie and it's what's so great about the ending. You're like, what's actually happening is so different than what's happening in everyone's minds. And it's not just a misunderstanding which a lot of cone movies are based on. It is based on their inflated sense of self and importance.

[David Sims]

Right. It, the, the initial and driving thing is Osborne Cox Malkovich thinking his life story is interesting and his like secrets, you know, he holds, like real. And it's probably, I mean we never see what his memoir.

[Griffin Newman]

You hear a little snippets.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right. But it's probably mostly him just talking about random no one would care about.

[Fran Hoffner]

I sort of think it would be interesting. Well, maybe that's just me.

[Griffin Newman]

He did the audio.

[Fran Hoffner]

If he did the audio.

[Griffin Newman]

If he did the audiobook. I mean, not only does he think it's important, but he's even talking to his, like, senile father about how he is worried it might be too incendiary. Right.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like this notion of, like, you might see me as unpatriotic, but I think that this story needs to be told. And then multiple important offices look at the material and go like, this is.

[David Sims]

Nothing like, not important.

[Griffin Newman]

Level three clearance.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Fran Hoffner]

We're taking you off the Balkans desk.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

Okay. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll be very quiet. Oh, I'm.

[David Sims]

I'm used to it.

[Griffin Newman]

Producer Ben is sleeping.

[David Sims]

Oh, Hazy boy is getting some. Getting some zip. What's he sleeping on?

[Griffin Newman]

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

[David Sims]

Look, apparently we need to talk about how when you hear the word game day, you might not think Wayfair, but you should. Because Wayfair is the best kept secret for incredible and affordable game day finds.

[Griffin Newman]

Makes perfect, perfect sense to me.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

And just try to. David, just if you could please maintain a slightly quiet. We don't have to go full whisper. Just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

[David Sims]

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

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, of course. But Wayfair is also the ideal place to get gameday essentials. Bigger selection, curated collections, options for every budget, SL price point.

[David Sims]

You want to make like a sort of man cave style. Okay, fine. Okay. All right. Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

David, you have like basically a football team worth of family at home. You got a whole team to cheer up.

[David Sims]

This is true.

[Griffin Newman]

You need cribs. Your place must be lousy with cribs.

[David Sims]

I. I do have fainting beds.

[Griffin Newman]

I have cribs, sconces, Shay lounges.

[David Sims]

I'm low on sconces. Maybe. Maybe it's time to pick up a few.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the kind of thing that would make your home team cheer.

[David Sims]

Look, I'm just going to say that Wayfair is your trusted destination for all things game day. From coolers and grills to recliners and slow cookers. Shop, save and score [e-mail]. that's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every home.

[Griffin Newman]

David, there's only one shame to this ad read.

[David Sims]

Don't wake Hazy.

[Griffin Newman]

There's only one shame to this ad read that I didn't find out about this in time before. I already purchased coolers, grills, folding chairs, patio heaters, recliners, bar wear, slow cookers, sports themed decor, merch for my favorite teams and more. If only I team Cleveland Browns, of course, Fonte Mac no matter what. Okay, that's the end of the app.

[David Sims]

Burn after Reading I saw this film in theaters I was living in 2008 is just the D year of Sims in New York with no friends. My friend was the Regal Union Square where I saw, I think I told you all of those Richard Jenkins movies. And I was like, richard Jenkins was there for me in the Regal Union Square.

[Griffin Newman]

You had a Richard Jenkins Regal Union Square punch card.

[David Sims]

I really did.

[Griffin Newman]

And when you showed up for Burn after reading, they gave you a hoax.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they gave me some grandpa glasses and like, I was hyped for this movie obviously, because I love the Coen brothers and they had just won best picture. And I saw it and I didn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Like it very much at the time. You didn't like it at the time.

[David Sims]

And I have sort of grown to appreciate it, but I still. It is the one where I'm just kind of like. Like when I'm watching it, like, here's.

[Griffin Newman]

The arc of this. Uncomfy for me. I loved no country so much. As we talked about last week, the trailer for this movie was really fucking good.

[David Sims]

And it was everywhere.

[Griffin Newman]

And it was everywhere.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the whole pit is in this movie thing was also like front and center. Like. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And we'll talk about. I've been talking about all series in.

[David Sims]

This movie and he's doing a thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone forgets how successful this movie was.

[David Sims]

It was successful.

[Griffin Newman]

They sold it as a mainstream movie. It opened number one at the box office. It made a lot of money. It was like a mainstream play in a way that very few of their movies were. And a lot of it's coming off the heat of no country and also the kind of like 10 year cycle of Lebowski becoming like so totemic and huge. But the ads were everywhere. People were really amped for it. And then it comes out. It does really well opening weekend. And almost immediately the response is like. From critics. Eh, maybe this is lesser Cohen's. It's more of a lark. And from general public, like, what is this? This is not what they were selling in the ads.

[David Sims]

And. And yeah, did it get.

[Griffin Newman]

It got a WGA nomination for best screenplay, BAFTA nominated Pitt and Swinton in supporting and the Globes nominated McDormand for Best Actress.

[David Sims]

BAFTA also tossed it a screenplay nod. Globes nominated for picture and actress.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. And bafta give it screenplay. Yeah, but that was.

[David Sims]

That's about it. That was.

[Griffin Newman]

It got zero Oscar nominations. I probably saw it about a week into release and was like, people have cooled my expectations a little after being so amped. Saw it immediately was like, this thing's a fucking masterpiece. It fudgeing rules. And I watched this movie like every couple of years. I've seen it many, many, many times.

[David Sims]

Many, many, many, many.

[Fran Hoffner]

Think I saw it opening weekend.

[David Sims]

Yes, friend. You were a senior in high school.

[Fran Hoffner]

And I went with my friends, including my crush and we all went to go see this. Like everyone I knew was seeing this movie. And we were 17 years old and I don't think this was like the first R rated movie I saw in theaters.

[David Sims]

But it probably isn't.

[Fran Hoffner]

It was a very formative one. Like I'm driving myself to the movies to see this R rated movie.

[Griffin Newman]

A Focus Features release.

[Fran Hoffner]

And that's when I learned to love Focus Features.

[David Sims]

That's when you learn to settle down. When it goes.

[Griffin Newman]

I remember saying to my dad, isn't this like kind of crazy? That burn after readings. Opening number one was like $20 million. And he was like, I mean, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are in it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, man.

[Griffin Newman]

And I was like, I had not thought about it that simply. And the trailer just had funny moments and. Good.

[David Sims]

Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's also reunites Clooney and Tilda Swinton and this time they get in bed together right after Michael Clayton.

[Fran Hoffner]

Michael Clayton and Karen Crowder, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

You never think about that.

[Griffin Newman]

You never think about.

[Fran Hoffner]

I was thinking about it the whole time.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Fran Hoffner]

I said, there they are. I said, that's Karen Crowder. Well, I love Karen Crowder.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, every time I watch my.

[David Sims]

You think Karen Crowder got a bad rap? Do you think Trump should try to pardon her?

[Griffin Newman]

He's going to move her.

[David Sims]

She was just keeping her company afloat.

[Griffin Newman]

A cushier.

[Fran Hoffner]

I think we should check in with her.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, we should check in with her. Do you. Do you ever wonder if the. The tragic events of Michael Clayton could have been avoided if they just hopped in the sack earlier? That all this fighting between the two of them was really just tension that was going unspoken.

[David Sims]

Michael Clayton capable of getting an erection? My guess is no. That man has the weight of a thousand worlds Sleepy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, this is a good point.

[David Sims]

That is. I love that movie. It is not a very horny movie. Sex is not really present in Michael Clayton. No one's thinking about it?

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

I mean, when Pollock's on screen, I'm thinking about it.

[Griffin Newman]

There's so much with his ex wife.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And you get the sense that, like, this fell apart because this guy just cannot be present, like, remotely. And now he has no interest in any women whatsoever.

[Fran Hoffner]

Until he met Karen Crowder.

[Griffin Newman]

Until he met Karen Crowder. If they had just been able to work through. Look, a little bit of sad news. Producer Ben Hosley has Covid.

[David Sims]

He does. He'll be all right.

[Griffin Newman]

He'll be all right. But unfortunately, he's missing from this episode. Here's some greatness.

[David Sims]

Happy news.

[Griffin Newman]

Friend of the show jumping in heroically. Producer Ben Frisch. Hey. Filling in the seat. You were saying this is one of your favorite cones?

[David Sims]

Oh, absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell, yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I like that. It's a Virginia movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

It's. I'm from southeastern Virginia, but I grew up with the kids of a lot of spooks.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Because I'm from Williamsburg, where the farm is.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Which is Camp Perry, which is a CIA training center we talk about in movies a lot. I feel like. Isn't that where, like, fucking the Recruit is set? My favorite Colin Farrell movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's your number one favorite Colin Farrell movie, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I have not seen the Recruit. Okay, well, I'm gonna look it up. Carry on. Kind of a boring place to set a series, I think, but Williamsburg, I mean, but I love that this movie looks like Virginia, looks like D.C.

[Griffin Newman]

And.

[David Sims]

I just think it's so funny. The cast is incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you want to know one of the craziest things about this movie? It was almost exclusively, if not entirely, shot in New York City.

[Fran Hoffner]

Really, like, over here.

[Griffin Newman]

That the Coens were like, we don't have to, like, go to fucking. Can we figure out how to film this at home?

[David Sims]

Which is funny because it's like a. It's a movie about D.C. and you'd think they would want to, like, whatever, but I don't know if shooting in D.C. can be a pain in the ass.

[Griffin Newman]

And I don't know if no country was just such a tough person. Production. And so often, so many times on this podcast, when the production starts with that, you're like, and that's why the movie's bad. They got too lazy.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

They didn't care enough to go to the place, and now they're, like, shooting in the wrong place and it doesn't work.

[David Sims]

They did a little bit of Georgetown location stuff to get the streets.

[Griffin Newman]

It Is the vast majority is like, Brooklyn.

[David Sims]

Yeah. No, it was John. Brooklyn Heights.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You know what? I'll open the dossier.

[Griffin Newman]

But yet it does feel like it kind of gets it right. Right. Like, I remember the first time seeing it when they go to see the romantic comedy, the Dermot Mulroney movie that is now the dearly departed 23rd and 8th movie theater.

[David Sims]

Clear View Chelsea.

[Griffin Newman]

The Clear View Chelsea. And I was like, huh? Why would they film that there if the rest of the movie is in Virginia? And then I looked it up and it's like, oh, the whole thing.

[David Sims]

It was the bow tie. After it was the Clear View. Do you know the theater there was.

[Fran Hoffner]

The other Chelsea one, though.

[David Sims]

The other Chelsea.

[Fran Hoffner]

Maybe I'm thinking the same one.

[Griffin Newman]

It went through multiple names.

[David Sims]

We saw a movie there, I think, the first time we ever met.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yes. I knew it.

[Griffin Newman]

Seeing a movie there.

[Fran Hoffner]

I knew it as Xenopolis Chelsea.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's right.

[Griffin Newman]

In between.

[David Sims]

Oh, no, it was after. Right?

[Fran Hoffner]

Yes, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, Right. It was also United Artists at one point.

[David Sims]

We got egg salad.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yup.

[David Sims]

Sorry, sorry. It was like, 10 years ago. What movie did we see?

[Fran Hoffner]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

Okay. Don't worry about it. And the Recruit is indeed set in the Farm. Roger Donaldson's the Recruit, which is just like Pacino's like, ah, you gotta be a recruit. This film, Burn After Reading.

[Griffin Newman]

I do think it speaks to how well they nailed this, though, that you're from there and it was passing your sniff test versus, like, half of the fucking Amy Heckerling movies. We covered where you're just like, this is Vancouver.

[David Sims]

Sorry, it's just. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. What's going on? David, something very exciting just happened on your laptop.

[David Sims]

We can cut this out if we don't want to include it, but we're trying to. We pay our guests and we're trying to fill in some backlogs because we got a new person who's in charge of, like, you know, payouts and all this stuff. And she very wisely has sent out, like, you know, hey, hey.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, checking back.

[David Sims]

And this is the third person. This one was Caroline Franke, who's texting me, being like, this is a fishing scam.

[Griffin Newman]

I have gotten a couple of these, too. People think that it's now a fishing sc.

[David Sims]

Take our money.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, can you send your payment information so we can think that for episode a year ago? I've got. I've got a couple of those.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm so screwed for you.

[David Sims]

It was a fishing. Everyone else. What?

[Griffin Newman]

We made a phishing scam just for you.

[David Sims]

Okay. So Burn After Reading fascinating thing is that this is.

[Griffin Newman]

No. What were you going to say?

[David Sims]

I was going to start the G. So you go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

You seem to be struggling for the.

[David Sims]

I was just getting the tab opener.

[Griffin Newman]

We're doing great. We're doing great.

[David Sims]

We're doing amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

This is really good. We're paying back people from two years ago.

[Fran Hoffner]

I can't wait to get money.

[Griffin Newman]

It's going to be really.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm going to start spending like crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Because I just know money's coming.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And it's 50,000 per episode now.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's actually not true. I want to clarify. It's time for me to say this one last time, says JJ and he's saying it of course, one last time because he's probably knows he's going to get fired. Right. Burn after reading 13th Coen brothers movie was written during a flurry, unprecedented flurry of activity where they got no country for Old Men, A Serious man, and Burn After Reading kind of all kind of going at the same time.

[Griffin Newman]

That is what I was gonna say, that this is a fascinating post. Like, you know, it's a. It's a post victory lap. No country movie. But it's not.

[David Sims]

No, it's Burn and Serious Men had been funded and set up before they won best Picture.

[Griffin Newman]

At their lowest moment post Lady Killers, they write these three movies together and get them made, three in a row.

[David Sims]

The true blank check is true grip.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That's them being like, more money, please. We want to do this properly and we want to adapt a book that was already adapted into an Oscar winning film. And Scott Ruden is like, why? And they're like, we want to. And he's like, okay, well, well, go get the rights.

[Griffin Newman]

I want to say.

[David Sims]

And he said it that show.

[Griffin Newman]

He said it that way. Yeah. And. And string cheese firmly in hand. I. I want to say, and I'm sure we can verify this or reject this in the dossier that this movie had four finished filming by the time they win the Oscars.

[David Sims]

Yes. And then I guess comes out like.

[Griffin Newman]

Six months after that.

[David Sims]

Or they said they had shot most of it before they won the Oscar, so maybe it was right near the end.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is like. Right. It gets to be the movie after the win, even though it was in no way actually made as the movie after the win.

[David Sims]

So Burn After Reading emerges from the Cohen's desiring to work not just with one actor, a bunch of different actors.

[Griffin Newman]

Mission accomplished.

[David Sims]

These parts were basically all written for the actors who play them. So Brad Pitt, George Clooney. This is answering my question from earlier. Frances McDormand, they knew her.

[Griffin Newman]

They did the head and in John.

[David Sims]

Malkovich and Richard Jenkins were all basically purpose built. You know, in this script, Swinton, surprisingly.

[Griffin Newman]

Is the one they hadn't written it for. And I've never been able to find who they did write it for.

[David Sims]

If anyone, they're probably like, eh, we'll figure it out. It's just always so funny when like, it just happened with the new one Joel cone is making with Josh o' Connor where they're like, it found its female lead, Francis McDormand. Who's that?

[Griffin Newman]

James Gunn has added Jennifer Holland to the supporting cast of new project. Does this need to be its own deadline?

[David Sims]

Flanagan's. Oh, yeah, Pete Siegel.

[Griffin Newman]

No, look, no disrespect.

[David Sims]

No, no, it's fine.

[Griffin Newman]

When you post the news item as if it like after a long search. Yeah.

[David Sims]

So McDormand, Clooney and Jenkins obviously are Cohen's favorites. Who they were keen to work with again, Pitt, basically, they had been working with together to try and make to the White Sea happen for quite a long time. So they have a relationship there. And I think with Malkovich they were just. I mean, correctly, like, I think we could really have fun with that guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Like Malovich performance. And it absolutely feels like a kid on Christmas morning getting the toy they've been dreaming of for months.

[David Sims]

It's really outstanding.

[Griffin Newman]

Unwrapping it quickly and being like, oh my God, look at all the things you can do with this. They just. You can tell that they're just like, what are the funniest things that could come out of his mouth? What are the funniest outfits we can put him in?

[David Sims]

Totally. And just like, how to tap into his kind of seething energy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I think it's my favorite performance of his.

[David Sims]

That's crazy to me. But he. I too, but it's very funny.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he is so transcendently good in this.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah, he's really good.

[David Sims]

He's good.

[Fran Hoffner]

Is my favorite. I don't think so.

[David Sims]

My favorite performance of his is obviously the Vinny Vidici sketch where he's like, I don't talk like that. And hater starts doing him perfectly.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, I miss Vinny Vidici.

[Griffin Newman]

There was also Hayter's Weekend Update where he was Malkovich and it was after the Madoff scandal and Malkovich had gotten fleeced by Madoff.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Fran Hoffner]

In real life.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Oh, and he Keeps doing this thing of, like, how do you feel about it? He's like, I feel fine, Seth. And he's like, you're not gonna get upset. And he's like, I know what you expect me to do. You expect me to launch suddenly into a hyper articulate, angry jag, but I'm not gonna do that. And then they just keep trying to egg him on until he explodes.

[Fran Hoffner]

I saw him live once, Malkovich. Doing what in Chicago? Well, close in.

[David Sims]

Like a Steppenwolf thing?

[Fran Hoffner]

No, with the symphony we see at the Bean. There is very close to the Bean.

[David Sims]

Damn it. Frank Keeps responding sincerely to my job.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm not letting. I'm not letting you get one in here. I'm not letting you get one in here. There's an Aaron Copeland piece called A Lincoln Portrait that is like music with just excerpts from Lincoln. And Malkovich did the Lincoln excerpts, but they didn't announce ahead of time.

[David Sims]

That's fun.

[Fran Hoffner]

Who it was going to be.

[Griffin Newman]

So it was just.

[Fran Hoffner]

It was just like, Lincoln Portrait with Guest. And so I went with my mom seven years ago.

[David Sims]

And then he did Linkin park after that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Crawling in My Skin.

[David Sims]

It's pretty good. It was pretty good.

[Fran Hoffner]

It was crazy. It was crazy to see him.

[Griffin Newman]

I can't imagine he's one of those guys. I mean, he's so fascinating because he talks about, like, acting is easy. I don't understand these people. I show up, I say words, they pay me money. A dog could do it. And, like, sometimes when people like Brando would say that you're, like. You're, like, trying to hide the scent of the process. You're trying to act like you don't care. Malkovich. I genuinely believe, to some degree, it just flows out of him.

[David Sims]

I guess. So. It must. I mean, it's interesting. I wonder what his process is. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

He talks about it as if he does not internalize stuff at all.

[David Sims]

Because it's because, like, Joan Allen, Gary Sinise, Glenn Headley, like the classic Steppenwolf people, you think about those as, like, really sort of, like, awful actors who wanted to do new stuff with this, you know? And, like, is Malkovich right, just this, like, alien they found where they were like, oh, God, we gotta get this guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he's the best, some degree. Like, I do get the vibe that, like, obviously he has a very unique energy and way of speaking and he has incredible emotional access. Right? Like, Malkovich doesn't become Malkovich if he isn't able to tap into that anger so quickly and viscerally but he. When he talks about. It's just like, I just learned the script and I do line readings.

[David Sims]

I like him.

[Griffin Newman]

I love him.

[David Sims]

When was I first exposed to Malkovich?

[Griffin Newman]

Great question. Con Air. Cyrus the Virus.

[David Sims]

I guess it was that run. I guess it was that mid-90s.

[Griffin Newman]

Him, as in the Line of Fire? Yeah.

[David Sims]

I guess that's when I'm like. Because, like, I feel like the first time I really care deeply about him was being John Malkovich. Obviously.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

For a whole generation. He becomes something different because of that.

[Griffin Newman]

I knew who he was by the time that Being John Malkovich, I did too. I didn't understand why the movie was about him. I remember my parents having to explain to me, like, sort of what he represents culturally. That him. Just the idea of why he was a funny guy to build that around. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Malkovich. Malkovich. Malkovich.

[Fran Hoffner]

I was trying to figure out the first thing I saw him in.

[David Sims]

And I'm gonna guess for you it.

[Griffin Newman]

Was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's what it was.

[Griffin Newman]

Really.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That makes sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Actually, he's pretty good one scene performance.

[David Sims]

What does he do in that? I don't remember.

[Griffin Newman]

He plays a leader of an alien race who's like a rival of. I don't know the book, barely.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's got an Aragon. I think were the two.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Remember Aragon, yes.

[Fran Hoffner]

Looms large in my home.

[Griffin Newman]

Loom large. I was the world.

[David Sims]

Aragon is a great example of our age difference where it's like, I was way too old for that Dragon teen.

[Fran Hoffner]

I never read it.

[David Sims]

But you were just the right age, like, for it to have been from right at your age group.

[Griffin Newman]

But look, here's a perfect example. I feel like the way Malkovich talks about his approach to acting is that he doesn't do anything differently on Aragon versus 100% burn after read.

[Fran Hoffner]

But I also think they're the same level of real to him.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. That's part of it. I think he's just on a wavelength where he can just read it and be like, yes. I feel this. Go put out the costume on my body. You know?

[Fran Hoffner]

You know who I think is kind of like this also?

[Griffin Newman]

Who?

[Fran Hoffner]

Mark Strong.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

I was just. What was Mark Strong on standby for? What was I just reading about?

[Griffin Newman]

He was on standby.

[David Sims]

There was some, like, a flight. Yeah, he was on standby for a flight and he just wouldn't get. He couldn't get a seat.

[Griffin Newman]

He was hoping to get upgraded to first.

[David Sims]

There was some role that I was just Reading about that, like, you know, it was definitively played, you know, well, by some great actor. I cannot remember. And like he was the backup. He was the backup because they almost couldn't get this guy. Now I can't.

[Griffin Newman]

He does feel like he has become Hollywood's number one second choice because he's always good. Yes. But it always feels like, did you offer to someone else first? Who said no? And you realize you could save money in the budget. But also he will knock it out of the park.

[David Sims]

Someone will tell me what I'm talking about.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

But I always like Mark Strong.

[Griffin Newman]

He's gonna be Oedipus with Leslie Manville.

[Fran Hoffner]

The sexy Oedipus. This time it's sexy.

[Griffin Newman]

This is sexy.

[David Sims]

So they're just for the listener. They're staging Oedipus to play blockbuster run.

[Griffin Newman]

In the West End by Traffines.

[David Sims]

Yes. But there's. So there's posters around New York telling you to buy tickets to it. And it has. What's the tagline? It's really horrible.

[Fran Hoffner]

It's like blank as a motherfucker about.

[David Sims]

Where I'm like, huh? The truth that Oedipus, like just the idea of taking a thousands year old Greek tragedy and being like, you'll never guess. The twist is just so funny to me. But I, I would like to see it.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, I want to see it so bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Lean in full like Argyle on Oedipus.

[David Sims]

Right, right, Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't let the out of the bag.

[David Sims]

Yes. Yeah, Argyle. And Mark Strong was in Kingsman.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's really good in Kingston.

[David Sims]

And then he blows up in the second one.

[Griffin Newman]

He does.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe he's an Argyle. No, because they're in the same universe.

[David Sims]

As we all know. It was very clearly at the end of Argyle that they're sort of in the same universe in some way or other.

[Fran Hoffner]

Once I learned Argyle's two hours and 20 minutes, I said, that's not happening.

[David Sims]

Argyle do be long.

[Griffin Newman]

Biggest spoiler warning block of all time. Alert, alert, alert. The end of Argyle is the real Argyle showing up and being like, hey, I'm a Kingsman now.

[David Sims]

No, in a flashback, sort of.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of.

[Fran Hoffner]

I just know. Dua Lipa guns down Ariana Debose. And I said, that's crazy.

[David Sims]

That sounds.

[Fran Hoffner]

But it's like at that level, I'm like, wow, crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

I think that is the first 45 seconds of the movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So the Cohens are making Burn after reading. This is I think one of the ultimate. The Cohens just being like, I don't know, we just wrote it. Who cares? Like in all the interviews because they're like, hey, we wanted to work with these actors, so we wrote to them. It's a spy movie. We'd never done one before, honestly. It could have been a dog movie or an outer space movie. Funny to imagine them just being like, let's do a dog movie, movie with a dog.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also funny to say that when this movie does feel so angry, like, it feels very pointed in their disdain for many of these people.

[David Sims]

Totally. Joel says it didn't really turn out as a spy movie. Obviously he is correct. The original idea was one. It's not really meant to be a comment on Washington. It's just about these characters.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's crazy, right?

[David Sims]

This is the whole thing where I'm just like, stop. Everyone stop interviewing them.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, it's like, because this movie isn't political as much as it is like exposing a deep, deep cynicism for our political.

[David Sims]

I guess that's true for like middle class bureaucrats who like sort of run our country. I get, you know, like Joel, here's a better quote from him. The quote I was reading from earlier, he literally, in the middle of it says, sorry, I lost my train of thought or something. So I'm going to go with this one.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool.

[David Sims]

The stories about middle aged people, all of whom are undergoing professional, personal and sexual crises touching on matters of national security. That's what makes it a Washington tale. But they had, years and years ago, apparently tried to do an adaptation of Advice and Consent, the sort of political drama from the 60s. So like, I guess they had sort of thought about a political movie before. That's like a more of a real political movie. But then they also say, like, yeah, it's our version of like a Tony Scott movie or a Jason Bourne movie without the explosion. And Joel also says a Seven Days in May sort of thing. No, it's not what that's like, set in the White House, doesn't matter. But they, I think fundamentally, Griffin, this is speaking to sort of what you're saying are like, it's a Hitchcockian, like McGuffin movie. There's nothing at the center. Like, it's all just people being motivated by nothing. And that's what amuses them the most.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? This is.

[David Sims]

They're all circling a thing they think exists but doesn't exist.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a real. The ending is the conceit movie. And like I, I compare this almost to Inherent Vice, which the first time I saw it, I was like, so angered By Right. And you get. You get to a final scene where like Martin Donovan kind of unravels the movie and both explains and refuses to explain what's been going on and makes it clear how little the character is actually understood.

[David Sims]

Right. Tenet.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And that tenant open doors in that moment. The movie basically says, like, you're kind of a. If you were trying to make sense of this film up until this point, which the first time I saw it, I found very antagonistic. Right. Yes.

[Fran Hoffner]

Me too.

[Griffin Newman]

I have seen it many, many times now. It is a movie that has grown on me. And once I now just submit to it, I'm like, the story does not matter. I enjoy it as a supreme hangout movie. I think what is great about Burn After Reading for me and its construction is it doesn't feel overly complicated. You can watch it and be like, I think I kind of get what's going on. I'm curious to see how it comes together. And then at the end when they go like, actually, if you zoom out, none of this really matters. It doesn't feel like a deflation of what happened up until that point. It feels like the ending is the conceit. This is the thesis of the movie. Here's our point we're hammering.

[David Sims]

The best thing in the movie is the ending. Obviously, like, that's the thing everyone remembers best, even though there's lots of other memorable stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

But it somehow inflates the movie rather than deflates it. Whereas I think often these kinds. Endings of.

[David Sims]

Right. Of like, hey, you know what? Turns out this is all bullshit.

[Fran Hoffner]

Well, the movie's not mad at you for caring.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[Fran Hoffner]

And it's actually sort of exposing how little these guys care is kind of the point. But like, you care the right amount maybe.

[David Sims]

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but J.K. simmons is right in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

All his, like, thought, like, decision making is basically correct. Where he's like, no, no, get rid of that. Deal with that. Yeah. Pay her. I don't care. Like, where. He's just like, let's just make this not messy anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

But there's also. There's a deep CYN to how.

[David Sims]

Of course. Because he's like hearing people died and he's like, well, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And yet. Right. I think this is what they're really drilling on in on is like at the end of the day, these are like weird bureaucratic middle management jobs. Like these things. It's a thing I find very interesting about this movie, especially a time of just like peak political conspiracy. Theory culture. Right. Is. I think one of the main, like, ideas behind this movie is just like, all of this is so much less organized than anyone wants to believe it is. In both directions. Right. Whether you take comfort in that or you have deep fear of that, even when insidious things are happening, they are most often just sloppy, messy, completely out of control. Just like, it's just idiots stumbling around.

[David Sims]

Now, they claim this is not political movie and all that. They will admit that Francis McDormand's character is very inspired by Linda Tripp, mostly in that Linda Tripp wanted a bunch of cosmetic surgeries, which was sort of like an under, like, current to a lot of Linda Tripp's behavior during the Lewinsky scandal. In terms of Linda Tripp wanting money or trying to figure out how to get that makes sense, monetize things or whatever. And so they kind of, like, decided to put Linda Tripp, you know, in a new context. So that's one of those things from, like, okay, so, yeah, you guys aren't just, like, being a cool. Who cares if it's setting Washington? Like, I'm like, no, you're making fun of, like, these kinds of Washington had a gad fly, like, lower section of, you know, like, the government kind of people. Right. Like, I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I also think, look, obviously she doesn't.

[David Sims]

Work for the government. She works at a Gym, but in.

[Griffin Newman]

D.C. but she's very obsessed with. With power and status, as that said. Right, right. Those people in Hollywood would laugh me out of town. Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

To, like, some D.C. stuff. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

It's like, why would you live there if you don't work for the government? And it's because of, like, an obsession with the culture of government to some degree, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And it, like, translates on to, like, a Greek Orthodox priest and Chevy Chase. It's just the idea of, like, power through osmosis, some level of status by proximity that she's clearly drawn to one of these people who's caught in this, like, absolute catch 22 of being miserable about being single, but being so, like, ruthless in her strategizing of what she wants a relationship to be and how she thinks she could be appealing to that type of person versus having it exist on any organic emotional level. Just her, like, disregarding of other people while also being terrified that other people are gonna disregard her. And I. I think, you know, a lot of the complaints of people who think that this movie just pushes, like, one step too mean is. Is this movie really, really judgmental of this character? And because she is not someone who actually operates a real lever of power. Is it like, a misplaced cruelty? And I think it's like, the fact that they cast Francis is very telling. And the fact that the movie keeps going like, you don't need these surgeries, you know, that it is not like. I think there's an argument the movie is shaming the idea of caring about that kind of thing.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is a whole larger, messier cultural conversation about body modification and what have you. But. But I think it's more about, like, a. A misplaced sense of what is missing in this character's life that unifies almost all of the characters in this movie. Right. This sense of, like, here's how I want to be seen, here's how I see myself, here's how obsessed I am with the idea of my position and what I need to do to maintain that or to continue to reassert that.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Well.

[Fran Hoffner]

And also because Frances has become. So I'm going to the Oscars with no makeup. And, like, Which I think was not always the case. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[David Sims]

I think. No, I think that's something. Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but I think she is, like, in that very rare group of actresses in, like, her age class. I think of Annette Bening feels very similar to me. Where. Nyad. Where they're just like, we want to play women our own age.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, like, we are not trying to look 40 forever. We're not trying to look 20 forever.

[David Sims]

I. Yeah. Look, the thing about Francis McDormand, she's very funny in this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

She's playing a Cohen's character. It's a mean. It's. The movie is not right. Is not fond of this character.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

It's. I think he's a mild understanding of her pathology, I guess. But it's like, you know, it's a pretty.

[Fran Hoffner]

But it's mean. Meanest to her of at least all the other women.

[David Sims]

I would. Yes. But she does remind me of other stupid, sort of, you know, Cohen's characters with silly motivations. Like, it's not like I'm like, this is the first time they've ever had a character that you're basically like, oh, my God, you know, like, at their motivations.

[Griffin Newman]

There's. There's kind of a level playing field. And there's also the comparison of, like, the two significant female characters in this movie. Both refer to each other as, like, Ice Queen.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah, they're higher. I mean, they're way higher status than her, too.

[Griffin Newman]

Way higher. Status than her.

[Fran Hoffner]

They have the ability to, like, fall back on money.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Fran Hoffner]

Or other comforts that she doesn't have.

[Griffin Newman]

I think I saw people, like, in our Reddit litigating this, right? This, like, recurring thing of, like, this discussion point of do the Cohen hate their characters? Are they judgmental? This and that. And I saw someone put, I think very well, which is like, no. The key is that they actually, like, love these idiots. And I think that is big. Right. I think that very often they have, like, an absolute adoration for their silliest characters. That, for me, like, really, you can feel in the DNA of their films. And I think she is in that vein where they. The movie thinks she is very silly, but also does, like, actually consider her emotional inner life in a way that it does not as much with the bureaucratic characters. I think the mere fact that it's, like, trying to explore her, like, internal struggle. But it's also why Jenkins is, like, the moral center of this movie, because he's the only guy where he's just like, can't everyone just, like, sort of try to figure out how to be okay with themselves?

[David Sims]

Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

And keeps trying to talk to her directly and she just doesn't listen to him. And this is one of those movies where, like, none of the events of this movie happens. If, like, six direct conversations happen. If, like, six conversations where people can just actually say what's going on and express themselves intelligently, like, with emotional intelligence, all of the incidents basically are preventable.

[David Sims]

Has this Ewok always been on my desk?

[Griffin Newman]

I place it there. Recently, David's gotten really back into Ewoks and little Ewok butts.

[David Sims]

We do have. We do have some Ewok butt discussion coming up on the show. Have you ever thought about how they have little furry butts?

[Griffin Newman]

David won't stop saying this.

[David Sims]

Okay, it's fine.

[Fran Hoffner]

I don't really think about Star Wars.

[Griffin Newman]

He's bad at all the time.

[Fran Hoffner]

The creatures.

[David Sims]

I had taken a good long break thinking about it and then thought about it again.

[Griffin Newman]

You rewatch Return of the Jedi and he text us. Do you ever think about how the Ewoks have little furry bugs? And now I hear that, like, three times a week.

[David Sims]

For me, I don't think it's that often.

[Fran Hoffner]

He knows not to text me about that.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not complaining, but it's coming up a lot.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I text you about something else.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah, I'm really into pine martins lately.

[David Sims]

Pine martins are cool.

[Fran Hoffner]

They're like.

[David Sims]

There's sort of a cousin of, like, A, you know, a ferret. Yeah, exactly.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. They're all over my reels.

[David Sims]

I feel like, how it sounds Marten, like with an E. Okay. I feel like one of the His Dark Materials characters, demons, is a primark.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. There's a Scottish. I think he becomes one permanently.

[Griffin Newman]

I like these guys.

[Fran Hoffner]

There's a Scottish woman who feeds pine martins on Instagram.

[David Sims]

You and Emma.

[Griffin Newman]

Her name's Tilda Swinton.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. You, Emma, you know, you never really see her, so it could be she gives them honey and whole eggs, which I'm like, well, I guess you wouldn't like that, but I think that's a great diet.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I like the first part.

[David Sims]

Right. Is. Yeah. Not Scottish, but has Scottish ancestry, I believe.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Yes. Maybe she is sort of Scottish. I think she's kind of. I thought she's like half Scottish, maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Fran Hoffner]

Well, she lives there.

[David Sims]

She's from London, but. Right. Yeah. Maybe she lives.

[Fran Hoffner]

Matilda Swinton.

[David Sims]

Is that her?

[Fran Hoffner]

Is her name.

[David Sims]

I've never thought about that.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, yeah. Because in the Joy in the Joanna Hogshort, she's credited as Matilda.

[David Sims]

Can she, like, make books move around with her mind?

[Griffin Newman]

As long as Ms. Honey supports her emotionally. It's like Topher Grace.

[David Sims]

Christopher.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, his name's Christopher. And you're like, oh, right.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that one, I think. I guess I knew. I. You know, just. Honestly, I haven't been thinking much about him lately. What's he doing?

[Fran Hoffner]

Remember when he was in two movies at Cannes?

[David Sims]

Nope.

[Griffin Newman]

Black Klansman.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yep. And under the Silver Lake. Oh, what a crazy year.

[Griffin Newman]

He had kind of like a swing back and then.

[David Sims]

I mean, he's in Flight Risk this year, a movie that he is in the entirety of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's not like a thing where you're like, oh, Topher swung in for 20 minutes. It's like, no, they're all on that fucking plane.

[Fran Hoffner]

Don't get me going on flight, please.

[David Sims]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Griffin Newman]

Bigger role than Mark Wahlberg in Flight Risk.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Fran Hoffner]

That thing is depressing.

[David Sims]

It. It sucks. I was so mad about that movie.

[Fran Hoffner]

It should have been, like, fun sucking.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Fran Hoffner]

But it's not.

[David Sims]

Even guiltily admire Mel Glib Gibson. Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he is kind of in a lap.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Mel Gibson's action filmmaking. Instead, I was like, this is weird and annoying. What? You're smiling at me.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Have I ever told this story that I. I had my. My screen test for the tech. This was 10 years ago now. Nine years ago. And I. I cared so much about it and I left and I went to my agent's office in LA and I was just like, I really think that went the best it possibly could have gone. I think anything I could possibly do to convince him to give me the part, I did the best performance I could have given. And I really feel good. And if I don't get it at this point, it was just out of my hands and I was never going to get it. And he went, that's great. I'm so happy you feel that way. And I have even better news. Topher Grace just passed. And I have even better news. Topher Grace just passed is like a sentence that lives in my head and in for me where I was like.

[David Sims]

Sliver in your mind.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, so that whole time I was in there, at any moment Topher Grace could have emailed and said, sure, why not?

[David Sims]

Topher Grace is like Joaquin Phoenix and gladiators holding his thumb out like this.

[Griffin Newman]

It is just a perfect snapshot of what it feels like to be a young actor.

[David Sims]

Strange, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Where you're like, I'm fighting so hard. And they're like, some guy hasn't checked his inbox in three days and if he's bored, he says yes, and the part's his.

[David Sims]

Yeah, all right.

[Fran Hoffner]

But you have to go to Cannes.

[David Sims]

I want to end run through the dossier just so we can talk about the movie. So basically the way the Cohen's work is they send the script to Eric Fellner and those kinds of people, you know, they're producers and I assume we're basically like, we can get some actors and everyone's kind of like, great, well, let's do it. It probably will cost a reasonable amount.

[Griffin Newman]

Of money to this movie was 2030.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think that's about right.

[Griffin Newman]

They get everyone to like basically work for scale or certainly well below their quotes. But at this point, if they're going to work in title and they have like a 20 million dollar film where they tell you they can get six actors attached working tells like, we don't even need to read the script. Whatever you guys want.

[David Sims]

Tilda, as you mentioned, one character they hadn't written for anyone.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And they just cast it with Tilda.

[Griffin Newman]

Swinton, a good actor, Matilda Swinton, just to correct you.

[David Sims]

And apparently at the end of the shoot, Clooney, touch, touchingly and willing, wistfully. Sorry. According to Swinton, said, maybe one day we'll make a film together where we say one nice thing to each other.

[Griffin Newman]

I like that.

[David Sims]

Me too.

[Fran Hoffner]

Have they haven't I don't know that.

[David Sims]

They'Ve worked together since. Because George Clooney's been too obsessed with climbing the mountain of mediocrity.

[Griffin Newman]

She didn't jump in the boat. Right.

[Fran Hoffner]

She's in Hail Caesar. But I don't think they interact.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't.

[David Sims]

They don't because she's. Even though she just interacts with.

[Griffin Newman]

With Brolin and interacts. Interacts with Alden a bunch of. She talks about him a lot. I mean, the whole plot of that movie is her threatening to expose him.

[David Sims]

Right. But they don't. He doesn't. He's really with the communists mostly.

[Griffin Newman]

But it continues the tradition of they're not saying nice words about each other the entire movie. They're both.

[Fran Hoffner]

No. I'm missing Jake Kelly to be here right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. I was like, what am I gonna do? Nazi Jake. Ellie.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's the only time I'm gonna love.

[David Sims]

I also heard the line was crazy.

[Fran Hoffner]

I heard that, too.

[David Sims]

Tilda Swinton. Yeah. Enjoys making this movie. The clones told the actors to embrace their inner knuckleheads, basically. If this is not part of the Idiot trilogy, fine. But it is basically about all idiots.

[Griffin Newman]

There's that Clooney.

[David Sims]

It's oops. All idiots.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. There's that Clooney story we always bring up where Spielberg was watching him work on the set of ER and comes out from behind the monitor and goes, like, if you could ever figure out how to stop shaking your damn head, you'd be a movie star. I noticed that in this movie, he never stops shaking his head. It's like the bad tick that he's been trained out of, he knows, makes him look dumb, and he reinstitutes it with, like, a vengeance.

[David Sims]

He's really doing it, and he's really. It's well deployed. Pitt was. I mean, so, like, Clooney and Malkovich are like, yeah, yeah, we get it. I get it. Like, big, dumb idiot. I get it. Pitt is a little, I guess, taken aback that they're like, we wrote this part for you. This. This guy's a. A numbskull. Like, you know, like, I mean, it must be, you know. But they go into, I guess, a wardrobe fitting with his hair like that, and they just. I don't know, you know, they just decide to. Because the hair is very crucial.

[Griffin Newman]

The story I'd always heard was that they found some earlier commercial he had done at the beginning of his acting.

[David Sims]

He'd done this commercial with his hair like that. That's right. Yeah. A long time ago.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That it Was sort of. It wasn't like a prank on him, but it was the equivalent of, like, his, like, the rock with the turtleneck and the fanny pack photo. They found, like, the silliest look publicly available from his early 20s and said, like, can we dress you like this? Which I think is a big part of it, is like, Pitt is playing this guy. Like, he's 25.

[Fran Hoffner]

Well, yes, but is 40.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Fran Hoffner]

Which is why that character is so awesome.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the key to the character.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Clooney grew the beard. He thought they would fit the part. So he just showed up. Yeah. Frances McDormand. This is from Ethan. This is a good quote from Ethan. It's fun to write for Fran, not you, because, you know, she's good. It's not fun to show the script to her once it's written because she yells at you, as Joel puts it, you've been writing it for another number of months, and she'll go, this is it. But we usually work through that Frances McDormand quote. In my first scene, the description said, close up on a woman's ass. Pale, bare, middle aged. Why should one even read on? Why would one even consider the job? There you go.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, she cracks me up.

[David Sims]

So. Yeah, she cracks me up, too. They did almost entirely shoot the film in New York. Clooney was working on another NYC based project. Don't know what, Leatherheads, maybe. Possibly. I don't. I don't.

[Griffin Newman]

2008. Yeah. I don't know. But that was, in theory, the reason why they worked around that.

[David Sims]

I. Yes, the.

[Fran Hoffner]

No, that's not New York.

[David Sims]

Is it all over?

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. Oh, they're in the air.

[David Sims]

He's up in the air.

[Griffin Newman]

Often in plane.

[David Sims]

It's weird that the working title for that film was called up in the Plane, and nobody liked it. Malkovich said the first scene he did was the phone call with Brad and Francis that you quoted for your opening of the podcast. He was rehearsing a play in Paris, which is, like, the most Johnson.

[Fran Hoffner]

Most likely place for him to be. He's in France.

[David Sims]

Imagine if you're like the CIA, and we're like, we have to catch Malkovich. It's like, okay, first let's go to every play rehearsal in Paris if he's there.

[Griffin Newman]

Doesn't he primarily live in France because of taxes? I believe he's one of those guys.

[David Sims]

He's very much one of those guys.

[Griffin Newman]

He owns a chateau.

[David Sims]

That's the whole thing where he's like, I own a chateau in Paris. For artistic reasons. Also I pay no taxes.

[Griffin Newman]

Also I designed my blazers here. You know, he has like a clothing.

[David Sims]

Line, but he's like Michael Jackson. You could say any pretentious thing about him and I would believe you.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Like that he has a, you know, a brand of cheese.

[Griffin Newman]

He makes his own jellies.

[David Sims]

Yes. So he said he did the phone call in his apartment in his Paris, screaming at the top of his lungs.

[Griffin Newman]

That's funny. So obviously didn't shoot his side of it, but was truly on the other end of the phone.

[David Sims]

Ok. Roger Deakins was busy shooting Revolutionary.

[Griffin Newman]

Road, David's favorite movie.

[David Sims]

So this film was shot by Chibo.

[Griffin Newman]

This breaks the streak.

[David Sims]

Very long streak.

[Griffin Newman]

Ten consecutive Deacons movies.

[David Sims]

Maybe something close because Sonnenfeld does the first three. So yeah, subsequent eight had been Deacons.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

But yeah, Deakins is having his time wasted by Sam Mendes. Another unfortunately likely place for him to be. I'll say it.

[Griffin Newman]

Chiva crushes this. Yeah, I like that he's not reinventing the wheel, but he's also not just copying Deacons.

[David Sims]

Yeah, for sure. What's even done lately?

[Fran Hoffner]

We just looking at the Amsterdam.

[Griffin Newman]

Who was I talking about?

[David Sims]

Amsterdam.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought this was an on mic.

[David Sims]

He really stopped working.

[Griffin Newman]

Shivo. Yes.

[David Sims]

I mean he's shooting the new Inarita.

[Griffin Newman]

Movie which is in the.

[Fran Hoffner]

But he didn't do Bardo.

[Griffin Newman]

He didn't.

[Fran Hoffner]

Kind of crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

He did Disclosure, but I think he only did half the season because it went on so long.

[David Sims]

You mean disclaimer.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I mean. Disclosure is the Cuaron series. But he.

[David Sims]

He did do that. You're right.

[Griffin Newman]

He won three Oscars in a row.

[David Sims]

He sure did.

[Griffin Newman]

And since then he has one released feature film. Am I correct about that? I think Amsterdam is the only one. 2022Amsterdam and then like half of a TV season and a handful of like short films and music videos.

[David Sims]

It is always funny when it's like, oh, we couldn't get Lubezki, so we got Darius Kanji. Like where these guys have to slum it with one of the eight other great cinematographers working kind of like a Mark Strong situation. Right? Y. They. Yeah. Lubeski though had a great time making this movie. Said they have a very close relationship. Ethan was saying in many ways they're complete opposites. They both do amazing things. Approaching things in such different directions. Great, thank you, Chivo. One thing that they built for this movie was the Sex Machine.

[Griffin Newman]

One of the greatest props.

[David Sims]

The George Clooney sex Machine. They had seen it. Something like this at the Museum of Sex in New York City. My old office. The Atlantic used to be right by the Museum of Sex in New York City, which is on 23rd in Madison. And they said to George Clooney, apparently, if you want to go see it, 23rd in Madison. And George Clooney was like, the last thing I need is to be coming out of the Museum of Sex with you guys.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm George Clooney.

[David Sims]

And then a big part of this movie, I do feel, is Carterboro will score all percussion, right? Like, big drums. Big. Like, just, like the most sobriety and, like, bombast possible for, like, the stupidest.

[Griffin Newman]

And yet I would say there's an emotional theme in this movie that is, like one of his sadder themes in. In a canon of very sad Coen brothers, like, motifs.

[David Sims]

Classical Fran, do you have any thoughts on Carter Burwell scores in general or. This one? My man does break out, like, those oboes and clarinets.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. I mean, I think this film has a great score. I like Carter a lot. I've not liked a ton of his more recent stuff, which is starting to get. I mean, some of these guys who have been around forever, it does start to feel like playing the hits. But I love his score for Catherine called Birdie. I mean, the.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that is a nice score.

[Fran Hoffner]

The True Grit. He did True Grit.

[David Sims]

It's the best.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's. I mean, that, like, I bought on CD and I listen to all the time. It's incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

I do feel like the Cohens are really good at kind of pushing him each time so that he didn't get stuck in a rut that. I agree with you. Most legendary composers start to, like, play the hits a little more interesting. And since they have slowed down, he's maybe become a little bit repetitive. I think there was enough of a swing in difference from their movies. And it also felt like they would ask him for different things. He can't reuse Fargo tricks on this, you know?

[Fran Hoffner]

Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

I think. I don't think about the score a lot, I have to admit, but I.

[Griffin Newman]

I really like it, and I think it works.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. There's, like, what I like, would colloquially call the loneliness theme in this movie that feels like a very kind of, like, slowed down, piano based, melodic version of the intensity of the drums and this kind of, like, spiral into sadness that's especially played in all the, like, dating scenes and the sleeping around scenes that I find very effective. And then the rest of it, yeah, is like a parody of the kind of score that Crimson Tide would have.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

David?

[Fran Hoffner]

Uh huh.

[Griffin Newman]

You know that moment when you sink into a hotel bed and think, why doesn't my bed feel like this?

[David Sims]

I do. I love to sleep on a hotel bed.

[Griffin Newman]

I got a solution. Lisa Griffin.

[David Sims]

I love Lisa.

[Griffin Newman]

Lisa is like having a hotel sleep at home.

[David Sims]

Now, obviously, I love the season four Simpsons episode. I love Lisa.

[Griffin Newman]

And you love Lisa the character.

[David Sims]

Great character. And I love the Apple Lisa as a sort of interesting artifact in personal.

[Griffin Newman]

Computing and certainly as a story point within the film. Steve Jobs.

[David Sims]

But I also own a Leesa mattress now. It's Lisa with two E's and an S and an A. And I have, I think I got it a few years ago and it's the best mattress I've ever owned. They just, I can just personally, they just sent me a King. Yeah Mattress because I'm now thinking of upgrading. And Lisa has rejoined the show.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Just to, to, you know, partner with us. Whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

I was thinking about getting a little taller and I said, why not?

[David Sims]

Arrangements.

[Griffin Newman]

Splurge on a California King.

[David Sims]

Did you get a California size?

[Griffin Newman]

I did.

[David Sims]

Crazy boy.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll grow into it.

[David Sims]

Lisa isn't just luxury comfort at a reasonable price. They prioritize doing good for the world. So there's, you know, actually sustainable sort of elements to this. As a busy parent, I can't control how long I sleep. Damn. This ad copy is reading me for fil.

[Griffin Newman]

They serve that one up to you on a platter.

[David Sims]

But I can control how well I sleep. And since getting my Lisa mattress, even a quick nap, which I took this morning, feels like luxury. When sleep is hard to come by, having that level of comfort truly matters. It's one of the few things in my day that's just for me. Okay, so like, they've got four kinds of mattresses, I think in each size. All of them are cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I had, I think I have the Sapira hybrid. Yes, I do. And this new one I'm trying out is, I think, the Legend Hybrid.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I got. That's what I got you. You said cool and you meant cool as in a rad. I want to point out, as someone who sleeps hot, these mattresses actually keep you cool, as in internal body temperature.

[David Sims]

They are meticulously just meticulously designed and assembled in the US for exceptional quality. There's free shipping, easy returns, 100 night sleep trial tested and awarded best hybrid mattress by the New York Times Wirecutter exclusively featured by West Elm as their go to mattress partner.

[Griffin Newman]

And Leesa isn't just about sleep, it's about impact. Boom. Bam. That's the sound of an impact. They donate thousands of mattresses each year to those in need while also partnering with organizations like Clean Hub to help remove harmful plastic waste from our oceans. That's not why we want the plastic. We don't want it in the oceans.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. So listen to me. Go to Lisa.com for 25% off mattresses plus get an extra $50 off with promo code blank check. That's our name, exclusive for our listeners. That's L E E S a.com promo code blankcheck for 25% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Be sure to enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you Lisa.com promo code blank CH.

[Griffin Newman]

David? Yes, I wear glasses. Ah.

[David Sims]

To see.

[Griffin Newman]

I do in fact wear them to see.

[David Sims]

I used to wear them as an affectation when I was a child.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I did the same thing. Yeah, they were real. And then people found me out to be a fake. And then because of that, when I started actually needing glasses and wearing them for real, all my friends convinced that it is still just an affectation. But it is not. I, I assume to see my vision gets worse by the minute. It feels like sometimes.

[David Sims]

But I just stopped wearing mine.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. How's that going for you?

[David Sims]

It sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. See, this is the thing, Ben.

[David Sims]

What do you mean? Why'd you stop? I just got lazy.

[Griffin Newman]

You gotta get your butt to Warby Parker. You're the one who's always telling me the value of throwing a good fit, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And feeling good, it affecting your whole sense of self. Right. And Warby Parker's like throwing a fit for the face. Yeah, it is it, it truly. It immediately improves your quality of life. Right.

[David Sims]

Warby Parker used premium materials. They design frames in house. They've got silhouettes, colors and fits made to fit every face.

[Griffin Newman]

I love the frames themselves. But let me. Can I just talk about the experience because, David, I went through it again recently.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I had an old pair of glasses that had been my mains for a while break on me. After several years of loyal service. I salute them. And I, I went and it was one stop shopping. I said it's been two years. Let me get a new vision test, get your eye exam, get examined, new prescription, eye pressure test. And then immediately, while I'm waiting for the results, I'm going around, I'm looking at frames, I'm trying them on and there's a flexibility there. Right. Folks who want cool sunglasses you can get them cheaper at Warby Parker than a lot of other places. But sometimes you see a sunglass frame you like and you go, can I actually get this in clear vision lenses? Can I get this pair meant to be readers as sunglasses, you can try on all sorts of crazy stuff. This is my new thing. I'm into sunglass clip on. So you just got the one pair.

[David Sims]

Sure. Pull the Chris Farley meme. Warby Parker has over 300 locations to help you find your next pair of glasses. You can also head over to warvparker.com check right now to try on any pair virtually. That's warvparker.com check warvparker.com check and if.

[Griffin Newman]

People want to flip a grip Grif style, I'll just say I'm currently rocking the Toddy. Wide frames and tortoiseshell.

[David Sims]

How do we go through the plot of this film?

[Griffin Newman]

Here is what happens in this movie in basic, right, Try. Osborne Cox is fired primarily because he's a drunk, but also, you gather, because no one likes working.

[David Sims]

He's annoying and he's a drunk and he yells at everybody. He's got this kind of whole John Malkovich thing, right.

[Griffin Newman]

He's married to a very high status woman who one of the funnier reveals in this movie is that she's actually a pediatrician. Very late in the film you realize.

[Fran Hoffner]

One of the best jokes.

[Griffin Newman]

I haven't known what she does. I assume she's also in this world and instead she's yelling at a kid to open his mouth that the two high status ice queen wives both work in children's fields. He decides he's going to kind of rattle the world by writing his memoir. His big expose of his time is a spook. Unfortunately. In finding out that he has lost his job, his wife Tilda decides it's time to finally file for divorce. She tries to take financial documents off his computer. When she does so, she also gets his memoir, which is placed on a CD ROM that is in the gym bag of the aide to the divorce lawyer, who then leaves it at the gym where is discovered by Francis McDormand's. Manolo's name is.

[David Sims]

Well, that's Manola.

[Griffin Newman]

Hands it over to the other three.

[David Sims]

Linda Litsky is Francis and Bradford's character is called Chad.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Jenkins is of course, Ted.

[Griffin Newman]

She desperately wants multiple procedures. They're actually separate procedures.

[David Sims]

They're separate procedures.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. That hurt.

[David Sims]

It's kind of what, like face? Boob butt, maybe sort of eyes, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Rhinoplasty they say, yes.

[David Sims]

Who's that? That guy playing the plastic Jeffrey Demon.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the greatest. One of the greatest.

[David Sims]

Right? It's Jeffrey Demon. Of course, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's a great Cohen's move where most of that sequence you're getting extreme close ups on her eyes or on the parts of her body. But a lot of it is uninterrupted one or of Jeffrey Demun and you just get to watch. It's a thing the Cohens do that I love.

[David Sims]

You're watching a manipulator. Beautifully. Beautifully. Yes. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But also like the. What you get when you stay on one actor and let the other side of the conversation be off camera. Dialogue is you get to watch all the little touches that like an expert character actor puts into a scene like that without cutting away for the tiny little moments. It's so good. But yes. She has four procedures she wants to get that will not be approved by her Mickey Mouse hmo.

[David Sims]

Right. It is funny that she. I guess you're supposed to be like, she just went and scheduled all this and was like, I assume. Assume my gym's health Insurance covers like $400,000 worth of plastic.

[Fran Hoffner]

Logic is totally sound. She has a public facing job where she has to look fit.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Why would the company not take control of that?

[Griffin Newman]

They sense an opportunity that they can use what they think is high level government secrets to blackmail and get the money for the procedure.

[Fran Hoffner]

Good Samaritan tax.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you want to speak in trying to blackmail Osborne Cox?

[David Sims]

The first image from Gorge Verbinski's movie that's coming out.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw this.

[David Sims]

This looks pretty.

[Griffin Newman]

I may be going to see this movie this weekend.

[David Sims]

Oh really?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh yes, yes. I'm very excited.

[David Sims]

Cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Gore is back, baby.

[David Sims]

I hope so.

[Fran Hoffner]

Good.

[Griffin Newman]

Back. Yes. The other wrinkles in this are. Tilda Swinton is already having an affair with George Clooney. Who. What he was previously. What was his shift in position?

[Fran Hoffner]

He was in private.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Who are we talking about?

[Fran Hoffner]

Private protection. He's always like in pp. Private protection.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Fran Hoffner]

And now he's working for a guy in the Treasury.

[David Sims]

Right. He was a U. S. Marshal then. He was. Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

And he carries a gun.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he carries a gun, but he's.

[Griffin Newman]

Never discharged it till the. Swinton's been having an affair with him.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's been dating everyone.

[Griffin Newman]

He's been dating everyone.

[Fran Hoffner]

And he's married.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And I get the sense that she's been kind of his focused side piece. And the second she's getting primary partner.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And is starting to push the idea of like, then you should also get divorced now. He needs to start like expanding his range. I don't think he's ever been hyper focused, but it does feel like he goes back out there in a big way once. She's maybe going to be looking for something more serious. So he starts sleeping with Francis McDormand. Are there any primary characters we haven't looped in here? No, that's all the main people.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's not that many people.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Great hijinks ensue.

[Griffin Newman]

Hijinks ensue.

[David Sims]

But yeah, I guess you need to know that like Francis McDormand goes on Internet dates because she's looking for a partner. Whereas Harry Farrer is just like a serial philanderer who just. He's always having sex with people.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. These kind of like intellectual superiors who are weirdly drawn to him almost in kind of like he's like a puppy. Yes. And it feels like there's almost a little bit of a sexual charge in how much they can high status him and he won't push back.

[David Sims]

Right. He's, he's, I guess, a little subby. But he is also working on a sex chair. Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, and he has such a good runner about the floors. I forgot about that. He's always asking what a floor is made of or guessing, you know, this.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of like detail obsessed guy who always wants to ask these tiny followers.

[David Sims]

In oh brother, Clooney's thing is the hair. And in Tolerable Cruelty, it's his teeth. And in this, I mean, it's sort of the allergy thing where the. His throat, I guess, acid reflux. But the floor thing is right there with it. Sort of like the weird hyper fixation.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, right. Yes, that's right. He seems to be, you have to imagine he's a pretty proficient lovemaker.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think he's probably really good.

[Griffin Newman]

He just.

[David Sims]

This is what I'm saying. He seems like a fun hang, but. But like go see the shitty movie with him.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie make me the movie make me. Make me think the movie make me think.

[David Sims]

Movies make me think sometimes.

[Griffin Newman]

And in the end, movie make me think the movie makes me think that he is probably a bit of a jackrabbit in the sack. And yet the second he's done, he jumps out of bed, gets dressed and goes, I should run this off.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

That there's something kind of like Energizer Bunny about him. The scene where he calls Elizabeth Marvel in the car after. Spoiler. He has shot Brad Pitt to death. And he's just, like, spiraling out of control. And you're like, oh, this guy is just, like, so much, like, uninhibited forward motion. And anything causing him to stop and be introspective is like, an absolute crisis for him. And. And that's like, oh, this is the cornerstone of his relationship with his wife. At some point, she clearly was into the idea of petting his head and making him feel better.

[Fran Hoffner]

And now she does that for children.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Fran Hoffner]

Who are interested in government and also.

[Griffin Newman]

Big, burly men grab her shoulders as she has affairs with them. Right. He's. She's also preparing to file for divorce from him. So there are divorce lawyer toadies following him around in black cars, which makes him think that he's part of some larger conspiracy. What were you going to say? David?

[David Sims]

Brad Pitt's character in this film is like the positive Sonny version of John Goodman and the Big Lebowski. He is, like, a low status but high opinion of his own intellect fool who keeps having the, like, a bad idea about how to drive the plot.

[Griffin Newman]

And I know how to do this.

[David Sims]

Obviously. Goodman is like, this is a fake, you know, hostage situation, and we're just gonna give him a dummy and. Right. And Brad Pitt is like, oh, he found, like, weird, like, security secrets. We should just blackmail them. They'll probably just pay us, like, a reward.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, and especially that, like, they arrange the meeting, and Malkovich is like, let me explain to you off. Right. And then even when that makes Pitt angrier and makes McDormand even angrier and they push back, Malkovich is just annoyed. It feels like at no point is he ever considering giving them money.

[David Sims]

No, not at all. And part of it doesn't have any.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Part of it's, like, philosophical.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Part of it is, like, logistical. And there's also the. Just like, this isn't how this works. You don't get to do this. And he knows that he is so much this guy's intellectual superior that he thinks he can logic him out of even attempting to do this stupid thing that he's in over his head on.

[David Sims]

What was Pitt doing right around now.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Benjamin Buttons the same year.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. He has the line read of the movie to me, which is when she's scrolling on the dating website and is like, oh, he works for, like, the State Department or whatever, and he goes, oh, that's cool. It's, like, so good. I, like, have to wind it back every time I see this movie.

[David Sims]

The key image of this film Is his smiling, as the British would say, gormless face in the one second before his brains are blown out.

[Fran Hoffner]

This is like the first time I didn't cover my eyes for that because I have not seen this.

[David Sims]

Sure, sure, sure.

[Fran Hoffner]

In a while.

[David Sims]

And you knew something bad was going to happen when you're watching it. Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

And I'm so squeamish, but now I'm.

[David Sims]

Sort of like, whatever, it's so funny.

[Fran Hoffner]

So I'd only ever seen this still of him smiling, but never in actual the movie.

[David Sims]

It's so funny the way you're watching his brain work. And pit does play it very, very well of like, where he's like, okay, I got to hide. And then he's like, maybe if I just come out smiling, you can tell he thinks that's going to work.

[Griffin Newman]

You have this, like, extended, expertly crafted, no country esque, like, place Quickening.

[David Sims]

Oh, I'm trying to kill something.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And you're stuck in the closet with him seeing the pov, and you're like, how is he going to get out of this? And yes, as you said, the split second decision of if I smile really big, will it disarm this entire situation? There are like 15 things in this movie you want to refer to as obviously the funniest thing in this movie, but that might truly be the funniest thing in the movie.

[David Sims]

I suppose you're right that there's. I mean, I already said that the funniest thing was Jenkins being an orthodox.

[Griffin Newman]

Priest and the reveal of the sex chair.

[David Sims]

The sex.

[Griffin Newman]

They're just like.

[David Sims]

This next year is like a classic. Cohen's thing, though, right? Where like, they've built up to something and then you. It's like the most ludicrous, stupid thing you ever saw.

[Griffin Newman]

And then her being thrilled right by the ingenuity.

[David Sims]

It's. But it's like, it's a serious man with, like, Jefferson Airplane or whatever, you.

[Fran Hoffner]

Know, it's like I almost think him destroying it is way funnier than the reveal. But I guess you obviously, you need that.

[Griffin Newman]

When he takes the bat to the dildo specifically, he's hitting every other part of the chair. And then you see him. This is the other thing. They're all these moments, like what you're saying with Brad Pitt, where you're like, they somehow build such a specific enough character that you can see the gears in their brain turning in a millisecond of what they think they're accomplishing. And he goes like, well, it's not really broken unless I Hit the dildo. And then he's hitting a hard aluminum bat to a rubber dick, which does nothing.

[David Sims]

Now, given how prominent dildos are in driveway $. Is this an Ethan Cohen fixation that we're getting the first sort of glimpse of?

[Griffin Newman]

Perhaps, yes, yes.

[David Sims]

It's just funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Perhaps. No, it's just the wonkiness of the chair. How basic it is, the squeakiness, the sound effect on it.

[Fran Hoffner]

Well, and it's like the floors thing of like, he saw this and was like, I can figure this out. This is for me to determine and do it cheaply.

[Griffin Newman]

He was so offended when he saw the price they were asking for. I can build this for a hundred all in. And then he qualifies.

[David Sims]

Except for the dildo, he can't hold Rubbery yet. Like he hasn't figured that out.

[Fran Hoffner]

But it's not like money is tight for him. No, no, I don't think it's a.

[Griffin Newman]

Principle which defines most of the characters in this film. Totally, yes. Their idea of their principles that they have to maintain a line on.

[David Sims]

So as everything's going wrong, we have this brilliant idea to check in with people who are like, in charge of monitoring crises of intelligence in America.

[Griffin Newman]

David Rasky Ratchet. I always say his name wrong.

[David Sims]

I honestly don't know how you say his name. I used to for a long time. I was like, david Rash, of course. But no, it's Rashy, I believe is how you say it. And he's a esteemed theater actor. He's been in a billion movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Sledgehammer, which was a espionage parody show in the 80s.

[David Sims]

I do feel like he was already so famous and he's so funny and like in the loop and stuff. I know.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's what I know from.

[David Sims]

But then, like, succession did turn all those sort of middle aged character actors into celebrities of a new sort, including him. But he's very funny and he really plays all this perfectly because Simmons, J.K. simmons is obviously like, what? What? What? And like every time JK Sims is like, send him to Venezuela. He's like, of course, yes. You know, like. Like the way his personality is basically like, I assumed you would say that. And I will be taking care of that.

[Griffin Newman]

He's so funny. It's such a good double act between the two of them. I also think it's such funny meta casting of like. Like the Cohen's obviously love J.K. simmons. Have worked with him up until this point in 2008. If you're putting J.K. simmons behind a desk as the boss, everyone's Thinking J. Jonah Jameson. Right. Even if he looks totally different. So the movie makes you think, like, oh, he's gonna come in, deliver the bad news, and J.K. simmons is gonna like blow his top. He's gonna lose it. And to just have the no sell of him being like the Russians.

[David Sims]

What? Three times he checks like the.

[Griffin Newman]

Just never mind, never mind.

[David Sims]

You know, Is this his third Cohen's.

[Griffin Newman]

Or second Lady Killers?

[David Sims]

Lady Killers. This. I feel like there's a third.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm forgetting he's in True Grit in a voice cameo, but that's maybe that's.

[David Sims]

All I'm thinking of.

[Griffin Newman]

Isn't there another one?

[David Sims]

Isn't there another one?

[Griffin Newman]

Getting the movies we've covered on this podcast. Blink check.

[David Sims]

JK Simmons in Fitting Simmons. Just kidding. Simmons. What does JK stand for? Jonathan Kimball.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, well, well.

[David Sims]

I did not murder her. You like that?

[Griffin Newman]

That got me.

[David Sims]

Let's see. I just, I just feel like there's one other and I'm gonna find it. But you guys keep talking about whatever.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's the Eminem.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the Eminem.

[David Sims]

He is Yellow Eminem, of course, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Because it was originally John Goodman and John Lovitz for the first year of the commercial campaign.

[David Sims]

Oh, I thought you were about to say, and burn after reading like that it was Goodman and Lovett in the CIA scenes that also would work. Kind of funny.

[Fran Hoffner]

Something I'd like to see.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Lovett was originally Red Eminem. Goodman was originally Yellow Eminem.

[David Sims]

I don't think I, I, I don't think I ever thought about him.

[Griffin Newman]

And then I think after a year, they were just like, these guys want movie star salaries to continue playing these roles in an era where that was not the expenditure they were willing to put in. And so it's Billy west and J.K. simmons are the like downgrade sound alikes. And now it has been so funny to watch J.K. simmons hold on to the role with an iron grip for 30 years. Well, past being an Oscar winner, I.

[David Sims]

Don'T find a third one. So I guess it is just those three, you know, true grip, obviously being a tiny voice cameo. What else do you guys want to talk about? Burn after eating. Come on, come on. This is your favorite movie of all time.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a horny ass movie. True. I think you're right. Picking at this is maybe a little bit of the Ethan side of things coming through.

[David Sims]

I'm not mad about it, but it's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. It is one of the things that is startling about the two Ethan Trisha Cook movies.

[Fran Hoffner]

I haven't seen them.

[David Sims]

You haven't seen either?

[Fran Hoffner]

Nah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'd be very curious to hear your opinions.

[Fran Hoffner]

They don't interest me at all. I'm sure I'll get to them.

[David Sims]

They have a lot of dildos. I mean. Driveway Dolls.

[Fran Hoffner]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's not really.

[David Sims]

I know. I'm not saying that that should interest you. It's just Driveway Dolls has like multiple sort of visual jokes built around it. The entire plot is built around.

[Griffin Newman]

They're so outwardly horny while also treating its sex in a goofier way than almost any movie I've ever seen. That's like.

[Fran Hoffner]

I don't like that.

[Griffin Newman]

It's odd. And like Burn After Reading Sex.

[Fran Hoffner]

Negative. But.

[Griffin Newman]

But Burn After Reading has like a version of that more so than the way sex is depicted in any of their other films.

[David Sims]

Sure. But they're not sexy filmmakers.

[Griffin Newman]

They're not.

[David Sims]

They. They mostly are going to be having a little bit of fun and sort.

[Griffin Newman]

Of like giggling and even in a movie where people. Attractive people are having sex with each other. The only act of sex I think you actually see see in the film is Francis McDoran's terrible date.

[David Sims]

Yes. That's really.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is one of the more depressing sex scenes.

[David Sims]

Like I. That's really top. Whoever that guy is. He rocks. He's like trying not to touch her. It feels like he's sort of like, you know, like sort of doing press ups where he's got like his hands on the bed so he won't touch her.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's got this like construnated facial expression. It's great stuff.

[David Sims]

Like the fake movie called Running that Tree.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Coming up. Daisies.

[David Sims]

No.

[Fran Hoffner]

Something. Daisy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I gotta look it up.

[Fran Hoffner]

It's. I love Dermot.

[Griffin Newman]

He's so good. Claire Danes is. Is on the poster with him after they ended up together in Family Stone.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But you don't actually see clearings in the movie.

[David Sims]

Up. Daisy.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[Fran Hoffner]

Daisy.

[Griffin Newman]

But I just love Danes. Is the funeral that quick series of. We've seen Brad Pitt weigh in on the dates. She like kind of like through gritted teeth is like I guess he's fine. But she has such deception. Disdain for all these guys she's getting. Right. And this dating service and all of this. Then meets up with him. Is immediately disappointed seeing him in person. Even beyond her settled expectations. I think his only line of dialogue is when he self identifies in the park. And then you cut to like dinner. Silent movie. He's not laughing.

[David Sims]

Right. She's laughing he's not sex.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like, in his own universe, not connected to her. Not speaking. Which I. I think is like, one of the areas in which I contend this movie kind of has affection for her, is like, you don't put that scene in unless you want the contrast of her and Clooney actually have a connection that. Like one of the central tragedies of this movie. Obviously, you wish you would just listen to Richard Jenkins, who's right there. Right. Well.

[David Sims]

Right. I mean, the triumph of this movie is she gets what she wants. She does. I guess everyone is dead.

[Griffin Newman]

She wins, though.

[David Sims]

But Richard Jenkins.

[Fran Hoffner]

Clooney's in Venezuela.

[David Sims]

Clooney's not dead. He's in Venezuela. Richard Jenkins has been hatcheted.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And Brad Pitt has been shot in the head. So she doesn't really have any friends.

[Griffin Newman]

Or, like, Osborne Cox is in a coma.

[David Sims]

Osborne Cox is in a coma. Not that they ever had much of a connection. I guess Tilda Swinton's doing okay.

[Fran Hoffner]

They could link.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Maybe they'll just might want to hate her. Oh, yeah. You think she proud you're a little ghost?

[Fran Hoffner]

I think she'd be negative. I also love. There's that brief scene where she's talking to the woman at the gym that she's giving the tour to.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Who's like, oh, yeah, my friends got hooked up with guys on that. And it's sort of like, okay, so it's obviously working for some people. It's not working for her.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. But I also. I think it's like, it's not that she's being too picky. It's that she's, like, trying to exert too much control on the abstract idea of what she wants her love life to be.

[Fran Hoffner]

Sort of a classic dating app thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

What's the app called? I mean, it's not. It's a website.

[Fran Hoffner]

Something. Dc.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Meet me DC or something.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You say the thing of, like, pit thinking being a kind of more benevolent Walter, or at least a friendlier Walter. His move in the scene in the car. And I guess he does it over the phone as well, but certainly in the car scene where he clearly thinks that Cox is going to be rattled by him knowing his name, and so he just keeps repeating it with increased intensity, as if just saying it is going to make him go like, oh, shit. And anytime Malkovich kind of like, traps him in a logic corner, he just resets to, well, Osborne Cox.

[Fran Hoffner]

Appearances can be deceptive.

[David Sims]

Right. The way he.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think think so Osborne Cox, he just keeps starting and ending sentences with it. The thing is, Osborne Cox, the way.

[David Sims]

He'S so startled by getting hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then he goes into the car, you know, Francis McGraw picks him up. And she's like, where's the money? And he's like. And she's like, wait, what happened? He's like, he hit me. Is really.

[Griffin Newman]

You think that's a Schwinn. Is the only thing that makes him break his act. And then his, like, absolute panic, not at being punched, but at, like, that thing was only back there with a Kryptonite lock. You can break through that thing with a Bic pen.

[David Sims]

It's a very. It's. Yeah, it's. It is funny to look at Pitt at that moment where it's like, the year before is Ocean's Thirteen. Jesse James this year is Benjamin Button. The year after is Inglourious Basterds. There's funny stuff in all those performances, except for Jesse James. It's not very funny movie. That's pretty serious.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's got funny stuff, but he's light.

[David Sims]

Right. But, like, those are very serious movies, by and large. Not so much Ocean's Thirteen, I guess, where he's, like, playing pretty tough guys, right? Like, by and large. And then, like, in the middle of that, he just. He has this. And then he had Tree of. He had, like, a break. And then Tree of Life, Moneyball. And it was like, fuck Pit. And then it's kind of like, forget it for a while. I mean, obviously, his personal life disintegrates. Right? Remember that one? I mean. Yeah. War Machine is way later. I mean, it's sort of like it's Allied and stuff that you can kind of debate. And Griffin loves to debate out, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Fury. Like that, you know, where it's sort of like he plays super stoic, like World War Z, Fury Allied. You know what I mean? Where it's like, I don't like those performances that much. I don't like they none. None of those performances register that hard for me.

[Griffin Newman]

I've never seen World War Z, but that feels like an ultimate example of. I mean, just being like, do I.

[David Sims]

Gotta get this on?

[Griffin Newman]

Do I need a Jason Bourne? Right, Right. That he had been pushing himself so hard for a decade plus to do unconventional stuff, work with interesting people, get more, like, sophisticated movies made at a higher budget level, that he clearly was like, do I need a tent pole to, like, reset my foreign value? And clearly tried to make that movie something more interesting. And then everything Fell apart, which sort.

[David Sims]

Of was a hit and worked anyway.

[Griffin Newman]

And then I think at the moment that his life spirals out of control and he clearly like hits a wall. He seemed to respond with panic of like, do I need to make more conventional movie star moves now? Like, now there's been this run of like F1 and money. The bullet train. I almost said money train and what have you, that it was a money train. Right. That despite the fact that the guy's now in his like late 50s.

[David Sims]

You're right. And wolves, don't forget wolves.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Those are all like panic moves a little bit.

[David Sims]

I mean, he's. Yeah, 61. He's 61. Yeah. I mean the thing that he's good in is Babylon. I think it's a really good performance. But you know, that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But like outlier in the run, we're talking about him showing up supporting role, doing something that's kind of self reflexive versus these other ones where he's like playing into the Brad Pitt coolness, which I think he wants to just like sell the narrative as much as possible of like, remember what we all like about Brad Pitt. You know, there's.

[David Sims]

Yes, it's calculated.

[Griffin Newman]

My big complaint about F1 where I. I feel like I've heard a lot of people be like, why isn't he awesome in this? This feels so similar and set up to Moneyball and yet like it's not activated in the same way. Is that like in all of his best performance there is like the coiled anger that he is clearly trying to suppress. An F1 that he doesn't want the sense of darkness in F1. So F1, he's basically playing the Moneyball character except without any demons. And even when he talks about demons.

[Fran Hoffner]

In F1, I have a different read.

[Griffin Newman]

The big emotional scene where he reveals his demons is like, yeah, well, you know, I blew it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean F1 is a little trifling. I like that movie is just. I like that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But yeah, but he's removing the core of his character, which is any sense of like tortured. You know, the stuff that he does want people thinking about.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's like sleepy in that movie.

[David Sims]

He's a little.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's a little cowboy. He's old cowboy coming back. But there's no. Yeah. And there's no rage.

[David Sims]

The thing about F1 that is both were, you know, frustrating but also you can't deny where is like, he's just like, yeah, I can still do this, by the way. And the audience reaction was like, yeah, we Enjoyed that. And the world's reaction was like, here's money. It was one of those things where it's like, yeah, now he can make movies on that scale for another five years.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of autopilot, because he proved it.

[David Sims]

Does sort of financially work out. Fran, what's your take?

[Fran Hoffner]

No, that was my take. It's like, it's like Western old cowboy comes into New Town and shows them how to do everything old fashioned, you know, get off your phone, millennials type movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's sleepy because he's like removed what is actually his battery as a performer. Like his kind of like special move. And I. I think you compare it to Once Upon Time in Hollywood, which is similarly like, this guy's like the ultimate fun chiller cowboy, but is like, but he's. Stuff's hairy. Well.

[David Sims]

But also in one spot, he's playing a really scary person.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the whole thing he wants is sort of a thousand miles away from F1.

[David Sims]

And Brad Pitt seems kind of scary, like, you know, and, you know, you.

[Fran Hoffner]

Know who's so good in F1?

[David Sims]

Javier Bardem. Yeah, he's.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. When he goes, not yet. Not yet.

[David Sims]

That is one of those.

[Fran Hoffner]

We're all talking about Reuben from F1.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone's talking about Ruben's. It's Ruben's world. World. Just living in it.

[David Sims]

That is just. He just can do whatever. And I will lap it up like a dog lapping up.

[Griffin Newman]

Has he become a. When's he bad?

[David Sims]

Has he ever not been like, I did. I mean, I guess I know what you mean in terms of like. You're like, he's like, I'll be in Lyle. Lyle Crocodile and kind of start some Oscar, you know what I mean?

[Griffin Newman]

Like maybe one of his five best.

[David Sims]

That's what I'm saying, where he's like, I'm going to do La Crocodile. And you're like, why? He's like, oh, I don't know. Maybe check it out. Actually Rock. You know what I mean?

[Fran Hoffner]

Like he Senor balloons.

[David Sims]

I mean, the only thing against it, I mean, obviously Dune, in Dune one, you know, he pops up at the, you know, peppered in. And you're like, oh, sure, Bardem. He makes sense in this. And then in Dune 2, he's like, I'm funny in this. And you're like, you are funny in this. In a very serious movie.

[Fran Hoffner]

Do you like him in Skyfall? I feel like that's the horror. I love him too. Some people hate that performance.

[Griffin Newman]

Who?

[Fran Hoffner]

Where people?

[David Sims]

Where are they?

[Fran Hoffner]

I don't know, I love it.

[David Sims]

That performance is like, magnificent.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I think it's.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And that performance is like, I think so tapped into. That movie is so like, it's the anniversary of James Bond. We're doing like a.

[Griffin Newman]

We have to 20th movie, you know, that we deemed previously too silly for the Craig era.

[David Sims]

Right. A little bit. I mean, the whole push and pull the Craig movies is they're like, can we do a little bit more silly? And Craig's just like, just a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

But Bardem is striking the absolute perfect balance.

[David Sims]

That's why it's good. And he's like, I'm going to play all the James Bond villains and I'm gonna get at the core of all of them, which is they all kind of wanted to him. And like, that's what's. So. The push and pull of that in Skyfall is just so.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he's fantastic in that. The two I haven't seen are Live Action Little Mermaid and Salazar's Revenge.

[David Sims]

There is. There is no defensive live action.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I was gonna say. They haven't the only two Salazar. I'm like, are those actually people really like Salazar's Revenge?

[David Sims]

He's trying.

[Griffin Newman]

He's trying.

[David Sims]

There's just nothing there.

[Griffin Newman]

Little Mermaids autopilot, though.

[Fran Hoffner]

I forgot he's in Little Mermaid.

[David Sims]

I can't tell you a single thing about that movie. I.

[Griffin Newman]

Big dad nipples.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That's apparently a thing I said when.

[Griffin Newman]

We did our episode on the animated Little Mermaid. David said something to the effect of, you know how King Triton has big dad nipples?

[Fran Hoffner]

Sure, I guess I know exactly.

[David Sims]

In the cartoon. I said, in the cartoon.

[Fran Hoffner]

And you're like, does Javier Bardem have them in the movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Does he have those pepperonis? And I think he doesn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Those papa pepperonis.

[David Sims]

It's just so funny when he's like, I did it so. Because my children would like to see that movie. And I'm like, your kids don't want to see that movie. They don't want to see you play King Fright. And they want to see some other.

[Fran Hoffner]

You know, senior balloons.

[Griffin Newman]

They want to watch animated little movies, probably.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But he is late, of late, kind of crushing it. I would love to see what he does next.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, counter to everything we're saying, Pit, like, finds a different motor in this that is incredibly fun and is not tied to any darkness whatsoever. Like, this is a guy who does not consider darkness. It is incredible how thoroughly he, like, nails this guy's entire worldview. As you said, as embodied with. And he's only.

[David Sims]

He's probably only in it for 10 or 15 minutes. Like, everyone is just. Well.

[Fran Hoffner]

And any darkness in the movie really upsets him. He's like a clown. He feels it all, like, so purely when he's yelled at.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Right. I mean, and it's like. It's. What makes this character worthy of judgment is like, if the documents were as important as they think they are, what they're doing is actually very fucked up. I'm not even.

[David Sims]

McDormand and Pitt are doing.

[Griffin Newman]

In an unpatriotic way.

[David Sims]

Right. It's just kind of insane because they only. They're like, let's threaten him. That didn't work. What is the address of Russia here? Like, let's just go present this to Russia.

[Griffin Newman]

They're out of their depth. And the files are like a nothing burger.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But in their mind, they could be handing over nuclear codes. You know, which it's just like, if your sense of, like, self importance is more important than, like, global safety, it doesn't reflect super well on your moral balance.

[David Sims]

Oh, that Krupa. Very, very funny. The guy who plays the Russian guy. Love him. No. Yes.

[Fran Hoffner]

Brandon.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Another line reading. I love where he goes, so you are not ideological. Where he basically just calls them out for having no feeling whatsoever about what they're doing. There's nothing at stake for you.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Jenkins, who this is. This is his third. Cohen's. Right. He's in intolerable. No Country. Sorry, Men who Wasn't There and intolerable.

[Griffin Newman]

That sounds right. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he is desperately sad in the film also is one assume his gym is just, like, in total shambles because two of its highest level employees are basically never there. But I don't know if there's much more to say about him except that, like, of course, he gets killed with a hatchet trying to steal shit for a girl he has a crush on.

[Fran Hoffner]

At the end of the movie. And hard bodies.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically, her. His final words are, she's not a. Right. Like, he then says, no, no, as Jenkins as a. Comes towards him.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But, like, all this character wants to do is defend McDormand's honor. You are a special person. Why don't you see that in yourself?

[David Sims]

You are from surgery and from, you know, whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Bad boyfriend.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the root of it. It's like you are worthy of love. And she thinks she is not and that she could not possibly be unless she is. She gets these multiple procedures done.

[David Sims]

Right? Yeah. Do you think she's happy after this movie? I hope so.

[Griffin Newman]

Possibly I do. I was. No, I was going to say, you think Pitt's only in like 10 to 15 minutes. He enters pretty late because McDorman doesn't come in until like 15. I think he comes in around like 25 minutes. A thing I like about this movie is it does have a kind of like relay race narrative structure where the lead is constantly changing who's pulling you forward in the story without it being like a Traffic esque. Here are multiple timelines kind of thing.

[David Sims]

McDormand is probably the closest thing to a true lead. Clooney is top build and he's sort of the lead. But Clooney's also kind of like second fiddle to everyone he's in a scene with.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I'm saying. Like each scene has a lead. No, I know what you're saying. And then very often the scenes are grouped together and you're like, for these like six minutes, you're. You're riding it through them.

[David Sims]

It is the one Coen brothers movie where I, I do kind of buy that. They're like, yeah, we just kept writing, like we thought, what other funny could happen? And then we thought, what other funny could happen? And we were just thinking of what cool actors could play what crazy parts. And like, you know, we've sort of fit it all together. It does the relay thing that you're saying. It does have that energy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

It has an economy too, which is great. It's not overstaying. It's welcome. It's not hitting any beats too hard.

[David Sims]

It is a gorgeous 96 minutes long.

[Fran Hoffner]

A worse movie would have way more.

[David Sims]

Pit because they'd be like, crushing. We got it. Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

Like, that performance stays so good in part because there's so little of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yes. I also, I, I just like the, that I think what is interrogating the sort of anger in this movie, as we're saying, is like, is. Is there a fundamental problem in modern government structures where this becomes a position of like, social capital versus the idea of these people being like public servants? Like, is this like, part and parcel with why our government is constantly failing its people? You know that this idea of like, it's. Its. Its status more than anything else that all these people are so concerned primarily with their, like, wine and cheese parties and like, who's zooming who and who's got what desk and what book they're going to be able to write on the other end of it versus Any of these people actually seeming to care about what they do.

[Fran Hoffner]

Their ideology is just themselves.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. And even, like, Cox, who, you know, he. He is the lead for, like, the first 10 minutes of the movie, when we're really sitting with him, has this sad moment where he's talking to his, like, completely psychologically gone father. And even when he's starting to dictate his memoir, where he is talking about who he thought he was gonna be. Right. That he wanted to be one of Moreau's boys and he wanted to, like, kind of shape.

[Fran Hoffner]

We were young and there was nothing we could not do. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like, you know, and it's not what you would have done, dad, but. But it's different today than it was when you, you know, this idea that he, like, entered it too late, and he used to be idealistic about it, but yet all he wants to do is just, like, have people view him as important. That's all an extension of that versus any idea of, like, this is what I believe. I used to believe I could do for the people. I also just want to call out. The memoir bit is exactly how my mother talks. She's now made a paywalled Patreon appearance on our Dire With a Vengeance episod.

[David Sims]

That's true. Briefly. Yes, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And I forget what the version of it was, but I called it out. But my mother, who is French but speaks with, like, a pretty mid Atlantic accent, will just fall into like. And. And what genre would you say the movie was? What? Right.

[David Sims]

Well, your mother has French heritage.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, no, as I said, but she doesn't. She doesn't speak with any spren French inflections. And then if she is using a word that is part of the American vernacular but has French origins, she pronounces it so hard.

[Fran Hoffner]

I love that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's great for her. David. This episode is brought to you again by mubi, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover with mubi. Each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anywhere, anytime. But what. What, David? What if the cinema is actually kind of tv?

[David Sims]

Wait, this is a debate now?

[Griffin Newman]

This is a debate.

[David Sims]

No, it's a cool thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Are we allowed to log this ad? Read on letterboxd. Is the debate to mark the 35th.

[David Sims]

Anniversary since the release of the groundbreaking television show Twin Peaks, the complete original series, plus its 2017 follow up, the limited event series are all available for the first time on movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's very exciting. I see people even, even just last week on the Reddit saying hey, I still haven't watched Twin Peak. Should I listen to the episodes? Are they going to spoil things for me? People, people are catching up with the back catalog. We did all lynch last year. We did all the Twin Peaks. Maybe you want to watch along. Maybe you want to re watch. Maybe you want to watch for the first time. It's a great, great opportunity. David Lynch's distinct vision and here's the. The word I always mispronounce aesthetic have made his name synonymous with a unique cinematic style. Lynchian.

[David Sims]

Oh, this is a very Lynchian show.

[Griffin Newman]

She breaks the borders of reality to expose the unsettling truths hidden behind the American middle class happiness and allow the viewer to indulge in a bittersweet and dreamlike confusion.

[David Sims]

Why is this become like a wrestling promo?

[Griffin Newman]

Because I'm trying to hype people up.

[David Sims]

Okay. Obviously you should go watch Twin Peaks if you haven't on Mubi and then you can go listen to our long discussions about it on Blank Check. That would be exciting. There's also really cool other television on movies such as Corieda's Going, My Home, Lars the Kingdom which they restored.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

William Kentridge's Self Portrait is a coffee pot.

[Griffin Newman]

And coming up, coming up, Wong Kar.

[David Sims]

Y's Blossoms, Shanghai and Mussolini Son of the century from old Joe Wright.

[Griffin Newman]

Old Joe Wright. Joe Wright.

[David Sims]

And we do have a big Joe Wright fan who's silent in the studio with us. Who's giving me a double thumbs up. Yeah. Mark Frost and David Lynch's Twin Peak.

[Griffin Newman]

We love it.

[David Sims]

To stream the best of cinema you can try MUBI for free for 30 days at Blank Check. That's M U B I.com blankcheck for a month of great cinema for before we begin to wrap up.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh yeah.

[David Sims]

You wanted to talk about the theater of the new year and I don't want to forget about that. Oh yeah. I just think that this is something that Blank Check listeners should be aware of and would probably like and was.

[Griffin Newman]

Vaguely around the same time it was.

[David Sims]

In sort of 2005. It was a sound play created by Carter Burwell. Correct. And the Coen brothers. Coen brothers. Charlie Colbert. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Carter Burwell was the one who sort of brought both of them in. I think was his idea to begin with.

[David Sims]

He does the music for both. For both of them. Well actually there were three. It's a little confusing. So there were a few Performances of this, the main ones of which there is a recording, I think this is the New York performance is two sound plays. They're basically radio plays that were performed.

[Griffin Newman]

On a stage, but like with live foley work and sort of the idea to do a throwback to an earlier 20th century form. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

The first one is called Sawbones by the Coen Brothers, which is about a frontier veterinarian television show that is sort of one perspective. And then there's a woman like a housewife who watches the show who falls in love with a traveling salesman and her husband who's in a fire watchtower. And then the second play is the Charlie Kaufman play called Hopefully Leaves the Theater, which I think is among his best work now. Yeah. Pardon me for talk telling tales of School Huber. This Charlie Kaufman play, I'm told that it broke the fourth wall somewhat. It did. It stepped out of its own reality. And it makes one of the running jokes in it, which I think is very funny, is that Charlie Kaufman has died and this play was the last thing that he wrote. And so you have Meryl Streep like tearfully on stage breaking characters, eulogizing to talk about how this was the last.

[Griffin Newman]

And am I mistaken for thinking that Anomalisa came out of a later iteration theater for the new year.

[David Sims]

Yes. Corrected play Saw.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Was replaced with Anomalisa in LA when they staged it in LA.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Which was.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a 30 minute version and then.

[David Sims]

But it had thewless Newton, Jennifer, Jason Lee. So it had the cast of the eventual.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And in Charlie Kaufman's frustration of not being able to get another movie movie made after Frank or Francis fell apart so many times. Dino Samatopoulos, who had started his stop motion studio was like, what if you adapt that? Anomalisa was supposed to be just a 30 minute short at first and then they went to Kickstarter and raised enough to make it a feature. Very, very, very cool. Shout out. Those things are absolutely worth listening to.

[David Sims]

100,000% you Meryl Streep sings in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Also just. I mean all the kind of Coen brothers miscellaneous stuff we keep on sort of scanning around for, like, is there something interesting to scrap together to do a bonus episode on Patreon? And none of it really feels episode worthy, but of the stuff we're not covering, I. I would almost recommend that most strongly Can.

[David Sims]

So is it listenable? Like is. Can you find it? Yeah, it's. It pops up on YouTube every so often. I'm not sure. I haven't checked today. If it's. You can find it there. It was only broadcast on Sirius like once.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But there are MP3s of it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's around. Oh, you already downloaded in the time between asking.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

But so many of like the theater projects and whatever are like Ethan solo things. The fact that this is one of the only Joel and Ethan co written things for a different medium is interesting in and of itself. David's biting his nail.

[David Sims]

I mean I do that all the time. It's been something I've been doing since I was a very little boy. Pediatrician told me a long time ago that it was no different from any other self harming behavior and I really should. Should look into it. Still doing it 39 years.

[Fran Hoffner]

Was your pediatrician Tilda Swinton from this?

[David Sims]

Yeah, I mean he, he said it in a nice way, but he was like, you're aware of like what self harm is, right? That's what you're doing to yourself. Because I like tear the cuticles up and stuff. And he was like, he was like the sort of the psychological principle of what's happening, it's the same basic thing. And I was like, okay, what age were you? I was probably like a teenager.

[Griffin Newman]

It is fascinating that you remember this verbatim.

[David Sims]

Oh yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Unpack it so quickly and still do it.

[David Sims]

There's been like a couple times in my life that I've successfully kicked nail biting for like a longer than like whatever. A few days and then something will make me anxious and I will start unconsciously doing it. Thank you. I mean I've gotten married and like maintained a career. Two things my mother told me would be really at risk if I kept biting my nails. Yeah. So take that, mom. I take it back. I'm gonna buy her 4k if I. I know where I'm going.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, great. Journey's putting. As you said, this movie didn't have much Oscar juice. It gets the SAG nomination, but that's very much a classic sag. Hey, it turns out that six of the top qualifying movies are ineligible or not sag. I'm sorry, wga. There are always a couple weird WGA nominations because other things were disqualified per their specific rules. BAFTA went through it more hardly. But Pitt and Supporting, which kind of would have been the obvious play, is overshadowed by Benjamin Button the same year Tilda had just won.

[David Sims]

Yes. Sort of a bad Oscar year after an incredible one. And it's kind of a like, what is it, 99? Where you're like, what a great movie year. And then you look at the Oscars and you're like, why did the Oscars not understand that? Look, 2008's a sort of similar one. You're like, I mean, there are some decent nominations, but obviously it's the one that leads to the multiple.

[Griffin Newman]

I was going to say, I will never miss an opportunity to say that it is the year that breaks the Academy Awards where they're like, if you.

[David Sims]

Guys aren't going to fucking. I mean. But it's not just Dark Knight and Wally, which are obviously the big two.

[Griffin Newman]

I put Gran Torino in there as well. I think all three of those movies, right?

[David Sims]

Big hits that audiences were like, we liked that. And the Oscars are like Frost and Nixon. You understand me?

[Griffin Newman]

Here comes the.

[David Sims]

They talked to each other.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah, I like Frost, Nixon.

[David Sims]

Wow. Have you seen it recently?

[Fran Hoffner]

No.

[David Sims]

It stings. And I like Peter Morgan. I'm a slut for that stuff.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But it's not very good.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm just reading over these nominations. Oh, you know what's in here? Revanch. Ever seen that?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that movie's good.

[Fran Hoffner]

That movie's good. That's actually crazy. That got a best foreign language.

[David Sims]

I was going to say that was a foreign film.

[Griffin Newman]

That was one of those, like, oh, weird. They nominated something cool once in a while.

[David Sims]

They'll sneak a in there.

[Griffin Newman]

They've overhauled the. The whole process. And now I think it's sometimes a slightly better field. But Certainly, like, before 2015, if something that actually was kind of awesome got in, it was astonishing.

[David Sims]

I think you had to, like, be 95 to vote for that category back then. You know what I mean? Like, it. Obviously it's most. I'm joking, but, like, because you had to watch all the movies, it was all retirees who were watching.

[Griffin Newman]

My memory is that in order to vote in that category, you had to attend screenings and check in that were marathon. So it did have to be retirees because it was like, Monday through Friday, you're gonna have to show up at the Academy and watch five foreign language films in a row and check in to prove you've seen all of them before you vote. And anyone who was busy wouldn't do that.

[David Sims]

Right. Shall we play the box office game? Are there any other things we want to talk about before I do this.

[Griffin Newman]

Movie makes me laugh really hard. I think it's really funny.

[Fran Hoffner]

Francis, you know who's great in just one single scene is the guy serving George Clooney with the divorce papers who he tackles in the street.

[David Sims]

That guy's great. I Mean, he was. He's the Ugly Betty guy. What's his name?

[Fran Hoffner]

I couldn't remember who he was. I mean, I meant to look it up while watching.

[David Sims]

He's in a bunch of other stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, the guy. The guy who serves the papers at the bar or the guy in the. Kevin Sussman.

[David Sims]

Kevin Sussman is the guy I'm thinking of.

[Griffin Newman]

What's his. The name of the firm. He keeps talking.

[David Sims]

I don't know. But it's just funny how mean he is.

[Griffin Newman]

He's phenomenal. I think of him as the wet hot guy. Of course. Also great and well, who can control the weather with his hands.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh my God. Of course.

[David Sims]

I mean, in a million things and.

[Griffin Newman]

And has made like $8 trillion from big bang Theory and I think now is the star of a Big Bang spin off.

[Fran Hoffner]

He's a young Sheldon once on the street.

[Griffin Newman]

Really? How is he looking? What age?

[Fran Hoffner]

Youngish.

[Griffin Newman]

Youngish. This was the problem. That's why the show's not on the air anymore.

[David Sims]

I will say it away from. I saw Life of Chuck. It's not like Tremblay's bad in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But I do think I'm like can tremble. I think I need him to wait a few more years. When any fully adult.

[Fran Hoffner]

Tremblay. Barry Tremblay. They do in that movie. I went to that to see Tremblay. He's barely.

[David Sims]

You've got your like Tremblay penance.

[Griffin Newman]

They sold me a Tremblay picture and here I am waiting until the last two minutes.

[David Sims]

You know that movie, honestly, whatever. They would sell you on it, you'd probably end up being disappointed because it's got so much going on.

[Griffin Newman]

That was a real challenge to market. And yet I think they may be settled on only the worst approaches that.

[David Sims]

It'S like Tom Hiddleston's gonna to hoof it up in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a Hiddleston soft shoe picture. And you're like, boy, are you going to be really confused for the first 45 minutes of this movie.

[David Sims]

And then very happy and then confused.

[Griffin Newman]

And then back to the O.

[Fran Hoffner]

But you know who's so good? Lillard.

[Griffin Newman]

Lillard is phenomenal. Talk about a great one scene performance. Yeah, like a real journey. The kind of performance that feels like it's a Cohen's thing of just like letting an actor you're very familiar with but you've never seen get this kind of Runway, go on a full journey and show you an entire life within one scene. The other guy I like, he's a Two scener in this. But till Swinton's divorce lawyer.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Who loves the kind of excitement of the idea that he's not in the beltway but he's adjacent to it.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And the comings and goings. Yeah. You can be a spy too. And then what's the thing where he brags about who his wife saw out at dinner?

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a really good performance. Anyway, the.

[David Sims]

The. Also the book, the children's book. The. The TV sequence. That's very old fashioned. Cone brothers like Bruce Campbell should probably be in that. Okay. The film made 60 domestic, 168 worldwide. The worldwide number really does feel like you're kind of George Clooney. Brad Pitt. Number of like it does not matter what the movie is right. Back then they are going to just get you you something.

[Griffin Newman]

But this movie had good marketing materials.

[David Sims]

It did.

[Griffin Newman]

It wasn't a total hide the ball but it was a kind of like reconfigure the elements in a way that is a lot easier to digest.

[David Sims]

It's funny though that they did not go for like. I mean the classic poster was that red poster. The sort of cartoony with.

[Griffin Newman]

Without their faces.

[David Sims]

Without. With no, no floating heads.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like a Saul Bassey but giant yellow star names. And then. Right. The faces only come in on like the. The home video release number one at.

[David Sims]

The box office on September. Number 12, 2008. Never forget opening to $19 million. What do you think?

[Griffin Newman]

This is number two. So one.

[David Sims]

It is number one. Burn after rating is number one.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Number two to four are also all new movies. This is a four new movies top five.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's the other thing that made it surprising that this performed so well. It was not an uncompetitive weekend and it tripled its opening weekend.

[David Sims]

But it is that early September, slightly more fallow feel before the big Oscar movies are coming. The other three movies are just. Just like three really different offerings. I will say so number two at the box office is it's a. It's a work from a director who would produce one to two new movies a year. And it's a. It's in his dramatic vein rather than his comedic.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. You do one to two movies a year. Okay. So it's a Tyler Perry.

[David Sims]

Tyler Perry. But it's not a Madea. But he would have a non Medea.

[Griffin Newman]

He would have his weekends that he staked out and I'm sure they thought he was going to own this weekend.

[David Sims]

He was like his September guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Was a February guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

So this is a. This is a dramatic one. And it's not a Medea.

[David Sims]

It's not a Medea. But Tyler Perry is in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it among the ensemble? So it's not I could do bad all by myself.

[David Sims]

It is not about doing bad all by yourself. After reading? Could be called that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. All these characters have the capacity to do bad all by themselves. They don't even need anyone else to help them. Tyler Perry is in the ensemble. It's not D. Little girls. It's not good Deeds.

[David Sims]

It's neither of those good deeds. Of course he. It was sort of like a goodwill hunting situation. He was a guy called Deeds who was good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. It's not. Why did I get married too? No, it's not the first one.

[David Sims]

It's not that. This is fun now. Yeah, it is.

[Griffin Newman]

It is.

[Fran Hoffner]

Ben might have a guess.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. He's in the ensemble.

[David Sims]

I was gonna guess. Why did I get married too? Nope. No. No.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you tell me who the first build person is? Will that give it away?

[David Sims]

Alfre Woodard.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it the family that prays?

[David Sims]

The family that prays. And now you think this P R A Y.

[Griffin Newman]

Moving on. Subject closed. What P, R E Y S. I've.

[David Sims]

Never seen it, but I think it's sort of a. Like. It's an upstairs, downstairs. Kind of like there's like a rich family and a poorer family and there.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's two different religious families. It's Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard as the two matriarchs.

[David Sims]

Those are the.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Lathan Kitty Strickland, Cole Hauser. I bet you he gives a really, really measured performance.

[Griffin Newman]

Performance playing a good guy.

[David Sims]

Right. Rockman Dunbar, who I always enjoy Traji P. Henson's in it making $17 million. A very sort of standard Tyler Perry non Medea opening. They probably shot it in.05 days and made it for $2.

[Griffin Newman]

They somehow shock it. Shot it in negative time.

[David Sims]

Exactly. It was like celery. You g. You gain calories. Somehow Kathy Bates schedule opened up making that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

I don't know, guys.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Good stuff.

[David Sims]

Number three at the box office is a movie that is completely forgotten except it has become a catchphrase on the Lonely island podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

Righteous kill.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

Just the. In my opinion, one of the funniest things De Niro Pacino ever did where they were like, it's so cool how we're in Godfather and don't interact. Godfather 2 and then we're in Heat. We Interact for one scene. What if we did a movie where we're in it together all the time and it sucks?

[Griffin Newman]

What if it was dog?

[David Sims]

It's just bad. Yeah, they were. I bet you they literally just, like, went to a bucket of scripts and were like, just anything with two men in it. Let's get something out of here.

[Griffin Newman]

Also to go like Coppola, man.

[David Sims]

Yes, John.

[Griffin Newman]

Avnet.

[David Sims]

Avnet.

[Griffin Newman]

You're like, wait for the Irishman. Just wait for the Irishman.

[Fran Hoffner]

I don't know anything about this movie.

[David Sims]

It's like they're both cops in the New York Police Department and someone's going out there killing criminals. Yeah. And leaving poems by their mouth.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no.

[David Sims]

So. But it's like the vigilante that they're hunting sort of seems to be on the right side of the law in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

Righteous Law.

[David Sims]

I've never seen.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a Righteous Kill.

[David Sims]

I've never seen it. I am sure one of them is doing it. I'm just not sure which.

[Griffin Newman]

But Andy Sambrook has a running bit since this movie came out of saying righteous kill instead of righteous. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. Righteous, Righteous kill all. And now he's popularized it on the podcast. It's sort of a runner how they talk about. He tried to make it happen for 20 years.

[David Sims]

Now it actually has.

[Griffin Newman]

And now it actually has.

[David Sims]

So you didn't see Righteous Kill. Okay. Busy seeing Burn after reading.

[Fran Hoffner]

I was in this came out in the heart of marching band season so that I could go see.

[David Sims]

What was your instrument?

[Fran Hoffner]

Percussion, of course.

[David Sims]

I. I don't. I actually don't.

[Fran Hoffner]

You don't know that?

[David Sims]

Totally sure that I knew that.

[Griffin Newman]

That I played.

[Fran Hoffner]

I played vibraphone, actually. So I wasn't marching. I was like, posted on the 50 yard line. But yeah, but we had, like, a really robust pit percussion where there were like 20 of us. It was like five marimbas, four vibraphones, two xylophones. A little crazy. It's a huge thing in the Midwest. It's like.

[David Sims]

I know. And it's cool to watch.

[Fran Hoffner]

They have people like roll stepping on treadmills in their free time.

[David Sims]

What was your school called? Like, what was the school.

[Fran Hoffner]

Did you go to school? Prospect High School.

[David Sims]

Cool.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm sort of doxing myself, I suppose.

[David Sims]

Oh, we can cut that out if you don't want to know. People know where you went to high school.

[Fran Hoffner]

Go Nights.

[David Sims]

Go Nights. Number four at the box office. New this week. Not probably the least successful of these four films. Still made $50 million. It's a remake of a masterpiece from the golden age of Hollywood.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it the women?

[David Sims]

It's the women.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

Can you tell me who played the women in the Women?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, can you tell me?

[David Sims]

It's five women on the. On the. Obviously.

[Griffin Newman]

How many do I.

[David Sims]

Three of them are going. One of them is going phone.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I remember being.

[David Sims]

One of them is going Photoshopped posters.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Eva Mendez.

[David Sims]

Eva Mendez is there.

[Griffin Newman]

Annette Benning.

[David Sims]

She's there. She's on the phone.

[Griffin Newman]

Deborah Messing.

[David Sims]

She's going.

[Griffin Newman]

Meg Ryan.

[David Sims]

She's going to.

[Griffin Newman]

And the fifth one. There's one I'm forgetting.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, it's good.

[Griffin Newman]

The fifth one's a good one. It's not just Kabil, right?

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Give me a hint.

[David Sims]

Fish Mooney.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's the biggest hint of all.

[David Sims]

I just wanted to say it.

[Griffin Newman]

Let me quickly put her name in my mouth.

[David Sims]

Are you ready to sit down at the red table and announce who the fifth lead of the women was?

[Griffin Newman]

Jada Pinkus.

[David Sims]

Yes. Film also has Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher, chorus Leech and Debbie Mazar. Like Anna Gastire. Like it was kind of like clearly going for that first wives club. Like, everybody, come have fun. And it just. I remember being like kind of annoying.

[Griffin Newman]

And it was a development hell movie for like 20 years to do an all star the women remake. And it ended up being made by the. Isn't it the Murphy Brown.

[David Sims]

Diane English, who is, you know, a legend in her own right. But I think by that point, no offense to her, was a little cooked.

[Griffin Newman]

Offense taken.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

[Fran Hoffner]

A woman is cooked like she should be cooking in the kitchen.

[Griffin Newman]

You sound like the witch from Hansel and Gretel trying to cook. A young woman in an oven trying to cook children a young woman.

[David Sims]

I love the. The new take on Hansel and Gretel being that was a young woman named Stem that you tried to cook Book. Gretel had all kinds of aspirations.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's probably how they're gonna do it next. Everything is so child and stem.

[David Sims]

It'll be so stem heavy. The woman number four, number five at the box office is a film that I think had just done like a one month run at number one pretty much all of August.

[Griffin Newman]

Tropic Thunder.

[David Sims]

It's Tropic Thunder.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which has made it to $102 million.

[Griffin Newman]

Because that dethroned Dark Knight, basically on.

[David Sims]

A one month Dark Knight is at number seven. Number six is the house bun.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Which was sort of like a solid hit, sleeper hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

Number eight dropping from. Actually from number one. So I think Dropper. Wow. Jumped the week before to number eight is the Nicolas Cage film Bangkok Dangerous.

[Griffin Newman]

Quite a poor film. And also historically one of the lowest number ones.

[David Sims]

It was one of those like 4.8 million dollar number ones.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

Number nine is traitor. Is that the Don Cheadle movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Which is not bad.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Never seen Guy Pierce. Yeah. Based on an idea by Steve Martin.

[David Sims]

Yes. Right. Weirdly, number 10 at the box office is the remake of Death Race, which is I think a Paul W.S. anderson that I haven't seen.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it is a movie that.

[David Sims]

I gotta see that one.

[Griffin Newman]

It is so good. It's kind of Death Race, but it's more like twisted metal. Mario Kart.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that sounds fun.

[Fran Hoffner]

Oh, I never saw his from earlier this year. Land of the.

[David Sims]

I was not a fan of that one. I think he is. He's getting. I. We gotta take the volume away from him.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You know what I mean? Like, and a lot of these kind of mid budgety genre guys, I'm worried that they're gonna get lost in like cg.

[Griffin Newman]

Death Race is super practical. Part of it is that they build like power ups onto the Death Race course. So it has like hitting mushrooms. And. And Joan Allen plays like the prison warden who's like creating the death races. You are.

[Fran Hoffner]

You already had me. And then you say Joan Allen is in the machine.

[David Sims]

Griffin, can Joan Allen play kind of like a steely boss lady? Is that something that's in her repertoire?

[Griffin Newman]

David. She has a scene where she's freaking out that like oh my God, they're. They're beating the system. How is he doing this? Right. We're supposed to have them under control. And she says like 14 curses in a row. That feels like it was just a dare to see if they could get Jo Allen to this movie.

[Fran Hoffner]

Set in New York in the year 2020.

[Griffin Newman]

It ruled.

[Fran Hoffner]

I wonder if anything else happened.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also technically. It's also technically a legacy to the original rather than a remake.

[David Sims]

It's fun.

[Griffin Newman]

It starts with the. The Frankenstein character. The carroting character from the original.

[David Sims]

Right. And Koopa Troopa is in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Cool. Just to close out on Burn after reading it did premiere at. It was the opening film of the Venice Film Festival that year and indeed it was a solid hit. It's listed budget is about 37 million. Okay. But still obviously was very successful. And indeed. But. And as we noted, the reviews were a little mixed and a little heavy on the. It's so Sadistic.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also just coming off of their fucking peak. And I think there's this, like this back and forth we've talked about many times now of like the Cohen's make like a serious transcendent film. And then people are like, why are they doing a larky comedy now? There was a little bit of that.

[David Sims]

That, you know, next up, of course for us is a serious man.

[Griffin Newman]

What's that I hear in the distance? Gates are being locked next week.

[David Sims]

Mark Marin's on that on the show next week.

[Griffin Newman]

Mark Marin's on the show next week.

[David Sims]

Fran knows this already, but she's excited.

[Fran Hoffner]

I love him so much. I know that his show. I can't even really talk about it because I was sort of. I was a Marin hater and I came around.

[David Sims]

I think a lot of people had a journey like that or they're right. They like him and then they get a little sick of the show and then they rediscover and they're like, you know what?

[Griffin Newman]

Still.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you see that? He. I don't know if it was on WTF or on one of his like behind the the Paywall sort of like full ramble episodes. Talked about recording with us and was like. It was a long talk. It's a long episode.

[David Sims]

Those guys go long.

[Griffin Newman]

And then our Reddit was like losing their mind. And I had to be like, guys, guys. His standard of long is very different than yours. We got a full episode out of him. But do not get angry.

[David Sims]

Definitely a moment probably around two hours into the show where he literally just says out loud, I think we're done.

[Griffin Newman]

It was. It was well under two hours.

[David Sims]

It might have been under.

[Griffin Newman]

And I worked to kind of filibuster it over maybe the two hour line. Yeah.

[Fran Hoffner]

But I think clearing my day.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's a really great episode. We get right into it.

[Fran Hoffner]

Good.

[Griffin Newman]

And go deep into the talk.

[Fran Hoffner]

The perfect guest for that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It was. It was a long time coming and I'm glad.

[David Sims]

It was really fun to have him on it. I hope we can have him back on, honestly. Because he's got more time, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. What else is he gonna do?

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Other than come on blank check.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

So, yeah, tune in next week for that. Fran, anything you want to plug?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Fran, what's up? You work at New York magazine.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah. It's my first time on here in a long time that I've not been begging for a job.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Fran Hoffner]

Because I have one. You're passionate. Yeah.

[David Sims]

You're busy.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm Busy.

[David Sims]

Go to dinner with me more often.

[Fran Hoffner]

I will. Once I get through the next month of my life.

[David Sims]

You're also getting married?

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm also getting married in a matter of days, ultimately.

[Griffin Newman]

Congrats.

[Fran Hoffner]

Thank you so much. I'll plug being in love. Yeah. And my work for New York magazine and Vulture and Fran magazine.

[Griffin Newman]

But still going strong.

[Fran Hoffner]

Going strong. Still at it. And I'll plug getting eight hours of sleep, which hopefully I'll return to very soon.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the best shit in the world.

[Fran Hoffner]

I think it's going to change my life.

[Griffin Newman]

It's unbelievable. I'm looking forward to the day where you have to Anna Wintour style, announce your successor at Fran magazine.

[David Sims]

Same.

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is the, like, the future Nepo baby, The equivalent the black label Nepo baby, like Louis Mall and Candace Bergen's child that you will someday hand over Fran magazine?

[Fran Hoffner]

That's a great question.

[Griffin Newman]

Be the Nepo baby you want to see in the world. Can we. Can we will one into existence now?

[Fran Hoffner]

Yeah, I'm sure they're at a very expensive preschool right now, but it's got. Yeah, it's got to be someone like 35 years younger than me. So maybe someone who doesn't totally exist yet.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe if, like, Michael Hanukkah and Sydney Sweeney want to get on it.

[David Sims]

Is Hanukkah retired? What's up with him? He seems to be gonna do one more.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he's maybe retired.

[David Sims]

He's 83.

[Griffin Newman]

He's pretty old. Sorry.

[David Sims]

I'm not trying to bum you out.

[Fran Hoffner]

No, it's okay. That's okay.

[David Sims]

The white ribbon, too.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait a second. I'm seeing Here Michael Hanukkah, 9th Continent, attached to Underworld, Return of the Lycus. How great would it be if he's Hanukkah?

[David Sims]

Circling flash reboot. He's just circling it. He has a take.

[Griffin Newman]

There really isn't, like, a curse project like that anymore. Like, for so long, we had, like, Crow Reboot, Suicide Squad 2.

[David Sims]

They'll be slapping eventually, but.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but is there.

[Fran Hoffner]

That's such a good point.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? There's not the one. Like, hey, man, don't sign up for.

[David Sims]

We need a poisoned chalice to return to Hollywood for, like, every director to.

[Fran Hoffner]

Be, like, chalice D. Can I figure this out?

[Griffin Newman]

We actually, like, worked those things out of our system and now we need.

[David Sims]

New a little bit. But now it'll be like the Candy Land movie or whatever. It'll be some board game.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Michael Han is going to do Hungry Hungry Hippos.

[David Sims]

They're so hungry.

[Griffin Newman]

Hippos are so hungry. Thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Hey, thank you to Ben Fish for jumping in. Thank you, Ben Hosley back in in full form.

[Fran Hoffner]

Feel better, Ben.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I hope ice cream tastes good again to you soon. And as always, now we can just focus on writing our memoir.

[David Sims]

Memoir. I have to pee, Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

I have to poop.

[David Sims]

Oh, well, then I go.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just gonna get out.

[David Sims]

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 producer is 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 in 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. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. Someone just said, here's what I found.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

I think that was Ciri Ghost. Siri. It was Ciri on the record computer.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought Siri was about to correct my pronunciation.

[David Sims]

Go away. I love you, but no, no, actually.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't love Siri. Fuck off.

[David Sims]

Yeah, you know what? It's true. You know, if you say fuck off to Siri, she'll, like, reprimand you.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, okay.

[David Sims]

Like, has that ever happened to you where you, like, accidentally start Siri on your phone and be like, oh, fuck off. And then Siri goes like, I don't appreciate that. And I'm like, jesus, no, here's what I do. This stuff I got up going on.

[Griffin Newman]

The second I buy a device twice. Siri, off disabled, have never used Siri once. I don't like her. I don't trust her.

[Fran Hoffner]

I'm not rude to her, but I don't want to speak to her.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I just have her, like, do my taxes and stuff. I mostly don't use her. I don't.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't ever do anything.

[David Sims]

Siri do my taxes. And I'm like, that's done.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't like her.

[David Sims]

Siri is listening to us. Go away. Siri. Siri disable off.

[Griffin Newman]

I think she's tricky, and I think she's mean. And I want to make it clear it's not that she's a woman. That's not my problem.

[David Sims]

Starting to feel like you have a problem with women. With.

[Griffin Newman]

I find her overly emotional. I don't like all these questions she asks. That has nothing to do with her being a woman.

[Fran Hoffner]

Do you guys know anyone who has Syria as man? I recently you can do it. Someone who used and I was like, what the hell?

[David Sims]

What if it was like, Crocodile Dundee? Like, is there a way to make the voice something that I would be amused to hear?

[Griffin Newman]

Doesn't Amazon Alexa do a bunch of that? You can do celebrity voices and Right. If it was cracked on D, I'd turn it on.