Dead Poets Society with Nia DaCosta

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David – "Dead Poets Society" with Nia DaCosta

Release Date: April 26, 2026
Guest: Nia DaCosta
Main Theme: A deep-dive review and lively discussion of Peter Weir's 1989 film "Dead Poets Society": its script, legacy, Robin Williams, and cultural influence—with reflections on education, teaching, and youth, plus personal anecdotes from the hosts and guest.

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Episode Overview

This episode takes a meticulous and humorous journey through Dead Poets Society, exploring Robin Williams’s dramatic star power, Peter Weir’s craft, the film’s critical legacy, and the peculiarity of its massive box office success for such a sensitive “autumnal” drama. Guest Nia DaCosta brings her personal perspective as a boarding school alum—and as a director of major films herself—which, along with the hosts’ irreverence and sincerity, leads to nuanced conversations about formative teachers, masculinity, and what makes sentimental movies resonate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Robin Williams’s Oscar Run and the “Blank Check” Era

[01:05–04:44]

• Robin Williams’s arc: The pod reflects on how Williams secured four Oscar nominations (Good Morning, Vietnam; Dead Poets Society; The Fisher King; Good Will Hunting), with the first three showcasing his ability to balance drama and riffing.
• “People were applauding the fact, like, oh my God, he can carry a drama and he can carry these emotions and whatever. And yet all these movies... are kind of ingeniously constructed to tap into the emotional, sensitive side of Robin Williams and surprise you and yet allow him to do fucking riffs.” —Griffin [02:20]
• The hosts discuss Williams’s ability to transition from comedy to drama, often playing “manic” characters with depth, and the Academy’s hesitation to fully honor his signature blend until Good Will Hunting.

2. The Film’s Reception and Screenplay

[04:40–06:25]

• David admits he "doesn't like the screenplay for this movie at all. I think it's... not a very good movie that is just so handsomely made and well acted that it kind of puts a spell on you” [04:53]. This prompts a running debate about the film’s merit—with Ben and Nia pushing back, referencing its emotional effectiveness and craftsmanship.
• The group agrees the film’s look is “handsomely made,” especially the performances leading up to Neil’s tragic arc.

3. Boarding School and Teaching—Personal Reflections

[07:28–17:05]

• Nia shares her boarding school experience, relating directly to the boys' world in the film. “I went to New England boarding school for five years, so I was like, I know these people.” [07:35]
• Griffin and David discuss their encounters with alternative schooling and uniforms, with Griffin quipping he ironically wore a school uniform by choice as “rebellion.”
• The group compares their experiences in private, public, and prep schools, musing about the outsized influence of “inspirational teachers”—and how teaching styles depicted in the film match (or don’t) with reality.

4. Dead Poets Society: Making Of, Direction, and Script Evolution

[32:24–44:53]

• The convoluted development process: Jeff Kanew was originally set to direct; Robin Williams was considered but not attached until Peter Weir came aboard after Dustin Hoffman dropped out. Peter Weir’s judgment, especially in removing the “cancer” subplot for Keating, is credited for the film’s emotional restraint.
• “It is a film of tremendous judgment and good taste... knowing that it was supposed to have suicide and cancer is a perfect sign of what Peter Weir brings to this.” —Griffin [44:27]
• The original screenwriter, Tom Schulman, wrote from personal inspiration, winning the Oscar, but had a patchy subsequent career.
• Peter Weir’s approach is praised for invisible craft, his legacy as a “popular artist,” and the way he drew raw, vulnerable performances from movie stars: “I'm pulling something honest from deeper within you.” —Griffin [50:42]

5. Robin Williams’s Performance and Set Atmosphere

[49:00–54:39]

• Discussion of how Williams balanced serious and comic takes on set, with Weir channeling his energy and reining in the wildness to get the right tone for Keating.
• Ethan Hawke, then a serious young actor, was initially frustrated by Williams’ lack of seriousness, but later cited the “YAWP” scene as transformative.

6. Film Analysis: Themes, Structure, and Scenes

[61:32–69:52]

• Opening tone: The film’s opening “feels like a funeral”—a “wake for their fucking happiness” in the imposing academy.
• The school is depicted as “printing doctor, lawyer,” mirroring parental and societal pressures.
• Cultural critique: The group discusses the trope of the sentimental male teacher, the “emotional” boy’s school, and the narrative shifts that occur once students embrace poetry and self-expression.
• “It is kind of about him teaching them to not be afraid of their own emotions.” —Griffin [68:59]

7. Masculinity, Boarding School Anecdotes, and Social Dynamics

[70:20–75:04]

• The panel delves into boarding school traditions, hazing, “meat lips,” and rites-of-passage games, laughing about the bizarre social codes and the ways these traditions bond or scar students.

8. Script & Character Construction; The Film’s Emotional Power

[85:04–90:11]

• Debate over whether Keating is irresponsible for “empowering” the boys, the boundaries of teaching, and the film’s "dishonest" trajectory towards the ending.
• The suicide is discussed as potentially unearned, but Griffin notes, “I bought it more than I was expecting to... It’s mostly because it’s so well done.” [117:02]
• The subtlety of Williams’s and Robert Sean Leonard’s acting in moments of ecstasy and despair, especially following the play and the suicide.

9. The Cultural Legacy: Iconic Scenes, Quotes, and Criticism

[108:52–110:43]

• "Carpe diem" as an indelible cultural catchphrase: “It does feel like you can drop ‘carpe diem’ into any conversation and everyone gets it because of this movie.” —Griffin [109:06]
• The “O Captain, My Captain” desk-standing finale is recognized as powerfully manipulative but “incredibly effective,” prompting tears even from skeptical viewers.

10. Cast Trajectories, Modern parallels, and Industry Chatter

[95:29–98:44]

• The fate of each young actor in the cast, with special focus on Ethan Hawke’s “student of life” persona and Robert Sean Leonard’s embracing of theater.
• Speculation on the lack of equivalent mainstream male stars today, and a brief tangent on whether Jack Black has succeeded as a Robin Williams for the modern era.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He makes jokes and he smiles, you know, and wanly. And another example of good judgment. I think Peter Weir used just enough of the Robin stuff. A thousand percent.” —Griffin [49:16]
• “This movie has to end with the guy being fired. It can’t just be a good teacher.” —Griffin [64:29]
• “The advantage of boys schools is that everyone’s just lazy and stinky, because there’s no girls around.” —David Sims, on single-sex schools [72:03]
• “You're not changing that path. He has the most theater actory face. No one has ever looked... like an actor.” —Griffin on Robert Sean Leonard’s character [23:58]
• “People were applauding the fact, like, oh my God, he can, like, carry a drama... and yet all these movies... allow him to do fucking riffs.” —Griffin on Williams and his roles [02:20]
• “It’s a thing we’re fascinated with—someone sweeps all the precursors, then they get to the Oscars and they lose... because too many people in this academy have worked with that person or their speeches.” —Griffin [03:56]
• “[The school is] just printing doctor, lawyer.” —Ben [105:32]

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Important Timestamps by Topic

| MM:SS | Topic/Event | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:05–04:44 | Robin Williams Oscar nominations; blend of comedy and drama | | 04:40–06:25 | David’s critique of film/screenplay; emotional spell of craftsmanship | | 07:28–17:05 | Nia DaCosta’s boarding school background; hosts’ school anecdotes | | 32:24–44:53 | Development saga; Peter Weir’s arrival; script changes & taste | | 49:00–54:39 | Williams’s on-set behavior; Peter Weir’s direction; Ethan Hawke story | | 61:32–69:52 | Thematic analysis; "funeral" opening; teaching style; sentimentality debate | | 70:20–75:04 | Boarding school social codes/hazing traditions | | 85:04–90:11 | Teacher-student dynamics; debate on suicide's impact/credibility | | 109:08–110:43| "Carpe diem" as a catchphrase; impact of iconic scenes | | 95:29–98:44 | Cast's subsequent careers; reflection on modern equivalents | | 133:37–137:30| Josh Charles’s “But I Like Her” plot, changing standards for "romantic" storylines | | 138:31–140:57| “O Captain, My Captain” finale; international acclaim | | 144:24–145:56| 1989 Oscars overview; Dead Poets Society wins, misses, and year context |

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Additional Highlights & Recurring Jokes

• Griffin’s riff on being a “bit boy,” a running meta-comedy thread.
• Practical breakdown of the difficulties making an “inspirational teacher” movie that genuinely sells the audience on the passion for art (e.g., the “Mr. Holland’s Opus” problem).
• Playful references to Ben’s full boarding school attire and other visual bits in an audio medium.
• Side-discussion of movie ratings on Letterboxd, and the meaning (or lack thereof) of stars vs. likes.
• Frequent returns to Robin Williams’s cultural power, both as a mainstream family icon and a respected dramatic actor.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a lively, sometimes irreverent, always insightful roundtable on Dead Poets Society: its development, rewatch value, what makes it emotionally effective (or not), and how it fits both into Robin Williams’s career and the broader context of Hollywood “blank check” filmmaking. The frankness of guest Nia DaCosta, the spirited debates, and the mix of film theory, personal anecdotes, and cultural critique make this episode both deeply funny and sincerely moving—just like the film itself.

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Essential Quote:
"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
—Robin Williams as John Keating (quoted/paraphrased throughout; [109:06] episode context)

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

Blank check with Griffin and David.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank check 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 Black Jack. We don't listen to and record podcasts because it's cute. We listen to and record podcasts because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion in medicine, law, business, engineering. These are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But podcasts, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. I did that as vocal warm ups. Now, look, there are.

[David Sims]

He's not really doing.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh.

[David Sims]

You know he's not really doing that.

[Griffin Newman]

No, you still need to do it to get into the quiet.

[David Sims]

But then when he does, like the Brando impression, you're like, right. He needed just five minutes to just be a silly guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's just get straight into this. Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

It is kind of astonishing. I know this has been much discussed.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's the first time we've tackled any of the movies in this set. Okay. That Robin Williams has four Oscar nominations. He wins his fourth. Right?

[David Sims]

He wins the fourth time. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So I.

[Ben Hosley]

His fourth Oscar.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. He won. He won his fourth nomination for supporting actor. He had three best actor nominations. By the time he gets Good Will Hunting, it's like, is he overdue? Right. The three movies, all where they didn't give him the award feel like, hey, wow, incredible. You have found a movie where you can use Robin Williams as a dramatic actor and yet still let him do his thing.

[David Sims]

So the first nomination, of course, was for Goodwill. Sorry, Good Morning Vietnam, which is. He's at his most Robin Williams when he's on the microphone and all that. Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

So Morning Vietnam loses to Michael Douglas for Wall Street. Okay. Kind of a freight train.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think so.

[Griffin Newman]

This year he loses to Daniel Day

[David Sims]

Lewis for My Left Foot.

[Griffin Newman]

Quite a good performance.

[David Sims]

And it's another freight Train. And he was never going to win because Tom Cruise was supposed to win.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[David Sims]

And Day Lewis for Born on the Fourth of July. And Daniel Day Lewis kind of comes on late.

[Griffin Newman]

Fisher King.

[David Sims]

Fisher King is his third nomination. Loses to. Huh. Anthony Hopkins, Silence of Lambs. Is that a good performance?

[Griffin Newman]

I would argue.

[David Sims]

Is that one lodged in the culture?

[Griffin Newman]

Yet another freight train. There was this feeling perhaps of like, oh, he keeps being up against titans. Obviously Robin Williams is beloved and he's just over time becoming only a bigger and bigger star. But I also think there was this feeling of, are we gonna give him the Oscar when he's still kind of doing the Robin thing. Right. Like, people were applauding the fact of, like, oh, my God, he can, like, carry a drama and he can, like, carry these emotions and whatever. And yet all these movies, Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poet Society are kind of ingeniously constructed to tap into the emotional, sensitive side of Robin Williams and surprise you and yet allow him to do fucking riffs. Like, within the structure of him being an unconventional teacher and a radio host, he can just do 90 seconds of impressions in the middle of the movie. Then Fisher King is like, what if he doesn't do the riffs?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

He's sad, but it's a dramatic version of the manic comedy energy.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Whereas Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poet Society are like dramatic tenor Robin Williams, who occasionally does comedy riffs, and so

[Ben Hosley]

Good Will Hunting, basically Gus Van Sant being just be sensitive and make us cry.

[Griffin Newman]

Listen.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And it felt like they were like, there we go. Yeah, we just need to see that. You could drop all of it.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I do think he was also overdue, but obviously that's a role where it's just, you know, monologues and speechifying and, like, you see, you know, making us cry and all that. Who do you beat out there? It was. He beat up Burt Reynolds was seen

[Griffin Newman]

as maybe it was the odds on

[David Sims]

favorite to win for Boogie Nights, who's great but perfect.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. No, we can't be doing all that. Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's.

[Ben Hosley]

That's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one of. It's a thing we're fascinated with. It's another example of someone, like, sweeps all the precursors, and then you get to the Oscars and they lose. And it's like. Because too many people in this academy have worked with that person or their speeches.

[Ben Hosley]

I love when you watch, like, a Oscar, like, race or tour or whatever. And all the speeches before are so insufferable that by the time they get to the Oscars, it's just like, no, we're not doing it.

[Griffin Newman]

There's absolutely that part of it. But I think I always cite Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone.

[Ben Hosley]

Eddie Murphy would have been dream girls. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Key examples of, like, they're winning everything until the big show. And the big show is a lot of people who are like, I worked with him and he.

[Ben Hosley]

And also them being like, we'll let you know that. How you're all wrong.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie has a lot of quotable dialogue.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

What's that face? What's that?

[David Sims]

I don't like the screenplay for this movie at All. I think it's at all. No, I'm not a fan. Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting. I remembered in an episode.

[David Sims]

I think this is kind of like the. Not a very good movie that is just so handsomely made and well acted that it kind of puts a spell on you a little bit. I don't like this movie. Wow. That much. Fundamentally.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry.

[Ben Hosley]

Very upsetting. This is very. Such a bomb. I'm not trying to be David.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of coming in with like a neotecast on the fog take.

[Ben Hosley]

I know. I. I was literally just thinking about Nia.

[Griffin Newman]

Congratulations. Heats off you. David's fucking taking the slice of arrows.

[Ben Hosley]

I was really. You know, I'm so aware of how depressing that episode was for everyone. So thank you so much, David, for taking the mantle. Of course. I'd like to give a speech of any kind.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Do you want to accept this honor of being the bad guy?

[David Sims]

Am I the bad guy? Am I just giving voice to some people who agree with me? I don't know.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't. I can see where, like in the structure of the screenplay, for example, it's a bit loosey goosey. You're like, we're over here, we're over there. I had questions actually, about the ending. Spoiler alert. Like, how earned.

[David Sims]

I would agree.

[Ben Hosley]

What Dr. Wilson. Where his story ends up.

[David Sims]

Yes, Dr. Wilson, of course. Robert Leonard. He will forever be Dr. Wilson, unfortunately.

[Ben Hosley]

And. But I think you're absolutely right in that it's so handsomely made. Like, I was thinking so much about this, like, how beautifully shot it was, how wonderfully acted it was. Because those scenes, like those like two or three scenes leading up to that, to him taking his own life, are so upsetting and so beautifully acted. Like his conversation with his father.

[Griffin Newman]

His conversation per Wood Smith on fire

[David Sims]

in full foot in your ass mode.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. It is so funny that like, to our generation, he wants to put his

[David Sims]

foot in your ass.

[Griffin Newman]

You watch that 70s show and then you go back and you see like fucking Robocop and Deadpool Experience. Scary. Like, oh, it's weird to see like scary Red Foreman also.

[Ben Hosley]

It's great casting. Then you're like, oh, that makes so much sense that you would cast. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Because to everyone, like 10 plus years older than us, they're like, how funny is it that that guy ended up being a sitcom dad? Have you seen the reboot of how intense he is?

[Ben Hosley]

No, it's. It's so. Have you seen the reboot?

[Griffin Newman]

No. No. But it's all him, right? It's him with like the grandkids.

[Ben Hosley]

Him and the grandkids. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's. It's always that weird. In uncanny valley of like a modern three camera. Like multi camera.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

But he's just. I just love him so much.

[Griffin Newman]

Evil. Sorry, you were about to say handsomely made, earned those scenes, I feel like.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, Nia was possibly like inching towards the vaguest agreement with sort of

[Ben Hosley]

my sense of what I'm not gonna do is go back to the fog. Absolutely. I love this movie. It made me cry. I took lots of notes and realized so much of my life is sort of. I went to New England boarding school for five years, so I was like, I know these people.

[David Sims]

Right, right. You had this sort of experience. I mean, not in the 50s, obviously.

[Griffin Newman]

Your Wikipedia, famously the most reliable resource.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Says that you originally intended to be a poet.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh my gosh.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that based on truth?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, when I was six.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Six year old.

[David Sims]

Originally intended was to be a poet. No citation.

[Griffin Newman]

No citation.

[David Sims]

And when you were 16, apparently this must be from an interview you gave or something. You took an AP English class and you read Heart of Darkness and that led you to Apocalypse now and that led you to cinema.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, what led me to cinema was my parents divorce and becoming a latchkey kid. Sure.

[David Sims]

Movies, baby.

[Griffin Newman]

This is good.

[Ben Hosley]

And watching HBO for hours during the summer and being like, I don't know what's going on in Full Metal Jacket, but I want to keep watching it.

[Griffin Newman]

We sent you. First off, let me just say, just to be very clear, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Griffin Newman]

A little slow.

[David Sims]

I was looking at this Wikipedia page.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a podcast about filmography directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they bounce, baby. My captain, to the earlier point, I was setting up. The other crazy thing about those four Robin Williams movies I cite is all four of them were huge hits. That this guy was such a star at an era where the. The Hollywood system still worked, where his clout as a comedian could make a drama a blockbuster. This movie made $240 million worldwide in 1989.

[David Sims]

This was a huge hit. Fisher King, I would say, is the one of the.

[Griffin Newman]

The four that was Fisher King was a hit.

[Ben Hosley]

It was not a hit worldwide.

[David Sims]

40, like Fisher King was just kind of like a. Made its budget back fishing.

[Ben Hosley]

Worldwide was. That's a Great. That's great for Ter Gilliam. We're upset with domestic.

[Griffin Newman]

The other three were huge.

[David Sims]

I think it's. No. Okay, let's see.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, see, this is what I'm saying.

[David Sims]

No, It's. Domestic was 40.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

And it's world. Worldwide was 70. It was totally fine. Totally fine. But, like, the other three were gen. Good Morning, Vietnam.

[Griffin Newman]

This $100 million.

[David Sims]

Where was the other. Obviously, Good Hunting was a big hit. I didn't. You know what else was a big hit was fricking Aladdin and Mrs. Doubtfire.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just saying this guy. Those were.

[Ben Hosley]

What was the Birdcage.

[David Sims]

Birdcage was a. Wasn't it a huge hit? His 90s birdcage made a ton of money.

[Griffin Newman]

We're gonna talk about this. His 90s were incredible until it fell off a cliff. Basically, right after he wins the Oscar.

[David Sims]

Well, he started. I mean, God bless him, he started making really bad movies. Like, I mean, he.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't know what was the first bad one?

[David Sims]

I mean, I think Griffin's right that it's sort of like right after the Oscar, he starts to pick out these projects that are so trickly.

[Griffin Newman]

Jacob the Liar. What Change May Come.

[David Sims]

Patch Adams. Jacob the Liar, Bicentennial Man. So it's like these movies that are all like, big, expensive movies that he will be the star of.

[Griffin Newman]

Patch Adams is a giant hit. The other three are flops. And Patch Adams is also immediately reviled. Like, it being a hit made people hate it more.

[Ben Hosley]

And I feel like actors do this a lot, though, where they are, like, now I'm the lead and it's like, well, sometimes that supporting part is the best part of the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Poet Society.

[Ben Hosley]

He's a great example.

[Griffin Newman]

He's on screen for 30 minutes.

[Ben Hosley]

Stop. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

He's got a Best Actor nomination. He's above the title. He's Robin Williams. He's.

[David Sims]

And he's sort of the lead. Although you're right, it's an ensemble. I guess there's no real. Yeah, because not even Robert Sean Leonard or Ethan Hawker, really. Like, it's like there's not even a lead.

[Griffin Newman]

It's Robert Sean Leonard sort of. But I. I looked up. There's the one account that does the fucking. Stop watching.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's 33 minutes out of 2 hours and 8 minutes. Let me just finish the intro because we're obviously getting deep into the weeds here. So the main series on the films of Peter Weir is called Podnik at Hanging Cast. Today we're talking about Dead Poet Society. We are the Dead Podcaster Society.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Podcastum.

[David Sims]

Okay. Producer Ben I's outfitted.

[Griffin Newman]

He's fitting the dress code for the first time. We've always recommended a dress code here on blank check that we fail to abide by. But Ben has shown up in his finest boarding school wears.

[AJ McKeon]

Yeah. Wearing a striped tie. I have a nice brown sports jacket on.

[David Sims]

Some loafers.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[AJ McKeon]

I guess the only thing I'm wearing denim. That wouldn't be allowed at a prep school.

[Griffin Newman]

You have your glasses.

[Ben Hosley]

At my school, you got to wear. Well, my. My first boarding school, we every other Saturday we had a class for a half day, which obviously is terrorism. I know, it's terrible. But we got to wear jeans. Wear jeans. Casual dress.

[David Sims]

Oh, yes, yes. Right, sure, sure, sure. My. I had to wear a uniform which is so common in Britain. Private school, public school. Like, it's like. I. I think it's still kind of the norm for so many schools.

[Griffin Newman]

I've.

[AJ McKeon]

Saint an. Was it recommended that you should really like just wear like whatever household.

[Griffin Newman]

I have shared this before, but in my freshman year at St. An, the horrible school I went to. Where's St. Anne's Brooklyn Heights Prep School.

[David Sims]

No, it's like a fancy school with

[Griffin Newman]

the fancy work story energy. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean like it was once it was founded as. We're gonna be alternative.

[Griffin Newman]

It was founded as what if you build a whole school out of John Keating.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But also maybe half those John Keating's were sexual predators.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, that's what we'll find out later.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but. But now it's just a very fancy. There's lots of rich people in Brooklyn who want to send their kids to fancy private.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I as some weird meta conceptual bit. Being the most annoying precocious child at the worst school in freshman year. Wore my own version of a school uniform for months. That was my big act of rebellion of like you're also fudgeing rebellious. I'm going to dress like I'm part of the sheep. There was Griffin, so I did kind of dress the way Ben's dressed today.

[Ben Hosley]

Ben doesn't look impressed.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Our guest today returning to the show for the fourth time.

[David Sims]

Fourth appearance.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Nia dacosta.

[Ben Hosley]

Hello.

[Griffin Newman]

We are recording this very far in advance because you're a very, very.

[David Sims]

Well, you're around and you got a couple movies in the can.

[Griffin Newman]

We have. We've recorded with directors who were like oh. And by the time this episode comes out, your movie will have come out. You were the first person where we're recording at a Point where by the time the episode comes out, two films will have come out.

[Ben Hosley]

That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

When does Hedda come out?

[Griffin Newman]

Director of Hedda and 28 days later. Colon, The Bone temple.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I like to go 28 years later. Excuse me, the Bone temple. And then ask everyone, where. Where does the colon go?

[Griffin Newman]

It's. These are the questions I noticed the most. The new trailer that just came out at the time we're recording this didn't have the part two.

[Ben Hosley]

It doesn't. I just like to add it.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. I. We went to see the film. I'm sorry. Well, we saw Hedda, but also when Ben and I saw it 28 years later, right at the end, the lights come up. Right after, there's the. The big. The Jimmies. Huh? This crazy ending. And Ben turns to me and he goes, I like how random that ending was, but part of me just wishes I could watch an entire movie of that. And I said, ben, do I have great news for you. It's already in the can. It's directed by our friend, and it's subtitled the Bone Temple. And it was like his eyes turned into, like, three sevens.

[AJ McKeon]

My eyes started turning into, like. Like a slot machine. And it just landed on your tongue.

[Ben Hosley]

Flopped out of your mouth.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes. That I will say, tonally, my film is quite different from the energy of that scene. But, yeah, the Jimmies are a focal point in the film, and they're just.

[David Sims]

Is the Bone Temple gonna be okay? I understand you probably can't answer this question.

[Griffin Newman]

By the time this episode comes out, we will have recorded an episode on

[David Sims]

us having seen the film. I'm like, they're gonna fuck up all his bones.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, let's keep the bonus.

[David Sims]

So horrible.

[Ben Hosley]

It is. Okay, Amanda.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, great.

[David Sims]

Thank God. That's actually great news. I'm actually buoyed by that.

[Griffin Newman]

That'.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

We saw Hedda, though.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, thank you for going. Thank you so much.

[Griffin Newman]

I love.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, thank God.

[David Sims]

Which sucks. Yeah. No, it's. It's actually awesome.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I really. I really loved it.

[Ben Hosley]

I did ask her dad. I said, did Griffin like it?

[Griffin Newman]

You met my dad as well?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it was. Which was amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. My dad also loved it.

[David Sims]

Let's talk about the Deadpool Society. Come on, guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so you go to boarding school?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I went to boarding school.

[Griffin Newman]

Does this happen after your parents divorce? Where is this in the timeline? I want to put all this together.

[Ben Hosley]

My parents got divorced when I was nine.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

And it was very disrespectful, but thank God they did.

[David Sims]

Fair enough. Yes, you're right.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like, it was the right thing. I went to print School for 8th through 12th grade.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

But I was in private school when I was younger and then public school for a bit right after my parents divorce. And my mother's huge in education, and she was like, we're not doing this anymore. She was like, you know, like, in New York City, you have to go to the school where you're living.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

And so the first thing we tried was she gave her office address so I can go to a better school downtown.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

And like, day one, they were like, can we have Nia dacosta come to the principal's office, please? They were like, get out.

[David Sims]

Oh, they, they rumbled you?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, they did. But then I went, ended up going to Robert Wagner on the Upper east side.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

And then when it came time to.

[Griffin Newman]

Because you were, you grew up in Harlem?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, more or less. Yeah, Yeah. I was born in Brooklyn, raised mostly in Harlem, had a stint in east or West. West.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

So I was like, kind of like near 145th.

[Griffin Newman]

ABCD. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Station. Yeah. And, yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And we might, I think seventh and sixth and seventh grade. My mom was like, you know, we can do better. And so we start looking at private schools. I almost went to Spence.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Ben Hosley]

Which would have been, I think I would have been a shell of the person.

[David Sims]

I, I, I, I don't. These, these, you know, upper crust, upper, upper crust places. I can't imagine what the kids are like.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, no, I, I know some Spence girls and they're like, you, you escaped.

[Griffin Newman]

Spence has some dead Poet Society energy.

[David Sims]

I'm sure. I met a girl who went to one of those schools. I don't think it was, it might

[Ben Hosley]

have been Nightingale Bamford.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

And like, I was like, oh, I grew up in New York. Like, you know, I said something about how I always loved taking the subway as a kid, because I did.

[Griffin Newman]

Uh huh.

[David Sims]

This came up.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

And she was like, yeah, I never took the subway until I was a grownup. And I was like. And you went to school like fucking, you know, across the park from where I grew. And like, you'd never ever, like, it was. How old were you for your first life? Sorry?

[Ben Hosley]

How old were you for your first subway ride? Yeah.

[David Sims]

A baby, I imagine.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[Ben Hosley]

Solo. Solo.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's a good question. You know, I started. Well, I had moved to London by then, but I started taking myself to school when I was 10. And my guess would be that would be like when I was first.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Mine was nine.

[Griffin Newman]

See, my thing was right. Nine, 11 happens when I'm 12. I feel like I had just started to get independent subway rights and then I got knocked back. Then there was a year of my parents being like, the subway is going to be blown up. You cannot get on it. My parents are weirdly fucking not subway riders.

[Ben Hosley]

What neighborhood did you grow up in?

[Griffin Newman]

I grew up in the West Village, but it's. They're just crazy people. My dad would like would lease a car and drive it everywhere and just be upset all the time.

[David Sims]

This is what I'm talking about.

[Ben Hosley]

But.

[Griffin Newman]

But you lived in New York for decades, so I. I had to like come by my love of the subway

[Ben Hosley]

on your own time.

[Griffin Newman]

Not that they didn't take me on it, but it was not there.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[AJ McKeon]

I just wanted to share. I actually went to an unprep school.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, where are you from, Ben?

[David Sims]

You were on Jersey.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, I'm so sorry.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They wanted you not prepared for anything.

[Griffin Newman]

So it was.

[AJ McKeon]

It was an unprepared Tory school.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[AJ McKeon]

That I left and I didn't know what the I was gonna do.

[David Sims]

So rude that prep schools. I didn't, you know, like I never went to a prep school. But like they're like.

[Griffin Newman]

We're prep school implications schools.

[David Sims]

Not generally.

[Griffin Newman]

Unlike some of these others to prepare. It's the fairsly difference.

[David Sims]

Why do you get to be the premier?

[Griffin Newman]

We always have never thought about that.

[David Sims]

Anyway, I assume it's probably rooted in some, you know, awful thing of Victorian.

[Ben Hosley]

Person said something dark. But were you in like. Like what part? What kind of Jersey were you in?

[AJ McKeon]

So just an hour outside of the city.

[Ben Hosley]

My city. This city?

[AJ McKeon]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Correct. In my city.

[Ben Hosley]

So sorry, I was just like. I just started thinking about Jersey cities.

[AJ McKeon]

So extremely suburban. Yeah. Like kind of near Patterson.

[David Sims]

That area.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it was a small area. Only a couple bone temple. Not like a major hub. What boarding school did you end up going to?

[Ben Hosley]

I went to the Rumsey Hall School in Connecticut.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

And then I went to the Master School in Westchester.

[Griffin Newman]

You.

[David Sims]

That's an intense name for a school.

[Ben Hosley]

The Master School.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. It used to be all girls. Elizabeth Masters was the founder of the school.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[Ben Hosley]

It wasn't like we're gonna be masters of the.

[David Sims]

Or it wasn't like big Paul Thomas Anderson fans or they were just.

[Ben Hosley]

No, no, thank God. Hand jobs. And actually probably we're high school students after all.

[David Sims]

I'm sure I said jobs cannot promise

[Ben Hosley]

I know that's absolutely. In Math Resource Center.

[Griffin Newman]

No, because we knowing you had like a back to back press tours coming up and you were going to be in town now, like the schedule for the whole first six months.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Of 26. And you threw out a couple. But we were immediately like Dead poets. Is interesting not knowing the level of connections.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, that was what was so crazy because I literally. And I guess we can talk about the movie now, but I literally. When I got to the yawp scene, I was like, oh my God, Mr. Ketchum made us go outside and yaw. I was like. And I'm like, what was this word you are using?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, the thing that makes Ethan Hawke.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

A primal, y'.

[David Sims]

All.

[Griffin Newman]

But Mr. Ketchum was Mr. Keaton.

[Ben Hosley]

Absolutely. Yeah. And I was Ash Ketchum.

[David Sims]

He taught you how to rear Pokemon.

[Ben Hosley]

He taught me how to rear Pokemon.

[Griffin Newman]

And the griffin in this episode.

[Ben Hosley]

But he was. He was amazing. And my. When I started, I think we were in eighth grade in the equivalent of whatever aping should be for an eighth grader. But we were reading like Faulkner and Walt Whitman and E.E. cummings and William Carlos Williams. And now I look back at it, I'm like, oh, of course. We're yawping like arbor bark. Yawping around, you know, whatever. It's like. So I was like, oh, he's clearly watched this movie and he's obsessed.

[Griffin Newman]

When did you see it the first time? Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, it was on TV a lot, wasn't it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I saw it on TV in high school. Absolutely.

[Ben Hosley]

I never. I had the same experience of Sound of Music where it's so long cause of the commercials that you never get to the Nazis. I never got to the suicide. And so I rewatched it a couple years ago and I was. I was like, no, what's happening?

[David Sims]

It's fair.

[Ben Hosley]

It was so crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Because I feel like, right. Everyone's like, yeah, but he gets fired and they all get on their desks. Right. I mean, that's sort of what everyone references with the Poet Society.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I saw this film when I was like 12 or 13 years old. We. I rented it with my friend Saba and she loved Ethan Hawke and she was like going through Ethan Hawke phase.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And she was like, I want to rent this movie from like it was back in the day when you still would be like, we're gonna go to the video store and rent a movie. And I was like, oh, yeah, I've never seen that movie. I know that. That's like A good movie. Right. And I watched it with her and I thought it was okay. And we both cried. And I never saw it again. And then I watched it today, or not, you know, the other couple days ago. And I was kind of impressed by how obviously it's a culturally significant. Like, it's in the air.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But I was like, damn. I remember, like, almost all of this I haven't seen in, like, 25 years.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And it made me cry when they said, oh, Captain, my Captain. And I was kind of like, this is bullshit. Because, like, I don't even like this movie that much. Easy cry. But I'm like, I know they're gonna do it. I'm not exactly, like, getting caught off guard by oh, Captain, my Captain.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like kind of a magic trick movie in that sense where you just, like, you. You can't not get hit by that.

[David Sims]

It did work me up.

[Ben Hosley]

I cried a couple times watching it.

[David Sims]

And I have kids now. And there's things that this. They're buttons. This movie.

[Griffin Newman]

You yell at your children every day that they gotta be doctors yelling at twin babies.

[David Sims]

Such a weird. You can't be an amateur actor in any sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Also, just like, I'm sorry if your son is Robert Shawn Leonard. You're not changing that path. He has the most theater actory face no one has ever looked. Pretty little face like an actor. And the demeanor of an actor.

[Ben Hosley]

The Robert acting thing come so late in the game.

[Griffin Newman]

Pretty late, dude.

[Ben Hosley]

Because I was like, did I miss him mentioning liking acting before? He was like, it's my passion in life.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it, like, finds him, like, halfway through.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. And then he's immediately in the play.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He's sort of like. It feels like he auditioned without having told you or anyone that it's a thing he's ever had desire for. And he immediately is like, which you know, there are certain. There is a type of actor who is like that, who's just like, yeah. My friend asked me to, like, be in their short film now. I actually think I might, like, start auditioning and stuff. Like, maybe I want to do this. I saw it in high school.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Similar to you. Like, high school was just like cable movie channels all the time. I'm like, checklist obsessive. I need to watch all the movies. And anything like this that was referenced so much that I knew had Oscar nominations. It's like, that's stuff you have to cross off the list. Right. Hadn't seen it since then. David. I feel like at some point the last year or two of the podcast, it maybe came up in a box office game.

[David Sims]

It certainly did. Because the box office game we'll be playing is. Is.

[Griffin Newman]

Is a movie.

[David Sims]

A movie we covered before, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And you said like, does Dead Poet Society suck? And I was a little surprised by that take. Knowing that you love Peter Weir and this.

[Ben Hosley]

Love Peter Weir.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, the Batman.

[David Sims]

And honestly, I love Robin.

[Griffin Newman]

Will, you've been beating the drum for. For so long.

[David Sims]

And I love private preparatory education, single sex. That's how I think it should be done.

[Griffin Newman]

Always not having seen this movie in 20 years, I was like, huh, that. The take kind of sounds I could buy.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

If I watch that now, am I going to roll my eyes at all of this? Right. And then I watched it last night and I was like, I think this thing totally works.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I do not think it is one of Weir's best films. And I agree with you that it's like what works is I think the decision and the control and the taste that he applies to it. But I also, like, I think this script works. I think it is like.

[David Sims]

No, I, I agree with that, that it works. It's a. Well, yes, yes. It's a. It's a. It's a machine like that. It. It does what it's supposed to do.

[Griffin Newman]

I was very ready for in my mind's eye, not having seen since I was a teenager, being like, I'm gonna be more cynical about this now. I'm gonna have my bullshit meter up. Really, you know, and I, I think the script is like, pretty controlled now. We'll talk about it. The guy had one of the most insane post Oscar careers that we've discussed before.

[Ben Hosley]

Peter Weir.

[Griffin Newman]

No, not Peter Weir. The screenwriter who wins the Oscar for this.

[David Sims]

Tom Schulman. This was. Wasn't this his first, you know. Exactly. And he's a semi autobiographical script that he. It's about a teacher who inspired him. Yada, yada, yada.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

He gets put on Honey I Shrunk the Kids. His job is to make it a comedy. Is that right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It was like a late rewrite thing

[Griffin Newman]

from the Stuart Gordon vers, I think was more sci fi, which of course he wanted to call Teeny Weenies.

[David Sims]

And then it's like a bunch of big scripts. Well, two. What about Bob?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which is, you know, it's a fun movie. It's kind of a hit. And Medicine Man. George Miller's Medicine man. Sorry. John McTurn's medicine man.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That's why we talked about Horrendous A horrendous movie. Who the wrote this movie?

[Ben Hosley]

Should I watch it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, kind of.

[David Sims]

You know what?

[Griffin Newman]

I kind of should watch it.

[Ben Hosley]

I should watch all. Dom McTiernan.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you should. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Then he wrote and directed the film Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag, a band comedy.

[AJ McKeon]

Have you ever seen it?

[Ben Hosley]

No.

[AJ McKeon]

It's pretty fun.

[Ben Hosley]

I should watch all the Jo.

[AJ McKeon]

There's like eight heads in a duffel bag.

[Ben Hosley]

Tell me more.

[AJ McKeon]

And so basically gets Lost or something.

[David Sims]

I watched it.

[AJ McKeon]

It gets Lost. Joe Pesci plays a hitman.

[Ben Hosley]

You know, I'll hold my questions until after I observe the film his last.

[David Sims]

Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, you should hold your question. His last. Oh, no, no. Jesus. Then it's Holy man, the Eddie Murphy,

[Griffin Newman]

which I watched for the first time recently, and it's one of the most insane films I have ever.

[Ben Hosley]

Wait, is that the. No, I'm thinking of Golden Child. Never mind.

[David Sims]

Yeah, Golden Child's all right.

[Ben Hosley]

I enjoy Holy Man.

[Griffin Newman]

City man is like almost impossible to describe, but it like, feels like trying to make a dead poet society for Eddie Murphy. It is weirdly like more of a drama and also much like Dead Poets Society. Eddie Murphy is maybe only in 30 minutes of the movie and Jeff Goldblum's actually the lead. Right. But the premise is that Eddie Murphy, like a weird spiritual guru they find on the side of the road who's maybe magical or is like a lunatic, someone with like mental illness and amnesia.

[Ben Hosley]

I think I've seen this.

[Griffin Newman]

And Jeff Goldblum is an exec who works for a cable shopping channel who

[David Sims]

like makes him a.

[Griffin Newman]

And he puts him on the air and it almost becomes like a network thing where he like goes on these long rants, like anti consumerist rants, but it makes the sales go up. So he's commodifying this. It's insane. Insane move is that.

[Ben Hosley]

Do you think that was an inspiration for One Million Merits?

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

Good. I love one Million Merits. Welcome to Moose Port is his final

[Griffin Newman]

base, basically, and is not a very

[David Sims]

good movie, which is Gene Hackman's final film.

[Griffin Newman]

That guy just starts his career with like a fucking seismic. He wins the Oscar for an original screenplay, and then you're just like.

[Ben Hosley]

That happens. Not infrequently.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[Ben Hosley]

So interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

David, what's the matter?

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to share for you a horrifying tale, a tale of woe and suffering. Whoa.

[David Sims]

This is scary.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a tale of human error, of failing on my part.

[David Sims]

Tell me.

[Griffin Newman]

We went to the Wisconsin Film Festival sure. Visited our dear researcher J.J. bersch.

[David Sims]

I'm scared.

[Griffin Newman]

Already participated in a screening. We dined out, we had fried cheese curds. We drank Wisconsin beer. What was the mistake?

[David Sims]

Tell me.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot to pack my.

[David Sims]

Oh Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

AG1.

[David Sims]

You didn't bring your AG1 to Wisconsin.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a fuck. This is an ad read. This is a personal endorsement from experience. They got the travel packs because the thing I love about AG1, they give you different form factors. They different give. Give you different ways to handle it. I forgot to pack an EAG one. I was there for 72 hours. It took a week to undo. A week to undo. I'm not going to get graphic about this, but it just goes to show, as I always say in these ad reads, AG1 has really become load bearing within my life.

[David Sims]

Yes. AG1, of course. It's a daily health drink. It's clinically shown to support your gut health, fill in some nutrient gaps. It's got 75 ingredients including 5, 5 clinically studied probiotic strains.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

So it's replacing a need for like a multivitamin, probiotics and more. For you. It is a pillar of existence.

[Griffin Newman]

Anytime I get thrown off of the routine, I am reminded just how helpful it is to me getting through any day.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[AJ McKeon]

Spraying brings daylight savings, packed calendars and changing routines. One scoop, 20 seconds. That's all it takes to keep your gut routine steady so you can reset, recharge and embrace the season without missing a beat.

[Griffin Newman]

You get the starter kit, they give you like a tin tub. They give you a scooper, they give you a shaker bottle. Right. You get the monthly or however, whatever cadence subscription cadence you want to set. But you get the delivery of the bags of powder. And it's just like I pour that into the tub Every morning. Just one scoop, 8 ounces of water into the shaker. Shake it up, drink it. The world of difference and summer's drawing near. People are going to be going on vacations.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

They're going to be traveling. Those travel packs really make a difference.

[David Sims]

Well, AG1 clearly very important as a ritual in your life. Yeah. Go to drinkag1.com check to get an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 for your free AG1 welcome kit.

[Griffin Newman]

I love to drop in that K2

[David Sims]

with your first AG1 subscription order. That's a $72 value. Yours free. Only wash supplies.

[Griffin Newman]

Last.

[David Sims]

Last go to drink ag1.com check. Do you want me to open the dossier? Why not? Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[David Sims]

So Tom Schulman was disheartened, I guess, the early arc of his career trying to be a Hollywood screenwriter. He was writing stuff. I probably tried to get stuff sold, right. You know, that he was just writing genre stuff and comedies and whatever. And he writes dead poets. Not thinking of it as a commercial script, but more, you know, calling card writing.

[Griffin Newman]

Sample.

[David Sims]

Paying homage to this teacher. He had, he said, a very volcanic teacher who would talk about theater and acting and movies, and we'd all go out to drinks. And, you know, he imbued me and my. Not him and the teacher. I think him and the other students, but they were all, like, you know, fired up by this teacher.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like that classic story of, like, someone's trying to break through in Hollywood. No one will open the door for them. And then, you know, someone gives them the advice of just, like, write the movie that only you can write. What's the personal story that only you have? That's the thing, right?

[David Sims]

So he's got all this nostalgia. He went to Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And he also, I guess, had a stern dad who didn't want him to, you know, be a Hollywood screenwriter or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Didn't want him to be in Hollywood.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

No son of man will ever put heads in a duffel bag.

[David Sims]

His. The real teacher's name is Samuel F. Pickering, Jr. And much like the character in Dead Poet Society, he was an alum who had returned as a teacher. And much like Depot Society, he left pretty quickly. I'm not sure if he got fired or anything, but, like, he moved on, and then he ends up at the University of Connecticut. He becomes a bit of a minor celebrity after this movie comes out, obviously, because he's the real Dead Poet Society guy. Schulman decides to set the film in the 50s, even though he. This, I think, had more this experience in the 60s. He'd been born in 1950. I do think this movie has no sense of when it's set. I agree. And it sort of gets away with it because boarding schools are weird and hermetic and, like, trapped in time or whatever. But I'm like. I think it was Hoberman's review. I was reading old reviews of it, and Hoberman was like, this movie's set in the 50s. Like, there's no sense of that. Like, there's no music. There's no, you know, like, sense of what's going on in the world.

[Griffin Newman]

Wondering if I clocked it until you're sitting saying that right now.

[Ben Hosley]

I would say, I think a third or two thirds into the film, someone mentions it's 1950 something. And I was like, oh, of course. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Wow.

[Ben Hosley]

Maybe I wiki'd it, actually.

[David Sims]

First he writes it more about the teacher. He returns to the script, he revises it, makes it more about the students, you know, which. There you go. And he thinks about Neil as the sort of student that goes too far, I guess is sort of whatever. I mean, too far doing what? I don't know. Getting too into acting. I mean, this script is so.

[Griffin Newman]

Jj.

[David Sims]

This interview is making me feel justified. No, no, no, Carry on, carry on.

[Ben Hosley]

No, but I mean. But I totally get that. But I think it's like I was thinking about the Holdovers when I was watching it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

And I think that feeling of the script being a bit like, what's happening? Why does it matter? And like the fact that all the boys have these completely different sort of needs and things that they do because they're inspired. And one of them is kissing a girl while she's sleeping, which is very distressing. It is.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the element of this movie.

[David Sims]

Josh Charles, make you kind of tip your head.

[Ben Hosley]

I was like, what's happening?

[Griffin Newman]

That's inspirational.

[Ben Hosley]

I have to do it. I just. I'm so sorry I had to. Like, this is so distressing. But it is sort of. But it feels very like. It's like vibes, you know, it's like we're in. We're in this place.

[Griffin Newman]

It certainly has like a very kind of comforting autumnal feeling.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

And also this sort of. I know this movie's 89, but it feels like it's starting to synthesize. The look that I feel like becomes the dominant 90s prestige drama look. Yes. This kind of utter golden color.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. I mean, and in this movie, again, it's got a great director, it's got an incredible John Seal. Incredible dp, like. But he's taking the script around. Nothing's really happening. He's not getting any traction. And then at some point, Jeffrey Katzenberg at Disney calls and is basically like, I hear someone wants this script. I want it now. You know? And he was basically like $4 million. Like, give it to me immediately. Like, Jesus. Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, and it basically became a one person bidding war.

[David Sims]

I guess so. Yeah. The way he puts it is everyone else had passed on the script and not really read it. Jeffrey had actually read. Read it. And he had someone who's gone to private school, he, whatever, you know, resonated with him or whatever. And he just Got super excited.

[Griffin Newman]

This is also fairly early Touchstone, which was such a big project for Eisner and Katzenberg. And a lot of their thing in trying to find, like, what are the grown up movies that Disney makes through this offshoot was like, find good vehicles for depreciated stars. That was a lot of their strategy was like. Like being like, Richard Dreyfus, Bette Midler, you know, like making Splash, you know, like, what are the scripts that everyone else in town is passing on that we can make with someone who has name value but has a couple flops

[Ben Hosley]

in a row so you can get them for cheaper? It's like, they'll be more interested in doing something of it. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But you could see this script being a good vehicle for that kind of thing. Of, like, you got this big showy teacher role that you could get a former A lister to do without having to work that many times.

[Ben Hosley]

Was Robin in that space in his career, though, at the time?

[David Sims]

Well, so let's get to that.

[Griffin Newman]

He was hotter.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's okay. But they bring aboard Jeff Kanu, of course, the director of Revenge of the Nerds, to direct this film. Katzenberg is so hot on this movie that they cannot find a star. And Katzenberg's like, don't worry about it. We'll find the star. Start scouting locations, get ready. And so they're all set to go. And then Disney finally is like, kill this project. There's no star. Like, what are you fucking doing?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And they all get summoned to the office, and Katzenberg is, like, sort of monologuing about what a great job they did. And Kanu says, let's get on with it. I feel like I'm having my back rubbed until I die. And Katzenberg is like, okay, we're firing you.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry. Now, jj, who is not fired because he did his job correctly on this one, had alerted us a couple weeks ago. There was a crazy sentence on the Wikipedia, and I need to research it. And what David just read is the actual researched answer to what happened. The way the Wikipedia recounts it. Which is insane.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that they hired Jeff Kanu, then hired Robin Williams, but Robin Williams didn't want to do the movie with him, so he signed on, then refused to show up to filming during the first day of shooting.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So until they fired him, and then they burned the sets down.

[Ben Hosley]

That's what I read. And I was like, that's what I thought you were gonna say. I don't think.

[David Sims]

I don't think that's what happened.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's not what happened. What you just read happened. Jeff Canoe is.

[David Sims]

Williams had been considered, but he'd never gotten attached. He's expensive. He's a big star. Like, it was more like that. It was someone like that. They'd circle.

[Griffin Newman]

I just don't even know how that Wikipedia story comes about.

[David Sims]

It's very dramatic. So then it gets shopped around. At a certain point, they are told that KANU can still direct it if they can get Alec Baldwin or Liam Neeson, which is crazy. Neeson is crazy because he's not that big.

[Ben Hosley]

Has he done. Did he do that Julie Foster movie yet? He must have. No, no, that's later.

[David Sims]

That's like early 90s.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an odd choice.

[David Sims]

I mean, he would be good.

[Ben Hosley]

He would want to take him out. I'm kidding.

[David Sims]

Rip out those pages.

[Ben Hosley]

I miss, you know, actor Jason.

[Griffin Newman]

A very particular set of.

[David Sims]

Occasionally you get it with silence or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Have you seen Naked Gun?

[Ben Hosley]

No, I need to.

[Griffin Newman]

It rules. But the thing it gets so right is how funny it is to have him say anything with that level of intensity. And they use both, like, taken intensity, Neeson, but also, like Schindler's List intensity, Neeson, where it's like, give him a fucking paragraph monologue of the dumbest shit in the world and just tell Neeson to play it like it's the most important thing ever.

[Ben Hosley]

That's like Andre Braugher in Brooklyn. 9. 9.

[Griffin Newman]

It's exactly like that.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

All this doesn't work out. The rights revert back to Disney, and about a year after, Katzenberg is like Dustin Hawk Hoffman. How about that?

[Ben Hosley]

I just saw him.

[David Sims]

You just saw the tiff at Megalopolis. Was he going like this?

[Ben Hosley]

I still haven't seen it. I bought it. And I'm like, I can't wait to watch. And I just haven't brought myself to it. But, yeah, I saw him and I think Tessa had a moment where she's trying to, like, they're trying to hug each other, and then they tried to. She tried to, like, lift him. It was like very.

[David Sims]

He's very small.

[Ben Hosley]

He's very old and small. But I was like, dustin. Anyway, continue.

[David Sims]

He wanted to direct it and star in it, which sounds complicated.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree.

[David Sims]

He's got a bit of a reputation even at this time for being kind of wishy washy, you know? Like, he'll get involved in a project, he'll get really nitpicky and perfectionisty about it, and then he'll drop out.

[Griffin Newman]

Seriously. Only makes three movies in the 80s. Am I correct about that? I feel like the 80s for him are Ishtar.

[David Sims]

It starts to get out of control.

[Ben Hosley]

And.

[Griffin Newman]

And Rain man, really? He, like, slows way the down. Partly because he, like, freaks out over the failure of Ishar, and partly because he becomes so controlling that he kind of boxes himself out.

[David Sims]

I think he. He's legendarily controlling at that point. I'm gonna give you the full list of movies he made in the 80s.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry. Because, like, his 60s and 70s, it's.

[Ben Hosley]

It.

[David Sims]

The Ishtar and Rayman and family business in 1989. Right at the end there.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's four.

[David Sims]

Four and then death of a Salesman that he does first on stage and then.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Which is very bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And, you know, Hoffman is going crazy now. A big thing in the original script is that Keating is dying of cancer.

[Griffin Newman]

Insane.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And Hoffman's like, I'm going to lose all this weight to, like, portray the. You know, portray this. Thank God they cut that out of the movie. Or, I mean, whatever. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, if you're going to have that,

[David Sims]

you also can't have a kid committing suicide. Darkness.

[Griffin Newman]

I assume that was a Peter Weir judgment call.

[David Sims]

I don't know. But anyway, he's going crazy, basically, with his Oturdam. But then he drops out and they go back to Robin Williams. Robin Williams has obviously made Good Morning Vietnam, which was a hit, but then since then, he's had a couple flops. He hasn't really done anything.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, so Good morning Vietnam is 86, 87.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he hasn't really done anything. This is. This is saying he has flops, but he. He has nothing. It's just.

[Ben Hosley]

Maybe it's. It's in his personal life. Is J.J. fired?

[David Sims]

Well, it's a. It's a quote from somebody. But anyway, I feel like he has

[Griffin Newman]

a run of flops leading into Good Morning Vietnam.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. Like Moscow on the Hudson, Best of Times, Club, Paradise, Sees the Day, all these kind of. Nothing.

[Ben Hosley]

Never heard of any of this.

[David Sims]

It is crazy that he made a movie called Seize the Day.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Based on the Sallow book.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

A pretty limp film and like his first attempt at doing this kind of. Of drama.

[David Sims]

Peter, we has Green Card, which is a movie he wrote.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He's been trying to make it. It just got delayed for a year for whatever reason. Katzenberg calls him up and is like, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm waiting on this green card thing and I'm going to the supermarket. That's the quote Peter Weir gives and

[Griffin Newman]

was Green Card, Miramax.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, I'm sorry.

[David Sims]

Does Miramax doesn't even exist then.

[Ben Hosley]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

It's 1989. Who releases Green Card?

[David Sims]

Green Card was of course, released by Disney Touchstone.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

And so Katzenberg's like, well, you want to make a movie? Like, I got a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And Katzenberg had worked with him on Witness and is like, sends him the script. Peter Weir's like, oh, it's about a school. I don't care about that. But then he reads the script and he's like, school, like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right, right.

[David Sims]

Then he says, this cancer reveal sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

Get this out of the script.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, emblematic of Peter we's value on this movie, where you're like, this is a film of tremendous judgment and good taste. Right, right. Like, his skill director in this film is largely invisible in terms of the craft. It's very unshowy. But, like, I think the things that, like, you're slightly allergic to in this movie. I watch and I'm like, I am so impressed. He stays just on the right side of these things.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Because almost anyone else making this movie would probably make me vomit. And just knowing that it was supposed to have suicide end cancer is a perfect.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, look.

[David Sims]

Tom Schulman is like, this is my script. This is the ending. You want me to take this out? You crazy. Peter Weir's just like, look, you don't have to, but I'm not gonna make the movie with this, like, in it. Like, so it's like me or the, you know, this plot twist, and it

[Griffin Newman]

was set up as a movie that, you don't know has been done.

[David Sims]

It's the third act thing. And then Robin Williams comes aboard, and Peter Weir says to him, like, by the way, we're losing the cancer thing. And Robin was like, oh, good. Like, don't like that. And so Peter Weir went to private school as well, the Scots College in Sydney. He said it was an ironbound school. I was a terrible student. I, you know, so I did relate to that. And I did have a poetry lecture on William Blake where the teacher, like, you know, woke me up and, like, you know, excited me about that. And so I kind of tried to put that into the movie. So, you know, he relates to it. But it is a little bit of a higher job for. For Peter Weir. Yeah, right. Like, he is coming aboard pretty late.

[Griffin Newman]

Ethan Hawke, who he obviously works with on this movie, gave his interview, like, a year or two ago where he basically announced Peter Weir's retirement and it got a lot of headlines.

[Ben Hosley]

Is it it?

[Griffin Newman]

He was doing probably some film festival retrospective talk or whatever and they asked him about working with different directors. Where's Peter Weir? Why has he made stuff? And he's like, he's basically retired. And then that headline carried over. Right. He's just like. He just was kind of worn down by the industry. But he had this line I think about a lot and that I probably will bring up many, many times across this series where he's just like, he was this really rare thing and that he was a popular artist.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And just the succinctness of defining him that way, where you're like, this was a guy who mostly worked within the studio system with major A list stars and made like intelligent mainstream movies. He was like, with actual art and craft making movies for grownups that were commercial plays.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Right. You know, Brian Coogler vibes, like. But, you know. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But like, weirdly, in a certain way, he starts out making these personal films that are so much about, like Australia and its legacy and whatever. And then he becomes this like, very emotionally invested director for hire in a bizarre way.

[Ben Hosley]

But I think, I think, you know, we're so invested in like the Autour story, but like directing, like, I don't know, it's like it's job, you know. And I think when people. Someone like him, it's like he's just good at the job. That's the thing. And can be like, there's just some. Oh, my God, my. I'm blanking. Help. Send help. Blank check. Mad Max. George Miller. Yes, George Miller. He said. Which I thought. Hello. He said, you have to. So much of directing is learning when to be passionate and dispassionate.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And I'm like, that's so true. And I think that's how you.

[David Sims]

Because if you're passionate all the time,

[Ben Hosley]

you will just lose it.

[David Sims]

Burn yourself into. Exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

And. And you'll be Dustin Hoffman. And you're like, why am I losing all this weight to do this movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Coogler's magic to me is that like, he cannot make a film that isn't somehow him making the most personal statement he can at that time. And yet he is able to make it in a way that connects to everybody. Which is kind of like a spiel. Magic.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly. He calls himself a populist filmmaker. Right. Coogler's very clear about that.

[Griffin Newman]

The language he works in.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Peter Weir, like, has this sort of like, not bifurcation. In his career. But there's definitely this shift where so much of his value comes from a list. Fucking leading men. Love him, respect him, trust him.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he becomes this director for hire in a certain way, but none of them feel like dispassionate jobs, you know?

[Ben Hosley]

Know.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's like, this is an era where you still could have that level of clout because you're like, hey, Robin Williams wants to work with him.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Harrison Ford wants to work with him. Mel Gibson wants to work with him. Russell Crowe wants to work with him. Jim Carrey wants to work with him. These guys are fucking turnkeys. And if this is the director they want, they get to make whatever fucking movie they want.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And this isn't treated as. Well. This is Robin's little weird indie project.

[David Sims]

This is a. This is a big studio movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

All right. So when they're making it, you guys might be shocked to learn Robin Williams kind of like to sort of be a little goofy and funny when he was doing his teaching scene and stuff, Kind of like go into comedy mode.

[Griffin Newman]

You do one take as written, and then the second take.

[David Sims]

Well, so Peter Weir had to put the brakes on that.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

And said, like, look, the guy's not an entertainer. Like, that's not what this character is. Like. He's not the funny teacher. Exactly. Like, he. He's. He makes jokes and he smiles, you know, and wanly.

[Griffin Newman]

And another example of good judgment. I think Peter Weir used just enough of the Robin stuff a thousand percent.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like these sorts of, like, watching the movie and watching Robin, like, he has such deep, like, sadness in him. He does.

[David Sims]

Which is the magic of Robin wings.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly. And for him to use. And his deep empathy. And it's just, like, for him to use that, to not be able to go to the comedy completely, to be the shield for all of that, which

[Griffin Newman]

he does it again with Jim Carrey and Truman Show. We'll talk about that a lot. But there's so many interesting stories he tells about the process he's really good at. And even witnesses a version of this where, like, he's made such good movies. It's a Harrison Ford movie star movie where he's playing a cop and where he's, like, really drilling down into, like, there's, like, a sadness in you that other people kind of, like, haven't been dealing well.

[David Sims]

It's also because Harrison Ford's making that movie, like, after three, you know, Star wars and two Indiana Jones. And, like, it's like, yeah, play A guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

You're going to play a guy now.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he's John Book, but this is like why these guys wanted to work with him is he was really good at, like, taking someone with a movie star Persona and all that heat and being like, who's the real guy at the center of this?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. And you can trust me with that guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. I'm pulling something honest from deeper within you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So Robin Williams. Yes. Classically. Yes. He would make you do one serious, then one silly, then one whatever. Whatever. They did have a half day. They just let him go nuts. Unscheduled. Kind of didn't tell Disney about it. That's where the Brando and John Wayne stuff comes from.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

Did Ethan Hawke recently say how much he just hated him because he was so not serious. But Ethan Hawke is so overly serious, so I could see that.

[David Sims]

Ethan Hawke, I think, also is very upfront about how fucking serious he was then.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, maybe he's a little more retrospective now, but like, that he was so, so up his own ass as this

[Griffin Newman]

young actor that he didn't get it. That it was like, why isn't this guy treating this like the most important thing?

[David Sims]

I think all these young actors like Josh Charles and him and, you know, like they're. He talks about it like they were in that pool of young actors in the early 90s, along with like Damon and Brendan Fraser and all those guys who were like, coming up for all these roles at the same time.

[Griffin Newman]

There was a really war with each other. Brunette.

[David Sims]

Wait, what?

[Griffin Newman]

But all of these are the School Ties group and the Dead Poets group. All these people who were. Were overlapping. It is Funn Hawk's casting here. And obviously he was kind of like the most experienced of all the actors because he had been.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's in that Child Star Explorer.

[Ben Hosley]

The rest of them were pretty much the first big film. Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like playing the least hockey of the kids.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, that's so true.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Hawk is the ultimate, like, man, you gotta go out and learn and

[David Sims]

take your experiences, not the later. You're right. He's not Richard Linklater as Ethan Hawke or Reality Bites Ethan Hawke or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Hawke's Persona as a person now is like forever ever student.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That like every interview with him is just like, man, I get so excited. You go to museum and you see a painting and it makes you feel something. And so watch him in this being the young guy who, you know, was that serious and that artistically driven. Be like, I don't Know if we should be doing this.

[Ben Hosley]

Can you stop joking around, Mr. Williams, please?

[Griffin Newman]

Let's improve.

[David Sims]

He wouldn't say action, Peter Weir. He would just throw a piece of balled up piece of paper at the head of the person who's supposed to speak first.

[Griffin Newman]

I like that.

[David Sims]

Instead of yelling cut, he would wrap his coffee cup with a teaspoon. I assume you do the Clint Eastwood thing of you say, go ahead and that's enough of that, right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yes. And then I don't realize it's a rehearsal. Yes.

[David Sims]

I. I read the Clint biography that Shawn Levy just wrote. Like, not director Shawn Levy, critic Shawn Levy, which is so good. And it does talk about how he would just start filming rehearsals, like, as a matter of fact. And actors be like, what the fuck are you doing? And he'd be like, it's authentic. It's wrong.

[Ben Hosley]

I love shooting rehearsals. I mean, I always tell an actor when I'm rolling or if I'm like, they're doing it, do it. And then I'll go talk to them afterwards. But I remember. Do you remember when it felt like. I feel like it was again when we were in our, like, early 20s, when the industry was acting as though women had just started directing films and television. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a technological.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it was insane what we did. And. And then there were. There was such a story around, like, women not saying action. Cause action was so male. And not saying cut. Cause it was so aggressive.

[Griffin Newman]

Violent. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And I was just like, gee, can everyone fucking relax? So on my sets, my. My ad says action and my ad says cut. But to be fair, I am.

[David Sims]

You're in like an egg and no one is allowed to look at you.

[Griffin Newman]

I notice you're wearing a parade.

[Ben Hosley]

Direct from my helicopter.

[David Sims]

Right, Exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

And we ADR all the lines.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. And your helicopter is 20ft above us.

[Ben Hosley]

20ft above. Exactly. Really windy. Windy. Sound department hates hate me so much. But they keep going back. No, but I do sometimes. Sometimes if. If it. Depending on the scene, sometimes I'll say, I'll call it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And then I'll just. I'll give them whenever you're ready. Because sometimes you, you know, you can just tell when they're like, oh, they need a little something or whatever. But there's also.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, it is a thing when

[David Sims]

Clint doesn't like the take. He says, that's enough of that. Apparently.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Is Clint Eastwood the only director to ever call print on auditions?

[David Sims]

I think that's generally the. The book really lays out how philosophical. Throw it in the like the book is definitely not like he just wants to eat lunch. Cuz it's like he was since the 70s.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah. Yes.

[David Sims]

He's a very good director and that he's just like, the more we do it, the more you're it up. Like I like whatever you, you know,

[Ben Hosley]

I see that David Finchell, well, but that's the thing.

[David Sims]

But then some actors would come, I'm sorry to talk about Clint Eastwood, but I did just read this book. Would you know, like Meryl Streep or whatever and be like, what? Like you're not gonna let me like find it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he'd be like, no, you're great standing right there. You look great. This is great. Like we're done. You know. And Kevin Costner famously fought with him on yes. Perfect World and he was like, I'll shoot with a stand in like Costner.

[Griffin Newman]

Back on your point. He's been doing this for so long. Nia. It's like what you're saying of like it's a job. He knows how to treat it like a job. And when he's working with Costner, Meryl Streep, those are like two of the best performances those actors have given. Where he gets into trouble is when he hires people.

[David Sims]

I agree. Right. Literal non professional actors. Like great.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's like it's not going to get better than that. It's like it probably would. Yeah. If you work with them just a little bit.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Also it's so funny because I always always like, like I, I had an actor who was like, I'm. I'm not gonna be the first take girl.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Like it's not gonna be me. So I'm like, okay, I'll. Then I'll cover you second. Like you know, like so you start to learn on this. So it's so interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean that's a lot of directing in my opinion is understanding the different flows of different actors. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I guess she'd already done this show like. But the Marvels is like her first movie. Iman Villani.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh my God.

[Griffin Newman]

Come on.

[Ben Hosley]

I love her so much. She's so.

[David Sims]

But she'd done the show, so she done the show.

[Ben Hosley]

But no, it was actually quite great because we. I got her. It was similar to getting Alfie after he did 28 years later because that was his first movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But that kid's incredible.

[Ben Hosley]

He was great. Yeah, he's so, he's so funny. I think. Yeah, I think, I think the first movie is. She's just surrounded by adults. But my movie. He has, like, a bunch of teens, and so they all bullied me. And he made fun of me because it took me too long to finish Uncharted. I was like, okay. I was like, I'm directing a film, bro.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, sorry, were you trying to 100% it or just get to the end of the. I was not.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, I was in story mode. I was in normal mode. Okay. But I think. I mean, to be. It's not a long game, and it's not Uncharted 4. It's the first Uncharted. I was just. I'm a completionist. I was like, I'll play in order.

[David Sims]

The first Uncharted. I mean, there's stuff about it that's fun, but then it's like, okay, now I have to duck behind this. Have you played that first before?

[Griffin Newman]

The other ones?

[David Sims]

Yeah, I played the first three Uncharted.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, well, the story of Uncharted famously starts with Nathan Drake being a young boy. His uncle before he has a mustache.

[David Sims]

He's talking about.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. I was like, I don't remember that. Yeah, the movie that was. You know, that was a time.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just one of the funniest things to me that's ever happened in Hollywood development.

[Ben Hosley]

Such a weird casting. All the casting is so strange.

[David Sims]

They took so long.

[Griffin Newman]

Years of tricks.

[David Sims]

Gotta be the fucking uncle now. We gotta beef that role up.

[Ben Hosley]

But also, it's like he. Like, they're just. And I. And I. Listen. I appreciate a Boogie Night's Mark Wahlberg. I love Tom Holland. I think he's such a phenomenal actor. They're both miscast. It's just like. Doesn't make any sense.

[Griffin Newman]

It is just so funny to me. They spent 15 years trying to do the version of that movie that everyone wanted to see.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they were like, but hear us out. We know we have failed to make the actual Nathan Drake adult movie that you all imagine. What if we did a prequel instead?

[Ben Hosley]

And also, the thing is, Tom Holland's never going to grow into being Nathan Drake.

[David Sims]

No, that's.

[Griffin Newman]

That's.

[David Sims]

That's the thing with casting him. It's like, what do you think?

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly. It's like Timothy Swiss Chalet is never going to grow into being the messiah of Dune.

[David Sims]

Well, I disagree with you on that.

[Ben Hosley]

Ooh, fun. But didn't you find it strange? No, I love those movies. But didn't you find it strange how in the first movie, he's like. He has his flash forward right to him is in a. In a stuntman's body with his VFX eyes.

[David Sims]

You're right. He's never going to. That's not that his body is not going to change.

[Ben Hosley]

It won't ever change.

[Griffin Newman]

But you are also right that, like, it is the exact thing that makes Tom Holland the most incredible Spider man casting of all time. Of, like, they finally got a guy who you can have play 24 ever.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Yeah. And he's also so good at Spider Man.

[Griffin Newman]

He's really good at spider.

[David Sims]

Yes, he is. Let me give you some. Some takes from. You know, Ethan Hawk has talked about this, about how Peter, we likes to quote, cast for the final color. And. And what does that mean? Because he was basically like Robert Shawn Leonard is very shy and introverted. So he didn't make sense to me as this role. And I am the opposite. And so I didn't make sense in this role either. But Robert Sean Leonard said that Weir said to him, like, don't think about the suicide at all. Like, you are not playing this as a boy who's doomed. You're playing this as a kid who's going on to stuff. And Hawk calls the YAWP scene your favorite scene. The most significant professional day of his life. It was the first time I really felt the experience of being an actor where I could lose myself in a story and lose myself inside a collective imagination. They're doing Steadicam, so it's like this, you know, cool, long thing that I don't know. Yeah, he liked it. All right, fine. This is a boring quote.

[Ben Hosley]

At least someone like Ethan Hawk.

[David Sims]

But that's kind of his vibe. Yeah, he'll monologue, you know, and you're like, yeah, he liked it. Thank you, Ethan. Yeah, I agree with you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then they had fun making the movie. They like. They truly did. I think it was freezing. But apart from that, like, everyone was into it.

[Ben Hosley]

Where'd they shoot?

[David Sims]

Delaware.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, fun.

[David Sims]

I guess the budget was $16 million and the schedule was pretty tight.

[Griffin Newman]

16. 16, sweet 16.

[David Sims]

And like, so they had to do it really fast. And Peter Weir apparently selects music for each scene and plays the music while everyone's lighting and rehearsing and stuff. And then it will fade out right as he is starting shooting. So he's trying to sort of like set a tone.

[Ben Hosley]

I want to know the guy who has to like, determine when it's time to.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, right? Oh, God. And I was going to say harder to do in like a pre iPod era.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Now. Now directors do that. I'm like, yeah, okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

We found a Bluetooth.

[Ben Hosley]

We all read the Quentin Tarantino interview.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. You're just hitting the volume slider down. That must have been like, actually a somewhat complicated maneuver.

[Ben Hosley]

Anyway, I don't do music on set like that at all.

[David Sims]

No, no.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean one. Occasionally if we're doing a night shoes, I'll have a dance party, but that's fine. Yeah. And then. And then there's a party scene and had a. We.

[David Sims]

The whole movie's a part.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Or like the scene where everyone's just like. We genuinely had like the best, like, club music playing and everyone was like, fuck, yeah, it was great. It was great. I'm sure some of my actress were drunk, but I. I've had.

[Griffin Newman]

I've had directors do that and I do find. Find that it helps some.

[David Sims]

Cameron Crow is famous for that.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sure there's a version of it that is annoying, but, like, if it's really.

[Ben Hosley]

Ads usually hit it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. If it's really being used as like a mood setting thing.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

That's. That's what it can help with. I feel like sometimes if it's well curated.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

One thing I love about Deadpost Society, I do want to give this movie its flowers. Where I, you know, sometimes is the opening just to start talking about the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

But because it feels like a funeral.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And you are watching it not knowing what this movie is about. Being like, oh, did somebody die? And then it's like, no, school is beginning.

[Ben Hosley]

Their spirits are dying.

[David Sims]

Yes. Like, because they're all like filing into this church.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And it's so somber and it's so like, funereal.

[Griffin Newman]

The great Norman Lloyd.

[David Sims]

You know, we'd love to welcome. Fucking Hagrid will be teaching Creature, you know, department. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It just feels like Hogwarts, like suddenly it is like. It's like a wake for their fucking happiness. Yeah.

[David Sims]

All these boys, these, you know, preppy Protestant boys who are gonna, I mean, become the leaders of America, I guess. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Did you have to pray? No. You wouldn't have prayed at your school? No, they would fucking to pray at my school.

[David Sims]

You had to pray to who?

[Ben Hosley]

We had to. God.

[David Sims]

God.

[Ben Hosley]

To the Christian. To Christian God.

[David Sims]

To Christian God.

[Ben Hosley]

To white Jews.

[David Sims]

It was specifically right.

[Ben Hosley]

Christian God. Protestant, you know, Waspy God. We had to. Was that Rumsey Hall? So we did the. The Lord's Prayer.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And then we had this, the Pledge of Allegiance, which. It's so weird doing the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

It's crazy when you look back on it. And I remember the first time I realized I didn't have to say it was I saw this Korean student, also a boring student, was like, not saying it.

[David Sims]

I was like, oh, because she doesn't pledge allegiance to our flag?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I'm like, that person's not from this country. And I was like, I'm from here. But I also could just not. No one's gonna know.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

There was no prayer in my New York City public schools, obviously, because that is against the law, at least for next six months. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But we'll see how long it lasts.

[David Sims]

But then I moved to England and there was praying because it is a religious country, non religions and. But I remember I was told as a nine year old, it's like, you don't have to if you don't want to. I didn't get that because I one didn't know what to say. But they would say the Lord's Prayer.

[Griffin Newman]

St. Anne's was originally run out of the basement of a church a block away.

[David Sims]

Right. Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

That is the St. Anne's Church. So it took that name. And then once they had their own building, they kept the name.

[David Sims]

And they killed God.

[Ben Hosley]

They killed God.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's. It's the most hest place on earth. Quite possibly. But people would always be like, oh, you went to Catholic school.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it sounds.

[Ben Hosley]

Could they hit the kids?

[Griffin Newman]

No, no.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, I went to a Catholic school where they could hit.

[Griffin Newman]

No, there was. There was the. The wrong kind of touching.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, see, this is the thing.

[Griffin Newman]

This is well documented.

[David Sims]

Honestly, Google saying this.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

As someone I. There's moments where Rob David's wife also

[Griffin Newman]

went to my high school, by the way. She did? Yeah.

[David Sims]

And she is a public school teacher now, I want to clarify. Not a private school teacher.

[Griffin Newman]

She made it out.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But there's moments in this where Robin Williams is really grabbing the students, like by the shoulders and stuff, and he's being very physical with them. And I was like, it doesn't seem unrealistic to me, but I was shocked by it. I was like, you cannot touch students.

[Griffin Newman]

But I also think that's a good now, I mean, yeah, but I. I think that's good judgment from Weir where you're like, yeah, like, if fireable offense, you know, like this movie has to end with the guy being fired, it

[David Sims]

can't just be a good teacher.

[Ben Hosley]

Um, I. Okay, I.

[David Sims]

This is the central question of dead poet Society. They mostly seem to just hang out.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think it's a poetry class.

[David Sims]

I think a lot of Cool, though.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[David Sims]

I think a lot of them excited

[Griffin Newman]

by art, cultural legacy. Right. Our age, growing up, watching this movie for the first time in a world where we've already heard the things repeated, all of us, the beats and the parodies and whatever. I feel like the last 20 years of dead Poet Society has been mostly a lot of things making fun of this type of teacher. Right.

[David Sims]

Like, that's the Community episode about.

[Griffin Newman]

The Community episode's a great one, but

[David Sims]

the idea of just the Colin Joe sketch on SNL where they all stand up and, like, one of them. Their heads get cut off. Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But just this idea of, like, we all find this fun and inspiring, but

[Ben Hosley]

actually, I. I don't know, guys. I. I disagree. I had a couple teachers like him, and, like, I had Mr. Rothwell when I was in public school for two years. Um, he and I came from a Catholic school where they could hit the kids. And it was so. I was like. I didn't know what was going on.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

I was like, you can't. I saw a nun hit a kid, and she was too angry. You know, I was like, that's not God. It was the nun. And so I know all about her. So if you want to know more about her. Her past before she was killing people. But no, I had this teacher, Mr. Rothwell, and, like, he was very similar in the sense that he was absolutely ridiculous. He was an actor, of course, and when we were. He was white. And when we were doing Raisin in the sun, he was like, I'll be you the part of this person. And I was like, okay. Like, that's great.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool.

[Ben Hosley]

Cool. But he really wanted us to, like, learn how to think. And it was so clear. Even though he was ridiculous, we all were like, oh, like, that's what he's doing. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But we also were like, but I mean, I got myself in trouble. He was like, challenge. Where you. Where are your sources in history class? And so in history class, I was like, what are your sources? And my teacher was like, the textbook.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't flip it back on me.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. She was like, shut up.

[David Sims]

Yeah, she's been vetted. Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I had a couple teachers that meant a tremendous, tremendous amount to me that changed my life. That all did that. Like, all the people who meant something to me were the.

[David Sims]

They made you rip out pages.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but I'm teaching you how to think, not what to think.

[Ben Hosley]

Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

And, like, felt empowering in that way and had that kind of like, I'm putting this out there, waiting to see the Kids who need to hear this and who will respond and then I'm really going to lock in with them.

[David Sims]

You know, it's a very interesting, interesting. So the movie is about his year as a teacher with these boys. You don't see him teaching any other classes. I assume. He does teach other classes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like he's not just teaching, you know, but he's juniors or whatever they are.

[Griffin Newman]

He's not a POV character. We start the movie with the boys. I mean, even to your point, the opening of this film, it's like you start with a shot of a mural of a painting of these well behaved boys. Right. Like literally like this is the model of how we want you to, to look. And then the camera pans down to a small child being dressed up in his uniform. The sort of feeling of the factory line of like this is, we're molding you to just be this. And then going into this funeral procession as you said.

[David Sims]

And then he's introduced that is the announcement of, oh, he's an alumnus. And we're all welcoming Mr. Keaton.

[Griffin Newman]

But we're seeing him basically from the POV of these boys in the pew as they're seeing just this guy sitting at the end of the line on the, the stage.

[David Sims]

And it's an interesting high school movie in that there's no bully really. There are meaner kids and like less kids who are less into it.

[Griffin Newman]

Got one kid who's a fucking fink.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

One kid who is a fuck. But he's more of like a little coward. Like. Right. He just, he caves.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But it's like I, I watched this movie, I. And I hadn't seen it and I was like, oh yeah, does Josh Charles play the bully? Because like that's what he usually would

[Griffin Newman]

play in every other, just plays a normal forehead kisser. He plays a Prince Charming. All he's trying to do is rescue PR by kissing them hilariously.

[David Sims]

But like, right. It's about this like largely very sincere group of boys who seem sort of, I guess the movie's, you know, arguing like, oh, Mr. Keating helped them, you know, learn to think and love poetry and all that.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm like taught them how to be in touch with their emotions.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. They're pretty like feely boys and it feels like they're pretty on board with him pretty much right away.

[Griffin Newman]

Now this movie, interesting to watch now in a kind of peak are young men.

[AJ McKeon]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Era, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Where this is a movie that, as you said, it is kind of about him teaching them to not be afraid of their own emotions.

[David Sims]

Yeah, because they're basically. We have a secret poetry society where we get, like, so worked up about Shakespeare and is this the healthiest version

[Griffin Newman]

of a man cave ever?

[David Sims]

But, I mean, I went to a school where I loved English. I love poetry, I love Shakespeare and all that. It's like, it wasn't. I wasn't finding, like, tons of other kids who were like, let's do. Do some late night Shakespeare.

[Griffin Newman]

Bringing together cool lamps into the cave and then girls.

[Ben Hosley]

And that's when girls went off.

[David Sims]

Well, the thing about theater, which I did in high school, was that was how you got to meet girls.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes, yes.

[David Sims]

So that was crucial.

[Griffin Newman]

What does he say this? This is no Greek society.

[Ben Hosley]

Does he say that to no pederast? Is that what he means?

[Griffin Newman]

There's the point where they're like, what, you just hang out in a cave reading poems with other boys? And Williams, like, kind of does the eyebrow wiggle of, like, not just boys. Right. He. Guess I'll find the line.

[Ben Hosley]

But.

[Griffin Newman]

But yes, it does feel like he knows wisely. Much like theater teachers often weaponize this, as you said, to be like, hey, guys, don't you want to, like, know how to talk to women?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Yeah. You have to trap them.

[David Sims]

Right? Right. There's no homosexual overtones in this movie, despite it being like, a movie about a bunch of boys.

[Griffin Newman]

Another thing that's surprising.

[David Sims]

Well, it's not surprising because of the girlies.

[Ben Hosley]

Did you. Wait, did you go to all boys in England?

[David Sims]

Yes, I did.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. Have you heard of. Of meat lips?

[David Sims]

Oh, boy.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, don't Google that. Don't Google that.

[Griffin Newman]

I like where this is going.

[Ben Hosley]

Did you go to all boys, Griffin? No. Okay. Did you go to all boys?

[David Sims]

No, I. So I go to England. He's like, ben, I go to England. I go to public school at my local school when I'm nine years old. And then I, to everyone's surprise, I tested into this, like, good school. Like, but that was a boy school. My mom was like, my. I must have been so hard for my mom, like, in retrospect, was like, I'm gonna send him to, like, a all boys school where he wears a fucking tie. Like, I was living in New York years ago. Like, what is going on? I was very adorable, of course.

[Ben Hosley]

And I have to see a picture when we're done.

[David Sims]

Sure, I'll find a picture. But no, I don't know what meat lips is. Is that what you just said?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. So. So. So from. At my boarding school, some boys came from an all boys school. And Meat lips is basically where a boy would go into his pants, rub his balls with his hands and then smack a. A boy on the. On the mouth and go.

[Griffin Newman]

Meat lips or you're saying

[David Sims]

stuff was happening.

[Ben Hosley]

I was always so worried about. I. Once I heard that I was like

[David Sims]

are will I get me?

[Griffin Newman]

They would never.

[David Sims]

Men or not?

[Ben Hosley]

No, no, no, no.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. It was really crazy how focal your penises were in. In your daily lives.

[AJ McKeon]

Getting pants was a big thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

The thing about a boys school is. Yes. Like there's. There's maybe too much familiarity and discussion of everyone's penises. Like where it's like, you know, if there are girls around or maybe everyone. Everyone kind of like knows to just sort of chill out a little bit. That's the problem with a boys school. The advantage of boys schools is that everyone's just lazy and stinky like because there's no.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the. I'm sorry, that's the advantage. Well, I'm just like, it smells bad.

[David Sims]

Like to me, what was crazy about going to a boys school was girls schools. Because all the girls I knew who went to girls schools, those places were crazy. Like it was so much psychological torment and awful shit girls were seeing. So mean to each other. Whereas if you put boys together. Yeah, there's a little bullying and stuff. Like there's some jocks and door. Like mostly it's just like 14 year old boys. You're just like. We're just disgusting. Yeah, we're just all disgusting together.

[Ben Hosley]

So it's sort of like keeping you contained.

[David Sims]

Chill atmosphere, I guess. Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't know, Meat lips. It's really unchilled.

[David Sims]

To me that sounds quite unchill.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Maybe it's England's different. I don't know. No, England's actually. No, it's not. No, it's actually terrible. I have, I have a couple of guy friends who went in England who went to boarding school and from the age of like eight and they're all very sad about it.

[David Sims]

Well, that and especially boarding school in England. And I would meet people, you know, and their parents would have gone to boarding school and they had never gotten over it.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Because I feel like it's, you know, the Roald Dahl books and all that about his experience in boarding school of like just, just institutional bullying. Like where it's like that sort of the older boys like the structure of like. Well, I was bullied so now I'm gonna bully you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. The hierarch tradition, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Exactly. Like, it just seems awful.

[Ben Hosley]

And you're like, obviously.

[David Sims]

Yeah, obviously. And then like, teaching would be. I mean, the guy, he's telling them to rip the book out, right? That's a real thing. That some fudgeing famous academic from the early 20th century is like, yeah, poetry should be like, put on a graph of like how good it is.

[Ben Hosley]

That's. That is actually the most insane. Like, so crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And like, I mean, good for him being like, that's silly, like, or whatever. But like, yeah, it's like that was, I guess, how frigid their education was supposed to be.

[AJ McKeon]

Did you guys have that. This game?

[David Sims]

Oh, boy. Of course I'm not looking.

[Ben Hosley]

Did you?

[David Sims]

Go ahead.

[Ben Hosley]

Punching boys.

[Griffin Newman]

That's crazy. Door knob and safety really were cast a big shadow over my. My adolescence.

[Ben Hosley]

What does that mean? Door knob safety?

[Griffin Newman]

That if you fart, you have to call safety before anyone else calls it. Calls you out on it. And if they say doorknob and correctly accuse you of farting before you've said saf.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Then they get to keep punching you until you touch a doorknob.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh my gosh. I.

[Griffin Newman]

That one.

[David Sims]

I don't know. Really, I don't know if I.

[Ben Hosley]

That's sounding vaguely familiar.

[David Sims]

So the. The mind of a teenager, like this sort of like inventiveness of punishment. This is the other thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, the Internet existed when we were teenagers, but like social media didn't exist in the same kind of way. These things weren't open source.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the most experience was like some instant messaging trouble.

[Griffin Newman]

But like whatever you experience at your school, you're like, this must be the most universal thing in the world. I just assumed all three of going to laugh uproariously when I said door knob in safety. For all I know, maybe no one else has ever done this.

[David Sims]

Reddit r nostalgia, this play safety, door knob when farting.

[Ben Hosley]

As a kid, I couldn't go to

[Griffin Newman]

Reddit to find out if this was a game.

[Ben Hosley]

Do you want to. Do you want to Reddit meat lips?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, Reddit meat lips. R Meat lips. David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

You look like a man who doesn't know that Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers.

[David Sims]

I had no idea.

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

It's like your Local nursery, but anywhere you live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else. And whatever you're looking for. Fast growing trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space and lifestyle.

[Griffin Newman]

For me, all inclusive, I'll take any kind of tree you got. Okay.

[AJ McKeon]

Fast growing trees makes it so easy to get your dream dream yard. You just click order and grow and you get healthy, thriving plants delivered right to your door. I recently ordered a couple of different trees as well as some shrubs.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[AJ McKeon]

Fast growing trees dot com. It was so easy. The stuff came five days later.

[David Sims]

I planted it.

[AJ McKeon]

Was this all at my dad's house? We planted it. It's already thriving.

[Griffin Newman]

It's already thriving.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, that's cool.

[David Sims]

They have their alive and thrive guarantee. It promises your plants arrive happy and healthy. No green thumb required. Just quality plants you can count on. Plus, get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape. Choose the right plants, learn how to care for them every step of the way.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you imagine if Wall E had a promo code for fast growing trees? That movie would have been sold. It never would have even existed.

[David Sims]

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[Griffin Newman]

David? Yep. I love Oren hat. Oh, I'm a hatsman.

[David Sims]

You are?

[Griffin Newman]

What do you.

[David Sims]

If I said I was a hatsman, I would agree, certainly.

[Griffin Newman]

And much like Daniel Plainview, I love starting businesses.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'll tell you the one part of the starting a business. I don't like having to wear so many hats all at once. I'm a one hat at a time guy.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, I guess you can only have one hat at a time and you know, you're just gonna be intimidated and lonely.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the case concern. But here's an option.

[David Sims]

Uh huh.

[Griffin Newman]

What if Shopify could metaphorically take some of those hats off your head and start wearing them themselves?

[David Sims]

Look, Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. 10% of all E commerce in the

[Griffin Newman]

US that's a pretty crazy stat.

[David Sims]

Uh, you know, we've, we, we're working on getting our own Shopify page up,

[Griffin Newman]

we're relaunching our merch with our own Shopify page. And they're the dream business partners.

[David Sims]

But like, you know, Mama Fuku, Heinz Mattel. Oh, yeah, heard of them.

[Griffin Newman]

I just bought a lot of he man toys and got tracking updates from Shopify.

[David Sims]

So Shopify obviously, you know, gets you started with your own design studio. They got hundreds of ready to use templates.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You can build a big beautiful online store matching your brand style. Get, you know, you can get the word out. Like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling and strolling.

[Ben Hosley]

I like that.

[Griffin Newman]

I love to scroll. That's really good language. And David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I enjoy as a consumer on the other side of the transaction that I can open my Shopify app and I see all my orders there. I see the tracking updates. I can keep track of what I've ordered. Can I tell you some things I ordered recently? Vinegar Syndrome. The fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome love em. I ordered Raday Jude's Dracula, which is not part of her upcoming Patreon series, but I thought it was good supplemental watching.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And young Svenkmeyer's Faust.

[David Sims]

Very good.

[Griffin Newman]

Lovely diss from those fine folks.

[David Sims]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

I bought an action figure of Andor and his droid friend, Emo. Yeah. From the fine folks at Twink. The store is called Twink. But now that I finally watched Andor and I'm andor pilled, I had to ask Twink, we support you to give me an Andor figure in exchange for me money.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I also bought replicas of the sunglasses from they live from the fine folks at Fright Rags. These are things I'm keeping track of that are very important and mature.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Look, you could be like some of the brands that are selling Griffin things.

[Griffin Newman]

You can either start a business and look for Griffins to sell things to, or you can be a Griffin and buy too many things.

[David Sims]

So start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing cha ching, cha ching. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com check. Go to shopify.com check. That's shopify.com check.

[Griffin Newman]

Ching ching.

[Ben Hosley]

The.

[Griffin Newman]

The line William says is we weren't a Greek organization. We were romantics. Yes. I mean, which I guess is more of a fraternity.

[David Sims]

Right? I mean, the. You know, the. What Keating is doing is just being like, hey, this textbook is silly. We're gonna like, think about art in a more Meaningful way. Blah, blah. Right. You know, but then the kids are so into him that they are like, what was your. They find the old yearbook and they're like, oh, you had the Dead Poet Society. What was that? And he's like.

[Griffin Newman]

They're, like, almost half mocking. Even though they like him, they're like, what is this dorky thing? And the way that he. With such inner conflict, confidence, like, says the thing about, like, we sucked the marrow out of life. Like, we, like, lived it up. This was rad. You see them all get sparked of like, oh, is it cool to care about?

[Ben Hosley]

But that's the age when you're. You're so receptive to that.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. You need someone to tell you, like, it's okay to feel things.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's okay to be, like, genuine.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And that scene is so intoxicating.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

We're jumping ahead now, but. But yes, it is crazy to me rewatching this how like, the first 15 minutes of the movie, you're like, oh, shit. Almost all of the iconic stuff happens in the first 15 minutes.

[David Sims]

It's true. A lot of the carpet deal, ripping out the.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Captain, my Captain.

[David Sims]

Like, all that is ancient set up

[Griffin Newman]

basically in the first class alone. You're like, most of the cultural reputation of this movie is basically the first 15 minutes in the last five.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, with like, the stuff in the middle is the stuff. Stuff that I think not that's forgotten, but is less discussed, which is less exciting.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, yeah, Josh Charles kissing a girl and, like, you know, her boyfriend and blah, blah, blah. It's like, who cares?

[David Sims]

I think the middle act of this movie is pretty dull. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the duller part.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But yes. He hits the ground running, this guy. First class. It's just like, here's my.

[David Sims]

Another question about this guy. I hate to nitpick this guy, but it's like, right. He's so. He had such an extreme exciting high school life, I guess.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Went to Cambridge. We learned and studied English. Now he's back at, like, his private school that he went to.

[Griffin Newman]

He says it. He said, I love teaching.

[David Sims]

Just go teach somewhere else.

[Ben Hosley]

Where's his partner?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Who's he married?

[Griffin Newman]

She's in England.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's a girlfriend then. What doing here in that. No, Snowtown. Doesn't that the.

[AJ McKeon]

The autumn and the winter. Doesn't it look so nice?

[David Sims]

That is.

[Griffin Newman]

It's very magic.

[Ben Hosley]

It's very.

[David Sims]

It seems romantic. You guys have a few teachers. I had a few teachers in my school who had gone to the school, like in my high school who were like alumni, like two or three. And I remember being just like, you wanted to come. I mean, I like the school fine, but I was like, you wanted to come back here.

[Ben Hosley]

What do you find now that you have people you went to school with who are now doing that? Because I have. There are a couple people I went to high school with and I'm like, that's a good question. Just go somewhere else. It's just like, it's fun.

[Griffin Newman]

There must be one or two.

[David Sims]

Go carpe diem in like Baltimore or something.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, actually, carpe diem here.

[Griffin Newman]

I will say those also weren't the teachers that like, Chinese changed my life. I definitely had a couple who had gone to the school.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They were not the ones who really stuck with me, whatever that says. No, there's the scene, the, the Robert Sean Leonard scene. It does feel like he says that where he's just like, if you're so great, why the are you teaching here?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And his answer is, it's what I love doing.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And I, I think the subtext of that also is that, like, because when he shows up on the class the first day, he's like, what's the name of the first school the, the, the

[David Sims]

school that they're at? Yeah, Wilton Academy.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He says, right, I'm also a help.

[David Sims]

Wait a second.

[Griffin Newman]

Graduate. Like, he's leading with this sort of sense of, I know how much this place sucks.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm someone who made it out the other side. I think the reason he goes back there is because he wants to like, repay the loop of like, these are boys who are going to get crushed, like, save them.

[David Sims]

Which that makes sense to me is sort of like, that's his noble mission. Although I, I, it's interesting. Again, it's like there's a lot of movies in this movie that I am maybe more interested by because, like, there's the scene earlyish on where the other teacher, not an administrator, kind of calls him out being like, you're doing what? Like you're working on pages and your kids are running around.

[Ben Hosley]

They're friends though, right? And they're friends.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's kind of saying like, you're, oh, you're a cynic. And he goes, no, I'm a realist.

[David Sims]

Exactly. The guy's basically saying, like, look, I'm not mad about you doing it, but. Right. But like, I don't think it's going to work out for you.

[Griffin Newman]

Why are you telling them all that they can be artists you're going to turn them all into frustrating, fit, frustrated failed artists. Right. Like, he's basically saying, don't empower all of them.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Like, just keep it cute, you know?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Giving the advice essentially of, like, also, like, don't, like, make a false promise of they're going to be able to do whatever they want. And I guess that's pointing to the end of the movie, but I find the end of the movie a little dishonest, so.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, at the end of the movie, that friend of his, he, I, I, I, he's walking with his class outside

[David Sims]

and he gives him a nod.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Keating's up in the tower.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the other thing. I don't think this guy's ever long for the school. He doesn't fight the firing. It feels like even if they hadn't fired him, I wouldn't be surprised if this guy left after a year. It feels like he wants to go back there.

[David Sims]

Right. He wants it to be something and he wants to be able to do this. But it's like the principal of the school is like, well, I think, I think children are awful and books should be shouted at them and I will paddle anyone who disagrees with me.

[Ben Hosley]

He's like, oh, the paddling is so icky.

[David Sims]

The paddling scene kind of rocks. We kind of knocks that out of the park.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. He does, he does.

[David Sims]

It's really well done.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think they don't expand on it that much. It's a throwaway moment. But the, the very attractive blonde woman he has a frame photo of on his desk who's in England. I just have to imagine that this is sort of like, you know what? I'll go back there and teach for a year while she's doing a graduate program abroad or something. It feels like there's some reason why he has to be long distance with his girlfriend.

[David Sims]

It doesn't come up, but yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And so he's, why not do this rather than. I want to be a fucking part of the firmament of this place for decades.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Even when he shows up, like, his energy is just so. I mean, it's very Robin Williams. Yeah. But it's so like, I don't know, ephemeral.

[Griffin Newman]

It's, it's, it is a perfect use of him. You were saying how important Robin Williams was to you. He was just like, for our generation.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

In the 90s, he was the biggest.

[Ben Hosley]

He's the guy.

[Griffin Newman]

He was the guy. And to be a child and be like this Guy makes like the best family movies. He also feels like the ultimate celebrity. Anytime he shows up on tv, he's going to be funny. And yet you're a woman. Where like he is taken seriously by grown ups. Yeah, there is this side of him that I'm not getting yet.

[David Sims]

Yeah, then he's not just inventing flubber out here.

[Ben Hosley]

Yo, Flubber was my brother rules. I haven't seen it in 30 years.

[David Sims]

I remember having a couple notes on that one as well.

[Ben Hosley]

When you were 8 with your pen.

[David Sims]

I think I was 11 when I saw Flubber and I was too old for flubber.

[Griffin Newman]

Possibly flubbers. 97.

[David Sims]

That was 11.

[Griffin Newman]

97. 98.

[AJ McKeon]

Deborah J. Jack. Jack's kind of fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Jack I've often referred to as my least favorite movie ever made.

[David Sims]

Jack. Jack is tough. Yeah, that's a tough movie.

[AJ McKeon]

But sad at the end.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sure. Sad the whole time.

[Ben Hosley]

His age is a lot. Yeah, that's upsetting.

[Griffin Newman]

Directed by.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh yeah. Francisco.

[Griffin Newman]

His. His low point.

[Ben Hosley]

But Francis. Okay, we can't talk about Frank. Okay.

[David Sims]

We can't.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, no, it's too much.

[Griffin Newman]

You haven't lopped it off yet. You. You got to lop it off before we talk about Frank.

[Ben Hosley]

Wait, lop it off?

[Griffin Newman]

Megalopolis.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh. Oh, I haven't seen it yet.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, exactly. You gotta lop it off.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yes. Yeah, I. Listen, I bought it. I was so excited. I went to see it in theaters or I wanted to, and then I just never got around to it. And then I just. Do I have time of the day?

[Griffin Newman]

Look, he's threatening to recut it. It's not finished. There'll probably be seven more versions of Megalopolis.

[Ben Hosley]

He's from an era where it was like, here's the director's cut and the extended cut and the this cut and the that cut. And it's like. But you, you. You made the movie with your own money, so it should just be your cut, right?

[David Sims]

It's true. Who's. Yeah, who's fighting with your notes, Franny?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he did an interview and maybe it's already come out by this, but it was normal. But he did an interview recently, very normal, where he was like, I might try doing a weirder cut. And I'm like, a weirder cut?

[David Sims]

My guy.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh my.

[Griffin Newman]

You had no notes on this self funded fever dream. By all means, show me your weirder couple. Why wasn't that the first gun?

[Ben Hosley]

It's long as well.

[David Sims]

It's pretty long.

[Griffin Newman]

It's pretty long movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's not like the longest movie, but like it's up there for length. It's not the shortest either. Devote society. So yeah. You know, he. They rip out the book and he says carpe diem.

[Griffin Newman]

I like that they don't pathologize this character too much. That they don't over explain him.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

That he does feel a little magical. Well.

[Ben Hosley]

Cuz now if the movie came out now there'd be a. A scene where you'd see they'd realize he's an alcoholic.

[Griffin Newman]

And there's like 20 scenes.

[David Sims]

Right. There's. There's a sort of a purity to just like. Yeah. We don't really know he's. We know he's an alum.

[Griffin Newman]

It would absolutely open. This guy like walking into the building with his briefcase on the first day.

[David Sims]

I mean like I love the Holdovers, a movie I think you only like. I like that to me is a better sort of version of the. Because the same vibe obviously, essentially, you know, period boarding school in Massachusetts. It's where it's just like the teachers are like I'm a crusty piece of shit. Like I shouldn't be here if I wanted to. You know, if. If I'd achieved my goals, like I wouldn't be here. But I can still help you. Like hurt people can still help you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. That movie is almost the exact shadow self of this movie. Right. That's a guy who's stuck here forever and you're like why? You seem tortured and you're torturing others. And also it is from his perspective more than the kid.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But it is a similar feeling. I had a similar feeling of like o. I'm just. We're just vibing out. We're just. Look at the dorm, look at the school. Look at the architecture. New England. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Dead Poet Society is a beautiful movie and it really. Anytime I'm sort of just watch. When I was watching it, I'm like,

[AJ McKeon]

you know, I don't really care.

[David Sims]

This looks so fucking. Of course I do. Autumn.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm like the, the autumn New Hollywood. Right. Brings about a kind of shift in the visuals of American film. I would. Would argue where people were trying to avoid a feeling of like overly manicured sumptuousness. Right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Which then you're like, why is it so ugly?

[Griffin Newman]

Even a lot of the big epics of the 70s and 80s were like lit.

[David Sims]

Pacino. Why so ugly?

[Ben Hosley]

Why so uggy, baby?

[Griffin Newman]

We're lit a lot more flatly than the like equivalent movies of the 60s and before that. Right. Because there was this feeling of like we're going for a naturalism, a roughness. This movie still has, like the grain strike structure of like the 80s before the 90s, really, like improved film speeds. And then you get these films that just look like immaculately shiny and glossy and it feels like that style comes back into fashion. But it does feel like this movie establishes like a color palette and a lighting scheme that then kind of becomes the default for like, sensitive, serious studio dramedy.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, John, this a dramedy.

[Griffin Newman]

I would call it a dramedy, a light drama.

[David Sims]

It was nominated as a drama in the Golden Globes. I would call this a drama. I would call this a straight up drama. It has suicide and stuff in it. I guess it's light ish in that, like, the first chunk of it is like, oh, he's a nice teacher. But like, it's kind of a sad movie. Even when he's being, it's just like, you're just like, this sucks. Yeah, this fucking sucks. These boys got to go to this fucking place. Norman Lloyd, not. Yeah, Norman Lloyd, right. Is the principal. You know, he's great. He is great.

[Ben Hosley]

So good.

[David Sims]

You know, it's just like, this sucks. John Seal, who shot it, just to reference the, you know, Weir picks him up from out of Australian obscurity for Witness, and he had done, you know, Mosquito Coast. Like, he'd been working with Weir for a second, but he'd also done, right before this Gorillas in the Mist and Rain man, which are similar vibe.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Where it's like, we're going back, like you're saying, to this kind of like, burnished, more lush, kind of prestige look for these kinds of movies. And then right after this, he does Lorenzo Soil. That's a gorgeous movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. But that feels like the fully burnished version of it, as you're saying.

[David Sims]

And then, but then like, and then, of course, he wins the Oscar for English Patient a few years from now, which is, for me, ultimate.

[Griffin Newman]

The apex of. Exactly.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm like, that's we finally perfected the 90s Oscar movie look.

[David Sims]

Right? And then people are like, enough already. You know, like now people are like,

[Ben Hosley]

is that movie even good?

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

And then he shot Fury Road. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I, I, I saw in high school. He sure did. Sorry, say again?

[David Sims]

He shot Fury road and, and 3,000 years long. He's only worked with, he's basically retired.

[Ben Hosley]

But he isn't he 100.

[David Sims]

John Seal, 82.

[Ben Hosley]

Honestly, George Miller and him shooting Ferry Road. I'm just like, baby, are you okay? It Is.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the ultimate. I feel like with each passing year, it just becomes harder to understand how that movie was made and the more information that comes out. And especially they took all these vehicles

[David Sims]

under the fury road.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, of course. Okay.

[David Sims]

And the do for you was there. And so on and so forth.

[Griffin Newman]

But I. I do feel like it is the ultimate movie that filmmakers cite where they're just like, I can't get my head around this.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. It.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like I cannot. It's Soderbergh's famous quote where he's like, my three questions are, how did they ever finish making this movie?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

How did no one die? And I forget what the third one is. Yeah. The fact that it's like a masterpiece, let alone a movie that cuts together. Together is insane.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. No, it's. It's. I find it especially, like. Because, like, I read Kyle's book about it and. And Shanna. Yes. Who. Who I think is such a great writer. And, you know, you're just like, I could have never done that because I. The amount of fighting he had to do. Obfuscating, ignoring.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't know. Running off into the wilderness to avoid, you know, like, it's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

And also, like, 15 years of not making it, being like, no, not right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, like, I got to stand my ground. I know exactly what this thing is. And then it's just like everyone hated him while he was making it and then saw the screening and was like, oh, you were right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, how the. Do you, like, have that clear sense of it in your head and somehow get exactly what you want out of everybody, even in a way at a time where you can't communicate it to them?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's madness.

[David Sims]

Fascinating madness. Okay, so what else happens in about the book? The pages? Carpe dia.

[Griffin Newman]

He sparks them pretty quickly. They're on board. As you said, he has the conversation with the other teacher. What were you going to say, Nia?

[Ben Hosley]

Well, I mean, the boy's Noanda. My favorite. He's my favorite. And he doesn't really act after.

[David Sims]

I know he's good.

[Griffin Newman]

High level studio exec.

[David Sims]

He did. Gail Hansen, I believe is his name.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

He was so cute.

[David Sims]

I flipped over to being in business.

[Griffin Newman]

An internship where I worked under his. His wife who was just like. You know what's weird? My husband was the. Was that guy in Dead Poet Society. And then he kind of never acted again. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, good for.

[Griffin Newman]

He.

[Ben Hosley]

I thought he was really good.

[Griffin Newman]

He's really good.

[David Sims]

He's good. All the kids are good. Would you agree? I mean, like, yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I mean, but they all, and they all. I was just like amazed at how good the casting was because they all are like, you know, Ethan Hawk, Dr. Wilson.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

And that ginger bastard.

[Griffin Newman]

But it is, it is this like era of as David was saying. There was just like a crop of brown haired boys who were all just ready to go. And there were all these movies that kept being like, we need four of you.

[Ben Hosley]

That's the right now though, don't you think?

[Griffin Newman]

I think we're finally back.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, it was so. Because I, I was also, I was talking to someone. I'm like, who's a movie star? Because there's so many white boys right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

But are any of them actually bankable? It's really good.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the bankability is a question and it's very much still in flux. I think Timmy is the only one who has like definitively proven himself.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

In that area. But it does feel like there is a really strong crop of young white guys for the first time, like 20 years.

[Ben Hosley]

And they're all just. And they're I think similar energy. They're all battling out until someone is like, you know what? I need five of you. I'm like, oh, thank God. Like, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

But the other, the other difference is it feels like these guys all are a little bit Ethan Hawky where they're just like, I care about this and I want to do it right. And I don't care about seeing. Being seen as dorky about loving acting.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And I want to work with good people. They're not just like doing the Movie Star Playbook 100. They want to be like important in a way that is. Was seen as embarrassing for a while. And I think that's finally come back, back around.

[David Sims]

It's interesting that like Hawk, who as you say, like, had already done kid performances, he goes on to obviously be pretty quickly. He's a star.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like by 94 we've got Reality Bites.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And. But even in 91, he did like White Fang. He was doing kind of like, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

But by Reality Bites he is like

[David Sims]

a fully defined Robert Shawn Leonard, I feel like just became one of those guys everybody likes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

But it's the how house role is sort of like a whole invention for him. Before then it was like, yeah, we love him and he does theater.

[Griffin Newman]

And he, I was gonna say, I feel like he was one of those ultimate guys who was like, he's not that interested in chasing the Hollywood thing. He Loves doing theater. He's so well regarded in theater. And he's Tony.

[David Sims]

He has

[Griffin Newman]

to do it, I think.

[David Sims]

No, you are wrong. I got a Tony nomination for Candida.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

I'm not sure if he did. Or Arcadia. He did the Invention of Love. Oh, he won a Tony for the Invention of Love.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Another Tom Stoppard play.

[Griffin Newman]

But did he do Arcadia?

[David Sims]

I'll find out.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

I. I think did the Music man at some point.

[Griffin Newman]

That also sounds right.

[Ben Hosley]

He sings.

[David Sims]

I can't remember. Yeah, yeah. He replaced Craig Bierko in that Music Man. That's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

With Chenoweth.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Sounds right. He's incredibly respected, David. I've never been wrong once on this podcast.

[David Sims]

Not seeing Genoa, but, you know, I

[Griffin Newman]

did the Arcadia thing because I need to be proven correct about this.

[David Sims]

He did Arcadia.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you guys so much. It is.

[Griffin Newman]

What I was going to say is it's funny. Billy Crow, like Victor Garber, someone who had this heat when he was young and such a huge part and such a huge movie that it was like. And then he kind of, like, eschewed that whole thing and really focused on theater. And then you were like, right. And he did 10 years. Years of House and probably made $1 trillion.

[David Sims]

And it sets for life that House role. It's the perfect role because it's like, you probably only work one day a week.

[Griffin Newman]

Perfect work.

[David Sims]

Like, mostly Wilson in that show is sitting behind his desk, and House comes in and is like, dumb House. I'm a Rascal. You know? And Wilson's like, oh, boy. And then, like, once in a while, he does more stuff, but usually you just do that.

[Griffin Newman]

He got paid, like, $150,000 per eye roll at thing Half House says that show is.

[Ben Hosley]

So I. I was rewatching it, and it's.

[David Sims]

It's.

[Ben Hosley]

It's really good.

[David Sims]

I mean, especially, I would say, the first three, four seasons.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah. I've gone beyond.

[Griffin Newman]

Seated Off A Bit on Fire is like, one of the most undeniable performances,

[Ben Hosley]

but also so inappropriate. Oh, my God.

[David Sims]

But I think the. The episode Three Stories. I mean, House is, like, beloved, and people watch it all the time, but. And yet it's sort of forgotten in that early Prestige era.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Three Stories, which is from the first season of House. It is one of the most amazing pieces of DB writing.

[Ben Hosley]

Is that the one?

[David Sims]

It's the one that reveals how he got the link.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like an early season when he's being Cudi, forces him to do the lecture. Yes. Yeah.

[David Sims]

The Deadpost decided. So he rips out the pages and he says, carpe die.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, my God. Wait, no, no. So this is what I was actually getting to, which was, like, the boys, they each have a thing. They do, right? So the one boy is like, I'm gonna kiss a girl without her consent. The another one is, I like theater. Now all of a sudden, Nawanda is. I'm just gonna change my name to Nawanda.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm gonna write appropriate every.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's.

[Ben Hosley]

But he's also like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna live that life.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's kind of the original Jake Sully. Sure.

[David Sims]

In that. He draws some paint on his face.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, guys, thank you so much. Thank you so much for that.

[David Sims]

We gotta go. Gotta get out of here.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, man.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. No, they. They each have a little kind of mini arc of, like, what does he empower them to be able to. To do?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It is funny that with distance, you're like, a few of these kids didn't need the empowering.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Ethan Hawke, he empowers to be able to say a sentence out loud at room tone, which I. I like that scene. It's really good.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I feel like this movie. What this movie does really well. It's very hard in a film to show an audience art and be like, this is good. Or to, like, explain. That is a great passion for an art form.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the Mr. Holland Zupas thing that David always talks about.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, which is what?

[Griffin Newman]

You spend an entire movie being, like, this guy's life's work, and you do the opus at the end, and it sucks ass. And you're like, this guy doesn't sell the audience on the power of music. And his music is bad to get

[David Sims]

mad about the Reddit. But there was some thread about my common complaint about Mr. Holland's opus, which is, of course, that, yes, his opus is toilet. And people, like, he doesn't get the message that, like, actually, all the kids he taught over the years are his opus. I'm like, I got that message. They kind of hammer it home. I know.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie's not like Chinatown.

[Ben Hosley]

I actually read that thread you were

[Griffin Newman]

telling us before you record that you read the Reddit way too much.

[Ben Hosley]

I do.

[David Sims]

I do. We are your opus. And he's like, I guess so. I mean, like, to be clear, in the movie, he's such a curmudgeon. But then he's like, oh, yeah, sure. And then they're like, and now you're opus. And they're like, it's just also.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's a rhetoric. If the kids are as opus. Is that that much of an accomplishment either?

[David Sims]

They stink.

[Griffin Newman]

They all stink.

[David Sims]

I can't sell this thing for a second.

[Griffin Newman]

But you, you are right. I do think this is a movie that like actually sells you the audience on what it's trying to sell the kids. Right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And super. I also think it's a really good screenwriting decision that they like are sparked by the guy. They're like, what's this guy's fucking deal? They go and find the yearbook. They find the weird thing that they bring to him. Almost half mockingly.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He doesn't say like, boys, this is what you need to do.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Go find a cave and read each other columns. Girls will show up. He sort of.

[Ben Hosley]

Of beyond reproach to me personally. I mean, minus destroying school property, the books. But I'm like, it's really, it's not. Well, they. Off they go off. I like that.

[Griffin Newman]

They're basically self motivated in doing well.

[David Sims]

There's this question of like, right. You know, at the end of the movie, Robert Sean Leonard's character says, you know, seeks his advice on the whole, like, I want to act and my dad doesn't want that.

[Ben Hosley]

So good.

[David Sims]

The scene is really, really well acted. Keating doesn't do anything wrong. No, but Keating definitely sort of knows. Like you can see on Williams's face, like, his dad's not gonna go for this. This isn't going well. Like, you know, like, because Keating says, like, look, talk to him. Tell him how you feel about exactly

[Griffin Newman]

what you're saying to me.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[David Sims]

And then they had this second conversation where he's like. And you talk to him and he's like, yeah, it didn't go well. But you know, and you're kind of like, no, it's not like Keating is responsible for this kid then killing himself or whatever. But you are kind of like. But it is, it. It's all a little out of hand. Like, you know, he's not doing much communication up or with the parents or whatever. Like the other thing could be trying to intervene a little more.

[Griffin Newman]

The other thing I think Williams plays really well is you get the sense in him that he is questioning am I responsible for this in any way. Right. That he plays that very quietly. It's another thing that's helped by him not being the POV character of the movie.

[David Sims]

Right. So he's sort of in and out and you're not sure, like how involved.

[Griffin Newman]

But it doesn't. He doesn't feel like he fights the firing and it's obviously not his fault, but there is this part of him of just like, I'm just telling kids to.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, say whatever they want and do whatever they want. I'm not really thinking about.

[Ben Hosley]

You can't not feel totally. Somewhat not responsible. But yeah, in a way, guilt has no logic, really. You know, so.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly, exactly.

[AJ McKeon]

It's just crazy that the dad, and then the administrative frustration blames his teaching instead of looking at the obvious, which is that the dad is forcing his son to do stuff that he really doesn't want to do.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[AJ McKeon]

But it's just such an annoying example of bureaucracy that really gets under my skin. So stupid.

[Griffin Newman]

But I also think the school exists to mirror that viewpoint of the dead. Right. Like the. The function of this school in terms of what it's promising parents is like, we're going to kick all the fucking. Right.

[David Sims]

We're getting your kids ready for.

[Ben Hosley]

We'll do it.

[David Sims]

Doctoring and lawyering and whatever like that.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the promise of the premise. You know, that's what's on the bottle here is like, we're going to make them fudgeing, upstanding citizens of society.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, right.

[AJ McKeon]

And it's just like they're just printing doctor, lawyer.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And you see them side eyeing Williams from the beginning, even before there's any demonstrable damage of what he's done.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Even before the Gail character has the act out or whatever. And there's anything they can sort of like reprimand Williams for. They're already like, this could be dangerous. You know, we don't need these kids, like, believing in themselves. That's not what they're paying us for.

[Ben Hosley]

I had that with my teacher, Mr. Rothwell, in middle school. He got into trouble because he wanted us to read Antigone and we were sixth graders.

[David Sims]

I think it's a little early for Antigone, dude.

[Ben Hosley]

Antigone.

[David Sims]

But, but my wife is Antigone.

[Ben Hosley]

What age?

[David Sims]

Like, I would say more like ninth grade.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah. Which, which, which, you know. Yes. Me, however, I'd read it because I'm a loser and I. But I was like, yeah, there's a lot of suicide in that. Very dark things. I think incest is an Antigone as

[David Sims]

well, you know, I mean, it's the. Antigone is the sequel to Oedipus.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so.

[Griffin Newman]

But in Oedipal complex, if you really think about it, that's my misread.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Griffin, sorry.

[Ben Hosley]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry.

[Ben Hosley]

No, I always forget, like, when I'm the presence of it, I'm always like, oh, of his.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just unstoppable.

[Ben Hosley]

Have I ever told you you're a bit boy?

[Griffin Newman]

You're not wrong.

[David Sims]

This is like when Kevin Durant went on Bill Simmons years ago and started talking about the blog. Boys, you're a bit boy.

[Griffin Newman]

You're gonna make a T shirt, boy, over here. I'm a nasty little bit boy.

[Ben Hosley]

I was. I was telling a friend of mine who's a bit boy. I was like, oh, you're such a bit boy. He's like, what's a bit boy? I'm like, you're a boy doing bits.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

You know, laser accuracy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Bits bit boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I love it for you, though, this and. But this is your world bit boy away.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, hey, the bits paid for all of this.

[David Sims]

You are sitting in a home a bit. Look upon.

[Griffin Newman]

Look at this. Look how many toys, figures paid for with bits.

[Ben Hosley]

I also.

[David Sims]

Sorry.

[Ben Hosley]

Because the monologue is like a long bit, but it's also like you are an actor. So it's like this. Like it's in a bit sort of middle space. Oh, excellent.

[Griffin Newman]

Jesus Christ. David did a bit at some point. I don't remember if it was off or if it was off. Mic. That's a really good question. It's kind of. That's become a bit of an Andy Kaufman thing where it's hard to tell where the bid ends. Is he still in control of it?

[Ben Hosley]

I don't know. It makes me. I'm so nervous. Oh, I forgot to call my friend.

[Griffin Newman]

So we're all just taking phone calls now.

[David Sims]

Sorry.

[Ben Hosley]

Excuse me. Hello? No?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. David, at some point a couple of years ago, didn't impression of his daughter being a teenager and being dismissive about the podcast and angrily saying, oh, those bits. You're making fun. They paid for all of this. They paid for your education.

[David Sims]

Disgusting.

[Ben Hosley]

It's disgusting.

[David Sims]

All my child costs covered by his bits.

[Griffin Newman]

My bits. Bits pay the bills.

[David Sims]

Let's talk more about Dead poet Society.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

What is that? Just kidding.

[AJ McKeon]

So he fucking rips out the page

[David Sims]

and then they pat.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. That's so upsetting.

[David Sims]

Principal Paddled Robin Williams.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, that's a different.

[David Sims]

My guess is they're leaving it downstairs. Don't worry, it's fine. I just ordered it because I know I'm gonna have to go pick up my daughter after this.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, should we talk about this, Griffin? I'm good. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Carpe diem does feel like it does not become A thing that anyone can say in any conversation and is understood without that movie. With this movie. Right. Like, it does feel like even if people don't. Don't know that it's from Dead Poet Society anymore.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, Griffin, it's Latin.

[David Sims]

It's Right. It's of course, from Horace's codes.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm saying, how many Latin phrases can you drop into any conversation without the need to translate?

[David Sims]

Carpe diem has always been in my life, and this movie came out when I was three. So. Yes. Maybe. Maybe it's even just like a.

[Griffin Newman]

A basic kind of like frat boy level. Like, carpe D. I'm like, the fact that you can just.

[David Sims]

Do you think it's funny that Robert Sean Leonard wants to be an actor? This school pages. This school doesn't have drama.

[Ben Hosley]

No.

[David Sims]

So it's like he doesn't get to do a school play. He has to do, like, local theater.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

No, it's the girls school.

[Griffin Newman]

It isn't the girl.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, so. So sometimes the. The schools will do.

[David Sims]

That is something. That is something.

[Ben Hosley]

I think that's when they meet all the girls at the dance.

[Griffin Newman]

From there, Laura Walters basically cut out of the film, but Laura Flamboyal is one of the actresses in the play. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, totally.

[David Sims]

He plays Puck. I played Puck.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, you have Puck energy.

[David Sims]

Thank you. Yeah, I'll take.

[Ben Hosley]

Was he grumpy Puck?

[AJ McKeon]

Huh?

[David Sims]

Was he a grumpy Puck? Yeah, me. What?

[Griffin Newman]

You just told all the characters to get along with it.

[David Sims]

Whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, yeah. Fucking girdle around the earth, 20 minutes.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you want to say? What do you want from me?

[Ben Hosley]

Wait, how old were you when you played Puck?

[David Sims]

I was like, 14, maybe. Yeah, 14 or 15.

[Ben Hosley]

Are you a good actor?

[David Sims]

No, no, very bad. I had a sparkly. I had this, like, sparkly.

[Griffin Newman]

Seems to lead cast of next feature.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You're gonna do.

[Ben Hosley]

No, it's not. Do me monologue.

[David Sims]

No, no. I'm a bad actor. I'm a bad actor. I like drama because I like theater and I like Shakespeare and I like. You know, like, I dug the class and all that.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I did letter.

[David Sims]

I did it entirely in school. But I just, you know, as Griffin knows, I sort of. I don't have a performance drive that engages enough or something. And I just kind of. I mean, I don't know. I think I wasn't like, blowing my lines. I think I was just kind of flat. It was just kind of. Whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

You have pretty severe stage anxiety, if not stage fright. But then I think we. When we were trying.

[David Sims]

I just don't like it.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, this is the bigger thing.

[David Sims]

I'm just saying I'm not like some people where, like, true people are, like, having a panic attack or throwing up before they get on a stage.

[Griffin Newman]

When we started doing live shows and we don't do them often and it felt. Felt like it was a little bit of an uphill battle to get you to do them. I felt like you had more acute anxiety leading up to the first couple. And then there was the moment where Ben and I were like, he's going to get out there and realize, like, the audience will be happy whatever he says, and he's going to get the bug. And I remember you walking off stage one time and being like, yeah, I just feel nothing.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it doesn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I feel a relief of the anxiety I had before. But, like, I guess I don't have the.

[David Sims]

And the thing is, I don't have sickness because it's like. It's a sickness to want to do, like, open mics. Right. Because it's like you're punishing. Sure is. Because you're going in front of these people who are hostile.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

And being like, hey, so here's what's up with my broken.

[Griffin Newman]

If you need that. I see that as a broken person.

[Ben Hosley]

I saw Interview dressed up as Watto.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And I. And I. And it just really. Because I think as. As listeners know, my first impression of Griffin is and David are trivia monsters because they're so good and we never would win. And the second is as just like a comedian doing VH1 bits.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right, right.

[Ben Hosley]

So to see you dressed as Watto, I was like, oh, this is his true form. It is, yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I just. Yeah. Sort of like.

[Griffin Newman]

But it speaks to that exact. What is broken inside me that I have to put on a Watto costume.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Multiple times.

[David Sims]

I like whatever. Rush I should be visceral Rush I should be getting from performing. I think I'm not getting it. That would drive me to want to do it. Ben, what are you going to do?

[AJ McKeon]

We just got to though say that you are really great.

[David Sims]

It's very nice of you. I think I'm totally fine forming in front of fans of Blank Check, who are obviously a warm audience, but.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but you. You do come alive doing it. And then you just walk off and you're like, huh. So you. You guys, like, love doing that.

[David Sims]

I'm not dismissive at all, to be clear. I don't want it to sound like I am.

[AJ McKeon]

We always get feedback where people are like, david's so great.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[AJ McKeon]

He's so good live.

[Ben Hosley]

But. But that's. That means your mental hygiene must be really good. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the most normal man alive.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like, wait a second. There's plenty wrong up here. It is. Let me open my fifth spreadsheet. That's where it's all.

[Ben Hosley]

I love.

[Griffin Newman]

It is another, like, I just think, like, masterfully realized and judge sequences in this movie is Robert Sean Leonard after the play backstage. And just a series of, like, very kind of understated moments of just that feeling of, oh, my God, I found my thing.

[David Sims]

He's.

[Griffin Newman]

And that is played out entirely on this kid's face.

[David Sims]

He's really good before, too, when he's nervous and he knows his dad's out there and you can see him, like, again just on his face, like, should I just not do this? You know?

[Griffin Newman]

And you also hope that it's like the dad's gonna come up to him and be like, I was wrong, son. Well, you out there.

[David Sims]

I want to put my foot in your critic's ass.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Sister. Act two, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like. You think. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You. You want it to be a School of Rock moment where they're all like, we were wrong. We get it. You have to do this.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And, yeah. The fact that he has this sort of, like, private moment backstage, not even with the rest of the cast who are all complimenting him, but then he, like, goes into the blind spot behind the curtain and just kind of like takes a burst.

[Ben Hosley]

Brethren.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's just like, you're like, this guy feels complete for the first time in his entire life. And he knew it from the moment he auditioned that there was something there.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But having completed it so successfully, I'm thinking also maybe.

[Ben Hosley]

Maybe my dad's. I'm showing my dad. And now he's seen me.

[Griffin Newman]

He's in that one moment of maybe.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Because then he has. But then his. Because then he's like, oh, your dad's one, like, is back there. And he has a moment where he's like, maybe. Oh, he comes around.

[Griffin Newman]

He comes around the curtain and he looks. And his dad is still just standing against the back wall. And the audience is basically emptied. And it's like, oh, my God, he's here.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He stayed through it. He's waiting to talk to me.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Isn't. Correct me if I'm wrong because I've only seen the movie once in the last 25 years or whatever. It's like Kurt Wood, Smith's character. It's like they're not old money like some of these kids. He's successful. He's like a doctor or something. He grew up.

[Griffin Newman]

And so he has a little bit

[David Sims]

of the kind of like, you cannot be fucking around.

[Griffin Newman]

He keeps saying, we don't have the kind of money. Yeah, Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, the suicide. Do Whatever I Want is like. I mean, it's very, like, tastefully done by Weir or whatever. But the mom saying he's okay is like, very upsetting.

[Ben Hosley]

The whole thing is awful.

[Griffin Newman]

And Cord Smith's response at the same time. Right.

[David Sims]

It's. I don't. That he kills himself because I don't think he should have done that. No. It just feels like you cast judgment. I don't quite. I just don't know if the movie earns it entirely.

[Ben Hosley]

I, I, I, I had a similar feeling and.

[David Sims]

But yeah, it's like, why did he do it? His dad wouldn't let him act. I'm just like, I don't think we got there, guys.

[Ben Hosley]

You know?

[David Sims]

And it more feels like the movie just had to have an ending that was sad.

[Ben Hosley]

It's.

[David Sims]

And then I was, I just wanted

[Ben Hosley]

more because I think part of. And I understand we're telling Wilson not to do like the whole. Not to, to lead up to the, to the suicide. Not to have that.

[David Sims]

Don't play that over your head. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I think I needed. And, and also, to be be fair, like, you know, I mean, I went to NYU. Did you go to my U2?

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't. I dropped out of CalArts.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. Beautiful.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Went to NYU. And like, when I was there, someone killed themselves and boast in the library because you could. Oh. Before you could jump over them into the lobby.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of infamous.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And several people had done that.

[Griffin Newman]

And yes.

[Ben Hosley]

You know, and you know. So of course people. No, but the way people have talked about them was like, was like. Oh, they seem like I'd never expected. But I think in the context of the film, obviously the point is emotional legibility. Unless you're making Hedda Gobbler and, and it's like, if you're making, you know,

[David Sims]

Ipsy, someone's gonna fucking do something.

[Ben Hosley]

Everyone needs to die. But, but, you know, I, I just felt like it didn't. The math wasn't completely mathing for me.

[Griffin Newman]

I think.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I, in rewatching it, thought I was going to reject it. Feeling like too much of a push. No, narratively, it went down more smoothly. I bought it more than I Was expecting to.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's mostly because it's so well done. Again, it's mostly because, like, everything in the season's kind of dreamlike.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And I think by giving it that space and making it largely wordless and making it feel kind of like weirdly magical. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

There. There is this sense of. And, And I think it's what you're talking about with like, how many college suicides there are and even like at places like this, at boarding schools like this.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I think these places that are this like, high pressure concentration of energy about your future. We are preparing you for your future.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

We are trying to break you down to be able to accomplish great things. It's a very, like, combustible kind of potion they're. They're brewing of like you're making people think so much, much about the pressure of this moment as a fulcrum point, as in a series of fulcrum points to be able to unlock the future you want or not. And is it the future you want or is it the future you were told you need to pursue or whatever it is. Right. And I think you do get young people under tremendous amount of pressure who just like break on a bad night.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Not it being the end result of years of suicidal ideation, but this feeling of, you know, I think it is. There is a narrative convenience to it just. Just by a little bit. But I think what it sells fairly well that I just buy enough is that like the high high and the low low so close together.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's like messing.

[Griffin Newman]

Finding this moment.

[David Sims]

Teenage calibration. Exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

And his dad's like, we're going to go to here. And that it's like a man cycle

[Griffin Newman]

of just like, I have just found myself for one solitary moment. I'm immediately told that door is closed. It is impossible. Possible. And in that moment, it's. You know, what you hear about a lot with teen suicide is just like, you wish you could tell them that, like, you will get past this. Right. That this is like a bad night. That this is not the response.

[Ben Hosley]

Keating says, well, you're turn 18. You can do whatever you want.

[Griffin Newman]

Totally.

[Ben Hosley]

And so. And I think that was the one line for me where I was like, oh. Because again, like, not like almost like forgetting what was coming. Like, oh, yeah, he'll do that, but

[Griffin Newman]

he's fighting so hard. You don't know my dad. You don't understand. You understand. Keating's like, no, truly, trust me, trust me. Just say it. He'll see it. And when he's been told that he wants to believe that he feels such a sense of euphoria from the performance. And then his dad comes down.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

So.

[David Sims]

So that's the thing that makes sense

[Griffin Newman]

and in a way that's not even vindictive as much as just like, this is fucking reality. We can't afford this. We don't have generational wealth. You need to keep this up. There are no other choices.

[Ben Hosley]

The house is too big for him to be going on like, that place.

[Griffin Newman]

But I agree.

[Ben Hosley]

That's the thing that also is a little bit confusing for the dads to where I'm like. Because my dad's sinister is similar. We haven't spoken in many years, but it's like, the logic is less about, like, it's all about his trauma.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

And his inability to feel.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the whole thing.

[Ben Hosley]

And. And I think the moment where he. He talks to his mom, and his mom's like, sowie. You're just like, oh. Like, he. He just really feels alone.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Kurtwood Smith's like, I had it rough, and this is what I had to do to become successful. And the proper way for me to parent you is to do that as well. Ra. Like, I went through that to be able to give you a better, more supportive life. Yeah, Right. Where you do have options and autonomy. I also think it's such a good choice that, like, Kwood Smith has his, like, sort of, like, complete immediate breakdown at, like, my son. My son, my son. And then his wife comes in and is in absolute denial at it. And he starts yelling at her. Yeah, right. He lashes out at her. And anger. He shows genuine vulnerability.

[David Sims]

But it's a very, very honest moment.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. There's genuine vulnerability and guilt when he sees his son's body. And then when his wife comes in and starts reacting emotionally, he's. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah. Like, it's that guy.

[Ben Hosley]

It's control.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like, he does not have the emotional freedom to be able to really help any of the people in his life, even at his absolute lowest moment. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I love the. The way because I. You know, you always think with, like, suicide scenes, like, okay, then he finds a gun. Then gonna be, boom. You hear the gunshot. And the fact that there's no gunshot

[David Sims]

instead of just the dad waking up.

[Griffin Newman]

Another excellent.

[Ben Hosley]

And then he walks around.

[David Sims]

That's what every nose just to pull back, like, you know? And that's why this movie works. Yeah, I agree.

[Ben Hosley]

Are you coming around, too?

[David Sims]

I. Look, this is. I gave it three stars. On letterbox, it's how. And that was the rating. I had it like. I was just like, this is a movie that totally works for me.

[Griffin Newman]

I just think it kind of undeniably works.

[Ben Hosley]

David?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul.

[David Sims]

They do say that.

[Griffin Newman]

What does that make our glasses?

[David Sims]

The windows?

[Griffin Newman]

The window frames?

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

The curtains.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the curtains.

[Griffin Newman]

The point is, if you are a glasses wearer like I am, or like our own producer Ben, is true, it's a big decision.

[AJ McKeon]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. This is how you engage with other people. You make eye contact through the frames. Sometimes it's just time for a refresh.

[David Sims]

Totally agree. All right, well, so what about Zenny Optical?

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, Zenny Glasses.

[Griffin Newman]

Glasses, the eyewear. They got fun shapes, sizes and colors. They got a lot of colors, right? Statement pieces, bold statement pieces they call them.

[David Sims]

And they're inexpensive.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say they're an online eyewear shop with prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, all starting at under $30.

[David Sims]

That's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

That is very low.

[David Sims]

I feel like glasses often cost more than $30.

[Griffin Newman]

Way more.

[David Sims]

But you go to Zenny.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, they ship it to your door. No appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter.

[Griffin Newman]

Easy.

[David Sims]

At that price, something kind of shifts. You're not like, do I need new glasses? You're like, why don't I try something fun? Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Sometimes you got an old pair, they got a scratch on them. Them. It's annoying, but you're like, am I gonna go through the hassle or the screws start to get loose and you find yourself taking out that microscopic little screwdriver over and over again to tighten them up. At this price, why not just get another pair? Ben, I ordered a pair of the Magoo. I think this is funny.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

We all know from Mr. Magoo, the cartoon character who can't see. And Zenny is saying, let's solve that problem. Let's give you guys glasses called Magoo. They're blue and green, two of my favorite colors. A nice boxy frame.

[AJ McKeon]

I also ordered a pair. I got crystal sand oval sunglasses, very reminiscent of a Kurt Cobain esque looking pair of sunglasses that I feel like you also wore in the film Pavements.

[Griffin Newman]

Very similar. Yes, yes.

[David Sims]

When I played Steve west, someone inspired by you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[AJ McKeon]

And I got these great sun sunglasses. They're sort of clear frames with a greenish tinted lens.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm wearing the Magoo as just everyday optical Prescription glasses. And let me say, I'm having the opposite of Mr. Magoo experiences. I'm seeing everything clearly. I'm walking the right direction. You don't see me accidentally up on some steel beams.

[David Sims]

Exactly. They've got 150,000 five star reviews.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And if you've never run glasses online before, they have a virtual trailer try on so you can see how it's going to look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now's the time. Go to zenni.com podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order. The style sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I.com podcast promo code PODCAST15.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, can we have a letterbox moment, please? Okay, so I don't want to say this.

[Griffin Newman]

We can always cut it out.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. I have a secret letter box.

[David Sims]

Hell, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I just started it because Max Mihella was like, you need to do it. It's at. I'm not telling anyone. No, no, no. I'm not letting any of my friends know because then people might find the clues and, you know, it's stressful. But I have this experience where I rated a film two stars, but then I also put boop, like it. Have you done this?

[David Sims]

I think that is. I think that is a very, like, good way to think about letter because people get very tied up on letterboxdog. Well, what should my rating scale be? Or do I just not do ratings and I just do hearts and I'm like, two stars and a, like, that's a kind of movie that, like.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, that alarms.

[David Sims]

You know what I mean?

[Ben Hosley]

Deep Blue Sea is probably a two star. And I like, perfect example.

[Griffin Newman]

Our friend Ben David cannot defend a

[David Sims]

second of that move. Our friend David. David Ginsky, he goes, five stars or nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, well, I basically do that. I now only does that, too. 5. Or if I really think of things, stinky poo poo and I want to make a statement with a 1. And that's usually I'm like, this movie is like cynical. Like end of culture.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But I used to do more stirrings. Now I'm just like. I give it five stars. If I'm like, I'm officially ready to say, I think this is a perfect masterpiece. Officially. What the fuck am I talking about? But otherwise, it's a. It's a binary, like, like heart or no heart.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm just like. And it used to be like, heart means I Love it. Now I'm like, heart means I like it.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

If I'm like, positive.

[David Sims]

Positive. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I think we have to step. I think especially with like, review aggregators, which are so upsetting it. I just feel like ratings mean less and less. Like, reviews are so much more interesting

[David Sims]

than like, I don't give grades as a critic because the Atlantic doesn't do that. If I worked somewhere else, like, that did that, I guess. But the people don't really do that much anymore.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, no, because it is bit weird to be like to.

[David Sims]

But I love my litter box star ratings and I love how mad they make people. Not famous people or important people, but weird nerds who are like, well, he gave three stars to this. And then, you know, I also see

[Griffin Newman]

that he reviewed it again, went down half a star.

[Ben Hosley]

Listen, it can't be as mad as David Ehrlich's reviews makes people because that is the. Like, he cracks me up.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know what's so funny is that people get so mad and they're like, this guy sucks. His opinions suck. And then when he swings in and is like, one battle after another, five stars. People are like, we're cooking. We're so back early.

[Ben Hosley]

Likes it like hamnet.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but he likes the movie you're excited about. Yeah, suddenly. But if he doesn't means a lot,

[David Sims]

the weird thing that they'll do with him is they're like, well, he didn't like it. That means I'll like it immediate like another movie income, right?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I have a reviewer that's like that for me, where I'm like, I love the reviews, but I name name. Can you bleep it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, of course.

[David Sims]

Oh, yes, he's the best example.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes. I love his reviews, but like, great writer. He rated Sleep this movie as well, really highly. And I was like, that's one of the worst films I've seen. And I would say that.

[David Sims]

Well, I can't talk about this.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But here's.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's like a very specific example to you, right? I'd never seen the Annabelle movies. I'm like, I should fucking watch the Annabelle movies. The first Annabelle movie.

[David Sims]

I saw you logging it. The first one.

[Griffin Newman]

Such absolute dog. It is astonishing how bad it is. Right? Then the second one is like one of the best.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, that's one set in the past, right?

[David Sims]

It's.

[Ben Hosley]

It's very good.

[David Sims]

The one with Anthony Lalia.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And I was just sort of like, oh, this one's like resetting the table and just ignoring the first one. And then the last 20 minutes, it finds a way to tie back into everything that was bad in the first one, but make it good retroactively.

[David Sims]

It's a very solid movie.

[Griffin Newman]

And I was like, holy heart.

[Ben Hosley]

Isn't that the best kind of surprise when you. It's like when I watched the Conjuring for the first time, I was like,

[Griffin Newman]

you know, who rules?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Good director.

[Griffin Newman]

So I watched. Watch. I watch that Annabelle.

[David Sims]

Creation.

[Griffin Newman]

Creation. Then I go see your movie, Hedda. Right? And then I'm like, yeah, loved it. Heart. And then I go home, and I'm like, time for Annabelle. And I watch Annabelle come home, and I'm like, yeah, pretty good heart. And then I'm, like, looking at it, and I'm like, does this look weirdly?

[David Sims]

I don't think I've seen her come home.

[Ben Hosley]

Me either.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's quite good.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, I want to watch that.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm like, here are, like, two junkie horror sequels that I'm giving hearts in a sandwich around a movie that our friend made.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Am I, like, rude to head or devaluing that?

[David Sims]

Whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

My answer is. I watched three Annabelle movies. I now have a sliding scale of Annabelle movies. And I'm like, two of these are good at the assignment of making Annabelle.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And because the first one is so bad, I'm, like, giving the other two positive reviews also.

[Ben Hosley]

Annabelle and Hatta are both two women who are in a world that has boxed them in. Annabelle is literally an adult sitting in chairs, causing chaos. Exactly. Sitting in chairs in beautiful dresses causing chaos. I get it.

[David Sims]

That the real Annabelle is just a raggedy.

[Ben Hosley]

Do you know this?

[Griffin Newman]

The real Annabelle?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Straight up. Yeah.

[David Sims]

The guy who died.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then they were like, we found out the cause of death. Cardiac event. And I'm like, annabelle event is what that was.

[Griffin Newman]

Cotton in his mouth.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

I should have been touching that doll Stitched off, dude.

[Ben Hosley]

The whole thing is so. And Matt R. Bought the.

[Griffin Newman]

Matt R. Bought the Warren house. Matt R. Owns Annabelle now.

[David Sims]

I hope Annabelle. You know,

[Griffin Newman]

wars of the Annabelle house. Anyway, I think both of the Annabelle sequels are good.

[David Sims]

Fair enough.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I haven't seen Annabelle come home, and I haven't seen the Curse of.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm halfway through that.

[Ben Hosley]

I watched that on a plan once.

[David Sims]

I always mess up the pronunciation.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's what Annabelle comes home does. That is smart.

[David Sims]

Here's what Annabelle comes home. That's so smart. He says, as we get ready to wrap up on Dead Poets.

[Griffin Newman]

Patrick Wilson are back in it as the Warrens, but they're only at the beginning and the end.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And the movie is basically their young daughter who's McKenna Grace. It's her birthday and they're like, oh, but we got called in to do some demonic thing. We're sorry we're missing your birthday. We have a babysitter who's gonna watch you. And teen girl watching McKenna Grace, who's starting to get the feelings and is like struggling with being seen as like the creepy girl. Right. Invites her friend over to help babysit with her. And her friend is like, oh, the house with all the creepy shit. And she starts fucking with stuff. And then the movie basically like a haunted house movie set in the Warren house when they're not there.

[Ben Hosley]

And then we get Vera sometimes being like something's happening.

[Griffin Newman]

Very beginning, very end. The superstructure of the movie is basically, what if two teenagers are stuck in the Warren house without them there?

[David Sims]

What's this bowling ball? And it's like, no, that bowling ball killed eight people in Delaware.

[Griffin Newman]

Because the problem with Annabelle is Annabelle doesn't come to life. She doesn't move. She sits in a chair. And then bad shit happens. It's crazy.

[David Sims]

They made three Annabelle movies without clearly

[Griffin Newman]

knew there was not a third movie worth of Annabelle spell. So they were like, put her back in the house and then everything in the house can go wrong.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's smart, I guess.

[David Sims]

I haven't seen the nun 2.

[Griffin Newman]

The nuns are my next. I'd never watched any of the spin offs. Yeah. I was a man.

[Ben Hosley]

The Conjuring. Nothing has met the Conjuring. I agree where it is. The Conjuring to me is like one of the best horror films that have come out. So good.

[Griffin Newman]

I wish Juan had come back and done three.

[Ben Hosley]

He's so good.

[Griffin Newman]

He's so good.

[David Sims]

You mean done before?

[Griffin Newman]

Well, both. But it felt like they didn't make three for so long and started making all the spin offs were like, he's really busy and he wants to come back eventually. And then it was like, he's never coming back.

[Ben Hosley]

Is it?

[David Sims]

Cuz he was doing Aquaman and he did Malignant. I mean, I love that he rocks.

[Ben Hosley]

I. Yeah. I had so many emotions watching that film.

[Griffin Newman]

I love that movie, that picture. Yeah.

[David Sims]

So he Carpe dm.

[Griffin Newman]

He ripped the pages out.

[AJ McKeon]

What are some other moments that we like?

[David Sims]

I like when they.

[AJ McKeon]

They kick the ball and they have to quote lines of poetry. I think that's really fun.

[Ben Hosley]

I like the character, the yop scene where the camera's spinning around them and I was like, this is such a great way to just like the energy of. It's so good. I love when Ethan Hawke has to say one sentence and that's his entire plot. Someone said to me before I started watching it, they were like, yeah, it's interesting because basically Ethan Hawke's the lead of the film. And I watch it and I was like, he's not. He's not less than Robin.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's important.

[Ben Hosley]

He's offline.

[Griffin Newman]

He's kind of the passive POV character.

[David Sims]

I think it's crucial that in the end he's the one saying to him like, they made a sign that like, you know, he's like the silent Castro captain.

[Griffin Newman]

You're just kind of pinning throughout the whole movie and then he doesn't really come alive until the end.

[David Sims]

We're kind of like referenced. Do you think Keating's getting out the door for his next next.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, he's going back to England where they don't have Internet so they don't do a paddling.

[Griffin Newman]

I know we made jokes, but can we talk about the Josh Charles thing a little bit? Because as you said, each of the kids has like a thing. They need to self actualize it, like, really does not play well today. I'm not even saying this with like modern, like, you know, politics. You're just like. It is kind of just like such a creepy mo construction. It is also what our friend Chris Gether calls an ultimate. But I like her plot.

[David Sims]

Powers is the actress who's very pretty, Chris.

[Griffin Newman]

And has become a Scientologist.

[David Sims]

Oh, is that right?

[Griffin Newman]

Her Wikipedia is just like. And then in 2010, she figured it out by becoming a Scientologist.

[Ben Hosley]

I did see this.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

It has a section of like. And then everything got figured out.

[Ben Hosley]

Listen, life's hard, man. You gotta. Sometimes you gotta just.

[Griffin Newman]

You gotta carpet the deal.

[Ben Hosley]

Need something to help you shoulder the weight of the meaningless universe.

[Griffin Newman]

But Gethard's point was basically, for decades, many, many movies could get away with. If a nice boy cares really deeply, his crush is very genuine.

[David Sims]

Right. He's not threatening, just Charles.

[Griffin Newman]

But I like her. You just stay with it until she finally gives in.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And is like rewarded for it.

[Ben Hosley]

So upsetting.

[David Sims]

And then the story just kind of drops.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, I think he's good in this. And he's sweet and he's charming and you're like. The behavior is so bizarre. He's selling it in a way where you're like, not. You're almost falling for it. But she like answers a door and he's like, that is the love of my life. And people are like, okay, can you go off?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And then he's just like, truly, I'm not giving up on this. And they're like, she's got a boyfriend. She's setting boundaries.

[Ben Hosley]

She said, no, thank you. She said, don't come to my school.

[Griffin Newman]

And she's like, yeah. She said, no, thank you for now.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

This Character. Character in SWAT was called what? TJ McCabe.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool.

[Ben Hosley]

That's great.

[AJ McKeon]

High school parties are. They have that specific thing where people make out just publicly in front of everyone.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[AJ McKeon]

And that only kind of, I feel like, lasts for a little by college.

[David Sims]

It's like, get a room.

[AJ McKeon]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

It is just so funny to me that the construction of these types of plot lines is so often. Oh, sweet, sensitive, nice boy. Self insert for screenwriter has crush on beautiful, unattainable girl who is dating like meathead.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Sort of like emotionally unbalanced jock. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Is this something that is common in life of the. In the time period?

[Griffin Newman]

It's just like.

[Ben Hosley]

That's so many stories.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it is the way that the. A certain type of person who is very prone to becoming a screenwriter likes to reframe their experiences.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm not being liked.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

She's trapped by that hot girl.

[Griffin Newman]

Or make the kind of revisionist history of like. And this is how I wish it had turned out.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But it is always kind of hinging on this moment. Moment of the guy lashes out and beats the shit out of the nice boy. And that's the moment that makes her wake up from his spell. Right. And then has to sort of like Florence Nightingale tend to him and be like, yeah, he's so awful. I can't believe I didn't see it.

[Ben Hosley]

No one in movies can ever put a bandit on by themselves.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It is so crazy that the version of that that happens in this movie is a moment where Josh Charles is empirically in the wrong.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

That the thing that makes the guy punch him in the face is actually valid. He's pass on a couch and he's stroking her face and kissing her forehead. Where I'm like, even if I. There was no background. If this is their first time seeing this guy, it'd be like, who the Pull him up.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. She's also like, yes. She wakes up and is freaked out. And he's just like, but, but, but I like you. What if you come see a play with me?

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

And she's like, I guess I'm going to see the play. You're like, it's very. But no one has really, really significant. Nawanda again. My baby girl. Love, love, Noanda. He's the one who I, I'm most impressed by. And then he disappears because he gets.

[David Sims]

It's, it's interesting because he's right. He's the defiant one who's like, we gotta do all this and we gotta have depot society and all that.

[Griffin Newman]

That Robin moment is good too. When he comes back in, he's like expecting to get like, applause.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's just like, no, dumb, dumb. Don't get kicked out. Like, then all of this was for nothing.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly. Use your privilege.

[David Sims]

Noanda is the one who gets. His name's Charlie. I'm sorry. Is the one gets paddled. And I do think the paddling scene is good because it's so ineffectual and yet also horrible. Like, it's like on the one hand, this kid's getting beaten by his teacher. Institutional. The other hand, it's just so weird. It's just like this grown kid, like across the knees of an old man who's got this like, it's just also

[Ben Hosley]

watching him to see how painful. Painful it is. Just like it's dark.

[Griffin Newman]

But I also think it's good character construction for Keating. That he's just like, no, I'm not telling you to just like everything up. Like, I still want you to learn.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

If you get kicked out of this school, no one's benefiting and I'll get fired. You know? And it's the part of him that you could see so quickly blaming himself at least partially for the, the suicide. Because it's like I'm trying to push them just up to the line without breaking them. Yeah, look, the, the end is Captain, My Captain. It pays out like a slobbery.

[David Sims]

I, I teared up.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Couldn't believe it.

[Griffin Newman]

It is just incredibly effective.

[David Sims]

Shout out wall man.

[Ben Hosley]

So good.

[David Sims]

Walt Whitman.

[Ben Hosley]

The best Whitman.

[David Sims]

Of course. Captain My Captain is actually about Abraham Lincoln. As, as Keing says in the movie.

[Ben Hosley]

I have that in the Marvel movie that I made. Oh, Captain, my Captain. I forgot this moment. Well, unless you caught it.

[David Sims]

But did you not go to.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I, I, I just miss Marvel.

[Ben Hosley]

Marvel. Yeah. She's like, she's like zooming around like killing all these cre. In these ships. And then she goes, oh, Captain, my Captain. And then, and then we whip pan over to Monica and she's like, are you good, girl? Like you're crazy. Yeah, it was, it was funny, but we had A whole.

[Griffin Newman]

Anyway, you had a scene where all the.

[Ben Hosley]

All the Cree. Got up on a chair.

[Griffin Newman]

I was. That was the joke. I was going to make the cre. Get on.

[Ben Hosley]

Stole the bit from the.

[Griffin Newman]

Get on their desk. Yeah. Hey, have fun with that bit.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you so much.

[Griffin Newman]

It's yours. That's your take home.

[David Sims]

People forget this film won Best Picture at the British the Baptist.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It also won best Foreign film.

[David Sims]

The Caesars and the Italian Donatello.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Like, this was kind of the most respected American film in Europe.

[Ben Hosley]

You think it's because of the suicide Partially. Yeah. Come on.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's also because it's like a movie about, like, the power of poetry. It's a. It's a very romantic film about culture.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[David Sims]

Lose Best Picture too.

[Ben Hosley]

Griffin, what year was this?

[David Sims]

1989.

[Griffin Newman]

So this is the year after Rain Man. It loses Best Picture to Dances With Wolves.

[David Sims]

Nope, that's the year after.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, that's what that was. My guess.

[Griffin Newman]

What's the thing in between?

[David Sims]

It's not the most memorable best Picture winner.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. Oh, it is. You've watched them all. I have not to date. It is the worst Best Picture winner I have seen.

[David Sims]

Oh. It's not even close to the worst I've seen, but it's not very good.

[Griffin Newman]

Try Miss Daisy.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like was confounded by watching it for the first time last year.

[David Sims]

Really?

[Griffin Newman]

I just think that movie. I haven't.

[Ben Hosley]

Nothing.

[David Sims]

It's not much. It's not nothing. It's fine.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's nothing. I was expected to be more, like, outraged by it while also being. I have it seven like a manipulative. And I was just like. Like, this movie is like just a. It just feels so slight to me.

[David Sims]

It's pretty slight.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, this is my stage play, my crazy take. Green Book is better than Driving Mistakes.

[David Sims]

I have Dream Book 1 above Driving Mysti on the best Picture list.

[Ben Hosley]

So crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, driving is not very good. It's the year that born on the 4th of July is sort of the front runner and wins Best Director. And then Driving with Stacy, I guess is the little movie that could for

[Griffin Newman]

whatever reason, but is also obviously forever. The year that is defined by not nominating do the Right Thing.

[David Sims]

Do the Right Thing is. Is obviously resigned to supporting actor and screenplay, but it's also. It's like three of the other nominees are My Left Foot Inspirational True Story Drama, Dead Poet Society Inspirational Quasi True Story drama, and then Field of Dreams made up inspirational.

[Ben Hosley]

Wait, Field of Dreams is an Oscar Nominated.

[David Sims]

Don't you come in my house and come at Field of Dreams after defending Deadboat Society, which is treacle.

[Ben Hosley]

You know. You know what it is? I think I saw that movie at a time where a lot of those baseball men in cornfield movies were out.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Or at least the. The collection of. Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And so they all sort of are the same in my head because I've not seen them since the 90s.

[David Sims]

Field of Dreams is.

[Ben Hosley]

Is it amazing? It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's pretty. It's one of those movies that you're just like, this should not.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like Bull Durham. I'm kidding.

[David Sims]

The flip side, which is like, baseball is fucking horny. And we're all just here.

[Griffin Newman]

Bull Durham's just like, straight up. The best movie.

[David Sims]

Field of is just like, I miss my dad. I think I need to build a cornfield to summon the ghosts of the Chicago Black Sox.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I thought is like ratatouille. You, like, lay out the plot. You're like, are you insane?

[Ben Hosley]

What do you mean? But it's.

[David Sims]

It's about like the sort of the. The boomer dream, like, coming. You know, where the boomers are like, what? What? I'm grown up now. What the.

[AJ McKeon]

You know, we're forgetting another inspiring film. Of course. Major League one and two.

[David Sims]

Very inspiring. Let's go thing.

[Ben Hosley]

I love. I love the one and two of it. All you learn.

[AJ McKeon]

Let's have some fun, play baseball.

[David Sims]

Those are great movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Williams loses to Daniel Day Lewis.

[David Sims]

Williams was Daniel Day Lewis supporting. Well, there's no nominees for support.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, but I'm saying I. I love rewatching the Siskel Neighbor Oscar specials. And it's a big thing that whole season where they're just like. And by the way, it is insane category fraud that Robin Williams is in. They were just banging that drum. Who won?

[Ben Hosley]

Who won Best supporting that year?

[David Sims]

Denzel Washington won best supporting Actor for Glory.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so he wasn't going to beat Denzel, actually.

[David Sims]

Wait, who was it? Oh, Robin.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I was. I want to do the mental exercise.

[David Sims]

You've also got Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is an incredible.

[Ben Hosley]

It wouldn't have mattered.

[David Sims]

They wanted Danny Aiello and Do the Right Thing, which is.

[Griffin Newman]

Just wanted to do the mental exercise.

[David Sims]

No, it is a lead performance in that same way as Hannibal Lecter, where energetically it is spiritually in the entire movie. He is the focus of the movie in this weird way. It's like. It's not a supporting performance. That's Nonsense.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's performance. I think Lecter. I agree with you. Elector being who.

[Ben Hosley]

Who would be the lead of the movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Robert? In my opinion. No. David made the Stinky poopoo.

[David Sims]

No. And Brenda Fricker won best supporting actress for My Left Foot, which is a lovely performance and she's a wonderful actress.

[Griffin Newman]

And Tandy wins actress.

[David Sims]

It's an odd. You know. And Jessica Tandy course wins. Was actress. This dead society filled with ladies lead roles. No. I mean, there was. But Dead Poet society does win best writing screenplay written directly for the screen. Over. Take a listen to this.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so listen to who the right thing.

[David Sims]

Listen to me. Crimes and Misdemeanors. Woody Allen.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Say what you will. One of his best.

[Griffin Newman]

Perhaps his best.

[David Sims]

Do the right Things by Spike Lee. Sex, lies and videotaped by Steven Soderbergh. And When Harry Met Sally by. By far the worst nomination.

[Ben Hosley]

I hate the movie now too. It's a piece of.

[Griffin Newman]

I get your ire at the screenplay.

[David Sims]

It is bananas.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Any of those wins would be great.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, Woody Allen would be kind of like, he has enough Oscars that. But I mean, Spike Lee, Stevens, Hunter. Ignore it. It's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

That is crazy.

[Ben Hosley]

And obviously that's the thing.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I think at the time it's sort of like, oh, well, they're all up and coming. But guess who else was up and coming? The In a duffel bag. It's like up and came to nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

It ends up being like, right, okay, easy, easy. The anointment is almost like a death sentence for Shulman. Whereas everyone else.

[David Sims]

I mean, obviously he had a. He had a totally solid Hollywood career, but it's just nuts to look at that list. Just like, what?

[Ben Hosley]

That is crazy.

[David Sims]

And it is. 89 Oscars is the most like gas leak Oscars. Because they're like, no. I think I feel the drive of this thing, you know, like they're watching cinema change around them and they're like,

[Ben Hosley]

no, no, no, no.

[Griffin Newman]

Let me hold this close.

[Ben Hosley]

Who directed Riding Miss Daisy?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Bruce Barris. Bruce Barris for directing. And it was infamously at the time, one of the only examples of a movie winning best Picture without a best director nomination.

[David Sims]

Bruce Bearsford. Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

To the like, even the attitude of that movie at the time.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's sort of like he was a good director. Breaker Morant's a great movie. Tender Mercies is an amazing movie. Crimes of the Heart is. I like his pre.

[Griffin Newman]

Driving the stage.

[Ben Hosley]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

And then he kind of. Kind of became more of like A Hollywood hack in the 90s.

[Griffin Newman]

Mr. Church is like one of the worst things I've ever seen.

[David Sims]

Double dude Jeopardy.

[Griffin Newman]

He directed.

[Ben Hosley]

Not bad. Yeah. Is that one of the Ashley Judds? Double Jeopardy. Love the Ashley judds of the 90s.

[David Sims]

If you were Ashley Judd in the

[Ben Hosley]

90s, your husband's always trying to kill you. Yeah, girl. Good luck.

[David Sims]

You're the star of the movie, but you better not. You're fucking swivel. This film came out 6-9-1989 in somewhat limited release. 600 screens. So it's opening at number three, $7.5 million, which is an amazing per screen average.

[Griffin Newman]

680 screens and it ends up at like 101 domestically.

[David Sims]

It made domestically. Come on. The numbers. 95. And worldwide, 239. It was I think worldwide it was the fifth biggest movie of the year.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Crazy.

[David Sims]

And it is crazy that came out in summer because this is like the most fall wintery movie. But it ran and ran.

[Griffin Newman]

The true dominancy of 90s Robin Williams is. You have these like huge hits that are like. Of course that's what Robin Williams does. Like Aladdin and like Doubtfire and Birdcage Age.

[Ben Hosley]

Is Jack Black the heir to Robin Williams right now? It's a fair in the sense of like. I mean I watched a Minecraft movie on. On the plane and I feel like I read on the. The thing that you hate that movie so much with a deep passion or. Did you like it? What? Yeah.

[David Sims]

I did not. I did not like it.

[Griffin Newman]

I kind of enjoyed that.

[David Sims]

I found it very great.

[Ben Hosley]

For the plane. Yeah, the plane was louder. So I, I also, I. I think

[David Sims]

Jack Black is one of those guys where it's like even the sort of silliest is nothing. He's.

[Griffin Newman]

He really has been talking about that.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Minecraft does feel like the moment where you're like, it is undeniable. He is the greatest family comedy star of all time. Yeah, he certainly is the most dominant of all time where you're basically like from the school of rock and.

[David Sims]

But Robin Williams is a good comp in terms of that kind of like family star who made tons of money, I think.

[Ben Hosley]

I guess he doesn't have the drama.

[David Sims]

Not as much. He's done some.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I think what happened with Jackson. Jack Black is obviously like cool, edgy comedy guy. Right. Then like makes surprising like crossover success into family comedy star. Surprising in a way that retroactively makes perfect sense. Right. And then he's like does some things like Margot at the wedding where he's like trying to stretch himself the holiday. No, but it's like, right. Those things don't go over well at the time his adult comedies start bombing and he's like, I guess the only zone I play in is like family comedy star. So he like doubles down, down on that while doing his YouTube videos and Tenacious D and he does YouTube video jabils.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't, I don't do the YouTube.

[Griffin Newman]

But yes, he like just really was like as a movie actor, my career is family comedies and I'm gonna embrace this. And he never phones it in.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And if you zoom out, you're just like the guy's basically untouched for like a 25 year run.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he means like as much to my little like six year old cousin as he did to like my sister when she was six and to me and whatever. Whereas Robin Williams, it's like by the time you get to the 2000s, the family movies don't work anymore. The 90s were his sweet spot for that. I would like to see Jack Black be able to find his Dead Poet Society.

[David Sims]

Good Will Hunt School Rock is his Dead Poet Society. But maybe an even more dramatic version of it.

[Griffin Newman]

But the way we were talking about with Robin Williams, that he found these movies that weren't playing against his comedy but they recontextualized it and pulled. He needs a Peter or We Are Someone to pull that thing out of him.

[David Sims]

Listen, I have to tell you that maybe it's you. Disney was freaked out about the title and they almost called the movie the unforgettable Mr. Keating.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, fuck that. So hard.

[Ben Hosley]

Help so much.

[David Sims]

And they also registered Keating's Way, which is even. That's like nobody's gonna want to see that.

[Griffin Newman]

Hutter's Way was pretty recent.

[David Sims]

That's true. But we're was like this is an accessible movie. Like they're freaking out about nothing and it's starts to test and they got like insane scores and they essentially were like, oh, you know. So they moved it right to the middle of summer.

[Griffin Newman]

It is one of those movies where the ending is so strong that people are going to be coming out of the theater pumping their fists. And this is an era where like word of mouth could really make a movie a hit over a sustained period of time.

[Ben Hosley]

I thought Ben was going to punch you again.

[David Sims]

He's getting me a Sour Patch Kid.

[Griffin Newman]

The screenplay Oscar win. It's just like, it does feel like this movie was so huge that they had to give it something I, I

[David Sims]

think a little bit. But I also, yeah, I think all the other movies we listed were challenging, and this is not as challenging a movie. Now, number one at the box office, though. June 9th, 1989. Now, wait, what? What.

[Griffin Newman]

What's going on?

[David Sims]

Apparently it opened on eight screens the week before, which is not even listed on the numbers. Do you want to do that one? We've done the October. Yes, we've done the June 9th.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's do the eight.

[Ben Hosley]

Tell me. Not the same movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Number one.

[David Sims]

The June 9th one is, by the way, Star Trek 5. The Final Frontiers.

[Griffin Newman]

Got it. That's why we've done it.

[David Sims]

Okay, but so the weekend before June

[Griffin Newman]

2nd, let's do this.

[David Sims]

Number one at the box office is a big sequel that we've covered on this podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

A great move in 1989. It's a great film, says David.

[David Sims]

Lots of fun. Lots of fun. Now for two weeks, it's made $77 million.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not Die Hard 2.

[David Sims]

No, I don't like that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I know. That's why I'm surprised. But it's not that I'm surprised at the version of you I created My mind. It's a huge, huge fan. Is it a 2?

[David Sims]

3?

[Griffin Newman]

It's a 3.

[David Sims]

And for a long time it was the last. But they made two since.

[Ben Hosley]

Is it the. There's a big Beverly Hills Cop person. Is that Guess.

[David Sims]

Nope.

[Griffin Newman]

We covered it on main. Feeder Patreon.

[Ben Hosley]

Main feed.

[Griffin Newman]

Main feed. We covered on main. And we cover all of them. It's not.

[David Sims]

We've covered four.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. I was going to guess.

[David Sims]

Covered the fifth.

[Griffin Newman]

I was going to guess it's on Thunderdome, but now I. There's been one since.

[David Sims]

It's made $77 million in two weeks. It's a huge hit.

[Griffin Newman]

There's been one since that we haven't covered.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that what you're telling me? The most recent one?

[David Sims]

We have not covered the fifth.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it Ghostbusters 2? No, we wouldn't call that a great film.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a third.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an 89 film. It's a third. Come on.

[David Sims]

You're gonna be so mad on.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm gonna be. Is it like a. Is it one of my franchises?

[David Sims]

You love this movie. This is your favorite of this franchise?

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, wow.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

This is favorite of the franchise. It's a three. And then there was a big gap, and we did four, but we didn't do five. And. Are they all the same director?

[David Sims]

No, the first four are. That's why we've done those four.

[Griffin Newman]

What The.

[David Sims]

You're going to be so mad at yourself.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it like, based around a character?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[AJ McKeon]

Wow.

[David Sims]

What is it? It's not.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm thinking it's not Mad Max. It's not like. And it's.

[David Sims]

It's the.

[AJ McKeon]

Oh, my God. Everyone's screaming at us.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, absolutely.

[David Sims]

It's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm hanging Big ass Head.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Probably the biggest movie in 1990. Oh, God.

[Griffin Newman]

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

[Ben Hosley]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone's right to be angry at me for that one.

[David Sims]

Especially the clue of like, director did four, but not.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, I know.

[David Sims]

Number two at the box office is new this week. It is a. An action film starring a sort of a sports entertainer. I would call him.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it a wrestler?

[David Sims]

Yes. And he recently left this mortal coil.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it Suburban Commando?

[David Sims]

It is not that, but I have the right actor.

[Griffin Newman]

I believe.

[David Sims]

I believe that is a Hulk Hogan film.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it no Holds Bar.

[David Sims]

It is.

[Griffin Newman]

No, that was his real debut. Star.

[David Sims]

Correct. No ring, no ref, no rules. Obviously his debut is what, Rocky iii.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is a wrestling movie in which he is the lead fighting Zeus. Tiny listener.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I've never seen it. I have no idea if it's good,

[Ben Hosley]

but I'm gonna guess we just let people do whatever they wanted then, didn't we?

[Griffin Newman]

Sure did. We used to be a proper country.

[Ben Hosley]

Wow.

[David Sims]

What I like is better.

[Griffin Newman]

Hulk Hogan do whatever he wanted to be like.

[David Sims]

Oh, Hulk Hogan. You want to be in a movie? Your movie will cost like $8 million. Like it's not gonna be a big movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

You know, it'll be a cheap little action movie, basically.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And you'll be playing a wrestler.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, it's a version of this that I like that. Like the first course, Nobody made like $30 million. And they were like, make a nobody, too. Who gives a. It doesn't need to be $100 million cheap. And you want to show up.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

We can keep play on Netflix, Right?

[Griffin Newman]

There needs to be different scales of success.

[Ben Hosley]

A thousand percent.

[David Sims]

Number three is a comedy. It's not in my opinion. We've covered it. I think we've talked. We've not covered it, but we've talked about this one before.

[Griffin Newman]

We've discussed it.

[David Sims]

I think it's not good. I've not seen it in a franchise. No, but it's. It's a star duo that made four films together. This is their third.

[Griffin Newman]

So it's a prior Wilder. It is Richard Pryor, Ben's beloved. See no evil, hear no Evil. Yeah. A movie. That which is the one aging.

[Ben Hosley]

Where is it?

[David Sims]

Gene Wilder is deaf and Richard Pryor is Brian Blind.

[AJ McKeon]

Correct?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And they witness. They witness a murder, and they each only can attest a part of it. Is it the other way around, though?

[AJ McKeon]

I think it's the other way around.

[Ben Hosley]

Didn't they not really get along, but they knew that they were great together,

[Griffin Newman]

but they did not get along. They were just like. Yeah, we had, like, no personal relationship.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Gene Wilder was like. One time we went and saw a movie together and we didn't have. We, like, went out to dinner and didn't have anything to talk about, but we had chemistry.

[Ben Hosley]

What was the fourth?

[David Sims]

Obviously, Silver Streak and Stir Crazy. What's the fourth?

[Griffin Newman]

Another you. Which is the true disaster. Prior's already really sick. Bogdanovich was fired off of it halfway through filming.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Anyway, so that's number three. Number four is a film I brought up and I was yelling at NIA about recently. Like 10 minutes ago, it was nominated for Best Picture. It's one of the most beautiful movies ever made about the great sport of field of ball.

[Ben Hosley]

I can't wait to watch it again.

[Griffin Newman]

It does roll.

[David Sims]

Number five is also new this week.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And it is not a movie I'm that familiar with. It's an, you know, action movie with a couple members of. I guess they were called the Brat Pack.

[Ben Hosley]

An action movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an act. It's a Brat Pack action movie.

[Ben Hosley]

So scary.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not wisdom, is it?

[David Sims]

No, it is not. I don't even know what that is.

[Griffin Newman]

Good pull.

[David Sims]

Wisdom is. Oh, wisdom. As in very nice.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. So it's got two bratpackers in it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not trying to be good, is it?

[David Sims]

Nope. Actually, I don't know if you're going to know this movie. I've never heard of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you give me the Packers, Kiefer

[David Sims]

Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips? Oh, and the tagline feels like they could have maybe worked harder. This one is the Boys are Back in Town.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not Young Guns 2.

[David Sims]

It is not. Because that one's got, like, eight Brad packs.

[Griffin Newman]

I know. That is a movie about boys being back, though.

[David Sims]

Young Guns.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I don't know if I know what this is.

[David Sims]

This film is called Renegades.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Can't tell you that I know anything

[Griffin Newman]

else about, like, 10 people text us and be like, I can't believe you guys haven't seen Renegade.

[David Sims]

Jack Soldier directed. Who's the guy who made that movie? The Hidden, which is A movie I like a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he made Nightmare to the gay one.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So he's got cool movies, but I've never heard of this one. Really? But it looks like they've got guys, guns and the boys are back in town.

[Griffin Newman]

Can I make my joke, please? It was written by Jack Knees, produced by Jack Toast, Bit Boy.

[David Sims]

Number six at the box office is the eternal cult legend hit Roadhouse.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Number seven is the film that I've always described as. What if Clint Eastwood played Gene Parmesan Pink Cadillac, where he's like, I'm an investigator. I'm a master of disguise. And his disguise is like, I'm a yellow hat. Guy puts on a hat, will see me coming. Pretty fun movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm holding a finger under my nose

[Ben Hosley]

like it's a mustache.

[David Sims]

Number nine is Ben. What did you think of this movie? K9? That's Belushi and the dog.

[AJ McKeon]

I've never seen it.

[David Sims]

It's Jim Belushi and dog, obviously.

[AJ McKeon]

I feel like it. Didn't it come up with the Patrick Williams?

[Griffin Newman]

He did his.

[David Sims]

There's also K9 versus.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, no, it's. It's the Turner and Hoot shirt. Turner and Hoot and K9 are the same. Same year the two dog cop partner buddy movies.

[Ben Hosley]

Wait, guys, sorry. I just realized I looked at my notes, but I just wanted to make sure I showed you this picture of Nawanda and Wilson.

[David Sims]

Oh my goodness.

[Ben Hosley]

From the fashion.

[David Sims]

Why didn't they make out? They made out.

[Ben Hosley]

They're so cool. I'm doing that. Oh, my God. I'm doing that video podcast thing. Oh, terrible thing. Where you like, look at this thing on my phone.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[Ben Hosley]

And I can't describe.

[David Sims]

No one can see it.

[Ben Hosley]

I love. You're like. You're in front of me. I can see it texted to me.

[David Sims]

Put on your.

[Ben Hosley]

I'll put on blankies.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, put it on those.

[David Sims]

Number nine of the box office is the pet cemetery movie, which is a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

The first one.

[David Sims]

Yes. Yeah. Not the one that was released recently, which is Mary.

[Griffin Newman]

Mary Lambert. Yeah, that's good.

[David Sims]

Fun movie. My favorite Demon King book. And then number 10, Ben.

[Griffin Newman]

We hit movies, guys.

[David Sims]

Major league. Nice. And number 11, just to shout it out, is Rain man still fucking hanging out six months later.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I just like that you were like, I did the video podcast thing that no one can see. I just then remembered Ben is wearing a full school boy uniform.

[David Sims]

Sure is.

[Griffin Newman]

The amount of energy Ben puts into

[David Sims]

visual like, Ben, you look so fancy. And he was like, yeah, Dead Poets Society.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you meeting with your accountant after this?

[Ben Hosley]

No. It is like. Cuz I sit across from Ben when I record and I. You're just always smiling and you're always just like present. And you, you, you're something to be seen.

[Griffin Newman]

He's our beautiful boy. Maybe if you do video.

[Ben Hosley]

It's just Ben.

[David Sims]

Just Ben.

[AJ McKeon]

That's.

[Griffin Newman]

I like this.

[AJ McKeon]

Interesting.

[Ben Hosley]

That's good.

[David Sims]

That wouldn't infuriate people at all.

[Griffin Newman]

I love.

[David Sims]

Ben puts this mostly like doing work, you know, like, you know, checking things

[Griffin Newman]

on the edit into bits for other people to describe on my.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, exactly. That was so good.

[AJ McKeon]

It's theater of the mind.

[David Sims]

I have to go pick up my daughter.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Enjoy. Say humble brag again. Enjoy your lunch. Nia. Thank you for being here.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you so much for having me. So fun.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to say everyone should watch the Bone Temple and Head up, both of which have now been on vod. Probably rentable. Yeah, probably for months.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But really, really, really loved Hedda.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

And excited to see Bone Temple, which we will have seen and talked about

[David Sims]

in our Patreon to watch Bone Temple. And then whatever you do next will be so exciting.

[AJ McKeon]

I. I watched. I didn't get to see it in the theater. I watched the Screener, but I had such a great time. It really affected me where I realized I need to start playing more games with people.

[Ben Hosley]

No, no, no.

[David Sims]

Don't, don't, don't be.

[Griffin Newman]

Lessons from.

[David Sims]

No, that was my take on it.

[Griffin Newman]

Nope, he's not.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, listen, everyone has their own takeaway at the end of the film. It's an ambiguous ending. No, thank you guys. That means a lot. I'm really. I think I emailed you guys. I was like, I'm so proud of these two movies.

[David Sims]

I'm so happy, very happy. You're making movies that you can, when we see you, be like, I'm excited.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's very exciting.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

In the arc of the time since

[Ben Hosley]

we've met because you were like, you were saying like at the beginning, like every time you see me, I've been like, well, like smoking a cigarette.

[Griffin Newman]

You vent all the stuff that we can't say on Mike and yeah, always a pleasure to have you. Thank you guys and thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for.

[David Sims]

Yeah, great question.

[Griffin Newman]

Green card is next. Is that right?

[David Sims]

I think you're right. But I'm just double checking.

[Griffin Newman]

You finally got to my green card because of the success of this.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was. We'll get into it, but it was a thing where schedule set to wait or whatever. But yes.

[AJ McKeon]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Next is the wonderful, in my opinion,

[Griffin Newman]

film Green Card starring unproblematic fave.

[David Sims]

It was the 90s

[Griffin Newman]

and and as always, carpe diem. Oh, oh, oh, I gotta do my, my Robin vocal warm ups. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay, terrible impression coming Blank Check with

[AJ McKeon]

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 Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is 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 at Blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.