Die My Love with Alison Willmore

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David
Episode: Die My Love with Alison Willmore
Release Date: February 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Griffin Newman and David Sims (with producer Ben Hosley) wrap up their Lynne Ramsay miniseries “We Need To Pod About Cassfin” with a deep-dive, panel-style exploration of Die My Love, Ramsay’s jagged postpartum drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Critic and fellow Blank Check podcaster Alison Willmore joins the conversation. The trio analyze the film’s creative choices, box office context, Lawrence’s evolving stardom, and contemporary trends in film distribution and critical reception.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Jennifer Lawrence Discourse (00:32–24:04)

• Film Line of the Week: The group opens by quoting Lawrence’s character:

  “I’m stuck between wanting to do something and not wanting to do anything at all.” (00:39, Griffin quoting)

• Star Power Comparison: The hosts compare Lawrence with Angelina Jolie as a “powerful” contemporary movie star. Jolie is remembered for her star persona versus “blockbuster” hits; Lawrence is seen as having more hits but perhaps hasn't yet eclipsed Jolie's signature screen presence moments (e.g., Girl, Interrupted). (01:19–02:18)
• J-Law’s Career Trajectory:
  • Early success in franchises (Hunger Games, X-Men) and prestige movies (David O. Russell collaborations).
  • Now focusing on producing, steering her post-franchise image into more “grown-up,” selective, and surprising roles.
  • Notable quote (Alison Willmore):

    “She has yet to really do the thing that Jolie did, which is to come into a movie and just, like, blow everyone else out of office...” (02:04)

• Soft Relaunches:
  • Career recalibrations: Causeway (quiet Apple release), No Hard Feelings (raunchy comedy), Die My Love (serious, dark drama).
  • The industry’s reliance on star-driven viral marketing versus actual audience turnout, e.g., Lawrence’s Hot Ones appearance doesn't move ticket sales:

    “That basically, I think for most listeners is the equivalent of ‘Thanks for watching. Please rate, review, and subscribe.’” (15:53, Griffin)

• Quote (on social media vs. ticket sales):

  “… you gave eyeballs to Variety or … it might sell copies of Operation. Actually doesn’t get your movie anywhere.” (15:25, Griffin)

Changing Industry & Box Office “Flop Fall” (12:07–24:04)

• Star-driven prestige films underperforming in theaters: Die My Love, Christie, Smashing Machine, Roofman, etc.
• Die My Love fares better critically, but still whiffs commercially and awards-wise despite Lawrence’s significant publicity push.
• Key analysis (David):

  “You watched a fun clip. ... It doesn't go to the movie." (15:07)

Jennifer Lawrence’s Phase Two (16:40–24:04)

• Lawrence’s shift to producing and choosing projects close to her interests/relationships.
• Strategic withdrawal and return (“Let people miss her”), soft re-launches as a mature star and creative partner.
• Her production partnership with longtime friend Justine Ciarrocchi.
• Notable Lawrence Productions:
  • Causeway, No Hard Feelings, two lesser-known documentaries, and Die My Love.
• Commentary on her transition into (potential) “weirdo phase”—moving away from commercial star vehicles to passion projects, favoring directors like Ramsay, and skipping the big franchise circuit.

Die My Love: The Film (41:33–124:30)

General Impressions (41:33–43:56)

• All three hosts rate the performances highly, Lawrence in particular, but note flaws in rhythm and point-of-view, especially with Pattinson’s character.
• Lawrence’s performance is characterized as “deliberately difficult,” both opaque and raw (20:38, Alison).

On-Set & Process Details (62:45–73:58)

• Lawrence was pregnant during the shoot (not immediately postpartum).
• Ramsay reworked the original French-set, book-based story into a Montana-set, “mad love story,” drifting away from the book’s strict postpartum/mental health focus.
• Writing process involves playwright Edna Walsh (Disco Pigs) and Alice Birch as script editor; adaptation emphasizes subjectivity and emotional murkiness.
• Quote (on Ramsay’s approach):

  “She’s the only poet I know of that makes movies.” (67:40, Lawrence about Ramsay)

Characterization Problems (43:56–54:15)

• Critique: The Robert Pattinson character (“Jackson”) lacks specificity—neither dumb nor smart enough, not fully drawn, thus undermining the emotional stakes.
• Debate over whether more of his perspective was needed, or if the choice to focus solely on Lawrence’s subjectivity was intentional and (sometimes) distancing.
• The dog scene—used as a “reverse Save the Cat,” intentionally provoking audience discomfort, but used to force a persistent viewing of a morally compromised protagonist.

  “It is actually designing a perfect anti-Save the Cat. ... You have to, like, live with this.” (43:35, Griffin)

Thematic Analysis (54:15–125:22)

• Themes of Isolation and Postpartum Psychosis:
  • Examines how Ramsay (and Lawrence) avoid easy answers—society tries to designate her crisis as postpartum, culture shock, or family trauma, but the film resists these frameworks.
  • The restlessness and “impossibly unhappy in her own skin” quality (96:17, Alison) is a key element of Lawrence’s performance.
  • Multiple possible “diagnoses” floated in the film—none satisfy or rescue the protagonist.
• Sociocultural Gender Analysis:
  • The rural Montana setting amplifies isolation and the expectations forced on women.
  • The community of women alternately tries to help, judge, and normalize her pain (“We have to stick together… but they don’t understand what’s going on with her.” — 56:10, Alison).
  • The film critiques the insufficient social acknowledgment of maternal mental health and the limits of “it takes a village.”
• Notable Scenes Detailed:
  • Thanksgiving/dinner table gender split (83:38): Shows the protagonist’s horror at becoming “just another housewife.”
  • Interactions with Sissy Spacek’s character as a vision of suppressed, fragile, quietly suffering womanhood.
  • Wedding sequence as a “final battle” to construct a happy life (118:04–119:04).
• Comparisons to Melancholia:
  • The depiction of depression, family dynamics, and a protagonist who cannot submit to the world’s expectations.

Cinematography & Aesthetic (115:19–117:32)

• Shot in Academy ratio; intentionally uses burning lenses and reversal stock to create an “inky” psychological look.
• The fire in the woods at the end is intentionally unrealistic—“super CGI and artificial,” meant to signal a subjective, ecstatic psychological state or metaphorical liberation (126:47).

Ending (124:30–126:59)

• The trio reads the ending as the protagonist refusing to return to “normalcy,” not as suicide but as escape and refusal.

  “It is metaphorical, but it’s metaphorically behavioral... it’s like, I’m done playing the game.” (124:30, Griffin)

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Box Office, Marketing, and Distribution Trends

The “Flop Fall” Context (130:09–147:13)

• Mubi bought the film for a (seemingly ill-advised) $20 million at Cannes.
• The math behind such buys is now obscure—streamer-driven, value may be more in having Lawrence + Pattinson on the app than in theatrical takes (131:37–133:00).
• Every Ramsay film, despite acclaim and star power, tops out around $10M globally.
• "Wide" releases for films like Die My Love are now often contractual, triggered by star demands, often resulting in commercial embarrassment but filling screens post-strike (140:37–142:59).
• Die My Love's U.S. release: Opened #8, peaked at ~$10M worldwide (147:13). More screens don’t mean more money.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She has yet to really do the thing that Jolie did, which is… just, like, blow everyone else out of office.” (02:04, Alison)
• “You watched Jennifer Lawrence kill it on Hot Ones for 25 minutes… that is the equivalent of ‘rate, review, and subscribe.’” (15:53, Griffin)
• “She’s firmly in her weirdo phase now a little bit. ... She doesn’t really want to play that game.” (23:36, David, summarizing group consensus)
• “It is actually designing a perfect anti-Save the Cat. ... You have to, like, live with this.” (43:35, Griffin, on the dog scene)
• “I think that’s why there's so much hope around No Hard Feelings is like, wait, you're telling me it's Jennifer Lawrence press interview the movie? That was part of her power.” (37:16, Griffin)
• “It does acknowledge all of the ways in which the women get a raw deal… but also is like, I reject that as the reading of this movie.” (102:49, Alison)
• “If a movie like this is going to catch on, it needs to catch on organically… you can’t sort of build up a head of ‘need to see’ hype on it.” (143:11, Griffin)

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Timestamps: Important Segments

• Lawrence as modern movie star/Angelina vs. Lawrence: 01:08–03:00
• The David O. Russell problem & Lawrence’s reset: 02:55–06:07, 16:40–18:33
• Box Office/Flop Fall context: 12:07–16:15, 130:09–133:00
• Die My Love – general impressions: 41:33–43:56
• Dog scene and anti-Save the Cat: 42:26–44:56
• Motherhood, gender, and isolation: 54:15–104:59
• On-set and adaptation details: 62:45–73:58
• Cinematography/Aesthetic: 115:19–117:32
• Ending analysis: 124:30–126:59
• Box office numbers & marketing strategy: 130:09–147:13
• Ramsey rankings wrap-up: 161:07–163:01

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Panel’s Final Takeaways

• Die My Love is admired for Lawrence’s searing, unpredictable performance and Ramsay’s uncompromising direction, but the panel agrees it sits just below Ramsay’s best works due to character imbalances and a relentless tone.
• The hosts stress how “viral” star campaign strategies aren’t translating to box office, and that films (especially those as demanding as this) must find audiences organically.
• Lawrence, having moved into a more selective “weirdo” phase, is wielding her “blank check” with greater creative control, for better or worse.

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Rankings & Wrap-Up

• All three rank Die My Love below Ramsay’s masterpieces (Morvern Callar, You Were Never Really Here).
• The miniseries ends with anticipation for the next director deep-dive (Peter Weir) and a preview of upcoming episodes and special Patreon content.

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For further listening:

• Critical Darlings podcast with Alison Willmore (Blank Check Production)
• See Blank Check Patreon for the Burger Report special with Matt Johnson & Jay McCarroll

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Additional Resources

• Listen to the full Blank Check episode for more on the behind-the-scenes context, Lawrence’s evolving brand, and a lively Linda Ramsay filmography recapping.
• Subscribe for more director-focused miniseries, both free and on Patreon (Blank Check Special Features).

Transcript

[A]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blankjack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Blackjack. I'm stuck between wanting to do podcasts and not wanting to do podcasts at all.

[B]

That's great. What was that?

[A]

That's my favorite line in the movie.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Which is when she's at the party with the neighborhood families.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And the woman asked her, what do you do?

[B]

Yeah, I'm a writer or whatever.

[A]

No, no, that's not what she said. She doesn't say that. In fact, what she says is the thing I just quoted. She said, I'm stuck between wanting to do something and not wanting to do anything at all.

[B]

Yeah, you're right. That's a good line. It's in there.

[C]

I'm relatable. Incredibly relatable.

[A]

It's a real. You have captured something in words, perfectly performed by one of our most powerful movie stars that I have never been able to quite get my hands around.

[B]

Jennifer Lawrence. Is she one of our most. She is.

[A]

I guess I'm choosing the word powerful. You can use the term in terms of the power of what she does, like, her work.

[B]

Remember how when Angelina Jolie was sort of the number one most famous actress of her age, Right. Like, was the, I guess, consensus a list movie star who is a woman

[A]

of her generation, no question.

[B]

And, like. And you would. Every so often, people would be like, she's never been in a good movie or really, like, made a proper hit. And I would always push back on that.

[D]

I would be like, no, no, no.

[B]

You can look at her career and she took, like, assault or even a fucking maleficent. And, like, you can tell that she plused it, you know, box office wise. Right. You know what I mean?

[A]

It's a good movie. Is an ongoing conversation.

[B]

This is what I'm saying. So does J have her beat? J Law is sort of the. Maybe the Jolie esque, you know? Okay, Allison, please talk.

[C]

I would say yes, but also, I think she has yet to really do the thing that Jolie did, which is to come into a movie and just, like, blow everyone else out of office, you know, like, girl Interrupted. I feel like in that movie, she just comes in and you're just like, who is that? Like, she. You know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I would argue that Winter's Bone was a version of that.

[C]

I mean, she's great in that, but also, it is like a role that is almost, like, built around, I don't know, like, A showcase for her in a way that is. I think, and it is an incredible one.

[A]

I was going to say Silver Lining's Playbook does have that Girl Interrupted energy in it. The difference is that the rest of the movie is closer to her level than maybe Girl Interrupted. That is not a movie I think is perfect. But certainly at the time as it was received, it was like, that's a movie that got four acting nominations.

[B]

Have we never really discussed Jennifer Lawrence on the show?

[A]

I guess we haven't a lot to

[B]

talk about because, like, we've never wanted to do David O. Russell.

[A]

No.

[B]

Who is her primary otur. We've never wanted to cover the X Men series on our Patreon. I wonder why.

[A]

Yeah. Let me just check the epine files quickly and see why we don't want to cover the X Men movies.

[B]

And like, I mean, those are.

[A]

Two of those directors are still clean. One. I don't know.

[B]

You know, I guess we could. We could do Mother one day.

[A]

Yeah. Although a rich text, I would argue, is.

[B]

Is Darren kind of arguing his way out of being covered.

[A]

I was going to say, I think our chances of doing Mother one day have been greatly diminished by everything. Post Mother.

[B]

Yeah, I like Mother, though still fond of Mother. It is a rich.

[A]

It is a movie I am eager to sort of revisit. I do feel like Mother. I like this better as a showcase for that angle of J Law. I wonder if I rewatch Mother now. Well, I think it's a masterpiece. I was angry when I saw it.

[B]

I was a little dismissive when I saw it. And then I rewatched and was like, I think I respect the swing here. I kind of like this.

[C]

There are some of his movies, I mean, where you just like, oh, he's onto something, even if it's not entirely cohering. And also, Mother does feel a lot to me like a maybe mostly inadvertent confession about why you should not date Darren Aronofsky, which is like, I think

[B]

we projected all that onto it. But it's there.

[C]

It's there. It was happening. Yes. And I think that that is incredible.

[A]

Yeah. I. I'll say this. I. This is not a Mother podcast, but the context in which I saw Mother was a screening at the Metrograph.

[B]

We definitely talked about it. Because he was there, right?

[A]

Yes, he was there and she was there. And I think it was the first time the movie was being screened anywhere outside of. They had done the big New York magazine profile. Do you remember who wrote that? Whoever it was just kept talking about how they weren't allowed to talk about the movie, that the movie was shrouded in so much secrecy, they wouldn't even

[B]

tell you what it was about.

[A]

No. And they were like, it has interesting metaphors in it. And you were like, what the is this? And the whole profile was Darren Aronofsky being like, people are going to be pissed at me, and that's fine. You're like, the is this? And he got up before the movie with a scarf. Quite the scarf on. Had a real air about him. Introduced her as the greatest movie star in the world. There was an energy between the two of them that was a little like, is. Is. Is this the bourgeois dancing on a collapsing Paris kind of thing? And then he said, like, this is a movie about the most important mother in the world, Mother Earth, and how we've disrespected her. And I was like, you just told me the metaphor right before the movie started. And immediately I'm like, okay, yeah, I get it. I was so kind of set up to be pissed off from the moment it started. And I think he's annoying. More in Mind's Eye, but yes.

[B]

No.

[A]

I mean, who else would we cover that? She has worked with, like, Granix. Unlikely. Francis Lawrence is unlikely.

[B]

We could do Francis.

[C]

Francis Lawrence.

[A]

We like Francis Lawrence, but, like, are we gonna do him?

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Versus, like, just doing. Stop this. Okay, Ben, I'm sorry.

[C]

Stop this.

[A]

First movie, this was blank. Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[C]

I would love to talk Constantine, by the way, Whenever I want. I'm ready.

[B]

When I interviewed him, I interviewed him once, and I was like, truly, like, sucking his dick about Constantine. And I guess I am legend and just kind of being like, man, you.

[A]

And he was like, I appreciate it, but also, cradle the balls, you know,

[B]

I was just like, you actually make, you know, like, really fun Hollywood stuff. And, like, I've just been a longtime fan of yours. And he was like, thank you. Like, he was very nice about it, but he was not.

[C]

He was not like, thank God. Finally someone's seeing my Seeing you. Wait, can I just go back and

[A]

say one thing, Please? Anything.

[C]

When I did Requiem for a Dream oral history.

[B]

You did? That's right.

[A]

Yes. Yes.

[B]

You talked to everyone.

[C]

Talk to everyone, including the Fridge. The fridge is very rude, by the way. I don't know the Fridge. Fridge. There's a reason the Fridge was canceled.

[A]

Also directed an X Men movie.

[C]

Darren Aronofsky, before we started, was, like, jokingly, but also was like, can you tell the Vulture editors To stop calling me scarf wearing guy. So.

[B]

But they really like to make fun of his scarf.

[C]

The thing is like, do you see him in scarves now?

[A]

No, no, no. Clearly it's. It's his version of the Eddie Murphy laugh where he's like, fine, are you happy? I stopped and now his neck is so cold.

[C]

So cold all the time. What's going to happen to him?

[A]

I love that that was his explanation at the time where he's like, I.

[B]

I have a very sensitive throat. Is that what he sounds like?

[C]

Yeah, he did. He was like, I'm very susceptible.

[A]

That's not a bad impression.

[B]

I don't know what he sounds like.

[A]

Yeah, it's like I, I have a sensitive throat, I guess so.

[C]

Did anyone watch his AI American Revolution series?

[B]

Only to jerk off to it. No, I didn't watch. I didn't.

[A]

I didn't watch it. I absorbed it.

[B]

I sat my ass down and listened. So it's. He used AI to make an Revolutionary

[A]

War series, like web series that's like reenactments.

[C]

But it's just like, imagine if we could see.

[A]

Right, you are there.

[B]

He's trying to kind of be like, this is what AI is for.

[A]

For.

[B]

It's so that. Yes.

[C]

Bringing history to life.

[B]

Do large scale production quickly.

[A]

And he's like watching the trailer. I hire, oh, good.

[C]

It looks like spookily dead eyed in a Polar Express. It looks like a Polar Express.

[B]

I watch, I look at Tick Tock all the time. Right? And Tick Tock will serve you AI in the middle of like a person being like, look, my baby fell sideways. Like, which is,

[A]

thank you, China.

[B]

We're still at the. In the place. And maybe this will change one day where you're just like, I know it's AI immediately there's just a quality. You know it when you see it.

[A]

That's. Look, that's how I feel. And every time I see some fucker post something and go like, Hollywood is cooked. This is what I can do now. I'm like, bullshit. It's not good enough. And then I'm also like, but what? Like six months from now? Maybe it is. And then I'm like, great. So reality doesn't exist anymore.

[B]

My thing has always been like, the way I feel about video games where I'm like, it got the, you know, it got better and better and better. But you. It never got where we all when we were younger thought it was gonna get.

[A]

I mean, it's the uncanny Valley thing. Yeah, I think it is true.

[B]

And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll be a fool.

[A]

I don't. That's my worry. My worry is that you will be a fool. Have you seen there's one that keeps going around that's like. It took like thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars to make like friends. And this is what like Sora can whip up right now. And it's a super cut of like fake AI friends scenes.

[B]

I've seen this. Yeah.

[A]

And you're like, oh, it is weird how real it looks. But also they are freaking gibberish.

[C]

No.

[A]

And it's like Chandler walks through the door and he's like, well, I got pizza. Yeah. And then everyone laughs.

[B]

Very weird. Because right.

[A]

Lines don't make sense.

[B]

They are speaking English but not legible English. And they keep walking in and out of doors that aren't connected to anything. And the doors keep moving around, you know, so it's great. It's like a melatonin nightmare or whatever. You're like, this sort of is real

[A]

because you're like whatever AI app is started to be like, okay, so like 30% of friends is people dramatically walking through doors into apartments. It must be about that. This must happen four times per scene. And they have everyone's like tone and the rhythm of everyone's joke delivery. Right. But they don't understand how to build jokes through dialogue. And then like none of them look exactly like them. All of them look like they're stand ins, but they look like real people. And then the Phoebe will sit down and split into two people the second she hits the couch. Literally like asexually reproducing into two people on a cushion.

[C]

I remember that episode.

[A]

Yeah, It's a good one.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. No, the. The video I got served, which I is stuck in my brain is like some guy who made an AI video. As if you were visiting the set of a Dragon Ball Z movie.

[B]

I saw this.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And he's like hugging Goku.

[C]

Yeah. So he's basically, it's like as if he had just gone on and everyone were forced to take a selfie with him. And it's all of these incredibly famous people that he is like fan cast as different.

[A]

And people are like, Hollywood is cooked. And I'm like, I don't know. You just seem sad.

[C]

Yeah, I know. And I'm like, you know, the problem with this is also like, it's like your limit.

[A]

Your.

[C]

The limits of your imagination are like,

[A]

I wish they were my friends.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

What if. What if Goku thought I was cool?

[B]

What's our podcast.

[A]

I tried to introduce and you didn't take the bait for once. I just want to let the record.

[B]

I'm so sorry I missed it. What did you say?

[A]

You said, let's stop right now and talk about Francis Lawrence. And I said, fine. This podcast was blank. Check with Griffin.

[B]

Oh, I didn't. Okay, okay.

[A]

Pretty funny.

[B]

That is funny.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

You're welcome.

[A]

I'm Griffin.

[B]

I'm David.

[A]

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers kind of and are given a series of blank checks sort of to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they get bought for $20 million at can and become kind of like, I don't know, a cautionary tale.

[B]

A little bit, I think a little bit of a cautionary tale business wise. Yeah.

[A]

Alison and I were talking about this the other day and you have not been introduced yet.

[B]

Alison, could you introduce her?

[A]

Hold on a second. This is more important. Alison and I were talking the other day about how it feels like in the flop fall kind of trend piecing of a bunch of a list movie stars had sort of prestige dramas that were given wide releases that were supposed to hopefully cross over to some degree in the mainstream and also to Oscar results. Completely flatline. And it feels like this was always included in that grouping of. Here's a list of five movies in the last eight weeks.

[B]

What being with the others being Christie,

[A]

Smashing Machine, Roofman to a lesser degree. You know, I feel like there's one more time the Springsteen movie, you could argue. Yeah, those are five pure theatrical releases that all had.

[B]

What did all of those movies in? I'll tell you, not Die My Love. But like his reviews really, it's like none of those really count on with anyone.

[A]

This is what's interesting to me is I feel like this is the one of those films that was well received.

[B]

It was well received. Maybe not rave raised, but it was

[C]

well, people liked it.

[A]

Yes. All the other ones, like even Christie, the strongest reviews were the like it's weird that she's this good in this movie that is unpleasant to watch and why did she make this very long? Right. The positive reviews all kind of had like flashing red lights that weren't really going to draw an audience in. I feel like this movie doesn't get. Wasn't turned into a punchline as much despite it having like two A listers and not converting into serious nominations anywhere. But it's sort of with distance just part of the Narrative of, like, what was like, the weird movie 2025.

[B]

Sure. I mean, it was ludicrous to put this on. I don't think anyone could really be like, how dare Jennifer Lawrence not make this into a hit?

[A]

No, like, you know, seriously, it is

[C]

a very jagged, intentionally abrasive movie.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's a little.

[B]

It was. To me, it was a little bit more like, oh, movie. Like, just because the substance broke through doesn't mean you can do this with anything. Like, you silly goose.

[C]

But you think. I mean, they also clearly were like, for this amount of money, in the very least, we're going to have bought a Best Actress nomination.

[A]

I think that's what they thought. And the other part of what's interesting about this movie to me is I just feel like a lot of people I talk to just, you don't know this happened. And yet Jennifer Lawrence was, like, as out there as she has been in many, many years. She did get out there and kept doing it, like, in the lead up to theatrical release throughout the whole awards season. She's not making precursor lists and she's still doing stuff. And all the stuff she was doing was hitting, like, classic Jennifer Lawrence, where people were kind of like, thank God she's back. You know what? I missed this. And yet none of that energy went back over to the movie.

[B]

It doesn't. It just doesn't. It doesn't go to the movie.

[A]

No, that's. I think the biggest Lesson learned from 2025, like you doing playing Operation with

[B]

Robert Pattinson will not mean anyone sees the movie. They simply watched a fun clip.

[A]

Right. It will.

[B]

You gave eyeballs to Variety or it

[A]

will monetize that clip.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And it might sell copies of Operation. Like, actually doesn't get your movie anywhere.

[C]

Well, I think. Especially when you're like.

[B]

And why should it?

[C]

Like, at best. Right? At best, you're maybe you're mentioning this movie to a bunch of people who maybe, maybe will remember to look it up and then go, oh, that doesn't look like something I want to watch.

[A]

And that's like, you watch Jennifer Lawrence kill it on Hot ones for like, 25 minutes. And when she says, like, through tears. My new movie is called Die My Love. It's in theaters, whatever.

[C]

Right.

[A]

That basically, I think for most listeners is the equivalent of thanks, thank you for watching. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. You know, it's just like white noise. You tune that part out. And I think the industry started thinking, well, this is the way to market. This is the way to break through to this audience. And what they don't understand is that those aren't marketing tools. Those are their competition.

[B]

Who's our guest?

[A]

Our guest today from Vulture, from the new podcast Critical Darlings, A Blank Check Production, the great Allison Walmore.

[C]

Hello. Hello.

[B]

Ooh. Remain just got pushed to February 2027. Wow. Okay, I'll take it off the spreadsheet.

[A]

Allison. The. The seismic waves on our spreadsheet, the scheduling changes that just happened are insane.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

It's gone.

[C]

Here's a Jennifer Lawrence thing I would. An observation I would like to make. She, you know, she famously took a few years off, right. And kind of was like, I need to reset. I need to. People are going to get sick of me. And also like, clearly she was like, I need to figure out what my grown up career as a movie star looks like. Right. And she has this is what, like her third essentially soft relaunch, right. At this point.

[A]

Causeway is like an unbelievably soft.

[C]

Yes. But Causeway was like. She was also like, I'm a producer now, right. She's like, I am not just going to be in, you know, playing characters that are 10 to 20 years too old for me in David O. Russell movies, by God, like, I am going to take control of my career and like pick. Interesting.

[B]

She has her, her producing. Is it Justine Chiarachi?

[A]

Is that her second oldest friend?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like they met in the movie biz.

[A]

Right. Forget if she maybe not her oldest friend, but like her closest.

[B]

She was like a crew. She was like her assistant on Hunger.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[B]

And they basically come up together. They seem to have great taste.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The produce, the things they produced are Causeway, no Hard Feelings and Die My Love.

[A]

And I was going to say three movies I like. Right. Causeway. Unbelievable.

[B]

Two docs that I don't know much about.

[A]

Small movie Lost in the sort of post pandemic morass does get a best supporting actor nomination. But more than anything, felt like, I think what you're saying, a proclamation of here's phase two. I'm developing material. I'm finding people I want to work

[C]

with and doesn't get noticed much, but that's fine. Then she does.

[B]

But it got an Oscar nom.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it did that. Weird. Like also like Pandemicy era.

[B]

I know, but like there's so many Apple projects, most of them starring Mahershala Ali.

[A]

I feel like he was in like

[B]

three, you know, where you're like, why

[A]

hasn't Mahershala made anything in seven years?

[C]

And then Yakuza Made so many things.

[B]

I know, right?

[C]

Like cosplay. Not a bad movie. Brian Tyree Henry. Fantastic.

[A]

I was gonna say. It felt like part of the phase two thing that all the press she was doing for that movie was kind of just pushing him. It felt like, I mean, they talked about that movie was written to be something very different. And he had a very small part and they were like assembling an edit and they were like, it feels like the only stuff that's working is our scenes together. And they went back and rewrote and reshot a lot of it. And she was like, this is a two hander. And it felt like part of her. This is my next stage is like, who do I want to work with? Who do I want to boost? And she uses all her power to basically get him a nomination for a movie that no one remembers. Yeah.

[C]

And then she makes no hard feelings, which was good. It was good. But she is like, look at me doing like a hard comedy. Right.

[B]

I know. There was a sort of a try hard element to that whole rollout. And then I saw the movie and I was like, I think this movie's sort of a cut above. And I, I really like, like, the underlying themes of that movie. I like that it's about like trashy Long island, like true, like Montauk lifer people being like, man, it sucks here now, like, all these rich people have moved here. Like, you know, like, that's like the undercurrent of that movie is good. I agree.

[A]

I think that movie up there.

[B]

And that movie's fun. The ending's a little blah. Yeah.

[A]

But. But that movie also has kind of a weird reputation because it's like there was a lot of. Is this the Great White Hope that brings back the theatrical comedy? Here's Jennifer Lawrence, one of our most powerful movie stars. She hasn't made a commercial film in over six years. Here she's back post pandemic doing a sex comedy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Is this gonna, like, light the world on fire? And it does well, but not the way people wanted. It immediately explodes way more on Netflix. And people were like, why wasn't this a biggest hit, Bigger hit? But then you're like, guys, come on. She was right here, like, supporter when it's happening.

[C]

Yeah. And then now we have D My Love, which is the movie that was going to be like, here she is, serious actress, like, doing this, like, really, like, wrenching, difficult, real work, just going places you haven't ever seen her go before. And. And yet. And again, it does not really get there.

[A]

No. And it's also fascinating because this is one of her best performances, I think.

[C]

Oh, I think she's incredible at it.

[A]

It's like arguable. It's her best performance and yeah, it's arguable. I think it's in the conversation.

[C]

I think it also like, it, it's

[B]

sort of where it's how you think of Winterspoon.

[C]

Yeah. And I think it also, it's, it's so. It's such a deliberately difficult role. Right. Like, it just is like both opaque but also like so raw. Like she is both like letting you into these like incredibly dark, weird emotions. But also, and I think this is a bit of a Lynn Ramsey thing. You're like, you're kept at a distance from her. Right. You can't entirely figure her out. And so, yeah, it's, I mean she has to work with a lot of, I don't know, deal with a lot of different kind of like tensions. But I mean she goes like, she just throws herself in it.

[A]

So also possibly why Mubi went so like goo goo eyed at this movie where you're like, it's funny. Like she is so inherently funny and is able to make comedy out of odd, difficult things. Jennifer Lawrence even just in her like oversharing press tour way that you're like, fuck, if you map that onto a Lynne Ramsey movie, does this thing have enough kind of like weirdo laughs like the substance that there's a more commercial push for it. But then you're like, what's the movie about? And you're like, well, a woman collapses, completely deconstructs. It's, it's a fascinating case. And yeah, I, I think, you know, she's doing the Scorsese movie next. It feels like she's being very selective. There was this moment a couple months back, David, where they announced like one weekend of filming that Taylor Russell was being recast in Michael B. Jordan's very expensive starring and directed by Thomas Crown Affair remake. And in one of our group texts we were like, okay, thought experiment. Who do you slot in there if you're Michael B. Jordan and you're like one of the like kings of 2025 and this is your next directing project and your chosen female co star doesn't work and you need someone on set within like less than five days and you presumably want someone who you can like go toe to toe with, right? Age level, you know, whatever it is. We were like, who does he pick? And we were throwing out names and I at one point said Like, I mean, if you really fucking want to go for it, you cast Jennifer Lawrence. You cast Jennifer Lawrence in the Faye Dunaway, Renee Russo part. But it is he willing to see that much ego and beyond that, you said no. And you also said, I think she's just firmly in her weirdo phase now a little bit. I think that's doesn't really want to play that game. There's an argument that, you know, her reps would probably be like, please, Jennifer, can you just get paid $20 million to do this and then make three more weirdo movies? And it feels like to her credit, she's like kind of done with the game. Want to just use my power to make whatever I want to make and work with what I, who I want to work for and with. And I also think in talking about her like sort of disappearing for a couple years and why there was so much energy and excitement for this movie, it's also like she had two kids, she like focused on her family, she focused on her personal life and causeway. And no hard feelings aren't tapping into that. No hard feelings is kind of pretending she hasn't gone through the growth that she has talked about in the press. And so when this movie's announced, it's like, oh, well, here's Jennifer Lawrence who seemingly holds nothing back and she's making a postpartum movie. What is she gonna share with us?

[B]

Right, right. What? This is the problem with being a Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie style movie star where it's like every movie has to be like, okay, but what is it saying about you right now? What, what phase of life are you in? What era, what Taylor Swift era are you doing now?

[A]

I think it's less that it's like what is the comment you're trying to make or what is the statement? And with her it's more. Especially in her 20s, David O. Russell kept pushing her into these roles that were 10 years ahead of her in life experience. And you were like, I guess through sheer movie star power, I am vaguely buying this woman being widowed, having two children, all these things. And it, it just for someone who feels so emotionally intelligent but was able to kind of render these things that she had no experience with? I think it was more like, is this about to be some level up moment in her ability with her being able to pull from life? Not what she's trying to communicate to us in the press or how she's going to use this movie to talk about her own personal experiences, but more, does she have a new. Well, to draw from.

[C]

I think that's true, but I think it's also. I think we've all been waiting. You know, she is someone who is this very powerful and undeniable a list actor. But like, she has spent so much of her career either. Yes. In these roles that didn't feel quite right for her, that she made work through sheer talent with David O. Russell or in these giant franchises. Right. Like, at the same time, she's playing a widow and a mother of two. She's playing this fighting teenager. Right. You know, she's playing Katniss in the Hunger Games and she's playing Mystique. There is this real sense that so much of her career, so much of the. So much of the path that made her this giant movie star was also like, never quite right. You know, like she was always playing roles that were never quite. They didn't seem like something that were like, was kind of like defining her or like that she really had a full, like, like that fit her perfectly, you know.

[A]

No, it's. It's odd. It is odd for someone who you step back with some distance and her. Her 2000 and tens is even more astounding by how kind of anomalous it was at a time where the industry was like, maybe movie stars don't exist anymore. And she became pretty undeniable. And yet it was like they. They milked that so hard and so fast and the whole kind of like inevitable Jennifer Lawrence backlash, which she clearly, in doing press for this movie and took very personally and was like, I'm too much. You know, I wasn't aware how people were seeing me. It's also just like, you break down the years and you're like, she was making two or three movies a year and it was basically every year she was alternating between an X Men and a Hunger Games and a prestige movie. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I just. It's interesting on this press tour with. Now, who was I listening? So I've listened to. She was on Poehler's thing. She did that kind of like, late. What?

[A]

No, late. I was saying, like, she did that fairly recently.

[B]

Well, I think polar kind of doesn't care. It seems as much about like, you know, timing it to really. Yeah.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

She did that kind of like half hour chat with Leo, the actors and actors thing, which was like, you know, no one has quite gotten Leo to open up. But like, she had her moments with

[A]

him, you know, like the closest I've

[B]

seen like a couple moments with him. But I'm trying To remember where she sort of acknowledged essentially, to one of those. David O. Russell, I think, really taught me how to act. I know that's not the experience everyone has with him, you know, like. And she didn't say it in a dismissive way. She said it in a kind of like. I think it was quite helpful for me. I do know that, like, the way he works was not helpful for some people. She hasn't worked with him since Joy. I always.

[C]

An incredibly weird movie. Also such.

[B]

I mean, that movie came out early in the history of this podcast. We talk about it a lot on one of our Force Awakens episodes with Emily Ishida because we. I think I had just seen it because it is indeed a really weird movie and it has all the problems that all the movies she made with him had where she's fundamentally wrong for the role. She's kind of working it anyway. Like, she's kind of like. But then the movie that's happening around her is also kind of chaotic and stupid.

[A]

I was thinking about Silver Linings is

[B]

the best of those movies, and I think that's like a really chaotic.

[A]

No, I agree. I agree. In the week we were recording this, the most recent episode of Critical Darlings was talking about Begonia and Emma Stone and Yorgos kind of getting into that David O. Russell, Jennifer Lawrence Auto Locke nomination, Oscar favorite state. And no one was pissed when Emma Stone was announced as a best Actress candidate. I didn't feel that at this year.

[C]

I mean, people were not like, oh, yes, that's like, you know. But no one was angry.

[A]

But I can't remember if you or Richard said this, but the morning that Jennifer Lawrence made it into the Joy 5, there was a feeling of like, fuck that. And it's that kind of thing that Ben Affleck talks about of, like, the weekend after Gigli being like, I'm in the worst state my career could possibly be in. I can sell magazine covers, but I can't sell movie tickets. Everyone wants to hear about how I'm up in my personal life and no one wants to hire me. Everyone else can make money off of me. And there's that sort of feeling of like, okay, Jennifer Lawrence, you automatically get nominated every time. People now resent you for it. Which just the moment that movie came out, it was just like, it happened one time too many. It's too late. Everyone wants you to go away now.

[C]

Yeah. And I mean, so like, after that, she did what, like passengers.

[A]

A disaster.

[C]

Yeah, a disaster. Like, just like a really incredibly unpleasant.

[A]

Yes. One of the most miscalculated, like, star packaging. Yeah.

[C]

Yes. And, of course, a blacklist script. I think it's often a very cursed thing.

[A]

I have often contended. You read that original script, and it's a really good Twilight Zone premise, and it was so buzzy, and it was. It necessitated such high production value because of the space thing that everyone in Hollywood thought it was meant to be romantic, that they. They just interpreted it entirely wrong. Yeah.

[B]

Right. I. Maybe there's a better version of that movie. With what director? I don't know.

[A]

I'm trying to remember who the director.

[B]

You know, like, Fincher. Like, you know, like. But, I mean, like, why would he. I mean, there was.

[A]

There was an earlier version of that movie announced. I'm trying to remember if there was a director ever attached, but I believe it was supposed to be Keanu reeves and Rachel McAdams. And you're like, immediately, that makes so much.

[B]

Those are actors I vastly prefer. The problem is they are not, you know, who Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt were in 2015.

[A]

At that point. In particular, that version of the movie died because it was pre John Wick Keanu. And it was like, he is worth negative money. Yeah, but you're like, the sad, haunted Keanu thing.

[C]

Yeah. That would make so much more sense in terms of what that character is.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Rather than Star Lord being like, I woke you up.

[C]

Right, Right. Like, aren't you psyched? Now we have to live our full together.

[A]

Like, imagine dragons. Place passengers. Yes, Passengers.

[C]

And then Mother, which was much like this.

[A]

Like a wide release. Like out of the gates that bombed.

[C]

Yes. And also, I mean, is this.

[B]

It's similar, right, where they're like, 3,000 screens for this, and the audience is like, no. What? What?

[C]

What are you doing? Also, like, I don't know. It has, like, weird undercurrents, you know, like their relationship. But also, like, so much of that movie is just, like, tormenting her. It is just like.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

That movie is her going. She's actively stressed. She's shouting her head off about the sink not being braced.

[C]

Yeah. And then, remember the baby.

[B]

They eat the baby.

[C]

They eat the baby.

[B]

As I happily tell people it is. And then I hear they eat a baby. I'm into that.

[A]

They eat a baby. As many X Men directors have done. Is that my new terminology? We have normal, and we have X Men director. Go on, Allison.

[C]

Well, and then, you know, you have, like, Dark Phoenix, if not a movie. Disaster never happens.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And then don't look up.

[A]

Yeah. You know, when Is Red Sparrow in there?

[C]

I miss Red Sparrow. Red Sparrow is right before Dark Phoenix.

[B]

A movie I softly defend, but certainly never, like, cared to revisit.

[C]

I don't think I ever saw it. I. I always think of it as, like, her salt. Right?

[B]

It's her salt. It is very obviously. And she has talked about it a. About the sex crimes that were visited upon her and her trying to kind of reclaim her naked body on screen and her sort of whatever. Her sexuality. Her, like, feminine.

[A]

It's an ownership of sexuality. Yes, yes.

[B]

And it's also like a decent ish spy movie, but you are kind of like, this is like a Verhoeven movie. And I like Francis Lawrence, but he's no Paul Verhoeven. And like, this is not quite nasty or freaky enough, but it is like an R rated, sexy, kind of violent spy thriller. And so I. You come away with kind of like, okay, you know, I ate a. I had an okay sandwich there. You know, I know that could have been better.

[A]

But when you look at, what was it, five Hunger Games movies? Because it's four books and five movies.

[C]

There were two. Right?

[A]

Mockingjay, she makes four X Men movies. The first three work commercially to some degree. And then the first two David O. Russell movies, like, soar past 100 million, you know, 300 worldwide, whatever. That block was so fucking strong. And the fact that she's winning an Oscar, getting nominations in between Cena, supporting two franchises. The X Men movies start to warp themselves around. Right? We all remember that Mystique is the leader, everyone.

[C]

Yes. The best known and most famous X

[A]

Men, of course, the whole time. Like, there's the insane thing when you watch Days of Future Past where they're like, this movie needs to have her as ostensibly the lead character, but also her scheduling is impossible because she's doing Hunger Games. So she needs to have the primary plot thread where she's also on her own and we can shoot her separate from everyone else.

[C]

But also they're like, we've got this incredibly famous actor and also this character is blue all the time. Like, we need to figure out ways.

[D]

Right?

[C]

She's not like, full body makeup, barely ever.

[B]

Right. Did the. The fact that the first one is like, you need to be blue because that's like your true self.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And then in the other one, she's like, yeah, but I'm. I'm not gonna do that much. But, like, no one's gonna, like, be 70s.

[A]

I feel like the response at the time was like, yeah, smart, build your movie. Around Jennifer Lawrence, people weren't like, oh, they're shoving her down our throats. And so then there's the thing of like passengers, like squeaks to 98 million or whatever.

[B]

Yeah, it was a flop. It was sort of like, right. Like less embarrassing than it could have been because it's sort of made. But you. I mean, it probably made international money.

[A]

I think so too.

[B]

But you're just doing a Jennifer Lawrence thing.

[A]

I think it's important you get to a point there where they're like, okay, but if her in a Turkey still gets to 90 something and obviously that movie cost too much, then making red sparrow for 40 or 60 or making mother for like 40 or 50 still makes sense. And I think there was this belief of like, is she just the one person that her audience will auto buy a ticket, they will follow her anywhere. And even if Mother isn't going to make $100 million, maybe it makes 50 and instead it's just like, no, she's making things that are like, unpleasant to watch, you know, often by design. It feels like that was the phase she was going through and testing it.

[B]

She's made one pleasant to watch movie. And like before that, you know, the movies she made were Hunger Games, David Russell movies and X Men movies. None of which are light and, you know, fluffy.

[A]

No, I mean X Men and Hunger Games are both. She's made one franchise is about a

[B]

fun movie in her entire career.

[A]

You would say no hard feelings, right?

[B]

Like, I obviously X Men movies are fun. Like Hunger Games movies. I mean, they are fun, I suppose, but like, they're. They're pretty dark.

[A]

They're dark, yeah.

[B]

Like, I really think that's the. I mean, Don't look up is a comedy, but it's a comedy that bugs you out.

[C]

It's also just like really not fun.

[A]

She's like the angry character in the movie too. She's playing the least fun of anybody. I think that's why there was so much hope around. No hard feelings is like, wait, you're telling me it's Jennifer Lawrence press interview the movie. That part of her power was this like, oh my God, she's this powerhouse dramatic actress. She can do action and she can like do the dialogue. And then we see her in interviews and she's funnier than comedians, you know, and people, I think, liked the contrast between the two. But then the hope was, if you let her be funny in a movie, is that just going to explode the box office?

[C]

But we hate comedy now. We just don't. That's we don't believe.

[B]

Yeah, I think if. I think she's probably happy enough with her feelings. I think if she looked at anyone but you, she might have the thought of like, oh, huh. Should I have like done a rom com with like a really sort of established handsome actor rather than a silly.

[A]

Also like, I think she would have killed Imagine. Yeah. That's actually like upsetting to run the simulation.

[B]

But she should be happy with her feelings, which is a better movie than anyone but you and did pretty good.

[A]

I. I also contend and I felt this way at the time. No Hard Feelings comes out like June and then goes to Netflix very quickly. It's on the service by like September or October and immediately kind of explodes on Netflix. And I do feel like anyone but you got a bump from that. I was seeing so much social media FOMO of oh fuck. There was a good comedy three months ago and we didn't go that Sony marketing. You know, both of those movies kind of capitalized upon. Well, don't miss this one.

[C]

I would like to see her in just a full romantic comedy. Yeah, you know, I think that'd be interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She. I mean, she's kind of steered away, you know, in Causeway. She's her. That's. That's like a platonic romance almost like her character.

[B]

Yeah, it's a sweet movie.

[C]

Yeah. You know, and then no Hard feelings is like, you know, kind of about.

[A]

And once again, yes, Lynne Ramsey's Die My Love on Paper is offering. Hey, do you want to just see Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence go insane?

[C]

Right?

[A]

David, look, this episode, don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend. Okay, this episode's brought to you by Mubi Yawn.

[B]

Just kidding.

[A]

Comfortable. We love them.

[B]

They are a global film company that champions great cinema. Iconic directors, emerging auteurs. Always something new to discover with Mubi. Each and every film hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema. Nothing more to say, I guess.

[A]

Wrong. There's a new film coming to theaters. Yep.

[B]

Movie theaters February 13th. The first Nigerian film ever in official competition.

[A]

Again, that's pretty wild.

[B]

This is a film by Akanola Davis called My Father's Shadow is BAFTA nominated poetic tender portrait of a father son Bond framed within the political landscape of 1993 Lagos in Nigeria. It is about a father and two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis. Reckoning with their relationship, navigating the city that's the in the middle of a democratic crisis. Written by real life brothers Akanola Davis Jr. And Walleye Davis.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

Brothers co wrote this groundbreaking feature debut. And you've got Sofie Derisu. Oh. From Slow Horses. I love him. I hope I'm saying his name right, but he's a really good actor and he's the star. It's worth seeing. It's in theaters. It's great to go to a theater.

[A]

It's in theaters. We love that MUBI puts movies in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform.

[B]

Dang. Right?

[A]

I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die, my love. Of course.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

An important watch. A necessary watch for any blankie. La Grazia, the new Paolo Sorrentino movie which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. The great Shall We Dance?

[B]

Oh, the classic.

[A]

The original.

[B]

Oh my goodness. That's fun. Like a restoration. Yeah.

[A]

And look what they, they got a collection called Heartthrob. Nicolas Cage. It's young, dreamy Cage.

[B]

Wow. Still dreamy to me.

[A]

Hey, you're very open hearted.

[B]

Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try MUBI free for 30 days at mube.comblankcheck that's M-B I.com blankcheck for a whole month of great cinema for free. And then go see my father's shadow in theaters, please. Thank you for listening.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[A]

Thank you. Very kind.

[B]

Let's talk about diamond, which is a movie I like. I know you like it, Griff. Allison.

[C]

I like it. I think I, I feel like it feels unmodulated to me. It does feel like it starts at a place it's so high already, like, and then kind of like just keeps going. It just like it barrels right off a cliff, you know? But I do think she's incredible in it.

[A]

I, I, I, it grew for me a lot on second viewing. And I think I struggled a little bit on the first time, liking, not loving being like, I guess this has to be my default bottom. Lynn. Just because every other one is kind of totally knocked me out and I think I, I don't know, I have a read on all of that that made it work a little more for me this time. I do want to, in this miniseries that we're now finishing on, Lynne Ramsey called We need to Pot about Cassfin, introduce our producer Ben Hosley. Because I feel there is a need to get this out of the way.

[E]

What's up?

[A]

From the moment I saw this movie in theaters, I was like, this movie has the Number one scene designed to turn Ben Hosley off I have ever seen in a film. Yeah.

[E]

It's when she shoots the dog.

[A]

Yeah. I just could not think of a thing.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

That would. Auto block Ben more than lead character of the movie shoots a dog and you have to sit with it for the second half of the film. Film. Yeah.

[E]

It happens pretty early, too.

[A]

Yep. Like, halfway through.

[B]

The way I feel about that in the same. You know, any movie that has violence against children or animals is. You're always kind of like, you really have to earn this. Like, I'm not mad. Like, on principle, you can. You can depict things. I understand. But I do have this kind of just sort of like, are you just trying to provoke me or put me in a mood?

[E]

Now, granted, the dog is incredibly annoying.

[C]

Yeah. That's a real asshole of a dog.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But, yeah, I know as a dog owner, it is difficult for me to watch that. I do feel like the thing that Robert Pattinson's character does, which is to show up and be like, I got a dog. You're gonna take care of it, is one of the worst things you can possibly do to a partner.

[A]

It is. I mean, yes, yes. The movie is playing with something which is like. It is actually designing a perfect anti. Save the cat. Right. Like, it is going against everybody saying, right.

[B]

Like, are you just doing this to do that? I have, like, this spike in the movie that will kind of like, really set me, you know, in a certain.

[A]

I think so. I think it's less about, like.

[B]

Like, when John Wick's dog dies, then I'm like, right, well, he should kill all those people.

[A]

It's different.

[B]

They're like, he needs to kill all the people.

[A]

The rule is, if you kill an animal, everyone's going to be upset unless that is used as motivation for vengeance. And the audience feels like there's catharsis and justice is Right. Like, save the cat is less about, like, stupid imposed lines of, like, Hollywood thinking and more just like, actually an understanding of human psychology of. Most people will just clock out of your movie after this point. And I think it is less that, like, it does the shocking thing just to get a shock out of you and more does the shocking thing to say. And now, like, what is your relationship to this character? Because we're not moving on from them. And this is not a dream sequence. And you have to, like, live with this. And to a certain degree, you're, like, held hostage by her in the same way that he is. Right. If you're in a relationship and someone shoots your dog, you're like, I think we're breaking up.

[B]

Yeah, I would. I mean I never had a dog, but yeah, I think I would have some, some notes for that person.

[A]

I think it's a pretty short conversation.

[E]

I think it's crossing a line for me.

[A]

Uh huh.

[E]

Where the fact that they then go on and she continues to cross so many more lines until someone finally intervenes.

[B]

Right.

[E]

It's pretty wild.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, I think this is the challenge of this movie is that it sits in her experience so thoroughly. Right. And to the point where you're like, not sure what's real or what's not sometimes. Right. Like the motorcyclist neighbor who shows up for a while, you're like, is that real? Like, is that really a person? Like before? And like before you see that he's Lakeith. He's just like in a helmet. Like a kind of like music video figure or something. Yeah.

[E]

I thought it was like mental illness.

[C]

Exactly.

[E]

Like looming in the distance.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which to be fair, like lakeith Stanfield as a figure does kind of represent that.

[C]

But you know, like that, the way like that whole thread is handled, there's a long stretch where you're like, I cannot tell how much of this is just in her head.

[A]

No. And even when you have the scene in the parking lot, you cannot tell. Tell what you're supposed to take away from that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean we ever fully.

[C]

No, no. But I think with a dog or with, with, with Robert Pattinson's character, whose name I'm forgetting. Does he. What is his name?

[B]

His name is Jackson.

[A]

Oh, Jackson.

[C]

Okay. So with Jackson and I think like the question you might have throughout of just like, why is he still around? And also why does he, after a lot of these things happen, be like, let's get married, you know, is that I feel like we just never. We're so deep in her perspective that we don't actually get a sense of what she might be like from the outside. You know, like, like, like see?

[A]

Yeah, this is interesting. I mean, a. I think, you know what I was saying about like dog killing being a bit of a deal breaker in relationships. It's like this person has a child with this woman. So there is like a sense of.

[B]

You can't just be like, jesus, you're too much enough.

[A]

Yeah, right, right. For, for a guy who is a character certainly is not good at expressing himself or working through things or feels like he's really good at engaging with the severity of things, there is like A struggle to calculate. Like, well, even if I perceive this woman to be, like, a physical threat to my child, what do I do? Is. Is, you know, having her institutionalize. The move is. Is moving away from her. The move. Like, all of these things have, like, eternal ripple effects on the health of this child. Whether you remove her from the equation or keep her close, there's, like, pluses and minuses. And you're like, but now he has, like, witnessed her do a thing that he's never going to be able to get past. Right. It is. It is an act that much like the way it stays with the audience, you're just like, he can't process that. He's never going to be like, well, that was a bad day. Right? Like, there is, like, a core trauma there. He's never going to be able to move past. And I think in terms of, like, where is this line? Why are they allowing it to happen? Why does he then decide to get married to her? There's a thing that I found very informative with this movie, which is like, it's based on a book. The book is very much about, like, how much is in this person's head psychosis in a postpartum depressive state.

[B]

It's also not set in Montana.

[A]

No, France. Right. But it's the idea of being isolated and losing a grip on reality. That character is not a writer. And, yeah, there were a lot of changes made. We'll open the dossier in a moment and get into all of this. And it is offered to Lynne Ramsey. And she goes like, I feel like I did my version of a postpartum movie with Kevin. Sure. Do I want to repeat this?

[B]

Although she did that before she had children.

[A]

Well, that's A. And B, I think she's like, okay, is there a different in for me on this story? And she keeps saying in interviews, I didn't see this as a postpartum movie. I saw this as an opportunity to make a mad love story. And when I read that, I was like, what is that? And what I think she's saying is, literally, that is a movie about falling in love with someone who is severely mentally ill. It is a movie about getting in too deep in a relationship with someone where, you know, in your 20s, a lot of things, people, you know, who are really engaging and charismatic and have, like, exciting personalities start to experience significant breakdowns in their late 20s and 30s. And you realize these are traits of latent mental illness and the exact things that make someone like Jennifer Lawrence seem like this is the Most exciting girl in the world. You keep wanting to excuse things. And the further the signs present themselves, the more there's a sunk cost fallacy of. To accept this at this moment is to look back on everything and invalidate it. And this guy is just trying so hard to be like, what will reset her back to three years ago? You know, there's clearly a thing, and I think this movie's failing is it doesn't totally dramatize his character correctly. I think this movie would connect more if it could find a way to explain his point of view a little more. But I think it's just how. How can I deny that I was wrong about this person or the sense that this person is gone and what can I do to try to get them back?

[C]

I think that that's a great point, though.

[A]

I think that Especially now that there's a baby in the mission.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

So I think, like, the idea. Well, like, the idea of being like this, like, telling that story, but telling it from her perspective is like, what is so disorienting about this movie? Because it is, like, to be like, this is a movie about loving someone who is, like, having. Who is spiraling out in a way that they're probably not going to recover from. But also, you're going to see it from the point of view of the person spiraling out. But also, I think his character, and I understand why, because if he were too. Too sympathetic or too responsible, you would just totally lose her. Right. Like, you can't just be like, why doesn't he dump her?

[A]

But like, they talked about in the book, he's way more of an oaf that they were like, we wanted to make him more emotionally engaged, you know, even if he's not 100% able to. Yeah.

[C]

At the same time, though, he, like, he does. Yeah. He comes. He's like, I got a dog. And then is like. And then. And then he's like, clearly. Yeah. Like, and then also remember there's that scene where he's like, we need to talk. Leave the baby behind.

[A]

Yes. Insane.

[C]

And wrestles her into the car and drives her off like that. You know, for all that you're like, there is a lot. There are legitimate reasons why some of these characters would worry about the baby, though. Like, she is also, like, always very careful with the baby. You know, even when she is, like, walking off into the woods, she never. There's never a question, like, within our perspective that she is. She is, like, not caring.

[E]

There's the knife and the knife.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But, like, that's like. Right.

[B]

I don't know. She gets quite close.

[C]

I feel like she has never knife to the baby movie. Also like there's that point where she's like the one thing that works is like the baby. Right. Like that. Like she even says as much at a certain point.

[B]

I sort of eventually realized, right. The baby was not really going to be in danger. Problem. In danger. Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But not the movie announces herself.

[B]

She's more a danger to herself nonetheless.

[C]

Yes. You know, yeah, but yeah, like, I mean it is interesting that like it puts in these scenes where Pattinson is the one who is like Jackson is the one who is careless about childcare.

[B]

This is a problem I had with Night Bitch. A worse movie that nobody remembers Night

[A]

Bitch, but a movie I was thinking about a lot during this rewatch because there is so much overlap between the two of them and sort of the bigger ideas.

[B]

Exactly. Did you see Night Bitch?

[C]

I never saw Night Bitch.

[A]

Night Bitch coming. That's a bit from two years ago.

[B]

It has the same sort of plot of like we are with this mother who is struggling. Obviously my Bitch is very much a postpartum movie that's about her struggling with like how her body has changed and blah blah, blah, blah. But the husband's there and seems like not like a complete dolt but also like kind of careless and like not very emotionally.

[A]

Like Scoot McNary as a bit of a well intentioned Batman where he's like,

[B]

I want to play Xbox. And I was just kind of like, I think he has to be stupider or smarter. Like I just think like the guy you're showing me I think would be a little more on like that his wife is turning into a dog. Like he needs to be dumber like, or something.

[A]

I. I agree that it is the fundamental Achilles heel of this movie. Die my Love is that exact problem where the two times I've seen it I'm like, Pattinson either needs to be significantly smarter or significantly dumber. And I have seen him play both incredibly well many times. I know he has that range part of it. The problem is if he's so interesting and so hot.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That needs to make a stronger choice.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[B]

The problem is that if he's too dumb, then it's about being married to a dumbass.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And that's not what it's.

[C]

Right. And then it just like. And then I think it becomes something.

[B]

If he's too smart then you're like, why the isn't he just like, yeah, well that's it.

[C]

The movie doesn't want to. It kind of takes a lot of pains to reject the idea of being like, oh, it's so off. Like, I'm trapped in this marriage to this, like, just to this slob. Right. Like, yes, he is highly imperfect, but you have sympathy for him. Right.

[B]

It's also not a story about, like, moving to Montana, making you crazy, but she. They have moved to Montana and she is going crazy.

[C]

Yeah. And. Or about feeling like you can't express yourself creatively. I mean, we never really learn about her writing at all. Like, the writing is almost this, like, asterisk of being like, in. Symbolizes something she can't do anymore, potentially related to her. Her mental health.

[E]

But you write once in a very abstract way, spreading some ink.

[C]

Oh, right, yeah.

[A]

As well as some flu milk.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, it's. It's.

[E]

It's new. It's different.

[C]

True.

[B]

Fresh.

[C]

It's on the paper.

[A]

Very fresh. It's very fresh.

[B]

I'm sorry.

[A]

No, no, no, I agree. I agree that that's the. The thing holding this movie back from, like, greatness for me. And the thing that puts it at the bottom of the pile for me is, you know, I think the Pattinson character is kind of operating from a belief that this is a postpartum thing. I understand that. I don't understand this. Maybe I just didn't know it was going to be this extreme. And this will end. We will get to the other side of it. Right. And I think a lot of this movie is about the rejection of. There is something larger here. Postpartum has possibly broken a dam of many, many issues. And, you know, all the women around her are sort of like, going like, yeah, I had, like, a night bitch phase two. Anyway. Now I know how to wear clothes, you know, like, I used to scream and throw knives. Anyway, now it's six months later, and I'm a little bit okay, and you just gotta, like, shove it down. And everyone is sort of saying this kind of like Stepford yv. Like, yeah, you just suck it up. And no men want to hear your problems and you get through it.

[C]

And I think they're also kinder about it. Right? Like, yeah, they're not being like. It's like, can I help you? Like, can I please, like, do anything?

[A]

We have to stick together because they don't understand what's going on with us. But also in saying that to her, they don't understand what's going on with her.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think to her, her that being communicated also Feels like you're telling me there's more of this, you know, like, this is not reassuring. David.

[B]

What?

[A]

Donna.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Donna.

[B]

Oh. His legendary and very old composer John Williams in the room.

[A]

It was just his birthday.

[B]

I know. And he was celebrated.

[A]

He is the man who tried to warn us about the sharks. He said, here is their theme song. If you hear them two notes, right? If you hear those two notes, suit up, get safe, hit dry land. Because it's scary to swim in open waters when there's a risk of a shark attack. And even scarier is going online without ExpressVPN.

[B]

Would you say that's like scuba diving in a suit made of meat?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

It's not. It's even worse than scuba diving in your birthday suit. It's scuba diving in a meat suit. I'm begging people, I would say, just for.

[B]

For me personally, I. Actually, my birthday suit is a suit made of meat. I got it made for a birthday one time.

[A]

Okay, That's a birthday suit, not your birthday suit. The real lesson here is that thank God Lady Gaga didn't go for a swim after the the Grammys that one

[B]

time when she was in the meet. Remember that?

[A]

And thank God Express VPN exists to keep you safe while surfing the World Wide Web.

[B]

Exactly. This is all a metaphor, but when you think about it, when you're connecting to an unencrypted network, say you're in a hotel or a cafe, an airport, so on and so forth, your online data is not secure. There are sharks, AKA hackers, trying to steal your personal data. Doesn't take much technical knowledge to do it. Nope, just some cheap hardware is needed. Your daily data is valuable. They can make a thousand a person selling it on the dark web. So, ExpressVPN. Listen, I have some stuff to tell you about it.

[A]

I can't wait to hear it.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Drop a flicking a 12 pence at you.

[A]

A 12 pence.

[B]

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[A]

I'm gonna go on a limb and say that 1 billion years is longer than the average life expectancy for a hacker. I'm gonna say most of them probably will not succeed in getting there.

[B]

So I use it. It's on my phone, it's on my laptop.

[A]

I have it on my. Everything. Yep, yep. Clicky.

[B]

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[A]

You did right. Believe in yourself letters. Yeah. And Happy birthday, Johnny Williams. David What? Do you know what that was? Roadrunner motivation. That's how quickly it comes and goes, baby.

[B]

I felt like it was more like a roadrunner. Like the cartoon.

[A]

Yeah, but roadrunners come and go.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[B]

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That was my question. You don't use a different stirrer or

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[A]

Can we crack open the dossier, Mr. Sims?

[B]

So you never really hear. Came out eight years prior. You know, once again, she has a long gap between projects.

[A]

There's. There's Pandemic and such. There are many projects that come close to.

[B]

Well, I'll tell you some. One is a Civil War movie called Call Black Horse starring Casey Affleck.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Nothing else has ever surfaced about that one.

[A]

Zero ways that could go wrong.

[B]

She says she wrote 160 pages of a script that is an epic environmental horror thing. Nothing's ever really come of that one either. She signed on with Village Roadshow at one point to direct the Girl who Loved Tom Gordon, which is a Stephen King novel. Like a. Not. Not Stephen with a ph.

[A]

Not Stephen with a ph.

[B]

No, it is Stephen with a ph. So JJ actually fucked up, right? Wrote his name wrong.

[A]

JJ Walk into the burning woods. Yeah.

[B]

She apparently once, George A. Romero had been sort of tasked with making that. She wrote a screenplay for that. It's about a hike on the Appalachian Trail. A girl listening to the radio, she gets lost in the woods. Sounds sort of interesting. Nothing has ever come up. The two big ones are a film called Polaris, which has long been in development, long attached to Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, about an ice photographer that's set at the turn of the century. She says it's a passion project.

[A]

No, we don't know that is the one. Because I have sort of wanted to do her as soon as she made a new film. Most years until this year. There was a. Maybe Polaris is filming in a couple months.

[B]

There was an erroneous account in Variety that it had wrapped production.

[A]

That was the thing that really us up, because then people were like, are there two Lynn Ramsey movies in the can?

[B]

That is simply just not true.

[A]

No, and it was a mistake, but it always kind of felt like that was closest to happening. And then this movie leapfrogged.

[B]

The other thing was Stone Mattress, an adaptation of a short story from a Margaret Atwood collection.

[A]

There was also erroneous reporting because she had been attached to Stone Mattress that

[B]

was going to have Julianne Moore and Sandra oh and be set on a ship.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I feel like there was also a point where it came out in some interview. Oh, Jennifer Lawrence and Lynn Ramsey are working something. And then people erroneously spread that it was Jennifer Lawrence has signed on to Stone Mattress. Yeah, this movie came up.

[B]

They would have had to shoot it in Greenland. Typical.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they struggled to. I mean, it's hard to, you know, set a movie like that up. She also floated working on a TV show. That TV series that never happened. Anyway, as we know, with Die My Love, what happens is Martin Scorsese, who has a book club which has unnamed film directors who read books with their eyes towards adapting them. I don't know who's in this club.

[A]

No, I'm guessing it's probably him and a couple X Men directors he read. What does the term mean now? Griffin's made it very flexible.

[B]

He read Die My Love.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Written by Ariana Harwich. I think Argentinian writer found it to be a powerful mosaic of the mind and handed it to Jennifer Lawrence. He had liked Mother and he basically said, like, I think she can pull this off. Apparently, you know, he had come to her once before. Our friend Gia, who's on this, on this podcast in the profile, said that, like, apparently Kate Chopin's novel the Awakening had been something Scorsese brought to Lawrence, but nothing happened.

[A]

It felt like, right, he's had his eye out for her. She's wanted to work with him. They're in communication. He will send her books that he thinks there's something in that could fit with her.

[B]

Lawrence decides that she's always wanted to work with Merlin. Ramsey said, I've wanted to work with her my entire adult life and sent her the novel directly. And they email for about six months about being moms and other things. Ramsey's a little, as you say, wary because she's kind of like, I already did. We need to talk about Kevin. But, you know, a major movie star is trying to work with her and is handing her something.

[A]

Ramsey also is like, hey, I don't want to make that. I'd rather make this. And Lawrence was like, this is the movie I want to make.

[B]

Lawrence was persistent, and so Ramsey had to be somewhat won over, but she kind of fucked with the story. Turned into more of a love story, according to Ramsey.

[A]

Yes. May I read this quote I found that I thought was interesting that Jennifer Lawrence gave to Indiewire. She said, you know, Scorsese hands her. The book says, you should do this. And Lawrence's quote is, I sat with it for a while, and then once it all clicked that it was that it isn't a literal adaptation, that it's more poetic, then I realized Lynn Ramsey was the only person that we could conceive of making it because she's the only poet I know of that makes movies.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

And so part of wanting her to make it was being like, I want you to interpret this how you want. I think when Lynn is like, I don't know, is this too similar, this book? She's just like, you figure out your version of it. That's what I want to do. But it feels like there's a lot of empowering of I want to be in whatever version of this you want to make.

[B]

So Ramsey says, I want to put humor in there. I want it to be a love story. She says something that I think is a little silly, which is the whole posh part of thing is just bullshit. It's not about that. It's about a relationship breaking down. It's about love breaking down and sex breaking down after having a baby. After having a baby is what, postpartum?

[C]

Yes. Right.

[B]

So it is a postpartum movie. But. Okay. Lynne Ramsey, I think she just is

[A]

probably reacting to how much that was, like, reduced to the logline of the movie. Sure. Yeah.

[B]

I think Jennifer Lawrence is very much like, this is my Jenna Rollins movie.

[A]

Like, you know.

[B]

Right. This is me being Cassavetes, you know? Yeah.

[A]

And an interesting thing. She has two children. She talks about. She's talked about a lot in the press for this movie that she did not have a difficulty postpartum experience mentally and emotionally after her first child.

[B]

She had a tough one after second.

[A]

When she films this movie, she was. She is like less than three months pregnant, which is how they're able to do things like the breastfeed, like lactation, like, practically. And, you know, by being in her early stages of pregnancy, she's physically more believable as someone who's like, recently given birth. She's making this movie being like, this is pure just acting for me. This is like fudgeing general and this is going off. This is exploration. I'm not pulling for anything in my own experience. Then she wraps this film. She has a second child. She has a really tough postpartum experience there. Lynne Ramsey edits for a while. She goes to see the movie at Cannes. She, like, breaks down crying. And she's like, I was representing a thing I hadn't experienced that I'm now watching and is speaking to me. It's just kind of a fascinating. I don't know, catching her at that moment.

[B]

It is interesting. It's interesting that she made this while she was pregnant. I think it was a pain in the ass, probably. Lynn decides to move the action to Montana. I mean, she wasn't gonna make it in France. Right. Like, I guess that makes sense. And she never really met the author until after the movie was a can. So she didn't really, like, you know, delve with the author on what it's

[A]

about, and she gets the Disco Pigs guy to adapt it.

[B]

So two people, Edna Walsh, who's a playwright, he is the guy who wrote small things like these. Is he the Disco Pigs guy?

[A]

I think so. Am I wrong about this?

[B]

I don't know. Let me look it up.

[A]

Okay, well, let me look it up.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. He's the guy who wrote the play Disco Pigs way back in the day,

[A]

which was Cillian Murphy's launchpad. Yeah. As both play and movie.

[B]

And then Alice Birch, who wrote Lady Macbeth and then worked on Succession and stuff, basically was brought in as a script editor, like, as they're in final weeks of prep. And Lynn was like, you did the work. You should have a credit too. So they all. That's why there's three credits. Pattinson said the first draft was funnier maybe. And then, like. And the husband was sort of just a device in the book. Like, he's just useless. And my character was kind of like that in the first draft. But then, like, it's sort of Beefed up with every draft. Sure. I mean, it did. I mean, he's got stuff to do.

[A]

They got like 30 to 40% of the way there to a character is what I find frustrating.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, he's, he's just. We see him through her eyes so clearly. Like, it's so clearly a subjective experience of him that it's hard to.

[A]

Yeah. There's a lot of stuff I can infer, but it's still hard to kind of make sense of what he's doing on a scene to scene basis. I can kind of like zoom out and go anyway, go on.

[C]

I mean, like the cheating. Right. Like when you're like, how much of this is her channeling her own frustrations and her own feelings of like her like sexual frustration, her feelings about her body and how much of it is like, yes, there are condoms in there. And I'm like, I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And. And I mean, I feel like Ramsay makes a real choice to establish a pattern of him looking at women and looking at women who you have to imagine are similar to Jennifer Lawrence when he met her. You know, there's sort of the alternative girl who is the waitress at the diner and the two girls on the beach and sort of like, you know, who has this kind of like rough energy in their mid-20s that maybe he's now on the business end of and is longing for again, but. Right. You don't really get any larger allusions to, you know, he's. He's texting someone under the table or whatever.

[B]

No. And he's also hot. You would feel jealous and crazy because he's a good looking guy. Like, you're just kind of like, well, right.

[C]

Who's on the road?

[A]

I'm sure people are interested, you know.

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

You know, Lynn, she's. Lauren says Lynn is very emotionally led, not controlling, crazy. You know, they do these sort of rehearsals where you kind of just like, you know, exploring the space and being weird and. Right. Like, you know, a lot of stuff comes out of that.

[A]

Yeah. And you know, Pattinson, like, who I think is fairly studious as an actor and trying to prepare.

[B]

Pattinson, I've been told. Right. Is like, is a very serious rehearser who struggles with. Well, I mean, what. It was Eggers who told me long ago, this is the Lighthouse with Willem Dafoe being more like, let's go crazy in this scene.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And Pattinson was like, oh, fuck. I like, like. But I like really got the voice down and like, you know, I've been, like, working on this scene really hard.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But then I. I assume he's done a lot of work since then, where I assume, again, he had to kind of adjust.

[A]

Like, Lighthouse is an interesting comparison point because you're like, that's kind of. In theory. What should be the juice of casting him here is placing him into an unstructured environment with an actor who is so famously instinctive, you know, instead of intellectual, and then having him struggle with an environment that he can't figure out the framework of. And I feel like Lighthouse gets that. Like, he channels his frustration into the character. He's great in that, which is the primary thing.

[B]

And he has the more tough role, so, like.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And. And it. They don't quite land on it here, but he tells the story about there being like a five page dialogue scene that he worked really hard on, that he is like a real, like, fucking. Like notes in the margin of the page kind of guy. And they got to set, and Lynn's like, I think we do this without words. And he was like, which part? And she was like, all five pages. And he was like, I guess this is just what this is.

[B]

Yeah, I guess this is the process here. I would be annoyed. We've been irked.

[A]

Different people work different ways.

[B]

Pattinson had never really met Jennifer Lawrence before, but I always wanted to work with her. They were chatting about something and she was like, do you want to be my husband in this Lynn Ramsey movie? This is how he puts it. Pattinson is notoriously someone who kind of like, massages the truth on press tours

[C]

because he gets unreliable narrator.

[A]

What are you talking about? Didn't, like, a clown shoot his dad or something?

[B]

No, that's Shia LaBeouf.

[C]

The cooking things. Right, where he invents, like, weird cooking things. Yeah.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Like, he's, you know. But he claims that Jennifer kind of, you know, offered it to him somewhat casually because he was kind of like, why are there no cool jobs? And she's like, how about this makes sort of sense? Because it's like, this is not the kind of movie you package with two stars. It is a Jennifer Lawrence movie, you know, and he is certainly playing a supporting role, but, you know, he seemed to have a good time. He's a very game actor. I love him in so many things. I like him in this. I. I walked out with very little to say about Robert Pattinson.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, he's good at playing kind of like slightly unreliable or disappointing. Like. Like that aura. I think he's at Conjuring. But yeah, it is like. It is like you said, it is like 40% of a character.

[A]

Here's what I think they're trying to get at with this character. Right. I was like watching it a second time. The opening of the house. Right. And then walking into it. And one of the first thing he says is like, I could record music in here. And you're like, okay, so. And he's talking about his childhood memories of the things that happen. They are inheriting his uncle's house. They are moving back to his hometown, closer to his parents. His father, played by. I don't know this actor. I didn't. I've never seen this guy before. He's kind of got just like a generic every man vibe voice.

[C]

I think it's a non professional. They just found it.

[A]

They just found it. He's like a Kevin o', Leary, right. Nick Nolte on fire in a tiny role. But I think he is like devastating in this movie. It is such an impactful, like two minutes or whatever it is.

[B]

Couple scenes.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Is it just one or. No, It's a couple. 2.

[C]

It's basically in the woods as well.

[A]

The scene in the house. That's extended. In the scene in the woods.

[B]

How much naughty has there been late?

[C]

Not much.

[A]

Yeah. What's the last.

[B]

I mean, he was in two. It was a thing called the Golden Voice, which. Yeah, I can't say I know much about three. And then it's three years ago. He was in the Josh Duhamel movie Blackout.

[A]

Of course, two years before that.

[B]

I mean, like. Yeah, he's barely done anything.

[A]

Yeah. Like he is now. 85 years old.

[B]

That's old.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He's been around a long time. But I mean, like I. I was

[A]

trying to think like, what's Poker Face is the thing. I knew there was something in the last couple years I thought TV that I loved.

[B]

He was great at.

[A]

He's got his. His Spotlight episode of Poker Face.

[B]

We all enjoyed him in the Mandalorian, but I think that was just a voice.

[A]

What are you talking about? I'm in the costume. I'm pulling a dwarf. I'm on my knees playing an ugnot.

[B]

I. I love the Poker Face episode

[A]

where he was very good. He plays full tippet, basically. And have you, have you watched that episode, Alice?

[C]

No, I don't think so. I've watched a lot of Poker Face, but it kind of like plays a

[B]

stop motion animator who's like, you know, career is over. That it's a very obvious Homage to Phil Tippet, consciously.

[A]

And I think Brian Johnson's friends with Phil Tippett. But Phil Tippett talks about, like, his own mental health journey and the kind of breakdown he had when CGI replaced stop motion. And it's very much an oldie playing the recovered version of that.

[B]

But he is also a murder victim. Like. Yeah, he's not in it.

[A]

He's heartbreaking in it.

[B]

He's great.

[A]

Yeah, it's a really great performance.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What's like, the last. I mean, a Walk in the woods is. I feel like the last time he was, like, on the poster in a real movie that came out in theaters.

[A]

I believe he is, like, 2050 and an angel has fallen.

[B]

He is an angel.

[A]

He's revealed to be Gerard Butler's dad, which totally makes sense.

[B]

You're right. Yes, of course you are. Oh, let me. And this is so crazy. He plays someone who lives in the woods.

[A]

Oh, weird. Yes. He's definitely. They're like, where did you come from, angel? And he's like, well, it's a long story. And then it cuts to Nick Nolte being like, I make wood guns.

[B]

I haven't seen that. That's the third one.

[A]

I'm the Secret Service agent for the trade. That's the third one. Right. Because though the first one, it's the president is taken, the second one is the prime minister is taken, and the third one is. He is taken, I think. I don't know. Yeah.

[C]

Well, I believe you.

[B]

Nick Nolte. Ramsey said, I just thought of him for the role, and I asked to meet. He asked to meet me in person. I went to Malibu, and she says, look, his face is Ms. Merrick, and you can't take your eyes off him. And, you know, so it's like. I don't know. It's not like she had to go hunting for him. I guess he just doesn't work much. But, like, he makes sense here. Sissy Spacek is great, obviously.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She's just a great actor. Lawrence, she's in Causeway. So Lawrence had worked with.

[A]

Okay, okay, right. I forgot about that. Yeah.

[B]

I also. I confess, I also forgot about that. And then Lakeith Stanfield.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, barely in a role, barely in.

[B]

It strikes me as the kind of thing where he's just kind of. He's the kind of savvy, arty actor who probably is like, I'll definitely work Lynn Ramsey. And she says in the interview, I'd love to do, like, something bigger with him.

[C]

I. I wondered, like, if that. If There were more there that just got chopped down to, like, this kind of weird vestigial storyline.

[A]

It's not Terence Malik levels, but I do feel like she's a filmmaker where, like, you sign up for the movie and you're like, there's a ver in the whole thing. Or maybe you have no dialogue. It does feel like, even though it's a little distracting because he's famous enough that you keep expecting him to do more, the movie is asking him to do a thing that is so tied to his innate energy and presence that it does feel like it is effective shorthand casting in a way. But you are also like, did they really just get Laki Stanfield to show up and, like, kiss her twice in the woods?

[B]

I think they may.

[C]

And then give that horrified look when he had that encounter in the parking lot where he was like, oh, no.

[A]

Right. The idea with the Pattinson character, right, that this is where he grew up. His father is in a pretty extreme state of late stage dementia, it seems. And his mother is a very fragile woman. It feels innately forever. And his uncle has died. And you can infer that there was some sort of. Well, there's this house. We could move there. We could live for free. The cost of living is so much lower. Maybe if we want to have kids, isn't that a better place to raise kids?

[C]

I feel like it's right. Also, it's implied she's pregnant already. Right. Like, I mean, in that.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

First, like, kind of like montage where they're kind of dancing and cleaning. It cuts to her being pregnant almost immediately. So I presume that part of the emphasis was like, if we're going to have kids, let's go. We can have a whole house.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It feels like even if she doesn't know she's pregnant when they enter the house, it is a thing that they are trying to make happen. And. But yes, when he talks about, like, I could record music here, it's like there's a sense of they must have met in some cooler college town. They both left wherever they grew up and were like, hip, young, artistically activated kids together who stayed together. And now they're at this inflection point where he's presenting to her, well, my dad's sick. This house is free. We want to have kids. Isn't that a better place to raise kids? And when he gets back there, he kind of resets back to who he was growing up.

[B]

That's her fear that he's sort of right.

[A]

Like, right. Shedding that's where I think there's almost a character here that it's like this guy is surrendering his cool energy.

[B]

You kind of have to read it in. But yes.

[A]

To what degree did he just always kind of want to drive a truck? And that was like a dalliance to be like, I make music.

[E]

And he puts down the IPA and he picks up the Budweiser.

[A]

Exactly, exactly.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And, you know, this is what's comfortable to him. He's so, like, activated. The most excited, I would argue he is the entire movie is in the opening pointing out to her in the house. That's where I chip my tooth. Like, he's like, I've returned to my core self. And can I get over this, like, performative social jockeying, especially if we're together? Because I know this is the person I want to be with. And to her, it's like. Well, I don't know. Like, if writing is my core identity, but certainly if someone like, this is a writer, people go like, you know, she's like, a writer. She's all crazy, and she does crazy stuff. But if she stops writing, then they're like, what's your deal? He wants to keep saying, I'm gonna do music, but he seems to have no ambition to express himself creatively in any way.

[C]

He just. He likes guitars. Right. He's so offended when she's. She's like, hate guitars.

[A]

Right, right.

[C]

It's just, like, such a great thing to just say to someone out of the blue to like, yeah, yes, exactly.

[A]

But who hates guitars.

[B]

But it represents something to her. Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you get it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You understand what she's feeling at that point. And she also just wants to make him mad. And she's coming out with that. But I think also, you know, you get that flashback early on of her. I think it's like the Nolte scene where it's like, Thanksgiving dinner maybe, and it's like all of the women are at the table and all of the men are. The men are in the other room. And you're like. You can sense her being like, oh, is this my future? Like, this kind of like. Like, we're in the kitchen or we're at the table and we're talking about women's stuff. And, like, this, like, really traditional gender split and these kind of, like, gender roles. Like, you can watch him becoming more. I mean, there's a point where. The point where, I mean, she's obviously acting out at the pool party, but, like, he has, like, a panic attack. Over that.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Like, that kind of like he is already settling into this more kind of like, socially conservative pattern that he grew up in.

[A]

And it doesn't feel like that's the first time he's had that reaction. It feels like he constantly lives in fear of. You know, the thing with her, sometimes she has her moods, you know.

[C]

Right, right. And like, suddenly she has gone from being like, they're both, like, arty kind of like. Like, wild and crazy kids to being, like, she is the crazy one.

[A]

Right. And here is kind of like, you know, her coming out, party to the neighborhood. In a kind of way, it's like, we fixed her, were a happy family, and now, like, meet the other housewives. And I think you're right that like, even the scene with Sissy Spacek where she goes to visit her and Sissy Spacek holds her up a shotgun out of fear that someone's breaking into her house is kind of like Sissy being like, welcome to the club. You're on the other side. Here's how we swallow pain. And that is just fucking terrifying to her. The idea that there is now an expectation of normalcy or at least keeping up appearances, that it feels like what Ceci Spaceka is saying to her is, yeah, we all feel insane. We're all miserable. All of this is difficult. Here's how you handle it. And that is not a thing she's interested in doing at all. And I think it's so telling. The moment when Nick Nolte is struggling to tie his shoes and she goes over to him. I think it's maybe the single best moment in the film. And it's key to my reading of what does work in this film is you're like, this guy's off in the corner struggling so deeply with such a simple task. And it is that, like, sadness of the elderly feeling, the frustration of their loss of ability to handle a thing like that and not knowing what the right way to relate to them is in that moment. To not be condescending, to be helpful, while also not feeling like you are robbing them of any power or ability. And she just starts, like, communicating with him through, like, faces, like, expressive, sort of like, you know, like. Like Comedia Dell Arte versions of emotions.

[D]

Right?

[B]

Like, hold up that, like, are you happy? Are you sad? Like, medical chart. Yes.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And you just see him find a moment of comfort with her where it's like, we speak the same language. There are very different things going on in their respective brains, but there is a similar. I can't engage with what's happening over there at that table. And what's happening between us is not verbal. And he has this moment of peace and focus, and he helps her or she helps him. And then, like, you know, 30 seconds later, he freaks out, not knowing where he is and who's alive and who's dead and why they're in his brother's house and what year it is. Yeah.

[C]

You know what?

[A]

This year. Right.

[C]

My favorite scene is the one he is driving her back, I think, from the hospital, maybe. Or, like, this is. After a little while, she's, like, thrown herself through the.

[B]

The.

[A]

She.

[B]

She do throw herself through Window.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Right. Her relationship to the woods is very similar to Forky's relationship to Trash. Yes. Where she. He's just, I gotta get back at all costs.

[B]

Be I nude. Be it on fire. I must be in the woods.

[A]

Right. But.

[C]

So she's throwing herself through the window. He's taken her to the emergency room. They're back. She's like. Her face is, like, covered in scab still. And she's like, when's the last time we had sex?

[A]

Do you know?

[C]

And starting like this. Yes. And kind of demands that he say that he desires her and then starts being like, are we gonna have sex tonight? Are we gonna have sex when we get home? What if we have sex in the car? Like. Right. And it's just. It's so. I think there is this way in which she kind of, like, revels. She's still obviously Jennifer Lawrence and, like, one of the most beautiful people on the planet, but, like, revels in, like, these moments of kind of, like, grotesquery. Almost in the same way she makes us.

[B]

She's being like a little rabid squirrel.

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

Like, which she's good at.

[B]

Like.

[C]

And it's like. It's really funny. And he's so uncomfortable, and he's so trying to be like, no, I'm into it. Like, I love this. Like, yes. Like, let's. Let's have sex in the car with my mom in the house right there, watching our baby. Like, it's so good. I think those scenes are where I really enjoy that performance.

[B]

Right. The thing I liked. There's lots of things I like the way I do buy that she's like, why won't you fuck me? And he's like, no, no, I will. I will. But he probably doesn't want to, partly because she do be throwing herself through windows all the time, I suppose. But, like, partly because of normal postpartum kind of thing.

[C]

He's clearly very stressed.

[A]

And even though he's looking at other women, you know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That.

[D]

That.

[B]

That'll turn your house into a Polanski movie eventually. Like, everyone will be crawling up the wall.

[A]

He's looking at other women. But it doesn't feel like this movie is doing a thing that I think a worse film would, which is sort of implying that it's like, well, now that she's had a baby, she's not quite the same anymore. And I just. I'm not really attracted to her anymore. It is like everything else going on with her is overriding his animalistic instincts towards her, which, seen by the naked dancing at the beginning of the movie, clearly used to be their language.

[B]

Right. Or that's how she feels about their old relationship. Right, right. Like, even if you want to just be in her mind's eye, it's like, yes, we used to have this.

[A]

Right. And when she's like, why won't you fuck me? Used to fuck me in the car. She gets really, like, graphic in the description of, like, the process of physical maneuvering to have sex in the car. And he's just like, I don't know what. First of all, if you're intellectualizing it in this way, where. Where we're past the point of spontaneity, which is what you really want, and also, our life has too many responsibilities to be that spontaneous in that way is what he, like, does not say to her. But it is why he's like, I know. I do. I guess I do want to you, but not right now. Isn't it?

[E]

The mom is right there.

[C]

Yeah. She's babysitting.

[A]

So.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And in my memory also, that scene is pretty shortly after the dog.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's like she throws herself through the window. And then, like, I think there's like, a few more scenes after that. And then. Yeah, this is Right. So, yeah.

[A]

There's like, a feeling of when they have these confrontations, it being like, the to do list of things we need to talk through is now, like, six items long.

[C]

Right.

[A]

We still haven't really wrestled with the dog thing, you know, to some degree. The scene where he's, like, driving her. I think he's driving her after she's killed the dog. And he's just looking at her like, I do. I know this person. But he's also trying to, like, combat his fear and disdain with, like, should I be worried about her? Like, what does this say about what's going on? And what do I need to do to get through to her. That is the sort of like, mad love story part of it of I. I cannot fully divorce my emotions from this poor person who I now can't really understand.

[B]

Yeah. She's transformed in some way. She is. Again, I keep thinking of no hard feelings. And mother, I guess I'm trying to think of, like, her most feral other performances. And there's like, roots of it in the David O. Russell movies where she's, you know, quote unquote, she's sort of being crazy in like this 70s throwback way that feels fake and stupid to me.

[C]

I mean, you know what, like, movie this, like, this one made me think about is Melancholia, you know, like, very much beyond. Like, the wedding scene also is very much like, it starts off and it just. It feels like it encompasses a whole year's versus drama worth of drama and also just falls apart so spectacularly. But also like the. The depiction of depression, you know.

[B]

Well, I think Melancholia is a very powerful depiction of depression. Right. And like, I am kind of here and there on Lars Von Trier. And that's a movie that I saw at the time and liked a lot, but wasn't even like, some people were like, best movie of the decade.

[C]

I love that movie.

[B]

Yeah. Right. And then. But then it let. It quickly kind of like stuck with me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where I was like. I think I might have also just been feeling really bad after I saw that movie because it's about feeling bad

[D]

and it worked like.

[B]

Like it did a good job conveying the feeling of feeling bad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Whereas this doesn't. To me, this more rattles me, this movie, like. And like that's fun. Like it gets. It gets a rise out of me in that way. But it didn't really. I didn't feel in her head maybe in the same kind of way.

[C]

That's the Lynne Ramsey thing also, I think.

[A]

Right. And you were saying this movie is so her perspective. I think this is like, weirdly the least protagonist perspective centered film in her ouv, which her work is so intimate inside the head that that still makes it feel more sort of singular through this one character's eyes than most movies. But I think it is a little zoomed out. She's not doing. You know, the main device of the book is how much of this is real. More repulsion style. Where is the line? Kind of.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And I. I think part of that is that and. And partially some of this is the framing and probably why, like, Ramsay is pushing back on the postpartum thing, not to say that isn't part of the soup, but just like, to frame it that way makes a depression movie. And does this movie work as a depression movie versus. I feel like when we get to the scene where she is committed to the hospital and she's in the sort of like group therapy environment, and for the first time we get like, backstory from her and it is in. In a worse film and a worse piece of material, the scene where it's like, oh, and now she breaks down crying and here's the core.

[B]

She's smoking a cigarette and she tells you, right, that her mommy never loved her or whatever, right?

[C]

And then it's solved and then she can move forward, right?

[A]

And instead she like kind of very bluntly offhandedly explains to this therapist. I said group therapist, but it's a one on one scene, right? I can't believe. Yeah. She says to this guy, like, yeah, my parents. And here was the dynamic. And my parents were unhealthy and it was, you know, an emotionally unstable household and both of them died in a plane crash. And she's sort of presenting it as like. But that, like, doesn't have anything to do with me. And there's a sense of like, there is something that has been unacknowledged in horror family for a while, you know, there is something that has just been treated with a kind of like, white knuckle, get through it attitude perhaps, and that then can be manifested and like, owned as being a spark plug and being like wild and being creative and all these sorts of things.

[C]

I think also, I mean, I think there are multiple possible elements, right? Like her childhood and, you know, her attachment issues and postpartum and other depressions, you know, but like, she rejects all of them, right? Like she does not latch onto any of them.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And I feel like part of, like, I think the power of this movie comes for me from her just being like, it doesn't actually matter which of these things it is because I. I cannot get a hold of it. And I think, like, the. A lot of the great parts of her performance are the ones where she's just conveying someone who is like, like almost just like impossibly restless and unhappy in her own skin. You know, like when she does. She does this thing where she like, kind of like, like drops over from the waist. Like her, like, like, you know, her strings have been cut. Like she's, you know, a puppet whose strings have been cut and then. Or she makes those weird faces when she's in the car. Like, she, you know, looks at her body. Yeah, the lower jaw thing. She looks at her body in the mirror in ways that are almost, like, clinical, you know, Like, I think there is this really. I think she. She does a lot to convey this idea of someone where you're just like, what if you can barely stand to inhabit. Not even in disgust, but just like you are you. You barely can stand to inhabit your own body and your own right.

[A]

And everyone is constantly trying to point to things that are circumstantial. While it's tough moving. This is a big culture shock for you.

[C]

And you're like, those things possibly all contributed, but they are not helpful for her.

[A]

Right.

[C]

As, like, solutions.

[A]

There's a. There's a talking around the thing that feels not just about everyone around her, but also about her and her parents and who knows how far back this goes, you know, if it is, like, kind of acquired trauma from behavior or if it's chemical or. Or what. But, yes, they're sort of like, to a certain degree, like, postpartum is the red herring of this movie. And I feel like the woods thing is her just naturally being drawn to the idea of going back to some natural state. Right. It is literally like, can I be a naked animal in the woods? Can I be night bitch? I just want to fucking stop pretending. I want to stop being told there is a way to behave. I want to, like, get on all fours and eat leaves. Like, what is all of this? You know, like, the idea of the pool party is just like. Just feels like fucking theater to her that she cannot maintain for more than two minutes. And it is so heartbreaking to me because you have this arc of her going in there. You see her settled in the. The hospital. You know, her temperament has certainly calmed down, even though she doesn't seem happy. You were like, there is a mania that has lowered. And now it's like, has she. The first time watching this, I was like, is this movie a kind of tragedy of some part of her getting doled off in order to survive, and instead she just rejects it. Within three minutes, she has to, like, tell this woman off to her face and rip her clothes off. And what makes sense to her is to, like, look at the young cashier at the gas station and be like, why the fuck are we talking? Which is another one of the best scenes in the movie.

[E]

Yeah, unfortunately, I relate to that scene.

[C]

You hate small talk.

[E]

Yes, I do. And I, over the pandemic, briefly spent some time in New Hampshire rural New Hampshire. And having grown up in New Jersey, you know, tri state area, lived in New York. Like, I'm so used to social interactions being brief and. And curt and maybe some people would interpret it as rude. I actually really prefer the quick. Just, you don't even need to make eye contact.

[C]

Me, it's.

[B]

Yes. And so being the northeast thing. Yeah.

[E]

Being out in this rural setting and someone just being like, how about the weather, huh? Like chit chatting with me. I definitely had these moments where I was so tempted to be like, enough, Just give me the thing, man.

[B]

Just ring me up.

[E]

Like, I really get it.

[A]

Well, and look, it's a thing that melancholia gets as well, which is like that movie is all based on this. The idea of melancholia, the idea of this planet crashing in and possibly pretending an apocalypse being a metaphor, but also being real, which is the power of that movie, which is just like when you are at a deep, deep stage of depression or mania or any other number of things, you are catastrophizing everything. But also it.

[B]

It.

[A]

You might be right. You know, there is. There is a degree of like broken clock, four times a day kind of thing. Like maybe, maybe this clock has like multiple correct overlap moments and she's just kind of like seeing things clearly at times. You know, there is. And that also then makes you want to, I think as a person in like a Robert Pattinson position, go, well, she was like, good yesterday. You know, like yesterday she was normal. We actually had like a conversation. You want to believe that there's an understanding there, but then you see a situation where you're like, what is the point of you asking me questions about my baby? Nothing is accomplished by this. I cannot pretend. Doesn't she make the joke too of like, what's his name? And she's like, I don't know. We haven't really.

[C]

Like, we never. We decided not to name him.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

And yet she has no friends.

[A]

Right.

[E]

We learn she has no family.

[C]

No one. Yeah. No one in her life at all.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

She's so isolated.

[A]

You get the sense that, I think they were really relationship people. And now it's not. Like he seems to have a lot of friends on the side. He just wants to like go drive his truck by himself.

[C]

He also just slips back into his old life. Like it. Like a, you know, comfortable shoe.

[A]

Like, it's just what you kind of imagine. His father must have been like, like a kind of stoic man who is like sweet at times, but mostly just wants to go on like long rides, right?

[C]

And then comes back and is like, why is the house so dirty?

[A]

Right? And that scene where he calls her from the diner and she goes, you're eating lunch or you're eating a cheeseburger. This feeling of like, you can just go and do that, like you're doing things without me. I'm here listening to fucking hey Mickey 20 times in a row, which I also think is such a good capturing of a certain kind of like mental anguish of just like, I don't know, I just need to keep fucking listening to this song.

[E]

He's got the car.

[A]

He's got the car.

[E]

They have one car. And there's. There's something too about seeing her throughout the movie pushing the baby carriage on dirt roads along a highway. It makes me nervous to see it happening.

[C]

And she. The only place she has to go beyond the gas station store is like her mother in law's house. There's really nowhere to go otherwise.

[A]

She doesn't dislike, but she clearly cannot find a shared language with.

[C]

Yeah, so I do love. There's an expression in Sissy Spacek's face towards the very end where she does that toast to make we all die out. That expression on her face is so wonderful because it is so like, I understand you precisely in this moment.

[A]

That's why I think the Spacek casting is so good, because you can tell Spacek is a person who always feels so emotionally vulnerable that she cannot be someone who is just putting a brave face on something and not showing you any of how she actually feels. And I think Lawrence is terrified about the idea of being someone like that who isn't numb but is spending that much active energy suppressing and suppressing for outward appearances. Suppressing to not make other people uncomfortable.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, the best aspects of this film is that it does acknowledge all of the ways in which the women get a raw deal. Right. Like from, like, yes. Being stuck at home with, you know, doing what is not considered work. Right. Like, even though, like, child care is obviously, like, requires so much from you and is difficult and then. And yeah. Kind of being expected to just like, take care of the house as like part of this. Like.

[A]

Or.

[C]

Yeah, the, like the ways that all of the women are like. Yeah. Isn't it amazing how you just like lose the thread for like six months to a year after having a child? Like, like, like that's just part of it. It's really hard.

[A]

Tell me that.

[C]

Yeah, like all of those things. Things or Even like Sissy SpaceX character having kind of molded her entire life around this kind of coexistence with her husband to the fact that she cannot conceive of a way to even like, cook for one person, you know, like, I think there are ways it acknowledges all of those things, but also is like, I reject that as like the reading of this movie. Right? Like, like, like Lawrence's character keeps being like, but that's not the answer for me. Maybe, yes, it is maybe accurate, but also that you cannot solve me that way. This is not just about the hardship of being a woman and being a mother. This is about me. My specifics, which are no one can quite grasp, right.

[A]

And I think it's, it's part of what's amplifying everything innately in her is the biological phenomenon of, you know, being postpartum. And the other part of it is she is almost pushing past and acting out further beyond. The more everyone tries to tell her, yeah, well, yeah, we know what this is. Yeah. Like, the more people try to kind of tag her and put a box around it as an experience, the more she's pushing up against it.

[C]

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[A]

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[D]

Tell your doctor if you have new

[A]

or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglis. Before starting ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.

[C]

Ask your doctor about eglis and visit ebgliss.lilly.com or call 1-800-LilyRx or 1-800-5979.

[B]

I mean, I guess what I'm alighting on is my problem with this movie, which is I like the atmosphere of it and I like the performance a lot, but I felt like I had to be doing a lot of the deeper reading into it kind of. Which is. I mean, which maybe that's fine and maybe that's kind of the Lynn Ramsey experience. Because that's sort of true with all of her movies.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like with Morvern and with. You're never really here. I mean, there's stuff. There's little bits of context you get about these characters.

[A]

She doesn't like to.

[B]

In like piecemeal, flashbacky kind of ways. Yeah, but then Kevin is all that.

[C]

Yeah. No, they're all designed to be a fake.

[B]

Yeah, they all have that approach. And so I'm. I guess I'm wondering why. Or last year I was wondering why a Lynn Ramsey movie that was good was kind of like more of a top 25 movie for me than a top 10 one. Right. Like, you know, I wait and like, like, because, you know, like what, like, what was the difference here? Like, what, what, what sort of kept it from. I think the highest list of movies I enjoyed in a good movie year.

[A]

I think it is the Pattinson character. I think maybe I need to shake out my final 10. But it's like, does this make it in or not? Is a question for me. And I think that's the thing. It needs to really kind of be firing on all cylinders. Like, you don't want to tell the movie from his perspective, but you kind of need this character to be able to. Of kind his character to be able to communicate what's going on with him better. Because I think the movie is structured in a way where you're engaged enough to do the work about her and doing the work to fill in his character feels a little annoying. And I think it is. It's also just what we're saying of like, he's just a little too innately interesting as an actor that if things aren't fully fleshed out, you can't buy it. You can't buy blankness from him. You know, there needs to be, like, specificity. He's so odd that you can't just be like, I get it. They cast some boring dude. The dude doesn't matter. You know, I mean, you like talking about like night, like, Scoot McNary is a great actor and he's a good actor. Super like electrifying, wiry character actor work, but also like casting him as the husband who doesn't quite get that his wife's turning into a dog in night is casting the same as casting him as the dad who doesn't quite understand why the crocodile is singing in La La Crocodile.

[B]

And is that who he plays?

[A]

That's who he plays.

[B]

I haven't seen that.

[A]

There was a shade of him that works as a kind of milquetoast, like, I'm sorry, what's going on here? And. And that he can also do more interesting stuff.

[B]

Was he mad to have not made the above the title billing of La La Crocodile?

[A]

Do they only offer three?

[B]

They only have the three.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He's on the poster. He is going like this.

[A]

He's.

[B]

That's gesturing with his thumb at the crocodile. Javier Bardem.

[A]

No, his performance is real. What am I gonna do about this? So what's. End. The voice of Shawn Mendes.

[B]

It's Javier, but in Constance Wu and Shawn Mendes's Lyle.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

The kid's not getting. Oh, is that. Which fegli is it one of the feglies?

[A]

It's the lower, the younger fegli. It's a fegli. That's from tip to toe. That's.

[B]

We'll get you a fegly. That's what they. So they said.

[A]

How many feglies do you want that we. You want a double fegli or just one?

[B]

Can you get the. Get the tongs and pull a fegly out of the.

[A]

We're out of fact for me. Would you be okay with a jupe? Can I give you a jupe?

[C]

Oh, the jups are kind of high value these days, though. They're. They're stored separately.

[A]

Oh, so you think that it's. Maybe you get a fegli if the jups are sold out?

[C]

Yeah, I think that's the case. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. I think for me, the reason this is a lower tier Lynne Ramsey movie is just because it feels so. Yeah, like unmodulated. Like, it does feel like you know, even that. That. That very first scene of her kind of like post the dance, you know, setting up the house montage when they have the baby is like her crawling in the grass with the knife. You know, you're already like. You're starting at a place of like, splintering. And I feel like it. It doesn't mean it goes up and down a bit, but it feels like a movie that is like operating at a kind of a scream throughout for me. And I feel like that after a while, loses effectiveness.

[A]

I think that's a strategic decision to try to make it clear that whatever's going on with her didn't start here. Right. That this goes far, far back. But I do. I. The other movie I was thinking about a lot while watching this, a movie I did not like, was together.

[C]

Oh, I thought about together as well.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, it is about moving out

[A]

to that part of it where it's like, here's a hip, artsy couple, and one of them kind of wants to try a more rural life, and the other one feels like they're suffocating. And that is a movie that is, like, so thuddingly literal with what is happening psychologically. Not just the metaphor that then turns into the heightened horror, but also, like, the character constantly explaining exactly what he's grieving and what he's processing. And that's a movie that does it so fucking much. And also, I think it's a little murky with his supernatural rules to a degree where I'm like, you push me away. You're not letting me do any of the work. You keep going, and you get it. Right. In a way that, like, really turns my brain off. And this movie's doing the opposite, where I'm like, you maybe need to tell me 5 to 10% more directly.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, there's that point where you're like, am I reading into the film or am I just filling in? Because I need. Like, I'm coming up with my own material here.

[A]

Yeah. And I. Yes, yes. And the rubber meets the road with him, you know, And I think the scene of her with the therapist and explaining, basically, her parents not wanting her. I mean, this feeling that they did not know how to deal with her.

[B]

They'd been handed something they weren't really prepared for.

[A]

Sure. Right. And it's still elusive enough where it's interesting to sort of try to parse was that her from birth existing in a natural state that was more that they could handle speaking to the extremity of the child. Or is that a reflection on them and a path that she is continuing? She obviously is trying to exist in opposition to her parents because she is, despite sometimes dancing naked with a knife around a baby, I think, very invested in the idea of being present in this baby's life, and yet she cannot fucking figure out how to do this. You know, I think part of her seemingly intentionally getting pregnant before they are even married and making this big commitment is she does, like, the idea of, like, what if I could be the opposite parent? That is me filling in a lot. Right. But she's also sitting There going, like, yeah, but that's not anything. And they were like, and what happened to your parents? Died in a plane crash. As if, like.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's like, a normal thing. I have no problem with the fact that both of my parents died in a plane crash after having a terrible relationship to them. That's just one of those things.

[C]

Here's my question, please. Did you assume she was telling the truth there?

[A]

I did, but I do think it's an interesting question. Yeah.

[C]

Because there are other times. I mean, when she says, like, we decided not to give the baby a name. There are other times where she kind of like, just to. Or I hate guitars. You know, she's, like, testing people. And there was this moment when she says it where I'm like. Like, it's possible her parents are still around and she just hates them. You know?

[A]

Possible. This character is the Joker. She could be telling you five different stories of, like, how she got her scars. But in that moment, I believe it because she is not being antagonistic with him. She is trying really hard to take any weight off of what she's saying. And she also has gone into that environment, seemingly going, like, I get it. I need to fucking work on this. This is, like, hit a breaking point after the wedding in particular, you know, which is also so interesting as a contrast to Melancholia, where, like, that whole movie is basically built out of the wedding and you.

[B]

You put your character in a big, big white dress. You know, it's set a mood.

[A]

And you. You know, you have this core kind of like, betrayal moment in the wedding of Melancholia, where you're like, well, that's a point of no return. Like, that's going to fucking break everything. Who.

[B]

Who's she marrying in that one?

[A]

She's married. Or is it Skarsgard she's marrying Alexander.

[B]

Kiefer's the dad.

[A]

Kiefer.

[B]

I remember Kiefer being really weird in that movie.

[A]

Yeah. Am I wrong in thinking that Kiefer's her boss and. And that Stellan Skarsgard is his dad? Or do they cast Stellan and Alexander not as father and son?

[B]

Alexander is. Is indeed you know, the husband. Stellan is the boss.

[A]

So then Kiefer's the dad, and Kiefer

[B]

is John, Claire's husband. And so. Yeah. Yeah, right. He's the dad because Claire is Charlotte Gainsburg.

[A]

Well, yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Who is? Oh, no, no. Right. It's.

[A]

Isn't Skarsgard the boss and the dad?

[B]

No, no. It's a. Yeah, maybe. But Claire. Claire is her sister.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So Kiefer's her brother in law, right? Yeah.

[C]

Yes, yes.

[B]

Right. I have two questions. One, did you know that Angelina Jolie made a movie in 2024 called Without Blood?

[C]

No.

[A]

No.

[B]

What is war Drama? It was at tiff.

[A]

I'm hearing this for the first time. I'm holding one up like shame.

[C]

She directed it.

[B]

She directed it. I'm looking at Seamus McGarvey's recent credit. He shot this.

[C]

This does sound familiar. Beautiful movie, actually.

[B]

It is. And he's obviously a very good cinematographer.

[A]

He literally.

[B]

He's got some wacky ass credits.

[A]

Yes. He also. This movie felt like an opportunity for him to do some wacky ass where he was like, hey, Ramsey, here's some stuff I've always want to try. What if you literally set lenses on fire? They like did that, Ben. They were like, let's experiment with like burning lenses and like camera gates.

[B]

You know, they shot it in Academy, which is a classic thing to do, I think, when you're dealing with like inside, you know, like doors, will trees, like things that are vertical.

[A]

It's also so funny that that was just standard kind of like prestige ratio for so long and any type of movie could fit in it. And now if a director is employing it, it's like psychological claustrophobia.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What movies look like trapped in the frame instead of a square frame versus a wide frame.

[E]

Can I make a comment based on that information that's it's a hot shot.

[A]

It's. It's a hot shot. These are some hot shots.

[E]

And then I just walk off the camera.

[A]

I want to make clear, Ben, the camera was not on fire while they were filming. They weren't like lights, camera, match, action, but the sort of like inky quality to it. He was trying to see what would happen if they caused that kind of

[B]

intentional damage shot on reversal stock, which I think is a huge pain in the ass to use because you can't control light very well with it. And so the night scenes, they didn't. But otherwise McGarvey wanted to fuck around. He wanted a non naturalistic thing. Indeed. He was burning lenses, which created an inky look that he thought was cool. He shot Kevin, but I guess not. You were never really here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which was shot by Thomas Townend, not someone I know. I had another thing to say. Oh, is Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix, Arthur Fleck, the fourth or fifth best joker in films? It's like he's not even top three, I don't think.

[A]

Well, so what we're saying Ledger.

[B]

Nicholson. Yeah, at the top.

[C]

You know, I haven't seen the Nicholson one for so long, I really need to revisit.

[B]

It's pretty good. I mean, I guess you can put Phoenix in three.

[A]

No, but I feel like you would

[B]

easily just put, like, Mark Hamill cartoon

[A]

mask of Phantasm was released in theaters. Hamill is a lock for third.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Many people would argue he should be higher than. But there's no way that he's above that. He's below Phoenix. A man who won the second man only in history. That's what people don't realize. Only two men have ever won an Oscar for playing the Joker.

[B]

More people should do it.

[C]

Isn't that crazy?

[A]

There's only ever been two, so.

[B]

Okay, what happens in Diamond?

[A]

Can I go back to the wedding for a second?

[B]

Yeah. No, that's. I mean, that is a vital. That's like the big. Right, you know, thing in the movie, the big secret.

[A]

Sort of like the big final battle of, like, can we construct a set piece to make her happy? Right. Like, if we have this wedding and we presumably invite all our friends from our past lives.

[D]

Right.

[B]

And then you'll fuck me. Right. Like, it'll be our wedding night.

[A]

We're literally putting pageantry around this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And we're kind of like owning the country western thing in a hipster way rather than the full immersion that you have been struggling with. And it was where I kind of the first time watching it, started to be able to fill in some of the blanks on their backstory of just seeing the guests at the wedding and being like, oh, these are their friends from their past life. There is whatever percentage of, like, family. But here are all the friends they have not been seeing who are down with their weird shit, who are into, like, yeah, they do weird dancing and look at their outfits and whatever. And then she just takes it too far. She gets too loose. It stops being funny.

[B]

It's not funny. She's going, kiss me, kiss me. Like, yeah. And you're like, oh, my God.

[C]

And, like, she kisses Sissy Spacek.

[A]

And also, it's like. Like, the baby is there. Like, everyone is like, she's still acting like this with the baby. I know she's had some drinks, but, like, we thought she'd kind of chill out when she was a mother. And then you feel like there's going to be a melancholia thing of, like, oh, she's going to vindictively someone else. Spoilers for melancholia because her husband isn't her in her wedding night.

[C]

Seems like it's going to be the guy, the front desk guy.

[A]

Right. Who she invites up and then just listens to him play acoustic guitar. And you're like, this woman just, like. Like, does not know what she needs.

[C]

But also, he lets her go up to the room by herself and just. Is like, I'm gonna apparently stay here at my wedding without you and just, like, make nice with my family.

[A]

Like, say it feels like he's strategically. Like, I can't deal with whatever the fuck's going on up there. Let her do whatever the fuck she wants to do. I need to do damage control for all of our friends and family who I now embarrass myself in front of. And that's his priority is, like, the reputation over the relationship or even just, like, really kind of seeing her as a person. I have to say about that.

[C]

Yeah. What do we think about the John Prine song? It was all over the place. I feel like.

[A]

Yes. Love that song.

[C]

I do love that song.

[B]

It's really John Prime.

[C]

Really?

[A]

Whole soundtrack's really, really good in this.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

I was looking at a GQ article. Lynn did an interview talking about her process with picking music for her movies.

[B]

She always has great soundtracks.

[E]

So the Cream Crossroads drop was actually suggested to her by Marty Scorsese.

[B]

I mean, it makes sense that Marty might be.

[E]

It was like a song he always wanted to use.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

For sure. The punk song in the beginning is her singing.

[C]

Oh.

[E]

As well as the COVID of Love Will Tell Her. So Tear Us Apart is awesome.

[A]

Is Jennifer Lawrence.

[E]

No, it's Lynn.

[B]

Really?

[A]

That's wild.

[E]

Isn't that cool? And I thought the. The Joy Division cover was excellent.

[A]

It's excellent. Yeah. It's really good. Yeah. That is super cool. Yeah.

[B]

Johnny Greenwood didn't do the music, though.

[A]

But.

[B]

No, sir. Carry on.

[E]

The reprise at the end of the John Prine song. And who's the other performer? We should say.

[A]

Yep.

[E]

Iris Domet was not planned. It was just something that she spontaneously decided to do on the day of shooting, which I think is really such a lovely scene and almost like a little moment of, like, being able to take a breath. And then, unfortunately, you have the ending.

[A]

Yeah. Well. What?

[B]

You know, I kind of like the ending.

[A]

I. I love the ending because it's just sort of like.

[B]

It's the ending this movie has. It cannot be. She comes out of the hospital.

[A]

No.

[B]

And he's like, look, I fixed up the house and I'm being better. And she's like, oh, you know what? That's what I need.

[A]

Yeah. Literally. So worried it was gonna be that

[E]

this is so bad of me. I. I was. There was a part of me like, can she just wake up? And it was all a dream.

[A]

Jesus. I just.

[B]

Like that she's like, no, enough. Like, yeah, yeah, no, I. I fully do not want to do this.

[C]

Like, we've seen the forest on fire in the beginning. You gotta come back to the forest on fire at the end, you know?

[A]

Right. And the final exchange with Nick Nolte of just like, you're kind of, like, returning to the earth, you know, like, you've lost your ability to engage with the idea of society and, like, polite manners and social interactions and all these sorts of things. I don't read it as. And look, obviously there are many things we read bizarrely in the Rat Catcher episode. A thing that I have thought about since that episode came out. And I do think, Sims, there is something weird to the fact that you and I both saw that movie really young and I think kind of locked into our young reads of the movie, not being able to pick up on some of the more complicated.

[B]

But that was. I was not. That was no good. That I was not, like.

[A]

No.

[B]

Speaking of that.

[A]

No, absolutely. But I just, like, I was genuinely watching that movie from a weirdly naive perspective that I just. In trying to rationalize it, I think has to come from, like. Well, when I was, like, 12, my, like, sense of context clues was much lower than what literally is being depicted.

[B]

I completely missed that, like, in our description of it in the episode.

[A]

Yes, specifically.

[B]

Just they're assaulting the characters.

[E]

These boys who are sexually assaulting this female character. And we. I. I just think missed the mark and. And sort of defining the dynamics.

[B]

Like, what. You know, we were kind of like, they are being bad or they are misbehaving.

[A]

I think I said sexually charged bullying.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which read as me minimizing a thing, rather than me, something bad is having a bad brain and not interpreting a thing correctly. Right. But I. I don't now, as. I apologize for my last incorrect reading,

[B]

but I think I'm right about this.

[A]

Yes. The movie's about Troma. No, I think.

[E]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Like, Toxy.

[A]

Yeah, it's about Toxy. It's about Toxy and Sergeant Kabuki man. Nypd. That's why she's going to the woods, because they're all hanging out there. Poultry geist. I don't read the ending as a. A suicidal thing.

[B]

No.

[A]

And she's just done with this. Exactly.

[B]

It's not her thing.

[A]

It is metaphorical, but it's like metaphorically. It's metaphorically behavioral, if that makes sense. It is sort of like a world view thing of like I'm, I'm done playing the game.

[C]

Well, also like it. You get her walking into the flames and then you get like the shot of the house with like the cake, right? Like, doesn't it kind of, kind of like there's, there's like.

[A]

I think it says welcome home, mommy, or we love you, mommy.

[C]

I feel like there is a. You could, could read the other thing of just her leaving. Like she is.

[B]

Yeah, it's like, yeah, because they're trying to be like, are you now ready to be mommy?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Right. And that story she tells to the the therapist is about like seemingly kind of being abducted by a woman and feeling a relief at someone else taking her away from her parents who never knew how to deal with her.

[C]

And it almost also that like this, this 10 year old girl, right, she says she's like a 10 year old girl who like took me the way like those girls on the beach want to take the baby, right? Are like kind of like, oh, it's so fun to kind of play babysitter slash, you know, fake mom for this second and.

[A]

But is there like some acknowledgment even from a 10 year old who could not intellectualize these things of this kid needs something like this kid is not

[C]

being seen or I mean even that like what. I feel like there is something there also. Like we don't know if her parents yet. Like the parents were the ones who are like kind of like like the mess here or it's her memory of it, but like that she's just like seeing them as adults already, not just her parents and being like, you're so embarrassing, like you're handling this so poorly

[A]

and I wish I didn't belong to you, that there is some feeling of her being like, you're gonna keep trying to drag me back to raise this child and I don't know if I will ever be helpful to this child. I also think like in a movie where you're questioning how much of, of what you're seeing is, is real and it's so perspective based to a degree. All this fire is like super CGI and artificial as we said. Like they're shooting day for night. Like all of that stuff, it also,

[C]

it springs up all over the place simultaneously, right? Like it's not like she, because she burns the diary, starts A fire? No, the whole force immediately comes up in flames.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Yeah, right. It's. It's a little.

[A]

It is purposefully unreal and it's, you know, speaking to an ecstatic truth.

[B]

Yep. The dialogue scene was. I'm just checking the.

[A]

Oh, good. The dialogue scene was trapped.

[B]

No, the. The thing. The five page monologue. They're like, no, thank you. You know, Lynn Ramsey would do things like crawl around for a while, please. And in this movie they would. Johnny Greenwood. She can. Who. Who scored her last two movies was. Was into. It was Italy, was busy. He nearly came back. She obviously had the soundtracks. You know, the needle drops and stuff. She ends up not working with him. I don't know. It feels like it all sounds a little shambolic to me.

[A]

George V. Yes.

[B]

Who's like a Nick Cave collaborator. Right. He's the guitarist from the Bad.

[A]

Yeah. But there are three music credits on this, including Ramsay, but he seems to have handled the lion sh of the score, which I think is very good. Could not find the score from this movie anywhere. I don't know if it's been released in any form. But especially the final underscoring of the. The woods is cool. Is really good. But yes. No, it does weirdly feel like probably just because of the engine of Jennifer Lawrence and especially once she got Robert Pattinson on board, this movie kind of came together very quickly.

[B]

Yeah. And obviously that's part of what we should talk about. Another thing is she plays music on set. The Cameron Cora thing. Peter Weir does that. You know, people do that just to amp people up. Score says he very protective of her throughout. We love you, Marty. The film goes to Can. I don't know what the. I don't know if there is a listed budget. I don't. I can't imagine. This cost a ton of money to me.

[C]

Oh, it's not many locations.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I.

[B]

Did you see it again?

[C]

I saw it at cam.

[B]

Did it change? Because I heard that it was like.

[C]

I think it. Did I rewatching it.

[A]

I. I probably not drastically.

[C]

Yeah, I felt like there were. Especially in the opening sequences. It felt like it had been tightened up. But then. I don't know, you know. But like. Yeah, it felt like it was like just barely done.

[A]

She traditionally goes to canon. Is like. By the way, the movie's not finished.

[B]

Right. I'm still working. I mean it was a. It felt like it was sort of a weird can, but it was a. Not a. It was a fairly strong one.

[C]

Yeah. I feel like there were a lot of There were a lot of great films. I think, you know, it was interesting. Yeah.

[B]

It was ignored agent awards wise. Right. Yeah.

[A]

And it, like, it landed positively. But then the movie deals happen, happens, and everyone's kind of like, like, are they. Are they seeing something we're not getting here?

[B]

Well, I think what they. What? I. I mean, I, from afar, had not seen this movie. I was like, well, it has movie stars in it. Like, I imagine they think they can sell it based on that. And they did do a good job with the substance. And what's it about? It's about Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, like, getting knees naked and being crazy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That sounds like something you could sell.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Right. I don't know.

[A]

Right.

[C]

I mean, there was a lot of skepticism at Cannes about, like, what do they think? Number. Yes.

[B]

They bought it for a lot of money.

[A]

Yeah. I also, you know, I. I feel like I've talked to.

[B]

I shot it last October.

[A]

Yeah, it was.

[B]

And it was a canon May, so, like, it was all pretty fast.

[A]

Right. Like, yeah. The problem is when you hear something like, movie bought the Lynne Ramsey movie for $20 million. A filmmaker who has never had a movie really exceed $10 million globally. Right. Even with two A list stars.

[B]

No. Like, all of her movies, in fact, have made about $10 million.

[A]

Exactly. And like, a million or two domestically, you sort of go like, what is the calculation they're doing here? And for people like us who are, like, very deep in the weeds on the movie industry but are also not working in distribution or whatever, you used to be able to read like, fox Searchlight has bought x movie for two $12.5 million and go like, okay, back of napkin math. They're hoping they can put whatever amount into marketing and get it to this amount domestically and assume that they can then sell the foreign rights to other people or DVDs or whatever it is, you hear like, Mubi has bought a thing for $20 million. It's the same as, like, Apple buying Coda for Sundance out of Sundance for 25, which I still think is the record, and going like, well, that sounds like it doesn't make sense at all. But also they have obscured what the business model even is anymore.

[C]

It's like, no equals question mark. Profit.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Like, aspect. The streaming aspect where you're like, okay, I guess someone could argue that maybe Jennifer Lawrence's face on MUBI.com, you know, like, yeah, that might be true. Yeah. I mean, like, I just don't know how to quantify. Right.

[A]

It's impossible to Quantify her next movie that she's more likely to work with.

[B]

What is the last movie Jennifer Lawrence made to have made $100 million at the domestic box office?

[A]

Did passengers cross 100?

[B]

The answer is passengers.

[A]

And like about 10 years ago, 101

[B]

did 100 even domestic. Now Dark Phoenix made 246 worldwide, but that was an unambiguous bomb and made like 65 domestic. Very poor.

[C]

And don't look up does not have box office.

[B]

It sure does not now, I think don't look up. Like most watched movies like on for Netflix. But like, like, you know, outside of her two franchises, which always did well, her last and Passenger sort of scraped by.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But her last real hit is American Hustle, which was like a no kidding hit.

[A]

Yes. Crazy to consider, but she's also part of.

[B]

She's part of it. And like before then, I guess it's silver linings.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She's got. And this is where, I guess why I was thinking about Angelina, where I'm like, we all agree she's a movie star. She's someone people care about. She's still famous. She's taken kind of a break. It hasn't made people disinterested in her. She's a little. She's not the cool young thing anymore, but she's still a thing. But you are kind of like, you know, if, you know, at the end of the day, like, I wouldn't buy her movie thinking, oh, Jennifer Lawrence will get me 40 mil, 60 mil, big thing.

[A]

Because, you know, the, the, the two franchises are the two franchises. And I would argue she added a tremendous amount to both of them. But you also can't give her full credit for those numbers. I would argue the thing that made her stats look so insane to everyone was Silver linings in American Hustle. Yeah. That it's like even grown up. That's the thing. Movies even, even 10, 15 years ago, the idea of, oh my God, it's like a dramedy that has already rated that is crossing a hundred million dollars. Even if she's not the only person there. She, in both cases kind of came out of the movie with the most energy was the sticky thing. And they were like, well, if she can do that, then she can fucking do anything. And then as you said, like, she pushes the limits and makes like a couple movies that are more off putting. And immediately audiences are like, yeah, we're not gonna go there with you. We'll go there selectively when you're doing something we're already interested in.

[B]

But I don't know what the strategy for this movie should have been. I guess.

[C]

I mean, I don't think there was one. I really do think they were just like, there, maybe we can pull a substance. Even though I'm sure everyone at the team at the time knew this was not going to be a substance level movie. Like, it's just the substance is like. I mean, I like the substance a lot.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

But it's like a kind of like campy, outrageous body horror dark comedy, you

[A]

know, like lightning in a bottle.

[C]

Yes. And it had the kind of. Yeah, I, I think. I'm sure they thought they could make the kind of meta narrative of like Lawrence as a mother and Lawrence coming out as this like serious actor again after this, like time off. But like, that's less. That's a less kind of like so

[A]

different than never taken Demi Moore seriously.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, and the substance is quote unquote, like demanding in that it's very violent or whatever. But this is a, this is a demanding watch. It's not something you tell your friends to go see automatically.

[A]

No. And. And substance was demanding in a way that felt like a challenge that people wanted to take.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Can you handle this?

[C]

Like people were like fainting in, you know, like screenings and things like that. Like, that's like a kind of dare as opposed to this, which is to be like, can you handle this movie? Because it's like grueling. Yeah.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's her longest movie ever.

[A]

You look at the substance, which like opened well but then really held in there. Right. And was seen as like, is this gonna be on like the outside of maybe a best Actress nomination? And then you're like, it gets pict director. She almost wins actress. Like all this stuff and what kept that movie alive did really kind of feel like it was the memes not to be reductive, but it was just like, huh. This movie has like crystallized five things that now you can just use the image as shorthand. And I did think that created some FOMO of people who weren't in it being like, I gotta see what this thing is with Demi Moore in the mirror. No, because everyone keeps keeps saying this.

[C]

It had a legitimate cultural footprint.

[A]

Right. And so if you're watching this movie at canon, you're like, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson are doing weird non verbal things. Is this thing going to produce 80, 000 memes? But that's not really understanding the relationship to memes that feed into the value of the actual project versus the things that become Decentralized and completely removed. You can't fix.

[B]

It happens or it doesn't.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

How many Golden Globes has Jennifer Lawrence been nominated for?

[A]

Really good question.

[B]

Okay, so including this film, of course.

[A]

Yes. Winter's Bone, did they nominate all the actual Oscars? American Hustle, Silver Linings, Joy.

[B]

Of course they did.

[A]

Okay. And Die My Love is five. And they nominated her for Don't Look Up.

[B]

They sure did.

[A]

That's six. And I'm trying to think anything else they would try. They didn't do any of the Hunger Games know. Is there another one in there?

[B]

There is. There's one more comedy.

[A]

It's a comedy. Oh, did they nominate it for no Hard Feeling?

[B]

They sure did.

[A]

That's kind of cool of them.

[B]

She's a seven time nominee. How many wins?

[A]

She won for American Hustle.

[B]

She won for American Hustle. All right. She has won three times.

[A]

Three. Okay, so she won for American Hustle. She won for Silver Linings.

[B]

Yes, of course. Course. She won the Oscar. Of course.

[A]

Yes. And she won for. They didn't give it to her for Winter's Bone.

[B]

No.

[A]

Did they give it to her for Joy?

[B]

They gave it to her for Joy.

[A]

See, this is. That's a real Jennifer Lawrence. You got to go away for a moment.

[B]

I really think.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

But I sort of vaguely remember her being like, I'm sorry, guys.

[A]

Come on, please.

[B]

It's best actress in a comedy. But she. She beat Amy Schumer in Train wreck and Melissa McCarthy and Spy, which are like, you know, genuine actress in a comedy movie.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then like Maggie Smith, lady in the Van, Lily Tomlin, Grandma. Like, sure, you know, we can.

[A]

But that's. That's a year kind of designed to make Judd Apatow mad. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, it is a little bit.

[C]

It is pretty much.

[A]

It is. We were. We were.

[B]

Allison, by the way, is not a comedy.

[A]

No, it's not.

[C]

No, it's not.

[A]

No.

[C]

It is like, no.

[A]

Arguably less so than any other David O. Russell movie, including his two war movies.

[C]

Yeah, it has a kind of, I guess, like a sort of. Of antic tone, but it has no jokes.

[A]

It's not funny. Yeah, but no, we. We just did a good one. Jesse. David Fox's podcast and talked about the Martian year being the year that broke everybody. And we're like, martian's funnier than a lot of movies that have won Golden Globe comedy awesomely.

[B]

I argued that on Critical Darling, but.

[A]

But it does feel similar to giving the award to Jennifer Lawrence where everyone was like, you know what? Enough Is enough. This is just the year that that breaks us. This isn't the most egregious case.

[C]

Right. But Judge Appatow will never forget.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People were mad about it at the time. Now I'm. What did it be? Let me see.

[A]

We went over this well. So Train Wreck was nominated.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What were the other three, David?

[B]

Like, best pictures.

[A]

Yeah. Musical or comedy?

[B]

Big short. Which, like, why didn't they give it to that? Because that was a big Oscar contender. That is a satire.

[A]

That is actually a weird moment.

[B]

Like, it has dramatic elements, but, like, you can call that a comedy. Absolutely. And then Joy and Spy. Spy, a great comedy. Very fun. And Joy, not very funny.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

About a mop.

[A]

Yeah. Can I throw out one other thing? Just because in executive producing Critical Darlings and staying engaged with the feedback and everything, and us coming out of a winter fall where we had to cover some new releases that were more limited releases, I feel like there is always this dialogue I see with our listeners, people who do not live in what are kind of deemed the major movie markets getting frustrated when they have to listen to podcasts that are talking about films that they feel like, I'm six months away from getting to see this. I don't know if this ever comes to my theater. I have to wait until streaming. And when you add on to that the festival circuit and a movie like this, where you're like, I'm seeing everyone I follow online talk about it in May. And then everyone who missed out on that, that basically gets to see it in whatever, September, October. And then I'm waiting all the way here to that. Why can't these things, like, be more democratic now? And the counter argument, and I'm not saying this in a positive or negative way, but it is just like a reflection of reality is like the flop ball problem. This happened, I would argue, in 2021 as well, when the studios were still feeling so sheepish about theatrical. And there were theaters that reopened, there were more screens than they had things to fill them with and stuff. Like Tatan was like opening on 900 screens opening weekend. And there was this little moment of hope, of, like, maybe this just means that, like, smaller movies get out wider and faster. Right.

[B]

The space for them. Right.

[A]

And that because of the Internet, we don't need to platform and this can just get out there. And what happened was that, like most, if not all of those movies belly flopped. And, like, major financial baths were taken. And it was sort of a necessary sacrifice to fill screens with things. And the data was Accumulated and they walked away. And then it happened again this fall, which I think was an end result of the strikes from like 2 years ago. Caused like a lot more gaps in scheduling. We finally got to the business end of that. There are because of post production timelines. Now finally the few Temple movies that came on either side were interrupted by the strikes. And so there's a lot of like, guess What? Smashing Machine 2000 screens opening weekend, Die My Love. And with these bigger stars also especially a lot of times these people write into their contracts, especially if they don't want to go to streaming. You buy this movie, you are promising wide release. A wide release. Now it doesn't promise. You have to open wide in a lot of cases.

[B]

No, because that'd be crazy.

[A]

But a lot of these distributors just

[B]

go like let's just do it.

[A]

If we have to get to 2000 at some point, why just not do it now? And the, the negative is the thing bombs. And then the headline becomes why the fuck are these stars making these self indulgent movies that no one wants to see? This is a failed commercial play and it creates more conservatism in what gets made.

[B]

If Smashing Machine had been well reviewed, it would have opened bigger and done. Fine, fine. I mean that's unambiguous.

[C]

If it had been another movie, basically.

[B]

Well that is true. But like, like let's say that movie had gotten raves and it's basically the same movie. Obviously that wasn't going to happen because people didn't really respond to it that way. But like I think the, the raves and the. You must see Dwayne Johnson play this athlete would have gotten enough butts and seats for it to make like. So what did it open to?

[A]

Like, it was the lowest opening he's ever had it open till like 4, 5 or 6.

[B]

Right. And like probably could have gone to like 15 or you know, like a more respectable kind of a 24. Big open.

[A]

Totally. There was the, the Taylor Swift album release. Totally sideswipe them. They were gonna get some default box office from being the only thing there was that too.

[B]

Right. But like, you know, it's like that was something where I was like, I think the reviews did it in Die My Love felt more complicated where it was like got good reviews. But the movie's a tough sell. No one knows what it's about.

[A]

I don't think people knew it came out.

[B]

The advertising is weird.

[C]

Sorry. It's, it's, it's hard to be like.

[B]

And it's hard to sell this.

[C]

Yeah, that's it. Like, it doesn't sound appealing to a lot of people to be like, this is going to be a look into this woman's like kind of like downward mental spiral.

[A]

No. You know, and like, if a movie like this is going to catch on, it kind of needs to catch on organically. You, you can't sort of like build up ahead of like, need to see hype on it. You need to like, have this movie find its champions organically and have it dissipate. And it's like you're releasing movies in a way where there's no ability for there to be, say, like a letterboxed growth, you know, of people claiming it early of. Of seeing logs of being like, huh, I agree with this person's taste most of the time, like things that are kind of this, you know, the distributors are trying to understand more of how to get more difficult films to catch on at the box office, which is like, there is a younger, more engaged online cinephile audience. And how do you get through to them? And you can't just kind of fucking blitz creek them.

[C]

Yeah, but I think also, you know, we're looking at like a 24. Obviously knows what they're doing. Even if I feel like the Smashing Machine was unusual for them in having an actor like the Rock and kind of being like, how, how is this gonna go? But like Christie, you know, which got a wide release, a disastrous wide release that was Black Bear, a new distributor. You know, they've been a production company, they haven't been in distribution and the

[A]

movie doesn't sell at Toronto. And they're like, it, we're putting it out in six weeks.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Why?

[C]

Yeah, and so like, that just felt like a kind of like really like Hail Mary endeavor. That obviously didn't work out for them.

[B]

That was.

[A]

There's that insane anecdote that like six weeks out or whatever, four weeks out, the movie was like testing to open to like three. And they were like, disaster. And Sydney Sweeney goes like, great, I'll amp up the promo mode. She does the most insane press tour anyone's ever done.

[B]

She didn't do the right press tour, but she does. She did a press.

[A]

And they're like, oh my God. The public awareness of this movie has gone from like 8 to 98. And then it opened lower than it had been tracking a month earlier.

[B]

A 2 hour, 15 minute movie about domestic violence.

[C]

That's the thing is like, the only

[A]

thing like Sydney Sweeney succeeded in promoting in that press tour was her cleavage and what's going on here? It wasn't like, huh, I really want to see this performance.

[C]

Yeah, Well, I mean, again, it is a movie where you're like. If you give a fair logline description. And I think it's a. I think it's. She's great in the movie, but it is like, this is a movie about a boxer that you probably don't know about. Unless you're deep in boxing. No, not, you know, and. And the other half of it is going to be about how her abusive husband attempts to murder her.

[B]

Right. Like, really, it's like terrible. It's like a terrible, scary, incredibly brutal

[C]

depiction of a controlling, abusive.

[A]

Which is another thing with all these like, flop fall like movie stars, our kind of prestige project failures is like, you guys want to see a spring scene biopic?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's about the period where he wrote the album. We don't talk about that much. And it's mostly him just kind of trying to work through his childhood trauma.

[C]

Right.

[A]

You're like, well, that's the least fun version of it you could sell me.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Smashing Machine. What's it about? It's sort of an addiction drama, but it's more about the guy just trying to kind of make peace with himself as the addiction stuff's going on in the background. And David and I have both, like, contended this whole time. I like that movie. Have both contended. Like, there is not one of those movies where it underperforming or flopping is inexplicable, where you're like, people should have fucking shown up to this. There was just kind of a belief that they could like make Gabo happen. And I. I think it's all like a pipeline problem, you know, I think like, you. You put Die My Love in one third as many screens as they put it in opening weekend. And it would have made the same amount of money, but in fuller theaters.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

You could probably have put it on 1/5 as many screens.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it would have done the same.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, it came out November 7, 2025. It opened number eight at the box office. Perfect $6.6 million. Yeah. It ends up at five domestic, 10 worldwide. So it is her classic number.

[A]

Yeah, it's her highest grossing domestically, sure. But lower international than she usually does.

[B]

They all make 10.

[A]

She's a tenor.

[B]

Except for Ratcatcher. I think literally all her movies have made $10 million. Number one at the box office is a pretty successful franchise sequel that is new this week.

[A]

It's not Zootopia.

[B]

No, no.

[A]

No, because you would describe that as a juggernaut.

[B]

That was a very big movie.

[A]

By the time this episode comes out, Zootopia has probably taken the crown as 20, 25's highest grosser.

[B]

There's no question.

[A]

It did the legs on that thing. And also.

[C]

And they love it in China.

[A]

Instinct. I believe they've elected Zootopia to prime minister.

[B]

He's a good. He'd be a good prime minister.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[C]

Why don't they kiss, though? You've got the bunny and the fox. They have to kiss.

[B]

Just. It just raises a lot of questions.

[C]

I know, but I'm just saying.

[B]

I just put it out there. We are not ready to talk about hybrid marriage between species.

[C]

You know what? But they're like. But they're like. We know you want.

[A]

I agree with you, Alice.

[C]

The whole movie is like.

[A]

You're thinking about movie wiggling its eyebrows. It's acting all coquettish. What do you mean? I would never. And you're like. You have pages that you're just not showing.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Someone's got pages.

[A]

You have files. Okay. It's fairly successful.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

This is like a solidly successful sequel.

[A]

A2.

[B]

No, it's too complicated.

[A]

It's too complicated.

[B]

Complicated. It's like.

[A]

Is it like a tendril?

[B]

Yeah, it's like the latest of these movies. There have been like six or something. I don't know. Plus a couple spin offs.

[A]

Moderately successful.

[B]

New this week. It's opening to $40 million. We all saw it. We all thought it was pretty good.

[A]

We also.

[B]

I don't know if Allison saw it.

[A]

Pretty good.

[C]

It's gone from my brain.

[A]

What did it end up at? This is so recent.

[C]

Not the Magician, is it?

[B]

No, it's not now used to me. No, It's. It ended up at 1 worldwide. It's Predator Badlands.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I didn't see it. People like that movie, though.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good movie. Yeah, it is a funny way to describe that franchise. That is 100 accurate. We're like, how many have there been? 5, 8, 10?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Depends on your perspective.

[C]

Isn't there like a. Just a. The Predator. Predator. Like with a. Without.

[A]

Yeah, there's both Predators and the Predator.

[C]

Predator. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

No, it's a good movie.

[B]

It's a solid. Fun.

[A]

It's fun. Yeah.

[C]

That's the best part of Anaconda. The Anaconda movie that they made, the new one is when. And Jack Black is writing the script. And he's like, the Anaconda.

[A]

I remember asking you, Allison, does it have any juice.

[C]

And you said, that's one joke.

[A]

He writes the word the. And I laughed.

[B]

Number two is a romantic drama that I did not see but heard was fairly unhinged.

[A]

It's the Colleen Hoover one.

[B]

And what is it called?

[A]

Is it called without you?

[B]

No.

[A]

Were any of those words right?

[B]

You was correct.

[A]

Is it called Forgetting you?

[B]

Closer.

[A]

Is it called Forgiving?

[B]

No.

[C]

Did you not.

[A]

Is it two words?

[C]

Words.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I can picture the poster, though.

[B]

It's something you.

[A]

Regretting you.

[B]

There you go. Regretting you.

[A]

I listened to the big pic trying to explain what that movie was about, and I could not make sense of it.

[B]

Directed by Josh Boone.

[A]

It was like someone trying to explain quantum physics.

[B]

Of, of course, the faults in our stars.

[E]

Of course.

[B]

A new mutant.

[A]

Yes, of course.

[B]

With the big four, Allison Williams and A. Grace. Dave Franco and Mason Thames McKenna.

[A]

Grace has been working so much that I'm like, questioning if there's a Hermione Granger Time Turner thing.

[B]

I also kind of forget that who she even is. But then I'm like, but who's this? Like, this is a. This actress reminds me of someone and it's always her.

[A]

Anyone who's a McKenna Grace type in a movie.

[B]

Five movies in 2025.

[A]

She was in Five Nights at Freddy's. Yeah, she was in Regretting you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She's in the Scream 7 coming out.

[B]

She's in that. That's true.

[A]

Right? What else did she have last? It's insane.

[B]

I mean, that I've never heard of what we hide.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Slanted.

[A]

Sure. Of course.

[B]

Oh, anniversary.

[A]

Well, yes.

[C]

Oh, a kind of horror comedy.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

About race.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And she's. She's now the lead of the next.

[B]

It's about a Chinese American high schooler who undergoes ethnic modification. Surgery.

[C]

Surgery.

[A]

Perfect. But, yeah, she's the new Hunger Games heroine.

[B]

Yes, she's in the new Hunger Games,

[A]

which is the Haymitch Sunrise on the Reaping.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Which Jennifer Lawrence is supposed to reprise.

[B]

Yeah, Supposedly. I think, I imagine in a scene. And.

[A]

And the movie that will finally win Glenn Close for Oscar.

[B]

I said this before. I don't know why they did not try to get Glenn Close an Oscar nomination for Wake Up Dead.

[A]

My guy. I. I rewatched that movie last week.

[B]

She's very solid in it. She's good. She's good in it. She has a major role. We nominated her for Fudgeing Hillbilly Elegy.

[A]

It's so.

[B]

Like, you can't just get her a fucking. No.

[C]

It feels like they never thought about that movie in an Australian context.

[B]

It feels like they completely bought. But both.

[A]

I really kind of love that movie.

[B]

Knives out in the Glass Onion both got Oscar nominations. Like, Ryan Johnson is not unknown to them. And like, Glenn Close is like big model. And I'm just like, are you not obsessed with getting her an Oscar?

[A]

She wouldn't win in the.

[B]

There's too strong.

[A]

In the least arrogant way though, that movie feels like Rian Johnson rolling up his sleeves and going like, guys, I'm going to try to make it easy for you. I understand the Glenn Close Oscar thing keeps butting up against the problems of. Of the movies she's in are repellent. Dog. What if I make a movie that is respectable and I give her all the kinds of scenes you would want? Yeah.

[B]

Number three, the box office is a film we discussed a lot in a future episode, but I don't think either of us have seen it is a horror sequel.

[A]

Oh, it's a black phone too.

[B]

Black Phone two.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

The Grabber.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Back.

[A]

You'll hear that in a couple weeks. Yes, yes.

[B]

Which was a decent hit.

[A]

Well, Mason Thames, of course. The McKenna Grace.

[B]

I assume it's Thames, right? Is it not pronounced like the river?

[A]

I thought it was Thames.

[B]

I have no idea.

[A]

Who knows?

[B]

I guess I never thought.

[A]

No one knows. No one's ever seen his face. But he had three number one movies he did in 2025 and two of them are in this current top five you're reading. He is the male lead of both.

[B]

Of both. Regretting you or. No, he's a. He's a male lead in Regretting you.

[A]

He is the young male lead.

[B]

Sure. And How I met your dragon. How I what?

[A]

Yeah, How I met your dragon, number

[B]

four at the box office is something I've never heard of. You've never heard of is this. It is a. Oh, my God. A biological drama film. Biographical drama film.

[A]

Is it faith based?

[B]

Yeah. It must be, because Zachary Levi is involved. But it's Amazon. Mgm. Okay.

[C]

Oh, no, this is that one. It's like a survival movie, isn't it? With, like, boats.

[A]

Yeah. Is it that one?

[B]

I don't think so. I see a boat. I see a dog.

[A]

The survival boat one is weirdly directed by Joe Carnahan. Yeah.

[C]

And Josh Du.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Also I think that is not. This is not. This is this movie called, like, Inventing Sarah.

[B]

Sarah.

[A]

Sarah's Oil.

[B]

Sarah's Oil.

[A]

He was trying to hone in on that Lorenzo franchise, see if he could make, like an off brand.

[B]

It's About. It's like a true story. Yeah, I. I don't really. I don't think I can summarize in time what the fuck this is about Lorenzo's Oil, though.

[C]

Great joke in Splitsville.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[C]

Incredible joke because.

[A]

What is it? There are two blank check movies that are major running jokes in splitsville and I had someone just posted on a Reddit. You will never guess which two. Well, a lot of Lorenzo's Oil. That movie is very fun.

[B]

Number five at the box office is a movie that a lot of people have been trying to beat the drum for as like the dad movie of the year. That is good. It is not good.

[A]

It's not good. You think it's bad?

[B]

I don't like this movie. As you know, Alex Frost Perry recently called it his second favorite movie of the year to us somewhat as a true. Oh, Nuremberg film is Nuremberg.

[A]

Yeah. I asked Alex Ross Perry what his top 10 for the year was and he said no point in wasting time. Like, I will not dignify 10 movies with any positive endorsement. By the way, Nuremberg. Iron lock on number two.

[C]

I missed Nuremberg. Wait, what did he. What was his number one?

[A]

I think one battle. He actually likes Nuremberg number two. Who can be bothered to write after that?

[C]

The movies ended, cinema was over. So. Yeah.

[B]

But Nuremberg, a very solid hit for. Given that it was, you know, sort of. I mean, that maybe that's over the top because it made 14 domestic, but 44 worldwide.

[C]

I mean, that's pretty good.

[A]

Pretty good also, especially in.

[B]

Especially for a movie that like, was not that well received.

[A]

And I was gonna say in the flop fall, you never would have predicted like, Nuremberg is gonna like multiple like times out. Gross. Smashing machine.

[B]

Yeah, no, I mean, it did all right. It's long, it's boring. Doesn't really have a grasp on stuff. And I really do think it makes the terrible mistake of having its arc be Rami Malik realizing that Herman Goring is not a good guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just insane. But I'm sure other people have argued with me on this. Like, no, that's not what it's about. I'm like, it's a little bit what happens though.

[A]

I'm sure Russell Crowe is giving an effervescent.

[B]

He's all right.

[A]

I mean, he's feather light touch performance.

[B]

It's not feather light touch. Russell Crow is an actor I basically always like. Like, I am rather against a Russell Crowe performance, even if I think he's phoning it in or he's being a little silly or whatever. And it's like a good use of him in that you're like, yes, Russell Crowe is someone I would kind of want to like me. Even if he were Herman Guring and I was not sure. His friend.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Nor did I need to be.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, I mean, so then. Yeah, okay. Number six, the Box office was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture.

[A]

Number six at the Box Office was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture. Is it Hamnet?

[B]

No, it's been out for three weeks. Made 17 domestic, 40 worldwide.

[A]

17 domestic, 40 worldwide movie. What were you about to say about it? It's a. Who's the distributor focus. It's a Fuckus movie. Fuckus Features.

[B]

You know, it's a director that makes movies.

[A]

Oh, it's a director that makes movies. Okay, so that narrows it down a little.

[B]

He's got an actor who's been making them with him for a while at this point.

[A]

Okay, so they're a team.

[B]

They've become a bit of a team.

[A]

They've become a bit of a team. And it got a Best Picture nomination.

[B]

Yeah. And he got her her third Acton nomination.

[A]

There we go on.

[C]

You recently discussed.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

Yeah. 17. Did that hit 20 or. No, I just said the 17 was the total. The final and total.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But did all right for a movie like that. That's the thing.

[A]

Yeah, that's the thing.

[B]

Do you guys like Begonia? I like it.

[C]

Yeah. Well, we. We just did an episode about it, and I like rewatching it. I. I liked it a lot more than I had the first time I watched it.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[C]

I was, like, very. I was pretty down on it the first time I watched it.

[A]

I, I. Yeah, I was not on mic for that, so I didn't weigh in. Of course, Woman was guest on that episode. Yeah, Mayor, but Mayor of Blanktown. I was. I was very frustrated while watching that movie. And then I got to the end, and I was like, huh, I like the ending. And, like, the ending not just as, like, big swing, but like, huh, it's kind of sitting with me. Well. And then I remember you and I texting about it that following week or two after we'd seen it, Sims and both being like, I'm liking chewing on it.

[B]

The themes of it resonate with me. I don't find it, like, the most

[A]

pleasant watch, but I have wondered, if I watch it again, will it grow for me? The first 85 to 90% of it, I was like, this just isn't for me. Yeah, I'm just not into this. And then I. I did like it more with distance, so I don't know.

[B]

Number seven at the box office is an anime movie that was a solid hit. I'm sure Ben saw it. Or he wanted to, at least.

[A]

Okay, so it star dogs and. Or cats?

[B]

No, I mean, I don't know who it stars. It's an anime movie.

[A]

Yeah. Dogs and cats is a valid question

[B]

for me, but I don't know.

[A]

It doesn't have animals in the picture. Is it an animated animal movie?

[B]

I don't think so, but I don't know anything about nearness.

[A]

Is this low?

[B]

Yeah, I don't know about it.

[A]

Does. He does have a dog who's a chainsaw.

[E]

He's not in it a lot.

[A]

The dog.

[C]

Wait, the dog turns into a chainsaw?

[B]

Well, he is. His.

[E]

His head becomes chainsaw.

[C]

It's kind of like the guy can turn into a chainsaw. Right?

[A]

Multiple chainsaws.

[C]

Yeah, if he wants to be.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I didn't know there was a dog chainsaw.

[E]

I realized it's actually kind of cute.

[B]

We're out of the top 10.

[E]

And they have a really nice dynamic.

[B]

Die, My Love. Nine is Delivered Me From Nowhere, which is not very good, unfortunately. And 10 is Tron Aries, which is also not very good. You know, Flatfall. They made some bad movies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That was a mistake by them.

[A]

Is another funny one, because it's like the blockbuster version of what we're saying about the prestige movies, where they're like, why are Tron areas underperform? And I'm like, how much time do you have?

[C]

Right, right. And also just like, how much hunger do you think there was for another Tron movie?

[A]

Here are 20 road signs I pulled off the freeway warning you not to make this.

[B]

As someone who loves Tron movies, it's like, the appetite is low, so you better make a fucking exceptional Tron movie if you want to do that. It better be so good. And they're like, oh, oh, oh, we made it really bad. Did. Did you not.

[A]

People didn't automatically want it.

[B]

We thought the Tron name would sort of carry it over the line. It's like, no, no, no. You need good to get Tron over the line.

[A]

They, you know, they put out. Like, the hook in this movie is Tron comes to our world. Most of it takes place in downtown Los Angeles. I'm like, well, that's the opposite of what I like about Tron.

[C]

You know, like, you're like, so we're not going to spend a ton of time in the incredibly cool looking digital world.

[A]

My first thought there is.

[B]

Is.

[A]

I guess that must have been a strategic decision because the last one was so expensive and it didn't quite hit expectations. So maybe that's the way to keep the cost down. And they're like, no, no, don't worry. It cost $220 million.

[B]

It's not a cheap looking movie.

[A]

Go to jail. Why the. Isn't this all inside the computer if you spent that much?

[C]

Right, right. And then they're also like, you know who should be the anchor?

[B]

You know who people love now.

[C]

Yes, that Jared Letter.

[A]

Right. They offered it to Brett Ratner and Bryan Singer first and then they were

[B]

like, now, Griff, as we wrap our short but eventful miniseries on Lynn Ramsey, do you want to give me your top five Lynn Ramsey movies, which is all of her movies? Because she's made five.

[A]

Yes, that is true. I'm. I'm just gonna go off the dome from my heart here. Yes, you were never really here is my favorite. Yes, I would put Morvin Towler number two. Yes, I would put. I could do Ratcatcher three. Kevin for Die My Love five. I think she has made five excellent films.

[B]

I have Morvan Kaller first. That's the film of hers that I truly adore. And then you were never really here. And Rat Catcher third. Die My Love and Kevin.

[A]

Yeah. Allison, do you prefer to not talk about Kevin?

[B]

I would rather not. Do you firmly disagree with either of these rankings or what is your favorite Lynn Ramsey?

[C]

It would be more of a. In color. Yeah, I think I, you know, the, the scene of her going through the kind of nightclub with the headphones on will be like one of the greatest

[A]

scenes in cinema that I can think of.

[B]

So. And your least favorite, Kevin or Die My Love. Or is it something else?

[C]

No, I probably.

[B]

Do you not like Hammerman?

[C]

Probably Die My Love. I do like Hammerman. But I do feel like that movie always felt to me like it could have gone on longer. Like it just feels so boiled down. I don't know. But I do like Kevin here. That's the thing. I do. Like, we need to talk about.

[A]

I love how tight and stripped down you were never really here is. But after doing the episode and reading the dossier and having completely forgotten that a totally different cut and a longer cut was shown at Cannes, I now am just a little frustrated that there's no way to watch that cut. That I imported my expensive Australian 4K and still there's no. I just. I wish there was Like a Terence Malick criterion release of, like, here's just, like, 10 different versions. I don't know which one counts.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Yeah. Well, we're done talking about Lynn.

[A]

We're done talking about Lynn.

[B]

Next, we will talk about Peter Weir. We're going right to him because we moved. Send help up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

[A]

no, no, no, no.

[B]

We'll do the blankies. Yeah, we'll do the blankies next week, folks.

[A]

We'll do the blankies. We'll do our awards.

[B]

So there you go. So we do have a palette cleanser

[D]

cleaner. Hope you're happy.

[A]

I bet that you're gonna eat it up. And we do. We did recently put a Ben's Choice on the calendar, but I think it will be. It'll be Patreon on Patreon. But we have. We have quite a good one, I think.

[B]

Pretty thrilled.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

But, yeah, that's. And then. So next week, our Joe Reed Blinkies episode will happen, one assumes. I mean, that's the plan. And then. Hasn't been recorded yet. And then. Are you writing songs? Get to work.

[A]

I have been.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

But more importantly, the Clem dog, Sean Clements, recent guest on the show. Sending me a lot.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

You know, he's. He's not.

[B]

He did write something.

[A]

Punch up. He's been sending me some voice memos. There's some really exciting shit happening in our text thread. I don't want to overhype it, but we've been burning the midnight oil, by which I mean every six weeks, one

[B]

text, and then, yeah, the Cars that Ate Paris will kick off. Our Peter Weir miniseries and March Madness will kick off. That's probably about to be announced. Right. I mean, it's February 22nd, so pretty soon. So look forward to voting for whoever we cover and all that. And that's that. And I'm done. And I'm done talking. Goodbye.

[A]

Well, actually, that's not how the podcast ends up. I don't inform you. Allison.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Thank you for being here.

[C]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

People should listen to Critical Darlings.

[C]

Yeah, please listen to it. We do so much talking on it.

[A]

You know what? I listen to some of these podcasts. I queue them up, I press play for hours, and people complain about our show being long. At least we're filling it up with words. And I think you folks do an excellent job as well.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

Talking on microphone, pressing record, and making sure people can actually hear it later.

[E]

So this episode stage is coming out on February 22nd.

[A]

Yes.

[E]

As far as the run leading up to the big award ceremony, where. Where are you guys close?

[B]

Pretty close. Like three weeks away, though.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Let me see, let me see.

[A]

A little sketchy here.

[C]

That might be the secret agent episode.

[A]

I think the. The. The secret ape agent episode will have just come out, and the next episode will actually be a nice little bit of synchronicity. Our buddy Joe Reed talking sentimental value.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then. Yeah, yeah, the. The final three episodes of the season will be sinners. One battle with some sort of final predictions and then a. And then a recap app.

[B]

There you go. Yeah.

[A]

Allison, anything else you want to plug?

[B]

Yeah, you got great articles all over vulture.com go check them out.

[A]

This is true.

[B]

You reviewed Sirat. You must have written that a while ago.

[C]

No, I read it this morning.

[B]

Okay, fair enough. You reviewed Melania.

[C]

I did.

[B]

Thank you for the things that I write.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You liked sending help.

[C]

I like send help. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

There you go. I was just looking at your recent.

[C]

I appreciate it. Oh, my Wuthering Heights review will go up on, I think, Monday. Yeah, it'll be up.

[A]

You've already filed it?

[C]

I have filed it, but have you had my review?

[A]

A chance to. And this, I guess goes to both of you to try out Oakberry's tie in menu.

[C]

Yet I would love to have.

[A]

Because I feel like you can't really speak about the movie.

[C]

This is a fair. This is a fair assessment.

[B]

I don't even know what Oak Fairy is.

[C]

Yeah, I. I will say there was a point and I included this in my review where I said that the. The interior design choices very much reminded me of Lily Allen's Brooklyn brownstone.

[A]

Interesting.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

I texted this to, of course, our friend, your former podcast co host of past Matt Singer, yesterday, Oakberry, which I guess is some chain that sells something.

[B]

Yeah, it's like a cybo. A Sa.

[A]

Bo.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Had a big sign outside. A love you can taste. And they have two items, a kiss me bow, haunt me bowl. And both of them are clearly cups and not bowls.

[C]

Big lie. I mean, I'm. I'm happy for Matt because honestly, he ends up eating a lot of, like, pancake and burger.

[A]

Positive trend for him.

[C]

Yeah. For someone who eats a lot of movie themed tie in menus. Yeah, it's good that he'll get some vegetable or some fruits at least, right?

[B]

Some.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And maybe if, like, Project Hail Mary can do like a Metamucil tie in. These are just the things that would really help the Singer family or at

[C]

least like A sweet green or something like that.

[A]

Yeah, maybe that's for Super Mario Galaxy. Thank you for being here.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you all for rating, reviewing and subscribing. I'm thanking you for a thing I'm asking you to do. Please. This will be ignored. Much like Jennifer Lawrence plugging her movie at the end of a Hot Ones episode. Tune in next week for the blankies and a special bonus treat. We want to kind of shout out Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll of Nirvana the Band the show and Nirvana the Band the show the Movie now in theaters. One of our favorite movies in a long time. We, we got offered the opportunity to have them on the podcast which we could not pass on. But because of our silly schedule, booking and recording very far in advance, the thing it made the most sense to have them do was another oops all Burger Report episode on Patreon, which we have titled Burger Report the Segment the Episode. So that is already out now on Patreon. We moved our schedule around to get that out fast. So the Wicked films will be happening next month to finish off our Oz series. But as of February 21st on the blank check Patreon Burger Report the Segment the Episode. And we want to play you a little preview clip, clip of that episode. Little, little sample, little taster, a little slider for your enjoyment right here. We're here today to do something very important with two very important guests. This show going on for over a decade. There was one episode where I came in and said, I'm sitting on a really hot scoop. I went to the Apple Pan in Los Angeles. It was a trip to Los Angeles. Was eating a burger at the counter and who saddles up next to me but Chivo himself? Emmanuel Lubezki, Academy Award winning cinematographer.

[B]

Yeah, great artists.

[A]

And I go, Sims, I got something really hot to tell you in this next episode. You're never going to believe it. And I offer my report of seeing one of America's greatest living film artists, one of the world's greatest living film artists chomp down on a burger. Crunch. And Sims goes, you're never going to believe this. I went to Bear Burger over the weekend.

[B]

It was Moo Burger, but that's okay.

[A]

And I saw Michael Shannon. Yep, Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon also eating a burger. And we decided this is a new segment. Every single episode we're going to do a burger report and check in on which famous people, famos, as we like to call them, we have seen eating a burger in the last week.

[B]

Usually nothing.

[A]

The well ran really dry, really, really fast.

[B]

Right, right. We live in New York too. It's like, you know, it's not like you live in Hollywood. Well, yeah, go ahead.

[A]

But then we found out producer Ben, our own intro outro meister himself. Yes. Had in, in past lives, worked at celebrity hotspot restaurants with famed burgers and was able to reach into the archives and start giving us a burger report at the end of every episode. Eventually, that well runs dry and we decide we need to start soliciting from listeners. We set up a voicemail and then we forgot about this voicemail line for a couple of years. And so now basically every two years, once a year.

[B]

About every year.

[A]

But the whole point is we don't remind people. And every time we do one, we act like that's probably the last one. Right. Never doing it ever again. But today we are fucking opening up the voicemail bank.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And we're listening to people tell us about times they've seen a famous person eat a burger.

[B]

So ridiculous. Ridiculous that these guests are here for this nonsense.

[A]

It's kind of, it feels kind of correct.

[D]

Yeah, I agree.

[A]

You're here first off the, the big project of your life, but specifically the project that you're promoting right now is a similar kind of decades long investment into, into the. Mounting the, the pyramid of bits. Is that fair to say?

[D]

Yeah, we've been making this.

[A]

The pyramid of bits.

[D]

You say bits or bids.

[A]

I said bits. But we could bite. We could bid on. On the bits. We could do a bit.

[D]

Yeah, I understand the metaphor that it's clean.

[A]

This is a.

[D]

Began as a bit.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then.

[D]

But pyramid is not correct. It's more like.

[A]

It's wrong.

[D]

It's more like a bit organism that you keep feeding and becomes gigantic.

[B]

So like a sourdough starter. But it's, but it's out of control.

[D]

Right. Bite of a burger turns into many burgers. That's how what seemingly starts as something very silly like, oh, it's just celebrities eating burgers.

[A]

Right. It becomes something.

[D]

It's now become a show format.

[A]

It's become a show format. Yeah.

[D]

Literally you have a format which could spin out and become a.

[A]

We're looking to sell, honestly, we're looking really hard to sell. We feel like this is our, this is our exit strategy.

[D]

Oh, in the big picture, like this is going to be.

[A]

Well, that's a rival podcast. We don't want to talk about them. But, but in, in our big picture, we love them. We're friends, but competitors.

[D]

Right, right, right, right.

[A]

In Our picture. It's like we're looking for that golden

[D]

parachute and this may be it.

[A]

Can we just fucking sell Burger Report. Can. Can Carson Daly host it? You know, is it a gotcha show? Is it like a. Is it.

[B]

Carson Daly's the guy with the juice right now. That's a good call.

[A]

I feel like he's really coming to his own. I think he's kind of figured his thing out.

[D]

Carson Daley D. I thought he was done. I'm worried that you're making these burger episodes at the furious rate of 1 per year.

[A]

If.

[D]

And you're trying to now sell it as a format that, in your own words, is going to lead to retirement.

[A]

It's a supply and demand kind of thing. That's the.

[D]

That's my point.

[A]

Right.

[D]

That it doesn't seem like you have either.

[A]

I think people are demanding it and we're going just wait.

[B]

Half of them also will not be about people eating burgers. It'll be more like, I don't know, I think I saw a Sean Penny to taco.

[A]

Well, that's what you guys are here to do.

[B]

We need to.

[A]

We need to judge how successful these are as burger reports. And we should say our guest today from Nirvana the band, the show and Nirvana the band, the show, the movie. But also BlackBerry and a thing I want to lead with because I got questions. Matt and Bird, Break loose.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

One of. One of our. One of our high moments in terms of artistic achievement.

[A]

Matt Johnson, Jay McCarroll.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

Are here and we're so happy to be here. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you for having us. Genuinely thank you for being here.

[D]

Yo. It's an honor. Do your listeners know, Know what this place looks like?

[A]

They got a sense.

[B]

They've caught. They've caught glimpses.

[A]

But.

[B]

But what do you. Why, what's your impression?

[D]

I just want to give people an image that they can maybe assign to this podcast. We are backstage at a video game store. Backstage at a toy store.

[B]

Sure.

[D]

Like behind the scenes. It's the most conducive environment to a conversation I've ever been in in my life.

[A]

Ben is blushing. Look at it.

[D]

Look how proud we're at.

[A]

Four.

[D]

Four distinct and discreet, almost student style desks. But.

[A]

But professional.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

It's almost like for a draft. Somebody who's like a professional draftsman.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And they're. They're at perfect 90 degree angles to one another and we're all facing each other in the middle as though we're about to judge something that's going to happen.

[A]

We are. We're going to judge these phone calls.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Imagine the land party that we could have in here.

[B]

Oh, man. Let's bring in some CRT televisions.

[D]

We really.

[B]

The gas cables.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Anyway, yeah. It's an honor to be here, and we're so happy to be here. And I don't think the burger format is going to travel outside.

[A]

You haven't heard the calls yet, though. That's what I'm saying. And. And maybe I'm.

[D]

No, no, no, no. Listen, listen. I believe that the way to treat a friend is to give them the kind of advice that will truly improve their life.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

I think that blunt talk is usually.

[D]

And this isn't even blunt again, it may be incredible, but the idea that this is going to turn into. Are like Carson Daly. We're talking. This is insane.

[A]

Got this hot movie. You're. You're tapped into the culture.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what the public wants.

[D]

And you should listen to us.

[A]

You should listen to the calls and see. And then I want to hear you go, hey, it's more. This is less of this.

[D]

Maybe I'm leaving tonight with the rights to Burger Report.

[A]

We'll cut you into this big time.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Big time. Because there's something here and we haven't quite cracked it.

[D]

We made an entire episode of our show called the Burger, which is the Wahlberg, which is centered around the magical properties of. Of biting a burger and making a wish at the same time.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's. That's a thing. We haven't worked into this format yet.

[B]

Are there still wahl burgers in Toronto?

[D]

I think there might be one at the airport. I think there's one at yyz.

[B]

Yeah, it looks like that's about it. Yeah. At the airport. I think.

[D]

I think there was nothing wrong with them. They were totally fine. I think it was a cultural mismatch,

[B]

if I'm being totally honest.

[D]

You walked in and it's like a full Sandee of one of the Wahlberg brothers standing there as though he's still in Boston being like, hey, Toronto, come on. These are the best burgers. And Torontonians are too, too shy.

[A]

Not the guy who'd be your first choice.

[D]

I think we're getting down to third, fourth, or fifth. But by the. By the time you're at the guy who's been given a burger franchise. But I don't mean to disparage them. The show, at the very least, was inspiring. We made a whole episode of our show about. But it was not a cultural match for. They thought that maybe the east coast ism of Massachusetts would drive all the way up. Right. But there's a hard cut at the border.

[B]

It's like you guys like hockey, like baseball, right? We're, you know, we're near water.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Basically the same vibe.

[D]

No, no, that's fresh. And it's a huge, huge difference.

[B]

What's Toronto's best burger?

[D]

That's just very touching.

[B]

I assume that's a contentious. It always is.

[D]

It depends who you asked. For the longest time there was a place that was just, just outside the border of Etobicoke called Apache Burger. That, that is not changing the name. They don't give a damn.

[B]

Something. Something of a sensitive name.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[D]

And this place was famous for having burgers that were so great that oftentimes sports figures like the Toronto Maple Leafs would drive out and have their burgers. But they recently switched from fresh to frozen and it was like they fell off a cliff. But I mean look is the way they were doing. Yeah.

[A]

And it was old school.

[D]

Old school, charbroiled. But now Priest is I think the other one. Burgers pre sold to Harvey's. I like everything changed. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Y. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

That guy, that guy, that's Belange's buddy by the way. He's got an unbelievable story. Like unbelievable. A summer that they were at summer camp and they needed to set up on their own. And this is not my story to tell, but all I will say is

[A]

like camping or something.

[D]

Children's summer camp. Okay. And the owner believed that his son had gone on a cocaine crazed rampage and was using the camp as a kind of orgy slash party zone. And even in order to catch him employed his. These two employees. One of which was the production designer of all of my films. The other was the guy who started Burgers Priest to develop and, and instigate on their own a closed network hidden camera system throughout the camp where they could film and capture this renegade son doing all kinds of things. They did it and it worked.

[A]

And they were like caught him.

[D]

They caught him. They were like 14 years old and they, they, they basically did a, a dragnet. What did they catch him doing? Yeah, they, they were, they got video evidence of his drug fueled party mania that was happening at a children's camp. And anyway, so this guy goes on. Oh my God. But no, but this did not involve the campers. That was the big thing. It was like bring in. He would bring in outsiders, counselors, these types of things.

[A]

He was like a junior counselor.

[D]

Well, this was. This guy doing it was the son of the owner.

[A]

So I.

[D]

You can only imagine what his position in terms of the leadership.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

It was.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Literally, it was. He decided this is mine to stomp on. He was like, prince, who's the guy in Game of Thrones, you know, who just gets it? And now he's going to be as despotic as he wants to be.

[A]

I've never watched Game of Thrones. I've never seen it.

[D]

Joffrey. Yeah, right. He's just like, well, this is all mine. And so I bear no responsibility. I didn't build it. Anyway, Burger Priest is a phenomenon in the city. Oh, the burgers are unbelievable. And they're all. And they're closely associated with New Testament scriptures.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

The priest is not ironic.

[B]

Oh, so it's like. Wait, so is there a theming? Okay, okay.

[D]

Their tagline is redeeming the burger one at a time. So it's all. It's all very, like, religious language. Anyway, yeah, the. The franchise was a. Like, a instant hit in the city of Toronto, so much so that it has now sold to Harvey's, which, if you don't know, Harvey's is the sister restaurant to Swiss Chalet.

[A]

Yeah. So.

[D]

So these two, like, mega restaurants.

[A]

It's about to fall off a cliff.

[D]

Well, who knows? Okay, I don't mean to disperse. It's been around forever and it's delicious.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah, but Toronto is.

[C]

Is.

[D]

You want to think of it, like, as a. As a super mini New York in that there's like 50 different places doing their own special burgers. A place called Rudy's. There's. For a long time, Matty Matheson had a burger place called P L Like Math.

[B]

I went there. I went there. I went to Piano.

[D]

Piano Burger. Now Maddie's got his own own burger place. Right. Just south of Trinity. Bellwoods Park. I forget. No, Maddie's Patties.

[B]

That's where I went. That's right.

[D]

Those are great. But Happy Burger is also great. Like, you come to Toronto looking for a hamburger, you could eat a different burger every single day and be happy.

[A]

It.

[D]

But we don't have, like, Hamburger America.

[A]

Right. Like, we don't that place.

[D]

We don't have the kind of stuff you have.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, but that.

[A]

But we didn't have that until very recently. Hamburger America felt like it was very much filling a hole.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In this.

[B]

The problem with that is it opened right by my office, and I cannot. I have to live, like, not go that out.

[A]

That's not a problem.

[B]

I could kill myself.

[A]

That's only a problem of perception in your mind.

[D]

I've never been in my life. I want to go so badly. I may even go right after this.

[A]

It's, I recommend it.

[B]

Yeah, it's easy to get there. I'll, I'll tell you what train to take.

[D]

Anyway, on the subject of burgers, it's completely right. Yeah. Toronto, Toronto is a great hamburger city

[B]

and it's a great, great food city.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

I, I mean, the first time I went to Toronto, I, I, I'm from New York. I grew up in London. I was like, these two cities have been, been merged into one city for me is how I felt about Toronto. I was like, it's sort of a New York City with more of an

[A]

English energy queen on the money.

[B]

Like, I know it's neither really, but like always good.

[D]

You, you want your money to have the types of people on it that are separated from you by dint of birth. By, by just because in America, what

[B]

birth canal they exited.

[D]

Yeah, it makes a big difference because here in America, like, you know, you see a bill, you're like, oh man, if I work really hard, I could get on this bill

[A]

in Canada.

[D]

It's not. No, I'm sorry, it's not possible.

[B]

Well, there are, are there nice Canadians on the backs of the bill or whatever? Like.

[D]

Yeah, they put some inventors. They put some inventors on there, but

[B]

there are precious few of those.

[D]

I think Donald is a little bit.

[B]

Has a colored history, does he not?

[D]

My point is that you're talking about our prime ministers.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

They put our, our prime ministers on the bill, but on the back of all of them is the queen.

[B]

You've always got the, well, now the

[D]

king of all of it used to be. But, and, and all the coins. The queen was on the back of every single one now.

[B]

Yeah, you switch into Charlie.

[D]

No, I think that our country's done all kinds of bizarre things. They switched to a polymer bill, first of all, and, and now it's all like, It's Monopoly money. Yeah, I think, I think, I think

[A]

rich Uncle Pennybags is on the back now.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah, which would be great. It'd be great. He's, I mean that.

[B]

I just think he, he equals money.

[A]

He's good at business. He understands how to run a country like a boy business.

[D]

So does the way the game work is that you're buying the properties from him? Because.

[B]

No, I don't actually know what role play.

[A]

But wait a Second, no. Maybe he owns.

[D]

Maybe he owns the bank. Maybe all. Maybe. Maybe you're all just dealing with his money.

[A]

I've never considered this. It certainly feels like he owns the bank, but I also feel like you're buying the properties from him.

[D]

It's funny, because that is bad strategy. He owns the board. He could just hotel up everything. Right? Seem like he's. He has the last.

[A]

Exactly. That's the point. You never get to the end of Monopoly, and if you do, no one's happy. Happy. Right. You're playing in a world that this guy has already monopolized. And he's like, have your fun. Try your best.

[D]

Try. But it's all coming back to me. Yeah, they're making. They're making a big Monopoly movie right now.

[A]

Thank God.

[D]

Like a big, big, big bone.

[A]

Like these questions are going to get answered.

[D]

Who would be good casting for him

[A]

for Rich Uncle Pennybackers?

[B]

Pratt. I. I did throw him in there.

[A]

I. I used to do. I forget who the advertiser was, who the sponsor was, but it was some online banking company that I'm sure is super reputable and still in business. But I would do ad reads for them as Rich Uncle Penny Bags. Money Bags. Penny Bags.

[B]

Penny Bags is the name. Yeah.

[A]

And then the bit became that he had been cancelled and got replaced with Christopher Plummer.

[D]

You're right.

[A]

So in my mind, I'm like, Christopher Plummer would have been the great Prestige Uncle. Penny Bags. But now he's dead.

[D]

We lost our chance.

[A]

We lost Anthony Hopkins.

[B]

Hop wow Hawkins, starring Kevin Hart. The movie centers on a boy from Baltic Avenue on a quest to make a fortune.

[A]

This is the Monopoly movie and Bella Tarr's directing this.

[D]

Belly's dead. Just died.

[A]

Well, he.

[B]

He rapped and then he.

[A]

Yeah, he rapped.

[B]

Oh, I see.

[A]

It's an ice watch.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

So people are gonna question, like, was this his cut?

[B]

And it's a tight minute.

[D]

Yeah, that's like many Bellatar films.

[A]

He really wanted to go commercial. He wanted to make something his kids could see. And as always, I think the ultimate takeaway is Di. My Love's box office failure was due to a lack of Oakberry tie in

[E]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee, research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the great American Novel 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. 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.