Ella McKay with Richard Lawson

Summary

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Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: Ella McKay with Richard Lawson
Release Date: December 14, 2025
Guest: Richard Lawson

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Episode Overview

This episode of Blank Check reunites hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims with critic and longtime friend of the show Richard Lawson to review "Ella McKay," the surprise comeback film from director James L. Brooks. Not just content to revisit the filmmaker’s signature messy ensemble films, the trio digs into the making, release, and thematic ambitions of a director whose longevity and “blank check” status from the industry is almost mythic. Expect deep industry gossip, an affectionate but critical look at Brooks’s late style, and some classic Blank Check tangents—all wrapped in the show’s patented blend of film-geekery and improvisational humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. James L. Brooks’s Unlikely Return ([06:00]–[10:55])

• The hosts express genuine surprise that Brooks returned after a 15-year absence, given the disastrous reception of his previous film, "How Do You Know."
  • David: "I would have put the odds about the same as the directors we've covered who are dead. Right. It is astonishing." ([07:20])
• Brooks’s “blank check” here is discussed as a quid pro quo: Disney/Fox lets him make "Ella McKay" in exchange for spearheading a second "Simpsons" movie. Late Brooks productions are noted for extensive development and reshoots.
  • David: "It's like a sort of hostage negotiation blank check. But he was holding valuable cards for them." ([09:14])

2. Casting, Age, and Actor Energy ([12:08]–[16:11], [68:09]–[82:24])

• Casting Emma Mackey (often compared to Margot Robbie) as Ella brings up questions about industry trends of casting younger actors for roles spanning many ages. The hosts question whether she—and Jack Lowden as her husband—were ideal, noting the film’s tendency to cast multiple Brits in lead roles and challenges with accent work.
  • David: "You need someone who is going to be so comfortable in being the lead of a movie and has carried a movie of this size on their shoulders before." ([101:05])
• Emma Mackey’s limited number of credits and the challenge of playing a character through her late teens, twenties, and thirties is a recurring thread.
• Recap of the flashbacks—hosts agree they’re mostly extraneous, killing momentum. The opening childhood scene with her dad’s scandal is effective, and much of the rest could be cut.
  • Griffin: "The opening is all you need, which is really profound, like, and really got me." ([70:44])

3. The Film’s Place in Brooks’s Oeuvre ([16:44]–[20:30]; [82:26]–[83:39]; [127:12]–[128:20])

• Debate on where "Ella McKay" falls in Brooks’s filmography. The consensus: it’s his “fourth best” film. Still, there’s a major drop-off in quality from "Broadcast News," "Terms of Endearment," and "As Good As It Gets."
  • David: "Even people who hate this movie, I think, will need to concede it as his fourth best." ([17:05])
• Nostalgia for this sort of mid-budget, star-driven, adult dramedy, now a rare genre for major studios.
• Late Brooks movies—Spanglish, How Do You Know—are widely seen as messy but fascinating failures.

4. Plot Structure & Theme Soup ([40:06]–[46:56]; [99:53]–[106:35])

• The hosts describe "Ella McKay" as a “chowder” of plotlines: politics, family, scandal, gender, marriage.
  • David: "This movie also has like four or five major concerns." ([40:06])
  • Richard: "It’s a little bit of that with Brooks, but it’s not as snooty...It’s like your grandpa being like, ‘Oh, what’s...’ you know, kind of using old colloquialism." ([45:20])
• Griffin suggests the core is Brooks’s reflection on “boomer guilt,” in which the protagonist struggles under the legacy of previous generations and must “put things back together”—with her two father figures both representing failures of prior male authority.
  • Griffin: "We’ve left you such a mess. You’re not prepared for anything, because we’ve modeled nothing well..." ([42:16])

5. Industry & Release Context ([30:41]–[32:09], [114:09]–[118:54])

• The film’s odd release strategy—Fox/Disney dumped it into the late December corridor, initially scheduled for September, played no festivals, and didn’t seem to know how to market a Brooks-style dramedy in 2025.
  • David: "You can just see Disney being like, we don’t even know how to fucking market this type of movie anymore." ([31:31])
• Discussion of box office prospects, skepticism about its commercial performance, and the “Ella McKay Challenge” (a fleeting film Twitter meme echoing the pose from the poster.)

6. Execution, Editing, and Messiness ([13:27]–[16:44], [39:35]–[41:30])

• Evidence that the final film differs significantly from the original script—multiple subplots, especially her dad’s storyline and flashbacks, were cut down, shifting the thematic structure in editing.
• The duality of Brooks’s process: he famously never drops a plot thread after discovering it, leading to choppy, overstuffed movies in late career.
  • David: "James O. Brooks is the guy where every time he makes a new discovery, he adds it on top of the original thing." ([99:18])

7. Performance and Character Highlights ([90:01]–[92:34], [119:00]–[122:13])

• Jamie Lee Curtis’s brassy aunt, Albert Brooks’s tired mentor figure, Woody Harrelson’s absentee dad, and supporting players like Becky Ann Baker (as a pizzeria matriarch) and Kumail Nanjiani (security detail). Some cameos feel dropped in or oddly minimized. The supporting cast is acknowledged as stacked but sometimes underused.
• Notably, the hosts shout out Joey Brooks (James L. Brooks’s son), playing an overtime-seeking cop—one of the film’s emotional non-sequiturs.

8. Industry/Self-Referential Humor & Running Gags

• Regular references to the Simpsons (Julie Kavner’s own “aging,” Marge’s static age), running gags about Ben’s mysterious Simpsons fortune, pizza-centric parodies, and the peculiarities of Brooks’s dialogue style.
  • Griffin (in Brooks/Kavner voice): "I'm nuts about her!" ([42:45])

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Julie Kavner aging naturally on film:
  David ([02:48]): "Their voices have all really gotten bad and they're sounding really old…But seeing her on screen doesn't have that same effect…Seeing oldie, oldie Kavner, I'm like, yeah, no, she sounds, she sounds healthy. This is just her voice."
• On Brooks’s returning energy:
  David ([06:41]): "No one's going to let him do this again. Does he have the energy to even try to do this again?...And yet here we are 15 years after How Do You Know, James L. Brooks returns—a follow up new release to a miniseries I thought would never happen."
• On the movie’s structure:
  Richard ([40:29]): "This movie is flittering all around—scandal, dad returning, brother problems…five things all kind of got equal weight. And it was still messy, but…a little more cohesive."
• On the Brooks method:
  Richard ([99:15]): "That's the crucial part. You take it out."
  David: "James O. Brooks is the guy where every time he makes a new discovery, he adds it on top of the original thing."
• On nostalgia for mid-budget studio movies:
  Richard ([19:14]): "Man, they used to just make movies about like a quirky family or like someone trying to like…we all live in a neighborhood and we yell at each other…It’s sort of a Moonstruck runoff."
• On the film’s ending:
  Ben (producer, via David; [106:00]): “It’s a warm bath ending. It’s a warm bath movie.”
• On Brooks’s legacy:
  Richard ([128:11]): "I don't think I'm ever going to come back for another James [L. Brooks]. I mean, maybe I'm wrong...It would be astonishing."

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Brooks’s return/development hell: [06:00]–[11:00]
• Casting & script differences: [12:08]–[16:44]
• Ella McKay poster/marketing conversation: [03:52]–[05:19], meme at [118:05]
• Plot summary & character rundown: [82:26]–[88:18]
• Industry insight / box office talk: [30:41]–[32:09], [114:09]–[118:54]
• Critical Darlings podcast announcement: [22:38]–[25:16]
• Discussion of Brooks’s process/structure: [39:35]–[41:30], [99:53]–[106:35]
• Ranking the Brooks filmography: [127:12]–[128:20]

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Overall Tone & Takeaway

The hosts approach "Ella McKay" with both affection and realistic critique. There's a through-line of nostalgia for this genre and for Brooks as a unique auteur, even as his creative quirks and diminishing formal control are laid bare. The movie itself is dissected as a case study in late-career "blank check" filmmaking—overstuffed, sincere, flawed, but brimming with genuine attempts to engage with complex personal and societal themes. For both longtime Brooks fans and cinephiles interested in how a legendary filmmaker tries (and sometimes fails) to rediscover his touch, this episode is an illuminating, warm, and at times bittersweet listen.

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Further Notes

• New podcast miniseries "Critical Darlings" announced by Richard and Allison Wilmore, launching Jan 1st, 2026—an Oscars/awards season recap and criticism show produced by Blank Check and Vulture. ([22:38]–[25:07])
• Best recurring joke: the Ella McKay Challenge (posing like the poster), Ben’s supposed Simpsons fortune, and “Brooksian chowder.”
• Closing Thoughts: The episode closes with appreciation for Brooks, the audience, and a candid sense that, even if "Ella McKay" is a minor work, there’s a magic to these rare grown-up Hollywood movies—a magic Blank Check is uniquely equipped to celebrate and gently roast.

Transcript

[Griffin]

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

[David]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[Griffin]

All you need to know is that.

[David]

The name of the shadow is Blackjack. I'm not going to talk yet. I'm not comfortable with podcasting, so I guess you could call me a reluctant narrator. But I just wanted to show up for blank check. I owe her a lot, so let's just thank you. Start.

[Richard Lawson]

At first I was like, that's a horrible Albert Brooks. And then I. And then I was like, oh, it's actually a good Kafner.

[David]

Thank you. Late, late period. Kafner.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

There is no quotes page for this movie.

[Griffin]

I mean, it hasn't come out yet in its defense, even sure it'll be new releases.

[David]

People usually are adding things trailer from the trailer or you can find other websites that have it. And instead, what I just had to do was go back to the script for Ella McKay, which I will talk about. I read in April of 2023.

[Richard Lawson]

Because you read for the counterpart.

[David]

Exactly. And they were like, you don't seem reluctant enough as a narrator. So what I just said might not actually match word for word what is.

[Griffin]

In the film, but it, it's along those lines.

[David]

Something like that. I'll say this as well.

[Griffin]

Hi, I'm the narrator.

[David]

A listener of the show messaged me, sent me a private message, I guess, like a year and a half ago, that they had gone to a test screening of this film in 2024.

[Richard Lawson]

Talioni message you.

[David]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then like four months ago messaged me again. I got a flyer for another test screening. I want to go and see how much they changed. And there were reshoots, I believe, at the beginning of this year that were fairly extensive. And he was like, the single biggest change was on screen, Cavanaugh narration in.

[Griffin]

Oh, like, like her sitting down in.

[David]

Front of the camera, which was not part of the script on paper and was not part of the original cut. They don't do it a lot. She was always meant to be narrating it and a character in the movie. But then the like. To tell you the truth, I'm nuts about her.

[Griffin]

This is a pretty good cavern doing. And so she's 75 years old.

[David]

She is.

[Griffin]

Which is the age that she should be as a woman who's been in our industry for a long time.

[David]

I think she's earned that right. And she's a living legend.

[Griffin]

I love her.

[David]

I, I, I.

[Griffin]

And I was honestly kind of happy to see her.

[David]

Agreed.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, there's a lot of damn.

[Griffin]

Marge is, is a grandma. And yet on the Simpsons permanently, you know, 37 or whatever.

[David]

Well, it's also as someone who is still very slowly pursuing the herculean task of having watched every episode of the Simpsons and I'm still like 10 years behind in that, even though I knock out like 30 plus episodes a year.

[Richard Lawson]

So only 220 episodes truly.

[David]

Like, I feel like, man, their voices have all really gotten bad and they're sounding really old. And yet when I see a clip from like a new episode, it is astonishing and it feels really uncanny. But seeing her on screen doesn't have that same effect. The problem is that Marge still looks the same age and now sounds like this. Seeing oldie, oldie, oldie Kavner, I'm like, yeah, no, she sounds, she sounds healthy. This is just her voice.

[Richard Lawson]

That's, that's who. And in some ways the brain does a trick where you're like, that's what she was always like.

[David]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

No, that's not actually true.

[David]

Right.

[Richard Lawson]

I read something that, that Brooks has known her since she was 19.

[Griffin]

Wow.

[Richard Lawson]

What was a 19 year old Julie Kavner like? Basically that.

[Griffin]

So James l. Brooks is 10 years older than her, so he would have been 29.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, I hope he knew her in the proper context.

[Griffin]

There was no hanky panky back then. The tagline for this film, Griff, that you couldn't find because I think one of the posters just says a new comedy from James L. Brooks or whatever. Is.

[David]

Is this the original poster? That's her and Jamie Lee Curtis grabbing each other.

[Griffin]

Jamie Lee Curtis is sucking her life energies via her neck.

[David]

A poster that was thankfully replaced with the main marketing, the iconic image, the stickiest posture, the stickiest.

[Richard Lawson]

Suddenly I, you know, like, I don't.

[David]

Know how she does it.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I nailed that fucking pose.

[David]

It was astonishing.

[Griffin]

Gen Z's favorite thing in the world is the Alan McKay challenge.

[David]

And we want to make sure all of our listeners know there's still time. Just because the episodes come out, just because it's like past opening weekend, you're not too late to contribute to the LMK challenge. Do the pose in front of the poster. But Ben and I took pictures of each other doing it. And mine was so stupid. Smashed by Ben's success.

[Griffin]

Yours was fine.

[David]

I'm gonna say we shouldn't even post mine. I was like, Ben, let's like try it and I'll give you notes to adjust it. And on the first try, nailed it. Lined up Perfectly.

[Richard Lawson]

One take. Osley, they've always called.

[David]

And it's a tough pose to do because it is a standing on one foot.

[Richard Lawson]

No, I mean, it's. I physically don't think I could do that anymore.

[David]

Like, I don't know.

[Richard Lawson]

In my decrepitude.

[Griffin]

I don't know how she does it. And Lieutenant Governor, this. This. The tagline was a story about the people you love and how to survive.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh. Which is so, like. Yeah, generic.

[David]

A podcast about the people you love and how to survive.

[Richard Lawson]

Ben just showed me the photo. It's actually. It's like a perfect match, I have to say. It's better than your character. It's really, really good because you look.

[David]

At it and you're not even like, oh, he's close. You're like, every angle is identical. And it's a tough pose to maintain.

[Griffin]

What's this podcast?

[David]

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

[Griffin]

And I'm David.

[David]

Nice podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers. And I give it a series of blankets. Yeah. I did the Julie Kapner aging.

[Richard Lawson]

Given a series.

[David]

An hour into the crazy passion projects. They want.

[Richard Lawson]

An hour into this podcast. It's just going to be me talking because you guys will have destroyed your voices with Kavanaugh.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Baby. Many years ago, we did a miniseries on the films of James L. Brooks.

[Griffin]

Yeah. When was that?

[Richard Lawson]

It was shockingly long ago, actually.

[David]

17 or 18.

[Griffin]

Yeah. And what was it called?

[David]

It was called Podcast News.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah.

[David]

I wanted to call it as Pot, as a cast. And that was one of the early. We're gonna fight about the title in every episode miniseries.

[Griffin]

But podcast news, that. That was a great little. The Nice Art of Us all on the TV and all that.

[David]

And you made the argument which was fair of casting.

[Griffin]

He made a movie with the word cast.

[David]

Beyond that, he made a movie with. You were like, even more. Come on, we can't not do this. We covered.

[Griffin]

It was in 2018, early 2018.

[David]

And I would say. So at that point where eight years passed. How do you know?

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

Which felt comfortably like the last movie he will ever make.

[Griffin]

Right, Right. It was like, I guess James L. Brooks, the man is approaching his 80s. He's basically retired.

[David]

The size of the survey, his career. No one's going to let him do this again. Does he have the energy to even try to do this again? I had heard stories from people who worked on that film and people who auditioned for that film where they were like, Noticing how much since he takes such a long time in between films, he was like, I forgot. It takes this much energy that he was seeming worn down by trying to get through another movie. And yet here we are 15 years after how do you know? James O. Brooks returns a follow up new release to a miniseries I thought would never happen. I will say I probably would have put the odds about the same as the directors we've covered who are dead. Right. It is astonishingly.

[Richard Lawson]

There's a new Buster Keaton movie that you're. Yeah.

[David]

And you know, he's a blink check guy. He had a couple massive successes, but.

[Richard Lawson]

Might be among the blankest of checks in a way.

[Griffin]

Got you this character poster for Steve Zahn and Anaconda. What do you think?

[David]

I don't want to see that movie. Oh. Everything about it makes me angry. And yet I see, see Zahn. I see Zahn over the shoulder and I'm like, he doesn't get to do this that often anymore.

[Richard Lawson]

It's about them making a remake. So they're aware of the movie Anaconda.

[Griffin]

Oh, they're not just aware. They're big fans.

[David]

They were kids who remade Anaconda in their backyard. And then now as adults in a sort of tag like let's pick up our childlike traditions. Let's go back and remake it again, but this time go to the real jungle. And when they get to the real.

[Richard Lawson]

Jungle, something actually goes wrong.

[David]

Correct. So it's like Tropic Thunder plus be kind rewind plus Raiders kids documentary plus you know, the. The eighth circle of hell. But we don't let Steve's on do broad studio comedies anymore. So I guess they have my $20 or 32 and 40x or whatever. So I can feel some snake spit at me. The point is, Ella McKay is getting a wide release from the folks at 20th Century Studios, now a division of Walt Disney Pictures. Y a move that just like shocked everyone when it was announced. And the scuttlebutt had been quietly for the last three years there. This is a quid pro quo. It's a very specific type of blank check, which is we will let you make another film at a capped budget.

[Griffin]

Yes. Maybe not $120 million.

[David]

Maybe not.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. They learn their lesson.

[David]

If you can successfully convince everyone to make a second Sims 2 Simpsons movie. And like clockwork, the second Simpsons movie was officially announced one month ago. It is like a sort of a like hostage negotiation blank check. But he was holding valuable cards for them.

[Richard Lawson]

I mean, I remember reading about when they Were like. Cause my parents live in Providence, Rhode island, where this movie was largely shot. And so there was like, local news about, like, James L. Brooks, Terms of Endearment director, casting, you know, locals in Providence. And I was like, oh. My mom was like, that's so exciting. What do you know? And I said, oh, that's probably not gonna happen.

[David]

Said, how do you know?

[Richard Lawson]

Well, exactly. But I was like, that's.

[Griffin]

That seems like something that English said it.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, I was speaking to my mom in Spanglish, but. But I just assumed that, like, oh, it's. It's one of those things gets announced and then it just sort of disappears.

[David]

It felt like that. And it was like, you know, he was very hands on with these two Kelly Fremont Craig movies. Who's like his mentee.

[Griffin]

Yes. Good movies.

[David]

Very excellent.

[Griffin]

Age of 17 and are goddess Me Margaret, to be clear.

[David]

And you would hear these kind of rumblings. Or he'd give, like, interviews and promoting those two films where he's like, you know what? Watching Kelly work has kind of reignited a passion in me. So I previously thought I'd never make a movie again, but I've been noodling with some ideas and you're like, will never happen. Even if he finished a script that he wanted to make, no one's going to let him do this again. How do you know? Was just such a fucking calamity that one could argue kind of killed the studio comedy. I think that's like as serious a culprit as anything where that felt a.

[Griffin]

Bit of a blow.

[David]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

I think it also, like, hastened the end of Nicholson's career.

[David]

It hastened, like, everything.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, it was. It Covid. It certainly stops. It stopped Owen Wilson from being a movie star. It sent Reese Witherspoon to television.

[David]

It's. It was like a Chernobyl level.

[Richard Lawson]

It did a lot of the way.

[David]

It, like, poisoned everyone who run within.

[Richard Lawson]

Kind of unsound. Miles Rudd, you know, he was fine.

[David]

Yeah. I mean, it's like, thankfully he had Marvel coming up soon, like, truly, you know, which kind of like bounced him back. But then you're like, right, here's Paul Rudd, like one of our greatest comedy stars. Doesn't really get to make comedy movies anymore, unless they're an Anaconda reboot or a Ghostbusters, like a sequel or Ant man, the comedy version. You know, the closest thing that Marvel has to pure comedy.

[Griffin]

So fun.

[David]

This is what I'm saying. But, like, he's become a big budget IP comedy guy where you're like, well, he's got a little off the hump.

[Richard Lawson]

Energy, but, like, the role models days are far over.

[David]

And how do you know? I think was supposed to be a trans moment for, like, Paul Rudd from role models to, like, I would say, almost equivalent from Tom Hanks making the. The switch from Bachelor Party to Sleepless in Seattle.

[Richard Lawson]

Classy, right? He could be a classy comedy. Elegant, expensive, elevated.

[David]

He comes out of it the most alive and yet has to totally pivot.

[Griffin]

There's like, yeah, here's true in those movies.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, yeah.

[David]

What I was going to say is that.

[Griffin]

No. Okay, fine. What were you going to say?

[David]

No, just to get ahead of this. I read this script several years ago. I did not audition for it. My rep sent it to me and said, do you want to read this to see if you're interested in playing the brother? And I get to the brother character, and I'm like, this character is supposed to be, like, 23. I'm in my mid-30s, and Ella McKay is a character that exists across, like, three temporalities, but at her oldest, she's in her mid-30s. If they cast an actress who is, like, late 30s and age her down for the earlier stuff, then maybe we can put a wig on me and thousand pounds of makeup and you would.

[Richard Lawson]

Think waving through a window.

[David]

This is the exact part I would have wanted to audition for when I was 22. Of course, like, even reading it, I was like. And the second they were like, it sounds like he wants to cast Emma Mackie, I was like, I'm not putting myself on tape. This is embarrassing.

[Richard Lawson]

If Julie Kafner had played the Emma Mackie part, yes, I could.

[David]

I could have played the younger brother. But when I read the script, I was like, are they really gonna make this? And it was like, it hasn't been greenlit yet, but they're letting him do casting to see if he can assemble the right people. Then the writer strike hits, like, a week after I read it, and then the SAG strike, and I was just like, fuck. If this thing is now slowed down for six months in casting, this is never happening.

[Richard Lawson]

No.

[David]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

And you know, it's really long, right? The script.

[David]

The script is longer.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But who's our guest?

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, yes, right.

[David]

Our guest today I'm talking about Ella McKay, a movie starring Emma McKay.

[Griffin]

So true.

[David]

Is the great Richard Lawson.

[Richard Lawson]

Hello.

[David]

Now, usually when you come on the show, we introduce you with the same old, tired bylines.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. So I was let go from Vanity Fair because they found out I had been sleeping with Congressman Barney Frank for a number of years.

[David]

Ooh.

[Griffin]

Hiss nipples visible.

[Richard Lawson]

While reviewing his films, his many, many stag films.

[Griffin]

And also remember that tweet about.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

No, the real problem was that you were sleeping with him in the side apartment of a government building.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

Come on.

[Griffin]

Simple trail to these narratives are distinct and clear. Griffin. There's no question.

[David]

I. I swear I'm not going to do this. What was different in the script? This. And I even went out of my way to not reread the script so that I wasn't being persnickety about that. But I feel very confident that in the original script, the affair was happening in the phone call center, which would make a.

[Richard Lawson]

Which takes a lot more.

[David]

So much time to set up in this movie. And then it doesn't really impact anything, but instead they're like, you know, it turned out there was an apartment in a government building that no one uses that we snuck into because I guess.

[Richard Lawson]

If the affair happened in the phone call, it wouldn't have been a crime.

[Griffin]

I mean, that. Look, the entire quote unquote scam scandal is engineered in this way to make it nobody's fault and nobody's really done anything wrong. And you know what I mean? Like, it's like they were just trying to make a baby calibrated in this, like, really, you know, inoffensive.

[David]

If anything, kind of one of the big conceits of she, like, shot someone if, like, what if someone got caught in a scandal that actually doesn't mean anything to anyone.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

But technically could be used to take them down, even if there's no real offense being committed here.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[David]

Like Watergate and in my memory. Exactly. They just want to read the files.

[Richard Lawson]

That's all.

[Griffin]

Let them look.

[Richard Lawson]

Why not? What have you got to hide? Democrats. Huh?

[David]

In my memory, it being.

[Griffin]

Set your strategies. Oh, okay.

[David]

In the, like, campaign phone bank center.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Was explained through, like, 15 additional pages of how byzantine that law was that it wasn't illegal, but it affected campaign finances. Like, it got deeper into James L. Brooks.

[Griffin]

Is it possible it's based on some real scandal? He, like, you know, noticed the, you.

[David]

Know, quote, you hear this shit about him where he was, like, spending five years researching retired female softball players for. How do you know? Because he's just like, I got very caught up in their lives. And, like, no one talks about this. And I had to research for five years before I could even write a single word. And this feels like there is some case he heard about. Yeah. Of like. That's weird.

[Griffin]

That There are laws like this, but a funny technicality.

[David]

Right. And whether he came up with an imaginary one sparked by that idea or he base it around a real thing, I don't know.

[Richard Lawson]

And he, He. He did like interview a lot of politicians, like in the writing process. Right. So like, I wonder if he talked to a lot of female politicians who were like. Yeah, when you're like that busy, it's. And you're. But you're trying to start a family, it's actually really hard to find time to do, you know, what you know. And maybe that I don't know. But it, it's something. It's like there was a better way to include that idea in the story.

[David]

That I feel the way about almost everything in this movie. A movie that I did not hate.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

But is certainly Gas League cinema.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

Is you sought David and came back to me and said I kind of liked it. And I was like, that's exciting. And you went. I mean, it is like handily by default his fourth best film.

[Griffin]

Right. But that's. There's a big gap.

[David]

Even people who hate this movie, I think, will need to concede it as his fourth best.

[Richard Lawson]

Does that make Spanglish or no?

[David]

Well, someone in this room is probably gonna wait.

[Griffin]

As good as it gets.

[Richard Lawson]

I re. Listened to the Spanglish episode and I'd forgotten how endearingly Ben really likes the movie.

[Griffin]

I think it's fun.

[Richard Lawson]

It's a great.

[David]

And your.

[Richard Lawson]

Your contributions in that episode are lovely because it's like tempering my disdain.

[David]

I saw this movie with Ben Hosley earlier this week and he turned to me the second it was over, and do you know what he said? Ben kind of liked it.

[Griffin]

Good.

[David]

Excuse me. I say that.

[Richard Lawson]

Excuse me.

[David]

No, you said I loved it.

[Guest Speaker]

I did.

[Richard Lawson]

While doing the pose. Yeah.

[Griffin]

No, I really did love it. I don't know.

[Richard Lawson]

I'm glad.

[Griffin]

And I'm not sure.

[Guest Speaker]

I've been thinking about how to mount a defense for it. And it's. I don't know how even to. Other than. And it's the same thing with Spanglish.

[Griffin]

I just.

[Guest Speaker]

I like these small stories about regular people that I find somewhat endearing, though often at times annoying, but that feels authentic. And even the tete on tet kind of repartee, dialogue kind of stuff, it doesn't greet me even though I. I would like expect it to. I actually just like, I lock it.

[David]

We sat next to the great Bob Marshall and Ben's. What are you guys talking about? I loved it. Was in response to me saying, yeah, it's kind of bad, but it's the type of bad movie I've really missed. And yeah, a type of bad movie I greatly to prefer to most of the. The studios are putting.

[Richard Lawson]

I miss that genre of movies so much. Your, you know, sister brother podcast. This had Oscar buzz. Did an episode recently on Used People. Like a very forgotten. You know, like, who's in that? Shirley MacLaine, right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Kathy Bates.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Tandy.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, that's right.

[Griffin]

That's the principal summoning Dandy to the office.

[Richard Lawson]

They're playing a Jewish family.

[Griffin]

Martin, Marcelo, Mastriani, Marcia Gay Harden, Joey Pants. I'm actually not noticing a lot of Jews, but sort of this is where I leave you.

[Richard Lawson]

But anyway, not a good movie. But like, man, they used to just make movies about like a quirky family or like someone trying to like, we.

[Griffin]

All live in a neighborhood and we yell at each other. I mean, it's sort of a moonstruck runoff.

[David]

I'll also say, like having a couple days sitting on it. I'm like finding more and more reasons to put up tiny half hearted defenses for elements of this movie.

[Richard Lawson]

Ella.

[Griffin]

He's good.

[David]

Ella, man.

[Griffin]

Uh, we should plug things.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

But before that, I have to tell you the dual tagline of used people. It's a float, you know, let's see. I'm seeing Marcia, Kathy, Shirley, Marcelo and Tandy.

[David]

It's first names only on the post.

[Griffin]

No, I wish it were. They're all, but they're all sort of grouped together. And then Shirley's kind of like got her. She's like leaning on the moon, you know, so it's very moonstrucky. And then there's a boy playing the accordion below them. Not sure why, but what I like about the tagline is it's like me saying, I'm done talking about something. Here's the tagline. A story about love, family and other embarrassments. Used people. Here's the second tagline. Life's tough. So laugh a little. Come on. You got a problem with us making the. Why don't you watch it?

[David]

Laugh Funny. We promise. It's so defensive, but it's also a.

[Guest Speaker]

Little like where it's not giving you expectations. Like big expectations.

[Griffin]

Tough. What are you going to do? Not see Used people.

[Richard Lawson]

And then at the very end of the closing credits, it says, you didn't like it. What do we care?

[Griffin]

We got the money.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

Go home.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

Richard.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes.

[David]

The shocking news.

[Richard Lawson]

So I got. I got booted for my congressional sex scandal.

[David]

It shook the Nation.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. But, you know, every. From every disgrace comes opportunity.

[Griffin]

Right. I've written a book called American.

[Richard Lawson]

It's actually called American Cantone. It's a. I go through Mario Mario.

[David]

And you're re releasing your EP Jail Bait. Yeah. You could not write that. That is.

[Richard Lawson]

That is true.

[David]

We found her MySpace music. I could not believe that movie.

[Richard Lawson]

It's spelled G A O L. Like the British.

[Griffin]

Very Victorian.

[David]

Very Victorian.

[Richard Lawson]

I sing it in a cockney accent. It's actually pretty good. No. I started a newsletter called Premiere Party that it's on Beehive. It's not Substack, it's Beehive. It's going to be movie reviews and other things. Recaps. Probably the recaps will live behind the paywall like Traders recaps. Maybe some other shows, reality shows. Very excited about that.

[Griffin]

In the glorious days of recapping, you were one of the Internet's greatest people made.

[Richard Lawson]

Thank you. It's the only reason I have a career, frankly.

[David]

Truly. Your whole generation basically are the people who made it out of the recap industry alive.

[Richard Lawson]

I got. Speaking of this at Oscar Bus, Joe Reed. I got hired at Vanity Fair because of Gossip Girl recaps and because I knew the person who eventually, like, put me up for the job through Gossip Girl. So anyway, I'm excited to get back to that. I hope that your listeners, whom I love and, you know, I've been with for a long time now, this podcast is one of our oldest, will subscribe if they have the means to do so.

[David]

I'm excited to read it myself and I'm very excited for this new endeavor you're plugging here. That in no way affects my daily stress level or amount of responsibilities on a weekly basis.

[Richard Lawson]

That's it.

[Griffin]

Wait a second. What's in this door Creek?

[Richard Lawson]

What's. What's in this congressional apartment? Yeah, there's one other thing that we're doing.

[David]

There's one other thing that we're. We are incredibly excited about, which is we're. We're tested like the water of expanding the Blank Check Productions umbrella a little bit. And we are excited to announce that there is going to be a miniseries running at the beginning of next year. It will be on our feed, the same feed you're listening to right now. There will be a second release episode later in the week. Every week. Two a week. Richard, do you want to tell people what the show is?

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. It's going to be a recap of the second season of Designing Women. So get watching now.

[David]

We've Heard your cries. We're finally answering them.

[Richard Lawson]

Yep. Can't wait for to talk about, you know, Jean Smart back when.

[David]

It's called Pod Signing Wim Cast.

[Richard Lawson]

It's called Meshach Taylor Cast. No, the show is called Critical Darlings because I am a film critic still, even though I'm just an independent newsletter.

[David]

Person alive and well, and you're just darlin.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, thank you. I'm a little darling, little cutie. And my co host, the great Allison Wilmore of Vulture, is also a film critic and she is also even darlinger than I am.

[David]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

But we're also second meaning going to be talking about movies that were, for the most part, some of the critical darlings of the year.

[David]

It's. Yes. As, as we're in, you know, top 10 season, awards season, all of that. We're going to do a show throughout January, February in March, a new episode every week. That is you and Alison, produced by our friend Ben fresh.

[Richard Lawson]

Yep.

[David]

Producer Ben 2.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Well, because you have to have a. This is in your bylaws that you guys wrote. You know, it's in the bylaws. And for, for a while it was going to be Shapiro, but I would, you know, you guys didn't really want to partner with Daily Wire for whatever reason. But. Yeah. Why is it going through March? Is there something happening there that would somehow border. Yeah.

[David]

Handing out. How do I describe them? Miniature. Miniature metalized humans.

[Richard Lawson]

Males. Yeah. Yeah. So it isn't, it is in some ways an Oscar podcast because we will primarily be focusing on, you know, the, the, the ten movies or so that are best picture contenders and then later nominees. But I'm sure the conversation will expand past that and we'll talk about more critical darling movies of the year that maybe didn't get nominated. Yeah. We're just going to kind of take the temperature of this year's quote, unquote, prestige movies in a way that this podcast, as expansive as you guys are able to be, can't always do because it's not, they're not attached to a specific director.

[Griffin]

Occasionally we'll get an Ella McKay, which I assume this is a Oscar frontrunner, right?

[Richard Lawson]

It already won. Yeah.

[David]

They called the ceremony off.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

We all know where this is going.

[Richard Lawson]

It's kind of a bummer for our, for the new podcast. But. But whatever, we'll. We'll make do.

[Griffin]

It's like the race is over.

[David]

Other candidates have announced they're stepping down. Hamnet has pulled out of the race out of deference.

[Griffin]

Hamnet is throwing its delegates to Ella McKay.

[Richard Lawson]

Jesse Buckley committed Sepuku in front of Julie Kavanaugh.

[David]

But you and Allison are two of the best and two of the the dearest friends of the podcast and I think are people I'm always excited to read or listen to in any format, talk about what's going on. And our show obviously is often recorded very far in advance and people love when they get to hear our new release episodes where we're talking in a tighter window and can speak more about current events. I think this show will also serve that function of being able to talk about what's going on in the movie world that week, how the sort of narratives of a year of cinema get formed. That's really what happens at the beginning of every year is we start to basically assemble the yearbook of how that year that just ended will be talked about and that ends with the awards. But that's obviously not the end of the true conversation.

[Richard Lawson]

No, no. The conversation can go on and on. So. But yeah, I think that it's going to be really fun to talk about these movies that for the most part you guys have not covered on this show. But also like, you know, we're going to do like an episode about the nominations. We're going to do some predictions, we're going to do lots of other stuff that's sort of related to this class of movies of 2025.

[David]

We will guest other friends. The Blank Check universe. Yes, we're very excited about it.

[Richard Lawson]

Thank you and thank you for this all. Began to peek behind the curtain right after I lost my job. I was at Barney Frank's house crying. And I texted you guys, good shoulder to cry. I don't know. He's from my home state. Was he your congressman? No, he was. He's more southeastern Massachusetts. So actually where I spent summers.

[Griffin]

James L. Brooks, 85 years old.

[Richard Lawson]

But I texted you, I think it was like a couple days after that I got the news. Kind of like not serious, like, hey, you want to do a spin off podcast? And then lo and behold, all these months later, you guys took it seriously. And that is the honor of a lifetime. So thank you.

[David]

It's been many months to figure out how it happened. We should mention it's going to be a co production with Vulture.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes. Because Allison is at Vulture and so we're going to use some of their fine resources and it's going to be.

[David]

Great and tremendous support. Yes.

[Griffin]

You got both of Jesse David Fox's arms. You get to use them.

[Richard Lawson]

That's right.

[Griffin]

Not the rest of them. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

And Alison, I will solely be talking about stand up sets we saw the night before.

[Griffin]

And Rebecca Alter will break through the wall like the Kool Aid man, but only once. You won't know when.

[David]

Right. She. She will have a segment each episode reviewing the popcorn bucket for that specific best candidate.

[Richard Lawson]

And I'll just be like, Alison, name a Jamie Lee Curtis movie that starts between the letters R and Z.

[David]

You know, the element popcorn bucket has not been selling super well, which is the shoe turned sideways.

[Richard Lawson]

It's hard to fuck. That's the problem.

[Griffin]

Ex. Actually, Woody Harelson's confused head.

[Richard Lawson]

Less hard to. But, you know, maybe you don't want to.

[David]

Very excited for Critical darling.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes, thank you, Critical Darlings. I think we have January 1st as a premiere date. You guys will get dark that week. So we figured we'll say that.

[David]

That's the other fun thing is we obviously take this like this, the gap between kind of Christmas and New Year's off every year from our main feed. And that's when we're going to drop the first one for you to kick off 2026. And then it will come out every Thursday after that.

[Richard Lawson]

That's right. And yeah, for now we're running through March, but who knows what the future holds?

[David]

Who knows?

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So I've got a question for all the gamers out there. Are you seriously gonna miss out on one of Alienware's biggest gaming sales of the year? I mean, these are holiday prices we're talking about, so it's not, quote, just another sale. I took a look and this is some pretty big bang for your buck. You know, Alienware with some of the most advanced engineering out there, with systems at the top of reviewers lists. And what about a gift for yourself? Gift yourself a new Alienware 16 Area 51 gaming laptop. I mean, this thing's got performance to the absolute next level with Intel Core Ultra processors. And even better, you can get it before the holidays. Plus you can save on all kinds of displays and accessories like the Alienware 32.4K QD OLED gaming monitor for ultimate visual fidelity. These really are incredible deals on PCs with otherworldly performance. So I'd visit alienware.com deals soon and grab what you can before it's too late.

[David]

It is funny that there were a couple things.

[Griffin]

It's like rain on your wedding day. No, that's ironic. Sorry. Carry them.

[David]

Yeah, it's funny. Like tbs, when we've covered Director in the past and they have a new release, we circle back and put it on main feed. There were a couple things on paper if you were looking at the schedule a year ago, where we're like, huh, Some of our past subjects might be back in the Oscar race, such as House of Dynamite.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Ella McKay, House of Dynamite.

[David]

We have Avatar Fire and Ash. Is this Thing On? And no other choice still to come. But certainly no. None of those movies feel like significant frontrunners.

[Griffin]

No, no, no, certainly not.

[David]

But they're all films that were certainly positioned and have been released in this corridor for that purpose.

[Griffin]

They are. They are very much Fall to Christmas movies. Yes.

[David]

The original announcement was that Disney Fox was putting this in September. It was like, that feels like the obvious place to burn this off if you don't have a lot of faith in this.

[Griffin]

Everyone was saying, like, oh, it's messy. And you're like, sure, it's James L. Brooks. Like, yeah.

[David]

And then they pushed it to the week before Christmas and people were like, are they feeling good about it? Like, that's not an obvious place to bury a movie.

[Richard Lawson]

No.

[David]

Played zero festivals.

[Richard Lawson]

Not even like AFI or anything.

[David]

No.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

We will not know at the time of this recording how it's performing at the box office, but I'm.

[Griffin]

I guess, yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, is it going to be 40 million, 60 million? We're just not sure yet.

[Griffin]

Friday? Oh, I'm not sure. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. China is going to be enormous. Bigger than Zootopia too.

[David]

I said with zero disrespect. I could see this being the first movie to open to negative million dollars.

[Griffin]

I don't think it's going to make a lot of money and I don't think it's going to get good reviews.

[David]

And a lot of that is you can just see Disney being like, we don't even know how to fucking market this type of movie anymore.

[Richard Lawson]

Plus all the people who used to are retired or dead.

[Griffin]

It's also the audience for this kind of movie seemingly, you know, is. Is not really there in theaters anymore. And I like this movie. I think it's an interesting little thing. But I'd be the first to admit that it's. It's kind of hard to explain what it is. And it's messy in that James L. Brooks way of. It's got a lot of ideas and a lot of characters. And I mean, the poster has nine people above the title, some of whom are famous.

[David]

I mean, it's so funny to this point. First poster is Jamie Lee Curtis grabbing her shoulders. The tagline you mentioned. And that's clearly Disney being like, people like Jamie Lee Curtis now. Right, Right. Let's really sell this as a Jamie Lee Curtis.

[Griffin]

She's been winning awards.

[David]

Right, Right. We have Freakier Friday coming out the same year.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And then they transition a brassy matriarchal figure.

[Griffin]

An ant, actually, but.

[David]

Right. And in a supporting part.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

Then they transition to the. The infamous pose poster on just a stark white background. Trying to position it as like, this is James L. Brooks trying to make another star making movie a vehicle for an actress leveling up.

[Richard Lawson]

And then as it did for tea, you know, and exactly.

[David]

This final poster has been that same image, but now with like 27.

[Griffin]

They put floating heads around, put some square floating.

[David]

We need every recognized face in this.

[Griffin]

They got six heads next to Ella. So they got male Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson in the most normal regular wig ever. Cute.

[Richard Lawson]

That's a Roman wig.

[Griffin]

Albert Brooks, IO, our friend IO Eddie, who is on Deborah. Sorry. Who is almost a spoiler to put on the poster. Just the way the movie treats that character. And then Jack Louden. So they're not putting Spike Fern on the poster, despite him being, I suppose, a big character because he's not very well known.

[David]

I would argue he is the second lead.

[Griffin]

I mean, sort of is. And. But I mean, whatever.

[Richard Lawson]

Surprisingly big part for someone who doesn't.

[Griffin]

Show up for a while or know how to act.

[David]

And I'll also say from having your.

[Richard Lawson]

Brother take something about him, I will say from having.

[Griffin]

I'm sure he did. Yes.

[David]

Read the script.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

The part feels bigger in the final movie than it did in reading it because it feels like the stuff they cut out was in the other plot lines versus every single second of the brother plot line is in there. And also I remember it being a little more dispersed. And it does feel like the middle 30 minutes of the movie are all her and the brother. And then this big denouement with IO, who this movie was cast long ago enough that she basically agrees to do this. Like, right after season one of the.

[Griffin]

Bear was like James o'. Brien.

[David]

And now they're marketing it with her face on the poster. And Ben was like, did they cut most of that character out? I'm like, no, it was always this one big scene.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Not including Rebecca hall, but I guess she's only got the one scene.

[David]

Yes. In my memory, there was a little more that was also cut out.

[Griffin]

Not including Cavner. You don't want Kavner up there crazy about her. Not including Troy Garrity.

[David]

I think Garrity's not in the final cut.

[Griffin]

I'M seeing him on Wikipedia.

[Richard Lawson]

I'm nuts of an older lady saying, I'm nuts about her. About like a. A younger woman. That is the most. Like Brook. I think that might be the brooksiest.

[David]

Thing in the movie.

[Richard Lawson]

And it happens within the first two minutes.

[Griffin]

It was. It was just like being put in a warm bath for me. I was like, yes, please.

[David]

This is an ultimate. They don't make them like this in.

[Griffin]

And possibly they never did. Except for this one.

[David]

The argument can then be, is that a good thing? Or not? But you watch it and you're like, this is an experience that does not exist in our movie ecosystem anymore. Certainly not coming from a major studio. And the watching this in a theater feels uncanny because you're so used to every version of a movie like this being punted straight to streaming.

[Griffin]

You know, I saw this film at Disney's headquarters, which was a weird experience.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

You were there, right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Which is. They have a fairly new building down in downtown Manhattan.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

With a gorgeous theater.

[Richard Lawson]

And also that is for. For a studio screening room. Enormous. Like you go to like Universal screening rooms. Pretty small. Even their old one was small.

[David]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Warner's screening room. Small was.

[David]

This is like state of the art tech setup.

[Griffin]

Did you see Mickey or. I didn't see Pluto. Didn't see many.

[Richard Lawson]

You know what was sad is that all the Song of the south characters were in a lot.

[Griffin]

Yeah, they were there.

[Richard Lawson]

And that was kind of unfortunate.

[David]

I've heard Pluto still largely work from home. Yeah, he comes in like once a month.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. He's been fighting the RTO policy with the union. It's a whole thing.

[Griffin]

And so, yeah, it was one of Those, like, there's 200 seats, like, take your pick. And I was like, right here, baby. Yeah. And I watched it with several other members of our critics award or organization, which is why we were seeing it, and chuckled heartily and heard no other chuckles around me.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, here's the thing about it is I didn't.

[David]

You were at the same screening.

[Richard Lawson]

I was at the same screening. I didn't. I wanted more for it. But the thing is. And yes, you're right, David, it probably will get some negative reviews. And if I were reviewing it, my review ultimately would have been negative. But I don't. I'm really dreading the snark about it.

[Griffin]

I am too.

[Richard Lawson]

Because it does not merit.

[Griffin]

What was that? You know, kind of like it's an.

[Richard Lawson]

85 year old guy trying to hearken back to a wonderful, as Ben pointed out, wonderful era of movies. When a lot of movies like this existed. And I find nothing wrong with that effort.

[David]

I agree.

[Richard Lawson]

The execution maybe, you know, desires. But, like, I don't know. I just. I can't. I really am dreading that. People being like, can you believe this scene?

[David]

No, it's. It's a problem with a lot of our discourse. And I do think when this movie likely flops, it's going to inspire a lot of really annoying headlines from just sort of industry handicappers. We're not even talking about the artistry behind it or lack thereof, you know, either one. The defensible position. But are more talking about, like, it makes no business sense to make this movie. And it's like, well, this movie got made because he has this control in the Simpsons. But also, we should not be discouraging studios from trying to make movies like this. It is not a big risk on their part financially.

[Richard Lawson]

Sure isn't. No. Especially now, you know. Yeah. You know, and I. So I don't want to snark, but that doesn't mean that there's not a lot to make fun of, you know, like, that's the thing. It's. But it's. It's a loving mock.

[Griffin]

Some odd stuff.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

Do you remember me texting you when I got the script?

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

I was. I was filming Alex Russ Perry's Pavements, and there was like many hours in between setups or I wasn't needed or whatever. And I'm like, sitting on the set, which is just like an office, right on a couch. And the script came through and I was like, oh, I'm going to read this immediately. And I texted the blank check group text, like, halfway through it. And I'm like, well, first I texted and I was like, holy shit. Because the movie had reading. New James album hadn't been announced yet. And I was like, there's a new Brooks movie they're casting, and I have the script on my phone right now. And then I read it, and halfway through, I'm like, guys, some of this is great. And it very much read while not identical to the finished movie. Like the movie where I'm like, there'll be 15 pages where I'm like, what the fuck is Brooks on about? And then there's like 10 pages where you're like, oh, shit, there's an idea here. And the dialogue's crackling and this character's fun. And I said to the group when I finished it, my big question is, this reads like the best movie he's made in 20 years.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

But it's again, a little difficult and not perfect. It feels very kind of vomit, drafty and even. Still faint praise. Better than the last three or last two, I guess. And my question is, is this how Broadcast News read early, before he massaged it and got it perfect, or did how do youo Know Half work on paper? And then he totally lost it in the process? And you hear about how long and drawn out every Brooks production is, how he reworks things, how he rewrites things, reshoots things. And you're just like, this clearly isn't a final document, but which direction does this go in?

[Richard Lawson]

Which is why, like, after I saw it, I was like texting Bobby Finger and Dan Daddario and other someone else about it and I was like. They were like, did you like it? And I was like, I don't know. But I was like, honestly, I would watch the version that's 45 minutes longer. Even if it's also a mess. At least I'm seeing the complete mess, you know? And I'm just endlessly curious about what was cut and what it would have added or taken away. Because, yeah, you're right. Like it maybe, I don't know, like his, his, his. He can turn his vomit into something really remarkable.

[David]

But yeah, I think this movie also has like four or five major concerns. And Sims, I think you have a very good take on what the larger project is here of what he's trying to say. And I will tee you up for this in a second. But it felt like in the script I read, it was like there are five kind of major plot lines or themes in the movie which all got equal amount of attention.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[David]

And it's sort of like this movie.

[Richard Lawson]

Is flittering all around scandal, dad returning, brother, problems. Yes. New job, marriage. Okay. Yeah, Right. So I would say like this girl.

[Griffin]

That'S nuts about it.

[David]

I would say like three parts about the. The job. Right. Like public relations, scandal, relationship, marriage.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

And like her actual beliefs and aspiration and trying to fight a sort of like stuck in the mud sense. And then there are the two main family plot lines, which are the dad and the brother. And it felt like those five things all kind of got equal weight. And it was still messy, but it felt a little more cohesive to me because I was just like, I understand all of these are feeding into the same larger idea. And this movie in the final edit, puts the thumb on certain things that maybe they thought were more marketable, specifically the kind of more romantic relationship things that does make it feel like, what is he trying to say here? David, your take.

[Griffin]

Well, so my take was that this is a masterpiece and five stars and there's no issues with it. No, that was not my take. My take was if Spanglish is his sort of like, white guilt movie about, like, I can't believe. Right. That's clearly him processing, like, the situation. This rich guy. I have this complicated dynamic with these people I employ, and they're real people, too, and I don't want to, you know, minimize that. And then you feel himself, like, hyperventilating, like, working himself up, like, I mean, it's just ridiculous. Right?

[Richard Lawson]

The chef movie. Spangled.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

My favorite chef movie.

[David]

This is the other unique thing about James L. Brooks is that, like, he's not a guy who starts from like, I got a great logline for comedy, right?

[Griffin]

No, it's like, I.

[David]

Big.

[Griffin]

What am I thinking about? What's troubling me?

[David]

There's a theme that's been like, sticking with me lately.

[Griffin]

This is his boomer guilt movie of just, like, looking at the generations beyond him, his kids, grandkids or whatever, and being like, we've left you such a mess. You're not prepared for anything, because we've modeled nothing. Well, both of her father figures in this movie are disasters. Woody's a real villain. Albert isn't so much a villain as this kind of well meaning politician who is kind of fucking her over, like, or whatever, you know? Right.

[David]

And like, the exact thing she doesn't want to become, even though she considers him a friend and a mentor.

[Guest Speaker]

Right.

[Griffin]

And it's like, you have to save the world. You have to put all this back together. He's setting it right at the 2008 where it's like the time of promise, but also the time when everything fell apart and the recession happened and everything. And he's just like. And you know, you're supposed to have functioning relationships. We never, you know, we never helped you out with figuring out how to do that. And, you know, we basically have put it all on your plate, Ella McKay, because it's like this parody of a I don't know how she does it person, where it's like, yes, not only does she have the bad dad and she lost her mom, and she's. Now she's in this marriage that's not totally working, and she's trying to fix it, but she's literally becoming the governor and having everything put on her plate. And she's like, I'm. I'm ready for this. I want. I.

[David]

You know, I've been waiting my whole life.

[Griffin]

Things like, I, I'm eager. I'm like, you know, I'm an idealistic person. And it's like, no, the world.

[Richard Lawson]

How do you maintain principle and idealism when there's no more infrastructure for it?

[David]

That's a big part of it. And I also think, you know, he pointedly sets this movie in 2008, and I think there are a couple reasons why he does that. But I also, it felt reading it like there was a little bit more of a direct mirroring between her father's scandal and her own and this sort of like James L. Brooks working through MeToo and cancellation culture, whatever the fuck you want to talk it in a way that I thought was more interesting than most people who have tried to tackle it. Because he's not talking about what's actually happening. He's talking about like a culture and like a media that has become more obsessed with narrativizing thing and judging things and like putting people under a microscope and this notion of, like, how terrible things could be downplayed and how innocuous things can become. Right. A sticking point.

[Richard Lawson]

And if you are in politics and you are. And I don't think he's saying, like, we should just ignore sex scandals or whatever, but, but, but he is saying if, if, if you are a politician trying to work in a system that is where your job is that precarious is it. Does it behoove you to just get cynical and just do things that will keep you in office, or do you still try to maintain your idealism? And, and she's ultimately failed by her, you know, by. That she doesn't succeed in politics because.

[David]

Like, we're talking about this. It's sounding like an interesting move, like this is 100% an interesting movie. But you're like, there are real ideas in this and like, tough questions with no answers that at times he dramatizes very well. And other times you're sort of like, what, what are you. The last time you went to a.

[Richard Lawson]

Grocery store, you know, well, it's like watching. I think I've said this even on this podcast, but like in the movie we. That Madonna directed where Abby Cornish goes, she's staying with Oscar Isaac in Brooklyn after leaving her husband, and she walks under the Marcy J. Stop, you know, the, the overpass, and looks at like, there's a Hasidic person and a man selling like birdcages out of a store, and a tear drips down her eye and it's like, oh, Madonna has not talked to a real person in 15 years. Like, it's a little bit of that with Brooks, but it's not as. It's not as like snooty or. I don't know. I don't mind it in his case. It's like your grandpa being like, oh, what's. You know, like kind of using old colloquialism.

[David]

No.

[Richard Lawson]

How do you know?

[David]

Feels like a movie made by someone who hasn't talked to a person in a decade. This is so much more. Yes. Recognizable a thing that.

[Griffin]

And Brooks has talked about it in the couple features I've seen written about this. You know him for this movie, you know, and we must have talked about this back in the day. But his father abandoned the family before he was born. He found he has, like, an older sister, but his father found out his. James L. Brooks's father found out his mother was pregnant and literally like Bluetown. And he never knew his father after he was about 12. Like, he occasionally would see the dad but had no real. And like Brooks has said the Harrelson figure. Very inspired by that. Like this sort of bad dad you can't quite shake. And. And also, what did. What's. What has James L. Brooks done. Been married a bunch of times, had kids with different women, gone through divorces. You know, clearly not totally lived up to whatever promise he might have wanted.

[David]

Just remarried last year and I'm sure.

[Griffin]

They'Re getting it on and he's a stallion in the sack to this day. No, I have no idea.

[Richard Lawson]

And when he comes, it goes.

[Griffin]

After he comes.

[Richard Lawson]

That was the crazy. That's him going immediately to bed.

[Griffin]

God, that hope to God James o' Brooks is not listening to this podcast.

[David]

Seeing that logo on the big screen, Thanos, it was truly incredible.

[Richard Lawson]

There is. There is little that is more Pavlovian than that feeling of, like, why, like me starting to love filmed entertainment. I mean, I know this wasn't filmed, but, like, you know what I mean?

[David]

No, this is filmed art. Yes. Popular media. Yeah.

[Griffin]

So, yeah. He's still thinking about himself.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

All these years later, which is interesting. Here's an interesting thing about other stuff.

[David]

That I think is a little lost in the soup of this movie. And it's. It's sort of like when you're talking about what are the animating ideas behind these films at the different points in his career. Right.

[Griffin]

And like James L. Brooks, when he makes soup, when his movies are soup, it's like, there's lobster, there's.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, I was going to Say this is more of a chowder.

[Griffin]

Oh, that's. Well, is it. Is it New England?

[Richard Lawson]

Okay, so I have thoughts about sort of a non. It was filmed in Providence.

[Griffin]

I kept thinking it was, like, Michigan.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. The Amtrak station is right across from the State House. So I. Look, I've seen that State House many a time, but otherwise it's set in a neighborhood of Providence that's not where my parents live. So I didn't recognize it. But what I do recognize is someone who grew up in Boston and spent. Has spent his entire life living in the Northeastern United States. There's no way you can fake that that's, like, Illinois. I really don't think it just topographically, the architecture. I mean, it was.

[Griffin]

It was a chilly place, you know, Chilly place.

[Richard Lawson]

It's certainly. I mean, obviously not Santa Fe, but, like, I just think that, like, he's kind of dining out on the assumption that a state that looks like this is probably blue. But I don't have to say it is true.

[Griffin]

That's.

[Richard Lawson]

You know, so it's that kind of, like, broadly, like, is this Harrisburg, Pennsylvania? Could be, but that's maybe too much of a battleground state. So in a way, I'm, like. Just said it in Rhode island then, because that is a solidly blue state with a lot.

[Griffin]

But then everyone would have to be like, you owe 50 grand to them.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, that's. Whatever. That's. There's a Mafia problem.

[David]

The fact that this movie was shot in the last five years and they didn't force him to film it in, like, Belgrade is even anomalous.

[Richard Lawson]

Hello, Ella. I am your new press secretary.

[David]

But you're just so used to these movies being like, this is a story about a specific American city, and we clearly shot it outside of the United States of America.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, No, I mean, it definitely has. I love. I love a movie that. That, like, it's in a place that is, you know, like the Gracie logo, like. Like, recognizable to me. I have a Pavlovian response to that kind of home that, like, she lives in or, you know, those kind of streets and that particular State House. And I don't know, I kind of, in a way, like, the anonymity of it. Even if it forces Julie Kavanaugh to say, and she's the governor of the state she was born in, you know, it's like, okay, that's not how you would phrase that.

[David]

But James Brooks is very interested in career women. Right. It is like, the majority of his movies are driven by, how does a woman have A career, sure.

[Richard Lawson]

And I still don't know. You know what? That's most of the new podcast is me asking Allison that how do you.

[David]

Still have a career? But how do you know? Feels like what it was supposed to be was, well, female athletes, even if you get to the top of your field, that's a really fucking low ceiling. And being a professional athlete is an occupation where there is an early retirement age. And if you are the best female softball player in the world and you're forced to retire at 36, what is the rest of your life because you don't have MLB millions to bank on.

[Guest Speaker]

Is this thing on?

[David]

Yes, there we go. But we will talk about similar themes here in a couple weeks on this.

[Richard Lawson]

And I would argue that a volleyball career is even less lucrative than the softball. Although Olympics. There are Olympics.

[David]

Olympics.

[Richard Lawson]

Softballs at the Olympics too. But I don't think as many people watch it.

[David]

But if someone is focused on their career and now they don't have much to take away from it, and they're trying to figure out their love life maybe at a time delay from other people who are having more of a work life balance feels like that's what that movie was supposed to be about. And then the fucking 2008 financial crash happens. And James L. Brooks is like, actually, I want to talk about all of this. And that movie is sort of neither Fish nor Foul because he can't decide what the main thing he cares about is.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, it's, you know, it was, it's my theory about the newsroom and a number of other things that have come since then, which is like rich guys who don't have to do anything else project wise. But they've been at dinner parties at their house and they're talking about an article they half read in the Atlantic or the New Yorker. And they feel that they really have, like talked about it. Well to their friends at the dinner party and they're like, but wait, no one else in America heard that. Maybe I should make a TV show about what I thought about the last 18 months. You know, this has a slight tinge or how do you know? Rather had that in spades. This only has a little bit of it.

[David]

And like, I still have an overall deal at Sony. I have a bungalow they would like for me to make something to justify the money they give me to maintain an office here. Exactly like stars still want to make my movies. You know, I got three A listers.

[Richard Lawson]

And I've got things to say about this thing from a few, you know.

[David]

Yeah, they'll let him get into this with a rougher draft. And this movie, it felt like they made him prove himself a little bit more while also perhaps giving him more latitude than most people would get, less latitude than he usually gets. But I think one of the big animating ideas here, David, is sort of what you're talking about, which is like, if you are so defined by the failure of your father and you try to live your life in the shadow of that, in opposition to that, is there a kind of cruel irony of you ending up in a situation closer to him than you ever imagined you would? Right.

[Griffin]

Yeah. And that's like, here I am, my marriage is failing. I'm about to deal with the scandal. Yes, Right.

[David]

The circumstances are very different. The behavior is very different. Her father is defined by being someone who absolutely acted in the wrong and has taken no responsibility for it for decades. And she is the opposite. Why is this even a scandal? And I may be taking too much responsibility for it in a way that is not politically savvy, but am I also fucking up my marriage at the same time in the way my father did? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[Guest Speaker]

She also ended up with the guy that's kind of like her father and that he's extremely selfish.

[Griffin]

Kind of a charming, ish, selfish loser who's like, clearly getting by on being kind of a cutie.

[Richard Lawson]

And to the Rhode island of it all that I kind of think that Loudon and Becky and Baker are supposed to be a little mob coded, like they have a pizza restaurant. But, like, why cast those people?

[Griffin]

I would. I was about to say Loudon, who is an actor I really like, is not the right casting.

[David]

I think he, he.

[Griffin]

He's not bad at playing like a weaselly guy.

[David]

But I'll say this, and it's. But not me blaming the performance.

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

I think this is in a way the most disastrous part of the movie.

[Richard Lawson]

It's because it. That feels like it needs a lot more Runway. It feels like it was the, the. The worst hit victim of the cuts.

[David]

Yes, yes, absolutely. But I also think his performance.

[Griffin]

It sound like this is like a state budget.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes. Well, I'm. I'm speaking in the argot of the film Needy Children.

[Griffin]

By what you mean Jack Louden are being cut to the bone.

[David]

Look, James L. Brooks gets exactly what he wants out of his actors. I'm not throwing Loudon under the bus here, even if he is obviously a man who exists at the absolute center of my dartboard just for having the exact domestic situation I dream of.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Griffin's jealous. Jack Loudon because he's married with a child with.

[Richard Lawson]

You know who's a big Jack Loudon fan is Bobby Finger. So he has a Saoirse Ronan dartboard.

[David]

We need to team up.

[Griffin]

Harpy.

[Richard Lawson]

Two podcasters arrested a bizarre murder plot that actually, if you think about it, made no sense because.

[David]

Yeah, no, there is some broad comedy where Bobby and I are trying to figure out how to make them think that they're breaking up of their own belief.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[David]

But switch with us in the Jack Loud. Switch orientations.

[Richard Lawson]

Unfortunately, Bobby's plotline would involve some sort of Clockwork Orange conversion therapy reprogramming.

[Griffin]

We don't know. Maybe Jack likes everybody.

[Richard Lawson]

We don't. It's true. Come on. The podcast.

[Griffin]

Address my. Address me.

[David]

I'm. I'm predisposed to be bone deep jealous of this man's existence. Right. Anytime he shows up in a movie, I'm like him.

[Richard Lawson]

Fuck.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

I don't actually blame him for this performance. I think James Upbrooks really misdirected him. I think it's really unbalanced and the limiting of the material hurts it a lot. But it's also, like, I don't think the movie ever makes a compelling case for why she was with him in the first place. And reading the script, I felt a little bit of tension in. Is this guy hiding something? This guy is so good at charming people in a way that feels genuine. He's a little too likable. Where. What's that covering up? And he's kind of guileless. And it takes a while to be like, no, he's strategic about what he's doing here and this movie. He's so slippery. From the moment you, like, see him kissing fucking Jamie Lee Curtis's hand as a teenager.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, no, exactly. And I also think that, you know, I don't know if you guys watch the Diplomat, but, like, just.

[Griffin]

I do watch the Diplomat. I'm just remembering the teenage stuff. Sorry.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, well, we should actually talk about that. But just real quick. Bradley Woodford plays Alison Janney's husband. So he's the first husband. And, you know, oh, it's a man doing that role, you know, I guess he's a Doug Emhoff. But I also. But I also like Selena Meyer's husband in Viv or her ex husband. I think that this role suffers because I'm like, I've seen this before recently, you know, some version of it.

[Griffin]

I could sort of buy that. She ended up with this guy because she's such a driven person, she's got her career, that he just, like, is like, yeah, he's nice. And, like, that solves that part of my life. To have this kind of nice guy all sewn up and I don't have to worry about it. But that needs more.

[David]

I don't think they sell him being nice enough. I think the movie needs to rest on the idea that she is a person of such clear, unbeatable morals that her not being able to see him for what he is. And I understand people get blinded by certain things and whatever, but I'm just like, he feels like a Scooby Doo villain from the beginning.

[Richard Lawson]

I also think that in a way not to, like, try to make a movie that doesn't exist, but, like, I do think in a way that if you wanted to complicate Ella's character a little further, you could be like, there was some cynicism in her getting married so young because she was like, I can't achieve my political ambitions as a single woman.

[David]

I think that's a better way to frame it.

[Griffin]

If it was like, no one quite says anything like that.

[David]

And their flashbacks seemingly cut out, I believe that establish more of the bedrock of what they're early, like, you know, this was like, yeah, childhood sweethearts, basically.

[Richard Lawson]

And we're going to take over the world together. And, you know, totally.

[David]

And, like, what soured along the way. And instead you get, like, one scene of him being too slick as a teenager.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

And then you're like, this guy sucks.

[Richard Lawson]

In a crazy wig, too. David. It's not just Woody who wears a crazy and wigs.

[David]

It's the wiggy movie. But this is also a problem with the film has to rest on the idea that she made a stupid choice that is now jeopardizing her ability to actually affect change in the world that was driven by. I can't let my marriage fall apart.

[Griffin]

Right. That she was trying to keep him happy.

[David]

That it's not a marriage of convenience. That it's not a, you know, your role. You play the part of the good, upstanding guy. That she's like, I need to reorganize my whole life to make sure that I'm giving him enough attention.

[Richard Lawson]

Which is that a commentary on how women in the workplace are treated? Or is that in some ways a dim view of a woman in the workplace?

[David]

You know, we're in the fucking JLB soup now. We're in the chowder. Where you're like, things in this movie that feel dramatically sloppy if you actually start pulling apart. What's he trying to say here? You're like, this is an interesting thing to talk about.

[Richard Lawson]

Right, Well, I just got a piece of potato.

[David]

He still has, like, powers of observation, even if he can't totally stick the landing on all of them. Like, some of them he sticks the landing but not the takeoff. You know, it's like some such an odd mix.

[Griffin]

I just want to shout out, Jack Louden on Slow Horses. Do you watch? Do you watch Slow Horses?

[Richard Lawson]

I have not seen it since the first season.

[Griffin]

In Slow Horses, Gary Oldman plays, you know, the farting spy and like the whole. Well, he plays like the head of this, like, shitty division of MI5, like the British spy, you know, division, right. And the whole thing is that he's so bedraggled and he's farting all the time and drinking and he's this, like, garbage man. But it's. As you watch the show, you realize, like, oh, right. It's a little bit of an act. Like, he knows this means no one takes him seriously. He's smart.

[David]

It's an anti Smiley.

[Griffin]

He uses it to kind of get people, you know, off. And then Jack Louden plays this spy who ends up in the shitty division because he's the opposite. He can't help but enter a situation like waving a gun around, being like, I am a spy. I can save the day. I can save the day. And he's so good at that.

[David]

I admittedly have not seen a ton of his work.

[Griffin]

Oh, really? You haven't seen.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, My Policeman?

[David]

Isn't that him?

[Griffin]

No, no, that was Harry Styles that.

[David]

Wasn'T called 76 but was called 87.

[Griffin]

Or if you're talking about the film 76, which is a film. No, that's not what you're talking about. What was that? I know. Is it 74?

[David]

Yes, that's.

[Griffin]

That's not him. Jesus. 71, is that him we got there? No, it's Jack O' Connell that you're talking about. The sort of IRA drama movie. Yeah, that was Jack O'. Connell. Jack Loudon emerged. I mean, he, you know, he's in little parts in British movies and stuff.

[David]

Small part in Dunkirk.

[Griffin]

He's in Dunkirk. I would say more than a small part in Dunkirk. It was kind of like, who's that fucking hottie driving a plane like, alongside, you know, Tom Hardy.

[David]

Tom Hardy. Okay, right.

[Griffin]

And then he parachutes.

[David]

Excuse me. He is in 71, he's just not the lead.

[Griffin]

Oh, you're right. Well, I Mean, he's not even in the, like, he's the 17th lead.

[Richard Lawson]

Who's that?

[Griffin]

Jack O' Connell's the lead of that movie.

[Richard Lawson]

Who's that fucking hottie driving a plane? Is what I said at the end of Train Dream.

[Griffin]

That's nice. I used to say that about Joel.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, he's hot.

[Griffin]

He's in Fighting With My Family, which you have seen.

[David]

Oh, yeah. And actually, he's good. I like that movie a lot. And he's, I think, quite good in.

[Griffin]

It, playing her brother who's like, you know, the original aspiring wrestler. I saw that.

[David]

But, like, I never saw Denial. I didn't see the War and Peace miniseries.

[Griffin]

No, I never saw.

[David]

I didn't see Mary Queen of Scots.

[Griffin]

He's fine in that. That's where he met Saoirse, obviously. He's, he's a.

[David]

If you can get it right.

[Griffin]

He's somewhat villainous in that.

[David]

I didn't see Benediction. Embarrassing.

[Griffin]

Benediction is the thing where you're like, okay, so this guy's like, I know.

[David]

That's a blind.

[Richard Lawson]

And it has this, like, extra sadness or sweetness to it because it was Terence Davies, like, right. Re engaging with gay stuff for the first time in a long time. And then he died and he fought, but he finally did it.

[Griffin]

And like, also, it's like, oh, Terence Davis made a movie about Siegfried Sassoon, who was a British World War I veteran who's a poet. And you're like, oh, okay. So is this Is like, Is this like an elegiac sad movie? No, no, no. It is about gay guys talking shit.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, it's the cattiest movie of that year.

[Griffin]

They are all so mean. Yeah, but he's really good in that.

[David]

He plays then Sauron and the Rings.

[Griffin]

Of Power only in one episode. So he's the original Sauron. Because the whole thing with Sauron is that he keeps turning into new hotties to distract people.

[David]

So he's young Sauron, who.

[Griffin]

Well, I mean, not that the old. So the new Sauron is. They're all young and hot. But yes, you know, Sauron keeps, you know, being like, hi, I'm just a.

[David]

Got it.

[Griffin]

I'm a cool guy.

[Richard Lawson]

Is he on Instagram?

[Griffin]

I, I, he is on Instagram. Wait. Oh, Fran Hoffner highly recommends Jack Loud.

[Richard Lawson]

I was talking about Sauron, but okay.

[David]

He's sort of your type of.

[Griffin]

Wow. Sauron really likes the Netflix deal.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, well, I guess that tracks.

[David]

But yeah, a lot of the big ones I've missed and I know he's always on these lists of like.

[Griffin]

Is the thing, right. That he's consistently.

[David]

He's always. I feel like one of these shortlisted guys for like the big parts that are coming up.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I do feel like he's good at earnestness and he's bad casting in this for that reason.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Where him trying to play. Play a little too slick comes off as like transparently un. Untrustworthy.

[Richard Lawson]

And I don't want to sound limiting, but I do think it's hard and I think that Emma Mackie suffers from this too. It can be hard to do comedy while also trying to juggle an accent, an accent.

[David]

Yep. David. Yep. This episode is brought to you by mubi, the global film company the Champions. Great cinema. For my kind directors to emerge emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover. And with mubi, each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema.

[Griffin]

True. And that's right in particular the Mastermind.

[David]

One of my favorite movies of the year from one of my favorite filmmakers.

[Griffin]

Alive, the great Kelly Reichardt. It's streaming a movie in the US from December 12th. Kelly Reichardt, first cow showing up. Lots of great movies directing. Josh oh o'. Connor. The unforgettable Josh o' Connor in her latest can triumph. The Mastermind.

[David]

In a sedate Massachusetts suburb circa 1970, unemployed family man and amateur art thief J.B. mooney sets out on his first heist. With the museum cased and accomplices recruited. He has narrow type plan, or so he thinks. Yeah.

[Griffin]

You, you, you like this film, right? Gabby Hoffman, John McGara, Hope Davis, Bill Camp. A Kelly take on a heist movie.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

It's like loose and quiet and noodley.

[David]

And kind of political, elusive and yes, incredibly funny. Josh o' Connor's amazing in it.

[Griffin]

He's really good in it.

[David]

He's the guy right now as far as I'm concerned. But this is a really fascinating vehicle for him and I feel like it's Kelly Riker kind of dealing with a movie star Persona in a way I haven't quite seen her do before. An excellent movie, one of my favorites for the year. And that's all they have. Obviously. MUBI has an incredible selection.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Curated streaming service. They got all kinds of great stuff handpicked for you by Mubi International Films, art films. Always something worth checking out.

[David]

So I would say that a Mastermind is worth a month subscription alone. And to stream the best of Cinema, you don't even have to pay for the first month. You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com SL blank check. That's mbi.com blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

[Griffin]

There you go.

[David]

David, I'm going to surprise you with something. This is kind of one of most shattering.

[Griffin]

I know what you're going to say and I'm going to be splat right now.

[David]

What do you think I'm gonna say?

[Griffin]

You're a bit of a last minute shopper.

[David]

How did you know?

[Griffin]

Who, who knows how I knew that?

[David]

This is one area. But it does make sense of my life where weirdly I lack organization and leave things to the last minute.

[Griffin]

So you're. You got that sort of feeling, familiar Christmassy feeling of the shelves are empty. Your ideas for gifts are running low. What do you do for Christmas or the holidays?

[David]

And here's another thing. I have family members who are really, really tricky to shop for. They.

[Griffin]

They might not want the normal stuff.

[David]

Well, if you're like me or if you have other adjacent issues in your gift, strategizing this year OR Frames is the solution with a gift that feels personal. OR Frames is truly kind of the gift that keeps on giving because you hand it to them and they go, what is this? And you go, it's a digital picture frame. And then you can keep updating it, you can keep sending new things to it.

[Griffin]

You can download the Aura app, right. You connect it to WI Fi. You can preload some photos before it ships. Right. So people can get the gift.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

It can be personalized. You can add a message, but then you can share straight from your phone all year long new pictures. If you give this to say a grandparent or a relative like that who maybe wants some baby pictures, your babies start to grow. Show them the new updates. Show them how the baby's growing.

[David]

I don't want to pigeonhole. This is an incredible grandparent gift. I gave one the kind folks at OR Frame sent me a couple. I gave one to my grandmother and it's great. And she's picky and she's the kind of person where you buy her something, she goes, I'd never wear this color, but thank you. Right. There's just an immediate rejection of the gift you got. You got her and you're just like, look, this can evolve. This is. This tailors in real time to your interests, which for her are pictures of herself.

[Griffin]

Look, for a limited time, you can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver Matte frames named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code check at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code check. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[David]

Please mention us at that checkout.

[Griffin]

So here's my question. Who is Emma Mackey? Who is this?

[David]

Sex education. Right.

[Richard Lawson]

Which.

[Griffin]

I've never seen that.

[David]

Me neither.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, so basically that's Asa Butterfield. Margot Robbie got a TEMU clone made.

[David]

And that's always been the thing that. Oh, why is. How is there this other actress that looks that much like her? Sex Education is her main project and that has run for like fucking five or six seasons.

[Griffin]

I think it might have sort of petered, you know. You know how these. These hit.

[Richard Lawson]

It ran for like five. I think.

[Griffin]

I think four seasons.

[Richard Lawson]

Okay. But I feel like, you know, these.

[Griffin]

Netflix shows, they kind of peter out.

[David]

I also feel like there's a lot of cast turnaround on that show, but she basically stayed as one of the consistent elements for a while.

[Griffin]

She's, you know, all the seasons, along with Asa Butterfield and Amy Lou W. Who's that then? And, you know, Gillian Anderson and Doctor who's in there and, you know, lots of people and they're learning sex education.

[Richard Lawson]

And she. And. And Emma Mackey is also in Babylon with Marco Robbie. Or is Emma.

[David]

It's Samara Weaving. Who's the other one they say has the same face as them. So she's in Babylon and I'm a maximum. Is in Barbie as fake Barbie.

[Richard Lawson]

Right. Okay.

[Griffin]

Right. I never saw the Emily Bronte movie.

[David]

Is that Deirdre o'?

[Griffin]

Connell? It was Francis o'. Connor.

[David]

That's what I mean. I'm sorry.

[Richard Lawson]

I wish it was Deirdre o'.

[David]

Connor.

[Richard Lawson]

That'd be great.

[Griffin]

I never saw.

[David]

She's in Death on the Nile, apparently.

[Griffin]

I did see that, but I'm going to be honest with you guys. That one kind of bounced off.

[David]

Sure.

[Richard Lawson]

I think she's actually kind of a big part in Death in the Nile.

[Griffin]

She might be. She's like the young lover.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But I remember this part where one of the actresses says something about the Nile and champagne.

[David]

I'll say this. She has very few credits. Like, you actually look at it, and it's like her first movie is 2020. She's in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 movies total. She's Ella K. Years old.

[Griffin]

Like, she's playing younger than Ella McKay. And I would say it reads, this.

[David]

Was shot two years ago. I mean, this goes back to my original question of who are they casting as the lead. This is built to be a Deborah Winger, Holly Hunter type thing, but this movie has the three timelines. Well over 50% of the movie is her in her mid-30s.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I think.

[David]

And then there's a little bit of teen and a little bit of early 20s. And they cut most of the early 20s stuff out. There was more college stuff in the script I read.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, that's good because at at present there is already way too much flashback stuff because it just looks so crazy.

[Griffin]

I think all the flashback stuff should go, except for the stuff at the beginning.

[David]

The opening is all you need, which.

[Griffin]

Is really profound, like, and really got me.

[David]

But in the script I read, that stuff was circled back to many times. There was more sort of going back and forth. It's a part of what I think is lost. I will say, even though I, I don't think it worked dramatically. Part of what the movie doesn't communicate well is that the idea of the Woody Harrelson scandal is that it became a news story.

[Griffin]

Which makes you, you get a. The briefest sense of that. That like he's about to go face the media, that he. And like, that's what's happening in the first scene. That like, that the family needs to prepare for. On top of the. That he's done something.

[David]

He's done Monica Gate.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

But it was the kind of thing that became a weird news story that captured people for a couple weeks of like, oh, this high level person was doing all this bad shit. And so it's not like he's still remembered by name necessarily, but like the level of exposure and attention in her childhood or, you know, certainly starting in her teen years has like absolutely affected the way this person behaves in every area in opposition to it. And that she's aware of the fact that this legacy is attached to her, that people know her as the daughter of that guy, as she is now fighting to try to like fix our broken culture. And I, I think that doesn't totally come across in the movie. Like, her dad sucks and then she grows up.

[Richard Lawson]

Well. Cause the dad stuff feels like we're taking brief detours to a different movie that's about that.

[David]

Right.

[Richard Lawson]

Where Woody Harrelson is a much bigger part and Jamie Lee Curtis's relationship to everybody becomes much more apparent than it is in this version of the movie.

[David]

That stuff also feels way cut down, it was clearer that it was a sort of like making the amends. I need you to grant me this because I'm trying to forgive myself in my life.

[Richard Lawson]

I also think that there would be if there were, if you flesh that dad character, that dynamic out more, that backstory out more, it would explain some of Ella's goody two shoesism. That throwaway line about how she vehemently opposed legalizing marijuana.

[David]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

That was one of the planks of her platform when she ran. Is like, wait, what?

[Griffin]

No, that totally tracked me. Because the 2008 Ness, it's like that's how much the world has changed. That that was considered so radical back then.

[Richard Lawson]

A progressive Democrats would have run on that.

[Griffin]

No one fucking supported legalizing weed in 2008. Like, it was truly seen as like, you're going to sound like a.

[Richard Lawson]

You're going to libertarian whacked out hippie or whatever. Yeah.

[Griffin]

God. Do you remember, I watch it all the time when the former governor of New Mexico, who's a Republican, who became a Libertarian, fudgeing. Forget his name, ran for like the Libertarian presidential nomination, I think, in 2016. And he's at like the Libertarian.

[David]

Gary Johnson is. Yeah, Gary Johnson, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

And he's at the Libertarian Party's like, presidential debate, right. With like the other whackers, which is.

[Richard Lawson]

Just people milling around a room screaming.

[Griffin]

And someone in. Someone's like, the next question is, do you support, you know, people being licensed to drive?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And like it goes from like every. It's like, no, like, what, what, what next? A license to make toast, you know, as like they go through. And the Gary Johnson's like, I mean, I think maybe you should have to perform some sort of proficiency to learn. And everyone's like.

[Richard Lawson]

There'S no way.

[Griffin]

The guy's so clearly like, what am.

[David]

I, what am I supposed to say here?

[Guest Speaker]

He gets interrupted by a giant bullet.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, sorry.

[David]

I know. I think you're right though, that, like, what you don't get in this movie is that she has so wildly overcorrected for her father, which is why no.

[Griffin]

One can stand her.

[David]

Like, exactly.

[Richard Lawson]

It's become rigid and.

[David]

And it's not just experiential, but it's also like her trying to fight the optics of how she's going to be perceived every time she enters a room where it's like, yeah, you know, that she's the daughter of that guy who 20 years ago.

[Griffin]

And not just that, but that she's young, she's this prodigy. She needs to Overcompensate for being a young prodigy and all that shaped her moral worldview.

[David]

And then on top of that, it shaped a defensiveness in how she lives in the world to try to be able to push her moral worldview through without ever bending.

[Griffin]

Albert Brooks is too old to play her dad. Right?

[David]

When I.

[Griffin]

But is there a world, right, where it makes sense that to have Brooks be the dad and Harrelson be the governor?

[David]

I read the script. They announced the cast. I went, holy shit, Albert Brooks is going to crush it as the dad. Right. And Harrelson makes a lot of sense.

[Griffin]

Makes a ton of sense as a kind of, like, folksy governor. People like.

[David]

People like him. But also, there's an element of, like, he leaned a little too much into showman, and he's just kind of like a corporate politician now and whatever.

[Griffin]

I don't think Brooks is bad in this.

[David]

I think Brooks is actually quite good.

[Griffin]

Yeah. And he nails all his scenes, but he's a little bit. I was kind of like, why do people vote for him? He just kind of seems boring. Like, he's fine.

[David]

Here's another thing that I liked about the idea of Brooks playing this part. Not just that, obviously, like, it's an inverse of his Broadcast News character, but that it's almost like a souring of that guy in that, like, I think the Jack Loudon character is an unsuccessful attempt to make another William Hurt. Right. Where you're like, ultimately, this guy is a problem.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

And yet it's really hard to resist his charms.

[Richard Lawson]

Or a little bit Jeff Daniels in terms of Endearment, kind of. Exactly.

[David]

No, I think, truly.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

And watching it, I was like, who could have pulled this off? He's obviously never gonna make this career move at this point in his arc, but, like, if it's Glen Powell, you.

[Richard Lawson]

Know, there you go.

[David]

Glen Powell is so good at playing kind of a shitbag and being like, God, but I can't fucking hate this guy. Which is what you need him to be. That I don'.

[Richard Lawson]

Think the kind of guy who would genuinely think that even though his wife is lieutenant governor, will now governor, that he's actually the real celebrity.

[David]

Yes. And without making any larger statement about this, you put Woody Harrelson in this type of role, and as you've said many times on this podcast, David, you're a slut for Woody. Woody, I love him. He's so much fun. Almost anytime he shows up in anything and yet introduced in this movie, you're like, of course this guy's everyone there's no tension to that. Right. Like, the whole Woody Harrelson thing is like, come on, what are you going to do? Mad at me? There's.

[Richard Lawson]

There's no shock and disgrace there. But with Brooks.

[David]

With Brooks, it would be this kind of warping of a broadcast news type guy who, in ascending to career power.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Takes abused it.

[David]

Yeah, yeah. Out of like, vindictiveness of women. Used to never pay attention to me.

[Richard Lawson]

Right. I think part of the problem with a lot of this in general is that, like, I think the movie is afraid of becoming too dark and cynical, even though it is set in the most dark and cynical, like, well, the beginning of a really dark and cynical era, but also just like politics in general, since forever have been that way.

[David]

The movie is basically about that battle between cynicism and optimism.

[Richard Lawson]

But I don't think we see nearly enough of the sin of the true cynicism.

[David]

You have the Julie Kavanaugh line early on where she's like, this story is set in 2008, remember when people still used to get along?

[Richard Lawson]

It's like, well, what are you talking about?

[David]

I mean, like, it's a glib line. Yeah. It's overly reductive, but it also feels like part of why he chose to set it then. I. I think he once again wanted to talk about the fallout of the financial collapse.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

And what that did to the citizens of this country and the politicians who were not thinking about them enough.

[Richard Lawson]

I think he was making some comment on. On Clinton where he's like, oh, she had all these policy ideas, but, like, she wasn't likable enough. And it's like, sure, that's maybe true, but also that's not why she lost that.

[David]

So an Obama optimism of, is this guy going to come in and actually fix everything? And then you're like, he starts to play the game, but really hard fantasy and make some terrible decisions.

[Griffin]

Yeah, it's this fantasy of what she does of like, rather than play the game, she cuts the deal of like, okay, I'll go away if you. And we don't really know what this is, but, like, do everything I want to legislatively happen.

[David]

A thing that was also very spelled out in the script and has long dialog scenes where she's like, going over what the points are and everyone's being like, oh, my God, why are you so annoying?

[Griffin]

That in the movie there is.

[David]

But it gets a little yada, yada, yada.

[Richard Lawson]

Imagine if this movie was called Wonka.

[Griffin]

I mean, that's true, but, like, I found the scenes where she's like, you know, excitedly trying to explain policy to whoever. Like, the idea is cute of like, everyone being like, you know, oh, Ella, yes, yes.

[David]

I think it needs more of that, of the idea of like, what is she actually, actually.

[Griffin]

Oh, boring. Like, it's just.

[David]

This is Brooke where he's like, I want like five minutes of policy discussion that Fox was clearly like, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

[Griffin]

I just think it's boring. Like, it's just like, you know, like, it's what the characters don't. Like she's haranguing you where you're like, yeah, I agree. It's good to help moms or it's good to have dentists or whatever, you.

[David]

Know, like, it's also what's tricky about this part is it's, it's going for the Holly Hunter thing of like, God, she is so annoying. Why can't she get out of her own way with this? And yet you're still on her side.

[Griffin]

I liked the gag of, you know, the legislative meeting where it's like the sun has set and everyone's asleep and she's like, and then we're gonna do this, you know, like. Like, that worked for me, him passing.

[David]

The note saying, mention me and then please don't mention that.

[Griffin]

That was funny.

[Richard Lawson]

That's the best bit in the whole movie.

[David]

There's stuff like that that's good, but I think casting a 27 year old for this movie is fundamentally a mistake.

[Griffin]

Okay, who should he have cast?

[David]

I was doing this mental exercise, right. And I, I always think about, like, the generation of actresses who basically didn't get to have a movie like this. Like, Emma Stone seemed tailor made for it.

[Griffin]

Although Emma Stone got more comedies than some.

[David]

Sure. But I mean, thinking about the people who truly didn't get anything close to this, I was like, like Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs.

[Richard Lawson]

Gillian Jacobs sprang to my Neo friend.

[David]

Of the podcast, Tatiana Maslany. Like, people who are like both heavyweight dramatic actors and have incredible comedic touches.

[Griffin]

But like, so much of their best work had to be on tv, can.

[David]

Do screwball with depth, which is what you really want. You know, you need someone who's like, got a double barreled shotgun of like, tonal control.

[Richard Lawson]

And I think that McKay is a good actor, but I think that she seems overwhelmed by the juggling that this thing requires.

[David]

Wow.

[Griffin]

But Ella McKay is overwhelmed. Have you seen the day she's having?

[David]

But also, why is this movie casting based on like. Well, she'll be more believable as a teenager. Than if hire someone in her late 30s.

[Griffin]

And you're like, they did that.

[David]

I truly think it has to be. I truly. That that was. I'll just say that was the explanation I got when they cast.

[Griffin]

Right, right.

[Richard Lawson]

And just cast a younger actor to play the younger person, like, whatever.

[David]

And it was like, well, the brother has to be three different actors at different ages or whatever. But they want one person to play her in all the scenes. Which I guess makes more sense if there's more of those other scenes. But obviously they should have limited those scenes at the script level.

[Griffin]

Look, you. I clearly. You didn't like Emma Mackie.

[David]

I thought she was okay.

[Griffin]

I was kind of quite charmed by her.

[Richard Lawson]

Why do I keep saying McKay?

[David]

Because the movie's called Ella McKay.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

I, I thought she was all right. I just think the movie is putting an unfair kind of task on her shoulders.

[Richard Lawson]

It's a lot. It's big. I mean, look, it crushed a titan like Tea Leone. Yeah, Granted, a very different kind of part, but. No, but it's big verbose. Like you have to hold a lot of ideas that are sort of ineffable, you know, hard to hold at all. Stylized and be charming and this. And be that stylized dialogue. Although I think the Brooks isms are kind of at a minimum in this.

[David]

They are. It's a little more grounded. But I, I think, I think a lot of it is just. Is just the age. Because this movie isn't framed as the crazy story of how like a child became the governor of a state.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[David]

Like it's supposed to be like, she's pretty young for a governor, but not like an aberration to give people the.

[Griffin]

Plot of Ellen McKay. Maybe they didn't go see it. Why not? The hell? She's the lieutenant governor of her state behind an experienced governor who she used to be the chief of staff to. Clearly she was a prodigy chief of staff given her age. And because he gets a secretary job in the US Cabinet, he resigns. Why he has to resign day of is, that's ludicrous. No one would do that. But when that's required for. Required for the movie in real life, he would wait to be confirmed before he fucking resigned. And so she gets the governorship thrust upon her very surprisingly.

[David]

And an idea I like is here's a person whose platforms are too radical and is not good at like, comforting people. If she had to run for public election, she would never get it. It's the thing that Albert Brooks says.

[Griffin]

She'S not someone who's good at campaigning. No, she's not good at pr. She's not good at being on tv. She's not radical, but she's a technocrat who has all this kind of like good government stuff she wants to do that's boring and she doesn't know how to horse trade for it. All that.

[David]

And obviously, you know, they're. They're of a different affiliation. But it's like if you have an AOC or a mom, Donnie, who doesn't have the PR skills.

[Griffin]

Sure. Right, right.

[David]

Like the only way in which they're ever actually getting to get into a seat of power is through some weird fluke moment like this. And he says, like, like, congratulations, they're going to run you out of town.

[Griffin]

But for at least a little while. You are the governor.

[David]

Right. And what are you going to do with that power?

[Griffin]

Now, that's the main plot. Also, she's married. Her marriage is sort of on the rocks and she was having lunch dates with her husband in the state office building. And it turns out that's a misuse of government funds technically. So she's worried she's going to get in trouble for that because a reporter found out about it. And also her dad, Woody Harrelson, who had a scandal in the family when she was young, was a prominent. Died.

[David]

Was had. They don't get.

[Griffin]

They don't get into it at all.

[David]

But was basically caught. He's across sexual lines with a bunch of his patients.

[Griffin]

He's a serial philanderer.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

He has decided to reemerge to ask forgiveness.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Okay. Jamie Lee Curtis plays her brassy aunt.

[David]

Who, her mother dies shortly after the scandal of cancer. The brother, the sister of her shitty dad, became her den mother and her voice of reason.

[Griffin]

And yeah, Camille Nanjiani plays her bodyguard, you know, security detail guy who she likes. And Spike Fern, an actor. I don't really know.

[David]

No. Has very few credits. He's a young British man.

[Griffin]

Plays and British another.

[David]

Why is it so many Brits playing.

[Griffin]

Her brother who seems to be like sort of agoraphobic, possibly other things. He's divergent men in some way, but has become like a computer whiz, quote unquote, who's become maybe a millionaire because he's sort of a sports gambling expert and he just sits inside all day.

[Guest Speaker]

On his computer in some way.

[Griffin]

And he also somehow managed to bag IO Fumble. IO. That all happened about a year ago and he's been ruminating on it ever since.

[Richard Lawson]

And that's the while she seemingly waits.

[Griffin]

In her apartment, like a board waiting to be activated.

[Richard Lawson]

That's the Brooks he is writing is when he's trying to explain how he sort of asked.

[Griffin]

He asked her to be his girlfriend, and then they all freaked out.

[Richard Lawson]

And because it's all just like circuitous.

[David]

It's like a 10 page scene of, like, dueling monologues that is such a kind of classic Brooksie high wire act. And I truly was like, in real time, like, it felt like watching a boxing match where I was like, okay, that one landed, that one whiffed, you know, and it's coming so fast and furious, and I'm like, is he pulling this off or not?

[Richard Lawson]

It's hard to tell.

[David]

It's really that hard.

[Richard Lawson]

Thing about sometimes when his dialogue is whizzing, you're like, okay. You're like the Maxcel guy. And you're like, you have to sort it out later whether it actually made sense.

[David]

The idea is that the family history, in the same way that it kind of like turned her into a Terminator, broke him. That him being at a younger age and not having a sense of self at the time, that he has to watch his mother die and his father become a public issue, all this sort of stuff. They say that they shipped him off to military school because his dad didn't know how to deal with him. Ella kind of raised him, but then she kickstarts her career that he is just kind of crumbled as a guy.

[Richard Lawson]

Which is also, you know, in terms of Brooks wanting to, you know, make manifest things that were spoken about at a dinner party. He's like, I heard that young men are in trouble. Yeah, a little bit. There's a little bit of that. They live on computers now, you know, a little bit.

[David]

And I think a little bit of the, like, curse of the gifted child thing of, like, was a pressure put upon this kid who was so sharp at such a young age that now he lives in terror of not living up to what was projected for him.

[Griffin]

You know, the flashbacks. We see him, you know, as a kid struggling with all the scandal.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

So it's a lot. It's a lot for the.

[Richard Lawson]

You didn't mention that Becky and Baker plays a richly bejeweled pizzeria doyen.

[David]

They make an additional $300,000 a year by watering down the tomato sauce. That's their.

[Griffin]

That's Jimmy courtesy. Right. Like big beef with them.

[Richard Lawson]

It's like that documentary collective about the Romanian hospital that watered down the antiseptic. It's the same exact thing.

[David]

Becky Ann Baker is kind of on fire in this. I mean, it is like the brief performance, but yeah. She falls into the pizza movie all year. Like, it's like you're like suddenly cutting into like this, like, what. What feels like Jane Austen's Mafia. Like, is this like a parody of mob movies done in the low.

[Griffin]

Other favorite movie. I love you today.

[David]

It does. But like, oh, this is like a, like pizzeria Goomba.

[Griffin]

Hey, I'm Italian. You can tell because I have an apron on.

[Guest Speaker]

We didn't get enough time dealing with the pizza business.

[Richard Lawson]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Again. Right. Maybe this movie should be. Well, I got a wise manasseh 7 hour.

[Richard Lawson]

Emma Robert. Emma Roberts. Hayden Christensen. It's called Little Italy. Not about the Little Italy. You think it's about the Little Italy in Toronto? Rival family pizza restaurants.

[Griffin]

And how is that movie?

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, boy. That's all. That's what I'll say about that one.

[Griffin]

Because, you know, when I see Hayden Christensen, I think Italian.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, it's. It's also insane because he's. He's. He's like 38 and he's playing like a 21 year old. Yeah.

[David]

Is the rivalry between the two pizzerias, like, hey, we here, we make thin crust. And that dirty family, their crust is a little thinner than ours.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. And then they. So Hayden and Emma, while they have to do pod races. Of course, you know when that. To fall in love over pizza.

[David]

The only way to really settle it.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Yeah. It's quite a movie.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

I think the way sounds.

[Guest Speaker]

Sounds great.

[Richard Lawson]

It's streaming. Check it out. I think very much about pizza, the.

[David]

Nature of Woody Harrelson's performance and the way his character is deployed in this movie. And especially because, as we said, the first 10 minutes of the movie are really front loading. This is the defining event of this family that will have the ripple effects on all of them forever. Right. And that is a thing that was like the first trailer did not convey at all. I remember when friends would text me after the trailer and be like, what the fuck is this movie about? I'm like, they're hiding the ball. It is entirely about sex scandals. Everything in this movie spins out of how do people react to sex scandals.

[Richard Lawson]

And how does it affect, like, the civic understanding of, like, public figures. Right.

[David]

But also our personal relationships and all these sorts of things. So if you're like going to see this movie being like, it's like a. I don't know how she does it. The first 10 minutes, I think to a general audience, any audience, are Gonna be like, the. Is this movie.

[Richard Lawson]

When is it? What?

[David]

Like, when is. How old or young is she supposed to play here?

[Griffin]

Is it? Yeah.

[David]

And then every time he shows up in the movie after that, it almost feels like he's like Paul Bettany in A Beautiful Mind. Like, it feels magical. Like he's a ghost of a memory haunting.

[Richard Lawson]

He leaves the family and then gets killed by Anton Chigurh. Right, so he's a ghost.

[David]

Yeah, he.

[Griffin]

We're all making this movie sound bad when in fact, it's a delightful romp.

[David]

But I think we are alternating between making it sound better than it is and worse than it is when it's in a fascinating middle.

[Griffin]

It's another element of the movie that I could almost stand to lose because those scenes don't really link in to the main plot that much outside of the larger. Again, she's sort of just been failed by the role models in her life. This almost feels like she's like, I'm in the middle of a scandal. And Jamie lynch is like, just one second. Let me yank in here for a second. Woody Harrelson's like, please, baby, I'm sorry. And she's like, I'll see you later. He's like, okay. And then she leaves again, you know?

[David]

Cause he's like. Like, he's appearing in this movie in a. Like, Giancarlo Esposito in Brave New World, and let's salute our President Red Hulk. Right? But where you're like, this is late reshoots. And because it's stuck into scenes that already existed, she has to, like, turn a corner, talk to Woody Harrelson, who interacts with no other primary characters. And then she returns to her previous scene. The very ending of this movie is like her resolving her political career. And then he's just happens to be standing seven steps down the block and is like, so can we resolve that plot thread?

[Griffin]

I mean, and she is like, no. Yeah. Which I kind of like that. Like, it's not a movie about her learning. Like, okay, you know what? Everyone's flawed. And, like, maybe you're flawed, too. She's like, no, you're bad. Like, don't need you. Don't need you in my life. And I like that. The only thing she wants out of him when he's like, please, please, please. Like, my new wife's a psychiatrist, and she says, I have to make amends with you or whatever, you know? And she's like, I will talk to you if you promise not to bother your son because you're troubling him. And he's like, okay. And she's like, you promise? Okay, fine. I'll see you later. Like, that is all she really wants from him. It's like, don't bug. What's his name? Casey. Because he needs to learn how to walk to a bakery that I.O. lives above.

[David]

And you've like, fucked him up so badly.

[Griffin]

I'm trying to help him go beyond.

[David]

Right, Right. Undo the damage.

[Griffin]

And then once again, once in a while, she gets in the car and chats with Kumail for five min. Minutes. And I'm like, this is interesting. I guess this is going somewhere. But I assume many audience members are like, what the was that? You know, what's that now?

[David]

Right. And. And Kumail also is like, not an inappropriate age for how old Ella McKay the character is supposed to be.

[Griffin]

Right. But he's a little older than Emma. You're right.

[David]

Which I do think is like an issue. And you're like, he is 20 years old. He's 20 years older than her. And he's supposed to like, 18 decades. Reading it, I really. They were.

[Griffin]

Camille, you know, looks younger than he is. She looks older than she is, I guess.

[David]

Right. But it does, like, start to feel like a weird power imbalance thing in, like, both directions, you know, where I think, like, in. In theory, there's an interesting tension to this guy who's so thoroughly charmed by her, but knows there is a line he cannot cross even if he sees like, this marriage is bad news. And I wish she was with someone who respected her. Right.

[Griffin]

He's not gonna. Yeah, right.

[David]

I have a professional obligation. But when he's 20 years older than her and she's in the backseat of the car, like, stoned, you're like, is he about to take advantage of her?

[Richard Lawson]

But also the bad marriage is not apparent enough.

[Griffin]

I. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, he's just. He's kind of a jerk. And maybe everyone.

[Richard Lawson]

But I feel like the jerk, the real jerk turn. Where all of a sudden it's like, oh, he's gonna fuck her over and she's gonna like, whatever. That's like. That feels like something got cut.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

Because it happens so quickly.

[Guest Speaker]

Play enough. Like, it's. It's like it should be really portrayed as so fucking evil. He has ruined her.

[David]

He betrays her.

[Griffin]

Yes, whatever. Out of basically, like, spite and kind of feeling slighted by her and.

[Guest Speaker]

Because even what he's asking for is preposterous.

[David]

Well, I think which.

[Guest Speaker]

And it's done in a way where it's like kind of like light and just like being like, isn't he silly? He's literally being like, I'm gonna be co mayor with or co governor with you.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

I'm gonna be the Hillary.

[Guest Speaker]

Not a thing.

[Richard Lawson]

No, that's.

[Guest Speaker]

It really made me mad. I'm like this guy.

[David]

Especially if the backstory of the character isn't like they met as like poly size students together and they hold the same values and she became the candidate.

[Richard Lawson]

The heir to a pizza fortune. What is that he care about being governor gives a. Yeah, he's got way more power than any governor.

[David]

And I think for this, I think for this character to work, he has to be so guileless that he doesn't know what he's doing is up. Rather than this guy feels like he's making chess moves, he must either be.

[Richard Lawson]

Like, yeah, a calculating, equally politically ambitious guy or a so good at pretending he's a normal dog or a badly bumbling doofus.

[Griffin]

I thought that he was stupid, that he tips off the reporter by being stupid.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[Griffin]

And pays off the reporter because he's stupid. And then when he's like, so will you give me more cred and more to do? And she's like, no. And he's like, well, then I'm just gonna have to divorce you and say it's your fault. And she's like, okay. He's doing it because he's like, well, I guess I just have to do that now. I guess.

[Richard Lawson]

But then there's a. Then there's the scene where it implies that like, Becky Ann Baker is like Mamma Mia. McBeth. And they're like, well, wait, but that, that, that, that's not necessary because that's all.

[David]

It's that time of the year and by that I mean the end of the year. Things always seem to pile up, people get busy and worst of all, I feel like a lot of us have to experience a lot of travel.

[Griffin]

That's true.

[David]

I got some flying coming up.

[Griffin]

You do? You're going to get on a plane.

[David]

And my, my ecosystem is very delicate.

[Griffin]

That's right. You need to maintain your balances. You need good, you know, diet, routine, vitamins.

[David]

That's the problem.

[Griffin]

Minerals, nutrients.

[David]

You're away from home, your routines get broken, you're jumping over to different time zones. Thank God, David, I discovered AG1.

[Griffin]

You love AG1.

[David]

I love AG1. I love it so much I would marry it.

[Griffin]

It's a daily health drink. It combines your multivitamin your pre and probiotics, your superfoods, and your antioxidants into one green scoop.

[David]

You just scoop it into water.

[Griffin]

What does it taste like?

[David]

Well, David, that's a great question. AG1 used to have one flavor that I would describe as kind of like a vanilla.

[Griffin]

Okay, Yeah.

[David]

A mild kind of vanilla undercurrent. But now they've added citrus.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

They've added tropical, they've added berry. And here's the thing I like. You sign up for a subscription. You can every month just mix it up. So you got the variation in your routine, but you put the one scoop in water on their website, and you dig into the community communities, people have tons of recipes of, you know, fun, fancy ways. They work their AG1 into other things. Me, that's a little too complicated. I put scoop and water. I drink it down, gulp, gulp, gulp, and everything's working a lot better.

[Griffin]

You are. You love AG1. To be clear, it is truly part of your morning routine. So original citrus berry, tropical, which is your favorite?

[David]

Right now, I'm working through sampling all of them. I do feel like citrus is hitting pretty hard for me. And this is is all. These flavors are also coming with their new, improved Ag next gen. They've modified the formula. It's even more effective. But if you sign up at this time of year, there's a special deal. Okay. There's always the kind of free welcome kits. You know, you get your omega 3s, vitamin D3, and K2, an AG1 flavor sampler, and their new sleep supplement, AGZ, which I'm looking forward to because AG1 helps me in the morning. I need something to get. Help me get those AGZZs.

[Griffin]

Okay. AG1 has their best offer ever. Head to drinkag1.com check to get a free welcome kit, Omega 3s, vitamin D3 plus K2, and AG1 flavor sampler. And you'll get to try their new sleep supplement, AGC for free, which has been a game changer for the nightly routine.

[David]

Absolutely.

[Richard Lawson]

Absolutely.

[David]

And there's also an AG1 holiday bundle that packs in even more.

[Griffin]

That's $126 in free gifts for new [e-mail] check.

[David]

It's interesting. I feel like you will hear often filmmakers and screenwriters talk about, you know, where did the idea for this movie come from? And they're like, you know, it's funny, at first I was trying to write something like this, and then when I got 30 pages in, I went like, oh, this other thing I've discovered is more interesting. And you rewrite the script and you take out the original animating idea.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. That's the crucial part. You take it out.

[David]

James O. Brooks is the guy where every time he makes a new discovery, he adds it on top of the original thing. And you saying, like, could you just drop the Woody Harrelson thing?

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[David]

And it's so clear to him where he's like, well, that was the whole idea.

[Griffin]

That's where this all started. I hear you, buddy.

[Richard Lawson]

He wanted to make a movie about a really good breakfast sandwich and then he discovered Spanish while he was writing it.

[Griffin]

But I mean, it's the flashbacks thing, which obviously some of them were shed. It's like, I think James L. Brooks, if you were Kelly Furman Craig and you gave him a screenplay, would give you the sort of smart, like, I know how movies were made and I know how movies work and what's successful. The smart notes to help you streamline your script.

[David]

Same story with Wes Anderson and Cameron Crowe.

[Griffin]

Yes. The guys he mentored in the 90s. And like, whereas this, you know, if I went up to him and I said, like, hey, your movie keeps stopping in his fucking tracks for these flashbacks that like, completely kill the momentum, he would be like, no, no, no. But you don't understand, like, you know, like, that's all part of this, you know, idea I have.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[Griffin]

You know, he wouldn't maybe take his own note. But that's kind of what's magic about James O. Brooks. There's nothing like these movies.

[David]

Well, it was what was apparent reading it to me of like, huh, these threads all don't really come together. It's not like by the end you go like, oh, fuck. It was all building up to, you know, this moment of character catharsis or whatever it is. And like, maybe that's a thing he'll find while shooting it, or he'll find in the edit. And instead it just feels like rather than excising certain elements from it entirely certain elements have just been minimized so much that you're like, why is this even still in there?

[Richard Lawson]

I don't want to be ageist, but I feel like a 35 year old James L. Brooks is like a bit more nimble to be on set and be like, all right, this isn't working, let's try this. Blah, blah. Whereas 80, whatever year old James L. Brooks is like, I don't know, I wrote it, let's just shoot it, then we'll go home.

[David]

Which is also maybe the area where no disrespect to Emma Mackie. You need someone who is going to be so comfortable in being the lead of a movie and has carried a movie of this size on their shoulders before and is tested in like, comedy and rom com and all this sort of stuff where they're also being a little bit of a taste gauge rather than like, what do you want, James? You know, and I understand the. You even see the interviews that the cast has been doing for this movie and they're like, why did I agree to do it? Because it's James L. Brooks.

[Griffin]

Of course, to the, to the ends of the earth, people will still be like, well, I'm interested.

[David]

Jamie, like, Curtis is like, since the 80s, I've been like, when is this guy gonna give me a call? And for someone who has been.

[Griffin]

I bet she said that.

[Richard Lawson]

I read.

[Griffin]

Chill.

[Richard Lawson]

I read an interview with Brooks in THR where he basically, it's a. It's a paragraph, a quote, paragraph about each of, like the 10 stars of the film. And he calls Jamie Lee Curtis one of the best people I've ever met in my life.

[Griffin]

Has he met, like two to three people?

[Richard Lawson]

Has he met te Leone?

[Griffin]

I'm simply referencing that. Apparently Jamie Lee Curtis can be a bit of a tough cookie, guys. I'm not saying she's one of the worst people in the world.

[David]

If James L. Brooks was a magic worker for a time, right? And it's like if you're an actor, whether you're new or you're a hyper established legendary movie star, if you hand yourself over to him, good things are going to come from.

[Richard Lawson]

And you look at a script and it's just pages and pages of dialogue and dialogue. It's like doing a play, but I'm getting paid way more. You know, it's like, that must be so wonderful, you know, and even when.

[David]

He whiffed and you were like, okay, so they're danger zones. It might not work every time, but it's worth the risk.

[Richard Lawson]

And we'll have. We'll have an interesting time on set trying to find the piece. And if it doesn't get found in the edit, then whatever, we at least got fulfilled on set, right?

[David]

I mean, his first four films get like 10 acting nominations and three wins.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, it's pretty impressive.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I'll do anything. Got most of those, right?

[David]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Griffin]

Well, in terms of endearment, of course, one best actress and best supporting actor and got two additional acting noms. Broadcast news. Three actors got three acting nominations.

[David]

Sadly, 1 0.

[Griffin]

I'll do anything. Got 17 acting nominations.

[David]

Zippo.

[Griffin]

And as good as, I guess got three noms and two wins.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Pretty good.

[David]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

That's quite a track record.

[Griffin]

Right In Spanglish was nominated for war.

[Richard Lawson]

Crimes at the Leachman Saturn Awards. David.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

You know, my old review of letterboxd is like, if you made this now, you go to jail or whatever. It's like a joke review. But the problem with letterboxd is people just will find reviews and they'll be like, why did you say this? And I'm like, I was just kidding. It's like, you know, silly letterbox vlogs.

[David]

Are what happened in between sandwiches. You know, it gives us, you know.

[Guest Speaker]

What Spanglish doesn't want to you either.

[Griffin]

That's fine. Yeah, it's okay. It doesn't need to want me.

[David]

We. We walked out of the theater. You said, I like you either.

[Griffin]

Yeah, you tell me Spanglish.

[David]

We walk out of the theater, you say you loved it. You. You nail the pose outside standing next to the post. Well, I loved it. And then you got more sober and you looked at me and you said, I'm really going to have to do some thinking before we record this. Yeah. And I went, what way? And you went, I don't know. It's just interesting that I click so much with these late period James L. Brooks movies, and I. I haven't quite figured out what it is that's speaking to me.

[Guest Speaker]

I'm an out of touch white guy.

[David]

Is that the conclusion you've come to?

[Griffin]

I think for this particular Zen.

[Richard Lawson]

Okay, what if Ben said, as means of an explanation, as if you guys do like all my Simpsons money.

[Griffin]

I'm one of the producers of the Simpsons.

[Richard Lawson]

You know that I'm Sam Simon's son. Right.

[David]

You just signed Martin Prince, and we're baked into a contract that will never, ever end.

[Guest Speaker]

You guys haven't noticed I'm sitting on a golden throne with a cape, your.

[Richard Lawson]

Solid gold house and your rocket car.

[Griffin]

Oh, Chester J. Lampwick.

[Guest Speaker]

I locked into the local politics of it all because my dad was heavily involved in local politics in New Jersey and in my town.

[Griffin]

And I just.

[Guest Speaker]

I really love that aspect of the film. So, I don't know, just enjoyed that. Yeah, that part of her character, that vibe being really, like, wanting to make a change and wanting to do good in a hyperlocal way.

[David]

I connected with that. I also think to go back to him being so interested in telling stories of how does a woman actually maintain a career of consequence in a society that's not necessarily built to be conducive to that activates your Kiki's delivery service thing of like a person out there who really cares about what they care about and want to do something and the whole world's kind of pushing back on them. You. You do really spark to that kind of underdog, especially when that's driven by like an optimism and a humanism. Right, right.

[Griffin]

And. And I support that.

[Guest Speaker]

And they push through adversity and they come out on the other end. And it doesn't always work out, you know, the. In the exact way or the dream way they would want it the ideal way. But I, I kind of like that you're seeing the character find this compromised future for themselves running their own nonprofit. And it's a little hokey even to like see Kavner and Kumail working. Like, I don't know. But I just. It's a warm bath ending. It's a warm bath movie.

[David]

Like at this point, watching this movie in the year 2025 almost feels like you're like an SNL digital short parodying this type of movie. It feels more pastiche than a real thing. Even what you're talking about of like the idea of casting two familiar faces in a big budget studio dramedy where the comedy isn't set piece driven. And it's like, how, how can you throw the lines back and forth and how well can you like hold a close up and shit like that? It does. There is a warm bath feeling to this, which is why I think we're all like a little protective of, well, how hard are people going to trash this thing?

[Richard Lawson]

This sounds corny, but this is the kind of movie.

[Griffin]

It's the kind of movie that's the.

[Richard Lawson]

Kind of, oh well, a thousand Rylaw's points that it wants you to care about people because they're people and it wants you to care about its story because it's a story about people. And that is like in such short supply because everyone has to have like an added thing or I mean, to be honest, a sort of issue grafted onto them or a power grafted onto them. And this is just like the kind of movie where it's like, well, it's a family. Don't we care about families?

[Griffin]

When you see power, you mean like the powers of Superman?

[David]

No, like Power Book 4, the book of Gabriel or whatever.

[Richard Lawson]

It's something you said earlier. Kiki's in Times Square has a deliver. They deliver. That's great. Greek film.

[David]

No, it's Kiki Dunst and Jesse Clemens deliver They're baked.

[Richard Lawson]

I saw someone on Twitter the other day when the Spirit Awards were nominated and nominations were announced, and Kirsten Duns, which is exciting, got a nomination for Roofman.

[David]

Hell, yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

And I saw one quote that was like, I think totally serious. Being like, I thought she retired and was like, what she was.

[Griffin]

That.

[Richard Lawson]

Was that a story?

[David]

No, no.

[Griffin]

I mean, she took a bit of a break. But at this point, that was a kind of a while ago she was.

[Richard Lawson]

Nominated for an Oscar, like three, four years.

[David]

She talked about that. All the part arts she got offered post Power pissed her off where it was a lot of suffering wives.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And so she didn't make another movie until Civil War because that was the first thing she got that was like.

[Richard Lawson]

Right, right.

[David]

This is different.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And Roofman is also different.

[Richard Lawson]

So good in Roof.

[David]

But I think she's very much like, I'd rather not work than do. I don't want to do unless you're willing to fucking pay me.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Put me in a superhero movie. I got kids to pay.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, she's got all that whatever.

[Griffin]

Kind of the Michelle Williams vibe.

[David]

Yeah, yeah. I think James L. Brooks, when he is in the pocket, his magic is. To your point, Ben, being able to have very, very lovable characters do deeply, deeply unlikable things and having kind of contemptible characters win you over at times. And in that way, he can capture the messiness of. People are complicated. And when he gets that right, it really feels so wise and well observed and that he can handle those tonal shifts, you know, I mean, like, Broadcast News is the peak of this for me. The scene where Albert Brooks goes from the kind of charming version of a ducky monologue to actually being evil. And yet the movie isn't framing him as like, well, obviously this guy should go to jail, you know? And I feel like this movie is a little more cut and dry in terms of who the bad guys are and who the good guys are.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. And I was kind of trying to develop this theory of, like, you. You watch Terms, you watch Broadcast News and you're like, Terms. Obviously, like, you can sell that on, like, well, Aurora is a really larger than life character. But I don't know, you watch that movie now and you're like, no, it's a movie that's just about a family and about a mother and a daughter who have these. Whatever. Broadcast News is just about the people who work in Broadcast News. And then it gets a little bit then, like, I'll do anything, whatever. But then it's good to Get. It gets more character driven. Like, high kind of concept character driven. And I think that's where, as much as I like that movie, I think everything post struggles to kind of regain the. It's just a movie about blank.

[David]

Totally.

[Richard Lawson]

Totally. You know, yes. And this is trying to return us to. It's about a. It's a movie about people in local politics.

[David]

But it's the closest he's gotten back to what he's really good at in such a long time. And my excitement for this movie was, like, really being held in moderation of just like, A, I'm just so happy he's back. B, having read it, there are elements of this that excite me, but I'm just like, if this thing has moments, I will be happy. I've talked about in other episodes, but I, like, gave. How do you know A rewatch in the last year to be like. Like, now that we don't get this kind of movie, will I be warmer to it?

[Griffin]

And there's. There's the occasional defender.

[Richard Lawson]

It is repellent.

[David]

I think I come around to so many of the late period crow movies that I'd struggle with.

[Griffin]

No, I agree with you.

[David]

And how do you know? Just clings off the backboard and it, like, it makes you break out in hives. And when people were like, it's got, like, a couple performances or, like, some lines are good or this scene is good or whatever.

[Griffin]

The one scene where he's filming Katherine Hahn in the.

[David]

No, I'm saying about Ella McCann.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah, sure.

[David]

I started getting so excited where I was like, if any percentage of this is in a good pitch, I will be thrilled. And, like, some of it is.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes, I. I did not hate it by any means. I wanted more for it, but didn't expect more from it, if that makes any sense. I just, like, I. I think I'm. I mean, I'm.

[Griffin]

I'm.

[Richard Lawson]

I'm leaning more towards Ben's side of things where it's like, this is just like a nice kind of movie. I wish that existed more. And sure, it has flaws, but, like, like, again, I'm dreading the snark about it because. Come on, like.

[David]

And also, like, Disney is dumping it so hard that now, like, you know, a week before its wide release, at the time we're recording this, the, like, Simpsons is marketing this. And that doesn't feel like Disney strategic synergy. That feels like James L. Brooks 3 months ago was like, yeah, truly.

[Griffin]

It feels like it's the email you send your friends saying, can you come to my show, you know, they're not papering the house.

[Richard Lawson]

Now he's like, I'll pay for the tiger.

[David]

Any support, so can I use the one thing I do control? And now Marge and Lisa are standing outside the theater being like, it made me feel good, you know, and, like.

[Griffin]

We need sensible comedy.

[Richard Lawson]

She is a bit of a Lisa, right?

[David]

Totally.

[Griffin]

She's a big. More than a bit of a Lisa.

[David]

Which, like, that's a great analog for what this character is in the best case scenario, right? Where you're like. Even when she's being strident or annoying, there is something so human to her in her vulnerability, you know, in her trying to figure out how to manage being a person in the world. And I don't think, like, the movie completely fails on that front, but it doesn't find the magic of. I. I'm nuts about her.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, there's nothing peppery about her. Like, there is Holly Hunter or Deborah.

[David]

Winger or Little Cup Patea. I mean, that's. That's a cup of straight pepper. Not even pepper and water, just pepper to the brim.

[Richard Lawson]

God bless her.

[Griffin]

This one is coming out next.

[Richard Lawson]

Although her. Her political career was more successful than Ellis, she became secretary. Madam Secretary.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

That is so true. She did. This film's coming out next weekend, right?

[David]

Next Friday, the 17th.

[Griffin]

No, the.

[David]

Well off or the.

[Richard Lawson]

When does this episode air?

[Griffin]

Yes, this episode airs on the 14th.

[David]

Why do I think it was. Okay, okay, sure. So it's coming out two weeks before Avatar.

[Griffin]

One week before Avatar.

[David]

Got it.

[Griffin]

So, you know, coming out this weekend at the box offices, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which seems like it's just going to stroll to, like, $50 million.

[Richard Lawson]

A friend told me a funny thing about that.

[Griffin]

What's that?

[Richard Lawson]

Well, he texted me, he said, isn't it interesting that There are about 20 negative reviews out for it that are on, you know, Universal owned Rotten Tomatoes, and yet they haven't posted a score yet for the Universal film.

[Griffin]

Yeah, they didn't do the. The, like the thing where the numbers, like, what's it going to be? What's it going to be? And then it's like 12.

[David]

It's weird. I'm seeing here it's the first movie to be 100% Freddy.

[Richard Lawson]

We've been given a score of Shelby Oaks. Oh, God.

[David]

Like, what if they just create a different. Like, oh, it's not a tomato.

[Griffin]

It's a.

[Richard Lawson]

It's a. It's a Hutcherson.

[Griffin]

So five nights at Freddy's Zootopia and Wicked, I guess are all hanging around. There's nothing else in the box office mix until Avatar. Right. Like there's no other big player swinging in.

[David]

Am I right that Avatar and Marty supreme are the same weekend?

[Griffin]

You're wrong. Avatar is the 19th along with of course. Oh no. Oh no. Yeah, no, yeah, no. Along with.

[David]

Well is this thing on?

[Griffin]

But that's unlimited release. Marty is getting like very limited 19th but Marty is launching on the wide.

[David]

Is Christmas and that's also Anaconda and spongebob.

[Griffin]

Indeed. And the Housemaid I think is also coming up the Avatar weekend as that's.

[Richard Lawson]

Being projected to make a lot of money.

[Griffin]

I that that thing's crushing in pre sales.

[David]

Really? Yeah, the book is like huge. Is that all it is?

[Richard Lawson]

And just counter programming and this is the kind of stuff that people want to see. Sydney Sweeney and not dour movies about abuser boxers.

[David]

Yeah, I. I do find it fascinating. I mean it speaks to the we all live in different realities thing now. We're like I'm someone who's on the prowl for movie and trying to stay tapped into everything and there is not a single iota of marketing for the housemaid that has hit me. I would agree with you. I'm not seeing much in theaters, I'm not seeing online. And like they're clearly selling it successfully to the people it's made. I guess so what were you going to say, Richard?

[Richard Lawson]

I was just going to say that you know the people. Well we were talking about this off mic about pillion but the people that are seeing Housemate ads are the people who want to see Pillan. You know what I mean?

[Griffin]

But I'm just assuming box office wise that this movie is going to be the sort of soul wide release and open like number eight, you know what I mean? Like it'll be like five nights at Freddy's and Zootopia and Wicked continue to do pretty good. Ellen McKay also opened.

[David]

It is the this thing that is spinning the industry into a state of panic that is entirely self created where they're just like well if LMK is the only wide release that weekend, I guess it will have to do okay. And you're like that is some 1997 thinking. And there was even still like faint traces of that in like 2017.

[Richard Lawson]

People are inevitably going to go to the movie theater so.

[Griffin]

Right, right.

[David]

But they're used to default. They check the show times on Friday and go we'll see whatever.

[Richard Lawson]

My sister, when we were in Rhode island in summers we would just call the repeating phone answering service and write down the times and whatever fit we saw. That's why I saw the Leave it to Beaver movie in theaters, because it was the one with the right showtime.

[David]

It was why it was valuable to have a movie open on 2000 screens because saturation would just basically short of an atomic disaster that was usually driven by intense negative feelings, right. That like, you would just get default walk up business.

[Richard Lawson]

Let's go see a movie.

[David]

Right? And I don't think that's going to happen here. And you were wrong.

[Griffin]

Maybe it makes 40.

[David]

I hope I'm so fucking wrong. But the fact that it's opening without competition, and then we're going to get some headline of like, this is the worst weekend before Christmas or two weekends before Christmas in, like fucking 10 years. And I'm like, what do you guys want? You, like, didn't release Anything commercial for two months and then put $3 billion movies within three, four weeks of each other. They're like, sucking up all the oxygen because you didn't spread them out.

[Richard Lawson]

Were you funding me, or is the Ella McKay post thing actually an online thing?

[David]

We're trying to make it a thing.

[Griffin]

I. A lot of people are doing it in a jokey way on Twitter, but I think it's more of a film Twitter.

[Richard Lawson]

Film Twitter people. Okay. It's not like. It's not like tick tock. It's not like Gentle Minions or anything.

[Griffin]

I don't think so.

[David]

How great would it be if it had some. You never know anyone, but you live Lip. Lip sync. Tick tocks. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

You know what I mean? Like some weirdly surprising viral thing that somehow sells it.

[David]

What if it performs like Greatest Showman? Like, it opens to three and everyone's like, oof. And then weekend two, you're like, it's up 250.

[Richard Lawson]

Is that that circus musical? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David]

What were you gonna say, David?

[Griffin]

Oh, just. It opens to three and then makes three for 29 more.

[David]

We're a small drop.

[Griffin]

3, 3, 3, 3, 3.

[David]

Ending up at a robust domestic total of 30.

[Richard Lawson]

How kids learn basic math. Like, what's three times seven weeks of element?

[Griffin]

Oh, boy. No, it'll probably open to a black hat or so.

[David]

Let me, let me, let's. I just want to circle back to two other things because I feel like the. The younger brother is a total dud is the sentiment I keep hearing for everyone who's seen it. And I came loaded for bear, especially having read that script and been like, fuck. This part is interesting, if not incredibly tricky. To pull off. And I kind of liked him, if only because I think the worst version of that character is someone doing 8,000 fucking really loud ticks. And I appreciated his choice to be too un.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, they tried to get. They tried to get Justin Bartha just to reprise his Gigli role.

[David]

That feels like the nightmare of what I was worried it was gonna be when people told me the kid was bad, where I'm just like, he's gonna be, like, fucking touching the doorknob 20 times and, like, screaming.

[Richard Lawson]

He's just, like, pouty in that. People don't like when certain young male actors do that kind of role.

[Griffin]

I don't know who would be good. I don't know who would be good. I don't either.

[David]

Yeah, it's a little bit of an impossible part in how he set it up.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I do the performance I quietly really like in this movie. And a scene where I was like, this feels like fucking classic. James L. Brooks magic. Is the other part of her security detail who's trying to get overtime because he's going through a divorce and money to raise.

[Griffin]

But that scene, I mean, is truly out of nowhere.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And one of those things where you're like, did I forget that I went to the bathroom or something? And this guy was set up earlier because it is James Brooks magic. I agree it's the classic James L. Brooks thing, but everyone's got a story.

[David]

We've been in who I know.

[Griffin]

Who.

[David]

Who and who do you want to know? Can I reveal to you?

[Griffin]

Please reveal to me who it is.

[David]

That is a young actor named Joey Brooks. Brooks, who is the son of James L. Brooks, who I.

[Richard Lawson]

How the hell. The. The what? To get cast in his dad's. That is such a weird coincidence that he ended up in that movie. I know. That's so crazy.

[David]

I really like him. And he, like, doesn't work that much. But he's got one scene in the Big Short.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I remember. I. I just. I'm looking at his IMDb and I.

[David]

Remember that scene, and I remember being like, who is this guy? He's got interesting dialogue rhythms and an interesting energy.

[Richard Lawson]

And Big Short it is.

[David]

John Magaro and Finn Whitrock try to go to get. Take a big meeting.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

And their receptionist comes downstairs and gives them the polite brush off, including, oh, that's him. Was sent down to, like, test if they're worth.

[Richard Lawson]

Right.

[David]

His time. And he's really good in it. And then he was like, McKay clearly likes him a lot. I think he's Got a small part in Vice or. Don't look up. He showed up on Winning Time. He's like my age. He's like mid-30s. There are a couple other things he's been in, but I always think he's interesting.

[Griffin]

He's in Molly's Game.

[David]

He's in Molly's Game. He plays like one of the young. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

He's in 17 episodes of Winning Time, a show I watch.

[David]

It does feel like McKay always casts him probably through some connection to his father, but I think he is actually the rare case of, like, that scene is Wild Man. It's a wild scene, but I think he plays it beautifully.

[Griffin]

Sure, sure. Yeah.

[David]

And on paper, you're waiting for the explanation of why is the scene in this movie. It's the director's son.

[Richard Lawson]

But also it gives Ella a chance to be kind of a little annoyed about it where it's like, oh, she's really principled. But also principle is not taking in into account that sometimes people need extra money. Again, I don't know.

[Griffin]

It's also working in this pseudo romantic plot line she has with Camille that does not actually come to fruition. But the. I feel like there's the Vegas hint in that final scene of like, oh, maybe there'll be something there because they work. Because he quits his job to work.

[David]

With her, which is also a reshoot, by the way. The movie was supposed to just end with, go ahead. He steps down.

[Griffin]

I'm stunned to learn that that that bizarre scene was a reshoot. The scene where they're like, do you want to tell her? I'll tell her. Okay, here we are. We can announce that you have fed a very specific number, like 9482 moms or whatever. It was like, it doesn't. It's very strange.

[David]

But it also feels like, nice.

[Griffin]

But it's nice.

[David]

It feels like a test screening note of the movie ends with, she's resigned and she's 34 with a movie. What does she do with the rest of her life?

[Griffin]

Basically, she's doing something right.

[Guest Speaker]

I like when people help moms. Okay, sorry. Sue me.

[Griffin]

I liked the movie too. I like. I like that she wants to help people. It'd be funny if she was like, she takes power and she's like, okay, great. Though how can we hurt the.

[Guest Speaker]

We took food away from 9,000 families.

[Richard Lawson]

Doesn't two weeks notice end with Sandra Bullock also working at legal Aid?

[Griffin]

Possibly. I mean, I feel like work.

[Richard Lawson]

The greatest thing we ever. I feel like going to work for Legal Aid is how people resolve. Like a lawyer story.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Where it's like, don't worry, they're not evil anymore. They've left the poisonous system.

[David]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

I met someone the other day and I was like, what does your wife do? And she was like, oh, she's a lawyer who works at a non profit for like fighting eviction. And I was like, oh, so she's a sellout. And she. This person I was making friends with didn't realize that I was joking.

[Griffin]

Oh, they thought you just threw that. Yeah, I was investigating this woman.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[Guest Speaker]

As much as I liked that it ended with everything working out and her being, you know, the nicest lady. It would have been kind of cool if like, like you see the back of a chair, she turns around, she's smoking a cigar.

[Griffin]

She's in the mob now that would be good. She went totally evil.

[Richard Lawson]

And then a pizza comes flying at the coming.

[Guest Speaker]

It drips down and then Jesus is the end.

[Richard Lawson]

Exactly. That would be good if question mark in tomato sauce.

[David]

That is.

[Griffin]

I do question.

[David]

I think if audiences reject this movie.

[Griffin]

They can add that ending.

[David]

No, I was going to say that's probably the right reason why, you know the Monday Morning Quarterbacks.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Are going to say like it really needed to send audiences out on a high note of seeing the end spelled out in cheese splattered against the screen.

[Richard Lawson]

The Ninja Turtles needed to be vaguely evoked.

[Griffin]

Ella McKay. How can we help? Like Leonardo and Raphael show up.

[David]

This movie is neither radical nor bodacious enough.

[Richard Lawson]

The Ninja Turtles are from Rhode Island.

[Griffin]

Ella is sort of a hero and a half. Half show. Look, this is, and this is why Ben is in a good mood. He's got a big smile on his face. Our last record of 2025, it is in fact.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, wow, that's significant.

[David]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

I don't think I've ever been here for the last record of anything.

[Griffin]

Griffin is going on a work vacation.

[David]

I'm doing a little work vacation.

[Griffin]

He's doing a little work. We're not going to talk about that.

[Richard Lawson]

I know what it is too much.

[Griffin]

Because it's top secret. I, I just want to remake of the film. Talk secret.

[David]

I, I don't want people speculating too largely about it because I feel like Ben has been doing some wind up cuz it's an exciting thing. I think it will just be a fun surprise to people when they see.

[Richard Lawson]

You'Re going to be in one of Barney Frank stag films. And I think that's great part the script is good.

[Griffin]

You say the same thing on next week's episode, which covers the film, what's it called? Avatar, Colon, The Way of Water. No. Fire and Dash.

[David]

I just know our Reddit is going to be like, wait a second, is Herby talking in Doomsday? Is that why it's not Doom. It's not, but it will. It'll be a fun thing when it. When it is made public.

[Griffin]

So next week on Blank Check, we're talking about Avatar, Fire and Ash. Then we're taking a week off. Then we're talking about. Is this thing on? We're gonna take a week on to talk about this week. That movie.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then we'll talk about Park Chan Wook's.

[David]

No other choice but to remind people in our week off first episode of Critical Darlings on this same theme. And then it will come out every Thursday day after that.

[Richard Lawson]

Yep.

[David]

Through the end of March.

[Richard Lawson]

Through. Through Oscar stuff.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then after that, as you said.

[Griffin]

We'Re doing Lynn Ramsey after Park Genwook and Peter.

[David]

We were after that.

[Griffin]

And Peter, we're after that. And after that. I don't know.

[David]

I don't know.

[Richard Lawson]

Lynn Ramsey from something about Mary.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

I looked that lady up the other day because I wanted to use her photo. The. The tan lady. Yeah, she's great. Anyway, a legend.

[Griffin]

How's she doing?

[Richard Lawson]

She's all right. Yeah.

[Griffin]

You know, thoughts about.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, she's the governor of Rhode island right now.

[David]

Great.

[Griffin]

Cool. Great.

[David]

So I. I mean, updated James Olbrook's rankings. Ben, do you like this more or less than Spanglish?

[Guest Speaker]

No, Spanglish.

[Griffin]

Still. This is my top.

[David]

That's your number one.

[Griffin]

Well, no, no. Between the two.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Because I feel like I go broadcast news, Terms of Endearment, as good as it gets. This. Then I go Spanglish.

[Griffin]

How do you know where I'll do anything? What? You pick your poison.

[David]

Well, and also it's like, which cut of I'll do anything am I prioritizing? I think there's more and I'll do anything I like. Even if the worst of it is more disastrous versus, like, how do you know? Kind of just making me feel bad from beginning to end. Making my teeth.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. I think any ranking I would do would have to put how do I know at the bottom.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Work.

[Guest Speaker]

You did.

[David]

Thank you. Great stuff. Thank you. You are the best. Remember that you can do anything.

[Griffin]

I mean. I do.

[David]

Yeah. Well, that's a now an epilogued end to our James L. Brooks mini series.

[Richard Lawson]

I don't think I'm Ever going to come back for another James.

[Griffin]

I. I mean, maybe I'm wrong.

[David]

It. It would be a. Astonishing.

[Richard Lawson]

Simpsons 3 has to cut. You know, make Simpsons 3 the Simpsons.

[David]

2 thing is interesting.

[Griffin]

Sure. We appreciate him. Him. We appreciate him for all the applause. We appreciate him.

[David]

We do. I. I mean, yeah.

[Griffin]

And we appreciate you, the listener. But of course, this isn't the last episode of the year, so I shouldn't be too over the top about all this.

[David]

It is for us.

[Griffin]

But it is for us.

[Richard Lawson]

Subscribe to the premiere party newsletter, please. I. My Paul Newman's gonna have my legs broke.

[David]

And stay subscribed right here for critical darlings. And next week we're gonna get all horned.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah. We're gonna be Varang.

[David]

Varang. Richard, have you met Varang?

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, I've met Varang. Yeah, I sure have.

[David]

Do you want to throw out a quick Varang take just since you're not.

[Griffin]

On that episode at one of Penny Seagull's parties? P. Seag.

[Richard Lawson]

I think it's a great performance. That's underused. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Could have been more Varang.

[David]

Here's what I'd say. They. They left me wanting more potent.

[Griffin]

Leaving.

[Richard Lawson]

That's red means bad fire.

[David]

Firebat. Firebat.

[Richard Lawson]

There's some. There's. Well, I'm. There's some racial stuff in that movie that I'll be curious to hear you guys talk about anyway.

[Griffin]

Oh, we don't.

[David]

You. You think that movie is disrespectful to thanators?

[Richard Lawson]

Pretty much. That's. Yeah.

[David]

It treats them all as savages.

[Richard Lawson]

That's right.

[David]

Thank you for being here.

[Richard Lawson]

Thank you for having me. What a treat. As always. And now that I'm. I don't know, almost part of the family. I'm very grateful.

[David]

You've always been part of the family. But now. Now you're, like, married. By law.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[David]

Into the family.

[Richard Lawson]

Now I own the pizza empire.

[Griffin]

Yes, by law. To Rylaw. There we go.

[David]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. And as always, Emma Mackey is Ella Ma K. David's nodding.