Empire of the Sun with Bilge Ebiri

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Episode Summary – "Empire of the Sun with Bilge Ebiri"

Introduction

In the March 16, 2025 release of "Blank Check with Griffin & David," hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims, along with guest Bilge Ebiri, delve into Steven Spielberg's film Empire of the Sun. This episode is part of a miniseries exploring Spielberg's early career, examining how his initial successes granted him the creative freedom to pursue diverse and ambitious projects.

Discussion Highlights

1. John Malkovich's Casting and Performance

   The conversation opens with a focus on John Malkovich's role in Empire of the Sun. David Sims recalls their previous episode discussing Malkovich in Portrait of a Lady, highlighting the actor's ability to bring depth to his characters. He remarks, "It's arguably one of his best performances, but it's almost inarguably one of the smartest ways a movie has employed him" ([01:32] David Sims). Griffin Newman adds that casting Malkovich as an "American Fagin" was an "aggressive thing," emphasizing the actor's unique presence on screen.

2. Spielberg's Directorial Choices and Critical Reception

   The hosts analyze Spielberg's approach in Empire of the Sun, noting its experimental elements compared to his more commercially successful films like E.T. and the Indiana Jones series. David Sims reflects on the film's box office performance and critical reception, mentioning that despite Spielberg's established reputation, Empire of the Sun didn't achieve the same level of acclaim as his other works. "It fully received at the time. And I remember... at some point, being like, if you adjust to modern dollars, how many Spielberg movies don't make 100 million?" ([09:16] David Sims).

3. Themes of Innocence and Maturation

   Central to their discussion is the film's exploration of innocence lost and the protagonist's journey from a sheltered child to a survivor amidst the chaos of war. Griffin Newman notes, "It's a movie about the loss of innocence. I mean, it's a movie about the death of childhood, but this is much more explicitly" ([27:38] Griffin Newman). David Sims adds that Spielberg seems to use the film as a metaphor for his own grappling with maturity and understanding his place in the world, stating, "I feel like we're committing to doing this. We put our schedule on the spreadsheet..." ([27:08] David Sims).

4. Spielberg's Evolution and Auteur Theory

   The conversation extends to Spielberg's evolution as a director, particularly his shift from child-centric stories to more mature themes in films like Schindler's List. Ben Hosley introduces his "unified field theory" of Spielberg's career, suggesting that Spielberg's earlier films are viewed through a child's perspective, while his later works reflect a parent's viewpoint. "Spielberg first period... can be best be understood as being from the point of view of a child. And then there's this back half of his career... from the eyes of a parent" ([22:48] Ben Hosley).

5. Technical Aspects and Filmmaking Style

   The hosts discuss Spielberg's technical prowess, particularly his use of signature shots like crane and tracking shots. Ben Hosley points out how Empire of the Sun showcases Spielberg attempting to convey darker, more mature stories using his established visual language. He remarks, "Spielberg has his vernacular. He has his language, he has his favorite shots...just tip it a little bit so that the story becomes a lot darker" ([28:17] Ben Hosley).

Notable Quotes

• "Obvious a great way to use John Malkovich as an American Fagin." ([01:32] Griffin Newman)
• "He fully received at the time... how many Spielberg movies don't make 100 million?" ([09:16] David Sims)
• "It's a movie about the loss of innocence... this is much more explicitly." ([27:38] Griffin Newman)
• "Spielberg first period... can be best be understood as being from the point of view of a child." ([22:48] Ben Hosley)
• "Spielberg has his vernacular... so that the story becomes a lot darker." ([28:17] Ben Hosley)

Insights and Conclusions

Throughout the episode, Griffin Newman and David Sims, with Bilge Ebiri, offer a nuanced examination of Empire of the Sun as a pivotal moment in Spielberg's career. They highlight how the film serves as both a commercial endeavor and a personal exploration for Spielberg, reflecting his internal struggles with maturity and his desire to break free from the 'child-friendly' narratives that characterized his earlier successes.

Ben Hosley's theory posits that Spielberg's directorial journey is marked by a shift in perspective—from childlike wonder to parental reflection—allowing him to tackle more complex and somber themes. This evolution is evident in Empire of the Sun's darker tone and its departure from Spielberg's hallmark visual style, demonstrating his ability to adapt and mature as a filmmaker.

The episode underscores the delicate balance Spielberg maintains between commercial viability and artistic expression, illustrating how Empire of the Sun was both a critical misstep and a foundational experiment that paved the way for his later masterpieces like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.

Conclusion

"Blank Check with Griffin & David" successfully captures the essence of Empire of the Sun and its significance in Steven Spielberg's early career. Through insightful dialogue and reflective analysis, the hosts provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the film's impact, both commercially and artistically, positioning it as a cornerstone in Spielberg's evolution as one of Hollywood's most influential auteurs.

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

Blank check with Griffin and David. Blank check with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Blackjack.

[David Sims]

Can't remember what my podcast looks like.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a really sad line from the movie.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah, thank God we started out that way.

[David Sims]

Look, I mean, I was like, oh, you know, it feels like any line of dialogue is going to be said. Maybe I should do the tagline instead. The tagline is, to survive in a world at war, he must find a greater strength than all the events that surround him. I'd say also a bummer.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, just try not to think so much. Surely there's a. There's a.

[David Sims]

That's good. Maybe. Yeah. I feel like I've always struggled.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Do you want to bust out a mountain with Malkovich's.

[David Sims]

I feel like we have not covered a lot of Malkovich. Our main Malkovich talk episode was Portrait of a Lady, which we're like, that's a weird application of Malovich. And does it unbalance the movie? In a way, I was less into the movie but more into his performance. Whereas I feel like you like the movie a little more and felt his performance was working a little against it.

[Griffin Newman]

He is, he is. Look, casting John Malkovich is an aggressive thing.

[David Sims]

Repeat your had your great line in that episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I don't remember it. You have to tell me he's sun.

[David Sims]

Dried tomatoes on a sandwich.

[Griffin Newman]

What it is. I really agree with that. And it's like if you put five of those on a sandwich, you're eating a sun dried tomato sandwich. Doesn't matter what else is on that thing now.

[David Sims]

I, I'm just. Let's forefront this. I think this is like a perfect application.

[Griffin Newman]

Obviously a great way to use John Malkovich as a. An American Fagin.

[David Sims]

It's arguably one of his best performances, but it's almost inarguably one of the smartest ways a movie has employed him.

[Griffin Newman]

Bill Gawain. I don't know your Malkovich take. I don't know where you are in Malkovich.

[Ben Hosley]

You can speak Malkovich in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

In this movie.

[Ben Hosley]

But also Malkovich. I love Malovich has shown up in some of my favorite movies of all time.

[Griffin Newman]

What are some of your favorite movies of all time featuring John Malovich? Well, I mean, he's in the Sheltering Sky. I bet you like that one. You love your Bernardo.

[Ben Hosley]

Big fan of the Shelter.

[David Sims]

Harriet, One of your favorite movies.

[Ben Hosley]

I feel like he's in the Line of Fire. Well, the greatest action films of all time.

[David Sims]

One of the coolest Oscar nominations.

[Griffin Newman]

In the Line of Fire is someone making you a ham and cheese sandwich and then like putting one sun dried tomato on it in 1992 or whenever it is three and you're like, what's this flavor? Cuz like otherwise that movie is like pretty straight down the middle and really well done. And Malkovich is like you're. This is a new kind of villain. I feel like this is spicy, but.

[David Sims]

That'S almost like putting sun dried tomato flavored potato chips on a sandwich.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. What Bill, what was your response? No, I, I like that take.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Well the other thing about in the Line of Fire is it's so much Clint.

[Griffin Newman]

He's good.

[Ben Hosley]

Like it's. No, no, I mean it's great. I mean that's the, that's I believe the same year it's Unforgiven. The year after Unforgiven, it's year after Unforgiven. But like when Unforgiven wins the Oscar.

[Griffin Newman]

It'S because the summer of that and.

[David Sims]

Unforgiven obviously has one of those like infamously long modern box office runs right where it's in theaters for basically a straight year.

[Griffin Newman]

In the Line of Fire is the same vibe of like Clint being like, should I hang it up?

[Bill Gawain]

Should I do 30 more years?

[David Sims]

I mean everyone has said this, but it just is always interesting to talk about. I know we're nestling like conversation topic and conversation topic here. It is incredible that late period Clint Eastwood is going on 40 years now that the demarcation point of when you're like. And Clint starts doing his like wind down sunset movies is like in its fourth decade.

[Ben Hosley]

It's almost hilarious.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, and I mean you read the reviews of those films at the time and not just those like the later ones. I mean I'm a big fan of true crime and the absolute power.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, no, I, I don't love, I love blood work.

[Ben Hosley]

I think that's interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

One of the best pre Mystic River o Clinton otur again movies.

[David Sims]

You also love having blood work done. You text me and you're just like.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm writing, they're taking six vials today. I True crime. I remember being kind of overwrought. That's the death penalty one.

[Ben Hosley]

That's the death penalty one. It has it, it, it completely shits the bed at, at the very end. Like the climax is just like, we got it, we got to finish.

[David Sims]

Is that Daniels?

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry, who?

[David Sims]

Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. Am I Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Is. I'm not. I'm gonna look it up because I. I think Laura Linney for sure. Have you seen Laura Linney?

[Ben Hosley]

Is in absolute power.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, Right. The Witch is the one that. Right, yes, that's right.

[Ben Hosley]

Gene Hackman is the.

[Griffin Newman]

The president who's getting his dick sucked, and Clint Eastwood is a cat burglar, which is my favorite part. Um, but True Crime is the one where Daniels is in. Yeah, Daniels is really good in Blood work.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

True Crime is the one where a major subplot is that Clint Eastwood, who's a newspaper reporter, I think, cucked Dennis Leary and cannot shut up about it. And when Dennis Lear is like, can I assign you a story? And Clint's like, sorry for your wife.

[Ben Hosley]

And it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

Leary's like, I'm just trying to assign.

[David Sims]

That. Should. That specifically. Should be a plot point in two movies each.

[Ben Hosley]

Which. Which one has James woods in it?

[Griffin Newman]

James woods is in True Crime?

[Ben Hosley]

In True Crime, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I cannot remember. He might be either the good guy lawyer or the bad guy lawyer.

[Ben Hosley]

It's. It's been. It's been a while, but anyway. Anyway, these I'm allegedly a fan of, and I can't remember who's in them, but. But. No, but if you read the reviews at the time, and I remember the reviews were all kind of like, you know, harping on Clint's age and the fact that he's casting himself as. I mean, it's not. He's not really a romantic lead in those movies, but. But there is. I mean, you sense that. And it makes perfect sense that they said this, and it's kind of like, man, if he only looked like that. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

He's feral as hell in the line of fire or whatever.

[David Sims]

But the same thing of, like, looking at stills of Crystal Skull now where you're like, this movie has jokes about him being old.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

You know, and like, same with, like, Rocky 5. Like. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

What are some other Malkoviches you love? Because I was obsessed with Malkovich as a young person person because of being Joe Malkovich. Right. And like, that movie, I knew him from, like, Conair or. And Rounders or whatever. But, like, that movie is. Introducing Malkovich is like the prepackaged. Like, this is the most interesting character actor.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I mean, this is a generation.

[Ben Hosley]

This is another one of them. I mean, Empire of the Sun.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Which I didn't see until much later.

[David Sims]

Is it crazy for me to say I had this thought while I'd seen it before while rewatching it Just now I had the thought, like, if this movie were better received, I think he would have won the Oscar. I know he didn't even get nominated, but it feels like this is. Malkovich has been nominated.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, he was nominated for in the Line of Fire.

[David Sims]

Yes. The only one place is in the Heart. He has two nominations.

[Griffin Newman]

Does he have two?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Was not nominated for Dating Places.

[Griffin Newman]

In the Heart was like his breakout. Right? That was. Yes. And he was nominated.

[Ben Hosley]

And that was a movie where a lot of people just didn't know who the hell he was, I think.

[David Sims]

Right. That's basically his first movie. Who is this guy? Performance and this coming after that. Right. And it's like on paper, this is a role that almost feels designed to win someone an Oscar. And he is so good in it. And it's like, is it a little too early in his career combined with people being a little tepid on this movie? But watching it now and we'll get into who beat him. I was like, it's kind of extraordinary. He didn't get nominated, let alone.

[Ben Hosley]

Wasn't it Connery who beat him? Was it Connor? Is this the, I think Untouchables year?

[David Sims]

Is that true?

[Ben Hosley]

I could be wrong.

[David Sims]

Look it up, David.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, wait. Which year, sorry? Who won Best Morning Actor?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Is this Connery?

[Ben Hosley]

87.

[David Sims]

John Connery. So then no one was going to.

[Ben Hosley]

Fucking be 87 was a big year for my Sinophilia. And in terms of like the Oscars, you know, Last Emperor is one of my all time favorites.

[Griffin Newman]

This is. I was about to bring up what I consider your favorite movie of all time. Am I wrong?

[Ben Hosley]

Last Emperor or at least like the.

[Griffin Newman]

Movie that sparked your cinephilia you've seen a billion times.

[Ben Hosley]

A million times. Yeah, I've seen it a billion times.

[Griffin Newman]

For you, that's. You've seen it even. Even by bilga standards, a lot.

[Ben Hosley]

There was a period.

[David Sims]

Dozen is a billion.

[Ben Hosley]

There was a period in 1987 when I was. And 1988 to early, early months of 1988 when like alternating every week between going to see Empire the Sun in the movie theater and whenever it was in D.C. they were playing in the two nicest theaters. Last Emperor was at the Uptown, which is an enormous fucking screen. It's where I think 2001 had its world premiere maybe, and. And then Empire of the sun was screening at this place called. At the time, I think it was just called the Cineplex Odeon Cinema, or maybe the kb. It might have been a KB Cinema. But again, these like Single screen, old school picture houses. And, and after school I would just. It. Just every week or, you know, every other day, it was kind of like, well, what should I see today?

[David Sims]

Yeah, Empire, Emperor.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. And of course they were both shot in China. So I.

[David Sims]

Look, I love how deep we are getting into multiple areas. Right off the bat, I do want to just quickly say, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm David.

[David Sims]

It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a miniseries on the first half of Steven Spielberg's career, repaying the balance of a thing we started seven years ago. It is called Podrasic Cast. Today we're talking about Empire of the sun, one of his kind of infamous bounces.

[Griffin Newman]

Would you call. I wouldn't call this a bounce, but definitely a not, not the success maybe.

[David Sims]

He fully received at the time. And I remember, look, we, we mourn the death of the old box office mojo, interface and features. Very often on the show. A thing I used to love to do was how easy their drop down was to be able to adjust for inflation in various different ways in any year. And I remember at some point, probably in the late 2000s, being like, if you adjust to modern dollars, how many Spielberg movies don't make 100 million? And I was surprised by how many of the films that are considered flopped would have made a hundred today. And in my memory, the only ones that wouldn't have made a hundred were this always and sugarland that like 1941 would make a hundred million in today's dollars or whatever. This is off of a memory, a thing I cannot source.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, there is.

[David Sims]

It didn't lose money.

[Ben Hosley]

It was, it was, it was, it was coolly received. I mean, I, I remember this had kind of an initial wave of appreciation because the National Board of Review gave it Best Picture and Best Director, which.

[David Sims]

Is often a weird kind of death knell of like them being early, they call it. People go like, does that mean it's a serious frontrunner? And then the thing like Peter's like. I think of like Burton getting the Sweeney Todd Best Director award and people being like, holy, Burton's a player. And then you're like, wipe out. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a strange thing. I mean, and I don't remember if the film had even opened by the time it won that award because obviously Spielberg at this point is. I mean, as far as box office goes, he's God. Right. He's coming off, you know, a number of Oscar nominations and things like that. There is this anticipation that he's eventually going to make something that. That wins. And I think Empire, the Sun initially looks like the kind of film that could be that movie. Absolutely right. Because. Because, you know, Color Purple. I mean, I'm sure you guys have gone over all this stuff, but like Color Purple, you know, gets all these nominations. He doesn't get nominated even though he wins the dga.

[David Sims]

It is this weird. And we should say our guest today is Bill Goberry. The great Bill Got beer. Returning to the show, New York Magazine. And is this now Bilga's induction into the Five Timers Club? Finally having been on this podcast, the average number of times he watches a movie that he hates the low end. The fewest times he ever watches any movie.

[Griffin Newman]

This is your fifth episode.

[Ben Hosley]

Hell yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Dunkirk, Black Hat, Lorenzo Zoil, Ferrari. And now Empire of the Sun.

[David Sims]

I feel like these are all very important. You've never been on a passive movie for you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. You guys don't ask me for anything that I'm. I'm.

[David Sims]

They're all like your. Your major guys. Your favorite work by one of those guys or both my guys.

[Ben Hosley]

These are very much my guys. My guys. But we were talking about. Oh, the Color Purple thing.

[David Sims]

Right. Because yeah, it's like Color Purple is a big success at the box office, but it gets a ton of nominations. He is snubbed. And then it is historically, up until that point in time, the most nominations without a single win. And this weird balance that we've been charting of like Jaws gets best picture nomination, doesn't get Director. Close Encounters gets Director, but not picture. Raiders is the first time it gets both. He's basically always only winning technical awards for his movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And then it's like say Great Technician.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And he wins. He wins the Thalberg at some point. Sometime around now.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. As kind of a. Like this the. Again, thank you for the insult from the Spielberg to Spielberg.

[Ben Hosley]

And he almost drops it. I remember he almost dropped it on the podium.

[David Sims]

The Color Purple was like the first movie of his where they sort of did like the. Here's. It's nominated in every category. Basically. We're treating it like a legitimate best picture contender. Except for you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, except for you. Spielberg clearly had nothing to do every.

[David Sims]

Time they were sort of going like, not yet. Hold your horses.

[Griffin Newman]

He won the Thalberg the year after Color Purple in the year before this.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. So, yeah, because I remember that was a. I remember that felt like kind of a consolation prize in a way. And there was this general vibe that somehow the Oscars didn't like Steven Spielberg. I mean, you know how these, like, memes take over. It's funny now because now there's this vibe that, like, any Spielberg film will, like, get an Oscar nomination, at least in the 90s, early 2000s, there was definitely that vibe.

[David Sims]

But even now, it feels like they take him for granted a little bit. Where you, like, I.

[Ben Hosley]

The only one film of his has ever won Best Picture.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And the Golden Globes.

[Griffin Newman]

That is crazy.

[David Sims]

The year of the Post said Myers comes out at the beginning and says, like, the Post, a film Steven Spielberg made about the importance of journalism against presidential crime, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. And then they have an actor come out holding, like, 40 awards, and he goes, not yet. We can't give them all the awards yet. And then that movie blanks. Yeah, it doesn't want to.

[Ben Hosley]

By the way. I just rewatched it again. That movie ruined rules.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie does rule.

[Ben Hosley]

I love the.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm a huge fan of it, but I do feel like the reaction at the time was the reaction that he usually gets now. Kind of the reaction that John Williams gets. I watched that Disney documentary about John Williams where it's like, oh, he's so good, and he's got all his Oscars on his shelf, and it's like, he hasn't won an Oscar since 1993, because the Academy's always just like, yeah, you did a good job. Again, fine.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, he did win a ton.

[David Sims]

He won a bunch.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But, like, the thing was that Williams won Oscars for. Okay. Fiddler on the Roof, like, a bit of an odd early Oscar where it's like, adaptation of a song score, but then it's like, Jaws ET Start Jaws, Star Wars ET Schindler's List, where it's like, he won for big, iconic scores. He should have won for Catch Me if you can. That's. That's a. That's a miss. Like, there's a couple other scores where, like, I think at that point, they were just like, well, we don't want to give it to him again.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, it's.

[David Sims]

I mean, when Munich was coming out, there was this Time magazine cover announcing that film which he had made on such a quick turnaround. Like, started filming it after War of the Worlds came out. Already had it done by December, and he openly Says in that I kind of want the third best director trophy. Like, he openly admits, like, I'm jealous of, like, sort of like Hawks and Ford and the guys who have gotten more than two and being in that realm. And it feels like him saying that outwardly made the Academy go. Like, if you want a third one, you really have to fucking prove it to us. And Munich that year was, like, seen as the early front runner and then became like a picture director also ran.

[Griffin Newman]

Munich is too alienated.

[David Sims]

Same thing, though. Like, I remember a year out, people were like, well, he's going to win. His Lincoln is.

[Ben Hosley]

He should have won for Lincoln.

[Griffin Newman]

He should have.

[Ben Hosley]

I love Lincoln and I was on Munich when it first came out. I've come to appreciate it more, but I do. It does feel like they shot the first draft of the script for me with Munich. Lincoln is extraordinary. Lincoln is wonderful. And I was really surprised that Lincoln got so little because it felt too obvious for them.

[Griffin Newman]

I think really we're going to give it to the sort of homework movie Oscar nomination.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, like, it got so little run in, like, the Critics Awards. And that was my first year voting.

[Griffin Newman]

In at the Critics Circle.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, that was my first year voting in New York Film Critics Circle. And there were almost no votes for Lincoln.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Lincoln, right. Daniel Day Lewis won Best Actor and that was the year Zero Dark 31. Now, I wasn't a member then, but I feel like that's a movie that came on very late. And just like American Hustle the year after which we, in my opinion, shamefully gave Best Picture.

[David Sims]

I know we're talking movies age perfectly.

[Ben Hosley]

Were you there for America? I. I have a good American Hustle. New York Film Critic Circle win story for you, which I can share. I cannot share on microphone.

[Griffin Newman]

But, like, afterwards, like two years in a row, the critic circle went for kind of the last month movie to screen. Right. Like the movie that came in right at the end. Get our attention. It worked.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A strategy that I feel like doesn't really work anymore.

[Ben Hosley]

It does not work. Anyway, they tried it with. I mean, it's, It's. It's so funny because we're always thinking, oh, they're, they're scheming to do this, but in so many cases, the movies are, like, barely finished. But they tried that with Django Unchained. They tried it with Scorsese. Silence.

[Griffin Newman]

They did. I remember.

[Ben Hosley]

I went to that. Yeah, I remember. That was a.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a thing.

[Ben Hosley]

I saw it twice that day.

[David Sims]

That's a movie you need, like, five months to come around.

[Ben Hosley]

People were away for Thanksgiving. And then I think we were voting like the next day or two days later or something. And I remember talking to people and most people hadn't seen it because they were like, well, I was. I was like, you know, I was away for Thanksgiving.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's just not a movie where you walk out being like, well, I'm sold. You know, like, I love silence. I think it's a great movie. I don't think it's a movie you need. You need like two months.

[David Sims]

But I talk about, we talk about.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a lot, like staring into a pool of water.

[David Sims]

I agree, we talk about this a lot. But like, you know, the limited pool of like, people who've won the Palme d'or twice or have won like more than two Oscars, right? I'm like, I feel like there's this, whether it's conscious or not, sort of feeling from those boards of like, or at least this should be the standard if you've already won that many times. You know, it's like it either should be. This is so clearly above and beyond what you've previously done. It's executed at an exponentially higher level than the last time we awarded you. Or it is so different from what you've done before. We didn't know you had this in you. And I think at this point in our current day era, Spielberg is a little bit of victim of having proven that he could do anything like Schindler. They were like, you know what? We didn't know you could make something this somber and restrained. And then Saving Private Ryan, they were like, we didn't know you could make something this kind of visceral and like, disturbing and, you know, but still with the uplift now, as opposed to the first half his career that we're covering now, where it feels like you even just look at the 80s as a microcosm for him, right? He makes ET and the Indiana Jones trilogy, the like Peaks of commercial cinema. And then in between those, he's like doing experiments that the public is like, you know, Color Purple, always Empire of the Sun. Like, it's a little like back and forth where they're like, we prefer you doing the Spielberg thing. By the time he gets to the 90s, people are like, you know what? He can do anything he wants. We don't question him. We're not going to like every movie. But there's no, like, guard up against. He shouldn't try to make a historical drama. He shouldn't try to make a film about adults, etc.

[Ben Hosley]

I think part of it is also Spielberg is himself a little unmoored during this time. The other thing I remember from this period is, you know, Spielberg actually enters a period that. I mean, I don't want to call it a period of decline, but there is a period when he's not kind of the king of the roost. Right. I mean, it kind of starts with this one. Always is. Always is terrible.

[David Sims]

I kind of like it. I just saw it for the first time. I kind of like it. I. It does not.

[Ben Hosley]

Every time I watch it, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to like it this time. I bet I'm going to like it this time. And I'm like, no, sorry. I've seen it three times.

[David Sims]

But that's actually.

[Ben Hosley]

I know that's. That's. That's really. That's. That's. That's my equivalence of a Leonard Malton bomb.

[David Sims]

That's like turning it off after 10 minutes for most people.

[Ben Hosley]

First 10 minutes of always are really good.

[Griffin Newman]

Always starts pretty strong.

[Ben Hosley]

It actually, that's what it is. It's. Every time I put it on, it's like, it starts and I'm like, oh, this is really good. I'm gonna really like this. And then it just completely falls apart.

[David Sims]

Where do you stand on Last Crusade?

[Ben Hosley]

Last Crusade might be my least favorite of the Indiana Jones movies because it's.

[Griffin Newman]

Too kind of, like, straightforward.

[Ben Hosley]

And see, that's the one where the ending doesn't work for me. A lot of people hate the endings of the other ones. But, like, the. It just. The. The cup, I like. I like. You know, this is the cup of a Carpenter. Like, I like. I love that. That sense chills up my spine. But, like, that whole finale and then with the Night of the Round Table and all that for some reason also because, you know, there was this period where it seemed like there was such a kind of weird, really religiosity in Spielberg's movies. And that one kind of just brought it home. I do like the movie. I've seen it many times. I've taken my son to see it. It's like one of his metrographs. It's a very fun movie.

[David Sims]

It is my favorite. But I'm also, like, I don't think it's a particularly deep film. I think it's just exemplary Spielberg entertainment.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And it's very on my comedic wavelength.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. And it's. I mean, it is. It is a comedy. It's actually maybe the only time he's really pulled Off a comedy.

[David Sims]

You know, we were talking about this and that is a great take.

[Griffin Newman]

That. That is argument on 1941. Not argument. We. I just sort of pointed out that like basically all of his worst movies are his cleanest attempts at comedies. Like 1941, the Terminal, arguably always right.

[Ben Hosley]

He can't do comedy and he can't do romance. Now we were always stinks.

[David Sims]

We were saying, what's weird is that he's really good at applying comedy to non comedy movies.

[Ben Hosley]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

But when the assignment is full comedy, it doesn't work. I think Last Crusade, you were right, is his most successful comedy. And I feel like a lot of Indiana Jones purists and people who are the right age to grow up with them talk about it in a kind of Return of the Jedi way where they're like, that one comes out when I'm 17 and it felt kitty ish and I was over it. And I think a lot of that is. It's very silly, but it's successful at being silly at the time.

[Ben Hosley]

It also felt to me like. And you know, whenever I have this kind of take about a filmmaker, I realize I'm totally talking out my ass because it takes them a long time to get these projects off the ground. But it did feel like he had had a couple of flops and he was kind of going back to what worked. And he's all right, here's a. Here's an Indiana Jones sequel, which, you know, maybe there was some of that, but you know, knowing how these films get made and how long it takes, it's, you know, it's, it's more complicated than that. I will say I have this. I've probably, I've probably talked to one of you guys about this, but I have this unified field theory of Spielberg.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Which is this is the place to.

[Griffin Newman]

Debut at our Spielberg miniseries.

[Ben Hosley]

No, I mean, I, I've, I've written about this in a couple of places. But I have this theory that early period of his career, you know, 70s, 80s, that his films really can be best be understood as being from the point of view of a child. And then there's this, this the back half of his career. They make a lot more sense if you see them through the eyes of a parent. And I think, and one of the reasons, and the fact that I know you guys are not fans of Hook, but I think Hook, I'm not a huge fan. Hook is the pivot point. Halfway through Hook, Spielberg realizes I must.

[Griffin Newman]

Put away childish things.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes. That's what Hook is about. And I later found out because I had this idea. And then later I found out, or I was told that it's during the making of Hook or right around then that he reconciles with his dad and.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of gets a fuller understanding of Seth Rogen's role in his dad's, you know, marriage falling apart.

[David Sims]

I think you are right. And we will spend our time debating Hook in a couple weeks. I will say my exact problem with Hook is I feel like he makes that realization, like, halfway through making the movie. And that realization comes with, I shouldn't have made this movie.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, he does not like that movie at all. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And Jurassic park is about a guy learning to be a parent.

[David Sims]

Jurassic park is the much better version of what the story that Hook is.

[Griffin Newman]

Trying to tell him, like, monologuing to his son being like, I should just play baseball with you. And I'm just like, can we have a sword fight?

[Ben Hosley]

But. But, like, if you look at. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, Jurassic park, if you think about. Yeah. I mean, it's all about Sam Neill learning to become a dad. Like, that's really kind of the full flower of Spielberg. Spielberg's change in perspective.

[David Sims]

And it's also so crazy because it's like this roller coaster movie that he was like, can I slip in, like, 10% of an emotional spine underneath this? And it's so kind of underplayed and unspoken, and it's. Yet it's so personal and revealing and deeply felt.

[Ben Hosley]

Ten years earlier, that movie would have been all about those kids. Correct? Right. And in fact, there's. As I was rewatching Lincoln, there's that little moment I totally forgotten about where he. Where, you know, Abraham Lincoln slaps his son, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt. And I was thinking about there are actually a surprising number of slaps in Spielberg movies. You could really do a fun montage on them.

[David Sims]

But then I was thinking, this has a huge one.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, yes, absolutely. But I was thinking about the. The slap in Jaws. Right? The mother who slaps at the hospital. Yeah, yeah. And it's a great, great. I mean, great moment in Jaws. Iconic moment in Jaws. But, you know, who do we identify with there? I mean, we identify with Roy Scheider because he's obviously the protagonist. But really what we're identifying there is his humiliation. Right. So it's very much like almost like the humiliation of a little boy who's been slapped. And then the later films, it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

What are some other slaps?

[Ben Hosley]

Well, watching the Joys of Gordon Levitt scene. I was kind of like, you don't really feel his, like, you don't really feel Joseph Gordon Levitt's humiliation. You feel Abraham Lincoln's, you know, anxiety.

[David Sims]

That's a pivot point. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

God, Lincoln is so good. But I mean, I mean, everything about Lincoln is good. Every single thing, in my opinion, about Lincoln is good. But all the best stuff is just all his cabinet. I mean, I think I said this on our episode. Anytime they're like, what should we do? This is the most stressful shit in the world. And he's like, there was an old mill. And they're like, God damn it, will you stop with your fucking stories, you homie. Stupid lawyer.

[David Sims]

One time I found a pencil on the board.

[Ben Hosley]

I was watching it.

[Griffin Newman]

A man had a bucket of water. And they're like, it's a civil war.

[David Sims]

Metaphorical or literal?

[Ben Hosley]

I was watching with my son, and he had such a great time watching it. It's so funny. It actually is. It's another, it's about dirt bags. It's another instance of him applying comedy in a situation where comedy would not. I mean, that's kind of the old Spielberg coming.

[David Sims]

Let's make this Spade or Hawks, like Three Stooges, Tim, Blake, Nelson. Shit. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

It's also the original. I mean, it's not the original Oppenheimer, but, like, it definitely has that Oppenheimer.

[David Sims]

Vibe of, like, what if every single person is someone deeply important as an actor?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the thing you said about Oppenheimer, Griffin, on your episode. I think it was you where you said, everybody in this movie has at some point been number one on a goal sheet.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Which is, which is a great way to put it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I love everything you're saying and, and, and the, the sort of prism you're putting around this movie, because this is, I think, a big turning point movie as well. He has not yet done the perspective shift to that of the parent, but this feels like the movie of him trying to kill the child inside of him. Well, it feels like being like, I need to move on.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, it's a movie about the loss of innocence. I mean, it's a movie about the death of childhood, as is the Color Purple, but this much more explicitly.

[David Sims]

The difference to me is that in this one, it feels like he's recognizing I'm still, like, viewing this too much from the perspective of the child rather than being able to look back on childhood as an adult. And that's what he's really Trying to like change here. I feel like we commit to doing this. We put our schedule on the spreadsheet. I like type your name in from months before we even reached out to you where I was just like, that feels like a good fit. And I know Bill Ga is one of the big. Like this is his most undersung movie defenders.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, it's also formally. The movie is so interesting to me because Spielberg has his vernacular.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean Spielberg has his language, he has his, his favorite shots. You know, he has the, the crane shots and the, the, you know, the tracking shots. And, and this film feels to me like him asking himself, how can I tell this darker, more mature story using my stuff, using my language and because there's a, I don't know if you guys have ever seen. There's a, there's a, there's a one hour making of. Of this movie.

[David Sims]

Of this.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Available on like the Blu ray. I, I used to have this movie on laserdisc.

[David Sims]

My digibook here, which also has the one I have Warner at War.

[Ben Hosley]

I have not watched that. That looks really interesting.

[David Sims]

That is an amblin production and 40, 47 minutes long. I bet it rules.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, but it, in the, in this documentary, you know, you see him like directing these scenes and it's, it's really impressive. I mean the way they completely, you know, made over Shanghai to looked like Shanghai back then. But then, you know, you see him shooting the scene at the camp which is the kind of the big, you know, emotional moment in the film where Jim sees the pilot, you know, the plane flying by.

[Griffin Newman]

Cadillac of the skies.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, Cadillac of the skies. And you see Spielberg directing Christian Bale and you know, he tells him, he tells him you're in a real cool action figure shot like that. Those are the words he uses. And it is true. Like that's like he's got that kind of, you know, that stance. And it's so interesting to me that, that Spielberg uses that, that language to define that shot because it is a cool shot, but it's such a dark moment. Right. And you see you also, I mean John Williams score for this obviously, which is magnificent as it always is. But in some ways it's, it's like his most, it's his. Feels like his most classical score to be one.

[David Sims]

The biggest motif in it is one that he did not write.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's.

[David Sims]

It's what the hymn at the beginning of the film which gets repeated in so many ways. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But then also like it's, it's Kind of this, like, it has this very jaunty, playful theme, but then under it are these sort of very dark chords running through. Like, it really is Spielberg and his people, including John Williams, trying to take like what they know about how to put together a movie and like just tip it just a little bit so that the story becomes a lot darker.

[Griffin Newman]

But then he makes Schindler's List. And that I feel like erases this movie in everyone's mind because that's a sort of more successful or more broadly.

[David Sims]

Like, look back as this was the dry run before he totally cracked it on Schindler.

[Ben Hosley]

But he also said. But the other thing I remember on Schindler's List was he really restrained himself. Like, that's the thing that people says.

[Griffin Newman]

That he's a fucking liar. Sh List is so liquid, entertaining, even when it's so upsetting like it is.

[David Sims]

But.

[Ben Hosley]

But I will say at the time it did feel really restrained. And I get that. And. And they talked about how, I mean, he actually talked about how like technically speaking, he. He limited the amount. Yeah, like he limited, you know, the amount of track still has incredible runners.

[Griffin Newman]

Especially.

[Ben Hosley]

Especially compared to the we get today.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's the other thing about Spielberg. We don't make my whole two side meeting well, but that's the. Okay, well, pin in that. But that's the whole wolves inside me thing about Schindler where I'm just like, this movie is so goddamn entertaining and like, should there be entertainment about something like this?

[David Sims]

The Hanukkah argument. But I mean, the whole thing with that movie is. And it feels almost like a reaction to people being like, not quite. On Empire of the Sun, Schindler, the infamous thing is that he was like, I won't storyboard this. I need to like go there and be in the place and like engage with the emotions, feel it out, rather than doing like puppet show kind of controlling shit. And that's the part of it that I think felt very restrained to him is he didn't allow himself the time to like math it out in advance. We did our Color Purple episode very recently. Great Kanice Mobley as our guest. And she said this line that I thought summed it up really well where she's like, the weird cognitive dissonance in this movie is like him shooting sexual assault scenes like they're ET and to some degree it feels like the locker room bully confrontation with the fableman's right. Where he's just like, I don't understand why I make everything look like this. Right. That, like, everything becomes too magical if I shoot it. This feels like the first movie where he successfully, to your point of what you're getting at, figures out how to shift his esthetic a little bit so that it doesn't feel too, like, wonderful. And even just, you know, the most recent episode, in weird record order we did right before this earlier this week was 1941. And 1941 has that thing where you're just like, jesus Christ, this is too expensive. You can't stop thinking about how big the production is. Hyperactive, the resources, so much going on. This has these insane long oners in, like, huge environments with hundreds of extras and planes flying overhead. And knowing that stuff is logistically impossible. And yet I think it is the first time in his career he can orchestrate something like that and not make it feel like he's playing with toys. Not make it feel like he's showing off. Make it feel like it's actually just kind of like immersive environmental recreation. I'd seen this once before. Our friend Connor Ratliff had never seen it. And they were playing it at Metrograph maybe like 10 years ago, a little less very shortly after Metrograph opened, and was like, this is what I want to do for my birthday. It is a very funny birthday movie. But he was like, it's a Spielberg blind spot, so everyone should come see Empire the Sun with me. And we all were just kind of bummed out afterwards, but I was like, you know, I've heard this recent. People are kind of revisiting it and reclaiming it. And I saw it and I was like, yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. I see what he was getting at. Doesn't totally work. Watched again today, like 15 minutes in, I was like, is this a masterpiece? Do I now put this on his top tier? Which Spielberg top tier is like, is ridiculous, is ridiculous, and also is big. It's like, how many tiers are you creating of, like, unquestionable match masterpieces versus near masterpieces or whatever. But there were a couple things that really, like, unlocked for me, especially watching 1941 and Color Purple recently in relation to this. But the, like, Spielberg face, right? The sort of famous image of the Spielberg wonder face the overhead looking up at whatever.

[Ben Hosley]

His O face.

[David Sims]

His O face. This movie. Even, like, thinking about him directing Christian Bale in that way. You have those moments where Christian Bale is doing the Spielberg face at the plane overhead, and yet he is now shooting him from below. He's tilting up. You're not in the perspective of the thing that the kid is looking at in wonder. You are on the ground looking at a kid look up at something unseen ominously, and it's like, fuck, he's figuring it out. You're watching in real time him figuring out how to, as you said, shift his language a little bit, subvert a little bit, successfully create different types of emotion without just making everything feel magical and entertaining. It is the weird balance of him of like he, he. It is hard for him to make something that is not entertaining. He has like such kind of like showman storyteller bones in him that. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's his Midas touch thing or whatever. Like it's a bit of a curse.

[David Sims]

Sometimes he wrestles with. And I think in this movie, to a certain degree he's working so hard to fight against that, that. That must have been frustrating to people at the time. David. Boing, boing. You hear that Boing?

[Griffin Newman]

It's a boinging noise.

[David Sims]

No, that's a spring. Because spring has sprung true. Spring movie preview. David, what do we got?

[Griffin Newman]

We got some great stuff coming.

[David Sims]

Films coming to Regal theaters that we want to direct our listeners towards.

[Griffin Newman]

Minecraft.

[David Sims]

Sign up for Eagle Unlimited and go see the Minecraft movie. Excuse me, A Minecraft movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Ah, just the one, I think.

[David Sims]

An interesting titling structure on that one. Do you know that film is directed by Jared Hess? Isn't that bizarre? Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

You're more struck by this than I.

[David Sims]

I think we should all be talking about this. I think this should be front page news.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but you've also got Drop getting great reactions out of south by Southwest fun horror movies. Yeah, exactly. You've got Alex Garland's Warfare.

[David Sims]

Okay. Have you seen that?

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not sure I can talk about it.

[David Sims]

Well, interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

You've got the new Jean Cot Serra movie. The Woman in the Yard is coming in late March.

[David Sims]

Very excited for that. Written by Sam Stefanik. Yes. The Amateur, a high concept Rami Malek thriller that seems to have the premise what if Griffin Newman in action action.

[Griffin Newman]

Movie, you know, and that's directed by the guy who did One Life. It's really interesting.

[David Sims]

Really?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Interesting. We got sinners coming.

[Griffin Newman]

Ah, I'm so pumped for Sinners.

[David Sims]

And Jordan are back.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. That's actually really gonna rock. And of course, friend of the show.

[David Sims]

Bone Yang in the Wedding Banquet, a remake of a film we've covered on this show, written, co. Written and starring a past and future guest, the accountant. Two of them got this. Spring boing, boing everywhere.

[Griffin Newman]

Spring is Spring is for real. So, well, why are we talking about it?

[David Sims]

Because of Regal. Because this is a perfect opportunity to sign up for Regal Unlimited.

[Griffin Newman]

What's awesome about all this is that there's lots of interesting different kinds of movies in theaters that you can go see.

[David Sims]

And with Regal Unlimited, the whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable.

[Griffin Newman]

Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in the description in our show notes and use code blank check to get 20% off your three month subscription. And then you're going to be in the Crown Club. You're going to get rewards. You're going to build up points and.

[David Sims]

Get free popcorns and sodas.

[Griffin Newman]

25% off candy on Tuesdays, 50% off popcorn. Discounted ticket.

[David Sims]

Go to the Regal Crown Club website. And as I said, it's a little deep, It's a little buried in here. There is a section where you can redeem your points for old promotional movie memorabilia like red 16 socks.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Follow the link in the show notes, go to the Regal app, click on the unlimited banner and then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code blank check when prompted to receive your discount. And look, I'm just going to say it again, David. Signing up for Regal Unlimited or maybe gifting a membership to a moviegoer in your life.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Great way to support the show. This is, this is a dream advertiser. Yes, a dream partner for us. We want to keep this going. We think it could benefit everybody, especially the movies.

[Griffin Newman]

I want to resolve a few pins.

[David Sims]

Please take some pins out of the board. But I think this movie is excellent.

[Griffin Newman]

I think John Williams should have won the Oscar for best score on top of his, his wins that he, I think largely deserved already. I think he should have won for Home Alone over Dances With Wolves. That might be my most controversial take.

[Ben Hosley]

John Barry, though.

[Griffin Newman]

The John Barry score for Dance Wolves is very, very good.

[David Sims]

And, and hey, let's put a pin in Kevin Costner as we're taking some pins out, let's put some other ones in.

[Griffin Newman]

Score I think has endured in ways maybe people didn't see coming in 1991. Anyway, I agree.

[David Sims]

And also you and I say that might be the single greatest like power boost of a score to a movie ever.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? It's a, it is a huge. Yes, you're right. It's a huge help to that mo movie. I don't think he should have won for Saving Private Ryan. I think that score is very good, very sort of stately and you know.

[Ben Hosley]

Hans should have won for that's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Hans Zimmer should have won for the Thin Red Line. Although I think that score is sort of oddly deployed in the movie. It's an amazing score. Or it's unusually deployed in the movie.

[David Sims]

Well, it's the classic Malik thing where it was like scored and then he recut it and put pieces where they weren't written right.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's like, what the did you do?

[David Sims]

But you listen to that as an album and it's one of the most.

[Ben Hosley]

Unbelievable pieces and becomes like the trailer. There's a funny story. I don't know if you guys have read this new biography of Terrence Malick that came out by. It's great. Really, really great. And he got a lot of access. But there's a very funny story in it about how Disney uses the score for the Thin Red Line when they. When they do the Pearl harbor trailer.

[Griffin Newman]

It's what makes the Pearl harbor trailer look like a fucking Best Picture when people thought, right.

[Ben Hosley]

And they didn't. They didn't get permission to do this.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, really?

[Ben Hosley]

And then years later there was something. I wish I remembered this specific part of the story. But years later, there's something Malik needs from Disney. And one of his assistants is like, you know, they're being pains in the neck about it and he says, like.

[Griffin Newman]

Play the card, right?

[Ben Hosley]

He says to them, send them a message with two words. Pearl Harbor.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And immediately he gets what he wants.

[David Sims]

Like the Ernie Sabella Pumbaa story I've told many times.

[Griffin Newman]

As if Malik isn't just some like wide eyed innocent wandering through the weed.

[Ben Hosley]

He knows what a play. This guy has been in the industry forever.

[Griffin Newman]

I just. Life is Beautiful one that year, which is like an odd win in my opinion. I think Randy Newman's pleasant middle score is better. I think Saving Private Riot is better. I think the Red Line is probably your actual winner there, in my opinion. All right. He probably was never going to win in 2001 because Lord of the Rings win for best score. That Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship.

[David Sims]

Of the Ring, and that was for AI Score.

[Griffin Newman]

He's nominated for both AI and Harry Potter. It's like the kind of one, two punch of like, Williams can give you an iconic theme for like a big family movie. He can also do his AI Score. One of his most beautiful scores. So sad.

[David Sims]

But that was never gonna win at the time with how much people hated that movie.

[Ben Hosley]

And also I would argue that the score isn't always that well used in the Movie.

[Griffin Newman]

In the, in the movie. It's again, it's a score I love listening to in the movie itself. Sometimes it overwhelms it, it overwhel.

[Ben Hosley]

Overwhelms the ending, I think, in a.

[David Sims]

Way that I think caused people to misread the film at the time. A lot of people who thought, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

It was, I mean, I was, I was very mixed on AI at when I first saw it. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I like it a lot now. I still have some issues with how the two, the Kubrick sensibility.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a very strange Frankenstein.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a very strange. And that, that's what makes it so unforgettable in a way. Nothing like still as whenever I watch it, I'm like, that one doesn't. That scene doesn't quite. That scene doesn't quite.

[David Sims]

We all agree he should have won for catching.

[Griffin Newman]

He lost to Elliot Goldenfall, the great Elliot Goldenfall for Frida, which is lovely and interesting and like, sort of, you know, like. But like, this is ripple effect.

[David Sims]

If La Coldenfall had won for Batman and Robin, then we wouldn't have been in this position forever.

[Griffin Newman]

Is his better Batman?

[David Sims]

I prefer the Batman Robin score, but.

[Griffin Newman]

That'S an iconic year. Well, his Heat score is very cool.

[Ben Hosley]

Although who knows how much of it he wrote.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. I was about to say, but far from heaven. The Elmer Bernstein score for that is amazing. The hours very divisive. But the Philip Glass score for the Hours is like, I love it.

[Ben Hosley]

Philip Glass kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a king.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And Thomas Newman's Road to Predition score. Yes. Thomas Newman often kind of hits the same notes, but a really good score.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Not a fan of that movie, but I like Thomas Newman. I don't remember that score.

[David Sims]

I, I like that movie and that score quite a bit.

[Ben Hosley]

I've only seen it once anyway.

[David Sims]

Wow, that's like not seeing it at all.

[Ben Hosley]

That's like that, that's like me just pissing on a DVD of the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you like Mendes generally? Because I'm very up and down.

[Ben Hosley]

You know, the, the Mendes I really do like is Revolutionary Road, which, which.

[David Sims]

That I, I need to rewatch.

[Ben Hosley]

Everyone hates that. And I, I, I like, I think Skyfall is, I thought, his best movie. He's kind of, he should have just. There's some directors who I'm like, just do Bond movies.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He should have become. What's his name? Who was the guy who did like 10 Bond movies in the 70s.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Or Lewis Hamilton.

[David Sims]

I'm like you should have become one of them.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but the whole thing with Mendes doing Skyfall, which is a movie I love, is that helps Bond convince itself. It's become a prestige like genre. And it's like, maybe you guys actually need to chill out a little bit and go back to basics a little bit and not be like 2 hours and 45 minutes long and have these.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a poser movie, but it kind of neither a negative effect on the next poser, but maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, one last pin. The list, the nine directors who've won the Palme d'or twice is such a weird list of like masters and kind of like right place, right time. Guysland is a right place, right time guy, in my opinion.

[Ben Hosley]

Kuster Ritza is one of my all time favorite.

[Griffin Newman]

I know you love him, although he's.

[Ben Hosley]

Like a monster now.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, has he become a monster?

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, he has been.

[Griffin Newman]

For older European directors, it's always a crapshoot. I mean, you don't want to give them Twitter.

[Ben Hosley]

It was already evident in Underground, which is a film I love. But you know, the breakup of Yugoslavia really sent him and he's a little hard.

[Griffin Newman]

Right on that stuff.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's a Dennis Miller effect.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Costa Rica reacha Kusaritsa is. I've not seen when father was away on business. I have seen Underground. I don't know.

[Ben Hosley]

Have you seen Time of the Gypsies?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I have never.

[Ben Hosley]

Time of the Gypsies is fantastic. That's the one that's really. I mean, underground. I really love. I love when father was away on business, but it was seeing Time of the Gypsies, which I believe only won like best director, grand jury prize or something that really kind of knocked my socks off when I was a kid.

[Griffin Newman]

And then. Okay, so Coppola, you mentioned obviously that. That he's. He's up there. Can you name the others?

[David Sims]

Win twice?

[Ben Hosley]

Of course. Yeah. Is Conti won twice?

[David Sims]

I think right now, just like Zinnamin win twice. Isn't there an old Hollywood director who won twice? No.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, I'll tell you the others.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I'll.

[Griffin Newman]

Alf Schoberg. That barely counts. Julie Loach, Julian Tormund and Loach.

[Ben Hosley]

And Loach. That's right. Oh yeah, that's right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which. He's a great director, great filmmaker. I think both of those wins are sort of viewed.

[David Sims]

It's Barley and Daniel Bl.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I mean, I really. I really like when the way. When the wind shakes the barley. I saw that film very late. I remember at the time people Were really upset about its win. When I. When I finally saw it, I was like, oh, this is actually really good. I, Daniel Blake. I was there for that can. That was my first can. And I remember and I like, I, Daniel Blake.

[Griffin Newman]

It's pretty good.

[Ben Hosley]

That was that. That those can awards were a war crime. And that was, you know, heartbreaking. George Miller's jury.

[Griffin Newman]

George Miller, great, great guy.

[Ben Hosley]

That was the year of Tony Erdman. That was the year of the Handmaiden.

[Griffin Newman]

It was the year that Tony Erdman was obviously going to win in. Clearly, George Miller, or at least a couple of people in the jury were just kind of like, not into it.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I mean, I was kind of. I was pulling for the Handmaiden that year.

[Griffin Newman]

Another great.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, there were a lot. And none of the big films won. None of the really good films won anything, if I remember correctly. I mean, Daniel Lake was fine. It just. I would not have given the nature.

[David Sims]

Tony Erdman, the character. The character in character feels like he would fit in. In the wasteland. Like you would imagine George Miller would take to that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure.

[David Sims]

Like this guy could be the mayor of fucking Bullet Town.

[Griffin Newman]

That was. Yeah, because it's. When Xavier Dalan wins the Grand Prix.

[Ben Hosley]

We get the Max Mickelson face and what was it the guy who directed Son of Saul.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

Laszlo Nemesh. Yeah, he was on the jury that year. And the Xavier Dolan film everybody hated, Even the people who really liked it, probably.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But then was also angry that he had to share the award with Godar. Or was that a different year?

[Ben Hosley]

That's a different year.

[David Sims]

I hated that shit.

[Ben Hosley]

But that the. At the press conference, somebody asked Laszlo Nemes something about. About that film, I think, but, like, the question was different. And he answered the question with the weirdest response, which was, yes, I know that some people think that because, you know, because Xavier Dolan was on the jury last year and I won the grand jury prize, that I felt the need to give him the grand jury prize this year. But I assure you that that's not true. Very much on my T shirt is asking, I did not fuck that cat. Yeah, exactly.

[David Sims]

I have never fucked a cat.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, because everybody was like, wait, what? Really? Oh, my God, is this a thing? I mean, I'm sure it wasn't, but it was kind of crazy that that movie won the fucking grand jury prize.

[David Sims]

Did we go through all the others?

[Griffin Newman]

Are Billy August, who won Very close together and Best Intentions, kind of a Weir winner. Pel the Conqueror. More of a traditional winner. Shohei Mamura, who's a great filmmaker. And the Eel tied with Taste of Cherry. So like, whatever.

[Ben Hosley]

And the Eel is such a strange. That is a very strange movie to give a palm to.

[Griffin Newman]

And my Michael Henneke, you know, he's. He's more in the, you know, master territory. Although, like, I don't know. Is he gonna make another movie? What's he doing? Is he old? Yeah, I guess he's pretty awesome.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, he had a career before he became kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

Is he like a carpenter or something? What do you mean?

[Ben Hosley]

No, I mean like he had made like, you know, films for television and. Sure, sure, sure.

[David Sims]

I would love to hear that. Like John Carpenter style. He's like. Yeah, no, I. He's on Xbox Live.

[Griffin Newman]

The Xbox.

[David Sims]

Right. I'm playing with Hanukkah all the time. We're doing Halo together.

[Griffin Newman]

The last thing. And we'll say this as we talk about Empire of the sun, right? But it is very strange that the Last Emperor and Empire of the sun, these two movies that are both kind of being sold with the like no one's ever filmed in China before, like an American movie or you know, are happening kind of at the same time and kind of about the same period in history. A little like 10 years.

[David Sims]

Is this not also. Is Hope and Glory not also this same year? Kind of this movie's lunch on this sort of war from the perspective of a child thing, right? Kidding time.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean critics, you know, critics like Hope and Glory more. Yeah, no, I mean it's a. It's a big year for. For those types of stories. But I think. I think China is also opening up during this period.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, of course that's why it's happening.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean that's what happens with Bertolucci and Last Emperor. Where.

[Griffin Newman]

But Bertolucci's kind of getting one on Spielberg or Spielberg's like, I'm shooting in Shanghai. No one's shot in American production here. And Bertolucci's like, I got into the forbidden city. The name is forbidden. And I got in you the whole first hour. My movies, what Yours is set in some bombed out hellscape. Mine's in the most beautiful palace ever built by man.

[David Sims]

That was a weird press conference too. Roberta. Lucy.

[Griffin Newman]

Spielberg, the weigh in.

[David Sims]

He's holding up the belt. Ruthless aggression.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the Last Emperor is a better movie than this movie. I like both.

[Ben Hosley]

I would agree, cuz I love. You've never seen the Last Emperor.

[David Sims]

Last Emperor.

[Griffin Newman]

You haven't seen a lot of the Tony 80s epic one best picture you've never seen. Out of Africa, you've never seen. Well, Driving Miss Daisy isn't an epic, but another kind of like, male brown best picture winner.

[David Sims]

The 80s best picture winners. I'm weirdly kind of battle last time.

[Griffin Newman]

For much better than out of Africa or.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I mean, Last Emperor, I, I love. It's not my favorite movie of all time. It's not even my favorite Bertolucci movie. But, but I, well, you know what, Bill, go myself. Well, no, 87 is, but 87 is the year I discover, like, Bertolucci. I was like, 14. I discovered Italian cinema and French cinema. And then at the end of the year, the Last Emperor comes out and I'm just like, in hog Heaven. But, but also, you were the only.

[Griffin Newman]

Person in Hog Heaven watching the last.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm sure, I'm sure I don't even have to talk about how many times.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone else is, like, seeing Repo man or whatever. You're like, I'm in hog heaven with the Last Emperor.

[Ben Hosley]

Repo man is 86. Yeah. 87 is also, I think 87 is also Alex Cox's Walker.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, very, very chill.

[Ben Hosley]

Another favorite movie. That, and that's a movie everybody hated.

[David Sims]

What was your immediate response? Walking out of Empire of the sun, knowing you ultimately would then alternate and see it every other week.

[Ben Hosley]

I, I, I, I loved it when I first saw it. I mean, I remember you've probably seen.

[Griffin Newman]

Most of Spielberg's big movies.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Because, you know, it's ubiquitous in the, in the 80s. You, you, we were growing up with.

[David Sims]

Spielberg and he's kind of growing up with you. Like, he's making more adult movies at the exact age that you're ready to start seeing more dope.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. That's the other thing. As I was rewatching Empire of the sun, you know, in preparation for this, it, it dawned on me. I was like, oh, I, like, grew up with him, even though he's obviously much older than I am, but there is this, like, he's making movies for kids when I'm a kid, and as his movies grow up, I'm growing up with them. And that really, you know, like, that was, that was really fascinating to kind of think about. But he, you know, first of all, the first 30, 40 minutes of Empire the Sun are masterful. Even the critics who didn't like the movie were like, I mean, I think even Pauline Kale was just like, you know, the first 30 minutes, like the, you know, the Invasion of Shanghai. I mean, he stages that with such, such great control. And it's so funny you were saying it's. It's like him learning to kind of give up his toys. And the scene is literally a boy dropping his toy and trying to.

[David Sims]

That's where I think this movie is, like not self critical, but like very self aware and sort of like scathing of his whole Persona and worldview. Like, this movie is this kid literally getting slapped to be like, fucking engage with the real world. Your chauffeur's not coming. You can't exist in your fantasy land of like Halloween costumes and toys. Yeah, a thing I can't relate to.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm gonna actually open the Dossier. In the 1980s, Steven Spielberg befriended David Lean. David Lean would have been what. I'm looking up his age. I mean, like very old at this point, like in his 70s. He died at the age of 83 and 91. So he's in his, like, died early.

[Ben Hosley]

70S, if I remember correct.

[David Sims]

That's a terrible present.

[Griffin Newman]

It's 16th of April.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I. No, but David Lean does. He does Passage to India in 84.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And that's the last movie working on Nostromo for a while. And then.

[David Sims]

But this in theory would have been his last film. I mean, obviously not that he was planning it as such, but like Passage.

[Griffin Newman]

To India, though I do feel like is people at the time is received by. By people being like, he's. This is a. This is a film from a person from another age. Like, yes, of course it's impressive. But David Lean is not exactly with the modern.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I remember seeing Pastors to India with.

[Griffin Newman]

My dad and everyone's like, why is Alex. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

So my dad, you know, has always been a huge cinephile and I owe my cinephilia to him. But I remember seeing Passage to India with him and he was very mixed on David Lean. He was not a big David Lean fan.

[David Sims]

He leaned back as if you were.

[Ben Hosley]

I was leaning in. He was leaning back. But as we were watching, or maybe this was. We wouldn't have talked during the movie. But I do remember this exchange, which is the scene where. Where the doctor is like on the train, where he's walking on the.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. I had seen the Passenger one time, like 15 years ago.

[Ben Hosley]

There's a shot of, Of. Of the Doctor, whose name I forget, sort of walking between train cars on the outside of the train. It's an incredible shot. And I remember saying to my dad, how can you not like a movie that has a shot like this? And I remember he said, I dislike it because There's a shot like this, he was like, this. Grandiosity is too much.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that the essential divide between you and your father as film viewers? Because you like grandiosity.

[Ben Hosley]

I like grandiosity. He actually likes grandiosity too.

[Griffin Newman]

He just needs it to be earned.

[Ben Hosley]

It was often. We actually had a lot of really political disagreements over films. My dad was kind of a. At the time, he, you know, later changed his ideas on things, but he was kind of an old school communist back in the day. And we actually had a lot of arguments over Bertolucci films, over which ones were, like, true to the revolution and which ones were. And stuff like that. Like, he. He was very much a 1900 man, and I was much more of a Last Emperor man. And he felt like Last Emperor. He liked the movie, but he felt like it kind of sold out a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

It's too sympathetic to this imperial creature. Right. I don't know.

[David Sims]

But this is the thing I genuinely love about you as. As a critic is that you are very discerning in what you will like, wholeheartedly endorse as a fully functional, you know, masterpiece or whatever. But I do like your transparency in sometimes being like, there is an element of craft in this, or a performance or a theme or a feeling that I like. It elevates this movie. Even if maybe the movie isn't great beyond some more functional films, I can't throw this out because there's something here that is sticking with me.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I mean, I. I imagine a lot of critics are like this, but there's like, sometimes there's some. There's something you love in a movie. And even if the rest of the movie doesn't work, I mean, you know, sometimes it's like, just like the score. You know, there's so many films I've seen where I'm like, oh, I love that movie. And I watch it. I'm like, I just, like. I think I just kind of like the score, but I like how the score is used in the movie. So I can't just listen to the score. I kind of have to see the movie.

[David Sims]

I. I'm not. I truly am not backhanding anyone in particular in my mind, but I do feel like, especially from, like the experience of going to critic screenings and then reading those people's reviews, that sometimes you see people clearly enjoy a thing in a movie, but then they're like, analytical brain comes on and they're like, I can't fully endorse this as a thing that works.

[Ben Hosley]

I have. I Have I have said this about certain films where I. Well, I. I did this about. That's my boy. Where I went. Have we had this conversation? No, but, like, when I went, yeah, that's my boy. At a critic screening, I sat in that room with all these critics laughing their asses off. And I was sitting next to a couple of them. I'm like, you laughed. You laughed. You laughed. You laughed. And the next day you see their reviews and they're all trashing the movie. I'm like, you guys are fucking lying. You just sat. You sat there for two hours or hour and a half or whatever it was, laughing your asses off. And my thing with the review was, listen objectively. This movie is, you know, probably a piece of shit, but I laughed my ass off. What can I say? Same thing with Vacation. Vacation.

[Griffin Newman]

You've always stood up for the Vacation remake. Yes, but speaking of the Vacation Remake, David Lean, no, He's interested in JG Ballard's semi autobiographical novel, which had just come out in 1984. He asks Spielberg to check in on the rights for him. I guess Lean is just kind of like sitting in his estate being like, get that Hollywood guy on the phone.

[Ben Hosley]

The sort of string of great older filmmakers who somehow collaborated with Spielberg, only for Spielberg to wind up directing their movies.

[David Sims]

Talk about the Billy Wilder Schindler thing in a couple weeks.

[Ben Hosley]

But AI and Kubrick, right?

[David Sims]

Knowing that he was so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Kubrick had good taste in these. Well, this is why I was kicked him out.

[David Sims]

Him being so high level, being such a king of Hollywood. And also these guys knowing that he was such a cinephile and had such respect for the masters, all of them are like, if Spielberg extends his check to me, I'm good. And it's a little bit of Jordan Peele being like, I'm gonna hire Spike Lee to make blackkklansman so he can win an Oscar finally, you know?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So Spielberg checks in on the rights to this for David Lean. It's at Warner Brothers. Harold Becker, the not great. The. Okay, Harold Becker.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, that's a puzzling choice there.

[Griffin Newman]

Director of Sea of Love and Taps.

[David Sims]

Is a solid journeyman kind of studio guy.

[Griffin Newman]

And so Spielberg says, like, y tied up. It's sort of spoken for. And then Becker drops out or whatever. And so spoofer goes back to Lean. At least this is how Spielberg tells it and says, like, hey, it's available. And at that point, Lean is interested, as you say in Nostromo, an adaptation of the Joseph Conrad book, which never happened, I guess. Lean just.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, there was a BBC version of it made, and I don't know if it was because I think Robert Bolt had written a screen. I read that. Screen plate ones, I think. I used to work at the BBC, and I remember I would just, like, steal all this stuff from them.

[David Sims]

What did you do with the BBC?

[Griffin Newman]

Lord knows what.

[Ben Hosley]

He was like, my first job out of college, I actually had a very funny job at the BBC, which we won't get into here because it's. It's very. But I had to prepare, like, little dossiers for all the productions that they.

[David Sims]

Co financed with the J.J. yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So lean is like, you. You do it. You know, I don't want to do that anymore, but you go do it. Lean said he lost interest. Quote, this is a quote from Lean saying, this is a bloody well written and very interesting diary. I don't think it has enough of a dramatic shape.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But Spielberg also said from the moment that Lean brought it to him, he was like, secretly, I kind of want to direct this. So I think he was thrilled when Lean threw it over to him.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Lean. Spielberg also apparently was like, I'll produce Nostromo for you. And started giving notes on a Christopher Hampton's screenplay.

[Ben Hosley]

That's the population.

[Griffin Newman]

And Lean was like, you. You don't give me notes. And Spielberg was like, okay, okay, okay. I just backed off. It was just like, I don't want to piss you off. So Spielberg is. Why do you think he's intrigued by Empire of the Sun? It's through the eyes of a boy.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, an opportunity for him to make his definitive End of Innocence movie. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Have you guys read the novel?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I never have. I've read a lot of JG Ballard, but never that one.

[Ben Hosley]

And. And I've read all JG Ballard except for that one. Right. The. It's beautifully written.

[David Sims]

It is beautifully written.

[Ben Hosley]

And it's so, you know, the landscapes and the action, everything is so vividly described. You can easily tell just by reading it, just through the language why Spielberg thought, okay, I can. I can do something with this. Or for that matter, why David Lean thought he could do something. It's very dark, though. I mean, they have definitely sanitized it for the film.

[Griffin Newman]

This didn't happen to him. He did grow up in Shanghai, but he wasn't separated from his parents. Right. Like, there is some dramatic.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, no, it's a novel. I mean, it is a novel novel. Although it's, you know, autobiographical.

[Griffin Newman]

He grew up in that period.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But suffered through the, you know, you.

[Ben Hosley]

Know, the stuff described in the film and in the, in the, in the book is. Some of it is so gnarly and dark. And, you know, you do wonder if, and I don't know if you know, how the. The script, you know, transpired and how what its journey was, but, you know, when we talk about how Spielberg is taking this, like, darker story and not doing some of the things that. That he's been accused of doing in the past, there is definitely a lot of sanitizing happening and a lot of kind of condensing of characters and turning them into more of a. More of a Hollywood plot element.

[David Sims]

But I'll say this. Not having read this book and also not having read the Color Purple, shamefully watching the Color Purple movie, you can tell in real time it's sanitized, even if you don't know the source material. This.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, he dances around a lot.

[David Sims]

I'm not surprised to hear that. But I don't feel it while I'm watching it.

[Ben Hosley]

Neither did I. I mean, that's, that's why I was so surprised when I. When I read the novel, to find, you know, that it was. That it was so dark.

[David Sims]

But you can tell he's avoiding stuff. Yeah, this. It doesn't feel that way.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, if you ever read any JG.

[David Sims]

Ballard, I feel like Warhol, Crash.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah, I read Crash.

[Griffin Newman]

High Rise, you'd probably dig Atrocity Exhibition. Like, these are Benny tales.

[Ben Hosley]

What's the best one?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I think High Rise is so cool, but that. It's a book that really.

[David Sims]

I feel like I'm the only person that likes the Wheatley movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't mind that movie.

[Bill Gawain]

Movie is what.

[Griffin Newman]

High Rise is. Like. These people move into a really fancy new apartment building in like, 70s Britain, and it's like a weird nightmare zone that they can't escape from.

[David Sims]

It's very society.

[Griffin Newman]

I sound like JG Ballard, but I feel like you would dig it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, you would. Yeah, I should.

[Bill Gawain]

I should check it out. There's so many fucking books I need to check out.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's true.

[David Sims]

You're a good reader, though.

[Bill Gawain]

I'm. I'm. I'm getting back in your.

[David Sims]

In your 20s. You were a big.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah, I mean, I.

[David Sims]

You were.

[Bill Gawain]

Literally went to school for creative writing, thinking that was a smart idea that would lead to career opportunities. So I did a ton of reading then and, you know, over the years, I kind of fall off from time to time. But yeah, I'm getting back and things.

[Ben Hosley]

Do you have a favorite Novel or question.

[Griffin Newman]

What's your favorite novel?

[Ben Hosley]

Grapes of Wrath, maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a pretty good one.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, it's. It is kind of my stock answer. Do you have a stock answer for a favorite novel?

[Bill Gawain]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

All.

[Bill Gawain]

I mean, I would say it's embarrassing at this point to say, like, on the road.

[Ben Hosley]

On the road, Great.

[Bill Gawain]

But I was such a huge fan of the Beats. That was like a very important era for me when I was a young man.

[David Sims]

All their work. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

That's awesome.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Everybody keeps telling me to read the Dharma Bums. Did you ever read the Dharma Bums?

[Bill Gawain]

Sure. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

How was that other Kerouac book?

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah, I mean, all of the other Kerouac stuff can be hit or miss. Trying to think the. The Subterraneans. Great novel and very short. But I love that one.

[David Sims]

David.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[David Sims]

This episode's brought to you by MUBI.

[Griffin Newman]

Hello, Mooby.

[David Sims]

Once again, here we are in March 2025, and we are so happy that MUBI continues to sponsor the show. They are a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging OT tours.

[Griffin Newman]

There'S always something new to discover with movie. Each and every film is hand selected. So you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime, anywhere. And that's fine. You can go to movie. You can watch great movies streaming. It's really great.

[Ben Hosley]

But they. It's great.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's great. Fantastic. But they've also got movies. Movies which are in theaters and then stream exclusively on mubi, such as Academy Award winner the Substance. Might have heard of it.

[David Sims]

It's quite a big breakthrough.

[Griffin Newman]

Carly Fager's movie from 2024 was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, one for Best Makeup.

[David Sims]

Yes. If you somehow have not seen the Substance yet, the place you gotta go is mubi.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. Yeah, it's streaming exclusively there. I think it's actually back in theaters for a short time because of the Oscars. But you've got Demi, you've got Dennis Quaid, you've got Margaret Cawley, you've got this, this gonzo script. You've got this crazy, lurid imagery. This, you know, in insane satire. It's a wild movie improve. It's a must see.

[David Sims]

Griff's mom approved.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, fast.

[David Sims]

I took her to see it. I thought she was going to walk out and she gave it two grossed out thumbs up.

[Griffin Newman]

So you can check all that out. And of course, to stream great films at home, you can try movie free for 30 days. That's m u b I dot com for a month of Gray Cinema for free.

[David Sims]

Mubi. David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

I've heard a rumor.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

That you're British.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. I am a citizen of that country.

[David Sims]

Now, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh.

[David Sims]

But I feel like there's a stereotype that perhaps British people don't have the most shagadelic teeth in the world.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, behave.

[David Sims]

That the teeth are not always that groovy.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, well, what's your point?

[David Sims]

Well, perhaps the UK could use some quip.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, well, listen to me.

[David Sims]

I'm saying what do you do to handle your dental health? Equip, you know, as an expat.

[Griffin Newman]

An electric toothbrush that maybe you guys.

[Bill Gawain]

Have heard of it.

[David Sims]

Or I guess you're repat. You were an expat. You became a repat.

[Griffin Newman]

Supposed to. I'll always be an expat of the other place.

[David Sims]

You know what I mean?

[Griffin Newman]

But there's this new Quip360 oscillating toothbrush that literally revolves around you.

[David Sims]

An item like that that probably costs $1 million.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a bold, simple design, comes in multiple colors, and is ultra quiet for a super clean without being super annoying. You know, Quip. It's a very simple service where you get this nice electric toothbrush and then every so often in the mail you get a new brush head, maybe some new floss.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

Anything else? Sort of, you know, fundamental stuff that you might require.

[David Sims]

Clean. It's easy. You're gonna want to be saying, don't get in my belly, get in my mouth. You shouldn't swallow the toothbrush, but you should put it in your mouth.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess you could swallow the toothpaste if you really want to. Accepted by the American Dental Association, Quip360 is scientifically proven to remove up to 11 times more plaque between teeth compared to a manual toothbrush and provide up to two times more whitening on day one. And if you don't absolutely love your Quip360, return it for free within 30 days. Okay.

[David Sims]

It's so quick and easy to just do a quick brush to remove the stains that would be left behind after, say, a smoke and a pancake.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, if you do love it, Brush easy.

[David Sims]

A blintz and a blunt brush.

[Griffin Newman]

Brush easy. Knowing that you get a free lifetime warranty for purchasing on getquip qip.com the opportunity to subscribe to refill heads by mail every three months so you never have to go to the store. And they've got Quip perks, right? I love Perks you'll earn credit back over time if you subscribe to Auto Ship. So listen just for listeners, a blank check. Get 20% off site wide and a free travel case and countertop stand@getquip uip.com check. Free your mouth today and save 20% sitewide, plus a free travel case and countertop [e-mail] check. Getquip q-uip.com check.

[David Sims]

Oh, behave.

[Griffin Newman]

So, you know, Spielberg's interested. He obviously had been trying to make a Peter Pan movie for a long time. Hook is the eventual Peter Pan movie he makes. But he's kind of like, this is the opposite of Peter Pan. This is me getting to, like, strangle my Peter Pan movie.

[David Sims]

A movie that literally opens with, like, a kid trying to goof around and someone being like, hey, stop it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. So he's also a war nerd. You know, he's like a history nerd, like so many baby boomers.

[David Sims]

And the thing we've already touched on that he felt like being able to watch war films gave him an understanding of his father. Right. A vet would not really talk about.

[Griffin Newman]

And his father, I believe, was in the Air Force, so airplanes in particular. Interesting to him, I guess. And he knows this isn't going to be a commercial project, really. Like, he's, I guess, sort of aware of, like, I'm not about to knock out a big hit. But he's also kind of working on, like, another Indiana Jones movie. There's a Tom Stopper script. When he comes aboard, he gets Meno Menhez Meno Mejes, who wrote Color Purple, to do a pass. But then Stoppard comes back in and does the other pass. He's the only credit on the movie. And Stoppard is kind of like, it's a masterpiece. And I kind of learned how to write movies with Stephen helping me. As much as Tom Stoppard is obviously one of the most famous playwrights of his generation, he becomes this kind of Hollywood go to guy, especially for rewrites. And he's kind of like, I learned a lot working on that in terms of, like, where you don't need dialogue, like writing screenplays where, like, you can let the pictures take over.

[David Sims]

Can I just sidebar very quickly here? Because now it feels too relevant to not bring up. Do you know what I'm gonna say, Ben?

[Bill Gawain]

No.

[David Sims]

You were just talking about your creative writing degree and how you've moved away from that. You did recently announce to us in group text that Your resi for 2025 is that you want to become a produced playwright.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Bill Gawain]

I always try to come up with a big resolution for myself.

[David Sims]

You might remember 2018, when Ben said he was gonna become a goog fell.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He was gonna get a Guggenheim fellowship.

[Bill Gawain]

That still hasn't materialized, but working on it.

[Ben Hosley]

So. So these resolutions aren't always realistic, but they're big.

[Bill Gawain]

No, they're always big, though.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, one year, I used to ride riding a horse and.

[David Sims]

You ride dang horse. You did ride a dang horse.

[Bill Gawain]

I rode the shit out of that horse. I also made a fashion brand.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, that you did.

[David Sims]

Some of these have been achieved. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

How's the sleep podcast coming?

[Bill Gawain]

Let's not talk about that.

[Ben Hosley]

So you could write a play about riding a horse.

[Bill Gawain]

I mean, I'll add it to the list, the idea bank. But yeah, I'm very much. I'm trying to pivot to being a playwright.

[Ben Hosley]

That's awesome. That's. That's really cool.

[Griffin Newman]

I still need you producing. Of course. Of course. Okay, good. So Ballard meets Spielberg. Loves him.

[Bill Gawain]

I think there's a reason why you're bringing this up, because we're talking about Tom Stoppard.

[David Sims]

It just being brought up as one of the great, most beloved modern playwrights. I was like, here's. Here's an inspiration. Ben. Here's someone.

[Bill Gawain]

Because I was talking about him, though. Maybe this wasn't a conversation with Griffin. He technically produced, like, a spin off prequel of Shakespeare.

[Ben Hosley]

And he directed. He directed the film version of it, too.

[Bill Gawain]

Oh, really?

[Ben Hosley]

After this. A couple years after this. And won, like, the big prize at, I want to say Venice.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it won. It's a play that I adore. I've never loved the movie.

[Ben Hosley]

Saw it once. I don't remember much about it, but you're right.

[David Sims]

It's kind of the Lion King, one and a half of Romeo.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's just a. It's a. It's a. That does not make sense as a movie.

[David Sims]

Hamlet.

[Griffin Newman]

It's fun to watch those guys do it.

[Ben Hosley]

It's just funny. As you were saying. You were saying that Tom Sawford kind of learned how to write movies from Empire, the Sun. I'm like.

[Griffin Newman]

And then he went, doing your own play. It's often about.

[David Sims]

And then. Right. Didn't he do, like, heavy uncredited passes on both Attack the Clones and Revenge of the Sith?

[Griffin Newman]

He definitely. I think that's the thing. He's in those. In. In the Spielberg Lucas.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, how you say he's in those movies?

[Griffin Newman]

He's in those movies. He played Darth Maul.

[Ben Hosley]

People forget that he's in the Galactic Senate. You didn't see Tom Stoppard in the Galactic Senate.

[David Sims]

And his character's name is Tom Stoppard. And he gets up there and he goes, stop.

[Ben Hosley]

Stop.

[Griffin Newman]

Time, Art. Yeah. Amy Irving had worked with Christian Bale in a TV film called Anastasia, the Mystery of Anna. So she had.

[David Sims]

That was his first acting job of any sort.

[Griffin Newman]

She recommends him to Chris, to Steven.

[David Sims]

This is his first theatrical film.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, I. Spielberg still, like, auditioned 4,000 kids or whatever, but, like, you know, obviously, Bale is basically, like, the big find of the movie.

[David Sims]

Now, I want to just. I need to say this.

[Griffin Newman]

Go ahead.

[David Sims]

In a future episode that we've already recorded, I go on a long tangent about Spielberg's weird failure to identify and break new male stars.

[Griffin Newman]

This is your bug. Bear with him. But it's a more recent bug I.

[David Sims]

Don'T hold against him, but I just think it's interesting that he has such a limited track record of it. And then I put this on this morning, and I'm like, oh, right, he found Christian Bale. This is the one huge exception to the rule that needs to be noted. So keep that in mind when you listen to me. Five weeks from now, forget Christian Bale.

[Griffin Newman]

He's astonishing in this movie, but it is one of those, like, Spielberg kid performances where you're like, what is the alchemy here? Is Spielberg just so good with children? Then obviously, Bale became such a talented.

[David Sims]

Actor, I was gonna say.

[Griffin Newman]

But he also says that he hated making this movie, and it made him feel like he never wanted to make a movie again.

[Ben Hosley]

And there is a period where it. It is not a certainty that Christian Bale will become a star.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I mean, in movies, he looks like he has guns trained on him.

[David Sims]

Christian Bale had a bit of a parallel Henry Thomas arc where for a while it was like, he can't come out from the shadow of him being a kid. That Spielberg discovered, even though he had a little less baggage than Thomas did and a little more success. It's not really until Batman, when people were like, he's safe as an adult actor.

[Ben Hosley]

And he also. He takes on such risky material, you know, I mean, he does Velvet Goldmine and he does American Psycho. He works with really interesting directors, number of female directors, which is a thing that young male stars never do. And even when the films aren't that good, there's, like, this body of work emerges where he's doing, like, really interesting work.

[David Sims]

So one of my favorite actors.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, he's I recently, a couple of years ago, somebody asked me, like, who's your favorite actor? I couldn't. I was trying to think about it and I realized of, of actors working today.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I think Christian Bale is maybe the one person I will watch him in anything.

[David Sims]

I agree. And he's in a lot of movies. I don't like Vice.

[Griffin Newman]

He's obsessed with being in bad movies.

[David Sims]

Right. He's not had a great run recently, but I'm like, I do all, like, he's been challenged, find him interesting. And I do think he is a guy who is to a certain degree now just taken as a given for a guy who had such a hard time for a long time carving out his space. Now it's like, yeah, well, Christian Bale's good. And I'm like, he's always doing weird and oftentimes in service of bad movies.

[Ben Hosley]

He's almost like there's, there's a bit of the Adam Driver thing going on.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

You know.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I, I, But I also, I think he is, if not more transformative, more flexible than Driver, who is such a specific, you know, energy and presence and all of this. What I do find interesting, paralleling out to Henry Thomas, who has also had, you know, I love his work as an adult.

[Griffin Newman]

His career is an adult, but obviously not a Christian Bale type career.

[David Sims]

Yes. And it's also one of those cases where you hear about the making of that movie and there's a certain degree of this kid just being like an intuitive, emotionally intelligent, natural. And Spielberg creating the right framework for him. And Drew Barrymore. And Drew Barrymore, someone who obviously has a major career, but you're like, this is a movie of like a little girl who's good on camera and then later when she becomes an adult movie star, that's a different thing. Right. Henry Thomas, I feel like, go through.

[Ben Hosley]

The tortures of the damn.

[David Sims]

Totally. And I feel like Henry Thomas goes through a bit of a wilderness phase where what he settled into his adult actors very different than who he was as a child. What is fascinating about watching this movie is it is just like Muppet Babies. Christian Bale, you're like, this is the exact actor he still is today. As much as he talks about, like, having a difficult time making it. A thing I love about.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just tough to be 18 or making a movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, absolutely. And it's the classic sort of child star pipeline where there was a lot of, like, his parents pushed him into it and he was like, expected to sort of help Support the household and all this sort of stuff. And he had to go through a cycle of learning to love it himself. And a thing I love about Bale is that he always talks about that. He, like, deflates the idea of his sort of self serious method ness. And he always just frames it as like, look, this is a thing I did when I was a kid. I had to go through an arc towards, like, respecting it as an adult because it kind of came to me naturally for me. I just need to put that much into it to feel like I'm actually doing a serious job and not doing something that feels frivolous. Like he's like. It's my own justification of not being lazy about this in a way. But you just feel that sort of intensity in this, obviously this, in this film. I think it's a lot more makeup, but it's like when the second half, you have the time jump and suddenly you're dealing with, like, gaunt haunted Bale. You're like, this is what we're used to. Bale shows up and he's lost £100 and his eyes are dead, you know, and he has that, like, he's got the looks and the feelings and like, it is the first version of what if he has any default mode as a movie star. The pieces of it are in this from the get go.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with you. I think. Right. It's. It's. Yeah, it's grown up Bale. It's. I'm. What's the. What's the best analog for this? He doesn't play a lot of, like, sweet, relatable people anymore.

[David Sims]

I mean, my quiet favorite performance of his is. Is the New World.

[Griffin Newman]

I love him in the New World.

[David Sims]

Which I think is one of the so good all time normal guy performances from him. Right. But also it's like, it's a character who fundamentally exists to come in at the end and be like, hey, I am relatively uncomplicated.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That's a movie with my favorite actor giving maybe his best performance.

[David Sims]

Colin.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I was gonna make a joke. Why? Why?

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, yeah, Ben Chaplin, he is in it. He is in it. I'm pretty sure he was on set for like, six months and winds up in like, 30 seconds.

[David Sims]

There are a lot of incredible. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Cut any corn? I'll see you later.

[Ben Hosley]

I believe he basically gets decapitated at some point. The. Was I going to say about. Oh, the. When you were talking about Bale's experiences with this, it. It sounds almost a bit like what Jeff Bridges went through Like, Jeff Bridges went through this period after. I mean, he had actually, like, been nominated for an Oscar and stuff, but he. He actually was. Was ready to quit hearing I was.

[David Sims]

Talking about this too, on his awards trail of, like, I started doing this when I was four. I never really felt like I had agency in that decision. It came to me naturally, and because of that, I kind of didn't take it seriously. And it wasn't until succession that he was like, I think I actually want to be an actor for the rest of my life.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah. No, that is. I mean, with child actors. That's a thing. Especially with child actors who come from an acting family or to whom it comes. I mean, Jeff Bridges whole thing was like, this was like the family profession. And I lucked into it and I was easy around it. It. It worked and obviously does like, Last Picture show and stuff, but then. But then he was like, I. I want to do something else like this. Like, I feel weirdly worthless, I think, right?

[David Sims]

Because it's like, I. I think they feel like I'm playing pretend and people are, like, lauding me. And now I'm growing up, and that feels childish. If I was good at doing it when I was 10, how can it be serious?

[Ben Hosley]

I. I bet. I bet Joaquin Phoenix has a story like this, too. Like, I. I wouldn't be so. I mean, he's, you know, you also just. He's a guy much like Bale, who. The angst just.

[Griffin Newman]

Just exudes off very complicated relationship to the thing he's good at.

[David Sims]

And his methody shit is kind of similar, even though he's not good at articulating it in the same way as Bale. But it's just like. Right. And Bale also has, like, a weird sort of, like, family structure in childhood. Like, both of his parents were huge personalities without being actors in the film industry themselves. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I hope he's good this year in the Bride, which is his only upcoming project. But it does kind of feel like the kind of thing where he could just lay it on really, really thick and, you know, be fun, but, you know, maybe.

[David Sims]

You know what's an interesting thing that I think about a fair amount? I remember some interview with Kathleen Kennedy a couple years ago where they're probably talking about how Star wars was good and normal and no one was complaining about anything. And she brought up how much she loved Ford versus Ferrari. She obviously worked on this film, right. And said, like, that is the closest to the real Christian I have ever seen on screen. Or she was like, that Obviously he's doing things as an actor, but she was like, that is the closest to his personality. That is his most revealing performance.

[Griffin Newman]

He's really good in that movie.

[David Sims]

But that feeling of being so good at something and kind of fighting against.

[Ben Hosley]

It, that might be why. Because, you know, mangled, obviously. You know, when he gets the call to do the Indiana Jones movie, I asked him like, what do you. Why do you think they called you? He's like, I think it was because of Ford versus Ferrari.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Kennedy, like loves them.

[Griffin Newman]

So they shoot this film in China, as discussed. 21 day shoot in China, which was completely unheard of back then. And it was really complicated. The most complicated thing being they couldn't process film there. So they shot everything without access to dailies, which is insane to consider.

[David Sims]

And especially for Spielberg, I'm sure that like felt scary to lose that part of the process.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like, basically, like, they would have had to like ship the film off, get it processed in America, shipped back through customs, maybe get access you're getting daily.

[David Sims]

Later at great expense.

[Ben Hosley]

One thing, I remember hearing this years ago, and I don't even know how it would have worked, but I believe Sometime in the 80s, they sold Technicolor, sold all its labs to China. So maybe it was. I mean, this film isn't shot in Technicolor, so that wouldn't have been an issue.

[David Sims]

But was this when. When Ron Perlman bought Technicolor? Is he still on Technicolor?

[Ben Hosley]

I don't know. This was a long time ago.

[David Sims]

Billionaire Ron Perlman, owner of Revlon Yeah, but.

[Ben Hosley]

And there was speculation at the time of like the, the fifth generation filmmakers of why those films were so vivid color wise was because they had all these like Technicolor labs. I'm probably sort of misremembering history here.

[Griffin Newman]

But let's talk about the film. Empire of the Sun Set during World War II, during Japan's invasion of China.

[David Sims]

Jim Grant, slightly more thoughtfully than the way he depicts it in 1941, the.

[Ben Hosley]

Same day as Pearl Harbor, Invasion of Jiang.

[Griffin Newman]

It happened on January 7th, I believe.

[Ben Hosley]

It'S the same day as Pearl Harbor.

[Griffin Newman]

That's interesting. Yeah, certainly it was pretty much concurrent. Obviously Japan had been mucking around in China for decades and invades Manchuria in the early 30s and all that. But Jim Graham is the. He's a British boy, right? These are British expats living in the Shanghai International Settlement because Britain. But you know, basically during the Opium wars, and I am not an expert on all this stuff, was Just kind of like we just get to have stuff here now. And China was like, what? And they were like, this is ours right here and our boats go here and we're gonna build some schools and. And like, you know, like, that's just what Britain used to do. And post Pearl Harbor, Japan invades and they just don't get out in time.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, that's the sort of early part of the movie.

[David Sims]

But you're starting from the perspective of these kind of oblivious, out of touch colonizers in a country that is now being attacked, that they feel ownership of, but now the actual rightful sort of citizens are like, fudge. You most of all. You know, like. Yeah, it is a movie that starts with kind of like immediately dismantling these characters.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And I think there's that. The scene with the. Where they're at the dinner party where the guy is kind of basically saying, like, you know, you guys are just temporary here. Like, you don't. You don't seem to understand that about like the. You British, like. Right. I mean, that's. They think that they're. I mean, that the British Empire will last for another thousand years, I guess, is sort of the vibe, the innocuous vibe. Not innocuous is the word I'm looking for. Passive.

[Ben Hosley]

Oblivious.

[Griffin Newman]

Oblivious.

[David Sims]

But also like the Bale character's relationship to what from his perspective feels like his homeland because it's where he's being raised.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

He's never been to England.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but he's like perfect little English boy singing choral music and, you know.

[David Sims]

The version of China he lives in is like a weird bubble that is disconnected from the reality of China and like, from the get go. Even just that like, coral sequence, you're cutting back and forth between like, him fighting the resistance to like muck around. Right. His like, you know, schoolmaster or whatever, conducting the orchestra and telling him to focus up and then cutting to the reaction shots of like Chinese citizens in the pews who were like, what are we fucking doing here? What are we watching here? Why are we being forced to engage with this?

[Griffin Newman]

How much do you know about early 20th century Chinese history?

[Ben Hosley]

Weirdly, we studied early 20th. We studied Chinese history in middle school. Okay. I don't remember a lot of it, but rebellion, Boxer Rebellion, the, you know, Sun Yat Sen's revolution, Chiang Kai Shek, and then, you know, the Long March. I remember all this stuff, you know, I mean, I don't, you know, I haven't looked into it recently, but I remember I was especially during this Period. Because, I mean, we'd studied Chinese history by the time 87 rolls around, and I see this movie and Last Emperor. So when I watched Last Emperor, I knew exactly kind of the context in which it was taking place.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're watching it at a time when, like, Red China, you know, like, this sort of block is suddenly opening up a little bit to the Western world and, like, you know, whatever.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah, it's opening up. I mean, you know, I remember there was this. There was this kind of almost iconic time cover of Deng Xiaoping and, like, opening up China and, you know. So, yeah, I mean, I have. You know, I had some familiarity with the history at the time, but not as much familiarity with World War II history, interestingly enough. I mean. I mean, through osmosis, you learn about things from movies and stuff. And this is actually a thing I'm going through with my son now because, I mean, he's 15. He's a sophomore in high school, but there's so much just, like, basic American history and world history that. That they just. He hasn't been taught.

[David Sims]

I don't know what you're talking about. We are really good at teaching our own history in an honest and unvarnished way to our youngest and most.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, vulnerable. We're not even good at teaching the sanitized version of it.

[David Sims]

No, you're right.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. But, you know, like, because. Because, you know, now he watches some of these movies with me, and I'm like. Like, do you know what World War II was about? And he only has, like, a vague idea. But I'm. Then I'm like, well, did I. Had. I studied World War II at this point? I don't know that I had at this age, but I. But I'd seen Casablanca. I'd seen all these other, like. And obviously, the Hollywood version of history is like, this is a monstrosity. It's not a thing you should ever use to teach anybody. But through osmosis, you kind of get this idea of what happened, you know? Like, my son is fascinated by presidential history, and I'm trying to explain Watergate to him these days. And I'm like, my. My wife keeps saying, oh, you know, show him all the President's Men. I'm like, you don't understand. All the President's Men is made for an audience that already knows what happened.

[Griffin Newman]

President's Men ends with like. And then Watergate. Like, it doesn't. It's not about Watergate, like, unfolding in Congress.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, if you.

[Ben Hosley]

If you watch All The President's Men. And you don't know what happened at Watergate, you will be completely lost. This is why we were watching the Post, because, because I was like, all right, the Post is a movie that actually does kind of explain what it's about. You know, I mean, it doesn't explain Watergate, but. But it, you know, the, the political stakes are explained in a kind of clear manner so you can actually understand what's going on.

[David Sims]

I mean, I always.

[Griffin Newman]

Nixon. Down with Nixon or Dick.

[Ben Hosley]

I am going to show him Nixon. Actually, we're thinking maybe Dick might be the way to go for I want to show him Nixon too. But Nixon also like, presupposes a lot of knowledge on the audience's part.

[David Sims]

Dick is a good entry point and really accurate depiction of exactly how everything went down. I always gently mock my grandmother for this, but her favorite thing to say is, you know, war is really important, especially World War II. And no one ever talks about it. And I'm always like, what are you talking. It's the most talked about thing in global history. And yet it's not like I'm having this realization for the first time. Most of my genuine understanding of World War II comes from me cobbling together the prism of depictions and movies and then being like, like, what if this is fake and what if this is real and what's the real info? I need to like, tie together the accurate pieces.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, our whole culture exists in the shadow of World War II.

[David Sims]

Totally in this way.

[Griffin Newman]

That is like, very understandably. To be clear, it was a world war.

[Ben Hosley]

It was.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, it was crazy.

[Ben Hosley]

Massive, Massive event in human.

[David Sims]

It's not even that it's like abstracted in the media, but it's like it's stretched in so many weird ways. And you know, also one of the.

[Griffin Newman]

Things that like, I feel like very few Americans know about the Sino Japanese War. And like, you look at, like you just sort of like start delving into that and it's like, yeah, like 5 million debt, right? Like, and that's just like the Chinese theater, right? And it's like no one even thinks about China in World War II. They think about like D Day and like Pearl harbor and Hiroshima, Nagasaki or whatever, you know, like, they don't even think about like, yeah, there was a. This, this tiny thin island invaded, like the most giant country on earth like for 15 years anyway.

[David Sims]

Right? Which you, you know, you can make the argument of like, why is like the, the biggest Hollywood sort of attempt to tackle that as, as a piece of this, you know, historic period told through the prism of a young white British boy. But I also think that is the part of the movie that is Spielberg really trying to work through something which is this character coming to realize where he stands in relation to this thing. Which is especially interesting coming right after Color Purple where he through this whole thought process of like, am I the guy to tell this story? But that is him just trying to put himself in the headspace. He's of a person he can't really directly relate to an experience.

[Griffin Newman]

He's not really the guy to tell the Color Purple story. I would say he's more the guy to tell this story. But this is certainly a story where like the Japanese characters are entirely abstracted. Like, you're not. There's no characters there really, that the kitty makes friends with at the end A little bit.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Who's kind of a conglomeration of. Of various characters.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That Ballard encountered or Ballard's fictional alter ego encountered. And like you. Yeah, you. I mean, I do watch this knowing he's going to make Schindler's List, being like, it's interesting that he finally did kind of maybe have that moment of like, maybe I should make a movie that more personally relates to my history versus, like, I. Steven Spielberg will dramatize the invasion like the fall of Shanghai.

[David Sims]

He's using the history almost allegorically to his own inner sort of life in this film versus Schindler. And the reason why it is the one that finally connects with everyone of like, congratulations, you did it. You made a grown up movie. Is that he's like pulling from something that is like a cultural trauma that feels personal to him.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh yeah. And he has to go through the gauntlet of this movie to be able to make total think that's right.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But there's like, this movie's very good, in my opinion. Very, very good.

[David Sims]

There's stuff just in the first 20 minutes where you're just like, he is like really taking the scalpel to himself of like this kid in his backyard setting a toy plane on fire and like whirling around and smiling his like, smile when he sees the submarine out his window rising. Like, all of this is fun. Look. It's like the movies, you know, And.

[Ben Hosley]

I think a lot of critics at the time or a number of critics at the time like, misunderstood that.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Because they saw this stuff and they thought, oh, it's just Spielberg being Spielberg. I remember somebody saying something along the lines of, when will Steven Spielberg give up making movies about children? On bicycles. And I was like, did you. Did you. Did you happen to notice what he's riding the bike through?

[David Sims]

You know, totally. And it's like. It feels very, like, not cynical, but very, like. Yeah, self critical is the word I keep coming back to. You have that moment where he's standing in front of the giant Gone with the Wind poster. Right? And we talked about that when he was meeting with Alice Walker on Color Purple.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. He offhandedly told Alice Walker, well, Gone with the Wind is one of my favorite movies. And she, like, wrote in her diary later, like, note to self, talk to Steven Spielberg about that.

[Ben Hosley]

Horrible.

[David Sims]

And presumably had some long talk with him explaining why he couldn't make Color Purple in that image. And then just like on his following movie, he sets this scene where this little boy is being like, I need to stay in one place. My chauffeur is gonna come to pick me up in one day. And people are, like, yelling at him, trying to figure out, like, his actual value as, like, basically an object and a commodity. Yeah, yeah. There's just, like, shit like that. And even just like, him playing pretend in a, like, husk of a plane on the ground while wearing a Halloween costume or, you know, a costume, a party costume of a different cultural identity that he is taking on that is interrupted by actual troops coming up from behind the hill and acting like war for real. And the movie takes, like, 45 minutes to actually disabuse this kid of, like, no, you're living through something horrible. None of this is fun. You are no longer protected. All of your, like, creature comforts were an illusion. And it's a collapsing. He still is just like, well, I'm rich and I'm not American. I'm English, and these things mean something. And eventually, all of this will come back to me.

[Ben Hosley]

And it's interesting how at the camp, so many of the other characters are trying to do that as well. They're trying to sort of maintain appearances, maintain some sense of Malkovich's, you gotta.

[David Sims]

Watch after my stuff thing, right? That. That's the whole thing that, like, not to jump away, but bail. Going to his bedside to talk to him emotionally while he's recovered from his injury. And they have this wonderful scene after five minutes, he's like, wait, you said you were gonna watch my stuff. Malkovich's pile of junk is, like, symbolically all he still has, so.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Malkovich, who? I mean, we don't really know who Basie is except for, like, some expat who is already probably something of A hustler before the fall of Shanghai. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

He's a. He's a. Well, in the. In the novel, he's a plane steward.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[Ben Hosley]

I believe. I believe in the film they change it to a ship steward. It's offhanded mention, but it's funny because he seems like such a badass. I mean, you see, you know, he's basically the. The picture of that image on the COVID of that comic book that he has.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

With his hat and his sunglasses and stuff. And that moment when I'm getting ahead of ourselves, but that moment when Basie is beaten and his hat falls off and you see that he's totally bald, which is a moment of such vulnerability. You know, he doesn't seem like a stud in that moment.

[Griffin Newman]

That's why Malkovich is such good casting, because he is kind of unique. But he is also already. Right. This kind of odd, balding, like, sort of, you know. I mean, he could already play the vulture for Sam Raimi if he wanted.

[David Sims]

To, and he should have. No. And I feel like the Malkovich superpower is the creepy calm, right? Where you're just like, why is this guy so quiet and unrushed and patient? And that can be equally well applied to having him play a menacing character or an endearing character. But in either case, you're just like, his energy's a little odd in relation to everything else that's going on.

[Griffin Newman]

How many endearing characters has he played?

[David Sims]

Very few.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean. Of Mice and Men.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Sort of. Obviously sort of like a character tinged with, you know, some menace.

[David Sims]

I put his. A performance of his, I think is fairly underrated movie. I don't really like that. I know you've come around on. I think he's very good in Changeling. And that is a movie where it's surprising how much he is actually a figure of warmth in an otherwise hostile world.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I mean, his character in the Sheltering Sky, I've never seen that.

[Griffin Newman]

That is a movie where you see his floppy penis, Right?

[Ben Hosley]

You do see his floppy.

[Griffin Newman]

I remember that very clearly because I watched that movie on the BBC.

[David Sims]

You see his malcolk.

[Griffin Newman]

You sure do. Like, you know, as a young cinephile, being like, oh, well, this Bertolucci movie is being shown on the bb, and I just remember his floppy penis. Very, very.

[Ben Hosley]

A lot of floppy penises in. In Bertolucci movies. But. But, yeah, his character there is. I mean, tender isn't the word I would use, but. But, you know, you really feel for him. I do.

[David Sims]

When he's Playing villainous. The tenderness is the thing that makes it more interest.

[Ben Hosley]

That's the thing about it.

[David Sims]

It's the creepiness that makes him a little more interesting.

[Ben Hosley]

About in the Line of Fire is that you ultimately feel really bad for this guy.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, even though he's a total psycho.

[David Sims]

The hater Weekend Update impression where I feel like he describes it as like, I'm getting angry, I'm going to do a, a calm, bizarrely articulate list rant, you know, like that kind of the Malkovich explainer thing. But the build even of just like, you know, you're watching like this kid's normal disappear. Him in denial about it for a big chunk of the movie. Him trying to like ride his bike like everything's normal. Like the kid still thinks he's in a Spielberg movie. He's ignoring what's around him. Right then that Gone with the Wind scene where he's starting to like, be seen as like, you know, as loot as an asset is what scares him. Pantoliano pulls him out of that. Pantoliano is the first person the movie to be like, kid, shut the fuck up. You are annoying. Right. A thing that I think is really the value of Bale being such a good actor, even at this young an age, is that he can play someone who's annoying and oblivious and not actually be fully infuriating to the audience. And yet when Pantoliano says that, it's like so cathartic where you're like, yeah, this kid needs to calm down and get in touch with reality. And Pantoliano is like, Joey Pants is like, you know, this, like this force transitioning us to the next level, the movie. So then when he brings them to Malkovich and it's like, oh, this is the real guy. And Malkovich is so much more calm and confident than like Motormouth Pants, who has been the guy telling Bale, you need to fucking calm down. And he does such a great Spielberg kind of introduction of like, you know, we're sort of seeing Malkovich in the foreground as Joey Pants brings Bale up. And you're just kind of hearing Malkovich do other stuff. His like, body out of focus and then he turns around, but for a big chunk of it, his head is down. You mostly see the hat. You can't see his mouth. Like he builds up the reveal in a way that makes him feel so important, as you said, as almost this sort of like two fisted hero.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. And there's so much in Spielberg's early Films especially, you know, he's. He's kind of a horror director at heart too.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Ben Hosley]

In terms. I mean, his, his. You know, so much of his style is so well suited to horror, even though he doesn't do that much of it. But, But Malkovich, the way he reveals Malkovich is almost like a character out of a horror movie.

[David Sims]

No, you're right. It's the weird balance and skating at the Malkovich Persona where he. He int. Him both like he's Jaws and like, he's Indiana Jones, which similarly has the, like Spielberg taking five minutes to show you Indiana Jones in pieces before you really get the hero shot or three minutes, whatever.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, and you don't. And. And like you said, I mean, we don't really know what Basie's ultimate aim is. You know, even when he's beating him, it's kind of like, what's going on here.

[David Sims]

He's being brought to this guy. This guy is immediately sort of presented as like, here's your new surrogate father, or at least this is your new family structure. And from the perspective of this child, it's like, I don't know whether to, like, valorize or, like, villainize this guy, you know, I don't know whether I should be afraid or comforted.

[Griffin Newman]

Now he is probably just going to abandon him. He's wants to sell him, is probably going to abandon him, then realizes he has. He's from a stately home. He's like, great, let's go to the stately home. Turns out the stately home is occupied by Japanese troops. That's the crazy sequence of the truck where they all start kind of like bashing the truck. And Pantoliano is like. It doesn't have a reverse and they have to, like, go forward.

[David Sims]

And is this the slap in the face sequence or does that happen earlier?

[Ben Hosley]

Slap in the face.

[David Sims]

When he goes back to the home and the sort of home staff, he's like, bossing them around and. And the woman just walks up and slaps him in the face and basically just silently says, like, yeah, that's not the structure of society anymore.

[Ben Hosley]

She's carrying a trunk with somebody. They're. They're, like walking down the stairs and. And I don't remember what he says, but it is very much a kind of like. Like, what's going on here?

[David Sims]

You know, make me breakfast sort of vibe.

[Bill Gawain]

He was being such a brat to her.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Bill Gawain]

So I don't feel necessarily in that moment very much empathy.

[David Sims]

But I think this is all by design, like, this is a movie that is, like, dismantling this kid and attacking his, like, weird kind of blinded naivete.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's a kid. I mean, he doesn't know any better.

[David Sims]

I don't think it's villain.

[Griffin Newman]

How old is he supposed to be? Like 12, maybe 11.

[Ben Hosley]

I think he ages from like. Like 10 to 14.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

11 to 14.

[Bill Gawain]

Light a plane on fire and is laughing and she's chasing after him like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he's a little brat. Like, that's exactly what he is. He's a little brat.

[Ben Hosley]

I think that's also one of the reasons why this film didn't quite hit the way I think they wanted.

[Griffin Newman]

It's kind of not likable in the.

[Ben Hosley]

Way that, like, entirely likable. That's the thing. You're absolutely right. He's not. You know, Spielberg doesn't make him full on annoying, or Spielberg and Bale don't make him full on annoying. But the idea is that we are a little alienated from this character, even though we're kind of embodying parents are ripped from him.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's so traumatic. And you're like, who could, you know, not sympathize?

[David Sims]

But you don't put that scene in of the woman slapping him in the face unless that's the point of what you're going for. Right. Which is like, this kid coming back and being like, time to get back to normal. And then being like, this has all been like a up societal lie that we no longer need to go along with.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. The bubble is gone.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And. And when the character finally does become kind of relatable is when he's, like, hollowed out. It's when you do the time jump and you're like, this kid has just been beaten down. He's in pure survival mode.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but. Right, but first they go to the sort of, you know, it's not a camp, the processing kind of area and where they're all getting put on the truck. And it's just, I think, again, very elegantly told from his perspective of, like, he doesn't really know what the truck means. Right. Like, he doesn't know where it's going. He doesn't really know if it's good or bad. That's very scary to watch as a parent when you're watching this movie.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, he doesn't even know if Basie is good or bad. Like, should he stick with him? Like, should he not? Like, no one's giving him, like, any guidance.

[David Sims]

Obviously there's that part where they're in like I, I, whatever that shelter is. And Basie says, like, here, I got you a new pair of shoes.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the civilian assembly center. Yeah. Where, where, yeah, he stole them from a body. And he's like, I don't want those.

[David Sims]

He's seen it. Right. And, and everyone's just trying to say to him, like, this is the reality of the world we live in. You need shoes. They will likely come off a dead child's body.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, it's a woman's body.

[David Sims]

Oh, yes, sorry. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, very upsetting.

[David Sims]

But like that. And also the scene where he's trying to resuscitate the woman.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, yeah, I mean, there's a scene later where he's, I mean, that's echoed later in the scene where he's trying to resuscitate the, the Japanese and he's the pilot. Right. And that scene I've always loved because of the way Spielberg allows the light to sort of shine through. I mean, it's beautifully shot, but that's again, it's the kind of thing that in another Spielberg movie, this would have been ridiculous, but he would have succeeded in bringing them back. I mean, so many Spielberg movies turn on almost a reversal of history. Like Close Encounters, all those the, you know, dead. All the missing flyers come back totally, you know. Yes.

[David Sims]

I mean, Justin shouting at the end of War of the World's the thing I cite all the time. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reverse Holocaust on the Nazi. Right. Yeah. You know.

[David Sims]

Right. But it's first 30 minutes of this movie is like, here's a kid who like lives in a bubble and gets to like enact play scenarios, a safe version of war and like giggles his way, you know, all through it. And then there's like 30 minutes of him basically denying that his reality has changed. And then at the hour mark, you have the sort of Bael behind the barbed wire fence looking gaunt. Something has changed in this kid. There is a new normal. And even then it still is him trying to fight it. In these moments of I can bring someone back to life. I understand the stakes of the world I live in have changed and the movie keeps. And just the few Spielberg episodes that we have released at the time of this recording, a lot of the feedback has been like, it is fascinating to watch these early films, especially in a post fableman's world, and see how much really Spielberg is kind of about some amount of emasculation. Right. And this is happening to a boy. But I do think there is this chunk of the movie past the first hour, where he's like, I get it. I need to grow up. I need to become a man. And he is continuing to live in a delusion of him thinking that becoming a man and growing up means that he can sort of fix everything. And he is constantly kind of being reminded you're not the center of the story. You're not the most important person. You're not in that level of power.

[Ben Hosley]

But he tries. He tries to kind of. You know, he becomes kind of the conduit through which everybody starts to get their stuff. I mean, he almost runs the camp in a way, or at least imagines himself running the camp.

[David Sims]

And it's not a, like, he tries to make the best of it thing. It's a, okay, I get it. I have responsibilities now. I'm going to do it really well. And yet he's constantly told, like, you don't get how this works.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, and that's the other thing about Spielberg and something he's always been fascinated by is the idea of sort of trying to learn to live by the rules of a world you don't quite understand. And, I mean, we see that obviously, in a lot of the films. But, you know, know, later on during that period when he's making these kind of more socially important films like Amistad and Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln, you know, so many of those films turn on the idea of. I mean, Amistad and Lincoln obviously turn on the idea of, like, people as property. Right. And. And. And they all become about, like, sort of Schindler's does, too. Yeah. I mean, they all. They all become about sort of people as items on a ledger. Even Saving Private Ryan. The idea.

[Griffin Newman]

The whole point of Saving Private Ryan is like, this makes no sense, what we're doing objectively. This is a war where thousands of people dying. Why the. Would we commit any resources to this, like, lunatic? Like, oh, he has brothers who died. Who cares?

[David Sims]

But wouldn't it make a great narrative?

[Griffin Newman]

But also just, like, isn't that what being a human and, like, what the point of this war is, is to, like, have humanity?

[David Sims]

Like, also, War Horse is kind of this with a horse?

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yeah. I love War Horse. I struggle with War Horse, but I love.

[David Sims]

I'm. I'm kind of. I'm. I'm feeling attempt one portion of War.

[Griffin Newman]

Horse so unambiguously, which I think Hiddleston is just astonishing in the movie. And I think that whole. And I just, you know, that's his understanding of World War I. So, well, where it's all these guys are gonna, we're gonna rock this war. And then they charge into battle and are destroyed.

[David Sims]

Right. That I love is the Toby Kebbell horse. Like the two men in no man meeting in the middle to save the horse.

[Ben Hosley]

The whole movie is a process by.

[David Sims]

Which the one section I, by which.

[Ben Hosley]

Kind of the, the, you know, the, the old world. The old world understanding of war is replaced by the industrial, the industrial machinery of war. And it's just this, this process of just like more effective ways to destroy humans.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[Ben Hosley]

I, I.

[Griffin Newman]

My problem with Warhorse is mostly the beginning was like, is that horse for sale? And Peter Mellon being like.

[Ben Hosley]

And you just have to be like that. It has to, has to be like that so that the film can progress. And then the ending, you know, everybody was always. I remember there were some reviews at the time saying, oh, you know, it ends with like a, you know, John Ford sunset, you know, because it's like ending in red.

[David Sims]

And I absolutely said that on our episode.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, did you say that?

[David Sims]

But I'm not saying you're crediting me for that. I was one of the many people saying that.

[Ben Hosley]

But, but it's like. Well, I mean, a, A red John Ford sunset is a sign that something awful is about to happen.

[David Sims]

You're not wrong.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, it's very much. I mean, you see that sunset in the Searchers right before everyone's massacred. So the idea that the film ends on that, you know, it's not, it's not the Gone with the End. It's not the Gone with the Wind finale. It's the kind of. It's the what comes next finale, you know, But Warhorse.

[Griffin Newman]

Good, I guess. I don't know.

[Ben Hosley]

I should go back and listen to that episode.

[David Sims]

It's a lot of us talking about how everyone in the movie wants to the horse, that it feels like everyone relates to the horse in a very sexual way. Well, they're just in love with that goddamn horse. David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It's March.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh?

[David Sims]

March Madness.

[Griffin Newman]

True.

[David Sims]

But it's also time for spring cleaning.

[Griffin Newman]

You gotta spring clean.

[David Sims]

Weather improves your spring.

[Griffin Newman]

You declutter your home. And there's no other metaphorical cleaning you could do, is there?

[David Sims]

Well, you could clean your gut, your body. That's what you could do. And the pre slash probiotics and AG1 help to support digestion. This is obviously one of my favorite products.

[Griffin Newman]

You're a daily user, 90% AG1. At this point, I feel like your body is just a fine Green powder?

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's like GN5AD.

[Griffin Newman]

G95GN. Of course, being Griffin Newman. So what's AG1? It's a supplement. You take it every day? Griffin.

[David Sims]

I pour. I just pour it in water. That's why I just do.

[Griffin Newman]

I do one green powder right?

[David Sims]

In cold water and about 10 ounces and it goes down easy. People. People like to do it different ways. Some people mix it into smoothies, their recipes. There's a whole community online. What does it taste like? Oh, hold on.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, there's a door.

[Ben Hosley]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

We're doing the door.

[David Sims]

There's a door. What do you mean? Yes, there's a door in our office.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, who's at the door?

[David Sims]

You can't be surprised by the existence of the door.

[Griffin Newman]

Who's at the door?

[David Sims]

Let me check. Step, step, step. Creek.

[Griffin Newman]

What's up? You seem pretty hostile. Who are you?

[David Sims]

What's another word you'd use?

[Griffin Newman]

Grumpy?

[David Sims]

We're getting close.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

Do I seem happy?

[Griffin Newman]

Sad?

[David Sims]

Close?

[Griffin Newman]

Angry?

[Ben Hosley]

Close.

[David Sims]

Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's. Are you red?

[Ben Hosley]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

I'll give you a hint. What's that? If you haven't noticed already, I'm an anthropomorphized walking stomach.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

I'm upset.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh no.

[David Sims]

Kick dirt.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Are you like sort of like a Mr. Man, but like off brand. Brand.

[David Sims]

I feel like I'm unique and proprietary and it will hold up in court, but sure, if that gives you a handle.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know what's going on.

[David Sims]

I'm an upset stomach.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, you're an upset stomach. Well, it's nice to meet you. Upset.

[David Sims]

I wish someone could improve my mood if there was only a product that helped upset stomachs.

[Griffin Newman]

Ding dong.

[David Sims]

What's going on? Let me go to the door.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not participating.

[David Sims]

Okay, I'll walk quickly. Steps. Creek. Hi. Hello. Hi.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, what's up?

[David Sims]

Hi. Look me in the eyes. You can trust me. Okay?

[Griffin Newman]

Uh huh.

[David Sims]

You can trust me.

[Griffin Newman]

Tom Cruise.

[David Sims]

I'm kind of Tom Cruise coded, but I'm a gut.

[Griffin Newman]

You're what?

[David Sims]

I'm a gut.

[Griffin Newman]

You're a gut.

[David Sims]

I'm a gut.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

You gotta trust your gut.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure. That's true. They always say that.

[David Sims]

Right? So I. I feel like. Do you mind if I just silo over here with upset stomach? I know you were having a good conversation.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I'm just gonna like snack over here.

[David Sims]

Stomach. Trust me, you gotta use he one. I don't know, what could it do for me? David, you're back in this.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, what's up? Oh, okay. Yeah, you know, look, otherwise, unlike other supplements that come and go, AG1, it's a habit that actually sticks because you can feel the difference. Griff. I know it's helped you support your digestion, your energy levels humongously, Skin health.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Sometimes I walk in the office, you go, Griffs, looking good.

[Griffin Newman]

Good. Yeah, you are looking good.

[David Sims]

That's the only reason why I would say. Hold on one second.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[David Sims]

Let me just quickly look.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[David Sims]

It's butterflies.

[Griffin Newman]

Butterflies?

[David Sims]

Well, the butterflies that were previously in a stomach.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh.

[David Sims]

Anyway, go on.

[Griffin Newman]

When it comes to my health, I want something I can trust. That's why I choose AG1. With science backed ingredients and real benefits, I can feel AG1 makes it easier overall wellness every day. And that's why we've been partnered with AG1 for so long. And AG1 is offering new subscribers a $376 gift.

[Bill Gawain]

Huge.

[Griffin Newman]

When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2.

[David Sims]

I love that. I love them.

[Griffin Newman]

The pills, I guess so.

[David Sims]

The capsules, I'm telling you.

[Griffin Newman]

And five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com check and get this offer that's drink ag1.com check to start your new year on a healthier note.

[David Sims]

Okay, wait. Tummy has poured himself a glass. Hold on one second. Oh, wow. He's happy now. There was kind of a complete arc there.

[Ben Hosley]

As I was saying, this idea of, you know, kind of learning to navigate the rules of a world that, that seems fundamentally kind of unjust or out of whack. You know, you see that here. I mean, the, the idea of learning to sort of navigate the camp. Right. Even though he's not aware of it. Like I think we're aware of it as viewers, but as a character. I don't know that Jim is aware.

[Griffin Newman]

Of it, but the time jump is interesting in that we sort of jump ahead to the end of the war where he's, you know, suddenly this much more gaunt, you know, hollow kind of boy. But like, like he has now learned how to navigate the camp and he has this like, alliance with Dr. Rollins, the Nigel Havers character, who's like one of the most unambiguously good characters in the movie. And then he's an excellent performance. It excellent. I mean, he's such a. That guy just gives you Englishman, you know, so well.

[Ben Hosley]

And.

[Griffin Newman]

But then you've Also got like Ben Stiller with the crazy teeth and Joey Pan, you know, like, you know, all.

[David Sims]

Seeing it at the Metrograph. That was a true jump scare moment where the audience just was like, am I hallucinating here? This is one of this movie's greatest, like, lasting legacies, is that this, this is what inspires Tropic Thunder. Do you know this Ben, that Stiller, this is like one of his first things ever. And he spends his time on this set and he's like, it is ridiculous. The actors on set who are trying to be like, I need to like, get myself into the suffering of the character. I need to like, get in the boot camp, like post platoon, kind of like, I need to really go through the gauntlet. And being like, we're actors, we have trailers, there's craft services. You're never going to experience something as bad as being in proper war. And he holds on to that for 20 years to be like, I want to make a movie lampooning actors who are faking war and taking it seriously. And Tropic Thunder is directly from this.

[Bill Gawain]

I can see the inspiration for sure.

[Griffin Newman]

So it's just interesting that we don't. This is not a processy movie about, like, life, like building up these alliances or the sort of. The way the environment develops. The environment is fully developed by the time we jump forward.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm trying to remember of the war. So it's about to evolve.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm trying to remember if the book gets into. I mean, the book obviously gets into this stuff more. But yeah, I mean, the time jump is. Is fascinating also because, I mean, it's always so hard casting kids in roles like this. It's like he doesn't. I mean, he looks different really, but he doesn't really age. You know, like, he's the right age.

[Griffin Newman]

They figured it out. I think they sort of split the difference with whatever age he actually was and kind of it works.

[Ben Hosley]

So, I mean, so, so so much of. Of Jim's growth, he basically just has to convey through performance. Yeah. Which is.

[David Sims]

Which.

[Ben Hosley]

Which is really.

[David Sims]

They found the right kid. He was ready to handle it. I mean, here's. Here's my big post. Fableman's take on this movie. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

When he sees Nagas the atom bomb, that's like Seth Rogen cucking his mom.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. When he sees Seth Rogen holding hands with the atom bomb.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, go ahead. What's the take?

[David Sims]

You know, these sort of misread for many decades based on Spielberg's privacy over his family story. What was known publicly and what was held back until his parents passed away, you know, and he mended his relationships with them. Was the notion like, oh, all these movies are just like him shattered in the wake of a divorce, right? That it's just like his family unit was broken and he never got over it. What I think first the Spielberg HBO documentary and then Fableman's really clarified is like, no, the core trauma of Spielberg, Spielberg's childhood, which is not on the scale of, you know, being a child internment camp in World War II, but is the thing that emotionally rattled him, they never got over, is that he observes this thing right through filmmaking with his mother and his father's best friend, and in that is pulled into the world of adults that his mother basically acknowledges. You share this secret with me now.

[Griffin Newman]

And now you have to kind of be an adult.

[David Sims]

And now I'm like elevating you to basically being the third adult in this relationship, if not fourth adult in this relationship. And him having this disconnect from his siblings who are still sort of protected and being seen as children while he holds the information. And There is a 60s minute 60 Minutes interview I keep citing that I pulled up and doing this series around the time of the release of Hook. And I'm asking him, like, why are you so fixated on childhood fond memories? And he's like, I do not have a single happy memory of my childhood. And it's not like my childhood was sad once my parents split up. He was like, I felt sad and lonely and alienated my entire childhood. And then I was brought into the world of adults prematurely and was basically told, this is where you sit now, right? Which then accelerates Spielberg to this track of A, having this weird relationship with both the children and adults in his life, feeling neither fish nor foul, and B, accelerating for him. Like, I just have to focus on work. Work. I'm going to learn my craft. I'm going to be the youngest person to get a deal at Universal. I'm going to show up on the backlot when I'm 17, right? I'm going to like, will myself into being an adult faster. But then doing this thing that's high level pretend playing and like, you know, toys and like giving a sense of control over the world that is false, that is illusory, but that he is able to sort of maintain. And him just being stuck in this space where it's like he keeps returning to childhood stuff. Stuff not because he's fixated on it, but because it was kind of pulled for him before he ever really got to have any handle on it, that he is trying to recapture something that he never really had. And I think the more success he has, the more it's like Spielberg has an office full of arcade machines and he's buying the rights to Casper and the Flintstones is like A, maybe these like superficial pop culture things were the only things that gave him some moment of happiness. But B, he's trying to like, like mend the child who never really got mended because it was like, hey, too bad you're a grown up now. Which is in a much more extreme way what this character in this movie is going through and just keeps getting kind of knocked down over and over again every time he thinks. Much like in this post time jump, I got it. I figured out the camp I'm in charge of everything and he has save people.

[Griffin Newman]

I can't.

[David Sims]

I'm a grown up now.

[Griffin Newman]

Bring some morality.

[David Sims]

Fair enough. The world told me I need to be a grown up now. I'm a little grown up.

[Griffin Newman]

And when the, the plane flies in the Mustang, he still has the childlike excitement, you know, when it comes in.

[David Sims]

And as you're saying, like Spielberg doesn't get mended until he resolves stuff with his father in the like Hook Last Crusader, which then opens him up to be able to make Schindler a different level of adult movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Make Hook his best movie about father.

[David Sims]

Sure. But this is the movie where it feels like he's finally kind of identifying all of the issues, if that makes sense, in himself.

[Griffin Newman]

I think ET does have a lot of this too.

[David Sims]

I agree.

[Griffin Newman]

Which we have not for the listeners is sort of the biggest psychological piece of Spielberg's puzzle. But we have yet to discuss it because we've been holding off on that episode.

[David Sims]

I, I, I will, I will.

[Griffin Newman]

But you will have heard my roadmap to Spielberg's brain more than ET I.

[David Sims]

Think these are very paired films.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

I do think they're like him, sort of like at the front and end of the 80s taking two stabs at a similar thing. And I think what's happened in the years in between is his own understanding of his own psychology has transformed a little bit. ET Is to me the greater film. I think that is like his masterwork period. But, but there's something really interesting in this as like a sort of of dark twin to that.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure, that's interesting.

[Ben Hosley]

There's also this, you know, what happens with his parents. How fascinating is it that cinema is the crucible through which all of this Happens.

[Griffin Newman]

And also, he made the films. I was like, you crazy? This has been on your mind the whole time.

[David Sims]

He's like this anxious child who sees a movie that keeps him up at night, and the only way he can conquer that demon is to, like, replicate it and learn film craft. And then that becomes his undoing because he recognizes in footage the dissolution of his family.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's just like.

[Ben Hosley]

So the idea that within cinema there are dark corners that can destroy you.

[David Sims]

Correct.

[Ben Hosley]

And this is a thing that I think.

[David Sims]

And also powers that makes the bully even angrier.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. And this is, I think, a thing that animates his career. And also, for a long time, he's trying to avoid these dark corners. He can't avoid the dark corners. Yes. In fact, what's. What's beautiful? I mean, we were talking about how he. He's kind of a horror filmmaker at heart. Yeah. You know, sometimes you wonder, does he even realize that he's a horror filmmaker?

[David Sims]

And I've said this before, in multiple episodes. I think there is a part of him that is genuinely scared by how effective he is at manipulating people's emotions through this medium.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yeah.

[David Sims]

That he can actually make people feel anything he wants. And that he just kind of has that innately in him. And that the movies of his that are criticized are often criticized for doing that too much. And it's not something he's doing strategically. It is something he has to work to fight against.

[Ben Hosley]

And I think in some ways, it's why sometimes he, you know, he errs on the side of sentiment or, you know, syrupiness, because he is afraid of, you know, the dark potential of cinema. So he kind of almost overcorrects something.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Happens in Amistad.

[Griffin Newman]

It happens in Amistad. It happens in his endings. As much as sometimes I defend some of his later movies, you know, where people are like, why are there three endings to this movie? I do think that's sometimes him doing that, being like, did you get it? Did you? You got it, right? I'll see you later. One more scene so that you got it. I mean, especially Lincoln, a movie I adore and I think is perfect. The ending is stupid.

[David Sims]

I think that movie is great. I think the ending is exactly what prevents her from being perfect.

[Griffin Newman]

Watches when they're all like, there he goes, off to the play. We love you, Lincoln. He's like, bye, bye.

[David Sims]

And he loves the theater.

[Ben Hosley]

But by that point, I'm. I'm so invested in it.

[David Sims]

But it is kind of crazy that, like, up until a point, all of his movies, we've been realizing this and focusing just on the first half his career. All his movies up until a point are like, man, he gets out at just the right.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie is a perfect example.

[David Sims]

He has.

[Griffin Newman]

The receipt is so devastating, muted, I would say. Right. Like not really laying it on too thick. Him just real, you know, being reunited with his parents. And then it is truly like, yeah, goodbye. Like, hope you like the movie.

[David Sims]

And there's a restraint of him being like, I don't need the coda. The audience knows I'm giving them the pieces and they can work out what the takeaway is.

[Ben Hosley]

And arguably the climax of the film is, is the. The. That one Japanese soldier getting shot, you know, which is such a kind of. Of small, intimate and, you know, uncomfortable little scene, which is not kind of a big. I mean, it's a war movie. You expect there to be some kind of big, big final sequence.

[David Sims]

But the bombast is kind of often happening in the fringes in the background.

[Griffin Newman]

Nagasaki, you know, a thousand miles away being the most obvious example. That scene is crazy.

[Ben Hosley]

Like God taking a photograph. Which, you know, brings back to the dark power of cinema. Yes.

[David Sims]

I think this movie rules.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's really good.

[Ben Hosley]

I wonder what he thought of Oppenheimer, Spielberg. Yeah, that's a good question.

[Griffin Newman]

Has he. I feel. Has he talked much about, like. He doesn't really talk much about at all. Because the thing was interesting about him was that he laid it on so thick for Dune and like, did the DGA sort of talk back with Vilna being like, this is the best sci fi movie I've seen in years. Right. You know, where like. And Villeneuve is kind of like a cousin to Nolan in terms of like modern epic filmmakers or whatever. But. Yeah. Have I ever heard Spielberg talk about.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't. I mean, I feel like I don't hear Spielberg talk about new movies that much, but I'm sure during like awards.

[Griffin Newman]

I do feel like he tries to not put his foot on the gas too much in terms of like, he knows, you know, whatever.

[David Sims]

I'll say I googled and the first result I got, and I think this was from the Nolan Villeneuve.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Where Nolan says he sent.

[David Sims]

You know, when I first got the 70 millimeter print, I showed it to Steven Spielberg of Oppenheimer. He was the first person he showed. He called me about something else. I just got the print as well, and I hadn't shown to anyone one. I mean, the studio had seen it, but we screen it for him on his own. I sat behind and watched him watch the film. Was extraordinary experience.

[Griffin Newman]

It says he said some kind thing.

[David Sims]

The other part of it obviously also.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that B plus. I'll see you later. Chris.

[David Sims]

That. That Interstellar was developed by Spielberg.

[Ben Hosley]

That's right.

[David Sims]

By Jonathan Nolan. And then he. Spielberg remains a producer but I think mostly just because of his history title.

[Griffin Newman]

And I don't think that initial note Jonathan Nolan script for Interstellar is interesting but is more Spielberg very.

[David Sims]

It's him trying to write a Spielberg.

[Ben Hosley]

And. And the. The beauty of Interstellar is that those Spielbergian elements are that it's got the.

[David Sims]

AI thing that it's got. Yep, yep.

[Griffin Newman]

That's why it's Nolan's.

[David Sims]

But it is interesting because you're right, they do overlap and yet it doesn't feel like it is communicated loudly. And you sort of imagine that Spielberg. It feels like Spielberg should be publicly saying he is obviously my heir apparent. We are doing events together.

[Griffin Newman]

Very different.

[Ben Hosley]

They are in some ways and like very different senses.

[Griffin Newman]

I do feel like Spielberg, Scorsese, a lot of these kind of like benevolent old timers who make great movies still should just once a year go on. Whatever Charlie Rose is now. Not Charlie Rose, but whatever that is now. Mark Marin. I don't care and be like here are my. Like here are like the eight movies this year I really loved. I guess Tarantino could do it too.

[David Sims]

When I was. When I was on the set of the pied alternative it or vinyl. The worst thing that Martin Scorsese's ever directed. Possibly true by default.

[Griffin Newman]

I. There's an argument for like Shine A Light.

[David Sims]

I've never seen Shine a Light. I'll say maybe worse scripted thing.

[Ben Hosley]

Has the. Has the tide turned on Shine A Light? I did not like that movie at all.

[Griffin Newman]

I just think of Shine a Light as him in a little bit of his. I'm kind of like, Marty, there's nothing here. Yeah, like I. I like the Rolling Stones just as much as anyone. But like the you know, Rolling Stones in their late 60s. There's nothing here.

[David Sims]

I think Doc is a different category anyway. Anytime he would be around set, like sort of just like hanging out and he felt he would talk about and approachable. He would. And I would turn to my. My friend Ephraim Sykes who was also on the show and go like I just want to ask him if he's seen like X, Y and Z. I want to ask him what his top three movies of this year are. I want to ask if he likes Edge of Tomorrow. Like what is he like in touch. What is he watching on tv Scene.

[Ben Hosley]

Den of Thieves too.

[David Sims]

All of it. I was just like, I want to know his opinion on every everything and what he is engaging with and what he isn't. I agree with you that like the 10 movie brats who are still alive and are ostensibly now in old master positions.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Should be just because they should be doing a Soderbergh list every year.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, like Spielberg sees everything. Of course. Some. These A lot of things.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. As he probably doesn't Coppola.

[Ben Hosley]

Coppola shares a lot of stuff on his Instagram. Like films that he's seen and like, yes. You know, it's actually very adorable.

[Griffin Newman]

But all of these Instagram is generally sort of adorable old man.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, I sincerely doubt it's actually him.

[David Sims]

But I want a podcast that's like the five of them. Once a week, Paul Schrader goes to.

[Griffin Newman]

See every single goddamn movie.

[David Sims]

Says normal things.

[Ben Hosley]

Paul Schrader yelled at me for making him go see All We Imagine is Light. He didn't yell at me. He didn't yell.

[Griffin Newman]

He did not.

[Ben Hosley]

Like he emailed me. He's like, why did you make me go see that?

[David Sims]

But the email wasn't all caps.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Why didn't he like. Oh, he imagined his life.

[David Sims]

He didn't like.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, you know, feels like different type of film for him, I guess. You know, you know, it's got a.

[Griffin Newman]

Little bit of whatever. What does he love this year old Polly Poly S. He's.

[Ben Hosley]

He's posted about something. Oh, he, he really liked Conclave. I believe he liked Anora. But he had that. He had that sort of gripe with Anora that she, that she, that she negotiates for so little.

[David Sims]

He loved Twisters. That was.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh yeah. He went to see it in 4Dx. Right.

[David Sims]

Is that next.

[Griffin Newman]

That might kill him. We don't need him in 48.

[Ben Hosley]

No, he actually went to see it in 48. Really? Yes, he posted about it on Facebook.

[David Sims]

My God, he posts so much on Facebook. Palia De he hated. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

He didn't even sit all the way through it. Right?

[David Sims]

That's right. He walked out of it. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Salute Empire the Sun. Are there any other sequences we want to talk about in Empire of the Sun, Please, before we start wrapping up?

[Ben Hosley]

Miranda Richardson.

[David Sims]

Very, very good.

[Griffin Newman]

Good.

[Ben Hosley]

Wonderful actor.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Interesting.

[Ben Hosley]

Interesting career.

[Griffin Newman]

I was about to say this is kind of right when she's beginning to emerge. Right. And I feel like in the early 90s, crying game damage is when she's kind of like, has the most juices. Like a big prestige actress.

[Ben Hosley]

Did she win best actress at can for Dance with a Stranger? Did I imagine this?

[Griffin Newman]

You did imagine that. That's her first big movie, the Mike Noll movie.

[Ben Hosley]

Did she?

[David Sims]

She, she.

[Griffin Newman]

Mike Newell won the award of the youth at the Cannes Film Festival. She won best actress at the Evening Standard Awards.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

No offense to them.

[David Sims]

Awarded the youth. That's like Ken's Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. It's a big French blimp.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Did Jaco Dard gets slimed. He's actually the mc.

[David Sims]

He has to do interview with Stick Stickley.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like coming up, like, Crying Game is her big sort of breakout and she wins some critic awards. And then like damage in Tom and Viv are when she's getting Oscar noms. And then she's kind of the reading Oscar noms. Three Support two. Just the two Crying Game and didn't get Crying Game.

[Ben Hosley]

It is fascinating that she is the poster for the Crying Image. I know, but of all the characters in that movie, that she is the one on poster.

[Griffin Newman]

Crying Game is the movie that I think so many people who've only seen the poster turn it on and they're like, Forest Whitaker is like the lead of this. No one told me Forest Whitaker was in this movie. He's doing an Irish act.

[David Sims]

That's a movie where, like, the cultural reputation, the meaning of it has morphed into something very different than what it actually is to watch it. Oh, yeah, I don't remember one of the. You know, every two year New York different theater does a semi complete Robert Altman retrospective. And every time those happen, I try to go see some of my. My blind spots. But one of them may be at MoMA, like 10 years ago or mommy or somewhere. I. I went to see Atlantic City, which I'd never seen before, and there was one of those, like.

[Griffin Newman]

You mean Kansas.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry, Kansas City.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, yes, yes. Very different.

[David Sims]

And a very different movie. I apologize.

[Griffin Newman]

And a film that's much harder to like, watch.

[David Sims]

Correct now, finally. Yeah. But at the time didn't. And it was one of those great, like, rep screening things where like a new audience of strangers all has the same response to a movie in the moment and is kind of buzzing from it, where I forget who I saw it with. But I was just like, like, holy. The Miranda Richardson performance in this. How did she not win everything? And then I heard like 10 other groups of people all saying that, like, just kind of blown away. And you realize even though that Movie sort of had, like, more of a push for Jennifer, Jason Lee and for Belafonte, particularly in terms of awards.

[Ben Hosley]

It's also. Was not a successful.

[David Sims]

No, was disliked that. The movie's pretty excellent, in my opinion, but also, like, that's the moment when she's kind of cresting in the 90s and she's almost getting taken for granted. And then she's become such a weird kind of diffuse figure since then, where she never has totally disappeared.

[Griffin Newman]

No, she's a very, very good working actor.

[David Sims]

She'll pop up and you'll be like, oh, right. Miranda Richardson's incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

She's amazing. In the Lost Prince, which I think is one of triumphs of British television. The Steven Poliakoff miniseries, The Lost Prince. Has anyone seen it?

[Ben Hosley]

I have not seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

Highly recommend. Have you ever seen any Steven Poliakoff? He is a guy who does not have a reputation in America at all and is.

[Ben Hosley]

I know the name. What are the.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he hasn't done a lot of movies. The movies he made were Hidden City and Close My Eyes in the early 90s and stuff like that.

[Ben Hosley]

He's a big British.

[Griffin Newman]

With Claibone. Young Claibone, but a big British TV director. And his best things are Shooting the past. Perfect Strangers, which I think had a different title here because of the sitcom. It was called Almost Strangers Here. And the Lost Prince, which is this sort of triptych about memory and stuff. And I highly recommend all of them to anyone, but they're hard to find, I think. But the Lost Prince is the easiest to find because it, like, won an Emmy and is about the. The youngest son of King George V who had epilepsy and was hidden away from the public and died very young.

[Ben Hosley]

I think I heard about this.

[Griffin Newman]

And she plays Queen Mary. She plays his mother. And she's astonishing in it. It's so good.

[Ben Hosley]

She's such a good actor and. And this is a movie where you see what she can do. Because she doesn't have a lot of screen time.

[Griffin Newman]

No, she doesn't. And you barely understand sort of like, who she is, is. And she's so. The camera loves her. Like, like, like she's so beguiling and.

[Ben Hosley]

Sort of mysterious and she has, like, translucent skin.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, it's such a. You know, she's a very. Yeah. And there's something very otherworldly about her whole presence in the film. So much so that when she dies.

[Griffin Newman]

In the movie, it's, it's, it's.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes, in the movie, when she dies, it really does feel like. Like, like suddenly she becomes real in that moment, you know, like.

[Griffin Newman]

Like she's like as a corpse. More earthly.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. It's weird.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And I don't know if there are any other. I mean, Leslie Phillips as Maxton. Like he's, you know, he's. He's a British legend. He's very good. He's like a big carry on guy.

[David Sims]

Obviously Miranda Richardson's best performance is Mrs. Tweety and Chicken Run. I just think that needs to be stated. In Chicken Run Run, she's the villain. Ms. Tweety.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Still haven't seen. Should show to my daughter. Oh, she got and she got. She liked the Wallace and Grommets.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah. You know what movie sucks? Chicken Run 2 Dawn of the Nugget.

[Griffin Newman]

But how do you feel about the. Well, the new Wallace, which I haven't seen.

[David Sims]

Liked it.

[Griffin Newman]

What's it called again?

[David Sims]

It is called.

[Griffin Newman]

It's got the chicken Guy.

[David Sims]

Murder Most Foul.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, there you go.

[David Sims]

I will say basically all the feathers McGraw stuff is great.

[Griffin Newman]

That character just.

[David Sims]

He pops.

[Griffin Newman]

Undeniable.

[David Sims]

He pops and it's just you get the juice from like he hasn't been on screen in 25, 30 years.

[Griffin Newman]

Penguin ass.

[David Sims]

He's great. He gives, let me say this, he gives an incredible performance.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what's so funny? In the wrong trousers, when he. Whenever he has a gun, it's just this little penguin suddenly produces like a sort of human sized ripple.

[David Sims]

Basically funny anytime he interacts with any object. And Murder Most Foul knows that. And it gets a lot of mileage out of that. Boy, oh boy, it is incredible for how much people talk about like, like, oh, it's amazing that Aardman gets such a great performance at a Gromit. He doesn't even have a mouth. It's just his brow and then feathers. McGraw doesn't even have a brow. He's got a beak that doesn't open.

[Griffin Newman]

And two BDIs and a little round head.

[David Sims]

Yes. And it's truly just tilting the head that gives him characterization. I think that film is in a weird space between feature and short.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. It's like 60 minutes long or whatever.

[David Sims]

Right. It's a little padded for short without having enough space to make like a denser narrative as a feature. It's also like the first post, what's his name? Peter Solace.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, right. It's. He's dead. Right. The voice of Wallace.

[David Sims]

So it's Ben Whitehead did it, who did a very good job.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. But it's.

[David Sims]

And Nick park directed it, but he co directed it and he didn't write it. And there's a little bit of a feeling of like legacyquel from other people. Have you seen the new Wallace and Gromit?

[Ben Hosley]

I have not. I've heard it's fantastic.

[Griffin Newman]

Allison loved it.

[David Sims]

I think it is solid. I. I will say without like preloading a thing. My complaint about it is I think they fail to. And they. You can tell they realize this at the end because they try to retrofit one. They fail to make the. The plot the sort of like Indiana Jones asked McGuffin of what they're up against. Directly relate to Wallace and Gromit's relationship.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Which is usually which watching it.

[David Sims]

That is the crux is the parallel of like. Like the device that goes wrong. But really it reveals something about how these two relate to each other and Wallace's sort of ignorance about what Gromit means to him and needing to learn that. They like kind of tack it on at the end and you're like, it sort of hasn't been that up until this point. I still think it is better than most things.

[Ben Hosley]

I really want to see it. My son is at that age when he watches most movies with me.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But also he's like know a busy young man going to school with homework and stuff like that. So it's. There's so many films where I'm like, oh, I need to watch this for movies. I should. I should wait until he can watch it with me. And you know, so it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

So you're waiting to watch that one with him.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it's like there's a lot of movies where I'm like, oh God, I should probably watch this for work.

[David Sims]

But yeah, it is much better than D. Dawn of the Nugget, which I think is basically Water Wall.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, the chicken runs. Yeah, it sucks for losers because Gibson's not in it. So you think, you know.

[David Sims]

And here's the problem. They. They bumped him because of Woke and they replaced him with some clean cut uncontroversial figure. Let me check my notes here. Zachary Levi. That's the funniest part is that they were like, okay, who's the Gibson?

[Griffin Newman]

Empire of the sun was given a Plum Christmas release award. Z sort of. Released December 11, 1987 and made only $22 million. It is the lowest grossing Spielberg film at that point except for Sugarland Express. And I think Spielberg was a little. Did not think it was going to be like Blockbuster, but was a little taken aback by how sort of tepid. Their general reaction was, saris loved it. Hoberman thought it sucked.

[Ben Hosley]

Oberman, not the biggest Spielberg fan.

[Griffin Newman]

No. And Hoberman called it the Sorrow and the Pity. Remade is Oliver, which is. Is pretty funny.

[David Sims]

Ebert really struggled with it, talked about that he thinks like, the first 30, 40 minutes to hour is really strong. And he's like. And then it becomes like this kid playing games in the middle of a war with John Malkovich. I don't understand what he's getting at, which I feel like is the way a lot of people talked about this, that it's like, oh, he can't get over the childlike wonder thing.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Kale gave it the review. I feel like she gave a lot of his movies at this point where she's like, it's majestically made. I don't really know what it's about or if there's anything going on here.

[Ben Hosley]

This was the standard lineup on Spielberg from a lot of kind of the high end critics at the time.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, Spielberg, you know, says fuck you to the critics, you know, in this way of like, basically like, stop trying to tell me what kind of movie I should make. Which I think is what the critics were often do. Like, they would often be kind of like, stop trying to win an Oscar. Stop trying to make a serious movie. Go make the movies you're good at. You know, but then you would make those and they'd be like, aha, this kitty. Like.

[Ben Hosley]

It'S how we do, David.

[Griffin Newman]

It is how we do. But especially how they did, God bless them, the, the critical community of the 80s or whatever. But they were snarky. Snarky folks.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, as critic circle chair, I went on a deep dive because it used to be like, you know, we didn't tweet out our winners, right? The chair would just call like the New York Times or whoever and be like, all right, here's who won. And especially if the chair was someone like Pauline Kale or Rex Reed, they would also sprinkle in a little bit of spice in terms of, like, we got in a big fight about this, like, you know, and, and there's just a contentiousness to those days that there is not in our room when we vote.

[Ben Hosley]

And I think, I think it was a smaller group.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, a much smaller group. And they're meeting at the Algonquin and they're getting drunk, right?

[Ben Hosley]

And I'm not even thinking of specifically of the New York film crazy, but like the, the critical community is a smaller group. These, like newspaper critics and it's factionalized.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. I mean, we talk about the politics, stuff like that. People always talk about, like Paul and Kale would be like, all right, this is the movie we're getting behind. And, you know, I mean, it was. Wasn't sinister in that way. It was like, you know, it was clicky. It was clicky.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And. And we still do it, but less. Less in a kind of overt clicky way. It's just there are sensibilities that, that sort of gravitate towards each other and. Yeah, I remember from the days of like Cinemasters and stuff like that, there'd be certain films that like, obviously all these people are gonna hate this. You know, like everybody, everybody hates Lost in Translation. And it was like, like, you know, you, you step out into the real world where people actually seem to really like a movie like Lost in Translation. But like my little pointy head friends were like, nope, you know, and that, that happened with Spielberg a lot.

[David Sims]

Let's also call out with Spielberg. There is this thing, and I think there are versions of this that still happen today. I think Nolan is sort of a version of this where it's like, hey, you know what? For better or worse, the kind of health of American films and the studio, like film as a commercial industry kind of rests on your whims, right? And there is this sense of like, you have a responsibility which then turns into people saying you should be doing this instead of that. Why can't you evolve into this? The sort of like push and pull of like, there's a health of this as a business that you're responsible for. But also, if you have everyone's ears and eyes, shouldn't you be using that to try to elevate understanding and the art form and whatever? And it's impossible to please everyone in those positions. I also think, you know, like, when we come back and do new release Spielberg movies, which we've done over the last seven years, he and Shyamalan are the two people who have made the most films since we've covered them out, right? And very often people think that we're insane for liking Shyamalan movies more than most people do. And a lot of the Spielberg new releases we've covered, I have come off as like tepid to mixed on, right. And. And people will go like, why is he willing to forgive all of Shyamalan's like, clear weaknesses? And yet he's more critical on Spielberg. And I do think it is me falling into the same thing, which is like, like basically Outside of Ready Player One, which I also rewatch, I like all of his modern movies, but I'm like, rating them against the Steven Spielberg canon. And every time I sit down to see a new Steven Spielberg, I'm like, is this going to be the best movie ever made? It is hard not to go in Preloaded with some version of that. And in this era, it's the most extreme version of that, because I think it is this bifurcation between like. Like half the time he makes the most culturally impactful blockbusters, and then sometimes he wastes his energy trying to impress us that he is a grown up so he can win a Oscar. And I think people were really, really cynical about that. As much as they were also criticizing for him for, like, infantilizing culture. They were even more critical when he tried to, like, wear a suit and play grown up. It's. It's a weird thing.

[Ben Hosley]

Which is also why Catch Me if youf can is one of his greatest movies.

[David Sims]

Totally.

[Ben Hosley]

Because I agree that more than Fabelman's to me is like the autobiography, right?

[David Sims]

But it's like it. Schindler finally shakes that off of him where people are like, you can do whatever you want, and we will judge it on its own merits. Maybe we hold you to a high standard, but whatever you've proven yourself, you're in the room, you're settled.

[Griffin Newman]

I really, It's Schindler, but I really think it's Saving Private Ryan. Because after, obviously, Schindler wins him the Oscar and wins him so much respect. But then he makes Amistad and Lost World, which everyone is kind of like, eh. And then he makes Saving Private Ride and everyone is like, you are now the poet laureate of Boomers. Like, that's it. You did it.

[David Sims]

I think there's the other part of it which is like, Schindler is.

[Griffin Newman]

And I love Saving Private Ryan, to be clear.

[David Sims]

Yes, Saving Private Ryan is, in my opinion, the single biggest shift in his signature style up until that point. Which then goes like, oh, he can now change languages. Which then you get like, Minority Report in Munich and all these films that are very different than the usual Spielberg thing. That's like, to our earlier point of giving someone a second Oscar, it's like Schindler's like, this is the best you've ever made a grown up movie. And then Saving Private Ryan is. We didn't know you could do that. And once he's proven he could do that, people are like, you can do anything.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. Saving Private Ryan, to me is my response to Saving Private Ryan is actually not dissimilar to some people's response to Empire of the sun where I'm like, you know, first 30, 40 minutes, obviously, you know, incredible. And then the rest is kind of like I, I, I, I like it. I don't, I don't dislike it. That's another movie we're gonna rewatch with, with my son. So he knows what the hell D Day was.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, there's no better movie to. Why hate to sound like my. The weirdest thing especially is like I was shown Schindler's List, Amistad and saving for Orion in high school. All of those movies are inappropriate to be shown in a high school. Like you know, on sort of like paper thing. Right. But like. Yeah, like, like the rock. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And they're incredible communications of. Right.

[Bill Gawain]

So speaking of World War II history, I have a little thing to share here.

[David Sims]

I have no idea where this is going.

[Bill Gawain]

So my grandfather is a veteran of World War II.

[Griffin Newman]

Is he still alive? No, no, he's passed.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[Bill Gawain]

He was a Marine.

[Griffin Newman]

My grandpa was in the Air Force.

[Bill Gawain]

He thankfully was really good at typing and so he was assigned to some someone in leadership and never really ended up having to.

[Griffin Newman]

He was like way, way back. Right? Sure.

[Bill Gawain]

I think he spent most of his time. He always talked about just being like stationed at a large basin. Samoa.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Yeah.

[Bill Gawain]

Just like acting as a secretary. I don't remember their rank, but with some someone in leadership.

[David Sims]

My grandfather booked talent for USO shows. Which I've said before sounds like a bit Griffin Newman. He could not have been more dissimilar for me in personality. And yet when I say that people just picture me with a helmet. My, my being like, let's get some stand ups.

[Griffin Newman]

My maternal grandpa was in the Air Force. He was in France, but I think he was not. He was not like on whatever the front line either. He did a lot of like. But he was in France. I mean, I don't know. But anyway, carry on.

[Bill Gawain]

And so my dad, when he was cleaning out the house, which is a family house. And so a lot of times he'll discover stuff that my grandparents left at.

[David Sims]

This house has been in your family for like 100 years, correct?

[Ben Hosley]

Close to it.

[Bill Gawain]

It was a cabin that was built in 1880 and has been in my.

[David Sims]

Family since way more than 100 years.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Wow.

[Bill Gawain]

Pretty crazy. He discovered this Japanese flag which was. I'm gonna totally not be able to pronounce the name of this properly. Yosigaki Hinomaru. But when Japanese Soldiers were drafted into service. Their family and friends would sign this.

[Griffin Newman]

A good luck flag.

[Bill Gawain]

This flag?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. It would look like this, right?

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right.

[Bill Gawain]

So my dad discovered a flag and we don't think it's from my grandpa, we think it's from a relative. But we, we found this really cool nonprofit called Oban Society who is set up where they, they reconnect the flags with the family members. And we sent the flag in to.

[Griffin Newman]

Japan like, like find the person this belonged to.

[Bill Gawain]

So we just sent it in the mail and got confirmation truly like a few days ago.

[Griffin Newman]

That is fascinating. So it's essentially they, they found this, this, whoever was found this flag and took it home. Being like, this is crazy. Right?

[Bill Gawain]

And it's like, you know, in America the flags were popular as badges of victory. Like get often given to mothers, sisters and or town mayors. I just found that weird. Give that to your mayor.

[Griffin Newman]

Mayor's like another flag.

[Ben Hosley]

What the hell? I mean the person had belonged to probably die almost in the war likely.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

So this would go back. I mean but that's, that's fascinating.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's fascinating that that exists. That's that there's like a service that finds, you know, reconnects these artifacts. It's awesome.

[Bill Gawain]

I think it's great.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait. Interesting. My dad, my grandpa, I have a giant bag of his from the war. But it's all like weird money and like the weird stuff that was given to servicemen of like here's how to like behave in Britain or in France of like, you know, the cultures might seem strange to you. Like you know, do you, you know, UGI from New York City or whatever.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is fascinating.

[David Sims]

That is fascinating.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. My dad's dad was too. He's like one of those in the middle guys. Like he was, oh, too young for one service age in between the two world wars. And my dad was born in 1941. His first memories of course were being bombed. As he would tell me as a child.

[Bill Gawain]

That stuck with him.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, honestly, his first memories were like his sister taking him into the shelter. Like wild. Like.

[Ben Hosley]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, 100. And then his real memories are like post war Britain of like rationing and like all that. You know, we all grew up with these stories being told to us. And Bilga is right that like the next generation right there. Like, yes, this story is told to me by Steven Spielberg.

[David Sims]

Right. They're a little disconnected, connected.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It's harder to be like now I feel like I'll tell my daughter like oh yeah. Did you know your Great grandpa, like, was in France for. And she'll. It'll just sound like science fiction. Right? Like, it's sort of. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Sounds like you're begging for another world war almost, David. Like you're just.

[Griffin Newman]

Take it easy.

[Bill Gawain]

And we should just mention we're watching this movie. We're seeing these. This internment camp.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Bill Gawain]

Just a reminder, America did that to Japanese citizen.

[Griffin Newman]

Japanese American citizen. Yes.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Bill Gawain]

Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

But Japan did not cover itself in glory in World War II, sir.

[David Sims]

No, it's just a. A whole mess of a situation. World War II, a real.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, one of my favorite pieces of literature, very cornally, is Haruki Murakami's the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I don't know if anyone's ever read it. Have you ever read it?

[Ben Hosley]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is a book about Japan's ignorance. It's not a book. I mean, mostly it's a book about a weird, horny guy who doesn't know what's going on, which is what all his books are. Who, like, listens to jazz and is like, I can't find my cat. But it's really a book about Japan's ignorance of it, the atrocities it carried out in China, which, like, as you read the book, you realize, like, this is a book written in the 90s. And he's like, basically he's trying to be like, we still don't talk about this and, like, it's such a trauma that, like, it's buried in our collective unconsciousness. And it's fascinating to see, you know, that. But that. That's how I learned about that, from a goddamn, like, fiction book.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, remember Come See the Paradise, the Alan Parker movie about the Japanese internment camps. I mean, that was, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

What's that? That's Dennis Quaid, right?

[Ben Hosley]

Dennis Quaid, Yeah. That's another movie with one noted Hollywood liberal, Dennis Quaid.

[David Sims]

One of the most used scores in other trailers.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, really?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, the Randy Edelman score. But, like, that's a. That's a movie that came out in America. In America was like, we don't want to think about, like, Japanese internment. Like, we don't want to think about it. Like, sorry, we're not showing up for that. That.

[Ben Hosley]

But very much a kind of, you know, mainstream American studio release. Like, you know, you're going to learn about history from this, right? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A homework movie. I mean, that's, you know, that's my joke about that. That movie that Ray finds is Odysseus or whatever. What's it called? The Return.

[Ben Hosley]

The Return.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie was created by the British government as homework.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but I, I kind of really want to see.

[Griffin Newman]

I reviewed it. It just feels like a movie where the British government was like, we decree that a new homework work movie be made this year.

[David Sims]

Okay, but here's the counterpoint. The cell on that movie is also. What if Ray finds was ripped?

[Ben Hosley]

He's ripped. He is ripped. What if he was ripped and he had nothing to lose and traumatized?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but.

[Ben Hosley]

But it was funny though when Nolan announced that he was doing the Odyssey and people are like, what the hell is the Odyssey? And it's like, what a dishonest movie that is like, literally in who cares?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Empire, the sun got many technical six Oscar nominations, but none above the line, as they say. The nominees for best picture that year are the Last Emperor, Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, which is the big box office movie, obviously Moonstruck, which rules and Hope and Glory in what one might imagine is the empire of the Sunslot.

[David Sims]

I gotta say, that's a. A nicely rounded five. I'm not saying very solid, but like, that's.

[Ben Hosley]

There's a good balance of the year for movies. Full Metal Jacket also comes out that year. Another movie that kind of is un. You know, underperforms in a way I.

[Griffin Newman]

Would say people are too hyped for. And people are kind of like underwhelmed by at the time. That's a movie year that in my opinion is transformatively good because all those movies are good. But it's also the year of Raising Arizona. So it's like the Cohen's exploding. It's the year of a little movie about a little metal guy with a heart of gold. RoboCop.

[David Sims]

I mean, the, the great American film by a Dutchman.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also the year of like Evil Dead 2, like, and you know, like, so it's like a lot of these, like, young, you know, hungry future kind of like, you know, whatever Poet laureates of American cinema, like emerging and that also, that's.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, no. So I was gonna say, I mean, I've, I've. I have told this story many times. It's entirely possible I've told it here on this podcast too. But Raising Arizona is my gateway into like Heavy Duty Cinephilia. Because I had gotten into the habit of just like going to the movies after school and Raising Arizona. I went to see Raising Arizona in the theater. I come home and obviously it's Raising Arizona. I mean, what 14 year old doesn't love Raising Arizona? And then I, I come home and we had a issue of Film comment with Raising Arizona on the COVID And I was like, oh, it's interesting. I'll read that through this. And. And I'm reading it and somewhere there's an essay in it called Praising Arizona. And it's, you know, it's just a kind of. Kind of an article about how great Raising Arizona is. Somewhere in it they mentioned that the self conscious style of the Cohens is not unlike the self conscious style of Bernardo Bertolucci in the Conformist.

[David Sims]

I mean, this is the show.

[Ben Hosley]

We happen to have a VHS of the Conformist lying there. This is like.

[Griffin Newman]

So the tools were there for you?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Everything was literally all on the table.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, like, my parents are like off at work. I'm a latchkey kid.

[David Sims]

But you're able to like sort of connect moment.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I take like, literally I take. Take the VHS of the Conformist. I watch it that day and I'm just like. Or that night and I'm just like. I don't know what the hell this movie is about, but it's so gorgeous. I rewinded. I watch it again twice in one day.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And by the end of the week, by the end of the week, I've watched it like six or seven times. And I become obsessed with the Conformist, which then leads to Italian cinema. Bertolucci. And then Last Emperor comes out later that year, as I mentioned.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[Ben Hosley]

But yeah, like Raising. So like Raising Arizona is such. Such an important movie for me in that sense, you know.

[David Sims]

No, that rules. I mean, not to be overly sentimental about. I'm just like thinking about that Oscar field and the other things buzzing around here. Right. You have like some of the greatest examples of genre cinema ever. Like the highest level of genre filmmaking made by like emerging filmmakers.

[Griffin Newman]

Carpenter's Prince of Darkness.

[David Sims]

Totally. But then like, even just the films they're awarding, there is a balance of like commercial entertainments that they are respecting and respected movies that now are being elevated to commercial entertainment through the Oscars, where you're like, the public was seeing all these movies and like, the Academy wasn't too snobby to like acknowledge Fatal Attraction, but also could like kind of anoint films and still be like, if this gets nominated, the public will see it. They'll go.

[Ben Hosley]

And there was a little controversy at the time because of. Because the Last Emperor was not released. Why? Because it had been greenlit under a different. A different studio head for Columbia. Right. I think it was. Putnam had been running Columbia.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And then, and then was it Don Steele came in and so there. There was this kind of, you know, they. They didn't want to spend a lot of money, you know, focusing on the stuff from the old regime. I think Open Glory was also Columbia, maybe, but. But there was.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it was.

[David Sims]

So you awarded a movie that the public actually doesn't have any relationship to.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. And there was actually. I think it might have even. It might have been at the Golden Globes or at the Oscars, but one of the producers or somebody involved in Last. Last Emperor was just like, now please release this movie. Yeah, you know, I mean, it was. It was in limited release.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah. Good Morning Vietnam.

[Ben Hosley]

That year, I believe that is the last time Sony Columbia won best Picture.

[Griffin Newman]

That might be true. I did a deep dive on that.

[Ben Hosley]

They have a long run. I think that was the last time.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think you're right.

[Ben Hosley]

Every once in a while they come close and while to consider.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The box office that week.

[Griffin Newman]

Griffin. December 11th, 1987, it's opening at number nine at the box office on 225 screens. So, you know, not a super wide release. Number one that week is a film I think we will one day cover. It is a black comedy. It's the directorial debut of its director and star.

[David Sims]

Is it Throw Mama from the train?

[Griffin Newman]

Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal in Throw Mama from the Train.

[David Sims]

DeVito come up a lot in this miniseries. Box office games. It's his era.

[Griffin Newman]

He was around.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A very funny, good movie.

[Ben Hosley]

The Bradley Cooper of his day.

[David Sims]

And I do think in so many.

[Griffin Newman]

Ways we will cover him one day.

[David Sims]

We will. As Sarah Rubin said, short series for a little man. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Number two at the box office is, I think, the highest grossing movie of the year of 87, if not highest. It's. It's the biggest American hit of the year. Whatever. Is a comedy, family comedy with a crazy premise.

[David Sims]

It is three men and a baby, right? Yeah, it was the. It was the highest grossing American film.

[Griffin Newman]

Based on a French film, of course.

[David Sims]

Directed by Leonard Nimoy.

[Griffin Newman]

Directed by Leonard Nimoy. Goots, Danson, Selleck, just. They have a baby. Wow.

[Ben Hosley]

By the way, actors directing.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's right.

[Griffin Newman]

Another example.

[David Sims]

But that's like a thing that actually just wouldn't make sense to, like a budding cinephile now who's trying to understand, like, culturally, the decades before them, where you're like, there was an era where the highest grossing film of the year could be handily outgrossing blockbusters and sequels.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Just like what? Directing had a baby.

[David Sims]

Two TV stars and A middling comedy star in a very simple comedy premise juggernaut.

[Griffin Newman]

Because everyone gets years a four quadrant movie. As they say.

[David Sims]

Those big all three quadrants. The three men end up baby number.

[Griffin Newman]

Three, opening new this week is a film that you're kind of like, well, why wasn't that nominated for best picture? It was such a generational movie. It made a lot of money and it won best actor that year. And then you watch it and you're like, oh, because it's bad.

[Ben Hosley]

It's not bad.

[Griffin Newman]

It's pretty bad.

[Ben Hosley]

Are we talking about Wall Street?

[Griffin Newman]

We sure are. Oliver Stone's Wall Street, a very enjoyable movie that Michael Douglas is fantastic in.

[David Sims]

Not only.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's a bit obvious even by old Ollie's.

[Ben Hosley]

It is definitely so. So I think follow up to Platoon.

[Griffin Newman]

It was one year later.

[Ben Hosley]

I know. And that's, that's the, that's another case where people had very high expectations for that movie.

[David Sims]

In between his two best director ones.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He also may talk radio. Okay. Yes, pretty much, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Wall Street. I remember at the time I was not a fan of Wall Street. And then over the years Wall street has become Wall street and any given Sunday are the two Oliver Stone movies I rewatch the most.

[Griffin Newman]

Any given Sunday is a movie. Movie. I will admit that at the time when I was a teenager, I was kind of like, this is a bit much. And now I kind of have a quiet appreciation.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it's like Wall street is kind of like that for me. It's, it's, it's such a great popcorn movie. Not only was it not, you know, you're expecting the guy, he makes. Salvador, he makes plateau. Right. He's just kind of like, it's a.

[David Sims]

It'S a little bit of an indication of where things are going to go prematurely in his career.

[Ben Hosley]

And then, and then, then he, you know.

[David Sims]

No, then he drills back down. But then you catch up to all his movies kind of become Wall Street.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it's kind of like you kind of were always this director.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he's, he's had a little hack in him anyway.

[David Sims]

No, not only not nominated for best picture, but it wins best actor and that is its lone nomination. It is a weird. Like that movie was a big hit. It wins such a major award for such a major star. It was just blanked in every other category.

[Ben Hosley]

He's also the star of Fatal Attraction, which is best picture. Nominate.

[David Sims]

Oh, God, what a year.

[Griffin Newman]

Relatable Chill dudes. Number four at the box office is a great comedy.

[David Sims]

A great comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

Probably Cover this guy one day too.

[David Sims]

We'll probably cover this guy one day too.

[Griffin Newman]

The director.

[David Sims]

The director. It's a great comedy. It's not Tootsie. No. Because that would have been nominated for best picture and everything. That's earlier.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't like Tootsie.

[David Sims]

Tootsie's in the ET Year. Yeah. Tootsies. I mean, I have a lot of.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a movie you love. It's a movie Ben loves, I'm sure.

[David Sims]

Is it Planes, Trains?

[Griffin Newman]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

The movie that should have won best.

[Griffin Newman]

Actor this year for Candy. And he's pretty amazing in it. Great movie.

[Bill Gawain]

I didn't think to watch it this holiday season. Something I try to.

[Griffin Newman]

The classic Thanksgiving movie.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Do you like playing Strange and Automobiles?

[Ben Hosley]

I do. We just. We just got the 4k of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell, yeah.

[David Sims]

It's a weird transfer. I don't know if you.

[Ben Hosley]

I haven't watched the 4K weird transfer.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, the AI guy. Steve Martin.

[David Sims]

They did a little bit of. Yeah. Upscale and smoothing.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, gosh.

[Griffin Newman]

But.

[David Sims]

But the thing is on there is the, like, hour of fabled deleted scenes that for so long were a rumor that are like, you know, because there was always this, like, there's a mythical three hour cut of the film. And then it. His children finally opened the vault and they were like, look, there was never like a functional three hour cut. He just had so much good footage of Candy and Martin that his first assembly, he tried to use all of it and then he correctly whittled it down. Everything he cut out should not be in the movie. But as just raw footage of Martin and Candy. It is unbelievable.

[Ben Hosley]

That's the thing you all. I feel like that's usually the case when people talk, oh, there was originally a six hour cut. I'm like, I'm sure most of that was just. It was just assembled.

[David Sims]

Right? Yes, yes. Assembly needs to be used more often than in describing these things. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Number five of the box office is the other biggest hit of the year. We've mentioned it a bunch of times. It's not me. For best picture.

[David Sims]

Fatal Traction.

[Griffin Newman]

Fatal Attraction. Fatal Attraction, which is a pretty good movie. It's pretty silly too. The roller coaster scene.

[Ben Hosley]

It is funny how Adrian line has become kind of a like sort of retroactively inserted into the pantheon.

[Griffin Newman]

Imagine beaming through a time machine to 1993 and sitting down with the New York Film Critics Circle and being like, you know, sliver is gonna get like, like critical attention and care.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, I bought the new.

[Griffin Newman]

So did I. Well, Beatrice Wrote an essay in it. I wanted to read it.

[David Sims]

We were talking about this in our news and deals. How much are you willing to spend on it?

[Griffin Newman]

And I love Fort Beatrice and I'm excited to re watch Sliver, but Sliver sucks.

[Ben Hosley]

It's terrible, but it's incredible. But I was like, I have to have this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, me too.

[David Sims]

That's the thing. Like, even at the time, Adrian Line movies were getting nominated for best Picture.

[Ben Hosley]

I know they were.

[David Sims]

That one was also being seen as like, from the critics of like, that's the Academy. Academy.

[Ben Hosley]

And yet there was always kind of like one weird. Like, okay, this was a hit. And like, totally.

[David Sims]

If there were four slivers coming out in wide release a year, we'd be doing cartwheels. We'd be. I'm not just saying four fatal attractions. Four slivers. And we'd be in Hong. Hong heaven. I was gonna say hog heaven.

[Griffin Newman]

We've also got the Running man, which is being remade this year. Yeah. An okay movie. A movie I've never loved.

[David Sims]

I was going to say that's a perfect example of a movie that should be remade.

[Griffin Newman]

I like that movie. It's.

[David Sims]

It's enough of a weird adaptation that there's a room to do a different one.

[Ben Hosley]

And, and, and the original is. Is not very good.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not very good.

[David Sims]

It's just a cool stickiness. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, I. I want us. Paul Michael Glazer is one of those guys where I'm like, I really want to like his movies because of the. The man background, the Miami Vice stuff. And every time I watch one of them, like, like, he just didn't quite have it.

[Griffin Newman]

Kazam. He directed Kazam. Among other things. We've got a re release of Cinderella, a film I've now seen 400 billion times. My daughter is obsessed with Cinderella. Cinderella. Cinderella.

[David Sims]

Is that her favorite of the princess? Or at least the classic.

[Griffin Newman]

The only princess one she's locked in with, I would say she's not gotten to Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Is there another one I'm missing? Those are the sort of big princess movies.

[Ben Hosley]

Right?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And Cinderella is the most classic princess one of them all because it's about. Mostly about being friends with mice. That movie is like 80% mice. But then it's just. Yeah. About like vibing in a party.

[David Sims]

Well, that's the wild thing about Sleeping beauty is like 95% fairy ounce.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Sleeping Beauty is so incredible.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, it's gorgeous. Did you see that 70mm print they showed? No.

[Griffin Newman]

I wish I Had. I would love to see that movie.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't think I've ever seen a movie look that good. It looked ridiculous.

[David Sims]

They got amazing access to the 70 millimeter print that's rarely shown. And yeah, it's like, it's.

[Ben Hosley]

They bring it out every once every seven years, right.

[David Sims]

And they ran at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens a couple times. And I went to see it and there was a father who brought a daughter, probably around your daughter's age, David, you know, between three and five. And at some point in the movie, she like, asked him a logic question, as kids do during children's films. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And everyone was like, so.

[David Sims]

Like, one guy scolded her so hard. And everyone in the theater was like, let's step back. Think about what we're seeing. Sleeping beauty at 11am on a Sunday.

[Griffin Newman]

We're not allowed to wait.

[David Sims]

This is for her more than it is for us. Everyone chill the out. But it was it people not living.

[Griffin Newman]

In our world 100%.

[David Sims]

It was just really funny, right?

[Griffin Newman]

If you bring your daughter to like. Yeah. To Miami Vice, you know, at 10pm and she's like, so wait, where does Jose yo get off? Then you can shirt. Yeah. Eight is Nuts. The Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfus film. Nuts.

[David Sims]

Which I pleasant people promising to see in still.

[Ben Hosley]

I like that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a classic to me. I'm at Block or Not. I'm at the rental store and I'm like, what is this? I just take it off the shelf.

[David Sims]

Leslie Nielsen's final dramatic role. That is the last time he. He did drama.

[Griffin Newman]

Wasn't. Yeah. Number nine, Empire, the Sun at number 10. One of the best movies in 1987 and one of my favorite movies, Dirty Dancing.

[David Sims]

Oh, sure. Yeah. God.

[Ben Hosley]

Another.

[Griffin Newman]

Another goddamn classic. Another movie that was dismissed by critics and now I watch it and I'm like, again, I would a year, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know how I feel about Dirty Dancing.

[Ben Hosley]

I like Dirty Dancing. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily nominated for best Picture. I enjoyed it at the time.

[Griffin Newman]

My five for 87 are Broadcast News, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, RoboCop, Maya 1.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, May to 1. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Movie of my 10 favorite movies of all time are releasing this year and a couple others that are really close.

[Ben Hosley]

When Jason Bailey does that podcast. The very year I did 87. I don't remember which movies. I mean, obviously, I'm sure we discussed Last Emperor, but I think we discussed Walker actually. But incredible.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Other movies. Hellraiser, Ishtar, Maurice The James Adam.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, my God, Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Predator is 1987, Neartown and Robocop. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

God, odd.

[David Sims]

I'm like, there's at least five of my top 25 in 87.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. We didn't. We didn't know how good we had it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

No, we didn't.

[Ben Hosley]

We used to be a proper country.

[Griffin Newman]

Bill, thank you for joining us.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you.

[David Sims]

Now, Bill, we've already gone long, but I have to say this, and I asked you before we record if we could talk about this. And I do feel like there is a responsibility to our listeners. You have seen Horizon Colon and American Saga Colon Part two.

[Ben Hosley]

I have.

[David Sims]

You are in the limited pool of people who have seen.

[Ben Hosley]

Did premiere at Venice.

[David Sims]

It did. It's not. It's not a 10 person pool, but it was. Is limited. We are here now six months plus from when our miniseries on Costner ended, with us saying, hey, next week, Horizon Chapter 2 in American Saga. We thought that episode would come out the following week. And the movie still is, at the time of this recording, no closer to being released. It has had another sort of wind, a third wind from being put up on Netflix and being the number one movie on Netflix after being the number one movie on Max and being the number one movie on VOD when it went to all of those places. Unsurprisingly, his audience has shown up in the homebound ways that people assumed would happen. And yet it feels totally stagnant. And I just feel like I would be remiss if we did not allow you to talk at least briefly about the film you've seen that we're all dying to see in our unresolved minis.

[Ben Hosley]

I think it's. I think it's a really great movie. It is. It is actually quite different, I felt, from Horizon Part 1. Less of a spectacle. This one focused more on the women. And in fact, Ella Hunt.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

She's kind of the protagonist.

[David Sims]

I mean, that was my favorite narrative thread in the first one.

[Ben Hosley]

And, you know, it's a. This one is so much darker than the first one. Oh, cool.

[Griffin Newman]

First one wasn't exactly a barrel.

[Ben Hosley]

Laughs no, but this one is. This one is really dark.

[David Sims]

There's a scene where Luke Wilson rips someone's heart out of their chest, making a joke about templadoom being the darker.

[Ben Hosley]

What's interesting is that the things you thought about a lot of the characters in Horizon 1, you start to think differently about them. So he's kind of playing off that.

[David Sims]

This is what I want out of this idea of the experiments.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And one of the reasons why I put Horizon Part 1 on my top 10 list for the year. And in fact, in my mind, I'm putting the two of them together. But really, it's like. And as much as I liked Horizon, Part one, actually Part two made me think about Part one a little differently. I mean, I think it's great. Great, you know. So Costner was at the screening that I was at. It was kind of a, A private screening.

[David Sims]

The least intimidating man in the world.

[Ben Hosley]

The least intimidating man in the world.

[David Sims]

And kind of a wallflower who just disappears.

[Ben Hosley]

And I, and I, I asked him beforehand, I said, so is it, you know, like, have you shot Part three? Or, you know, because I was curious, like, how far along he is in just shooting the stuff. And he's like, oh, no, no, you know, I, I, I, I have to, I still have to shoot Part three and four. And, and he said, you know, I'm looking for a studio. And then. I don't even know if I'm supposed to say this, but if you need to. So, so, so Part two ends much like Part one does with, like, a montage of scenes from the next Horizon.

[David Sims]

Which I, from what I understand, that's basically what he shot for Part three that he had said previously that he had done, like, seven days of filming on Part three, but it's basically that stuff.

[Ben Hosley]

So afterwards I saw him again and I saw, said, well, it looks like you shot some of Part three. And he's like, yeah, I only shot enough so that I could have that montage.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

I was like, that's, that's weirdly adorable to me.

[David Sims]

Can you confirm to me, I feel like I had heard, or at least seen from other people who have seen it, that a lot of the Sizzle Girl stuff at the end of Part one is not really in Part two or not in that form. And that similarly, it was him being like, let me just get a taste of some stuff.

[Ben Hosley]

There's a, there's, there's some stuff, stuff that I expected to see in Part two. Yeah, that's not there based on what I had seen in Part one. Yeah. But I don't remember the specific things, but there were a couple of things where I'm like, huh, I vaguely remember a shot of this happening. The, the stuff at the end of Part one promises a very different film than what Part two actually is. The thing.

[David Sims]

How much, how much rabisi in the printing press do we get without spoiling anything?

[Ben Hosley]

Very little.

[David Sims]

Okay, so that's a Great example of what you just said.

[Ben Hosley]

It. It's kind of building up to more of that.

[David Sims]

He's the Thanos. He hasn't assembled all the Infinity Stones.

[Ben Hosley]

No, it. It ends actually with more of him. And there is the sense that. Okay, now, maybe now, in part, he.

[David Sims]

Got his hands on some more ink. Now he's really gonna be able to fly her.

[Ben Hosley]

The. What was I gonna say? It is. You know, it's such a. I mean, I love the movie. I love the project. It's. It's such an interesting inflection point now. Because if he. If he can't. We can't find a studio or if we can't find somebody to, like, allow him to make the rest of it, this thing is going to be. I mean, because it is. I mean, it's an incomplete movie.

[David Sims]

It is, right?

[Ben Hosley]

It doesn't end there. There's no kind of. There's no world in which you're like.

[David Sims]

All right, well, whatever.

[Ben Hosley]

We got parts one and two, and we'll just accept this. It's kind of like, no, no. Like, the story isn't finished yet, and it's just gonna exist as such a weird little entity if people can't finish.

[David Sims]

We're angry that when we did our Part one episode, that so much of our talk was like, it's hard to talk about this because it' incomplete object. Right. And that we were sort of kicking the can on a certain degree of analysis. But it is. It is. And it's like, it's incomplete, but in a way that's by design. Because part of his notion was like, make them simultaneously and release them close together. And we did this episode, and in, like, reality, we were like, it's going to be six weeks from when we're recording to when we see Part two and do that. But in release schedule, they will be one week apart. So next week, you will hear our episode with a more complete take. And much like the reality of watching these movies, that didn't happen. And I. I find it fascinating that Part two also does not give you, like, a clean cutoff point. No, but that's what I was looking for is, like, a building sense of, like, the vision of where this is going and it's.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah. I mean, which is a little hard.

[David Sims]

To pin down, watching the first one alone.

[Ben Hosley]

It's also weird because, you know, we are in the age of sort of the. You know, the bifurcated blockbusters, where everything's a Part one or a Part two or whatever. Whatever. But those films do even the ones that to me sometimes do feel incomplete, do feel like they have some narrative shape, some kind of.

[David Sims]

They try to have a mini arc so that there can be some sense of resolution at the cliffhanger part, even if there's a bigger threat.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And Horizon's refusal is not doing that. I think is. Is very off putting in a way that's interesting.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. And. And a lot of people have said, you know, understandably, why isn't this just a. A TV series? Because it does have that, it does have that quality. And like, it's not a TV series because he wants it big. Because it's a giant big screen western. It, It's. I don't know. I mean, if he ever finishes it, it'll be like no other movie ever.

[David Sims]

I agree. Now just big if. An even bigger if than Krasinski got. That's a terrible joke. I want to end this episode by requesting. We've been lucky enough through various means to acquire a couple signed posters from directors of movies. We have covered. We have hanging in the office, an Ang Lee and Seamus Hulk, a Campion Power the Dog, a Selleck Wendell and Wild poster. I did win as a trivia prize at Nighthawk, a Horizon poster. Now we obviously can't get Costner to sign it, but. Bill, good. Would you mind signing the Horizon poster and just writing. I have seen chapter two.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you doing this?

[David Sims]

I think this is worth doing. I think an immortalization of attention. This is the end of the episode. I said it was the end of the episode. You're pointing at the clock at the end of the episode.

[Ben Hosley]

If. If.

[Griffin Newman]

What are we doing?

[David Sims]

This is funny and everyone's gonna like it.

[Bill Gawain]

You sign it off, Mike.

[Ben Hosley]

But if you ever get. Get poor Kevin Costner to. To sign your.

[David Sims]

This is what I'm gonna be like.

[Ben Hosley]

Clown.

[David Sims]

This is what I like. That's a clown. Belga Berry is one of our finest.

[Ben Hosley]

You jerk.

[Bill Gawain]

Yeah, we will. Yeah, we'll do the signing after we wrap up the episode.

[David Sims]

I'm just gonna. Bill, could do it on your own time here.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe Ben should finish your episodes. We should just like.

[David Sims]

I think this is worth doing. I think people are gonna like it. And I. I think in fact the outrage at me doing it on Mike is going to lend. It's going to add to the narrative because now it's a thing that needs to be resolved, much like Horizon in American Saga. Bilga, thank you for being here.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you.

[David Sims]

Anything specific you want to plug?

[Ben Hosley]

When does this go up?

[David Sims]

This will go up in March.

[Bill Gawain]

March 16th.

[Ben Hosley]

I just hope I'm still employed.

[David Sims]

Hey, just, I. I'm always thrilled anytime a new piece gets that's published of any sort from you. It's always an exciting day. Always love to read what you write.

[Bill Gawain]

We'll link to your articles in the episode description.

[David Sims]

There's a lot of them.

[Ben Hosley]

You can link to my writer page on Vault.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

[Bill Gawain]

That's what I was talking about.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, then I'm stupid. I don't know. I'm. I'm.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, my God. End the episode. End it.

[David Sims]

I wanna. Maybe you should end it. Maybe you think you're so good at ending episodes. Okay, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So.

[Bill Gawain]

So let's just then quickly shout out here at the end. We're in the midst of our March Madness tournament.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I suppose that's true.

[Bill Gawain]

So please get involved if you want to impact the rock, the vote, direct democracy.

[David Sims]

If you're online, stay online.

[Bill Gawain]

If we're going to cover that, we're going to cover.

[Griffin Newman]

As well as Pokemon, go to the March Madness poll.

[Bill Gawain]

Participating on Patreon, where we'll be voting for various different franchises.

[David Sims]

The Elite Ators. It's. It's. You're voting on the past candidates who have gotten close, but no cigar.

[Bill Gawain]

We also are currently in the midst of our Star Trek Picard era commentary series. With those films is our Insurrection episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep, yep. About the heroes of January 6th.

[Bill Gawain]

Just a few days ago, we put out a Spielberg bonus episode. We're covering his segment in the Twilight.

[Griffin Newman]

Zone movie as well.

[David Sims]

Just that one. As Amazing stories. His amazing story segments. Yeah.

[Bill Gawain]

Anyway, just get some housekeeping out.

[David Sims]

I know. Appreciate it. And thank you all for listening. Tune in next week for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Correct. Yeah. And as always, I. I think the poster thing was good and worth doing.

[Bill Gawain]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee, research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social Blankcheckpod subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

[Griffin Newman]

In this montage, John Houston is getting an award for, I think Sierra Madre.

[Ben Hosley]

I think so, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And in the introduction, and I forget already who's introducing him.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think it's the critic. I think it's a critic is saying, like, and what a rare and interesting phenomenon. He wrote and directed the film. Like, we really need to celebrate the unique artistry of a director who wrote his own movie. It's being treated like he's some survivor front.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, treated like he invented the camera.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, really. And because it was just so rare.

[Ben Hosley]

That was a big deal. That was a big deal.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Anyway, part of what, you know, part of what gave rise to the auteur theory was, you know, these directors who actually exerted more control beyond just directing.

[Griffin Newman]

And then it's John Jack Houston just sucking our dick for two minutes, being like, well, I think the New York critics shine a light on. It's great. You know, he's so nice to us.

[Ben Hosley]

I was, the person I was sitting with, I was like, that's John Houston.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Ben Hosley]

And he was like. He's like, is. It doesn't sound like him. I'm like, you have to remember, in our minds, in our minds, John Houston is still just like Chinatown, even though we've seen him in a million other countries.

[David Sims]

But also, in our minds, he sounds like the impressions of him.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Right. You listen to Connery and you're like, doesn't sound like him. And you're like. Because it's Daryl Hammond Connery.

[Ben Hosley]

Right, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Doesn't sound like the bug in Men in Black. He was just middle aged.

[Ben Hosley]

Right. It's like watching young Michael Kane. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like Young Michael Kane. That's a fine treat.

[Ben Hosley]

I know.

[Griffin Newman]

So hot.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. We might as well just kick off the episode reminiscing on my.

[David Sims]

This is not how we kick off the episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, fine. Well, we're recording it.

[David Sims]

I know, but put it at the end of the episode. Things must be done in proper order.

[Bill Gawain]

Or how about right in the middle, no context. You want to throw it right in.

[David Sims]

You want to place it 15 minutes in to give people time to finish their dinner.

[Griffin Newman]

That wouldn't make sense for the Empire of the sun. Because the Empire of the sun is not a movie that's like, let's mess with, like, the formal, you know, storytelling approach, really. Like, this is a pretty traditionally told film. I would say.

[David Sims]

Okay, let me start. Let me start the show properly.