In the Blink of an Eye with Joey Sims

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: In the Blink of an Eye with Joey Sims
Release Date: July 26, 2026
Guest: Joey Sims (Host of House Closed podcast)

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Overview

This episode continues Blank Check’s Andrew Stanton miniseries by tackling his latest and most obscure film, In the Blink of an Eye. Recently dropped on Hulu after its Sundance 2026 premiere, the film’s nonlinear, multi-era sci-fi tale provides ample fodder for the hosts (and guest Joey Sims) to analyze not just the movie itself, but the arc of Stanton’s career, the difficulties of handling high-concept narratives on a small scale, and broader trends in film and TV storytelling. While the conversation is often lighthearted and full of tangents—especially about New York theater lore and Star Wars spinoffs—the group dives deeply into why In the Blink of an Eye feels so “nonexistent” and what it says about modern streaming cinema.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Context and the “Most Existent Film of 2026”

[00:32 – 01:49]

• In the Blink of an Eye is positioned by the Blank Check crew as a film that barely seemed to exist between its muted Sundance debut and quiet Hulu release.
• The hosts amuse themselves with the recurring bit that it “holds the record for the most existent film of 2026.”
• David jokes about how this year itself “has kind of gone past me in the blink of an eye.”
• Quote:
  • “Is this the most relevant movie of 2026 because of how fast things move?” — Ben [01:53]

2. Theater Tangents and Joey’s Credentials

[02:43 – 19:24]

• Joey shares canceled plans due to a snowstorm, including the NY premiere of In the Blink of an Eye and a marathon Tracy Letts play reading.
• Long, playful detour about New York’s “Perfect Crime”—NYC’s longest-running off-Broadway play—and the odd world of small-scale theater.
• Joey plugs his podcast House Closed, which reviews theater shows with his co-host.
• Notable Exchange:
  • “She claims she’s never missed a performance…she’s missed only four performances.” — Joey [29:42]
  • “So the Snapple has two theaters, two stages.” — David [29:54]

3. Defining ‘Blank Check’ and the Stanton Trajectory

[19:06 – 22:29]

• The hosts recap the show’s premise: examining directors who received “blank checks” and sometimes produce passion projects that struggle, like Stanton’s John Carter and now In the Blink of an Eye.
• The group wonders whether it’s worse to be attached to a “giant bomb” or a movie “no one ever really knew happened” like In the Blink of an Eye.
• Griffin and Ben note Stanton’s career resilience—Toy Story 5 is coming to save his box office clout again.

4. Andrew Stanton’s Post-Dory Decade, TV Work, and Creative Restlessness

[44:48 – 50:59]

• After Finding Dory (2016), Stanton moved into live-action TV, directing episodes of Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, Legion, For All Mankind, Three Body Problem, and serving (somewhat indirectly) as a writer on Obi Wan Kenobi.
• Stanton’s stated desire: to leave animation behind because live action is “faster,” and his roots and taste always leaned wider than animation.
• “You can get a lot more done in live action. These movies take so long.” — Ben [44:59]

5. Star Wars Streaming Dissection

[51:15 – 56:51]

• Long, critical tangent about Disney+ Star Wars series—formulaic, slow, obsessed with stoic characters and surrogate kids, unlike “Andor”, which they praise.
• “My takeaway watching Ahsoka was like, this feels like watching children perform Shakespeare… all the direction is ‘say it slow’.” — Ben [54:21]
• Group agrees most shows are about a lone hero, a child, and a chase, riffing on genre repetition.

6. Stanton’s Other Almost-Projects & the Origins of In the Blink of an Eye

[65:18 – 70:27]

• Stanton had been developing two heady sci-fi scripts: Chairman Spaceman and In the Blink of an Eye. The latter came together more quickly.
• The script, written by Colby Day (who also wrote Spaceman for Netflix), is inspired by seeing the timeline of the universe at the Hayden Planetarium, leading to an existential crisis and the idea of past-present-future narrative ripples.
• Influences cited: Cloud Atlas, The Fountain, and the emotional power of triptych storytelling.

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Deep Dive: Movie Analysis—Plot, Structure, and Tone

A. Narrative Structure and Tone

[70:29 – 83:47]

• The film unfolds across three timelines:
  1. Prehistoric Era: Non-verbal story of a Paleolithic family.
  2. Present: Rashida Jones (grad student) and Daveed Diggs (statistics love interest) navigate work and romance amid her mother’s cancer diagnosis.
  3. Future (2417): Kate McKinnon is a longevity-enhanced pilot delivering embryos to a terraformed planet, her only companion a friendly AI.
• The hosts agree the film’s “cross-cutting” between storylines feels inert, alienating, and structurally confusing. They note the energy is “pretty low and slow,” especially at the top.
  • “It's…not nearly as fun as Cloud Atlas opening, where you’re weaving between all of them really quickly…” — Ben [75:27]
• Multiple hosts observe that casting middle-aged actors as twentysomething grad students creates confusion, even if the script tries to skim over this with “subtle de-aging.”

B. The Kate McKinnon / Future Plotline Stands Out

[83:05 – 92:11]

• General agreement: McKinnon gives the best performance and her “last human alive” story is the most compelling.
• The scene in which she deactivates her AI and mourns the loss of her only friend is called the movie’s emotional high point.
  • “The first moment where… I locked in a little bit is when she has to turn off the AI… She played it so well…” — Joey [82:40]
• Ben and others propose the film could have been stronger had it focused only on this story, gradually revealing the context of human immortality and its curse.

C. Themes: Immortality, AI, and “Fixing” Humanity

[92:11 – 95:52]

• The moral/ethics debate: The “cure for death” developed by Jones & Diggs’s son leads to societal collapse due to overpopulation and existential malaise; McKinnon’s mission is to reboot humanity with “normal” mortality.
• Joey and Ben call out the film’s ultimately optimistic take on both AI and humanity as “out of sync” with current fears; McKinnon’s AI sacrifices itself for the human element, but this rings hollow and wishful in a modern context.
  • “AI convincing people to kill themselves, not AI being like, I should deactivate so humanity can persist.” — Ben [94:09]
• Stanton’s worldview—oscillating between cynicism and a need for hope—feels awkwardly balanced here.

D. Criticism: Structure, Visuals, and the Caveman Thread

[101:03 – 108:51]

• The Paleolithic thread is dismissed as unsuccessful; feels like a “default” or “planetarium film.” The “acorn/nut” symbolism is a running joke.
• The score (by Thomas Newman) and the production design are described as competent but “default Apple Store spaceship” and not visually memorable.
• The visual ambition and nonlinear structure end up making the movie feel more mathematical than moving, especially compared to Cloud Atlas or Tree of Life.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It's a fart sandwich, but it's a sandwich.” — Ben [72:51]
• “If you could live forever, it would suck.” – Ben [98:53]
• “The energy and pacing are pretty low and slow.” — Ben [76:07]
• “The whole movie should have been McKinnon.” – Ben [83:05]
• “This movie is about history’s greatest curse, and I sort of don’t need to know about the guy who caused it.” — Ben [95:37]
• “If you’re going to be invoking 2001: A Space Odyssey, you got to be careful. That’s the best science fiction film.” — David [73:52]
• “It just felt like low energy…not like, raging about this…but it just felt like low energy.” — David [74:47]
• “How did we get into talking about Clan of the Cave Bear?” — Joey [102:43]
• “It’s a very, very hard to do any version of that ape man thing that isn’t that…especially if you’re going to decide to be accurate.” — Joey [103:21]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Episode Theme & Film’s Place in 2026: 00:32 – 01:49
• Theater marathon tangents & Perfect Crime: 03:44 – 32:47
• What is ‘Blank Check’? Why Stanton? 19:06 – 22:29
• Stanton’s TV Work/Life after Dory: 44:48 – 50:59
• Star Wars/Obi Wan/Ahsoka critiques: 51:15 – 56:51
• Stanton’s Other Scripts / Blink of an Eye Genesis: 65:18 – 70:27
• Plot structure—cross-cutting, performances: 70:29 – 83:47
• Immortality theme, McKinnon plot, AI takeaway: 83:05 – 95:52
• Critique of visuals, Paleolithic thread, “nut” joke: 101:03 – 108:51
• Box Office Game / ’26 Releases: 109:53 – 115:30

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Podcast Vibe & Closing Thoughts

• The overall tone is characteristically Blank Check: goofy, deeply referential, and full of film/TV and theater trivia asides.
• Ben and Griffin (off mic at times), David, Joey, and Marie Barty Salinas share a familial, rambling energy.
• The episode grapples with the challenge (and, perhaps, futility) of making ambitious, big-idea movies in the streaming age—especially when the results are “nonexistent” or met with critical apathy.
• The takeaway: In the Blink of an Eye is an admirable swing with a few strong moments (almost all of them Kate McKinnon’s), but falls short of connecting emotionally or intellectually outside its modest strengths.

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Final Recommendations & Plugs

• Listen to Joey Sim’s podcast: House Closed, a show about all things theater in New York.
• Next week: Toy Story 5 episode; upcoming director series on Scorsese (“Martin Scott Quartzi”).
• Patreon: Resident Evil commentary series, bonus episodes, and more.
• “Checkbook” newsletter on Substack.

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As always:

“Do something about the nut.”
— Blank Check (on the film’s acorn motif) [122:49]

Transcript

[David Sims]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blankjack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the shy was Blank Jack.

[Ben Hos]

All we share and all we experience. Podcasts across time.

[David Sims]

Echoes across time.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Is the tagline.

[Ben Hos]

I'm surprised there's no IMDb quote page for what I believe holds the record for the most existent film of 2026. This is a fun recurring game when I tell people, like, movie that least

[David Sims]

exists that we've covered.

[Ben Hos]

No, no, no, no.

[David Sims]

You tell people that.

[Ben Hos]

What are you guys recording these days? I go, we're actually doing Understanding. Oh, that's exciting. So wait, so it's what? So it's Finding Nemo and Wally. Right. John Carter.

[David Sims]

Oh, right.

[Ben Hos]

And then what? Since then? And I go finding Dory. And they go, sure, sure, sure. And in the blink of an eye. And they go, what's that in the

[David Sims]

what of a what?

[Ben Hos]

Right. And I go, he made like a smaller live action sci fi. We are all connected drama. And they go, what year did that come out in? And I go, well, here's a surprise for you. In fact, mere months ago, it premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Heard of it and went on Hulu February 27th of 2026. Yep.

[Joey Sims]

I found myself taken aback all over again, literally last night when I looked it up. Yeah. On Wikipedia. I was just, like, checking something, and at the top it said 2026. And I again had a renewed moment of like, wait, that's. That can be right.

[Ben Hos]

Well, this year it's not even a. Oh, my God. This year has been so long that. No, in the blink of an eye was 2026.

[David Sims]

You know, in some ways, this year's kind of gone past me in the blink of an eye.

[Ben Hos]

Well, actually, is this the most relevant movie of 2026 because of how fast things move?

[Joey Sims]

So fast.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

February. Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It came out and I rushed to Hulu, and then I was like, well, I'm going to cover it on the podcast anyway, so I guess I'll let it simmer.

[Ben Hos]

Ben and I were supposed to go to the premiere of this film.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Hos]

In New York City.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Hos]

That did not happen because of the snowstorm.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's right.

[Ben Hos]

So it was like. It premiered at Sundance and then there was supposed Coward.

[David Sims]

So ran closed the subways.

[Ben Hos]

The proper New York premiere.

[David Sims]

20 inches of snow. What's the big deal?

[Ben Hos]

The following week.

[Joey Sims]

Yep.

[Ben Hos]

And it was like six hours before the premiere, we got an email that was like, never mind. Yeah, the Regal Union Square is closing. The event is not happening.

[Joey Sims]

Fun fact. On the same day, if we're talking about the same weather event, because there were two. Yeah, that's true. But on the same day, I was supposed to attend a marathon play reading session of the five, I think it was five different works of the playwrights. The playwright Tracy Letts.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, well, well, well.

[David Sims]

Friend of the show. He sat where you sit and he's coming in next week, in fact. Yes, I, I. Now that Tracy has become a full time podcaster, I'm also just kind of like listening to Tracy Letts every day. I begin to assume he'll like, you know, parachute into sports podcasts I listen to. He'll just kind of be like ever present. He just like lives in the Ringer

[Ben Hos]

offices now reviewing Quiznos on Doughboys.

[David Sims]

And it's like, you know, fun fact about that guy, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. In fact, on top of all his

[Ben Hos]

great podcasts, he likes to make that joke of like that stuff. That's my hobby. This is my real job.

[David Sims]

My job.

[Ben Hos]

And increasingly it's starting to feel like he's, he's actually proving that.

[Joey Sims]

Wait, Joey.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, they were going to read five Tracy, let's plays back.

[Joey Sims]

Don, quote me on the five. They were going to do like an all day marathon.

[Ben Hos]

Okay, Augustosis County, Seussical the musical. What were the other two?

[Joey Sims]

Now, wait, now I need to look up what they were.

[David Sims]

Killer Joe, I would assume is one of the big ones.

[Joey Sims]

We got Killer Joey.

[Ben Hos]

Well, we do have Killer Joey on this episode.

[David Sims]

That's a bit of a spoiler. Superior Donuts, which I should bring up to Tracy next time I see him and ask him when is the next CBS sitcom adaptation of one of his

[Joey Sims]

plays going to premiere.

[Ben Hos]

So funny that it would just be

[David Sims]

so funny if CBS is like, we're going to do a bug sitcom. It's about a wacky motel.

[Ben Hos]

It's a little like Alice doesn't live here anymore where you're like, that spawned a network sitcom that ran for years.

[David Sims]

Like, look, her name's Alice. She's a waitress. After that we kind of did our own thing.

[Ben Hos]

Same thing where you're like, I don't know, guy owns a donut shop, people show up.

[David Sims]

Well, I've never seen the place. Super donuts, but Super Donuts is, you know, is, is a lighter.

[Ben Hos]

It's lighter.

[Joey Sims]

It's a bit lighter. Relatively speaking. The play is included, okay, in the festival, which was never rescheduled. I'm sad to Say rude.

[David Sims]

Was Tracy going to be there or was just. I don't know.

[Joey Sims]

Presumably you could ask him about it. Augusto. Sage county, we're going to open with that.

[Ben Hos]

Wow.

[Joey Sims]

Killer Joe, Linda Vista, the minutes and man from Nebraska.

[David Sims]

That's funny that it was.

[Joey Sims]

No.

[David Sims]

Yeah. No Bug. No. No Donuts.

[Joey Sims]

No Bug, no Donuts. But you know. But all of his regulars were slated for this day long thing. Margo Martindale was going to be there. Lily Rabe, Thomas Sadoski. Oh, this is a whole. Matthew L. Billard was going to be

[Ben Hos]

reading the second most incredible cultural event in New York City that night. But yes, and behind Ben and I attending the Blink of an Eye premiere. Yeah. Interesting that you chose not to go Bug Nuts. Neither Bug nor Donuts.

[David Sims]

I guess Bug is like. It's like, wow, you can go see that on Broadway.

[Joey Sims]

That was probably because Bug was. Was playing on Broadway.

[Ben Hos]

And Superior Donuts, you can scale Paramount. Plus you can climb the mountain and watch all.

[Joey Sims]

Let's find out.

[David Sims]

Can you.

[Ben Hos]

How many episodes of Superior Donuts do we think there were? Of course the Tracy Letts sitcom adaptation starring Judd Hirsch and Jermaine Fowler.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna guess 26. I mean, yeah, like two seasons of 13 each is my guess. But I'm not sure I wanna. Does anyone else wanna wait?

[Joey Sims]

Is that a bit or was it actually renewed for a second season?

[David Sims]

It was. There was two seasons of Superior. There were two seasons.

[Joey Sims]

I thought it was like two episodes canceled type. No deal.

[Ben Hos]

I'm gonna guess 40.

[David Sims]

Anyone else wanna, you know, Price is Right, you know, kind of closest without going over 32. All right, all right, 30. I hear 32. I think I said 26. You said 43. The answer is 34. Ben gazumped you. Joey dumped you. So there were.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What do I get?

[David Sims]

You get a Superior donut to be named later.

[Joey Sims]

You'll.

[David Sims]

You'll get one at some point.

[Ben Hos]

1.

[Joey Sims]

You are now responsible for rescheduling the Tracy Letts marathon.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

And producing it.

[Ben Hos]

It was in the Blink of an Eye premiere.

[David Sims]

You have to reschedule.

[Joey Sims]

We got to do that.

[David Sims]

The first season was 13 episodes. The second season was a full network season. 21 episod. There we go.

[Ben Hos]

And then they canceled it.

[David Sims]

And then they canceled it. Let's see. Along with Kevin Can Wait and some of my other favorite shows.

[Joey Sims]

9.

[David Sims]

JKL.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, that was a mark Biblically.

[David Sims]

What the fuck is this shit, right?

[Ben Hos]

Living Biblically, I think was. It was based on that book the Year of Living Biblically. And it's Sort of like Bible yes man, where a guy decides.

[David Sims]

Starring J R Ferguson. Yeah, From Madman.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. This is before he basically became a regular on the Connors, of course, the best American comedy series.

[David Sims]

And then they also canceled Dan Koppelman's Me, Myself and I, which was the Bobby Moynihan sitcom.

[Ben Hos]

I think that was a big splashy show that I think was the first cancellation of the season. It was.

[Joey Sims]

Didn't he leave SNL for that show?

[Ben Hos]

Yep.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

What?

[David Sims]

When?

[Joey Sims]

No.

[David Sims]

Was really.

[Joey Sims]

Maybe not for it, but, like, it was the first thing he did at least.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I guess you're right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Dang.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

2017.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah. No, that was. I mean, talk about a different time nine years ago.

[David Sims]

Bring him back.

[Ben Hos]

Bring Bobby back?

[David Sims]

Why not? He likes us.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

He just gotta have him on someday.

[David Sims]

I would. Bobby. I would love to have Bobby on. I feel like Bobby's taste.

[Joey Sims]

My.

[David Sims]

My friend Bobby, who I'm referring to by his first name is like, you know, we. We want a movie that he's passionate about. Like, you know, he loves the. He loves the goofy stuff, the silly stuff, the sci fi stuff.

[Ben Hos]

He loves the Muppets.

[Joey Sims]

We do.

[Ben Hos]

Hence Bobby.

[Joey Sims]

Sure.

[Ben Hos]

He's on the. The whatchamacallit. He's on the Daniel Radcliffe Tracy Morgan show.

[David Sims]

I know. I need to watch that.

[Ben Hos]

He's constantly on atv.

[David Sims]

Oh, I know Bobby's busy. It's just that Bobby loved snl, so Bobby booked him. Busy Bobby BB and he's Hoppers.

[Ben Hos]

He's the man, George. He's the king of the box office this year. Did you see Hoppers?

[Joey Sims]

No, I didn't see Hoppers.

[David Sims]

Why not?

[Ben Hos]

You'll like King.

[Joey Sims]

You know, I haven't. I haven't been inside like a movie theater in a few months.

[David Sims]

Why not? I don't know. If I had a lot going on, I guess.

[Joey Sims]

So you.

[David Sims]

You got a host.

[Ben Hos]

You haven't been inside of my computer in a few months. So you saw Michael early. You went to several test screenings and gave them notes.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, I was Michael. That's the Adam Scott.

[David Sims]

It's a nonsense. It's hokum, which of course is a synonym for not nonsense.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[David Sims]

You haven't seen. Wait, come on. Wait a second. Now I'm gonna get. I'm gonna righteously mad at you. This is blank. Check the goat.

[Ben Hos]

You don't know the goat? You haven't seen the Goat Hit the court.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. Or Sylvia. What are you talking.

[David Sims]

Oh, go. Yeah, it was an animated. That's. That shows you how your brain works. It's an Animated adaptation of Edward Albe's the Goder. Who is Sylvia, my daughter's favorite movie of the year.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You didn't see what else we got. Did you see Nirvana, the band that showed the movie?

[Ben Hos]

Interesting. Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

Oh yeah.

[David Sims]

The whole joke of Nirvana. Well, it's like it's spelled like that because that's how Canadians say Nirvana.

[Joey Sims]

Sure.

[David Sims]

And that's why it has the double Nirvana.

[Ben Hos]

I feel like you're pronouncing it really hard. Nirvana simply.

[David Sims]

I'm simply going with their bit.

[Ben Hos]

It was just. It was interesting.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. So I saw that. Was that my last one?

[David Sims]

Did you see the Bone Temple?

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. No. Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

So January and February you were getting done.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hos]

And then you fell off.

[Joey Sims]

And then.

[Ben Hos]

Well, things undertone scary podcast late at night.

[Joey Sims]

I was actually intrigued by Undertone, by the first wave of reactions to Undertone where people were like scariest movie ever and then there a second wave.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's so interesting how that happens with independent horror films that the first reviews from like user I've been paid money on Twitter is like the Exorcist is a baby compared to this. You. I'm dead. I'm dead. Here's my death certificate.

[Joey Sims]

It killed me.

[Ben Hos]

Scream dead in the theater at screen till you shock. Underscore xxxx and then Undertone, which is

[David Sims]

a movie I did not like hate.

[Joey Sims]

But it was.

[David Sims]

I felt there's a lot of like what was that? A lady in a. Did I hear something?

[Joey Sims]

David is looking behind him.

[Ben Hos]

Made like 30 million domestic on like a 1 million dollar budget.

[David Sims]

I don't think it got that far, but it did it certain. I'm sure it made people money. Like let's see, where did it get? It's 19 domestic.

[Ben Hos]

It's one of those movies where I was like. That didn't pan out. And then you see the return on investment and you're like 824 made a.

[David Sims]

The budget was probably like 80 cents on that thing. It said at a table.

[Ben Hos]

But they had to work overnights.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right. They had. They had to film it at 3am when she is of course logically recording a podcast. There is some. There's some shoe leather about like oh, he's in a different time zone. That's how they explain that away.

[Ben Hos]

Did you see half a million dollars? So it made 40 times.

[Joey Sims]

Nice work. If you get budget.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Super Mario Galaxy. Did you my daughter's other parents naming children's movies.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

What about the Christophers?

[Joey Sims]

That's good.

[David Sims]

Go see that.

[Joey Sims]

I do want to See the Christopher.

[Ben Hos]

The Christopher drama.

[David Sims]

The hot button. Everyone must have.

[Joey Sims]

Okay, the drama. I nearly made it.

[Ben Hos]

Being pushed.

[Joey Sims]

I nearly nearly made it to the drama.

[David Sims]

And then what happened?

[Joey Sims]

I just went back and watched all four seasons of 13 Reasons why instead. Because, you know, it dealt with a lot of previous. The same material, right.

[David Sims]

Mother Mary. You got to meet mother.

[Ben Hos]

You got to meet the mother.

[Joey Sims]

No, and I wanted to see that, too, but, you know, look. Christopher's mother Mary. Look. These are movies that I am representative of. Sadly. The average. The average, exactly. I know, but we were like, yeah, I want to try to find. Make my. Try to try to find time for that. And then.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

But you're gonna see Mortal Kombat too.

[Joey Sims]

Well, actually, yes, because I saw the first Mortal Kombat. See the AMC Empire 25 and. Which is, I believe, is where you're going to see Mortal Kombat 2.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This is Priorities, guys. This is. This is the right thing to do.

[Joey Sims]

I had a great.

[David Sims]

Was there sub zero. Most of the Trump Cabinet, in fact.

[Joey Sims]

I'm having fun.

[David Sims]

You didn't see Project Hail Mary?

[Joey Sims]

No. That's the kind of crazy one.

[David Sims]

He's got a little rock buddy.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with this. This gentleman named Rocky.

[Joey Sims]

Rocky. No, I. And then I. He was puppeteered by an artist who I know well.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the cow guy.

[Joey Sims]

Right. James Ortiz, who did. Exactly. Who did the cow guy. He did the into the Woods.

[David Sims]

He was.

[Joey Sims]

He comes from the theater world. He did. Yeah. Milky white for the. Into the Woods. Broadway.

[David Sims]

Best gag I ever saw.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Rocky was like a Broadway guy before he made his transition to space.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. So Rocky. Rocky operated.

[David Sims]

Rocky is real. Yes, I know that. One of my good friends.

[Joey Sims]

Friend of the pod.

[David Sims]

Wuthering Heights. Did you Wuther?

[Joey Sims]

I did Wuther. Scaled the heights. Yeah, I did watch the Bride.

[David Sims]

Did you marry.

[Ben Hos]

This is a fun game.

[David Sims]

I know. I'm just having fun. Can you tell I'm not like, that eager to talk about this movie, the Bride.

[Joey Sims]

When I thought the Bride was a musical, I was like, well, I got to go see that.

[David Sims]

And then people were like, has a dash of that. Yeah, There's a dash they put on the Ritz for 20 minutes or whatever.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You didn't see it?

[Joey Sims]

No.

[David Sims]

Oh, interesting. Return to Silent Hill. Did you return to Silent Hill? Did you get in the iron lung? I'm just. I'm getting deeper now.

[Ben Hos]

This is a game. I like this time of year. We're recording this episode in May. It will come out in July. Is that correct?

[David Sims]

South Closet.

[Ben Hos]

So the summer just kicked off and it means it's the final moment where the top 10 box office movies of the year is still kind of wacky. Right. Where it's not like there are movies that can be in the top 10 that were not blockbusters.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Ben Hos]

So Reminders of Him is currently the 10th highest grossing film of the year.

[David Sims]

We love it.

[Ben Hos]

Just get another Colleen Hoover.

[Joey Sims]

Hoover joint.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

The drama might overtake it. The drama might briefly be the 10th

[David Sims]

highest because the drama's really been had stained hold instead. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hos]

But. But right now. Yeah. Super Mario Galaxy Project. Hail Mary, Michael Hoppers, Devil wears Prada 2. Haven't seen.

[Joey Sims]

Oh, no. Yeah, I do need to see that.

[Ben Hos]

Scream 7. Go Wuthering Heights. Send help.

[Joey Sims]

I still said no.

[Ben Hos]

Okay, so you saw two out of the ten. This year's Needed Joey in the cinema this year.

[David Sims]

But you're seeing too many dang plays.

[Ben Hos]

You're seeing too many.

[Joey Sims]

March and April is the height of the. Of the.

[David Sims]

Of the theater.

[Joey Sims]

It's a theater. But I'm usually not totally absent from the movie theater. Something went wrong.

[David Sims]

You work in the theater district. Not again.

[Joey Sims]

Not to dox you.

[Ben Hos]

You host a theater podcast.

[David Sims]

Talk about. It's called House Closed.

[Joey Sims]

It's called House Closed. Theater we saw.

[David Sims]

Theater we saw.

[Joey Sims]

Yes. Which I hosted my friend Connor Scully.

[David Sims]

But. And we'll talk about that and we'll introduce what this show is in one second. But because you work in the theater district, you are near the two busiest.

[Ben Hos]

This is true.

[David Sims]

Theaters and movie theaters in New York are like, you go to the MC Empire. You know what's on screen? 25, baby.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

This is what I used to do. This is how my life used to be structured when I had different part time jobs in Midtown. Is that it would be like I'd go in in the morning, do like a shift at one job. Go to the Empire. AMC Empire.

[David Sims]

Take off your Aladdin outfit. Joe used to wear an Aladdin outfit.

[Ben Hos]

You'd ride the carpet.

[Joey Sims]

I was an usher at Alaska.

[David Sims]

You have like a hat or something?

[Joey Sims]

I think you're conflating it with. With when I worked concessions at Elf the Musical and I wore like a.

[Ben Hos]

A little elf hat.

[Joey Sims]

A little. A little elf hat. Yeah. And yeah, I wore like a uniform as an usher at Aladdin, but just like a. You know, but you.

[Ben Hos]

You'd ride the carpet down to the end of the block.

[Joey Sims]

Right. And then I'd have a few hours before my evening work. So then, yeah, I'd slot In whatever was playing in screen 24 at the 25. You know, so that was how I saw a lot of.

[David Sims]

Wow. George originated Santa Claus in Elf the Musical.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, that was. I. My first job in the city was doing concessions at the revival Broadway. The second engagement, Wayne Knight was sent of Elf. Of Elf the Musical. I would. It's not. Was not a revival. It was just them. I guess it is. You could. It was basically just them doing the same thing again. Right. Just like a second engagement of the same. Because it was production.

[Ben Hos]

It was. This will only run eight weeks a year. It will come back only in the holiday.

[Joey Sims]

They brought it back two years in a row. And then they brought it back back again a few. And then like if they don't bring it to Broadway, then it tours over the.

[Ben Hos]

The Grinch musical was done on the

[David Sims]

West End four separate times.

[Joey Sims]

Wow. And it.

[David Sims]

It's not even set in England.

[Ben Hos]

Who have the British.

[Joey Sims]

Was Santa. My. Just my Santa for my one. For the second one was Wayne Knight.

[David Sims]

The only Santa I recognize among the British revivals is the third time. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

[Joey Sims]

No.

[David Sims]

I don't know any of the British ones. The third time they did it on Broadway though, it was Sean Astin. Now, do you like getting that call as Sean Astin where they're like, we think you're Santa sized now. You know, Sean.

[Ben Hos]

So like Santa.

[David Sims]

We saw you recently. Yeah. And sort of Santa age. Like, are you ready to put on the beard?

[Ben Hos]

And George went. Both have years on him.

[Joey Sims]

They do do credit to Sean. Aston went and Knight did the original national president. The original. Yes, exactly. The original Santa track of that show, which is he pops up basically at the beginning and at the end and that's it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

So for them, they're like great easy game, Broadway money, whatever.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, right.

[Joey Sims]

For Aston, they reworked it so that he had played two second role in the show that he played for significant bits of the Middle Easter Greenway. It was the. He was like the evil boss.

[Ben Hos]

Okay. The one who's like the publishing company.

[David Sims]

It's thematically precedent. It is good and bad.

[Ben Hos]

It's a Captain Hook, Mr. Darling kind of thing. Interesting. No, not the father. You're saying he played the James Khan character's boss.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

Michael Lerner's role in the movie.

[David Sims]

I suppose that. I'm just saying like sort of father figures. But I guess you're right that James Khan is more of a father figure to Khan and Asner are the two big father figures to Buddy the Elf.

[Joey Sims]

They are film.

[Ben Hos]

But Everyone forgets that Academy Award nominee Michael, a great actor for the same

[David Sims]

time in his life, played an ornery boss.

[Ben Hos]

I want that Bunny the elf feeling.

[David Sims]

Do you think Michael Lerner maybe contributed to a sort of negative stereotype over the years? The amount of bosses he played behind desks yelling, I don't know.

[Ben Hos]

I don't know.

[Joey Sims]

I don't know.

[Ben Hos]

Listen, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Ben Hos]

It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce, baby. And sometimes they vanish into the ether.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They do in the blink of an eye.

[Ben Hos]

In the blink.

[David Sims]

Truly, this was a one blink movie. Yeah. This one blinked. I almost was like, has it left Hulu? And then I was like, no, it's there. Okay.

[Joey Sims]

Phew.

[Ben Hos]

It is wild that twice he has had this ultimate get out of jail free card of like, guys, don't worry. Toy Story 5 is coming out in months.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

Mere weeks from now. Yeah. I will have one of the highest grossing films of the year.

[David Sims]

I also feel like John Carter was an actual like, much discussed bomb, whereas this is more just something like no one never really knew it happened, so it's less.

[Joey Sims]

It'll stick to him a little bit.

[Ben Hos]

It's an interesting.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

Is. Is it worse to have the most existent bomb in history or a true tree falls in the middle of the woods and no one's there to hear it movie.

[David Sims]

Right. I think it's better to have the. I made a movie that didn't exist. Like Chris Weitz, who's been on her show and discussed this. He made the Golden Compass, a movie that bankrupted a studio.

[Joey Sims]

God bless.

[David Sims]

Love you, Chris. And then he Love you.

[Ben Hos]

New line. Rest in power.

[David Sims]

Yeah, Rest in power. Now you're a shingle. Went to the great shingle area in this guy. And then he made Afraid. That's how I refer to it.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

A fried.

[Ben Hos]

A fry.

[David Sims]

You see, you don't even know what happens.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

He made a movie.

[Joey Sims]

I don't even know and I know about these movie.

[David Sims]

He made an. An AI horror movie called Afraid. But the AI in Afraid is capitalized Afraid.

[Ben Hos]

Not his title. It had a different.

[Joey Sims]

No, it had.

[David Sims]

It was called they Listen.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And then Sony was like, it should be called Afraid.

[Ben Hos]

Afraid.

[David Sims]

And he has copped to its non existence on this very show.

[Joey Sims]

He made a movie that didn't exist.

[Ben Hos]

He went through A Barton Fink esque atonement. Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Also, this movie premiered at Sundance and then dropped on Hulu like a month later. Like, so it's not so. I don't know all the behind the scenes, but that doesn't give a feeling of them being like, oh, we want to try to get someone else in theaters.

[Ben Hos]

That was always the exact plan. And he has been transparent about when they greenlit this movie. They were like, it's going to Hulu.

[David Sims]

By the way, the Hulu original. I think the Sundance premiere, if anything, was sort of a gesture of goodwill or a kind of like. But you can be at a festival.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's cool.

[Ben Hos]

Yes, it was. Right. That is the way to give this movie a launch. I don't know how much of an effort they would put into a traditional marketing campaign if not for, we can go to Sundance and you could do a bunch of interviews and a screen with the press there.

[David Sims]

It can happen that the film debuts at Sundance and people are like, we don't like it.

[Ben Hos]

Sure.

[David Sims]

And then that'll. That's bad.

[Ben Hos]

But I know, I know the date was set for when it was dropping on Hulu before it went to Sundance. In my memory, there was sort of an all in one announcement of this will premiere at Sundance and go to Hulu on February 27th. It's called in the Blink of an Eye. It's a film made by Andrew Stanton, whose film's recovering in a manuscript is recalling Podsy.

[Joey Sims]

Oh,

[David Sims]

you don't like that?

[Ben Hos]

Joey, it's gonna.

[Joey Sims]

I don't wanna. I don't want to derail the series.

[Ben Hos]

It's gonna look really good pretty far along. Let's look really good on it.

[David Sims]

I've only got one story. Five left, right? Yeah, yeah. So you better like it.

[Ben Hos]

Joey.

[Joey Sims]

We've done. You guys have done. Done John Carter.

[Ben Hos]

We leaped across that one.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, of course. Who's the John Carter guest? Matt Singer.

[Ben Hos]

The great Matt Singer.

[David Sims]

Great episode.

[Ben Hos]

Are you. Are you a John Carter fan? Interrogator.

[David Sims]

Sims of Mars.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

You know, I rewatched a chunk of it ahead of this episode. I. I didn't. Wasn't able. I didn't have time to get through the whole thing. It didn't play as well to me as the first time I watched it. I remember watching it a few years ago and being like, this is kind of like a glorious mess. Like, wow, this is like a crazy. Like, obviously this doesn't work, but what ambition. And I thought I would be revisiting that feeling. And then I watched it again and was like, oh Jesus. Like just the way it's starts is like so rough.

[David Sims]

I think the bookends are tough with that one. I think there were some notes on that from, from me in the episode. The, the non. Mars stuff.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. Yeah, this is, this is a similarly ambitious movie. I mean this is not like a.

[David Sims]

That's true.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It's less.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like the scale of it is more suggested than shown, but. Right.

[Ben Hos]

But it does it. It is, I would say narratively and emotionally ambitious and it does feel like on paper a high risk movie. A if you don't get this right, it's going to be embarrassing kind of movie.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[David Sims]

Who's our guest?

[Ben Hos]

Our guest? As I said, Joey Sims, host of House Closed, which I, I googled to make sure I was getting the name of the podcast correct. And are you aware, Joey, that there is another podcast hosted by a man named Joey Sims? I assume not you, I assume you're not doing double duty called Healing Word. Join Joey Sims as we are challenged by studying the Bible to grow in our relationship with God and encourage to apply God's word in our life. It sounds like ripe material for a Jay Ferguson sitcom.

[Joey Sims]

Yes. House Closed.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Peter, we saw with Sims and Scully, Big two. My co host. The big two to my co host being the lovely Connor Scully, a theater producer. And we see. Yeah, I'm doing, I'm doing my plug.

[David Sims]

Do your plug.

[Joey Sims]

We see two shows together sometimes a guest will also have seen the same two shows that are either currently running like Broadway, Off Broadway, off of Broadway, whatever. And then we talk about those two shows or in our latest episode, the fourth episode that we just did, it was three shows, so we're four episodes in and we already broke our format. You people are slut. Sorry, how many of your episodes have

[Ben Hos]

been MJ the Musical so far?

[Joey Sims]

Well, we're saving MJ the Musical. So over the summer when things slow down in the theater world, we'll do a 10 episode series. Yeah. Analyzing MJ the musical.

[Ben Hos]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

All the decisions that, that, that, that, that happened there.

[David Sims]

Will you, during the slow months, like check in with more long running shows?

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're trying to figure out like over the summer, like what, like fun things can we do? Like we want to do like Perfect Crime, you know that show that's been running off Broadway for a million. You know about Perfect Crime?

[Ben Hos]

I, I have been really tempted to go see Perfect Crime. And in fact, Zach Cherry, very recent guest on this podcast, most recent guest on this podcast that's Right. He and I have been strategizing to go see Perfect Crime together because he didn't know about it and I told him and he's. He's fairly obsessed now.

[David Sims]

New York running play.

[Joey Sims]

I haven't seen it. It reveals itself as New York's longest running play. It is this like God awful, like murder mystery.

[David Sims]

What if it's good?

[Joey Sims]

The theater center says here it's perfect.

[Ben Hos]

Right, Right. What used to be the Snapple.

[Joey Sims]

What used to be the Snapple Theaters,

[David Sims]

but that used to have the Fantastics.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Many, many years ago.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

And. And the venue is owned now by the lead actress. Right? I.

[Joey Sims]

Yes, I believe she owns the venue. Yes, that is correct.

[David Sims]

Content warning suicide. This sounds dark.

[Ben Hos]

Well, that's a spoiler alert website.

[Joey Sims]

She stars in the show, produces the show. Like hands. Hands out the Playbills, you know, like it's one of those. She's been doing it since it started, I think. She claims she's never missed a performance. I'm not sure if that's.

[David Sims]

No, they're dark on Wednesdays though.

[Joey Sims]

Lazy. And they were like uninterrupted, you know, up until.

[Ben Hos]

Until the pandemic. I know, I know. She's like griped about that a lot. But there's.

[Joey Sims]

She didn't want to close. She was like.

[Ben Hos]

But she's like missed family members, weddings.

[Joey Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Hos]

And there was her children.

[David Sims]

Don't know her.

[Ben Hos]

There was a point that she was appearing in another play at the same time and she was still doing Perfect Murder. Like, what's.

[David Sims]

For crying out loud, how dare you talk about the best show on earth.

[Ben Hos]

But she would, like do her walk on in the other play and then run over to the Snapple Theater and do I. Let me know when you actually make plans to go see it because I.

[David Sims]

It has done 15,000 performances.

[Ben Hos]

I've been really eager to go and I need the kick in the butt.

[David Sims]

It's been running as long as I've been alive. Essentially it started a year after I was born.

[Joey Sims]

Probably in my honor. I should clarify. They were. Their performances were interrupted one other time by a very iconic event. I remember this press release so well. So I was just pulling it back up to remember Off Broadway's Perfect Crime and the Office the musical. Because the. The Office parody musical runs in the same building. Halt performances due to theft of pipes at the theater.

[David Sims]

Some copper pipes.

[Joey Sims]

Find this burglars broke.

[David Sims]

I'll fix your pipes for you.

[Joey Sims]

The burglars broke into the vacant restaurant below. Made their way to the basement of the building, disconnected and then stole every piece of copper pipe they could find. Quoting from the press release that the show put out, leaving the building without any access to water. The criminals returned in the early hours today smashing the front doors. They've not yet been blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so they were also interrupted when all their, when all their copper pipes were.

[Ben Hos]

What year was that?

[David Sims]

We're pipeless.

[Joey Sims]

That was in 2022. And I don't know if the, if these, if these hoodlums were ever identified.

[David Sims]

Did you know that after the end of the show you are given a two page answer sheet to explain the show? Because it's complex?

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Is that because people were complaining, like, I don't understand the ending.

[Ben Hos]

Here's some other facts. It's. It's run in eight different theaters since 1987.

[David Sims]

Premiered off broad like in the West Village, at the Grow, the Courtyard, playhous.

[Ben Hos]

If in November 2016, Gary Busey spent two weeks in the role of Lionel.

[David Sims]

Two fantastic weeks.

[Ben Hos]

November 2016. Kicking America while it was down.

[David Sims]

Why did he do that?

[Joey Sims]

They've star cast other people. John Schneider was briefly in Perfect Crime,

[David Sims]

one of the, one of the Dukes of Hazard.

[Ben Hos]

Perfect politics.

[David Sims]

Isn't he the one who. Isn't the other one worse or are both Dukes?

[Ben Hos]

No, Schneider's pretty bad one.

[David Sims]

Is Schneider the one who was in Smallville?

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

She's never taken a sick day. She's missed only four performances. Katherine Russell, the last in 1995 to attend her brother's wedding. That was the last time she was willing to go to a wedding over doing the show.

[David Sims]

So the Snapple has two theaters, two stages.

[Joey Sims]

No longer the Snapple. So it used to be sponsored by Snapple.

[David Sims]

It's eternally the Snapple.

[Joey Sims]

Well, no, because there used to be this, this big.

[David Sims]

It was the sample size, the caps

[Joey Sims]

that would go round and round.

[Ben Hos]

I'd scale the building to try to see the fact underneath because it wasn't

[David Sims]

facing the street and it was like perfect crime. $60. Come on, don't steal our pipes. Not for sale.

[Joey Sims]

And they took them off. They took them off. Now it is just.

[David Sims]

Well, do you think they were like, hey Snapple, do you want to sponsor the theater? They were like, we sponsor.

[Ben Hos]

I mean, I will say if you go to the Wikipedia page for the theater center, the image it shows you immediately is Snapple. Yeah.

[David Sims]

You can't, you can't shake that.

[Ben Hos]

You can't shake that.

[David Sims]

But I know that the one of the theaters is the Jerry Rock Theater.

[Joey Sims]

After the great Jerry in the fantastic ran for many, many years. Yes, yes.

[David Sims]

He was in the original.

[Ben Hos]

And that's where, I guess the Office musical is the. An El.

[David Sims]

I know that I go every night.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. Right now they have Perfect Crime, the Office parody musical. And they have one other parody musical going right now.

[David Sims]

It looks like they also have Friends, the Unauthorized Musical parody and Sing Feld, which is an unauthorized Seinfeld parody musical.

[Joey Sims]

Wow. Wow. I saw also a sadly now closed Love actually parody musical at the same. At the same venue. I. It was actually not long after theaters reopened after Covid that I went to see that show. You were happy. And my main memory of it was that the Alan Rickman character was performed by a guy who was in full, like, Snape garb. Like, anytime anyone would talk to him, he'd pull out his wand and you get it. It was kind of funny.

[Ben Hos]

Expecto adultery.

[Joey Sims]

There you go.

[Ben Hos]

Perfect Crime opened. It reopened April 2021. It was the first show in New York City to get approval from Actors Equity to resume performances. You just imagine that Katherine Russell was like, yeah. Ratching her thighs for 14 months, like, digging her nails and being like, when can I get back on the fucking stage?

[Joey Sims]

De Blasio appeared at their first performance. I think he, like, made. Gave a little speech.

[David Sims]

There's Fiorello, the musical, of course, which is about LaGuardia. Right. It's the famous Broadway musical. When will we get our de Blasio musical?

[Ben Hos]

Bill. Is there Tall Bill. I was gonna say. Who's the tallest musical theater actor we have right now?

[Joey Sims]

Tommy Toon.

[Ben Hos]

Like, do we have to put Norman Leo Butts on stilts to do the block?

[David Sims]

Who. Yeah. Who is the tallest.

[Joey Sims]

Well, I'll just Google it. Who is the Broadway actor?

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

You bring me on. Well, for this type of.

[David Sims]

Tommy Tune did come up for exactly

[Joey Sims]

this type of insight.

[David Sims]

Harold McGillan, I can tell you. Sure. Who is a long time. Phantom is six four four. Pretty good. Not as tall as Bill. Who's six seven. Timothy Hughes. That's the big man from Hades.

[Joey Sims]

I was thinking of the big guy

[David Sims]

now he's more of an ensemble player.

[Joey Sims]

He's, you know, very hot.

[David Sims]

But I remember that with Hadestown where there was the one big guy.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. The tall.

[David Sims]

Because they've got all the guys in the sort with the big hammers who are like, you know, in industrial hell.

[Ben Hos]

I mean, you're also saying he's more of an ensemble guy. This is maybe his breakout. This is the thing that. That makes him a leading man. I mean, De Blasio.

[David Sims]

You know what? Get him out there. Yeah. You know, first act, de Blasio as mayor. Second act, de Blasio is horn dog.

[Ben Hos]

I was gonna say entire.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

Second act is just sitting down with the New York Times for that piece.

[David Sims]

Just like de Blasio, like, on the apps. You know, it's just like de Blasio being like, field. Eh.

[Ben Hos]

I'm gonna match one of these days. Even if they hire someone like this Hughes guy, they should still put the actor on stilts and make him so tall that his head is not visible in the senior march.

[Joey Sims]

That'd be good.

[Ben Hos]

It should be like, Police Squad style. He's out of frame.

[David Sims]

You know, this film came out in the wink of an eye. Yeah. So look, look, look, look, look. There weren't. There was nobody out here who was like, when are you guys covering it? In a blink of an eye. And can I be on the show?

[Ben Hos]

Literally nobody.

[Joey Sims]

Nobody.

[David Sims]

Joey has a new show. He is a new podcast. It's a show.

[Joey Sims]

A show about shows.

[David Sims]

He is my brother.

[Ben Hos]

Not to mention the credits. Long time, brother.

[David Sims]

Long time.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Hey. And uncle.

[David Sims]

And my uncle. The uncle. He's a wonderful uncle to my children. How are my kids doing?

[Joey Sims]

You're one of your younger sons. Has some anger issues, but overall they're doing great.

[David Sims]

It's got a lot of rage.

[Ben Hos]

It's rock steady,

[David Sims]

no biba.

[Joey Sims]

Oh, they have names too.

[David Sims]

Well, yeah. It's so funny to watch him do the.

[Ben Hos]

To do the math. Yes. It's why I, like, tee him up every time, because I like that he has to, like, seriously remember the canon he's containing.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And so you're like, I'd love to, you know, plug my show on the podcast. You know, like, what's coming up? Like, Scorsese, could I do Hugo? And I'm like, you know, Hugo's a 2027 episode for us. It's gonna be, you know, And I

[Ben Hos]

was like, look, you know, what's coming up in. In the blink of an eye.

[David Sims]

I got an empty spreadsheet cell right here in front of me for a much more recent episode. If you. You'd care to fire up Hulu H U L u dot com.

[Joey Sims]

It felt sort of in keeping with my, you know, some of my appearances so far on the show. My first was Lost in Space as a sibling's choice.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Ratatouille, actually. Great movie.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Ratatouille, actually.

[David Sims]

Sibling episode.

[Joey Sims]

Yes. But then Polar Express, a cancer.

[Ben Hos]

You infected us with that one I requested. Yes. And now Now David has seen that movie like 80 times and has like Stockholm syndrome.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I kind of like it. Never, never, Never.

[Ben Hos]

It is fun. I was.

[David Sims]

It was fun in theaters.

[Ben Hos]

I was thinking about, you know, the.

[Joey Sims]

The.

[Ben Hos]

The era of the siblings choice, a thing where we needed to fill slots on the schedule. And we were like, what are fun ideas for episodes both of my siblings choices got 20 years later. Legacy equals.

[David Sims]

Right, That's a good point. Right. We just had Romuly on the show because Space Jam, of course, got the perfect and well remembered.

[Ben Hos]

They started a new legacy. Yes.

[David Sims]

Algae Rhythm.

[Joey Sims]

Up to lately.

[David Sims]

Running for 2028 publican nominations.

[Ben Hos]

I was gonna say he's the entire cabinet greenlit.

[David Sims]

Michael.

[Joey Sims]

No, this is this the Don Cheadle AI thing.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. His name is Al G. Rhythm. Rhythm. Conor Ratliff has a running bit where he insists on calling that character the king of content, even though he's never seen the movie and he won't be corrected on it.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

And I was like, oh, what are the chances we get a Lost in Space legacy goal? And you're like, they're actually zero. We got the Netflix series, but I think with Hurt Dead.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Sims]

That's the top reason.

[Ben Hos]

That's the top reason. Who's gonna bring the herd if not

[Joey Sims]

Big Bill Goldsman is after. After amassing power at Paramount. Goldsman calling up the exact season. Like, listen, I wrote a draft of Lost in Space too.

[Ben Hos]

Wait a second, David. I think I know what you're gonna say.

[David Sims]

Well, I mean, I was trying to point to one. I was trying to point to our president Red Hulk, who's over there.

[Ben Hos]

But we're bought new shells.

[David Sims]

We're remodeling the office. I'm not sure where President Hulk is right now. Do we know Ben? Okay, I'm not.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm not certain he was.

[David Sims]

He was respectively stuffed away. He's our president, so.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I did salute him.

[Ben Hos]

Let's say he's visiting Camp David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Gotta see the. The Blossoms. Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

Liv Tyler.

[David Sims]

Where are my pills?

[Ben Hos]

So are you suggesting, like, recast Harrison Ford? Him in there?

[David Sims]

Be like, we got Ford. We got Ford. Everyone else is back. Mimi Rogers.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Matt LeBlanc. The kid who played the kid. They're all back.

[Ben Hos]

Jared Harris. We don't let him talk. Yes.

[David Sims]

Gary Oldman. Only in spider form.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Oh, Heather Graham.

[Ben Hos]

Heather Graham.

[David Sims]

She's probably the most like, still looks like herself of all the people I just mentioned. Like, she's aged into.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You're like, oh, yeah, she's still Heather Graham.

[Ben Hos]

She's doing the new White Lotus season.

[David Sims]

Is she on that?

[Joey Sims]

I think so.

[David Sims]

Did you see our friend Max Miguel is on it?

[Ben Hos]

I did see that.

[Joey Sims]

Well, well, well, well.

[Ben Hos]

Checking in. Ding, ding, ding.

[David Sims]

But Lost in Space too. I'd love to see. It does seem unlikely. I also feel like Stephen Hopkins has

[Joey Sims]

not worked of late.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah. What was his last film?

[Joey Sims]

I don't think he did anymore.

[Ben Hos]

Stevie films.

[Joey Sims]

Didn't he just retreat back to television?

[David Sims]

No, you are wrong. And I remember his last film, of course, because it was Race, the. Oh, right, Owens biopic that came out 10 years ago that has a lot of Lenny Riefenstah. Like, you watch it and you're like, this is gonna be a Jesse Owens biopic. And they're like, yeah, yeah, sure, he ran the race. Lenny Riefenstahl, though played by Carice Van Houten, is like a big part of the movie because, of course, it's about the 36 Olympics. But, like, it's maybe a little too concerned with her, probably because she's a fascinating figure in history, but you're kind of like, isn't this the Jesse Owens movie?

[Joey Sims]

Well, they have a little bit of a will they, won't they Thing going.

[Ben Hos]

Talk about an insane filmography, though. Dangerous Game, Nightmare on Elm street, he

[David Sims]

was a solid genre.

[Ben Hos]

Predator 2, Judgment Night, Blown Away, the

[David Sims]

Ghost in Darkness are him leveling up to, like, a bigger scale genre.

[Ben Hos]

Then Lost in Space is like. You get to do a big fucking special effect.

[David Sims]

This is a giant special effects studio movie. Yeah, right. You know, it was new line, but still, you know.

[Ben Hos]

And then Under Suspicion.

[David Sims]

I've never seen that.

[Ben Hos]

Of course, the Big Three. Hackman, Freeman, Bellucci, then the Life and Death and Peter Sellers HBO movie, which

[David Sims]

is like, not bad.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, but.

[David Sims]

But it's TV movie.

[Ben Hos]

The Reaping. The Hillary Swank.

[David Sims]

That's the Hillary Swank Ten Plagues of the Bible movie.

[Ben Hos]

Correct.

[David Sims]

Where she's like, I have two Oscars. And I'm like, then why are you fighting Locust,

[Joey Sims]

Hillary?

[David Sims]

That is. That is a brutal retort. You know what I mean?

[Ben Hos]

Why are you fighting Locust?

[David Sims]

It's not like, All About Steve, where Sandra Bul. Like, look, I filmed this right before I won. It's like, it's three years after Million Dollar Bay R. I'm like, you have two Oscars. You had to do the Reaping.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then Race.

[Ben Hos]

And then Race. Yeah. Then there's nine years between the Reaping and Race, and he hasn't made a

[David Sims]

film since he's made some TV since.

[Ben Hos]

David. Yes, I love wearing glasses, but they can be a hassle sometimes.

[David Sims]

Oh, they're on your head. It's very annoying.

[Ben Hos]

I mean, it's so easy to put off, off buying new glasses for so long because it's so expensive and it can be such a difficult process.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Well, Zenny, it's an online eyewear shop that's got prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, and they start at under $30. Okay.

[Ben Hos]

That's a low amount of money.

[David Sims]

Yeah. So you just, you go to zenni.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription and they ship it to your door. No appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter. So if you want to replace some glasses, you do it just like that. And it's cheap as heck.

[Ben Hos]

It takes the pressure off the process and the choice.

[David Sims]

Yes. They got over 150,000 five star reviews. And if you've never bought glasses online before, Zenni has a virtual try on so you can see exactly how a frame looks on your face. Before you commit, go to zenni.com podcast and you use code PODCAST15 for 15. 15% off your first order. The styles do sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I.com podcast promo code PODCAST15. You're here to discuss Andrew Stanton's in the Blink of an Eye. I want this came out February 27th. Then I thought, oh, leap Day. And then I'm like, oh, no, no, leap day is February 29th. Then I had the thought, what movies came out on February 29th? Because that's rare.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

I found three.

[Ben Hos]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Want to hear them?

[Ben Hos]

Yep, please.

[David Sims]

Semi Pro.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

February 29th.

[Ben Hos]

Okay. Not a good movie in my memory.

[David Sims]

No, the other Berlin girl, also February 29th.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Okay.

[Ben Hos]

2008, same year.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Here's the most important, because it's every four years.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Here's the best one.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

An extremely goofy movie. Okay. February 29th. That was pretty funny.

[David Sims]

Was it?

[Ben Hos]

That's a DTV, though.

[David Sims]

It was.

[Joey Sims]

It was directed.

[Ben Hos]

But that's a wonderful film. That's it. That's it. It's a pretty excellent picture if you ask me. What if it's. It's Goofy movie. Back to school. Finally I get to move out and be my own man.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

And Goofy's like, I'm signing all the dean. He decides he wants to take classes and bring disco back.

[David Sims]

Ah, of course.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah. So there's a lot of shake your groove thing. In that movie, B.B. newworth plays a hot beatnik love interest for Goof, huh? Yeah.

[David Sims]

Max have a.

[Ben Hos]

He does. I'm trying to remember. He's gay.

[David Sims]

It'd be pretty awesome if they'd done that.

[Ben Hos]

Pretty awesome if in the year 2000.

[David Sims]

Get over it.

[Ben Hos]

I'm trying to remember who voiced. I'm sure it was like someone who was on a Fox.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

Or WB drama at the time. In the Blink of an Eye came out this year.

[David Sims]

I'm seeing here that Vicki Lewis is the charismatic.

[Ben Hos]

You're right.

[David Sims]

And BB New Earth is a librarian.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Just.

[Joey Sims]

Just to let you know.

[Ben Hos]

Okay, so Vicki Lewis is the beatnik who is Max's love interest, and B.B. neuwirth is the librarian who sounded dad's life age wise.

[Joey Sims]

But I was.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

It wasn't.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No.

[David Sims]

I think I'm here to tell you that Vicki Lewis plays pj love interest. Who the is pj?

[Ben Hos]

PJ is the best friend.

[David Sims]

Forgive me for not remembering who PJ Goofy is.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, of course. He's Pete's son.

[David Sims]

Oh, he's the.

[Joey Sims]

The. The.

[David Sims]

The chunkier guy.

[Ben Hos]

But then. Wait a second. Does. Does Max not have a love interest?

[David Sims]

He's an incel.

[Ben Hos]

Okay, okay.

[David Sims]

He starts looking at fortune.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I can't believe that I'm doing this.

[David Sims]

Okay, can we. We're about 45.

[Ben Hos]

You know what?

[David Sims]

This is gonna be a 90 minute episode anyway. So like, let's talk about in the Blink of an Eye. I do have a dossier if you want me to open it.

[Ben Hos]

Yes, please.

[David Sims]

Incredibly, JJ did research on this movie.

[Ben Hos]

That is astonishing.

[Joey Sims]

Look, it's a feature film sciency. That's true.

[David Sims]

I'm sure they built sets and stuff. They didn't just make it in his backyard. 2016, Andrew Stanton made finding Dory. 2026 he made in the Blink of an eye. So that's 10 years.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

What did he do in between?

[Ben Hos]

Many things.

[David Sims]

Live action television.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. Yes.

[David Sims]

I think basically post Dory. His. He basically was like, I want to make live action stuff and there's lots of TV and like it's a way to do it.

[Ben Hos]

He did a recent interview leading up to Toy Story 5 where he said that he intends for Toy Story 5 to be his final animated film. And he said it's just that these movies take so long. And I love animation, but I was never primarily an animation person. I grew up like working at an art house theater in high school. And that's when I really love. Fell in love with film. And I'm into all different types of movies. And it's been a great blessing to work at a place like Pixar and have that sort of freedom and leeway. But you can get a lot more done in live action. And I think there was a hope that, well, finding Dory resets the board a little bit from the stink of John Carter. And now I will try to make a smaller budgeted live action film. And there are many scripts that he has signed up for, but to sort of get his reps in. Meanwhile, he did a tremendous amount of live action tv.

[David Sims]

He directed episodes five and six of the second season of Stranger Things. I haven't seen them because Barb's not involved, obviously. My stance on Stranger Things is no Barb, no David Barb.

[Ben Hos]

Purist. A Barb absolutist, in fact.

[David Sims]

Yes, yes. You watch Stranger Things?

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Do you remember Andrew Stanton's work on Stranger Things?

[Joey Sims]

I mean, Stranger Things has a pretty solid established visual style that I feel like even when you're bringing in Stanton has a floor inside of him.

[David Sims]

Is it Beckner or what is it the Wilder Beast? It's Demogorgon.

[Ben Hos]

Vecna. Vecna lives on top of that tummy floor. He lives in the tummy. The tummy is Vecna's home. That was the twist. Joey. I have never watched Stranger Things, I believe just because I try to keep tabs on Stanton stuff. He directed the 11, like, punk episode.

[Joey Sims]

Oh, did he do that one? Yes, that. That one that they kind of. Well, it was like a. Did he a. A second season? Yeah, like almost a, like failed backdoor pilot.

[Ben Hos]

A little bit of a. A kind of one off self contained story. He didn't.

[David Sims]

Okay. No, that was Rebecca Thomas.

[Ben Hos]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

He directed episodes five and six, and I can tell you, like Hopper Hooper. Hopper.

[Joey Sims]

Hopper. This is season two.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

And that's all. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

He got lost in a tunnel and, you know. Yeah. Some 11 appears to be involved.

[Joey Sims]

I'm sure he did a good job. You know, I gotta say, the only ones that I ever remember noticing, like, oh, there's a bit of extra flavor here, was when Darabon directed a couple episodes in the last. In the last season of Stranger Things. And you noticed a few things where you're like, oh, okay, that has a little swish to it.

[David Sims]

But no, this is a show I never stuck with. I only watched the first season. But I know you watched a Pinata, the sixth episode of the fourth season of Better Call Saul.

[Ben Hos]

It's an excellent episode.

[David Sims]

I.

[Ben Hos]

And Better Call Saul is a show I adore yeah.

[David Sims]

You're a big fan.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I know.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

I think it's like a masterpiece, but that's a very good episode. He directed an episode of Legion.

[David Sims]

Legion. He did the fourth episode of Tales from the Loop. He did four total episodes of a show I love called For All Mankind on Apple tv, including in my opinion, its best ever episode.

[Ben Hos]

Wow.

[David Sims]

He did the third episode. It's the one where fucking. I mean, I don't remember like the names of the episode, but like where. Joel Edgerton. I mean, not Joel Edge. Joe Kinnaman. God bless. There's a lot of trolls out there.

[Ben Hos]

Robert Cop.

[David Sims]

Where his adoptive daughter decides, like, she wants to be an astronaut. They have this huge fight or she wants to be in the military or whatever, you know, like following his footsteps. And they have this huge fight in a living room, him and his wife and the daughter. And the camera like sticks with it, moves all around and it's so good and it's so beautifully acted. It's the show at its peak. I mean, that show. I gotta start watching this. It's fallen off a little. Season five's a little. It's kind of like, guys, I think you're done. And you know, full of ideas.

[Ben Hos]

Our friend Alan Se, in a. In a text recently revealed to me.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

That they are about to launch a spin off show that is retelling everything that's happened on For All Mankind so far. From the perspective of the Russians. They're just.

[David Sims]

This is correct.

[Ben Hos]

Resetting City.

[David Sims]

It seems like a. I don't think it's going to run five seasons, put it that way.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, that's just a wild idea to be like triumphant run. We're wrapping up, by the way. The spin off is starting in three months and it's just going back to. That's the first point of the story.

[David Sims]

I'm like, we know what happened. So what do you like? What do we. Anyway, whatever, who knows? It's also in English, despite all the Russian scenes in the show being in Russian in the main show. But clearly they were like, well, the whole show can't be in Russian. Then I'm like, well then what are you doing?

[Ben Hos]

Maybe don't make it.

[David Sims]

He also directed an episode of Three Body Problem and he wrote two episodes of Obi Wan Kenobi, a show I

[Ben Hos]

recently watched for the first time. And I will admit I think is

[Joey Sims]

quite terrible, quite bad. But he's like, the credits on that are like, you know, he's like one of like a million names.

[Ben Hos]

They're very like Qualified people who knows exactly.

[Joey Sims]

Who knows who.

[Ben Hos]

Those Star wars shows have a lot of wacky credits attached to them. Because at one point this person was supposed to do this or this was supposed to be a movie.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

You would, like, put him as an example, put Stanton in charge of like, hey, you're our, like, guiding vision for this show. Maybe it would have been better. But I don't think it was that.

[Ben Hos]

No. It's odd because. Right. He gets credited as a writer on two episodes, but I don't even think he's producer and he didn't direct any.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hos]

And it made sense.

[Joey Sims]

It just feels like you, like, stumbled into a writer's room for two weeks and then you were like this.

[Ben Hos]

But it's also wild because it's not like he worked in a writer's room on any other shows from the time he started.

[David Sims]

No, but, like, I feel like that's

[Joey Sims]

kind of like what being in the Pixar brain trust is a little bit.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

They just don't get credited that way.

[Ben Hos]

Totally. And I also think it makes sense that that moment, Obi Wan, is where they're really starting to widen the aperture of like, maybe we're going to make a ton of stuff for Disney plus us. If I understand. I'm like, I just want to get in the door at Lucasfilm. I want to talk to them about Star Wars.

[David Sims]

But I think a lot of people who worked on the Star Wars TV shows were basically like, I'd like to do something to do. I'd love to be on a set with a lightsaber. Like, it would just be awesome. Like, I grew up with Star wars like this rock.

[Joey Sims]

I mean, obviously he makes sense.

[David Sims]

He does.

[Joey Sims]

To have done something.

[David Sims]

And a show that made sense was Obi Wan Kenobi. A perfect miniseries. That made sense. Sense.

[Ben Hos]

I assume. I will have griped about this, everyone

[David Sims]

down the camera and was like, this makes sense.

[Ben Hos]

And grou episode. But it is astonishing to me that almost all of the Disney plus Star wars shows are about a person with a child being chased by someone.

[David Sims]

Yes. Being chased by the fourth most important evil Jedi adjacent dark side guy. Like, in this sector, they present someone like Ray Stevenson, rip, God bless him, shows up and he's like. And I'm also not a Sith.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

But I kind of like him. And I'm not a Jedi neither. But I have a lightsaber. And I'm like, well, what are you? He's like, I don't know.

[Ben Hos]

I was just like, how are these all the exact same Premise where you're like, semi stoic lead, younger, more vulnerable, sort of like under the wing, you know, they have to protect. They're looking for something and someone else is chasing them. And the person who's chasing them. Them is established as really evil. And the longer things go on, you're like, they're only kind of half evil. They're all that, save for Andor, which

[David Sims]

is probably the best one. I mean, Ahsoka, does anyone has anyone throwing that.

[Joey Sims]

That. That take out that Andor's good people

[Ben Hos]

are like, then we might want to cut that out just because.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, my microphone's on fire. You've watched Ashoka, right? Ahsoka. Ahsoka.

[Joey Sims]

I watched Ahsoka.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna watch season two.

[Joey Sims]

Why not?

[David Sims]

I love punishment.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. I want to see what happens with. What's that? What the hell is the blue guy? Who like, yeah, Thrawn. I think Ahsoka is so fascinating because

[David Sims]

I swear to God, they're like, get ready to meet the scariest villain in the world. He's fucking Joe Biden in that show. He's so quiet. He's like. But I just.

[Joey Sims]

The end of that season one is so wild to me because it's Filoni basically being like, I am setting up this Thrawn guy right as like, this is it. It. Like, this is the new guy.

[David Sims]

Because the show mostly has other smaller villains that she's dealing with.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, no.

[Joey Sims]

But it's not just in the show. Like, to me, it felt like it was suggesting like, we are. This is your new bag of the Star wars extending to other shows. Like, I want to make movies. And I'm sure he probably does want to do all this, but I'm watching it, and I'm like, there's no way that's happening. So what the hell is this?

[Ben Hos]

I don't know.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Do we have to watch season two for the group?

[David Sims]

You don't have to do.

[Ben Hos]

Well, I know season two hasn't happened and won't come out.

[David Sims]

Y come out. It won't come out by next week, thank God, because that's your season two. It doesn't even have. Yeah, it doesn't even have.

[Ben Hos]

But it has been filmed. And Rory McCann replaced Ray Stevenson.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, the man died. Look, look, not the problem.

[Joey Sims]

He actually was the best part.

[David Sims]

He was the best performer, and he was. You were kind of like, there's something to this idea.

[Joey Sims]

There's something right, you know, to like the idea of what he's playing.

[David Sims]

Obviously, the big problem with Ashoka. Ahsoka. Ahsoka is just like, she's a non character.

[Ben Hos]

She's a non character.

[David Sims]

And like, I know in the cartoon she's like a spunky teen who's like, I'm a rebel or whatever, but by the time the show, like, now that she's a grown up, she's just like, her vibe is. She's serene.

[Ben Hos]

Every character is like that. Well, that's.

[David Sims]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, they're all kind of just like, we are your friends. Okay?

[Ben Hos]

So we haven't. We haven't. We haven't seen Mando and we have record it yet. So I'm gonna burn some of these takes here and just remind me to not make these complaints in the Mando episode.

[David Sims]

Okay?

[Ben Hos]

My takeaway watching Ahsoka was like, this feels like watching children perform Shakespeare where they don't know what they're saying and the only direction they're being given is

[Joey Sims]

play it seriously and say it slow. So slow.

[Ben Hos]

Everything is like, your character motivation is, is serious. And I think that is partially that. Filoni ran these cartoon shows. I have not watched much of Clone wars, but I watched the majority of Rebels, which I really liked, and was a show that was fun and had defined characters. And so much of Ahsoka is him being like, I'm bringing all my rebels characters into live action and then zapping them of any personality because I'm trying to fight the perception that these are children's characters. So everyone is just like saying things

[Joey Sims]

really slowly and quietly. Even fucking like, Ezra shows up. Who's been built up as. By the way, you can't have a character called Ezra in Star Wars. It's ridiculous. But he shows up and he's been built up as like, oh, oh, crazy, wild Ezra. He's so fun. And then he's just pretty much just as dead eyed as the rest of them.

[Ben Hos]

Laurie Elizabeth Winstead, who I always love, I think basically never misses is, and we've talked about David like, she's someone who can single handedly elevate dog totally. And in this, she is so boring and lifeless. Everyone is bad.

[David Sims]

The villains, the whales.

[Ben Hos]

The whales.

[Joey Sims]

There are whales.

[David Sims]

Whales are good.

[Ben Hos]

The whales are good. But everyone had told me the whales were good. I skipped the show when it aired years ago, and I remember at the time, people being like, the whales kind of feel like classic Star wars magic. I got to the whale sequence in the season and I was like, like, that was good. But if you're telling me that's the high water mark And I have four episodes left to go. I'm terrified. I agree with you. The whales are like, the one chunk that I felt a little something. Anyway, that's my. That's my Star wars ran over. Also, Ahsoka's, like, basically not the lead character of that show. She's not the season.

[David Sims]

Not dead. She's.

[Joey Sims]

She's in a in between Anakin verse. Right.

[Ben Hos]

She's in the limbo. The Anakin verse curse. It's just everyone being like, we gotta find Ezra. Ezra.

[David Sims]

Have you watched Skeleton Crew yet?

[Ben Hos]

I'm watching it right now.

[David Sims]

That one at least has energy.

[Joey Sims]

What, did they renew Skeleton?

[Ben Hos]

No, no, that's a one.

[David Sims]

That was one of them.

[Ben Hos]

Soak is the only thing that's coming

[Joey Sims]

back when they've announced and that'll be the end of it.

[David Sims]

Like, it's over.

[Joey Sims]

And then Filoni will be shot in the middle of time.

[Ben Hos]

Probably everyone forgets they announced that Filoni was going to direct them movie. That was the culmination of all the mean.

[Joey Sims]

I think he thought that was happening.

[Ben Hos]

That was happening. And I think there was a little bit of. We've changed our priorities. Let's just put grou on a screen.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

And see what happens.

[Ben Hos]

John directs that. We're sorry. We'll let you make Ahsoka Season 2 to wrap up those threats.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, I. I honestly think they should just let him. Just not for theaters, but, like, in Disney. Let him make whatever crazy movie he wants to make where he brings back all of them through AI, like, you know, Luke, Leia, Han. No, he wants to do this. Let's be real. And he wants to correct everything that he thinks they did wrong in the sequel series of, like, these guys should have been fighting together and they should be fighting Thrawn, I guess, like, let him. Oh, good of shit.

[David Sims]

Yes, right? Like YouTube fan movie. It's in on the Disney plus app. It's in a garbage can. You have to, like, lift up the lid. And they're like, really? And you're like, yeah, what's in there? They're like, all right, we'll get it out for you. It's like, covered in banana peels.

[Ben Hos]

Press play. The FBI breaks down your door.

[David Sims]

It's just a spinning wheel. It just turns into a question mark. And it's like, come on. That wasn't gonna.

[Ben Hos]

Chris Hansen shows up. Oh, so you decided to watch the Filoni movie.

[Joey Sims]

You watch the felony movie. And in the blink of an eye, what's. What's going on with.

[David Sims]

We will Talk about this, like, two months prior to this. But, yeah, I do wonder if they have, like, a Hail Mary guy, like the James Gunn D.C. thing. Kathy has retired Filoni. He's gonna go to some cartoon world.

[Ben Hos]

Filoni is in charge of the whole thing.

[David Sims]

I know.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But his mando does poorly. Do they go like, I don't know, we want a new steward. And it's. But then I don't know who the answer to that question is.

[Ben Hos]

I mean, I think I know the answer, which is it's. They already announced Simon Kimberg is sort of like, overseeing that.

[David Sims]

Ain't it, my friends? Let's do it again.

[Ben Hos]

But they're like, filoni is in charge of operations, which I also think is partially being like, maybe in charge.

[Joey Sims]

Are you.

[Ben Hos]

Maybe you don't write and direct the stuff as much anymore. And that Simon Kimberg's the guy who's sort of like, you gotta figure out the movie problem. Everything's really good. I know the two movies that he came close to making. The one was Revolver. Is that correct? Sims.

[David Sims]

All right, well, let me. Let me just.

[Joey Sims]

Philosophical.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

He's gonna remake.

[David Sims]

Okay. So Stanton, just to note, he is on the Pixar senior creative team. He was the narrative guru for. Literally credited as the narrative guru for Ralph Breaks the Internet. Hey, babe. Okay, okay, good work.

[Ben Hos]

Because this is where once Disney has bought Pixar, they start to send the Pixar brain trust out to other projects of the other tendrils to give Advice.

[David Sims]

Toy Story 4, he is a writer alongside Stephanie FSOM, so he created Forky,

[Joey Sims]

So obviously he was awarded.

[David Sims]

Did the Nobel Peace Prize for that work.

[Ben Hos]

It was in that same recent piece. Toy Story 4 was originally announced as a John Lasseter movie. Weirdly enough, Rashida Jones was writing it with her partner, Wil McCormick. Her writing partner. It was the Woody Boat Peep reunion movie, but a very different version of it that didn't work for years and years and years. And they kept pushing it back. And then Lassiter steps down. Hands off directing. Lassiter, lots of huggin. Lancetter is pushed out of Pixar entirely. And they basically go to Stanton and they're like, can you take a crack at this? Toy Story 4's a disaster, and we cannot cancel it because there is so much money tied up in the idea of marketing and merchandising and the promise to our shareholders that we will have another Toy Story movie. And as he put it, he, like, you know, locked himself in a room and within, like, six hours was like, I think I know what the movie is that he is the. The Toy Story genius, and he is the one who can.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, that's what they. What he and Joss Whedon did all those years ago. Right? Yes. When the first one was a disaster. And then they locked themselves in a room.

[Ben Hos]

Right. And Joss Whedon was gone after like a week. And then he continued to just fix everything. And that. Yes. He came up with forky. Right. And he went to the Noble.

[David Sims]

I mean, his. His first big take was like, Beau coming back. And, okay, if three was the end of Andy's story, should four be kind of like, well, then what does Woody do?

[Ben Hos]

Now, the other thing he said, which I think this is real genius with the Toy Story stuff, is the problem they kept butting against with Toy Story 4. And I've read at least one or two of the scripts that have floated around for the canceled Toy Story 4. They were like, well, we want to tell a love story. We want to make a rom com. We want to make a movie about, like, Bo and Woody getting back together. And people kept writing movies where they were like, this has nothing to do with them being toys. You're just writing a romance between two characters who happen to be toys. And Stanton's always been like, you have to start from the perspective of what are the experiences that are unique to them. And he was just like, well, like, how do Woody and Bo Peep get split up? What is uniquely traumatizing about that that would be connected to them being a toy? Oh, Bo gets donated because the sister has a different relationship to her toys than Andy does. Yada, yada yada. And then the story comes from there foreign.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

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[Ben Hos]

David yes, I've been traveling all summer.

[David Sims]

That's true.

[Ben Hos]

And thank the lord I brought AG1 with me.

[David Sims]

Oh yeah, I'm sure you had those, those, those packs with you wherever you went.

[Ben Hos]

I got the travel packs. I got a. I got a box of berry travel packs. One scoop plus eight ounces of water every morning. AG1. That's my truth.

[David Sims]

AG1 helps to maintain energy, support gut health and support immune health. AG1 is clinically shown to support gut health and fill in common nutrient gaps. Griffin the daily health drink with a multivitamin. It's got pre and probiotics. It's superfoods and antioxidants. One scoop 8 ounces of water like you said. And I believe it is the scaffolding keeping your entire body standing at all times.

[Ben Hos]

This is true. Even though summer is your license to chill. And Lord knows I'm trying to chill with all the late nights and the long weekend spontaneous plans. AG1 helps you keep one thing consistent. Just one thing consistent. High quality nutritional support every single day, no matter where you start your morning visit. Drink ag1.com check to get a free ag1 travel case with seven free ag1 travel packs in your welcome kit with your first ag1 subscription order while supplies last. That's drink ag1.com check.

[David Sims]

May 2020. He was attached to something called Chairman Spaceman, which is a adaptation of a Thomas Pierce short story that was published in the New Yorker that he was going to do for, well, Simon Kinberg's genre films. For Searchlight, which is about a corporate raider who renounces his wealth and signs up for an interplanetary mission to colonize the solar system. I don't know. Sounds somewhat interesting. It sounds like in the Blink of an Eye is sort of like the other heady sci fi script that he. That then got going.

[Joey Sims]

Correct. These were the two jump to that one.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. And obviously Hulu Searchlight, all owned by Disney, who owe Stanton for the billions and billions of dollars he's made them.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Ben Hos]

But he put it as like, those were the two things I was really serious about. And in the Blink of an Eye came together a little faster.

[David Sims]

Revolver is Revolver, a romantic coming of age comedy starring Ethan and Maya Hawk, written by A Stranger Thing writer Kate Treffery.

[Ben Hos]

Treffery.

[Joey Sims]

She. She's the one who ended up writing the Stranger Things Broadway play.

[David Sims]

Ah, of course. In which we saw the first shadow.

[Joey Sims]

The first. That's right.

[David Sims]

And to explain the floor thing in that one.

[Ben Hos]

Well, stages traditionally have a floor.

[Joey Sims]

Exactly.

[Ben Hos]

Does Vecna live in a theater?

[Joey Sims]

Inside. Inside your stomach? There is. Yeah, there's a flat floor and people walking around hardwood, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben Hos]

Wall to wall.

[Joey Sims]

Carpet.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It was.

[Joey Sims]

Be careful of the spikes, because there are spikes and that's. They'll get you. They'll get you.

[Ben Hos]

Right.

[David Sims]

You watch this.

[Joey Sims]

How they kill.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

They got vac that throw him into his.

[David Sims]

And what did Vector do?

[Joey Sims]

A big spike.

[David Sims]

Recession Made the recession happen.

[Ben Hos]

He knows what the craziest things.

[Joey Sims]

He wasn't a big fan of gay. Of gay people, you know, so that was why he was after. That was why he was after Will all those years. And I am. That's barely a joke. That is basically what they imply in the last season, among many other things.

[Ben Hos]

It is so insane that people dislike that ending so much that within a week they were like, no, no, no, there's another episode. The ending's bad on purpose because it's an augmented reality experience. It's metatextual. And there's a secret episode that's coming out. They would never just whiff this. This hard.

[David Sims]

Earnestly Revolver. It's a 60s set thing in which Maya Hawke is a teenager in Anchorage, Alaska, and a flight to Japan carrying the Beatles is forced to stop in Anchorage and she decides to fuck George Harrison.

[Ben Hos]

That is her goal.

[David Sims]

That is the plot of the movie.

[Ben Hos]

That is her goal.

[David Sims]

Stanton wanted to make that for like five years eventually. It just never happened. Now, Colby Day, the writer of this movie, who also wrote Spaceman on Netflix.

[Ben Hos]

Right. A movie I like a lot of.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

He starts writing in the blink of an eye. When living in New York in the mid 2010s, he goes to the Planetarium. Heard of it in the Hayden Planetarium in the Museum of Natural History. And they've got a big map of the timeline of the universe. It's a cool place to go. Big Bang and blah, blah, blah. And he said, it gave me an existential crisis, which. That can happen when you start thinking about the vastness of the universe. So he's like, I think when you start to zoom out and you think about what does it mean to be here for not that long?

[Joey Sims]

You start to find the meaning of life.

[David Sims]

He wanted to talk about the idea that even if we don't get much time, the things we do ripple through it. So he's trying to reassure his own anxiety.

[Ben Hos]

That's certainly what this movie is about.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, you know, Initial concept is just that he wanted to write about time. So the initial story began with the big bang, the first thing in time.

[Ben Hos]

Right. Kind of the ultimate prequel.

[David Sims]

He also was much more rigid about moving from past to present to future, in that order. But I think Stanton pushes it more to, like, be fluidly jumping between them all, you know, not like, it's three segments.

[Ben Hos]

This movie was in development for years. It also out, you know, from the time that Stanton came attached to this script. Was it a Blacklist script?

[Joey Sims]

It was on the blacklist in, like, 2016. I want to say.

[David Sims]

Yes, it was on the blacklist in 2016, number six. But, you know, you get put on the blacklist, everyone comes a calling. But they're also like, by the way, we have to change everything.

[Joey Sims]

Right?

[David Sims]

Or whatever. Stanton read the script years later, though, and was like, I'm jealous of whoever wants to try and make this, realizes no one making it, and decides to jump on board. He calls Colby and says, you love Cloud Atlas as much as I do. And Colby Day says, yeah, I do. I love story circles. That was my goal, was doing a kind of a Cloud Atlas Y thing. Stanton also loves the Fountain, another movie, I would say, that is trying this kind of thing. And he likes a triptych. He says he's like. Like, you know, you go to the roots of all that and there's something deep all of us connect to about trifectas. Of course, he might be thinking about

[Joey Sims]

our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I don't know.

[David Sims]

Famous trifecta.

[Ben Hos]

Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

[David Sims]

So he starts revising.

[Joey Sims]

I don't know. I mean, this is.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna be honest with you guys.

[Joey Sims]

It's pretty boring, obviously. It's super Cloud Atlas. Cloud Atlas E. It is kind of like.

[David Sims]

Like a.

[Ben Hos]

The.

[Joey Sims]

A very. A small scale, if you could call it that. Or not. Small scale isn't right, but a. Like a very. A more intimate version of Cloud Atlas. It's like, what if we did what Cloud Atlas is trying to do? But we really. Yes. It's turn it down to just these, like. Like three or so, like, core relationships

[Ben Hos]

and a kind of really clean line of cause and effect. This is sort of one narrative thread that's touched in three different eras.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And very.

[Joey Sims]

Just very small lives. Like in each of these. I mean, yes, he is placing them in a canvas where it's like, look how huge they're. The impact of these small lives, that's in the contrast. But they are, you know, the three modest little story Modest is a good

[Ben Hos]

way to put him to put it. This was announced in October 2022. It was shot in 2023, and then just sort of was in stasis for three years. I've obviously wanted to do Stanton forever. So from the moment this movie was announced, I was like, well, when this comes out, we'll cover him. And then it kept on getting, like, knocked down the schedule. And it is ideal that this and Toy Story 5 are coming out so close together, and we can do a series that doesn't end on this movie movie and that has the contrast of both of them in the same year. I did not like this movie, went to Sundance and was, I would say, critically ravaged, and then has gone to Hulu with basically, like, no impact whatsoever. I had, you know, after the snowstorm canceled the premiere, I was like, word's not great. I'm gonna have to watch this for the podcast. If I watch it now, will I even remember it by the time we record? Let me just hold off. Off until it's actually time to do this episode. And so I've been dreading it. I did not dislike this movie. I cannot say I liked it, but I felt a little more neutral on it than I was expecting with how negative the word was. I think, Joey, you and I are maybe in a slightly similar space of, like, nothing really works for me, but there wasn't anything I bumped on too hard. And I like what it's trying to do, even if I don't think. Think it gets there.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's a fart sandwich, but it's a sandwich.

[Ben Hos]

This is Ben's review is that it's a fart sandwich, since it's fart sandwich. Yes.

[Joey Sims]

But he's just upset that he didn't get to voice the. The AI friend. I think the movie would have been a lot more fun If K. Kate McKinnon's AI friend had been. Had. Been voiced by you.

[Ben Hos]

Ben would have been very good.

[David Sims]

Who did voice the AI friend the

[Joey Sims]

whole movie, for some reason thinking that some narrative connective tissue they were doing was that the AI Was voiced by Rashida Jones, not Rashida Jones. It's some random accent.

[Ben Hos]

It's a little confused. Confusing.

[Joey Sims]

But although I don't. Yeah, I don't know what that would have meant. Anyway, my experience was, like, in the first 20 minutes or so, especially the very start of the movie, you're. I was like, oh, boy. Because it starts with, like, the Sylvia Plath quote, you know, remember, Remember, this is now and now and now. And you're like, oh, boy. And then we open in, you know, like 45,000 BC with cavemen making small sparks. And again, you're like, all right, obviously,

[David Sims]

if you're going to be invoking 2001 A Space Odyssey, you got to be careful. That's the best science fiction film. So you're inviting quite a comparison there. If you're going to be doing that so obviously so intensely.

[Joey Sims]

So you're starting with that. And then you're going into these two other. Introducing us to these two other stories. The Rashida Jones and Daveed Diggs and in the present day. And she's a research scientist and they're flirting at college.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then she's a doctoral candidate in anthropology.

[David Sims]

She do Bones.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And then Greg, question mark from statistics.

[Joey Sims]

Right, right.

[Ben Hos]

Two actors I like a lot. They are. What. What is that face you're making?

[David Sims]

I'm trying to think. What. I like Rashida Jones in like.

[Joey Sims]

Like, I like her in this movie, but we'll get there.

[David Sims]

Yeah, she's all right in this movie. Sure. I mean, I found this movie just kind of inert. That was my, like, I was not like, raging about this. Like, oh, my God, this is. But it just felt like low energy.

[Joey Sims]

I mean, it's complete my thought. Complete my thought. Then you're introduced to the middle and then you're introduced to Kate McKinnon in the future. And she's on a spaceship and she's on a mission to like, save humanity by taking all of these, like, new

[David Sims]

babies in a bag. Babies.

[Joey Sims]

Babies in a spaceship to a new home. And I think for the first, like 20, 30 minutes, you're like, wow, this is like, like you said, David, this is very low energy. This is very inert.

[Ben Hos]

It's cross cutting between all of them really quickly.

[Joey Sims]

It's not nearly. You are. Take me right into cross cutting between three stories. And they all seem pretty boring.

[Ben Hos]

It's got a little bit of. Of the Ahsoka thing of like, it feels like the tone of this is quote, unquote, quote serious. Right. And I also think it's not even, you know, Cloud Atlas opens like this, where you're weaving between all them really quickly as they're setting it up. The Cloud Atlas has twice as many threads and they're further apart. They're not as thematically linked in an apparent way from the get go. And then after the first, like three or four minutes, which is also more symphonic and stylized, it settles down into like. Like we will focus on one for.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

And then go to the Others to situate the first like 25 minutes of this just continue to just keep ribboning in a way where you're like the energy and the pacing are pretty low and slow.

[Joey Sims]

Well, it's like you're gonna. Okay, you've gone right into. We're jumping between these. But you never. But you didn't first establish.

[Ben Hos]

You don't feel like grounded.

[Joey Sims]

Care about.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[Joey Sims]

Any of.

[Ben Hos]

And. And like. Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The.

[Ben Hos]

The prehistoric one is like, you know, it's. It's non verbal. They speak in. It's. It's very much him doing like. It's like a quest for fire, you know. It is. It is actors in prosthetics.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Because they're Neanderthals, so they, you know. Or they're Paleolithic people of some sort. But.

[Ben Hos]

Well, it's about the meeting of.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. CRO Magnon and. Yeah. And right then there's the. The presence of set. Graduate school section. But I was gonna say I like both of these actors a lot. It is an interesting casting choice to hire two people who are decades older than the characters they're playing.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You know, I was just watching the wizard of the Kremlin. The. The hottest movie of 2026, which is a movie where that begins with Paul Dano playing like his character when he's like 18 years old and he's like, I'm at college. And I was just like, just, just

[Joey Sims]

don't show me this.

[David Sims]

Like I just. I can't buy this. And it's taking me out of the movie right away.

[Ben Hos]

It's the Ellen McKay thing for me

[David Sims]

where I'm like, we could recent example where I'm like, as we know, we're all teenagers right now. And you're like, okay, Ella. But.

[Ben Hos]

But also it's like cast. Cast for the age the character is going to spend the majority of the movie.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

This movie jumps ahead. Eventually we get to a point where and Rashida Jones are playing their own age. But I'd say it's a pretty short chunk of the movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And it's by that point the movie is moving along time wise.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[David Sims]

Quite fast.

[Ben Hos]

And then it even goes beyond that to them with old age makeup. So you're like, you know, 60 of their screen time. Is them in their 20s.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

And they are 44 and 50.

[David Sims]

They are. I mean, look, I know that they're good.

[Ben Hos]

They're good looking people. They've aged really well. And I thought the graduate school.

[David Sims]

But I didn't totally buy Rashida Jones. Like I'M just getting started in graduating grad school.

[Ben Hos]

There is, like, with my bones, I think, what is actually pretty effective, CGI d aging on the two of them that I noticed was very subtle. And a lot of that is they're two people with very good genes who have aged very well. But there is, like an energy thing of. You just feel the two of them playing 20 something in a way that feels a little school play at times.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It makes it confusing how much time is going.

[Joey Sims]

Correct.

[Ben Hos]

It does.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Because I could it really. And, like, hearing you say she's in her twenties makes a lot more sense to me now.

[Ben Hos]

Well, because also, it's like, you can obviously be in your mid-40s and go to graduate school. So you watch it and you're like, I'm not immediately rejecting that Regita Jones could be in this program. But the longer it goes on, you're sort of like. I think she's supposed to be like, 27. You know, there's sort of context clues that develop. And then there's the. The Kate McKinnon section, which is. Right. She is on a spaceship by herself. Herself with an AI friend.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Year 2417.

[Ben Hos]

Right. So it's like 400 years in the future. And yeah, she's got an AI that is pretty Roscoe pretty. I would say, like, personable, is not a howl. Is actually, like, conversational and feels friendly and human in its tone, its demeanor. But she's basically in isolation. It's. It's a very kind of wally setup up of you're alone on a spaceship, looking for the planet that is inhabitable, where. Where life could restart.

[Joey Sims]

There's no like. And this is deliberate, but there's no, like, great tension to her mission because I believe they've identified the planet. They know where she's going.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

They're terraforming it.

[Joey Sims]

They're terraforming it. They have a whole plan. She's just got to get there.

[Ben Hos]

It should be done by the time I get there, but that's happening. That's.

[Joey Sims]

She's dealing with.

[David Sims]

With a.

[Joey Sims]

Yes, she is dealing with a problem, which is that there's something's gone wrong in the ship's systems. But it's all played pretty. All played pretty low key. And they are also very. They really drip out the information in a way that I actually kind of liked about, like, what her deal is.

[David Sims]

I was gonna say, like, the big mystery is, like, how is she alive? And, like, because she's. Is. She's not gonna go in hyper sleep. Like, how's she Gonna just the thing is though is like because they keep stressing like she's doing this for a hundred and blah years I've rewatched it

[Marie Barty Salinas]

and, and it's, it flies over your head.

[David Sims]

You read watched this movie? Well, I'm saying I just skipped see

[Marie Barty Salinas]

the, the intro of each character. It says longevity enhanced pilot.

[David Sims]

Oh, does it say did not notice that? I think I just, I don't, I don't know.

[Joey Sims]

I just, I mean, one of her first pieces of dialogue is something about like, oh, how many years do I have until we get there?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

And with the suggestion of the way she's saying it of like me me, you know, not like my kids like me. So you're like, okay, there's something going on with so you've with you.

[Ben Hos]

I'm just gonna. Let's just say the thing, right? This movie is about humanity identifying basically

[Joey Sims]

the children to death.

[Ben Hos]

Right. Like scientifically to stop aging. Right?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes, but not like you're immortal.

[Joey Sims]

You will venture she will she. Yeah, we see her getting old at the end. You will eventually die. Age very beyond. Right.

[Ben Hos]

Curing illnesses. We have like identified a way to combat the gene that causes the degradation of, of aging, you know, and to slow it down and everything works out crawl. Well, well, I mean, so the movie

[Joey Sims]

is very sketchy about a lot of details. And again, in a way that I didn't entirely. Hey. One of the things that is kind of left to our imagination, unless I miss something, is that she is doing this mission to find us a new home because our current home, presumably Earth, is no longer habitable. But what is left vague is did that just happen naturally?

[David Sims]

No, I, I got the impression it was because people stopped dying and that

[Joey Sims]

created population issue and that created like havoc.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

Like, but they don't really get into it.

[David Sims]

She says, like we decided that people should, should not actually stop aging. Like when she's talking to about it, it's definitely the most interesting scene in the movie.

[Ben Hos]

I I, I think everything about that scene I first I think McKinnon's good in this movie.

[Joey Sims]

She is.

[David Sims]

She's yeah, she's. She's yes, yes. She's amazing assignment.

[Joey Sims]

I There were moments with her when I was moved by like on I. The first moment in the movie after it was kind of going by very glacially and I was like, oh, boy. The first moment where I like locked in a little bit is when she has to turn off off the AI her AI friend. And she's like turns it off and then, you know, she's like, you were my only friend, and then is like, sad about it. And I. I don't know, just because she played it so well, I was like, oh, okay, this is. I'm feeling something there.

[Ben Hos]

I agree. This is my biggest take with the film. And I understand, you know, this whole movie generates from thinking about the big bang and the ripple of time and these story circles and, you know, all of the. That I'm like, the whole movie should have been McKinnon. I'm like, this is the interesting story. And actually the reveals that are interesting within her story are deflated somewhat by the other two narratives.

[David Sims]

That's it. You're right. You're right. Because, like, the other two narratives just are pretty juiceless.

[Ben Hos]

They are.

[David Sims]

They just are.

[Ben Hos]

They really are. And they're, you know, they're little moments, they're little flourishes and touches. But when you actually step away from the movie, and especially when it doesn't really connect all of its threads until the end and go like this.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This.

[Ben Hos]

What's been going on the whole time.

[Joey Sims]

Nut.

[Ben Hos]

The nut, the acorn.

[David Sims]

I would possibly get the nut out of here.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

But you're just sort of like, the whole interesting story is the Kate McKinnon thing. And actually if you remove the other two narratives and you're slowly realizing what's going on with her, the same doling out of information gradually, but it not being supplanted by the other two, that's the movie that feels like it has a little more intrigue to it. I like this implication that it's basically like we're watching sort of the turning point of humanity. The sort of notion of the two species and one outlived the other and this was the merging of them. And this is sort of the missing link sort of moment. And then Rashida Jones is trying to. She has discovered the. The.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The.

[Ben Hos]

The remnants of this missing link. What's the character's name? It's not Thor or Thog.

[David Sims]

It's Thorne and Hera.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. If you look on IMDb, it's something I really like is Thorne is played by someone who is primarily like a stunt performer and a physical performer.

[David Sims]

Jorge Vargas.

[Ben Hos]

His photo on IMDb is just him as a Power Ranger.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Nice.

[Ben Hos]

His face is not even visible. It's awesome. And Tanaya Beatty, who's now. It's an awesome picture.

[David Sims]

He's like. It's just a full body ranging.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. Tonight, Beatty is an actor I really like. Yes. Who plays the. The. His wife. But yeah, you're seeing this Sort of like this is where humanity kind of starts, right then. Rashida Jones has recovered the remnants of. Remnants of this guy and believes like this missing link might help us understand where we came from, understand our own DNA more in a way that could lead to the breakthroughs of curing diseases. This and that. While this is happening, her mother is dying rapidly from a very aggressive form of a terminal cancer. She is starting this sort of relationship with Daveed Diggs, who clearly is all in on her. And she's kind of keeping him at arm's length, A, because she's so focused on her work and B, because she's got the burden of caring for her mother. And she's sort of like, I don't know if I can take this on. And you're watching this developing relationship where she's keeping him at a distance. Then she drops out of school to go be with her mother. So the relationship is mostly happening over zoom. You know, she's in isolation there and he's committed to her. And eventually, you know, they, he, he comes, he moves in with her, they get married, they have kids, and you realize that their son, who they homeschool and they raise in the grand tradition of science, is able to build on his parents work and what she studied to actually crack the code to cure death.

[Joey Sims]

So the whole time of this, of their story. Yes. You're a part of you is wondering like, what the hell is this? Because like nothing is happening. You finally get to, when you get to the end, you're like, okay, the idea, the overarching idea, he is like, here is that she. And she's especially. But and David are like. They were just another little step. The link in the chain along the chain.

[Ben Hos]

And she has the moment. Can you believe we made him?

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

The, the guy who cures death.

[Joey Sims]

There is something as, as their relationship. The Rashida and David think like as I gradually settled into, I was like, okay, this is just what this is gonna be, the whole movie. This, this like very quiet.

[Ben Hos]

You know, he's the most patient, understanding, gentle.

[Joey Sims]

Mostly over video calls, which is kind of a crazy choice for a movie. But as I settled into it, I was like, okay, there are some nice moments. There's a, there's a very lovely moment where they're just sitting together on. Standing together on the phone silently while she's sitting by her mom in bed. And they. It's a wordless scene. And like there are little moments like that where you're like, okay, that was, that was good.

[Ben Hos]

It's a Very good visual storyteller. And even a movie like this that can't quite find itself, there will be moments like that where something kind of interesting and specific is conveyed.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Joey Sims]

And where you feel a sense of what he's going, what they're going for with their dynamic of like, they're so in love and like, despite all these problems they have in the fight she has and like, at one point she tries to break up with him. It just kind of like doesn't come to anything because he's just like, no, like, you love me, I love you. Like, we're gonna be together forever.

[Ben Hos]

I think that's kind of fun where she's really trying to break up with him because she's just like, this isn't fair to you. It doesn't matter that I'm in love with you. And then he starts laughing and he's like, you're in love with me.

[Joey Sims]

Speaks to the weird writing style of the movie that in that particular scene is kind of charming where it's like you think this is about to be a dramatic moment, but then it's not because it's just like, no, enough of that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The key thing here is kinda, kinda, kinda.

[Ben Hos]

Now let's say.

[David Sims]

I just want to say something right now. Jorge Vargas played Blake Bradley, AKA the Navy Thunder Ranger.

[Ben Hos]

Okay.

[David Sims]

In Power Rangers Ninja Storm.

[Ben Hos]

I'm glad you've been doing a deep dive on this. While Zoe and I talk about the

[David Sims]

movie, who is the Blue Ranger? But it's just funny how like at the start they were like, yeah, we got a Blue Ranger, we got a Green Ranger. Now the, like, he's the Blue, the Navy Thunder Ranger. Like I said, we had to have like kind of Lands End style, colors, descriptions.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

But he's in 36 episodes. Like, and it's him.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Like his human face is seen too.

[Joey Sims]

That's all.

[David Sims]

I don't have any more. Do you want me to get more news for you on Ninja Storm Rangers?

[Ben Hos]

No, what I was going to say

[David Sims]

is maybe I will anyway though, if

[Ben Hos]

you remove the other two plot lines.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

And just sort of unpack like this is what happens in the Kate McKinnon plotline.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

She is a woman who is on a spaceship by herself. Her only connection seems to be this AI robot. And she's like holding on to hundreds, thousands of embryos.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yes.

[David Sims]

In bags.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[David Sims]

You grow them in bag that she

[Ben Hos]

is trying to protect while also having a sort of sunshine esque green room to be able to provide oxygen for the ship. There is a Fungus breakout. There is not going to be enough oxygen for her to get to the planet that's being terraformed. There's sort of the mystery of like, why is this one woman in isolation carrying so many embryos to repopulate humanity by herself? And, you know, you have this sort of, I don't know, a bit of a trolley car problem, but not really of there's not enough oxygen to get her there. She's like, I should kill myself. You're AI, you can handle the mission on your own. All that's important is that the embryos get to this planet and you can sort of activate everything. And the AI sacrifices itself to be like, you need a human being with like reasoning and feelings and the X factor of human experience, you know, it shouldn't be done by a machine. And so the AI basically convinces Kate McKenna to deactivate it so that they can use the extra room to plant more to create a second supply of oxygen.

[David Sims]

Because they have to isolate the right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Have a separate room with the plant life isolated so that it doesn't also get disease.

[Ben Hos]

All of this is kind of like a run around where I was sort of like the. Where are we going with this? Until the moment, as you said, where I think McKinnon plays really well. The loss of like, like, oh, this was the only connection she had to something that even felt like humanity was speaking to this computer. And now she's got to do the rest of this mission alone. And she activates the one child that she can, like, raise and have a relationship with. And she starts talking to her and then you realize, like, this is the last human being alive. We, like killed ourselves with overpopulation. She is functionally, if not literally immortal, close to it. And as she's raising this child, she explains this thing, what I think is the best scene in the movie that both in terms of being well performed and well written, but also the ideas of it being so interesting, of we solved the thing that felt like the great tragedy of humanity, our own mortality. And in fact we realized this is not good. It's not good. Not only did it just like us up infrastructurally as a species, but also like, people shouldn't live this long. It actually sucks. It's a curse and it's a burden. And we're restarting humanity. You will age normally. We're gonna go to a new planet, we're gonna try to get it right. And I'm the last freak alive trying to, like, reset everything.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It is important, though, that the company that did this to us is also the company that is now in charge of the ship.

[Joey Sims]

Right? This is where the movie trips up and also is very, like, not built for our. For this moment is that it has. This lands in this very optimistic play. You could argue about whether it's optimistic because, of course, the. The happy ending that we see is preceded by, like, the collapse of civilization.

[Ben Hos]

Well, you're, like, watching the son's breakthrough as he gives the press conference to reveal that he's cured death at the same time as Kate McKinnon is basically explaining, this was a mistake. It fucked everything up. And now we're trying to reset everything back to how it was. You will age normally, and so you have, like, Daveed Diggs and Rashida Jones being like, can you believe it? Our son changed the world. And Kate McKinnon being like, the world's a nightmare, and now I have to try to do a hard reboot. Right?

[Joey Sims]

But then they're trying to. The. The mood of the thing. This is what you're saying is that this. That is all at a disconnect from the. The mood. The mood of the thing is very much like. But we figure it out, you know, like, we figure. We realize we made a mistake and now we're pulling back and, you know, we figured out a new way. And that's what you're seeing with. With this Kate McKinnon storyline. And then alongside that, also, she has this lovely AI friend who is, like, really nice and, like, helps her with everything, but. And who. And who the AI gives voice to. Like, no, humanity is the most important thing. And, like, having you having your X factor of being a human, that is the most important thing. More important than me. And not to, like, place other things that are, like, going on in the world right now onto the.

[David Sims]

But you do.

[Joey Sims]

You hate. You can't avoid it. And I'm watching that scene and I'm like, well, that's a lot of bullshit. Like, that's not what. That's not, like, reflective of. That is not what we're learning and seeing about how these technologies operate. That's just you fantasizing about, like, maybe one day it will be like, that.

[Ben Hos]

We have the opposite issue, which is like, AI convincing people to kill themselves, not AI being like, I should deactivate so humanity can persist.

[Joey Sims]

Right? So I was just like, it also.

[Ben Hos]

I mean, it's. It's the whole like.

[Joey Sims]

And. And Stanton was, as I read an interview with him where they were asked about this, and they were like, it takes A very, like, optimistic view. And his answer was just like, well, what else can you do? But. But. But just have hope and have optimism. And I was like, well, that's a lame answer.

[Ben Hos]

I find his worldview really interesting in general because it feels like he is a guy. And I relate to this really hard where he is, like, there is a constant fight between, like, an overriding cynicism and, like, an attempted optimism that he, like, doesn't want to drown in the cynicism, even though it's his innate state. And there is a sort of, like, sappy emotionality to him that he's a little bit embarrassed by. Right. And I think that's a lot of, like, the Toy Story magic comes from that sensibility. It feels like this movie puts the thumb down too hard on the optimism, even when it's doing something that is a little bit ominous. And it's trying to, like, create the friction between, like. Like, well, here's this amazing accomplishment in human existence that we have this breakthrough, but also we're watching the business end of what was a mistake by it. But then the optimism is, but. But they're gonna fix it eventually. And you're like, so.

[David Sims]

But that's why the end of the movie is really odd, where they're like, wow, I can't believe we made him. And I'm like, history's greatest. Like, it seems like he maybe was.

[Ben Hos]

This was a mistake and this was a curse. And I'm like, I sort of don't need to know about that guy. Guy. It's more interesting to just spend time with Kate McKinnon, the one person who's the representative of why this was a mistake, you know, and especially her doing that. Nice.

[Joey Sims]

But it's also, like, fixing it interesting to me.

[Ben Hos]

I also think. I think, like, there was a review I read at Sundance that was critiquing her casting and saying, like, her sort of what they described as her finger guns comic energy is an ill match for this movie. And then I was like, oh, is she going to be doing, like, Ghostbusters?

[Joey Sims]

No, not at all.

[Ben Hos]

In this film. No. I think she's giving, like, a good dramatic performance, but I think her being

[David Sims]

a little sedate, like, and it's like,

[Ben Hos]

high energy, gives her more energy than any of the other performers in the movie. Even though she's playing it straight, she has a little bit of that off wire energy, which I think helps. I think it could have helped to have more of the casting be on those lines.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I think if you're gonna have A character in the future, make him talk weird. She loves like that too.

[David Sims]

You mean like, do a cloud atlas

[Joey Sims]

thing, like the true true.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Come on.

[Ben Hos]

She's kind of doing her, like, cowboy kind of, you know, Kate McKinnon sort of thing.

[David Sims]

Here's what I can tell you.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Ninja storm was the 10th Power Rangers series.

[Ben Hos]

Uhhuh.

[David Sims]

Now the one. So the one before was Wild Force, which I guess they turned into, like, animals like lions and eagles and stuff. And the one after a one we all know well is Dino Thunder, where they were just like it.

[Joey Sims]

They're dinosaurs again, I guess. I don't know.

[David Sims]

Because the originals are kind of dinosaurs.

[Ben Hos]

I. I just.

[David Sims]

Ninja Storm, though. They were ninja.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ninjas.

[David Sims]

Ninjas. I. I tell you, it was a

[Marie Barty Salinas]

red winning range of dinosaurs.

[David Sims]

No, just regular old ninja.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's kind of interesting.

[Ben Hos]

There's a more interesting.

[David Sims]

And I was like, do they have Zordon? And it's like, no, they have a sensei who gets turned into a guinea pig.

[Ben Hos]

So it's going into G Force territory. Sort of sounds possible. I think there is a more interesting version of, like, passengers in this with her activating the one embryo so as not to be alone and go crazy. And I think I even really clocked,

[Joey Sims]

if your reading is right, that that was a thing where she, like, was going against the mission or anything. I thought that was just part of the mission.

[Ben Hos]

That's the other part of it is like, now she needs help because she doesn't have the AI.

[Joey Sims]

I think that was part of the plan.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. But then it's like she's forming this emotional relationship that wasn't part of the plan because she needs that. And in raising a child now and actually like, kind of being a mother in a way she wasn't supposed to be. And this movie ends with a scene, I think Kate McKinnon also performs well of like, like her holding the funeral for this child on the reborn Earth. She has barely aged. You know, she looks like five years older, little, and it's like crinkles in the ear. She succeeded in the mission, but, like, her curse is that she also now

[David Sims]

has to like, just to watch her kids die. Right.

[Ben Hos]

And she's like, they lived a long. She wasn't really my child. You know, I'm not technically her mother, more so than any of you, but she's the one I felt the most connected to.

[David Sims]

These are interesting, heady ideas. I feel like the movie shies away from every. Ever getting too emotional, getting too kind of like, worked up about any of It. And so at the end, I was kind of like, yeah, okay.

[Ben Hos]

It's just the one idea I like is, yeah, if we. If we could live forever, it would suck.

[David Sims]

Sure. I'm.

[Ben Hos]

It would cause a thousand pro.

[David Sims]

That my favorite show, New Amsterdam, when they like Coster.

[Joey Sims]

Waldo.

[David Sims]

Remember?

[Ben Hos]

Yeah. Of course, he was old.

[Joey Sims]

Yes, but young.

[Ben Hos]

Wasn't there also a different Yoan Gruffet? One where he was.

[David Sims]

That one was where every time he dies, he wakes up in the east river or something, and he's still. And it was called, like, eternal or forever or.

[Ben Hos]

Right.

[David Sims]

Oh, right. It's called.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, it was that he would, like Groundhog Day, but the next.

[David Sims]

It was called Forever.

[Joey Sims]

It was called Forever. Right.

[Ben Hos]

I can tell you the day wouldn't reset. He would just.

[Joey Sims]

He would just.

[David Sims]

Like, he's in the east river again.

[Ben Hos]

So I guess it's a little Being John Malkovich where they would just spit him out.

[David Sims]

What I liked about New Amsterdam was, like, in the pilot, he, like, meets with, like, an old man who's his son.

[Joey Sims]

Son.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

And he's.

[David Sims]

The old man's like, wow, you really don't fucking age, dude. He's like, yeah, it's my thing. Off to solve a mystery. Because that's the best thing about old network shows. They're like, he's immortal.

[Joey Sims]

Fascinating.

[David Sims]

And he solves mysteries every week. They're like, don't worry.

[Ben Hos]

He solves.

[Joey Sims]

Don't worry about.

[David Sims]

There's an engine.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You know, the ideas are interesting.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I just.

[David Sims]

I also find the design a little bland of the spaceship and all that, like, where I'm just like. It's just got this kind of vague.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Apple. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

You know, sort of look to it that is not very distinctive.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Her clothes, like, boring.

[Ben Hos]

It was another thing I called watching

[David Sims]

that movie Spaceman, which Colby Day wrote.

[Joey Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hos]

Has a very different look.

[David Sims]

Has a look like. I found that movie also a little sleepy. But like, that. That movie, at least, was very heady looking.

[Ben Hos]

I like that movie a lot. I. I think rewatching Wall E for the first time in a while, it was interesting because that did feel new. The whole visual design language of Wall E, both the sort of busted, rusted, old, by and large stuff. And then when you get to the Axiom and making everything that Apple influenced, you know, it's a year before Star Trek, which does. The similar redesign of, like, the Enterprise, is now kind of Apple Store coded and all of that. Now this is just sort of become the default language for what spaceships look like. Like, and it's not interesting to do. And it feels like someone needs to like shake up the formula.

[Joey Sims]

Everything about the visuals of the movie, nothing is bad, the movie looks fine, but it's all just very like default. And all very. I mean, that is all really all kind of summed up by the fact that for a score they were like, I know Stanton is. Has worked with him before. They were like, call up Thomas Newman and have him deliver. He's saying, have him. That you've heard a million times.

[Ben Hos]

I've never seen Quest for Fire or Clan of the Cave Bear that I

[David Sims]

recently watched Clan of the Cave.

[Ben Hos]

Tell me about it.

[David Sims]

Because I'm trying to watch. It's not very good. Okay. I'm trying to watch every 1986 film for the big.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, sure. Are inevitable. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I got to this point where I was sort of like, you know, at this point I've probably seen most of the major films of 1980, but then I was like, all right, well, what was nominated for an Oscar?

[Ben Hos]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

That I haven't seen yet. The answer was one was Clan of the Cave Bear, which got a makeup nomination. It was a gigantic bomb, that film. A huge, huge bomb. It's Daryl Hannah plays a cave woman.

[Ben Hos]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It's great stuff.

[Ben Hos]

But coming off of Quest for Fire being a surprise hit.

[Joey Sims]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

They're like, we'll keep it with the caveman. You've also. I also watched Franco Zeparelli's adaptation of the opera Otello, which features Placido Domingo in makeup. I was playing that one at work on my iPad and I was like, I might have to turn this one off. And I also watched Crimes of the Heart which got three Oscar nominations. Bruce Beresford film sucks. What were they doing in the 80s?

[Ben Hos]

Bruce was. It's a weird career.

[David Sims]

These based on a play.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah. How does.

[David Sims]

Go ahead.

[Joey Sims]

How is any of what we're talking about right now. How did we transition into.

[David Sims]

This movie has a bit of a Clan of a K Bear, Crimes of the Heart. It's just a lot of Southern bells going like, oh, my mama never love me.

[Joey Sims]

I lost the.

[Ben Hos]

There was an 80s micro trend of we're going to try to make cavemen movie that are ostensibly a little more quote unquote accurate and no one's going to talk. And it's sort of like a dramatized nature documentary sort of vibe. I mean, sometimes this movie in a negative way feels like a 30 minute film you would watch at a planetarium or something.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I mean, a little bit.

[Joey Sims]

It's very, very Hard to do any version of that ape man thing that isn't that. Especially if you're going to decide to be accurate about it. Like, it's hard.

[Ben Hos]

Just.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There's hard to see them discover a whistle.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. And be like. Be like, whoa. Whoa.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah, that.

[Joey Sims]

I don't care. They should be. Do a caveman movie that's like Chris Nolan doing the Odyssey where they're just like, hey, what's up? I'm Homer.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, like, daddy, can I. Sorry, one more tangent. I just watched the movie Whistle. It's a horror movie. It came out February.

[Ben Hos]

You blew the whistle.

[Joey Sims]

That's what I don't blow it.

[David Sims]

Great tagline. That was the tagline. That's actually really just like, we're in a high school. I'm Jam. Daphne Keen from Logan.

[Joey Sims]

I'm. I'm.

[David Sims]

You know, I'm a little. Got some drama. I'm bisexual, maybe. Blah, blah, blah. What's this? Aztec Death Whistle. Don't blow the whistle. Like, what if I blew it? No, don't do it. I just love any movie where it's like, there's a scary whistle and I'm like, don't tell me.

[Joey Sims]

Someone blows it and they're like, oh, no. They blow it. All right.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, there is.

[David Sims]

It was not very good.

[Ben Hos]

Quest for Fire then leads to conquest. Iron Master.

[Joey Sims]

Oh.

[Ben Hos]

Iceman and Clan of the Cave Bear. There were like five of them.

[David Sims]

Iceman wasn't about Bobby Drake.

[Ben Hos]

Not yet. We were too afraid. That's a Timothy Hut and Fred Skepsy movie.

[David Sims]

Of course. The big two.

[Ben Hos]

Yes. But that's. That's more of an unfrozen.

[David Sims]

Figured out that I have a nervous tick where if anyone says two names on this podcast or three names, I just say the big two immediately because I think it's always funny.

[Ben Hos]

It's always, always funny. That was a. He's Timothy Hutton. Following up the Oscar win is the caveman who discovers fire and then he is frozen and then he is revived. It's like serious Encino Man.

[Joey Sims]

God.

[Ben Hos]

But it was there. This was like a big trend for the era, and these movies were popular. Quest for Fire certainly was like Plan

[David Sims]

of the cavemare was such a huge bomb and probably ended the end.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. The whole.

[David Sims]

The whole thing trend, I would say.

[Ben Hos]

No one has really dared to touch this in 30 years.

[David Sims]

It's a good point. So this has caveman stuff.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

Are.

[David Sims]

Have there been any other recent caveman dramas?

[Ben Hos]

Caveman, this. I'm looking on Wikipedia. The two recent ones they've mentioned Are. There's a French movie called AO The Last Hunter. Literally, AO Colon, the Last Hunter. And then there was the. I forget which Hughes brother directed it. Albert Hughes, Alpha McPhee and a wolf.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

For the listeners at home. Joey and I just shared a look.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Knowing look.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

As you were.

[David Sims]

Don't forget the crudes.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

This tangent.

[Ben Hos]

And then they had a new awakening. What was the crude sequel subtitled?

[David Sims]

The January 6th. The Crude Storm. The Capitol.

[Joey Sims]

No.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Ben Hos]

Cruise is one of those movies where it like a new age. A new age age. It came out on drive ins only in like 2020, August 2020.

[David Sims]

They were like, there's a Croods movie. And Cuomo was like, theater. Staying close.

[Ben Hos]

The Croods. A new age might have come close to Titanic's number of consecutive weeks at the top of the box office because it had like four months where nothing else was coming out.

[David Sims]

Like, Florida's open.

[Joey Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hos]

And you'd be like, the Croods racked up another robust $5,000 to be number one at the box office this weekend.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Look in the blink of an eye. I found the caveman stuff, like, unsuccessful.

[Ben Hos]

I found it's. That was the least successful.

[Joey Sims]

Again, as with a lot of the other elements, as with the other three elements of the movie, it like, it gets to a thing right at the end.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

Where, like, where he's like. Where there's a. A baby that's been born. Right. It's like the guy, the dad is like, oh, he's like. Has this happy moment and they dies. And again, it's hitting at that same idea of like, he was just a link on the chain. And it's like, okay, all right, I get that's. I get it.

[Ben Hos]

And that's sort of like the first man being born. The first modern.

[Joey Sims]

Right. But I'm like, but you. But that. It was all for that. I mean, again, I admire, in a way, the smallness of it. I'm like, you know, this is not the type of screenplay that exists anymore in that. In that. That sort of. In that smallness. But our.

[Ben Hos]

Our buddy Bilga had a good review of this movie and he was sort of calling out, like, how much he admires the ambition of it. But when you make a film like this, you're like, drawing those comparisons directly to 2001, which is a challenge. And he said, like, the other one, this movie, like, really draws a line to. Is the tree of life in this sort of like, you know, the small interpersonal drama of today is Linked to our origins as a species and whatever. And there is something a little mathematical in the structure of this screenplay down to just what I'm saying of like, maybe this movie should just be all Kate McKinnon of, like, the need to have the prehistoric section be an equal third of the story. It feels like a mistake to me where I'm like, this could be three scenes. And it's an interesting addition to the movie. It doesn't need to have 30 minutes of screen time divided across the film. Because what's interesting about it can be conveyed very quickly. And it's the same way that, like, Tree of Life is like, you get one dinosaur scene and it kind of shakes your system where you're like, whoa, there's a dinosaur scene in a Terence Malick movie. But he's not like, well, the dinosaur is an equal lead with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. These are the three narrative strains.

[David Sims]

Or dino less.

[Joey Sims]

There was actually even a moment, moment early in the movie where our main. I think he was our main, like, guy from. From the pillar times or whatever.

[Ben Hos]

The Navy Ranger.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Navy Thunder Ranger.

[Joey Sims]

Navy Thunder. He like, he falls as he's climbing.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

And he, like, lands on a rock and it's like, dunk. And then it cuts away from him. And I was like, did he just die?

[David Sims]

Like, was that the.

[Joey Sims]

Well, because I thought for a second,

[David Sims]

I was like, was that like.

[Joey Sims]

The point of that being in this movie was just like. Sometimes it's just like that you're a guy.

[David Sims]

Blink of an eye.

[Joey Sims]

Living in, you fall, you dead. That's it.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

But no, then he gets up again.

[David Sims]

Right. He actually gets hit by a bus later in the script. But they cut that.

[Ben Hos]

I have to go to therapy. We should play the box office game.

[David Sims]

Great.

[Ben Hos]

And Lord knows I need it.

[David Sims]

You do?

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Tuesday therapy.

[Ben Hos]

Things have been changing.

[David Sims]

This is crazy.

[Ben Hos]

Griffin changes. You got to keep it on. It's a one off thing. No, it's usually Thursday. It's not like I'm playing fast and loose.

[David Sims]

Bonjour, compadre. It's the Priceline negotiator.

[Ben Hos]

How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget, the Priceline app.

[David Sims]

It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle deals, game day deals, concert trip deals.

[Ben Hos]

No one deals more deals than Priceline.

[Joey Sims]

Hold your horses, there's more.

[Ben Hos]

The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood vibe, star level, and amenities like

[David Sims]

pools and spas and beach fronts and. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me Up. Well, the box office game. Of course, this film did not actually premiere in theaters, but we can still cover the box office of February 27, 2026.

[Ben Hos]

Bad weekend. A lot of theater closers because of the snowstorm, I imagine. Was this the week after the.

[David Sims]

That this might be the week after that. I can't remember. Who knows? What's important is that number one at the box office is a giant hit.

[Ben Hos]

It is Wuthering Heights.

[David Sims]

No. Oh, that came out, right?

[Ben Hos]

Valentine's Day. Of course it did.

[David Sims]

No, it stars your friend and mine, Timothy Hitmaker Simons. I think he's the lead role. I haven't seen it yet. It's a sequel horror film. It Scream 7.

[Ben Hos]

Because you didn't see Scream 7.

[David Sims]

I didn't make the screening for reasons I can't remember, but probably my boss was like, you're not reviewing it. So I was kind of like, not that motivated. And then the reviews were really bad, and I just was kind of like, I think I might be waiting for Paramount plus on this one. Like, because, like, I quite enjoy 5 and 6. I like the Scream franchise, but because this is actively rejecting 5 and 6, sure. I wasn't too pulled in by, like, we've got Nev Campbell. I'm like, yeah, I've seen her in a Scream movie before. Like, this isn't like, oh, she's been missing. She wasn't in one of them.

[Ben Hos]

Well, congrats on not being gab.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, sure.

[David Sims]

Also, Timothy Simons.

[Joey Sims]

No, I'm kidding.

[David Sims]

I assume. Isn't he, like, a professor and they throw him out a window or something.

[Joey Sims]

I haven't seen it yet.

[Ben Hos]

Sounds good.

[Joey Sims]

That sounds funny.

[David Sims]

Big hit. Did you see it? Joey Sims?

[Joey Sims]

No, I felt the same as.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Yeah.

[Joey Sims]

As you. And I was also like, yeah, them.

[David Sims]

Who directed that? Oh, Williamson directed.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Also not an incredible size.

[Ben Hos]

No. Number two at the box office.

[David Sims]

Number two at the box office is my daughter's favorite film of 20.

[Joey Sims]

No.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, goat.

[David Sims]

They play Roar Ball.

[Ben Hos]

I was thinking about the ball.

[Joey Sims]

Roar.

[Ben Hos]

Roar Ball.

[Joey Sims]

Roar. The. Isn't that the name of the.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

The movie.

[Joey Sims]

Tatum o' Neal movie where they live with. Where.

[David Sims]

Where they were like, there. There were 10 to 12 lion maulings. Yeah, barely. Most movies had, like, half his scalp.

[Ben Hos]

Production was a wild success. It only took five years and a minimum of three scalps. Helpings. It's the most insane film I've ever made. No, I was thinking so much about production ever made.

[David Sims]

Like, it's. The movie's weird.

[Joey Sims]

It's weird.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, yeah. It's weird. Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, the film is Goat.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Joey, you didn't see goat?

[Joey Sims]

No.

[David Sims]

Made $103 million domestic. Very, very solid hit for Sony. A movie I really enjoyed.

[Joey Sims]

I've seen it a few times.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, I liked it. Okay.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, okay. He plays basketball.

[Ben Hos]

No, he plays roar ball. Joey, it's very different. It means that sometimes the court is ice and sometimes it's love lava.

[David Sims]

That is true. Number three, the box office. A romantic drama adaptation of a novel.

[Ben Hos]

Is it the Colleen Hoover? It's.

[Joey Sims]

No, no, come on, you just brought it.

[David Sims]

You said it was number one.

[Ben Hos]

Called Reminders of you.

[David Sims]

No, no, come on, you said Weing Heights.

[Ben Hos]

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[David Sims]

A film that I quite like.

[Ben Hos]

I do too. And I, our buddy Alison yelled at, has the exact take I have on the movie, which is. It's an adaptation of a 15 year old reading the book High School.

[Joey Sims]

I. Yeah, I agree.

[David Sims]

Did you see?

[Joey Sims]

I. Yeah, I. I quite liked it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I dug one.

[Joey Sims]

I kind of into the. I. I have not stopped thinking about the shot where she goes back after her. Her awful dad dies and it like cuts to his light, marks his dead body in the chair and there's just like an insanely high pile of bottles of. Empty. Of empty alcohol.

[David Sims]

I wonder what did him in.

[Joey Sims]

You know, it's hard to. Hard to tell what the movie is saying there. No, I was just like the excess of it. I was just like, hel, that's funny

[David Sims]

to me when people are like, this movie's over the top. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's going for that sort of the idea.

[Ben Hos]

Like you're. You're in high school and you read a great book, you know, one of the. One of the most important works of literature. And it says like she walks in to find her father surrounded by bottles. And you're like. If you're 15, you imagine, oh, it's 8,000 bottles. There's a bone temple.

[David Sims]

So what if number three. Sorry, four. At the box office new this week.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Is a concert film centered around a band. I confess, I didn't know this existed.

[Ben Hos]

Was this a BTS movie?

[David Sims]

No, no.

[Ben Hos]

You didn't know this existed. Is it a band? I would know by name.

[Joey Sims]

This is a real band.

[David Sims]

A real band? Possibly. I think so. They're famous.

[Ben Hos]

Is it a K pop band?

[David Sims]

No, they're like a rock. I don't know. Are they rock? Yeah. Alternative rock, electro pop.

[Ben Hos]

It's not Imagine Dragons?

[David Sims]

No, it's sort of like that. I mean, imagine.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Imagine them.

[Ben Hos]

I'm Trying to just think what this is.

[David Sims]

Oh, I wish. I don't think Imagine Dragons anyone said that.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Ben.

[David Sims]

Ben. What? What is this band? What is it? Tell me what they are. I don't. I know their name, but I don't actually know what the kind of music is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Wait, I can't see.

[David Sims]

Oh, for crying out loud. Come on.

[Joey Sims]

And it's going over.

[David Sims]

And like, what? I don't know what their actual deal is.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Jesus.

[Joey Sims]

I have no idea.

[Ben Hos]

I don't think I know.

[David Sims]

All right, so the band is 21 Pies Pilots.

[Ben Hos]

That's very close to Imagine. I think it is.

[David Sims]

I agree with you. I just don't really. What. What is their vibe?

[Ben Hos]

Ben laughed at me so much for saying Imagine Dragons. I was scared to guess. 21 pilots.

[David Sims]

You should have guessed it. They're a little bit more of a fun period. The movie is called 21 Pilots. More than we ever imagined.

[Ben Hos]

Okay.

[David Sims]

It made $3.7 million in its opening weekend.

[Ben Hos]

I would describe their vibe.

[David Sims]

Put that in your pipe.

[Ben Hos]

Imagine Dragons, I'd say.

[David Sims]

What's their song? Song?

[Ben Hos]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

I just know that there's a band called 21 Pilots. That's. That's where my knowledge ends.

[Ben Hos]

Same.

[David Sims]

And number five is another concert film, sort of. Not. Not of a recent figure, but a deceased figure.

[Ben Hos]

Epic.

[David Sims]

Epic. Elvis Presley in Concert.

[Ben Hos]

An incredible title which I did not

[David Sims]

get to see, but I was told was kind of rad.

[Ben Hos]

Yeah, I've heard.

[David Sims]

We'll cover on Patreon whenever we do buzz. Baz. Luhrmann, you've also got Number six, a movie that I wanted to love and thought was okay. Crime 101.

[Ben Hos]

Oh, sure. I need to watch that.

[David Sims]

Fine.

[Joey Sims]

101. Yeah, that was your letter box. Yeah, it's pretty good.

[David Sims]

Probably did numbers.

[Ben Hos]

Haven't checked it. Here's a twist. I'm going to let you finish the episode.

[David Sims]

Okay? You know what? I'll see you later. Get out of here. Go away. You got to go. I'll tell you the next. I Can Only Imagine two.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah, what's that?

[Ben Hos]

That's based on a song the a guy wrote about his dad not being nice. And this is the sequel where the songs are hit. The dad's like, ah, St know if I want to be a nice guy.

[David Sims]

Sounds pretty good. I'll check it out. Number eight, Sam Raimi's Great. Send Help. Which you saw that I. You saw that, right?

[Joey Sims]

Great movie.

[David Sims]

Number nine, how to make a killing. The fairly bad, a 24 Glenn Powell remake of Kind Hearts and Cornet Kind Hearts and cornets. Number 10. Zootopia 2. Hanging out for its, like fourth month.

[Ben Hos]

Highest grossing film of 2025.

[David Sims]

Highest grossing film of 2020 25. Yep. You've also got Solo Mio there. Number 12. That's the Kevin James wants a wife movie. Griff's going to therapy. He is going to therapy. He's out of here. Wow.

[Joey Sims]

Maybe Joey should take over. What?

[David Sims]

Should we do a coup?

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Sure.

[David Sims]

I mean, we could try. I've done it before.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

It's never happened.

[David Sims]

I have left her because we went for, you know, four hours about Cabbage Patch Kids or whatever.

[Joey Sims]

Ever. Sure.

[David Sims]

But I don't think Griffin's ever left before. There was the time he threw up. Yes, but he came back.

[Joey Sims]

Left.

[David Sims]

Threw up, Came back.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

No, he's normally the one who.

[David Sims]

Who makes it too long.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Makes it too long, shows up late.

[David Sims]

Yes, let's. You know what? Let's hear some grievous. Let's talk about it. What else we got? So this is kind of. Yeah. A unique position. We've never been here before. Yeah. I have to see Mortal Kombat 2 in an hour.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm going later this evening.

[Joey Sims]

But I'm.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

I'm. I'm very excited.

[David Sims]

Do you have work? Talking to my brother?

[Joey Sims]

No, I'm. I have a few hours. I'm going to maybe try to hang out with Lane.

[David Sims]

Lane Montgomery, friend of the show, composer of the theme song, and prior past future guest. Your former roommate.

[Joey Sims]

My former roommate. We've been looking for a time to grab like a late lunch, so I'm going to see. But he may be. He may have been held up at work. It's unclear. So no. And then tonight I'm seeing Giant on Broadway. Way the. The play.

[David Sims]

That's the roll. Not so nice roll.

[Joey Sims]

Anti Semite John Lithgo play.

[David Sims]

You excited getting that one in?

[Joey Sims]

Do you sound excited getting that one in?

[David Sims]

Did he get the.

[Joey Sims]

No, I'm excited to see him. We love to see John Lithgo take on a big mammoth role on Broadway. Who doesn't? The play from. From what I've heard is.

[Ben Hos]

I don't know.

[Joey Sims]

I'm not that excited by the.

[David Sims]

No, but Trumpty Dumpty. Is that what it's called?

[Joey Sims]

So it. It is. After the Giant concludes, then we all remain in the theater. The doors are locked and John Lithgow reads the entirety of Trumpty Dumpty.

[David Sims]

Do you know about Trumpty Dumpty? Are you aware that Don Lithgow wrote a New York Times bestseller called Dumpty, which was a series of comical nursery rhymes about Donald Trump. Then he wrote a sequel called Trumpty Dumpty, Wanted a Crown. And my guess, in that one, he turns around, he says, trump, not so bad. Wait, you're telling me he doubles down on how Trump is bad? And then would you. Would it shock you to learn that there is a third book called A Confederacy of Dumptys? Who's that for? What do you mean?

[Joey Sims]

Children.

[David Sims]

They love John Lithgow's hectoring poetry.

[Joey Sims]

And I think it's. He only needs to write one more which hopefully he's working on in between shows. And then that's gonna to. That's going to do it.

[David Sims]

Then Trump will be like, he got me. I'm out.

[Joey Sims]

He's rhymes.

[David Sims]

I didn't think he'd do anything. He's spitting hot fire. All right, Joe, just one more plug. Of course, for your podcast.

[Joey Sims]

Yeah. So my podcast, thank you. Theater we saw, which I don't know what episode will be on by the time this comes out. As I'm talking about it, it's very new. It releases bi weekly. We talk about about two shows each episode. Two new shows. But maybe we'll do some fun episodes as I, as I mentioned, such as about the. The pipe robbery at Perfect Crime. And you have guests on.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Occasionally.

[Joey Sims]

We have cool guests on. We just had Grace Walker, who's a great like theater tick tocker on. We're gonna have more cool people on, including non theater people. A big hope of ours going forward is to start having some people who are not like theater specific people, but like comedians who are like, who are into theater because many of them are, whether they proudly admit it or. Or not. So we're hopeful to have lots of different types of guests on and yeah, it's fun. Give it a. Give it a listen.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

There's a link in the episode description and wait, this is also a first. You have to take us out.

[David Sims]

Oh, okay. Yeah. So in the blink of an eye. Listen to Joey's podcast. Next week on the show is toys Toy Story 5, of course, which at this point has already come out because the Stanton series premiered a little later, but we have yet to see. But I'm told there's an iPad. So that's next week and then we will be starting our series on some fuck called Martin Scott Quartzi. So listen forward to that and as always. Well, no, you got a rate. Review and subscribe. Review and subscribe.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

We have a Patreon.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sure.

[Joey Sims]

We got.

[David Sims]

Okay, we'll see special features. Yeah, blank check special features we got we're starting our Resident Evil commentary series.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Fun.

[David Sims]

We're gonna watch the Resident evil movies, call W.S. anderson his universe of six movies, and then, then the risable Resident Evil. Welcome to Raccoon City. And then I guess we will touch on the Zack Kreker movie as well at some point.

[Joey Sims]

I don't know. Like, yeah, we'll.

[David Sims]

We'll talk about it.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

That's patreon.com/check we also have a newsletter on Substack Checkbook. It's a weekly behind the scenes look into the world of Blank Check. I think we've done all we need to do as far as housekeeping, so. And as always, David, as always, do something about the nut. Yeah, there's an acorn, golden nut that

[David Sims]

the golden acorn comes for us all.

[Marie Barty Salinas]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hos. Lastly, 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 at blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.