Mulholland Drive with Leslye Headland

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Mulholland Drive with Leslye Headland - Detailed Summary

Release Date: November 17, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims delve deep into David Lynch’s iconic film, Mulholland Drive. Joined by guest Leslye Headland, the trio engages in an extensive analysis of the film's intricate narrative, casting choices, thematic elements, and its transformation from a television pilot to a cinematic masterpiece.

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Background and Production Evolution

The discussion begins with an exploration of Mulholland Drive's unique production journey. Originally conceived as a television pilot for ABC, Lynch faced significant challenges in fitting his expansive vision into the network's constraints.

• Transformation from Pilot to Feature Film ([09:50]-[10:24])

  David: "The thing with that you're something that lots of people know cross section between things."

  Lynch was compelled to rework the pilot by adding new footage to align with the network's requirements, ultimately resulting in a feature-length film that diverged significantly from its initial TV format.

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Casting Choices and Character Dynamics

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the casting process, particularly Naomi Watts's pivotal role and the enigmatic cowboy character.

• Naomi Watts and the Duality of Her Character ([12:19]-[16:22])

  Griffin: "This is basically my favorite movie of all."

  Watts's portrayal oscillates between innocence and profound despair, embodying the film's central themes of identity and ambition. The hosts discuss how Lynch's casting decisions, including bringing in relatively unknown actors, contribute to the film's layered narrative.

• The Enigmatic Cowboy ([23:12]-[30:07])

  Ben: "He's come up before."

  The cowboy serves as a symbolic figure representing Hollywood's elusive and often antagonistic forces. His sporadic appearances and cryptic dialogue add to the film's surreal atmosphere.

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Thematic Exploration

Mulholland Drive is lauded for its exploration of complex themes such as ambition, fear, and the duality of reality and illusion.

• Ambition and the Price of Success ([32:00]-[37:39])

  The hosts examine how the film portrays the relentless pursuit of success in Hollywood, often at the cost of personal identity and mental well-being.

  David: "All these people bring him in for the meeting or like, oh, he's doing the David Lynch thing. They must be excited that they're like, where does he get these ideas?"

• Fear and Power Dynamics ([44:36]-[52:42])

  Discussions highlight the pervasive fear that governs Hollywood's power structures, as depicted through the interactions between characters.

  Ben: "The only way you can survive that level of depression... is you have to hang on to the dream."

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Scene-by-Scene Analysis

The episode provides a meticulous breakdown of key scenes, elucidating their significance within the broader narrative.

• Winky's Diner Scene ([104:32]-[123:05])

  This early scene sets the tone with its unsettling atmosphere and introduction of mysterious characters.

  Griffin: "It's the most iconic scene in the history of movies."

• The Audition Sequence ([148:04]-[165:44])

  Naomi Watts's character undergoes a pivotal transformation during her audition, symbolizing the struggle between artistic integrity and commercial pressures.

  Ben: "This is, like, having a session of real life."

• Silencio Club ([167:44]-[181:53])

  The climactic Silencio scene serves as a metaphorical gateway between reality and illusion, encapsulating the film's enigmatic essence.

  Griffin: "It's like, mystifyingly profound."

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Personal Reflections and Emotional Impact

Griffin, David, and Ben share their personal connections to the film, discussing how Mulholland Drive influenced their perceptions of Hollywood and storytelling.

• Emotional Resonance ([186:02]-[210:25])

  Ben: "I just, I was fundamentally changed by this movie. It instantly entered my top 10."

  The hosts articulate how the film's surreal narrative forced them to confront the often harsh realities behind the glamour of the entertainment industry.

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Symbolism and Recurring Motifs

The conversation delves into the film's rich symbolism, deciphering recurring motifs that enhance its thematic depth.

• The Blue Key and Yellow Lampshade ([146:19]-[155:22])

  These symbols serve as leitmotifs representing access to hidden truths and the intertwining of dreams with reality.

  David: "These things are married. They represent the duality of success and failure."

• Dog Poop and Mundane Chaos ([169:02]-[187:56])

  Seemingly trivial elements like dog poop are analyzed for their metaphorical significance, reflecting the underlying chaos within structured settings.

  Griffin: "It's like, you're in that dream world where everything's normal, but there's this underlying menace."

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Conclusion

Wrapping up the episode, Griffin and David reflect on the enduring legacy of Mulholland Drive and its place within David Lynch's filmography. They emphasize the film's ability to provoke thought and elicit emotional responses, cementing its status as a modern classic.

Griffin: "This is why I love David Lynch. He just."

David: "Absolutely, it's baffling, it's terrifying, it's beautiful."

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Notable Quotes

• Griffin ([09:50]): "The movie's a disaster. No, it's considered to be one of the 10 greatest films of all time."

• Ben ([32:00]): "This is your shot to make the chief notice."

• David ([167:12]): "There's a feeling of abandonment, of trying to hold onto the dream in the midst of chaos."

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Further Listening

For more in-depth discussions on filmographies and auteur directors, tune into upcoming episodes of Blank Check with Griffin & David as they continue to explore the works of cinema's most influential figures.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Griffin]

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

[David]

When you see the podcast in the picture that was shown to you earlier today, you will say, this is the podcast. The rest of the podcast can stay. That's up to you. But the choice for that lead podcast is not up to you. Now, you will see me one more time if you do good. You'll see me two more times if you do bad. Good podcast.

[Griffin]

There's sometimes a podcast. How many hosts does a podcast have? There's so many more you could do. Come on. No, I podcast. I thought you might do that.

[David]

Oh, sure. A man's podcast. A man's podcast goes some ways.

[Griffin]

Oh, you just like the cowboy.

[David]

Yeah, I do.

[Griffin]

But you're. You're not doing his voice. You're doing a more generic.

[David]

Doing more generic cowboys.

[Griffin]

There's sometimes a buggy. I'm trying. I wish I could do Monty Montgomery exactly right.

[David]

Monty Montgomery's secret legend of blank check.

[Leslie]

He's come up before.

[Griffin]

Whatever. Leslie, you could talk about. Yeah. Do you know who plays the cowboy?

[Ben]

Yes. The producer. Yeah.

[David]

But was the legendary director of Kathryn Bigelow's first film, the Loveless.

[Ben]

Excuse me.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Which we covered on the show. And was also the producer of Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady.

[Griffin]

True.

[David]

And then produced several of David Lynch's films and appears in this as an actor. Like, has now crossed three miniseries in a way, in a Cassie. That kind of feels like the role the cowboy plays in this movie. Relative to those people's careers where it's like I just roll into town and make a big impact. I disappear.

[Griffin]

There's sometimes a buggy.

[David]

I'm working with you very intensely for a short period of time, and then I'm gone.

[Griffin]

What were you gonna say? What were you gonna say about the cowboy?

[David]

We've covered him as a director, a producer and an actor.

[Griffin]

That's true. We have.

[Ben]

Well, he. In Room to Dream, he talks about how he just wanted Monty for the role and said, I would like you to play this role. And Monty said, absolutely not. But then people kept calling him, being like, so, here are your dates. Right.

[Griffin]

Which I do think kind of the Lynch. The funny thing to think about, he's in the TV pilot. We're going to talk about all of this. And you can just imagine the Twin Peaks thing of like, sorry, buddy, now. Now you're just going to be in every Five episodes. Like, right. It's like you're in. You're the Log lady now. You're just going to be showing up.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Like, it's not just, you did me a favor for the pilot.

[Ben]

It's very Log Lady.

[Griffin]

That's how he would have been.

[Ben]

Because the, the, the, the light flickers before he shows up. Like. Yeah.

[David]

I was just double checking. This is his only act.

[Griffin]

It's his first and only act.

[David]

Like, obviously not only was he not a professional actor, but it's not even like he has a cameo in the Love List. It's not like he does cameos in his other films he produced.

[Ben]

He does Lynch. Lynch saw him.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And had already been working with him.

[David]

For like five or six years at this point.

[Ben]

But do we think he came up with the character looking at him and, and thought, I'm kind of jealous or he had the character and then was. And then felt Monty's the other.

[David]

When we talked about him in our loveless episode, and this was before we had researchers, as we were fucking scrambling for context on Mike, we were like, who's this guy? And we googled him and saw a picture of him. We're like, first of all, his name's Monty.

[Griffin]

Here's the picture. This is his IMDb picture. It looks like a tin type of a bank robbery from the 1970s.

[David]

We did like 40 minutes of bits of like, how did this man enter through a time warp? So I kind of see David lynch looking at him.

[Griffin]

I believe he wore his own clothes.

[David]

Yeah. And so I believe he'd be like, you know, what if I just put you in front of camera and you just say my oblique dialogue? That will have some power to it. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

And again, in Room to Dream, he says that. Or maybe Thoreau says that. He said, do you want to run lines to Monty? And Monty was like, I'm good.

[Griffin]

Hell yeah.

[Ben]

Then showed up. They start the scene, he has no idea what he's saying.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So they just wrote the lines and then taped them on Justin.

[Griffin]

Such a. We should cut to Justin just covered in. Inside.

[Ben]

Sometimes there's a buggy. You know, have you guys seen.

[Griffin]

You're too busy being a smart alec to be thinking.

[David]

The behind the scenes pictures from the filming of the Godfather, where Brando, of course, was in his PQ card era and every other cast member. There are photos from the Godfather where you're like, this is one of the most iconic scenes in the history of movies.

[Griffin]

And Michael Corleone just has cue cards around his neck there's a great one.

[David]

Of Duvall where he literally has 10 different pieces of paper pinned to his wool suit.

[Ben]

But hey, it's working.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I've seen this. Yeah, it seems to be Robert Duvall. Looks like he's doing the love actually proposal. He's just got like, to me, you are perfect. It works, man. If it works, it works. That's the thing.

[Ben]

If it works, it's working.

[Griffin]

I mean, that's so funny though, especially, I mean, like Clooney. The famous thing with Clooney that I talk about sometimes is that in ER he would put his sides on his, you know, little clipboard. Right. Cuz he's a doctor and so. And he looks down at them all the time and then it turns into a tick that he uses in all his movies. Not to look at things, just to. Because he knows it makes him look cute and vulnerable to go like.

[David]

And there's the famous story.

[Griffin]

And it's the number one Clooney move is to look down.

[David]

There's the famous story. When they're making the Peacemaker, the inaugural film released by DreamWorks. DreamWorks.

[Griffin]

And his sort of first star.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Blockbuster.

[David]

And Spielberg had obviously been like part of the process of him getting on ER and whatever. And he's now on the set of like the first vehicle that a studio is banking on.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And Spielberg comes out from behind the monitor.

[Ben]

That was pre Batman.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

It's this year before or maybe maybe the same year.

[David]

It's right around the same time. But Spielberg comes out from behind the monitor and he puts his arm around him and Clooney thinks he's about to get complimented. And Spielberg's like, I swear to God, you'll be a movie star if you can ever stop looking dead. You gotta get over.

[Griffin]

He was wrong.

[David]

And I think he knew like the backstory of it, but he was like, if you can just fucking nip this one tick in the bud.

[Griffin]

Never.

[David]

You'll be a movie star.

[Griffin]

No. He's gonna look down for the of his damn life.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Please introduce our show. I have so much to say about this film.

[David]

Really. Had you seen this before?

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Seen this one before. Mid where. Where do you stand on.

[Griffin]

This is basically my favorite movie of all.

[Ben]

I would say this was definitely my.

[David]

Top 10 in David's sight and sound top 10 list.

[Griffin]

That's true.

[David]

It was on his ballot. Have we covered. I feel like getting this.

[Griffin]

We covered. We did a. I did have Alien on my Sight and sound top 10. We did on Patreon, which we did do On Patreon. And that is it.

[David]

Of.

[Griffin]

Of my sight and sound top 10. It's the. This is the first film we're covering.

[Leslie]

Well, you're forgetting I love you to death.

[David]

Yeah, that was year 10. You were forgetting. Cuz it wasn't part of a proper, like director miniseries.

[Ben]

You did a Kasdan then.

[David]

We didn't. No. Ben sometimes a movie that he thinks is elemental that are usually kind of.

[Leslie]

Curated around what was on Comedy Central.

[David]

They're usually curated by like, what are the most totemic films in American cinema. It's sort of his own sight and sound battle.

[Griffin]

What films start with a freeze frame of a spinning pizza, which that movie.

[David]

Does with Griffin and David.

[Ben]

I haven't seen it in so long.

[David]

Oh, it's normal.

[Griffin]

I'm David. It's normal. It is normal.

[Ben]

It's a normal movie.

[David]

Aggressive.

[Griffin]

Oh, normal.

[David]

Top to bottom, tip to tail. This flick is normal.

[Ben]

Not to get derailed. But Ben, just give me like one or two other ones that you've picked.

[Griffin]

Oh, oh, sure. You want some? Ben's choices.

[David]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

The man who knew too little. Under Siege two. Dark Territory.

[David]

We find out halfway through that episode that he had never seen Under Siege one. He has now since seen it.

[Griffin]

I have pretty good.

[David]

But at that point in time, it's.

[Griffin]

Actually kind of better than two as.

[David]

One of his favorite movies of all time. No, we said, Ben, you could pick any movie. He said Under Siege two. And an hour into the conversation we were like, is this what the character's like in the first one? He's like, I don't know. Wouldn't know. Never seen it. Fletch. That was the first one. Fletch.

[Ben]

Yep. Yeah, yeah, That's a solid choice.

[David]

Street Fighter.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

This. I'm on a roller coaster.

[David]

Assassin's Creed. There have been two video game movies.

[Griffin]

You're a gamer, Leslie. Do you like Assassin's Creed?

[Ben]

No. No.

[David]

Well, here's. Here's what's fun. Neither does Ben. He never played the games before watching the movie. Much like Under Siege.

[Leslie]

I just got really into it and I was in a bad relationship and I just kind of kept re watching in the middle. This happened and then I got like.

[David]

Up and watch it again. He saw like 30 times.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David]

Bottom the Steelbook. It was a nice present. Wait, are we forgetting one?

[Griffin]

There's so many. What do you mean? Joe Dirt? Clifford, obviously.

[Leslie]

Of course, Clifford. We've done it twice.

[David]

We went back for seconds. Clifford two. Hyper Clifford.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Anyway, we're moving what our show Is sometimes. But what it's usually about is it's usually a podcast about filmographies, directors, massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks. Make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes your failed pilot is retrofitted into a feature film that not only makes David Sims ballot.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

But ranks number eight.

[Griffin]

That's a good question, actually. What you mean like on the. On the total?

[David]

I believe on the last ballot. It is insane to go like, what is this movie? David lynch made a 90 minute pilot for ABC that they deemed unairable. Sure. Oh, great. So it's lost to time. No, he got a French company to let him film an hour of new footage and edit. It was two things together.

[Griffin]

Eighth in the critics.

[David]

Oh, so the movie's a disaster. No, it's considered to be one of the 10 greatest films of all time.

[Griffin]

That's true.

[Ben]

Didn't something. I don't know what it was, but something named it the greatest film of the 21st century.

[Griffin]

That is like.

[Ben]

But shortly after it came out. Yeah, like it's just in 2001. Yeah, it was like, this is it. This is the bar.

[Griffin]

I even like.

[David]

It is the highest ranked film of the 21st century on the sight and sound pole. Right. It's the only one in the top 10.

[Griffin]

It's actually not what's higher? It's in the Mood for Love is ranked higher.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Okay. Which is another wonderful film.

[Ben]

Yeah, fair.

[Griffin]

That is the only other one that's ranked higher though.

[David]

That's American Hollywood.

[Griffin]

Well, I watched this movie last night with my friend. I've seen this movie. Oh, wait, have you finished this Real, please.

[David]

This is a main series on the films of David Lynch.

[Griffin]

Thank you. Sure. We're blank. Check over here.

[David]

I said all the other stuff.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

It's called Twin Pods Fire cast with me.

[Griffin]

Sure, whatever.

[David]

Our guest today triumphantly returning to the show. Typing fists, ready to fucking go.

[Ben]

Oh, I'm ready. I'm very regretful that our Zodiac. We only got. I feel like we barely touched the surface.

[David]

Sure. But barely. But I'll say this. We. We had like a little bit of a. Like, there's a problem moment with the response to that episode where people were like, I'm so disappointed. It's only 2 hours and 45 minutes. What went wrong? And we're like, how have we gotten ourselves into a gilded cage where if an episode is only a little above two and a half hours, people feel like we're ripping them off.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

I agree that I could talk about that movie for seven straight hours. But also, hey, if an episode's longer than 90 minutes, that's a kindness.

[Ben]

That's it.

[David]

And. And usually they're way over that.

[Ben]

I feel like. But I specifically feel like just a. This is why I had to come back and atone. Sure. I had to atone because.

[David]

And you've cleared out your week.

[Ben]

I cleared. I'm here. I'm here. We're gonna. We're gonna be sleeping here tonight. Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin]

Leslie did text me and you know, like, hey, do you want to do oh, Mullhun Drive? That sounds great. Yeah. When can you do it? You guys need, like, all day, right? And I was like, I mean, it doesn't hurt.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Leslie had wins. The acolytes of sleeping with other people. My favorite romantic comedy of the 21st century. Thank you, Bachelorette.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Many other things.

[Griffin]

Mulholland Drive. A show crying out loud that no.

[David]

One was ever gonna watch because they said, no, thank you. This does not go to series. I just can't get. It is the weirdest.

[Griffin]

I know. You can't get over it. That is the most grifting.

[David]

I've never gotten over it.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Well, it is so bizarre that this is the process that leads to this movie and the movie turned out the way it did and has the reputation it does.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And I just want to state again, the only clear takeaway from this is that Moana 2 is going to be the greatest film of the last 20 years. It's the first time since then that someone's finally gotten the idea of we.

[Griffin]

Should replicate as there. Is there another example? I can't think of one TV pilot.

[David]

Two is the to a movie time since Mulholland Drive that someone has finally had the bravery to say, these aren't episodes. Add some new, read it, put it in theaters. Sight and sound. Here we.

[Ben]

Oh, my God.

[Griffin]

Well, it's sort of interesting.

[David]

Lone best director.

[Griffin]

It's interesting to think about it with Twin Peaks and we're going to talk all about this, but obviously with Twin Peaks, he makes that. He does the same thing. He makes a 90 minute pilot, shows it to ABC, convinces them they are suspicious, but are like, okay, let's do it. But he did then shoot the quote unquote international version of Twin Peaks that has tacked on scenes that sort of explain what's going on in that. You see Bob in a basement going like, I like being crazy. Yes. It doesn't explain much, but it's sort of what he does here where he's like, well, let me tack on an act right where I'm go. Where I go nuts. It's. I mean, I may be simplifying, but, you know, I guess he thought like, well, I'll just do something like that again.

[David]

You saying already that you like this as much as any movie ever made, that it's on that tier of movies you can comfortably call your favorite movie, even if it's not, you know, strictly your number one?

[Ben]

Yeah. And like, as a lesbian in Hollywood who suffers from suicide ideation. This is a biology. This is a bio.

[David]

Oh, okay.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Okay.

[Ben]

No, this all happened to me.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

No, I was gonna say we were talking about a couple days ago, getting ready for this episode and I was much like I'm now doing on Mike, just spinning out over like, I can't believe this is how this movie came into reality. And you were like. And the craziest thing is you can so clearly tell while watching it what was part of the pilot and what he shot later.

[Ben]

Well, I can't see that I will reveal. That's really interesting because I can't.

[David]

I'll say. I don't know if I could, I would nail it 100% of the time. But I. I was watching it and feeling like I could parse it out and it' like there's even just like the sense of like some being shot a year later.

[Griffin]

I will just. I'm just going to cut you off. I have seen the pilot. I found it and watched it this week after long avoiding it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Out of fear. Not of just of spoiling my love of m. Sure.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

It's on the Internet. You can find it if you look. You can go look on it.

[David]

I didn't do the work.

[Griffin]

It's fine. I didn't want you to, honestly.

[David]

Thank God.

[Griffin]

And we will talk all about this, but the pilot is essentially the first. Is the first 90 minutes of Mulholland Drive. That was my too much fucking around. The only thing that is added is the winkies scene, which is not in the pilot at all. The, you know, the diner. Yes. That is not in the pilot.

[Ben]

And the sex scenes and the nudity are not.

[Griffin]

No, that's what I'm saying. So when they find the body, like.

[Ben]

Oh, I see.

[Griffin]

When they go in everything after the body, that is the end of the pilot.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The only thing that's really added is the winky scene. A couple things moved around. There are a couple extra scenes of Robert Forster in the pilot. Love to See him, sure. But literally just him kind of doing like, well, looks like something's going on here where you're like, right, this is going to be, you know, a continuing story.

[David]

That was my guess. And the visual language, so much scenes.

[Griffin]

Are shuffled around a little bit, but.

[David]

It changes a little bit after that point. But also, it's like that's built into the text of the movie.

[Ben]

That makes sense, right?

[David]

That, like, the movie's vibe changes, the characters change, the look changes.

[Ben]

Just because I had no idea of the backstory the first time I watched the movie and the movie made such a deep impression on me. I watched it. I saw it in the theater. It was the first David lynch film I'd ever seen.

[David]

Wow. Okay.

[Ben]

And I was on ecstasy.

[Griffin]

Not same now.

[Ben]

Our paths diverge weirdly for me. I was on ecstasy right after there was ecstasy, but what do the kids call it now?

[Griffin]

Molly.

[Ben]

Molly. I was doing Molly either during or after Leslie.

[Griffin]

We're similar ages. It's ecstasy. It pisses me off so much that people don't call it that anymore. I'm like, God damn it. I grew up with everyone calling, just kind of like. And it's a great name. Why Rea. It's ecstasy, right?

[Ben]

No, it makes such an impression.

[Leslie]

It's just.

[Griffin]

I know it's a little different.

[Leslie]

It's different because the era of ecstasy was more. It was pills, and a lot of times it was cut with, like, weird stuff.

[Griffin]

And.

[Leslie]

And it's actually better that nowadays MDMA is pure and it's referred to as Molly.

[Griffin]

I'm aware. I'm aware of what happened. And I grew up in the 90s where they were like, don't take ecstasy. You'll die. Like this one K kid did one time. Everyone else seems to do fine, but.

[David]

There was that one kid seeing Dungeons and Dragons, and you're like, there's one example, and maybe the story doesn't shut down.

[Griffin]

Anyway. Anyway, you. You said.

[Ben]

I was just saying it made such a deep, deep impression on me. And I. When I was rewatching it for this, I. I felt like the best place to come from would be to. To really do the sense memory of this is what I felt the first time I watched it. And then rewatching it for this. This is. Sure, yeah. But I had no idea the background of it. I don't think I found out.

[Griffin]

When you saw it the first time.

[Ben]

Oh, yeah. I don't think I found out about that until 10 years later.

[David]

I was gonna say, I think the same with me. And When I heard it, I was like, that can't be true.

[Ben]

Yeah. That does not process.

[David]

I would have known that. And the movie would have.

[Griffin]

So funny that you guys.

[David]

That's what's weird. I don't remember when I learned, but it certainly wasn't within the couple of years of the movie coming out and being feted. It was probably 10 years later.

[Griffin]

I was 15 years old. It's David's story time now for doing a Mulholland Drive episode.

[Ben]

Wait, you were 15?

[Griffin]

All right, so you're a little older than me.

[Ben]

Oh, God.

[Griffin]

Okay. It's fine. Leslie. I'm 38. What are you? Like, it doesn't matter.

[Ben]

43.

[Griffin]

Yeah, exactly.

[David]

We're similar. I'm 21. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

Did you see this theaters?

[David]

No. I watched this on DVD with my mom when she rented it. Probably a year later.

[Griffin]

Right. And that was like super cool. When the sex scene happened and everything, you were just kind of like white knuckling it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

On the. On the armchair armrest.

[David]

Got a big workout on that couch.

[Griffin]

I was 15 years old. If I had seen a Lynch film before this, that I actually do not.

[David]

Remember, I saw a straight story, which I will have talked about in that episode.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

But that was my parents being like, there's a David lynch movie released by Disney playing at the Angelica that's appropriate to take kids to. We'll take the boys.

[Griffin]

Right. And you liked it.

[David]

And I was like, well, that gives me no sense of who David lynch is. Like, walked out. My parents are just like, touchdown. Or it was Walt Disney Pictures Presents.

[Ben]

Okay, David Lynch.

[Griffin]

It's on Disney.

[David]

Yes. And they could.

[Ben]

With the Acolyte.

[David]

It's so weird that he made that. And I was like, what do you mean? That's the most normal movie I've ever, ever seen seen. It's normal to a fault.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

So when I'm watching this a couple years later on dvd, at that point, I probably knew him by reputation, but also was like, oh, this is the weird David lynch everyone's talking about.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Same. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

So I was 15 years old. I'm a budding cinephile. I certainly know I have to go see this new movie that won a prize at Cannes. That is the new David lynch film. The first in four years.

[David]

Prognosticator lists.

[Griffin]

I know that it. I do know about the TV pilot thing. There is an article in Sight and Sound, which, of course, later I would rank this for. You know, as a working film critic. The dream of my life was to get to make it Sight and sound top 10, which I then got to do and I made a really boring one. Good job, me. But I did put them all on the driveway.

[David]

David's process was boring, borderline insane for developing.

[Griffin]

I was like, boring, boring, boring, boring. But. And I. So I read Graham Fuller's piece. Graham Fuller is in the New York Film critic circle to this day, of which I am currently the chairman.

[David]

Must be.

[Griffin]

I'm just. I just. I read David Griece on Sight and Sound on Mulholland Drive in sight and sound 100 times.

[David]

You're saying this, this movie represents a lot of full circle stuff of your entire relationship.

[Griffin]

This is a tunnel opening for me, for my life.

[Ben]

It is formative in my identity. Like it exactly.

[Griffin]

For me as well.

[Ben]

It's into my bloodstream, into the molecules of my body in a way that I.

[Griffin]

And I am not a lesbian who works in Hollywood and had suicidal ideation and humble brag. Nonetheless.

[Ben]

Drag me, drag me.

[Griffin]

No, I'm just using your words against you. No. I went to see it at the Holloway Odeon with my friend Oliver Stevens. Shout Out Ollie. Yeah, he's now Ali Kinderberg. Actually I should, I should use his. His current name.

[David]

Yeah, he did kind of a Mulholland Drive character name switch. God bless.

[Griffin]

And I've never been so scared by a movie in my life and never will I be.

[Ben]

Oh, same. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Because it's so elemental. Like now I whatever. I go see Long Legs and I'm just like, all right, you know, we're scared. I was right. Well, I didn't write that headline. But, but, but I was scared. But you know, it's now.

[David]

It's just funny for you to say that when this week.

[Griffin]

This is scary.

[David]

Literally the headline they gave David's review is like. It's true. Long Legs is as scary as everyone's telling you it is. And the David's here going like, yeah, long Legs, whatever.

[Griffin]

I'm just saying I'll never have that elemental fear that I was of like I don't know what's going to fudgeing.

[David]

Happen and where did this come from?

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. Like right, like not. Not. Seems like the diner of course freaked me out. But then also just scenes where like they're just in their house.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

And I'm just like, I don't know what's going to happen.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Is someone going to come in? Are they going, what's going to happen? I'll never have that feeling quite the same way.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And it changed my life and I Owned the absolutely shitty, boulderized DVD that David lynch put out.

[David]

Leslie, the new dvd, did you have it on dvd?

[Ben]

Yes, I did. I did.

[David]

David. I was obsessed with his hatred for this dvd.

[Griffin]

Well, it's famously bad, and it doesn't even have chapters. It's nothing.

[Ben]

It's bad. Yeah. It's got those weird 10 clues.

[Griffin]

It's got the 10 clues, which are very annoying, and people. And there's fixated a little too much on.

[David]

I don't think that there are no special features. He censored the nudity, and there's no scene selection. And he put in the fucking piece of paper and it's.

[Ben]

This is when, you know, he's. Is he okay?

[Griffin]

I think he was kind of whatever he was dealing with the dawn of the digital era, you know, in his own way, I feel like he's now.

[David]

Kind of feel like I. I want to say his criterion just don't have scene selection still.

[Griffin]

I think they do not. Which is fine. I mean, I don't mind.

[David]

It's got a big. Like. I don't want people jumping around. Yeah.

[Ben]

Just think about it. Like what?

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

Like, even as I was watching it for this, I. I sort of started to go, okay, so if I could just get my thoughts together.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

You know, this section and then this section. And I got so lost in trying to. To make the bullet point outline that I just brought my laptop this time because I was.

[Griffin]

I just noticed you have your laptop in front of you.

[Ben]

Yeah, I mean, Zodiac. I know so well that I felt confident coming in without it.

[David]

A far more linear movie that you can obsess over Robert Graysmith style and be able to recount how many steps it took to get from scene one to scene.

[Ben]

Yeah, exactly. And break it up. Like, in that. I know I Confidential way of. Like, I know this section, then this section, then this section.

[David]

It is a very.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, but this is. No, no, no, no way.

[Griffin]

Yeah, so. But I know. I watched the DVD over and over and over again. I can read everyone's lines, and every.

[David]

Time you're fuming, you're white knuckling.

[Griffin]

The quality of this is poor. Yeah, no, I was obsessed with it. No, I had the 10 clues pinned to my wall. Just. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that now, but.

[Ben]

Well, I had a big. I would still. I would steal. We're not really steal, but, like, at the end of the day, I would take Variety magazines home, and this is back when they were like, you know, humongous. Humongous. So all of the.

[David]

They were basically wallpaper.

[Ben]

They were basically. That's what I did is I took out. I know I did. I took out Leslie. I took out the ads.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And just put them on my wall and just, you know, it just became. I think I had like not that many. Maybe like three or four.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I had a lot more than that.

[David]

But you know what I would do?

[Griffin]

I had this FYC ad for Quentin Tarantino, best director for Kill Bill Volume 1. Which you got no Oscar nomination for that.

[David]

Where.

[Griffin]

That's him and his wife.

[Ben]

I thought she was nominated.

[David]

The movie got snubbed. Zero knobs.

[Griffin]

Both insane.

[David]

Across the two films. Zero.

[Ben]

And she wasn't.

[David]

No. It's wild.

[Ben]

It was at a Golden Globe. Is that what.

[Griffin]

Because she got a Golden Globe Numb.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

And it's him doing this. And Uma's like looking at him in her yellow track soon. I think about.

[Ben]

What I meant was I had just. Mulholland Drive.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

Okay. Got it. That was the only one I care about. Oh, and Amelie. Amelie. I had a couple. Amelie.

[David]

2001.

[Ben]

It was 2001, baby. That accordion music.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Come on. We had nothing else going on. I keep trying to explain this. People who are younger, much younger than. Than we are. I'm like, you don't understand. We. We didn't have the Internet like we or it was the dawn.

[Griffin]

It was.

[Ben]

Didn't have anything to do like. It was like. It was like that. That wheel with the stick like we had. That was what we were doing.

[David]

What's interesting, my version of that was we. We got the fucking trades. Like my dad had Variety in Hollywood Reporter subscriptions. I would certainly pour over those FYC ads. I would love being like two page FYC spread for Meet the Parents. And my dad would be like contractual obligation. They don't think it's going to get anything. Terry. But they have a supporting actress and he's like, it's baked into her contract. But I would never do three. Those out. New York Times would always do summer movie preview, fall movie preview.

[Ben]

Oh, God. Remember that.

[David]

In addition to the art section.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

For those two seasons they'd be like, here's its own thing that's full New York Times sized posters for all the things that are coming out this summer with the date. Basically in chronological order.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And I would pull those out for whatever movies I was most excited for and put them all on my wall. And to your point of the Internet not existing, sometimes I'd be going through that and movies Giant blockbuster movies that were coming out two months later. That would be the first time I heard about it. You're like this movie cost $100 million.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

I'm paying attention to everything. I'm watching Entertainment Tonight. I'm reading Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times in May is telling me what is going to be the biggest movie in August. Like what the is the Sixth Sense.

[Ben]

Oh, that is a movie that. That does not exist with the Internet. No. And that poster is nothing.

[Griffin]

That's a fair point.

[Ben]

It just doesn't exist.

[Griffin]

Not in the same way of like. Like six weeks later people being like I guess I should see that, huh? Like everyone's talking about same time with the Matrix.

[Ben]

I think same thing with the Matrix. That was a weirdly. Obviously it was a huge hit.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

But both of those were weirdly word of mouth movies. Same year 100 and both 99 and.

[David]

Both of them have the same thing.

[Ben]

Who's the fucking idiot who was like 1999. The film. The year that changed film.

[Griffin]

Let's not say his name on Mike. Yes. No, no, we can. No we can.

[Ben]

Oh, we know this person.

[David]

David thought about pitching that book.

[Ben]

Is it But. But it was an entertain. Wasn't it an Entertainment Weekly like.

[David]

Yes, that's.

[Griffin]

Who did that.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I think he worked at. He done.

[Ben]

I can't remember 10 years later they were like we're gonna make this a thing.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

But I feel like everybody already knew that.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

That's why it was a good pitch for.

[David]

And well, and it's right. The thing with that you're something that lots of people know cross section between things.

[Ben]

They already know it.

[David]

Popular phenomenon and that culturally important. Like yeah.

[Griffin]

Star wars and Blair Witch. You had the Matrix and the Sixth Sense and Fight Club and Magnolia.

[David]

Making $300 million and getting nominated for six and being critically beloved. Good. Good ass movie.

[Ben]

I just rewatched it.

[David]

I was like this movie is those movies.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

While being very mainstream blockbusters had this thing where they like come out. They open a little better than expected. And then the marketing campaign is people saying to you. I can't even tell you what this is. You just.

[Ben]

Just have to watch it.

[David]

My word for it.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Just go.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Which is how lynch movies usually tend to stick in the culture. Or Twin Peaks. People just going like I can't explain this thing. You just gotta.

[Ben]

Just gotta go.

[David]

That's how you. You know, as like a budding cinephile usually most people watch Eraserhead. That's how people got into Twin Peaks.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Leslie, do you have a Lynch, a larger lynch take or whatever? Like, you know, if Mulholl Drive was your first lynch, like, do you like David Lynch?

[Ben]

I love.

[Griffin]

Have you seen all of his films?

[Ben]

Yeah, I have not seen all of his films. I have oddly read a bunch about David lynch, like catching the big fish, Room to Dream lynch on Lynch, I find his personality to be sparkling.

[Griffin]

I mean, he's really incredibly uncharismatic. He's not hot and not cool.

[Ben]

Oh my God, he's so hot.

[Griffin]

Jesus.

[David]

Very handsome. This is another thing. We talk and lynch all two of the most.

[Griffin]

Yes, you're right. But you're right. Lynch was always hot. There's different kinds of lynch or whatever, but he's hot in all types.

[David]

He's aging like Paul Newman. It's that thing where you're like every version of him.

[Ben]

He feels like this, this is. This is not quite right. And I think he's a superior artist. But he does feel like the cinematic version of Tom Robbins in. In terms of interesting. Everything that happens feels like this. This stream of consciousness of him.

[David]

Yeah, there.

[Ben]

There isn't. There isn't sort of a setup payoff to still life with Woodpecker. And yet at the same time, once you finish it, you have the experience of. Oh, that was holistic.

[David]

This is what kind of.

[Ben]

Even though it felt like each step was so wild.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

But you had characters you could hold onto, you had themes you could hold onto. You were compelled by particular things.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

But then you're told other things that. Or you're shown other things. I should say for lynch that you're trying to place as you're just trying to place. I guess you're trying. You're. I love lynch because you are always. You're. And this is what I mean by Tom Robbins. It's like you're always trying to find your footing and yet you're con. You are taken care of. You. You don't feel completely abandoned.

[David]

What is so bizarre about him? I mean, like, I'm. I don't say this in the framework of me patting myself on the back and being like, what are you talking about? All these movies are easy to understand. I figured them all out. But it is fascinating for how much hand wringing there is about interpreting meaning of shit in lynch movies. Right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And this movie's Wikipedia page is the longest Wikipedia page I've ever seen for any Movie. It has 20 subsections of analysis and theories and fucking whatever. Right. And I, I feel like was talked about so much as this puzzle box movie, this completely oblique. Like, people are obsessed with trying to crack a thing to the point of putting the 10 clues in. And maybe it's just that, like, watching them in the context of this podcast and all, where we are going chronologically.

[Griffin]

And we're reading Coconut Tree.

[David]

This is true.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

I'm like, all of these movies are clearly very representative of things that he's going through in his life. Like, that's true. They're all so personal and they make sense in the chronological order of, like, his wife.

[Griffin]

Fuck Billy Osiris.

[David]

Yeah. That's what Perfect's about.

[Griffin]

No, it's about a girl who lost her keys. I'm sorry, I have to make that joke with this one. Sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. I've been saying that every movie is about a guy who lost his keys. And this movie actually has a key in it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Wait, you've been saying that it's like.

[Griffin]

A joke, like being movie, movie, movie, easy to solve. About guy who lost his keys.

[David]

That's David's joke about how people are.

[Griffin]

Like, I can explain Eraserhead to you. Okay. The guy lost his keys. By the end, you got his keys back.

[David]

But I think people try to read them. Like he's trying to transmit some weirdness, a clue. No, he's trying to work through his own shit.

[Ben]

He's inviting you. This is what I mean. Like, he's inviting you into his brain.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

He's not going to apologize in any way for it. It's gonna be extremely confident.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

And he is gifting you the opportunity to have an experience digesting it.

[David]

And the miracle of him as an artist is that he does that in a way that is compelling to people who don't have the puzzle pieces of what's going on inside his head or in his life. That it can represent different things to different people and meaning and balance gripping and be funny and be scary when he is also not really playing by any conventional rules of narrative cinema.

[Ben]

I remember the other thing, too, is it's. The word that keeps coming to mind is experiential. Because when I think of David Lynch, I don't have a beginning, middle and end narrative that comes to mind. What I think is I know exactly where I was sitting when I saw X scene.

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

You know, like Laura Dern's monologue in Blue Velvet. I know exactly where I was sitting. I know exactly the feeling.

[David]

It's a physical sensation that you're remembering as much as remembering the film.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And you just, like, I Remember watching that and going, how long has this been going on?

[David]

For sure.

[Ben]

Has this been the whole movie? Is the whole movie the scene?

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Cause I'm trying to. Usually with other films, you're watching the scene in relation to the scene you just saw. Right. So there's this quote, I don't know who said it, that in plays the viewer is thinking, this is what's happening now. And in movies they're thinking, what's gonna happen next?

[David]

Interesting.

[Ben]

And I think David lynch is. You have to watch him with, this is what's happening now.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

You can't say while you're watching Laura Dern. You're not going, I wonder how.

[David]

Where's this leading?

[Ben]

Where's this lead? Just think, wow, what am I watching?

[David]

You're never going to predict where it's going.

[Ben]

With David Lynch, I think that his thesis statement might be. Because Blue Velvet comes out of the disaster that's Dune, so. It does. I like this movie better. I consider this movie to be his masterpiece. But I do understand that Blue Velvet is what cements him as. Him.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Eraserhead, he.

[Griffin]

No, no, no. There's nothing controversial about saying.

[Ben]

Yeah, so. So with Blue Velvet, that I think if there were a thesis statement for him that he hasn't already said. I think he articulates his work extremely well.

[Griffin]

I agree with.

[Ben]

I think that it's when Isabella Rossellini discovers Kyle McLaughlin in her closet.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And then she's like, take your clothes off or whatever. And she says, what do you want? And he says, I don't know. Yeah.

[David]

This guy is, like, trying so hard to figure himself out.

[Ben]

And that's what all of the movies are about.

[David]

And they're reflective of whatever the specific issue is he's dealing with at that point in time. Yeah, to some extent.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

I think with Mulholland Drive, it's about.

[David]

A woman who loses her keys.

[Griffin]

It's about a woman who loses her keys.

[Ben]

No, that's genuinely true, though.

[David]

It is.

[Griffin]

But, like, I do think there is. I don't think it is a.

[David]

Say it.

[Griffin]

I'm so afraid of making, like, any blankety statements. But anyway, I. I think there is a.

[David]

You are representing your personal relationship experiences.

[Griffin]

Well, no, no, I'm not. I'm saying you're making a grand bl. Not straightforward, but, like, there is a way to read the plot of Mulholland Drive that's not that complicated.

[David]

I would agree with you.

[Griffin]

It uses dream logic, obviously. And that's the idea of what's going on here. There are other things that are a little more like, it's up to you. But I also think David lynch very happily wants anyone to bring anything to these movies.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And so to all of his movies. Right. And so he's obviously certainly never going to sit down and be like, the thing that's going on is this it.

[Ben]

But you never do that to an audience.

[Griffin]

Right. And if I went up to David lynch and I was like, mulholland Drive is about like something that happened to me, like, you know, he'd be thrilled. Exactly. He would be like, that's great, I'm sure. Or he would be like, you know, have you heard of transcendental meditation? Like, yes, I have.

[David]

He wouldn't. Absolutely.

[Griffin]

But. But I do feel like this film came out at the dawn of the Internet. Not dawn, dawn, but you know, where people would then go, I would say.

[Ben]

Mainstream of the Internet.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Type in Mulholland Drive. There is a website called mulholland drive.net that still runs that has this kind of lovely early 2000s sort of aesthetic to it that has like theories and stuff that people were piling in. There's a very famous Salon.com article that I remember I would read over and over again that was like trying to explain what's, you know, like it was the beginning of let's use the Internet to collectively try and understand something that was confusing. A movie that made $7 million was not like some sensation.

[David]

It wasn't like Twin Peaks, but was.

[Griffin]

An abstract piece of storytelling. Not like aggressively abstract, but still abstract enough that broke into a mainstream sense. And thus lots of people are like, what was that?

[David]

But here's what's fascinating about to me is like Twin Peaks had that same cultural. We are in on trying to game this out right Kind of thing.

[Griffin]

It did.

[David]

But we're going to Internet era. I know.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

In a pre Internet era where the way that happens on a peer to peer level is so much more bizarre, cuitous and whatever. And that's a phenomenon that stretches out, but also like rises and falls really quickly. And then as we've discussed, the stuff between Twin Peaks and this movie is largely reviled. He goes through this period.

[Griffin]

That's true.

[David]

People are like, that's cooked. He's gone too far up his own ass.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And they're mad at him because, I mean, I'm just. I mean I'm talking about people in the 90s in the broadest brush, but I think people felt betrayed by Twin Peaks.

[David]

You gave us a beautiful thing and then you killed when you break through.

[Griffin]

With a show that has such a wide cultural, you know, acknowledgement or whatever, and people are like, but you fucked that up. Like, I didn't like that Twin Peaks, like, didn't end how I wanted it to or didn't keep going how I wanted it to or whatever.

[Ben]

What about the. I mean, listen, echoing a particular fan base, I may say the first season. Why didn't you give us the answer?

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

You know, second season, you gave us the answer. We didn't like it.

[Griffin]

Right. Go fix the answer.

[Ben]

Go fix the answer.

[David]

You're talking about youngsters, Sheldon fans, right? When you're talking about which fan base. I'm sorry, the Sheldon verse.

[Ben]

We need closure. Here's the closure.

[Griffin]

How did he get older? When with. As time passes, people grow up. I don't like that answer.

[David]

Do you even have a lore director? Sheldon wouldn't do that even if he were young.

[Griffin]

All right, fine. Sheldon discovers an autism cube when he's 10. And that's okay. What do you want from me?

[Ben]

Autism cube?

[Griffin]

I just like the idea that someone's like, explain why he's like that.

[David]

I think somebody golden legend should count. Work them back in Reclaim.

[Griffin]

Sheldon, I do think that is. That is a sign of a fan base that has gone on too long and needs to be nuked from orbit. Where they're like, I know you removed all this from canon, but I liked that one. And enough of us do that. You've got to bring it back. And they're like, all right, bring it back. All right, we're going to take that one thing.

[David]

Honestly, in my opinion, Timothy Zahn, Roach Sheldon better than anyone else. I don't even think Chuck Lorre really got. Not he. He created Charlotte by accident.

[Ben]

Sorry.

[Griffin]

Mulholland Drive starts with Tony Krantz.

[David]

My point I was gonna make just to finish this off.

[Griffin]

For me to do one sentence of the thing and then break in with some other shit.

[Ben]

I'm not. I'm not helping.

[David]

Thank you.

[Griffin]

What?

[David]

No, it's just this film, when this comes out, and as you said in a much smaller way, 7 million domestic, 1 Oscar nomination, what have you. It's not a cultural phenomenon on the level of Twin Peaks crossing over the mainstream. The first time in 10 years that the public was like, let's lean in, crack our knuckles and try to figure this thing out.

[Griffin]

People were ready for lynch to be back.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

They were ready. Yes.

[David]

Helps fuel this very be like, there's now a dialectic going on between the viewers of the movie.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And this Other section of like, pop culture and the text.

[Griffin]

Tony Katz is a CAA agent.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

He is instrumental to the creation of Twin Peaks in that he sort of brings lynch to ABC and somehow makes that work, which obviously must have been a little complicated. Supposedly lynch recounts at one point that he has this idea for Audrey Horne's character in Twin Peaks, Sherilyn Fenn's character, Audrey Horne, that one day she'll have a storyline where she goes to Los Angeles and starts a movie career. And we'll make a movie about it.

[David]

Interesting, right?

[Griffin]

We'll kind of like. Cause there's been a lot of talk over the years, not another show, right? He was like, we'll do like a Audrey Horne movie that'll be about her trying to make it in show business.

[David]

This isn't a world war for years and years and years and has multiple tendrils.

[Griffin]

Mark Frost remembers something similar. Like, we were maybe gonna do a spinoff show. We were maybe gonna do a TV movie. We were maybe gonna do a pilot. Who knows?

[Ben]

And it's one of those, like, classic, like, we wrote on a napkin.

[Griffin]

It's an idea.

[Ben]

We wrote on a napkin. Napkin.

[Griffin]

They may not have even written on a napkin. They disgust it.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Sherilyn Fen, who is, I will say insane, so she can't be completely trusted, confirms this. Like, yes, this was something they were cooking up. Like, I would go to California.

[David]

Uhhuh.

[Griffin]

I. I'm sorry to call her insane, but check out her Instagram. It's insane. David lynch says, I don't know about that. All right, well, thank you, David Lynch. The answer is it's probably somewhere in the middle, right? You know, like, I don't know. Someone discussed this. However, of course, Twin Peaks falls apart on the air. And Hotel Room kind of turned David lynch against TV for a while. Right?

[David]

On the. You said on the air.

[Griffin]

On the air, yeah. And Hotel room.

[David]

Have you ever seen on the air?

[Ben]

I haven't, I haven't.

[David]

So bizarre in how much it isn't weird. Like, that's the thing. You're watching it and you're just like, like, is this like, sarcastic?

[Ben]

Are you.

[David]

I don't think it's bad.

[Ben]

I think that. Okay, I was going to go, but.

[David]

It feels like him being like, I want to make an old timey sitcom and then he just does that.

[Ben]

There's a, there's a, there's. Lynch is very attracted to the quote. Wholesome. Yes, he really likes that. You know, so it makes sense. It makes sense that he would do that. Are Those h. HBO is hotel room.

[Griffin]

HBO was a hotel room.

[Ben]

Who's on the air.

[David]

On the air was also abc. Am I wrong?

[Griffin]

Was on ABC in the Summertime.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

In 1992. Which is right. When, you know, a network is confident.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Your show will be debuting in July.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So. But however, Krantz and. Who now works at Imagine Television, the spin off of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's show, Water be dropping production. Yeah.

[David]

Ripple effects.

[Griffin]

Imagine is still like, no, man. You should make another TV show. Like, you know, is over the years, just kind of like, come on, any ideas throwing.

[David]

That was your biggest success.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Why didn't you try to do that again?

[Griffin]

Lynch, of course, says, yeah, here's my perfect idea for a movie. No, I'm joking. He says, I picture Mulholland Drive at night. You know, classic David Lynch.

[Ben]

Sure. I have. I even have a story. I have one thought, right. And that's like.

[Griffin]

It's a road of mystery and danger.

[Ben]

But it's blue velvet. Like the ear.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

It's the first idea ear.

[Griffin]

And I've always wanted to crawl into a woman's closet and wash her dress. I'm not joking. Yeah, that's something he said.

[Ben]

That's how he said that.

[David]

Hitched it to execs when they said, you got any?

[Griffin]

What happens next? I crawl into a woman's closet in the framework of.

[David]

Do you have any movie ideas?

[Ben]

Honestly, that's hot.

[David]

They were like, do you have any ideas? He's like, I have always, personally. But also, Lost highway is like, what if you got a videotape of yourself?

[Ben]

Exactly. That was the whole one idea.

[Griffin]

Yeah, right.

[David]

It's all.

[Ben]

And this was the street sign.

[Griffin]

It's a mysterious road. It's rural in many places. It's curvy. It's two lanes. It feels old. You feel the history of Hollywood on that road. Now, I have only driven a Mulholland Drive once or twice. It does. When I was on it, I am like, it is up that this road exists. I don't know. I mean, you probably really. Have you ever lived in la?

[Ben]

I have. I lived in LA for ballparking, three years. And I gotta say, I'm excited to get into it because he really pinpoints particular la, like, corners of la and they all amplify the characters so much I wanted.

[Griffin]

You ever driven on Mulholland Drive?

[David]

Well, I don't drive driven up there.

[Ben]

And there is this, like.

[David]

It's.

[Ben]

It's. Especially at night, there's this like, sort of like dreamy feeling. To it. It's kind of cool and it's dangerous and you feel like, I'm going to kill. I'm going to kill someone or someone's going to kill me.

[David]

It's the Fury road.

[Ben]

But then during the daytime, it is this. It has this, like, if I'm remembering correctly, like, one side of it is this kind of like burbanky, we're in the desert. And then the other side of it is like the richest of the rich. Yes.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I mean, look, it's like David lynch designed a road to metaphorically represent his entire relationship to the entertainment industry.

[Ben]

That's actually true.

[Griffin]

You look at a map of LA and you're like, here is la, and then here is, you know, whatever, you know, the North Hollywood and Van Nuys and all this stuff. And it's like in the middle, there are these mountains. You're like, oh, okay, mountains. And then there just. The map just has this one road that's like, yeah. And you're like, what's that? Like, Mulholland Drive? And you're like, okay, it looks like you're driving through the Pyrenees. Like, it's just.

[David]

Anyway, I want to make it clear I'm not making an empirical slam on the city that many people live in and love, but much to the point of what you're saying, I watched this movie and I'm like, this is why I don't live in la.

[Ben]

It's.

[David]

I'm like, it's very. It is. I think it's very specific to, like, specifically a certain type of person who wants to work in the entertainment industry and doesn't like, specifically the culture of living in that geographic place while trying to do this type of work.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And the way the city is built around it and the road. But I watch this movie, I'm like, yeah, yeah, David, I get it. That's how I feel, too. And all of this feels weird.

[Ben]

It's one of those movies that I think people love to say, you know, it's a love letter to this. Maybe they don't say love letter, but it's Love Letter. It's a twisted love letter to the city. It's. It's. Los Angeles plays itself. This. And I'm like, no, no, no. It is Los Angeles.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

It's not.

[Griffin]

This is certainly what I.

[David]

He's actually not making any value statement on it.

[Ben]

He's not making any statement on it.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

That's it.

[David]

You know what the love letter to Los Angeles is? The fact that he still lives there.

[Ben]

I thought that when I was reading.

[David]

The book, that's what the movie saying. This is a movie about him being terrified by this city. And yet he stays.

[Ben]

He stays.

[David]

He doesn't have.

[Ben]

He's like, I moved there in the middle of the night.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I woke up the next morning and it was so bright.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

He just, like, loved it. He never left.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And Twin Peaks. Or not Twin Peaks, but Twin Peaks to an extent. I was going to say Blue Velvet, but, like, the suburban section of his work is like, this is the environment in which I feel the most comfortable. I genuinely get pleasure in that sense of security.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

From this type of attitude, culture, look, vibe, whatever. And I acknowledge there's stuff right under the surface. Right, right. Versus this movie is him being like, this is fundamentally alien to me.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

I choose to stay here. But all of this is weird. This business is weird. The city is weird. People are weird.

[Ben]

The people in it are weird.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I'll say something else. I think David lynch is kind of weird. In August 1998, straight stories in pre production, lynch and Krantz pitch Mulholland Drive to Jamie Tarsus, the then somewhat legendary head of ABC.

[David]

Inspiration for Amanda Pete's character on Studio 60.

[Griffin]

A great character with Ultron, basically. Pitches.

[David]

Passed away recently, kind of tragically.

[Griffin]

A little too young, I thought.

[Ben]

Amanda Pete.

[David]

No, we still have her.

[Griffin]

Amanda Pete still alive. Amanda Pete, Studio 60 character, canonically dead. She died filming season seven of the UN or whatever the show is that she's. I'm joking.

[David]

She committed sepu.

[Griffin]

Live during Studio 16.

[David]

Will someone please end this, please?

[Griffin]

Bradley Whitford chops her head off.

[David]

She's pregnant with Bradley Whitford's 10th. Accidental trial.

[Griffin]

All right.

[David]

David, it's February, which means it is my birthday month. And all I ask for as a present this year is a robust slate of new theatrical motion picture releases. And that our listeners perhaps use our sponsor, Regal and their Regal Unlimited program to see such release is.

[Griffin]

Yeah, what do we got?

[David]

The Monkey actually called the Monkey. New film from Oz Perkins, whose Long legs I loved last year, starring another one of our friends, past and future guest Tatiana Maslany.

[Griffin]

That's right. And looks very, very funny and cool and scary. Also very intrigued by this. Martin Campbell Action or Cleaner with Daisy.

[David]

Ridley, starring Daisy Ridley, Someone I have always had very, very calm opinions about on this podcast cast I'm very excited for. It feels like she's kind of ramping up her movie career again.

[Griffin]

Here's the thing. Oh, and then there's the day the Earth Blew Up.

[David]

I was gonna say if that weren't enough, February ending with the first original feature length animated Looney Tunes movie ever that I have heard is excellent.

[Griffin]

And here's the thing.

[David]

The day the earth blew up in a Looney Tunes movie.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

And with Regal on literally limited. The whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable.

[Griffin]

And I find that once, you know, you have the Regal Unlimited, right, you know, sort of the option of basically like, let me pop over my theater, I have three free hours.

[David]

That's what's nice about it. You do it more.

[Griffin]

Go see the movies.

[David]

Go see the movies.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

Get free popcorns and sodas, 25% off.

[Griffin]

Candy on Tuesdays, 50% off popcorn.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

You know what I love?

[Griffin]

How about Quince New Year, New chance for new clothes. Okay, well, listen to me. I think everyone needs to try and refresh their liquid quality pieces but stay on budget. I think everyone needs Quince's Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $60. I genuinely love Quince. I think I've talked about this on the show before, but I am Quince pilled, right? I be loading up Quince and buying some nice soft shirts and good fitting pants all the time. They've got some activewear, performance tees, tech shorts. They've got, you know, soft shirts that are warm Which I've been really favoring in the winter. And, you know, they're priced 50 to 80% less than the similar brands because they partner directly with the top factories. No middlemen.

[David]

Perfect.

[Griffin]

And they only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices.

[David]

No sharks.

[Griffin]

Anyway, so, yeah, if you want to upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag, you should go to quint.com check for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com check to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com check. Bye. Bye. They pitch essentially two pages, they say, which is basically like a woman who's trying to be a star in Hollywood finds herself becoming like a detective digging into an underworld. Jamie Tarsis somewhat surpri, to their surprise, is like, you have $4.5 million.

[Ben]

Jesus Christ.

[Griffin]

And can make a pilot. They get another.

[David]

Does she approve? At 90 minutes, she approves.

[Griffin]

Essentially whatever it takes. They get a little bit more money from Touchstone TV and so they basically approve a $7 million budget for a TV pilot. Basically feature length, 90 minutes. They do demand 25 go at a.

[David]

Time where no CD cost that much per episode. That is crazy.

[Griffin]

They demand the closed ending.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

For the international sort of the same deal with Twin Peaks of like, you need to produce a cut that we could maybe like sell in Europe as a movie. Okay. All right, let's do it. Krantz hooks up with David lynch, with Joyce Eliassen, I want to say her name is. Who is an experienced. She did the Jackson's miniseries, if anyone remembers it, with Angela Bassett, which is really good, actually, but kind of like an experienced TV hand. Kind of the same thing as Mark Frost. Like here' someone who can manage a lot of this sort of day to day teachers think about it.

[David]

Must have been such a weird moment to be like, look, we're 10 years out basically from Twin Peaks. Right. So now there's enough distance that everyone's calmed down a little from their anger over how it collapsed. And everyone's starting to feel like. Like it's an X.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

If we give it another try tomorrow, would it work?

[Ben]

Would it work? Yeah.

[David]

So they're probably like, look, we don't know where Twin Peaks came from last time. You got to do your David lynch thing. But everyone's also like, let's keep a little bit more attention on this.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Let's put some, like, steady hands around him with good taste nonetheless.

[Ben]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Griffin]

David meets with her a few times. And they don't get along part ways. He writes the whole thing himself. He delivers the screenplay to abc. They order the pilot. So it's not like he fucking comes out of nowhere with the thing he makes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

They have a. They have six pilots ordered. They only have room for about three or four. But nonetheless, strong contender.

[David]

The 99 or 2000 season.

[Griffin]

This would be. This. I think this would have gone to Aaron99. Probably a few other projects that lynch passed on or sort of, you know, considered at the time. American Beauty.

[Ben]

Yep.

[Griffin]

The Ring.

[David]

Uhhuh.

[Griffin]

And Motherless Brooklyn, which, you know, was sort of kicking around at that time.

[David]

W. All three make sense. I mean, like, those are three separate parts of the lynch worldview that's actually true.

[Ben]

Yeah. The suburban discontent.

[Griffin]

Right. You can see what someone saw for him in any of them. But obviously none of these went anywhere with him.

[David]

Right, Jay? Yeah. And the, like, Sideways Detective story.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

You're like, most of his movies are those three things happening simultaneously. It's fascinating. And you focus on 13 movies on his desk that are all just like. You just do this for two hours.

[Griffin]

David Lynch's casting process, famously, is. He basically just looks at photos and just waits until something, you know, strikes him.

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

Well, he, like, really trusts Joanna Ray. He's just like, I'm assuming this person can act. If you're showing me a picture.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Now me, Watts intrigues him. Australian actress who had done some Australian stuff. But I feel like when she is in this movie is mostly. I'm mostly reading that she was Nicole Kidman's roommate when she was a kid. A teenager.

[Ben]

Yeah, someone. When I said I was doing this, I was doing the movie for this podcast, was like, is that the movie with Nicole Kidman's best friend? And I was like, burn, bitch.

[David]

Yeah. No, I think that's a lot of it is like, they both are like, we're gonna go to Hollywood and try to make it. And Nicole Kidman hits 10 years earlier than Naomi Watts does. And Naomi Watts is like, I wonder why? So strange, some of these inexplicable things. You know who I was thinking about a lot.

[Ben]

It's so strange, isn't it?

[David]

It is.

[Ben]

It's not.

[Griffin]

I think someone is serving the C word over here.

[Ben]

Somebody.

[David]

I understand what you're saying.

[Ben]

Somebody gets married.

[David]

Yeah, but. Yes, absolutely.

[Ben]

Yeah. But also, I'm not saying she's not talented. I'm just saying. Interesting.

[David]

You're right.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

You're totally right. Yeah, I. I do. I Was thinking a lot while watching this, both in the real Nami Watts narrative of her career.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Leading into this movie. And of course the character she's playing where there are a lot of parallels.

[Ben]

I. That I was thinking that too, what.

[David]

This movie represented for her as a chance to like basically get off the bench.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

This is your shot to make the chief notice. Right. We probably talked about this in past episodes, but this insane stat that for both Bryan Singer, Superman Returns, if not additionally also maybe some of the earlier developmental Brett Ratner mcg versions of trying to revive Superman. And for Nolan's Batman Begins, Amy Adams was the actress who screen tested against all of the cannabis. Amy Adams was playing the role that would go to Katie Holmes. Amy Adams was playing Lois Lane. When those tapes leak out and you can see Cillian Murphy in the Batsuit as Batman, it's Amy Adams over the shoulder. Right. Whoa. And they talk about that and how like when she got cast as Lois Lane in the Spider Verse, it was. Or the Snyderverse rather. It was this full circle moment.

[Ben]

Right.

[David]

And you're like, okay, so Amy Adams was in this position where she had been living in Hollywood for like 10 years.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And was respected enough.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

That John Papsadera, the studio, whatever was.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Oh, yeah. No, bring her in. She'll give the actors good things to work off of.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Was nowhere near the conversation of getting either of those parts.

[Ben]

Getting the parts. Yeah.

[David]

And in both cases you're like. Would have been better than the people they hired.

[Griffin]

One of them.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And if you're her, you're like, what isn't happening?

[Griffin]

All right, all right, all right.

[David]

But you know, but I think this relates to the movie.

[Ben]

I agree. I was just gonna have to goods.

[David]

I'm here, I'm in the room, I'm having the conversation. People are acknowledging me.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And yet it's not happening.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Which is the kind of thing that drives a lot of people crazy and leads to, let's say, a Mulholland Drive esque psychology.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more.

[Griffin]

Now we watch. It's the classic David lynch thing. He just. She's beautiful. I want to meet her.

[David]

She's got quite a face.

[Griffin]

She.

[Ben]

She really does. Yeah. She's beautiful.

[Griffin]

And.

[David]

But she was like.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Famously the first time he met her, she was like, I look like. And feel like he wasn't that into like, you know, I wasn't giving my, my, my profile.

[David]

She just come off a plane or some. Right.

[Griffin]

So she asked me with them again. But she was basically like, this is like my story. Like remember she's only seeing the pilot, she's not seeing Diane, she's seeing Betty.

[David]

But that also I imagine seeds something in his brain where he's now seen her at her most, tired and worn down.

[Ben]

And then a second time and then a set comes back right where he's.

[David]

Like, oh, this woman has the range.

[Ben]

The range to do both. Yeah, I didn't think of that. Cuz I read that story too and I was like, oh, I got a kind of icky feeling from that. And then I. Oh, you just pointed it out. I was like, oh right. He did have to see essentially both versions.

[David]

And when I've heard her recount that story, she doesn't make it sound like, well, he was judging me for looking tired. I think a lot of it's her internalization, she's in her head about it.

[Griffin]

No, he does say when I meet her she looked nothing like her picture. She didn't look bad, but she didn't look like her picture. And I wanted the girl in the picture. I thought this is crazy. I'm imagining a person who doesn't exist.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So I asked if she could come back. Made up and she came back.

[David]

I'm wrong.

[Griffin]

Yeah, he meets.

[David]

But he did need to see both.

[Griffin]

Laura Elena herring was Miss USA in 1985. She's obviously like, she is married to.

[David]

The Prince of Denmark for two years and hasn't been.

[Griffin]

We've all flirted with a European prince or two.

[David]

She was briefly a von Bismarck from like 87 to 89.

[Griffin]

Wasn't that later? I'm trying. But yes, certainly she was in, in some royal family. Family. Let me find it. Yes, Carl von Bismarck. So actually you know what, he's just the fucking Prince of Bismarck. Griffin. And Germany abolished its royal family long ago, but he's still a. Probably a count or whatever. You know, he's got some castles.

[David]

She was a countess briefly. Ten years later casting a David lynch project.

[Griffin]

Well, she met him at the 92 Cannes Film Festival where he's presenting Firewalk with Me. And 1999 years later, Johanna Ray is like, David lynch wants to meet you again.

[David]

This is also the kind of person David lynch loves to cast where it's like they're carrying over some weird energy of like you were Miss America and then you were a cast actress.

[Griffin]

And also like he loves people who.

[David]

Have some weird metatextual history.

[Griffin]

She is such a Lynch girl, image wise. And like when you think about who he put in Twin Peaks Yes. And if you think about this is his next Twin Peaks. Like, she makes so much just this throwback. Totally, like, totally looks like someone from 50s Hollywood.

[David]

She's got Rita Hayworth.

[Ben]

She really does.

[David]

She really does.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah. Which. Because they're both Hispanic.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, we.

[David]

We will. We will talk about it more, I assume. And it, like, it's certainly. This movie is built in a way where, of course, it's more of a showcase for Naomi Watts. And it makes sense that she springboarded, but it remains wild. The absolute disparity between the Watts trajectory immediately after this movie.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah.

[David]

Versus, like, kind of nothing immediately.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

You're like, three years later, she's Travolta's wife in the Punisher and hasn't really had good roles in between.

[Griffin]

I mean, I think Laura Herring is not the actor that Naomi Watts is. I guess if you made me, you know, be mean about it.

[David]

But she's pretty excellent in this. And you at least think she should have had a better version of the career she had off of this.

[Griffin]

She. She's just perfect for this movie.

[David]

She is.

[Griffin]

And perfect for David Lynch. Like, there's no question. Justin Thoreau, kind of nobody at this point. Right. Like, what did Justin throw. Been.

[David]

That's a good question.

[Griffin]

No offense to him. I mean, he's had a great career.

[David]

You're throwing bombs left and right.

[Griffin]

I guess.

[Ben]

All right.

[Griffin]

You know what? He's in Romeo and Michelle's High School Reunion, and he's so funny.

[Ben]

Oh, right.

[Griffin]

He's an American Psycho. He's one of the Zilli.

[Ben]

Yes, he is an American Psycho. Yeah. He's in the business cartoon.

[David]

He's deeply concluded current with this pilot.

[Ben]

That's true. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

You know. You know, he. So I don't. There's nothing really. There's definitely no. Like, I saw his picture and I fell in love. I mean, I don't know. He's great casting, a nice shot.

[David]

Andy Warhol. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Obviously, a lot of the other parts here. Robert Forster, Monty Montgomery and Miller, like, that's more classic lynch of like, you know, I want these old Hollywood people, like, who. It's a Hollywood story.

[David]

Or Monty Montgomery, my buddy, who has a vibe.

[Griffin]

He's old Hollywood, though.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And yes, we write the Monty Montgomery story. You know, Dan Hadiah, for whatever reason, David has always thought that Angelo Badalamenti looks like Dan Hidaya's brother.

[David]

Oh, that kind of.

[Griffin]

He's like, I want to do that now. I would like you two to play brothers in Mulholland Drive and Angela's Ordinary. Is that him?

[Ben]

I didn't know that.

[Griffin]

Yes, he's the guy who hates the. The espresso. Yes, he is.

[Ben]

I did not know that. Yeah. If you could see my face right now, listeners, I'm goof.

[Griffin]

It's fun to tell people that.

[Ben]

Yeah. I have no idea.

[Griffin]

Apparently Billy Ray Cyrus came in to talk about another part. I'm not sure the name Watts role.

[David]

I think he.

[Ben]

Betty. Betty Sl. Diane.

[David]

I got a real strong take.

[Griffin]

And lynch said he was Jean the pool guy, which I don't know how Billy Ray should be taking that.

[Ben]

I don't know.

[Griffin]

He is. Is kind of incredible.

[Ben]

So he's amazing.

[David]

We don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But Billy Ray Cyrus has blamed him being on this movie for the dissolution of his family.

[Griffin]

He.

[Ben]

Excuse me.

[David]

When he and his wife were getting divorced and Miley Cyrus was going through her like, I'm trying to own being an adult and having sexual agency era out of like Disney stardom. And Billy Ray Cyrus went to the press and he was like, my whole family has strayed from the path of good. We were corrupted by Hollywood. None of this would have happened if David lynch hadn't cast what he says.

[Griffin]

I will. I do want to give Billy Ray credit that he does say that. David Lynch, I love him and he changed my life. He doesn't blame, but he's like.

[David]

Because it started the past.

[Griffin]

I was in it. I was right. My kid was now in Hollywood while I was doing that. And I remember feeling, quote, this is Billy Ray Cyrus, not me. This might not be what God had in mind.

[David]

And then what he chooses to do is continue to ride it out, make a ton of money playing her dad on her show. Like, it's not like. Like he's not saying like, lynch cursed us, but he's like, that was the siren song that called me over to Hollywood.

[Ben]

Right, Right.

[David]

And then now my daughter.

[Ben]

Can you believe I did not put that together?

[David]

Has a body and my wife doesn't want to be married to me.

[Griffin]

Who is his wife?

[David]

Well, now she's married to Dominic Purcell.

[Griffin]

O Old Potato Head.

[David]

Trish Cyrus, maybe.

[Griffin]

He's amazing. In Mulholland Drive.

[Ben]

Billy Ray Cyrus, he is fantastic.

[David]

Yeah, he. I mean, he cucks the.

[Griffin]

Oh, there's nothing. If I ever get the exact last guy, it better be Billy Ray Cyrus. And he better, like, as I walk in, just be like, just, just leave. Your attitude is, if I'll just Be pumping.

[David]

God forbid you have to be cucked. This is who you want it to be.

[Griffin]

It'd be great.

[David]

I'm like this would piss me off.

[Griffin]

So much if it was this exact.

[David]

Situation you'd like be his energy.

[Griffin]

You would go paint mode.

[David]

Yeah, paint mode.

[Griffin]

Pouring paint.

[David]

I. I paint a jewelry.

[Ben]

I don't know what this says about me, but now that we're. I never thought this watching the movie. But now that we're talking about it, what does it mean about me that I would just walk away like you.

[Griffin]

Would be like, you know what, buddy? 104. I'm out of here.

[Ben]

I'm out of here.

[Griffin]

Eternal sunshine, baby.

[David]

Can lid would remain on.

[Griffin]

You're saying I'm turkey turning on the window wiper.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I would just get back into the Porsche.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I go golfing.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And I deal with it later.

[David]

Right. Yeah. I do think to some extent if I mean on the love of my life in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus is.

[Griffin]

She doesn't seem that good point.

[Ben]

You know, like she seems.

[David]

Then let me. No, I think you're right.

[Griffin]

And let me rephrase so funny too. Where she's like now you've done it.

[Ben]

Why I would. Because of that. Because she said that I think the.

[Griffin]

Pool guy in peace without you being here and it being a problem.

[David]

Let me correct myself.

[Ben]

Fair. Fair.

[David]

If I were dating someone and I walked in, she was in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus. That was her energy and that was his energy. I'd go like, well, this was never gonna work out. Yeah.

[Ben]

I got.

[David]

How can I feel offended? It's insane that you were ever dating me. If this is what you.

[Ben]

Yeah. You're gonna hear from the lawyer. I would be more here for the lawyer. I would probably. Probably iPhone time. Just take a picture and leave.

[David]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

I just would like to speak for the audience listening right now. The ones who are thinking I would lose my mind and scream in rage. Just want to put that out there.

[David]

Ben would.

[Ben]

Ben.

[David]

40 paint cans.

[Griffin]

Yes. What if Billy Ray Cyrus your wife.

[David]

Fiance.

[Leslie]

Fiance.

[Griffin]

Oh, are they not married?

[David]

Maybe it's because I'm saying in Ben's case. Oh, oh, oh.

[Griffin]

I'm saying we're specifically going.

[Leslie]

I guess maybe I would. I think you light a cigarette, take a couple puffs, throw it on the ground and burn the house down.

[Griffin]

Wow.

[Ben]

Jesus Christ. Maybe it's cuz I'm gay.

[Griffin]

I just.

[Ben]

I maybe just cuz I'm gay.

[Griffin]

I think I would also just be like.

[Ben]

I mean I love.

[Griffin]

I'm not this if you wanted this, like, all right, take a tumble with old B B.

[David]

My attitude is just. My basic operating principle as a human being is if you break my heart, Mikey, break your heart.

[Griffin]

Oh, keep going, keep going.

[David]

I just don't think you'll understand. What's the next line?

[Griffin]

I don't know.

[David]

I just have to make that true.

[Leslie]

I think it. And if you break my heart again, it just brings it back.

[David]

Yeah. A lot of repetition.

[Griffin]

They shoot the pilot from Mulholland Drive.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Everyone has a really nice time making it. And Disney does not seem dissatisfied with the dailies. Jack Fist said he got a little trouble from Disney getting their money to, like, build sets and stuff. But that just sounds like working with Disney. Yeah.

[David]

What's. Because fucking screw drink Duck was running payroll. That's time. So he's not letting go of those fucking coins.

[Griffin]

In the backstroke in April 1999, lynch delivers an initial.

[David]

He gave me a knowing look. Go on.

[Griffin]

An initial cut. That runs over two hours. Two hours, five minutes.

[Ben]

Jesus. Oh. So they have to get it down to 80.

[Griffin]

ABC is like, David, 88 minutes.

[David]

That is your.

[Griffin]

That is your.

[Ben]

And then how many. How much? How. How much is ads.

[Griffin]

That's what I'm saying. I think they're like, if you give us 88 minutes, it can be at.

[David]

A time where the longest any episodic show is. Is 44 minutes. Like, that's what's crazy to think about is he delivered something that was over two hours. And they were like, we were being generous by asking for 88 minutes double what everyone else is doing.

[Griffin]

Yeah. So pretty quickly, from Mary Sweeney, the Lynch's editor and, you know, longtime sort.

[David]

Of collaborator, partner says in life and in work.

[Griffin]

Yes, I think they were. The minute they saw it, they were immediately kind of like, we're not going to do this.

[David]

It's right. You. You know, they capture the magic. It's not going to be.

[Griffin]

Again, eight minutes. Whatever he did get it down to, like, the pilot, you could. That you can watch in very shitty VHS form. It's sort of floating around, is 90 minutes. So he clearly, you know, he gave them what they wanted, but he didn't really give them what they wanted. According to the network, it's not that good. It's slow.

[Ben]

The actresses. The actresses are old.

[Griffin]

That was, I think, something. I mean, which is funny because, Right. With Twin Peaks, he smartly is sort of like, it'll be like a high school show. So there's all these young people in it, along with my lovely collection of freaks.

[David]

It's like, why are you the Rick actresses who are already in their 30s, right. These people aren't famous and they're older.

[Ben]

Than she been in that. I have been in that position before in casting where if you're looking for somebody of a certain age. Yes. You do kind of get into this weird space where you, you have to get. Let's say, let's just say a male in his 50s. Let's just say that.

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

And you, you need to either get, get an A list actor, you know, somebody that has. If you're 50, you've either been working for decades.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

Or no one has found out about you.

[David]

Right. If you're. Even if you're not presently a list, they want someone who at one point was a list.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[David]

And you could bring them back.

[Ben]

Exactly like. And because you don't. You discovering somebody at the age that Naomi Watts is. That's the thing is odd.

[David]

And it's one of the things this fucking movie is about to a certain extent. This, this feeling of desperation. Right, right. Going back to sort of the Amy Adams thing and Amy Adams and Naomi Watts. Both people who seemingly didn't go crazy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And when they got their deserved shot were like, great, I'll get to work. I'm professional.

[Ben]

And I'm not saying it doesn't happen because it happens to Naomi Watts with this move, you know, like. So it's not.

[Griffin]

Of course it happens.

[Ben]

But it is when you're in that position. You're in David Lynch's position. It's odd.

[David]

The industry does genuinely go, wait a second. If you are over 25 and it hasn't happened. Happened yet.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And other people haven't taken the chance on you.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

What do they know that we don't?

[Ben]

That we don't exactly fear based. Yep.

[David]

There must be a reason we have not yet uncovered. I realize why hasn't this apartment rented? It's low, the price is low. It's been on the market for two years at this.

[Ben]

It must have bedbugs and this.

[David]

Right. Like that's sort of their thinking. They're like, if you're 30 and you haven't gotten famous yet, then there's a problem.

[Ben]

And it does relate back to, to the movie. Because what you're saying, which is absolutely correct is it is a fear based way of thinking and Hollywood, the main fuel of Hollywood is fear.

[David]

And those. Right. The people who are making decisions, deciding your fate. It's fear.

[Ben]

It's fear.

[David]

It's absolutely fear.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

They're operating on A fear based system. And then they are thus creating on the people whose lives they control an even greater sense of fear.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And so you end up in this state where you feel like you're in a fucking David lynch movie.

[Ben]

It's it.

[David]

And you're like, what is this reality I am in? Does it ever change? Do I ever become the other person I want to be the movie? What is the exchange of that? What do I have to do in order to get that?

[Ben]

And that, that's literally what do I.

[David]

Need to protect and make sure I don't give up?

[Ben]

You just.

[David]

That's movie.

[Ben]

That's the log line of the movie. Yes, that's the log line of the movie. And that's why I'm only half joking when I say it's a biopic. Like, it's like it's my. Because. And I even think at the young age that I saw it, which was 20, you know, I still sort of. As somebody that was in theater school and wanted. Had aspirations. Yeah. It just, it did cement in my mind, you know, this is what you're entering into.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

It isn't Sunset Boulevard, which is like a big, you know, he's got the car, he's got Paramount, he's got the street sign. He wanted to put some of the score in the movie. So it's not gonna be that.

[David]

It's also interesting to think about this movie being whatever it is 15 years after blue Velvet and the amount of hand wringing in the press and such of people being like, is this movie exploitative? Is it evil? How dare he do this to Isabella Rossellini? Is it abusive? And it's like that woman becomes. Becomes his life. Partner. Wife for a number of years. Wife, yeah, partner, partner, you know, and has always been like, no, I felt completely treated properly.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And for him to 15 years later make this thing that is in many ways about his own experience coexisting in la, but is also sort of him doing this act of like, what does it feel like to be on that side of it?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And is there a position where you can feel like, no, I have complete autonomy. I want the guy to, to do the version of the scene where we get real close and I'm choosing to do this and I'm getting juice from it and my performance is great. And then maybe 15 years later, do you back up and go, like, what the fuck was I doing?

[Griffin]

Exactly.

[David]

I think that's, that's what I'm saying.

[Griffin]

Well, anyway, we can talk. I want to talk about that scene later, we're going to go through Mulholland Drive like a fine tooth comb. But I do want to tell you that ABC passed on the pilot. I'm sorry to break your shocker. May of 1999, they said, no, I'm.

[David]

Just hearing this for the first time right now.

[Griffin]

Lynch now says it's a blessing.

[David]

Standing at the tarmac, putting a finger behind my ear.

[Griffin]

Lynch says, look, I do think the first thing I sent them was too slow, the two hour cut. But then I do think the finesse cut was kind of not good.

[Ben]

Like, yeah, compromised.

[Griffin]

Right. The rhythms of it were off. And I look back on it now and I'm like, it was fate. It's better. The way it turned out was the way it was supposed to turn out. The show that everyone assumed ABC would put it on Thursday night at 9. The show instead that they order is a show called Waste. Wasteland. Wasteland, a Kevin Williamson show. Follow up to Dawson's Creek starring Sasha Alexander, Rebecca Gayheart, gets canceled after three episodes.

[Ben]

And doesn't it get canceled like, like the. The Day or the Week that Straight Story goes into theaters?

[Griffin]

That sounds right. 1999, fall of 1999.

[David]

Interesting to think about David lynch at this point. Just like deeply entrenched in two different sides of the Walt Disney Company. Like a movie he made independently with foreign financing is now bought by them.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And released by them at the same time. He's working at ABC and trying to get through their development process.

[Ben]

I also just can't imagine lynch in the development process.

[Griffin]

No, it is hard to imagine any of this. And I do think from what I've read about it, it's like he has a person who's usually good at like kind of right. Being a middle person between him and a studio. Not that he's playing to say is right, like, but the other also, like, hey, David, the studio said this, like, but maybe knows how to finesse that.

[David]

With him also at this point, he is like a proven brand. Like all these people bring him in for the meeting or like, oh, he's doing the David lynch thing. David lynch, to some extent. They must be excited that they're like, where does he fucking get these ideas? Who else talks this way?

[Griffin]

Rumors. Rumors circulate that HBO might pick it.

[David]

Up saying that Goofy was one of the execs in the room.

[Griffin]

Okay, it was abc. Doesn't happen. Sits on a shelf. Pierre Edelman at Studio Canal, who has worked with lynch in the past, finds out about it.

[David]

The French, hbo basically, yeah, sure, I.

[Griffin]

Mean, Canal plus is right, tv, but.

[David]

They have a film, they produce the rental studio Canal, but just to create a sloppy analog for people who don't know.

[Griffin]

He's basically like, there's a David lynch project complete or almost complete.

[Ben]

It's a jump ball that's there sitting there, Right.

[Griffin]

He finally hears about it and lynch is like, look, I don't, you know, I don't want to hear about that. I don't want to think about that anymore. Like it didn't work out. Out. Edelman raises $4 million to buy back the. Right.

[Ben]

Sorry, not to interrupt you, but he also hates that the pilot is out there.

[Griffin]

He's very upset that I can watch.

[Ben]

Yes, he's very upset about which I.

[Griffin]

Had respected his wishes until I was like, I'm doing a podcast on. I'm finally going to see what it looks like. And I know Mulhollandri so well now that we'll be okay.

[Ben]

Pierre buys it for 4 million.

[Griffin]

$4 million. Then he.

[Ben]

The money against this movie at this point, what is it? 12 million?

[Griffin]

That sounds right. I guess it's like, right. Sort of 7 mil of Disney's money, another 4 or so of Pierre's money. They have to then essentially convert it from TV pilot form to cinema form. So they have to deal with that.

[David]

What amount of time had elapsed from when they filmed the pilot.

[Griffin]

I will tell you, he gets 2 million more dollars, basically told, go shoot a third act.

[Ben]

So $14 million million.

[Griffin]

Yeah, we're piling on here. Lynch is anxious. Like, he's like, I don't know if I, like, you know, if I have a third act.

[David]

Maybe he should have tried transcendental meditation. I hear it works very well.

[Griffin]

He's worried that like, the sets have been struck. Like, how am I even gonna do it? And so there's a lot of anxiety about that. But, you know, they figure it out. Supposedly Tony Krantz, the agent guy who we've been talking about, who. Who had sided with Disney basically and sort of, you know, helped fuck the project, threatened to sue him at one point.

[Ben]

Yeah, they had a big, big falling out.

[Griffin]

Seems very fraught.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But then finally David lynch sat down in a chair and the final act of the movie came to him. Lol. As J. As JJ Put in the research here.

[David]

Beautifully said.

[Griffin]

I sat down in a chair at 6:30 and at 7 all of the ideas were there. They came out of darkness and made themselves no cool. Sounds good.

[David]

At 8 o'clock you take a shower.

[Ben]

But that's Classic him. It's just classic him. He's just like. Remember, there's one interview with him where he says, if you forget an idea. If I forget an idea, you fall in love with ideas. And if I forget an idea, I want to kill myself.

[David]

Yeah, right.

[Ben]

He says, I'm going to commit suicide.

[David]

Every idea is valuable.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

And so he starts writing. And yes, they. They essentially, you know, almost all of the reshooting they do is the third act of the film. They do a little bit, I think, of finessing for the stuff they already have, but it's basically they're just reusing them like winkies. But they. Right. But then they do also, of course, have to, like, call Naomi Watts and be like, good news, Mulhollandrive is back. Interesting news. The third act is you as a new character. There's lots of sex scenes, there's going to be nudity. This is going to now be a feature film and, you know, Europe.

[Ben]

And so your contract. Your contract completely changes. I'm assuming there's some sort of renegotiation of the salary because it's so different.

[David]

Yeah, there has to be.

[Ben]

Right?

[David]

Yes, yes.

[Griffin]

Oh, 100%. Yeah.

[David]

I mean, I do think it's one of the fascinating, just sort of like in the soup things about this movie is when her character shifts. It's not just that she is a skilled actress who is playing a second character, but it's like you feel like she is a fundamentally different actor. Approach is different to the parts she does in terms of process, not in terms of interpretation of character. Where I'm like, this is the difference of when she's shooting the pilot. It's a nervous pilot energy of like, this might be the next 15 years of my life. Am I on this forever? This is my big shot. And then by the time they go and film the third act, she's gone through the process of, like, grieving for the thing that went away.

[Ben]

That's right. That's right.

[David]

I guess it doesn't fucking happen happen. And coming back to do it, you feel her having kind of don't give a shit energy.

[Griffin]

They also, like, magically up her teeth. It's incredible. I don't know what they did. What was. I don't know.

[David]

It's so weird. It's so weird. You know what I'm saying?

[Griffin]

I do know what you're saying.

[David]

There's a sense of abandon with how she plays the last act. That is someone who doesn't have anything to prove.

[Griffin]

So they shot it just to answer your question, Griff, in October 2000. So we're talking basically like close to 18 months after they shot, you know.

[David]

The original Imagine the Cycle.

[Ben]

It is a mind fuck. Yeah.

[David]

Of true creative career grieving in those 18 months.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The film premieres at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Liv Ullman's jury insane journey Jury gives it to the Sun's Room, the Palme d'or, which is like an okay movie.

[David]

It splits best director with man who.

[Griffin]

Wasn't There, which shares the best director prize with Joel Cohen. The Sun's Room, it's an Italian drama about a family.

[David]

She remembers the film that beat Sun's Room.

[Griffin]

It comes out. It was released by Universal slash Focus in America. Came out October 2001, expanded to about 250 screens. Made about 7 million domestic, $20 million worldwide.

[David]

And let's think of it this way, received. It might seem like weird, like, oh no. The Sun's Room beat Mulholland Drive and Man who Wasn't There. That feels like rude. And then you step back and you're like, well, if you look at the can competition slate in 2001, Holland Drive did win one award over Shrek.

[Griffin]

Shrek.

[David]

I just want everyone to think about they were competition the same year.

[Ben]

Zach can.

[Griffin]

Yep, yep. 2001 Cannes Film Festival. A great slate, including created Distance, man who Wasn't There, Millennium Mambo. A wonderful movie.

[David]

And people were like might win Mulholland.

[Griffin]

Drive, the Piano team Teacher, the Hanaki.

[Ben]

Oh my God.

[Griffin]

Son's Room. What time is it there? One of my favorite movies. And of course Shrek.

[David]

Yeah. No, this slate, it makes perfect sense. The Sun's Room, Piano Teacher.

[Griffin]

I think the Son's Room, which I have seen was just. It's a weepy. It's a, it's a. It's a well made drama that's well acted.

[David]

Yeah, like Shrek.

[Griffin]

Yeah, like Shrek. Mulholland Drive come out and. Yeah, people thought it was okay. And so Ben, do you want to hit stop on the recording? We're done.

[David]

Thank you so much. Let's talk.

[Griffin]

Film begins with a jitterbuggy scene. Jitterbugging scene. My God.

[David]

When we did our Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon episode with David Ehrlich, he said, has any movie ever announced it's a masterpiece faster than Crouching Tiger does? Which he said half as a joke, but he was just like the title, the beginning of the score. The first image you see of the city. I'm not saying the opening of this movie is bad, but if you were to pause it on the first 15 seconds. I don't think most people, which I just did, would expect flat out masterpiece, widely accepted as one of the greatest films. That's so funny in like a masterpiece in an obvious way.

[Griffin]

Well, okay, I suppose. I love that.

[David]

I think it's a great opening.

[Griffin]

I pointed out to my friend recently like that's the jitterbug competition. And she was like, oh, I never thought about it that way. I just kind of let that wash over me. And I was like, oh, okay. Well that's the, that she says she won a jitterbugging competition. See, I, I, I was surprised to realize a lot of people don't put this together because they're like, oh, I'm in a David lynch movie. Like, you know, I thought he was.

[Leslie]

Just, I thought he was just referencing swing.

[David]

That's what I thought too. I thought it was swing dance, like doing like, oh, it's like people changing.

[Ben]

Positions and whatever I did, I did think that was.

[David]

Well, clearly I didn't read the 10 clues clearly enough. Cuz number one, pay particular attention in the beginning of the film. At least two clues are revealed before the credits.

[Griffin]

The most important thing before the credits. And the thing me laugh every time I think about Mulholland Drive and how people are like, what is going on? Like, and when I say people, I realize I'm talking about abstract things. Lots of people understand Mulholland Drive very well. You have the jitterbug.

[David]

Thank you, David.

[Griffin]

I'm not saying you, I'm saying like I, I just hate.

[David]

Oh, so you think I don't understand.

[Griffin]

You don't understand. No, no, I didn't know it was the. Then there is a point of view shot of someone's head hitting a pillow that is, is like, it's like it feels like a studio. No, I know it wasn't like the studio being like, I don't know that people are gonna get that it's a dream. Can we have like a shot of someone going sleepy time bed buys on their big red pillow? Like I, I'm just worried. Like it's just funny that the movie starts with someone going to sleep and people are like, I don't fucking get it.

[David]

What could this to be clear, Lots.

[Griffin]

Of people get it. It's a dream story. Yes, yes. So it begins with someone going to sleep and then we see the opening credits which were the opening credits of the pilot, which are the car snaking through Mulholland Drive as that beautiful music plays. The title shot of the. You know, the sign with the lights flickering on it. Such a cool shot. Credits rolling. And Laura Herring, this glam bomb of a lady in a slinky dress, is gonna get murdered in the car, we assume. Or right outside of it.

[David]

Driven to. It feels like nowhere good.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And then get out of the car. Car.

[Griffin]

Like they have a gun. And then some joyriding teens disrupt this assassination and cause a big car crash. And then she's stumbles down the hills into la.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

The City of Angels.

[David]

And as she stumbles, her memories fall out.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

It's also very comical that she travels from Mulholland Drive on foot.

[David]

Yep.

[Ben]

To West Hollywood.

[David]

Very much my experience.

[Ben]

And it's still nighttime. It's just she would. That would take a day and a half. Yeah, a day and a half to get there.

[Griffin]

So, like, she's in high heels. How's she scaling this?

[Ben]

It's just. It's just. I know, I know. I shouldn't take it, right.

[Griffin]

I got something was askew. No, you're right.

[David]

Pre rideshare apps. When I would go out to LA to, like, pilot season, do auditions and take meetings, whatever.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

I'd show up at places and they'd be like, do you need parking validated? And I'd be like, no, I walked.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And they'd go, from where? And I go, santa Monica. And they were like, that would take five hours. And I was like, yes, it took five hours. That's why I'm caked in sweat. I would just walk.

[Ben]

I took the bus. I straight up took the bus.

[David]

I would do that as well. If I could take the bus, I would take the bus.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Sometimes the bus was so complicated in terms of the amount of transfers.

[Ben]

A lot of transfers.

[David]

Or you miss the time and you're like, the next one's in half an hour. It's actually faster if I walk for two hours.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

I'm surprised he didn't skateboard.

[David]

I'm not that cool.

[Griffin]

Then the next thing we see is the great Robert Forster looking like a primo snack.

[David]

A million say.

[Ben]

He really looks good.

[Griffin]

The great Brent Brisco. Br. Brent Briscoe, who's shouted out on the show.

[David]

A Raimi favorite, of course.

[Griffin]

Great character actor.

[David]

But it is so funny where you're like, well, these two guys would be like the sort of like Greek chorus of the Mystery you imagine on a series version of this.

[Griffin]

Not to talk about the pilot too much, but weirdly, Briscoe is in the opening credits and Robert Forster is credited as a special Guest star. Now, I don't know if that's Forster just getting some kind of, like, special billing.

[David]

Can I tell you what my guess would be? And Leslie, I think you'll probably back me up on this. Especially at this point in time where people who were considered movie actors, there was a stigma against tv.

[Griffin]

Yes. It's like how Edward Herman is always billed as a special appearance on Gilmore Girls. Even though he's in there, where they're like.

[David]

Even if you have, like, a contractual. You are guaranteed X number of episodes, you don't want to be locked into the regular thing where they actually own you.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David]

So you're like.

[Ben]

For seven seasons. That's the thing.

[David]

That's the thing. At pilot stage, you're signing up for seven seasons, potentially. So a guy like Forster is like, I will probably do every episode, but you need to structure my contract in a way where I could bail it.

[Ben]

I could leave at any time. Yeah.

[Griffin]

So we see Laura Haring. Her character is not yet named, but we'll take the name Rita.

[David]

She has amnesia. She sees a Gilda Post.

[Griffin]

Hi. Hiding. Right. But she hides out in this woman's house. We see this woman with red hair who we actually see again at the end of the movie. But, you know, supposedly Diane's aunt sees.

[David]

A woman leaving the house and is like, great, open house.

[Griffin]

And goes. The next scene in the film is the Winky Diner scene.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

It comes quite early.

[Ben]

It. I was really did not remember that it was that early.

[Griffin]

I didn't either. In which Patrick Fishler. And who's the other guy?

[David]

That's a good question.

[Griffin]

He's got. Because he's also got kind of a recognizable face.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Are sitting at Winky's Diner, which is a Denny's. Right.

[Ben]

Like Gower Gulch, which is just. Is it still there, The Denny's? I. Probably not. When I lived there, it was.

[Griffin]

It's on Cower and Sunset.

[Ben]

And it's this weird little. I mean, I know it has some history of, like, the Copper Penny or whatever, but, like, you know, in the mid-2000s, when I was there, the Denny's was still there. And it was. It's like a little strip.

[Griffin]

Molly, the actor's name is Michael Cook.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Found out.

[Ben]

Where's he from? Just a bunch of.

[Griffin]

Not much. Yeah. Embarrassing for him. He played Casino Letcher in Showcase Girls.

[David]

Well, hey, so he's one of our favorites.

[Griffin]

Sorry about the Denny's. Yes.

[Ben]

No, no, no. It. It just. When I was talking about, you know, these kind of Spaces in Los Angeles. This, this scene very much sums up that, you know, shitty middle of. Middle of nowhere, but in the midst of everything.

[David]

Yeah. And. And by the way, these are the types of spaces where I feel most comfortable in la.

[Griffin]

But I think like, these.

[David]

Weird. Weird. Like what is this diner that feels like it's in the middle of the suburbs but is actually.

[Ben]

But it's actually on Sunset and feels.

[David]

Kind of frozen in time? Like when I would take these two hour walks to appointments.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And I could find a diner like that in between. I'd go inside and I'd be like, I feel safe now.

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, that's true. Well, yeah.

[David]

Psychologically.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Not like from Assassins.

[Griffin]

I think what Leslie said is. Is interesting. Yeah. Because I don't. What do you guys think of the winky scene? It's an incredible scene. I have never been so scared in a movie theater in my life.

[Ben]

Well, it's set to you off balance immediately.

[David]

And it's fascinating that that wasn't part of the pilot.

[Griffin]

It's not.

[David]

I would have guessed it was because the, the.

[Ben]

The something I noticed this time around, it sets you off. I mean, I remember seeing this in theater and just being like, this is the most terrifying scene I can think of. But it. I hadn't lived in LA yet, so I didn't really recognize this as like the shithole Safe. Safe haven that it is.

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

But the, the real thing is the. Is the coverage with the doing figure eights. Basically, the camera never settles.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Ever in the, in the, in the overs.

[David]

Which just keeps you on edge. You're like, why is the camera not. It just locking down.

[Ben]

Stop it. Just so you never get your bearings in terms of. Is someone gonna stand up?

[David]

Yes. And the rhythms of the camera do not feel like they are in sync with the rhythms of the performance of the actor. What's motivating this?

[Griffin]

The thing with Fischler too, who had only been in like a couple movies at this point.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Is one of my favorites.

[Griffin]

Got such an incredible face.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And he's nervily describing to this. The other guy. No offense to Michael Cook, the casino leer that he is. He looks like a regular, you know, Hollywood guy in his 40s. Right.

[Ben]

That's the point.

[Griffin]

Fisher's got these energy voice. He's. Right. He's got this. And, and he's describing to the guy, like, I had this terrifying dream and you were in it. I was here. You were standing over there. And there was something behind the diner that was so scary. I woke up and I can't even think about it. It's so scary.

[Ben]

I never want to see that in.

[Griffin]

In real life now, trying to confront essentially what happened.

[David]

Two things I want to call out about this.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

One, lynch is a guy who mostly makes films that if not directly inspired by his dreams, operate on dream logic. It is often used in shorthand that the most annoying, boring thing is telling.

[Griffin]

Someone about your dream. Sure, right. Yeah.

[David]

And here this guy is like 20 years into his career, basically opening the movie with a scene he inserts later. After just like a prologue that you can't make sense of. Here's the first scene that's on its face, kind of straightforward. Right. And it's a guy explaining his dream.

[Griffin]

True. That's true.

[David]

Which is interesting to me.

[Griffin]

It's.

[David]

It's the first time dreams have been like, textual in his movies outside of.

[Griffin]

To the point. Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.

[David]

He's like attaching that onto what's already pre existing text.

[Griffin]

Well, I would actually disagree with, you know, because dreams are very, very important to Twin Peaks.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Because Twin Peaks is Cooper saying, I had a dream, FYI. And we have to now do this thing because I had this dream. And of course, my love Harry Truman.

[David]

Being sounds about a guy who can't dream and wants the dream.

[Ben]

I just had this. Yeah, I just remembered in lynch on lynch, he tells this story about that he would go to this Denny's. I think it was this actual Denny's that he shot in. And. And. And he felt again, he's attracted to this, like, wholesome concept. So you going there as a safe haven actually now makes a little bit. It, like, clicks for me.

[David]

I think I connect to the same things lynch does that feel comforting. Like there is this part of me even as a weird city boy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

That's like that kind of suburbia, frozen in time, 50s aesthetic feels really comfortable.

[Griffin]

How much should I say about what I think this scene is about?

[David]

Say everything. All right, can I make one second point very quickly before you say this? Because I think this is really fascinating. I don't know if any of you know this in the lynch casting of, like, how he loves to use Nepo babies or like former old Hollywood stars.

[Griffin]

People who have like some Hollywood. Some weight in them.

[David]

Right, right.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Patrick Fishler's father ran it, just announced it was closing very recently. A legendary sort of like, dive diner in Santa Monica called Patrick's Roadhouse. He named it after his son. His son was the mascot and says he basically fell in love with acting by being like the barker outside hanging.

[Griffin]

Out with these actors who would come hang out.

[David]

And it's this place, if you're driving down to Santa Monica, you will always see it on the road.

[Griffin]

And it's got this green sign.

[David]

Yes, very cool. And it's got all sorts of on it. The roof, it's like, what if the aesthetic of like a TGI Fridays was on the roof instead of on the walls.

[Griffin]

It has like a T. Rex and a Statue of Liberty and on the roof it looks pretty good.

[David]

The kind of place that I guarantee you lynch loves, right?

[Ben]

Oh yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[David]

And here's this scene in a diner.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

That is being carried by an actor whose father ran this kind of diner that is notorious within the industry and people who live there, there. And that is his legacy. Whether that's intentional or not, it's all interesting. Like me.

[Ben]

No, I think it is.

[David]

Cuz he loves to cast people who are carrying something with them. No, that's interesting whether it's stated or not.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So.

[David]

All right, well, give me your read.

[Griffin]

Well, just to be clear what happen and Leslie, whatever you want, but what obviously what happens is they have this conversation. The moment that to me actually sort of sticks with me the most is he's like, so now you go pay and you know, go be where you were in my dream.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

And then he looks at him when he's standing there and looks terrified. And then of course they go outside and lynch does this amazing thing where he switches to the POV of him like walking down the stairs.

[Ben]

And you're like, yeah, the Steadicam.

[Griffin]

And it's so like. And.

[Ben]

And then weirdly like he clocks the payphone, you know, like.

[Griffin]

Yeah, he's like.

[Ben]

He's like tagging stuff.

[Griffin]

There's garbage over there. Why am I going back here? It's the middle of the day.

[David]

It's like first person shooter of Mundanity.

[Ben]

I was thinking too that, that it was just this weird kismet thing that this is that in Zodiac, the Lake Berryessa scene is the scariest daylight scene.

[Griffin]

Right. Daytime scares are hard to do, but.

[David]

If you pull them off very close.

[Ben]

This would be like a very close second of just like there's no shadow, there's no cover. And yet this is absolutely terrifying.

[David]

And much like we talked about in that episode about that scene, you're like. What is unnerving is the weird sense of like normalcy around this horrifying scene.

[Ben]

He's walking. He's walking right There's.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And you're like, the tent of. This is unbearable.

[Ben]

You can tell he's sweating.

[Griffin]

The audience is like, this is a David lynch movie. What the fuck is about to happen? And what happens is an insane noise plays and a weird dirty hobo slides out, and the guy seemingly kind of like, has a heart attack, and you lose your mind.

[David]

Played by Bonnie Aaron, the nun.

[Griffin]

That's right. Played by the nun.

[David]

Played by the nun of.

[Griffin]

Of Blumhouse's the Nun of the Nun fame.

[David]

The titular role.

[Griffin]

Famously, they built some prosthetic for her, and lynch was like, no. Like, I just want. Just put all over her face. I want her bone structure.

[David]

She has an incredible face. And the nun is basically the same deal where they, like, put a lot of paint on her, but they don't change her bone structure.

[Griffin]

And she. I read an interview with her. She says what she mostly remembers is that how hot David Lynn Lynches. Because she was like. It was a lot of him, like, staring at me and, like, you know, us carefully putting together the look. And I was so. I was looking in his eyes a lot of the time, and he's so. He's so hot.

[David]

Gorgeous.

[Griffin]

She says hot, which I really like. Oh, yeah, she was horny for Lynch.

[David]

Do you know what's interesting? This is another, like, point about her bone structure. There's this thing where, like, if characters are largely created through prosthetics, the studio can claim they own the life, right? It's not your underlying feature face. And they have cut her out of, like, merch and shut for the nun. Because they're like, well, it's our design we own.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

And she's like, it's my face.

[Griffin]

It is your face. You're just built on my face.

[David]

My face. There's no rubber. You just painted.

[Griffin]

Right. But I don't mean build physically. I mean, like, they. They took her face and they embellished.

[David]

But they can't argue, like, well, but the nose is ours, right? Yeah.

[Ben]

No, it's her.

[Griffin]

I just feel.

[Ben]

Yeah, I want. I want your take on this.

[Griffin]

What you said about the winkies is so interesting to me about the diner, the actual location, that it's like this, because I do feel like this is some sort of. Like, it's a. The movie is largely a dream, right? For 90 minutes of the movie, we are in Betty's dream.

[Ben]

I want to go on the record and say, I don't think it's a dream.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[Ben]

I think it's. I think it's about a dream.

[David]

I like this.

[Ben]

That's what I.

[Griffin]

We can talk about.

[Ben]

Let's keep going. Let's keep going. I just want to make that clear.

[Griffin]

Before sort of the general theory of, like, this is mostly a dream, and then the back half of the movie, the back act of the movie, she wakes up and.

[Ben]

But why do we think that's reality? Why do we think that's. Because it's.

[David]

Actually, I'm. I'm.

[Griffin]

No, no, no, wait a second.

[David]

I kind of want to litigate it, but.

[Ben]

Okay, we'll get there. We'll get there.

[David]

Let's finish your point first, and then we'll.

[Griffin]

I'm not saying that this is like. This is the definitive take on Mulholland Drive. All the evidence is there.

[Ben]

This is blah, blah, blah, the 10 clues.

[Griffin]

But we are with Betty for most of the time. You know, we're with Naomi Watts. Like, this scene, this is a person she doesn't know. Right. But we are with much later in the film. This is where she. Diane, you know, the real Betty or whatever other Betty, asks Mark Peno to kill Camila to. To. To. To do a bad thing.

[David]

Uhhuh.

[Griffin]

And when she's doing that, she goes. She looks over and sees Patrick Fishler standing there.

[Ben]

Standing there. Yeah.

[Griffin]

And it's this moment. Moment of his eyes are boring into her because he's Patrick Fishler, God bless him. His eyes bore into you.

[David]

It's got those willows over those eyes. Caterpillars.

[Griffin]

He looks like that meme of. Have you seen this face, Right. In your dreams? Yeah. And it's like she was being.

[Ben]

It's like a creepy pasta.

[Griffin]

Yeah, exactly. At the lowest moment of her life or the, you know, darkest moment of her life. Right. And it's like we're, you know, the. The diner is this, like, liminal space. Right. It's like in between dream and real reality, which you're saying the real diner kind of is. You're like, what is this doing here?

[David]

It's like the surge protector in Wreck It Ralph. It's where all the. Right.

[Leslie]

That's another Ben's choice.

[David]

Yeah. That was a big one.

[Griffin]

Both of them.

[David]

Both of them we dimmed together.

[Griffin]

And what this guy is doing in this scene, be he a real guy or not, is. He's kind of like, I had a dream about this place. I want to go into to it. Right. I'm trying to kind of recreate the dream. I'm going into the liminal space of trying to think about this. Sure. Trying to recreate it.

[David]

Yeah. And like, which is basically what lynch tries to do as an artist.

[Griffin]

Yeah, exactly. Like, and it's like he's sort of crossing or he's like trying literally, like, stage directing. Right. And like, shit is wonky. Like, you're saying the camera work is wonky. Like, the perspective shit. Who are these people? What is that thing behind there? Like, I don't know, like, that's the classic lynch thing of Bob or all these creatures he creates, where it's like some kind of representation of an evil or a force or, you know, like. Like you can do whatever you want with it. What, what.

[Ben]

What's your take on it?

[Griffin]

That's my take. Is that really clear that what I just said? That, like, just that, like, you're in that. Like, that is like a. Because of the thing that winkies itself.

[David]

Is the transitional point between states of consciousness.

[Griffin]

But I'm not saying it in a way of, like, if you go there, you get to go into the dream world. I'm just saying, like, it's just.

[David]

That's what wreck.

[Ben]

Well, I would say that my experience.

[Griffin]

Of watching, there's like a blurriness to that place, right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And that's, you know, what he. Why he's drawn there and why it freaks him out and why the thing from his dream is there.

[David]

Or. What I like about talking about dreams is that feeling where you wake up and you're like, huh, I have a weird feeling. I can't shake it. Even though whatever I was just going through immediately now doesn't exist.

[Ben]

Right.

[David]

You have some lingering feeling. And then for me at least, this is how it often works. Like, halfway through the day, something I will come across, will trigger the memory. Fuck, that's what the dream was.

[Ben]

Right.

[David]

And then I start reconstructing. Oh, okay, so that was. That was part of. And then what was the other things there. And you're trying to understand why was I dreaming this and why did it fuck me up so much?

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Why is this still being held in my body? Which is basically what he's trying to do. Like, let me go back to the space of here in the diner. You stand there. Can I, like, reconstruct this in a way where then I can deconstruct it?

[Ben]

I think that. I think as we go through this, I feel like I don't have. I think it'll be really interesting, this conversation, because I think I would love to hear. I really am dying to hear takes of like, this is what. But I also feel like what I can contribute to the conversation is the exper. Again, the experience of it, like when I was sitting in the theater and I watched the scene. To me, first of of all, I didn't understand what the fuck was going on until this scene was the scene that locked me in and I went, boom, I'm in the movie now.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Like up until this, I mean, the amnesiac girl, I was kind of like.

[Griffin]

Okay, I mean, it's a setup. You get it?

[Ben]

Yeah. But this actually locked me somehow into the movie. I was now, you know, for lack of a better term, like hypnotized into the movie. And I think that the experience of it is everything that you guys said. The setting, the performance, the sort of odd retracing the steps. But to me, it's almost the thesis statement of the movie. Rather than meanings. Again, rather than meanings of it is that he's describing a dream and then the dream is now in reality. So there is. So there are two things that are concurrently happening. There's the dream and then there's the reality.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

And that those two things actually do exist at the same time.

[David]

I agree. So this is what's interesting to me.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And David's probably about to tell me that I'm wrong.

[Griffin]

No, I'm not going to tell you. You're. There's no wrong with this movie. My fundamental belief. You can think whatever you want.

[David]

Like, no, I. I watch this. And my interpretation more is that the last act of the film is the dream.

[Ben]

It. A lot of people would make that. Yeah.

[David]

I said you are.

[Griffin]

Why do you think the last act of the film is the dream?

[David]

Why?

[Griffin]

Because two tiny little people come out of a box. Like what? That doesn't happen to you in real life. What do you mean? What are you talking about?

[David]

But to my point, I think you are the most right. Even more right than Big Smart did.

[Ben]

Let's be. Let's argue. Right.

[David]

Because it's about the relationship between the two.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

That's.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

That's the actual truth of the movie. Right.

[Ben]

Because I think one of the.

[David]

To some degree, it's about the blurriness of the relationship. It's a woman looking at another woman and going, I wish I were her. And being both sides of her.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And you could read either way.

[Ben]

So that's why I say it isn't. I don't think the movie's a dream. I think the movie's about a dream. Because I think that he. Lynch talks a lot in McKenna's book about how he believes the mind works this way. He doesn't he believes that the mind is not separating dream from reality. That, like you were saying, you can be walking, you can have had a dream that be walking, walking in. In reality, see something and then you're back in the dream.

[Griffin]

I sort of know what he means. I mean, he's trying to describe an indescribable feeling that I think anyone has had.

[David]

Can I briefly tell a stupid dream story? It is brief. Don't sigh that loudly.

[Griffin]

I think I should have side loud, but not.

[Ben]

I agree.

[Griffin]

Actually, Ben, if you could actually, like, put bump up, I would bump that up.

[Ben]

Yeah, put a little reverb on it.

[Griffin]

All right.

[David]

This story will make me sound crazy. And I swear that's the point. I'm doing that on purpose.

[Griffin]

Go ahead.

[David]

I have a dream. I think this is after I see into the Wild, where there is the scene where Kristen Stewart begs Emile Hirsch to sleep with her. And he says, like, I can't. You don't know what you want, and leaves her. I had a big crush on her as I was like, I cannot imagine someone making that choice to leave the fucking trailer.

[Griffin]

I've talked about this on the podcast multiple times. That. That's that feeling, right? Your revulsion at the very idea that someone would reject Key Stu.

[David]

A week later, maybe I have a dream that is the most like, emotionally mature interpretation of me being in a relationship I had ever had or felt in my life in which the person is Kristen Stewart. But I am consciously in the dream going, God, Kristen Stewart's goodness. This dream.

[Ben]

She is playing a character, right?

[David]

It's a Kristen Stewart type performance in a different context. She's not an actress. This and that. And I go through this whole cycle of how we meet and how we date, and then I'm going back to college. She's in a different city and is like, be able to work long distance. And I wake up the next morning and I. I'm in college in California. I don't have a car. I beg my friend. I'm like, you have to drive me to Blockbuster. And I go through the used DVD bin to find any Kristen Stewart movie. And I'm like, I can't process this until I watch in a film. I'm now, like, hung up on this idea of this fake character she played. And I need to somehow, like, create a separation of reality again. And I, like, find a used DVD of In the Land of Women. And I watch it and I'm like, okay, she exists back again in movies.

[Ben]

I don't know if I should build on this. Because I do feel like it will. We're 15 minutes into the movie.

[Griffin]

Keep going.

[Ben]

Okay, build. I think that that, that is an experience that I have had many, many times. Many, many times.

[David]

I will cast actors in my dreams all the time.

[Ben]

Specifically marks Mark Ruffalo, kind of the.

[David]

Kristen Stewart of magic.

[Griffin]

You can be in my dreams anytime.

[David]

In a lot of ways. In a lot of ways.

[Ben]

You know, saw you can count on me a year before this in the theater. That man dropped into my consciousness in a way that I could. Could not shake. I could not shake until he played the Hulk. And then I was like, I'm free. Yeah, I'm free. He's gone mainstream.

[Griffin]

He's always angry.

[David]

Leslie. That was my exact relationship with Kristen Stewart through the Twilight. It was. When she got to Twilight, I was like, you know what? She belongs to the culture now. This isn't about me.

[Ben]

I'm safe. I'm safe. You know, I just.

[David]

The exact same arc.

[Ben]

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Ben, what does the winky scene mean to you, if anything? Do you have any, like.

[David]

And buying the DVD of In the Land of Women, that's what it's about. That is the one correct interpretation, Ben.

[Leslie]

I also find it terrifying.

[Griffin]

Very scary.

[Leslie]

I feel like would be weird if.

[Griffin]

You were like, normal scene happens, happens all funny.

[Leslie]

Well, yeah. I mean, don't you guys have monsters that live in your dreams?

[Griffin]

Come slide out on dolly tracks?

[David]

Like, vibes are immaculate.

[Leslie]

I feel like I have dreams where stuff that takes place then come true. True. And I am a little bit of a believer that I do think that sometimes your future arrives or, like, visions of your future arrive somehow in your dreams.

[Ben]

Like a deja vu, kind of.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

And I have that experience a lot.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

But I also find it really terrifying how sometimes I'll be like, I feel like I've dreamt this before. Like, that experience is really scary and weird.

[David]

Well, throughout your 20s, you kept having recurring dreams about listening to idiots talk about movies for hours. And then one day we rang your door bell and said, have you seen the Phantom Menace recently?

[Leslie]

That's true. Yeah. So I, I, I find this idea of, of being like, you know what? I'm going to actually, like, follow the path and, and see where this leads. And then it, it's, like, real.

[David]

You got to own it in your waking life in order to process it. Yeah. In some way or another.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

David.

[Griffin]

Oh, hello.

[David]

Hi. How are you doing?

[Griffin]

I'm good. I'm good. I mean, Valentine's Day is coming up.

[David]

I mean, I was gonna bring it up. You're a married man.

[Griffin]

Sure. For me, there's only one place I trust. 1-800-flowers.com.

[David]

You gotta show your wife that you love her and that you care.

[Griffin]

Each year I'm ordering stunning, high quality bouquets from 100 flowers that my wife absolutely loves. And we're partnering with 1-800-flowers to make sure you're a Valentine's hero with this exclusive offer for our listener.

[David]

An easy sell. This is a great time of year to encourage people to order flowers for the love of their life.

[Griffin]

Look. And they.

[David]

This doesn't need extra spin on it. We don't need to put any mustard on this ad.

[Griffin]

Reed offer with double the flowers. Double the roses for free. When you get one dozen, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen. It's the perfect way to say I love you without breaking the bank.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Funny how 100 flowers, it always delivers.

[David]

Trust. I trust you when you say that. Yeah. This is all that needs to be said. Ding dong.

[Griffin]

And who's that at the door?

[David]

We should check quickly, right? I mean, I know we're almost. We're getting through this ad read.

[Griffin]

Okay. But I'll tell you that I got a great bouquet from 1-800-Flowers. Arrived right away.

[David]

I'm just gonna walk to the door quickly.

[Griffin]

It's really nice. And I didn't get roses. I got a sort of. Yeah, yeah.

[David]

Hand outraged comes to number.

[Griffin]

Really, really nice container. Yes.

[David]

Who can plant a rose bud?

[Leslie]

My God, Dan Pluck petunias too. It's been a while.

[David]

How are you, Dan Candyman can been a dog's age. It has. It's been a long time since you guys have invited me to come over.

[Griffin]

No one invited you.

[David]

I felt like it. I felt it in the air. My ears were burning.

[Leslie]

Wow. Dan Candyman, you look like.

[Griffin]

Like crap.

[David]

It's been a rough couple years.

[Griffin]

Why? What's going on, Dan?

[David]

I come from the Candyman family, of course, of the Montreal Candyman. And we're a flower family by trade. The name does tend to confuse people along with me singing a song that's a modified version of the Candyman, the Willy Wonka song. And it always confused people. So I'm actually here today selling candy.

[Griffin]

Oh, okay. Well, I'll buy some candy to raise.

[David]

Money for my high school's basketball team.

[Griffin]

Okay, cool. How much?

[David]

You're not gonna ask any questions about that?

[Leslie]

What are M and N?

[David]

I.

[Leslie]

Well, you know, these are just gray shells. There's not a Color in sight.

[David]

Look, I'll admit. Yes, I'm selling candy. That's not really why I came in here today.

[Griffin]

Okay, what's going on?

[David]

I need flowers. I no longer have the hookup. My family has completely divested.

[Griffin]

Oh, well. And I actually do have great news for you. Because all roses from 1-800-Flowers are picked at their peak, cared for every step of the way, and shipped fresh to ensure lasting beauty. The bouquet I got came fresh, sat on our table looking great for ages. Didn't like wilt after two days. Like some, you know, local sort of bodega flowers you might buy or whatever.

[Leslie]

Comes with a little pack little packet.

[Griffin]

To sort of spruce them up and make them alive.

[David]

Oh, gosh. Because this is a stressful time of year for me. You know, Valentine's Day is really rough on Dan Candyman. I don't because I'm part of a very large polycule. I have to get a lot of flowers.

[Griffin]

I hate all your lore.

[David]

I think it's interesting and people are going to be excited.

[Griffin]

Well, you better get on it because bouquets are selling fast. Lock in your order today. And of course, if you do order a dozen roses, they'll double the rose bouquet for free. That's a great value. To claim your double roses offer, go to 1-1,800-flowers.com check. That's 1-800-flowers.com check to get your double your roses offer. 100flowers.com check.

[David]

Now that sounds great, but I have to admit my many, many partners have some pretty specific tastes. Double roses sounds nice, but by any chance does 1-800-Flowers offer kaleidoscope roses, hand dyed, 24 stems in a purple vase with wind chime included? I'm looking it up. Okay. They do have it. Great. What a great product. Would you like to buy 1m?

[Griffin]

Sure. Fine. Give me an M. There you go. Thanks.

[David]

That'll be $25.

[Griffin]

Wait a second.

[David]

I have to raise money.

[Griffin]

1,800Followers.Com Check.

[David]

David?

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

If I know one thing about you, okay, it's that you're tired of figuring out what's for dinner every night after night. Especially on those busy weekdays when you walk into the studio every day and you go, I'm so tired. I go, don't even finish the sentence. I know the one root cause of that problem.

[Griffin]

Busy weekdays. I just had it. Busy weekdays.

[David]

No, I'm saying it's you trying to decide what to make for dinner night after night.

[Griffin]

Busy weekdays. How do you make my weekdays less busy?

[David]

These issues are linked. I go, how are the Twins sleeping.

[Griffin]

You go, 100 grit.

[David]

No problem there. I'm joking. Through the night. Yes.

[Griffin]

I have to feed my family.

[David]

You have more mouths to feed.

[Griffin]

And that is true. Although they just eat. They don't eat lovely meals. But I have to make lovely meal and I get home and my time limit is. My time window is limited. And it is hard to just kind of, you know, find a magic recipe in the fridge every single day.

[David]

What a compelling personal it is sort of experience this is. Yeah.

[Griffin]

I mean if you really want to get into it, it's just basically like it's 5:30, right. Dinner's gotta kind of be on the table because everyone's going to bed around seven.

[David]

Right. Podcasting has ended 15 minutes before that.

[Griffin]

That's. That is wise.

[David]

Be honest.

[Griffin]

Anyone who listens to the show might notice that I am a little. But look, it's easy to find time to eat well because you can get 50 wholesome, hassle free meals to choose from every week to get delivered right to your door. These HelloFresh ready made meals that go from fridge to fork.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

In just three minutes. One, two, three minutes.

[David]

That's the journey I left fridge to fork.

[Griffin]

It's the same high quality ingredients in restaurant or the flavor you expect from HelloFresh, but none of the work. Okay, so it's not like I hate work. This stuff you're talking about, you know, they give you all these pre packaged ingredients. You make a meal that's fun. These things come together with minimal mess in just a five minutes of prep. Your oven does most of the work, not you.

[David]

But this is what's nice about hellofresh is they got a lot of variety. There's a lot of adjustment you can make on your end as the customer to serve your own own needs. So as you're saying, you got two twins now that don't eat real food, but sooner rather than later.

[Griffin]

They will, they will.

[David]

And you can adjust your order 100 fit a family of five rather than a family of three.

[Griffin]

Yeah. You can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for [e-mail]. check 10 FM. That's check 10 FM.

[David]

That's interesting. That's interesting code. We've never gotten that code.

[Griffin]

No, that's why I'm repeating. Hey.

[David]

And Green Chef is now owned by HelloFresh. So with a wider array of meal plans to choose from, there's something for everyone. I personally love switching between the brands because I'm verse and now my listeners can enjoy both Brands at a discount with us.

[Griffin]

One item per box with active subscription free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. That's up to 10 free HelloFresh meals. Just go to hellofresh.com/check10FM. It's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Winkies. It's this sort of picture perfect diner, right? It's very like you say, throwbacky, all American. And behind it is like this like, monster. But also essentially, the bum is just a homeless person. Like, it's like a. Right, like that. You can take it as you like, but it is basically an a. A dirty, unhoused person.

[Ben]

May I say that, that when this happened in the theater, I closed my eyes.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So I had no idea.

[Griffin]

You didn't know what they saw. You just knew something fucking.

[Ben]

I knew it was something fucked up. And finally we, you know, I watched it. I, by the way, watched it again. Still did the same thing, right? It was only when I was watching it with my boyfriend at. At that time where he said, you have to watch it. You have to look at it.

[David]

Humble burn.

[Ben]

And then he made me do it. It came out. I. She came out. I screamed and I said. And I said, okay, it's okay, it's okay. And he was like, yeah, but you didn't know it was going to be a gooblin. And so now every time I see it, I think that's a googlin.

[Griffin]

That is a gooblin, by the way.

[David]

This sounds great. I already like him a lot if he calls me.

[Ben]

He's wonderful. He's fantastic. I'm seeing him next week.

[Griffin]

Hey, it's like. But it. Right, like, you know, like, just again, if you're just thinking about this as like a weird liminal place where it's like there's sort of window dressing over. We like to ignore. Right. Like this kind of person in terrible circumstances or this monster of an evil we can't understand. Or like someone who's in control of everything or just a person back there that isn't the real problem. But, you know, I know I keep.

[David]

Reading most lynch films as being about this, but his sort of like guy who lost his keys, guy who has headache. But no, the incredulity of, like, what are these rules of society that everyone agrees to abide by? This is so strange that we all just are like, this is normal and this is what we do and this is how we act. And all this sort of.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Talking about a diner like that as a Place of comfort and security. Yes. Part of it is you're like, well, I just need to eat food. And this is comfortable and it's homey. But there is this thing of like. And there's this unspoken rule that unhoused people are not allowed to walk in here. I'm not saying that is the number one value we put on private inside spaces.

[Ben]

Right, right.

[David]

But in theory, it's like if you're inside a business, there's an idea of like certain parts of reality are supposed to be kept.

[Ben]

I also like that he keeps cutting once she leaves. He keeps cutting back to where she was and there's nothing there.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David]

Which is so unnerving. You're like, why are we cutting back?

[Ben]

Why are we still here?

[David]

Why is the camera still filming?

[Griffin]

This slides out, he goes, you know, and then the music goes out and you know, becomes this crazy sort of sound.

[David]

Right. They play All Star over the opening credits.

[Griffin]

Right. We see her slide away.

[David]

Shrek kicks down the outhouse door. There's a flush, weirdly, even though in theory there's no plumbing. Go on.

[Griffin]

The next next sequence is Mr. Ro. Michael J. Anderson, the small person who played the man from another place in Twin Peaks in a full sized human suit that has been created for him.

[David]

To sit in in the world's longest room.

[Griffin]

Like in this like crazy kind of Twin Peaksy room that's all curtains and shit.

[David]

When you say human suit, it does sound like the Egger suit for Men in Black. What you mean is a full size.

[Griffin]

You're right. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but. Right. The. This sort of prosthetic of a, you know, six foot tall person that he's sort of sitting in. And I guess one assumes if this was a TV show we would have had more of him. It's just such a cool like they built this crazy like rig for him to be in essentially.

[Ben]

Oh, that makes. Oh, I see.

[Griffin]

You know what I mean? Like he's.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

You know, he's sitting, he's playing a big person.

[David]

But he's also shot from a Ned Beatty in network distance where you're not quite sure what you're seeing for most of the time.

[Ben]

Right.

[Griffin]

You do, you know. But then.

[Ben]

Oh, that's a good reference for the way he's shot.

[David]

Right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And it's similarly dark and distant and there's like nothing else in the shot really other than him, even though he's.

[Ben]

So far from the also lit kind of similarly.

[David]

Yep.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Totally in shadow in Sort of shadow anyway.

[David]

There's just sort of like a strip of light that's illuminating him in a lot of. The other room is a little abstract.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

This is the first time in a David lynch project Michael J. Anderson gets to like speak words forwards like the whole time. They were never backwards. At any point. Calls someone, says the girl is missing. Someone else calls someone else. Someone picks up that phone and calls. A red lampshade phone is ringing. No one picks up. I'm just. I'm just mentioning that it's very important in my opinion. And it is one of his clues.

[David]

It's one of his clues.

[Griffin]

But no, it's very. Well, if you got. You know, it's.

[David]

Notice appearances of the red lampshades.

[Griffin]

Number two, it's Diane's lampshade. We see it.

[Ben]

My favorite, my favorite phone is the one that has a light right on it.

[Griffin]

I love that phone too. A big. A big sort of trucker hand picks it up. What's going on there?

[Ben]

This is wild.

[Griffin]

And then we're with Betty. Yeah, Betty. Beautiful Naomi Watts getting off the plane with this. These nice old people. It's just the woman actually my feeling her husband.

[Ben]

She meets her husband. My. My immediate experience watching it for the first time and seeing Betty was. I hate her.

[David]

Well, I hate.

[Griffin]

She's a pain in the ass. She's like, oh my God.

[David]

You're just like. Who is this optimistic about shit? Who is this like unhealthy, haunted. I distrust people like this who just seem like.

[Ben]

I also hate her sweater.

[Griffin]

I hate her little pink cardigan.

[Leslie]

Oh my God.

[David]

It's the worst. It just.

[Ben]

It just. It beautiful woman. It just annoys it. It's this tiny thing that annoys you.

[Leslie]

Well, cuz it's the buttons and it's not really closing.

[Ben]

It's not the right size. And she seems to have. Again, this is why she sunk in like. Again, I'm going to keep using that word. I would sink into the scenes and really sort of of make. Make a split second decision of how to feel about it.

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

And this one was immediately. I hate this woman.

[David]

Right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

It also looks adr.

[David]

This whole other thing is really, really fake. There's that patent artificial emotion in this scene that unlike the lynch like weird height and uneasiness is just like. Why are they acting like this? Like it's almost like Verhoeven Starship Troopers. Like everyone be as broad Watts talks and as clean.

[Griffin]

And as she says that Watts is like the. I would be like. I'm just so excited to be here. And lynch would be like, more. And she'd be like, that's crazy. I can't go crazier than that. You'd be like, yes. You need to be as outrageously sweet and simple as possible.

[David]

Beyond that, it's just like. It's all surface level. It's performances that are not only really loud and large, but, like, have no subtext to them. Right.

[Griffin]

Seemingly. At least at this point, the subtext is a kid who says she won a jitterbug competition in Ontario. And on the back of that is like, guess it's time for me to go get cast in movies. You know, like, I'm going to go be played.

[David]

Great depth. And as the film goes on, you start to see that bottom develop in her. But at this point, it's like, this is top floor only. She is saying the line. She's opening her eyes wide.

[Ben]

Yeah, it is text.

[David]

It's text.

[Ben]

No, I. The subtext comes later. It comes. It. Well, I agree that it's the rest of the movie, but it's the scene where the old people are in the back of the car.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

So smiling. It's the.

[Griffin]

It's the period, no dialogue is the two of them in the car smiling at each other.

[Ben]

And that's. To me, that's the period of this. Like the end. Like the punctuation of the scene saying, now here's the subtext.

[David]

Right. And here's the other thing. They later in the movie directly say, like, you're not fresh off the bus, are you? Here's this scene that's basically a fresh off the bus scene.

[Ben]

Absolutely.

[David]

But they're like, well, but it's a plane, you know, like, some of the details are a little different. No, no, I'm. But they do make this distinction where someone says to her, like, you're not like one of these naive. I just want a jitterbug contest. Like, they're basically saying, you're clearly not the kind of person that you are.

[Griffin]

She shows up at her aunt's home.

[Ben]

I want to ping this. This is very. A West Hollywood architectural meaning. I have been in so many of these, right.

[Griffin]

These kind of like little houses, closing courts. Right. Where it's like lots of apartments in this big courtyard.

[Ben]

Again, the old Hollywood connection. I think this is where little starlets would live.

[David]

My friend just moved into one of these.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

I think literally. Literally one of the ones in this.

[Ben]

Lot that they found in, like when they mentioned Sierra. Sierra Bon Bonita. Sierra. Sierra Bonita. That was the first street I lived on when I came to la.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The iconic Ann Miller who had basically. Basically not been in a movie since 1956.

[David]

She has a little break. Yeah.

[Griffin]

She has a tiny, tiny cameo. One other movie she earned. I like, I remember telling my mom, Ann Miller's in it. And my mom being like, what? Ann Miller is alive and in the movie.

[David]

And this is her last performance, right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

It's her only performance across those five.

[Griffin]

That is correct.

[David]

She remains alive.

[Griffin]

The iconic and beautiful dance dancer. And Miller.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Best known, I think, for Easter Parade.

[Ben]

And On the Town.

[Griffin]

On the Town and a million other, you know, star. Kiss Me Kate.

[Ben]

Kiss Me Kate.

[Griffin]

Sure. Playing a. Again, if you're thinking about it in TV pilot form, kind of like a very lynchy supporting character. Right. This is great. We have connection, you know, like, we have. We have this old Hollywood lady. Lord knows what she'll do, but she'll be around.

[Ben]

And I don't need paprika. You know, weirdly, again, like, Patrick, it's like, I don't need to. I don't need to give visual context for what this person is, because they're just that person.

[Griffin]

Exactly. Right. There's. I mean, I'm going to put her in pearls and all that. But, like, I mean, I think Coco, the lovely Coco, who is the nice land lady in this part of the movie. And then is this kind of imperious mom in, you know, in the later part of the movie, Right? Like, there it is, the two sides of like the old legend, right, where you're like, oh, this is so cool. This person who has all this history in them. And then later, like, the way she's sort of scary, you're like, right, that's.

[David]

Like a gatekeeper, like a jaded.

[Griffin]

Right. Like everything evil in Hollywood is like this person who's like, okay, sweetie. Yeah.

[David]

Well, here's the person on the absolute other end of the experience that you watched. Wishes she could start, Right?

[Ben]

That's right. This is the end. Conclusion.

[David]

Even in the best.

[Ben]

Even the best of circumstances, you're the tanky landlady, right? Ann Miller being the iconic star that.

[David]

She was, you make into the tapestry film history.

[Griffin]

My mom will hear and know, like, of course I know who Ann Miller is. Yes.

[Ben]

This is the best. This is the end.

[David]

This is the end.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And that you want to desperately get to that end. And in both realities, it's like, this is where it ends.

[Griffin]

Obviously, there are some shots of dog poop, which ABC was like, why the fuck did you Film Dog poop, bro.

[Ben]

I love him so much.

[Griffin]

ABC pilot. And he's like, I put another shot, it's coming back to it.

[David]

And then, by the way, they got dog poop in an overall deal.

[Ben]

I just have to spend like three.

[David]

Seasons trying to slot it into different pilots. And it just didn't really.

[Ben]

I want to talk about the dog poop. I want to talk about the dog shit.

[David]

Because.

[Ben]

Because I think again, this. This thing about lynch that I just fundamentally disagree with is that he's presenting the ideal or the good. And then he's. And then he's. He's undercutting somehow by saying, like. I think it's that one shot that. From Blue Velvet that cemented everybody sort of like, well, this is the take, right?

[Griffin]

Underbelly.

[Ben]

My personally, my personal opinion, the way that he talked. Again, I've read sort of more David lynch talking than watched his. I've seen this one a lot of times. But he. He constantly is sort of name checking that these two things exist at the same time.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

There. There isn't one that's better than the other.

[David]

Strictly tied. This is real. The truth.

[Griffin]

Right. He's saying, no, yeah, you have your nice Hollywood courtyard, but the dog still shits in the fucking courtyard. Like. And Miller says he's going to bake his little butt for breakfast.

[David]

These things are married.

[Ben]

And when they. Exactly. And then when she walks into the apartment for the first time, it's again, it's also POV Steadicam.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So it's the same. It's the same shot behind winkies.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So again, you're immediately unsettled. You're like. I mean, whether you realize it or not, he's using the same language.

[Griffin]

Yeah. You're like, yeah.

[Ben]

No, no, no. When she's walking through the apartment for the first time. So you're like, at any corner, the goblin could come out at any freaking gooblin.

[David]

Gooblins, man.

[Ben]

It's every now. Because of Paul. That's the. That's. Every time I see it, I just think she's a Google. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yes, indeed. Right. She's led into this apartment and who is in the shower behind the glass door but Laura Herring as question mark.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Woman.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And our mission history begins. Who is this woman?

[David]

And without being crass, this is a body that reads with like a striking announcement through fucking tapered glass. Here's someone who looks like a Coke bottle.

[Griffin]

Yeah, no, sure.

[David]

Abstracted. Where you're like, what is this shape?

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

She was Miss usa.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Right. And she sees, I think it's crass to say that she sees the Gilda poster. She decides to call herself Frida because.

[David]

She doesn't remember who she is and.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And how she got here.

[Griffin]

Here we are in this Hollywood dream and we have these two like golden age Hollywood archetypes. We have the ingenue, you know, the, the, the bright eyed bushy tailed one. And this sort of like sexy mystery, like what's going on dark noir on.

[David]

Rita Hayworth and Ginger Rogers.

[Ben]

Well, I also think that, that the, that their states of mind also sort of sum up your first experience going into Hollywood, which is one of. And again, I think they can exist at the same time, which is, you know that exactly what you just said. The, the bright eyed ingenue. But then also this woman who has completely lost her identity.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

Like actually enters Hollywood going, I don't know who I am in any way. And you're going to get.

[Griffin]

I'm going to, I'm literally going to be a Hollywood actress.

[Ben]

Essentially. I'm going to create my personality in reality real time. Right. Based on the stimuli that I'm getting from Hollywood.

[David]

Right. Which to some people, they're like, that gives me a sense of autonomy.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

I am in control of deciding which of these things I'm going to do in order to become the person I want to be.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

Versus Anomi Watts, who's like, I still believe that my path to success and immortality can be much like me winning a jitterbug contest. I show up and do what feels right to me and everyone will go, great job, thumbs up.

[Griffin]

Nailed it. She is also.

[David]

We love your thing.

[Griffin]

Like, oh boy, don't change at all. A Hollywood mystery. Like, who's this? Right. Anyway, we move on from this to one of my favorite scenes in the movie. In a movie film. That's one of my favorite scenes, which is Justin Throw being sat down. Hot director, you know, being sat down and said, the studio just wanted to have a meeting. And in walks the two chillest people in the world. Silent Angelo Badalamenti and Dan Hadassah Gaia. Just looking into his briefcase. So he's just all forehead. Like, it's just like dark shadow forehead.

[David]

He's almost doing the Clooney.

[Griffin]

He's doing the Clooney and he just like, you know, swipes over. Now, I don't want to be mean about Melissa George. Do you know Melissa George?

[Ben]

I don't know her personally, but I, I was those, what was it, three years that she was a thing.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I sort of remember. Remember, vaguely remember that. Yeah.

[Griffin]

It kind of felt like the mob was trying to force Melissa George on us in real life. It feels mean for me to say this, but it is just funny that this is the girl is about Melissa George, who is someone who went through this. Don't you love Melissa George at all?

[Ben]

And it's like, I don't.

[Griffin]

She's fine.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I don't know.

[David]

I have no problems with her.

[Ben]

I hate to be mean, but it's about these people. But it is so true. It's like all you go through these, like seasons of. Of. Of Faces, right. It's like. And I hate to be. I hate to say this, but like, in my mind it's like the Gretchen Mall, you know, the classic, no offense, you know, with the Vanity Fair. And then honestly, Ryan Philippe, like, I just was like, why.

[David]

Couldn't agree more.

[Ben]

Why is this just here Suddenly I.

[David]

Feel like he is not discussed enough as the male version.

[Griffin]

I mean, it's.

[David]

And I have always been like, I didn't ask for this.

[Griffin]

Even been a. A great actor.

[Ben]

But again, Hollywood. Hollywood marriage.

[David]

Yeah. Around a little too long.

[Ben]

Around a little too long with someone.

[Griffin]

Who was legit a guy I love. Like Colin Farrell, the juice.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Like, you know, the initial backlash Colin Farrell face that he then, you know, he merged and evolved or whatever was like people being like, yeah, we can smell you trying to force this guy on us. We're not sure how we feel about it. Like, even though they have the juice.

[David]

And the talent, it's like they were sold in the way that makes you go, look, this has mafia vibes.

[Ben]

Now, I do not want to go off on a tangent, so I'm just going to say this very briefly and I. I hate to be the person name, name dropping. Colin Farrell is the. Is probably the. The best Hollywood meeting I've ever had. Look, stunner. Stunner.

[David]

I hate to tell you, you've now there was an off ramp and David's going to welcome this conversation.

[Ben]

Class act. Class act. Beautiful succinct. Beautiful succinct conversation.

[David]

David will not move on from this.

[Griffin]

I. I will move on quickly.

[Ben]

Beautiful text after receiving the material. A beautiful long.

[Griffin]

Lovely to meet you.

[Ben]

Exactly. Lovely to meet you. You know, you know what David has.

[David]

On his desk over there?

[Ben]

Tell me it's a little leg.

[David]

I got him a little minor report.

[Griffin]

Colin Farrell's my favorite.

[David]

His number one guy.

[Griffin]

My favorite guy.

[David]

David's number one guy.

[Griffin]

Leslie, I will also say this. You are the second person I know who had a general meeting with Colin Farrell that didn't end up going anywhere, but also reported to me. That's like the best meeting I ever had.

[Ben]

I would.

[Griffin]

What a guy.

[Ben]

Always.

[Leslie]

What did he say to you about raising your daughter?

[Griffin]

I can find the quote. It's the. It's my pinned tweet on the normal website X that I never visit anymore.

[Leslie]

Such a trouble.

[David]

So you can tweet up from the graveyard.

[Griffin]

I told him that my daughter was a year old and he said, they grow. Keep watering her and make sure she gets sunlight. It was so cute.

[Ben]

Oh, he's such.

[David]

Didn't he say they grow?

[Griffin]

They grow. It was lovely. That was coconut friend of Leslie Hedlon.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

When I asked to interview him for after Yang and Koganata was like, I know you love Colin Farrell. You should just talk to Colin.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And instead I interviewed them together because Colin was being an unselfish star and trying to share the. But as the interview began, Koganada was like, colin, this guy loves you. I'm not going to talk. Like, you should just talk to him. And I was like, no, we have to. All of us have to talk.

[David]

But anyway, do you folks know.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

That Melissa George.

[Ben]

Oh, God.

[Griffin]

This is the girl.

[Ben]

This is the girl.

[Griffin]

That's what the scene is. Is the mob saying, this is the girl. Thoreau being like, what? What are you talking about? This is my movie. You can't pick my actress. What do you. You know. But what do you want to say about Melissa George?

[David]

I want to. I want to pull this up, get the name right. Melissa George has patents for inventions physical.

[Ben]

Shut the up.

[David]

She created a thing called Style Snaps, quote, a device intended to allow changing pant hem length without sewing that was sold on like shopping networks in Australia and still makes tremendous money to this day. And she's like, that's my main income. It's never been acting.

[Griffin]

Well, good for you.

[David]

Sort of like talks about her career in the way of someone on the business end of like a Mulholland Drive experience where she's like, the one consistent in my life. The thing that's kept me above water is that I created Stall Snaps when I was 22 years old, before Hollywood tried to sell me on.

[Griffin]

The aesthetics of this scene are if someone was having a dream about how Hollywood works a little bit like Justin Throw has his golf club laid out in front of him like a sword.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Right. Hidaya has the briefcase from which he's just pulling headshots.

[David]

Here's a meeting. We are Deciding that this person's a.

[Griffin]

Star, bad element is silent.

[David]

If you disagree, then you will be executed.

[Griffin]

And then essentially, what looks like basically like a hotel bellhop, a giant man in a red jacket, comes in with a tiniest espresso, gives it to Bottle Amenti, who drinks it and will not let it profane his throat. So it spits it onto a napkin and says it's. And everyone loses their mind. And they're like, this is really one of the best espressos in Hollywood. I don't know what's going on. And Hedaya screams at the top of his lungs.

[David]

The people in these corridor of power boardroom meetings who get to make the decisions that change the world or at least change the entertainment we can consume. The tapestry of the public consciousness in mainstream media are lunatics who spit coffee into napkins and act like blubbering idiots. But also, all of this feels kind of completely random. Right. Like, the core moment of this movie for me is Naomi Watts not to jump way ahead, nailing this audition and then looking at this other woman and being like, I'm about to not get this part for reasons that have nothing to do with me. And their decision of, like, we're telling you, it's this girl.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

There's like a controlled chaos of this scene.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

You know, it's like, even though everyone's.

[Griffin]

It's incredibly tense, you're not really sure why.

[David]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

There's like this thing. One thing that I wanted to ask you guys. There is like, what's interesting is that there's a hard iconography with some of the characters, like the bellhop and then the sort of blandness of everyone else. Not unlike the other guy in the winky scene. There's this sort of wash. Wash of white guys in a suit.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

But I was curious, like, what's the visual reference for Thoreau?

[David]

Is it.

[Ben]

Is it Tarantino? Is that.

[Griffin]

I feel like it's that kind of a guy. The black shirt.

[David]

I think it's the guy who wants to be the Tarantino.

[Ben]

Yeah. It's like, where did I wonder. It's like, I. I love the idea of lynch just sort of going. He's wearing these glasses, his hair is like this. He's got a golf club. Like, there's something about.

[Griffin]

It's a bit of self parody as well. I was gonna say lynch with the up hair.

[Ben]

I was gonna ask. Yeah, right. You know, that. That he's not. That he's a self. Insert character. But it's like. But the design of the character feels like.

[David]

But who's extremely. The younger 99 version of him. But also the version of him who is like, well, I gotta play the game to some degree. Right.

[Ben]

But he also. That you immediately clock him as the director too. That's what I love about lynch is.

[Griffin]

That you're just like, down to the golf club.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

It feels like Lynch. Go ahead.

[Ben]

So hot.

[David]

I was going to say, my distinct memory is watching this movie on DVD with my mother and he comes on screen and she gets hot and bothered. And for years after that, it was like, Justin Throw was her number one celebrity thriller.

[Griffin]

Like, where's Justin Throw? Why is he not in movies?

[David]

And anytime we were watching something that he was in and my dad would walk behind us and go, really? Him? And let's just say kindly, very handsome.

[Ben]

He's a pretty boy.

[David]

Is about as far off from Justin Throws that a person could probably possibly be. They're just very different types of men. But it was this thing of my mom being like, Justin th. Like, I saw him on the street. I saw him at Citarella. Justin Thoreau. Like, she'd say it like this. He'd be like, he's got like tattoos and spiky hair. What are you talking about?

[Griffin]

This is. This is certainly lynch parodying and working through hilarious, awful, evil Hollywood meetings he's had and putting them through his filter and his, you know, and this is.

[David]

Style version of him that is 20 more amenable to the terrible Hollywood nights.

[Griffin]

Right, right. But then also it's a self insert.

[David]

But it's also like a kind of a shadow self version of how his career could have gone astray.

[Ben]

Say, if, dude, he didn't have Final Cut. Like, if he didn't have that again, the blank check. Like, if he didn't have that, then he'd be this guy. Or he'd be stuck.

[David]

Dune had gone, okay, Amen, Right? He was like, I guess this is a partnership.

[Griffin]

Yeah, sure.

[David]

I make movies meet in the middle.

[Ben]

Dune is the best thing that ever, ever happened to him.

[David]

That is our exact take, I think.

[Griffin]

I think it's his take too, in a way. I mean, well, he hates talking about it, but like. But if it put him on the.

[Ben]

Path, he needs Room to Dream. In Room to Dream, he says that when you have, what, the blessing of a massive failure?

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Is there the only way the. The only direction is up? Yeah, there's only. You can only go up from there.

[David]

And also teaches you everything you never want to do again. Rather Than those being abstract ideas of maybe I could do something like this.

[Ben]

Yes, that's right. That's right.

[Griffin]

But within the text of the film. I do feel like now, again, obviously, in the TV pilot version, this is clearly just going to be a plot is Justin Throw plays this director. He has to cast Melissa George. What happens next? How will he interact with Betty, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

But if you're thinking about, you know, this is the. The sort of scenario of a scorned Hollywood starlet. Right. Or a person who didn't make it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

This is them being like, yeah, this, this is how the system works. Like it just, you know, the. In the wood paneled office, suddenly a shadowy mobster is like, no, you can't cast her.

[David]

You're. And why are you always in the conversation? But you never get the job. And of course, it's not completely out of reach.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

It's within grasp. And yet somehow you never grab it.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Thoreau freaks out.

[David]

Have to be forces at play.

[Griffin]

Smashes the window with his golf club.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And we cut to Mr. Ro. Michael J. Anderson again, who's just like, shut everything down and that's that.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The next scene, which again, this is the one I was like, this isn't in the podcast.

[David]

You like this scene?

[Griffin]

Okay, well, I like every seat of Mulholland Drive.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

No Mark Pellegrino talking to another guy who's laughing.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And the guy is clearly explaining what went wrong with the hit on Camilla. You know, Rita, whatever, you know. And this is crazy droid riders. And the Mark scene is.

[David]

Everything I hate about LA is that LA has people like this in offices like this.

[Griffin]

Aren't you happy that he gets shot and his hair turns into like a sort of fried, you know, feel good.

[David]

Moment of the movie for me.

[Griffin]

And then this insane slapstick plays out where the hitman accidentally shot someone else, like in another room, has to kill her. And then there's the cleaning man who's just staring blankly and he has to kill this.

[David]

Are you saying that you used to.

[Griffin]

I was like, there's no way that's in the pilot.

[David]

And it is.

[Ben]

It was in the pilot.

[Griffin]

Yes, it's all in the pilot. So I guess that was going to be something else too, right? Once I went over this guy.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

What do you guys. Any. Anything you want to offer on Mark Pellegrino Taking out an entire movie is.

[David]

Just this thing of like the difference of. I mean, now it's changed a little because TV shows are told to conceptualize themselves as 10 hour movies or whatever.

[Ben]

Right, right. Yeah.

[David]

But it used to be like this thing is so scattershot. You have no guarantee of how many episodes you get. That when you're designing a pilot, the idea is how to put enough pieces in play that there's open, expansive terrain of where this could go.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah.

[David]

You conceptualize a character like Mark Pellegrino and maybe there's a fixed end point you hope you get to. Or maybe not.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Maybe you're just like, you know what? This show needs a type of guy like this, a plot thread that exists in this kind of universe.

[Ben]

I got a real sense of. Again, watching the scene for the first time in the theater. I got this real sense of parody. I got this real sense of like. Because I feel like what was in the water then was this Coen Brothers, Tarantino.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[Ben]

Absolutely. Elmore Leonard, Barry Sonnenfeld.

[David]

Right. This scene feels like it could be from get shorting.

[Ben]

Yeah. It just feels. And then the parody of it is the continuation of just like. It feels like his commentary. Maybe not commentary, but his experience of watch. Of the temperature of Hollywood at that point.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Genre wise.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. That. It's like we. We see the. Is the next scene Thoreau again?

[Griffin]

No, the next scene after the big Hitman thing is dead. Betty and Diane like going through her bag and finding.

[Ben]

And finding all the money. Yeah.

[Griffin]

The key.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

You know, and I can't, said Betty. And I'm sorry, I'm so bad with the names Betty and Monica. No. And Rita crying and being like, I don't know who I am. Like the mystery advancing, basically.

[David]

Can I ask the two of you, as people who've studied this movie far more deeply than I have and seen it far more times than I have on the lynch clue list.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure.

[David]

Number three is can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is under?

[Ben]

Sylvia North Story? Yeah. And you hear it. You do hear it twice.

[David]

What is the meaning of that?

[Griffin]

Explain.

[David]

Yeah, I'm not going to do this with other things, but that was the one where I was like, I missed that. And I don't understand what the importance of that is.

[Griffin]

So the Sylvian.

[David]

I. I mean, I say it again, the title. The Sylvia North Story.

[Griffin]

Okay, so the movie that he's directing.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Kesher. The. Right, that's his name. Yeah. The Justin Thr character seems to be this kind of like American Graffiti 50s throwbacky thing. Right.

[David]

Also some biopicy possibly.

[Griffin]

I mean, the name is absurd.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Like the Sylvia north story.

[Leslie]

She's some kind of singer.

[Griffin]

Right. The audition scene is like a singer.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I'm not. What I'm never really clear at on is what the audition Betty does is. Because it's not for the Sylvia north story.

[Ben]

No.

[David]

That's a different director.

[Griffin]

Right. It's this like.

[Ben]

But. But later in the movie when it does get mentioned again.

[David]

When does it get mentioned again?

[Ben]

It gets mentioned again when she's at. She's at the house party in the other. They ask how. How. How Camilla and Diane met.

[Griffin]

She says, I was up for that.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And I had a smaller role. And then she doesn't say Camilla was great in that.

[Ben]

Yes. And doesn't she say. She. She said the director didn't like me. And he said, but Bob. He says, Bob Brooker or Bob Booker, whatever it is. And so that's the director at the audition.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

The project has also, like transmutated.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

What? The project, the Brass Ring project, the star making project is. Has changed at the same time that the identities have changed, you're saying.

[Griffin]

Basically.

[Ben]

Right, yeah.

[David]

The project that's never getting made has become the project.

[Ben]

The project that got made and then made someone a star.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

So it. To me, it's not necessarily. I don't know. Again, I don't. I want to ascribe meaning to the movie, but in walking through that, it does feel like. And because we see the cowboy again in that scene at the dinner party, it does feel like the. The. The random fate of Hollywood.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

Meaning the. The. The line between success and failure is so thin and it's so ephemeral.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

And that's why I keep coming back to this idea about the movie that. That it's not. This is not good or bad or bad or anybody.

[David]

It's not real or fantasy. It's that these two things are so close to each other and who knows why, they're almost indistinguishable and yet. And yet they feel wildly apart.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[David]

Right. And that's the whole experience of trying to live in a city like this that is run entirely on everyone's ambition or fear. Right. That it's everyone who doesn't have it trying to figure out how to get to the other side. And everyone who's on the other side being terrified of it going away somehow.

[Griffin]

You're also metatextually looking, you know, where you're. You're watching Amy movie that David lynch initially made for a television network.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Right. And then when we exit the TV network version of it and it's made With European money. Right. It's like. It's like. So I'm kind of with you on like, is that reality? No, it's an entirely different way of storytelling.

[David]

This is what's interesting too, is like, when we're talking about. That's weird. Why would he put the Mark Pellegrino version in the TV show you're watching and trying to of go, like, so what would he have done for that character over X number of episodes or seasons.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Versus him, them going, well, now this character is a closed loop. Everything I ever want to say about this character happens within this.

[Griffin]

No, no, there's more Mark Pellegrino in the movie.

[David]

Like, that's what I'm saying, though.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. But like, right now, this is what I have to work with, right? This scene.

[David]

Now everything I want to say has to be in this movie, right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And it's the same with every character in this film.

[Griffin]

But obviously you can sort of, you know, if you want to be more basic about it, I guess you can write. You can sort of think of it as like, this is her rerunning something that didn't work out for her, you know, as. No, what I did was I crushed that fucking audition. I was going to be taken to him. We meet, our eyes lock, like, this is my moment. Then it's like, but Adam, you have to watch. Melissa George is about to do our audition and you have to say, this is the girl, you know?

[Ben]

Well, I also think that there's. There's also this of like, when you compare those two scenes, that there's this. She is triumphant in this scene, but the film is not getting made. In the other version, she fails miserably and the director doesn't like her.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

And the movie is a success, you know, so there's this feel again, who. This is why I hesitate to say one's reality and one's not, because those two things are outside of her control. We know she's a great actress because we saw it. And.

[David]

And the feeling of that audition room and the weird reality that's created within it that she, like, accepts and enters into and like, wins the game. And then you walk out the doors and the behavior of the three other women who should be her allies in this industry. You host. Aren't there three others?

[Griffin]

Two, but they're like, doesn't that woman.

[Ben]

Come in at the end?

[Griffin]

Disaster. Maybe someone else.

[Ben]

They get introduced.

[Griffin]

The old casting agent lady is basically. Basically like, that poor guy. He's never gonna make that piece Of. But you were great.

[David]

That her first line, walk out the door. It's like their performance has changed their energies change the second they leave that room. What a disaster.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

You're feeling the way Naomi Watts.

[Griffin]

What do you mean?

[David]

And they're like, no, no, you were incredible. None of that means anything.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

That was nothing.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

That's a bunch of something.

[David]

And that will work out in some other way.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And I'll bring you across.

[Ben]

And again, that's the experience of being in Hollywood, which is like, you can do the best that any. I mean, that scene is transformative. When I watched that in the theater, I was like, you know, I've been watching. You know, you're kind of experiencing it. Experiencing. Experience it. When she does that audition, you're like, who the is this woman?

[David]

And it's the metaphor.

[Ben]

Who the are you?

[David]

It is that for Naomi Watts as well.

[Ben]

And this is the thing in terms of, like, casting Anne Miller, casting Penny Patrick, it's like, I am going to. Instead of going with the. He could have cast. I mean, I guess because of the TV of it all, he probably couldn't cast a movie star, but even still.

[David]

But he could have cast someone who was more well known in TV but not in leading roles or whatever.

[Ben]

He could have, like, not unlike Kyle McLaughlin. He could have convinced an actress that he'd worked with before to say, like, this is gonna be something special, etc. Etc.

[David]

It's not a star. He could have found a more familiar face versus someone who really was new to. To anyone who hadn't watched Tank Girl, a Futures Ben's Choice episode.

[Ben]

Oh, God. So, yeah. So there's the. So he is. What's odd is that he over and over again relies on your public consciousness of something that you probably don't know about.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

But he. It's weird. He sort of trusts the fact that you experienced a cultural osmosis.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Again, subconsciously, possibly. So that as you're watching Naomi Watts go through the experience that she has actually gone through in her life and knows that this is the audition that she must nail. And to watch her. I have never been so thrilled by a performance.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I mean, I've enjoyed performances. I've admired performances, but I found it thrilling.

[David]

Well, you're watching someone make the argument for their worthiness in real time.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And the character's doing that, and the actress playing the scene is doing.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Where they're like, I need to be undeniable in this moment.

[Ben]

And the footnote is the movie's not getting made.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

The footnote again. The punctuation on the scene is. None of that matters.

[David]

So quickly. They say at the same time. Of course, none of that mattered. But also it mattered because you impressed us.

[Ben]

Because you impressed us. And now we're going to.

[David]

Then they go to the other room, and the other room is inaccessible to her for reasons. Forces that are outside of her control of perception.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

She looks in the eyes of this other. Other woman and feel some sense of transference. And it's like, I don't get why it's her and not me.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

But there's something going on here that's unknowable.

[Ben]

And there is no reason.

[David]

Correct.

[Ben]

You know, there's.

[David]

It's meaningless. They don't explain to Justin Thoreau. They just go, this is what it has to be.

[Ben]

That's why I think that the arm. Whatever. I don't know. The actor. The Michael J. Anderson. The man from another.

[Griffin]

Yeah, the arm. Canonically, the arm.

[Ben]

The arm.

[Griffin]

You're all right.

[Ben]

He is the army. Well, he's kind of the arm here. Right. Like, there's just this image, not unlike the cowboy and the gooblin. There are just these images of. Of chaos. Like, there is no way that. No. That you can control what is going to happen to you in life, but specifically in this particular industry.

[David]

Absolutely.

[Ben]

You know, like, there's no. And. And, you know, not. I know we're kind of skipping over it, but to. To bring it back to the. To the Thoreau cucked scene.

[Griffin]

I'm bringing us back.

[Ben]

Don't worry. Well, the cucked scene is.

[Griffin]

I have much more to say about the audition. But the cuck scene is now next after the shitty day he has. He arrives home, his wife has the. The pool man, Billy Ray Cyrus. And he, in a very Freudian act, despoils his wife's jewelry box with paint.

[David]

Yep.

[Ben]

In a very Freudian.

[Griffin]

Yeah, Graham Fuller said that in his review. I've never forgotten it.

[David]

Interesting.

[Griffin]

If you think a jewelry box is sort of a vaginal secret, metaphorical. He's dumping pain on it. Dumps pain all over it.

[Ben]

Oh, that's so funny.

[Griffin]

Like this destructive, odd sexual response to this.

[Ben]

I felt it to be just another example of his. Of his powerlessness.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[Ben]

And his. Again, the whims of the fate. And his. Impotence. Yes, impotence in every single way.

[Griffin]

This very impotent act.

[Ben]

He can't choose the girl, so he.

[Griffin]

Can'T fight this man.

[Ben]

He can't. He can't fight this man. He can't fight the mob. He can't fight the mob. He. His acting out.

[David]

He can fight the sort of theatrics around her of like, this is your like play acting.

[Ben]

To me it's a. It's a mirror. Exactly. It's a mirror of. Of the golf club into the windshield. And the way he runs away.

[Griffin]

Another impudent act of like, these are objects of status.

[Ben]

The objects of status that I'm going to destroy. And so it feels like this, this again, this kind of like odd acting out in a way that is never actually going to affect the actions that have already transpired. That's what I thought you were going to say about Freudian. Like, I thought you meant like the. Yeah, that's what I thought.

[David]

Objects of status that he's going to destroy. But in both cases he is basically causing surface damage.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[David]

The windshield's been busted. The car. The car hasn't been destroyed.

[Griffin]

Shouldn't drive the car.

[David]

Yeah, you're Ben and you maybe have a strong take on how it could fit into a fashion line, but in both cases he's affecting the most surface.

[Griffin]

Level of the thing in a way, a hundred percent. It's. I also think Billy Ray Cyrus is very funny, that his mode is basically, hey man, just leave and don't forget about it. You know, don't worry about it. And then when he starts what I would do and he like shoves the. The woman, Billy Ray goes into kind of like, all right, buddy mode and then just finally calls him out. I just think that's funny. I think he's so funny. It's a very funny performance from Billy.

[David]

Ray Cyrus, one of our finest actors.

[Ben]

And the last thing I'll say about the impotence of it all is that then when he goes through the rest of. Or not the rest of the movie, but like for the next few scenes that he's in, he's covered in pink.

[Griffin]

He is covered.

[Ben]

He's not covered in blood.

[Griffin]

Cool guy. Holly Wood, all black outfit is now this kind of weird comical, like paint stained thing.

[Ben]

Girly paint.

[Griffin]

Yes, absolutely. I don't think David lynch selected these.

[David]

Things, you know, offhand, but I think again, just throwing.

[Ben]

I mean, I don't know. Again, I don't think he makes these like, intentional.

[Griffin]

Again, it's not like I've left you a clue. You better figure out the clue. There's only one answer to the clue. No, of course not.

[David]

He sort of feels like listening to the music and just being like for some reason this is calling out to me, and I'm just gonna do it without explaining.

[Ben]

And that's what I felt watching it for the first time. I just felt like this guy's. This guy is.

[David]

He's tapped into something.

[Ben]

He's just. And that Justin Theroux is just sort of a. Not that he's not talented, but that he's so. He's so hobbled that to me. I was, like, watching it, and I was like, God, this guy's super hot. And then as it kept going, I was like, God, this guy's pathetic.

[Griffin]

He seems pathetic. And it's like, right.

[David]

He thinks undeterred.

[Griffin]

As a director, you're like, I'm now in control. Right.

[David]

Like, that's the whole point being one concession. And it's like, did I just give up the whole thing?

[Leslie]

He feels really Gen X.

[Griffin]

You're. You're not wrong.

[David]

He's not wrong.

[Ben]

That's the reference. That's what I was trying to figure out. There's something about it that was like that attitude.

[David]

Basically, right as that is dying, as we're on, like, you know, you're on two sides of Y2K. Okay.

[Ben]

Y.

[David]

And it's like, this is the guy who used to be. Tip of the spear. Coolest.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Youngest, freshest. And this guy's about to be phased out by whatever's coming.

[Ben]

It's not just phased out.

[Griffin]

It's more like, hey, I get to make a big movie. I can do what I want, right? No, you get to do what we tell you to do. You. I'm going to do what I want. Okay, well, now you have no money.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Now your life is falling apart. Now you have to go to beg. Cookie, God bless him, seems like a nice guy. Big white mustache.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

For, you know, a room for that. The night. Yeah, this. You know, in between the cucking scene and the scene I'm about to talk about, we have more of Diane and Rita. Betty and Rita. Jesus Christ. You know, they call what. What they think might be her phone number. Like, she figures out her name. Maybe my name's Diane because she sees it on a waitress's name tag.

[Ben]

Then these outfits are just psychotic. Like, what are these girls wearing? They just look cra. It's literally like they went to Party City.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Or Claire's or whatever.

[Griffin]

Money.

[Ben]

And they just.

[Griffin]

Except for in a bag.

[Ben]

Yeah. And they're hiding it. Yeah, they hide them. Which, you know, they look like fake.

[David]

Clothes in a way I can't describe any better.

[Ben]

That's correct.

[David]

They don't look like costumes.

[Ben]

Yeah. They look like fake clothes.

[Griffin]

Fake.

[Ben]

What are they made? But you know what I'm saying, They're not even made of fabric.

[Griffin]

There is.

[David]

It's beyond fast fashion. It's like rapid instant fashion.

[Griffin]

There is a brief and comic scene in which the mob dispatches a person I can only describe as a golem who is like 40ft tall and wide.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

To the same house. That. And he's just like. What's the guy's. Adam Kesher, right? Yeah, Adam Casher. And both the. The wife and Billy Ray Cyrus like, try to charge this guy and he just like, shrugs them off. There's that shot where he like, turns his hand into a fist where he's like, I have to go fist mode to like punch one of them.

[Ben]

No, she punches her in the face, right?

[Griffin]

She's like on top of him.

[Ben]

And I. That made such an impression on me the first time I watched it too. I was like.

[Griffin]

But he, like, doesn't even acknowledge. He's still just going Adam Kasher. And it's like, this is what they have. They have these robot automatons that are strong.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yes. That's all.

[David]

They wrote his name on a piece of paper and fed it into his mouth.

[Griffin]

Exactly.

[Leslie]

But when you saw it, did this really disturb you, this scene?

[Ben]

Well, it disturbed me because of how funny it was.

[Griffin]

The audience is laughing too. I feel like that.

[David]

I think it is true. Truly the X factor with Lynch's career where you're like, how can a guy make things that are this abstract and against the norms of Hollywood storytelling that more often than not have hit to some degree and connected with the public, even if they can't quite make sense of the story. And the answer is that he is inexplicably funny.

[Ben]

He really is.

[David]

And if. If people are laughing, they're a lot more willing to tolerate some shit they don't understand because they're being locked into a physiological response.

[Griffin]

I also just remember the audience at this point. We're pretty freaked out. We've already met the winkies guy. This is a weird, tense movie. So these scenes, like the Billy Ray Cyrus scene, even the mob yelling scene. Like, you're kind of like, this is funny, right? Like, this is weird and funny. Calm down.

[David]

Disarming you with comedy.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Future guest Kevin Smith has talked about past and future. Yep. When. When Clerks, like, blew up at Sundance. And here's a movie that was made for no money.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

By un. Non professionals with non professional cast, you know, with like threadbare production values. And whatever. And everyone flips out over it and he's like, the answer is like, the thing I was able to convey in that movie was something funny. The audience was laughing. And Hollywood cannot, like, buy that on purpose. You know, you have to find someone who has the instincts. And if, like, the audience is laughing, studios are kind of like, I, I guess it works.

[Ben]

That's. I, I, I, I, I was, I was at a film festival and John, John Waters was interviewing Roger Corman.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And he said, what, what do you think of the, you know, what, what genre, you know, would you not. Not do?

[David]

Or.

[Ben]

The hardest genre. And he immediately was like, comedy.

[David]

It is.

[Ben]

Because you know immediately whether it's working.

[David]

Or not, it's less subjective.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

If you're like an exec who's watching a screening of a fucking thing.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

You're like, well, either people are laughing or they're not.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

I can't fight with that.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And it's the same kind of thing where if, like, if lynch can nail five things in a movie that are inexplicably funny.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

People are like. I guess there are, like, handles for people.

[Ben]

Right, right, right, right. There was something, too, that, like, when I watched this the first time, that this. You're absolutely right. The scene kind of got me back in.

[Griffin]

They're just so confused, intense.

[Ben]

Well, the, well, the mystery.

[Griffin]

A guy getting cheated on by Billy Racer. You. You're like.

[Ben]

Well, it's more active. It's more active than the A story. You know, the A story has now sort of morphed into.

[David]

It's so elusive, and it's kind of.

[Ben]

Like you've seen it before. It's like they're starting to. The detective aspect of it is starting to fall, to hit the familiar beats.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

You know, you're not.

[David]

Is this pastiche.

[Ben]

Yeah. You don't. These scenes are actually the most energetic. They're the scenes. I mean, again, the Mark Pellegrino scene as well, they just start to pop. They start to give you these, these shots of comedy. And like you said, I think it's.

[David]

Twin Peaks back and forth. It's the dance of, like. Well, just the murder mystery of the girl isn't the thing. You have to go between that and a log lady or whatever.

[Griffin]

You know, the soap opera of it.

[David]

Like Twin Peaks, but it's moving between these spaces.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The. Yes. Because the, the Betty and Rita is like Betty, you know, being playing Nancy Drew and being like. Well, maybe it's this, you know, and then the occasional scene of like Lee Grant shows up at their door and is like, someone is in trouble. And you're again. Then as an audience member, you're back to like, oh God, like something weird's about to happen.

[David]

Lee Grant, famously like one of the most blacklisted actresses down, has 20 years Valley of the Doll work like a young upand comer, gets an Oscar nomination, then is like benched.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And then comes back and like wins basically the revenge Oscar and has like an incredible career. Becomes a filmmaker lasting decades. But like someone who comes in with that sort of baked in power of.

[Griffin]

Like she's quite old.

[David]

Both.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

She's still alive.

[David]

Yeah. But this is someone who represents both like the best and worst outcome.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[David]

For them, disposing of you. Well, that's the thing.

[Griffin]

Because like Coco shows up and is like, oh, don't worry about her. She's just an old kook. Like, don't. But like, right. It's like if Coco is this more put together, like I'm an old Hollywood broad and like here I am now running this little.

[Ben]

You know, and it's the point from age and then you for her.

[Griffin]

Right. And then you have this like weird ghost lady who's like, you know, like.

[Ben]

You'Re like, she's sort of again the in between place, like being good, but the movie gets canceled. Being bad and the movie does well. Lee Grant represents essentially. Or again, not represents. I don't want to say that. But the, the, the scene, it's also. It's a two shot. There's no coverage. It's just you have to experience both these women at the same time.

[David]

Let's put it this way. Lee Grant, my opinion, one of the greatest screen actors of all time.

[Ben]

Agreed.

[David]

I think. Incredible. Incredible. Right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Made it.

[Ben]

Made it.

[David]

Was in Hollywood. Was getting Oscar noms. Was validated.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And then there's 15 years of them basically being like, that's a crazy lady. Don't pay attention to her.

[Ben]

Get out of here.

[David]

We treat her like a ghost.

[Ben]

We don't care.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

The 50s and 60s, you are dead.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

She's on the blacklist. None of those credits she had before matter. Right. And you are.

[Griffin]

I understand what you're saying. Absolutely. That's the point. That's the point of her being some miracle.

[David]

And she's talked about it so much, it didn't drive her insane.

[Ben]

No.

[David]

And she thankfully had this like incredible second act.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

But that's how she was treated was like Coco being like, don't fucking.

[Ben]

Don't worry about Her.

[David]

That's not a thing.

[Ben]

That's not a thing.

[David]

That's not a thing.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

After this, Justin Throw's character goes to meet a guy called the cowboy up in a ranch. And, you know, like. And I do feel like that's also. Lynch is like, in Hollywood. Right. There's a magic road at the top of the hill that, like, winds like a snake.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

There are diners in the middle of downtown that feel like they're from, you know, a small town. There's a fucking cowboy ranch. Like, you just drive 10 miles and suddenly you're in the desert and it is. And there's a cowboy ranch.

[Ben]

But if you go to the top of. I think it's like, not Benedict Canyon.

[Griffin]

But you could say anything. I would know.

[Ben]

Yeah, Runyon Canyon or something like that. There is a corral up there.

[Griffin]

That's what I'm saying. Because it's old Hollywood. Like, let's go shoot the western.

[David]

Is this a real ranch or a movie ranch? Well, it was a movie ranch, but now they don' really film stuff, so it's kind of a real ranch.

[Ben]

Again, I think we can talk about what the cow. I would love to know what you guys think the cowboy sort of represents, quote, unquote. But when. Again, when I was my experience of watching this and it was more rewatching it for this, that I did wonder again with the stilted language, the still or the stilted performance, the strange language, the fact that he's wearing this, literally the clothes of the first western star in silent film. It feels the beginning of Hollywood to me.

[Griffin]

The most elemental kind of elemental brute.

[Ben]

Force, you know, icon. And then this stilted language that feels like a. A silent movie star moving into the talkies. That's sort of. Here's where two the. The obnoxious, impotent.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Gen X. Admittedly hot, you know, director.

[David]

There's another part of it in my reading which is here is this guy. He's had like, actual, like, sort of like mafia, tough guy, criminals, weirdos. Be like, this is happening. You're casting her. And Justin tho's still trying to fight against it. Impotently. He's trying to pour paint in their jewelry box.

[Ben]

That's right.

[David]

Even though he knows they control the purse strings. Right. And guys like like this are in this dance of like, do I stick to my guns and not get the movie made? Or is there a way I can meet them halfway and make my dune? And it works, right?

[Ben]

And it just.

[David]

And those people think of themselves as cowboys.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

You're taking a last. You're not listening to the notes or you choose the one battle. I'll, I'll give them this, but I can. If I win everything else, then it's still my movie. Right. Which is basically what the cowboys saying to him. This archetype of not just movie history, but of the kind of renegade. How do you meet in the middle between business and commerce, or rather business and art. Commerce and art. Right. And what he's saying to him in a much more even keeled tone than Hidea or anyone is if you cast the girl, you can do anything else you want.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but I mean there's just. Look this, it's classic lynch in that there's lots of things you can project onto it. But I also feel like lynch is like. I feel like he's going to meet a cowboy. I have his, this idea that's cowboy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And the cowboy will tell him, essentially your attitude governs your life. Sometimes there's a buggy, you know, we'll speak in these kinds of almost like western versions of like Eastern aphorisms. It's basically like you need to.

[David]

Over the western movies are all these cowboy poets. The moral reason of I stroll into a town and it's like, what is the empirical right that I have to do and I have to protect?

[Griffin]

But like he's also, he's this, right. This definition of old masculinity. Like, you know, the pulling the levers of Hollywood. Fine. But it's also like, it's very easy to read this movie as you know, she, Diane, who you know, whoever is dreaming the movie. Much of the movie has descended into maybe some sort of sex work. We see her sleeping in a bed. The cowboy comes in and says it's time to wake up. He's sort of pimp coated at that moment, like at no other. There's stuff like that.

[David]

Also the blurry line between literal sex work and the sort of like exchange of sex for power.

[Griffin]

Action. You're going to be someone's date. Exactly.

[David]

Like, do you have agency? Are you choosing to do this? Or are you manipulated into a broken system that actually is. Deprived you of agency by even putting you in the position where that's the choice.

[Ben]

And that's because. And, and then it's followed very. Followed very closely to what you guys are saying. Like almost, you know, like a scene or two later is the audition.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Which I want to talk about. But the, the cowboy says, you'll see me once. If you do good, you'll see me Twice. If you do bad, we see him saying, it's time to wake up. We see him once. We see him again very briefly, in the background of the party scene. Much, much later in the movie, after.

[Ben]

Melissa George has exited.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

He does a wipe.

[Griffin]

He just walks by. He is completely incongruous in that scene because everyone else is dressed for a party and he is dressed like a cowboy. And that is like one of those things where you're like. This is the thing Hollywood doesn't like to think about that. They're like, guys like that. Right. You know, like, he clashes so much with the nice aesthetics of that. That party. There's that cowboy in the background. It's like, yeah, well, you know, half the girls here, like.

[David]

And I think in Los Angeles, you see people like that, where you're like, how do you exist? What is your life been for the last 40 years?

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

You're like this all the time.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

The cowboy is also, I will say, just. It is a very funny scene. Like, the way he's talking is funny. The whole bizarreness of Thoreau being like, the. What are you talking about? The cowboys talking to him, like, just with no expression. No eyebrows. It's funny.

[Ben]

Yeah. No eyebrows. Yeah.

[Griffin]

It's creepy and funny and cool. And it's why people like David Lynch. Yeah.

[David]

Because he's fine.

[Griffin]

The next scene is the rehearsal of the audition, which is so crucial to the audition.

[Ben]

Right.

[Griffin]

Is how shitty Betty is in the rehearsal, in that moment, the best moment, where she. She's doing the line. She's sort of selling them, like I would sell them or whatever.

[David]

And the way.

[Griffin]

And then she goes. And then I, like, cry, blah, blah, blah. And I say this one last thing.

[David]

Here's the other thing.

[Griffin]

And that's where her performance really comes alive.

[David]

She's doing a shitty, superficial performance. And yet you can see the difference of. She is fundamentally an actor in a way that the Laura Heron character is not.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

She's just reading. Helping her read. And you're like, well, undeniably, she has more juice than someone who has no acting ability. But yet you are not prepared for what she's about to do in the actual.

[Ben]

No, you're not prepared at all. And you're. You're absolutely right that it's crucial for us to know the scene before the scene happens.

[Griffin]

Correct.

[Ben]

It's definitely the setup for the payoff.

[David]

How it's quote unquote.

[Griffin]

If you don't have the first part, the second part doesn't hit nearly as much. Yeah.

[Ben]

And that's the thing that I think is so interesting is that again with the.

[Griffin]

You're right. That there are three ladies sitting there. I don't know where the third lady ends up.

[David]

Thank you, David.

[Griffin]

When they're walking, there's only two. I don't know.

[David]

This is Blackbird Gate all over again.

[Ben]

At the last part of the scene, like when everybody's leaving, I feel like one more lady comes in and you're like, who the fuck is that?

[Griffin]

Well, anyway, the audition.

[Ben]

So the audition again. I think that when he puts these things in, he says, here's the bad audition and here's the good audition. What I think is interesting is that with Lynch's work, everybody sort of leans into the positive side of the dream.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And they say. Or, you know, there's the negative side and then there's the positive side.

[David]

There's a negative judgment he's making. You're saying people.

[Ben]

And then you have to make that value judgment. So for example. So for example, we think of the Betty Rita as, as a dream because it is so heightened. All of these good things are happening to everybody. So in our mind we go, that's not reality. But, but why do you know what I mean? Like we, we think of this as fake. And yet in this storyline, in this quote unquote dream that everybody is saying that this is Diane's dream.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[Ben]

We see this scene that is so realistic, it feels so dropped again. Like there was no part of me that was prepared with the tone of how she was behaving and how Reed is behaving and what their storyline has been like.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

For her, for her to drop in the way that she does.

[Griffin]

I don't find this scene realistic.

[David]

I think her performance is realistic than anything.

[Griffin]

How I feel about this scene, which I think is an incredibly important scene.

[David]

I'd love to let you talk about it.

[Griffin]

There's a bunch of stuff going on here. One, it is this again, Hollywood pastiche. You've got the crusty orange face, soap opera actory kind of guy with a. I'm going to do this one a little close.

[David]

Yeah. And let me tell you how acting works, right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

You've got the direct.

[David]

I've been around the block a few times.

[Griffin]

You got the nice guy producer in the sweater who's like, meet everyone, you know. Right. You got the, the. The lady sitting there quietly and you're.

[David]

So unclear on the power structure of the ladies where he's like, she's the best cast actor. I wish we could do.

[Ben]

I wish she was. Yeah, reveal the ex wife thing until later.

[David]

But you're like, what she doing here?

[Ben]

Power dynamics are difficult to. To. Because really, everyone's at the same level. No, no one is blocked in a way that we would understand.

[Griffin]

And it's so intimate.

[Ben]

It's so intimate.

[Griffin]

The directors, the director is this hilarious parody.

[David]

And the second you leave this room, your perception of every single person changes immediately.

[Ben]

Exactly. Exactly where you're.

[David]

You're watching and you're like, well, this guy's a big enough star that he reads with the actresses and he gets to make the decision. She leaves. They're like, this project's not going. You're like, so that guy's not a big enough star for this to actually mean anything.

[Ben]

That's right.

[Griffin]

No, he's a crusty old creep. No offense to him, but he is, and I think he is an old soap opera actor. Lynch loves that kind of guy.

[Leslie]

Also in the script, she's talking about her dad.

[Griffin]

Yes. Okay. So this is what would make no sense, like, for him to be. The crux of everybody's theorizing about the film is this scene.

[David]

I agree.

[Griffin]

It's like, why does she suddenly come alive like this?

[Ben]

If the. If the winking scene is the thesis, then this is the turning point of, like, you know, that. These things. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Why is this cute, bubbly girl who shows no real sign of talent outside of being nice, suddenly wearing killer noir, like, real actor? She's crying. The emotion is right. Right. Like, why is it so good? Now, if you want to think about this scene one way, it's like we are in her dream, right? We're in this. This failed actress's dream. One, she's imagining she crushed the scene. Great. That's the. But two, this is about, you know, this scene play. It comes close to her real life of, like, she did something terrible. She did something dark. She acted out of revenge. Like, suddenly we're seeing reality bubble into the dream. Right. Of, like, now.

[Ben]

But is it reality?

[Griffin]

I don't. I'm just. I'm just talking. I'm not saying this is a definitive read.

[Ben]

I'm just talking.

[David]

Okay.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Griffin]

A lot of people think this film is about much, like, much David lynch stuff. Abuse. Like, very, very dark abuse that happened to Betty, Diane, Whoever, Naomi Watts, long ago. What did the old people represent? Like, you know, this terrifying, like, specter of her life, you know, long ago. Right. Like, who then finally charge at her before she dies.

[David]

The family past that she ran away from, but also was running back to and yeah.

[Griffin]

Why does she suddenly. Suddenly, like, flip a switch when she's in this, like, creepy scenario.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Where this dad figure is. Suddenly has his hands all over her. You know what I mean? Like, what does the cowboy represent? What does the best moment in the movie in Silencio. Club Silencio. Not to jump a little bit forward.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

When essentially the guy just, you know, makes thunder noises and she starts rattling in her seat. What does that represent if not someone searching, surfacing, some kind of trauma. And the trauma can be, oh, this is the dream of a woman who had her girlfriend killed and that's it coming out. Right. Or it can be something else. And like so much David lynch, such as Twin Peaks, is about him trying to reckon with that, like, unspeakable darkness.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would almost argue that for me, this is the best scene in the movie. As opposed to Celestial. I think Silencio is the best. No, I would listen.

[Griffin]

It's weird to rank scenes in Mulhausen.

[Ben]

It would be strange. I. But I would say that this was. This was the scene that, like, that moved the. The film from intriguing.

[Griffin]

Right. Like, what's going on here?

[Ben]

And just cementing it as a masterpiece in my mind, you know, so maybe it's not the best or the most important, but whatever.

[Griffin]

This is the scene where you're right. Where you're suddenly like.

[Ben]

And what I felt was. Watching it for the first time, what I felt was survival. That's what I thought watching her was that she switched the power dynamics and the status of everybody for survival. So it's not.

[Griffin]

She's being thrown into the water kind of. Right.

[Ben]

And that. The way that she combats that is a weird mixture of acquiescence and agency.

[David]

I agree.

[Ben]

It's so weird.

[David]

This is my exact.

[Griffin]

She's playing the role they all want her to play.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

It is the diamond in the rough.

[Ben]

But she makes the. It's very clear. Clear that he. That with. With the hand going. Pushing the hand further onto herself, that she. That. And for her to say, like, yes, we're doing this, but I am going to protect myself. It is within.

[David]

Yeah. My read is it is a Faustian bargain. And the key part of the story of Faust is that Faust says, yes, the deal is presented to him. And he goes, I think I can make this work. Much like Ed Hosley. He goes, I can make this play out in my favor.

[Griffin]

Right. He's sort of ostensibly not being tricked. It's like, right, the deal's on the table. And you know what it is.

[David]

Here's a guy setting up fake rules for a game, right. He's saying, well, we're doing that classic thing where we play it real close. You're a creep and you want to touch my body.

[Ben]

You're disgusting.

[David]

Right. You're giving them the look like, hey, I'm going to do the same thing with her I did with that other woman earlier. You're like, okay. So when he thinks they're attractive, he plays the season especially.

[Griffin]

As we now know this is kind of a fake audition in a weird.

[David]

Then he's turning to her and saying, like, you know, because acting is reacting. I need to be getting something to react off of. And it's turning into this lesson to justify why he's acting like a creep. But she actually takes that lesson. She actually reacts right where she goes. If he's going to do something that is not allowed, then what can I get off of this? What he's doing. That unlocks a different part of the performance. Whether it's unlocking something because it is tied to a memory of an experience she's had or.

[Griffin]

Exactly. Or this is just how Hollywood is.

[David]

She thinks if you do this, and especially if I can use this and turn it into art.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

Make it into something as static. As someone I'm in control again.

[Ben]

And as someone that has been very deeply abused in this industry, your instinct is to somehow you have to survive it.

[Griffin]

Turn. Turn lead into gold in the moment.

[Ben]

You have to survive it. And you just go into fight or flight. But I think what this scene is. Is exemplified is like I was saying, it's somehow you have to transcend what's happening to you.

[David]

It's almost like.

[Ben]

Cause that's abuse. Right. Is that you just leave your body, you know, like, and you just go into a particular survival mode. And what's so awesome about this scene is that her version of that switches the status of everybody in the room.

[David]

Yeah. Here's another thing. As the last, like eight years, there's finally been a more open discourse about, like the sort of abuse of power in Hollywood. And when there's literal abuse or when even just the abuses people putting in this type of situation.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

This kind of test to offer this as a test.

[Ben]

It is a test. It is absolutely a test.

[David]

It's a test like, it's how bad do you want it? Which is the. The shorthand people use when they play scenes like this out, right?

[Ben]

Yeah. It is this test of. Of if. If you withstand this in this moment, not. Not you have to do it right now. How are you going to. How are you going to survive this then? If Hollywood runs on fear. Yes, they are. In that moment, you are asked to produce the fuel of this.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

Of this, of this city and this industry.

[David]

And the thing I find interesting in a way that's, you know, emotionally overwhelming. But the last eight years were sud. Suddenly it's like the black box has been opened and there's a landscape in which people can share stories as survivors.

[Ben]

Right. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Right. And it's not just the most top extreme, like monster, monster, monster. It's the right.

[David]

It's the low level one person. Right. Who's suddenly now like a ton of victims come out of the woodwork or whatever it is. Let's. Let's use like Kevin Spacey as an example. Right. You have stories where it's like he did this to this extreme. Physical boundaries were crossed and this and that. And there are also stories where it's like Adam Anthony rap, right? Where he's like, he crawled on top of me and I pushed him off.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And some people would go, well, so he didn't rape you. What's the problem?

[Griffin]

Right. Like you're like, take it to court.

[David]

Create the test.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Of I'm trying this and seeing how you respond.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Your reality has forever been broken. Something has changed in that room. The second the guy says nice and close, it's like, well, fucking do you play it?

[Griffin]

It's even below. Right. Forget space era. It's right. It's more just what you're talking about. Just the general context of a casting scene.

[David]

It's before the scene starts.

[Griffin]

Right. Of just where no one would ever, you know, call the police over like there was an awful five cast.

[Ben]

The shocking thing that I experienced, again being very intensely abused is in, in. In this industry is it comes out of. Out of nowhere. It's. Even if you know the person is abusive, you're still surprised that it come. That it's actually. And you're shocked that they actually did it within that context. Going back to what you were saying about winkies and just the, the understanding that, you know, unhoused person, we just.

[David]

Agree that she doesn't open up. That's her space. And this is our space.

[Ben]

There is a bizarre thing that happens when you are. Are shoved or screamed at or threatened.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That. That you are in a room full of people like this. Full of people. Usually men, usually, you know, older men. And you are on you are. There is no one helping you.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

No one steps in and says Stop doing that.

[David]

And also, sometimes it's three women sitting on a couch watching it happen.

[Ben]

Exact.

[David]

And, like, looking at them and you go.

[Griffin]

And almost checked out. Like, just like.

[David]

And. And the feeling is, well, they're not acting like, this is weird. Well, that's. Why am I weird for thinking something's weird.

[Ben]

Exactly. And there's no. There's no reaction shot. That's the other thing. And I think that's how he expresses probably what he has experienced is that the abuse happens and then there's no reaction. And so the audience is going, I'm expecting a reaction. And it's like, no, it's only your reaction, viewer.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

That's. You're the only person who's going to react to what is happening to her.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

You might just watch this movie and not think about it. Like, that's the scene where she crushes the audition. And then you see it a second time and you're like, oh, it's funny how they're arranged, like the, you know, the people in the room. And then you watch it again. You're like, oh, I see how the old guy is not acting, is trying something. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh. Right. You know, whatever. It's.

[David]

There's more performance in the setup of the audition than there is in the performance that happens within the audition of everyone playing their roles of being benevolent and happy, Performative.

[Ben]

Kind of. Yeah, absolutely.

[David]

And then it's like what we're saying of, where the fuck did this come from? What did she just drop into? It's like the veil has dropped and now she's actually in the context of. I'm faking it. Achieving a greater reality.

[Ben]

That is what's crazy. It's like, oh, my God. It's so triggering because you're right. It's like you come into the situation and everybody is so, like. Like cordial.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

You know, everybody is behaving the way that we have all agreed that people behave. And what's so shocking. And again, I. That my experience, it's. It's this particular industry, is that there is this performative aspect of. This is a safe. Not even safe space. This is just a normal space.

[David]

Normal.

[Ben]

This is just a normal.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

You know, this is how it is. This is just how it is. We're all working, you know, and then all of the sudden, this vibe. Violence happens.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And you cannot. You cannot process it.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

What. Or what you're forced to do in that moment as a victim is you have to process it as. As something that is, again, what I think lynch does so well in this movie. You have to process it as something that is probably one of the worst things that has ever happened to you. And this, like, horrible, horrible, horrific moment. And yet you're also feeling this. This oppressive.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Normality coming at you.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

You know, there's no. There's no.

[David]

How do you force yourself to cry in a controlled environment.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[David]

It's unnatural to be able to make yourself cry when you're not actually being punished.

[Ben]

Yes. Or suffering.

[Griffin]

Right. Yeah.

[Ben]

If you cannot, you. You just sort of fall into this. That's why this scene feels like. You said the first time you watch it, you're like, what a. What a fucking brilliant actress. Like what? I don't even know what the.

[Griffin]

You're thinking about Naomi Watts.

[Ben]

You're thinking about Naomi Watts and it's only later. I mean, you have that kind of moment when he touches her and then.

[Griffin]

I do feel like a lot of the people at the time probably like, ah. Old Hollywood haters. Yeah.

[David]

You just kind of he.

[Ben]

Nose over it. Yeah. And watching it. Exactly. Like, in the time that we're in.

[David]

Even though we're not in a. In the time this movie comes out, even though it was a culture where people were not allowed to share their stories of their experience in this kind of way.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

It was so well known that movies like Toy Story 2 can make a joke about Stinky Pete. Like having a private audition with the Barbies.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

And you were like, this is shorthand in a kids movie. Everyone knows.

[Griffin]

But I mean. But it's just the most wonderful Griffin thing in the world that you're like. I mean, like, we all knew Stinky Pete was right there with.

[David]

He's telling you it's normal that he's staying in the box and it's not.

[Ben]

And it's. Yeah, yeah.

[David]

It's not. That's not normal. No. I think, you know, acting is a great expression of this idea because it's an art form that is just about manipulating your own emotions in your body and.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Right. But I think most artists who are able to work in grand emotion in any way, make things that make people feel and represent great feeling.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Not to make a blanket statement, but very often that either comes out of some trauma they experience in their life up until that point that puts them in touch with something dark and deep. Right. Or you are born with, like, an innate painful sense of sensitivity.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Even if your experiences in your life as lynch sort of describes his childhood of, like, my childhood was actually the white picket fence.

[Griffin]

Right, right.

[Ben]

It wasn't.

[David]

I say to you, these things actually represent worth to me. I was not living in the darkness underneath the grass.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

But clearly, as a guy who was born with, like, this innate. My skin is ripped off, my nerves are exposed. I'm noticing everything. I'm feeling everything.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And that allows me to then bring those feelings back up to the surface again. David.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

That's got to hurt. That's a quip. That's a quip that people make or like, do not go in there. That's like another quip. But if they're saying. Saying that's gotta hurt, maybe they're saying it about root canals. And if they're saying do not go in there, maybe they're saying it about a mouth with a bunch of plaque build up. My point here is if you wanna avoid being the subject of quips like that, maybe you should use our sponsor today Quip.

[Griffin]

Yeah. So why don't you get yourself quip360? It's an oscillating toothbrush. Griffin. That's literally gonna revolve around.

[David]

That's what I like.

[Griffin]

I've been using quip for a long time, but the 360 is the, you know, you know, the kind of, like, round brush. Sure, yeah.

[David]

Yeah. So the whole thing with quip, it's an electric toothbrush that doesn't overcomplicate the most basic daily ritual. I feel like quip just exists to make this as easy as possible.

[Griffin]

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[David]

It's fine.

[Griffin]

It's.

[David]

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[Griffin]

You don't have to go to the store. It just happens. They just send it.

[David]

It shows up and you go, oh, right.

[Griffin]

I got a bunch of quick stuff sent to me every you know, a few months. It's really, really helpful. They've got 25000 five star reviews and you know, people love quip and they.

[David]

Got a perks program. You know, I love perks programs.

[Griffin]

You do love quit perks.

[David]

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[Griffin]

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[David]

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[Griffin]

Today you crush the audition. You get to go see Adam Kirsch and. But then of course, it's like, no, it's too late. He's already being forced to cash.

[Ben]

That's right.

[Griffin]

They have this. They exchange this look again. Feels sort of like a TV pilot thing of like this week on Mulholland Drive. We'll see whatever that is.

[David]

But in a fixed object, it becomes this is the woman.

[Griffin]

It's this moment where it could have happened. And then now we're moving on. Yeah, she goes back and then the mystery resumes where she and Rita then like go to this house and they, they sort of find their way in. There's the sort of scorned other woman.

[David]

They think it might be her.

[Griffin]

Correct. This might be her house. They find a rotting corpse. Corpse in the bed.

[Ben]

And I just have to.

[Griffin]

The TV pilot, to be clear, ends here. That's it.

[Ben]

Oh, got it, got it, got it.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

I just have to clock that Rita is wearing the craziest thing I've ever seen. It just. She's like Morticia or something with those sleeves. It's just wild.

[Griffin]

And then of course, right after that, of course, they make her seem even more normal by Putting her in a crazy blonde wig.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Basically being like, we're afraid for your life. And then the scene after that. It is so funny to imagine the phone call of, like, lynch is like, I started writing. The next scene is you fucking in the bed.

[David]

That's.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I mean, it's right to it, you know, it's like, that's the next thing.

[Ben]

This movie's now rated R. I was not out when I. When I saw this scene. And I have to say, like, again, it was just so. It was just. I just. I don't know what to say it. Like, it. I do believe that when you're a queer person, there's sort of a moment where it. It. You get unlocked.

[Griffin]

Sure. Something.

[Ben]

Something sort of happens. My wife says, like, when she saw Ellen, you know, come out. You know, like, come out. Or. Or at some point, watching Ellen, she was like, oh, that's. That's what I am.

[Griffin]

This is why representation matters.

[David]

A blue key.

[Griffin]

In a way, it's so true.

[David]

Oh, this mirrors something that speaks to something in me. Here's a blue key. I'm opening a new door.

[Ben]

I'm opening a new door. And it's so. It is so. It's. I hate the phrase representation matters, but it does. The second I saw this.

[David]

And it's why everyone compl about it needs to shut the fuck up.

[Ben]

They just need to shut the up. They just. Also, the sex scene is so int. Meaning, like, they feel like they have already been left.

[Griffin]

That's why it's such an interesting sex, because it's like they get it. I remember my audience laughing very clearly when, you know, it's like, Rita gets in bed naked. There's this kind of, oh, no. Yeah, you know, chumminess that. Then they have this kind of kiss. And Betty asks, have you ever done this before? And Rita's like, I don't know. And I remember my audience laughing at that.

[Ben]

But it's fine. She doesn't know. Again, it's like the girl getting punched by the golem. Like, there's just this sort of pop of like, you know, a pun that's.

[Griffin]

Objectively a funny little thing for her to say at this moment. But then, right, they have this moment where it's like. It feels like they've been doing this forever, but also, they don't even know each other. One of them doesn't even know who she is. It's like, very intimate, but it's also very fumbling.

[Ben]

Betty is coded very heterosexual.

[Griffin]

I want to. With you. She keeps saying. Like this kind of like, you know.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

This happens to me anytime I have sex. The person then falls asleep and then wakes up and starts saying, no, I Bonda. Silencio.

[Ben]

Silencio. Yeah, yeah. Very normal.

[Griffin]

I'm smoking my cigarette and they're like, no, I Bonda. And I'm like, here we go. Okay. Gotta go to Club Silencio.

[David]

The ball and shank going off again.

[Ben]

What I like about her doing that. Or I would say, again, my experience of watching her doing that and then going into Silencia is this sort of. And her, you know, and then Betty shaking is that there's this sort of breakdown.

[David]

Yes. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Obviously, the. The whatever we're in is coming apart.

[David]

You acted as a.

[Ben]

There's some sort of.

[David]

There's a feeling.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

That culture's your reality.

[Griffin]

And Club Silencio is very different from like the lodge in Twin Peaks, but still there is a big red velvet curtain, and it is a place where someone comes out and is basically saying, this is a dream. Not to say that Leslie's reading on.

[Ben]

The film is, I have a reading on this. Keep going, keep going.

[Griffin]

But, you know.

[Ben]

But obviously this is a dream. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Beyond the fact that it's about maybe someone saying, like, you are in a dream, it's also about Hollywood. Right. Like, you know, this is all a tape recording. Exactly.

[Ben]

Again, this is why it feels like it's about a dream instead of. It's not. It is a dream because he's saying, I love that. There's no. There's no band. There's no there. None of this is real. None of this is real. None of this is real. And then, of course, it's very real to them. And even as a viewer, I remember seeing it for the. The first time and going, I, I, I. When she falls. I actually had forgotten.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And I think that was the point. I think when the guy from the motel comes out.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And he does something. He says something or does something, and you.

[Griffin]

He comes out next after the magician.

[Ben]

In some way, your brain just goes, this is a different scene. And I don't know why. I don't know if it's because you recognize the actor or you recognize it. So suddenly there's this weird. Like. I don't know if it's the. And then maybe it's the. He uses that blinking lights or electricity a lot to, like, signal some sort of transition. So I think that the. It's the blue light on the microphone. Is that what happens after the. No, Ibondo.

[Griffin]

So he. No I Bondo, you know, the guy comes out with the muted trumpet, which I love. Where he's.

[Ben]

Again, probably just.

[Griffin]

Do you love this Fen?

[Leslie]

I do.

[Griffin]

It's the best.

[Leslie]

Yeah. Because it's silly.

[Griffin]

It's very silly. It's silly and scary. It's kind of funny and also kind of profound.

[Ben]

Again with the, with the, with the geographical location. I just love that he's pinging downtown LA here, which is like honestly a part of LA that very rarely any anything takes place in because it's so. Does it?

[David]

Am I wrong?

[Griffin]

You're right that G is set in downtown Los Angeles and I'm glad that.

[Leslie]

You brought it up.

[David]

On part of Martin Breast's argument for why he was like, no, never talked about this.

[Griffin]

We're going to keep moving.

[David]

And he had a lot of interesting stuff to say.

[Griffin]

The guy who plays the. The magician is Richard Green. The guy's called the magician in the script, which is sort of interesting to think about. And he says that lynch would not let him read the script, but built a full body cast of him that he was going to set on fire as part of this scene and then decided that would look stupid and they didn't do it. And instead he does this thing with the thunder and lightning right where Betty starts shaking and then he vanishes in.

[David]

A puff of smoke.

[Ben]

Oh, right. He does.

[Griffin]

He sure does. And then we have blue light and then out comes Cookie and is like, please welcome Rebecca Del Rio. And she comes out and she sings Roy Orbison's Crying in Spanish. And it's the most perfect scene in history of film.

[Ben]

If I'm remembering correctly, the blue haired lady is the script supervisor or the.

[Griffin]

Oh, like who plays the. In the movie? She represents the script supervisor. That's who she is. She's the script girl.

[Ben]

No, it's somebody. It was somebody on the. I thought that about the muted trumpet guy as well. You just, you get the sense that like. I agree that it's silly. It's like you get the, the sense that he's just grabbing people. Well, it's, it's obviously, it's one of.

[David]

The things that helps maintain such an odd reality in all of his work is he like puts actors at wildly different levels together. Yeah, right. Where you're like. You have people who are naturalistic and people who are heightened and people who are from an old school, you know, like Coco, where you're just like, oh, wow, Right. This is someone who hasn't acted since the 50s. This is a different type of movie acting. And here's someone who doesn't think of themselves as an actor at all and is just an energy and a look that he recognizes.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

And these people are all interfacing with each other.

[Ben]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Griffin]

The magic of the song where she's singing, it's like for one, the dreamy thing. Or like the. The things are being refracted. Right. Like an old 50s, 60s whenever crying is from my favorite Roy Orbison song. Song that's being like sung in another language by a different person. Person. Right. And it's so intensely emotional. But maybe you don't know what she's saying. Right. If you don't know Spanish. And she's so in it. But then she faints dead away and the music keeps going. So like the artifice is completely laid bare for you.

[David]

But also like familiar. Right?

[Griffin]

It is.

[David]

I know this song. But why are they.

[Griffin]

What's this?

[David]

Why is she singing in Spanish?

[Griffin]

Right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

This movie isn't in Spanish.

[Griffin]

And then kind of the creepiest thing thing to me, creepiest unspoken thing is that they go back home and Betty just disappears.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then it's just Rita in the apartment by herself. And then she's like. I guess I'll.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

They get open the blue box.

[Ben]

Well, they get.

[Griffin]

But like Betty's just gone. And no one like says anything.

[Ben]

They get the. Well, Betty takes out the. The. At silencio. Betty. Betty takes out the Cube.

[Griffin]

And suddenly the cube has materialized.

[Ben]

Has materialized. And her. Her manicure is terrible. I just want to also say that.

[David]

Wow.

[Ben]

Not unlike all of their costumes. Like, it's just bad. Yeah, yeah.

[David]

Fake nails.

[Griffin]

But. And then we are in the other part of the movie. Time to wake up.

[David]

Uh huh.

[Ben]

Where should we start with this? I want to start with Watts's 180.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

You lead us here. The most powerful fucking shit trick of the new world is how different she is in look, in attitude.

[David]

But also the movie. Movie looks different.

[Griffin]

It does. Yeah. Her apartment looks weird and creepy.

[David]

But beyond that, you have to think about in the pilot, the footage that was shot for the pilot. You are still trying to conform to television standards, which is this pilot, despite being shot on film by Peter Deming by a filmmaker.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Was going to be aired on standard definition four by three. Television. 100%.

[Ben]

I was wondering about that.

[David]

You have to light things. Things pretty brightly because people's TVs aren't well calibrated.

[Ben]

Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And now it's.

[Griffin]

I wonder how much. Right. Because they talk about how they sort of tried to Adjust it.

[David]

That's the thing. Because you're unlocking now at this point in the movie, him designing images that he knows will be projected on a bigger screen. People are going to.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Actually be able to engage with this imagery in a very different physical form.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

And so suddenly, it's like the texture of the film stock.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

The color palette of the movie, the angles. All these things become totally different while her performance is in entirely different register.

[Ben]

You. You're absolutely right. This is why I think. And again, I. I don't disagree. I would never disagree with somebody saying that the. That the first two thirds are a dream and then the last third is.

[Griffin]

I'm more. I present that more as the. The sort of basic reading. Not consensus even just kind of like. That is a basic reading. One can have a mohalandra.

[Ben]

But there are two. There. Listen, there are two things I'm gonna do an. I'm gonna offer up a reason why I don't think it is and a reason why I absolutely would agree that. That someone would think it is. The first one is that the reason I kind of get hung up on the whole first part as a dream is all of the changes of pov. And I'm not saying that you don't dream.

[Griffin]

Right. Why are we suddenly with this person?

[Ben]

Why are we here and we're suddenly with somebody else? And it doesn't feel like. Only because. Not that you can't be in different storylines in a dream, but they're so tonally.

[Griffin]

I'm dropped into the middle of things. It's odd.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Things like the Hitman.

[Ben]

And it doesn't feel like Betty. You know. Anyway, it. So that's one thing that kind of trips me up about it. What I will say that. That the. Why. Why. I think people immediately go to the place of this is the. This is reality. Or this is. Who Diane actually is. Is Watts's performance. Is that she. But I mean, it is very. But again, it's very over the top. The way she behaves when she sees Camila. That weird. Like, you know, and then smiling and like, you know, this. Like, he came back. Like it's this horrifically pathetic mirror mirroring Adam Kesher. Like. Like just. And having been.

[Griffin]

She's pathetic in every way. Like pathetic there.

[Ben]

So she sees.

[Griffin]

Not to be worried about when she does that.

[Ben]

She does it at Camila.

[David]

A nail retreat.

[Ben]

She suddenly has this. Then she retracts and she kind of does it. And then we cut to her looking at herself.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That is such a cool as you move on. Yeah. So as you move on for the rest of the story, there is this feeling of. Unlike Kesher, there's this feeling that she has the self awareness of her. Pathetic.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

The fact that she's pathetic.

[David]

Yes. Because I mean all the stuff we're talking about, about the decisions you make in the industry to what you. To get ahead and whatever.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

It's like. But then you cross a line and you're on the other side of reality, which is just like. This is just who I am. I've made this bed for myself.

[Ben]

And when I watched again, when I watched this in the theater, this in the masturbation scene. And I really don't mean to get too dark here.

[Griffin]

Please.

[Ben]

But when I watched her, her seeing Camilla and standing in that kitchen with that shitty coffee maker and then the masturbation scene, I was like, this is me. Like I just, I. I related with it. So. And again, I mean I also, I was just like, how has he. So I get awakened.

[David]

How does he know?

[Ben]

Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. I was like the lesbian scene awoke something in me again. It was so dream. Not dreamlike, but you know, dream fulfillment. That they were like beautiful. They already know each other. And then you get dropped into this like horrifically lonely, desperate, pathetic place that.

[Griffin]

I jerk off to pebbles all the time in my jorts, just FYI. So I don't, I don't want.

[David]

I have two pebbles here on my desk. I pull them on my shoe sole if you want them for later. Not to get too horny on main.

[Ben]

But the thing that blew my mind too in seeing this, and I constantly use this as a reference too, is that I just think it is the most. I know that it's very dark and the tone around it is very dark and the character is very dark and is in a very dark place.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

But the actual masturbation is so realistic to female masturbation. Like usually when you saw it, immediately hard, sweaty work. Exactly. Like when you Like.

[Griffin]

I'm not joking. No, you would see.

[Ben]

You would see very intense male masturbation in films. Like you would. You would see this sort of emptiness afterwards. This kind of.

[Griffin]

Whereas with women, it's like this sort of.

[Ben]

They're like, they're sort of. Yeah. And it's like still beautiful. And it. So it.

[David]

Joan Allen makes a tree catch on fire.

[Ben]

Just.

[David]

She does.

[Griffin]

Well, hey, wait a second. It was pretty intensive.

[David]

Like pleasant her in a bath and she. And then like color suddenly like she.

[Ben]

Color it just to watch this and Again, I don't paint that every time. It's like pebbles. And like she could just be looking.

[Griffin]

At something that's not just fucking cobblestones on the wall. In and out of folks.

[Ben]

Well, I felt like she's. She's imagining.

[Griffin]

She's remembering this sex they had, trying.

[Ben]

To do that, and she cannot conjure it up. That's why. Again, about a dream she's trying to recall and hold on to that. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Somehow I back losing it. And then it's like, nope, shitty life. Because the scenes are. It's like, shitty life. It's her making coffee and seeing. She thinks Camila, it's just herself. And then it's her on set remembering, we assume, Adam, like, kissing Camila, being like, this is how we're going to do this scene, right? Where she's, like, dressed in this really dowdy costume as some, like, shitty tiny character, like, watching, you know, sort of within.

[Ben]

Also this. It's also.

[Griffin]

And then the sex scene that she's remembering. And the masturbation.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, the loneliness, the intense.

[Griffin]

It's pathetic in all these scenes in different ways.

[Ben]

And the intense fantasy, like, to have those things again. It's like. I just feel like he's trying to. He's trying to capture some sort of. Like all of this stuff is happening at the same time. Your future, your past, what you want in life, what's actually happening. The dangerousness at dark, the dream of having a comfortable home, understanding that somebody can love you and also not want to be with you again. I do get why when you drop into it, it does feel like reality. But I think it's because we. Again, that first shot of Blue Velvet, I think, just cemented him into this idea that the dream is good, everything that is good is the dream, and everything that is bad is reality.

[David]

And that the dream is a lie.

[Ben]

And that's. The dream is a lie.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

I don't think.

[David]

And the ear is.

[Griffin]

But, like, the dream is not good. Exactly.

[David]

Well, that was weird.

[Griffin]

That's what I'm saying. It's weird and jarring.

[Ben]

Listening to him or reading his interviews about, you know, a lot of stuff. It just feels like he. He's trying to. Or not even trying, he's accomplishing. I think that's why people are always saying it's a dreamlike state, because that's the only time we were actually aware that that's happening. I think right now I'm having. I'm here. I'm having a podcast. Having a podcast.

[David]

I'm On a podcast.

[Ben]

I'm obsessed with being here. I love this movie.

[Griffin]

You've been here for so long.

[Ben]

I've been here so long. I'm obsessed. Like, this is so. But there's this, you know, as I'm sitting here, there's all kinds of things going through my mind. Yeah, right. There's things I have to do. There's things that I did do. There's like, they're just. They just. I'm in watching images that he has put together. I am remembering being 26 years old, living in Hollywood and feeling absolute, absolutely desperate, and that I was never going to make it, and I was never going to get paid, and I was never going to get into the union, you know, like.

[David]

And you're trying to get it out in your head, if I were to make it, what do I need to do? What am I up right now?

[Ben]

And the only thing.

[David]

What am I willing to give up in order to get to the other side and.

[Ben]

Exactly. And what I relate with so much in this section is the only way you can survive that level of depression, borderline personality disorder, whatever you want to call it. In my experience, as a. As a. As a person with. With mental health, you know, issues and having come out and addiction issues and having come out the other side. When you are in it, though, you have to hang on to the dream.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And usually the dream is other person centric because that's much more tangible than, like, the dream of becoming famous. The dream of being, you know, Stanley Kubrick. The dream. The dream that's never going to happen because that's not what Hollywood is anymore.

[David]

But I think with the aspiring for success, fame, whatever it is, notoriety.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

The other person centric can be. And this is back to the core.

[Ben]

Of what this movie is, but a.

[David]

Christmas version of yourself, it can be a version of a different person.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David]

It doesn't have to be. I'm so in love with this person. And I'm building my entire dream around the idea of our relationship. It could be your relationship to the version of me that has made it on the other side.

[Ben]

That's exactly right. And if you can, if you're super. Kristen Stewart, Kristen Revolo.

[David]

These are so good. We brought this up. Scoffing.

[Ben]

And right now people are throwing awards at us.

[Griffin]

I want to speak.

[Ben]

We did it.

[Griffin]

I wish to speak.

[Ben]

But they. But. But one thing that I noticed was I would have sexual partners at that time and at that very, very dark time in my life. And my experience was you have. You do enter this weird liminal space where what's elusive is the approval of an entire industry. Right? What's elusive is, you know, Bob. Bob Booker didn't like me in the audition. You know, like, what's elusive is I don't understand why this person is making it and I'm not making it. I don't get why, you know, I'm getting the chance to make the movie, but I have to have it be this girl. And therefore the monomania of if I got the approval from this one person.

[David]

Person.

[Ben]

Do you know what I mean? Like, then it would be a tangible. That's why I think it's about a dream. That's a dream.

[David]

I could just blink. I'd be happy.

[Ben]

I'd be happy.

[David]

I'm not even saying. I mean all of it.

[Ben]

If I could this person again, even if I'm begging, even if I'm begging for this person to fuck me again.

[Griffin]

The other fantasy that she is indulging in both sides of the story, but in the dark side is what if I fucking killed that person who is the, you know, responsible for all my misery? Right. In fact, it's Camila. She took my parts. She screwed me over romantically, you know, she's the reason I'm not what I wanted to be.

[Ben]

Totally agree. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Because the idea of hiring Mark Pellegrino as your hitman 1 Mark Pellegrino is too hot to be your hitman too.

[David]

We talked to this. We all seen Keystone Cops routine, bungling the job.

[Griffin]

We've all seen Netflix's Hitman. There's no such thing as Hitman. But, you know, right. The fantasy of, like, yeah, I hired some. Someone to kill her. That's a fantasy too. Even if this back half of the movie is the real Diane, or however you want to think about it, like.

[David]

But also, that's another Hollywood story creating a loop, which is like, why is she being driven in a car to get killed at the beginning?

[Griffin]

That's the thing.

[David]

Because the greatest wish is that you had never met her in the first place. That you stopped the first meeting from happening in a certain way. You can kill her, but what does that solve?

[Griffin]

Because you have the experience, but it's also like, Right. The imagination, maybe, of like, ah, but what if I. What if I hadn't killed her? Or what if she hadn't died and she'd escaped and we'd found each other again in the city of dreams, Hollywood, and we'd figured this out. It would go great. It would go great. I would go do Great at that audition, which would be normal and not actually on set, if you think about it. And it would be great. And we would solve the mystery. What's in the mystery? It's me in the bed, dead of a drug overdose. I can't escape. It's like that. That's the lynch thing of, like, I've made it to the end of my dream. I've made it to the end of my dream. Oh, God, I'm back where I died, essentially.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Because the end of this movie, you know, it's like we. The scenes we talked about and then the party. Its own kind of Hollywood nightmare of like, you're dolled up, you look good, no one at this party wants to fucking talk to you.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Everyone's doing better than you. Right?

[David]

Which I think is the absolute core base reality of what drives most people insane pursuing a life in trouble business is it's actually never enough.

[Ben]

One thing that I think that this last part of the movie is hitting so many specific pieces of pain, you know, that. That. That occurred in the first two thirds of the movie. You know, like they. They popped. They happened. The impotence, the abuse at the. At the audition, like winkies, you know, there's just. There's all these kind of violent moments, Right? But the. There is this. When I saw the movie again later in my 20s, when I was in Los Angeles, there was this, like. What I identified, having experienced it then, was there is a really specific, almost exquisite type of pain. Being in such close proximity, these people.

[Griffin]

Who are making it, they are making the movies. They're so famous, they're so successful.

[Ben]

And I'm here. For some reason, I feel displaced. I don't.

[Griffin]

I'm in a dress. I even look good.

[Ben]

I don't have my. Like, with Rita, I don't have my memory. I'm making up my personality as we go along. My North Star is this person I'm maniacally obsessed with.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

You know, there's no. There's no. There's no way to anchor yourself in those situations.

[David]

Year of me trying to audition and not getting callbacks. I was left less miserable than when I had transcended to the point where I was testing for stuff. There's not getting the parts right.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David]

And everyone else was like, well, you're doing well. You're getting further along. Progress is being made. And I'm like, no. The fact that I'm closer makes it harder.

[Griffin]

Speak, Finn.

[Leslie]

Isn't it the dinner party where the accident takes place?

[Griffin]

Well, like one you mean like.

[Leslie]

Like is kind of where we start.

[Griffin]

After the horrible dinner party. It's just her at Winkies with Mark Pellegrino and him saying like, when I do it, you're going to get this blue key. And then we just go to the back of the diner. The hobo is there. Which is in the pilot. That is in the pilot. Just a shot of the hobo sitting behind the diner. So clearly it was this idea that, you know, lynch had.

[David]

He was like, I'll get to an episode 20. And instead had to add the earlier thing to set it up.

[Griffin]

Exactly.

[David]

Why.

[Griffin]

And. And the. But then this is not in the pilot, which is then the hobo puts down the blue box and little goblin old people run out of it.

[David]

Excuse me? You said that incorrectly. Gooblin.

[Griffin]

Gooblin people run out of it going. And then they charge her like they're the fucking Borrowers. They're Borrowers. But then they're full size. And then she shoots herself and she's dead. And.

[Ben]

But for whatever reason, when I saw it and I again, I. Of just trying to like, you know, conjure that feeling. The. The old people were so scary. Like, scary. I mean, it was like. I mean, the top scariest things in this movie are like gooblin and. And. And the small old people.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And I. I don't know why. I mean, I don't even know if they represent anything. It was just so, so horrible. And.

[David]

Well, part of it is I can't make sense of this. Yeah, it's terrifying how unknowing.

[Leslie]

It's really deranged to see all people act this way and smile and look like. Like they could hurt you.

[Griffin]

I think it's why it. It speaks to so many people who watch the movie is like. Right. The original horrible thing, whatever it is. Right. It's something like that. Like this. It's something so unspeakable that they represent. It's not just like guilt of like, oh, my shitty life in Hollywood. No, this is all the way down.

[Ben]

This is some sort of. Yeah, this is actually the word that's coming to mind is like demonic. Like, this is demonic. This is like. It's all. It's. I did want to come back to the. I know that we were like, mark Pellegrino's too hot to be a hitman and then he leaves the key. And I guess my. If there were one part of the movie I don't buy, it's that part. And I wanted to ask you guys, like, why that's What I was sort.

[Griffin]

Of saying about, like, it feels dream. Like it's too clean. A hitman. A blue key. Like it. Right. Does it feel a little obvious that it's like, fair. The blue key is kind of looped up for.

[Ben]

They're about like. Yeah, it's like, it's.

[David]

Is it too neat?

[Griffin]

Because it's one of Lynch's clues. Who gives a key and why. That's right. It's. I feel like he sat down for 10 minutes.

[Ben]

He's like lampshake, Sylvia north story. I. I think also it's. It just feels so. There's this abruptness to it that seems almost like it's trying to shift gears into, like, you know, like, I'll run up to the end of the movie and the suicide.

[David]

Well, he's like, literally shifting gears on the notion of how this story was going to be told.

[Ben]

Yes. And Camilla and Kesher are about to announce something and I think it's really interesting that they don't. It's like it's going to be.

[Griffin]

They're getting married. One assumes.

[Ben]

One assumes. Although this time when I was watching it, I thought they were pregnant. Yeah.

[David]

That was my.

[Ben]

Yeah. I also love when she kisses the girl.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Do we want to talk about that or. We don't care.

[Griffin]

I mean, an iconic image. Like, I feel like that was a still image that was used all the time.

[Leslie]

What's the dynamics, though? That's what. I can't.

[Ben]

I agree, but I think it's all.

[David]

About the transference of her making eye contact with Melissa Leo on the set of the audition.

[Griffin]

If it was Melissa Leo, that would rock.

[David]

Let's consider.

[Ben]

Yeah. What if. Wait a minute.

[Griffin]

Let's wait a minute. This is crazy. I love Melissa Leo too, but the woman's a character actress. She doesn't read for Sylvia Nord.

[Ben]

Do you guys agree that. That. Wait a minute. Hold on, though. Do we agree that Melissa Leo did have a moment? Wasn't there a time where she was the girl and she was pushed?

[Griffin]

Pushed.

[Ben]

Pushed, yeah.

[David]

Before second act is character actress.

[Ben]

But.

[Griffin]

All right, I'm sorry, we have to move on.

[David]

Lacks eye contact. It's like, what is the trade off here? Yeah, I could be her with the part, but then does she end up with the person I want to be with?

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David]

Whether that's literal or the idea, it's like, what's the give and take of every decision, every opportunity?

[Ben]

I agree with Ben. It's like, I don't know what the dynamics are, but the. The. Again What I felt was the. Was the transference.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

I don't know if it was the transference of. It just felt like there was some sort. Sort of movement from that. She. She's being left behind in so. In so many different ways. But it's not literally her being part.

[David]

Of a throuple that New York magazine will write a profile on.

[Griffin]

But.

[Ben]

And then we see the cowboy.

[Griffin]

But it is. Yeah, we do see the cowboy. But it is also. I just feel like he so is nailing this scene of like, right, I'm here, nobody wants me here. Like the way Coco talks to her.

[David]

This was the room you wanted to be in.

[Griffin]

Right. And it's like this is.

[Ben]

And nobody wants you here, there. And like there's this. I love that she's late. Like that. That.

[David]

Yeah, I like that too. I think it shows a lot of like integrity.

[Ben]

Yeah. She was just like, I'm going to.

[Griffin]

David is clear. I was looking for somebody to throw at you. Dark S. I was looking for somebody to throw at you.

[David]

He's loading a gun.

[Griffin]

I want to say that after the suicide and the smoke rising from the bed, which is such an amazing, just piece of imagery.

[Ben]

Oh, I agree. Like, what a. What a bizarre kind of theatrical moment.

[Griffin]

Right? Yeah. You have this image that makes me.

[Ben]

By the way, it reminds me of Silencio. Right?

[Griffin]

Entering Silencio.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Sort of in like the last shot will be the blue lady. Blue haired lady.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Marge, I call her.

[Ben]

As you should.

[Griffin]

But this image that kind of makes me well up, which is this like bleached out slow motion shot of them in their wigs, smiling in the car. Right. Like this. This kind of. But it's like it's their dream.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And now it's like so whatever. Like lost or abstracted a million times or abstracted or whatever. And it's sort of like fading away. And it just speaks to everything he's thinking about. About Hollywood and like.

[David]

And also about what we feel about ourselves. Lose your keys.

[Griffin]

That's why she just never gets her keys back.

[David]

And it's part of the movie and that really grind your gears.

[Griffin]

And then the blue haired lady says silencia, which is Spanish for silence. And what she's telling everyone is right, huge.

[David]

Ellen burst in energy.

[Griffin]

And then. Right. And then the credits start rolling and the audience all stands up and goes, well, we understood that. That made sense.

[David]

Let's get out of here clean.

[Ben]

Or you go and take ecstasy.

[Griffin]

When I go to five, guys. Wait. So.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So you hadn't taken it Yet I don't think so.

[David]

What's interesting is the experience describing is its own weird Mulholland Drive loop of. Did you take it before and watch the movie on it or did you take it afterwards as a response?

[Griffin]

No, you take it before a movie, then you're just, to your like seatmate, you're going to be like, hey, I.

[David]

Don'T know, the dream. Or maybe the last act is the dream.

[Leslie]

Listen, Spring breakers really fucking hit.

[David]

Yeah, it does.

[Leslie]

When I was impaired.

[Griffin]

Let's play the box.

[David]

Leslie has one final point. She was.

[Griffin]

Yes, please.

[Ben]

No, no, no.

[David]

You were about to say something.

[Ben]

No, I was just going to say that I couldn't remember. I just, I think that feels appropriate. I mean, I guess maybe I would just. The only thing I might still say is like to, to wrap up this incredible conversation is like, I just, I was fundamentally changed by this movie. It instantly entered my top 10. I, I couldn't stop thinking about it for, for days, weeks. I, I, again, it was my first David lynch movie and I feel like it actually bizarrely is a good entry point. If anyone listening to this, I think.

[David]

Absolutely, certainly was for a whole generation.

[Griffin]

The question I asked on Blue Velvet, it's like, right, that and Mulholland Drive, those are the two kind of like David Lynch ER movies, like, take your pick, right.

[David]

Fifteen years apart, those were two entry points.

[Ben]

Agreed.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Or, or Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

But that's, yeah.

[David]

And I think Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks are paired. And this and Twin Peaks, the Return are paired of like the eras. I love the Return.

[Griffin]

It's pretty good.

[Ben]

What a fucking.

[Griffin]

You haven't got to it. Yeah, right.

[Ben]

No, well, I love the, I, I love the fact that the Return is a. This is like, this is why I love David Lynch. The Return is an unrecappable show.

[Griffin]

It sure is.

[Ben]

Do you know, I'm in a world.

[Griffin]

It's very funny to watch the TV recap economy. Try completely break down to deal with the return being like, we can do like kind of the Westworld theories thing with this thing and then immediately being like, oh, maybe, maybe we can.

[David]

God, they're going to be so sour when we do four podcast episodes on it and recap it perfectly.

[Griffin]

Don't worry, I'm, I'm, we're going to recap it so perfectly.

[Ben]

But I do feel like we live in, in this, like consuming, you know, content moment era. It takes economy where they, where, where you, you, you basically can just read the recaps instead of watching the episodes.

[Griffin]

But not Twin Peaks. The return.

[Ben]

But not. But not.

[Griffin]

But. But the thing with Twin Peaks, the return is it is like the back half of Mulholland Drive to Twin Peaks. Right? Where it's like David lynch is like, oh, you. You want me to do more? And people are like, yeah, can it be kind of the same? And he's like, no, absolutely not. But I have plenty of ideas and the same people will be in it. So will that make you happy?

[David]

We are so excited to say that this week's box office game is brought to you by our friends at Regal with the Regal Unlimited program. It's an all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. Here's what you should do. Follow the link in the show notes or go to the Regal app, click the unlimited banner and then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code. Blank check when prompted to receive your 10% discount on your first three months. So, box office game. This opens number one, $112 million opening.

[Griffin]

Week, October 12, 2001. This is opening limited on 66 screens. Number 14 at the box office. Number one at the box office is an Oscar winner from this year. Griffin. It's number one for the second week in a row.

[David]

It won a major Oscar.

[Griffin]

Did.

[David]

It's a. It's not Beautiful Mind that hasn't gone wide yet.

[Ben]

How does 2001.

[David]

It won. It's. It's. Well, Training Day would have been.

[Griffin]

It's Training Day still.

[David]

Wow.

[Ben]

What's the second week?

[Griffin]

It's second week October 12, 2001. It's in its second week. Staying at number one.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Wow.

[Griffin]

A great, you know, fun movie that I think is a. A bit of a breakout, you know, surprise for a dark movie like that.

[David]

Always incorrectly, incorrectly thinks that movie came out in September because it was supposed to got pushed back only like two weeks because of 9, 11. Because they were like, maybe let people rebound, you guys.

[Ben]

I forgot this was in the fucking wake up. Oh my God. You know, because I was there, you know, I was like five blocks away. I lived in the financial district when that happened. It was fucking insane. Talk about trauma. Yeah, but. But it was that weird echoey period where everything's walking around.

[David]

A movie like this that like premieres at the Cannes Film Festival in May and then comes out in theaters in October and you're like, different realities.

[Ben]

This is two different. I mean, honestly, it's kind of perfect. I mean, it just. It is the perfect kind of thing. To consume. Where you're like, I want my attention. I want it. I want wrapped attention on something.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

And I don't want it to be a straightforward narrative in any way.

[David]

There was a training day billboard on the west side highway that my. We would drive by every day when my dad. Dad drove my siblings and I to school that said like, whatever, September 17th. And I saw it for so many months that in my brain, I'm like, that movie came out in September.

[Griffin]

This is our longest episode ever. Just have fun. Right? I mean, no question he did it.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

All right.

[Ben]

We.

[Griffin]

We. We gotta wrap up number two at the box office. So hungry.

[David]

I'm too.

[Ben]

I need to.

[David]

So hard. It's.

[Ben]

Alex is gonna be so mad, though. Trash him every time I come here.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Number two. The box office is new this week. Griffin. I feel like it's a film you liked at the time.

[David]

It's a bit of like it now.

[Griffin]

I don't know how you feel about it now. I just feel like you were kind of riding for it. It was a bit of an underperformer.

[David]

Big Director 2000, which you're always rude to. That movie's solid.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

It's got great stuff in it.

[Griffin]

I still have the 2001 watcher, Barry Levinson. I saw the 2000 Oscar watcher thing, like back then 2001.

[David]

It didn't make.

[Griffin]

That thing's gonna be huge. And instead it was like, okay, this.

[Ben]

Is Billy Bob Thornton.

[Griffin]

Yep. And Bruce Willis and Cate Blanchett.

[David]

Three great performances. All three of them numbered. Pretty excellent in that film.

[Griffin]

But a film that slightly underperformed.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Number three at the box office is a film. I wonder if Jan Ben Hosley saw. I'm not sure if he did. It's almost insulting for me to ask that question. It is a comedy film starring a member of the television show Saturday night live.

[David]

In October 2001. It's not.

[Griffin]

Is a time when people need to laugh.

[David]

It is not an SNL spin off movie.

[Griffin]

It is not.

[David]

But it started. They were a cast member at this moment.

[Griffin]

That's a good question.

[David]

It's not Corky Romano.

[Griffin]

Yes, it was. And yes, it is Chris Kattan. Is Corky Romano.

[Ben]

Rude.

[David]

You guys want some cookies?

[Griffin]

I'm kind of amazed that Corky Romano opened to $9 million. I'm like, that's a lot of money for cork.

[David]

Proper country once.

[Ben]

Wait, when was Zoolander at this point?

[Griffin]

Zoolander had come out already. Sank three weeks ago.

[David]

Sank like a stone. It came out last week of September and It's already out.

[Griffin]

It's. It's at number seven.

[Ben]

It did.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That's all we could talk about.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

All we talked about with Zoolander. I didn't realize New York City.

[David]

It was the center of the universe and bombed everywhere else. Truly. I.

[Griffin]

Sort of. True. Yes.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And America was definitely not ready for Zoolander right then.

[David]

But my friends. I were quoting it obsessively. We all went to go see the weekend Donnie Darko comes out. August.

[Ben]

I thought it. Oh, I thought it was fall.

[Griffin]

I mean, Donnie Darko also. And I believe Donnie Darko like, literally came out on, like, September 11, basically. And I might be wrong, though, but another one.

[David]

But for a collection of people, it was like, well, this is clearly the most important.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Number four at the box office is a romcom that I've just never liked.

[David]

Serendipity. You're always much like bandits. Rude, too.

[Ben]

I don't get it. I agree. It's a bummer.

[David]

I don't think it's bad.

[Griffin]

It's the beginning. But you think it's Hurdled vibes.

[Ben]

That's the thing. It's. That's what it is. It's tired.

[Griffin]

Cusack, he's good at playing mean Gen Xer. And they use it so well. Right. In the high fidelities of the world or whatever. My Serendipity. You're like, he hates this. Like.

[Ben]

Yeah. As he's coming off and it's. He's coming off Malkovich like. He's coming off like this. Oh, cool. I mean, maybe Lloyd Dobler can do whatever. And then he just goes.

[David]

High fidelity is 2000. And then 2001 is serendipity and America, sweethearts. And it's like, this guy has.

[Ben]

My sister loves American.

[David]

Listen to the cowboy.

[Ben]

He listened to the cowboy.

[Griffin]

The cowboy was like, sometimes there's a buggy and it's called American Sweetheart.

[Ben]

Jesus Christ.

[Griffin]

At least he's not in Corky Romano. That's what I would tell him. Number five at the box office is a pretty solid thriller hit. Famous. Famous for a line from the trailer.

[David]

I'll Never tell.

[Griffin]

Don't say a Word.

[David]

Opened against Zoolander, crushed it at the box.

[Griffin]

She'll Never Tell.

[David]

People thought Zoolander was going to.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Number six is Iron Monkey, the Hong Kong martial arts film with Donnie Yen. Which Miramax is putting out.

[Ben]

Presented by Queen. That's their. That's their. Kind of like, let's get the Crouching Tiger thing going.

[Griffin]

Anything we can get in there.

[David]

Put a stamp on movies from four years ago and releasing them wide.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

Yes. You've got Zoolander. You've got Joy Ride, which is pretty fun. The Paul Walker.

[David]

I did a Photoshop of Deadpool faces on the poster. Everyone laughed.

[Griffin]

Number nine, you've got a film. Remember Griffin saw Max Keeble's Big Move.

[David]

You know what? I didn't.

[Griffin]

I guess you were maybe a little too old for it, right?

[David]

I'd say a little too sophisticated. I just have tastes. Did I see Spy Kids three times in theaters the same year?

[Leslie]

Are you serious? I saw Cormano. Yeah, that's actually what about me says Corky Romano.

[Griffin]

You've seen so many movies with SNL guys. That's one of them. All right, I guess you have a point. Did you see the one where Jamie Kennedy, who I know is not necessarily Malibu's most wanted? Yeah, that one. Malibu's most wanted.

[David]

Yeah. That face says. Yeah.

[Griffin]

How much worse is Cork. Corky Romano.

[David]

Ben. Ben.

[Griffin]

Fine.

[Leslie]

I saw it.

[David]

Ben, I love you. And I want to say that I don't mean this in a pejorative way at all. Yes, you would actually love Corky Romano if you watched it tonight. You would enjoy it.

[Ben]

I. I don't know if I've ever met anyone that has the taste that Ben has.

[Griffin]

That's why he's the secret sauce.

[David]

It's. He's the whole thing.

[Griffin]

Not brick and mortar.

[David]

Silencio scene. You're just like. I'm never gonna totally understand it.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

How is he offended by you assuming he likes Corky Romano?

[Ben]

No, it's like. It is Silencio scene.

[David]

Actually, that doesn't track with what I'm saying. But there is an internal logic and it's honest.

[Griffin]

Started this episode at 10:00am That's.

[Ben]

That's the thing. It is the silencio scene.

[David]

Because 10am on.

[Ben]

Because it doesn't make any sense.

[David]

Friday now. It's.

[Ben]

But it's the main thing you take away. Yes, it's the main thing you take number 10.

[Griffin]

The box office is Hearts in Atlantis.

[Ben]

Jesus.

[David]

The movie that eats farts.

[Griffin]

It's the. It's the shine guy directing Anthony Hopkins.

[David]

I remember convincing three friends we should go see this. I hear there's a lot of Oscar buzz and they never let me live it down.

[Griffin]

They shouldn't have.

[David]

That's not getting. That thing is goose egging. Even in a light year. Hopkins isn't getting.

[Griffin]

Thank you for joining us on Blank Check.

[Ben]

I mean, this was a absolute.

[Griffin]

I'm really sorry.

[Ben]

How long I can't Wait to. I was settled in. I felt very bad.

[David]

I will say your body language is relaxed.

[Ben]

I'm very relaxed. I feel. I feel. I felt bad about Zodiac. I felt like we could have dug deeper. I made a commitment to myself and I broke the record.

[Griffin]

Here's the thing about Mulhan Drive. We could still keep digging. There's plenty to do.

[Ben]

That's the thing. I was like, I could talk about this for another hour. And you know, except we've been talking about it for four hours.

[David]

I guarantee you a bunch of listeners are going to complain we didn't go 20 minutes longer. They didn't even talk about.

[Griffin]

I wonder. I'm actually. You're right. And I'm trying to think what it will be.

[Ben]

Well, what is the thing that we didn't talk about?

[Griffin]

It doesn't matter. We can talk about it later.

[David]

We'll talk about not talking about it later.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Leslie Acolyte. Disney.

[Ben]

Right. Right. Disney.

[Griffin]

You have a play off Broadway? On Broadway.

[Ben]

On Broadway. I have a play.

[Griffin]

When does it start?

[Ben]

It's called Cult of Love, and we start rehearsals in October. I'm not exactly sure of our preview start. I think it's mid December.

[Griffin]

Okay. So when this is posting, it's starting in about a month. Go buy your tickets now at the Helen Hayes.

[Ben]

That's right. Second. Second stage. Helen Hayes. Come. It'll be fun.

[Griffin]

There's music, as I told you.

[Ben]

Not a musical, but has music, as I told you.

[Griffin]

I saw Bachelorette when the Second Stage put it on uptown many years ago.

[Ben]

That's right, you did.

[Griffin]

And now you're back with the Second stage. That's exciting.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. And I haven't done theater in, like, I want to say, eight years.

[David]

Wild.

[Ben]

So, yeah, I'm really excited to get into it.

[David]

I'm so excited.

[Ben]

And thank you both for having me again.

[David]

So great.

[Griffin]

Come back anytime.

[David]

We. We. I said this to you before we recorded, but we had marked this episode as maybe this one guest list. Maybe this is too big. Maybe we don't need a guest. And we had been wanting to find something to have you back on for. And it was like, let's just throw one flyer and see if she has any interest in doing.

[Ben]

And I left.

[David]

If she wants to do it, we'd have a guest on. But it was truly. We didn't offer it to anyone else. We had. We had put it behind. Behind bars.

[Ben]

I leapt at the chance. I. I, of course, wanted to come back. I had such a good time on Zodiac. I was very sad that it was only two and a half hours.

[David]

So rude that you only gave us two hours.

[Ben]

And, and I was thinking, you know, I want to come back. But I, I, it's hard to top Zodiac. I was like, there's, it would have to be a movie that's also in my top 10. And so next time we'll have you.

[David]

On for Corky Romano. That's. You'll wait until perfect. We do Corky when Ben chooses it because he's about to watch it and fall in love.

[Ben]

I didn't realize that there's a timer behind me. It's.

[David]

We are hitting intentional design that we put it behind the guest head so we're not making them self conscious. Thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Bar for helping to produce this show. Thank you to AJ McKen for editing, being our production coordinator. Joe Bowen Patreons for our artwork. L. Mongome for our theme song. Ben is rubbing his head like he's Balthus orange griffin.

[Griffin]

Jesus.

[David]

JJ Birch for our research. Go blank checkpod.com for link. Some real nerdy, including our Patreon Blank Check special features. We do franchise commentaries. I think right now we're doing Andrew Lloyd Webber finishing up Tabletop games, something like that. We're recording this episode 15 years in advance. And we've been here for so fucking long. Tune in next week for Inland Empire. Correct?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And as always, Silencia. There I go.

[Ben]

This is the girl.

[Griffin]

To get back to the sort of thing.

[Ben]

Sorry, I'm on my phone. I just canceling something.

[Griffin]

Please cancel.

[David]

Hell yeah.

[Ben]

I'm just canceling something that's happening in two hours.

[David]

Great.

[Griffin]

We will be done.

[Ben]

But, but you do you do you.

[David]

Do you check my phone? Because I have a flight a week from now and I'm going to push that back.

[Ben]

Just keep going. Just keep going. And I'm going to jump back in.

[David]

I'm going to push back the flight.