O Brother, Where Art Thou? with Emily St. James

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: O Brother, Where Art Thou? with Emily St. James
Date: August 31, 2025
Guest: Emily St. James

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Griffin Newman and David Sims, joined by returning guest Emily St. James, do a deep-dive into O Brother, Where Art Thou? as part of their ongoing Coen Brothers miniseries, "Pod Country for Old Casts." The conversation is wide-ranging, balancing film analysis, cultural context, the film’s technical innovations, the Coens’ career, and their own personal histories with the movie and its legendary soundtrack. The trio brings in their characteristic wit and delight in tangents, providing enlightening, funny, and heartfelt perspectives whether you’re a longtime Blank Check listener or a Coens first-timer.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why This Film Hasn't Been Over-Quoted

• The hosts reflect on how O Brother, Where Art Thou? features incredibly memorable lines, yet hasn't reached the quoted-to-death status of The Big Lebowski.
  • “Every time I put it on, it’s a pleasure to hear these lines again.” – Griffin (01:29)
  • They appreciate that it remains "fresh" with each viewing.
• Emily notes the pleasant “revisit” quality due to its absence from meme culture, comparing it to how cultural saturation can tire audiences to a film’s charms.

2. The Soundtrack’s Unprecedented Cultural Impact

• Extensive discussion of how the soundtrack became a pop phenomenon—overtaking the film in terms of mainstream recognition:
  • “It defeated Outkast’s Stankonia for album of the year.” – Emily (03:02)
  • The soundtrack's unique position as a massive best-seller surpassing the film itself. The hosts compare it to other big soundtracks and discuss sales statistics.
• The team explores the album's place in Grammy history, beating out heavy hitters (Stankonia, U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft, India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul).
  • “It sold, like, 6 million copies in its first 18 months.” – David (08:42)
• The phenomenon of young, urban listeners enthusiastically embracing bluegrass and old-timey music is highlighted.

3. Awards, Commercial Performance, and Critical Reception

• The film was perceived as a "comeback" for the Coens after The Big Lebowski's then-disappointing performance, though critics were divided at the time.
  • “It’s odd that Big Lebowski was seen as such a failure that this needs to dig them out of the hole.” – Griffin (27:14)
• O Brother was well-liked but initially considered "lightweight" or "minor Coens" by critics. Roger Ebert, noted, was especially dismissive.
• The film received notable Oscar nominations, including Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography, but did not win.

4. Adaptation of the Odyssey – or Not?

• The Coens claim they “never read” Homer’s Odyssey; instead, they filtered its basic beats through “cultural osmosis.” Emily admits this is her approach when riffing on classics.
  • Emily: “I do this a lot. I adapt things and don’t read them. I know it from cultural osmosis.” (26:40)
• The film is a loose, playful adaptation using the Odyssey as a structural and symbolic backdrop, rather than a beat-for-beat retelling.

5. Technical Innovation: The Birth of the Modern Digital Intermediate

• The film pioneered digital color correction (DI), giving the movie its distinctive, dusty, sepia palette.
  • “They try to do a chemical process and it doesn’t work...This gets credited as the first like complete DI.” – Griffin (69:45)
• Emily plugs her own Vox article on the subject and highlights how the technique, used to de-green lush Mississippi landscapes, profoundly influenced future filmmaking—for better or worse (71:50).

6. Casting, Performance & the ‘Idiot Trilogy’

• Deep appreciation for George Clooney’s performance—balancing movie-star confidence with idiocy:
  • “He has the confidence of Danny Ocean...and he’s an idiot.” – Griffin (55:15)
• Discussion of the inspired casting of Tim Blake Nelson (largely unknown at the time), John Turturro, and the specific talents they bring; Tim Blake Nelson’s role as a lynchpin of the film and its ongoing influence on his career.
• Reference to the Coens’ unofficial “Idiot Trilogy” (O Brother, Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading).

7. The Film’s Shifting Tone and Structure

• Celebrated as a prime example of "picaresque" storytelling—episodic, wandering, with new faces and vignettes around every corner.
• The film deftly mixes comedy, drama, musical, and even moments of horror or eeriness.
  • “How can a movie be this funny, look this good, and also have scenes that are genuinely sad, unsettling, spooky?” – Griffin (82:00)
• The team highlights specific sequences: the baptism, Baby Face Nelson, the sirens, John Goodman’s “Cyclops,” and the clan rally, noting how they juggle disparate tones.

8. Music as Theme & Cultural Bridge

• Discussion of the film’s depiction of Americana, bluegrass, and the borrowing (“lifting”) of Black musical traditions by white pop culture.
  • “All of American music comes out of like slave songs, prison songs, spirituals… everything descends from…” – Griffin (86:55)
• The soundtrack’s juxtaposition of “hot new” professional recordings with scratchy, vintage-sounding tracks exemplifies the film’s conversation with tradition and modernity.

9. Political Subtext & The Coens’ Perspective

• The film is a snapshot of Southern politics during the Depression—and a sly commentary on American populism, race, and institutional (mis)trust.
  • "It's a distrust of institutions and power, and there's a belief in the individual person." – Griffin (120:39)
• Conversation about the treatment and depiction of race; the film’s perception over time as either politically cautious, conservative, or evasive—and how critics have read their overall ideology.

10. Memorable Supporting Performances & Characters

• Celebration of Charles Durning (Pappy O’Daniel), Holly Hunter (Penny), Stephen Root (the radio “blind seer”), Daniel von Bargen (the Sheriff/Poseidon/Satan), and the film’s bench of “great faces.”
• Great appreciation for the casting of “real people”—locals with unforgettable expressions who add authenticity and comic texture.

11. Timeless Slapstick & Quotables

• The gang relishes quoting their favorite lines and moments; riff on the comic tradition of “pie stealing” in American films as a trope.
  • “All good comedies should have at least one instance of people stealing a hot pie.” – Griffin (108:01)
• The show closes with in-character Dapper Dan jokes, celebrating the movie's enduring quotability and comedic legacy.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I am the only podcast you got. I'm the damn Potter Familias.”
  — Griffin Newman (00:29)
• “It has not gotten into the Big Lebowski territory of I have to hear these lines all the time. Every time I put it on, it's a pleasure to hear these lines again.”
  — Griffin Newman (01:21)
• “It defeated Outkast Stankonia for album of the year.”
  — Emily St. James (03:02)
• “This movie makes T Bone Burnett a household name.”
  — Griffin Newman (21:29)
• "I always have a weird ... when I start, I know I like this movie, but when I start it, I'm like, this is going to be the time when I get off it. And every time I'm like, oh, right. This hasn't been so thoroughly seeded into the culture that I, like, low-key resent it."
  — Emily St. James (01:35)
• “I think their point was we have seen so many adaptations and riffs on this that we understand what the basic beats are. The actual text doesn't matter as much to us as the idea of the beats. The structure.”
  — Griffin Newman (26:58)
• “It’s a loose adaptation.”
  — Emily St. James (27:14)
• “They try to do like a chemical process and it doesn't work. And Deakins is like, hear me out. I think we can try this. This gets credited as the first like complete di.”
  — Griffin Newman (69:45)
• "They just fall in love with [Clooney] and are like, we can write for him forever. This is our favorite type of character."
  — Griffin Newman (57:51)
• "The film is a picaresque. And like many picaresques, it has some segments. It has a gear that it gets in and never quite leaves, which is fun.”
  — Emily St. James (37:00)
• “All of American music comes out of, like, slave songs, prison songs, spirituals. You know, and everything descends from…”
  — Griffin Newman (86:55)
• “It's a distrust of institutions and power, and there's a belief in the individual person.”
  — Griffin Newman (120:39)
• “How can a movie be this funny, look this good...and also have scenes that are genuinely sad, unsettling, spooky?”
  — Griffin Newman (82:00)
• "Every good comedy should have at least one instance of people stealing a hot pie."
  — Griffin Newman (108:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:29–02:29
  Opening banter; why the film isn’t “over-memed or quoted”
• 03:01–08:52
  The soundtrack’s Grammy win and cultural impact; discussion of comparable soundtracks
• 14:52–15:54
  Linkin Park, music trends, teen sincerity, and the magical quality of the O Brother soundtrack’s “fit” in its era
• 20:15–22:10
  Framing of the Coens’ career post-Lebowski and this film’s status as their “comeback”
• 26:32–28:05
  Odyssey adaptation method (“cultural osmosis” vs. direct translation)
• 30:42–34:12
  Home media releases; the importance (and negligence) of preserving films like this
• 38:39–39:10
  Tim Blake Nelson’s journey to the film and subsequent career
• 46:09–47:09
  Historical texture: pop politics and the film’s references to real-life figures from Southern history
• 55:15–57:15
  Clooney’s performance and the play on stooge dynamics (“idiot trilogy”)
• 69:45–72:00
  Deakins’s use of digital color correction; the film’s technical innovation
• 82:00–84:35
  The film’s handling of tone; mixing comedy, drama, and real historical context
• 120:39–124:21
  The film’s handling of race, musical integration, and the Coens’ perceived politics

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Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with gratitude for Emily St. James’s contributions (a prolific guest, author, and advocate for deeper, more inclusive pop cultural perspectives), plugs for her work, and a preview of their next episode. As always, the group’s affectionate skepticism, obsession with trivia, and delight in classic Hollywood storytelling make this a rewarding listen for cinephiles and casual fans alike.

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Next on Blank Check:
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Coen Brothers miniseries continues)

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For further reading & listening:

• Emily St. James' Vox feature on DI technology
• WFMU: Old Kajer with Courtney T Edison for deep dives into Appalachian & Americana music
• Notebook Depression (music publication) for modern roots/Americana
  (All links in episode description on blankcheckpod.com)

Transcript

[David Sims]

Blank check with Grapevine day and day. Blank check with Griffin. Jen and Gray. Don't know what to say or what to expect, but the name of the show is Blank Chick.

[Griffin Newman]

I am the only podcast you got. I'm the damn Potter Familias.

[David Sims]

But you ain't bona fide.

[Griffin Newman]

Damn. Here's the thing.

[David Sims]

I. I founder Familias.

[Griffin Newman]

Potter Familias. But I did podcast first and then Potter Familias.

[David Sims]

I don't want fop, God damn it. I'm a podcast stand man. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's a thought I had while watching this movie last night.

[David Sims]

I don't want Fop, God damn it. At the way he says FOP is the best line reading of 1 million years of human history.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie has.

[David Sims]

I won't. I won't back down from this take.

[Griffin Newman]

So many incredible lines of dialogue, perfectly delivered, transcendently delivered. Right. People just fucking identifying the slightly off kilter way to throw it out without overselling the dialogue. And my big thought while watching this and all these lines coming up is I am so happy that somehow this movie has not gotten into the Big Lebowski territory of I have to hear these lines all the time.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Every time I put it on, it's a pleasure to hear these lines again.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

I always have a weird When I start, I know I like this movie, but when I started, I'm like, this is going to be the time when I get off it. It's just not going to work for me anymore. And every time I'm like, oh, right. This hasn't been so thoroughly seeded into the culture that I like low key resent it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's nice. It's a really nice feeling. And I'm not saying it's something that like works against Big Lebowski, but it is pleasant that every time you revisit this movie is actually a revisit.

[David Sims]

You candy buttered car thieving so and so's I curse your name is one of my favorite undersung lines. There's so many good in oh brother were out there. A film that I see. The thing is, I've seen this movie like 40 times. So I am not like it is not a new thing for every time I'm like, oh yeah, right. I know every line of this movie. Like for. I owned it on dvd, so I just watched it too.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, same. But I'm just saying you're not hearing it on the streets.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not being memed to death.

[David Sims]

Streets.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You know, I Don't want fop. God damn it.

[Emily St. James]

I mean, I was just In Sioux Falls, S.D. people were just shouting things at each other in this movie. It's. It's. It's all your coastal elitism showing right now.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. It is fascinating that the movie has still kind of retained that status and even perhaps like, receded a little in the Coen's canon, considering that its soundtrack was one of the most culturally impactful things of its decade and beyond. It being that big was also just like one of the most bizarre things to ever happen in American pop culture.

[David Sims]

We were talking about it.

[Emily St. James]

It defeated Outkast Stankonia for album of the year.

[David Sims]

Really? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, that's crazy.

[David Sims]

You want me to pull it up? I'm gonna pull up the. All the nominees cannot be overstated how.

[Griffin Newman]

Big the soundtrack was. And I cannot think of another example of a soundtrack being that disproportionately bigger than the movie it spawned. I think there are cases of like.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I mean, because things like Saturday Night Live, it's like, the movie was huge. I mean, this movie was big. Fe fever. Well, so live, though. Yeah, yeah, the movie was huge. Reitman, remember? I'll tell you what was huge.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie's kind of a comedic thriller. Let him pick the clock. Is our Darth Vader.

[Ben Hosley]

Who else is huge?

[David Sims]

Milton Berle's cock. There we go in that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Here are the five nominees for album of the year in the year 2002. So we're talking two full years after the movie came out because the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Comes out limited release late end of 2000, goes wide, beginning of 01. Win soundtrack of the year. Like March 02.

[David Sims]

This is not soundtrack of the year.

[Griffin Newman]

Album of the year. I'm sorry, but that's.

[David Sims]

Oh, brother, where art Thou? Soundtrack. Now, the other nominees.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, give them to me.

[David Sims]

Stankonia by Outkast, a pretty big album, kind of their artistic peak.

[Ben Hosley]

It still fucking holds up.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I think Speaker Box, the Love below is great, but it's two albums that are not really linked.

[Griffin Newman]

It's guys who are no longer know how to collaborate. Is the last proper Outcast album.

[Emily St. James]

And when they won for Speaker Box Love Blow, there was a real sense of, oh, this is for the other album.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Exactly. This is which I think the Grammys are constantly guilty of. No, Idlewild is actually. It doesn't matter. Idle Bad. Not very good. I mean, there's some. There's. There's some.

[Ben Hosley]

What's there? Other aliens.

[David Sims]

Atliens.

[Ben Hosley]

That's before but that one's also a banger.

[David Sims]

Look, all their albums are good, right? They're good.

[Griffin Newman]

Well.

[David Sims]

But it strikes again. Funky thrash. It is 100% there. And it's their cultural. You know, Ms. Jackson is sort of like that's when the most.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, it's the weirdness of Heya being so humongous, but also being like, these guys are breaking up.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right, That's.

[Griffin Newman]

And this is an on song. Right?

[Emily St. James]

Right.

[David Sims]

Not a big boy song. Love and Theft by Bob Dylan. Underrated, lovely late Dylan album. You know Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Shall I go on?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

An album that I bet Ben loves. You choose all that you can't leave behind, Ben, which even I yourself together. It's not a.

[Griffin Newman]

You know why I'm singing it like Dave Matthews.

[David Sims]

Look. I don't actually like that album that much.

[Emily St. James]

Everyone thought that was going to win, though, because that was the post 911 Grammys.

[Griffin Newman]

Perfect day in elevation.

[David Sims]

Beautiful day.

[Emily St. James]

Beautiful day.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sorry. Beautiful day. Elevation.

[Emily St. James]

And it has the one that everyone listens to after 9 11. Yeah.

[David Sims]

We can't get out of walk on.

[Griffin Newman]

Those first four tracks of New York song.

[David Sims]

No, it does not. Okay. That was not on an album except for like a best of. It does have New York, which is one of YouTube's worst songs by a country mile. It is astonishing.

[Griffin Newman]

Concrete jungles.

[David Sims]

It. You got one. If you ever want to have a chuckle, Google the lyrics to New York by you two. But it was such a big. I think that must have been the front run because it was such a big album and it was kind of like you two's comeback.

[Emily St. James]

It was all brother. Winning was a huge upset because. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then India Ari's Acoustic Soul was.

[Griffin Newman]

The fifth, which was a big deal at the time.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. But probably not a front runner.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. But. But, like, was oh Brother the second bestselling of that lineup?

[David Sims]

Oh, I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

That's my question. I'm like, I would be fascinated to hear see what the sales stats were for Stankonia, the U2 album.

[Emily St. James]

And oh brother, U2 album's definitely in the lead. But I like.

[Griffin Newman]

I think so too. But I'm like, did O Brother outsell Stankonia?

[Emily St. James]

It may have.

[David Sims]

Look, I'm going to look it up. This is a little harder because, you know. You know, it's like you're talking years and not like Grammys.

[Griffin Newman]

It was just so bizarre because the album clearly caught on in a way that was completely independent of the movie. Like, the movie came Out. People liked it. It overperformed a little bit, but didn't like fully crossover. Right, right. It didn't do the true credit. It was selling well. And then the album became a thing. And then they do, like concert tours with the album. There's the concert documentary, which I can't find anywhere anymore from, called down from the Mountain.

[Emily St. James]

And the thing is, I remember that.

[David Sims]

Though it was nice.

[Emily St. James]

It caught on. We were talking about this before we recorded. It caught on with young people. It was like 20 somethings were banging bluegrass.

[Griffin Newman]

And once again, the pitch is old timey music.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, within the context of the movie set during the depression, they're like, you guys know any old timey music?

[Emily St. James]

I was watching a complete unknown and Alan Lomax is a character in that. It's like, he's the fucking guy. He was standing in Dylan's way and I was like, why do I know Alan? It's because of this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

There's a whole bunch of songs from his collection on this album.

[David Sims]

So I have a brother. Split between 2001, 2002.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

In 2001, it was the ninth selling album of the year. It sold 3.4 million copies.

[Griffin Newman]

Million.

[Ben Hosley]

And we all have it on CD.

[David Sims]

Yes, I had it on CD.

[Griffin Newman]

People buying physical discs, going to streams. Yep. I don't think itunes existed yet. I don't think that launches.

[David Sims]

No. But I mean, Steven Root was spinning those discs.

[Griffin Newman]

He was a lot. And doing a lot of business.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I remember seeing this movie in theaters. And when that was happening, I turned to my mom and I went, is he having like a seizure? She was like, no, he just likes the song.

[David Sims]

And so certainly it is above any of the Grammy nominees I mentioned in both years. In 2002, it sold another 2.7 million.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

So, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

So it sold like 6 million copies in its first 18 months.

[David Sims]

I guess. I guess so.

[Emily St. James]

Yes. Danconia has only been certified quadruple platinum. So it's only sold 4 million.

[David Sims]

So it's total, O Brothers. Total. It's a 8 times platinum. It's sold 8.1 million copies in the United States as of October 2019. We haven't checked in in the last five years. Just above. Oh, brother. Just to complete this little. Because I love. I love a list.

[Griffin Newman]

We love lists.

[David Sims]

So you got. At number eight, you've got Creeds. Weathered. Oh, yeah. I'm not up on Creed. I will admit I only know them as well.

[Griffin Newman]

Because that has to be Arms Wide Open. Right. That has to be the album.

[David Sims]

It is Come on, Crete's back. It is not.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not.

[David Sims]

It is not.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that the followup?

[Emily St. James]

I think it is, yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Griffin Newman]

Is this. This is how you remind me. Yeah.

[David Sims]

With our. No, that's Nickelback.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

You must be so embarrassed.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? So is it. If I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman?

[David Sims]

I don't even know what that is.

[Ben Hosley]

That's three door style.

[David Sims]

The thing is, a lot of this music not to pull this car did not make it to Britain in the same way Creed. Absolutely didn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Christian rock was not a thing in.

[Griffin Newman]

Britain, but Oldtime album does make it.

[David Sims]

To the uk maybe a little bit. I think this was pretty niche in Britain. This. This whole thing was pretty. But anyway, above Creed, we've got Destiny's Child, Survivor. Okay. That's a great album. Alicia Key, Songs in A Minor, her first album. Good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Stains Break the Cycle, which is reprehensibly bad. So bad.

[Griffin Newman]

What's the single off that?

[David Sims]

Oh, you know how you remind me I. What is. You know, it's Been a while. You know, that's been a while. I just remember that Scott Aukerman.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You know his podcast? They. They do that joke anytime someone said, talking about Emily. And then so they. As a joke, they're like, let's actually, like, listen to the whole album. And they go track by track. And it's so tough to listen to that fucking new metal stuff. Fourth Enya, A Day Without Rain. Now, this is Later Anya, but I was going to say sort of Lord of the Rings.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing. I think she got a fellowship bump.

[Emily St. James]

It's another post 911 thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Great poll, Emily. I guess. Even though it was released pre 9 11, I think the bump comes post.

[Emily St. James]

Because, yeah, we were all looking for solace.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then the top three are, of course, the best three albums of 2001. Number three, NSync Celebrity, which is fine. Number two, Shaggy's Hotshot, which is the It Wasn't Me comeback.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's the follow up.

[David Sims]

No, no, I'm saying, like, it wasn't Me with Shaggy's comeback. Right. Like, it was like Shaggy's returned. You thought Mr. Boombastic was a one hit. Wonderful.

[Ben Hosley]

I didn't know he was gone.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You didn't know. You don't. Shaggy kind of slightly receded public memory.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the It Wasn't Me album for.

[Emily St. James]

For like two years. The person who didn't personally know me before I transitioned, who had misgendered Me, the last time was Shaggy.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[Emily St. James]

And then I got missed. I was at a press conference, and he couldn't see me, and he just was going off my voice. So he said, sir. And I was like. And I was not offended because it was Shaggy. I was like, well, that's a good last.

[Griffin Newman]

You accused him of misgendering you. And he said, it wasn't me. Yeah, he's got a kind of airtight alibi. This is the thing. By making himself the it wasn't me guy, he can slip out of any accusation.

[Emily St. James]

And then some lady at an airport did. And I was like, well, that's it. You used to be Shaggy in the Dreams day.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

He's so good, Shaggy. Love him.

[Griffin Newman]

You should sing more of his canon right now on Mike Angel. That was one, my darling.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that sounds right. Number one. God bless him. And this is. I think I've talked to Ben about this. Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory, their first album, Humongous, which at the time I was so dismissive of. I think about this now, and I really think it was internalized homophobia. A little bit from me, a little bit from Simsie.

[Griffin Newman]

Unpack this.

[David Sims]

Even though I was a woke boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Unpack this.

[David Sims]

I think that music is so sincere. I listen to it now and I'm like, this is special. Like, this is interesting. It's not 100% my thing, but it's so emotional, man.

[Griffin Newman]

In a tremendous amount of pain.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I think at the time, I was a little too, like, too much, you know, not cool. Not cool. You know, like, this is, like, too much emotion, too much feeling.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't you think that was.

[David Sims]

He's about to break.

[Griffin Newman]

I know everything you say to him.

[David Sims]

But don't you take some. One step closer to the edge.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you think that was kind of.

[Ben Hosley]

Is crawling in his skin?

[Griffin Newman]

It's crawling. That's on rules. Don't you think that that was kind of the magic that. That blew up the record charts 100?

[David Sims]

But that was.

[Griffin Newman]

There was this combination of, like, externally, this guy's really tough and hardcore and his voice extreme. And the songs are aggressive. And then there's, like, such a sensitivity in the center of them that that Clash kind of was able to reach across the aisle.

[Emily St. James]

There's so many albums in that top 10 that are, like, boys being sincere over, like, Christmas. Yeah.

[David Sims]

That emerged right as I'm a teenager, like, 15 years old, and I'm, like, a little too cool. Even though I wasn't the coolest kid in school. Funky Fresh. But I considered myself so much of it for essentially emo music.

[Emily St. James]

And so much of it, like Creed, seems like it's sung by a church praise band, and you're actually just kind of Christian adjacent.

[Griffin Newman]

And then it also feels like this is on the brink of splintering off into Screamo, which is then, like, not even pretending to be hardcore is just, like, emotions first and foremost. Like, there's a bifurcation that I think happens.

[Emily St. James]

Well, somebody.

[Ben Hosley]

Underground music.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I think a lot of people. That was the thing that they hated about Linkin park, right. Is that they were this, like, homogenized, you know, really, they're.

[David Sims]

They're bringing it mainstream. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But that always happens, and then the underground stuff becomes overground very quickly. Yeah. It's like we talk about how, like, Spider Man 2, the whole album is Scream Ocean.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, you can't get more mainstream than this. The list you just read off, though, makes it all the more insane that the O Brother soundtrack Explorer doesn't really.

[David Sims]

Fit into what I just read out into anything.

[Griffin Newman]

It would be weird if that soundtrack went viral today.

[Emily St. James]

It's a. It does presage Screamo, though. It's very, you know, O Brothers Screamo. Yo, all the way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I am a man of carcin sorrow Pretty emo.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

If you say that, that's emo. I'm a man of gossip.

[Griffin Newman]

That was the point I was just making. That was the profound point I was just making.

[David Sims]

Now, I have a couple other threads I want to tie off. Okay. One, Griff wasn't here for this, but we were discussing Taylor Sheridan Steakhouse. Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

I'm sure you're very aware of it. Four sixes, which is in Las Vegas at the Wynn.

[Griffin Newman]

Emily, your picture is framed on the wall.

[Emily St. James]

Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Taylor and I, yeah.

[David Sims]

Looked up the old menu.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

You know, and they've got your regular steaks, porterhouses, filet mignons, I would imagine. Maybe you want a Cornish head if you're, you know, feeling saucy. But. And this is to speak to Ben and his experience of expensive steaks. They do have a $1,000 steak.

[Ben Hosley]

Now, here's the thing.

[David Sims]

No, no, I am. I'm lying. It's nine, nine, nine on the nugget.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, good.

[David Sims]

Nine, nine, nine dollars.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no sense.

[David Sims]

No, no, no. 90 cents.

[Ben Hosley]

What?

[David Sims]

9,999. I think it's like 6,666, but.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so you get to keep a nickel in four pennies.

[Ben Hosley]

What I appreciate and that is ridiculous. Who would buy that? I mean, I don't know. I'm sure there's people out there who just are real big steakheads. At least the price is listed.

[David Sims]

That's true. It is listed right here. It's Japanese Purebred Freedom Wagyu. 48 ounce steak with beef tallow, raclette cheese popover.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting. That does sound good.

[David Sims]

That kind of sounds like the. In the. You know, if this is the Bambino, which is an item we've discussed in the past. Is the popover like the check? Is it the.

[Griffin Newman]

You're stepping on my joke. I was gonna say that the steak also comes with a signed check by Babe Ruth, a long pour and a.

[David Sims]

Victrola and a Bordelaise sauce, which is sort of like a whiny sauce. Anyway, so.

[Griffin Newman]

And also it's grilled by hand by Kevin Costner.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they get him in there. That's the one thing he'll still do for Taylor Sheridan.

[Griffin Newman]

I love Shane.

[David Sims]

It'd be so funny if Costner fucked it up just to mess with Sheridan. Like he overcooks it.

[Emily St. James]

Did you watch the final season? Of course you didn't watch the final season. They kill Kevin Costner like seven times.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Emily St. James]

It's just showing his death over and over.

[Griffin Newman]

And then there are like six episodes devoted to how well Taylor Sheridan Fox. Right.

[Emily St. James]

And how well he rides a horse. And he dates Bella Hadid. Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Oh, you could tell me anything happened on Yellowstone, I'd be like, all right.

[Griffin Newman]

That there's a character played by him who decides to buy the ranch after Costner dies. And every character is like, God, he's so much better than Kevin Costner.

[David Sims]

Played by Taylor Sherrod.

[Griffin Newman]

Played by Taylor. And Bella Haddad is his girlfriend and constantly talks about how good he is in bed. Makes allusions too.

[Emily St. James]

Five minute sequences of him doing trick riding on a horse.

[Griffin Newman]

I've seen these super cuts, but there's a. Right, he's trick riding on a horse. And then one of the other female characters goes like, man, he rides that horse well. And Belladid goes like, you don't even know.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry, I'm looking up the.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, other loops to close.

[David Sims]

It's the final one. It's Ben birthday. Happy birthday, Ben.

[Ben Hosley]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

25 years young. Yep. Decade of dreams.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah, We. Griff walks in here, Emily and I, and we haven't introduced Emily, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

We haven't introduced the podcast. We've talked about the music scene of 2000, 2001. A lot.

[David Sims]

At least. At least that's somewhat relevant.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely, deeply relevant.

[David Sims]

We are discussing the film Transamerica and how the director of that film never made another movie again.

[Griffin Newman]

Again. Yeah, just a weird one off.

[David Sims]

And then so you, of course, immediately summon the spectre of Mr. Corky Romano.

[Griffin Newman]

Rewatched Corky Romano just this last weekend, looked up the man who directed it, Rob Prit, who had zero credits on IMDb previous to this film in any position. And then since then has only made two short films in 2012.

[David Sims]

And I nearly.

[Griffin Newman]

Where did he come from?

[David Sims]

And so I, I googled him and I found a little interview with him. Mostly works in advertising, which I guess is not too surprising. You know, they're asking him questions like, oh, what was your first advertising project? Yada, yada.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you guys want some cookies?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

That line reading kills.

[David Sims]

If you were to change professions, what would you choose to do? Here's Rob Pritz. Answer, Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Competition barbecue smoker. I cook a killer 15 hour slow smoked pork shoulder that I think would do well in a cook off.

[Griffin Newman]

It is on.

[David Sims]

So if you ever want to roll up your sleeves with the Pritzer.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Enter the Prit. Not the Pit.

[Griffin Newman]

Nope. The show on hbo. The Printmaster. If you want to try his pork shoulder, you should head on over to Taylor Sheridan Steakhouse in Las Vegas. What if Pritz work in there?

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's. He's behind the smoker.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I heard, I heard this, that he tried to get a job on the Pit and they were like, your name's Pritz. Too confusing.

[Griffin Newman]

It's too confusing.

[David Sims]

So I think that's all incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you all for listening. Remember to rate, review and subscribe. No, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a classic gap. That's a classic throwback. David got distracted by.

[Emily St. James]

So glad to be sure.

[David Sims]

Did get distracted by a very, very annoying question.

[Griffin Newman]

Vintage. Vintage. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Nice cough. Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce, baby. And sometimes their album goes quintuple platinum.

[David Sims]

Yeah, no. 8. So octuple.

[Emily St. James]

Octuple.

[Griffin Newman]

Octuple platinum. This is a miniseries on the films of the Coen brothers. It is called Pod country for old casts, probably. I think that's right.

[David Sims]

I couldn't tell you.

[Griffin Newman]

It's really slipping out of my brain every time. Not just this, but most things today we're talking about oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is, weirdly. They're like comeback film from the failure of Big Lebowski at the time, what is perceived as an absolute wipeout, but also is more known as the film that spawned one of the biggest albums of the day.

[Emily St. James]

You think they get a cut of that soundtrack?

[Griffin Newman]

Here's the thing.

[David Sims]

I. I'm sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, here's the thing. I know.

[David Sims]

Let's find out.

[Griffin Newman]

What I know is that it's still. George Clooney talks about this in interviews. Tim Blake Nelson made more on this movie than any other.

[David Sims]

He actually sings.

[Griffin Newman]

Is the only one who sings, right.

[David Sims]

Only on the second song.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

He doesn't sing on man of Constant.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorrow, but he also is in the jailhouse now.

[David Sims]

That's when he sings. That's actually his voice, is it not?

[Griffin Newman]

His voice doing backup on.

[David Sims]

No, Brother, it is not.

[Griffin Newman]

On Constant Sorrow.

[David Sims]

It is not.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

I will also share that a lot of this music is not copyright.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Because it's, you know, traditional.

[Ben Hosley]

It's all traditional music. So I do think that there is definitely potential for, like, a unique kind of, like, financial share.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, were they producers?

[David Sims]

I don't think they were. I don't see them. I don't see their name on there.

[Griffin Newman]

That's another thing that makes this film bizarre is, like, they work with Carter Burwell on every single movie. He is such a defining part of their film language. He gets some additional music credit on this. But this is really like, T Bone Burnett, and this movie makes T Bone Burnett a household name.

[Emily St. James]

It's just. It's too bad that Joel Cohn doesn't get, like, an envelope from the Spotify corporation every month with, like, two dimes tapes to an index card.

[Griffin Newman]

You to hear that somehow this was their, like, Star wars deal.

[Emily St. James]

I'm surprised this hasn't become a Broadway musical. This feels like a natural.

[David Sims]

Emily, great call.

[Griffin Newman]

This is why we bring you in.

[David Sims]

But maybe, again, that's a Cohen's roadblock where they're like, what? No, I don't want to do that.

[Griffin Newman]

But on the other hand, they've always been like, I don't know. Go ahead. Make your Fargo show. Who gives a shit?

[David Sims]

That's true, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, to me, like, I want to do a Jesus movie. And they're like, fine.

[David Sims]

Well, that one. They're friends with the guy with the Fargo show. They kind of. It seems like their reaction was more like, huh? And it was like, well, we're gonna do it because we can. And they were like, our attitude is.

[Griffin Newman]

Very much like, we don't block stuff because it's not fucking changing the original movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they're definitely. You're right.

[Emily St. James]

They had also sold off the Fargo TV adaptation rights a long time ago, and then they bounced around. So I wonder if they have more creative control over this. But they should make it a musical. They should do it.

[Griffin Newman]

They should. No, that's really smart. And that's the kind of insight you only get from our returning for the seventh, eighth time guest, Emily St. James.

[David Sims]

I'll look it up. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Hello, Emily from the podcast. Podcast. Like it's the 2000s.

[Emily St. James]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

From the new novel would work writer on yellow jackets, Emily St. James.

[David Sims]

Hello, Munich. Boom, Alice, Boom.

[Griffin Newman]

Which look you hold. If you want to view it as a distinction, that is always the default answer. I feel like David and I threw out a worst movie we've ever cut on.

[Emily St. James]

I love. I don't listen to that episode because it's under my old name, but I love that episode because we just. It's just tangents. It's just us trying not to talk about the Fudderwack.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And it's not exactly the most. You know, it's not a fucking. No, I think it's a fun gold narrative over here.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's a good episode.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Great episode. Terrible movie. Lambs.

[Griffin Newman]

Silence of. Not lions 4.

[David Sims]

No, we have yet to do Lions for Lambs. Carol.

[Griffin Newman]

Not Todd Christmas Carol. Yeah, you're describing this title thing. The Stoker six, Postman seven.

[David Sims]

So this is the eighth appearance.

[Griffin Newman]

Eighth.

[Emily St. James]

My first. My first time I did this show. My first time I did this show just to. Because we're reminiscing this year.

[Griffin Newman]

A Decade of Dreams.

[Emily St. James]

I didn't know Ben existed. And I was just sitting there listening to you two talk, and this voice popped in and I was like, who is this man with long flowing blonde hair like a beautiful Adonis voice. Yeah, Yeah. I was like, who the. Actually, I was like, who the fuck is that?

[Griffin Newman]

Right? This was when our. We recorded in a closet that was so small that if we had a guest, Ben couldn't be in the room and listened on headphones from the room next door.

[Ben Hosley]

The closet next door.

[Griffin Newman]

The smaller closet. Yes, yes. And now it's your birthday. Whoever thought Decade of Dreams. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Hey, Griffin. David. Oh, wait, they're both asleep. And the new beds we just added to the studio, so I'll just have to be extra quiet.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

It's so bittersweet that summer is winding down. But it's also an opportunity to get back into a routine that you love. With Wayfair, we actually just refreshed our studio with some new furniture. We added a couple of floor lamps to brighten up up the space. And with an ever growing collection of toys, books and collectibles, we purchased three new bookcases. Wayfair made it easy to search by size and material so we can purchase products that fit our recording studio perfectly. Now the space looks more professional and organized. Less clutter really helps us relax and ready to settle back into the end of season routine. Podcasting. Also, we got the beds. With a wide selection for every space. From storage to kitchen essentials to bedding, Wayfair has everything to get your home, office or porch ready for the season ahead. The delivery was free, fast and hassle free, even on the big stuff. With Wayfair, say goodbye to huge delivery fees and instead say hello to save savings. So get organized, refreshed, and back to routine. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W A Y f a I r.com Wayfair Every style Every home.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh.

[Ben Hosley]

They'Re dreaming.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh brother, where art thou? An adaptation of Homer's the Odyssey.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

By two guys who claim that they have never read it.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Emily St. James]

I appreciate this.

[Griffin Newman]

I do too.

[Emily St. James]

I do this a lot. I adapt things and don't read them. I'm just like, I know this from cultural osmosis. Like, I'm working on a book right now that is ostensibly a riff on Little Women, and I'm like, I didn't revisit Little Women. I have half memories of it and I'm surprised how much of it got in there.

[Griffin Newman]

I think their point was we have seen so many adaptations and riffs on this that we understand what the basic beats are. The actual text doesn't matter as much to us as the idea of the beats. The structure.

[Emily St. James]

It's a loose adaptation.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Everything about this movie is odd. It's odd that Big Lebowski was seen as such a failure that this needs to like, dig them out of the hole. That it does that, but is much more of like a commercial play than like, respected by awards, bodies, or. I even feel like critics were a little like, yeah, it's cute.

[David Sims]

I think critics were somewhat dismissive, you know, to the extent of a Coen's movie where they, you know, they gave it a look.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But this was pretty quickly minor Cohens. And then the cultural footprint arrived a little later in a way did get an Oscar nom. For screenplay. For adapted screenplay.

[Griffin Newman]

Did it get cinematography?

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, that was a tough year for adapted. So they like had. They were filling that category. I did get. Yeah. I remember Ebert was very dismissive of it.

[David Sims]

Ebert was down on this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You know, he's probably just grumpy.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. Now, David, you and I, I think.

[David Sims]

There were no hot chicks in it. That's definitely Ebert's hot chicks era. God bless him. I love Roger Ebert, but once the 2000s start, if there's like a hot chick in a movie, he's like, really was Angel Eyes. And I'm like, oh, were you, Roger?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. The Lopez run is incredible. There's something about this movie about Lopez.

[David Sims]

Is a star that really is. I'm really, really interested by her.

[Griffin Newman]

Play this well with the camera behind them.

[Emily St. James]

I think he put the Cell in his top 10 movies 2000 and was like, this movie just has an interesting look. And I'm like, it does.

[David Sims]

Also, the thing is, right, he sometimes ahead, you know, like, the Cell is good. It was dismissed and it probably shouldn't have been.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

But I wonder what. Roger's real.

[Griffin Newman]

That's why he liked the Garfield movies so much. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because the man was crazy for so. Oh, brother, Where Art Thou? Was dismissed at the time. David, we established on a previous episode.

[David Sims]

You and I, somewhat dismissed, I think, you know. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It was sort of like.

[David Sims]

It's not like a Hudsucker where people are actively a little.

[Griffin Newman]

No, once again, it was. It was like a. It was an on base hit.

[David Sims]

It was a hit. Oh, it made money. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You and I both think this is the first one we saw.

[David Sims]

Yeah. In theaters. Yeah. I think without a question.

[Griffin Newman]

I hadn't seen any of them. I don't think I would have seen any of them.

[David Sims]

My question is. Right. Had I seen one of the earlier ones on video or something?

[Emily St. James]

This is absolutely the first one I saw in theaters. I think I saw Fargo on video, though.

[David Sims]

I owned both Fargo and this on DVD in the early days of dvd. And I watched them a lot. And this was a good dvd. It had a lot of stuff because of the technical stuff, which is also.

[Griffin Newman]

Funny because the Blu ray sucks.

[David Sims]

Oh, does it?

[Griffin Newman]

It's a bad transfer. They've clearly, like, never updated it and it feels like it has less features.

[David Sims]

A lot of bad discs.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, there's the handful of Criterions where, like, they've done a good job, but it's like, as I was embarking on the okay, what discs should I buy? I'm not like you. Where I like, you know, we'll buy, like, a Dutch DVD of, you know, I will never buy it.

[Griffin Newman]

I only do that if there's no other option.

[David Sims]

Well, that's not me. No. Then I'm like, I rented that on itunes. I don't need to buy a disc. But with the Cohens, a lot of the discs felt a little uninspiring.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think a lot of that is a bunch of their films ended up at mgm, who, for a long time, really brought up the rear on physical media releases in the high def era. But this one just looks like it's the DVD transfer. Put on a Blu Ray. I think it was a pretty early Blu Ray release. I feel like it doesn't carry over all the special features. It's kind of like blocky and artifact y, which is interesting for a movie that was so pioneering in its sort of, like, digital control of the image that. That has not been preserved.

[Emily St. James]

Well, yeah, you watch. I watched it on Amazon Prime Video, and it was. Yeah. The real breakthrough of the images is not really clear anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

It doesn't look bad, but it is very clear that it is, like, a very old source being used on every streaming platform, on every digital retailer. And on the disc, it is very overdue for, like, yeah, like, a Criterion set with the fucking concert film on and all this other shit.

[David Sims]

Do they not want to do this stuff? Because it's kind of like, then you're in true retirement mode. Like, are they resistant to, like, okay, let's dig through the back catalog. I mean. Or do they not want to talk to each other right now?

[Griffin Newman]

I think, like, a lot of filmmakers of their era, weirdly, they kind of don't give a shit unless it's Criterion. It feels like if Criterion gives the call, they're like, we'll show up and we'll do this. And they, like, do features and they oversaw the fucking transfers and everything for Lewin Davis and Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple. Yeah. Fargo. Shout Factory has now and put out a good disc. But, like, the first MGM Shout Factory disc, first MGM Cargo disc, is so bad, they had to reissue, like, an apology disc to your.

[David Sims]

I remember the apology disc.

[Griffin Newman]

And then the Shout version is much better.

[Emily St. James]

I feel like, also, if I'm the Coen Brothers, this is not at the top. I love this movie, but it's not at the top of my list to.

[David Sims]

Like, yeah, I wonder what they make of this one.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'M also like, if I'm them and I'm in like, semi elder statesman mode, I'm like, maybe let's get Criterion to put all of them out.

[David Sims]

Well, sure. I mean, there's rights issues, I'm sure. But like, Buster Scruggs is a movie that I watch where I'm like, oh, these are the guys who made our brother. Like, it's not gone.

[Griffin Newman]

They're very linked movies. And even down to. There's so much similar language. Obviously, some of that's time period, but the use of like, ifin and the structure of the sentences and obviously Tim Blake Nelson.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

This is a Cohen's mode. This is my favorite movie by them in a mode I don't always like, which I call effortful pastiche.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sure.

[Emily St. James]

Like Hudsucker, I just can't get on board with. I'm so sorry.

[David Sims]

That is certainly a Titanic example of that genre.

[Griffin Newman]

It is my favorite film. And yet, as we, like, are looking forward to the idea of ranking their filmography at the end of the series, I'm like, I don't know if I can put that in the top 10. I love because they have so many masterpieces, but who knows?

[David Sims]

Lady Killers is that.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which is bad. Yeah, I think Lady Killers is good. It's one of their weakest.

[Griffin Newman]

It is their weakest period.

[David Sims]

What else is an effortful.

[Emily St. James]

I do like.

[David Sims]

I like Intolerable Cruelty counts.

[Emily St. James]

I think Intolerable Cruelties. And I like Buster Scruggs, but I think it's also kind of in that vein.

[David Sims]

Parts of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Intolerable Cruelty is so fascinating to me because it's effortful pastiche, but set in present day, which is. Think why everyone bumped on it so hard at the time.

[David Sims]

Great movie.

[Griffin Newman]

That it was like, this is them failing to make a modern studio rom com. And then I didn't get it until I cracked into like, oh, they are doing Sturges. It just happens to be 2004. Yeah, but this is so structurally, culturally a movie from 2003.

[David Sims]

So far.

[Emily St. James]

I. I think Hail Caesar's. That, like, I like a lot of these movies, but I. You know, what puts them over the top for me is when they have that layer of craft and then they add the Fargo thing, the Roy Davis thing, the no country thing of like, oh, this is about people, real people existing in the. In a movie space.

[David Sims]

Those are top.

[Griffin Newman]

These are the movies that I think make certain critics like Ebert go like, what are they doing? Are these movies just, like, making fun of dumb people and Showing us how good their tricks are. And they're sort of obsessed with language. That was his whole thing of just like, right, this is them, like, playing with toys and not engaging. Seriously. But my experience seeing this movie in theaters was just like, holy shit. Why is everyone not acting like this is the greatest film ever made? Because I had just never seen their filmmaking style before.

[David Sims]

You're getting a shot of Cohen's Totally. And you've been like a starving child in the wilderness and someone's giving you, like, you know, a bottle of Gatorade.

[Griffin Newman]

I was in Rewatching.

[David Sims]

You're like, ah.

[Griffin Newman]

I do think this was, like, a foundational building block. What I like in filmmaking movie, for me, the way I've talked about, like, Unbreakable being one of those, and Rushmore being one of those. All fucking Touchstone releases. Like, just weird to think, yeah. That Disney had.

[David Sims]

This is like a Touchstone Universal co production.

[Griffin Newman]

Universal got overseas. I think Touchstone released it domestically.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but the production companies are Touchstone and Universal. So, like, I think Universal had more.

[Griffin Newman]

Because Universal had the working title first. Look, I love the Touchstone fanfare.

[David Sims]

Touchstone, it's your favorite. You have. You always shout it out like, you know, you don't even know that you're doing. Like, you. You love that it's good.

[Ben Hosley]

There's something about it that feels almost comforting.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Touch.

[Emily St. James]

Great.

[Griffin Newman]

It is crazy to think that, like, Disney bought Miramax. Miramax was their specialty art house division. And yet Touchstone was releasing movies like O Brother and Rushmore that were like, we're letting interesting directors make quote, unquote studio comedies. And they're like, these are a little weird, but we're putting them in 2,000 theaters.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, I can tell you about that if I open the Darcy. But is there anything else we need to discuss?

[Griffin Newman]

Just that I. I had that feeling of, like, this is the most impeccably made movie I have perhaps ever seen. Wow. I'm astounded by the craft and the performance and the language. And I was surrounded by grown ups who were just sort of like, that's cute. And I was like, am I losing my mind? How is this not winning Best Picture? And then I went back, started watching their earlier films and saw every movie they made after this in theaters. And I get it now. Where when I watch this, I'm like. Like, I understand how this could be dismissed, but it is kind of a perfect movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's kind of a. I think it runs out of. Not. That's too strong, but Like, I think it sags slightly in the middle. I don't love. I feel so sorry to say this to this man. He's a nice man. Michael Battalucho's performance. Enough.

[Griffin Newman]

I like it a lot.

[David Sims]

I like it. It's fine. But on rewatch, I was watching it, I was like, this is fine.

[Griffin Newman]

Fine. It's maybe the weakest section.

[David Sims]

The Baby Face. The bankrupt.

[Griffin Newman]

Excuse me, not Baby face. His name is.

[David Sims]

I don't remember.

[Emily St. James]

George.

[Griffin Newman]

George Nelson.

[Emily St. James]

George Nelson, yeah. It is a. It is a Pickeres. And like many pickeresques, it has some segments. It has a gear that it gets in and never quite leaves, which is fun. Like, it is it. They pick the exact right length for all of these episodes.

[David Sims]

You're going to be out of an episode quickly enough that if it's boring, you're kind of like, okay, well, it is.

[Griffin Newman]

The fascinating thing for me, every time I rewatch it is I remember segments being longer than they are, and I'm such a slut.

[David Sims]

For Pickerest, you was a toad.

[Griffin Newman]

Do not seek the treasure.

[David Sims]

I think casting Turturro as, like, a Southern, you know, Yokel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Is one of their boldest gambits.

[Griffin Newman]

These three faces on the coast.

[David Sims]

I mean, the faces are so good, and that's why they cast it. But like, Turturro, it's like, this is probably one of the first Turturro movies I see.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, absolutely.

[David Sims]

And then, like, every later, I'm like, he's always playing, like, a racist pizza guy for either Spike Lee or Joel Carter.

[Emily St. James]

I can't believe I'm turning this into a thread in this episode, but John Turturro once seemed to have misgendered me, but he had actually misgendered Margaret Atwood.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

He said, excuse me, sir, to Margaret Atwood.

[Emily St. James]

No, I was interviewing him, and he was talking. It was like we'd plot against America. And I was. You know, I had recently transitioned. I was interviewing him, and he used he. Him. And I thought he was talking about me, but he was trying to remember who wrote the Handmaid's Tale. And he was like.

[David Sims]

He was definitely a guy who wrote that.

[Emily St. James]

He wrote the Handmaid's. No, she wrote the Handmaid.

[David Sims]

Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

But he caught himself. Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

He was like, oh, right. Margaret Atwood. So apologies to Margaret Atwood.

[Griffin Newman]

That is wild. No, you're right. It is odd to cast Turturro in this way, despite how much the Coens love him.

[David Sims]

She's smart.

[Griffin Newman]

They're smart. And also the third person above the title on the poster in this movie is Tim Blake Nelson, who was functionally unknown, semi retired from acting. And they nailed this so hard. And he's talked so much about the casting process and being like, why the fuck are you offering me this? Straight, that he basically off this one performance, never stops working again. There has been no Tim Blake Nelson fallow period where you're like, that guy just kind of disappeared from screens for five years.

[Emily St. James]

I remember he's in Watchmen, and that is like. I'm like, that's kind of like his oh, brother performance.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[Emily St. James]

Such a different character.

[Griffin Newman]

This guy's like one foot out the door in acting. And they're like, you're on the poster next to Clooney, and they're just like, thank you for identifying a key element in the next 25 years of cinema and television. This guy has ultimate utility.

[Emily St. James]

I think they also figured out a thing that can work about a movie like this that we've seen a lot more of now that movies are made on reduced budgets, which is you can have John Goodman come in for five days and do a. Can have Holly Hunter come in for five days and do a part.

[Griffin Newman]

Part of the pickeress magic. But then it's also nice when one of those segments is someone you've never seen before. Like, there's such a good balance of, like, really comfortable, sort of familiar stars, great character actors who you're kind of discovering. And then just like some people with great faces, like the woman at the bank who calls him Baby Face is clearly just a woman they found.

[David Sims]

Oh, she. She's such.

[Griffin Newman]

Such is incredible. The guy who says he can't keep the fucking Soggy Bottom Boy albums on the shelves.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Great face. Just some guy.

[David Sims]

I want to say something about Tim Blake Nelson. I just feel like he's been operating in the shadows recently, you know, sort of pulling the strings.

[Griffin Newman]

What is the joke here?

[David Sims]

It's like he's got a little tablet. Maybe he's in, like a bass, you know, and if he taps the tablet, like, he can make anything happen in the entire world.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you think that he's quietly the leader?

[David Sims]

I think he's been pulling the strings.

[Griffin Newman]

It is insane. Three times they tried to cast him as a Marvel character.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm counting the two Hulks.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

As separate times. Because they were so split up in such different characterizations. Right, sure. Right. And on paper, you're like, Tim Blake Nelson is the leader. Fuck. Tim Blake Nelson is Mole Man. Incredible. They're bringing Tim Blake Nelson back as the leader, he's really going to do it this time. All three times. Fucking just mangled it. And it's not his fault. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

So O Brother, Were Art Thou was a film that made by the Coen brothers. And for the first decade of their career, according to jj, they could basically just make whatever they wanted to make. Hudsucker Proxy took a little while. They have Suburbicon, which of course they never make, but that's a script they had for a long time. And then George Clooney perfected it.

[Griffin Newman]

Was waiting for its ideal form.

[David Sims]

But essentially the Cohens were saying in the 90s, we don't have any rejected scripts. We're not sitting on a ton of.

[Griffin Newman]

Projects for the first time. They now have stuff that's not getting.

[David Sims]

Off the ground, as JJ would put it. Their first case of the itachis happens after Big Lebowski. So to the White Sea, which of course our friends Jordan and Rhae have covered very extensively. Their most famous unrealized, unmade project.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Which is based on a James Dicke novel about what, a guy on the beach or something? Who gives a shit? Hey, I love being dismissive of this movie. It was gonna be a Brad Pitt vehicle.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Light on dialogue, brutal.

[Emily St. James]

I remember this was such a hyped thing. This is like the period when Ain't it Cool News is like the biggest. And they were like, yeah. Drew McQueenie's like, this is the greatest screenplay I've ever watched.

[Griffin Newman]

This is my. The single best screenplay of all time. I mean, it reads unbelievably right. And if you're reading it while thinking about the 10 Coen brothers movies you've already seen, at that point you're like, how is this thing not a fucking.

[David Sims]

Why didn't they make it? I am Cowards. I think because this is too white for them.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yep. Oscar's too white. They. I think it was another case where Pitt pulled out at the last second. This is that big era for him of like the fountain to the White Sea.

[Emily St. James]

They'd already had trouble finding someone to give them money to make it because it was going to be expensive and like, not an easy sell.

[Griffin Newman]

So, yeah, It's a little 1917. Not in that it's a one shot, but that it's just sort of like one guy surviving in semi real time, but without dialogue.

[Emily St. James]

And it's interesting they do this because this is the comedy version of to the White Sea. In a very strange way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, in a certain way. But I think. Yeah, I think Pit either properly dropped out or was like, I took Troy. It's back burnered or whatever. I know. Intolerable is the thing that they make right when they thought to the White Sea was about to go, but they're obviously trying to get off the ground at this point.

[David Sims]

Now, some other stuff they get attached to an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Cuba Libre, which is set in Cuba in the 1890s before the smash American war. That would probably have been like a big movie. That doesn't happen. They also were interested in another Leonard novel called La Brava, about a Secret Service agent who gets mixed up with an aging movie star. Sounds kind of fun. Of course. Famously, Ethan Cohen has a screenwriting credit on the film the Naked man, the Michael Rapoport movie.

[Griffin Newman]

J. Todd Anderson, longtime collaborator, storyboard artist. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Have never seen. It's like he becomes like a wrestler who is naked.

[Griffin Newman]

His, his wrestling costume is like an inside out body.

[Emily St. James]

It's, it's the, it's the movie spin off of that Friends character that we never see.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Yeah. The naked guy.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Rafavo, of course, was in Friends.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. Rain Jordan, Stanford say it's like a fun, extremely silly, unserious.

[David Sims]

Right. And Ethan's sort of like, look, that was J. Todd's thing. But I thought it was so, like, fun and silly and like, I have no sense of ownership over it.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, it's the, it's the crime wave Driveway dolls in Ethan, where sometimes if you go like, do you want to make something that has zero prestige to it? I think he has a really good time. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Ethan also released a short story collection called Gates of Eden, which I have read.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

I remember it being pretty good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah. So they're doing stuff, but they start work on oh brother in 1997.

[Griffin Newman]

I also just want to call out, I don't know the exact timeline of this, but this is certainly all bubbling at this time gambit, which they write but don't direct. Intolerable cruelty and lady Killers. They're hired to write and then end up directing. Like, this is the period in time where they're starting to take assignment work, at least to pay the bills.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they like period stuff, obviously. So O Brothers sees them traveling to the 30s. They claim they did a little research and they didn't read the Odyssey. They're, you know, I, I, I find all of that hard to believe.

[Griffin Newman]

I do too.

[David Sims]

There's so much in this soup of this movie that is based on history of, you know, the history of the time and the Politics of the time, you know, whatever. I don't think they're just gonna like, eh, let's have a clan rally.

[Griffin Newman]

I think they did more research on the era than on the Odyssey, certainly. I mean, they.

[David Sims]

They claim that they started with like a three saps on the run movie. And then after a while they're like, could this be like the Odyssey? You know, like, it's like, you know, which I get that in terms of like, what's the ultimate picaresque story? I guess in a way, the degree.

[Emily St. James]

To which it's riffing on Southern politics of the time with some degree of accuracy suggests they at least read the 1997 equivalent of the Wikipedia entry, the World Book Encyclopedia.

[Griffin Newman]

And Papio Daniel is very similar to a real guy. Isn't there a guy whose name is 5% off of that?

[David Sims]

Yes. And who had a flower based radio hour. It's not like.

[Griffin Newman]

And would sing you are my Sunshine.

[David Sims]

These aren't like. No, that's a different guy. But that's a different. A Southern populist governor. This is what I'm saying. Like, they are. Yeah. They're not just like.

[Emily St. James]

Even the way the clan is used in the downfall of Stokes is similar to the way that, like, the clan would be a force and then someone would get outed as a member and people would be like, well, we don't talk about it.

[David Sims]

Right. You're not allowed to actually be so publicly, you know, I say, what a.

[Griffin Newman]

Good storytelling decision to just be like in a picaresque movie. Tie up all your loose threads by being like. And by the way, everyone across the movie who is antagonistic to us is a clan member. We can just knock them all out in one go.

[David Sims]

They claim, everyone claims that the only person involved who actually read the Odyssey was Tim Blake Nelson, who has a degree in classics from Brown University.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. His wtf. He definitely talked about this. That they would come to him and be like, how does this go in the real story?

[David Sims]

Obviously the film is inspired by Sullivan's Travels, the Preston Sturgis masterpiece. In that movie, Joel McCrae is trying to make oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is this like, parody of like a serious movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Have you ever seen Sullivan's Travels, Ben?

[David Sims]

I have not.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one of the greatest comedies of all time. But yes, it's about a successful Hollywood. He's a screenwriter. Yeah. Who makes very successful comedies, but begs for the idea of prestige and the idea that what he's making is frivolous and doesn't matter.

[David Sims]

Right. And the most Important scene in Sullivan's travels is when a bunch of prisoners are shown cartoons like, yes. And it's like about how the power of art is not, you know, in like fake seriousness. And the prison scene, watching the movies, you know, there's so many obvious references to Sullivan's travel, but it's what I.

[Griffin Newman]

Find so fascinating is in that movie, the movie he says he wants to make, that's his big serious issues movie is oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is a story of the downtrodden man. And they tell him, you don't know how to relate to this. You can't write this. So then he pretends to be a hobo in order to gain the experience, but then he gets kind of caught and he can't get out of the life and he's stuck in it and he ends up in prison. He watches these prisoners watch cartoons and he's like, oh, making people laugh has. I don't need to make something that is self serious. But this movie has the title of the fake self serious movie and is having this very interesting kind of cake and eat it too thing where it's like, it's a comedy but also it is actually engaged in the reality of the types of people in a silly way that he's attempting to make oh Brother, Where Art Thou about. If that makes sense.

[Ben Hosley]

It does, yeah.

[Emily St. James]

I think that part of the critical reaction to this movie was based in, oh, they are. They're showing you their hand throughout. They're like, they're showing you all the references they're making. They're letting you know what they're doing in a way that I think actively turns people off maybe on a first watch sometimes. Don't you think?

[Griffin Newman]

There's also an interesting thing though of like the most film literate people writing reviews, dismissing. Yeah, I get it. I know all the references, right? And you're like, you're holding it against them that you know the same stuff.

[David Sims]

It's a. That it's. If I ever teach film criticism, don't think you're smarter or don't care that you're smarter than a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

And also like not to be an asshole, number one, fucking 90% of the people who are reading your reviews aren't going to be like, oh, I get it.

[David Sims]

George Clooney had made a little film, a little tiny film, as my daughter likes to say when she wants to watch one more blue, a little tiny one, she'll say as if like that, you know, had she he made this little film called Batman Ampersand Robin, have you heard of it? I haven't seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

And we covered it on our Patreon.

[David Sims]

Well, that's right. And he'd been on ER for five years. And he claims he went to his accountant and said, like, how am I doing? The accountant was like, if you never work again, you will be fine. You've made money, sir. And George Clooney is one of those guys who I guess was not famous long enough that he's not like, I need endless money. Of course, then he does stumble into a tequila company and make a billion dollars.

[Griffin Newman]

It is so funny. You always talk about when you interviewed him for Suburbicon.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

And he was like, the great thing is that now I've struck.

[David Sims]

He was, I truly, if I am doing something, I'm doing it because I want to do it right.

[Griffin Newman]

But was also like, the tequila company has freed me up. Or now I don't need to just work to pay the bills. And I'm like, I think you kind of been past that point, but I understand you've entered a new strata of wealth.

[David Sims]

But I mean, the whole problem with that era of his where you're like, oh, that's great. You don't need to make money to make the bills. Is then the movies he makes. I'm like, I think you need the bills weighing down on you a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a decade of lazy boy filmmaking where I'm like, you're too comfortable.

[David Sims]

So right after Batman and Robin, which is a critical and commercial failure, I don't know if you guys knew that. Do you like Batman and Robin?

[Emily St. James]

Not as much as I feel like I should. I feel like it's the kind of movie I should be like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Because now everyone is like Batman and Robin.

[Griffin Newman]

Where do you say forever, though?

[Emily St. James]

I like forever.

[Griffin Newman]

See, I bump up Forever and Bronze, but that might just be which I.

[Emily St. James]

Just think Val Kilmer's Heart Hot. That's literally what it is.

[David Sims]

Sure is.

[Griffin Newman]

Was.

[David Sims]

Sure was.

[Emily St. James]

Well, in that film, he's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So his next three films after Batman and Robin are Three Kings, out of Sight and oh Brother or Art Thou Right now there's some bad ones in there, but they're mostly like cameo. There's some other. Those are his next three big projects. Soderberg, Russell and. But he was, you know, exciting young filmmaker and it's a very good film. And Joel and Ethan Cohen, he talks.

[Griffin Newman]

About that in that era, like post fucking accountant conversation. He's like, I, I if Batman and Robin is how to like, do the conventional movie Star thing and play to win. I, like, don't care about maintaining my quote. I'm gonna, like, cut my quote in half. He said, like, I think I've been paid my full quote, like, four times in my entire career past Batman and Robin.

[David Sims]

What those are.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I think it's like Tomorrowland, probably Ocean's Thirteen.

[David Sims]

Yeah, come on, give him the quote.

[Griffin Newman]

I think Perfect Storm was whatever the quote was at the time, but that he's like, I'd rather take less up front and bet on the movie and have, like, a higher stake in the back end and be able to work by not saddling a movie with a 10, 15 million, $20 million salary on top of it, keeping the movie's costs lower so that the return on investment is higher and the film can be stranger.

[Emily St. James]

And when he leaves er, which is around this time, too, it feels like it's the one time that a big star leaves a TV show and there's not, like, a lot of rancor. Everyone was just like, oh, yeah, he's.

[David Sims]

Gonna leave it' for him to look.

[Emily St. James]

Up and, like, he came back in the final season. Like, he.

[David Sims]

Well, more importantly, he comes back in season six. In my opinion, the greatest cameo in a TV show ever. Because nobody knew that was happening. That when Margulies leaves the show. Spoiler alert for er, right?

[Griffin Newman]

He comes in, she's delivering.

[David Sims]

She just. She's like, I'm out of here. She's pregnant with his child. But you're like, you know, they're not getting Clooney back. He's. Oh, brother, where are they now? And then he. She just goes to that dock and there he is fishing on the dock. It's so good. Everyone lost their mind.

[Griffin Newman]

But there is this kind of interesting fulcrum point here, which is like, one fine day, peacemaker. Batman and Robin is like, sort of the obvious studio playbook for how to build the movie star career. Right. It feels like he hits a bit of a wall. Batman and Robin's like the real crash. And then he resets and out of sight fucking rules and is beloved and was the coolest movie. And everyone's like, clooney's done it. He's convinced us he's a movie star. But that movie doesn't do well.

[David Sims]

Well, no, it does, like, fine at best.

[Griffin Newman]

Three Kings does all right. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But it's a challenging movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. There was a feeling when this movie came out of, like, has Clooney cracked it?

[David Sims]

Well, you're forgetting it. Perfect Storm was a huge hit.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the other.

[David Sims]

And that's a summer 2000 movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, that almost feels like him playing it a little bit safer.

[David Sims]

Got the overalls on, he's got the big beard, but he is good. That movie is kind of underrated at this point. People forget about Perfect Storm. I love that the ILM doc gives it a. It's. It's due.

[Griffin Newman]

I told you to watch that.

[David Sims]

What they're called, you know, Decade of Dreams. What the hell is it?

[Griffin Newman]

Light and Magic.

[David Sims]

Light and Magic. About just, like, how hard it was to make water, like, in 2000. And then, right, this is oh, brother. Where everyone's like, he's. I mean, he's so good in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

So good. He wins the Golden Globe.

[David Sims]

And it felt like it's movie star.

[Griffin Newman]

And his head is held high. He's not doing his usual ticks. He's unlocking, like, new movie star moves.

[David Sims]

And then next year is Ocean's Eleven, which is kind of everyone just being like, all right, you know, you're never a tv that's the turned movie star again. You are, George.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? You've. You've made yourself now part of the mountain.

[David Sims]

Like, bazooking Brad Pitt off the screen. God love Brad. But, like, everyone's coming out of that movie horny for that's what's incredible about.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie is that Brad Pitt's, like, unlocks his thing by being like, I don't have to shoulder the weight of being the guy at the center, which makes him interesting for the first time. Kind of helps him crack his movie star Persona. And then Clooney is like, I'm so ready to be the guy at the center.

[Emily St. James]

The thing about this movie figures out about Clooney is that. And out of sight to some extent is that his movie star Persona increasingly is like, I'm one of the most handsome men who's ever lived. But also, I can be like, whatever Persona I'm playing. Like, you would not expect me to be this handsome.

[Griffin Newman]

And he can subvert the wattage. Like, what is incredible about this character and this performance is that he has the confidence of, I am George Clooney. I am Danny Ocean, and he's an idiot. Like you talking about how bizarre but brilliant it was to cast Turturro as this yokel. At some point late in the rewatch last night, I was like, is this movie their sort of sideways Three Stooges thing? But they're changing the power structure versus.

[David Sims]

The.

[Griffin Newman]

Characteristics because, like, you know, the Three Stooges is like the intellectual, the angry emasculated leader and the idiot. Right, Right. And this is like, Clooney is kind of the Curly, but has taken on the leadership role. Turturro is the MO and is even angrier because he's not.

[David Sims]

But he's almost styled like Mo and. Yeah, for sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, Turturro is so funny in this because anytime they cut to him, you're just like, he's so mad. He looks so furious all the time. And then like, Tim, Blake Nelson is a weird version of a Curly where he just looks a God. But Clooney nails so hard playing this sort of confusion of he can't quite get his head around what's going on. But he's so committed to his idea of I got the brains, I'm leading this operation that he has to adjust on the fly really fast, which is always fun to watch him figure out.

[Emily St. James]

It's also so hard to play just smart enough to think you're smarter than you are and actually be a little bit smarter.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Emily St. James]

Blank.

[David Sims]

He's not stupid. He's kind of stupid. And the Cohen used to talk about their Idiot trilogy with this intolerable cruelty and I guess, burn after reading. Although Caesar was always right, like their promised third entry. But he's not totally stupid. He's got the gift of the gab. But anytime he uses the gift of the gab, I feel like everyone's just kind of waiting for him to stop talking. You never really see him charm that many people into what he wants.

[Griffin Newman]

I still love that the character is overwritten, that he keeps using these hundred dollar words in a way where people actually don't understand what he's saying. His, like, his speech is so circular and like, flowery and bizarre that it's combined with the speed at which he's delivering it. He's not actually successfully connecting and communicating things to other people.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, he's trying to like, reconnect with his ex wife and just like, unable to be sincere for a second. He's just like trying to like, establish his claim in a weird way. But, like, also so in a charming way. It's. It's fascinating.

[Griffin Newman]

You can just see why he shows up on set and they just fall in love with this guy and are like, we can write for him forever. This is our favorite type of character. And no one is better at playing this than him.

[David Sims]

Ma hair. Every time he wakes up in the movie. Yeah, my hair. So funny.

[Ben Hosley]

Can I say about his hotness?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And how it stands out in a period piece. It made me have this thought of. Normally you see like an old daguerreotype. Those fuckers are busted.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And they've been, you know, for a dicker, you have to sit there for an hour. Totally hot.

[Ben Hosley]

They just got out of the mines, you know.

[David Sims]

But it made me think, like there.

[Ben Hosley]

Were smoke shows walking around in those days.

[Griffin Newman]

In a weird way. I almost think this is the hottest Clooney's ever been in a movie.

[David Sims]

Well, he looks so good era. It's the out of sight 3 Kings.

[Griffin Newman]

He's peak prettiness just. Just actually in the biology of his life. Yes. But he's also just so charming in this while also being kind of unsavory. Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's a really well calibrated performance, as he said. He basically was just like, yes. He didn't even read the script. He was just like, I know what you guys do, and I want to do it. He was born in Kentucky, as he will bring up a lot if you interview him. Lived in Ohio for some of his life. But he did go, basically go back to Kentucky and went to Northern Kentucky University. He gave the script to his Uncle Jack.

[Griffin Newman]

The best story.

[David Sims]

It's such a great story. Who I guess is more of a dad in the wool Kentuckian.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He was like, I want to get the dialect right. I want to, like, send you the script. And can you use a tape recorder and do all my dialogue so I can study your dialogue?

[David Sims]

Because the Cohen are like, look, the character's kind of a hick. We want you to have like a thick accent.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So Jack sends back the script written, you know, like, read out into a tape recorder, says, well, George, I don't think people talk like that. Like, which is fair. She's probably reading the script being like, what the fuck is this? And he threw the script away and was just using the tape recorder. And the Cohens are like, why don't you say hell and damn when you're doing your lines? And he realized that his. His Baptist Uncle Jack had excluded the hells and dams when dictating the script into the tape recorder.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He rewrote the Coen Brothers.

[Griffin Newman]

That's. That's Clooney's favorite thing to say. But also that's what he meant. I don't think us people talk like that. I don't think his editorialization was, we wouldn't take the Lord's name in vain.

[David Sims]

There would be no oaths. Right, Tim? Blake Nelson, I mean, he's definitely a guy, but I don't think he's Ever been in, like, a big thing? Like, had a big role?

[Griffin Newman]

No, he popped up in little things. I mean, he was in fucking this Is My Life as his first screen credit. He had done some comedy. He was on that fucking FOX sketch show with Jennifer Aniston and Julie Brown. Was that called the Edge?

[Emily St. James]

I think so, yeah.

[David Sims]

Sounds good.

[Griffin Newman]

It was like a, you know, a MADtv in living color also ran thing.

[David Sims]

I think you're talking about the Unnaturals. Is that what it's called?

[Emily St. James]

No, that's the ABC one.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Emily St. James]

That was the Jeremy Renner show. Yeah, that's Noah Hawley of Fargo.

[David Sims]

No, no, no, not that. That was way. No.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to find the.

[David Sims]

This. Yeah, please.

[Griffin Newman]

But he. Yeah, he was. He was a h. This is looking like it was the Unnaturals.

[David Sims]

Siobhan Fallon.

[Griffin Newman]

Paul. Paul. Yeah. Okay. But then I think Jennifer Aniston shows the Edge and I was confusing them. Oh, he was also on. Well, he's only on one episode of House of Buggin, which was like AO's answer to in Living Color. But yeah, he's like. He's popping up and stuff. He's got a larger role in Heavyweights, but he was a classics major who then went to Juilliard, but was also writing his own stuff. And at a certain point, I think he started to shift to, like, I do character actor parts to pay the bills. What I really want to do is make my films. I'm a filmmaker first and foremost.

[David Sims]

Right. Because he makes O the year after this.

[Griffin Newman]

But remember, had been shot much earlier and pushed back because of Columbine. I think O was in the can and supposed to come out 99 and then doesn't come out until two years later. He becomes. He and his wife become friends with Joel and Fran through mutual friends, and they have dinners together and it's mostly like sharing notes as filmmakers. And his acting career has very much, like, throttled down in his own internal priority. And then, as he puts it, Ethan, Joel at dinner one night was like, we wrote a part for you.

[David Sims]

Would you mind reading first? Send him the script being like, I need your advice on this. It's based on the Odyssey. And then they're like, we want you to play dumb.

[Griffin Newman]

Are. It's a straight offer. They never audition him. It's the third lead.

[David Sims]

He starts six weeks after rapping O. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he at first, like, this is a mistake. You shouldn't have me do this.

[David Sims]

He was doing post production on set. They let him. Yeah. And you know Tim, like, no, he's great. He's so funny in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

He's so funny. But it, like, it unlocks him in a way. It is that thing where he's like, he is so, so thoroughly trained as an actor. His WTF episode's incredible.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're just like, oh, it's easy to look at him. And I think they're seeing him as like the heir apparent to like snits in the Buster Keaton movies or the one guy I always forget the name of who's got the great face in the Preston Sturgis. Like demorist. No, the one who's sort of like owl like and kind of pencil faces in those movies.

[David Sims]

Look, look, what's important is he just.

[Griffin Newman]

Knows how to do all this. He's like perfect at dialects and physical comedy and singing and, and dancing and everything.

[David Sims]

John Turturro, they told him, you got to shave your head. Because they said when we do a movie with John, he always starts with the hair. So we figured we'd stitch him up on that one.

[Griffin Newman]

That's fine.

[David Sims]

And then they basically show him a bunch of pictures of guys with bad teeth and are like, you're going to have bad teeth. So again, I think offer like no auditions for these parts.

[Griffin Newman]

He's doing a lot of jaw work too.

[David Sims]

Yes. You know who else did? No, forget it.

[Griffin Newman]

What were you going to say?

[David Sims]

I was going to make a Jawa joke, but I couldn't really figure out a way in. I love those guys.

[Griffin Newman]

They're great. Hey. This episode is brought to you by Lurker, the feature debut from Alex Russell, write and producer on the Bear and Beef. Those are two separate shows, but when you say it like that, it sounds like it's one show called Bear and Beef, which could be interesting, but it doesn't exist. And that's not what this is. This is his new movie that stars Theodore Pelo from Beau Is Afraid and Archie Madawake from Saltburn. And here's the pitch. Here's the quick log line. When 20something LA retail clerk and loner Matthew encounters a rising pop star named Oliver, he takes the opportunity to edge his way into the in crowd. But staying there is isn't easy. It's a paranoid parasocial thriller made for the moment. And I don't know if podcast listeners can relate. I don't know if you out there subscribe to Blank Check can find an entry point into the story of someone who listens to a guy way too much and goes crazy trying to make him his friend. It's an exhilarating take on the music industry, the blurred line between friend and fan and our universal search for validation. And it was a Sundance Film Festival 2025 selection. Here's a little, just a little bit of critical praise. A transfixing tale of LA obsession gone awry. That's what Indiewire said. A borderline paranoid thriller made for the star and everyone. That's what RogerEbert.com said. And they put a a star ironically in the word star to censor it. But I'm going to say it because this is the kind of show it is, one of the best movies of the year. Riveting and disquieting, said Vogue. Super sharp. A wicked spin on the fame game. A wicked spin, says the Hollywood Reporter. And they would know more about the fame game than almost anyone else. Lurker is now playing in select theaters. It opens nationwide September 5th. You visit mubi.com lurker to see Showtime's Get Tickets. That's m u b I.com lurker.

[David Sims]

David what?

[Griffin Newman]

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin David podcast about filmographies is brought to you by booking.combooking.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, that's what I was about to say. Booking. Yeah. From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S. booking.com booking. Yeah. Has the ideal stay for anyone, even those who might seem impossible to please. God, I'm trying to think of anyone in my life, perhaps even in this room, Ben, who's like, what's an example of someone I know who maybe has a very particular set of bringing me.

[Ben Hosley]

In and there's only one other person in the room.

[Griffin Newman]

There's one other person in the room right now.

[David Sims]

This is so rude. I sleep easy. I'm definitely not a someone who insists on 800 thread count sheets. No, that's a, that's a, an example of a fussy person.

[Griffin Newman]

But people have different demands. And you know what? If you're traveling, that's your time to start making demand demands.

[David Sims]

You've got a partner who's sleep light, rise early. Or maybe, you know, like, you just want someone who wants a pool or wants a view or, I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe I'm traveling and I need a room with some good soundproofing because I'm gonna be doing some remote pod record.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

Maybe you're in Europe and you want to make sure.

[Griffin Newman]

That's very demanding to be in Europe.

[Ben Hosley]

You got air conditioning. Think of one person in particular, although it's really both of you. You got to have Air conditioning.

[David Sims]

I need air conditioning if I'm in the North Pole. Look, if I can find my perfect stay on booking.com, anyone can. Booking.com is definitely the easiest way to find exactly what you're looking for.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, for me, a non negotiable is I need a gorgeous bathroom for selfies.

[David Sims]

You do. You love selfies.

[Griffin Newman]

As long as I got a good bathroom mirror for selfies, I'm happy with everything else.

[David Sims]

Look, they're. Again, they. They're specifying like, oh, maybe you want a sauna or hot tub. And I'm like, sounds good to me. Yeah, please. Can I check that?

[Griffin Newman]

You want one of those in the recording studio?

[David Sims]

That'd be great.

[Griffin Newman]

You want to start. You want to be.

[David Sims]

I'll be in the sauna when we record.

[Griffin Newman]

I was going to say you. You want to be the Dalton Trumbo, a podcast. You want to be Splish Splash.

[David Sims]

It would be good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge and. And while recording, I'm mic. But you just. You're going back like, like, as I move to the.

[Griffin Newman]

These are the kinds of demands that booking.com booking. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yes. You can find exactly what you're booking for. Booking.com booking. Yeah. Booking.com book today on the site or in the app. Booking.com booking. Yeah. 26 million dollar budget. Highest budget ever for them, even above Hudsucker.

[Griffin Newman]

That's wild.

[David Sims]

And they have Working Title, Studio, Canal, Touchstone and Universal all chipping in together.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So I guess that's how they get the money.

[Emily St. James]

It also feels like, you know, George Clooney in An Odyssey adaptation feels sellable. There's something, in a way. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like, it's. On paper, it's wild that they got $26 million to make this movie, but I still think all those places are like 26 million for a George Clooney movie. Sounds like a value, even if it's a weird one.

[David Sims]

I agree. Shot on location in Mississippi. Deakins is told. Roger Deakins is told, like, we want it to feel, like, very hot, very dry, very dusty. And Deakins is like, I've shot down there. He shot Passionfish. That's like a big, you know, he's like, it's going to be green. It's going to be, like, lush. You're shooting down there in this, like, verdant season. And Joel indeed reports that the Mississippi location was greener than Ireland. And that is why the digital coloring stuff comes in, because they need to turn the movie sepia. Essentially.

[Griffin Newman]

They try to do like a chemical process and it doesn't work. And Deakins is like, hear me out. I think we can try this. This gets credited as the first, like complete di.

[David Sims]

You know what it beat, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Chicken Run.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. The first complete movie that was digitally scanned. Because I did an article on this for vox which everyone called where did they go? And the first movie that's completely digitally scanned is Pleasantville. But they are doing it. They do it only for visual effects.

[David Sims]

Purposes, for the black and white stuff.

[Emily St. James]

So this is the first one where they tweak everything. They're just doing it to tweak the colors. And it's revolutionary in a way that has kind of ruined filmmaking right now. It's beautiful here.

[David Sims]

It gives you so much control over every aspect of the frame. And I think, right. It can drive people mad.

[Griffin Newman]

Every movie is basically manipulated this much, much now.

[Emily St. James]

But now it's manipulated in camera. You're like watching it on a monitor and seeing different colors.

[David Sims]

Right? Being like, what do I want it.

[Griffin Newman]

To look like essentially?

[Emily St. James]

And at this time, like they. They're filming it and Deakins is like, I think I can figure this out in post, which obviously he does. But like, yeah, they are still filming it in a conventional color scheme that he's manipulating.

[Griffin Newman]

Wild. When you watch the behind the scenes footage and you're like, oh, those shirts were white. That grass was green. Like it. I can't imagine how weird it must have felt to be the actors in this movie and go to the fucking premiere. As extreme as Star wars where you're like, wow, suddenly this doesn't look cheap. When you put in the sound effects and the special effects, this movie just must have looked so different than their lived experience filming it.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And there was such a mood and a tone from the color palette which is so controlled. But I do think now, beyond the ability to manipulate it at the time, I also think now people shoot a lot of stuff as like, let's just get the most simple version of the image and we can fuck with it later without having the forethought of like, what are we capturing now and what are we gonna change it into later? And I think there's not the same kind of like, control and continuity of like, we have a clear vision for a palette for this movie that we are using as a North Star.

[David Sims]

What's funny to me is that the film is nominated for an Oscar for cinematography, like we acknowledge, but didn't win. Deakins, of course, doesn't end up winning an Oscar until Blade Runner 2049. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it's Gladiator win, Traffic win.

[David Sims]

No. Crouching Tiger wins. Which is a good looking movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And yes, the other Traffic was not even nominated. Traffic has the insane, like, color scheme thing that is, in my opinion.

[Griffin Newman]

We were talking about that the other day that you watch it now and.

[David Sims]

You'Re like, oh, we're in blue land.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot. It's literally like Jolly Rancher lenses.

[David Sims]

And it, like, invented the whole, like, tech Mexico is yellow thing. That is, like, still a scourge.

[Emily St. James]

We rewatched. Watch that for podcasts. Like, it's the 2000s last year. And it invented modern prestige television.

[David Sims]

So it's just by mistake in adapting prior prestige television.

[Griffin Newman]

That's funny about it. Yeah.

[David Sims]

It is not my favorite Soderbergh. Not even close.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

I really like the Cheadle plot, which is the least heralded of the three plots. I like the Del Toro stuff.

[Emily St. James]

At the time, it was like my favorite movie. And I re. When I revisited it, I was like, I don't quite.

[David Sims]

Aaron Brockovich, like, shoots it out of a cannon. It's so much better. And at the time, of course, that was not the thinking. No. O brother loses. Gladiator, the Patriot, which did have. It did have a touch of the.

[Griffin Newman]

D. It had a touch of the Caleb D. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then of course, everyone's favorite movie, Melena.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Which I think there was one thing that people thought was very well lensed in that film. I don't know if you guys have heard of Monica Ebert giving that a very good review. You.

[Griffin Newman]

He suggested that movie should win exactly two Golden Globes.

[David Sims]

Two golden legs.

[Griffin Newman]

It's got great legs. We just did a screening of Matrix Revolutions at Nighthawk. We intro it. And Monica Belushi on a big screen is quite a thing.

[David Sims]

Well, especially in that one. She's wearing the insane red dress that's just sort of like pushing her boobs together in the most ridiculous way. And she's like, he'll die for love. He loves you. This is so good.

[Griffin Newman]

Seeing her one scene on big screen, I was like, there's a real argument for her being the greatest cleavage actress of all time. I'm not saying she's the largest breasted woman ever to be in movies, but I think her work in the field of cleavage is kind of unparalleled.

[David Sims]

Should we just let him keep.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sorry, I was just quoting Roger Ebert there. Go on.

[David Sims]

Deakins says, I think part of the reason I lost, and partly, I'm sure, you know, Crouching Tiger was a big thing, but is that a lot of cinematographers were like, oh, but, you know, doesn't count. He used a computer. It doesn't count. Like, and now, of course, everybody. Avatar winning is kind of the big moment.

[Emily St. James]

And now it feels like everything is like Life of PI. All these movies that are.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Avatar winning is such a strange one, and feels like it's wild that it took that long for a digital movie to win. And also it feels like that's the type of win that they don't usually do that early.

[Emily St. James]

But I remember the year before that people were like, well, could Wally get nominated? Because they, like, ran a serious campaign of, like. No, we think about the cinematography.

[Griffin Newman]

Deakins was a consultant on that. And then they do the same thing with fucking How Train youn Drink Dragon. Right.

[David Sims]

So the music in this film, of course, T. Vaughn Burnett, they had worked with him on Big Lebowski a little bit, and that's how they were introduced to him. I'm going back to the dossier.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But here it's like they're working with him from the start of production. He's curating the music. He's finding all these major stars already, like Alison Krause and Ruby Paris into the film.

[Griffin Newman]

So inherently, it's not something you can sort of just like, choose in the edit.

[David Sims]

Right. And most of the stuff, like Big Rock, Candy Mountain, the session recordings. What is this quote, the stuff that was redone and produced by T Bone, is all featured essentially live. It's music you see performed in the music itself. Okay, that's interesting. Obviously, like, Clooney and the Soggy Bottom Boys are being dubbed. That is. Is. I can tell you the names of the. Dan Taminsky, Right. Pat Enright and Harley Allen.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie, for my money, has some of the best lip sync acting ever.

[David Sims]

It's very good.

[Griffin Newman]

They oversell it in a way that makes it go down more smoothly, in my opinion, where it's like, it's clear that Clooney isn't singing, but he's making so many faces now.

[Emily St. James]

He was singing live, right? Like he sang it on set, that.

[Griffin Newman]

It'S not his voice, I should say. No, I know. I know.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. Yeah, he.

[Griffin Newman]

He did.

[Emily St. James]

He is shower singing in such a compelling way.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone who sings on screen who isn't a musician by trade is acting the role of singing too hard in a way that creates a continuity for me that doesn't make me bump out of. That's clearly not their voice.

[Emily St. James]

He is playing a man who is pretending to be a Musician who thinks this is what musicians are like, he's nailed.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep, yep. They also make a really smart choice, which is mostly framing that sequence with his mouth obstructed behind this big fucking can. Yes. And so he's doing all this neck and eye acting and shit, but you're not getting caught up on like, oh, the lips are a second off.

[David Sims]

Right. Of course, Clooney loves to self deprecate and is like, I know my aunt is this famous singer and I tried to sing, but I was so bad at it. Did win album of the years. We say it's the fourth soundtrack to win that award.

[Griffin Newman]

Saturday Night Fever one.

[David Sims]

Correct. As did the Bodyguard. And the third is Henry Mancini's soundtrack for the television series Peter Gunn in 1959. I think we can discard that one.

[Griffin Newman]

But the other two examples are massive movies with soundtracks that also became phenomenons in their own.

[David Sims]

You're right.

[Griffin Newman]

That.

[David Sims]

Right. Oh Brother's not a hit on the same level as those two other movies. But it is three examples of movies where the soundtrack is maybe more famous than the movie in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Right. And they all went a zillion times platinum or whatever. Of course, the cow is digital.

[Griffin Newman]

I think this is a big movie for them, kind of under unlocking a sneaky amount of digital work. And obviously the DI is the most apparent version of that.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But all of their movies after this have more digital effects than you would imagine, which they're really good at doing invisibly. You know, a lot of it's fucking like landscape changing. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But I'm glad they didn't shoot casting cows.

[David Sims]

You are not even allowed to bring cows near a moving vehicle in a movie because it would startle them.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

So of course it had to be, you know, fake cow. The frog. Ethan notes that people really hate the frog squishing scene. Yeah, it's gross, but he loves it. It's all right to do frogs. Frog squishing, he says.

[Griffin Newman]

It's funny that Goodman says these things give you warts and then squeezes it as hard as he can in his hand. I understand. Spiteful, but I'm like, man, you're like. Like bruising for warts there.

[David Sims]

So. Film premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Normal and regular guy Luke Besson was the chair of that year's festival.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. The pom door was some girl he saw walking by.

[David Sims]

I give the pom door to 15 year old. The idea. No, the Palm went to Dancer in the Dark, which is a highly controversial choice.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But Is a fairly good choice in that. That is an enduring movie and a special movie. It's not my favorite. I find it to be a tad sad. Have you guys noticed this? The film Yi Yi was in competition, which is basically the greatest movie ever made. It won best director.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Best screenplay went to Nurse Betty. Remember Nurse Betty?

[Emily St. James]

I love to Nurse Betty. I've never even revisited. At the time I was like, I.

[David Sims]

Have also never revisited. I have no idea how that holds up at all.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Emily St. James]

So much of Neil LaBute's work has held up.

[David Sims]

Normally one day I will program. Yes. A metrograph series of Greg Kinnear, the villain, and that will be in there along with Mystery Men and Loser and like a million someone like you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Best actress went to Bjork. Best actor went to some sort of rando called Tony Leung for some. I've never heard of this movie. In the Mood for Love. I'm just saying it was an insane. Seriously.

[Griffin Newman]

Fuck. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And so O Brother was ignored because I'm sure the can jury was like, American.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I don't understand.

[Griffin Newman]

It didn't even win Most Soggy Bottomed Boys, which is truly kind of insulting.

[David Sims]

Disney, I guess, is releasing it domestically. Joe Roth, who is somewhat iconic 90s head of Disney, had just stepped down. People who are coming in are shown the movie and they're just silent. Apparently. They're just like, what the is this?

[Griffin Newman]

Is this to cook error or.

[David Sims]

I. I don't know. And so they was released limited. Yeah. In like Christmas time. Which is not a. That doesn't make any sense.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

But then the soundtrack starts to kick off. So it has a crazy run. Like a really good multiplier. Makes 45 million domestic and basically runs.

[Griffin Newman]

Through the end of the spring.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like, it never made more than like $3 million in a weekend. It just chugged along.

[Emily St. James]

This is. This is a thing. Thing that Hollywood often finds out is you make a movie that's like set in like red state America and it takes a while, but it'll catch on and keep playing and keep going.

[David Sims]

Like, especially back then.

[Emily St. James]

This is a different thing. But like Breaking Bad stayed on there because of that. It's like, oh, we're getting watched in these places that aren't watching anything else.

[Griffin Newman]

So mind you, I mean, we'll get to it. And I might be get my numbers a little off here, but like True Grid opens like something to 36 and then ends up at like 170 domestic.

[David Sims]

It's sort of like a similar thing, a maximized version.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like that was their biggest opening ever. And then also their biggest, biggest multiplier ever.

[David Sims]

So oh Brother Art Thou begins with a chain gang singing oh Lazarus.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

An old sort of spiritual. It's such a cool opening. I love the opening of this movie. Before they're running with the, you know, like just the, like the sort of slow fade up and the atmosphere and the title cards.

[Emily St. James]

It's really just a prologue that kind of has. Doesn't just setting the mood in a way that is eerie. It's eerier than the film that follows.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's a take that parts of the.

[David Sims]

Movie that are very eerie.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, for sure.

[David Sims]

Like the sirens.

[Griffin Newman]

I think this is what blew my mind as a child where I was like, how can a movie be this funny, look this good, this like mad. Have the craft of like a blockbuster action film in its precision and also have scenes that are like genuinely sad, unsettling, spooky. The, the Ethan Cohen tone management thing in this movie is so insane to me. And part of it is that it is Pickeresque, which I'm just kind of a slut for these sorts of structures. But I also think it handles the transition between these wildly different moods and scenes incredibly well.

[Emily St. James]

Everything about Ulysses and Penelope is so funny, but also you buy their relationship and that he cares. It's like well done romantic screwball stuff. It's like it all works on all those levels at the same time.

[Griffin Newman]

But this absolutely feels like a drama opening. It does not feel like something that should be able to transition into slapstick pratfall comedy within 30 seconds. Seconds, which it does. I also, I can't quite crack this take, but there's something to me about the Chang Yang at the beginning, mostly being African American men singing like traditional songs before we transition to our white leads who then become incredibly successful singing old timey music.

[David Sims]

Occasionally people think they are, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

Black, mispresenting, mischaracterized, sort of by mistake. Right. And then this movie has.

[David Sims]

Although of course one of the Soggy Bottom Boys is black. And I assume maybe the two fake members might be black too. We don't know.

[Ben Hosley]

And his character is referencing Robert Johnson, of course, that famous legend mythology.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like the fourth lead of this movie. I mean he's like the, the most recurring character.

[David Sims]

Thomas King, who's so good musician.

[Ben Hosley]

I love his hair. His look is great.

[Griffin Newman]

He's incredible. Yeah, the, the obviously the importance of this film's soundtrack, but also there's something in it. I, I can't quite totally.

[David Sims]

If you ask the Cohen's I feel like they'd be like.

[Griffin Newman]

They'd say nothing. I was, like, close to a thesis that I couldn't quite crack while watching this about something about, like, this shift in Americana music of white Americans understanding how to pull things and popularize them, which is a cycle that then repeats for the rest of time.

[Emily St. James]

I think there is this thing that when white people make a story set in this time period, especially in the South.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

They struggle with how to. About white characters. They struggle with how to acknowledge the systemic racism of the time, especially in, like, a comedy. And this movie, I think, finds threads the needle pretty well for the most part.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with you and I. It is a thing they get dinged for a lot is how predominantly white their movies are. Yeah, sure.

[David Sims]

Especially there was an era, I feel like, where they got a lot of questions about it.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And even, like, know, like, the Merlin Wayans character in Lady Killers is not the best. You know, it's like an example of being like, maybe they should only write white people if this is how they write black parts. But. But this movie, I think, comes close to doing it really well. There's something that they're not overstating.

[Emily St. James]

It is mostly using the black characters as set dressing outside of Tommy Johnson. But it also is talking about the ways that, like, the white characters can get away with certain things.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing for me, and I think that's what is interesting about the opening to me, is that you're starting in this sort of, like, gallows tone, right. Of, like, men who feel like they have no way out, singing songs out of desperation. And then we're so quickly going to three funny guys who, like, can experience physical violence. Like Wile E. Coyote will always recover from it. Right. Can, like, fall off the back of a moving train and get hit with. With, like, like, logs and shit. And they can get out. They can get out. They can sort of, like, shake hands, win over the public, turn these songs into something poppier and more fun and more upbeat. A song that is about sadness and convert it into something that, like. Yeah. Removes the. The. The trauma from which it was bred in a way that makes it more palatable and, like, then is weaponized by a fucking politician. Like, there's something there.

[Emily St. James]

Some of it is also coasting off the real history of country music, which is poor white people and poor black people came up with this form of music. And Everett is literally. I believe he's a lawyer. Like, he's like someone who is. There's a Class element, too. That really helps, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. But he's a fake lawyer. Right. And, like, his ability to sort of, like, smooth talk people just enough.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But, yeah, it's something about. And I think it's why the soundtrack for this clicks so much, because it's so in conversation with something. It is so aware of its own history in a weird way where it's just like, all of American music comes out of, like, slave songs, prison songs, spirituals.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, and everything descends from.

[Emily St. James]

And I think some. Some of that must be T Bone Burnett's influence. He knows this history. History in a way that I do.

[Ben Hosley]

Just want to add as well, that I think there. There also is influence from Irish and Scottish and English folk music. A lot of folks immigrated to Appalachia.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

And also, I think, had a big impact as well.

[Griffin Newman]

And.

[Ben Hosley]

And country, blues, Americana music.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you see Sinners, Ben?

[Ben Hosley]

I didn't, and it's a bummer.

[Griffin Newman]

Digs into that a lot in a way I think you'd find really interesting.

[Emily St. James]

I was gonna say there's a lot of vampire, entire music in this movie, but that's a.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a very good point.

[David Sims]

All I will say is that while watching this movie, I turned to my wife and I said, Just FYI, when I'm sometime in my 40s, it's coming. I'm gonna have a year where I get way too interested in blues music and start buying records and reading books.

[Ben Hosley]

And, like, your ass is gonna have a 78 play.

[David Sims]

Exactly. Like I watch, like, a weird, boring documentary.

[Griffin Newman]

Your daughter's gonna be tan and so embarrassed by you.

[David Sims]

Exactly. It's like. It just feels like something dads do where they're like, there's nothing better than the blues. You know, I'm just. I'm. I'm tasting it already. Like, I watch anyone play the blues, and the Sinners has so much of it. Right. And you're just like, this is the best. Not only that guy and his feelings. And a guitar.

[Griffin Newman]

Not only that, but you watch it and you're like, man, it'd be really cool to know a lot about this.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

It'd be really cool in a way that's not cool. That makes everyone roll their eyes.

[David Sims]

Yes, exactly.

[Ben Hosley]

When you listen to that. That sound, the crackling of old records, it sounds like you're listening to a ghost.

[David Sims]

It's also spooky and so cool. And there's guys where it's like they were never recorded. But, like, people, you know, oral histories. Like, no one would ever better than Mr. And you're like, yeah, he must have sounded like a, you know, Freight train or what. It's the best.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. This movie also has a fascinating balance of like. Right. Very modern, clean, present day recordings of professional modern singers doing these old standards. And then also, like Big Rock Candy Mountain sounding like it was a record pressed on a piece of paper.

[Emily St. James]

And when you talk about the tonal shifts, the music is key to that, which is, I think, why the soundtrack took off so much. Because you go from oh, Lazarus to Big Rock Candy Mountain and it switches on a dime. And you do have the credits helping because credits are always changing tone.

[Griffin Newman]

But you have this prologue, then you have the credits which is like intercutting with the song. The title cards that are very old fashioned. And then them sort of of on the run. And you're very quickly getting into like physical hijinks. These guys being chained together, not being able to get out. And then they go to Delmar's brother's place.

[Emily St. James]

There's the great. There's the great gag on the train, which is always when I'm like, oh, I love this movie.

[David Sims]

Clooney getting dragged out of the train is very funny. And then they. Right. Then they go to the brother's house and then they get baptized. Brother's great. Love that guy. Who's that?

[Griffin Newman]

Frank Collins. Ellison.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Who's in. We've covered him a fair amount. He's in a bunch of Shyamalan movies.

[David Sims]

Hog Wall.

[Griffin Newman]

He's on Twin Peaks.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

There's another director he works with a lot. I was trying to remember.

[David Sims]

Great face.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. One of the great faces. But he's not his brother. He's his kin.

[Ben Hosley]

I think his cousin.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sorry. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

We gotta shout out the little rapscasion.

[David Sims]

I love that kid. I curse your name.

[Griffin Newman]

His wife has R U N O F T. A thing that the kid keeps misrepeating. Yeah. But he frees them from the shackles.

[Emily St. James]

This is the place where I'm always reminded that they are clearly just going off a memory of the Odyssey. Because they're like, I think there's pigs in there.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right, right. Which I love that. I think sometimes when these sort of modernization adaptations get too schematic, the logic starts falling apart even faster. When you're worried too much about how do I translate every single element onto a comparable thing in a different place in a different time. It helps that they're kind of just picking and choosing. And when you get to Goodman, you're like, oh, right, there was a cyclops this is the Cyclops. I don't care about every single detail being transmuted.

[David Sims]

No, it is not even remotely right, like, at making that effort. And obviously, obviously, Ulysses is not coming from Everett. It's not coming from a war. He's coming from prison.

[Ben Hosley]

But there's just little stuff. There's little Easter eggs. They mentioned Babylon at some point.

[David Sims]

The siren stuff. Obviously he needs to get. His wife is gonna remarry and he's gotta get back before she does.

[Griffin Newman]

But it takes us a while to know that. Yes, he's telling them he has a treasure of $1.2 million that they have to go find.

[David Sims]

He knocked over a bank car or.

[Griffin Newman]

Whatever, and that's why he was in jail.

[Emily St. James]

Pappy's loosely the king, but also kind of Zeus. Like it. This thing of. Oh, they have like. They kind of have a memory of this. And then also they probably just like, looked up a character name list and dropped him in there.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. There's a different Papio Daniel, who had a different first name but existed at the same time.

[Emily St. James]

Oh, the new Leo Dan, his name in the movie, like Menelaus. Somebody's name. Menelaus.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is the King of Troy.

[David Sims]

His name is Menelaus.

[Emily St. James]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Which King of Troy? Right. Who's is that? Who does Brian Cox play in Troy? Gotta look it up. I just remember that movie, you know. Obviously got Brad Pitt, you know, stunting on people.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But a lot of it is like, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleason, Sean Bean, you know, Peter o'. Toole. It's got guys, all these gravelly guys and togas with, like, beards going like.

[Griffin Newman]

The cast of that movie is so bizarre.

[David Sims]

Brian Cox's Agamemnon and Brendan Gleason as Menelaus.

[Griffin Newman]

Got it.

[David Sims]

Sparta. Not Troy.

[Griffin Newman]

Charles Sterling, one of my favorite actors all time.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

This movie Mrs. Peak.

[Griffin Newman]

I was going to say, this movie arguably has like three of my ten favorite screen actors.

[David Sims]

So Holly Hunter and John Goodman or.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I mean, Hunter and Durning are absolutely in my top 10. If Goodman isn't. He's very close. And Goodman is just like, showing up, knowing exactly what to do, giving you just enough. Holly Hunter's just doing like this real fun kind of like skill piece exercise, as I bet you couldn't think someone could talk faster than Clooney. Durning is given like a five course meal to play here.

[David Sims]

He keeps coming back.

[Griffin Newman]

I love that. It's like a parallel narrative that is like 30% of the movie.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He keeps sort of like overlapping with them and crossing with them, but never like too directly interacting with them until the end. But we spend time with him and his guys.

[Emily St. James]

This movie's like structured as a series of triangles. That Clooney is a point in all of them.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Emily St. James]

Which is a really fascinating choice to me.

[Griffin Newman]

But you're almost watching it going like, why are they spending this much time on this guy and his campaign struggles and why, whatever. But in the structure of it, they let Durning do everything he's good at doing. Like, what I love about Charles Durning is that he is such a specific guy. He is not someone who can transform. Right. He's not someone who can disappear. And yet there is like a bizarrely wide array of applications for him and specific skills he has. And usually people focus in on one and this is like, they let him be charming. They let him be funny. They let him dance. They let him. They let him be scary, like genuinely menacing. They let him be kind of like comedically gruff. It's so good.

[Emily St. James]

There is a non zero chance though, that the Cones just heard there was a man named Pappy who had a flower based radio show and was like, that's. We gotta work with that.

[David Sims]

That probably amused them quite a lot. Who's the Satan? No, that's Santo Von Parkin. I know that. Love that guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, the right rival. Homer Stokes.

[David Sims]

No, him, that's.

[Griffin Newman]

His name is Wayne Duvall.

[David Sims]

Wayne Duvall.

[Griffin Newman]

He's Robert Duvall's cousin.

[David Sims]

He's good.

[Griffin Newman]

He's.

[David Sims]

He's one of those guys who's in like a bajillion things and, you know, little roles or whatever. No, Pappy's got the son. Right. And then he's got the two kind of advisors.

[Griffin Newman]

One of them is the. Not counting the mezzanine guy.

[David Sims]

That. That's.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I'm sorry. He's the eyebrows guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah. What's his name? That guy?

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to figure it out.

[David Sims]

Okay. Yeah, I was just trying to remember that guy's name because I love that guy's face.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. He's incredible.

[David Sims]

I'll find out. But anyway, so, okay, what's going on in oh brother war that they get baptized?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. You introduced Tommy pretty quickly.

[David Sims]

It's like. But like, it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so Tommy before the baptized. The baptism?

[David Sims]

No, right after.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you sure?

[David Sims]

I'm not sure, but I can't remember.

[Griffin Newman]

You also, you set up Daniel Van Bargen pretty quickly.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, he's. When they're in the bar.

[Griffin Newman]

Because you see him before, Right, Right.

[David Sims]

Damn, we're in there with a dog. Damn, we're tight. Of course. I feel like it was so remarked on, but they break the rule of three. He says, damn, we're in a tight spot four times. The fourth time is so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

There's a lot of, like, them futzing with things like that.

[Ben Hosley]

With his fucking hair net.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But Dan Von Bargain, as the sheriff, is playing the Poseidon role in the Odyssey. But he's also clearly Satan himself.

[David Sims]

He is Satan himself as much as Papio Daniels, called Menelaus, but he's clearly Zeus, if you're going by the Odyssey.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

In that he sort of comes and fixes stuff at the end. But the. I feel like through the Hogswallop, you're getting, like, the sense of, like, okay, the depression is underway.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Through the baptism, you're like, right, this kind of, like, big tent revival shit is happening. You know, like, this kind of new American Christianity stuff is happening.

[Griffin Newman]

The irony of this movie being like, right, yes, this is a bad time. And at the end, Clooney is so confident that this is the beginning of a bright future for the Americans south, you know, that, like, this is going to wash away all our problems and.

[Emily St. James]

Reset and, like, it's toward the end of the Depression. So it is. You know it is. And they're riffing on the Tennessee Valley Authority and things, like, in terms of the history of it. So it is. He's not wrong. But also, yes.

[David Sims]

They get baptized and then, yes, they pick up Tommy.

[Emily St. James]

The baptism does an interesting thing, technically that I think is probably a mix of the recording and then live singing, which is, as you move past the people being baptized, you hear specific voices pull up in the soundtrack in a way that, like, I'm not entirely sure how they did, but I was struck by that.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, once again, unsurprisingly, Skip, leave, say, on fucking fire.

[David Sims]

Yes, Big boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

On those ones and zeros.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So they need money. So. Right. Once they have Tommy, that's when they go to the radio station to record as the Soggy Bottom Boys. It's never really remarkable. Embarked on why they are so good at music.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Because they don't. They're not good at anything else ever.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean.

[David Sims]

Right. They have no other skill. But I guess the muse sings through them. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Use just. It just channels through them.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's part of it. But isn't also the implication that's like, right, they were incarcerated. They were in a chain gang. They were, like, forced to sing all the Time and study. Other people, you know, they like got it from Osmosis a little bit.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

I have a question about the song and I. I should know this, but was that written for the movie or is that a pre existing song?

[David Sims]

It is a pre existing song.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Right. Do you know anything about it? I can look it up.

[Emily St. James]

I. I don't. It. It's very old. Yeah. Traditional.

[Griffin Newman]

It rips.

[David Sims]

It really. It's pretty good.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, the song is like highlighted in the trailer. And I even remember seeing the trailer for this movie being like, I got to buy this soundtrack.

[David Sims]

It was titled Farewell Song in a song book dated to around 1913. It got its current title in 1928. It's had many sort of versions. Bob Dylan's recorded a version over the years. Joan Baez.

[Emily St. James]

A lot of versions are sat.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Emily St. James]

And this one is more upbeat sort.

[Griffin Newman]

Of the pop version of it.

[David Sims]

I do, supposedly. Maybe it's from this guy, Dick Burnett, who is like a partially blind fiddle player. And it might be about him, but we're not sure. Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

In this era where you basically had to buy an entire album if you wanted one song. Don't you think it was just like the rocket power of this thing was like, I guess I need that soundtrack. Obviously the music's great.

[David Sims]

I think so. Because the soundtrack does have a lot of. Right. Not. It has the spirituals and it has these weird creepy numbers that are awesome, but it's not. You know, put it on at a party.

[Griffin Newman]

The surprise for people is that when they bought it for this song, that then they were like, this plays really well as an album.

[Emily St. James]

This feels like a classic. You're riding in a friend's car.

[Griffin Newman]

Car.

[Emily St. James]

And like this album's on. You're like, what is this? You know, like. Because it's impact being outsized beyond the movie feels like that word about this.

[Griffin Newman]

As being a blockbuster car album. It really feels like this was a thing that like people were buying at Starbucks right along with their Nora Jones album. Propelled by that one song that's really fun and punchy. And then you're like, fuck, this is just kind of good music to live my life to.

[Ben Hosley]

It's just crazy that we were like 17 listening to this.

[Emily St. James]

This is the era of Starbucks albums pulling off upsets at the Grammys too. They're just winning year.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, yeah, Enya, we just mentioned.

[David Sims]

Yeah, love Enya. She lives in a castle.

[Ben Hosley]

She does live in a castle.

[David Sims]

Cool lady.

[Ben Hosley]

That is so cool.

[Griffin Newman]

This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Great Podcast pick friend. No surprises there. After all, you're all about finding the tastiest flavors out there. Just like White Claw Surge. And with big, bold flavors to enjoy, like blood orange, BlackBerry, coral, cranberry and more. It's time to go all in on taste. Unleash the flavor. Unleash White Cloth Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors. 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer works Chicago, Illinois.

[David Sims]

Hey, dude. The song. Great.

[Griffin Newman]

There's also. There's the push cart man, the blind sort of seer who predicts everything that's going to happen, happen in the movie, and they immediately dismiss him. But that is like a haunting scene. That is like a weirdly eerie scene coming in between a chain gang and, like, physical nonsense.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. And like, Steven runs, not, like, is a comical version of kind of a weird, creepy guy, but he is definitely also playing that element of kind of a creepiness.

[David Sims]

And it's the Odyssey. They're always. Everyone's always, like, blind or, you know, there's always something up with everyone. Everybody they come across.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so they're big.

[David Sims]

After. This is the Babyface Nelson stuff. Stuff I remember hitting really hard at the time. And, you know, Bottaluccio was. Should we have a Bottalucho corner? Is it time?

[Emily St. James]

He's the one of two actors to win an Emmy for the Practice. A forgotten Tyne Daly is the other. No, Cameron Manheim.

[David Sims]

Tyne Daly wasn't on the Practice. I made that up.

[Emily St. James]

She's on Judging Amy.

[David Sims]

Yeah, she was so good on Judging Amy.

[Griffin Newman]

You're talking about Dave.

[David Sims]

The fuck am I talking about, Right? Cameron Manheim. But that was. The thing is, like, that's the. Cameron Manheim and Michael Battaluccio were so hot on the Practice for like, one year, two years.

[Emily St. James]

Battalucho was an upset over Steve Harris, who everyone was like, he's going to win. They were nominated in the same category, but.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then I feel like the Practice, it, like, hit 1999. Everyone was like, we like the West Wing and the Sopranos now, like, the Practice of.

[Emily St. James]

Feels famously, the Practice beat season one of the Sopranos in drama. But then all the actors from the Sopranos, like, a couple of the actors from the Sopranos won, I think.

[David Sims]

Well, you know what?

[Emily St. James]

What I think I should do it.

[David Sims]

Should do an Emmy. Steep dive. But you guys have to see Eddington.

[Emily St. James]

I think I can do it off the top of my head.

[David Sims]

I want to see if you can do it off the top of your head. The Practice win over the Sopranos is, of course, one of the most insane. Like, what were they thinking? It had won the year before. Four over. Not the surprise, you know, like in a. So it was season two of the Practice. I think people don't remember the Practice. It was. It was Dark Alley McBeal. It was. David E. Kelly had the hottest legal show in both comedy and drama.

[Emily St. James]

The famous David E. Kelly thing of, I'm going to do a show that's serious and real, and by season three, it's bonkers. And Michael Emerson's playing a serial killer who dresses as a nun, and you're like, oh, great. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also, at that point in time, he was such a celebrity, like, creator, showrunner, and a woman way that wasn't.

[David Sims]

There were not many like him a thing.

[Griffin Newman]

And I always fall into the trap of being like, yeah. And I guess he kind of receded. Right. And you're like, man works more than ever. He's just not the headline on the shows in the way he used to be.

[David Sims]

He's still working, for sure.

[Griffin Newman]

He also, you know, married Michelle Feifer, which at that peak of TV was just like, this guy also gets to. I feel like there was a Weekend Update joke about, like, dude, you're married to Michelle Feifer. Why are you working so much?

[David Sims]

Fair question.

[Griffin Newman]

Spend more time at home.

[David Sims]

81 actress.

[Emily St. James]

81 actress. Dennis Fran Franz wins Actor Franz wins.

[David Sims]

I believe, his fourth and final Emmy for lead actor. Correct.

[Emily St. James]

And Practice one series. I don't remember who won. Supporting. I've been trying to crack that up in drama.

[David Sims]

Do you want to know?

[Emily St. James]

I would love to know.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, it's. Oh, man, this is crazy. Boudaluccio and Holland Taylor for the Practice.

[Emily St. James]

Oh, there we go. So Mannheim must have won the year before. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Or the year after or whatever. And again, like Holland Taylor in the Practice. Who. I'm sorry, I love Holland Taylor, but please get the fuck out of here. Beats Nancy Marchand in the Sopranos. Yes. Which is fucking crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Her final chance. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, I think she was nominated for season two, but season one is when she's, like, throwing fastballs.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. They're also not going to give her a fucking posthumous Emmy for the CGI episode.

[David Sims]

Well, that's season three.

[Emily St. James]

They should. That's three.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

She's in one and two by two, I think they have a slightly less. They're not quite sure what to do with that character.

[Emily St. James]

By two by two, they know she's dying, and they're like, we can't work with her as much.

[David Sims]

Right. Yeah. And like, in one, obviously, the Tony, you know, Livia thing is, like, the engine of the show more. Yeah. God, what a weird era. Because it's like the practice, NYPD Blue. These kinds of, like, robust network dramas that were good, but were still like, 22 episode. Like, episode. You know, like, case of the week stuff. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then, like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It all goes away. Guys want to talk about this more? Okay, fine. Oh, brother, where art thou? All right. What's going on in this. Yeah. The Battle Lucha stuff. I don't know. You like him? You like Battle Lucas? The show?

[Griffin Newman]

I do.

[David Sims]

He's playing a real guy, baby face.

[Griffin Newman]

Guy, who's got this inferiority complex about not being seen as a big tough.

[David Sims]

And he looked like that. He had a little hat.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

It was so cool that there were bank robbers.

[David Sims]

Well, okay, Ben. Yes, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I think great era, Ben raises a great point. I also love the bit of him pulling up and asking for directions. The police cars coming from a distance.

[David Sims]

He's like, why don't you get in the car?

[Griffin Newman]

Being oblivious. And money is just flying out of the car. And Tim, Blake Nelson is doing such good work. Work of, like, trying to catch the dollar bills as if it's like a.

[Ben Hosley]

Miracle, but he's such an innocent that he's, like, gonna give it back.

[Griffin Newman]

He's just a gog all the time at everything happening. Yeah. I like that good scene where Tommy plays for them again after the recording by the fire, and they all talk about what they're gonna do with their money.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that scene, too.

[Emily St. James]

Ben, I gotta know who your 1930s bank robber Persona is gonna open a.

[David Sims]

Restaurant and he's gonna wear a tuxedo.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, no matter what I'm about talking. Talking like this. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Good.

[Ben Hosley]

For sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Good.

[David Sims]

Yep. But then, will anyone know what you want? You, like, walk into the bank and you're like, yeah. Huh? I think that's enough.

[Ben Hosley]

Because it's such an established thing that everyone knows. Yep. This is a robbery.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

But my Persona, I think I would be dressed to the nines.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

You know, like, just a really well tailored suit, big old hat.

[Griffin Newman]

Fancy Benny Hosley.

[Emily St. James]

Fancy Benny or Benny the Suit?

[Griffin Newman]

Benny the Suit.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Gentleman ban. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Damn, this is good.

[David Sims]

I wouldn't rob any banks, personally. Seems stressful. I might go more for the turo. I want to open a big restaurant and wear a tuxedo every day vibe. You're trying to find something No, I.

[Griffin Newman]

Was just getting through. I. You know what I like about the. The Battle Lucho sequence.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

They make it out and then he plays the deep core sadness at the fire afterwards, the calm down, it's hours later. And they're sort of like, what's up with.

[David Sims]

With him?

[Griffin Newman]

It's like this thing it goes from.

[David Sims]

And Everett diagnoses him. He's like, when the highs are high, you know. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But also that they like clock that. It's not just that, like when he's responding in the bank, it's this sort of like impotent rage. Right. It's just this sort of like knee jerk retaliation to the idea of not being taken seriously. And then like later at night. This guy's just sad. It's not like he's still fuming about like, they called me baby face. There's like a deep emptiness inside of him.

[David Sims]

Brian Ready is the name of the guy we were trying.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell yeah.

[David Sims]

Who's just one of those guys. And some 2 billion things, including an episode of the Practice.

[Griffin Newman]

You get to the. The information that the Soggy Bottom Boys are becoming a hit. That Stephen Root doesn't have any info on them.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Right now they. Is it that this part where the newspaper. They're eating the piece of pie?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

Is that this section?

[Griffin Newman]

It look, it's all good. Comedies should have at least one instance of people stealing a hot pie.

[David Sims]

Hot seal pie.

[Ben Hosley]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

I as a kid watching Looney Tunes was convinced that adulthood, a big part of it, was stealing pies off of windows.

[Griffin Newman]

Something you only get to do when you grow up.

[David Sims]

You make the pie. And then there's that dangerous part where you're like, it has to go on the windows.

[Griffin Newman]

It has to.

[Ben Hosley]

And it's almost understood.

[David Sims]

Cool elsewhere.

[Griffin Newman]

Nowhere else.

[Ben Hosley]

But it's understood that also you might lose a pie.

[David Sims]

Thieving children roam the backyards of America.

[Griffin Newman]

And tasty smell lines are going to reach all the way. We're nearest rapscallions.

[Emily St. James]

We're living in a time when we're bringing back too much of the Great Depression era. But we do need to bring back pies cooling in windowsills.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the only part of Make America Great Again I agree with is we lost some key element of greatness in our cultural identity the second we closed our windows and let pies cool indoors. And that was a big part of Trump's campaign last year.

[Emily St. James]

It really was. He brought it up all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

Including put it back on the stove.

[Emily St. James]

That and that and that and Arnold Palmer's penis. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Joey and I were doing a whole thing because, you know, Maria Hill dies in secret invasion. Kobe Smolders. They just shot her. Right. You know, like no one remembers this obviously, because that's been like memory hold.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But there was some tweet that was like she fucking died like two, you know, two years years ago. And Joey just started doing like Trump being like, wonderful woman. Not too tough on the ice, folks. Maria Hill, we lost a great one. Biden let scrolls into our country. You know, just like Trump talking about random shit that isn't real is still funny.

[Griffin Newman]

The Trump comedy nerd account, which I loved so much.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And would tweet that kind of thing about like.

[David Sims]

Like Seth Simon tweets.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But like Experimenting Mitch hurts. Berwitz tried to reinvent the wheel with season four and Netflix made him recut it chronologically like a dog. Like. Like that. Never not funny.

[David Sims]

It's just unfortunate.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I hate that he lives.

[David Sims]

He's bad person. But it's funny to imagine talking about scrolls.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. We hate the scrolls. Folks.

[David Sims]

I'm going to get the scrolls out.

[Griffin Newman]

Out.

[David Sims]

Biden let the Skrulls in.

[Griffin Newman]

They were fighting the Cree for a long time.

[David Sims]

Border porous scrolls coming in. They get. There's the siren sequence is next. Where they get turned into. They think Pete gets turned into a frog.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Emily St. James]

A horny toad.

[Griffin Newman]

They're tempted by the fornication.

[David Sims]

Another thing.

[Ben Hosley]

When I was a kid, I was pretty sure that I would be regularly drinking out of a jug with three X's labeled on it.

[David Sims]

I've still never done. You would like go to the store and that would be on a high shelf.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yep. Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

This whole movie is like Ben's Pinterest board.

[Emily St. James]

You mention a 10 year old. You mentioned your wife's got a surprise plan for you for your birthday. Maybe that's it.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh my God.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Ben Hosley]

That would be huge.

[Griffin Newman]

She's going to take you the finest window sill in New York City.

[David Sims]

What do you think? Why is Pete's. Why are Pete's clothes laid out like that? What does happen there?

[Griffin Newman]

I think he fornicates.

[David Sims]

Fornicates? Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

They lead him off into the woods and he's caught. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Mid fornication. Fornication.

[David Sims]

Mid fornication.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Show us that. Cohen's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Cowards.

[Griffin Newman]

Because Delmore's a virgin.

[David Sims]

He hasn't. He doesn't have time to. He's got to get the family farm back.

[Griffin Newman]

Really.

[David Sims]

Before he thinks about that guy. And Everett's like. And then Everett Makes a baby seemingly every year with Holly Hunter. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The math on the babies is, like, impossible. It's so funny when you see that.

[David Sims]

It'S Holly Hunter, who's the tiniest frame imaginable.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's just so funny when you see the girls first. Okay. He's got three children. Right. Then you go indoors. Holly Hunter's holding a new baby and has three. Three additional children with her.

[Emily St. James]

You have to tie them all in a line.

[Griffin Newman]

There's seven in total.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Yes. So they think Everett's a pizza toad. So they have a toad now.

[Griffin Newman]

A horny tire.

[David Sims]

A horny tire.

[Ben Hosley]

I love this song, too. The siren sing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

It's one of my. My faves.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's a scene that is, like, funny. All of the reaction shots are funny. Right. Like Tatura. Seemingly increasingly angered by the seduction. Them smushing Tim. Blake Nelson's face. Face. And yet it's also a little creepy.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I think the sirens are also dubbed by Emma Lou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian. Gillian Welch.

[Emily St. James]

Gillian Welsh. Yeah.

[David Sims]

After this is, I guess, the Cyclops. The Bible sells.

[Griffin Newman]

Big Dan, Our year of Goodman.

[David Sims]

Right. Goodman in kind of Barton Fink, but just more cartoonish evil mode.

[Emily St. James]

He is also so clearly evil.

[Griffin Newman]

Everett.

[Emily St. James]

Like, he's like.

[David Sims]

Yes, Right. Big, big talker, but. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but I like that he's playing the darkness at the forefront from the beginning. Yes.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

There's sort of an obvious move to have him play more successfully. Charming. And then disarm you with it.

[David Sims]

Right. More. Sweet. More.

[Emily St. James]

I think this is where the Odyssey thing works in their favor because you're like, well, that's the fucking Cyclops. Like, I know what the Cyclops does.

[David Sims]

Yes, you're.

[Griffin Newman]

And the reveal of him turning around, turning towards the camera and showing. Swing the. The eye patch.

[David Sims]

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also just funny to watch John Goodman swing a big. A big ass branch.

[Ben Hosley]

Snaps that branch when he's.

[Griffin Newman]

The fact that neither of them are putting it together as he's preparing to beat their ass. And then even after he hits.

[David Sims]

What are you doing?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Tony so calmly goes, what are you doing there, Dan? He just keeps going like, Dan, I got a minute? I'm not sure I quite understand the lesson.

[David Sims]

You said year of Goodman. Is this a specific year of Goodman you want to highlight?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I'm saying 2025 for the blank Ch podcast.

[David Sims]

It is the year of always King.

[Griffin Newman]

Ralph and five Goodman. Cohen.

[David Sims]

Many Cohen. Exactly. But I will say in 2000, he was also in the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

[Emily St. James]

Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

He's quite good in that as a Southern sheriff.

[David Sims]

It sounds like something he might have done. Coyote Ugly, where he's the dad who's like, I'm not sure if I want you going to work at Coyote Ugly.

[Griffin Newman]

He might also be a Southern sheriff.

[David Sims]

Probably Emperor's New Groove, where he is a Peruvian farmer.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And just wants to keep his little Hamlet on top of his mountain.

[Emily St. James]

Typecasting.

[David Sims]

And what planet are you from? Which I haven't seen.

[Griffin Newman]

Which I just watched for the first time and is in my opinion, good. Have you ever seen it, Emily?

[Emily St. James]

Is that the Mike Nichols one?

[Griffin Newman]

That's Mike Nichols. Gary Shanley.

[Emily St. James]

I'm going to be watching it for 2000s because we're doing Mike Nichols.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the fucking Larry Sanders. Blank check. Can I transfer the heat to movies? Move. And he gets Nichols in this all star cast. And I'd always assumed it was terrible. Terrible because it was a flop at the time and it has no reputation. I thought it was pretty solid. Yeah. I watch it back to back with Town and Country, which is worse than people say, oh, wow.

[David Sims]

Town and country didn't even deliver on the rock bottom expectations.

[Griffin Newman]

It is astonishing. I want the FBI to release all the Town and Country papers. I have so many questions that will never be answered about how the fuck that movie ended up. That was way.

[David Sims]

I'll watch it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I gotta watch Silverman down and Country. What? I've got to watch all these like 2000 era like maligned comedies. Okay. Then we get to the big reveal of Holly Hunter and all that. Ray McKinnon, who's such a funny faced man. We love Ray McKinnon.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

Deadwood. He justify when or just. Just to. No, no. What's it called?

[David Sims]

Rectify.

[Emily St. James]

Rectify.

[David Sims]

We all forget Rectify.

[Emily St. James]

It's a brilliant show.

[David Sims]

He.

[Emily St. James]

He's like. He's the creator and director and it's. It's beautiful.

[Griffin Newman]

Won an Oscar with Walton Goggins for.

[David Sims]

The accountant of the short film which.

[Griffin Newman]

Then they adapt into a feature film called Randy and the Mob that I haven't seen that went nowhere. But he's great. He is revealed to be the campaign manager for Papi Odan.

[David Sims]

I just love that he. No, he's the campaign manager for the. For the reformer Homer.

[Griffin Newman]

Homer.

[David Sims]

But he. He lays out Everett like so thoroughly. Thoroughly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Clooney doesn't land a punch on that guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Clooney is one of the best at like comedic punch reaction. It's when you talk about like David, him saying like, I'm doing this, I'm in. I know what the Cohen are. I know what they want. He so understands the visual language of the Cohen's as filmmakers that he knows how to like with his body complete the shots that they want of like the angle of the reaction to being hit, the spinning towards the camera. Camera or clocking the. The neck back. Like he has seven or eight times in this movie where he has to react to a hit that are all so fucking funny.

[Emily St. James]

This, this is a bit of a hot take, but George Clooney is not my favorite director. I don't. I don't love all his films.

[David Sims]

He's like Midnight sky guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Favorite director of all time.

[David Sims]

There's eight movies I could have busted out there as a joke, but that.

[Griffin Newman]

All came out in 2021.

[David Sims]

All on different streaming services.

[Emily St. James]

But even in his earliest film, you see him understanding the camera and how he's gonna fill in the frame.

[David Sims]

And like, he's not a bad director. The movies he makes that I don't like are not ineptly made. It's more that the story tends to be very boring. Like. Or what? You know, like he loses me elsewhere.

[Griffin Newman]

But I agree with you that.

[David Sims]

That crab. He works with clever people.

[Griffin Newman]

It's interesting because there are few movie stars who kind of feel more constantly aware of filmmaking than he does without being self conscious. He's so good at not just like knowing his angles, but knowing what will make us hot pop. And then that doesn't really translate over his directing.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. Yeah. His visuals and his films are often.

[David Sims]

You look at Midnight Sky, Tender Bar, Boys in the Boat and you're like, Jesus. And then you remember he also did a catch 22 miniseries on top of that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Oh, like in like five years.

[Griffin Newman]

Four years. The four years where like the world is shut down.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I don't have to work much. Yes. Right. And yet I do think Confessions is a really strong debut. That's fun.

[Emily St. James]

I love that movie.

[David Sims]

And Good Night and Good Luck Rocks and only rocks more on rewatch.

[Griffin Newman]

But then it's immediate drop off. Then it's like.

[David Sims]

I've actually never seen Leatherheads.

[Griffin Newman]

I've tried to get.

[David Sims]

I think there's a. There's like two leatherhead stands out there in the world. I had to march.

[Griffin Newman]

John Kraski and George Clooney.

[David Sims]

I guess. So.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Ide sucks. Yeah. And that's. It's just.

[David Sims]

Monuments Men is just a big old.

[Griffin Newman]

Sleeping pill, but is actually anger inducing where it's like, how Is this.

[David Sims]

You have so much at your disposal here.

[Emily St. James]

I feel like that's his entire career now. It's like, how is Boys in the Boat? Or whatever. Not.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, yeah, he's. I can't talk about it, but he's in a Noah Bonebeck movie this year.

[Griffin Newman]

Uhhuh.

[David Sims]

Which we like. We like that he's working with, like, other directors.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm excited. He's acting more. He. Again, that was the most annoying part of him making shitty movies for so long is like, why aren't you being George Clooney?

[David Sims]

And why are you your only director? You know, like, if you're acting, it's because you're directing yourself.

[Griffin Newman]

Y.

[David Sims]

Which he told me when I interviewed him for Suburbicon he didn't like doing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which I guess it's Midnight Sky. He's not in Tender Bar or Boys in the Boat, I guess. No. So good for him.

[Griffin Newman]

But lead Monuments man lead. Kind of lead Knights of March. Although it's really Gosling Leatherhead ads. Yeah. But. Yeah. Ray McKinnon's the campaign manager for the competition. Homer Stokes, we've been introduced to as the reform candidate who fights for the little man. He's got a little person on stage with him in a broom.

[Emily St. James]

It's such a good. Like, it's such a good campaign gimmick.

[David Sims]

All gimmicks from reality, like, from history. And there's a guy who did a broom thing.

[Griffin Newman]

There was a guy playing on your expectations of, like, here's Pepio down. Who looks like Colonel Sanders. Sanders. Who's angry. Charles Dern and being like, why they wouldn't like this progressive guy. Right. And you're like, oh, he's like the old Southern, like, stuck in the mud, institutional piece of. And here's this guy who actually cares about people, and he's leading this groundswell that, like, Pappy's not gonna be able to stop. And then, of course, you realize that this guy is the grand wizard of Klu Klux Klan chapter. True. Papio Daniel actually does kill care, but at least somewhat.

[David Sims]

And it certainly is less ideologically motivated. Right? Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But also, like, there's something to me in the moment where the crowd booze Homer for calling out that he thinks there's a miscelation going on. Right?

[David Sims]

Yes. I just want to listen to the music.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. And like, there's the moment where Pappy goes like, oh, they don't. They don't care. And immediately he's like, actually, let's maybe be more progressive. Right. It's like he Listens to the people in a way.

[Emily St. James]

People talk a lot about whether the Cohens are conservative filmmakers, by which I mean, I don't think they voted for Donald Trump, but the sense that, like, they have an inherently conservative view of the world. And, like, I don't think that they do, but I think they have an overwhelming faith in. Fargo's the best example of this. Just normal folk who are gonna, like, realize, like, the. The truth of the matter.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a distrust of institutions and power, and there's a belief in the individual person.

[Emily St. James]

And I think that we live in a world that has sort of disproved that notion. But also when everyone's excited that the Soggy Bottom Boys are that good, that they don't care that they're an integrated group.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. I also. I just think I've heard people make the argument that they're, like, neoliberal hacks and that they're, like, libertarian, like, fuck it all, guys. And it is interesting that all three of those reads persist in tandem, and yet none of them totally fit.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. And it really depends on the project. They just are. They do not think that institutions have the best interests of everyone in mind, which I think is true.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's all a little glossed, though, and I think some critics just bumped on that.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. I think that the clan element of this film, I think, ultimately works, but it is simultaneously playing a silly vibe on something that is horrifying.

[David Sims]

It is so chilling and yet. Right. Also a broad comic scene that shot like a buzzweed Berkeley musical.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And it is. I mean, to me, it is kind of magic to try something that. Insane.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree.

[David Sims]

Kind of, like bewildered by it, like, in a good way. But at the same time, it's so chilling to see the clan on screen.

[Griffin Newman]

The sequence opens with. With, like, silence watching them form with the fiery cross, which is so upsetting.

[David Sims]

And this. The O Death song.

[Griffin Newman]

I was going to say. It's like two seconds of un. Two seconds. Two minutes of unaccompanied music that is presented in a very haunting way. And then it sort of gets back into comedy. Like these, like, pivots the movie is able to make within a scene.

[Ben Hosley]

It's so silly that they're doing Choreo.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, I think that's, like, a funny element. But again, it's also so horrifying to see.

[David Sims]

The silliness is.

[Emily St. James]

At the same time, you're like, oh, they're going to kill Tommy. Like, they are playing those two things simultaneously.

[Griffin Newman]

But even like in When Homer is Like, taken out, right when he's losing the crowd and he goes like, look, I have it on good authority that these men interfered with the duties of a lynch mob. I am a member, a high up member of a secret society. I need not even mention name. Like, you go into the scene thinking, oh, they're going to out him some way and the crowd's going to. To turn. He offers that information up himself and thinks that people will be like, oh, of course, we got your back.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, yeah. I think we also need to bring back riding people out of town on a rail, which is why out of.

[David Sims]

Town on a rail is good.

[Griffin Newman]

We gotta bring it back.

[David Sims]

We gotta bring it back, folks.

[Griffin Newman]

We love the rails.

[David Sims]

The scrolls need to go on the rails.

[Emily St. James]

There's a book called A Fever in the Heartland, which is quite good, which is about this period in history when the clan is like this huge organization, but also, if they're exposed, then people are like, well, we don't want to have anything to do with the clan. And it's sort of about the downfall. The beginning of the downfall of the clan. And this movie kind of captures that book.

[David Sims]

I want to read the Timothy Egan.

[Emily St. James]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I find fascinating about that moment is he's like, I know I can't say it outright because we're not supposed to admit it anymore, but if I allude to it, I think everyone will quietly nod in agreement and go, like, we all agree to not call out what you're saying. And. And he is surprised that the crowd turns on him.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. And it is also like playing off the theme you mentioned of music being this integrating force, not as strongly as it should have been, but, you know, having this element of, oh, this is how African American culture moves up into the mainstream.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And what Pappy clocks isn't like, these people want progress, it's they don't care. Right. And it's better the less cynical position of just like, just don't yuck anyone's yum. They're enjoying this song.

[Emily St. James]

That Durning does say that don't yuck their yum.

[Griffin Newman]

He does say that. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Pepe licks his finger and then sizzles.

[David Sims]

He does do that.

[Griffin Newman]

The thing during Classically trained dancer knows how to soft shoe.

[David Sims]

Hell, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? He moves so well despite being built like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. He's so light on his feet.

[David Sims]

You're right. And of course, the white clothes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Makes him even more marshmallowy in the. It was just a real era of him going like. Like, you know, in everything he was in.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like that bit of him that they hit like three times of him being so benevolent to the crowd. Right. I love the Soggy Bottom Boys. I'm giving them full pardons. And not only that, they're going to be my brain trust. And then they keep cutting back to the same angle of him turning around his shoulder and. Isn't that right, boys? And he looks scarier than any human being has ever looked looked on film. He looks scarier than this movie's depiction of Satan.

[David Sims]

Love, Charles Journey. The same year he's in state and Maine as the mayor. I feel like it's a somewhat similar role. Right? Yeah. And, you know, never got his Oscar but nominated twice. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And kind of weird nominations. I mean, he should have gotten the Dog Day nomination.

[David Sims]

I know, but that was like a cop everyone gets, right? Yeah, everyone's good.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm like his fucking, like, top ballot for me of like, Tootsie, Muppet Move Movie, Dog Day.

[David Sims]

I love the Muff movies in there. I'm not mad.

[Griffin Newman]

Doc Hopper is unbelievable and is an incredible version of. What I'm saying is how does he get away with making this villain actually.

[David Sims]

Setting in a Muppet Movie When Griffin loves someone. I'm not good at that. At remembering that they may have been in a Muppet Movie.

[Griffin Newman]

He is the human lead in the Muppet Movies.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah. Doc Hopper is the other side of Papa. They're like the same coin.

[Griffin Newman]

I've truly basically dressed the same.

[David Sims]

I think I've seen Muppets Take Manhattan a bunch of times because it must have been on TV or something. I think I've only ever seen and I've seen Christmas Carol many times. Sure, I love and respect it. It has Charles Dickens in it.

[Griffin Newman]

But what if you have to watch the other Muppet movies? You have zero children and you hate putting on things for them to watch.

[Emily St. James]

The fucking insane thing about the Muppets Take Manhattan is the Broadway show at the end of that, like, I always imagine going to see. Oh, and then the, like, the like, walls were. Are singing.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Emily St. James]

Also, like, what pig and a frog.

[Griffin Newman]

Got married night Two of this. Are you going to replicate this?

[David Sims]

Do you think my daughter would like the mob movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, is she ready six times a year? Yes, she's ready.

[Emily St. James]

I my kid, I watch random things on YouTube with them. And their favorite is Frog song, which is Rainbow Connection.

[David Sims]

Right, Right. Well, Rainbow Connect. It's just right. The more the right the whole narrative.

[Griffin Newman]

I think put on some Muppet show first. Because that bite size, it's little tiny.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's all on Disney Club.

[David Sims]

Sesame Street.

[Emily St. James]

Good callback.

[David Sims]

Although isn't it. Is it leaving Disney? No.

[Griffin Newman]

Disney's not.

[David Sims]

Ain't go.

[Griffin Newman]

No. That's fucking Zaslav and Looney Tunes. Muppets aren't going.

[David Sims]

Right. So we should be wrapping up soon because you guys have to see anything.

[Griffin Newman]

But it feels like there's such a clean. Like, oh, all. All one spot. Pappy won the election. He's like commuting their sentence. Everything's good. You think the movie's over.

[David Sims]

You have Dakota.

[Griffin Newman]

Mini act of. Okay. Like, Holly Hunter will shift the wedding. The date and the venue are the same. The cast is going to change. But she demands the ring.

[Emily St. James]

It's that Dana Carvey. You forgot about Satan.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And so they have to go back to the family cabin to get the ring in the roll top desk. But in fact, Satan is waiting there for them. He doesn't know that they've been pardoned because he doesn't. We don't have Radio Man's law.

[David Sims]

Yes. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Is trying to hang them. And then nature intervenes. The gray flood happens.

[David Sims]

Right. Everything on a roof.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

As predicted, Everett is still fighting with Penny, who's like. She's like, that's the wrong ring. But I feel like everyone's gonna get what they want.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, I think Pete will open his restaurant. I sure hope that Delmer will get the family farm.

[Griffin Newman]

Give me international pop stars.

[David Sims]

And I guess they can write. They can earn money that way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Delmar is going to be knee deep in strong strange. The Soggy Bottom Groupies. It is funny that they're called the Soggy Bottom Boys. Like, it's just like the Wet Ass Trio. It's a good name for a band.

[Ben Hosley]

And it's funny because that is referencing the fact that they had been baptized just previously. So they show up and they're kind of still a little wet.

[Emily St. James]

It is interesting that the movie raises this question of, like, your eternal soul. And then it's like, those were the stakes we had established earlier. Remember, in the last 10 minutes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Yes.

[David Sims]

So why does nature intervene and help? What have they done to earn this?

[Griffin Newman]

Nothing. Well, Clooney's argument is that it's just trying to reset the culture.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

That's not about them.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That it was fortuitous timing.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Because he also doesn't want to believe that any sort of fate that was projected upon them by.

[David Sims]

Right. He's the master of his own, the sightseer.

[Griffin Newman]

But then seeing the cow on the roof is the thing that kind of knocks him out of it in one.

[Emily St. James]

They did accidentally take down a clan leader. Like, they didn't mean to do that, but they did.

[David Sims]

You're right. So they've done good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then they brought music to the world.

[Griffin Newman]

They did. Yeah.

[David Sims]

We love music.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Emily St. James]

I think God thinks Man of Constant SAR is a toe tapper.

[Griffin Newman]

It is and it sure is.

[David Sims]

And they, they, they, they helped Tommy with no compunction. You know, when they see Tommy's in trouble, there's no, like, ah, we shouldn't, you know, we're going to get into like, they, they, they're all united on that.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a big point.

[Emily St. James]

They help everybody they meet, even if it's to do bad. It's like an interesting view of karma.

[Griffin Newman]

They're helping.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I think this film is quite good. Yeah.

[David Sims]

To me it's sort of in that Hudsucker thing where I'm like, great movie. Don't think it's in my Cohen's top 10. But that's a Cohen's thing, not no buzzing.

[Griffin Newman]

That's 10 masterpieces. I, I have the opposite thing of you, Emily. Just because it was the first one I saw where every time I watch it, I'm like, am I gonna have that buzzing of I've seen the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life again. And it's sort of the way that Edgar Wright talks about seeing Raising Arizona for the first time and being like, why aren't all movies like this?

[Emily St. James]

Oh, that's the first one I saw was Raising Arizona. My. My uncle showed me. That was like, you're gonna love this. I was like, 14. I was like, what the fuck is this?

[Griffin Newman]

My parents tried to show me Raising Arizona when I was like 6 or 7 and it didn't take.

[Emily St. James]

I didn't know a movie could do.

[Griffin Newman]

That at the time, but I think I felt that way seeing this for the first time.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And then I went back and watched Raising Arizona and finally got it.

[Emily St. James]

This is toward the bottom of my Cohen's top 10, but I think it's like nine. I think it's in there.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. It's a fantastic.

[David Sims]

Currently at 11, but we'll see how this list shakes out.

[Griffin Newman]

I will say box office game, because I do have to go see Eddington.

[David Sims]

You have to go see Eddington. And I don't want to do the opening weekend, which was like Cast Away. We've done that Christmas 2000. I want to do its biggest weekend. Okay, so that's February 2, 2001. Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

A robust 3.5.

[David Sims]

Correct. 3.6. That is the most money it made in an individual weekend. It's number 11 at the box office. Okay. Number one at the box office is a romantic comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

February 2001.

[David Sims]

Yes. One of these stars might have caught Roger Ebert's eye.

[Griffin Newman]

It is called the Wedding Planner.

[David Sims]

Yes. A roman really, really bad movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. A film. I feel you punch a lot.

[David Sims]

I really hate the Eminem speech in it. It drives me crazy. And I think it's McConaughey sapped of the most juice. Like those slightly later McConaughey rom coms where he's more of a, like, rascal.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, 10 days is the biggest hit. And then it's just like this. Cursed him into a culdesac of success, of uninteresting success for eight years before he got his mojo back.

[David Sims]

Wedding Planner, he's just this, like, V neck sweater loser motherfucker. Have you seen Wedding Planning?

[Emily St. James]

I have.

[David Sims]

And you're a huge fan.

[Emily St. James]

You're actually at the time, and I was like, this is. This should win best picture. I gave it four stars. Chicago Sun Times.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. Adam Shankman directed Disenchanted.

[David Sims]

Your former collaborator.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Your former boss.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, I think he considers himself a collaborator. Number two at the box office is a horror film. Why is a horror film coming out at this time? Oh, could it be attached to a holiday?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's Valentine.

[David Sims]

Valentine.

[Emily St. James]

That's Borana's, right?

[David Sims]

Borean's first build. Is that his only first build film to be before he's like, ah, you can catch me on the silver screen forever. I mean, the small screen. Sorry. Like, you know, like, I'm going to bones the bronze.

[Emily St. James]

Just quietly. The new Scott Bakula. Just, like, quietly in, like, constantly working. Yeah.

[David Sims]

You know, that's what was the thing.

[Griffin Newman]

You did after, like, another CBS show.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

One of those guys my dad will see him be like, God, he must have so much money. There's certain people like that where they're not the biggest stars, but it's like, you have been on a show for 25 consecutive years.

[David Sims]

Those bones guys, especially, like, the middle cast of Bones. Right. Not like, I just think about that.

[Griffin Newman]

All the time, but also there was the big Bones lawsuit that I will let people look up in their own time. They all got an additional big payday years later.

[Emily St. James]

That Navy SEAL show with Boreanis had a dog on it. And I was one of My last TCA press tours and we all wanted to interview the dog's handler and Boreanis had to look like, this is what's become of my career.

[Griffin Newman]

It was, it was his kind of.

[David Sims]

Out of the way, Boreanis, we don't care about you anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

It was his Kelsey Grammer moose moment. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Number three at the box office is a film I mentioned already we've covered on the podcast is a giant hit. It's in its seventh weekend. It's made $203 million. It's Oscar nominated. It's great. It's, I guess a drama and adventure movie. Cast Away. That's Cast Away, number four. Great movie. We love cast.

[Griffin Newman]

We love Castaway. It rules. It rocks. And rules.

[David Sims]

Number four at the box office is a teen.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay film.

[David Sims]

I think they're teens in this one, right? It's a young people romance.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no, that's Shankman.

[David Sims]

It is not a walk to remember. And I think. Yeah, that might be like a year prior.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

It's a. It's. It's got dance dancing in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it center stage?

[David Sims]

No, save the Last dance. It's sa. The Last dance Styles. Huge hit.

[Griffin Newman]

A weird, like, out of nowhere winter blockbuster.

[David Sims]

The very cute Sean Patrick Thomas who never quite like, you know, a real big star.

[Griffin Newman]

He was great.

[David Sims]

And Juilliard movie directed by Thomas Carter.

[Griffin Newman]

Who then later goes on to direct Coach Carter.

[David Sims]

And they were like nepotism over it. And then of course directed my favorite movie, The Cuba Gooding Jr. TV movie Gifted Hands. The Ben Carson Story.

[Griffin Newman]

You love that film. You voted for that film for president.

[David Sims]

Yes, I wrote it in. Yeah. And number five at the box office is a one best cinematography. Griffin at the A Crushing Tiger.

[Griffin Newman]

Hidden Dragon. What's it up to at this point?

[David Sims]

52. So it's got a ways to go.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. A crazy, crazy rhyme. Emily Scott.

[David Sims]

Traffic, huh?

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

What's head over heels?

[Griffin Newman]

That was Freddie Prinz and Monica Potter.

[David Sims]

You're correct. Yes. Monica Potter. Freddie Prinze Jr. Yeah. That seems to be about.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one of those.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Emily, we're going to end this episode abruptly because Tiny forester snatching Sugarlock have to get to an Anktin screening for reasons that are hopefully apparent.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Six episodes ago.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Emily St. James]

Okay, great. I'm going to do the Emily St. James is available here in like under a minute. I think I can do it.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going shoes on while you're doing.

[Emily St. James]

This so you can find my work everywhere online. I am emilysaintjams. On most platforms, mostly Blue sky and Letterboxd. I am a writer on the TV show Yellowjackets, which you can find on Paramount plus with Showtime, which is a very weird way to say something. Paramount plus with Showtime, my novel Woodworking out in bookstores right now. Apparently people are buying it and reading it and enjoying it, and I'm so glad of that. My podcast is podcast like it's the 2000s, which I co host with Phil Iscove. When is this episode coming out?

[David Sims]

Oh, great question. And I can definitely tell you that October, September.

[Emily St. James]

We are either doing Best Director late August. Oh yeah, we're doing Best Director follow ups. We're covering the movies that all the Best Director winners did as follow ups. We're probably talking about Ron Howard's the Missing.

[Griffin Newman]

I love this. I might message you about which movies.

[Emily St. James]

Are available, which is okay.

[Griffin Newman]

It's okay.

[Emily St. James]

And then finally you can find my newsletter at Episodes Ghost IO and if you just see me in the street, come up and say hi. I'll shake your hand.

[Griffin Newman]

You're the best in the biz. You're such an important friend in the history of this show. It is always a pleasure to have you on and it's always fun when an episode comes together. We've weirdly been struggling to find someone for this. You message us. We're like, late notice. Yeah, I'm in town in a week.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And we were like, oh brother. And you went like, I wrote a whole fucking piece on the di.

[Emily St. James]

Yeah, that piece you can find at Colors. Where? Where did they go? @fox.com. so yeah, there you go.

[Ben Hosley]

All of the links will be in the episode description course. I also just want to do a quick show shout out if anyone is interested in listening to any, like, very old Appalachian music. Like all stuff on 78s. There was an WFMU show called Old Kajer with Courtney T. Edison. It's not on anymore, but I'll put a link in the description. You can listen to those back episodes.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And then I also just want to shout out for anyone who may be interested in contemporary roots Americana music, check out the music publication Notebook Depression Hey.

[Griffin Newman]

And David BLE Theme Parenthetical Sirens Edition, which you heard at the beginning of this episode, was recorded and produced not that Kind of Siren was recorded and produced by our friend Gabe Barretto and performed by Maggie Feldman, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, and friend of the show past and future guest Academy Award nominee Amy Irving. Their Spotify profiles are included in the episodes of description and we thank them greatly for taking the time to do that very silly thing for us.

[David Sims]

Yay.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for the man who wasn't there. Correct?

[David Sims]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

And as always, I'm a Dapper Dan now.

[David Sims]

God damn it.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, we have to leave time, too, to. For everyone at the theater to sing me Happy Birthday.

[Griffin Newman]

We do. That does. That's a really important request. I heard the whole cast is going to come sing you Happy Birthday.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, I'm fully expecting that.

[Emily St. James]

Do you want me to sing you Happy birthday right now? I will.

[Ben Hosley]

You know what? Not right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Surprise me.

[Emily St. James]

All right, I will. I will.

[Ben Hosley]

Now, Griff, are you going to sing?

[Griffin Newman]

No. Okay. This movie has so many good quotes.

[Emily St. James]

I think you should sing.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's not a singer. I think I'm definitely gonna sing. You could yodel, I think, in Llewyn Davis.

[Emily St. James]

Oh, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[David Sims]

Rachel will love that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, she will. She'll be like, damn, you're good.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Sleep Salinas. And our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nodes. Nerdy. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.