The Big Lebowski with Seth Rogen

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Podcast Episode: The Big Lebowski with Seth Rogen
Date: August 24, 2025
Guest: Seth Rogen

Overview

This episode covers the Coen Brothers’ cult classic The Big Lebowski (1998) as part of Blank Check’s complete Coenography miniseries. Hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims are joined by director, actor, and comedy writer Seth Rogen for an in-depth—and frequently hilarious—discussion about the making, legacy, and strange alchemy of “the sloppiest podcast in New York City.” The episode explores the film’s enduring popularity, its initial critical and box office reception, connections to other stoner comedies, intersecting influences, and its profound resonance for writers, filmmakers, and weirdos everywhere.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sam Elliott, Voice, and the Art of the “And” Credit

• The team riffs (00:18) on Sam Elliott’s legendary “Stranger” character, with Griffin attempting—and failing—to recreate the iconic voiceover.
• Discussion of how The Big Lebowski “memified” Sam Elliott’s persona, much as SNL did with Christopher Walken.
• They nerd out about actor credits (“and” and “introducing” credits) and how the “And Sam Elliott as the Stranger” billing signals importance and mystery at once (03:03).

Griffin: “What I like about the ‘And as’ is it’s not just the honorific… but it’s like we’re telling you this character is going to matter.” (03:09)

2. The Dude, the Dudely Timeline, and Sam Elliott's Energy

• The hosts and Seth Rogen marvel at the perfect age casting of Sam Elliott and Jeff Bridges—debating how the movie leverages, redefines, and immortalizes their screen energy (01:36) & (07:01).
• Seth recounts reading The Big Lebowski script before performing in live table reads, emphasizing its precise written rhythm—“to the half word” (41:15).

3. The Genesis of The Big Lebowski

• Lebowski as the Coens’ “blank check cash-in”—how it was developed prior to Fargo but only greenlit after their commercial and Oscar breakthrough (07:30).
• The irony: it was seen as a commercial “bounce” at release, but retroactively has become their defining film—“it’s become the Wizard of Oz” for a generation (07:15).

Griffin: “This movie has become the Wizard of Oz… every element now is well-established cultural shorthand.” (07:15)

4. The Slacker Detective Archetype & Relationship to Classic Noir

• Connections drawn to “The Long Goodbye” and other shambolic detective stories, with Seth describing the influence of those films on his own work (Pineapple Express, Superbad) (15:31), (17:23), (28:28).
• Discussion of Lebowski’s passive/active tension—his one active choice (“to get his rug back”) catalyzes the plot, even though he’s otherwise a man of inaction (05:51).

5. The Movie’s Weird, Persistent Magic—and Cultural Afterlife

• The movie failed to connect with critics and audiences initially, but its dialogue, setpieces, and even objects (“the rug that ties the room together”) became endlessly referenced (06:32), (07:01), (115:25).
• Exploding into home video ubiquity in the 2000s, cited as “the college movie” (28:03) and canonical stoner cinema.

David: “It is the weirdest cross-section between like an art film and incredibly mainstream silly comedy.” (119:08)
Ben: “This movie has like, kind of an art movie that has a mystical sense to it… you could watch it 100 times.” (119:00)

6. Toys, Collecting, and Movie Merchandise

• Tangent about Lebowski action figures, collecting as adults, and how the film’s cult status led to a merchandising wave by the 10th anniversary (19:51).
• Seth and Griffin trade anecdotes about rules for “display-acceptable” collectibles in relationships (23:04).

7. Real-Life Inspirations for The Dude and Walter

• The writers researched the real people who inspired Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Dowd) and Walter (a mashup including John Milius), and Ben reads from deep-dive research about rug-obsessed professors, Vietnam vets, and LA eccentrics (52:44).

Ben: “The Coens… it’s based on dudes they know… anecdotes from these crusty Hollywood movie guys.” (54:00)
Seth: "That was very inspirational when we started writing Pineapple Express — you can sort of accumulate a bunch of ideas and create a narrative that allows you to bring them to life." (54:16)

8. Goodman, Bridges, and Iconic Character Work

• Lebowski as revelatory for both actors: John Goodman as Walter (“should have won the Oscar”) and Jeff Bridges at peak handsomeness, but going full schlub (78:33).
• Goodman’s influence on younger comedic actors, especially Seth: “For years I wanted to be the Seth role in Superbad. My take on it was very much derivative of Walter. Like Teen Walter—the what the fuck, just screaming at people...” (141:33)
• The near-miss of Mel Gibson being considered for the Dude or Walter—what alternate universe casting! (64:45)

9. Blocking, Staging, and Written Precision

• Seth and the team break down how the Coens’ obsessive scripting makes their fast-paced, “overlapping” dialogue possible—blocking, not improvisation, carries the rhythm (41:10–42:30).

10. Visual Style: Can Comedies Look Great?

• Contrary to the Hollywood adage that “making a comedy look too good” kills the joke, Lebowski’s lush Deakins photography is essential to its rewatchable charm (37:08).
• Seth: “A lot of your work has been a rebuke to that”—noting the designed, composed look of Superbad, etc.

11. L.A. as a Character

• The love-hate New York/Los Angeles dichotomy, and Lebowski’s fallen, sun-baked, idiosyncratic Los Angeles populating its margins (33:02–35:48).
• Seth’s own history bowling at Lebowski’s Hollywood lanes, drinking $1.99 White Russians: “It was such a familiar feeling to me.” (28:18)

12. White Russians—On Screen and In Studio (43:18)

• Seth brings in ingredients and mixes White Russians for the hosts in homage to the Dude. The hosts reminisce about their own White Russian misadventures.

13. Stoner Comedy Evolution: From Cheech & Chong to Lebowski to Rogen & Co.

• How most films previously treated weed use as joke or setpiece, but Lebowski and Seth’s movies made casual weed use part of everyday character fabric (90:01, 85:04).
• Lebowski’s influence on Pineapple Express, Superbad, etc.—“We were really inspired by it…like we love the Big Lebowski.” (26:00)
• Superbad’s dynamic between Jonah and Michael Cera as “teen Walter and teen Dude” (92:36–92:52).

14. Reception, Home Video, and Canonization

• The movie was a commercial and (initially) critical underperformer (“flop”) on release—receiving mediocre to bad reviews—only to be reclaimed by home video, TV, and endless quoting (81:03, 158:03).
• The hosts critique Rotten Tomatoes’ misleading revisionist scoring of older films (79:18), and stress the importance of original context.

15. Nihilists and the Movie’s Real Point

• The notorious, parodic German “nihilists,” who want money, not meaning, and how the Coens are “absolutely not nihilists” (137:56).

Griffin: “The nihilists are kind of like broken... If you actually don't care about anything, what are you covering for? No one just naturally doesn't care about anything.” (138:12)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Character Precision:

  Seth Rogen: "I got the script for Big Lebowski because I wanted to see how those [overlapping] scenes were laid out… They are written exactly as performed in the movie to the half word." (41:15)

• On Lebowski’s Influence:

  Seth: “We were so inspired by this movie… They actually, like, swear as much as we do when we talk… At the time that was crazy.” (83:46)

• On the Coens’ Budget Philosophy:

  Seth: “What’s the number where they’ll always be a bigger problem they have to deal with? As long as there’s a more expensive movie going sideways, they’ll never get to us.” (94:39)

• On Goodman:

  Seth: “I looked at [Goodman] as like, that’s evidence I could perhaps be a professional actor… My take on [Superbad’s Seth] was very much derivative of Walter. Like Teen Walter.” (141:33)

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Timestamps by Topic

• Sam Elliott, “And” credits: 00:18–04:20
• The Dude and Walter, authentic origins: 52:44–55:07
• Precise scripting/blocking: 41:10–42:30
• Visual style in comedy: 37:08–38:32
• White Russian segment: 43:18–56:09
• Marketing & initial reception: 78:33–82:03
• Stoner comedy evolution: 85:04–92:52
• Goodman’s impact: 141:16–144:00
• Nihilism and the movie’s heart: 137:03–139:25

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Memorable Moments

• The White Russian Mix (43:18): Seth brings in drinks; stories of 20-year-old mistakes and bartender disdain.
• Table Reads: Seth discusses doing the Dude at Jason Reitman’s live read, and how the lines simply “work” when you read them verbatim.
• The “Not Even Close, Pal” Story (107:35): Seth's legendary audition for James L. Brooks’ How Do You Know, and the pure comic timing of Brooks’ rejection.
• Cable TV Edit: Discussion of the notorious Lebowski TV edit, “This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps.” (144:56)
• Box Office Game (starting at 157:20): The panel plays their recurring box office guessing game for Lebowski's opening week, setting it against Titanic, The Wedding Singer, and more.

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Final Thoughts & Takeaways

• The Big Lebowski is a film built from lived-in details and local color, polished with unmatched writing and visual style. Its seemingly haphazard narrative is in fact meticulously constructed—inviting and rewarding endless rewatching.
• From overlooked flop to generational classic, its journey mirrors the trajectory of many blank check movies—a recurring theme on this podcast.
• The hosts and Seth Rogen celebrate the film’s influence on how comedies look, sound, and treat their outcast protagonists—while noting the bittersweet irony that its odd, authentic rhythms could only emerge from total directorial trust and (relative) creative freedom.
• Above all, the episode itself mirrors Lebowski's infectious hangout energy: a place for oddballs, obsessives, and those who “abide.”

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

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Transcript

[David Sims]

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

[Griffin Newman]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[David Sims]

All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Black Jack.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm talking about the Haas here. Sometimes there's a man. Well, let me take this again. Sorry.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God.

[Griffin Newman]

This is important enough, Griffin. This is important. I'm talking about the Haas here. Sometimes there's a podcast. Well, it's the podcast for its time and place. Fits right in there. And that's the Haas in New Jersey. And even if it's a sloppy podcast, and. And blank check was most certainly that. Quite possibly the sloppiest in New York City, which would place it high in the running for laziest worldwide. Sloppiest worldwide. Sometimes there's a podcast, sometimes there's a podcast. I lost my train of thought there, but, hell, I done introduced it enough. I really could not get it.

[Ben Hoss]

No, sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

I was trying.

[David Sims]

I'd like you to keep trying.

[Griffin Newman]

I turned the next three hours. I could not get there.

[Ben Hoss]

Was he always, like, in Roadhouse? Does he talk like that? Like, was he always at that register basically his whole life?

[Griffin Newman]

I would say this movie is the moment that the Sam Elliot thing is kind of heightened in a way that did for Christopher Walken. Do you know what I'm saying?

[David Sims]

I was also watching it at this time, being like, I think I'm Sam Elliott's age. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

He's not that old.

[David Sims]

Movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, let's look it up. Let's do the math.

[David Sims]

We got to do immediately the real fat.

[Ben Hoss]

You know what? He's 80 years old now, so he would have been. Yeah, so he would have been, like, 44. No, 54.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie's 98.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, I'm so bad at math.

[Griffin Newman]

You're not in your 50s.

[David Sims]

No, I'm 43.

[Griffin Newman]

You're in the clear, then.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I think you have 54.

[David Sims]

Okay. You got pretty close. You got a decade before you that's closer than you'd like.

[Ben Hoss]

You think you ever do a Western? Like a.

[David Sims]

To do a Western that be cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know what I'm saying, though? Like, he always talked like this, and then I think this movie memified him in a way that, like SNL did with Christopher Walken, where it's like.

[David Sims]

Well, also kind of Jeff Bridges did to him. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You were using your voice as, like, a comedic instrument now. And then after that, that becomes the thing that people impersonate, and then people hire him to do that.

[David Sims]

You do it. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And I botch it.

[David Sims]

No, but I mean, he. He does it. The. The owner of the voice himself.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, absolutely.

[Ben Hoss]

And then the thing in Star Is Born is Bradley Cooper saying to him like, I stole your voice.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

In the movie. He says it.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And I can do that better.

[Ben Hoss]

You can do. I got to watch that again. I got a Star Is Born. I love that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

You gotta get back in the shallows.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Exactly. Hi.

[Griffin Newman]

He gets the and in this movie, does he? Yes.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. It's. It's a perfect. And.

[Ben Hoss]

And so Elliott and Sam.

[Griffin Newman]

And Sam Elliott as the Stranger.

[David Sims]

The Stranger, which is a cool name.

[Griffin Newman]

Have you ever gotten an and as you must have. Right?

[David Sims]

Maybe. Maybe I've gotten.

[Ben Hoss]

Have you ever been, like, angrily on the phone? That feels like a studio episode, Being like, if I don't get the and more.

[David Sims]

So that's one of those things that like. Like, my agents feel very strongly about him. Just like, I could give a. I do not want. It won't be with. I just know when we did Ninja Turtles recently, we had to give Paul Rudd, like an introduce. Paul Rudd wanted an introducing Paul Rudd. That was good for Mondo Gecko.

[Griffin Newman]

Was it interesting as Mondo?

[David Sims]

I think it was an introducing Paul R. As Mondo.

[Griffin Newman]

What I. What I like about the Andaz. And is my favorite form of billing. What I like about it is it's not just the honorific of the end. Right. You're the most important person who wasn't going to enter the top two or three. But also that it's like. And we're telling you this character is.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Either that it's like for the first time, Paul Rudd is a saying. The legendary role of Mondo Gecko. Right. As if it's Laertes or the movie is just saying to you, the Stranger is going to matter.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't know the Stranger yet.

[David Sims]

He's going to matter.

[Ben Hoss]

Keep your eye out for the Stranger.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And his name is the Stranger, which also just instantly makes the movie cool because you're like, oh, there's a character called the Stranger.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's already. That's talking.

[David Sims]

You've already heard him.

[Griffin Newman]

He's been talking for minutes.

[David Sims]

It's already been him.

[Griffin Newman]

He's. He's failing to land the plane.

[Ben Hoss]

Right. He's doing kind of a bad job at his one job.

[Griffin Newman]

He's kind of doing a blank check. Podcast intro. Sorry, you were about to.

[David Sims]

You know the. Jason Reitman used to do those live reads. Yeah, I did one. I got. I did the one for Ghostbusters. Oh, yeah. I did Lebowski and. And Sam Elliott came and did his.

[Ben Hoss]

Role because who could replace.

[Griffin Newman]

It's right. It's one of those.

[Ben Hoss]

So who were you?

[David Sims]

I was the Dude.

[Ben Hoss]

You were the.

[Griffin Newman]

You were the Dude. Who was Walter?

[David Sims]

Walter was, I think, Rainn Wilson.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

I could see that. He can do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But you're an interesting place, because you could.

[David Sims]

I think as I was doing it, I was like, I. I would have been better suited to me. I do.

[Griffin Newman]

Either. It's one degree in either direction.

[David Sims]

Well, as I was doing it, I was like, the dude is pretty. Like, pretty aggressive throughout the movie. Like, he is. He's not that mellow.

[Griffin Newman]

It's part of the magic trick of this movie is that we talk a lot about the issue sometimes of making a movie where a character doesn't want to be in the movie that is frustrating for the audience, where the character is, like, stopping the movie from happening.

[David Sims]

Trying to perpetuate the plot of the movie itself. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And is actively pushing back against it. And this is a movie where that's the whole motor of the thing, and it's just him being annoyed that the movie keeps showing up at his doorstep, and yet he's towing this very specific line.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Of. He plays his anger of just like. Well, that's inconvenient.

[David Sims]

Well, he makes one choice, which is he goes to the other Lebowski to get his rug.

[Ben Hoss]

If he hadn't done that, the whole.

[David Sims]

Movie wouldn't have happened. And he's incensed. So as passive as a character and as, like, along for the ride as he is, he does active. He starts the movie actively. Like, he could have just been like. And it's almost more in character in some ways, for him to have been like, these guys pissed on my rug. It was a misunderstanding. Whatever. Who cares? But instead, he's, like, incensed about it, and. And he wants a new rug.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, it's. Right. It's.

[David Sims]

It's an injustice.

[Griffin Newman]

It's perfect characterization that he can get punched in the face and be like, oh, come on.

[David Sims]

He doesn't care about that.

[Griffin Newman]

But the rug is like, I must do something.

[David Sims]

Tied the room together. One of the many insufferable quotes that people will never stop saying from this film. I, myself, too.

[Griffin Newman]

It is a weird case, I will admit this. I. I'm a big Coen Brothers fan.

[Ben Hoss]

It's not a movie for you.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not one of my.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, it's like, you haven't seen this four times.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And I have zero issues with it. And I think it's, like, another Coen Brothers masterpiece. I do feel like there is 5% of the world's most annoying people getting to me about this movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't actually. I look against the film, and I feel like on this rewatch, I did the kind of, like, complete brain wipe. Just watch this as a film and ignore it. But it is funny to watch it and be like, this movie has become the wizard of Oz.

[David Sims]

It. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And that you can literally take any line or image or, like, character name. And, like, every element of this now is well established cultural shorthand.

[Ben Hoss]

What's our podcast called?

[Griffin Newman]

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

[David Sims]

David.

[Griffin Newman]

Sometimes there's a man, and sometimes there's a man. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a miniseries on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen, together and separately. Today we are talking about the Big Lebowski, which I'm struggling to think if there's another example of this, which is a blank check, cash in off at the time, their biggest success.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

That is seen as an absolute bounce. And then retroactively has become unquestionably their biggest film.

[David Sims]

Yeah. To the point that if you even suggest it isn't.

[Ben Hoss]

You're.

[David Sims]

You're a liar.

[Griffin Newman]

You are. You're just like. That is. That is the liar.

[Ben Hoss]

It's just weird that you're like. If you sit down and think about the cones for a sec, you're like, yeah. You know the crime movies, Raising Arizona, Fargo, No Country. You can think about that for a day. And then you'd be like, ah, they made the Big Lebowski. On top of all that, like, they created a whole other universe of, like, fans.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the movie that everyone knows. We have.

[David Sims]

We have. We have this rep. You have the Dude? I'm looking at him right now.

[Griffin Newman]

We have the Dude. I'm glad you noticed, because that was a new addition to the Menagerie. I recently purchased a Dude.

[Ben Hoss]

Wait, where's the Dude?

[Griffin Newman]

I got a little Dude.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, there he is. He's fucking, like, a foot tall. What the hell is that thing?

[Griffin Newman]

You know, toys come in different scales. You collect a bit, right?

[David Sims]

I do have a lot of stuff, yes. Yes. Very much so. I was going to ask how articulatable he is, which is A real toy term. Great.

[Griffin Newman]

And boy, am I thrilled. And I'll tell you what I'm most excited about.

[David Sims]

No points of articulation.

[Griffin Newman]

I am excited by the fact that for the first time, this conversation is not causing David to hit his head on the table. He can't shut it down when you're asking. When I bring it up, he goes, oh, fuck no. I got to get out of here.

[Ben Hoss]

My daughter took a toy from this shelf.

[Griffin Newman]

I've been mean to ask you, what did she take?

[Ben Hoss]

Do you know? Have you noticed? I was wondering because you got 4,000 toys on this show.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm aware, but I keep a Rolodex and I've not been able to.

[Ben Hoss]

He took. I believe it is Anakin Skywalker's force ghost in tiny.

[Griffin Newman]

Great.

[David Sims]

I thought you were going to say force skin. Yeah, she took his foreskin.

[Ben Hoss]

People forget kin. Skywalker is canonically uncircumcised until Attack of.

[David Sims]

The Clones had George Lucas made a limited run. Dooku, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He was born with a watto nose. Because downstairs. Because Watto's his father. And then as part of the Jedi ritual, they.

[David Sims]

What's funny, Griffin, is the only other time I met you in person, I think, is you were dressed as Watto.

[Ben Hoss]

He was. There's our wano.

[David Sims]

We.

[Griffin Newman]

We had been messaging and then you very kindly did the George Lucas talk show. And you came backstage and I was already in the.

[David Sims]

You're already waddo.

[Griffin Newman]

And I went, this is a very embarrassing way to me.

[David Sims]

I've had that. I used to present at the. They used to do. I don't even know. Do they still do the MTV Movie Awards and stuff like that now?

[Griffin Newman]

The MTV Movie and TV and Text Awards.

[David Sims]

Meme Awards. Movie and Meme Awards. Most memable meme and. And I've. I used to do the stu. Like it's so hard to get a laugh at those things. I would do the dumbest shit ever. So I remember one year my bit was that I was all roided out or something. And so I was in this insane giant muscle bodysuit. And I remember meeting for the first time so many people. I was a big. I met like Hendrick Lamar for the first time and all these people. As I'm in.

[Ben Hoss]

Is this. You're with Zach.

[David Sims]

Giant stupid muscle body stick. And I've tried to be norm. Like, hey, big fan. So nice to meet you. This is part of a bit I'm doing a bit. I haven't done it yet. It's coming up. Please.

[Ben Hoss]

You have Two MTV Movie Awards. Did you know that?

[David Sims]

No.

[Ben Hoss]

We have one for best musical sequence in this is the End.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And then one for best WTF moment in Neighbors.

[David Sims]

I don't know what that was. I don't know what the movie was.

[Griffin Newman]

They did.

[David Sims]

I think physically, one of them is in our office. I don't know what happened.

[Ben Hoss]

The other one, you and Rose won it.

[David Sims]

So maybe Rose took it.

[Griffin Newman]

That was the moment, though.

[David Sims]

Was it me milking her? Maybe. Might have been. That's.

[Ben Hoss]

That's a. That's a moment.

[David Sims]

If I had to choose a moment.

[Ben Hoss]

That'S a hashtag, WTF moment.

[David Sims]

Wtf.

[Ben Hoss]

I just love looking at the MTV because it's like the Oscars. It's like, yeah, we've handed out these awards for 100 year and the MTV was. I don't know, every couple years we're like, should we do WTF Moments?

[David Sims]

Like, forget it. Forget it. New Best Kiss. They're like, this is gross now. They don't do.

[Griffin Newman]

Now it's back.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, what was I gonna say? Well, who's our guest?

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I got a lot of things to say here. We've already established a lot on the table. Our guest today is Seth Rogan. Hey, Seth. And I'm gonna leave with the credits. I was curious. There's an account, the cataloging of actors and how many times we've covered them on this podcast, updated week to week. And I was curious what the Seth Rogen blank check canon is.

[David Sims]

I bet, like movies, we've covered credits.

[Ben Hoss]

Okay.

[David Sims]

My assumption is Steve Jobs and the Fableman's correct. And that's it.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you name the third one?

[David Sims]

There's a Donnie. Not Donnie Darko. No, not yet.

[Ben Hoss]

Although I'd love to do him.

[David Sims]

Is it an animated movie?

[Griffin Newman]

That it is.

[David Sims]

It is. It is.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. Sometimes people pretend it isn't.

[Ben Hoss]

Really?

[Griffin Newman]

That's my hint. And it was not covered as part of covering that director. We weirdly, as a one off.

[Ben Hoss]

You talking about the Lion King?

[Griffin Newman]

Talking about the Lion King.

[David Sims]

Oh, the f. The first one.

[Ben Hoss]

Right, right.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Favro Lion King. Yeah, I'm in that as well.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I forgot.

[David Sims]

I forgot.

[Ben Hoss]

You're in DY dark. You're just mean at a bus stop in dunny dark.

[David Sims]

I'm in a few scenes. I kill Jenna Malone. I throw Jenna Malone.

[Griffin Newman]

You're the murderer.

[David Sims]

And she gets hit by a car. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

But then we also. We also on this podcast, movies are you.

[David Sims]

You should know. It's not real. David, you of all people. Why would you do. You've done so many episodes.

[Ben Hoss]

How does it feel that you are the architect of Steven Spielberg's, like, artistic career in that you, you know, fell in love with his mom.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Which made him make movies.

[David Sims]

Which made him, according to that movie. He was sort of into it before that, but it seemed like he had inclinations to make. He was filming the train before. You're right.

[Ben Hoss]

You're right, you're right.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you watch ET and go like, thank God.

[David Sims]

Thank God I did that. Thank God I did that. If it wasn't for me making those ch. Yeah. None of this would have happened. Yeah, no, it's. It's. It's weird that that happened. It is.

[Ben Hoss]

Did Spielberg say that, like, for that role, he's like, it's. This one's a weird one.

[David Sims]

Well, you know what's funny is I actually feel like as we were filming, I feel like he sort of had it contextualized one way. And then as we were filming it and, like, bringing it to life, he sort of started to maybe at times see how weird it was. Like, Like. Like, I think in his head, he's like, yeah, we were all on a camping trip and my mom and this guy are sort of like, canoodling a little bit. Like, in your head is one way. And then I think, like, as. As. As we were actually recreating it. Right. There was moments where I felt maybe I was projecting it, but I felt him feeling like, oh, this is maybe more fucked up.

[Griffin Newman]

It almost became like a Shutter Island. He was actually forcing things, and I.

[David Sims]

Thought it actually, like, changed the tone. I think to his credit, he, like, would go with it and, like, kind of change the tone of the scene a little bit. From being like. I feel like in the script, it was almost like, cutesy. And then when brought to life, it was much more tragic. It's.

[Ben Hoss]

Why not, you know, to be serious. It's why that movie rocks, because it is dark, but not in, like, an over the top way.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It's even, like, the music and stuff. Like, again, it's one of those things where, I mean, it's a rare gift to have, like, John Williams, like, score a movie. Score your face. Score your face. And. And yeah, just to see, like. Oh, like, even in my head, I was like, oh, these scenes are so much more sad now with all this stuff. But, yeah, it's weird. The whole thing is weird. I sat next to John Williams at the Oscars that year. I talked to him for, like, five hours straight.

[Griffin Newman]

Really unbelievable.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Completely rocked. Yeah. So co. One of the greatest, like, of that whole failings experience, like, that was honestly one of the coolest things, was just like. Because I didn't meet him throughout the whole process, really. And then I'm like, I show up at the Oscars, they're like, oh, you're sitting next to John Williams. And it was incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Does he get really annoyed when he loses? Does he.

[David Sims]

God fucking damn it. No. He genuinely just seemed all quiet on the Western front. Seems like he. Yeah, he kept punching the scene in front of him that Donnie Yen was sitting in. I was like, chill out. And then. No. And it's sort of connected to this is. I actually talked to him a lot about one of my other favorite sort of hapless detective films, the Long Goodbye, which.

[Ben Hoss]

Amazing score. Right.

[David Sims]

And does one of my favorite. It does something. It's funny because I've always loved how that movie takes the. They wrote a song, the Long Goodbye, and they use it in different genres in different times of the film. And, like, when they're in Mexico, there's like a funeral procession playing, like, sort of like a sad Spanish version of.

[Ben Hoss]

It's like a sort of Muzak version.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like, when they're in the elevator, when they're in the grocery store, there's like, the Muzak version of it and all this stuff. And I asked. I was like, how did you guys think of that? And he was like, it was just an idea that me and Robert Altman came up with. And he's like, what's funny is we thought everyone was going to start doing it. Like, we were like, this is going to be a thing. Like, this is going to, like, create a, like, musical revolution in movies where people, like, realize you started doing this. And then he's like, nobody ever did it ever again. But it's great.

[Ben Hoss]

It's probably a pain in the ass.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like I was trying to do a letterbox list once of movies where the same song is played multiple times and the context changes, which is a little different than the song changes.

[David Sims]

Yes. But still cool. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Something about Mary almost does a version of that.

[David Sims]

Yeah. With those guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

In the tree. The. The singing guys. They kind of do.

[Griffin Newman]

They're kind of different songs, but they're kind of all evolutions.

[Ben Hoss]

I have not seen that movie in, like. Like, 25 years.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know that movie is a 10 out of 10 knockout master?

[David Sims]

I remember. I love them. I love them.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

This movie is one of, like, the most, like, revelatory experiences I had in a movie theater in my life.

[Griffin Newman]

Mind blowing.

[Ben Hoss]

I feel like that's right before. Like, you're in Hollywood, right? Like, that's like the year before, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. And we were already, like, I think, writing super bad, but I remember seeing that and being like, oh, my God, this is allowed. You can. We can push this so much further than I. We thought maybe we could. It's all that shot where you see his dick and balls.

[Griffin Newman]

It's insane.

[David Sims]

Like, that, to me is like. It's like there's the fucking, like, obelisk in 2001. And, like, you know, there's like. To me, that is, like, deserves, like, as far as comedy goes, that is, like, one of the most, like, boundary pushing, iconic shots.

[Ben Hoss]

And then they do it five minutes.

[David Sims]

Yeah. They're like, yes. The joke is so clearly. And it's so smart. And I love jokes that, like, play off of your expectations as an audience member, which is like, oh, the joke is that you're not going to see it and that they keep describing this horrific thing, right? And everyone. All these. Everyone's describing it, and everyone's.

[Griffin Newman]

They're also describing in a way that sounds impossible, where you're like, they couldn't physically show me.

[David Sims]

They're describing, oh, the frames above the beads. Oh, Drake said the zippers all the way down. And it keeps getting grosser and grosser. And then they show it and. And somehow in that, like, one brief image, you see everything that everyone's been.

[Griffin Newman]

Talking, like, shoto brothers, like, puppet insert shot. But then the thing that's so revolutionary is from that moment on in the movie, you're like, they could show me.

[David Sims]

They could do anything. All bets are off.

[Griffin Newman]

Anything could be shown in any sliding scale of reality.

[David Sims]

It's like in a horror movie when you do something really scary up front and you're like, oh, the stakes.

[Griffin Newman]

It's true.

[David Sims]

Barrymore getting killed. Yeah. You're like, anyone could any middle it. And in that movie, it's funny that.

[Ben Hoss]

We'Re talking about that movie, because that movie came out the same year as the Big Lebowski was.

[Griffin Newman]

It came out the comedy hit of 1998.

[Ben Hoss]

Right. It came out probably like, Bigle Basket was March, so it came out in.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Mary June or July.

[Ben Hoss]

July. But it's funny how right at the time, everyone was like, big Lebowski. Everyone was like, yeah, the next several.

[Griffin Newman]

Years of comedy are people chasing Mary? That was the kind of like, in a way that I'd say 40 year old virgin was one of those you know, Hangover was one of those where it's just like, this is now the thing that everyone's chasing. This movie has come out. Feels like it's like a shot from the dark, and now everyone wants to follow this trend. Mary was so revelatory for me. I went home and, like young Sammy Fabelman with the train set, recreated the nuts shot. Experiment with the zipper in the mirror.

[David Sims]

Zipping your nuts up. Yeah. Almost got it.

[Griffin Newman]

To answer your question, the big Lebowski action figure.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, yeah, sure. There you go.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Ben put it down on the desk. So it was. This is from 2008. It's from the 10th anniversary of the movie, which I really feel like was when the big started to really catch on had become mainstream. And Universal was like, we can put this on anything. We can sell everything with Lebowski quotes on it. It's meant to sort of be a riff on, like, a kid robot, urban vinyl figure.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It looks a little.

[Griffin Newman]

Why? It's limited articulation and kind of caricature.

[David Sims]

It's almost more of a statue, but.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's. I argue, it's in a little bit of a weird middle ground.

[David Sims]

It is.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a little too solid.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It doesn't have the roto vinyl enough.

[David Sims]

To be, like, an art piece, but it's not articulatable enough to be a fun toy.

[Griffin Newman]

Just the arms and the head.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

David, you're such a philistine. I know what you're talking.

[David Sims]

I know I don't.

[Griffin Newman]

I just won a best offer for the Walter, which I think is a little better.

[Ben Hoss]

Okay. Just to complete my thing.

[Griffin Newman]

It is good.

[Ben Hoss]

You have all these. Can you describe to me what the Anakin ghost is from?

[Griffin Newman]

They're called Disney Durables.

[David Sims]

Disney durables.

[Ben Hoss]

They're like, an inch tall.

[Griffin Newman]

They're like an inch tall. They're like, adorables. But you call them dorables because they come in a little cardboard blind box.

[Ben Hoss]

Where you mostly have Star wars characters up there.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

But you have three ghosts. You have Yoda. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a special set. It came in a tin of the dead. That looks like. Yes, right. It's all the ghosts.

[Ben Hoss]

And she took him. And she's like, who's this?

[Griffin Newman]

But it's like, I don't know. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Well, that's the thing.

[David Sims]

It looks. It's young.

[Ben Hoss]

So I said it was Obi Wan because I was just kind of throw.

[David Sims]

It's not Jake Lloyd die when he was. It'd be weird if he died and then came back as A ghost as Jake Lloyd.

[Ben Hoss]

He dies in the pod.

[Griffin Newman]

If that's. If George Lucas had gone Glorious Bastards on episode one. The movie ends with Anakin being murdered, and you're like, what are these movies?

[David Sims]

That would have been cool.

[Ben Hoss]

So she calls it Obi Wan. It's a prize toy for her. It's like a big deal for.

[Griffin Newman]

She knows who Obi Wan is.

[Ben Hoss]

Well, she knows that thing's called Obi Wan, which, of course he's not actually called Obi Wan, but whatever. I'm willing to let that slide because he is at least a whole force ghost.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And I think it's cute that she says Obi Wan, and I think if.

[Griffin Newman]

She was going to take one, that's probably the one. I, I, it's just funny that she.

[Ben Hoss]

Was confronted with this wall of toys, and she was like, yeah, but also.

[Griffin Newman]

Erlich Son was taking all of those. I think we were playing with them.

[Ben Hoss]

Were they possibly stairs?

[David Sims]

What is the Total Recall thing?

[Griffin Newman]

That was the, the DVD release of Total Recall.

[David Sims]

Oh, is that.

[Griffin Newman]

The DVD itself was packaged in.

[Ben Hoss]

In, like, Mars.

[Griffin Newman]

In Mars, when Lionsgate was like, we're going to really experiment with the form. And thing was, they paid Schwarzenegger, like, half a million dollars to do the commentary.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's funny. Is it amazing?

[Griffin Newman]

It's good.

[David Sims]

I love that. I love that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Schwarzenegger's just smoking a cigar and Verhoven's making a bunch of sexist comments.

[David Sims]

Sounds amazing to me. Incredible. But it felt like right up my alley.

[Griffin Newman]

Is this going to be the new thing of, like, big salaries for commentaries?

[Ben Hoss]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And then Lionsgate was like, everything's packaged weird. Basic Instinct came with a pen that looked like the ice pick.

[David Sims]

Really? Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes, I remember that.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the thing. Speaking of collecting, I think about this a lot and my aspirations to someday be someone who may be married. I remember an interview with you years ago where you said, the rule I have with my wife is if it's a character she doesn't know, it can't be in the living room.

[David Sims]

Yeah. There had to be, like, a communal. Like, I have an office where, like, I had a big collection of this stuff. Memorabilia. Yeah, sure. Collectibles.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And, yeah. Once we moved in together, what could be in, like, communal spaces became a real topic of conversation.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like, the Hulk can be there, but Doc Sampson can.

[David Sims]

Yes, exactly. But then it eventually just sort of segued into us, like, both sort of buying, like, things together, which actually became much nicer, and we sort of started collecting, like, art we would go to, like, little art shows and buy things together, which was nice. So, like, we found a way to bond over our collecting.

[Griffin Newman]

What a sweet story.

[David Sims]

Yes, it's lovely. Like the Fabelman ones.

[Griffin Newman]

So your friend David Krumholtz.

[David Sims]

Yes. Was on this podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

Was on this podcast.

[David Sims]

I love Wonder on the Seven Woman. That was amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely one of our most normal episodes. We are eager to have him on again. Crumholtz keeps texting me. I can't believe you guys haven't done Wolfgang Peterson yet.

[Ben Hoss]

We should do Wolf.

[David Sims]

I gotta do Wolfgang. Who does he.

[Ben Hoss]

What's his Wolfgang?

[Griffin Newman]

Any Wolf.

[David Sims]

Hey, welcome.

[Ben Hoss]

All right.

[Griffin Newman]

He started with, I missed Wolfgang. Right. You guys must have done them years ago.

[David Sims]

That's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Out of the blue, I got that text.

[David Sims]

You must have done Wolfgang.

[Griffin Newman]

We haven't. And now every couple of months it's anger at you. Still haven't done Wolfgang.

[Ben Hoss]

He can do enemies.

[David Sims]

Mine. Ronin Wolfgang. Peter.

[Ben Hoss]

No, that's.

[David Sims]

I get Wolfgang Peterson and John Frankenheimer.

[Griffin Newman]

And they were both similar place in the 90s.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, Perfect Storm.

[Griffin Newman]

Perfect Storm.

[Ben Hoss]

Air Force One.

[David Sims]

Air Force One.

[Griffin Newman]

Line of Fire.

[David Sims]

In the Line of Fire.

[Griffin Newman]

He actually, we do Wolfgang.

[Ben Hoss]

He does kind of Ride Trum Hold's.

[Griffin Newman]

Booked for every one one of them.

[Ben Hoss]

And of course, he did Never Ending Story.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Seth Rogen]

If we did him the Neverending Story, we could do like 10 hour.

[Ben Hoss]

A never Ending Episode.

[David Sims]

Never end.

[Griffin Newman]

You know how you always complain that these episodes are too short?

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, yeah, that's me always complaining.

[Griffin Newman]

But then you message shortly after that and say, hey, Krumholtz got me into the podcast. I've been listening.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And then we've been messaging back and forth since then. You did George Lucas very kindly. We've been trying to find the right thing to do. You did a letterbox top four on some red carpet.

[David Sims]

Some red carpet.

[Griffin Newman]

And you named this.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Alongside Clueless, which we have just covered.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Which was a great episode as well.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you. And I'm trying to remember what your other two were.

[David Sims]

I don't even remember. I kind of threw them out. I usually say the last detail because it, like, offsets the, like lack of fanciness in my other choices. And I often say Terminator 2, which might have been the other one. Might have been the other one.

[Ben Hoss]

Last detail. Terminator 2.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a killer 4.

[David Sims]

That's a pretty good 4. Child of the 90s.

[Ben Hoss]

Chase had really good. I'm now watching the entire studio cast.

[David Sims]

Great Chase. Oh, and Catherine had really good. Catherine Hahn also is really good. Yeah, I watched those. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Less detail is kind of feels like a big Cohen inspiration in a lot of ways.

[David Sims]

Well, I mean, I think if you look at, I mean, the Last Detail and the Big Lebowski and Superbad and Pineapple Express also, there's a lot of similarities. Similarities in those movies. And it's like, not a coincidence. Like, we were really inspired by. And we love the Big Lebowski. So did you guys see it, like, in theaters?

[Ben Hoss]

I definitely did not. I was remembering. So I was. I was 12 when this came out. How old? You're a couple years old.

[David Sims]

I was 16, I think.

[Ben Hoss]

So you must have seen in theaters.

[David Sims]

No. What's funny is I didn't like.

[Griffin Newman]

It looked.

[David Sims]

It's because the whole marketing campaign, which was, like, bad, was crazy, right? And they really leaned into, like, the fantasy sequences. The fantasy and the marketing was about the bowling, and it was like the women with the bowling things on their heads.

[Griffin Newman]

You were like, is this Kingpin Meteor?

[David Sims]

The poster was crazy.

[Ben Hoss]

It gives nothing.

[David Sims]

I actually remember going to school and some of my friends having seen it, and they're like, it's a stoner. He's both weak. It's a stoner detective movie. I was like, what? And they were like, it's like a stoner movie. And he's, like, caught in this big, big, funny thing, and there's these people. They're cutting toes off, and. And. And. And I was like, oh, this sounds funny. And then I remember watching it and being like, oh, this was like, the worst marketed movie in the entire world yet.

[Griffin Newman]

If you're like.

[Ben Hoss]

I just want to point out this was the British poster, which is even worse.

[Griffin Newman]

Just the two of them.

[Ben Hoss]

They really tried to push, like, a girl's toe gets.

[David Sims]

They didn't know what to do with.

[Ben Hoss]

This, which, like, why would anyone. And it was rated 18 in person. Written because John Goodman bites someone's ear off.

[David Sims]

That's crazy.

[Ben Hoss]

The British rating board, like, remember Mike Tyson.

[David Sims]

Are going to be fighting ears.

[Griffin Newman]

On playgrounds, at least, like, play, too.

[Ben Hoss]

Right?

[David Sims]

That's really.

[Ben Hoss]

So I couldn't see it in theaters. I. And so I too, probably discovered it, as Seth did, like, on video, like a two or years, you know, year.

[David Sims]

Right when it come out of. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Okay.

[David Sims]

I remember, like. Like, as. By the time it was, like, on video, it had gotten out that it was like, a. Actually a cool cult movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I probably saw it around 2003, which.

[Ben Hoss]

I feel like that is when its cult status had been completely cemented. Like, it became a college Thing and by the time I got to College in like 2004, it was at some.

[David Sims]

I moved to LA in 1999 and. And I remember going and hanging out at that bowling alley a lot because.

[Ben Hoss]

Is it still there?

[David Sims]

No, it was knocked down. But they. All those neon stars were made for the movie, but they left them there. So they were. I love that.

[Ben Hoss]

Hollywood Star Lanes.

[David Sims]

Hollywood Star Lanes. And they would have buck 99, white Russians basically. Which is not a drink you should drink a lot of by any stretch of the imagination. Because it's mostly milk. Milk and vodka and so. But we would go there all the time and we would go bowling and we would drink whitewashtons and we'd just. Just like. Because we love the movie. Like so like there was a. A group of us were fans at that time and enough people were fans at that time that there was like a little subculture people that like would go to that bowling alley.

[Griffin Newman]

But I was gonna say at that moment in time, that's almost more like the Popeye Malta village of like, what, are we going to tear this down?

[David Sims]

Yeah, we gotta leave.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's just mark it to the people who did like this weird movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Versus. If that place had stayed open another five years, it would have gotten landmarks.

[David Sims]

Yes. It would have been insane. But. And it was knocked down by the time the movie had like a big. Yeah. Cuz like it wasn't hard to get a lane there. Like it wasn't a big line. It's huge.

[Ben Hoss]

It's like 32 lanes. I want to go to Jackie Treehorn's house, which has been in a ton of movies.

[David Sims]

Oh, I've been there.

[Ben Hoss]

I was going to ask if you've been there.

[David Sims]

You go by John Lautner who designed all the. All the homes in the studio we film in are. John Lner.

[Ben Hoss]

Where you live.

[David Sims]

Exactly. They're the same architect, but it's one of the most. This is one of the most famous houses in la and it's not on the beach in Malibu as they make it appear to be. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

They walk from the beach too, which.

[David Sims]

Is pretty clever how they shoot it. But it's actually overlooking the city. It has an amazing view and is. Yes. This incredible concrete house with this very kind of famous like honeycomb concrete roof and these like built in.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, it's got these. This roof with these little skylights, like these tiny.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. It's an amazing house. It's really, really cool. And this guy, the guy who built it, who commissioned it from John Lautner, still Lives in it. And he's wild.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Kooky old dude who, like, mostly rents out the house for, like, movies and photo shoots and stuff.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, he's a big, like.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm glad it isn't like Conor McGregor owns it now.

[David Sims]

No, exactly. Yeah. Right. The Nelk boys. It's not. No, it's the actual Goldstein. The guy.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes, James Goldstein. He's like a guy who goes to Laker games. He's a rich guy.

[David Sims]

I've filmed there. I've done photo shoots there. I've done. But, yeah, I filmed. I filmed there, like, a whole couple days with Will Ferrell on something once. And, like, it was amazing. Like, it's one of the fun parts about shooting. Like, you get to sort of, like, just be in these houses all. Yeah. So, like, you sort of get to, like, experience what it's like to really occupy time in these amazing. And, yeah, that house is truly amazing. But it's, to me, most famous from this movie. It's in a lot of other movies.

[Ben Hoss]

I think it's in Charlie's.

[David Sims]

I was going to say in Charlie's Angels. I think they. They. They live in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it Tim Rockwell's house?

[Ben Hoss]

House, maybe?

[David Sims]

No, he lives in the Chemosphere, which is another John Lautner house, which it looks. It's like a house standing on a single. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is.

[Ben Hoss]

It's Troy McClure's house in the Simpsons.

[David Sims]

Yes. There's another movie. Maybe it's a Palma movie. I'm looking it up.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes, it's Body.

[David Sims]

Body Double is also shot in the. In the Chemosphere House.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, correct. Oh, my God.

[David Sims]

It's all good houses. All good houses.

[Ben Hoss]

So where's your studio house? What's that one called?

[David Sims]

That is on Jeremy Scott, the guy who owned Moschino, the fashion line now lives in it. It's in the Hills right about. And Silver, the one we shot the Sarah Pauley episode in, is called the Silver Top House. And the one that Catherine o' Hara lives in is another.

[Ben Hoss]

With the pool.

[David Sims]

That's in the pool. Yeah. Is another Lautner house. They're all amazing houses, and they're very cinematic, and that's why we wanted to film in them, because they are, like, in a lot of movies that we thought it'd be, like, cinematically kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

The best thing about this studio is.

[Ben Hoss]

That it looks good.

[David Sims]

I mean, like.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, you're being built around, and it's brilliant.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, those are amazing spaces to explore in real time fully.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And they're designed in such a way that they're meant to be walked through. And so, like, they really have this, like, compression and expansion and like, unconventional layouts that sort of.

[Griffin Newman]

Of are.

[David Sims]

Are fun to unravel and sort of as you turn a corner, it reveals a whole new space. And. And yeah, we really, like, piggybacked off of the design of these houses.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I will say this. I have talked in. In the 10 years of doing this podcast, A Decade of Dreams, I've talked greasy about the city of Los Angeles.

[Ben Hoss]

You mean you should talk to la? Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

When I go to la, people are like, we know you hate it here. And I'm like, oh, God, I built that reputation for myself. A lot of that is very defensively as a young man trying to work in the entertainment industry, being like, I want to stay in New York.

[David Sims]

A lot of people have that for years. I've seen a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. I feel like this is dissipated now. Get ground down post pandemic. But I had like 10 years of people being like, are you not serious about your career? And I was just like, I kind of still want to live here.

[David Sims]

I need to totally live in New York and have.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I.

[David Sims]

That was you proven as a employed. Housed man. Yes, he's housed, but like, I. I love.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I am housed. I love the studio. I think it's an incredible show. It's like a beautiful panic attack when I watch it, I'm like, these are all the reasons I don't want to live in la. The way this show feels. It's this. These are all my anxieties. When I watched Big Lebowski, I'm like, this is everything I love about la.

[Ben Hoss]

It's a real love letter to la. Maybe to a slightly bygone, but from similarly Narada la.

[David Sims]

I actually moved into, like, it. It could not be more. Yeah. Like the. Like, cuz I. I moved to LA 1999. Like, I. I moved into the Big Lebowski, truly.

[Ben Hoss]

I think about Knocked up and like, how you guys live in that big house with the pool that's like shitty.

[Griffin Newman]

Like the birthday boys house.

[Ben Hoss]

Right? And it's like, that's what I. That was my old impression of LA is like, yeah, you can kind of. There's burnouts and weirdos and like, it's so spread out that you can find all these pockets of.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

People like the dude who just kind of like, what do they do all day?

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Ben Hoss]

The drive around, like, doesn't fucking do anything.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's like, I'm allergic to Entourage la.

[David Sims]

Oh, yes. That's a bad LA studio.

[Griffin Newman]

LA is the la. I lovehate relationship with Entourage.

[Ben Hoss]

That showed a bad vibe for you. It's kind of aggro.

[Griffin Newman]

I love the characters, just to be clear.

[David Sims]

And I endorse their characters and their choices, their viewpoints. It's just the cars and the buildings and their work.

[Griffin Newman]

Most importantly, I admire their artistic work.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but this movie, I'm like, this is all the stuff I like in la when I go visit and I hang out with my friends who are.

[David Sims]

Like this, who are unemployed, take me.

[Griffin Newman]

To places like this. And the knights have these vibes, minus the conspiracy.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's exactly. Yeah. Like going to Ralph's in the middle like that, to me was a real quintessential thing. Which might be a visual reference to the Long Goodbye, now that I think of it, because it also starts with him at the grocery store. But I think that was, to me, that was like, sort of like a stoner in la. Being at Ralph's at three in the morning in, like, an empty store is such a familiar feeling to me.

[Griffin Newman]

So much of love.

[David Sims]

Like, I would do my grocery shopping at 2 in the morning. Would you pay my check? Exactly. I probably did.

[Griffin Newman]

So much of Long Goodbye has that. Of like this tiny figure in this big, wide frame just wandering around, mumbling to himself, doing banal tasks. Right.

[David Sims]

The movies are. Are inextricably linked to one. Yeah. And it's funny because, like, it is funny because I feel like Lebowski is kind of viewed as, like. I don't know. Satire is the right word. Sort of like a. A. Yeah, like a comedic take on these self aware. Yeah, a more self aware take on these detective movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Character you could place into that type.

[David Sims]

Exactly. And. And the Long Goodbye is also sort of like. Like, like. And he's smart in that, I guess, is the only difference that he's like, a little more capable, maybe. But, like, it very much is a similar vibe where it's like.

[Ben Hoss]

It's sort of happening to him.

[David Sims]

Yes, it started happening to him. He sort of doesn't quite get what. He's sort of a step behind a little bit all the time. Time. He sort of has. He's not like, smoking weed, I don't think, throughout the whole movie, but he seems kind of stoned and out of it throughout the movie, basically. Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Sims and I are both very big Altman people, and he was like a big turnkey.

[David Sims]

Do you like All. Do you like the Long Goodbye more than the Big Lebowski?

[Ben Hoss]

You probably do.

[Griffin Newman]

I probably.

[Ben Hoss]

I've seen the Big Lebowski like, a hundred times. My whole thing with it is it's just sort of one of those. It's very comforting. Beyond that. That I put it on last night. I put on the disc. It's so gorgeous.

[David Sims]

Like, which is the best looking comedies. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Right. Like, true of any cone movie, obviously. Their movies always look so stunning to look at for. And especially for a comedy.

[David Sims]

It is.

[Griffin Newman]

Did our Driveway Dolls episode very out of order. And watching these two back to back, which is kind of.

[David Sims]

Yeah. What happened? What'd they do?

[Griffin Newman]

Enjoy that movie a lot.

[David Sims]

It's a cute movie.

[Ben Hoss]

But you miss the lush, like.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Do you think that's a choice?

[Griffin Newman]

I think so. I think we'll get to it in 10 episodes.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Just to preview it.

[Griffin Newman]

I break it down.

[Ben Hoss]

I think it's a little bit. The movie being like, don't take us seriously. Like, we're having fun. It's silly, but.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

But that is the magic. And people always say this, right. Of like, you can't make a comedy look too good or it stops being funny. There's this adage that I disagree with.

[David Sims]

Disagree with that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

But.

[Griffin Newman]

And I think a lot of your work has been like, a rebuke to that. But there is that sort of narrative sometimes of like. Like, it just needs to be clean. Bright white light.

[Ben Hoss]

Everything as bright as you can so.

[Griffin Newman]

You can see all the fucking talking heads, like, cross cover.

[David Sims]

Something about Mary, like, effect, I would say. Right. Is like. And dumb and dumber. And a lot of those movies are just like, bright, bright, bright, bright, bright, bright colors. Clueless. I mean, honestly. And that movie, I'd say, actually did it with creative intention in mind. Like, they weren't just like. Like, bright. Like, there was, I think, a lot of reasoning behind why that was a good choice for that specific movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree.

[David Sims]

And I think as a result. Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember when we were shooting four Year Old Virgin, I was just. I remember at one time, like, coming up and giving Judd, like, notes on how I thought we could make the frame more interesting. And he looked at me like I had lost my fucking mind. Like, literally looked at me like I was a crazy person. Yeah. He was like, make the frame more interesting. Like, he's like, as long as you can see the boner, like, we're good.

[Griffin Newman]

I think we're read and widespread and full screen.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I Think we're okay? Yeah. And it's funny because when we actually made Superbad.

[Ben Hoss]

Superbad has like a grain.

[David Sims]

Well, yes. And it's shot. Greg like, shot it. You know what I mean? It's not all cross coverage like he would do in the store. There's like. Like it was very designed. One shot will take you to this line and then a new shot will pick it up for these lines. And I remember there was like some very heavy conversations that were had where Judd. And it was just like, why are you not just cross? Like you. You need to just cross cover this. And Mottola was like, no, that's like not what I'm doing on this movie. Like, I will do it for some scenes, but that's not like what I'm just gonna do. And blocking is the thing where you feel it the most. It's when the characters don't move. And this movie has a lot of great blocking. Sebich Lebowski is like an excellently blocked film. And the characters move in a very elegant way that serves the timing and the comedy and the scenes in a really dynamic way, which I think is why it's not boring. Even though it's largely people talking in.

[Ben Hoss]

Different light on action. Often. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So much of the self perpetuating problem is you get into these zones where comedies have a lack of blocking because people are so worried about getting the correct amount of coverage.

[David Sims]

Exactly. To edit it, you find it in.

[Griffin Newman]

The amount of movement and readjustment of positions that will cause more angles versus something like this where you just see that the Cohen's and the Deacons are like. These three actors are locked in.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

We can get this in a three shot in which they move six times and we only have to punch in for like two specials.

[Ben Hoss]

I'm gonna look at our research now, but like the thing I think of most and probably what baffled people initially. Right. Like, hey, let's go see the new Fargo guys movie. Why is it about like Stone Bowler doing nothing? Like those scenes where it's like, Dude, Donnie and Walter, and Donnie's right over the shoulder and Donnie's over the shoulder and he keeps turning around. And they are all three having separate monologues essentially at different speeds, interrupting each other at the same time. I don't know how you do that and have it make any sense.

[Griffin Newman]

It makes perfect sense watching like Fred Astaire dance with a cat.

[David Sims]

Yeah. When I first moved to la, my manager had like, like a library in their office of. Of like scripts, like just hundreds of Scripts. And. And I. One of the first things I did was I got the script for the Big Lebowski because I wanted to see how those scenes were, like, literally laid out. Laid out. And. And they were. They are written exactly as they are performed in the movie to, like, the half word. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

So they have it. It's not like three columns of dialogue.

[David Sims]

It's like telling you this, this, this. Exactly when the interruption comes and when it goes back to the other person. And I remember reading it being like, oh, my God. Like, these guys, like, plotted this out into a microscopic rhythm. But then I was like, oh. And that's why they could shoot it in a three shot, because they're not finding it. And it felt improvisational to me. And I. Even on Freaks and Geeks was the only thing I was making at that time. But we did a lot of improv and cross coverage and stuff. So that's sort of how I assumed you had to capture that sort of, like, naturalistic interruptee idea. But then I was like, oh, no, these guys just wrote it. They actually broke it down and the actors just did it. And it was. That was very eye opening for me. But I think it's why. Yeah, it's why the movie looks. Is allowed to look.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I feel like I will now always envision the Strawman exec characters in my mind as the studio characters. But you just imagine people looking at the light, like the shooting schedule for this and being like, guys. So your plan is. The only way to get this sequence is for the actors to get it perfect.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

There's no contingency here. The only way this works is it's. You get a take where everyone nails it. And that's like, terrifying to people.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't like, which is why they're just.

[David Sims]

As someone who's done that. They don't like it. They don't love that.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's the stuff that makes Coen brothers movies feel like, how did this happen?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

That everything is so perfectly constructed and also feels kind of loose and miraculous.

[Ben Hoss]

You want to say something, buddy?

[Seth Rogen]

Well, I think we should get to the research.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Seth Rogen]

But I have a little surprise.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I noticed you've covered something on a table with a shining blanket.

[Seth Rogen]

Yes, I brought the accoutrement to make a White Russian.

[David Sims]

We should do it. Yes, we have to.

[Griffin Newman]

Seth did text me. If there aren't White Russians in the studio, I'm leaving.

[David Sims]

Yeah, there better be White Russia.

[Seth Rogen]

All right.

[Ben Hoss]

Ben was trying to surprise. Then I arrived at the street as he was arriving and I was like, why do you have a bag of ice?

[David Sims]

I was gonna do a whole thing. Some Caucasians. I like how he calls them Caucasians. I like that. Yeah.

[Seth Rogen]

All right, well then, four white Russians.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Ben. What's up?

[David Sims]

Griff?

[Griffin Newman]

This is an ad break. Yeah. And I'm just. This isn't a humble brag, it's just a fact of the matter. Despite you being on mic. Oftentimes, when sponsors buy ad space on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

They love to get a little bonus ban on the ad read, but technically that's not what they're looking for. But something very different is happening right now.

[Seth Rogen]

That's true.

[Griffin Newman]

We had a sponsor come in and say we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

[Ben Hoss]

Was.

[Griffin Newman]

This is laser targeted.

[Ben Hoss]

The product.

[Griffin Newman]

We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

[Ben Hoss]

It certainly is.

[Griffin Newman]

And what is today's episode sponsored by the Toxic Avenger? The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming.

[Seth Rogen]

To theaters August 29th.

[Ben Hoss]

Macon Blair's remake of Reimagining. Reimagining, whatever reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, David and I have not gonna see it yet, but they sent you a screener. Listen, think.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, I kind of see it.

[Griffin Newman]

We're excited to see it. But Ben, you text us last night. This rules it.

[Seth Rogen]

It honks. Yeah, it's so great.

[Ben Hoss]

Let me read you the cast list here in. In billing order as they asked, which I really appreciate. Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylor Page. With Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon.

[Griffin Newman]

Tremblay is Toxi's son.

[Seth Rogen]

His stepson.

[Griffin Newman]

His stepson. Okay.

[Ben Hoss]

Wade Goose.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hoss]

Great name.

[Griffin Newman]

Give us the takes. We haven't heard them yet.

[David Sims]

Okay, you got.

[Seth Rogen]

Dinklage is fantastic.

[Ben Hoss]

He's talk.

[Seth Rogen]

He plays it with so much heart. Yeah, it's such a lovely performance. Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the bad guy.

[Seth Rogen]

He's the bad guy. There's a lot of him. Shirtless.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Seth Rogen]

Looking like a snack.

[Griffin Newman]

David, sizzling. Yep. And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang ass freak.

[Seth Rogen]

He certainly does. He's having a lot of. Of fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

[Seth Rogen]

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy. I just got to say the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

[David Sims]

Trauma. Yes. Yes, that's right.

[Ben Hoss]

The original film.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[Seth Rogen]

I grew up watching Toxie and Troma movies on porches.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Seth Rogen]

With my sleazy and sticky friends. It informs so much of My sensibility.

[Griffin Newman]

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and Headbanger.

[Seth Rogen]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Making Toxic Crusader jokes.

[Seth Rogen]

And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I. I was really emotionally invested.

[Griffin Newman]

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut. But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary. They're playing with fire here.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just.

[Seth Rogen]

It's something that means a lot to me. And they knocked it out of the park. It somehow really captured that. That sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that like, lo fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the Troma movies. In the original Toxi movies. And they have like updated in this way that it was just. I was so pleased with it.

[David Sims]

It's gooey.

[Griffin Newman]

Sufficiently gooey.

[Seth Rogen]

Tons of blood, tons of goo.

[Griffin Newman]

Great action.

[Seth Rogen]

It's really fucking funny. It just. It hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version.

[Ben Hoss]

Cineverse Last year released Terrifier 3. Unrated.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Big risk for them there. I feel like it's a very, very intense movie. And one of the huge hits.

[Griffin Newman]

More interesting. Yeah. Theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years.

[Ben Hoss]

Want to make that happen again?

[Griffin Newman]

Here.

[Ben Hoss]

Tickets are on sale right now. Advanced sales really matter for movies like this. So if y' all were planning on seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets. Please go to toxicavenger.com blankcheck to get your tickets. Blank check. One word.

[Griffin Newman]

In theaters August 29th.

[David Sims]

Yup.

[Griffin Newman]

And Ben, it just says here in the copy. Wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says, summon the Nuts. Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

[Seth Rogen]

Summon the Nuts. Nuts is in reference to a psychotic nu metal band.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell yeah.

[Seth Rogen]

Who are also mercenaries.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool.

[Seth Rogen]

And drive a van with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill. And that's all I'll say.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Seth Rogen]

And they are the most dang ass freaks of dang ass freaks.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm excited to see it. And your endorsement, I think carries more weight than anyone else is in the world on this. Seriously.

[Seth Rogen]

Get your tickets now. Go to toxicadventure.com blank check.

[David Sims]

Do it. Do it.

[Ben Hoss]

I, as I told Ben, don't think I've had a White Russian since I was like 20 years old.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I haven't had one since I was at that bowling alley. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

They are so disgusting. No offense. Offense to the drink. I'm possibly about to sip, but I remember once.

[David Sims]

Milk, they taste good.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

They're not a good. Right. Like a lot of you. Yeah. Your stomach. Well, being 20. And, like, because when you're 20, you're just drinking to get drunk. So you're having, like four or five or whatever is you're drinking. And then a White Russian's a disgusting thing.

[Ben Hoss]

Such a bad thing to ingest.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Because it's doing other things to your body at the same time that are not cooperating with the drunkenness.

[Ben Hoss]

I was at a bar with a girl in college, humble brat, and she told me, like, oh, they do good White Russians here. And then the bartender asked what I wanted. I said, like, a White Russian. And he was like, get a real drink.

[David Sims]

And I never, ever ordered a White.

[Ben Hoss]

Russian again after that. Not that I would really want one. They're gross.

[David Sims]

They are kind of gross.

[Ben Hoss]

So. Okay. All right.

[Griffin Newman]

Harry, you know what he's doing? He's making four way Russians. I watch him carry them in the movie, and every time my brain immediately goes to like, God, that glass is so dirty.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

It just looks gross as.

[Ben Hoss]

Why do you think he drinks White Russians? Do you think the cones are just like, that's funny. Like, that's a funny drink?

[David Sims]

Well, there is a dude.

[Ben Hoss]

There is a dude.

[David Sims]

And we'll talk about that.

[Ben Hoss]

There's kind of two guys, Right.

[David Sims]

But one of them.

[Ben Hoss]

One of them is the main guy. And you probably met that guy.

[David Sims]

I have met that guy.

[Ben Hoss]

And does he drink White Russians?

[David Sims]

Like, did they steal it from him? My assumption is yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So our friend Conor Ratliff, friend of the podcast, made a great point talking to him the other day that. That it's so funny that Fargo is like, the pinnacle of their career up until this point. Right. The anointment moment. They win the Oscar. It's their biggest crossover hit, and it's.

[David Sims]

One of the best movies.

[Ben Hoss]

It's the best. Nothing wrong with it. We love Fargo. I do want to point out, and JJ put this in the research, and it is crucial to note Big Lewsky is a script they'd had for a long time and had been trying to make throughout the early 90s.

[Griffin Newman]

It was their pineapple expression. So we can only get this made once we have it.

[David Sims]

Once we have a hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And according to jj, it might have come first, but good Goodman before Fargo. But Goodwin was making Roseanne. Jeff Bridges was making White Squall. Never forget that. He got, like, 10 buckets of rain dumped on him every day.

[Griffin Newman]

A movie that, like, created QAnon.

[David Sims]

Yes, because the storm is coming.

[Griffin Newman]

Where we go, one one goes on.

[David Sims]

All the quotes are from White squall.

[Ben Hoss]

Have become QAnon models.

[David Sims]

That is maybe the weirdest part about everything else of all, all the stuff I've heard. To me, the thing that makes least.

[Griffin Newman]

Sense is it's like how Proud Boys is all spun out of a song. Deleted from Disney's Aladdin.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Really? Yeah. Proud of your boy. Yep.

[Ben Hoss]

There's a song in Disney's Aladdin where Aladdin's mom sings that she's proud of him. They decided to cut it because it's boring.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And they. And then they grabbed it and said, like, disney cut this because they don't want women saying that men are good.

[David Sims]

Oh, well, that's 30 years ago. They do.

[Griffin Newman]

We need to be proud boys. We need to create the Aladdin's mom that never existed to make us feel proud. Doesn't that make them a lot dorkier?

[David Sims]

I mean, not that they needed help.

[Ben Hoss]

So the Cohen. It's a personal movie in a way, in that. Yes. It's based on dudes they know.

[Griffin Newman]

Can I just finish this thought? The con. It's.

[Ben Hoss]

Go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

Tied to what you just said, that he was like. I think part of the legitimacy bestowed upon Fargo as these guys have stopped around and made a real movie was the false selling of Fargo as a true story.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so true.

[Griffin Newman]

Which lent some weight and all the weird cosms of it. People were like, wow. But they didn't make it up. I guess the story is just really quirky. And that Lebowski people are like, what the is this? This is. This came from nothing. And you're like, the movie based on two real people. So this circumstances aren't real, but the characters are very much riffing on real people.

[Ben Hoss]

So there's this guy Peter X Line. Pete X Line, who is like one. One inspiration who had been like. Worked for Michael Douglas and then was a professor at usc. There's this guy, Lou Abernathy, but who's sort of like a Walter type. But John Milius is obviously a big inspiration for Walter.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right, right.

[Ben Hoss]

And then this guy, Jeff Dowd. Yes, that's the guy you're talking about who is sort of like. He calls himself the Pope of dope. And, like, he was a member of the Seattle 7, which, like, the Dude.

[Griffin Newman]

Was he an entertainment lawyer?

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, he's just like a. And I just.

[David Sims]

Producer, actor.

[Ben Hoss]

He produced Fern Gully, among other things.

[David Sims]

There you go.

[Ben Hoss]

And like when you look at him, because he's still around, he looks like the dude and he kind of feels like the real Kramer from Seinfeld.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

How that guy was kind of like, I'm going to cash in on being Kramer. Like he's still just kind of being the dude. And you've met this guy?

[David Sims]

I have met him, yeah. And he was annoying. Cool.

[Ben Hoss]

So Peter X Line, the thing with him is they were at his house one time, he's some fucking USC professor guy and he had a really shitty rug in his shitty house that he would not stop saying. Really tied the room together.

[David Sims]

That's really funny.

[Ben Hoss]

So they never forgot that X Line, when they ask him about it, talks about this fake Persian rug where, I mean, he had admits like that it was. It was a conversation piece in his shitty house. And he exline once told them a story about his Mazda getting stolen. And then when he found it in an impound lot, it had like a 14 year old's homework in it.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's really funny.

[Ben Hoss]

So they never forgot that either. Like, they have a lot of like little weird anecdotes from these crusty Hollywood movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Feels like. It feels like 20 years of incubation of like a notebook of things that got stuck in their craw of like, that's funny. And how could we unify all of this into the world?

[David Sims]

And I remember me and Evan hearing that and that actually being very inspirational when we started writing Pineapple Express. Literally, like I remember us thinking like, oh, you can sort of accumulate a bunch of ideas and create a narrative that allows you to bring them to life. And you don't have to like start with the story. You can start with a bunch of little things and then create a story that sort of architecturally supports these ideas.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, can you build a character strong enough that can hold all of these separate things? Things that becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Xline also was a Vietnam vet who could not stop talking about Vietnam. Like would bring it up all the time. And so they did have that in their heads. I think this movie is very wisely set at the. During the Gulf war.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It's 92.

[David Sims]

91 or 92.

[Ben Hoss]

Because it's like we won the Gulf war so fast. 1. You know what? We like ripped through Iraq so fast.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And when David said one, he gave two thumbs up. Just.

[Ben Hoss]

And I do think it, it's quietly making Walter matter. That like America just crushed some fucking war.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And he's still this like piece of shit. Vietnam vet that. You know, nobody likes thinking about that. Right. Obviously, John Milius, who I feel like just sort of the aggro energy. Right. The kind of like the way he looks.

[David Sims]

The guy.

[Ben Hoss]

The way you hear about John Milius is just being like eternally ready for war in a weird way.

[Griffin Newman]

But he would. He described himself as the Zen fascist.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That. It was this.

[Ben Hoss]

You get there.

[David Sims]

I got an Indiana Jones.

[Ben Hoss]

Beautiful.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And the great circle.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the Xbox game. This was a. A promo item for their IHOP menu. I want. You know, I spent a lot of pan coins to buy that. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Your.

[Griffin Newman]

Your original. Okay. Let me take my lactate before this cocktail.

[Ben Hoss]

That's vodka and milk. Oh, shit.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's a very nostalgic me.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It brings me back to 1999 to the bowling alley. It's quite good.

[Ben Hoss]

It's not bad.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what? I actually like it.

[Ben Hoss]

So they. And like, Milius is kind of. He's a fake vet. He didn't serve in the military.

[David Sims]

Like he. But they.

[Ben Hoss]

He had all his paraphernalia.

[Griffin Newman]

So, like, he's the other thing with Mil.

[Ben Hoss]

They met him when they're making Barton Fink.

[David Sims]

I think Spielberg had great Milus stories. And he was. He was like, that guy's amazing.

[Ben Hoss]

Because he was kind of the old guy.

[David Sims]

He was like the old guy. Yeah, he was like. And he had had success sort of.

[Ben Hoss]

Before when they're all coming up.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

The badass. All the movie brats. Which is to your point. Like, this guy was actually a Vietnam vet.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And it wasn't that. This guy wasn't extreme, but it's like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma are all like, this guy's unreal. You know, which is like. It fits into the same character where you're like, he's not actually. Walter isn't actually powerful within his world.

[David Sims]

No. But around these sort of like meek dudes, he's very.

[Griffin Newman]

Selecting. Like, why is he hanging out with Donnie? Just so he can tell Donnie to shut the up.

[David Sims]

Exactly. Why right.

[Ben Hoss]

Now, Jeff Dowd, the guy you have met who was in the Seattle 70s night, he claims he does not drink White Russian.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Ben Hoss]

He says, hey, man, sometimes it's Harvey Wall bangers, sometimes it's Tequila sunrises.

[David Sims]

It's always a silly, stupid drink. That does sound like it's true. And like old timey. Old timey saved drinks. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Ethan Cohen's take is basically like, the dude is kind of personally more like Jeff Dowd, but like, you know, with these mixed in Other anecdotes, but the physicality is kind of that guy, and, like, that's maybe the most. But then also you hear that, like, Bridges contributed a lot of the clothes and, like.

[David Sims]

And he's, like, from. He's like a California guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, it feels like he's tapping something in himself that he maybe hadn't quite tapped yet.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's. It's.

[Ben Hoss]

It's just like how Drew grit turned him into, like, an old cowboy.

[David Sims]

It turned him into that guy. Yeah. Every movie, he makes up his true gray, you know?

[Ben Hoss]

And, like, for a while after Big Lebowski, he was the Dude.

[David Sims]

Yes, he was.

[Ben Hoss]

And then when he does, I feel.

[David Sims]

Like if you see him on the street and you recognize and if you either say to him, hey, man, I love the Big Lebowski, or, hey, man, I love true. Great, you'll get a different Jeff, depending on which. Which what you say. I do feel. Feel like if you say I love both, he'll give you a really funny. Have you ever met him? I have one or maybe one or two times. And. Yeah. And I ran up to him, and I. And I. I went the Lebowski route, and I got a very dudish response, and it was. It was amazing. It was lovely.

[Griffin Newman]

It does feel like the dude has either become the closest thing to his, like, default Persona in life, if as an actor. Right. Because even, like, the year after this is the contender where he's back in, like, the most handsome man in high.

[David Sims]

I remember stain for a while.

[Griffin Newman]

He was stained clean.

[David Sims]

He cleaned the stain.

[Griffin Newman]

No tide pen could fight this thing.

[David Sims]

It is so funny that Iron man.

[Ben Hoss]

Had to run through him before he.

[David Sims]

Deals with Danic space alien. You take. Yeah. First then a space God. I'm gonna build a slightly bigger suit than you.

[Ben Hoss]

I like negotiating, obviously, for they start writing the script. James M. Kane is their blood simple. Like, you know, Miller's Crossing is Dashel Hammett. This is Raymond Chandler.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, they. They're, like, perfect dressing for this plot.

[David Sims]

Have you guys rewatched the Big Sleep recently?

[Ben Hoss]

Not in the last 10 years. Like, I've seen it several times. I never know what's going on at the end, which I know is probably of the point.

[David Sims]

It is sexy and comfortable, right? Yeah. I watched it for the. Actually, I think the first time, like, a few years ago, and I was. Some parts of it I really liked, but I was mostly like, what the is going on? I love Humphrey Bogart. I think Humphrey Bogart is just, like, maybe the coolest.

[Ben Hoss]

He's the coolest guy.

[David Sims]

Coolest guy ever. And, like, is unbelievably watchable.

[Ben Hoss]

He's so cool in the Big Sleep.

[David Sims]

Because he's playing a guy who. Yes, he's so cool in that movie.

[Ben Hoss]

Like in Casablanca, which. These are all movies I love in Casablanca, he's like, I don't fuck anymore. I just have this bar and I'm sad bad. In Maltese Falcon, which is my favorite of his movies, he's like, I need to figure out what's going on with all you like. But in Big Sleep, he fucks he want. You know, he's just being a cool mother.

[David Sims]

Just kind of cool. But it is similar where he seems kind of confused as to what's happening throughout a lot of the movie. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The spectrum of those movies, which are all kind of about perfect style, these impossibly cool leading men and these undecipherable plots. Right. And then Long Goodbye to does the. The modernist version of that, which is, this is who this guy thinks he is. In his mind, we're placing him in a modern context. The world at large is not in sync with him. Y the kind of like stylish voiceover narration. He's now just being like mumbled cats. Right? And then Big Lebowski adds the additional distance of what if this guy doesn't even know he's in that type of story and the narrator is someone else else who he barely meets at a bar, who can't even finish his talk.

[David Sims]

Quite remember, doesn't quite understand what's happening. Right. That is. I mean, re watching it. It's funny that it's like some things like that where you're like, oh, this is so much weirder than I remember it being. Like the. The Sam Elliott narration is much stranger than I remember it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's strange because they call him the.

[Ben Hoss]

Stranger, but it's strange because he's doing a bad job.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, as a narrator.

[David Sims]

And they kind of paint him as like this all knowing guy, but he doesn't know anything.

[Griffin Newman]

He can all land the plane interrupts.

[Ben Hoss]

The movie to be like, do you have to curse so much? And Jefferson's just like, what? And he's like, don't worry about it. Like, it's very funny, but it is.

[David Sims]

It's weird.

[Griffin Newman]

We talk about this kind of like, my favorite kind of Cohen dialogue is this, like, big, chunky monologue that is like a freeway that takes off ramps and merges back into the freeway where characters, like, answer the questions they pose themselves. And that's usually done in Such a rat attack, fast talking way. And you got Sam Elliott, who's going to slow that down to a molasses crawl. But then you're also going to have him not figure out how to get back on the highway. You're like, starting with a broken version of a Cohen monologue. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And it's, like, starts with narration that.

[Ben Hoss]

Doesn'T work, but nobody in this movie makes sense. So you've got the dude who moves through every plot line, sort of competent but also not paying attention, and then will be saying things he heard in the last episode.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he repeats a lot of things. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

He repeats things that don't really. And then you have Walter, who literally makes the wrong decision every single time.

[David Sims]

Time.

[Ben Hoss]

And, like, works himself into a frenzy. And then the final wrong decision, I feel like, is pulling the big Lebowski out of the wheelchair. I mean, like, the funeral's like a coda, but that's sweet. But, like, him being like, this guy walks, and at this point, you're like, I swear to God, he's not going to. Like, he's not going to do something about. You know, he's going to.

[David Sims]

It's one of the greatest scenes in any.

[Ben Hoss]

It's just like, this is a classic Cohen story in that they, like, wrote 40 pages and they were like, that's interesting. And they got stuck and they, like, put it away, and then they put it back. Back to explain the narration. They say he's like an audience substitute. And like, Chandler stories always have a narrator. So we kind of wanted, like, a. But, like, they can't really explain decision.

[Griffin Newman]

To be like, you couldn't have Lebowski narrate this movie because that gives him too much of a connection.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

To the story. He has to be pushing against it. And what the big driving force for Lebowski is, you said, like, him wanting the rug back.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is the act of choice he makes that keeps the whole movie going. Right, Right. But that choice is driven by. This guy wants to do nothing. The only active thing he does is to try to reset back to the status quo of where he is at the beginning, which is, I'm unemployed. I like everything in my apartment. And I have my routine.

[David Sims]

I have. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I got my roach clip. I got the White Russians.

[Ben Hoss]

But the thing that does stress me out is if he just got the 20 grand initially from the, you know, job he fails to do.

[David Sims]

The.

[Ben Hoss]

The. It feels like the dude could live on 20 grand for, like, forever, five to 10 years. He doesn't seem to Pay rent.

[David Sims]

Anyway.

[Griffin Newman]

He like, abhors that level of ambition. I know his pride in being unemployed.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Anyway, yeah, I mean, they. They said it in like the more marginal la. Venice beach, the Valley, Pasadena or whatever. You know, like that's what they were interested in. And then Pete, one of the inspirations is a big softball guy. But they were like, bowling is like, makes more sense. It's aesthetically more pleasant. It's very male, which we think is like, it's. We want these guys to just be sitting around.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also weirdly rhythmic in a way that feels very co of just like the kind of repetition of. Of the role and the sounds in the wood and. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Now the craziest thing obviously is their first choice was Mel Gibson for the Dude.

[David Sims]

Whoa.

[Ben Hoss]

Which is so wild.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know which role Mel Gibson would have played?

[David Sims]

Well, he would have. He would have killed Walter.

[Griffin Newman]

No one could be better than Goodman, but he would have done a great Walter.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he actually would have. He's maybe too scary like Walter. There's like an impotence to Walter a little bit. He does not, actually. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

If he had played Walter at the time, people would have said, where did this come from? This is an amazing transformation. And now we would have said, he gave us all the clues.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

It was all there.

[David Sims]

We'd be like. And Mel Gibson has himself.

[Ben Hoss]

Gibson reads the script, is like, this is kind of funny. There's no way I'm not going to do this. Like, this is like Ransom era. Gibson or whatever. Jeff Bridges famously is kind of like, especially back then, like a waffler. Like he would like, flirt with projects and not decide what to do.

[David Sims]

What.

[Ben Hoss]

He was like, kind of tough to nail down. He was like, should I play like a pothead? He had like teenage daughters and worried he'd set a bad example. I mean, this feels very oldfashioned still.

[Griffin Newman]

In like near peak handsomeness era too. He's kind of like a B list movie star. Like a really sturdy studio leading man with a lot of Oscar nominations under his belt. Felt. But it felt like he was at a comfortable level of like you. His handle mid budget.

[David Sims]

What were the other big Bridges movies around this?

[Ben Hoss]

It's like, you know, Fearless, which is a great movie. Peter Weir movie Strawberries. Yes. Blown Away is 94 with Jaime Jones.

[David Sims]

There's two movies called Blown Away and I always watch one's. One is that one and one I can't remember is the one with Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.

[Griffin Newman]

That sounds right. Let me look this up.

[Ben Hoss]

Yep, yep, yep.

[David Sims]

I like that. Tommy Lee Jones.

[Ben Hoss]

And they're both from around the same time time.

[David Sims]

Lee Jones does the worst. Is he supposed to Irish. Irish accent, maybe in the history of.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it's Corey Haim and Nicole Eggert.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

But right. The one you're talking about. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And Corey Feldman, of course.

[Ben Hoss]

That thing like Blown Away Patriot Games with the Devil's Own. Like when like, IRA guys were like a Hollywood cool.

[David Sims]

Right, right. Yeah. That was a good target. That was a good easy villain for Bridges.

[Griffin Newman]

Was kind of like, like, you know, $40 million movie that has.

[Ben Hoss]

I'm gonna give you the rest around.

[Griffin Newman]

Harrison Ford turns it down. Get Jeff Bridges.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Like. But it's like, obviously he did the Fisher King in the early 90s. That's a great movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But closest to this, he did the.

[Ben Hoss]

Vanishing remake, which is like, okay. He did Fearless Blown Away. He played Wild Bill Hickok in a. Like a biopic that was a Walter but wasn't a hit. White Squall, which he's like, good in, but it's. Again, it's him just like yelling and.

[Griffin Newman]

Was good for the culture.

[David Sims]

Good for the culture.

[Ben Hoss]

And then Mirror has Two Faces, which we covered on this show. Barbra Streisand, your former co star.

[David Sims]

Former co star.

[Ben Hoss]

That movies. Have you seen the Mirror Has Two Faces?

[David Sims]

Like. Like, it's a really weird. Really. Yeah, it's about her. She, like, changes her face and.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yes. Yeah. I listened to her whole. All 50 hours recently.

[Griffin Newman]

It is more similar to Big Lebowski than you would imagine. And that. It just sort of has these.

[David Sims]

That is weird.

[Ben Hoss]

The last thing he does. Fun before the big LaBelle.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Ben Hoss]

And then right after, he does Arlington Road, which feels again, more like Another blue.

[David Sims]

I like that movie.

[Ben Hoss]

Movie's fun.

[Griffin Newman]

But that's. He's like the king of kind of like adult counter programming. Mid budget studio fare. Being a very beloved respected actor.

[Ben Hoss]

Anyway, his daughters are like, what do you do? Whatever movie you want. And he says he was sort of like, I guess I am kind of like the Dude. I do sit around all day smoking weed.

[Griffin Newman]

Mm.

[Ben Hoss]

Although he says he doesn't. Did not smoke weed while making the big Le Professional. Right. And he said that, like, the script is written exact. Like the dialogue is written. Like, he said that once in a while I would put in an extra man and it would fuck up the line. Like, you could tell. Like, no, they already. They already balanced every line out.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I. When I did the table read, I. It is weird because, like, you Are. You know, you kind of just do it. And. And it is one of those things where it's like, just by reading it, I'd be like, it's happening. If you just say every word, it sounds exactly like the dude. It was really remarkable in a lot of ways.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, you are so good as an actor, a writer, and an improviser, and I feel like you have a skill at being able to take material and put it in your own voice in a way that isn't fighting against the movie. But then also, like the movies we've covered that you have been in, those are things where it's like, you got to play this part. You got to fit into this. This isn't you making it.

[David Sims]

Not autoriffing. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But like, Steve Jobs is something where it's like, you have that monologue, which I love so much, that is like seven unbroken minutes where I'm sure you cannot move like a letter.

[David Sims]

No. What's weird about Aaron Sorkin, though, actually, is he was. If I would go to him, which I did a few times and was like, this is a little weird coming out of my mouth, he'd be like, I'll rewrite it.

[Ben Hoss]

He's a Hollywood guy.

[David Sims]

I was completely. If anything, he would give it back. I'd be like, I think you changed too much of this. I literally thought these few words could be adjusted, and he'd be like, no, I realize it. I was actually. All I had heard was how rigid he was. Tony Kushner, I would say, was more someone who has put an insane amount of thought into every word choice in a way that I had never even even considered as a writer. Like, what sound? Literally, like, what the. The consonants. What sounds they make when. And you know that. Well, when you say you, it has a certain power, but when you say you, you guys, it means something totally different. And when you say I, like. And it was stuff like that where I was just like, oh, my God. Like, this is a level of like. Like, overthinking, perhaps, that. That I don't engage in. But then what was funny is Steven didn't care. And so he would just be like, ah, Steven. Like, he almost had the funniest part of that whole movie to me. And this is like, the perfect example of that conflict in a lot of ways is like, there's this line. There's a line in the script where Paul Dano. We're arguing, and then Michelle comes out and starts dancing in front of the fire. And we kind of start watching her. And in the script, as that's happening, Paul, like, quotes like a famous, like, James Joyce poem or something like that. And I would. Stephen doesn't rehearse ever. Like, so if you want to rehearse, it's incumbent on you to find time to do it, basically.

[Griffin Newman]

But basically, he's shooting the first block.

[David Sims]

He doesn't want to rehearse. He's like, I don't want to rehearse. And he's like, very. And he's. I honestly don't want to talk about the acting. Like, he's like, I don't want to talk about it. He's like, do it, and I'll tell you if I want something different, basically. And so me and Paul would get together at my house sometimes to rehearse some of the more dialoguey scenes. So when we showed up on set, we weren't like, when you gotta be.

[Griffin Newman]

Dropping science and math.

[David Sims]

Exactly. Especially it's all these words. I literally don't know what they mean. And we kept rehearsing it. He kept being like, this one James Joyce line. It might not be that, but let's pretend. He's just like, this is the line that I'm really. I'm kind of finding it hard to say. But then I kind of keep rediscovering what it might be about. And I've been talking to Tony Kushner about it a lot, and there's interesting back and forth about this line. And he's like, but to me, this line is so important and sort of summarizes the whole thing in a lot of ways that I want to just make sure that I do it right. And then we're shooting the scene and we're blocking it. And Steven's like, so we're on, you guys. And then you say this, Seth. And then at that moment, Michelle comes out and I'm going to pan with her, and she goes over there and starts dancing. And I'm filming her dancing. And Paul's like, well, if you pan away from me when she crosses, like, I say my line after that, so the shot won't get my line. And Steven's like, oh, forget the line. Yeah. And I just. Literally, it's like, Paul looks at me and it's like, what? Like, forget the line. And you could see. But to Steven's credit, he's also like, it's like, I'll shoot it. Like, don't worry, you know? Like, it doesn't matter. Like, if I'm directing this properly charge here. It doesn't make a difference. Also, like, he's like, trust me, the shots will tell the story properly.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a thing. Especially when we rewatch, like, I don't, I can't think of an example of this in Lebowski, but especially when we rewatch, like some of the most totemic, quotable, repeated movies of all time where you watch sequences and you're like, they actually aren't covered in the way you remember in your mind's eye where you don't see that actor's face during the famous line.

[David Sims]

Oh, for sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Examples where it's like an off camera over the shoulder.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And all logic would be like, well, that's the big line. You need to get it in a close up with them. Like selling it.

[David Sims]

Oh, I'm always saying that. I mean, it's like some of the biggest laughs in our movies are like off camera lines. Like literally like, you don't care at all as long as you hear it.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey. This episode is brought to you by 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 the 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 Pelorand 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 master Matthew encounters a rising pop star named Oliver, he takes the opportunity to edge his way into the in crowd. But staying there 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 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 in everyone. That's what RogerEbert.com said. And they put a a star ironically in the word star to censor it. But I'm gonna 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.

[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 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.

[Ben Hoss]

Very particular set of terms bringing me in.

[Seth Rogen]

And there's only one other person in the room.

[Griffin Newman]

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

[Ben Hoss]

My goodness is so rude. I sleep easy. I'm definitely not someone who insists on 800 thread counts sheets.

[Griffin Newman]

No, that's a, that's a.

[Ben Hoss]

An example of a fussy person.

[Griffin Newman]

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

[Ben Hoss]

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 you're traveling and I need a room with some good soundproofing because I'm going to be doing some remote. Remote pod record.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Seth Rogen]

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

[Griffin Newman]

That's very demanding to be in Europe.

[Seth Rogen]

You got air conditioning. Well, think of one person in particular, although it's really both of you. Yeah, you gotta have air conditioning.

[Ben Hoss]

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.

[Ben Hoss]

You do. You love selfies.

[Griffin Newman]

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

[Ben Hoss]

Look, they're again, they're specifying like, oh, maybe you want a sauna or hot tub. And I'm like, sounds good.

[David Sims]

To me. Yeah, please.

[Ben Hoss]

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.

[Ben Hoss]

I'll be in the sauna to.

[David Sims]

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.

[Ben Hoss]

You would be good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge and. And while recording, I'm on mic. But you just.

[David Sims]

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.

[Ben Hoss]

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.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Pbowski. Just to wrap up the. The research, Walter Written for John Goodman. No choice other than John Goodman for the Cohen. Goodman says it's the best movie he ever made. Best thing he ever did.

[Griffin Newman]

He is unbelievable in this film.

[David Sims]

Unreal. Did he get, like. Should have won an Oscar for this. He should have.

[Ben Hoss]

There's no. No awards for this movie. No one.

[David Sims]

Because their previous movie had won a lot of Oscars.

[Ben Hoss]

You're totally right.

[David Sims]

It's really weird. And again, I think it speaks. Like, what I was saying before we started rolling is like, I feel like there has been this, like. Like, people did not like this movie when it came out. And my memory is it got bad reviews. And I was actually shocked when I went on Rotten tomatoes and had 80% or something like that. I was like, that is not what this was.

[Ben Hoss]

You can't trust Rotten Tomatoes for an old movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Can we sidebar here for a second, please? The Cinematrix. I don't know if you play the vulture. Our friend Joe Reed, who runs that. Shout out to Joe Reed. We gripe every time there's a Rotten Tomatoes score as a prompt in that.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Because Rotten Tomatoes is a living text.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Beyond it being a bad metric, it's a living text where you're like, well, I can start my website tomorrow called like, Griff likes movies.org and be like, Big Lebowski 100%. And then that will up its tomato score versus what I want is how was it received at the time?

[David Sims]

Well, I also think a lot of, like, I mean, I could be. I'm.

[Ben Hoss]

You're right.

[David Sims]

I'm always sure. Like, the Hollywood Reporter, like, republishes new reviews so they're not on the wrong side of history. Like, no one liked 2001 when it came out, and now it has like 100%. Like they, whatever publications give it bad reviews. And what's funny is I feel like I said this once on Twitter or something and like I got like attacked like savage on Twitter. Exactly. By movie critics.

[Griffin Newman]

Really?

[David Sims]

That doesn't happen. They don't do that. And I was like, they do. That happens. Like the General. I'm looking at this general thing over here. Like people didn't like that movie when it came. And now you go on Rotten tomatoes and that's 100% or something. But it's a real disservice, I think, to people who are interested in movies because you are not getting the actual context of how these movies were received when they came out. And if you gave the General a bad review a hundred years ago, you should shut the fuck up and deal with it and eat it.

[Griffin Newman]

Also, Congrats on being 100%, 115 years old.

[David Sims]

Exactly. And if you've made it to that age, you should take the ding and accept that you. That you were on the wrong side of the General, just as you were on the wrong side of 2001 and the big Lebowski.

[Griffin Newman]

Just how the character in the General was on the wrong side of the war.

[David Sims]

He was. He was. We should acknowledge. We should acknowledge that when you look.

[Ben Hoss]

At Metacritic, which does a pretty good job trying to find like the actual of the time reviews, like.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's also better at not being a consensus, but being a sense of how positive the reviews were rather than what percentage.

[Ben Hoss]

And it has a 71 on Metacritic. And even that I imagine is a little inflated by later stuff. But you see like Ken Turan in the LA Times being like film feels like totally thrown together. Haphazard.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And like, I get it.

[David Sims]

It's crazy.

[Ben Hoss]

It's crazy. I can sort of understand people, critics sitting down in 1998 for this like, fall Fargo follow up and being like.

[David Sims]

I don't fucking get so composed. And it's so that's the thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Deliberate, tight and intricate.

[Ben Hoss]

Were they just spoiled at the time like that? They were. Were just too many good looking movies.

[David Sims]

I don't know. I honestly think maybe like, like you.

[Ben Hoss]

See, like the Associated Press were like, let down, strange for the sake of being strange. Like just like has nothing to say bad inside it.

[Griffin Newman]

Like it was like epic movie and they were like, it's all just rando shit. I also a thing I saw a lot of critics at the time repeat is it basically doesn't have a story that just saying, like, this movie is just this meandering series of like with no source. And you're like, if anything, the slam should be the opposite.

[David Sims]

Yeah. There's too much. Well, there's a lot of plot. It is an unconventional script. Like it. But I think almost that's what's oddly magical about it is it sort of foregoes a lot of traditional things but remains incredibly entertaining and watchable, I think in like a moment to moment basis. And even though you don't quite get what the fuck is happening, you really want to know what happens next. Like. And I. Because it's so funny and like the characters are so interesting. But it is. I get why it would be challenging to people at the time because it sort of is from people who you like, are used to kind of getting their work, I think. And then it's also at a time when comedy is like so big, you know, and not very. And not very like conversational. Like, I think that's actually. I remember when we were making 40 year old virgin, we were writing Superbad. We were so inspired by this movie, me and Evan, because we were like, oh, they actually like swear as much as we do when we talk. And at the time that was like crazy. That was like, you couldn't do it in a movie like the, like all these movies did.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a Scorsese movie where the point is these are the worst people on the planet.

[David Sims]

But even something about Mary. They'll show you like a, like gaping. Yeah. But like. Yeah, they aren't casually profane. They're kind of very innocent. And. And that was always a thing that I like, really was kind of a fan of and something that my work would later reflect and say in many ways. But. But that was to me, like. I think that's why it's aged well is it's sort of more reflective of comedies that came out. Right. That are 10 years later.

[Griffin Newman]

It's probably the seeping of them. I mean it is literally like you guys taking stuff from it and then taking stuff from you guys.

[David Sims]

And then the movies you made and us making movies in 2006 and 7 and 8 and. And. And us talking about this movie a lot, honestly.

[Griffin Newman]

But you like, you think about. There were always. There would be those stupid repeated stats of like the Guinness Book of World Records for most in a movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And there were always like four movies that people would repeat. It was like Casino, Goodfellas, Nil by mouth. Held the record for a while.

[David Sims]

By mouth.

[Ben Hoss]

They only say the word. That's the thing. It's like right. Every the only word spoken is it.

[Griffin Newman]

Was movies where it's about murderous criminals or movies.

[David Sims]

Movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Movies where that's like the stylistic choice. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

And Jerry does have the most. Jerry's right.

[Griffin Newman]

World records.

[David Sims]

I think so Only second to Tom and Jerry.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, because that has a lot of Tom that.

[David Sims]

More Tom. You balance it out too, buddy.

[Griffin Newman]

Splitting the vote. But then you. I know you guys talk a lot about like Kevin Smith influencing you in that way. And that's a movie where people talk the way the people talk. His first. The way he talks.

[David Sims]

Like certainly the way he is. And.

[Griffin Newman]

And then.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like you guys kind of like put that on a mainstream scale where there is this shift post. Like I think so much about that summer were knocked up and super bad come out within eight weeks of each other. And it feels like the entire culture shifts.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Of just like all of this is now just understandable by everybody.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was. But I, I think like, well, even when we were making 40 year old virgin, I was like, they should be swearing casually all the time. And that was like my, my. My biggest creative contribution to the movie is I was like, we should be smoking weed casually and swearing all the time. And. And there's two things that are very much from the Bigelow scheme. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Because like four Year Old Virgin, that's. That's sort of Steve's movie.

[David Sims]

Like, and. And he. And. And I was brought on as like.

[Ben Hoss]

She'S kind of character he'd done at Second City.

[David Sims]

Exactly. And I was brought on as like a co producer to help write the script and to rewrite it as we were doing it. And that was always my thing is I was like, this is gonna be an R rated movie. We should fucking go for it. Like, we should have them. I remember. And Carell was very uncomfortable with it.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And he had the prompts of that movie.

[Ben Hoss]

He had the prior generation.

[David Sims]

He didn't want to swear. I remember I had to write a whole script that was like, there was no swearing. Like I had to like redo every scene and I was always coming up with clean versions. That's where that Kelly Clarkson joke came up from. Because I literally was tasked with like, what are not. What are things that he could say. Right. Like as he's getting waxed. And I even remember like, there's the scenery and Rudd are. Are playing video games and we're saying, you know, I know you're gay. And. And we're smoking weed like from a pipe in that scene. And even that was like, are you sure they Were like, this is crazy. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it was Dylan going electric.

[David Sims]

Yeah, there was. They were never. There was. There were people smoking weed. If the joke wasn't that they were smoking weed, that's. They was. It was always. If they were smoking weed. It was the joke. Joke. And. And if they. But I was like, people just sit around and smoke weed also. It's not. It's not always the joke. And I remember when we did it in the theater, people, like, burst into applause just like. Because at the sight of two guys smoking weed and playing video games and like swearing and at the time, that was like, somehow revolutionary.

[Ben Hoss]

The thing about that movie, and I do remember, I mean, like the first time I saw it in a theater and all that.

[Griffin Newman]

It.

[Ben Hoss]

You're also watching all those characters kind of realize they all like hanging out. Like. Like at the start of the movie, they just like work at the TV store and they hate it or. And like you're watching them, they all want to hang out and talk about their dicks.

[Griffin Newman]

You say 40 year old virgins. I mean, the first image that pops into my head is him sitting uncomfortably at the poker table. Becomes the boob conversation. But that.

[David Sims]

That's like the movie that the whole. That's like the idea the whole movie is based on. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But also that is the motor that you just described of this guy doesn't like all this cursing happening.

[David Sims]

Sort of worked for the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

All the friends you guys all react with like, can we get you laid? Instead of being like, oh, I don't want to deal with you. Yeah, that's why that movie's fun.

[David Sims]

Sweet.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Seth Rogen]

It's fun to hit each other with the fluorescent light bulbs.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Seth Rogen]

That was something that me and my.

[David Sims]

That was Adam McKay. I remember we did a Taylor read and Adam McKay, that was his strong pitch, was.

[Ben Hoss]

Whose idea was David Caruso and Jade.

[David Sims]

That was me, for sure. I was gonna say that.

[Ben Hoss]

That's the best line, 100%.

[David Sims]

Okay, here's that and Corell B being.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, I know exactly what.

[David Sims]

Yes, of course I know exactly what you mean.

[Griffin Newman]

There's another thing. We mentioned that a lot on the podcast. I often cite it as my single favorite line of dialogue. The funniest line of dialogue in any movie. And I need to know if this came from you and Evan or from Hater in Superbad when you're driving McLovin around and you're doing Star wars impressions, and then Hater turns back and he goes, you know Yoda from Attack of the Clones?

[David Sims]

Yeah, that Was Bill Hader. Okay, that was the funniest joke. That was so stupid. That was us really making ourselves laugh.

[Griffin Newman]

Yoda from Attack.

[David Sims]

From Attack of the Clothes. It was so stupid. Me and Bill loved Fucking with Christmas Plass, who was a child at the time, Right. And I remember New Childhood. I remember we were talking about the movie Short Circuit. Like, we'd film all these scenes where he's in the back of the car and me and Bill would just talk. And we were talking about Short Circuit. It. We're talking about. Oh, yeah. It's like just kind of reminiscing. It's like. Right. It's like the robot, he gets struck by lightning. That's what brings him to life. And Chris is like, what do you guys talk about? And we're like, this movie Short Circuit. And he's like, oh, what is that? And he never heard of it. And Bill goes, it's a documentary about a robot that comes to life, got hit by Lane. And I feel like this was, like, maybe a little before, like, everyone just was googling everything all the time. And for, like, several weeks, we had convinced Christmas, plus that Short Circuit was a documentary about a robot which made the Fisher Stevens playing an Indian guy even more confusing.

[Griffin Newman]

This was real.

[Ben Hoss]

You're like, that's.

[David Sims]

That's the real guy, huh?

[Griffin Newman]

But I. I feel like, to your point, right, like, you guys had this sort of, like, devotion to this idea of why are comedies not reflecting a certain, like, social reality. Right. And that in sort of studio logic, these things need to be justified, as that is the entire point of the movie. If you are making a stoner movie, it is Cheech and Chong. Every scene is driven by.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

These guys. Overwhelming desire.

[David Sims]

They're cooking weed in a van made of weed. Right. Object. They turn it into a bomb. Yes.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And it's like, if weed exists in a movie, it is either that or there is a set piece scene in one scene where someone.

[Ben Hoss]

Sweden. Has the crazy.

[David Sims]

And then they.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a bucket or whatever.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? And those are, like, the only half baked.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's like. Like, it's like, all about.

[Griffin Newman]

Similarly, if a character's cursing a lot, it's like this character is a bad person.

[David Sims]

Like a mafia guy or something.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one scene of John Poo.

[Ben Hoss]

I went to College in 2004. And I do think part of the thing with this movie is, like, there weren't a lot of good stoner movies.

[David Sims]

No, there were almost none.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, there were Cheech and Chong or whatever. That felt very Old fashioned.

[David Sims]

Which I actually think it's one of the reasons it struck such a big cultural. I really think that the culture was swerving that way. Yeah. And when. When we made Pineapple Express, we could just see that there was like so few good things that even like had the care and attention put into them as like any normal thing. Put that for people who smoke weed or even like mentioning people who smoke weed in a respect. Like giving them the respect of actually crafting something that is like worthy of watching. And this movie, I think was probably like cathartic to a lot of people in a lot of ways because you're like, oh, like the Coen brothers, like some of the best filmmakers.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean. And I will stop sucking your dick after this.

[David Sims]

But just like with super dad. Super bad.

[Ben Hoss]

Like I'm watching that. I was. When did that come out? 0607.

[Griffin Newman]

It came out. So I was the summer between my high school graduation and going to college, which I was just like. That was like watching the movie in 10 DX.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It was the most visceral. I watched like five times.

[Ben Hoss]

I was right out of car. I just graduated. But still.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

I felt like. Like that was a movie where it's like they want to, but they're pretty scared of it.

[David Sims]

Oh yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And like there weren't like sex comedies were instead about. About like guys who are like, you know, 28 years old playing 17 year.

[David Sims]

Olds being like, I can't wait to get laid and Superman is them being.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, I'm interested, but I wouldn't know what to do.

[David Sims]

And I'm scared. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And like, I don't think I'd ever.

[Ben Hoss]

Seen that in a movie like that way.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Like Michael, Sarah in bed with Martha McGeise.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I was like, this is like the eyeball being cut in. You're finally tapping into the most like primal terror in my being.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Is like the girl's hornier than you. Yeah. And what do you do? What am I supposed to do here? Do with that? Yeah, it was. And that's. It's very reflective of our real life experience.

[Griffin Newman]

But. But like to on ramp back. I mean all of this is. But all of this is like inspired by the.

[David Sims]

Inspired.

[Griffin Newman]

I always think about you and Evan talk three.

[David Sims]

I'd say Evan and Michael and McLovin is inspired by Walt and Dude.

[Ben Hoss]

And that energy like Jonah is very.

[David Sims]

Much argue that like palpable sort of aggressive, argumentative dynamic to us was something.

[Griffin Newman]

And even the like Shut the fuck up, Fogle.

[David Sims]

Literally. I mean Literally. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

No. I was going to say, I've heard you guys talk about so much how, like, making movies are. It's so difficult and so many things can go wrong, and it can be so embarrassing and demoralizing that it's kind of like it's not worth doing unless you have an idea that you're willing to die to make.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And that you talk about when you were, like, started to write super bad, in the years of you trying to get it made, when you didn't have, like, the clout in Hollywood, you were like, we would die to get this film made, and no one else gets it because it's like a fucking high school sex comedy. But it means this much to us that there's something we have to say. And the dismissal of Big Lebowski at the time is so weird, with this attitude of, like, are they fucking pranking us? Where you watch this and you do feel like this is a movie they were willing to die.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And they're like, well, we'll use all the cachet from winning Best Picture and put it into this, like, stoner comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, weird level of urgency and thought to it of, like, we. We have always wanted to make this, and this is the only moment where we.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Where we have the cachet to do it. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

The movie costs $15 million. And Bridges, apparently, when he got, like, the whatever lowball offer that, like, they sent him was like, you guys just won an Oscar. You can't pay me more money. And they were like, we want the budget low so they won't fuck with us.

[Griffin Newman]

It's another thing I think about a lot. You guys have talked about the post Green Hornet thing of, like, you guys learned the lesson from. From this movie got too big. Too many people had to weigh in, in every decision. And I cite it all the time in this podcast that you guys will pitch films as like, what is the budget number? Where. If it's below this, you don't give us notes, Literally.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That's basically it.

[Griffin Newman]

Where it's such a bargain that if we can get these actors.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You'll just leave us.

[David Sims]

And to us now, it's the number where it's like, what is it? What's the number where they'll always be a bigger problem they have to deal with?

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like what? Like, as long as there's a more expensive movie going off the rail. Yes, they will. They'll just never get to us. They don't have the infrastructure. They have too many other holes to park.

[Ben Hoss]

Just, like, six guys at this point.

[Griffin Newman]

But they've been so smart about it where it's just like their two biggest movies are Hudsucker and True Grit. Hudsucker is their biggest flop. True Grit was their biggest success, but both of those still were like $50 million.

[Ben Hoss]

Not. Not out of control.

[Griffin Newman]

They've just always kept it at a level where, like, it allows them the hits and misses to all. All even out.

[David Sims]

It's so smart. Yeah. And they clearly shoot in an efficient way. They clearly plan everything. I mean, I remember even. Yeah, I remember when this. I remember watching this and it was so funny because it was like right when we were making all of our movies. I remember watching like all the behind the scenes features for it and seeing how they like storyboarded every single shot of the movie. And I'd like never seen. I'd made four movies and never seen one storyboard in my entire life and was like, oh, wow, that's like a good. Really, really different way of making things. But you see a lot of it is so you can be efficient and so you can shoot the stuff that has, like, scope in a very quick and cheap way, you know? Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah. So what do you want to say about the Big Lebowski?

[Griffin Newman]

I think we pretty much said it all. Thank you all for letting.

[Ben Hoss]

No, no, no.

[Griffin Newman]

So, okay, Starts as we said, with.

[Ben Hoss]

Paying for the milk. Well, we're pushing the stranger with la.

[Griffin Newman]

Right literal.

[David Sims]

The tumbleweeds start to see. So some sort of CGI looking and tumbleweed. Maybe the beach.

[Ben Hoss]

This is an early CGI movie.

[David Sims]

Like.

[Ben Hoss]

Like them doing the dream sequences and stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Like the dream sequence weirdly works so well as like a time capsule of screen saver.

[Ben Hoss]

It feels aesthetics. You know what else is good about it? Jeff Bridges is so locked in.

[David Sims]

He's so funny. He's having so much fun.

[Griffin Newman]

He's incredible in this. Yes, it is.

[David Sims]

Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah. I think Jeff Bridges gives a good performance in the big. Labowski.

[Ben Hoss]

No, he's incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

And what is strong, striking about watching it now is actually how clearly he speaks.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Because I think the complicated thing has gotten so accelerated.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

In what we talk about the like Billy Goat graph shooting on a tin can.

[David Sims]

Yeah, no, he's very. And he. And his voice is sort of high. Is what's interesting is it's kind of whining. Yeah, it's sort of like a. What do you. It's like a high exasperation which is.

[Griffin Newman]

Has such a good take on how to play this guy. That is not the obvious way of doing it. Which. Which is. This guy wants to believe he's not affected by anything, and yet he's very easily annoyed.

[David Sims]

He's very worked up about everything that happens.

[Ben Hoss]

Right. Because the inciting incident is, of course, Jacob from Lost and another guy stealing his rug. That guy's always Jacob.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, they piss on the rug first.

[Ben Hoss]

They piss on it, and then they take it. Yeah, actually, it's a good point. Why do they piss on it before they steal it? I don't think they steal it later.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Ben Hoss]

They piss on it and they beat it.

[David Sims]

No, they just pissed on and they think he gets rid of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Which they don't show.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes, you're right. And they.

[David Sims]

They put his head in the.

[Ben Hoss]

They put his head in the tower.

[Seth Rogen]

And they really leave him in there for a while. I feel like that's the first time I cl.

[Griffin Newman]

And even still, that's sort of like a shrug. And it's not until they get on the rug that he's like, come on, guys.

[David Sims]

Details. And it's like. It's something. It's like, I remember when we were blocking, like, the fight scene in Pineapple Express, like, showing the. The. The fight choreographer, and it always left such an impression on me when the guy's rushing into the bathroom and his bowling ball hits the door frame, and it breaks off a chunk of the door frame. It's just so awkward and weird. And again, sets a tone for a world where nothing's going right, kind of in a weird way. And I remember being like, they clearly did that on purpose. But it's such a cool little detail that sort of shows the sloppiness of all this.

[Griffin Newman]

The Pineapple fight is so good in that same way where you're like, the. This is given the amount of space and time as if it is like a Jet Lee set piece. And yet it is all just people who don't know how to fight in a shitty apartment causing collateral damage.

[David Sims]

The whole joke was like. Like how hard it actually would be to knock someone unconscious. So the fight. The fight would just have to keep going.

[Griffin Newman]

By the way, that's like what the Cohen said was their main impetus for Blood Simple. Is there, like, movies make it seem like it's really easy to kill someone?

[David Sims]

Yeah, probably are. It probably takes hours.

[Ben Hoss]

So stressful.

[Griffin Newman]

And people are just close to death for so long.

[Ben Hoss]

So his rug is destroyed. He goes to his bowling alley.

[Griffin Newman]

Clearly are looking for another guy.

[Ben Hoss]

Looking for the Big Lebowski.

[Griffin Newman]

The Big Lebowski.

[David Sims]

And after, like, an amazingly Cinematic opening sequence, which I think is also like.

[Griffin Newman]

What'S so interesting at the bowling alley.

[David Sims]

At the bowling alley. So like indulgent in a weird way and. But like shamelessly cinematic at the same time. I think I love the tum tum shot. Yes. The guy who does the little like shimmy. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's also like why this movie is centered in the world of bowling. Right.

[David Sims]

It's like why like to call this movie like thrown like haphazard is so crazy. Like it's so clearly composed. I agree with you.

[Ben Hoss]

Like they talk about it like, right. Like just some like indie comedy that.

[David Sims]

Was like you have to like build special sets that like capture like that allow the camera to like pass through.

[Ben Hoss]

Like the bowling ball giant like wide lens shot.

[Griffin Newman]

But this idea of like the, the.

[Ben Hoss]

Like Busby Berkeley musical sequences with bowling alley dances.

[Griffin Newman]

This idea of like the middle aged working man's like weekend sport or.

[Ben Hoss]

Bowling's so funny. I love bowling. I really love bowling. I did it a ton as a kid because like it was a great thing to do.

[David Sims]

You couldn't go to a bar yet, right?

[Griffin Newman]

I loved going to the arcade in bowling alleys.

[David Sims]

Oh yeah, right. Still do.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah. I went recently. The gutter in the. In Williamsburg.

[David Sims]

I go there all the time.

[Ben Hoss]

Time it's like so shitty. Like half the time they. The pin thing doesn't even work and you have to be like, hey. And they're like, oh, sorry. And like everyone is unathletic. Everyone looks like a complete dork. Like, especially in like the bowling world.

[Griffin Newman]

Anyone who takes bowling seriously, bowling leagues.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, they're all weird but you kind of love them.

[Griffin Newman]

Culture is permanently stuck in the 1960s. You're like, this is a late 90s movie. We're all of the vibes of bowling.

[Ben Hoss]

Like the aesthetic is like bowling carry.

[David Sims]

Like 1960s style shirts. Literally.

[Griffin Newman]

Am I wrong? Has anyone updated it since are so.

[Seth Rogen]

Like just caught in that culture is.

[Griffin Newman]

All stuck in like 1968.

[David Sims]

Well, no. Now there's like pins. Is that what it's called? Sort of like hip bowling. Like influencer bowling. It's like the top golf of bowling. Kind of like, like I don't know about this. They have them around la. There's looking at it.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like there's like, there's like cool singles bowling, but that's different than like people who make their life be built.

[David Sims]

I don't want that.

[Ben Hoss]

Like I want to go to a shitty bowling alley with stars and neon and yeah, like $2 beer drink shitty beer and Exactly. Just sit. Because, like, so much of bowling is sitting, a lot of it.

[David Sims]

You're mostly not doing anything right.

[Ben Hoss]

And then when you do your turn.

[David Sims]

You'Re like, how Right.

[Ben Hoss]

How much do I, like, sort of.

[David Sims]

Shimmy or show off 40 seconds of stuff for every eight minutes of not stuff. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And so.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

So he.

[Griffin Newman]

Part of it is that, like, when the most exciting thing happens, happens, there's a good chance that no one's.

[David Sims]

No one's paying attention except you.

[Griffin Newman]

That there's like two thrilling seconds.

[David Sims]

You see what I did?

[Griffin Newman]

I'm eating mozzarella sticks.

[Ben Hoss]

And you get to celebrate, which is.

[Seth Rogen]

A really fun part of bowling. As you come back to your.

[David Sims]

There's like a walk. There's like an organic sort of walk.

[Seth Rogen]

You have an end zone dance.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

So they go see the Big Lebowski now. I love that it's David Huddleston, who's just like a character actor guy. That's cinema. They wanted, like, Robert Duvall, who, like, read the script and was like, what the fuck is that? Like, they went to all these big shots for that.

[David Sims]

That's really funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Stabilize it. Because the whole point is that this guy isn't really important.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, they asked, like, Anthony Hopkins. They wanted Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, like, all that makes sense, but, like, I feel like it's perfect that he's this kind of. You can immediately understand that he's a loser.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Ben Hoss]

I feel like I've seen the movie so much that of course I know he's kind of foolish, but I feel like you know that right away.

[David Sims]

He doesn't particularly strong or imposing, but.

[Griffin Newman]

He'S like one of the guys in the boardroom in Hudsucker. You're like, even in a movie that is heightened, this guy is a. An affect of a wealthy, powerful person.

[David Sims]

Well, also, you meet Brant first, who sucks like a blowhard. Like, he's so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Truly be the single greatest split three card in the history of cinema. There is one card that is Philip Seymour Hoffman. Flea. Leon Russom, the great Leon Russell plays the sheriff at the end, who is my beloved Pull the cork man. And true Gray. I love that guy, but I'm just like that. The. The fact that the bench is so deep. And this era of American cinema where it felt like there is a clearly identified consensus pool pool of the 25 greatest character actors alive. And in the second half of the 90s, in the early 2000s, the five best directors are all pulling from it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, the Amount of overlap between like this and Boogie Nights.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, like, there's.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's true.

[Griffin Newman]

This pool of just like. Hey, you know what? Any movie that has some combination of.

[David Sims]

I know this movie's missing more. Yeah. You need.

[Griffin Newman]

You're cooking with gas. If you get six of these people, even if they're only gonna pop up for 20 lines, they like, they auditioned.

[Ben Hoss]

A murders row for that role.

[David Sims]

I remember Paul Rudd auditioned. He told me he auditioned for Brand and he, like, performed for me what he did. And it was like the weirdest thing in the entire world. Did you see him perform it after.

[Ben Hoss]

Having watched Phil.

[David Sims]

I was probably talking about how much I like that movie. He's like, I auditioned for Brant and it was humiliating and I made the weirdest choice in the entire film. What did he do? He did. He was like. He did this, like, weird, like, hello, Like. And he, like. I just remember he had this, like, weird cartoon butler. Like. Like a cartoon butler, like that guy from the cartoons who was like, yes, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Why, yes, it is the magic of Flame Hoffman. And our. Our friend James Urban Maniac has talked about this, but that he auditioned for an off Broadway play in the 90s and was just like, got the audition was like, this is my role. This is a James Urbaniak role. Post Henry Fool. Who else is gonna get this part? And he doesn't get it. And he's furious. And he goes to see it opening night and he comes out and immediately from the first second on stage, he's just like, this is the only guy who could have played it. He is making a choice I never would have considered.

[David Sims]

And.

[Griffin Newman]

And it feels so bizarre and out of left field. And yet it is, in retrospect, the only right choice. And like, he's taking big swings with this part. It's not like he's not doing weird.

[David Sims]

Oh, he's doing such. The weirdest part is when he repeats the line.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And I could never. That. I genuinely don't know if it was supposed to be in the script or if he just.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

But it is, like, so weird and seems robotic. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Because he doesn't even reset to the beginning of the line where it could be an edit point. He goes back four words.

[David Sims]

It's so.

[Griffin Newman]

Where you're like, it wouldn't even help.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

To have this.

[David Sims]

There was a movie I was gonna be in and then I didn't do it. And then he did it. And I remember. And I've talked to the director. No, he was that it was called the Boat that Rocked.

[Ben Hoss]

But, yeah, the Richard Curtis.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And I. And he wanted me to do it, and I couldn't do it. And then he got film super Hoffman. And then I saw him after that, and I was like, you really lucked out. And he's like, honestly, I did. He's like, he's like, I feel no remorse to tell the guy he did a much better job than you would have done. He's a much better actor than you are. The movie turned out much better as a result of him having done that role in.

[Griffin Newman]

I do just kind of think he's the best to ever do it. I think he's, like, the best screen actor of all time. And I think the argument for that is every single performance.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah. He wanted me to be in the movie. He directed the Jack, and I met with him and he wanted me to be the star of it, which was.

[Griffin Newman]

To play the part he ended up playing.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And it was one of the most flattering moments of my life because it's.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, yeah, I can see how.

[David Sims]

But I remember saying in the meeting to him, like, a, I don't. I would be honestly too scared to act for you every day. Right. And B, like, you should do it. You are a better actor than you know. You have access to. You. Are you aware that there's no one giving you your headshot? No. You. You've been told you're technically unavailable for this because I don't think you are. You should do this. You're the best actor. There's no better actor. And then. And then he did it. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And was good.

[David Sims]

You know, you're right. I have a better actor than you. Great advice.

[Ben Hoss]

All your stories end up with someone being.

[David Sims]

By the way, I crushed it. You were right.

[Griffin Newman]

Another thing in blank check lore I need to invoke.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, what's that?

[Griffin Newman]

You auditioning for James O. Brooks? For. How do you know?

[Ben Hoss]

Was that for the Rudd.

[Griffin Newman]

Roll?

[David Sims]

Yes. Yes. Audition for the Rud Roll.

[Ben Hoss]

Wait, what is the. I don't know what this.

[David Sims]

It's a crazy story.

[Griffin Newman]

You tell the story, but it's the greatest audition response I've ever.

[David Sims]

It's pretty funny where I, I, I've known Jim. Jim, as they call him, James L. Brooks. I've known him for a while, and it's like one of the greatest gifts of my life that I know James L. Brooks, like, it's incredible. I wrote a Simpsons episode once, and he, you know, he was very helpful and he was amazing, and he's come to our table reads. And he's just. Judd got his start on the Critic, which was a James L. Brooks show. So he was sort of like in our orbit always. And so he called me when Superbad came out. He was like a huge fan. Like, so he's making how do youo Know? And he calls me into audition, and his audition process is like, crazy, you know? And I go in and Reese Witherspoon is like, there. Like, she's already cast in the movie. And for the audition, we're like in his office. We're. Which is at Sony, I think, at the time. And he basically shoots the scene. And it's like a five hour audition where we do a master. Calls me out of the room and gives me direction. We do another take.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you just in an office then?

[David Sims]

We're just in his office sitting on a couch. We do another take, calls me outside, gives me more direction. He starts giving Rhys direction. I'm like, she's casting out. Like, what are you doing?

[Griffin Newman]

He needs, like, full simulation of what he wants.

[David Sims]

He wants full simulation. And so we spend, I'm not joking, five hours shooting this scene. And then I don't hear anything. Weeks, a couple weeks go by, and I'm like, maybe I'm going to do this movie. People ask me what I'm going to do. I'm like, oh, maybe you got this part in the Chim Brooks movie. Which is exciting that I remember. I remember it so I remember where I. I was like, walking across the Sony lot where he also was. It's where our offices were. And I got a phone call and they were like, like, jim Brooks calling for you. And I was like, oh, cool. And then like a minute, a second goes by and like, the first words out of his mouth are. He goes, not even close, pal.

[Griffin Newman]

Not even close, pal is one of the greatest lines ever.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, my God.

[David Sims]

And I was like. And I had that. I was like, what? What are you fucking talking about? I was like, it's been two weeks. It took you two, two weeks to get to not even.

[Griffin Newman]

But also, like, this guy's a good writer. That's the right line. That's the best line someone could say in a James O. Brooks movie.

[David Sims]

So funny. He's not even close to laugh so hard.

[Ben Hoss]

Did he then couch it at all? Then go like.

[David Sims]

But I love. He was like, honestly, watching it, I realized you're just too young. Like, he was like that. He's like. And that's what I've been wrestling with for the last few weeks. Is he's like, I liked what you did, but I keep just thinking maybe you're too young. And he cast Paul Rudd who is, you know, 10 years old or something like that.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's like, seth, I have Jim Brooks for you online too. Not even close.

[David Sims]

Not even close. Now literally, that was how it sounded. I have Jim Brooks for you. Cool. Not even close, pal. I like. It was legitimately hilarious. Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails.

[Griffin Newman]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.

[David Sims]

Roger.

[Ben Hoss]

Wait, is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the.

[David Sims]

Right people by industry, job title and more.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign.

[David Sims]

Get started today at LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions.

[Griffin Newman]

Appreciate. David. Yes, I wear glasses.

[Ben Hoss]

Ah, to see.

[Griffin Newman]

I do in fact wear them to see.

[Ben Hoss]

I used to wear them as an affectation when I was a child.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I did the same thing. Yeah, I pretended they were real and then people found me out to be a fake. And then because of that, when I started actually needing glasses and wearing them for real, all my friends crying wolf, convinced that it is still just an affectation. But it is not. I. I assume you need them to see. My vision get gets worse by the minute. It feels like sometimes.

[Seth Rogen]

But I just stopped wearing mine.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. How's that going for you? It sucks.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

See, this is the thing, Ben.

[David Sims]

What do you mean?

[Ben Hoss]

Why'd you stop?

[Seth Rogen]

I just got lazy.

[Griffin Newman]

You gotta get your butt to Warby Parker. You're the one who's always telling me the value of throwing a good fit, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And feeling good. It affecting your whole sense of self.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

And War Parker's like throwing a fit for the face. Yeah, it is it, it truly it immediately improves your quality of life. But you're on board with glasses, right?

[Ben Hoss]

Orby Parker used premium materials. They design frames in house. They've got silhouettes, colors and fits made to fit every face.

[Griffin Newman]

I love the frames themselves. But let me. Can I just talk about the experience because David, I went through it again recently.

[Ben Hoss]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I had an old pair of glasses that had been my main veins for a while break on me. After several years of loyal service, I salute them and I, I went and it was one stop shopping. I said it's been two years. Let me get new vision tests, get your eye exam, get examined, new prescription eye pressure test. And then immediately while I'm waiting for the results, I'm going around, I'm looking at frames, I'm Trying them on and there's a flexibility there. Right. Folks just want cool stuff. Sunglasses, you can get them cheaper at Warby Parker than a lot of other places. But sometimes you see a sunglass frame you like and you go can I actually get this in clear vision lenses. Can I get this pair meant to be readers as sunglasses you can try on all sorts of crazy stuff. This is my new thing. I'm into sunglass clip on. So you just got the one pair.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Ben Hoss]

Pull the Chris Farley meme. The sort of flipping up.

[Griffin Newman]

Well that's a flip up, that's not a clip on.

[Ben Hoss]

You know what? Warby Parker glasses start at $95 with prescription lenses, anti reflective scratch resistant coatings. And then many Warber Parker locations have the comprehensive eye exam starting at $85. You add a pair, you're going to save 15% if you're going to purchase two or more pairs of glasses.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing I love or sunglasses. I double up. I'll get one pair of each or I'll get two to have a backup pair.

[Ben Hoss]

They got free shipping, they got free 30 day return turns. It's a total one stop shop. As you just said. You actually use it.

[Griffin Newman]

I do. And let me say this, I use exclusively Warby Parker as I have for years. They have over 300 retail locations in both the US and Canada. But they also have a great app, a great website virtual try on program. You can sign up for a few, they send you a few for free. You try them on, you send back the one you want. There's a lot of flexibility. You can warby your way. This is a tagline I'm making up Warby your way.

[Ben Hoss]

Warby Parker has over 300 locations to help you find your next pair of glasses. You can also head over to warvparker.com check right now to try on any pair virtually. That's warvparker.com check. Warvparker.com check.

[Griffin Newman]

And if people want to flip it griff style, I'll just say I'm currently rocking the top body, wide frame and oak barrel.

[Seth Rogen]

And it's cool too because you can see if you get glasses.

[Ben Hoss]

Wait, how did we get to that? It doesn't matter.

[Griffin Newman]

We're talking about brands. The only thing I want to call.

[Ben Hoss]

Out his last when she says I'll give you a blowjob is truly amazing. I wish I could laugh like that. Like I could do that. Kind of like I want to kill myself.

[David Sims]

Like that's one of those lines. I'm Always. I think there's almost like a Tourette syndrome that kicks in. Like when you realize you can quote the Big Lebowski if you're a fan. You have to like when someone. And I'm not proud of it, but it is something I find myself doing. And whenever someone says that someone's a nihilist, I say, oh, that must be exhausting. And people look at me like I make no fucking sense in any way, shape or form.

[Ben Hoss]

You're trying to speak the language.

[David Sims]

Yes, I'm trying.

[Griffin Newman]

Like Monty Python, the Holy Grail was like this. This limited canon of movies where you're like. It truly has 1000 lines that you can repurpose into any conversation.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The only thing I want to call out is in the meticulous sort of table mood setting of the bowling, you do get the introduction of the Jesus.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is given the pomp and circumstances if he is the Darth Vader of the movie.

[David Sims]

I mean, again, right.

[Ben Hoss]

The fact that this movie is like. Let's pause for a minute and do.

[David Sims]

Introduce for a minute. Six minutes.

[Griffin Newman]

Minutes in, right?

[Ben Hoss]

And do.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

A whole eagles, like, underscore, you know, like, do the whole thing for the Jesus.

[David Sims]

My favorite shot in the whole movie is the shot of John Turturro having to knock on the door of the guy to explain he's a pedophile. And like, it is truly and honestly.

[Ben Hoss]

It is beautiful visual storytelling.

[David Sims]

Like in Super Bad, we directly reference it when there's a scene where McLovin's like, explaining how he saw a girl in a thong in the hallway.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yes.

[David Sims]

And like, that is a direct. A direct ripoff of that moment.

[Griffin Newman]

The cutaway to something you could already imagine.

[David Sims]

You're not very mundane, basically. Benign, kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That's already being very specifically explained in the first place.

[Griffin Newman]

So funny. And him just being a little dressed down. That he looks like.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that he looks different. You see like in the bowling alley, he's a different guy. Kind of like, he's sort of like a cool cock of the walk in the bowling alley, but in real life, he's a picture pedophile.

[Ben Hoss]

He is eight.

[David Sims]

Eight year old dude, but right.

[Ben Hoss]

Like that. It's like all these men who are losers, God bless them. Like, right. This is where they're happy.

[Griffin Newman]

But also.

[Ben Hoss]

And like, this is where they themselves.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a movie of self styled like mythology. Right. Everyone is like, here's who I am. You know, my thing. Here's my reputation. They are people. They are like sketch comedy characters in A real world.

[David Sims]

Smokey's a pacifist.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Ben Hoss]

He's a pacifist.

[David Sims]

Emotional problem.

[Griffin Newman]

And their look, and they're just like, how dare you don't know my game.

[David Sims]

My thing is.

[Ben Hoss]

And then, like, Donnie is this kind of blessed. He's like the pinball wizard from, you know, Tommy or whatever, where you're just like, strikes nor. Right. But also, it's like you feels like you couldn't have a conversation with him, like, about anything.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a reason he does not exist.

[David Sims]

Yes, sure.

[Ben Hoss]

Really?

[Griffin Newman]

Because no other character in the movie addresses him. We have. We have this porch replica in our office. Right. There's a replica of Ben's childhood porch that he used to watch movies on.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Did an art show earlier this year. We built it as part of the installation. Very cool that you know what porch movies are.

[David Sims]

I know what some porch movies are.

[Griffin Newman]

And then had it moved here to the office. The guys who came and installed it in the office that came in when they were finishing up and they went, hey, what do you think about that theory that in Big Lebowski, Donnie isn't real? And I was like, what do you mean? And they were like, you know, you could go down this rabbit hole. There's this whole theory because only the dude and Walter ever reply to him him that no one else ever acknowledges him. That'd be a weird shared hallucination in which he exists. Right.

[David Sims]

When he dies, this funeral director gives them someone's ashes. Unless that guy's in on.

[Ben Hoss]

It's why it doesn't make any.

[David Sims]

Not a good theory.

[Griffin Newman]

But I said to them, like, oh, interesting. Yeah, we'll talk about that, I guess, when we do our Big Lebowski episode. And they went, oh, you're doing a Big Lebowski episode? And I went, why did you bring this up to me? And they were like, I don't know. We heard he likes movies.

[David Sims]

We heard you guys were in a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

The proliferation of this film. Yeah, right. That, like, two carpenters were just like, hey, you're a movie guy. Can I talk about Big Lebowski with you? That's the number one movie I want to talk about.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, well, because it is this movie.

[David Sims]

That has, like, kind of an art movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

It has a mystical sense to it that you are like, what is it about?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I feel like if you fall.

[Ben Hoss]

Here, watch it 100 times.

[David Sims]

It is, like, the weirdest cross section between, like, an art film and, like, of incredibly mainstream extreme, like, comedy.

[Ben Hoss]

Silly comedy.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Because, like, if I describe the plot of the Big Les. Your attempt to. It's like the rug gets stolen.

[David Sims]

He.

[Ben Hoss]

He bugs the Big Lebowski about it, and then because that connection is made, the Big Lebowski tries to use him to recover one that those guys, because.

[Griffin Newman]

They thought he was the Big Lebowski.

[David Sims]

He realizes he can use this idiot to embezzle money to himself.

[Ben Hoss]

The Big Lebows rescue.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

He's stealing a million dollars from his own.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And he's gonna use.

[David Sims]

And he knows his daughter keeps track of the money, so he had to concoct a plot in order to account for a million dollars that he's trying to.

[Griffin Newman]

His. Miss. His young wife has gone missing on vacation, but her nihilist friends have seized it as an opportunity to pretend that they're holding her ransom.

[David Sims]

Meanwhile.

[Griffin Newman]

Opportunity to launder his own money.

[David Sims]

Exactly. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. To give it back to himself away from the funds that his. The movie stepdaughter plot for the movie. Biological daughter.

[David Sims]

It is his biological daughter.

[Griffin Newman]

Biological.

[Ben Hoss]

But the.

[David Sims]

The.

[Ben Hoss]

The dude is progressing through things one step at a time. So he's always, like, concerned about whatever. Like, we lost the bag. We need the briefcase. But obviously, at no point does money change hands. At no point is there money for him to have.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's a briefcase full of fumbles.

[Ben Hoss]

At no point is Tara Reed in trouble.

[David Sims]

Nope.

[Ben Hoss]

The only person who loses a toe is a nihilist. And she doesn't care about anything.

[Griffin Newman]

She sacrifices it.

[David Sims]

She sacrificed it. But she's mad bad about it.

[Griffin Newman]

The great.

[Ben Hoss]

Pissed off about it. Yes. Iconic. No dialogue. Or. She says, pancakes or something.

[Griffin Newman]

Pancakes.

[David Sims]

Pancakes. And Walter says, I thought you guys were nihilist. One of my.

[Ben Hoss]

One of my favorite things is, of course, that John Polito is watching all of this happen in another movie, essentially.

[Griffin Newman]

Pretty good movie over here.

[Ben Hoss]

And he seems to be from, like, the 50s. The. One of the best gags of the Big Lebowski is the picture of the farm arm where he's like, we think.

[David Sims]

It'Ll make our homesick.

[Ben Hoss]

And it looks like some dust bowl picture.

[David Sims]

Industrial. Yeah. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

But also his Pinto. It's like the spectrum of, like, he's.

[Ben Hoss]

Driven from another Bogart is.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone at the center of a story like this wants to think they are, right. Polito is who they actually are.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And Lebowski is the guy who doesn't even want to be in it.

[David Sims]

Polito's so funny.

[Ben Hoss]

He's so fucking funny.

[David Sims]

And the way his, like, whole, like, stance he's in when he thinks he maybe has to fight the dude really made me.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, one of the funniest things about Polito in this movie, right, Is also him just being like, are you a genius to the dude? And the Dude's kind of like, yeah, maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

In the Miller's Crossing episode, I was talking about how he. They didn't want to audition him for Miller's Crossing.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

They knew him as a pretty boy actor.

[David Sims]

Well, I was gonna say, I also, like, I've met John Polito.

[Ben Hoss]

God bless.

[David Sims]

His people are more different from how they are. Oh, really?

[Griffin Newman]

Was very even keeled.

[David Sims]

No, he was like extremely flamboyant, but like an incredibly, like flamboyant gay man, old fashioned and not like a tough Italian.

[Griffin Newman]

He was like John Waters.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like, he was like Harvey Fierstein. Like, literally, like, in such a lovely, disarming way. I think he auditioned for something we were doing and like, I just remember him like, sort of like perching himself literally, like on the edge of the thing being like, what's the direct like? Like, it was, it was ador. He was adorable. Like, there's no better word for it. He was absolutely adorable. And I'd only known him from these movies.

[Ben Hoss]

Makes me love him more.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Ben Hoss]

You expect like this guy to watch.

[David Sims]

What are you doing? He was like, hello. Bursting blood vessels.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

What's your correction about John?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I said that he, he had been a pretty boy actor and they didn't want to audition him. They wanted him to audition for the Dane because when they had last seen him, he was very skinny and had a lot of hair. And many people on the Reddit got.

[Ben Hoss]

Upset because he never had hair.

[Griffin Newman]

He never had hair?

[Ben Hoss]

No, he was, he was skinnier and a little like, more.

[Griffin Newman]

There is pretty boy Polito you can find in earlier crime movies. There's. There's a tupe he wears in like two or three, but it's even a receding tube in his early 20s. But then he just. Yeah, it's like one day he suddenly had this look and he was the perfect guy to play these characters that were so different than who he was.

[Ben Hoss]

My big take on sort of the dude and Walter, right?

[David Sims]

Who are like.

[Ben Hoss]

Because, like, you watch the movie enough, you kind of start to be like, why are they friends? And then you watch it more and you're like, they have to be friends. Like, they're essential to each other's like, continued happiness. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it's a yin yang thing. They can't exist without each other.

[Ben Hoss]

Walter hates like, like, what's happened to him. Right. He hates that the country isn't whatever he wants it to be.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, Walter. It's just like, grievances everywhere that he.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically lost his mind in service. Service of a war that didn't matter.

[David Sims]

He became Jewish. Jewish.

[Ben Hoss]

Right. He stayed Jewish, if you will.

[David Sims]

It is no dreams.

[Griffin Newman]

And he has the qanon energy of like, how are you guys not angry about this? Like, everyone should be screaming at all.

[Ben Hoss]

Also the energy of like, he hears one thing and he's like, it must be true.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

You know, like, where it's like, he. She can never herself is something. The dude just idly thinks I can make the connections. The gentleman dude, like we all say is actually kind of like, does get kind of grouchy and does get. But he does have this vibe of like, he stopped caring about changing the world 20 years ago. Like, he was once, you know, a radical in the.

[David Sims]

He's given up, it seems, and now.

[Ben Hoss]

He'S like, can I just fucking chill out?

[Griffin Newman]

But he's neurotic about his principle of trying to do as little as possible.

[Ben Hoss]

I know so many people like that, especially when I was younger, who were so aggro about how they had to chill out all the time.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Were you like, can you relax? And like, I need to chill out.

[Ben Hoss]

You're messing with that. Like, they were just always seem to be searching for some like, sublime chill zone that they could not reach, which.

[Griffin Newman]

Takes so much effort. Right. It's part of his branding of the thing. It's like, why does he drink White Russians? It's because he needs to have a thing.

[David Sims]

Yes, he has a thing.

[Griffin Newman]

He needs everyone to call him the dude. Except the way he dresses, what he drinks, how much. He doesn't want to deal with this. It's like this very purposeful. Like, I knew a guy in high school who was bathrobe man. And it had that energy of he just wants to show up and be like, oh, this. I don't even think about it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, there is so much.

[David Sims]

You put a lot into this.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm sure it was, by the way, directly influenced by.

[David Sims]

It must have been. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But he was just the guy who showed up to the parties with the bathrobe. And yet every night he would be making out with someone incredibly hot.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And I just be like, this bathrobe man. Do it. And he just sold the narrative of what he represented strong enough in a way that when you're 15 people by and the like, the dude exists in a universe where people can see through it enough because he's at an age where it's no longer cute.

[Ben Hoss]

So I can't do the go through the plot scene by scene because we'd lose our minds. But like, the threads are like Julianne Moore as this kind of performance art.

[Griffin Newman]

But also visual art. Kind of Frasier Crane mid Atlantic accent.

[David Sims]

What were you going to say? No, I was just say, like, for whatever reason, one of the most. Like one of the lines that always stuck in my head and was always so funny to me and again, it's something I think as we were writing was very inspirational is when David Thewlis is there. That's who I was gonna bring up. And he just keeps laughing. And it's a line that has its own dedicated shot as well, which is just when he's standing next to David Thewlis, who's in the chair and he goes, who the fuck is this guy? It's the old only. It's the only shot. There's one shot for that line. It never goes back to that shot. It's just a weird wide shot where you see the dude, like head to toe standing next to him.

[Griffin Newman]

It's almost a meta joke of him saying, like, do I need to learn another character this late in the story?

[Ben Hoss]

Let me now tell you the thing I was going to say, which is they wrote that whole scene without that character and they were like, this is kind of a lot of exposition. It's boring. What if a funny guy was sitting in the chair too?

[Griffin Newman]

And what if that's like had a.

[David Sims]

Weird British incredible actor, like greatest actors.

[Ben Hoss]

Coming off of Mike Le's naked. Can you sit in the chair and.

[David Sims]

Be, you know, giggling like a weirdo the entire.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you see Seth? Did you see the reveal? And this goes to Ben as well. David Theis is an Avatar 3. He is, yeah, he is a character that James Cameron has promised has a small part in three, but he's. It's the long play and he's really going to pay off in four and five.

[David Sims]

Great. Sold.

[Griffin Newman]

And they posted a photo of David Thulis Navi. And I just sent it back to Sims cropped close up on the lips. And I went. They got the thus mouth, right?

[David Sims]

They got it. He has those thus hammer sp around in a gyrus.

[Griffin Newman]

$200 million. Wea didn't sleep for months.

[David Sims]

But they cracked the got his weird pur blips.

[Ben Hoss]

Mod. Apart from like knowing her dad is full of knowing her, like, stepmother is full of like. She also wants to get Jeff the big. The dude sperm.

[Griffin Newman]

She wants a child, but she wants a child that she has no relationship to the body father of. To put it in the.

[Ben Hoss]

So is it just that, like, Jeff Bridges walks into rooms and people are like, you are Jeff Bridges.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. This is the thing. I like that this acknowledges that even though Jeff Bridges in 1998 is clearly putting work into trying to. To look worse.

[David Sims]

Trying to.

[Griffin Newman]

He still is Jeff Bridges.

[David Sims]

He still looks great.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got the greatest eyes in the world.

[David Sims]

Hair's great, cool looking. Just looks cool. Yeah, right?

[Griffin Newman]

And she's just like, why not? This guy will never show up. And that's what I'm looking for, right?

[Ben Hoss]

It's like he's the perfect mix of like, good looking, tall, but also.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Would never bother me. And then like, what are the other threads? It's like, you know, Ben Gazera, for one scene, is the great Jackie Treehorn doodles himself with a giant cock.

[David Sims]

The funniest. I mean, maybe the funniest line to me after rewatching the movie is when they go to the guy's house, they find the paper in the car and they go to the kid's house and the father's in like, the iron lung.

[Griffin Newman]

Iron L. Who was not even the.

[David Sims]

Creator, but he wrote a lot of episodes of Branded. And he goes, does he write still? And the lady goes, no, he has health problems.

[Griffin Newman]

Even just the Cohen moment of walking into the house, seeing the iron lung, before you can even make out there's a person in it.

[David Sims]

His little immediately going, that's him, that's him.

[Griffin Newman]

And Brandon is like a real gun. Also ran.

[Ben Hoss]

It's like a shitty gun smoke.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Ben Hoss]

That ran for like, you know, that.

[Griffin Newman]

Was like more RA Was called Brandon because it was about, like fighting the Native Americans.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God.

[Ben Hoss]

I think it was pretty racist.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And did they use the Branded theme song later?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I think so. Right.

[David Sims]

It was the first time I noticed. It was this time. Does he write still?

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, imagine again, you're a critic at the time.

[Griffin Newman]

You're.

[David Sims]

Again, you're here.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, they. You saw Fargo, right? And like, because that scene is like an hour 45 into a two hour movie is. Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger?

[Griffin Newman]

They have never made a very long film. This movie kind of their longest under 210.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes. Almost all their films are under an hour 45 minutes. Like, there's only a couple that are even longer. And like, I can imagine being baffled by like, wait, why do I need to watch this now? Like, you know, Walter going insane.

[Griffin Newman]

Where is this going?

[Ben Hoss]

And it doesn't go anywhere.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, the answer is the kid stole the car that sucked. That got back to him.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And the briefcase is missing, which never had money in it anyway.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

So it doesn't matter.

[David Sims]

Well, I think that's the answer is they re. Where it goes is you kind of can see that. That kid. That there was nothing in the car. Nothing. Car. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The kid doesn't answer. And maybe if he had. If he had kept money, he would have been more protective and defensive, even if he was not speaking.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, that's the thing about the big Lebowski. Like, the scene where the dude explains it to the two cops is so funny.

[David Sims]

So it doesn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Right there. Like, good luck with that body wool.

[David Sims]

Right. But like, that wraps up the case of.

[Griffin Newman]

They said that. We're like, we'll have to. To. We'll have to take shifts on this.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He's like, you guys got any leads? Leads, leads. They got us working in shifts. Yeah, but.

[Ben Hoss]

And, like, all those scenes, like, are like.

[David Sims]

Ultimately, you're like.

[Ben Hoss]

When you pull the movie apart, like. Yeah, this is all meaningless or whatever.

[David Sims]

Funny. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, it's in service of nothing.

[David Sims]

It's them colliding their own plot with reality from time to time. Like, it's them acknowledging that it's completely unimportant. Like. Like, that it's all so trivial and that, like, the cops don't care. No one cares. It's not important.

[Ben Hoss]

The ultimate joke is that denialists are.

[David Sims]

The only people at the end of.

[Ben Hoss]

The movie who are like, where's our money?

[Griffin Newman]

Because they care.

[David Sims]

They care deeply. We have body sacrifice.

[Griffin Newman]

Where the.

[David Sims]

Is our money.

[Griffin Newman]

In a way, I think it is the most pointed thing in this movie because, of course, Stormir.

[Ben Hoss]

Of course, we haven't mentioned right after. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The doctor from Funny Piece people.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The big tall guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He was great.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. That's a real, like, treat every time I go back and watch this film again. Post Funny People.

[David Sims]

Yeah. We literally, like, cast that man so we could make fun of it, which is the run of. Feels like a die Hard guy. It feels like a cheat in movies where you're like. You do a thing and then make.

[Ben Hoss]

Fun of Monopoly guys. Dan Hartman's joke about.

[David Sims]

Right. Is it's been true. A2.

[Griffin Newman]

It's ace venture when nature calls, where the guy.

[David Sims]

He's like the monop guy. Yeah. He actually does. You cast him. You picked him to. That's the joke.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't get to make me think that your character is clever for making a joke about a guy you cast as.

[David Sims]

That's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

But then I love that in Funny People, he gets the joke back.

[David Sims]

Yes. He got. I get it.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes.

[Seth Rogen]

To speak to the stone corner thing that we were saying before with the nihilists and the avant garde artists. I love how in this movie, it's, like, not making the joke about how they're weirdos.

[David Sims]

No.

[Seth Rogen]

I like that. They just kind of exist.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Seth Rogen]

I really. I think as a kid, I really appreciated that as I was, like, getting interested in.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Being like, everyone in this movie is, quote unquote, a weirdo or on, like, the fringe of society. No one is nor. Except for the occasional cops. Who.

[David Sims]

The Sheriff of Malibu.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Or the sheriff. Once I was arrested by the Sheriff of Malibu in Malibu, the real one, for smoking weed. And the whole time, it's funny, we were, like, smoking weed on the beach in Malibu.

[Griffin Newman]

What year was this?

[David Sims]

2,000. So weed was still pretty illegal in LA. And we were smoking weed on the beach, and we kept joking that, like, we were big Lebowski fans were like, oh, the Sheriff of Malibu's gonna get us. Look over the Sheriff of Malibu. And then, like, literally, like, next thing, there's flashlights pointed out, like, free Sheriff of Malibu. Oh, no. They actually got us. Stay out of my beach community. Stay out of my beach.

[Ben Hoss]

It's that then with the. I really hate the fucking Eagles right after that. It's such a great. Like. Like in another movie. This is, like, a really low point for him. And, like, that's the dude's actual lowest point. He has to listen to the Eagles.

[David Sims]

After getting our cups, another thing we stole for. For Pineapple Express was. And, like, I think I remember showing our stunt person was when he gets the mug thrown at his head. And there's. There's a scene where.

[Ben Hoss]

I don't know how they did that.

[David Sims]

There's a. It's just a rubber mug with a sound, I guess, because, like, there's a scene where I get so an ashtray at my head.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes, that's right.

[David Sims]

And it's like. I remember we showed them that. We were like, we want it to look exactly like this. Like, we want it to look and feel. And just, like, how. When I watched that, I was like, oh, like, that's what we want is for that exact thing to happen.

[Griffin Newman]

But the thing that, for me, makes that moment land so hard. And I don't understand how he does it on a performance level. It's like Bridges is reacting on a two second delay. Right. It doesn't feel like mistiming. It feels like this guy is so stoned that it takes a little bit longer for his body to communicate with itself.

[Ben Hoss]

You know who lives in Malibu? Iron Man. And Jeff Bridges didn't like him either.

[David Sims]

No, he didn't like him either. He's got a long storied history.

[Griffin Newman]

You know who else lives in Malibu? The Be Rad. Be Rad from Malibu's Most Wanted, a film he once accused Ben of liking.

[Seth Rogen]

One of the rudest things you've ever said to me.

[Griffin Newman]

When Ben is like five drinks in, he'll be like. Do you remember that time Sims assumed I liked Malibu's Most Wanted?

[David Sims]

Once I was at a. I used to do these like writers round tables where you'd punch up a movie. And I was punching up. It was for Big Mama's house too.

[Ben Hoss]

Sure.

[David Sims]

And job done. Exactly. And we were in like a production office. So there's all these posters on the walls. And I was with my friend Jenny Connor, who's a writer and she like to the table was like, you know, it's always a red flag when you come into a fucking production office and the poster for Malibu's Most Wanted is on the wall. Put that one up. And the director of Big Mama's House too went. I directed that movie. Was he like edit rock? No. He was, yes. He was very insulted. Hell yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

That is really funny.

[Griffin Newman]

I just think it is one of the funniest franchises. Cuz the setup of the first Big Mama is he's got to dress like this woman.

[Ben Hoss]

This, this woman.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Mia Long needs to be monitored. So you have to dress up as her mama. Right. And go undercover as her great aunt or whatever it's supposed to be. Right. And then 2 and 3. 2 is once again it's about jewel thieves or something. Yes, it's. You need to go undercover at like a women's college to bust a jewel th. Eva. Maybe you should whip out that old mama costume.

[David Sims]

You got that mama suit. We invested $500,000 in that mama.

[Griffin Newman]

He's now married to Neil Long. He's adopted her son. Right. And it's like. And I'm going to just go out and pretend to still be your Mama. Big Mama 3 is.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, Neil Long. Son, it's time you take up the family business. Pretending to be Mama. Not just dressing up as an old.

[David Sims]

Lady, but like specifically Mama.

[Griffin Newman]

Mama is. Is important to American crime. Taking down these rings.

[David Sims]

Mama works.

[Griffin Newman]

Mama works.

[David Sims]

Mama plays mama effective.

[Griffin Newman]

I want to say, to Ben's point, especially at this point in time, yep, the Coen brothers get hit a lot with this idea, this criticism, especially from their skeptics of, like, are they just nihilists? They put a bunch of dumb characters on a board.

[Ben Hoss]

They make fun of them.

[Griffin Newman]

Crime movie in which nothing matters and people die and everything was kind of pointless and they're mocking everyone. And the nihilists in this movie are the only characters who are, like, doing something right.

[David Sims]

Who, like, the only ones who care.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Are trying so hard to sell the idea that they don't care and have other people repeat the idea that they don't care. And that's their defining characteristic. And yet they're willing to, like, fucking lose toes to make money.

[David Sims]

They just want money is what's wrong. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which I think, like, do you think.

[Ben Hoss]

They want to make another record? Like, is that what they want to do? Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But in the name of what you're, like, what we're saying of, like, this is a movie. It feels like the Coen brothers were willing to die to make. It's a movie about, like, no, we like all these people. We find these characters interesting. These movies are not condescending. We are not nihilists. Nihilists are kind of, like, broken.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

If you actually don't care about anything, what are you covering for? No one just naturally doesn't care about anything thing. And that this movie is a bunch of people who have their own things they want to do, and they're all just fighting each other for how to get to it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But all of them are just like, I want to be seen as this philanthropist. I want to be a performance artist. I want to be the ultimate chiller. You know, I want people to view me as an American hero. You know, Jesus wants to be the greatest bowler rather than the greatest pederast.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, everyone has this.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, it's so sweet. It's so sweet at the end that Walter starts talking about Vietnam. Like, obviously it's sad that he can't let it go. And it's weird. It messes up Donnie's sad little funeral, and the dude justifiably gets mad at him. But you do feel for Walter, that he's like, I don't understand why bad things have happened to me.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the great Vietnam thing of, like, young men were told they had to do this thing that then, like, the world said, like, this was. And it never should have happened. And you're like, so what were my scars worse for?

[Ben Hoss]

And then, like, the movie ends with the stranger, like, you know, being like, hey, how you doing? You know, and the dude's like. The dude abides. And I'm chilling out. And you do feel like comfort in that. And the stranger being like, it's nice, right?

[Griffin Newman]

I guess it's good to do it.

[David Sims]

I guess it's good. It's comforting knowing this out here out.

[Ben Hoss]

And then, like, you know, another. A little Bowski's on the way. So it's sad Donnie had to die, but, like, you know, life keeps moving on. And, like, I feel like it's a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's meaningless. It's in it. It had nothing to do with the plot machination.

[Ben Hoss]

Well, maybe he got a little worked up.

[Griffin Newman]

They think he was shot.

[Ben Hoss]

No, I know.

[David Sims]

Yeah. No, I know people think he was shot.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm saying in the movie.

[David Sims]

Well, he also missed for the first time. And he's sort of with his hand, like. Right.

[Ben Hoss]

He knows he's off.

[David Sims]

He knows there's something going on.

[Griffin Newman]

Something's going on.

[Ben Hoss]

He's so good in this. Incredible, like, just the. The joke of them being, like, semi.

[David Sims]

Sorry.

[Ben Hoss]

Like. Of them being like, you won't have any doctor dialogue in this movie, basically, and him being like, yeah, that's fine. I'll still create, like, a character.

[Griffin Newman]

You'll talk a lot, but you'll never be heard.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, the opposite of.

[David Sims]

You're getting yelled at all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

So good. And it's kind of like, invisible, like, yeoman's work. Because you're like. The point is to do the thing that feels like it doesn't matter.

[David Sims]

It's also amazing in comparison to what he just had done in Fargo where, like, he doesn't shut the fuck up. Right. He's like a. Dominates the rat attack. Tat. Tat energy that, like. Yeah. Dominates the entire movie. Reservoir to Dogs was a few years before that. Like, sort of known for being this, like, smarter than everyone, kind of more.

[Griffin Newman]

Clever than everyone, kind of playing the Walter. The guy who was getting so worked up about it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Angry, aggressive in a comedic way. But then. Yeah, in this. That he's just sort of like the dopey guy who's a step behind all the time. It's so good.

[Griffin Newman]

Have you. Have you ever worked with Goodman? I was trying to do this calculation in my head.

[David Sims]

I don't think I've ever met John.

[Ben Hoss]

He feels kind of hard to, like, pin down in a way. Like, he.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Big bride got him. He's had him for years. He's doing great work with him.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But no, he to me was like honestly like when I started acting. He's one of those people I looked at is like oh. Like he's like. But I was evidence I could perhaps be a professional actor.

[Griffin Newman]

I know in, in this rewatch. I. It's why I want to ask you this. I was like, is he quietly a humongous influence on you as an actor?

[David Sims]

Absolutely. And like really was. Was channeled. And it's funny because for years I wanted to be Jonah in Superbad or the Seth role in Superbad. And my take on it was very much derivative of Walter. Like Teen Walter. What the fuck? Just screaming at people. What are you talking about? Just kind of always so angry that like no one's quite on my rhythm or like following what I want. Wish everyone was following. And Jonah found honestly was probably like a much more endearing way of doing it than what I imagine I would have done. But it was very inspired by John Goodman and I, I loved him and, and like Roseanne I was a huge fan of and thought he was so funny and you know, King Ralph, I was a big fan.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey.

[David Sims]

We just.

[Griffin Newman]

We just did a big King Ralph live show in tribute of Ben's respect for the king.

[David Sims]

I like that movie. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a funny movie.

[David Sims]

The whole royal family dies in the opening.

[Griffin Newman]

Nothing funnier than that.

[Ben Hoss]

Funny is the most bit.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Ben Hoss]

It's a pretty good bit.

[Griffin Newman]

David in your. I don't know if you know about David's birthday brackets, your brackets or spreadsheets. I'm sorry.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

But that David has spreadsheets for every years of the movies he has seen and what he would nominate in every car category at the Oscars.

[David Sims]

Amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

You gave Goodman two best supporting actor wins.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's this and Barton Fink.

[Ben Hoss]

Correct.

[David Sims]

I think those are just Martin Fink. Martin Fink's not a movie I particularly respond to.

[Ben Hoss]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That's cuz you're seen in a long time.

[Ben Hoss]

That's because you. You've bent Hollywood to your.

[David Sims]

Your. I honestly think it's one that I don't. I honestly think. I just don't get it. I don't think I get.

[Ben Hoss]

I love Barton Fink but I do have him. Yes. As my best supporting actor of 1998. That is absolutely the case.

[Griffin Newman]

He's incredible in both of them. They both feel like they should be like if not career cappers because obviously he had so much more work to do. But like congratulations. We acknowledge you.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's just crazy that we're like 30 years later and he still remains like one of the most grossly unnominated. Not just for Oscars, but you're like, he won one Emmy for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. That's the only time they ever gave it.

[David Sims]

John Connor. So good on this.

[Ben Hoss]

The best. I mean, we love Roseanne.

[Griffin Newman]

We love, like, that's why the Connor still rips.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It's like he's so amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

But you watch this and you're just like, this is an astonishing performance. Performance that I was about to say no one else on the planet could do, but Mel Gibson could do it.

[David Sims]

In a way that could have done it pretty well.

[Griffin Newman]

Changed laws.

[Seth Rogen]

The look on his face after he rolls out of the car and the Uzi goes off and it's just like him kind of deadpan, looking off in the distance. It's so funny.

[Ben Hoss]

He is so good. Every time he has to admit he's.

[David Sims]

Wrong but won't do it, but kind.

[Ben Hoss]

Of will just like go quiet.

[David Sims]

Kind of doesn't care. Whatever, dude. Fuck it. Yeah. It's like he instantly diminishes his own failures immediately. Like right away he's able to write off his own shortcomings.

[Griffin Newman]

But the idea.

[David Sims]

Whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

When he does his big outfit change into the sort of like covert military fatigues. Right. He's been doing his sort of like flak jacket, like full Milius thing.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And now it's like, we're on a secret mission. I need to be stealth. And then going to the sort of businessman mode at the end.

[David Sims]

And this is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass is like one of the oldest time great comedic scenes in a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Agree. And also one of the great weird TV censorship edits of all time.

[David Sims]

What do they say?

[Griffin Newman]

The cable version of this movie and that line gets repeated so much is this is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps. Which is weird as a one off statement. But when he has to say it ten times, it's insane. It starts feeling hallucin.

[Ben Hoss]

It's funny because. Right. This I guess is a cable classic.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

But I think of it as also.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what happens when you find.

[David Sims]

A stranger in the. The Alps. That's pretty good.

[Griffin Newman]

Punched as a kid.

[Ben Hoss]

That's good. Like, like it's a DVD classic to me. Like an early D. Right. Like this was a movie everybody had.

[Griffin Newman]

Part of the proliferation of what you're saying of like there wasn't a big canon of stoner movies this Movie is like cresting at a point where it's like, DVDs are cheap, available. Every college student has a player because they either have a video game system or a computer or a TV or whatever it is. And this movie's on Comedy Central all the time. It's on basic cable.

[David Sims]

And there's like, theaters that are doing like, Lebowski Night and right away serving white Russians showing up in robes. And like, that was. That was happening a lot. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

My other favorite TV edit line is, of course, Scarface, where in the original, the first interrogation they go, how do you get that scar, big guy? And the line in the movie is eating. And the line in the cable edit is eating pieces. Pineapple. And I like it because there is an internal logic to it.

[David Sims]

Sure. There's like, yeah, that could scar you if you just shoved your face in.

[Griffin Newman]

A while if you didn't eat it.

[Ben Hoss]

Right before we played the box office game.

[David Sims]

You have to spend a lot of time on those.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Well, so Kelly Clarkson, you said, was basically designed.

[David Sims]

That was in the movie, though. We used to. But I remember we used to. We would steal one from. I remember Melon Farmer was from, I think, Die Hard maybe. Like, I grew up watching John McClane saying yippee ki yay. Melon Farmer.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes. And that's in Pineapple Express.

[David Sims]

So in Pineapple. But I actually think. I actually think we put it in the actual movie. Like, I think Danny just says melon Farmer, like in the actual movie itself. But yeah, we would try to get really creative.

[Ben Hoss]

I will like, p. Right, cuz like 4 year old virgin knocked up. These are movies where I was like, I can't believe it. The Freaks and Geeks guys are making movies. This is crazy. Pineapple Express was like, did this escape from a lab? Like, that was a little bit more like, I can't believe this is allowed.

[David Sims]

The exact same way as like a summer movie legit. Like Machine Gun.

[Griffin Newman]

I watched Drinks and Geeks, like, on broadcast on NBC when it aired, which took so much effort to track down.

[David Sims]

Where it was changed nights like three times.

[Griffin Newman]

Even the summer burn off the last couple episodes.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they was off for three weeks.

[Griffin Newman]

And then came back and I was like, yeah, catching like, episodes I'd missed on fox. Kids going to the Paley center, then the museum and television of radio to be like, I think I haven't seen four.

[David Sims]

It's so crazy, you know, Kim Kelly never my friend. Never aired.

[Griffin Newman]

Then I get that yearbook dvd. My, like, freshman year place we all got. And it's like, finally I have control. I can rewatch it when I want. Also in school, with the commentaries of the context and all that. That also in high school, I get so into David Gordon Green in those first three movies. And when in like 2008, it's like, there is an action comedy directed by David Gordon Green. What the are you talking about? Like, I had the same reaction, David, where I was like, this is actually just impossible.

[David Sims]

It was weird. It was very weird. Yeah. But honestly, we wanted them to be artful movies. And part of us were where, like the obvious version of Pineapple Express, like, it's just like a dumb stoner.

[Griffin Newman]

Get the director comedy of Malibu.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. Literally. And we were like, we were big George Washington fans and we loved all the Real Girls. And we were like, oh, what if we got sort of like a fancy indie guy to make this?

[Griffin Newman]

But all the real.

[Ben Hoss]

Again, that's what I mean. Where it's just like, who allowed this?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, yeah, all the Real Girls.

[David Sims]

The answer is Amy Pascal, God bless her. Yeah. And. But it's funny, to her credit, she let us make the movie. She let us hire whoever the fuck we want it. They never came to set. They never said anything. We were at the first test screening for the movie, and it played and tested very well. And there was a moment early on where it's just annihilating. And Amy is sitting beside me and she turns to me and she goes, now I get this movie. And I was like, now you can't ever got it. Yeah, we spent $25 million on this. We are at the test screening and like, to her credit, she just trusted us and she was like, I, I, I assume I'll get it eventually. And. And she did.

[Griffin Newman]

We talk about her a lot on this podcast covering the 2000s and the 2010s of studio filmmaking. And when sort of blank check movies were able to come out of these careers, you're just like, she was the one studio head where you can look at her and you're like, she took chances on people. She, like, developed movie stars. She identified people in places that people wouldn't have assumed.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You could take this person there.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And would just be like, I want to make things that are artful and commercial at the same time.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And actually it's like exactly the opposite of how movies are made now, basically, which is. Yeah, she would believe in an idea, balance it out or a person and, and allow them to go make a movie without every element being a sure thing. Basically.

[Griffin Newman]

If we own Spider man, that gives us the latitude to be able to incubate some side projects and to make.

[David Sims]

Like, a $20 million movie. And we're also making Men in Black 2 this year, so. Right, right, right. So it'll be fine. Exact.

[Ben Hoss]

It'll ultimately be men in Black 2. I mean, no problems with that one.

[David Sims]

Great movie. Balin. Kidding me. Oldtimer.

[Griffin Newman]

I did another at Comicon. I did another, like, 10 drinks in. Can I tell you the pitch that Sims and I had for Men in Black?

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, sure.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

This is like a formative moment in Sims and I's friendship. We were at a bar, we broke the story for men in Black 2 was playing on a par. It was. It was years before we had the podcast. And we were like, is there any version of this that works?

[David Sims]

And was there?

[Griffin Newman]

We came up with one we thought was pretty good.

[Ben Hoss]

The whole problem with men in black 2 is that undoing Tommy Lee Jones's triumph at the end of Man Hard, like, it just kind of up the movie to begin with.

[Griffin Newman]

You want him to have his happy ending. So our answer was the movie is that he's basically Siobhan Fallon Hogan, that Jay is missing his partner. He gets told that an alien crashed and he needs. He needs the witness. And the witness is the neuralized Tommy Lee Jones, fully married. And it's like, I don't believe in aliens.

[David Sims]

That's a great idea. That would have been good.

[Griffin Newman]

And they get to team up. And he's like, I'm here with my best friend again, who doesn't remember me, but I don't want to neuralize him because I'm enjoying the time we're spending together. And it's like midnight Run. It's them in three days trying to solve the case. And the one guy's a skeptic.

[Ben Hoss]

I guess. I mean, like, the problem with men in black 2 is instead it's just like, go in this room, be okay, you're telling me you're back.

[David Sims]

You're back.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool. But also it's worse that it's that the movie starts and they show up and he's like, my wife left me. I keep working at the post office.

[David Sims]

Office Man. Jesus. Why don't we fought for this. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Anyway, Men in Black one great movie.

[Seth Rogen]

Should we do final thoughts?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben Hoss]

Anything else we want to say about Bigle Basky? Before we play the box office game.

[Seth Rogen]

I want to shout out Dom.

[David Sims]

Aa.

[Seth Rogen]

He's really funny. As just a little tiny cameo.

[Ben Hoss]

He plays the landlord. The.

[Griffin Newman]

The limo driver.

[Ben Hoss]

The limo driver.

[David Sims]

Oh, the Limo driver. That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

The landlord is also great. He was in some other movie.

[Ben Hoss]

The landlord's name is Jack Kelly Teller and he's in a. He's in a ton of stuff, but he's so funny. He's in. He's one of the guys in the Austin Power Spy who Shagged Me run of dick jokes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, he's the.

[Ben Hoss]

The guy. I can't remember which one, but he's in the.

[Griffin Newman]

I probably have.

[David Sims]

That little joke is also like so reminiscent of like being like in Los Angeles friends with people. Like you gotta go to this weird show.

[Griffin Newman]

But you know, it's a great character detail that.

[David Sims]

That they.

[Griffin Newman]

Landlord.

[David Sims]

That they go.

[Griffin Newman]

That he go. And that he's eager to go. That. That like that's a great Bridges choice that he doesn't play it as like. Oh yeah, I'll go to that. He's like, yeah, man, absolutely.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And then they go and they're not making. And like it clearly sucks, but there's not. They're not making fun of. Totally happy to support him.

[Griffin Newman]

You learn so much about the dude from the fact that he is the one guy who wants to go see his landlord's creative side.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Eager to still like appropriately horny, if that makes sense. Like he responds to all of the horniness. Coming at him with the right amount of horniness.

[David Sims]

Yes. He's not overly horny or underly horny.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of like overwhelmed. Like he's just kind of like it.

[Ben Hoss]

Also wants to fuck.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Might be Tara Reid's best performance.

[David Sims]

She is great in it. Yes.

[Ben Hoss]

She beat out Heather Graham for the role, which makes sense, I guess. Heather Graham just been boogie nice. The obviously the gag of the chair falling down. Like him building the thing to block the. The door open and then he.

[David Sims]

The wrong way is.

[Ben Hoss]

I know it's simple, but I think about it all the time. Funny joke. Same with treehorn.

[David Sims]

Drawing like the picture dick thing is one of the weirdest jokes.

[Ben Hoss]

It's such a good encapsulation of the movie of like, ah, a clue.

[David Sims]

Nothing. Nothing matters.

[Griffin Newman]

But also like I will say, my mother always had a notepad near. Near the phone growing up. Yeah. Near the landlord.

[David Sims]

My mom did too.

[Griffin Newman]

And I would look at it afterwards and like 5% of the time it was something that someone said.

[Ben Hoss]

Doodling.

[Griffin Newman]

Most of the time it was doodles. And you're like, this guy would just doodle himself with a boner. That's what he would doodle. It doesn't mean anything.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh God.

[David Sims]

It's like, the one time the dude does something smart, right?

[Ben Hoss]

He, like, notices.

[David Sims]

He doesn't realize he's being broken. He could induce.

[Griffin Newman]

It goes to, like, Hitchcock vision for five seconds where, like, he's putting the.

[David Sims]

Pieces together, like, looking at it.

[Griffin Newman]

I also just love that, like, all the windup on Jesus is just to do the payoff at the end of him being angry that they still showed up at the bowling alley on the night they said they couldn't bowl.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

You just expect that for some reason, this guy is going to factor into the plot in a major way at the end, and he could not be.

[David Sims]

Has any seen the, like, Jesus spin off? No.

[Ben Hoss]

I'm scared, Chef.

[Griffin Newman]

Literally. Literally. No one has ever.

[David Sims]

Literally. No. John didn't see it. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The weirdest thing.

[David Sims]

He was directed with his eyes closed. It's so crazy.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, Pete Davidson and John Hammer in it.

[David Sims]

Like, really?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's got, like, 10 big people because.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, Turturro's friends with people, and it's like, yeah. Making a movie.

[David Sims]

If they asked me to be in it, I probably would have said yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The weird thing is that it's like. It's a. It's a side quilt to Lebowski, where he basically went. Because I think the story is that he used to do. Do this character. He would do, like, character monologues as a version of this character.

[Ben Hoss]

He was in a play and, like, sort of had done something like this, and he was like, that's what I'll do.

[Griffin Newman]

And they were inspired by that. And then they sort of like, write it in. And then he was like, sort of. Since I kind of made the character, is it cool if I do something?

[Ben Hoss]

Well, I think the coins are also like, the dude showing up to the. His landlords, they're like, yeah, man, what do we.

[Griffin Newman]

That's their attitude. The Fargo show and everything. They're just like, you do what you want to do. It's fine.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Ben Hoss]

We're not afraid our movie will be, like, corrupted by this.

[Griffin Newman]

But for years it would. Like, he'd mention in interviews, and people would be like, oh, there's going to be a Labowski sequel. John Turo is going to write and direct a Lebowski sequel, assuming it's a more straightforward thing. And then it's like, no. He wants to remake a 70s French Gerard Depard sex comedy.

[David Sims]

Oh, is that what it is? It is.

[Griffin Newman]

It's this movie going place that's about a competition to see who can get laid more that he.

[David Sims]

But it's about 8 year olds.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the other thing the movie, I think, makes.

[David Sims]

Makes him like, he's a pedophile.

[Griffin Newman]

Ignores that part, which then you're like, then what is the guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah, you. I know one thing about him, right. Two, he likes bowling. He's a pedophile.

[Griffin Newman]

He likes bowling and children.

[David Sims]

Yeah, eight year olds. Dude.

[Ben Hoss]

This. Eight year olds.

[Griffin Newman]

Dude.

[Ben Hoss]

This film came out March 6th, 1993.

[Seth Rogen]

Last thing. Gotta shout out the Dylan song.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the band. So good.

[Griffin Newman]

Your point of, like, bright songs getting repeated or repurposed. This is a weird, weird case of a movie that uses all songs that are not obscure and yet feels like it claims ownership of it.

[David Sims]

For sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like, it has that kind of.

[David Sims]

What condition my condition was in. Yeah, the man in me, for sure.

[Griffin Newman]

But it, like, does the risky business, like, old time rock and roll thing eight times where you're like, well, that's now the song from the Big Lebowski.

[David Sims]

A song that had a rep, like, mariachi version of Hotel California. Because it really, like. It is like a nice 90s Scorsese or Tarantino. Ian. Maybe they're the same thing type thing where it is, like, shamelessly aggrandizing of a character using needle drop and shots and slow motion. And I love it. And it's something we do again. It's like we do that like when Danny McBride shows up and this is the end. I literally remember showing our dp. The sequence from the. Like this. It's like a musical interlude to introduce a new guy. And we are, like, shameless about it, like. But it's perfect.

[Ben Hoss]

It's like you copy what works.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, steal from the past.

[Ben Hoss]

All right. March 6th, Griffin, 1998. I don't know if that was the right. I don't know if there was a right time to release this movie.

[David Sims]

It doesn't really feel right, but like Spring break.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but this is, right. This movie needed to exist. In order for people to understand how it could exist, it had to be the first.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Taking a hit no matter what.

[Ben Hoss]

Right. It opens to, like, $5 million, number six at the box office. It's released by Gramercy Pictures and, like, you know, makes. What does it make? $18 million.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a big flop. And yet no one. Because they always kept their budget small.

[Ben Hoss]

And also probably sold, like 4 billion DVDs. Oh, now it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

Now I am sure it is one of the 10 most profitable movies in.

[David Sims]

The Universal Library at this moment in time. Like any movie made, like, 30 to 40 million dollars on DVD sales, basically.

[Ben Hoss]

Like, it was like, if it's a.

[David Sims]

Movie you've heard of, it made 30 million.

[Griffin Newman]

And this one possibly made like 300. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

What's number one at the box office, Griffin? It's been number one for three months.

[Griffin Newman]

It's Titanic.

[Ben Hoss]

Titanic. It won't be knocked off for another three months.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Isn't that crazy? It's just like.

[David Sims]

Yeah, forget it.

[Griffin Newman]

Lost in Space, April. End of April.

[Ben Hoss]

Lost in Space is the movie that knocks. Knocks it off shrooms. That's not a good one to see. You're gonna turn into a spider monster.

[David Sims]

We didn't like. It was a lot scarier than we thought. Exactly. It's, like, dark. And we were like, this is a mistake. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So man in the Iron Mask and Spice World come out in January and February, and those were the two that people thought could dethrone Titanic. They're gone at this point. It's like Titanic.

[David Sims]

You got all these movies.

[Ben Hoss]

You got four new releases in this top 10. Big old Lebowski is the lowest of them. So number two at the box office is a sequel to a huge action movie.

[David Sims]

Undersea US Marshals territory.

[Ben Hoss]

Great movie, but no, it is US Marshals, which is a bad move.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah. With Robert Downey Jr. With Robert Downey.

[Ben Hoss]

Jr. With, like, can we do the Fugitive without Harrison Ford? Just have Tommy Lee Jones chase a new guy. Right.

[David Sims]

With Robert Downey Jr. Robert Downey Jr.

[Ben Hoss]

Is the bad guy. Or kind of like.

[David Sims]

He's like the third banana. He's like the. The assistant. He's like, like new. He's the new Jolie Pants.

[Ben Hoss]

That's Robert Downey. Jr's. Like, I don't. I was not conscious while filming.

[David Sims]

He's like, this was like a heroin fever dream. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

This is still. Maybe one of you still kind of.

[Ben Hoss]

Crush every line you're thrown, because that's the whole thing where I like Ally McBeal was like, one of the first times I was exposed to him, and I was like, this guy's a genius. And he's like, no memory of ever.

[David Sims]

Being on that show.

[Ben Hoss]

Do not know I did that.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought I was in Bulgaria.

[David Sims]

All right.

[Ben Hoss]

Number three, the box office. Great movie, comedy hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hoss]

Big star kind of running in his run. Yeah, for sure. Been out for a month.

[Griffin Newman]

Early 98. So it's a February 98 release? Sure.

[Ben Hoss]

Yep. It's made 47. $57 million. It's going to make 80.

[Griffin Newman]

It's going to end up at 80.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

February.

[Ben Hoss]

And it's like the start it's not the start of this guy's career.

[David Sims]

He's been around. Sandler movie. It's like Big Daddy or something.

[Griffin Newman]

Big Daddy singer.

[Ben Hoss]

It's Wedding singer.

[Griffin Newman]

It is kind of that. That is the level.

[Ben Hoss]

Wedding singer is kind of like Sandler. Like, it's like, yeah, not just dumb.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's like, good.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, I love Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison already. It was like, oh, something with some drama.

[David Sims]

Probably his like, best reviewed. Yes, it was.

[Griffin Newman]

It was kind of the crossover because it was like, oh, he can be a viable romantic lead. He's playing a little bit more.

[David Sims]

It's like the first one they like sort of take seriously a little bit. And then he would. Yes, it's sort of a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's like, right. Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore received similarly. Then this was sort of like the guy's got emotion and then six months later, boy comes out, right? He goes, water boy is 10-98- and then big daddy's the guy.

[Ben Hoss]

He was crushing.

[Griffin Newman]

He was unstoppable.

[David Sims]

He was on fire.

[Ben Hoss]

He was on fire.

[David Sims]

He still is. He's more on fire than ever before.

[Griffin Newman]

He might crush. He might be.

[David Sims]

He might be winning. I was out with a Z's and we were having dinner. Dinner. And we were like, we were talking about Adam Sandler and we just like, our, our, our. Our waitress was like, you know, like a 25 year old woman. And we were like, who's your favorite comedian? Adam Sandler? Right away we go to like the coat check. Who's your favorite comedian, Adam Sandler? Like, and it's almost, it's not, it's almost like they don't know there's another one. And like, like me and Aziz are like, like, like you're getting asked this question by two famous comedians and you don't even think of naming them out of politeness. You don't even. They didn't even consider it. They're just like, oh, Adam Sandler. You guys. Not even close. You know what?

[Griffin Newman]

The other part of it too is like, he's the kind of guy where like, who's your favorite comedian? Eddie Murphy. And you're like, yeah, Murphy's like an actor who does comedy movies now. He's not like generating comedy in the same way does comedy again.

[David Sims]

He's still so funny.

[Seth Rogen]

Special is so good.

[Griffin Newman]

He's done three specials in the last 10 years.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And they're so funny. They're amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

Chandler's the man.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's the best.

[Ben Hoss]

Number four. Yeah, number four. Also new hard Boiled neo noir thriller with gigantic movie stars that is now remembered for only one thing.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not 8 millimeter. It's remembered for one thing is a thing memified in it.

[Ben Hoss]

It's a thing his character knocked up would know.

[Griffin Newman]

It's okay. So it's got a nude scene.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Two giant stars, early 90s.

[Ben Hoss]

Three giant stars.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it Twilight?

[Ben Hoss]

Yes. Three Academy Awards. Reese Witherspoon gets naked in it. Is what's the only thing? Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon, directed by Robert Ben. The guy who made.

[Griffin Newman]

David is correct. The only reason I know that movie exists is because in 2003 I googled Reese Witherspoon nude, and there was only one result.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, it's also got like Stalker Channing and like John Spencer Stack Pass.

[David Sims]

I don't know this movie.

[Ben Hoss]

I don't know what it's about. It's like a.

[David Sims]

What's it called?

[Ben Hoss]

Twilight. Yeah, that's the other thing. It's now un.

[David Sims]

Google. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I know nothing about it other than the fact that I've seen one scene.

[David Sims]

From it 200, 200,000 times.

[Griffin Newman]

I know that scene very well.

[Ben Hoss]

It's funny because like Gene Hackman was a guy they wanted for the Big Lebowski and he was like, I'm kind of not making movies right now. And it's literally opening against a Hackman.

[Griffin Newman]

Pilot was a bigger hit.

[Ben Hoss]

Well, by about $500,000. They're all making about five.

[Griffin Newman]

What does Twilight end up at?

[Ben Hoss]

Twilight, which is not a movie any remembers ends up at. Come on. The numbers. 15 mil.

[David Sims]

So Leowski kicked its ass.

[Ben Hoss]

Number four at the box office. Another kind of forgotten movie is like a erotic thriller about like. I mean, I've seen it. I saw it like on VHS a years ago. You know, lady marries. There's like a mean mom. Lady marries a guy and the mom is back bad.

[Griffin Newman]

The mother in law.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, yeah, Mother in law.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an erotic thriller with an evil mother in law.

[David Sims]

Either.

[Ben Hoss]

Evil mom. And the.

[David Sims]

The.

[Ben Hoss]

The female leads are like a established Oscar winning actress and like an upand cominging about to win. An Oscar winning actress, huh?

[Griffin Newman]

90.

[Ben Hoss]

I don't know if you'll know this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

So it's like three big stars. It's the. The new husband.

[Ben Hoss]

Two big stars.

[David Sims]

The.

[Ben Hoss]

No, the husband is a guy who never.

[Griffin Newman]

The husband's like a Billy Campbell or something.

[Ben Hoss]

I mean, I feel bad saying that, but yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it Billy K. Campbell?

[Ben Hoss]

No, no, no.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's how I wish. Here's how I Know when it's a Billy Campbell movie. David goes the star of this. You're never gonna guess. And I go, it's a Billy Campbell movie. The third lead in this. It's someone you're never gonna get. Billy Campbell. Okay.

[David Sims]

Okay. So it's bad.

[Griffin Newman]

The actress is. She's going to win.

[Ben Hoss]

It wins an Oscar for a movie this year.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not Gwyneth.

[Ben Hoss]

It is Gwyneth Paltrow.

[Griffin Newman]

Gwyneth, Mean mother in law. O erotic thriller.

[Ben Hoss]

People just don't remember this.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it a perfect murder?

[Ben Hoss]

It's called.

[David Sims]

That's like Michael Douglas.

[Ben Hoss]

Douglas. And that's like a dial in for murder.

[David Sims]

What.

[Griffin Newman]

What is this movie?

[Ben Hoss]

Movie is called Hush.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. There's another. Also another movie called Hush.

[Griffin Newman]

I think Flanagan right up the SEO.

[Ben Hoss]

Jessica Lang is the me Mom.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

No memory.

[Ben Hoss]

God bless this man. Jonathan, shake the guy from that thing. You'll do Jonathan.

[David Sims]

I think it's pronounced Jonathan. Excuse me.

[Ben Hoss]

That's when Hollywood finally was like junk this guy name.

[David Sims]

Like I.

[Ben Hoss]

The guy had a totally good career. I don't mean to.

[Griffin Newman]

Was married to Christina Applegate. Nice work if you can get it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. She was almost Christina. Sch.

[Ben Hoss]

You thought about it for five.

[David Sims]

Thought about two. Apple skin cake. Christina's cake, right? Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Hyphenate.

[David Sims]

Maybe Apple gates cake.

[Ben Hoss]

Number six is Big Lebowski. Number seven is Good Will Hunting, which is also hanging out.

[Griffin Newman]

What's it up to at this point?

[Ben Hoss]

103.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

And it gets to 1 3.

[Ben Hoss]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

See, that's fucking crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hoss]

It's fucking March. Yeah, it got to 140.

[David Sims]

That would never happen in a hundred.

[Griffin Newman]

Million and like came out in September.

[Ben Hoss]

No, I mean, what would have happened by now in like this year is a Goodwill Hunting would have been like released for free to your phone without you even asking. Forget Vod.

[David Sims]

They would have just been like, oh my God, just put it on Tik Tok. Like the modern version 180 videos.

[Griffin Newman]

The modern version of this is Goodwill Hunting comes out in four theaters in September.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And by March at the time of the Academy Awards, there's already three spin off streaming.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

And the show has been directly loaded onto your brain since the day after it came came out.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Ben Hoss]

Number eight. Along the same lines as James L. Brooks is as good as it gets. A very good movie in my opinion. Best picture that nominated it lost to Titanic.

[David Sims]

Oh, but did he or Jack.

[Griffin Newman]

Jack one and Helen.

[Ben Hoss]

Helen.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Do you think that movie is as good as it gets. I Do you think it's actually as good as movies.

[Ben Hoss]

Great times. Noodle salad.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hoss]

Number nine is Dark City.

[David Sims]

Very underrated.

[Ben Hoss]

It's a huge bomb. But a good movie.

[David Sims]

Got Alexander, Alex Proyus.

[Ben Hoss]

The crow guy.

[David Sims]

Yes, I like that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie rules.

[David Sims]

That was sort of like a pre Matrix Matrix.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

They reuse a lot of the sets. I think a lot of the rooftops because they also shot in Australia.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the opening like Trinity chase at in the Dark City is mostly Dark City sets.

[David Sims]

That's amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

Really good. Recent 4K release.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I like that movie.

[Ben Hoss]

And then number 10.

[Griffin Newman]

Hottie Jennifer Connelly.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, seen him on the stage. He's a hottie. Number 10 is at the borrower. Speaking of John Goodman.

[David Sims]

Oh, kids movie.

[Ben Hoss]

Kids movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But that must be a couple weeks in or did this bomb. Really hard weeks in at number 11.

[Ben Hoss]

We got to shout it out. Krypton Dwarfs Tribe. Anytime I ever see Krippendorf's Tribe on Walt Disney released that.

[David Sims]

Man.

[Ben Hoss]

That's the Richard Dreyfus.

[David Sims]

The Richard tribe pretends he found his tribe.

[Griffin Newman]

I did this trilogy.

[Ben Hoss]

I. Disney was like, yes.

[David Sims]

Mr. Holland's opus Crippen Dark.

[Griffin Newman]

Different trilogy.

[David Sims]

Really? That's not the same trilogy. I had.

[Griffin Newman]

I had a head cold at some point last fall and I was like, ah, what's I need like some syllabus.

[David Sims]

Jungle to Jungle. Jungle Jungle. Crypt Tribe.

[Griffin Newman]

It's three Disney liveaction family comedies that.

[David Sims]

Reappropriate Bible indigenous jungle and the air up there.

[Ben Hoss]

You know what? That's a good one.

[David Sims]

That would been a good one.

[Ben Hoss]

Should have been circumcised.

[Griffin Newman]

In was man of the House.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is the Jonathan Taylor Kevy Chase movie that is all about Scout. They're like scouts.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But gets deep into the lore of what they're. It's.

[David Sims]

It.

[Griffin Newman]

The duology is really strong. And man the House. I'm kind of.

[David Sims]

I get it.

[Ben Hoss]

I think Air Up There is a solid one though.

[David Sims]

I think it's a good movie.

[Ben Hoss]

It's a pretty good movie. Just kind of dramatic.

[David Sims]

Like the thing about Air Up There.

[Ben Hoss]

Is like it's funny.

[David Sims]

It's a tone that doesn't exist anymore is what's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that a shelter? No. Or an Underwood? Is it an Underwood?

[David Sims]

Might be an Underwood.

[Ben Hoss]

It might be an Underwood. It's not. No. Directed by Paul Michael Glazer of Starsky.

[Griffin Newman]

And Hutch and the Running Man.

[David Sims]

Yeah. There's these tone Movies that just don't exist anymore, where you're like, they're not really funny. They're not really dramatic. They're sort of like somewhere in the middle there.

[Ben Hoss]

They cost like $20 million.

[David Sims]

And then they. And they. And in 1998, they make $200 million also.

[Griffin Newman]

Just like walking through the video store as a child and seeing that box and being like, here's all I need to know. Kevin Bacon, not a comedy star, starring in the. Something that's seemingly a comedy where he's up against a really tall African man and a basketball hoop.

[David Sims]

I saw that in theaters.

[Griffin Newman]

I think I know what this is. He gets circumcised in it.

[Ben Hoss]

That's the only thing I remember.

[Griffin Newman]

Double.

[David Sims]

I saw the double feature with Airborne, the rollerblading movie. Well, you guys don't know Airborne. That Airborne screams balcony movie or whatever. Porchville.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know Airborne?

[Ben Hoss]

Ben, Here it is. Yeah, this is kind of in like the Three Ninjas.

[David Sims]

It's green. Oh, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Jack Black.

[David Sims]

I wouldn't quite put it in three. Three Ninjas. I put in its own genre that I also love. And I'd say it's like kids beating up adults. Yes, you're right. That is part of like homo. Like the kids. Now is your time to get one over on the grown up adult genre. Kids setting traps for adults. I'd say that.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that directed by Rob Bowman, who does X Fight. X Fight the Future.

[David Sims]

Jack Black's in it. Seth Green's in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Edie McClurg.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And the star of it I don't think ever went on to anything.

[Griffin Newman]

Shane McDermott.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Seth Green is second build. Wow.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

You don't want Wikipedia to not even have a link to your name, but that is.

[David Sims]

I think I saw the air up there and Airborne or no, maybe I'm thinking of Cool Runnings, which is another sort of.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a Disney questionable. More respectful than the Three Eye Lister.

[David Sims]

This.

[Griffin Newman]

This is. This is a classic. The thing you love, Sims. Airborne has three taglines.

[Ben Hoss]

Oh, I love it when a poster can't decide what to tell you about.

[Griffin Newman]

The poster is young guy and girl canoodling, right? And then above them are three inline skaters. Air right in front of like a blue like white cloud background. Wow.

[Ben Hoss]

The tagline just crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Mitchell became the most popular guy on Earth, dot, dot dot. Once he took to the sky. And once in sky are in a different font and a different color. Then second tagline.

[David Sims]

That's not what happens in the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sure not.

[David Sims]

He's not the most popular guy on earth at any point.

[Griffin Newman]

The second tagline is like rainbowing.

[Ben Hoss]

It says, man wasn't meant to fly. Kids were.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's like an.

[David Sims]

I like that one.

[Ben Hoss]

That one's pretty noodling head.

[Griffin Newman]

And then the third tagline is the classic. The tagline leads into the title.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Heroes aren't made, they're airborne. They're genius.

[David Sims]

That's really good. Heroes aren't made. Their airborne is.

[Griffin Newman]

Gotta watch Airport.

[Ben Hoss]

God. Taglines are fun. You don't come up with the taglines. Right. Like they tell you here.

[David Sims]

No, we, we.

[Ben Hoss]

You've done that for pineapple.

[Griffin Newman]

Put this in your pipe and smoke.

[David Sims]

We came that up with that. As funny as for Super Bad.

[Ben Hoss]

Super Bad had no time.

[David Sims]

Exactly. They kept pitching us bad taglines and we were. And it was one of the things where we just like rat out the clock on it. We're like, if we just don't approve any of these, maybe they won't.

[Griffin Newman]

The title was like Knocked up was.

[Ben Hoss]

Like the whole thing of like your face.

[David Sims]

What if this guy got you? That was the tagline.

[Ben Hoss]

That. That made sense as a. I got that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A 40 year old virgin was.

[David Sims]

There's always better late than never.

[Griffin Newman]

Better late than never.

[Ben Hoss]

Which is also pretty good because like in the studio, which we should plug the studio now and everything else show.

[Griffin Newman]

Our listeners, I think would not be able to lock in with.

[Ben Hoss]

Would mean nothing to the Ron Howard episode is tangential. But I do think, like, it must be so awkward when you have to sit down and they're like, okay, okay, so here's what we have.

[David Sims]

That's exactly how that goes.

[Ben Hoss]

Posters and taglines.

[David Sims]

Y.

[Ben Hoss]

And if you hate it, you have to be like, ah, yeah, yeah, I've been there.

[David Sims]

You. You pray there's something you like so you could at least sort of be positive. I think we all like that one.

[Ben Hoss]

Right.

[David Sims]

But no, I've come out of a lot of those meetings where yeah, they. It's very bad and it's very. Start from square one. Yeah. And you're like, you have to start over and this is not good. Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

That.

[David Sims]

That happens. Happens a lot.

[Ben Hoss]

So, yeah, the studio.

[David Sims]

The studio.

[Ben Hoss]

And it's returning. Right.

[David Sims]

We're getting more studio currently writing the second season. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

All right.

[Griffin Newman]

Platonic.

[David Sims]

Platonic Season two and Sausage Party. You have two and Sausage parties TV shows returning. One's on Amazon Party Land on Amazon Prime. Amazon prime and Platonic Season two is on Apple tv.

[Ben Hoss]

Plus when did. When do they debut or do you.

[David Sims]

I'm not. I don't. 100. What is the. I think party Debuts this week. Maybe the 12th, I think, and I think maybe Platonic. Aired a couple days ago. August 6th. I think so. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

It just came back, right?

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Ben Hoss]

Yes.

[David Sims]

By the time this is out, maybe they'll both.

[Ben Hoss]

But this is out in a couple weeks. Like, it's all available.

[David Sims]

Y.

[Griffin Newman]

It's on the soup. Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

I don't know. Yeah. Anything like, what's the Seth Rogen movie? We should plug that. Nobody has seen enough.

[Griffin Newman]

The Guilt Trip. I push the guilt trip. Ms. Walt so much.

[David Sims]

Is really good. That's a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Sarah Polly is.

[David Sims]

Very few people have seen that movie. Nobody. That movie rocks.

[Ben Hoss]

I love that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But Guilt Trip, like, as a griffin.

[Ben Hoss]

I will say he's not buttering you up. Loves that movie.

[David Sims]

I haven't watched it since it came out.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's really good.

[David Sims]

It might be.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe you've told that story about reading the Scriven. It made you cry and being like, I guess I got to do this.

[David Sims]

Yes. And then I. And then making the film there, it was a little more conflicted.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I think it's still good, and it got to me emotionally.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Well, it is. I mean, Dan Fogelman wrote it, who is, like, an objectively talented writer, and. And I think they were. There's a few plot twists and turns in the movie that I would also say are, like, objectively effective.

[Ben Hoss]

He's good at those.

[David Sims]

Yes, he is good at them. But I think the movie itself, I think maybe was not ultimately as good as it could have been, in my opinion.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe it's a good thing, but it.

[David Sims]

Was really fun for me. But I got to sit in a car with Barbara Streisand all day.

[Griffin Newman]

She's so good in it.

[David Sims]

She's amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

She never fucking does movies anymore.

[David Sims]

She doesn't do movies anymore. And I got to just be like, what was jfk? Like? Tell me stories about that. You ever meet Elvis? Tell me what he was like. Like, it was. It was great. And I would just do that all day. Like, it was. It was wonderful.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, man, I just saw that. There's this interview with Mariah Carey with like, you gonna go to space? Like Katy Perry? And she's like, she went to space.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I saw that.

[Ben Hoss]

And they're like, yeah, she went to space.

[David Sims]

You gonna do this?

[Ben Hoss]

She's like, I've done it now. That's how I imagine Streisand is. She's like, yeah, that Was cool.

[David Sims]

I don't know. I've done a lot of stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

We gotta plug Guilt Trip and take this waltz.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

And everything. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Turtles.

[Griffin Newman]

Recently we covered that on Patreon.

[Ben Hoss]

That movie.

[David Sims]

Good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben kind of swears by the. The Church of Bebop. And Roxanne, I don't know if you know this, but David has young twins, and I have taken to code naming them Bebop.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

And rock study. And I gave them Bebop and Rocks day toys for their birthday.

[David Sims]

Oh, nice. We're also working on a sequel to that.

[Ben Hoss]

Very excited.

[David Sims]

Coming along very well, I think.

[Seth Rogen]

And Helen, he participated.

[Griffin Newman]

Kellen Jetton, Woodrow White. Who. Who were two of the big designers. Yes, the movie.

[David Sims]

They did an amazing job.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they were.

[Seth Rogen]

They participated in our art show.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they did a painting of Ben as the bunny kid from Gummo that I got for Ben's birthday. Kellen did that. It was very nice.

[Ben Hoss]

That's a fun movie.

[David Sims]

Do kids know Gummo?

[Ben Hoss]

They need to know Gumo.

[Seth Rogen]

We got to bring as much as I can.

[Griffin Newman]

Can we rescind all your plugs for your own project?

[David Sims]

I'm more than happy to 25.

[Griffin Newman]

The plug is watch gum.

[David Sims]

It's like. I mean, it's funny because it just like, it was a wild time in movies. Yeah. Like, and. And. And there wasn't so many movies that these things went under your radar, like, if you were. If you were clued into movies. I remember at this time feeling like no movie came out. I was unaware.

[Ben Hoss]

I completely.

[David Sims]

I never.

[Griffin Newman]

There was a mon.

[Ben Hoss]

Video store.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And saw a movie I'd never heard.

[Griffin Newman]

And, like, Big lebowski wasn't an A24 movie. It was a failed attempt to make a mainstream.

[Ben Hoss]

All of these streamers who, you know, employ Seth sometimes. So we love them, but, you know, they, like, actively keep those movies from you because they're like, no, come on. You want one of these 40 movies, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, you know, don't you want to get electric?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

Well, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hoss]

All right. Come on, let's be.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you for being here.

[David Sims]

My pleasure. This was great.

[Ben Hoss]

Seth, thank you so much for doing this podcast. You're. It's very silly of you.

[David Sims]

I'm just very happy to do this.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, thank you for the White Russians. They be hitting.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, they did hit.

[David Sims]

They're perfect. They were wonderful.

[Ben Hoss]

They were well made to be a.

[Griffin Newman]

Good 1pm white Russian.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's perfect.

[Ben Hoss]

And I'm going to go back to my family.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for oh Brother.

[Ben Hoss]

Yeah, right. That's their follow up.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. This is perfect for them.

[Ben Hoss]

Nah, two years. It's not bad. Felt great movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Our friend Emily St. James returned to the show.

[Ben Hoss]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

And as always, Seth, not to put you on the spot, but with this moment, this opportunity, is there anything you want to say? Perhaps any apologies you want to make to young Sammy Fable?

[David Sims]

Sorry. What? Sorry for what I did to your family. You bought him a nice camera. I apologize. I should never accept that.

[Seth Rogen]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hoss. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery 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 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.

[Griffin Newman]

Nope, nope, nope.

[David Sims]

Way out, way out west.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's see. Just want to take another look at you. I gotta. I gotta Jackson main my way into this.

[David Sims]

I like your style.

[Griffin Newman]

I like your style, dude. But then I feel like what am I get. I'm getting into something else here. Like your style, dude. I. I'm now re strategizing based on how short an amount of time I think I can sustain this voice. Okay.