The Last Wave with BenDavid Grabinski

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: The Last Wave with BenDavid Grabinski
Release Date: March 22, 2026
Guest: BenDavid Grabinski
Main Theme:
A deep-dive into Peter Weir’s enigmatic 1977 film The Last Wave, its place in Weir’s career, and its uncanny blend of existential dread, colonial critique, and cosmic horror, all filtered through the hosts’ trademark blend of rapid-fire banter, meta film nerdery, and personal digressions.

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Episode Overview

The Last Wave marks Peter Weir’s third feature and the subject of this installment in the “Podnik at Hanging Cast” miniseries. Griffin, David, and returning guest BenDavid Grabinski unpack the film’s haunting atmosphere, its unique approach to genre, and its peculiar spot in both Australian cinema and international film culture.

The conversation (which remains light in tone despite the film’s heavy themes) jumps playfully between insightful analysis of the film’s craft, its allegorical power, Peter Weir’s biography, cult movie tangents, and the trio’s personal obsessions—from VHS group watches to New York City trivia to the perpetual wetness ranking of movies.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Accents, Wet Movies, and Initial Banter

• [00:05–08:21]
  The episode opens with comedic riffing on Australian/South African accents (Richard Chamberlain’s character origins), digressions about movie “wetness”, and an extended inside-joke about titles featuring “The Last,” which leads into The Last Wave.

  • Memorable Quote:
    • “Only so many movies where it rains inside, you know? ...But it rains inside. In this movie, many times.” (David Sims, [07:10])
    • “Waters the villain.” (BenDavid Grabinski, [07:21])

• [11:13]
  Ben texts: “Y’all. This movie wet as hell.”

2. Respect for Peter Weir & Why The Last Wave?

• [13:20–37:28]
  BenDavid explains his emotional connection to Weir and how The Last Wave hit a nerve (via a Richard Kelly/Donnie Darko rabbit hole, and his upbringing in apocalyptic-obsessed Christianity), framing the film as a rare masterpiece of mounting dread.

  • Notable Quotes:
    • “Growing up super Christian... they made you feel 24/7 like the world was going to end at any moment.” (BenDavid, [37:04])
    • “This movie is kind of about the peeling back of a Judeo Christian societal structure that was imposed upon a stolen land.” (Griffin, [38:31])
    • “It's a little bit about whatever's up with his bland ass as well as the wider, you know, implications of colonialism.” (David, [39:38])

3. The Last Wave and Its Place in Weir’s Career

• [31:22–44:48]
  Discussion of the cluster of Weir’s early films and how The Last Wave fits within his career’s arc; its inability to be easily categorized or marketed; audience expectations perverted.

  • Quote:
    • “There's like a two-sentence you could give on this movie that would not represent it well, but would actually be conveying the major movements of it, if that makes sense.” (Griffin, [49:05])

4. Blurring Genre: Detective Story, Cosmic Horror, or Folk Mystery?

• [49:58–52:28]; [103:36–104:20]
  The guys debate the genre: not quite horror, not quite mystery, somewhere between Jallo and metaphysical film.

  • “Movies that make it where you’re blurring the lines between what’s actually happening and what’s not... If someone can make me feel like I’m losing my grip on reality alongside the lead character, that’s just like magic to me.” (BenDavid, [47:24])

5. Aboriginal Collaboration and Cultural Care

• [57:38–63:41]
  Weir’s process: learning from Aboriginal co-stars (incl. Gulpilil), openness to re-writing and co-creating scenes to avoid colonial gaze/voice. They note reluctance to use real tribal symbols and emphasize scenes built around Aboriginal perspectives, notably the dinner sequence.

  • “Everything you read... it felt like he was very open in that of, I can write the white man part of the movie. I do not want to impose something on here. You tell me what this should be.” (Griffin, [93:40])
  • “Their, the law of their tradition superseded everything.” (BenDavid, [91:55])

6. Water as Cosmic & Cinematic Element

• [72:05–76:05]
  Filmcraft insight—discussion of Russell Boyd’s blue-washed cinematography, Weir’s intent to define the film visually as “cold” compared to Picnic’s “golden” palette, and the physical rain effects. Plus, analogies to the elemental dread of Ryan Coogler’s Wakanda Forever.

  • “Water’s the villain... when the water is pulling out of the car radio. Just the eeriness of like water flooding through in places it shouldn’t with a looming dread.” (Griffin, [75:27])

7. The Plot, The Vision Quest, and the Ending

• [88:21–118:14]
  They walk through the film’s core structure: Chamberlain’s character is jolted into a mythic world via legal aid assignment, dream-visions, and a slow descent into literal and symbolic tunnels beneath Sydney. The ambiguous, apocalyptic conclusion (“the wave”) is unpacked and praised for its commitment to mood and uncertainty rather than literal resolution.

  • “The whole movie is the aboriginals warning him not to go deeper into this... The end of the movie is him literally just going down the rabbit hole, going so deep down the tunnel... and then he walks out and he sees a fucking wave. And you don’t know if it is in fact dream.” (Griffin, [123:39])

  • “At the end, he kills the shaman... he’s the one who’s in the wrong.” (BenDavid, [129:05])

8. Thematic Crossover With Other Weir Films

• [100:05]; [128:09]
  They identify a recurring Weir motif: a collapse or confrontation of reality experienced by a straight-laced, rational protagonist (e.g., The Truman Show, Fearless, Picnic at Hanging Rock).

  • “There’s exactly a little bit of a David Dunn thing in this movie of, like, maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe it was just puddle drowning.” (Griffin, [120:01])

  • “They’re all sort of about the friction between cultures and realities placed very close together in one way or another.” (Griffin, [129:10])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is a miniseries on the films of Peter Weir. I regret to inform you the miniseries is titled Podnik at Hanging Cast.” (Griffin, [21:45])
• “He leaves and sees a big wave.” (Sims, [116:25])
• “I do miss the era of someone being like, ‘This [franchise] sucks. Can you come up with something?’” (BenDavid, [134:00])
• “[The film is] a spiritual movie. It's ambiguous.” (Weir, cited by Sims, [64:23])
• “Water... generally cool.” (BenDavid, [135:32])
• Running meta-joke about inserting Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch) into every movie for a box office guarantee ([64:04], [64:16], [125:52], [131:01]).

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro/Accents/“Wet Movies” – [00:05–08:21]
• “Last”-titled movies banter – [08:07–11:13]
• Peter Weir’s early career / Why “The Last Wave”? – [13:20–37:28]
• Aboriginal perspectives / Collaboration – [57:38–63:41]; [91:38–94:10]
• Craft & Cinematography of Water – [72:05–76:05]
• Plot walkthrough / Ending Analysis – [88:21–123:39]
• Box Office Game – [136:23–144:58]
• Rodney Dangerfield, Nintendo sequels, etc. – [146:15–151:00]
• Subway talk – [118:07; 151:18–152:27]
• Promos (Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, Scott Pilgrim, etc.) – [152:15–155:55]
• Final Thoughts / Rain Machine story – [135:43–136:21]
• Outro – [158:48+]

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Additional Highlights

• Film Connections:

  • Comparisons to Picnic at Hanging Rock, Donnie Darko, Twin Peaks, God Told Me To, Angel Heart, Devil’s Advocate.
  • Extended riffing on genre-bending detective stories (“I love when it’s, like, a lawyer or a journalist or, like, a saxophone player or something, where, like, someone who doesn’t traditionally... solve some gigantic, unsolvable thing.” – BenDavid, [50:05]).
  • Parallels to Synecdoche, New York and “what scares me” horror, referencing Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue as a mutual favorite for dissolving the line between reality and dream ([47:24]).

• Personal asides / stories:

  • Group watches of VHS Drop Zone ([06:19]), Korean BBQ stories, owning fake birthdays, and near-death car stories in downpours ([84:28]).
  • BenDavid’s surreal “double headphones in my pocket” moment after seeing Iron Lung ([105:07]) as an experience straight from The Last Wave.

• Meta-commentary:

  • How Weir constructs a “know what you don’t know” narrative—a white director centering his own blind spot and giving Aboriginal consultants real authorship ([93:10], [93:55]).

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Tone & Style

The hosts strike a playful, self-lacerating, reference-heavy form, peppering critique with personal stories, inside jokes, and loving irreverence for both the subject matter and for each other. Their affection for Weir comes through even as they admit the film’s impenetrability and difficulty to pitch. Guest BenDavid Grabinski weaves in personal and creative connections, mixing vulnerability, hyperbole, and comedy.

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Takeaway for New Listeners

This episode delivers a deeply contextual, digressive, and passionate exploration of Peter Weir’s The Last Wave—its ambiguously mystical narrative, critique of white rationalism and colonialist arrogance, and its unique atmospheric horror in 1970s Australian cinema. Through spirited tangents and affectionate teasing, the hosts champion Weir not as a “household name auteur,” but as a master of heady, disorienting, culture-clash cinema that rewards curiosity…and maybe a tolerance for getting a little wet.

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“The Last Wave” in Summary (as told by the hosts):

“A movie about a white pragmatist who, through the legal defense of Aboriginal defendants, is forced to confront—through dream and reality—the existence of supernatural, cyclical disasters that colonial society has tried (and failed) to suppress, culminating in a vision (or reality?) of an apocalyptic wave. Less a whodunit than a film about allowing oneself to be unmoored from certainty.”

Transcript

[Ben]

Blank check with Griffin and David.

[Griffin Newman]

Blank check with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Blackjack. We've lost our podcasts. Then they come back, and we don't even know what they mean. Now. It's hard to. I. I'm good at neither a South African nor an Australian accent.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

It is hard to impersonate South African in a movie where everyone's speaking Australian and not just up both.

[David Sims]

Where are you getting South African?

[Griffin Newman]

Richard Chamberlain's character, is he South African? They say that in the movie.

[David Sims]

Wait, I missed that.

[Griffin Newman]

He says he's.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I caught that.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you.

[Ben David Grabinski]

But I. I thought it was South American.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he says he's confused. I think he says he is of South Africa.

[David Sims]

Him.

[Griffin Newman]

I heard about his grandparents, like, when.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Oh, maybe he talks about his background, that there's some discussion of, like, family. I thought it was him, though, being born.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Elsewhere.

[Ben]

It's when he said diplomatic immunity.

[Griffin Newman]

Did I nail it? Did I. By melding the two accents together, did I nail it?

[David Sims]

Gonna go with no.

[Griffin Newman]

Did I nail it?

[Ben David Grabinski]

I'm seeing zero nail because I'm.

[David Sims]

Got a metal detector. You're sweeping around, like,

[Ben]

right now.

[Griffin Newman]

It feels like depot, fully stocked walls of nails.

[Ben]

On one end of the spectrum is your Arnold, and then on the other end of the spectrum is your Sandler in Hotel Transylvania, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's sort of in between.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, you're saying. You're saying you think Sandler Transylvania is the best one I have.

[Ben]

It sounds like the guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Joseph Gordon Levitt's my best.

[David Sims]

Go ahead, you can do it again. Or don't.

[Griffin Newman]

Excuse me one moment.

[Ben David Grabinski]

What are you doing?

[David Sims]

Griffin is. He's got the. He's got the die.

[Ben]

Oh, man, I wish this is the first time. I wish it was a video podcast. I don't. But only in this exact moment. Just for that. Just for that.

[Griffin Newman]

This is my totem. My totem is a loaded die. Only I know the exact weight and balance of this die.

[David Sims]

You know that film is 16 years old.

[Griffin Newman]

Happy birthday.

[David Sims]

Which is crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Because, you know, it feels like just yesterday I heard him say that for the first time. And it's not like he's had a bad career.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

But when you watch that movie, you were like, right, this is it. He's about to be, you know, a big A lister. He's popping so hard in this.

[Ben]

The issue is, if you actually look at the landscape of theatrical movies, there's Not a lot that have like rotating sets where you're like a couple layers into a dream, which.

[David Sims]

Which is apparently what his best friend.

[Ben]

Yeah, they go around, they're like, you know, I'm just looking for a movie about dreams on a rotating.

[David Sims]

Are you now? You know, there is a state in Australia called South Australia. Are you sure he was not talking about being Australia? Well, how can I goog Google? There's not. Nothing came up. But I mean, that's not that surprising because this is a less well known.

[Ben]

Well, can we just look at the future Reddit column about this episode?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, let's do that.

[David Sims]

Imagine travel of being able to see the future Reddit posts but not being able to stop them.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the worst. That's a reboot of Early Edition. CBS is Early Edition. Every morning we get a notification of a Reddit door roasting us, but you can't see what the subject heading of the Reddit post is. And you're just like, how do I anticipate these criticisms?

[Ben]

I'm really glad we never reached a point where someone could say Philip K. Dick is too online, because that would be the short story or book he wrote. We're like, okay, man, I don't know if we needed that.

[Griffin Newman]

That is, that is a great point. That a lot of.

[David Sims]

Thank God he died before Twitter was invited.

[Griffin Newman]

That a lot of writers would have gotten dinged for being too online for writing the exact thing they wrote pre Internet. Like if you wrote fucking minority report in 2026, they'd be like, this is some fucking Twitter brained bullshit. You're so afraid of getting canceled. You wrote Minority.

[David Sims]

What if, what if the, the, the precogs went cancelled when they came out of the Little Milk Bath, right?

[Ben]

Well, when Matt, see when Matt Damon was in that movie, that is what it was going to be about. But then when it switched to Colin Farrell, they got rid of all the canceled stuff.

[David Sims]

Colin's so good in that.

[Griffin Newman]

Colin. Colin is good in that. I, I just love that. That's another classic Col zero memories of being on that set.

[David Sims]

Drunk as hell, mate. Spielberg mad at me and Cruz, everyone mad at me.

[Griffin Newman]

And also a thing we called out in that episode that I, I always think about just how different Hollywood was, what, 24 years ago. That, yeah, he was paid $2.5 million for that movie.

[David Sims]

That's called having a good agent.

[Griffin Newman]

Truly. But it was just like if we've decided you're the guy and you get one of the top five parts in a giant movie, we're giving you 2.5 no matter what. And then like 10 years later, Andrew Garfield assigned to play Spider man. And they're like, we're going to start you at 250k. You got a three movie contract, and by the end of it, you end up at one if you make three of them.

[Ben]

Well, there's all these movies in, like the 80s and 90s, and you'll see, oh, this person got 3.5 million and the budget was like 3.6. And you're like, where? How did they pay for the rest? And then they also shot it in Los Angeles for nine months.

[Griffin Newman]

And the person getting paid 3.5 million was George Kennedy. That if George Kennedy was available for 10 days, they were like, it's worth him being 92% of our budget.

[David Sims]

Can you do George Kennedy saying murder in Minority Report? Murder. Drebin.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm trying. Drebin.

[David Sims]

Another. Another. Another wet movie. And today we are here to take a bath.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Minority Report. I thought you were saying Naked Gun.

[Ben]

I'm like, really?

[Griffin Newman]

Let's have some splashing.

[Ben]

I'm genuinely upset that none of you commented on my renaming of our group chat about it.

[David Sims]

I was in a rush, but I was very into it.

[Ben]

Okay. Because I thought it was a pretty good joke. I thought it was like our Wet Bandits. As the group chat, talking about this movie, Ben.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben texted and just mid watch was, is it fair to say, producer Ben Hosley, a gentleman of many shades of many sides? Sometimes you're a dry guy.

[Ben David Grabinski]

That is true.

[David Sims]

But I've had my moments.

[Ben David Grabinski]

You've had dry eras.

[Griffin Newman]

You have, but you've been this weekend.

[Ben]

You are a drop guy. Because we watch Drop Zone on vhs.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Well, that's kind of more of an air guy.

[Griffin Newman]

You had a bad boy weekend and not a bad boy records weekend. I just feel like your weekend had your weekend hang. Seemed to have a. A whiff of being bad.

[Ben David Grabinski]

It was a throwback.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a throwback.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Ben, David and I got Korean barbecue and then we head back to his.

[Ben]

And then we drank tea. And then we watched Drop Zone on vhs. No.

[Ben David Grabinski]

We drank some dang beers and had maybe a couple of JMOs.

[David Sims]

What? You silly guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe unconfirmed.

[David Sims]

Right, right. Reports are surface.

[Griffin Newman]

But I was going to say that you have been known to value what you would dub a slick flick.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

A wet motion picture.

[David Sims]

A splishy.

[Griffin Newman]

A splashy. A splishy splashy. Sometimes you go Bobby Darren mode when you're sitting down at the cinema.

[David Sims]

Only so many movies where it rains inside you know, this is the thing. There's lots of movies where it's like, oh, you're on the ocean. Oh, you know, there's a big storm, but it rains inside. In this movie many times.

[Griffin Newman]

It also waters.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Like the villain.

[Griffin Newman]

Water's the villain.

[David Sims]

Kind of just. It's sort of just the theme. Like, beyond that, it's kind of water

[Griffin Newman]

and colonialism, I'd say, are the two.

[David Sims]

There's a little of that too. But I mean, like, it's like you're like the last wave and you're like, oh, okay, so is this like a metaphorical wave? And they're like, well, no, actually, if

[Griffin Newman]

you think about it, this is what I love. I love. I had this thought like 10 minutes into the mo. I love a title that is both metaphorical and not at all. I love when there's a title where you're like, last wave. Is it maybe just about, like, cultural tides changing and you're like, something's changing.

[David Sims]

Exactly is.

[Griffin Newman]

But also.

[David Sims]

But also right at the end, we are going to show you a big.

[Griffin Newman]

The last shot's one of the biggest waves you've ever seen.

[Ben]

But also, almost every movie that has the word last in the title is great. But then there's like two or three that are terrible. But that's the thing I've been thinking about.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, let's. Let's make this list.

[Ben]

Oh, I started making a list on the train here and then stopped because I kept seeing Last Stand, so it was like going through them, but I. But there was like a list I like. There's like 20 really good movies.

[Griffin Newman]

That's one of the best.

[David Sims]

Oh, so good.

[Ben]

I mean, we should definitely re litigate Last Jedi, which I think is a masterpiece, so I can alienate everyone who doesn't like it.

[Griffin Newman]

We all agree this is. This is safe space. By safe space, I mean a room full of people who are smart and correct.

[Ben]

Yeah, I know, but the. But I was like, going over it and I was like, there are so many good movies that.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the Last X is a pretty strong start. Let me see. I'm going to.

[Griffin Newman]

As you're looking this up, I just.

[David Sims]

Just typing it.

[Ben]

But there is one movie I saw only one time and really did not like and maybe it's really great, but the Last Kiss, I think the Last Duel.

[David Sims]

The Last Kiss is one of the worst fucking movies I ever.

[Griffin Newman]

That's all.

[David Sims]

Yes. Yeah. So goddamn bad.

[Griffin Newman]

And that's a Goldwyn picture.

[David Sims]

This one is such a, you know,

[Ben]

such a bonding thing between you and me, because I had, like, weeks of being mad about last, but it's like,

[David Sims]

it's crazy that I'm mad about. I saw it in college. Like, you think I could have gotten over it? It's probably like a 100 minutes long. Like, you know, it didn't. Didn't end the world when it came out, but I walked out being like.

[Griffin Newman]

That was. It's 100 minutes long. And of those 100 minutes, 80 minutes are Casey Affleck with a beer being like, you know, marriage is tough.

[David Sims]

He is in it. But I was 104 minutes.

[Ben]

So I was in college.

[David Sims]

Come on, you got to whittle that down.

[Ben]

I have to admit that I was, like, a severe Garden State guy where, like, I saw it.

[David Sims]

How old are you been, David? And we should introduce the podcast.

[Ben]

I'm 42.

[Griffin Newman]

I also set up a thread that

[Ben]

I will need to 43 when this comes out. Okay, well, I'm just 42.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to call you 37 when this comes out.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I. Am I going to be 40, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Still shorter?

[David Sims]

No, still 39. Phew. But as someone who's a little older than me, I think that's a little embarrassing. So. But it's fine.

[Ben]

So it came out and I was like, I don't know, 20. And I saw it and made me cry. And then all the. All the faucets turn on, and then

[David Sims]

you can't cry, but they can.

[Ben]

Cute girl came over and we got really stone and listened to the soundtrack on repeat for hours, talking about the movie on cd. I mean, it felt really important at the time. I'm. Like, the symmetrical framing, it just captures what it's like to be 20.

[David Sims]

If there's one thing that movie has to offer you, it is quite a lot of framing.

[Ben]

I. So I've not seen it since then. So I will, because I'm. I'm sure. I'm sure that I will have some more complicated feelings.

[David Sims]

The Last of the Mohicans. The Last Samurai. Not so good. Go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

We're setting up too many threads simultaneously.

[Ben]

Last of the Mohicans is a masterpiece.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I also love Garden State from the state of New Jersey.

[Griffin Newman]

When's the last time you watched it?

[Ben David Grabinski]

It's been a while.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben David Grabinski]

But yeah, similarly, it was like we were like, in the pocket. You ever yell at a dump a hole.

[David Sims]

They yell into a big hole.

[Griffin Newman]

They yell on top of a dumpster into a hole.

[Ben]

Have you ever gone to New Jersey with Griffin and then got stranded there and we had to take A cat.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a whole other conversation.

[David Sims]

I'm pretty sure that all of you were part of that misadventure. That was a real classic. David's getting texts from multiple people about going down.

[Griffin Newman]

Can I please read Ben's text?

[David Sims]

Yeah, of course. The Last Castle. Kind of.

[Ben]

Meh.

[Griffin Newman]

11:43am Y', all. This movie wet as hell. I just needed to get that out. I've been trying to say that for 10 minutes.

[David Sims]

So sorry y'.

[Griffin Newman]

All. This movie, wet as hell.

[David Sims]

Transformers, the Last Knight. Are we counting that one? Not one of the better ones.

[Griffin Newman]

It's interesting how solidly in the middle, but that's by Transformers Swing between that and Age of Extinction of like, which one is more engagingly deranged?

[Ben]

Well, the last.

[David Sims]

I think that one's more engaging.

[Ben]

Mark Wahlberg being revealed as the last night of the round table. And also a Anthony Hopkins dying and a robot saying, of all the men I've ever served, you were the coolest.

[Griffin Newman]

First of all, spoiler. Secondly, that's not just a robot. That is Cogman. Anthony Hopkins, human sized robot butler that does not transform, played by Jim Carter and is a self identified sociopath.

[David Sims]

Yes. Who also sings opera.

[Griffin Newman]

Which he says before he takes living fish and beats them on the ground on the like grid of a submarine into submission so he can eat them.

[Ben]

Okay, last night sort of forgot about that part. Has a sequence that no human being alive, including Michael Bay or anyone who worked on it, can tell me where it takes place. There's a scene where they like take a ship up into the sky, but then crash land in the sky in what looks like Iceland.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I can tell you where that takes place in my wildest dreams.

[Ben]

Well, it's, it's wonderful, but it's my best imagination. They like crash land in the sky on Earth and then get up to race away from it to come back down to Earth. And I can't figure it out.

[David Sims]

Ben showing Griffin something important.

[Griffin Newman]

South America. I was trying to queue it up on the Criterion app and Ben got it before I did.

[David Sims]

He was born there. I see.

[Griffin Newman]

Bridget Chamberlain is born in South America.

[Ben]

Do we delete 49 minutes of us discussing it?

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's all in.

[Ben]

Leave it in. I feel so much better because I'm like, I've seen this movie a lot and I don't remember.

[David Sims]

You are going to the most like views of this movie on my of my letterbox friends, very few people have seen this movie total times.

[Griffin Newman]

And I told you we're finally doing weird. Knew you Had a new movie coming out. It was a time to get you back on, and I feel like this was immediately. You said I would do anything. I basically would be happy to do any Weir episode. But your passion for this one punched through really quick.

[David Sims]

Well, especially since it's less requested. It's less.

[Ben]

There's two Weirs in pop culture that really, really matter to me, obviously. Peter Weir. Second Lindsey Weir.

[Griffin Newman]

Lindsay weird. We met a couple. Lindsay Weird.

[Ben]

Probably love all the Weirs equally, actually. Maybe the dad the most.

[Griffin Newman]

Sam. You're not a Sam guy.

[Ben]

I mean, Sam for life, but the dad, I mean. Comedy legacy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. What's.

[David Sims]

It was the worst 15 I ever spent. Whatever he says about losing his virginity,

[Ben]

it's just so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

My favorite is the episode where he's trying to get them invested in the idea of family game night because the Weirs need to spend more time together. And he keeps on trying to convince them that the card game pits. Really exciting. And at the end, Becky Ann Baker convinces him to, like, loosen his grip and let them live their own lives. And then she's like, okay, well, let's finish the game. And he goes, I don't want to play this. It's a terrible game.

[David Sims]

Joe Flaherty is. I mean. I mean, rip. He died pretty recently.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Money in the goddamn space.

[Griffin Newman]

Him being angry about anything.

[Ben]

So in October, I was doing this thing where I would, like, watch these YouTube blocks of, like, horror programming, and they would. There's a bunch of these where they find, like, all these anthology shows, sort of like Tales from the Crypt that you've never heard of. And they have an episode and they'd be, like, written by Andrew Kevin Walker and crazy. And I'd sent you one where it was this horror show hosted by Joe Flaherty. And then it was an episode all about Catherine o' Hara being a nun who, if she fell in love with someone, they would, like, blow up. And I forgetting the details, he had

[Griffin Newman]

a character called Count Floyd on sctv.

[David Sims]

He's iconic. That's why he dresses up as a vampire.

[Ben]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

That was his local. Exactly. And then on the Ed Grimley cartoon show, which listeners might be astonished to hear.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry, Griff, there are no more listeners on this episode. They rode the wave out of here. 10 minutes. I'm hearing a flat line. Yeah, just.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a thing that young Griffin Newman,

[David Sims]

hyper fixated on the graph, is just a double Griffin.

[Ben]

Is it possible that I had a lunchbox of the Grimley cartoon? Did that exist?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Or is that. Just some weird memory I have probably.

[Griffin Newman]

There was merch. There's talking at Grimley dolls that are in the animation style. But. But Count Floyd would appear in live action segments. They would cut to Count Floyd on Ed Grimley's tv. So conflict was very important in my childhood.

[David Sims]

I mean, that's just the kind of statement that only Griffin Newman would make these days. But I completely believe it.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, because free speech is illegal, so

[David Sims]

you're not allowed to talk about CTV anymore because of the tariffs.

[Ben]

I didn't know that there was a Live Action Grimly. I had known the cartoon.

[Griffin Newman]

That was my introduction as well.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And I. I got very confused between animated at Grimley and Live Action Pee Wee Herman because they both had cowlick.

[Ben]

Okay, well, what about the Ace cartoon?

[David Sims]

Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Griffin Newman]

With Griffin and David. That's a whole other conversation about how in 1994, Jim Carrey had $300 million domestic grocers, and by 1996, all three were converted into Saturday morning cartoons on rival networks.

[Ben]

You actually just set up a perfect transition of a thing, I have to admit. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I still haven't introduced the pod, by the way.

[Ben]

So last time I was on the show, we all agreed that I would not come back until you're doing a Tom Shadiak series. And I was gonna do Dragonfly.

[Griffin Newman]

I had originally promised that if we. The podcast made it to 10 years, we would cover Tom Shadiac. And this, of course, is the 11th year of the podcast, and I want to promise that we will do it on year 20.

[Ben]

Well, I wasn't sure what we were doing today, and I texted you for clarity, and you didn't respond, so I watched both of these to prepare.

[Griffin Newman]

You also watch Dragon.

[Ben]

I watched Dragonfly yesterday, and I prepared a bunch of talking points in case we want to get into.

[David Sims]

Isn't Dragonfly one of those movies that's very hard to like? It doesn't exist.

[Griffin Newman]

Universal.

[Ben]

There was a. I rented it on itunes yesterday and watched it and took notes.

[Griffin Newman]

Universal has been doing a thing I really appreciate on their, like, home entertainment channel. Once a month, they do a grid post that is new to digital, and it is. Here are 20 movies that have been out of circulation that we're proud to tell you are now rentable on digital platforms. And mostly it's like 30s, 40s program stuff, but they finally got Dragonfly in the grid.

[David Sims]

You.

[Griffin Newman]

You just.

[David Sims]

You. That was how it was impossible to watch.

[Griffin Newman]

Timing helped you with this bit, because three weeks ago, this bit would have been impossible.

[David Sims]

I Have something to say about Dragonfly? Or is it Frequency? Fuck, I can't remember.

[Ben]

It's probably Frequency, what I have to say about Dragonfly. So it's about Dr. Joe Darrow, played by Kevin Costner, and his wife dies because she's on a bus filled with school kids that drives off a cliff into a lake and they all drown.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. And you can communicate with them.

[Ben]

Where was Superman?

[Griffin Newman]

Well, this is the problem. He told Superman this.

[David Sims]

Okay, I take. I. I'm just going to make my point and then we're going to introduce our guest. I just rewatched the Michael Haneke film the Piano Teacher.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Because I'm watching all of my discs that I bought, and I bought that Umbrella set.

[Griffin Newman]

You bought the Umbrella, not the Curzon?

[David Sims]

Correct.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

What happened?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And, like, I bought it a while. It's very, very good. Very well. Very well done.

[Griffin Newman]

I've been struggling to figure out which is the one to buy.

[David Sims]

They both seem good to me. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Hate to get it wrong.

[David Sims]

There's a scene in the Piano Teacher where Isabel Upel is sitting, like, at a cafe or whatever, and there is a poster for the movie Frequency behind her. And I was like, that's so weird. In this, like, dour fucking movie about this woman who's like, kind of sadomasochistic relationship. It's like, oh, yeah, Frequency, whatever. But Frequency is not Dragonfly. But they are both about, like, communicating across sort of a mystical barrier, you know?

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Similar idea.

[Griffin Newman]

Frequency is like CB radio, Field of Dreams. Like Jim Caviezel, Talk to your dead dad.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's Caviezel on campus.

[Ben]

Time travel.

[David Sims]

Right. Yes. And Dragonfly is near death. Experiences the doctor.

[Ben]

Yeah. So just so he doesn't believe in the afterlife. And they bring this person who OD'd in a way to try to kill themselves into the emergency room after his wife dies. And he says, I'm only interested in saving people who want to live. So this person gets sent to another doctor. He talks to her and she gets really upset, saying, why'd you bring me back? And he said, because there's no heaven and there's no afterlife. This is it. So you shouldn't kill yourself. And then he ends up believing in the afterlife.

[David Sims]

That's the big spoiler, you, Costner.

[Ben]

And also, I'm very sorry for interrupting you, David. From now on, I'm like Michael Douglas at the end of traffic. I'm here to listen.

[David Sims]

Is that what he says in traffic?

[Griffin Newman]

I. I consider and concede for the first time that maybe drugs are bad. What is he listening to?

[David Sims]

It's because his daughter's like, hey.

[Ben]

Well, it's because Harrison Ford was interested and they added a bunch of scenes to that character. And then Harrison Ford decided not to do.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's like a really aggressive.

[David Sims]

The kind of movie that his viewers wanted.

[Griffin Newman]

Is he de agent?

[David Sims]

He's the drug czar.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

The idea in Traffic is that he has been appointed drug czar and we're on drugs. And then it turns out his daughter is a heroin addict.

[Griffin Newman]

So is he, like, listening to, I think light.

[Ben]

No, he's at her drug. He comes to her, like her AA or. Or whatever it is.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Ben]

He's.

[Griffin Newman]

He's understanding the human struggle within a thing that he is viewed as I recently read memoir. Congrats.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And obviously, one of the more interesting things about Ed's Wick is the two Oscar nominations he got were for producing movies that other people directed.

[Griffin Newman]

So it's Shakespeare in Love and Traffic.

[David Sims]

Traffic, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, he may have gotten other. I think those are his only two nominees.

[Griffin Newman]

I think so. And he won. He has an Oscar.

[David Sims]

He sure does. And he talks about that for Best Shakespeare in Love. But it. So he has to devote chapters to those movies that he did not make. And he's.

[Ben]

You know, it's.

[David Sims]

It's interesting. Anyway, he talks about Traffic and. Yeah, apparently Ford at a certain point just sent a message being like, my fans don't want me in a movie like this right now.

[Ben]

That's just get off that heroin.

[Griffin Newman]

That's Harrison Ford telling someone to kick their habit. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. I'm David. 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. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they bounce, baby. Sometimes they hate you like a giant fucking wave.

[David Sims]

Sploosh.

[Griffin Newman]

Sploosh. Indeed. This is a miniseries on the films of Peter Weir. I regret to inform you the miniseries is titled Podnik at Hanging Cast because I was overruled on.

[David Sims]

Every week he complains.

[Griffin Newman]

Podster and Castmander, the pod side of the cast.

[David Sims]

Has one guest agreed with you so far?

[Ben]

This guest doesn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, every guest is like, not yet.

[David Sims]

Not yet.

[Griffin Newman]

Today. Joining us, returning to the show, a dear friend to talk about the Last Wave. He is the writer and director of the new just about to be released. Recently released.

[Ben]

That's actually the funniest thing about this is by the time this comes out, March 22, it will have already been at south by, and it'll have reviews and it'll be about to come out. And I don't know how that's going to go. I bet it goes so good. But it's going to be. But I. The last movie I made was supposed to premiere at Tribeca 2020.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

And good year. Interesting things happen. Yeah. So I am, like, psychologically incapable of counting on anything having happening between now and when this drops. But let's just assume it all worked out and it was great.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben David, nothing to worry about because everything at this present moment, the first week of February 2026, has been normal, coming off a normal January. And I can't see any scenario in which things would get crazier.

[Ben]

The news is great. Nothing bad is happening right now at all.

[Griffin Newman]

I love just watching the news and relaxing and unwinding at the end of a long day. But if you're looking to get amped up and have a good time, you can watch Mike and Nick and Nick

[Ben]

and Alice on Hulu and Disney plus.

[Griffin Newman]

And Disney plus.

[Ben]

The main thing that matters is someday we're going to find out what Sims thinks of all the Gilmore Girls references in it.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, you have yet to see the picture.

[David Sims]

I have not yet seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

I want it hostly and I have seen it twice. It has a tremendous amount of Gilmore Girls content.

[Ben]

That's a spoiler.

[David Sims]

Thematically interwoven, as I think Ben David knows, I'm a. A very, very, very deeply devoted fan of the television show Gilmore Girls. I've written about it quite floridly. Once on a date, a girl that I was on a date with realized that I was the David Simmons of the A.V. club, not a celebrity. To be clear. She was like, oh, right. And then she was like, wait, did you write that Gilmore Girls thing? And I was like, huh? And then she called it up and started, like, reading it to me, being like, I can't believe a boy wrote this. Not in a bad way. She was sort of. She was positive. But she was also like, this is crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

That's like the When Harry Met Sally scene back then. Carrie Fisher quotes Bruno Kirby to him. Yes. And he's like, I wrote that New York Magazine. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, this is pretty sexy.

[Griffin Newman]

I never quote articles.

[David Sims]

It's a good scene. Yeah. Didn't work out. But great, great, great moment. Back then, Gilmore Girls, you know, people, people lived in the shadows. Our guest today considering it great art.

[Griffin Newman]

Now we know it. David Grabinski, AKA a joke we somehow didn't call out in your previous episode. Ben David Griffinski. Your name already contains two out of the three of us, and it requires very few letters to make it all three.

[Ben]

If I remember correctly, it was a different time because I lived in Los Angeles then and I live in New York now, so it feels like lifetimes ago. I think it was hours into it when someone said, wait, your name's Ben David? And we keep saying Ben and David. This might be confusing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, yes. When I say you on the podcast, it sometimes gets.

[David Sims]

Are you named for multiple people? Is that the great question?

[Ben]

I think, like, in the same way that you guys. That we had a John. We had a passion about John Travolta on the podcast that ended up happening in a whole other podcast where it was almost like verbatim. And I was like, I feel like I've heard this conversation somewhere. And I realized, like, we had had it. I bet you this was ass last time.

[David Sims]

It may have been.

[Ben]

I'm sorry, but if it wasn't. Yeah, I was named Ben David. I was born on Lincoln's birthday in Lincoln, Nebraska, and my parents were gonna name me Abe. And when they were sleep deprived, someone thought, that's kind of weird. So we're gonna name him be. And there was never any reasoning given beyond no justification. My 42 years on the plane pivot

[David Sims]

off of Abe, let's find something normal. And they kind of crashed. Two normal names.

[Ben]

There's been no explanation ever. That was just an impulsive thing someone thought of.

[David Sims]

So your birthday is in a week or so. If you were born in Abraham Lincoln's birthday, which is, of course, February 12th.

[Griffin Newman]

Excuse me. Ben David and I, our birthdays are exactly one week apart, and we're very close.

[Ben]

All right?

[Griffin Newman]

So I got, like, when Marie sits at that desk, it is the desk that is closest to me and reserved for the person whose birthday is closest to mine.

[Ben]

All right, so last year, Griffin, I had a joint birthday party.

[Griffin Newman]

We did.

[Ben]

And then the bartender made a very special, elaborate drink. Let the birthday boy, the great Tom

[Griffin Newman]

Wolfson, who's a loyal, longtime blankie and guy was amazing. Sunken Harbor Club in New York City. One of our favorite bars, if not our number one favorite bar.

[Ben David Grabinski]

One of the great tiki bars in New York City.

[Griffin Newman]

It's incredible. It's a wonderful place. And it's. It's a. It's a tiki bar minus all problematic elements. Yeah, it is a thing I want

[David Sims]

to actually communicate really more of a, like, nautical bar.

[Ben]

It is, right?

[David Sims]

Like, it's like an undersea bar.

[Griffin Newman]

Tiki style drinks in basically what feels like 20,000 leagues under the sea. It's like old British crusty men. It's closer to a master and commander bar.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Now, listeners might be surprised to learn that part of the deal with some of the drinks.

[David Sims]

There's a little performance.

[Griffin Newman]

There's some performance. There's sugar, there's lights, there's music. The place feels like a high end kind of Disney attraction.

[Ben David Grabinski]

It's like a theme park.

[Griffin Newman]

You feel like you're underwater and that you hear the waves rustling.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Shocking that Griffin Newman would gravitate to her.

[David Sims]

I know that this is his favorite.

[Griffin Newman]

We share many common interests. I should mention Ben David's other major credits, of course. Scott Pilgrim takes off the film happily. And most importantly, founding member of the historic group text, the 40x club, which, despite Sims jokes, is not a sausage party. And in fact, we are the comfortable male identifying minority in the group Text. This is. The 40x club is a matriarchy.

[Ben]

Wait, is 40% of the 40x group men? I think that's true.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[Ben]

All right, anyway, we got to get to the punchline of this thing.

[David Sims]

I've ever accused 40x of being too male.

[Griffin Newman]

I called out the 40x club and you went, oh, Bet there was a lot of women in that group.

[David Sims]

Sounds like a great gag by me.

[Griffin Newman]

This group text has binders full of women. Three.

[David Sims]

Three binders.

[Griffin Newman]

Sunken Harbor Club. Tom Wolfson sets us up. A gentleman and a scholar. I will let you now deliver the punchline.

[Ben]

So at some point, they're like, well, here's the birthday boy. He calls me over and there's birthday boys, plural, but only one. And you can explain what happened.

[Griffin Newman]

He hands me an envelope with, like, a red light keychain to locate a hidden message that I then say out loud to the bartender. And then I believe they start playing the. The Lalo Shiffrin music. Do an entire act out of being suspicious and trying to, like, sneak around the bar and then, like, construct something and light it on fire and hand it to me with, like, a lot of pomp and circumstance. And I go like, did you just fucking see that? How fucking cool is that? We get, like a mission impossible drink for our birthday. You should go up and order it. And I hand you the envelope and I'm like, here's the password. And then what happens?

[Ben]

And the guy's like, oh, we only plan one because it's his birthday.

[Griffin Newman]

We have exactly one amount of money,

[Ben]

and I have an IMF tattoo. I ran a Mission Impossible 2 website in high school, and I didn't get the Mission Impossible drink. So I think the great thing about New York is it's just humbling, you know, ever since I moved here, every single situation just, you know, they're like, you don't get a Mission Impossible drink. And I'm like, well, that's good.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also funny that the left side of your tattoo is part one and the right side of your tattoo is something different.

[Ben]

This is the final tattoo.

[Griffin Newman]

It just is like, nope. Nobody was always supposed to be this design.

[David Sims]

I think we should.

[Ben]

We have one more thing about tiki bars. So, you know, is it Trader Sam's at Disneyland?

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[Ben]

I was watching for the first time recently the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah. Not a good film.

[Ben]

They shoot a scene in Trading Sam's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. It had just opened.

[Ben]

It's kind of overlit.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. That whole movie, I would say, is overlit for a haunted house comedy.

[David Sims]

Well, Rob Minkov, you know, he was a cartoon director, so.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Had a big light on the cartoons as you drew them, maybe. And he never learned his lesson.

[Griffin Newman]

Sims, that's an incredible insight. You're right.

[David Sims]

I say that in, like, you can't. An academic setting.

[Griffin Newman]

And someone's like, why are these draw in the dark? So animators don't know how to shoot live action other than to just.

[David Sims]

Hey, it's me, David Sims. I'm here to teach film 101. Why is the haunted movie dimension over lit? I don't know. Cartoonists need big lights to see all the cartoons.

[Griffin Newman]

They draw mink off on set with a big bullhorn. I need 80 more desk lamps.

[David Sims]

Can't see everything.

[Griffin Newman]

Pointing desk lamps at Eddie Murphy's head.

[Ben]

That movie ends with a Nelly song that samples the theme from People's Court.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Sounds pretty good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Who else is in the Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy?

[Griffin Newman]

Well, there's one slam dunk piece of casting, which is Terence Stamp as a creepy butler. Like, as a ghost butler.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

And then Wallace Shrek Sean is like a creepy horseman.

[David Sims]

Wallace Carriageman Wallace. Sean is indeed. It seems maybe third build, which. I love the guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Maybe you're in trouble if. If. If he's that high up on the call sheet.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's Evers and Evers royalty. He's trying to sell the haunted mansion. He and his family have to stay there for a night. So most of it is his wife and his two children. Marsha Thompson. Is that maybe the name of the

[Ben]

actress so you want a great transition. Marcia Thomas.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[Ben]

From Lost, which clearly was inspired by Fearless.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

By Peter Weir. We're making it weird today. Today we're talking about the Last Wave, Peter Weir's third film. What is interesting about Peter Weir's career versus many other directors we've covered is, like, these three films kind of come out as, like, one movement of expression. Right. Like, he's sort of just like.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they sort of. All right, they. It's not like it happens simultaneously, but he. Right. He set several balls rolling and so when it's not like he did the last. We'll talk about it. But, like, he did the Last Wave based off of his success of Picnic and Hanging Rock. It was already, well, in motion by the time Picnic was in post production.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. The success of Picnic got him a little extra money for this. But, yeah, these three films just sort of, like, started rolling at the same time and then come out in very short. Secession.

[David Sims]

Certainly true. And it. I guess it's sort of the breadth of. I mean, Gallipoli is probably the big thing for him, but, like. And you're living dangerously. But, like, the breadth of, like, genres, moods, tones that he's showing here. If I'm in Hollywood, I'm kind of like, this guy feels like he could do a lot of stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, a lot of.

[David Sims]

A lot of them on anything.

[Griffin Newman]

Our favorite types of directors to cover. Talk about, like, early in your career, you start to strategize, how do I not get pigeonholed into to be in one thing? How do I prove that I can make all different types of movies? A lot of careers go astray when someone is like, I want to prove that I can make this kind of thing. And then their second film abandons everything, their first film does well and their career stumbles. But Peter Weir kind of has the perfect version of it where the first three movies, he's like, here's a tapestry. Let me work.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

When did you see the Last Wave for the first time? Ben David Garanski?

[David Sims]

Because for me, it's a couple nights ago. Yeah.

[Ben]

You hadn't seen it before. No, I mean, I respect that.

[Griffin Newman]

You said that very dismissively.

[Ben]

No, no, no.

[David Sims]

I. I simply had not. I don't know what to tell you.

[Ben]

So, like, Weir is one of my guys, and based on actually what you just talked about, it was like a real accidental thing. Right. Like, three movies as a kid, that meant everything to me, but I didn't know, like, what directors were. Besides, like, everyone knew who Tim Burton was. And like Spielberg. But I seen Dead Poet Society, which I fucking loved in school. They show me Gallipoli, which traumatized me, and I just watched it two days ago and it made me cry so hard I almost vomited.

[David Sims]

Things didn't go great in Gallipoli, but Gallipoli has.

[Ben]

I think it is maybe the saddest movie ever. It. I. I was like. I got so upset. I was like an adult, and I cried so hard I almost puked.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben David knows me well enough that he texted the other night. I advise you to not watch Gallipoli right before record recording because I think the ending will leave you in a bad mood. I was like, oh, good night. Before.

[David Sims]

It ends with someone just staring into the camera being like, Griffin Newman. By the way, that guy sucks bad at podcasting.

[Ben]

Anyway, roll the credit.

[Griffin Newman]

Who the wrote this?

[Ben]

The end of the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Chandler's character. From Early Edition. They got post from our Reddit.

[Ben]

The end of the movie is Mel Gibson looking at the camera and saying, griffin Newman's Arnold impression is terrible.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And I'm like, I'm not gonna fight you on that.

[David Sims]

It wasn't arguing. It wasn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Feels like a weir, your platform.

[Ben]

But the other movie was Witness, which I saw on TV with commercials on, like, KUTP 45. And as a kid, like, you know, Raiders and Han Solo, like, that was your shit. And I watched Witness, and I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever.

[David Sims]

Correct. Correct.

[Ben]

Reaction. And the. But also just that it. I never seen anything like it because it's like you think you're watching, like, a cop movie, but you're also watching this unbelievable, sad love story and, like, this introduction of the world of the Amish, and I'm like, this is like, the greatest movie ever. So, like, these three movies that I really like, and I have no idea, like, they're the same guy until I'm, you know, like in my late teens or whatever. And then the. I say Truman. I was obsessed with Truman Show. Like, I had the score on CD and I would, like, listen to it all the time. But what happened? The reason I got into this movie is very dumb and weird, but, like, Garden State, but in a different way. My freshman year of college, I saw Donnie Darko, and I was so into it. And the thing I couldn't put a finger on was, like, the vibe of, like, the world is ending. And this is melancholy, but it's also not devastating. It's sort of like this slow crawl where, like, a lead character sort of feeling like the world around him is like, reaching the end, but also the

[Griffin Newman]

world around him is, like, revealing itself. It's explaining what he maybe had always kind of felt and couldn't put his finger on.

[Ben]

And I did this thing back then that was very formative for me, which is, if I really liked a movie, I tried to figure out what inspired the director, which is how I ended up becoming such a huge Demi fan, was because PT Wouldn't stop talking about him. And there was an interview with Richard Kelly where he mentioned the Last Wave. And I'm like, what the fuck is the Last Wave? So I got it from Netflix DVD mailed to me, and I watched it, and it fucked me up. And I hadn't seen Twin Peaks yet. I think I watched Twin Peaks for the first time, actually, right after that, and I hadn't seen a ton of lynch. And there was a mood to it that felt very singular. And now I've realized that there's a few masters of it, but that thing of just the mounting dread, the reality and the things you're imagining or your dreams kind of bleeding into each other, and it just really clicked for me. And I think I realized later my love of both of those movies at the time and now is actually partially let's Get Weird is connected to, like, growing up super Christian. Like, I was. I went to, like, a Christian school from, like, age 5 to, like, 12 and went to way too much church and, like, Baptist church. And they made you feel 24 7, like the world was going to end at any moment. And if you're not saved, you're fucked. So it's like, you need to, like, become a Christian before the Rapture and the end times are real and all this stuff. And I think I grew up really genuinely thinking that the world was going to end because of that omnipresent feeling.

[Griffin Newman]

It is wild that that's a thing.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's, like, where I would have, like, nightmares thinking I was gonna wake up and all my friends would be gone and I was, like, alone.

[David Sims]

Instead, you should just tell your kids, like, I don't know, be nice to each other.

[Griffin Newman]

Almost all forms of Christianity have some underpinning of, like, and if the apocalypse happens tomorrow, it'd actually be good news.

[David Sims]

I. I would disagree with that. I would say most forms of Christianity do not. I would say it's the more. Well, the more kind of like, we really read the book and everything in it is true. Types that are like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, the world's got to end for to be really good.

[Ben]

Well, what.

[David Sims]

A lot of the blander Christianity is more in the realm of, like, be nice to each other, you know, and

[Griffin Newman]

that's the stuff I like.

[David Sims]

Right. You know, not. Not to defend Christianity, which is bad.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no.

[David Sims]

You love it. Sure, I love it.

[Ben]

Well, I was. I'd say. I think that there's something very escapist for me about movies about the end of the world. They're not like, like, you know, Judeo Christian, where it's about, like, this separate thing where you can enjoy it and then it's not like a callback to some kind of weird childhood, like, trauma about that stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think this movie is kind of about the, like, peeling back of

[Ben]

a

[Griffin Newman]

Judeo Christian societal structure that was imposed upon a stolen land. You know, like part of it is this white guy, South American in origin, I guess so who's kind of.

[David Sims]

He was at least born there. Maybe he's the son of a diplomat or something. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it's not Contestant, now that we know, he certainly was born there. I've never been wrong on this podcast once.

[David Sims]

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

[Griffin Newman]

Never.

[David Sims]

Certainly not.

[Griffin Newman]

And I want to make this clear anytime I've been wrong. I am reading verbatim from the dossiers of J.J. right. It's all his fall, who will never be fired, but will always take the fall. No, but that. That. It's sort of him, like, recognizing that. That there has been a suppression of the rules of the land and the world and life that this Judeo Christian movement placed themselves on top of and have been, like, smothering. Right. It's like him peeling back the layers to, like, what the fuck is actually going on here.

[David Sims]

It's definitely a.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's a little bit about whatever's up with his bland ass as well as the wider, you know, implications of colonialism and. And the arrival of white people in this country that is not their own totally chill arrival. Right. With no issues. And then possibly, yes. Like, I mean, I think Peter Weir just loves the idea of, like, what if this, like, really prosaic, really, by the numbers guy had to believe in Kaitlyn Crow of magic? You know, like. Like, you know, had to confront the

[Griffin Newman]

supernatural, as he put it. The whole hook for him on this movie was like, what if a pragmatist experiences a premonition? Like, that was the core animating idea

[David Sims]

and was supposed to kind of think, like, start thinking, like, is that. Was that real? That wasn't just a weird dream.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think there's something to what you're saying of like, you know, white people showing up, not just wanting to like reap the riches of the land and massacre the people and claim everything for their own, but also be like. And by the way, we come from our country where we cracked society. We understand how everything works. Here's the system. Everyone conform to us now. And the indigenous people of whatever country they have taken over hostilely are sort of forced to figure out how they exist in relation to that being the dominant societal structure.

[Ben]

It's very similar to the movie Dragonfly.

[Griffin Newman]

It's very similar to the movie Dragonfly which is now available digitally from our friends at Universal Home Entertainment. Thank you. Uhe.

[David Sims]

Big planet.

[Griffin Newman]

We love that big planet, don't we?

[David Sims]

You know, that's the logo.

[Griffin Newman]

The globe. We love that globe.

[David Sims]

Big Earth.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

This episode is brought to you by Moo Mooby.

[David Sims]

Ah, the global film company, the Champions Great Cinema. Ah, the global film company, the Champions Great Cinema.

[Griffin Newman]

The global film Company.

[David Sims]

Iconic directors, emerging auteurs. Always something new to discover movies. Films are hand selected. You can explore the best of cinema.

[Griffin Newman]

Give me one example.

[David Sims]

David Gibson. No. They have a new movie that's streaming on Ruby in the us. It's Father, Mother, Sister, Brother. It's the Jim Jarmusch movie from last year. The one, the Golden Lion.

[Griffin Newman]

This. This is a film from Venice that regretfully.

[David Sims]

Regretfully. Regretful.

[Griffin Newman]

Regretfully, you and I both didn't get a chance to catch up with.

[David Sims]

But now I will be able to enjoy this funny, tender and gently moving exploration of the universal intricacies of family dynamics. Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling.

[Griffin Newman]

Why are you listing? Take Blanchett, Vicky Creeps, all the people who were invited to Ben's birthday party.

[David Sims]

It's a triptych, right? There's a New Jersey section, a Dublin section, a Paris section. Obviously Jarmusch has done some such storytelling before. Night on Earth and such coffee and cigarettes. Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

It's about the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent or parents and each other. I simply cannot relate.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I know, right? Having a complicated relationship with your parents.

[David Sims]

So you can watch that and you can watch all the other great stuff they've got at MUBI to stream the best of cinema. You can try MUBI free for 30 [e-mail] blankcheck that's M U B I.com blankcheck for a whole month of great cinema for free.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm surprised you had never seen this before, David, because you love Weir. Although I Recently said Weir is one of your main guys and you went, it's Less is one of my main guys and more that he's made some movies that are amongst my favorites and that he feels like a perfect encapsulation of the type of director I like to cover on exactly that.

[David Sims]

But I do love, love, love, love, love, love. Yeah, a handful of the movies he's made, and then I tend to pretty much like the rest of them. Except for Dead Poets Society, which we will talk about. Not a movie I hate, but a movie I'm very mixed on.

[Griffin Newman]

Sims was the. Was the. The negative Nelly on that episode the only things to your wife, Ben?

[David Sims]

Well, she's positive Nelly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, of course. I just don't want anyone to get it mixed up.

[Ben]

That is always how I describe them. There's negative Nelly and positive Nelly and one is Sims.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe it's a problem Nelly. Maybe that's the way. Just so it's.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the cleaner version is.

[Griffin Newman]

Positive works, sure.

[David Sims]

It just. I've never seen the Way Back is the other one.

[Ben]

I haven't seen Green Card in the Way Back and. But the rest.

[David Sims]

Green Card, a movie I adore the Way Back. It's just kind of crazy that I haven't seen it because, like, Colin Farrell's in it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's wild that you didn't see it because Colin Farrell's and.

[David Sims]

And it was the follow up to Master and Commander, like. Yes. But of course, when it came out, everyone was like, snooze. And I was like, oh, I guess I won't bother.

[Griffin Newman]

Got a makeup nomination.

[Ben]

Sure you did.

[Griffin Newman]

It was like enough at the periphery of the Oscar conversation that I'm even surprised I didn't watch it that year because that feels like peak obsessive. What if I watch literally every single

[David Sims]

classic snoozy reviews where everyone was just like, oh, it's fine, I suppose, you know, like there was just no enthusiasm for it. I've heard a couple of whispers of people being like, you know, that movie's underrated over the years, but very little.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think it's interesting that Weir was kind of a perfect example of a director who was beloved within the industry. It felt like, you know, he. He had a handful of director and picture nominations, a list. Movie stars clearly loved him, flocked to him with his. Their passion projects. But he was not really a household name when you look at his, like, 90s films. They're sold as from the director of Blank and Blank But Peter Weir was not kind of like, known to the public as an otor as much. And it feels like outside of Australia, where I think the first four or five films are so impactful and he's such an important figure in the Australian new wave, that there was a real kind of hometown hero, immediate kind of like claiming of him. But I feel like when the Way Back comes out, the Master and Commander Hive had not fully.

[David Sims]

I was there, but you were there,

[Griffin Newman]

but it was a little bit of an outside opinion.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was like, the best movie ever made. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But if, like, two years ago, they were like, Peter Weir has returned to the cinema. People be with a Serbian refugee drama called the Way Back, people would be hooting, hollering. I'm not saying to make a hundred million dollars, but there would be a sort of.

[David Sims]

Right. But he has long been a director who is taken seriously, who, you know, makes big movies, blah, blah, blah. But people do not stand in the way. You know, some bigoters.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I do think Master and Commander Growing made certain people revisit and do what you're saying. Ben David, of being like, oh, fuck, he directed all five of those movies. I love. And there's been a little bit more of a retrospective, a tourist swing on him.

[David Sims]

Now, why did you Ben David vibe with this movie specifically? Well, you said already, basically, but I would say that. Did you catch it on dvd?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, what was your first Netflix got in the mail.

[Ben]

There is a proto quickster. The funny thing about there's, like, stuff that, like, you gravitate towards that also is not at all like, it's not your sensibility, like, the stuff you're making. But a thing to me that I think is magic, if you can do it, is the. The movies that make it where you blurring the lines between what's actually happening and what's not and making you feel like you're in the same headspace as a person. My favorite of all time of that is Perfect Blue.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

The.

[Griffin Newman]

The cone movies are my favorite execution of that, which is also one of my favorite favorite things.

[Ben]

It's like if someone can make me feel like I'm losing my grip on reality alongside the lead character, I think that's just like a real. There's almost like a sense. There's like a magic to it, like between editing and sound design and music. And this movie, to me is one of the most effective. Like, he's taking stuff that's in Picnic at Hanging Rock, which I think is a better movie, I'd say. I think it's one of the best movies ever made. But this movie leans really hard into the feeling you get in the first third of that. Like, when they're on that trip, that thing where, like, nature and, you know, this cosmic. Almost like a cosmic horror kind of thing. It's like a very, very sophisticated, prestige version of that.

[David Sims]

It's also, I will say, not an easy movie to sell someone or describe in any way.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, we'll get into it in the dossier. But the fascinating thing is that the success and at least like the critical sort of notoriety of Picnic at Hanging Rock translated to artists putting up a good chunk of the budget for this movie because they felt like, is we're someone who's about to translate over to the States.

[David Sims]

Which was true.

[Griffin Newman]

And when they, in a way, watched the final film, they were like, yeah, you can sell it to someone else to release it. We don't want to put this out. They had put the money into it.

[David Sims]

It's a weird one.

[Griffin Newman]

Production was done and they were like, feel free to shop.

[David Sims]

I mean, I'm not shocked because I think they saw it and they were probably like, this is very Australian. Like, this is not something that's going to translate. And my wife was like, what's. You know, she, like, comes in as I want. She's like, what's it about? And I'm like, well. And I. I really struggled to lay out the setup of the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

There is like a two sentence you could give on this movie that would not represent it well, but would actually be conveying the major movements of it, if that makes sense.

[David Sims]

I guess so, yeah. It's like there's a white guy in a sort of town kind of in the outback, who gets drawn into a crime or an alleged crime and discovers that there's maybe like a sort of supernatural thing going on or a sort of, you know, ancient religious, you know, kind of thing going on. And then maybe he's sort of involved

[Griffin Newman]

with it, like attacks murder, supernaturally represent aboriginal murder. In Digging Deeper understands that perhaps there was a supernatural phenomenon coming on that also points towards the end of days.

[David Sims]

It's a bit. Right. It's a bit hard to just kind of lay out to something that's not

[Griffin Newman]

wrong what I just said. But also, if you said that to someone, they would not picture the movie that exists, I think.

[Ben]

Well, I mean, watch it because, like, I'd read the premise and the premise sounded amazing. I watched it because I was, you know, being an idiot going down a rabbit hole of like, oh, like, you know, Richard Kelly said he liked it and blah, blah, blah. There's another thing about it that it has that I love, which is kind of the foundation of, like, Jallo movies, which is, like, a detective story where it's not a detective and they're solving something that is kind of bigger than the thing. Where, like, I love when it's, like, a lawyer or a journalist or, like, a saxophone player or something, where, like, someone who's from the out, who doesn't traditionally, every day wake up and try to solve some gigantic, unsolvable thing. Like a movie about getting deeper and deeper and deeper.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a movie about, like, a white man jazz saxophonist who starts to realize there's a weird pattern relating to the number 23 and needs to get to the bottom of it. You're saying that's your ideal kind of movie. I've never seen it.

[Ben]

I thought you were starting to say the movie Deep Red. There are actually so many movies about, like, jazz players who get involved in a big, scary mystery.

[Griffin Newman]

And no bigger mystery than 23. I've yet to hear a bigger number cause that much damage. I. I haven't seen it because I didn't. I up and I didn't watch it when I was 23, and now I got to wait till I'm 46.

[Ben]

Someone very earnestly recently, I. I'm. I hope he doesn't hear this and think I'm mocking him. Was talking to me and said, have you ever noticed how the number 23 is everywhere? And I was like, is this a bit. Do you know about the movie number 23? And he wasn't aware that anyone else had ever said that before. He was just noticing he hadn't seen the picture. No. Yeah. He just was like. He thought he was the first guy to notice that the number 23 was everywhere.

[Griffin Newman]

It is funny movies like number 23 and pay it Forward that are just, like, immediately met with. With derision and bomb. But also, even before their release, they're like, we're just gonna pluck this and put it into the vernacular. No one has seen the movie. Everyone's seen the trailer. We all want to make number 23 jokes for the rest of our lives.

[David Sims]

That's me being Jim Carrey in that movie. Prove me wrong.

[Griffin Newman]

I think you were, like, 17 notes short.

[Ben David Grabinski]

For listeners at home, David is doing incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, so the finger work is so specific and precise.

[Ben]

So the didgeridoo, I think, is the second best instrument after the alto sax. Just because I played that. You played alto Sax. You played didgeridoo? No, I'm just saying, like, I wish I did. Oh, sure. I think that it is anything that is both a instrument and also sounds like sound design to me. That's sick. In my opinion.

[David Sims]

I'm opening the dossier crack at this film.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

Peter Weir's second film was Picnic A Hanging Rock came out in 1975. It was a huge success in the film in the country of Australia. And then it was. It was a global success, but it took years. Yeah. So it really only gets to America in 1979, which is two years after the Last Wave comes out. So that's how, you know, slowly things are going now. Stanley Kubrick was a huge fan of

[Ben]

Picnic and Hanging Around.

[David Sims]

He had very good taste.

[Griffin Newman]

Also. I can't remember if we called this out. In the episode, he, some point before he died, wrote a list of his 100 favorite movies of all time.

[David Sims]

People often obsess over said list.

[Griffin Newman]

Cars that Ate Paris is on that list. He was specifically, like, locked in on that. That from release.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I'm sure we've called it out.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, well, who knows? Impossible to say.

[David Sims]

He recommended. Check to Warner Brothers that they hire him to do the Salem's Lot tv, the sort of legendary TV adaptation of Salem's Lot, which of course was instead directed by Nick Garris. Is that right?

[Ben]

Larry Cohen did the second one.

[Griffin Newman]

I think. I think it's McGarris. Unless he did one of the other Toby Hooper.

[Ben]

I knew it wasn't me that was

[David Sims]

really with the famous.

[Griffin Newman]

With the voyager window, you know? Yeah, yeah. No, J.J. wrote that, though.

[David Sims]

When I interviewed Ryan Coogler for Sinners, he brought up Salem's Lot, the book, which is an incredible book, as, like, a book about, like, you don't realize that everyone's fucking turning into a Dracula until, like, you know, it's almost over.

[Ben]

Blah, blah, blah. Right.

[David Sims]

And I was like, yeah. And then the.

[Ben]

The.

[Griffin Newman]

The tv. The TV thing.

[David Sims]

And he was like, I've honestly actually never seen the TV thing. And I was like, right, but. And then at the same time, we were like, the Boy at the Window. I was like, everyone's seen that. Everyone knows that one scene.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Anyway, he gets recommended for that. Weir passes.

[Griffin Newman]

He's kind of skeptical of making the Hollywood jump at that point in time.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's kind of like, perhaps wisely, like, I don't think I can handle, like, jumping from this quiet, indie, you know, off the grid, Australian nascent film scene to, like, the horrors of harsh Hollywood. Right. Makes sense. He's like, I like to write my own material. I know I'll probably film abroad one day, but, you know, I think I need to build up some more confidence. I mean, good for him. So, obviously, Australia is pretty still tough to make a movie. You gotta really scrape your money together, right? You know, it's like a little bit of government money, a little bit of, like, you know, random little companies and stuff like that.

[Griffin Newman]

But the Australian New wave is also basically developing in, like, perfect tandem, parallel with his career. Like he said, as, as, as he made each successive film in his career, the industry around him has had leveled up, and the amount of money that people were willing to invest into movies and the government grants and all of that kept leveling up at the exact same pace that his ambitions were growing.

[David Sims]

In 1971, made a little trip to Tunisia. Cool. Saw some Roman ruins and was very sort of seized by it and was digging up stone, thinking, I'm going to find a head.

[Griffin Newman]

He felt a premonition, right?

[David Sims]

And then he says he. He finds, like, a chunk of stone that was first attached to a head. Must have been part of a Cupid. He says he smuggled it out of Tunisia, which is kind of a, you

[Griffin Newman]

know, I just wanted to alert you,

[David Sims]

kind of a soft crime.

[Griffin Newman]

I know you might feel like anything in the dossier is homework. Classic Ben Kryptonite, but in fact, this anecdote is about Peter Weir stealing ruins.

[David Sims]

He got it dated at the University of Sydney and confirmed he still has it, or at least at the time it was on his desk or whatever. So he's like, huh, I'm a pretty pragmatic guy, and yet I felt like I had a weird premonition and that's why I did that insane thing. So what if that's, like, the origin of an idea for a movie? What an odd guy. That's a weird way to describe.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know, it's a weird thing. We've uncovered Ben David in doing these first couple of episodes. Do you know that Peter Weir was, like, very involved in sketch comedy? Oh, that he, like, performed, wrote and directed sketch comedy when he was young. I think, like, started in college but extended outside of it.

[David Sims]

And it was his early work and

[Ben]

Filmed Arts original Jordan Peele, kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

And then his filmmaking is like, oh, this is like an interesting medium that can combine all these different things. I've done, like, you know, I've done photography, I've done. I've worked with actors, I perform. But it's funny because even the movies he has Made that are comedic do not feel like they come from someone with a background in sketch comedy. In a way, I would argue, like, Cragger and Peele have kind of like sketch comedy machinery built into their storytelling

[Ben]

motives, but there's not comic timing built into the editing. Even in a droll way of weird stuff like, you know, Truman show is almost anti comedy in a way where it's undercutting any possible laughs you can get.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[Ben]

That's fascinating.

[Griffin Newman]

You see, like, Craig and Peele construct horror set pieces with a kind of sketch comedy brain for structure and timing

[David Sims]

when he's making tv. Luke's Kingdom, which I don't think was sketch comedy, but one of his early TV things he met. I want to get it. I'm not totally sure how to say his name, but David Goldpillow. I mean, Golpilil is how.

[Ben]

It's Gallipoli.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the name of his next picture.

[David Sims]

Who had been in Walkabout, obviously, that's like his breakout role, which is an incredible movie, the Nicholas Roeque movie Walkabout. But so he meets him there. And initially Weir had been conceiving of this sort of mystical project of his as being about Incan ruins or whatever. And he starts talking to him about, like, you know, Aboriginal people and their, you know, their culture and their religion and like, whatever, and. And he grow. He's like, I've never really, you know, delved into this, despite being Australian. Like, I don't know much about this.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie feels like him forcing himself to do the work that the character is doing.

[Ben]

Right?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, the process of making the movie is like a self imposed. Like, I need to think more deeply about the land I'm standing on.

[David Sims]

I'm quoting Weir here, but he gets drunk with a guy and he says, gopill married a de. Tribalized woman, moved her to the city, became an actor. He broke his tribal laws. In the course of our conversation, he said something like this. Last week, my wife was very upset with me because of the great space, because the great space had left me. And there I stood. And that was because the moon was there. I thought maybe I'd had too much to drink and I asked him to repeat that. And he repeated the same thing. And then he's repeated it a third time. It turned out the premonitions were very ordinary for him and I became very excited and I was confronted by a basic error that made in my assessment of tribal Aboriginals, that they perceived life the way I did. So he's very suddenly drawn to collaborating with him and writing it about people in Australia, the country he lives in.

[Griffin Newman]

And all the Aboriginal actors he cast in this film were very involved in the script from the moment they were hired. He. He basically was like, tell me what I don't know.

[Ben]

That actor was also on the Leftovers, which was heavily inspired by.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben]

A bunch of weird movies.

[David Sims]

He's such a. I mean, he's in Rabbit Proofread, he's in Crocodile Dundee. You get a small role.

[Griffin Newman]

He's in Australia. And Far Away Downs, he's in Australia.

[David Sims]

I think by law. I think everyone in the cast of that movie, like, they were like, get all the Australian actors.

[Ben]

It was a miniseries on Hulu.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's Far Way down now it has a different title.

[Ben]

Oh, it does it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it does.

[David Sims]

He made a movie called Charlie's country like about 10 years ago that he won like every Australian acting prize for a movie that I think did not really cross over, but was a big deal in Australia. Was kind of a. Like the Australian film industry being like, we recognize your.

[Ben]

Your.

[David Sims]

The wealth of your career and all this.

[Griffin Newman]

It was kind of his color of money.

[David Sims]

True grit. Yeah, whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

He died fairly recently.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he died in 2021.

[Griffin Newman]

Richard Chamberlain died like in the last year at 90. David.

[David Sims]

I did it.

[Griffin Newman]

David. This is.

[David Sims]

Actually took him down.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the single worst place to confess that being recorded.

[David Sims]

No, he. He died, never married and had no children.

[Griffin Newman]

Richard Chamberlain.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he.

[Griffin Newman]

He came out late in life, but he was, he was a kind of don't ask, don't tell Hollywood barely closeted man who did in his memoirs, I think in the early 2000s, he finally

[David Sims]

was sort of like, by the way, this is, this is a thing. So anyway, he starts to crack. This story brings on Tony Morphett, who'd worked on Luke's Kingdom to write it with him. And then Petru Popescu, who had worked with Weir before, was brought in to make the script more appealing to potential investors, make it more commercial. I think basically he's like, maybe their script is too weird. And he kind of cleans it up. Although I think it's still a little weird.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He's got the McElroy brothers, who produced the first two movies on board with this.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

In between podcasting and tabletop campaigns.

[David Sims]

Indeed. And so they all get to work on it. He says, he admits. Weir admits he could never really figure out the ending of this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I think they kind of cracked it by just ending with a big ass wave.

[David Sims]

He said, I didn't really find a solution to the problem, how to end it. There is no ending. I was kind of painted into a corner. And you try to be clever. I tried a couple other endings that stopped short of a wave. They were too neat. And so he decided to end with a big old wave.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the ending works. I wonder if I do. I mean, he's just sort of like, I didn't have the resources to show more of an apocalypse.

[David Sims]

I think it's the kind of ending that is going to send a bunch of your audience out going like, oh, right. Like not going up. Being like, you gotta see this movie. I just saw like, you know, like, it's definitely a head scratcher, but.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's an ending that definitively answers something is happening. Which is kind of all the movie needs to make good on in my end mind to conclude properly.

[Ben]

I think the part of the ending that I struggle with is I don't really think they set up and pay off. The cyclical nature of opening with someone stealing these relics and then him trying to steal him and then killing the guy in the process. It feels very kind of out of nowhere that he's so determined to bring those things out with him or like his intention behind doing it. I don't. Doesn't really track. I like the idea of that kind of biblical comeuppance where he gets trapped. And the more he gets trapped, he keeps dropping the things until he has nothing left. Like, that feels like a good idea. I don't love that stuff. But what I do love is the titular Last Wave. I like that.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with that. That's a good point. I also would say my criticism of the ending would be knowing that they specifically brought extra writers in to try to help this movie appeal to American audiences with a kind of Hollywood viewpoint. Big must missed opportunity to not have Stitch hanging ten on that wave. He's one of our biggest stars. The man's consistent box office gold.

[Ben]

I struggle with this joke.

[Griffin Newman]

You end with a Stitch cameo.

[David Sims]

The thing right there with the audience.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not a joke. It's a great point. The audience is cheering.

[David Sims]

He does not.

[Griffin Newman]

King of the fucking box office.

[David Sims]

Sure, he doesn't.

[Griffin Newman]

Look at 20, 25. The numbers don't lie.

[Ben]

But then Peter Weir would have story credit on Lilo and Stitch because he created Stitch. That's the way time works.

[David Sims]

Good. That is the way time works. The Last Wave. Weir does not see it as like an end of the world movie. It's more just like a catastrophe is what he's seeing. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not a total.

[David Sims]

Right, right. It's not like total apocalypse. He also doesn't think it's an occult movie. He's like, I don't want to sound pretentious, but it's. It's spiritual. It's a spiritual movie. It's ambiguous. And here's on what he's going for. Mood. He's going for. I was frightened by a noise heard outside my window last night. A rasping, inhuman sound which seemed to come from nowhere. That's a fear we've all experienced at one time or another. Some choose to forget such fears. I choose to remember them and use them in my work. I kind of know what he's going for there. And like the creepiest dream in this movie, the one where you're kind of going up the stairs, the noise is kind of like a noise like that. That, like, weird noise you're hearing. Very cool. Not like terrifying, but a little unsettling. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie. Right. One of the key things, pillars of this movie is the idea that dreams are method of communication, that. That they are not abstract processing, but they are an attempt for the universe, for spirits, for souls, for what have you. To be able to communicate something to you in a non literal way. Kind of like how frequency. There's a radio that allows you to talk to dead people.

[Ben]

So did frequency invent podcasting or did I just do a real Bill Simmons? Bill?

[Griffin Newman]

No, no. Frequency invented podcasting. Peter Weir invented Stitch.

[Ben]

Oh. But they use the CB radio from the past to connect to the future, to find out who Stitch was, to put Stitch in the finale. See, I thought the joke you were gonna make is they should play the song Wipeout at the end.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I'll make that joke too.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

They should play the song Wipeout at the end.

[David Sims]

Wipeout.

[Ben]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Audience would have left cheering.

[David Sims]

So I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Stand by it. I think we're making good points.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Maybe it's a mashup. And it's like the final wipeout.

[David Sims]

So they get a bunch of money. I'm just steamrolling all. Yep, they get some money. Yanis Films, Southern Australia. It doesn't matter. Come on. Jesus is too much. Richard Chamberlain, best known, I would say, is Dr. Kildare on NBC.

[Griffin Newman]

They called him the king of the miniseries.

[David Sims]

Sure. Well, that's true. I do feel like that is because he's in. He's in the original Shogun. Right. That was a huge show.

[Griffin Newman]

He does the Yardbirds after this, which I think comes out of him enjoying his Time in Australia.

[David Sims]

I think you mean the, the Thornbirds. The Yards is like the band.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to correct JJ's typo here. Hold on one second.

[David Sims]

Stop blaming another. Another TV miniseries he did is called Centennial. Not a, not one. I know, but that was like a big show in the 70s, sort of. But the. I've, I've. Look, I have never seen Dr. Kildare. But that was like a show in the six. Right. Like that was like a. There was like a popular doctor show in the earlier days of television.

[Ben]

Right.

[David Sims]

Does everyone agree?

[Griffin Newman]

Correct. But. But also the, the is, you know, the miniseries which has now basically just become the prestige TV show was a very powerful thing in the 70s and he was kind of the go to leading man.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

For. He's a good looking guy. He's. He's a classically handsome, broad shoulder, steady voiced man.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

You don't see him and go like, holy, this is the best actor I ever saw.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but I think he's quite good in this. And it's smart casting because there is something unnerving about watching this guy who just feels like, like really kind of on top of it. Just get a little frazzled and thrown off.

[David Sims]

He said, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry.

[Griffin Newman]

No. What does he play?

[David Sims]

He plays. He's pretty buried in it. Councilman Banks.

[Ben]

He's not buried in it. He thrives in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Thanks.

[David Sims]

Does he.

[Griffin Newman]

I imagine he must be presiding over the court.

[Ben]

There's definitely, I think he gives like a speech like where he's like, like you two have done great things.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you for solving the.

[Ben]

The thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Marriage.

[David Sims]

Because that is a movie that at the end they're like. And you guys are heroes too for doing this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. People applaud them.

[David Sims]

You're not gay, but you are heroes.

[Ben]

Because the heroes is Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor for getting writing credit on that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So Richard Chamberlain, you know, he's an American actor but the, and the Australian sort of. Of press was a little grumpy I think about the fact that this movie didn't star an Australian. And like Weir is just kind of like, I don't know, like he's a famous guy and he was good in the movie. Like he does not. He's no hang ups about casting. Richard Chamberlain.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben David Grabinski]

The right look.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he does. It also does sound like he, in not wanting to try to make the jump over to Hollywood movies, he was trying to figure out the way to make his movies play more in the States. Like it felt like that was a defensive Chess. But move of. If my movies can have some North American box office poll, then perhaps I can stay in Australia for even longer.

[David Sims]

Right. I mean, which.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool, right? Richard Chamberlain's like the cheapest version of a leading man you can get because he's not as much a movie guy while feeling very comfortable to American audiences.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I think he's quite good in this.

[Ben]

I think he knew that someday he was going to be in Twin Peaks, and that was a good reason to put him in there.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, that's also. Yes, well, Stitch told him

[David Sims]

so. More important, I think, is that we are, like, meets with the sort of Aboriginal cultural foundation in Darwin, Australia, and basically, like, the. The vibe. He's like. He's like, you can't just, like, show up and be like, anyway, I'm making a movie. Can you, like, show me some guys? Like, can you introduce me to the right people? Like, you gotta be like, here's the story I want to tell. Does this, you know, is this palatable, is this interesting to people? You know, like you. You. You want to be very sensitive and respectful. And so he's, you know, introduced to people. He attends a sort of dance group, and, you know, he kind of just like, keeps quiet and observes and talks and reads more. Look, there's a lot of things in this dossier thing just not going to get it. It's just too. It's too much, jj.

[Griffin Newman]

Just a lot of factual errors.

[David Sims]

It's just. I mean, look, he did a lot of work finding the right actors. Okay, I. I'm sorry.

[Ben David Grabinski]

It's so much flooded with information.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

And obviously he already knew David Gulpilil because he'd worked with him before they shot the movie. Russell Boyd shoots it. You know, his. His. His go to cinematographer. Star Wars.

[Ben]

Russell Boyd or John Seal.

[David Sims]

Right. John Seal is sort of initially, I think Void's number two. That's how they meet. And then, of course, becomes a legendary cinematographer in his own right.

[Griffin Newman]

Boy, the relationship that runs through to Master and Commander.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he wins the Oscar. It's the. It's the only tech Oscar that Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King, was not nominated for.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, no, I remember. Which was crazy because it won every single category.

[Ben]

And Andrew Lesney is an Australian cinematographer.

[David Sims]

He is, and he has won, obviously, for Fellowship. And I think he was like, I don't know. It's so weird that he wasn't nominated for. It doesn't matter.

[Griffin Newman]

But I remember that night, watching the

[David Sims]

Oscars, Lord of Rings, 11 out of 11.

[Griffin Newman]

But cinematography having this weird tension to it where you're like, this is the only category we can't predict because it's the one you can't put Return of the King down for.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. And he deservedly won an Oscar there, obviously with Last Wave. He goes blue.

[Griffin Newman]

He. It's working quite blue.

[David Sims]

They're going for a real blue look. Yep.

[Ben]

That's actually something Peter Weir talks about in his interviews of the movie, is that he wanted Picnic to have golden light and for this one to have blue light.

[David Sims]

I think nailed it on assignment. Nailed.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

The Raining Frogs. They wanted to try and initially film like Black Rain, like the phenomenon of Black Rain. Could not afford how to. Like they were like, we don't know how we would do that and it's too expensive.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they tried Chubby Rain, but it just, it felt like it threw off the mood, the tone of the movie. It was too funny.

[David Sims]

Here's how they filmed the Raining Frog. Someone got in a ladder and threw some fox frogs on the fucking ground.

[Griffin Newman]

Fucking magic of movies.

[Ben]

I can't believe they ripped off Magnolia.

[Griffin Newman]

How many ladders were used? I know, I know. There's no film set without a couple ladders. But did you feel like you had any ladder aided gags in your new movie?

[Ben]

Yeah, good question. So the thing when I watch is what I think of. Well, two things. One, I grew up in Phoenix, which had like severe monsoon seasons, and I was driving to see American Beauty at a press screening because I was a 16 year old film critic for the Arizona Republic.

[Griffin Newman]

For a little bit you were saying this that you had a radio show as a teenager and you lost your slot when your voice broke and they no longer.

[Ben]

When my voice changed, I got fired because I no longer sounded like a kid. And then I never got hired for work like that again.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you have a catchy name, like Lights, Camera Jackson?

[Ben]

No, I had a catchy name. Ben David Grabinski.

[Griffin Newman]

It is, it is pretty catchy.

[David Sims]

It lodges in the memory.

[Ben]

You know, you sort of. Unless you. You get to the end of a pod and realize there's Ben and David already.

[Griffin Newman]

But it wasn't like Ben David Gribbin, Skill versus Green.

[Ben]

Well, I went. I was seeing American Beauty and I was driving and you couldn't see 2 inches in front of the windshield because the way the monsoon rain would be then is. It feels like the rain scenes in this movie were like. It's completely obstructing your vision.

[David Sims]

I have driven in those kinds of conditions.

[Ben]

Pull off the road scene and wait for it to stop raining. But the other thing I think of is that. That I had a rain machine on a project which I will not name. And they said we couldn't afford it because we were over budget. And I said, well, how much is my trailer? And my trailer was more than a rain machine. So they said, fine, we can have a rain machine. After I gave up my trailer, I found out that we were under budget by half a million.

[Griffin Newman]

God fucking damn it.

[Ben]

So that's what I think of whenever I see rain in a movie, as me being petty about someone lying to me about the budget.

[Griffin Newman]

And then the problem is during lunch, you have to take naps on top of a rain machine.

[Ben]

Now, I actually did.

[David Sims]

When you don't have a trailer, what. What do you do? Where do you go?

[Griffin Newman]

I just answered, he takes naps on top of the rain machine.

[Ben]

Well, I'm a man of the people, so I'm just gonna.

[Griffin Newman]

He said he did. I don't know what to tell you.

[Ben]

I'm gonna just, you know, sit and hang out. You just have no place to nap. You always have a place. There's always chairs.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure.

[Ben]

I've never napped because I just. If I. If I napped, then it would just be over.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, not a good napper.

[Ben]

When I'm directing, I have to, like, at lunch, like, if I'm. Especially if I'm writing it, to, like, go over the pages and, like, work out stuff. A place where, like, no one will find me. But on that thing, I was a showrunner and it was live action, so I've already given away what it was. But I didn't. I didn't need the trailer, and no one really does. But in that case, it was just like, the finding out. That's like, the weird thing. It's like, oh, array machine costs, like, $36,000 for a day or something. And so this movie, I think they had infinity dollars for their rain budget.

[Griffin Newman]

The rain budget's insane. You brought up Coogler Sims weirdly for unrelated reasons.

[Ben]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

I was thinking a lot, not having seen this movie before. The way water is depicted feels very similar to me to what Coogler does in Wakanda Forever Movie. I like a lot a movie that is all over the place, but has stuff in it that I think about a lot. And the main thing is the way he uses the device of, like, when Namor and people are coming, that water just starts, like, pooling in areas that.

[David Sims]

I love. All of that shit.

[Griffin Newman]

That's incredible. And this movie has the like when the water is pulling out of the car radio. Just the eeriness of like water flooding through in places it shouldn't with a. With a looming dread.

[Ben]

Did that remind you guys of the opening of Eight and a Half? Like, just car stuff. For some reason it reminds me.

[David Sims]

That's a movie I've not seen in a long time.

[Ben]

Well, it's funny because 8 and a half is a movie that I only really strongly remember two things is the opening, like when he's in a car and he's like. The way that it's lit and shot where he's like surrounded by other cars and you sort of feel trapped. And then the dancing scene that I think they also did in Brotherhood, I

[David Sims]

remember when he's a balloon.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Circus.

[Ben]

That's the same scene. Well, and that one, he floats away and then someone like has to pull him down. But the way that the car stuff in the opening of Eight and a Half Half is shot reminds me of those scenes, like when he's in his car and you feel like the world is so oppressive.

[David Sims]

You know, it's just funny that that's kind of like an early art film that a lot of people are shown because it's so famous. And so I was probably like 16 or something or 15 when I saw the same.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I'm like, oh, yeah. I really relate to this story of like kind of a middle aged Italian director being like, maybe I've made it too many movies.

[Ben]

The art movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone making your 20th picture after you've been heralded a genius for decades.

[David Sims]

Every woman alive from birth to death wants to.

[Griffin Newman]

That does suck.

[Ben]

It's related.

[Griffin Newman]

People keep trying to like smother me in their giant pendulous breasts.

[Ben]

I'd say the two. The two art movies that everyone sees as a teen.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

Eight and a Half and Clifford.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Thought you were going to say Seven Samurai, but yeah, Clifford.

[Griffin Newman]

Which are both kind of depictions of the burden of. Of genius. Yeah.

[Ben]

I mean, they're both movies about a stinker.

[Griffin Newman]

They are.

[David Sims]

Clifford is a burden. We can. We cannot deny this.

[Ben David Grabinski]

He's talented.

[David Sims]

He's talented.

[Griffin Newman]

He's very talented. He's an artist. He's an artist.

[Ben]

And we're.

[Griffin Newman]

In his own way. Dinosaur land.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Ben]

Both movies have a dinosaur theme park in them.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank God Clifford never came across a pair of giant pendulous Italian breasts. I don't even want to know what he was.

[Ben]

That was the sequel. The entire premise.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

You and I have a lot of shared interests. Sure. Common interest film, dumb movies, comedy podcasts, life, New York City, bagels, sandwiches.

[David Sims]

These are all true sleep.

[Ben]

Oh, I love sleep so much.

[Griffin Newman]

Sleep rules so much. It is kind of wild how sleep is constantly underrated. I don't think people give it enough credit.

[David Sims]

And it gets credit.

[Griffin Newman]

And nonetheless, even when it's bad, it's good.

[David Sims]

I mean, it's just so true.

[Griffin Newman]

It's true.

[David Sims]

I am living proof right now. You are, Because Lisa sponsored the show. And when they sponsored the show, they said, would you like a mattress sent

[Griffin Newman]

over A big honkin mattress.

[David Sims]

And I was like, it's time. I'm switching to a king mattress.

[Griffin Newman]

You're a king.

[David Sims]

I'm getting a bigger bed. My kids sometimes will pile into it. I need this much. I need as much square footage as possible on this sucker.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you need hop on pop space.

[David Sims]

I do. Now listen. I mean, Lisa, they've got this lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses. They're all tailored for different sleep positions, different feel preferences, but they've all got premium materials. They've all got full body support no matter how you asleep. They're all designed and assembled in the USA. They've all got a free shipping, easy returns, 120 night sleep trial that you can go by. Awarded the best hybrid mattress by wirecutter at the New York Times. Exclusively featured by West Elm. They're the go to mattress provider over there. It's good stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And they donate thousands of mattresses each year to those in need.

[Griffin Newman]

That's huge.

[David Sims]

Partner with organizations like Clean Home to remove harmful plastic waste from the ocean.

[Griffin Newman]

It's nice to hear that they care and it's nice to hear all those endorsements. But really, I think there is no stronger endorsement than David Sims, the sleepy king, the most tired man in America, saying that Lisa hits just right.

[David Sims]

I love it and I use it. And this is a true endorsement.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, boy.

[David Sims]

They're all endorsed. But this is about as endorsementy as an endorsement gets. I don't know what to tell you. Go to Lisa.com for 20% off mattresses, plus get a extra $50 off with promo code blank check, exclusive for our listeners. That's L E-E-S8.com promo code blank check for 20 off mattresses plus an extra 50 off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. That's Lisa.com promo code blank check.

[Griffin Newman]

David?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I've been known to order products off the Internet.

[David Sims]

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

[Griffin Newman]

I sometimes like purchasing things and then receiving them and Then placing them in our workspace.

[David Sims]

Right? That's cool.

[Griffin Newman]

And you know what is one of the greatest feelings I can have as a collector? You have to tell me that purple shop button. Okay, popping up. I do not on my screen what

[David Sims]

you're talking about because the different logins.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, did I register?

[David Sims]

Did I set up an account at this other place?

[Griffin Newman]

But if we're talking about that purple shop button popping up, you know there's the one login across the multiple retailers. And here's what I love David.

[David Sims]

Truly.

[Griffin Newman]

The Shop app on my phone helps me keep track of what you want. Of all the open orders I have

[David Sims]

100% I use all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

Here are some things it always knows

[David Sims]

like where to send it. Everything's pre filled.

[Griffin Newman]

It's really great. I've seen what's arriving, what's shipped, what's pre ordered. Can I tell you some things I purchased recently? Replicas of the sunglasses from they Live. The newly announced 4K limited edition of of no other choice. Oh, love that Matt Johnson's the Dirties all the way from Australia. The fine folks at Umbrella Entertainment. These are some of the products I'm able to track right now on my Shop app thanks to Shopify and that purple shop button. Okay. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like some of the retailers I just talked about. I've got Neon Cinema.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I've got that vinegar syndrome disc badge 373 where like Robert Duvall's like a crazy New York cop. And like I looked it up and the reviews were like bad and I was like 40 bucks. Send it to me right now.

[Griffin Newman]

The packaging's good. I just ordered a terraformer. The Troma felt film and Reviver 2.

[David Sims]

I mean we're talking about movies but we do need to mention Shopify. It's an E commerce platform.

[Griffin Newman]

You can get the word out. Like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I have a question though, please. What if I have my own store but I get stuck setting it up

[Griffin Newman]

And Ben, don't worry. Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 2024. 7 customer support. And that's better than 23. 6.

[David Sims]

See less carts go abandoned and more sales go Cha ching with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com check go to shopify.com check. That's shopify.com check.

[Griffin Newman]

It is true.

[David Sims]

If I sha ching cha ching.

[Griffin Newman]

If I see someone use a Shopify, I am embarrassingly more quick.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. In the last wave. The opening is actually super evocative where it's. It's like just this little town, kids playing on the street. And then weird, like rainfall starts and then like golf ball hail starts happening. It takes like smashing the windows a

[Griffin Newman]

bit before the story starts in earnest.

[David Sims]

There's a lot of real mood.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Immersing you in the. The various scenes.

[David Sims]

This is where we are. We're in this town. We're not in like Sydney. We're not in like, you know, sort of more built up Australia. And weird shit is happening and everyone's. It's not like deadly, but everyone is a little like, thrown.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a weird amount of wall water.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Shit's getting wet.

[David Sims]

Y' all ever been in like true, like golf ball hail?

[Ben]

Yes.

[David Sims]

London gets it a lot. It's really weird.

[Griffin Newman]

There was a. There was a moment in between us traveling for shows that Connor Ratliff, Patrick Cotner and I were in a car together, going from one George Lucas talk show to another where, like it went from zero to a hundred. It was dry. And then suddenly the rain started coming down like last wave, hard. And I cite it as the closest I've come in my life to feeling like I was about to die. There was a moment where all three of us tensed up.

[David Sims]

Who was driving?

[Griffin Newman]

Patrick Cotner.

[David Sims]

Oh, dear.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, if I was driving, we would have already been dead.

[David Sims]

Well, yes. I wasn't saying you should be driving.

[Griffin Newman]

No, Patrick was driving. And the rain started coming down really hard, really furious. The windshield wipers could not combat it. And we were on a freeway and every car you could see was panicking at the same time. And it just felt like any one of us could kind of like lose control and then start like a 20 car pile up. And then like we just in silence, all tensed up. Five minutes later, it just stopped cold out of nowhere. And we all breathe and we're like, oh, I was ready to die. I thought it was about to.

[David Sims]

You said you were gay.

[Griffin Newman]

I did,

[Ben]

yeah. You have to respect the wind, like Van Halen said in the song from Twister. That was the problem. That was the problem.

[Griffin Newman]

That was. I wasn't right. And I hadn't seen Twisters yet, so I hadn't considered that you could ride it.

[Ben]

Had you seen Lilo and Stitch?

[Griffin Newman]

I had that little alien. They say he's all Bad. But actually I think there's some good in him.

[David Sims]

So weird shit is happening. Heavy rainfall, frogs, other anomalies. Local Aboriginal people in this town seems pretty spooked. And during one of these rainstorms, there's a fight and somebody dies. But it's all pretty mysterious.

[Ben David Grabinski]

And by town, we're talking Sydney.

[David Sims]

Well, the. The first, like, sequence is not in Sydney. This is the schoolhouse, the town. The bar fight, I think is in Sydney.

[Ben]

Right? Yeah. The tunnel. I know the tunnels are in Sydney, like the underground stuff. And I know that Sydney is where they shot Mission Impossible 2.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. They shut this movie. I mean, a lot of movies got shot in Adelaide.

[David Sims]

Is that right?

[Griffin Newman]

But it seems like it was mostly a weather issue when they were planning on shooting in Sydney.

[David Sims]

I don't know much about Adelaide, but I'll admit I don't know much about a lot of places in Australia. Let's see where it is.

[Ben]

Wasn't that a Blake Lively Harrison Ford movie?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know much about Adelaide. Right.

[David Sims]

So Adelaide is in South Australia. Right.

[Ben]

It's all.

[David Sims]

It's on the. In the sort of middle of the country on the southern side. I don't know much about it. Looks nice. Every Australian city always just looks so sunny and pretty.

[Griffin Newman]

I believe they had an issue where there was actually too much rain in Sydney, so they went to Adelaide so that they could control the fake rain more.

[Ben]

Right, right, right.

[David Sims]

I mean, makes. Makes sense. You actually do need to be able to control it.

[Ben]

What's it with Australian directors having production problems because of rain?

[Griffin Newman]

I think probably the through line there is that Australia is crazy.

[David Sims]

It rains a lot.

[Ben]

Is the spiky car from the Cars that Ate Paris? It. Did that inspire the car in Fury Road? Did you guys figure that out?

[David Sims]

It's a direct homage.

[Ben]

Oh, that is so sick.

[Griffin Newman]

Inspired all of Mad Max.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

That George Miller sees it and is like, oh, what if you built a whole movie out of this?

[David Sims]

Miller seeing it is inspired to make the first Mad Max. Which is why in Fury Road, he's like, I want to. Let me bring homage to the goat.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben]

When that spiky car showed up, I

[David Sims]

was like, wow, those guys rock.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what's also crazy fact that we forgot to bring up? Do you know that the doof warrior was a PA on the cars that a Paris? That was his first credit. Before he realized what he wanted to do, he was just interested in films. Ben has thrown his headphones down. He has handed in his two weeks notice.

[David Sims]

Ben Hosley is out.

[Ben]

We'll miss you, Ben.

[Griffin Newman]

He is serving me with papers.

[David Sims]

So the character of David Burton, played by Richard Chamberlain, is a lawyer, but the end. And sort of essentially is like, assigned right to this murder case to defend one of the men, maybe all of the men, definitely. To defend Chris.

[Ben]

Yeah, all five of them. Because they say if one of them doesn't show up, then the trial's over or something.

[David Sims]

There's something extremely sort of obscure and bureaucratic about Australian law that, like, he is a tax lawyer, not a criminal defense lawyer, but because of the divide between, like, indigenous people and European settlers. Settlers, colonizers, you know, like, he gets assigned the case. This is discussed in the movie. It was a little over my head.

[Griffin Newman]

It same.

[David Sims]

It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. Yes. It's through a quirk of the Australian legal aid system. I mean, this is sort of what I was getting at earlier.

[David Sims]

Why? It's to. It's essentially just. That's why he's an outsider, like, especially an outsider.

[Griffin Newman]

But these, like, weird circumstances in which colonialists come in impose their view of how a society should be structured onto a land that is not theirs. And then, like, a century, they're bringing

[David Sims]

Western law to a dispute that for. I mean, for one, the. The. All the accused just, like, do not want to talk about what happened.

[Griffin Newman]

But then, like, centuries later, these countries start to go like, oh, do we gotta, like, own up to what our ancestors did? And then they start to carve out rules of like, well, this doesn't apply to you because we've been disrespectful to your customs and your tradition. So everything is sort of. Yes. There's some weird quirk of the system where, through the legal aid system in Australia, now a tax lawyer has to represent a murder case.

[Ben]

Do we know why John Grisham never did cosmic horror?

[Griffin Newman]

Incredibly good question.

[Ben]

I mean, besides the. The Christmas movie with the cranks, that is the answer. Christmas. It was, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. But also in the book, they're not the cranks, they're the Cthulhu.

[David Sims]

So David's having. I'm steamrolling this. David's having.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you.

[David Sims]

Weird dreams on top of this case. And he is seeing Chris.

[Ben]

Yes.

[David Sims]

The Gold Pillow character in his dream

[Griffin Newman]

sees him prior to first meeting him.

[Ben]

Correct.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And it is spooky. And that is the vibe of the movie until the end. I'm not saying other things don't happen. Other things do happen. But what I just described is kind of what the movie's about. It's David being like something Feels weird. And I'm having weird dreams. What's going on? And these people largely are sort of like, we don't want to talk about it. And it's kind of none of your business. And he's like, I know, but I'm having these weird dreams. And they're like, well, that is weird and that is interesting. But I don't know, man. Like, it's like a lot of that.

[Griffin Newman]

It is kind of fascinatingly a like, anti white savior movie or like inverted white savior movie in a way where it's like, oh, here's like a noble, square drawed, very conventional white lawyer who is assigned to a case to prove the innocence of aboriginal men. And the worst version of this movie you've seen 20 times as he's like, I've learned that you are a person. And he gives some 20 minute monologue arguing that they have feelings and thoughts. And he teaches people how to end racism. And Linda Cardellini is the heart of the movie. Right.

[Ben]

Well, the only thing I want to bring up that I'm sure is already in the dossier is when Charlie comes over for dinner, somebody says that law is like the most important thing in their culture. And the guy who played Charlie, whose

[David Sims]

name is Nanjwara Amagula.

[Ben]

Yes. When he. Because he was not an actor, when he agreed to be in the movie, his only stipulation was that they represent that within the movie. Because that was something very important to him to convey within the movie is that in his culture, the law of their tradition superseded everything. Which I thought was interesting because that moment does feel very authentic to something when they convey that.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna say the moment where he meets the clients and especially Chris, he basically goes like, what the fuck is going on here? I'm not crazy. That, like, none of this makes sense, right? Like, he just owns up to, I fucking don't know what movie I'm in. And they're sort of like, you're not ready for this shit.

[David Sims]

Right? The dinner scene that Ben David is referencing, according to Peter Weir, was sort of constructed by Gold, Pilil and Nanjoara. Like, and he put in all the lines about the law and all that stuff. And Weir was just kind of like, I kind of let them do it. And they're kind of just talking to Richard Chamberlain. And I kind of just let him talk and then called cut, you know what I mean? Rather than like, let's do the script, it was like, you guys just, you know, you guys just tell him, try to explain this to him.

[Griffin Newman]

I say this from the perspective of a white man who knows nothing of what this movie is about in real life.

[David Sims]

You disgust me.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you. I'll take the hit. But this does feel like a good example of a know what, you don't know endeavor.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it feels like everything you read. And it is entirely possible there are huge missteps in this movie that I am oblivious to things think.

[David Sims]

No, but I think they sort of were taken away from making missteps by the actors.

[Griffin Newman]

And certainly when you read about the process, it felt like he was very open in that of, I can write the white man part of the movie. I do not want to impose something on here. You tell me what this should be and let them sort of take a lot of authorship over their scenes.

[David Sims]

Like Weir says, at one point they were like, hey, so what are some, like, tribal symbols we can use for all the, like, tribal symbol shit? And Nanjwara was like, you absolutely are forbidden from using any real tribal symbols. We can make some up. Yeah, you know, like, we. We won't be using anything real.

[Ben]

That dinner scene in that subplot is something I always love in his movie, like in God Told Me to or Devil's Advocate or something when, like, the lead character thinks that they're. There's nothing about them besides just being kind of the. The guy. And someone's, like, starts to say things about, like, their past and, like, where they came from, and they're starting to be like, wait, hold on, hold on.

[David Sims]

What?

[Ben]

Like, I. I always love feeling like the ground beneath. League characters start to get unsettled where they feel like they understand everything about themselves, and they start to realize they don't.

[David Sims]

In Devil's Advocate, I know what you're talking about. The guy gets a job at a law firm, and boss seems normal to me. Very successful.

[Ben]

Yeah. He learned something about himself and his heritage or something.

[David Sims]

Big personality, I guess.

[Griffin Newman]

What's his name in that again?

[David Sims]

John Milton. Right. Which I really love.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Because Angel Heart is Lou Cipher.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that one was maybe on the nose.

[Ben]

One of my favorite things about that movie is they shot in Trump's apartment, and they picked it because it was so ugly and terrible. And when he was there and then I guess Trump was like, I'm so glad you want to show the plays. And Tony Gilroy's like, I don't know how to tell him we did it because it's, like, so fucking ugly.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, it's. It's the great, like, fucking Mulaney bit of Donald Trump feeling like the way a like rail riding hobo in the 30s movie would describe a rail rich person.

[David Sims]

Imagining a rich person. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Everything in his house is gold and his hair is made of yarn.

[David Sims]

Yes. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Or made of cotton candy.

[David Sims]

Fine gold silk.

[Griffin Newman]

Fine gold silk. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I've listened a bit too many times. So they make the movie and it's good. Let's talk more about the movie. So, Ben David, can you talk more about the movie, please?

[Ben]

I feel like I've talked way too much already.

[Griffin Newman]

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not.

[Ben]

I don't know. Ben keeps looking at me like mouthing, shut the fuck up.

[David Sims]

Ben's actually looking at his phone right now. I think he's watching, you know, another movie or maybe.

[Ben David Grabinski]

No, I'm watching the.

[David Sims]

The Last Wave.

[Ben David Grabinski]

The Last Wave again? Well, because I'm just scrubbing through the plot.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Trying to, you know, be a good producer.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. But we haven't gotten anything wrong yet.

[David Sims]

So look, I mean, essentially, again, look,

[Ben]

I am the rest of the bunch of cascading dreams that you. And real life stuff. And then a wave comes.

[David Sims]

So there's this, you know, the first, the first thing I ever. Like many, I think a, you know, non Australian Westerner especially the first thing I ever learned about Aboriginal people was the book or movie Walkabout. I read the book when I was like 12 and then I saw the movie and you know, the whole thing in that movie and book is that the boy, the Aboriginal boy who finds these. It's about these British kids who crash land in the outback and like their parent dies and they meet an Aboriginal and they sort of survive it. Have you seen Walkabout?

[Griffin Newman]

I've seen Walkabout, yeah.

[David Sims]

I haven't. Obviously there's this crazy sexual undercurrent going on. And like. But like that very good director, right? That like, the major plot point is that she kind of looks at the guy wrong and he's just like, you've essentially sort of marked me. And he just goes to die, die. And like, that is sort of what Richard Chamberlain is putting together in this movie, right. Of like, are you. Did somebody die? Because someone pointed like a bone at him essentially, like, you know, like, is this a sort of like ritual, you know, mystical death that's rooted in like a culture I do not understand? And everyone's basically like, we don't talk about it with you.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Rather than like, yes, yes, let's tell us the secrets. They're like, it's not for you to know, stop putting us into your system.

[Griffin Newman]

There's. He's sensing that there seems to be some kind of unified code to their silence.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And their. Their refusal to really even engage in conversation.

[David Sims]

Get stitches. I mean, come on.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Well, the offender we see steal some kind of stones and give them to. To some unidentified person. They. There's some kind of arrangement. And then he ends up at a bar. And this is where they have the confrontation. And then he has the bone pointed at him and ends up dying.

[David Sims]

Right. In a sort of. I mean, they say he drowned, but, like, it's very mysterious. Well, he's drowned in, like, a puddle.

[Ben]

He broke the laws of their world, which supersede our stupid laws.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben]

The guy in the wig.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, also, their whole attitude is just sort of like, throw whatever the. You want us. This isn't what's real. You know, they seem a little. Kind of like they refuse to accept the. The Western rules of law that are being imposed on them. Yeah.

[Ben]

Wait, so who's a worst lawyer? This guy or the lawyer in jfk?

[David Sims]

This guy. He's really bad. The lawyer in JFK is just crazy. God bless him.

[Griffin Newman]

Jim Garrison, the worst lawyer is the lawyer and the judge.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Troy McClure.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I think you're confusing Troy McClure and the judge.

[Ben]

The judge is about a lawyer.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, that's. Hold on. Just. I'm sorry, Ben. David, just sidebar for one second.

[Ben David Grabinski]

So embarrassed.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, that's, like, rough because this. That's the first incorrect thing that's been said on this episode. And you don't have JJ to take the fall for this.

[Ben David Grabinski]

All right, I'll put on my dunce cap.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I just. I just think whatever we got to do in the edit, we can cover this up. We can all agree to just never speak of this ever again.

[David Sims]

I. I'm watching this movie, and I do start to think, think, like, okay, this is going to end up being a sort of a legal drama where this, you know, world that Richard Chamberlain's character does not understand kind of gets dragged into the courtroom. And it's sort of like a lot of things get, like, sifted through in the courtroom. That is not what happens. Instead, he loses his court case. Like, you see, there's a scene in the courtroom where he's trying essentially to kind of make that happen, and it doesn't really work work. Like. And then the rest of the movie is him, like, increasingly being like, I am having weird visions that something weird is going to happen.

[Griffin Newman]

I Feel like we landed on this in Picnic and Hanging Rock of saying like, this movie feels so unique in his filmography. It's not really the vibe of the rest of his films. And then we realized he basically has four different versions of a reality collapse movie in his career. It's these two back to back. It's fearless, I would argue. And Truman show is obviously one of the most extreme versions and now has become like a shorthand for a psychological phenomenon of this is fake, you live in a simulation. But, but this movie feels like, in its own quiet way, very similar to Truman show where that like meeting these guys basically causes the light to fall out of the sky for him. And then he's just hyper fixated on like, tell me what the going on, because I've been kind of feeling this.

[David Sims]

We won't. But you do seem to be a, they use the word mockery, right? Like it's sort of like you, you seem to be somehow descended from, you know, a shaman or someone who's connected to the, the dreaming, the, the parallel world, like the whatever, like the sort of like our more deeper understanding of reality.

[Griffin Newman]

And he still wants to find a way to get them acquitted. But it does feel like, like it is a secondary concern in the movie to how do I get them to explain what's going on to me?

[Ben]

Well, he thinks he's helping, which is that classic right failed thing where he's like, they tell me they don't want me to do this defense. Everyone tells me not to do this, but I know better and no good comes from it.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't you also think it's sort of a lie he's telling himself? Or he's saying, look, you need to tell me so I can help you be absolved of this crime. But in reality he's just like, I need answers.

[Ben]

I do think he means well because he like makes that guy drop off who wanted them to plead guilty. But again, that could just be ego too of like that that's like a failure.

[Griffin Newman]

I, I, the reason I, I notice the South American thing so much is there's the, the dinner table scene where his wife says, I'm a fourth generation Australian. I've never met an Aboriginal, right? Which is such a like telling statement for someone to identify as a fourth generation Australian and being like, okay, you're

[David Sims]

like, I think in 1977, you're basically saying like, I mean a fourth is probably about as far back as you go if you're a white person in Australia, right?

[Griffin Newman]

And you're just sort of like, I'm a fourth generation Australian, considering the idea that Australia starts when my first relative landed here and that reality before that doesn't exist. And I have never engaged with the indigenous population of the country, the continent that my family has lived in for now over a century. And he is from a different place, but with a very similar energy that he. Even if he moved here very early and he does have like a nationalized identity and an Australian accent that I nailed in the introduction, that it's not his home. Fundamentally, in the same sense that she's taking pride in the idea of being a fourth generation Australian and as if that gives her some cultural weight and that it feels like he is never totally settled in this place ever. It's why I thought South African, because I was like, that's kind of an interesting analog. But I was wrong about it. And JJ will apologize publicly.

[Ben]

Are you guys into full court?

[Griffin Newman]

JJ did a lot and he did the Troy McClure thing.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

We're just gonna fix it in the edit it.

[Ben]

Does this count as folk horror?

[Griffin Newman]

It's close.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean, if it's. If you call this movie horror, I don't know what else.

[Ben]

I think that this is too fancy to be like horror per se, but I think it's incredibly effective.

[David Sims]

Horror filmmaking calls it a mystery drama, which is, I mean, is also a fair attempt. It's a bit of a tough one to nail down genre wise.

[Griffin Newman]

It's interesting you said because it's not really a thriller, because it's almost like an elevated horror horror.

[Ben]

But this is an example, I always say, of like, I wish every fancy director made a horror movie and Peter Weir has a bunch of movies that almost qualify as existential horror. There's just something about someone who's just very good at their job tackling that or not feeling like they're above those things.

[Griffin Newman]

It's similar to me to Synecdoche New York coming out of Amy Pascal saying to Spike Jones and Charlie Kaufman, it'd be interesting to see you guys try to make a horror movie together. And then like two years later he hands in that script and she's like, I don't know what the this is, but good luck. And this feels like you say Peter Weir, like, try writing your own horror movie. And he was like, here's what upsets me.

[David Sims]

That's the thing. He's kind of like, I Right. I am troubled by this idea. Does anyone else?

[Griffin Newman]

Right. This is a movie about me feeling haunted, kind of.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Whereas Picnic and Hanging Rock Is sort of the same vibe in a way. It's not his personal because it's based on a book and it's based on someone else's weird feeling. That one comes out and everyone's like, ooh, this is spooky in a way that's never been like put on movies in film before.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

Wait, can I tell you guys a horrific thing that happened to me last night?

[Griffin Newman]

Please.

[Ben]

So I saw the movie Iron Lung.

[David Sims]

How is that?

[Ben]

Well, let me tell you. When it was over, something really cosmic and insane happened. So I left. I saw it with my friend Taylor, a fan of the show, the great Taylor, Taylor Levy. And I was leaving the theater and I reached out my pocket. The Village 7AMC.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Ben]

On the fifth floor.

[David Sims]

A mildly haunted theater, I would say.

[Ben]

I left the theater, I'm a couple blocks away. I reach in my pocket to take out these wireless soundproof Sony headphones. And in my pocket were two.

[David Sims]

I'm not getting paid for that. There were two sets of headphones, Exact

[Ben]

same headphones, same brand noise, same color. These are in multiple colors. And I reach in my pocket and there's two pairs. And I like, my brain almost explodes as an actual photo of me reacting in real time. Because I'm like, this seems made up and the movie is very kind of the last 20 minutes of movie are very mind fuck thing. And there's double headphones in my pocket. I don't own another pair. There's no one in my household has another pair and I have two. And I'm like, what the fuck happened? So like, I'm like, what do I do now? So I check and one of them is paired to my phone and one's not. And I'm like, like, these must be from the theater, but I don't know how. So we walk all the way back to the theater and find some young like 20 something girl in the lobby freaking out because she can't find her headphones.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Ben]

So what had happened was she walked by and dropped her headphones onto my coat that was on the seat next to me.

[Griffin Newman]

And then you assumed.

[Ben]

And then when I got up to pick up my coat, my headphones were there and I put them in my pocket. And then if I hadn't, I could have gotten all the way home with those and been haunted for the rest of my life about why there was two of the exact same model of headphones in my pocket. So I'm just saying I feel a lot like a character. I felt like a character in one of these existential that would also spook me.

[David Sims]

I still want to know how the movie is.

[Griffin Newman]

I also want to know, I'm seeing it tomorrow. I want to know, if Amy Pascal asked you to write and direct a horror movie, is that what you'd pitch?

[Ben]

Okay, so what I would say about Iron Long is Iron Long has like Iron Lung has like a really, really dense kind of lore to it that felt very like, oh, well, this is from the video game.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Ben]

It's basically, and it's the storytelling of it is very kind of like outsider art in the way it tries to explain the exposition. And that's a nice way of saying I didn't understand 70% of the exposition. So afterwards I was like, well, this must be just directly from the game. So I want to go watch a playthrough. And a playthrough of the whole game is 70 minutes and the movie's more than two hours long. And so Taylor watched the 70 minute playthrough and he said, oh, there's no lore in the game. It's just you're in a submarine and you're just like trying to get a fish and sometimes the fish bites you.

[David Sims]

That is how life goes.

[Ben]

And it is like the whole thing is like a huge, very, very complicated future, like Lovecraftian style thing that I didn't understand at all. And I'm like, well, if I'll play the game and I'll get it. And it was not from the game.

[David Sims]

So this sounds like a mildly negative review.

[Ben]

I thought it was very interesting. It was like 70 minutes too long.

[David Sims]

It's quite long. It is, it is the one thing I'm seeing it tomorrow out of total interest in just like, I'm really glad and all that. But like I do, I do see 125 minutes and I'm like, now hang on a second. Like, wait, your YouTube horror movie should be 85min long. That should be a law.

[Griffin Newman]

I just want to say if it's about being in a submarine and trying not to get bitten by fish, they should have sent fucking Cogman down there because shit wouldn't have gunned down like that.

[David Sims]

You were going to do another stitch joke?

[Griffin Newman]

No, why would I do that? This was a natural tear for Cogman. The stitch joke only happens when it's super organic, clean and is met with gales of laughter.

[Ben]

Is there ever a natural tee up for Cogman?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it just happened.

[Ben]

You know what's going to happen is

[Griffin Newman]

he goes inside a submarine, he beats fish.

[Ben]

Someone's going to watch my Movie now and be like, he thinks he's better than the Last Kiss and Iron Lung. And I'm like, you're right.

[David Sims]

You're better than the Last Kiss. Yes. And they're also Coldwin comes for you. I don't know what to tell you.

[Griffin Newman]

They're also gonna be like.

[Ben]

That would be a scandal.

[Griffin Newman]

They're also gonna watch your movie and be like, this is on Hulu. Why didn't he put Stitch in it? He's like, in the family.

[Ben]

Well, I do open with a song from Oliver and Company.

[Griffin Newman]

You do? So Dodger. Kind of the Stitch of his day. Can you tell David about your current movie watching project for 2026?

[David Sims]

Oh, I'm so interested in whatever this is.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. I'm teenage project.

[Ben]

Wait, which one is it? You're seeing every horror movie that is released at my local AMC in 20 so far. Love that it has been a choice.

[Griffin Newman]

January and February are heavy.

[Ben]

There was like, I've seen like six movies already this month, so I'm like an A list.

[David Sims]

So you're gonna see.

[Ben]

Oh yeah, you're gonna blow that out. So I just watched the first two Strangers Chapter one and Chapter two so I can see three and have it make sense.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sure it wouldn't make sense.

[Ben]

Yeah, two has a part where a boar chases her around for a while and almost eats her. And then you cut to a flashback of a kid with a baby boar and said, someday I will teach this boar to do amazing things.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it the same boar from Send Help?

[Ben]

It actually is Good rap. It's a crazy how they like figured out how to do that between two different studios.

[Griffin Newman]

I hope Strangers Chapter 3 ends with one of them saying, nice to meet you, like as a full circle. Oh, they're not Strangers.

[Ben]

Chapter one has the exact same opening as Cobra where there's like, there's 57 deaths every 30 seconds. There's 12 rapes. Like it. It lists like the exact amount of time and how often crimes happen. Happen. I love Rennie. It's great.

[Griffin Newman]

Sims, Ben, David and I saw Mercy, aka chair of the movie 40X.

[David Sims]

Are we counting that as horror or was this separate from that?

[Griffin Newman]

It is a horrifying experience.

[David Sims]

I saw your letterbox.

[Griffin Newman]

It is one of the most insidious things I've ever seen. Even more so than the entire Insidious franchise.

[Ben]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The opening line of that film, as I quoted my letterboxd review, is millions had been affected by crime.

[Ben]

No, no.

[David Sims]

I hope a guy in a chair can solve this problem.

[Griffin Newman]

Like replacing The Dent act for me. We're going to outlaw crime. The opening is just voiceover. Random guy, never again crime. Millions had been affected by crime.

[Ben]

So I saw. I've seen Night Patrol. We bury the lead primate. Return to Silent Hill. Iron long send help. 28 years. Bone Temple.

[David Sims]

What was the first two?

[Griffin Newman]

Night patrol and Bury the Night Patrol

[Ben]

where Justin Long plays a dirty cop vampire. We bury the dead with Daisy Ridley.

[David Sims]

Oh, that one I heard. That one I heard was okay. Sort of like a zombie movie.

[Ben]

It was interesting.

[David Sims]

Yeah. How is the Justin Long.

[Ben]

It's interesting. It's like. It's. I. I like. I'm glad I saw it. But Return to Silent Hill I just got to talk about, which is in Return of Silence.

[Griffin Newman]

Been talking about.

[David Sims]

So I love Silent Hill very much. The game.

[Ben]

I do too.

[David Sims]

And Silent Hill 2, which I know this is specifically an adaptation of the game Silent Hill 2, which is the best of the games. Would we agree?

[Ben]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I love Christophe Gans's film Silent Hill. I think it is the best video game movie ever made.

[Ben]

I think that if you make one change, it is a 10 out of 10 movie.

[David Sims]

The second Silent Hill film, I believe is called Revelation. Is very poopy and bad.

[Ben]

Did not see it.

[David Sims]

It's no good.

[Ben]

Sad.

[David Sims]

If you say so. Yep. So then Christoph Ganz has announced just making this Return to Silent Hill. Now, I haven't. I haven't heard much from Kristof recently,

[Griffin Newman]

but I'm still filming quite a while.

[David Sims]

But I'm still like, hey, he understood the franchise in a way. Like, I'm excited. The movie comes out. My letterbox starts flashing half stars. Like, I'm seeing a lot of.

[Griffin Newman]

You're getting like Amber Alerts on your phone.

[David Sims]

I've seen a couple of people push against this trend. Where do you fall on this phone? I haven't seen it yet.

[Ben]

I just have two things to say about it. I'm really glad I saw it. I think that there's some really cool craft and stuff. And to. I just have two issues in it. Someone goes by a marquee that has Jacob's ladder on it. And I think fundamentally, it'd be like if you were at McDonald's and they had like an advertisement for the world's best burger on the wall while you're eating.

[David Sims]

Because I mean, Silent Hill is very inspired by the move to be like,

[Griffin Newman]

remember that other movie?

[Ben]

Yeah, but don't remind me of a movie. Terrible. Oh, God, I wish. I want to see that theater. And then the other one was the whole time I'm like, who is this lead guy? And I didn't realize he was the War Horse.

[Griffin Newman]

Jeremy Irvine.

[Ben]

Yeah. And I was like. And that was, that's always like an interesting thing for me when you're like, me neither.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's correct. He was the War Boy, owner of the War Horse.

[Ben]

I, I thought it was very interesting. I. The first one, the issue is they keep cutting outside of Silent Hill to Sean Bean.

[David Sims]

They do. That was literally a studio note of there are no men in this movie.

[Ben]

But it's like if you're watching one

[David Sims]

of the funniest thing I've ever heard.

[Ben]

Like in wizard of Oz, you can't, you can't cut to Kansas because then that makes it feel like these things exist simultaneously.

[David Sims]

David, I agree with you that that's a flaw with that movie. I just feel like that movie captures the atmosphere of a video game.

[Ben]

No, I'm saying if it didn't have that, I would defend everything.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Ben]

I would defend everything.

[David Sims]

We all have our flaws except for one guy.

[Ben]

The Brotherhood of the Wolf, though, I think is perfect.

[David Sims]

That's a cool movie. I mean, I haven't seen it since I was a teenager, but I haven't

[Griffin Newman]

seen Bury the Dead. But I really liked that Daisy Ridley horror movie from last year year. The one where I read the news story that she was secretly married.

[Ben]

That was good. I gotta tell you, that was good. That zagged.

[David Sims]

That buried the stitch joke. And I'm feeling great.

[Griffin Newman]

Am I back? Is Griffin funny again? Christopher Hitchens has to rise from the grave to write a new op ed piece.

[David Sims]

Griffin is funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Question mark.

[David Sims]

Guys, it's time to believe in the Hail Mary project. Hail Mary. That is one of the most beloved adventure stories by Andy Weir. Big book. It's now a major motion pictures. There's never been a better time to immerse yourself in the bestselling audiobook. Right? The movie's coming out. Listen to the book.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

All right, so I'll tell you what it's about. There's a sole survivor of a desperate last chance mission. Ryland Grace is the character. He's got to save the earth from disaster in an incredible science based thriller. The fan favorite narrator Ray Porter brings every moment to life with humor, heart and pulse pounding tension. So that's good. Reading the book now. The blockbuster movies finally arrived in theaters. Never been a better time to start listening to the universally acclaimed audiobook. Part science mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation and survival. Listen to to the audiobook available on Audible. And the movie starring Ryan Gosling is in theaters now. That's project Hail Mary. Listen, Watch. Save the world. Listen [e-mail] Hailmary. The Last Wave Guys, please try to help me understand what happens at the end of this movie. I will read to you like what the synopsis says happens. After meeting with the shaman of Lee's tribe and learning more about aboriginal practices and the concept of green Dreamtime is a parallel world of existence. Burton comes to believe that his dreams and heavy dreams of strange heavy rain bode the signs of a coming apocalypse. He senses danger. He makes his wife and kids leave town. There's a crazy flood. And then he goes into subterranean tunnels under the city which lead to a sacred ritual site. And he sees a lot of paintings that basically confirm the dreams he'd been having. Then he leaves and sees a big wave.

[Griffin Newman]

You're forgetting also, please, first of all, beautiful reading. You're forgetting that he also, in a moment that very much feels like the weird inciting incident story he shares about having the premonition of the head and then stealing it it from the cave, he finds a mask that looks exactly like his own face.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which, you know, would throw anyone off a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

Would throw me quite off my game.

[Ben David Grabinski]

They keep calling him the Mool.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Which is a race, separate race, or an ancestry that comes from a different race? It's hard. Again, it's very vague, hard to define.

[Ben]

I think they're purpose, not descriptive. There's like priests on the wall who warned about the wave last time. So they're basically implying he's like one of those priests who did it on the last cycle.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a descendant of these people, an interpreter of premonitions. A Warner. Not a Warner brother. One who can warn. But, but yes, there's. I mean, that scene I think is incredible where there's sort of the stare down interrogation of who are you? Who are you? And it uses Richard Chamberlain's kind of like very studied stillness to great effect because it's like a Meisner exercise where they just keep asking him, who are you? Who are you? Until he kind of breaks down and then they ask, like, are you Mukuru? And he nods and it's. He's saying yes to something he doesn't even understand. But he understands that he is something beyond his own awareness of existence, that there's something else happening through him.

[David Sims]

Absolute mole.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

David, how upset were you that there was no subway when they got in? The tunnels.

[Griffin Newman]

Great question.

[David Sims]

You know, I actually was not thinking about that because I actually. Good gag. And I love the subway. And we can talk about it for a second if you want, because I know you. You love my love of the subway.

[Ben]

It's my favorite thing about the podcast.

[David Sims]

80% of the phone exchanges we have, like, text or DM or whatever, are about the subway.

[Griffin Newman]

Also, like, yeah, you know, a new. A new son of New York City, right? You're in the early days, Joy. Love affair of the subway.

[Ben]

It's the 40x on the subway. That's what made me very similar.

[Griffin Newman]

Very similar. This is what I haven't been able to convey to David. Very similar. You're usually surrounded by people who feel a little dangerous. At the very least, unhinged.

[David Sims]

I really love the tunnel stuff in this movie. I found it so cool and evocative. I loved how it looked. I loved how spooky and interesting it was.

[Ben David Grabinski]

There's so many different steps to get down into that tomb.

[David Sims]

I loved how implausible it was right where you're like, there's this much, but I didn't care at all. And then he emerges out of a drain pipe, and you're back in seeing the wave. But, yeah, it would have been cool to see a subway.

[Ben]

I skipped my favorite part.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, we're skipping around.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's all good.

[Ben]

So the thing that I love so much when it happens in a movie is, like, when at the end of the second act, someone who's known you your whole life says two sentences that they've never told you before that suddenly reframes everything, where he's like. Like. Well, don't you remember how when you were a kid, you had a bunch of nightmares and they ended up being exactly how your mom died?

[Griffin Newman]

That you were afraid of the cab driver coming to take you away, that you always talked about the cab driver.

[Ben]

It's one of those things where it always works to me when, like, a character, someone just shows up. He's like, but don't you remember this thing? And they go, oh, my God. And then suddenly, the entire movie makes sense. It's like, you could have told him before, but it's perfect that you told him now for dramatic purposes.

[Griffin Newman]

People telling David Dunn about his drowning.

[David Sims]

Drowning.

[Ben]

Yes, that's exactly right.

[Griffin Newman]

There's exactly a little bit of a David Dunn thing in this movie of, like, maybe it wasn't murder. Maybe it was just puddle drowning.

[Ben]

Oh, I was gonna make the same joke. Well done. I was gonna say, it's all about puddle drowning.

[Griffin Newman]

We forgot to go see Unbreakable last night. Unbreakable was playing last night.

[David Sims]

It was at the Nighthawk there.

[Griffin Newman]

Excuse me. Unbreakable.

[David Sims]

Thank you.

[Ben]

I saw Die Hard with a Vengeance at the Nighthawk. And I took the same train we did.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I was there.

[Ben]

Hey, wait. Oh, no. We saw Die Hard 2. No, Die Hard. We saw the first Die Hard. I saw Die Hard with a venue.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Fucking jj.

[Ben]

Fucking jj.

[Griffin Newman]

That's insane.

[Ben]

I took the train that the bomb is on to go see it at Nighthawk. That was like a religious experience where I realized I'm like, that's the train I was on.

[Griffin Newman]

Which train is it?

[Ben]

I think it's the two or the three.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the two or three. That is the greatest New York movie of all time. I think we can all agree.

[David Sims]

You know what I call the 3 train?

[Griffin Newman]

First round draft pick. What?

[Ben]

The Red Rock Rocket.

[Griffin Newman]

I love that.

[David Sims]

Yep. And like, anytime I'm going home on the three, I text my wife, like, I'm on the Red Rocket. And she knows what I mean.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you have nicknames for other trains?

[David Sims]

Yes, some.

[Griffin Newman]

Not all.

[David Sims]

The Lonely F, of course. I call the F the Lonely F because it's so often separated from its track mates. I call the four the Queen of the IRT because she is the Queen of the irt. I can think of others. Those are the big ones.

[Griffin Newman]

This feels like David. Like sharing diary entries from, like, this is. I feel like the most personal you have ever gotten on the podcast.

[David Sims]

Can I tell you something else unrelated? I was just looking at what's coming up on Nighthawk. You reminded me. Showed my daughter the trailer for Goat, the Steph Curry Goat Basketball player movie.

[Griffin Newman]

As I have said many times, my little cousin George's most anticipated movie of 2026. He's been asking about it for six months. When is Goat coming out?

[David Sims]

She. She was pretty intrigued. She was like, I might want to see more of this goat.

[Griffin Newman]

We were texting our mutual friend Sean. Fantasy was having a panic about how to schedule programming for the February on Big Picture because of the lack of big releases outside of Wuthering Heights. And we were just like, yeah, it feels like nothing's really gonna hit between, like, Wuthering Heights and Mario and Project Hail Mary. And I was like, look out for Goat.

[David Sims]

Goat might just sink an easy 35

[Griffin Newman]

million because Zootopia is hanging in there so hard because nothing's really given it a run for its money. Zootopia still fucking, like, number three at the box office at the time. We're recording this.

[David Sims]

Maybe four.

[Ben]

Sean's not gonna do an episode about Strangers. Chapter three.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he is going to break off and do an entire new podcast, just about the Stranger saga.

[David Sims]

Well, he's gonna record a Strangers episode, but he has to do it by breaking into someone's house that he's never been there before.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know what, Ben David, actually, you're joking, but they had an open slot where they haven't been able to decide what to do and they let people vote on the four ideas. And one of the four ideas was Amanda Shawn. Movie swap. Shawn has to watch Mamma Mia. For the first time. Amanda had to watch the original Strangers for the first time. There is a chance that episode will have come out by the time people are listening to this. Goat might be about to shatter the backboard.

[David Sims]

We love it. The last wave, guys. What else happens?

[Ben]

The thing about taking a train to see a movie where you just get off the train and walk right into a theater and you don't have to park your car. That was probably the biggest reason why I was like, I might stay here for a bit.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Oh yeah, courtroom scene. What Silly friggin wigs. What's going on?

[Griffin Newman]

Ben asked if we had remembered to bring our barrister wigs. And embarrassingly, all four of us left them at home.

[David Sims]

Yes. Do you? Yeah, they barristers in the uk, I think recently, actually maybe are now not required to wear wigs anymore. I think that. I think that's like a.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Do they still have to go Hurumph rump.

[David Sims]

Here's.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's my interpretation of the ending. And I cannot get into it deeply, but just sort of in larger strokes how I took the ending on a narrative level. The whole movie is the aboriginals warning him not to go deeper into this.

[Ben]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And just being like this is not for you. You cannot understand exist in your world. And they all feel somewhat encumbered by the tension between the natural wavelength that they feel like they engage with reality and this sort of like Western colonial structure placed on top of them that they have to conform to to some degree, or at least live in conscious, like parallel with. Right? And the end of the movie is him literally just like going down the rabbit hole, going so deep down the tunnel, which presents it only with a series of new questions that make no sense to him. And then he walks out and he sees a fucking wave and you don't know if it is in fact dream.

[David Sims]

Something is happening.

[Griffin Newman]

Is this a premonition? Is this the thing the premonitions were hinting at. But it speaks more to, like, he has now gone through the tunnel on the other side and he cannot return to the other world. And if he does, he has fully now exited the. The acceptance of that reality. He will become like a stranger in the land that he used to live in again.

[David Sims]

I know very little about this sort of Australian Aboriginal mythology of the dreaming or dreamtime, but I believe if you read more and more about it. I really don't want to try and like, sum things like this up on this podcast, but I think that sort of barrier between what is real, what is imagined, or what is real, what is being dreamed, is sort of sifted through in an interesting way in that mythology.

[Griffin Newman]

That.

[David Sims]

That's all. I don't really know much.

[Ben]

The question is, do they all know that the wave is coming and they just don't want him to have to deal with that dark reality?

[David Sims]

Because, like, possibly, I mean, it's like, what are you going to do?

[Ben David Grabinski]

And he also is a figure, build a wall where because of his ancestral connection, that people like him show up ahead of an apocalyptic event.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. They're sort of.

[David Sims]

They're like, yeah, you being here means it's happening. Yes, it's.

[Ben]

Yes, like Stitch.

[Griffin Newman]

Quite like Stitch. If Stitch shows up, you know, the box office is about to be rocked.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I just. What else do people want to say about this? I can tell you that when the film came out, let me tell you that the reception and so on and so forth came out sort of Christmas time in 77 in Australia. It was like a. A hit. And it did okay on the Australian art house, the American art house circuit. But like, nothing like Picnic and Hanging Rock were like, huge attention and a fair amount of money. I think more just like a modest hit. We're basically in retrospect is like, I haven't checked in on that movie. Like, he's like, I don't feel bad about it. He's like, yeah, it did pretty good. I haven't looked at it in a long time. In 2012, he sort of was. Yeah. He's similarly kind of reflective about it. Like. Like, he calls it a graduation film. You know, it's kind of like him getting closer to the next stage of his career. But yeah, he doesn't. He. He doesn't reflect on this movie as a failure or is like a special

[Griffin Newman]

gem, but it does speak to sort of how weirdly and like out of order and almost in one lump sum these movies are seen by Hollywood and America, that this is the one that doesn't really function as any sort of stepping stone in his career in a clear way. He also said that, like, when he was trying to get money from, like, the Australian film funds, that everyone was really against the idea of him trying to do a contemporary, serious film. It was like contemporary comedy, period drama. Yeah.

[Ben]

But when you get to the end of Picnic at Hanging Rock, which I just watched the other day because I was trying to watch, he's in order. You. You feel like this guy is a God of doing period and Gallipoli, I feel the same way, where it's like, it's funny that he's very contemporary and very, very effective at it. And also very effective at doing movies that feel like you're time traveling.

[David Sims]

But I never.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

He never picked Elaine there. He would sort of switch between them.

[Griffin Newman]

I've yet to watch Gallipoli. I'm excited to watch it the night before I record, so I have proper time to process it. Sad ending, but that feels like a more obvious kind of, okay, I'm ready to make my version of some size of epic now. And also, he, like, for the first time, identifies an A list leading man at the center of his movie.

[Ben]

I think Witness feels a little bit like a combo of the two in a weird way, because it. The fish out of water thing functionally feels like, yeah, no, Witness has something. And then it's like, very, very modern when he's doing the cop stuff. And when he's there, it almost feels like one of his period movies just by virtue of Amish culture.

[David Sims]

But Witness is interesting because it's about someone sort of falling in love with a culture that's not his own, learning about it somewhat, getting accepted. This is not that, but also this is about him trying to understand a culture. But it's not about them being like, you know what, you get it.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I mean, at the end, he kills the shaman.

[David Sims]

Well, the shaman is being quite scary,

[Ben]

but he's also trying.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Taking all the relics. Yeah, he's. He's the one who's in the wrong.

[David Sims]

I would say that he's made a few mistakes. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is a thing in talk about these movies, and we've recorded quite a few of the ones to come after this. They're all sort of about the friction between cultures and realities placed very close together in one way or another. That's like really a through line through his work.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Which is very, very interesting. And it's a very interesting, evocative movie. I have a disc. What disc do I have it on?

[Griffin Newman]

I bought the last. The Umbrella, last wave, the 4K. Is that what you got? There's a criteria.

[David Sims]

I think that's exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

But they haven't put it out since DVD. Yes.

[David Sims]

And then I did not find a Criterion DVD.

[Ben]

There's a 4K and I didn't know it, my friend. I'm gonna go walk into traffic.

[Griffin Newman]

The fine folks at Umbrella Entertainment, they're good guys.

[David Sims]

Which is Australian company, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. I. Our buddy Alex Ross Perry was the first to visit the Umbrella.

[David Sims]

He went to there. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

He has become the inaugural attendee of the Umbrella Closet, which basically they did not think of even presenting as a mecca.

[Ben]

They did the Super Mario Brothers gigantic set, which is movie heaven.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you have that box, David?

[David Sims]

Which box?

[Griffin Newman]

The Super Mario umbrella set looks as

[Ben]

big as, like an encyclopedia.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's like the size of a car.

[David Sims]

I think I have the foam. I think Arrow put out a Super Mario disc, maybe.

[Ben]

Well, this one is this big, and it comes with. It's like the original discs, the shooting

[Griffin Newman]

script, but also an original.

[Ben]

It has like a book of art.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben]

It's got so much stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Sounds a little much. As much as I. I enjoy. Of course, my review was.

[Ben]

It was not enough.

[Griffin Newman]

It includes the King James Bible.

[David Sims]

And then there's a posted on the Bible saying Mario is better than miss.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It also. It comes with a chicken dinner.

[David Sims]

Sounds good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben]

The only time I've gone back Yoshi dinner since moving here.

[Griffin Newman]

God, Yoshi's gonna rule the box office this year. He's so lucky that Stitch is sitting this one out. What?

[David Sims]

Who's voicing him?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think they've announced anybody.

[Ben]

I saw a joke post that I thought was real for about two minutes where they said it was Kendrick Lamar and. But it's nothing.

[David Sims]

Will he just like, say, Yoshi, I

[Griffin Newman]

feel in the trailer, he just says

[Ben]

like, yeah, but Benny, that's what it'll do. The Safdie voice casting is still one of the wildest choices ever.

[David Sims]

I think that really. I was watching a trailer, I was yawning a little bit, and I was like, I wonder who's playing Baby Bowser. What do I care? And then when they said Benny's hefty, I was like, you mildly got me with that one.

[Griffin Newman]

It was. It was the Nintendo Direct thing, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, Right, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm watching it, and they play the trailer first, and I hear the voice and I turn to my girlfriend and I go, God damn it, Adam Divine. They cast Adam Devine in another animated movie because he's like, this is Bowser Jr. Camp. I'm gonna get you plot bombers. And I was like, it's Adam Devine. Adam Devine gets another one off the backboard and then it cuts back to, like, Miyamoto and he's like, we are proud to announce that, of course, Bowser Jr. Will be played by Benny Safdie. And they just flash Benny Safdie's headshot. And I. I truly was doubled over. LAUGHTER it was so funny. Yeah, of course, of course.

[David Sims]

The only choice.

[Griffin Newman]

Who else but the director of the Smashing Machine? No one else could bring Bowser Jr. To life. We've all been waiting for. It's obvious. It's like John Goodman playing Fred Flintstone. The culture has waited for this.

[Ben]

When I went. I went back to LA after being gone for a very long time, and I was trying to see a bunch of friends at the same time because I was there for a short amount of time. So I invited everybody to go see Super Mario Brothers at New Bev because they're playing it for, like, a kids matinee. And Hoskins.

[Griffin Newman]

Not Pratt.

[Ben]

Oh, I mean, yes, Hoskins. And so it was one of those things where someone's like, okay, how much do I really want to see this guy? And somehow. So like 20 people went. I don't know if they. I think that I'd say 80% didn't enjoy it as much as I did.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a fascinating movie.

[David Sims]

I really like the look of that movie. I cannot, you know, defend every single story decision that it makes, but I just love how it looks.

[Griffin Newman]

Our buddy Patrick will.

[David Sims]

Big movie for me.

[Griffin Newman]

A really good video of the contrast of the Illumination movie, which is so obsessed with being faithful to the games.

[David Sims]

It's. It's the way our culture has and

[Griffin Newman]

has nothing else going on, is literally just pointing at things from the games. And then the Mario Brothers Hoskins movie is like, what if we took a different script we wrote? I mean, and map the character names onto it? And you're like, I miss it.

[David Sims]

I miss that era where Hollywood's like, it's not like we're going to make a real Mario Brothers movie. Embarrassing. That would suck. Let's on it with this insane thing. Anyway.

[Griffin Newman]

Can Hollywood come back around to having complete contempt for all ip?

[David Sims]

I agree. Being like, and now you will meet the Blue Ranger. I'm like, no, you should be humiliated that I have to meet Blue Ranger.

[Griffin Newman]

The horseshoe has come all the way around. Around. I'm tired of Hollywood being like, do you like this? We made this just for you. Do you like it? I want them to be like you, you piece of. Here's your the wave that's coming of

[David Sims]

the last video game movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That they're all just gonna be like, they're gonna be hyper Easter egg movies.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I, I, I do miss the era of someone being like, this fucking sucks. Can you come up with something? You know, and usually it was stuff that was actually really cool, but you end up with something very interesting when someone has.

[David Sims]

As a kid, I was still like, they made a Mario movie. I'm happy.

[Griffin Newman]

I was thrilled.

[David Sims]

He's got a little red hat on. Like, that's all I needed.

[Griffin Newman]

Four things happen in this movie that vaguely resemble things from the game.

[David Sims]

Very.

[Griffin Newman]

What complaint could it is?

[David Sims]

Miyamoto is like, that brought great shame to our company. Like, he was definitely not like, oh, it was interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

But like, there's like a fucking street musician busker who's a human dude with a harmonica around his neck and a guitar named Toad. And I like, do the fucking Leo point to my brother and I'm like, like, it's Toad. They got Toad on screen. And I'm like, that's not Toad.

[Ben]

I've been trying, dude.

[Griffin Newman]

Then they turn him into a dinosaur headed. I was like, they got towed.

[Ben]

He's the best part in the movie. Stuck in my head forever. But I've been trying to make a bad dudes movie for like 15 years. So I hope someday a trend goes in that direction is all I care about.

[David Sims]

So I'm going to play the box office game now.

[Griffin Newman]

Is there anything else you want to say about the Last wave or your general Weir thoughts? Ben and David.

[Ben]

I genuinely feel like I've said way too much. You're crazy.

[David Sims]

You have not talked enough. You should be humiliated by how little you've talked this film. Oh, wait.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I just have one final thing I want to say.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Cue sounds of rain, splashing waves.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Water. Generally cool.

[Griffin Newman]

And also place it in like 20 times. Up until this point, like any time after a joke of mine fell flat. Put the waves in so it sounds

[Ben David Grabinski]

like it's like toilet flushing.

[Griffin Newman]

No, like a triumphant wave.

[Ben]

I have something to say about that, which is that I have a noise machine that plays rain sound whenever I play it when I go to sleep. And I've had many days where I forgot to turn it off. So now like, the sound of rain becomes this thing that my brain kind of cancels out as if it's part of just the sound mix of my life. And that's only been something that's happened like in the recent year or so and is the first time I've revisited the movie since then.

[Griffin Newman]

Was it.

[Ben]

Were you. It was a very odd kind of disconnect where it felt like I was watching a movie and had left my rain sleep machine thing on. So I'm really glad I shared that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, no, it was really good. Thank you.

[David Sims]

This film came out in America. It says in New York City. So in some small way in basically Christmas time. December 19th of 1978.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so still even before picnic, so.

[David Sims]

Exactly. So what would have been at the box office on this random weekend?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, December 1978.

[David Sims]

Number one is a gigantic smash hit movie that we have covered on our Patreon.

[Ben]

Lilo and Stitch.

[David Sims]

That is incorrect. Good guess, though.

[Griffin Newman]

We've covered it on our Patreon.

[David Sims]

We sure have.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a gigantic smash hit.

[Ben]

Bells.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it a re release of Star Wars?

[David Sims]

No, it is not.

[Griffin Newman]

No. 78. 78. 78. It's.

[David Sims]

If it wasn't the biggest movie of 78. It was one of the biggest.

[Griffin Newman]

Biggest movie. 78. It's not.

[Ben]

Not.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's Superman the movie.

[David Sims]

Superman. Superman. Richard Donner, Superman the movie. You a fan of that one, Ben?

[Ben]

Even I haven't seen it. What is that one? Is it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's about a man who is super?

[Ben]

He sure is.

[Griffin Newman]

They sent him to Earth to teach us that boys can be big and strong and proud and shouldn't be ashamed.

[Ben]

I actually watched the movies while you guys were covering them on Patreon. And I, I, I think they're pretty great. I. The, the one movie that I should never revisit, I think is Two, because Two, I thought was literally the best movie ever made when I was a kid.

[David Sims]

It's a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

When you're great. It is great. Perfect. It is great. It's kid crap.

[Ben]

I wish I could just live in that kid memory where like, every part of it felt like the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

[David Sims]

Well, you and everyone in our generation apparently, like, you know, I'm saying a lot of people just Wish they were 12 forever. Number two at the box office Office

[Griffin Newman]

for the Super Mario Galaxy movie is.

[David Sims]

It's an interesting one. It's a sequel to a gigantic film.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a sequel to a gigantic film. But this film is less gigantic. Oh, yes.

[David Sims]

And it is, I would say, pretty forgotten. It's almost forgotten that this movie exists at all.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it the Sting too?

[David Sims]

No, but that is the Vibe.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the vibe.

[David Sims]

It is the sequel to, like a box office sensation that won. It was nominated for best picture. It was like a big cultural movie shoot.

[Ben]

Your guess it Butch, Sundance and Cassie. The early years.

[David Sims]

No, it is not. Again, you're, you know, you're.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's a two and done. This ends the thing forever.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, like, there was no sequel to be made of the first.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a bad idea.

[David Sims]

This is happening eight years later.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, is it the Love Story sequel?

[David Sims]

Correct. And what is that called?

[Griffin Newman]

Ryan's Story.

[David Sims]

You're close.

[Griffin Newman]

Ryan o' Neal's the actor. The character's name is.

[Ben]

That's a different movie.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I was guessing.

[David Sims]

The character's name is Oliver.

[Griffin Newman]

Oliver.

[David Sims]

The film is called Oliver's Story.

[Griffin Newman]

He falls in love with Bucketsbergen. Right.

[David Sims]

He falls in love with Candice Bergen. And of course, the tagline was it takes someone very special to help you forget. Someone very special. Like, who's like, yeah, no. Yeah, who he fuck later? You know, like. Like who watches Love Story and then comes out being like, I sure want to know who he later marries.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, fucking successful Date nights across America. Couples walk out wiping away their tears and they're like, I just wish I could see him get over her.

[David Sims]

He was so young. I hope he. I'm like, I'm sure he will.

[Griffin Newman]

What you talking about?

[Ben]

But what's more difficult? What's more difficult? Doing a story to Love Story or following up the tagline to the original?

[David Sims]

I know the. The tagline writer was like, all right, we want to be very respectful to the dearly departed McGraw right from this. I recently watched.

[Griffin Newman]

You watched this for the first time,

[David Sims]

which I had never seen, obviously. That is a movie that was a colossal phenomenon that I would say close to forgotten.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the kind of movie I bring up where we're like these movies that were so big in their day that no one talks about anymore and feel like such a product of their time. And you and I will be like, is that secretly awesome if we throw that on tomorrow?

[David Sims]

Threw it on, let me tell you. No snooze. Really, really. Actually quite bad. The first 20 minutes, which is the two of them just going at each other, being so mean.

[Griffin Newman]

That should be the good part.

[David Sims]

Where he's like, you're such a. A stuck up. And she's like, you're a.

[Griffin Newman]

You're Ryan o'. Neal. Your reputation precedes you.

[David Sims]

And they're kind of. And then they're like, anyway, after 20 minutes of going into. So we're in love with each other. And she's like, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

And she's like, I'm so sorry. I forgot that I'm dying.

[David Sims]

And then you're just like, it's so boring.

[Ben]

But love means you never have to say you're sorry.

[David Sims]

That is a line in the movie,

[Ben]

but that is the tagline of the original. And that's. They say part of the reason it was such a big hit was that people would hear that and go, what?

[Ben David Grabinski]

Holy.

[David Sims]

People go like, huh? And then later, when you think about it, you're like, what does that mean? It's like. Doesn't mean anything.

[Ben]

It feels like a Seinfeld. Does it mean never having sex?

[Griffin Newman]

You're saying, like, how does the second.

[David Sims]

His dad is like, by the way, I'm sorry your wife died. And he's like, love never means never having to say your sorry says it to his dad. Yeah, well, he's repeating it. She had already said it. Okay, okay. And. And, you know, the dad's like, oh, okay. And the dad should be like, what? Like, you should just be like, huh. Parse that out for me.

[Griffin Newman]

But if they were trying to top the tagline of the first movie, Ol. Oliver's story's tagline should have been, sorry to that dead lady. But Oliver's got to get some.

[David Sims]

Look, time heals all wounds, all right? Oliver's got to meet someone new.

[Griffin Newman]

He's ready to say apologies to her memory as he on top of her grave.

[Ben]

Okay, guys, the tagline for Dragonfly was, when someone you love dies, are they gone forever? It's a good question.

[Griffin Newman]

It's pretty good.

[David Sims]

I will say Michael Eisner, who was the head of Paramount at the time Film, the studio that released Love Story and Oliver's Story, his quote on the movie was, let me find it. Exactly. One way or another, we're doing a sequel. Love Story.

[Griffin Newman]

It doesn't fucking matter.

[David Sims]

Anyway, the movie came out, nobody liked it, and it was not a hit at all. And I think, you know, again, I'm making fun of the original movie, but I think it was a bit of a disgrace to the memory of a movie people like.

[Griffin Newman]

I imagine we're offended.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. All right.

[David Sims]

So that's number two. Number three is a film I've not heard of. So let me look this up. It is a.

[Griffin Newman]

Is this first weekend of Superman or second?

[David Sims]

It's the fur. Well, I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. I'm just wondering if we did this exact weekend on the Superman Episode.

[David Sims]

Either way, I feel like we would have done these riffs.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Oliver Story sounds a little familiar.

[David Sims]

It does.

[Griffin Newman]

Go on.

[Ben]

You're right.

[David Sims]

It does seem like it's kind of the first weekend of Superman anyway. Yeah. Because this is sort of familiar. An Iranian American adventure drama directed by James Fargo, starring Anthony Quinn. Look, it's called Caravans.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And the number four is the movie about being in Turkish prison. That makes Turkish prisons the thing you don't want to be in for 20 years.

[Griffin Newman]

We all know this one is called oh, Heavenly Dog, and it stars Benji and Chevy Chase. It's Midnight Express.

[Ben]

You know, that might be the only movie where I know the score so well, and I've listened to it a hundred times. I've not seen the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

That's another one where you're like. You watch sitcoms from the 80s as I do, day and night.

[David Sims]

We have done this rift before, just

[Ben]

like Chariots of Five.

[Griffin Newman]

We're just conscindicating ourselves now.

[David Sims]

Yeah, seriously, we are. But like, yes. Where, like, in sitcom, super, like Turkish prison bad.

[Griffin Newman]

For 15 years, it's used as shorthand for worst thing you can possibly imagine. I've seen Midnight Express, and now you're just like, no one has watched that movie fresh in 15 years.

[David Sims]

It's not a movie that's much discussed.

[Ben]

See, I thought. I thought the bit was knowing music without having seen the movie. So that's why I said Chariots of Fire. I just didn't want to. I want to explain my.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I thought it was. It was good. It was good. It was really good. You're talking, talking. Keep talking. Shut the up top.

[David Sims]

Griffin Number five is a. A very important comedy film of the year.

[Griffin Newman]

Jerk.

[David Sims]

No good. That's a better movie.

[Griffin Newman]

That's 79.

[David Sims]

But this is a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a good movie. It's not a. Brooks. It's important.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's like a big, influential comedy movie. Giant hit.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not a prior Wilder.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it. Is it star driven or is it, like, director driven?

[David Sims]

No, it's a big ensemble, but it. It. It features a big star who's. It's sort of, you know, he's already famous from tv and it's his big movie moment.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh? It's this big movie moment. It's an ensemble. It's on Alan Alda. No, TV famous. Big ensemble. It's not Kimball Ran.

[David Sims]

No, I'm trying to think. It's, like, good. It's like a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's good. It's good. We like, like it. Sure, sure. Kind of.

[David Sims]

I. It's never been a big movie for me, but, I mean, it's very influential and important.

[Griffin Newman]

Who's the distributor of this picture?

[David Sims]

Oh, my God.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm asking you a very basic question.

[David Sims]

It's a fair point.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you. That's all I wanted.

[David Sims]

The film was, of course, released by Universal.

[Griffin Newman]

The fine folks at Universal. It's Animal House.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

Lampoons.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Animal.

[Griffin Newman]

Very, very, very.

[David Sims]

But like, a movie where it's like. By the time I'm seeing that, I'm sort of being shown it as a bit of a relic, but like a good one where they're like, you can see the seeds of the comedy you enjoy today here. And I'm like, yeah, but this is also funny. And I'm like, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The difference.

[David Sims]

I didn't watch it a million times

[Griffin Newman]

is that despite having very overprotective parents who greatly monitored what I watched and wouldn't let me watch Rugrats, my father probably showed me Animal House when I was sick and was like, this is important. This is, like, more important than the Talmud in my eyes in terms of you understanding where you came from. So, yes, it was like I. I almost learned what funny was by asking my dad, why is that funny?

[David Sims]

There you go.

[Griffin Newman]

That's how I turned out normal. Anyway, what else?

[Ben]

National Lampoons did lead to everything.

[Griffin Newman]

They led to everything.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, totally.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Halloween. John Carpenter's Halloween.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Ralph Bakshi's the Lord of the Rings, which is very cool. The Anthony Hopkins film Magic, recently discussed, of course, on our Sam Raimi episode,

[Griffin Newman]

Hoping Remy goes through with that remake.

[David Sims]

A film we very recently discussed on our Patreon, the Wiz.

[Griffin Newman]

The Wiz Bombing.

[Ben]

By the way, that movie is so good. And I watched it for the first time last week, and anyone who hates it is a loser. And maybe. Right.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Ben]

It just blew me away.

[Griffin Newman]

Wrong. Gorgeous. 4K. The best.

[David Sims]

And then it's very short, then. Might be interesting to HEAR that number 10 is Cheech and Chong up in Smoke, which is kind of a good one. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Every year, Ben resubmits the idea of Cheech and Chong for Patreon. And David's like, how's that gonna feel on the seventh episode?

[David Sims]

Right. I'm like, look, we're all gonna be. It's. I mean, it's like, oh, I did

[Ben David Grabinski]

think of a new one.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

Pitch.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Dangerfield.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

[David Sims]

How many is that?

[Ben]

Well, what, are we, starving? Cartoon.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's Already been designated as part of Stand Up Animation.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben]

Oh, I voted for that when that happened.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It was kind of the Kamala errors last year.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah. A huge disappointment.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I got a. Maybe I got too many hopes on it.

[Griffin Newman]

It didn't have.

[David Sims]

I guess you would do well. Like, do you do Caddy Shaq? No. Right?

[Ben David Grabinski]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, no, I think. No, no. I think you want to do back to. Rodney Dangerfield is the only guy on the poster Back to school.

[Griffin Newman]

Easy money.

[David Sims]

Lady first is easy. Easy money. Okay. Which. Here's the poster. It's his face going like this. And then back to school going like this.

[Griffin Newman]

And in both of these cases, going back, American audiences are standing to the side of the poster saluting him. Right. Showing him the utmost respect.

[David Sims]

So number three is Ladybug Dogs.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh?

[David Sims]

Where he's going like this. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A bunch of kids saluting him.

[David Sims]

Number four,

[Griffin Newman]

meet Wally Sparks. Like is. Does it kind of.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

To the 90s.

[David Sims]

It's me, Wally Sparks. Where he's going like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He's holding a drink and he's asking you to meet him.

[David Sims]

And I think that's kind of it. Like, for like true Rodney vehicles. I mean, and there is the cartoon.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I gotta say, I don't know.

[David Sims]

Those two late ones, I imagine there.

[Ben]

You don't know me. Wally Sparks. You've never heard of Ladybugs movie?

[David Sims]

I've heard of Ladybugs. I've never seen.

[Ben]

You don't know. Ladybugs was a big deal.

[David Sims]

It's like, what if Rodney was the coach of a girl sucker?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben]

It's little Giant Brandish.

[Ben David Grabinski]

Come on board.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Yeah.

[David Sims]

All right.

[Ben]

But that made me think you should do a series of movies with prominent Billy Joel songs because you have Easy money.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Oliver and Company.

[Ben]

And then you could do Mike. I'm just not going to do Mike. But I'm. But. Oh. The one joke I do want to say about that was I cleared a lot of my music and prep, and at one point, a very stern person walked into my office and said, are you aware that the song you have chosen is from an animated dog picture?

[Griffin Newman]

As if this was news to you.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Like, can you imagine if I, like,

[David Sims]

Oliver and Company said, get.

[Ben]

Why should I worry in a movie? And I'm like, it's from a what?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Do you succeed in being only the second film in history to use. Why should I worry?

[Ben]

That could be quite possibly true.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Ben]

I am the second movie to have Cool as Ice. The theme from Cool as Ice. Well, in my movie I will also

[David Sims]

say that Rodney Dangerfield did apparently make his last basic movie is a movie called the Fourth Tenor.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the Post, remember?

[David Sims]

I do think we'd have to track this one, which may be illegal in some states.

[Griffin Newman]

Rodney does opera.

[David Sims]

I love it. The glass he's holding in that poster might be hard for you to tell this because it was a little grainy. Is breaking because he's singing and he's

[Ben David Grabinski]

got a bad voice.

[David Sims]

Dangerfield gets no respect, but at 80 years of age manages to get a laugh or two in this low budget comedy found DVD and video guide. It's the only review listed on the Wikipedia page.

[Ben]

Do you remember Demand it, folks. A laugh or two is so mean. You're like, I can't remember if there was a second laugh.

[David Sims]

Like Dangerfield gets a laugh or two when he like is unconscious on Carson. Like, yes, that's not good news. That in 90 minutes he rustled up

[Griffin Newman]

a laugh or two. That's his lowest laugh.

[David Sims]

That's not average.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know or do you remember that when Dangerfield died, which must have been close to, if not over 20 years ago now, it was 04 his

[David Sims]

over 20 years ago.

[Griffin Newman]

His widow, when she was like doing the Larry King rounds and such to like eulogize him him was like, well, don't worry, Rodney's coming back. We cloned him.

[David Sims]

Okay. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Rodney will be back soon.

[David Sims]

So she is that. What's the status of.

[Griffin Newman]

My point is I haven't heard of PEEP since then.

[David Sims]

Well, if you. If not to go with this literally, but if you had literally cloned him, that would mean that there currently is a 24, 25 year old guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Which sounds pretty funny.

[David Sims]

I know, but I'm like, Rodney only got famous in his like 50. That's like a long, long wait, right?

[Griffin Newman]

There's currently a Ronnie Daniel clone who's selling aluminum siding.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm just years before he decides to focus on.

[David Sims]

Because like 25 years from now, we're definitely gonna be able to just make like a Rodney hologram. You know, like the clone will be like, I'm ready. And it's like you are getting no respect. Like, we just.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not a bit. We don't care.

[Ben]

I was waiting to make that respect joke and I should have known like that it was gonna happen anyway with.

[David Sims]

With a sharp comic mind. Like David Sims on the ones. No, too.

[Ben]

I don't know, man. You've got. You made me laugh a lot. Listening to this podcast, but not the subway stuff. I take that. Very serious.

[Griffin Newman]

That's. That's.

[David Sims]

Do you have any Subway questions I can answer on here before we wrap up the show?

[Ben]

What's your favorite movie that has a subway in it besides Jason Takes Manhattan Taking a Pill?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That's the only correct answer.

[David Sims]

It's the gold standard and, you know, the original. But I have a huge soft spot for the Tony Scott.

[Ben]

He's a God to me. The. But the. The. The streaming version of it is 16 by 9 instead of scope, which is really out of here. Several Tony Scott movies.

[David Sims]

I think when we do Tony Scott. I mean, not that we. We love to watch a disc on this. Yeah, yeah. We're really gonna have to go to the discs only. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They've been with his legacy.

[Ben]

I. I can't do that series because there's, like, eight movies I'd want to do, and if I didn't get them, I would be too upset.

[David Sims]

So just automatically getting one would upset you? You'd be like, what about the other?

[Ben]

I'm saying all of them. It's like, I feel like I really want to talk.

[David Sims]

You're doing the fan.

[Ben]

I would. I would bring his filmography to a desert island before Ridley's. And Ridley's made some of my favorite movies.

[Griffin Newman]

I'd agree with that. I think it's a better survival tactic. Mike and Nick. And Nick and Alice.

[Ben]

Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Very briefly, because, you know, no one listens to this show for promo, but I have to mention I have a movie coming out in the future which I think is right after this.

[David Sims]

And it's coming out, I believe, five days after this episode drops. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

On the hidden.

[David Sims]

It's uncanny timing, given that we didn't really plan it that.

[Ben]

So get something. Sometimes get hula without commercials. Invite your friends over. Turn off the lights. Turn it loud. Eat some pizza. Watch it and try to have fun watching it, buddy. Action comedy, gangster, time travel, rom com.

[David Sims]

Emily Hamster. Is she cool?

[Ben]

She is the greatest we become.

[David Sims]

I love her.

[Ben]

Good friends, Humble Brad.

[David Sims]

You're a huge fan of Emily Hampshire.

[Ben]

She plays a dirty cop in it.

[Griffin Newman]

You have not seen a picture yet, David, but can I spoil something from you? Here's the fucking headline. Keith David is in the movie Owning Bones.

[David Sims]

Not surprised to hear it.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben David wrote some fucking meaty monologues for Keith David, who you might be astonished to hear, he gives a big monologue.

[Ben]

He gives a big monologue about my dead cat.

[David Sims]

So there you go.

[Ben]

So that comes out. And I'm Very proud of it and it's cool. And then also Scott, my new Scott Pilgrim game will have just come out when this comes out. And then I think this comes out as the Blu Ray of Scott Pilgrim takes off starring Griffin Newman.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, hey, I.

[David Sims]

That then that is also on Netflix if people want to watch.

[Ben]

Yes, but Physical Media has commentaries from me and Brian.

[David Sims]

I'm just saying, you know, we love Physical.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I played a handful of characters on the show that you very kindly invited me in to do, including Wallace's straight stunt double. Straight Wallace, one of the most cursed characters in modern media who is not included in the game. But I believe there is is any blinkies getting ready to play Scott Pilgrim X Might. Might notice a. A thing. A conscious nod.

[Ben]

There is a nod to me as a person and to porch movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, that is also true.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Brian Leo Ali friend of the show.

[David Sims]

We love Brian. He's a huge hero of mine.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I also just not to not touch. Can tee you up like Hogman on this, but partially some of the inspiration from for Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice comes from us covering Mikey and Nikki on the podcast, correct?

[Ben]

Partially, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean it like jostled your brain.

[Ben]

Yeah, there's. There's.

[David Sims]

There's Olivia Craig.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a Olivia Craig had the great Olivia Craig.

[David Sims]

Love her.

[Ben]

Yeah, the. The premise of the movie is a gangster goes back in time to try and you can skip ahead of this if you don't want to spoil anything, but a guy goes back in time to try to fix a mistake he had made, kind of betraying his friend. And I had sort of had this idea when there's a lot of these, like, nihilistic gangster movies, like these relationship things. And I always wonder, you know, you get to the end and you have that pitch black thing. It's like, what if that person could redo it? You know that that's kind of the kernel of it. And then the other thing was just the. I like the buddy comedy thing of like, like the redeemed guy and the unredeemed guy butting heads. So it's like Scrooge at the end with Scrooge from the beginning.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. What if it's two of the same guy at different points in his journey?

[Ben]

Also a bunch of Gilmore Girls references.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an excellent movie, tremendously fun. Strongly encourage everyone to watch it. What was. I'm sorry, are you a just guy,

[David Sims]

a Dean guy, or a Logan guy?

[Griffin Newman]

Important.

[Ben]

There is def. A very long discussion about who the best boyfriend is and I'll just say anything that James Marsden says in the movie about Gilmore Girls is my opinion. I think that you always give the correct opinion to, you know, the handsome James Marsden guy.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Ben]

So in Q and A's, I've already had people say, oh, so. So what is your take? Because there's a lot of different.

[David Sims]

You just saw the take.

[Ben]

Like anything Marsden says.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's.

[Ben]

That. That's. That's me.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I get. I gave the take to the best pair of cheekbones.

[David Sims]

You remember when Dean gets married and then his wife tries to make him a roast?

[Ben]

So Dean was. Dean's the worst boyfriend on the show, objectively. But who was the best? Best?

[David Sims]

I. I'm a Jessica.

[Ben]

See, I like Jess.

[David Sims]

But are you saying who's the best boyfriend to Ro for her?

[Ben]

There's only one answer.

[David Sims]

Oh, boy. I don't know if I agree that there's only one answer. I think that Jess, in his more mature form is probably the best boyfriend for Rory. I think that if you take the actions of the characters on of on the show, it's probably Logan, I guess, but Logan's kind of a dweeb. I don't know. It's complicated.

[Ben]

Well, someone's going to have to get on Hulu to find out my take.

[David Sims]

I'm very excited to listen.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you all for listening.

[David Sims]

Yes. Jess really fumbles the bag with Rory, though. We all agree. I mean, season three just completely fumbles the bag. Right?

[Ben]

So here's the thing. Last wave, I want them to release it in 40x and I want to drown in the theater.

[Griffin Newman]

That was your response to. To wet.

[Ben]

They should just fill the theater with water and you're slowly drowning while you're watching it. That's. That's my big hot tip. My big hot wet take.

[David Sims]

I mean, Ben, you have definitely proposed a theater that is you are underwater the entire time.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And you propose underwater theory proposed upside down theater.

[David Sims]

That one was.

[Ben]

What if you watch Deep Rising in theater that's filled with water?

[Griffin Newman]

Great idea.

[David Sims]

I would watch Deep Rising on my phone. Right.

[Ben]

While you're on a jet anywhere in a theater filled with water.

[David Sims]

Y.

[Griffin Newman]

You would watch it in a trip tree. You would want this.

[David Sims]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

My brain is puttering out. I'm excited for you and I to dominate a trivia bendav.

[David Sims]

Oh, you guys doing trivia tonight?

[Griffin Newman]

Big time.

[Ben]

We are about to trivia. I really hope someone's gonna have a round that's all about the with or and actor credits.

[David Sims]

So mad at that. David had a difficult My basketball chat heard about the trivia round.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And so they were like, come on, now. Do it to us. Come on. We all work in Hollywood, you know, because it's mostly like, LA guys. And I did it, and they got mad at me, too. They were like, this is too hard. I'm like, I know, I know.

[Griffin Newman]

I messed up. We kind of accidentally went Christian Gray on that trivia.

[Ben]

Griffin and I have a. The trivia team that we do, and the worst we've ever done in a round is maybe getting like 7 out of 10 on Sims round. I think I got 2 out of 14.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

It was. It was tough. It was tough.

[David Sims]

The ones that I thought were layups, I look back and I'm like, well, but those are. You basically have to guess. Maybe you get it.

[Griffin Newman]

We were running all our questions by each other, and I was like, yeah, good round. Fair.

[David Sims]

This is the kind of shit we just talk about all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

I did an action figure round, and I was sending all the pictures to Marie and she got all of them immediately. And I was like, good. So all these are apparent. You. Everyone knows what all these characters dress like, especially if their faces are poorly sculpted.

[Ben]

Ben's round was great.

[David Sims]

Ben's round was.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben nailed it. Ben did a video round on holes.

[David Sims]

Yes, he did.

[Griffin Newman]

Anyway, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Gallipoli.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

And as always, ohana means family. No, I'm looking for the ratings bump. That guy's the king of the fucking box office.

[Ben David Grabinski]

I blame JJ. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our Associate producer is AJ Mc McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy. 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. I'm rolling. And hey, depending on your quote selection, yeah, could throw a little bit storm sounds and post.

[Griffin Newman]

I think you want to be throwing some splish splashes in here throughout the episode at your discretion.

[Ben]

I think there should be, like, rain, soothing rain sounds under the whole episode.

[Griffin Newman]

I think you do. What? What works?

[Ben David Grabinski]

Well, I didn't prep anything, but I

[Griffin Newman]

think in the final product, at least.

[Ben David Grabinski]

The final product.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben]

Can we license that song? Splash. I was taking a bath.

[David Sims]

Bobby Darren.

[Griffin Newman]

Bobby Darren. Can Bobby Darren sponsor this episode?

[Ben]

Episode?

[Ben David Grabinski]

I'll reference if a storm moment feels right.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. But, yeah, I'm happy that it's fine to just be a post thing.

[Ben]

I think this should be in the episode. This is a good discussion.

[Griffin Newman]

This is after. This is the post credit cookie so people can see how the sausage is made. Okay, Ready.