The Mosquito Coast with Sean Fennessey

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: The Mosquito Coast with Sean Fennessey
Date: April 19, 2026
Guest: Sean Fennessey (The Big Picture)

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Overview

This episode of Blank Check continues Griffin and David’s miniseries on director Peter Weir, focusing on the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast starring Harrison Ford. They’re joined by Sean Fennessey of The Big Picture for a spirited, wide-ranging, and deeply cinephilic discussion. Together they explore the film’s prickly reputation, Ford’s counterintuitive performance, the troubled production history, and its surprisingly contemporary themes. The hosts dig into Hollywood mythos, '80s cinema context, Ford’s legendary career, and much more—always with their characteristic wit and discursive energy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mosquito Coast – Poster, Tagline, and Vibe (00:13–06:00)

• The hosts kick off with a reading of the film’s solemn last line and quickly riff on the film’s notorious tagline:
  • Griffin: “How far should a man go to find his dream? ... He went too far. That fucking rules.” (01:02)
• They note the cognitive dissonance of poster-Harrison Ford: rugged, anxious, “anti-smile,” and very much not the comforting Han Solo/Indy figure of the era.
• The film was critically savaged and performed poorly at the box office, something Ford later expressed real disappointment about.

Memorable Quote

“This movie is designed to make people angry. I had never seen it before. I love this movie.” – Griffin (02:12)

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2. Ford vs. Audience Expectations (06:00–23:00)

• Ford, post-Witness, was at his career apex—a dual franchise juggernaut now flexing dramatic chops.
• The Mosquito Coast challenged his audience, presenting Ford as an unlikable, delusional patriarch. The episode analyzes why this pivot was incomprehensible (and unsellable) for 1986 moviegoers.
• Discussion of star branding: Ford’s “no-nonsense” persona and his measured public self. The contrast between his serious, private actor’s craft and his current cranky, crowd-pleasing late-career persona.

Memorable Quotes

“This is the one movie where he’s just kind of a heel. He’s just—he’s wrong. Everyone knows he’s wrong.” – Sean (21:01)
“So much of Harrison Ford’s thing at this time is: I seem like an asshole, but I actually care.” – Griffin (22:44)

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3. Ford’s ‘80s-‘90s Transitions and Project Selection (18:06–33:55)

• Breakdown of Ford’s canny “blank check” period: how he doubled up with prestige directors, balanced franchises and riskier material, but ultimately retreated to safer fare after Mosquito Coast flopped.
• The 1990s: Ford’s stardom endured, but the films became less memorable, culminating in the “embarrassing” Hollywood Homicide era.
• The mythos of the infallible Ford: how audience tolerance wore thin and the “we take you seriously now” Oscar nod for Witness.

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4. The Mosquito Coast’s Origin & Production (37:35–54:21)

• The genesis of Paul Theroux’s novel—rooted in late ‘70s American malaise and the shadow of Jonestown—and Paul Schrader’s adaptation (“obviously… one of Schrader’s underground men,” Sean).
• Jack Nicholson was the original choice for Ali Fox; lost out over salary (and ego) squabbles. Schrader prefers Nicholson, but the panel largely agrees Ford’s misfit magnetism best served the story’s friction.
• Peter Weir brought his “outsider” perspective and tireless, realism-driven shooting style.

Notable Moments

“If Nicholson was playing Ali Fox, he would be ratcheting. He wouldn't stay at the same level where the point is this guy's unbendable. He would be going crazy.” – Griffin (49:04)

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5. Characters & Performances (54:21–71:32)

• Deep dive into the film’s supporting cast (Helen Mirren, River Phoenix, Andre Gregory, Martha Plimpton, Conrad Roberts), with loving asides about their broader careers.
• Noting that Ali Fox’s children are both his victims and, finally, his liberators.
• River Phoenix drew notice, leading to him playing young Indy in Last Crusade.

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6. Themes: The Anti-Smile Movie, Utopian Fantasies, the American Dad (11:28–81:00)

• Mosquito Coast as an “anti-smile” film, confronting uncomfortable truths about American hubris, utopian delusions, and masculine self-destruction.
• Frequent comparisons to modern figures (“The modern day equivalent of Ali Fox is Elon Musk.” – Sean, 76:03), and stories of “our dads”—the small hang-ups echoed in Ali’s outsized rants.
• Fantasy of “starting over” challenged against actual human needs and communal reality.

Best Quotes

“There is a kernel of Ali that I relate to, which is… I do fantasize a little bit about leaving it behind big time.” – Sean (81:00)
“But if someone is arguing ideological points with you in this way, you're just like, 'I don't have time for this.'” – Griffin, about Ben’s and his own patience for doctrine (15:37)

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7. Cultural & Political Subtext (127:05–128:46)

• Ali Fox as both emblem and critique of Reagan-era America; the paternalistic, self-serving "savior" abroad.
• Peter Weir’s global perspective infused the film with biting satire of American exceptionalism and failed utopias.

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8. Endgame & Reception (126:05–143:31)

• Final act discussed: Ali’s spiral into deranged zealotry, the family’s escape, and the haunting ambiguity of their future.
• Recap of the film’s critical reception, including Siskel & Ebert’s “tetchy exchange”—Ebert damning the film as an unlikable slog, Siskel finding nobility in failed idealism.
• The film grossed a mere $14 million, Ford’s only ‘80s flop, and became something of a fascinating outlier in his filmography.

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9. Tangents & Fun (Throughout—See Timestamps)

• Lively digressions, including:
  • Modern Marvel/X-Men continuity anxieties (95:02–98:19)
  • Tron: Ares popcorn bucket discourses (88:02–91:29)
  • He-Man, childhood fandoms, and the new Masters of the Universe movie (93:16–94:28)
  • Paul Blart theories (107:23–108:52, 108:11–108:52)
  • Burning Man, dad hang-ups, and homebody dreams (119:32–123:16)
  • Blank Check crossovers with The Big Picture, future podcast plans, and much more.

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10. Box Office (166:16–175:31)

• The Mosquito Coast opened on Thanksgiving '86, sunk by blockbuster competition: Star Trek IV, An American Tail, Crocodile Dundee, and a re-release of Song of the South.
• The film earned just $14 million on a $20+ million budget, cementing its place as Ford’s black sheep.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Ford’s casting:

  “It’s the perfect guy, because you've already set out this question of—‘is he going to come to his senses?’” – Griffin (49:23)

• On anti-hero appeal:

  “I love an anti smile. I love a movie that is essentially a confrontation with something that is under the surface of human existence.” – Sean (11:28)

• On the film’s ending:

  “This is a movie where the villain is the hero. It's very uncommon.” – Sean (52:46)

• On cults and utopias:

  “Ali Fox is not charismatic, but Harrison Ford is charismatic. So even him leaning into the worst of this character, he's charismatic enough for the audience to pay attention.” – Griffin (68:47)

• On generational disappointment:

  “When you're a kid, you think your parents are heroic and perfect, and then you turn a certain age and you realize they're as full as shit as anybody.” – Sean (60:02)

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Essential Timestamps

• 00:13–06:00: Introduction, poster/tagline riff, setup for tone
• 07:42: Miniseries frame—Peter Weir gets his "blank check"
• 16:56: Ford’s mid-‘80s stardom context
• 21:01: Discussion of Ford’s performance, audience confusion
• 37:35: Transition to film’s origin, Paul Theroux/Schrader/Weir
• 49:04: Debate: Ford vs Nicholson as Ali Fox
• 68:47: The Dad Hang: everyone’s got “Ali Fox energy”
• 71:32: Transition to supporting cast—River Phoenix, Martha Plimpton, Andre Gregory
• 81:00: "Burn it down" fantasies; utopian desires
• 127:05: The film’s political subtext and America’s shadow
• 143:31: Recap on ending, critical/cultural legacy
• 166:16–175:31: Box office game, legacy, position in ‘80s canon

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Tone & Atmosphere

The episode—like the film—carries an undercurrent of wry, sometimes bracing self-awareness. Griffin, David, and Sean toggle easily between sharp film criticism, genuine personal revelation, and rapid-fire jokes, always maintaining the chatty, meta, cine-obsessed energy that defines Blank Check. The digressions are as much a feature as the film analysis itself.

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Conclusion

The Mosquito Coast is a film that—like its protagonist—refused to give the audience what it wanted, and as a result became an enduring curiosity. This episode investigates the contradictions and provocations in Weir’s vision, finds new resonance (and warning) in Ali Fox’s doomed quest, and celebrates Ford’s underappreciated power as both movie star and anti-hero. With Sean Fennessey’s expertise in tow, it’s a must-listen for lovers of ‘80s cinema, iconoclastic flops, and the mysteries of what makes a star—and a movie—tick.

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Next week: Dead Poets Society with Nia DaCosta

Memorable sign-off:

“The Mosquito coast is a movie about a man who hates the type of conversation we're having in this room right now.” – Griffin (103:16)

Transcript

[David Sims]

Blank Check with Griffin and David.

[Griffin Newman]

Blankjack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect.

[David Sims]

All you need to know is that

[Griffin Newman]

the name of the shadow is Blackjack. Once I had believed in father and the podcast had seemed small and old. Now he was gone and I wasn't afraid to love him anymore. And the podcast seemed limitless.

[David Sims]

I mean, yeah, well, I mean, I wasn't like, oh, Griffin, better do this line.

[Griffin Newman]

No, last line of the film. Now I will say the tagline for this film is extraordinary. I think, I don't know, actually one of the best tagline ever covered.

[David Sims]

It's a good tagline. It's a good poster. It's a, you know, it's very interesting. Very intriguing.

[Sean Fantasy]

Tell me the tagline.

[Griffin Newman]

The tagline is, this coast shore be biting.

[David Sims]

No, it's not.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, as I said, one of the best taglines ever.

[David Sims]

Itchy, ready to get. Harrison Ford. This summer is getting itchy.

[Griffin Newman]

Scratch, scratch.

[David Sims]

No, he.

[Griffin Newman]

The tagline is, how far should a man go to find his dream? Ali Fox went to the Mosquito coast line break. He went too far. That fucking rules. Just to see this poster where you're like, here's Harrison Ford, arguably the biggest movie star of that moment. There's an article I read when this film came out and people were pushing back against it, where they called out that Harrison Ford starred in more of the highest grossing films than any other star in history. Not just at that moment. He had a greater percentage of the all time top 10. But no one had ever dominated an all time top 10 to that degree. And this poster is just Harrison Ford looking not great. I mean, he looks hot as hell.

[David Sims]

He looks all right.

[Griffin Newman]

But the point is, yeah, wearing glasses, he looks concerned. This is the guy who's unflappable. And the poster is. He looks a little out of sorts and he looks rugged. And then the tagline's telling you, this guy fucked up. This movie should have made $8 trillion off the pitch of Harrison Ford up.

[David Sims]

There's no world where this movie makes 8 trillion. Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

No, this movie is designed to make people angry. I had never seen it before. I love this movie.

[David Sims]

So.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, well, this is a real.

[Griffin Newman]

This is. Sean, I think you and I are going to bond on a lot of things.

[David Sims]

I think this movie is great. To be clear, I don't. It's not like I'm contrarian.

[Sean Fantasy]

You both.

[David Sims]

Have you met this guy?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, this is.

[David Sims]

This is the wavelength I caught it.

[Griffin Newman]

The wavelength that Sean and I.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The answer is yes. The wavelength that Sean and I share. Ben text us this morning and said this movie let me find the exact.

[David Sims]

I believe it was this movie is anti smile.

[Griffin Newman]

Anti smile is.

[David Sims]

Which is true.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean I thought of this when you were describing the tagline. If the poster featured Harrison Ford smiling rather than that bemused kind of half grimace. Would the movie have been a hit? If there was a hit more like the ry sarcastic charm it would have.

[Griffin Newman]

If we're just talking poster and the movie hasn't change.

[David Sims]

Maybe it makes a little bit more funny open better.

[Griffin Newman]

And people would have been angry if

[Ben Hosley]

there were X's over his eyes. So we know from the start that this motherfucker dies.

[Sean Fantasy]

Whoa, it's.

[David Sims]

We're what?

[Sean Fantasy]

Three minutes in. We spoiled the film.

[Griffin Newman]

God damn Ben's quote. Our finest film critic, Ben Hosley. God damn this movie. A nasty bastard.

[David Sims]

It's true.

[Griffin Newman]

And David said it's not a feel good film. Maybe don't move to the Mosquito Coast. And Ben texted, it's anti smile. I truly would never. Not even for Harrison Ford. Now my opinion is that doesn't make

[Sean Fantasy]

it any less true a film.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, there are so many articles from the release of this film that are fascinating where they're like notoriously press shy. Harrison Ford has pounded the pain for this.

[David Sims]

He knows this one needs selling. Like, yeah, this isn't exactly a. Like, we go to the coast and you'll have to find out what happens next.

[Sean Fantasy]

One battle.

[Griffin Newman]

And he did like, whoa, why is

[Sean Fantasy]

Leo doing TikTok videos?

[David Sims]

Leo on the big picture swumming it.

[Griffin Newman]

He, he didn't want to miss sell it. He didn't want to trick people. But he was like, this is a tougher film. I'm hoping I built up the credibility with my audiences. And then when the movie comes out and he's like, critics savaged it. And he felt betrayed by the critics.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he was. He was mad that it didn't get a fair shake from them. He was like, I thought you guys might at least get it.

[Griffin Newman]

And that he felt like they were saying like, I'm not buying Han Solo doing this. And he was like, this is a movie that needed you and it's a challenging movie. And you're all going like, how dare he try this? But the interesting fact, when they're talking about at the time, they said it was the only movie he made that didn't make back its money.

[David Sims]

He says that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, he says that.

[David Sims]

Which means it must have like, right? Not even succeeded on home video or

[Griffin Newman]

even by the mid-90s. He still says it is the only movie I starred in that didn't make.

[David Sims]

Because it's not like Frantic was, you know, cleaning up. No, like.

[Sean Fantasy]

But it did pretty good business. Yeah, it was just much more conventional.

[David Sims]

It's more of a thriller, straightforward thriller.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's going out there and he' defending it. And in this article from the Hollywood Reporter, they say that it got a B minus cinema score. So you're like, it's not like the people who saw it hated it as much as no one wanted to see it.

[David Sims]

If they had put B minus cinema score is really bad. That's bad. Bad.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not. I'm not saying it's good, but I'm saying if you put a smiling Harrison Ford face on the poster, this movie

[Sean Fantasy]

gets f. Should we do the 1986 episode of the Big Picture where the Mosquito coast has just come out and it's got made $1.8 million and it's got a B minus spiraling, and we're like, God damn it, why we can't have nice things? No original storytelling, no literate adaptations of thoughtful men exploring the world.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's not even that, Sean. I think it's you and your quiet, focused mode going, I just need to accept that VHS has arrived and cinema is not what it used to be.

[Sean Fantasy]

So depressing.

[David Sims]

I just want to shout out, well, what's our podcast? Who's our guest? And then I want to say something.

[Griffin Newman]

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they use the checks to buy a town and rebuild civilization from scratch and

[David Sims]

try to make an ice machine the size of a, like, house. Idea Boy in the jungle.

[Griffin Newman]

Good ideas. This is a miniseries on the films of Peter.

[David Sims]

And then when a militia shows up, they're like, it's okay, I'll trick them. That's his big. It's like, I bet these guys are afraid of ants.

[Griffin Newman]

Ali Fox did nothing.

[David Sims]

Wait a second. Wait a second.

[Griffin Newman]

To be clear, what I love about this movie is not that. What I love about this movie is that Ali Fox is one of the most fundamentally broken.

[David Sims]

You like it because it said peer into the soul, not because you're, like, taking notes?

[Sean Fantasy]

No. Although I want to explore if there is any goodness in his ideas.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a. It's well, question.

[David Sims]

It's more like, what's the temptation? I guess. Right? Like. Well, yeah, like the temptation of the goodness.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, obviously, like, what is there? Egomaniac, narcissist. But I think getting older.

[David Sims]

Couple. Couple things.

[Sean Fantasy]

Couple things are sparking.

[Griffin Newman]

I kind of feel like his analysis is correct and all of his actions are wrong, if that makes sense. Well, maybe I'm. I'm painting too broad a brain.

[Sean Fantasy]

Is it too soon to go to this place?

[David Sims]

It's too soon to go to this place.

[Griffin Newman]

We're gonna get there. I promise you. We're gonna get there. David, what did you want to say on the films of Peter Weir? It's called Podnik at Hanging Cast.

[Sean Fantasy]

As I didn't know that.

[Griffin Newman]

Today we were talking about what is his first proper blank check movie. Certainly his first blank check.

[Sean Fantasy]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

The success of Witness is immediately rolled into. I'm tying myself to Harrison Ford. It's a passion project. I couldn't get made right before Witness. I can now get made.

[David Sims]

Success of Witness. Movie star. Plus the, you know, building credibility of his Australian films, which had almost gotten the movie made before, all put together to make a very tough movie about an unlikable person doing something largely negative and unsuccessful, I guess. And the movie ends with like, yeah, that didn't work out. You know, like. Which is.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Not something you can easily pitch in a boardroom.

[Griffin Newman]

What did you want to say?

[David Sims]

Sean Fantasy is our guest.

[Griffin Newman]

The great Sean Fantasy from the big picture and our friend. Excuse me.

[David Sims]

I know, but I'm.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm so happy to be here for Podnik.

[David Sims]

Podnik.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's good.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, I wanted Podster and Castmander, the pod side of the cast.

[David Sims]

How many times are you going to bring this up?

[Griffin Newman]

Every episode, basically. And David said Podnik is the funniest word I've ever heard, which I think is funny.

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, that explains it. It is. However, I do think there was a case for podless.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but you see, this is. There's a.

[Ben Hosley]

There's a.

[David Sims]

To me, a fine balance between too short, which what you're doing and kind of like the joke is just the length.

[Griffin Newman]

I said, let's go as hard as we can. We're rarely going to get an opportunity to put in two pods and two casts.

[David Sims]

I don't like it. I think it doesn't roll off any tongues. I also don't like that Mastering Commander has a subtitle. I think that's a huge mistake. What about that movie?

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, they're building a. Pods have become battlefields. Yeah.

[David Sims]

But then. Okay, well, now we're just throwing rules out the window.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

You know, that's. Right. We can say that that's what it

[Sean Fantasy]

was at the live show. It was. It was blank check in the big picture. And we were on the. The pod battlefield.

[David Sims]

We were in the best.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

So that's what I wanted to talk about. We did a live show with you guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Six months old by the time this comes out.

[David Sims]

You can watch it. Sure. And we did a draft and we wisely did New York movies and played to the crowd. All that. But the initial plan before it was going to be a live show.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Had been that we were going to do 1986 films.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

That's what I'm saying.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And that's my birth year. But it was also basically like one of the. One of the, like, available years.

[Sean Fantasy]

One of the last ones. One of the last big ones that we haven't done yet.

[David Sims]

And so I was like, hell, yeah. 1986. I think I watched 30 movies from 1986.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Like to prepare for this draft. That did not happen now. Now we may do it eventually.

[Griffin Newman]

We had the New York idea and you got upset because you said, I've

[David Sims]

already been grinding so deep in 1986.

[Sean Fantasy]

We plan to do. I want. I would love to do a draft for you guys every year for as long as we possibly can.

[David Sims]

I love the year drafts because I like the scarcity. Like, I find that the best format because, like, in terms of the gamesmanship, it's the most interesting. New York drafts is the opposite sort of gamesmanship, where it's like pick of the litter. There's a million movies. What route do you take? Right. Like, you know, but 86 was going

[Sean Fantasy]

to be recorded and New York was always going to be live. So I said, you guys want to come do the live show? But you're right. 86 is. Is a really fun year.

[David Sims]

And when does Mosquito go? It might go, but it would be a later drama.

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, it ain't a con I haven't prepared for 86.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I guess no spoilers for future draft.

[David Sims]

No comedy, no Oscar wins, not a blockbuster. So, yeah, it's only a lot of places. I mean, you could sort of call it a thriller. It's a kind of a wild card.

[Griffin Newman]

Or if you did an attempt at rebuilding civilization from scratch category. I think it would definitely go there.

[Sean Fantasy]

I might draft it. It's very possible. I have a lot of affection for this movie.

[David Sims]

I feel like this is a Sean movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Not that it's not anyone else's movie, but it's definitely a Sean movie.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, it's not. It is deeply imperfect and. Ben, I understand. I understand exactly what you mean. It is an anti Smile movie. I love an anti smile. I love a movie that is essentially a confrontation with something that is under the surface of human existence, which is. We are.

[Griffin Newman]

We are so fucked so with you here.

[Ben Hosley]

But this movie makes me want to punch it in the face.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think it kind of wants that. Right? I think. I think it does want that. And what. What the author of this book, how he feels about Ali Fox, too, I think is an interesting part of this and why the filmmaker is interested. Why Ford, famously a curmudgeon with a. With a bit of a down look on society, the world, his own success is all really fast. All these smart, thoughtful guys arriving at this project is interesting to me.

[Griffin Newman]

It's very interesting. Ben, you often say, when we cover movies in which someone finds a bag full of money and their life spirals out of control, like many of the Cohen films we've covered recently, that if you were in that movie, everything would turn out great and it would end with you owning an island. Now, how do you think you would have handled the circumstances of Mosquito Coast? I know they're different because you're not given the money in the first place, but. But the design is almost the same.

[Ben Hosley]

It would burn down immediately. The town would.

[David Sims]

You're not.

[Ben Hosley]

Would be burnt in.

[David Sims]

You're not municipal. Like, it's like. That's not your. I'm not your direction. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

You were in Mosquito Coast. Things would have gone worse.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes. I would smoke one cigarette, and then it would.

[David Sims]

The tower would just go up in flames.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then it'd be like, all right,

[Ben Hosley]

let's get out of here.

[David Sims]

But you're also. You're not an ideologue. Like, if you meet Spalding Gray. I mean, not Spalding Andre Gregory. Not Spalding Gray. Spalding Gray is another movie I watched recently for Sean's podcast, Killing Fields.

[Griffin Newman]

Or no different ones.

[David Sims]

Well, he is in the killing field, but no, Gray is in Stars and Bars. The forgotten Daniel Day Lewis.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, wild.

[Sean Fantasy]

His only pure comedy.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Giving a performance I might describe as a touch broad.

[Griffin Newman]

Still.

[David Sims]

Fair to say. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's a horny Southern judge. Classic Spalding Gray typecasting.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Well, Daniel Day Lewis is like. Like, that's his whole performance.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, It's. It is Daniel Day Lewis trying to be Hugh Grant in what? I don't even know what the. In My Cousin Vinny. That's essentially.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Sean Fantasy]

The framework. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And then Hugh Grant said doc Hollywood, oh, my lager and made Mickey Blue Eyes himself.

[David Sims]

It does feel like.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

But Daniel Day Lewis does Stars and Bars is probably like, that didn't work. And then sees Hugh Grant's early and is like, right, that's not. That's not a string to my bow.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

He's got it. Anyway.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You would meet Andre Gregory the priest, and you'd be like, yeah. You seem like you can run things. Like, yeah, I don't want to be in charge here. Like, Right. Like. Yeah, you got some ideas.

[Ben Hosley]

I feel like you. This is a thing that's been replicated before in other places.

[David Sims]

Whereas Ali is infrastructure go off. But then you are a false God. You know, Like, Ali just sees, like, he sees like a stop sign. He's like, I won't stop.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, that's just his vibe.

[David Sims]

This country used to go, stein can't run my life.

[Sean Fantasy]

Ben, would you kneel before God, though?

[David Sims]

No, I mean, God used to kneel before America.

[Sean Fantasy]

I am.

[Ben Hosley]

I am not religious at all.

[Sean Fantasy]

Because that's what Andre Gregory wants. Right. He wants you to bend the knee to him and to. And to.

[David Sims]

I know. I just feel like Ben just wouldn't have the wear, like, the sort of energy to be like, wow, you, man.

[Griffin Newman]

You wouldn't get as riled up. I feel like you.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, I guess.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, you're making a great point. I find the missionary practice problematic.

[Griffin Newman]

You.

[Ben Hosley]

There's history there of. Of problematic.

[Sean Fantasy]

More of a reverse cowgirl kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

But yeah, Ben, I feel like you get very.

[David Sims]

I really like that.

[Ben Hosley]

Actually, we need to call that out.

[David Sims]

That's a.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, that's 100 comedy social breakout.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You get riled up, Ben, when people disrespect you.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And you get. You get riled up when you come up against, like, injustice.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But I feel like if someone is arguing ideological points with you in this way, you're just like, I don't have time for this.

[Ben Hosley]

If I'm in the jungle and I'm sweating and getting bit by mosquitoes, I think I'm also just going to be like, I can't deal with this.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's the thing with this movie is this. I'm not going to the jungle. I never go to the jungle.

[Griffin Newman]

There's no way.

[David Sims]

It's not a climate that appeals the Mosquito Coast. I'm not the Penguin coast.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe. I mean, as you put it right there in the title, you're identifying my least favorite Kind of insect. I don't like living creature on the planet, quite possibly. I hate mosquitoes.

[Sean Fantasy]

They love me, too. It's the worst.

[Griffin Newman]

They love me. And you know why, Sean? Because you're so sweet.

[Sean Fantasy]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's gross. When grumps would say that. When you, like, complain about being bit and they'd be like, that's because you're so sweet.

[Sean Fantasy]

You honestly made me feel gross. It's disgusting.

[David Sims]

Or they're like, yeah, you taste good. Like, shut up. 1986. I just have considered 1986 in more depth than, like, other years recently because of this. And you're talking about Harrison Ford, major movie star. I do think he might be inarguably the biggest movie star at the year that comes because this sort of, you know, Stallone's moment is waning. Schwarzenegger's moment has not, like, totally solidified.

[Griffin Newman]

Willis is in before.

[David Sims]

We haven't got Cruise. Eddie Murphy is curdling slightly. Cruz is just beginning with Top Gun is this year. You know, like, so, like, Cruz is on.

[Griffin Newman]

I think, at this moment.

[Sean Fantasy]

I would argue it's not close.

[David Sims]

It's not at this moment.

[Griffin Newman]

It's inarguably him.

[David Sims]

And at this point, this is a movie where. What were the top three movies of 1986? Top Gun. So Cruises again, beginning Platoon. Which one's this picture? And Crocodile Dundee. Crocodile Dundee. Doing this well is kind of a. Like, we don't have any stars right now.

[Griffin Newman]

This guy, one of our biggest stars. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's like maybe.

[David Sims]

Maybe we throw in with Croc.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Two things happen in the 80s for him. One, obviously, you've got two Star wars movies, two Indiana Jones films.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

He has locked down that specific thing. But I think Witness is the clincher.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna say that's the thing.

[David Sims]

And we talked about.

[Sean Fantasy]

Confirms this.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing. It's him having two franchises under his belt and then being taken seriously as an actor and his serious adult drama playing, if not like a blockbuster, surely being a hit. It's. It's kind of like. It's that moment that happened with, like, Jennifer Lawrence where you're like, she has Silver Linings, Playbook and the first Hunger Games in the same year. You're telling me she's unstoppable.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's a really good comparison. And he, I think, is doing something in this next stretch of movies that is pretty admirable that great stars do where they get passion projects, interesting filmmakers, they bounce. They bounce between genres. You know, his next few movies, Mosquito Coast Frantic Working Girl goes back for Last Crusade and then Presumed Innocent. Regarding Henry, that's a really interesting run of movies. Not all of them work.

[David Sims]

No, but only one of them to me, does not work.

[Sean Fantasy]

Regarding Henry. Yeah, but I love that movie. It's bad, but I do love it. Written, of course, by Jeffrey Abrams.

[Griffin Newman]

J.J. lil. J.J. he. I saw some interview with him where he said that he really likes working with directors two times that he feels like, to a certain degree, making a movie with someone he's never worked with before is to test out whether they can do a second one. Not that the first one's a wash, but that he likes being able to hit the ground running and have that built in language. And a lot of what you're talking about there, it's like two Weirs, two Nichols, one Polanski. You know, he obviously does three Spielbergs, two Pollocks.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like he would double up on people. And all of these are, you know, once you get past Spielberg and Lucas, they're like grown up directors. They are serious grown up directors. Noyce, too.

[David Sims]

His 90s, it's not like his stardom wanes and he makes hits, but the movies get worse. And he has a lot of bad movies.

[Griffin Newman]

He has a couple.

[Sean Fantasy]

Second half of the 90s is a bit of its steep fall.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but I also. The second half, the 90s, the Star wars movies get re released and like, Han Solo is renewed. Like, even as the movies are falling off, his stardom is almost more solidified, at least in terms of like, hall of Fame iconography. I also, there's. There's an interview, maybe it's for Return of the Jedi or Empire Strikes Back, I think, where they're interviewing the three stars and they ask them what your first feeling was when Star wars hit. Right. And you know, Hamill has some gee whiz. Like, I. I can't believe it. I grew up watching these. I'm a star now. There are people around the block and they ask Ford, and he just rubs his hands together and goes, let's get to work. And they were like, what do you mean? And he was like. I was like, 37. It hadn't happened. It happened overnight. I said, this is my moment, you know, and he's got Star wars movies lined up. He's gonna get Indiana Jones lined up. But this run we're talking about, the start of it feels like him cashing in what he saw in his eye the moment Star wars hits is like, so you're telling me I can get movies made now? I know exactly what kind of movies I want to make. I know who I want to work with. I know which characters I want to play. It got delayed a little bit in him having to fulfill sequel obligations. But like, this 80s run is. Let's get to work.

[Sean Fantasy]

One of the things that I like about this movie from this kind of metatextual perspective that we're talking about it from, is that it reveals that when you are a movie star, you are still in a cage. In all of his films, he is either desirable, heroic, or wrongfully imperiled. Except for this movie. This is the one movie where he's just kind of a heel. He's just. He's. He's wrong. Everyone knows he's wrong.

[David Sims]

He's wrong from the start, too. It's not.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It's about a descent into madness, but he's basically no good from the beginning.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. And we are meant to follow him closely and be engaged with his journey. Like Helen Mirren, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it.

[Griffin Newman]

Does not have a ton to do.

[Sean Fantasy]

She does nothing to do in the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's him and it's Phoenix or the two perspective characters. We. We covered Robert Zemeckis, what Lies Beneath many years ago now. And that movie. The juice of that movie was you're gonna go into this so confident that there's no way Harrison Ford could be the bad guy. And when he turns out to be, like, epically, you know, absurdly villainous, that movie, like, electrified people. And it was a massive, massive.

[Sean Fantasy]

And it's a last five minutes reveal.

[Griffin Newman]

Totally. And that was like, you can't get away with this. But that's like a funhouse movie that can have that construction, be entertaining to people. This feels like a movie where the public's response to it was, I'm confused. Am I supposed to be rooting for this guy? Because it's Harrison Ford that. Rather than saying, like, oh, it's interesting that he's playing a guy I don't like, people were confused where they were supposed to line up. And I think part of that trickiness, what makes him so good in this role, but what must have just absolutely befuddled everyone is so much of Harrison Ford's thing at this time is I seem like an asshole, but I actually care.

[Sean Fantasy]

See, that's okay. So that's the thing that I also think is really interesting about the movie. I don't know Harrison Ford personally. I've certainly seen him on talk shows and in interviews. I don't think he has the same ideas as Ali Fox. I do think he's not that far temperamentally from Ali Fox.

[David Sims]

He has a slightly antisocial vibe. He likes to fly plane and live in ranch and crash plane and crash plane and smoke mountains of ganja, which I don't think Ali is doing that,

[Sean Fantasy]

but, like, he could use it.

[David Sims]

There's a world where Ali should be doing that. Exactly. Like, that should maybe be. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's got. He's an inventor, for fuck's sake. He's the most weed dad ever, man.

[Griffin Newman]

I heard a story from a film production driver. I forget what movie it was on, but who had to pick up Harrison Ford every day and said, one day he was late coming out of the house and he was like, I can't find my bong. Give me five minutes. And then he came out five minutes later with a saucepan and he was like, what are you doing? He's like, hold on. And he took the lid off the saucepan. He sucked up, hell, yeah, the smoke.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's. That's awesome.

[Griffin Newman]

But he was just like, you don't understand how much weed that guy is taking into this. So.

[David Sims]

Well, you certainly hear. Then there's these moments with him now. Like, there's the famous David Blaine video where you see kind of like.

[Sean Fantasy]

Because he's always.

[David Sims]

He's a good crank on. Like, he's a good crank on a publicity tour and all that. He enjoys it and he's very funny. The thing where Josh Horowitz. Right. Is it Josh? Yeah. He's asking about Red Hulk. Our president.

[Griffin Newman]

Our president. Nothing but respect.

[David Sims]

Yep. You know, about, like, do you feel silly? He's like, the money, you know, poof, it's gone. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

I watched the Schlansky bits.

[David Sims]

Yes. I watched. Have you ever seen. I assume you've seen the video of Alison Hammond interviewing him for Blade Runner 2049, where she's. He's with Gosling and you can tell it's like early morning in London. He's doing fucking junket shit. He's not interested. And she's so, like, delightful and funny and silly. And you watch him wake up and be like, wow, I like this woman. You know the moment where she. She says, so you know when you wanted to. When you offered this movie, what do you think? How much? And he goes like, show me the money. And you're just like, he. There he is. He's a silly guy.

[Griffin Newman]

It is. I think now he plays into it as a bit. And I. You look back at all this press. I was Reading for Mosquito. Cuz talks about how press shy he is, how private he is, and then you watch the actual interviews, and he's measured, he's open. He is so fucking articulate. He's not, like, doing some De Niro, like, mumble thing, but he's not doing, like, movie star razzle dazzle. He's speaking as if he's like Gore Vidal. Like, he's speaking in this very measured, thoughtful way. And I think that confused people. And it was received as he's cold because he's not smiling and telling stories about pranks. And now he realized I can just lean into being a crank and people find it funny. My favorite forward interview moment ever. It's after Disney acquires Lucasfilm. And you know, part of the announcement is Disney buys Lucasfilm Episode seven, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he goes on Conan to promote whatever movie he had coming out, like, a month or two after that.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he says, so there's Cowboys and Aliens. Big news. Recently, Disney purchased Star Wars. And Harrison Ford, like, looks over his shoulder, like, plays like, am I allowed to say anything? You know, kg. And he's like, now I'm sure you're being told not to say anything, but just to incentivize you. And then Conan takes out, like, a thousand dollars in cash, hands him, like, $10 hundred bills, and he's like, does this make you want to say anything? And Harrison Ford, like, grabs the money, quickly counts it, shoves it in the inside of his jacket pocket, and then, like, casually leans into his chair and goes, I. I hear they're thinking about making another one.

[David Sims]

And it's really good.

[Griffin Newman]

Destroyed. The audience laughs for a minute straight. And the fact that he can now lean into. I'm a grump. I hate everything, and I love making money. And that no one thinks he's an asshole. That it's like, it scores him brownie points is great.

[Sean Fantasy]

He earned it. I mean, he's freaking Harrison Ford. He's. He's in 20 movies. You're God, I love this movie. But that, like, that's a. That's a great way to be.

[Griffin Newman]

But this has always been the thing of people saying, like, oh, he's no nonsense. He's this and that. And then everyone who works with him is like, he cares about acting so much. He cares about the movie so much. It's all this cover. It's what makes him a star with Han Solo is the moment he comes

[Sean Fantasy]

back, I think he's also just a. He's a gifted actor, probably an underrated actor. Didn't really get a lot of opportunity, wasn't challenged a lot because of the work that he was best known for. But a very shrewd movie star. A good picker of projects, by and large.

[David Sims]

Until that late 90s.

[Sean Fantasy]

It dips. It dips for everybody.

[David Sims]

It's the classic late 90s. It's the classic movie star thing of, like, Harrison, you're getting older. You don't automatically match up with your female leads anymore. Like, you know, it's like, where do you go with this? And then stuff like Random Hearts is him being like, well, Pollock.

[Sean Fantasy]

And so I just saw that for the first time last year.

[David Sims]

Right. Your favorite movie.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I had. I had a nice time with it.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Sean Fantasy]

Because it is largely representative of the canard that all, all of us say all the time about they don't make, but they really don't make them like that movie. That movie is a very strange, morose drama about two sad people.

[David Sims]

Still cost like $60 million in the hearts are random.

[Griffin Newman]

I was so random.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's random as hell.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And it's not. Not a very good film.

[David Sims]

He is pretty random. It's actually a big inspiration for Family Guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. People forget the giant chicken is like third build in random heart.

[David Sims]

Actually, third build is Charles S. Dutton. This movie sounds pretty good. Carry On.

[Sean Fantasy]

You haven't seen it?

[David Sims]

No, I know the twist. It's fine. Or whatever.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's the least interesting part of it. He's just a sad cop for two hours wandering around New York trying to figure out what he should do with his life. And it's a. It's like a real test of his late period stardom. And he couldn't really hold onto it, you know, six days and seven nights. Like these movies where he's. He's trying to touch all the different strains. He's trying to like, oh, maybe can I. Working girl it again. You know, can I. Indiana Jones it again. Can I Jack Ryan it again. And he can't. You know, he's. That moment has passed.

[David Sims]

There's a run that. Because Fugitive is obviously like the best movie ever made. And then after that, it's like he did Clear and Present Danger does well, not a bad movie. But then it's like, Sabrina mistake. Devil's own mistake. Yeah. Air Force One, not a mistake. Great idea. Everyone love.

[Griffin Newman]

It is so funny that this movie, he has a moment where he says,

[David Sims]

get off my land, Mosquito coat. He says, get off my land. I know, I know, I know, I know. Six day, seven nights mistake. Random hearts mistake. What lies beneath. Good pick. But he's, you know, he's sort of a secretly supporting.

[Sean Fantasy]

Big hit, though.

[David Sims]

Big hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Huge hit.

[David Sims]

K19, the Widowmaker. Mistake. Hollywood Homicide mistake. And that's when he finally clocks. It's like, what? I'm two for 10 here. Yeah. I think I'm going to stop being a leading man beyond that way.

[Griffin Newman]

Hollywood Homicide is the first time I think he looks embarrassing, right?

[David Sims]

He's like, the fuck am I?

[Griffin Newman]

It's not just that the movie flops. It's that it's like, this looks silly. Why did you do this? What's with the earring? You're dating Ally McBeal. Like, everything about it. So suddenly it was like, is Harrison Ford, like, lame dad having midlife crisis?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

He lost his cool.

[David Sims]

And then firewall is forgotten. But is this transit moment to, like, he's more playing dad, older generation. And then like, it's like from then on, he is Grandpa Crystal Skull. You know, Morning Glory Cowboys. Right? It's like, now he's the old guy, it's grandpa.

[Griffin Newman]

But the other part of it is I'm going to do Blade Runner again. I'm going to do two more Star Wars. I'm going to do two more Indiana Jones. Crystal Skull starts there.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But then it's like Extraordinary Measures. Morning glory cowboys and aliens 42 enders game. You know, like, it's like, it takes him a while. Also, I think Force Awakens is when he's like, fine.

[Griffin Newman]

A lot of him being number two on the poster behind a newer Daniel Craig.

[David Sims]

Fucking. Of course, Brendan Fraser and his. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

So powerful.

[Griffin Newman]

Just like, weird choices.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I remember I've invoked this so many times, but it's just such a distinct memory. My broken brain, Asa Butterfield and me, the big two. I think he's the future. My dad and I walking by a billboard for Random Hearts and my dad just going, that's gonna be a big hit. And I was like, why? And he went, because Harrison Ford's in it. And I was like, that's how it works. Like, certain stars, no matter what they do. And yet that was a moment where it was like, it's proven wrong here. I. I have invoked this before, and one of the previous times we've talked about Harrison Ford, but his Inside the Actor Studio is amazing.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm sure I've seen it. I can't remember.

[Griffin Newman]

They get into Mosquito coast and Lipton asks him the thing that people love to ask him of, like, do you feel like you're stuck in a Gilded Cage that your level of stardom and iconography and the blockbusters have become so big that there's certain things the audience won't let you do as an actor. And he is very measured about it. And he basically says, I was very proud of that movie and it was something I wanted to do. And it was very clear that the audiences weren't going to go with me. There was, and I adjusted. And I'm never going to complain about the fact that people like me doing other things in movies. Right. Like, he has an answer that's basically like, I have no sour grapes over this. I tried. I'm not going to be an asshole about, like, oh, they want me to be a different kind of a list movie star. But it is clear that I think, and this is maybe where things start to fall apart a bit in the 90s is post mosquito Coast. He's like, got it. Notes taken. I want to challenge myself. I want to push boundaries, but I've identified a thing you don't want me to do. And, like, Working Girl is an interesting swing, but it's safer. Right. Like, other things like that. I think by the time he gets to the mid-90s, he's like, I don't know what I'm trying to prove anymore. And it's too early for him to do the grandpa swing.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Where he can really, well shake off the shackles of his Persona.

[Sean Fantasy]

We don't need to spend like three hours on his last his 90s movies. But I do think that Sabrina, the Devil's Own, Six Days, Seven Nights, Random Hearts are really instructive because they. We all do. Okay. Sabrina made 88.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Sean Fantasy]

Devil's Own made 140. But Days and Seven Nights made 165. Random Hearts made 75. Who directed Six Days, Seven Nights? Reitman.

[David Sims]

Right. Man with the tupaculas and the tupolics. It's kind of like this, kind of. Right. You're going back to the guys who were 80s, you know, big shots and are now getting a little long in the tooth.

[Sean Fantasy]

But he is not able to one, the material is not as good. Right. So Witness probably makes a somewhat similar amount of money as those movies, relatively speaking. But it's not a forever movie the way the Witness is.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

When you compare the interviews for those films to the interviews for Witness, Mosquito Coast, Working Girl, what have you, where there does not seem to be the same animating passion of. This is what really spoke to me in this script and why I really wanted to play this character.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

They feel like, yeah, that's like a. Feels like good material movie, good lineup of people.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. My audience will respond to this.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

You like to cook?

[David Sims]

Yeah, I love to cook.

[Griffin Newman]

You make food for your family?

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

How much time do you. Does that take?

[David Sims]

An hour.

[Griffin Newman]

Too long.

[David Sims]

I don't have it.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't have it, David. I'm too busy. You don't understand how busy I am. I need a complete meal that I can digest in 30 seconds. That's the prep time I can allot.

[David Sims]

Yep. Well, how do you solve this problem?

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

Okay. Can you tell me about Hugh.

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

What kind of stuff are they giving you?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, they give me a couple different.

[David Sims]

There's a lot of stuff. Yeah, I got, you know, I got. I got this big delivery.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, there was powder, there were bottles.

[David Sims]

Yes, there was. There was a big bottle that I could mix stuff in, but there were also cans.

[Griffin Newman]

A shaker.

[David Sims]

Yeah, kind of like, you know, tall boys.

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

Not of, you know, you know, anything else they have. What? They're gluten free. I can tell you that. They've got 27 of essential vitamins and minerals, 35 grams of protein. It's a complete meal you can grab and go. My gosh. This is the black edition. Ready to drink.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I got those chocolate peanut butter flavor. That's like sort of the equivalent of a complete meal. But then you also got these, these daily green multivitamin drinks.

[David Sims]

Oh, and you love those. I love a green drink.

[Griffin Newman]

The ready to drinks. It's a big tall. Can you put it in the refrigerator? I'm not good at remembering eat my vegetables. But these things taste pretty good and you just knock it back.

[David Sims]

No, but that. I mean like, are you liking them? I am. I feel like you often really like the. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I genuinely have made this a part of my morning green drink and it's helpful to have it be just a thing in my routine like that rather than, rather than just constantly being like, oh right, I should eat more of this. I should balance the diet in that way. Just open up the fridge, knock it back.

[David Sims]

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[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

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[Griffin Newman]

Griffin. Here is a quote I found in that same piece where he is pleading audiences to consider the movie Mosquito coast after being ransacked by critics. He says the job of acting is the same in every film, regardless of the material and it's storytelling and logical steps. In a good script, it is fairly easy because you have ideas to chain yourself to. Otherwise, it's party tricks. There are a few complications to the characters of Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but the demands of playing either of them are no less difficult than playing Fox. In many ways, a character with as much experience as Fox is allowed is easier to play. You need only to note the variety of his emotions. That is one of the best, best descriptions of acting in an unpretentious way I have ever read. That is so like, just fucking cut through the brass tacks. This is what it is. And explaining the two sides of what he can do well without putting greater importance on either.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's clearly very smart.

[Griffin Newman]

He's smart, knows who he is.

[Sean Fantasy]

So.

[Griffin Newman]

And what he can do.

[David Sims]

I'm going to open the dossier. But I think, to me, I do think the big question with Mischief Mosquito coast is, is Harrison Ford too sort of inherently Harrison Fordy to play this guy? Like, when you look upon it, it's

[Sean Fantasy]

a William Hurt part, right.

[David Sims]

That's kind of like, I'm not sure I believe that Harrison Ford would be so kind of like, you know, amoral or sort of, you know, unfeeling towards his family. Like, it's just like he's Harrison Ford. Like, can he pull that off?

[Griffin Newman]

I. I buy it. And I think that innate tension with his Persona gives this movie an extra electricity for me.

[David Sims]

Obviously, audiences and critics, like, we're kind of like, I don't buy it, I

[Sean Fantasy]

guess I think he's just a really good angry actor. That's. And he gets so many great moments of being angry. And this is a very angry character. And I get off my plane is an angry moment.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's playing with. You're watching him and going, this guy can't actually believe everything he's saying in that Han Solo way. Right. Surely at some point, if his children and his wife plead with him, he will break with this act. And I think that gives the movie a really interesting dramatic tension.

[David Sims]

I agree.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know who Weir originally wanted To.

[David Sims]

Well, let's open the document. Let's do.

[Sean Fantasy]

Open the do. Let's let David tell us, because these are the conventions of your podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you.

[David Sims]

Author Paul Theroux, uncle of Justin.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, indeed.

[David Sims]

Who later played ally in Apple TV's the Mosquito Coast.

[Sean Fantasy]

I tried to watch this.

[David Sims]

I didn't. I did not.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's not. There are two seasons and 17 episodes.

[David Sims]

This is my question. I'm like, this movie I think is good, but it's a tough cuff hang at two hours long. Why on earth would I want this stretched to tv?

[Griffin Newman]

David, I have a piece of news that is going to make you slam your own head against the Bible.

[David Sims]

Go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

There is a quote. Let me see if I can find it here from.

[Sean Fantasy]

I thought you were going to say season three coming soon.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right. It was Neil Cross, the creator of the TV show, the guy who did Loofah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. And Tom Bissell was the co writer of this series. He was a wonderful writer.

[Griffin Newman]

In a 2023 interview with Deadline Hollywood, the original novel's author, Paul Thoreau, hoping for a third season that would segue into the events of his novel. Praise the series, the two seasons that exist, all set up, all laying Runway for what happens in the book. And this movie, the classic prestige TV thing of. We all know Mosquito coast, right? What if it takes 50 hours to get to the starting point?

[David Sims]

From my, like, kind of glance at, like, what the episodes were.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[David Sims]

I think, like, season one ends with them kind of getting to the mosquito.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, but there's so much stuff in it. I mean, I was reading about it last night that's like, there's a hitman who's after Ally and like, the CIA is involved. It's just so very exemplary of, you

[David Sims]

know, what went wrong on that side of the.

[Sean Fantasy]

Give me a hundred random hearts instead of one. 3.

[Griffin Newman]

Could not agree more.

[David Sims]

But Paul Thoreau starts working on this manuscript. The book, the novel was published in 1981. It is a time, of course, existential crisis in malaise for America. Jimmy Carter, you know, interest rates going crazy, oil embargo, and, you know, he's Morning in America.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what you mean.

[David Sims]

Well, no, it wouldn't be Morning in America. This movie came out and of course, Ronald Reagan, as noted on the Wikipedia page, did watch this movie. I wonder what he thought of it.

[Sean Fantasy]

Dusk in America.

[Griffin Newman]

It's Dusk.

[David Sims]

Dusk in America. And Thoreau says that, like, the sort of encroachment of Japanese business, I guess, was a big thing. Obviously, that's a thing in this movie. I remember that as a child. He feels so quaint now, but like that, he's like, yeah. You would look at your coffee cup and it would say, made in Japan.

[Sean Fantasy]

Or was it all, like, automakers? As. Like, as a young kid in the 80s, I very vividly remember my parents at the dinner table talking about the incursion of Toyota and Honda and what does this mean?

[David Sims]

So he creates this character, Ali Fox. He sees him as a quintessentially American character that's basically like, I hate the government. I hate what's happened. I want to buy my own town and figure it out. Jonestown. Jim Jones.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, good guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Great. Lot of ideas. Big, big idea guy. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Would have been a great podcaster. Can you imagine?

[Sean Fantasy]

He had some strong ideas.

[Griffin Newman]

If he had just gotten that out of his system in the podcast, it

[David Sims]

would have been the gym sphere, obviously.

[Sean Fantasy]

The Jim Jones experience.

[David Sims]

The Jonestown massacre is 78, I think, like, so it's like. Like, you know, the idea of, like, trying to create your utopia in the jungle and it all going wrong is.

[Sean Fantasy]

Is.

[David Sims]

Is fresh on his mind.

[Sean Fantasy]

He do, like, this is. I think it's a little bit of a rift, too, on, like, Brook Farm and utopian societies from the 1800s, which is a quite a rabbit hole, if you were interested.

[David Sims]

And I will be starting a utopian society in 2026. Haven't whittled all the details down, but, you know, let me know. Any ideas?

[Griffin Newman]

Sims City.

[David Sims]

That's my pivot. Yes. Sims City is on route.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

What do they have there?

[David Sims]

What do they.

[Sean Fantasy]

What do we do there? Is it. Is it a commune style where we all have. We do. We all do.

[David Sims]

I'm just thinking of, like, things I want where I'm, like, napping.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Who's in charge of tweeting?

[David Sims]

You know, you can do that.

[Griffin Newman]

Sandwich place.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah. Subs. Super Nintendo. Just like. What do I want to do? Nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just imagining David being with friends. I can't respond to that yet. I can promise you there will be fries.

[David Sims]

Right? Right. Yeah. Running water. We love that. So he goes to Thoreau, goes to Honduras and China also, I guess, just trying to sort of take stock of things. An American author called Moritz Thompson, he meets him in Ecuador. I don't know, you know, a lot of stuff. I'm not gonna get into all this, but he is right. He is, like, focused on, like, the book will be from the perspective of Ali's son. Not Ali. Like, this needs to be. Not a completely. Just, like, you're in the brain of this man thing. Like you're sympathetic to him. No. You're watching this man go down this path. The rights get picked up immediately pretty much by Salznet's company.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's a hugely celebrated novel.

[David Sims]

Exactly. And Salzanet's company had done Cougar's Nest and Amadeus, so they're, you know, riding high.

[Griffin Newman]

He's won two of his eventual three Best Picture Oscars.

[David Sims]

Right. What was the third English person?

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's Zance.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Sorry.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, sorry.

[David Sims]

It's all Zance. You're right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like ants.

[David Sims]

I always. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sylvester Sloan.

[Sean Fantasy]

Paul Schrader, a great identifier of quality prestige material at that time. Yes, absolutely. And was Milos form. Right guy.

[Griffin Newman]

It was like this guy knows how to pick him. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Also, he knew how to pick the Hobbit, which he owned the rights to for a very long time.

[David Sims]

That was an easy check to cash for a while. His name's on every one of those fucking things.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. Paul Schrader made up a contract and he sat on it for 25 years.

[David Sims]

Paul Schrader. Heard of him?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Another normal fella.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess I must have known that he wrote this at some deep recess. Recess of my brain. And yet when the opening credits hit last night, I was. I was rubbing my hands like Harrison Ford. Let's get to work.

[Sean Fantasy]

Obviously, of course, he wrote this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

It appeals. Obviously. He has fully transitioned at this point to mostly direct writing.

[Griffin Newman]

Directing. Okay. You meant at this point, not present day.

[David Sims]

He takes this on, however, only to write. He wants to make Mishima. That's his sort of big. He has just done Cat People. And so. He does like it, though, in 2021, he says Fox's All American Hustler, the con man, the Donald Trump character, the sawdust preacher. Say that in 2021, though. He didn't say that in 82.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, okay. He could have said it in 82.

[David Sims]

Peter Weir, who has made Picnic and Hanging Rock in the Last Wave and is looking to pivot out of that. We talk about this a lot on Witness that he maybe was going to direct the Thorn Birds, which eventually turns into a television miniseries.

[Griffin Newman]

Has Year of Living Dangerously already happened? Or is this kind of temporary?

[David Sims]

Okay, but, but, but. Well, no, it hasn't happened. When he's circling the thorn.

[Griffin Newman]

That's my question.

[David Sims]

Right. That's post Last Wave.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That's his first dip into should I do a Hollywood thing instead? No. He goes and makes Gallipoli. Year of living dangerously is A co production with mgm. So Hollywood's entering. He reads mosquito book. He just. Mosquito. Mosquito book. And he just loves how bizarre it is. He loves how this is like a Shakespearean protagonist, right? Like, you're just watching him, like, crack, right?

[Griffin Newman]

It's an incredible setup for a movie.

[David Sims]

And it's like to him, it is like. He's like. It's like an American Macbeth or whatever, right? Like, it's just like the unraveling of a man, but this very American kind of man.

[Griffin Newman]

I. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

And so he's into that. And he likes the idea of a Harrison Ford or someone else he mentions, like John Mc. John Wayne, Steve McQueen, like taking some

[Griffin Newman]

American guy playing with someone's hero iconography. Yeah,

[David Sims]

super cool. Paul Schrader obviously has done the screenplay. They all chat. Weir basically sticks to Schrader's script. He had some ideas to futz with it, but I think he ended up basically using what he was given. He printed a pamphlet of Ali Fox's rants from the book that he titled the Thoughts of Ali Fox. I guess just to sort of get into that vibe.

[Griffin Newman]

Ali Fox, another guy who could have gotten a lot out of his system with a podcast.

[David Sims]

And to get to what Griffin was queuing up, Jack Nicholson is the early and very logical choice to star in this film.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, Jack Nicholson, audiences like watching him spiral. Jack, it is appealing to watch Nicholson do anything, especially when the behavior is bad and the psychosis is high. And so I think this movie doesn't work with him as much as it makes sense because he's almost like too charismatic, too compelling. And to watch his life spiral just becomes like jungle shining.

[Sean Fantasy]

Here's a weird thing about this movie, though. I would argue Harrison Ford's character is more or less consistent through the entire movie. At the very beginning of the film, the piss and vinegar and all the speechifying, he's basically the same guy at the end of the movie. He never really moves off of any position. He doesn't do that thing that you're talking about that Nicholson does, where over the course of 100 minutes, you watch a guy go from normal to completely insane. You know, the. The Witches of Eastwick style, meltdown. Ali, like, all the way through his death, is a true believer in himself.

[Griffin Newman]

It's more than anything, right? This guy starts at 100, and he refuses to give up a single percentage point, even as he is faced with evidence that he is wrong. You know, that's the common slam that I disagree with on Nicholson's casting and shining is that that guy is too baseline crazy for a movie that needs to be built around him dissolving. And I think the magic of Nicholson is he can start a movie and you go, that's the most guy I've ever seen. And then he finds a way to add more.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That's why Shining's so good.

[Griffin Newman]

But I also think, right, It's. He was.

[Sean Fantasy]

Eyebrow work going on in the first 30 minutes of shining where he was like. Just tone. Tone down the inherent malevolence of whatever you are doing.

[Griffin Newman]

If Nicholson was playing Ali Fox, he would be ratcheting.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

He wouldn't stay at the same level where the point is this guy's unbendable. He would be going crazy.

[David Sims]

I think he'd be good. He's a good.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not saying he'd be bad.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think he makes a little more sense in the early 80s than he does in the mid-80s.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just making the case for why I think Ford is. Is the perfect guy. Because you've already set out this question of.

[David Sims]

Right. They considered him perfect, but Saul's ants. Zance.

[Sean Fantasy]

I thought it was Zents. Is it Zance?

[David Sims]

Who knows?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, Zance.

[Sean Fantasy]

Like, I'm trying to remember the pronunciation.

[David Sims]

Sharon Stone, for some reason, thinks himself, like, as, like, a kingmaker for Nicholson. He's like, I made your career with Cuckoo's Nest. And Cuckoo's Nest at this point is, like, 10 years old.

[Griffin Newman]

But it won him one of his first Oscars.

[David Sims]

I know. But, like, Jack Nicholson has gone on to, you know, continue to succeed. And so he lowballs him. And Nicholson's like, fuck you. Like, you don't get to lowball me just because, like, you made a good movie with me a while ago. Right. Like. And so it turns into an ego thing. And, of course, what does Harrison Ford get paid? The salary Jack wanted. So it's like. It's all silliness. Schrader calls it a pissing contest. Schrader also says it obviously would have been a much better film with Jack. So I guess we know where Schrader lands on this one.

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, that's because Ford has been publicly critical of the script that they ended up making.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which is not the script he thought they ultimately should.

[David Sims]

Paul Schrader doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who grinds axes. I don't know what you're talking about. But while this is all happening, the film falls apart, obviously. And Weir goes over to Witness, which is this, like, go picture that has Ford attached, that has producers that has studio, you know, blah, blah, blah. Witness gets made.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Rocks.

[Griffin Newman]

But, like, halfway through filming Witness, Weir starts like.

[David Sims]

Weir's like, I got this thing I want to do.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And Ford's immediately in. Goes to his reps. His reps are like, you should do this. And Ford is undeterred. He's like, I like this guy. I like this character. I like Weir. I want to go.

[David Sims]

A lot of the stuff I'm quoting is from an article that was on The Ringer in 2021, by the way. Sean. Oh, great. And Ford, you know, and we agree, they don't want to be completely slavish to the book. They think in the book Fox is crazy from the beginning. They think they should build up to it. Now, I am not sure they succeeded at that. From Go. I agree with what you guys are saying, where I'm like, he's pretty crazy from the start.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's just very ranty. He's got all these philosophies.

[David Sims]

Jason Alexander is like, get me out of here. I don't want to deal with you anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

Jason Xander, very effective.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Ford says found him more right than wrong in what he was saying. There's the complexity of the family story, the relationship between a father and so and husband and wife. There's humor and pathos. I mean, like you say, for is very good at talking, like, in an emotional and complex way about the work he does. He loves Peter Weir. He says he's got vision, you know, like, that's great. And he calls himself an assistant storyteller. He's like, I'm the person who calls for logic and applauding. Kind of determination to have all the cards on the table.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what I was about to say. We talked about this a lot in Witness, that he really thinks of himself as a storyteller first and foremost. And that's his main function as an actor, especially since he usually plays the steady guy at the center to help carry the audience through the story. I would argue this is the first time he is playing a character where that is not his primary responsibility. Where his primary responsibility is get this guy right. Because in a certain way, Phoenix is carrying the story more. Weir is really carrying the story.

[David Sims]

Phoenix carrying the emotion. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The audience is not being carried by Ali Fox in watching this film.

[Sean Fantasy]

So it's a movie where the villain is the hero. It's very uncommon.

[David Sims]

It's very uncommon, especially obviously, for a Hollywood movie starring fucking Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Cruise, mostly Australian. And this is something I think is worth noting. Both Weir and John Seal agree. If Harrison Ford was an American with had an American, he would be Australian. They're like, he's just got a very Australian vibe. He wants to sit in a deck chair. He wants to like, you know, drink beers with the mates, you know what I mean? Like, it's just kind of like an Australian without actually being from Australia. Harrison Ford suggested River Phoenix, thought that he looked like him as a young man and had liked him in like Stand by Me and shit. Helen Mirren had only done one Hollywood movie, which is 2010.

[Griffin Newman]

Normal movie, I guess Excalibur was released by Warner Brothers, but was British.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And that was all shot and.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Written and all that. So she's kind of like a little overwhelmed and starstruck and like Harrison Ford. This is intense. And you know, she wants to. She envisions herself as like beautiful and floating through the jungle. And Peter, we're like, no, you're not going to wear any makeup, bro. Like, this is. Yeah, this is a dirty movie. They shoot it in Belize in Central America. And especially back then I think Belize was pretty off the grid. And so it was like a long sort of humid, kind of tough shoot. But Ford looks back on it really fondly. He's like, I had a wooden yacht. I mean, I don't know. That's the Harrison Ford's thing is just like I had a vehicle. Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know what's notable about the time for him? He's not yet a father that isn't had any kids.

[David Sims]

So who did he have kids with?

[Sean Fantasy]

Was it the next next year?

[David Sims]

Five kids?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Total.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Is that right? Am I getting that right?

[David Sims]

And. And then if you think about shrinking seasons as his children, it's even more children.

[Griffin Newman]

But is he. How old is he when this movie comes out? 43, 44.

[David Sims]

Let's think. Yeah, about. Yeah, about that. Yeah. Yeah, 44. I think I've got.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. He's got an. He's got. He has an older son at this point. Okay, I misspoke because he has. He has kids in the. He has two kids in the 80s and then he has one kid with close Flockart as well.

[David Sims]

He had. All right, I'm gonna give it all to you. He had two kids, okay? Two kids with Mary Margart. This is sort of like way pre fame, okay. In the 60s.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's with Melissa Matheson.

[David Sims]

He had two sons in the 60s. Then he has two kids with Melissa Matheson. A son and a daughter in 87 and 90. And then he did have a son with Calista Flockart in 2001, so. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So he does.

[Sean Fantasy]

So he is.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a daddy.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's in alley mode.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. And he is not Alan McBeal.

[Griffin Newman]

He is Daddy. He is Daddy. We. We talked a lot.

[David Sims]

Sunglasses somewhere. I was gonna put them on, but

[Griffin Newman]

we talked a lot in our Witness episode with your co host, Amanda Dobbs.

[Sean Fantasy]

Wait, what?

[David Sims]

You delete it. We'll delete it. We'll delete it.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm so sorry.

[David Sims]

You what?

[Griffin Newman]

So sorry. Is that the hottest he's ever been in a movie? And we basically landed on that or Working Girl.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm shocked to hear that. That was Amanda's.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's not obviously appealing in the same way in this film. He does look fucking good.

[Sean Fantasy]

He does.

[David Sims]

He looks.

[Griffin Newman]

Long hair.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, yeah, his hair looks good. The glasses work.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's just a very strong man.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know, he's not. He's not. He's not diesel. He's just a strong man. You know, when you met a man in 1987 and you're like this guy, he's got some strength on him.

[Griffin Newman]

Broad shoulders.

[Sean Fantasy]

Got some. There's some significant arms.

[Griffin Newman]

He's just a sturdy guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

This man's held lumber.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

In his hands. You know, he knows what a power saw feels like.

[Griffin Newman]

He knows how to crash a plane.

[David Sims]

That's. He really knows. Weirdly. Weirdly. Weirdly close to that one. You know, they shoot the film, as Sean was alluding to. There's a lot of push and pull over. Like, to what extent did they just shoot the script? Weir's always very like, oh, you know, I like to discover stuff on set and you know, like, I guess that's sort of the debate of authorship here. But, you know, I mean, Schrader makes

[Sean Fantasy]

this a Schrader movie. Like the Paul Theroux writing. He's one of the great travel writers of all time. He wrote this great book, if you have not read it, called the Great Railway Bazaar. It's considered one of the foremost travelogue non fiction journey movies ever. He makes his name by being a white man from Massachusetts who goes to Africa, goes to Singapore, goes to all over Europe, travels the world, writes about his experiences in this very forthright but emotional way. A lot of his novels are like this. They are emotional pragmatist novels. And Paul Schrader is not an emotional pragmatist. He's the opposite. He is a person of extraordinary Outsized biblical intensity. And so there is this clash in what the story is meant to be and how. How people felt about the novel and where the movie ends up, which is, you know, it's one of Schrader's underground men. Like, that's what. That's ultimately what this movie is.

[Griffin Newman]

So if we view, like, the spectrum of Thoreau, it feels like is creating this Ali Fox character as, like, a shadow version of himself, right? Interrogating his worst fears of who he is and what he's doing, entering these other cultures and then reporting back to other people. And that the most curdled version of that is going, I know how I. I could do this better. I could just do this, and I'd have it all figured out. And even that scene where they go to the home of the workers and he's showing the kids around and he's like, look at this. They live like kings. We can do this, right? This weird kind of, like, exoticism and, like, putting them on a pedestal in a way that is condescending in its own sense. It feels like Thoreau is, like, litigating his own concerns about, where do I stand on this?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, Right. That's why it's written through the eyes of the child. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, then not within this specific world. But as you said, Schrader is a mole man. He's an underground man, and he is someone who digs in and spirals into things like this. This is not his world, but he more closely represents the psychology of someone like an alley fox. And then Weir is all the way on the other end of Thoreau being like, I actually have objectivity and distance from both of you. And Weir is really good at looking at different cultures butting up against each other with a sense of distance. And Ford says that one of the things he loved about Weir is that he finds that a lot of times the best filmmakers at making films about America are the ones who are on the outside.

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, the other weird thing that you guys, I'm sure, will be getting to in this series is that most of his best movies are about the relentless power of the natural world that, like, getting stuck somewhere or stuck inside of something. You cannot beat Mother Nature. And this is a movie that ultimately becomes most interested in that in the third act. I haven't read this novel, this through novel, so I can't say how. How much fealty there is, but to me, that's what Weir brings, which is, there's a. There's a fucking typhoon happening and there's no One better suited to putting that on screen than this director at this time. But you take those. Those three interests, right? You take the Mole man, you take Harrison Ford's trying to subvert.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Trying to find himself. Yeah. Make a new Persona for himself. And you take this great naturalist using this text that is, like, meant to be. I think a movie about how when you're a kid, you think your parents are heroic and perfect, and then you turn a certain age and you realize they're as full as shit as anybody. That's the core emotional turn of this book, which is a great idea that I think most people can relate to. It just so happens that rather than, like, your parents getting a divorce or moving to a new city or changing jobs or losing their job, he moves them to a different country.

[Griffin Newman]

This guy is about as full of shit as you possibly could be. And the world calls his bluff. So hard.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So an exploded version of what you're saying. I. I just have to bring this up because the quote is really funny, but Ford talking about his opinion that, like, foreign directors often comment on America better than American directors.

[Sean Fantasy]

And.

[Griffin Newman]

And he said, you know, the problem you get into is you work with foreign directors. If they don't have a handle on the language, then what they gain in perspective, they're losing the ability to communicate with the cast and crew. And he said, but Peter doesn't have that problem. He's Australian and they speak something close to English, which is a great Ford joke.

[David Sims]

Good. Good fortune.

[Griffin Newman]

Andre Gregory, pretty brilliant casting choice, in my opinion.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he's really good.

[Griffin Newman]

My Dinner with Andre, the first movie he's in. Period.

[Sean Fantasy]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

He's obviously not someone who had, I think, designs on having a movie.

[David Sims]

He's an avant garde theater guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And then he has this, like, weird art house breakout. And by the time you get to the 90s, it's like, can we plug Andre Gregory into Demolition Man? And. But this is a really smart place to put him. It's. It's a different character than he is, but it's using his same ability to talk with authority.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He had been in Author, Author. The forgotten Al Pacino. Arthur Hiller, movie author, author. He's in the Goldie Hawn Cocktail Waitress, Congressional Scandal. Film Protocol. Also somewhat forgotten.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. Written by Buck Henry.

[David Sims]

Right. And then this after this, he does Street Smart, which. He's good. That's a decent movie. He's John the Baptist in Last Temptation of Christ.

[Sean Fantasy]

Normal performance.

[David Sims]

I really love that movie.

[Sean Fantasy]

Paul Schrader also took a pass at that One.

[David Sims]

Well, he wrote it. I mean, well, I guess the Bible verse.

[Griffin Newman]

He took a pass on the Bible. Quick dialogue polish on the Bible.

[David Sims]

He's a good counter to Ford. He is charismatic in his own weird way, but in a very different way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Than Harrison.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not movie star energy.

[David Sims]

No, he's not.

[Griffin Newman]

It's intellectual titan energy. Yeah. Which he was able to translate well to movies, but.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The film starts before we even get to Andre Gregory with. He's an inventor. That's Ali Fox's deal.

[Griffin Newman]

What's the math? He's got six patents and three more pending.

[David Sims]

River Phoenix is laying it all out

[Sean Fantasy]

for us Patents, six pending.

[Griffin Newman]

I think that's right.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He's trying to build an ice machine that he has dubbed Fat Boy. And he is just kind of a tough hang. He goes to the hardware store and starts yelling about how things are made in Japan, where it's like, okay, buddy. Like, it's not fucking anyone's fault.

[Griffin Newman]

Like in the Parliament.

[David Sims]

Some human compassion of blank check.

[Griffin Newman]

Incredibly normal guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's very angry about the phrase have a nice day, which I enjoy.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what's so.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's a great thing to get mad about.

[Griffin Newman]

What's so funny?

[David Sims]

How are you gonna just draw a breath everywhere?

[Griffin Newman]

But this is what I think is fascinating about watching this movie for the first time last night is the. The targets are different, but in so many ways, it feels like this movie must have been presenting a character of, like, look at our creation. We've imagined the least normal, most wound up man in the world. Even when he's right, it's annoying. Right. And you're just like, I can't imagine someone being this on their high horse all the time. And then you're like, the targets are different. But he has so much of a similarity to today's, like, Fox News Poison purse. And getting upset about, like, they don't even say Merry Christmas at Starbucks. Like, all of his weird grace.

[David Sims]

So deep in a whole. Ben, what do you want to say?

[Ben Hosley]

Somewhat triggering for me because it does remind me of my dad in a very particular way, which is that he always would just spout off about people who drove luxury cars, but in an intense way where he'd be like, this BMW driver. I hope he crashes because, like, the guy who cut him off, right.

[David Sims]

Mercedes, he goes a little. He just was like, jumps up on

[Ben Hosley]

the rage monologue about how, like, anyone who drives these cars is a piece of. And I remember being a kid being like, dude.

[Griffin Newman]

Not to generalize. My God, I Do feel like everyone's dad has at least one thing like that, where you're like, why are you so wound up about this thing?

[Sean Fantasy]

Can I tell you what my dad's is?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

My parents split. My dad got remarried. Married a lovely woman named Colleen. Colleen loves Bruce Springsteen. My dad will not accept that Bruce Springsteen's nickname is the Boss. My dad is like, he's not the Boss. I'm the Boss.

[David Sims]

I swear to God.

[Sean Fantasy]

My father has said that out loud at least a dozen times.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's so.

[David Sims]

He's just like, no one but I can be the Boss.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think he's like, what makes him the Boss? The Boss of what?

[Griffin Newman]

He's.

[Sean Fantasy]

I. I think he's genuinely rageful about this idea. It's a very. I mean, it's a. It's dadish.

[Ben Hosley]

Mike, how do you feel about the wrestler Bossman?

[Sean Fantasy]

The Big Boss from Marietta County?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think he's a problematic figure. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Didn't he, like, wear

[Sean Fantasy]

people with batons in the ring?

[Griffin Newman]

What about the.

[Sean Fantasy]

I remember.

[Ben Hosley]

That's coming back to me now.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think he probably wouldn't work now as a heel.

[David Sims]

Isn't the reason. I only know this because I've been reminding about the movie, the. The very good Scott Cooper movie with. That's totally.

[Sean Fantasy]

I thought you said the Big Boss man movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I'm writing. I'm writing a Big Boss.

[Griffin Newman]

Scott Cooper's doing Big Boss?

[David Sims]

No, it's just they call him the Boss because he did their taxes and shit and finances. And so the E Street Band guys would be like, all right.

[Griffin Newman]

Boss responsible.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And then eventually, that just became the shorthand of like, are you okay, Boss? Like, you know, it just. It's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

They weren't like, you're the boss of America's sincerity and integrity. Like, it's like, you know, it's just a boss man over here.

[Griffin Newman]

My. My dad is like this with tattoos.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, he doesn't like tattoos.

[Griffin Newman]

If he meets a person with tattoos, he can't get over it.

[David Sims]

He's like, why did they do that? Or what does it mean? Like, what.

[Ben Hosley]

Where.

[David Sims]

What does he focus on?

[Griffin Newman]

It's like a ding on character. He'll describe someone's like, they look so funky. It's all the tattoos and the thing through the nose. And he describes them, like, as if they are, like, mutant. Like Mad Max wasteland free.

[David Sims]

Right, Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But. But I think Ali Fox is. What if your dad was like this about every single thing?

[David Sims]

That's the can't. It's Overload. It's just gas.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, pedal to the metal constantly.

[Griffin Newman]

Because he's already complaining about one thing. When Jason Alexander hands him the Japanese pipe and he's like, we're shifting. I'm taking the off ramp. Now. I'm angry about this. Like, he's interrupting his own rants with other rants that present themselves.

[David Sims]

He's like. There's a moment where he's like, I can shop somewhere else. You're not the only game in town. I'm like, if you're like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

How are you let into any store?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, at a certain point, surely. Don't people go out of here, buddy? Like, no.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a very subtle cut to Jason Alexander when he enters the store, and he underplays it beautifully, but he has that air of, yes, just a little.

[Sean Fantasy]

But for every person that reacts that way. And we've already invoked Jim Jones and Joe Rogan in this discussion, but there is. There is a massive appeal to. Of a philosopher king. Somebody who comes in and says, I have a really defined worldview, and I am charismatic and propulsive in delivering the. In the. The way that I see the world and. And join me or don't, but if you don't, it may be at your peril. That's a very effective leadership philosophy. Not one that I practice, but one that is, like. Is very appealing and actually makes sense as a lead character in. In a. In a big story.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, Ali Fox is not charismatic, but Harrison Ford is charismatic. So even him leaning into the worst of this character, he's charismatic enough for the audience to pay attention. You throw out William Hurt, who's probably a better literal interpreter of this character at this time.

[David Sims]

Right, right, right. At the peak of his.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, this is in his wheelhouse of the type of character he plays. But I think if it's William Hurt at the center of this movie, five minutes, and you're like, well, this guy, he's a bad hang. I know he's wrong. There's just enough Harrison Ford magic for an audience to go, like, can he pull it off even when the guy's annoying? And I. I think it's what I've already said, that, like, you're like, but is he going to kind of come to his senses? William Hurt? You're like, the guy's never gonna learn. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And the movie was doa because the word of mouth is so bad. Because he doesn't.

[David Sims]

Right. I mean, I do think fundamentally, guys, as much as we're, you know, like, it's like there's no version of this movie that is much more successful. There's a version where it, like, is better acclaimed by critics and it makes a little bit more money. But, like, you still see this as this is like a sort of a $30 million ceiling movie.

[Sean Fantasy]

There is a way to make it a more successful movie, which is at the moment, post typhoon, when mother says, we could walk up the beach to Cape Cod. If he says yes.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And builds a boat that gets them

[Griffin Newman]

back home and the movie ends with them.

[Sean Fantasy]

And if that move, the movie ends in that way, it makes twice as much movie.

[David Sims]

Instead, Andre Gregory has to murk him. Just absolutely shoot him in the neck. Yeah, like, you don't want to go out at the hands of Andre Gregory. No, that's not good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Pretty lame. Although in the book, his death is very different.

[David Sims]

Oh, how does he die? In the book?

[Sean Fantasy]

He doesn't just die on the boat. He is picked to death by vultures.

[David Sims]

Oh, that sounds awesome.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which is a recurring theme apparently, in the book that he keeps saying, I hate vultures.

[David Sims]

And he.

[Sean Fantasy]

He kind of.

[David Sims]

I hate vultures too, by the way. Vultures. Get off the vultures. Oh, my God. Who likes vultures?

[Sean Fantasy]

Like the vultures of society and, you know, drawing all these illusions and then he is literally picked.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a little on the nose, a little bit. Yeah, yeah. But I. I like that within the movie itself, Gregory is charismatic in a way that he is not.

[David Sims]

Yeah. When you're saying inside the movie. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

This sort of like philosopher king, like, he's able to fulfill that in a way where even though he's actually has, you could argue, less on his mind and less to represent, he is able to sell it more convincingly to people.

[Sean Fantasy]

His ideas just don't need to be sold to the audience because it's just Judeo Christian values. That's what he represents. And. And the idea of the missionary, as, in theory, benevolent figure, but in practice, maybe a little bit more insidious. Like Ben was saying, you can autocomplete.

[Griffin Newman]

You can fill in the blanks. And knowing. Yeah, both silos of that Martha Plimpton.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Quite good in this film.

[David Sims]

When she Bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Never, ever. The start of her River Phoenix relationship.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I believe so. So she'd been in the Goonies, which the year before.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

That's kind of her breakout, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Was there a TV thing?

[Sean Fantasy]

No, there wasn't.

[David Sims]

Like, that was her breakout.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I just feel like there was another film. I'm forgetting. There is.

[David Sims]

There's, like this movie the River Rat with Tommy Lee Jones. But, like, you know, I don't think that was a very big movie. Her breakthroughs.

[Sean Fantasy]

A River Rat.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Provocative.

[Sean Fantasy]

I believe it's her. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I think.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not sure.

[David Sims]

And then she popped up on Family Ties at some point, but that's all.

[Griffin Newman]

It's basically the immediate follow up to Goonies.

[David Sims]

She's also in Sean Running on Empty. Well, that's true. Which she's very good at. But no, she's also in Stars and Bars. Our favorite movie that we keep invoking

[Griffin Newman]

this movie is Griffin.

[David Sims]

Griffin. I look, you'll.

[Griffin Newman]

Joan Cusack, Keith David Griffin.

[David Sims]

You will listen to the Big Picture episode I did about this months ago from. I run through the list just being like, how could this move?

[Griffin Newman]

Rockets, red glare.

[David Sims]

Rockets red glare. The possible murderer of. Of Nancy is in it. Yes. Among the other things.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's an insane collection. Who are great. And the movie sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like I invoked.

[David Sims]

It completely sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

Our present draft episode on Big pick. But have any of you seen First Family? That is.

[David Sims]

I know.

[Griffin Newman]

What's the only movie that Buck Henry directed?

[Sean Fantasy]

I was gonna say Buck Henry. Yes. I haven't seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I think it's its only director. But that is a movie I put off watching so long.

[David Sims]

Unless, like, he has the director credit on Heaven.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

His Only Soul. Yes. I put off watching it for so long because I had only heard horrible things. And it's the ultimate. It is a White House comedy where the first Family is Bob Newhart as President, Madeline Khan as First Lady, Gilda Radner as their daughter, Harvey Corman Ripped Horn, Austin Pendleton, Fred Willard, Richard Benjamin supporting cast written, directed by Buck Henry. You put it on within 10 minutes, you're like, this is the most rancid I have ever seen. It is deathly unfunny and racist. It is all about them negotiating with a fictional African nation. And the second it's represented on screen, you're like, holy. All of this is wrong. And all the funniest actors you've ever seen are like mirthless anti smile.

[David Sims]

So it is not a hidden gem. It does so suck.

[Griffin Newman]

Is Stars and Bars like that?

[David Sims]

Yeah, kind of. Stars and Bars is.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's not like deep. It's. It's broad in its caricature of the south. But it's not offensive.

[David Sims]

It's not. It's Stars and Bars is just doa. It's just one of these things where you're like, I don't get it. But yeah. Oh, there's no Metcalf. Yep. She's not doing much either, like.

[Sean Fantasy]

But Martha Plimpton's character in both of those movies is somewhat similar. Where it's like, this is an underage teenage girl who's strong.

[David Sims]

Precocious girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, I think, obviously she's. Martha Clinton is Keith Carradine's daughter. She's, you know, related to George Plimpton in some way. You know, like, she's got this sort of precocious vibe anyway. But in this movie, she's got the

[Griffin Newman]

Jessica Lovejoy thing going on.

[David Sims]

She is the reverend's daughter and she's

[Griffin Newman]

like a little bit of a rapscallion.

[David Sims]

For sure. I love Martha Plimpton.

[Sean Fantasy]

Think of you when I go to the bathroom.

[Griffin Newman]

What a line that is.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Something she says.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but I might.

[Sean Fantasy]

All right, see you later, Ben.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, think of us when you're in there.

[David Sims]

Just to set up a little bit more, though. You know Ali Fox, right? Not only does he hate everything he sees, but he also thinks like the world's about to end, maybe. He keeps talking about nuclear war. He tries to build the ice machine for a farmer that ends up with everyone screaming at each other. It feels like anytime he gets a job and sort of descends into recrimination,

[Griffin Newman]

it is such a good scene where the guy is like, you know, and he's getting all high and mighty about what he did well and how he's not respected and the guy just stops him and is like, I agree that you're a genius. That's why I hired you. You are unbelievably good at what you do. But this right here, it ain't worth your fucking problem.

[David Sims]

Right? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You make everything over complicated. This is 10 times more than I asked for. And now it's like misfiring and you're being a dick about it.

[David Sims]

So you.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, this is extremely obvious, but the modern day equivalent of Ali Fox is Elon Musk.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sure.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is an inventor. This is a brilliant person. This is a person whose social and moral ideas are pretty nuts.

[David Sims]

And frankly increasing conspiratorial and bizarre does

[Sean Fantasy]

not matter how smart you are. That doesn't make you good. That's a. That's an interesting idea.

[Griffin Newman]

But that the driving force is. I have identified problems in our society and I think I am the only one who knows how to fix them. And I swear to you, I'm doing this for your good.

[David Sims]

Right? And he, he is smart, but he has no other applicable or sort of demonstrable skills, inventive reason to be doing what he's doing.

[Sean Fantasy]

He basically dropped out of school, right?

[David Sims]

And then he's basically like, hey, some

[Griffin Newman]

of our greatest minds, no offense to

[Sean Fantasy]

anybody who dropped out. It's more that, like, it indicates a lack of follow through for someone who imagines himself as.

[David Sims]

Oh, and he doesn't want to play by rules.

[Griffin Newman]

I was going to say that's. I read it more as. Can you imagine the fights he was getting into his professors with mid class every day?

[David Sims]

And you're like, and how did he get a lady? Oh, he's Harrison Ford. Right? So that's how he did that. But he decides to just. He tells his family, like, hey, great news. We're leaving the United States. We're getting on a barge. Andre Gregory and Martha Plimpton are going to be there and we are going to Mosquito coast, baby. I've identified where to be. We're going to make ice there. People are really going to want ice there.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the immigrant employees at this construction site who he starts like coveting and

[David Sims]

he buys a village and he's like, this rocks. And everyone else is like, we're doomed.

[Griffin Newman]

There's an immediate looking great, immediate escalation of get off the boat look. It's great. And everyone's like. And then a day later he's like, better news. I have no money now, but I own a town. And the town looks even worse than the place they landed the boat.

[Sean Fantasy]

Do you guys watch Survivor?

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

I watched the first like five years religiously and I've not in two decades.

[Sean Fantasy]

No. This scene has big Survivor energy.

[Griffin Newman]

I can.

[Sean Fantasy]

Survivor is.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

What happens is all the contestants arrive on a boat to an island. It's now been Fiji for whatever 10 consecutive years, but prior to that they would travel all around the world and go to different islands. And they get off the boat and it's obviously this diverse collection of people, men and women from all walks of life, different ages. And they arrive at. They get broken up into teams and they arrive at their individual camps and their camps that are entirely undeveloped and they have to build. They have to build their camp. They have to start pulling, you know, branches down and trees and palm fronds

[Griffin Newman]

and they always come in really bullish with so much energy.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

This is actually easy. This is better.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's good. We know. Distractions. Here we are. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And inevitably, by the end of episode one one, there's one team at least that's in over their skis and they're kind of and then over the course of the next six episodes, that tribe gets radically dismantled and they're screaming at each other, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

And this is that. This is that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

The arrival at the town and it just. Sucking so hard, made me think of the National Lampoon vacation movies kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

You're right. It is very much that vibe of, look at the hotel room I got up, us reveal, bad hotel. Look how great this is.

[Sean Fantasy]

You're right.

[Ben Hosley]

And like, everyone else is like, oh, my God.

[David Sims]

The journey to Wally world is like a very, very mild Mosquito coast kind of thing. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But talking about, like, recognizable, relatable dad energy.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The game with Clark Griswold is he knows this isn't good. And he's in such deep denial, he cannot surrender the idea that he's fucked up this vacation and so he's lying to all of them to try to make it true. When Ali sees shows them the city for the first time, the town for the first time. What's so compelling is that you're like, this guy 1000% believes everything he's saying. Look at. It's incredible. There's nothing here. We get to start from scratch. Yeah, it's like the dream to him.

[Ben Hosley]

It's very convincing, which I, you know,

[Griffin Newman]

I. I spend too much time thinking about this, but I have a belief. It's not unique to me, but it's one I've been holding onto very strongly. That a lot of these people who, like, are absolute devotees of. Of Musk, of Trump, of many of these kind of like, I don't know, demagogue, fascist assholes. Yes. That. That part of it is there and it's connected to this fucking, like, Paleo diet shit. And let's roll back restrictions on everything that these people do to some degree. Want to, like, reset the clock block.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay, so this is something that I did want to speak to you guys

[David Sims]

about, because I. I'm not going with you to the Mosquito Coast.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, I'm not.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, just a trip. Just a little trip. One live show. One live show. Jungle draft.

[Sean Fantasy]

We do have ice. Ice is available.

[David Sims]

At least. There's ice.

[Griffin Newman]

Big ice.

[David Sims]

Although how flammable is your ice building? No, the thing that I medium use

[Griffin Newman]

the ice to put out the flames created by the ice ice machine.

[Sean Fantasy]

There's a kernel of Ali that I relate to, which is a thing that is hitting me very hard now at this stage of my life, which is I do fantasize a little bit about leaving it behind big time. I am a little bit like, I have Signed up for a lot. I've been doing a lot for a long time.

[Griffin Newman]

And how much of this do I actually like at all?

[David Sims]

I'm detecting a lot of too many projects from you. You know, like, where you're always like,

[Sean Fantasy]

it's my own making.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

My own problem. I've. I blame no one but myself. But when you are like that, when you live like that for a long time, and I've been living like that for about 10 years, there is a part of me that is just like, it doesn't have to be Honduras. It could be a small town north of Seattle.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

That sounds lovely.

[Griffin Newman]

Is there a way to shrink my life by control?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Which I think is like. Yes, that is the relatable part of this. Which is. And when you're in that kind of state, you get so hypersensitive to all these other indignities of civilization.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's exactly it. Everything else gets more annoying, which admittedly, it's our fault.

[Griffin Newman]

Those things aren't working well right now.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, okay, so I've opted into too many things that I'm now having regrets about. And then there's all this other. That I never had the choice to opt in or out of that drives me crazy. The impulse makes sense. And I do think a lot of the anger that causes people to follow these kinds of like, insane is that they are speaking to some level of can we burn it all down? Right. And even like, make America great again isn't about, like, can we go back to 1965? But I have no, like, we're cavemen. Better than us.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. I have no urge to change society or even compel anyone to join me. It's more about my own same.

[Griffin Newman]

I just want to disappear.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

In a cave with a good home theater system.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. With all of my Blu Rays.

[Griffin Newman]

Great WI Fi.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I would like to go with Helen Mirren.

[Griffin Newman]

I too. Great choice.

[David Sims]

Sure. Why not River Phoenix. He's a fun hang.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Rip.

[Ben Hosley]

Now the cave. Like, you know there's not going to

[Griffin Newman]

be air conditioning, Right? Well, okay, let me finish.

[David Sims]

And this planet ain't getting colder.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, it has not.

[Griffin Newman]

The cave has central air.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

There is neither sand nor grass.

[David Sims]

You are the least outdoorsy guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So living off the grid is really just not for you, I feel.

[Ben Hosley]

Are you gonna make a fire or how are we cooking food?

[David Sims]

Sean, Are you outdoors?

[Griffin Newman]

Electricity?

[Sean Fantasy]

I. If I had to be, I could be, but it's not. I would like a mid century modern

[Griffin Newman]

home that's what I actually.

[Sean Fantasy]

That is. But I can with that, you know, that sounds nice. With central air. Sounds useful. Yeah. Are you sure? I'd like. Can I get a playroom for my child?

[David Sims]

But also, like, well, this is the main thing. It's also right. You have a kid who might be like, hey, a River Phoenix.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Situation of like, I might not be completely interested in what we're doing right now. Like, I might have other, you know, feelings and needs.

[Sean Fantasy]

No.

[David Sims]

So how quickly do you go like, well, you can't go back. There's been a nuclear war.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which is the card that Ali plays.

[Griffin Newman]

That's another thing that's upsetting about this movie is we're seeing the story from the perspective of River Phoenix. This guy has too many kids. And the more time you're spending in his son's head with the narration, seeing things through his son's eyes, you're remembering like, he's got other kids he's neglecting who are younger, who are less capable of processing this. Whose heads we're not even tuned into.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. And the book and the movie are like a pretty gentle social commentary on gender roles and families and the fact that mother is this, like, quieted person who has to go along with everything. All of his hair brain schemes and

[Griffin Newman]

just make the dresses for everybody.

[David Sims]

It's why this movie is very upsetting. You're watching a family get abused by this parent who is lying to them after forcing them into a situation they don't seem that interested in. And yeah, it's like he hates Reverend Spellgood or whatever. What's this? Yeah, Reverend Spellgood for being a zealot and for, you know, leading a mindless flock or whatever it is. Right. You know, he thinks spelled.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what he really hates is that he has followers.

[David Sims]

Well, right, But I'm like. But you're doing the exact same thing, buddy.

[Griffin Newman]

Just right.

[David Sims]

You're just doing it only to your family because no one else wants to hang out with you.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. This guy's got a drive in.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got people driving in to hear his words.

[David Sims]

See, my thing reliving off the grid is I don't want to live there off the grid. I want to live on the grid. Grid. Because it has electricity.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I was gonna say you want to live in the literal grid at the world of Tron.

[David Sims]

Well, that would be nice.

[Griffin Newman]

Biodigital jazz.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm going to see Tron tonight.

[David Sims]

You are?

[Sean Fantasy]

I was gonna go Monday, but then I went to go see Marty.

[David Sims]

Right. I, of course, stuck to my principles and I entered the grid.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, mostly for your Oscar watching.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right, of course. I was just hearing so much lido buzz. Yeah, you know, it's.

[Sean Fantasy]

You liked it?

[David Sims]

Well, it's a dumb movie, but it does look cool. Visually well executed. It's got all the Tron stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll be six months old by the time this comes out. I'm happy to hear that it is watchable.

[David Sims]

Can I spoil a plot point or do you want to go in cold?

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, I'd rather go in cold,

[Griffin Newman]

but, yeah, we're potting.

[David Sims]

Let's just pod a thing it does that Legacy didn't do. And I love Legacy. I think Legacy is kind of an awesome movie.

[Ben Hosley]

Joco.

[David Sims]

And I also think Legacy predicted the future of all corporate art. Part, like, it just. It's showing you what will happen if Joko does Fugitive.

[Griffin Newman]

Are we excited?

[David Sims]

He's doing Miami Vice.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, but I'm saying down the line, kind of. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's interesting.

[David Sims]

I mean, it's, like, great. That's a vehicle for a thing you can do.

[Sean Fantasy]

And it has to be a kind of a technocrat version, right?

[David Sims]

Like, where are the vehicles?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[David Sims]

He loves vehicles.

[Griffin Newman]

What if it's Tron? Colon, Fugitive.

[David Sims]

That sounds good. A thing that it does that is pure nostalgia bait, you know, is that it goes into 1982.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw a little bit of this in the trailer, and it's the first thing in a year of marketing that has gotten me a little excited for this.

[David Sims]

There is everything in that, you know, sequence is. Again, like I said, it's just nostalgia stuff. But it is so visually well executed that I kind of had to tip my hat to it. And of course, that is where you also get Jeff Bridges just burping. You know what I mean? Like, Jeff Bridges just being like, yeah, I am your one Legacy character at this point, so I will participate. But you're gonna get. Now Bridges.

[Griffin Newman]

Is he carrying a big barrel, though? Three X's on it?

[David Sims]

No, but, like, it's truly being like, how you doing? And I'm like, this is so far from.

[Sean Fantasy]

Isn't the same universe as Legacy. It is.

[David Sims]

It's a direct sequel to Legacy in

[Sean Fantasy]

ways part of it.

[Griffin Newman]

They, like, point to a picture and say, like, he's off doing his own thing. This is my.

[Sean Fantasy]

He went to the mosquito code.

[David Sims]

That's truly. That. It's like Garrett Hat, as we know, vanished into the ether with Olivia Wilde. They are not really a part of this movie at all.

[Griffin Newman]

They have A podcast.

[David Sims]

And now his company is in. Is in the hands of Greta Lee.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And who's the villain from the first. You know, the British guy. I know, but what's the character?

[Sean Fantasy]

The guy.

[David Sims]

David Warner's grandson is Evan.

[Griffin Newman]

So is Evan Peters playing Killian Murphy's son? Because remember, Killian Murphy is set up as Starks.

[David Sims]

Killian Murphy is not acknowledged. Evan Peters is playing Gillian Anderson's son.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

But he is a Dillinger. Much like war. Yes, he is in that. He's. He's from the red guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Stark Industries. But Dillinger.

[David Sims]

But you know how like Tron, it still boils down to blue guys are good, the red guys are bad. And like, just so you can be sure of that, Evan Peters is in a very red room when he's doing his villainy and so on.

[Griffin Newman]

Should our bit for 2026. I'm not saying we're retiring Red Hulk, but listeners being like, well, I know they record these episodes months in advance. It's very funny to listen to June episodes that still have Red Hulk talk because they've just seen it or whatever. And then I've seen our listeners get excited as like, it's October. Red Hulk's still in the combo. They're not giving up on his past relevancy. It wasn't just that it was topical. Should Tron Aries be our new added. We continue talking about Tron areas for two years.

[David Sims]

Yeah, please, let's talk about Tron Aries. I mean, I gotta get a bucket.

[Griffin Newman]

We gotta.

[David Sims]

I'm sure there will be. There are many Elaborate.

[Sean Fantasy]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

There are many. The arcade machine. The cabinet.

[David Sims]

Cool.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a bucket. That's Aries on the cycle. And each wheel has its own popcorn bucket. Tonight you're getting the bucket.

[David Sims]

Yeah, of course.

[Sean Fantasy]

Put that in my suitcase.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

One of the big.

[Griffin Newman]

The arcade one. Which one are you looking at?

[Sean Fantasy]

Let's just look at the bucket. Come on, David.

[David Sims]

I was just gonna say one of the big plot points in Aries is of course, Jared Leto, an actor we all adored.

[Griffin Newman]

Normal guy.

[David Sims]

Right. And a guy we adore.

[Griffin Newman]

And Ali Fox, right.

[David Sims]

Plays a. An AI called Aries. That's sort of like a, you know, kind of militaristic AI. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

What's that?

[David Sims]

He's a program.

[Griffin Newman]

Awesome intellectual is what it is.

[David Sims]

And the big plot arc of the movie is that he starts to become self aware and more human and disobey his orders. Right, Right. Can you believe it? There's the popcorn bucket.

[Sean Fantasy]

I looked at it. I was getting it.

[Griffin Newman]

But then did you see the Cycle one?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Where the popcorn. It goes in the two spaces.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. I'm going to see this movie. And then my dad. My. My wife and daughter land at 9pm tonight. So imagine. Oh, yeah, they're coming in the motorcycle and the arcade cabinet being there waiting for her.

[Griffin Newman]

She ra's gonna ride that thing.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, my God. Ever. Really more of a motherboard situation right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Motherboard. Motherboard has big Tron vibes, though. Motherboard is the tech demon.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, she does.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you know that I've been sending Sean's daughter he man toys?

[David Sims]

I did.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, we've. You've touched on it.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of move. Kind of a Menchi move.

[David Sims]

Great stuff. But just to finish my point, Jared Leto, at his current level of acting effort, if you guys can reflect on his recent. Right, is totally fine. Playing a robot, essentially, is not so good at. The human emotion is beginning to enter.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like my feelings are emerging. That's. That's an issue with the film, I would say. Another issue is that Greta Lee looks like she wants to just, like, drink poison the whole movie. You know, everyone's just kind of.

[Sean Fantasy]

Thing is bewildering, though, like that. But it's. We've known.

[David Sims]

It's because.

[Sean Fantasy]

I know, but we've known.

[David Sims]

This project's been in the works for like nine years.

[Sean Fantasy]

$200 million.

[David Sims]

And Leto's been attached the whole time. And I feel like they've just been like, can we get you. And he's like, no, I. I saw

[Griffin Newman]

a recent interview with him. Recent. October 2025. Not recent. Next summer, when you're listening to this, where he said, and the timeline's crazier than I thought. They write a more direct Tron Legacy sequel.

[David Sims]

It was initially, I think, right, like, more tied Tron Legacy.

[Griffin Newman]

There was a part they offered him in that he said, no, I'm not interested in this. But this side character you have of Ares, I think is interesting. And then that project fell apart, and then they rebooted it, went to him and said, what if we start the script from scratch and that's the main character and it's you. So it's not just that. Like, they wanted him and he'd been attached for so long, and they figured

[David Sims]

out what to do for him. He wanted to play Aries.

[Griffin Newman]

Him passing on it reset the entire project, and they redeveloped it around his taste. That's fucking nuts for a guy that no one likes a man living in a perpetual mosquito coast.

[David Sims]

It is truly, I will say. And look this is a somewhat of a spoiler, but not really. Don't worry, guys, because you again, you're not shocked to learn that Ares becomes more human by the end of the movie. He's gone from you know, robot, like, you know, program red guy to more of a Jared Leto in real life vibes. And I said that he looked like a sentient feather earring. That is really the vibe. It's just like. It's like, ah, right. What emerged was Jared Leto for this right now.

[Sean Fantasy]

Can't wait tonight, Jared Ludo. I mean, bucket sitting by myself multiple sea in New York City.

[David Sims]

Is this because the film looks like it's going to kind of do okay? It's going to do the classic Tron of like. Yeah, it opened to like 40 million and like, that's all right.

[Griffin Newman]

Tron just always makes a little less than it needs.

[David Sims]

It's a little less than we hoped,

[Sean Fantasy]

but it's not a flop between 17 and 27 years. We'll get one more.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But like, I was. I just. I was about to say and to bring it full circle. So then are we done with Lito? But I forgot that he's playing Skeletor in the he man movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So we're never quite rid of this guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

Pumped for Masters of the.

[David Sims]

I am sure Travis Knight. Not that good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Funniest moment of Cinemacon by far. With Amanda in April, which will now be one year hence.

[Griffin Newman]

You and Matt Bellamy crying and Amanda just being befuddled.

[David Sims]

But just as soon as they.

[Sean Fantasy]

They show the. The logo, I was like, God damn

[Griffin Newman]

it, the sword looks.

[Sean Fantasy]

And she was just so embarrassed.

[Griffin Newman]

Also, all the other casting in that is great. Bri and Ed Elbar are kind of spawn perfect.

[David Sims]

I'm a big Veronica from Riverdale fan.

[Griffin Newman]

She's in Mendes. Is Tila.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

A very important character.

[Sean Fantasy]

Tila. Huge in my home.

[Griffin Newman]

Tila rules.

[David Sims]

Idris Elba is going to play like kind of a dad guy. I don't know anything about He Man.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't say kind of a dad guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

He Man. He man is the originating character for my interest for you in like, genre storytelling. It is the first thing that I fell in love with.

[David Sims]

I mean, you know what it is for me, right?

[Griffin Newman]

What? I don't know.

[David Sims]

And I'm just wondering if, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, oh, oh. Not what he man means to you.

[Sean Fantasy]

What was that?

[David Sims]

Doesn't mean anything to me, sadly. Trek sort of, but no X Men. It's very much. Yeah, like. Like that was the first thing for me where like my six or seven year old brain was like, like, I'm engaging with a property, with a world with a bunch of characters, not just with like whatever, a simple narrative.

[Sean Fantasy]

I like X Men. I can't wait for them to kind of ruin it for them to do

[David Sims]

like, oh, pretty good.

[Sean Fantasy]

That was okay.

[David Sims]

Yeah, like, right, like it's sort of the ceiling there.

[Griffin Newman]

I just. Yeah, I, I don't, I don't have much faith in their ability to do anything anymore.

[David Sims]

I think they. I. No, I see. I have total faith in their ability to produce something that, that is pushing my like kid buttons and you know, elicits like a 6 out of 10 response.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the big.

[David Sims]

Right. Like they'll be in the costumes, they'll. They'll obey the comics a little more. And so like.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think we're living in the wreckage of this issue, which is the more they do that, the more they create a cul de sac where there's no actual space to move forward possibly. I mean, this is the Deadpool and Wolverine problem. This is them hitting hard like, like, who can we bring back? How do we make them look more like the cartoons? This is where x men 97 kind of them arp and I talk about this a lot, but they clearly thought X Men 97 was like a throw off for the nerds.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And then that's the best received thing they've done in like five years. And now they're like, this is what people want. This is not forward thinking. Bringing all the old people back and putting them in Jim Lee costumes is going to be really exciting for Doomsday them in terms of resetting X Men.

[David Sims]

I mean, I agree that it's. Yeah, it's risky because they're doing a

[Griffin Newman]

double pop of hey, remember those actors from 20 years ago and remember the

[David Sims]

comics in the Jim Lee cyclops costume or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

So then when they put Patrick Schwarzenegger in a new costume though.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, it sounds good. I think I'm gonna mind because all those guys are old.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm like, I need the latex to be tighter and brighter.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't think my whole thing with

[David Sims]

these movies, I'm not gonna see Marsden as like, what, have 90s cyclops and be like, great, 10 more of these. I'm probably gonna see him be like, I'm glad Marsden put the costume on. And I'm. A fond farewell

[Griffin Newman]

though. In the same way that like Jackman re upping you're like, at some point someone else is going to play Wolverine. If it had been he Was off the court for 10 years. And then a guy gets to come to it fresh. It's fine. But bringing all these people back for one last hurrah just reminds you. And then they're bringing them back in the way. That's like. And this is what Fox wouldn't let them do 20 years ago. And now all the new people are going to have to exist in the shadow. It's the same thing as all the theories that, like, is. Is Downey Jr. Doom a multiversal thing? And at the end of it, there will be a new neutral Doom who is the actual Doom in the Fantastic Four universe? And I'm like, well, then that doom sucks. I don't care about you're.

[David Sims]

You're doing hypotheticals. All these things. Who knows, right? I don't know what they're gonna do.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's gonna seem very quaint when.

[David Sims]

Right. Exactly.

[Sean Fantasy]

Out of this episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Because keeping it.

[David Sims]

Is that movie coming out next year?

[Griffin Newman]

Tuesday?

[David Sims]

No, two years from two years. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Like a year from like Christmas 27.

[David Sims]

Right, right. It's still a long time.

[Griffin Newman]

So is.

[David Sims]

No, it's Christmas 26.

[Sean Fantasy]

Veto. Coast to Thanksgiving 27. And then Ali.

[David Sims]

Fox, I need you to distract Thanos.

[Griffin Newman]

Didn't they push Doomsday, though?

[David Sims]

Doomsday is Christ. Christmas of this year. 2026. Right. When this episode is coming out and

[Griffin Newman]

Spider man is next summer. Is summer 26.

[David Sims]

Is this summer, Griffin. It's 2026.

[Sean Fantasy]

My birthday movie of 2026.

[Griffin Newman]

And those are the only two things they have next year?

[Sean Fantasy]

I believe so.

[Griffin Newman]

By next year, I mean this year.

[David Sims]

This year. Right. But those are two big things.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

A new Spider man movie and Avengers. Doomsday. Yeah, those are. It's about as big as they got. Right. I mean. Yeah. So.

[Sean Fantasy]

So I'm thinking about seeing him. I think I'm gonna see him.

[David Sims]

I'll check him out.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think I'll see him incredibly happy. When's the last Marvel movie you saw? Well, I. Ben just did them all.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna pee for this.

[Ben Hosley]

A couple weeks ago. No, a couple weeks ago I just had Covid, though, somewhat recently.

[Griffin Newman]

When you go to the bathroom, think of me.

[Ben Hosley]

And so normally I'll just binge and catch up on. On the Marvel franchise.

[Sean Fantasy]

Every time you get Covid. That's what you do.

[Ben Hosley]

No, just anytime I'm sick, I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

You just gotta work it through your system.

[Sean Fantasy]

That would create some odd associations with the Marvel.

[Griffin Newman]

I think those are already the kind of associations Ben has. Okay. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, I Just I. I'm someone

[Griffin Newman]

who phases and variants.

[Ben Hosley]

I, I just. I find it and it's just like something where I could shut my brain off and just spend the next, you know, half a day watching all these movies.

[Sean Fantasy]

Who's your favorite Marvel superhero?

[Ben Hosley]

Whoa.

[Griffin Newman]

That's in the movies or anywhere.

[Sean Fantasy]

Can I pitch a possibility? The Punisher. Where are you at on the Punisher?

[Griffin Newman]

See, the Punisher, though, is too, like, Republican now. Now he's been claimed by the wrong people. I feel like you grew up loving.

[Ben Hosley]

I've read some Punisher.

[Griffin Newman]

You invoke the Punisher's van a lot that you like that he has a man.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm a big man. It's just full of guns, though.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I know, but it's still.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's cool as hell. It's cool as hell. He's got a skull. The skull. Yeah, yeah. One of the great logos. The Punisher. Frank Castle.

[Ben Hosley]

And he's got a trench coat.

[Griffin Newman]

But you know who Ben's number one guy is? Spawn.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

But his number one, Ghost Rider, which

[Sean Fantasy]

is so hazy.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And are they. They circling like a new Ghost Rider or something? Like, I feel like that comes up

[Griffin Newman]

every so often, once a year. They're like. Like, Ryan Gosling is definitely playing Ghost Rider. And then nothing comes of it.

[Ben Hosley]

Can I say who my favorite villain is, please? Juggernaut.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And I don't think they've really captured Juggernaut.

[David Sims]

You didn't find Vinnie Jones getting, like, the gestalt of Juggernaut? He's gotta be huge. I mean, I remember him being large in the film.

[Ben Hosley]

I need his ass to be giant. I need him to be, like 9ft tall.

[Griffin Newman]

Deadpool 2.

[Sean Fantasy]

Because that's how he's portraying an animated series.

[David Sims]

He's very large.

[Griffin Newman]

Deadpool 2 has a giant CGI juggernaut that I would say kind of sucked.

[David Sims]

Sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

But does get the size.

[David Sims]

I forgot about. I really forgot.

[Ben Hosley]

I still more.

[David Sims]

Well, I don't think Ben saw Deadpool too.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, I did. Oh, you did?

[Griffin Newman]

And you forgot already?

[Ben Hosley]

No, I just, I. It didn't live up to.

[Griffin Newman]

It was my expectation.

[Sean Fantasy]

Are you fully too good? Deadpool good?

[David Sims]

Really?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. You forget that, Sean.

[Sean Fantasy]

I genuinely am pro Deadpool.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I feel like it's one of the only comic book movies that actually got the comic right.

[Griffin Newman]

Does nothing for me.

[David Sims]

Me.

[Griffin Newman]

Although I will say, and Ben, you're gonna have to.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I've heard, like, a crazy industry rumor, and maybe this has come out by

[Sean Fantasy]

the time this episode, you should say

[David Sims]

this kind of stuff on aircraft, if it.

[Griffin Newman]

If it hasn't come out or it's proven false by the time the episode's released, we can cut it out.

[David Sims]

I'm really stressed out.

[Griffin Newman]

I've heard the Deadpool knows that he's in home.

[David Sims]

No, that's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

That he's read the script. He knows there's an audience watching him. He knows what studio is releasing the movie and which studio knows they have acquired.

[Ben Hosley]

Does he know who runs the studio?

[Griffin Newman]

He knows who runs the studio.

[David Sims]

I think the better way to put it.

[Griffin Newman]

He knows the notes they're gonna have. He knows that he's played by an actor and what other movies that actor's been.

[Sean Fantasy]

Does he. Does Ryan Reynolds exist in the same universe as Deadpool?

[Griffin Newman]

Sean, are you. I know you're sitting down, but sit down twice as hard.

[David Sims]

Sit into the ground.

[Griffin Newman]

Somehow Ryan Reynolds not only exists, but Deadpool has some thoughts on some of Ryan Reynolds previous career choices. I swear to you, you.

[David Sims]

Deadpool 1, he knows he's in a movie. Deadpool 2, he knows he's in a cinematic universe. Deadpool 3, he knows he's been added to a new cinema. Like, those are the evolutions of like the Deadpool myth, right? Yes. He knows he's in a multiverse.

[Sean Fantasy]

And in Deadpool 4, he will have a podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

He will.

[Sean Fantasy]

Great.

[Griffin Newman]

And he'll take us all down.

[David Sims]

Good.

[Ben Hosley]

But, yeah, I just met.

[Griffin Newman]

You're fully up to date now.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You saw Thunderbolts.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Which was fine.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

And has there been something since Thunderbolt?

[Griffin Newman]

Fantastic four is not on Disney plus yet.

[David Sims]

Right. You haven't met the Fantastic.

[Sean Fantasy]

You haven't taken your first theater for that one.

[Ben Hosley]

No, I haven't.

[Griffin Newman]

That is, I. I do have to say one of the worst subtitles of all time. I know we hatched out that movie on a couple Patreon episodes.

[David Sims]

Relate to the film very much.

[Sean Fantasy]

Doesn't Galactus's first steps on Earth?

[Griffin Newman]

I thought the dumb thing at the end of the movie was going to be Franklin taking his first steps. And that's why they called it that. And they don't even do that.

[Sean Fantasy]

That would have been good.

[David Sims]

But like, given what we've learned about that movie, something it feels like maybe that was in it and they cut

[Griffin Newman]

it out like they last hour was steps.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

The Mosquito coast is a movie about a man who hates the type of conversation we're having in this room right now.

[David Sims]

Oh, you don't think Ally would like the mcu?

[Griffin Newman]

Stop talking about When I rolled out.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's an absolute sin to accept the decadence of obsolescence. Why do things get worse and worse? They don't have to. They could get better and better. We accept things that fall apart. That could be Ali Fox on America in the 1980s or me on the MCU.

[Griffin Newman]

It is very similar. The tone's a little different, but the words are the same.

[David Sims]

I'm just like, make me a grilled cheese sandwich, dad. I'm hungry. I don't want to deal with it.

[Griffin Newman]

I think Ford is like, so goodness. And it is tied to what you're saying, that he's one of the best on screen yellers. And even when he's not fully raising his voice, he's so good at saying the thing with intensity and the pointing.

[David Sims]

You definitely believe as much as this guy's tough hang to begin with. He is not bullshitting. Like, he believes what he thinks.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like he's deep in it to the

[Griffin Newman]

end of the line.

[David Sims]

He's not just some con artist who's like, yay, I actually just wanted to live on the Mosquito coast. And this is how I justify it. He thinks this is what he has to be.

[Griffin Newman]

It's what makes the movie compelling.

[David Sims]

He thinks he has to lie to his face. Family, eventually about, like the world end.

[Griffin Newman]

It's what makes the performance work. I. I think you see in Ford that he plays the calculation in his mind. It's a three second decision of I'm gonna tell them the world has been nuked. And it's not, you know, John Lovett's liar. Panicking. It is like, now Lovett's in this

[David Sims]

role is an interesting concept.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. See. Yeah. Decade of obsolete.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Nuclear. A war. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Honduras.

[Griffin Newman]

Made in Japan.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

A missionary, you see,

[David Sims]

would be good. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's in those three seconds I think Ford plays. This is actually the only move. And this is the best thing I can do as a father and as a husband. He's deranged, but he fully believes is to the benefit of his family to tell them that the outside world is no longer an option.

[Sean Fantasy]

So I rewatched the Siskel and Ebert episode where they reviewed this movie and they had a fairly.

[David Sims]

Ebert was very negative on this film.

[Sean Fantasy]

He was very negative on this film. They had a. They may come to surprise you to learn that they had a tetchy exchange.

[David Sims]

Wait a second. What? And they lived on the Mosquito Coast.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

Ebert out. Because he finds this to be a very unlikable character.

[David Sims]

He found the whole movie just like

[Griffin Newman]

a sloth he said Ali Fox is a boar.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he praised Harrison Ford for doing his job well, but was like, I don't want to hang with this.

[Sean Fantasy]

Good performances. It looks good, but not a good hang. Sis. Siskel likes it more. He doesn't love it, but he is compelled by the idea of noble wishes gone astray. That there is something.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Him looking for. And he, he, as he often did, directly connects it to the optimism and hope in the movement of the 60s.

[David Sims]

Sure, of course. And saying, like, is it curdling?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, there's something. And Ali Fox you could see as a man who was probably educated at that time, as someone who's, you know, participating in various social movements and there being a lot of hope about what could happen in the world. And I, I kind of liked that reading. I hadn't thought about the movie in that way. And, you know, I think also Siskel is just doing a little bit of performative jousting for the sake of the cameras, which is something that happens sometimes.

[Griffin Newman]

Times wouldn't know.

[Sean Fantasy]

But I, I, that does help me accept him a little bit more, you know, that he's been a bit broken by. He actually does believe that this, this commercial hellscape that America is transforming into before his eyes is completely corroding his soul and driving him to the brink of a kind of madness. I don't know if it makes him a fun movie character, but it makes him a more acceptable.

[David Sims]

But that's Ebert's thing probably of like, Ebert did, at the end of the day, have that Hollywood brain of like, but, you know, how do you. You're not keeping me involved in the story. This isn't entertaining.

[Griffin Newman]

I wish he was more of a Mall Cop that I could up my own.

[David Sims]

Just go right ahead. Just take as long as you want.

[Griffin Newman]

Roger Ebert's four star Paul Blart Mall Cop review, where he's just like, am I crazy? This movie's good. Why do none of you get this? And he talks about the cinematic, the visual language of Paul Blart, and he's like, this is made by a real filmmaker who made. I can root for this guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think it's that James maybe.

[David Sims]

Okay, I wanted to, to defend Iber. He gave it three stars, not four, but he did call it. He did. This is a great lead by him. Paul Blart, Mall Cop is a slapstick comedy with a hero who's a nice guy. I thought that wasn't allowed anymore. And I sort of know what he means in terms of like, it's like the very dirt baggy brat pack. Guys are sort of kings of comedy. Then the Rogan, you know, Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, you know, that's. And Paul Bart's like, like, yeah, this guy's. He's a mall cop. He just wants to protect the mall.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, he's all right. It's a John Candy movie, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, that was Kevin James's thing.

[Griffin Newman]

The headline of this review is Lone Rider of the Purple Segue.

[David Sims]

I like it. I like it. Ebert popping off. Should Daniel Craig someday retire. I'm supporting Kevin James for the next James Bond is his kicker. I don't know where I am with him on that one, but.

[Griffin Newman]

Excuse me. The paragraph leading into that is Paul Blart emerges as a hero. And something else. Colon. Kevin James illustrates how lighting and camera angles can affect our perception of an actor. In the early scenes, he's a fat schlub. But after he goes into action, the camera lowers subtly, the lighting changes, and suddenly he's a good looking action hero ready for business.

[David Sims]

This is a little bit like Roger Ebert seeing the train come into the station and being like, whoa, I think it's coming into the movie theater. It's like, Roger, yes, we know you can shoot guys more heroically or less heroic.

[Griffin Newman]

Why does he feel this way? The next sentence might illustrate it. He demonstrates what fat men have been se. Have secretly believed for a long time.

[David Sims]

May.

[Sean Fantasy]

May have just given away the game a little bit too much. A little bit, yeah.

[David Sims]

Much like as I love to cite every review that he ever had of a Jennifer Lopez movie, like, there's something about this lady. I can't put my finger on it. She's got something, but I want to put my finger on it.

[Griffin Newman]

I can't put my finger. It would take 2 handfuls full bear claws.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know that that is interesting that you say that too because. Because Raj, historically a boob man, you know, just that's. If you read his work closely, as I have, certainly he. Not just the female form, of course, an admirer of the female form, but he, he, he like the man likes breasts. That's what I'm saying.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think to continue Sims's analogy, the first time he saw Jennifer Lopez on screen, it was like the caboose backing into the station and suddenly his worldview was rewritten. It. Sean, throw out a fantasyism. I think what you've identified is part of what I really connect to in this movie. One of my go to. I'm locked in thematic strains of stories is what you're saying the, the kind of idealism gone amok, right. And especially if it's coming from a place of like a semi earned jaded frustration with what is wrong. And I think a lot of other movies that attempt this kind of story, the stakes are lower, right. It's something like a movie I love Is Tucker A Man and His Dreams, which is like great movie telling that similar movie. Absolutely.

[David Sims]

In much gentler form. But you're watching someone just get a knock it out of his own.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think there are a lot of movies like that where they pick a very small earthbound prism of why do cars have to suck? What if a guy tried to make a better car and this is how the world knocks him down? And that's really easy to get your head around. Right. And then there are things that abstract it like Megalopolis and Synecdoche New York where it goes into the fantastic and you get to become more allegorical. And what I like about Mosquito coast is it feels like something that would be a true story. While the stakes are about as high as they could be, the fact that it is not a true story and is a pure fictional invention makes me not feel as uncomfortable as I would probably feel if I were watching this movie knowing that real people died or whatever, you know, but yet it's like the scale of his ambition is so grand that I, I just immediately get sucked into that, even if I'm never on his side. I like that kind of idea.

[Sean Fantasy]

I do think that there's something about a movie like this coming out at this time that also felt very unacceptable. Because if you, if you look at the, if you look at a lot of the writing about the novel, it situates it in this long arc of kind of historical American wayward men. You know, it's like it's Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, but then it's also, you know, Heart of Darkness, Walden, Moby Dick, like these, these, there are allusions to all of these figures and all of these worlds. And you know, those are complex, at times unlikable protagonist figures in those stories. And that's not really what Eddie Murphy and Mel Gibson were up to by 1986. That's not what the American movie star was expected to pursue. And so I think that there, there's like, there's a, a lot being held against it because it refuses, even with the biggest star on the planet, it to give you one ounce of, of fun, of the fun that Roger Ebert wants from the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think the anti Heroes of this era were also rooted in fun. It was a sort of like, wouldn't it be fun to just be able to like take a machine gun to the baddies for, for conflicts to be this clean cut? For you to be able to be the guy with the snarky one liner? You know, even as there's a rise of these guys who are not. Not playing conventional clean cut hero. It is more the raging ID of like throttled masculinity.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Travis Bickle, right? Travis Bickle is crazy. So we can just, we can assign his insanity to his actions.

[Griffin Newman]

And Travis Bickle is a cautionary tale that within 10 years turns into like sequel Rambo, right? Where now it's just pure power fantasy.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right? And this is not that.

[Griffin Newman]

This is.

[Sean Fantasy]

This guy's an. And he's wrong, but he's still somebody's dad, you know, he's still just like kind of a dude, you know. He's not, he's not a. He does ultimately do very destructive things and pays for it. But two thirds through the movie you're like, this guy's a little pretty nuts. But like, he is still.

[Griffin Newman]

He is human. Someone's family man remains earthbound and he does not ever become like avenging anti hero.

[Ben Hosley]

He's fucking handy too. It's impressive.

[David Sims]

Early on.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's working.

[David Sims]

He's handy.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

But so, so he builds the ice machine to get us, you know, you know, through the plot a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the cornerstone of his new society. We're gonna have ice.

[David Sims]

We can apply ice greenhouse.

[Ben Hosley]

Like it's working.

[David Sims]

But when a bunch of, you know, essentially armed men from a near village show up. He's not great at the whole interpersonal stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

No, never has them.

[David Sims]

Exactly. So he goes for, hey guys, you gotta leave. There's a lot of ants everywhere. That doesn't work. So then he pivots right to I'll freeze them to death in my ice building.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He. He considers going full on Mr. Freeze mode, which is. Has rarely worked out for anyone, least of all Mr. Freeze.

[David Sims]

True.

[Griffin Newman]

Often a sad ending for that man.

[David Sims]

So true, Mr. Freeze.

[Sean Fantasy]

Pretty bad. Pretty bad. Bad scheme.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's a.

[David Sims]

This is what I'm saying. It's a bad scheme.

[Sean Fantasy]

It doesn't really work out very well. And he doesn't consider that the destruction of the centerpiece of his new civilization could be problematic.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the. It is the other part of this movie that I find pretty topically currently powerful is the notion of these guys who are like, if you just Let me in there. I'd know how to fix this. I have the right idea. And they start out with three ideas, and then the first conflict happens. The first thing, they have to adjust from their original plan and they short circuit.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it's also that thing too, of like the ultimate freedom idea.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

And then what ends up happening is there's some kind of violent conflict and it immediately kind of all falls apart because it's just inherent to human nature.

[David Sims]

He's also gone to a place where everyone kind of wants to do their own thing. And that's hard. It's hard to coexist with other people trying to do maybe a very different, different thing.

[Sean Fantasy]

Also his, you know, the thing that is revealed clearly in two different ways is that this is ultimately a very pampered middle class American, you know, that this is a guy who has no idea what he's getting himself into. And that includes encountering a militia force in a land that he doesn't understand. And also nature and those two things combining. And he thinks that those things will work in his favor, that there will be space to move in a land where he's not encumbered by the modes of society that America has built. But also that he's like, I'm a smart guy and I know how to make ice, so I'll be able to handle it when we have mosquitoes. But he doesn't know. He doesn't know shit. The whole thing is that everybody who thinks they know what they're doing and that they should take over are full of shit.

[Griffin Newman]

Agreed. Also, much like Survivor, people get off the boat, they look great. They're all shiny, they're TV ready. Then like, day three, they unlock a new kind of rugged hop. They're like, oh, I don't have to give in. All these conventions of Western beauty. I'm going on natural.

[Sean Fantasy]

They've dropped the baby fat right?

[Griffin Newman]

By day 10, everyone looks horrible. And it's not just that. Like, their skin's bitten up and they have a weird, inconsistent burn. And they're like, body weight is getting distributed in weird ways. But also they're like, behind the eyes, everyone's losing it.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I've had six scoops of rice in nine days.

[Griffin Newman]

This is one of the most handsome movie stars in history at the peak of his hotness. And you have the same thing where he starts out and you're like, man, this dick is kind of hot. This is kind of compelling to look at. And like, day three, you're like, the dirt kind of looks Good on him. Getting a little rugged. And by the end of the movie you're like, this guy's uncomfortable.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, everyone's ass is stinking.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's a real stinky butt movie.

[David Sims]

This is a stinky. I, I bet it smell nasty in their movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I do.

[Sean Fantasy]

No matter where I go. I need plumbing, I need hot water.

[David Sims]

Again, guys, it's. I am with the, the least off grid folks, including me.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Toilet situation.

[Griffin Newman]

Like Japanese toys, right?

[David Sims]

Exactly. You need a toilet that like stings to you and eats you.

[Griffin Newman]

Sean, what you're talking about holds me in its arms.

[David Sims]

The mass New Yorker going to Hudson Valley. Adirondacks.

[Sean Fantasy]

I went a little farther away, though. I want to make it impossible to go back to from whence I came. But still in the contiguous states. You know what I mean?

[David Sims]

Well, then it's never gonna be. I can drive.

[Sean Fantasy]

Hop in the car and drive to a screening room in Beverly Hills. Spend way too much time in my life.

[Griffin Newman]

Like this is my exact same fantasy. Except I know I could never actually do it.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't. I'm not going to either. Right, but that's why we're talking about.

[David Sims]

I would say I'm more. I'll go to, you know, the countryside, the woods, the rural places and all.

[Sean Fantasy]

But you outdoors it.

[David Sims]

What are we talking about outdoors again?

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, you asked me.

[David Sims]

Okay, so let me like, like, so like, you know, and I rent like a cabin. Like, you know, so we got heat, we got running water.

[Sean Fantasy]

Have you camped?

[David Sims]

I don't like camping. I haven't really camped since I was a teenager.

[Sean Fantasy]

Camping's fun.

[David Sims]

No, I don't mind people who camp.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's just not really my full. And it is my wife's favorite thing. It's like it is.

[David Sims]

Did she grow up doing it? Like, is it?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, she's much more outdoorsy than I am. But I, I, it is the one of them. You and I are so similar in many ways, but the, the beach and camping are two things where I'm just like, they should be exploded from the planet.

[Griffin Newman]

Get it?

[Sean Fantasy]

Like, I have no idea how these

[David Sims]

things so popular you do this?

[Sean Fantasy]

No, they're not.

[David Sims]

Well, it's not like your wife.

[Sean Fantasy]

My wife, thankfully not a huge beach person. I live in California and I imagine you go to the sun.

[David Sims]

That's what's so funny about Sean. I love the beach. I spend as much time on the beach as I can. But Sean, you live in California, in la, Los Angeles.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I live very far away from the beach.

[Griffin Newman]

And I know there's a lot of

[David Sims]

people like, do you get to the beach? And they're like, what? It's like an hour from where I live.

[Griffin Newman]

I had friends trying to convince me to go to Burning Man. I think people attempt every couple of years. And I was talking about it to my girlfriend.

[David Sims]

You would actually die.

[Griffin Newman]

I, I would say to her, I was like, you know this as well as anybody who spends a lot of time with me. The three things I care about the most in the world are sleeping in a proper bed, having a shower with no limits, and a real functional toilet. And if you take those three things out of my ecosystem, I collapse. I basically can't exist with two out of three. If one of those things is in peril, I'm fucked.

[Sean Fantasy]

I would never go to. Here's my quick Burning man story. Okay. I was an editor at Grantland in the 2010s, and my friend Rembert Brown did a series called Rembert Explains America. And he drove around America and he went to just different places. So he would go to a, a giant thimble and he'd be like, why is this thimble in Iowa? But then he would also go to more well known landmarks. And one of the, the stops on his trip was to go to Burning Man. And he went to Burning man for a few days. And he had been filing these pieces, these kind of long, digressive blog posts about his journeys. And I was, I was an editor of, frankly, too many writers at that time. But I was writing, I was editing a lot of raw copy every day. So I was looking at thousands and thousands of words every day, trying to get them on the Internet. And REM Filed his piece via text message with no punctuation.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Only remember because he was at Burning Man.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Sean Fantasy]

There's no Internet, there's no laptops, Nothing works.

[Griffin Newman]

You got to get the sentiments out there as quickly as you can.

[Sean Fantasy]

He wrote it in a note on his phone, copy and pasted it and sent it to me. And I spent three hours formatting this godforsaken piece. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And just because of that, I would never even consider going to Burning Man.

[Griffin Newman]

Perfect sense to me. I track that logic so cleanly.

[David Sims]

I mean, I, I, I have friends who, you know, go to Burning man and evangelize for it. I also am like, no, thanks, but that's really funny.

[Ben Hosley]

I think tripping kind of would be fun. And the, when they do the effigy burning, that feels like very like, isn't Burning man

[David Sims]

long?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He spent three Hours formatting it, dude.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, they're all that long. God bless REM. I love rem. I loved working on that project with him. But that one in particular, I was like, rem, can you please. Can we just delete this? Like, do we really have to do this? He was like, I drove out here.

[Griffin Newman]

Isn't Burning man kind of coming out of the same instinct that drives Ali Fox? But how do we build this in a way that is actually communal and with, like, the world's strongest bowling alley bumpers, and then we fucking leave life?

[David Sims]

Well, but the thing with Burning man that, at least as I understand, is it's all about community, because it's all about, you know, doing it all together. Ali doesn't have a community vibe to me. He doesn't really want to be with other people.

[Griffin Newman]

Let me. Let me refine this. I'm not saying this in a way that is critical of Burning Man.

[David Sims]

No, I know that I get yeah, for other people.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's more that I feel like when the people I know who. Who love it, wax about it, right? What they're speaking about is the same kind of fantasy that Ali Fox has in a certain way of, like, what if we just stripped all of this back and we got back to how we're supposed to behave, right? And Burning man is much more animated by, like, fun and love and drugs and all this. But it is the idea of, like, can we just have our alternate version of society for, like, 10 concentrated days and then leave? It is also, you know, become a playground for incredibly rich people. People. But it's the same kind of thing. And that part of why it's been able to survive is that it only has the ambition of existing for a week and change a year, rather than being like, what if we actually found a new country?

[David Sims]

My fundamental thing that I was going to say, by the way, is, right, you know, you. I go upstate. I rent a cabin. I'm drinking coffee. I'm sitting on the porch. I'm like, this rocks. I love.

[Griffin Newman]

I like one part of what you said. Exactly one part.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You know, I should just move up here. This is simpler. Just a little slower. It'd be great. I still am. Like, I mostly would watch movies and cook food. Like, it's not like, I'm. Like, I would work the land. Like, I still want to mostly do the things I like to do, but I think I'm just like, no, this is. I'm being dumb. Like, I think I would get bored. I need friends. I need a Lot of social interaction, you know, like, what I get from the city is what I need or whatever, but I have the fantasy. I have zero Mosquito coast fantasies. I never want to go to the jungle. I have spoken to enough filmmakers who filmed in the jungle to know that the jungle is never your friend and you cannot conquer it. Every. Every guy who goes there is like, I think I know how to deal with the jungle. And then they leave being like, the jungle kick my ass.

[Griffin Newman]

But David, yes, And this is relevant to our podcast and with the dossier in front of you.

[David Sims]

Jungle 2 Jungle.

[Griffin Newman]

Tell me if I'm wrong about this, please. This, in many ways, seems like one of the least dramatic jungle shoots of all time. It almost seems like, to Peter Weir's

[David Sims]

credit, I mean, they call it long, hot and humid. Like, I don't know that it was. Was, like, pleasant, but it was definitely not disastrous.

[Griffin Newman]

Every other jungle shoot I have ever read about was disastrous. As you said, everyone comes out of it classic.

[David Sims]

Like, we went 80 days over Budge over schedule, and, like, you know, like, things like that.

[Griffin Newman]

But most of them are, like, fine, Right. We tried to kill each other. James Gray is like, that was a disaster. I ruined my life.

[David Sims]

Peter we is used to filming in the outback in harsh conditions or whatever. Already, like. Like, Peter we strikes me as someone who can, you know, handle an outdoorsy, rugged shoot.

[Griffin Newman]

I just think this film has an incredible sense of place. I think especially the sound in this film is so effective. The kind of, like, atmospheric soundscape of the land and the quiet. And then when that is interrupted and the photography is so lush, they're using their location so well that about halfway through, I, like, stopped myself and I was like, like, wait. These things are always impossible to film, and they are always accompanied with stories of four people had heart attacks, we were kidnapped, my dad drowned to death,

[David Sims]

you know, gunfire, a town over, whatever. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Every version of this we've covered, but also, like, some of the most famously terrible production stories in history. You know, it's Predator and it's Sorcerer and it's Apocalypse now and it's Lost City of Z and all of these. The best case scenario is we lost our minds. Nothing horrible in a demonstrable way happened to us from the outside, but we all went insane and it was impossible. And this movie is, like, very steady in what it's doing.

[David Sims]

Yeah. To wrap the plot, like, to get back to the third act of the movie we talked about, the ice machine blows up the. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The Geronimo. Right.

[David Sims]

The true pivot point into sort of irredeemable madness is they get to the coast, like you say, and the family is like, thank God we can go home. And he's like, ah, there is no home because there's a nuclear war. I just heard you guys aren't allowed to hear about it. You know, like. And then we're just in full cult of personality madness. We're in the final stages of Jim Jones, like, passing out.

[Sean Fantasy]

His performance is great in that sequence.

[David Sims]

Yes, it is really, really the whole.

[Sean Fantasy]

It is scary.

[Ben Hosley]

We gotta call out Mr. Hattie too.

[David Sims]

Mr. Hattie, the great Conrad Roberts, who's in, like, you know, one of, you know, in a million things. Right. And yeah, he's. He's sort of a force of sanity.

[Ben Hosley]

He really empathizes with the family, yes, the kids, but is trying to also not go against father.

[David Sims]

Right, right, right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And there's a. You know, all of that is a picture of the paternalistic approach that America had to Central America at this time in history. I mean, this is like at the tail end of Iran Contra. It's a long history of trying to navigate and invade and manage the governmental rule of all these countries that are near our borders. All of that is a very purposeful, intentional stuff. That all comes from Theroux writing through the way that he sees societies operating outside of the United States of America. And Ali, we're drawing all these allusions to these present day figures. That's not a mistake. That's obviously a huge part of this, is that that Reagan 80s, the thing that Ali thinks he wants to get away from, he entirely represents.

[Griffin Newman]

I think Weir's worldview as a filmmaker is like, more than anything, defined by how hard he interrogates the relationship between the indigenous and the settlers in his homeland. You know, that it feels like, especially of the Australia New Wave. He is someone who really drilled down into that.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And even when he.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's all over the last wave, even

[Griffin Newman]

when he moves away from it being the explicit subject matter, it feels like all of his films are animated by that clash of two different communities, ideologies, people forced to share the same space, that whole kind of thing. You also have Butterfly McQueen in this. Yes, yeah, it's her final film.

[David Sims]

She would have been. She was quite old, right? Yes, 1911. So she's in her sort of late 70s.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, she lives another 10 years. Yeah, she lives 84. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is her. Her first Hollywood production, I think, that played theatrically since Duel in the Sun.

[Griffin Newman]

That seems correct.

[Sean Fantasy]

She's been. She does a lot 1946. Yeah. And she's, you know, she's incredibly important historical actor, you know, who's in Cabin in the sky and Mildred Pierce and all these movies. But she's, she's, she's an icon.

[David Sims]

Yep. It's not a big role. Role.

[Griffin Newman]

Avowed atheist butterfly. McQueen is, thought it was funny to play this role.

[David Sims]

Right. Not Ms. Kenwick.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Is, Is a devotee of Christ.

[David Sims]

Right. Because they, they end up back with spell good. Spell good is the, you know, back to me.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which is.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. The ultimate insult to alternatives of this movie.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll do it myself.

[David Sims]

And he has built a compound and

[Griffin Newman]

his thing is working.

[David Sims]

Right. This is the ultimate insult to Ali's sort of intellectual vanity or whatever. And he, you know, wants to destroy. Goes from just like, no, I want to do my own thing, or I want to live a certain kind of life, to like, no, fuck this guy. I hate Christianity. I hate what he's doing. What are you going to do next, buddy? Just start, like, blowing up every church you see? Like, it's like, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, whatever. He's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but it's, it's also, it's some cost fallacy at this point. There's no. This guy can't dig himself out.

[David Sims]

Like, how many times has Harrison Ford died on screen?

[Griffin Newman]

Great question.

[David Sims]

Adam Driver mercs him in Force Awakens. Spoilers just absolute saber through the chest.

[Griffin Newman]

Sean, we went to see that movie the last night that the Zigfeld was in operation.

[David Sims]

So true.

[Griffin Newman]

With my parents and a bunch of friends. And my mom went to the bathroom during Han Solo's death scene, and I, like, tried to stop her and she went and she came back after it was over and the movie ends and she goes, goes. It's weird that Harrison Ford's just like, not in the last half hour at all. They just kind of forget about him.

[Sean Fantasy]

Why?

[David Sims]

Chewbacca gives Leia a big hug or whatever. Oh, no, he doesn't. That's a, It's a rave.

[Sean Fantasy]

I know this is like coming into another team's clubhouse or something, but I, I, I still think that death works so well. I think that stuff.

[David Sims]

I just rewatched that movie because I'm doing my thing right now, and there's parts of it now that do. I mean, the, the of episode nine hurts so much of that whole enterprise.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

But the, all the Ford stuff in Force Awakens is bananas.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think it's, I agree.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it totally works. I think he's so good in It. I think that death works.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Works great.

[Griffin Newman]

The stuff that doesn't is not the stuff that people tend to point at.

[David Sims]

Oh, really? Who do people point to or. Or what? Yeah, they point at that.

[Griffin Newman]

The Legacy characters, the Mary sue, like, they're the four obvious complaints where I'm like, guys, those aren't the problems. The problems are the, like, J.J. abrams, he built a bad infrastructure thing.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the foundations of the house 100.

[Sean Fantasy]

All to me, because Kasdan wrote all the solo stuff, like, and it's. He just knows that character, like, inside and out. And it just. It just feels like the other films. And not everything, even in Force Awakens feels like the other films, even though it kind of looks and sounds like it. But that stuff, to me, just. Just. It's the same emotional intensity colliding with fantasy stuff that I think is so good about those movies.

[David Sims]

I like when Maz Kanata calls Chewy her boyfriend.

[Griffin Newman]

I like her.

[Sean Fantasy]

She's good.

[Griffin Newman]

On the witness 4k that arrow put out, there is a. A daytime morning talk show interview that I referenced a bunch of that episode because it's funny watching Harrison Ford having to, like, not be actively uncomfortable. And he's talking about expanding and trying to do other things. And then she goes, what about Star Wars 4? So, first of all, I like that she calls it Star Wars 4.

[David Sims]

Makes sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like, no, I think we're done with those. And she's like, but he's only a

[David Sims]

year or two removed from Jedi at this point, which is a movie he didn't like making. And. Right, right. You know, it had nothing to do.

[Griffin Newman]

He goes, I think we told that story. Three is a good number. We completed the arcs of those characters. I'm very proud of them. I owe George Lucas my career.

[Sean Fantasy]

But he's.

[David Sims]

But respectfully, like, you know, he.

[Griffin Newman]

And he frames it as. But the story is done. We said what we needed to say. And the last I've talked to George, I don't think making another Star wars movie is really in his purview.

[David Sims]

And if you see that movie, I'm taking a lot of orders from teddy bears for most of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I'm happy. I'm looking at Teddy bear, but it's

[David Sims]

teddy bears going, like, you know, get over that hill.

[Griffin Newman]

Please kill me.

[David Sims]

Whatever. This guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

I can't wait to show Alice Jedi. That's awesome.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God.

[Griffin Newman]

So that's. The reporter goes, you say that now, of course.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

15, 20 years from now.

[David Sims]

Not incorrect.

[Griffin Newman]

Time has Passed if the price is right. And he just goes, no.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And she goes, no. And he goes, nothing's going to change

[David Sims]

my mind 30 years later.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm like, oh, things like this are why he built the reputation of. He hates Han Solo, he hates Star Wars. He never wants to do it again. But then it, it took 30 years and $20 million in Kazden and everything.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's just also just a smart way to keep your quote unquote up. If you say you'll never do it, you know it's going to cost more to do it. That's just good business.

[Griffin Newman]

I watched him give this reaction where he just says no plainly and you're like, he's not an Ali Fox spiral. He's just like, no. I actually just know there's nothing they could do to convince me and make another Star wars movie. And then he says, by the way, I'm going to still keep doing Indiana Jones. We're scripting a new one. We'll do one of those in two years.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is one of my favorite things, especially about big time movie stars. It's true of some actors, maybe many actors, but particularly big time stars. They're on screen and they perform and they show you the most, the deepest, most vulnerable parts of themselves whilst performing. But they, the ones who are really good, have no desire to truly be understood. And I feel like we live in a time and I certainly feel this way about myself where everyone is desperate to be understood, to be heard and to be told. I get it, man. Makes sense. It's going to be okay day. We're in it together. And movie stars are like, you don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I'll lie right to your face.

[Griffin Newman]

The real true movie stars. Yeah. I mean, I think about all the time. But it was the A24 podcast when souvenir was coming out.

[David Sims]

Sure. Marty enjoying a honk.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[David Sims]

Big two.

[Griffin Newman]

And he asked her like, how are you dealing with this kind of press cycle? You've never had to do this much for a movie before, Right. And she's like, God, I hate it. He's like, it's the worst. Right? And she goes, how do you put up with it? They asked me these questions. They want me to explain the movie and explain myself, and I don't want to do that. And he goes, here's what you do. They ask you, you don't shut them down. You give them something else.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. Which I was like, I have received that many a time in my career.

[Griffin Newman]

How do you not feel like you're being cagey and read like you're holding back, right? Don't just say nothing.

[David Sims]

But if you don't want to answer

[Griffin Newman]

the question, right, what's some other piece of information?

[Sean Fantasy]

I have never been, been more excited and, and I guess wrong footed by a director in an interview than I was with Joanna Hogg. When I, I did my whole what's the last great thing you've seen thing.

[David Sims]

She was like, I'm not answering your.

[Griffin Newman]

She's like, I ate a good sandwich yesterday. I gave you something else.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know what I fired up last night?

[Ben Hosley]

Heat.

[Sean Fantasy]

I love Heat.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I remember.

[Sean Fantasy]

Directed by Michael, man.

[David Sims]

I was like pumping my fist, baby.

[Griffin Newman]

Really?

[Sean Fantasy]

Joanna hug. She was like, yeah. And then, you know, talked about it, you know, smartly for five minutes. But. But that just goes to show you

[David Sims]

I had a great time interviewing the Hogster.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, she was cool.

[David Sims]

I did. And I referred to the Hog verse with her because it was eternal daughter. So I'm like, at this point, it's a Hog verse. We're getting versy. Phase one, you know, we're entering a verse.

[Sean Fantasy]

True.

[David Sims]

Phase two.

[Griffin Newman]

Dads. No, I, I bring all this up to say still Tilda Swindon told him with a mustache. I bring all this up to say that I think Ford had this reputation of he's not giving us anything, right? He's holding back and he's not offering up an alternative. I think once he realized he could lean into the crank bit, it became a very successful version of give them something else. There's a game I can play now that feeds into an idea of what public Persona Harrison Ford is that still actually guards myself. But you hear modern stars always cite Harrison Ford as the person they wish they could be. Not just as an actor, but as like a public Persona. Movie stars all the time, while they're on press tours revealing way too much of themselves are like, I just admire the old school of like Harrison Ford. You keep to yourself. You're not doing a thousand interviews, you're not letting people know, and no one can do that anymore. And I also think it's fascinating that you're like, he is really the prototype for our modern movie star. The modern movie star model is based off of having a Han Solo and if you're lucky, a Han Solo and an Indiana Jones in your back pocket, right? And it's just like, you're set, you're set. You can always go back to them and then you do the other stuff. The problem is now the guys don't do the Other stuff, or if they do the other stuff, it's like, I'll take a tiny 10 day supporting role in a small indie thing to flex myself a little bit. But they're not cashing the movie star value on building an entire vehicle. That's difficult outside of, like DiCaprio, who's also the last guy who still kind of does this. For as much as we like to talk about whatever 26 year old he's dating, we don't really fucking know anything about him. And he's elusive.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, there are a couple of guys who I think operate in a similar way. Like, obviously, Adam Driver is like this. I think for the most part, Ryan Gosling is like this. You know, whether it's. Whether you like him or not, Chris Pratt is kind of like this. He doesn't really give you any of his interior, like, life, but then you'll

[David Sims]

get a glimpse and you'll be like, oh, yeah, less of that please.

[Sean Fantasy]

Again, like, if you. If you remove the subjectivity of the movies that they make, like he is a kind of restrained star.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I agree. And I feel like Ford has, like, complimented Pratt a lot. Pratt will make the mistake of doing the. Like, I need to comment on people getting upset about an idea of me that's wrong. And I want to tell them that they don't know me, but I won't

[David Sims]

put forward anything else.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right, right. Which is like, I'm not mad. Not put in the newspaper that I am mad.

[Griffin Newman]

You can't do that. I agree that he's a little bit unknowable, but he keeps making it feel like he's hiding something.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is where you that up?

[Sean Fantasy]

Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

And yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Let me ask you guys about one Harrison Ford movie, please. Have either of you seen Hanover Street?

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

What is that? Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, is that the one with Amy Irving?

[Sean Fantasy]

This is early. This is Leslie. And down.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

Post Star Wars.

[David Sims]

Star Wars Empire.

[Sean Fantasy]

Pre Empire. It's Peter Hyams film. A Peter hyams film from 1979 set during World War II. A pilot falls in love with a British woman. And It's a classical, 1947 style, post World War II movie. And it's a, I think, a beautiful film. Very underrated. It was the big discovery when we did a big Harrison Ford episode around Dial of Destiny.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot to call it out in the Witness episode. But my favorite moment, maybe in the history of Big Pig, is when Amanda is just like, you know, playing grown up through the whole hall of fame. And then you say witness and she Goes green. She's just been waiting to yell.

[Sean Fantasy]

This movie, actually, the energy that he's bringing to witness, I think starts here. It's like, it is his best pure romance film. And it is one of the only films that is like Mosquito coast. That is sort of like, I didn't see that one, you know, like, I skipped that one. I missed that one. And it's post Star Wars. It's not, you know, and it's not a tiny movie by any means. It's a. It's a big old period piece war film. And it's really, really good. And I never see anybody talking about it ever. And so I'm always looking for someone to say, like, have you checked that one out? I mean, you know, in 79, he does Hanover Street, Apocalypse now in the Frisco Kid. Like he, he is drafting off of the Star wars success in a big way. And nobody's fucking seen that movie.

[David Sims]

Is there a steal?

[Ben Hosley]

There's.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't even think there's a Blu ray right now. Is there a Blu ray?

[Griffin Newman]

It's not even Twilight Time.

[David Sims]

Looks like there's merely a dvd.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I would, I probably would have acquired that if I could have.

[David Sims]

You can get a DVD two pack with Hanover street and random hearts.

[Sean Fantasy]

Hey, there it is.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll say it again, beginning in the

[Sean Fantasy]

end, my forlorn Harrison Ford.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right, right, right. Emo. Emo Ford.

[Griffin Newman]

I do just, I. I love him so much.

[David Sims]

Just to conclude the film, Andre Gregory shoots his fucking ass. And they go upstream and he's like, all right, are we, you know, as he's dying, Helen Mirren kind of lies to him and it's like, yeah, yeah, we're good. We're getting to where you want to go.

[Sean Fantasy]

And then a thousand vultures descend upon his body.

[Griffin Newman]

To your point, is there a version of this movie in which he goes, my family is right, here's a boat. Let's sail back to mainland to civilization. Instead, this movie is his family sails off with his dying body. And you're like, where are they going? How are they going to get there? And also in five minutes. Minutes, they're gonna be with a corpse of a man who them up and they're.

[Sean Fantasy]

And they're kind of, kind of happy. Kind of happy that dad died.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of kind of.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

He's a tough hang.

[Griffin Newman]

Like there's a sense of relief.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But she lies to him.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And that they're heading backwards.

[David Sims]

They're going to America. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

They're getting the out.

[Griffin Newman]

I Know, but that's a tough journey they have ahead of them.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but they're going to be okay. Helen Mirren will be a waitress or something.

[Griffin Newman]

They'll use his dead body as a. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Chop him up. Chop him up. Make a stew.

[Sean Fantasy]

No.

[Ben Hosley]

Pack a minute too.

[David Sims]

Aren't into this.

[Sean Fantasy]

Send them home.

[Griffin Newman]

We. We covered all the Indiana Jones movies. Covered all the Star wars movies.

[David Sims]

We haven't. Excuse me. We have not turned the dial of destiny yet.

[Griffin Newman]

You're right. I'm sorry. That's the one we haven't done.

[Ben Hosley]

Will it be about time?

[Sean Fantasy]

Why not? Why haven't you done that yet?

[David Sims]

I mean we haven't done mangled. I guess we could.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Could be mangled it up not to like Spielberg.

[David Sims]

Yeah, you can tell it's not Spielberg. It's not very good. Yeah, no, I like James Mangold.

[Griffin Newman]

I like James Mangold. I just think that film is not very good.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I agree.

[Sean Fantasy]

I. I honestly liked it. It's got a couple things. I don't. I don't regret liking it. I think I like it more than Crystal Skull. I'm putting that out there.

[Griffin Newman]

I like crystals.

[Sean Fantasy]

I know you guys like Crystal Skull. I don't really like it very much.

[Griffin Newman]

I think both of them have stuff and. And fatal fundamental errors in their conceptions. And for me, I like slightly more of dial of Skull than dial.

[David Sims]

Oh, and Skull to me is just so much better. Skull has a point of view and dial of Destiny.

[Sean Fantasy]

I. I felt lacked very, very similarly to the. If they had done this conversation. I've. I think I said this already, but if Indy stays with Archimedes in the past.

[David Sims]

I couldn't agree conversation.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm like, this movie is amazing.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the end.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is an amazing way to end this franchise.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm so with you. I'm like the cowardice of that movie is that ending for me is the only reason to go back and make a fifth one.

[Sean Fantasy]

I just, I, I thought that would have been clever.

[Griffin Newman]

I got excited.

[Sean Fantasy]

Perfect for when they were out of his life again.

[David Sims]

Look you. I will argue for this one more time, which I hate doing because I don't like the movie very much. The whole point of the movie is Indiana realizing he does have something to go home to. If he. He's saying, I have nothing to go home to. I want to stay in the past. The movie ends that way. It is a bizarre ending to Indiana

[Griffin Newman]

Jones's story and it's brave.

[David Sims]

It's not brave.

[Griffin Newman]

It's brave.

[David Sims]

The whole Point is that Karen Allen is like, I know life sucks and I know you're getting old and I know Mutt Williams died in Vietnam RIP like we saluted service. But you cannot simply just like turn into a Grecian earned. Come home with human beings that you love.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is why maybe we like the Mosquito coast and you don't, but I

[David Sims]

do like the Mosquito. I think this is a very good movie. I think it's very successful movie. I just don't think it was a commercially appropriate.

[Sean Fantasy]

Wasn't a good play.

[David Sims]

Yeah, look, I think this movie's great. I mean, in a way I weirdly not movie I like to rewatch.

[Griffin Newman]

Have talked with people a lot in the last couple weeks about Eddington.

[David Sims]

Uhhuh.

[Griffin Newman]

I think something about one battle after another like knocked Eddington back into people's minds. As you said, when you. You guys cover a lot of.

[David Sims]

Lot of online matter of. Right. Like conversation.

[Griffin Newman]

They're che. Like how do we process the last five years movie? And like I. Eddington hits harder for me because it is a better reflection of my worldview. And I don't find the ending of one battle after another false or pushed. I buy it completely and I in fact think it's kind of a miracle that they landed on a Titanic as esque ending that makes you leave the theater feeling good. For a movie that should just end in Bummerville in terms of everything it's built for itself.

[David Sims]

One battle. Why would it end in Bummerville?

[Griffin Newman]

A lot of bad things are happening in that movie and continue escalating over and over again.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Theoretically, you're like the resolution of the central emotional conflict of the film should not be able to solve the external realities of the world in a way where wherever they've landed, things are still bad. And they came up with an ending that makes the resolution of the characters inner lives feel like a triumph for us, the audience.

[David Sims]

This is very interesting to me, Griffin, that this. Okay, go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

Like old Rose going back to the Titanic and you're like, gosh, there's so

[Sean Fantasy]

much I can't say about this. I'm trying to think what I can say.

[David Sims]

What can't you say?

[Sean Fantasy]

Just because I know like what the original ending in one battle was. I know a lot of other things, but. But I. Here's what I can say. One battle is being called like a movie of the moment and being described as like a perfect representation because it's got these migrant detention centers and it's got this, you know, society in the. In the Enthrall to fascism.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

But it.

[David Sims]

It was like the levers of fascism are easy to pull in it.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's not like it works perfectly for Mr. Lockjaw. No, but the. But mistakes are made.

[Sean Fantasy]

Mr. Lockjaw is just a functionary inside of a bigger space.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Sean Fantasy]

Like he's able to use things.

[David Sims]

Exactly, exactly.

[Sean Fantasy]

So there are things in a. That really resonate with the world right now. For the record, you could probably hear this on the. All the episodes I've done about the movie, but that is not what makes the movie to me at all. Like, I actually don't. I think that stuff is. Is. Is very well executed and very smart and beautifully rendered. But, like, I don't care about that stuff as much as I care about the. The characters, the sense of humor, and then the kind of meeting points of those two things. Eddington was made specifically to do what you just said, which is supposed to be literally, here's how it felt in 2020.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[Sean Fantasy]

That is not what Paul was doing.

[Griffin Newman]

I am so loath to revisit 2020 in any way. Ben and I saw that together and I'm just like, this is going so far past poking a bruise. It has, like, pushed its finger past the layers of skin. It is like scratching nerves.

[David Sims]

Nerves.

[Griffin Newman]

If we're gonna go this deep and this thorough and really interrogate it, I'm all here for it. It's the ultimate feel bad movie. It ends on a conclusion of probably just beyond everything's bad for everyone. And I watch and I'm like, I think this was pretty honest. You know, this makes sense to me. This all rings true.

[Sean Fantasy]

But it has a sense of humor.

[Griffin Newman]

It does. Eddington's humor is rooted in, like, calling out things that we all try to.

[David Sims]

Eddington is very much like, the data center will win. Right. Like, you know, and that's great. And I love Edington. I think it's awesome. I think it's a great movie. About 2020. One battle is. Isn't really about 2020 though, because this movie could have been made 20 years ago. It's about how, like, no, no, we don't give up.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right?

[David Sims]

Like, we have children, we have new generations, they have new perspectives. We don't understand.

[Sean Fantasy]

This will continue probably over time.

[David Sims]

Magic at the ending is that he's using a cell phone, that he's like, like, I guess I should engage with the world. I guess I should belong to whatever's happening here and I should let my daughter go figure it out.

[Sean Fantasy]

But also, it's her Time to be in charge of this.

[David Sims]

And it's not like she's going to go save the world. She might go get in trouble, she might die. But, like, it's like there's an optimism of like, I need to wake up again. Right? Like, that's the magic.

[Griffin Newman]

Can I say. Can I say one battle?

[David Sims]

Whereas in Ed, of course, Joaquin is like, you know, which I love as well. It's very funny.

[Griffin Newman]

What? One battle? Spoiler warning for people who have not seen this movie is Spring of right came out. I had someone tell me, text me, like, hey, can you explain me? I don't know if I'm just dumb or. And I didn't get this or the movie isn't doing this right.

[David Sims]

And you were like, the Christmas adventure. No.

[Griffin Newman]

What are good and right? They just want to get rid of street trash and punks. Note that, you know, you have the emotional reunion of DiCaprio and Chase Infinity, father and daughter. Right? Will Bob and Will cuts to Terminator Lockjaw. Then he's Christmas adventured off the. The face of the board. And then you go back to the resolution of everything you're saying.

[David Sims]

But truly, the first time I saw that movie, when Penn gets blasted in the face, I was like, love that. And then when he's alive, I had this momentary twinge of like, are you sure, pta? That was a great ending for the character that he gives me the real ending. And I was like, sorry for saying anything.

[Griffin Newman]

Trust you, boss.

[David Sims]

I won't talk again.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with your read on. On the ending.

[Sean Fantasy]

See, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah. But this is more what I want to identify that the text was explain to me how they're just able to return to normal society. Everything Lockjaw put into motion. Wouldn't that not be solved by just taking Lockjaw off the board? And I said, there are a couple interpretations I have, right? You're like, the machinery is already. He has created this false flag operation to find them, to track them down, to make up the story of what they've done. He's sicked all of the power of the military against them. Even if he's off the board, how are they okay? How do they just go back to the same home and reset to the same life? And I said, you can either accept it as that that is just a. A device of the sort of level of farce that the movie has reached at that point of like, it can be represented in a battle between two people, or, you know, my inner plot justification of that is basically at some point they identify the mess that Lockjaw created, that it was driven by his own personal vendetta. Said it was an abuse of power.

[David Sims]

The Christmas adventurers say that.

[Griffin Newman]

And that they cover up everything forever.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. They are saying in that meeting where they're going to take him out, they're like. And now he's like. There's the line that one of them repeats where he's like, they hit the school where you can tell that they're like, this is too much exposure for mess. This is all this mess for no reason. Except obviously he wants to be a Christmas adventurer.

[Griffin Newman]

The question then, we understand you walk

[Sean Fantasy]

through dark tunnels to get to this meeting. Right. This is a very secret.

[Griffin Newman]

The question on that just becomes, why don't they wipe the two of them out as well?

[David Sims]

Because, like, they don't care.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, like, I think they.

[Griffin Newman]

That's my work is done.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. I mean, I think that the French 75 doesn't interest the Christmas adventurers at all.

[David Sims]

Not one bit.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't view them as powerful enough to. With them.

[David Sims]

Of course not. The first 75 is like defunct at this point. Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

Loser. He's there. He's not going to make any change against what they're up to. And that is a huge part. I mean that to me was also a huge part of the point of the movie. And that I think actually makes it somewhat more philosophically in connection to Eddington. And I think PTA is definitely like, the forces are still more powerful than you. You can have hope, but they're way bigger than what we can do.

[David Sims]

They're Christmas adventures in ways. Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

You don't even.

[Griffin Newman]

And all that AI Big tech occupy the same roles in those two movies. And the difference is that Eddington ends with a guy who. You've watched Mosquito coast himself into chaos, being like a vegetable in a bed having to watch his mother in law get. He's the. It's like even the bad guy lives in hell. We're all. And one battle after another is like these two characters have each other and they've learned something from this and they have a good perspective and they live to fight another day. And you can't give up.

[David Sims]

The.

[Sean Fantasy]

The needle drop at the end of Eddington is so good. Like, there's a lot of talk about the needle drop at the end of one battle, which is great. Very recognizable. But the Bobby Gendry song Courtyard, which is so haunting as you look out onto the AI center and you're like,

[David Sims]

Ari is really good at a final song. Great. Really Good.

[Griffin Newman]

But also the use of fireworks in that and the Mariah Carey song and bow. Do we think one battle has one best picture at the time this episode comes? This episode will come out April 19th.

[David Sims]

You've seen Marty Supreme.

[Griffin Newman]

There are no crazy release date changes for new releases.

[Sean Fantasy]

We'll be able to vet this very cleanly in six months. But I did when having. Having just seen Marty.

[David Sims]

Which is the last big player.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. Which I don't. I don't think is the best. I think will be nominated for best picture, but it's not a contender to win. That's. But that's, you know, Timmy seems to be whatever. I think Chalamet has a very good chance to win.

[Griffin Newman]

We're recording this two days after the first screening of Marty.

[David Sims]

I didn't go and went to Tron.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think that Marty and sinners will siphon votes from one battle that they will not siphon from Hamnet.

[David Sims]

Well, I haven't seen Hamnet yet. I shouldn't be so dismissive.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know, And I've seen.

[David Sims]

It just kind of feels like one of the things for the Oscars are like, we have our finger on the pulse and it's saying Hamnets.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, I. I do. I'm. I am already preparing for that nightmare scenario.

[David Sims]

Well, the nightmare scenario was last year. Amelia Perez. That would have been the fully mystery, like Hamid. That would be a well regarded film.

[Sean Fantasy]

See, that actually would have better, at least for my emotional state, because it would have been so absurd.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

This doesn't matter. Like, this is complete nonsense.

[David Sims]

Conan comes out and he's like, well, there are no more Oscars.

[Griffin Newman]

When Green Book won best picture, I was cackling. I was like, they had an opportunity to do the funniest thing.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

You're in the Hellscape. And it's just like, let's dance together.

[Griffin Newman]

And Amelia Perez would have been that times 10.

[Sean Fantasy]

It would have been this. This is more like. Oh, yeah, there's like 30 of these in Oscar history.

[David Sims]

I was about to say it feels like a very obvious Oscar trophy choice, right?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. Yeah, it does. And you know, Amanda and I have been saying that there is a little bit of Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love in reverse.

[David Sims]

But Shakespeare in Love is funny and charming and has kissing and it sounds like ham.

[Sean Fantasy]

So there's one battle after another.

[David Sims]

I know, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Is that one battle is the Shakespeare in terms of type of movie.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Hamnet is the Spielberg in terms of her.

[Sean Fantasy]

But it has.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's over.

[David Sims]

Private Ryan was the boomer masterpiece. Big Scale and saving.

[Sean Fantasy]

They're the fun house mirror images.

[David Sims]

Because Hamlet I. I haven't seen it, but it's not that big scale of movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I don't again, like don't hate it. And it's not the villain of the year. Like I do think that that's gonna happen pretty quickly where like the bros are gonna be like, what the dude? And there's. There are some beautiful things about Hamnet. But it. It winning over the three movies I named that I would be very. I would be unhappy.

[Griffin Newman]

I also need a.

[David Sims]

A second best picture in five years.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think that the people I've spoken to have seen Hamnet. I've not seen it yet. Hamnet, who are the most resistant, the most cynical about it.

[David Sims]

No ham hat. The birthday boy sketch. That's best picture worthy.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. Put it up. It never got a theatrical release. Could you do a limelight and have it qualify this year?

[David Sims]

Now carry on. Carry. The people you know seen.

[Griffin Newman]

The people I know who have seen Hamnet and are. Are the most allergic and resistant to it are like. And yet I cannot deny the last five minutes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, last 20 minutes is powerful.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

There seems to be a last 20, last 10 fire off that Max Richter

[David Sims]

track again though that does happen to me.

[Sean Fantasy]

That is. I mean obviously that as. As the wallpaper music that it hits hard.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

But it's just. There's the rival. There's some staging that really works well. I hadn't read the novel. I also didn't know it was coming.

[David Sims]

I'm pumped for it because I like like Shakespeare.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. And if you do, this is a. This is a good movie about liking now.

[David Sims]

I don't like children in Peril, though. Well, that's what I'm a little worried

[Sean Fantasy]

about some bad news.

[Griffin Newman]

You might have a tough go with things.

[David Sims]

Mosquito coast does also has children in Peril, though they all pull through.

[Griffin Newman]

That is the happy ending of the movie is the children are the right guy dies out of peril.

[Sean Fantasy]

And River Phoenix gets to be indie because of this movie. Did we even say that for sure.

[David Sims]

That's why. That's the connection. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

He and Martha Plimpton date for years and then it leads to them both being in running an empty a movie I adore.

[Sean Fantasy]

Great movie. Back in the conversation because of one battle.

[Griffin Newman]

Very similar. Yeah.

[David Sims]

This film and we're going to do the. Oh, oh, oh. One piece of news breaking on Deadline. I want you guys to hear is Saoirse Ronan heard of her.

[Griffin Newman]

Will he playing divorcing her husband and wants to get dinner with me.

[David Sims]

No. Appears to be happily married and newly has a baby. And they've got a great nuna stroller that I've seen them parading around in paparazzi.

[Sean Fantasy]

Nun a nuna rava.

[David Sims]

I think it looks like a rava to me now.

[Sean Fantasy]

Lava rava.

[David Sims]

I personally, I have a baby zen. I'm a city guy. I needed a lightweight stroller.

[Sean Fantasy]

But we have a baby zen as well.

[Griffin Newman]

They're great. A double.

[David Sims]

Well, though our double stroller is a. I forget what it's called. I mean that thing. There is no. There's no lightweight double stroller, unfortunately. We got about as lightweight as you can get, but it's a. Saoirse Ronan will be playing Linda McCarthy McCartney in Sam Mendes's The Beatles. A four film cinematic event that feels

[Griffin Newman]

like something she doesn't need to do.

[David Sims]

I was gonna say the casting seems appropriate, but does she really need to do that?

[Griffin Newman]

The. The big four? I get it. Those are plum roles. No disrespect to the late, great Linda McCartney.

[Sean Fantasy]

A little overqualified. That must tell us specifically what era we're in then.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but. Although I think maybe will each film be in a different era or something?

[Sean Fantasy]

I thought that was the idea. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's over a long period of time. I thought it was.

[David Sims]

Was.

[Sean Fantasy]

I thought they were going to.

[David Sims]

Or is it like za. You have to play them all together and they all sync up. Is like a four film.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Mike Myers is playing all four.

[Griffin Newman]

I hope each movie is one unbroken two hour close up shot of the three. Conversation.

[David Sims]

Right? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. A continuous conversation.

[David Sims]

You got to see the next three to. To make sense of this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's just the meeting where they try to name the band and so you watch the Ringo one and he only says something once every 25 minutes.

[David Sims]

He's like eating a sandwich. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, this is good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay.

[David Sims]

This is good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Don't do. Don't do the box office game. I need.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

I need to pee.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Oh, okay. Should we talk while he pees? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And Sean, while you're in the bathroom, think of me.

[David Sims]

Griff, have you seen. You've seen any other sort of fall films yet?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think so. You know, I'm.

[David Sims]

Yeah, your blankies, your blinkies ballot remains. You know, it's just going to start to gather steam.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm saying I'm a plebe. I go see films with the working people of America.

[David Sims]

Or occasionally you get invited to a Fancy screening?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah. Occasionally.

[David Sims]

Once in a while.

[Griffin Newman]

Not that many, though.

[David Sims]

No. No, not that many.

[Griffin Newman]

No. I feel like, what's the worst film

[David Sims]

you've seen this year? That's a good question, Mr. Peanut sitting very happily at the bottom of my list.

[Griffin Newman]

I still have not visited the Electric State.

[David Sims]

Believe me, man, you're going to fire that movie up and be like, yes, I know it will be bad. But like, it's an action movie. Like, it'll be watchable. Like, right, it'll. And it's like, it will be really hard to focus on it.

[Griffin Newman]

My. My bottom list, I feel like I did some reorganizing recently. My bottom film I have right now, I got. I got a pretty tight bottom five. And I'd say the order of these five is a little interchangeable.

[David Sims]

Can I guess that Jurassic World Rebirth is down there?

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely down there.

[David Sims]

No district is our president down there.

[Griffin Newman]

No district or present. Right now I have Brave New World in the dead last spot.

[David Sims]

Tough one to defend.

[Griffin Newman]

End where I was even like thinking between Jurassic World and Brave New World and I'm like, jurassic World is well shot.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it looks all right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Brave New World looks bad.

[David Sims]

This is true.

[Griffin Newman]

It has nothing I can recommend. I'm not even like, you know, you know, who's good in a supporting role. Like, no one scores it. Ford's better in it than anyone else. And yet I wouldn't be like, he punches through and then the rest of my bottom five is Sneaks. The CGI animated film.

[David Sims]

Oh, with talking sneakers. I haven't seen that one.

[Griffin Newman]

Martin Lawrence plays an oldtimer sneaker in a performance I would describe as awake.

[David Sims]

Good. I'm glad they got him away.

[Griffin Newman]

Snow White is in my bottom five.

[David Sims]

That's in my bottom five, too.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no disrespect to our queen Rachel and then alto Knights.

[David Sims]

Ah, right. I haven't checked in with those knights yet.

[Griffin Newman]

That's my real, like, terror bottom five. That was my. And Sneaks. I will admit I had perverse fun watching, but I cannot pretend it is good in any way. The other four, I was like, those.

[David Sims]

The other four are like major corporate art that f. Failed, you know?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, yes, for sure. You guys are doing bottom fives of 2025.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I just asked him what he

[Griffin Newman]

had down there somewhere in the bathroom. What Best actor field of this year in.

[David Sims]

In the 19.

[Griffin Newman]

I know Ford never had a shot, but I would certainly not put him in.

[Sean Fantasy]

But he got.

[David Sims]

He got. I think he got like a Golden Globe now. Maybe didn't He.

[Griffin Newman]

Because they wanted him to show up.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean, that was through gridded. I. I can't believe you would say that. The Golden Globes behave in such a craven manner in the 1980s. It looks like it got Golden Globe nominations for best actor and best score. Maurice Jar, who also did a wonderful score for Witness, which I feel like we didn't shout out.

[Griffin Newman]

Very synthy. Witness score.

[David Sims]

The. The Oscar nominees that year. It's a good year. This is the platoon year. Sure. But Charlie Sheen does not get a nomination.

[Griffin Newman]

As Charlie Sheen would put it. I won best picture at 20 and I wasn't even warm yet. It is a phrasing I think about all the time. I won best picture.

[David Sims]

Well, you know what phrasing I think about? Flip the menu.

[Griffin Newman]

Flipping the menu.

[David Sims]

Did you hear that Charlie Sheen talking about experimenting with his sexuality? Sexuality? He said, like, I flipped the menu.

[Griffin Newman]

Flip the menu.

[David Sims]

Which I just thought was perfect.

[Griffin Newman]

Spend hours looking at the front of the menu and you go, what else is on the back? You haven't watched the doc, right?

[David Sims]

No, I haven't.

[Griffin Newman]

Flipping the menu is a 10 minute conversation.

[David Sims]

That sounds good.

[Griffin Newman]

And he is hot. Committed to that one metaphor.

[David Sims]

I'm glad it's good.

[Griffin Newman]

And they're like, so what kind of things did you do with men? And he's like, well, you know, on the back of the menu there's desserts. Like, he just. Everything is filtered through the menu. We saw the poll quote of the menu thing and we were obsessed with it. And then it's so much better the way it plays out.

[Sean Fantasy]

I got to watch that.

[Griffin Newman]

I got to flip the menu.

[David Sims]

The Oscar nominees that year were Paul Newman for the Color of Money. He wins.

[Griffin Newman]

He wins.

[David Sims]

Bob Hoskins for Mona Lisa, who is sort of the critics pick of the year. A wonderful performance.

[Griffin Newman]

And he was always arguing that in any other year he was have.

[David Sims]

I might have won, mate.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I'm Super Mario.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought it wasn't for the careers, for the performance.

[David Sims]

I'm going to get King Cooper.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's good to talk Mushroom makes me a little taller. Just a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like was almost related to me. Does that make sense? I think so.

[Griffin Newman]

Neither one of us is Italian.

[David Sims]

You got Dexter Gordon for Round Midnight. It's a really cool combination. Like, and that's kind of a cool movie. And you know. Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

I like that movie a lot. But that it, it is wild.

[David Sims]

He sexed it up. Bab.

[Sean Fantasy]

William John Tavernier, great director. Like, it's cool that that movie got acknowledged.

[David Sims]

William Hurt For Children of a Lesser Gods. I think this is his third nomination in like three years or second.

[Griffin Newman]

Spider Woman.

[David Sims]

I think it's maybe Spider Woman, then Children, then Broadcast. I can't remember. But he's in his hot period.

[Griffin Newman]

He's just won best actor the year before.

[David Sims]

Yes, correct. And then James woods for Salvador. Really good performance by a normal guy.

[Griffin Newman]

A Z channel nomination. That's part of the big narrative of that doc that that movie came out and flopped. And then found such a second life within six months on Z Channel. That it was the big surprise that that got in there.

[David Sims]

He's excellent in that rocks in that movie. He's an amazing actor.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you not feel like there's.

[David Sims]

But I would, I would sub out. You know, I hurt. Get, you know, whatever. Get him out of here.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you not feel like to some degree we talked about. Despite him being totally deserving of that nomination. There was something a little condescending in the Academy being like, congratulations, Harrison for Ford. We take you seriously now that you're not doing Little Boy. Right.

[David Sims]

With Witness. With Witness. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. They're like, we're giving you an Oscar not just for the performance, but for thank you for growing up and being like an adult serious actor.

[David Sims]

And this is like, no, no two adults, truly.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they never nominate him again.

[David Sims]

They never nominated again. I my question to that is, when would they have the fugitives? The most obvious one. Obvious. You know, that's the one where it's like, well, that movie got a best picture nomination.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, you know, my arc document.

[David Sims]

What is it?

[Griffin Newman]

Supporting Actor, Morning Glory.

[David Sims]

I need eggs from a Chicken.

[Sean Fantasy]

I, I, you know, his. His clearest Oscar bait is regarding Henry. That's the film.

[David Sims]

And that movie didn't go over.

[Sean Fantasy]

It didn't go.

[David Sims]

All my Ford noms are like end with Mosquito Coast. I think on my spreadsheet.

[Griffin Newman]

No, there's.

[David Sims]

I just gave him the credit for Han Solo and Indiana Jones and all

[Griffin Newman]

the he deserved credit for up until that point. And then it feels like Witness. They're like, congratulations, you've entered the room. And on Mosquito coast they're like, know your place. Go back to just being a mat idol.

[David Sims]

My nominees that you're a Hoskins and Newman plus Kurt Russell, Big Trouble in Little China.

[Sean Fantasy]

Cool.

[David Sims]

Jeff Goldblum in the Fly and for.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, you do put four to them.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Great, great. I respect you.

[David Sims]

I like. I like Gene Hackman and Hooers that year. But that's another kind of like never

[Sean Fantasy]

been a Hoosiers guy.

[David Sims]

Quite I really love the first half hour of Hoosier. Hoosiers.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I know the rest of it, I'm like, it's good, but like, just the. Just the whole like guys in a barn, it's five in the morning. All that shit's good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Despite, you know, working for Bill SIMMONS for like 15 years, I just have never been into Hoosiers. I.

[David Sims]

And Bill likes Hoosiers, but I feel

[Sean Fantasy]

like at a time he loved it. He has points, has pointed out its many flaws many times, but I think he has a big relationship to it.

[David Sims]

I like that.

[Sean Fantasy]

And you know, that's a weird one too, because Hopper was nominated that year, but not for Frank. Frank Booth, he was nominated for who?

[Griffin Newman]

Just.

[David Sims]

But he's good.

[Griffin Newman]

He provided them with a safer nomination option. Yes, yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

But Frank Booth would have been an absolutely sick. Very true.

[David Sims]

The box office.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, no, I was gonna say the box office. This movie did not perform well.

[David Sims]

No, it did not. It opens on Thanksgiving, which I'm not sure how I. I'm not sure about that decision.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Do you like that decision?

[Griffin Newman]

I think Thanksgiving release didn't mean the same thing it may meant back then that it does today, but I suppose so. I think that's more of an Oscar confidence.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's also, of course, it's. It's, you know, limited release. Yeah, but. So it's not in the top five.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. I'm just saying it's not like in 86 they were like, we're hoping Mosquito coast clears 60 million for the five day.

[David Sims]

No, they were not. It's number one at the box office.

[Griffin Newman]

A movie the family is going to want to see together.

[David Sims]

And I think we might have done this box office because number one is a movie we covered on Patreon on. It's the fourth film in a beloved franchise, but it's sort of the biggest hit this franchise has had.

[Griffin Newman]

Star Trek for the voyage home. Wales.

[David Sims]

Wales. San Francisco.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's Star Trek 4. Plumber. Or is that three?

[David Sims]

That's six.

[Sean Fantasy]

Six.

[David Sims]

Lloyd is three. Christopher Lloyd.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And four is the one where they go back in time to San Francisco and there's whales.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. 4.

[David Sims]

The most sort of pleasant.

[Griffin Newman]

Our wicked wishes.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, 4 is a movie that anyone can see without really any knowledge of Star Trek. Fun, fish out of water comedy. It's good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay. It's not my favorite because it's just sci fi. It's six. I love six Rocks.

[Griffin Newman]

Sean, do you know the story of how they landed on the premise for 4 Eddie Murphy, under contract at Paramount, talks about how much he loves Star Trek and that he'd like to be in a Star Trek movie. And they're like, what's a premise where we could have Eddie Murphy with the Star Trek bridge crew doing his modern day.

[David Sims]

He can't street sci fi mode. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

So they were like, oh, they go through a wormhole and come back to 80s San Francisco and Eddie Murphy's there with them. And then Eddie Murphy was like, I don't want to be the fucking fifth lead in a Star Trek movie. And so they rewrite his part to be the mom from seventh heaven. Oh, wow. Who is their like present day San Francisco ally and becomes a love interest. But that was meant to be Eddie Murphy.

[Sean Fantasy]

And Eddie said, I'll make Pluto National.

[David Sims]

Well, Eddie said, I'll make the Golden Child, which is his 86 movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Not a good film. Not a film I like watch it for the first time recently.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. More like the Michael Richard.

[Sean Fantasy]

What happened? Bronze Child to be beautiful.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a weird move from Richie.

[David Sims]

Number two is an animated film that is not produced by those cowards at Disney.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it a Bluth?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it the Rats of Nim?

[David Sims]

It's not. It's his second film.

[Griffin Newman]

I played Believe it's not Land Before Time.

[David Sims]

I think that's third. I can't remember the order.

[Sean Fantasy]

It must be an American tale.

[David Sims]

It's an American tale.

[Sean Fantasy]

So it's so funny you bring this up because my. There are no cats. As we are recording my wife and daughter flying to New York City from Los Angeles.

[Griffin Newman]

They're going to see that. That big green lady out their window.

[Sean Fantasy]

They sure will. And my wife said, can you send me all the letterboxd lists you made regarding Alice? So there is a public list of all the things that she has seen and then there are a couple of private lists that are things that she could see at some point.

[Griffin Newman]

Vetted possible allies.

[David Sims]

I think this will work for her.

[Sean Fantasy]

My wife loves Anastasia. Duncan's Anastasia, and wants to show it to her. We have not yet done it. We haven't done any of the Bluths.

[David Sims]

I was about to say Anastasia, like all Bluths, it's just a little scarier than those Disney movies. It is just a little more intense.

[Sean Fantasy]

But we. So I went. I made a. I made a Bluth letterbox list. And I was like, where do we go first? Is it. Is it American Tail? Is it Land Before Time?

[David Sims]

I think it's one of those two.

[Griffin Newman]

You start with tightening.

[David Sims]

Of course.

[Griffin Newman]

No, clean.

[Sean Fantasy]

She's a huge Damon head, though, so that'll, you know, don't really fill out her Damon film.

[David Sims]

She loves the Joss Whedon pass on anything and Edland. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

We. And then I did realize she has seen Thumbelina. Oh, that's right. Which kind of. That's a blue.

[David Sims]

That's a bad one.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Saw it in theaters. American Tale is kind of scary, though. Much like killing it before time. It's just a little scary.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also emotionally intense.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, it is. It is.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But I saw it when I was a kid and I loved it.

[Sean Fantasy]

I loved An American Tale.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you maybe. Do you start with Fievel going West? Do you go west first?

[Sean Fantasy]

That's so confusing. We're like, We're Sergio Leoning in reverse. Right. It's like for. You got to go Once Upon a Time in America.

[Griffin Newman]

First she hasn't met.

[Sean Fantasy]

Then you got to go west.

[Griffin Newman]

She hasn't met Fievel. She doesn't have the reference base. I definitely saw west first.

[David Sims]

I did, too, because I think it

[Sean Fantasy]

was in theater a little younger. Exactly. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Number three, the Box off is a film we've covered as well. And I already mentioned it. It was one of the biggest hits of the year.

[Griffin Newman]

We already covered it.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yep.

[David Sims]

On Patreon.

[Griffin Newman]

Only on Normal App. Normal ep. Something went awry.

[David Sims]

No, we just being insane in Covid.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so it's a Covid commentary.

[David Sims]

Y.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not aliens.

[Sean Fantasy]

No.

[Ben Hosley]

1986.

[David Sims]

I mean, aliens is 1986. You're correct.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Thank you. 86. Covid insanity. It's crocodile Dundee. Maybe the best single day of podcasting we've ever.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

It was.

[David Sims]

We are riding high. And then we are not.

[Sean Fantasy]

It is like, what was the other episode that Day two.

[David Sims]

And then Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.

[Griffin Newman]

We did the whole trilogy all in one day. A thing we used to do a little bit more.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically, Birth of the First Child. My memory is that was one of our last records. A, before I think your daughter was born, and B, before the COVID vaccine was announced.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

So it was right at that kind of threshold of like, like, is it another year of this?

[David Sims]

The WOKE vaccine, to be clear.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And we were like, let's just knock out all three of these in a row over zoom and we lose our minds.

[David Sims]

First one's good. Have, have you seen it?

[Sean Fantasy]

Crocodile Dundee.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, the first one is good.

[David Sims]

I mean, have you seen it lately?

[Sean Fantasy]

I guess not since I was 14, but I, I, I remember enjoying it. Quite a bit.

[David Sims]

Very enjoyable.

[Sean Fantasy]

I've seen and thought was okay.

[Griffin Newman]

New York 2 opens as well as any movie has ever opened.

[David Sims]

Fishing with dynamite.

[Griffin Newman]

It's incredible. In the Hudson River. Then it becomes his bad it Rambo rip.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And it barely has jokes.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's the origin of. That's not a knife. That's a knife.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the first.

[David Sims]

First one.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's the first one on the subway. They don't do they run it back on the subway.

[David Sims]

They run everything back.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

But everything iconic happens in the first movie. Nothing iconic happens in the second movie except fishing with dynamite in the Hudson River.

[Sean Fantasy]

Did you know that famed fantasy football expert Matthew Barry rode Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles?

[David Sims]

We definitely covered that. Yes, we did. To the point that I was like, is Wikipedia misleading? No, it's like, is this a broken link?

[Griffin Newman]

Those episodes also led to one of Ben's greatest ideas. A key. Ben should be running Hollywood. Why is he not in every development meeting moment where during Crocodile Dandy in Los Angeles which is based around him having a young son. Ben said, why isn't his son a knife?

[Sean Fantasy]

Just a giant.

[David Sims]

A knife.

[Griffin Newman]

A knife with legs and arms.

[Sean Fantasy]

That sounds like something that Sora can make for you.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. Now easy.

[Griffin Newman]

No, we want that handmade quality.

[David Sims]

I assume Sora is like the new head of AMPAS by this point that it released number four at the box office is a re release of a Disney film. I assume it's Sean's favorite film of all time.

[Sean Fantasy]

I know this as well.

[Griffin Newman]

You assume it's Sean's favorite. So that's a backhanded joke. It's a backhand song of the South.

[David Sims]

There you go.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's right.

[David Sims]

In 1986, Disney decided we need to hear the song again.

[Griffin Newman]

We what?

[Sean Fantasy]

No jokes now, Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

No, this is what I was going to say.

[David Sims]

I've never seen right up didn't tone only seen Zippity Doo Dah which was included on a VHS I've seen that I had that was like a compilation of songs.

[Griffin Newman]

Couch Potato Video had a. And I would say to my parents

[David Sims]

movie and they would be like stop asking.

[Sean Fantasy]

I. I don't know when the Disney Channel started, but I can. I feel pretty confident that we taped this off the Disney. It's probably, you know was still being

[Griffin Newman]

re released in the 80s. Right. It just never got an American home video release.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It did in other countries. I saw a bootleg.

[Sean Fantasy]

It is straight up available to rent at Video Tech on the east side of Los Angeles right now. If you want to See it, I feel like.

[David Sims]

And doing that doesn't put you on any kind of list.

[Sean Fantasy]

I haven't done it, so I wouldn't know. But I'm just telling people that if they would like to, they can.

[Griffin Newman]

Drew McQueenie shared a story recently on Doughboys about Michael Jackson stealing the laserdisc copy. The video store he worked at had. No. I was just gonna say. When I went into my memory palace, I was trying to think of a good example, but the. The fantasy joke set setup of putting. Forcing the opinion on the other person on Mike.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Ben Hosley]

You do.

[David Sims]

You do.

[Griffin Newman]

To Chris, this sort of like cr. Congrats on Jimmy Kimmel getting kicked off the air.

[David Sims]

Finally, you're done.

[Griffin Newman]

For you.

[Sean Fantasy]

Please don't demystify all of my moves. I only have three, so I need you to just keep those tight. Ben, if you could just carve that out, I'd really appreciate it.

[David Sims]

I'm trying to.

[Sean Fantasy]

I've got very little to go on these good moves.

[David Sims]

Number five, the box office. We've also mentioned it won best actor this year. It's a legacy.

[Griffin Newman]

Color money.

[David Sims]

Yep. Which is really good.

[Sean Fantasy]

It is.

[David Sims]

That is a movie that I spent my whole childhood thinking was bad or kind of whatever, because its rep was like, yeah, they gave, you know, Paul Newman an apology Oscar. He had to make a sequel to the Hustler. Marty was. And then you watch it and you're like, better than basically any movie that exists.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's one of the most five star movies I've ever seen.

[Griffin Newman]

I know we've been going for a while, but I now need to ask this question.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

What would Harrison's color of money be? Obviously it's not a literal legacy. Well, because he's done those and those

[David Sims]

are not every legacy available.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not like a sequel. I'm saying, what is the movie that would make them go, we have to give Harrison Ford the office.

[Sean Fantasy]

John Book.

[David Sims]

It's a good point though. Like, bring book back.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm like, what is the type of role? Who would he work with? Is there a, A, an existing figure? A like piece of living room material shrinking the moop?

[Sean Fantasy]

But doesn't it have to be witness because he already played this character.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I'm removing the legacy. I mean, okay, I'm just something else. But I mean, I guess you're talking about him working with a real director on a non Lego sequel thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? He's become the king of the legacy. So I'm putting that aside. I'm more saying the feeling of color money. Coming out and people being like, what are we supposed to do? Not give him the Oscar?

[Sean Fantasy]

I do think that 42 is probably as close as he gets. Yeah, that kind of thing.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like a 20 layer ham sandwich in them.

[David Sims]

And that movie, movie is like just, okay, I'm the president of baseball. President of the Dodgers.

[Griffin Newman]

I expect you to not. I just feel like you weren't that

[David Sims]

locked into the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Branch Ricky, big bushy eyebrows. He's way over the top. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Also the top 10. You've got the Chuck Norris, Lou Gosset film, Firewalker film. I've never seen a canon film. You've got Francis for Copa's, you know, fairly underrated. Peggy Sue Got Married.

[Sean Fantasy]

Married.

[David Sims]

You've got Soul Man, Chris's other. I mean Sean. I called you Chris. Sean's other picture.

[Sean Fantasy]

You were making a joke that I would make a Chris. But of course now I will make it a Griffin, which is of course a movie that you would like to reclaim right now. On the podcast, you.

[Griffin Newman]

Before we recorded, you know, I've been

[Sean Fantasy]

thinking about 1986 and the. The landscape of films and what made me laugh when I first saw it as I was rediscovering.

[David Sims]

They won't let you have a soul man.

[Griffin Newman]

We all know that Paul Newman's story stole C. Thomas Howell's Oscar

[David Sims]

number nine Stand By Me, a film I will admit is sort of similar to the Goonies for me. I have never been able to really get into it.

[Sean Fantasy]

So funny you say that. One of the other podcasts that I did this, the New York Times book podcast and the subject was non horror Stephen King film adaptation.

[David Sims]

Was it with Gilbert?

[Sean Fantasy]

It was with Gilbert.

[David Sims]

I was about to say it was

[Sean Fantasy]

a super fan, of course Gilbert, of the world renowned Stephen King experts and a mutual friend of ours. And Gilbert kind of set up the episode by saying the exact same thing because for me, I don't really care about standby me that much. It's not a big movie for me.

[David Sims]

It's just. Yeah, it's just one of those things where I'm like, well, I wasn't there. I wasn't there for this movie and I wasn't there for the nostalgic era it evokes. I don't think. I think the kids are good in it. Right. And I think it like strikes the correct tone.

[Griffin Newman]

It's definitely generational past those things. I think many people, people our age and younger have claimed it as their own after discovering it for the first time or whatever. Just, yeah, never hit for me.

[David Sims]

Never for me.

[Griffin Newman]

Talk about a River Phoenix, you know, 100 fully happening.

[David Sims]

He's really good in that movie. And then number 10 is Top Gun

[Griffin Newman]

the biggest movie of the year?

[David Sims]

Yep, absolutely.

[Sean Fantasy]

And when this was released, Top gun was number 10 at the box office. Top Gun was released in May.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. It's a different time. We talked about. Made 166 mil domestic at this point.

[Sean Fantasy]

So.

[David Sims]

Yeah, of course Mosquito coast, you would think, made nothing, but actually, you know, it ends up. Well, no. $10 million. It's not very good.

[Sean Fantasy]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

14.

[David Sims]

14 domestic total.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So yeah, pretty bad.

[Griffin Newman]

40.

[David Sims]

No, it costs like 20 something. But still like I think they could not recover coupe money like, you know, which is fine. It's okay. Harrison Ford tended to make really successful films. And Weir goes on from this to Dead Poets. Or is there something in between?

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's Dead Poets.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

So who's doing Dead Poets? Do you guys know.

[David Sims]

It's already been recorded.

[Griffin Newman]

We call that because it's in the can. That's a. That's a spoiler.

[Sean Fantasy]

Is that a big movie for her?

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's a big movie for her. And she went to a boarding school

[Griffin Newman]

like that and wanted to be a part of Poet.

[David Sims]

Really did want to be a poet.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, we get into all of it.

[David Sims]

Okay. We had fun.

[Griffin Newman]

We've been potting so long and.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry, Sean, you have really been subjected to a lot of us this week.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, I know you enjoy it and I've been delighting in it.

[David Sims]

I know you enjoy it, but this is the final of four recordings that I have done with you or Extended universe.

[Sean Fantasy]

Exactly. No, I'm, I'm, I'm very. I hope that your listeners are okay with. With a, A divorced and double exposed Big Picture situation.

[David Sims]

Well, I, I was like thank. This actually is timing out well in that the live episode we did has published and then my episode that I did on Big Picture will come out soon and then these will come out six months later. So it's like, you know, it's not

[Sean Fantasy]

overloading it and then it's Big Picture week on Blank Check and then we gotta. What are you doing next solo?

[Griffin Newman]

That's a good question. Let me, let me get back to you on that.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay. Think about it.

[Griffin Newman]

I might, I might stew on. I might look ahead on the release calendar. But yes, no, there will be a, A back to back Big Picture run on this podcast six months from now.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Want to do a deep dive in the harmony? Corinne? I'm down.

[Sean Fantasy]

Deep dive like, into it. How so How?

[Griffin Newman]

Hall of fame.

[Ben Hosley]

We could just, like, go through the new stuff.

[Sean Fantasy]

Where you at on Kids? I'm obsessed.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I bought him the umbrella.

[David Sims]

The hardback for listeners at home.

[Ben Hosley]

They can't see me, but I'm gyrating.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

On Beach Bum.

[Ben Hosley]

Beach Bum is, like, fun.

[David Sims]

Hasn't stuck with me, though, that one.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, it's. It feels very. Like I've, like, been smoking weed all day and let's, like, let's just hang out.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay, here's the big question. Where are you at on Baby Invasion?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Someone recently, because I was talking on it, I, like, haven't really watched any of his, like, weird VR, AI, whatever.

[David Sims]

Edge Lord.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, exactly. I haven't watched any of it. But someone was like, listen, he's always been a cutting edge filmmaker. Give it a chance. Watch the films. Don't just, like, sure, just don't regurgitate what everyone else is saying.

[David Sims]

But there definitely comes a point where, when, if that's your thing and you're getting older, you might not be able to do it anymore. Like, beyond the cutting edge. Like. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I just might not hit in the same way. It would maybe for someone who's, you know, Gen Z, I do think.

[Sean Fantasy]

I do think that any edgelord production commentary from you guys would be amazing. Amazing.

[David Sims]

My head hurts. Agro Drift. I'm leaving the.

[Sean Fantasy]

Like, I am the world's greatest assassin. Have you seen Seen that?

[David Sims]

I have not.

[Griffin Newman]

If edgelord. If Edge Lord runs its course, soon enough we could just do edgelord as a patreon.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I haven't seen Baby Invasion yet, but I saw Aggro Drift in theaters and it was an experience. It was an experience.

[David Sims]

Very good.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

So Harmony, Corinne, that's what you want to do with love. Okay? Those films are, like, not available.

[David Sims]

Available. Yeah, it's true.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's really hard to touch. A lot of gummo is in the Criterion Collection now, but, you know, Julian, Donkey boy. Where do you get that?

[David Sims]

YouTube, baby.

[Sean Fantasy]

YouTube.

[Griffin Newman]

I bet that has to be coming from someone at some point, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Where's my Dogma box? My Dogma Steel? Dogma 95.

[Sean Fantasy]

Where's my criterion issue?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, well, Dogma. I was gonna say, we know where to buy that Dogma, but Dogma umbrella beanie included. Thank you for being here.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is so fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone should listen to Big Picture and Harmony. Koran month coming to main feed soon.

[Sean Fantasy]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

A true deep dive. But, Ben, solo episodes, we're not going to be on.

[Griffin Newman]

You and Amanda both on vacation Especially in a Rafferty miniseries this year. You let just let Ben go off about Harmony Corinne twice a week for a month.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm just doing Popper. Just rambling.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I'll talk to. I'll talk to Bill Simmons about that.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll say this. This is far off. Can I do the Masters of the Universe episode with you guys?

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, I would love nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

I think we got to do that.

[David Sims]

When is that due out?

[Griffin Newman]

June.

[Sean Fantasy]

That sounds so good.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so let's say that booked. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Dead Poets Society with Nia Costa. Yeah. Queen of the Bone Temple herself. You'll have seen it. You'll have seen it. You'll have moved in in bones. And as always. Am I completely blanking? What are the best bits we've done in this episode? Everyone's just on their laptop now. Everyone's typing.

[David Sims]

Three hours. Come on.

[Ben Hosley]

Our president.

[Griffin Newman]

I hope the listener thinks of me when they're going to the basket.

[David Sims]

There you go. I mean, look, honestly, they do. Cuz it's a podcast and people listen to podcasts while they're peeing.

[Griffin Newman]

It's heard music.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.