We Need To Talk About Kevin with Jia Tolentino

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Guest: Jia Tolentino
Date: February 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims are joined by acclaimed writer and New Yorker staffer Jia Tolentino to discuss Lynne Ramsay’s 2011 film We Need to Talk About Kevin. The trio dives deep into the film’s themes, the book it’s based on, Ramsay’s filmmaking style, the movie’s place in pop culture, and its challenging subject matter of parenthood, evil, and trauma. Throughout, the conversation is shot through with the hosts’ characteristic humor and wide-ranging pop culture references.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Reactions to the Film

• Griffin and David both acknowledge that We Need to Talk About Kevin is their least favorite of Ramsay’s films—while still considering it “very good” — mainly due to its unrelenting bleakness.
• Jia admits she only watched the movie for research, having avoided both the film and the book for years due to their subject matter and author Lionel Shriver’s reputation.

2. Jia's Flight Experience: Double Dose of Kevin

• [03:01] Jia recounts reading the last 100 pages of the novel and then immediately watching the film on a cramped flight, self-consciously “Kev-maxxing” in public:

  “Now’s as good of a time as any to do my rewatch... I opened my laptop and then watched start to finish We Need to Talk About Kevin.”
  (Jia Tolentino, 03:00)

3. The Book vs. the Film

• The novel is described as epistolary—structured as letters from Eva to her husband—which Ramsey adapts into a tight, associative “stream of consciousness” film.
• [35:19] Gia highlights Lynne Ramsay’s script:

  “All of the intrusive thought structure that feels so loose—like it’s unbelievably tight. You can feel where in the script there would be like, ‘this circle is like this circle that evokes this feeling...’"
  (Gia Tolentino, 35:19)

4. Lynne Ramsay’s Adaptation & Filmmaking Style

• The hosts admire Ramsay’s ability to translate internal monologues into purely visual cinema.
• Discussion of Ramsay’s “expressionistic” flourishes, from La Tomatina’s opening (the tomato fight) to color and shape motifs.
• Ramsay’s penchant for tight, impressionistic editing and elliptical narratives.

5. Casting and Performances

Tilda Swinton

• Repeatedly praised for her “Buster Keaton”-esque, almost silent film performance.
• “Her face is incredible in this movie... Her face is like a Gumby.”
  (Gia Tolentino, 52:48)

Ezra Miller as Kevin

• [21:33] Jia confesses she didn’t recognize Miller until after the credits due to her policy of not Googling mid-movie:

  “I’m a huge gossip—but do I ever want to know anything about someone I do not know? Yes. Their personal life? I don’t fucking care.”
  (Jia Tolentino, 22:23)

• David reveals a personal history:

  “I went to summer camp with Ezra. I kind of grew up with Ezra...”
  (David Sims, 24:49)

• Miller’s off-screen controversies are touched on as a darkly ironic post-script to the film.

John C. Reilly

• Cast for "warmth," but the hosts agree his chemistry with Swinton never fully convinces as plausible couple.

6. Nature vs. Nurture, and Parenting Anxiety

• The film is seen less as a treatise on parental guilt and more as a depiction of “anxiety from someone debating becoming a parent.”
• [53:23] Jia describes Kevin as a “malignant baby,” arguing that the child creates the mother as much as the reverse.

  “The child has produced the mom of a school shooter.”

• The group agrees the movie’s intensity comes from the ambiguity and impossibility of knowing the “cause” of Kevin’s evil—nature or nurture.

7. Kevin’s Cartoonish Evil

• The hosts debate whether Kevin’s presentation as pathologically “evil” from birth is too extreme.
• [55:47] Jia:

  “I like the decision that he's unredeemably malignant from literally day one... That Kevin is like that.”

8. Dark Humor & Coping

• The show is leavened by regular injections of black comedy, both in the film and in the podcast discussion.
• [57:04] David:

  “This movie is, like, funny. It is, like, pitch darkly funny.”

9. The “Iconic” Title

• The hosts discuss how “We need to talk about X” has become a pop culture meme.
• [16:09] Gia:

  “I think this is one of the few movies that exists in which the title is more famous than the movie.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On watching difficult films for a podcast:

  “The least pleasant—like the movie I was least in the mood to watch for work, essentially. This is a job of mine.”
  (Griffin Newman, 01:41)

• On Lionel Shriver and controversy:

  “Her name is Margaret Ann Shriver. She's from North Carolina. And she gave herself the name Lionel at 15 because she wanted a tomboyish…”
  (Griffin Newman, 39:03)

• On the “butter” scene in the book:

  “It being Kevin's dick is, quote, purple and gleaming... with what I first assume is KY jelly, but which... is my Land O Lakes unsalted butter.”
  (Gia Tolentino, 38:06)

• On Lynne Ramsay’s career obstacles:

  "Nine years. Yeah. 2002 to 2011 is the break between this and Morvern Callar. But obviously there’s… right, movies in between. There’s stuff to talk about and stuff like that."
  (Griffin Newman, 15:15)

• On the ambiguity of Kevin’s evil:

  “If someone experienced a tragedy like this... they would then look at everything in their life in a completely different way, and it’s completely unreliable.”
  (Griffin Newman, 53:58)

• On why Ramsay’s films are worth watching:

  “She understands how to depict the inner life or the internal subjective, emotional and psychological experience of living through things we just don’t want to fucking think about.”
  (David Sims, 120:20)

• On recommending Ramsay’s films:

  “You kind of know more than most directors who I think direct masterpieces... I would never, like, urge someone to see it who I don't know would—you know what I mean?”
  (Gia Tolentino, 117:46)

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:17] – Griffin and David on initial reactions to the film
• [03:00] – Jia’s airplane “Kev-maxxing” experience
• [06:36] – Discussion of Ramsay’s bravura tomato festival opening
• [10:08] – About Lynne Ramsay’s communication style and Scottish accents
• [24:49] – David’s friendship history with Ezra Miller
• [35:19] – The film’s script and editing style; Daisy-chained stream-of-consciousness
• [52:48] – The “malignant baby” and Swinton’s performance
• [55:46] – Discussion of whether Kevin is too cartoonishly evil
• [57:04] – Affirming the film’s dark, gallows humor
• [120:20] – David’s thesis: Why Ramsay’s films are life-affirming, not just punishing
• [133:05] – The hosts attempt to explain the appeal of Lynne Ramsay’s work for new viewers

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Lynne Ramsay’s Directorial Arc and Hollywood Struggles

• Detailed coverage of Ramsay being hired and dropped from The Lovely Bones, and the difference between her and Peter Jackson’s adaptation instincts ([62:00]).
• The “nine years” between Morvern Callar and Kevin, filled with near-misses and stalled productions.

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Fun Tangents, Running Bits, and Pop Culture Sidebars

• Extended riffs on the memeification of the movie’s title.
• Comparisons of Kevin to “Rosemary’s Baby but with no devil.”
• A playful debate about whether bow and arrow is a “hat on a hat” as Kevin’s murder weapon.
• References to other cultural touchstones—other child-murder movies (e.g., “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”, “Elephant”), pop music, and the Fantastic Beasts franchise (Ezra Miller's "Wizard Kevin").
• Anecdotes about raising children, Lego building, and the British weather ("dreich"), as well as Jia’s grinch-like avoidance of holiday traditions.

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Conclusion

The episode provides a comprehensive and often very funny exploration of We Need to Talk About Kevin, grappling with the movie’s bleakness, style, and pop culture afterlife. Jia Tolentino’s presence amplifies the discussion with insights on the book, parenting, and how films like this (as well as Ramsay’s larger body of work) function as both cathartic and challenging experiences.

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Memorable Closing Segment

• [178:29] – On IMDb’s FAQ for We Need To Talk About Kevin:

  “Is Kevin a psychopath? And the answer is yes.”

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For Further Listening

• Next week’s episode: You Were Never Really Here with Sean Clements

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Summary by [your podcast summarizer] (2026). For detailed show credits, see the Blank Check official website.

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

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

[David Sims]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[Griffin Newman]

All you need to know is that.

[David Sims]

The name of the shadow is Blackjack. It's like this. You wake and you watch podcasts. Get in your car and listen to the podcasts. You go to your little jobs, your little school, but you don't really hear about that on the six o' clock news. Why? Because nothing is really happening. You go home and you watch some more podcasts, and maybe it's a fun night and you go out and you watch a podcast. I mean, it's got so bad that half the people on podcasts inside the podcast, they are listening to podcasts.

[Griffin Newman]

It's tv. Oh, sorry, sorry.

[David Sims]

You're not done, I was gonna say. And what are. What are these people watching podcasts like me? It's tv.

[Griffin Newman]

He's talking.

[David Sims]

Also extends to radio. I was replacing a couple different words there. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Because. Yeah, he also. That's Kevin.

[David Sims]

That's the titular character, Kevin, in a movie that is called we need to Talk about Kevin.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's doing the talking. There you go. Shut up. Usually he's just, you know, jacking it and locking eyes with you or whatever.

[David Sims]

Here's a question.

[Griffin Newman]

I can only defeat this movie with humor or, like, confront this.

[David Sims]

You strongly dislike this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

That's not true. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I. I'm not a huge. It's the only movie of hers that I'm. I'm pretty mixed on.

[David Sims]

It is my least favorite, and I still think it's very good, but I feel like you've always been kind of on it. And then, like, two days ago, you barged into a recording and said, by the way, the belt has been handed over. The number one least pleasant thing I've had to watch movie. I was least interested.

[Griffin Newman]

You can. And guest, please. You can weigh in. But, like, the least pleasant. Like the movie I was least in the mood to watch for work, essentially. This is a job of mine.

[Gia Tolentino]

What can I tell you about when I just rewatched it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, you can. And I think I know this, but.

[Gia Tolentino]

Please, I might have texted you this. So I. I was on the plane to Sundance, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna read the book. Cause I've actually never read a Lionel Shriver book because of her personality and normal.

[David Sims]

You mean normal.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, like. Like most people. I've never read a Lionel Shriver book. And. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna Read it. Cause I was curious. I mean. Cause I. I had been thinking about Lynn Ramsey because I had profiled Jennifer Lawrence or Die My Love.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is why you're here.

[Gia Tolentino]

Which is why I'm here. Because I was texted David, and I was like, have y' all done Lynn Ramsey yet?

[David Sims]

And he was like, you're the only person who's ever asked that question versus us announcing we're doing Lynn Ramsey and me getting 800 texts. Why are you guys doing Lynn Ramsey?

[Gia Tolentino]

No, I actually am curious. Is this is your least favorite, including Die My Love? Like, are we saying least favorite? Or you think, like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I think I prefer D My Love to this is My Die, My Love would probably be second least not to preview.

[Gia Tolentino]

Would you? You don't think this movie is better than D My Love?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't, really.

[David Sims]

I need to rewatch. It's obviously the freshest, and I've only seen it the one time, and I will be rewatching it shortly.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, it'.

[David Sims]

It's these two at the bottom position for me. But I basically think she's only made great films. Like, that's my opinion.

[Gia Tolentino]

I agree.

[David Sims]

I'm like, this. The. Maybe the least masterful of her. Masterful.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think it's so good. But I hate it. Because it's Kevin.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like, it's because we have to look at Kevin.

[David Sims]

The whole time I've been making the argument throughout this miniseries, trying to console listeners who are perhaps scared by the idea of engaging with these movies.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, they're so good that they are.

[David Sims]

Not as punishing as they might sound if you read a synopsis.

[Gia Tolentino]

No, this movie. I had no interest in watching this movie. I never seen it before researching this profile. But anyway, so I was on the plane to Sundance, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna prep for the podcast. I'm gonna read. We need to talk about Kevin. And I had been reading it at home, and I was hoping to finish it before I left. I had, like, a hundred pages go. I was like, okay, take it on the plane. So I get in the plane. It's a middle seat because I had rearranged my flight for the snowstorm. Settle into my middle seat, pull out my book. We need to talk about Kevin. Read the last hundred pages. Shut it. And I was like, well, now's as good of a time as any to do my rewatch. So I opened my laptop and then watch start to finish. We need to talk about Kevin.

[David Sims]

So deep in it.

[Gia Tolentino]

And I was like. So, like, I was like, a little.

[Griffin Newman]

Embarrassed anyone's clocking you do this.

[David Sims]

You were Kev maxing and like the.

[Gia Tolentino]

Girl next to me was talking to her like the girl across the aisle. They're really good friends. And I was like, they probably like are going to get on flight. They're like. Did you notice what that.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

So I was so. I was so self conscious.

[David Sims]

What she does like every day, she rereads the book and then rewatches the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just your plane.

[Gia Tolentino]

She stimming like. Is this like, just. Did she need to do this?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The only. You know, it's how I combat my plane anxiety is I just. Right. I just squeeze Kevin into the brain.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's a really.

[Griffin Newman]

However bad things could be multimedia, it.

[David Sims]

Could always be worse.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's one of the worst movies to watch with people laughing. Absolutely one inch from you. I was gonna say this is the one scene. I mean every scene.

[Griffin Newman]

Many pooping in a diaper scene, the blowjob poop scene. That one. I swear to God, this is the.

[David Sims]

One that feels a little punishing, in my opinion. I love it. But it is the one movie that's kind of rubbing your nose in it a little bit.

[Gia Tolentino]

100% right. Much like Kevin does.

[David Sims]

Kevin does. The movie treats you the way Kevin treats his mother. But you were not crazy about this when it came out previously. Our Part 10 Wook series, which has a lot of child murder, was one where you were really kind of on edge.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That was. Which is so funny because I re. I think I said this at the time.

[Gia Tolentino]

There's a lot of child murder. I listened to the fair amount of.

[Griffin Newman]

His movies, especially the Vengeance movies. I mean, it's especially Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance revolves around the death of a child. And then Lady Vengeance.

[Gia Tolentino]

No, Lady Vengeance is a film one. I can never watch that one.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Those are the two.

[David Sims]

That was the one that I feel like broke you and has held the belt exactly since then.

[Griffin Newman]

Where it's just, you know, it's not so much like I have no problem engaging with incredibly challenging work. It's a little bit more like when it's like, fuck, I need to squeeze this into my schedule because I got to record on this.

[David Sims]

When am I going to be kind.

[Griffin Newman]

Of like, unfortunately, mood or no time for me to think and talk about.

[David Sims]

We regret to inform you it is time to talk about.

[Griffin Newman]

And sometimes, of course, my wife is sitting in the bed next to me being like, what have you put on our television? Like, what on earth?

[David Sims]

This movie is also so like expressionistic that it is a thing where, like, if you're watching it over your husband's shoulder in bed, or you're sitting next to on a plane, like, the first.

[Gia Tolentino]

Scene with the squirming tomato, three seconds.

[David Sims]

It'S like, what the are you watching?

[Griffin Newman]

Which is, of course, she's such a great conjurer.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's actually when. As soon as the, as soon as the squirming tomato, like, it's like one of the most joyful scenes in the entire movie is like thousands of bodies squirming in tomato flesh, you know, and it really sets the bar for, like, this is what joy is going to look like, is squirming tomato flesh. But it was so beautiful that I was like, actually, I think I'm going to like this movie despite having never wanted to watch it.

[Griffin Newman]

The beginning is so fucking good. She's such a good filmmaker. It's La Tomatina. That's what it is.

[David Sims]

That's the name of the festival.

[Griffin Newman]

It's in Spain. It's the biggest food fight in the world. You know, you get in your swimwear or your undies, and you throw tomatoes at each other.

[David Sims]

Is it tomatoes only, though?

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's, I mean, I think.

[Gia Tolentino]

People sneak some other stuff in there.

[Griffin Newman]

I brought a pepper.

[Gia Tolentino]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

No one's gonna notice.

[Gia Tolentino]

I like Murder at the La Tomatina was kind of a good.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I know, right? Like, it's like, oh, this guy. This guy's been bleeding the whole time.

[David Sims]

Make a great, like, giallo film. Yeah, I, I, I like that in the grocery store scene where you see her, like, framed by the wall of tomato sauce cans. It's Ma Ramsey's tomato sauce, huh?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Now that's a reference to Lynn Ramsey.

[David Sims]

Lynn Ramsey, director and writer of this picture.

[Griffin Newman]

Did Ma Raine. I don't understand. I mean, like, it's just made it.

[David Sims]

Her own sauce, you know what I'm saying?

[Griffin Newman]

Sort of fun. Sort of Tarantino.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just fun.

[Gia Tolentino]

Okay, There you go.

[David Sims]

She's.

[Griffin Newman]

She's fun. Did you talk to her? We'll talk about it.

[Gia Tolentino]

I did. I did talk to her. I talked to her. And afterwards, I mean, I, you know, I hope this doesn't come off anti Scottish, you know, but I couldn't understand a word she said, and so I was trying.

[Griffin Newman]

You're on the phone, I assume?

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, but I needed an interpreter, and I didn't have one, so I was just saying, oh, you're fighting for your life.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's fascinating.

[David Sims]

Oh, my God.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like, could you say more about that? Like, I've always wondered. And I was. I was totally blind by the end. I had no idea.

[David Sims]

Did you have to, like. Like, feed, like, the dictation into Babelfish?

[Gia Tolentino]

It was so quick, and the connection was so bad. Like, she was like, we were on a bad connection, plus the accent, plus she's a quick, you know, discursive talker. And. And at the end, I was like, okay. You know, shamefully, the only use of AI in my life is, like, I use AI transcription. But I was like, I actually think AI. I was like, would a human or would AI transition?

[Griffin Newman]

Who's more up to the task here?

[Gia Tolentino]

And I was like, actually, I always do human. I often do human as a backup for anything important, obviously. And. And I was like, actually, I think AI is better equipped to do the pattern recognition. Like, unless, like, a human is, you.

[Griffin Newman]

Know, Scottish or has an ear for it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, at the. Like, when I had to give it to the. Like, when the New Yorker fact checker was like, okay, I need the transcript. I need the audio. I was like, do we know anyone? Do we know anyone that is fab?

[David Sims]

Is Fat Bastard still freelance?

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah. We doing this miniseries, have discovered that we have more Scottish listeners than I would have thought who have all been coming out of the woodwork and saying, let me check my notes here. Really kind things about our accent attempts, but also that they're like, the guys keep talking about how hard it is to parse out the dialogue in these movies and needing to watch it with subtitles. Like, are they overselling this? Like, what are they talking about? I just want to restate when Rat Catcher was released theatrically in the United States of America, subtitles burned in. The distributor made that decision. There was no option to watch it without subtitles in America, for sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And, yeah, I mean, look, I went to school in Newcastle. I dated a Scottish person. I have an ear for a Scottish accent. It's tougher on the phone. And I'm rusty, obviously. But now I want the challenge Now I want to talk to Lynn and be like, how'd I do with her?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. I don't know. She seems like a very interesting person to talk to.

[David Sims]

You need to talk to Lyn?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I don't think so. What's her plan?

[Gia Tolentino]

She didn't have kids. She didn't become a mother till after Kevin Wild.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow. Sure. She has one kid, right? With her with her. Her co. Screenwriter Rory on this film.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Gia Tolentino]

Wild. You write this movie and you're like, yeah, let's move to Greece and have a baby.

[David Sims]

Well, okay. I mean, interesting pin in that. It does feed a little bit into my read of this movie. This movie feels like a film of anxiety from someone debating becoming a parent more than it is a film about the experience of being a parent, in my opinion.

[Gia Tolentino]

But all of her movies, right? Like all of her movies are about innocence kind of. Right. Like all of. And. And. And they're pinned on children, right? Like Ratcatcher, the Joaquin. We were never really here.

[Griffin Newman]

This d Love. Yeah. Morvern is the least. And even that, she's a fairly.

[David Sims]

She's young and she is kind of an innocent creature in a way, playing with the tension of. Is she an innocent?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, she does chop her boyfriend up, but he already was dead.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

So you know what I always get? I forget. She chopped the boyfriend up.

[Griffin Newman]

He's gotta go somewhere.

[Gia Tolentino]

Look at this beautiful road movie. What? Chopping like.

[David Sims]

You know, here's the thing I didn't bring up in the episode. Do you think Robert Durst got his. His the Jinx Defense from Scottish cinema? But do you remember in the drinks, he's like his landlord, his downstairs landlord at, like, the place he lives when he's on the run and is, like, pretending to be an old woman, they, like, find the garbage bags of the separate body parts chopped up. And they were like, so you killed him? And he's like, no, I just chopped them up. And you're like, so how was he dead? And it was like he shot himself in front of me. And then I took out a saw and I chopped them up and I put it in separate bags. And they were like, why would you do that? And his response was like, I'm standing here, I'm a fugitive. There's a dead body. What else am I gonna do?

[Gia Tolentino]

He's like, you ever seen Morvern Collar?

[David Sims]

Right. It kind of felt like a. Hard to fit it into a rubbish.

[Gia Tolentino]

I have one important thing to say about Morven caller. You know the week between Christmas and New Year's? I haven't listened to the worst.

[Griffin Newman]

You mean the worst week of the. In the world, if you're apparent. Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

I've got an annual group. Well, yes. We can't even go there. We can't even go there. But I have a group chat that is only active that week every year called Crimbo Limbo, which is, I think, a really good name for the Year. And then this year, my friend Emmy brought up that. That Morvin Colors is in that week. It's a Crimbo. Crimbo Limbo movie.

[David Sims]

No, like a great take.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. Like, there's not that many movies. Like, it's really ripe space for weird things to happen and more movies where things get chopped up might exist in Crimbo Limbo. Yeah. Just. Just throwing that out there.

[Griffin Newman]

It truly my Crimbo limbo this year was. Yes, Was. Was quite disassociative, to use a word.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think anything can happen, even.

[David Sims]

Even son's kids. I think it's just a terrible time.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, there's nothing.

[David Sims]

There's a dog.

[Griffin Newman]

What's the plan?

[David Sims]

Get this over with.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

You might as well go to another country. Everything behind, you know, the vibe is.

[Griffin Newman]

To travel and then disassociate, like on a beach.

[David Sims]

Right. But that's. But the point. Point is you need somewhere different. You're gonna be disassociated.

[Griffin Newman]

You're not gonna be like, you know what? It's time for me to roll up my sleeves and get everything done.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

What? It says get out of your apartment during Crimbo Limbo.

[Griffin Newman]

Limbo. I didn't.

[David Sims]

I distinctly remember, like, being five or six and. And my parents having to explain to me that there was actually a week between Christmas and New Year's. And I was like, why would there be? That's a good question.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw a question.

[David Sims]

Doesn't it just go from, like, 25 to 1?

[Griffin Newman]

Why not just wrap the year December 26th?

[David Sims]

Truly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, let's just. And instead. And for me, New year's Eve was January 4th. I don't know about you, but, like, when New Year's Eve happened, I was like, who cares? There's still five more days of this fucking break. January 4th. I was like, my kid's going to school tomorrow. We're done. The new year begins. Like, we're half. Things are happening.

[David Sims]

I'm ready to talk about Kevin. Come on, let's get things going. Our podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am David.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, fuck. I'm really off, guys. I was late. I had a whole city bike thing happened. New York down a. Yeah. You know, Mediterranean taqueria, but kind of hits, right. Oh, it's so good. That's my new spot.

[David Sims]

A new. A new work lunch spot. Yeah. David. Yes. Came in very frazzled. Still wet from swimming.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. You know.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, exercise.

[David Sims]

Having dug a city bike out of.

[Griffin Newman]

The snow, then dug it back in.

[David Sims]

Yes. That's the real problem. I'm Griffin.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm David.

[David Sims]

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers or make a couple well regarded European art houses film.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure, right.

[David Sims]

And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, kind of. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a very important turning point film in her career. But more than that, this episode is an opportunity to talk about a really weird period in her career surrounding and leading up to this movie. Because it's nine years in between films.

[Griffin Newman]

Nine years. Yeah. 2002 to 2011 is the break between this and Morven Color. But obviously there's. Right. Movies in between. There's stuff to talk about and stuff like that.

[David Sims]

Yes, we're talking about the films of Lynne Ramsey. It's a miniseries called we need to Pod about Cask Finn. And today we are talking about. We need to talk about Kevin. Now here's a big question. Is this the first movie we've covered where the title is bigger than the film?

[Griffin Newman]

The title is.

[David Sims]

I feel like we've talked about certain movies where it's like, oh, people forget that like Teenage Dirtbag is from Loser. That music video is bigger than the.

[Griffin Newman]

Like that we need to talk about. X has just become. Yeah. Like a phrase people use all the time. Yes, I guess I know what you mean.

[David Sims]

You know, and sometimes you're like, this meme is like, like Jeremiah Johnson is more known as the. The Nodding Gift than as a movie as a whole at this point.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think this is one of the few movies that exists in which the title is more famous than the movie.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like, it's like there aren't.

[David Sims]

There are very few examples in history.

[Gia Tolentino]

Where everyone knows the phrase.

[Griffin Newman]

Had no one used it before. Did Lionel.

[Gia Tolentino]

What do you mean?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, obviously people have said to each other at times like, we. But like, did Lionel Shriver, genius that she is, think of this.

[Gia Tolentino]

The book became a bestseller. And I think the title became memed, fundamentally pre meme terminology, because the novel was.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh 3. I was in high school. I remember because it was a big hit in Britain because it won The Orange Prize.

[David Sims]

Movies 11.

[Gia Tolentino]

And then it became kind of like the kind of book that when I was an elementary school student and I was at like Walmart and my mom needed to buy a fridge, I would sit down in the, like, Oprah's Book Club, you know, bestseller aisle and I would read this sort of weirdly commercial literary fiction that's what it was.

[David Sims]

It was like, become popular.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah. That always involved violence or sexual abuse.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It had feet into that. And that was an especially a thing when I was a teenager. Those books that were like. You're like, what's it about? It's like, well, a person whose parents were horrible to him, you're like, that's the whole book. And they're like, yeah, yeah, that's the whole fucking book.

[Gia Tolentino]

You just called it She's Come Undone.

[Griffin Newman]

A Child called it. That's the one I'm thinking of. Right.

[David Sims]

And you're like, is it biography? And the answer is kind of sure, maybe. Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

They're like on the shelf next to, like, Jewel's poetry book, A Night Without Armor, you know, and it's just like, this was what we were doing then.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, what Jewel was up to, though, living in that boat.

[David Sims]

It is interesting that that is such a, like, fertile commercial area.

[Gia Tolentino]

SVU core, kind of. It's right, yes.

[David Sims]

But then, like, when you pitch a movie like this, people are like, why the fuck would I sit down for two hours and watch that? Like, people want to read 20 pages at a time over weeks or months and selectively, like, dip in and dip out.

[Gia Tolentino]

Was this movie successful?

[Griffin Newman]

I would say for a movie about a mass murder of children, it was pretty successful. And for a movie directed by Lynne Ramsey, it was pretty successful.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is this your most commercially successful film?

[David Sims]

Dye My Love, I think outgrows this.

[Griffin Newman]

But also Die My Love might have outgrow it through sheer force of, like, they just put it on so many screens, made people so angry. I mean, it made this made $10.

[David Sims]

Million worldwide, but it made much more overseas than here. It was an oscilloscope film. Who's a distributor, I love, but is very small, and this was sort of the biggest film they had had up until that point.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say it made 500 grand more than Die, My Love did worldwide.

[David Sims]

Wow. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

That's how bad. Die, My Love.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

God bless movies, Attempt to show it to the masses there. But how bad that did.

[David Sims]

But I think oscilloscope getting this movie over $1 million domestic was seen as like, they broke through their own glass ceiling.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, yeah, and this was a movie that got a genuine Oscar buzz. Got precursor. You know, she got Tilda got every.

[David Sims]

Precursor until the Oscar.

[Griffin Newman]

She didn't get the Oscar nom. She got beaten out. I think that was the year where I guess, honestly, I guess it's Rooney Mara kind of sneaks by her at the end from Dragon.

[David Sims]

That was Seen as kind of a dead campaign.

[Griffin Newman]

You were never really here. Made 10.8 million worldwide, which is 100,000 more. So that's kind of. Her ceiling is 10. Yeah, she makes. But then, like, she's 10.

[David Sims]

But, like, domestic is only master phases. Yeah, they're masterpieces, but they're good.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And they do get a lot of critical discussion.

[David Sims]

And a listers want to work with her people.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Good actors want to work with her. And I imagine this one had a decent tale on, like, at home viewing because, like, people like this creature, there.

[David Sims]

Was a stickiness to it.

[Griffin Newman]

Even though this movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

Funniest movie.

[David Sims]

See, Interesting. I. Huh.

[Griffin Newman]

Now that's a really interesting. Morvern collar is pretty funny at times.

[Gia Tolentino]

Morvern color is fine. I think the Dye My Love.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Die My Love is pretty funny.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think Dye My love is funny.

[David Sims]

JLo's got, like, bits in it.

[Griffin Newman]

JL has such great comic energy. Right? Like, even. And so, like, the, like, where she just starts taking her clothes off when, like, the suburban mom's trying to talk. The.

[David Sims]

Yeah, wherever the.

[Griffin Newman]

Like. That's funny.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess a lot of D I love is her, like, throwing herself through plate glasses.

[Gia Tolentino]

No, that part's really funny. Are you kidding me? That part's so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, all the of just them, like, crawling towards each other with knives, and they're like, isn't there a baby over there? And the baby's like, I'm over here.

[Gia Tolentino]

Movie's funny for a different reason, though, right? It's like the. Like Tilda's. She's so dead. The way she plays it is so funny, in my opinion.

[David Sims]

Our guest today is Gia Tolentino.

[Gia Tolentino]

Hello.

[Griffin Newman]

How are you doing?

[David Sims]

So happy to have you. Honored. Privileged to have you here. Long time, Long time.

[Gia Tolentino]

Listener.

[David Sims]

You are a fan of your work. We found a quote in something else leading up to this episode that told us. Witten said she felt like this was her opportunity to give her Buster Keaton performance.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, my God.

[Griffin Newman]

That is very. That's.

[David Sims]

I think it was a quote JJ sent me. Maybe he text.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, it might be a texture, but.

[David Sims]

But it. She was just like, I'm gonna try playing as still as possible against the chaos of what's happening against me. And Buster Keaton is the image I have in my mind, and I'm going for funny.

[Griffin Newman]

The British tagline, by the way, is Mummy's little monster. That is the British tagline.

[David Sims]

Is it spelled M U N?

[Griffin Newman]

M U M? No.

[Gia Tolentino]

Little monster.

[Griffin Newman]

It is not about mommy's little Monster. If he was just dressing up like a Frankenstein. Yeah. And reciting sitcom one liners, I would have no concerns about him.

[David Sims]

If he was a little monster.

[Griffin Newman]

If he was just a little monster.

[Gia Tolentino]

You guys, can I tell you something? When I watched this movie for the first time, again, which was pretty recently, I did not know. I've been trying to break myself of the habit of IMD being like, every single thing in the middle of the movie, which is so hard to do. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it with, with these Lynn Ramsey movies when I'm rewatching them or watching them for the first time. And I did not know till the movie was over that this was Ezra Miller.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, that's so, so is that because Ezra Miller is just not really, like.

[David Sims]

Face you see a lot. Ezra Miller, object.

[Gia Tolentino]

So I have, I have a.

[Griffin Newman]

You're not a DC Universe viewer.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And you probably never met the fantastic beast.

[Gia Tolentino]

I love to.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You're not a Scamander head.

[Gia Tolentino]

I love to not know. You know, like, I would say, like, in general, like, you know, epistemologically, like, I simply love to not know. And, and so it's like, I love when things are none of my business and like, and often franchises are simply none of my business.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, and Ezra Miller pivoted pretty much straight to stuff that is not your business.

[Gia Tolentino]

And I remember, like, and often, like, and celebrity, like the celebrity news. Knowing I love. I'm a gossip. Like, like every, you know, journalist, whatever. Like, I'm a huge gossip. I love to know stuff about people I know or that I kind of know. But do I never want to know anything about someone I do not know? Yes. Their personal life. I don't fucking care.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, so you're right. You're not someone who cares about celeb gossip?

[Gia Tolentino]

Like, oh, only, Only non. Well, but, but that it's, you know, it's, that's why it's so existentially. It's inherently meaningless. It's all inherently meaningless. And, and when, when celebrities are thems and people, it's, this is because, like, as, when I first started hearing about Ezra Miller, I learned about them as the allegations of violence and abuse were coming out. And I was like, this is my.

[Griffin Newman]

Business and it's not a great way to first be.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. And I was like, I don't need to know what they're up to. This is just none of my business. And so I, I just deliberately was like, I, I, I will not learn about this story or this person. And Then. And then I was like, oh, oh, it was. It was all real.

[David Sims]

It is such a big part of this movie's weird legacy where you're like, okay, so there's the memeability of the title and then there's like eight years after the movie. It feels like now there's like a second screened experience. There's like an augmented reality game happening in our universe where the actor who played Kevin is doing Kevin esque shit, which was so bizarre. And I think, like, put more attention on the movie previously. But it also speaks to the weird arc of Ezra's career, which is like, you know, a sort of, like, building steam of stuff. But then this feels like the movie where in a very Zack Snydery move, he watches a very intense drama about, like a psychopathic teenager and is like, that's my Flash. The funny guy. Like, in the whole defining of the Snyder aesthetic is like, these are serious.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. I need. I need very, very serious way. I mean, because the Ezra Miller. It's this. I know Ezra had done a couple things before this, but nothing does Perks.

[David Sims]

Of Being a Wallflower come out after.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the year after. Right. Which is, I guess, sort of the more gentle emo side of this young teen actor who's, like, so pretty and like, like, has, like.

[David Sims]

After School is the debut film, the Antonio Campos movie, which is a similarly intense film.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, right. I've never seen.

[David Sims]

I will say for our listeners and also for Gia, because this does need to be acknowledged, please. I went to summer camp with Ezra. I kind of grew up with Ezra. I was very close with Ezra for a number of years. We were on a SK comedy and improv teams together.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're in a great and very.

[David Sims]

Widely seen film in one of the sort of. Ezra Miller is on the movie Star Trek films called Beware the Gonzo. That is a quite bad teen comedy in which I played a character named Horny Rob and Ezra played Eddie Gonzo Gilman, the gonzo character.

[Gia Tolentino]

Gonzo, Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, like, look.

[David Sims]

But Zoe Kravitz was in it as.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, and Jesse McCartney.

[David Sims]

A lot of people were in.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is that the movie where they started dating?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

Gotcha.

[David Sims]

Yes. A lot of Colby Minfi, a lot of great actors. That's like an early role for them. One of his first roles plays one of Ezra's parents. So it's like a thing when we started this podcast that I would evoke, especially when Ezra would come up and we were like, covering the DC films and such. I have not spoken to ezra in like 10 years. And there is this weird kind of almost disassociative thing of like you can know someone, have them become famous and stay in touch with them, and it feels like you're adapting to their reality shifting. Right. Like they change the way other people perceives them. Perceive them changes. But you're still kind of like in the narrative you can meet very famous people who to you feel abstracted as icons and then get to know them as a person and be like, oh, now you're like humanized to me. But to have someone who you did know very closely for a while then become very famous at the point that you sort of lose contact with them, which was not, you know, like any dramatic split off, but at the point that the public kind of spiral is happening. I have not spoken to Ezra in years and I'm reading the news as if it's just a person. It almost like doesn't bear, yeah, sure, a resemblance to the person I knew. And it also was this weird byproduct of like, this movie is such a flashy statement. Zack Snyder says you Warner Brothers, as often happens when a studio casts a on the rise person in a big franchise role, they're like, we're going to tie you down to two other things. So it's like Ezra's the Flash and Ezra's also this developing villain across the Fantastic Beasts movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Ezra did three Fantastic Beasts movies of which.

[Gia Tolentino]

And then they're a villain.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's sort of like the tragic. I mean, those movies are not.

[David Sims]

It's a bit like Wizard Kevin, honestly.

[Griffin Newman]

Wizard Kevin? Yes. But it's like, what's up with this weird kid? And it's like, turns out there's like a magic cloud inside him of his emotions.

[David Sims]

But it also felt like they were true.

[Gia Tolentino]

Those movies are bad though. Should I. Super high horrendous.

[David Sims]

It felt like they were also going for a cool.

[Griffin Newman]

For me, if you get high and watch them, you will fall asleep right away and have.

[Gia Tolentino]

I could do that too.

[Griffin Newman]

Sweet dreamless sleep. I say what it is.

[David Sims]

There's confidence. What you should do is get high and read the Wikipedia synopses and then that is it. That's.

[Gia Tolentino]

That'll do.

[David Sims]

Watching them is a worst experience. But it's like a Wizard Kevin who then also has like wizard Kylo Ren.

[Griffin Newman]

Like is.

[David Sims]

Is he gonna be redeemed character?

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Because he's like the character Credence Barebone.

[Gia Tolentino]

I believe Barebone.

[David Sims]

And his mother is Credence Samantha Morton Morvin Keller herself.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

But she's his adoptive mother.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Cuz she's sort of like a. A Bible beating type. Like, the whole thing is that it's all like religious repression has made Credence.

[Gia Tolentino]

Credence religious repression. Like Christian religious.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Because you know what J.K. rowling's like. Like, she identifies these villains.

[Gia Tolentino]

There's religion in the Harry Potter universe.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

She's very world.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, so it's taking place in the Muggle world.

[David Sims]

And the Fantastic Beast movies take place during like the Great Depression. Are they the.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't make me once again go deep on these.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The first one, the whole joke that I as a right. Like, you know, when these were announced, where they were like, fantastic Beasts has been announced and it will build to the big battle between Grindelwald and Dumbledore.

[David Sims]

Well, that was the later announcement.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, but like, they're sort of like, that's vaguely the idea maybe, you know, and you're like, oh, okay. And that's in like the 1945. The idea is that it's like World War II. And they're like, anyway, the first movie is 1926. And I'm like, how long is this planned?

[David Sims]

It was also when it was announced, people were like, oh, fun. A standalone story in the Harry Potter universe.

[Griffin Newman]

We're pretending it wasn't.

[David Sims]

Right before it came out, J.K. rowling was like, actually, it's a five movie saga. That takes you right up to the starting five movie.

[Griffin Newman]

They made three and ran out of.

[David Sims]

At one point she was upping to six and they were like, how about the last one was the one you just made?

[Gia Tolentino]

Credence Barebone. That's like a blues singer name. That's great. That's good.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know if you know this, but JK Rowling is famously, horrendously just like Cho Chang being the most iconic version of that. But Credence Barebone is another one. I feel like she spent two minutes.

[David Sims]

Menorah.

[Gia Tolentino]

Isn't that the Jewish Samantha Morton?

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Gia Tolentino]

The Lynn Ramsey universe.

[David Sims]

I mean, like, great cast in that movie. It's so boring. But here are these, like, big Warner Brothers movies that all have, like, productions that will last a year in foreign countries. And even though none of these movies are like Ezra vehicles, they've basically like, tied Ezra down for the better part of a decade.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

No other movie shuttling, like, off the Grid.

[Griffin Newman]

Flash Credence. Flash Credence.

[Gia Tolentino]

Except I'm sure y' all saw, I guess Ezra was doing like, at a Die My Love premiere and gave the Thing about how they're working on a.

[Griffin Newman]

They claim they're working on a movie.

[David Sims]

With Lynn Ramsay together. Ezra has a small part in the Mary Heron Salvador Dali movie Little Ashes, where I believe Ezra plays young Salvador Dali, but most of the movie is Ben Kingsley.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[David Sims]

And there was a Stanford prison experiment movie with a bunch of young guys in it.

[Griffin Newman]

That's from 2015. That's a long time ago.

[David Sims]

I'm just saying within, like. I'm saying.

[Gia Tolentino]

What?

[David Sims]

Heaven. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And apart from that, just a train wreck. Right. Ezra is in train wreck.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't remember.

[David Sims]

Ezra plays the kind of, like, young, pretty assistant at the magazine who Amy Schumer tries to have an affair with and then finds out is, like, 15 years old. But, yeah, it was like. The industry was like, Warner Brothers is betting hundreds of millions of dollars on this being a star. And the public had so little relationship to them outside of, like. Like, tumblers that were obsessed with Ezra's bone structure.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right. Which is unbelievable.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Gia Tolentino]

Unbelievable.

[David Sims]

But it was a lot of striking, and it was a lot of.

[Gia Tolentino]

So pretty.

[David Sims]

It was a lot of, like, this movie where it's like. Well, there's like, a pretty astonishing level of intensity here. And then Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I think is Ezra's best performance and is the one where there's, like, a good balance of. Of humor and pain and feeling and what have you. That's the one that I felt.

[Griffin Newman]

Anyway, the thing about this movie is. And we were talking about this with Drew McQueenie, like, there's actually a lot less Ezra than you remember. It's more just, like, a striking performance, obviously, when as. But a lot of. It's the Little Kevin.

[Gia Tolentino]

The Little Kevins are.

[David Sims]

I mean, this is.

[Gia Tolentino]

Gotta talk about these little Kevin more than. We gotta talk about the little.

[David Sims]

My second piece of necessary airing of context for the movie is like, I auditioned for this movie, like, four.

[Griffin Newman]

Four times to play Kevin. Sure.

[David Sims]

And speaking to how much less teen Kevin there is than you think, anytime I watch a movie that I auditioned for over a decade ago, there was the weird thing where every line of dialogue comes back to me. You know, back when I was diligent, would be off book for auditions when I gave a shit, and it'll, like, come back where I'm like, oh, right. At one point, I knew all of this, and I knew the queue lines and whatever.

[Gia Tolentino]

Do you remember any, like, what was the most intense of the sides?

[David Sims]

Well, what I was gonna say is I auditioned so many times that I kept Hitting different scenes. And I think I basically did the whole thing, did every one of these scenes for Lynn Ramsey. Because in my memory, I think I did two auditions with Casting and then two with her and Kinnear. What's his name?

[Gia Tolentino]

Rory.

[Griffin Newman]

Rory Stewart.

[Gia Tolentino]

Kieran.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That's why I was doubting myself. And every one of the Team Kevin scenes, I had some memory of how I played it. Wow, Maybe I'm misremembering, but it also speaks to, like, that in reality, it's like five dialogues.

[Griffin Newman]

So they were like, jerk off and lock eyes like that.

[David Sims]

But I did like, the TV monologue. I did the final speech at the.

[Griffin Newman]

End the right way, where you're like, I don't know why I did it.

[David Sims]

Or right, right at the diner, trying to connect over, like, you know, who your crush is or whatever. Like, I just remember doing all of them. But I. I read this script and was, like, young and. And hadn't read that many scripts. Had seen Ratcatcher, but also, like, hadn't seen Morvern Keller at this point. This person hasn't made a movie in, like, close to 10 years. I read the script. I'm like, the fuck is this? Because it's written in, like, visuals where some of it felt like bad poetry. And I was like, well, this feels like the worst student film scripts I read where people are too in love with the idea of the images they have in their head. How will this work? But then when I got to the dialogue scenes, I thought they were so funny and engaging and I was, like, interested. And then meeting her, I found her so funny and so collaborative and so loose, where I was like, fuck, this person rules. And then saw the movie and was like, it is almost exactly what she wrote. In a way where movies like this sometimes shoot with a very traditional script. And then they do a bunch of B roll shooting. And then in the edit, they construct it however they want. The structure of this in my memory, and I couldn't find the PDF. Was this on paper?

[Griffin Newman]

I believe it.

[David Sims]

It opens.

[Griffin Newman]

That's how she works.

[David Sims]

Four pages of describing the tomato festival. Yeah, truly. And like, you know, explaining what the visual metaphors are, which, on paper, makes it feel clunky because you're like, don't explain the metaphor to me. But also it's like, she's going, this is the movie I want to make. If you want to give me money to make it, I'm going to shoot it exactly like this. And this is why, like, in retrospect, I now, having read a bunch of other scripts understand It's a really fucking good blueprint of making sure your vision is inarguable on paper.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, I was. When I was rewatching it, I feel like this is. It's one of the tightest sort of the stream of consciousness. Like everything is Daisy chained really, really closely scene to scene. Like there's no every associative link. All of the intrusive thought structure that feels so loose, like it's unbelievably tight. You can feel where in the script there would be like this circle is like this circle that evokes this feeling, that twist, that feeling that's.

[David Sims]

It would literally say like. And then we like push in on a circle cut to an egg is the same shape as the object we've just seen. You can feel it.

[Gia Tolentino]

And I think it has to be that tight. Otherwise like the movie would be annoying. Almost like it. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You've read the book?

[Gia Tolentino]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The book doesn't have that vibe.

[David Sims]

The book is all letters. Right.

[Gia Tolentino]

So.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It's sort of epistolary.

[Gia Tolentino]

I was curious, but I had been curious about the book when I was. Because I. I think it's interesting that Lynn adapt like all of her movies have been out of favor.

[Griffin Newman]

She usually is working off a book. Often it's something you haven't heard of. But then of course the like the Lovely Bones is the other book around this time and we'll talk about it where you're like. Right, a book that was sort of like high brow trash.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, that's the other one.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. But like clearly she saw like. Well, I know what I mean. Would make this look like on screen.

[David Sims]

She makes very specific personal adaptations of books that aren't like the obvious literal screaming out.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right. And this book I think seemed to me like it was, you know, it's. Yeah, it's epistolary. It's written to. It's written to Franklin, the husband. Yes, it's. It's the.

[David Sims]

Who doesn't die in the book?

[Gia Tolentino]

No. Who does. But you don't find that out till. Till two thirds towards the end. You find out that he's dead sooner than you find. It's not the punch that it is in the movie. But you're writing to Franklin. You think that he has custody of Celia and they've just been separated. And then you find out like yeah, maybe 2/3 of the way through. And it's her. It is non chronological in that she's thinking about like her life traveling around and them bucking so bohemianly. You know all this stuff, but it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty concrete. And actually, can I read you guys the one line that I. So the jerking off scene, famously, in the movie, he's just jerking off with the door open and locks eyes with his mother as one never does.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I would, in fact, honestly recommend not.

[Gia Tolentino]

Doing simply never does.

[Griffin Newman]

An 0.0 percenter for me.

[Gia Tolentino]

Never does.

[David Sims]

You've never done it?

[Gia Tolentino]

No, hasn't really crossed my mind.

[David Sims]

So I'd like to also just say.

[Griffin Newman]

That'S not a thing I've ever.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I. I'm gonna.

[Gia Tolentino]

Guys, I've never done it either.

[David Sims]

Yeah. No. Bits podcast. I've not done it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Never done it. We've never done it.

[David Sims]

I've not. I've never done it. And I actually, you know what? It's weird. I don't have the desire to.

[Gia Tolentino]

I don't think I do either.

[David Sims]

It's never kind of like slid across my desk and made me stroke my chin and consider.

[Gia Tolentino]

Don't say slit. I'm like, don't.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I should have said stroke.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, you were thinking about it and.

[Griffin Newman]

I was thinking in the movie, that's what happens.

[Gia Tolentino]

So here's. Here's what. So it's a repeated action. It's a very, very, very repeated action in the.

[David Sims]

In the book.

[Gia Tolentino]

And here's the description and here's the one line that I transcribed. Actually, I transcribed it do lines, but here's the phrase. It's. It being Kevin's dick is, quote, purple and gleaming.

[David Sims]

Jesus.

[Gia Tolentino]

Not that purple and gleaming with what I first assume is KY jelly, but which the silver wrapper and on the floor suggests is my Land O Lakes unsalted butter. There we have it, folks.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, my goodness.

[David Sims]

So I'd say like right off the bat, that's a great little, like, snapshot of why Lynn is good at adapting.

[Griffin Newman]

Lynn's just like, yeah, garbage. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

But I don't know. I mean, I don't like. I will dig into the dossier to see, like, what Lynn thinks of this book. I know Lionel Shriver is like, kind of almost like. I don't like talking about that book. Like, like, like almost dismissive of the book in a way because of its success.

[David Sims]

Lionel Shriver, who also now has gone like 4 full turf anti woke anti identity politics.

[Griffin Newman]

Is she British or not?

[David Sims]

No, she's American. She's sort of pseudo British. Yeah. Because all the good turf was happening over there. It seems like she.

[Griffin Newman]

She got there way before. But then you're right. Then she really started mixing.

[Gia Tolentino]

Her name is something like Kellyanne.

[Griffin Newman]

Her. Her name is so like, I will say this. Here's my. I didn't know this until I opened her Wikipedia, which is just. I thought that she was called Lionel Shriver because there's this thing in Britain sometimes where like evil old rich guys have a daughter and they're like a daughter. I'll just give her my name anyway just because like I wanted a son like Nigella Lawson. Her insane name is because Nigel Lawson was like, oh, I had a daughter. Well, I guess I'll just call her Nigella, which is a made up name and. But no, her name is Margaret Ann Shriver. She's from North Carolina. And she gave herself the name Lionel at 15 because she wanted a tomboyish. Like.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. And she writes. So there's an afterword to my.

[Griffin Newman]

Lionel is like, to me like the name of like an old professor in like a fucking Narnia book. Like, not like, I don't think of that as tomboyish.

[David Sims]

Can I also just before I forget that the quote you read was quite disturbing. It only serves to remind me of my least favorite thing that has ever been said to describe such an act, which is in the Glenn Close movie the Wife, when Jonathan Price says, stroke my tumescent.

[Gia Tolentino]

He says that out loud.

[David Sims]

He says that out loud. And that movie almost won an Oscar.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank God.

[David Sims]

It was in a pretty serious conversation. Many people spent months, like at a chalkboard being like, can we give this an Oscar?

[Gia Tolentino]

Was he, Was he. Was that a directive or was he saying that someone had like, I daren't rewatch that film.

[David Sims]

I can't remember if he's asking her to do it or thanking her for having just done it, but it's one or the other. They're lying in bed together with the lights off.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's real nasty.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he puts a lot of English on the delivery.

[Gia Tolentino]

Two messened. It's like even saying it, it sounded like a vomit.

[David Sims]

It's a terrible word. I never want to hear that word ever.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Foreign. David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

This episode is brought to you by mubi, the global film company that champions great cinema. It champions it unlike the others. No, they cry it barbarian it. From iconic directors to emerging ot, there is always something new to discover with mubi. Each and every film is hand selected so you. You can explore the best of cinema.

[Griffin Newman]

You can log on to MUBI and check out all the movies they got art house, cool indie stuff, foreign stuff. Okay. This is awesome. There's a movie star movie now streaming on MUBI in the US Covered on blank checks.

[David Sims]

Well, I think that's the headline.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Die, My Love.

[David Sims]

Yes. You're going to need to watch it if you want to keep up with the show.

[Griffin Newman]

True, true. I mean, I guess, you know, do what you want. You don't have to. But we recommend viewing the film.

[David Sims]

Please view the film.

[Griffin Newman]

Die My Love. Lynn Ramsey's film.

[David Sims]

Great.

[Griffin Newman]

Came out last year. It was a can and came out last fall in 2025. It's a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for a Golden Globe, Robert Pattinson. It's kind of mostly those two. So very heavy on the two of them.

[David Sims]

Yeah, some. Some top shelf Nolty. I was going to say some seasoning of Nolte and Spacek, but this is.

[Griffin Newman]

Dry age, let me tell you. Oh, yeah, you've got them in there, but yeah, it's a lot. It's. It's a big showstopper movie for JJ. Law and RP yeah. And then R. Pat's nose, he's playing second fit. Sure. But then there's Busting out the cello.

[David Sims]

A lemon pepper dry rub of Nick Nolte.

[Griffin Newman]

I love lemon pepper, guys. I love Nick Nolte. I love Nick Nolte. Look, it's Lynne Ramsey making her eagerly awaited filmmaking return. Obviously, that's why we're covering her podcast.

[David Sims]

We've been waiting for her to make.

[Griffin Newman]

Another movie and it was on the short list for cinematography, the 90th Academy Awards. I didn't even know that.

[David Sims]

That's awesome.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a passionate, complicated, destructive love story between two major stars in Lawrence and Pattinson who'd never been together on screen before.

[David Sims]

I know.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess that's not that surprising, but they are quite a pair of the.

[David Sims]

Bat and the Cat. K A T N I S S. Oh, Katniss. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The Bat and the Steek Mystique. That is.

[David Sims]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an awesome movie.

[David Sims]

It's an awesome movie. Is that something. He's played a lot of freaks. Sure, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Spoiler alert for the episode. But I was a big fan of the film. I know you were, Ben.

[David Sims]

Have you seen it yet?

[Griffin Newman]

I haven't seen it yet.

[David Sims]

You're gonna like it a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also based on a book by Ariana Harwick.

[David Sims]

Anyway, there's so much good stuff to watch on movie, but there's also.

[Griffin Newman]

Awesome. Yeah. Other good.

[David Sims]

Look, if you're not a member, this is a perfect month to sign up in order to keep up with the show. To stream the best of cinema, you could Try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.comblankcheck that's M u b I.com blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. Lionel Shriver basically had made like. Had written a couple books that hadn't really hit. Was sort of like, is this like an interesting book to write from? Interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

She endorsed DeSantis. She's deep in the weird shit.

[David Sims]

She had voted Democrat her entire life.

[Griffin Newman]

She cited apoplectic loathing for Kamala Harris. I mean like, but like how bro.

[David Sims]

How brain broken do you need to be to not only like switch parties but also go like I think DeSantis has the juice. She kept arguing that DeSantis was so charismatic.

[Griffin Newman]

You just feel like I kind of hate, you know, woke people and I've gone insane. You can just say that. You can't be like, I'm really, really into Ron DeSantis buying as much stock.

[David Sims]

As she could into even like right.

[Griffin Newman]

Wing racist psychopaths are like, he's fine, let's relax. Like he's not that good.

[Gia Tolentino]

There's an afterword to this, to the Kevin novel. And she talks about. So when did it come out?

[Griffin Newman]

You said oh five in Britain. No, sorry, oh three in Britain. It won the Orange Prize which was the. It doesn't exist anymore now it's called like the Women's Prize for Fiction. But was the. It's the. The literary prize in Britain given to a novel by a woman and which was a prestigious award like. And it was so. And it was a bestseller. So it was that kind of thing that we're talking about of like. It was a somewhat lurid bestseller but it was like somewhat well regarded.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's well written but I, but it's like the movie is much more pleasant to watch than the. I imagine it's a better movie than the book is a book. But Lionel Shriver is a smart, perceptive, nasty, intelligent like the intelligence behind the book. You know, maybe we'll pin it on the, on Eva Katchadourian, not the author, you know. But it is a nasty type of intelligence at work. And there's an afterword where she talks about being raised by like hardcore like Carter Democrats or something. And that all of her life she had had. I think she describ as a violent right wing streak. And so she owns it. She's proud of it already in the mid aughts when she's writing this, which is Kind of an amazing time to be proud of your violent right wing streak. I mean, any time is. But especially then. And she hated the book because everyone wanted. It's the kind of book that makes you psychoanalyze the author, obviously.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. Right. Is this about you or. Yeah, right. What is your relationship with your family, your kids, whatever? Yeah, of course.

[David Sims]

She seemed to have this line and like reading interviews with her, this baseline resentment that it was so much more successful than the book she had written before it and that the book she wrote after it never came close. That she was like, I hate that everything is about this one book.

[Griffin Newman]

She doesn't have kids.

[David Sims]

Interesting. And then by the time they made. They were making the movie, she's like, I don't want to fucking deal with that thing anymore. Was like it was treated like it was her Hotel California. And she's like, I hate that they only asked me to play this one song. The quote I found from her they thought was interesting was, I'm often asked, did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin? Did I have some revelation or transforming event? The truth is that Kevin is of a piece with my other work. There's nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. It just tripped over an issue that was just ripe for exploration and by some miracle found its audience. So she, like, hates that it was successful and is like, oh, what? Because I wrote a book about a thing that people are perversely curious about. You all bought this one, right?

[Gia Tolentino]

I wrote a thing about a sensational national news event that keeps recurring and no one will write novels about because it's so right.

[David Sims]

And even her, like, people ask what I was going through when I wrote the book. She wants to just be like, no, I'm just a skilled writer and I sit down and have the same process every time and nothing personal is going on. I am the same level of good writer every time.

[Griffin Newman]

Also, you don't want to admit, like, yeah, look, I wrote a fucking school. It's not shooting because it's bow and arrow, but like a school murder book. Because I knew that's like hooky and would get people's attention. Like, no one wants to say that.

[David Sims]

Greater hook of this is. It is one of those things that.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, what if your kid was crazy? Like another hook that everyone, like, is drawn to.

[David Sims]

What is it like to be a parent in the aftermath of that? Right, Right. What do you do? How do you live if your child is the one who.

[Griffin Newman]

It's only half about that right. In the book. Too. Like it's only somewhat about her life post because it's mostly her sifting family memories.

[Gia Tolentino]

It feels like half and half.

[David Sims]

Right. But it's, it is a mix, like a memory play. It's from the perspective of. And I think it's what this movie is trying to get at is like the basic structure of this movie is like a couple days of her life upon getting this new job and maybe a week that happens within the body of the movie feels like the constant churning of in her head that happens on a daily basis of everything.

[Gia Tolentino]

Starting when she's in her 20s and they're de aged by she's got bangs and John C. Reilly's wearing a beanie.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean Tilda, John C. Reilly, it's a little tougher. Tilda is fairly ageless. Although young Tilda is so striking. Like when you see 90s Tilda, like there is nothing like her.

[David Sims]

But when we've come across young John C. Reilly in movies, you're like, oh, so he was 45 then? And you're like, no, he was like 15 here. Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

Interestingly in the book he's supposed to be a Republican. Like, he's like a hardcore Bruce Springsteen, like farmer guy.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh. He, I, I don't think he's bad in the movie per se, but he.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is weird cast, he's weird casting.

[Griffin Newman]

He doesn't really. You just, I'm like a million times out of a million. I don't think Tilde marries Chauncey Riley.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

Like no matter what characters they're playing.

[David Sims]

It feels like they cast him less for the marriage and more for the function of the father.

[Griffin Newman]

And I think also it's just like.

[David Sims]

Like this guy reads as chill and.

[Gia Tolentino]

Fun or just like a tragic.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Gia Tolentino]

Earnestness.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Just kind of like Mr. Cellophane. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A guy where you're like, right, he may be his. He would be easily duped. But like it's probably also just he's a fairly daring actor. He has good taste. And he was like, sure, I'll do that. And they were like, oh, well, he's an Oscar nominated sort of well known guy. He's like in fucking Talladega Nights, if you got him right, you get two extra million dollars period where he sort.

[David Sims]

Of seems to be semi bankable in an unsolved.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, kind of. He's not nobody.

[Gia Tolentino]

The relationship isn't supposed to make sense. Like in the. It makes no sense. No, it's not supposed to make sense. Having the kid is always kind of a marginal, like like 51 were doing it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right, right. We. It also, up until the kid was.

[David Sims]

Born, things I think this movie kind of gets right, in my opinion, which is like, it feels like this guy really wants to be a dad because he likes the idea of being a dad. And she does not feel that innate drive and sort of goes like, I guess so.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is a lot of people do.

[Gia Tolentino]

I have a kid. It'll produce.

[David Sims]

I'll feel it.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And I. And I know people who felt exactly that way, where they're like, yeah, I was kind of on the fence, and then I had the kid. And I like the kid. Like, you know, like, I. I like my kid even if I don't like all kids.

[David Sims]

I think the choice Ramsey makes here, that is why this movie works so well for me, is that it's like sort of a nature, nurture, chicken and egg movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Whereas, like, the obvious version of this story is, oh, my God, what do you do if your child turns out to be a psycho? And it's a ticking clock and it's a matter of time, And Lynne Ramsey's like, no, the question is, like, what do you do if you just don't love your child? If you just can never connect with your child? And then if your child ends up becoming a murderer, are you going to spend the rest of your life going, like, was it always that way? And is that what I was negatively reacting, asking the Oracle question, did I somehow do something?

[Griffin Newman]

But you are asking the Oracle question.

[David Sims]

Yeah, did I do that?

[Gia Tolentino]

I thought.

[David Sims]

I thought you said the Oracle question, the Urkel question, which is, which phase.

[Griffin Newman]

Did I do that? I'm sorry, Gia, what were you going to say?

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, I think in the book, it's not like them looking exactly alike, which.

[David Sims]

Is they also have very similar bone structure.

[Griffin Newman]

That's one of the reasons Riley's jeans bounced right off.

[Gia Tolentino]

That was like a constant visual joke, starting with the bathwater. You know, it's like, it actually is so funny. Like, when they're sitting across from each other, the restaurant, just looking exactly the same. Like the. The hair decision. Like, it's really funny.

[Griffin Newman]

I am imagining, like, the poor casting agent on this movie. Like, the casting director, hey, can you find me someone who looks like Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly Hadi. And she's like, no, I fucking cannot.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like Tilda's Armenian. Can we get that working like Tilda's? You know? But I. When I watched the, like, I found it really, like, the most. The most sort of dramatically effective Chilling thing about the movie was that Kevin, as a literal baby. And this was the other quote that I wrote down from the book. The cry is described like a rape whistle. And the cry. The cry in the movie, it's like, oh, my God. I mean, I would. I would be. I would be at the precipice of self harm within 36 hours.

[David Sims]

The moment when she goes to the construction site to stand by the jackhammer.

[Gia Tolentino]

And her shoulders go down, right?

[David Sims]

And it's perfect, like, Tilde Buster Keaton shit, where, like, she's conveying the emotion through her body language. Her face, from the moment he's, like, quiet. The moment he's crying to the moment she's able to drown it out, basically stays the same.

[Gia Tolentino]

Her face is incredible in this movie. Like, it is kind of. Her face is like a Gumby, you know, like, when she's, like, trying to get the job. The way, like, her jaw hangs and her, like, it's. It's unbelievable. But. But the thing that chilled me was that Kevin is such a malignant baby. Such a profoundly malignant, evil baby. Straight up evil. I'm gonna say it. I've got. I've got small children. Like, that would be an evil baby. That. That Kevin creates her. It's like, it's nature versus nurture. But it's also in reverse, right? That, like, the. The child has produced the mom of a school shooter.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Which is a great way of thinking about it.

[David Sims]

It's like a really tangled knot.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. Like, they're continually producing each other as this. These cold twins.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's basically like, anyway, here's a bow and arrow.

[David Sims]

They want the baseball.

[Gia Tolentino]

They do the baseball.

[David Sims]

This movie implies that, like, every week of her life is like this, right? Like, in the present tense, she's like the do I do with myself. And then in every, like, kind of idle moment, she's replaying everything. She's constantly like a detective trying to, like, look back on the scenes and make connections. Okay. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Because this is the thing about this movie, and I think the book, too, right? Is like the. The other thing you have to consider is, like, if someone experienced a tragedy like this, their child, or committed a tr. You know, they would then look at everything in their life in a completely different way, and it's completely unreliable. Now, I watched this movie, and I'm like, right? I'm like, couple years in orphanage or whatever, drop this kid into a river. No good, evil kid. But I'm. The whole point is that every memory she has now is the Bad memory. And the struggle I have with this movie is that Kevin is so nakedly discordant with like, and you know, reality, like, whatever, with. With politeness, with like society that I. I struggle with that. I want it to be a little more ambiguous as to like, was it there all along? Because you watch a movie and you're like, yeah, I was there all along. He gerbil went in the dumpster. He blinded his sister. This is. These are no good things. I was jerking it too messy. Purple buttercocking. What else? You know, there's a few other things. Right. The pooping.

[David Sims]

The pooping.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I know children struggle with body. I'm not trying.

[David Sims]

No, but this kid hurt room.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right. Right. The. Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Although, Ben, you have to admit that's kind of like a cool artistic strategy. It does kind of look like a super soaker.

[Gia Tolentino]

It kind of looks cool.

[David Sims]

It kind of looks a little. It's kind of a good room.

[Gia Tolentino]

A little cool. But the way that the middle Kevin is sitting when they're rolling the ball and the middle Kevin is sitting like, like Kate McKinnon in the Barbie movie. Like, it's just like. It's just like what the legs. Like, what would you do if you had. I like it that, that Kevin is like that. I. I like the decision that he's unredeemably malignant from literally day one. You're there. You're their parent.

[Griffin Newman]

You're not allowed to just be like.

[Gia Tolentino]

Hey, throw them in the river.

[Griffin Newman]

I think my kid's a school shooter in.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. Like, what needs to happen to Kevin is like he needs to go into a black mirror egg or whatever. You know what I mean? Like that episode.

[David Sims]

Also, we talk about him. We do.

[Gia Tolentino]

Killer of all time.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, but maybe then we could use this killer to invade countries.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. He needs to be. He needs to be in like a VR cage, you know, like there's no other place. It's like anti carceral for everyone except for Kevin, you know, and we can make it really good for him. We could do like a cage to kill someone every minute.

[Griffin Newman]

And this like, very liberal judge who has that appreciation. And I know Kevin's when I see him. No one else needs to go to jail but Kevin.

[Gia Tolentino]

Kevin.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I got a pitch for what we could do with the Kevin ip. What about.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a tough movie if you're called Kevin. Shout out to all the Kevin's out there. I am sorry. It's like being called Karen or whatever. Right?

[David Sims]

You know, what about alien colon Kevin And Waylon Yutani.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's good.

[David Sims]

Discovers Kevin. And they're like, stop going to space. We just gotta clone Kevin.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, no, but the thing is, Whalen Utah finds Kevin's like, oh, angular features, you know, kind of charm. Like, how bad could Kevin be?

[Gia Tolentino]

Let's unfreeze him.

[David Sims]

Oh, you think they make Kevin the captain of a show?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I'm saying they let Kevin out and they're like, so, what's up, Kevin? And then, yeah, Kevin goes wild. Look, I mean, we are. Luckily, this is not about a real thing that happens. Otherwise, we would be making light of a tragic movie.

[David Sims]

This movie is, like, funny. It is. It is like pitch.

[Griffin Newman]

Very, very, very darkly funny.

[David Sims]

Gallows.

[Gia Tolentino]

It has to be. It would be unbearable if it was straight this is the Other.

[Griffin Newman]

And it would be kind unbearable in that also. That way of, like, what's the point? You can't just make a movie about, like. It's the. The Rabbit Hole, the book. The. Sorry, the play in the movie, which I don't like.

[David Sims]

Another thing I was.

[Griffin Newman]

That I was. You were in the mix for. I well know.

[David Sims]

And like, basically boiled down to me and Miles Teller is.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, but is Miles Teller play in.

[David Sims]

The movie Rabbit Hole? Is Miles Teller?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I've never seen the movie.

[David Sims]

That was his first breakout.

[Griffin Newman]

So it's a David and Lindsay, a bear play. And someone asked him like, hey, why'd you write? And he's like, well, I thought that, like, wouldn't it be interesting how sad it was if your kid died? And they're like, is that it? And he's like, yeah, that's it. Like, I just figured that'd make for, like, a really sad play. And I'm like, there's gotta be something else. Like, because nobody really just wants to sit there with that, you know? And it's the same with, like, oh, it would suck if your kid was a school shooter. Everyone's like, yeah, I know that. Like, so. But. And this is why this is good. This is why the movie succeeds.

[Gia Tolentino]

I actually think, too, like, most people, you know, like, you people, friends of mine who are lawyers, like, people who are in prison settings, like, are, know, people who have done, you know, violent things. It's like, people are not like Kevin. No, you know, like, people. People are. Kevin is not a human character, really. And that's why, like, it. Allowing Kevin to be so extreme sidesteps, like, kind of usefully the. The what you would. Kevin's just not human. You don't.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. There's a different movie that's a process movie of like, why did we not stop this?

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Or whatever. Like, that's like a. A very practical movie about a tragedy like that of like the signs were that, you know, like. And then there's like movies like Us Van Sense Elephant where it's like, I don't know, why'd they do it? Like. And if I think back, sure, there was a little of this and a little of that, but I never put anything together because the whole point of Elephant is like, you're grasping different parts of the elephant.

[David Sims]

The part was always Ezra's. To lose like 50%, just look right and like fitting into the stylization of Lynn Ramsey's universe. But when I remember auditioning for this and really trying to crack it and I was like, well, the choice is to go for a kind of like vacant sociopathy. Like the. The shooter's an elephant, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, how do you feel? Tough to project much onto the right.

[David Sims]

And especially because the dialogue is so intense in the scenes where Kevin really confronts her and locks in that I was like, I think you need to kind of pull back or else it will feel over the top. What I didn't understand was that like, that's what she wants. He needs to feel like almost a satanic force. He needs to feel like a stylized evil where it's kind of absurd for anyone to be behaving this way and like so gleefully.

[Griffin Newman]

But only, only Tilda's character is seeing it.

[David Sims]

This is the other. I was going to say to your point is that it is so much a memory play and her perspective and her replaying it. And when we see Kevin in the present moment in the facility, he is markedly different. And certainly the final scene is like, right. This is a person. This is a person who's like scene.

[Gia Tolentino]

In which he's a person troubled and.

[David Sims]

Has like committed, like looks different. He's horrendous, indefensible acts. But the energy of the performance is totally different. And you can go, well, did something break in heaven once they finally committed the evil?

[Griffin Newman]

And also it's like Kevin's about to go to a grown up jail and is scared of that.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it's like, yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Or is this the only stuff we're seeing that is actually representative of an objective reality versus a subjective reality, which is if her playing in her mind, she's just like.

[Gia Tolentino]

But you believe it though, right?

[David Sims]

The baby crying felt like this all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

But.

[Gia Tolentino]

But I think you're.

[David Sims]

You believe.

[Gia Tolentino]

Believe that it totally like, I don't think you're supposed. I mean, I. I personally don't think that you're supposed to think.

[Griffin Newman]

Think.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is she retroactively deluded because of this great act of violence? You believe the kid sounded like that.

[David Sims]

You believe it. But it's also. I think the movie is playing in the. You could never really know for sure. And I think she's so good about making these kind of like the way memory and present consciousness works, kind of tapestries where you're not doing dumb flashback devices. It's all interwoven. And outside of, like their young, young meetings, Tilda basically looks the same in all segments. Her age is basically only conveyed by her body language.

[Gia Tolentino]

The hair.

[David Sims]

And the hair.

[Gia Tolentino]

The hair. Hair is key. Hair is key.

[David Sims]

And so you're sometimes starting a scene not knowing which temporality you're in until you see if Kevin's there or not or where she's living or things like that. So she's building it in a way where those scenes can meld together. They don't feel like here's an over the top scene and here's a real scene. But it is all kind of a soup. What were you.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna open the dossy. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, okay. But sure. Just. Just get some research on. On this movie. Lynne Ramsey's career in between Morvern and this. Obviously nine years of her trying to make a movie after Morverness, which is essentially like. That should be the entree to a slightly bigger art film or smallish Hollywood film this time.

[David Sims]

At the very least. You're like. That gets you a, like 8 to $10 million Miramax or Fox Searchlight movie with some major actors who want to show off that they can really act right.

[Griffin Newman]

First thing she does is write a script called Rocking Horse, A dark comedy, as you can imagine, a twisted thing. Never been made. She still has it somewhere. Next thing is Lovely Bones. Okay. Film four, which is the sort of British indie channel attached to Channel 4 at the time, was sort of like a hot company. Has Lovely Bones, gives her a galley of just the first few chapters. They don't even give her the whole book. And she's like, I'm all in. This sounds great. I think it's super interesting. In July 2002. So this is even before Morven Kaller, like that. She's getting sort of moved on to this. The book comes out and is just a smash hit. I mean, that book was so huge. I've never read it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right. She got it before it even came out.

[Griffin Newman]

Then people start circling it in an insane way. And they initially Channel four film four is like, no, we have Lynne Ramsey set up and. And we're going to do it. And she's an exciting young director.

[David Sims]

If you've seen Ratcatcher and Morven Kaller at that point in time, it makes a ton of sense to go, if we give her this book, this is the kind of thing that might level her up like crazy. She might be ready to deliver a masterpiece.

[Griffin Newman]

Ramsay's basically like, look, I was handed the first part of a manuscript. I have a very loose adaptation I want to do now. People seem to want the book that is now a huge hit on screen. Like, they just want a translation. I don't really want to do that. She doesn't like the second half of the book, which is like, where the girl comes back to earth.

[David Sims]

She's also an angel, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I've seen the movie once and read the book o times.

[David Sims]

She is arguing that a lot of stuff that works in the book would not work on film. And they're pushing back and saying, people love the book. You got to do the book. I would argue that history proves her correct.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, right. Because of course, Peter Jackson, Spielberg is one guy who's trying to horn in. He never actually does. And then when Ramsey is sort of pushed off eventually because they don't like her drafts, Peter Jackson takes on the project. Obviously, it's his post King Kong movie. It is, in my opinion, it's certainly the worst film he's ever made by a long shot. It's an embarrassing work. It is.

[David Sims]

So it was the worst idea he could have made at that point in time. And I feel like in our Send Help episode, we equated this of like. Like, this is a guy who no longer knows how to make a movie that isn't at the pitch and scale of King Kong and Lord of the Rings. Again, you see him going, oh, I want to do like another. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a Heavenly Creatures.

[David Sims]

Exactly. And he just cannot get his head around how to make a movie about complicated issues.

[Gia Tolentino]

I also think there's something baked into this book, though. Do you remember that New Yorker piece that came out a couple of years ago about Alice Siebel, the author of the Lovely. Right. Like, it's like there's something actually truly malignant about that. That book in general.

[Griffin Newman]

The surety of that book of, like, she knows what happened to her and she can. Like, from beyond the grave.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. Like, the luridness of that is coming from an entirely different angle than the Learnedness of Kevin, which at least is voiced from like a pitiless, you know, like. Like that. I'd take that any day over the, like.

[David Sims]

Do you know about this, Ben? Just very quickly there was.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know if we can do it quickly, but I mean, you could try.

[David Sims]

No, I just. The quickest version of it is basically four or five years ago, Alice Sebold had to admit that she wrongfully accused a man of a heinous crime and sent him to jail for decades.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I mean, 100. Because it was. And it was a big part of her because she'd written a memoir about the crime called Lucky.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Before Lovely Bones.

[David Sims]

It was. It was an assault that she endured. And she.

[Griffin Newman]

And she like pointed at a guy in a lineup and, you know, with complete confidence.

[David Sims]

And he was completely innocent of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It was crazy.

[David Sims]

Yeah. So it just has cast a whole pallor on her whole work up until this point. And certainly the narrative of like a dead girl trying to solve her own murder and.

[Griffin Newman]

But she doesn't even make that movie. Instead, we need to talk about Kevin. I'll write about the book.

[David Sims]

I was just gonna say too that like, Jackson had kind of as much weight as anyone in Hollywood at that moment. You could argue he's even like, the heat is greater than Spielberg at that moment of what does he want to do next? And he kept. Kept like optioning different properties that were similar to this of like, that's weirdly touchy, difficult literary material. There's this book, as Nature Made him, that's this very complicated non fiction book about this whole medical incident, gender identity and whatever, which I remember just being like, how the fuck is he gonna tackle this? There were other things like this where it felt like he wanted to touch the third rail, but also clearly couldn't get out of his super commercial instincts when it actually came to making the movie. Lynne Ramsey also talks about that she feels like when they started saying, like, we're not happy with these drafts, we're not happy with these drafts.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That they were basically trying to push her off.

[David Sims]

That they knew that Jackson was already sniffing and they were looking for a way to be able to legally end the contract they had with her totally. But so she feels super fucking betrayed.

[Griffin Newman]

She feels bummed out. She's like, ding. My confidence made me feel bad.

[David Sims]

And that she had put so much into this and felt like this is the perfect vehicle as the book gets bigger and bigger. Even when they're arguing about the way to adapt it. She's like, I now have a crack at like a brand name piece of material. This movie is going to get seen by more people. The one other thing I just want to call out quickly because I saw someone asked this on the Reddit and it is a good question. Like, when a filmmaker has nine years in between movies, how the fuck are they staying alive, right? Like, how are you actually making a living during that period of time? And this is a career where there are big gaps. There aren't a ton of films and it's big gaps in between movies that aren't super commercially viable. So it's not like Peter Jackson takes 15 years off, he has a hundred million dollars. Who gives a shit? Like, when she's working on lovely bones, she's getting paid to develop lovely bones. You know, if you're getting paid for, hired, to write, to direct, to meet, yes, you do get paid for these sorts of things.

[Griffin Newman]

She did a music video, you do.

[David Sims]

Music videos, you do commercials, you do a lot of like, uncredited, like punch up work on other things. But yes, basically, you know, you might have your own passion project that you're trying to get off the ground, but by and large, you try to sell it to a producer quickly so that someone is paying you to do that work so you can pay the bills until the movie actually gets made. Hopefully. Just wanted to answer that. David. Yeah. I am so excited about this episode sponsor. Yes, me too. Might truly be the most excited I've ever had for anything to sponsor this podcast. Today's episode.

[Griffin Newman]

We're excited to like, sponsors that tell you how to like, help your finances. Hey, easy. Okay, okay, Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[David Sims]

Easy. Today's episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Nirvana, the Band, the show, the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Nirvana the band, the show, the movie Mauricio. Because everyone's so excited.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

I love this movie. I mean, I love this band, this show, this movie.

[David Sims]

Yes. Important correction. This film is finally coming to theaters. February 13th is the start of the theatrical rollout.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

From our friends at Neon.

[Griffin Newman]

Neon's bringing it out.

[David Sims]

We have been waiting impatiently almost a year to see this film. We saw this at south by Southwest.

[Gia Tolentino]

One of the best screenings of my life.

[David Sims]

Truly, Truly. It was an unbelievable experience. Ben, you were there, had a blast.

[Griffin Newman]

And I had never seen or engaged me neither show previously in the group.

[David Sims]

Don't really need it.

[Griffin Newman]

It was like 7 of the context to enjoy.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think you need to know like.

[David Sims]

What Toronto is because you knew nothing other than us hyping you up for you.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, this was the problem City in Canada.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I went in. You guys had just been like, it's the best thing ever. And not. Not just you, other people. I can't believe how good. And I was like, this is so overhyped.

[David Sims]

And here's the great thing about dating.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm walking in like I felt mad about it, where it's just like they've. They've primed it too much.

[David Sims]

I like that you acknowledge this because sometimes we tell you something's good. I see you go like, you put your fists up.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I'm just like, relaxed because I need to. I can't go in with too much hype because that's not good for my critical experience of a movie. And then I thought it was better than the hype.

[David Sims]

This is the thing. This movie, Better than the hype is truly a miracle. I think it is the funniest movie of the last 10 years, easily. And listeners of the show know I am often bemoaning the state of the theatrical comedy. And this is a movie that provides the thing I've been longing for, which is you go see this with a crowd. It is just electric. Every five seconds, rolling laughter. And the movie just builds and builds and builds. This is a movie from Matt Johnson.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Director BlackBerry. One of my favorite movies the last couple of years. Him and Jay McCarroll started as a web series, became a TV series, and now is a movie. But you don't need to know any of that. This works as a clean entry point. It's a movie about two friends who are obsessed with their band playing at one venue.

[Griffin Newman]

They want to play at the Rivoli.

[David Sims]

They want to play at the Riverley. All you need to know about these guys. Before the lights went down at the south by Southwest screening, I believe you turned to me and said, what do I need to know? And I said, all you need to know is they want to play R.

[Griffin Newman]

I play the Riv. I've, you know, I've been to Toronto many times. I've stayed.

[Gia Tolentino]

Have you been to the Riv?

[Griffin Newman]

Never. I've stayed on Queen west, though, and I've certainly walked by the Riv many times. And I always been like, oh, yeah, the Riv there.

[David Sims]

It's not Carnegie Hall.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's the bar.

[David Sims]

You never see these guys.

[Gia Tolentino]

What do you mean? It's the most important music venue in Canada.

[David Sims]

You never see these guys practice their music. But all you know is that every episode starts with, here's the plan. Here's how we play Rivoli. Right? We got to play the rivoli. And this movie starts from there and explodes in unbelievable ways. I think this movie is truly like a magic trick beyond just how funny it is and for how much it's caked in the deep lore of this Nirvana the Band the show universe that's existed for 15 years. You can just go in knowing nothing and be blown away. And for a movie that seems kind of slap dash and roughly made from the start, it starts to pull off genuine like cinematic magic tricks where you cannot believe how this thing was made.

[Griffin Newman]

What that. What was my letterbox review? Griff, did you see it?

[David Sims]

No. Please tell me lol.

[Griffin Newman]

How did they make this? Truly that was how I found it.

[Gia Tolentino]

How did this get made?

[Griffin Newman]

No, but I was also just like how did they make this? I don't get it.

[David Sims]

You don't understand how they're getting away with it legally. You don't understand how it was cleared for release. And there. There is a melding of scripted and non scripted scripted them engaging with real people on the street where the line between what is planned and what is not boggles your brain. It was my favorite thing I saw.

[Griffin Newman]

All of 2025 and now it's coming out in 2026. Now listen, I do have to do some talking points, okay? Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie is in theaters February 13th. Get tickets. Now we must say this. Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie. They're very clear that we have have to say the title of this show the Movie.

[David Sims]

Why? It's a really simple, easy title.

[Griffin Newman]

Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie. It really is a kind of like going cold, expecting something fun. I don't think you need too much more than that. No, I know it sounds unwieldy or whatever, but just like I think you're going to have a pretty good time.

[David Sims]

If you trust our opinion at all. Take this recommendation. Yes. Don't look it up. Go in and I. I really really doubt there is any chance you will be Disappointed.

[Griffin Newman]

In theaters February 13th. Get your tickets now. Nirvana the man the show the Movie. Ding dong. Ding dong. Oh my God. Hello, Creek.

[David Sims]

Hey, how's it going?

[Griffin Newman]

And who are you?

[David Sims]

Mac Black.

[Griffin Newman]

And what's that?

[David Sims]

That's my name. You asked who am I? And that's my name.

[Griffin Newman]

What are you doing?

[David Sims]

What do you.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you want?

[David Sims]

I'm a construction worker. Obviously. As you can tell from my general demeanor, temperament and this hard hat here. Yeah, I'm sure you've noticed the interruption, the sound. Yeah, I guess cameras in the building, but I've been struggling. Struggling?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

This construction project's not going well.

[Griffin Newman]

I have no idea what's going on.

[David Sims]

I explained to you. My name is Mac Black. I'm a construction worker. I've been working in the building. Winding up.

[Griffin Newman]

He's winding up, literally.

[David Sims]

What's going on in your life? I knocked on the door, I open, I'm interrupting. I don't know what's going on in your life.

[Griffin Newman]

You're struggling. What's going on?

[David Sims]

This construction project's not going well.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Okay. Been trying to build a better wardrobe.

[Griffin Newman]

There it is. Yeah. And so what you're referring to, of course, is the. The sort of. The furniture, the. The physical thing.

[David Sims]

Incorrect. That's a weird assumption for you to make. I'm talking about pieces that work together and hold up over time.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Mac, we've got news for you. Come on in. Take a seat.

[David Sims]

I have a pair of pants, and I've been jackhammering them for months, and nothing's coming together.

[Griffin Newman]

We have ad copy people can't see with prompts that are a little esoteric. And one of the people who work for our show responds to those prompts in interesting ways, but nobody knows what, like. It's like going to an improv show where you didn't hear what someone yelled out.

[David Sims]

David. Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt. Mac doesn't know any of that. He's living his own life.

[Griffin Newman]

You're right. Mac is such a. He's such a thoughtfully realized character. Thank you.

[David Sims]

I'm a construction worker, surly demeanor, hard hat, and I've been taking the jackhammer.

[Griffin Newman]

Short for Macintosh.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. Absolutely. Macintosh. Blackintosh.

[Griffin Newman]

That's pretty funny now.

[David Sims]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

Quince has the Everyday Essentials. You got to go to Quince to get a good word.

[David Sims]

Well, that's the recommendation I've been waiting for. Took you so long.

[Griffin Newman]

Turn his mic off. Quince has the Everyday Essentials I love with quality. The last organic cotton sweaters, polos for every occasion, lighter jackets to keep you warm in the changing, Changing seasons list goes on. I. I love quints. I've got. I kind of got a nice quarter zip that I've been sporting around. Well, well, well.

[David Sims]

You're looking pretty smart, if I dare say so myself.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, they got. They got, obviously, very, very cheap and comfortable cashmere stuff, merino stuff. I got myself a cashmere scarf from Quince. It's cold in New York City. You need to bundle.

[David Sims]

Now, I'm a little bit wary. Quinn. Sounds good, but is this one of those companies that works with bottom factories and cuts in the middlemen.

[Griffin Newman]

No, they're. They're top only top factories. Cutting out the middlemen. Oh, just to be very clear. Yes, that's what I was worried about. You're not paying for brand markup. It's just quality clothing. Everything's built to hold up to daily wear and look good season after season. Okay. And let's not forget that of course, every night I sleep under a quince comforter and quince sheets. So it's not just your wardrobe every everyday life.

[David Sims]

Ben, can I say how much I appreciate that? I feel like you're making the effort to communicate with me. You're making eye contact. You've given me recommendations. Can I say, unlike Silver Spoon Sims.

[Griffin Newman]

Over here, refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to Quince.com check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N C-E.com check. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com check.

[David Sims]

That's great news because I live in luck. London, Ontario.

[Griffin Newman]

Mac, see you later, man.

[David Sims]

By the way, big fan of the pot.

[Griffin Newman]

We need to talk about Kevin. The book comes out 2003 in the United States. Word of mouth hit. A genuine word of mouth hit. Gets the Orange Prize in 2005. So it takes a while to even get that, like. But it was like the way Lionel Shriver, unreliable narrator, though she may be, describes it as like, Upper east side mom started like, passing the book around. And I'd like. Yeah, exactly. Because it's. Because of the topic matter. And Lynn Ramsey is a fan and basically, like, bids for it herself, I think.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, she was just, like, interested. She got it through her agent and was just like, I want to do this. And the BBC, who helped fund this movie.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

This is a national. Yeah, I believe this is a UK Film Council movie. Like, you know, it's got British government money, is like, oh, like, you know, school murders. Like, this is too dark. But she wants to do it. Lionel Shriver passes on. Like, Lynn's like, do you want to collaborate? And Lionel Shriver's like, fuck, no, I.

[David Sims]

Don'T want to talk about. We need to talk about Kevin, basically, is her answer.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, she does like the movie. She says it's excellent. It's beautifully shot, well cast, thematically loyal to the novel. Like, she. She was like, totally happy with the movie. But as you, you know, telling us with, like, it's not like, the book is, like, just is easy to adapt because it's letters. Like, it's not right. Like it's not like a translatable work without whatever Lynn is doing to make it. This impressionistic feeling of the path, this, you know, mom and kid take.

[David Sims]

It's also what we talk about of, like, how she seems to have a better method of. Of visualizing internal monologues than like any other filmmaker in history, in my opinion. And here's a book that's basically just like, what this person is telling themselves without any, like, objective. And she understands how to, like, transmute that into something that is the. The opposite in form, but kind of contains the same core ideas and feelings.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's funny, if. If the. If the book had been titled anything different, such as, I don't know, like, it's the bow and arrow killing, it wouldn't have. Yeah. Actually, the New Yorker fact checker, we. We spent like 15 minutes being like, can we call it a school shooting? I was like, guys shoots the bow and arrow. Yeah, that was my argument. I was like, we don't have any word space to do.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Gia Tolentino]

Actually, it was a bow and arrow. I was like, it's a shooting.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I find the bow and arrow thing to be a hat on a hat. I don't like it. I will be honest.

[Gia Tolentino]

In the book, it's because, like, he's like, I don't wanna play into your political games. Cause the thing about the book is, like, all of this is taking place the present day timeline is like three months while the chads are hanging in Florida. And so it's all taking place against this really specific. And so. Kevin, that's crazy. I know.

[Griffin Newman]

She's mixing all these ideas up together.

[David Sims]

Hanging chad drama.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's a hanging chad drama. I was looking at. I had, unbeknownst to myself. Cause I was trying to. Right when we got into this room, I was looking, I was like, didn't. What was the thing that Lionel Shriver put on a sombrero to give a speec at a literary conference. And I was looking. I googled Lionel Shriver sombrero and found a piece that I had written about her.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

2016 result. You had to remind yourself, like, Bill and Ted style.

[Griffin Newman]

I assume as she was tiptoeing up to her later turfy turns or whatever, she's mad about some, like, kid getting canceled at Bowdoin, you know, for having sombreros. I don't know.

[Gia Tolentino]

She just written a novel where a white man is married to a Black woman who is intellectually disabled, and at one point she ends up on a leash. So, you know, it's all. It's all pretty.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry. At one point she ends up on a leash. It's not what I expected.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

But she calls herself a renowned. Like this is in the second line of the speech. She calls herself a renowned iconic class. Me. Whenever I talk about myself, it's one.

[David Sims]

Of these things where they always are just like, I'm going to write something really provocative. And then people go like, is it okay for them to have written this thing? It's like, oh, so now I'm being attacked. Well, now you're forcing me to become radical. Truly. But it's always the. This, like, okay, well, now I'm going to wear a sombrero. Does that make you upset?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I guess so.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right, Right.

[David Sims]

She.

[Gia Tolentino]

She put up, like, the thing that I found so funny about it then was that she put on the sombrero to make a statement that any. That. That wearing a sombrero should be less of a statement. I was like, what are we. What are we doing? What are we doing here?

[Griffin Newman]

It feels quaint for a sombrero to be like, you know, like Shakespeare.

[Gia Tolentino]

To, like, what we're dealing with now.

[David Sims]

Like, it's like, was her version of the Scarlett Johansson. If I want to play someone who's pink or purple or a tree, I mean.

[Griffin Newman]

But. Right.

[David Sims]

Except it was more like, fuck you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

But you know what I was just thinking when you were talking about the book, I find I actually. I've come around to finding this sort of. I'm still on Kevin being, like, unfreezing in the alien ship. Like, I think it's actually a bit of mercy on her part and, like, an enormous source of comic relief that Kevin is so cartoonish because, like, basically what the whole story is about, it's like, like, what if you were a woman, a kind of woman that I am and have been, which. Who is ambivalent about having children.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Has an ambitious, interesting career. Does.

[Gia Tolentino]

Cherishes their independence, wants to be able to go, you know, go fucking throw tomatoes. Go throw tomatoes. And you're like, what if the transcendence and love that awaits me is not there? Like, what if you don't know who your kid's going to be? You don't know. And then people are like, you know what? You. You have your kid. Caring for your kid makes you fall in love with them. Or the moment of birth makes you fall. Like, everyone assures you, like, you're Gonna have an amazing kid. You two are gonna produce an amazing kid no matter what, right? They're gonna have you as parents.

[David Sims]

You're so smart.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, exactly. Like, please, Chicago. They're gonna have you guys. Like, they're gonna be so. And.

[David Sims]

And.

[Gia Tolentino]

And you're like, well, yeah, you're right. Like, I guess there's no way he's gonna be, you know, a. A generational satanic, you know, channel of every, you know, like it's. It's. It's beyond every parent's worst nightmare to be. It.

[David Sims]

It's.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's past the realm of anything that's possible. And in that way, it's a bit of a relief.

[David Sims]

Like supernatural, almost science fiction level of evil. Like. Like an alien.

[Griffin Newman]

L refers to it as like Rosemary's Baby. But no devil.

[Gia Tolentino]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

What if you had a devil baby but it's not, cuz you the devil. Like, you know, by, you know, like you not. There's no conspiracy. You just happened. You got the devil baby. Everyone else didn't.

[David Sims]

I think that's a great point though, that the real life version of this type of kid who ends up committing these types of acts is usually like, has anger issues, but also is like, incredibly sad, is struggling, is bullied, like, has wild emotional swings, has hugged you more than once. It's introverted or whatever it is, you know, and you're like a parent fighting through the outbursts, going like, how do we get him level? And the fact that this kid is just from the beginning basically, like playing chicken with her on every single thing.

[Gia Tolentino]

And only respects her when she breaks his arm.

[Griffin Newman]

There's no level, right?

[David Sims]

There's no level of vulnerability other than when he is sick and. Or broken.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, about the sick thing here. So I was watching when I was rewatching them, I was like, what would. What would I do? What would we. What would I do if I had a Kevin? I would phantom thread the shit out of that kid.

[David Sims]

It works.

[Gia Tolentino]

I would Munchausen him so fucking hard and I would be so justified. But that's terror.

[David Sims]

It's not like, I'm serious, but this is.

[Griffin Newman]

Gia. You're kidding.

[David Sims]

Because I'm serious. No, I'm not kidding.

[Griffin Newman]

I know you're not kidding, but you're kidding because we're not allowed to do this in society to essentially say, like, nope, this kid is a bad egg. And there's nothing. Like, society now is just like, no, no, we. We have interventions. Like, we have things you do. There's people you see, there's medicine you take, like, you know, you can't just be like.

[David Sims]

Like, stamping.

[Griffin Newman]

Speaking of, like, psycho kids.

[Gia Tolentino]

Speaking of. What would actually happen is he would actually be medicated into a stupor 100%.

[Griffin Newman]

That was another thing I do, right? I do bump on it a little bit where I'm like, once again, like, once. Once the daughter is getting blinded. Like, you imagine, like, someone's coming to the house. Like. Like, you know, who knows?

[Gia Tolentino]

But, oh, my God. When he's. When he's eating the lychee. Just like a normal lunch with Kevin where you're eating lychee and the parents are drinking wine at 10am and there's.

[Griffin Newman]

This weird, like, I like this sort of like, their house is so ridiculous.

[Gia Tolentino]

The house is so scary.

[Griffin Newman]

Their life is so, like, you know, like, her pretension of, like, the map room and, like, her past. And, like, it almost feels like this punishment. Like, oh, you thought you could have it all. Like, you could still be the fancy person, the cool person and raise kids. Well, too bad. Like, you get it, Kevin. And then you get the. The worst thing of. Then you have another kid who's cool. Like, so you actually know that it's possible that there actually is a kid you could have that you like.

[David Sims]

And there's tension between. Only makes Kevin worse at even having a second kid. And then it's like, immediately she feels connected to the second kid.

[Griffin Newman]

I.

[David Sims]

Watching this now, I. I was, like, relating certain things to the Nick Reiner situation, which is certainly the most, like, public, like, sort of discussed version.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure.

[David Sims]

But I think that's a perfect case study in how these things often now do happen in our world. Which is like, you just read that. It was 36 years of them being like, how do we help him? You know what is so tragic about that story is everyone says, like, they just did everything.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they.

[David Sims]

They wouldn't give up on him. And they were just like, when is it tough love? When do we need to support him? When do we need to bring him professionals? When is it medication? When is it this? And, like, nothing worked. And, like, the situation goes as horribly as it possibly could have. And everyone goes, like, there was a feeling that someday something like this was gonna happen, but no one kind of seemingly did anything because no one wants.

[Griffin Newman]

To say, like, hey, I think you're right.

[David Sims]

Well, yeah, you can't just write off a kid. You can't just be like, they also garbage.

[Gia Tolentino]

Because kids aren't like this, though, right? Because it's like, there's not. Like, Kevin is not Schizophrenic Kevin is not dealing with addiction issues like Kevin. There's is no diagnosable, you know the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

And Kevin can perform like, as he does for others like psychopathy.

[Gia Tolentino]

I don't know if it's like there's, there's no treatment for it. There's no treatment.

[David Sims]

In all the discussion of Nick Reiner they were like he was good for a couple years and we were like happy and then he fell off the wagon and we thought we could get him back on versus like Kevin comes out with a like little pitchfork and horns.

[Gia Tolentino]

And it's like I actually think that the most compassionate and restorative justice thing to do would be to constantly phantom thread him. Like constantly expose him to norovirus every two weeks so that he's weak and loves him.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he would build up a superhuman intolerance to a Nora virus.

[Gia Tolentino]

I would just be like giving him little norovirus pills, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't think we have those?

[Gia Tolentino]

I would invent them. I'd invent them. Someone could do it for me. And then he. Cause I found that so beautiful. Like I think it's so beautifully acted, that scene where Kevin is very well acted and, and leans his head on her. And for the first time in her entire life, her child has expressed some sort of physical, even comfort with her. And you can tell how much it means to her and how sincerely.

[Griffin Newman]

Sincerely like yeah, she's not like okay.

[Gia Tolentino]

All of a sudden every day this was like this. She would have been the happiest woman in the world. I found it so moving.

[David Sims]

Even if like two days a month were like this, she'd understand what she were fighting for. I think part of why she doesn't know how to take like more extreme actions is that he comes out and she's just immediately like something's really wrong here. But to say that would make her sound crazy.

[Gia Tolentino]

And he's. And because Kevin is pretending as a child, right.

[David Sims]

But even as a baby to be like, honey, I think our baby's evil. Yeah, you can't say that. Right. So as like the signs start to pile up that to her like self fulfilling prophecies, I told you so. It just feels like she's like it's a self confirming body bias in his eyes and he's so oblivious to. And then there is stuff of like sometimes he's really sweet with the sister and you're like, so is he doing that just to spite me?

[Gia Tolentino]

And he's always with the daddy. He's like yeah, let's throw around that baseball, right?

[David Sims]

Do they have a connection I don't understand? Or does he just know that's part of the deal? That it's part of it?

[Gia Tolentino]

Like, because he's what she would be thinking.

[David Sims]

Yes, that's what she's thinking. And I also think that I remember her saying that they really kind of built the performance around the middle kid and had Ezra study the middle kid. And that part of her conception of the character and how it was even written in the script is like, he reaches this kind of like, unresolved anger menace as like, whatever it is, a seven or eight year old. And then when he gets to high school, he's just a taller version of that kid. Like, part of what is so eerie about him is that he's wearing the undersized T shirts, that he's got these, like, childlike behaviors, that it's now in this kind of like, pouty, sulky menace. But everything about him just feels like a stretched out little boy who's now just being taken somewhat more seriously because that kid at that age, it's still a little like, what's going on here?

[Griffin Newman]

I. Look, I had a colicky baby. I've had three kids, so I was gonna.

[David Sims]

Colicky baby.

[Griffin Newman]

Colicky?

[David Sims]

What does that mean?

[Griffin Newman]

Colic is when your baby cries for no reason. Reason. And it's like, you know, it's like torture. Like, I mean, right? I mean, you didn't neither. Your kids were colicky, but, like. But your. Your second kid had even like, had the eczema. I mean, I've talked a lot about parenting.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But I had a cocky baby. And it is like. It is sort of this feeling of like, the devil is in this baby. Like, that you cannot.

[Gia Tolentino]

I've had to walk away. I've had to.

[David Sims]

Where?

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe you have to. And sometimes the advice is that it's like, you know what?

[David Sims]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

The baby's fine. Yes, it's crying, but like, it can't hurt itself if you put it in a bassinet and you just take five minutes or whatever, you know, like, but.

[David Sims]

What does that feel like to be in the other room, just away from the whole.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a baby crying.

[Gia Tolentino]

Better than yelling. What the is wrong with you?

[David Sims]

I'm sure you're also like, what. Why am I feeling. Why am I getting angry at the baby?

[Griffin Newman]

A baby crying, like, like, especially your baby. Like, just like pushes a button in your brain, right? Like, it's just like, help the baby, you know? Like, like. And. Yeah, I mean, like, the answer is, he was under baked. He's the littlest twin. You know, he was a preemie. And, like, he just.

[David Sims]

This wasn't working. Rock steady.

[Griffin Newman]

He's.

[David Sims]

He's kind of. Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

He's rock steady.

[David Sims]

Okay. We use code names for David's children. We named him after. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, and like, you know, he was just under baked. Like, whatever. Something. It's always like, there's something going on with him. Colic. Is this made up word the doctors came up with to just be like, sorry? Like, okay. Better.

[David Sims]

I thought you were just saying, like, cowlick. Like your daughter was pulling hairstyle.

[Gia Tolentino]

I know.

[David Sims]

You do.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's so cute.

[David Sims]

They're probably going to inherit it.

[Griffin Newman]

I have an insane cow. Like, I am waiting one. Rocksteady has the widow's peak, which my dad had one of those. Don't. Bebop. Could. Could rock a cow. Like, he's got curly. Kind of wavy, curly hair.

[Gia Tolentino]

But also what babies are like. It's also. It's shocking to be alive. It's terrible to be alive.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And you're not supposed to be alive yet. You came out too early. Even if you came out a regular time. Time. We come out too early.

[Gia Tolentino]

And none of us chose to be alive. I'm quite thankful to be alive every day. But I. But I.

[Griffin Newman]

No one asked me.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's hard to fault.

[David Sims]

It definitely was not.

[Griffin Newman]

I got. I got no Google survey.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

And Kevin, like, it's like, the only source of. The only source of pleasure he ever seems to access in life is making someone else hurt.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

And in. In a way, like, you know, what do you do if, like. Like, I. I. You know, I feel no sympathy for Kevin, but he makes. Like, even as a somewhat demonic character, there's some sort of emotional logic where, like, he didn't ask for that. The monologue where he's just like, you guys are all here just watching screens all day, wrapped in front of acts of fictional and real violence. Like, what's the fucking point? All of you are just being fake to each other and not saying, like, he loathes his mother for never being honest about the fact that she fucking hates him. Right.

[David Sims]

When you get the flashback of the arm breaking, he was like. That was finally, finally an honest moment from you that you wanted to throw me against a wall. I respected you for the first time. And I felt comfortable. Like, we're not playing.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what I would say to him then?

[David Sims]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

Jesus. Enough with you. You're.

[David Sims]

Jeez, you're a lot I need to stop talking, Kevin.

[Griffin Newman]

You're really exhausting me.

[David Sims]

Up the wall.

[Gia Tolentino]

Take your norovirus pill. Take your pill.

[David Sims]

Time for your.

[Griffin Newman]

I think norovirus is like. Then they're barfing all the time. You got to deal with the barf.

[Gia Tolentino]

I would take an immunity pill.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, of course.

[Gia Tolentino]

Smart.

[David Sims]

That's where this really feels like a pre parental. An Aldo especially. Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

What if this happens?

[David Sims]

Like, do I want to have kids unless I'm 100% sure that I'm ready to be a parent?

[Griffin Newman]

What if I get the one in a million?

[David Sims]

You don't know what you're gonna get.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

And there's the version of. This is, you know, you. You have a child who has like, different needs and there's nothing malicious within them, but you're just like, the job is immediately exponentially more difficult than you thought it was gonna be. You know, you just don't know what you're going to get in any way. And you need to be so sure. And people shouldn't have kids who aren't sure that they want to have kids. And that. The fact that she's just like, as you said, it's like, am I 49% or 51%? Like, where am I on this? The kid comes out immediately.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just like, fuck.

[Gia Tolentino]

And I think she has the kid. Like, she. You can kind of. It's kind of presented in the movie. She's just. It's really like, it was a spur of the moment decision. Like, she's blackout drunk and she's just like, it's fine, and it's fine. What's. Whatever, what's one to eat?

[David Sims]

It's the kind of shit that like, Lynne Ramsey can get away with. Because she mostly deals in these scene fragments. And if this was a line of dialogue at the end of like five pages of conventionally written scene, I'd be like, boo, fuck you. But when you cut to her in the delivery room and the doctors are saying, stop resisting, and she's like, oh, she doesn't want the baby to come out. You know, there's something right there from that moment, which then in her mind, the second the baby's a problem is left. Like, did I kind of like, will this into happening? Is there some sort of like, energy I've passed on to this child of you're unwanted.

[Gia Tolentino]

Should I have been giving him a blowjob when he might wake up and have to poop? Also, like the way. Sorry, like the way David's head is in his hand?

[Griffin Newman]

Lock your door or something. I don't know, man.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, no, I mean, just. But also, like, that scene is also so funny because of just the way her head is moving. Like, it's so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

It's incredibly well staged.

[Gia Tolentino]

It is such a. It's is such a perfunctory blow job. Like, it's. She's. She's, like, she's got her. She's looking at the. At her watch, you know, she's.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I mean, it's. Again, this is the tilt of John C. I'm. I mean, now I feel like I'm being mean to John C. R. No.

[David Sims]

But it's a weird relationship. David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Happy New Year. Yay.

[Griffin Newman]

That was a little party horn.

[David Sims]

Yeah, It's February, but it's still the new year. I mean, I liked it. I'm not gonna call it out, but with the new year comes a kind of time for reflection. Right? You think about the past year, you think about your aspirations for the year to come, and you start to think about your finances.

[Griffin Newman]

It's true. But look, paying off debt, building an emergency fund, saving for something major like buying a home or college or, you know, retirement. Stuff like that.

[David Sims]

Plan to do all three of those in 2026.

[Griffin Newman]

You're going to go back to school.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And retire Dangerfield style. And buy a house.

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

Wait a second, wait a second.

[Griffin Newman]

Because the story doesn't end there.

[David Sims]

What?

[Griffin Newman]

You can also get 50% off your monarch subscription with code check.

[David Sims]

Well, that's a lovely little deal.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a tiny bit of savings.

[David Sims]

That's a tiny bit of savings, isn't it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Monarch, you know, know, unlike other personal finance apps, it's built to make you proactive, Right? Not just reactive. So it's more for planning less for like, hey, here's what you got, here's what you want. Monarch can help you figure it out.

[David Sims]

And unlike other organizations called Monarch, there is no legacy of monsters that comes with Monarch. They. They're not going to need to provide you with a beast glove, but metaphorically, they'll give you a kind of beast glove level of empowerment over your own Finances.

[Griffin Newman]

They are not, of course, affiliated with the great people who help us stay protected against Godzilla and other sort of large Kaiju threats.

[David Sims]

Skull crawlers, drowned vipers.

[Griffin Newman]

Muto.

[David Sims]

One Eye.

[Griffin Newman]

Remember Muto?

[David Sims]

There were a couple Mutos.

[Griffin Newman]

There were two.

[David Sims]

There was a male Muto and a lady Muto. Not to be binary.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie was sometimes the bees and the birds.

[David Sims]

Tiamat, the Skar King.

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

Suko. He was the little Kong baby. Suko.

[Griffin Newman]

Suko.

[David Sims]

Suko.

[Griffin Newman]

To get back to the research just a little bit, Summit Entertainment has just made a ton of money off of Twilight. They're like, we will make this movie for you. We've read your script. She had, like, a spec script. We'll give you $12 million. You can cast whoever you want. Then after, according to Variety and Lynn Ramsey, they back out after a year, essentially being like. Like, this is too weird. It's so funny when studios do this, like, where they're like, it's about, like, a kid who kills other kids. And it's just like, yeah, bro. You read the script, you know, like. But they fun suddenly back on. They get cold feet.

[David Sims]

The wild, like, quick arc of, like, here's this new, like, upstart, like, distributor. What are they gonna make? They're gonna make the stuff the studios don't want to make. Let's get, like, action scripts that the other studios have passed on. What's Twilight was supposed to be an MTV movie. They were like, it. They get it for, like, no money. It makes half a billion dollars. They have a franchise, and suddenly they're like, great, now we have the money to make a bunch of shit. But also in real time, going like, is it worth the fucking risk?

[Griffin Newman]

And then they call her and they're like, we kind of are thinking, we're gonna make more Twilight movies. That's kind of what we're gonna do.

[David Sims]

And within six years, they're bought by Lions. They don't exist anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

Sucked into lions. Yeah, right. So she doesn't give up. She retools it. She cuts the script, essentially, the budget of the script in half by, like. Like, with the script. So she had it, you know, at about a 12 million number. I think the movie was made for seven. And she just kind of pieces the money together. UK Film Council, Artificial Eye, all these, like, you know, euro sort of indie companies. BBC Films, obviously.

[David Sims]

I think Paramount had UK on this. Sure. It has, like, 20 different companies.

[Griffin Newman]

SODERBERGH is like an executive producer on it. Asiloscope releases it in America.

[David Sims]

A distributor. I love who. Yeah. Nearly enough.

[Griffin Newman]

Shout them out.

[David Sims]

Co. Founded or founded by mca.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

From Beastie Boys.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But they. They put out great stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

She knows Tilda Swinton. Tilda Swinton, essentially is just like a magpie for freak directors.

[David Sims]

It makes sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Tilda's basically like, I've been hearing about it.

[David Sims]

Has been blowing up her inbox for 10 years. Be like, give me something. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And the Buster Keaton thing, you know, like, she's very into that. Buster Keaton's her favorite. She says, I'm not good at being articulate. I'm much more wired for looking dumb. And she just liked. Like, I can just stand around looking dumb in this movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's more like a nonessential.

[Griffin Newman]

I think is very like, oh, who knows what I do? Like, who Me? And I'm like, you're one of the most interesting actors who's ever lived the way.

[Gia Tolentino]

When she's walking down the courthouse step steps. Her. Her heels, you know, like, it's. She's so funny with her body and she really is.

[Griffin Newman]

Dude. I just watched the Chronicles of Narnia, the lion, the Wish and the Wardrobe because I've decided this year to.

[David Sims]

It's your Narnia year to.

[Griffin Newman]

To read all the Narnias.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, they're good.

[Griffin Newman]

I know. They're totally, like. They're totally interesting. I was like, you know what? Greta's doing the movie this year. I'm gonna read them all. I haven't really interacted with this since I was a kid. And then out of interest, I'm like, I'll watch the movie. Which is not that good. But anytime she's on screen, may. May I say it.

[Gia Tolentino]

She's acting, serving cunt.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I mean, when she's, like, riding around in a chariot pulled by, like, a polar bear with, like, crazy makeup, you're like, she was born for this. Like, no acting requires.

[David Sims]

Like, it's the funniest thing when you consider, like, that unsurprisingly, that movies announced Disney's gonna make a big fucking Narnia lying. The Witch in the Wardrobe.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It's post Lord of the Rings. They're like, what can we. You know, what fantasy thing?

[David Sims]

Can we immediately. The story is Nicole Kidman in talks for.

[Griffin Newman]

For White Witch. Right. Easiest. Yeah. Who's the iciest blonde out there? Right?

[David Sims]

You're like, there you go. Slam dunk. She drops out. They're like, Tilda Swinton. Film freaks are like, cool. Tilda Swinton. Get that bag. Isn't that like a major. Like, did the scale of this movie just go way down?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, well, because it was like they got the. I mean, Tilda had been in a couple things when they got her, but, like, it's the lady from like Derek Jarman movies. Not like.

[David Sims]

And you're like. Like Voldemort in a movie where, like, the stars are children and you don't have a big name actor above the title. It comes out within a week of King Kong. Everyone thinks King Kong is going to dominate. Narnia suplexes it. And suddenly Tilda Swinton is bankable.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And she wins an Oscar two years later. Like, she. It happens. Really.

[David Sims]

Can we do like a little zoom out here?

[Gia Tolentino]

What did she win the Oscar for?

[Griffin Newman]

For Michael Clayton, which is a great.

[David Sims]

Performance, you know, and, like, went in seeming like it's an honor just to be nominated. Everyone thought it was down to Amy Ryan or Kate Blanchet in I'm Not Here.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And then Bob Dylan. Yeah. And then, like, Tilda wins in a toll Surprise.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Year after that, she has Prince Caspian. The second Narnia.

[Griffin Newman]

She's. That's a good.

[David Sims]

After reading that one. Benjamin Button.

[Griffin Newman]

Benjamin Button.

[David Sims]

She's good in that movie she obviously signed up for before winning the Oscar. Right. Then it's Limits of Control. She's doing another Jarus I Am Love. She basically is the first person to be a guarantor for. For Guadagnino.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. That's a really great.

[David Sims]

She's got an Oscar. She can be the lead. She like, launches him as a director. Then third Narnia showing up for another cameo, probably pocketing $2 million.

[Griffin Newman]

She's a dream in that one.

[David Sims]

We need to talk about Kevin.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, like, literally, someone has a dream.

[David Sims]

Sure. 2011, Moonrise Kingdom. First Wes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Only Lovers Left Alive. Another Jar Much. Maybe her best performance in the convo.

[Griffin Newman]

Have you seen that movie? It's about two bored vampires hanging out in Detroit, just being like, man, we've been to so many concerts, we're 500 years old. Is there anything left for us to do?

[David Sims]

Heroin addicts. Like a vampire would just feel like Heath Richards times a thousand.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just till this point, Tom Hiddleston just, like, laying on top of each other and thin and just, like, she put on some sunglasses and go see some jazz snowpiercer. Yeah, she's great in that.

[David Sims]

Zero theorem is a wash, right? And then Grand Budapest Hotel, train wreck, bigger splash. Hail Caesar. Like, that's not only is it her clearly just being, like, good filmmakers. I don't care the size of the role. I'll show up. I'll do it. Almost all of those movies work. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, but. And also, she's always striking. And I mean, I love her. I love her so much. I mean, I love that she eventually turns this into. Let me start working with Joanna Hogg, my original collaborator again. And, like, they have such a rich thing now. And, like, you know, she was in the. You know. What else has she been in lately?

[David Sims]

No, but I mean, Memoria and stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right. The. Right.

[David Sims]

She's so loyal to filmmakers.

[Griffin Newman]

The George Miller movie.

[David Sims]

But you're like, she's done, like, five Wes Anderson.

[Griffin Newman]

So good in Problemista. Like, that was like a really. Like. Like, she didn't have to do that.

[David Sims]

That's the kind of sweat.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, that's. I'm sure, the thing where Julio Torres was like, tilda, I'm obsessed with you. You are.

[David Sims]

My God.

[Griffin Newman]

And she was like, okay.

[David Sims]

Like, she will equally, like, help launch a filmmaker who doesn't have that level of exposure and also be like, yeah, Jarmusch, I'll show up for half an hour and do whatever you want of me. Almost all of the movies work.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to read a story that Tilda said on the press tour a lot. Until recently, I had a reputation in my family for having saved my younger brother's life as a child. Actually, I was going to kill him because he was a boy. Naturally, I already had two brothers, and that was just too much to bear. She was four and a half, Entered his room, morbidly determined, and then she noticed that he had a ribbon from a baby bonnet sticking from the corner of his mouth. And I started to pull it out and then was witnessed in this great act of love, of nurture. So she's claiming, like, oh, yeah, I wanted to fucking kill my baby brother when I was 4 years old. And instead, I was seen as saving his life. Okay, so she's just saying that on the press tour. I don't know.

[Gia Tolentino]

Tough press tour. Yeah, crazy tough. Tough press tour. One imagines it is probably.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Where people sit down like, hi, I'm from. Yeah, I'm from Hollywood Tonight, and I love the movie. Really interesting, you know, like, what do.

[David Sims]

You can I call out who is ostensibly the fourth lead of this movie. If we. You know. Or fifth lead at least.

[Griffin Newman]

Can we talk about Siobhan Holland Hogan.

[David Sims]

Sorry. Siobhan Hogan. Fallon is the.

[Griffin Newman]

The boss.

[David Sims]

Yes. One of the favorite.

[Griffin Newman]

A deadpan. You know, she's very good at the kind of like, all right. You know, like doing that kind of thing in a movie for two minutes.

[David Sims]

Like an incredible character actress who fits equally well in a Lynn Ramsey movie and a Farrelly Brothers movie. Like, who else is like that? Where you look at her career and it's half like, very serious dramas where they're like, you won't be too over the top, but this movie maybe needs a little levity.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. It's like Bridget Everett in the.

[David Sims]

Totally, totally.

[Griffin Newman]

Do. Do you.

[Gia Tolentino]

Knives out or.

[David Sims]

She can just go as big as anyone if she wants.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you truly buy that she is just kind of like, yeah, you can have a job. I don't give a shit. Well, the. I kept waiting for a turn.

[Gia Tolentino]

The Office doesn't make it any.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I know for her being like, by the way, I hired you because, like, I'm fascinated by who you are. Like, yeah, but it doesn't really come up.

[Gia Tolentino]

The Office in general is almost like. Like that is that. This was one of my. This was my main issue with D. My love is that it's like, you know, it. It's out of time and place, despite being so rooted in the place. Like, it's like the characters, you know, they don't have friends, they don't have cell phones. They don't have, you know, like, they.

[David Sims]

Where are we?

[Griffin Newman]

Who are we?

[Gia Tolentino]

What time is it? You know, what is she affected by? And the. I mean, I think it works because, like, aesthetically, the Office party, when they're stringing up the tinsel and the sad little. But it's like, you know, you go to the office. It's also like the first time you flashback to her present life where she's like, in that strip mall. It says, like, it's like Asian restaurant. And then it's like 1-800-travel or whatever. And then you go in and the first poster you see is like, tampa awaits you.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, man.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's incredible. It's an incredible detail. But it's like, what year is it inside the Office? We don't know.

[David Sims]

I think that.

[Gia Tolentino]

What do they do?

[David Sims]

Part of it. I mean, maybe I'm being generous, right? But like, she starts out as a fairly successful travel writer, and you're kind of like, that industry is Going to radically transform travel writers will still exist. But the idea of a person who can spend like two years writing a book very thoughtfully that sells enough to support a family is like over. And when she's basically cast out of that because no one's going to buy her book because she's the mother of Kevin, she then has to get a job at a travel agency which is even closer to death. Death. This is a business that no longer needs to exist. That's basically just for a clientele that like the last generation that refuses to use the Internet, who are all gonna die in five years. And so are they so desperate that they're like, anyone who wants to work.

[Griffin Newman]

Here, we bring travel agents back.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think they're kind of being.

[Griffin Newman]

Coming back a little bit because people like, I don't want to deal. Right.

[David Sims]

Our friend Stuart Wellington.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Swears by like you'll.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yes. Secretly. We've all have friends that probably My.

[David Sims]

Mom used to save a lot of money. Money.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Well, that's their. Ostensibly one of their jobs.

[David Sims]

And you just, no stress, everything's sorted out for you. You get a better deal.

[Griffin Newman]

My mom used one when we were a kid. Like travel agents would help plan our vacations. And she was always like, they knew this, these fucking awesome places to go. Like. And I'm like, I guess that's what they're.

[David Sims]

They make the reservations, all that shit. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

John C. Reilly. Just to. To acknowledge essentially what we already guessed. She cast him because she thought he could bring some warmth. Warmth to the role. You know, sort of like a warm, cuddly American guy. Like, like he was just in her head.

[David Sims]

He's like a teddy bear.

[Griffin Newman]

He'd like made a list of like cool directors he wanted to work with and she was on it. So like he, when approached, he was like, thumbs up, like, yes, I want to work with Lynn Ramsey.

[David Sims]

And if you look at his career at this moment, it's like, walk Hard didn't work. So the notion of him being a guy who can carry a movie single handedly kind of dies on the vine right there. But he's still clearly like a value add. If you're trying to raise your money piecemeal from so many different places, he would still look like a guy where you're like, chaucey Riley's worth like a million dollars if he's willing to do the movie for scale. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They shot it in Connecticut. Stanford, Connecticut. They shot it in CinemaScope, which sounds crazy, but she's essentially like, you can do two shots instead of One single. Like she just wanted that kind of like epic, everyday sort of thing. Just unusual. I would say they had $7 million, so, you know, everything was really fucking hard.

[David Sims]

They shot in like 30 days. Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

LA Tamatina, though, they did go. That's because they were like. We can't really fake that. Like, we have to just go. Here's Ramsey with a great story about the masturbation scene. I knew that scene really worked when we were checking the focus in post production in Connecticut and we had to watch it over and over. The projectionist was pissing himself. He kept going. Motherfucker. Every time he reran the scene. It was magic. You know, you've nailed it when you get a reaction like that. And then Johnny Greenwood does the score. Very cool score. As is Johnny Greenwood's want. It's all wire strung harp. I love, like the idea of calling him being like, hey, it's about a kid who murders people with a bone arrow. He's thinking. I'm thinking harp.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, all right, Johnny, whatever you want to do.

[Gia Tolentino]

What else would it be?

[David Sims]

Yeah, can I go back to your. Is the bow and arrow gilding the lily?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. No, I don't think it's cool. I'm just sort of. I actually am. Like, I found it almost impossible. Little corny and like a little implausible that. That he. He could kill that many people. People. I. I was like, it's a bow and arrow run up to him.

[David Sims]

You know, I like that. It's so weird. It's weird that it makes it a more distinct, like what the was going on here down to even like the bicycle locks and whatever. It also helps that she's the type of filmmaker where you watch this movie the first time and you're like. We're cutting ahead to these little flashes. And I'm dreading the scene where suddenly it's gonna like, play out in real time. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like you're dreading Sully thing.

[David Sims]

An hour in, we're going to see 20 continuous minutes of the massacre. And she keeps it abstract. It is one of the things I like the most about her is that in her movies you will have these sort of like, flashes when Tilda runs into the classmate who is now a paraplegic in the wheelchair. And he's so friendly to her and clearly is like, we both have suffered from this. I'm relating to you as another victim of this tragedy. Or. Or yeah, you know, someone who has to live in the wake of it.

[Griffin Newman]

That's how I took it.

[David Sims]

And she Keeps flashing back to him being wheeled out on the stretcher. And you're trained from watching so many worse movies.

[Griffin Newman]

We're gonna see the rest of that scene. We're gonna see more of.

[David Sims]

And she just has this confidence. You were never really here. Does this super well, as well, where you're like, oh, these flashbacks that are teasing the trauma of his past and you're dreading the scene that's gonna literalize it and spell it out. And it never does because you're like. Like, I get it. I see this one image. I know exactly what it's conveying. You don't need to show me the rest. I can fill it in.

[Gia Tolentino]

You know what the bow and arrow is actually like in the book? It's bow and arrow. Because in his 24 hours of psychological pliability from his flu, right? He reads Rob, she reads Robin Hood.

[Griffin Newman]

And that's how he gets.

[Gia Tolentino]

And. And he becomes enamored with a bow. With a bow and arrow from Robin Hood. And so. But I. I do think that's a little bit corny. Like, it's giving mfa. Like, it's.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Lionel Shriver's a bad writer.

[David Sims]

But also, if you had to see him do it on screen, it would totally break. You'd be like, this is like 7lb jellyfish in the bathtub.

[Gia Tolentino]

Totally.

[David Sims]

The fact that you don't see it touch the jellyfish. Don't. Don't.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what they say in that movie.

[David Sims]

And coaxium, you have to keep it hot.

[Griffin Newman]

Cold as hell.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry. We're just getting caught up in our. The fact that you don't see it helps it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And that it feels like a thing that you read about in the newspaper. And you're like, he did. Did what? He. Like, he ordered 50 bicycle locks and then took a bow and arrow into a gymnasium.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, I think it's also right. We're supposed to. Bullet. We're supposed to kind of perceive that he sees himself as an artiste. You know, like, he's not.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, he's.

[Gia Tolentino]

The literature, it requires, like, finesse.

[David Sims]

And he's making, like, a statement.

[Gia Tolentino]

And in the book, he makes actually a list of 10 kids, gives them fake certificates saying they're getting an award, lines them up in the middle of the gym, shoots them. And. And, like, some of them he kills immediately, but because it's only 10 of them, like, some of them bleed out in front of him for an hour, and it's like, I'm not love that.

[David Sims]

None of this shit's in the movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

None of that needs to be.

[David Sims]

I also love that we just, like, never see him interact with contemporaries, really, where you're just like, we don't know if he's bullied, if he is bullying, if he just keeps to himself, if he puts on, like, a sociable face at school that he doesn't when he's at home.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. You gotta fill in all those gaps. You never know. I mean, Ebert's review is actually really clever where he's like, in an ordinary movie, there would be meetings with counselors, there would be stuff in the classrooms and all that. In this movie, they don't talk about Kevin. Like, nobody's talking about Kevin except for her saying, we need to, but she doesn't. But. But even she is mostly being ignored by John C. Reilly. And we assume other people, but we don't really see that. I mean, I guess we see the nurse say something like, he's such a brave boy. Yeah. When he breaks his arm and told her, she just do it. She should do a jack off motion when he. She says, sucks. But you're right.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

No one is really talking about Kevin.

[David Sims]

Which is a shame because we were all put on notice.

[Griffin Newman]

I know. Yeah. It's. You know, the first time I saw it, I didn't read the book. Book. I avoided the book when it came out. Like, it was a time when I was certainly, like, reading winners of. Yeah. Winners of literary prize. I was like, you know, old and pretentious enough to do that. And I like the subject matter. I was just like, oh, I don't want it. You know? And I like that he killed the rest of the family. Like, I'm sure that's the big audience gasp. Right? I don't really remember anymore.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. That is wild.

[Griffin Newman]

It's no good.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, it's no. It's no good.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just no good. I don't like it. I don't like it.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's really. It's. It's also such a beautiful shot. Like, it is.

[David Sims]

It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. It looks like a painting of a saint that got killed. Like.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, it's giving.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, like. Yes, exactly. It's give. It's giving. Saint Sebastian, that guy. What did. And what. Why'd they do that to him? What do you do? He liked Jesus, I assume.

[David Sims]

He was leading a hot crustacean band, wasn't he? Here's the thing you need to understand. We now record this podcast often so many months ahead of schedule and out of order. This episode we're recording the same.

[Griffin Newman]

This one's coming up next week.

[David Sims]

Fast turnaround. I make an almost identical joke in some other episode that will probably come out in September.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I've been going. I made a joke. I've been seeing a lot of St. Sebastian.

[Gia Tolentino]

Who gets arrowed in a different. What? What is it?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Why was arrow hot Crustacean Banjo. Something else made me think of a hunt Crist band. We'll find out.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll find out. Who knows? You know, the pooping. I'm trying to think of anything. Any Kevin stuff. We haven't.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, I have a question for you.

[Griffin Newman]

Kevin Behaviors.

[Gia Tolentino]

Lynne Ramsey for me is like, I had friends. I like, die, my love. I like everything Lyn's ever done. But you kind of know more than most directors who I think direct masterpieces. I would never like urgent someone to see it who I don't know, would. You know what I mean?

[Griffin Newman]

100. That's not a thing where it's like, you know. You know what I really duck dye my love. I'm gonna tell all my friends to.

[Gia Tolentino]

Go Never tell what I've been to.

[David Sims]

Communicate this whole miniseries is. I. I think these movies are less punishing than they sound.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I would encourage you to give them a shot. But also, I will never judge anyone for being like, oh, come back.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Gia Tolentino]

And. And you kind of of know. Like, you kind of know when my friends were like, I don't know if I'm gonna like that. And I was sort of like, I don't think you're gonna like it. You know, and that's cool. Like, I'm not gonna try to convince you it's good or even pleasurable. I find it hard to articulate what I find so pleasurable about the movies, besides the fact that they, you know, like, they conjure this kind of interior psychological texture in a way that not, you know, so few like, what do you think? Think I have had a hard time explaining to friends why this movie is good and why it's actually enjoyable, why I actually enjoy it. Like, what. What can you guys articulate?

[Griffin Newman]

Chris might have to speak to that. Read this movie. Her movies in general, they are beautifully made in an unsubtle way. And I'm not saying that, like, she's an over the top filmmaker. I'm just saying, like, her control of the frame is pretty unusual. And so, like, it is just an aesthetic pleasure watching her movies. Right. Like, it is just. It is straightforwardly awesome to see the kind of visuals she wants. You to see. Would you agree with that?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what I mean? Like that's a big part before we're getting to. Yes. Okay. JLaw will be crawling towards you with a knife and you might be disturbed or whatever. I mean, you know, whatever.

[Gia Tolentino]

You were never really here. Pretty at all.

[David Sims]

Really pretty. Is it?

[Gia Tolentino]

I mean, I love that movie. I've only seen it when it came out.

[David Sims]

Arguably the prettiest dark.

[Gia Tolentino]

But it's. It is. Visually, it is.

[Griffin Newman]

It's less darker than you remember. I think you're thinking of.

[Gia Tolentino]

I remember loving it and I. But I've never seen it.

[David Sims]

It is my favorite.

[Griffin Newman]

Griff will throw that movie on, so you really should speak to it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but that is a movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

Throw it on.

[Griffin Newman]

He throws that movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

Okay, okay.

[David Sims]

But that is. We'll talk about our length next week. That is a movie that for me is like unbelievably poetic, even in how it's sort of depicting or more often just sort of like talking around or exploring the psychological angles of. Of unfathomable things. I think it's a vibe.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right? And that's what she does.

[Griffin Newman]

She's incredibly good at a vibe.

[David Sims]

I also think.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, but it's.

[David Sims]

Yeah. This is my larger theory that I. Every episode I feel like I'm taking a different strike at trying to get across. I keep saying this thing that people think is insane, which is that I find her movies very life affirming. And what I find very life affirming about them is that she understands how to depict the inner life or the internal subjective, emotional and psychological experience of living through things we just don't want to fucking think about. And I think part of what she's able to get at versus these books we're talking about adapted in worse hands just becomes a kind of like arm's length, emotionally punishing. Look at how much this character suffering thing. And I think what she's so good at is like showing you you would still just be a person. You just be a person living through this. And whether it's structured as a memory or whether it's structured like Morven Caller, where it's like a day by day thing. Like, part of what's funny about Morven Caller is the balance between the banality of some of the things she's going through and the intensity of the motions that she's not really processing. And the same with this, you know, And I think especially in this one where it's so much dealing with a fictionalized version of the kind of true crime thing we're obsessed with. With Kevin gives his whole fucking monologue about the world rotates around watching people like me on TV. In the 15 years since this movie's come out, that has become a million times more true. Like, multiple industries are all basically balanced on people's bloodlust for this type of story. But it's usually in this very sensationalist way that is just presenting to you and pushing on you the most extreme facts in the most salacious way, with the most kind of ominous. What's the word I'm looking for? A very kind of like, this is the emotionally intense score and the slow zoom on the image. And it's just. Can you imagine what a fucking nightmare? In a way that I think basically flattens there being any real human experience inside of those events. It turns it just into. Can you imagine how terrible that would be? It turns it into like a scary story to tell you in the dark. Except for grownups, because it really happened and now it's true crime shit. And like, part of what this movie gets at is just like, well, if you're the person who raises a kid who goes on to commit this kind of like insane school shooting incident, it's like 16 years of your life. And when you're on the other side of living through that, you still have to fucking go to the grocery store and buy.

[Gia Tolentino]

And then eat 12 eggs, right? And then you gotta eat 12 eggs.

[David Sims]

And like, her avoidance. I mean, that moment's really funny. Of like, how many eggs could I eat?

[Gia Tolentino]

She's like, I'll take.

[Griffin Newman]

Not 12.

[Gia Tolentino]

I'll take them all. I'll take them as is.

[David Sims]

All 12 are broken.

[Gia Tolentino]

She's picking them out of her teeth.

[David Sims]

That moment at the holiday party for the travel agency where the one guy who's sort of been nice to her at the office.

[Gia Tolentino]

Horrible.

[David Sims]

And is like flirting with her and trying to get her to dance.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like, you dumb.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, like hysterical. That. That guy's like, I think I'm gonn. Tilda. Even depressed. Tilda. I'm like, look, man, this guy, this. This is Tilda Swinton. You're reckoning.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is there comfort in these bones for you?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you know, like, she looks like she just walked through, like, you know, from another dimension. Like, come on.

[David Sims]

But yeah, it feels like when you see these, like, screenshots of guys on dating apps who are like, politely rejected.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

You're not even hot. I never even date a person where he just feels like, well, like, I'm a 6 and she's a 10. But she was responsible.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, school shooting gets her to like four. Right. I mean, Jesus. Right.

[David Sims]

I'd be doing her a favor. Yeah. And he just so quickly, like, flips out on her. That scene is, like, so ugly, but also funny in the absurdity of it.

[Griffin Newman]

She, she's right. Lynn is exceptionally good at looking at the darkest things we can imagine.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like having a bit of fun with it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Kind of the subject of all like, like kind of accidental misery.

[David Sims]

Live in the things that we don't even want to think about. Or if we think about it, we want to think about it only in the major incident in the didactic ways.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's like, inherently sort of dehumanizing because it is, it's categorizable or whatever. And like.

[David Sims]

And she's not going to show you that shit.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Or focus on that. It's like, implied. And it's like that scene tells you more than the idea of her, like, going home at night and crying.

[Griffin Newman]

No, not to, you know, paint with a broad brush about Scottish people, but it's a, it's a, a cold, dark, oft conquered country that, like, loves gallows humor. Loves to, like, think about the sort of, like, nasty parts of the world in a funny way.

[Gia Tolentino]

I learned, I learned a new word from Scotland. I, I, I'm a fan of the Reddit. That is like, what is, it's like, what is it like to live there? And it's like, a lot of. It's really good. It's often about remote places. Really deeply my shit. And there was something about out some, some corner of Scotland and I learned for, I learned the word dreak.

[Griffin Newman]

I love it. I don't know.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's, it's like, apparently, I mean, you said you had a lot of Scottish listeners. I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

Dark and wet.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's. No, I think it's gray and wet. It's like kind of dream. Yeah. Where it's like, it won't. It's where it's cold and it's drizzly and it's freezing and just miserable.

[Griffin Newman]

Relentlessly overcast. Cold and drizzly.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's such a good word.

[Griffin Newman]

Just sounds like the entirety of Britain. God bless it. I love that weather.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right. Which is so good that there's a word.

[David Sims]

How is living there?

[Gia Tolentino]

How. What is it like to live there? I think. Or how is living there? Maybe that is it. Yeah.

[David Sims]

I, I tried searching for what is it like to live there?

[Gia Tolentino]

You're right. That's more efficient.

[David Sims]

How Reddit autocompleted With what is it like to have a girlfriend? What?

[Griffin Newman]

And what is it like?

[David Sims]

I'm sure many Redditors are asking.

[Griffin Newman]

I. Scotland's my favorite place on Earth. I've already been been.

[Gia Tolentino]

I want to go.

[Griffin Newman]

I've already been called out on the Reddit for not knowing how to pronounce, like, the names of various, like, neighborhoods in Glasgow. I'm sorry, guys. My accent, you know, is not. I'm not about to pretend that I can, like, you know, deliver a Scottish dialect perfectly, but the greatest vacation I ever took. My mom talks about it all the time. It's like, we. We moved to England, right? And then she's like, we're going to the Highlands. Like, we're going to go to, you know, on vacation to Scotland. I'm probably. I'm 10 years old or whatever, and I'm like, okay, okay. Then we get to the train station. She's like, FYI, we sleep on this train. This is a sleeper train because it's so far north. And I think my reaction, as she describes it, the age of 10, was basically like, I was told I was taking the Polar Express to see Santa. I was so happy.

[David Sims]

That's your dream.

[Gia Tolentino]

I mean, it's so sick to sleep.

[Griffin Newman]

On a chair, especially when you're 10 and, like, you can just jump into a little bunk bed, you know, without it being like, what the is this? Like, this isn't a real. Bet you.

[David Sims]

My room is on a wheel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I love that. His glowing recommendation of Scotland is that.

[Gia Tolentino]

You can get there sleeper train.

[Griffin Newman]

So we take Highlands being one of the most. No, but this is the thing. Then we took a sleeper train to Inverness, a wonderful city. Stayed there, and then we went all over Scotland. We went to the Isle of Sky, we went to Loch Ness, and we went to the, you know, all kinds of cool places. And then, like, as a kid, I just. I mean, I love that weather, love that landscape. I like the food.

[David Sims]

I like the food a lot.

[Gia Tolentino]

Why have we not gotten, like, a David Lowry Loch Ness movie? Let's.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll text him right now, actually.

[David Sims]

Yeah, let's text him right now.

[Gia Tolentino]

I just watched when I was at Sundance and kind of depressed, Richard Lawson told me to watch, or I was talking about actually good kids movies. I mean, we'll talk. I'm sure we have a long conversation.

[Griffin Newman]

To have, and we're going to keep talking about it because our kids are on Little Princess.

[Gia Tolentino]

That was Paloma's first movie cry. It was her first movie cry. And I found it. So. And. And she was almost as like she was like, why do I feel so happy? But like, like when she was like. She was like, why do I feel so happy when I'm crying? I was like, girl, that was what made her cry. Huge theater moment when. When the dad is being pulled away in the rain and he finally remembers. And then she's been yelling daddy. And she. And he remembers why and they run together in the rain. Oh, I actually cried when the. When the attic becomes transformed. And I wept at that scene.

[Griffin Newman]

It's still my favorite of his movies.

[David Sims]

Unbelievable.

[Griffin Newman]

It was such a thunderbolt movie for me as a kid.

[David Sims]

I had the same experience.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[David Sims]

The balloon more sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than all the kids movies I'm seeing.

[Gia Tolentino]

And when the balloon. Something different towards her in the study, you know. And then it suddenly, you know. Anyway.

[David Sims]

Boss baby.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sorry.

[David Sims]

Fucking boss baby.

[Griffin Newman]

Boss baby.

[David Sims]

Boss baby.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't see.

[David Sims]

Can I do. Can I do a clean pickup so Ben can place it in the previous moments? Boss baby.

[Griffin Newman]

Great. There you go. Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

I watched the David Lowry Pete's Dragon last night for the first time. We all laid on the floor and watched it. And now I need a Loch Ness one for adults.

[David Sims]

Huge question Two part one. Have you ever considered making a Loch Ness movie?

[Gia Tolentino]

I want that so bad because there.

[Griffin Newman]

Is of course the Loch Ness movie with Ted Danson and Kristen Scott Thomas. I saw it in theaters. Yeah, it's very, very bad.

[Gia Tolentino]

Don't know what that is.

[Griffin Newman]

Never. I don't think it was even released in America. I think America was like, pass.

[Gia Tolentino]

I want a three hour David Lowry Loch Ness.

[David Sims]

Is the water horse movie a Loch Ness movie or is that a different.

[Griffin Newman]

No, that's a. That's a, you know, a Kelpie or whatever. Like it's a different kind of figure of Celtic.

[David Sims]

It's called like Legend, Story of the Water Horse.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

Or Story Legend of the Story.

[Griffin Newman]

I. Loch Ness is very cool. That was cool. I wanted to go in. My parents were like, it's like minus a million degrees. You can't go in that water. I was like, let's go. Let's swim, baby. Anyway, Scotland's great. Oh, right, right. But of course this movie is American.

[Gia Tolentino]

We were talking about like why we like these movies. Just they're like impossible to convince anyone.

[Griffin Newman]

I would love her to make another Scottish movie actually. Cuz she hasn't since Ratcatcher. I mean Morvin Color I guess is Scottish, but like it's mostly not set there. Like, I'd love her to go back there. I have no idea what her, you.

[Gia Tolentino]

Know, God, what if it's the Scottish vampire?

[David Sims]

What were you gonna say about it?

[Gia Tolentino]

I don't know. I was actually wondering because I like the only. I mean, I'm inarticulate about like, I, I was just like, they're, they're so good. And either you think the movies are masterpieces or you're like, I hate. Not for me.

[David Sims]

Yes. I think it's part of wavelength.

[Gia Tolentino]

The simple thing of like, like no one else. It's, it's. You're delivered something in a package that you'll never get anywhere else in any way that's remotely close to the way she's doing it. She is one of that alone. She's so unbelievably one of one.

[David Sims]

I would argue she basically has her own language. You can see certain influences, but there's not even like Lynn Ramsey runoff filmmakers. And we were arguing like Barry Jenkins has talked about how important Ratcatcher was for him. And you, you see some of her language in moonlight in particular. But I think all of his work, but it's very much turned into something different. And that's just one of the pieces. She exists.

[Gia Tolentino]

Nothing ever feels anything like it.

[David Sims]

No. And she arrived fully formed and she's been able to take multiple different pieces of material, work in different genres, all filtered through her identity. I also think, I mean, I'm every episode fighting to figure out how to verbalize this thing that has been like 10 years of my friends being like, why do you fucking rewatch that movie all the time? Movies that feel like fundamental, One Time only watches and I, I, you know, in like people trying to write cultural studies on the rise of true crime shit and like the endless power of SVU and everything, it's like it releases some tension to watch the stories about the worst things possible that you live in fear of. Of. Right. I think a lot of people have that relationship to crime. Books, podcasts, TV shows, movies, what have you. Exactly. And those are the fact based versions of it where it's like, and now we're presenting to you the solved case. It's over. And for me, I have no interest in living in that shit. I do find some kind of relief in watching someone explore the emotional dynamics of those things, because if anything, that's what scares me more. And I feel like when there are horrible tragedies, rather they're large scale or small scale that I read about in the news. My question is always, what the Fuck does that person do the next day? Like, how do you fucking wake up the next morning, decide what you want to eat for breakfast?

[Griffin Newman]

I know what you're talking about. That sort of. That thought you want to dismiss of, like, okay, can I put myself in that person's shoes? And then usually you're like, I can't. I don't want to. I can't like, live there.

[David Sims]

And she can place you in that in a way that does feel like. Like a, an endurance test.

[Gia Tolentino]

I also think it might be. It might have. The reason I like her so much is. Might have something to do with the fact that, like, you describe these movies from the outside. You're like a hitman in the worst day of it. You know, you're like, what? Like. And then, you know, like a school shooter. Mom, like, what? And then you watch it and it's a, you know, it's like kind of a. There's some kind of incandescent quality to it and also a real, like, severity in the narrative editing. Like, there's some, something about it that.

[David Sims]

There's a rigor.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. Like, it's so, so rigorous in some ways and then it is so loose in others that this thing that, like, I. But I think the thing I enjoy about it is almost. It is. It's almost impossible just to describe the contrast between what these movies sound like and what they feel like to watch. If you're a person of a specific temperament.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, I mean, I recommend To Die My Love to any friend of mine I have who likes movies. Right. Like, and I don't mean like other film critics. I mean, like, anyone I know who's like, you know what? I'll see anything weird. I can handle it. And they all largely came out being like, I had a good time with that or like, that was interesting. Like, no one came up being like, why the fuck did you tell me to watch that movie? But right, this is. This and others of hers are not movies I recommend to just anyone. Like, oh, it's good. You should see it because it's good. No, I mean, not everyone's gonna vibe with this.

[David Sims]

You know, it's. It's a shame that, like, retroactively Alice Seybold feels like completely toxic because the Peter Jackson movie is such a wipeout that in another universe she could have just made a second level, $5 million ass.

[Griffin Newman]

That thing. I mean, you know who's in that movie? Mark Wahlberg.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, no.

[Griffin Newman]

What was happening there?

[Gia Tolentino]

It's like deeply dark sided in every, like, I've never seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

So weird.

[David Sims]

It's even stranger when you just remember that it was like he cast Goling. Gosling was like 25. The character was supposed to be in his late 30s, married to Rachel Weisz.

[Gia Tolentino]

And who's the girl?

[David Sims]

Saoirse Ronan.

[Gia Tolentino]

Right.

[David Sims]

And it was like, what's up with Saoirse Ronan?

[Gia Tolentino]

And these sort of. Why isn't Saoirse Ronan in a fucking Lynn Ramsey movie?

[Griffin Newman]

I just almost.

[David Sims]

Saoirse would be.

[Griffin Newman]

If Lynne Ramsey made more movies. I feel like she would have worked with her by now because. Yes.

[David Sims]

And still might happen.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like all of like the exact guilt innocence since sort of.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. I mean that's what social media.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Since she was a child is like taking on. Yes.

[David Sims]

It's like Gosling Post Half Nelson. He's so self conscious about being too young for the character that he just chugs ice cream until he gains £50 for lovely post. No. Yes. And grows a big burly beard. And he shows up to rehearsal and Peter Jackson's like, this is not how I envisioned the character.

[Griffin Newman]

Why do you look like this?

[David Sims]

Fires him. They offer the role to Mark Wahlberg on a Friday. He shows up on a Monday. He basically cast him off of how good he was in the Departed. Which does not feel like a one to one. And then Mark Wahlberg shows up, puts on like a 70s wig and it's like, you kill my daughter. Hey, where's my daughter? Where.

[Griffin Newman]

Where are my lovely bones?

[David Sims]

I suppose my daughter did. And the movie's a disaster.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a terrible movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

His name is Jack Salmon.

[David Sims]

Oh, right. Cuz she's Susie Salmon.

[Griffin Newman]

She's Susie Salmon. Of course.

[Gia Tolentino]

Jack Salmon.

[Griffin Newman]

Snap. Jack Salmon. He wants some daughter.

[David Sims]

She's.

[Griffin Newman]

She's dead. I'll sell you some Salmon.

[David Sims]

They smoke to like lock.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm married to Rachel. She's a total fox. 2011 Rachel Weiss.

[David Sims]

Nice work. If you can get it.

[Griffin Newman]

So it came out 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

[David Sims]

Most of her films which was go there. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. With this first time it was in competition though in the main. And I loved. You know. You know who was the jury president that year?

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Palm Door goes to Tree of Life. Terrence Malik. Jury president was De Niro. Wow. Who is obviously not a stupid person. For one. He doesn't like our president very much. He's not afraid to say it.

[David Sims]

Excuse me. If he felt any negative emotions towards the President, I'm sure he would let me know anytime he was at an award show in front of a microphone.

[Griffin Newman]

But for Two, anytime Robert De Niro is interviewed about anything, he's like, yeah, pretty good. And so I'm just imagining him like hosting. Like, he's like, okay, you are the president of the jury. And he's like, I thought this movie was pretty good. What does everyone else think?

[David Sims]

Like, just not saying anything, just 20 consecutive pretty goods.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, do you think he was like, discoursing with whoever was on the jury? Like, you know, Olivier Assayas and Uma Thurman. Johnny to Jude Law. This is a fun group.

[David Sims]

Major update. David Lowry texted back. I said, have you ever considered making Loch Ness monster movie? If not, why not? Two part question. His response was, had to give this movie time to recede in the public consciousness. And then he texted the poster for the water horse. Legend of the Deep, the movie I was just joking about.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, his. Pete's Dragon. My five year old has never. Like, I was like, this is actually such a good lesson in dramatic tension because she can watch anything. Like, I was. I watched Insidious Upstate with Andrew and a friend.

[Griffin Newman]

And that was after an hour of texting with Andrew about what horror movie to watch.

[Gia Tolentino]

And thank you for leading us towards Insidious. And we were like, we were like, is that the one with the red guy? And we're like, yeah, the red guy. She was like, what's that guy? And she talked about it all week. Like, she still really wants to know what the red guy is like. She's not. She's a fearless. She likes sensation, she likes conflict, she likes violence. Like, she's a little freak.

[Griffin Newman]

My daughter is not like that at all.

[Gia Tolentino]

She wants intense like her mother. She seeks intensity. And in Pete's Dragon, as soon as Pete and the dragon are separated, she became physically apoplectic because she was like, I. She was like, I think I need to stop watching this because I think something might happen, happen that might make me really sad for a really long time.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. She's not upset about, like a villain being scary. She's upset about something, like, emotionally.

[Gia Tolentino]

And it was so emotionally powerful to her, like, immediately.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a good movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's a really. It's a really good movie. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also like Redford going like, there's a dragon.

[Gia Tolentino]

And you're like, this is crazy.

[David Sims]

I think it was Joe Reed's tweet that I quote all the time of Robert Redford's really great in Pete's Dragon. But it was a little bit mean of them to not let him know he was in a movie and just imagine Old man Robert riff. They're dragons in this forest.

[Gia Tolentino]

And he's just driving. He's like, they're like, please stop.

[David Sims]

He's like, nope, they're just catching him on traffic cameras.

[Griffin Newman]

So yeah, film premiered in competition, got no awards. It's kind of a hot can year, but gets good reviews. And like we said Tilda gets like a bunch of. Right. You know, like, it's not like I don't think this was ever really like a, you know, major critics, but I feel like it was like a minor critics favorite. Like it got like very good notices and, and attention.

[David Sims]

There's also now people got it.

[Griffin Newman]

People got it. Exactly. People were not like, what a. And it felt like it was weirdly almost uncontroversial, like for like such a quote unquote hot button movie. No one was like, this is sick shit. How could you make this? Yeah, people were pretty compelled by it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Amazing film feat. And again, amazing feat.

[Griffin Newman]

Studio execs see it and they're like, I, yeah, the Flash, Creed and Spare Bone. You know, let's put this lady in Doctor Strange.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is the Flash sinister?

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, the Flash is like joyful and goofy.

[David Sims]

He's like the young goofball comic. That's what's so weird about it. But Snyder is so intense minded that clearly even the comic relief character in his movie needed to have like, like demon eyes.

[Griffin Newman]

Is.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is Ezra Miller this good in every movie?

[Griffin Newman]

I've never been a. It's interesting. Like so.

[Gia Tolentino]

Cuz they're really good in this movie, right?

[Griffin Newman]

It's a very like, it's a skillful performance or skillful use of.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think it's laid on a little thick in the restaurant scene, but otherwise I think it's pretty much perfect.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I, I think this was kind.

[Griffin Newman]

Of.

[David Sims]

Beyond being friends with them at this time. It was like amongst like the young, early twenties, late teens actors in New York City. It just sort of felt like, of course Ezra's gonna get this. This is like the obvious. This is designed. This is the perfect role. Right. The look was so much of it and whatever, but it felt like Ezra had had a background that was mostly comedy and then because of the look was getting in cast in these intense like auteur driven movies where it's like I can get a lot of mileage out of a close up of Ezra looking at something and then it felt like this bifurcation of the funny side and the just intense side. And I would say like the fantastic.

[Griffin Newman]

Beast movies, that's all just intense, right?

[David Sims]

What if we amp the intense up to 8,000 and you're, like, shivering, and it becomes really overdone.

[Griffin Newman]

What are these movies?

[David Sims]

Insane.

[Griffin Newman]

They're so weird. They're so.

[David Sims]

Dude.

[Gia Tolentino]

Describing something incomprehensible.

[Griffin Newman]

To me, those movies are incomprehensible.

[Gia Tolentino]

Crank up the individual intensity.

[Griffin Newman]

Because the whole thing about those movies is that the main character, ostensibly Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, is an introvert who doesn't want to, like, be doing anything.

[Gia Tolentino]

Is this the one that Johnny Depp's in?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yes, indeed.

[David Sims]

In the first movie, the villain is played by Colin Farrell. Pretty fun performance. Oh, awesome. Great. Colin Farrell is going to be the villain across these movies. At the end of the first movie, there's a twist where they're like. Like, this isn't Colin Farrell. He's wearing a magic disguise. They wave a wand in front of his face, and he turns into Johnny Depp with, like, one albino eye and, like, a Van Dyke and, like. Like, pointy white Brian Grazer hair. And you're like, this is the villain for the six.

[Griffin Newman]

Get ready for this guy.

[David Sims]

The audience. Like. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

A gigantic win for Colin Farrell that he got to pieces out. Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

I feel like I could develop a real sort of narcotic, sort of hypnosis relationship with these movies.

[David Sims]

Then the second one is called Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Who in the books is the. Not is. He's Wizard Hitler who predates Perry. And now they're like, we're going to show him. He's in the second movie. He's the title character. Everyone's like, boo. They green light. Third movie, recast him with Mads Mickelson and give Mads Mikkelsen the Johnny Depp look.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

No, they don't. They don't give him the look.

[David Sims]

They don't.

[Griffin Newman]

No. They completely dropped the look.

[David Sims]

They gave him the look.

[Griffin Newman]

He looks like Mads Mikkelsen. No blonde hair, no weird eye. He just looks like Mads Mikkelsen. It is. They do not address it at all.

[David Sims]

Look truly feels like.

[Griffin Newman]

And obviously Mads Mikkelsen's, like, 15 years younger, too. Like, they do no work on it. They're just like, it's fudgeing Mads Mikkelsen now. Who cares?

[David Sims]

The look feels like. Like a theater camp game where they're like, you have 30 seconds in the prop closet and come out, and your character is whatever you look like. It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. It's a only Interesting to someone like me who cares about how these franchises just sputter out and die, it's not interesting. I would recommend it to nobody.

[David Sims]

Yeah, okay, but get stoned and read.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, no, I'm fine.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, if you want me to come over and I can just commentate.

[David Sims]

The other thing I was going to say about this movie and like, it being kind of weirdly uncontroversial is we've got like, finally, in the last 10 years, the pendulum has swung. But for decades, there was basically a thing where like, Best Actress rarely lined up with Best Picture at all. That the movies that were, like, driven by women, first and foremost as a lead character were seen as like, performance showcases.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Not Best were not really considered in other categories. And so it makes sense for like a smaller distributor to buy a movie like this and just be like, we are just laser focused on Best Actress campaign. Of course. I mean, if you have a beloved person like Tilda and she's giving a like, great performance, like you've never seen her before, the public knows what they're buying and it doesn't need to be a major crossover hit.

[Griffin Newman]

But it is interesting that there was no Ezra campaign, really. Let's do the box office game. This film came out December 9, 2011, limited release, obviously.

[David Sims]

Definitely saw it opening weekend.

[Griffin Newman]

I gotta be honest with you, this is such a weird top five. Just in that, like, now I think of December, you know, like, that there would be like kind of serious stuff in the box office. And this is just like a bunch of trash.

[David Sims]

2011.

[Griffin Newman]

2011 is. Go ahead.

[David Sims]

Is this the weekend the Tourist comes out?

[Griffin Newman]

No, this is not the Tourist. So number one is a holiday movie sort of geared towards a holiday that's coming up up the end of December.

[David Sims]

Christmas, I would have to guess, is the holiday.

[Griffin Newman]

You have guessed wrong, my friend.

[David Sims]

I believe this is a movie I just recently saw in theaters. Again, it is one of the most demented movies.

[Griffin Newman]

If you saw this film in theaters, then I am calling 91 1.

[David Sims]

I saw it in theaters on the day that this film commemorates Regal was weirdly, they put it back in theaters just for that one day. If I'm correct, I have to be correct about this. Gary Marshall's New Year's Eve.

[Griffin Newman]

You are correct.

[David Sims]

I am bumping up to the top of the want list. Gary Marshall holiday trilogy on Patreon.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, those movies are insane. Have you ever seen Valentine's Day or Mother's Day?

[Gia Tolentino]

You could never get me.

[Griffin Newman]

Mother's Day.

[David Sims]

Should get stoned and watch Mother's Day.

[Griffin Newman]

Would you would vibe with the wigs.

[Gia Tolentino]

On the posters alone are too scary.

[Griffin Newman]

The wigs they.

[Gia Tolentino]

They. They can hurt me.

[Griffin Newman]

The wig that Julia Roberts wears in Mother's Day is she should sue whoever made.

[David Sims]

You know what it is.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't. Why would I know what it is?

[David Sims]

Because you're gonna laugh so hard when I tell you this. A lot of major actresses write into their contracts that they get their wigs.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Because wigs are so expensive to be made well. And especially if they're fitted to their head. They're like I could reuse it on a lower budget production or whatever it is. The wig from this cutaway to in Notting Hill. Her being in a shitty sci fi movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh right.

[David Sims]

That's what it is. To give you a reminder from the fake Notting Hill movie that she repurposed.

[Griffin Newman]

Well why'd she go and do that?

[David Sims]

That's funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah sure.

[Gia Tolentino]

Have they. They've stopped making like I'm Gary Marshall died.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That was kind of a brutal hit for the Franchi.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah but. But like weren't there other.

[David Sims]

You're right.

[Gia Tolentino]

That people just tried to like even.

[David Sims]

There's definitely the two Think like a man movies. What to expect when you're expecting that into you.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's get a bunch of name actors. They don't have to work very much because it's a vignette movie. And we'll just write. We'll just kind of like make an easy.

[Gia Tolentino]

I never liked one of them.

[David Sims]

They're all fascinating.

[Gia Tolentino]

But even like actually or whatever. You know like satanic movies.

[David Sims]

Movies.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It is interesting. That entire trend was like can we like it's a mad mad world Towering Inferno romcoms.

[Gia Tolentino]

But no one's ever liked any of them. Except for love actually too Right. It's like they made so many of. No one has ever. But people will watch.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Almost all them were successful.

[Gia Tolentino]

I guess you're. This is number one in the box office. So yeah.

[David Sims]

People will watch the Gary Marshall. This one had a major drop off from Valentine's Day which was a big hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Well I didn't say it had Taylor Swift in it. It was about Valentine's Day. I know but nobody gets gives a shit. Everyone wants to go like on Valentine's Day you want to go on a date and see the movie called Valentine's Day on New Year's Eve. Not that many people are like oh there's an ensemble comedy.

[David Sims]

Do you know what like kind of the like central plot thread. The thing that Ties the whole movie together.

[Griffin Newman]

Is, is it New Year's Eve?

[Gia Tolentino]

New Year's is happening.

[David Sims]

Hillary Swank, a two time Academy Award winner. Hillary Swank plays the woman who's in charge of dropping the ball.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, that's actually good.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean that's, that is, that's pretty good. That is where I would start if I were like, all right, how do I write a New Year's Eve?

[David Sims]

And at like 8:30pm one of the bulbs dies.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's good. I would love a real time, sort of like TikTok. Like we got 95 minutes and Snooki's in the ball.

[David Sims]

It's that. But then it like cuts away to. Katherine Heigl is like a pastry chef catering a record label party. Jon Bon Jovi is her ex boyfriend who's a rock star who isn't Jon Bon Jovi.

[Gia Tolentino]

No. I want speed. But with the New Year's Eve ball.

[David Sims]

This movie is raining. And I will not ruin for you the twist of who ends up showing up to repair the New Year's Eve ball. But it's, it's the greatest cameo you could possibly drop.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it Hector?

[David Sims]

Yeah, absolutely. You nailed it.

[Griffin Newman]

I just nailed that. I didn't even have to look.

[David Sims]

My name is Kaminsky. I dropped the ball.

[Griffin Newman]

So New Year's Eve is opening to $13 million. So pretty, pretty poor. Number two at the box office.

[David Sims]

Also new this week is a Valentine's open to 50.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I know the Drop off is insane, but also they're not opening it on New Year's Eve. Like they fucked up in every way. Number two is a comedy. It's being released after I think, sitting on the shelf for a couple years.

[David Sims]

Okay, interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

You have a lore with this movie, but I can't remember what it is. Like your sister auditioned for it or something.

[David Sims]

Is it the Sitter?

[Griffin Newman]

The Sitter? David Gordon Green's the Sitter starring Jonah Hill, but was filmed a couple years prior or whatever. It was sort of a post super bad project. It comes out like four or five years later.

[David Sims]

It's not that extreme. But it comes out after Moneyball. I was gonna say after Jump street, but it's still pre Jump Street.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, it doesn't actually come out after. But he's already debuted.

[David Sims]

It's not a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Have you seen the Sitter with Jonah Hill?

[Gia Tolentino]

Certainly have not.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was one of those things where it was like the hottest script in Hollywood and you ready? You were like, this is so fucking funny. And then the second you have actual Kids on screen doing it. You're like, now I just kind of feel bad for the kids, like reading it. You're like, oh, he's cursing at these kids and the kids are doing fucked up shit. It's R rated adventures and babysitting.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

And then you watch it and you're.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it was a bummer.

[David Sims]

Disgusting.

[Griffin Newman]

Number number three. The box office has been number one for a couple of weeks. It's made $259 million. The sequel, it's a big. The big franchise of the moment is a water no. It is a. We've. We've discussed this film on our Patreon. It is a up movie. It's. It's. It's pretty good in my opinion, but it is up.

[David Sims]

It's not a Twilight.

[Griffin Newman]

It sure is.

[David Sims]

It is.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Is it. Is it Dawn Part two?

[Griffin Newman]

No. No. Breaking Down. Part one.

[David Sims]

A very.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is a. Have you seen the Twilights?

[Gia Tolentino]

Never.

[David Sims]

It's a pregnancy.

[Griffin Newman]

It is funny, Gia, how you are sometimes just like, that's just not any of my best business. Like Twilight. You're just like, I. I don't need to be part of that.

[Gia Tolentino]

There are so. I. I never. I also don't watch things that I think will be bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Not.

[Gia Tolentino]

I don't watch anything that I think will be bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. You don't like, I will text your husband. I am going to watch all of the. You know, name a terrible.

[Gia Tolentino]

What's like, I'm a paranormal with you.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm like, just bought him.

[Gia Tolentino]

Put the paranormal diaper on.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm like, he's not like, are any of them supposed to be bad? He's like, we. The idea is he's like out here.

[Gia Tolentino]

On paternity watching bad moms on Netflix. You know, like, he's like, watched all of them. And I'm like. And I just. I either. We have got too much information in our damn mind.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I'm not objecting.

[David Sims]

You are.

[Griffin Newman]

You are allowed to stare at a wall. You are allowed to let things pass you by. I will say I only saw this movie after my, you know, after having children. Breaking DARPA at Warden. I had never seen she gives Birth.

[Gia Tolentino]

To the Crazy Ass.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the one where she's pregnant.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's the one that ends with her.

[Gia Tolentino]

I know about Renesmee.

[Griffin Newman]

We all know about Renesmee. And where they have this kind of tricky thing to thread of, like, oh, the baby has to look mature and lock eyes with a person and they totally land. That definitely isn't really weird at all. But the whole movie is basically just her being sick and wanting to die because she's got a vampire in her womb. And it's a pretty good movie about pregnancy, about what it's like to be pregnant is how I feel about it.

[David Sims]

I support you doing whatever you want in your life, Gia. But I will say I think time has been kind to the Twilight.

[Griffin Newman]

You find them interesting.

[Gia Tolentino]

I will watch them at some point.

[David Sims]

And with distance now, like a decade on from their peak, you know, kind of cultural like relevancy, it is wild to watch them and just go, so like this was the most popular thing in the world.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

All of them are demented.

[Gia Tolentino]

I'm always waiting for like a Jesse. This is like I kind of am trying to Munchausen myself. Like, clearly I have sort of a new parent's desire to be, you know, under medical care, but for nothing serious, you know, so that I can finally.

[Griffin Newman]

Just commit me just like I'm in a bed.

[Gia Tolentino]

I want to be committed. Like I want someone to be. We need to talk about Gia and just get, you know, get me like a. A nice 72 hour. But what I want for the. What I. My dream scenario for the Twilight movies. Well, actually my friends and I some. Two of my girlfriends sometimes will I have one of their college bongs on my mantle.

[David Sims]

What? Any. Any particular. Okay, just a giant ball.

[Gia Tolentino]

Just the kind of bong that used to hit every day in college. And you're like, I can't believe I used to look like that.

[Griffin Newman]

How did I have the lung capacity to breathe that much air, let alone smoke? It is crazy as loading an upper.

[Gia Tolentino]

Pothead ice every day, first thing in the morning. So crazy. Going to class. It's so crazy. But so we do it like once a month. We. And we're. We're on the Avid. We watched Avatar. We're going to do the way I've been.

[Griffin Newman]

I've been here.

[Gia Tolentino]

We're going to lay on the floor and watch Avatar the Way of Water. And it's either going to be that's where we're watching Twilight, or I'm going to be on a work trip to the other side of the globe. I'm having clean 17 hours.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

Couple of wines and watch all of them in a row.

[David Sims]

If Delta has them all and you could just knock them out now.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's my dream scenario. I'm gonna watch them all at once.

[David Sims]

Let the zinfandel flow.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Number four at the box office. Griffin is film I'm sure you were deeply invested in. It's a reboot of a popular property.

[David Sims]

Is this a joke? Deeply invested?

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not sure you were deeply invested.

[David Sims]

It was some stupid. I care about. Yes. Is it baby?

[Griffin Newman]

No. It's kids. It's good. It's good stuff. I don't. I mean about it, but I have.

[David Sims]

Strong opinions about it, certainly.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Of course.

[David Sims]

Is. Is it the Muppets?

[Griffin Newman]

It's the Muppets.

[David Sims]

Jason Seagulls, Megan. The Muppets.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. The Muppets with Jason Seagull and Amy Adams. A solid hit.

[David Sims]

Yeah. A movie that I had a. A very, very.

[Griffin Newman]

You were.

[David Sims]

I. I had a lot of emotions tied up in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Whereas I saw it and was like, that was pretty good. I kind of wanted it to be better. Like, that was, like, my immediate reaction.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I think the. The following one is significantly better, and.

[Griffin Newman]

It has a little bit.

[David Sims]

Bit released. Erased the Muppets. In my mind at the time, I would say my relationship to it was like, if suddenly it looked like the Mets had a good lineup.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And you were like, can I fucking. Can I start feeling like this might actually.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like the next 10 years won't be punishing.

[Griffin Newman]

I assume you don't care about the Muppets.

[David Sims]

Gia.

[Gia Tolentino]

Whenever you guys play this guy. I've never seen any of the movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Number five of the box office is an animated film. Film. I've never seen it. It's a CG film from a company that, prior to this was not from a company that's not famous.

[David Sims]

It's an Aardman film.

[Griffin Newman]

It's an Aardman.

[David Sims]

Is it Arthur Christmas?

[Griffin Newman]

It is Arthur Christmas.

[David Sims]

Anytime I talk about Christmas movies, I like. Some people pop up in the Reddit and they're like, where's the respect for Arthur Christmas? I have never liked it.

[Gia Tolentino]

What is. What are you talking about?

[Griffin Newman]

It's an animated film. James McAvoy.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Plays Arthur Christmas.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is. I have no idea.

[David Sims]

Jim Broadbent, maybe?

[Gia Tolentino]

It's animated.

[David Sims]

It's animated.

[Gia Tolentino]

They're all playing people.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Jim Broad. It looks like Jim Broadbent is playing Santa.

[Gia Tolentino]

No relationship to Arthur.

[David Sims]

Arthur is one of the.

[Griffin Newman]

No relationship to horny old Arthur. Okay.

[David Sims]

Right. Arthur is like twinky Santa son. And then Hugh Laurie plays, like, militaristic Santa son. And there's maybe another one. This is what I don't like. It's in this sub genre I would call the. The Christmas industrial complex, which is like. Like, hey, you know, Christmas. That magical Kids believe in that doesn't make any sense. What if we start explaining it with like, business, like, precision?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It turns out Christmas is a job that people have, right?

[David Sims]

Santa's got a app and they work in a. I hate this. It is the least noxious version of this, which, like, I put Fred Claus and like, red one into just like cursed territory, but I, I still just kind of reject it.

[Gia Tolentino]

Arthur Christmas.

[David Sims]

It's like one girl's letter to Santa gets lost and Arthur's the son with her. Like, you'll never do Christmas because his brothers, like, figured out how to turn Christmas into like, I don't know, Blackrock or whatever.

[Gia Tolentino]

Wait, so the joke is that he's like the fail son named Arthur Christmas?

[David Sims]

Yes. And he's like Twinkie and he wears an oversized sweater and then he like decides to save Christmas for this one.

[Griffin Newman]

I better not have to watch this movie eventually.

[David Sims]

It's, it's like, it's all like, what if Elon Musk Musk went in and like doged the North Pole? Like all these movies have that attitude of like, certainly there's a more like, economic way to streamline this process. I'm like, I don't know. How about he's got like reindeer and he flies around, wiggles his nose and goes down. Who gives a. Let Santa deliver presents. Let him eat cookies.

[Gia Tolentino]

I'm a huge grinch. I'm a huge. A grinch about all holidays. I've never. We don't do presents in my house. We don't do a tree. I've got two children. Don't do a tree or Christmas presents.

[David Sims]

It's amazing that you've resisted spoiled upper.

[Gia Tolentino]

Middle class children in Brooklyn.

[David Sims]

They don't need any more.

[Griffin Newman]

Your kids, who are wonderful and beautiful, they want for nothing. They're very.

[Gia Tolentino]

Wonderful things. Our friend, like, suggested to Andrew, my partner, that he get me a Kindle for Christmas because I'm reading entire books on my phone to break myself of reading article on phone.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm doing the exact same thing.

[David Sims]

Interesting.

[Gia Tolentino]

The Kindle's amazing. I had one in Peace Corps and I fucking hated it. Now I love my Kindle.

[David Sims]

So just anytime you have the impulse to read an article, you go back to whatever bulletin is to look at app or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just like, no, I'll just load the Kindle.

[Gia Tolentino]

Except for Reddit, what is it like to live here? Whatever. How is it here? Or whatever you actually.

[Griffin Newman]

And I know, I know Amazon's back.

[Gia Tolentino]

And Andrew was like, we don't get presents in My house. I can't get her. And right, like, that's how deep it is.

[Griffin Newman]

How do I get her Kindle?

[Gia Tolentino]

I don't think I've ever. I hate Chris. I don't like holidays. I don't like enforced anything fair.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you don't like. Right. Enforced.

[David Sims]

Jordan is the day we had to be freely chosen.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, I never had a Christmas tree till I, I, you know, married a Christmas lover. So it's new. It's new to me.

[Gia Tolentino]

I'm like, this is off this traditionally women's labor. And that's not something I'm going to take part in.

[David Sims]

I mean, I'm. I'm like a Christmas loving Jew. I basically no longer.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm a Christmas.

[David Sims]

I'm a Christmas loving Jew.

[Gia Tolentino]

Only a Credence Barebones song.

[David Sims]

It is a Credence bare bones. Credence Bare Bones revival.

[Gia Tolentino]

He's a Christmas loving Jew.

[David Sims]

I think. I think Ben is the only person I received a Christmas present from this year. That's not true. My girlfriend got me a lovely present.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, that's nice. Right?

[David Sims]

Shattered.

[Griffin Newman]

Your family's being a little. It's a little dramatic.

[David Sims]

My family's being.

[Griffin Newman]

Family's kind of like an April A24 release. It's the drama. It.

[David Sims]

It is, in fact. But that's been like several years in the making now. So, like, I no longer celebrate Christmas in any meaningful way. And yet I am such a sucker for like a feeling of pop culture.

[Griffin Newman]

What did you get him? I got him a Terminator shirt.

[Gia Tolentino]

It was so, so nice.

[Griffin Newman]

The thing about Griff is I don't. I don't buy Griff Christmas presents. I don't really buy anyone Christmas presents. So it's.

[David Sims]

No, I get you Christmas presents. You do You.

[Griffin Newman]

You love to give a present, which is great, but you are. You strike me as a pretty easy person to buy a gift for because there's. It's a lot of like, you know, goofy pop culture. I see where I'm like. The only question would be, is, does.

[Gia Tolentino]

Griff person to buy like ebay, sort.

[David Sims]

Of like odd trinkets? Would I. Would it surprise you that that is often the risk that most times I'm.

[Gia Tolentino]

Handed a gift you might already have.

[David Sims]

The preface is I hope you don't.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's like, I look, this is a 1970s kinder toy, but you might.

[David Sims]

Have it like, you know, there's no kind of thing. It isn't possible. I might have if connected in any way to my interest. It was a great shirt. I got Told fly shirt the other day while wearing it.

[Griffin Newman]

There you go. I mean, who doesn't love the Terminator?

[David Sims]

It's a really good shirt.

[Griffin Newman]

We got to post a pic. I also just want to say, Sam, I know better than to get you a gift.

[David Sims]

Yeah, there's a box of presents.

[Griffin Newman]

Because there's already a sort of box. My house is not of presents Seeking additions right now in terms of goods.

[David Sims]

I just want to call out that one of the things in that box is a LEGO X Mansion.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I bought that.

[David Sims]

That you bought for yourself 18 months ago. And then to help cushion the blow of you bringing this giant LEGO set home, you also bought a LEGO set set for your daughter and wife. And all three are still in this box.

[Griffin Newman]

My daughter's not ready for Legos yet, but we're getting close. But now I have these babies and I can't let them near the set.

[David Sims]

I got, I got your daughter the Duplo set though.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, well, that's a huge.

[David Sims]

But these aren't Duplos all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

This is legos. She. My daughter can probably handle legos. I don't know.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think she can handle.

[David Sims]

But the problem is the boys.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, those will go right.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well the real problem is that she's going to ask you for help and you're like, that's not what this is about. This is not.

[Griffin Newman]

I am resigned to. It'll be a year to two of me building legos for. For her.

[David Sims]

I. I get also basically from the moment she was born have said like I love. Second she's into lego. I'm gonna become a lego.

[Griffin Newman]

But I love Legos and I can't wait to do legos. And what my daughter will do self directed the most is draw. That's the thing where you can really just like leave her drawing. And so clearly that's where she's gonna go. Like that's where her brain is. Legos is a little more fiddly. She might may or may not care. I don't know.

[David Sims]

Even the Creature Creative with Lego you totally can.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I would do. I would make little soap operas happen. That was my thing, baby. I didn't care. Like I would build a spaceship, but then I would be like, what's going on with everyone who lives on the spaceship? Like I wouldn't build a very elaborate space.

[Gia Tolentino]

Are going closer to each other.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a lot of that, except one's like a wizard and one's a robot. Because it's like whatever I've got rattling.

[David Sims]

Around and the robot's the wizard superior. So it's not really clear.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, this is. This is a weird dynamic, you know, we need to talk about robot. Number six of the box office. Is Hugo Go a good movie? Yeah. Number seven is the Descendants. Kind of a bad movie.

[David Sims]

A movie I've never cared for.

[Griffin Newman]

Number eight is Happy Feet two.

[David Sims]

A movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Good movie.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's a good movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you seen that one?

[Gia Tolentino]

First one on the list that I've seen.

[Griffin Newman]

Like better than.

[Gia Tolentino]

Arguably the first one that's been good. The Ferris Go.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it is. I mean, Vermont. Okay. Hugo.

[David Sims]

I love disrespectful to Hugo. I prefer Happy Feet.

[Griffin Newman]

Tap Special movie movie with Paris and the Bull.

[David Sims]

3D.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not really a GM movie. Number nine is Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler and Adam Sandler.

[David Sims]

We both come and people think it's a bit.

[Griffin Newman]

But actually, big fan of that movie. Yeah.

[David Sims]

The culture has finally caught up.

[Griffin Newman]

The gag where Pacino is dressed like a Hasidic guy to not get noticed at a Lakers game. Really good.

[David Sims]

Sitting next to Grindelwald. Number two himself.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And number 10 is Immortals, the Tarsim Singh. Right.

[David Sims]

The movie that basically functions as Henry Cavill's audition tape for Superman.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That's like. It's like a Greek Gods movie with a bunch of.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Half naked men covered in.

[David Sims]

Right. It was Tsem Singh trying to make a 300 style movie because 300 had taken so long to figure out how to make a sequel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then of course, the empire rose.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh?

[David Sims]

300, colon, rise of an Emperor.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, that's right. Never saw that one either. Yeah. So that's the box office. Weird junky box office is all I'm saying.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, you know, I think a lot. It's a. It's a year when a lot of shit didn't fly. Like J. Edgar was a bomb. You know, a lot of the awards stuff.

[David Sims]

It's a point you often make, which is the Marvel dominance was able to happen because things were so shitty for the couple of years leading up to the Marvel dominance. And this is the year that Thor and Captain America come out and both do okay. And the next year the Avengers comes out. And it felt like the culture was like, this can just be the only three movies I see a year.

[Griffin Newman]

Year.

[David Sims]

Fine. This feels safe.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a comedy, it's a drama, it's an action movie.

[David Sims]

Fine, whatever. I'll sign up in advance.

[Griffin Newman]

And I know you love Marvel movies, Gio, and you have a lot to say about them. And I'll just give you some space to do that right now.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

You're mostly a Kingo person, right?

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, Kingo.

[David Sims]

Kingo.

[Gia Tolentino]

That's a person.

[David Sims]

Pe. Pe.

[Gia Tolentino]

Kingo.

[Griffin Newman]

Kingo's the character.

[David Sims]

He's got fingers that go like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Kumail Nanjani played in one Marvel movie.

[David Sims]

You remember all the one.

[Gia Tolentino]

He got Jack.

[Griffin Newman]

You got Jack.

[David Sims]

Just list them together.

[Griffin Newman]

Together.

[David Sims]

Kingo, Druid, Ajax, Fastos.

[Griffin Newman]

There you go. And Fastos isn't the one that's fast.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Fastos is the one who creates. Who makes a box.

[Gia Tolentino]

He creates 911.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he's like super smart and there's a scene where he's like Hiroshima happens.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And people made fun of that scene.

[David Sims]

I think Akari is the Fast. I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

There's like three more. Yeah, there's a lot of.

[David Sims]

Sprite.

[Griffin Newman]

There you go.

[Gia Tolentino]

Sprite.

[David Sims]

Sprite. She's really fun. She's a century.

[Gia Tolentino]

This is none of my business.

[Griffin Newman]

That one is none of. What's none of anyone's business?

[Gia Tolentino]

None of none of my business.

[David Sims]

She's a centuries old robot that's still stuck in the body of a prepubescent girl so adult men won't hate her. And she has a real complex about.

[Gia Tolentino]

Plays her some kid.

[David Sims]

You guys must.

[Gia Tolentino]

You guys must have such an escalated. Like one of the reasons that I'm like Ezra Miller's legal trouble slash violence. Not none of my business, you know, whatever. Is because, like, surely you guys have this thought so much more than most people do because you have such encyclopedia jobs in this podcast where it's like you're gonna be. We're gonna be on our goddamn deathbeds. You know what I mean? And we're just gonna. It's like we're gonna be Zendaya's Michi on our deathbed.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I truly am going to be Zendaya.

[Gia Tolentino]

You know what I mean? I'm gonna re remembering like some guy on R slash meth talking about like. You know what I mean? Like some. Like it's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's so. I think about this all the time and it's like in my waning days, will I just be like, look at my tick tock faves from 2019. These were funny.

[Gia Tolentino]

No, you won't even. Like, they will be playing in your head.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right.

[Gia Tolentino]

I'll just like, we need to talk about Kevin. That will be you. Except instead of la. You know, la Tomato Ria or whatever, it's going to be like your TikTok reels from 20 fucking 19 and Arthur Christmas.

[David Sims]

It's all in there. And you know what I mean? My.

[Gia Tolentino]

My brain is an overstuffed club that is over capacity. That is. The lights are flashing at full. You know, it's strobing every second of every day. And if I allow myself to know. Know that it was Ringo, that he got jacked for Ringo, like, it's just gonna burn down.

[David Sims]

I do.

[Griffin Newman]

It was King.

[David Sims]

I appreciate your point, but let's not be rude to Kingo. He goes pew pew with his fingers. No, I feel the same way. I also am, like, very deliberate about which things I decide I'm going to completely opt out of.

[Gia Tolentino]

What is it for you that you opt out of?

[David Sims]

I feel like most of pop music I'm now out of and I just like, can't keep up with it. And it feels like that's always the song center of the, like, drama, reading the social media.

[Gia Tolentino]

None of this, none of this.

[David Sims]

I'm just like. I'm not engaging with the two heated rival reality tv reality.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's like I'm out. Never seen a single one.

[Griffin Newman]

I am the exact same way. Where it's reality TV and anime are the things where I'm like, never gonna. Those are bottomless.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, you gotta watch arco, though.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw arco. I liked arco. Yeah, yeah, Arco was good.

[David Sims]

But you're talking.

[Gia Tolentino]

Did your child see it?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I. Well, because I saw it like an award screening or whatever, and I've been wondering if Boss baby, I did it again. I'm sorry, I keep saying, excuse me, Boss baby. If Boss baby would like it. Yeah, because it's cool.

[Gia Tolentino]

I thought it was really good.

[Griffin Newman]

I think she would dig it. Yeah. Cloud people, Rainbows.

[David Sims]

The text I sent to David Lowry was in a group chat that Sims and I are on with Sean Fennesee, Tim Symonds, and Alex Ross Perry. And the testiest things ever get in that group chat is if someone goes, hey, wild fact, in 2015, this person was supposed to make this movie or gave this interview, quote, quote, and one of us will inevitably respond with, that's not a while back. No, we'll respond with, I'm so insulted that you think I wouldn't remember that. Yeah, yeah, of course I remember that. I think about that every hour of my life.

[Gia Tolentino]

I can imagine.

[David Sims]

And it's always 10 joke, 90 real. Don't underestimate me. I. My brain is full of garbage.

[Griffin Newman]

Gee. Oh, God, it's so real what you're saying about the dumb I'm gonna continue to remember years from now and yet not remember my life.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Someone was talking to me about traitors and mentioned the traders.

[David Sims]

You're. Or just the general abstract concept of tr.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no, the traitor. Sorry. I've never watched any reality TV as well.

[Gia Tolentino]

People love to talk to you about the traders.

[Griffin Newman]

They do.

[David Sims]

They love to talk about Michael, about the villa.

[Gia Tolentino]

About the villa. On whatever one there's.

[Griffin Newman]

They're all like kings and they have swords or whatever the. Is going.

[David Sims]

Call me when they're all kingos. Or then you have.

[Gia Tolentino]

Or the one that's like Casa Bonita. Like, Casa. Never mind.

[David Sims]

I know Casa Bonita reality show.

[Griffin Newman]

I would watch.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, same. But do you know what I'm talking about? The. The casa island where they. Never mind. I don't even know. Anyway. Trailers.

[Griffin Newman]

So someone mentioned Britney Spears ex is on the show. And I'm like, Federline. And they're like, no, her other ex.

[David Sims]

The guy she married at Vegas.

[Gia Tolentino]

Jason Alexander. But that's not Jason Alexander.

[David Sims]

Perfect example of why do I still.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the thing. I pulled Kevin Federline immediately. And I'm like, I don't remember being 27.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, I know, I know.

[David Sims]

Gone. Gone.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Kay Fed was like, I don't.

[Gia Tolentino]

Know what happened in the Odyssey.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Takes a boat.

[Gia Tolentino]

Like my own brother's birth year often escapes me.

[David Sims]

Yes. You know, my therapist was trying to ask me about, like, traumatic incidents last week, and I was like, I'm having trouble remembering stuff. And then I was like, I know that seems like a psychological overcompensation. I'm blocking out the memories I can't touch. It really is just. I have like, too many Marvel characters in my head. It's just filled with.

[Gia Tolentino]

And yet we all court this professionally. I'm like, oh, let me see how much I can learn about. You know.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's great. It's great.

[Griffin Newman]

It's.

[David Sims]

We fixed.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel great. I'm guts. I'm so good. I'm doing so great. And this year I decided to add Narnia to the old cauldron. So now I'm reading A Horse and his Boy.

[David Sims]

I'm doing, like, things at the same time.

[Gia Tolentino]

That one's weird.

[Griffin Newman]

That one is weird.

[Gia Tolentino]

Weird.

[Griffin Newman]

It's kind of bracing because you are. Because, like, the first four Narnia as. It's basically like CS Lewis is like, meet these fucking British kids. I'm like, what are they like? And he's like, they need to go to Narnia. They get to me.

[Gia Tolentino]

Lion, Jesus, Horse and his Boy. And there's another one. They're like vaguely orientalist.

[Griffin Newman]

Horse and his Boy ain't vaguely. That one is extremely orientalist.

[Gia Tolentino]

I just reread Gone with the Wind because that was like my favorite book in fifth grade. And wild, let me tell you. It took nothing else I can think about but Gone with the Wind. And I was like, oh, I guess growing up in. In Texas and being 8 years old when I read this, the extent.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

The racism is the. The jet fuel that powers.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? It's not just background dressing for this one.

[Gia Tolentino]

Racism is the.

[David Sims]

It's.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's the very air we breathe.

[David Sims]

It's the juice. It's.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's kind of amazing. Anyway, great book.

[David Sims]

Is it known what the other two Narnia books Gerwig would be adapting on?

[Griffin Newman]

Is she planning on doing three?

[David Sims]

I think they contractually have her to three. I don't know if there's wiggle room for her to be like, I don't. I've dec to hand off.

[Gia Tolentino]

I hope it's like, first, fourth and ninth. Those or whatever. Like, those are. Are there nine?

[David Sims]

It's like there's seven.

[Griffin Newman]

She's doing one.

[Gia Tolentino]

Four and seven are the big ones.

[Griffin Newman]

What she's doing for.

[Gia Tolentino]

With the cousins?

[Griffin Newman]

Netflix with the cousins again. It's just like, he's like, you meet this cousin. I'm like, okay, what's up with her? Well, she goes to a school where she doesn't learn about Jesus. I'm like, let me guess. Aslin's got to roar at her until she gets some manners. It's like, yep, folding table's coming to roar.

[David Sims]

Ask me about Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they're just like, yeah. Oh, what's going on with this picture? Oh, we're in Narnia again. Okay, what's going on this time? But they're still good. I mean, the way. The thing I like about them is they sound like he's making them up as he goes along, which is kind of a cool bedside story framing, you know, she's doing the Magician's Nephew, which is the sixth.

[Gia Tolentino]

I love that one. I love.

[Griffin Newman]

But is right is the chronology, you know, chronologically the first. And I do think it's cool and weird.

[Gia Tolentino]

Love that book.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Gia Tolentino]

Her deal is like the Magicians, the Lev Grossman book, which is also really good.

[David Sims]

Her deal is specifically to two. Contractually, she is supposed to both write and direct two movies.

[Griffin Newman]

So she'll probably do this. And then I Guess the next one would be Lion Witch in the Wardrobe.

[Gia Tolentino]

And she should do one of the crackers, like, Silver Chair or something.

[Griffin Newman]

So weird. Dude.

[Gia Tolentino]

That one's actually too, like, bdsmy. Like.

[Griffin Newman]

It is.

[Gia Tolentino]

It's. She should do the one about the ship.

[Griffin Newman]

That's. That one's really nice. That one's really fun. That one's very Odyssey. Very.

[Gia Tolentino]

Not that I would know, but that's.

[David Sims]

My big question is, does she circle back to the ones that already were done?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, maybe she, like. And let me know when you get to the seventh one. I'm sure you guys will. See you later.

[Gia Tolentino]

What's the one that's like. Speaking of David, what's one that's like Green Knight, where it's like the lady in the.

[Griffin Newman]

That is the. That is the silver chair. That's the one where they go into, like, the subterranean land. And there's a guy who's like, don't mind me. I have to be, like, tied to the silver chair every night. And I go insane.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, it's so beautiful.

[Griffin Newman]

And they're like, oh, okay. And then he's like, ah, let me out of the chair.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, my God, you better get me out. And then the demon, like the snake is a sexy woman, right? The sexy woman is the snake woman.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct. And I assume if they had made that movie when they. Because they were going to make it, Tilda would have played that role.

[David Sims]

They would have just had her do it.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Because they never say that it's the same witch, but it's sort of the same vibe. Like another witch.

[David Sims]

Ella McKay is the White witch now.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct. She'll be good. I mean, she'll be fine. I don't know.

[David Sims]

Imagine trying to fix her heel.

[Gia Tolentino]

Lynn Ramsey, like, Don Tretter.

[Griffin Newman]

That'd be great. She'd be so good at, like, with.

[Gia Tolentino]

A budget, you know, no one would.

[Griffin Newman]

Ever give her a budget, cuz, like, she's the lot. And.

[David Sims]

And she makes movies in an unconventional way that scares money people.

[Griffin Newman]

But, like, she'd be cool making, like, a movie with monsters in it and stuff. She would rock.

[David Sims]

You could see her doing a good little princess style.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a gothic kind of kid story.

[David Sims]

Like a secret of a lonely child.

[Gia Tolentino]

Kind of like a Lynn Ramsey Secret Garden would be kind of sick. I was reading an interview with her at some point, maybe looking at Kevin stuff and. And she was talking about the funding thing. She was like, yeah, hopefully I just signed with an agency. Hopefully someone can get me a perfume commercial. And I was like, damn.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, man, I Get it.

[Gia Tolentino]

I get it, too.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, you got to make that bread. But.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but I was like, they should.

[Gia Tolentino]

Be throwing perfume commercial offers at Lynn Ramsey. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, at the very least, she should have a hundred Dior. You know what I mean?

[David Sims]

Whole world is so weird to me. And you, when you find out which respected filmmakers direct which commercials, it will boggle your brain. Where, like, someone told me that, like.

[Gia Tolentino]

It was Sofia Coppola that was busy doing the Dior commercials, so she couldn't. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Know that it's like James Gray directed all the Maybelline commercials for, like, five years. You're like, there's not a match of style. Like, occasionally you'll see a, like, Wes Anderson commercial where you're like, clearly, they, like, broke out the checkbook to get Wes Anderson to do his Wes Anderson thing. And other times, you're like, Sophia Coppola directed the like. Like, you are.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right.

[Gia Tolentino]

But those you can kind of feel. It's like. It's like Lynn Ramsey is doing, like, the Delta. Like, you know, everyone in this seats on the beach more.

[David Sims]

I guess it's more like you find out that Nancy Myers directed, like, a Jeep Grand Cherokee commercial. That's just like, the field.

[Griffin Newman]

There's some where you go, like. Right. That's how they make their money and.

[David Sims]

They just do the assignment.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Gia, thank you for being here.

[Griffin Newman]

Got to get Gia out of here. This is crazy. I'm half an hour late.

[David Sims]

You're having a great time. Well, that.

[Griffin Newman]

That was a up by me.

[David Sims]

I. I would never do something like that. Gia, anything you want to plug?

[Gia Tolentino]

No.

[David Sims]

Hell, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Not at all.

[Gia Tolentino]

Know.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't have, like, a podcast. I'm joking. You do plenty of work. Yes, it is. You're always doing the coolest shit.

[David Sims]

I'm going to plug the. The Jennifer Lawrence profile.

[Gia Tolentino]

Oh, yeah. I guess I did kind of write about Lynn a bit.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Which is, I think, good reading for any listener getting ready to watch.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm really.

[Gia Tolentino]

No. No Oscar, no nothing.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it was weird Crowded race.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think she's really good in it.

[Griffin Newman]

I think she's so good in it. I'm really into what she's clearly gearing up for right now. You know what I mean? Like, this being the start of whatever phase in her career she's interested in doing, and she's with you and, like, in press stuff, it's just like, she's so fucking funny, like, and not in an annoying way anymore. She's self aware.

[Gia Tolentino]

She's too. Like, I had so much material from that piece that, like, there's like, an entire different piece I could have written that was the, you know, the kind of piece that I have written before for Vogue where it's like, like, you know, I mean, she has so much. Her personality is so high octane and so that, like, you could have filled it with just like, ugh, can you believe it? She's so beautiful. And she says this, you know, like.

[David Sims]

But that entire profile was just, like, just gold everywhere.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. I mean, I was like, okay, let me try to write a profile of Jennifer Lawrence that isn't about her amazing personality. Because it's like, we all know she's unbelievably charming, and she. And it was almost like, with me, she was trying to be less because she knows, like, anytime we would see each other off record, it was a. Like, her. Her. She was free to be as charming as she.

[David Sims]

Actually not to play into the Jennifer Lawrence thing.

[Gia Tolentino]

What a. What a horrible thing to have to do.

[David Sims]

Like, got tired because of overexposure, but.

[Gia Tolentino]

Just because I'm actually like that, like, she is, like, what a painful thing to actually be like.

[David Sims]

After that profile, she just started, like, doing it everywhere. And everyone was like, oh, right, this rules. And there's a frustrating disconnect of then it not leading to anyone going to see the movie. But all of those interviews she did over the last five months, you're just like, right. She is like, the most powerful movie star in just, like, pure, raw charisma. And like, no one's more interesting than her.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. Like, watching her face, like. Like, she. She never articulates what she's thinking or feeling once in that movie. And did you guys like Pattinson in the movie or.

[Griffin Newman]

No. I felt like he was in service of the movie. I didn't love his performance because it did not feel like the guy he's supposed to be.

[David Sims]

I think if that character were a little more cracked, I'd be like, this movie. 10 out of 10. Perfect.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. I feel like there were script issues with the.

[David Sims]

Just the situation of them feels a little unsettled.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's just way too handsome and interesting to be doing that.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, I get that.

[Griffin Newman]

Again, I think Pattinson's probably like, no, no, no. I want to work with Lynn Ramsey. I am happy to be second banana here. I'm happy to fuck around, but I'm just kind of like, I'm interested in you.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And in the movie, like, we're not really allowed to be that interested in.

[David Sims]

He could more easily play the J. Law character in a wig than play just like, a guy who's like, maybe I get into, like, drinking beer on.

[Gia Tolentino]

My porch specified part time.

[David Sims]

Like, yeah, yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

Truck stop job.

[David Sims]

There's almost.

[Griffin Newman]

And then when he's. She's like, I think you're having an affair with him. I'm like, he's. Of course. He's Robert Pattinson in, like, rural Montana. Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

You see seven different condom brands in the. In the. In the thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he's being a. He's just.

[David Sims]

He's just in his wire cutter phase. He's trying to figure out which one's.

[Gia Tolentino]

The best to try on with. Not you.

[David Sims]

No. Just put them on in the bathroom.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the butter.

[David Sims]

Throw them out with the butter. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for you Were Never really Here. My favorite.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

With Sean Clemens, our buddy Sean Clemens, the Clem dog.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Gia Tolentino]

Thanks for having me on, guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, such a come on back.

[David Sims]

So long overdue.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, you don't have to. Maybe you had a horrible experience.

[Gia Tolentino]

I don't know any of the movies in the box.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, please. We'll find something.

[David Sims]

We'll find something. And as always, I just want to call out that on the IMDb page for we need to talk about Kevin. In the FAQ section, the top question is, is Kevin a psychopath? And the answer is yes.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, there you go.

[Griffin Newman]

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 Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social Blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.