5th Anniversary Special

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David to say they're too ex-bats All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Ah, the stooood It's having a normal one And Vin is here with us Vin is here with us

[00:00:44] Is this how the episode starts? Are we saying this is the official? Yep, I think Ben... Let's make it a big thing No, what Ben said is definitely the start It's tough to make the five And it's tough to stay alive It's topical, you see

[00:01:04] Because this is our 5th anniversary And also, we are amissed of pandemic There you go So both things are true This of course is a very special episode I'm calling it right now, our best episode ever It's the Blank Check, 5th Anniversary, Self-quarantine, Social Distancing Spectacular

[00:01:29] Coming live to you from each of our homes Live from four different apartments We've got Bigger, Nice, or is it... Yeah, Bigger, Nice, Little, Nicer I'm sorry And then of course, then I'm here at Small Fine It's small, it's fine Yeah, pretty much

[00:01:52] I'm here live from media messy But I have taken advantage of... We're recording this episode via Zoom for the first time Zoom allows you to change your background So I've been cycling through different background photos of Vin Diesel

[00:02:07] So right now I have a black and white photo of Vin Diesel in a boxing pose above my shoulder Is he in a satin jacket? I think he is Now David has also added a picture of Vin Diesel to his background Oh, I can't see his head

[00:02:19] No, this is not Vin, but it's not a very good one I'm trying to find it, but here we go How about this one? David has a shirtless man holding a goat, a baby goat or kid Who's the shirtless man? There he is Of course, Mirrod

[00:02:34] David, yes, it does it backwards But David has posted a shirtless picture of Colin Farrell from Tigerland Yeah, that's right So we're putting our crushes in our background image It's hard to do, Ange My cat just joined It's hard to do as much as making the five

[00:02:52] It's tough to make the five and it's tough to find a good background image of your celebrity crush Angela Barracuda Farraguda Joining us as well We don't have a name for your apartment yet No, you guys haven't been to my apartment I don't think We haven't No

[00:03:09] I've dropped you off outside of your apartment That is the most I have been to your apartment Yeah I don't know You don't have a name at the tip of your tongue We'll come up with it at some point over the course of this episode

[00:03:20] No, I mean my apartment We have like a nickname for ourselves But it's named after the street we live on So I would rather not say that on my ink 100% down This one's good This one's good Oh yeah

[00:03:32] David's background is now Miami Vice and he's sitting directly in between tubs and crocodiles Yeah It's pretty perfect Yeah, that one's good Okay, good, now I feel good So here we are We had an urgent plan for our fifth anniversary episode I can't even really

[00:03:47] I guess we were all just going to hang out and do stuff There was some thought of us initially doing the Phantom Menace We had a full plan I was going to get a top hat and a cane and do a whole dance routine

[00:04:00] Like the frog from WB It was heavily scripted Okay, okay I mean I would say we probably had more plans this weekend Monday, I'm pretty sure Sure Was where our focus was for a while Yes, we had a lot of different plans in place

[00:04:15] Including two live shows we were going to do And this And Ben was going to go full Michigan J Frog And we're going to improvise a little bit here Because the show must go on Yeah

[00:04:28] So through the magic of technology, the four of us are going to hang out here And talk about this journey we've been on for the last five years And when I say we, I mean the royal we Including you, the listener And she ducked off screen

[00:04:47] It looked like she was barfing at you saying that But I think she was just petting her cat No, I was He's trying to curl up on my hoodie and I was moving some items out of the way for him Yep, he's doing it now

[00:04:58] Oh, there he is It's very cute Alright, so you're right, yes, it's been five years It's been almost exactly five years, right? Monday, March 23rd is the five year anniversary Of the first episode of Griffin and David present The Phantom podcast

[00:05:14] Where we talked about the first seven-ish minutes of the Phantom Menace I mean, we joke but maybe our worst episode ever It's that Amistad Bottom ten Bottom five? Makes the bottom five Bottom two I think it's a hard bottom two

[00:05:28] I think that and Amistad are undeniably the two worst ones Because that episode is us explaining the bit that we're never going to address For the rest of the series In too great detail Yes, we talked too much about that

[00:05:44] I still think you're too hard on the Amistad episode but I'll admit it's been a while Yeah, it's also like a brisk 41 minutes Yeah Which for us doesn't even really count as an episode Yeah, now that's a March Madness recap if we rush it Yes Yeah

[00:06:02] So anyway, we're here We are going to embark on our next mini-series Next Sunday, correct? Next, right, correct No Ben's Choice This is serving the Palette cleanser roll Next Monday, we're driving straight into the Wasteland Or at least a pre-Wasteland Australia with Mad Max

[00:06:23] Yeah, although it was actually a pre-Wasteland America when we recorded it That is true If we don't talk about various Coronae, Vi-Ri That's because it wasn't on our mind Whenever we fucking talked about Mad Max and Ben's apartment I mean definitely in the Beyond Thunderdome episode

[00:06:43] I refer to the time we're recording as peak coronavirus panic And boy was I and I back then two weeks ago Wow, you have made some bad calls on this podcast But that was one of the worst One of the worst I called it peak coronavirus

[00:07:00] A time where I was able to then leave the recording studio Where I was in the same room as all of you And then go out and casually walk down the street Shake some hands, buy a sandwich Spit on strangers Do your Wato show

[00:07:18] I did my Wato show That was two weeks ago And now UCB might never reopen Wato ended it That's what I was telling David It's just like it's done I mean there is some weird symmetry there to Five years ago you and I, David

[00:07:36] We go into a small closet At the offices of UCB comedy Where Ben Hosley is being paid in classes And has been given permission to give us a flyer To give us ten episodes Todd Bieber graciously said Why not? And allowed you Big shout out to Todd Bieber

[00:07:55] Allowed you to give us ten episodes And it all stemmed out of a Wato tweet And now five years later I did a Wato show And UCB might close forever We're only laughing because it's terrible It's awful, all of it's bad Everything's bad except for Wato

[00:08:14] Wato's doing really well And also hello this guy I'm looking at right now an email from February 17th 2015 Oh! Where I followed up With you guys after meeting with Todd You never had to follow up with us ever again by email

[00:08:34] It's not something you regularly have to do It's one and done And I'm looking here and it's saying Not sustainable Interesting That's there Does not have legs Good call No, I mean it was a thing that Todd was just like yeah sure whatever

[00:09:02] He was really giving me the chance to just Make stuff for UCB And you guys pitched this insane idea We've discussed it before on our hundredth It's come up Yeah it was such a great opportunity To be able to record in the closet with you guys

[00:09:18] The windowless closet And that's where this all started Griffin changed that picture again And it seems to be some sort of double Bin diesel It's some sort of parent trap situation He's got longboard shorts on In this airport He's got longboard shorts

[00:09:33] It's two of him that are shirtless And I was jealous of the fact that you got to sit In between Krak and Tub So I wanted to sit between Vin and Vin Um, yes it was a It was a flyer And I remember we finished recording

[00:09:47] And Ben you said well you guys will get the hang of it And then Yes you were not enthused You were like alright And then the second episode you were like That was actually You were like That was surprisingly listenable That was like

[00:10:03] That was like a real episode guys Yeah right And then we were off to the races Yes A end of story Thank you all for listening Please remember to read your dreams That's it And here we are And nothing happened in between

[00:10:18] We didn't learn any lessons along the way Or anything Absolutely not To think back In those days When we started the show And podcasting I mean had You know been around But it wasn't as popular As it is at this very moment For sure

[00:10:35] Conan had not yet entered the fray Right Exactly yeah It was popular but it hadn't been invented yet Yeah Right I think cereal had happened Of course cereal had happened Right Right So it was Post-serial pre-conon Yes But you know it's funny I was talking to Kevin Porter

[00:10:57] A friend of the show Future guest Former Gilmore guy Gilmore guys Right now He has fun to do many other shows Good Christian Fun And Inside Voices But he did Gilmore guys which I think Had been running for at least a year

[00:11:13] At the time that we started our show Yeah That sounds about right They had built like a good Following at that point And we were talking about The time Getting into podcasting Which was sort of like The second wave Of comedy podcasts You know And he was saying

[00:11:33] A thing that I realized I felt at the same time too Which was Oh I missed the boat It's too late to start a podcast You know Like I feel like At the time that we started this In 2015 I felt that way Where I was like Well

[00:11:49] There are just too many podcasts now And the ones that are successful They got in early And they had a chance to like Make an impact And grow slowly And then something like Serial everyone So all will be a phenomenon But like You know The market's too diluted

[00:12:04] And there's not space For a new show right now And Gilmore guys Had started a year earlier than us And they felt The same way Like well you know We got in too late But at least we're just doing this To have fun and whatever

[00:12:15] No more gates could be locked Essentially is what you're saying Right and now it's I feel like now it's the thing That everyone says to me Where they're like Well you guys are lucky You got in like just at the right moment

[00:12:28] Like you got in before it was too late Now it's too late to start a podcast It's never too late It's never too late That's the point Of course it isn't Of course five years It will be crazier than it is now In some way or another

[00:12:42] But yeah These waves are kind of meaningless But when we got in We got in smart Because it sounded good Crisp Okay I mean It was funny It was informative It was very interesting We really made something That was cool Above all else But it was also

[00:13:05] The key to it was It was Conversations That we would have had for fun Irregardless Despite the fact that the bit Was so high-concept at the beginning What bit? It was the kind of bit I'm sorry The smits were so high-concept At the beginning No bits

[00:13:25] No bits per smits Smits is always going to be high-concept God damn it In the heights better come out I'm really I'm sweating that one What is he saying good morning Good morning Usnavi I don't even want to parody it right now

[00:13:38] Because I'm so worked up about this But I know Not to speak out of term But I know people who have seen it And say it is fantastic Really? And I just want to I want that movie I mean I know that Movies will be eventually released

[00:13:53] Even if their release has to be delayed But I'm just thinking about it right now Okay this episode is topical Can we pause The self-mythologizing I'll stop my stream of hagiography Let's pause that Yes Can we talk about The state of movies right now

[00:14:07] Because I think it's an important thing For us to talk about I miss them so much Like I want nothing more Than to just like go to a movie theater And not think about anything right now And that's taken away right now too unfortunately

[00:14:20] For the good of people Obviously it's important For the good of people For the good of people But I was texting with Gabriel this morning And he said to me John Gabriel's friend of the show Passed in Future guest Humble Brad Winky Winky And he said

[00:14:37] It's like the three things That I have to do for my mental health Are Jim Beach Movie theater A slight variation The Long Island Version of Jim Tan Laundry Right And I said to him Yeah I relate Because for me it's Movie theater Movie theater Movie theater

[00:14:57] Just different AMC's Throughout Manhattan And they're all fucked Yeah and it's a little scary now Not just the fact that Okay so movie theaters are off the table Temporarily Because I understand that as a necessary Move to ensure the future of humanity

[00:15:14] But also that we are in this weird time Where the question is What will movie theaters look like Whenever this ends And how will viewing habits Change and customer habits change I don't know it's weird I mean our podcast is not Very often about current release films

[00:15:33] We are rarely incentivizing people To go to the theaters In a certain way Our podcast is perfectly positioned For a time like this Where it's just assignments of things To watch at home That's true Not intentional but We're people who love going to the fucking Movie theater Yep

[00:15:52] Yep We love seeing a talky picture on a screen A room full of strangers We love the movies Love the movies Ben likes the movies Yeah I like movies Three movie lovers in one But I like joking about them a lot You love joking about them

[00:16:10] But it is this weird thing of just like right Like something like Fast Nine Right my beloved Vin Punted all the way to 2021 Yes initial shock and sadness But in the long term I am happier to wait a year To see that movie properly

[00:16:28] Than to have it drop on iTunes In like two weeks Oh man iTunes for Fast Would be so depressing In the heights is the same thing Yeah In the heights is the same thing There's this thing going around Right now people are like always this it

[00:16:41] And it's sort of like no I don't think so For one you're gonna not see studios Releasing these like Wonder Woman Or whatever No Wonder Brothers isn't gonna release that Because the potential profit Of a movie release is still Just on a whole other level

[00:16:59] So I think once it's possible for people To gather in groups again I know I personally am going to like Stay the fuck outside when I can And go to crowded events Once it is you know deemed safe to do so

[00:17:13] Right like if Wonder Woman is the first movie To open when the movie theater is re-open It's gonna make so much god damn money Like people are gonna want To communally gather in a space With strangers whose medical histories They don't know and watch that god damn movie

[00:17:32] Something like in the heights Which we're all fucking amped for Every time I saw that trailer In theaters I got goosebumps Partially because of how good it looks And partially because you could feel The excitement of the other people in the theater Going oh my god Jimmy Smiths

[00:17:51] Is walking into a bodega confidently Singing Good morning Usnavi Who's so named because He's named like after the US Navy Right I did see in the heights I never saw it Well Yeah it's his parents When they arrived in America saw a ship

[00:18:13] With the signed US Navy on it That's why he's called Usnavi Anyway so we love movies We don't want them to go away We don't want Blank Check to go anywhere Celebrate his fifth anniversary What are we doing guys Well we have some friends of the show

[00:18:31] Who in celebration of our fifth anniversary Have left us some voicemails And sent over some audio messages So we can listen to those Some clips from past episodes We had posted on Reddit With suggestions for those So you guys let me know Perhaps maybe start with a clip

[00:18:53] From a past episode Okay let's open up the old clip bag Let's do it And for all this stuff I'm trying to explain As simply as possible so there's some super nerds That might know that I'm avoiding some details Or maybe some funny things

[00:19:07] Like sort of toppings on the pizza Yes so here's some crazy shit We're gonna get into The way film works And this is now getting to Billy Lynn stuff We're out of the film stuff What's crazy about Billy Lynn The way film works People often say

[00:19:25] What allows a bunch of Series of stealth images to create An illusion of motion Is something called persistence of vision Which is the idea that If you right now wave your hand in front of your face You see that your finger The image of your fingers is blurring

[00:19:41] And that's considered persistence of vision Which is that the image sort of smears In your retina and in your brain So that helps you determine What direction things are going How motion is working That's not true That is not what dictates motion That's not what makes cinema works

[00:19:59] So now I'm gonna get into some crazy stuff So there's a bunch of these experiments That prove that this is not how it works There comes the maraca section David you can't oh my god this If there's one podcast that you can't get into cinema

[00:20:11] You had me when you were describing how cameras work But now you're like now let me upend to you You gotta talk vision baby So there's these famous experiments where You take an image of a red dot It's a still image of red dot

[00:20:23] No motion blur or nothing And then you take that away and put up another Image of a red dot in another location If you go between those images One to the other One to the other and you start increasing The pace that you're going between the two

[00:20:37] Suddenly your brain starts to Assume motion between them Instead of it being one image of one circle here Your brain goes that circle is moving from here to here Back and forth back and forth And In the science experiments they refer to this

[00:20:51] In a certain amount of hertz or a certain amount of milliseconds I've sort of Tried to transmute it into frames per second Okay So The frequency which you get when you It starts as being still images And then let me get my exact

[00:21:07] Welcome to the five towers club by the way From zero Thank you From zero to five frames per second It's just succession, two images Then you get the partial movement where you get The sensation of things moving slightly And then at around Between

[00:21:25] 16 and 18 frames per second which is really interesting You have what's called Beta movement Okay Which is just like these low testosterone Sort of cock movements Hey Ben can you open that envelope This is like Neil Patrick Harris hosting the Oscars That's sort of why I did this

[00:21:43] Ben is opening the envelope What's it say on the front there Griffin will make a joke About beta movement And just open it up Fuck, this is amazing Beta cock Movement Okay I mean the guy knows me We're very good We're very old friends Oh my fucking god

[00:22:17] I just knew Jesus Christ I'm sorry So Around 16 to 18 frames That really was a Torta force Listen you got it, you know people Well that's the funniest thing that will ever happen on this podcast But isn't it funny That that moment which is probably the funniest thing

[00:22:46] That will ever happen on this podcast Is three minutes of JD Talking in detail about like how the brain Perceives movement and how it can be Visually tricked And then a joke The greatest joke ever Well I think that's part of what makes it the greatest joke ever

[00:23:02] To be clear, and a bad joke By you, and then the greatest joke ever Well, agree to disagree I think it was a pretty perfect joke I think it was a perfect joke just like the perfect test Or a perfect phone call

[00:23:14] But part of the beauty of the joke It's not that that's the funniest thing I've ever witnessed in my life But it is the most Beautifully executed joke I have ever witnessed JD walks into the studio Is holding in his hand doesn't Say anything

[00:23:32] When we start recording the episode Which part for the course for us Was probably 45 minutes after we all arrive Yeah Probably arrived 30 minutes after everyone else Yeah At the very beginning of the episode He hands you the envelope Ben and says

[00:23:48] I just wanted you to take note of this envelope I will tell you when to open it And then the clip you just heard is like an hour Into the episode Probably, yeah Yeah, it may be 45 It's deep-ish into the episode

[00:24:02] I mean he lets it rest for a good long while Before Letting us execute his And like what if he wasn't Like what if we didn't get around to talking about Beta movement whatever the fuck that You know it's so funny that he's like

[00:24:16] We're gonna get this deep I promise JD comes prepared As we know he comes in with a checklist of things That we have to discuss But also there's the moment There where I say Which is just like less Low testosterone Excuse me where I say it's like low

[00:24:36] Movement And then I take a beat And JD just kind of stared at me in the room And then I said cuck movement I almost didn't say Cuck movement And it was because I got No response that I felt like

[00:24:52] I had to take another bite at the apple So JD was just like I'm not rising to it until he says The word He knew he said I can't force His hand I need to let this play out During the whole clip I'm just like

[00:25:08] JD's going too deep This is too dry I'm like you know I'm being a pain And then you make your joke and I'm like I'm crying out loud this thing's off the rails Like I am totally In grunt mode until He asks Ben to reach for the envelope

[00:25:24] Completely won back over Hearing you like react to it Reminds me of another JD moment when you guys are describing The ending of speed racer Where the crowd is just like losing their mind That's David Just going oh my god what am I about to witness

[00:25:40] What is happening right now It felt like that I mean I did feel like we were Reeling after that We had to continue doing the episode But it was I was just so astonished By the jujitsu Of it you know

[00:25:56] And then we do talk for another like 90 minutes Like it's not like that was Not only does he have to complete his entire Lecture but then we also have to get To hack my mac Yeah right It's such a good blank check episode

[00:26:10] Because it is about a movie that no one talks about It's about a movie that is special For reasons no one acknowledges By a great artist but not his great work Right I don't know It also began in tradition Yeah Talking the walk

[00:26:26] Oh boy I don't know what we'll do This here Who knows I mean look Let's say Bobby Zemeckis is now going on To the elite 8 In March Madness If he wins then it's real easy for us We just literally talk the walk Yeah although his filmography

[00:26:44] Is so goddamn long we probably won't Talk the walk till freaking You know January or whatever but yes you're right But otherwise yes We're back to the drawing board we have to figure out What the next walk is JD sent in a voicemail as well

[00:26:58] Where he talked about this but I just want to say Before we play that and I'm not going to reveal What it is because he's been very adamant About this JD texted me while you were playing The clip by pure coincidence He's been

[00:27:12] Has not left his apartment once In the last 10 days from self-quarantine He Was feeling pretty sick I think for a couple of Days now on the mend but is Justifiably paranoid He has been sending me Different drafts JD is Determined to come up with a Viral coronavirus tweet

[00:27:34] JD is not on twitter I don't recommend it I don't Yeah Angie went viral and she did not enjoy it No I had to give My password to my sister Because I can't log into my Account anymore it's bad I'm only on blank check don't go

[00:27:50] Viral right now I'm sorry continue You should have said don't at me That's the only mistake you made You had a perfect tweet it was a perfect Tweet just like the phone call in the test It's like when you ask someone if they're a cop

[00:28:02] They have to tell you If you say don't at me they can't at you You should have just said don't at me because you were correct Okay but what did JD send COVID-19 the widowmaker JD has been sending me drafts Of things that he wants to go viral

[00:28:16] And He's been working hard on them so I just want The listener to know he said I cannot give him credit For his thing because he doesn't have a twitter account He's giving it to me He wants to test the virality

[00:28:29] But I just want the listener to know Something I post probably within a week Is going to be created by JD Very true I will never say what it is or isn't That's all I want to say Should we play the JD voicemail Yeah yeah

[00:28:46] Hello blank check family I'm JD Amato and I love movies Blanket, think it but don't touch each other Because of the virus I just want to send a quick message And congratulate the blank check team On their 5th anniversary You all should be so proud of yourselves

[00:29:02] That's such a phenomenal accomplishment I am of course so appreciative of the fact That you've allowed me to be part of the podcast In small ways But I'm more appreciative of the fact That you've all been such kind and wonderful friends To me over the years

[00:29:16] I've been a little bit worried about the quarantine Don't worry I'm fine But the time has allowed me to explore My old emails and find my first ever Correspondences with each of you So Ben, my first email with you Was in 2015 When you were booking guests for the

[00:29:32] UCB digital podcast I believe you had to cancel And then rebook and it all worked out Fine in the end David, my first email from you Was in 2014 I was in the audio file of me Giving my take on the current state of reality Television at the time

[00:29:50] And you responded about 12 hour day And avoided having to send an audio File back to me Also looking through these emails I came upon the following email from 5 years ago From May 2015 The subject of the email was Help us with the final episode Of our stupid podcast

[00:30:08] Hey, David Sims and I have been recording A stupid podcast for the last couple months And solely about Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace The explicit goal of this podcast Is to answer the question What is the Phantom Menace about And so far we failed in that regard

[00:30:24] Recording our final episode Wednesday Blah blah blah Guys, it's 5 years later And that wasn't your last episode You did many more and your podcast Evolved in something completely different And completely wonderful And so in evolution I want to say that In life a lot of things evolve

[00:30:46] And change and adapt over time But also a lot of things stay the same And those things that stay the same Can be really grounding And really magical And give us a lot of joy Especially in times like this When so many things feel Changing and new

[00:31:04] And strange and uncomfortable It's nice to look back and see And that brings me to my first ever email That I got from Griffin Newman Griffin the first email you sent to me 10 years ago, June 2010 Is the following email Subject line Toy Story Body of the email

[00:31:24] Yo, here are the deeds for tonight Hope you can make it You've got a friend in me Griff And I hope you know 10 years later You still got a friend in me Griff And to all of you congratulations On 5 years That's such a big accomplishment

[00:31:42] On behalf of myself Many of your co-conspirators and fans I say to you, blank you, thank you And I'd like to end on a question Now that 5 years have passed Do you think you've achieved your goal Of answering the question What is the phantom menace about

[00:31:58] And if not, how many more years Do you think it'll take you I'll take my question off the air Great voicemail from JD Amato there Genuinely made me a little emotional Got a little choked up there Griffin, why did you send him an email

[00:32:12] About Toy Story? Do you think you were going to see it? That was the weekend that Toy Story 3 Was coming out and I went At the Ziegfeld RIP One of the all-time great movie palaces They did A marathon screening Of all three movies back to back

[00:32:28] And so at the end of that marathon Sure, so it was like 3 hours Great joke, 5 comedy points But at the end of that marathon You got to see Toy Story 3 Earlier than anyone else And I invited JD because we were in An improv class together at that time

[00:32:44] At the UCB theater A company that's never done anything wrong Anyway JD has been one of our great friends Of the show That first email he read was us asking him To send in a voicemail for That final phantom menace episode Because we just thought

[00:33:02] Let's just get all the people we wish We had gotten on this show We didn't really have many guests on the phantom menace podcast It was the next mini-series Where we started bringing people on And JD came on the show for the first time And

[00:33:16] Our good friend Rachel Lange Rachel Mug, Chase Mitchell Morgan Evans Was in that one I think Yeah, I didn't drunk her do I can't remember if he did episode 2 or 3 People start answering the fray We had 0, no we had 1 guest

[00:33:32] Conor Aleph was the only guest for phantom podcast Is that true? I think so, am I wrong about that? I think you're probably right I don't remember You know but it was one of the things That certainly helped The show evolve

[00:33:48] As we opened it up to other people And developed our sort of stable Of friends And regulars As the shows evolved The thing that we didn't plan But that we've tried to Acknowledge and hold on to Is The show being this weird Middle ground Between pop culture, criticism

[00:34:12] And comedy podcasts As people who are fans Of both of those things And us coming from our respective Backgrounds but also having interest In the others worlds You know one of the things that's fun I think is having people on the show Who come from comedy backgrounds

[00:34:30] And allowing them to talk more seriously And not feeling like They need to make a joke every 2 seconds And having people who are serious Film critics on And allowing them to be funny And not making them feel like they have to Weave some elegant tapestry

[00:34:46] Not everyone can be the poet laureate Not everyone can be our finest film critic Ben has both of those roles unlocked that He's come on our show and she's one of the best writers out there But she can also Do stupid bits with us

[00:34:58] Um should we play another clip? Well we didn't answer his question at the end Oh right oh yeah I feel like we fully know what the phantom menace Is about at this point. Griffin do you agree with me Or am I being crazy in saying that

[00:35:10] No I think I have an answer Do you want to say it? I'm curious as far as line up I want to hear yours first Say it at the same time on 3 No Here's my very short reductive answer It's about how blind arrogance destroys society

[00:35:26] No we have the same answer yes Right? Yeah it's about Like yeah I mean It's weird how the sequels that George Lucas had no involvement in Were clarifying In this regard but yes it is about You're watching an empire crumble under its own Like uh what's it called

[00:35:46] Um Arrogance but there's a word Hubris there we go No but I think honestly In light of like sort of the recent movies I really do feel like it's about Like that Palpatine fucks It is what it is about that He forces consciousness Yeah

[00:36:08] No it's funny I mean at one point in time We thought what we were going to do for this fifth anniversary was Re-assessed the phantom menace But with context That was our idea was talk about it as

[00:36:20] A Star Wars movie since we never did that on the show I thought that would have been fun But then you decided there's been too much Star Wars talk of late which is Not inaccurate Right I stand by it but it is one of those things that uh

[00:36:34] I think you and I are both slightly Warmer on all three of those prequel movies Then we are in those episodes because of The thought experiment of pretend the other movies don't exist The affection comes from the way that they're in conversation with the others

[00:36:52] Even if those movies are not wholly successful The bit was stupid we should have acknowledged the other movies What a waste of a year Part of like the response on reddit is we had a question So maybe I'll post this to the group

[00:37:06] Do you guys want to maybe talk about what your least favorite episodes are And what you would have done differently Given a time machine And also what are some of your favorite apps I mean uh you know I said the ones I like the least

[00:37:20] Uh I'll tell you the two episodes I'll give you the time machine on I think and I've said this before I think uh we were really Ungenerous to Amit best in our Jar Jar episode I think we were very much following the same

[00:37:36] Line of attack that everyone else was following And putting a lot of the blame on him which was not fair Especially in light of how much he's opened up About how difficult that process was for him After the release of the film

[00:37:51] And the other obvious one is but it's one of those hindsight's 2020 we literally did not know That uh Lulu Wang was gonna get pulled out of that episode Oh yeah That episode is tough for me to relisten to Because I feel the same anxiety

[00:38:07] That probably our listeners feel where you go God she only has 20 minutes left Why are you asking her about interviews Uh and the answer is we thought we had two hours It's no one's fault That was one person's fault but uh that's okay

[00:38:21] It was one person's fault we're not gonna name her We don't even know that person's name I know her name but that's it's no big deal Uh but you're right about that Hopefully we'll have her on at some other point

[00:38:31] I thought we had a really good conversation with her I thought our nos could talk afterwards We could do this with her We could I mean look silver lining a Skype Maybe we'll have more West Coast guests on the show In the next couple of uh months Yeah

[00:38:46] Who knows Who knows uh I'm trying to think of any episodes I don't like I feel like we talk I mean I don't like The Fantastic Four episode they already said that Uh whenever we did a retrospect before

[00:38:57] I like all the episodes what's a bad episode of Blank Jags There's such a thing I would say um I would go back And um not lose my phone and fall on the ground When we recorded that episode with Dana

[00:39:12] You lost your phone of course right yes yes You were very late you were right It was incredibly late I recall David saying I thought you were dead Yes I did say that to you That was maybe a little harsh of me

[00:39:25] But uh it had crossed my mind That was not good I didn't like that I just sprayed my ankle severely it was a whole thing I'm very sorry That was a dead Yes I forgot I forgot that was that episode yes

[00:39:37] Was there like a director you guys were kind of like Tired of doing at a certain point Oh sure Burton I can answer that right away Yeah that's the answer Yeah Burton I will say I didn't totally feel this way but I remember

[00:39:50] A little bit of exhaustion with Spielberg by the end That was at the time definitely the longest We'd ever done Yeah I think that was just because it was twice as long As any mini series we had done up until that point

[00:40:01] There was so much variety in that career And he has bangers at the very end Those bangers at the end rule I think Spielberg's interesting because like he I love our War Horse episode and I love Catch Me If You Can

[00:40:14] I think we have some like really good episodes in there I still could not tell you one thing about Steven Spielberg He's like an enigma besides like he's just good at his job Whereas like He knows where to put the camera

[00:40:24] And he wishes his dad was nicer to him Well that's what's weird I mean he's one of those paradoxes where his films are So weirdly revealing and also so weirdly Impersonal at the same time In certain ways he's telling you everything about himself

[00:40:41] And in other ways you feel like you don't know him at all Yeah he's a funny one He's kind of like Jerry Seinfeld in that sense Yeah I think he's less weird on balance But yes I know what you mean

[00:40:52] You know, Andra brought up our War Horse episode I actually have a clip Oh a clip from War Horse Perfect segue Old friend pilot Vera Witt Right the first three minutes of the film feel like 15 minutes And it's a series of sequences

[00:41:09] Totally silent of Jeremy Irvine watching this horse Be born, grow, prance around, you know, achieve full size It's so creepy It's weird Very fucking creepy Okay but here's where I, here's my first problem with the movie So first pivotal scene is an auction Peter Mullen, great actor

[00:41:30] Great director too Good director plays Jeremy Irvine's dad Drunky Mick drunkenness Yeah yeah yeah old drunk farmer Drunkio drunkery Farmer booze And then David Thulis plays like Lord Evil Like the like the mustache and sideburns only Like you know land baron or whatever Baron per snickering

[00:41:54] And he's like I shall have that horse A million pounds please And Peter Mullen, Peter Mullen not Jeremy Irvine Just like a million and one pounds Like he like dares defy his lord Right To outbid him, what does he care about the horse?

[00:42:10] He just like briefly falls in over the horse And then quickly wants to shoot the horse in the face I mean he probably feels like his son isn't going to find like anyone else So like better like support the relationship

[00:42:21] But when he brings the horse back to Jeremy Irvine Jeremy Irvine acts like oh wow this horse I've never seen this horse before Like he doesn't own up to Oh cool horse, no no no it's a good horse Good horse

[00:42:33] I'm gonna call him Joey and we're gonna make a special owl call for him I'm definitely enjoying meaning this horse for the first time I haven't spent weeks upon weeks watching this horse from its birth But the implication I guess is that David Thulis is the evil landmaren

[00:42:53] Yeah but he's not even evil, he's just a dick He's just a guy And like he's like there's a fuckable horse And what purpose does a fuckable horse have If not just to hang out in like a fancy manner Right

[00:43:06] And be ridden around by rich people and not do much and eat hay Maybe do some dressage Yeah do a little dressage, yeah be like a dancing horse Sure Right, exactly A silly horse Look at this auction okay

[00:43:19] What does David Thulis have to gain from owning the horse right? He's a rich man He could just put the horse up in a nice stable His son is kinda like ehh I mean it's okay His son's not even that into the horse

[00:43:30] But the idea is that it would be a show horse How many times are we gonna say horse We're gonna say it so much And we did That episode is funny Yeah Can I say that MP3 file is called fuckable horse It's funny because

[00:43:45] We usually are very charitable to movies You know like we come in with like sort of like trying to Find the things we like in them even if they're bad You know what I mean And that's a movie that a lot of people really love

[00:43:59] And it's a movie that is not my favorite But certainly has got a lot going on But we just came and we were like Jesus guys We really just wanted to take it to town Take it to the glue factory It's one of those things like

[00:44:16] Like master builder was a similar thing Where sometimes it's just like The mood we're in How deep we are in the filmography The guest we have Just the alchemy of all those things It just becomes you know I think you've always clarified David

[00:44:33] Over and over again that this is not a bad movie podcast That we've tried to avoid that And no disrespect to bad movie podcasts But there are too many of them out there And we felt like we don't want to be just another one

[00:44:45] And so a lot of times people will suggest things to us You have to do an emergency episode on do little And we just go like it's not right Yeah I mean look We could have boarded the ship with do little We might have missed our journey

[00:45:00] We're doing a do little episode And actually George Miller is cancelled And we're doing a Steven Dagan mini series We gotta never mind all plans out the window But the point is like anytime there's a calamity We don't feel the need to discuss it

[00:45:12] And we don't want to cover someone's film career Largely because their movies are bad But every once in a while it's fun to have fun with a movie And something like War Horse is just It's pretty easily mockable It's called War Horse

[00:45:28] And it's about a horse that everyone wants to fuck Then do we have a matrix clip Oh yeah You know as a 14 year old I was looking for A sequel to the Matrix That made me feel the way the matrix did right Yeah and it's a good question

[00:45:40] What did we want this movie to be I think that's a fair question right I was trying to watch this and figure that out I was trying to think what was I expecting out of this film Because I look at the trailers and they get me excited

[00:45:50] And I still don't know what I think it's promising And I realize I sat down that theater It's really hard to imagine what it could have been Like in a more sort of nominally like commercial sequel I think I sat down the theater and had no idea

[00:46:01] What I actually wanted I wanted to be as surprised as I was Watching the Matrix the first time Hard to do That's the thing You know that's what's tough is it's not just like Oh the Matrix is really good Like you see something like Guardians of the Galaxy

[00:46:12] And you're like good make a sequel Yeah just like can I have more of these guys Pound around On characters they joke they fight aliens Good easy to make a sequel I don't need the sequel to be to explain Like the world of Guardians of the Galaxy

[00:46:24] In like extreme death I don't need bigger picture mythology I need like there's a couple of villains There's a McGuffin Right And at the end there's a big fight But you know I get it It's not gonna be fucking you know Shakespeare Joking some pop songs

[00:46:36] And it's like It's a nice pop song I don't know if the movie is gonna work You know but I know there's a clear road map That a six year old could tell you Is what Guardians of the Galaxy 2 should be In basketball

[00:46:46] You know is when you're drafting players No it's okay It's very brief Like in draft day Yes but basketball Can you put it in that In those tournaments Well sure in football It's probably similar in football You know you talk about a player's ceiling

[00:46:57] When you're drafting him right So it's like Okay So you're in college And you might say He's good right now He's probably gonna just be this You know Yeah He'll be good And then you see another player Like look I get that he's rough around the edges

[00:47:11] But we know from like doing this for years That he's got the kind of skills That if you develop them right He could be a mega star Sure So like the ceiling is very high But it's a more high risk thing

[00:47:20] So that's kind of what the matrix is Right like a sequel to the matrix Is a high ceiling You could make something incredible Like talk about a world Where you can do anything Yeah And it's a galaxy You know what you're gonna get

[00:47:31] Good boo boo boo boo boo Well and yeah That sums it up right The little noises I just made Yes 100% Oh for sure Yeah But something Yeah I don't know with this You just go like I don't even know what The paradigm shifted so much

[00:47:45] In the wake of this movie That I don't know what I want out of it And it's also this weird Like you can't go home again thing Where the matrix is A hero's journey It's someone coming to their position It's a new character Entering into the world Yeah

[00:47:57] Right So what this movie is It's like a total subversion Of the hero's journey Man that's why it's so good Okay so I would have Alright I think I know What I wanted No no so Ben What your experience I believe was also seeing this at the time

[00:48:10] But you did not rewatch it You told me I did not I didn't have time You didn't watch it Okay we're doing these episodes Very close together And I don't think We can really reasonably expect then To have to watch everything We're doing three in a row Yeah

[00:48:23] Um oh so anyway So yeah I mean I you know I left and I was just like Those were a lot of keys That was my take away Now Ben You like size You like size I do Do you like quantity Or is that less important to you

[00:48:37] When it's When it's an impressive amount of keys I'm on board So did you find the key makers So abundance Of keys to be an impressive amount of keys Yeah yeah Oh yeah I was like That was a lot of keys

[00:48:49] I think he has two layers of clothes That are covered in keys He's got like an outer And inner vest Can I ask you a very A very serious question Like can I ask a very serious question Yes you can Has Ben become our finest living film critic

[00:49:04] Look what if it was like USA Today and there's like a picture of Ben Picture of Ben like leaning with it Against his fist And then and it's just like The matrix he loaded in there Just like Those were a lot of keys It's an important moment

[00:49:18] Uh and historic moment And uh I think that listeners asked for To give more backstory To go down memory lane Of how some of those nicknames came to be Um but that yes That was a big one Uh it did feel like

[00:49:36] If I can if I can do a little Uh Ben Hosley tribute here for a moment If you'll so amuse me Uh it's still five years into this show I don't fucking know if I Get the guy But I'm constantly Constantly falling in love Over and over again

[00:49:58] And that's really sweet Chris And that key moment is another perfect one Where it's just like Where did that come from It's both It's it's to quote the storytelling principle It's surprising but inevitable Uh And and he truly is our finest film critic And I also think uh

[00:50:15] You know our our Listenership would be a lot more limited If not for Ben Being a presence on the mic As much as you Ben always say It's not my job If you guys are on a roll I'm not gonna butt in

[00:50:28] You know it the show is about you Uh I've had so many people say Or or even just read people right Uh uh you know I'm not as big a fan as you guys are I don't watch all the movies The level of shit you guys know

[00:50:44] Is actually kind of off putting to me Ben is the way that I'm able To get into the show The fact that there's someone there in the room Who has a normal person's knowledge Of all these subjects Uh and is both so funny

[00:50:58] But also can sort of function as an audience Surrogate I think it's uh It's not the special sauce It's it's it's the bun It's the bread that holds the sandwich together But I just need to restate at all times It is really not a bit

[00:51:15] Even if you know that what you're about To say is funny Yeah These are actual thoughts and opinions you have You're choosing to share them And frame them within a comedic context Mm-hmm But but hanging out with Ben off microphone

[00:51:30] Is pretty similar to hanging out with Ben on microphone Yes Correct I wanna weigh in on that clip From a different perspective Which is it reminded me That we did those matrix episodes Very close together Yeah Remember that And we had to cut the third one short

[00:51:49] Because Shannon O'Neill was outside Basically banging on the door saying like Get the fuck out I gotta record my show Oh right Yeah And so anytime anyone's like Oh they've already talked about the matrix Like we had to rush the end of the third episode

[00:52:03] There's still plenty to say guys There's still plenty more to use I watched the matrix a couple weeks ago With a friend who had never seen the matrix before An experience I've been searching for A little bit to see someone enter the matrix now

[00:52:17] Who hadn't seen the matrix? My friend Lexi who now has But even watching it with her I was like Ugh I would do a much better matrix episode today Than I did five years ago 100% Both in terms of just being a better podcaster Knowing what our show is

[00:52:36] The fact that that matrix episode was presumably Like 90 minutes long is insane to think about now Anytime we cover an episode A movie that culturally big The episode tends to be five hours But also I just feel like Even matrix is one of those perfect cultural objects

[00:52:54] In that it's a perfectly made film That somehow only gets better Relative to whatever's going on in the world It is speaking to such universal truths That whatever shifts in society Somehow matrix reflects it in some interesting way So it'd be interesting to talk about them again

[00:53:12] And maybe if the fourth movie ever gets finished We'll go back and we'll do them on Patreon Hell yeah So I thought we could play another message From our mother Emily Yoshida Hello Griffin, hello David This is Emily Yoshida, aka the mother of Blankies

[00:53:33] Calling in from Hollywood, California It's a gorgeous day out here in Soniaale today I just finished punching up a third act issue And maybe I'll take a walk around And pick up coconut off a tree or something I don't know, something like that

[00:53:52] Well Hollywood has changed me as I'm sure you know You've noticed But you know I still remember my roots I'll never forget recording a podcast with you Sweating in a closet Or Griffin had a flu or that other time Recording a podcast with you

[00:54:12] Sweating in a closet while Ben had the flu Or maybe you might have been hung over or something I can't remember So you know in these challenging times I'd just like to thank the Blank Check podcast Personally for collectively strengthening my immune system

[00:54:33] Oh also while I have you Would love to circle back some time Regarding my treatment for the feature film Untitled Bambino Project I think it would make a really exciting addition To the Blank Check slate And I'm pretty sure the Morgata would let us

[00:54:50] Shoot there at a discount So hit me back whenever you're able Would love to hop on the phone On a zoom, whatever you're comfortable with Grab some Joe virtually You know I'd love to make this happen I think it's a story that needs to be told Well

[00:55:12] Happy 200 boys And to all Blankies Happy 200 Mother loves you very much Have a good day Bye bye I miss Emily I mean she just stayed at my house for a week Like a month ago or whenever that was But I still miss her

[00:55:34] And we got an episode banked up We have Yoshida's return to New York All saved up No Skype or Zoom necessary Yeah she's, I mean of course She's a great friend of the show But also right, I mean she's basically on episode zero

[00:55:50] That is the one, the second Fint, fucking what's it called Force Awakens episode That was sort of the beginning of everything That was the beginning of us thinking we were Blank check, I mean essentially rebranding the podcast And also outside of the judge Judging the judge and the

[00:56:11] Podcastic four, one of which is good One of which is not That was really the first episode where We were dropping the high concept shit And the show was loose And fun and I think kind of established The tone that we would have

[00:56:28] Going forward, so not only did she Name our listeners But she also really helped us figure out What the show was as we kept moving I mean there are a couple people who really Like you know Ben and Todd obviously are responsible for

[00:56:42] Giving us the chance to even do this in the first place And Emily really helped form the show But the two other people who we Credit a lot but they deserve all the credit In the world who I think are responsible For you and I being friends

[00:56:55] David, our Alyssa Stanoa Who didn't even know this until I DM'd her recently To say, hey have I ever Like did you ever realize that You're the only reason David and I are friends And have been doing a podcast together for five years

[00:57:09] Three busy Debra's coming to Adult Swim soon And Pila Verouet On the War Horse episode They are the one who Invited you to trivia and if not for trivia We probably never would have started hanging out As much as we did and we never would have

[00:57:25] Developed the rapport that has lasted us These five long years Trivia and the short running time of the bling ring I would say, yeah That saved us really. If the bling ring had been 220 This podcast might not have ever existed I'm, yeah I would have gotten that text

[00:57:41] As we were leaving the theater I would have been like Oh Pila texted me 40 minutes ago Saying to go to traffic You know like instead we were like You know what let's do it I don't know if we ever talked about this either

[00:57:53] In the many times that we Remethologize our beginning But when you got the text from Pila Saying do you want to come to this movie Trivia night We were at a different trivia night I think we have talked about it We were at a bad trivia

[00:58:08] We went to a bar to get a drink And they just plopped a trivia You know question you know A piece of paper in front of our faces And you went, do you want to say Yeah I like trivia we should do this

[00:58:20] And you went okay let's stay It was Bolivia yeah it was not like Particularly involved trivia But I mean the sliding doors if we had stayed There at that trivia night Maybe we'd be hosting Pod Save America Instead you know Oh boy we'd be telling Mr. Trump

[00:58:36] That the line is here And you will not cross it I don't know isn't that what they do now He Is not a good president I haven't listened to Pod Save America In quite a while I'm gonna say it that guy's got a Shape up or ship out

[00:58:53] And I mean it I've had it up to here With Mr. Trump Let's not start anymore podcast Beefs Ben do we have another clip? We do well I thought We could just play a few Moments with Chris Gethard And we also have a really great moment From Miyazaki's

[00:59:19] Series where David Rees I think really blew everybody away With his assessment of Spirited Away The stepfather of Blankey's himself That's true alright so We're gonna get into some of those clips now Alright alright Okay here we go this is good Matthew Wood as General Grievous Fail

[00:59:45] Now you wanted to talk about it What a fucking piece of shit character Shit performance What an insulting to everybody's fucking Intelligence both Intellectually and emotionally speaking What a fucking train wreck Character skittering around on the floor Like a little fucking jerk

[01:00:03] When you're supposed to be this person everybody's chasing How did this person rise to prominence in any army Why are the Jedi so obsessed With getting this bumbling fool That can't do anything right None of it makes sense the performance is deplorable

[01:00:15] I hate it I hate everything about General Grievous Three fails here no question I'm also gonna give him my LVP I'm gonna give him my award for revaluable player I didn't give out a most valuable player I don't know who I'd give it to

[01:00:29] I guess I'm gonna have to think about that It might be Sam Jackson As what as your MVP I'm wondering who the MVP is Alright so I think this might be it Is it Ben Cook as Kit Fisto Ding ding ding Kit Fisto is the shit

[01:00:45] Ben's from the Kiari Mundiplo Clune Obsession Is there a character in these movies That you see less of That you want more of In the second one In the third one give me my Fisto What's the deal He looks cool, acts cool

[01:01:03] Everything about Kit Fisto is fucking cool Carries this film Carries this film Absolute MVP Without this Without the keystone that is Kit Fisto This whole movie crumbles Kit Fisto by far By far You get this sense I saw Kit Fisto for roughly four seconds in this film

[01:01:25] Here's what I know Kit Fisto, Jedi Master Yeah but probably on the younger side Probably on the more rebellious side Goes off and does Kit Fisto's thing a little too often For the Jedi Council's comfort But gets things done

[01:01:39] Maybe he doesn't need the clones as much as others Why are we relying on this? Because it's easy That's never been our way Kit Fisto is someone who gets out in the field Kit Fisto doesn't care if he needs to go undercover

[01:01:49] Clan Destin for months even years at a time Kit Fisto gets the job done Maybe Kit Fisto doesn't play nice with others Maybe Kit Fisto doesn't get along With everybody all the time He doesn't play the politics, he doesn't play the game

[01:02:01] He goes and he gets it done like a Jedi Kit Fisto MVP now Always SORROCK Wow Just to clarify, he's the guy with the green treadlocks He's got big Black, big eyes Big, big eyes In the second movie I think he pushes someone over A droid over

[01:02:23] And he's got like six fingers When they go inside that big stadium That's very convenient for the fucking battle He's running like I'm going to fuck Shit up and he's psyched that he gets to do it Kit Fisto seems, you know what it seems like

[01:02:37] Every Jedi master has a stretch before he's a master Where he just gets real into the fact that he can fuck shit up And I get the sense that Kit Fisto is right in that phase He hasn't settled down yet

[01:02:45] It's not about wisdom, it's about fucking shit up And talk about tragedy cut down the prime of his life I mean you're saying this was a man with only potential ahead of him My guess is that if you I would have to

[01:02:55] Because I'd have to imagine that these Jedi as individuals Are legendary characters Like baseball players Or basketball players are to us when we're kids And I'm not going to be a kid I'm not going to be a baseball player I don't think Kit Fisto is the LeBron James

[01:03:09] That's probably Yoda And then you got Kevin Durant Is probably Mace Windu Keari Mundi is probably I think he's DeMarcus Cousins He's like a DeMarcus Cousins Wait, wait, wait, how the fuck did you do this? Who's your Kit Fisto then? Westbrook Kit Fisto is Westbrook All day

[01:03:31] He just brings the thunder No, no, no, it makes total sense He's someone who approaches this job With joy and energy And fury And he's a wrecking ball But he needs to be pulled back sometimes And a surprisingly high assist grade

[01:03:47] Like you think he's a wrecking ball on a ball hog But guess what, Serge Abaka Is not hitting corner threes Without Westbrook going one on four And drawing all the attention But Kit Fisto enters situation You know what he is? I'm not a real Anakin

[01:04:03] So you think maybe they should just invest in the Anakin money Right in Kit Fisto? I want to see a movie about Kit Fisto Do you want to see it with Keari Mundi and Po-Kloon? Yeah, I want to see it

[01:04:13] Tell me you wouldn't watch a movie with us Who doesn't watch that movie? Are you kidding me? Jedi Wrecking Crew Those are the three everybody wants to see So do you want to know something interesting about Ben Cook Who plays Kit Fisto? Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe

[01:04:27] Yeah, he's Snake Eyes Tell me everything Who does he look like to? Jason Statham Oh my god He plays Jason Statham He's Jason Statham Stunt Double in like so many movies Wow man Listen, there's a fight coordinator In a lot of movies

[01:04:47] Are other people obsessed with Kit Fisto? Yes, I think Kit Fisto is a real Because he'd look at his look There's like a big Kit Fisto following online Is there any place I can get more info on Kit Fisto? We'll tell you lots about Kit Fisto

[01:04:59] And are there comic books and shit? Do we know? There's Expanded Universe Kit Fisto We're basically done But there are two performances We just got the Fisto There are two performances Kit, single syllable Strong, Kit It's not like Plakvar One of these dumb fucking Busby

[01:05:21] Whatever these fucking dumb George Lucas names are His name is not Plakvar or Busby Fisto Fisto, he's a Jedi He's a fighter, it makes sense Even Ploklun is pushing Kit Fisto Tell me more I think this is a record of someone Having an encounter with the sublime

[01:05:43] Yes, right Which I think this movie Even There's a lot about this movie I don't understand And there's a lot about this movie that's opaque to me And how someone could watch this movie And just feel like This is on a whole different level Yes

[01:06:01] There's something about it That is just, I don't know if it's the dream logic Or just some of those incredible images You know But it's just like This is 6 out of 5 stars Yeah, I also think the key difference is I have had encounters with the sublime

[01:06:17] That I completely understand would not connect For most people And I'm like, this movie is capturing the sublime For 2 hours Even if I am not as in on it As perhaps Nigel is Which let me say I think this movie is great, I think it's a masterpiece

[01:06:33] I love it, I feel like I need to watch it 8 more times It was weird To me not having seen it since 2002 When I would run it in my head I'd be like, I barely remember any of that movie And as I watched it Everything was there

[01:06:47] Every element, suddenly I was like I know the score I know the images The score is pretty incredible But I was like I had no replay Recall in my head before rewatching it And all unfolded like this experience of

[01:07:05] I feel very often I wake up and I don't remember My own dreams And then something happens over the course of the day And you go back, yeah, totally And suddenly the entire dream comes flooding Back to me I'm like, I'm emotionally overwhelming

[01:07:19] Right in my dreams someone held my hand And now that someone has held my hand in real life I'm remembering this dream Where I was in like the fires of hell Getting your hand out Retired bit Whatever the thing is And watching this felt like that

[01:07:35] Where I'm emotionally overwhelmed with the idea Of this thing that was buried deep In my unconscious Which I had not connected with before Had no emotional connection to Suddenly having this like tremendous weight And feeling like it was like this unspoken Thing that had been laying dormant

[01:07:51] I think that's why this movie is so powerful And I think And I mean I preface all this by saying like I don't know enough about Japanese culture To really understand everything that's going on in this movie But we can talk about that in a minute

[01:08:05] But what I wanted to say was I think one of the reasons this movie is so powerful Is because it always does at least to me Feel a little bit beyond my And so to speak There's always a reaching quality And so when you come back to it

[01:08:19] It does have that same kind of Strange surreal authority That a dream can have over you Which is again almost like The same notion of the sublime This is just a little beyond What you'll ever be able to understand And when you watch it again it's like

[01:08:35] Oh my god I'm back in that dream space You know what I mean I think that's why the movie Is so powerful How are you doing Ange? Great Feeling good I don't have a back to you guys Are all at like desks of some kind

[01:08:53] I do have a back in my room So I was like trying to set up Like a leaning situation And my laptop's on like a tv dinner stand Right now You're killing it Ange Thanks I'm trying So guys what are some of our favorite old bits

[01:09:09] So like one bit I remember I totally forgot about is handing out cards Remember I used to give like The color cards and red cards The death card was the big moment Yeah I gotta bring that back They've asked where they went Totally forgot

[01:09:25] And then Griffin you had your soapbox bit Oh right yes The fully work for the soapbox But you would have to go upstairs And it would take a really long time And you would always be like oh my god That bit's been replaced with Every ad read

[01:09:43] I think that Same function is achieved With every ad read The bosta on with it I've used the soapbox bit On twitter I think It's like an easy translatable Just like Another one I thought of is remember When you guys kept going blue

[01:10:05] We were doing the Batman episodes Oh yeah Talking about the color palette Of each movie The Nolan series Brought out a lot of silliness In a surprising way That's when we started at audio boom Yes Ben you Had gotten hired over to audio boom And we left

[01:10:27] The UCB Podcast network to follow You there All of that was happening also While I was filming the tic It was sort of a pile up of things That happened all at once And so those episodes were all recorded At like weird times or days off Or weekends

[01:10:47] When I was really stressed out And overworked and we had Fewer guests on that miniseries Because of that And I think those episodes Are some of people's favorites because Sometimes the show is It's best when we're kind of going Crazy It's sadly true

[01:11:07] I think a lot like when directors Are limited in certain ways Sometimes if we don't have guests Or a particularly fascinating movie To talk about Nolan is not fascinating It allows you guys to get creative And silly and weird The inception

[01:11:25] I have a vivid memory of walking home And realizing that Ben was adding The layers and you guys were each falling back And just hearing you all go Like Pretty fantastic Should we listen to that? We should, I mean for context I was resistant To doing Nolan

[01:11:45] It was when we were going to do Michael Bay When people sussed out Through hints on Mike That we were going to do Michael Bay They started objecting So then we pivoted to Nolan quickly Because I thought he's too big He's had too many hits

[01:12:01] It's not interesting to talk about We had mostly covered filmmakers Who had big ups and downs at that point And Spielberg was something of an exception But we also covered the period of his career That was weirder So I was sort of resistant to Nolan

[01:12:15] And the thing that finally won me over Was in our text chain Ben said What about the inception episode Podcast within a podcast And I went fine And you and I started planning how we were going to do that episode It was a classic blank check structure

[01:12:31] Where you and I plan a dumb thing Don't tell David about it And test his tolerance for the dumb thing That we are foisting upon him My favorite But I also think it opened up the show a little bit Both in terms of how silly things got

[01:12:47] And also in terms of This really doesn't have to be a bad movie podcast It doesn't have to be a podcast about people failing It can be a more generous thing Of just sort of trying to figure out a person And their work and talking about these movies

[01:12:59] And their cultural place I think it freed us up a lot Okay, Inception So he makes Inception And comes out and people like it Yeah Okay well, good up Wait a second Ben Is there a leak in the ceiling? I feel like it's just rubble Oh my god

[01:13:23] What's going on here in the studio? Ben, what's going on? This is great so far I mean, wait What's happening? It feels like the podcast is collapsing Oh my god, is the room Falling apart? Oh my god I forgot that this is an audio medium

[01:13:43] How are we gonna Wait are you guys telling me that the room's falling apart? The podcast is collapsing We have to go deeper? Can we go into a podcast in a podcast? Yeah I guess We're gonna Okay let's plug in guys Ben don't be too shaken up

[01:14:01] Thank god I brought my dream suitcase Here we go How do I just instantly fall asleep? You just put the thing on your arm? I never really figured it out Cool cool cool Just count sheet You mustn't be afraid to podcast a little bigger darling Oh good

[01:14:25] There you go, another great line I'm Griffin Newman Welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David This is a mini series called The Pod Night Cast And today we're talking about the movie Incaption Okay so the movie starts It starts Well it starts with Leo Nardo

[01:14:41] DiCaprio washing up on a beach Right? That's the first thing I should just apologize in advance If we have some sound problems We are recording from the back of a van right now What great performers we all are I mean Is the podcast collapsing? Talking about David

[01:14:59] Becoming sillier On the show For someone who Dare I say it Never made a Herald team Never made a Lloyd team That is an old bit that multiple people Who don't know what it means Text to be being like can you stop doing that bit

[01:15:17] I don't know what it means It's not the reason we stopped doing that bit Yeah I thought it was funny David truly didn't know what we had planned For that episode And he was not hearing those sound effects In real time

[01:15:31] So he's just hearing the two of us saying Those dumb things describing what's happening And doing a lot of physical act outs We were both acting it out physically Yes Because we had to make it real for him in the room But David like a great improviser

[01:15:45] Was just yes and he was accepting the reality Even if you can hear him rolling his eyes At the same time Yes That episode Rebecca Bollness Friend of the show And someone who became a friend of the show Through her listening to the show

[01:16:01] Her starting to write about it on AV club Then we started communicating with her On Twitter And she eventually came on the show and has become an IRL friend To all of us We love her The best She put as it was the top episode on

[01:16:17] On podcast that week On the AV club Where we were like the headline Huge one of those things that just kind of like Especially Back then Those three long years ago It was something that could overnight kind of like Make a podcast Especially within that sort of sphere

[01:16:37] And she had very generously covered us A couple times through our Cameron Crow And the Wachowski And the Chameleon series But then that was The main headline, the photo Was Griffin and David Finally tackle inception And the moment that I realized That could be a headline

[01:16:57] On AV club And not be gibberish Not in a self Important way but that there were enough People listening to our show That people could see that headline And it would mean something It was one of those moments David You and I both big podcast fans

[01:17:15] I think we both Thought about doing podcasts in our lives But weren't necessarily Specifically driving towards That in our careers But I think that was a moment that was Kind of very surreal like pinched me of Like this feels like we We're a real thing now

[01:17:33] Now can we talk about Of course the most important bit in the history Of podcasts that I think we're talking around I'm sure what is it I don't know if you folks are aware of this But David grew up in England Wait what?

[01:17:47] How did I forget that that's what you were queuing up? I mean I ain't even gonna know Sims Who speaks with an American accent Right Was born in New York City He doesn't even wear petticoats He doesn't even He's been muscled out of lessons

[01:18:07] In London England and David has Truly walked off camera He left Wait a second Wait a second This has never come up on the podcast That's why I felt like we had to save this for the fifth anniversary It was a big reveal David is currently leafing through

[01:18:25] His UK passport He's holding it up to the camera It's real folks This is no bit unless He is committing passport forgery Real EU passport Oh my god David Lawrence Sim Well but EU You're not in the EU anymore

[01:18:45] I'm gonna need a fucking new one because of Brexit But right now I have the EU one Here's a question And posted on the reddit A couple weeks or maybe a month or two back Asking people for things they want to see

[01:18:57] Your here in the fifth anniversary episode And here's an interesting thing to discuss Because I don't know if we've really talked about this But we have a nice little bonus trivia fact To give our listeners I laugh alone Which I believe is the great Emilio Diaz Correct

[01:19:13] He said Have you ever been close To getting a miniseries subject Or a star of the film you are covering To be on the episode I don't think we've ever come close With a star But we have twice gotten Within shouting distance Of getting a director on

[01:19:33] We multiple times Were at least in the preliminary conversations With Ang Lee's people And with M. Night Shyamalan's people And David has switched to a different background photo That is now Colin Farrell and Gong Lee In Miami Vice

[01:19:49] But this is true and it's not a thing we talked about And maybe someday Will make it happen Yeah I guess we talked about We have talked about Shyamalan We never talked about that Hopefully it will happen one day A couple times we were looped in with Shyamalan's

[01:20:07] With the marketing team for Glass when that movie was about to come out We talked about that We did acknowledge that one We got close to doing it We almost interviewed him live And then Ang Lee Almost did our live show with James Seamus

[01:20:23] But he was working on something overseas He was getting an honorary award But I believe he was also producing That award show Well alright He's a hard working guy He's a hard working guy But he relayed a message to us That he would have been there were he

[01:20:41] In the country And then when Gemini Man was coming out Both when it was coming out theatrically And when it was coming out on home video We were talking with the marketing team Look we've gotten Somewhat close Who feel the closest And hopefully someday we'll make it happen

[01:20:59] The two guys I almost Would be most curious to speak to Especially Shyamalan Who in his assessment of his career The last couple of years I think has a similar perspective on his career As to How we Sort of talked about him on the show I want Spielberg

[01:21:19] He should come on Spielberg on bank check I would sit down with the bearded one Now we were talking Shyamalan who is the First director We covered after the Star Wars days And I thought we could play some Messages from Some friends of the show

[01:21:37] Who were really early on Started being guests And were people that are now in the Five Timer club Some five timers let's play the clip My favorite Movie is a Wally Why is your favorite movie Wally? Because It's really funny Hi Griffin and David and Ben

[01:21:59] This is Katie and Charlie Charlie can you say hi? The last time you heard Charlie on the show We were on the Titanic episode Charlie was a tiny baby Do you remember going to record A recording studio with me Charlie? Yeah you do

[01:22:15] Since then Charlie has seen a lot of movies Charlie have you seen Gigantic What happens in that movie? The boat sink It does sink into the water But that's not your favorite movie Your favorite movie is Wally Who's your favorite robot in Wally? I like a Wally

[01:22:33] What other movies do you like? The short movies The short movies What about Sing Do you like going to the movie theater? Yeah You are in the audience? A big screen Bumcorn Charlie and I can be on again in 5 more years When Charlie will be a big kid

[01:23:23] And watch big kid movies Do you want to say anything else Charlie? No Okay happy anniversary guys We should acknowledge that the trolls have a significant financial stake in the show They really do We don't know how But there's somehow venture funding Like a lot of the operation

[01:23:59] We're in the pocket of big troll Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan Charlie is a big fan

[01:24:19] We're in the pocket of big troll And yes The trolls as a collective Much like How Wisconsin owns the Green Bay Packers Yeah right We are largely owned by the trolls as a collective Man it was good to hear Charlie's voice I haven't seen Charlie Baltus

[01:24:39] Since he was about 2 years old I saw him last summer And then he was in a phase Where he just called everything yellow Any color You'd ask him what colors were But he would always just say it was yellow And clearly he's just only

[01:24:55] Growing by leaps and bounds Yeah it's weird the way he's growing As time progresses Can we also appreciate that she said He would listen to big kid movies When he's 5 years older As if Griffin doesn't still watch movies That he would have He basically has

[01:25:13] One of your favorite movies is his favorite movie I'm glad he upgraded because for a while Sing was his favorite movie And for a while before that it was Cars 3 And I think we're finally getting to the real good stuff Yes I'm out to her shit

[01:25:25] Look I'm willing to call him our second Finest Film Critic In addition to being our youngest ever guest Is the second Finest Film Critic We will have it back on the show We will A thing we have floated out That now might be a little bit further off

[01:25:41] Just because of where the world is at But one of our ideas For our eventual trip to Disney In order to cover Galaxy's Edge Is to make a little pit stop To visit Katie And Charlie and do a little episode With them

[01:25:57] We would do maybe a Charlie's Choice Or a commentary or something With Charlie He'll join the Two Timers Club eventually And Katie Richard Little gold man listen to it Read them on Vanty Fair To people who we would not be Such close friends with

[01:26:15] Not for Trivia as well It's kind of crazy how many Of our recurring guests Are either people we met through Trivia People who we knew online But we invited to Trivia And that was the first time we met them in real life Or previous friends

[01:26:31] Of ours who joined us For Trivia once or twice and then became Closer friends It really is our sort of Social nexus for this show still I miss Trivia Right now I miss everything I miss literally everything Outside of my window I think this is a good time

[01:26:51] To say that Ange Rules She does, we love her It's always a good time to say that Yeah I'm so so happy that We met you and you became part of the show And now at this point Five years you're Able to really take on so much more

[01:27:13] Of a role with the show And all that you've done to grow Social media For the show and Like assistance you've provided to me And I just really feel like You have brought Your own voice to this show In such a great way And love you Ange

[01:27:33] And so so thankful To have you part of Blank Check Thanks Ben I love you guys too We love you and you're the best And you have helped the show in so many incalculable ways But also it's been such a pleasure Becoming friends with you

[01:27:49] You were someone we had met Solely through doing the podcast And it was a happenstance thing You know that you happened to be interning At the time that we were sort of Getting our sea legs And that we noticed your tweets Much better than our tweets

[01:28:05] And when your internship Ended we said if you want to keep doing this We will pay you whenever We figure out how to make money off of this And for a long time I've been thanking you at the end Of every episode Saying thanks to Ange for good

[01:28:21] For our social media But that has been reductive for a lot of that Time that was initially Your only responsibility with the show But more and more over time You're working on more and more responsibility And your voice has been affecting All areas of the show

[01:28:37] And you're looped in on all areas of planning And sort of bigger picture strategy And now we're starting to appear On microphone On the show more often But you are Ange is I guess as good a time as any To make the announcement that Ange

[01:28:55] Is a producer on the show now Yeah So we have a full time team blink check As we are figuring out How to Keep this thing going And what else we can grow it into And how to make it bigger and better The The barracuda The The tweeter

[01:29:19] The tweeter I'm trying to think Ange and the pussycats That sounds good Yeah Let's hear a clip from that episode That was the first episode you appeared on Oh god, yeah You guys gave me a choice To pick whatever I wanted

[01:29:39] And I went for Josie and the pussycats So why it turns them into The next du jour The next thing I was gonna say, I love that they hide Within the cut that's a bit of a time jump The fact that he actually hasn't heard them at all

[01:29:53] He was shown because he's having The conversation with them They go to the bathroom and they go But he's never listened to our music yet He presents them the contract I was here with real Rockstar, she wanted to wreck a deal Funny, so good Where is his Oscar

[01:30:11] For this performance Him and we'll get to Parker And spend hopefully like 20 minutes on her Yeah sure that's what we need to do We need to spend 20 minutes on her My brother Jamesy Remember him coming home being Dropped off by his friends mom

[01:30:29] Who had taken him and his friend To go see Josie and the pussycats on a play date Fair And she was telling my parents how bad the movie was What And she was like Alan coming, it's embarrassing I have no idea why he did this after Cap-A-R-A

[01:30:43] He's such a good actor And that woman was married to a record executive So you think maybe she couldn't see the far From the trees though Cause it's like this performance is fucking dead on I don't mean to be rude He's fantastic, what a perfect comedic pitch Yeah

[01:30:59] And then we quickly fast they get successful Yep, of course there's a little montage And then the prime of the charts Very quickly followed by Isn't it crazy this all happened in one week So funny I also love there's the shot when

[01:31:13] They see the billboard in Times Square Where they're rebranded as Josie What do you want to read in a comic book Or in a series Go see a motion picture Of Josie and the pussycats Prior to that says Would you rather go see the pussycats Or

[01:31:31] Three fierce ferocious ladies Yeah They have this beautiful Matt painted Times Square Where they don't even take Times Square And put fake billboards over it They can press all of Times Square into one corner So that's literally like Anything that screams in billboards

[01:31:49] It looks like a Kira or something It's like unbelievable This movie is great And they're in their beautiful loft apartment And as we've already noted in Millie Times, any scene there is some sort of product placement In the background basically Somewhere

[01:32:05] Oh wow, I forgot that Josie and the pussycats Is the greatest movie ever made Such a good movie Just re-listening to that clip And as if I wasn't already On Ange for a good oh At that point in the podcast I had played the idle mind game

[01:32:21] Of what if I ever did a griffin's choice Episode not that we would ever need That because the whole fucking podcast Is David nice taste But what if I Like Ben had to pick a one off that never Would necessarily fit into a miniseries

[01:32:35] And Josie and the pussycats was probably My answer And then you picked that Ange And it solidified That you're uh, you belong in this family Uh, Ange is a very good Writer above all else And I think uh, saying That you are a social media person

[01:32:53] Even though we are now properly crediting you As a co-producer of the show Uh, and acknowledging all the other things you do But it's not like you're just the person Timing the posts, you are writing Things that are so in line with

[01:33:05] The voice of the show and that's what made us notice you And uh, yeah, right I mean I think before the Josie and the pussycats So the time that we had Hung out in person were almost always Like a business meeting Like let's get coffee and like strategize

[01:33:19] And catch you up on the state of the show But that was the start of us all becoming More friends, the four of us together Right, hang out and texting about movies We might sound a little vague talking about this Right now but it's mostly just because

[01:33:33] Uh, the world's kind of on pause Uh, but we've been talking a lot About like our Plans for the future of this show But also kind of what we want to do Beyond the show And not in terms of oh, we should

[01:33:47] Sell a book or make a TV show Because who the fuck cares, that's not what this is About but trying to find a way To expand what we've been able To do and the fact that we've been able To build a little functioning economy About it around it

[01:34:01] And the most uh, you know Satisfying part of that is not just being able To like give Anne's a full time Job but also people like Joe Bowen Who was just a listener of the show Who sent us fan art And we've been able to pay him

[01:34:15] To make more and more art for us Which we use for merchandise And Pat Reynolds who does our photo shots Um, you know, Lane Montgomery with his theme song These people trying to be able to Repay them for the time that they put into it Uh, especially because

[01:34:31] All of us started out doing this Just for fun And we didn't have to pay any money And the people who have joined our family Also just started doing things out of kindness Or out of uh, Passion or interest But there was nothing at stake

[01:34:47] And I want to live in a world where people can Get repaid for working hard And being kind and uh Uh, sticking around Um, and we want to try to Uh, be able to extend That a little bit Ideally And we want to be able to make

[01:35:05] Some other shows with Our friends With the people who you hear on the podcast A lot with the people who are in our ecosystem Not start a network or anything but Uh, maybe a little Production company And that's sort of what we've been planning for a little bit

[01:35:21] And it's still the plan Uh, it might take a little longer To get off the ground Um, but the hope is that we can build this into A little economy that makes it People to get podcasts Going Now, I

[01:35:37] I kind of thought it would be fun to maybe talk To you guys about sort of just the run of like The Marvel Movies, you know, I think we're More or less we've recorded and wrapped on Star Wars And Just sort of like our thoughts on how

[01:35:51] That that like uh Franchise commentary series has been going I mean I think uh We waited a while to do A Patreon because we didn't want to do it unless We felt like we had a good idea For what made it different from the main feed

[01:36:05] Without taking something away from the main feed And also a way to feasibly Record that much extra audio a month Because if we were going to do it, we wanted to offer people A lot For their money But the thing that's nice about it is I think Uh

[01:36:21] It's hard to go home again. The show naturally evolves It changes and it morphs And if we tried to keep it in the same place Uh it would be disingenuous because all of our lives have changed in the last five years

[01:36:31] And we've changed as people in the world's changed around us and all of that But there's something about Doing the Patreon commentaries Especially because they're just on a couch And they feel kind of low stakes Even though there is a lot of money at stake

[01:36:43] That people are literally betting on those episodes being good Um They are able to feel a little bit more like The early Star Wars episodes I think Yeah, it's been so fun I loved Big Nice Yeah, and it's nice It's not, RIP Big Nice

[01:37:01] It was one of the great places Uh, terrific place But uh You know, it's not like The main blank check has become incredibly formal Or structured But it's nice to have another feed Where we can do sort of a weirder stuff And get looser

[01:37:19] And have it be more of a hangout show You know what? I will say Over the many many episodes I've had to cut out stuff to protect Griffin's career Did you not cut anything out? Oh, no. Why? Was I supposed to? I thought you were joking

[01:37:35] No, you yourself just said You had to cut things out to protect my career That was the deal we made Yeah, but it was a bit But I thought it was a bit No, it wasn't a bit, it's a no-bits podcast Oh, I forgot it's a no-bits podcast

[01:37:49] Griffin, I'm really sorry I never took it here What's that? Well, now I understand Okay, well now I fucking understand The feedback I got on my Jurassic World Dominion audition Now I get it So now you'll never have a dominion? Thanks for telling me I'm not anymore

[01:38:11] I thought I did a great tape Oh, jeez Louise That was okay, here was the thing Someone asked about on the reddit Really quickly, just for the sake of getting messy Because so much of a running bid On this podcast has been me saying things

[01:38:25] That jeopardize my career Not really a bit It has increasingly become a thing Where I get an audition email and I go I don't know if I can go in for that Knowing what I just said on mic

[01:38:37] And at least one time when we had to cut something out Right after I booked a job Yeah But someone asked in the thread Alongside, you know, what things did Come close to doing, what guest did you almost have on the show? The guest that we almost

[01:38:51] Have and hadn't had I think we've named all of them But Max Minghella and Jamie Bell Who you will have on at some time James or Baniak We came close to recording with We will have on at some time I don't think there are any sort of secret

[01:39:07] Near gets My dad Right, Robert Hosley We will have on at some point Yes, COVID-19 survivor Antonio Dofan Okay Someone asked if I could rattle off Jobs I almost got Oh, this is fun So I'm just going to speed round this Okay, all right, let's go

[01:39:29] Obvious one I discuss a lot Scott Pilgrim vs. the world Playing young Neil I got weirdly close It was the most panic I've ever Been about my career To playing Ken Jeong's role Which was originally Written to be a 23-year-old White guy

[01:39:49] And if you look at the movie Ken Jeong was cast so late That he is costume in that movie Like you would costume me He wears a backpack And college student Clothes the whole movie Got weirdly close to that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

[01:40:07] I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the podcast I almost played Michelangelo In the Michael Bay Produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Reboot I was almost on smash Playing Debra Messing's son That came very close to happening I mean you would have been the game-changing element

[01:40:27] I think it would still be on today I think it would still be on the air Or it would have gotten cancelled faster One of the two would have happened Didn't we do a Scooby-Doo Audition together We did a Scooby-Doo audition For the movie that is now Scoob!

[01:40:47] Maybe now will never be released Or we'll end up going straight to Tiktok But that, the whole thing was They said they wanted a young comedian To play Scooby-Doo and they didn't want them To do an impression of the original voice

[01:41:01] They wanted them to make it their own Do you know who ultimately got that role? You tell me Frank Welker who for the last 20 years Has been the voice of Scooby-Doo In every single media property So someone eventually was just like

[01:41:15] What are you talking about? Just have it be Scooby-Doo Jesus Christ! What the fuck are you talking about? Bloodshot I was trying really hard to get cast to Bloodshot Oh yes you were But did you come? Yeah, I remember that

[01:41:27] I didn't come as close as the other things I just listed but I was I was trying so hard to get their attention And I was sort of getting through to them that I made an audition tape of myself doing Vin's

[01:41:41] quarter mile at a time monologue from the first Fast and Furious And that role was ultimately played by Lamorne Morris with a British accent Okay, have you seen the movie yet? No, when does it debut? I'm not, I can't wait Tuesday Okay, I'm excited too honestly

[01:41:57] As someone who skipped the press screening I am now excited I mean a fatal mistake Truly Well I partly skipped it because I was like, I don't know how many more of these group events I should be attending Well, yeah, I'm in a chair, yeah Yeah, yeah

[01:42:15] Any other regrets Griffin? Any people you maybe regret telling people to punch in the dick for years? Anybody who wears sort of a hat you would maybe wear on a boat perhaps? Look, we talked about regrets earlier in the episode

[01:42:33] and I will say... I actually almost brought this up Vin I think we should talk about this I do genuinely regret what the Colin Trevor bit turned into We genuinely are not huge fans of that guy's movies At the time we started doing the show

[01:42:55] we were, as we've said in a closet doing a show for no money that literally tens of people listen to and it felt like, well this is so clearly punching up, who are we this show is nothing we're being hyperbolic in our dislike

[01:43:13] of this guy as a person It's very clear that it's a bit but as things do they metastasize and they crow and they take on a life of their own to the point that he eventually caught wind of it and was clearly upset that

[01:43:29] a podcast spent three years telling its listeners to punch him in the penis and it is a thing that, you know in the same time that we have been doing this show I have become much more of a public figure than I was when we started

[01:43:45] I am nowhere near the level of success that Colin Trevor has achieved I say with all sincerity but I've now come to understand what it's like to have strangers you don't know saying things about you and analyzing your intent all of these things

[01:44:07] and I think it's a thing that sort of changed the show even if we're going to criticize things I try to do it from a place of much greater empathy and not do things that can sort of callously be misinterpreted and heightened

[01:44:25] to a degree that you can't even control anymore so I want to say I want to say this genuinely I am sorry to the captain Colin Trevoro he has done a number of things in the last year that I deeply respect I think his recent Jurassic World shorts

[01:44:43] the best thing he's ever done I think him giving all of his proceeds from Rise of Skywalker to Children's Hospital is the classiest fuck and also, hey guess what Colin you proved us wrong your script for episode 9 was inarguably better you fucking got the last laugh

[01:45:03] you fucking pwned us we're the noobs touche and if Colin Trevoro ever wanted to come on this show the door is open come on Colin we are he can punch Griffin in the penis I will say this I will say this in all sincerity if Colin Trevoro ever

[01:45:27] no, truly if Colin Trevoro ever wants to come on the show he is allowed to punch me in the penis I mean that I swear to God it is the least I can offer I'm sure he would be the bigger man or whatever

[01:45:39] I'm sure he would not do it I'm sure he would because he's a classier than us but he deserves a shot he deserves a clean shot at the pain alright let's wrap this up guys I gotta go eat something well do Griffin and David

[01:45:53] do you wanna say nice things to each other I'll just say I love you boys and I really respect you both and I think you guys are hilarious and smart and the show that we are gonna keep doing for a long time is

[01:46:11] I don't know it's just really fun and cool like me David's pretty cool no please David doesn't want to say anything sincere he wants to compliment himself well he is now bad he's bad sims where is it oh he's a shirt you're gonna put the shirt on

[01:46:35] get the vest I will say this about David it is one of those things where he was the friend I did not know I was missing in my life until I met him and we met at a weird time we met through weird circumstances but

[01:46:57] once we started really clicking I recognized this is a person I can have types of conversations with that I have never had before these conversations I had previously only had in my mind with myself I try to have them with other people

[01:47:13] and they go I don't understand what the fuck you're talking about that is true it is a great pleasure and a great privilege if you get to meet someone in your life who unlocks a different part of yourself in that way and the thing that makes me happiest

[01:47:27] about this show if I can get emotional for a moment is that when people message us and say especially now as people are self quarantining and social distancing we get these messages scattered throughout the year but there's been a lot of them in the last 10 days or so

[01:47:53] people messaging me directly and saying I really really want to thank you folks for continuing to do the show and putting out a regular schedule while all of this is going on because I'm kind of losing my mind and the show really helps me

[01:48:07] and I'm a dude with a broken brain I discuss it a lot I got all sorts of weird mental and emotional peculiarities and for me one of the things that has always helped me saying whether or not it is healthy I self medicate with

[01:48:23] the art and the entertainment I love they're the things that give me they give me solace and they help me understand the world a little bit they give me a little place that feels like home and my friendship with you David is another thing that gives me that

[01:48:43] relief and what we have I think unknowingly been able to make with this show which we never could have done by design but when people send those messages what I recognize is happening is we are allowing other people to join us in these conversations

[01:48:59] people who live in different cities who live in different countries at weird hours or a weird school in a weird place where no one else cares about the things they care about and you can always go online you can go on a message board

[01:49:13] you can go on blankies.reddit.com but these conversations very quickly can take a turn online what we have tried to do with this show is make a conversation that all of you folks can join in on that feels like the beers or the coffee you would have

[01:49:31] in a great movie or bad movie when you are trying to dissect it and trying to offer up that kind of friendship to other people so you know it never gets to the point of seriousness where I have even verbalized this to you folks because it's never something

[01:49:47] I'm seriously considering but when I am in my darkest moments, when I am in my most stressed out, when I am feeling the most depressed about my career, my life or whatever I go should I stop doing everything

[01:49:57] should I move to the Alps, should I stop doing the podcast is the podcast a hindrance to my acting career is the podcast a hindrance to my social life I investigate all of these things because I overthink everything and the answer to all

[01:50:07] them is no it has only enriched every sector of my life but also when I get a message from someone saying I've had a really rough year I struggle from depression having medical issues, I went through a bad breakup my mom is sick

[01:50:21] any of these things and these messages are coming in with greater frequency now as we're all fighting this pandemic it makes me wonder why I would ever consider stop doing this thing because at the end of the day is the only thing I've actually aspired to do

[01:50:37] in my entire life whatever abstract career goals I have had at any point in time assigned to any specific type of job the thing I really wanted to do was make something that people could care about feel like I made some positive impact

[01:50:53] in the lives of other people through something they could consume because the stuff that I consume is the only stuff that keeps me alive so people often send those messages or will like stop us when we're out on the street

[01:51:05] and say these things to us and I feel like it's always prefaced with an apology I'm so sorry to say this, I'm sorry to bother you I'm sure you don't want to hear this and I just want to say never stop saying these things

[01:51:17] it means the world to me and it means the world to us it's very validating it's honestly it is a great honor to be allowed into your lives in that way and I hope we can continue making things a little bit better for you or

[01:51:37] at least a little more comfortable for a couple hours a week I agree hell yeah, yes it's very hard to make friends this grift's all emotional it's very sweet we love him I love you buddy I would just like to point out that listeners the image I want

[01:51:59] in your head while Griffin gave that beautiful really like touching speech there's a shirtless photo of Indiesel looking at each other both holding surfboards look, it's very touching and beautiful I just know that I'm sitting next to Gong Li in a bathrobe

[01:52:19] that's the image I want in your head this is a very very silly podcast grift it's very you know it is hard to make friends when you're grown up I don't know if you agree with that but I agree 100% and everything we've been saying

[01:52:35] it's like it is nuts that it all worked out the way it did and how easily it could have not worked out and then it got us where we are today we already said all that stuff it was great I can't come on I can't top that

[01:52:53] classic Sims so on brand no it is I feel like the four of us or you know any two of us in any configuration often when we're hanging out we'll say like looking back isn't it crazy that we made that decision at that point

[01:53:09] there are a bunch of things that in retrospect we go God we really dodged the bullet there or we somehow did this thing that helped us weather the weird ups and downs of this podcast industry it's weird to be making a thing in an industry

[01:53:23] that is still figuring itself out and we've gotten really lucky in a lot of ways but we also just we work really hard to try to figure out what you folks are responding to and try to give you more of that

[01:53:35] you know the money that we have now gotten from Patreon is something I think we never could have anticipated it has changed all four of our lives and it's not something that we are going to let make us lazy we are not going to rest on our laurels

[01:53:53] we're putting it back into the show we're putting it back into the show and into the community and we're following the M. Night Shyamalan model which is you gotta bet the house and you gotta stay scared and you gotta keep on trying to push yourself to new areas

[01:54:07] so you know the show is gonna keep evolving the show is gonna change and the way it sounds to you the show will remain the same but stuff is changing behind the scenes and hopefully it will extend to other things outside of it

[01:54:21] if any of us are ever allowed to leave our house hopefully we'll be doing more live shows and we'll be branching out and having other podcasts that exists on our little family tree and making some real real nerdy merchandise for you folks

[01:54:35] we have stuff that has now gone through production and we're putting in boxes that we will they will release to you at some point let's reveal one thing cause I think it will be exciting to people the relevant item to today's episode we have we have a special

[01:54:55] it was gonna be sold at our live show we have a special design that the great Joe Bowen made for us tough to make the five anniversary design that we were gonna sell as a poster we will still be selling them at our New York live shows

[01:55:09] which are now rescheduled for June 29th if you already have a ticket your ticket has rolled over to the equivalent show the earlier late show on that night if you can no longer make the show and you have a ticket they will refund you

[01:55:25] and thus tickets will be opened up to the community to give some other people a chance to get into that show but yes, we have a really cool fifth anniversary design we might post in a little bit we'll sell it online as well

[01:55:35] as a t-shirt and a poster but it's just loaded with many of our favorite bits from across the history of the show but you want to talk about some real nerdy shit an initiative led by our own Angela Barriguda Faraguda we have produced physical comedy point coins

[01:55:55] we have produced arcade style metal tokens well I was personally inspired by John Wick they are like the John Wick coins they are not valid currency specifically looked at the specifications of the what's the name of the hotel the Continental the Continental Hotel Coin

[01:56:17] but this is a 3D printed relief true metal coin with our dumb faces on it that is valid for five comedy points and in no other way is legal currency that is something we have invested our money into making and we will be selling to you for probably

[01:56:39] no profit the margins on that one are going to be tough but you can give comedy points to your friend and that's what we want to do that's the margin the joke margin, the comedy point margin it's the joke margin

[01:56:53] we want to open up the comedy point economy as the world economy is tanking the comedy point economy needs to rise but it's not going to be a big occasion so that stuff will be coming soon and look forward to more future announcements of

[01:57:07] other stuff we try to do we're trying to spread our wings and come up with some other things we can use the money you are giving us for good and take some wild chances and maybe eventually get to Disney World if they ever reopen it drop in some

[01:57:25] final voicemails at the end of this episode and we'll be back with another voicemail from the great Chris White's an example of someone who David, as you said it is tough to make friends as a grown up this podcast has been a conduit

[01:57:39] for most of my adult friendships now the people I knew a little bit the people I've met, the people I've gotten know better and Chris is a great example of someone who we were fans of who then improbably listened to the show reached out to us

[01:57:53] and now has become something of a friend and a collaborator and a producer on Night Eggs Night Eggs so thank you all for listening all these years to all of these episodes and thanks to Andrew Garaguto for producing this show along with Ben Hosley and

[01:58:15] Rachel Jacobs who has stepped up to the plate and has done some herculean work for us over these last couple of months as we have been weathering multiple career and industry transitions Rachel has been hugely, hugely, hugely important to the show in that time

[01:58:35] and thank you to everyone at Audio Boom who has supported us and supported us but pretty unconditionally has never tried to change the show has given us a ton of free reign and when we jumped over to them we were still in a weird contractual place

[01:58:57] and they let us record the show with them for many months before a contract had been signed before ads were sold, before there was anything to get from us and it was a real show of character and faith so thank you especially to Brandon

[01:59:13] over at Audio Boom for that and UCB Comedy for giving us a part in the first place Bits aside they did let us do that they did not, they had no reason to in fact it was probably a bad idea it was probably poor business strategy

[01:59:33] much like everything they do and thanks to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork two geniuses people who just sent us stuff online and much like And, we said if you want to keep doing this stuff we'll figure out some way to repay you someday

[01:59:53] but it is crazy the longer this has gone on the more and more insane their work has become Pat especially who had no background in graphic design and Photoshop did this just for fun I feel like every new mini series artwork he does for us

[02:00:09] is somehow more complex and more flawless than the one before it and I can't wait for you guys to see the 5th anniversary design that Joe Bowen did because it's a real chess kiss and Lay Montgomery for our theme song which was written at the last

[02:00:23] possible second because I'm bad at planning things and I said it's the perfect amount of time for washing your hand it turns out to be perfect hand washing time, big 20 and hopefully our live show at the Bell House reschedule will be also the inaugural live

[02:00:41] performance of the Blank Check theme song with Lay Montgomery so look forward to that as well as the debut of my buried jeans wow you're gonna reveal that here yep okay so there it up the jeans are out of the ground baby and they are ready to be

[02:01:01] shown off on the runway ready to be revealed they will be shown at our live show on the 29th those live shows were originally going to be the first two toy story movies as live commentaries we're now just doing those on the Patreon feed

[02:01:15] but the thing we have planned for the two live shows now I think people will be maybe even happier with I think they will be truly satisfied with what we're planning now it is very much it's gonna be great on game with two of our classic bits

[02:01:33] and yeah go to Blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit it is very bizarre the community that has sprung up around this show and as I sort of alluded to earlier it is nice to see people have a safe online space where they can run

[02:01:49] and go am I the only person who noticed this weird thing on this poster the way I used to feel before I met David and have a receptive online community there to go no I also noticed this as well and it's been driving me crazy and

[02:02:03] we pride ourselves on having a nice fan base and a place in a world where so much of the shit that happens especially around the entertainment industry can get toxic very quickly and I implore you all to constantly remain kind and be nice represent us well, be nice

[02:02:27] love movies because that's what it's about at the end of the day and as always David has fully rolled off camera he's been throwing his hands up like I don't know what to do David is yelling at him I'm hungry he wants to eat, he's hungry

[02:02:47] and I don't know if you folks know this but I just feel it's important to say before we end this episode I've heard a rumor that David's from England Jesus Christ okay great up guys bye hello this is Shirley I don't know if I needed to say that

[02:03:10] but anyway happy fifth anniversary blank check congratulations what an achievement and she said that I could make this voicemail whatever I wanted it to be and however long I wanted it to be so that is a lot of pressure at first I thought maybe I would read

[02:03:32] the architect's entire monologue from the matrix reloaded or describe in excruciating detail the plot of Detective Pikachu or do something just as tedious and on brand as like a fun little prank but truthfully I'm feeling kind of sentimental sitting here in my apartment in LA

[02:03:52] social distancing with a glass of wine on a Friday afternoon and operating on this low grade level of constant unwavering anxiety about the future here's what I want to say I've only been in the studio twice for Ang Lee's sense and sensibility

[02:04:10] and for Ponyo during the Miyazaki series but both of those visits were first of all some of the most fun I've ever had in the middle of a work day and second of all discussions that made me think about movies and moviemaking and engaging in lumenating way that

[02:04:28] even though I write about movies and TV shows sometimes it gets lonely putting ideas out there for strangers to respond to on the internet which is something I've never really gotten used to to be honest so I remember that first episode was such a breath

[02:04:44] of fresh air for me at the time you know just getting to talk about a good movie with good people to dive into one piece of filmmaking in the context of a larger filmography to hear all your bits and Griffin's impression of Alan Rickman and Ben's hatred

[02:05:06] however misguided for the film and David going off the leash which I am not sorry about by any means this is going to sound incredibly cheesy but I think a lot about this quote from the Four Sunset which is one of my

[02:05:26] favorite movies as I think maybe David knows Esther definitely knows shout out to Esther anyway there's a bit in it where saline Julie Delby's character talks about how when you're really young you take people for granted that you're just going to keep meeting interesting people

[02:05:44] all your life and it's often only later and sometimes too late that you realize that it's actually really rare to find people you can truly connect with and I think the same applies to more than just people you know it certainly goes for the pop culture you consume

[02:06:04] and for your experiences too just that serendipitous thrill of discovery and I mean what's the word kinship togetherness great show on HBO anyway I just think those times in the studio with you guys fall under that umbrella for me and I am grateful I really am

[02:06:28] that you opened your door to have me guest for two films that I love dearly thank you for that and Griffin thank you for the comedy points and Blankies thank you for listening God I really hope I'm not the only one leaving a sentimental message

[02:06:48] if I am I'm not going to apologize I'm just maybe a wee bit embarrassed but really congratulations on hitting five years that's insane holy shit hopefully I'll see you guys at some point David I'll continue to bug you on Slack stay safe stay healthy and to wrap up

[02:07:12] I'm going to leave you with a quote from Ponyo a really poignant one I think so this is so stupid I'm laughing alone in my apartment into my phone bye hi Blank Check it's your friend Fran Hoffner from all the way in New Jersey

[02:07:32] and I wanted to reach out and wish you guys a happy fifth anniversary of doing the podcast but before I get into the things I want to say what I actually want to do is just fill in the back 30 minutes from my public enemies

[02:07:46] episode because I feel like I didn't get to say enough about how cute Stephen Graham is and now seems like the sort of perfect opportunity to get in all of my opinions just kidding it's hard to do a just kidding bit when it's just you alone recording

[02:08:04] on your phone but thank you for the show and thank you for having me on thank you for letting me ask if John Krasinski in the holiday is the Adam driver of Lincoln in of 2006 you guys have introduced me to

[02:08:20] many movies that I think it would have taken me at least two to five years to find on my own I'm thankful for the broadcast news episode and for the Billy Lynn episode and any long diatribe about the mule and or green

[02:08:38] book which as far as I'm concerned are kind of just the same movie in my mind now I I listen to this podcast either when I am commuting or when I am running or taking a walk and so I get to experience this very unique

[02:08:56] point of joy where I get to listen to people talk to movies which is about movies which is one of my favorite things but also be outside which is its own unique kind of loveliness so thank you in a very literal sense for making being in the world

[02:09:12] a very nice and wonderful place and I hope you guys do at least five more years and then maybe it should be done. Okay, love you Hey Blank Check Crew it's Emily Vanderwerf here for some trans representation so David and I used to be in a slag together

[02:09:30] and I remember when he started talking about this podcast he was going to do with his friend Griffin honestly it sounded like the worst thing imaginable a whole podcast about the phantom menace and I needed to save my friend from some bad influences

[02:09:44] but five years later Blank Check isn't just my favorite podcast it's a show that's gotten me through some incredibly hard times and some big changes in my life I'm so honored to be a once and future guest on the show and I've been touched by the fan responses

[02:09:58] I've gotten to the silence of the Lambs episode in particular Griffin and David Ben and Ange and Rachel you've all made something wonderful and funny and occasionally profound and I will listen for many many years to come thank you I'm good I'm scared I miss my friends

[02:10:17] downtown Los Angeles is empty and it's been raining and this is some real Blade Runner shit I hate being stuck inside but I'm glad this show will keep rolling on I'm glad all of us have this community of weirdos to come home to every week

[02:10:33] before I wrap though I got doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot a taco report so I'm at Guerrilla Tacos an amazing taco joint here in DTLA and there's this huge collection of tween girls just screaming their heads off

[02:10:46] eating tacos making a mess and I become aware there is a dad sitting with them surrounded by taco detritus eyes closed hands folded together in front of his face in the eternal gesture of oh god make it stop that man ladies gentlemen my friends was John Favreau

[02:11:06] I'm sorry it wasn't a burger report I really had one once and then I forgot it love you folks love you blankies see you when they let us out of our houses I will be back on this fucking show I swear to god hello this is Chris Weitz

[02:11:22] director screenwriter occasional producer blanky patreon subscriber and left me a lovely message soliciting some kind of comment about movies and about blindshack in general so here it goes I'm probably going to get interrupted because we've got three children at home which is of course wonderful

[02:11:49] it tends to impinge on the work quite a bit but I think I've gotten five minutes aside to do this so some reflections on movies which are going to sound a bit airy-fairy but you know these are very emotional times anyway I've been trying to

[02:12:07] focus my 12 year old in this whole homeschooling endeavor and one thing he seemed interested in was to learn about filmmaking perhaps just because he knows that it would involve watching movies so we've been watching Seven Samurai in bits and pieces

[02:12:24] not the way that it should be watched of course and we will watch about a half an hour and I will yammer on to him about the things that Purusa was doing the amazing way that he organizes scenes how he uses his experience as an AD

[02:12:42] to move crowds so beautifully to organize movement and I will say oh here's some jump cuts we haven't seen those in the movie so far look at this what kind of lens is this is it wide or is it tight and

[02:12:57] this is called an over the shoulder shot and talk about the editing rhythms and everything of course once you start to cut these things up enough it almost seems as though you're losing the particular magic of film but actually I realized that he and I watched this

[02:13:16] and we talked about it and we would say oh that guy is so bad he's so amazing we love that Samurai the interesting position of watching a movie in part it's sort of like I used to think it was sort of like when robbers substitute

[02:13:34] some security camera video and you were hijacking your inner perception perhaps your inner reality with something externally supplied and so that's I guess that's sort of escapism for a while you are not yourself you are whatever the movie is and indeed it's really wonderful when you leave

[02:13:55] a movie theater and you have this strange sense of the atmosphere the movie is continuing you sort of find yourself thinking and acting sometimes foolishly like a character in one of those in the film but actually I was thinking watching Seven Samurai with my son

[02:14:12] that it's more than that it's actually as though you're not all gone there's still a large part of you there there's a commenting part an observing part and it's this kind of extraordinary kind of metaphysical feeling like you are a god or an angel albeit one that doesn't

[02:14:29] have the power to affect what's going on in front of you but you're kind of I guess maybe you're Uatu the Watcher right you are experiencing this strange transcendent thing of life taking place in front of you and I've often thought and this is perhaps

[02:14:50] where it gets super airy fairy that people like me who are lucky enough to be able to make these things these kind of weird contained waking visions are sort of in the position of a priesthood we get to create these ritual experiences for people sometimes we have

[02:15:12] extra bits of knowledge that help us do that well you know in fact everybody can do it as we know from YouTube but occasionally we are given the extra sort of ritual tools and techniques and sometimes we even know a thing or two about

[02:15:26] how to do these things of course there are some like your Kurosawa's or Director Bong who seem to channel this sort of divine ability more than others and the rest of us are kind of you know parish priests as it were this kind of brings me to

[02:15:50] this metaphor that occurred to me like how to encapsulate what I think about what what David and Griffin and Ben do you know when we were making Rogue One let us say Gareth Edwards and the rest of the team on Rogue One and I Gareth was very keen

[02:16:12] to portray a universe in which the Jedi were absent but there were still people who kind of kept the flame alive these sort of force sensitive people so we made up these characters Charity Mway and Baze Malbus they were Guardians of the Wills I went back to the

[02:16:31] old books of early Lucas Nerddom and imagined these sort of monks or priests who were not who didn't have Jedi powers but they sort of kept things alive and I sort of think that way about about the two friends we're going to also throw in Ben

[02:16:54] and I'm going to throw in And as well and all of the contributors to Blank Check that they are these kind of force sensitive to the Jedi powers of moviemaking and they keep this belief in something transcendent alive so you know maybe Griffin's like Baze Malbus

[02:17:16] and Dave's like Charity Mway I don't know who's who anyway and so when I think about Blank Check and all of the time I've spent with them it really I'm just filled with gratitude for how they have reignited my care for movies both high and low and

[02:17:43] you know I feel whenever I'm listening to Blank Check and I've told this to the the Check Guys themselves that I feel like I'm in a more humane and thoughtful and kindly space than I am at other times and I think that the world that they imagine

[02:18:03] all of them and I mean also you know you know Ange and the mother of Blankies and all of you know JD Amato wonderful guests who come on I feel as though I'm in a kindler universe for for a little while and one in which I can

[02:18:28] focus again on the extraordinary power that these movies have to entertain us and to also entertain our spirits in a deeper way so thank you guys everybody out there stay cool stay indoors I guess and catch you on the other side of this bye bye