Elle with Emily Yoshida

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I came here to spit on my father's face

[00:00:23] I can't say it was a podcast What's the line? I can't say it was a metaphor I don't quote too bad for this I was trying to find a quote in French so I could say it Say it in French

[00:00:33] And then say podcast and no one would even know what I was saying Podcast Podcast Podcast the bud That's ended with Talion, I'm sorry What did they say? Is that the word? Do they say podcast? Look it up My name is Griffin and I have a French mother

[00:00:48] Who stopped listening at this point My name is David Sims, I lived in France Okay, stop it We're hashtag the two friends as you can tell by how well we're getting along right now Yeah, wow It's a podcast called Blank Check On which we talk about Blank

[00:01:05] Let's see, let's see, Blank, Check and friend Blanc Blanc Blanc Check en blanc I guess, yeah Because I think of Blanc as meaning white But I guess it has double meaning This is the first French language film we have covered on the podcast Yeah Yeah, right? No

[00:01:24] What else would there be? Right, yeah, for sure Always hack the clones That was translated into French and then back into English I'm not talking this much, it wasn't in English Oh boy Dexter Jettster, there's no dictionary ever read You guys didn't do a Valyrian spin-off did you?

[00:01:42] Not that that counts I love it It's a French movie but it's an English language But if we did Luc Besson which we've sort of vaguely discussed over the years We discussed it It's a potential, like he has French movies obviously He has French films

[00:01:55] He has full stop French films Nikita Subway Angela Up Which is about his quest to get a $5 footlong Subway Lucie Lucie She's a hard drive The hittie, she is a computer She turns into a USB Morgan Freeman Let's just do this all day

[00:02:20] This is our episode where we just do Luc Besson pitches Lucie too, she becomes a cloud computer I don't know Did he, he was threatening to make a Lucie too? Boku the drugs in the stomach Sure, I think, I mean Lucie was such a hit

[00:02:37] I mean why wouldn't he try them You shit but I just kept on going like What happened to Lucie? Do you see the end of your own movie? She becomes the internet Spoiler At the end of Lucie she becomes the internet Spoiler, Lucie turns into a USB drive

[00:02:51] Lucie resets existence Doesn't she reboot that movie role? Who gives a shit, I love that movie I couldn't explain it but I Pro it Yeah exactly Pro it, who are you? The executives at New Line? Made a lot of money, it was very profitable

[00:03:08] Are you gonna be in it too yet? Is that official? Yes, it's gonna be me and 65 year old actors Do you know about this thing? No, no I've been fan casted and it's been circulated a lot

[00:03:19] To play one of the grown up versions of One of the Eight Kids And it too, it's supposed to be 28 years later And I am 29 period So they're proposing a cast where it's like Christian Bale Jessica Chastain Someone who is under 30

[00:03:36] Apparently I got some city miles on me Apparently teenagers are doing this list Because they do not understand how aging works That is exactly what it is It's a list of this being perpetuated by teenagers Thank you to all my teen blankies This podcast about filmographies

[00:03:50] Yeah Emily didn't like that and I agree Wait I can't say, I'm not saying They're teen blankies Blanky juniors? Yep What do we call them? I don't know JV blankies Podcast about filmographies Directors of Mass Success are on their career Giving series of blank checks

[00:04:09] Sometimes they clear and sometimes they bounce Bibi Sometimes they bonus episode? Yes, we're bouncing Bouncing a bone Bouncing into a bonus Beautiful bouncing babe All four of us have owned up to being in a weird headspace today Right? Sure The subway was bad

[00:04:24] Emily like took the wrong train twice But didn't you also? No I just got to Fulton Street And a two train arrived Instead of a five like on the wrong platform Because there's like debris And then it was like the subways were really slow It was just bad

[00:04:39] I legitimately got on the wrong train And then took it to Fulton Street in Brooklyn Before I realized my mistake And then turned around And then missed my stop again So Yesterday is of course the mother blankies That's right Hello my children Yes Hello

[00:04:56] Are you in the mother room? Hello my little baby Oh boy I tell you that's so offended by the naming Because you're the one who gets to name the blankies Yeah, that's true I will not let anybody dishonor my blankies With a name that they are not

[00:05:11] Not consensual A host of a new podcast Not consensual Yes Sivley Here in the audio boom network That's right Yes Sister pod And sister Cousin I think it's a sister pod I would imagine Yeah Yeah I've got a new podcast With Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch

[00:05:34] It's called Night Call It is on the audio boom network And A-Bring It's self produced How do you We just talk into cans Yeah Hope somebody clicks your horn Work in the board No Watching the monitor We have one He's making a little

[00:05:51] What do you call those things? The little Doot doot doot doot Origami David Okay fine This is such a loopy pod already What do you call the little A fortune teller Isn't there still a lot of work for him Kooty catcher But that's such a

[00:06:05] That's such a teenage Yeah No Ben Hosley producer Ben I can't do it I'll not do it I'm not going to do it I'm going to do it Ben Sate Sure The poet laureate Great The fuck master He's done it That's it those are the four

[00:06:22] Those are all of them Is that the new That's the new canon We could start from there That'd be great actually That's the new canon That the one he retains The one specific is Ben Sate The only one The reference to the canceled Netflix show Yeah

[00:06:38] I think it's one of the funniest Well Ailey Ben's with the dollar sign is also a really good one It's funny because you have to explain it Yeah It's like a hat and a hat and a hat Yeah right But yes our podcast is being produced by Ben

[00:06:50] Producer Ben And we're really excited It is a We have only done a test episode so far We're recording this a while in advance By the time this comes out You'll be on top of the charts Yeah We'll be running and gunning

[00:07:05] And doing ads for tampons and the whole Oh yeah Tampon ads Why don't we do some tampon ads Ben I'd love to I don't sell ads or do anything about that But I thought it would be funny if I said that Okay yeah

[00:07:17] I'll give you some tampon ads Sure no problem David I'll give you some tampon coupons if you want I'm clipping from the Why Why Oh my god the energy is super weird Better safe than sorry I don't know what that means Like getting shots Better safe than sorry

[00:07:34] Alright okay well alright You better safe than sorry I don't know I was trying to remember if chapeau is feminine or masculine So I could say un chapeau and un chapeau I think it's a un chapeau I think it's a un chapeau It's male yeah Un chapeau

[00:07:47] Un chapeau Un chapeau I bet we all between the three of us We all speak like one French person Yeah we can have a conversation I think we could If we like linked our brains into like Yeah So therefore we are totally qualified to

[00:08:01] Make all these goofy French accents Yes Exactly So You know Dear friend of the show Now I mean Emily yes You know there's some accounting Disputes over How many episodes you've been on because the Titanic was split into two Right Oh sure That was one

[00:08:22] That was one sit down So you're saying Podcastry Awakens Right Speed Racer The bridge episode before we rebranded as Blank Check In which you came up with the term You know really kind of cast the die for the future

[00:08:33] I think had you guys even decided on the name Blank Check yet We were sort of thinking about it Yeah Because people wanted us to keep calling ourselves Griffin and David Presents People were dug in on that name The present heads were angry

[00:08:45] So yeah you're on the speed racer You're on Titanic You're on strange days so this would mark the fifth This is officially Five Timers Club Here's your bathrobe Here's your jacket Exactly Me one But you're a big Paul Verhoeven fan I am

[00:09:00] You're trying to find a place to put you in and you almost did Holloman But you weren't that passionate about it Well I've never seen Holloman The least passionate you could possibly be Yeah I mean it's not intentional It's just I never got around to it

[00:09:15] But I'm a big fan of the Especially the Hollywood stretch of it I've not seen all of his non-English language films And then we decided Did we announce that this is a Podshipcasters The Paul Verhoeven mini series Paul Verhoeven in Hollywood but this is her Bonus episode Right

[00:09:32] In which we're doing one non-Hollywood film His most recent film Although I'm here and the Nun Movie is going to be a Cann Oh my god There were huge building Sahai ads For the Nun Movie at Cann This last year And I was thinking

[00:09:50] Are they doing like screens of this right Like early screenings Is there a reason that this is getting a promo push this early And I didn't hear about it Blessed Virgin right And it's got like the crucifix in between the cleavage and everything Yeah yeah yeah

[00:10:05] I don't know why I'm black again It's just like way to take the goodwill That everybody has for you after L Which most people would have for it might feel like Like he's definitely at a respectability high right now After that For sure After this film

[00:10:22] It's funny to think right that We'll talk about it but he wanted to make this in Hollywood Yeah Which is hilarious But then he makes it a French movie and everyone's like Oh I don't know That's the fascinating thing is like this is a Paul Verhoeven movie

[00:10:35] Have a Czar Right It's a Paul Verhoeven movie through and through But it somehow got away with this like Air of class to it We were like this is him doing a serious movie And it's like it's a legitimate piece of art Like all of his films are

[00:10:51] But it's also totally fucking insane Yeah And it's like a satire of French erotic thrillers In the same way I would argue that His American films are satires of American erotic thriller Yes Or American action films or sci-fi films

[00:11:05] The score in this movie is the giveaway of that I would argue almost more than anything else The score is the thing where you're like What am I watching right now? And Dudley Who did the score for Black Book as well So she's a collaborator

[00:11:19] Apart from that, yeah she doesn't work a lot Pushing 10 But it's a very kind of like Oh she won an Oscar for the Fulmanti Okay Oh what For comedy score Back when they split the score categories Those two years Oh We were flying high

[00:11:35] They used to have 10 score nominees In comedy and drama That's incredible Yeah that's how like Men in Black got a score nomination And stuff They pig in the city got a score nomination Damn right Yeah I missed that I'm surprised Yes sure I love a good funny score

[00:11:51] I love to put on a Well would this be an original comedy score or not? Well that's the question She won Best Actress drama At The Globes right? Yeah I don't think The Globes are about to go Handing her this for a comedy

[00:12:02] That's the thing with the movie is You kind of like You go like Oh that's a comedy Yeah Because it's like dealing with very serious stuff And you run the risk of looking It's also tense It's a kind of One of the scariest movies I saw that 100%

[00:12:17] It was an incredibly frightening experience Watching it in a theater Yeah Like now on the rewatch You're more prepared for what's But like in the theater I almost every scene I was like Someone about to like first Somebody's gonna like Don't show me an open window Right now

[00:12:30] I don't want to see anything through a window I don't want to see her driving down the road And like another car coming for her I don't want to see any of that And it's not even cheap about it No no no It's just

[00:12:39] It's not like he like loads it up with jump scares But it's just after that first scene After the first scene Yeah But it's also that's That's the hoven thing It's like he's making a full meal Symphonic movie where every emotion

[00:12:49] Is like functioning as high as it can That's the hoven thing He's putting all these different ingredients In the pot Right Oh Cinematically he's Brewing up Like a short rib burger With a hoppy cheddar sauce Okay On a pretzel bun I mean that sounds

[00:13:03] Like a nice ensemble of flavors Right that's what he's doing He's in the symphonic way He's making us a seared steak With time pad and sauce And mashed potatoes Green beans, crispy shallots Wait I just made that meal But how's that possible? I mean you only have

[00:13:16] I don't know 45 free minutes per night And you were legally not allowed To go to the grocery store How could you possibly make that meal It's not about legally not allowed I'm just a tie-tie boy when I get home Let me tell ya

[00:13:27] I was trying to help you out A little bit Make it seem like it was I like it when the food just arrives In a box And then I can just prepare it Well why are you even talking about that We don't live in a sci-fi fantasy

[00:13:36] Where that's an option David Okay well I'm gonna break some news to you I guess there's this company Called Blue Apron What's that? And they're friends of the show What? And they're sponsors And they wanna let you know That they can provide Exactly the service you're talking about

[00:13:50] Sounds like They've been doing it for me Sounds like a friend with some benefits Benefits are tasty meals What? And convenience Okay but listen If I'm gonna work with the company Okay Sure I want them to be the number one Fresh ingredient recipe delivery service In that country

[00:14:09] You're in luck they are They offer 12 new recipes a week You can pick two, three or four Have them delivered right to your door You pull them out of the box And put them in the fridge Or wherever they need to go

[00:14:19] And then when you're ready for dinner Just they got a little card And you just cook it up So you cook it up and then you just throw it out It's literally become It's inedible Right it's inedible The stuff's inedible It's actually delicious What? And it's literally become

[00:14:32] Like a cornerstone of my life Since they started sponsoring the show I had to start doing that The amount of conversations I have With the person I live with About Blue Apron What do you live with? My girlfriend Hummelbrack Yeah well Blue Apron's a lot of fun

[00:14:48] I've been using it to cook I feel like you also sometimes You know struggle to cook yourself a meal I'm largely a top ramen guy And my sister is obviously A very accomplished chef Ramen Newman Long time sister Past and future guest Yeah right And I've decided

[00:15:03] Blue Apron's gonna allow me To try to make her proud Right you can actually like Learn to like cook a meal Right because It's good ingredients But like the instructions are simple Like everything's packaged for you In the right way But once I won't look like

[00:15:16] Like a child to her You know And also they send only Non GMO ingredients Like the meat has the hormones All that you know It's all like good stuff Because you know my motto It's all put together by professional chefs You know my motto GMO GTFO

[00:15:30] Alright well Blue Apron is treating Blind check listeners To $30 off their first order Kind of them If they visit blueapron.com And they're gonna ask you To ask you to check Okay so I just checked That I typed in blueapron.com No what I want you to do

[00:15:43] Is check out this week's menu And get your $30 off at Blueapron.com Slash Check Okay so once again You said all I have to do Is check out the website Which is blueapron.com What I'm saying is That the promo code is check And that blue apron

[00:15:56] Is a better way to cook We have to type that out Okay Okay Fair enough I mean it sounds like I'm en route to become The Paul Verhoeven Of home cooking The movie is L We're doing a bonus You said after high demand High demand Crazy demand Yeah

[00:16:13] That's so interesting that the people Who are like as stoked about I mean I guess you know It's a recent film obviously Yeah yeah And it's one that obviously had A lot of people talking There was a lot of Discussion Real conversation mode Yes

[00:16:25] Which is one of the reasons We were like reticent to do it Also reticent because we are A bunch of boys Also reticent because we were like Well we gotta delineate somehow Well right it's not We're not gonna do black book

[00:16:37] We're not gonna do the early Dutch ones Yeah Because they're hard to see But it just felt like I don't know It felt like we were leaving Something on the table If we didn't talk about it somehow Because it does reflect The current state of the Verhoeven Right

[00:16:50] Sure Well I'm glad to be The woman on the scene That allows you to You know Just shoot the shit about rape Yeah We've been begging For someone To give us the permission I'm so stressed out I don't know I don't want to do this

[00:17:07] Like I love this movie But I feel like I can only talk about it Like speakeasies Okay well here I don't know if you guys Want to get into the actual plot Or run through it like that But I will say that My experience of this movie

[00:17:18] If it makes you feel any better Is that I saw it at Toronto And I don't know I remember the screen was very large It was whatever the biggest screen is Can you see the iMacs? Yeah the iMac screen At the Scotiabank At the Scotiabank

[00:17:32] It is crazy when they put A movie in that Because it's like It's quite large Very large Yeah Which is great And it had already been at Cannes Yeah It was one of these ones That I was playing catch up With that and hand made it

[00:17:46] That time I was at Toronto Was great because I saw A lot of my favorite movies But they were all once That had been at Cannes already But yeah I saw it I spent the rest of the day Just being like What was that Just grappling with it

[00:18:01] I feel like I had about Four conversations I think most of them With women and female critics About the movie Just trying to like Figure out how I felt Because I had an instinct That I had an instinct That I really liked it

[00:18:16] But I felt like I was wrong To like it I remember there was a Toronto especially A lot of conversation Around that I was hearing From female critics Of like oh my god We cannot support a movie Yeah There was a lot of condemnation

[00:18:29] Coming down the twitter pipes At the time So I felt a little bit like Am I weird or wrong To feel like this was really Really smart And I think a lot of But also you're a Verhoeven fan too You have that in mind Yeah

[00:18:46] You were able to view it Through the lens of getting Yes And I think that is so important I think that there are So many of his films And this is not a I think in some ways This is a detriment Because you shouldn't have

[00:18:59] To have people really know you As a filmmaker in order to Really appreciate your films Like I don't think that this is Necessarily a great thing But you know people who don't Know about his background And like you know his Relationship to like living

[00:19:16] Under the Nazi regime and everything Like that if you don't know that You couldn't yeah You couldn't watch you know Basic instinct or whatever And just enjoy it as a Yeah a lured thriller You're not maybe gonna get You're not you're not gonna be a

[00:19:32] Tune to maybe another channel That's on at the same time So I but anyway I was I was feeling like I liked it And I but I had a lot of conversations With people that were like kind of Trying to convince me that I shouldn't like it

[00:19:44] And then ultimately when I Had to write it up for spin I was like you know this movie Is brilliant and I DC Well I feel like a major Like crux of the argument For and against this movie Is like dude is Inarguably a provocateur

[00:20:01] Yeah right like he's like Openly trying to get a Rise out of his audience And provocateur Right and some people Resent that and go like He's just going shock for Shock save Sure right Or and I think it helps If you are a fan of his work

[00:20:15] If you understand his brain His life experience his other Films you know how to Kind of read over Hovind To understand what he's Trying to get at by Provoking you in that way And playing with your emotions And your fears and your anxieties

[00:20:30] And your discomfort in that way And your expectations of how Movies are supposed to work too Right yeah I do think there is just also The specific subgenre of the Movie about someone like Embarking on a consensual Relationship with a rapist Like with their rapist

[00:20:47] In any like that's always Just been like the hottest Hot button there could possibly be In any movie that depicts rape Right? Yeah So people are especially on egg shells Once whatever the plot of L Is sort of revealed Well I feel like this Uh Takes on

[00:21:05] Even though that's a simplification Of what's happening in the movie Sure yeah But you know what I mean But I think that That aspect of it takes on A new kind of interesting life After the past few months Because there are so many

[00:21:18] Now we know there are so many Examples of like You might have to Maybe not be best friends But co-exist But continuing to live with them And like try to just get What you can out of that situation Without you know destroying yourself

[00:21:31] Um and that I feel like That shade of gray, that kind of Murky area is something that people I think are a lot more willing To acknowledge now than they were Even you know a year ago I kind of feel like if this movie

[00:21:43] Came out this year she would win Best Actress Yeah yeah Like I think there's a greater Cultural context for the film I guess as she came second Last year to Emma Stone I know which is not Which is ridiculous Which is absolutely not You're fucking kidding me

[00:21:57] Um but I do and I'm walking on eggshells here But the precise thing that I find Really fascinating about this movie And actually kind of progressive In its own transgressive way Is that we've been reading all these stories For the last couple of months Where the like assholes

[00:22:17] Who want to throw doubt And question onto the accounts Of these survivors say like Then why do you still work for him? Well you were in a relationship So if it was consensual those other times Then why was this one time not consensual And this movie I think

[00:22:30] As a character study Is a really fascinating exploration Of all of these sort of like Emotional and psychological Wins that change when something This traumatic happens in your life Because she doesn't follow Any sort of predictable emotional art In terms of feeling fine with it

[00:22:48] Like being upset that one scene Being upset the next scene Being angry and vengeful the following scene Being attracted to him the scene after that And then it going again in the reverse order You know Like it really kind of shows how disruptive These kinds of events are

[00:23:02] To any sort of logical course of action Um I saw this film later At the Alamo Draft House Perfect place to see a movie like This is top five to me like Worst movies to see I have seen it at the theater of the service food

[00:23:19] So you had a barbecue chicken flatbread I'm eating my whatever my chicken Caesar salad and the Watchin' L And eating like an empty theater So someone's just sitting there watching you You know the waiter As I'm like That's the worst Okay Do you want to refill sir

[00:23:38] In the middle of just the most intense scene Uh huh Like I wonder when they drop the check Like And I remember like I was somewhat put off by the movie And uh like I just sort of walked out of that being like

[00:23:52] What the fuck am I supposed to do with that You know like I was and um Then I want to shout out I remember listening to this podcast called Um I think it was called Long Takes Which Screen Crush used to put out with Britt Hayes

[00:24:03] And Oliver Whitney that like sadly got discontinued For reasons I do not know And their first episode was about Elle And I listened to it and I was like You know whatever they were sort of saying Like oh you know this is a movie about

[00:24:15] How frightening her reaction to all the events In this movie are to the men around her And like and confusing and like Uh and like the power Of uh what she's doing In the movie is like that's like the central Question not like the power

[00:24:29] Of the um the power of the men around her Yeah And I was like oh okay you know like whatever You know and I hadn't watched Elle again until now And then I put it on and I'll admit I like laughed a lot and was like kind of

[00:24:40] Delighted by the movie Yeah I saw it with my French mother At the Paris Great New York Great Uh it was Great for the Paris Showing Elle good for them Sorry so what were you going to say Elle? Where's the Paris? It's by the Plaza Hotel it's near

[00:24:57] It's like the only zikzias screen I'm not allowed up there so I'm like oh okay It's the last remaining like big one screen theater In New York City Like you could still host a premiere there Maybe it's not that big Oh I thought that all that closed

[00:25:11] It's smaller It always is showing what you think it would be Showing so right now it's showing Call Me By Your Name It's always showing the most sort of old School European film that's going to Appeal to a slightly older audience It is almost exclusively Sony Pictures Classics

[00:25:25] Yes like Sony Pictures Classics just Owns that spot Like Victoria and Abdul will do like A fucking sell out 3-way drone And it's like show time at the Apollo And it's huge it's got like a balcony It's a huge screen and they Just play these old people movies

[00:25:41] Like uh Sometimes that is a movie like Call Me By Your Name Which to be fair is like you know Not just old people movies Sometimes they're still edgy films James Ivory Or it has to be an au pair Vehicle or whatever it is

[00:25:57] It has to have some error Of that kind of thing to it My mom knows that I'm like Verhoeven obsessive I got her to appreciate Robocop You know even though she was initially turned off By the sort of like Crass maximalism of it

[00:26:13] Right she was 100% against the idea That it was called Robocop And I don't think she's seen any of his other films She hasn't seen Basic Instinct Maybe she saw Basic Instinct at the time Maybe There's no way my mom has seen Basic Instinct

[00:26:27] There's no way my mom has seen it I don't think my mother has ever seen a Paul Verhoeven movie I think if my mom saw Basic Instinct She totally dismissed it Fair enough But so I was sitting there In a screening With like a bunch of old people

[00:26:43] At the Paris It was like a pretty stuffy Not like a hip screening And I was sitting there the whole time being like Am I insane for thinking this is funny Am I like bringing too much into it Because of the Verhoeven when the movie ended

[00:26:57] I was just like what did you think I just wanted to hear my mom talk about it for 15 minutes And she fucking loves it She totally loves it And she's very Interested She's a big fan of the type of movie this film is in dialogue with Right

[00:27:13] She's very into sort of erotically charged French dramas And is a big Oopera fan Because if you lift The rape plot Out of this movie, it's still about a like A fancy business lady who's having an affair With her best friend's husband

[00:27:31] And then also the sons of fuck up And it feels like a French movie through and through Like all of her little rotating universes Yeah, yeah And she also said that I can't get over how French That movie is She was like that movie gets the dynamics

[00:27:45] Of like a certain type of upper class Parisian She's in the fancy apartment The guy jerks off into a garbage can Yeah that shit She's rolling around in bed with her best friend And they're like to be lesbians And she's just like how they speak

[00:28:01] What they order at the restaurant All of it is so But they have like Piper Hyde's For their casual Friday friend dinner Or whatever The other thing that feels just Over Hovany is the video game company So that's the biggest thing to talk about

[00:28:17] And when you were saying like The hint, the score is a hint Of what he's sort of like getting at in the movie All the video game shit's another Yeah, yeah Playing for Hovany Playing like a French female Paul Verhoeven Yeah, no I feel like

[00:28:35] Isn't that game like really bad looking For right now The game makes no fucking sense Besides the monster tentacle Rape stuff and everything But it just looks like the graphics are It looks like a PS2 game And also it's like they're jumping around Some platforms

[00:28:53] Like what is the object of this game And the Japanese like This isn't fun to play What's the target audience of this game I think the thing between the score And the video games And like this is one of these things It's like if I guess

[00:29:09] If you're not paying attention This would seem really tacky Is having the dramatic Sting of the score come in When she is actually getting raped At that moment of the attack It's like Which is also how The video game treats the violation of this Female character, this mannequin

[00:29:31] Or whatever, it's just like This is the worst, most shaggy thing That could happen And it feels like It's a little bit of a faint Or something There's a secret sauce I believe In this movie working as well as it does Is he has said

[00:29:51] That he did not Direct her at All He didn't talk to her about the character at all He read the script, he said the person who can pull this off Is Isabelle Perre And he went to her and he said look If I get you, this movie works

[00:30:07] And I'm just gonna fully trust you with this character And he was very involved with everything else But he gave her a lot of authorship Over the movie He never directed her, never questioned her Never even spoke to her about how she was internalizing

[00:30:19] And that just gave her the chance to fully own That A lot of the narrative Can I give you some context? Like further context? I'm a concert Are you gonna say the name of the book? Oh Which I believe it is a French book Is it not?

[00:30:39] So it's funny to me because Right, so he So I don't know to what extent this Like he was to the book Close to this, but he announces this movie At the Cannes Film Festival Much as he does with his non-movie as you were just saying And

[00:30:55] He wants Nicole Kidman For the role That's his opening gambit She doesn't want it He also considered according to this Charlie Starran, Julianne Moore Sharon Stone, Marion Cotillard, Diane Lane Carice Van Houten None of them want it And none of them would have worked

[00:31:15] I pretty much love all of those Actresses She might have been good I still think if you're setting in France It has to be a French person It wasn't gonna be set in France It was gonna be set in Chicago That's my take on that Then he said

[00:31:33] Who would be perfect is Jennifer Jason Lee Who is his old collaborator from Flesh and Blood But he also made it basically Like I'm not gonna get any money to make a movie About with Jennifer Jason Lee That's just the sad reality of the thing

[00:31:45] So then he decides I'm gonna make it in France And then now he starts talking shit Where he's like, you know if I'd done it in America It would have been basic instinct And I think it would have been a totally different movie

[00:31:57] I would have had to lean into the American sex thriller stuff And so he gets Isabelle Who liked the book She was into the book before Verhoeven was attached Before it was cool And she's got like Royalty in France One of the most critically Beloved actors Alive

[00:32:21] She's great And like the same year she was in Things to Come Which is like the opposite movie Where not much happens And it's a very internal And you know sort of quiet About like aging Which is usually what she does I mean that's kind of her specialty

[00:32:39] She can play a hard ass And she's done like the piano teacher She's happy to do very Emotionally intense material She can do I.C. as well as anybody But the time David O'Reilly has this story of sitting next to her At the Sony dinner at Toronto

[00:32:55] And like she was talking to her He was at the L table And she was talking to whoever she was seeing next to And apparently got bored of him and just turned to O'Reilly And was like, okay now you'll talk to me

[00:33:07] You know like just started talking to him And he should tell it, he's a good story I would be, I would just die I would just melt There was that great meme last year When she was doing the whole Award circuit where it's like that seems like

[00:33:21] In your mind you think like oh that's one of those actors Is probably like too cool for awards Like doesn't want to do the dog in the show She usually either plays bad asses Or like very emotionally intelligent introspective people She doesn't need that

[00:33:33] And then it was just like every award show There was like a Bar Mitzvah boy She was so cute and stoked to be there She fucking loved awards Who doesn't? I love an award You do but a lot of people go to

[00:33:45] You know I don't believe in actors competing Artists or you know And she was like give me that fucking hardware I'm Isabella Parra I rule She seems like she has a good time Like she for as serious as an actor She is like she doesn't appear

[00:33:59] To take herself too seriously In those settings which I appreciate You know I think that she's just like all the more I don't know like committed to the right things Sure, yes There was some critic And now I forget who it is

[00:34:13] Who in a review of this movie last year said She's so good It's like her skin is acting That's a good line Right and I just think about that whenever I see her now where it's just like Because so often she does those sort of like

[00:34:27] Blank stare you know Well in this one she does a lot of the like Yeah a lot of those What is it? No, who? How the two? Do you want to hear my impression of a French person Which I think is very much in line with this movie

[00:34:43] Ask me any question How are you doing Griffin? That really is It's like answering any questions A burden to me Like where does the ticket stand for the train No one in France It's true has ever been excited to answer your question Yeah it's never easy

[00:35:07] It's never an easy answer Like in America someone asks me like Hey does this go to 42nd Street I'm like oh yes yes I can't wait to tell you this information Yeah Ehhh Have me thinking of my mother Yeah She does like a lot of that In this

[00:35:29] A lot of that in this So this movie starts right away With the thing Yes Well first starts with a cat A cat I really like that The shot The shot Is so impassive Like basically in both cases And I feel like it is like

[00:35:53] The first bucking of this thing Where it's like she lives a life Of a certain age living on her own She's only got a cat In a very nice apartment with a lot of bay doors Yes That would be her friend That's the only creature that understands her

[00:36:09] But the cat doesn't give a shit about her And that's your first hint That the deck is automatically stacked Against this woman because even our fucking cat Isnt gonna come and attack this guy I also feel like it's him doing An anti-Gary Marshall

[00:36:23] Gary Marshall is famous for being Like any time anything funny happened in a movie Cut to a dog like tilting its head To show like an impression Even the dogs reacting And in this movie The cat is just looking on with just like

[00:36:37] I guess something's happening over there And I think he's like kind of making the cat An audience to her get where it's like You're just sitting there watching this Like you're not doing anything You can't do anything And also of course we then in the flashback

[00:36:51] See that she left the cat in and that was what The cat was like opening for her attacker Yes But yeah She is raped in her home by an assailant In a ski mask Violently A lot of head bashing And then she takes a bath

[00:37:09] And cleans up the mess And acts Like nothing has happened Her son stops by and he's like how you doing it And she's like oh so fun You know like you know Like he was doing something very different Was how long he lingers on her alone

[00:37:25] On the floor After the attacker has left Because that's the thing you never get in movies It's such an overused thing To use like rape and sexual assault As a dramatic device in films To create conflict But it's always just you have to see the action

[00:37:41] And then you don't get that moment Which is the most upsetting moment Which is someone just sitting there And trying to figure out what happened Like a minute And this whole movie is about processing What happened like in her own way

[00:37:55] In a way that makes you actually have to process it yourself Because what she is doing is so not What you would expect She's not suffering emotionally for you Right So if she seems fine with it Then should I not be upset about it

[00:38:09] But then the next scene And now you're worried that you don't feel upset about it And then you start to realize that Just because she's a woman in a movie Women in movies are in real life It's a story about One woman And of course

[00:38:25] Part of her very specific reaction To a lot of things is her very specific background Yes As the daughter of a famed murderer Yeah, yes And there has always been this lingering Question of how involved she was in the murders What she knew or didn't know

[00:38:41] And there's this famous photo Of her father Killed a bunch of People in their town Growing up And there's this photo of a 10 year old girl With an au pair like Stare Yeah I kind of I forget the nature Like reasoning behind Killings or whatever spurred them

[00:39:07] But it doesn't have that Something to do with Catholicism, I don't know He was a good Catholic man They say this How could that happen? So surprising Family man, religious It was something about excommunication Like he was going around And letting the children excommunicate From the church

[00:39:29] I think is what I wrote Or was he excommunicated There's that one monologue She has where she's trying to freak out Patrick Laurent Lafitte Who plays her It's tough to remember because you do get Conflicting tellings As the movie goes on

[00:39:49] She still has a relationship with her mom We find out But she like A very testy one Yes, played by Judith Magre Magre And she kind of exists within Culture as almost like a Patty Hearst type figure Sure Where people don't know how to feel about her

[00:40:09] People recognize her in the streets And often times feel emboldened To throw food at her She gets food dumped on her early on That's another routine Sort of a humiliation that she has to deal with But in the first 30 minutes of the movie Before they start explaining that

[00:40:25] You're just like, okay I've just watched this woman Suffer a horrible assault And now strangers are yelling at her Coming up towards the restaurant Is this a movie about the entire world Just choosing one person to turn against? And then you realize this whole added element Of, well

[00:40:41] Is the deck Stacked against anyone Feeling sympathy or empathy for her Regardless of what happens to her Because of what they associate her with Yeah, and also the fact that Maybe in response she's become You know, a bitch She certainly got a specific way of talking to people

[00:40:59] Dealing with people Yeah, she's not, you know She's not a bad person Dealing with people? She doesn't do a lot to Make people like her She doesn't go out of her way to make people like her Doesn't suffer fools Yes Is not one for platitudes

[00:41:19] I also said a bitch with a kind of affection But I'm allowed to say that Yes, yes you are We are not And yes, she is this video game Autor Right, then we cut to her this video game company Making a game about mind, tentacle Rape or something

[00:41:37] Right, yeah Like we don't I mean whatever But she was supposed to come out of Like a literary career Publishing And she's like being an avant-garde game designer Yes Sure, France, I don't know France And this game sort of feels like her Blancheck project

[00:41:59] Which is coming off a big success Taking a long time for them to get another one out Right And she has to deal with all these Young, testosterone Nerd boys Who are like you are not the true gamer Yeah Moni's gonna be so mad at us

[00:42:17] The word when this started I think maybe Sorry Moni I think not after Can but I think I think that the first trailer for this had come out Before I saw it in Toronto And there was this sort of word that was like

[00:42:31] Is this for Hoven to make a game or a game? Yeah Like that Which I was very, very excited about It's not that but I mean it deals with Just a little bit of that energy Yeah, yeah and I mean You know it's

[00:42:47] Aside from not really necessarily making A whole lot of sense for her character Or at least what we know of her character It is like the perfect thing For her to be doing in the context of this film I feel like

[00:42:59] Right, just because she's surrounded by this annoying male energy Well and when she Gets attacked and then she starts getting these notes And everything it's just like Oh shit I'm surrounded by potential Scumbags violence Scumbags maybe She does this critique of the game

[00:43:15] Which runs weirdly like a screening And then is very harsh with her notes So now everyone is just like Fuck our boss It doesn't seem like the first time nor will it be the last time There's one guy that loves her Right, there's one guy that loves her

[00:43:29] Very beautiful penis apparently Yes So we're told, according to her I don't know, as a killer pain She might have specific taste Wait did she say it's beautiful? No she says it looks Jewish She says it, yeah But she's sort of like fond of it

[00:43:47] Apparently, I don't know She does one of these Exactly She goes Take cover glass But then this Video This GIF or whatever starts circulating around the office Where they have superimposed her face I feel like that's a little bit later

[00:44:11] That comes later, just to set up her life She runs a video game company She's divorced from her Slightly schlubby Ex-husband Who's also a writer Yes, right, and he's like trying to shop around Some project where he's like No, he wants to get into video games

[00:44:29] He wants to make a video game He has an idea for a video game about robot dogs Sounds fun And you play the robot dog Spartacus No one wants this game of his And she said that it was like too intellectual For her company

[00:44:43] Seems like letting him down easy maybe She is having an affair with her best friend's husband She wants the company with her best friend Who is played by Anna Consigni I think And then her husband And then her husband's like this bald doofus Played by Christian Burkle

[00:44:59] Who is irresistible to these two fascinating captivating guys He's a dork And then she's got a total fuck up son A large adult son She really has a large boy Boy, what's his name? Vincent Vincent And then he's got a sort of like I mean like exaggerated

[00:45:19] Harpy, like you know shrew Like you could use every like Like a pejorative expression For like a hand pecking woman A classic baby mama Sure Who's just on his case but at the same time This guy is such a fuck up that you're sort of like

[00:45:35] It's hard to have any sympathy for her son Right, yeah And I think what happens to this The mom, the mother This child is I think an interesting Turn for this movie It makes me have also more Faith in the movie as not

[00:45:51] Being just like hateful and distrustful And not just being button pushing Because her character early on Especially like what I'm saying Like her early scene she's just screaming She's just the worst Well we'll get to her child And then that's it

[00:46:07] Who pair hates her because she's mean to her son But who pair also, I mean Truster And who pairs characters called Michelle Leblanc And she is canon canonically Matlabonc sister as well This is 90s, no never mind Yeah it's current dad

[00:46:25] There's the point in the film where she picks up the phone Calls her brother and goes, how are you Doing What How are you doing How are you doing How are you doing Thought we would get through this episode without Alright okay Get the photograph

[00:46:50] Who can plant a rosebud You again Heck petonias too I thought I thought we got rid of this guy Dan candy man Dan candy man Dan are you here to talk about flowers again And not candy Cause even though your name is Dan candy man

[00:47:10] All you would talk about was flowers last time I'm here just to check in Say hello Thought we moved past the transactional phase To being friends but apparently I'm not As warmly welcomed here as I thought I would be

[00:47:22] I'm sorry it's just usually when people ring a doorbell Which Been installed for the podcast by the way Weird decision Bad decision, audio medium Well I just wanted to make sure if Someone was outside they could bring us Maybe there's a light or something

[00:47:38] I just have some service to tell us about But I guess not and in that case It's nice to see you Dan I'm a pro flower man but I'm also a human being And sometimes I just like to say hello to my friends

[00:47:48] Hello David how are you doing I'm fine how are you doing Listen I gotta be honest with you I said I was doing alright But it's not true Sorry to hear that Dan Even though we don't know each other well I'm still sorry to hear that

[00:48:04] You know there's the old saying in the candy man family Uh okay Alright that's an old saying in the candy man family Yeah you gotta just do it Right? Because we are Depressive people Where is this going Winter months hit us hard Sure yeah

[00:48:22] My job is usually delivering things but I It's tougher in the winter it's cold I don't even want to get off the couch Honestly I'm trying to figure out if there's a way I can get my products to people Without having to door to door Well

[00:48:34] With stamps.com you can access all the services of the post office Right from your desk I have a desk You can buy and print real US postage for any letter or any package It's available 24 hours a day 7 days a week

[00:48:46] And you just click print mail and you're done Ba da ba ba ba I'm loving it How many other ads do you want to do That's a candy man An old candy man saying in the family You're a weird dude

[00:48:58] I'm not okay come on I already told you I'm going through a dark patch I'm sorry Dan I'm sorry Don't take me while I'm down Sure I want to be friends Why do you think I showed up in the middle of an episode record

[00:49:08] I don't know you're obnoxious Hey hey hey Alright well let me break the ice here Okay Stamps.com will even send you a digital scale You can weigh your letters and packages You can print the exact amount of postage every time Wow

[00:49:24] I know it's a good service I've been using it Service like that sounds priceless Like we've got merch I don't know Ben We can tease it We've got merch coming and this is a service that will Really really help us With that process

[00:49:40] We can use stamps.com to send stuff out Without having to leave the house You're saying with stamps.com You can have it your way Saying that right now Our listeners including you Are you a listener No no I'm not a fan That's fine

[00:49:58] You have to write a check No the promo code is The word check It's a four week trial and that includes postage And digital scale I guess you're imploring me to think different I'm imploring you to go to stamps.com Before you do anything else

[00:50:14] Click on the radio microphone at the top of the home page And type in check That's stamps.com Enter check What if I have to go to the bathroom You said before you do anything else Go to stamps.com before you do anything else

[00:50:28] I want you to click on that microphone at the top of the home page Type in check Wow the king of beers Out of here Danny These are old family phrases We'll catch up later I'm gonna go back to Hiding under the covers of my bed

[00:50:44] Staring down existential dread Sorry Dan Who can plant a rosebud Amis What do they call friends in French A good friend A good friend A good friend A good friend And incidentally she also has a hot sexy neighbor Yes she does With a very Christian wife

[00:51:32] Right, very sort of boring repressed wife I guess A sweaterman And his wife It is a sweaterman One of the funniest lines One of the funniest parts in it Is when they have the Christmas dinner Or when they're setting up the nativity outside their house

[00:51:48] And she's just like Doesn't it just you warm your heart It's where it all began Upera gives her this look That's just like What the fuck is the matter with you And you see there's they then they're setting up the nativity and she like watches

[00:52:04] And masturbates that's like quite early on in the movie Those dinner I didn't imagine that right Yeah, no that's yeah because that's before that she It's when she's having this sort of flirtation with a neighbor Who's played by Laurent Lafitte Who's also the guy who like

[00:52:20] Made a Woody Allen joke last year That everybody lost their fucking minds Right he's a stand up primary Right who was like hosting some shows like Woody Allen You haven't even convicted of rape like Roman Or something like that and everyone was like Like the whole French

[00:52:34] How dare Anyway so that's what I He's also he was in What else has he been in I don't know He's like a French guy You hear about that letter that all the French Actors and directors Yeah, it's like What are we not allowed to make out anymore

[00:52:52] Something like some like We're recording this episode the beginning of January Let's not infringe on I have to say though that that is one of I have a tweet that I figure I will have many uses for To bring up over and over and over again

[00:53:06] And it's just in parentheses Aristocrats voice France That is my response Oh boy Basically I'm trying to think is there any other Threads worth commenting on Well Hermon Who is like has some kind of Some kept boy She pays apparently but then Eventually has to marry her

[00:53:32] And like early on Michelle Umbar walks into the house And he's like sort of like massaging her feet or something He's just like in his underwear Massaging her feet They're very wealthy but it's like dirty money And she lives in this like beautiful apartment

[00:53:46] With this beautiful man and this very exorbitant life But when she walks out in the street people like throw shit at her Yeah And make the money is that clear No it's Upera's money She bought the house Cause after the mom dies Spoiler she comes by and she's

[00:54:02] Putting it up for sale Oh that's right you're right Cause the guy was just gonna still live there with his new girlfriend With his naked girlfriend But I mean but I find Their relationship to be so interesting Because she obviously spends a lot of time with her Right

[00:54:18] But is so mortified By everything that she does Which is not that dissimilar from her relationship with her son Really like right where she has a lot Of affection and wants to be involved But she can't stand anything That they're doing And I also think It's reflective of

[00:54:38] She Has a disrespect for the mother For falling in love with her father Sure In a weird way It's like how could you have such poor judgment Right and the mother is slightly more defensive of the father And is sort of encouraging her to see her father

[00:54:54] In prison Or she has a much more It feels like she Has moved on from the incident In a way that Michelle has not I think that's probably The source of a lot of the resentment as well The fact that she can just like Have this younger guy

[00:55:12] And just like you know try to have a Comfortable life Be a bon vivant one might say Bon vivant My old lady Maggie Smith Bon vivant Yeah and yeah she's getting Botox and stuff like that I mean honestly You know if you

[00:55:34] Had a husband who shopped up a bunch of people Yeah I would probably you know Yeah Emily's just like props Props do it Maybe you deserve to have some fun Yeah you know You're worth it That's what Elle's about is because you're a worth it Yeah

[00:55:52] So yeah so this is a long movie But it's not like It is plotty but it's Sort of like it's a lot of Shit happening I mean right It's just like all of these elements Like on sample cash She's like a prism for all of this

[00:56:08] Like you just see all of these None of these relationships are inconsequential All of them reflect on her In an interesting way and like None of them drive the pot exactly But none of them are right meaningless And it also is It's a thing I love

[00:56:24] In good dramatic writing Where she is very Skrip just written by David Burke Very different with each of them Yeah a lot of A very Thoreau picture of who she is as a person Because of how different she is In each relationship and even

[00:56:42] Whether it's one on one or three people How affected she is by who is or isn't in the room Yeah You know because you're spending the movie trying to figure out What's going on in her head She so rarely verbalizes what she's actually feeling

[00:56:54] Yes but also and Verhoeven has led With such a shocking thing Not just the rate but her reaction to it Yeah You destabilize the entire time So at some points you're going like Is this the most honest reflection of who she is Is this the defense of persona

[00:57:10] Is she more like herself with her mother than she is with her friends When is her guard actually down But it is also funny This is like a weird social comedy About a pre-crest French Yeah Parisian bourgeois Of the 21st century It kind of reminds me

[00:57:28] Of a little bit in a very very different way But I do like What doofs most of the men are in it Yes In very specific ways It kind of reminds me of the love witch In ways where all of the guys That pass through this

[00:57:44] Obviously this woman who is by no means perfect But she's doing What she has to do to Get through her life And all the guys she encounters Are just all weak In some really key way That is ultimately a problem For her And like her son is like

[00:58:04] The most clear example of that We can talk about the ending when we get there But that's another thing that people did not like About this movie Was how it resolves her son And how it resolves her rapist also

[00:58:18] But I think that's one of the most brilliant parts Of the movie It makes the movie weirdly kind of Circular Because the Let's just tackle a character by character The middle part of the movie is her trying to Figure out who her assailant is In various ways

[00:58:36] And she has this scene with the video game designer Where she realizes he's making these creepy videos Of her But he's just making creepy videos Of her because he's obsessed with her And at that point it's just like Okay you're number five Maybe on my list By uh

[00:58:54] I don't know what the fuck Let me see that dick He's in it for the lulls He's looking for the approval of his co-workers And it's like The little kid pushing the girl he likes on the playground Sure Well and the fact that

[00:59:10] I think that that's kind of a good Foreshadowing of what actually happens With her and the Ron Lefitte's character Later on And that she has identified Some kind of Thing that he wants From her And therefore can exploit it And turn it on its head in a way

[00:59:30] And she does that In a very clean and You know a cold way With him but then you know I feel like a similar thing ends up happening With her and her and the What's his name? The little neighbor? Patrick Patrick kinda lurks for the first half

[00:59:48] Of the movie. There's not like a lot of him There's more of the son and the family Well they go through when there's Like a storm that comes through And he comes and and and closes Before she finds out that it's him Or maybe it's like right before

[01:00:02] Yeah cause um He comes and helps her close All the shutters to her house The most erotic shutter closing sequence In the history of film You know what it reminds me of And this is only because this is January I tend to watch this movie every year

[01:00:18] Is meet me in St. Louis Yeah Cause there's the scene Where Judy Garland leads a guy Through the house and yeah they put out the candles And it's this totally charged thing Where they're like oh there's one more candle

[01:00:32] Over here and we have to put it out together I love that movie and I love that scene I love how much meet me in St. Louis Is about like house business You know like the sort of like The fantasy of having the big house It's weirdly ritualistic

[01:00:46] This whole sequence of him helping her Close all the windows You know it's like you have to watch them Do it one at a time Um but there's this Vague sexual tension you've sensed Between the two of them up until this point

[01:01:00] In the movie which has always been when they're in group settings And now that it's just the two of them And also For this whole section of the movie as you said earlier Like he spent an hour just cranking up the tension Where anytime There's an open window

[01:01:14] You pay attention to every sound or the absence of sound You're so terrified by what's existing outside of the frame Right and there's certain frightening scenes Like she smashes the car window And pepper sprays someone but then it turns out It's her doofy ex-husband

[01:01:28] You know like there's moments where you think Something hard Or even the scene where she confronts the video game guy Which feels like it could turn on a dime Like he could like lunge at her or something And then you know It takes a more comical

[01:01:42] Makes her a peak of the pain Yeah Has the scene where she goes axe shopping happened at this point That's what I'm saying, that's early because that's when she smashes the window Right She also goes to the gun range a couple times

[01:01:54] The thing I was trying to find Oh yeah because I don't remember if I used this in a piece But because I saw it Hand-made it and I feel like the same day that I saw The first time I saw it Wow that is a double bill

[01:02:06] It's such a good double bill honestly I would recommend it If you're watching this movie And then you feel like you need something Light to follow it up But there's this But there's a line in it that kind of

[01:02:20] Like I guess resonated because I saw it at the same time Where somebody Somebody asks oh yeah did the big house Make her go mad Which I totally feel like And that made the house feel like a character in L To me because it is like this thing

[01:02:34] If you're just a single woman and you're in this big drafty thing I mean I feel this a lot When I am Because we live in New York We live in these tiny little shoeboxes But if I'm ever anywhere outside of New York

[01:02:46] And I happen to be alone in a house Oh my god me too Oh shit There are empty rooms in this In this house Definitely I mean yes I have the New York thing of not being able to handle Open quiet at all

[01:03:02] All the money in the world And the place where they get a mansion Feel like Frankenstein to me Like they feel like a universal monsters movie Where it's like so big And there's just like a fire in the corner

[01:03:14] And he's this little man and they all have to Walk 15 miles to meet him In the other side of the room I mean I don't love that movie but that's when it comes alive to me Because if Scott's just like Look at this

[01:03:26] You know he's filming it like it's the fucking alien Corridors or something He films that house so fucking wow And they're all bored by other No where they shot it In England somewhere I think Oh because I went over Christmas

[01:03:40] In North Carolina we went to the Biltmore house Is that a Getty It's a Rock or no Rockfeller Or was it a Rothschild Let's go through all the Famous American industrialists I'm totally forgetting now No it wasn't a rocket, the Biltmore house It is America's largest house

[01:04:00] It's a Vanderbilt mine It's so big Vanderbilt's it's the Vanderbilt's That's the one we forgot Oh our first families That's where Anderson weekends It was pretty horrifying though So it's not a Publicly, it's not like a historic home It is a privately owned attraction

[01:04:20] It costs $65 to go there That's a lot of money And it's one of these things where they just push you through Like you're going through intestines Unlike an educational place There's like no history there It's just like look at the big house It's America

[01:04:36] And we went there like two days after The tax bill passed and I was just like I was in a bad mood there But yeah, I was like This place would feel hella haunted If you were there by yourself for the weekend

[01:04:48] The only way I wouldn't feel haunted is if it was filled With tourists like that Bring the tourists In England houses that big You live here, you just feel spooked all the time England is just like lousy with houses like that Like you can't drive five miles

[01:05:02] Without running into one of those So I've been to so many big giant houses Full of art in my life But England's different We had a thousand years to big And they also have a Royal Family They had Dukes and Duchesses and stuff like that

[01:05:16] We just had capitalists England made a wolfman run wild Dracula's Frankenstein's mummies Big houses You get it Yeah, no, I just I think that the house being big and drafty Is definitely a part of what makes this film work As a suspense movie Yes, the environments Are good

[01:05:40] And he's doing some really good Kind of like Hitchcock-y And basic like Thriller filmmaking Just with building up A sense of dread and anticipation Just the entire movie Because at any moment you think something might happen How are you doing, Venny? I'm doing good

[01:06:00] I'm writing my take for the end Oh boy Bringing it back Continue with the conversation So wait I love the Christmas dinner scene I think that's incredible It reminds me a little of the Thanksgiving scene In the first Spider-Man When the Green Goblin comes over for Thanksgiving dinner

[01:06:20] And Willem Dafoe is like carving the turkey With a knife and laughing I don't remember this I haven't seen it since it was in the- It's probably like the Michael Keaton Driving to the party scene But it's more overtly comedic Which is why I equate to this

[01:06:36] Where it's just all this weird tension And then just these weird explosive She invites everyone In the movie over to her house Basically She's like- Because also she even invites her ex-husband's new Girlfriend who's a yoga teacher Right Because she feels bad for smashing her car window

[01:06:56] And so everyone gets to come And witness each other I guess behaving badly This is also where she unloads her My father was a serial killer monologue On Patrick What else happens? She fills him up under the table What else Nothing happens with Anna's doofy husband But

[01:07:18] We should like Describe- They're a fair They're a fair is like It's hilarious Again it's so funny but it would not be funny If it was a real thing They have like two or three sex scenes And it's like the first one is like

[01:07:34] The day after he finds out that she was attacked And she's like I'm not in the mood And then that's the one where she sets the trash can He's like come on And puts the trash can under his dick And it's just like

[01:07:48] It's gonna give you a hand job in the office It's like very It's perfunctory Dark and grim But it's kind of funny But the other times It doesn't get any better with them I can't even imagine when they had A hot steamy Affair going on

[01:08:08] The line in the hotel Where they hook up And he goes It's really funny He's like that whole dead fish thing you did That was genius Oh my god He always says the wrong thing He's also an attractive Yes He looks like a thumb

[01:08:30] No, he looks like a French Like old Harry Mendes Are we Mendes? Are we Deal or no deal Affair or pa-fair Deal or no deal Bob is what? Bufed De-de-de-de Cans That's someone playing deal or no deal Cans Which sukkes Bufed Bufed I just want a sound clip

[01:09:08] Sound clip of just everybody Doing their best French thinking Man sound I think you put out Oh I saw years ago You know they don't even have a bronc anymore I saw years ago like made my like Full hearty attempt to put together An SNL tape

[01:09:28] And all I wanted to do was that I just wanted to do that My agents were like you can't just You were like we're leading with it You're like that's too short an impression I was like I have no better impression I will never have a better impression

[01:09:42] Than everyone in that entire country Oh man It's the phase two You folks at home can't see it We're all doing some great face work Yeah we are I want to shout out that her son works at Quik When I lived in France

[01:10:00] I used to go to Quik a lot Which is an insult to a country That I would go to it's McDonald's Because they also have McDonald's Which I would never go to I would only go to Quik because I convinced myself This is Can I do

[01:10:16] Like the one time I went to McDonald's I accidentally got a Big Mac Like by mistake Like you know I ordered wrong Can I do what's sort of a merchandise spotlight Was there an L-originized spotlight There wasn't But Quik I'm just gonna do a

[01:10:34] Attention notariety here in the States Because for one of the Star Wars movies They did promotion where they did a Dark Side Burger Where the Bun was black It went viral I do vaguely remember this They weren't the first place to do the Black Burger

[01:10:50] I feel like Japan has a lot of Black Burger I think most burger had a red burger And a black burger Dark Vador burger They did a Vader burger Jedi burger I think it also made people Poop weird I could see that

[01:11:08] I think there was a runner meme about the people who had some funky poops So did they discontinue the Black Black Bun burger Yeah they did, it was a limited promotion But I think they discontinued it pretty hard Anyway Quik was good That's all I'm saying

[01:11:22] What's the best thing to get at Quik I just wouldn't get burgers I can't remember anymore Quik So the son lives With his girlfriend Who is A nightmare She's a pain in the ass So there are some deaths and births that happen In this movie

[01:11:48] I think she still just Has she had the baby by Christmas By the time of the Christmas party she has had the baby That is an early end It's a wild scene Where She's in the hospital, she has a placental abruption So she's in pain

[01:12:04] There's that really funny shot Of her being wheeled by She's like, ahh Isabella is like, I'm gonna get some coffee So uninteresting So over dramatic She's already talked about her labor With her son and how it was the worst thing in the world

[01:12:22] And she's basically like motherhood is pain Yeah, yeah, it's all bad And then the baby is born Does not look super white I believe the first line when he is revealed Is she's like we're gonna need a DNA test And it should be said also that

[01:12:42] The girlfriend's other friend is there Who is a black man And seems a little B amused by the whole situation But I think the most amazing thing Is that Vincent Is just like immediately takes Like in such Complete denial Of the whole thing

[01:13:04] That's what I find interesting because Upaire is going into this being like Upaire doesn't like the girlfriend And feels like, ahh fuck My son got roped into now, he's gonna spend the rest of his life with this woman

[01:13:14] Just cause he was an idiot and he knocked her up And also she's like paying for their new apartment And there's this scene where they're moving into the apartment And the girlfriend's being a pain about the apartment Even though it's like Upaire's paying for the whole damn thing

[01:13:26] So then when Upaire sees the baby And is like it's not even my son Like now I feel like we're being conned Like I'm paying to house A woman Who has Cucked my son He doesn't really need to be cucked I think I think the scene

[01:13:46] I mentioned it to you, I think off mic Later where he's freaking out And he's like my son My son and she's like He's not your son, he's like my son And she's like alright he's your son He's so funny That's her whole relationship with that kid

[01:14:02] Like he is an idiot And now he's like bought into this Really like life altering lie He's had to like put a bubble around his whole brain And he's doing this Rather than like sit him down And be like You have to think about this situation

[01:14:18] Like you're probably not the father of this child She's just like alright So passionate about it You're his father again So wait So then she has the baby Oh and then we also find out The wild detail that She and Anna went into labor at the same time

[01:14:42] Yes, at the same hospital And then breastfed Pat or Vincent rather And so She's afraid that Anna has a Stronger bond with Vincent than she does Which doesn't come up too much But I feel like it's another one of these Interesting ties with this group of people

[01:15:02] Where it's just like Another complication They're all sort of knotted up together And of course, yeah right She's having an affair with her best friend And we've seen where she and Anna get in bed together And they sort of like Laugh like Where they're like

[01:15:20] Remember when we tried it We tried it once and couldn't stop laughing They give each other 5 comedy points But then there's also this obsession With like Is it this? Is it the father? Is it the breastfeeding? Can we explain this Just by looking into the past And also

[01:15:42] The thing with Anna When they're like remembering Trying to make out or trying to have sex That is another thing where it's like That could totally be some Shlucky beat in a movie like this She's actually a lesbian It's not even that she's not Like

[01:16:00] She's close to the idea No, it's like They're like men That's almost worse and more complicated They're like the whole family Right, yeah She just has a very peculiar relationship With emotional intimacy And so maybe that Was attractive to her about her friend About Anna where it's like

[01:16:22] Could that be a way to find A connection with someone There's also this scene where her husband You know Why'd you like We never should have broken up He was like you left me and she says I regret that And then like that's that

[01:16:40] But then the son gets physical with her As well The son gets physical with his Why? That's later Because she's It's all like half Heard He lost his car He's just an idiot He's an idiot He's like well if you ride the metro It's an hour

[01:17:06] The air quality What a fucking Every time she sees her son She's like I want to be on your side But you're so bad Oh god But what you're saying I feel like it speaks to The complexity of this character And this characterization

[01:17:26] That they're getting at in this movie Where like this movie presents a lot of What another movie Would choose to frame as a quote unquote easy answer Well here's the Rosetta Stone to figure her out It's this She's actually secretly this This is the moment that changed her

[01:17:44] And it's like she's the entirety Of her experiences and all of these things That's the reason she's such a complex Contradictory person Is there something else you wanted to say About the Christmas party though? It ends well her mom Announces that she's getting married

[01:18:00] And then about two minutes later Her mom falls over with a heart attack A stroke I believe She announces that she also says Go see your father And Isabella Pears like fuck no And then she has a stroke She walks off screen and then

[01:18:16] There's a clatter and then Immediately she's like Is this a joke? The line is like seriously? And everybody's like how could you say that Right and even with her doctor She's like she may never wake up again She's had a traumatic brain event

[01:18:32] Is there any possibility she's faking? Could it just be fake? Have you explored that possibility? Is she manipulating you right now? Yeah it's amazing It is where her mother dies And to Pears It's like this This is her lousiest Move yet She's just trying to get at me

[01:18:54] And then she finally agrees to go see her father Before she can get to him Basically she intuits He couldn't face her Right after he got the notification That she was going to be coming by That he hung himself

[01:19:08] And then she's like I killed you by coming here Over his corpse It's wild stuff It's real wild stuff You're in this one Wild stuff Every time you do that I'm going to start Oh you were doing Johnny Carson Oh and also

[01:19:26] This is Johnny Carson as Lightning McQueen I was going to say it's not like Goldblum Why have stuff that's made her A tow truck You guys read about this made her the tow truck Wow I'm glad we went from L to cars

[01:19:40] This is the only stuff that's going to do it Johnny Goldblum Wilson We're going to win the Oscar for this one This is it Best picture This is the one they'll remember us Ben is truly Furiously typing away Detached He's writing his letter of resignation as we speak

[01:20:00] From the United States of America To move it made him serve He's moving I, Ben, Hosley Attention Film geek, cinema files Lovers of great conversations You know nerds Yeah I doubt anyone has left the room Because if you're listening to this show You've fallen to all those boxes

[01:20:24] Well guess what Chuck Bryant Of the Stuff You Should Know podcast Has a new show called Movie Crush That's some stuff you should know Right there, he sits down with your Favorite people Talk about their favorite movies The likes of, I don't know Tignataro John Hodgman Kevin Pollock

[01:20:46] Tony Shalube Ken Jennings Podcasts of Roman Marz You really went high at the end there I want to show my range They talk about movies like Cockroach Orange Jaws, Groundhog Day and The Avengers Deep Dives into some of the best films ever made

[01:21:02] With the people loving the most You'll laugh and you'll cry And you'll gain serious insights into what makes a movie an all time favorite So it sounds like an actual good movie podcast on like hours Right, I mean we have never made anyone cry for good reasons

[01:21:12] Yeah, well sometimes the reasons Frustration You'll laugh and cry, may he surprise you Yeah So you know what, here's my advice You want a little advice from me? Check out Movie Crush Anywhere you get your podcasts What is also happening

[01:21:30] Is she reveals her attacker comes to her again She stabs him through the hand With a pair of scissors and rips his ski mask off And it is Patrick Her hot sexy Lauren LeFied neighbor The twist Oh, Kel-Tweez She's so blue Yeah And after that

[01:21:50] I feel like he just runs off She runs off And then I think this is the thing that Like throws people Is that the next day that they're outside Or she's taking out the trash or whatever She sees him outside and Just sort of stares him down

[01:22:06] And doesn't do anything about it And then later she's In the car accident I think that's what she's coming back from prison It's so crazy I know I remember when I was watching the car accident I was like seriously a fucking car accident A reporter calls her

[01:22:24] With like, oh your father is dead I don't know And it's still on the phone after she's like In between a tree She's like how are you feeling Guilty, sad While blood is coming out of her head And she calls everyone And no one answers because her whole

[01:22:42] Family network are a bunch of idiots anyway So she calls Patrick And he shows up Now I feel like there were probably Still about 10 other people that we haven't met Yet in the movie that she could have called Besides Patrick But I feel like this Like AAA Ghostbusters

[01:23:02] But still, I mean I feel like that's when Like that's a very conscious choice at that point I'm sure that Obviously she would rather have had a friend there But like at that point I feel like the gear start turning for her

[01:23:16] And then there starts to be this Maybe she doesn't even consciously know What it is at that point But like there is some sort of like Can I flip the script on this? Because their sex sort of walks this line Where, well I mean there's that

[01:23:30] How many times do they have sex There's a scene in the basement where That's after she They are like she tries They go how many bandages are up And then it feels like something's gonna Happen just like consensually Between the two of them

[01:23:46] But then he's like I can't do it Because he can only get it up And he's raping a lady And so in the basement when They're doing more of like a role play She went and then she gives her consent He's like no It doesn't work like that

[01:24:02] She does say do it Which I remember really clearly from the first time I saw it which was just like that Those two words were what Killed it for him which was just It felt like her having agency over the situation Yeah, right

[01:24:16] This is a funny mirror to flesh and blood I was gonna say this is him successfully pulling off What he tried to do in flesh and blood Yeah in flesh and blood it doesn't work nearly as well Overreaches greatly Well also it's set in medieval times

[01:24:28] So it just like our relationships Our characters think is just totally different Right, yeah But it is, yeah I mean it becomes A very very complicated thing Where you're watching it going like Is this part of some longer game she's playing Has she genuinely fallen for him

[01:24:44] Like what You know it's very hard to Read And you know it's a long movie It's been going on for a while So you're like we gotta be in the back Like you know This film where the fuck is he going Like where is this gonna land ultimately

[01:25:02] Yeah and not knowing where it's gonna land That first time is like what makes it so Totally engrossy and I think Yes the first time you're watching this it is like a knife edge Yeah And because after The last big set piece is the big Launch party

[01:25:18] At the office We see the video game and it's like Better I guess Seems the same to me and they're all like So good But the big party is where She's just like you know what I don't like any of these people I'm Isabella Pear

[01:25:36] It's time to settle some scores Well she tells Anna that she's cheating on her husband That actually is the only thing I think That it's clumsily resolved in this movie Where with the later Where Anna's like why'd you do it And she's like

[01:25:52] And Anna's like well it was Shabby Which is a great French That was Shabby a year And then they like walk off My mom fucking lost it at that She was like that's the most accurate thing I've ever seen Alright

[01:26:06] I mean because in terms of technically the end of the movie She's gonna move in with Anna They're gonna be friend-wise She's like every woman's Actual fantasy Not what they've gone through But the way they're speaking of it She was like that is so On point

[01:26:24] For the like wanting to seem just kind of like Well you know That's what it is, it's Shabby Not a good look N-A-G-L Yeah So she tells Anna there And then she I can't remember She is a part of getting Vincent really drunk

[01:26:46] Because he does get very drunk Again at the party We did skip over that scene where Vincent Like puts his hand on his girlfriend's throat Yes And his mother shuts him down Or tries to But go on, sorry He's kind of generally getting sloppy at this point

[01:27:04] I mean I think the fact that She's welcoming Him into her life Totally starts breaking his brain Yeah Oh you mean Patrick No he doesn't He is It feels like they're both equally wary of each other Which is also what it's not At this point I would say

[01:27:28] Even though he is still obviously like the predator In this relationship, he doesn't really know What he's being predatory of at this point anymore Which is like the first move of hers That like destabilizes him And he's not in control anymore Wait what did you want to say?

[01:27:42] Did you want to say something about the son? Because I feel like you mentioned earlier I couldn't remember if this was like a part of her Doing or just like him getting drunk on his own But he does get wasted at the party

[01:27:52] And then when they go back to the house And she knows that The Patrick's gonna come in And attack her again He's like Coming in right after her She knows that, she sets it all up So that Sorry my throat is giving out right now

[01:28:10] It's quite all right So when she She's being her Vincent could come in and Save the day And you know Maybe Her pulling the strings has caused him to think Like oh maybe I'm not a piece of shit

[01:28:28] And maybe I should start acting like not a piece of shit Like it feels like such a Super Like feels like a Cersei Lannister Move or something Like it just feels like such a Totally indirect piece of action To be better around or be

[01:28:44] Like what you need them to be Which I think is fascinating in this But I mean a lot of people That ending Of him killing Patrick A lot of people are like well why doesn't she get to kill her own Rapist, why doesn't she have the bloody revenge

[01:28:58] And she's been like imagining a daydream She does have this one scene where she imagines Killing him I think we get to see that in that We know that she's I think probably 100% capable Of killing him but I feel like That isn't She's been living another life

[01:29:16] Of like haunted By violence her entire life And why would she want to It's not necessarily right what she was looking for No, it's more of like An idea that floats into her head And it's a direct mirror of her relationship To her father's crimes

[01:29:32] Because there's that whole question of like Was he influenced By her, did she help him So she sort of passed the buck onto her son essentially Kind of right, like she's like Sent the curse through the bloodline But I would say that probably like stabbing His mother's rapist

[01:29:50] And saving her is probably A little less on the scale than like A green village He's gonna come out of it looking better He smashes Patrick over the head a bunch And he dies just that's like the end of the movie Wait did you touch upon though

[01:30:04] The car ride back from the party Escorts her back home Right, yeah Because there's a really important moment there Which is she basically points out The nature of their relationship And she uses a very interesting word To describe that What did she Twisted

[01:30:24] I knew that the word twisted was gonna come up And that's fine man I forgot about that He's marking the time folks Why don't we say twisted in French Look it up I also really like Tardu Like a turtle Like a turtle Like the island of Fertuga

[01:30:46] From the parts of Caribbean French A turtle is Very close I like the final scene with her And now his widow Oh wait See this is the part that I kind of skimmed through When I was rewatching this last time There's the final scene where

[01:31:06] You see she's moving out of their house Across the street Now she's like a widow and a single mother with this baby And she kind of tips her hand To like Knowing that her husband Had these things that he couldn't repress That she tried her hardest to like

[01:31:22] Make a normal life for him But kind of knew that he was a liability at some point Yeah I remember that now I remember feeling like the wife was aware of something But not necessarily aware Of what was going on between Them at the time

[01:31:40] Not like complicit but aware that her husband Had monstrous tendencies And that Probably it was He was gonna hide out at some point Or Jekyll out Jekyll out Jekyll's the bad one She married Jekyll And hide out Wait, oh he's not a doctor He's a banker Mr. Jekyll

[01:32:06] And hide Esquire And it ends with them Her inner gal pal Yeah I do think that that is every woman's Actual fantasy To live With your best friend In a partnership Just gonna put that out Put it out there Ben? Is your take, have you finished copy editing?

[01:32:34] Yeah I have Alright here let me bring it up for you guys Ladies and gentlemen The poet laureate, our finest film critic A close personal friend of Dan Lewis Here is Ben Hosley On Paul Verhoeven's L So the portrayal of disillusionment Through the character of Michelle

[01:32:52] Really resonates with me This is hilarious right here I feel kindred spirit with her character And I surmise this is related to her being a loner From her sense of humor To her manipulative nature She relates the world as me against it But whereas Verhoeven's previous films

[01:33:08] Are these satirical send ups Of story conventions There's something about the black humor And unconventional nature That causes me to ultimately Believe the tone Or mood can best be described as punk rock That was That was phenomenal Ben That was phenomenal I think people feel like we use

[01:33:34] Our finest film critic facetiously But it's because once a year you do that Every once in a while, yeah That made me want to ask a question of you guys All of you guys Do you feel like Michelle Is the closest Verhoeven proxy To gotten so far

[01:33:54] To himself I'm thinking through his other protagonists I believe so Certainly when you think of the Hollywood movies I would agree The Hollywood movies I think almost I haven't seen all these Dutch films Perhaps there's more to that I mean No, I think she's

[01:34:14] I think this movie is him imagining himself As a woman, how he would have existed in the world As a woman and how differently he would have been viewed And the blaséness to like sexual violence And you know Coming at it from such a completely different angle

[01:34:28] Because of something in your childhood I think is also Sensitization, yeah Can I say something Ben? When you said in your essay that becomes a story Of me against it What are you? Home again? With Reese Witherspoon Opened against it at the box office That's a great segue

[01:34:48] It's played the box office game What do you think so too? Home again? Open number two behind it I was wondering if anything else Had come up against your guys I mean honestly I think Black Book Is indulging a fantasy We didn't do an episode on that movie

[01:35:06] But in terms of his fascination I feel like that's his only other post Hollywood picture that I've seen He's only done two Wait no, isn't there another one? That's a trick that was part of like a film class It's like a bunch of short films put together

[01:35:20] That thing doesn't really count It's more of an experiment than it is I don't think he considers it like a full proper For hoven films He's not identifying with Johnny Rico In the same way No, I think this is weirdly His most personal movie

[01:35:36] In terms of his relationship to The main character Also we've talked about his Hollywood years Where he was so intent on like Finding American genre movies Cracking the code Finding the ways that he could smuggle ideas On to the big screen Without having a flesh and blood happen

[01:35:54] To him where basically he would give them the movie And they'd be like EW And he'd be like No, no you don't He's not French No, I'll boost No, he's a gold member Link's not blonde I love gold It's his own scam I think he mostly is

[01:36:14] Interested in functioning As a cultural critic Both of the cultures And the work that those cultures produce And that doesn't leave a lot of space To like put yourself into the character Right, yeah Yeah and that's what makes them Good and stand out

[01:36:32] I feel like too is that I feel like a lot of other Filmmakers have more of a priority Of putting themselves or seeing themselves In their movies Right And that's a lesser priority In a way that can become oftentimes Solipsistic as their careers go on

[01:36:48] It's like every movie it's the character Come in the same perspective But I think that also speaks to He entrusted Uperre More than he certainly has With any of his actors Since Rucker Howard And Rucker Howard is a very different type of performer

[01:37:04] Who wasn't going to be his vulnerable on screen I didn't know that thing about him That's a direction but that's I mean that reflects well On both of them I think it reflects super well on him Because it's like this conversation

[01:37:18] You don't know how to direct this lady I'll be fucking retarded writing her anything Wait, oh 100% But even any woman though I feel like to be like now That doesn't quite read right And how you expressed your fear Or you know annoyance or whatever

[01:37:34] And also as we're getting into What stories I think any person can direct any Movie if you admit what you Don't know and surround yourself with the people And give them the chance to offer Offer them authorship in those Areas, you know because like a director

[01:37:50] Can just be a conductor It doesn't have to be the auteur And the author of everything You can go like let me bring the right people Who have the voices and put them on the same pot I think it speaks very highly To him and he got her

[01:38:04] He got her an Oscar nomination Yeah the first Oscar nomination He's gotten for an actor Her first nomination Decades of illustrious work She's been in Hollywood movies I mean not a lot but You like Starship Troopers though You just watched Starship Troopers It's really about a lot

[01:38:24] I just watched it for the first time In a very long time Yeah a week ago I was just like I feel like maybe the most Classic example of Him making a film as a critic Because it is I mean what other movie

[01:38:42] Is like an adaptation in that way Like what other movie Adapts against its source Material like that And I would die to see a movie Like that today from anything Like you're like man if someone could make One of the 50 shades of gray movies

[01:38:58] Like that you know or make like a Harry Potter Movie like that or like whatever it is Yeah I mean I feel like this 50 shades of movies Might be a bad example because I feel like I don't know I feel like the source material was never

[01:39:12] Really taken seriously to begin with But I think when you have something That so many people were so invested in And so enamored of To Yeah to just like Not even make a joke Of it but like expose it To be what it actually is

[01:39:30] What you believe it is You know what actually feels like a closer analog When they were picking a director For the last two Twilight movies And they went with Bulkhand And the other two people they met with were Do you remember this? No

[01:39:44] Gus Van Sant and Sofia Coppola And both of them came in and were like If you actually are all for me this is what I do And they were like yeah too weird And both of them have spoken to their pitches

[01:39:56] And were like look I would have done it If I could have done it through my prism Like there's interesting stuff there to talk about But they were like We can't do something that isn't Literally what the fans View the text as being

[01:40:10] Oh man I mean if you can imagine How people would react Like somebody did that with Twilight But Twilight especially the last two movies Are like those are ripe for that Like those are some Insanely Like Sexually Like fucked up attitudes for sexuality

[01:40:30] And what it is to be a teenager I think the last one is good The one where Condon gets closer Than anyone else to find a way to That's the one with the big fight that turns out to be not a real fight

[01:40:40] But it's also got a lot of really weird Comedy in it Can we play the box office game? Yes please This movie opened at number Let me even find it 43 on two screens On November 11th 2016 Does that count? How do you With a movie like L

[01:41:00] It's top amount of screens In America Was 209 In January Essentially if it never goes over a thousand We do the literal opening weekend And if it went that wide later we do that It basically went wide After the Oscar nominations Like quote unquote wide it added 170 theaters

[01:41:20] Then immediately shrunk back down The next week And then it did it again In February My guess is after the ceremony And then immediately shrunk back down again What was the final total domestically? 2.3 million dollars Fine, that's about right I believe it made about 15 worldwide

[01:41:40] Which was more than its budget Number one of the box office is a Marvel movie Doctor Strange Little Orange Little Orange What is it? Parallel universe The game is strange So sorry, my Yeah, Doctor Strange I think the movie's fine

[01:42:06] I actually kind of weirdly like that movie more with time I don't mind the Marvel movies that are just Doing their own thing That movie is garbage. I'm sorry You don't like the Marvel movies I don't like the Marvel movies but I like

[01:42:18] I don't say that in accusatory way But you know what, I also have the memory of that Being the last movie I saw in the theaters before the election So it's like That's accurate And I think I spent the last day Before the election writing my piece about

[01:42:32] Thinking about Doctor Strange Exactly where my head was And then, you know I think it's a deeply flawed movie Like I think it has some fundamental story problems And I think they try way too hard To make Ben DiCumber batch down in junior

[01:42:46] Like they should just not even try to give him Quipy One-Liners, that's not what you hire him to do But the visuals He does Quipy One-Liners He's fine, I think he's pretty good He's doing Sherlock He's also trying to be like a rich asshole

[01:43:00] Those two things do not mesh well You can't be a quirkster and be I agree Well, cause the origin of Doctor Strange is so silly where it's like He's a doctor, he's so rich But also he hurts his hands I cannot believe

[01:43:14] You guys and your fucking little baby books And how much money they fucking make Cause this movie was dumb as hell, I'm sorry The money is coming for us Hey man, the early Doctor Strange That's like foundational psychedelic literature Of the 60s man, that stuff is so good

[01:43:28] The Jack Kirby shit, it's so good Foundational? Yes, absolutely Back me up Doctor Strange was huge influence Like the way it was drawn especially I'll say this, if those are baby books Then slap a diaper on me I'm out Alright, I pull it out

[01:43:46] I pull out of this right now Doctor Strange, Strange Tales 1963, fucking rules That stuff is crazy The movie is fine Number two is an animated Also by the way If any of our blankies attack Emily for calling them baby books We're literally gonna murder you

[01:44:04] We'll go ill on your ass They are dumb baby books If you tweeted Emily, I'm going axe shopping She's fine Emily's hardcore Number two is an animated film Written and directed by Richard Lawson Trolls Oh, it's Trolls Shout out to Richard Lawson's Trolls Shout out to Rylaw's Trolls

[01:44:26] In its second weekend, it's made 93 million dollars His Trolls did well I think his Trolls got grand left for a sequel I don't know, it made 153 On a 125 million dollar budget Which is a lot of money for Richard Lawson He was a first time filmmaker

[01:44:40] A lot of merchandising That movie is like cars You can't stop the feeling, I was about to say that We tried very hard and we tried in vain We lost a great man Man that day Number three is I believe

[01:44:56] And I forgot that this movie just went wide Number three is What I'm pretty sure was Emily's number one film of the year For 2016 Emily's number one film of the year Do you think you know what it is? I'll give you another hint

[01:45:12] If it is, what I think it is Also a terrible movie to see in Alamo Draft House Also a terrible movie to see in Alamo Draft House I think this is It just went wide No, it opened wide I forgot that it opened wide

[01:45:26] You thought it had planned well It was like an Oscar contend Got a bunch of Oscar nominations Wait, it's not what you think it is I don't think it did Because that movie came out the next week Maybe it wasn't your number one

[01:45:40] But we're going to have one sound editing Great sound, is it a music based film? Try thinking of things that went sound awards No, it is about language What? Emily doesn't even know what this is No, okay so I know what it is now

[01:45:58] I feel like that, what weekend was this again? November 11th 2016 Oh yeah, okay, yeah What is it? Why am I blanking on this? Best picture nominee It was a best movie Not a great movie to see in Alamo No, it's a terrible movie to see in Alamo

[01:46:16] When you said that I was like, yeah, it lines up Oh, a rival? Of course, of course I believe I did see it at the Alamo I saw it at least three times Great film Am I correct that it was your number one in 2016?

[01:46:30] It was my number one in 2016 It was a better movie year than 2017 I agree If I agree with that, I like 2017 I just feel like it was more of a consensus where everyone kind of agreed on the same big movies You mean 2017 or? 2017 Really? Cause I feel like 2017

[01:46:48] 2017 has got a lot of B pluses and A minuses I know but I just feel like a lot of people basically like Lady Bird called me by her name The Florida Project That's a lot of consensus A lot of people had those four movies in their top two

[01:47:06] And that's not usually how this and then maybe Phantom Thread as well which is a later bloomer I need to see that again I think 2017 wasn't awesome It's a good year, I'm not saying it was a bad year

[01:47:18] but when I think of the movies that came out in 2016 I want to look at my 16 Yeah, I was very... Moonlight Arrival Handmaiden I mean 2016's Handmaiden Moonlight, it had Handmaiden, it had Arrival, it had Fucking Green Room The Witch, it had The Love Witch 20th Century Women

[01:47:42] Sully There we go 2016 was a better year Number four is A comedy, a Christmas comedy coming out in November Big family comedy Does Santa Claus appear in the cast? I don't think so No Santa Claus, so it's a Christmas Is it a Fuck

[01:48:06] What's it called? Not Almost Christmas It's almost Christmas Which I never saw It's called Almost Christmas It's called Almost Christmas Yeah, I mean... Gabriel Union, JB Smoove, Kimberly Elise, Omar Epps It's got a stacked cast actually I'm actually surprised I've never seen that I like Christmas movies

[01:48:28] It's got like, John Michael Higgins is like You know, the tightwad Bad Zoo Boy himself The original Bad Zoo Boy And the number five is a war film Not a war horse film No, there weren't a lot of horses In that I can remember

[01:48:46] You know the beginning of this movie Is kind of war horsey actually Yeah, it was kind of war It's a war film It's a really intense movie Also a best picture nominee Incredible how much my brain just melts away Yeah, I know, this was a year ago

[01:49:02] I also, here's another thing I felt watching this movie Knowing that like I saw it for the first time a year ago This last year has been so fucking long Just because they amount of shit Yeah There's a lot of stuff that like takes up occupation

[01:49:14] In your brain where other stuff That you'd like to remember Perhaps more fondly and with more detail And the specificity has been pushed out of the way Just by, you know We're recording this in January

[01:49:26] And it's like we're talking about a movie that came out like 13-14 months ago And it feels like five years ago It's a war film so I probably didn't like it very much Right? I don't even know if you saw this film Oh, it's Hexaw Ridge

[01:49:38] A male Gibson Hexaw Ridge Which you told me not to see because I wouldn't like it I did You seen it in the theater? No, I watched it on the screener I take my terrible movie to watch on the screener Terrible film to watch on the screener

[01:49:52] I take my responsibilities as a SAG voter Very serious Fair, Andy, and DG was nominated Yeah, alright So that was number one? That was number five Arrival was number one No, no, no, Dr. Strange controls Arrival opens number three at 24 million Almost Christmas opens number four at 15

[01:50:12] And then number five is Hexaw Ridge Which was not as nearly as big a hit Got a remote Got it Okay, Ben That one wants the podcast to end He turns off a TV which has a picture of us on it Alright, he wants it over

[01:50:28] So you don't think... You don't want to talk about... Alright, well that's it Thank you so much for listening Thank you Paul Verhoeven for making all these lovely movies Do we want to do Verhoeven rankings? I've got my rankings I've got my rankings at the movies we discussed

[01:50:44] Exactly So not covering the things I want to hear your rankings Okay, ready? Number one, Robert Cobb Yeah, you like that one Number two, Starship Troopers Number three L Number four Total Recall Then Basic Instinct Then Showgirls Flesh and Blood, Hollamanna last place You like everything about Hollamanna

[01:51:17] I like Hollamanna But Hollamanna is more of a C+. We'd be lucky if most filmmakers Least interesting films were Hollamanna That's my ranking Mine would be number one, Starship Troopers With a bullet With a bug Number two, Robocop

[01:51:35] Because I'll say number one for me, Robocop with a bullet But the bullet comes out of a gun that was stored in my luck Number two, Robocop Number three, L Number four, Total Recall Number five, Showgirls You guys are so similar Number six, Basic Instinct

[01:51:51] Number seven, Flesh and Blood Number eight, Hollamanna I'm not sure with Total Recall and L Those are close L is definitely my three It's more about Total Recall and Basic Instinct But I just love the effects Total Recall rules Showgirls rules

[01:52:09] Basic Instinct is a movie I admire more than Love Basic Instinct How do you feel, Emily? I think I What's your fave? Starship Starship, I haven't rewatched as much I had just seen it a while ago And then I watched it again most recently

[01:52:29] And was completely enamored of it But I've definitely rewatched Robocop more And I feel like Robocop would probably be at my top And then probably I think what I would do is Total Recall wouldn't be up there as much I think it would go Do not

[01:52:47] Totally make this up So it would be Robocop Starship Troopers L I think it would be Basic Instinct and then Showgirls And then Total Recall And I haven't seen Hollamanna I don't know Have you seen Flesh and Blood? No, I haven't seen that either I haven't seen the

[01:53:11] I want to watch it though Ben's number one verhoeven Of course is Spanglish Ben's new favorite movie because here we are Announcing our next miniseries Crack of the bat And it's gone And it's up and out of here Ladies and gentlemen Next up we are covering the films

[01:53:31] Of James L. Brooks What? Old Canyon Jim himself And a miniseries that is of course Title As pot as a cast Of course it's called pot Everyone agrees Of course it's podcast news Come on It's podcast news as has been Fully decided upon

[01:53:55] Emily you say of course and to that I ask How do you know? It's podcast news guys And yes get ready for that I'm sure you've heard that you responded to a tweet of mine recently With So if anybody wants to dig back in the twitter archives

[01:54:09] To January 8th or so A simpler time What did I say I can't remember I just did a random tweet about how much I liked the band Broadcast And then you respond what about broadcast news And now it all makes sense Broadcast news What about that one

[01:54:27] Let's address the elephant in the room There's an elephant Hey hey hey no bits No bits press mats okay This is a little bit of an anniversary That's actually That's exciting that's 150th episode right here You know how for 100th episode we did blank check

[01:54:45] The movie and for 150th episode We did L But next week we got kind of like a bonus present That is true as a reward To our listeners and also Just because the scheduling lined up really nicely We have a special episode next week

[01:54:59] So you know we've done these Ben's choices in the past And we thought we'd hand someone else the check To pick a movie We got A man we both Are big fans of A comedian, an actor A writer, a movie podcaster in his own Right

[01:55:17] Who I dare say I've been like listening to for 10 years Probably I remember going to see him at UCB when I was 13 years old He helped invent this GD medium Of ours And The man How did this get Mater himself Mater? Wow Paul Shear

[01:55:39] Genuinely exciting, Paul Shear likes our show Wanted to be on it, did an episode with us Right and it's his choice and he picked the movie Running Scared That's right, Gregory Hines And Billy Crystal In Chicago in the 80s There's a chase scene on the L

[01:55:55] And a 15 minute vacation Billy Crystal's hot Billy Crystal is Smoking And he's also Smoking a cigarette or two But tune in for that, Running Scared Next week Watch Running Scared which by the way Completely rules It rocks and rolls Listen to that episode

[01:56:19] Before we get to our James L. Brooks mini series But we're giving you a gift We're giving you this bonus Paul Shear episode Yes You could repay the favor 150, here's all I want To commemorate this milestone I want to be number one Within our subsection which is tv

[01:56:37] Slash film I'd like to be number one I'd like to topple all those recap shows for one week Take that Eight Westworld podcasts Designated by Podviver A weird amount of podcasts about billions Right Give us one week where we get to take on big billions

[01:56:57] Does Designated Survivor have a few? That was the joke I was making I know I was finishing your joke Probably everything does other than the tick Yeah, we want to be Do you want to do a tick park? No, I don't want to watch the episodes

[01:57:11] I hate my face They're good, I'm self-conscious So please Do me a kindness And Ben Yes, please For 150 we want to be number one How can you make that happen? One, recommend the show to some people Sure Word of mouth Ever hear of it

[01:57:35] Person into blank check this week Number two Maybe you've heard me mention this before Write review, subscribe We always say that And we appreciate that people have Sometimes it just sounds like lip service I know it's It's an ask, but all you gotta do is go to iTunes

[01:57:53] Give us a rating Five stars preferred We love five stars and if you give a zero You can't listen to the show And just write a review, doesn't have to be long Doesn't have to be clever Complicated It could be a bit Now there's usually No bits Right

[01:58:15] Like fair to spoil something about running scared Got some good bits It's also got some smiths We're giving you a smith episode next week So maybe just Give us a bit or two, write a bit on iTunes You can write literally anything you want

[01:58:31] Anything you want as long as it's five stars And you could just say I'm Pro bits Let me set some goals right now 150 we want to be number one On the chart We finally have 214 reviews 547 ratings I want to Fuckin double that I want 500 reviews Wow 1000 ratings Damn

[01:58:59] In the words of Chris Gatheff, you're gonna lose well I agree I think that would be good, wouldn't it Ben? That would be a real bump Yeah, it would really help the show You know what? Not big enough 1000 reviews 5000 ratings Alright, shoot for the stars But no seriously

[01:59:19] We want a blank check bump, hashtag it Blank check bump Yeah, oh and hashtag too Blank check bump on any social media platform Whether or not it's about blank check We're cutting for it, and this is serious I'm not messing around, we want this

[01:59:33] We got a big episode coming up You guys have been sporting us for years This is a weird little show we do Usually gets mad at us And you guys like it for whatever reason And that rules, so let's finally Make some noise

[01:59:47] Right, because this does make a difference Let's bring in the noise, bring in the funk I'll say this, you doing these things that sound kind of obligatory Actually help put Our show on the map It gives us increased visibility on Apple Podcast You know? These things matter Yeah

[02:00:05] So once again, we're gunning for 15,000 reviews And 1 million ratings Thank you But if we could If we could double Like Griff said That would be genuinely incredible If we could do 500 5,000 reviews and 1,000 ratings That would be crazy But also if we could beat the ratings of

[02:00:29] A peak American Idol Like Justin Greeny We want like a 17 share Yeah That would be great too But anyway Hashtag, blank check Hashtag, blank, bump Check But the podcast news is coming up We're done Thank you for joining us

[02:00:53] We drag you into the studio all the time Emily We love having you Now I finally remembered how to get here without looking up on the maps So hey Five timer and so happy To have you in the audio boom family Thank you

[02:01:07] How great is it being produced by this guy? It's amazing, right? It's a dream We've done so many podcasts at this point Yeah They've all been produced incredibly And it's a dream Wow, thanks guys Super crispy Good boy So thank you all for listening

[02:01:27] Please remember to rate, review, subscribe Go to blankies.reddit.com For our artwork, lame Montgomery For our theme song And And as always Uhhh Uhhh Uhhh