Following

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin What to say or to expect? All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check That's what it's all about, interrupting someone's life, making them see all the things they took for granted

[00:00:26] When they go back and buy all this stuff from the shelves with the insurance money They'll have to think for the first time in a long time why they wanted all this stuff What it's for, you take it away and you show them what they podcasted

[00:00:41] That was a great impression of Alex Hall That wasn't bad, right? It was excellent, a great impression of someone no one's ever heard Griffin finally did a good impression guys And it has no application outside of what I just did

[00:00:58] Hello, ladies, gentlemen, germs, burglars, mind thieves, anarchists, tarz robots, magicians What else has he done? Joey pants Yeah, spoiler alert, we're gonna put some pants on in this one, you seriously My name's Griffin Newman I'm David Sims This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David

[00:01:30] We're not gonna do some crazy Nolan-esque fractured narrative where you don't find out who was hosting the show Blank Check with Griffin and Griffin? Oh no, it was David all along This is a podcast about filmmakers Oh Tours, one could argue Sure

[00:01:49] Filmmakers who had massive success early on in their career And they were given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they wanted Sometimes those checks clear? They do Sometimes Once in a while Everyone's so wild they do With this guy? More often than not

[00:02:03] This guy, I would argue, pulled one of the craziest moves of all time Which is what seemed like his big blank check movie ended up being so big That it's the kind of movie that would have given someone else a blank check You're right

[00:02:15] You're right, checks on checks It's a check within a check He's got some checks stacked up I got him I got him with that one Check in a check I got my boy with that one Your boy? Yeah, my boy Benny Producer Ben? Yeah Ben Deucer?

[00:02:28] We haven't even finished the introduction but yeah You were Ben the poet laureate Fiance Film Critic The tiebreaker, birthday Benny the haze All those things Mr. Positive, Mr. Hositive Yeah Dirt bike Benny Oh for sure The meat lover, the fart detective Oh my god they keep going on

[00:02:44] Is not Professor Crispy No He is the peeper Yeah You see him in the streets Which I'm a hearty hello fennel Please And of course he's graduated to certain titles Over certain miniseries A concept I still haven't established within the body of This episode Good

[00:03:01] Such as producer Ben Kenobi Kylo Ben Ben I-Tramalan Ben's 8 Say Benny thing Ailey Ben's with a dollar sign And War-Hoz That's a good one It slides right in there I think Yeah I moved my microphone So we do miniseries

[00:03:17] We pick a director and we go through their films One episode per movie To track their career You never said sometimes they bounce baby Oh sometimes they bounce baby Just FYI Just wanted you to get that out there Fiance is my favorite boy Benny

[00:03:34] And this is a new miniseries on the films Of Christopher Nolan And it is called I didn't even check the poll I assume you did With a smashing 52% I believe was the final outcome It was close It was neck and neck the whole time

[00:03:49] It was fun watching it happen The pod night casts That's right The pod night casts I think the right one won The right night won Just looking at him I was like You know why play it safe I also think Why not sound like a bad Batman podcast

[00:04:08] Sure And I also think this is our first Miniseries title Miniseries title This is our first miniseries title That I think kind of Almost sounds like it's establishing a new character The pod night? Yeah who's the pod night? It's this English guy Well we don't know yet

[00:04:27] We're gonna figure that out No spoilers Today we're covering the first film The Christopher Nolan made in 1998 It was a film he wrote Directed shot I believe Edited as well himself Yes he did all those things Very much a one man production Made for $6,000 Released on one screen

[00:04:46] Sure we will release at festivals Various festivals Sure it was sort of a calling card film Came out in Britain I think in some tiny Way as well And only three films later he'd be making Batman Crazy Crazy Absolutely crazy

[00:05:01] Not only that but just like seven years later Like it wasn't even you know yeah He went from 6,000 to like 100 million He went from 6,000 to like 175 million in six years Little Englishman Little Englishman And this is scrappy film Christopher Nolan has been on their

[00:05:17] Eckard is saying that he doesn't really believe In film school he thinks the best film school Is making a movie and this is very much A movie that feels like him teaching himself How to make a movie Yeah it's a film school movie

[00:05:28] And I don't mean like it feels like it was made By somebody in film school I feel like it yeah like you say It feels like someone who's like Oh yeah oh I could put the camera here maybe Right and I guess what's kind of

[00:05:37] Interesting about Christopher Nolan is just how quick That learning curve seemed to be For sure but what's that movie called It's called Following This is also a movie that to me is a really good Example of why you want professional actors In your movies

[00:05:52] Not that no beef with the movie But you watch this then you watch Bumento Sure You know you're like wow Wow look at these actors I mean I got a lot of things to say about the acting In this movie but we'll get to it

[00:06:03] Good and bad there are I had a lot of Interesting thoughts watching the performances in this movie I had a lot of interesting thoughts watching this movie Which I was happy about considering Yo is worry with the Yeah With the wide awakes Well not wide awakes

[00:06:15] Praying with angers Praying with angers you know With the piranha twos Right your lost world Jurassic Park So the first film Oh god these amateurish First films by directors His little test tube babies Have you seen the film before? I had When I was in university In Britain

[00:06:34] Wait no but your American I know when I lived in Britain For a great period of time What I would have heard about this I would have heard about this if it happened I would have heard about this Should we have an inception Noise like drop

[00:06:50] That we just do Every time Anyway yes Living in Britain I believe I had already seen Follow you know Bumento, Insomnia and Batman begins. Humblebred. I was like, you know what I should check out though is

[00:07:08] that dude's first movie. It was on DVD. I got a love film, which was the early competitor to Netflix, which has now been crushed and subsumed by it in Britain. And I watched it and you know what I remembered? None of it. Yeah. Same here. So I remember-

[00:07:24] I remember that it was in black and white. That's about it. My local video store was called TLA, great video store. Is it gone now? Yep. I think it's a chain that still exists in maybe San Francisco. Maybe. Maybe. Sorry, carry on.

[00:07:39] And sometimes they bounce maybe. But the thing I loved, especially when I was like a nerdy teenager preteen who really, really was really getting into movies was they would organize their movies by director rather than by genre.

[00:07:57] So you could just be like, let me get the next one. Right. Because I'd be like Altman. Let me crack open Altman. And it was like all the Altman was just kind of there. And I can even sort of strategize like reading

[00:08:05] the boxes and going like, what do I want to watch next? Sure. You know? But I would always, I was really into Christopher Nolan. That's- it's funny that you never said this before about the video store.

[00:08:17] Because that's probably one reason you like the director focused approach of this podcast. You're very right. It was drilled into you from a young age. Because I would do that. And I'll say, you know, I- You went to an O-Tor video store. Yes, I did.

[00:08:30] And I also, I kind of consume media in general that way. Uh-huh. Like people go like, oh, any new bands you're listening to? And it's like essentially I will get into a band and then try to listen to everything

[00:08:42] they've ever done before I get into a new band. I get you. Yes. No, I have this sensation as well. Right. Oh, for these four months I'm all about Fleetwood Mac. Yeah. Oh, I'll admit that the TV's, the changing of TV has kind of made me feel different.

[00:08:56] That's changed. Yeah. Where it's like I just can't watch everything anymore. But you're connoisseurs of context. We know this. We love context. And you're also your collectors. Very much so, right? That's true. So you have to collect the whole disogregate. Right. Is that true? That's true.

[00:09:12] And I remember like, you know, I would go, do you remember All Music? I mean it's still a website. Of course. I used to go to All Music all the time. All the time. Did you ever use All Music then?

[00:09:18] I like swore by that fucking website where it would be like, yeah, well the best two albums by X are Wild Gift and Los Angeles. Like those are the five stars. And then, you know, here's your interesting ones. You know, you'd look at the discography.

[00:09:31] It was kind of like IMDb for albums. I guess it still exists when it was used anymore. I think it just was one of those things that did not keep up. It's like format and now it just looks like garbage.

[00:09:39] It was like IMDb but for albums, but there were also reviews in there. Like, you know. I guess albums also just became less of a thing. But like if I was getting into Cheap Trick, I'd look up Cheap Tricks page

[00:09:50] and there you have like in order all of their albums. Sure. There's like an official review and a star rating for each one. I'm looking at it now. Sometimes star ratings were contested, you know? Yeah. And then also like re-releases different versions so you understood what tracks

[00:10:04] existed out there and stuff like that. But like sometimes I get in a band like Cheap Trick and be like, okay, they really only had like 10 years there where they were really in the pocket. I'm only going to buy these six albums.

[00:10:14] And sometimes it would be this sense of like completing everything. And what's weird is that at the time I got really into Nolan, like I was, I flipped out over Batman Begins. Yes.

[00:10:24] And then I went back and watched from Manto and Insomnia and it was like he only had four films at that point. I remember seeing following there on the shelf and being like, oh, this movie looks really small. This was like his real early thing.

[00:10:33] And never watching it until five years ago when they remastered for the criterion collection, they did a screening at the IFC. I went with Sam Rogal, past and future guest of this podcast. Past. And... As you know, he's banned.

[00:10:49] I can't even remember what the opinion was but he's banned. He'll be very happy to hear that you can't remember what the opinion is because he's... I'm listening back through the back catalog again. I'll get to it again, whatever it was. He's genuinely mythed. Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:11:01] He's going to launch a whole campaign, a retrial. Oh God, no more campaigns just if I all listeners do not campaign behind this podcast. Yeah, we don't believe in campaigning in the abstract. That worked once. We went to see if they remastered the film and Nolan presented it.

[00:11:16] Right. Actually, I found some article that's a report of that very screening or the Q&A or whatever. Yeah. So I saw it in a theater with Nolan presenting. It's like a night I remember vividly and also remembered none of this movie.

[00:11:27] Well, look, it's not that memorable a movie. It's a good calling card film. I actually liked it more watching it this time, I think. It's a good calling card film. Like I just saw...

[00:11:36] I feel like once in a while, especially now that I'm a critic and I see a lot of movies, you see these movies where you're like, this guy is going to be big. Right. Like I just know it. This director, there's a lot of panache here.

[00:11:45] Like I mean, I guess Cree-Shia was a movie like that. Sure. Cree-Shia was a better movie than following. That was that felicure. But you know, same kind of vibe, right? Where you're like a lot of talent on display. Van Wilde did the same thing.

[00:11:54] You could tell the wall baker had wall baker. I fucked it up. Becker, you fucked up your awful joke. I mean, you should give this movie a little bit of credit. It went on to become like a syndicated show on like broadcast TV. Hey Ben. What?

[00:12:10] I can't tell if you're kidding or not. What do you mean? The Kevin Bacon show. I'm a suit. It's like about this movie, right? Ben, are you joking? It's just a joke. I mean, I've never watched the show, but it's called following.

[00:12:21] Well for one, you should watch the following because boy, what a stinker. Oh, I think we even talked about it on this podcast once. I think we do. My sister on the tick was on the following. Yes, Valerie Curry. A murder lady. Yeah.

[00:12:36] It was about a man who ran a serial killer cult based around the work of Edgar Allen Poe. Oh, that's totally different. And his acolytes would go around wearing Edgar Allen Poe masks like lighting people on fire and shit. So it's based on the Raven, the Q-Sack movie?

[00:12:50] I mean, like the Raven was based on it. Is the Raven about Edgar Allen Poe himself solving a murder? But it's copycat murder. Right, right. It's like someone's been killing people in the style of Edgar Allen Poe and they're like only one man can solve this.

[00:13:04] Edgar Allen Poe. What a premise. That's terrible. I mean, I thought it was every episode they would break into someone's house and then go on a little adventure. I mean, that's a good show. I mean, you could probably pitch that show. Or anyone out there was an ABC.

[00:13:18] It was Fox. It was Fox Reboot-er. Reboot-er. With my version. You know what the thing about that show was though? What? Kevin Bacon only did it because he'd lost all his money to Bernie Madoff. Correct, he got Madoffed. Because like everyone was like, why are you in this?

[00:13:29] Like surely you don't have to be in this serial killer show. And he was like, no, like, you know, it's good. I want to be in it. And like, it's like revealed like he has, he's, you know, he's struggling right now. He got Madoffed really hard.

[00:13:41] I love Kevin Bacon. You've often referred to him as your favorite actor. He's my favorite actor. Along with Colin. But he was a guy who like, I'd say passed a certain point, like maybe late 90s, early

[00:13:50] 2000s, started like not doing big studio films, doing sort of more interesting stuff. Grabbing parts and bigger things. You know, whatever it was, more independent projects or passion projects. He's had a weird career. He's had a weird career.

[00:14:02] But it makes sense that like he had money from when he was sort of more of a capital A movie star. Yeah. And then he got Madoffed and then he was like, oh fuck, I gotta do some money thing. A lot of people loves Dick. He loves it.

[00:14:14] Yes, he does. Yeah. As do I anyway. I was gonna say. Love his dick. Oh, well, it is a great penis. Sure. No disagreement there. A lot of crew people on the tick worked on following. The following. Worked on the following. Not on this film.

[00:14:29] And they say, well maybe. This film didn't seem to have much of a crew. It was mostly Mr. Christopher Nolan. I mean, I did crafty on it, but you've never asked. How old would you have been like? Nine. Nine years old. If you actually asked me.

[00:14:44] Making grilled cheese sandwiches. If you asked me how my life for once, you would have found that out. Yeah. I definitely don't know much about your life. Nothing. I am a steel box. Man of mystery. Right exactly. Oh, for cool. For all Newman over here. All right.

[00:15:00] Come on. What are you gonna say? Are you still talking about the following? It's a very quick anecdote. I was just gonna say people worked on the following and they said that like Kevin Bacon had this amazing power to any time they'd be like,

[00:15:11] okay, we're ready for Kevin on second. You grab Kevin. He would be there. Wow. It was like he had that's what you call a veteran, but one could call a six cents. Yeah. You mean that you mean the astura of echoes? He had astura of echoes.

[00:15:23] Because that was that was the thing with poor stir of echoes. He did have a star that crushed by the six cents same year. Yeah. If only they had a six cents for moving their release date. They should have anyway. Anyway, I've filmed.

[00:15:35] Released around the same time as following. Following. So do you guys want some Nolan backstory? Love some. Let's do some Nolan backstories. I'm gonna dig into something. 69 minutes long. Yeah. Yeah. Our episode will definitely be longer than the movie.

[00:15:52] Considering we just talked about a TV show that doesn't have anything to do with it for five minutes. Yes. Christopher Nolan, middle name Edward. Oh boy. I'm really digging in deep. What kind of source of context? Born in London. Father and ad executive. He grew up in London?

[00:16:10] Yes. David, did you know him? I didn't. Unfortunately, his mother was a flight attendant and English teacher. He has both he has dual citizenship. I think he means British teacher but go on. Dual citizenship and also spent some time in Chicago. Ben's getting it from you. No.

[00:16:29] Now we all know that he has a younger brother, Jonathan. Jonathan Nolan. So you're going to get into the thing that I want to talk about. Cause I wasn't sure if this is going to be a Marsha Lucas thing. No, no, no. I know about this too.

[00:16:39] But first, just to mention Jonathan Nolan who worked with him has worked with everyone writing several co-writing several of his movies. Most of his films. Memento was based on a short story that Jonathan Nolan wrote and he worked on the, not the first, not the first.

[00:16:50] Oh, you're right. Second and third Batman's. He wrote the script for Interstellar which I believe Christopher then rewrote. That was originally a spec script that he sold that Spielberg was going to direct. We'll get to that. An inception was I think Chris and Chris alone.

[00:17:02] Anyway, and also he made the show Person of Interest, which is a great TV show that was highly underrated. And now he's making Westworld with his wife, Lisa Joy. So we know about Jonathan Nolan brothers. There's an older brother. Oh, Ben, do you know about this? Matthew Francis.

[00:17:17] No, Ben, you're going to walk in flip who went to as the English call it. What the hell is a hilarious word that the English use for jail? The clink. Christopher Nolan's oldest brother is a con artist. Oh, shit. Matthew Nolan, a Chicago resident.

[00:17:41] So I think he went to jail in America. Yeah, because Chris Nolan's father and American Christopher Nolan, I believe was mostly raised by his mother in England. But Jonathan Nolan, I believe was mostly raised by his father in Chicago. I think you're right.

[00:17:55] Jonathan Nolan speaks with an American accent. I think they kind of grew up apart. And I've heard people freak out about this because Nolan Jonathan Nolan will give interviews about Westworld and he has this sort of like, yeah, it's an American accent.

[00:18:06] It's kind of a somewhat muted American accent. And everyone is like, is this like some Nolan game? What's he doing? Is he is he a Jeffrey Wright robot spoilers for Westworld? Sorry.

[00:18:24] But I believe they're mostly raised apart and the sense I've always heard of God and is that the what's the oldest brothers name again? Sorry, Jesus, I already forgot it. What the fuck is his name?

[00:18:36] Matthew, yeah, Matthew Nolan, who was a he you know, he like ran bad checks and stuff. He was like a con artist. And the sense is that he kind of was the one who fell between the cracks. It was like, okay, Chris landed in London. Sure.

[00:18:50] You know, Jonathan landed in Chicago. Chicago, we call it right. Windy City, but not big Chicago. That's of course our good friend to time Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon. Of course, big Chicago Chicago himself. Thank you for referencing that anytime.

[00:19:04] Okay. Hey, just right now, can you reference what's his nickname again? Matthew Michael Shannon. Oh, to time Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon. Yeah, thanks for referencing that. And yeah, right. What happened to Matthew the oldest Nolan? Yes. Arrested in 09 by the FBI at the peak of his success.

[00:19:25] I mean, we're talking a year after the peak of his brother's success to be clear. Pick of his success. I mean, if he was arrested means he was doing some big FBI too. It's not even local. According to the euro. I mean, you heard the joke.

[00:19:37] He can't even get arrested in this town. Matt Nolan could and he did according to this. Matt, Matt, Matt Nolan. I keep thinking it's Michael Matt Nolan. Arrested in February 2009 as he left bankruptcy court in Chicago was charged by the FBI with

[00:19:52] the kidnapping murder of a Florida accountant, a Florida accountant in Costa Rica. He was extradited to Costa Rica and then later he escaped from prison. Nice. And was arrested again and sent back to prison.

[00:20:07] He was also being investigated by the Chicago police for a check kiting scam, whatever that means, where he made a million dollars by cozying up to local banks. Another charge says that he was using his millic claiming to use his military skills quote unquote,

[00:20:21] which I doubt existed to run an international bank collection service. That's how he was trying to get a loan from someone in Costa Rica. So he's like exactly. He's a confidence man. Right. Wait a second.

[00:20:32] I mean this is all alleged and I'm reading it from a Chicago Tribune article in 2000. Maybe he made up the story. Maybe it's part of his grift. He has his own Wikipedia page. It's all about the long. Life and children.

[00:20:42] And I feel like this is something that nobody fucking acknowledges about an inception. They all think it's about Christopher Nolan. Anyway, we'll get to that on. We'll get to that way. I'm looking at a Matt Nolan's Wikipedia page here.

[00:20:54] It also says in 2008 there was an incident where he placed a bomb one bomb each on two different fairies that gave each fairy the opposite. No, but tiny Lester. He intervened and everything was fine. No. Yeah. All right. Good job holding up his. Is that a Kindle?

[00:21:10] It's an iPad. It's an iPad. What? You have an iPad now? I got an iPad now. Congrats. Holding up his iPad is if reading from a legal document. Yes. My Amazon Kindle fire bro. Probably that shoddy workmanship. Well, no, they're a great company. I probably did something wrong.

[00:21:29] It was my fault. I had the gall to. You like jerked off on the Funko page too many times or whatever. Okay. Well, you gentlemen are right. I like a good scam which brings us to maybe discuss the plot unless you want to give a little

[00:21:45] bit more context. Yeah. You not know what you're trying to do getting me David Sims, Mr. Back on track, back on track. We're on track. How do you feel? I just I feel great. I just saw a movie about train, a train that's on tracks. One stopable? No.

[00:22:02] It's called in transit documentary by Albert, you know, males. How do you say his name? Maisel. So it wasn't unstoppable. Good. So I just I want to back up for a second. I'm going to be here as the earth's crust cooled around its molten core. I'm a train.

[00:22:24] Solar system. Picture me stroking with the cape, grabbing that little that lever. Yeah. Yeah. Diverting the train off the tracks because baby, I want to focus in on a word that you threw away like it was nothing. What? Confidence man. Sure.

[00:22:41] People talk about con man conning gets abbreviated so much people don't think about the origins of the word but the idea of a con artist is the fact they're trafficking in confidence. Yes. They instill confidence in people. They exude so much confidence themselves that people trust them.

[00:22:54] They can get away with things. I think all the great confidence man. It was true of Charles Ponzi. Yes. Bernie Madoff who did such a great job taking Kevin Bacon's money. Sawyer from Lost. The Joker. Those, the, carry on. Why so serious himself? Richard T Joker. Yes.

[00:23:16] But I think that is the main thing that Christopher Nolan movies are interested in is the concept of confidence. Can I tell you some more context before we get to the movie itself? Sure. But you understand why I want to lay that seat in the ground?

[00:23:29] I think it's important to a lot of his storytelling. Right. And I think it's important to, yeah, I think you're totally right. This is the part of the magic trick where I go, oh look confidence. Yes. Oh, okay. All right. Now I see.

[00:23:44] Is this going to be the worst mini series ever? I feel like we're making so many jokes about like the structure of his movies. Well, they're famed for their structure. Yeah. No, no, this is going to be great mini series. It's going great so far.

[00:23:54] You don't think so? I think it's a great episode. And also, I think it's... Hey, how do you think this is going Ben? Right. No, but what I think is appropriate for kind of how we've been jumping around is I feel like

[00:24:05] Christopher Nolan, he's like sort of a master of time, right? That's like his wheelhouse is like all of his movies are sort of just like about... He's a time lord is what you're saying. He's definitely a time lord. He is English. Right, right, yes. No, you're right.

[00:24:16] You're right, Ben. He loves to play with time much like yeah. What if they... Because we're waiting to hear who the new doctor is going to be on Doctor Who. What if they just announced it was Christopher Nolan? And he was like, well, I've always wanted to act.

[00:24:26] Yes, it's going to be nice. All right, his uncle worked at NASA. Okay. He loved Star Wars at eight. He made a stop motion animation homage named Space Wars. What a dork. Only nerds like Star Wars. Always wanted to be... Yeah, exactly. What an asshole. Fucking dipshit.

[00:24:45] Always wanted to be a filmmaker from a young age. He moved to Chicago when he was a teen. So I think everyone was in Chicago at some point. He uses Chicago a lot in his films.

[00:24:55] But then he moved back to England at some point as well because he was educated at UCL for university, which is in England probably the best place to go if you want to study film. Okay. And I think he did a lot of film stuff there.

[00:25:07] He met Emma Thomas there who is... Not Thompson. No, not Emma Thompson. Emma Thomas who is his wife and producing partner. And he made some tiny little short films which I've never seen. One of them screened before following when I saw it. They probably showed Doodle Bug. Yes.

[00:25:26] Which was sort of his first... He made two before then, but in 97 he made Doodle Bug. Right. Which is a three minute little movie about someone chasing an insect around the room or something. Okay, so here's what the movie is.

[00:25:37] Jeremy Theobald's story following is in like a rundown flat. Yep. He's trying to catch a bug with a shoe. Sure. And then he finally hits it and then you see that he's a bug and there's a giant shoe in a hand and they're trying to squish him.

[00:25:50] Sounds great. That's like the whole thing. Sounds like men in black or whatever. It's like a far side cartoon. It's like one visual concept. Sure, it's a far side cartoon. It's three minutes long, right? It's three minutes long. It's three minutes long, probably 90 seconds of those are credits.

[00:26:00] It's really short. Sure. I remember being like, oh fuck, Rogal, we're going to get to see a Nolan short. And it was just like, yeah, really fast. So he didn't like... Nolan short, more like a Nolan... ...shart. Oh boy. But that's too... I feel like that's too critical.

[00:26:17] I thought it was fine. I thought it was well crafted. That's great. It's just small. So the thing is, he doesn't really like the British film scene. British film scene's pretty insular. Most British films are only funded with lottery money. There's not a lot of money to take.

[00:26:31] There's like working title. There's the guys who make like the Richard Curtis movies and stuff like that. But there's not a lot of money. No Batman. Literally zero Batman. That's true. So instead he just scrapes together his own money and from family and friends and shit,

[00:26:46] makes this movie, Follow-Away. Shoots it in London over the course of a year on 16 millimeter film. Because he would like have the money to buy one roll of film. Right. They would shoot it for the weekend.

[00:26:58] They would like rehearse a scene to death so they didn't have to do multiple takes. They'd do like one or two takes tops. It was all available lighting. All available lighting. It was all like scouting out locations where he knew there was enough light, you know? Yeah.

[00:27:11] But it was like they'd shoot a role. It had been rehearsed for a while. They'd get there. They'd knock a couple takes out. He'd wait for it to develop. He'd watch it.

[00:27:18] He'd cut it together with what he had before and then maybe like a month later they'd shoot another role. You know, it was very segmented. It was very piecemeal. Everyone kept their day jobs. Right. Emma Thomas and Jeremy Theobald who's the star. They helped produce it. Yeah.

[00:27:33] He did most everything else. Yeah. David Julian did the score. Okay. Who does the score for Memento N4 Insomnia. Oh, interesting. The guy who does the kind of like nice haunted little weird organ scores. Yeah. I love all of this movies, which I like those scores a lot.

[00:27:47] Yeah. This one's a little synthy for my taste, but that's more the resources he had. Yeah. I mean sometimes it's like there's a chase scene and the score is just like some crackling. Right. I feel like the theme's pretty strong.

[00:27:59] It's just it sounds pretty like Casio, Keep Orty. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And the movie does well at the Toronto Film Festival, gets some good little reviews. Like The Times writes it up, you know? And then he's off to the races basically. He's off to the races.

[00:28:15] We'll cover Memento next week. Next week. You know, that's his real calling card, but this was his like calling card to get a calling card. Yeah. Right? I don't know. This was him writing a letter of intent to acquire a calling card. Right. Right.

[00:28:30] I would like to formally request a calling card. Because for no impressions are going to get really boring. Yeah. I feel like he's hard to do it. Look, one of the problems with him is he's very dry. He's so dry. He's so dry.

[00:28:42] He doesn't play into it either. He doesn't like make fun of himself. No, not at all. No. Can I throw my two complaints for the week? Sure. Yeah. Once again, no one should ever make a TV show. Right. You know, Astrix, Tick is going to be great.

[00:28:56] It's a great show. Yeah. No one should ever make it. Uh-huh. Number two, too hot. Things shouldn't be this hot. It's quite hot today. Ben. Do I think it's hot? Yeah. Just looking for you to weigh in. Too hot.

[00:29:08] Well, I'm personally, I'm not that much of a temperature quack. I don't mind. Oh boy. So you're saying we can't call you the temperature queen? No. No, okay. But that was a great Ben moment. But we could say much like you're not Professor Crispy,

[00:29:24] that you're not the temperature queen. I suppose I set myself up for that tonight. How did you not see that coming? I don't know. Well, yeah, I'm not that bothered by the heat. Hey, I think it sucks cancel it. I'm like Ice Age too.

[00:29:41] Baby, I want the meltdown. Isn't the meltdown when it gets hot though? Like, Oh, you're right. I guess it's like the end of the ice age. You want Ice Age one when it's just an Ice Age. No, I want Ice Age four continental drift. That's five.

[00:29:59] It doesn't matter. Collision. That's three. Three is collision course. Three's age of the dinosaurs. Dawn of the dinosaurs. It's probably dawn of the dinosaurs. Four is continental drift. Five is collision course. I want that Ice Age three, baby. I think you're right. Dawn of the dinosaurs. Okay, great.

[00:30:19] That's established. Following. Yeah, so not part of the Ice Age franchise. Not yet. Not yet. Maybe like the Ice Age six will, you know, tease the following somehow. It'll be like Tokyo drift. What if this movie just had Scrat in it?

[00:30:34] What if it was the exact movie you saw in the Miller's, a little Scrat short. Okay, here's the premise of following. He wants that A-core. He does. He wants it. Sometimes he puts it in the wrong place though. 15 years later. I guess. He still hasn't gotten it.

[00:30:52] I haven't seen. I've seen. I saw the first Ice Age. You know why I saw the first Ice Age? Everyone saw it because you were kid. Is that the joke you're going to make? No. What? Because in Britain, the attack of the clones trailer was attached to it.

[00:31:04] Oh, interesting. And we were told like, you want to see the trailer, you got to go see Ice Age. So I took my brother who was still young enough to give a shit about Ice Age. Well, I think, you know, if you're young at heart,

[00:31:14] you're the right age to give a shit about Ice Age. Well, I was 16, so I was not the right age to give a shit about Ice Age. Sounds like you weren't young at heart. But I saw that one, but I have not seen the next four.

[00:31:23] I saw two and I tapped out. Yeah. That's a real mark of quality on the Ice Age franchise. You tapped out. I couldn't stick with it. The premise of following is this. There's a little shithead called the young man. He doesn't have a name.

[00:31:38] No one in this has named played by Jeremy Theobald. Excuse me, one character, isn't it? You're right. Sorry. I'll give. Of course he does. Yeah. He's an aspiring writer. Feels like a, you know, half of a self-portrait, I guess. Yeah.

[00:31:53] He's sort of like a, like a, you know, David Thule's and naked minus the methamphetamines. Right. He's just a shithead. Right. With like floppy hair. Yeah. He's got floppy hair. And he lives in like a dirty flat London. He fancies himself a writer.

[00:32:08] So he's been following people around like, so that he can like observe them and maybe write about them or something. Which of course, you know, cinema is an art form of voyeurism. You're sure? Yes. He's also looking real good with that long leather jacket.

[00:32:25] It's got a long leather jacket. I'm all about the fashion this movie. Let me tell you. Really? I love it. There's leather jacket. There's a lot of suits. The great suits. Nice. Like ill-fitting, but sort of like, like skinny tie. Like I don't know. There's some five shoulders.

[00:32:39] Yeah. There's some five there I'm just into. I actually, it made me want to get a skinny tie and get a new suit seeing this movie. I'd love to see you in both. I'm working on it. Griffin and I were just at David Erlich's wedding. Oh yeah.

[00:32:52] Last weekend. Big, big shout out to David Erlich. Two time guest, yes. Congratulations on his wedding. Here's a hot scoop for you Ben. I was in a suit. That's why I thought of it. Yeah. As were you. David Sims at David Erlich's wedding. I swear this is true.

[00:33:08] I swear this is true. And I wish I had footage, some sort of documentation so people would believe me, but you just have to take my word for it. Our friend David over here raised the roof. Oh, I didn't raise the roof. That's right. He raised the roof.

[00:33:22] Now on the dance floor. Multiple times. Multiple times. One could argue it was maybe one of only two moves he had. Excuse me, I have three moves. Okay. Can I tell you what the three moves were? One was palms flat. Pause, I call them.

[00:33:38] Pause, hands above ear level, like a right around ear level. And then he sticks the figure out and doesn't move. No, no, no. It's mostly pause. The fingers rarely stuck out. But then there's some pointing comes in. The point is if you pull your arms in, you know?

[00:33:52] It was a little like how Killer Croc swims in Suicide Squad. It was a little like this. That's a good look. Yeah, I know. It's great. Okay. Then dance move number two. Flip those hands over. What's happening to the roof? Lift them up. You're raising the roof.

[00:34:06] That's a unique way of raising the roof. It's almost like you're lifting the roof. He was raising it. Working hard. Yeah. You could flip them this way too. Look, he had range. Okay. Sure. Move number three. Yeah. You flip those hands back down. Okay, palms facing the floor.

[00:34:21] But then you push. Ooh, you got to lower the floor. I think I only did that once. At one point David said the floor was getting too high and he had to lower the floor. Oh boy. It was great. We were all incredible.

[00:34:31] We were all dancing like David. I'm a great dancer, guys. I don't know what to tell you. But I swear to God he raised the roof. I did raise the roof. I believe it. And it was high. It was a high roof. It was a barn.

[00:34:43] We were in a barn. We were in a barn. And honestly what we should do is, fans if you want to see a picture of David or a video just bother him on Twitter. Definitely. I will definitely not mute you. He loves that. If you do that.

[00:34:57] He loves it. So we've got this young man. Or we'll invite David to your wedding. Yeah, he'll do it there. If you have a wedding, David can we make this deal here? No. If you go to a wedding you will raise the roof. Oh, I guess so.

[00:35:11] You don't have to accept every invitation. But I will raise the roof if I go. Right. If you go, the gift will bring. As long as there is dancing. I don't want to be at like some solemn church service. Okay, well wait a second.

[00:35:24] I don't think that's raising. I might quietly raise the roof. That's fine. But I think if someone has gone out of their way, if someone has gone out of their way to invite you to their wedding, I don't think it should be on them to have to like,

[00:35:36] DJ rent a dance floor. I think you should raise the roof regardless of what kind of structure. One more question. Sure. One more question. What if it's an outdoor wedding with no structure at all? No structure. No structure. No roof to be raised.

[00:35:52] Now when you let me just clarify, when you say no structure, do you mean that there is both a lack of physical structure and planning house with it? Yes. Is this a lawless chaotic wedding? It's just chaos. Is this Richard T Joker's wedding? Exactly. What is this?

[00:36:07] The Joker. Richard T Joker. No, I know. For Christ's sake. You don't know. Just for the same reason. Let's get out of this bit. Richard T Joker. Oh, just one last question. Yeah, yeah. If a men and night or an Amish person. Great question.

[00:36:19] Would love to attend one. Invites you to a barn raising. I feel oh to an actual barn raising. Yeah, yeah. And then they finish it off and they're going to put the roof on. Would you be into raising the roof with them? That's disrespectful. I think that's disrespectful.

[00:36:30] I think that's a case in which he has to lower the floor. Fine. Okay. Well, then we've just, we've decided on that case, I will lower the floor. David. Here's my final ruling. Sure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If the wedding is unstructured in terms of planning. Sure. And physical.

[00:36:48] Well, this is what I'm saying. If the wedding is well organized, but outdoors. Oh my God. Yeah. You don't have to raise the roof. Fine. If the wedding is disorganized and outdoors, you got to build a roof and raise it. Makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:05] I gotta lead by example. Okay. That's what you're saying. Please invite David to your wedding. David Ellsens on Twitter. Great. Yeah. I won't come. I don't like. Brother fall out on Reddit. That's right. Yes. I believe my flair is back in the rack.

[00:37:18] I finally figured out how to have flair. I'm not gonna lie. Exactly. So this young man, Jeremy Theobald's character. Non-actor. No, but he was. Turn into Nolan's. Yeah. He's in other Nolan movies, but in tiny ones. Just throw him a couple things.

[00:37:31] But I went to his Wikipedia page. He works in like government. Yeah. This is it. There were just buds. Yeah. I think he works on like social city planning or something like that. That's great. Great. He's giving back. I think he's good in this.

[00:37:44] I think he's not bad at all. Especially for someone who's like non-actor. I think he's pretty good. Yeah, I think we might be on the same page regarding the ensemble. Yeah. I think there's some weak links, but I was very impressed with him.

[00:37:56] He's just got a very engaging screen presence. He's got a great voice. He's got a good voice. He does have just like a really good character voice. Sort of quasi playing two characters or two modes of the character because he's playing

[00:38:07] him as this sort of shitty guy and then you're cutting in between to like a later story. Right. Put later part of the story where he's sort of in his suit and he's more dressed up. Yeah, he's good.

[00:38:18] I'm forgetting her name now, but the woman who directed Mustang. Who is that person's name? She's got a three-part name and I totally forget it. I'll look at it. In our mailbag episode we were asked like what directors we want to see make more films. Denise Gamze Ergouven.

[00:38:32] I mean, you know, I'm not sure how to pronounce. Love Mustang. Very excited to see whatever she makes next. I think she just announced something, but I heard this really interesting interview

[00:38:43] where she was talking about there like the six girls in that movie that she had to cast and all of them were not actors really before that. And she said like some of them were kind of want to be actors, came out and auditioned.

[00:38:55] Some of them she like spotted in airports, you know? Yeah. But she said her first round audition was she always had the woman, the young woman come in and would like hide an object in a room and be like, can you find the key?

[00:39:09] And it was because she wanted to see if their physical behavior changed at all in terms of self-consciousness once the camera was rolling. Interesting. Like here's a very basic task. I'm not asking you to read anything. I'm not asking you to play anything out.

[00:39:20] I want to see if I notice any imperceptible or perceptible change in your physical comfort level if there's a camera rolling on you while you do this. It would be for me. Right. For sure.

[00:39:32] Jeremy Theobald is a guy where it's just like a lot of this movie is him looking up, going around rooms, following people around and he does have like a really steady physical presence which sounds like faint praise. I'm interested in your praise.

[00:39:45] I was very impressed with him watching that because that's like the stuff that's especially hard to do I think for someone who has no experience acting, no experience on camera. But still imagine like your guy Pierce. I agree. I agree. Okay. All right.

[00:40:00] So I think I'm into that in general, into your praise. Cool. He follows another man named Cobb. Right. Because the beginning scene he's talking to this older man who I believe is Nolan's father, Nolan's uncle, who is an actual British actor.

[00:40:15] You can tell his name is John Nolan and he is like a guy. He's in a lot of Nolan movies but he's also in. He's got British character, active voice. Like he's got the grand boy. He was actually in 27 episodes of Person of Interest.

[00:40:28] He was like a sort of minor villain in that movie. A little nepotiz there. Yeah, a little nepotiz. A little nepotiz. I mean, one could say it was a bit of nepotiz. Yeah. You know that joke in School of Rock where Jack Black is claiming that he

[00:40:42] almost got hired to be part of Yo-Yo-Mas orchestra? Uh-huh. And he goes like, got it. Nailed the audition. Instead, the job goes to Yo-Yo-Mas nephew, Lil Nepotiz. Right. I do remember that. And for years, I thought he was saying Yo-Yo-Mas nephew was Lil Nepotiz. Lil Nepotiz, ma. Sure.

[00:41:01] Like for 10 years. And then I was like, Remember when he's like, Hello? Yeah. Part of base. That's funny. I might laugh for four straight scenes at that. That's a good movie. Yeah. Have you seen School of Rock, Benny? No. Ben knows I want to talk to him.

[00:41:15] He's lowering his mic. Yeah. No, I haven't seen it. Really? Oh, Ben, you'd love it. Do you like Jack Black? I do. Do you like schools? I, um... You like school movies. Well, here's the thing. I was a band kid and I sort of... It's about band.

[00:41:29] But I sort of have this weird relationship to band because I think it was like a thing that was good for me, but it also made me feel like someone of an outcast because band kids don't fit in with the cool kids.

[00:41:39] This is what School of Rock's about. He goes to these band kids with these nerds and goes like, You're next door neighbors with rock stars. You're so close to being a fucking rock star. Chill out, you got a base. All right. I'll check it out.

[00:41:51] What was your instrument? I played trumpet. Also trombone. Also tuba. Also French horn. The brass. I also was able to play tenor saxophone, clarinet. You could play clarinets? Jesus Christ. How could you do all this? Why aren't you a musician? I can read music. That's great.

[00:42:08] And you can work those reeds. I could. I could get the reeds real wet. Oh, okay. Come on. And what do you call a brass? You don't call it a reed, right? What do you call it? Like on a trumpet? What do you call it? Mouthpiece. Mouthpiece, right.

[00:42:22] Yeah. I had a good embouchure. Like positioning of your mouth when you play the different brass instruments. Stop turning this podcast into some sort of fucking dirty fuck-cast. You know what? I'll bring the trumpet in one time. You let me know when I'll bring my trumpet in.

[00:42:36] That sounds great. Would you say that in your high school... Do you want to do a new theme song? Like Ben on the trumpet? Yeah. But wait, David, this is very important. I'm about to say...

[00:42:44] Ben, would you say that back in your high school days you got down to brass tax? Would you say that you... I think this was very important. I got down to brass tax. Ben, this is very important. This is Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Okay.

[00:43:06] So he meets this guy called Cobb. Ooh, interesting. Like the salad. And also like... The main character of Inception. The Inceptionator himself. And a similar character one might say... Richard T. Inception himself. Who plums into people's dreams. Yes. This character does it more literally by plumbing their apartment.

[00:43:27] Yes. But what is an apartment if not the place where dreams are made? True. And as he learns, everyone has a box. Yes. And he opens it. Yes. And what's in it? Stuff. Secrets. Things you can steal. So I would say your problem with following...

[00:43:47] The problem with following I guess is Cobb. Because he should be this like insanely charismatic character. Right. Because one, he does something that makes no sense, which is he breaks into apartments, doesn't steal a lot of stuff mostly just kind of like rifles things around and like to

[00:44:04] freak people out. Yeah. And he's like, it's fine. No one's going to care. That's right. But that's the movies about confidence as a currency. Sure. But he should be super confident. I mean, super charismatic. Sure. But also he's a liar. He is a liar.

[00:44:23] And he's pulling a fast one on our main character in some ways. Shades of Trump. Not to get too political here. You're saying that Cobb believes in fake news? Yes. There is that scene where he holds up a newspaper and yells, sad.

[00:44:45] And I think that this guy, Alex Hall, who never made another movie. Yeah. This is only credit roll. He's not like the worst. No, I think he's fine. He's fine. He's got an affect that's okay. Your point is imagine if this role was played by Tom Hardy. Sure.

[00:44:59] Imagine if you have someone. Imagine if you have someone. I totally get why you would get sucked into this guy's world. Right. Because the whole point is this guy is getting sucked into Cobb's world. Right. And of course that's what Cobb's trying to do.

[00:45:10] He's trying to suck him into his world so he can play him as a patsy. Yes. Right. He wants to be... There's a twist. He wants to be the producer bend to that guy's reed instrument. Exactly. And then apart from John Nolan, who's the cop. Yeah.

[00:45:26] The only other actor in this movie is Lucy Russell, who's a real actress. Right. She's in stuff. She was in... She was in Tony Erdman. Exactly. I was going to say. And she was... Yeah. She's great. She's been around. She's the girl. Yes. And she's, you know... Oh.

[00:45:43] She's her character's name. The guy's got his eye on her. What? You don't think she's well rounded? You don't think it's a well rounded performance by her? By her character? But, you know, I mean this gets to something that is...

[00:45:58] You know, Nolan's detractors will throw this out as the first sort of strike, which is his movies are very exposition heavy. And part of it is because he likes these sort of LeBrenthian plots, these complicated plots

[00:46:14] where he needs people to explain the structure so that he's able to upend it. He has a lot of explaining. He's got a lot of explaining. A lot. A lot. Here's the other element to that though. I do think it's not just like, oh, well sloppy.

[00:46:29] This is the only way he knows how to convey this information. I do think there's an element too where like Christopher Nolan likes hearing people explain stuff. I think he does. I think he's also pretty good at shooting and writing it.

[00:46:42] Right, but I don't think it's just like, well, I gotta set all this up. The only way to get it out of the way is to have one scene where a character explains everything. I think he finds people who know what they're talking about very dramatically engaging.

[00:46:54] Whether or not you do as well probably will dictate your mileage on how much you enjoy Christopher Nolan movies. I agree. But this is certainly a movie where a lot of the movie is Cobb either explaining

[00:47:04] how they're going to execute the thing they're about to do next or explaining his theories on how people work. You know? Yes. He's Cobb explaining. Humanity. A lot of Cobb explaining. And I think the guy does a solid workman like job.

[00:47:18] What you're saying is if you had someone who was a real kind of movie star. Well, here are your... The way Nolan works with, I mean, you know... Well, here are your explainers in the Nolan if you think about it, right?

[00:47:28] Like Guy Pearce does a lot of explaining in a momentum. Michael Cain. Michael Cain is Mr. Splainer. One of the best... In the prestige and the Batman movies. Like a guy who can make any dialogue sound natural and organic and emotional. Totally agreed.

[00:47:41] Obviously Leonardo DiCaprio does just a heroic amount of explaining and inception. Yeah. I mean, he's basically a walking like manual in those movies. Yes. But everyone does a lot of explaining in that movie. In that movie.

[00:47:54] And you know, even in Somnia, Al Pacino does a lot of explaining. Although that's kind of the point is that he's supposed to be this like old dog. And he's like, is there a copy? But anyway, he does do a fair amount of explaining.

[00:48:08] Interstellar, he kind of divvies it up. It's kind of an ensemble Splainer movie. Because David Guy asks he does the big scene that everyone always talks about. So good. That scene's also like peak Nolan doing explaining really well. And you remember his character's name in that movie.

[00:48:23] Jesus, I should know his character's name. Romely. Romely. You're right. It's like the only character I move with my sister's name. Anyway, Following. We'll get to all these movies. Yeah. We're going to get to all of those movies. We'll get there eventually. We're not going to do interstellar.

[00:48:39] No, I'm kidding. We totally. But following in following cobs explaining how he likes to break into apartments and look at people's shit. Right. To take it something and they know why it's gone or what's his what's his line is. Is like a lot his mantra that he repeats.

[00:48:56] At the beginning. I mean, you take it away from them so they realize why they wanted it in the first place. Whatever the fucking thing is. Look, the point of the movie is the structure is wacky. He's playing with a wacky structure.

[00:49:07] So beginning of the film we got him with John Nolan. He's talking to him. He's sort of clean cut looking, you know, You take it away and you show them what they had. Exactly.

[00:49:17] And this sort of scene where you can't tell what the dynamic is between the two of them, you know, is this a therapist situations is an interview. What's going on here? And then there are a lot of little pieces at the beginning that are all out of

[00:49:29] order, but you're seeing our main hero with a couple different looks. We're seeing him with long, ratty hair. Yes. And with a close crop in the suits or those hozzly babes. You're seeing him talk to this woman. You're seeing him talk to Cobb.

[00:49:46] You're getting a sense immediately of oh we're just being shown stuff. Right. Later this all going to tie together for us. So what's the plot? The plot is like he while doing this develops a crush on this blonde woman because they break into her apartment.

[00:49:59] I think pictures of her everywhere and he like steals her underwear and stuff. He's a very like kind of isolated, introverted aspiring author who's trying to live vicariously through other people and trying to do this vague sort

[00:50:13] of research which is also just kind of like procrastination from doing anything. Exactly. I feel like Nolan kind of hates this guy. Like he's like fuck this guy, he's not a real right. You know it's he's self loathing.

[00:50:25] I think like he's like this guy is just a creep. This guy feels to me like who Nolan feels like he would have been if he wasn't smart. You know what I'm saying? Like this is like the shittier path he could have gone down.

[00:50:37] Where Nolan's like what an idiot I observe con artist from a distance. You know this guy has to follow them. What a fucking dance. Right. I like it again. Right. I like it if you go home. Christopher Nolan. Hey Ben, how are you doing? Are you okay?

[00:50:53] I'm great. I'm great. Christopher. Yes. I don't I disagree with you. I think that that character is immersing himself into his art and I think that from a distance being all snooty tooty about it is like sort of obnoxious to me.

[00:51:09] So I just want to say that to you. Wait. Who's being oh you're talking to Christopher Nolan. David let me have the floor for a second. Well, Bruce Ben aka Ben Dooser. No, no, no, no. Okay. Get out of here.

[00:51:24] I think that the thing that comes up several times in the film is he doesn't seem to actually be writing anything. No. He's kind of immersing himself into this lifestyle which I think is because he'd rather be someone like that. He'd rather be someone like that.

[00:51:36] I think that's the thing that comes up several times in the film is he doesn't seem to actually be writing anything. Because he'd rather be someone like that. He'd rather be someone who's actually actualizing living in the world and he sees Cobb.

[00:51:46] Cobb is this guy who's presented as being a man of ultimate confidence. Yes. He is so in control of his own domain. He's an assured man. Right. Even if he does something weird. He's becoming a convert. Yes.

[00:51:59] I like the scene probably like a third of the way through the movie whatever it is, you know where they go to someone's apartment and the guy is like he's a writer. You know like this guy's like a writer.

[00:52:10] He works in a bank, you know and Cobb's like no this is like the apartment of a loser. Like this guy's on the dole. He doesn't even have a word processor. He just is typewriter. I bet he never writes and you realize. This guy's a fucking amateur.

[00:52:22] Of course it's that. The guy's apartment. Like it's never said at that moment but it is obviously that's what's happening. He's trying to get Cobb to evaluate his life. Right. So what Cobb's whole thing is everyone wants me to do this.

[00:52:35] They want someone to look at their shit. Right. Which I mean sure fine. It's a take. It's a take. Exactly. At least he's got one in this takeless world. Yeah. God, I wish we had some more takes on these things. Not enough takes. Yeah.

[00:52:49] But of course there's a fast one being pulled. We should we should acknowledge. Right. Well what starts as just a following a sort of shadowing up this man into his world very quickly leads to the young man kind of getting involved

[00:53:00] more and more his hands getting a little bit dirtier and dirtier you know in these. Sure. Incidents. Yeah. So he's he's touching stuff. He's moving stuff. He's lifting stuff. Yeah. Panties. They do talk about pawning stuff. They occasionally have a point.

[00:53:16] So they are probably making a little bit of money. But I'm saying he no longer has you know. I yeah I get it. He couldn't just say like right. Yeah. And the reason for that is. Well you want to get to the twist. Yeah. Okay.

[00:53:34] So you're dead the whole time. It's a sequel to Unbreakable that's been dead the whole time. The entire time the movie is dead. The movie is dead. The movie is dead. At the end you you zoom out and you realize that the film itself is in a coffin.

[00:53:45] Yes. And they go. Don't don't don't don't don't don't don't. At funerals. No it's that Cobb wants the guy to start doing Cobb stuff all by himself. Wait a second. So we can frame him. David. Yeah. I invited you to a funeral. Would I raise the roof?

[00:54:06] Would you get conflicted? Would you accidentally raise the coffin? No. Oh no. Because that's the opposite direction. It's supposed to go down. Yes. Funerals are very serious. I would never I would never behave badly at a funeral. I swear to make that very clear.

[00:54:18] I can always dig the ground. I mean if I were a grave digger. Hard to do with flat palms though. Right. You're right. Yep. David's a flat palmsman. Sorry about that. Griffin made so much fun of my dancing. It was so good. I was just watching so charmed.

[00:54:35] Yeah. I'm a great dancer. Great dancer. The twist is right. He believes he, No go ahead sir. Well he believes he's taking the initiative. This morning he's still stuff from. This guy's starting to copy Cobb. Right. He gets sort of develops a crush on the idea of her.

[00:54:51] The photos of her start seeing her. Realizes she's a former. She's sort of a model but was maybe also a call girl. Yeah. And it's sort of wrapped up with some kind of a gangster who's like a ball. Ball dude. I hate bald men.

[00:55:08] And you see some stories she tells about this time that the ball guy murdered a man in front of her with a hammer. Right. And you see that she's a witness. He's like, ah, hitting this guy with a hammer out. And it's a little creepy. Little creepy.

[00:55:23] She says to him at a certain point that he is blackmailing her with photos that he has of her there in a safe. Yes. And if someone were able to steal those photos from the safe. She'd be free. She'd be free.

[00:55:35] And he, the white knight that he is decides with the techniques that he's sort of learned from his old pal Cobb. He's going to rope Cobb into it and say, look, here's the deal. You help me get in there. Help me break the safe. I take the photos.

[00:55:50] You take the money. Yep. But what's going on? Who grift within a grift? Yes. There's a grift within a grift. What it really is, is they just need this guy to be the patsey for a frame job. Yes. Because Cobb and the lady are together. Having fucks.

[00:56:08] They've had a few. They've had a fuck or two. And the bald guy is involved in some way as well. I guess they're trying to get out from under the bald guy, but they're going to use the Jeremy Theobald character to do that. Right.

[00:56:22] Maybe they killed the bald guy. Maybe. I've already forgotten. Two hours ago. I just remembered the plot. What it is, is right. It's Cobb. The blonde is blackmailing the bald guy. Cobb's working for the bald guy and fucking the blonde. He frames Theobald's character, murders the blonde with

[00:56:44] a hammer and makes it look like Theobald murdered the blonde. And then he gets out with the money. But what originally, so he thinks that he's doing this all of his own volition to help her. Yeah. And he finds out that.

[00:56:56] It sucks that the main characters have a name, FYI. Yeah. This is why this is all confusing. Very confusing. He finds out, oh, Cobb and the lady are in cahoots. They are having all the fucks. Right. I'm upgrading it. We said they had a couple.

[00:57:12] I think they're having all of them. They've had a few. Stick to that. And Cobb broke into a home, saw a dead body. Right. That's right. He's walking out of it. That's the thread we were missing. So he needs someone to be like presumed as like the

[00:57:30] possible murderer. The Cobb's no Cobb. They know Cobb. He's up to no good. There was a witness at the scene of the crime. She saw him walking away. He didn't kill that woman, but how is he going to be able to defend himself from that accusation? Sure.

[00:57:42] So he trains the young man to grift. And to behave like Cobb. And wear suits and get a haircut so that he looks enough like Cobb that they can frame him with a crime. And the woman reveals this to Theobald.

[00:57:57] Now he feels like, oh, I got the upper hand. I was going to get fucked, but now I figured it out. I'd figured out how to fuck. Right. Like fuck style. Right. Although when he was breaking in and stealing the photos, which were not of her, were random

[00:58:10] photos in the safe. He also attacked a man with a hammer. Right. So he's now implicated in two hammer crimes. So he's like, I got away before. Hammer crime. Stop. Hammer crime. Yeah. Do you like that? Hey Ben, do you like that? Yeah. Thank you.

[00:58:30] Ben was shaking his head. Ben was not interested in that. Ben Hosley is not a fan of that. It wasn't a good bit. No, it was not a good bit at all. It was terrible. Exactly. Ben Hosley didn't like it. Let's do this all day.

[00:58:55] One man, one producer, a critic if you will, didn't like a bit. The finest critic. In a world where Ben Hosley disliked bits, but it's this world. All right. I'm seeing landline. As he didn't like that bit. What are you saying?

[00:59:17] While we were doing all that, I booked a screening to Landline, the new Gillian Robespierre joints. Oh cool. Is it about old school phones? I believe it is set in the 90s. Oh shit. You guys heard of this decade? You guys heard of this shit? It's set inside.

[00:59:30] The 1990s? It's set inside a phone cord. It's like Wreck-It Ralph. Yeah. Except on the inside of a phone. You know the emoji movie is set in a phone, right? Yeah. Yeah, you know about that, right? The emoji movie, Express Yourself.

[00:59:42] You know it's about a guy who wants to be a meh emoji? Yeah, but he's got too many emotions to be a meh. He's not just a meh. Do you think he's going to learn that it's okay to have more than one emoji face?

[00:59:52] Well yeah, with his friends Jailbreak played by Anna Faris and High Five emoji played by James Corden but the High Five's got a band-aid so they're outcast. They're misfits. They don't belong on the phone. I swear to God, it's one of those

[01:00:05] things where I'm like, I never ever say this. I never think this. But I could have written this movie. Yeah. You know what I mean? When you're looking at it, you're like, fuck that's all it took to pitch! It was just the emojis that are

[01:00:16] outcasts and they got to figure out an anchor in this. You know what else is crazy? What? Emojis have no copyright. Right. There's nothing required to. They're language. They're language. They're a term, they're unicode. That's why there's so much emoji merchandise now. Why everyone's selling it.

[01:00:30] Because anyone can do it. Because it's just a basic set of aesthetics. It would be like having a letter G balloon for Griffin. Right. Right. They're not owned by anyone. But this, whoever this fuck head is who wrote the emoji movie and I'm probably going to find out

[01:00:42] he's a friend of mine or something. It was me! It was David Simpson. It was me. I just hate myself. Also, I think that's a good thing about the movie. I think that's a good thing about myself. Also, congrats to David Ehrlich on writing the emoji movie

[01:00:53] in addition to getting married this weekend. No, it was three different people. Oh, Mike White is credited. I'm sure he did punch up. Yeah. Tony Leondis is the writer and director. Okay. And then Eric Siegel is the other credited writer based on emoji.

[01:01:09] So I think it was either Siegel or Leondis, but like there was a deadline story that was like hottest pitch in town, the emoji movie. And it was like they have. I remember that. Yeah. They have no copyrights. There's nothing like proprietary about what they're selling.

[01:01:22] They just claimed we cracked emojis as a narrative. Well, that's the thing. It's like they were just the first student to be like, we're doing we're doing the emoji movie. No one else do it. It's us. But it was apparently this thing. They went around to every studio

[01:01:33] and were like gotta ask fast because everyone else wants it. If you want the emoji movie, you got to bid fast. And people were like fighting over it. Yeah. It's going to make a lot of money. I think it's going to. Do you? I do. It's not.

[01:01:46] It's going to do well. This is the locus point in American history. It's the end of movies. It's like opening against like fucking what's it opening against? Oh no, it's got it all. It's got that whole weekend to itself. It's opening against atomic blonde boy. Yeah. Similar audiences.

[01:02:01] That's the thing. That is their movie and it's a week after Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan. Spoiler alert. It's Dunker. Maybe we should do the emoji movie as our bonus episode. Yeah, let's do that. All right. So following. So yeah, at the end he gets in trouble.

[01:02:20] The cops get him. Can we just quickly mention the Patrick Stewart plays poop? Yeah, he plays poop. He's being advertised. Yep. I've seen some billboards. Yep. Smelvin himself. A poop emoji. All right. So you know a lot about it. No, I just there was. There's a.

[01:02:34] No, I just. Oh boy. There's a company that makes emoji toys and they sell one of the of the poop emoji. It's literally an action figure of just a pile of poop in a box with a smile on it. It's called Smelvin and I've

[01:02:46] been trying to figure out whether Smelvin as a name is canonical across all of emojis or if it's just this one company. Oh boy, how are you feeling about this episode? I'm going to keep asking you Ben. I can see him. That's why right now. Yeah.

[01:03:00] It's it's freaking me out. Well, because I'm in the room now with you guys. Yeah. And what do I think about this episode? Um, you know, I might actually have to cut it out. The whole whole. No, no, just stuff. No, no.

[01:03:14] I think you got to make it longer. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, put some stuff in. You want me to add stuff extra stuff? Yeah, double the episode. Interesting. Double the whole episode. You know, out of order. What if you cut this episode out of order? I could do that.

[01:03:28] Okay. So here I'm going to give you a piece right here that you can cut into the beginning. Okay. Not the very beginning but like five minutes in. Sure. Okay. This is the sound of me spitting a latex glove out of my mouth. Why is this necessary?

[01:03:44] It's in. It's out of order. Out of, oh, it's out of order. Here's him spitting out a latex glove and then an hour later you realize the glove end up in his mouth because someone put it there. The mystery of the gloves. Right.

[01:03:59] When he gets in the fight with Cobb cause Cobb's like you fucking that lady who doesn't have a name. The blonde. At the end of the fight, he puts the glove in his mouth and you're like, oh, I guess that's where the glove.

[01:04:09] The stuff with the lady is tough, tough kind of film bro stuff. Definitely. Her monologues are not that well written. No, it's I mean this is him trying to do like a femme fatale character but in a more modern less stylized setting in which

[01:04:22] her transparency as in terms of characterization is more glaring. Well also when yeah, and when someone says to her like were you a call girl for that guy and she doesn't go like, haha maybe she's like shut up. Yeah. So that's how it's modern. Right.

[01:04:39] She's like every bad thing, every bad assumption you could make about me based on my gender is true. You know he made three noir movies in a row. He makes this, he makes Pimentel, he makes Insomnia. Those are all noir guys. It seemed like that was a thing.

[01:04:52] Neon noir. Yeah. He's bringing it back. Right. Like he was fucking what's the name the Red Rock West guy. You know the last temptation, last seduction guy. Why am I getting all these titles wrong? John Dahl. John Dahl is his name. Last seduction is a good movie.

[01:05:07] Haven't seen it. It seems like Christopher Nolan was maybe going to be a better John Dahl. No for sure. He's like, yeah, man begins which I guess it has some noir elements in that a lot of it takes place at night. The suit is black.

[01:05:18] But you know then he becomes Black and noir. After Insomnia he becomes like Hollywood's like last like widescreen director. Right. Like he's the guy who's holding on to this. Right. Well we've like talked about these kind of like handshakes we try to set up sometimes

[01:05:30] between our mini series. For the listener, Griffin is holding his hands together. Yeah. Like handshake. Nolan kind of is weirdly the heir apparent to Spielberg in terms of status even though in terms of style he's very different. But I feel like the place he

[01:05:42] holds within the film culture is very equivalent to Spielberg at his peak. Agreed. Agreed. He's definitely the closest we've got to that. He becomes this weird clinical version of Spielberg because I think for after Lord of the Rings that rap was like here it is finally

[01:05:58] Jackson Peter Jackson is the first director probably since Spielberg maybe James Cameron but probably since Spielberg who like a lot of people know his character and his character and his character. And then he becomes like a character. And then he becomes like

[01:06:09] a character who like a lot of people know his name Art and Commerce combined. And then he you know he kind of fucked it up which we could talk about one day maybe but whereas now I think Nolan he's the one guy you can be

[01:06:19] like from director Christopher Nolan and that's the star of the movie. Yeah I mean look at Dunker. Yep. You know you got Tom Hardy as your biggest star in the movie but it's very much an ensemble piece. Oh very much. It's not being advertised with any actors,

[01:06:33] actors, friends, and all that. Right. And that's a big movie that's being released and we talked about our own private Ryan up so how crazy was that movie came out in July was a blockbuster and we were like there's never going to be another thing like that again.

[01:06:46] And Dunkirk is like that. It's like a sober adult war drama. Yes. Coming out in the middle of the summer that everyone's expecting is going to do crackerjack business and it doesn't even have a Tom Hanks in it. It doesn't even have an Edward Burns in it.

[01:07:00] Maybe it does. We don't know. Ed Burns is unfamous enough that he could have a small role in Dunker. What if Ed Burns is one of like 21 year old British kids next to Harry Styles. Hey guys. Hey. To Ed Burns. Yeah, look I'm definitely from London. Brooklyn.

[01:07:17] How do you do whatever it burns? Edward Burns just kind of constantly sounds like his laryngitis right? It's like, come on. Yeah, it's kind of like that except I just cannot like what the fuck did I can't remember an Ed Burns line. I can't believe we can't

[01:07:28] do good at Ed Burns impressions. He's so distinctive. Yeah. So following. Oh yeah, the movie following. Yeah, you want to hear some other things about Ed Burns. He was burgled Nolan. And that was one of his reasons for writing this movie. Interesting. He realized that there was

[01:07:45] nothing keeping this burglar out. He'd smashed open his like plywood door. He was like, it's just the veneer of social grace is all that's keeping us in our little hamster wheels. One man dared breakthrough and steal my TV or whatever. A language of voyeurism.

[01:08:02] Can I tell a quick story? Please. So you burgled Christopher Nolan. It was you. It was me the whole time. 1998. You caught me. At the end of following, it turns out that in fact who was conning who with layers. There's so many like a like

[01:08:19] a dip for chips. Well, Cobb was conning the guy. Right. But also the woman because he murdered her. He conned her right out of her life. He's top a con list. Woman's in the middle of con list. Guys at the bottom of con list.

[01:08:32] Top a con is is top middle con is lady. Bottom cob is con bottom con is Cobb's top con. Jesus fucking Christ. Chaka con. All right, enough. Hey, could you could you satirize this movie and make it about Twitter? Yeah. Oh, because you're following. It's called a Twitter

[01:08:52] following. Yes. Don't at me. So this film he makes it. Yeah. But we mentioned we've established the fact that Cobb steals her life. Yeah, he kills her with a hammer. The ultimate theft. Yeah, it kills her with a hammer because at the end scene,

[01:09:07] which is the one scene where I think Jeremy Thayerbald's maybe out of his death as an actor. Yeah, it's he's out of his one scene. That's the one where John Nolan, the cop is like, hello, governor, you've got killed a bird. Right. Because talk like that.

[01:09:21] This whole kind of conversation they've been having seemed pretty silly. And then he's like, you know, I've seen them and having seemed pretty civil. Yeah, he's like, oh, then I was following people because of Cobb. He had a And this is why I'm confessing Cobb's murder.

[01:09:36] And they were like, well, we've never heard of this cop guy. No murder matches what you just said. No open cases like that. But interesting, that woman you've been talking about was murdered by the hammer that had your fingerprints over it, which you've already admitted used to hit

[01:09:51] someone else. We know you were there. Two kinds of blood on it. One was hers. So this all lines up off to the pokey with you. The pokey is what they call prison. That's the word I was looking for earlier. And the final shot is Cobb

[01:10:04] in slow motion. He looks towards the camera and then someone sort of passes in front of him. He vanishes into the crowd. What? Where'd he go? But this scene that is kind of complicated in terms of what they're asking out of Theobald as an actor

[01:10:15] is that he realizes the level, the depth of con that he's about to All of the cons crash upon him. But that there is I think this moment what Nolan Tranny get at is that he almost is more impressed than anything else by the artistry of what

[01:10:28] happened around him. There's this weird perverse sense of like, God, it's beautiful. Like it all lined up. I get that. And of course that's Nolan's whole thing in his movies is to do that. Well, right. Is that essentially he like lays like out this whole Rube Goldberg machine

[01:10:43] and then the final act at the movies. He just like, you know, he hits the car and you watch it like loop the loop and it, you know, does all this bullshit and this is the movie like call his own shot. Right.

[01:10:56] He tries to call his own shot but his Rube Goldberg machine is mostly him just like pushing a hot wheels down the road, right? And it just like crazy loops. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's fine. It's a little like, yeah, it's a little candy box of a movie.

[01:11:08] It's one of those movies where like these movies I see sometimes like, you know, if I saw at a festival if I saw in a slam dance which is where it premiered the slammiest of dances. I would probably be like, oh, this is pretty well made.

[01:11:18] Like, I get it. Neat little Hitchcock movie great. Like good job. Like that would be a great way to do it. I think I'm going to do my reaction to it. Yeah, I'll say, I also, I just love better than praying with anger by a long shot. Definitely.

[01:11:31] It's better than Jurassic World. It's better than Jurassic World. Sure. By a long shot. It's better than like, but is it as good as I feel like there's oh, is it as good as Pie? No. No. Pie is an excellent movie made on a similar budget

[01:11:44] and I were talking about this atmosphere. Right. What are you talking about this? Well, David, much like Christopher Nolan, I've thrown a bit of earlier when Ben made his joke about this show being adept into the television series, The Following. And I acted like

[01:11:57] I couldn't tell if Ben was joking or not and then laughed heartily. Okay. Well, in fact, I had heard that joke before David because yesterday I was walking around this very neighborhood and happened to be passing by. There's a band on a smoke break outside of

[01:12:10] this very building where we're recording right now. Okay. Almost seemed too perfect. How the fuck is going on? Are we doing this for every episode? And Ben and I talked a little bit about following, which we had both just rewatched and he made that joke and I said,

[01:12:24] Ben, that joke's really funny. Well, first I said I can't tell if you're joking or not. That's really unclear. If you're joking, it's kind of funny. Okay. If you're not joking, it just seems like a misunderstanding. Were you like on auditions yesterday? Well, my audition was

[01:12:40] very close by. So I walked by Ben, he told me the joke and I said, here's the grift. I'm going to pretend that I haven't heard that joke before. Wait, that was the entirety of the grift? I'm on air tomorrow and I'll act. I'd never heard it before

[01:12:53] and you were none the wiser. You need to put the noise in again there. Wrong. Yes. It was almost too perfect. What does that mean it was almost too perfect? In this context. It means that the quality of the setup was almost too perfect. You know though,

[01:13:14] the circumstances were near perfect. This is so inconsequential you literally could be making this up right now. But I'm not and that's why it was almost too perfect. Great job guys. Because if it had seemed more consequential you would doubt the veracity but it's so banal and uninteresting

[01:13:32] that you would never second guess it. Which means I got away with the perfect crown. Great. Great. Hiding a bit with the perfect crime. I pretended to laugh at a joke that I had already heard. A crime of perjury. If you laugh if you rewind the tape

[01:13:50] you'll remember I said Ben I can't tell if you're joking now or not. I knew he was joking because I had heard the joke already. This is I would argue our worst bit since Europa since the debates over Europa. I don't even remember what episode that's on.

[01:14:06] All right. I love that moon way more than you know. Actually actually actually this is related did you see today that NASA found two new moons of Jupiter. Well yes I heard that immediately because I'm the biggest fan of moon. But I have a Google

[01:14:18] or you know how many moons Jupiter has now. 69 it just got bump to 69 baby and Uranus must be jealous and Uranus must be jealous and Uranus must be jealous. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Do you know any drops of Jupiter that Hoenni traps Jupiter has? Oh yeah boy.

[01:14:42] I mentioned train earlier. Yes. I saw the train movie. It was good. It's about movie about train the band. No. No I would not see such movie. I'm tweeting this to you right now. Ben. Okay great. About Jupiter's moon 69 moons. Right. Then I ran into each other

[01:15:02] in the stream yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's up? We talked about Darren Aronofsky and Ben was saying that he prefers pie to this and I was saying I feel like the difference between the two of them is Darren Aronofsky knew exactly what kind

[01:15:15] of filmmaker he wanted to be and he knew he had limited resources and he designed a movie at the full powers of what kind of film he wanted to make to those limited resources. Yeah for sure. Christopher Nolan used a movie to figure out

[01:15:25] what kind of filmmaker he was. That's probably true. I mean the other difference is pie is not Darren Aronofsky's worst films. Worst films in fact it's one of his best films Yes. Whereas this is Christopher Nolan's worst film. And if I was a film director

[01:15:37] I'd probably be happier with the latter, not the former being true. Sure. I disagree. But we'll get to those ranks. You think pie is one of his worst films? No, no, no. On this being Nolan's worst film. You think he's made a film worse than this? Yes.

[01:15:50] There is only one candidate. Yep. And we'll get to it. I mean to me, no. No. That movie is interesting. This movie is not interesting. It's fine though. It's fine. Find a little movie. I think that movie is interesting. Well we'll talk about that later. Look, looking ahead.

[01:16:04] That is following. Don't you want to play the box office game? I do. I'm not saying the same of the movie. I'm saying the proper conversation. Yeah. And this is, it came out in one theater. Yes, in New York City. In New York City only.

[01:16:18] And you said that this is... We've covered this weekend. A weekend we've covered already. So now the challenges can I remember? What weekend it was? And can I recall the information that's already been revealed to me at some previous point in time? Well, I'm going to tell you

[01:16:31] the date. Okay. And you'll probably know. Give me the date. April 2nd, 1999. April 2nd. Oh, so it was made in 1998 then come out until 1999. Correct. April 2nd. It debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 98. Okay. So April, 1999, we're like a month away from when Phantom

[01:16:53] Manus drops. True. The first film in the Phantom Manus trilogy. True. So... Number one is a new movie. Number one is a new movie. We have discussed this very list. We've discussed it in a one off or a mini series. Mini series. Okay.

[01:17:08] So it is not a James Cameron film. It is not a film by Cameron Crow. No. It is a film by Stevie Spielberg. No. It is not a film by M. Nitechamalon. No. It is a film by the Wachowskis. Correct. It's called The Matrix. Yes, you did it.

[01:17:26] There you go. It's the first weekend of The Matrix. Okay. So 27 million. That's why we've covered this weekend before because it's The Matrix weekend. And I remember... Number two is another new movie which you wanted to see more than The Matrix. And I thought was going to

[01:17:40] outgrow us The Matrix and it was one of the things I hate about you. Right. And number three is a remake of a comedy called... A remake of a comedy called... A remake of an old comedy, old-ish comedy. Out of towners? Correct. I also saw that weekend

[01:17:52] opening with it. Yes. And then number four is a mob comedy called... Analyze this. And number five is the one that you really took a long time to guess last time we did this. Oh, geez. It's a sort of dramedy starring an Affleck. Oh, Forced in Nature? Yes.

[01:18:06] Yeah. Now, so with that out of the way... Yeah, done. I think you to the weekend that for some reason Box Office Mojo links me to because it actually has following like... It actually has it listed. Okay, but it's the incorrect weekend but we're going to play it.

[01:18:21] Is that what you're saying? It has its gross listed on this weekend for some reason, which is two weekends later, April 16th. This film grossed a total of $65,000? I mean look, Tidy Profit. When you move in it costs $6,000. I mean, but you had to take it to...

[01:18:34] He had to take it to... Oh no, I'm sorry, I made more than that. It made $240,000. I know. Worldwide. But you got to pay for all those festival entry fees. Exactly, I was going to say you got to pay to submit it to Slamdance. Yeah, those Slamdance fees

[01:18:46] are hefty. So he probably lost $2 million. I don't know. I doubt... I think because he did it all mostly himself, I think, but at some point I think someone snapped it up, some tiny distributor. And it is interesting, this movie is a lot less kind of visually precise

[01:19:00] than his later films are. I mean, he becomes known as sort of this Kubrickian control guy. For sure. But he allocates those responsibilities to a lot of people, you know? Yeah. But I mean, but that's the thing with this obviously, they literally can only shoot

[01:19:13] one or two takes. I love... I mean, I don't know if it's... It's all handheld, the movie too. Yes. I don't know if it's just because like, I used to make like 16 millimeter black and white short films. Me! But it is like, I get nostalgic watching

[01:19:26] this movie for how kind of like tactile it is and how much you can tell like the angles are dictated by like literally how much room they had. Right. Like a lot of the scenes that take place inside the apartment are just like,

[01:19:39] oh, this is a tiny apartment. They didn't have wide angle lenses. There's no lighting. He just had to hang out in the corner. Right. This is the angle they chose out of necessity. Yeah. It's not very pretty looking. It's just kind of like getting the job done.

[01:19:51] I also just like, like black and white 16 millimeter because you just get all these shadows and it's just like those accidental pockets where like, oh, there's not enough light here and the movie becomes like just totally black for a second. Right. I always think it adds like cool.

[01:20:05] I don't know if that's my little... He says that's why he's shot in black and white because essentially you can make your cheap movie look a lot less cheap. Yeah. People disappear accidentally. Like there's cool little accents that happen. Number one at this weekend,

[01:20:16] just to give people a real box office game. Is it still the Matrix? No. The Matrix drops to number two and it's third weekend. And I think it comes back the following weekend. But we're not talking about that. And it's third week and the Matrix drops to

[01:20:29] number two. It makes 17.9 million in its third weekend which is very nice. Yeah. But it's displaced by an R rated epic comedy that no one remembers exists and is mostly the reason I wanted to bring this movie because I can't imagine someone making this movie now.

[01:20:46] It is crazy that they made this movie. I believe I know what movie it is. What is it? Epic. Epic. Choose the word epic in terms of the scope of the narrative. Yeah, exactly. In terms of the time of like told. The film is Life with Eddie Murphy

[01:21:01] and Martin Lawrence. Correct. Isn't that crazy? They made a movie about two guys going to prison in like the fifties. Yeah. It might even be like the thirties. I forget what it says. I think it's like the thirties of the forties. And it's like an R rated movie.

[01:21:15] It's a dirty movie. It's also very sad. It's really sad. Because they sold it as like Eddie and Martin together for the first time. Yes. And in the trailers they had like the old age makeup. That was like a big selling point. They were trying to sell it

[01:21:29] like a nerdy professor movie. Right. They were trying really hard being like, because mostly it was making your doctor do little to your nerdy professors. Right. So they're like, yeah, look at them in old age makeup. Like that's the code of the film of look.

[01:21:41] They still haven't gotten out of jail, but the trailer was mostly the last scene because that stuff felt goofier because the film is about and it was directed by Ted Demi. Right. Went on to make blow Jonathan Demi's nephew. I believe. I think you're right.

[01:21:53] You know who made beautiful girls. He made The Reff, which is a great movie. Right. You know, and he died young, which was sad. But it's it's like pretty much a drama. It's absolutely drama. It's about two men who are wrongfully convicted of murder and spend their entire

[01:22:07] life in a Mississippi prison. Right. And yeah, they're stuck in jail. What are the hijinks? There's some hijinks. They try and they're selling out of jail. Yeah. Right. You know, they go to like probation hearings and they're like, nope, you're still going to be in jail.

[01:22:23] They spent 65 years in prison trying to escape while making friends played by Bernie Mac. His on love. He's been in jail for a long time. He's been in jail for a long time. He's been in jail for a long time, but it was just like, uh,

[01:22:40] some of the women he used to kill him. Yeah. And as I said, he's been a Republican stripper ever since the war. There were some people who played there for a long time. There were some people who played there before. Yeah. Who played at their

[01:22:55] point on the show, you know, they played at their Actors who look like racists sure exactly and it was made for 80 million dollars. That's crazy Eddie was like on a big up swing at that point

[01:23:08] He was and this is the last basically movie I can think of where he makes like an R rated filthy comedy finger PG-13 99 was the last year and he got his hands dirty damn well

[01:23:22] He made Metro, but that's like 97 or 90. That was early. Yeah. Yeah, that's like another Filthy R rated by the time you get to like 2001. It's like it's it's trek and do a little

[01:23:32] Yeah, cuz after life right if there's both finger the 90 professor too, which is of course an absolutely filthy movie It just happens to be rated PG-13, but a giant hamster rapes Larry Miller in the movie correct that hap

[01:23:43] Aenalee yes that happens in the movie on screen. That was also one of the first movies I remember to have a DVD release of like an unrated cut uh-huh Cuz like

[01:23:57] Here's an R rated movie and then here's a slightly dirtier yeah, right and not a professor. They were like here's the R Rade here's shit we cut out because it was so god-awful R rated cut of a movie, you know

[01:24:09] In advance was designed to be a family movie That wasn't supposed to be dirty I know it got so dirty, but that was the beginning of that I know I know the cover of the box was Sherman clump holding his hand up to his mouth in shock

[01:24:20] And then he was yellow tape around his family and it said like R rated cut that was the thing they would do They would always put the yellow tape on the DVD so naughty what a naughty cut We're talking about man like the unrated oh, yeah

[01:24:34] Alright, so number two is the matrix life's a good movie. That's not a rated movie I think so too. I think it's a good little movie There's kind of sad news kind of long

[01:24:41] There's that amazing fantasy sequence where they all talk about what they're gonna do when they get out of jail The sad point being of course that none of them are gonna get out of jail with Bernie Mac talks about like starting a club

[01:24:49] Where everyone knows his name and it's a place where everyone feels happy right? It's a good movie. I like it I like any Murphy I Like it too, and I like any Murphy to number two is the matrix number three is a rom-com

[01:25:02] They hold open the week before It's pretty cute It's about a journalist About a journalist, but it's also a high school movie Superman returns Well done. Thank you Journalist it's also a high school movie is called never been kissed and who's directed by

[01:25:22] He made one of your favorite movies Yes, give me one second give me one second His name is he directed the film called Scooby-Doo. He did his name is Raja. Goss. Correct. Well done that that I did not remember Thank you

[01:25:32] He also directed big mama's house tying everything back together Martin Lawrence baby which I saw big mama's house in theaters I saw three times in theater my dad Demanded I go see it again with my grandfather. It was my dad's favorite movie

[01:25:45] My grandfather loved it too. No offense when the lady poops Don't remember that Have you seen big mama's house, Benny? I haven't I'm actually surprised. I'm surprised too big mama's house is one of the sweatiest Like sequelization premises ever because the first movie is like oh

[01:26:03] There's an estranged husband who's like following and stalking this woman You have to go undercover as her great aunt big mama in order to get close to her And at the end of the movie everyone finds out tootsie style. Oh my god

[01:26:16] It wasn't the big mama. It was Martin Lawrence he but he stopped the crime and now they fall in love big mama's house, too They're like you're back on the case new case you still have to go undercover as That woman's great aunt

[01:26:30] Like he now has to like infiltrate the news that we needed someone to pretend to be a babysitter Why don't we stick with that very physically prohibitive costume from the producer three movies where they keep on making him

[01:26:40] Dress up as this woman's great aunt even though. He's no longer. He's married to her now. He's not having to trick her But he poops He doesn't poop. She poops fine. No real big mama poops my dad loved it. You're right never been kissed also starring David Arquette

[01:26:53] Yeah, Michael Vartan. Yeah Molly Shannon Molly Shannon Gary Marshall's in it. Hey Anyway, so there you go Number three number four and number five are movies we've already discussed on The show just like literally if you know just a few seconds ago

[01:27:14] Something I had about you, but that's number five what is staying put at number four forces nature? No three weeks later stay in put Very sorry same put It's a comedy Our rate of comedy

[01:27:29] It's not but why am I just free we just mentioned it, but it's not life. No raise number one I don't know man you tell me the DVD release of night professor to the clock. No, it wasn't that that wasn't it

[01:27:43] What fucking what's the other number four in two weeks ago still number four now? It's sticking around doing a great job I'm really hyping up The final domestic 106 oh analyze this right It's all I needed yeah, you got go in there

[01:28:04] Yeah, there they are all tied up. He's damn he is shocked I'm showing them the cover of the nutty professor to the clumps on censored directors cut who directed that I think it was Pete Seagal uh-huh

[01:28:20] You've got twin dragons. Okay. That was the one where Jean-Claude van Damme played twins Dragons or was it Jackie Chan play twins? It's the one where Jackie Chan played twins Okay, yeah, I should have guessed that from dragon

[01:28:31] There's also one where I believe John Claude van Damme played twins. Yes, and then there's double dragon which is movie based off the video game Yes, but then also what's the one with John Claude van Damme and Dennis Rodman called a double team?

[01:28:43] See I knew it was that it is called double team right? I thought I was making it dirtier, but that is what that movies called called double team with Denise Richards with Mickey Rourke. I'm not seeing Denise Richards Cindy Crawford Who's the Natasha Lindinger? Oh, no

[01:29:01] Anyway, they don't play by the rules is the tagline for double team double team So that's the box office game. There we go Following following open to like one theater and made like a few grand

[01:29:14] But then Christopher Nolan would make another film and then more boy no spoilers You'll find out what spoilers he made more than one movie any more than one movie But from this he gets a nine million dollar budget to make his next movie

[01:29:29] It's pretty good and he gets two movie stars hot off the Matrix He does and one movie star hot off LA confidential. Yeah hot off his David Sims award

[01:29:40] For best actor yeah in that movie one joy pants is hot off my my best supporting actor when that's right Yeah, well I look in short he gets to put on a

[01:29:50] Finely made pair of Italian pants. Sorry 4.5 million. I don't know where I got 9 million. That's how much momentum Pretty good on that budget Okay, well look we got going on the pod night cast

[01:30:02] This is the first time we've done a mini series episode. We've recorded a mini series episode since February That's right. Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. It's fucking June

[01:30:11] You're hearing this without breaks, but the mail bag episode the one-on-one episode which were both recorded over the last six weeks for us Right, we're recording this in the middle of June that we haven't we haven't had like a proper Proper episode right since then

[01:30:26] Well, that's nice. Yeah, well now I'm gonna go back to filming the tick for 12 more years Please don't and we'll record sometime after that. I guess yeah, what do you mean? Of course we will jeez It's gonna be great. Yeah, God

[01:30:39] Freakin me out. I'm joking. Yeah, I know Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review subscribe You can check out our reddit, which I've it's blowing up. It's blown up sometimes gets a little too hot in there. I agree

[01:30:52] I've been told you can actually just reddit dot blankies calm We'll get you there instead of having to do the back slash r back slash whatever so just do that Do that just do that. Let me try it reddit

[01:31:04] Blankies follow us on Twitter at blank check pod check us out on Facebook at blank check podcast Big thanks to and for good oh We're on our social media account Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for doing our artwork lay Montgomery for the theme song

[01:31:23] Yep, thanks to all those fine folks great people great people keep this show a float and And as always If you invite David to your wedding you Raise the roof. Thanks great You've been there we go