[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check What is it that you really like to do? Podcast! Just one word?
[00:00:29] I thought you were going to do a little monologue Podcast! I thought I was going to do a monologue. I want to do the opening clip when you see her doing the first time Julie watches Julia on TV, but I couldn't find it
[00:00:45] Boo! I thought you'd do something like that Yeah, but I also thought it was funny just to say podcast because her voice is so specific you can get away with it
[00:00:55] But look, it's almost like we need another perspective. We need to set up a different opening quote in a different timeline Oh you mean because there's like two kinds of podcasts
[00:01:10] I cooked other jokes with Hollandaise Sauce which is melted podcast that's been whipped into a frenzy with egg yolks until it's died and gone to heaven And let me say this, is there anything better than podcasts? Think it over
[00:01:20] Every time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say what is in this, the answer is always going to be podcast The day there's a meteorite heading towards the earth and we have 30 days to live I'm going to spend it eating podcasts
[00:01:34] Here's my final words on the subject. You can never have too much podcast Romley, you should talk right away. I have a question for you Yes I guess this movie is set in the early 2000s but like does she really need to explain what Hollandaise Sauce is?
[00:01:53] I feel like people knew what Hollandaise Sauce was You would be surprised David I know it's just like because of the rise of brunch in the 21st that you know I would have figured that would have brought it back
[00:02:05] I think most people know of Hollandaise Sauce but I don't think many people know what's in Hollandaise Sauce Okay, alright, that's true. That's true right? She's breaking down the ingredients Did you know that Hollandaise was egg based? Absolutely not. They tricked me. I would never have eaten it
[00:02:21] Well this is the thing The egg thing in this movie Griffin, I thought of you Yeah Guys don't get ahead of ourselves. That's going to be a 40 minute segment Can I say just Can I ask Ben one question? Yes, you can ask Ben any question Technical
[00:02:38] You can say Benny thing Benny thing I don't know Dacidate only goes up when I talk right? That's what is to happen Yeah, that's what we want Okay, cool But thank you for checking in I just want to be careful No, it's great Thank you
[00:02:52] As you can tell from what just happened which I insist we keep in the edit Oh boy We are live from virtual nice We are zooming And a box of equipment was mailed to our special guest this week It was an exciting package
[00:03:11] This is the world we live in now Some of our guests have their own equipment Some of them need to get sent a box of Ben Hey What? A box It's a Ben box I had Ben all over it That's for sure Yeah, it was covered in dirt
[00:03:27] We have to bury it first Of course You have to bury it It's almost like a subscription service It could be a sponsor on our show Buried box But here we are virtual nice And it's blank check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin That's right I'm David
[00:03:46] A clean shave in David Yeah, that's true This just happened I'm seeing bear cheeks for the first time In what feels like forever I can't remember the last time you shaved this much Probably a couple months would be my guess Something like a couple months
[00:04:00] You look like a baby Well, you know, this is how I looked for the first You know, I don't know 27, 28 years of my life I didn't really grow a beard much Until my late 20s Yeah, and guess what? I only slid in about 27, 28 years in My chronology
[00:04:20] Actually, it overlaps You're right, because I started growing a beard After a big breakup Which is right when I met you That's right when we met You made a very important friendship And you went I need to commemorate this life change With a face change
[00:04:37] But that's not what this is about This podcast is not about facial hair It's a podcast about filmographies Directors who have massive success early on in their careers And are given a series of blank checks To make whatever crazy passion products they want Sometimes those checks clear
[00:04:49] And sometimes they bounce, baby I feel like my Julia's getting worse You did her Did you just do her once as an ad read? I feel like you've done her a couple times I did her at least once as an ad read The ghost of Julia Child
[00:05:03] And the joke was that A very subtle joke That she already sounds like a ghost Right, exactly Because she's like Boo! Right But yes, it's clearly diminished in time And that's relevant because today We've gotten to the final episode Of our mini series on the films
[00:05:22] Of Nora Efron It's called You've Got Podcast It should have been called You've Podcast Whatever The cast cannot be corrected We can only atone History is written by the winner Yes, and to some degree This is a movie about that It's called Julie and Julia Our guest today
[00:05:45] Romley Newman Long time sister Of me Third time guest of this podcast Yes I believe that's right Three times Entering the three timers club I will say it's nice this time Because the past two times I've been wildly late And have showed up in a real frenzy So
[00:06:06] Sounds familiar Yeah Wait, remember the Newman family Behaving this way Is very strange I don't really understand It's almost like we're the same Yeah Yeah, I feel like I vaguely remember that Rom, you were sort of stressed out both times Once I had just had a Driving lesson
[00:06:25] Which was A little bit scary I'm a very anxious driver And For someone in the Newman family I know, anxiety is just It's something I'm just starting to experience It's crazy People wonder why I'm terrified of cars Who drives in The Newman family? Our father
[00:06:47] And now Romley is the second one I have a license I'm a terrible I'm a terrible driver I say I'm a very good technical driver I'm very smooth My turns are lovely It's just a lovely experience But I get a lot of road anxiety So
[00:07:06] I will have a complete panic attack When I have to switch lanes You're exactly like my mother That's my mother's a good driver But right, if I'm like Oh, we actually have to get over to that lane In a mile Because we're gonna have to exit there
[00:07:19] It's like I'm saying to her Like this car is about to explode Exactly I think that threw me out I was driving with our mom the other day Trying to go to the grocery store And it took us I kid you not two hours to get there
[00:07:33] Because I kept taking the wrong exits Because I was too scared to switch lanes I was always in the right lane And I would always exit It was a real experience You would be a good driver In like Cormac McCarthy's The Road
[00:07:48] Like in a world where the roads are open And no one else is driving You handle everything well If you worked on your own pace You didn't have to coordinate with other people Moving in fast vehicles I'm a great driver if there are no other cars
[00:08:00] I will say I remember I have one childhood memory of my mother driving She very briefly lived in LA But other than that She spent most of her life either in Paris or New York Where there are public transit systems
[00:08:10] So she knew how to drive from when she lived in LA And always talked about how bad she was at it And there was one time where for some reason She had to drive my brother and I And my only memory is her being on train tracks
[00:08:26] Trying to figure out how to back up As we heard the train starting to approach And the distance Truly, truly Like it wasn't like an immediate threat But there was like the ding ding ding happening And I think that is truly the last time
[00:08:42] She ever got behind the wheel of a car Actually I have one A more recent story I was probably about ten years old And I was going to a sleepover at a friend's house I was ten minutes away And I begged her to drive me Really?
[00:09:00] So it was a whole thing I didn't know this happened By the way, our mom is very short She's my height Tiny lady She was like, you know Barely could see above the wheel And She's a small, right? Short woman She's a petite woman
[00:09:16] And we're like three minutes in And I'm like, wow this is going really well I'm sitting in the back seat I'm like, I'm gonna get to the friend's house It's gonna be great And all of a sudden we hear a cop car behind us They pull her over
[00:09:29] The guy comes out of the car And says, ma'am I just wanna tell you Driving too slow is just as dangerous As driving too fast That's so funny It's a fair point I'm gonna have to escort you To where you're going Because there are fifteen cars behind you
[00:09:44] Oh my god She was driving so slow And they were like, we cannot allow this This is how gross our family is with driving And my father's the opposite Like my father, it's like The car becomes an extension of his jittery body Yeah, yeah, yeah
[00:09:59] He'll be switching lanes back and forth With no signals Like in and out I was always My mom, like we said My mom is sort of She's a fine driver But she is She's anxious about changing lanes She hates a merge She's really afraid of merging onto highways
[00:10:15] Like things like that You know, she gets overly anxious about these things So I always assumed Oh, that's what I'll be like as a driver And then I wasn't at all Like I am a completely different driver from her Well, but David, that's also
[00:10:28] It's such a different scenario with your mother Because you lived your entire life In London She was driving on the opposite side of the road You didn't even step foot Good job And to New York I finally fucking got it right As you remember
[00:10:42] At the beginning of this miniseries We established an inverted bit, Romali In which now my memory is flipped To thinking David only lived in London And never New York And after setting it up I have fucked it up in every episode following I finally landed it
[00:11:02] A little bit of closure on the end of the miniseries But yes, he is uptown David Right, I actually, as you said Grew up in London And although my early years were in New York City But I did learn to drive What? Thank you Taxi
[00:11:21] I did learn to drive in England So yes, I learned on the other side of the road And I learned on a stick Because you have to in England Basically have to That's my number one fear Well, it's not my number one fear
[00:11:34] Because I wouldn't have to drive in England I want to move to London And I just feel like I just got my driver's license And it's this newfound freedom Well, not to, honestly I got it six months ago But it feels like I just got it
[00:11:49] Because I've driven twice Right But having to, I could never learn How to drive on the opposite side of the road It's weird Yeah I feel like I had to basically just forget it Yeah I feel like I would immediately have to Just not be a driver
[00:12:06] It's worth saying just in terms of How much the entire World has flipped on its head You were explicitly trying to move to London At the beginning of this year You were trying to do a reverse sims Bits aside Wow And when we were scheduling this episode Originally
[00:12:24] In my mind it was like Because we planned several mini series ahead Very often So we knew we'd be doing this We knew roughly when the episode would record And I remember thinking like Is this going to have to be Our second ever zoom record
[00:12:38] Because Romley will be in a different country Or will we have to time it back To like her coming back to visit or something I remember talking to you about that Right, then the entire world flipped on its head And you are in fact now our like
[00:12:50] 15th consecutive zoom record Yeah, no There are so many things I've sent so many emails which now Look ridiculous Being like, oh sorry I can't do that thing in August I will be in London Yeah, you at the beginning this year
[00:13:08] Were like trying to sort out passport stuff And like find a job to work in London Yeah But I will say I've never wanted to move to London more It's a lovely city Where would you want to live in London? I don't know
[00:13:22] I mean I'm trying to figure out Now my desires are very different now Than they were before Really? Yeah You feel like your perspective on the world Has changed in the last four months? Just a little bit I don't know about you That's weird
[00:13:36] But five months ago it was like I'm going to go there I'm going to get a job I'm going to become the next Nigella Lawson Hopefully fingers crossed Like I had this whole master plan I'm going to touch everything Suck up people's breath Right, right
[00:13:48] I'll casually be near people It will be great Yes And now I really just If I can go Hopefully I would kind of just like to Either work in a restaurant Or go to cooking school And just like really ride it out Just do it
[00:14:04] Your idea was kind of to do A little bit of the Julia Child thing Like to do like an intensive Enroll and spend like six months At least really really just Studying food Yeah But now it's a little more Like I'll do anything now Yeah I just realized
[00:14:22] France must be having such A tough time coping with Corona because of the double cheek kissing Sure All that's out Like we think in America About like our loss of like You can't shake hands anymore It's like France they were hugging They couldn't stop kissing each other
[00:14:39] All over the faces In England it's one kiss But in mainland Europe You do two Right And France was like Hold my wine I bet they're still doing it Yeah they probably are With masks Maniacs I remember when I was a teenager Or even younger
[00:14:56] I get no comedy points for Hold my wine I'm sorry to go back on this That was funny I'm sorry I was trying to say something It wasn't laugh out loud funny grits That's why I asked for a point That's why the point comes into play
[00:15:08] When it's not laugh out loud funny But you want to respect the craft Throw me a point Okay you get two good ones I just remember And now this is the reason I didn't do that Because now this point Is totally lost But the cheek kiss
[00:15:23] The single cheek kiss At the British greeting I would watch adults do that And be like There's some rule to this That I don't understand Like there's some way That they know exactly how to do it And someone's going to have to teach me this
[00:15:36] Because this is clearly A very grown up thing Right No every time I see a French person They try to do that with me And they're always trying To do it with me Just attack They're always trying to grab you Kiss you The worst thing I've ever done
[00:15:51] Not the worst thing I've ever done But I've accidentally kissed someone on the lips Kiss people right on the mouth Yes I've done the exact same thing Because it's like the equivalent Of being in a hallway And then you try to sync up Where like oh
[00:16:02] I'm going to go one way You'll go the other way And then you both go the same way This is what I feared when I was a kid I was like I'm going to hit the wrong spot I'm going to get him in the nose Absolutely
[00:16:10] I have kissed so many of my mother's friends On the lips by accident Because they're fucking horniest shit These French people A whole country of Sims Trying to smooch all the time I do love it But yeah Frank Well, Rom I see you
[00:16:30] You know I see you near my old stomping grounds I see you in like south and green Just you know Going to the bookstores Going to the restaurants I can just imagine it I love I mean Most people say to me When I tell them
[00:16:45] That I want to move to London They're like oh But there's nowhere With worse food than London Oh that's bullshit It's bullshit They're actually really really really good restaurants in London And also I love the drinking culture Obviously They do love to drink
[00:17:02] They need to drink to have Any kind of human interaction And I love them for that They've already opened the pubs They need to It's a part of life It's how they have Conversations about things That aren't the weather I know this is very grossly stereotypical of you
[00:17:20] But it's true This is like mildly depressing But I've always I'm like that I guess it's because our mom Like is like that as well Although she doesn't drink that much But I definitely need alcohol to loosen up And so yeah When I go there
[00:17:38] I'm just like right on the same page And that's probably when I realized That I wanted to live there When I was like We all would meet for dinner And be really uptight And then 30 minutes later Like laughing and having the time of our lives
[00:17:50] It is funny how COVID has turned Now that things are starting to reopen Most American cities into something More closely approximating British pub culture Where it's all these like bars Spilling out into the street With people drinking and yelling loudly Like that used to be something
[00:18:08] That did not happen And now it's every bar Yeah But you know this movie is not set in London No it's not It's set in Queens and in Parry Long Island City This mystical land It's a period piece about the first settlers In Queens
[00:18:28] It is funny that the character is production You're dared across the East River And not to Brooklyn They're losing their minds at the idea of like They might as well be moving to like A mountain on the top of the Himalayas They're moving to Wachow Ghoul's lair
[00:18:42] In Batman Begins If you ever watched the pilot episode of Will and Grace Which I believe aired in 1998 I'm sure it holds up perfectly Yeah right exactly The premise is partly that It may be the second It's a very early episode Is that I think
[00:18:58] Either Will or Grace I believe Grace is gonna move Maybe it's Will Who can say with those two Is gonna move to the Burrow Hall Stop In Brooklyn Heights Insane And the other one is like I'll never see you This is a fucking outrage
[00:19:14] Like you can't move there That's like the tropics Like how will I even get there You want me to go one express stop Into Brooklyn Where do they live downtown? No they live on the Upper West Side I feel like all those Man about you
[00:19:31] I guess friends was a little different Friends they lived in the village But mostly you know Man about you Will and Grace they're all on the Upper West Side Wait a second how would you know that I'm uptown Davey Sims Man ain't nothing Amsterdam
[00:19:45] Stand clear of the closing door Alright that's enough of that This movie Julie and Julia is about Paris and about New York And it does feel like such a Relic of a different film industry That you can tell they actually shot in both locations
[00:20:02] Like there's certainly a fair amount of I'd say Soundstage in this movie Yeah but now they would be like You get one day in Paris maybe Right there's a good amount of both It gives you a lot of production value
[00:20:16] I think it's a thing we've talked about a lot With Nora is like how much This type of comedy Thrives on strong Locations as much as it Strives on like chemistry between actors I mean going back to Harry Mitzali you know Kind of crucial for all her hits
[00:20:34] This is my life, sleepless You know even the ones that Don't work like have a sense of place Like mixed nuts Michael's got a real sense of like You know this sort of The Midwest Baron America But I feel like she's at her best
[00:20:52] Where it's a place she understands And that's why the New York movies Obviously work and Sleepless in Seattle I guess But I mean I guess she really knew Her way around a houseboat Yeah Romley you should do a little Table setting here because this is one
[00:21:10] Of the most influential movies of your entire life Yes Upon rewatching it I realized how many things I actually Learned from this movie I'd also say just hearing You talk on this podcast today I'm realizing that you Have a certain Julia Child
[00:21:28] Lilt in your voice that comes out sometimes And I wonder if it's Yeah I have a very weird voice And a lot of my friends make fun Of me for occasionally having a trans-Atlantic accent But sometimes you like Go into this like slightly
[00:21:42] Yes, and there's a video of me From when I was younger On a cooking show And it is full Julia Child And no one stopped me and said Like Romley this is not how you talk They probably thought it was adorable
[00:21:56] They're probably like it's like a little Julia Child But it's your version of like The Ryan Gosling fake Brooklyn accent Like it's just become your voice now Yes, and I'm like you put the tarragon In the screw You do that Yes I do that all the time
[00:22:12] And I don't even notice anymore But it's definitely something that I've picked up This movie has been incredibly influential And I actually Before I saw this movie I didn't know that much about Julia Child And so this was kind of my introduction To Julia Child, to blogging
[00:22:30] To that level of cooking All of it Did you see it in theaters? Did you saw it on release? I assumed I just wanted to make sure That's a foolish question David Because you must have been If I can do the math you were like 11 or 12 years old
[00:22:45] Yeah She lined up she was sleeping outside the theater Like before the release of Phantom Menace She lined up a tent She was waiting for the box office to open She was there for Twilight or whatever And she was like no baby it's Julia and Julie for me
[00:23:01] Did I see this with you Griffin? No I saw this separate from you I want to say I think you probably saw it with our mother Yeah and I remember I was really really hungry after And I like my brain would not stop working
[00:23:19] Like I was up all night just like I was turning I was hungry I was thinking about everything It was a real turning point in my 11 year old life Well I have a very specific memory You had already been cooking for a number of years at this point
[00:23:33] And As you revealed to me only fairly recently The reason you first got into food Is because our mother wouldn't let you watch the Disney Channel Because she thought it was shitty And you wanted to watch high school musical And all the things that your friends watched
[00:23:50] And food network used to be one channel away From Disney Channel on the Time Warner Cable Box Disney Channel was 49 and food network was 50 So food network was your cover Like food network was the history book you placed on the outside of Mad Magazine
[00:24:08] So that when our mom came in the room You could switch back to food network And act like you were just really into food network now And then it seeped in and you ended up getting really into food Yes and I remember I was really
[00:24:20] I thought it was very embarrassing that I watched the food network And once I was talking to a friend And she was like oh you know sometimes It's kind of weird but I watched the food network And I was like what? You watched the food network
[00:24:31] And it was all of a sudden this girl was like my favorite person Because she also watched the food network But it really was something I kept secret Because I thought it was like oh that's really boring That's what moms watch Like I shouldn't tell people
[00:24:44] And obviously I would very diligently switch back to Disney Channel Because I needed to be able to quote movies to my friends Of course you had to know the lyrics to Breaking Free Is that the name of the song? We're breaking free So we're flying
[00:25:01] There's lots of heaven We can achieve Because we're breaking free I got a brush up on my high school musical I have this very specific memory of showing you the Julie and Julia trailer When it went up online Because you were already so in the tank for Meryl
[00:25:20] Obviously your other big canonical movie Previous guest appearance Devil Wears Prada had come out a couple years earlier That was your favorite film And Mamma Mia had also come out So Meryl was like your number one You were also really into Amy Adams
[00:25:35] Those were like two people who you were seeing all of their movies And you were like oh there's a new Meryl Streep Amy Adams movie with the trailer It's about food, you should watch it And we sat there and you watched the trailer in dead silence
[00:25:47] And then I said you know it's a real story And you went yeah Julia Child I know she's a real person Like very condescendingly And I was like no but the other part is a true story too
[00:25:58] And your eyes opened and you were like what do you mean And I was like it's a true story This woman wrote a blog And then you were like and then what happened And then it got popular and you were like and then what happened
[00:26:09] I was like and then it turned to a book And then what happened And then they optioned the book And they turned into a movie and Amy Adams is playing her And here it is Oh interesting and you walked away
[00:26:21] And half an hour later you walked back to the computer I was sitting at and you went I think I should maybe start a blog It was that direct And you started a blog like the next day Before the movie had even come out
[00:26:32] Is your blog still online? Yeah yeah You're doing so well Yeah that's unfortunate the videos are gone The videos were very Julia Child-esque But the posts are still there And I actually tried to do A Julie Julia thing Where I would cook the recipes from Julia Child's book
[00:26:52] And like three posts in I'm like I just can't do this But the posts are absolutely Ridiculous Re-reading them I mean Angie is absolutely going to retweet your blog Wait what's the blog? Now I want to look at it Littlegirlinthekitchen.blogspot.com Of course Oh man
[00:27:14] If anyone ever found my blog spots Oh boy Yeah it's embarrassing In a way that It's only embarrassing No like people who read it are like This is unbelievable no one's like oh god That's embarrassing But I was very I still am but I was very
[00:27:34] But you have a YouTube channel To where I used to film The videos with a flip camera In our New York City kitchen Which was literally a hallway Like The apartment we grew up in Was so poorly laid out Because the building was originally a hotel
[00:27:52] So the kitchens Were like not designed for full use And I would film you in there And you would have to wear our mom's High heels in order To reach the kitchen to be able to cook And then when you were in high school
[00:28:08] You got self-conscious and you deleted all the videos Which is a big part Yeah I um Someone was like I found your videos And like immediately that night it went And permanently deleted all of them Everything yeah The line we always used to make fun of
[00:28:24] The line we always used to quote Which was so good was the one where you were teaching And you said Parents don't be afraid To feed your kids risotto Risotto is not scary I like risotto although I do have a pretty advanced Palette
[00:28:40] But it was that you were always like Talking to parents about how to Feed their kids better being like look These kids I know I would always talk as if I was not A child right as if You are like another like
[00:28:54] Mom in the kitchen being like you know Every day I'm trying to find something to put in front of them I swear to god though Romley would do that when she came home from preschool She'd be like oh my god these kids at school are so crazy I
[00:29:06] Uh risotto Risotto that's how you say it in this country correct Yes Because that is the one word I have never Been able to shake my English upbringing I say risotto And weird I say it involuntarily People laugh at me And even when I'm like
[00:29:28] I'm gonna say the word In America they definitely say risotto I still usually have to be like Risotto right You get your head at the last second Someone just like with you guys You had just said it and I had already forgotten
[00:29:42] Cause I'm like that's not how you say risotto We never talked about this It's the one that I When I was an American kid living In England there were words that I would say That I couldn't Erase like usually I try to Say the I would say aluminum
[00:30:00] And they would mock me I would say eraser And they would mock me Instead of rubber Instead of rubber yeah mostly I would Just say the English words cause I didn't want To deal with the hassle of them being Amused
[00:30:14] But there were a few where I just could not Get on board vitamin like there were Just somewhere I'm like I can't And now it's the other way That's so weird the hassle of them being Amused I cannot imagine someone getting That much enjoyment out of the idea
[00:30:28] That you grew up in a different place Than where you currently live That feels so juvenile For English school children going To make that into a sport Yeah god I'm so sorry People treated you that way It's also amazing how many times I said
[00:30:44] Eraser in my teen years Versus post college How often do I say eraser anymore Was the Schwarzenegger movie called Rubber in the UK No it was called eraser Did David Lynch make rubber head Alright Good job I could do this all day
[00:31:02] So yes this was a very influential Movie for you by the time it came out You were already doing these things You were doing your youtube videos You were doing your blog And yeah and then You kind of went Julia child Crazy after this
[00:31:21] But your Meryl fandom was already in full swing Your Adams fandom was already in full swing Yes What I watched it originally Obviously my take away was all this amazing food The blogging And now my real take away Is this is a movie about Nice relationships
[00:31:39] Men being nice Yes but it's also A movie about like This maybe is too hard to take Trying to like Return to normalcy And domesticity after a terrible thing Yep After the war and after 9-11 I just completely erased in my brain
[00:31:59] That this was a post 9-11 movie That opens basically With a shot of ground zero Yeah It really is a movie about husbands being supportive And loving And just all I mean it's like It's the opposite of Dove Wars product
[00:32:17] I keep like when I was watching it last night I kept waiting for the moment Where Amy Adams husband Was going to be like maybe you should stop this Blog like pay more attention to me And it just never happens he's always lovely and supportive
[00:32:29] Right and then Stanley Tucci is Number one husband goal Ever This is the most The most raw Sexually magnetic performance ever given Like he is so Incredibly hot I mean like we've been building to this performance Watching right
[00:32:49] This whole podcast ever since Ben said touch of the tooch Every time we get a touch of the tooch We've been building to this performance This was the one where we're like why isn't he In every single film and of course the weird irony
[00:32:59] That this was the year He got an Oscar nomination it was for the wrong movie It's so wild he only has The one nomination it is So pointedly wrong It feels like they gave it to him because everyone Advanced sound said like
[00:33:13] Oh that sounds like an Oscar roll And he was so overdue That even when people saw the movie and the whole thing Was a catastrophe they still gave him Nomination as you always Sight there's the moment in that Oscar Ceremony where they play the clip
[00:33:27] From the lovely bones and when they come back to him In the audience he winces having watched The clip he's like a far superior performance The same year he should have gotten The nomination for both this And devil wears Prada
[00:33:39] With the two Meryl movies he should have been His slam dunk career nominations And he should have gotten the nomination for spotlight But the thing about spotlight is you can at least say like Well there are so many Good performances in that movie That's really tough
[00:33:55] But you also know that I think he's the best one Of them It's so funny that you think that And I think that Michael Keaton is the best one For what it's given that he's your favorite actor Yes, but yes, Tucci incredible And Ram is right this movie
[00:34:09] Like those Those relationships are at the core You know of both stories like as much As the food and the sort of falling But also then There like their movies about like You know the sort of hassle of female Entrepreneurship right in both cases
[00:34:25] There's a lot of brilliant stuff Going on in this movie that I just like Ignored when I saw it I had the same take As everyone else which is like The Julia Child stuff is pretty great Amy Adams with her blog like
[00:34:37] Get over it lady and I saw this in 2009 and I feel like Everyone had a lot of people had the same reaction I'm sure you can confirm griff where people are like Our life's fine like what she's so Stressed out about like And now you watch this movie
[00:34:51] And you're like this is a movie about What has happened to this generation Basically that's thank you okay We'll get to this but I think that's a big part Of it and I also think you need the contrast Because she's making a larger point
[00:35:03] About how career arcs are different right now And also how we change how a writer Develops yes all that sort of stuff I think all that stuff is like Much like you've got male It seems insane that she was That prescient like considering
[00:35:19] That ahead of the curve yeah She was in her 60s Like late 60s when she makes this Movie it's like it is crazy that this Is a weirdly finger on Post-movie in some ways Considering that yeah And at the time I think people were like
[00:35:35] Why is she making a movie in which this blogger Is put up on the same level as Julia Child And that's what pissed a lot of people off But reality it's like She's not trying to put them on the same level
[00:35:45] She's not trying to say their experiences are equal She's trying to show a study In contrast between the two things If she wanted them on the same level There would not be a scene in the movie Where she is told that Julia Child
[00:35:57] Probably thinks her blog is bullshit Thank you, thank you and we'll get there I love that It's very important you have to include it But like it would have been easy for them not to But I was looking at the AV Club review
[00:36:09] Which gave this movie a C By and large this movie got good reviews Even the people who were like The Merrill stuff is much better It got like B reviews Like it got a lot of like yeah it's pretty good It's a late summer charmer it's fine
[00:36:23] Right you know and Merrill got the nomination But it wasn't really in the conversation Or anything else even though it should have been Arguably I mean I think this absolutely should have gotten Adapted screenplay Supporting actor And then you know score and Costume I would argue But anyway
[00:36:43] The AV Club review is like Really angry at the Inclusion of the Amy Adams stuff They're like they botch What could be a very good Julia Child biopic And if If you were ever wanted to make a Julia Child biopic She would have made a Julia Child biopic
[00:36:59] It's not like that opportunity didn't exist For her That book had existed for so long There were so many accounts of her life This is very specifically the story she wants to tell It's a very clever work of adaptation Because you're taking two entirely different books
[00:37:16] And trying to make a greater point By putting them side by side Well also like imagine the Julia Child Biopic version of this movie Which because this movie is two hours long And the part let's say is an hour of it
[00:37:28] It's probably a little more I feel like it's a little Heavier on her but like You know let's say it's an hour You can attack another 45 minutes Like this tells the story just fine Like I guess you attack On the sort of like and then she was
[00:37:42] A TV star that part of it But David what's the story they're telling This is another thing we cover biopics On this podcast so I feel like you and I are In agreement that a good biopic isn't Actually a biopic it is a movie
[00:37:54] During a real person as the lead character Because biopics so often feel The need to go from birth to death The birth to death biopic is Almost impossible to pull off It's usually not how dramatic stories are told Dramatic stories are about someone
[00:38:08] Going through a specific period of their life Or an incident or something like that You know their life through one prism Through one theme through one set period of time This movie is very specifically About two women on the exact same journey
[00:38:20] Which is how do you get to writing your first book Which is such a Nora thing It's how do you figure out what your voice is As a writer and it's also How do you figure out your life experience And how to translate that into
[00:38:32] Writing what do you have to say That no one else can say or what can You say differently than anyone else Can that is so fucking Efron you know for someone Whose career was being A writer in so many different Mediums you know establishing Different voices autobiographical
[00:38:50] Applying her interest to other people's stories Adapting other people's works Writing fictional things She had done so much but you also Talk about the fact that Her big breakthrough is heartburn Which really propels her to the next level And I think about this
[00:39:06] Movie in much the same way I think about like Perry Home Companion where it's a perfect Final film not because It's their best movie but it is Such a great final statement on their Career and their life in terms of how many
[00:39:20] Of the pet themes and comments on And what kind of perspective it has on them And if you go like heartburns The beginning it's entirely Autobiographical it's nor Efron trying to figure out how to Turn her suffering into A story which she then does in a
[00:39:36] Book and then in a movie right With meryl Streep As her avatar Who she never works with again So good was before after It's a good question actually She never directs Right until this So there's a perfect full circle thing on
[00:39:54] That right that her career starts with meryl Writing for meryl ends with her directing Meryl but also that heartburn Is all about her disastrous second marriage Coming off of a bad first marriage And for the last 20 years Of her life she was in a really good marriage
[00:40:08] She talks about that she finally found The piece with like a supportive husband Who wasn't competitive who had his Own career and didn't feel threatened by her And like was loving And this is very much as you said Ramali Her like
[00:40:22] Retort to I want to make a movie That shows that you can have a good marriage That you know so often Female driven comedies Are either romantic comedies where the romance Getting to the wedding whatever it is Is the end goal or It's a female career driven comedy
[00:40:38] In which the conflict usually comes from The man being threatened by how much He's focusing on her career It's a movie about having a balanced life And it's also about Men don't have to be assholes Men don't have to be threatened By a woman being successful
[00:40:54] It's sad how crazy it is But it is crazy to watch a movie where husbands are like Oh if that's what you want to do Then you should do it And I'll support you no matter what And they do support them no matter what
[00:41:06] I mean it's crazy that that's wild But it is You have to make the husband feel Threatened and emaciulated And this movie is just like You know in Stanley Tucci It's like totally okay with his like slight femininity I feel like you know
[00:41:22] His character has a total feminine side And like that's why it works Well that's what makes him god tier And it's also why it's such smart casting To carry him over from devil wears product Both because you know he and Meryl work well together But yes
[00:41:36] Well there's the scene where they're like Like the way he rolls his eyes Where he's like that's You guys just don't get it You think I haven't heard this before Right, yeah But you know like obviously Tucci Huge standout important god tier Masina is doing Such quietly stellar
[00:41:56] Oh Masina is great in this movie So as you said Ron He is like whatever His character is the good version of the devil wears product Because they even like look a little Like I don't know They have like similar vibes And just like starting this movie
[00:42:12] I forgot if he was an asshole or not Obviously it might like I immediately went to oh I bet he feels threatened by her And he's just like lovely Without it being overbearing He's just like consistently supportive And loving and
[00:42:26] It's just like it just seems like very healthy Relationship And their big fight is entirely reasonable It's like an actual couple fight And it's not like a fight It's not like a fight It's just like a fight But you know But there's not a big fight
[00:42:44] And obviously it's like I still feel like we're in a position To be like Like it's just like You know it's like You know it's like Like we're going on to the other things In the same vein Like we're going on to the other things
[00:43:02] Julia's side is so much better than the Julie's side. And I hate all that shit with the husband being an asshole. And it's literally that like people in their minds, I think remember his character being Adria and Grenier because they can't imagine that this type of movie
[00:43:18] wouldn't have that be the central conflict. Like people correct it into their heads to the worst version of it because it still seems progressive that 11 years ago she made a movie where that wasn't the conflict. The conflict is finding your voice as a writer. Yeah, yes, it is.
[00:43:39] And finding or having the confidence in yourself as a woman, you know, to that you are like whatever that you what you have to offer is of value. Yeah, you know what I mean? Find your thing and get good at it and feel proud about it. Yeah, right.
[00:43:56] And Christmas is not actually look like Adrian Grenier. I don't know what it's talking about. They have similar coloring and like I don't know. It's just like the apartments feel similar. They're kind of small and dark. I kind of melded them together
[00:44:10] and thought of them as one character. Yeah, they both have kind of like short king energy. I actually don't know how tall Adrian Grenier is. Let's find out. Masina is short though, right? Masina is short. Apparently Grenier is listed at 510.
[00:44:24] So you know maybe knocking in shop that Missy was definitely short. Yeah, he is listed at 5 9, which means he's 5 2. Maybe especially has short king energy. Like I also just think Masina is so good at this type of role,
[00:44:37] which is so hard to play of just like nice decent guy. We always talk about that. That's like the hardest thing to play when there's nothing dramatic to hang on to. And it's clear from a lot of the picks that Masina makes that he likes playing weird,
[00:44:51] fucked up oddball people like live by night and like bread to pray. He loves playing like fucking scumbags, but it speaks to his skill set that he also is very good at playing these types of fully normal support roles without feeling like he's mailing it in.
[00:45:09] What other movies? OK, thank you, Ramly. Exactly. Yes. Like where is he? Because this is when he is starting to just pop up all the time. He obviously as we write it. Well, as we noted, he is in. You've got mail. Yes.
[00:45:23] He plays a salesman at Fox Books. You know, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One scene, but it's nice to see him like have this quiet arc of going from a day player to. You know, key supporting character. Yeah.
[00:45:38] In the and then, you know, I feel like he'd done like he'd done, you know, mostly like already in the two thousands movies. And then like right now, yes, Vicky, Christina Barcelona away we go. Greenberg can a pool overflow. Yes, a pool can overflow.
[00:45:56] These are all his role. I run out right. He's popping up supporting actor. Yeah, wait. Yes. Yes. Yeah, right, because that was him like as like romantic lead for the first time and it was like a small kind of indie hit.
[00:46:07] But I feel like that functioned as his audition reel for other people to start giving him bigger roles. Can a pool overflow? That's a pool can overflow. That's my favorite bit of green greenberg. Good moment. Orle turned me on to that to that specific bit.
[00:46:22] He used to say it to me all the time. But yes, he's he's so good. And yeah, he's a dude who like started acting in the 90s. He's in rounders. Like he's of the generation of like athlete and dayman. It took longer for him to pop.
[00:46:34] But part of that is that he is just such a good support, dude. Celeste and Jesse ever I'm looking at some of these other things. He also he got stuck on Mindy project. No offense. I'm sure he enjoyed being on it and like, you know,
[00:46:47] it's nice to be on a TV show, blah, blah, blah. But you know what I mean? Like he was kind of like, you know, I feel like that probably took a lot of time. Absolutely this type of role. He's very much playing this part on the Mindy project.
[00:46:58] Yeah, he well, he's a little more of a like, hey, well, I'm a guy. I got a shiver on my shoulder about it, you know, like he's got a little more of that energy in it, but definitely.
[00:47:06] Yes, in terms of his function within the story, I mean to say. Yes, I just feel like you compare him to the Ruffalo romcom roles. Right. When he did his run where he got stuck in sort of romcom purgatory
[00:47:19] and Ruffalo you could always tell was not super engaged being in those movies. You know, he could do it right. He could do it. Yeah, but but it always felt like, man, Ruffalo is not punching a full weight. Whereas when when I see Masina in these roles,
[00:47:35] I feel like he's using his full intelligence as an actor, even though you can tell he prefers to do the weird shit. And he's just very egoless. He just like wants to support, you know, he's like a company player. He's so good. He really it's a great performance.
[00:47:52] Now, can we talk a little like Adam's context? I mean, Street By Feel like we've covered a lot of and this is just very much her being in her like run a box office dominance. This is a sandwich between Devil Wears Prada and It's Complicated,
[00:48:06] both which we've talked about. But this is what she's had. Yes, but I'm saying those two movies we've covered. She really she does such a such a good job at this. It's really amazing how spot on this performance is.
[00:48:18] It's also fascinating how much she threads the needle of this is the first time in her career this run from like 2006 to 2016, roughly or whatever, where she like becomes a box office star for the first time. She makes very mainstream movies and she establishes like a Meryl Street
[00:48:40] movie star persona, which I feel like prior to that, her persona was she's a chameleon. She just disappears. Those are the accents and of course she's still in that. But like everything you're saying is accurate.
[00:48:53] I just wanted to note that when I tweeted about this movie, some people were my mentions being like, I mean, mostly you see the people saying more like the Amy Adams part to kind of lead in.
[00:49:03] Yeah, but like some people were saying like, oh, Meryl's over the top. Like that's and I'm like, have you seen Julia Child? That's the thing. I think it's like just the right level absolutely because that's exactly how Julia Child acted. Julia Child was over the top.
[00:49:18] That was her personality. And she's almost doing the Sean Connery thing too, where it's like people came because they want to see a Sean Connery movie. Don't get too far away from Sean Connery. Yeah, let's not get too subtle Meryl. Right.
[00:49:29] She's doing the voice, but she's also like bringing in a lot of like the Meryl comedy shit at this point. She's got a lot of her mannerisms, which she's really started to hone in on for her sort of comedy leading lady career.
[00:49:40] Have you guys watched the Julia like shows on TV and like Oh, yes. On PBS? Sure. Not honestly, not consistently because I guess I don't know. Like I guess I was sort of whatever.
[00:49:56] I was too old for them in real time and but like I've seen many of them and we never to be on. You're never too old for religion. Right. Exactly. I should I should just do it. I just remember how striking they were. Yes.
[00:50:08] And how low five they looked right and like the the tonal, the warm tonal like quality of it was mesmerizing as a kid. She was so weird. Such a kid. It was very soothing when it was on. Right. Yes.
[00:50:23] This movie, like I think Julia Child, she's just such an iconic figure, but this movie makes you really think like this is a really fucking weird woman in a great way. But like, but it's like her whole persona is so odd.
[00:50:39] He is when pause, pause, pause, bad news, card full. Give me five minutes to dump the card and then did this just a new recording. It just happened, I think your cable TV is experiencing difficulties. Please do not panic.
[00:50:55] Resist the temptation to read or talk to loved ones. He comes down stairs to make an appearance. And then after I was like, what was that about? And he was like, the people love me. I read the comments that people love me. I mean, here's the thing.
[00:51:11] He's not wrong. I know that that is the problem. I need to find love him. I need to find it. But someone in the blank check read it started a thread of memes of Peter Newman. No, showing up in the comments of Instagram live shows.
[00:51:25] I keep wanting to be like, they don't love you. Get out and it's just not the proof is in the pudding. The problem is he's absolutely right. They love I know. They'll take as much as he just is a ham. They love it.
[00:51:37] He's doing the backstroke in the river of ham. OK, now I'm recording. Apologies, apologies, apologies. OK, Amy Adams. Let's talk about Amy Adams. Now here's Amy Adams before Julie and Julia. OK, guys, obviously there's her early. She's a young person, dropped a gorgeous psycho beach party.
[00:51:58] Cruel intentions to that one Buffy episode. Catch me if you can. I feel like one small little episode. Catch me if you can was supposed to be her breakthrough. And then yet still it's like when she's in June, bug three years later,
[00:52:09] it's still kind of like who's this, you know, like there's still that element. But after that, you know, she's in Paladena for June, but yes, right? She should have won and and absolutely absolutely agree. But the other thing that happens is
[00:52:25] enchanted was like so many bigger stars in the running. And I think Disney made the binary decision of fuck, she's good. And also the premise is so money in the bank. We can make this movie at a much lower budget
[00:52:40] if we just hire her and let the premise be the star. Who else is in the running? I forget, but I remember it being surprising that she got the role like deadlock because it must have been right off of June. But great it was.
[00:52:53] And they were like, she's like an indie actress who like got an Oscar animation for a movie no one's seen. It seemed like a weird choice. And people forget that Patrick Dempsey is above the title in that movie. Like she was the one that used to sell it.
[00:53:05] She was not a McDreamy. You see what they did was they took the word Muck, OK, MC, and they put it in front of a word that means like handsome. This is what they dared do in the mid 2000s.
[00:53:20] No one had ever thought that there would be possible that someone could be Muck Dreamy. Yes, no, I get it. And then there was also Muck Steamy and of course, 17 seasons later, the television has never been the same season to grace and enemy. So incredible.
[00:53:38] But yes, but yes, it's June Buggan enchanted as the real one to punch where people are like, oh, fuck, can she do anything? Is she both like a very skilled, serious actress and innately a movie star who can apply herself to any genre?
[00:53:52] And in the middle, you have like the weird things that people forget like her being Jim's girlfriend on the office and right. Tal Degen Knights, as you said, but post-enchanted like Charlie Wilson's war. Right. Yeah. Right. Post enchanted, it's just like here she is the next year.
[00:54:09] Sunshine cleaning Mrs. Prada grew lives for a day and then doubt. There's her second Oscar nomination. Yeah, she really is with Maril. Incredible with Maril. And then 2009 Night the Museum, Julie and Julia, both movies, huge hits. Right. And then 2010 leap here, I feel like is, you know,
[00:54:28] this is still the last gas beer of like, well, well, let's put you in a rom-com. Like, geez, that's a bad movie star. Yeah. Yeah, but she is good in it. She's always good. Right. Yeah. That slowed her momentum a little bit, but then that's not really
[00:54:44] your year. Yeah, the fighter in the Muppets. Right. Yeah. The Muppets is a year after. Oh, you're right. Sorry. She's so good in the fighter. Right. We all agree that she should have won for the fighter. Yes. She's better than Melissa Leo.
[00:54:56] That's for sure. I'm quite a Muslim. So yeah, and then in the master it was kind of like man, like she is fucking special and since then the only movie I have liked her in is arrival and it
[00:55:09] really drives me crazy. Like it's not like I think she's terrible in the other movies. She's like I have kind of struggled with her post master career. Like she's made a lot of choices that make sense on paper and kind of just didn't work out.
[00:55:24] I think she's incredible in her. I think that's a very slept on performance. Yeah, I think she's really fucking strong in that. I know you just like the movie. I think that movie is OK. So good. It's OK. Sure. Yes, she's fine in her.
[00:55:37] But this is the thing like I think she's fine in big eyes. American hustle you hate. I think she's good in. That's obviously a much debated performance. I don't like that. Maybe also she she's stuck playing Lois Lane for three movies
[00:55:50] and I feel like she never really got to do a ton with that. Because I've already my piece on nocturnal animals. We all hate the lowest lane thing, as you said, should have been a slam dunk.
[00:56:02] There's an altering universe in which she's not the best ever lowest bad. Well, she's fine. Those are not the right movies for her. Yes. And then Arrival is like once again, that is a movie where you're like,
[00:56:12] fuck, does she finally win the Oscar for this doesn't even get nominated. Right. She gets the vice nomination, which at this point you're like has she crossed over into the territory where people now resent that she's almost an automatic nomination in a way that's
[00:56:27] preventing her from ever actually winning. I think people resent like, oh, am I going to have to give her an Oscar? It's the Winslet thing or whatever. You know, she has six nominations. It's I agree. I agree that she has six nominations.
[00:56:40] Like for my money, she is perhaps my my favorite like current working actress. You see, I can't say that anymore. I know, look, I know, I know she hasn't been on her strongest run recently.
[00:56:56] But like she is one of the people who I get most excited about seeing largely because she does feel like such a classical movie star to me. She feels like someone like Barbara Stanwyck where it's like she can do anything like she can do her musical.
[00:57:11] She can do a big broad comedy. She can do something more subtle. She can be the lead. She can be supporting. She could be missing her best performance, which is the Muppets movie. We said that you did. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned it is she's cute in that.
[00:57:26] I think she's very good in that. But that's a perfect example of she can do anything. Get you an Amy Adams who can do both. Yeah, like it is unusual for the same person who can pull off the fighter to be able to pull off the Muppets.
[00:57:37] Yes, you got to give credit to that range. You must save it. I love Amy Adams. I think she's great in lots of movies. I just feel a little kind of like like I'm look. I've always wanted to know, you know, the answer to the question
[00:57:52] what if there was a woman in the window, but like I don't think I'm going to like the answer from every all the buzz around that movie and then like the other thing she's got. Hillbilly elegy is the Ron Howard hillbilly g hillbilly elegy
[00:58:05] movie like I want to walk into the sea. That's what I want to do when I hear that question. Did any of us watch sharp objects? I watched sharp. She was very good at that. She was. She was. I was not good. It was good.
[00:58:18] I mean, that nothing was incredibly watchable and she was obviously, you know, bringing her Amy Adams heat. I was not the whole time. I'm like, is this just trash? Like like I couldn't be sure if it the thing was actually good, but she was great.
[00:58:34] I like how it made teens seem so creepy. That was my these teens. Yeah, well, what is man? I'm a what's her name? Anyway, Amy Adams, the Jewish thing, but right now this is a year after doubt. This is another Merrill collaboration, although I guess they don't meet.
[00:58:54] I guess they didn't even hang out probably. But but you kind of have to imagine maybe this is baseless that Merrill was like I like Amy. I would like Amy to do this. Yes, there's no way Merrill didn't sign off.
[00:59:09] I also like Amy Adams is such a good match for Nora. Like she feels Meg Ryan. I mean, right? Like I mean, I would say she's a better actress than Meg Ryan or maybe has more range or something. But there is that kind of like you incredibly lovable.
[00:59:25] Go ahead. I love Meg Ryan. I love Amy Adams and I agree with Griffin. She's an incredible talent and we're very lucky to have her, but I don't know if I find this character very annoying. I don't know. I actually I do find this character very annoying
[00:59:43] I think Amy Adams does an incredibly good job of making her likable at the same time. Yes, I think maybe a part of that is the research I've done after on the real person who does seem slightly problematic. Real person seems intense.
[01:00:00] Yeah, I will say it's quite a while to think that her sequel book to the Julie Julia Child book came out the year this movie came out and the sequel book like, man, me and my husband cheated the fuck on each other. Like, I know it.
[01:00:17] We cheated on her career. Right. The follow up book is I wanted to learn how to be a butcher. I worked in a butcher shop. This was my new food experiment, but also this one isn't about my husband being good. This is about us fucking other people.
[01:00:28] Right. And her saying like I had an affair the entire time. Yeah. And like I think it's like an intense affair. Right. It does. Yes. I it has. I really respect the I think the contrast between Julie and Julia is what makes this movie great. You need it.
[01:00:49] I'm not someone who thinks that this should just be a Julia Child movie because then it's just half as interesting. Yes, but the character I do find annoying. Can I make my sort of point? My take I've been I've been holding on to here. Please do.
[01:01:05] This this is kind of a selfless performance from Adams because in order for the movie to work, she has to take the fall in terms of being the annoying character. Right. In a way to make Julia Child look bigger and better. I think watching this now
[01:01:22] through the prism of how internet culture has changed, which I I do think I give Nora the credit that she could see it happening. I think it's why she was attracted to making a movie about one of the first people to have sort of blog crossover success,
[01:01:38] to be able to excel out of the blog world into a different medium. It's the same reason she was so fascinated by email so early on being able to understand sociologically the difference that was going to make in human behavior. I think the kind of stealth point
[01:01:54] that Nora is making in this movie is the value of having to live and work in sort of obscurity before you're ready to make your first statement versus internet culture, which gives you an immediate feedback loop. Like watching this movie, the scene where it's like
[01:02:15] she's had the blog for two weeks, she invites friends over for dinner. She won't stop talking about the blog and people in the comments and whatever. And you step back and go like perspective. She probably has two hundred readers at this point
[01:02:28] and the movie is making her insufferable. Whereas in this point in her career, when you cut to the other narrative, Meryl is still like trying to get into cooking school. You know, yes, for Julie, it is like I am learning how to cook
[01:02:44] and how to write and having an audience and letting it go to my head all at the same time versus the very gradual build of Julia is already in her fifties. She's lived a longer life. She's had other careers. She moves to a different country,
[01:03:01] not like throwing a dramatic fit over. I can't believe we're moving from Brooklyn to Queens, but I can't believe we're moving to France, right? Like everything Julia is doing is so much more monumental. She deals with it with so much more grace
[01:03:15] and then she gradually has to learn how to cook, how to prove herself, then learn how to write, then go through publishing. I think the Julia part is like purely about joy. It really is. It's about the joy of food. It's about the joy of Paris.
[01:03:30] It's about the joy of her relationship, her friendships, her sister. I can turn the lights off with Stanley Tucci, her sister. Oh, my favorite. One of my favorite parts of the movie is like one, just the casting of Jane Lynch so tall. Brilliant.
[01:03:45] But also just like Griffin, you're saying like how sort of funny a person Julia child is. Like when you meet her sister and you're like, oh, this is just what they're like. They're just screaming at the train station. Right. Like Lee is on air at this point, right?
[01:04:00] I remember just like when Jane Lynch enters in the movie, the audience like bursting into applause because it was like that's such a slam dunk. The work's already done. It's such smart casting. Right. They're just like, I know what she's going to sound like.
[01:04:13] Of course she's tall enough to play it. Like it was just, oh great. We get to watch the two of them together for 15 minutes doing and there's that moment where it's like why wouldn't any boys, data, sir, and they go too tall.
[01:04:24] Like, you know, like they're just she's so because Meryl Streep, not tall Meryl Streep is miscena size. She's a short king. So she must be standing on fucking apple boxes. Absolutely. And that cast a lot of short actors around her because Jane Lynch is like six feet tall.
[01:04:40] She's like really, really tall. Yeah, no, they built smaller sets for the Jane Lynch scenes. I think she's on significant heels or apple boxes. And for most of the other scenes, they pointedly cast actors who are like four eleven. Yes. I remember Nora talking about this in interviews.
[01:04:57] Right. Ron, you're right. It's all about all the joys of all these things and her learning how to like translate it. Yeah. And then the Amy Adams part is all about obstacles. Right. But it's also about ego. It's about her desperately looking for outside validation that she exists.
[01:05:16] And she says that explicitly. I want to feel like I exist. Yes. And so in contrast, it's very easy to dismiss the Amy Adams part because obviously watching Julia Child get excited about the simplest pleasures in life is exciting. Yeah. And enjoyable.
[01:05:32] But I think that ultimately is why the Amy Adams part is so important. It's a very different time. The inclusion of the internet, all of that. I mean, it's just it's impossible in a post 9-11. What? It's like 2003 when... It's two. I think it's 2002. 2002. Yeah.
[01:05:56] It's impossible to just run around the street and get excited about onions and potatoes. I mean, so the contrast, you need her to be a little bit annoying. And also the narcissistic feedback loop of just having like the internet
[01:06:10] be able to make you feel like the most important person in the world. You know, like Julia goes through so many steps or Julie rather goes through so many steps that as you said, are based in like what makes you happy? Find the thing.
[01:06:22] People tell you can't do this. People tell you there is an audience for this. It doesn't matter. She's doing the thing that makes her happy. It's not career minded. She's living a life and she finds a career out of it versus Julie,
[01:06:33] who's looking for the end result from the very beginning. She wants Julia Child to notice. Yes. She wants people to follow her thing. She wants to feel like she matters. She wants to be able to people know her name.
[01:06:43] I mean, it's like pointed that the introduction or one of her introduction scenes is that thing where she picks up the phone and they say, I'd like to speak to someone important. And I think it's pointed that she gets this annoying and that the main
[01:06:56] crux of her arc in this movie is her husband being like, I can't fucking deal with you. You're becoming an ego maniac. Yeah. Yeah, but there's also it's like in Julia, Julia Child's era in the 50s.
[01:07:10] What is expected of her really is just to be a good hostess and a lovely wife, right? You know, and to have kids, which of course is this like bear. You know, like there's that scene.
[01:07:20] The scene that scene is so good where she learns her sister is pregnant. Yeah. But like you know what she can't do or we know that that's obviously an issue, but like there's nothing else expected of her.
[01:07:30] Whereas with Amy Adams's care with Julie, it's like well, what are you? What's your thing? Are you a novelist? Like what's come on? Like what's your what? What's your whole identity going to be? And she's got all these career girl friends, Casey Wilson generation shit.
[01:07:46] Yeah, it's like right who are like build buying parcels and like and this is like an elegy movie for New York City as well that Efron is doing where it's like yeah post 9 11 it just like like did we do even care about like what
[01:08:01] the city is going to look like anymore because there's like she works for the LMDC like which is basically going to like, you know, rebuild downtown Manhattan in the name of like revitalization with all these malls and towers and stone, you know and like and and right.
[01:08:16] So she's just the jewel. The blog thing is like it's like well maybe this can be my thing. I need a thing. I need to like identify myself. I love the scene when Julia goes to Avis's house and they're like
[01:08:28] talking about the American cookbook and it's like pot roast for housewives and it's interesting because you in that moment you realize that like I think Avis says something like this is a book for board housewives cooking or whatever.
[01:08:41] And like Julia Child is a board housewife who finds cooking, but her passion and her presence is what takes it to the next level. But at that moment that's exactly what she's doing. She's just like fulfilling a housewife career. And so much of it's accidental.
[01:09:00] It's like what's a hobby? What's a thing I can do at home? I'm post career, you know, my husband has me stationed here and then it's I want to learn how to cook for myself. That's meeting other people and turning it into the school.
[01:09:11] Then the book is just because they're like our book isn't selling. We need an American perspective. And at the point that the movie ends, it's like how weird that anyone would want to see me on TV versus the Julie thing, which is like from post one,
[01:09:26] it's refreshing the page waiting to see our people acknowledging and validating what I'm doing as I'm on the very first step of my journey. I want people to be celebrating me. Oh my God, are people do people actually care what I'm saying?
[01:09:41] It's like why are not people why are people not caring what I'm saying? But then you have what I think is the thesis scene of the movie that's again kind of a mirror of that where which is when Julie meets Julia
[01:09:54] meets Avis in real life for the first time, which is the scene that made me cry on rewatch. This is certainly not a movie that made me cry the first time I watched it where it's like they've had this long correspondence.
[01:10:07] You know, they've only been virtual people to each other, right? But they know each other so well and like when they meet, it's like they told they're like, of course, like there's Avis. I'm Julie, you know, like even that kind of connection,
[01:10:21] like which Nora is obviously so nostalgic for, like Nora's kind of like this is this that can't exist in the same way in Julie's world, even though she's sort of now, you know, we're playing in the same pool. Like that's obviously the same kind of idea, right?
[01:10:35] These these virtual friends. No, and there's a lot of that like right. It's it's the version of that that Julie is doing is always going to be more performative, you know, it's Julia represents an era when people could do things purely for pleasure, you know,
[01:10:56] for the value of the thing itself. Sure. And she lives this. It is a charmed life in so many ways, of course, like it's such a nice, you know, environments that she's in, right? But but the hints of the things you get from before that,
[01:11:09] that she was, you know, reportedly a virgin until she met her husband in her late thirties. There were always this rumors that the two of them were spies, which they kind of denied, but the movie has the little reference to it to keep it sort of mysterious.
[01:11:25] You know, I feel like every time we've covered a filmmaker who's lighter and it particularly happened. Both here and with Nancy, I see some people scoffing where it's like these filmmakers are like frothy. They don't be they don't deserve to be discussed on the same level,
[01:11:42] which a I think is some ingrained sexism in our culture, especially as relating to these types of movies, which are never taken as seriously, you know, as not only serious prestige movies, but also like big action movies or whatever.
[01:11:58] And I feel like, you know, someone like me who has been in enough terrible fucking movies and TV shows has only grown to have more appreciation for this type of craft, which makes itself look very easy to do. And I don't mean that as any sort of backhand
[01:12:17] of compliment or light praise. You realize if it was this easy to do, then everyone would do this. Then you'd have 10 movies this good a year, you know. But I also feel like Nora is a filmmaker who has such consistent themes running across her entire body of work.
[01:12:35] And you think about how often like her three most successful movies all have this sort of split narrative, right? Where they're about people communicating over words versus in person. And it's three different versions of it. You have you got mail sleepless in Seattle in this. You've got mail.
[01:12:56] You're right. One person is hearing the other person's words and is trying to get in touch with them. But the other guy isn't even acknowledging you mean sleepless in Seattle. Sorry, yes. You've got mail is they know each other in real life.
[01:13:10] They know each other through their words and the two relationships are different. Right. And this is two people in different timelines, in different spaces. And it's an unrequited love story. It's like one person trying desperately to feel like she's connected to this other person
[01:13:25] and that she exists on the same wavelength of this person. And it is so pointed that Efron includes the scene where Julie gets the phone called telling her that Julia Child doesn't like the blog.
[01:13:38] Julia Child's rep was like, oh, no, I don't I don't think that's very good. But if you look it up, Julia Child had a comment that was like she doesn't think that four letter words belong.
[01:13:48] She felt like it was kind of a narcissistic exercise, like it's even more unpacked if you look into what happened in real life. I let me look. I thought it was all from the rep. It was all from Julia's. It was all from Child's editor.
[01:14:01] There was no words. She was saying like Julia didn't like what she called quote unquote the flimsies. She didn't suffer fools. If you know what I mean. That sort of implies I guess that Julie is a flimsy, whatever that means.
[01:14:18] But but yes, it is it is great that she includes that. I think because like there's like stronger a movie. I love the Jake Jillian Hall. He recovers from the bombing and you know the accident. He loses his legs.
[01:14:31] They leave out the end up getting divorced 100 percent and I get why they do because the movie is not going to be about that. The movie is about this, you know, and like it's fine that you wanted to just take this section of the like.
[01:14:43] But so I'm just saying like Nora definitely could have just like cleanly left that out and like been like, look, it's just two parallel tales. But she doesn't want to do that point. She's trying to make it's like that's the moment that makes it clear
[01:14:55] that having Amy Adams be this annoying is intentional. You know, I feel like the negative reviews at the time we're judging this movie like it's like, oh, I'm supposed to be equally charmed by these two halves and it's a miscalculation. No, but that's the problem.
[01:15:09] The movie is not setting that up. You know, like that the whole point is that they're on completely different levels. Right. And it's this one woman struggling to feel like she has a relationship with this other woman through words. She's reading the book. She's writing her words.
[01:15:26] She wants to believe they're the same that they're going through the same journey and they're pointedly not. And I appreciate I think as someone who grew up reading cookbooks and I'm a very obsessive person and watching the Food Network and immediately, you know, really forming these strong obsessions
[01:15:43] with women who cook on TV or write cookbooks. You know, cooking is such a personal and emotional thing. And when you read cookbooks, you read the forward, you read the excerpts, you read, you know, you make the food.
[01:16:01] You really do feel connected to the person who wrote the recipe. And I know, like growing up, I just I put all of these women on such a high pedestal thinking like I make her, you know, white beans.
[01:16:15] She must, you know, be the loveliest person in the world. You know, I cooked her roast chicken. You know, I feel so connected to her. And then as I grew up a little bit, I would read stories about them
[01:16:27] being difficult or, you know, not being like super friendly or whatever. I mean, a lot of this stuff is coming out in the wash. I feel like there's a reckoning and food culture, much like what happened in other areas of entertainment. Sure. A couple years ago. Yeah.
[01:16:40] Stuff what happened to the Shallot Queen lady? OK, but it really is kind of heartbreaking. Let's litigate the Shallot Queen. We're not. I'm not talking about the Shallot Queen. I'm joking. I'm joking. But when you when you like feel so connected to someone based
[01:16:56] on something so small, but it feels so big to you and you just assume that they feel the same way. It just like if in real life, someone shares a recipe with you. It is such a personal and emotional thing
[01:17:10] that when you read a cookbook and cook out of it, you kind of feel like they feel the same way about you. OK, so that's my biggest take. My biggest take is that this movie secretly is a romantic comedy, but it's an unrequited love story. Right. Yeah.
[01:17:25] It's about the relationship between Julie and Julia, only in Julie's head. Yes. And I totally identify with that. In the same way that that Meg Ryan is listening to Tom Hanks on the radio and going, he would love me if we met.
[01:17:44] And it's the same way that Tom Hanks when he like is shown the letter is like, I don't fucking care about this. This is sleepless in Seattle, except without the happy ending. I love I love this scene when they're shopping for the plates
[01:17:57] and it's like, I think ten plates to and then like, oh my god, this is my grandmother's China. We have so much in common. Yes. Right. There's that scene late where she's like, no, Julia is perfect. You know, where like her husband's like, come on, everyone makes mistakes
[01:18:13] like Julia would have made mistake and she's like, no, no. Julia is perfect. Like that's the whole fucking point. Don't you get it? I cried at the end because I think like there's something really beautiful
[01:18:25] about the fact that she ends the movie with her saying, I love you, Julia. And having the end of the movie is incredible. Incredible and like her love for her never wavered, you know, she kind of I see that as her like coming to terms with the fact
[01:18:42] that Julia doesn't have to love her just because she loves Julia. That's not what's important. It's what she can get out of her work, which is the other big Nora thing. It's the power of words. It's the fact that you can feel that intimate
[01:18:54] a relationship with someone through their writing, you know, that you can have this ability if you're able to capture your soul properly in the written word. It's pointed that so many of her movies come back to the written word
[01:19:07] despite moving to film, moving to a visual medium within the actual stories. They so often circulate around the power of the written word and the idea that that can transcend time and space, you know,
[01:19:20] that Amy Adams in two thousand two can say, I love you to a person. She will never meet who has said disparaging things about her through a publicist and still leave butter behind right. Right. That's a beautiful thing. Yeah, it is beautiful.
[01:19:35] There's that concept of like, sure Julia may have dissed her like in the present day, but when you're, you know, you've got that at the end, that mirrory thing where, you know, Julia comes into the kitchen after Julie has left and we've swept,
[01:19:47] you know, swapped back like she's left a legacy that can be obsessed over and celebrated and like, you know, loved and, you know, like there's that I think Nora is fascinated with that with like what happens to a legacy like that.
[01:20:02] And like you've got that monument of the kitchen. The mastering the art of French cooking is like, I don't know, isn't it the quintessential American cookbook? There are few works that I feel like so singlehandedly transformed an entire perception of an art form.
[01:20:21] Right. So universal and like, yeah. I my dad grew up cooking out of joy of cooking and Julius book. And I just the two. Yeah. It's great that there's the scene where Julia meets the, you know, the joy of cooking lady. Francis Sturdy. I love that.
[01:20:39] I love that she's like, oh, I never I didn't test all the recipes and like in Julia's mind, that book was the perfect book. And it was a Bible and it was kind of like this lady and she's just like,
[01:20:50] I didn't test the recipes. They took all my money. I was faster. That's like the Russian nesting doll thing. That's another scene where Efron is giving you the clues as to what she's really saying, which is like, Julie keeps on talking about like, what if I met Julia?
[01:21:05] What if she reads my blog? Do you think we'd get along? We're exactly the same. And she's thinking about, A, I want people to like me. I want my blog to be validated, but B also I want to be friends with Julia Child.
[01:21:17] And what I think she realized at the end of it is like, you don't need to have a personal relationship with the actual person. The relationship to the work they did can be just as valuable in the same way that Meryl Julia, rather, meeting the joy of cooking
[01:21:33] are author is so disappointing to her not because she's dismissive, but because her perception of her own book seems so silly and frivolous to her that she's like, does this deflate me that the person who I've held up as this
[01:21:47] idol who I've only wanted to meet ends up being a disappointment. It's like no. The book is the thing. Well, and it's also just fascinating like the story she tells like Julie is existing post 9 11. Julia is existing after the war and the joy of cooking
[01:22:00] is birthed out of the depression like you know her husband shoots himself and she's like, I guess I'll just write a book of recipes. What else do I have to do with myself? And like that was in the early 30s.
[01:22:13] Like the thing you said Romley about recipes like they are weirdly intimate because the whole point of entertaining and bringing out food right is like that it'll look so nice when you give it to someone, you know,
[01:22:27] when you put it on the table and you're kind of like you're not revealing like what went into it right on the cooking side. Like, you know, you're just you're just like the finished product is so perfect.
[01:22:36] So if you're showing someone a recipe, you're like, yeah, this is what I'm doing. Like am I doing it wrong? Like, you know, there's a weird kind of like nakedness to that. Yeah. And also it's a glimpse into someone's life
[01:22:50] and a lot of times into a different culture. It's it they're like a very powerful thing. It's a form of autobiography. Yeah. And I think the thing is that. Cookbooks kind of have to be seen as a standalone thing.
[01:23:08] I think you have to read them and enjoy them and cook from them and not think too much about who wrote them because within the cookbook, you have all these personal stories. You have a full picture of who the person is, why these recipes matter to them.
[01:23:24] They are books. And I think when people try to then like dig too much into the person who wrote them and in this case, like, you know, Amy Adams seeking the validation from real life Julia, rather than just cooking these dishes
[01:23:39] and having great successes and feeling connected to her in that way is a good example of that. Don't you think also? I mean, I watching this, I kept on thinking about the the Alton Brown episode of Hot Ones, which I have watched four or five times.
[01:23:53] It is one of the better Hot Ones episodes in my estimation. He talks about how he was a director and a cinematographer for like music videos and commercials. And he decided to drop out of that, go to cooking school and learn how to cook because he felt like
[01:24:15] there is a way to make food shows better than this. I want to apply my understanding of production to the food world. If I can only learn it, right? Can we all right. Well, I just want to talk about cooking shows.
[01:24:27] Well, this is what I'm about to say. OK, go. And he talked about how he sort of felt that in the ether. He made that shift late 90s, early 2000s and it timed up coincidentally with the explosion of food culture
[01:24:44] and especially of the food network and personality based food culture, which he attributes directly to 9 11. He said, like I was at Food Network and I just saw the ratings explode across the entire channel in the months after 9 11. It suddenly just became the type of content that everyone wanted.
[01:25:03] It's comforting. Right. Food becomes comfort. It becomes a sense of control over the universe. I can do something. There's some sort of order. There's something to follow. But also he says that's a double edged sword because then it becomes this is a way to get famous
[01:25:17] and the personalities are getting famous and it creates this sort of culture of idols, you know, in a way that is different from someone like Julia Child, who lives an entire lifetime, who does the work, who toils for years and years
[01:25:30] before she accidentally becomes this kind of figure. And that's 100 percent what's wrong with food media right now. And why we're seeing this sort of collapse where people keep on oversharing. Well, that's the thing. Confident. Yes. If you read Julia Child's book,
[01:25:45] and that's what I was trying to say, like it's all there. Like you have a full picture of Julia Child. You don't need to go online and read all about Julia Child. You don't need to look at every picture of her.
[01:25:55] And now cookbooks and like these viral recipes, viral cookbooks, so much of it is like, read this recipe, but then watch this video and look at this Instagram and look at these tweets. Instagram me. Yeah. Which always ends up like people get hoisted by their own petard. Exactly.
[01:26:12] And it becomes so much less about the food and more about like the vibe and the brand until they either cancel themselves or just become annoying and people start to resent. Right. And I think that's not what cookbooks and cooking shows and food is supposed to be about.
[01:26:32] But cooking shows as a concept, that's a weird idea for her. Why? Because you can't eat the food. You can't eat it. It's like you're just like going to watch them like a freak cook. That's like going and watching someone at the laundromat.
[01:26:51] Like it's a person running errands, technically. Is it like when I'm watching someone at the laundry? You're just watching someone cook. I would say that the food network is like a Brian De Palma movie. It's like a perverted voyeuristic. OK, here's the thing about the food network.
[01:27:09] A lot of people just watch it to calm their nerves. A lot of people don't even cook the food. Yeah, I find it wildly entertaining. The thing about the food network that I think people like so much and that the reason why it becomes quite addictive
[01:27:25] is because there's something really fascinating about watching something from start to finish. Totally. It's great programming. You see like a bunch of carrots, parsley, right, mushrooms and then 30 minutes later, you have both broken you. OK, but you're a song and dance man. Yes. Right. You've come up.
[01:27:47] You've learned to tap dance. You're a damn entertainer. And then someone tells you years from now, a guy is just going to build a house and people are going to watch the shit out of that. That is so absurd to me. I don't know.
[01:28:00] I just I like I love that stuff. Ben's going after this old house now. Yeah. Come on. This old house. I don't think I've ever watched the food network or any other cooking show and been like, I got to make what I'm seeing right now.
[01:28:15] Like when I'm when I'm cooking, I'm looking online. I'm looking in my cookbooks like that's like I that's how I can experience recipes. I sort of need to like have it be very static so that I can always just sort of like refer back
[01:28:27] to the ingredients like you know. Romali is right. Like watching it is more about that weird. It's like watching someone like you watch the Marie Kondo show and she like cleans up their house. You know, you're watching a transformation. It's it's fun to see.
[01:28:40] It's the most touching, charming, exciting show in a while. And it's because it's like it's the same thing. It's like there's so many emotional connections within a house, why people keep things. We know where things are, all of that. And the same with cooking.
[01:28:55] It's like it's such a personal experience and it's very intimate art. And I think people almost never cook from cooking shows. It's it's pure entertainment. Yeah, well, because you would make a mess and you don't have a giant kitchen and you don't have amazing ingredients
[01:29:14] and like a PA to clean up after you. Right. And also I truly never, never cook as listeners of this show know and you know better than anyone Romali. But like last week, you and I were texting about how both of us have been going through
[01:29:28] like a really bad two week anxiety spiral over case surging and the state of the world. And what did I recommend to you? Cooking, binging with Babish. Binging with Babish, yes. I've just been watching this fucking YouTube channel. Do you guys know about this?
[01:29:44] I don't, although I feel like I've heard that. I've heard binging with Babish. That makes someone put it on our Reddit, I think because he covered something that overlapped with our show. And I I'm way behind the eight ball on this. Apparently he's been huge for years,
[01:29:58] but he's a dude who has a YouTube channel where he just makes dishes from movies and TV shows. Yeah, I feel like I've seen some of these videos before because I know that photography. Yeah, it is so calming. That's a thing.
[01:30:11] I'm not going to make any of these dishes ever. But also he falls into this category where he shoots and edits his own stuff and he frames it so that his head is not visible. Like it's almost like the fucking adults in peanuts.
[01:30:27] You're just seeing his hands from the same stationary angle. A time lapse work on the different ingredients. Explain the process of trying to replicate something based off an image, figuring out the way to do it most accurately, figuring out the way that would taste better.
[01:30:42] And he just has this very, very calming, like monotone voice. And he's not making it about himself. He's not even showing his face on screen. But in this way, you're talking about it ends up being very revealing and very personal. Yes. And I think I think I hope
[01:31:01] that food media will go back to this joy of cooking state. Yeah. And I think, you know, old fashioned cooking shows should make a comeback. I know I've been in plenty of meetings about cooking shows where they're like, but what's your catch? What's the hook?
[01:31:20] And for a while, I feel like I was conditioned to think like, OK, cooking is not enough. Like having a personality and cooking is not enough. You have to like cook, but also go here and also surprise
[01:31:33] and like all this shit and let's like distract people as much as possible. And I hope that we can go back to just the joy of cooking. It doesn't mean it has to be boring. Yeah. But, you know, just someone who genuinely cares
[01:31:49] and is excited to show you something. Hey, you know, who's got a good show, a good take on a contemporary way of doing a food oriented show is Dave Chang's Ugly Delicious. Yes, Ugly Delicious kills it. It's so like right now, pression in like the conversation that's happening.
[01:32:08] He it's outstanding. And in a nor Efron way where he's really interested in the sociological relationship we have. But he also loves food and loves cooking and is like a very like warm kind of nerdy presence in a lot of ways. Which is what? Now. Now he is.
[01:32:25] Yeah. Yeah. Now you mean because he used to be kind of like, you know, the disruptor. I'm like it right. He was he was Sheffie. He would say he was an asshole. Right. But he definitely was a strong person. Into the chef mold. Every kitchen I've worked in,
[01:32:43] the chef always yelled and threw stuff at like the people working underneath him. But most chefs don't have that arc and he like really took a long look at himself and it's now like, I mean, then the latest season of ugly delicious is so touching and emotional.
[01:33:02] Padma Lakshmi's new show Tastination on Hulu is incredible. It rules. It really is amazing. That made me very hopeful. I think people should just put Padma in every show from now on. Totally. Yeah. She's so good on ugly delicious too. But that is a thing for you, Rambly.
[01:33:20] We're like you've you've worked in restaurants. You've done like sort of like internships and apprenticeships and kitchens. And you like came out of it going like, I don't want to work in a restaurant. I don't like this culture. Yes. Like there's something very abusive
[01:33:36] about like chef kitchen culture, which drew you more to the personality driven thing. But there's the different type of pitfall that comes with that, which is what we're discussing. Now I'm going back in the like hands on cooking direction
[01:33:50] because I just find food media so vapid and disgusting right now. I think it's like, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I would talk to someone who was a publisher or, you know, were a book agent and they were like, you have a great idea.
[01:34:04] You have a great voice. But how many Instagram followers do you have? The Bon Appetit collapse is so fascinating to me, especially just like as a point of comparison, as we're watching this movie now, right, which is about someone at the very beginning of online food culture
[01:34:21] versus like Bon Appetit, which is like this like fall of Rome thing. But I feel like like the test kitchen thing blew up because people really liked the idea that it seemed like this was genuine. Like this is just people who love cooking in a large kitchen,
[01:34:39] just this cooperative environment that somehow because it was on YouTube, it wasn't as sort of manufactured and personality based as food network, you know. Yes. But in fact, we're now just revealing like it was an entire house of cards. It was like this completely fucked system.
[01:34:57] Totally manufactured and personality based. Yeah. Right. And like some people were getting talent deals. Other people weren't getting paid. I mean, there was nothing democratic or it's like Vanderpump rules or something. It was like they were adding people in under like contracts to try to stir up
[01:35:15] like interesting dynamics and fucking and stoking tensions and all this shit. It's insane, but that's that's the point. It's like we keep on finding ourselves in these sorts of traps. Well, if something seems too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true.
[01:35:30] And I think that's the ultimate thing with the test kitchen. Everyone was like, they all have these amazing personalities. They can cook. They're all happy. They're all friends. Like this is amazing. And it's like it was all right in front of us.
[01:35:42] You know, it was so masterfully crafted. And that's not to say that there aren't people who work in the test kitchen who are talented and lovely and who are friends. But as a whole, it was so it was so false.
[01:35:55] The actual structure of the thing was was rotten. And I do feel like I was just going to say, I think in addition to as you said, it's just like how big things get and all that sort of shit. It's also just like how fast it happens.
[01:36:11] I think that's a thing that Nora is like latching on to here as someone who much like Julia Childe lived an entire life before she became a filmmaker, before she ended up in the career that she would, you know, do until the rest of her life.
[01:36:26] It's like the idea of being able to do that work internally away from those eyes so that by the time you do have your moment, you are fully at terms with who you are yourself. That the public relationship cannot fundamentally steer you too far
[01:36:46] astray from who you know you are versus if that happens in your early 20s or your late 20s, your your personality starts to become merged with your public persona and your career. You know, and it's this thing we see now all the time with social media
[01:37:01] where like someone blows up. And then it's like how quickly did they become an egomaniac after six months ago going viral because they had the right take on something. Yeah, I think going viral is the most damaging thing
[01:37:15] that can happen to a person and that's something that this movie is about. No, in a movie when someone goes viral, it's always really exciting. They always say, have you seen the YouTube count on this? Look at the numbers.
[01:37:29] Look, if you if you even are lucky enough as an actor to get a scene where you tell someone they're going viral automatic Oscar nomination, right Emma Stone just that she saw that in the script and she went fuck. I cannot wait to attend that nominee luncheon,
[01:37:47] but you're right. This is about an early version of going viral. The the answering machine montage. Yes, you know that's sort of like right. It's like suddenly these people are interested in her and it's like they're interested in her because she found
[01:38:02] a new gimmick that, you know, was clever and sort of spoke to like, oh, like it's tough to be part of this generation and like looking for, you know, ways to like stick out and, you know, like, you know, like,
[01:38:17] that's the thing. The second her answering machine goes crazy. She's no longer doing it for the joy of doing it like right from that point on, there's no going back. Everything she posts, she has to think about. She's, you know, it's it changes the content.
[01:38:34] Do we post on social media for the love of it? Yeah, I mean, I made it for the love. Oh, I love that's the exact point. I feel like this movie is making. Yes, absolutely. The blog started as a way to find herself and to feel connected to
[01:38:50] Julia Child and have a passion. And then it automatically became a way to get famous. Yes. And the fact that the big Christmas scene of fight ends with him saying, and don't blog about this. And then it's followed by the scene where you see her type it out.
[01:39:08] Like she still goes through the exercise of being like, but I have to put it in there. Every part of the story is important. I need to share my entire life before she then deletes it, calls him, apologizes and realizes she's become a monster.
[01:39:21] Yes, but also I feel like at the time the reaction. This is 2009. It's sort of right at the start of the great recession, right? We're only like less than a year into all that people are like, oh, get over it.
[01:39:34] Like they're like, I cannot sympathize with this person. She has such a nice life. And now I'm like, this is where everyone gets stuck. Like this is where this whole generation is stuck and it's so hard
[01:39:46] to do anything like, you know, remotely, whatever that'll stick out in it. Like it just now it just feels like I said the story of this entire generation. We're on like the third lost generation now. Exactly, right? Yeah. All these many generations.
[01:40:01] She really was like so ahead of the curve on just standing. Yeah, the psychology of where cultures are going. Like to think about getting hung up by your mother because of something you wrote on your blog, like that could only happen in 2004.
[01:40:20] Right. It's such a weird thing that stands out. Yeah. But yeah, it is like it is a very much an encapsulation of like what is only going to continue to be sort of our generation's legacy, unfortunately, that we're like lazy and always just want to be famous.
[01:40:38] I've had those conversations with my parents of just like, why did you say that in the podcast? Why did you tweet that? Don't post that. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And I remember being like, you know, like 20 when I was like my
[01:40:50] entire career is based around being funny on Twitter. That is the key to everything. My Twitter really matters. I have 200 followers and they are waiting on baited breath for every perfect Bonn Mull. And my mom would be like, why are you tweeting that?
[01:41:03] And I'd be like, you don't understand. Don't suppress me. This is my art. Yeah. And I look back and I'm like, who gives a shit? Yeah. Or I would be like, I have to cook something so I can post it on Instagram rather than I cook something.
[01:41:17] It's delicious. I want to post it to share it. I feel like that's when it turns sour and it was because it was like, there was this hamster wheel where everyone is posting a recipe every day. Everyone looked a certain way.
[01:41:30] You know, I don't even have that many followers at all, but it was like this constant like, okay, I'm building something and then I'm going to get to a point where I have something and then I can let go.
[01:41:40] And as Griffin and I talk about all the time, that never happens. You never get what you want and you're happy with it. And that's how these people like Shallot Lady have these very public downfalls because it's just this greed and this ego.
[01:41:55] And you never feel you never never feel you never feel. And then you end up hurting yourself. Yeah, that whole thing was fascinating. The egg. I just like, you know, we're wrapping up on this movie, but Griff the egg scene. Okay. I know you don't like eggs. Yes.
[01:42:13] And then there's this sort of this. I think I'm watching this movie for the first time and I'm going, oh, this movie gets me. She's never had an egg in her life. Right. So there's this. She's like, oh, well, if I'm going to have to eat eggs, if
[01:42:25] I'm going to do this project because I've, you know, never eaten an egg before. And I was just to me that I was like, what? She's never eaten an egg. Like doesn't she like cooking? Like that seems so difficult. And I guess normal.
[01:42:37] She's not counting like an egg in a cake, right? Or as we said earlier, eggs are in Hollandaise sauce, right? Or she's not Jason Manzuchus. She's talking about the egg as the star of the dish. You're similar.
[01:42:51] I would assume Griffin, you don't mind if an egg was correct, like part of the ingredients, but I'm not eating an omelet. But so how do you feel? And I know Romney, you're very frustrated by a Griffin's
[01:43:01] egg thing, but how do you feel about the scene where she like swallows the egg? Here's the thing sometimes because like I eat a lot of ramen right? Sure. Yes, of course. And nothing better than some egg on ramen. Here's the thing. I. Heat eggs.
[01:43:23] Obviously if there's a hard boiled egg like, you know, in a hole in a ramen, I'm going to notice it and I always try to ask for it without the egg. Some of the wrong places I go to are authentic enough
[01:43:32] that the menus do not explain what's in the dish, you know, and it's mostly written in Japanese and I'm ordering a little blindly. And a couple of times I've ordered a ramen and what I thought was cheese ends up being an egg. Much, much like.
[01:43:47] Griffin, why do you think there's cheese in your ramen? That's the real question. I finally found my perfect ramen. Oh yeah. What is more. Griffin than trying to combine ramen and like French onion soup. Yeah, seriously. Oh. Right.
[01:44:02] It's it's a it's a stupid thing that only I would view as a better option is a big lump of melted mozzarella in the middle of a ramen, but I will be eating it. I'll be enjoying it. And then at some point I realize it's an egg.
[01:44:17] And even though much like Julie says in this movie, oh, it actually just tastes like a cheesy sauce. It feels like a cheesy sauce going down. Once I realize it's an egg, I can't do it anymore. I get that. But that's right. That's mental. Yeah. Whatever. It's mental.
[01:44:33] It's mental. Stanley Tucci, raw sexual magnetism. There's the scenes where he's shirtless. I mean, I want to touch the tooch. Yeah, please touch for sure. How does performance in the world? Yeah. Yeah. He's always got those stealth guns. He's always got the stealth jacked arms.
[01:44:54] He's kind of jacked. He's a little jacked. I mean, there's the scene where he like reaches over to turn off her light because she's like not doing it quick enough. I'm like, we get it, buddy. You're gonna have sex. There.
[01:45:06] You know, what was weird reckoning with was the way that Julia decided to sort of approach marketing this book for wives with using the terminology servantless. Yeah. That just felt very like. This is like a long time ago in a lot of different ways. Yes. Yeah. For sure.
[01:45:28] Absolutely. I love hearing Mario Batali being mentioned. That's really cool. How could we have predicted that? That we'd love to hear and see how it ages. Yeah, look, but it's a time capsule. Like that's one of the reasons I think this movie
[01:45:43] kind of works is because it's not a film about 2009. It's a film in 2009 about 2002. And so it has enough perspective on everything that even if things change for the current day, it's like that adds more value to the movie in a way.
[01:46:00] Like the Mario Batali references lend it an air of what we're talking about of like the arc of false idols and personality based like downfalls and food. Me. Yes. Yeah, it's a timepiece. It's a great movie. It is a great watch. The last scene really gets me.
[01:46:17] Yes, it's a good watch. Yes, great timepiece. It's a $40,000 Rolex. Let's talk. Let's talk about the box office and then do our Nora rankings and then announce the new mini series. This is why I wanted to sort of like start steering us into the sure. Yes, yes.
[01:46:36] We have a fair amount of stuff. Huge hit one of her $300 million grossers. Well, right under red 90. Oh, really? Yeah, 94. Wow. OK, so it's 131. We're in the 90s. OK. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, big hit gets the one off the nomination. And it gets the Merrill Street boss.
[01:46:55] I'm a nation like yeah people falling in love over the written word. Who did Merrill who beat her nine? Sandra Bullock, right? Bullock. Yeah, because I remember that was like because she wins for the Iron Lady. What a couple years later.
[01:47:10] Yeah, and I feel like that was when it was kind of starting to be like she should get a third like yeah post devil wears Prada and then she gets a fucking iron lady. I know me shaking my fist. The other three.
[01:47:24] Oh, Gabri Citibé would have been my winner that year. Gabri Citibé great performance and I don't like the other two nominations. You was sorry. Mulligan. I don't like the Bullock performance. Oh, I think the Bullock performance is extremely good.
[01:47:40] That movie is argued over this awful and she is kind of like and I never liked Sandra Bullock before like I don't know like I had never been a huge Bullock fan. Even though I love speed and I love some of those early like book we
[01:47:56] were demolition man, but like I remember being like a Sandra Bullock get out of here and like seeing that movie and I'm like she definitely is a movie star. Like you I can't dispute that. I hate this movie, but like this is a movie star performance
[01:48:07] like and then of course that movie was just such a phenomenon so weird. I start respecting the so weird how much money that movement. I start really liking Sandy right after that like gravity well yeah heat yeah. She starts doing post Oscar run.
[01:48:23] I really like yeah, but the other nominees were in an education, which is a fantastic performance in another movie. I don't really like and Helen Mirren in the last station, which like whatever Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah. Okay. So box office box office. This movie opened August 7th 2009.
[01:48:46] It opened number two to twenty million dollars. Okay, which is I assume right around what they expected that seems that seems very right like that's like great. Yeah, we're opening in August July or August sleeper hit. She rides it out, but it's below a big brand name blockbuster
[01:49:05] that I feel like is probably like slightly disappointing. It's opening at fifty four. I guess that's pretty good for this. Yeah, Joe rise of cobra. Yeah, I feel like that movie had like toxic buzz in advance when people were convinced it was going to like face plant bomb
[01:49:24] and then open to fifty, which was like lower than they wanted based on how much money they had spent on it, but viewed as a success based on how poorly it could have gone. Like the fact that it just barely broke even was like,
[01:49:41] who we save that thing from a tailspin? I like that movie. Yeah, it's kind of underrated. Sure. I mean, we should do Stephen Summers number three. Ogre autism at its best is my absolute that Steven Summers. That's the argument of Stephen Summers number three at the box office
[01:49:56] is a Disney family film with CGI animals. We've talked about it on box office games before and it's always kind of hard to describe this one. The animals talk. Yes, is it the movie GeForce? That's right. Yep. One of the weirder films.
[01:50:17] I say this truly one of the weirder films to ever be made by a major studio. Does that movie exist? Yes, it does, Romley. It stars Zach Galifianakis and Bill Nye. And it's about a team of covert speaking guinea pig spies voiced by Sam Rockwell,
[01:50:36] Tracy Morgan, Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz. The four sounds good. And it was a huge hit. It made like one hundred and fifty million dollars and still lost money because it cost inexplicably two hundred million dollars.
[01:50:53] Well, I know, I mean, Sam Rockwell needed his quote, which was one hundred million dollars. That was the problem there. The great joke is Galifianakis goes on Conan to promote that movie. It's the same summer that Hangover comes out.
[01:51:08] So he clearly did the movie as like to pay the rent. To pay the rent. And then now suddenly he's a movie star who would have turned down G-Force. And so he does his whole Conan segment just talking about other shit.
[01:51:19] And then Conan says, you have a movie to promote, right? And he goes, yeah, it's. I play a scientist and I have a bunch of talking guinea pigs who are secret agents. You know, it's a it's I mean, you know the plot.
[01:51:38] It's it's adapted from the off-broadway play. The joke about how dumb the premise was, was don't make me explain it. I'm pretending it's a story we all know and respect. Number four at the box office Griffin is I need to check which edition this is.
[01:51:57] This is the sixth and best edition in a franchise, cinematic franchise, big cinematic franchise God that we, you know, whatever is exhausting to think about right now. Six and best Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That's right. I think it's the best.
[01:52:20] Most people get your favorite and I'm all about it. Number five is a masterpiece. It had been number one the week before Griffin. It has dropped 65 percent. Wow. Audiences were like, no, thank you. David was like, yes, please now. Is this a Michael Mann movie? No.
[01:52:38] That sounds like the arc of a Michael Mann movie. Big opening and people like fuck this. It's like a comedy Michael Mann movie. It's like a Michael Mann comedy. Is it that's that's go ahead. Is it our beloved funny people? That's right. Yep. Funny people.
[01:52:56] I forgot that it dropped so hard for a comedy that is outrageous. So hard. It was such a huge drop after a really disappointing opening weekend. People forget that like this is 40, handily out grossed funny people. Is that true? Yes. I'm looking that up. That's crazy. Yeah.
[01:53:19] Anyway, so those are the five were like the American audience is we're angry at it. You're right. Out grossed it. Yeah, people are really angry at funny people. Good movie though. Great. Some other movies. The ugly truth we've talked about it.
[01:53:36] His heart, it's over his penis and the poster. It's where you see that one wrong. This is a big Heigl phase for you. Did you even seep down to the level of ugly truth? I don't think so. What's the plot of this movie? He is Howard Stern.
[01:53:55] He's a shock jock chauvinist radio host and Catherine Heigl is hired to produce his radio show and make him more appealing to women. Sounds great. Let me look it up. David has presented the theory on this podcast that I'm increasingly ingrained with that. Gerard Butler killed the rom-com.
[01:54:14] Yeah, but the Butler Heigl Butler did it. I get weird PTSD when I see a Heigl rom-com. It was just a thing where it was like Heigl was like this is I'm going
[01:54:28] to be here and no one is coming in and like it was kind of the moment where it was like yeah no one's really knocking on the door. So you can have it for a bit and Butler just like was like I need to
[01:54:40] work in these movies and kept trying it. They both just seemed like such miserable people. That's the problem with such a big hit. I don't know. I think you guys just can't handle the ugly truth, but didn't that movie make like ninety seven million dollars?
[01:54:54] It made eighty eight domestic two, five worldwide insane pretty good. You know it's not bad. The weirdest thing is that he's holding it over his dick. He's holding the heart over his crotch. She's holding it like over her shoulder. What?
[01:55:10] So what like the air over her shoulder is where a woman's heart is. That doesn't make any sense. Hold it over your heart. Isn't that the idea? No, the movie actually is sort of a tin man narrative where she
[01:55:20] was born without a heart and she's trying to locate one. She's like where is there one over my shoulder? Same director is legally blocked. Yep. That's right. Wow. That's right. We've also got a perfect getaway Griffin. Oh, that's not a great movie or yes I would agree.
[01:55:39] We've got one of the best movies about aliens being in one's attic, the film Aliens and the attic fuck. I was going to guess independent resurrection and you have the highly underrated masterpiece orphan from the great another vulgarer to jump Colette Sarah.
[01:56:00] I mean truly our finest vulgarer tour and I don't think that's debatable. He's right up there. Yeah. Yeah, so that's that. Do you have an Efron ranking? I could do it a very quickly while you have one. I know what it is.
[01:56:16] I just need to type it out so I don't fuck up in the way. I always fuck this up. Hey, real quick. I had an idea I wanted to throw out. Please should like your fans recipes original recipes. Yeah, wrong. Do you want to do that?
[01:56:30] No, I've got recipes. OK, yeah. What kind of recipes? Buried beef. No, I've got real stuff. Oh, Ben, I will say do that to there. There is a trend or it was a trend.
[01:56:46] A lot of people were doing at a time where like they would bury a beat in the ground for like a year and then it would resemble meat. Weird. Yeah, I don't normally like beats, but I can give it a try. Like, OK, Ben's egg sandwich.
[01:57:03] Boom, I can write that recipe up. Do it. What's what's in Ben's egg sandwich? Taylor Ham and egg over medium. OK, I reject cheese on a brioche. Brioche, I'm glad you I'm glad the brioche came in. Got it. Sounds good. Thanks.
[01:57:21] OK, I have my my ranking locked in. OK, do you want to go first, Griffin? Sure. My number one favorite Nora Fron movie. You've got mail by a hair. Then sleepless in Seattle. Then this is my life.
[01:57:39] Wow, third and Julie and Julia, but those are those are a tight four. I will say sure. Sure. I think those are four capital G great movies that she made. That's that's the canon, right? Then I go Michael, the most interesting failure to me.
[01:57:58] One that the half works. Then I go lucky numbers because I am a maniac and I deserve to be in jail. OK, then mixed nuts and but which is the one I find almost no pleasure in. Yeah, but which is an automatic bottom to me as well.
[01:58:16] Number eight for sure. My list is similar to yours with a couple swaps. Yes. Number one for me is sleepless in Seattle. Number two is you've got mail number three is Julie and Julia, which I would not have predicted beforehand.
[01:58:28] Number four is this is my life but agree. Obviously those are the you know unambiguous top four then I also would have Michael then mixed nuts lucky numbers bewitched. Yeah, look at look pretty similar. Yeah, pretty similar. Now should we talk next mini series? Yeah.
[01:58:52] Sorry. Yes, let's talk about the next mini series. Yes. So Zemeckis Robert Zemeckis he won March Madness. He made many movies. He's on our schedule obviously. Yes, so many movies. That's all the movies. I think our longest mini series ever or if not within spitting distance.
[01:59:12] I think it might be the longest is spitting distance at Demi and Burton. Yeah, I can't write have to count them up. I got to say I'm thankful that the witches got pushed back because it just shortens the mini series by one. Yeah, right?
[01:59:26] We thought it would be out by the time we'd have to cover it. But we decided to slip in a little surprise do a little a little four movie mini series but will now be the shortest mini series we've covered.
[01:59:40] A filmmaker who you and I love have talked about a lot both on and off the podcast has a movie coming out and it felt like a good way to sink that up in the way we often try to do. So our next mini series starting next week.
[01:59:54] No palette cleanser, no palette because we had to do some finagling to make this fit in the schedule and still make sure that we talk the walk in 2020. It was an absolute priority that the walk gets talked within this calendar year.
[02:00:09] Yes. Also, we initially planned for palette cleansers to be things like Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984. Right. Look what happened to those. Hashtag movies are over party movie theaters are over party. So starting next week, we're doing a mini series on Gina Prince by Thwad. Yeah.
[02:00:32] Love and basketball, secret life of bees beyond the lights and her new Netflix film, the old guard, which kind of represents so hard. Her long overdue blank check, which David has seen I have not seen yet, which I'm very jealous of. I'm very excited to see it.
[02:00:47] I have seen it. I have interviewed her and when interviewing her, jealous, jealous, jealous, jealous, jealous, jealous. It was even more kind of clear where like she's, I was, you know, because I'm asking her about career and she's like,
[02:00:56] I have been trying to make an action movie for so goddamn long. Like, you know, it really does. We really wanted to do this series because it feels like such a culmination of a thing that's been in the works in her career for so long.
[02:01:08] A director who's been slept on for so long. Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. Beyond the lights is a masterpiece. Beyond the lights of masterpiece. Beyond the lights are very early Griffin Newman, David Sims date as well. Let's not forget that.
[02:01:20] That's another reason she's sort of been in our craw for a while. And I was rewatching Love and Basketball for the first time in a while and texting you about how good it is. And you and I just went like, fuck it, let's do it.
[02:01:31] Let's slide it in there. David's most electrifying activity, rearranging the spreadsheet. Nothing gets him more turnt than getting to rearrange the spreadsheet. And we did the math and we slotted her in there. And so that's coming up next. And then after that, once again, no pallet cleanser.
[02:01:47] We go straight into Zemeckis with I want to hold your hand. So essentially the rest of August, you're going to get the Gina Prince movies and then September starts in Mecca's. That's right. And we will be covering a disappearing acts, her TV film on the Patreon as well.
[02:02:04] Yes, in August. Yeah, no, it's very exciting. I feel like we've done an episode so far and it was extremely enjoyable. You know, for everyone crying out for a Ben's choice, there's one on the schedule in January 2021 that's a doozy. And there's one after that.
[02:02:22] We have two on the worry about it. We have another one scheduled a little later in 2020. That's right. Yeah, I'm excited to I'm so I'm so fucking excited to rewatch Beyond the Lights, the sexiest most romantic movie ever made. I am also excited beyond the lights rules.
[02:02:40] It's going to be we're halfway right more than halfway through this year. Not great, but bad year for you. Wait, Ben, wait, come on. The Glyof 2020. I know I could be negative. I know it could be negative sometimes. Like you call me Mr.
[02:02:57] Hositiv, but honestly, that's sort of sarcastic. I'm kind of negative sometimes. Well, and this is not good, but looking at this schedule for the rest of 2021 feeling OK about it. Movies. And I'll say this, we we tentatively have our schedule for the first half
[02:03:18] of 2021 because we as I said, David likes to felt this. We like to sort of see how things would look and looking at like this year of the podcast, it feels really exciting to me in terms of the amount of different
[02:03:31] stuff we get to cover, the zigs and the zags and all of that. And I feel like as the show has gone on, sometimes I see people marginally criticize us for being like they're moving away from the premise, you know, are all these directors
[02:03:44] like truly conventional blank check directors? Why aren't they just covering all the most obvious people? Why are they avoiding David Fincher and stuff? And it's because as the show has grown and our platform has grown, the thing that feels the most exciting to me.
[02:03:59] And I feel like David, you feel the same way is being able to be like if we cover this director, then we're asking people to engage with their filmography more seriously in a way that we're automatically doing with PTA or Fincher.
[02:04:15] We're making our listeners go through them and watch their underseen movies and think about making anyone do anything to do whatever they want. But it's fun to do. It's an invitation. Exactly. And it's like the best thing was watching people much like us
[02:04:28] discovered this is my life and go like holy shit, this thing honks. Why is no one ever talked about this? You know, and it's also just great that my my word honks to describe something being good.
[02:04:40] It's just just, you know, taking off so well and people are talking about it more and more. Yes, it is funny. Someone posted I forget which movie it was, but one of the recent Blank Check movies on Amazon Prime. It might have even been like Mission Impossible One.
[02:04:58] The algorithm of also watched reviews also watched like highly disparate movies that are only linked by us also covering them like it was like you all watch Mission Impossible. This is my life. Crazy Mama like it was the weirdest grouping, but it's exciting. We're in the code.
[02:05:17] You know we're in the algorithm. We're in the code. We've broken the internet much like Ralph. We've broken the internet. Right anyway now all the business is on the show. Let's get him on. I would rule his people never respond. I know and it's like upsetting.
[02:05:35] It's really hard to send emails to a power strip. That's the issue. Yeah, you're right. I think there's one final item of business we have to settle before this episode can be done and then you almost set it up perfectly. We like to call you Mr.
[02:05:51] Positive, but another thing we like to do is give you a new nickname at the end of every series and we often forget to do this. That's true. True. So I think we need to settle one of Romney would like your opinion as well
[02:06:05] for what we can name Ben out of the Nora Efron cannon. Do you have loaded up when Harry Metzali? This is my life. Sleepless in Seattle, mixed knots, Michael, you've got mail. No, I know a witch to enjoy. I haven't seen any suggestions.
[02:06:20] What are you talking about for one? Kevin made a famous suggestion that was great. Yeah, what you know Ben and women can't be friends. Oh fuck, I forgot how do you forget about that? Come on. That was that was amazing. Then maybe that's just it.
[02:06:35] Well, it's good, but here's there's a reddit thread. OK. So Ben, are you talking about this or do you want to hear? No, I just wanted to weigh in that. I don't think what Kevin came up with. I think it was funny in the context of the episode.
[02:06:48] I don't think we need to carry on that phrase. Yes, that's why I figured Osama Ben-Hosley territory for you. You just read the messaging. Do not like God. We didn't do that to not accept. We almost forced Ben to have the nickname Osama Ben-Hosley because of
[02:07:06] zero dark 30 Romali and Ben. That's a rough one, Ben. No, it's not good. Yeah, I thank you. I had to really fight them on that for whatever reason. Here are some other suggestions. Ben Hosley met Sally. Funny. That's pretty good. I like that. It's got the right word.
[02:07:26] She's Hosley. OK. This is my Ben. I mean, I find myself saying that a lot. You've got Ben. Hosburn, hazing up, lucky numbens. What else? Wow, these are good to bend around the corner. I think I like Ben Hosley met Sally. Ben Hosley met Sally is great.
[02:07:57] And it's nice to have another dot, dot, dot in there along with say anything. Yeah, it's pretty good. All right, well, then it's been decided. Great. Gaville, I want us to get so many nicknames that at a certain point we have
[02:08:11] to do a Patreon episode that's just you reading the nicknames and it's an hour long. That's the goal. People ask why right? The nicknames aren't in most episodes and because we also have to do ads in most episodes. Yeah, it was one or the other.
[02:08:24] They were ending up around the same length of time. We needed ten minutes somewhere. Yeah, right. Three ads versus eighty seven nicknames. Well, Romali, thank you so much for being on the show. And as much as it feels hypocritical, do you want to plug your social media?
[02:08:42] Now at the end of this episode. You know, I actually I the only social media platform I am now on is Instagram. Killin' it on the grams. I deleted my Twitter. Smart. Sure. I'm trying to reduce my screen time since the pandemic has started.
[02:09:05] I'm up to 10 hours a day, which is horrific. I'm not posting anything right now, but my Instagram is food by Romali. I also have a website called RomaliNewman.com, which has some recipes on it and now would be a really good time for me to
[02:09:24] update it, so stay tuned for that. Hey, now. And let's also say that you have sort of pivoted to your your Instagram being more teaching people how to cook like we're talking about. Less taking pictures of good dishes and more really trying to share your love
[02:09:41] of dishes with people. Yes, I've tried to get back and I will continue to do so in the future to my original vibe. Just, you know, like cooking for the love of cooking and trying to teach
[02:09:55] people things that I'm excited about or geeky about or whatever it may be. And so that is going to be my new path and we here at Blank Check are trying to get back to the love and basketball. Yeah. Thank you all for listening.
[02:10:14] Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew for co-producing the show. Rachel Jacobs for editing can help lay my coming for our theme song. Joe Bonaparte rounds for artwork. Go to blankies.ret.com for some real nerdy shit and patreon.com back slash blank check
[02:10:30] for blank check special features where we're doing mission impossible commentaries and as David said, an upcoming episode on disappearing acts. The Gina Prince Bythewood film. And as always, producer Ben, producer Ben, the Ben Deucer, the poet Lory at the meat lover,
[02:10:49] the tiebreaker, the fart detective, our finest film critic, the peeper, birthday, Benny. Hello, Fennel, not Professor Crispy. He is not Professor Crispy. He is the fuck master. Yes, his dirt bike, Benny, his white hop, Benny, so can wet, Benny. He's the haze. He's Mr. Positive. He's Mr. Positive.
[02:11:08] He's a close personal friend of Dan Lewis. He's the voice of reason. He's Santa Haas. He's the commissioner. The com oh right, the commission. The commission for short. And he's graduated to certain titles at the end of each mini series. This includes
[02:11:22] Kylo Ben, Ben, I, Shyamalan, Ben, say, save anything dot, dot, dot, Ailey Ben's with a dollar sign, Warhaw's, Purdue, Bain, Ben 19, the fennel maker, Robo has banglish Mr. Ben credible, each drink Ben Haas, Libital, Vape Juice, The Hazzle Day,
[02:11:34] Public Ben Amie's, Hossaka of the ditch of the nice Jersey. OK. And also what stop making Ben's. Sure. And also we never came up with a George Miller one. Oh, whatever. Haas, pick in the city. Boom. And finally. Ben, Haas, Lee, Met Sally dot, dot, dot.
[02:12:00] We did it. All right. Thanks for all those names and many more to come.