Panic Room with Eva Anderson

[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 Get out of my podcast! Say fuck. Fuck!

[00:00:25] Mom, say get the fuck out of my podcast. Get the fuck out of my podcast. Doesn't she say you fuck? Or you fucks? Or something like that? On here it just says fuck. But I think she says, do you remember? Let me look.

[00:00:37] Mmm, I don't remember. I just watched it again. It's such a sweet moment, in my opinion, like genuinely sweet. And I just, I like it. I like that he builds into a little bonding sort of teeny, teen up, teen grown up moment.

[00:00:51] You know, in this very, very tense moment. But I think she literally says like, you fuck. And you even see the robbers being like, huh? Like, with a specific thing to say.

[00:01:01] I imagine we're going to talk about it a lot, but it still just defies logic that this movie was not designed for and built around Jodie Foster from the beginning. That is, it is so true. Yes, it is. Yes, of course. You're like, yeah, of course.

[00:01:16] Like this feels like the movie that is like Jodie Foster in her 40s comes to Sony and says, I want to do a thriller, pitch me something. And they go, we'll get our top team on it. Right? And I want to do a mother-daughter movie.

[00:01:29] Well, Kristen Stewart could play your daughter. Right. She totally could. Yes. And instead it's like, no, we brought her in a week, you know, into filming, two weeks into filming or whatever. Two weeks into filming. And then, yeah, I mean, everything about it is bizarre.

[00:01:44] And I do think it sort of set a template for what felt like, oh, this is Jodie Foster's next phase that then went, sort of died prematurely. What about the flight plan? Well, flight plan was the one. We'll talk about all of this.

[00:01:56] We got so much to talk about. It's a normal episode. We can just chill out. We can be calm and relaxed. No bits planned. No bits planned. We're just here. We have a little like screen. Bits planned, zero. None. Days since bits. The Studio 60 board with its blank.

[00:02:14] The countdown. Yeah. Nothing. We're just looking at a cork board. Post Malone is the musical guest next week. Solidarity with the writers. I know we have a writer with us. We have a writer with us. A great writer.

[00:02:25] And I think they should, you know, they should hold out for the best deal they can possibly get. They must. I miss Studio 60 every week. I miss those guys! I miss it. What are all their names? I'm going to Google now.

[00:02:36] What would they be saying about the Russian coup? Oh boy. They have the razor sharp wit to handle a sensitive situation like that. Tom Jeter. Russian Cuckoo, I think would be the name of the sketch. Russian Cuckoo? Yeah. Wow, Rob Reiner hosting again?

[00:02:48] It'd be a game show somehow. One of my favorite things is that- Who wants to rule Russia? In Studio 60, Rob Reiner is the guest host of whatever. So I'm like, Rob Reiner? Yes. Who are the guest hosts you know exist in the Studio 60 universe? Rob Reiner, Felicity Huffman.

[00:03:03] Sting plays the lute. Right. He does play the lute. But even that, right? They're like, hey, Sting, come and do some music. And he's like, yeah, lute music. And they're like, of course! This is Studio 60. It's classy as fuck.

[00:03:14] There's that weird exchange where Christine Lotte is the embedded journalist. She's the Vanity Fair- She's like Maureen Dowd or whatever. Right. And she's talking to Sarah Paulson, I think. Sure. Or Amanda Peet. They're watching him just do an impromptu sitar set. Yeah, he's doing some lute.

[00:03:31] He's laying down a lute bed. Right. And Christine Lotte, I think, says, I love watching him work his instrument. And the other character goes, which one? Ooh. I'm like, what do you mean? You haven't watched him work his dick. Maybe she has! What are you talking about?

[00:03:50] It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I have so many- we could go in so many directions here. We're setting up threads. We're setting up threads. A subplot in the television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

[00:04:03] The fictional series about the making of the very real sketch show that exists in our universe. No bets. You know, Amanda Peet's character, Jordan McDeer, is the new head of programming. Of course! And her big thing is that she wants to have a show about the UN.

[00:04:16] She's like, I have a hit idea for a big drama. It's about the UN. Right. And fucking- She's pitching fake West Wing, basically. Right. And fucking Steven Weber, the head of the network, is like, boring. And she's like, God, no one understands me.

[00:04:30] And I'm like, that would be so boring. A show about the UN? Bad. Every week they're like, wow, we didn't get much done. Model UN's a better show. Yeah! Because then it's like teens, awkward, hooking up.

[00:04:42] I do think that the Sting instrument episode is also the one where the old man is wandering the halls and then they find out that he was a blacklisted writer. And it's literally fucking Eli Wallach! It's the same plot as The Holiday. Yes!

[00:04:55] It's Eli Wallach in both stories. They aired around the same time. Yes. And it's both- I guess in The Holiday he's not blacklisted, and in this one he is. Correct. In The Holiday he's just old. He's just old. Right.

[00:05:07] There's no sad history beyond that he's old and cannot climb stairs. Father Time's getting ready to blacklist him. He's like, I remember these halls. I worked in this room. It's so wild. Shut up old man!

[00:05:19] And they're like, oh no, I figured out who you are this way sir. Right. And they let him live out- yes. And I think it's also the Abner Costello episode. I think it's all one episode.

[00:05:30] The one where fucking Nick Corddry gives his parents an LP of who's on the first. It is- You should be put in jail. I have since watched the entire show. You're going to listen and then you're going to laugh. And then you're going to listen again.

[00:05:44] And laugh even more. What if your parents didn't understand- you're like, hey parents I want to be in comedy. And they're like, well we don't understand that. And your reaction to that was here's an LP of the who's on first joke. Yeah. The routine.

[00:06:01] Your parents didn't get your career and you gave them an LP of the first episode of WTF. Here's a joke from before you were born so that you can understand comedy. It would probably not go over well. They'd be like, yeah we know who's on first.

[00:06:18] How do you make money doing this? Yeah we're aware. Who's on first? Is it his name? Come up with an equally important bit. Your parents don't understand podcasting so you give them the first wax cylinder recording. You're going to listen and you're going to hear voices.

[00:06:34] And the thing that prompts this is that he's giving his dad a tour of the studio. And in the middle of it his dad stops towards him and screams, your brother is in the middle of Afghanistan right now. God what a show. And that's why-

[00:06:46] His parents seem unimpressed and instead they are actively hostile because he's not putting his life on the line for his country. Even though their son is making millions of dollars on a network television show. He's Tom Jean. He's the cutie pie of fucking Studio 60.

[00:07:00] He was the it guy. He was going to move to features. Was he? It felt like it. Yeah. He was the Jimmy analog, right? What an abs- Fallon? Is he supposed to be Fallon? I have the same memory as you, Eva.

[00:07:14] Which I a couple years ago watched the whole show after giving up when it originally aired. And I feel like I gave up around episode four or five and it feels like everything we're describing was in the episode I gave up on.

[00:07:26] Where it was just like early in its run there was one episode that is overloaded with so much insane shit. That it was like I cannot do this anymore. I'd rather be doing homework. Yeah. Yeah. They end up going on a road trip later in the season.

[00:07:39] That's kind of where I fell off. Well there's the episode where they get arrested in a small town and John Goodman is the judge. That's a three part episode. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about. I'm not joking. Right, so I think that's threaded in the same episode.

[00:07:49] It's all happening at the same time. Yes. Yes. Oh man. And then the entertainer's hosting stings the musical guest. Christine Lawley is embedded. And the show got canceled. No, the idea is this is like the biggest comedy show in America. But in real life it did get canceled.

[00:08:04] Yes, but they gave it a full season. They did give it a full season. It did 22 episodes. More than most streaming shows do in the entirety of their lifespan. And it also aired the same season as the first season of 30 Rock. Right.

[00:08:15] So it was two shows about fake SNLs simultaneously on television. And Studio 60 premiered a month earlier and everyone felt bad for Tina Fey. Like, you're going to be the also ran. Right, you'll get swamped by this shit. But in Studio 60 Matthew Perry's like, be quiet!

[00:08:31] I have to make comedy that will change America! And in 30 Rock it's like, yeah, the show is just like farting. No one thinks this is good. We need an opening to address the controversy of our former, basically the Lorne Michaels of the universe who's played by Judd Hirsch

[00:08:47] having a meltdown on camera, right? During the live broadcast. Another network. They do network and then he does it again in newsroom immediately. Right, right. And they're like, we need the perfect cold open to address this. And then Matthew Perry goes like,

[00:09:02] well be the perfect model of a modern network TV show. Gilbert and Sullivan! Right, who are the best satirists ever? Gilbert and Sullivan. They call them the original frat humor. There you go. I just remember that. The Comedia del Arte sketch. That's the end of episode two.

[00:09:19] They always talk about the Comedia del Arte sketch. Yes, that's the end of episode two. And I remember I was a TV blogger, I was in college. We were all hyped for Studio 60. It was Aaron Sorkin's big follow up to The West Wing.

[00:09:28] The pilot script had gone around. The pilot script is identical pretty much to what aired. We'd all read that and we were like, it's pretty good. I don't know. And I remember Emily St. James, long time friend of the show,

[00:09:39] DMing me probably on fucking MSN Messenger or whatever we used back then, being like, the second episode ends in this way with a Gilbert and Sullivan. Give me a little pause. I'm a little worried Aaron Sorkin maybe doesn't get what SNL is.

[00:09:54] First episode, in the moment, basically everyone said slam dunk. This is fine. This is good. But you only had to see sketches from when the show was bad. And then episode two where it's like, and now they brought in the best guys to ever do it.

[00:10:06] And you're like, the show seems worse now. The show seems kind of up its own ass. Do you ever see Crazy Christians? We only see like a minute of Crazy Christians. That's one of their most controversial sketches. It's called Crazy Christians. They dare. Let me guess.

[00:10:23] It's about religious people. But now they're crazy. I know we can't actually say this on the podcast. But the breakout, sort of like the Kristen Wiig, the Kate McKinnon of the show at that moment is also devoutly religious. She loves God. She was offended.

[00:10:40] You can't just send your pipe and smoke it. Listen, I'm actually getting fucking mad. Hearing about this. It got cancelled. Oh, I know. The axe of popularity swung and beheaded it. This is patio 60 on the Sunset Cast, of course. This is the beginning.

[00:10:56] We know we had told you other things were going to be planned for the rest of the year. No, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. So fast. Sliding in right before the door closes on your fingers. Sledgehammering right there. Feathers flying everywhere.

[00:11:12] 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 projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a mini-series on the films of David Fincher.

[00:11:28] It's called The Curious Pod of Benjamin Butt-Cast. That's right. And I'm going to hit butt really hard. Butt-Cast. Butt-Cast. This is the first episode we're recording, but that is the name of the series.

[00:11:41] Because our guest, who we threw a flyer out to, happened to suddenly be in town and so we've jumped ahead a little bit in order to record with her, which we're very excited about returning to the show, the great Eva Anderson. Hey guys! What's up?

[00:11:55] The best guest in podcasting as we have said. That's right. You flatter me. And not true, but I'll take it. It is true. I'm very excited. Obviously, I met you in person, Griffin, last year. We went to the Magic Castle. We went to the Magic Castle.

[00:12:10] Which was an incredible night, thank you very much for the invite. But I've never met David or Ben in person, so I'm so psyched. I have no—as we were just reminiscing, I've really known you for like 10 years. We have been online friends for 10 years. Not IRL.

[00:12:23] I guess it was Bang Bang. It was You're the Worst. I feel like it was You're the Worst, though. I interviewed Stephen— Stephen Falk? Yes. Showrunner of You're the Worst. Way back when, I remember. I don't know. You guys were like a little ragtag team over there.

[00:12:36] I don't know. We were. That was fun. We also—we watched Studio 60 during our lunch break sometimes in the writers' room. For inspiration? Just to—yeah, as bonding experience. Simon Stiles. Yeah. You know, Alex Dwyer. Great. So we— George Lucas talk show, Deep Pandemic.

[00:12:55] We used to do these marathon fundraisers where we pick like a canceled show and try to watch all of it in real time, do a very long livestream and get people who worked on it. And Patrick Cotter's greatest passion project was to do Studio 60.

[00:13:10] And he booked 60 guests, I believe. Wow. Over the course of whatever—like 22 hours, whatever, 20 hours, because it was the whole fucking season. But we had Nate Torrenson, who was also one of the cast members in the fake Studio 60.

[00:13:25] Of course, he played—I'm going to look that up for you right now—a character. He was kind of the, I don't know, Horatio Sanz of the show? Uh, yeah, a little more— Dylan Killington. Yeah. Was he the Rob Riggle? Maybe. Or was he a sweetie pie?

[00:13:42] He was a sweetie pie. He was like Farley minus the partying, minus the vices maybe. What's Matthew Perry's character's name? Of course. As we all know, his name is Matt Albee. Matt Albee. And there's always been a very funny Matt Albee Twitter.

[00:13:55] It is still maybe the best account on Twitter. I agree. Because it is just always like, you know, fucking, um, Studio 60 would like to welcome Chris Licht or whatever. You know, the minute something happens to someone, he's—

[00:14:10] I think I know who does that. Do you guys know who does that? I do, but I've forgotten who it is. I think it's Seth Reese. Yes, it's Seth Reese. Seth Reese, writer of the manual. At least he used to be. Yes.

[00:14:19] At least, yeah, he did at one point. Yes. But Nate Torrance, we had him on and we were talking about this thing of like, the people who were on the fake cast of that show, minus D.L. Hughley and Sarah Paulson arguably,

[00:14:33] were all people who you could have believed were in an SNL bubble where you're like, Halberg could have ended up on SNL if the chips fell a different way. Cordry perhaps. Yeah. So Patrick was asking all of them this and Nate Torrance was like,

[00:14:45] I literally, I tested for both. Whoa. And it was that thing of like, is the better career move to go on SNL or go on Studio 60? That's crazy. Is the better career move to do the real thing or the fake thing that is the follow-up

[00:15:00] from like the master writer of television? Isn't that a wild thing to think about being put in that position? To be auditioning for The Thing and the parody of The Thing. Yeah. Simultaneously.

[00:15:13] I don't remember if he got to make the choice or the choice was made for him, but it was like, he was very close to both at the same time. That's crazy. Yeah. This is not about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

[00:15:27] Today we're talking about Panic Room, a movie that has nothing to do with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Is there any... Is there any connection? Any... There has to be something. I feel like Anne Magnusson might have made an appearance in Studio 60 or something like that.

[00:15:41] I like to imagine the universe of Studio 60, Anne Magnusson was like the Catherine O'Hara, where she was like technically a cast member because of a writer's strike. She never did an episode or she quit before the episode actually aired or something. What? What, David? Did Gavin Pallone? No.

[00:15:57] No. Well, he produced Gilmore Girls. I don't know. He did TV. Dwight Yoakam's definitely been a musical guest on Studio 60. In the world. In the universe. As Raul. Dwight Yoakam as Raul will be great for me. The bus driver? He might have been a guest slash host.

[00:16:10] In the Studio 60 universe, maybe Dwight Yoakam is the one who has a Chris Gaines and does... Oh, he did Raul on set and then Dwight Yoakam. Guys, I think they did a crazy twist where they had Yoakam host and they had Billy Bob

[00:16:23] be the musical guest that week. But as his Sling Blade character. Yes. And he actually was playing Sting's lute. And it was still there. Yeah. And then he ripped up a picture of Louis Farrakhan live on TV. I don't know. How do I thread this?

[00:16:40] Ben's going to make fun of me. Yeah. And then we should talk about Panic Room. Yeah. I think we're here to talk about... When I was a kid, Sting obviously was still famous, but he was fully in his lute playing phase, right? Not only that, but I think...

[00:16:52] He'd become like full cornball. I feel like whatever the interview was where he mentioned that he practices tantric sex became the whole thing. It was like he just has sex with his wife. He plays his lute and world music shit. He wears incredibly thin linen shirts.

[00:17:08] And I was like, as a kid, I was like, why do I have to even... His name was Sting. Yeah. Why do I have to pay attention to this guy? Everyone around me mocks him for being pretentious. And now you listen...

[00:17:18] Now I listen to the police and I'm like, they had something going on. Oh, yeah. Okay. I knew Ben would get mad. No, no. I was worried that you were going to say, I listen to solo Sting records. Exactly.

[00:17:31] I don't know that I've ever really put on a solo Sting. It was like Stuart Townsend is the police, really? But Sting was in the police. He's in it, but he's not the mastermind of the police. So maybe that's why... He was the Diana Ross of the police.

[00:17:48] Right. So then he steps aside and then of course his music's goofy. Because those police albums are by and large fucking great. They got some hits and they're all really great musicians. Yeah. And they're all blonde. Yeah. They were hot. Look, they're hot as hell.

[00:18:04] And he's from Newcastle where I went to college. So he's kind of a local boy. You know, Newcastle is still kind of like, you know, we got Sting. He's ours. But I don't know. It just took me a while to realize why anyone would care about him.

[00:18:16] He's handsome. Fun fact about Sting. He practices tantric sex. Wait, what? What does that mean? Nine hours. Binge session. No quibbies for this guy. No, no quick bites. Oh, man. Oh, boy. What? Matt Albee's Twitter feed is still up. It's like Elizabeth Holmes reports to prison.

[00:18:41] He's like when she gets out, her job on the writing staff will be waiting for her. Oh, man. Matt Albee. Matt Albee. One of the greats. Every week he just tweets, we're dark this week. You know, since the strike began. Solidarity.

[00:18:55] You've never been in a room with him, right? Have you, Matt Albee? Have you ever been on the same staff as him? No, I was on a staff with Seth Reese, though. That's why I was like, while he was doing Matt Albee.

[00:19:04] We should mention, too, about the room we're in. Oh, sure. We kind of discovered recently, we're, you know, obviously been recording out of our new studio. Yeah, look, we had a very hard time finding a space in New York City that met our needs.

[00:19:19] And, you know, you want a place that has a certain amount of soundproofing. New York real estate. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. But we found this room that fit our needs perfectly. A long search. We've been very happy with it. Windowless. Yes. True.

[00:19:35] It is kind of a fortress. Right, and we were like, why would this room even exist in this building? Why would you build one like this? And we found out this was, in fact, intended to be a panic room. You guys closed on this place really fast, right?

[00:19:49] Because last week it was like a different address I was coming to, and all of a sudden you're here. And you don't have to pay the price on the tag. It's not Barney's? It's not Barney's, Mom. You don't have to pay the price on the tag.

[00:19:59] It's not Barney's, Mom. She says that with such confidence. I'm like, what do you know about real estate? Do you scoot by and say that? It's like a scoot by line? She's actually heavy on the scooting in that area. It's really good. Yeah. Just business, you know?

[00:20:13] Good business. Razoring out of control. And also that was when the kids all had scooters all of a sudden. Razor! It was like, who gave them these things? My favorite thing about the Razor scooter was it was just like this kind of ingenious product, right?

[00:20:27] Where I just remember the first time you saw a kid scoot by on the street with one of you. You were just like, what the fuck is that? How are they going that fast? And then the moment you see them fold it and you're like, fuck!

[00:20:39] It's just like that? Incredible. Everyone buys one, right? And then as often seems to be the case, the Razor company is like, fuck. We made a product that people only need to buy one time. And we basically sold it to everyone. It's kind of indestructible. Instant pot.

[00:20:53] And then they get the exact instant pot. They're dead, right? They're like fully dead. They're bankrupt. They sold all the instant pots and now they're like, shit! They also got venture capitalists. But that's the problem. Like, they make you expand, the venture capitalists.

[00:21:05] But also they were like, our product is so good that no one ever needs to buy a second one. So let's now branch into different products. And all the other products failed. What else did they make?

[00:21:13] They were like, oh, now we're making like a fucking Tempura maker or whatever. I don't know. They just added all these different like- The Razor Tempura maker. Yeah. Yes. Razor was just like, how do we fucking iterate? And they were like, uh, lights in the handlebars.

[00:21:29] You're like, a light on the front. They're like, no, the lights are on the side. Right, right. Great. Lights in the wheels. Like, they just kept on adding more shit. But they knew the part of it was like, the design was so simple that you couldn't- Shocks.

[00:21:43] They added shocks. I do remember shocks. Ben, did you ever Razor scooter? Or something like it? No. No, I wasn't a frigging dork. I guess you were also too old. That was really for like a 10-year-old when it came out. Yeah. We were already teenagers.

[00:21:59] No, I remember seeing that. I remember seeing kids even trying to do tricks on it. And me and my friends would just fucking dunk on them. That's what the shocks were for.

[00:22:07] Like, you know, where they try to like do a little 360 and like jump and land on it or whatever. Yeah. Not cool. Yeah. The least cool extreme sport of all time. It's like Razor scooter, rollerblading, then BMX, skateboard. Of course, obviously, it was a lot of fun.

[00:22:24] Little Manhattan griffey nooms. Just having a peaceful little scoot. You had a scooter? Are you kidding me? I live in fear of my daughter getting her first scooter. It's coming. We're getting close. She'll be scooting. Razor? No. But you know, one of those little kid scooters. Sure. Okay.

[00:22:43] Panic room. What are we guys talking about? Sorry. We were talking about her scooting around while she says the Barneys line. Kristen Stewart is iconic in this film. She's so good. She's so good.

[00:22:54] You have the 2020 hindsight bias of like, I know she turns into a movie star and a good actor. Yes. But I remember liking her at the time. Absolutely. And thinking like, oh, she's, you know, she's a cut above a kid actor.

[00:23:06] And this was in the era of really annoying kid actors too. Absolutely. Yeah. But that's, it's another way in which you're like, uh, there, this movie now 20 plus years on has this weird power of like watching young child star Kristen Stewart and being like,

[00:23:25] she's one of the few who has gotten to have a Jodie Foster type career. Jodie Foster always one of the few that people cite as like perfect transition. Right? Yeah. And weirdly her transition was Twilight. Right. And she went from like teen to adult, like over those movies.

[00:23:41] Yeah. And then she comes out the other side of it and is like, I'm using my clout to like get interesting movies made and work with interesting auteurs. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love her. She's one of my absolute favorites now.

[00:23:54] No, I remember unsurprisingly this was like 12 year old Griffin Newman seeing this movie massive crush on her. Oh, for sure. Yes. Yeah. She's cool as hell. Yes. And the time between that and when Twilight comes out and people would be like, yo, look,

[00:24:10] who's your big movie star crush? I'd be like Kristen Stewart. And they'd be like, who? And I'd be like the girl from Panic Room. So is that why you were a big Zathura fan? Correct. Because she's in Zathura. In the Land of Women. Yeah.

[00:24:22] You were a huge In the Land of Women fan. I wouldn't say huge, but I owned it. I saw that movie because Adam Brody was in it. I saw it because he was in it.

[00:24:29] I was like enough of an OC super fan that I was like, I see anything that he's in. Yeah. So I think that was a performance that kind of drove me insane. She's good in that movie. I mean, insane in the fact that...

[00:24:40] You had a crush on her. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Kristen Stewart, love her. She is in Panic Room. This is the film Panic Room. It is the fifth film in David Fincher's career. It's his follow up to Fight Club. Yes.

[00:24:53] And I feel like it's a very conscious response to Fight Club. Yes. Which people forget was a flop. Was a moderate flop. And he's just like, I'm scaling all my ambition back, but also some, you know, I am scaling it up in that I'm constraining myself. Yes.

[00:25:07] But I'm making a very simple thriller. It's true. Like I was, I just watched Fight Club again for Doughboys. You did Fight Club on the Doughboys. That's right. And it's interesting because of like one of the maybe problems, I don't know what you guys said about Fight Club,

[00:25:20] but maybe one argument could be, it was just like, Fight Club is about too much stuff. Yeah. It's about everything. It's like, let's encompass the feelings of an entire generation and also American society. And masculinity. Where it's all pointing. It's Gen X's Howl. Yeah.

[00:25:36] And then Panic Room is kind of not about anything. It's about nothing. Wouldn't it suck if this happened? Right. What if there was a panic room? I was thinking about that because you say that all the time.

[00:25:46] It's like this movie is truly what if there was a panic room. It is very much what if there's a panic room, which I think is literally what David kept. He was just kind of like, I've been hearing a lot about panic rooms.

[00:25:54] I read a trend piece about this. Went into the offices of Sony and they handed him $2 million. Four? Four million dollars for this script. Which makes sense because it's like, what if there's a panic room? Okay, I know what a panic room is.

[00:26:07] What if someone tried to rob you? Well, I'd go in my panic room. Yeah, but what if the thing they want is in the panic room? And they're like, oh, now we're cooking with gas. He's like, we are cooking with gas. Gas is in the script.

[00:26:17] There's a gas sequence. Also, my gas costs $4 million if you want a liter. I remember the trailer when he holds up the thing we want is in the room being absolutely just killer. Yes, this is as a big movie nerd kid

[00:26:37] that would just like obsessively read every fucking dork website I could and thought I was ahead of the curve and knew every movie that was in the pipeline and by this age when this movie comes out, I guess I'm 13,

[00:26:50] would sit in the theater and the trailer would come up and in the first five seconds I'd turn to my friend and be like, oh, this is that movie. You know? Like even if I was seeing a trailer for the first time,

[00:26:59] I've read about this, it's this actor in this thing. I remember this movie somehow completely passing by me. Oh, really? The trailer coming up, going like, what is this? And then when that sign goes up, I was just like fucking money in the bank. Yeah.

[00:27:13] Perfect premise, perfect setup. This is Fincher and Foster. I'm in. Hardcore. Did you see it though? Because it must have been rated R. Isn't it PG-13? They say fuck a lot. It's rated R. No, I saw it. I distinctly remember seeing this with my mom. Right.

[00:27:28] Well, if your mommy took you. Because you would have been 13 years old. I was 13. Right, I was 16. Did you see it in the theater? Absolutely. I was a big 16-year-old Empire Magazine reading film nerd. I loved David Fincher and I loved whatever.

[00:27:43] I was a little petite Manhattanite razor-scootering entertainment weekly reading film nerd whose mommy accompanied him. I did not see this with my mommy. I'm pretty sure I saw it with Ollie Stevens. Shout out to Ollie Stevens, my best friend. Not the only part, not being with your mom.

[00:27:59] And it was rated 15 in England, so I just waltzed right in. Okay. I was 16 whole years old. Eva, did you see this in theaters? No, I was a senior in film school and I was distracted. I think I was just busy just fucking around.

[00:28:17] Were you a Fincher fan at that point? I did see Fight Club in school and I mentioned this on Doughboys, but that night my friend Josh started a fight club. Right, yes. Unrelated though. He was like, knock into the movie. Started punching people just outside in the quad.

[00:28:35] So that immediately made you like the movie less, I'm sure. I liked Fincher though. Yeah, Fincher was hot stuff. Yeah, he was fun. I don't know why I didn't see Panic Room. I think I was just broke and not going to the multiplex.

[00:28:51] I mean, more of it's an April release comes out in March. I'm graduating college. What was your film school? I went to USC. Heard of it. I was classmates with Jon Chu. He was my year. Oh wow, Jon M. Chu.

[00:29:06] And he was like, I've always wanted to make a movie in which GI Joe got retribution. And we were like, you should do that. Have you told anyone this? What's your dream, Jon? Great, good filmmaker. I like him too. He's great. Great guy.

[00:29:21] But yeah, so I didn't see it. So this is my first time seeing it. What was your, did you have to do a thesis film? I produced, USC splits you up. So four people direct and you have to compete for that role and then everybody else works

[00:29:35] on their movies. Okay. Jon Chu works with a lot of the same people that worked on his thesis film. That's nice. He never forgot where he came from. Yeah. But did you work on his? No, I worked on an okay movie.

[00:29:51] That was very fun and all my friends worked on and we had to build a moon set, which that was super fun. Yeah. And yeah, we had to build a moon set. Moon sets cool. Yeah. Panic room, objectively was seen by more people in theaters. Yeah.

[00:30:10] But certainly does feel like a film less people recall. Yes. And less people have seen than say Fight Club, which it did better than. I do think it is the same type of movie we've covered before on the podcast where someone

[00:30:22] who sort of was like a blank check filmmaker and then did not immediately figure out how to follow up on the promise and the excitement around them is sort of like, I just need to get safe again. Right.

[00:30:33] Like, I need a movie that pushes me back to the safe zone because I think deliver entertainment. Yes. Successfully. Yeah. And I think the other the other part of it was like much like a lot of these guys very quickly. It's like Fincher is very demanding.

[00:30:46] He takes a very long time. It costs a lot of money, you know, where it's like I need to produce a film that is like under control, that is under control, that is straight down the middle, that is easy

[00:30:57] to pitch, that is not going to push people away. Yes. Didn't he plan every single shot? He did. He later said that was a mistake. Yes. He shouldn't have done that. But this movie I did, I bought.

[00:31:09] There is a notorious three disc special edition of this film that sort of peak DVD special features where there are two discs of nothing but special features and one disc is just pre-production and one disc is post-production. Sure.

[00:31:27] So one disc is pre and pro and one disc is post. That's cool. And it's got like hours of shit on both. It's like basically the film school like comprehensive. You see every step of it.

[00:31:37] But that disc two is so much about that he basically created the pipeline for how all fucking blockbusters are made on this movie. Right, just pre-vis everything. Just pre-vis literally everything. Oh. Especially he had the advantage of we know we're in this confined environment.

[00:31:53] We can map it out every inch of it so the camera can do things through visual effects as well. It can pass through walls and stuff. Pass through coffee machines? Yes.

[00:32:04] And it would be cool if the lens then had coffee on it after it did that but they didn't decide to do that. Well, they go through the handle. Yeah, but it wouldn't be cool if they got through the coffee. And then coffee's dripping down it.

[00:32:14] And then there's a little wiper. Look at the glasswood shutter. That's a Mel Brooks bit. You're pitching panic attack room or whatever Mel Brooks' movie. Wait, fuck. Mel Brooks should have done that. Should have done panic attack room? Yeah.

[00:32:26] And then had bits where the camera goes into swings around and then hits someone and they're like, ow! Yeah. That'd be good. Yeah, it should have been him. Yeah, him. In the Jodie Foster role. No, he should play Roel. He should play Bo. Because he could do it.

[00:32:39] Mask. Right. And then Peter McNichol's son is like the Kristen Stewart type. Yeah. I love it. I love Peter McNichol. Of course. Wait, what was I saying here? The previous thing. Oh, I think the main storyboard artist on this film was Peter Ramsey, who then goes

[00:32:56] on to direct Rise of the Guardians and the first Spider-Verse. Oh, wow. And so I was just watching 45 minutes of him talking over a sort of split screen. Do you remember when the big thing they thought was the future of DVDs was the angle button?

[00:33:10] And they were like, you can push the angle button and move between different… I remember that and what a nightmare. Yes. And now, like, my modern remote does not even have a way to access it.

[00:33:19] And the screen basically broke and was just like, we're showing you everything at the same time. You cannot toggle between these things. But it was like the 40 minutes of footage that was the dailies from the movie in one screen and the previs in the other. Oh, cool.

[00:33:36] With Peter Ramsey talking through it. Right. And it's like there were things we would find. I mean, we're going at it again. I'll save this tidbit. There were things we'd find that we couldn't execute as planned, but basically every day

[00:33:49] everyone had already prepped everything based on the footage. Right. He was just like, do exactly this. And we would just try to do that. And that was his whole thought was, I can just make this whole movie in advance and then everyone just knows what to do. Yeah.

[00:34:05] And it basically was like, you know, we're going to do this. And it basically worked, but it also kind of broke his brain. And he doesn't make a movie for five years after this. Yeah. And in this early phase of his career, that's the longest break he takes.

[00:34:22] Right. Like After Gone Girl, obviously, he would take six years to make. That's like the, you know what I mean? Yeah. This is three years after Fight Club. Right. It's like Alien 3 and then three years later Seven and then two years later The Game and

[00:34:33] then two years later Fight Club, three years later Panic. You know, he made movies that are pretty impressive clip. Yeah. And then he takes a long break between this and Zodiac. I think Zodiac was also an involved film. And there's also...

[00:34:43] They had to make San Francisco into a computer. On our Zodiac episode, we'll talk about in between the two, there are a lot of almost projects, Mission Impossible 3 being the biggest one that he was supposed to do for a while. Right. Yeah.

[00:34:57] And it would have made a ton of sense doing that. Yeah. But I think this movie was tough for him to make. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And also, right. The Jodie Foster, all the circumstances, the production of this movie was kind of insane. Yeah.

[00:35:15] It's the fucking rabbit's foot thing. Yeah. Oh, I'll not make something like Fight Club. I'll make a tight Hitchcockian thriller set in one location and then like the monkey's paw is like Nicole Kidman will break her fucking knee and like Jodie Foster will get pregnant

[00:35:31] and you know, like all this stuff's going to happen. See, actually the opposite of a rabbit's foot. Yeah, whatever. I forgot what the animal's hand was. Rabbit's toe curls. Yeah. And then you win a million dollars. That's what a rabbit's foot does. Why is a rabbit's foot lucky?

[00:35:45] I feel like if anyone would know the answer to this, it would be you, Eva. I don't know. Fuck. I thought you were going to say it would be a rabbit. It would be. A rabbit would know. I don't know. It are.

[00:35:58] Did you hear the dogs outside in the hallway? I actually did. Yeah. That was real. We might want to protect ourselves. Jeez. Thankfully we're safe. Let me open up the dossier. So. You don't want to like push a button.

[00:36:10] You don't want to like commit to this in a way where we like push a button and a door closes or something. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to do that? I mean, I think we should. I'm pretty scared by that one isolated dog bark.

[00:36:22] Looking at that bit clock. Great. David, open the dossier. So, one thing that we're going to do on almost every one of these David Fincher episodes is we're going to talk about the many projects he attached himself to after his last big movie.

[00:36:38] So, after Fight Club, David Fincher was initially going to make a movie called The Night Watchman. Cool. Cool. Yeah. We love it. It's nighttime. Mysterious. Yeah. Tick tick. Watchman looks for things. Yeah. What is a movie if not seeing things? This thing writes itself. Sure.

[00:36:58] It was written by James Elroy. It was an original script written by James Elroy. That's kind of cool. It was a murder mystery set in a post OJ Simpson LA with elements of Unforgiven and The Verdict with strong roles for a cop investigating the murderer and the murderer.

[00:37:12] What does post OJ Simpson LA mean? Does it mean he's dead? Finally, we've gotten rid of him. The movie begins with him being buried. His reign of terror is over. They're using OJ Simpson like a natural disaster? Yeah. In the wake of 9-11.

[00:37:29] In the wake of OJ Simpson. Yeah. I assume it's just kind of, yeah, it's like who knows? He's killed everyone in LA. Yeah. Himself. This, I imagine, is one of those scripts that you can probably find. Right? Okay. Sure. It's like those hot scripts that never got made.

[00:37:46] They're floating around. So I think Keanu Reeves was initially supposed to be the star of this. Did you know Keanu have circled each other a lot on several different things and have never actually pulled off, which would be interesting to see happen now.

[00:37:59] It means, sorry guys, what that means is a character would like to be racist but can't. Right. Right. That's what post OJ Simpson LA means. Oh, you can't say anything anymore. You can't say anything anymore. I'm sure James Elroy had had that conversation in his circles. Sure.

[00:38:20] Elements of unforgiven in the verdict does suggest that yes, this night watchman might have a few things to say that are a little un-PC, right? Sure. Perhaps that's why it doesn't get made. Yes. Anyway, that doesn't happen.

[00:38:33] And then Fincher starts circling the Black Dahlia based on a James Elroy novel, Elroy novel, which if you've never read is quite a tome of a book. It's in a wonderful book. The first of his LA Quartet. I was a big Elroy kid when I was a teen.

[00:38:50] Loved reading about it. It's a great book. It's an amazing book. But Fincher, as I think often happens with him, is like, well, this is too much. I want to do it all. It has to be a television series. It has to be a mini series, five episodes.

[00:39:03] And back then, you know, now you say that to a studio and they're like, yes, make it 10 episodes. Please. Long, long. Back then studios balked at that kind of idea. And Brian De Palma takes over.

[00:39:14] Was it him or there was some other interview I was watching or listening to with the director where they were talking about a dream project of theirs that they wanted to do as a mini series maybe 10 years ago only.

[00:39:27] And whoever they pitched it to was like, my good sir, the mini series is dead. It is never coming back. It is a completely defunct medium. You are either doing an open ended TV show or one movie. Right. That's so crazy. Yeah.

[00:39:42] And just everything by choice or not ends up being a limited series these days. Right. Whether by design or just. Yeah, no, that would be the move. Right. And God knows there probably will be, you know, a fucking Black Dahlia mini series. Almost on, you know, MGM plus.

[00:39:59] On the same day the Fight Club premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Fincher was also linked to the film The Mexican. Sure. Brad Pitt's upcoming project. Brad was already attached. Correct. His favorite guy, Kevin Reynolds, had been attached. Fincher then gets attached.

[00:40:16] Gore Verbinski ends up making that movie. Yeah. A movie I like. Then the number one project Fincher is attached to, Griffin. We've talked about it before. Spider-Man. Yes. What if there was a man with the powers of a spider? Right. He's Sony's guy.

[00:40:32] And we talked about this a lot on that episode, I think. Right. You know, like he's their first choice basically. Yes. Yeah. Yes. They wanted him to do it and it, I mean, it was a series of things.

[00:40:43] Well, we've talked, I mean, he's like, I didn't want to do an origin story. I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin and kill Gwen Stacy immediately. Insane. I wanted to do a 10-minute title sequence that looked like a music video slash opera.

[00:40:58] I don't know. I mean, he had all kinds of ideas. They eventually, it doesn't work out. Yeah. He also wanted to do something called Passengers, which I think eventually was made into a movie. But not, was not Passengers the movie? That's not the Chris Pratt movie. No.

[00:41:12] But it's one with like, it's sort of an invasion of the body snatchers where they like, aliens invade your brain. Maybe that never did get made. Okay. I don't know. And then he was also linked to Catch Me If You Can, which Spielberg makes. Right.

[00:41:26] Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which George Clooney eventually makes. Fincher is going to make it with Mike Myers. Yes. Right. Right. I remember that being announced. And a submarine drama written by David Ayer called Squids, which is another of those like, never got made movies. Yes.

[00:41:41] And David Ayer loved to write movies about, you know, soldiers. Right. Um, and something called Pathfinder? A John Patrick Shanley script? That's not the thing that ends up being made with Michael Fassbender, is it? No, I don't think so. That was a movie, right? There was like some...

[00:41:58] I don't know. It does sound like a movie. No, because yeah, that's like a sort of a vintage epic, a period. Right. Right. This is not vintage. Do you guys know who's a really weird Twitter follow? Who? John Patrick Shanley. Well, yeah, what's he up to?

[00:42:12] Get on it. Posting weird selfies. I have such doubts. Just kind of vaguely horny stuff. He is one of those guys where I am never ready for what his voice sounds like. Oh. Oh, really? Is he like, It's kind of raspy and... I am the Batman.

[00:42:29] Did you see the pandemic movie? Griffin saw that like after having surgery. Wild Mountain Time. You saw Wild Mountain Time? Yes. I was recovering from having organs taken out. And I watched it like hopped up on goofballs. Did you think you dreamed the ending?

[00:42:47] I texted David in real time and I went, I don't know what people are talking about. This movie makes perfect sense. He thinks he's a bee? Yeah. Uh-huh. That's the twist of that movie is that he identifies as a bee. Did you know that, David?

[00:42:59] Yeah, I did know that. I was texting to David in real time and sending him videos. And I was like, this is good. You were like, good, normal. That's kind of where I expected to go. Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's not. I'm just having a perfect experience.

[00:43:13] It had its fans. It did? Yeah, like it had its sort of like people like, no, no, no, no, no. It's going to go crazy. I believe I am a bee. My takeaway from it, and this is what I was texting David as I was watching it,

[00:43:24] is that like I could see that killing on stage. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you watch the way it works as a movie and you can feel the actors basically holding for laughs. Uh-huh. But in an ecosystem where there is not that energy of the laughs coming

[00:43:41] and they're just dead silences in between, in what's shot like a drama, it is incredibly off-putting. I believe I am a bee. Yes. But then you Kaiser Sosay back through the movie and he's been acting like a bee the whole time. The whole time.

[00:43:55] Yeah, that's the weird part. You're like, oh, he was a bee the whole time. But wait, how do you mean he was acting like a bee? Like he was going bzzz? There was a weird honey thing. Yeah. But isn't there also a thing where there's sort of like,

[00:44:06] there's like a red herring where people talk about her as if she's like a cat or something? She's a swan. She's a swan. Yeah. But he is a bee. Right, and she's like, everyone thinks I'm like a swan. He's like, yeah, no, I'm straight up a bee. Yes.

[00:44:22] It's a weird movie, Ben. It sounds like a weird movie. Also, Christopher Walken is Irish in it. Yeah. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. And if you can't imagine an Irish accent on top of Christopher Walken's voice, that's what it sounds like.

[00:44:34] It sounds like you not being able to imagine it in real time. It's like two audio tracks playing in different ears. It's one speaker of each. Okay, the final thing, there's also a movie, this is another one of those never made things.

[00:44:51] They Fight Alone, which is like an American soldier in the Philippines. It's like a true story thing where he like builds a guerrilla movement during World War II and fights it. And that was going to be a Brad Pitt Fincher movie.

[00:45:03] Yeah, look, unsurprisingly, a lot of these things, and we'll talk about this in all these episodes, are like the hottest scripts that go around Hollywood, the biggest stars and directors attach themselves to. And Fincher is just always a guy where there's so much excitement about him,

[00:45:18] even when his career is on a comparative down. He usually takes a moment and has a dance with any kind of really buzzy script. But it almost always comes down to him being like, they're not going to let me make this the way I want to.

[00:45:36] He's very pragmatic about like, I can just see this isn't going to work. After Alien 3, he always had these spider sense. Yeah. That's my question, like why after Alien 3 would he even consider doing a franchise? Yeah, I do think, right.

[00:45:52] I mean, I guess he had enough juice that he thought, and Sony loved him. Fine, I'll go in there and pitch like, all right. Right. Minute one, Gwen Stacy strangled to death or whatever. And they were like, no, thank you. Also, to their credit,

[00:46:05] and you look at them ultimately hiring Raimi and really letting him go off. I do think they were like, we need to do like Tim Burton Batman. Franchises were less precious back then. This needs to have a very specific voice behind it.

[00:46:17] Cause it was, I mean, Cameron, him, ultimately Raimi. Who was the other person? I always forget. McG, no, I don't know. There was one other person who was similarly kind of auteur. Names. They wanted someone to actually have a take. Like Singer? What a genius.

[00:46:35] The man had takes. Kind of, right? No, but it was. It's X-Men. No, when they hired Bryan Singer for X-Men, it was like, what are you talking about? That guy would never do a comic book movie. Like Usual Suspects, one of the coolest movies in the 90s,

[00:46:46] like fuck off. But then, you know, and then it was the beginning of the now insidious, like no, you don't understand. Like the comic book is about real issues. The trauma, baby. Right, yeah, you know. And back then I was like, finally someone's saying this.

[00:46:59] And now when someone starts saying this, I'm like, can you just shut the fuck up? Yeah. David Koepp, UW Madison alumnus, as our UW Madison alumnus researcher JJ loves to point out. Okay. Toured a four-story brownstone in New York in 1999 and had a panic room in it.

[00:47:20] Oh, he actually saw one. It wasn't just a, he read an article. And then of course he's like, oh, I've heard of these things. Now was it like, hmm, what gives me an idea for a movie? A brownstone or was it a townstone? Called Secret Window.

[00:47:30] Damn, just need to get that joke out. Sorry. He just said, he says brownstone. We stepped on each other's jokes. It's okay, I don't know. I like the town- They're both good. I like the townstone line in this one. I do too. Yeah.

[00:47:41] Well, I mean, we'll talk about it. Sure. The whole opening sequence is brilliant. Yeah. And in the first draft, he never wanted to leave the house at all. They do briefly sort of show you the outside of the home in this movie. You start on the block. Yes.

[00:47:55] Right, but you'd never really leave this block. No. Yeah. And then his next idea is like, who would buy such a place? And he's like, yeah, she should be recently divorced. She should be kind of on tilt, like sort of making maybe somewhat

[00:48:09] unreasonable choices and flush with money that's not really hers or that she doesn't really care about. Like she has this money, but she doesn't actually want to like- Right. From that inception, you're coming up with a character who on paper is kind of like a classic Hitchcock ingenue.

[00:48:28] Right. Yeah, totally. You could see it being a sort of Janet Leigh woman on edge. Yes. I'm doing Janet Leigh in a movie. I don't know. She's holding a bag. Just a weird impression. You're not going to get on Studio 60 with that one.

[00:48:45] I would cut it from the reel. Yeah. Fincher apparently said, I stayed in an apartment with a panic room once in London in the early 90s and I set the alarm off almost every week. And so I hated it. But he loved the idea of, right,

[00:48:58] rather than Fight Club, which had 100 locations, a million different setups or whatever, he's like, one location, what a great thing for me to do. Yeah. And he was going through divorce. Or I don't know, he was past his divorce at this point,

[00:49:13] but he'd gone through a very big divorce with Adania Fiorentino. And he said he wanted to make the movie about divorce, like the idea of like, here I am in this empty fucking house with plaster falling on my head, right?

[00:49:26] And just like that sort of environment mood thing, like post-divorce mindset. And he, of course, hires the most obvious choice at that moment, post-divorce Nicole Kitt. That's true. I don't know why I said Nicole. Yeah. She fucked up her Nicole Kitt. She'd taken that awesome picture

[00:49:44] outside of the divorce court where she's all feeling herself. Mm-hmm. And then she walked straight from that to a meeting with David Fincher. Um, so yeah, Nicole Kitt, I mean, she's for real at this moment, right? Like, she wins an Oscar this year, in fact. Yes.

[00:50:02] For The Hours. Yes. But she's coming off of Moulin Rouge! The whole thing with her knee was that she had actually injured it making Moulin Rouge a not known. Right. And sort of danced through it and it had never healed. And then she re-injures her knee

[00:50:17] making 19 days into this shoot. She was running up and down the stairs. But you hear him talk about in everything about the making of this film, the development of this film, that he like really built it around the idea of Kidman as the classic sort of like

[00:50:34] somewhat cold, inscrutable, totally, Hitchcock woman. Yeah. This very glamorous woman, a woman who is in way over her head in this kind of situation. And originally it was announced as Nicole Kidman and Hayden Panter. Yes. And then they switch over to Kristen Stewart

[00:50:53] while it is still Nicole Kidman. Yes. But the whole conception was like her daughter is radically different. That was the idea. She has this tomboy daughter. Right. Right. And she's this glamorous, you know, divorcee. Right. And then when they cast Jodie, it's like,

[00:51:07] okay, so you have this daughter who's kind of exactly your image. Perfect Jodie Foster type. It's you but little. So they also had to throw out 19 days of shoot? That's crazy. Or at least probably most of it, right? I mean, I guess the stuff without Nicole

[00:51:21] maybe they could keep, but I don't know. Yeah. And then they wouldn't let him shut down. They start filming, they identify in doing some action sequence she thinks she fucks up her leg. In fact, she re-injures. She has a fracture. Right. And there's just no way around this.

[00:51:38] He wanted to shut the movie down to rejigger it. They basically, I mean, the numbers I saw, there was some sort of calculation of like... If they had shut the movie down and just never started filming again, they would have made $3 million off the insurance. And profit.

[00:51:51] What if they gave her a Jimmy Stewart wheelchair leg? That would be bold. Incredible. It's like not only is this set in one house, but she can't even climb the dams. I guess she would just keep going to that elevator. Every time, you know,

[00:52:07] she would have to elevate herself up and down. But also, he's built this set, he's done his classic finisher, every single gag needs to be tested for like two weeks before we film it. I mean, so much of this crazy DVD set

[00:52:18] is him just giving notes back on like the fucking rubber Dwight Yoakam fingers hitting the floor, not looking right. Oh, wow. Like shit like that where everything is like so precisely worked out. He's done this fucking previs thing to the nines,

[00:52:33] and now suddenly it's like your actress can't move. And he's like, well, untenable. I'm not rethinking the entire movie around her not being able to move around. He goes to them and says, we need to shut down and look for a new actress.

[00:52:45] And as you said, it was $3 million in profit if they just cut their losses and shut the movie down. If they let him take a break, continue renting the studio space, keeping everyone on hold while he rejiggered it, it costs an additional $10 million extra to the budget.

[00:53:01] So they were like, you just have to keep shooting as much with the robbers as you can while we figure out the actress problem. Ooh, okay. This... It's a nightmare. This builds into a theory I have about the movie. A nightmare. Okay. But he's just barreling ahead.

[00:53:16] Jodie Foster was supposed to make Flora Plum, which is one of her grand passion project movies that never got made. Her circus movie. She was pushing uphill for so fucking long. She had Russell Crowe, and then Russell Crowe hurt himself making it or whatever, preparing for it.

[00:53:30] And so it shuts down. She was supposed to be in the game. In the Sean Penn part. Would have been so cool. Not that Sean Penn isn't fun in the game. He's kind of fun in the game. But loved Fincher. Yeah. Had wanted to work with him.

[00:53:42] She had talked to him about Mank, which is already a thing. Yes. They have Mank, I assume for the Amanda Seyfried, for Mary and Crane. Sure, yeah. You know, back then. Mary Davies. Mary Davies, not Mary and Crane. Mary and Crane's from Psycho. But like...

[00:53:58] So they were, yes. They had circled each other before. Yeah. And so they bring her in. But it was a thing where it's like, here's the pitch. If you want to do this, you start filming in two days. Right. And, you know, Fincher says like...

[00:54:14] Obviously, the plus is you're getting Jodie Foster. You're getting a Double Academy Award winner. Still pretty hot at this point, I feel like, career-wise. Right? Also, if you have to be like, Jodie, can you get tank top ready? She's like, already tank top ready.

[00:54:28] I was born fucking tank top ready. Tank top ready year-round. She's kind of a bit of a gap. Yeah, she'd done Anna and the King. But before that, Contact. It's Contact and The King, and then it's three years until this and Ultra Boys in the same year.

[00:54:41] What's the Brave One? Brave One's 07. Okay. That's sort of her, this run post-Panic Room of... This is her Flinty era. Right. It's this flight plan, Inside Man, and the Brave One, where she plays like Flinty people. And she's doing sort of like high thread count thrillers. Right.

[00:54:58] Yes, adult thrillers. And yeah, as Fincher puts it, you know, Nicole Kidman, Grace Kelly. Yeah. Glamour, physicality. With Jodie Foster, he says it's all about what happens in her eyes. Yeah. You know, she's nobody's fucking pet. She's nobody's trophy wife. Like, she's a different...

[00:55:17] She doesn't make as much sense, it's true, as like the divorcee of an older guy who's rich, right? Who's kind of like been a, you know, cast aside. Yeah, you immediately are like, huge questions about this relationship from scene one. You're like, what?

[00:55:32] With Nicole Kidman, it's like, oh, it's some asshole who's like, oh, you're 35, I'm marrying a model. Treated for newer model kind of thing. Yeah, you're like, did she just... What was this marriage like? I mean, my internal canon... Did she leave him? It feels like she left him.

[00:55:47] In my head... Because he was cheating on her or whatever, right? Right. In my head, it's like they met when they were young. But he's not... He's like 20 years older than her. When they were younger, let's say. Right? Maybe not 20, but he's way older than her.

[00:56:02] My feeling I get is the inherent downfall of their marriage that existed the whole time was that he was intimidated by her. Yeah, well... Right? I'd be intimidated by her. That's how I read the movie, is that like... The actor is 24 years older than Jodie Foster. Okay.

[00:56:18] Which makes sense. Her lack of submissiveness is what... Because even in the opening scenes with Kristen Stewart, what I think she plays very well is it's like, oh, the downfall of this divorce was probably you are emotionally inaccessible. Also, she cloned herself when she had a child. Yes.

[00:56:34] And he was like, now there's two of you! Yes. I can't fight... You know, come on! Yes. No, I like him. I like his casting. His casting is a really good surprise. When this older guy comes in, you're like, who's this? Right. And it's like, oh, right.

[00:56:47] You know, that's what this relationship was. Like he was, you know, maybe a professor. Right? She's going back to school. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. He's rich. So he's a professor on the side, if he's anything. No, he's a pharmaceutical guy. Right.

[00:57:01] That's how they say he has his money. Right, right, right. They recognize his name. I think it's old family... She's married to Merck. He's a sackler. Yeah. He's a sackler. He's a fucking sackler. Yeah. Um, she was supposed to be the president of the can jury this year.

[00:57:16] Right. Right. Had to step down. Liv Ullman swoops in and gives the palm door, I just have to look this up, to the son's room. Yeah. Nanny Moretti film. Okay. Should've given it to fucking Mulholland Drive! This is that year? Yeah, 2001. Jody would've. Jody would've. Shrek.

[00:57:37] Yeah, Jody would've been like... This is the Shrek year? Yeah. Shrek. It's time. Yeah. Jody, I just imagine Jody Foster getting up and saying, the wait is finally over. The palm door goes to Shrek. Somebody once told me. Orchestra plays it live. I'm dizzy. I'm dizzy.

[00:57:54] Shrek gets on stage and farts. Don't get it! Yeah. He just says that? They let a mascot character accept the palm door and give the speech. Andrew Adamson is sitting in the fucking audience, his arms crossed. I want to accept the award! They're like, no! Shrek's forgetting it!

[00:58:12] It's for Shrek! Andrew Adamson had this brief moment where he did Shrek, he did Shrek 2, and then the first Narnia film. And he went, this man has the highest box office average of any director in film history.

[00:58:28] This guy could remake Solo and it would make a billion dollars. He can do anything! And then what? Then he did the second Narnia, which everyone was like, here we go, Narnia, fucking evergreen franchise, second movie falls off a cliff. No one gives a shit.

[00:58:41] And then has he done anything since then? Yeah, he did a movie called Mr. Pip. Okay. Oh, and he directed a Cirque du Soleil IMAX film? And he directed a Cirque du Soleil IMAX film. Yeah. What the fuck is Mr. Pip?

[00:58:51] Which made 34 million dollars at the box office. It's not bad for a Cirque du Soleil movie. Adamson's got the touch. Mr. Pip appears to be, uh, I don't know, Hugh Laurie? He's grumpy? What do you want from me? I don't know. Um, panic room. So she steps down.

[00:59:06] She has nine days to prep. The other thing, she starts filming it right as Hannibal comes out. Jodie Foster had famously to turn down 15 million dollars to be in Hannibal because she thought it was, and I quote, gross. Yeah. I don't know. She actually said that. Ew, yuck.

[00:59:25] Um, and Dino De Laurentiis, a famously chill guy who never said anything weird in the press, you know, had, was basically like motherfucking her in the press over this. Like being like, you know, she needs us more than we need her. And like, she has no sex appeal.

[00:59:40] Like he's literally said that. Julianne Moore? Uh, no, Jodie Foster. I mean, maybe. Julianne Moore replaces her. Is that who it is? Correct. Yes. Yes. And then she starts making the movie five weeks into the shoot. She sits down with David Fincher and she's like, I'm pregnant. Right.

[00:59:56] So presumably she's been... Trying? I don't know. Right. Yes. Right. Um. What can be a very long and unpredictable process and it finally takes in the middle of filming this intensely physical, technically demanding film. Right. Uh.

[01:00:11] So then they like put on a sweater for a lot of the scenes. None of this is in the movie. Yes. Like that, you know, that we see because... They give her an oversized sweater and just say, we're going to push through this and

[01:00:21] we will not tell anyone until it gets to the point where it is undeniable. Uh, basically cause of the same thing of like, we can't shut down production. Right. And then when he screens it to the studio, they're like, we don't like any of these sweater scenes.

[01:00:35] We don't like this sweater vibe. Right. And so then they like, you know, reshot a bunch of it. Right. They basically like finish the movie in order to screen the movie for them to then get the

[01:00:45] money to go back and reshoot the stuff after she'd had the kid. Oh, okay. Okay. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. But also an insane thing where it's just like, they start filming the movie with a different

[01:00:55] person, then they're filming the movie with no star, then they film with her, then they're filming a bunch of stuff that gets thrown out in the name of her pregnancy, and then they finally go back and finish the movie like four months before it comes out. Right.

[01:01:09] The final leg of the shoot was like end of 01. Um, it's look at, yeah, it shouldn't have been easy, but it happened and it's fine. So 9-11 also happens in the middle of it? Yeah. True. Yes. Yes. And they've come out about it. We're making panic room.

[01:01:27] Mid OJ climate. Mid OJ climate. We still live in a mid OJ climate. We live in a peak OJ climate, I feel. He's one of my favorite content creators. He is out there. I mean, God bless him. King poster. Uh, not God bless him. He's a terrible person.

[01:01:43] Wait, why did I say that? I'm totally, uh, I have to tell Ben this next thing. Right in ballot OJ Simpson for president? What? What do you have to tell Ben? So the character Raul in this film is played by Dwight Yoakum. Yeah. A singer. Yeah.

[01:01:58] But also he'd been in Sling Blade. That was kind of what he got cast off. I think we need to do a Dwight Yoakum character actor sidebar in a second. We'll talk about that. In a second. But the first choice was Maynard James Keenan.

[01:02:09] The front man of Tool. I actually saw this. Uh, I figured you might've. He was busy working with a Perfect Circle at this point. Oh shit. In his follow up because that Perfect Circle sounded like a super group, right?

[01:02:25] It was like him and who's the other big guy? Like James Eha from Smashing Pumpkins and stuff. You know, it was like cast offs from other whatever hard rock bands. So Raul had to be a rock star in this concept?

[01:02:39] I guess he's just like, I just want to sort of like weird singer freak with kind of glassy eyes. Like, is the vibe. Lee was unavailable. It is funny how often he puts one musician in his movies. Right? But like the meatloaf Justin Timberlake, Dwight Yoakum. Oh yeah.

[01:02:56] I mean, if you've got the access, you got the Rolodex. Why not? But like, is that guy in any movies? Maynard Keenan? No, but he had done videos for him. I know. That's the other thing. He's sort of spooky looking.

[01:03:07] I guess part of it is just like a decade of Fincher working with musical artists on music videos and he must have had some takeaway of maybe sometimes they're easier direct than actors because they don't come in with pesky ideas or something.

[01:03:20] And also sometimes you'd be like, this guy's a star. Right, right. This guy's just playing well on camera. He'd be like, Dave Grohl, I bet he's funny and he's down for anything. Yeah. Dave Grohl. DTA. Ben, you a Tool guy? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Big time in high school.

[01:03:38] Really? Yeah. They passed me by. I don't know much about Tool. I know of them, obviously. Moody, intense, heavy. They're called Tool. They're called Tool. Eva, are you a Tool gal? No. Obviously, I love Tool Time, which is a lot of fun. I'm a Tool gal.

[01:03:50] I'm a Tool gal. I'm a Tool gal. I'm a Tool gal. I was gonna say, I love Tool Time with Tim Taylor. Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm a Tool man when it comes to Tim. I know they're cool. Are they cool? Tool? I think so.

[01:04:04] Didn't they have a video where there's like a weird little head that goes fast? I mean, that sounds fucking great. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. I'm seeing here Keenan made, not Keenan from Keenan and Kel, Keenan from lead singer Tool. Sure. Right.

[01:04:19] Made a cameo in an episode of Comedy Bang Bang. Whoa! With a fictional punk musician named Barf Edwards. Oh man. Was that after you'd left? Yeah, it must have been. Do you know what season that is? Does it say? It does not. Okay.

[01:04:33] I don't think I was ever Barf Edwards. Barf Edwards is objectively funny. That's really funny. Another thing I read, this reminds me of the Elaine May ecosystem of the film quote that we bring up a lot that was established in our Swing Shift episode.

[01:04:53] But after all this crazy stop and start production, they finally get the movie done, right? End of 2001. They cut it together. There's obviously post-production to do on this. They test screen it. The audience like hates the ending because they feel too sympathetic for Forrest Whitaker

[01:05:12] and they feel bad for him. And he goes to Sony and he's like, we need to reshoot the ending and give him a less harsh ending or less sad ending, let's say. And they were like, we are not letting you rebuild this fucking set again.

[01:05:26] Get the hell out of here. They just find alternate takes where he looks less bummed out. Maybe my interpretation of this was wrong that they used alternate takes for the rest of the film to make him less sympathetic up until that point. That's interesting.

[01:05:39] I think you are right. That Forrest Whitaker is such a naturally kind of wounded actor. That they were like... He's so good at that. We have chosen the most empathetic takes for him in every moment.

[01:05:52] What we need to do if we can't change the ending is change the DNA of the movie up until that point to make him a little more conflicted. Guys, in 2006, I got a job as a PA on a commercial. It was a commercial that aired before movies.

[01:06:08] It was like a turn off your phone commercial. Big fan. Okay, turn off your phone commercial. So it's like, hi, I'm Tom Cruise and you better hit that red button. So... Rebecca, you need to hold down the red button. My PA job... I'm an M&M.

[01:06:22] Please turn off your phone. Sorry. Was driving around the writer, director and star of the commercial, Forrest Whitaker. So for... I'm not sure. Triple threat. And it was very funny because the commercial was supposed to be... We're filming in MacArthur Park.

[01:06:36] There had just been these like big immigration kind of protests and this was built around those. And the idea was that there was like a protest going on and then Forrest Whitaker gave this

[01:06:48] speech in the middle that was being translated into Spanish that was about freedom, but also like turn off your phones or whatever. Listen carefully. Sounds like a tight needle to thread, but okay. The night before we filmed the commercial, the phone company that was sponsoring it came

[01:07:05] to them and were like, we cannot have any political messages in this commercial. Forrest Whitaker, a very politically outspoken man, very politically driven, has never pulled boards. But I might have told him that like Sprint's not going to go for this buddy. Right? Yeah. Whoever it was.

[01:07:23] What we ended up filming and what ended up airing was like just people holding up signs that just said believe in something or just like maximize you or whatever. Up with people! Things matter. Totally. Things matter. Nobody's nervous.

[01:07:37] But I was his driver and his like kind of chaperone for two weeks. And he was so nice. I really, really liked him. Shout out. He told me some stuff about Battlefield Earth, which was very exciting. What year was this that you were doing this? 2006.

[01:07:57] So this is like four or five or six years later. And I know it was 2006 because the week two of the job, he got nominated for Last King of Scotland. I was about to say, it's about to thunder to an Oscar.

[01:08:07] But the other, we were in, because we were in MacArthur Park, unhoused people would come up to him constantly and talk to him and he would talk to anybody. But what was the funniest thing was that they all recognized him from the movie Species. Sure. Specifically. Yeah.

[01:08:22] But also a lot of them would just be like, hey, congratulations. I love Last King of Scotland. Like they'd seen it in the theater and they were like complimentary. And also it's like no one looks like him. Like he must be one of the most instantly recognizable celebrities.

[01:08:34] His gait is recognizable. He has changed shape several times in his career. His career has gone up and down at different times. He always is undeniably Forrest Whitaker. Yeah. And really, like I really got in this movie just like the most empathetic performer.

[01:08:49] It's really hard not to like him even when he's being a giant dick. Like his character is making bad decisions. You're just like, oh, don't hurt him. There is a term. Right. And this is the cut of the movie where they tried to make him less empathetic.

[01:09:03] He is like so one of the emotional chords of the entire movie. You can see that being a problem of like if you just pick his best take for every scene, the entire audience is going to be rooting for him to win. Yeah.

[01:09:15] You know, there's a term Marin always uses on WTF and I think he got it from some actor he was interviewing years and years ago talking about working with Gene Hackman. And they said, what's Gene Hackman like? And I remember who the fuck it was.

[01:09:28] I mean, Stephen Tobolowsky or someone like that said like that guy knows how to fill up. Like fill up himself or fill up the screen? Fill up himself with emotion. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, like just basically like before the cameras roll, you see it.

[01:09:44] The guy just fills up and suddenly it's all there. It's not him playing something. It's all just in here. This weird noise is kind of gurgling. There's this moment that I watched a couple of times when he's chasing down Jared Leto

[01:09:56] saying like, I'm going to open the room myself and when they come for me, I'm going to know who called. And it's just like he's like terrifying. He's completely reasonable. Like it's like... You can tell why he's panicked himself. Right. Like what he what's at stake for him.

[01:10:12] He's like mad, but you're like, he's justified. Outside of Idi Amin though, it's one of those weird Oscar wins where you're like, this is kind of not what he usually does. Right? It's a classic Oscar win of like, he's at that point, he's a fairly beloved sort of

[01:10:26] character actor guy. He's directed movies. Everyone likes Farris Whitaker. Do you know at one point he was offered this script to direct earlier before Fincher came on? Yeah. And like, so like everyone likes him. Yes. But then it's like, what are you in the Oscar for?

[01:10:40] Like, you know, doing this sort of like big broad performance. It's an impression. It's like a transformation. It's a quietly supporting performance, but it's so colorful. He is good in that movie. Oh, he's fantastic.

[01:10:49] But I feel like usually his thing is just like, he's an actor where every time I see him on screen. Oh no, Ben, can we turn on the monitors? Yeah, hold on. The dog thieves are outside our door again. Genuine noise outside this place. Yeah, some screaming.

[01:11:02] Not a bit. This is four dogs in ski masks. This is the same year as Phone Booth, Panic Room. Right. Which is another movie he's really good in as like the guy. Okay, say fuck you. Fuck you! All right, great. Love him in Phone Booth.

[01:11:22] I was just saying that. Let me help you call Farrell. Whitaker's like the ultimate. Nah man, you can't help me. I'm on the phone. I can't do Call of Farrell in Phone Booth. I'm from Brooklyn!

[01:11:29] He's like the ultimate that guy knows how to fill up actor for me. We're just anytime he's on screen, you're like outside of shit like Last King of Scotland or sometimes the movie will give him the one big scene, you know, in something else. The Black Panther.

[01:11:42] I don't think of him as being like a very demonstrative actor. He tends to whisper. Right. He's like a very whispery, shuffly guy. This guy's like vibrating with emotion, right? Like this guy is just constantly sort of like on edge of something. Looks like he's about to cry.

[01:11:56] Yes. Oh, he's got, you know, he can use his eye in a certain way. Incredibly well. He always seems incredibly smart. He's always at like the absolute height of his intelligence. Right. And he's choosing his words very carefully, you know, but it's like he's not doing a lot

[01:12:11] externally. It feels like it's all just kind of inside of him. Yeah. I mean, Ghost Dog, I guess, is my favorite forest wood occur. He's so cool. I love that. The other thing I love about him, he like comes out of the gate.

[01:12:24] He books a couple big movies, right? He's got like the brief moment in Fast Times at Richmond High. He's got the great scene in Color of Money. Great in Color of Money, great in Platoon. Post those movies, he's like, I don't think I know my craft enough.

[01:12:37] I'm going to go back. Do like a conservatory. He like went back to graduate acting school, I believe, after he was already booking. And I think he says it was kind of Color of Money where he was just like, Paul Newman can do stuff that I can't.

[01:12:53] That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. He did do he did take a course at Drama Studio London. Yeah. But you know, he's in Bird and 88, which is like he should have been nominated for an Oscar for that. He's amazing. And I love Forest Worker. He's amazing in this.

[01:13:07] Hart was written as like a glib, businessy guy. And Fincher was like, no, it should be like a blue collar guy who installs like the panic room, not like the sort of like nerdy designer of the panic room, if that makes sense. No. Yeah. Yes.

[01:13:22] It makes much more sense. And yes, Fincher said, Whitaker said, yeah, I didn't find interesting as a filmmaker when I was approached. But Fincher like gets how to make something like this. Jared Leto. Jared Leto is in this film. You've worked with Jared Leto.

[01:13:33] I did not work with him directly. I wrote on a show he was on and I got a gift from him in character, a wrap gift. He sent me a gift as Adam Newman. Good gift. Thank God he did not send you a gift as the Joker.

[01:13:50] As Joker. I got a gift from a nice character. Right. Yeah. That's good when it's like you got a gift from a Jared Leto character. Which one? I will say this. Unfortunately, it's the creepy billionaire from Blade Runner. God damn it! What did he send me?

[01:14:02] He sent me like a fetus. Shit. The character he sent gifts as Adam Newman makes me slightly less critical of the Joker gifts where I'm like, if he does this on every movie, it's at least a continuum.

[01:14:15] Now JJ says, I do not say this lightly, these are two of the greatest quotes I've ever found for this show. Fincher. Yeah. This is about him talking about like, okay, I've cast Dwight Yoakam. That's on one sort of end of the spectrum. I've cast Forrest Whitaker.

[01:14:28] He's on the other. I turned to a CIA agent. Who can I get to be in the middle? It's got to be someone little and glib. Who has the aspiration to be Latrell Sprewell? Jared Leto, original gangster. Jared came in, he had the gold teeth.

[01:14:42] He was doing this whole rap thing. I said, I'm not sure about all this. He went away, came back with cornrows in his hair. And I thought, oh my God, this speaks so much to him being like a wannabe hard guy, a fucking like you know, wannabe OG.

[01:14:58] And then he says, he was asked like, do you think Jared's tired of like getting beaten up in your movies? Because in Fight Club as well, he gets a shippy down him. His face gets burned in most movies. I wanted to say something beautiful.

[01:15:09] He says he's perfect for it. Isn't he? If there's any guy whose face you want to see get burned off, it's him. He totally gets what to use him for. It's wild that not only did Fincher have such a good understanding of Jared Leto and how

[01:15:25] to use him effectively on screen, but also such a good understanding of the audience's relationship to Jared Leto. Not just what is he good at as an actor, but also like what will people enjoy seeing him do slash happen to him? Yeah.

[01:15:39] I just had the question and knowing that they were maybe just doing these scenes waiting for new actors to get filmed. It does seem like Jared Leto is doing more than anyone in the entire movie by... Absolutely.

[01:15:53] Everyone else is giving pretty subtle, character-y performances and Jared Leto is just like spitting fireballs. I wrote down a lot of his lines. They're pretty funny. I also felt like at one point I was like, oh, is he going full Buscemi and Fargo? I think that's his aspiration.

[01:16:13] Yeah. Is that what he thinks he's doing near the end? Because there's a thing I like when like there's certain actors who are very good at weaponizing their own beauty. Yes. Especially like later in life, I'm thinking like Hugh Grant is somebody who's gotten really

[01:16:26] good at knowing what was attractive about him and now making it disgusting. Kind of an old... Right. Yeah. So-and-so. Or like Jude Law's kind of doing it in a cool way now. Pitt got there eventually.

[01:16:36] But yeah, Pitt is very good at actually being hot in a movie and playing it like against the character. As a character. Like a money ball or whatever. Being like this thing you love about me is actually disgusting.

[01:16:47] Jared Leto at this moment in his career is in that moment where he's just like, I wish I was less pretty. Exactly. Right. He's like, I want to be Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys. I want to be like, I'm not Jordan Catalano.

[01:16:58] And it seems like he's really swinging for the fences. There's a part where, okay, there's a part where Forrest Gutter says he's laughing. He says, I spent the last 12 years of my life building these rooms specifically to keep out people like us.

[01:17:12] And Leto goes, oh, it's all so ironic and amusing. And he goes, congratulations, you bought a black ski mask. You made a million dollars. Your parents will be really proud. He's, whether or not it's intended, just so perfect.

[01:17:32] As a guy, of course, who needs to get shot in the face in this movie. Oh, he goes, oh, so now you're a tax attorney. I'm out of here. And also, right, is a guy who's like, yeah, I know how to do a robbery.

[01:17:43] You know, like where you're like, you don't know anything. You are an idiot. But like Dwight Yoakam is- But the swagger of him in this movie is so important. Dwight Yoakam is genuinely scary in this film, right? So scary. Forrest Whittaker is such a well of emotion.

[01:17:57] You need the guy who's just a piece of shit. Absolutely a piece of shit. And is an entertaining piece of shit. Like this movie- It's the classic Hitchcock-y thing or any of these crime movies. Which has become unbearably grim.

[01:18:06] The characters need to be completely different, have different motivations, different levels of, yeah, of like morality. And like Kidman is, I imagine would have played this more icy to Jodie Foster steely. But like in either conception of the film, you need one guy to be this.

[01:18:21] And it does feel like I agree with you that he's, you know, I'm going to anonymize this story. There was an actor I hung out with a couple of times who was a sort of 2010s attempt at a leading man. Okay. All right.

[01:18:40] A sort of pretty boy guy who was slotting into the lead role, the romantic lead in a couple films and had a hot streak and it had sort of ended. And it was maybe my first time meeting this guy.

[01:18:51] He was dating a friend of mine and he like drunkenly ranted to me. He just went, your career is going to be so much fucking better than mine. And I was like, what are you talking about?

[01:19:01] And he was just like, I thought I was like fucking hot shit. And all my like weirdo, funny looking actor friends are on that running laps around me. And it's just sort of like John McGarrow and Rami Malek and all these guys who were uncastable for so long.

[01:19:17] Now everyone thinks that they're brilliant. You know, this guy sounds like just fun. Piece of shit. I'm sure you're like, I'm glad my friend's dating this guy. I'm so glad she got out of that. But I do.

[01:19:28] I can imagine Jared Leto watching Fargo and having the same feeling, you know, totally where he's just like, I wish I could just fucking do that. I'm cursed with my looks. Yes. My beautiful eyes.

[01:19:40] I mean, because at this point, like his whole career, obviously, yes, he breaks out playing Jordan Canelano on My Soul Called Life and he was, you know, all the girls loved him.

[01:19:50] And then he's in stuff like How to Make an American Quilt, like where it's like, do that. Right. He does Prefontaine or Without Limits. Prefontaine. Yeah. Prefontaine. But and, you know, Urban Legend. He's like one of the guys who's like, oh, guys, there's an urban legend.

[01:20:04] But then it's like Black and White, Fight Club, Girl Interrupted, American Psycho, Requiem for a Dream, Highway, Panic Room, Phone Booth. So he's done Requiem for a Dream at this point. That's interesting. Yeah. So he's really worried. He's just like, make me weird and gross.

[01:20:18] I need to be strung out and weird. I need to have these parts that are very like big and demanding. I need so much to do. Right. Right. A lot of business. Obviously, it goes all the way to chapter 27 where it's like, Jared, no one's going

[01:20:31] to see this movie. And he's just like, I will gain as much weight as I can. I've been told this multiple times, but he literally would buy pints of Ben and Jerry's, put them in the microwave, melt them and chug them.

[01:20:43] That's is it him playing the killer John Lennon? Chapman. Yes. And he developed gout doing this. And the movie basically was released in two years. It was a bad movie. No one wanted to see it.

[01:20:54] It was 18 months of windup of like, holy shit, he's going to go fucking full raging bull. So the lengths he's going to for this performance and you're like, why would you do this for this script in this part that no one wants to see?

[01:21:06] And then that's when he takes like a long break where he doesn't really do a movie. He starts being a musician and stuff. Which thank God. What a cultural gain. When did the band start? 30 Seconds to Mars releases their first album in 2002. So the same year as this.

[01:21:22] But I feel like they really do sort of take off more in the late 2000s. So 2027 comes out 2007 and that's when he's just like, I'm retired from acting. I'm full time musician. When's Dallas Buyers Club? 2013. Yeah. OK, so that's his comeback. Basically a five year gap.

[01:21:36] My first date with Forking. Really? Wait, have I never told you that before on this podcast? Dallas Buyers Club? I know. What an insane choice. I know. And it worked. You got married and had a child.

[01:21:48] That movie literally begins with Matthew McConaughey having rough sex and then next scene, you have AIDS. I can't believe you guys, and I hate to be crass here, ever had sex. If that was the way you met. We didn't yet.

[01:22:01] But no, no, I think it was just kind of, it was Oscar season. It was like the winter of 2013. We were like, let's see a movie. Well, if you're going on a date and she suggests a movie, you're like, well, here's what I

[01:22:10] need to see to get through the Oscar season. You have a checklist. But I think it was also like, it was like between like 12 Years a Slave and Dallas. But like there were not a lot of romantic movies out there. No. Yeah.

[01:22:23] Absolute dog shit movie in my opinion. Eva. Yes. We Crash, the show you wrote for. Yes. That Jared Leto was on. Yes. Was a pretty deep COVID production rate where you were not on set at all? That was a COVID Zoom room.

[01:22:37] It was COVID Zoom room and then shot in New York. And so only we had one writer who lived in New York. And she visited set once. And she was the one, Eleanor, who told me that the present was from Jared Leto.

[01:22:52] Because it was like, I didn't even meet the showrunners until the premiere. I didn't meet anyone in person until the premiere. Right. Especially because of COVID. Yeah. Did you did you hear anything? Was anything relayed to you?

[01:23:05] Because like Adam Neumann is a goofier character than he usually plays. Yeah. Of what his behavior was like on set. Because the thing that surprised me watching this fucking voluminous special features set where there's just like a very long video of the making of Panic Room.

[01:23:21] It's not even structured like a documentary. It's basically almost like a travelogue. You're sort of seeing like just extended clips of footage of them working out shit. He's just doing bits the whole fucking time. He's not doing any Method-y shit. Oh, weird.

[01:23:35] It's just him like fucking with Fincher. Like going up to the camera and talking to the cameras if it's MTV Cribs when everyone else is just sort of treating it as like fly on the wall. I wonder when he got into Method.

[01:23:48] Because the one thing I do know about set is that he stayed in character the entire shoot as Adam Neumann. Which was a multi-month Adam Neumann experience. He actually, yeah, he actually went out of business himself. He bankrupted himself. Right. Yes. He crashed.

[01:24:08] He like he would keep his Israeli accent year round. Wow. I was just so surprised watching this where it truly just had the energy of like just a dude with too much energy. Like on set, just trying to get attention but not with the self-serious actor-y thing.

[01:24:29] Well, when did he switch over? Was it Dallas Buyers Club? Was it earlier? Did he have a guru that was like, you must do this? I think it's, I think, I don't know.

[01:24:39] But I think it's like when Dallas Buyers Club came out and he was like, yeah, I'm a Method guy. Like this is what I do. I've always been doing it. And I guess he'd done things like Chapter 27. He'd always been doing it.

[01:24:48] But then he does it with Morbius. He does it with everything now. And then, but then it became part of the press cycle in a way. I think we're now also journalists are like, so what'd you do this time, Jared? Tell us.

[01:25:00] Do you think he was like not Blade Runner? He was like eyes closed, like knocking into things? I think he did literally wear contact lenses that made him blind and stuff like that for Blade Runner. Yes, yes, he did. People had to like lean into the bathroom.

[01:25:11] And like it is crazy. It's always bathroom. It always just has to get to the bathroom. It's always bathroom. Bathroom too slow. Yes. Israeli bathroom. You have these guys like Fincher and Villeneuve, like these great directors who work with him.

[01:25:27] And I feel like Villeneuve was like, yeah, you know, he's such a committed guy. You got, you know, they always talk about him in this way where it sounds like they're talking about like a special student at school. And it's like, you know, he really is trying.

[01:25:39] It's really like you got to respect the effort of this guy. Right? The dynamic on this on the on the video Fincher gets it with him. Watching was also like it was like Leto is his annoying younger brother.

[01:25:50] And he's just going like I double doggie dare you to do this. And Leto be like absolutely fucking set me on fire. Like they're showing the video of him like testing being set on fire over and over again. He's like, this is fun. Let's fucking do it again.

[01:26:02] Right. Yeah. Right. We should talk about the plot of Panic Room. Okay. Meg Altman and Sarah, her daughter. Yes. She's 11 years old. Uh huh. Meg is not. Meg is older than that. They move into an insane building on the Upper West Side. A townstone. A townstone. Sure.

[01:26:21] As Ian Buchanan says. A big four story townhouse. Yeah. That has a panic room in it. The first scene of this movie, who plays the real estate agent? It's Ian Magnuson. Yes. Right. Right. Great. Who's the man? It's Ian Buchanan. He's so fun.

[01:26:35] He was a soap opera star. He's a really good actor. He's a really good actor. He's a really good actor. He's a really good actor. He's in the show. He is fucking great. I love him. I think he is incredible.

[01:26:45] That first scene sets a tone that is not the movie of extreme camp. Yes. It is kind of campy, but although it's very, I feel like, accurate to the experience of high end Manhattan real estate then especially, but even now.

[01:26:54] But I also just love it as he's like, let me show you around the set of this movie. Yes. You know, so you understand how it works. Ian Magnuson was sort of like the original Marilyn Roskob where she was like a weirdo

[01:27:06] East Village performance artist who then started working as sort of like a comedic character actress. She's like a Joe's pub person kind of, right? Yes. And then Ian Buchanan was like comically handsome, suave soap opera star. Hello. Yes.

[01:27:21] Who was a bit of a phenomenon and then I think within soap opera fandom. And then Gary Shanling sort of like reclaimed him and is like, do you want to like poke fun of your own image? Just like heighten it 10%.

[01:27:33] And then after that he did on the air, the weird David Lynch sitcom. Oh sure. Ooh. But he does a lot of stuff like this now where he sort of does the camp version of the way he looks and sounds. Uh, yeah, right.

[01:27:45] I mean, he's perfect for this. Yes. This scene. But I just love also it's kind of like you're getting cranked up on a roller coaster. You're going up the, you know. David, that is the exact analogy for this movie. I was going to say.

[01:27:59] Well, I fucking got there first. A movie like this, even more so than a straight horror movie, a real capital T thriller, right? As a kid and I, 13, I'm still a kid when I see this movie in theaters.

[01:28:14] Stressed me out, freaked me out more than anything where the premise of the movie is like a thing is going to go wrong and you're just stuck in it until it's resolved. Right. Like something like U571 I walked out of because it stressed me out too much.

[01:28:28] It's a little stressful. It's going to happen the first night. It's going to happen the second the sun goes down. It's like, it's like, it's like the mist. Absolutely. And so like this first like 15 minutes of the movie, I'm enjoying it.

[01:28:40] I like that there are jokes and everything, but I'm also just like gripping the armrest because it's like, it's too late to get off the roller coaster now. It's cranking up and then it's going to start and it won't stop until it's over.

[01:28:50] It's funny that the only things they tell you about the panic room are things that don't help. Yes. Like, uh, this has got a separate phone line. Right. Unless you don't hook that up. There's the laser for the door, which doesn't work. No, no, no.

[01:29:04] I had to go back and watch to be like, they make a big point of this laser being important, but I guess his hand isn't near the laser. It's poorly designed. There should be more than two lasers because yes, that means the door can't smoosh your entire body.

[01:29:18] But yeah, if you have a handout and it's not above or the floor, you're going to get smushed. But it's also, it's such a Hitchcock-y thing of like what he really wants to do here is

[01:29:29] like put some comedy in it, put two characters in who are very different tone, two performances that are very different pitch than the rest of the movie, but really just like lure you in, entertain you enough while like unconsciously loading the entire architecture and layout

[01:29:45] of this place into your head. Right? Like this whole sequence is like you need to understand spatially everything going on in this house now. Not just the room. You need to get how it's going to work, but it's also right. It's just a nice little sort of mood.

[01:30:01] Everyone be calm. Don't worry. Like things are and then it's like... And Fincher's deep in his like antiseptic sort of like finding color palettes that actually make you uncomfortable. Right? He's still shooting on film at this point, but he uses like a ton of fluorescent lighting. Yeah.

[01:30:18] And my first impression of this was like, oh, every movie will end up looking like this movie that he makes. He'll make eight more movies that look like this or whatever. But like it looks like Gone Girl. Yeah. Yes.

[01:30:32] And I just, you know, he's like, they can't move in. They'll move in, but like they can't actually change how this place looks like. It needs to be this desolate, empty. There you know, the kid and the mom are still unsettled.

[01:30:48] And so when they get broken into like it's not even their home yet. Is the panic room full of the old band's survival kits? Yes. They've done nothing with the panic room. Yeah. I mean, obviously there's more in there. Here's my big question. Sure. Would you buy...

[01:31:04] Let's say money is no object. Sure. Would the panic room be a selling point or a flat no? Here's this building. Oh, it's cool. It's nice. It's got all the bedrooms you want. It does have this panic room. Are you like, great.

[01:31:18] I want to buy it because it has a panic room. If it's panic room versus washer dryer, I pick the place with the washer dryer. It has everything else. I do think the panic room is a fun bonus. I think it would spook me out too much.

[01:31:29] I think if it's not an upcharge, it's a fun bonus. You don't have to make it a panic room. It could be a wine cellar. But it's got like the security system. The security system. Well, you have some really nice wine.

[01:31:39] Yeah, you can make it a podcast studio. It just still would have a crazy fucking door. I think I would be spooked. I don't like it. And then I would worry about my kid playing in the panic room. Well, sure. That's the other thing.

[01:31:50] If you have a little kid. Right. I have a teenager. And the teenager would want to hang out in the panic room. Your teenager would probably be like, I'm going to be in the panic room. I'll see you in four days. It's fucking Kristen Stewart's joke.

[01:32:00] She goes, my room. Definitely my room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. First night in the house, they go to sleep. They go to beddy-byes. Can we just say quickly, sorry, Doris Conji was hired as the DP on this movie. He was. Who Fincher had worked with.

[01:32:15] And then like in the early days before even Kidman's injury, he is no longer on the movie. And there are sort of conflicting stories about whether he quit or was fired. He was fired. Or he quit. They fought constantly. There was high tension.

[01:32:30] But I think a lot of it was that Fincher was like coming in with this previs thing and he's like, do exactly this. Do exactly this with like, I don't want any sort of new ideas on set. A terrible situation for a DP.

[01:32:45] And Conrad W. Hall, the son of legendary Conrad H. Hall, cinematographer who had just passed away, and does not have a ton of credits as DP. And this was his first, I believe. He was a big camera team guy. Charlotte Olympus has Fonz.

[01:32:59] I don't know what you're talking about. Fincher just says, you know what? Here, you rise to the top. He'd been a camera operator on Seven and Fight Club. A large career, but had not been the main DP. And was just like, here you go. Here's the model.

[01:33:12] Do what you told. The movie looks great, but it does speak to the fact that Fincher just planned it out and said, I want you to just follow this path. Yeah. No, for sure. And Kanji never works with Fincher again, obviously.

[01:33:25] The funniest thing is they had done all this previs. They'd worked all this out. They had like fucking computer controlled cameras and all this sort of shit. But, of course, there was this massive shift where there was a full height difference between

[01:33:39] Nicole Kidman and Jodie Foster and everything they planned didn't work. Oh, Jodie Foster's little. Yes. Nicole Kidman is like close to six feet tall. David's size. Jodie Foster is 5'3". Griffin's height. Listed. That's wild. Yes.

[01:33:53] So they were like, we would, Conrad Hall would just put it up exactly as they previs'd it and it would be Jodie Foster at the very top of her head at the bottom of the frame. Her little eyes. Like that's the whole frame.

[01:34:03] And it had all been precision time so like directly that they couldn't just like, well, just lower the camera and all of this. So they ended up building a box that was the exact height difference between the two of them that I think they called the Nicole Box.

[01:34:17] That just made Jodie Foster Nicole size. Isn't that wild? That's crazy. So you have this wonderful break in thing where the, you know, the burglars walk in very casually and they're just sort of stalking around and you've got that shot.

[01:34:34] I feel like it was in the trailer, right? Probably. Jodie sleeping. Oh yeah. It's the poster. Obviously it's the poster. Yeah. But I feel like it was, but it's such an incredible, great because it's not even when she realizes something is going on. Yes.

[01:34:48] It's sort of when we realize. It's dread, right? The dread. Exactly. Like just like the guy behind her and then walking away. But yes, you have the shot, like him really pioneering like CGI assisted cinematography of like the camera's going to do things it can't do.

[01:35:03] It's going to go between the slats of the chair and the handle of the coffee maker and into the keyhole to see the key going through the cylinders and undoing the lock. And how and why do these guys have a key? With Junior, of course. Exactly.

[01:35:22] Love that we don't really learn. It's like, you know, she figures out what's going on. She gets her kid to go in the panic room. Okay, movie set with them in the panic room. They think they're safe. In fact, it is the problem.

[01:35:32] The stuff that the robbers want is in there. Yeah. I feel like we learn about Forrest Whitaker's character first because he's like, you know, I know how panic rooms work. I designed panic rooms. Okay, he's the inside man. Then we learn about Jared Leto like way later. Sure.

[01:35:47] Like we don't really get who he is for an hour. No, other than that he's the motor mouth. He shouldn't be here. He knows a lot about the family and escrow. Right, it was his idea. But also...

[01:35:59] Raul, of course, we never learn anything about him except that he's a scary motherfucker from Flatbush. He's a bus driver. What? You're a bus driver. Raul, you live in Flatbush. Yes. So don't start spouting some Elmore Leonard bullshit because I saw that movie too. That is...

[01:36:14] He could have said James Elroy, but that was his friend. So he said Elmore Leonard. There you go. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Also just quick. I'm not like a plot hole person, but it is interesting to think about how it's not her

[01:36:30] stuff in the panic room. Like, could she just be like, what do you want guys? Yeah, they're like, the stuff we want is in the room. We'll let you go. Well, she should have just let them in the panic room. If they're in masks...

[01:36:41] I don't think that's a plot hole. I think she doesn't know what they, like, what's going on. It's funny to think about it at that point. There's absolutely no reason for her to be like, all this stuff in the panic room is mine.

[01:36:52] But the ultimate irony is they are like, we're on camera. So we're fucked. And of course they are actually not on camera. Yes. And that's a whole moment near the end of the movie when Forrest Whitaker goes to get the tapes and there are no tapes.

[01:37:05] And it's like, you actually could have walked out of here without any of this happening. Oh yeah. Right? Like, you know, you could have walked in and been like, fuck, there's a family in here now. We messed up. Like, forget it. Forget it. Forget it. You know, like...

[01:37:17] I also think like her not just letting them in and letting it escalate speaks to the Fincher thing of like, this movie is really about divorce. It is about being in a state where you're just like, I feel so unmoored and destabilized.

[01:37:30] I can't protect my kid from anything. Right. Yeah. I don't know how to identify what the threat is and what's the right way around it. I don't think it's a plot hole that she's not making the absolute best possible decision of it, but she's a human being.

[01:37:43] If they could talk to each other, like actually talk to each other... Yes. Yeah. This might go differently. He's like, there's a safe in the panic room. We just want to get in there. Right. You can leave where I was walk out right now.

[01:37:54] And if anything, it's what's interesting about this movie is like, and it's the difference between having Foster and Kidman is like, Foster never projects anything less than 100% competency and certainty. Right. And so even if the reasoning is this character is sort of like a little bit emotionally flipped

[01:38:13] at this moment, you do a close up of Jodie Foster and her eyes just staring at something and you're like, she's going to figure this out. Right. She has 10 million... She feels very resourceful. She's a computer. Yes. She looks like a computer. I think it's interesting.

[01:38:27] I think it's interesting for you to bring your panic room to maybe allow a phone signal in if you have your cell phone. I do feel like that's a design flaw.

[01:38:32] I guess the idea is she's supposed to have set up the phone line and she just hasn't done it yet. There's that. Yeah. It's a steel box. It's a steel box. But also... Why does it have a hole that goes to the courtyard? Yeah.

[01:38:43] Why does it have an air hole? Yeah. Because if this is for a nuclear disaster, the hole to the courtyard... Right. This feels like... The air hole, it's like, I guess, right, you just sort of have... I mean, I don't know. It's mousetrap.

[01:38:56] They're just trying to build shit into the... You have to have a moment where... Right. It feels like this is a home invasion only panic room. Yes. Right. Yes. But there is that moment where he's like, home invasion's on the rise. I'm like, I don't know, man.

[01:39:06] That's pretty specific. There's a lot of shit I'm worried about. But then they're like, but with this guy's family, no wonder. So he's building a panic room from Junior. He's building a Junior panic room. Yes. Yes. Right. It makes sense. It's a little proof.

[01:39:23] This was a paranoid guy. He had enough money that he could just throw money at a panic room. Yeah, maybe a TV room, billiard room. A rumpus room. Play billiards. Yeah. Right? A man cave. Yeah.

[01:39:37] And at least if you're going to make a panic room, put, I don't know, some shit on the wall. It's like it's a little... Black light posters. Yeah, it's a little bleak in there. Yeah. Hang in there, kiddie poster. That would be good. Yeah.

[01:39:47] And they need that advice. Yeah. Ben, I feel like you would have a really good panic room. Oh yeah. I would really have fun with it. Yeah. Yeah. I've never lived in a panic room before. There was no period of your life where you were just subletting.

[01:39:56] Right, so there's no window. It's not technically a bedroom. It's actually technically a panic room. Of course our office... A lot of the rooms I've lived in, I've had panic. I've experienced panic. Oh, sure. I mean, we technically made this...

[01:40:04] I turn every room I'm in into a panic room. Of course. Our first podcast studio was a panic room. I guess this is... Oh yeah, that's the bit we were doing. Yeah, but canonically this is a panic room. But of course, the doctor outside is working hard.

[01:40:11] Depends on how much of that we're going to leave in. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah. So I guess the first chunk of action now is, you know, everyone knows where everyone is and it sort of concludes with a gas attack, right?

[01:40:28] Like it's sort of them trying to figure out how to get in. Right. And yes, it's like, you know, the other thing with this movie is like, it's like Fincher doing Home Alone, right? Right. Mm-hmm.

[01:40:40] You're just like, what are they going to try to do and how are they going to retaliate? It is the most Home Alone-y moment. Yes, yes. With Leto with his face up like Sylvester the Cat or something pressed. He's Daffy Duck with his face pressed to the wall.

[01:40:54] But it's like 20 minutes of just like kind of stretching the rubber band for like, when is the first hijink going to happen? His beak ends up on the back of his head. Yeah. Obviously... His head turns into a pile of ash and slowly dissipates.

[01:41:09] I mean, that should have happened actually. His arm or at least it's like he's like, wait. And then he... I wanted all of his cornrows to be flipped out. That would be great. Fuck, that would be funny. Kind of pointed in different directions. Like Al Yankovic.

[01:41:20] The beak back at the head is one of my favorite things in the fucking world where you just go like, sweet. Is the logic that his head is just a perfect sphere and then his beak contains all of his mouth? It doesn't matter where the beak is. Yeah.

[01:41:32] There's no hole. Right. There's no throat. Right. So, OK. Yeah. All right. So, they do the gas thing. So I'm watching this with Forky. She's never seen this movie. And you were saying it's one of those things where she was like, what are you watching? I don't want...

[01:41:48] That sounds scary. I don't want to watch that. The kid's in peril. And I'm like, you know, everyone's going to be OK. And she puts her phone down 10 minutes and it's like, what's so what's gonna happen next? You know, it does grab you. Yes. Movie pretty quickly.

[01:42:02] But the gas moment definitely is a moment where when Jodi sort of goes quickly to like, put that blanket on. I'm going to try something with the lighter. You're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I would never do that.

[01:42:14] Fincher just makes all of this shit gnarlier than most directors would without being like a goofy, gore-fest gnarly. Right. Fire is my phobia. It's my irrational phobia. Fire sucks. I was going to say, pretty rational phobia. But I mean, just I have an irrational fear of it.

[01:42:31] You think like there's fire around every corner. Yeah. Fire burns us. You sound like the water people in the town of Element City. Stars of Pixar's hit new film Element. And of course, in Element City, that's racist. Racist! You're a racist, Eva. Because fire is a race.

[01:42:48] They're upstanding citizens. All they want to do is run bodegas. Guys! Don't hate them. It's a perfect movie. I will say just the fire going up to the ceiling, collecting and getting sucked through the vents was extremely awesome. It's so well done.

[01:43:01] The fact that it's blue as it should be, like it's propane fire. And then like the weird surreality of like Leto is like on blue fire and like rolling around is so cool. I would not do that, though. That's the point at which I'm like, open room?

[01:43:16] Come on in, guys. Yeah. Whatever you want. True. You know. Watching all the flame tests with Leto, there's the guy who's like taking them through them and it's like they have him wearing like 87 layers and then put the gel on top and he has a ski mask.

[01:43:30] But it's not like a ski mask like this. It's like a fireproof ski mask. And then they slowly start removing the layers to get him comfortable with it being more direct but obviously still insulated. And Leto's doing like a ton of business.

[01:43:43] And they basically have to explain to him, like, if you actually catch on fire, you don't really process it for a moment. Right. Like, unless your entire body is engulfed in flames immediately, you're not going to feel it in the same way.

[01:43:56] You're not going to see it in the same way until it starts to burn through. And then you fucking lose your mind. Right. In Criss Angel's show, Amystica, which closed last year, there's a man who just one of the

[01:44:09] tricks is just a man gets lit on fire in a heavy suit with a mask and he just walks in slow circles on stage. Now, see, I would say that's not a trick. I mean, they say it is. It's a gimmick. I just googled Criss Angel, Amystica.

[01:44:23] This is one of the least appealing posters for a show I have ever seen. Yeah. Every single part of it looks bad. Is the man on fire on the poster? Oh, he sure is. That's one of the better looking parts of it, though. That actually looks all right.

[01:44:35] Is that the perfect role for Jared Leto? Criss Angel biopic? Oh my God, yes! But like, what is this other stuff? I mean, Jesus Christ. If Jared Leto plays Criss Angel, I will personally hand him the second Oscar. Don't you even... Don't you even dare.

[01:44:53] There's a contortionist and there's this guy named Mike Hammer who does kind of like body deeply offensive comedy through most of the show. Oh, good. Who plays him? Joe Rogan? Just asking questions. I'd like to point out Criss Angel's Instagram related accounts. Number one hit, Jared Leto. Wow!

[01:45:15] Instagram is just kind of like, I don't know, the algorithm keeps spitting Jared Leto out. What is Mike Hammer's vibe? Who would you cast as him? He's a really unappealing white guy. He does a lot of anti-Asian jokes. He does some prop comedy.

[01:45:35] Does he ever have half of LA's comedians? Does he sell boner pills? He's oily and blonde. I'm trying to think. I don't know. Maybe Jared Leto plays him too? Maybe he plays both. Yeah, he's like Hammer and yeah, he plays everyone. Yeah, that sounds like a good movie.

[01:45:47] Wow, that's such a good idea. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Wow, that's such a good idea. I'm just looking at Criss Angel. It wasn't, you know, Jim Carrey played a Criss Angel type in the Burt Wonderstown movie, right?

[01:46:02] That's the joke? Yeah, but he didn't go full Criss. He was a little less, what would I say? He just played the braggadocio. Another thing I want to say, this is a thought, Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Part One, which we saw last night. Yes.

[01:46:20] At this point will come out months ago. It's kind of a David Copperfield vibe sometimes. So the costuming, big kind of flowy white button downs. You know, Pam Klementieff, however you say her name, Klementieff's character has this

[01:46:36] sort of like, you know, very magic show like vibe to her. The vest budget on this movie must have been insane. And there is a lot of sleight of hand. Yes, and there's, but in the first movie it is established Ethan Hunt knows sleight of hand.

[01:46:51] And so he brings that back. And Haley Atwell's character in this is a pickpocket and there's just a runner throughout the entire film of them like picking or dropping things off and doing it like transferring your hands on camera.

[01:47:03] The thing where you kind of go like, and then it's in your hand. Whatever that is. Are we pitching a Tom Cruise Copperfield movie that opens the same weekend as a Criss Angel Leto movie? We're pitching a Magic Verse. A Magic Verse. Yes.

[01:47:16] I mean, Cruise is probably the same age as Copperfield. They're both probably in their early 60s, right? Criss? Oh, Cruise. No, no, Cruise. Yeah, I think Leto and Angel are the same age too. Copperfield has six years on Cruise. Okay. So Criss is Copperfield. Leto is Criss.

[01:47:32] Who plays Houdini? We're just doing it all? Magical Origins. I don't know. All right, back to Panic Room. Russell Crowe. Perfect. Nailed it. And he's the Nick Fury of the universe. He's like, I have sort of an idea on Houdini.

[01:47:45] He's Houdini, but he just ate a lot of food. He's hungry. He likes roast beef. It has an accent. And yeah, was Houdini Greek? No, Russell. I think he was. I'm looking here. Have you seen, I watched Pope's Exorcist. Oh, yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. Pope's Exorcist.

[01:48:05] The Pope's Exorcist. Russell Crowe is like, he plays the guy who's like, I'm the exorcist. Not a lot of people like me. The Pope likes me though. Right. He does not exorcise the Pope.

[01:48:16] He is the guy the Pope calls when he needs an exorcism done to someone else, but the Pope does not appear in the movie. No, the Pope. Oh, Frank O'Neill plays the Pope. Oh, big, big scene. Okay.

[01:48:25] No, the idea is that there are like cardinals who are like, you must stop. You do so many exorcisms. Like this is not the Catholic Church doesn't want to do this anymore. And you as the viewer are supposed to be like, he gets results, you stupid cardinals.

[01:48:39] That's why he's the Pope's Exorcist. It's like Sully. Yeah. And then the Pope calls him in and he's like, I need you to do this very bad or you gotta do this exorcism for me. Who is the subject? Oh, you know, some girl who's possessed.

[01:48:55] The idea of the movie, which is actually clever, is that the Spanish Inquisition happened because the devil took over the Catholic Church for a bit there and started doing really bad stuff. Yeah. And so it's related to that. Yeah.

[01:49:09] And that's also what happened the other times the Catholic Church did bad shit. To the devil! Then we got rid of him though! Yeah, now he's gone now. Yeah, it's complete bonkers nonsense. I want to see this. It's pretty fun though. It sounds good. Yeah.

[01:49:18] And it's Russell Crowe again with his take on the exorcist though. He likes submarine sandwiches, right? Do you remember that scene in Spotlight where Mark Ruffalo interviews the devil? No. And he's like, so you were behind this the whole time? Why'd you do it? Why'd you do it?

[01:49:34] Why'd you do it? You knew! And you let it happen! You had a pointy tail and a pitchfork! Don't do it anymore! His hooves were on fire! And then leaves Shriver's ink. This is good recording. This is a great interview. Yeah. Yeah. Very good work.

[01:49:53] A little pointy Van Dyke beard. This'll go on A3. This looks good. Yeah, yeah. Eight inches for this one. Okay, so they try and set her on fire. She sets them on fire back. Oof. Yeah, smart. Which is, look, fight fire with fire. We all know this.

[01:50:04] Well no, they try to gas her out. They try to gas her out, I guess. They're not trying to light her on fire. They're not trying to gaslight her either. No, no. She's straight up on fire. She's on fire. She's on fire. She's on fire.

[01:50:13] They're not trying to gaslight her either. No, no. She's straight gassing her. And she's straight lighting. Yeah. And it is one of the, like, God bless Forrest Whitaker who's like, I don't want to kill anyone.

[01:50:24] He is the one who starts pumping in gas and then he's like, but not too much gas. Yeah. And I'm like, there's a pretty fine point on this. They're in an enclosed space. This was a— Any gas is not good.

[01:50:34] It's gonna be one of the off takes where it was his idea. Right. I think this was an early source of attention with Fincher and Darius Kanji before they finally split ways. But Fincher was like, from the moment that Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart go to sleep,

[01:50:46] I want 20 minutes of the movie to basically be pitch black. Where they're just lit by the moon through windows. And everyone was like, that is too annoying. Like, people are gonna fucking protest.

[01:51:01] But he still did, like, basically say, like, I think if you stay dark for most of it, the audience's eyes will adjust rather than making it darker at one point and then taking cheats at other scenes and whatever. Yeah. Well, I don't know.

[01:51:17] Eventually she does—she rips out the phone lines. The main phone line. At first, we—first she goes and gets her cell phone, which doesn't work. Right. She grabs her cell phone. It doesn't work. It's at that silent sequence.

[01:51:30] The only point of which is to remind her that there's a phone. Right. Yeah. Right. And then she sort of, like, has enough time to zip out. But does she ever—she doesn't use the phone for anything.

[01:51:41] No, but then she realizes she can plug the main phone—the panic room phone into the main line. It's like, phone, phone! Calls her husband. Phone? What else is a phone? That's a phone! Right.

[01:51:55] Calls her husband and is like, you gotta come get me, I'm in the panic room! And then they cut the line. But before that, she has to yell at his new wife and go, put him on, bitch! Who plays his new wife? Nicole Kidman. Oh, she did? Yeah.

[01:52:08] I think it's very funny as a stepmom of a teenager— Humble brag. Humble brag. I think it's very funny to think, like, if I had to call my husband's ex-wife, like, for something that I would just be like, hey, we've been kidnapped, can you help?

[01:52:24] Like that she has to be like, I need to talk to my husband! Put him on! Like, that she can't—she has such a bad relationship with this woman that she can't be like, we have been kidnapped! Yeah, also I would call 911. That would be my telephone call.

[01:52:38] Easy to remember. That's the call she makes. She does! They put her on hold. They put her on hold? Correct. Which is insane. That she's like, oh my god, I have to—this is an emergency, call 911. They're like, get on hold. And then she calls—

[01:52:51] How did I miss that? She calls the husband and the mom. Then she calls the husband. Nicole Kidman's like, what time is it? It's kind of a major— Put him on! I would say plot hole. It just doesn't really make sense.

[01:53:00] I mean, I could see 911 being like, five seconds, please. Yeah! I do think they are supposed to get to you pretty quickly. Yeah, time is of the essence here when you're calling 911. And the cell phone is trapped underneath the flipped over mattress. Yes, yeah.

[01:53:15] There's a whole business where she thinks it's—we know where it is because we've seen it fall when she was running to the panic room. But right, she thinks it's in one place. Then she has to search under the mattress. She knocks down the light.

[01:53:25] They come to—you know, all these sequences are perfectly calculated. Fincher said the main appeal of this movie for him was making a film where the audience could be in perfect lockstep, right?

[01:53:37] Where he can direct your eye to what you need to know, place things in your memory at certain points where anytime a scene is set up and a conflict is set up, you understand this is here relative to this. This is going to be the problem.

[01:53:47] This person does know this or doesn't know this. Just making it all as easy to map out as possible. This is the moment after the phone call where the group starts to split up. Whitaker is like, I don't want to do this anymore. Oh no, sorry, sorry.

[01:54:03] It's Jared Leto who's like, I'm out. Forget it. Now I'll just—and that's when he says—because this is the end of Leto. He's burned up. I got a hamburger face now. He's got a hamburger face and he's like, forget it.

[01:54:13] I'll just collect my meager share of the inheritance. And then he says like 900 grand. And that's when Dwight Yoakam and Forrest Whitaker are like, wait, how much is actually in there? Because that's a lot. Oh, yes. He goes, I can't go to prison, man.

[01:54:25] I was built for that shit. Which, Junior, let me tell you, that's probably true. Right. But if that's his consolation prize, then suddenly the stakes have gotten raised for them. And then it's just an incredible moment where they're all fighting and he's like, I'm out of here.

[01:54:40] And then Raul shoots him in the eye and he is dead. He does a full 360 degree spin and sprays brains all over. It's so good. It's so satisfying because one, it's great escalation of tension. Oh God, Raul is as scary as we thought he could be.

[01:54:55] Two, Jared Leto is dying in such an entertaining way. What a delight for me to personally experience this with all my friends at the Odeon, the hallway Odeon. Talking about how much extra Jared Leto is doing in this performance, it's the kind of

[01:55:06] performance you can only get away with if you're going to die earlier in the movie than people think. Right? You can do this much where people are like, are you really going to fucking sustain this for 90 minutes? And it's like, no, it's more like 30. Yeah.

[01:55:18] And it's like 34 or 35. And I'll die exactly when everyone's just so fed up with me. It'll be extremely, the audience will clap. Yes. Every death in this movie, him and Yoakum. You're just like, yes! Thank God! But yeah, but Raul, just don't bring Raul. Raul's bad news.

[01:55:39] We don't know anything about Raul because he's a bus driver. Yeah, Flatbush. In Flatbush. He's done it hard. He got a ski mask. Yes, he got a ski mask and now he's got a million dollars. His parents would be very proud. He has a weapon, a firearm.

[01:55:51] His father sat him down on his knee one day and said, all I wish for you when I migrated here to this country was that one day you'd have a million dollars and a ski mask of your own. Yes. So, you know, Raul at this point.

[01:56:06] Oh no, right. And then right as they're shooting Jared Leto is when the husband shows up. Yeah. And he's like, what's going on? Hello? Knock, knock. And that's when they beat the shit out of him. And then they do the whole switch. He's got the broken collarbone.

[01:56:23] And the makeup guys on the DVD said that like that was a big Fincher thing that he had at some point in his life. I don't know what the circumstances of this were. He's playing right tackle for the Denver Broncos.

[01:56:32] Was talking to someone whose collarbone had just been broken, was with them in the immediate aftermath of that. And that when they were talking on the syllables, he could see their collarbone moving up and down. Yucky.

[01:56:45] And that was the thing that stuck with him and haunted him for so long that he was like, I'm putting that in a movie somewhere. And it's here. Yeah. I mean, he is really yucky. Yeah. He doesn't just have like a black eye or whatever.

[01:56:56] No, he looks like half dead. Well, he got beat up by Raul. Raul doesn't half beat someone up. I guess. Raul's a bad guy. I forget which makeup team it was, which studio it was, but they basically were talking about

[01:57:08] how they had really wanted to do Fight Club. I mean, Fincher is like so much the guy at this moment that this movie has a lot less in terms of prosthetics, but they so badly want to be in his good graces that they were

[01:57:19] just like, we're going to do everything so extreme so that we become his default guys. I don't know if it worked or not. I mean, I don't either. You find out. I mean, Benjamin Button had some makeup. A lot of CGI though. Did he? Yeah.

[01:57:33] I thought that was all natural. I think there's some. There's some. There's some. Yeah. The Cate Blanchett actually, that's some of the best old age makeup I think in any movie. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.

[01:57:44] So, at this, while this is all happening, you also have, and I do think it's very clever, that the movie never has the really boring scene of like, don't forget to take your insulin.

[01:57:53] Like it's just that there's just sort of mentions of like she has her watch and... You see the fridge. You see the fridge with stuff in it. In her room. And you see the sort of, like there's the moment where she's like, do you feel okay?

[01:58:04] Like do you feel dizzy? You know, like she's asking her questions that feel more specific than like, I don't know, are you rattled by this? But like they never actually have the like, the thing in all these movies that you're

[01:58:15] like, okay, well then she's going to fucking have a problem later. Right? Where they're like, and don't, you know, do your homework and don't forget to take your insulin. And I'm like, okay, I'm watching a thriller an hour into this. She's going to go into diabetic shock.

[01:58:26] It is like the more the way you would, it's more just about, it could be about a character that happens to be diabetic. Right. But of course it's a thriller. So it has to, she has to. But that scene is very powerful. The first Whitaker scene.

[01:58:41] But even the seizure scene. Yes. With like the shot of her, her toes clenching. The way that they clearly gone through before. Ben, you don't like it? Yeah, I don't like it. It makes me squirm. But it's mostly that fucking Kristen Stewart plays this incredibly well.

[01:58:55] Kristen plays it really well, but Jodi saying like, be strong, be strong. You know, like it's like really tough to watch in a very mundane way. And then yeah, you know, the follow up where Whitaker does the right thing or whatever is also great.

[01:59:07] But you know, I don't know. What do you guys think? Griff, you're trying to look something up. It was ADI who did Alien 3. He didn't hire them back for Fight Club and I think this is the last thing they do with him. I'm so sorry.

[01:59:21] That's all I had to say. Okay. I was really impressed with all the diabetes stuff. Me too. Yeah. They did a million takes of Kristen Stewart. Like that is the Fincher thing. Like he did, he did. She had to take, had that seizure for days.

[01:59:33] I don't know about the seizure, but like he did say like, look, we're going to, he has this whole spiel about like, we're going to get her up to Jodie Foster's level by doing lots of takes. Right.

[01:59:42] Like she's an unexperienced actor, but like, you know, we can just get the performance totally right. That decade where everyone fucking wrote her off. She's just awkward. She has all these tics and everything. It's just like, she clearly is like a very technically advanced actor.

[01:59:58] She's doing things with intentionality. You do not give this performance in this movie with this director by accident. And that was the start of her career. Absolutely was, right? What's the, what's it, Catch That Kid? When's that? That's after this. Right? This was her second film.

[02:00:15] I don't know what was first. She'd been in The Safety of Objects before that. Right. Back then you could release a movie called The Safety of Objects. Um, yeah, Catch That Kid is a year, she's also in Cold Creek Manor the year after this, the Mike Figgis thriller.

[02:00:29] Quade and Stone. Quade and Stone. Quade and Stone. Quade and Stone sounds like some town in Maine I'm moving to. Um, and she's also in Undertow. Shout out Jamie Bell. Oh yeah, a very brief performance in it, but she's good in it. I love that movie.

[02:00:45] Uh, good movie. And then yeah, Slytherin. Yeah. She never stopped working. She worked consistently all the way to Twilight and then Twilight is the Breakout. She's such a good actor. Do you like Keith Stewart? One of my favorites. Personal shopper, man. One of the fucking best.

[02:00:59] It really is. I love her. I think the Nighthawk Theater now has been using one of the text exchange with a quote unquote ghost scenes in personal shopper as their turn off your cell phones pre-movie announcement. Right, right.

[02:01:13] So I just keep on seeing that scene over and over again. Great, great scene. That's wordless. That's just her texting, getting freaked out and turning her phone off and putting it away.

[02:01:21] And I'm just like, man, she can fucking like, there are few people who have that sort of technical precision. Right. They would not be able to handle, you know, whatever. She can just exist on screen.

[02:01:33] This was the whole fucking, if I can just say it for five seconds. You said it a bunch on our Twilight episodes. I know I did, but that was Paywalled. That's true. When people were like, she's just uncomfortable. She's just uncomfortable and awkward.

[02:01:44] I'm like, that's not what it looks like when someone's uncomfortable on camera. That's how someone plays being awkward, which she had a better physical vocabulary for doing than almost anyone in the history of movies. She was so good at it that people thought she was actually uncomfortable. Correct.

[02:01:58] She was just giving a take to Bella. She was like, what? Something. Give her anything. Right. A character that is designed only to be a cypher. Yeah. Bella is not the deepest character on the page. I will agree with you on that. And her decisions are confounding.

[02:02:13] What do you mean? Normal. She just wants to be a vampire. And she and Pattinson both turned out to be very interesting people. Yes. They sure— look, we— Phenomenal actors who have basically tried their hardest to keep this medium afloat. We're so pro both of them. Yes.

[02:02:29] And Jackson Rathbone. Obviously the third element. Right. The secret sauce. The three saviors of cinema. He's the cayenne pepper on top. Is he the werewolf? No. He's— Taylor Lautner was that. Taylor Lautner is the werewolf. Jackson Rathbone is the sort of twinkie vampire in the family.

[02:02:50] There's the kind of hot vampire and then there's Kellen Lutz who's like the sort of big lunk. Yeah. Nice. And then there's Nikki Green who's emo girl. Who can read emotions. Who can read emotions or something. Yeah. Nice. And see the future. I can't remember. Perfect words.

[02:03:04] And is there anyone else? I guess that's the whole gang. Oh no, there's Nikki Reed who's mean. Yes. Her power is judgment. Her power is— yeah. The whole time she's like, I don't like you. Yeah. And you're like, all right, well, sorry.

[02:03:16] At this point everyone's moving in and out of the panic room at various times, right? When does what Yoakum get his hand squished? It's around when they're giving her the drugs, right? Yeah. She throws the drugs in. Right. The door smashes the hand. Slashes his hand.

[02:03:31] And then it's just like, we got to communicate somehow. She's got to let him know how to give the drugs. And you have this around— like Forest Whitaker's already kind of revealed like he has a family. Yes. Right? Like he has fatherly vibes. Yeah, it's custody.

[02:03:47] He needs the money for custody. That's what Junior yelled at him. This is not a mandrake migrate. Right. No. He needs the money. Yes. The fact that Dwight Yoakum is wearing rubber gloves when he gets his hand caught.

[02:04:00] So rather than just having the nastier immediate impact moment of smushed finger severed, you instead see the gloves slowly pull up with blood and kind of like inflate. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, I'm watching it now. Can we do the little Dwight Yoakum sidebar? Absolutely. Dwighty Dwight.

[02:04:20] What do you want to say about him? A fascinating actor. He's a good actor, I think. I think he's a very good actor. I actually don't know his music that well. I don't either. I mean, he's a big country, big kind of alternative country guy, right?

[02:04:35] I feel like, you know, kind of in like the Willie Nelson mold or whatever. So good. He's incredible in Sleepy Plate. So scary. And it has this incredibly eclectic cast that is clearly just people Billy Bob Thornton likes, right? And who he thinks will have authentic vibes. Personality.

[02:04:53] And it's just like, who the fuck is this guy? You're telling me this is not his main thing, that this is like him giving this performance kind of on a lark as a favor to a friend. And then I feel like he semi selectively does stuff.

[02:05:06] There was he was in the Newton Boys as one of the Newton Boys. He's obviously in Logan Lucky. Well, sure. Well, you're jumping ahead. Okay, then take me through order, David. What else did he do? He's in that movie The Minus Man, which I've never seen.

[02:05:20] The Owen Wilson serial killer. Scary movie that has one of the best trailers of all time. Does it? Do you not know this trailer? I don't think so. The Minus Man has a trailer that is a couple walking out of seeing the Minus Man.

[02:05:34] So what did you think of the ending? And it's just them having a like before sunrise walk through New York City talking about how crazy that's kind of clever. And it's like time lapse, like as they walk through the park and drops her off her doorstep

[02:05:50] and she's like, don't you have to be at work? And he's like, it'll be fine. And then it cuts to a drowned person in a swimming pool with no lifeguard there. Right. And that is the trailer has no scenes from the movie.

[02:06:02] And it's it just says like The Minus Man, you won't stop talking about it. It's one of the greatest film trailers in history. That's cool. Yeah. Anyway, no one talks about that movie. No one does. No. But I now kind of want to watch it after Panic Room.

[02:06:17] He did help investigate a little Hollywood homicide. OK. Apparently he's in Wedding Crashers. Well, this is the thing. I don't remember that. Vince Vaughn. I believe the opening scene of Wedding Crashers is them negotiating his divorce because they're divorced. Yeah. They're like mediators. Right. That's what they are.

[02:06:36] Yeah. But he like Vince Vaughn's run of basically trying to make his own Happy Madison. Dwight Yoakum becomes like his guy who he always has pop up in the movies. Yes. So he's also in Four Christmases. Weird. I think he plays a priest. Yes. He's also in...

[02:06:53] Yeah, that's the only really the only other big movie in here. I mean, he's in Crank. He's in like Three Burials of Melchiaty's Estrada, which is a good movie. He's very good in that. He might do just a cool hang too. He's in both Cranks.

[02:07:06] Crank and Crank High Voltage. I think he's a cool hang. And there's a lot of auteur directors who bring him in. Now, he is really fun Logan Luckey because he's the guy who's negotiating with the prisoners over like the Game of Thrones book.

[02:07:18] But then he has not acted and then he showed up in Cry Macho. And it was one of those classic like, Clint, could you have given this guy one extra take to just kind of warm up the engine? Like, you know what I mean? He's not bad.

[02:07:31] No, we're done. It feels like Dwight Yoakum asked a PA for a cup of coffee. Clint said, let's roll. He said, can we wait for the coffee? He goes, no, I need my turkey sub. It's lunchtime, 930 in the morning. Whatever, it's like Clint's done by lunch.

[02:07:47] And by the way, he eats lunch at 10 a.m. His lunch is breakfast. I've been up since four. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did seven pushups. All of my movies are shot at dusk. We're done here. Have you seen Cry Macho, Eva? No.

[02:08:05] It feels like a movie you would be a little obsessed with. OK. It's so good. I highly recommend it. Cry Macho, it's a funny name. Yes. Cry Macho. It's about him trying to escort a boy in his rooster back to his father. Right.

[02:08:21] But David described it as a movie where the greatest tension in every scene is will Clint be able to make it through without taking a nap? You really are just, him walking across a room is just a little stressful.

[02:08:34] There's a scene in which he has, no, the mule is the one where he has multiple threesomes. The mule has the threesomes. There's a scene in Cry Macho where you think a woman is trying to seduce him. Right. And he's sitting on a couch and you are genuinely-

[02:08:46] You're like, let me get this guy a car in here. You are worried he is going to fall between the cracks of the cushion. All right, I'll watch this. Like a fucking TV remote. Because the thing about Cry Macho is it's a fucking 50 year old script. Yes.

[02:09:00] It's not written for a 90 year old man. No, he wanted to do it when he was like 50 playing 40. Yeah. That's so funny. And instead he made it when he was 90. Anyway, good movie. Totally solid movie.

[02:09:10] He's got that one monologue where he breaks down when the kid is sleeping that's unbelievable. I think it's like, it's not one of his better movies, but like it's a pretty decent movie. Yeah. Considering it was directed by someone who falls asleep at 10 AM.

[02:09:19] Also a lot of double entendre jokes about the rooster. Yes. Why are all these kids obsessed with their cocks? And you're like, do you need a lozenge? He does need a lozenge. Have you seen The Mule? Like have you seen any of the Luke Clint's?

[02:09:34] I haven't watched recent Clint. I would check out The Mule though. The Mule is really good. David loves The Mule. And is kind of more demented. Yeah. And Sully's obviously the best American film of the 2010s. But he's not in that one. No.

[02:09:44] He should be in it though. You feel him though. Oh yeah, you feel him. I'd say he sort of plays the role of God in that film saving 166 souls. 100%. Okay. Okay. Panic Room. All right. So okay. They smush Gokum. Go on.

[02:09:58] Who is amazing in this movie by the way, Dwight Yoakam. Phenomenal. He's great. And it is the kind of like sort of whatever, like surprise casting. And at that time. And you're like, I can't wait to see this movie. I can't wait to see this movie.

[02:10:05] And you're like, I can think of a thousand guys I would cast before this guy and you were right to cast this guy. And that guy without being overexposed at this moment that when he shows up in the ski mask,

[02:10:08] if you weren't paying attention to the opening credits, which we should just briefly shout out opening credits that everyone has ripped off since this movie. The most famous opening. The most famous thing about this movie is the opening credits. They're so good. They're very cool.

[02:10:14] The best thing about them is that you can see the other ones. That's my favorite fucking part. Like that you're looking at, but you can already see the next credits that are coming out. And you're like, I can't wait to see this movie.

[02:11:19] And it seems like a real, he's a real type of guy. There's something unnervingly kind of blank about Dwight Yoakam. And I think it is that weird, like inscrutable cowboy Western thing where it's just sort

[02:11:32] of like this guy doesn't say much and he looks off at the planes and whatever, you know? And then when you project onto that, everyone pointing at him and being like, this guy's fucking crazy. He becomes terrified. In this movie, he's kind of a mundane psycho.

[02:11:46] He's not even like in it to torture people. I don't know. He's just not nice. He kills Jared Leto because it's time. Yeah, it's kind of time for him to die and he's annoying. And they just want the money and they're going to get it now. Right.

[02:11:58] But yeah, he doesn't like savage. He shoots him a couple times. And then like, you know, he's really now so in between him getting his fingers smushed and this sort of final showdown is the arrival of Paul Schultz. And isn't that Mel Rodriguez? Who's the other cop?

[02:12:14] Oh, I think you're right. That was a great scene. That scene is so good where Paul Schultz is like, you know, basically like, I don't buy that this woman's insane story. Like something's definitely going on. Paul Schultz's performance is great. Yes. Yeah, Mel Rodriguez is the other cop.

[02:12:31] I love Mel Rodriguez. Me too! A true when's he bad? Is there any performance he hasn't? No, he's a really reliable actor. Actually elevated from what was given to him. I also forgot to shout out.

[02:12:44] There's the scene where they, you know, blink the lights Morse code out the window to the neighbor. The neighbor does what I would do. Forky and I agreed. We were both through this. Close blinds.

[02:12:54] Like if I'm in New York City and someone's flashing something, I'm like, what is this fucking light party over here? I will, you know, I'm going to sleep. I don't know if I've ever told this before on the podcast.

[02:13:03] There was a night like 10 years ago, different apartment, different neighborhood where I heard what sounded like a very intense domestic incident between a couple in the building next to mine. And she was literally yelling, you're going to kill me.

[02:13:21] And I called 911 and they were so annoyed that I didn't have more information for them. Like they were hostile. And when they came and I met them outside, they were like, so what are we supposed to go off of here? Cops are annoying. Yeah. Sorry to say this.

[02:13:37] But it was like, I'm trying to be a good Samaritan. And they're like, so what? We're supposed to just go in the building and knock on every door. And I'm like, I don't know. I heard a woman yelling she was going to die. I don't think anyone died.

[02:13:47] Andrew Kevin Walker, the writer of Seven, plays the sleepy neighbor. Oh, that's fun. That's nice. He closes the blinds. Sure. Anyway, he just wrote something new. What he did. He just wrote. No, I don't know. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Something that just came out.

[02:14:01] A great tweet. Something coming out. He wrote a great tweet. Something I was excited about. He wrote the killer. Oh, the new Sentry coming out. Yeah. I'm just reading that book right now and I was excited. And then I was like. He wrote that movie Windfall. What's that?

[02:14:15] No, he didn't. No, he did. The one that came out last year, it was the new Charlie McDowell movie with Jason Segel and Lily Collins. Oh yeah. That like no one saw because it was like one of those Netflix. It filmed on at Jason Segel's house.

[02:14:27] Was it really? Yeah. The killer is a really good, scary graphic novel. Oh yeah. It's going to be a really cool thing to adapt. I'm excited for that. He wrote the Bad Robot, the Bad Robot, Love, Death and Robots episode that Weiger loved so much too. Okay.

[02:14:41] That Fincher directed. All right. He was just telling us to watch that last night. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Uh, never apologize. Never apologize. I won't apologize. Never. Even if yeah, you know, you're in a panic room. No. What do you make of the scene with Schultz though?

[02:14:55] Like, do you think she signals anything to him and that's why he's there at the end or is he just kind of like, this is too fishy? She doesn't do the blinky thing. No. I think it's too fishy. It's too fishy. Yeah.

[02:15:07] I think it's something didn't line up. Yeah. She very clearly, she does her best to send them away. She does her best to send them away. You're watching her, capital A acting as her character. What if her character, who's not a good actor had to act?

[02:15:21] There's no Jodie Foster. And she has to do this whole thing and like, well, what, you know, what I was trying to say on that phone call was, you know, I want to have sex with her. Yeah. What are the three things? The three things? She says...

[02:15:34] Oh, there it is. It's cut off right at the number three. If you come over here, I'll do three things. Right. Kiss. Hug. Love. And rub. Kiss forehead. Kiss forehead. Hug shoulders. Eskimo kiss. And shake hands. It's all just different types of kiss. Face bump.

[02:15:51] Three things I want to do. Play Mario Kart. Play Mario Tennis. Play Mario Party. She's got a N64. She can't do that. She's got a N64. She's got a N64. She's got a N64. She's got a N64. She's got a N64. She's got a N64.

[02:16:03] She can do them all. That's what it would be. She'd have a game system in the panic room. Oh, yeah. Yes. A Super Nintendo where you're just like, you know what? I'm really going to dig into like Zelda right now.

[02:16:16] Then you could turn all the screens that are usually watching bad guys into just party, watching, playing games. Or watch DreamWorks' The Bad Guys. Well, that's not pleasing him. It's not out yet. In 2002. You could turn all your TVs into TVs like Elvis. Yeah, sure.

[02:16:35] It'd be a minor plot hole if she had a copy of a movie from 20 years later. People might have... Might be a logic bump. Yeah, exactly. Or what if they were like, we're finally making a full version of the movie that Jodie Foster watched in panic room. Yeah.

[02:16:50] That's what The Bad Guys was. Sure. It would be funny if it was like, it's this old man's panic room. Also his VHS collection. It's like Exodus. Right. Really boring. It's kind of like kind of boring movies. Debbie does Dallas. Oh, dear. Yeah, they find his dirty videos.

[02:17:06] Right, right. It's underneath the main videos. There's a secret. There's a panic room for the porn. Yeah. National Geographic. When you reach in for it, it cuts off your fingers. All right. So at this point, I guess what's happening is she's downstairs.

[02:17:23] The robbers, the burglars are in the panic room with recovering Kristen Stewart. So when Morris is drilling into the safe. Yes. He finds the bonds. This isn't the pillow moment, is it? The what moment? There's the moment where they use the pillow to insulate the drill.

[02:17:39] I guess that's when they're trying to get into the room. That's earlier because later, right? When he drills, he just drills. He just full on does a safe crack. Yeah. There's that great very finchery shot of the like zoomed in lock.

[02:17:51] You watch him like tick every chamber to the right. You know, right. Like that's very finchery. It's like he's kind of holding the pillow up between the wall and the drill. And the feathers just flying everywhere. Well, right.

[02:18:07] No, because that's earlier because that's how he shows you the airflow coming in with the feathers going out of the vent. There's that stuff I love where you have like inanimate objects behave almost like objects in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

[02:18:17] It's the same thing with the propane tank, the way it's sort of spinning around. Oh yeah, that's scary. Yeah. At this point, once they get the bonds, they can just go, right? Like everyone could we could we all shake hands and just split. Right, because he.

[02:18:32] And now I'm trying to remember the timing of the tapes. But at that point, he knows there's no tapes. But I guess Raul is just like they can't live. They've seen my face. Yeah, right. That's the problem is Raul.

[02:18:44] Because if everyone was just being like Forrest Whitaker, who has his name tag on his jumpsuit, his real name. Well, yeah, he's an honorable man. Yeah. This was the big question you want to call.

[02:18:56] Why did he wear his jumpsuit with the name tag if he was breaking into a house? Well, he thought no one was going to be there and he wanted to wear his special jumpsuit. Nevertheless, he was going to just drop off a business card on the way out.

[02:19:07] It's like buy a new pair of coveralls. Don't wear the ones with your last name. Get some crime coveralls. You're about to become a millionaire. Why wear a mask if you're also going to wear your name tag? I don't know.

[02:19:20] He also has his full birth certificate tattooed on his back. He does. And he does leave a copy. He takes a photo. He tells for his Social Security number on the way out? Just in case they need it.

[02:19:33] No, look, the big moment that you're just looking forward to, I feel like, is you're like, how is Raul going to get it? Right. And the sort of complex physical arrangement that leads to Raul is holding Kristen Stewart hostage.

[02:19:49] Patrick Picoutt, you know, the dad is like sitting in his chair gun pose. He's so fucked up. He's trying to just kind of like, come on, I can get you. And Forrest Whitaker is basically trying to be like, just let her go. Let's get out of here.

[02:20:04] And then you see Jodie Foster come out of the elevator with the hammer. Yeah. And Kristen Stewart spots her right and she's like, go down. And she just fucking hammered to her face. It's a sledgehammer. Yeah. And it's the most sad thing.

[02:20:19] It's the most satisfying hammer to the face. Gallagher. Combine Peter Gabriel and Gallagher. But he's still alive. Two sledgehammers. And I ended up with the guy who's got two fucking sledgehammers over his eyeballs.

[02:20:30] But he goes over the railing and down a flight of stairs like it's a nasty fall. So satisfying. What if I told you there's a movie where you just will stand up and cheer when Dwayne Yoakam gets a sledgehammer to the face?

[02:20:43] I mean, Eva, you brought up Buscemi and Fargo, right? But I'm realizing how much wisely it does feel like they're sort of using the model of Buscemi and Stomare in Fargo. Where you're like, here's the funny guy, right? He's scary, but he's funny.

[02:20:57] And here's the kind of like inscrutable guy next to him. That guy, the funny guy is going to get plucked off and you're going to realize that the other guy is genuinely like horrifying. Yeah. And you need the cathartic, you know, takedown. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

[02:21:14] Yeah, he is still alive, as you pointed out. He does have to have one more final, you know, God, we thought we got him, but he's back. Because that's when Whitaker's run away and Whitaker has the moment of conscience to return.

[02:21:27] Krista Stewart also stabs him with all the insulin. She does. She just porcupines him with insulin. Which is a great move. She's holding three syringes in her hand. She should have Wolverine'd it. She should have put them in between. She should have put them in between.

[02:21:43] That's how they tell women to walk down the street in New York. With all their insulin between their fingers. So if someone walks in, you just go. She should have put, this is what I think she should have done.

[02:21:54] I think this would have fit in the reality of the movie. Right. After she watches the bad guys. Three syringes. She should watch the bad guys and go, it's not bad. C plus.

[02:22:03] We should have got a movie in 20 years in the future and it was just like, all right, it's OK. This is where we're headed. This is sort of like at the top. This is like the top third of things getting released by major studios.

[02:22:12] Didn't get an Oscar nomination, probably the first one dropped. Three syringes. First one dropped. Three syringes in between the knuckles. And then she should go to Jodie Foster and sort of like nod her head. And Jodie Foster should go fastball special.

[02:22:24] And then she should pick up Kristen Stewart with one hand. Throw her. Throw her at Dwight Yoakum. She's like a human cannonball, but her arms are outstretched. She's flying. And she lands. And there are like speed lines behind her.

[02:22:38] And she just goes straight into him and she's like, she's perfectly flanked out. Yeah. She's vibrating. And his eyes cross. Yes. Right. And also she hits him in the nuts. Yeah. We have her cut dimension, of course, in my version. And the butt.

[02:22:58] And the butt somehow it's one hand under. Yeah. Right. She's sort of arcing around underneath the gooch. Yeah. I know he's embarrassed by them now and he wishes he had done that. He would have. And yes, Yoakum is finally dispatched by Forrest Whitaker in a moment of morality.

[02:23:19] Right. And Whitaker has his eventual... Well, I'm jumping ahead of my own, but the standing... The killing moment. Yes. Standing in the breeze with the... That's basically next. They're going to shoot him if he doesn't drop what he's holding, which is all the money.

[02:23:35] All the money and it's just floating around him. It's meaningless. All of this is meaningless. You're never going to get this. He was never going to. He shouldn't have done it. He could have gone away, but he went back for Yoakum is what you're saying, Ben.

[02:23:49] Well, yeah, he went back to save the family. He had a conscience. Yeah, he's a good guy. Every time Ben watches a movie like this, he is convinced that he would get away with it and that it would work.

[02:24:00] And that if the movie were about him, it would end with him owning an island. Things would have got a lot different. I mean, I would have announced, I've got the stuff I need, guys. Let's talk about it. Right. Everyone come out. Let's figure it out.

[02:24:17] Everyone just lays their cards on the table and then they figure out how to get out of the movie with no problems. Yeah, right. I'll leave a couple for you. You let me take the rest.

[02:24:26] Someone will one day make a crime movie like that where it just ends with everyone being like, guys, we can talk this out. How much money do you want? Ben Hosley joint. It'll be written, directed by Ben Hosley.

[02:24:33] I feel like in writers room, sometimes I do an exercise where I make people be like, what would happen if at this point everyone was just like, what? Here's everything I know. Right. And the other person was like, here's every single thing I know.

[02:24:46] And everyone just sat down and said it like, what? What would happen? Because it can be frustrating on TV where you're like, stop actually yelling at each other. Actually just have a conversation. You'll sort this out. You know, half of one thing.

[02:24:59] Lost, of course, the most famous example. Anytime Jack had like Ben. The question is, how is it going on? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. When did you get here?

[02:25:11] I'm gonna ask you again until you tell me what's going on. How do your boats work? What is a smoke blaster? Why is this place magic? I'm not gonna let you go. Yeah. But Ben was just always so good at being. You kill me.

[02:25:27] That's not the question, Jack. Yeah. I think it's one of the questions. I think he was like a little weasel. He was a great weasel. We love Ben Linus. I love the final decompressing ending of this movie. Them on the park bench in Central Park. Real estate.

[02:25:45] Looking at the real estate listing. Yeah, but like smaller. No panic rooms. And it feels very much like a hitchcock. You just like. Let's just get out quickly. Yes. I wish they pulled out, though. And then on the back of the paper they're reading, it just

[02:26:03] says, Forrest Whitaker's character dies in prison. Family cheers as it learns of idiot grandson's death. Yeah. Like in a picture of Jared Leto. Yeah. That's like, are they going to go to the court and be like, hey, he did save us. Give him a break.

[02:26:17] Probably going to go to jail. If this character or whatever, he's committed various crimes. There would be an eight hour Netflix documentary about him. But then maybe she goes to. They both go. Maybe she's like, hey, look, he helped us out at the end. He saved us.

[02:26:31] Maybe you give him a break. You were saying you had a take or a read on this movie and sort of what Fincher's. Oh, no. My entire take was just about Jared Leto being extra. OK. Look, an evergreen take.

[02:26:43] I was just like, this is the first he felt empowered to be a little freak. But he also has vanity. So he always has to be beautiful even now. Except for, I guess, this one Mark David Chapman thing. Yeah.

[02:26:53] I mean, I think it's a little bit of a weird thing. I mean, I think it's a little bit of a weird thing. I mean, I think it's a little bit of a weird thing. I mean, I think it's a little bit of a weird thing.

[02:27:01] I mean, I think it's a little bit of a weird thing. I mean, I think it's the one time when that did not go well. Yeah. It's the one time he didn't allow himself to be at least somewhat hot. Yeah, exactly. But he's still kind of hot.

[02:27:12] I don't know. I think he is. I think he's an actor whose beauty will always be a great stone on his back. Look, I don't want to speak mean about him. You don't want to speak ill of the Leto? Speak ill of him. Yeah. But he is not.

[02:27:28] He wants to be a movie star and he never will be. No. He wants to be a great actor and he never will be. He's a great addition to a film. Unbelievably well. And I like him in House of Gucci. Like some people are like, fuck off.

[02:27:40] I think that's a terrible performance. And one of the only other times he hasn't been hot. Yeah, that's true. He's gone out of his way to be hot. That just felt like Tom Cruise in like, Tropic Thunder. Isn't it so funny how I'm in a fat suit. Yes.

[02:27:54] Me, the most beautiful thin man. It's like, eh, why the hell do you even care? If Tom Cruise gave the exact same performance in Tropic Thunder without the makeup, I would think it was good. Yeah. The makeup makes it worse for me. Wait, wait, here's the challenge.

[02:28:08] What is your favorite Jared Leto film performance? I say film because if it's TV, it kind of gets too easy. It's this, I think. Is it this? For me, Requiem. He's pretty good in Requiem for a change.

[02:28:20] He's not to me the standout of that movie, but he sort of does what is needed. I'm trying to think if there's something I look more than this. But I'm like, this is a hell. You did play El Joker once. I don't know if you knew this.

[02:28:30] I played him twice, my friend. There was a special moment when I was watching Blade Runner, the new one. And that scene when he finally shows up and Blade Runner's already been going on a long time. And you're like, only one person in this scene has an Oscar.

[02:28:42] Yeah. Right. Harrison Ford is here. Ryan Gosling is here. Everyone's here. And Leto is the one with an Oscar. And I was like, that's weird. That should not be happening. I think he's fine in that movie, but obviously he's sort of being used.

[02:29:00] I mean, he did play a guy with some very interesting ideas once. He was a little outside the medical community. He makes night calls, this guy. He is actually very funny in We Crushed. That is like a good comic performance.

[02:29:10] I feel like people were largely positive on him in that show. Yeah. He's funny. He's just super funny. I think he is infinitely better at comedy than he is at drama. Right. Which is a weird misunderstanding.

[02:29:26] And something like Blade Runner, I'm like, don't let him take this seriously. This is what I don't want him doing. None of us are saying the Oscar winning performance he gave in Dallas Buyers Club. I'm just saying that's a point out. Remind me to tell you something after.

[02:29:36] Absolutely. Can't wait to hear that. We should wrap up the episode. I don't think he's bad at Dallas Buyers Club. I just care nothing about that movie. It felt like a very sort of showy and gossipy performance. It's got a pretty good Griffin Dunn performance.

[02:29:50] And otherwise, I think it's kind of like, bleh. I think Jennifer Garner is kind of great in it. But I know that's more controversial opinion. I forgot she was in it. Leto has the one scene with the father that I think is incredibly good.

[02:30:00] And the rest of the movie, I'm just like, this is just a lot of... I'm just following your homework. Staring at Forky. That's the only time I ever saw it. I'm on a smoking date with a hot pizza.

[02:30:10] Apparently, I didn't go see fucking Dallas Buyers Club in theaters enough. Because here I am, fucking 10 years later, unmarried. That's the key. I guess. Wait, is that how you met your husband as well? No.

[02:30:22] I did go on a date once, though, where a guy invited me to a double feature of M and Night of the Hunter. Oh, wow. And we got to the movie. Chill, normal movies.

[02:30:32] And he was like, oh, it's funny that you picked this because of the subject matter. And he was like, what? Come with child burner double bills. Yeah. He didn't know. And then we just quietly walked to our cars at the end. If he had owned it.

[02:30:47] He didn't know. He had no idea. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Poor guy. Let's play a box office game, unless there's anything else you want to say about David Fincher. Oh, my take on Panic Room? I think it's a great director showcase movie. Right.

[02:31:06] I think this is this moment in his career where it's like Fight Club is a huge text, as you said. It's about everything. Right. Seven is this kind of like perfect screenplay.

[02:31:16] And then it's like game and this are like this could be a just sort of standard B programmer. And I'm elevating it by like really good movie stars and impeccable craft. And I think later when he gets to what I'd call his airport paperback thriller phase. Sure.

[02:31:34] Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. Yeah, I think he understands how to like deepen the text and make more there versus it just being craft. I think this is a deep movie. I do. Then give me give me some more. Just the thing we know is I'm tired.

[02:31:50] This is your job! How long have we been going? It's three o'clock. Yes. I just think it's a very good like, you know, like to to. Yes, it's a well-oiled thriller. It's a parent.

[02:32:04] But yes, like a movie about feeling completely adrift in parenting and like the transformational experience of the crime. Like, you know, and how she comes out the other side without it being like the brave one, for example.

[02:32:16] Like some kind of like dime store thrillery like what's the high thread count thriller where it feels like a little too self-important about like, oh, you know. Right. Flight plan is all fluff nonsense and Brave One is too rooted in reality.

[02:32:28] And this is sort of the midpoint between the two. I just truly feel like their relationship, which I barely know anything about, has advanced so powerfully by the you know, when you get that final scene. Everyone's a good actor. I agree. I just love Jodie Foster.

[02:32:43] And she's like a person as we're saying, it's probably like this movie should have been designed for her because it's like this is the exact kind of thing that she can sell in a way that so few people can.

[02:32:52] There's nothing about this movie that suggests what a nightmare it was to make it. And how disjointed and backwards its whole process was. It's like my word for this movie is just like tight, you know? Short too. Yeah, it's pretty short.

[02:33:09] And look also just like a real they don't make them like this anymore kind of movie where you're like this was 48 million dollars came out in March. It made a hair under 100. It was a fucking worldwide like TNT like MVP movie.

[02:33:22] It was like a classic TV remote drop sort of what you're describing forky walking in the room. I'll never not want to watch Panic Room kind of feel but like but done with like the highest level of craft and thought.

[02:33:33] Sony wanted to make it a PG-13 movie and Fincher had final cut and refused. Wow. But it makes sense because Sony probably was like this is a few cuts away from being a PG-13. Yeah. Like you did bring the blood down a little bit.

[02:33:47] You cut a couple fucks and we play out there. The daughter in the advertising it becomes a movie that kids can go see. Right. And he was like no. Yeah. Just the brightness. Fincher was really mad at how Sony marketed the movie.

[02:34:00] He was basically like don't market it on my name. You know which is what they were kind of like from the director of Fight Club and Seven. You know what I mean?

[02:34:11] He was like I this is movies made for people who went go to see like Kiss the Girls and The Bone Collector. Like I am trying to make a popcorn. Interesting. And he was like don't advertise this like a prestige movie especially in March. Yeah.

[02:34:24] And now the movie did well. So I don't think anyone really comes out of that looking stupid.

[02:34:28] But I sort of get what he means of like I am like he has this whole thing where he's being like I mean there's movies and films and this is a movie.

[02:34:35] You know and that was his thing about Darius Kanji where he's like Darius Kanji makes films you know and I was making a movie. Right.

[02:34:42] But and like you know I'm like I think he when I interviewed him he said shit like that you know and you're kind of like I know what you mean but also like at the end of the day it's all. It's all movies it's all films.

[02:34:50] I just remember like walking out of this movie to my mom and going like so like Forrest Whitaker gets nominated for best supporting actor right. And her having explained to me it's March. It's March like this movie is getting ignored. It's a year from now.

[02:35:01] And I was like doesn't that happen sometimes. Maybe if it made double what it made. Like if it was a phenomenon. If it's Silence of the Lambs. Yeah. Right. But she was just like no it doesn't matter if people are and I was like well but cinematography.

[02:35:14] Now this movie would get Oscar nominations. Now it would. Well maybe. Oh my God we worship the earth you walk on. March 29th 2002 Griffin. 30 million dollar opening week. Solid. Ben just is sending us pictures of Jared Leto's cornrows. I'm not joking. He's wearing wraparound sunglasses as well.

[02:35:33] It's really. Jared Leto at the premiere of Shrek 2001. Makes sense. I mean he's shooting panicked. You can just hear it behind him. And I know when he when he became a Joker he wanted his hair to be Shrek green. Yeah he wanted the ears. Panic crew number one.

[02:35:50] Number two Griffin. Yeah. Dropping from number one. OK. Oh no I'm sorry it's dropped. It was a number two last week. Oh. It's an animated film. It's holding well. It's made 116 million dollars. Ice Age. It was a big titty hit and you didn't have fucking.

[02:36:14] It was a woolly mammoth sized hit. What did you do this week. The rookie. The rookie. Yeah. Dennis Quaid can throw that ball. This is just. This is your prime. You're seeing everything in the theater. I think the rookies are great. Yeah. And I'll say this too.

[02:36:38] It was like. Maybe said this before. My birthday is in February and I would often just do. Let's all go see a movie birthdays because that's the only thing I fucking like doing. And I would just sit there and I went fuck it.

[02:36:48] I'm waiting until Spider-Man comes out in March. And I had my birthday party so many months later where people were confused. But it was like I was tracking every other movie coming out between February and May being like is anything more exciting than Spider-Man. Yeah. May not March.

[02:37:06] You said March. Between February and May. You said March. I'm sorry. Well I'm just a listener. Is it with Tony Danza. No it's not Angels in the Outfield. Or the garbage picking field. Field goal kicking Philadelphia phenomenon.

[02:37:24] Dennis Quaid plays a real guy who is like when he was like in his late 30s. He had washed out of baseball many years ago never really made it. But he was discovered and he was like a guy who could throw a 98 mile an hour fastball.

[02:37:36] And they were like that is enough for you to actually play in the major leagues. Brian Cox is his dad who never said I love you. Right. Yeah. That sounds fun. I want to watch it. You sound like Rupert Murdoch. Well he was playing for Murdoch.

[02:37:50] And it's got this great scene where he's testing his fastball by one of the speed radars on the highway. Sure. And like it's so good and it's a really nice.

[02:38:02] That was a real little shit movie for me where my whole family wanted to go see it and I was so angry about I don't want to see a sports movie that I sat there with my arms crossed and when I don't like it. But it's good though.

[02:38:13] Now you would appreciate that. No I definitely will. Absolutely. All right now dropping from number four. Sorry dropping from number one to number four comic book film sequel. Great film. It's a film that David loves. It's a great film it's a comic book film.

[02:38:29] Do it on this podcast one day. 2002 it's Blade 2. Blade Dos. Blade Fang Fang as the poster stylized it. The numerals were fangs. That's a good marketing idea. Fing fang. Number five family film. You could have seen this one. I probably did right.

[02:38:51] Opening to a soft 10 million dollars from Jonathan Frakes the great director of many Star Trek movies. Clockstoppers which I did not see in theaters but I had the watch. In which they can freeze time with their watch. Frakes got to direct a movie?

[02:39:04] Well he directed two Star Trek movies in a row. OK. First Contact and Insurrection. And off of that he got to make Clockstoppers and Thunderbirds. Right. And Thunderbirds was such a disaster that he has been in movie jail for 20 years and seems. Just makes Star Trek. Yeah.

[02:39:19] He makes a lot of like TV. Yeah. Yeah. Still beloved I think he's the most beloved working Star Trek director. Everybody likes to be so highly of him in that world. Yeah. But he like gets it. Sure. Put gets it in quotes. Well I think he does.

[02:39:39] He gets it. Yes. Bubbles the monkey. No he's like they give E.T. a bath. Yeah. Oh right that's like the added scene. And he blows bubbles. And he's fully CGI. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah Eva you look sort of despairing.

[02:40:01] I was thinking about how I saw this and I saw this at the at a discount theater by USC. And I was my friend I were the only ones in the theater at 9 a.m. And some really old ladies came in and watched for a while.

[02:40:07] There was that scene. Yeah. And you were like yes. To be fair if you knew the title and nothing else you would say this monster is having a ball. Splish splash. It's great. Beautiful Mind is still hanging out. Huge. We Were Soldiers is still hanging out. Uh huh.

[02:40:31] Eddie Murphy flop Showtime. Yeah. Hanging out with Robert De Niro. A movie that AV Club referred to I think about this line all the time. A matchup made in R-rated comedy heaven. Unfortunately this movie is PG-13. Oh no. Good call. Right.

[02:40:48] But I was like right you've nailed it. It should be De Niro and Eddie Murphy cursing at each other. It should be 48 hours meets midnight run. Yes. And instead it's like it's very violent. They should not stop calling each other slurs.

[02:41:00] But also opening this week a huge bomb that we may well cover on this podcast one day. Death to Smoochie. Yeah. Death to Smoochie. I think we could get him in a series for a little man as Sarah Rubin pitched it.

[02:41:10] I think we could get him in too. You think we could get him in studio? It does press. Sure. Let's have him guest on something else. Does he like Zodiac? You have to make sure he has Limoncello. Oh. That and a Jersey Mike sub. OK.

[02:41:30] We'll ask him what he thinks of Scalia. What? There are a few people I would like to get drunk with more than D'Andavito. It's not like that would be fun. Well, you love taxi too. You'd want some stories. Louis De Palma. Are you a taxi fan?

[02:41:46] I am no. Do you like the mode of transportation? I do. I took one last night. Hailed? Airport. OK. What were you going to say? I love Danny DeVito. He's incredible. I highly recommend giving taxi a spin around the block. He had beautiful eyes.

[02:42:10] Look, it is that thing of like any working character actor who is quote unquote funny looking. Attractive. If you see them in person, you're like, well, right. They belong on screen for a reason. They're wildly attractive. Even if they are unconventionally attractive, there is an undeniable magnetic quality.

[02:42:27] Yeah. He's kind of hot in taxi. Louis De Palma. Who's the hottest? Hirsch? We're talking only the guy because obviously my answer is Carole Kane. Mm hmm. You know, she's on Star Trek now. Really? She's the new character on Strange New Worlds. She's playing Locke's wife?

[02:42:49] She's like the new engineer. She's doing a voice. She's doing like a weird accent. I do love the theme from Taxi. It's the best. I walked down the aisle to it. Do you really? Yeah. And you're not a taxi fan? Well, I have a good sense of humor.

[02:43:09] And he's like, I'm not a taxi fan. I'm a guy. And then they're like, we're going to do a bit. We're going to have a bit. And then in episode two, there was a sad scene and they added asked him to write an instrumental track for that.

[02:43:19] And that became it? And he was like, that's the fucking thing. It's going to be so long. Yeah, it is baby. Much like Fincher movies, all the special features. Mm hmm. Yeah. Sorry guys. Ben is so heavy-lidded.

[02:43:36] I think you can cut it down, but I think you have to leave the remnants in because it's now like it matches the aborted footage from Panic Room. It matches the stop and start. It's like production of the Nicole Kidman. Yes. It's the sweater scene. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:43:54] And the sweater scenes. Yeah. We'll keep it all in. It's going to be great. People are going to love it. They're going to love it. Let's do the credits. Eva, anything you want to plug? I'm on strike right now.

[02:44:03] The Refund is giving money to people who got put out of work by the Writers Guild strike. The crew members, not Writers Guild. So please donate there if you want to help out the strike. Incredible plug. Yep. David, anything you want to plug?

[02:44:19] I have to go pick up my mom. Going to see Sweeney Todd tonight. Going tomorrow. Standing in solidarity with the Writers Guild, it sounds like. I've already seen it. Not to brag. I can't wait. I'm taking my wife. Have you seen it with a first hand? Joey.

[02:44:31] Your brother. See, Joey gets the free tickets. Yeah. So sometimes he'll be like, you want a ticket to Sweeney Todd? And I'm like, that's going to be best seat in the house because he gets the press tickets. But does he say it like that? Huh?

[02:44:38] Does he say it like that? Do you want to go see Sweeney Todd? Or he says it tend to tail on Sweeney Todd? Sweeney! Sweeney. Right. Sweeney. He just calls me up and I'm like, hey Joey, what's up? Sweeney. Yeah. Come on you bleeders.

[02:44:49] Eva, thank you for being here. Thank you guys so much for having me. It was so exciting and convenient that we like threw this whole thing together. It was so exciting. And we're like, any chance you have any plans to be in New York City?

[02:45:04] And it was like, yes. And here you are! In five days. We've met. Yay! No, I'm so delighted. Okay, good. You're the best. You're the best. Hey! Watch, you're the worst on Hulu. No, that's true. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.

[02:45:20] Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to JJ Birch for our research. What school did he graduate from? He never brings this up. UMadison. AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing.

[02:45:33] Lee Montgomery, the great American novel for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for some real nerdy shit, including links to our Patreon

[02:45:44] Blank Check special features where we do commentaries on film series like the Bond movies we're doing and the Brosnan Bonds right now. And we'll have done a Fincher music video episode recently. David is actively texting.

[02:45:58] He's closed the laptop, which is rare, but something very interesting is happening on his phone. The weekend just got added to the Academy. I don't know how you feel about that. Anyone else? David Zaslav. I mean, they're really bringing all the big guys. They added Zaz?

[02:46:10] He's the fucking head of Warner Brothers! I fucking hate that. What do you want from them? Zazalove. I want anything but that. I want him kicked out. He's about to get fired and then he'll just be a guy. And they'll kick him out.

[02:46:23] What if they kick you out? You got fired? Boink. They added The Weeknd? Yeah, why not? Who are these fucking pigs? They're out of ideas, guys! They added Che Diaz? It's just the HBO Max lineup? Che Diaz. Just like that. Look, this episode's dropping.

[02:46:42] We're about to do a Fincher music video episode. Okay, so then it's happening coming soon. Tune in next week for Zodiac. And as always, Eva's phone case is David Zaslav. It genuinely is.