The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Fran Hoepfner

[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.

[00:00:18] You'll be listening to Thieves, Misers, Bullies, the most detestable collection of people that you will ever hear. My podcast. Uh, okay. Sure. I'm trying to think what would be good. David was finishing. Someone asked me a question that was really interesting just as you started doing that.

[00:00:43] Well, that's bad timing. I know, it was terrible timing. Which is why isn't... He's obsessed with my podcast. I have a friend who's obsessed with my podcast. I'm sorry, which podcast? Uh, this one. Right, our podcast?

[00:00:53] That we're doing right now. And he asked why The Sixth Sense isn't available for streaming and I don't know the answer. Yeah, I don't either. Is that a Hollywood Pictures thing? Goes all the way back to the beginning of my podcast.

[00:01:01] He's watching The Sixth Sense because he loves this podcast. No, no, no. I just want to make it very clear. We were recording our podcast and someone asked you a question about the podcast and you chose to prioritize that over the record.

[00:01:16] I thought you were going to do something really long so honestly I was strapping in for that. Well, that's on you, bro. That's on you. I'm trying to think of another... I just thought that scene was... I thought he talks for longer in that scene.

[00:01:32] I mean, I think he talks on either side of that. See, I'm trying to keep people on their toes. Mm-hmm. And both of you are going like... If there are five pages of dialogue in that scene, wouldn't Griffin do all five pages?

[00:01:45] You know what I thought you were going to do? What? I think we thought the same thing. The sort of like, all I had to do was offer you a drink monologue that he does. Which is such a good Scarsguard monologue. I mean, that's a long fucking monologue.

[00:01:59] Well, you know what? Occasionally we'll do a long one. And I like to mix things up. Do you want to do it again? Put your hand back in my podcast. I'd like a bigger response. All right, all right. Here we go. Okay, ready? Yeah.

[00:02:13] Wait, so we want to... Why isn't The Sixth Sense on streaming at all? I don't know. Don't you think that's kind of weird? It's a hot movie. I feel like that's a movie you just see on TV. You're saying it's not rentable, to be clear.

[00:02:25] I believe it may be rentable, but it's on any other streaming service. It's not on Hulu. That fucking happens all the time. Seems normal. Yeah. And so, just so we're clear, we're going to actually start over. This isn't the episode.

[00:02:37] No, all of this is in the fucking episode. You can rent it, but that seems to be the only way you can watch it. Ben, all of this is in the episode. Maybe like at the end. Maybe at the beginning when the episode starts.

[00:02:48] Okay, starting when you do the quote. All of this was in, and I'm going to do the quote now, and remember... I actually now think it's funnier if this is at the end just because you've said it has to be at the beginning so many times.

[00:03:00] No, this is at the beginning, and I'm going to do the quote and get ready and be listening because remember, the quote is short. Okay, ready? Let me ask you something. Why don't people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong, something is walking too close behind them.

[00:03:17] You knew something was wrong, but you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain,

[00:03:29] but you know what? It is. And they always come willingly. And then they sit there. They know it's all over just like you do, but somehow they still think they have a chance. Maybe if I say the right thing. Maybe if I'm polite.

[00:03:42] If I cry, if I beg. And when I see the hope draining from their face like it is from yours right now, I can feel myself getting hard. You know, we're not that different, you and I. We both have urges. Satisfying mine requires more podcasts! There you go!

[00:03:59] Instead of towels, I believe. I get hard listening to podcasts. It's just so you're really like arrested by that monologue and then he's like, I'm getting hard. And you're like, whoa! And they're like, I mean, right, I guess that's what's going on with you.

[00:04:16] He mentions that he's getting hard as if he's listing another item off his shopping list. Jesus. By the way, I'm also hard right now. So good. And then he makes it clear, he's like, I don't really do men.

[00:04:31] Look, I want to say one spoiler for the girl with the dragon tattoo. Stellan Skarsgard is villainous in this film. There's this astonishing twist. We were just talking about Sixth Sense. But you talk about the greatest twist in movie history that you cannot see coming.

[00:04:45] Okay, so this was my biggest note about Dragon Tattoo when I first saw the movie. I had not read the book. I didn't know anything. I knew there was a murder mystery. And Skarsgard walks in and I'm like, the case is closed. 911, please come to this guy's house.

[00:05:00] It took you that long, David? Opening credits, you see his name, single card. You think I should call the police then? I'm watching a movie, Stellan Skarsgard. Place him under arrest. I agree with you that I think it's a somewhat intentional move.

[00:05:14] Well, no, now right now my feeling about it has changed quite a lot. But the biggest reason to have Skarsgard, obviously, in my opinion, is who can do that shit better than him? He's so good at it too.

[00:05:26] Can I front load this just because this quote is top of mind. Top of the mind. Top of the mind. In the commentary for the motion picture Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 2011.

[00:05:38] I think it's the first scene where he goes over for dinner at Skarsgard's house with his girlfriend. Sure, early on. Right. Or maybe it's in the house. No, because I think it's in that early scene. Whatever. It doesn't fucking matter. The point is. In an early benign scene.

[00:05:55] Yes. He said, the reason I want to cast Skarsgard is the villain. And I think he's one of the best in the world at playing villains. Is no one. He says. Here's the exact quote. Slonskarsgard is the most relaxed person on Earth.

[00:06:11] He is so incredibly comfortable in his own skin and confident. And for me, that's. That's the point where people start to re question their definition of evil. Right. Right. Which is such a good. I've never heard someone put it that way. I love that.

[00:06:28] And I especially think when we're talking about like. And that's true of like all those Lars Von Trier characters he's played over the years or whatever. Yes. But they're not just monsters.

[00:06:36] When we get into this chicken egg conversation of like, why are so many wildly successful people also seemingly like horrible degenerates? Right. Sure. And you're like, do they become successful to cover up their shit? Or does something about becoming a success break their brain? Right.

[00:06:52] And that's just fucking nails it. It's obviously not an umbrella answer for all the cases. Right. But there's something about people who become like masters of the universe in any sphere where then they start to go like, maybe I should reassess all my my beliefs on morality.

[00:07:09] Like maybe all my thoughts on the world are a little black and white because they're just like, well, I figured my shit out. My shit set. Thoughts on this? Yeah. Yeah. You want to weigh in on psychopathy and celebrity?

[00:07:21] I think at the time I saw this movie, I really only knew Stalin from Pirates. Bootstrap Bill. Bootstrap Bill. Bootstrap Bill. So I allowed myself to feel surprised when I first saw it. Well, he's Bootstrap Bill is a good guy. That's a good guy. That's a good guy.

[00:07:34] When I first saw it, I felt that there was a different thing that was telegraphed. Interesting. That she has a dragon tattoo. Yeah. They do show you the dragon tattoo. They do kind of make you wait for it though. They make you wait.

[00:07:46] And you're like, yeah, I fucking knew it was coming. And you're also like, well, I didn't want to see it like this, you know? Not the best circumstance. It's not a good tattoo. No.

[00:07:55] She's a young woman who's gotten a lot of tattoos, and I think some of them she more just got to get a... It looks like it's giving Maul. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? Like Maul tattoo? Yeah.

[00:08:07] In the books it is her entire back. It looks like Darth Maul's face tattoo, you're saying. In the second one, she's getting some of her tattoos removed, which feels very like, okay, now she's in her late 20s, early 30s, where she's like, time to rethink this.

[00:08:19] I know that it's only the English language title, because the Swedish title was The Men Who Hate Women. Men Who Hate Women. Right. Which I'd argue is a better title for what the story's about, but less catchy. It's not a highly commercial title. No. Men some hotarchy venorer.

[00:08:33] It would be now. Men Who Hate Women? Yeah, it would be like... Like half the people would be like, they do, and half the people would be like, and it's good! Yeah. I like it. I like hating women.

[00:08:43] No, I was just going to say, it feels a little reductive to call her the girl with the dragon tattoo. I'm like, she's got a lot of stuff going on. The girl who goes on computer?

[00:08:50] I wouldn't say Dragon Tattoo is top ten of what's interesting about this person. It's one of the best movies about going on computer. We're definitely going to talk about how about this is... She goes on computer, she makes things different.

[00:08:58] This is number one movie about go on computer. But, um, no, it's just, well, the reason it's called The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the second book in Swedish is called The Girl Who Played With Fire. Right.

[00:09:10] And I guess they decide, and then the third book is called The Castle In The Air That Exploded. Yeah. Is that true? Yes. Which is like a sort of Swedish aphorism for, like, you know, man plans and God laughs. Was converted to Girl Who Kicks The Hornet's Nest.

[00:09:22] I think they were just like, of these three titles, The Girl Who is a pretty good template for us to follow. So let's spread that to the others. Yeah. Rather than be like, hey, men who hate women, like, you taking an airplane? You want to read this?

[00:09:37] But also, still, Dragon Tattoo. I'm just like... She's got a dragon tattoo. She's got a big dragon. Even if we're going physical attributes, I don't go Dragon Tattoo top five. The 90 pound hacker who, you know, has a lot of piercing.

[00:09:49] It's crazy she only has the mohawk for the intro. Yes. Sure. That's so like such an iconic image, but then like the rest of the time you can tell her heart is not into that.

[00:09:57] No, it also just felt like they were like, we got to check this off the list. But like the sooner we get her away from the specifics of how Noomi Rapace looks, the better for us. Yeah. You know?

[00:10:09] Well, isn't it sort of a choice though, somewhat like that she's sort of becoming a little bit like less extreme throughout the movie and like her look is becoming less intense? Her look is not... Yeah.

[00:10:23] Like her look, in my opinion, and we're going to talk a lot about this. The girl who has the look. I'm going to talk about this with the girl in the floral print shirt. Yeah. Well, it's... I can't really. It's fruit. It's fruit. Sorry. It's like, five, eight.

[00:10:38] Please, come on. I'm not a freak. Her look is supposed to be like, just get away from me. I don't want you to touch me. Yeah. And then in the climax of the third book, which is where she has to give this testimony, she goes all in.

[00:10:52] She goes crazy. She's got like a huge mohawk all of a sudden and stuff. And that is more her doing like a sort of dominance display. She has a Phil Spector approach to the courtroom. Did you like the third book more than the second?

[00:11:05] Or you were like, whatever on both? Because the third one's the whole... is trial. So you read them after seeing this movie? Okay, so. All right. Introduce our podcast and our guest, and then I'll tell you the answer to that question.

[00:11:16] This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. And I'm David. You took a sip. I was... I slowed down. Trying to get me. No, I slowed down. Oh, you slowed down. Right, right. Yeah. Cool. To let you finish the sip. Thank you.

[00:11:32] It's a podcast about filmographies. The podcast... With the context. Yes. I don't know. Whatever. Yes. No, you got this. You got this. No, I don't got this. No, I think you do. The hosts who still don't know how to keep their podcast on rails.

[00:11:45] The hosts who played with context. Yes. The friends who played with context. Yes. It's 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.

[00:11:59] And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this is a miniseries on the films of David Fincher. It is called The Curious Pod of Benjamin Butt-cast. Correct. It is not called The Pod with the Dragon Cast Two. Or whatever. A few of those were floated. Yeah.

[00:12:17] But that is the movie we're talking about today. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. What was on its face his biggest blank check in a lot of ways. I think Benjamin Button ended up being the bigger one, but this was such a like... It's a good question.

[00:12:30] You know what? This can't miss. We're rolling out the red carpet for you. You do this your fucking way. Certainly. I mean like, alright, R-rated is R-rated. In England this is certainly, I'm sure, rated 18, right? Yeah. Which is higher than the regular rating, a 15.

[00:12:43] And yeah, like you're going to get this huge budget. But then of course, you know, could it be a total blank check if it's like a huge bestseller? I don't know. Like, you know, like that's helping write the check. Yes. Button is probably the closest to...

[00:12:56] I want a hundred million plus, 150 mil to do an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about Brad Pitt turned into baby. Old man Brad... It is maybe biggest blank check. And I think he would say that. He was like, I spent years rolling that up the hill. Yeah.

[00:13:13] I think that ends up being the bigger blank check. But this was the rare kind of like, this cannot miss project. And I think it's also, here's stuff that David Fincher finds interesting, which he's going to be allowed to make on a really big scale and budget

[00:13:26] because the book is such a bestseller that people won't question it. If you brought this in as a spec script, they'd be like, sure, here's $500,000. Right. You cannot put this on screen. This is unbearably dark.

[00:13:39] There's something to the book being so successful that like studio thinking goes out the window. Not that they weren't panicked about this movie in many ways. They were excited and they were panicked. Look, it was a blockbuster bestseller book and we needed a blockbuster bestseller guest.

[00:13:57] Someone who fucking breaks the podcast charts every time without fail. Yeah. Fran Hofner, Fran Magazine. Hi, Fran. The lady with the fruit sleeve tattoo. That's the better girl. The girl with the fruit tattoos. That's right.

[00:14:16] I'm saying lady to be a little more, if girl feels a little diminutive. Call me a girl. I don't care. I'm only 24. I mean, when you were on our live show, you introduced yourself by saying girl guest. Girl guest. The baby with the fruit sleeve tattoo. The baby.

[00:14:32] The 5'8 baby with the fruit sleeve tattoo. Now, Fran, Francis, you and I, we set that you were going to do this months ago. And I had seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in theaters and then maybe a couple times since then.

[00:14:47] My esteem for it had always risen, but I'd never read the books and I'd never seen the Swedish film. Right. And I was like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to read all the books. Yeah, and I said I was going to do it too.

[00:14:58] Right. And you read this book. Well, then I read all the books and I was like, Fran, just read the first book. Don't read the sequels. I am like a third of the way into the second one. And you've got a lot of book left, my friend.

[00:15:11] I know. I was sort of unaware of how much longer and denser the sequels are. And I know you told me there was kind of a significant drop off between one and two and three.

[00:15:22] I'm starting to like two now, but it's like I really had to wade through some stuff. You didn't read any of the post-Larsen books, did you? No, they seem beyond pointless to me. I have, of course, seen The Girl in the Spider's Web. I saw it.

[00:15:39] I almost watched that also just because… I almost want to rewatch it, but I decided to wait till after this just because I didn't want to actually… The consensus on it is just so like everyone hates that movie.

[00:15:48] I mean, it is very bad and she's really bad in it, unfortunately. And Rooney is so good, in my opinion, that like it's a tough performance to be compared to. I hope I'm allowed to say this.

[00:16:00] And if I'm not, Ben, AJ or Alex, I will tell you to cut this out. But like something kind of astonishing about how ill-advised that reboot was, especially when the thing that everyone liked most about this movie was that performance and how quickly they abandoned it.

[00:16:18] It's like, what is it? 2017? Right? 2018? They're like, you know what America should have again is Lisbeth Salander fever. 2018. Past and future guests, friend of the show, Tatiana Maslany. Tested for both versions, I believe. Right. That's the thing. The window is tight enough that she made sense both times.

[00:16:40] Both times. Which like in and of itself tells you this is a bad idea. It's just so weird. I don't understand, and we'll talk about this later because obviously it's not the…

[00:16:50] But like, fine, if you don't want to pay Fincher to do it, you can still… Rooney Mara still wants to do it. Yes. Yes. Maybe Daniel Craig kind of didn't. Maybe that was part of the problem. But then in that case, that's the one you recast.

[00:17:01] He's really important to the sequels. It would be tough to recast him. I don't know. I don't know. I know. I just think you're right that like… Just do the fucking sequels. Like, you'll make some money.

[00:17:13] The whole problem with this, and we'll talk about it, but like this movie had such astronomical hype around it because the books were so fucking massive.

[00:17:21] And in other cases of shit like Da Vinci Code or Fifty Shades of Grey where there's a bestselling book, but you're like, I don't know how they turn this into a movie. I don't know how you pull this off at studio level.

[00:17:33] I don't understand what you gain by putting an insane budget behind it, but they would all fucking pay off at the box office. And this one disappointed relatively. And then they're in this weird position where they're like, well, we've made these movies.

[00:17:47] We basically set a template of producing them at a blockbuster budget with a director who is very exacting. And now is it too expensive to make a sequel relative to what we know our audience is? One star who's already huge, one star who's gotten bigger because of this.

[00:18:02] But it was dumb of them to even try doing it without her and dumb to do one of the other books. That's enough on The Girl in the Spider's Web, though. A movie. We're not covering. Vicky Kreeps. Vicky Kreeps is in it. She plays the Robin Wright role.

[00:18:16] That's so funny. She does. Wow. But for like five seconds. And who plays the Daniel Craig part? No offense to who would I assume is like a solid Scandinavian actor, but a fucking random. His name is. But Kleist Bang is in there, right?

[00:18:32] Yeah, he is. Kleist Bang plays a villain heavy type. Sverre Gudnason, who we all know for playing Bjorn Borg in Borg vs. McEnroe. And Lekeith's in it too? Yes, he is. He's an American. He plays the guy who befriends the girl with the dragon's head on.

[00:18:50] And fucking Stephen Merchant is in it. Like, it's a bizarre cast. And Sylvia Hooks from Blade Runner. Well, she's in The Girl in the Spider's Web. Where has she been since then? She's been caught in the spider's web. It's hard to get out of there!

[00:19:06] Because in all three of Larsen's books, Stieg Larsen's books, the Millennium Trilogy as it's known, it is often mentioned, especially in the sequels, that Elizabeth has a sister who she does not know. And you know that Larsen had many books planned before he died that he never wrote.

[00:19:25] And it's clear the sister was going to be a part of it. So she's a big part of The Girl in the Spider's Web and Sylvia Hooks plays the sister. She's like a big gangster. I can't remember. Maybe, yes.

[00:19:35] I just read all these books and I already forgot. Kate Mara. I mean, that's sitting there! If they aren't fucking bothered with... Yeah, it's true.

[00:19:44] Okay, here's a question. We've got a lot to talk about, but I'm just going to say it because we're already on this topic, okay? Could they just announce tomorrow, you know what, we're doing it, Fincher, Craig, Rooney Mara. Is anything fucked up by them having waited 10 years?

[00:19:58] Rooney Mara is almost 40. I don't think she could do this anymore. That would be tough. She's almost 40 years old. Elizabeth's supposed to be like 24. I'm asking as someone who just read the books. Yeah.

[00:20:11] Do you think there is no way they can rewrite it to have a greater amount of time pass? Um... No, they definitely could. Do the events of the books need to have happened in immediate succession? No, I think...

[00:20:25] A big part of two is that there is this jump and she's sort of... They're not friends anymore. They're not friends anymore. She changes her appearance a lot. She's getting the tattoos removed. She gets a boob job. Really?

[00:20:37] Yeah, I mean this is sort of where these books drive me insane. But yeah, she's like, I'm sick of looking like a 90 year old little girl so I'm going to get a boob job. I mean she doesn't get like a crazy boob job.

[00:20:48] It would be funny if the book was like, and then she got way too big. She's fucking dragging these things around. She went full Angeline. There's like three too many scenes of her looking at herself in the mirror and being like, finally, my womanly breasts.

[00:21:02] I love admiring them. The thing about the sequels is that they're more Elizabeth forward in a way. They are all about her. But you said the Daniel Craig character is really important.

[00:21:14] Because then she gets the shit kicked out of her and she's in a hospital for like a lot... Sorry, spoilers. For like a lot of book two and pretty much the entirety of book three. Maybe not a lot but a fair...

[00:21:28] So then it has to be Blomquist just like... The other problem with the sequel, look. Is he getting revenge on her behalf? He's trying to help her. She doesn't want his help. The whole thing with the books is it goes all the way to the top.

[00:21:40] But the books become about her rather than her being a character who's entangled in other mysteries. The huge problem with the sequels is they are...

[00:21:48] What is so good about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is it's a murder mystery set on a remote Swedish island filled with rich Nazis. You're like, I love this. This is so interesting.

[00:21:57] The sequels are all about the mystery of her birth and the conspiracy that she is inadvertently part of that goes all the way to the fucking Swedish prime minister who's a character. You're going to meet him eventually.

[00:22:08] And it's this untangling, this big government conspiracy and it's not a murder mystery anymore and it's not as fun. But it's loosely tied to the Wennerström stuff. The Wennerström stuff has a... Look, we can't do this. We can't do this?

[00:22:24] We can't all day explain the plots of the sequels because they're so complicated. It's not that Dragon Tattoo is so disconnected from the other two. But the other thing about these two sequels is that they are...

[00:22:35] Lisbeth and Mikael are not really together for pretty much all of them. And as Fincher says... And that's even more of a problem cinematically than it is on paper. And also the other problem cinematically is it's a lot of fucking emails.

[00:22:47] And like, you know, Fincher does so well to dramatize that but the books are even more of like... It's like Lisbeth on her bomb pilot in a hospital bed like a lot of the time. That's the one argument for this on paper being the bigger blank check.

[00:23:03] Fincher signs up for this and basically the expectation is, Okay, get ready to make three. And obviously the other two don't happen. But I think part of the pitch for him... I mean as Fincher told it, he was like, I don't want to do this fucking movie.

[00:23:17] I'm not super interested in this book. They've already adapted it well. And Rudin's pitch to him is, This is your chance to make a blockbuster franchise for... That wasn't Rudin. That was... Was that Pascal? Not Rudin. Rudin's take was,

[00:23:36] If you don't do this I'll throw this phone at your head! You fuck! Rudin's take was he pushed the polio button on his speakerphone. Do you know this Fran? Scott Rudin had a button on his business phone. Mm-hmm. Where if he pressed that line,

[00:23:50] His assistants, his room full of scared assistants knew, It's time to bring him string cheese. Oh! He could just have a fridge with some string cheese in it. I would like that at my apartment.

[00:24:03] And the point was he also didn't want to waste the energy to say it, To pick up a phone and say, He just pushed the button and they go, Fuck, it's line 17. Polio! Polio! Polio! It's inelegant to ask for string cheese even though it's protein.

[00:24:16] It was the polio line. He also came in with Horizon Organics and he was like, What is this shit? Polio or nothing! Babybel and he's fucking pelting it back at their head. You don't want to give that man a babybel.

[00:24:27] He could make a hole in you with a babybel. Don't give me cheese wheel! Um, but yes. That's me with my daughter. Do you want string cheese or round cheese? Is a question I've asked her many times. Well if she had a button,

[00:24:41] You wouldn't have to go through all that would you? I can't give her a button. She loves buttons. She's always pressing any button she sees. She'd love Ben. Ben button. She might be a little alarmed by him. Why? He's a baby. Yeah.

[00:24:56] Um, no I just love that story of Fincher being like, I don't know if I want to do this and Pascal says that to him. This is your chance to make like a blockbuster franchise for adults and he's like, God fucking damn it. Like the pitch of just,

[00:25:10] No, you're right. I mean let's crack open the dossier. To do this at this scale with this sense of seriousness and this sense of anticipation and whatever. And part of it's like you're going to get to do like long form storytelling. We're here to talk about

[00:25:22] The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. David Fincher's 2011 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I saw it Christmas time 2011. What about you Fran? I saw it on New Year's Day 2012. Sort of a memorable ad. Ring ring. But not that fun.

[00:25:41] Does it come out on Christmas day proper or like December 23rd? The film of course came out on December 21st. Okay, I saw it opening night. Yes, I don't know if I actually saw it on Christmas day. But it was that Christmas weekend I remember

[00:25:53] and I had held off on reading the books when I heard Fincher is making a movie. I was like, I'll just see the movie. Ben, did you see this film in theaters? I did not. I had though seen The Swedish film.

[00:26:06] Correct. My parents were all in on these books. So I knew about this franchise but I feel like... My girlfriend at the time was all in on the books too. Humblebrag. Ben, had you seen all three of the movies? Well, how does it line up?

[00:26:20] All three had come out before this one. Okay, so then yeah, I had. This was something I would watch with my parents. My parents love European detective and mystery stories. They were made for parents, these Nordic thrillers. Yes.

[00:26:35] So this was something I could kind of get down with them. Even though they are brutally grim and violent often. Parents are like, fire it up. So I hate to be that guy but I think I even at the time was like,

[00:26:43] I'm not going to watch an American version. Well, this is why Fran and I are here to talk about this. But go on. No, but that was a lot of the... Even when the trailer came out people were like, why are they doing this again?

[00:26:57] Because those movies are fucking good. No, they're not. They all completely are the most mid-fucking movies ever made. They are six out of ten. So boring. I watched the first one. Five and a half. Why don't you go and you look in my mother's eyes?

[00:27:14] I will because I just watched all three and I was like, Jesus, let me hit the snooze button. David, she needs this. She needs a wink. Ben's mom needs a wink. I watched the first one and prepped for this. The first of the... The first of the...

[00:27:34] Me too. I watched the first episode of the miniseries Recut. No, I'm not even doing that shit because that came later. That's just them throwing in deleted scenes. Yes. They turned it into six 90-minute episodes. Quentin Tarantino. Two hours across the three movies. Well, that sounds fun.

[00:27:53] All right. But that was free streaming on something. So I was watching that. I watched them on Topic. Wait. I did Free Travel. I watched on Crackle. And I saw commercials for some of the craziest things I didn't know existed. Like Crackle. Like Crackle originals. Snap, pop.

[00:28:20] Yep. Keep going. What did you see ads for, Fran? There was some medieval sitcom. Medieval sitcom. Live action? Oh, yeah. But it has like a, I'm like, it's like named after guys you could fight as in Age of Empires.

[00:28:36] I googled medieval Crackle sitcom and I got medieval castle room with fireplace crackling sounds on YouTube. No. This is gonna drive me crazy. I'm like, who are some of the guys that you could play in Age of Empires? Are you playing the crackling?

[00:28:52] Maybe I should go all in on making those three-hour YouTube videos that are just like, you know, it's raining outside, you're in a castle. Like, you know, like just mixing various vibes together. Ben's already doing that. I've already been doing that.

[00:29:03] We can't have two on the same podcast. What if I take space and you take earth? Okay, I can agree to that. I'll do spaceships. So you're gonna, how are you going to record that audio of you? Easy. Trade secret won't tell you.

[00:29:19] I don't remember, and I'm sure you have it in the dossier, the timeline of when the Swedish movies get released in theaters in the US versus when Fincher is announced as the director of the American version.

[00:29:29] I mean, I'm sure I can find the Swedish movies were released in the US in 2009. Okay. All three of them. The first one was released in the summer and the others came later. They were all just released in a row.

[00:29:42] And he starts filming this at the end of 2010 basically, right? He started filming this in September 2010. Yeah. So I think... Cossacks is the name of the show. It's called Cossacks since medieval? Yeah, it's Ukrainian peasants. This is like a really, it's presumably popular crackle show.

[00:29:59] But every 11 minutes and watching the Swedish girl with the dragon tattoo, I would get an ad for this. This is a bit we used to do on the George Lucas talk show. Used to do. We still do it. Do you know who owns Crackle now? No.

[00:30:13] What company owns Crackle? Is it you guys? Chicken Soup for the Soul. We've done this on the... Oh, this makes sense with some other commercials I saw. Yeah, yeah. And also something called Willie's Wonderland.

[00:30:26] Apparently Chicken Soup, the soup itself is not the only thing that's liquid in that fucking company because they're buying shit left and right. Very good. Can you write that before you came in? No, that's off the top of the fucking...

[00:30:38] Griffin, why are you reading from a list that says Chicken Soup bits? I'm reading from the back of a Campbell's can. But like all these that we're fucking... Strike finally resolved the day this fucking episode was...

[00:30:49] But the reason it took so long is Chicken Soup was the last holdout. Netflix was like, yeah, we'll give you whatever you want. And Chicken Soup for the Soul was like, I wanna fight you on these points. They're lighting cigars with fucking stacks of hundreds.

[00:31:00] No, they seem to be the only ones who are making money. It's not just Cossacks. It has then a totally fake tale subtitle. Oh, it does? Yeah. Well, I don't like that. Which I think is cool because it's telegraphing. We're not taking this too seriously.

[00:31:17] I really hate that. Hate what? I don't like anything now where it's like... You know what people want is Your Highness, but I'm crapful. Mostly based on a true story. This is based on a true story. Kind of. Wink!

[00:31:29] Did any of us see The Last Voyage of the Demeter? No. That would be funny if that began with, this is based on a true story. Kind of. Do you know what it does begin with? It says like this is based on Bram Stoker's Dracula chapters 1 to 3.

[00:31:42] It does like an opening card where it's like... And the C's between... Like it's doing all the in-universe sort of table setting context. And then the next card says, based on the opening chapters of Bram Stoker's Dracula. And you're like, why fucking tell me this is fake?

[00:31:59] Keep me in the reality. The other thing is they're too afraid. Don't ruin the fucking... They're ruining it, but they're too afraid so they have to ruin it. That movie is such a good idea. I feel like someone should just take another crack at it.

[00:32:11] I'm just saying, yes. Just try again. I agree. Actually, it's like the opposite of Girl with a Spy. I approve a remake of this in one to two years. It's doing like Natasha Pierre, War of 1812.

[00:32:25] Let's keep doing this where we're just like, let's just take two chapters from this thing and do that. That's cool. Also just fascinating that Universal is like, we learned so much from the mistake of the dark universe. We know how to handle these characters now.

[00:32:36] We're going to release two different movies about Dracula. Neither of which are actually Dracula movies. Release them in the same year and have both of them on. What's the other one? Renfield. Yeah, and neither of them will have the word Dracula in the title.

[00:32:50] They did two different takes at like, how do you make a sideways Dracula movie? I forgot about Renfield. Sure. And then they had two... Acab but Aquafina? No, Acab including Aquafina. That character is not very good at short drop. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Griffin.

[00:33:05] Okay, so we all saw it except for Ben who is one of those fuckers sipping his tea going like, the Swedish movies are better. That's like been a splinter in my mind for 12 years. When this movie underperformed people said, I think it's just everyone got their fill already.

[00:33:19] I know these movies got bigger when they went on Netflix and DVD and everything. That's what I think. And I think that is true. And there was enough time in between. Yeah. Because the first one did 10 million domestically, which was a robust number for a Swedish film.

[00:33:33] Decent for a Swedish film, but no, it's all streaming. It was both barely made a dent in theaters. Yeah, it's streaming. People just watch them on streaming. And you know, it was the Cliff's Notes too. It was like, great, I don't have to read these like 800 page books.

[00:33:44] I had not seen any of these. I don't know if it was out of lack of interest. I guess because the Fincher announcement didn't happen until after they had already come out and had their life cycle.

[00:33:54] But I was just like, I don't know, this isn't my kind of thing. Hadn't watched until I watched the first one last night. And I just remember when the trailer for this came out and people were like, it just looks like a shot for shot remake.

[00:34:07] Why do I need to see this again? And re-watching the Swedish one for the first time, I'm like, these things don't fucking look similar at all. The Swedish movies don't look like anything. Correct. They look like TV. Man, they look like TV.

[00:34:22] No, I just, I do just want to say that when the trailer for this came out, people absolutely lost their minds because this is one of the best trailers of movies ever. Not the first teaser.

[00:34:29] I'm saying the first proper trailer was when I remember dumb people on the internet saying it looks like a shot for shot remake. I was listening to my crackles. I forgot I had the volume up.

[00:34:37] Yeah, I guess that the longer trailer, but yeah, that teaser trailer with the immigrant song, people were like, you know, hooting and hollering and feel bad movie of the winter and all that. No, that was the moment of like, is he about to pull off the Godfather?

[00:34:51] Like, is he taking a pulp novel and turned it into like just blockbuster high art? And then this movie came out, did well, but underperformed relative to its hype. And then weirdly, I think the most... Did well at the Oscars, but underperformed relative to its hype.

[00:35:08] No, it did well at the Oscars compared to the underperformance. Correct. And then, you know, like that almost suggested like, yeah, people actually kind of dig this movie.

[00:35:18] And then I think has had sort of a weird legacy where it took a while for people to maybe come back around and be like, you know what? Which is why I'm asking, why not just fucking make the second book set seven years later and do it now?

[00:35:32] I think everyone might be over it except for maybe Rooney. Who seems like she has always loved it. I almost think this type of thing now is so much darker than what this is that this almost feels like too easy. Because I remember seeing it at the time.

[00:35:46] I saw it with a group of friends, some of whom were like into movies and some who are not. Who were like, I love a bad vibe. And then we came out and we're like, ah, not that bad, though. Sure.

[00:35:56] And now my impression is that everything that exists like this is like almost so much worse and much more cruel than this is. And what I continue to admire about this movie every time I've like subsequently rewatched it is how gentle it is in like the margins.

[00:36:11] Well, it just it really cares about its characters in a way that feels semi unique for this genre. There's a sensitivity and like an empathy for its characters. Yeah, great characters. You wrote great characters, old Henry. David Crack opened the dossier.

[00:36:31] Henry, sorry, Henry, sorry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Stieg. Who is Henry Clarkson? Henry Clarkson may be a football player. The cows talk to each other. Yes, Henry Clarkson, big football player. The cows who make pithy comments. That's Gary Larson's Millennium Trilogy. Cow tools. Cow tools? You know cow tools.

[00:36:52] Oh, sure. Stieg Larsson, yeah, so Stieg Larsson, Swedish. It's a crazy story to this day. Swedish writer writes three Millennium books. The Millennium Trilogy. Yeah. Submits them, dies of a heart attack before any of them are published. And then posthumously they become gigantic bestsellers.

[00:37:08] Are there any conspiracies about his death? I don't think so. He was an unhealthy man. Like not in a terrible way or anything. Well, you know, his books are about conspiracy and then he died. You'd think maybe people would be like, The man who ate poorly.

[00:37:22] The man who abused cigarettes. You know, Mikael Blomqvist is obviously Stieg Larsson, very unconspicuously. Yeah, the hottest guy who's ever gone on computer. No, the whole point, especially in the books, is it's like, you know, he's like, yeah, I work at this magazine, I'm kind of whatever.

[00:37:34] And every woman, including like Secret Service agents in the sequels is like, Do you want to fuck me forever? Like, can we just like continue? It's really fun, Niamh. An early insight in the commentary where you're just like, Oh, Fincher just got how to do this.

[00:37:48] Is he was like, my big take on this character is that he's kind of a bimbo. And that's the thing. Totally, yeah. Which is the huge shift from watching the Swedish version. Yeah, I mean, I think he's great in this. He's a great actor.

[00:38:02] But the characterization is so much better in this of like, he doesn't understand that he's a little glib. Which, but that's, Fran, we read the books, at least the first year we were both. I really think that is what he's like in the books.

[00:38:13] He's so chill and so like, hey man, whatever. That's why he's attractive. Yeah, he's got a great vibe. But that's like sort of the old classic journalist vibe of like a guy who can get into any room. Who's good at listening. Talk to anyone, listen to anyone.

[00:38:30] I don't think Nyquist is charming enough in the Swedish movies. I agree, he's pretty grumpy. And I love him. He's giving a more dramatic performance. But he's not sort of playing with like charisma. He's like taking being a journalist too seriously.

[00:38:42] Craig is on the right line of that. Also, this is one of the hottest aliens ever. Well, it's crazy. Okay, so I agree. And Forky, who was kind of like, I don't know if I want to watch this. I know it has like multiple scenes of sexual assault.

[00:38:56] It's long. And I'm like, okay, well, I'll kind of, you know, I'll let you know when you might want to like go get, like, a cup of tea or whatever. But then she's just like, Daniel Craig has never looked better. And I kind of agree. Yeah.

[00:39:10] Like sort of like more rumpled, sleepy Daniel Craig with glasses and a sweater is weirdly hotter than James Bond. Look, and this is another classic Griff Hetro cancel me opinion. Oh boy, here we go.

[00:39:21] But Daniel Craig is often a guy where I'm like, he's kind of goofy looking. I don't get him being a sex symbol. And I watched this and I'm like most handsome man in the world. It's like when I saw fucking what's it called? Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

[00:39:32] Matthew Rhys is exactly how I'd like to look in my mind. And you were like, that guy's got like a black eye for half the movie. He looks pretty beat up in that movie. No, he's so hot in that movie.

[00:39:42] There's something about handsome actors looking kind of exquisitely haggard. Yeah. Which Craig's just at the right balance of everything in this. The appeal of Craig is that he doesn't look like he's had a ton of work done. Like he's aging like real people age.

[00:39:57] He's a real fella. It's true. That's a good point. And he's got a real face. He was handsome prior to that, but he just has like a handsome older face. Kind of starting with this movie and going forward.

[00:40:06] He looked very pretty when he was young, but when he's young it's a little intense. Well, and also his eyes when he's young, it's too intense. Like it seems like there's an old person trapped inside this young body.

[00:40:16] This is sort of the same thing with Viggo Mortensen, I think. Where when I watched Portrait of a Lady in prep for when I came out camping. Sure, he was a very pretty man in the 90s.

[00:40:26] I don't want to see him like this. I need to see him. He's got this Western this year that he directed that he's also in. With Creeps. With Creeps again. Creeps riding around on a horse. Called The Dead Don't Hurt, I think.

[00:40:37] It's like someone rolled a dice on Western titles. It was like, yeah, dead don't hurt. Give me 15 tickets. And I didn't see it. It was at TIFF, but everyone walking out was like, how is it? They're like, oh, you know, it's okay. It's not bad.

[00:40:48] Viggo's so hot in it. And I'm like, damn, Viggo's just still collecting that chat. But similar thing where it's like Viggo becomes hotter if he obscures his hotness. A little bit. Totally. When you look at Viggo and he's just like really young and really clean cut,

[00:41:03] you're like something about this is like staring into the sun. And then it's like grow out the facial hair a little bit. Do something weird to yourself. Right. But yeah, Craig in this is crazy. He's a babe. And he works in media. Independent media.

[00:41:20] A hot person in independent media. Yeah. That's crazy. He's keeping the industry afloat with his bare hands. He's fucking putting it right on his shoulders. This is what I'm always telling the staff at Fran Magazine. It would be funny if, and everyone should subscribe to Fran Magazine.

[00:41:35] Just put that right up. Whatever. They should. I don't care anymore. But it would be funny if the trilogy ends with him being like, I think I will start a sub stack. Not that he has a Swedish accent in this movie.

[00:41:49] That would make more sense in the book, but we can talk about the end of the book. When we talk about the end of the movie. But yes, obviously, and let's talk about, I'll crack open the dossier now. But just completely iconic that Rooney Mara is like,

[00:42:01] I'm piercing my nipples. I'm changing my hair. I'm going to learn a Swedish accent. And Daniel Craig is like, I was thinking I wear some glasses and that's the end of the work I do on this character. And it fits his character so well.

[00:42:13] I remember when I saw the trailer, I went, oh, smart. Daniel Craig's character has been made British. So they justify the fact that he's a British. So they justify why all the other Swedish characters are speaking in English throughout the rest of the movie.

[00:42:27] It's like, hi, I'm Mikael Bunkes. Do you want a filled bagel? I was like, that's actually smart of them. You could have him be like, I'm half Swedish, but I was raised in England or whatever. Like one fucking line at the beginning of the movie.

[00:42:39] And then I watch it and I'm like, oh, he's meant to be Swedish. And they're all just speaking English, which is a classic movie thing. But for Fincher felt like a little bit of a cheat. I think maybe it's canonical that he went to school in London, though.

[00:42:48] Interesting. Everyone in Sweden speaks literally perfect English, too. Maybe not. Like, I mean, come at me, Swedes, but my friend lives in Sweden now. And like, I think, you know, they're very intelligent and they all learn English.

[00:43:01] I just had to physically restrain myself from doing the England bit. You bastard. I don't know what you're talking about. He went to uni. So look, look, look. It's like hurting me. Dacia, Dacia, Dacia. The social network comes out.

[00:43:17] The social network comes out just a little more than a year before this film, obviously. September 2010 is when that has its festival debut. Rooney has been cast when this movie is... Sure. But look, so Fincher really... When the social network's released.

[00:43:31] Fincher doesn't really have any other projects, obviously, on the line in between these two except for he was briefly rumored to be directing Pawn Sacrifice. Yes. But he says, no, I was never gonna do that.

[00:43:42] I just like helped out with some like consulting on the script or something. He also, in between Social Network and Dragon Tattoo, starts developing Mindhunter with Charlize Theron, who is a producer. Was she supposed to be in it at that point?

[00:43:54] I believe she was supposed to play the Anna Torpe part at some point. And it was gonna be an HBO limited thing. It was gonna be on HBO. And that would have been better. But, you know, what can I say? 2005, of course, Men Who Hate Women,

[00:44:06] Stieg Larsson's first novel. He dies at the age of 50. It is young. He died of a heart attack. I now feel bad that he was unhealthy. No, that's why I'm like... I know fucking Stieg Larsson's workout routine. He got got. The podcast co-host who throws shade.

[00:44:21] Like, I don't, you know, but obviously it was a tragic and young death. And if you want to Google him, it's a crazy story where his girlfriend says, like, I have more books that he's written, outlines,

[00:44:32] but I'll never release them because I don't get any of the money because of Swedish will laws. And his parents get the money and he hated his parents. And, you know, then the parents sold the rights and someone else has written these sequels. It's a crazy thing.

[00:44:44] But they weren't based off the outlines or they were? No, they weren't. Okay. No, those outlines have never been seen. And she still has them. She still has them. She wrote a book about like her life with him and, you know, like, anyway.

[00:44:57] She wrote a book that's like, man, these outlines are so fucking good. If anyone in the government wants to change some laws. So that novel comes out in America and England and so on in 2008. Okay. And the two sequels come out in 2009 and it all explodes very quickly.

[00:45:12] I was going to say, the book explodes like immediately. Yes. Right? Kathleen Kennedy, who is working with Fincher on Benjamin Button, hands Fincher the book pretty much the minute it's translated into English. He reads it and as he says, he's like,

[00:45:27] it's 500 pages, it's about a bisexual motorcycle hacker in Stockholm fighting Nazis. I will never get to make this movie. I am not rolling another ball. I'm not rolling a ball up a hill. Like, I don't want to. And so, lesbian hacker on a motorcycle? I don't think so.

[00:45:45] That's his quote to Entertainment Weekly. Eventually, Sony picks it up. Amy Pascal and our favorite chill G-string friend, Scott Rudin. Polly! Rudin brings on Steven Salian, sort of heavyweight screenwriter, obviously, who had just worked on Moneyball. But this is just like all Sony Pictures A team. Exactly.

[00:46:06] We're putting our best on it. And their number one choice is David Fincher for very obvious reasons. It's very clear why they would think he'd be good for this. Yeah, you also imagine they're like, man, social network's fucking shaping up well.

[00:46:19] We want to stay in the Fincher business. This guy's holding a hot hand right now. Steven Salian was the first choice to adapt The Science of the Lambs and his wife had told him, don't do it, that book's fucked up. And he always regretted it.

[00:46:30] And so when this book came up, his wife apparently was like, don't listen to me. Yeah, yeah, you should do the darkest shit imaginable. He had his Ben Hosley dang-ass freak shirt on. Um, uh, and yes, as you say,

[00:46:44] it's Amy Pascal who pitches Fincher on this idea of like, this is a franchise for adults. Like, there's no chance at making a movie franchise that doesn't have to be for 11-year-olds outside of something like this. And Fincher really does like that idea.

[00:46:57] The only chance for something like The Dragon Tattoo to be made in all of its perversions is to do it big, as he says. And The Godfather is what he compares it to. It's wild to think that that's her pitch and he's like,

[00:47:08] you're right, things are so dire out there that this is the one way that a movie like this gets made, a franchise like this gets made. And they're saying that in 2010. Yeah. Two years before The Avengers comes out. What movie is it that she's like,

[00:47:23] people don't want to see affairs anymore? That's the big Amy Pascal. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you. Another blank check classic. I'm not a big fan of affairs. Which is an interesting point, but when I read Aloha, I'm not like, you know what's wrong with this movie?

[00:47:39] It has an affair in it. Have I said on mic that I've gotten Aloha pilled? I mean, you were flirting with it all the way back then. It seemed never not implied that you are Aloha-pilled. I was flirting with it, but also thought it was fundamentally broken.

[00:47:50] And then I rewatched it in a hotel and I was like, is this like straight up masterpiece now? And bought on Blu-ray and watched all the alternate ending and opening and I think it kind of rules now. Uh, I'll check it out. It's about the sky also.

[00:48:02] I'm not aware of that. I cracked that recently. That's a new take. Oh, we didn't say that on the episode? Never. Not one time. You seen Aloha? No. Means hello and goodbye. Like Shalom. They should have made a sequel. Sort of Mother's Day, New Year's Eve.

[00:48:21] Salutations that are also farewells. Emma Stone could play Jewish. Why not? It's Maestro, no? Bradley Cooper? But he has a weird foot instead of a weird nose. He's got an extra toe. Is that true? Yeah. Or his toe is injured by the war or something? Which war?

[00:48:41] There was a mine incident. It's a good question. They sewed someone else's toe onto his foot. Someone else's toe sewed onto his foot. Which war is it? Bosnia? Iraq? I cannot remember. So, Zellin is like, okay, I didn't watch the Swedish movie

[00:49:00] because I didn't want that to mess with me. I really love the book, but basically the big problem is just what do you remove? I think this is an excellent piece of adaptation that does not really skip anything major.

[00:49:15] It feels like a very good abridgment of the book. Yes, I think I prefer the end of the book actually. Interesting. This and the book have the same ending. Basically. Which is Lisbeth allowing herself to feel something and then getting hurt. Blomquist is like,

[00:49:36] I'm going to publish about what happened here. And Wenger is like, no you're not. That's all cut out of the movie. Which I just think is this, the thing that sort of turns him against is him being like, well,

[00:49:50] I don't really have good stuff for you on the Wunderstrom thing and I can't let you publish about this because I have to keep my business afloat. Actually, no one should ever know about this because it's their relationship in a, I think, much more poignant way.

[00:50:02] Right, this movie just ends with like, I mean, I understand that there was only so much they could do. I'm not missing that. In that kind of coda section. Yeah, but what's interesting about the movie is it ends on so much more of an emotional character note

[00:50:16] than a plot note. Which is in the book too, obviously, the reunion. But putting the emphasis on that weirdly makes you more eager to see the sequel, I find, than even if what you're saying sets up a sequel well. I find the place these two characters are in

[00:50:28] relative to each other at the end of the movie so affecting that I'm like, I want to fucking watch more of them. Well, he's, Henrikh Venger is not really in the sequels at all, but Harriet is. And is like in charge of Millennium, the magazine.

[00:50:42] Yeah, and you'll never believe who she's sleeping with. Who? I don't know. You have to guess. There's one person who everyone's sleeping with in the Millennium trilogy, I'll tell you that much. But like literally, there's a lot of people who are like,

[00:50:58] there's a secret agent in one of the sequels who's like, I think I'm gonna fuck you. And I'm like, I wanted to go into the book and be like, your job is definitely to not fuck this man. Like you are working for Swedish Secret Service.

[00:51:10] Like you probably shouldn't do this. She's like, he's kind of hot though, even though he's like fucking four other people. Things Fincher said on the commentary about adapting this with Zalian is that they were like trying so hard to figure out how to fit it into

[00:51:24] a three-act structure of what the book is. It's two parallel stories that don't meet for half the book. Right, they do not meet until one hour and one fifteen minutes. It's halfway. One hour and one fifteen. It's the halfway mark. Yeah, one hour and fifteen minutes

[00:51:44] into a movie that's an hour, two and a half basically. He said there was just the point where he and Zalian kept on trying to squeeze it and they just went like, we just need to accept this as a five-act story, and that is exactly what they do.

[00:51:58] It feels smoother than the, I'm not going to rag on the Swedish version, but it feels smoother in that the Swedish one is almost so one-to-one that it has no act structure. It just feels like transposing. A Wikipedia entry movie. Yeah. Whereas it feels like genuinely dramatic

[00:52:16] when he shows up at Lizbeth's door in this. It's also just like, I don't know how to define how this movie pulls it off, but somehow the hour and fifteen minutes of getting up to them finally meeting in person feels like it is loaded with tension

[00:52:30] as if it's like Brody coming face-to-face with the shark, finally. Right? Where you just feel the force of this movie slowly pulling these two people together rather than it having to trudge along to the exciting part. Yeah. Of course they have to confront the fact

[00:52:49] that a lot of this movie has a lot of rape in it and sort of very, very difficult material and honestly, almost all of that material is more crucial for the sequels. Like, if you're watching this movie, you're kind of like,

[00:53:04] why do I even need to see this whole plot about Lizbeth and her caretaker that doesn't resolve? And it's like, well, that actually all is crucial to the sequels. But I think it is also just pivotal to the mindset she's in when she meets Mikkel,

[00:53:18] obviously, and he says, I want you to help me catch a killer of women. And she looks at him and it looks like she's got a shiver and it's so good. Fincher, though, also says, I wanted this material to be very offensive. Rape in movies shouldn't be titillating,

[00:53:32] it should be offensive. It's the power of Clockwork Orange, it's revolting. I wholly respect Straw Dogs or even Star 80. There are moments in that movie that just completely challenge your ideas of revenge. Just wanted to note that he mentioned Star 80. Sure. Well, he loves Fosse.

[00:53:48] All that jazz is like a recurring influence he always cites. But yes, the point is to put that subject matter that for me relates to both her subjugation and the inhumane treatment that she suffers at the hands of this man,

[00:54:00] her retribution, I don't want to see people cheering. Which you don't really. No. Because it's so bleak and nightmarish even when she's like, you know, getting her revenge. And, uh... Yeah. Niels Arden Oplove, who made the Swedish movie, says, like, you know, he wasn't worried.

[00:54:19] Everyone who loves film will go see the original. He said, what would you want to see? The French version of La Femme Nikita or the American one? Go off, bro. Like, if I heard Fincher was remaking a movie I just did, I might be like, oh shit. Yeah.

[00:54:34] But whatever. That's a bit of a Scorsese Infernal Affairs thing where you're just like, look, if that guy wants to take a crack at it, who am I to stand in the way? Um... Yeah. Uh... Rooney Mara. Okay, so the casting of this film... Big story.

[00:54:52] So, it's basically, hey, Daniel Craig, will you do this? Sure, let's just work out the schedule. The rumor was that he wanted Brad Pitt originally. I guess. The way they talk about it is that that was pretty done deal. But then it basically was Craig.

[00:55:04] He meets with Craig to try to convince him to take the role while filming Tintin. Uh, right. This is... Craig had not been in a movie for three years that was in theaters. Yes. And then this year he has Tintin, this, Defiance is this year,

[00:55:19] and there's Cowboys and Aliens, right? Yeah. The following year? Yeah, spring, summer 2012. The sky fell the following year. Or fall 2012. This was that... There was some bond rights issue that held up the run between those two movies. There was a bit of a bond nonsense. When's Quantum? 2009? Quantum's 2008.

[00:55:40] I'm sorry, Defiance is in 08. Quantum's in 08. Yes. 2011, the four are Cowboys and Aliens, Tintin, Dragon Tattoo, and Dreamhouse, meets Rachel Weisz. He built his own Dreamhouse off of that movie. I love that. Family is a real home. Is this like a Stephen King thing?

[00:55:58] No, it's like a horror... That's Dreamcatcher. It's like a sort of horror thriller movie. It's like a Stephen King movie not based on a Stephen King book. I understand. But yeah, no, Fincher goes to meet him on the set of Tintin

[00:56:10] and he's wearing like the blue onesie pajamas with a cowboy... with a pirate hat on his head. He just took the cowboy hat off his head, obviously, and he's wearing it on the back of Rackham's trailer. Treasure. Jesus fucking Christ. But yes, Craig, I think smartly,

[00:56:26] even though every top actress in Hollywood is fighting for this role, I think Fincher knows I got to get an A-lister to play Blomqvist, so I have a little more latitude on Lisbeth. And it was such an extended casting search. It was like the most extreme.

[00:56:40] I feel like the press at the time was like... I think it had been a while also since the trade's gotten to do that. The sort of like, you know, this is the hottest role in a decade. Like every young ingenue wants it. It's Scarlett O'Hara-like

[00:56:53] fucking gum at the wind shit. And I think even like when we get this sort of hullabaloo about superhero casting, it's like, yeah, but this is like the fifth person to play this part who gives a shit, you know, versus this being like first American crack at it.

[00:57:07] The Noomi Rapace thing was casting a bit of a shadow, but every person's up for it. And Fincher just defined it so well. There's so many quotes he has. About why he cast Rooney Mara that have like lingered with me for years. But on the commentary,

[00:57:21] he said that like Sony did not want Rooney Mara. And he had to say to them, I want the last puppy in the window. Like that is the most fundamental quality we're looking for, is someone who cannot be discouraged. And regardless, someone who cannot be discouraged

[00:57:40] and who is getting no encouragement. If someone is too tapped for this role... I love last puppy in the window. That's really clever. But he was like something fundamental to the casting of this part is someone who would have to fight to get this part.

[00:57:53] And who no one could see playing this part. He says he required some convincing because he was initially like, you know, you're Erica Albright, I still have you in that, you know, mode in my brain. And she had to convince him a little bit.

[00:58:07] She kind of outlasted everyone though. Right. She also has this whole story of like, I wasn't even sure I wanted to go in for it. I was like, I had my names up for the part. And I was like, if they're going in,

[00:58:17] I should go in for it. I'm as right for it as anyone else. Yeah. She did five separate screen tests, not even just like auditions, but like proper screen tests. And two of them were in the Batman suit, which is weird. Just put it on.

[00:58:35] Always the Kilmer suit. Everyone auditions wearing the Kilmer suit for every project. But he was like almost even before he could walk himself out of casting her, because yes, out of his experience with her, he was like, she's not right for this.

[00:58:49] And he'd like test her on a specific thing and be like, this is the thing I need to see out of you. And he was like, every time I said new hurdle, she jumped over the hurdle without hesitation

[00:58:57] until it became so clear that she was the only person. Do you want to read off the... I mean, so many names are connected. Emily Browning, Ava Green. Some of them are like Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, and you're like, sure, you know, she did a test.

[00:59:11] Johansson did bite all the tests. I mean, Fincher cites her as she was so wrong. That was the example. Right. He even, beyond that, he was like, she was actually incredibly good. Her audition was incredibly good. She did a great job.

[00:59:26] You're never going to get past the fact that she's Scarlett Johansson. It's another one of these quotes I think about where he's like, the thing about casting Rooney Mara is she's like very beautiful, but also she's a little bit like E.T.

[00:59:38] He was like, E.T. was the example I kept on making to the studio of like, if E.T. merchandise was on the shelves before the movie came out, people would be like, what the fuck is that? But after you've seen the movie...

[00:59:49] I can read you the quote. What is this little squishy thing? But then, yes, after you see the movie, you're like, you know, he hides under the table, he grabs the Reese's Pieces, you love him. Like, yes, he looks like an ugly little creature

[01:00:01] before you see E.T., and after you see E.T., you're like, I need an E.T. in my life. And he basically was just like, there is no way to not make Scarlett Johansson titillating, and... Some of these other names, too, like Anne Hathaway or Jennifer Lawrence

[01:00:15] or Natalie Portman, these are... I also just don't buy some of those names. The supposed final four are Rooney Mara, Lea Seydoux, which is sort of... The final four makes perfect sense. Pre-Blue Is the Warmest Color. Sarah Snook. Yes. Good call. Like, ahead of the curve.

[01:00:34] 100%. And Sophie Lowe, who's like an Australian actress I don't know very well. She's good. What do you know her from? She's done a lot of Australian stuff. She's done a lot of American stuff, too. The thing... The Scarlett Johansson thing about her being fundamentally wrong,

[01:00:53] the proof that she's wrong for this part is Under the Skin. Right? Because that's a movie premised on even if Scarlett Johansson acts like a sociopathic alien, everyone in the world wants to sleep with her. She's a walking honey trap. She's like a walking potion

[01:01:11] with her star persona in something, which is why she's so good in Asteroid City. Or like Hail, Caesar. But this, you need someone who... Who doesn't have that. I always think when there are these big sort of casting things, the last of which I can really remember

[01:01:27] being that significant was the Elvis casting, where the person you pick, you're just like, uh, okay. And that winds up having the most room for surprise and it must be something really special. Yeah, usually when they cast someone you don't know very well, you're like, clearly they're incredible.

[01:01:47] Because why else would he be beating out, you know, whatever, Miles Teller? The other thing, I don't know if it's in the dossier, but I think about this a lot because I think it's one of the greatest definitions of what you look for in casting, right?

[01:02:00] Where Fincher was like... A lot of these actresses, especially the bigger names on this list, came in and gave really good performances, but they were performances. They were like constructions, right? And I believe very strongly in like, filmmaking is really tedious and long.

[01:02:19] My movies are longer and more tedious than most. You know, I'm paraphrasing here, but like, I'm going to do a million takes with people. We're going to be filming at like 4 o'clock in the morning in like the freezing, like Nordic weather. You need to cast someone

[01:02:32] where there is some fundamental quality within them that is unbeatable, that will be in their system no matter what at all times of the day. Because you need the thing that even when they're just depleted is going to come across on camera. And he was just like,

[01:02:49] she had whatever that weird alien energy was where it's like as much as this is a performance and a construction, that wasn't an affectation. And so I just knew no matter what if I put the camera in front of her, that's going to come across.

[01:03:03] Which is such a smart explanation of like, you need to identify what the fundamental quality is that you're innately projecting whether conscious or not, that is always going to be there no matter what in every single take. It's interesting the way that this sort of sets the tone

[01:03:17] for the rest of the stuff that she winds up doing over the course of the next decade such that now I think social network feels like kind of the anomaly. Totally. Where it's like, okay, so then she's just normal in this one? Yeah.

[01:03:33] Like this even, like, you know, famously she like, you know, gets a bunch of the piercings and then she's like, oh, I'm a celebrity. Where she's got this kind of weird, like, gothic thing since then. Yeah. That she's only continued to like pursue. But then obviously...

[01:03:50] And I don't know to what extent that was sort of under the surface. Yeah. Or if this like awoke that in her. Well, yeah, but it's like, right, she didn't think she was right for it. He didn't think she was right for it. And somewhere along the way

[01:04:05] there was just some frequency there of like talking to her across the audition process. No one seemed as kind of like latched on to what was going on. Um, so, okay. Yeah, you know, a lot of this Ruining Mara stuff, like the Interview Magazine profile

[01:04:25] where they're talking about how she like beat someone up, like who accosted her and like, you know, there's a lot of weird shit around it that I am honestly a little tired by. I feel like the hype drowned this movie a little bit, right?

[01:04:39] You know, like the sort of pre-casting, all that stuff. But yes, she went crazy method. She learned how to go on the internet. She went to google.com and would google crime. Yes. And then she could find all of the world's crimes.

[01:04:53] And Fincher went, don't go too deep. You need to be able to come back from this character. Obviously her run basically from like social network to Carol is pretty strong. Yes. And then since then I have, you know, I've worked less the last five years.

[01:05:09] She's made a lot of movies. In the last five years? You know what she's so good at? Maybe not in the last five years, but since Carol. After Carol? She's so good as a voice in Kubo and the Two Strings. That is like a crazy voice performance. Yes.

[01:05:27] I like the entire all white voice cast of Kubo. They're all really good. Yeah. And she plays like multiple, because her character is like two of them. She's like the pan, lion, the discovery. Song to song. I'm the one guy who likes Lion. Who's Lion again?

[01:05:47] Is that the Dev Patel? That's Dev Patel. I think that movie is pretty good. That's one of those like Rooney Mara, do you not know that you don't need to take this part? Yeah, you don't have to be the girlfriend. Her role is thankless in that. That's true.

[01:06:03] That movie is, I think, okay. I like it. I think that's the start of her as in what I call wounded bird. Like where I'm like, can you do anything? I say that as a compliment. Scared bird is famously my description. Women I find attractive.

[01:06:19] Don't worry, he wouldn't get far on foot. You know, Mary Magdalene, obviously, that doesn't really work out. Nightmare Alley. Well, it's a personal life. Well, sure. Then I'm happy for her. Did you see Mary Magdalene? No one's seen them. I did not see Mary Magdalene.

[01:06:39] No, Nightmare Alley where I'm like, Rooney's back and then you watch Nightmare Alley and you're like, Rooney had the worst role. I don't even remember who she is in that. She's like his love interest for the first half of the movie.

[01:06:49] She's the slept on kind of like nice girl. She's the lightning girl. Kindness is sort of taken advantage of. I really only remember Blanchett in that. Well, because Blanchett shows up and is like, all right, Karen, I'll get out of here.

[01:07:02] She basically, the second half of the movie becomes his ignored wife while he falls in love with Blanchett. And then I do think she's good in woman talking, but I also think she's great in women. But I think she kind of has like the most sort of

[01:07:11] like functional role in it in a way. Sure, I never saw it. So a lot of the, you know, sporting cast get to have more fun. Maybe it's time for them to step back and listen. I didn't think they should talk.

[01:07:21] Why don't you sit your ass down on a bale of hay just like the rest of them do in that movie? What is she arguing on about? Is she like we should go or we should leave? She's the sort of leader being like we need to go.

[01:07:31] Her argument is basically, yeah, we should talk. She's pro-talking. She's like, I don't want to. And also it's weird that we were both Elizabeth Zalander. She's blonde. Jesse Buckley's like can I get a shot? She's see-through in that movie. Because that movie is not black and white,

[01:07:47] but they color grade it so extremely. The color palette of that movie is not kind to Rooney Mara in particular. It is unfair. I don't think it's kind to any of them. No, but it's worse for her because she already is made out of rice paper.

[01:08:01] She's made out of wet napkins. She really is. And it fits so well because the whole point of Elizabeth is you're like, oh, is this a ghost that just walked through? But then also she might taser you. She's a wiry little... Yeah, she rules in that movie.

[01:08:18] She's so good. It's great. They shoot Daniel Craig. He's James Bond. You may have heard of that. He died to Busy 2008 and he has a Busy 2011. They have to sort of fit him in around this movie and around cowboys and aliens and all that.

[01:08:35] And Tintin and all that shit. Tintin and all that shit. Love Tintin. Another 2011 movie where I'm like, where's my sequel? Maybe combine the two. The reporter with the flipped up hair. Yeah. Maybe that's how you get around Craig's salary. You replace...

[01:08:56] Oh, I thought you were going to say Rooney aging as you just make her... Either or. But I like the idea of Elizabeth and Tintin teaming up. Mush the books together. May I kill him? That's sort of like a pan-European thing.

[01:09:09] It could be good for that continent to have that. Right, and it's half mocap and half real. Right. Craig says that David Fincher made him start drinking wine and eating pasta because he was like, you look too much like an action hero.

[01:09:22] You have to look like a journalist. Craig said, the minute I tried the Swedish accent, I was like, it sounds dreadful. Can I just have my regular accent? And Fincher was like, fine. Which, again, if I'm Rooney Mara, I'm like scratching at my nipple piercing.

[01:09:37] I'm like, oh, it's fine for him to just do that? It's fine. Okay, well, all right. They shot this movie for, I believe, seven months. Yeah, they started in September and they weren't done until April. The thing... But Fincher says part of that is because Sweden

[01:09:53] made them work slow because you only do eight hours a day by labor law in Sweden. Okay. He liked working in Sweden in a lot of ways because the rules that you go through can be different. Like, there's less union rules about,

[01:10:05] like, you know, people can do multifunctional things. But he's like, we were just... And I insisted we do Sweden because I didn't want Montreal to be playing Sweden. Good call. The thing that came up in the commentary a lot,

[01:10:17] and I've been trying to watch most of these movies with commentaries because Fincher is very good at them. It felt like 35% of this movie was reshot. You talk about the shooting being really long. They went back to Sweden. They did four months in Sweden

[01:10:31] and it's not even like that reshoots were tacked on. Where he, like, in the run of regular production, they would shoot a sequence and it was most of, like, the big sequences and he'd just be like, we didn't get it the first time.

[01:10:42] We went back, you're watching the second version of the scene. Well, the other thing is he hired a Swedish cinematographer named Fredrik Beckar and then a few weeks in they fired him and brought in Jeff Cronin with his social network collaborator and Fincher is kind of like,

[01:10:56] I was trying maybe to be a little too cute with the, like, let's really go Swedish with it and then me and this guy were not seeing eye to eye at all and I relented and was like, let me get my guy in here.

[01:11:05] But certainly Cronin was like, I wanted to do a whole Sven Nyqvist thing, like, you know, warm fires, cold rooms, you know? Like, I wanted to be Swedish with it. And argument for this being, like, Fincher being given the keys to the kingdom, sort of blank check status,

[01:11:20] there's one of the scenes where they're both looking at the laptop together in the latter half of the movie. She's got this, like, tiny little gap in her hair that feels like it happened by accident, which he refers to as, like, the Louise Brooks gap

[01:11:36] where her bangs are down and there's just this little split off center. And he was like, so we shot this scene and then, like, four months later we re-shot it and it wasn't until I cut the two pieces together because we were using pieces from both

[01:11:48] that I realized the gap wasn't in there. So Lola, the special effects house, who's like one of the best, they do, like, all the de-aging, and he was like, they had to track in the gap over and over again and I think it's really worth it.

[01:12:02] I mean, I get it. I couldn't lose it. And you're like, oh, they really just let him do whatever the fuck he wanted on this movie. I mean, that's such a classic Fincher story. That probably cost $250,000. Yeah, well, I paid for it. I thought it was crucial.

[01:12:18] Good job. Thank you. I mean, I didn't have the money. I was pretty poor back then. I'm like, I'm the Bangs guy. They got like 12 leans on you. I just think if you're going to have a character with bangs, you have to be honest to the bangs experience.

[01:12:33] Yeah. Even if that involves special effects. I'm not saying he's wrong, but it's just like you can tell how relieved he is that they were like, and it was complicated and they had to track it and her head keeps on moving in this shot,

[01:12:47] but I really think it was important. It feels like a funny, like, Fincher self-challenge to have a character with bangs. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You know who's in this movie? Who we both like? Goran Viznich. Goran Viznich,

[01:13:02] who of course I feel like is best known as the villain from Ice Age. Oh, what? Luka Kovacs on ER. And that's from when you watched ER, right? Like you watched the latter seasons of ER live, right? Have we talked about this?

[01:13:16] Yeah, it was just, I feel like You were an Abby Luka guy because you were too young for the Clooney. Yeah, I was with Dr. Green. That's his name, right? Mark Green. The tail end of that and then, yeah, I'm with like Shane West and Parminder Nagra

[01:13:32] and like that whole... I just feel like ER was always on, but Goran really sort of imprinted on me. He was like the bad saber-tooth from Diego's pack. And in ER too. And that's the only kind of legitimately threatening villain in the Ice Age series.

[01:13:50] In the first one, yeah. And I'm sure that it's him because my mom fucking did that. I think this might have been said to me. She was there for V-Snitch? Yeah. She wasn't a Dennis Leary fan? No, I mean, because my mom and I...

[01:14:06] She wasn't like Leguizamo always does a voice. My mom and I go to see opening weekend with Romlee and I remember for whatever reason it was playing at the Ziegfeld. Sure, biggest screen needed. And for whatever reason, it was a big hit the first one.

[01:14:20] Yeah, for those 480p graphics or whatever. Romano, Leguizamo, Leary, V-Snitch. They put V-Snitch over the title. And we're walking up and my mom goes, oh V-Snitch is in this. She finally got excited. Look, anyway. I mean, I feel that anytime he's in there. He is not very important.

[01:14:38] Again, a role that is in every book. That guy who's sort of like one of the... Because the whole thing with Lisbeth is either people either see her and are like, how do I exploit this person? Sure. Or they see her as an original caretaker

[01:14:53] where they obviously sort of, you know... They're like, she's weird, but I'll go with it. Right, quasi guardians. And they just accept how prickly she is. Like, you know, there's two times in the movie I think that she... I believe

[01:15:06] that she walks into a room and says, hey, hey. Which is so sweet. It's pretty much the only time you ever hear her say something sweet. It's the nicest thing of all time. And once is when she's going to see her original caretaker and she finds

[01:15:19] out that she's looking for Blomquist late in the movie. And when she says it for Blomquist, you're like, fuck. It's when he's already tied up by Scar's dad at that point. It's so cute when she says it. It's so cute.

[01:15:33] And it's literally the only cute thing she does. Hey, hey. I think she has a lot of cute things. She has a lot of cute stuff. She's very cute. She's like E.T. When she's like, I got it with the memory.

[01:15:47] No, no, no, she does tons of that. It's so adorable. It kind of is. Like that she clearly is like, I should just triple check. My read on this situation is that this guy was trying to kill my friend. But I know that sometimes I'm not great

[01:16:03] with social stuff, so maybe I should just check. Fincher, him talking about that line was really interesting. He said that line was his creation. And that it was not meant to be like... Because in the book, Scar's guard just drives off a car.

[01:16:17] Scar's guard just drives off a cliff. Right. And he said it's not that she's like... If she goes after him, it doesn't really matter. ...asking for his permission to kill him. It's that she knows that she doesn't understand social cues, that she now respects his sense of morality,

[01:16:33] and that she's asking him, am I right in thinking that I should go kill him now? Right, right, right. Like does that feel justified? Have I put this all together correctly? But it's also you have the whole first half that's perpetuated by her.

[01:16:49] And I spent a long time talking to our friend Caroline Simons about the fact that her big Oscar scene was when she's threatening the new caretaker, and she's like, I'm crazy. And she's got the black eye makeup. It's a very cool scene, but it's like that's so non-indicative

[01:17:07] of what a lot of that performance is. That's Lisbeth doing a performance. She knows she's there to terrify him into submission, yes. And it's sort of the only callback to the whole scene, which we've spent the whole movie kind of disproving also. Her Oscar scene should be

[01:17:25] their first meeting. Totally. That's the scene where you're like, holy fucking shit. When she looks at him when he says the killer of women thing. Yeah, yeah. But that whole scene, as we said, the thing with the photo, all of that is just like... I got it.

[01:17:45] It's just like, she's so good at writing down things, right? And that the way she processes information is totally different. Beyond the fact that she has a photographic memory, she brings her camera around with her because she's never going to write something down. Right, right.

[01:18:07] Everything is like save it as a file to the cloud. Blancas is this very... He's post-it notes color coded to this computer. But she'd be on weird programs that Mac would almost be not customizable enough for. I think she's such a slut for Apple, though.

[01:18:26] No, I totally know why. Well, I believe in the books she uses Macs. Like it is definitive in the books. That is a funny part of the book because they're always like, she used this kind of MacBook Pro generation whatever. The book is like fucking

[01:18:43] Game of Thrones where they start And you're like, OK, I get it. A good computer. The books after Larson died are mostly about firmware updates. That was the one thing legally you could still write about. They publish the terms and agreements in full in the book.

[01:18:59] Right, it's actually two whole chapters of just like, do you accept? She actually reads them. She reads the whole thing. She's the one. She's got a photographic memory. The girl who reads the terms and agreements. But then she's like, I don't agree. Because she's a cyber criminal.

[01:19:13] Yeah, no, the books have a lot of hacker stuff in them that I have always sort of accepted as a little cheesy. Like, I don't think Stieg Larsson was an expert on cybersecurity.

[01:19:25] Because the books are just often like, then Lisbeth did something magic and she could see the guy's screen. And you're like, OK, that's sort of her main trick. She just gets on the guy's screen and then she like sits and watches someone else use computer.

[01:19:36] This gets to a question I've been meaning to ask. This little bug that goes into people's brains. I've been burning to ask. OK, Ben. Ben, can you get the fire extinguisher? Ben Hosley. I'm on fire with this question.

[01:19:49] How much does Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in this film match your conception of a thing you've pitched many times as a dramatic conceit you want to see in film? I know where you're going. Yes. Witches. Yes. Witch hacker.

[01:20:06] I know she's not literally a witch in that she's not a Wiccan. But there. It's there. She's kind of a sorceress. I think this is what's in Ben's mind's eye. A hundred percent. With literal magic involved.

[01:20:17] Just to quickly give some context for maybe some listener who doesn't know what we're talking about. Sure. I've had this concept for a long time, which is that I think that there should be witch hackers in movies where they literally manipulate the computer through spell.

[01:20:34] Right. They don't even touch the keyboard. Correct. They just use like... I mean, that's sort of what she's doing. I've kind of pictured purple magic. Purple magic? That just goes to the keyboard. Do you think that's what the old mentor of the witch says?

[01:20:45] Like, now you will learn the purple magic. Yes. This magic is purple. Yes. And then they stare into a cauldron and they look at algorithms. Now, at one point, Fran... I was nodding off there. This time I'm like, boring. Which is why we're staring at the algorithm. Algorithm.

[01:21:02] At one point, Fran, Ben folded this concept into his great unfinished screenplay, Night Eggs, about a detective who eats eggs at night, which Chris Weitz was supposed to produce and is now kind of indefinitely postponed. Not indefinitely. Well, you know, we're going to pick it back up.

[01:21:18] Indefinitely doesn't mean permanently. Well, The Strike. Girl, The Strike. Indefinitely. Yeah. Chris Weitz and his wife came to visit New York a couple of months ago and we went and had drinks with them, David and I. And they were like, oh, thank you so much for the invite.

[01:21:34] I'll tell you next time. Ben could not make it. OK, so I could. And Chris's wife does not listen to the podcast, is a lovely person who's smart and has better things to do with her time.

[01:21:44] And we were trying to explain the Night Eggs thing to her, all of which was new to her. And Chris was like, yeah. And I wrote pages myself and I was like working on this with Ben. And she was like, what's the premise? We're like, detective.

[01:21:57] He eats eggs at night. And she was like, OK, it's a little thing. You could never finish that screenplay. Hacker Witches is interesting. And she was like, yeah, she was like, Chris, that actually you could spin that off into something. Hacker Witches has some juice to it. Damn.

[01:22:10] OK, well, I've been talking about this this idea on the podcast for many years. Just in case anyone tries to steal. TM, TM, TM. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But no, you're right. I her look. Yeah. The aesthetic. I was going to ask you about her look.

[01:22:24] The kind of like, I mean, how would you like? It's goth. Yes. It's but it's like we were sort of looking up the clothes. I call it a lot of Rick Owens. Well, it's funny because sometimes you have a character both spot on.

[01:22:41] Well, you have a character who like dresses like shit in a movie, but, you know, sort of as someone watching like that's a hundred dollar T-shirt that they've made look bad. But it's like they don't even try to really make her look that grubby.

[01:22:51] Like for someone who has to like ask for money for a computer, she's in like designer clothes. Merchandise Spotlight.

[01:22:56] This is a movie that had like fucking high thread count tie ins where they were just like we collabed with this fashion brand and everything she wears is available for sale. Fuck you. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. They did a lot of.

[01:23:09] I love when she's in the shirt that says fuck you, you fucking fuck. In the big scene. Maybe that's why that can't be the Oscar scene. Because it says fuck you. You put in the trailer. They erase her shirt digitally to allow that scene in the trailer.

[01:23:19] Screw you. You screwing screw. Doesn't say that. I downtown Griffin was grew up in the West Village and 8th Street between 5th and 6th used to be 70% smoke shops that also sold novelty T-shirts.

[01:23:35] And fuck you, you fucking fuck was like the shirt that was in every single window growing up where my dad would be like cover your eyes.

[01:23:43] And that shirt was just like it loomed so large in my childhood because we walked by there like every day and you'd see it multiple times. The moment that shirt comes on screen, it felt to me like a surprise Marvel cameo where I'm like, holy shit, they did.

[01:23:57] They put it on the big. I never thought they'd adapt it. It's from Blue Velvet, right? The shirt? The phrase. The quote? Hopper says that in Blue Velvet and I'm sure like a man had said that before in history. Yeah.

[01:24:10] But like I do think that is what the original reference is. Interesting. I think of it as being the shirt. It's from T-shirts, right? Yeah. You're like, yeah, the famous quote from T-shirt. It's also funny because it's like, right. That's a shirt you can't trademark.

[01:24:23] But also every one of them had the exact same font. It is the exact shirt in this movie. I've never seen a different look for one of those. That and Same Shit, Different Day. And there's a third shirt.

[01:24:34] There were three shirts where it was like there's three shirts with swear words on them that are in every stall at Canada market. Like when I was. Yeah. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila floor. That's I mean, that's pretty funny.

[01:24:44] I feel like there were a lot of shirts that were like cartoon characters with bloodshot eyes holding a bong. And they were like, Sonic the Weedhog and shit. A lot of Sonic. Yeah. A lot of Calvin Peeing shit on 8th Street. Yeah.

[01:24:58] So in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for the first hour of the movie, there are two storylines. So the first storyline follows Mikael Blomqvist, Sweden's hottest libel artist, a journalist up for a hip indie magazine called Millennium. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Mikael Magazine.

[01:25:16] Who has been disgraced because he lost a libel suit in Swedish court against an industrialist.

[01:25:23] It's the Michael Clayton thing I love of like you start this movie with a character who could be kind of just like a functionary sort of like a cipher, you know, investigator kind of thing. And you start it with the guy in the hole.

[01:25:39] You start it with like this guy's broken because of stuff that happened before this movie started. You know? Yeah. And it's like because he's fucked up. It's you know, his reputation's at stake. But also what's at stake is like he's bored. Yeah. He's got to do something.

[01:25:53] And in a lot of ways, like the story he finds himself in doesn't really have to do with the mistakes he's made in the past. They push him into making those decisions and it dovetails in certain ways.

[01:26:04] But it's just like like every time you cut the fucking Michael Clayton selling off the supplies of his failed restaurant. You know where you're just like this guy's got this thing. Do you think it was a good restaurant? No, I think it's like the food was bad. Yeah.

[01:26:18] You know what they don't get into? Like the vine was probably OK, but the food was bad. It was just a TGI Friday's franchise. Good in like 2007. We're not like, oh, what a great era for food. It was I think restaurants. There were some restaurants serving good food.

[01:26:29] No, no, it's right about this. No. Ratatouille comes out in 2007. That's when food got good. They started hiring rats. And then it was chef. Yes. And then it was burnt. Yes. And then the bear. And then the bear. The bear, of course. Invented food.

[01:26:45] And we thank him for it. He was the one who put trying to think one of the bears big dishes now put can only made can only. Well, he invented drinking out of a court. Plastic plastic container. No one did that. Right. He invented saying corner.

[01:27:01] Has anyone done a recut? I love the bear to be clear. Ratatouille in the style of the bear and call it the rat. I think there is a whole quadrant of AI just doing that over and over again. Like there's a whole field in Montana with AI bots.

[01:27:17] I'm just thinking like, yeah, the Spider-Man nursery rhymes like on YouTube. But I don't want the AI version. I want someone to get in there, get their hands dirty, do a recut. What if they were like shining? But it's a romantic read. But it's ratatouille. Yeah, good fun.

[01:27:32] It's a ratatouille alternate universe. OK, so Blank Fist gets a call from industrialist, other industrialist, Henrik Wenger played by Christopher Plummer. Christopher Plummer, I'm going to put it forward. Best 80s of any actor. You're obsessed with his 80s and we don't mean the 1980s.

[01:27:51] No, we mean the decade he was 80. The decade he was 80, which does he die? Did he hit 90 or was all died at the age of 91? OK, so I extend the run to the 90s.

[01:28:04] I think Jessica Tandy is the only person you could argue surged that hard that late. So Christopher Plummer would have turned 80 and let's find out. Let's just find out. OK, let's all settle down. Uh, 2009. OK. So we're going to start with when and when is yeah. OK, 2009.

[01:28:28] Last station he gets his first Oscar nomination. No, 2009 up. Uh huh. Remember he's the voice of the villain? Yeah. Charles Muntz. Apparently he was Dr. Parnassus. He's one of them. Oh, he's only one of them. I forgot if that. Oh no, no, no. You're right. Yeah.

[01:28:43] I think Dr. Parnassus is this wizard of Oz. Right. It's the other guy. The other guys are all called whatever. Alex or something. Tony. Yeah. Um, uh, last station indeed gets his first Oscar nomination after so many years. And it was Tolstoy.

[01:28:57] It was viewed as a career achievement kind of tip of the cap and you're like, whatever. Sort of the Langella nom. Yeah. He plays Tolstoy. It's like what if Tolstoy and Tolstoy wife played by Helen Mirren yelled at each

[01:29:08] other and around that James McAvoy had a crush on I want to see Carrie Condon. Yes. Okay. This sounds like a movie I'll like. Yeah. It was one of those great boring. It kind of sucks piss. I like that. But it's kind of a bad.

[01:29:22] And you were just like, this kind of sucks. The plumbers had this incredible career. He got snubbed a bunch of times. He should have gotten noms. They're finally giving it to him for this and here's his career capper.

[01:29:32] And I guess it's about to be lights out on, on Christopher Plummer. And then he just starts throwing fucking haymakers. So then you've got beginners. We have amazing award and like skates like the movie comes out in June and it's like no one's beating him.

[01:29:46] He's just going to run the table for the next nine months winning every award. Apparently he was in that Paul Bettany movie Priest. Yeah. With Carl Urban and Maggie. Q. I've seen Priest. It's a loose remake of The Searchers. Cool. Kind of rules. I want to see it.

[01:30:04] Yeah. Uh, apparently he played John Barrymore. That doesn't really matter. Uh, he did a voice. That was a one man show that I think was then filmed and turned into a movie. Go on. Uh, girl with the dragon tattoo, which I think he's excellent in. Yes.

[01:30:14] Um, then, uh, what else do we have here? We've got Danny Collins. Apparently he was in that one. Yeah. He plays some fucking, uh, he, he played some fucking guy in that one. You got all the money in the world.

[01:30:27] But I mean, one of the most astonishing narratives around a performance. And he kills it. It was awesome. He's so good in it. And then you have knives out. He did a lot of like random shit as well, but yeah, knives out knives out

[01:30:40] is I guess his real farewell. I think if you just say his eighties contains beginners, beginners, knives out girl with the dragon tattoo, all the money in the world, really good. Those are four insane performances to give for a guy where every time he

[01:30:54] showed up on screen, they were like, and this is probably his last movie. Right. He's going to die. Yeah. And he got three Oscar noms, right? Yeah. Is there a fourth I'm forgetting? No, it's those three. You got three and he won one. Pretty good. Yeah. Fucking rules.

[01:31:06] Fran, did you know that he was in the sound of music? As what? Wait, one of the kids? Did you really not know this? No, I know that. Okay. He played the music. Yeah. He was one of the mountains. Wow. He was, he played the lonely goatherd.

[01:31:22] They put them on strings. Kind of. Um, yeah, I didn't know that though. I was just like, who's this damn hottie? I was going to say, you want a trivia fact? He's fine as fuck in that movie.

[01:31:33] But I mean, still even in his eighties, he's like looking like a real snack. I mean, yeah. Yeah. He's, he's, he's very handsome. Have you seen beginners? Yeah. No. The whole plot of beginners is like, what if my dad was a snack? Yeah. Okay.

[01:31:50] And coming to terms with that. Right. He's a Ewan McGregor's dad who comes out in his eighties. Ah. And you're his boyfriend. Goran Visnjic. Yeah. Yes. Of this movie. Wow. But he basically like, now that your mother is dead, I can tell you I've been

[01:32:06] gay this whole time and I finally want to live my truth. And then it's just like Christopher Plummer starts wearing really nice sweaters. He does wear some good sweaters. Okay. And there's a dog. There's fun stuff. I'm going to put it on the list.

[01:32:16] And the dog speaks in subtitles. You'll love this movie. It's so gentle. Yeah. It's a very gentle movie. I also was trying to come up with an old person snack, uh, dried apricots. Oh, it's looking like a real dried apricot. Yeah. Okay. Well I eat those. So.

[01:32:28] I do too. They're really good. Okay. I, um, think he's great in dragon tattoo. Because he does have just that. Cause you, you know, in this movie, he's very gentle. But right. You need that edge of like, is this guy full of shit?

[01:32:42] Like, you know, is this guy sort of covering something up that's beyond the scope of what he's telling us? He's also, he's got to set everything up, not just plot wise, but the stakes and that sort of like ambiguity and then be incapacitated for most

[01:32:54] of the movie and yet still loom large. Right. But like, he's so sad. Yes. And that is the character obviously in the book too. And so haunted. Yeah. And he's haunted by the disappearance of his niece, obviously.

[01:33:09] But it's also like, he's haunted by like the, all these books, especially this one, but all, you know, are just about like Sweden is, you know, the social democratic society is just this like gossiper thin veil over like a

[01:33:22] history of like Nazism and sexism and like rampant, like, you know, darkness. Like that's Stieg Larsson's whole take. Right. Men who hate women, they're everywhere. Scratch the surface and you'll find them. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, he lives in this frozen castle. He's successful and he's like miserable.

[01:33:39] And he's like surrounded by all these like nieces and nephews. All my family members are insane. They hate him. They think he's crazy. Evil. Yeah. I think we're identifying though. The money is ill gotten. The secret sauce to why Christopher Plummer's 80s were so good. Thousand Island Dressing?

[01:33:53] Yes. No, what? Uh, no, he, he was like a horrible alcoholic for decades. Sure. And basically talks about like, I... He's, he has a reputation for being a huge asshole. Yes. No, but that's what I'm saying.

[01:34:06] He, he always sort of in this period, he talked about like, I kind of like fucked myself over for 40 years. I was like an asshole. You're right. You're right. That's in the performance. That's sort of like, oh, I could have been better. I ran away from success.

[01:34:19] Sound of Music came out. I was like, fuck you. I drank myself into oblivion. And basically he like in his seventies starts to like, under, he gains a perspective that all the performances we're talking about have that feeling

[01:34:33] of hauntedness of like, did I throw away half my life? Did I fuck something up? I can never get back. This is my final moment to sort of reclaim something or try to set something better before I go. Right? Yeah. I mean, yes.

[01:34:45] I, that, and of course the, one of the many twists of this movie is that Vanger is a relatively uncomplicated person. Like he is not part of the mystery. No, really? Like he is a bystander to most of it. He was maybe ignorant.

[01:35:00] Like he refused to look at what was happening in front of him. Yeah. And it's like, it's the book Vanger who's just sort of like, well, now that I know we can just keep everyone else out of this. Like it was just about me knowing. Yeah.

[01:35:12] It was not about exposing the truth publicly. Right. Of the end of the book is that Blancfist is like, I'm a journalist. I'm going to write this up. And he's like, you can't do that. Right.

[01:35:20] Which is, you know, you see both sides of it, obviously, like in a way, but go Blancfist go, but then Blancfist just does a bunch of other journalism. He's always doing the journalism. Yes. He's always talking about what people don't want to hear about, you know?

[01:35:33] He's a truth teller. He's kind of a comedian of the press. So he gets, yeah. So he gets summoned. He's the Joker of Sweden. He gets summoned to this like remote place. Hedestad? Hedestad made up part of Sweden.

[01:35:45] And he is told like, extensively we work on my memoirs, but really I want you to fully dig into our whole family and figure out what the hell happened to my niece who vanished. On this weird day. On this weird...

[01:35:57] Where there was a car crash on the bridge. So many pictures. That turns it into a locked door, like locked room mystery before an entire islanders, like there was no way anyone could get off this island. So she died here or whatever. And what happened?

[01:36:10] And the only people on the island were either my family or people who worked for the family. All of whom I hate. And of course that is the trick, especially of the book is it's like Martin

[01:36:18] Wenger, who even if you're reading the book, you might think, well, this guy seems like a possible suspect was not there. Right. So he, his alibi is ironclad. And then even when Craig asks him, he's like smart. Of course you have to make me one of the suspects.

[01:36:31] Like he's, he's not fighting it. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, come live here. Press flowers. You're disgraced. I'm getting these press flowers every year. I feel like it's a killer taunting me. Right. I called, uh, I love that actor. I love that guy too.

[01:36:44] Uh, that actor of course is, um, Donald Sumter as Morrell as the old detective. Oh, such a good guy. Well, he plays a good guy, but I got some bad news for you. What's that? When we cut to flashbacks, it's detective puss, the most despicable character

[01:37:01] we've ever covered on this podcast. Uh, man, I still feel triggered by seeing those from season two of top of the lake. Uh, David Dentrick, who's also in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and a few other things. But do you know what else he's in? What?

[01:37:16] A little movie called the girl with the dragon tattoo, Swedish version. Oh, yes. The only guy in both. He plays one of the staff at Millennium. He plays like Joel Kinnaman. Yeah. Yeah. He plays one of the newspaper guys. Yeah. It's just funny.

[01:37:29] No, in both of these movies, he, in both versions, he plays benevolent, supportive, helpful characters. And I just still, I see puss. China girl, he plays truly Satan. He plays the worst character I've ever seen in anything.

[01:37:42] I mean, top of the lake season one stressed me out too much already. It's like, I'm not going to. Yeah. It's a very good performance that makes you angry at him for happening. Remember when we did a Patreon episode just slamming puss around the room,

[01:37:55] like a squash ball. And then like the eight people who had actually seen season two are like, they were too hard on puss. Yeah, people thought we were too hard on puss. His name is puss. Sort of a Harry Hole situation. Yeah. Oh boy.

[01:38:10] And that's the Tinker Tailor guy. I always forget that where I'm like, where is that guy? Because in Tinker Tailor, it's all like really recognizable actors. And then him, not that he's full respect. I think he's a good actor. He's got a great face.

[01:38:22] I'm always like, where did the... Snowman! Oh, well, he got... Yeah, well, no, I know. That's what I'm saying. He got Harry Hole. He fell into Harry Hole and he can't get out. I'm like, where is he? And yeah. Oh boy. Um, so. The lawyer, Dirk Frode.

[01:38:36] The lawyer, Dirk Frode. Played by Stephen Berkhoff, who we recently saw in a Bond movie. Right? He's the villain in Octopussy. Oh, okay. Legendary British playwright. Sure. I just feel like Fincher is sitting down and like stack up guys with faces for me. Yeah. Please.

[01:38:53] It's like Game of Thrones guy, bring him in. Yeah. Phone calls. Uh, you know, Berkhoff, bring him in. How dare they? Um, uh, Goran Viznitsa. But like, I feel like, you know, everybody on the island is just like a great old craggy face.

[01:39:07] The, uh, the name of the actor who plays the new, uh, Guardian. Uh, the most, the puss of this film, if you will. Oh yeah. Um, that guy is called Jorik van Wangen. I, you know, he's Dutch. Uh, obviously Black Hat.

[01:39:22] I was going to say, he's in the blank check, uh, scumbag hall of fame. Black Hat. He's, uh, one of the guys, one of the, the scummy criminal escapee villains in Chronicles of Riddick. And there's another escape that he was in. Escape plan? Room. Oh, right.

[01:39:38] He's the inventor of escape room. I both escape rooms. Love him. I think he's a very underrated actor. He's also like, this is kind of a fearless performance in a way because he is so immediately despicable. Yes.

[01:39:53] And like the sight of him shirtless, like after he assaults, um, uh, Lisbeth with like his belly out and you're just like, well, that's later. Don't you see maybe I'm, maybe I'm. Fincher said, uh, he, as he put it, canvassed everyone in his life who he

[01:40:12] knew who had experienced some sort of traumatic abuse, right. To try to get this right and not be salacious in the way he was depicting it. And he said, if you're in her position and you're, you've decided you want to torture this guy, right.

[01:40:27] And you're, you're going to like attack him in this way and whatever. Uh, would you take his clothes off or not? And everyone he talked to said like, I would not, I would not want to see his naked body.

[01:40:39] Even if I'm tattooing his chest or I'm inserting stuff into him or whatever. I don't like fully disrobe him. And so they shot it that way. And the test audiences reacted negatively where they were like, well, it feels

[01:40:52] weird and disproportionate that she's naked during her assault and that he's not. So they made him reshoot the scene. And this feels like what a nightmare to be told. We're going back and doing this again. And he basically, he said like, they offered me this part.

[01:41:10] I was like, I don't want to have to do this. Like, I don't want to have to live through this. I don't want to get in this guy's head. I don't want to do these scenes. I want to work for Fincher so badly that I've just, I'm

[01:41:21] going to muscle through it. And Fincher was like, he's incredible. He is incredible. He's like a true actor's actor. Like, you know, he's, he's quite vile. Even, you know, like the, just the first second you see him, but like, he feels

[01:41:34] like a, you know, a person who would behave this way, like it feels like part of a system that, you know, there's no way it doesn't feel like a thankless sort of, yeah.

[01:41:43] But I also, I see him in this and it's like the moment he's pinned in my mind forever and there's something to the fact. I don't know him from anything else. Come on. He's the final guy in Black Cat. Hemsworth stabs him like 80 times. It's awesome.

[01:41:58] It's like a pen. I remember one thing that happens in Black Cat. Which is? Like he go on computer. I mean, that's the ultimate he go on computer moment. That was sort of the end of that era. They're two genders. Yeah, a little bit.

[01:42:08] Girl with the drag hat. Now we go on algorithm. Now we go on algorithm. Because it made eight bucks. Like, you know. Made a black hat. Right. Um, no, I, I think. Well, what's the one thing you remember from Black Cat? When they, when they kill. Violet Davis.

[01:42:20] BD. Violet Davis. And I'm like, what? Yeah. Tough. It is tough. They also. No, it's crazy. VD. And they do cure. He comes up with the cure for VD. It's a, it's a great moment, but she's amazing.

[01:42:31] The thing about his performance, uh, is that, uh, old Yurik, uh, is that, uh, yes. He avoids the mustache twirling in a way that makes it more unsettling. Cause you could, you could play this character more stereotypically

[01:42:44] villainously in a way that creates more of a distance where you're like, well, obviously this guy's awful, but he plays him like a real terrible person rather than a terrible person in a thriller, if that makes sense. Right. Which makes it more insidious, more upsetting. Yeah.

[01:43:00] Um, the girl with the dragon tattoo. Um, I just, before we get to Elizabeth, yes. Uh, the just, I love how the first half of this movie, Blancrist, he's such a, a, a bimbo, like one of these, you know, like he's in this house, he's like, how make

[01:43:18] hot, burn, burn book and in fireplace. Why, why not warm? You know, he can barely like feed himself and he's just, you know, all he wants to do is take his glasses off and put them around his neck and like walk around taking notes. What's with that?

[01:43:34] Like every woman he meets, he's sort of flirting with. I think no, it's not like in the books they're like, and then Blancrist took off his glasses in a way no one has ever done. Put them like halfway on his face.

[01:43:44] I think it's just Craig's thought of that. Your letterboxd review called this out. I looked up your old letterboxd review for this movie about Daniel Craig wearing glasses the way that no one has ever worn glasses in their life.

[01:43:55] I know this was a big bit, uh, Paul F. Tompkins did on every podcast for years. I driving myself insane that I now can't remember what it was, but like, uh, within the last month in the lead up to this episode, I watched some documentary or

[01:44:10] newscast where there was a real person doing this and I went, holy shit, it's the one person who actually vindicates Daniel Craig's glasses business where they did the exact same hanging underneath the chin. But maybe then he looks it up and it was a Jim Fakerson.

[01:44:26] I can't figure out who the fuck it is. And if I ever do, I will tweet it after this episode comes out. Um, I mean, look, there's a chance that Daniel Craig, who I believe may wear glasses in real life. Most, you know, I've never seen. Why not?

[01:44:38] I don't know. Like maybe he does that, but it more felt like Daniel Craig being like, you know, I've got a new take on glasses. It's cinematic. I don't know. Um. It's fun actory shit. What always feels like when is it Debbie Reynolds does her like Merrill impression

[01:44:54] on Larry King and she's just like fucks him with the glasses, you know, take a lot off and like, you know, nails her to the wall. I mean, truly. But that's sort of what Craig is doing here with the glory.

[01:45:03] He's like, I'm really going to make a little, I got my one prop. And also like if you're going to do like, you know, movie about men who go on computer, you might be worried like it will this feel dynamic at all? Correct. You know?

[01:45:15] And a lot of his dialogue is shoe leather. Uh. I think Craig's smart about that, how to make all of it feel a little more active. Uh, but what I think is crucial in this movie is that once Elizabeth joins him

[01:45:29] and now we can talk about Elizabeth an hour and one 15 minutes. The why do I keep saying one 15? I don't know. Halfway into the movie is the answer. Yeah. Uh, the movie comes to life like in a way, like their scenes come to life.

[01:45:41] The camera is much more active, like in their little cottage all of a sudden it's like whipping around. Like it feels like there's energy, like they're this weird little like. Do you know what I'm saying though of how like the first half of this movie almost

[01:45:52] feels like it's. I don't know what you mean by half one and what? One hour and one 15 minutes. One, one hours. Um. You guys are like mad at each other today. Furious. It's sort of crazy. Yeah. Come on. No, no.

[01:46:04] You should mention that we're recording this episode strangling each other. Homer and Bart style. You should also mention that I made this episode air at, uh, happen early in the morning so that I could go see Saw 10. Yeah, correct. And a half. Correct.

[01:46:16] Let's have that on the record. I mean, we gotta get it on the record, right? Uh, yes. Uh, no, the first half of this movie feels like it is two magnets being held apart from each other by force.

[01:46:28] I'm like getting mad during the first half of this movie. You're like, every time I watch. Cause I'm like. Let them meet. But it makes the payoff so powerful. It does make the payoff good, but I'm so like, by the time we get there, like, I'm

[01:46:37] like, I want to turn the movie off. But it feels weaponized. Like it feels like Fincher knows that's, that's the inherent dramatic struggle of adapting this text. Right. And I need to own that and lean into it and have the whole movie up until that

[01:46:49] point, feel like we're waiting for this collision. Cause especially you're like watching these two and you're like these two, they could never get along. What would they ever even talk about? Like peanut butter and chocolate. It tastes terrible together. Right.

[01:47:00] And then when you see Lisbeth, obviously if we follow her track, right, her track is basically, yes, ostensibly her connection is she does a background check on him. So she's been in his life in this weird intimate way.

[01:47:12] But apart from that, they have nothing to do with each other. No. And then as we're watching Blanquist progress along this murder mystery path, we're just watching her. Well, he's like not also is the thing. No, he's not really.

[01:47:23] He's, he's, he's, yeah, he's not, he's not a detective. Yeah. He's a journalist. So he's interviewing people. I mean, he makes some progress. He finds the pictures like, you know, he has some thoughts, but it's, yeah, I mean,

[01:47:36] it's his daughter who lets him figure out the Bible verse thing and all that, you know, but anyway, uh, Lisbeth it's like, yeah. What do we, what do we see happen to her? Her caretaker dies. Oh, it doesn't die. He doesn't die. He has a stroke.

[01:47:47] He's actually in the sequels. Okay. Another character that sort of has a long tail. At the end of the movie. Yeah. And he's at the end of the movie. He's got a long tail. They don't show that on screen. It's a Swedish thing. Like 10% of Swedes have these.

[01:47:58] It's like marsupialami. Like, can you do tricks with it? A hundred percent. He can pick things up. That's a reasonably good marsupialami. I'm not, I don't know what that is. 10 people are going to be thrilled. I made that joke. Is that another children's book? It's a French comic.

[01:48:11] Oh yeah. Cartoon series. They tried to bring them over here to the States and didn't really hit. I'm just pulling up some images. Here he is. Oh, okay. Pretty cute. There's like a crazy expensive CGI live action album, the chipmunk style marsupialami French blockbuster directed by Alain Chabat.

[01:48:30] Is it good? That's okay. No. Um, so she has a caretaker. She gets a new one. Right. She's awarded the state somewhat mysteriously. Her, her kindly benevolent caretaker dies. She's passed off to a new one who is not, doesn't die. He gets a stroke. I'm so sorry.

[01:48:47] He's incapacitated. Passed off to a new one who in short order, basically like locks up her finances, um, assaults her. And then I think, and is this in the movie? Like in the movie when she's going back to him, she's trying, she's planning to frame him, um,

[01:49:06] she's thinking he's going to make me like suck his dick again, do something terrible and I will catch him. And instead the escalation from him is so shocking. Yeah. Yes. But she went in with the attention. She goes in with the attention. Like, right.

[01:49:18] That she's not prepared for it. And that's pretty much the last time that Elizabeth Sounder is like caught off guard in this movie, obviously. Yeah. You also have the scene which is in the book and is an, is also kind of good

[01:49:29] in the original movie, I will say. The subway mugger scene, which is like a little microcosm of like people just underestimate her because she's so small and like is this weird little outsider. And then she like fights back with such ferocity. That's like sort of surprising.

[01:49:44] This is not in the book. It's right. It's not, but it is in the movie. Her like bike, her bag just gets like stolen. It just gets stolen. And I think it's like, she just locks it up outside somewhere or whatever.

[01:49:52] In the Swedish movie, she actually fights them and like kicks them and shit. Yeah, she has a broken bottle. She's like, she really fucks them up. I think Noonear Pace is very good in those, in that movie. I've only seen the first one, right? I think she's good.

[01:50:05] I think it's a very good performance. You think it's not good? No, I think it's not good. I think it's very like... See, I think it's good, but the characterization is bad. Maybe that's it.

[01:50:15] She is good, but the movie frames her as too much of a badass, which is like very flattening to this character. That's why I don't really like it. Not a real person. Yeah. Yes. Just like a cartoon. Yeah. Like, I think she's a pretty interesting actor.

[01:50:30] You love Prometheus. I love Prometheus. But yeah. Is Prometheus 2014? Oh, just a year. She gets it because I mean, that's her first big Hollywood post original drag. It's such a funny arc. Is it Prometheus then Sherlock Holmes 2? Yeah. Okay. No. Yeah. No, Sherlock Holmes 2 is first, isn't it?

[01:50:50] I think Prometheus is first. Am I wrong? The Game of Shadows was played in 2011, my friend. Okay. Okay. Uh, and you know, it was quite the game. Yeah. And they played to win. Who does she play in that? Like a Romani fortune teller. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.

[01:51:10] I don't know. I've never seen that one. Boring. I've only seen the first one. I've watched like most of it on TV. I need to watch it before this sequel comes. Oh, which is definitely happening. Yeah. And it's happening like right away.

[01:51:23] It's definitely the next thing that everyone involved is going to make. Um, yeah. Like Downey Jr will collect his Oscar in a few months and be like, all right, so guy, are we going? Yeah. No, no. It's going to be Dexter Fletcher, right?

[01:51:35] They keep kind of like that. I guess. Totally. They keep being like, we're like two months away from filming. Um, it's the next thing. Dexter Jetster. Dexter Jester will be directing. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

[01:51:46] No, he's, you know, he's had like a really interesting, like, uh, shifted from behind the, uh, the counter, the counter to behind the camera. Yeah. Anyway, go on. Oh boy. Uh, so what else about Lisbeth before she gets put in touch with Bjork, uh, with Blankfist?

[01:52:06] Is there anything else apart from Joe? Well, then she gets her heart flying revenge. We've talked about her a lot. Yeah, we have. Yeah. In this episode before plot. Yeah. Okay. Well then we won't talk about her anymore. We've been giving her short shrift. No, we have.

[01:52:19] You're right. Keep the pooter open. That's what Lisbeth says. She does. Gotta keep the pooter open. Um, and yes, I feel like it's right before Lisbeth meets with Blankfist is when Blankfist's daughter, um, sees the little, the numbers from Harriet's diary on his wall.

[01:52:37] And it was like Bible verses. Those are Bible verses. Yeah. Like the worst thing that's happening to him in his life is that his teenage daughter is like into God. Right. He's like, don't you know I'm an independent leftist media? Well, and also it's like, this is Sweden.

[01:52:47] We killed God in the sixties. Like, you know, Bergman et al, you know, crushed him dead. She's trad wifing before it was hit. Right. Yeah. Yes. It's the ultimate rebellion. A hundred percent. Dad, I have to go to Dimes Square. I can't stay here.

[01:53:00] But it's so, it makes so much sense because Blankfist it's like, yes, of course I have a daughter. I have an ex wife. I'm currently fucking my editor, my co-editor in chief. Her husband is cool with it. He doesn't care at all.

[01:53:12] That's not addressed in the movie, but in the books, the husband's like, yes, I understand. You must fuck Blankfist. We'll still be happily married. Like it's all good. He likes Blankfist. Yeah. He's yeah. He'll hang out with him and be like, who the fuck keeps calling?

[01:53:24] I don't know. You tell me who keeps calling you. I think I'm on every single spam list in the world. So these are all unlisted spam alerts? Yeah, it's so annoying. And I feel like my phone used to do better at filtering them. Like when now it doesn't.

[01:53:35] No, same. Um, yes, Blankfist. Uh, so yeah, of course the best rebellion against that is just like, I'm into Jesus now and right. I'm, I'm like, you know, I'm in middle of the road as they come. I don't know. Robbing wrong, but it feels so right.

[01:53:50] Is that anything? Yeah, sure. Hmm. Robbing wrong, but it feels so right with a W. Yeah, no, I figured. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. He kind of seems like a dad that puts his career before anything else. Like he doesn't seem like a good dad.

[01:54:05] I think he's a pretty bad dad. I mean, or at least like in everything in his personal life, just not a lot of effort being made. The effort goes to the Lord. And I think it's through like the grace of his Christian daughter that she likes him. Right.

[01:54:16] Where she's like, yeah, whatever, I like you. His ease of, and his charm. Right. She's like, I love my bimbo father. I think he plays really well as every scene you've had with the daughter. Yeah. Bimbo girl, dad. Yeah. Bimbo is the dad.

[01:54:33] Is the bimbo father of daughter? Yes. No, the thing I think he plays really well is every scene he has with her. It's almost like he's going like, right. I should be a better father. He's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

[01:54:43] Oh, I, this is what I should fucking prioritize. Anyway, get on the train. See you later. Yeah. Um, Nilla, per Nilla, much like per Nilla August, Star Wars. Shmi. Shmi herself. Um, that's her name is his daughter's name. Anyway.

[01:54:59] Uh, yes, she helps him realize Harriet who went missing and all he's really going on at this point is there's a weird photo where she, where she seems spooked by something in a crowd the day of her disappearance, which is very chilling.

[01:55:14] Like it's a really good, you know, sort of little clue, right? It's like what freaked her out so much. Yeah. Um, but it's yes. And then the daughter points to these Bible verses and when he brings.

[01:55:25] There's this page of her journal where she's got names of women and a bunch of numbers or initials of women. Can I just say about parades that they're before security cameras? Parades were like parade photographers, the original security cameras. Does this make sense?

[01:55:41] Or is like the only way that you were able to capture random images of a day is someone at a parade took a bunch of pictures. And not only someone, but like 12 people. So Pruder was at every fucking parade. That's what people don't realize about that.

[01:55:57] They don't get it. He was like, there's a parade. I'm there. Yeah. And 99 times out of a hundred, nothing interesting. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. And there they go. Yeah. Nobody got shot in the head. Click, click, click, click, click. He was just a freak.

[01:56:10] He was hoping people were going to get shot. Yes. It's like another normal situation. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Also, he's like, I hope I see some action. Yes. And then. Yeah. What if Clint laid in life as a Pruder? They were all rooted.

[01:56:24] They called the worst movie after him. The movie no one wants to see. It's not his fault. Right? Yeah. He just wanted to film a nice parade. He cast one of the guys from the French train to play as a Pruder.

[01:56:39] He should have kept using those guys in other movies. I'm going to play Jack Ruby. Clint, you're too, you're way too old for a Pruder. Jack Ruby got railroaded by the mob. He just keeps, there's railroads on top of railroads. There's a lot of railroads there.

[01:56:57] And then he's like, I'm going to play Jack Ruby. Did you know he was a bad dad? I don't think Jack Ruby had children. No, he was bad. He's not in Juror number two or whatever. I hope he turns out to be playing the judge or something.

[01:57:10] He didn't tell anybody. That would be good. What is it actually called? It's actually called Juror number two. Yeah. Hell yeah. I'm so excited for that fucking film. Clint's new movie. Oh, who is, who's in it? Nicholas Holt. Nicholas Holt. Toni Collette. Toni Collette. Someone else. Leslie Bibb.

[01:57:27] Okay. Oh, and I'm seeing here, oh, a tiny little person. Oh, who's this? Zoe Deutsch. Oh, she is standing on my hand. Tiny. Zoe Deutsch first. Nicholas Holt plays a guy, gets called him for jury duty. He might've done it.

[01:57:41] He realizes as he's hearing about the crime that he in fact might be. Whatever it is. I don't know what the crime is. I guess this could happen to anyone. Clint shot it in a weekend yesterday. It's coming out tomorrow or whatever.

[01:57:51] Yeah, it's one of those things, you know? I didn't know about this. He's going, he's going into production two weeks after the movie comes out in theaters, they've set a release date and he's going to start filming right after that. Everyone was so like crime macho.

[01:58:01] It's like, that's it. He's done. It felt like a real final film. Every crime macho is a movie where someone sneezes on this guy, make it blast and it gets stolen. And not only that, but like there were all these Jason Collar stories of him

[01:58:12] like being like, why are we fucking making Clint Eastwood movies? Warner Brothers is never making a Clint Eastwood movie ever again. And you were like, well, that's a picture app on Clint. And here he is. I'm still alive. I ran that fucker out of town.

[01:58:24] HBO max my ass. I got Zazlav wrapped around my finger. I railroaded him. I'm going to make a movie about how I railroaded his ass into giving me $40 million. What if Clint's the one leaking all the Zazlav slam pieces?

[01:58:40] Clint's the one who like every time the studios were like... What with the litter? Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Handwritten. What were you going to say David? Just like during negotiations, he's just calling Zazlav being like, sweat it out. You're going to win the next round. I bet.

[01:58:55] Do more interviews. Make commencement speeches. You've got him against the wall. I want Clint's final movie to be called The Railroader and it reveals that he is in fact the one railroading everyone. Changeling, he did that. 15 to 17 to Paris. He was driving the train.

[01:59:14] I'm the architect of all your pain and I'm a terrible father, a horrible husband. I'm railroading you. He should make a Biden movie. Yes. He should be like this guy's getting railroaded for being too old. He's like, the guy's a spring chicken. I got 10 years on him.

[01:59:35] Why are we railroading him? He should pivot to Biden late in life. It'd be like the most boring movie of all time. Exactly. It'd be a masterpiece. It'd be incredible. All right. Biden plays himself. Walking into rooms and sitting down and being like, okay, what's up?

[01:59:47] He would cast Biden as Biden. Right? Definitely. This guy's got it. He's one of those faces. Yeah. Well, and Biden would be like, I'll go do this for a while. Yeah, sure. What else is he doing? Yeah. It's a lunch break.

[01:59:58] We'll film the whole thing during a lunch break. Okay. So, Lisbeth, what a bizarre tangent. He should make a Lisbeth movie. Should be railroaded by Sweden. No, he wouldn't. The books are too long. He needs to finish a book before lunch. She's too on computer for him.

[02:00:16] That's also true. Yeah. He doesn't know her. Is there a computer in any Clint movie? Well, like Olivia Wilde uses a computer in like a sexist way or whatever. Right. Yeah. She like puts her boobs on the computer. She types using a pitchfork.

[02:00:30] My dick's getting hard typing an article. That's how she talks in that movie. Oh yeah, I know. It's a sensitive and nuanced portrayal of journalism. I love railroading people. She works for the railroad. That's what the newspapers call it. The Daily Railroad. Jesus Christ.

[02:00:53] You like her in Richard Duhl? Yeah, you know what? I think it works. You know, because she's so... I mean, it works in that blunt force way that those Clint movies often are where it's like, yeah, everyone's going to be a pretty defined character.

[02:01:07] That movie is 10 out of 10. I genuinely think that movie is 10 out of 10. I think it's good. Like, I think she's so over the top that it lets Ham really go sort of insidious. If I ever get drunk at a bar with Ham, who I understand does not drink.

[02:01:22] This guy's sober, please. Yes, I know. But if I ever... I'm drunk. Okay. Just be sort of naturally charming. I'd be like, literally how many times did Clint even talk to you on the set? My guess is once, right? Yeah. Like he was just like, you get it.

[02:01:35] It's rolling him out there on a dolly. My favorite scene. He's so perfect for that movie. No, no. I think the characterizations in Richard Jewell are like surprisingly nuanced considering it's late period Clint. And I love the scene where Olivia Wilde finally collects the final infinity stone,

[02:01:53] puts it on her gauntlet and uses her power to railroad Richard Jewell. Okay. So we should pick up with the movie. Yes. And we were talking about the biblical... So creepy. Yeah. And how that's connected to all of these old murders. And it's so...

[02:02:15] Like, in the book it really freaked me out. And I had seen the movie by the time I was reading the book. I don't know if you... I was really rattled at that point where he's like going through every verse of the Bible. Oh yes, yes, yes.

[02:02:27] And you're just like, right, this shit is just in the Bible. You know, like these sort of weird explicit murdery rules. You know, if a woman lays with him, then she'll do all this specific stuff to her. Bible, the original torture porn? Yeah. Yeah.

[02:02:43] Well, and I think they sort of lay out the cases of all these all in one. I guess we're sort of skipping over when they finally meet. Because he's like, I need a research assistant. Well, sure.

[02:02:54] If we want to talk about the meeting more, we obviously praise the meeting scene. Those cases, they spend way more time in the book explaining all these murders and how they're based in these Bible verses. And they're all gross and they're all scary. They're all scary.

[02:03:04] And they're all sad. And yeah, right. Whereas this gets boiled down to a slideshow... Of gruesome images. Of gruesome images where, you know, Elizabeth is like, I'm not done. You know, do you know, like this happened? This happened.

[02:03:15] Whereas in the book, they're like going to like, there's this weird murder in the bar and let's go talk to the farmer. And the farmer would be like, I found this girl with no head.

[02:03:22] I mean, the mystery is clearly the part of this story that Fincher is least interested in. Right? I think so. I think he's done seven. He's done enough of this stuff. Yeah, you're right. Right. You know, and like he says in all the materials, like it's their relationship

[02:03:37] that's what I'm most motivated by. Yeah. Like as a storyteller. The other thing Fincher said in the commentary is like, they cut entire family members out of the film. They shot him interviewing different people, going and meeting a bunch of them.

[02:03:49] You're left with a film where basically Stalinsfarsgård is introduced early on and there are no other credible suspects. And he was like, the movie was too long and it just felt like none of this is really important.

[02:04:00] He was like, the thing we reshot the most was his wall of suspects because as we removed them from the story, we'd have to reshoot the wall and never introduce them even as an idea. Yeah, there's one of the Vangers that you'll never believe it.

[02:04:12] Mikhail is sleeping with in the book. Yeah, she is in the movie. She's played by, what's it called? Geraldine James. Oh, sure. But she's barely in the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the book that's a long affair where he has to break up with her once he starts

[02:04:26] sleeping with Lisbeth and she's kind of upset about it. Then they all have dinner and it's like whatever. There's a lot of that shit. They have so much health care there that even when people break up, they can all

[02:04:34] sit at a dinner table and be like, man, it's fine. The case... The safety net is just so strong. That's it. If someone harms you, you're like, whatever. No, the case is like basically solved by the moment he hires Lisbeth or should I

[02:04:48] say, Lisbeth helps him so much so quickly. Yes. Yeah. She sort of supercharges it. Yeah. He obviously, like the piece he needs is, you know, what did she see? Yeah. And they don't realize that until the end of the move, you know, the end of the

[02:05:04] third or fourth act or whatever. They realize it at the same time in parallel, right? That she saw her brother. But separately. Yes. But they put that together now. She realizes it by looking through the archives. Right.

[02:05:14] And he realizes it by going to visit the guy who's like, I'm just gonna come out here and say it. I am a Nazi. Right. Like everyone else is sort of like, you know, they're kind of like, oh, Sweden's past is complicated.

[02:05:25] And there's that one guy who just sits in his like wall of photos and he's just like, we shouldn't bury the past. But this is such a Fincher worldview thing and it is the Skarsgård monologue and on

[02:05:35] the like commentary Fincher was just salivating where he's like, this is like my favorite kind of dramatic setup is both of these guys know what the other guy knows and they know that the other guy knows. They know that they both know.

[02:05:47] But the difference is that Skarsgård is basically weaponizing politeness against him, which is I'm banking on the fact that you think you're smarter than me, that I'm not aware that you know. And that if I ask you to do something innocuous and you say no, you're giving

[02:06:04] up the fact that you've cracked the case. So you'll come inside, you'll have the drink like when the reality is he can leave at any time. Yeah, totally. Well, I think also like the book and the film both kind of set you up to almost feel

[02:06:17] like bad for Stalin Skarsgård because Wenger is like, yeah, he's my nephew. He took over the company over me and he's not doing very good. Right. You're always like, nah, he's not doing a good job at his job.

[02:06:27] She's like, oh, this guy, you know, sort of fail son. Ask where it's like, you know, but he's charming. Presiding over this crumbling empire. He's such a throw him your bone kind of guy until he's throwing the bones. He's throwing the bones.

[02:06:41] Just to lay out what the plot of, you know, what the actual thing is, is that Harriet and her brother Martin Stalin Skarsgård were both being abused by their father who is played by Julian Sands in Flashback, right? No, Julian Sands is Christopher Plummer. Young Plummer.

[02:06:56] I forget who plays the dad, but who is an evil drunk, you know, Nazi. Nazi abuser. Yes. Harriet killed. He basically plays Kevin Spacey's dad. Go on. Sure. Harriet killed her father when he was like drunk.

[02:07:13] She like hit him in the head with an oar and he drowned. And then once, like the next summer is when she realizes like, oh, my brother's just going to take over my father's role. Sure. And I'm going to never escape this cycle of abuse.

[02:07:26] And that is when she gets out of there. Yeah. Because she didn't die. Yeah. That's the secret. She's not dead. That's what always felt so obvious to me. Sure. With the, you know, the sort of. She simply became Jolie Richardson.

[02:07:37] But that's once again, it's like in the reframing of this movie when he cuts out the other suspects and whatever, it's like she's the only other person that really makes an impact when Nyqvist, Nyqvist, excuse me, what's the character's name? Blomquist. Blomquist. Blomquist.

[02:07:53] Goes and meets with her and she has prominent billing. She's an actor you've seen before. Sure. Where you're like, she has to be important to this in some way. Certainly, yes. That she, that he goes to meet a random sibling and she's like, yeah, my

[02:08:04] sister was weird anyway, I don't have anything else for you. Right. Like you're like, yeah, this does seem odd. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't put it to me. It's a, it's a decent twist because it, you know, it's why Martin wasn't there.

[02:08:18] Like, you know, it's how the alibi functions. Yes. And it makes two things feel very profound to me. One that she's setting the, sending the flowers and the way that she interprets it as like, I'm telling, this is a sign of life.

[02:08:30] She doesn't understand that it's actually torturing him. That to me is such a great, like sort of upsetting and sad and melancholy kind of thing. And then the other, like the moment, which is so powerful in both movie

[02:08:42] and book where Blomquist is like, so you did kill Harriet and Martin is so upset to hear, he's like, no, where is she? Like, do you know? Right. And like, because like, that's why Martin has tolerated this the whole

[02:08:54] fucking time because he's like, maybe he'll actually find out. Maybe he'll actually find out what happened to my sister, which is the mystery I can't get over. Yes. Like I lost my sister who I was going to like fucking, you know, torture for the rest of my life.

[02:09:06] Julie Richardson's really good in this movie. She's a good actor. Fincher in the commentary says, uh, he doesn't even like talk around it. She clearly did not like doing a Fincher amount of takes. Sure. And her attitude of just like, please leave.

[02:09:20] I don't want to answer more of these questions. He was like, I genuinely think she was just pretty fed up. She sent in like a tape for the audition. I loved it. I cast her, you know, but I didn't audition her in person.

[02:09:30] And then she came in and was just very quickly fed up with my whole process, which I think lends something. She'd also done seven years at Nip Tuck. I mean, everyone was kind of fed up at that point.

[02:09:40] Um, but he said the final scene where she is reunited with Christopher Plummer, right, he said like, look, I'm just, I want, I know you don't like doing a ton of takes, so I'm just going to load in your head.

[02:09:52] This is the number one thing I want you to think about when you play the scene. And the other part was that like, uh, uh, Plummer is so vulnerable there. He breaks down so quickly, right? She's going to start crying when she sees Plummer, the actor crying. Right.

[02:10:04] And he's like, the thing you need to keep in your mind before the waterworks start is you walk in, you see him. He looks really bad. You have not seen this guy in decades.

[02:10:16] And it's like alarming how much older he is, but also what a frail state he's in. And then I want you to process that the reason he looks so bad and he's gotten

[02:10:25] so sick and is in such a frail state is largely because this thing has driven him crazy. Right. What you thought, as you said, like sending him the flowers will help... The splinter in his mind. Relieve him. Yes.

[02:10:35] To some degree there's an amount of guilt you're holding of, I didn't quite understand the effect I was having. Right. Yeah. Which is very profound. You should have sent a post-it that's like, I'm good. I'm good.

[02:10:45] Um, and so all of that is so, but yeah, I'm trying to, well, I guess the other thing that's going on during this investigation. Yes. Is that Blomquist and Zolander? They kiss? They kiss. They, they sex. They have sex. Yeah. Well, first they're friends. First they are, or...

[02:11:03] They're, they're sort of frenemies to lovers. It's like, but like their introduction scene obviously is like he's barging into her house and he's like, you afforded me no right to privacy when you like shuffled through my life.

[02:11:15] So I'm just barging into your house after you like hooked up with some rando. And I'm like, you know, get on the case. And obviously she's like resistant to it, but I think his directness with her is so

[02:11:25] different to everyone else when they see Elizabeth, they're like, she's scary. I don't even want to look at her. Right. And he actually like meets her head on, which I think is why she's... He engages with her like... Well and he brings her breakfast.

[02:11:35] He's like, you should, you should have some breakfast. He brings her what I believe are filled bagels, which they're always talking about in the books and I'm always like, give me a fucking filled bagel. Yeah. Right?

[02:11:44] Uh, no, he like, he like basically courts her like you win favor with a cat. Uh, yes. Right. Good call. Right? Yeah. And there's just like a sensitivity and thoughtfulness to how he is engaging with her and clearly understanding that she's like prickly and distrusting of

[02:12:01] people that immediately registers for her as like, oh, I can trust him because he's actually thinking about this. He's also kind of an asshole and she's kind of an asshole. Like they're root.

[02:12:11] And I feel like I like that, the, the, the seeing like him just barge in and not really be polite in any way. She's like, yeah, like never polite to anyone barely acknowledges anyone. None of the nice.

[02:12:26] Well, but, but, but incredibly, incredibly smart character detail is when he barges in, she's just had a one night stand with this one, she meets at the club, right? And she goes into the bedroom and says like, do you need to stay here?

[02:12:43] You can stay here as long as you want. Right. Right. Basically like messages to her. I will kick him out if you need to stay in this space, which it's not like you're in danger, but it speaks more to she is never protected in her life.

[02:12:59] So she immediately has the consideration of like, what are your emotional wants right now? Do you want to stay in bed with me for another six hours cuddly? Or do you want to like get out of here and go to work? You know? Yeah.

[02:13:11] I just think that's like a really, really fun detail. Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, she's always doing that in the books too. She's always like to her random friends, like you want to live in my apartment? Like, you know, I'm getting out of here for a while.

[02:13:21] Mimi is like her sort of friend slash on and get off again girlfriend who after she gets her boobs done, Mimi's like, I love your new boobs. She said lesbianly or something. It's so crazy.

[02:13:31] The sex scene with them is like, so like, because I'm a lesbian, I love your new boobs. It's like, this is so fucking stupid. RIP Stieg Larsson. RIP. I'm sorry about what happened to you.

[02:13:42] David weirdly implied that you were like out of shape and maybe he doesn't know what he's talking about. I think he smoked a lot of cigarettes. That's my impression of him. You're doubling down on this in a weird way.

[02:13:49] Yeah, he's drinking and smoking like a good old fashioned Swedish journalist. No, I have no idea. They get together. They have a weird yin yang kind of thing as researchers, right? Like, you know, they compliment each other perfectly. Yeah. She's good at computer.

[02:14:08] He's good at like bothering people. She has photographic memory. Right. She can remember everything in the book. That's a very profound moment where he asks her that and she gets really upset. Yeah, I hate that moment. And I also don't really understand it.

[02:14:20] In the book, it's like her secret shame that she has a photographic memory. And this, it's more like, yeah, that's her superpower. Yeah. She keeps, well, sometimes we'll like dip away from him and start crying and he's like, what's up? And she's like, I'm weird, aren't I?

[02:14:32] And it's like, we don't, we don't need this. He's just like, oh, cool. Right. I mean, obviously the true reason she's interested in Blomquist is that he accepts her at face value and it's not judgmental at all. Yeah. Because that's his personality. Yes. Right.

[02:14:48] But the vibes of just like drink tea, have sweater, go on computer during this kind of like third, you know, it just great. Impeccable. Yeah. My friend Aubrey always says, so sexy to have a project. That is Aubrey's Letterboxd Review, which I have favored it.

[02:15:04] I was looking at all my favorite Letterboxd Reviews. So sexy to have a project. It's so true. Yep. And, uh, you know, Nick Minnick said I want Daniel Craig to be my small cold boyfriend. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, yes, I love, I love all of this.

[02:15:16] Well, it's, it's a, uh, uh, e-girl hacker ghost girlfriend, disgraced cold journalist boyfriend. Couple goals, right? Um, This is sort of my household, but gender swapped. Yes. Right. You're, you're, you're, you're, your partner is goth. We were saying this. Goth adjacent. Yes.

[02:15:36] It's sort of, it's more gothy and you're more, but in your more And I'm like glasses and a sweater also on computer, but different way. They're also, they're trying to, one of us on PC, one on Mac, you know,

[02:15:45] they're all conspiring to run you off a friend magazine. There's been a coup brewing for a long time. Yeah. Um, uh, They're railroading me. ...on a computer right now. Fincher said basically, Right magazine. Sorry, what? Fincher said the scene where they sleep together for the first time.

[02:16:00] After he gets shot. Right. He gets shot or he doesn't get shot, but he, he gets grazed. He gets grazed. Yes. And he's like kind of freaking out. And she nurses him in this very sexy way with the, uh, with the Swedish vodka. Yes. And the dental floss.

[02:16:12] Mm-hmm. Oh, movies love when a girl is stitching up a hot guy. I mean, I love. I love. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. Fincher said basically she has sex with him the first time to calm him down. Yes. Right. There's something very pragmatic about it.

[02:16:26] That she's like pants off. Right. Yeah. Right. And then I got, I'm trying to remember what moment it is, but he's like the moment where they actually achieve intimacy is not when they have sex. I mean, there's that really great moment after they've solved the murder where

[02:16:38] they're in bed. That's like, put your hand up my shirt again or whatever. Well, that's later. He's like, that's when she's really fallen for him. Yeah. So she's admitting that she like wants his presence. Right.

[02:16:49] But you know, it's yes, it's the, it's the morning after the comfort of their conversation where she's like, oh, I might be catching feelings. Well, um, and then it's much later, but when she asked him for the money. Right. And he's like, I don't have it.

[02:17:03] And she's like, I know the exact amount in your bank account, five trillion Cronan or whatever. Sure. And then he doesn't question it. Which is only like a hundred dollars. Right. He doesn't question it. And he's like, yeah, sure. Just pay me back. And she's like, seriously?

[02:17:14] He's like, yeah, do you want a coffee? He's like, that's the moment she's ruined basically emotionally, which sets up the ending of the film. I think what makes it so devastating is that she's like, no one has ever trusted her that much in her life.

[02:17:25] No, no one has. Buznicz is the closest or whatever. And he is still, that character's clearly still kind of afraid of Lisbon. Right. Like he wants her to feel like he has that line where he's like, look, she's had a hard life.

[02:17:37] Like you don't need to make it harder. But he doesn't think of her as a human. He still thinks of her as like a wounded pet. But he doesn't question her at all. Whereas Bongfist is right.

[02:17:44] And that to her means more in terms of a sense of intimacy than anything she's experienced before in her life. But she doesn't get the different levels they're on of how they're seeing each other.

[02:17:54] And it's why when Craig, you know, when Bongfist gets kid captured by Skarsgård and put into murder basement that she's like, yes, it's in parallel that she's realized. But like they just at that point they are like symbiotic. Yes.

[02:18:12] And like she knows how to get him and she knows what's going on. You know, like they, she just like, you're not really in doubt. And she's not like damsel in distress. He's damsel. He fucking walks in with a golf club. He is damsel in hell.

[02:18:23] The may I kill him thing is all about like here he is. He's this like ultimate male ally, right? He is the one guy who sort of doesn't objectify her or other her. And he like fights for the rights of women who have been abused and murdered.

[02:18:39] He's trying to break open these cases. He's trying to expose this sort of abuse. He's in the pussy hat. Right. And it's like until the moment that fucking Skarsgård ties him up, he has never actually experienced basically. No. Sure. Yeah. Right. Not that we know.

[02:18:54] And so from the moment she lets him down, he's like, I've now actually lived through some version for a sliver of the other side of this, which is basically her saying, may I kill him? Do you get it now? Right.

[02:19:06] Do you get that this like the existential threat I feel at all times versus just the idea of rallying for a sense of justice in the world? Now in the books, there is this backstory from Mikael that he solved a crime when he was a teenager. Yeah.

[02:19:23] And his last name is Blomqvist. And as we know. And so all the characters call him Kalle Blomqvist, which is the name of essentially Sweden's encyclopedia Brown. Like a very famous Swedish character that is like a young detective. So right. Yeah. Yeah. So like Larsson named the character.

[02:19:41] It's a joke. Okay. And Lisbeth is always calling him Kalle fucking Blomqvist. Like that's her like joke about him and he accepts it from her. We know, so we know a little bit more about him as this like kind of like try

[02:19:54] hard throughout his life in the books, in the movies. Someone calls him that one time in the movies in a way that's weird. It's like an arcane reference for any American. Like I had no idea what it was. I was almost surprised to see it in there.

[02:20:06] It might be Skarsgård at the end calls him that for like a second and they don't get into it. But I was almost surprised at that point to even hear reference to it. It's like if his name was like Sherlock Johnson and everyone called him Sherlock

[02:20:18] Holmes facetious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's what it is. Exactly. And he hates it. Yeah. And like, so yes, I think there's this chip on his shoulder in the books of like I want to be like a real, you know, detective. I guess.

[02:20:31] Not a little boy, middle grade fiction detective. Okay. Um, but we should talk, I mean, look, yeah, I agree that Fincher cares the least about the murders in this, but when he's doing a murder basement scene with like, you're just like, there's no one better at this.

[02:20:47] Like I'm making this so intense. Go on. The real to real. That detail of the high end stereo systems. There's just something so chilling about that in general with just murderers of having a high end stereo system and the choice of song remind me what it is.

[02:21:07] He has upgraded his high end stereo system in decades. No, I think it's, I think it's actually, he's such a purist. An audiophile. Yeah. That he wants like this analog, really like high quality format. And the implication, he plays this to like drown out the screams.

[02:21:25] This is the thought I have. He hates killing. Right. And he wants to hear a song he likes. This is his serenity. It was Daniel Craig who famously suggested Orinoco Flow. It's just funny to imagine him like, you know, he's in the harness.

[02:21:36] He's like, what about Sail Away, Sail Away? And they're like, why are you talking about Orinoco Flow? It was, no, it was when they were in rehearsal. I think you're right. Yes. Yeah. And he says, they're like, what should the music be?

[02:21:49] I don't think it was on set. I think it was like tableware rehearsal. But it was like Zalian and Fincher and Craig. And they were like, what should be on the real to real? And Craig just goes like, Onoriko Flow! Um.

[02:22:02] And runs out of the room and they were like, did he just. He pulled it up on his iPod apparently. He runs out to grab his iPod. But Fincher and Zalian turn to each other and they're like, did he just have a stroke?

[02:22:10] What the fuck is Onoriko Flow? Like he just blurted out this thing and then came back with the iPod and played it. And Fincher was like, I thought that was called Sail Away, Sail Away.

[02:22:19] Fincher's other quote is this guy's going to make Blancas as Metro as we need, which is funny. Wow, Metro. 2010 baby. I know. Um. I wonder if anyone is still actively. I'm Metro. I'm very Metro. I'm very Metro. What is it again?

[02:22:32] You wear a suit but in, and you get a pedicure. But you're straight. Straight but brush hair. It's like H&M. Yeah. Straight but take showers. At some point, the bar for metrosexual became so low. Um.

[02:22:49] Scars, you know, just the shot of scars guard, like get in there. Yeah. Gas comes on what scars scars because already got the mask mask on and then just like, yeah, the practice kind of like, all right, you know, here we are in the

[02:23:04] harness and he's like, ask me some questions. Come on. You're a journalist. Let me monologue. And Craig's like, and he's like, why did I kill the girls? Well, let me tell you, you know, like he doesn't even. Daniel Craig is so.

[02:23:14] Yeah, I had a girl down here during dinner. He's so good at being tortured. He is. Right. I mean, like the casino Royale scene is like Hall of Fame playing being tortured and this he plays so well. I love the shot from his POV with the plastic bag.

[02:23:29] Oh, it's so scary. So cool. It's really cool. How they do that? I don't know. Put bag over camera. Hold vacuum cleaner underneath bag.

[02:23:41] David, when you said like it's the parties that he's interested in, but the second you get down to the murder basement, like David Fincher getting to film in a murder basement is like giving a basketball to Michael Jordan. Vincent and Ali being like and Gene Kelly.

[02:23:54] I now just let you dance. 100 percent. Like there's this one crazy camera move that like I'm obsessed. I need to rewatch the whole sequence live and just do a commentary. This is like become a comfort food movie for you. Has it not? Yeah.

[02:24:06] You watch it all the time. I just love the feelings like that is what I love about it. I love the aesthetic, obviously, of like cold murder. You know, I do like that. I know why that's broadly appealing. You hate hot murder.

[02:24:19] I hate no, I do hate hot murder. Yes, I want cold, cold case, cold murder, cold climate. But I know just the feelings of the two of them, like their eyes like throughout the movie. Just right. That's what I love. You're positive on this movie.

[02:24:33] I like it more every time I rewatch it, which I think is true for a lot of people. It puts me in a bad mood generally. It's the feel bad movie of Christmas. Yeah, and it does make me feel bad.

[02:24:43] And I'm sick of people being like, well, feeling bad is actually sort of the new feeling good. It's like, no, no, no. Who says that to you? Pinhead? Yeah, Pinhead says that to me. No, I think it just, you know, it's scary. Yeah, no, it's intense.

[02:24:59] It ends on such a note that makes me feel like actually sad. That's why I love it. I think it's what it's amazing, but it's never going to be like, oh, I'll just put this on. Right.

[02:25:08] You know, maybe if you make a Tumblr supercut of just hey, hey. It's all the sadder because they don't make the sequels. It is. I mean, in the sequels, the idea of them being romantic is dispensed with, I will say. Like they are no longer.

[02:25:24] They're like pissed at each other. They're pissed at each other for so much of the sequels. They do finally reunite and they do succeed. I'm just saying. But they're never, the romance is gone. I kind of love that it's just her riding off on the motorcycle.

[02:25:34] This being the final shot and him never making the sequels, you're just like maybe they never talk ever again. Right. See, I thought of you with the thing of like when food is left uneaten. That fucking jacket is gorgeous. It looks incredible. The woman can shop.

[02:25:49] I mean, God. It looks incredible. It's a custom made leather jacket. And the fact that it's wasted. Yeah. It's so. It sucks. It's so disheartening. It upsets me extremely. Yeah, me too. Ben wanted to like Sherlock Jr.

[02:26:01] into his TV screen to pull the jacket out of the dumpster. So look, I mean, we need to start battling towards the ending here. But Lisbeth, golf clubs, Stellan, you know, he drives off. She chases him. He explodes. Right.

[02:26:18] So you don't even get the sort of catharsis of. And then you're like, well, great movie over. Right. And he's like bonus act. 31 minutes. Yeah. They have to figure out, of course, what did happen to Harriet because like

[02:26:29] Blancas correctly is like he definitely didn't kill her from his reaction. And yes, Jolie Richardson is in fact Harriet. We learn all of this and then they reunite. That scene is quite powerful. Agreed. Plumber nailing it. But then the other thing, the what's his name?

[02:26:44] The guy who sued Blancas. Wennerstrom. The ostensible payment was, of course, I'll let you bring down your enemy. And then he gives him a bunch of bullshit and Blancas is mad. And Lisbeth is just like, I can just use computer.

[02:26:58] Well, early on in the film, right after she's finished the background check on him, she goes to her like one hacker friend to get a thing and she sort of like in the first 15 minutes breaks into Wennerstrom's place and like hacks a thing there.

[02:27:10] So she's already like laid the groundwork to figure out what's going on there because she, like Venger, knows that he was set up. That's basically her way of saying I love you. Yeah. Right. 100%. I do crime for you. I put on a wig.

[02:27:24] She gets, you know, steals all his fake money. Yeah. In which in the movie, in the sequels, then she's like fabulously wealthy because she stole all this money. Like she buys a really cool apartment. There's a lot about her cool apartment.

[02:27:35] Fincher said kind of purposefully her, her persona, this disguise she puts together kind of looks like Robin Wright drag. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Like she's so uncomfortable playing this role, but also to a certain degree

[02:27:49] she's living in the skin of the kind of woman that Craig is always going to default to. It's sort of camp. It's like funny. It is camp. And she wore this at the Met Gala. Mm-hmm.

[02:27:58] I mean, I think what's just crucial is like you say, when she's doing all of this, she's now extending herself beyond her usual cocoon out of love for Blongfist and he doesn't do anything wrong. He doesn't do anything.

[02:28:16] I mean, he uses a, he obviously uses the evidence, but it's just a little oblivious. Exactly. He's bimbo forever. And so when she sees him back with Robin Wright, cause she's now short up millennium magazine, things are going to be fine. They didn't DTR. They never, he guess.

[02:28:32] They never DTR. Mikhail and Elizabeth never sat down and were like, so we boyfriend and girlfriend? And she just sees him being intimate with him. And I think it's beyond the fact that like, oh, he's, he will still sleep with her.

[02:28:42] It's like, she's just like, no, he's in society and I can never be in society. That's his home base. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Beauty and the Beast vibes. Yeah. Which there's this scene. And then just for Fincher to be like trash motorcycle off and Fincher's like roll credits. Sure.

[02:28:57] Get out of here. There's the scene where she goes to the archives and there's the older woman who sort of doesn't want to let her take a look at the files. Yes. And Fincher was like, that was really important to me because like.

[02:29:08] She's so disgusted by Elizabeth's very being. Right. He was like, look, a lot of this movie is obviously about misogyny, but also like bureaucracy is against Lisbeth Salander. A hundred percent. Like society is against Lisbeth Salander. Which is what the sequels are very much about. Right.

[02:29:22] Like, like she is the most unsympathetic victim of all time. The violence is perpetuated by men, but also no one is accepting her other really than Blomkist. Um, yeah. Which, which that, that's the thing that really hurts her. Yeah.

[02:29:38] And that like, uh, Craig's always just going to basically default back to Robin Wright. She's the one that he kind of can't get over. Yeah. Yeah. If they'd done the sequel, she gets a lot of cool stuff to do.

[02:29:49] But then even the Swedish movies cut that stuff out probably just to search for something to cut out. But she has this whole cool subplot. So she's a fun character. She's a great character. Yeah. We were talking about the social network episode last week.

[02:30:01] Uh, the sort of interesting, thorny, dramatic tension in the authorship of that movie of you feeling like Sorkin and Fincher, uh, alternately, uh, admire and, uh, are disgusted by different aspects of Zuckerberg as an idea. Right. Yeah. They both respect and abhor different aspects of him.

[02:30:26] I feel like Lisbeth is everything that Fincher likes about Zuckerberg minus the things he hates about him. Right. That, that the sort of like someone who embraces technology is a thoroughly modern person who like pisses on the walls of society, you know, and is like

[02:30:40] actually oppressed by society and is victimized by society and retains a sense of like, I need to do what's right for the right people versus feeling oppressed, having this sort of self-pitying attitude and like using the power vindictively. Right. Yeah. Right. Right.

[02:30:59] This is like the distillation of everything that he does respect about Zuckerberg minus the sociopathy. Yeah. That's my take. And Daniel Craig is doing the Andrew Garfield thing of being a cutie little sweetie. I think it's a great take. I just want to tell you something. Please.

[02:31:14] Warner Brothers is going to release a 4K of the future. What do you think? I saw that Steelbook. Chicago. That's old news. That was last night. You weren't... Chicago. Fucking r slash Steelbooks was all over. I wasn't right. I wasn't surfing r slash Steelbooks at 10 PM.

[02:31:27] I'm sorry, you don't have notifications on? So. It looks great. I hope it's a good transfer. Uh, me too. Um, this one was on me for five. Uh, Tim Miller's, uh, opening credit sequence. I do think very cool. Yes.

[02:31:41] Uh, sort of like, and, and, oh, and Trent Reznor. I care knows. I read the show. Immigrant song. But, but, uh, Reznor and Atticus Ross's, Ross's score. I listened to more than the social network score. I love this so much. Wow.

[02:31:55] It is funny though that Reznor there's this quote from him in the, in the, uh, um, dossier where he's like, you know, social network, like that came out of nowhere in my life. I didn't really understand anything about, you know, like that's not a world that

[02:32:10] I'm in and going into this, you know, it was a little more like, ah, serial killers and anal rape. Uh, I guess I know what that sounds like. You know, that's more nine inch nails territory. John Williams in 79 cracking his knuckles to do the Superman score.

[02:32:23] And then the quote just says Reznor pauses. Let me rephrase that. The dark tone felt more familiar. Yeah. Well, it's a good adjustment, Trent. Um, but I know it's, I really recommend this score is like moody writing music. It's really good. I just like all their scores. Yeah.

[02:32:39] They did for the. Their challenger score. I feel like I keep chowing it out, which is just like pulsing dance music. Yeah. Well that movie won't come out for another 15 years. They did the Manx score, right? Yeah. We did the Manx score. I love it.

[02:32:50] It's a really, really good score and they recorded it in COVID instrument by instrument, like over zoom. It's like one of the most crazy things. I should rewatch that. Their only Oscar is social network or did they win a second?

[02:33:03] Didn't they win a, um, I thought they won for Manx. No. So they went for, they went for soul. I was going to say soul is an incredibly good score. Wasn't soul up against Manx? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is. They beat themselves. Yeah.

[02:33:15] He has the weird at the Soderbergh Oscars, but they did win for soul. Choo choo. Yeah, they did. Yeah. The soul score is amazing. It's really nice. Yeah. Yeah. Cause the Oscars were in a train station that year. Uh, Ninja Turtles score. That was a surprising one.

[02:33:26] Really good score. Yeah. Um, they work a lot now. Look, I mean, who knew Trent Reznor would become just a good Hollywood composer after 25 years? His fucking Watchmen work is unbelievable. That's a fucking contract I listen to all the time. HBO award? Yeah. Okay.

[02:33:42] I have to go see Saw in like 10 minutes. So we've been recording for almost three hours. Saw 10 minutes from now? Exactly. So I have to see Saw in X minutes. This film came out Christmas. Feel bad movie. 2011. We talked about this.

[02:33:54] We've done this box office game three times. Okay. So I, two of the previous times we've done it are War Horse and Tin Tin both getting released. That is correct. The same week. Right. Number five and number seven. Okay.

[02:34:05] So I'm trying to think what the third time we would have done this is. The sandwich in between them at number six. Give me a genre. Oh, well, let's hear the genre. This is comedy. How do you know? Family comedy. Nope. Family comedy. That's 2010.

[02:34:21] What were you going to guess Fran? Oh, I just know. I feel like I know one of the other movies in the top. Sure. But I'll wait. No, no. This one's not in the top five. So Fran, take your shot.

[02:34:30] Well, I just know the same day that I saw this movie in theaters, I saw Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. That is number one at the box office. And that came out the week before. And we've done that on Patreon. So we've done that as well.

[02:34:41] We did it on Patreon and main feed my friend. So four times. No, but that came out the week before. So we did that. That's the week before Ghost Protocol. Two weeks in a row. I'm sorry. Yes. Right. Because it had the weird IMAX. Exactly. Right. Okay.

[02:34:56] But so Ghost Protocol is number one, expanding to wide. Okay. Number two is Dragon Tattoo. No. Is a sequel that we literally just mentioned. You thought it came out on a different year. I thought it came out in different. This is why I knew it came out 2011. Fuck.

[02:35:13] Is it Sherlock Holmes? Sherlock Holmes. Game of Shadows. Game of Shadows. Wow. Coming out. That has also been out for two weeks. Okay. And that movie did pretty good considering it's like not really well remembered. Right? It doesn't exist yet. No, it's sort of like open.

[02:35:26] It made 186 domestic. Right. Cause the first one opened so huge and this one opened lower and people were like, I guess blooms off the rose and then it fucking held. And they're making their third one. They're making it right now. They're about to do it.

[02:35:37] They just need to finish their coffee and then they're going to go do it. Number three is Dragon Tattoo, which of course grossed a grand total of 102 domestic, not bad, but it's pretty good. But it's pretty good. Um, it did a 130 international for 232 worldwide. Costs.

[02:35:55] For a $90 million movie. It's not like the worst thing in the world, but obviously they wanted a franchise starter here. They thought it was going to be humongous. Um, but again, on the other hand, this is a two hour, 40 minute movie with

[02:36:06] like a lot of really, really intense material. It is a victim of expectations. It is worth making a sequel outside of you thinking this movie is going to make $300 million domestic and then it looking like a flop and win best picture or whatever.

[02:36:18] And like some, some movies got sequels such as number four at the box office. Is this the one? A worthy sequel. No. Okay. This was the sequel or it gets a sequel. This is the, I think third film in a franchise. What genre? Uh, family comedy animated.

[02:36:35] And this isn't the one we've covered already? No, this isn't. It's semi animated. If we covered this, it's cause you made me. It's the road show. No. No, that's the fourth one. I believe. Yes. Oh, it's the third one. Alvin and the Chipmunks. Chipwrecked.

[02:36:53] I don't care about those guys. No, I believe it's a Mike Mitchell film. That's right. It's been a control guy. Right. Yeah. No. And then you got Tintin. What's at number six opening this week. We've covered it on this podcast. Family comedy, family-ish comedy.

[02:37:05] We've invoked another film by this director on this very podcast. Clint Eastwood family comedy? No, not me. We've invoked another film by this director. We've covered this director. In full. Oh, it's We Bought a Zoo. Cha-ching. We Bought a Zoo. Haven't seen it.

[02:37:27] I feel like I know what happens. Great American movie. You would be, Fran, you might be surprised. You'd be surprised. Some of the twists and turns. You'd be surprised. You've also got War Horse. You've got New Year's Eve.

[02:37:37] You've got The Darkest Hour, but not the Winston Churchill one. It's the Chloe Griffin-Retz horror film. Yeah. Okay. And you have Jason Segel in The Muppets. Yeah. A movie I loved at the time and now think is in many ways culturally

[02:37:51] responsible for a lot of the worst trends in Hollywood. A little bit. I argue that is the original codifying of the legacy sequel. The movie is about how great the fans are. Exactly. Right. And how we have to have a scene where this happens.

[02:38:04] We have to have a scene where that happens. And it fucking played me like a fiddle when I saw it in theaters. And it's perhaps been diminished by other people running its playbook. How do you feel about Muppet?

[02:38:16] I like when they're getting all the Muppets back together and they go to the dog in the hammock and they're like, you want to come? And he's like, yeah, okay. That's such a good bit. Such a great bit.

[02:38:25] There were funny, you know, because all the others are like sort of high concepts and I was like, that guy would just get it. The first time The Muppets had been successfully funny in over 10 years. So I grant it a lot. Sure.

[02:38:35] Because like the bits are really good, but it is wild if you look at that movie, how much it feels like Force Awakens is using that as the template. No, you're totally right. Here's the fan who's obsessed with the legacy of all these characters and has

[02:38:48] to bring them all back together to remake the original thing. Well, it's also like last year I rewatched all the Muppet show when it was on Disney plus it might still be on Disney plus.

[02:38:57] And it's like, once I watched that as an adult, I was like, the Muppets movies, what is this? You know? But, but it's in that same way that Force Awakens is doing it. It's like, we're just going to reset everything back to what the show was.

[02:39:09] We're going to recreate the show. Right. And wipe away like 20 years of versions of these characters that people don't like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The Muppet show is the best. Yeah. Muppet show is the best. It's the peak of television. You got to show it to your daughter, David.

[02:39:22] I will. When she's ready. When, when is a good time? No, she's definitely not. She needs to know who all the guys are. Yeah. She's not into Diane Cannon. Yeah. That's a good way to introduce her. Yeah.

[02:39:33] There's going to have to be a lot of explaining of 80s celebrities to her, I guess. This was so much of my childhood was watching the Muppet show and being like that person's my favorite actor. And my parents being like, they died 35 years ago. There's no new.

[02:39:45] I can't believe you're this podcast Twitter account is what told me that James Reborn was dead. Reborn? Yeah. Reborn? Yeah. I genuinely didn't know. And he's been dead. Right. Like that's not news. I didn't know. He's. Well, why would I know that? Am I Googling dead?

[02:40:01] One of the best to ever do it. Are you Googling dead? Is that what you just said? Yeah. Fran, you should set Google News alerts for dead. For dead. Yeah. Just so you don't miss these. Yeah. If I thought that this movie is a bad vibe.

[02:40:13] My Google alert for dead will help. Uh, anything else on the box office worth talking about? We honestly did a good job with this one. I thought we would have to blast through it, but we would blast through and we

[02:40:22] should do a backup, but I don't think we need to. It was memory lane. We hadn't all these were. It's time for Saw. Years ago. Time for Saw. Saw one and a half. Best Sawed Off. It is almost time for Saw. Sawed off David. Vroom vroom.

[02:40:32] This one was not ready for five Oscars at one. Editing. Editing. That's going to win. Somewhat surprising win. Cause usually that goes to a best picture nom. Yes. Right. I remember once it won, you were like, well now best picture go anyway. And then it went one way.

[02:40:49] V, V, pleasure. With pleasure. Yeah. What if Sal and Skarsgard showed up in the artists though? Do you know that? Ask them all. Like what are you talking about? 400 Academy Awards. I swear that's the actual, if you look at it, they invented new categories

[02:41:04] just to give it to the artists. One of the, the, the last and worst tricks that Weinstein played on us was like, everyone loves this. And you look at the box office and you're like, it did okay. It did. Like this wasn't even a phenomenon.

[02:41:17] And he was like, no, Hollywood has fallen back in love with movies. Through the artists. You're like, it's fine. The successful selling of it as a populist people's favorite. Fuck off. Yeah. But look, so the weird thing is it won like every critics award best picture.

[02:41:31] What did New York pick that year? Playing at the festivals. I remember some Oscar handicapper being like, look, I think this movie might win as the populist favorite, but no critics award is going to go to this film. New York gave it the best picture. That is crazy.

[02:41:43] You need to take, you need to hold them accountable. How many orgs gave it to that? Look, it is quote unquote, I think it's an amazing year for film, but it is seen as a weak year. Yes.

[02:41:54] Uh, like the descendants was obviously one of the really big movies that year. Do not care. Not a big fan of that movie. Moneyball is this year. Moneyball is this year. But that's the thing. Moneyball, Dragon Tattoo, even, you know, stuff like Tinker Taylor.

[02:42:07] Hugh Hugo taken for granted, taken for granted, dismissed as commercial, like dismiss or not dismissed, but seen as like, yeah, well, you know, and then like stuff like Melancholia Tree of Life, you know, maybe just slightly too already for whatever. No.

[02:42:21] And you're Margaret like is there, but it's critical. Great American. Steam is just busy. The Dragon Tattoo arc was so fascinating of it, like coming out, underperforming a little bit at the box office. The heap before it was like, this is the last movie for people to see.

[02:42:35] Maybe this comes in and is fucking Oscar runaway, especially because Fincher is sort of overdue now post social network. What's David's look? There's some banging. Yeah, I heard banging. Really? I didn't hear the bang. What is this act four of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by David Fincher?

[02:42:49] There's some banging next door. Well, it's wrapping up. But it felt like they were like, OK, so this has no Oscar chances. Then Fincher got like the DGA nom. It got a PGA nom. It suddenly felt like, oh, is this a front runner again? Right.

[02:43:01] And then it gets actress. It gets editing. It gets sounding. It gets a handful, but only wins the one. And Rooney Marr, that's the real lasting legacy of this is I feel like this is the movie that fully stamps her as like an interesting actress. Definitely.

[02:43:18] And then has a great few years. Yeah. She'll come back. Combining in Carol. She's doing something interesting now, isn't she? Or she just did. Carol Good. Carol Good. What's Rooney doing now? She's got something interesting in the hopper. Carol 2. Carol 2. Still caroling. Back in New Jersey. Yeah.

[02:43:36] Well, she made that Lynne Ramsey movie whenever that comes out with her husband, Joaquin Phoenix. I don't know if they're married, but her partner. Yeah. That seems to be the big one. Maybe she's going to play Audrey Hepburn in a movie. Yeah. Which look, if anyone is. Sure.

[02:43:50] She's sort of going to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love her. Final thoughts. And I love Fran. I love Fran. Oh. We all love Fran. I love Fran. I love Fran. We all love Fran. My final thought is, oh, I hate when they kill the cat.

[02:44:06] We didn't mention that the cat gets chopped up. I hate that. And the fucking man. That's what I'm like, really like, I'm in a bad mood watching that. Who did that you think? Martin did that. Oh, does he confirm it?

[02:44:17] At a certain point, he's clearly trying to scare Blomqvist off. Cause he says the thing about like, you know, it's harder than shooting someone missing them, which is what I did with you, you know? Right. You know, and I think the cat is him too. Yeah.

[02:44:28] It would be funny if it was like, no, it was that weird old lady. That's what I was going to say. I think it's the old lady. Well, the swastika thing is we can't get into this, but I always feel that it's weird that it's a swastika.

[02:44:37] It feels like he's framing the super old Nazi for it. Right. He might be trying to just point it to like, yeah, you know, it's a, it's a person that died. It's Nazi Island or whatever. Yeah. That's it. Fran, you're the best.

[02:44:49] Thank you so much for having me. Fran Magazine. Yeah. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine is wonderful. It's really good. You should really subscribe to it guys. Fran is on a missive of her own work. It's not silly. It's a great time. Sometimes it is.

[02:45:02] Well, I've been doing, you know, three months of maestro blogging, but... Not enough. I know. I got to ride this out through the rest of the year. No, I have a good time on there. We have a good time reading it. And everyone should. Thank you.

[02:45:14] Thank you for gifting us with another Blockbuster episode. You're so welcome. Presumably we'll just break the charts. Hope so. Yeah. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show and

[02:45:28] letting Fran know that James Rebhorn had died. Thank you to AJ McKeon and Alex Barron for our editing, Lane Montgomery in The Great American Novel for our theme song, Joe Bowen, Pat Rounds for our artwork, JJ Birch for being our own little Lisbeth Salander and putting together

[02:45:43] the research for this episode. He know how to do computer. He gone computer. He know how to do computer. Uh, you can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon BlankCheck special features, where we are going through the Pierce

[02:45:56] Brosnan James Bond movies. Uh, also, uh, there's a free membership you can sign up for every 10 days. We unlock an episode from three years earlier and I think that's still the alien franchise that sounds about right. Who knows? We'll never know.

[02:46:12] I'm telling you, I'm pretty confident that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. 2010, 2020 normal time. But then yes. Um, very soon we will, uh, then have alien resurrection. So when we're Ben falls asleep. Good up. Great. That's a great one of our best Trump have COVID. Uh, tune next week.

[02:46:32] I'm I'm awake. All right. All right. We gotta be done. We got to be done. And as always, David, what are you ordering for lunch? Shake Shack. People are going to fucking lose their minds. Chicken sandwich or burger? Chicken sandwich.