The Secret Life of Bees with Jourdain Searles

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to express All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check My whole life has been nothing but a hole where my podcast should have been

[00:00:25] It always left me aching but I never thought about what it did to you I don't have a Dakota No, I'd be impressive if you did Is this the last... like this is sort of the end of the run of child Dakota

[00:00:41] This is unfortunately all I was thinking about for most of the time I was like man the Dakota star arc is weird This is the end of young Dakota I guess Because next year is New Moon

[00:00:56] And then the year after that is the runaways and I feel like that's when it's like she's a grown up star Right, but she becomes supporting or if she's lead it's in much smaller films

[00:01:07] But this is the end of this insane run in which like not even like Macaulay Culkin But where a small girl became like a prestige highbrow movie star It's a weird... it's a weird thing There are a lot of clear arcs to talk about here Yes there are

[00:01:29] But what were you gonna say? It's also... It's also just funny that like she was like you know one of the big kid actresses when you know in the 2000s And she's still around but her sister is the one who got famous in a way

[00:01:43] I feel really bad about that It's odd I don't know Like it's like I remember Elle playing baby Dakota in I Am Sam The movie that like launched the Dakota Fanning thing

[00:01:58] And it you know that was just a little fact it was like oh yeah and she has a little sister who looks like Like looks like her you know she played little baby her And I am a noted Elle Stan

[00:02:10] I've talked about her a lot on this podcast when she comes up Like she's a great actress it is weird how Dakota has just sort of become the secondary Fanning Yeah that's what I'm saying it's odd Just by still working I mean it's not like she backed away

[00:02:28] They were a mid-production in that there was the film what's it called? I don't know It might be called The Nightingale also but it was Melanie Laurent directing Dakota Dakota and Elle Fanning The World War II movie or is that a different yeah

[00:02:47] And it was supposed to be a big Oscar release at the end of this year And then obviously production got shut down and now they don't know when it will resume But I was excited about that movie A because I like Melanie Laurent as a director

[00:02:59] And B because I like the idea of putting both of the Fannings in there I feel like it's time for a real Dakota surge Sure Yeah I mean fine I supported I like Dakota she's she seems nice She's good at white side she was so great

[00:03:15] Once upon a time in Hollywood she's good in that like all her small appearances she's been good in She's good in the Twilight movies She's yeah she's good She is good in the Twilight movies

[00:03:25] She's a little creepy person I vaguely remember it I haven't seen her she's one of the sheen She's a Volturi She's the Volturi I just watched him in like two days ago Right it's it's Michael Sheen Dakota Fanning and the pretty boy from Sweeney Todd Jamie something

[00:03:44] Oh Jamie Campbell Bauer Yes Yeah Listen as someone who has watched the closing credits of Breaking Dawn part two many times It's one of your favorite videos Yes I love the closing credits set to what's that song I can't remember Yeah back

[00:04:03] Everyone who is in the Twilight movies A thousand years That one a thousand years song that's it We'll dig into all of this because of course this is a podcast called Blank Check it's about Filmographies

[00:04:16] Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of Blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want Which doesn't really apply with this career but kind of does sideways This is a mini series It's a play

[00:04:30] In the films of Gina Prince Bythewood Mm-hmm The main series is called Pod and Basketcast And today we're talking about is this our highest grossing film Yes I believe so The Secret Life of Bees

[00:04:47] I mean unless you count Netflix saying that you know a billion good good Gillian people watch The Old Guard Yeah I'm looking here there's a new Netflix update apparently everyone who has ever died In the spirit realm has also watched The Old Guard

[00:05:04] That's right that's right yes it has one quadrillion views Look on the record not to get ahead of ourselves I love The Old Guard I'm very happy if it's doing well it's a little bit weird that like

[00:05:19] Early in a week Netflix releases here are top 10 most watched movies of all time So put that list out and Old Guard is not on it and then two days later they're like never mind Old Guard is the most popular movie ever It's a number one

[00:05:34] Our guest today returning and sounded like she had something to say about Netflix statistics So I want to introduce her so she can dig into this From the Bad Romance podcast from Browse held high new podcast on Patreon Great film critic great friend of the show Jordanne Searls

[00:05:54] What do you want to say about Netflix's dodgy numbers I don't understand Netflix's film model I think that's all I was going to say I don't really get their numbers I don't really but I don't really understand Netflix as a brand at all

[00:06:12] But you know whatever sure they're they're hemorrhaging money I'm sure I don't know Well I look I have been a not I don't want to say Netflix truth her but I've been up a person who for the last couple of years is like

[00:06:27] Netflix is no pun intended a house of cards that might collapse within two years Like it was built upon just like increasing amounts of debt outspending everyone else in the hopes that they could outlast everyone else

[00:06:43] Just long enough like much like what happened with Amazon where Amazon like was losing money every year until Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world

[00:06:53] What a great great reality we live in sure that was the model that Netflix was chasing I think actually the pandemic has saved them

[00:07:03] I think their subscriber rate has gone up so high and now all these other streaming services launching are bombing in a way that Netflix might have been given the Hail Mary pass by our broken world

[00:07:15] Unfortunately, I've written about this too much and people who know more about the stock market have gotten in touch with me and said like Netflix was never in trouble

[00:07:23] It's the same thing as Amazon where it's like I look at it. I'm like this makes no sense they don't make money and they lose more money every year

[00:07:31] So much debt so much right people understand how much you can just sell the debt like every like everyone is just like no I mean it's the Amazon story

[00:07:40] It's just like now they know what they're doing nothing weird nothing matters. I also think your dain like Netflix made the decision because when they started out

[00:07:49] It was like wait a second are they going to be streaming HBO are they going to be like prestige there's a high level of quality They're not even their Walmart they're like Walmart. It's just everything for she yeah

[00:08:03] Which is which reminds me I tried to watch something on voodoo last night and I was just like absolutely not everything about voodoo like is offensive to me personally

[00:08:16] But I did see that they I don't know if you were aware of this but voodoo it's probably canceled now but voodoo like launched a show which means that Walmart launched a show and it was like a Mr. Mom sitcom starring Hayes MacArthur

[00:08:32] Yes, I was going to bring this up. Yes, I feel so bad for Hayes MacArthur every single time I think about it. I'm just like he's a funny guy I don't want this for him Wait is voodoo owned by Walmart. I don't think I know this

[00:08:45] Yes, voodoo is a Walmart streaming service Wow, I mean I see it Sold it off Walmart sold it to Fandango

[00:08:53] So like I feel additionally bad for Hayes MacArthur because not only are you on a Mr. Mom reboot on a streaming platform that borderline doesn't exist where no one knows there's any level of original content

[00:09:06] But also it was one of those things where Walmart was like we're gonna make a ton of shows Walmart is gonna be making shows And then they made that one show and they're like we're kind of out of the making show business

[00:09:16] But here's one show as a remnant of that and then they sold the whole platform Wow, there's so many of these platforms. It's so weird Yeah voodoo it's always being pushed on me. They're always like don't you want to check out voodoo No

[00:09:33] It's just another way to watch movies Just logging into voodoo pissed me off Their on-screen keyboard is is blue because it's Walmart But the contrast with the letters is not good and I just couldn't find the fucking letters And I was just cussing the entire time

[00:09:52] And by the time I got to it like the movie that I wanted I stole to pay money It's like I can rent this on YouTube. I didn't need to do this The the value of voodoo

[00:10:03] If I can call it that the voodoo value the v squared was this this Hack it's not even really a hack But the the sort of the value was Movies anywhere which links together your purchases from any platform to every other platform

[00:10:23] Was compatible with voodoo it still is but it seems like they're nerfing this feature a little bit in terms of limiting what you can do it with They had a thing for a while where if you scan the barcode of a movie you own

[00:10:39] You could then get it on digital for voodoo for only two dollars Sure And then you'd get it on iTunes through movies anywhere But also all it mattered was that you were scanning the barcode from your home in terms of location

[00:10:59] Your zip code but you could pull up a photo of a barcode on your computer and take a photo of that on your camera You've already lost me halfway just like describing it This does seem very hackable I mean look I made out like a bandit

[00:11:16] I got a robust voodoo library which slid over to my iTunes library But now I have no value for voodoo anymore Wow Anyway, this is that voodoo that you do our podcast about voodoo I don't think so Yes it is it's a voodoo podcast voodoo bought us David

[00:11:37] Voodoo could buy us they can make an offer I just want to hear I would put a number on it you know No this is a mini series on the films of Gina Prince by Atheid and we're talking about the secret life of bees

[00:11:50] A film that weirdly I feel like is the movie that gets forgotten about in her canon Like people forget that she made this but as we said is her her biggest film

[00:12:03] It's her highest grossing film and it's probably the one that got the biggest sort of like oscarie kind of push Like you know I had your class it was a fox searchlight movie it came out in the fall

[00:12:13] They premiered it at the Toronto Film Festival you know like based on a book a best-selling book Right because beyond the lights and Love and Basketball were not viewed as sort of serious awards-y movies Which is weird because beyond the lights is like a serious awards-y movie

[00:12:30] It is and it rules That's what it is It is the most classical Hollywood awards movie and Yeah David and I have argued about this for years I think it's just better earlier

[00:12:44] Star is Born and it was very perplexing to me to watch Beyond the Lights get roundly ignored And then five years later everyone flip out over Star is Born which I don't dislike

[00:12:54] No yeah no I totally understand I really like Beyond the Lights and I really like a Star is Born And I agree with you and I've also seen all the other versions of a Star is Born Yeah

[00:13:05] So yeah I mean it does it does fit in I don't know maybe it's I'm trying to figure out what could have gone wrong with it Because I mean all of the ingredients are there I guess just It's issue lack of stars I think was its issue

[00:13:20] I obviously Star is Born had a big star power thing Too prudent It was sold kind of it wasn't really sold well Right she hung a movie on two people who were not named stars at that point in time which is already an uphill battle

[00:13:37] And it wasn't positioned like they didn't send it to festivals No they did it was the opening night movie at Toronto yeah yeah yeah Beyond the Lights was Yeah I had no idea See I just remember it sort of just being like dropped wide release opening weekend

[00:13:53] That they didn't really push it like it was It was Relativity Relativity which was a weird little studio that was Relativity was about to go under like this is right when Relativity is spiraling and collapsing and Ryan Cappadoch

[00:14:06] So I think that was also an issue but it was a well I think in terms of it not sticking with audiences like yeah It premiered at Thanksgiving time and it didn't have big stars and even though it was well reviewed

[00:14:18] For whatever reason people just kind of ignored it which is rude because it is great and I can't wait to re-watch it I can't wait either It's actually my favorite movie from her Absolutely

[00:14:31] I think it might be mmm I'm not sure mmm I'm gonna have to re-watch I'm not sure But I'm also very weirdly not a loving basketball fan I feel like Interesting

[00:14:42] And it's a real yeah I don't know why like there are things about it that I really enjoy And Sennah Leithin is I'll watch her do anything I met her once and my my glasses were broken and it was just like it was like

[00:14:56] The fate came together to put me in this weird position where I got to meet such a beautiful woman With my glasses like literally falling off my face like I had like tape and I had like positioned the arm and the arm was coming off

[00:15:10] And anyway she was very very nice and said that she liked my name and she's very very beautiful but I don't know I broke my glasses She is very beautiful My favorite actor of all time Philip Seymour Hoffman the one time I got to meet him

[00:15:26] I was an intern in the production offices before The Devil Knows You're Dead Which that whole movie was shot on sound stages so like the actors would come into the office a lot But he's so intense and like in his bubble that he wouldn't

[00:15:41] And he came in it was like a half day where he wrapped early because Sidney LeMadd always wanted to go to the Hamptons on Fridays And he'd worked so fast that they would wrap at lunch

[00:15:52] So I was eating lunch at my desk and I was like the lowest ranking intern So I was the desk closest to the door so I could like weed out the chaff or whatever And I was eating corn on the cob So my hands were covered in butter

[00:16:08] And Philip Seymour Hoffman comes in in like sweats Like top to bottom, sweats, pants, top And he's gotten like he's wrapped for the day He's finished his acting and it looks like someone just performed an exorcism on him

[00:16:21] Like he's drenched in sweat and his like soul is out of his body Like he's just like I've given myself to my craft I'm done And he comes in and he's like doing like full Philip Seymour Hoffman like befuddled sort of thing

[00:16:34] And he goes like do you have a pen? Like I need to write something down My bad Philip Seymour Hoffman impression And I'm just holding corn on the cob like Bugs Bunny Like eating it like a typewriter Butter dripping down my face and my hands

[00:16:52] And I went yeah there's a pen right there You can just grab it for yourself And I was trying to say you don't want me to hand you a pen Because I'm a butter boy I got literal butterfingers

[00:17:03] You're sounding like you're like what am I your pen person Go to the pens over there Right and he went uh okay and like took them and then walked away And I was like wow what a terrible interaction Someday I'll get to restore

[00:17:17] I'll be able to share this as an anecdote Yeah terrible I just feel like you always meet the best people under the worst circumstances Yeah Yeah I'm not really I was actually that was like a the day that I met Senel

[00:17:32] I was doing press for God what is that movie that no one saw The new native son yeah I interviewed the whole cat And it's like a really interesting cast Full of like people that like you know if like Ashton Sanders and stuff

[00:17:46] But it was just weird doing press for a movie that no one watched And it ultimately ended up no one watched me The only thing I remember from that was the premiere of Sundance last year And it got bought by HBO for a bajillion dollars

[00:18:00] Before it we even got to see it like we were walking into the theater And we already know like HBO bought this We're like okay and then I remember this the screen lights up They show the Sundance pre-roll and then the HBO films logo plays

[00:18:16] And they had announced it that day And everyone in the room was like oh that was the biggest reaction Everyone was like how'd they get the logo in so fast It's a very very very boring recollection The other thing I remember about that movie is that spoiler alert

[00:18:32] When the insane thing happens the whole audience gasped and I was like Did no one read this book in high school? This was like a sign reading It's such a weird adaptation and also It's a very weird adaptation

[00:18:45] Everyone felt I don't know like when I was interviewing them They felt the white people were very uncomfortable When I interviewed them for that movie which I think is Which I thought was really great I was like no talk about I met Maggie Quali, Quaily

[00:19:00] I don't know what her name is but I can't Quaily, Quaily I'm not sure yeah Nick Robinson, Love Simon himself Yeah Nick Robinson did most of the talking Cause I would ask her a question and she'd just be like Nick

[00:19:11] I just didn't expect the Love Simon guy to be the one Doing most of the talking I think she didn't want to talk cause I told her that she was great in Death Note And I think she thought I was making fun of her And I wasn't

[00:19:24] Okay you want to talk about awkward celebrity encounters She's a good actress I generally like her Any time she pops up I'm like hey She's always good This is on the subject of awkward celebrity encounters This has also happened to me a lot

[00:19:39] Where I meet someone famous and I go Hey you were great in blank And they think I'm trolling them cause I have The Neil Patrick Harris story That's the one I like I met Neil Patrick Harris and I said Hey you're great in undercover brother

[00:19:51] And he gave me the iciest glare of all time And he went That one He is great in that He is That's his best performance I was like I'm telling you when He's in like He's in a Nice look down on undercover brothers I don't know

[00:20:07] He's so strong Yes He shouldn't look down on it Maybe I mean he's not in it that much So maybe he's kinda like I mean okay Yeah but I've I've thrown myself right on the Broadway stage I did magic It was great assassin

[00:20:22] You said like a million ways to die in the west No Like I feel like that would be the troll answer That would be very trolly I love you in Beasley That's what it is, MPH Paul Look I saw Beasley

[00:20:36] Okay I wasn't saying you were good in Beasley But I feel like very often people think I'm trying to think of other examples The Neil Patrick Harris one is the big one Jardane I feel like you are somewhat similar to David and I

[00:20:51] And that I will see you very often shout out A great performance in a movie That no one is even putting any thought into Right Like I feel like very often people If a movie isn't good Or especially if a movie isn't successful

[00:21:05] They just throw the whole thing away They just treat it like Well that doesn't work And I feel like we on this podcast love Being like this is a really good performance This person is getting what this movie is You should be able to extract good elements

[00:21:19] From a not wholly successful movie And I feel like successful actors very often If the movie isn't successful Treat their own work the same way Like they're like I must be bad in that Because that didn't make money Sure Yeah it's not true

[00:21:35] I mean I don't know right I guess some actors just don't rewatch their work as well Maybe so he's just like You know he maybe has never even seen Undercover Brother who knows I just love that one It's so weird That was the wording That one That one

[00:21:51] I actually just bought a DVD of Undercover Brother A used one because I was like I need to have this in my life I was thinking about it Man did it ever come out on Blu-ray Now I wonder Like do I need to get high def Undercover Brother

[00:22:05] Listen Today we're talking about The secret life of bees Now this is one of those examples Of a movie where like The book gets optioned At the galley stage Lauren Shuler Donner who's a big producer Gets sent the galleys

[00:22:21] In the way that I think a lot of big producers The big publishers will just send them Any new books they have coming out And so she reads it at that stage Before it becomes this Massive bestseller And goes wow this is a movie Buys the rights

[00:22:37] Or options them I think it takes about six years She carries it over to a couple different studios I think it starts out at Big Fox And then it goes somewhere else And then it ends up at Fox Searchlight But over that period of time

[00:22:50] The book just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger It was definitely at focus at some point Because that's when David Gordon Green Was gonna make it That was the big thing I was gonna say They went through a lot of people

[00:23:00] But David Gordon Green was the big one for a while And that's when they announced like Dakota Fanning is gonna do it She's a little young for the character as written But what a weird phenomenon That we have this major prestige movie star Who is nine years old

[00:23:14] We have to rewrite this around her And David Gordon Green I guess they mostly were hiring Because they're like this guy made undertoe In George Washington Yeah because he's the guy who makes your sensitive Malikian you know Southern Yeah he's a southern guy Child based dramas

[00:23:32] I love David Gordon Green's early work And his later work is very confusing to me He really weirds me out Because I remember I loved his like all the real girls I loved all the real girls I adore that movie I haven't seen it in years

[00:23:46] I almost like should I revisit That early trilogy I think is perfect George Washington all the real girls undertoe I love I never saw Snow Angels I know that kind of like didn't go over Snow Angels is yeah it's like meh

[00:24:02] And then he had his real like sort of You know What's his, Danny McBride's sort of Stoner-y comedy run Right And then he was doing stuff like our brand Is Crisis where I was like is he just like a For hire guy now? Like I don't get it

[00:24:18] And then Stronger was a movie that I like Loved and I was like Even though it was kind of ignored And it was like a you know feel good Oscar-y real life movie I was like oh this is so well directed And like I'm so happy

[00:24:32] Like that he's making and then he Crabbed in Halloween land so I don't know what's up with that But that's yeah I don't like him doing Halloween I don't either I mean I've had no Desire to revisit that movie

[00:24:46] Like I you know I saw it with a cheering audience It was fine like but Yeah I don't really know Yeah I stood in line for it I was at the festival I actually sat next To Elijah Wood to see the movie And that was that's the experience

[00:25:00] That I think we missed Did he did Elijah enjoying at least Oh wait was it no okay wait no I saw us with Elijah Wood Who did I see? I don't know I think I ran into someone else for Halloween But no, Elijah Wood seems to like

[00:25:14] Just be like a chill guy He's like a chill guy who likes horror movies and stuff Yeah he just wants to go to the movies He likes a genre film I bet if you told Elijah Wood I loved you in Flipper He would say thank you

[00:25:28] He wouldn't be like that one No Well Elijah Wood's just not like I don't know I feel like he doesn't take his career Like as seriously as other actors do Like he picks roles Because he wants to have fun and you can tell Yes and he also produces

[00:25:44] So many horror movies It's very clear that he likes Movies like he is not Picking the path of The obvious career for Someone who starred in one of the biggest franchises of all time He's picking the path of I want to use that power

[00:26:00] To just carve out my little Corner of the film universe doing the stuff I like to do Watching him watch us was so cool I've never seen because I see movies with press a lot It's like they're not paying attention Meanwhile Elijah Wood is just

[00:26:14] Leamed in and just like paying Direct attention and I just love that I love when people actually pay attention to the movie You know what movie is Already more relevant than when it came out 18 months ago Us I like once a month think about

[00:26:30] Us is aging really well Us is doing great Us is killing it Movie I do think it's interesting because After those first three The Southern Gothic sort of like Maliki and Inner life of Children David Gordon Green movies I was like man this guy

[00:26:54] This is going to be the dude who has The career like he's got A really clear style but these Three movies are kind of different genres And then he becomes somewhat Anonymous and there's even The weird thing of like within his Comedy run

[00:27:10] Pineapple Express for all of its Faults feels like it's made by a very Specific director the sitter does Not in the same way that Like even though stronger Is very different from his early films It feels like it's made by a very Specific director and our brand is

[00:27:26] Crisis does not and I remember At the time like my exposure To secret life of bees for the first Time as a book was Hearing that David Gordon Green was Going to make it and being such a big Fan of his and being like oh I'm excited

[00:27:40] For a new David Gordon Green movie And you think back to like At that point in time reading about This book you had a very clear Image in your head of what that movie And at this point if you hear David Gordon Green is going to make this

[00:27:54] You have no idea what that could be I never saw this movie I for a long time Thought it was a spelling bee Movie because there was that spate Of spelling bee movies and the key In the key in the bee and I was like

[00:28:08] This must be another spelling bee movie And then I saw the poster and it was a Honeycomb and I'm like well okay I assume It's actual bees then I've seen this Movie before so this Is my second time watching it I don't this is like

[00:28:22] This is the kind of movie that I kind of hate The most so I almost Feel like I don't really come to it With the kind of like why not It's like I'll watch a movie That's just like about like I watched

[00:28:34] Franken Hooker and I'll just be like I'm watching Franken Hooker my mind My mind is open I want to know What's going to happen whereas like Secret life of bees my mind is like This and then it just keeps on closing As I get angrier

[00:28:48] I am with you entirely And I am such a big Gina fan I had put off watching this movie for so long For that very reason I'm like This is not my type of Movie this is in like the collection Of sub genres that I'm

[00:29:02] Least inclined to like Right I mean and I love southern movies Like the thing about southern movies Is about racism like I did those And I actually think that like if David Gordon Green had made it and if the Character it might have been a little

[00:29:16] Darker yeah and I just I probably would have preferred That version of the movie Just because the kind Of stuff that they're working with The kind of themes I just Feel like they could have Been opened up a little Bit more and I also think about the way

[00:29:34] That David Gordon Green like one of my Favorite David Gordon Green movies is Joe And so I think about Like Paul Betany character what would that look like In a David Gordon Green movie and I feel Like it'd be closer to Joe Yes yeah Yeah the

[00:29:52] The element that Gina feels least connected to Here is is the south of It all which was obviously David Gordon Green's strong suit at this Point right right She's of course they're California But like it's also she just Has in all her movies like she

[00:30:10] Has so much sympathy for her characters And that Is a quality Like in her filmmaking like I hate to call I didn't Hate this movie at all like it's it was No I don't just like it but it is It's fighting against my

[00:30:26] Expectations of this type of movie But I hate to use this word because It's a pretty broad and Uninteresting word but like this movie Is a little boring yeah And that's not It shouldn't be like it's not The books I'm sure you know Whatever like a gentle

[00:30:44] Reading its own way but like this is not about Boring things and it doesn't have boring Events like and yet there is just There's something a little like The tone never just You know spikes in either direction And those are the southern movies

[00:30:58] That I hate the most like I prefer Like as a person from the south Like there's a lot of complicated Stuff I hate it when it's depicted Like a little bit too cartoony but I also Hate when it's a little too soft

[00:31:10] As well and so it's just like When we're like dealing with all of these Different things like racism And stuff I hate it like if it can be played In history class it probably Means that the depiction of racism is Not that great Yes yes I agree

[00:31:28] That's what makes this fall into the category Of like movies I'm not that into The movies that are sort of like Closed on racism wasn't that bad Like one it's like the lesson Being learned is Yeah right it's not an Interesting lesson I guess

[00:31:44] Although I also was sort of struggling to I guess what she's learning is that her mom Was a complicated person as well Right is that the personal lessons Heavy on the mother themes I got Yeah I just I can see like Gina who wrote the movie

[00:31:58] Right like so like and she's The only credited writer so She's being brought on early enough That she is I was digging into a lot of the Special features on the Blu-ray It sounds to me like She was maybe brought on as a writer When they were struggling

[00:32:16] To crack this story David Gordon Green never figured it out The book doesn't seem to have much Of sort of like a driving plot And so they kept on taking different stabs At it no one could figure it out They bring her on as a writer

[00:32:30] And they let her crack so they let her direct it But I think they viewed it as like Finally someone has a handle on this And the two elements for me that It feels like she's connecting to here are One The thing that is like

[00:32:44] You know she's so focused on These small moments of human Interaction and connection Between people I think The backdrop of this movie And the larger sort of stakes at play Are less intriguing to her Than this idea of this haven In which these five women are living together

[00:33:02] Like that seems to be the thing she's interested in And that's when this movie works the best Is when it's just the dynamics At play, the smaller sort of moments Yeah, it's like a portrayal Of womanhood and community Right that's not

[00:33:16] A lot of the tropes you would see In a movie about southern racism There's the other angle that It feels like she's very connected to Which is I think I read this In Bill Gah's been writing so much good stuff About her with Old Guard coming out

[00:33:30] Because he's a big genus Stan And he wrote like a long form piece And did an interview with her in a review and everything The quiet storm I think his main piece is called But she was The byproduct She was adopted, she grew up

[00:33:44] With white parents in Southern California But her biological mother Was white And she was given up For adoption I want to say it was In the south And she knew Her mother knew that She would be reviled in her community For giving birth to a black child

[00:34:06] Correct, yes, she said there was not A good experience Her reconnecting with her So her mother gave up for adoption as sort of Like a defense mechanism against violence In her own life And it took her a very long time to find her mother

[00:34:20] When she found her she had a hard time connecting When she doesn't really have a relationship with her So that feels like the big In for her is this idea of Like this Sure, you have this character trying to figure out Her own mother who's this absent

[00:34:34] Mysterious figure The mother must be the turnkey to me understanding myself That story for me like makes me think more about Beyond the lights Well, that's a very good Movie about mothers and daughters Right, so that's the movie That she writes that feels like

[00:34:50] It's far more representative of her own Relationship But I think that's the thing that she connected to Is the idea of being a small child Being so driven by this idea of I need to know what my mother is like But that Those elements of it feel so

[00:35:06] Kind of Plotty, like they feel so obvious Like sort of movie I need to fill this gap kind of Stuff in a way that is I don't know Feels like going through the motions a little bit Yeah, I mean I wanted to know more About the mom

[00:35:26] Like in general, I needed to know more about her To really understand Like I feel like there's just so much Maybe because of the movie is very Like for kids I feel like the whole like sex of it all Is kind of missing Sure

[00:35:42] And I think part of it is that like How do you talk about Like they describe her mother's relationship With Paul Bettany is that He was in the war She was impressed by that They were in love for like six months And then she didn't love him anymore

[00:35:58] But she was pregnant and so they got married And Like I guess presumably he became Abusive but I feel like there's so much of that That like I wanted to know more About it, I wanted to know Why he was so bitter in the

[00:36:14] First place aside from just like he was in a war So that just makes him bitter Like there was just Because this is so seen in the child I feel like the Relationships, the adult relationships Don't really get Like any nuance or room to breathe

[00:36:30] And since that's like hinging so much Of what's going on because Dakota Fanning Is not really like doing a whole lot I don't know it's very hard Like I kept on thinking about my girl too Which I Am a very big my girl too defender

[00:36:44] I think that my girl too is great Which like it's just It's just about Vada trying to figure out About her mom and it's like a more I don't know it's a more intimate story Because she's like talking to like People that her mom used to date

[00:36:58] And like looking at footage of like What her mom was like And it's just like it's more of like What kind of woman is she And what kind of woman am I going to be Kind of thing and I kind of wanted more of that here

[00:37:10] And that story is like One of the types of stories That hits me hardest Emotionally like anytime a movie Goes for like I'm trying to learn About someone I never really got to know myself And learning through The other people they were close to That's like a total

[00:37:28] Like griffin emotional breaking point For me and This movie is only dealing with it In this kind of like central mystery Way like it's so focused on Did she come back for me or did she come back for her stuff? Well it has that but also it's not

[00:37:42] Focusing on it for most of the movie It's a weird sort of prologue epilogue Time is when she's really thinking about that And then when she arrives at The honey You know house Yeah She kind of just is like well I'm going to get into all this

[00:37:58] Now and like it kind of just gets Set aside until Betty comes back I mean that The only aspect in which it's interested In that is solving that one mystery But the movie becomes so much less Interested in the way where you're like

[00:38:12] Gina just wants to make a movie about These different characters in a house together Like I feel like she talked About how like She was trying to Avoid the sense that You need to represent all the isms On one of the like behind the scenes

[00:38:28] Documentary like she's like this The book is so focused on the isms Of the time that I felt like I could Stop a lot of those and really just focus on the character Interactions and not worry about proving Too many larger points

[00:38:40] But that also means that when the movie Starts to get to those scenes It feels a little less Engaged Because it's also like that's kind of It's interesting I mean Dredin you're talking about this movie's weird relationship To sex I feel like she makes Very Like mature

[00:39:00] Representations of sexuality In film like I feel like Old guard love and basketball And beyond the lights are films that are Really interested in like A level of emotional intimacy And what connects people to each other You know and how those dynamics change

[00:39:16] At different levels of comfort in a relationship And movies that all feel very sexy Without being graphic Because they're so keyed into The psychological aspects Of sexuality in a way Or at least in sort of attraction And This movie feels very kind of

[00:39:34] Hands off with all of that And there's like One of the feature ads on the DVD They're interviewing the whole cast about Like the differences between The characters as written And How they were adapted and how they chose to play them

[00:39:50] And there are a lot of interesting choices here where Like the Jennifer Hudson character Which I think Jennifer Hudson Might be the best performance in this movie Yeah, I think so too And she also kind of gets Sidelined for the whole Middle section

[00:40:06] She's also really just there in the front She gets like one line at the end It's like well I'm gonna vote now And you're like remember that plot line Oh yeah that was set this all off They bring her back into the fold In like the last 20 minutes

[00:40:20] But the first chunk of it Is so much about her and I think she's Really fucking good And the interesting is in the book She was supposed to be a much older Woman And Gina was the one who said it feels like That's a very stereotypical dynamic

[00:40:38] I would rather that she be closer In age to Dakota Fanning I think that's more interesting If they're closer to being contemporaries And it's someone who is somewhat at the beginning Of her life and has The potential to have The civil rights movement actually

[00:40:56] Affect her at an early stage For the rest of her life rather than being A woman who's in her 60s And sort of was never given these opportunities That she's sort of at the beginning of this Opportunity And I think that like that works And that opening chunk

[00:41:12] Even though it's going through a lot of these like Plotty sort of motions The stuff that works is the dynamic between The two of them And the Queen Latifa character is much older Like she made a lot of those Shifts Which I think work

[00:41:28] But then they interview Hilary Burton Who at this point was like Total request live correspondent Who then becomes a one tree hill star So she's very much in this sort of like Teen pop World And this is like one of her first big serious roles

[00:41:44] And she said my real goal With this was to make sure that My character was not just Lady in the pictures Because in like movies like this And stories like this There's the character who people just look at An old photograph of and they never feel like

[00:42:00] A fully formed human being And I wanted her to feel like real and three dimensional And it's a bummer because it just feels like The movie is not giving her Any room to be anything other than The woman in the picture

[00:42:12] Yeah, because I mean her vibe is actually Really interesting and I think that's Yeah, and I was just In a way that like Southern white women are kind of like I don't know, they're certainly like posture That Hollywood gives them where they're just like

[00:42:25] All these like very like dignified Kind of like Southern bell kind of Posture and she just seemed Chill And you know she seemed like Open, she had like a very like Open expressions in her face Like I could see like she seemed like A human person

[00:42:44] She did! Yeah! Sometimes I think that like And maybe it's just because she doesn't get to say a lot And so it doesn't really get bogged down by her Trying to do an accent or anything like that But yeah, I wanted her in more scenes

[00:42:56] Because I thought that she was really interesting This movie might be better If it was more a parallel story About Lily and Rosaline Both making this journey Both arriving at this community A Mamma Mia too if you will Yes And both being changed by it

[00:43:14] You know both like you know Emerging as different people And I like Dakota Fanning And it was interesting As we were saying watching this movie I was just recollecting like Oh god, remember when she was this just like Super poised child actor

[00:43:32] I feel like we talked about it in our World of the World episode Right Griffin we must have Yes, but I do want to do a little bit of a career sidebar here Go on, I'm just pulling up the I don't think she's very good in this movie

[00:43:42] And I don't mean that in a mean way But like when we're getting to the big stuff At the end and when she's having the big breakthroughs And she's crying And she's having these long conversations With Queen Latifah's character I was kind of like Like she was

[00:43:58] She was the center of the movie And I was really always struggling to lock into her And maybe it would be Yeah, maybe benefits if you give Jennifer Hudson's character More to do I think she's a very skilled actress But there are scenes

[00:44:14] That I think the one I'm thinking of Is the one where she gives the like I'm an unlovable monster speech To Latifah and then she like falls to her knees And it just feels like Such a stock Big dramatic Right, it feels very acty

[00:44:30] I mean that was you know part of her thing Like This is a fucking mom Like this is the darkest thing In her that she will ever have to Like you know say to anyone Basically Trauma is so weird And there are so many interesting ways

[00:44:48] Of expressing trauma as an actor And as a filmmaker And then you get to that scene And it's like it is the most sort of off the shelf This is a person having An emotional breakdown in a movie You know it's not representative Of how anyone actually

[00:45:04] Processes trauma How people play trauma in an acting class I think the character of May If anything like represented Trauma maybe A lot more accurately I watched some Interview where Gina talked about How casting for that role Was she wanted to be like really particular

[00:45:22] About it because she said in her words It could tank the movie If it you know The role if you do too much With that you're just like okay You know like it would throw everything Off and she's very good. I mean she

[00:45:36] Sophia Ganeita is a great actress I want to go performance by performance Actor by actor because I think that's The most interesting thing to talk about with this movie Yeah, I also wanted to say real quick Because I was also in my head Because I was

[00:45:50] When this movie came out I was like Just at the right age let's see When it was it was 2008 so I was I was in high school so I was just like A little too old for it But like still like I was Still aware enough of

[00:46:06] Like children's films and stuff To have like an opinion and I remember Thinking this should have been Anna Sophia Robb Interesting. She was always the sort Of like you know the Taste makers Dakota Fanning Yeah. Because Anna Sophia Robb also did A bunch of like did more

[00:46:24] Like kind of like Southern roles When Dixie. Yeah And because Sophia Robb Like has a better handle on That entire environment Which is weird because Dakota Fanning is from Georgia But she just doesn't seem Like a person from Georgia Neither does Al honestly It's really weird. Okay. I

[00:46:44] Want to let's dig into this Dakota Fanning sidebar, okay Because I always just Assumed in my mind Especially because Dakota and Al are both Good actresses And we're At such a young age. I was like A they feel very coastal And B They feel very like Haley Jalazmint

[00:47:06] They are the children of Actors or acting coaches Like when you hear about Haley Jalazmint You're like oh his parents were actors But they never really made it and then they became like Acting teachers and then he was born And you're like oh so he was like raised

[00:47:20] In a household where they like taught Him how to act and work Ethic of being an actor. And he was like a consummate Like not like age eight. Right all of that stuff I'm like that really comes out of Oh my parents were Failed actors but they instilled

[00:47:34] In me the sort of like The workflow of being an actor and the Like day to day of the job So I always just in my mind was like One of the Fanning parents must be An actor right? You look at their Wikipedia and not only

[00:47:48] As you said do they come from Georgia Which is surprising but also Their entire family Is sports Okay? A lot of athletes yeah Her mother played tennis professionally Her father minor league baseball Player maternal grandfather Former American football player Her aunt former ESPN Reporter Jill Arrington

[00:48:10] Right they just come from this Pure sports family There's like no sort of like Just southern sports and then these two Like very like formal Like hello I'm a serious child Actor kids come out at age three You know?

[00:48:26] I will say you know she went to school in California My guess is they eventually moved to California Because she became an actress At such a young age like that she was Doing all this stuff yeah But it feels like very much the cart

[00:48:38] Followed the horse it was like she comes out Hello I'm a tiny thespian And they're like yes we have to move To Hollywood when she was in I am Sam I just she didn't get the Oscar Nomination no She got a SAG nomination

[00:48:52] And I do remember it was a real conversation Was like are we about to nominate A six year old like is this gonna happen Like because the Oscars nominate kids obviously But six is like very young I mean how old was Tatum O'Neill Tatum I think was ten

[00:49:06] I think it was eleven ten or eleven Quavanzane is still The youngest and that Feels like they finally broke That barrier Quavanzane There was also the thing though where that movie Was shot right two years before Played at Sundance Which was then a year before the Oscars

[00:49:24] So by the time she shows up at the ceremony She's three years older than she was in the movie Yeah she was nine When she was nominated or whatever She was six when they filmed Six or seven yeah well you know

[00:49:36] It wasn't just that she had like cute little Chubby cheeks and she was a sweetie Like she was a poised actor Like a young age She was uptown girls is like my age Man on fire she's like Great in like you know like

[00:49:50] When she was a little kid she was She was very impressive I never saw the cat in the hat Griffin I'm assuming you have seen that She's good in the cat in the hat The cat in the hat itself is A nightmare movie

[00:50:04] She's doing the uptown girls thing I mean this is what's so Fasting to me about Dakota Fanning Here's a very very young child Who became a major movie star Right and the other examples of this Are like Macaulay Cawkin and Shirley Temple

[00:50:22] You know and to a lesser degree because They were a little older like Judy Garland And Mickey Rooney and the dynamic There is like they just represent A kid so well And they're not exclusively Beloved by kids But they definitely a lot of their movie

[00:50:38] Stardom is that kids see themselves On screen and then Dakota Is this weird anomaly where it's like She became a major movie star But it was almost based on She seems like a tiny adult Nothing about her seems childlike And she was either giving

[00:50:54] Like wise beyond her years performances Which is like I am Sam Right in really intense movies It's like I am Sam war of the world Hide and seek like whether they were Prestige man on fire Whether they were prestige or like mainstream The premise was kind of

[00:51:10] This actress is having to play Very harrowing things and very adult films And she seems to be doing it with a lot of Professionalism and poise And then the closest she comes to movie star Performances the closest she comes to Having like a movie star persona

[00:51:24] Is the uptown girls cat in the hat I'm a little child who acts Like a 78 year old woman I'm high status Dreamer is like The one outlier where it's like Here's a family movie where Dakota Is playing just a kid And it's the one that exists the least

[00:51:42] Sure never saw her career I have never seen dreamer It's like her Charlotte's web right is she She is and she's actually good in Charlotte's web but it is funny That like so little of her career Was tied to her being A sort of Avatar for children

[00:52:02] You know it's like she's got her movies In which she plays a real kid Those are adult films and then she has Her movies where the entire joke Is she doesn't behave Like a child and those are the movies that kids Could actually see

[00:52:16] And then when she hit like young adult age Like this is 2008 And 2007 She did a movie called hound dog Which I have seen Have you seen it? No I have not seen hound dog I only remember hound dog as the movie

[00:52:32] Everyone made such a fuss over when it was Like a hound store Wait a second she's going to be in this You know grown up movie Where she's abused I don't know if that should be allowed I just remember there being a lot of discourse about hound dog

[00:52:46] At the time This is Dakota Fanning's pretty baby It was like the movie where everyone was like Is this humane? Why is she doing this? Hound dog is a very depressing movie But it's depressing In a way where it's like It's the kind of role that you would

[00:53:04] It's I don't know how to say this In a delicate way You usually don't See white kids deal with that In movies it's usually like Everyone but white kids It's a very like I don't know The kind of melancholy Of hound dog it reminds me a lot of

[00:53:24] Like stuff like Precious stuff on the lines Of that and it's just To see her there because she's just so Like well moisturized And like pristine and I just don't Believe that she's like Really going through it She looks like one of the dogs She's just like

[00:53:44] Poor son so yeah hound dog is like She did like two southern movies In this movie in hound dog Hound dog was like the dark one And this was like the nice one And now she doesn't do southern movies anymore And I'm actually really happy about it

[00:53:58] Because it's weird she seems weird Like she doesn't seem like she belongs there It's weird Right it's like 2001 I Am Sam That's pretty much her debut She played kids and she Been in E.R. and Al McBiel She's done TV Right then the next year

[00:54:16] Is like trapped sweet home Alabama Hansel and Gretel I think in this Hansel and Gretel movie She's like not Gretel Sweet home Alabama she's in very briefly She is being read a story Right she's the Fred Savage role In that sweet home Alabama

[00:54:34] She's playing young Reese Witherspoon trapped She's like that's that weird abduction Movie with Charmie's there on a campaign She's a kid in peril Then 2003 is like Uptown Girls Cat in the Hat That's like comedies in which the premise is She acts like a grown lady

[00:54:50] And then you go man on fire Hide and seek nine lives War the worlds Like this is Dakota Fanning is like Acting alongside major movie Stars playing Like extreme circumstances And Steven Spielberg is doing interviews And going like she's as good As any actor I've ever worked with

[00:55:10] She's amazingly skilled at assessing a situation Figuring out what a scene needs And it becomes like the Dakota Fanning show on SNL Like the joke is Dakota Fanning Is this weird adult In a child's body Who like is like very sort of like Aerodite and pretentious

[00:55:28] And then it's like Charlotte's Web Is her last kind of children's Film Then it's Hound Dog, Secret Life of Bees Coraline which she had obviously recorded Much earlier Yeah Coraline Holmes She's in Push which of course Is the reason that Precious is called Precious

[00:55:46] Because it's a movie Push I can't answer that But then it's right now it's this pivot point It's like Push, Twilight Saga Runaways, Twilight Saga She's good in the run-off list She's also going to college At this point She went to NYU I believe she actually graduated

[00:56:04] She seems to have made that Like a priority More than some young actors would From 2009 to 2013 All she really does is the Twilight movies And some things that never really saw Wide release It's like Night Moves Effie Gray Here's the thing Starting with I would say Night Moves

[00:56:26] Tell me the thing Before you get into this Is this with Alec Baldwin or without Alec Baldwin Here's the thing with Alec Baldwin A lot of the movies That are in her filmography later I've never even heard of But like Night Moves, American Pastoral

[00:56:42] Once upon a time in Hollywood She has become America's favorite Like Spooky Blonde Lady She plays radicals and creeps And frightening people This is now her thing Night Moves, she's an eco-terrorist And she doesn't share any scenes With Griffin Newman You were both in it American Pastoral

[00:57:08] She's Sunny LeVov Mary Not Sunny Basically joins the weather underground And blows something up And then she plays Spooky from And she's kind of good She's kind of scary That's a good scene She's got these big scary kind of empty eyes

[00:57:28] Like there's a shot where she's watching Alicia Keys make out And I just remember thinking Like if the music were any different This would be like from a horror movie Because she's just sort of In the bushes nearby It's just funny that that is now her thing

[00:57:42] It's just a funny little groove that she found for herself And I also like watching a movie Like this Like Secret Life of B's I look at this performance and my takeaway is Wow, Dakota Fanning sure was very professional at that age

[00:57:54] Like I keep on viewing these scenes As like a skill piece where I'm like That's impressive that someone this young did this I don't know how engaging I find this performance But it's clear that she's a very skilled actress On a technical level

[00:58:06] And then those three later movies You're talking about all become Vibe performances Like the exact kind of thing she wasn't Particularly good at as a child Where it's like she's just being very natural And sending out like a real energy She seems to be like more chill

[00:58:24] Than she used to be Which I guess is usually the case I always liked Dakota Fanning characters Because they reminded me of like me as a kid I was like that You were like a serious little child I was a very serious kid You were an uptown girl

[00:58:40] You had no patience for the cat And the hatch chicaneery No, yeah, I was that kind of kid So I really got her And then like she got older And she chilled out I started smoking weed Maybe Dakota did too I forgot to mention

[00:59:00] She's in that thing The Alienist Which I don't watch But I know some people enjoy The Alienist I've heard the people like that show What if there was an Alienist Was that on Hulu? No, it's on TNT It's a TNT show About like early criminal profiling

[00:59:20] Like vintage 19th century criminal profiling But The Alienist is also One of those things that like Was a Kari Fukunawa project That he then abandoned And still happened anyway Like it's in that exact time zone Like I'm not doing it anymore

[00:59:37] But now I'm gonna do this TV show Actually I'm not gonna do this TV show anymore I'm gonna do this instead Was he supposed to do it? He is in the screenplay credit He still gets the screenplay credit And apparently a lot of the designs

[00:59:51] Are still things that Kari Fukunawa proved Like by all accounts The Pennywise design in the movie Is what he developed I really like First it Jordan, here's what's interesting He apparently took it Right up to the finish line They became afraid that what he was doing

[01:00:13] Was too avant garde and not commercial enough So he walked They hire Andy Mushetty He barely touches Fukunawa's script For the first movie Tries to put in more conventional scares The movie is a huge hit Then he apparently dramatically Writes the second script Throws it out

[01:00:35] I think a lot of what's good in the first movie Is what Kari Fukunawa developed The second movie Sucks so hard And that's the movie that has none of his fingerprints On it anymore He's not credited as a screenwriter The second movie is one of the most

[01:00:51] I actually walked out of the theater And not because I was offended By the movie although Because you've been sitting in that theater For eight hours and the movie wasn't done I got halfway through the movie Realized how much was left Realized how irritated

[01:01:07] I was that I was there And I'm just like You know what, I'm in Times Square This is before they got rid of the Times Square Sephora And I'm gonna go to Sephora Instead of finishing this movie Make a better use of it Half hour for your time

[01:01:25] You missed 18 more flashbacks You missed that And then just a couple days ago I watched it at home And like It's just one of the most upset I felt on a smaller screen I'd be less angry about it Because I watched all kinds of dumb shit

[01:01:43] Kyle gets so annoyed with me With the shit that I'll watch He'll come in and he's like What are you watching? He'll be dead heat And he'll just turn around and walk out And then just go through It part two I don't know why

[01:02:01] I just didn't have the patience Can I give you my take on why You couldn't put up with it? Because it's the exact opposite of what you're talking about It's a movie that should be owning Sort of the trashiness Of where it can go

[01:02:15] And instead it has this lofty self-importance of It's the final chapter In the It Saga And they're acting like it's It End Game They're acting like there's been 40 It movies The culmination of 10 years and 20 movies And you're like, dude It's one two-hour movie That you're banking off of

[01:02:35] Just wrap up the fucking story You don't need to make this like a legacy It's acting like it's a legacy sequel Like can you believe we got all the kids Back together again Remember that trailer hit The cool trailer The chestane visiting the old lady

[01:02:51] And she's like, oh my god Yeah, this is great This is so cool and then whatever Shitty movie Moving on from Dakota Fanning Is there another filmography you want to discuss Griffin Next? Alicia Keys This is really her first movie And I think people expected

[01:03:13] That she was going to have a film career And she kind of just Didn't Get good in this And she was also in Smoking Aces Which she's cool in And she's in the nanny diaries Oh, you're right! This is kind of the last one Yeah

[01:03:31] It's Smoking Aces and Nanny Diaries In 2007 Nanny Diaries she plays like the best friend role Smoking Aces She plays a cool assassin For a long time When the Why the Last Man movie Was supposed to be made She was playing Shia LaBeouf She was supposed to play Agent 100

[01:03:53] No, it's not 100 It's like... She was announced as playing 355 And then she does this movie Which felt like her big sort of like Oh, now she's making a prestige movie And then she doesn't really act that much Ever again The only performance she's given since

[01:04:13] Is playing Alicia Keys She performs on Empire and stuff She did pop up on Empire. I mean, she's done some TV maybe But no, no, she pivoted to Like Reality TV Like she did The X Factor She did I feel like she did another The Voice?

[01:04:35] Yeah, you know, like she's all in on that now I feel like that eats up so much of your time Also she's also Like hosting the Grammy's Produced a lot, both like on film And TV and on Broadway Like she produces a lot of other People's works

[01:04:51] But I think she's good in this Like I... I remember being excited at the time That it felt like she was gonna become A movie star That she was gonna have a sort of Janelle Monet Like split career and keep doing both Cause she's a good actress

[01:05:09] And she's very innately engaging She's really good, it's weird I never think about Alicia Keys Anymore. That's such an interesting thing Like I watched her in this movie and I was like Oh yeah, fuck, she wasn't movies for like A second

[01:05:23] And now I mostly just know her as That weirdo on Instagram She's like I don't wear makeup I'm just amazingly beautiful all the time She's very into not wearing makeup I know this, right? Like that's her thing now The most notable thing that she has

[01:05:39] Done in my opinion Since this movie Is break up Swiss beats Marriage That was a big one, she was in the Headlines a lot for that She's Very cool in this movie Which makes sense cause that's Her vibe, she's good at That, she's like I would not say

[01:06:01] It's a one note performance but it's sort of like You know she's got a lot of Poise and presence and she's like A cool and magnetic figure Yeah, I liked her I thought I thought that the Nate Parker of it all Man, every single time I see him

[01:06:19] I was like fuck you're still in movies I know Well this is, I guess the beginning Like this is where she His relationship with Gina Right, right where she finds him This is before red tails What had he been in before this The great debaters I guess

[01:06:37] That was sort of his discovery movie I don't even remember The first place that I Saw Nate Parker cause for a while I did like him I didn't have any reason not to like Him before It's the one thing I dread About rewatching Beyond the Lights

[01:06:55] Yeah, he did He did Pride Which is that swimming movie That was seen as the great Debaters, yeah I've never seen The great debaters I think he's the main kid in The Great Debater He's the main debater In the film, you have like Denzel

[01:07:13] As the captain, the teacher You have Forrest Whitaker As the disapproving parent And then Nate Parker is sort of Giving the like Annointment role Like it very much feels like that movie Is Denzel saying like I'm saying that this is a guy

[01:07:31] I'm trying to put the focus on this dude And then people Start putting him in movies, yeah Yeah But yeah The stuff with him and her I was so like I just felt like there was a piece missing Like I get it she doesn't want to marry him

[01:07:49] Or whatever but like Why doesn't she want to marry him It's never really like Was it like supposed to be cut out of the movie or something There's definitely something not there Cause like I guess it's like She wanted her independence Or something Like I'm not really sure

[01:08:07] I also like in my head canon I was like Oh maybe she's gay and then she says that And she accepts it anyway I know she had a lot of gay vibes from her I kind of wanted her to be gay Absolutely

[01:08:19] And in Smoking Ace as she's gay She plays like a very cool gay assassin Who I believe is maybe in a relationship with Taraji P. Henson They're like gay couple Assassins But Good performance But All the special features I watched they talked about

[01:08:37] How much difficulty they had adapting this character And they keep on talking about likeability In this sort of like standard Hollywood kind of way But I think it's because they were like We're worried that the character feels like Kind of a buzz kill

[01:08:51] She's the only one who doesn't want Dakota Fanning moving in And she's the one who's kind of uptight She keeps on rejecting this guy's marriage proposals And so it seems like their solution To making her likeable Is sort of making her Comedically heightened And treating all the Proposals

[01:09:09] Like they're Lucy pulling the football Away from Charlie Brown But it also makes it feel like it's just like A sketch comedy routine until she finally Inexplicably goes like Nah I'm gonna marry it No I don't even understand it cause he calls her a bitch Oh gay woman

[01:09:25] That seems kind of weird But then again you're like wait What is going on with these two And then he's out of the movie for a while And then by the time he comes back I almost forgotten the plot Like I don't know

[01:09:39] Like I feel like I forgot It would have made sense if she was just gay Because it's like oh he calls her a selfish bitch And it's like okay well obviously He's not coming back And obviously she can't say I'm gay like that's just me

[01:09:53] That's what I would have done It would have fixed everything in my opinion That's how I would have read the movie And it would have made it a little more interesting And it would explain why she's so I mean like She's right She's sort of closed up

[01:10:09] She doesn't want to talk about her feelings But also like she's sort of like this Opposite you know June and May Or like sort of like May is so emotive Like all her motions are right on the surface So June's kind of like Very sublimated

[01:10:25] For a movie about a bunch of people Hanging out in a house and learning about each other You don't learn a lot about a lot of the characters In the movie No she has like an NAACP shirt And I think she says something about a meeting

[01:10:37] But then it's just like never addressed again I think she wears that shirt At four different points in the movie Like four different timeline points in the movie They keep on wanting to sort of Just like code in without having to vote Screen time to it

[01:10:51] The idea that she's like A leader and an organizer And all this sort of stuff But you only get it through seeing her t-shirt While she walks out and goes like excuse me I'm trying to practice my music Um boy let's talk about Latif

[01:11:05] Let's go on and talk about Queen Latif She is still You know just a few years from her Oscar nomination And right this is sort of like In the run with like Taxi Beauty Shop Holiday right like those movies Where she is above the title

[01:11:19] And she's the lead She's the top build performer Yeah she's above Dakota Fanning or anyone else She's first build Chicago comes out in 2002 She gets an Oscar nomination Everyone's like fuck Queen Latif Who at this point has already proven herself as an actress

[01:11:37] She's great and set it off She did multiple seasons of Living Single Right? She's actually amazing And set it off obviously Yeah one of my favorite Movie deaths Is her death in that movie She rules in that and she's been Yes I mean you look at her filmography

[01:11:57] And she's like it's very predictable That it's like she's been acting regularly Throughout the 90s giving good performances And you're like okay she's in Jungle Fever House Party 2 Juice, she's in set it off She's in Huddlam, she's in Living Out Loud She's also like transition into White Hollywood

[01:12:13] Then you get like Sphere The Bone Collector bringing out the dead Then she gets the Chicago Oscar nomination And people were like who knew Queen Latif Could act and it's like mother fucker She's been acting for 12 years She's been acting for a really long time

[01:12:27] What are you talking about? I was actually just on the Bechtel cast Talking about set it off So people should listen to that episode I talk a lot about Queen Latif I listened to that episode Isn't she the one who gets Aten by the Jellyfish

[01:12:43] Yeah it's the Jellyfish in Sphere Sphere is a great movie We should just Sphere I've never seen this Sphere It's Mary Levinson Listen, what if there was a Sphere What if it was under the water What's up with the Sphere You gotta find out

[01:13:01] Only four people can find out Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone Sam L. Jackson, Queen Latif They're gonna go look at the Sphere All kinds of things are gonna happen There's gonna be Jellyfish No one's gonna have a good time The movie will be critically reviled in a box office

[01:13:17] It's incredibly long and it's great I love it It's very abyss From the director of Rain Man Comes a sci-fi movie that asks What would Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone Do in space together Except they're under water But, but Queen Latif Fantastic actress Overnight White Hollywood Discovery

[01:13:41] Who knew Now she has this run as a leading Movie star Where it's Bring You Down the House Comes out right after her Oscar nomination And is the biggest fucking hit in the world It's so now We've talked about it before But please go ahead, Jordyn I

[01:14:01] Bring Down the House Bring Down the House for a second It's not a good movie It's a movie that has puzzled me For years I've seen Bring You Down the House So many times And every single time I'm just like White White He's very uptight He's lonely

[01:14:25] She was in prison And she learned all kinds of things I believe she has broken out of prison In that movie It's not like she's been released I think she's escaped She's trying to prove her innocence Oh, she is And Jordyn

[01:14:43] I don't want a mansplain Bring You Down the House for you But the thing you need to understand Because it's subtle And a lot of people don't get it When they watch the movie Eugene Levy is in Bring You Down the House And Queen Latif has him straight

[01:14:57] Tripping boo That subtext So Eugene Levy In that movie I think about him constantly I don't know why When I just think about Sometimes when I say the word white people I'm thinking about Eugene Levy In Bring You Down the House With those cornrows

[01:15:19] That's what he was going for He was like, I will be white people He was 100% White I appreciate how much he committed To being like, man, aren't white people stupid? It's just like, wow You know, the man is a circle eyes Yeah, sure

[01:15:37] But I also kind of wanted That movie I kind of want to do it on bad romance Just because of how weirdly How it's set up to be Like a rom-com And then it's not Because like The world just could not imagine Queen Latif

[01:15:57] It's like a rom-com without The sex She comes in and changes his life But then they don't fuck And they meet from being Like on an online dating website Like the premise that's set up Is he thinks they're gonna date But she ends

[01:16:15] She ends up with Eugene Levy He gets back together with Gene Smart I believe Right, yes Queen Latif Fixes his white marriage because God forbid She has everyone straight-tripped down the house I don't know But then here's the big Post Oscar, post bring it down the house

[01:16:37] Queen Latif has the keys to Hollywood Run Then you get Taxi She has a small part in the cookout Which she produces Then she has the cameo In Barbershop 2 Our beauty shop spin-off Like they announce in Variety Queen Latif will be appearing In Barbershop 2

[01:16:59] So then it's beauty shop Stranger than fiction Where she's supporting But that's like the hottest screenplay in Hollywood She's the new main character In Ice Age Last holiday She's great in last holiday I haven't seen that movie in years That's sort of an odd movie though Like

[01:17:21] It's about her dying Hollywood would never make a movie like that That's sort of weird and melancholy And presented as a romantic Comedy drama Is it her Who's her love interest Right, and you're remaking an Alec Guinness comedy Right Is it? Wait, really? Yes, I think it is

[01:17:43] You're right, it is An obscure British comedy Then Harrisbury, which she's very good in She's great in Harrisbury And then this is when she starts to slow down again It's like she does Mad Money Which doesn't exist Mad Money didn't really work out for Anyone involved

[01:18:03] I really do You're a Mad Money fan I watched it for the first time this year And I was just like, oh my god Why have I never watched this before I like Mad Money in the sense that They are very aware of The class differences

[01:18:19] And the race differences I thought it was really smart I thought it could be way worse Than it was They're stealing money that is Going to be destroyed It's like they're going to steal Money that is about to expire Essentially Diane Keating, Katie Holmes, Queen Latifa

[01:18:39] I forgot, it's written and directed by Callie Curry who did Thelma and Louise Yeah Queen Latifa is great in Mad Money She's way better than everyone else In that movie Because she's taking it seriously She was a great Comedy movie star

[01:18:57] She had this run and she would do Supporting roles in between And I think she's very good dramatic actress as well But she had this surprisingly fertile run As like a lead in comedy lady And then now You got just right

[01:19:11] Just the tail end of this sort of thing you're talking about Right, because now she starts to transition More into like ensemble So after Mad Money what happens in Vegas Is a very small role Secret Life of Bees She's first build

[01:19:25] You get a sense that she was the person They needed to get the financing for the movie Like she's really sort of extending herself Playing a role that was written for an older actress Because her movie started so big at the time

[01:19:35] And then it's like Valentine's Day ensemble Just writes her sort of last lead Dilemma is supporting And then it's like Two years until Joyful Noise Which is her and Dolly Parton And then she doesn't really do a big movie role Again until Girls Trip five years later

[01:19:55] I believe Joyful Noise Is that like a choir Versus choir movie Bring it on with choirs Yes No, that's what it is There's like a five year gap pretty much there Where it's like Small role in 22 Jump Street Tiny role in Miracles from Heaven

[01:20:15] Another Ice Age movie in Girls Trip And that's all that happens between Joyful Noise And Girls Trip You're forgetting Bessie Which is a TV movie Written directed by Dee Reese I love Bessie She was not made for an Emmy But she's good in that

[01:20:33] That seemed like sort of passion projecty And she does Steele Magnolias for TV And she does Star She's written Steele Magnolias too Yeah, I've never seen Star She kind of just pivots the TV And then now She was supposed to Before the pandemic I think it's still happening

[01:20:53] But obviously they never Were able to really start production And they can't yet She's supposed to do A reboot of the Equalizer for CBS With her playing the Equalizer Which I so badly wanted to play The computer nerd on I think you remember David

[01:21:11] I was losing my mind It was like the only pilot that I was Like I would love to do this You would love also to play The role that they're always telling you Like Computer nerd you often avoid Because it's like They've done that a little bit

[01:21:29] But there were two X factors One, films in New York I was like great Two, I've heard Such great things about Queen Latifah Like Just her fucking professionalism on set And her decency as a human being I was like man I would love to work

[01:21:47] On a show where Queen Latifah is the star And the producer And presumably bullshit will not fly And no one will be an asshole Remember she also had a talk show I forgot about that Number three it was a better written computer Nerd than most of those shows

[01:22:03] But that's what she's supposed to do now She's supposed to do the Equalizer for CBS Can I talk about Bessie one more time? Okay so Bessie is one of those movies Where I'm a huge fan of Bessie I wrote about it I'm obsessed with it Mostly just because

[01:22:21] It's one of the few movies where Like Black women are gay The fact that if it had been Theatrically released Her career Her film career would have jump started But instead it's on HBO Where I feel like not a lot of people watched it

[01:22:39] And it's like we have Queen Latifah Being mentored by Monique And no one is talking about it I think Monique's great in it And Monique so rarely acts too So it was genuinely exciting It is And Monique is like Maybe kind of makes the movie

[01:22:57] Because the movie, I love the movie I think it's great. Monique is what stops it From being as sad as it could be Because she's such an interesting Like presence in the film I feel like you know what I mean Since you actually watched it

[01:23:11] I don't know why Monique Doesn't make a lot of movies I'm sure there's a lot of things going into that But anytime I see her in a movie I was just looking at Monique's Recent films, Christmas Anytime she pops up in something She's great, but yes

[01:23:27] She's playing Malraini and Bessie She's very funny, she's very I don't know, intense How to describe Monique Yes, she's like very intense anyway I just need anyone who is listening to this To please watch Bessie We're assuming it's on HBO Max or whatever, right? It has to be

[01:23:47] Was this before or after we started recording Where we were talking about Native Son Like an HBO black hole that I feel like This is during recording The tale also fell into that I was just complaining about How great the tale is

[01:24:01] And how few people know about it I need to just make a list of HBO movies that are great Bad education is there now I want people to watch Bad Education It's one of those things where I feel like If you have made a small movie

[01:24:15] The tale or Bad Education or Native Son And HBO comes knocking and they're like $10 for the rights It's so hard to say no because it's like Look, this means that everyone makes their money And everyone is made whole And the movie will get seen But it sadly does

[01:24:31] Sweep it into a category Of movies that get kind of ignored The tale should have been One of the big movies Critically of 2018 And it wasn't Like it played at Sundance and everyone was like Fuck, Lord Dern might win the Oscar for this

[01:24:47] And then it just went to TV and no one really Engaged with it And I feel like very often HBO will pay money Big money and it's also the promise of We're gonna put all our energy behind this Like if a studio releases this

[01:25:01] They might release it on four screens And it might be one of 20 movies that have this Oscar season We'll give this like a real star birth But it feels like it's very often movies That either are viewed as Difficult subject matter And it's just

[01:25:17] Just a kind of mid-budgety movie Where it's like, you know, like Well, how is, how are we help making this Pop? You know, right? I don't know This is kind of the point I want to make By going through Latifa Here you have this person who is like

[01:25:31] A very prominent pop culture figure For 20 years Right? Like in the 90s sitcom star Incredibly successful music star And then is starring in like a lot of Physically important black films In the 2000s she translates She like goes over into Mainstream Hollywood is a comedy

[01:25:51] Star is ensemble gets an Oscar nomination like does all these Big things and then it feels like in The late 2000s she goes like Okay, I have passion projects that I want To make I want to play Bessie Smith I want to do steel magnolias and

[01:26:05] Hollywood's like yeah you should go to TV Like it was the second Don't you want to be the next Alan? I mean maybe she did for a while But it does feel like she tried to cash in Her capital on these like big passion

[01:26:17] Projects and they were like you're not Really a movie star anymore and she doesn't Really get to be in movies again until She plays the fourth lead In girls trip which she's very Good at Yeah but yeah it is weird Cause like Just like thinking about steel magnolias

[01:26:35] And Bessie which are both like really Really great Steel magnolias is actually like One of the best casted Remakes I've ever seen Jill Scott Who helps with other shots Jill Scott I'm Alfred Woodard is in there Yeah like it's Great But I kind of feel like There's not

[01:27:03] Room for that kind of black Movie on the big screen Right now and I can't say why that is The huge problem of just like So many kinds of movies that we are We are fondly recalling As we speak right now

[01:27:19] Just don't seem to be able to exist In cinemas anymore which is very frustrating Like I don't know if Secret Life of B's Exists in 2020 does it? Like maybe I guess straight in a like situation Probably right like you know I know they still

[01:27:35] Sell her you know to movie But like I'm not sure Yeah it probably is a TV Movie now or a miniseries or something I mean what the help is four years after this And is a box office Juggernaut and is also A steaming pie of poop

[01:27:51] It is a garbage movie But that it feels like Like Watching this movie you kind of have to compare it To the help Unfortunately yeah Right the difference The helpful difference is like At least Dakota Fanning is a child Like at least she

[01:28:11] Her being astonished by these things Is a little more believable than the help Where fucking Emma Stone's like a time traveler And you're like where have you been woman You're a grown ass person How are you behaving this way But also it's like at least

[01:28:25] It doesn't perverse the way I say it But like at least the Dakota Fanning character Has her own struggles in this movie And bonds with other women Over like you know The common sort of disenfranchisement They feel with the world Rather than the help where Emma Stone's like

[01:28:41] Huh this is like I can use this to become A very successful writer I can like exploit other people's suffering Yes I'm very aware of that But that movie is like a lot more Pat is a lot less Interested in the interior lives Of the help despite being

[01:28:57] The title of the fucking film Yeah Secret Life of Bees is kind of like You know what? You know if you just hang out With the black people They're much cooler They're much more chill It's mostly just like Living with these black women

[01:29:15] And it's just like the idea is that Her life is going to be so much better Because she is living with those black women Which I think is an interesting thing That they don't really like Lean into more this idea Everybody in the movie that is terrible

[01:29:29] Is white except for her That is the juice to this movie for me Is as a hangout movie Is this weird 60's like We got this one pink house where everything Is pretty cool as long as we're Staying within these walls

[01:29:43] They have a line about how it's like kind of Cut off from the rest of the world And I know the same things don't happen Inside the house but it reminded Me of mother and you really don't See any of the world outside of it

[01:29:55] To the point where you're like is she dead? Like so Heavenly and perfect Exactly did she just arrive right? Did she actually fall down a hill And die? I just love that like when they're in The whole dinner scene there are all those black

[01:30:11] Women including the one who's like We haven't even talked about Tristan Wilde yet But I noticed that Tristan Wilde's mother Is played by the actress Who played La Fonda And Napoleon Dynamite Oh yeah, Shondrella Avery I believe it's true Those scenes and the church scene

[01:30:31] Where it's like they have reordered How they approach these things Like they don't do it however They're supposed to do it and that's They've made their own community Their house almost feels like Brigha Dune But it's a time portal to A future that we still haven't achieved

[01:30:47] Yeah it's like people are visiting And it's like this Oasis Like Tristan Wilde is coming in And he's chilling and I still don't know Why Tristan Wilde is there Or what he's doing Especially because like What is his point in this movie It's nice to see him

[01:31:05] Yeah it's nice to see him You know I remember when he was on the wire There was another thing on the special features That really jumped out to me Where Gina was talking about Trying to like find her into the material She also said that like

[01:31:21] They offered her this right In like 2002 or 2003 And as she said many times That we've talked about on this podcast After doing a disappearing Acts and loving basketball back to back She was super burned out And is like I want to wait a while

[01:31:37] Before I make my next movie So she said they sent it to her And she just left it in her closet For three years and didn't even look at it Until like 2006 or 2005 But she said when she read it She what she was interested in was

[01:31:51] She was talking to her husband Reggie Rockbythwood And his parents grew up In the south during the civil rights movement And she was asking them what it was like And they said well it was interesting Because it was this time of great upheaval

[01:32:08] And there was a lot of awfulness going on But there was also a sense of hope But I feel like the thing that people don't talk about is We were still just living our lives On a day to day basis Like movies about that time

[01:32:21] Tend to make it seem like everything that was going on Was incredibly politically sort of like loaded When in fact we were like eating food And we were falling in love And we were tending to our gardens And like life does continue In all these very dramatic times

[01:32:38] A thing that I think we're all experiencing right now Where it feels like the world is on fire And yet there are things we do on a day to day basis That have some sense of normalcy Even if they're tinged with the awareness

[01:32:50] Of what's going on at the world at large And that sort of like I feel like the movie that Gina is really into Is like can you have this house That almost feels like a sci-fi conceit Where like life progresses one step at a time

[01:33:05] And these small gestures have like huge implications But then you step outside of the house And like you get arrested at a movie theater You know? Yeah They don't even talk about like Let's sit together when we get to the, you know what I mean

[01:33:19] Like just you just see them doing it But there's also, there's the dynamic that August talks about with Lily At the end when they're sort of sharing When they're finally talking about her mom Where she's like I was your mom's maid Like I was her nanny, right?

[01:33:36] I think that's seen kind of rules That seems good and she's like And that's a dynamic I did not want to repeat Right? You know they're sort of talking about like This needed to be different That's why I didn't tell you about this

[01:33:48] And so many times in movies like this There's that scene where it's like Well, I didn't tell you because you just weren't ready Which really just means like because Because we needed to have this scene later in the movie But like that conversation makes a lot of sense

[01:34:03] Like when they finally have it And sort of open up to each other I also think that scene is so well written And so well acted from Latifah's vantage point Which is like she takes that pause I mean what Dakota Fanning asked her

[01:34:20] Like did you love my mother And Latifah sort of says like I mean I loved her like with qualifiers She's like what do you mean? In another version of this movie You'd expect that that's all they'd say about it And brush past it And Latifah like unpacks it

[01:34:34] And she's like look it's like It's an incredibly unbalanced relationship That's not something that is conducive To an honest form of love You know we were so in equal That despite me feeling probably some sort of Sense of like maternal love for her

[01:34:52] It was wrapped up in this really Like contradictory relationship Yeah, she can order her around Like yeah And I feel like that's kind of The fact that at the end of the movie She ends up sort of claiming mother ship Of the Dakota Fanning character

[01:35:11] Because that is actually closer to A mother-daughter relationship rather than this Weird transactional like forced Indentured like job sort of relationship You know? Yeah That's interesting to me I mean there's like a lot of interesting Threads While you were talking I was just thinking

[01:35:30] I was just thinking about imitation of life And like what if Yeah it's like there's so many Like interesting dynamics and like that one I'm not one of those people that thinks that Like old movies are better But I do think that like

[01:35:44] They were a bit more curious about this stuff Like they were like a lot of the curiosity Led in like to bad directions And weird directions and you know Problematic directions but I don't know There's just like a little bit more curiosity

[01:35:57] Of like how is this going to work Black people and white people together What are we doing? And that, yeah and that's And that scene with them talking about That relationship made me think of that I think like Hollywood used to be a lot more

[01:36:12] Interested in making what they would call Issues pictures and being like There is a thing there is a discourse Going on in our culture and we need to make A film that unpacks it and that Unpacking would usually be a series Of very complicated conversations Between actors and

[01:36:31] It feels like more and more Hollywood has advanced Or rather sort of Degressed to wanting to make films That are just kind of like This is what happened in the past And we solved it book closed Well this came out like a month before Obama's elected president

[01:36:49] Like I was watching an interview with Alicia Keys And she was like and I sure hope he's elected And you're like oh wow there was like a time frame When we weren't sure that wasn't going to Like was going to happen

[01:36:59] And it just feels like this movie is like Of that time where it's just kind of focused On the hope of that The behind the scenes stuff they're talking a lot About living through the Bush era And the disenfranchisement of the Bush era

[01:37:11] And like once again having this incredible Distrust of our country But I do think yet Jardine like we've moved Beyond wanting to make films In a Hollywood studio level That really engage with difficult conversations Yeah because like a lot of films now

[01:37:29] Like it's almost like the assumption is That they're made on the assumption That everyone who is watching the movie Is progressive or at least knows what that means And so we don't really have to Like we don't have to explain how this is bad

[01:37:46] Or why this is bad Or we just said it was bad and it was then And there were these people who fought And it's just like I find it to be a very very boring Very boring The character like who's like Well I'm the racist

[01:38:04] You know like they're like right Like there's the movie that's a And then there's the one character Like some people are like Oh well I approve of this progress And then another character is like Well I don't approve at all I'm the villain now

[01:38:16] And that's who I'm going to be here The same Rockwell and the Kevin Costner Right This is only like maybe 10 Gently related but I recently watched Charles Burnett's The Glass Shield Great movie It's about a black cop who like

[01:38:33] He becomes a cop because he wants to be a hero And like basically finds out Oh it's impossible to be a hero I feel like The Glass Shield is like A movie about how being a cop is just inherently bad And there's like nothing that you can do

[01:38:46] To fix it It's much more about him being like Told like you have to abide by the rules of You know the brotherhood of policing Right like you know which is essentially like Whatever we do you know No snitching and we're you know

[01:39:01] We're allowed to behave the way we want Over whatever idealistic notions you had Of like you know being I believe he's supposed to be like The first black deputy at the Sheriff's department Right like he's you know he's supposed You know he's like a milestone figure

[01:39:17] Yeah and so I was watching that And then I was thinking about Black Clansman A movie that I do not like And it basically has a very similar kind of like setup But then it goes like there are the bad cops

[01:39:32] The bad cops and there are the good cops Sure And like you can choose to be a good cop And that's how you fix it And watch and like I just That's kind of how I feel about like films Like from like 2008 on

[01:39:47] Where like that's the kind of attitude It's just like there are the good people And they're over there And you just have to be over there Where the good people are Whereas like if I watch we're watching the black The glass shield actually like

[01:40:01] I was you know stirred intellectually by a film Like it made me think about dynamics You know what I mean I like that movie a lot I mean I think Spike Lee's great cop movie Is Inside Man because that movie is very

[01:40:15] Upfront about everything terrible about the NYPD While still being like I'm delivering you A really like slick fun you know heist movie But like it makes you know it has all those sequences Where like the weird in industry of the NYPD Is being deployed like the fences

[01:40:34] The machinery the vehicles Like you know they're like they are hassling anyone Coming out of the build like you know all that stuff That's just kind of like bubbling away Like the black clansman I feel like he got so hung up

[01:40:45] On the story right like the Ron Stallworth story And like I don't know I like black clansman Okay I have a handful of things I want to say I mean one is I remember during the black clansman Oscar campaign season When like everyone was like oh my god

[01:41:06] Spike's finally made a movie that's going to like Cross over at the Oscars Sure I remember talking to a publicist Who was part of the black clansman team At like a cocktail party And she was saying to other people in the industry Who had not watched black clansman

[01:41:28] Like no you don't understand Like this movie is actually for white people Like that was kind of their selling point On the movie at the time Which ties into what you're saying Jordane And also talking about the way that

[01:41:40] Race relations are often dealt with in major films now Which is like movies to make liberals feel good Movies in which there are very clear cut Like these people are good, these people are bad And the journey of the movie is watching the good people

[01:41:54] Succeed over the bad people And you get to feel good because you knew That the good people were good all along And the bad people were bad Exactly Like they're very sort of self serving to the audience I think black clansman is probably the best

[01:42:09] Of those types of movies Yes, I will say that But it still is that box He's an extremely, he's an exciting filmmaker Even if you're not into the movie Totally Right, exactly The Five Bloods is so much more interesting And fraught to me

[01:42:25] And the way it's discussing all these weird racial dynamics You know in a way that also I see the movie being misinterpreted a lot But I think that's because it's a complicated text Whereas black clansman is so cut and dry Yeah, yeah

[01:42:40] I mean black clansman like there are scenes That are really like the one where they're all dancing And like all of the like flourishes stuff I enjoy But yeah And I will cause I was like I think about Secret Life of Bees

[01:42:52] Which is like the exact kind of movie That I would never want to watch Simply because of how kind of like Cut and dry things are But like But as a hangout movie it actually works much better That's where it works There's some good hangouts

[01:43:06] I mean there are good hangs in The Secret Life of Bees And making honey seems fun And the beekeeping scenes Which there are not enough Are weird Not enough bees in this movie They're a great metaphor right Cause it's like here we are in this incredibly

[01:43:24] Like you know like it's very tense It's sort of dangerous There's bees flying around Like it's also sort of serene Like she's approaching it in this very methodical And like you know a knowledgeable manner And like there's no fear Because they're in this nice community

[01:43:41] That they built for themselves But it's still like an intense and scary place And like I dug all the bee stuff Bees are cool Bees are cool Queen Latifah like just sort of like Telling me about queen bees I'm like yeah I could

[01:43:57] I could do like a you know Like a sort of like Planet Earth mini series Length of that Like that would be great So I was yeah Could have done with more bees That's maybe my biggest complaint About this movie Not enough bees

[01:44:14] Oh we haven't really talked much about Sophie Okanado Yes okay I was gonna say I feel like we briefly have to touch On her and bet me So this is like Sophie Okanado Who has been around forever Is like a great British actress

[01:44:31] At a lot of stage and TV Does Ace Ventura when nature calls Where she plays the princess You know but then doesn't really have a breakout Until like dirty pretty things in 2002 And then Hotel Rwanda in 2004 She doesn't do that many movies From 1991 to 2004

[01:44:49] And then she gets a surprise Oscar nomination For Hotel Rwanda very deserved Then she has like a run of a couple Kind of like post Oscar nomination Paycheck roles Eon Flux Which I feel like I need to watch now She is like the wise

[01:45:05] I don't know what does she play in it Because both her and Francis McDormand seem to be playing Like omniscient leader characters Right? I don't know I have never, yeah We should do Kusama I just think every element of that movie Is fascinating

[01:45:23] And it was written off at the time And now I feel like I need to watch it Because I'm like I like Kusama I like Charlize Theron Doing action But then this is like 2008 This is four years after Rwanda I feel like everyone's pegging her as

[01:45:38] This is the big oscarie performance This is the key supporting role This is like the most classically oscarie character And I can't figure out What I think of this performance Yeah, I don't You know when I was When I was with podcast before

[01:45:54] I was going to talk about the Tandy Newton I was about to say it is similar It's a similar fine line thing I, okay Here's the thing though I think that Sophie has like A better job than Tandy Newton And keeping this character reigned in

[01:46:11] I think so too Yeah But I don't I still don't understand her Like she's a very Mysterious character to me Well she sort of oddly defined Where it's like This is sort of a woman post breakdown They try to make it seem like

[01:46:34] Rather than someone who was born Developmentally disabled in any sort of way I was kind of, I was hoping they would say I don't know maybe it says it in the book Like how her sister died It seemed the way I kind of chose

[01:46:48] To see it for it to make sense Was that basically she was like Developmentally stunted in a way Or emotionally kind of stunted When she went through Such an awful thing as like the loss Of a sister and the loss of like a twin Well but they also

[01:47:04] They talk about it like unpack it a little bit And that her relationship with her sister Was so symbiotic which I feel Like is often the case with twins at a young age I mean you hear all these stories about twins Having their own sort of secret language

[01:47:16] You know it's often like Parents of twins have a hard time Teaching them to speak Because twins figure out how to communicate With each other in a way that is Not conventionally verbal So it's the idea that like they're so bonded She's perhaps a more empathetic person

[01:47:34] To begin with and that You know she has this sort of breakdown After her sister dies this sort of like Post-traumatic breakdown and that They bring her to all these doctors Who can't diagnose what's wrong with her And so they have like Forgone any sort of institutionalization

[01:47:51] And tried to figure out how to like Teach Meta-Cope on her own But it is very much this kind of classic Like oscarie You're playing someone who is sort of childlike And sees the world differently Performance with a lot of affectation

[01:48:07] I feel like she does it better than most But much like Jordane you're saying This is the exact type of movie you don't like That's sort of the exact type of performance I'm least interested in It's a character that's tough

[01:48:21] Yeah, no, I really don't like that kind of thing But she, I like the actress so much That it didn't piss me off as much as it would have I think she does it She's a good actor Pretty well

[01:48:32] But it does still fall into that thing of like Actors viewing Characters challenges as an opportunity For a skill piece You know, it becomes that sort of show off Like look how well I can play This person's circumstances thing That always feels a little gross to me

[01:48:51] Yeah, you know the Ed Norton specialty Yes, we talked about this I feel like Unbelievable as well The Edward Norton thing of just like Oh my god, look how many tics I get to play here But yeah, I don't know She's fine

[01:49:08] You know, it's weird that she gets the death Because I don't know It's one of those things where like I guess that is the kind of character That would get best supporting someone Who's like not there for very much Yeah And then dies And cries a lot Yeah

[01:49:26] And it also feels like a bummer Because it's that kind of like Oh, this character is the innocent Who needs to die as like the martyr For everyone else to go through some catharsis The whole construction of it feels kind of cynical to me

[01:49:42] But it's very typical to these kinds of movies That there's like right there will be a big death in the third act And it will sort of shake everything up And as you say, right The last performance I want to talk about very briefly

[01:49:54] Before we get to the box office game Is this is just the height of Paul Bettany's like You know what, I absolutely do not want To be a conventionally sexy movie star run Where Hollywood is just like this guy is so handsome And so charming and he's like

[01:50:10] Oh, only play the least appealing people in the world And he's doing like this and Da Vinci Code Da Vinci Code for sure He plays a lot of villains You know, he's still in his movie star Period because Legion is after this

[01:50:26] Where he's a shirtless angel with a machine gun So yeah But that is the weirdest movie to want to finally Be a conventional movie star in He's like, oh you guys want me to be like a buff superhero I'll do Legion which is fucking

[01:50:39] Bug nuts and made two dollars He also does Priest, he did both of those When did they do a night's tale? Is that early 2000s? Night's tales early That's breakout Bettany That's when everyone's like Fuck this guy is outrageous Like he's in gangster number one

[01:50:55] Is young Malcolm McDowell And everyone in Britain is like Oh this guy's like a talent And then he has Night's Tale And a beautiful mind in the same year And everyone's like Brian Hedgeland wanted him to play the Heath Ledger role

[01:51:08] And they went to the studio and they were like Absolutely not You have to get someone who's already well known So he writes that best friend character For Paul Beckman He plays Geoffrey Chaucer as his best friend in Hype Man It's great It's a great performance

[01:51:26] What a perfect movie It's a perfect movie Obviously his performance in Master Commander Master Commander is one of the great things That I've experienced in my life But this is the point All these directors were like Fuck Bettany, that guy's got the juice

[01:51:43] And so everyone gives him the best friend role To these big movie stars And he's playing Heath Ledger's best friend Russell Crowe's best friend twice And people are like Come on, it's gonna happen The guy's so handsome He's so charming when you see him in interviews

[01:51:58] He does Wimbledon Here we go, Romcom Him, Kirsten Dunst And he always talks about like And he like hated it He was like I hate this I don't like playing these types of characters I'm done And then he's just like villain, villain, villain Scumbag, scumbag Like dog-bill Firewall

[01:52:16] Da Vinci Code The only big movie he stars in Playing a non-creep is The Voice of Jarvis An Iron Man And then he's like Doubling down Secret life of bees Young Victoria He's like I want to direct a film Or no, no, he didn't direct Creation

[01:52:32] I always think he did No, that was a passion project for him But he didn't direct it I think that he just wanted to do That's his passion project I think he put a lot of His heft into that And when it didn't work

[01:52:45] That's when his career starts to wind down He does Presently Gym with both bomb And then the thing that saves him Is being brought back into Avengers Is the vision thing, yeah But since then his career is like What, four Marvel movies and solo

[01:53:02] He hasn't done that much Well he has this movie at Sundance Called Uncle Frank that he's the star of That he's good in It's a very big, actory performance Another Southern movie It's a bad movie Capital B bad movie Alan Ball You know, 1970s road movie

[01:53:22] Gay Guy goes home Confronts his past Everything about it You know how that sounds annoying? It's annoying But he is good He is certainly good And it's sort of one of the six You're like, oh yeah, right I mean if you let him at something

[01:53:39] I do love the actors Whenever they're trying to be like Yeah, we're really going for it They want to play like a Southerner Why does everybody want to play a Southerner? Everyone is so bad at it Brits love the accents They just love to fuck around with accents

[01:53:52] I forgot he also He played the Unabomber In the Unabomber show I never watched that That's another Dane S. Freak I think it's another like Skill piece talent show thing, Jordan I think it's like Southern accent is like such a meal As an actor

[01:54:09] And you have so many like Regional specificities Depending on what era you're in And what specific city and state You're in That actors are just like Let me at it I want to spend six months Listening to like tapes Of like Southern Baptist in the 1970s

[01:54:26] Like they just love that kind of shit Uncle Frank I assume one day When the coronavirus subsides Uncle Frank will be unleashed on society And then we'll all get to deal with that fucking thing But I saw it Wait was that a Sundance this year?

[01:54:40] Yeah, yeah it got popped by somebody Okay, yeah no I mostly saw good movies at Sundance Yeah, I actually had a great Sundance And Uncle Frank was one where I was like Getting down and I was like Ellen ball I don't know about this And then you know

[01:54:54] It's Amazon bought it So I guess Amazon will It's terrible company it's on many bad things Guys let's play the box office game Unless we go ahead Griffin No all I was gonna say is It's just wild to think that within This calendar year Sundance happened Like properly

[01:55:10] Like at the last moment That you could have a film festival Sundance happened A lot of big movies premiered Big acquisitions happened And now we're like Will there ever be a film festival again Will movies ever be released in theaters But that was like

[01:55:23] Tiff is gonna be online for press I think the press isn't coming at all Can't wait to log on for Tiff Tiff.com Box office game Box office game Alright this is a wild box office game It's October 17th 2008 Secret Life of Bees is opening to 10 million dollars

[01:55:40] At number three It makes 37 Yeah it's a big release And you're also like Probably never stops being played in English classes As you said Jordane This is such a high school middle school Yes I assume it's in the mix and some cable channel I don't know who goes

[01:55:59] The book continues to sell well There was a Secret Life of Bees musical That was about to open off Broadway With LaShawns And Lynn Nottage wrote the adaptation With Duncan Sheik writing the music Wow Maybe it's good Sam Gold directed it

[01:56:15] It was like hyped up as like this might be a big Broadway musical And then Broadway shutdown as well But it's like clearly this material Still seems to have juice I don't know People like finding about That Secret Life of Bees live

[01:56:31] You think they're gonna have real bees on stage? They should, they should unleash them every performance The bees are the core Just send people on B Costumes Like the early SNL days Just Jerry Seinfeld from B Movie Like descending from the ceiling I think Jordana is right

[01:56:48] I think they should reuse the exact killer bees costumes I think the entire ensemble of dancers And chorus singers should be wearing Elliott Gold's sweaty bee costume from 1976 Now number one at the box office Is a video game movie In 2008 Yes So it's not Silent Hill

[01:57:13] No, it's unfortunately a video game I've played so many times And I have played it in sequel Do you like the game? I do like the game It's absurd But I liked the first two games I did not like the third one Here's a question Was this like

[01:57:29] Was this a pretty quick adaptation Or was it in the works for a while after the game Like what's the space between the first game? It was in the works seven years It was in the works for a while But it was one of those video games

[01:57:39] Even though it came out back When video games were a little less cinematic It kind of felt like they were like Turn this into a movie Like it was a very moviey Oh, it's Max Payne That's right Yes, I remember Mark Wahlberg

[01:57:55] Yeah, because that game was so cinematic I loved that first game too And it came out and everyone was like Oh man, it just feels like you're playing a movie And then by the time they made it into a movie

[01:58:03] Everyone was like, we don't really need to see this Yeah, Max Payne, that's okay His name is Max Payne He feels pain I have no idea what that is But you're okay Well, in the video game Mark Wahlberg cops, pales and shoots people

[01:58:17] Yeah, you're a cop whose family gets murdered And then you go on the rampage But in the video game You could go into bullet time Because it was right after the matrix So you could slow things down David, you are leaving out the most important detail What?

[01:58:35] That's the element that made everyone think Oh my god, this game is so cinematic You get to do bullet time sequence What activates bullet time sequence? No, it's not taking pills If that's what you're about to say Really? I remember it being that you would take pain killers

[01:58:48] No, you take pain killers to reduce your To heal yourself Are you sure the pills don't do bullet time? Yes, you enter bullet time by right-clicking Come on, I played Max Payne Let's not mess around Okay, I am looking at Max Payne This is so...

[01:59:04] Because I was a film snob in high school So I would never watch anything like this I was just watching You didn't want to see Max Payne? The guy's name is Max Payne Do you understand? There's a subtle... Illusion I was an inseparable kid

[01:59:22] I was an inseparable teen Right I'm just looking at the Max Payne film Wikipedia entry That's the one with Mila Kunis I knew Mila Kunis was in a movie That I was like, I like her But I don't want to watch this Okay, that was Max Payne

[01:59:36] Right, because this is the same year as Forgetting Sarah Marshall When she's starting to like... The poster on Wikipedia for Max Payne You know, a movie that's called Max Payne Is not really like Trafficking and Subtlety No The poster is Mark Wahlberg on his knees

[01:59:56] In the middle of a city street in the rain Looking up to the heavens Holding a handgun in each hand Like it looks like this is the most Tortured anti-hero He's in so much pain It's black and white with the red

[02:00:14] Which is sort of like, it's like a Sin City ripoff They're clearly trying to sell you on Like this will be like Sin City Or more like The Spirit Absolutely Okay, so Max Payne is number one At the box office Huge film at the box office

[02:00:29] Number two, Griffin It's a film that's come at the box office game before It's a Disney film It's a children's film It's an animal film Bolt It's not bolt It's not bolt? No 2008 It's live action or animated, hybrid I believe it's live action But certainly there's some...

[02:00:52] So then it's Beverly Hills Chihuahua It's Beverly Hills Chihuahua We've talked about it before I can't remember when it came up, Griffin In some other box office game I think it came up in our Roger Gosnell Many series, did it not? Right, of course, yes

[02:01:06] Directed by Roger Gosnell Never been podcasted Yeah So Beverly Hills Chihuahua Anyone wants to say anything about it? No, okay, we're moving on To the number four film At the box office Another Oscar, failed Oscar play A biopic By a big director

[02:01:26] But he's kind of on the downswing I'm sorry to move backwards I have one brief thing I want to say about Beverly Hills Chihuahua You open the floor I'm allowed to say this I closed the floor No, I reopened it for a second

[02:01:39] Beverly Hills Chihuahua is an interesting phenomenon to me Which I feel like it's very paired up with kangaroo jack Where the trailer is focused on one sequence That is not indicative of the rest of the movie So kangaroo jack was sold so entirely on

[02:01:53] The sequence of kangaroo jack Talking to the camera Right, because they had to add more of it No, most of the movie is A completely non-anthropomorphized kangaroo Who's being chased by Anthony Anderson, Jerry O'Connell Because the kangaroo has money in its pouch Which they need to recover

[02:02:12] And then there's Well in a jacket that they put on the kangaroo for fun Because they thought it was funny to take a selfie It's a pretty good premise I mean, I'm laughing But there's one scene In which Jerry O'Connell gets knocked out And has this hallucination

[02:02:27] In which the kangaroo talks to him and raps And the advertising campaign was entirely based around The talking kangaroo I was so angry about that as a kid Like, I was like, where is the kangaroo? Who? I don't care about Anthony Anderson I want the kangaroo

[02:02:43] They just made it seem like that was going to be the entire movie Snow Dogs did a similar thing With its dream sequence Which is the only sequence for the dogs talk Beverly Hills Chihuahua is even weirder Because it is about talking Chihuahuas

[02:02:55] But the trailer was just this entirely CGI Like Aztec monument With Chihuahuas doing a big Busby Berkeley number And singing So they advertised it as if it was happy feet For Chihuahuas And then the movie is like

[02:03:11] A Chihuahua gets lost and has to find its way back home But is it more focused on humans Or is it still just focused on the dogs? I'd say it's closer to like It's half and half But it's not what the trailer made it seem

[02:03:26] Which is a happy feet ask Here's just a world, a society of Chihuahuas Singing and dancing Anyway, the floor is closed on Beverly Hills Chihuahua It's a bi-break Griffin Number three is bees Wait Go ahead Can I answer? Yes, of course I think, is it J Edgar?

[02:03:47] It's not J Edgar Great guess another biopic From a big director that no one gave a shit about Is it a singer or is this era over? No, it's political So you know, you're in the right wheelhouse there And is it a failed Oscar play?

[02:04:02] Does it get any nominations? No Oscars for this one Oh, it's W? It's W Oliver Stone's W Released while Bush is still in office Josh Brolin You know, it's not a bad movie I was surprised at how much I watched a bunch of political movies

[02:04:26] At the beginning of quarantine Because I don't remember what my reasoning was It was some kind of, I was annoyed with white people And I wanted to understand why they mythologized The presidency, that's what it was And so I watched W And out of all of them

[02:04:44] It was the one that annoyed me the least Tandy as Condi Rice We were talking Tandy of course It's my favorite Tandy performance I think she's excellent in it She's great in that movie Did she talk about that in her interview? She did

[02:04:58] And she said she felt very betrayed by the movie Because she thought the film was going to be a lot toothier And so she's giving this like very big performance And then as the film went on Oliver Stone kept on sort of like dulling it down

[02:05:12] It is the ultimate, as you said Jordane It is the ultimate not bad but also not good movie I don't understand that movie, yeah Bizarre that Oliver Stone made a George W. Bush film In 2008 while he was still in office

[02:05:27] And the movie is just kind of in the middle Like it's not annoying But it has no strong angle on anything Outside of Tandy Noon who I think is giving The most sort of like pointed performance In the whole film

[02:05:39] Yeah I just like, I mean it annoys me less than Vice does So that's nice It is much better than Vice Fucking terrible Yeah God I wonder though Is Vice more interesting than W? No Just because it's so bad W is better No I'm not talking about better

[02:05:56] I'm not talking about better W is more interesting because it is It's so milk toast And it was directed by a maniac I don't, whatever W I don't know It's a question mark that one JFK which I hate is like I hate it

[02:06:15] But you can tell how much Oliver Stone Loved making it and to compare it to W It doesn't make sense It's very weird Number five The Vice film at the box office I feel like it also comes up a lot for us

[02:06:27] It's an actor having a big star moment It is technically a hit as Griffin I often like to remind me They made a hundred million dollars You know like Everything's going great for this guy It's a thriller Sort of a chase movie Sort of a spy movie

[02:06:49] But doesn't exist Killing it, it's a spy movie It does, oh it's Eagle Eye Eagle Eye Shia La I feel like I constantly have to remind people How consistent Shia's run was there Right, but I do think I think Eagle Eye is one of those fake hits

[02:07:07] Where yes the studio crawled it over a hundred million dollars Yes people saw it But not one person knows that movie exists No It like you know had no I already forgot which movie you're talking about Eagle Eye The eye is looking Eagle Eye Okay, okay got it

[02:07:27] I've seen Eagle Eye I do not remember it I remember that in the trailer You know because he's getting framed or whatever right He gets dragged into a room And he's like what's going on And Billy Bob Thornton comes in

[02:07:40] And says you're in a whole mess of trouble son Absolutely And I'm like I do not want Billy Bob Thornton To ever say that to me That's when you know you're in trouble When Billy Bob Thornton is entering the room He's clearly an agent of some sort of

[02:07:54] You know government And he says you're in a mess of trouble It works case in area But And we can't bring it up so much Is that movie comes out sandwiches Between Indiana Jones and Transformers 2 And Spielberg was so behind Shia Like Dreamworks produced his Disturbia

[02:08:26] He plucks him from that favorite super likable, non problematic movie star. And then Eagle Eye is the one where they were like, here you go, we're putting him in a new movie where it's not based on pre-existing IP. After these blockbusters, he has a big sequel lined up.

[02:08:44] He's going to hit 100 million by himself without any sort of attached franchise. And then after that he does Transformers 2, Wall Street 2, Transformers 3 and then is like, I fucking hate being a movie star. That's when Shia starts like eating Hollywood.

[02:09:04] Remember when he watched all his movies at the IFC Center? Yeah. Or Angelica, wherever it was. Look, I'm pro Shia. I just think that film's fascinating as the last gasp of... It's good and bad. The Spielberg movie star machinery. Like we're going to make this guy work. Yeah.

[02:09:19] I still haven't seen Honey Boy. Have you guys seen it? Yeah, I'm a big fan. It's great! I love Honey Boy. Honey Boy's good. That is it. You've also got Ridley Scott's body of lies. Doesn't exist. You've got topical quarantine. Remember that movie?

[02:09:36] You also have opening at 9th Sex Drive, the movie where the kids have to drive because of sex. You have sex! Yes! I was a big fan of sex drive. I mean, I was the right age to give a shit about sex drive.

[02:09:51] I love a movie title that just says exactly what it is. They have to go on a sex drive. Exactly those things. And also a lot of Amish people and also Fall Out Boy show up. I remember that. Fall Out Boy is in it physically?

[02:10:08] Fall Out Boy physically shows up in sex drive. Wow! It's great. I remember Marston, James Marston pops up. Yes! Seth Green plays one of the Amish people, right? Yes, he does. He's very funny in that movie.

[02:10:24] It's one of those tail end movies from the sort of like, you know, teen sex comedy and resurgence. Like the American Pie. Yeah, yeah. Like it's one of the last ones where they're like, we can still just look and throw this shit at the screen, right?

[02:10:37] And I feel like it just eventually they just stopped, I guess. Yeah. Sex drive is really at the tail end. Like it's sex drive. It's easy A and then I don't really know if there's really anything after easy A for a long time.

[02:10:50] Right, was sort of like, yeah, let's do a higher quality version of these. Right. Not that I mean super bad or whatever, you know, but like, right? It's yeah. They like learn about the scarlet letter and it's like interwoven into the plot as

[02:11:03] opposed to just like one of those sex drives feels like the last of like the R rated sex based teen kind of way. It's just like what's the plot? They want to fuck! Yeah. Tell me more. I don't know they need a car. Like, you know, it's just.

[02:11:20] That's a lot going on. The joke in that movie where like Clark Duke is the hot guy. I love that. Oh, yeah. That's that's that's the weird joke of the movie. It's that like everybody thinks that he's hot and that's supposed to be fun. He's a nice boy.

[02:11:36] Yeah, nobody is pretty hot. It's the ishtar joke which I always find funny, which is just like put a character on screen who does not seem conventionally sexy and have everyone in the universe of the movie lose their minds over him.

[02:11:49] He literally like one of the Amish with girls falls in love with him and he just moves into the Amish community. Like that's the ending for that character. Pretty cool. Pretty fucking cool. But 2008 seems like a bad year for movies seems like it's it's it's the

[02:12:06] slumdog year, which is yeah. So it's a weird year like I'm sure, you know, like there's good movies that it is. It's kind of the big. It's the big year because that's the Iron Man year, so it is kind of the

[02:12:19] beginning of the end and and dark night. It's the year that breaks Hollywood. Yeah, yes. It's the year where it's like oh fuck. My favorite movie from 2008 was Sinecta Q New York also my favorite movie from two thousand one of my families of all time.

[02:12:35] Yes, yes, but but 2008 is the year where Iron Man and Dark Knight like roll the die. They cast the die for the next 10 years of Hollywood and also the year in which the Oscars start losing their fucking minds because they don't

[02:12:50] nominate Dark Knight and they start like doing like the 10 movie thing. They do the 10 the following year because this year the five is so bad and they feel like they lose ratings because they don't nominate Dark Knight. So then they go chasing that like 2008 the beginning of the

[02:13:05] end for everything. Yeah. Anyway, this has been our episode on the secret life of the movies. Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz. Yeah. Jardine, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Of course. Of course. Also did this come out the same year as B movie? Hmm.

[02:13:23] I think B movie might be a year prior. B movie comes out when I'm in college. So that's a good idea. America has B fever. Yes. Who's B fever? Anyway. Right. As we know from B movie, Honey just got funny. So like, you know, obviously. We know that.

[02:13:40] Right. Jardine, people should listen to podcasts. Bad romance. Yeah. That'd be cool. You co-host with the great Brown Win Ariel Isaac and then Browse held high. You co-host with Kyle, your partner and that's accessible on Patreon. Yes. Yeah. That's on Patreon.

[02:13:59] We need to, Kyle is very new to podcasts so I'm going to show him how to like put it online so that other people can listen to. But yeah, it's just talking about art house films. The first episode is on Antichrist.

[02:14:09] The second episode is on Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book. Yeah, so like I think we might be doing high rise next. Hey. So that'll be fun. I gotta say, high rise is a movie I've been thinking about a lot recently. Kyle off screen saying he's pro high rise.

[02:14:29] Kyle now on screen real quick. Fetching pants. Don't mind me. No, I keep on thinking about high rise while being in lockdown. That's all I'm going to say. High rise good. High rise good. And thank you for being on the show today. Of course.

[02:14:50] And thank you all for listening. Please remember to read your music. Sometimes I feel like you just don't want to end the show. Yeah. It's almost like this is maybe the only form of social interaction I have anymore. Well, I love to interact. It's great to interact.

[02:15:08] But David the point is we got to thank Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Sure. We got to thank Pat Reynolds and Joe Bonner for our artwork and and for co-producing the show and Rachel Jacobs for her editing assistance.

[02:15:28] And we got to tell people we got to tell them to go to patreon.com back back slash blank check where they can listen to mission impossible commentaries. And we got to tell them to go to reddit.com Griffin back slash back. Stop for some real nerdy shit.

[02:15:49] This is a term of all David. David, look me in the eyes. Look me in the eyes, David. And as always, David, I got to tell you that you got me straight tripping. No, get out. I knew another person on zoom.