The Way Back with Alex Ross Perry

[00:00:21] In 2023, four men walked into the Blank Check offices to record a podcast. They had survived a three hour and 28 minute record on Fight Club. This episode is dedicated to them. So, is this a tagline? No, this is the title card that opens the film. Okay, okay. You didn't want to do the tagline I found? Uh, I can do that as well. I think it sucks. Yeah, go ahead.

[00:00:50] Their podcast was just the beginning. Indeed. Their escape was just the beginning. But how about this tagline? Every loss is another fight. So, every loss is another podcast. Every podcast is another fight. Yeah, I mean that's sort of true. That's one battle after another, if you know what I'm saying. That's the tagline for the film The Way Back. Oh, sure. With Ben Affleck. Fuck, you stepped on me. Yeah, I was gonna make... Okay, so what was your... I was gonna say it's really weird that Peter Weir came out of retirement to make this high school basketball movie. It wouldn't be that weird of him.

[00:01:20] It sounds like a good movie. My bit was going to be... It's weird that Peter Weir made this, like, 80s throwback water park movie. Okay, right. Okay, alright, so that's what I was about to do the of my other tagline. So I had a two-stage bit which was gonna be one, just let's get this out of the way. We all agree this is Ben Affleck's best performance, right? You could do that. Then I was gonna pretend I had watched the wrong movie. Then I was gonna say, no, of course I'm joking. It is surprising that Peter Weir came out of retirement to make an 80s water park movie, though. Well, or, I mean, you could say... We're talking about The Way Way Back at this point.

[00:01:49] Right, that's a different film. Not a sequel to this movie. Right, but you could argue like, yeah, it's funny. I did not anticipate the sequel being about, you know, uh, you get it. They came out pretty close together, did they not? The Way Way Back is 2013, and it's got a great tagline, didn't you? I really want you to hear it. I can't wait to hear it. My ears are open. We've all been there. It's just like... Hell yeah, brother. People just walking into the theater and just like collapsing into a coma reading that tagline. Hell yeah, brother. I remember... We've all been there. I remember thinking...

[00:02:19] Where? Way Way Back, which is... Sitting in the back of a car. Okay. Read the cast of The Way Way Back. I'm about... I have to read this cast aloud. Steve Carell. Tony Collette. Rooster himself? Is that the show? The new show? I wanna get better! We just completed rewatching The Pacific, and every time we started an episode, there was an ad for Rooster, and it became... Every time I would go, oh, it's Rooster? Rooster! Our guy!

[00:02:49] I've been HBO Maxing, and it feels like they drop a Rooster ad every mid-sentence, every line of dialogue. The utter sickness of, like, Bill Lawrence, who obviously has contributed good things to our society, but now we're just like, do you wanna do another show? And he's like, sure, it's a guy, I don't know, he's gotta learn a lesson or something. Where's my money? You know, like... Yeah, but you're... We'll cast a really famous guy in the role. David, you're forgetting something. Tell me. A, Rooster's like the biggest hit show HBO Max has had in like five years. It is not! They have claimed as much...

[00:03:18] They had the Night of the Seven Kingdoms or whatever. They've said it is their biggest premiere... Sure, fine. In years. Uh-huh. Biggest premiere starring Steve Carell set in a university or whatever, Rooster is. The title named after Fowl. Yeah. Right. This is our biggest chicken-related, poultry-related drama. So, Steve, way, way back. The other thing you have to remember is it was an incredible chess move against having to lead the Scrubs reboot. Oh, so, right, he's not... Is he just collecting a check on the Scrubs reboot? I mean, he must have.

[00:03:48] He blessed it. Yeah, he came in and threw the football around for a day. Oh, David! Oh, I can't do it! He's getting terrible news. He's stuck in an overall deal with Warner Brothers. Oh, no! He wishes he could run Scrubs. It feels like a normal writer's room. A very flesh-and-blood writer's room. Yes. You know what I mean? Humans. Air brought in and out of the lungs in that writer's room by all the participants.

[00:04:10] The people who are giving notes are people and not cybernetic partners of humans. Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Little Miss Sunshine so far. Allison Janney, wow! Is she not in a movie? She's great in that movie. She would have made my five that year. Okay, that's insane. That's the one she should have won the Oscar for. Anna-Sophia Robb? Yeah, we love her. Was she Carrie? Wasn't she young Carrie? She was Carrie. She wrote the diaries. Sam Rockwell? He's being a jerk, right? Or is he nice? No, he's nice. Okay, he's nice.

[00:04:39] Oh, it's Carell who's a jerk. Yeah, Carell first build is weird outside of his star power. He's star. Sam Rockwell is like Bill Murray in Meatballs where it's like this guy's too cool for school and then he takes the sad kid under his wing and he's like, I'm actually sensitive too. Oh, cool. You know, he's the mentor. Sounds like a loser. Maya Rudolph. Maya Rudolph is his wife or long-term partner. Great. Rob Corddry. The tail end of Corddry being like, sneak me onto the poster. Yeah. I can get on there.

[00:05:06] I think Corddry and Amanda Peet are their parents' fun friends. Amanda Peet rudely below Rob Corddry. Yeah. And then, and Liam James. Is that the kid? Yes. I mean, I'm dashing to the theater. We've all been there. This is a coming of age movie with only adults in it? And Liam James. And Anna Sophia Rob. But that's two children. No, but I know the overwhelming amount of like, look, there's guys from gentle Sundancey comedies of other, you know, years. Wasn't this a giant Sundance movie? It was.

[00:05:36] It was a big purchase. Like 20 million sale, 2 million gross kind of thing. Oh yeah. It wasn't quite a full Happy Texas, but it was maybe a 10 and a 5. Let's find out. Let's find out. I'm guessing it was a 10 and a 5. Do you think anyone today other than people watching the skies at that time remember Happy Texas? You know. I think Happy Texas is only remembered because of the Sundance 5. Exactly. It's not even like, I feel like now people like Hamlet 2. Sometimes people are like secretly a good movie. Yes.

[00:06:04] But I feel like Happy Texas only comes up in this direct. I don't think it's like on streaming. I was going to ask like. It feels a little lost. Happy Texas, I remember liking. It's a perfectly good movie. It's perfectly fun. And I remember my brother and I being at like the video store, couch potato video across the street, my brother Jamesy and I being like, what's this? And my dad's like, Happy Texas. That's like the most expensive Sundance buy of all time. It flamed out. And we were like, interesting. Watched it like four years after its irrelevancy and liked it.

[00:06:31] Critical Darlings podcast under the Blink Check Productions banner that I've been executive producing did an episode on Train Dreams and the history of like Sundance movies at the Oscars, especially as it's now like the original form of Sundance has now come to an end. And I was just eagerly typing in the notes. Bring up Happy Texas. Happy Texas must be discussed. You must go through the process of explaining Happy Texas to Ben Frisch.

[00:07:01] It is important that it exists as a cultural reference point forever. We cannot let it slide into oblivion. I need to correct the record on the way, way back. Okay. Fox Searchlight purchased it for $10 million at Sundance, which was a lot. Like that was a big deal, but it made $21.5 million in North America. Interesting. Domestically? Domestic. And an additional five. It doubled the investment. That's a lot more than the way back made. They snuck it. I guess because they had an extra way. So that's more money.

[00:07:36] Would you put one and way, way is a solid third or are we putting Peter Weir in third? I would not. I like the way, way. But fair enough. Fair enough. Now, if you were wanking. If you're wanking. What's your order? These are three films that are not really going for erotic. If you had to way, way or watch Richard E. Grant's Wawa, which would you prefer? Way, way or Wawa? Well, look, way, way is Timu Adventureland, but I like Adventureland so much.

[00:08:06] I'll settle for off-brand Adventureland. I struggled with this movie a bit. I think it is very well made. I'm not like, uh, I meant to say fuck. Yeah, I meant to put the sound all the way up the game so that it just, the whole episode sounded blown out and just like really harsh and hard to listen to. Good, good. So that it mirrors the movie. Yes. Oh, sure. Yeah, okay.

[00:08:31] And then should our faces like kind of crinkle and get all dried up and our lips get all like chapped and fucked up? If we want to get an Oscar nomination, sure. Best makeup. This movie is only major nominations. Yeah. I'm going to have to confiscate all of the liquids. Yeah. No one's drinking. I watched on the Blu-ray, there was a featurette, there was like a 30 minute making of with all the actors. And Ed Harris has the most blown out audio I have ever heard. It sounds like he was recording in the middle of a tornado.

[00:09:00] It is insane because you're watching and you're like, oh, I guess they must have done this one over Zoom or something. And then you're like, no, it was 2010. It's crazy. What's the excuse? You're talking in a special feature. Making of. I'm talking making of. Ben's talking about the movie. Yeah. The movie itself. Yeah. Also bad. Yeah. So maybe it was the same sound guys, same sound department. I don't know. They were filming in pretty harsh conditions. It's a windy movie. Sure. But still. You don't have to fuck with windscreens in here. It would be funny if they all had windscreens. Yeah. This is a windscreen. This. No, no. I mean in the movie. Oh, sure. Oh, sure.

[00:09:29] Like Colin Farrell's like, I'll knife you when he's holding up a windscreen. It's not important. It's funny if they were all like holding up lobs between their fingers, even though the clip is the part that's supposed to go on your shirt. But they were doing like the TikToker thing. That's what the TikTokers do. That's what the TikTokers do. You know who doesn't know about TikTokers? The characters of the way back. Yeah. Here's an immediate. That was deft. An immediate reveal of how little I had ever engaged with this movie until watching it last night. Like seriously engaged. It starts.

[00:09:56] And like from that first title card, I was like, oh, this movie isn't about Irish people. I just assumed you got Colin Farrell. Because Colin and Saoirse. And I'm like Sturgis swings Irish a lot. I know he's actually British, but I feel like he plays Irish a lot. He's definitely played Irish, I think. Yeah. Right. And I'm like, Ed Harris could play Irish. I was so confident this was a movie about like the fucking potato famine or something. It is one of those movies with a poster. You're like, I don't know. It looks, looks like these guys are having a bad time doing something. Truly.

[00:10:25] You know, like I don't know why. My full level of engagement with this movie is these characters are struggling. These actors on the poster are struggling in some way. And I think they're walking a lot. That has the same game that sometimes we do. A movie like not, not this, but bigger ones. Like you could say to like somebody before they watched the year of living dangerously. Sure. What do you think this movie is about? Yes. And it's one of those things where people are like, I don't know. I've heard of this title forever.

[00:10:52] You know, maybe it's about like an alcoholic relationship of people that really, you know, it's a days of wine and roses kind of thing. Or it could be like, yes, man. It's like he does one year living really dangerously. He says the most, he says the most dangerous way of doing everything. Sometimes we throw that out as a challenge when, when we're watching something like, famously at home, Ana had never seen Rain Man. Your wife. And before I started it, this was years ago. I said, what do you think this movie is about?

[00:11:18] She said, it's about like a guy who's like a savant at gambling and he makes it rain in Las Vegas because all she'd ever seen was the shot in the casino. Which is true. That's what you think this entire movie is about. This is like a gambling 21 to bring. And that's why it's called Rain Man. 21 is Jim Sturgis, right? It is. Okay. So she thought it was like 21, like a guy who fixes gambling. I was looking at the timeline because social network comes out the same year as this movie. Uh, 2010. Sure. Yeah.

[00:11:47] Andrew Garfield just fucking blew Jim Sturgis to the black wall. I was like who market corrected Jim Sturgis. Like I was looking at that. I was like, he was really, they were pushing him hard. And then I felt like he completely slipped into oblivion. And I watching it, I was just like, oh, this brand of like intense sensitivity in the face of adversity became, you know, like one of Andrew Garfield's superpowers. I neglected to look up Jim Sturgis so that we could have the fun of him.

[00:12:15] We'll have a look at Jim. Cause it is a, like my wife was like, who's that? You know, cause it's like Colin Farrell. And Whoa, Saoirse wrote into this and she's like, and who's that? And I'm like, Jim Sturgis. But I might as well just be going like, like, it's just like, it's like the name of a handsome sounding guy. But like four years was a thing. Yeah. Are we going to say he was a universe? No, we're going to do his career. Okay. I'm arguing like, was he ever a thing? Hollywood was trying to make him a thing. Hollywood was a thought that he could be a thing.

[00:12:44] I think Hollywood was acting like he already was a thing. But that's what they do all the time. Yes. And sometimes it works. And sometimes it's the Colin Farrell thing where people are like, we sort of agreed that he was a thing, but you're trying a little too hard to make him a thing. Yeah. Put him away. And then after a few years, they're like, ah, he was a thing. Let's get it back. Let's get good. Open up the box. Colin go. I mean, we'll do it. But it's so funny to actually go through the Colin Farrell filmography item by item, because you think of it in your mind as like, oh, and then he totally bottomed out.

[00:13:14] And then he had a clean comeback. And then he bottomed out. It's always working. It's always up and down. He never stops working. But it's always like a good choice, a bad choice, two good choices, three bad choices. Yeah. Feels like someone paying the bills. I think if he had been if Colin Farrell here in this movie. Yeah. Five years earlier or five years later, people would have really lined up for him. Yeah. Yeah. Like earlier. It's like, man, this guy can do anything. And later it would be like, Colin Farrell is like always kind of good.

[00:13:41] And it's cool that he's in this big auteur movie in a small part. We love Colin Farrell. He's fantastic in this. But at this point, people were kind of like, that's enough of this guy. Yeah. Also, it's like five years earlier, he would have been the Jim Sturges part. And this movie would have been legitimate. Colin being in this movie was so excited to David Sims. Yeah. So exciting. You didn't see it for 14 years. But this is what I'm saying. It's like Peter Weir is making his follow up to Master and Commander. I'm like, sounds good. And they're like, it's like a true story drama about. And I'm like, OK, sounds fine.

[00:14:11] But Colin Farrell's in it. I was like, I love that. He's got the and. He's got the right. He's got the sort of plum supporting role. Peter Weir is letting you do a character actor part. And then the film came out and everyone was like, it's OK. Yeah. Sort of handsome. And I was like, oh, and then it was gone. Like from theaters. And I was like, OK, well, I guess I missed it. Yeah. I guess I'll wait for Peter Weir's next movie. Never. Still waiting. I have very clear memory of trying to see this at Union Square and just not getting around to it.

[00:14:40] Like you were like walking around the hallways. And I just like back in the back at that time, like you would just you would just write down. You just write down show times and be like, yeah, this week I could go see. And I just I remember Post-it note Union Square the way back, you know, like Memento style. I could go see that like this week or next week because I really want to go see it. Yes. Didn't happen. Never happened. No, because years ago. But you didn't see it. Years after that. I assume you saw as part of one of your sort of projects. Yes.

[00:15:10] And we can talk about that. But we should first say what the project is. The project of watching good movies. Of course. The eternal project we're all part of. What's the podcast? This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. You almost just fell for it. You almost you started looking at an email. You almost missed the queue. I almost did. You were actually three seconds slow. Someone actually texted me. Who do you think will win Blank Check March Madness? The carbon date this episode record. Yeah. Right. And I was like, whoo. And I had a little. My brain did a little thought. I should vote while you guys are on some tangent. Yeah.

[00:15:39] Who texted you and how are you going to answer? Ellen Cushing, host of Hits Different. Your secret podcast. It's not a secret. I want everyone to listen to it. But I said, I'm still thinking it's going to be Marty Tony. And I think I'd bet Tony, but very soft. Like, I'd put a flutter down. Like a 10 bucks on Tony. Like, I'm not feeling too secure. Also, much like Wes Anderson movies often have one burst of a static violence. Yeah. Right.

[00:16:08] Perhaps he just shanks Tony Scott. It would be funny if we're like, oh, Tony's a juggernaut. And then right. Like, uh, uh, he gets blown in half by Wes Anderson in a very artful way. Yeah. Uh, but no, I think that would be my guess. I mean, what's your guess? Is it for carbon dating the episode now? I feel like it's swinging Tony, but maybe I'm very wrong about this. I'm just making the Tony guess on the, we've already said the sort of like, well, there's just the, the mildest backlash to Marty the juggernaut. Sure. And so maybe Tony benefits.

[00:16:37] Don't tell me who I'm going to vote for. But that's, I don't really know. Yeah. I can't keep, I can't get in the brains of these crazy people. They voted for Chris fucking Columbus over Oliver Stone. I was going to tee you up for that. You can't get, you can't, can't predict anything. And I think he's, he's going to sneak by, uh, whoever he's up against today. Gus Van Sant, right? Yeah. That was a war crime to watch. Speaking of sending to the gulag, like 5,000 gulag seats needed for people that looked at the last 10 years of Columbus and were like, that would be. I voted for Chris Columbus.

[00:17:07] Yeah. I really want them to cover pixels and Christmas Chronicles 2, but not one. Like a pixels episode, which goes fairly hard. Pixels episode will be a heater. Christmas Chronicles will be a nightmare. There's a couple of them in between. Yeah. And the fucking Thursday murder club. Oh yeah. Jesus. Yeah. The Netflix run is really bad, but, but I mean, Chris Columbus is, is currently like a folding Gus Van Sant, like one of his flannel shirts. Here's the insane thing to me. He's edging by. He's not folding.

[00:17:34] Obviously my, my, my, my support of you guys doing Oliver Stone needs no introduction at this point. Here's the insane thing about people voting for Chris Columbus. Here we go. You'd have to keep covering his movies. It is true that we would be setting up. Don't they realize that this guy makes like a Netflix piece of shit every two years? I'm happy to report this. I'm not, I don't, I wish him no ill will. He seems very healthy. He does. Like I'm not looking at Chris Columbus being like this guy's near retirement. No, he's an ox. He seems like he's in great shape. He's got four decades of bullshit left in him.

[00:18:00] He could honestly like, you know, he could, there's no bottom to what he could end up making next. Now I want to share with you Alex. He's adding to the ledger. Oh yeah. JJ. JJ Brick. Our researcher was saying he secretly wants Columbus to win. In fact, he doesn't understand with I'm keeping quiet about this. So it's really, it's a kindness of us to share it all night. So that he can have several months off because you guys would cover someone. No one writes about it. It gives a fuck about it. Right. His dossiers would be like one page. It'd be like, yeah. It'd be like, Pixels was released on this date.

[00:18:29] It's Christmas Chronicles 2. Based on a dumb idea Adam Sandler had. He's figured out the way to like Bialyst stop his job. Yeah. This, this movie had one public screening. It was like the family heartland gala at the Nebraska film festival. Columbus did one interview for it. Here it is. It won the family heartland gala. It won like the dove family gentleness award. Chris Columbus has made three of the most successful films ever made in the history of Hollywood. We're saying Home Alone. As a commercial enterprise.

[00:18:56] Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire and Harry fucking Potter. Sure. So yeah. Two Harry Potters, two Home Alones, Mrs. Doubtfire. Don't forget. The sequels which are less exciting. But five of the highest grossing films in history. I mean, I love you, Beth Cooper made a Bill 5, right? It did, but that's the rust bump. We can't give that to him. Yeah, we could have rust on that episode. We could. I have no idea how he feels about that movie. I think he probably wants to do Percy Jackson instead. This is a podcast about filmographies.

[00:19:20] Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they walk a really fucking long way. This movie should be called The Long Walk, right? I assume they could be because of the fucking Stephen King book. I assume so. Obviously, it is based on a book called The Long Walk. So it's interesting that they did not. But yeah, maybe they were worried they would come off as an adaptation of a Stephen King story.

[00:19:50] Call it The Longest Walk or something. I'm like, the way back tells me nothing. And this movie starts and I'm like, oh, the premises, they have to walk. They're also not going back anywhere. They're going somewhere none of them have been before. That is true. I think this is like a fairly good movie. I think it's fairly well done. It's well made. I think the answer to all of our questions is like, don't make this movie. Make something else. Just make something else. Who are you talking to in this scenario? Peter Weir. Or I'm just like, if this is going to be your last thing and you're going to put a lot of effort into it, I think you should do something else.

[00:20:19] But do you think he called this was his last thing? I'm not sure that he did. We can look at the research. Here's a theory I want to put forward. Do we think, you know, Ethan Hawke gave this interview recently, because this is a miniseries on the films of Peter Weir. It's called Podnick at Hanging Cast. And our guest today, of course, is Alex Ross Perry. We're turning after my banishment has been lifted. We're going to pin in this. Pin. I have some news. In this. This is his 10th episode. Is that right? Of main feed. Wow. Of main feed. Unless I'm wrong about something. I'm going to read them out now.

[00:20:48] And I brought gifts for you guys. Can I try to guess them? Sure. Fuck. You want to go in order? I forgot to wear my hollow man hat today. I was going to do that to memorialize your run. Okay. So it starts with... Insomnia. It starts with Insomnia, which I rewatched recently. Good movie. Yeah. Because my insomnia has been out of control and I was like, it's time to check in with Detective Dorm. Let me sleep. Um... Garbage bags!

[00:21:17] The garbage scene is in the Skarsgård version. Yeah. I like... When I rewatched... When I watched the original, like, Insomnia, because it's on Criteria, I bought it at some point. And just announced as a new deluxe second sight 4Kid package. That's okay. I'm fine with my Criteria and Blu-ray. But like, where's the scene where Skarsgård's like picking up garbage? I'm like, wow, this is just all in the original! Yeah. Like... Anyway. I do think the Nolan's better. I agree. I haven't... Yes, it is definitely better. Okay. Skarsgård's really good in it. Insomnia. Then it's...

[00:21:46] Is it Hollow Man and then The Keep? Hollow Man and then... Taking Woodstock. There you go. Taking Woodstock and then The Keep. Those are the ones I remember doing at Audioboom. Yes. Those are the first four in studio. The fifth was a remote episode. And that was always when it was, can I pick the least relevant film? Which I have done, again I argue. We've come back around to it, because then when we get onto Zoom, it swings into... Well, Lucky Numbers was irrelevant. Oh, you're right. So that was fifth. That's the end of the irrelevancy.

[00:22:14] Not to Ben's landlord who bought the tape and kept it sealed. But it's irrelevant to most people. We still have it here in the office. Yeah. On DVD and VHS. Yeah. Well, I brought the DVD and then Ben brought the tape. Yeah. And then it swings around to four of the most important movies in your history as a person. That is correct. So then it's Halloween... Right? Halloween? Correct. Into... Fight Club. Nope. You're missing one. Bit of a contentious episode. Now I have to think of what we did at Ben's house. Clockwork Orange.

[00:22:42] And so the Halloween and Clockwork Orange, those were at Ben's place. Sure. And then the most recent two he did here. I think Clockwork Orange was here. Nope. No. It was at Ben's house that I drove you home after. Okay. That must have been a fun ride home. I have referenced this on the podcast before. No, it was. It was. We didn't have to work out anything. Everything was fine. Everyone on this Reddit is always like, Jesus, you could cut the tension in the room. Right. We got home in the drive. It was so fucking crazy. We just analyzed the career of Macaulay Culkin. Perfect. We...

[00:23:10] While David blasted the prodigy inside. I listen to this song every day. Yes. I wasn't like, Alex, it was really fucked up in there. I'm really mad at you. Like, there was no atmosphere. David was like... Except in the room when I was like, Jesus Christ. He was like, you see, when MC Maxx and reality entered into this particular phase of his rhymes. But wait, there was one after Fight Club, right? Correct. His most recent episode. Elephant Man. Elephant Man. Right here. Right here. And this is 10 and you are back to maybe the less relevant episode. Perhaps.

[00:23:40] But I've also never done the last movie. You've never done the last film. Never been here for a ranking. Oh, that's right. Although we're going to have to fit our ranking in, record it later. Yeah, we probably... Oh, because you haven't watched all the movies yet. I haven't... I mean, I've seen all the movies. But I haven't rewatched Year of Living Dangerously yet. I've only seen that film once. I've never seen that and I've only seen Master and Commander once, so I desperately need to rewatch before I rank. I have a feeling that Master and Commander might be number one on my list, not to spoil. Interesting.

[00:24:08] You guys haven't done those episodes yet. Those are the two we haven't done. Correct. Were either of you present at Lincoln Center for the Peter Weir retrospective around when this movie came out? No. He was there. He came. It was like a week of Q&A's. Yeah, that's what it was called. Yeah. But it was centered around this... I believe so. I could be wrong. In my mind, it was 2010. So I think it was sort of in conjunction with this movie. If you was doing a retrospective, I mean, that makes sense.

[00:24:37] Yes, it was January 2011. Which is when this... I mean, it was when this is probably going wide. This film came out... Oh, no, I didn't mean to hear that. Isn't it early 2011? Came out early 2011. Yeah. Yeah. So it has a qualifying run in 2010, gets nominated. No, it didn't have... No, wait. Did it? I think it's a festival, 2010. It's a festival, 2010. It's a festival, 2010. It's a proper theatrical 2011. Right? Because it loses to the Wolfman for makeup. Okay. Right? Yes.

[00:25:07] And that's the... No, that is the 20... So it must have had some pathetic qualifying run. It must have a pathetic piece of shit qualifying run. I mean, truly... Yes, Griffin. Yeah. December 29th, 2010, Los Angeles, California. Yes. Like, they don't even allow that at the Oscars anymore. They're kind of like, what? We coughed it onto theaters for like one day on like New Year's Eve. Yeah. I mean, this was an image and new market co-distribution deal. Yeah.

[00:25:33] But it came out, and it's not even wide, but like sort of 600 screens January 2011. So neither one of you, you were not present at this retrospective. It was great. No, I didn't have any money. It was, um... Well, I mean, you can go see a movie. No, you're right. You're forgetting, Alex, it did infinitely cost $1 million a ticket for the Peter Weir Retrospection. Oh, that's right. It was great, but he was there for almost all the Q&As. Yeah. I saw him do a Q&A at a double feature of Year of Living Dangerously and The Mosquito Coast. That's cool.

[00:26:02] And then I think he just gave like a talk. I think there was like a 90-minute like discussion some other day. His muggiest movies. Um, yeah. Those are the two most kind of like damp-aired films that he made. I just remember it being... I had already liked those movies, but seeing them at Walter Reed on film with him, it was like, man, these are the best. Like, this guy's just... And I saw Gallipoli there. I saw a bunch of movies because I was kind of filling in the gap. Sure. And it was a really successful series for me. I mean, he's... This has been a successful series for us.

[00:26:31] He's made really interesting, great movies, some of which I know well, some of which I'd like seen zero to one times. Mm-hmm. And they were all rewarding. And even this, which was the true, oh, I'll get to it. I know I should see. I know Peter Weir made it like for basically the last 15 years. I've been like, no, no, no. I'm planning on getting to that. That's strange because to me, this is an incredibly easy to watch movie. I found this film so hard to watch. Like the I'm getting to that is like, well, it's 170 minutes long. Everybody thinks it's bad.

[00:27:01] This is like... This is 133. Yeah, but that's short. Yeah, but it's Rock'em Sock'em. I would say very early in the movie. You described this movie as Rock'em Sock'em. I did not find it as hard as I'm unsurprised to learn Griffin found it. I think this is a bad film. And it wasn't like I was like squirming in my seat in discomfort, but I did find it to be a bit of a slog, a handsome, well-intentioned slog. Would you have enjoyed this more in a 4DX re-release? No question. This movie would... If the steps were happening, the subtle steps. Or like a...

[00:27:31] It's like you coughing, the seat coughs for you. A treadmill screening. Yes, I'd love a slow treadmill screening. It would spray dirty water in your face. Yeah, mosquitoes would come out. Well, but imagine how satisfying it would be when they get to the water in the middle of the desert. And suddenly they're just spraying water directly into your mouth. Yeah, look. Like a fucking water film. I would say I thought this film was going to be a little more like brutal and tough to watch and slow. And I was... I was when I watched it. I was like, no, this moves. Cause I'm like, right. Cause Peter Weir's like a good director.

[00:28:01] And like, this isn't quite the slog I thought it was gonna be. I would not call it Rock'em Sock'em. You don't think the gulag break is Rock'em Sock'em? I've reserved that term for robots only. Yeah. Real Steel is a Rock'em Sock'em movie. Yes. It is. I mean, if it wasn't, then they really blew the assignment. I'm not saying it's good. Yeah, but... It does have that Sean Levy feeling. Um, you saying I would tell Peter Weir just make something else, right? I think so.

[00:28:30] I was watching this, this 30 minute making of thing. And everyone is talking about how difficult an experience this film was. Yeah. But they're talking about it in the window between when they have wrapped and when the movie is released. And they all clearly feel like this is going to be a historic effort. Everyone is going to talk about, you know? They're not like pulling their shots. There's no reason not to think that. He had achieved that at this point for almost 30 years straight.

[00:28:57] But this was like a four month shoot of them fighting the elements. Sounds good. You know? Yeah. And they're all like, and by like day 20, the line between acting and reality is blurred. And we're feeling the real things. And we're all in it together. No one has any egos. And we felt such a responsibility to tell this story. To like go through such a Herculean effort to make this movie. And then have it treated with such a shrug. You know?

[00:29:25] Just like a complete kind of, it just, it doesn't exist. Ethan Hawke in that interview that gets recirculated. I play this movie in Cinematrix all the time. It's a smart play. It's a good play. Ethan Hawke had that interview that gets recirculated all the time where he said like, Oh, my buddy Peter Weir is retired. After years of people being like, is Peter Weir going to make anything again? Yeah. And he said, Peter's retired and the industry kind of broke him. And it stopped knowing how to make the kind of movies that he wants to make and he's good at. And also he got broken by like movie star egos.

[00:29:55] Right. And the two things he cited were how difficult a time he had working with Crow on Master and Commander. Yes. And that the other thing, was it supposed to be after this that he was going to make Shantaram? It certainly was. I think so. We can talk about it. I'm sure that's in the research. That was Johnny Depp's passion project. And he said the process of dealing with Depp in development for like two years broke him. Interesting. I haven't heard anything about Johnny Depp being tough to deal with. And Ethan Hawke pinned it just on the industry changed. Oh, right, right. And he stopped being able to deal with A-list leading men who were no longer collaborators,

[00:30:25] who were sort of, you know, dictators. Right? Whereas before he had been this guy where A-list men would trust him to mold them. I also, I watched this and I'm like, I get why he retired. To put this much into making this. Right. And just have it treated with a shrug. Right. It seems like he, from, you guys have more research hopefully than I do, which is zero. It seems like he tried other things after this. He wasn't like- For a bit. Right. There was some sort of- On a farewell tour. But he's now just said like, I don't have the energy. Right.

[00:30:55] And like, it's interesting because Master and Commander is now, a movie that was liked at the time has now become this like canonical movie. I think he appreciates that. But then there's also the kind of, the sort of melancholy of like, I didn't get to make another one. Right. I wanted to. Like- Master and Commander had like eight Oscar nominations, right? Ten. It's crazy that- It just went up against Return of the King. Right. And it still snuck a couple wins. Aside from it just not winning, but it's just crazy that that catapulted him to nothing.

[00:31:23] That makes me feel like Shantatram might have, or whatever. Shantaram. Shantaram. Good thing that didn't get me. I mean, I think that became a TV show. It became an Apple Plus original series, of course. It was Charlie Hunnam. Yeah, we all know. It was almost Miranair, Peter Weir, and I think there was a third major director who almost made it with Johnny Depp and then like 10 years later became an Apple Plus series that no one watched. It was a good thing we didn't have to learn how to actually say that. I just- Do you remember- Yes, what? That there was a Hulu original series about Sean Penn going to Mars in which they never

[00:31:51] actually went to Mars because in classic streaming series, you know, fashion season one ends with them like going to go to Mars tomorrow. We've discovered a new planet in our telescope. And then like, they're like, no one watched this season two has been canceled. So you didn't actually even get to watch Sean Penn go to Mars. It was called The First. It was a Beau Willamont show, right? Yes, that's right. Yes. I truly forgot that existed until you mentioned it right now. I think that's what he was promoting when he was on Maren saying he's retiring. Yes. It's like I've done everything.

[00:32:20] Smelting his Oscars or whatever. This part full time into books. We all love his books. Yeah, of course. Bob Honey who do stuff. You read- Both of you read Bob Honey who do stuff to your daughters every night, right? Every day. Honey! Honey! Sean Penn! What are you talking about? Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, look up the cover of Bob Honey who do stuff. Look up. Bob Honey who do stuff. Google Bob Honey who do stuff. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I believe it's just do stuff. Hang on. How do you think you spell honey in the title of Sean Penn's novel? Like honey. No, no. Think a little bit more Winnie the Pooh.

[00:32:51] H-U-N-N. You're on the right track. E-E? I don't know. It's something like that. Yeah. I'm seeing it in a ton he spelled regular. I will. I will. I refuse to revise my memory of what the title is. That's a true show that doesn't exist, David. And I want to correct myself. As is Shantaram with Charlie Hunnam or whatever. I think my joke about the first was too kind. Season one would end with someone making the telescope. This is for kids? Season two would end with them looking okay. It's how you introduce your kids to sophisticated political satire.

[00:33:20] This is a book for grown ass people. I think he's written multiple Bob Honey. I think so. The Bob Honey Crimes. It's like some kind of, it's not Forrest Gumpy, but it's like some kind of character who like drifts through history, I think. Mm-hmm. Everything I'm pulling is from a 10 year old episode of WTF. But like a Forrest Gump-esque character. I don't know. Yeah, sure. This was... Don't correct me. This was him saying like, I'm done with movies. Fuck them. Right. I'm doing this full time. I did this Hulu show.

[00:33:49] That's my final thing as an actor. And then he won a third Oscar and didn't show up. In history with three acting Oscars. Yes. He is the eighth. Yes. He won it for an incredible performance in a movie that I think will be very well remembered that won best picture. Yeah. And when he won, everyone was like... And he didn't show up. It being his third award... It's just so weird. ...and him not showing up, people will forget that he won. Yes! I think truly it will become a like, who won best supporting actor that year?

[00:34:16] And like, apart from Walter Brennan, who God bless him, we love him. Walter Brennan... But he's the weirdest of the winners. Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Nicholson... Correct. Uh... I mean, Sean Penn is five. Ben's friend. Ben's friend Daniel Day-Lewis. Yep. Meryl Streep. And there's one more. McDormand. She's got a bit of a hard face these days. Franny McDormand. A bit of a fix, you know, a tough stare. And she even has four Academy Awards. It's weird that... No, she has three. I guess four if you count her producing. Yeah.

[00:34:45] She has three acting awards. She has three acting wins and a best picture. You would think Penn and Weir would have overlapped. You would. They kind of hit the same... You're very right about that. ...hit the same stride around the same time. I mean, yeah, I wonder if he ever even considered him for one of his most big movies. Something I always loved about Peter Weir, younger, watching these movies is what you just said, like, man, he really just has these like, awesome men at the center every time. And they're just doing some of their best work consistently.

[00:35:12] The crazy thing is that Brennan won three Oscars in a span of five years. Yes. For playing... I mean, I haven't seen all the movies that he won Oscars for, but I assume basically doing the same shit every time because that's what Walter Brennan always did. Yeah. And he was only nominated one other time. So he has a 75% track record of winning if nominated. Meryl Streep, you're like three Oscars. Yeah, 21 noms. She sucks. I don't mean to be... She's always striking out. I don't mean to be rude. Yes. Is there not some weird explanation for the Walter Brennan thing that the rules of the

[00:35:41] Academy changed? Uh, you're thinking of... Possibly. Well, wasn't there a thing where he was nominated for both lead and supporting or something? Like... Ben, just pin that I tried to steer the conversation back to Peter Weir and David immediately brought it back to this trivia factoid that we're all tired of hearing at the end of Oscar season. It is, it is true that Oscar season's over and it is kind of like, who cares? That I, I very definitely tried to turn this Sean Penn... Well, Penn came up. What do you mean? We were on our great Penn run. But then I brought it back. The first... The honey thing.

[00:36:11] I brought it back and David, who likes things to keep going in a tangential direction, was like, hang on, we'll talk about Peter Weir in a second. Walter Brennan, who never worked with Peter Weir. Yes. That we know of. I'm gonna solve this. I don't, I know, I feel like I know what you're talking about, Griff, but I'm not totally sure. There... Oh, yes. Oh, this is what it is. Yeah. In the early years, extras could vote. There we go. Which makes no sense because like, what does that mean? Extras could vote. But they realized basically that he was always whipping votes from the extras.

[00:36:40] Because he was like a nice guy that everyone liked. So they were all like, ow, Walter Brennan. He'd saddle up next to them at lunch and they'd be like, he's a man of the people. Because there's the other thing where like, what is it like, Betty Davis got a write-in vote. And then there's the other thing where like, someone was nominated for both lead and supporting and won in support. Yes. I don't know. But that wasn't Walter Brennan. They had to clean up all the rules, but that's not Walter Brennan. No. Who was that? I don't fucking know. Well, please find out. It's Alex's 10th appearance on Blank Check. Yes. You're here, Alex. There was this false narrative. You're claiming you've been banned from the show. I mean, like, you just didn't do an episode in 2025, but it's only March.

[00:37:10] But at some point in that year, both Emily Yoshida and I conferred that you guys had gotten too big for us. For sort of the, you know, twin flames of Blank Check and some of the long-and-grunture. You had just outgrown some of your core voices. Right. Okay. So... In favor of the heavies and famos. Excuse me. Excuse me. I mean, what it really is is you guys both left the city. I mean, not to... No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. There's a bigger thing here. Okay. The bigger thing is you were chasing clout and fame.

[00:37:35] The bigger thing here is the Coen Brothers series and the early Spielberg series were both long, right? Those two series basically comprised a full year. We knew we were doing Lynne Ramsey after Spielberg. Is that right on the timing? No. After Spielberg, then it's Heckerling, and then it's Coen's. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. That's what it is. We knew we were doing Lynne Ramsey after Coen's. So we didn't book Yoshida on a Coen's because we knew she had to do more Vern Cowler. Correct.

[00:38:05] The thing with you is we have a group text called News and Deals. It is the three of us, Hitmaker Simons, David Lowry, and Sean Fennessey. Sean Hollywood Fennessey. Yes. Sean Hollywood Fennessey. Tim Hitmaker Simons. Yep. David Everything's Bigger in Texas Lowry. David Really Lovely Man Lowry. Gentle Soul Lowry. Yes. In a thread that's like heavy on shit talking, David's really there for like I feel like a really more pure energy.

[00:38:32] I invited David to it because I was simultaneously getting an endless flurry of texts from this group text and David the day the first one battle after another trailer came out. Right. And I was like, David, would you like to... Let's just combine these threads. This was similarly, we had a group text with Fennessey. We had a group text with Tim. Right. Both of them were trending towards physical media news and deal announcements. We combined them. And then I had... This is maybe the single act I'm proudest of in my entire life. Wow. That's just gonna be good. What are you gonna say?

[00:38:59] One day I say to the group, what do you think about introducing ARP to this group text? It was important. Because things are a little too stained here. Right. We're all a little too aligned here. Everyone kind of agrees on everything. There's no spice. Like the biggest controversy is Hitmaker not liking Zodiac. Who cares? You know, we all know he's wrong. He's getting riled up about it. Right. And it's been the greatest choice. You roll a grenade in there every other day. It's improved all of our lives. You bring us so much joy and happiness. I just don't have much else to do.

[00:39:28] So I can devote a lot of time and thought. You're a busy man. Your father. But... Very often we will give news and deals first crack. That's true. If we've settled on a miniseries or we're like, Hey, March Madness feels like it's trending this way. That happened in this miniseries and I said two movies and you're like, Oh, that's gone already. Peter Weir? Yeah. What did he say? The second you said we're doing Weir, I was like, I just revisited Truman Show. You're like, JD's doing Truman Show. Yeah. When the Coens looked like they were going to win March Madness, we throw out to you guys what were your Coens picks? B.

[00:39:58] Everyone else has a choice. You say... Oh great, he has it up. So this is going to be a verbatim line. Because Yoshida brought this up to me and was like, yeah, Arp and I have been complaining that we both feel like we've been shadow banned. I'm like, you're here doing an episode right now. As am I. And this is what Arp's not explaining to you. You said, I'd request Hail Caesar, a movie that so doesn't exist it took me 20 minutes to remember. This is me talking. Yes. Yes. Another great Cinematrix play. Because no one remembers all these people that are in the movie for one scene.

[00:40:28] No, we thought you were just making a comment about the public rudely not remembering this film. I was. Sims says... CBS Films failed that one. That's a great art... That was inside Llewyn Davis. Okay, whatever. Hail Caesar was universal. David says, that's a great art pick, a great film. And then like a month later I was listening to some other episode and someone... David's like, oh, I just got a text from a friend of mine. She's going to do Hail Caesar. And I was like, I guess that's... There goes that. I say five star masterpiece. You give it a thumbs down.

[00:40:56] You respond another chance post-Holo Man to talk about what a dud Brolin is to me. That's right. I say, Alex, you're coming in ice cold with this shit. You are. You were. I reversed course on Brolin for weapons. I really liked him in that. He's good in weapons. But then he was in something else after that that he was bad in again. What was it? What else was he in in the back half of last year? He was in The Running Man and Wake Up Dead Man. Yeah. I was Wake Up Dead Man, but I was like, this is boring. I mean, I feel like Wake Up Dead Man, he has kind of a boring role. Go ahead.

[00:41:25] Later fantasy swinging in with his love of Buster Scruggs. You give that a thumbs down. Relevant for the film today because this to me is almost as good of a last film as you guys have covered. And that is to me almost as bad of a last film as you guys have covered. This is exactly the kind of spice and flavor that Blank Check needs. You said that you can see watching this movie that Peter Weir felt like he was ready to hang it up, which is what I felt watching Buster Scruggs at Walter Reed, a truly dispiriting screening. Fantasy says- Or no, Alice Tully.

[00:41:54] The Netflix effect makes it non-existent, sadly. You go that plus it's a gentleman six. It is so funny to me how unsuccessful how you don't drive away dolls are financially. I've seen neither. And then Sean- Still true. Sean posts a picture of Tom Waits panning for gold and writes, Alex looking for hot text. Solid little meme there. Little group text meme. Then Sim sends to me his breakout text with you one on one. We love it. From years earlier.

[00:42:23] I think it's from years earlier, right. The Coen brothers are old guard with nothing new to offer. Buster Scruggs was embarrassing. Truly embarrassing. I dug it up. Hale Caesar should have been the last one. It's just Coen's by the numbers. That's right. Yeah. Kind of, kind of, when they have numbers, they're pretty good at IMO. Yeah. Like four months ago, you texted us, you went, Fargo sucks. No, I did not say it sucks. Embarrassing Francis McDormand. It is. That is an embarrassment. That is an embarrassing one. And then you spent six months being like, the blank check guys are big timing me. They won't have me on.

[00:42:52] You were saying every Coen brothers thing is embarrassing. Not everyone. Just to me, like, Peter Weir is a guy. I don't think I have a movie of his in my brain that's below a three star film. So great that we got you on for this series. That is true. I wanted you to do Weir for a long time. It's perfect. But to me, I feel like that is a body of work that has some real lows for me. I would agree that Peter Weir's basement is three stars. Yeah. He simply can't make a bad movie in my opinion. No.

[00:43:22] He did not make a bad movie. Largely because he changes what he's doing so much. Sure. Yeah. And because oftentimes his instincts are just, this is what's so sad to me about the industry failing him. Yeah. As Mr. Hawk pointed out. And as obvious from this movie's release and everything. Like, how can we fail a guy like this? Sure. Did we fail him? He had an enormously successful career. But like, the contraction that happened in the 2010s, you know, he's like the kind

[00:43:49] of guy you picture as seen, like some guy who's been at the company for 25 years has been a top salesman, gets brought in. Yeah. It's like, listen, we're just making some cuts and we got to let you go. And it's like, I've been here forever. I've done so much for you. Yes. It's not personal. We just, we just got to kind of say goodbye. Like we're going to offer you an early retirement, but I still have work in me. It's like, no, I'm sorry. You just kind of have to go away. And he's someone it's like, if even he couldn't get the means after. And this is a good movie.

[00:44:19] Like this isn't like, yikes. Tarantino's right. People really should hang it up. This has everything in it that he's good at. Yes. This is, this is a respectable final film. Right now. I'm always saying Tarantino's right. This is the moment for that. He's right about everything. Um, he keeps getting more right. I think I don't see anybody selling any Tarantino was a dope shirts. Maybe Paul Dano should sell some of his friend. I just think like McDormand's an embarrassing win. Cause Emily Watson should have won. Sure. Emily Watson, obviously very powerful.

[00:44:47] Obviously I hate this kind of like hindsight. Like, well, you know, she's going to get two more awards, but like she's barely in the movie for 30 minutes. Well, that's just crazy. I mean, you're just immediately, you're just on the crazy train. If she won for supporting, I'd be like, fine, whatever. The Emily Watson performance in breaking the waves is I think one of the 10 best screen performances I have ever seen. It's an incredible performance, but this is just silly. It's like, it's the Oscars, the movie where Emily Watson is the, is like, railed constantly

[00:45:15] because Stellan Skarsgård got paralyzed in like the fucking insane Lars von Trier movie. It's like the nom is the reward. Like stop being crazy. You also come in, you were coming in harsh on other areas of Fargo. You were coming in generally. My rewatch of it. I was really bored. And also like. It's a 98 minute movie. Yeah, I know. I couldn't understand that we don't shadow ban you from the show. Sometimes we strategically go, if you come on a Fargo episode and go obviously mid. I didn't want to come on a Fargo episode.

[00:45:44] They will rip you apart like Gladys. No, no, no. I didn't want to come on a Fargo episode. Also at that time, I hadn't seen it in 15 years. And I'll say this. I asked after you guys roasted me on group chat. I asked every single person I worked at Kim's video with. What do you think of the Coen brothers and Fargo? This is like seven people I asked. Uh huh. Every single one of them was like nothing. I think nothing. This is maybe an example of. They were, one person was like, I haven't seen it since it came out. No interest in revisiting.

[00:46:14] I stopped watching their movies. One of the great American movies. One person said, the best movies for normies. One person said. Now, wait, hold on. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Hold on. This is why people hated going to fucking video stores. All I'm saying is that. Often were they contrarian. No. Snarky. Snarky. Incredibly. Rude. Open minded. Open hearted. Friendly cinema lovers. Uh huh. Okay. Front facing. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Inviting. Make strong eye contact.

[00:46:43] I'm simply saying it's very interesting to me that you can turn from one side to the other and have two 180 degree different opinions on the exact same body of work. Sure. I was hearing opinions from my old coworkers that in other contexts would be sacrilegious. I. Right. And then. I would say yes. You guys were saying opinions that if I brought to them, they'd be like, who are these fucking dorks? I agree with you that it is interesting that different people can share and can hold different opinions. I also think if our listenership was like, oh, great.

[00:47:13] I can't wait for the Fargo episode. No, Fargo. I never. No, no. He was never going to be. He's. Later movies. Llewyn Davis aside that I found dire. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm riding with all of them. David. Yes. Got an intentional air about you today. Well, I'm more intentional about what I wear day to day.

[00:47:40] Oh, I lean into pieces that feel easy, comfortable and put together. I'm sure you could get those from anywhere. Right. Oh, quince. Look, really. Oh, he's showing. I'm really wearing quince right now. He's showing tag on me. Um, it's been my go to because very clean fits. Mm hmm. Very nice fabric. Yeah, don't they don't feel like cheap fabric. I hate dirty fits. I hate cheap fabrics. I am it. We're in, you know, it's the weather's getting warmer.

[00:48:05] I really rely on my quince polo shirts for the kind of like exactly like a formal enough piece of clothing that can go to the office, but it's comfy. Yes, because we do have a dress code here at Blanktick Productions. Unlike Griffin and David, I love the beach. I recently got 100% European linen drawstring beach pants. They're lightweight, breathable. They look good. I can, you can wear it on the beach.

[00:48:33] You can wear it at the beach or you can wear it and slurp down some oysters. Um, everything at quince, it's priced 50 to 80% less than what you find a similar brands because they work with those ethical factories. They cut out the middlemen getting premium materials without the markup. Mm-hmm. Um, so refresh your everyday with the luxury you actually use. Head to quince.com slash check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns.

[00:49:02] Quince.com slash check. You know what the thing is about Hail Caesar that none of you brought up? What? While we talk about the long walk. Fascistically muddled sense of the 1930s. You did write that in text. Yeah, this drives me crazy that no one points this out. People who supposedly know what movies are. Uh-huh. Every time they go to a different movie in that. It's set in the 50s.

[00:49:32] Then why is there a fucking Esther Williams synchronized movie? That hadn't made those for 15 years. Because it's funny. Who cares? I care. Well, clearly. I mean, that is obvious. Nothing in half of them. Million Dollar Mermaid was 1952, I will say. That is like, that's like saying, uh, never say never again was, you know, in I believe that's exactly what it's like saying, but it just exists. It's not presented as like, wow, we're making one more of these. And it's just crazy to me that this movie that's supposedly steeped in Hollywood history

[00:50:01] and the fucking, the, the Ray Fiennes thing, that is a 30s movie. He's visiting like a Ruben Mamoulian comedy of manners. And then they go to like a sort of- I think you're supposed to be a little bitch, but yeah, sure. That's also not really. Not really. I mean, they still kind of exist. I'm having such a good time. Everything you're saying is like- The magic is back. These movies from the 30s coexist with these movies from the 50s in this pointless fantasia of nothingness. I know. Nothing can be realistic like your favorite film of all time, Damien Chazelle's Babylon.

[00:50:27] Uh, another film that I think presented Hollywood exactly as it was, right? Like that's, that's an opinion you share. You're not saying anything, so we'll carry on. Yeah, detestable work of art. Alex's body is slowly from the toes to the top of his head turning red. It's working up his body like a thermostat. Um, Hail Caesar. Look, you should yell all of this at the Coen. They probably go like, okay, yeah, I get so. But Griffin, only because Griffin said this is a movie you can feel the guy being like,

[00:50:57] I'm kind of ready to hang it up and I don't feel that in this movie. No, no, no. I don't feel him saying that while making- I don't feel the movie saying that. I understand why the response to the movie would make him say that. That's the point I'm trying to get. Do you think he cared that much about the sort of fallout of his work after that much kind of career ups and downs? I think it was so much harder for him to get this movie made. PW. Well, let's have some of the dossier to discuss this. He had to make it in a much scrappier way. Wow. It barely gets released. Guess who stepped up to the plate?

[00:51:26] Image. Big yellow triangle. Second, National Geographic film covered on blank check. What's the first? K-19 The Widowmaker. Yeah, and I would say- I can't believe you missed that logo because it's long. It's a really, really long pre-roll logo. But this movie really reminded me of K-19. I think it's better than K-19. Yeah. But similar kind of like, why did you think anyone was really gonna be hot for this story? National Geographic. Like two movies where it's like, and then they suffered.

[00:51:56] And then they suffered some more. And let me tell you, it's true. They had this directive at the time of like, let's- Dry. Dry. It's dry. Everyone's doing an accent, but they're different accents. It's a lot of emotionally closed off Russians. Yeah, let's tell the Russian side of things. Yeah. National Geographic's 2000s MO. And basically what? Will you cover a third National Geographic film? Okay, what else is a National Geographic? Well, I looked it up and I don't remember now. It's weird. I kind of thought maybe these were the only two, but there's actually others.

[00:52:25] I'm gonna figure it out. I will figure that out and I will crack open the dossier. Here are some other obvious ones. Of course, March of the Penguins. But we're not gonna count. No, no. Let's not count the- Narrative historical. Restrepo. Remember that one? That's a documentary too though. There's really not much. This is kind of it. That's why I was fascinated to see that big yellow square. There's the Justin Chadwick film, The First Grader. I think that is a drama, which is about like Kenyan education. Okay. There's that movie Amrika. Remember that? No.

[00:52:55] Which is about like a Palestinian family moves to Chicago. These were all like good, you know, like civic kind of movies. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like about like sort of weighty issues. Mostly it's documentaries. Yeah. So this is the final National Geographic film to be covered on Blank Check. That I think there's no question. All right. Well then it's even more exciting. Unless we march with the Penguins. Yeah. What would that be? You do Penguins Patreon. We've already done both happy feet though. It's true. We kind of. You farce of the Penguins, march of the Penguins.

[00:53:24] You march and then you farce. I mean perfect, perfect series. A little this, a little that. So. Following the release of Mastering Commander, which Alex pointed out, got 10 Oscar nominations, one, two, and was successful. Although as I'm sure we discussed last week, was not hugely successful. Incredibly expensive. It was very expensive and they wanted it to make more. It was basically a financial break even. Right. And you asking like why didn't he immediately gain like a new wave of momentum from Mastering

[00:53:53] Commander, I think part of it was, well, is this a series that he's going to stay on? And then it was kind of in a place, a midpoint for a while of like we can't decide whether or not to make more of these. Yeah. And Crowe is like, I'm only getting more addicted to sandwiches guys. So if you want me, you know, to fit into that vest. I'm either throwing foams or eating a hoaxie. Because like Robin Hood is, which is this year, I think is 2010. Right. Yeah. That's the last where he's like, I went back to the gym and it's like, he at least like walked through the gym. He tightened it way up.

[00:54:23] As way up as he could. But Body of Lies is right before that. And Body of Lies, he's God bless. Well, it's just the character demanded. The character's on the phone all the time eating sandwiches. And I love sandwiches. I sent you last night in our, in our text with Sean Clements. Oh, that fucking Crowe movie. What's it called? Yeah. I'm going to send you a Crowe poster. I just want your reaction on mic to this. Alex Wall. What's the film called again? Let me, let me just get there. Well, so I'll tell you. So, so yeah.

[00:54:50] So Peter Weir, you know, in between 74 and 86, he makes eight films. In between 87 and 20, 2003, he makes just five films. So he's going to take longer and longer to make movies. Takes him seven more years to make the way back. But in between, here are some of the things he was attached to. Because there were other projects. First is... I was surprised he did not have the beloved separate Wikipedia page of list of unmade and unrealized projects. He's a guy that should. He probably should. He has a ton.

[00:55:20] You know what? He deserves that. And if someone could get on that. Please, someone make it. First one is The War Magician. Right. A Cruise Wagner at Paramount project based on a nonfiction book about a patriotic British stage magician who volunteered his illusionist abilities to help the Nazis. I mean, this sounds like... I would watch it. Like Harvey Weinstein's like, let me out of prison. I can release that shit. Am I insane for thinking that Benedict Cumberbatch has tried to revive that recently? Or is there a different Benedict Cumberbatch wartime magician movie

[00:55:49] that is being made? Well, obviously he was a Doctor Strange who fought the Infinity War. Of course. Um... This is what I love about Peter Weir is that there was this brand of like, well, this is a vast historical challenging thing that would have a lot of really great roles for our finest movie stars. He should do it. And he had all these projects for years. Right. Well, and like Tom Cruise is a guy it's actually surprising he never worked with because it felt like Tom Cruise was a bit checklist-y at that point. Yeah. I mean, I imagine there's a...

[00:56:17] A guy who you would imagine he's both meeting with and saying, what do you want to do? And also anytime he options a book he likes throwing it to Weir. The weird thing though is that when Cruise was doing that, Weir was in the kind of other key of Dead Poets and Green Card and Fearless. Fearless, yeah. He's basically running through the early 2000s. But if Weir had just made more movies... Yeah. But you know, he just started taking a long time between projects. All right, look. Cruise had at one point been attached. At this point, he's just a producer on it.

[00:56:46] Cruise Wagner split from Paramount obviously in 2006. Amicably, I'm sure. Very showing. There was no problem. Checks notes here. Cool and normal. At that point, Cruise actually reattaches to possibly starring, but Weir lets it go. Mark Forster, your best friend, gets attached. And indeed, Benedict Cumberbatch was eyed to star. There we go. Now it is dead. The Swiss maestro himself. Just quick pause because I sent Alex a poster image and I want you to do... It's called Bear Country.

[00:57:16] Your favorite Blank Check segment, describe a poster. So, all right Kim, I get to do this. So Russell Crowe is doing a yoga pose. Well, what's the first thing right at the top of the poster? It says, from the director of Unhinged. Oh, that's the car movie that he made that came out that was like in theaters. It was in like 30,000 theaters. May 2020, let's put this thing wide. It got to break the record of being the first movie to... Yeah. New release to open in theaters. But okay, from the director of Unhinged, that's like a scrappy, fucking schlocky, like, B-movie action film. That's what we have here as a guy.

[00:57:45] That's the tone you imagine is gonna transfer to the rest of this poster. Neon pink font with a kind of rounded look that says Bear Country. Yeah. He's doing a yoga pose in front of a pool with a palm tree with the ocean behind him. What I can only imagine is Australia. I would argue he's dressed like DJ Khaled. I haven't gotten to the clothes yet. Okay. Because he has on... Noise-canceling headphones. Noise-canceling headphones, spiky, crazy hair. Yeah. He's got... It's all gone... Orange-tinted sunglasses. For him, you might say.

[00:58:12] A kind of like velour-looking tracksuit. Yeah. That is orange, but... I would say Khaled-esque for sure, yeah. But despite the yoga pose, which conveys tranquility by his feet is a gun that hands... A handgun. That looks like it is a cartoon that was drawn onto this poster. Yeah. It's not the most realistic. It's also just got like a couple loose bullets hanging by the gun. Yeah, the bullets are in front. Teresa Palmer is listed beneath that. She's Australian. Yeah. Luke Evans... Also Australian. ...is listed there. He might be Australian. He definitely is.

[00:58:42] Or English. Is he not? I thought he was Australian. And there's some other names and it says with Nina Dobrev. What am I talking about? And Aaron Paul. And Aaron Paul. Not necessarily who you want with the and to excite the movie. I had no offense to Aaron Paul, but right, you do not want him in your and. And then there's some lady who's probably sexy, but we can't see her in a... We can't see her. ...in a lounge chair on the other side of the pool, but she's blonde, so you know she's Australian. It might even be Teresa Palmer. It could be. Very possible. It could be. You could show me her face and I wouldn't be able to tell you.

[00:59:12] I was holding a lot of Teresa Palmer stock throughout the 2010s. And that's Bearcrumbs. I guess that's Bearcrumbs. We call those Penny stocks. They were. But I was holding. Well, while we're on that subject, while David reads these off, above what Griffin just texted me is a series of unresponded to text messages where I was asking questions about gifts for Ben. This is a good... While Griffin has put me back, and it's just worth mentioning that Griffin doesn't respond to one-on-one texts, but if I ask the same question in a group text, he responds literally within seconds.

[00:59:41] It is an interesting phenomenon. I need an audience. So I was trying to spare everyone else an inventory of some objects for Ben, which I will now reveal. Okay. In the middle of the Attachies conversation, I guess we can just bring out a gift for Ben. Yeah, this is really important. It was a clean segue. So Ben, this is for you. Oh, shit. Okay. Do you see what it is? Can you make out the proper name of this? Ben's gonna come get this. This is a vintage boxed, dare I say really good condition, spawn action figure from T-Dog Mac.

[01:00:10] And what is the character name on here, Ben? Look on the side. And on the top right there. This is a future spawn. This is spawn from the future. Holy shit. So is this sort of like a spawn 2099 type situation? Yeah, but it's like a robo-spawn, mecha-spawn. There's a little like a sticker on the upper right hand that describes what his deal is. Part machine, part human, all spawn. That's very Robocop-esque. Now, it's funny you give me this, which thank you. This is awesome, Alex. I really appreciate it.

[01:00:38] I just feel like future spawn is in line with your like pitches for spawn. A hundred. They now have a future spawn series. Well, here's a new future spawn series. Clearly they had it all along. And I just brought it here with me, Rat City. Rat City. I just read the first six issues. It's great. Talk about- Happy to give you this thing that I bought 30 years ago and immediately was like, this is gonna be worth thousands one day. Yeah, this is gonna pay off. Has anything ever sounded more like a Ben Hosley pitch than, hey, I got a great idea for a comic book. It's spawn in the future. Cool.

[01:01:08] Yeah, so he's like a demon from hell, right? But yes, now he's in like a robot machine. Right, and you're like, cool. I assume it's called future spawn? No, it's called Rat City. That's what you would call it. I feel like Ben's always bringing lovely gifts and I wanted to return the favor. There you go. That's very kind of you. This is so appreciated. Damn, there's some really good other toys here too. Yeah, the line on the back promises a lot of good stuff. Have I finally broken Ben into becoming an action figure collector? Well, you make him sit in front of a crack this guy. Do you see he's got a violator on the mic?

[01:01:37] Yeah, no, I saw that. That's the bendy one. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't bringing you something you already had. Yeah. Damn, this is great. April 2004, Variety announced that Peter Weir- You can put a picture of that in the carousel of content for this episode. Peter Weir was attached to direct an adaptation of William Gibson's novel, Pattern Recognition. Okay. In 2004, you said? Yes. This is right after Master and Commander. Yeah. That, I feel like that was a 2003 novel by Gibson. I feel like that was also a project that got passed around a lot.

[01:02:07] He rewrote it with D.B. Weiss. Okay. Nothing ever came of it. And who? He said, I couldn't get the script right and pulled back out of it. I don't know. Fair enough. The major one, of course, as we already mentioned, is that in October 2004, Warner Brothers purchases the film rights to the novel Shantaram for $2 million at the urging of Johnny Depp. It's a 1,000 page book. He wanted to beat out Russell Crowe, who was also really into that book.

[01:02:36] And now, I don't know what Depp saw in a role like this. An Australian heroin addict convicted of robbery escapes from a prison and flees to India and reinvents himself as a doctor in Bombay and gets involved in counterfeiting and smuggling and gunrunning, which leads him to Afghanistan, where he and a mob boss battle the Russians. That is what the book is about. This is, I will say, as a Weir fan at the time, and a Depp fan at the time, really, I was A height of Depp. I was truly like, let's fucking go. I was going to say- It sounds so good.

[01:03:06] Weir's going to shoot all over the world. It's going to be hard as hell. It's going to be like a hundred million plus budget for like an adult tentpole. Right. And this is, Johnny Depp is so at the peak of his powers right now that this isn't like, oh fuck, Disney's agreeing to option Shantaram in order to make Jack Sparrow happy. This is Warner Brothers, a company he doesn't really do movies with. Everyone is just- Well, until he starts committing some crimes. Sure. But everyone- Both real and on screen.

[01:03:34] Everyone's like, truly anything Depp wants to do, we will make and make at his requested budget level with whatever creative team he wants. Yeah, he wants to crack open the window. Yeah. He wants to crack open the window. Yeah. The secret window. I mean, it would be funny if in 2004, Depp had pitched the crimes of Grindelwald and he'd be like, what? And he's like, don't worry about it. It's going to- We're going to make it. This sounded great. Sure. I mean, I'm not encyclopedic. It sounds crazy, but sure. I'm not encyclopedic in the unmade projects of Weir, but this to me, it was always kind of like the great unmade one.

[01:04:02] Because he was really at peak of his powers, even though he's probably in his 60s by now. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he'd be in his like early 60s, I guess. After Truman and Master and Commander, it was like, man, this guy, he's just, he's still the best. Mosquito Coast at this point is 20 years ago and he's still got this power over movie stars and environments. Eric Roth is brought in for a rewrite, so obviously this is being taken very seriously. It's a heavyweight screenwriter. In 2006, Weir does enter the project, but then apparently he and Johnny Depp were unable to get on the same page.

[01:04:31] And he decided the pairing wasn't meant to be. The page was, how many bottles of wine should we drink an hour? Weir says, I was involved for a period. I went to India, I talked to Johnny Depp about it. It's his film and I just wasn't, you know, it wasn't the right combination. That's him being very diplomatic. Correct. But I think it's going back to what we're saying that it used to be like these guys would go to him with their passion projects and say, I want you to get something out of me that I don't know how to get out of myself.

[01:04:58] And now it's like people like Depp and Crow trying to call the shots. Yeah. And be like, no, you work for me. I think Weir also at that point is a little paralyzed by having made a couple like really heavyweight movies and just being like, well, if I'm going to, I want it to be really special. I want it to really speak. You know, like he's not just like, well, let me make a movie. Cause like, it's good to make a movie. He was best director nominated for Master and Commander. And for Truman Show. And for Truman Show. So he's two in a row. And for Dead Poets and Witness. Does he have four? It's four total. I believe. Yeah. Those are the four.

[01:05:27] I think he wasn't nominated for Green Card or Fearless. But two consecutive best picture, best director nods. Best director nods. Yes. Truman was snubbed for picture, but he was nominated. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah. Again, with Master and Commander, it's like, you know, he's a. He's undeniable. He's a six time nominee total. Cause also a best picture nod for Commander and writing nod for Green Card. He's just one of the best. Like at this time, he's just undeniable. Like a totem of studio filmmaking where at this time the script is everything.

[01:05:57] I got to get a great script and a great star and there's nothing more to it than that. And that was always his formula. I've invoked it. If there is a formula. In other episodes, but it's, it's a quote that stuck with me in that same Ethan Hawke interview. He goes, he was that rare thing, which is an actual popular artist. He was like an artist of like intelligence and skill who made entertainment. It's a weird thing for Ethan Hawke to respect so much. Uh, some other, uh, minor ones that sort of cross his desk.

[01:06:26] Uh, the Fox 2000 project shadow divers. Okay. Every sentence. Yeah. It's a bunch of great words. People discovering Hitler's lost sub. I, that fucking rules. Was anyone ever attached to that? I mean, that feels like another project that I would occasionally hear about. Cause it's like, it would be these like nonfiction bestsellers, right? Yeah. Usually about World War II. And you know, it's like, yeah, why do you know they get optioned and they sort of pass it around, but no, it's never been made.

[01:06:53] So, uh, Peter Weir says the thing that changes, I no longer work with the studios, right? Mm-hmm. When is he saying this? Like, uh, he's saying this in a 2012 interview, but he's saying like from witness through master and commander, that's my studio period. Yeah. They no longer make those kinds of films. Someone from a studio said to me recently, we're not in that kind of business anymore. I've watched the market change. This is all from around right after, right around when last, uh, when this movie comes out. When he has not yet claimed. He's not retired, but he's like, what's changing?

[01:07:23] Right. He says, I watched the market change moving towards what I would call children's programming. Okay, Peter. Okay. Uh, I'm surprised that even amongst acquaintances and my friends of my children in their thirties, you revisit childhood by going to the cinema as an adult. I find that quite fascinating. I feel like when he says, I find that quite fascinating, he means I don't like that. Or I think that's stupid. Uh huh. Anyway, so, uh, he doesn't really want to make what he thinks of as a kid's movie. He wants to make a large canvas movie, uh, which is basically what he's been doing. Uh, so he's looking around.

[01:07:53] He now, he. That is fascinating. As this contraction happens that he's not like, I guess my move is looking at dead poets, looking at a, a, even something like fear. Like his move isn't like, I, you know, I've done that really well also. Yeah. I have made fairly small character dramas. Like a kind of a more widely. That seems like a lane I'm in now. And I, it's not like, well, I've grown out of that. Sure. Even Truman Show is kind of that, even though it's fairly large movie.

[01:08:21] But the book he reads that he, in classic Peter Weir fashion, which I feel like is always the case with the movies he makes. It's like, he can't stop thinking about it. He can't let it go. Mm-hmm. Is this book, The Long Walk, which allegedly details a true story. Although it seems like it's a very kind of like, we're not really sure. Totally sure how true it is. Was it real? Did it happen to the guy who wrote it? Did he steal someone else's story? Was it like a folk tale? Right. And then Weir himself has admitted that basically he wrote a fictional movie based on the account that is questionable.

[01:08:50] What if you escape from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia and march by foot through Siberia, China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and the Himalayas all the way to India. And he's... What if you had to walk so fucking far? He's like... He read Ann Applebaum, my coworker Ann Applebaum, who works at the Atlantic, her book Gulag. He gets very interested in the Gulag and like, you know, all this. And then the feat of endurance and the tenacity of human beings and survival stories.

[01:09:18] I guess he's never really quite made that kind of a movie, but that was kind of a movie in the 90s. Right? Like alive. Peter Weir says, I've gotten really interested in Gulags and American studio heads are salivating. Like he could not be swinging further away from the interests of the studios at this moment. Yeah, they want, you know, Guantanamo. That's like a cool prison for us now. We don't want to see Russians in prison. In 2006... Any Guantanamo-related filming, this was an era where they were all hit and big at the box office.

[01:09:48] People wanted to see movies about... Peter, are you interested in imprisoning men from the Middle East? Or just Russians? Because we'll keep greenlighting those despite audiences telling us, please stop. Peter Now, I can't... I will mispronounce the name of the author of this book. Slavomir Rojcic. I'm not sure. Peter I think that's correct. Peter But BBC Radio 4 in 2006 had attempted to verify his account. They walked away being like, this is likely not true. Peter That's offensive also that they walked away,

[01:10:17] because that's kind of like hitting them where it hurts. Peter He was a prisoner in the Gulag. We can't find evidence that he escaped. Possibly someone else escaped and he's telling their story. Something like that. Peter Sore gets jumpy and is kind of like, okay, well, fucking like I don't want to do it then if it's like, you know, controversial. Peter But then he finds that three men had done a walk like this. Peter Yes. Peter And they do more research. And so he decides to kind of re-fictionalize it. Peter That's why he retitles the movie. Not because of Stephen King. Peter Okay.

[01:10:46] Peter Because he's like, I don't want to be presented really as like a straight adaptation of this book that's a little, you know, muddy. Peter He goes and talks to these people. Peter He meets this guy Glinski, Will Todd Glinski, who lives in Cornwall. Peter Who he said basically was like his first major hire and was the primary consultant on the movie. Peter This making of thing on the Blu-ray has a lot of him talking to all the actors about how to do everything and what it physically felt like. Peter Come on guys. Peter Come on, guys. Peter Come on, guys.

[01:11:15] Peter But basically, yeah, this guy is like a survivalist. Peter Right. Peter Who decided to like, it'd be an interesting challenge to see if we can do the thing from this book. Peter Did it with a group of guys. Peter And then he basically writes a fictional movie based on this guy's accounts of what the emotional experience was like. Peter Right. Peter And he meets other people who had maybe trekked through the Himalayas. Peter Well, you know, he's coming to it as truthful as he can.

[01:11:45] Peter He also hired Anne Applebaum. Peter I had no idea. Peter I should have emailed Anne. Peter I mean, she's a bigger shot than me, but she does work at the Atlantic and I've been on many a Zoom with her. Peter Is she in the Slack? Peter She's in Slack. Peter Yeah, I could probably Slack Anne. Peter Could you ask right now like, hey, anything you want to tell us about gulags? Peter Quick takes on gulags. Peter She's on the gulag beat for the Atlantic, you're saying? Peter Well, she writes about like political oppression in Eastern Europe. Peter She's on the gulag by and large. Peter She writes a lot about Russia right now. Peter She does man the gulag desk.

[01:12:14] Peter I really, honestly, cannot be flippant about this. Peter I'm not being flippant about it. Peter I think our joke is more that what she's doing sounds very serious. Peter I like the idea of someone talking about political oppression in Eastern Europe and you being like, so here's who has three Oscars and why. Peter I wrote the book on the gulag. Peter Please stop sending me memes in the Slack. Peter Used him as a sounding board.

[01:12:40] Peter You know, and then she and other professors direct him to survivors and all that. Peter Look, the way back, what you're also hearing in my accounting of all this is this took years. Peter His process just seems so slow because he's so meticulous about research. Peter But that also used to be allowed. Peter That also used to be forgivable for these filmmakers that prioritized like authenticity, research, verisimilitude in their storytelling.

[01:13:07] Peter It used to be like, you're vaguely being paid to develop this while you do research for two years. Peter And I'm sure Master and Commander had a similar kind of heavy lift of like, approaching the time period. Peter We also talked about it. Peter Yeah, I think absolutely. Peter On the Truman Show episode. Peter But like, because Carrie's dance card is so full, he gets two and a half years to prep that movie while he waits for him to run through his other contractual obligations. Peter And like, when movies have major budgets like this and people go, why did it cost this much?

[01:13:38] Peter Sometimes like, those are major factors. Peter And those are things that studios refuse to spend money on now, I would say basically, is like, we'll let you work for like a year and a half with like a small staff to just figure out how you're going to approach this. Peter Yeah, and he really did the most with that kind of thing. Peter And that's the kind of thing where if you had A-list actors attached, they would grant you that because they were like, well, if it's Mel Gibson, Peter If it's Harrison Ford, if it's Russell Crowe, we think we will make back that investment. Peter Yeah. Peter Right.

[01:14:07] Peter The money we spend on your research will be repaid opening week. Peter But the thing is, but I lament that is obviously dead and gone that he represents is like, whether they knew it or not, almost every time, these were forever movies. Peter Sure. Peter Like, obviously, Year of Living Dangerously is not like, you know, a basic cable classic, but buying, you know, these movies last forever. Peter Master Commander is a great example of that, where I'm just like, certain that movie has gone into it. Peter And that's been to profit many times over now. Peter At the time of release, it was seen as a, you know, break even.

[01:14:36] Peter And even like, Dead Poets just becoming like, what it is. Peter But that was a major hit at the time and then has just become like an enduring. Peter Yeah, but these are forever movies. Peter Right. Peter He really just had this instinct of making something that wouldn't age at all. Peter But that was not the way they were thinking at that time. Peter And you also imagine if Peter Weir is like, cool, I'm going to like, not rush and take my time to develop this movie. Peter Every six months that he spends working on this film, the chances of this getting made in any traditional way are like cut in half.

[01:15:06] Peter Also, like, this only gets more old, out of fashion. Peter That's what I'm saying. Peter Yeah, it's just like... Peter Each passing year, it's like you're losing the last development exec at each studio who would maybe greenlight something with this and have the power to do so. Peter As noted, no studio is making this. Peter Instead, it's funded by exclusive media group, Spitfire Pictures, Image Nation Entertainment, which is the film division of Abu Dhabi, and National Geographic. Peter Image Nation is still very active. Peter Yeah, it is. Peter But none of these are obviously like... Peter They pay for a lot of Shudder movies.

[01:15:36] Peter They're very... Peter You'll see that logo a lot. Peter No, I know the logo very well. Peter It's a very... Peter I know the logo. Peter It's... Peter And I think it's a very tasteful logo. Peter You have a tattooed on your dress. Peter That would be weird. Peter So... Peter But that's when shit gets very depressing for me of this generation or this level of filmmaker where you see the independent cobbled together financing from all the people who are probably in jail now for one reason or another. Peter Yes, the red granites of the world. Peter Yeah, financial crimes in their own country.

[01:16:03] Peter And just the idea that he's going hat in hand to the Middle East trying to get $5 million for a chunk of his epic. Peter This is just really bad when this starts happening. Peter I mean, but you asking... Peter As we sit here in the shambles of Roque, the collapsing nature of being able to support things that are just obviously of interest to audiences. Peter I haven't done a deep dive on Roque. Peter Well, we keep sending you the links. Peter I know.

[01:16:28] Peter I looked at one of the articles, but it does seem like they were like, we think there's a market for this stuff that's not really getting picked up at film festivals right now. Peter And then they're like, it turns out there's not a huge market. There might be a reason a lot of this stuff's not getting picked up. Peter Yeah, Roque distributor that has like... Peter They did Dead Man's Wire, right? Peter Right. Peter Basically, like formed a year ago where like we got a lot of financing and there's more product than there are distributors these days.

[01:16:53] Peter There's stuff getting left at the table at festivals and also there's not enough stuff being put in the theaters. Peter We'll buy these movies and we'll back them fully and we'll overpay because we know we basically need to pay a tax on being so new. Peter Of course. Peter That filmmakers are wary to trust that we'll support their film properly. Peter What they forgot is when you do that, you have to fail for like two years. Peter Right. Peter Right. And instead they failed on one movie and are now insolvent. Peter Well, obviously... Peter And there were like five other movies they've bought that are now like,

[01:17:22] Peter Like, are we ever coming out? Peter I sent the best triptych of images to illuminate this narrative. Peter But New Market... Peter The Duff. Peter Yeah. Peter Yeah. Peter 30 minutes later, out of business. Peter Yes. Peter But this... Peter But New Market is to me like seeing that logo and looking it up. Peter This is their penultimate movie. Peter Yeah. Peter They're out of business. Peter Yes. Peter Probably when this movie's coming out. Peter Right. Peter Essentially. Peter And this is just super depressing. Peter Yes. Peter And this is, I mean...

[01:17:52] Peter Do You Know What... Peter Did you look up New Market? Peter The New Market chronology? Peter Because their first film, much like National Geographic, is another film you've covered. Peter Memento. Peter Yeah. Peter Yeah. Peter I mean, that's what I... Peter So they have this like 10-year miracle run that ends basically with this followed by the Joseph Gordon-Levitt heavy metal movie, Hesher. Peter Oh, right. Peter And then they're done. Peter Because am I mistaken that they were a production company and they couldn't find a buyer for Memento and Bob Birney was like, fuck it. Peter I'm going to figure out how to release this ourselves. Peter That's what we now call a black bear. Peter Yes. Peter Yes. Peter It's a bit of a black bear.

[01:18:21] Peter Can't find a buyer for the rifles of Amzaya King? Peter Right. Peter Right. Peter We'll release it ourselves. Peter We'll show you guys how much money there is in beekeeping thrillers. Peter They were primarily financier production company, but then they have this run of fucking Memento, Donnie Darko, Real Woman Have Curbs. Peter Well, Donnie Darko was a giant bomb, but Real Woman Have Curbs. Peter Whale Rider was a good sleeper hit. Peter And then Passion of the Christ is the most successful independent film in history. Peter They probably didn't have a very favorable split on that with Mel.

[01:18:50] Peter No, Mel took home the lion's share, but it is crazy that they released Passion of the Christ. Peter They successfully got that movie to record-breaking numbers, records that still hold, and seven years later, they were done. Peter Yeah, no, they were a major player in this mid-aughts boom time of kind of big, small movies. Peter Yeah, but they could last for years of struggle, whereas Roe K can't survive one movie.

[01:19:15] And if the Wayback screened at TIFF last year, Roe K would have been the only place that offered. Peter Yeah, or it's like the Eden, Ron Howard's movie that's kind of a similar Peter. Peter That's kind of, I like that movie. I don't know if you guys saw it. Peter I haven't seen it. Peter I did not care for that movie at all. Peter I think we can all agree it's very strong. But that is to me like... Peter That was released by Vertical. Peter Yes, but that is the state of the Peter Weir type of movie now, is that it's like, why did this person make this? What were they thinking? Who on earth would release this?

[01:19:45] Peter And then it comes out and everyone's like, what is this? Peter Well, and no, to your earlier point where you're like, why wouldn't at this inflection point in the industry, Weir pivot back to something like Dead Poets Society that is easier to make... Peter He could have made three more of those. Peter Right, because it's like, that movie had a budget that maybe a studio wouldn't give him, you know, in 2005. Peter The answer is he doesn't want to do that anymore. He says, I want to work on a big canvas. I was about to say. Peter I'm not interested. Yeah. Peter So, like, right. You could more easily make a cheaper version of Dead Poets Society than you can make a cheap version of The Way Back.

[01:20:13] But I do think there's almost like a lifestyle creep, a like scale creep. Peter You're saying Peter Weir is balling? Like he needs the money? Peter It's beyond that. I think these guys get addicted to the challenge of how difficult it is to mount these big productions, especially... Peter No question he... But that's the thing, like... Peter If you're successful at doing it, you know how to do it and like maintain the story thread within it and like hold on to dramatic, you know, and artistic integrity, then I think it's hard for you to scale down. Like Ridley Scott is a weird... Peter I thought a lot about Ridley Scott. Peter I thought a lot about Ridley Scott. Peter I thought a lot about Ridley Scott.

[01:20:43] Peter I thought a lot about Ridley Scott. Peter I thought a lot about Ridley Scott. Peter I thought about Ridley Scott with this movie a lot because they're very similar in a lot of ways in the scope of what they do and in their kind of hit ratio of forever movies. Peter But for some reason Ridley Scott just figured out how to never slow down. Peter Well, he works fast and the movies he makes can be a little sloppy as a result, although often they really are good. He also, you know, works with big stars, which I feel like Peter Weir is clearly getting sick of.

[01:21:10] Eden, I think, is a really good comp for The Way Back because that movie is also really dreary and about survival and like, you know, it's these people who went to live on an island and it's like, it's based on a true story and they're like, what do you think happened when in 1931, like a bunch of randos decided to live on like a random island in the Galapagos Islands? I'm like, did it go badly? And they're like, oh yeah, it did. We were hoping to surprise you with that. Like, you know what I mean? Where they're like 50 minutes in, they're like, it's starting to get worse. And I was like, yeah, I called that from the beginning.

[01:21:41] Jude Law and Sidney Sweeney. We're not going to recreate society. Peter Sure. But that movie was also like, here are five of the hottest people. They don't look hot enough. They don't do sex stuff. Vanessa Kirby needed to restart society. Sidney Sweeney showed up. She shows up causing trouble. No, that's the thing. You're just like, it's like, oh, it's Anna Dharmas and Sidney Sweeney. And you're like, oh, do they look good? And it's like, no, they're like starving and like their pieces are dirty. Yeah. David's really throwing some shade on these beautiful actresses here. I thought it was solid to a fault.

[01:22:09] This is the same with Nuremberg where everyone's like, oh, Nuremberg was good, including our friend Alex. Second best movie of the year. And I'm like, no, you guys are forgetting how good these movies used to be. That movie stunk. Like, it's no good. And it's all gray. And like, anyway. Forgetting how good they used to be. The way back. There's always a temptation to cast a nationality, Weir says, but that gets impractical. Sure. He didn't want all American. He didn't want all English guys doing accents. So he wants a mix of guys. He sure gets a mix of guys.

[01:22:39] When Ed Harris started talking, were you guys like, that's cool. He's just not doing a voice. I did briefly go like, oh, so right. Are we just doing? But then like Colin is like, oh, he's American. Colin's speaking Russian. Like, he's not doing. And I'm like, okay, so we're not doing that. We're not doing everyone use their accent. I was going to respect it though. Because I'm going into the movie originally thinking, I'm going to hear Ed Harris full Irish brogue. Right. For two hours and 10 minutes. And then the movie starts and I'm like, Ed Harris could be playing any nationality. I didn't know it got this cold in Ireland. It's great. I'm looking at this.

[01:23:07] I'm like, that's why the potatoes died. They froze. Looks like the Arctic Circle here. This is crazy. So Ed Harris is obviously has already worked computer weird. They respect each other. Yeah. And so that's another weird superpower there is kind of keeping people not forever. A couple, a couple Fords, couple Mel's. Sure. Couple Ed's. Yeah. Interesting that Ed to have a couple Ed's. But Ed's like his like in the pocket supporting MVP both times. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

[01:23:35] It might not surprise you guys to hear that in this making of a special feature, Ed Harris seemed really activated by how difficult this shoot was. And I'm not being. No, he was really into. I think he's also just into Peter Weir because Peter Weir is similarly intense with like, let's fucking figure out like what bread they ate or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, let's do deep research. Yes. Get into the character. Ed Harris. He's obviously in the news lately with the arm candy for Amy Madigan. Yeah. He's just the fucking best. He does rock.

[01:24:04] Just like one of these, like has been, he's never, ever been bad. Truly. And has never really been given credit for how consistently awesome he has been. That's a great question. Forever. What's his worst performance? What is Ed Harris in where you're like, because he does a ton of movies where you're like, okay, he's phoning this in. But that is to me, I stopped watching Westworld, but that's the point. No, but I loved him in Westworld. He was great. Yeah, but then he started giving interviews where he's like, well, I'm phoning it in now because they changed the character and I don't like this new character. Right. It is true that they kind of like twist, by the way, now you're a robot.

[01:24:34] And he said he was sick of it. He was still good. He was like, I signed up to play the man in black. Now I'm the man in white. I'm phoning it in now. But like, I'm looking through here. Ian McKellen said that once upon a time. I don't think I have seen an embarrassing Ed Harris performance. He couldn't embarrass himself if he tried. Like, I haven't seen radio, but I imagine he acquits himself better than anyone else in the cast of that film. That's pretty close though, because I haven't seen that either. It's embarrassing that he's in it. Sure.

[01:25:02] I would say that's also the era, the sort of post, he gets a bunch of noms era. Yeah. That early 2000s where you kind of feel like him trying to sniff for an Oscar a little too hard. Sure. Well, Pollock, he got so close. Well, but then see, Beautiful Mind, which he's good in. He's really good in. And I mean, at the gates where he's like- Which rocks. I was thinking about I mean, at the gates during this movie. We're talking about great Russian war narratives. The Hours, which like is an undeserved Oscar nom. He's not like bad in it, but that's my least favorite part of The Hours. And that's not a movie I like.

[01:25:31] That's when he felt like he's in auto nom territory. He's getting a nom every year. And it's inevitable he's going to get one so soon. You know what I've never seen is The Human Stain, which is a book I love. Right, I've never seen that either. But, and he has the most interesting part in it, if it's the part from the book that I remember. But I don't know, you know, that was forgotten. But I also think he's starting to get into this era where like, Beautiful Mind, for whatever reason, I was like driven to rewatch the trailer recently because I was like, is my memory correct about this?

[01:25:59] That the marketing of the movie was just selling the fucking CIA shit so hard. He's the other name on the poster. Exactly. The poster is Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, and the trailer- No, it's Russell Crowe, a beautiful mind, Ed Harris. Ed Harris. It's a tiny little- Ed Harris. But like, Jennifer Connelly's barely in the trailer. Right. They obviously don't show the Paul Bettany stuff. Like, that movie was sold- But they can't. He's not real. Right. You can't put him in the trailer. That movie sold itself as a badass story about a cool CIA analyst.

[01:26:28] And so the trailer and all the marketing was so Ed Harris heavy. And then you watch the movie and you're like, oh, Ed Harris is the red herring. And I feel like History of Violence is the same thing. Well, he's obviously remarkable in that movie. He's so good in that movie. But you're like, this should have been an Oscar nominee. You're like, well, but then William Hurt comes in at the end. He got presumed by Hurt. Yeah. Right. The same kind of thing happens with Jennifer Connelly in like- Well, sure. He's used in a way that's making it easy to take him for granted because you don't walk out of the movie thinking about his character.

[01:26:57] We haven't even started talking about- Have you guys rewatched Pollock recently? No. No, I actually mean to. It is so good. Yeah, Pollock rocks. It is such a good movie. He's so good in it. Yeah. Did he direct it too? I think he directed it. Let me look it up. Did he direct the Beethoven movie? Beethoven's Second? Yeah, yeah. We both said the same thing. I'm trying to tee you up here. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. Written, directed. Written and directed. I saw Appaloosa. Appaloosa. Did you see Appaloosa? I've never seen Appaloosa.

[01:27:27] Do love a modern Western. Right. It's very solid. It feels like he kind of wanted to make it. I always confuse it with Hidalgo because they both have Vigo and they both have names where you're like, huh? Yeah. Agneska Holland is a Beethoven movie. I think Appaloosa's a place and Hidalgo's a horse. Correct. Yeah. But those are the only two movies he directed. It's interesting he hasn't done more of that. He's just awesome. I interviewed him and he was so scary as I brought up many times on this podcast. Jim Sturgis makes a comment in this special feature saying like, I always pitied the PA

[01:27:55] who had to go up to Ed Harris and tell him cameras were ready. Pity the fool. He pities the fool. Uh, okay. So Jim Sturgis. Did you see him in To Kill a Mockingbird or something? Yes. I interviewed him for To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah. That was why I interviewed him. He was good. You can't act like talking about Ed Harris isn't talking about this movie. Can I bring up the Ed Harris stuff relevant to this movie? I want to say, finish your anecdote. No, no. What? Go ahead. No, I'm sorry. You interviewed Ed Harris. No, it's fine. What were you going to say? He wants to talk Sturgis. What were you going to say? What was the Ed Harris thing? David loves Sturgis and he's got a lot of Sturgis things.

[01:28:25] No, that he was like, he likes the good burn so much that they talked about, they built a set for the woods where they could control the elements just in case like, uh, you know, the scheduling didn't line up. They tried to shoot most of this movie chronologically. So they had a large indoor wood set that they could redress and have a snow machine or have sand or whatever the fuck. And Ed Harris would like get to set every day and he'd be like, Peter, come on, let's just go out there.

[01:28:53] Let's just go out there and do it. If it's snowing, we'll wake all these guys up at two o'clock in the morning. Everyone would do it. That he like really wanted to be in pain. Yeah, he's the best. He was good in Love Lies Bleeding also. He's great in Love Lies Bleeding. He's good. He's a guy who's now devolved. The only problem with Love Lies Bleeding is he's like, I'm your dad. And I'm like, you're like seven, eight years old. He's so cool. But it doesn't really matter. Yeah, but that guy's still fucked. It's like Duval when we were saying after he died, it's just like, this guy just was awesome forever. Duval was awesome forever. Just awesome forever.

[01:29:22] And also was a guy where everyone was like, yeah, but he's like kind of scary and a pain in the ass. And you're like, yeah, well, I don't give a shit. Like, it's so rough. Only because he has such an intense amount of integrity for the craft of acting. Yes. The other Ed Harris anecdote was that they, he was like, you know, they were saying that when they'd be setting up, Ed Harris would like wander off like a hundred miles away from where everyone else was and just stand by himself. And he was like, it's great being in nature. You're in these places where no one is. And you can just- Sounds like Clint Eastwood. You can really hear things.

[01:29:52] Well, weird comparison to Clint Eastwood. Says like, I think he has a bit of a Clint thing. Okay. He was like, this is the privilege of being away from all the noise and the cacophony. And you can actually listen to nature except you make a movie and there's always 140 fucking people yapping about. Sorry, Ed. And then Jim Sturgis is like, so one day Ed Harris, like the PA comes over and Ed Harris just starts screaming, can everyone be quiet for five minutes? We need to connect to the land before we film.

[01:30:21] And then everyone's saying like, and he was right. And it was incredible how different the next take was. Like, this is all the stuff in the interviews. Sure. That felt very suicide squad tattoo. Yeah. Like then in the way back, which of course I assume at this point has been nominated for 10 more Oscars. Beyond that, it's like, do you know that like Vincent D'Onofrio gained 60 pounds for full metal jacket? Like everyone assumes they're telling the stories that will go down in history about the commitment to the craft and the struggle in this movie.

[01:30:57] David. Yes. Chime. Listen, chime is changing the way. People Bank. Not like this old school banks that charge you when you overdraft, charge you with monthly fees. Built for you. Not the 1%. Yeah. And it's not another banking app. It unlocks smarter banking for everyday people with products like MyPay, which gives you access to up to $500 a year paycheck anytime and getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Some old banks still don't do this.

[01:31:26] There's no overdraft fees. Yeah. No minimum balance fees. Yeah. No monthly fees. Like I said, it makes your everyday spending work harder by delivering real rewards and progress. It's got some stacked benefits. If you ask me. You can earn up to 3% APY on savings. That's seven times higher than a traditional bank. Add that to the stack. Rated five stars by USA Today. Real humans 24-7. Rated five stars is the customer service. Well. So the people will pick up the phone when you call them.

[01:31:55] And you go, good job. Thank you for that good service. And they've got a great way to build credit history with their own money. They've got a new card that unlocks safer credit building cashback. That's the sound of me running the card against the chimes. Again, no annual fees, no interest, no strings attached. You're going to get 1.5% cash back on eligible chime card purchases when you get qualifying direct deposits. Okay. My younger self would have benefited from this. I needed something like this back when I was overdrafted once in a while. Little David.

[01:32:26] With those fees. Chime is not just smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free today. It takes just a few minutes to sign up. Head to chime.com slash blank check. That is chime.com slash blank check. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services, a secured chime visa credit card, and MyPay line of credit provided by the Bancor Bank NA or Stride Bank NA. MyPay eligibility requirements apply, and credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com slash fees info. Advertised annual percentage yield with chime plus status only. Otherwise, 1.00% APY applies. No min balance required.

[01:32:55] Chime card on-time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details and applicable terms. David? Yes? You know what that is? It's someone walking towards me. Who is it? It's the sound of a new franchise on blank check special features our Patreon feed. And I'm a little biased. The franchise is one belonging to my good friend Robocop. He's your friend.

[01:33:25] Sometimes call him Robert Cop. We've decided to collaborate with him by watching the movies that he's in. No Paola. We're doing this of our own volition. Yeah, of course. But we do, of course, acknowledge that he is a good friend. We're covering his film, his two direct sequels, Robocop and Robocop 2 and Robocop 3, the original trilogy. The greatest movie ever made in two movies that make me want to eat glass. And we will also be covering the remake, which makes me want to eat glass laced in poison. Yeah.

[01:33:55] But I look forward to that. Also, we're covering the Billie Eilish movie probably as long as that came out. I hope it came out. I really hope it came out. But that's our series. Yes, and Supergirl. And we'll be covering Supergirl. And Supergirl right at the end there. Yes. And we do talk about Robocop's dick. I don't have much to say. I really kind of sit back in these episodes. Griffin's quiet. He's silent. He takes a bow of monk silence. I just have some work to do, some emails to catch up on. And they're not really my movies. So there's not much I could really contribute to the conversation.

[01:34:24] So we're kicking off that series here today, June 1st. And that's a preview for what's to come throughout June into July. Absolutely. Absolutely. So check it out over at patreon.com slash blank check. Jim Sturgis. Ascendant, as we said. Possibly.

[01:34:53] Weir says he saw across the universe. Okay. If you say so. You're questioning whether he saw it? It doesn't really feel like something he'd run to. Probably likes the Beatles. Yeah, maybe. Right. He thought he had a quality. Mm-hmm. And then he said in meeting him, he has a very interesting manner. He's got a kindness to him. I was keen to not have a typical hero. I'm willing to believe that Peter Weir feels this way. My whole thing with Jim Sturgis is I'm like, he never has read as much of anything to me. Even watching the movie. He's fine.

[01:35:22] He's like an adequate looking guy who's fine. He blends in with these other five guys in the movie. Yeah. Even though you know he's the lead. There's no doubt that at this time Weir is told, this is a guy that you really want to put in the center of the movie. And probably, like, you know, he'll do it. Like, right? He'll fucking do four months in Bulgaria for you. He wants to do it. He wants to be like, I'm getting, like, the real serious actor heavy lift shit. Yeah.

[01:35:44] You also, you talk about this phenomenon all the time, Art, but, like, the guy who is bankable, who you can get a green light for any project with this guy for, like, exactly two weeks. Yeah. You know? Right. Where Hollywood's just like, we think if we invest in this guy now, two years from now, he will be worth five times as much as we paid. So he is like a go picture green light activator. I mean.

[01:36:09] And it's a guy who either has, like, hits that you can't credit to him or hasn't had a hit yet, but the charisma is so strong in movies that didn't make money. But this is what I don't understand. Because he's not a character. No. So that's the thing. Okay. But we must remember. What we're kind of wants here, clearly, is, like, Mel Gibson and Gallipoli. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I want to be finding someone with a bit of a, who's young but has a little bit of earth to him or something. But, like, Across the Universe was a colossal bar. Yes. It was incredibly expensive. Is that, like, 07? 07.

[01:36:38] Then in 2008, he's in The Other Boleyn Girl, which is a movie that I think, like, made its budget back and did fine, but was really poorly received. And... I do not. I don't even remember him in that. He's the fucking... He's not on the poster. Isn't the poster Banna Jones? Because Banna's doing this while girls are thinking. He is... He's Anne Boleyn's brother. I was going to say, he's the other Boleyn guy. He is the other Boleyn guy. But Across the Universe... Sort of, uh, the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead of the Other Boleyn franchise.

[01:37:06] He was a Julie Tamar discovery. Yes. This is Amy Pascal, our Sony. Mm-hmm. Across the Universe is delayed for a long time. And Amy Pascal loved, like, discovering stars and, like, keeping them in the stable and betting on them. So they threw him onto 21, which is also Sony. And he's the face of that movie? Like, he's front and center on the post from all that? And that movie is a hit. Yeah, it's a solid hit. Well, because they let him, they let Spacey be frank in that movie. There's only one reason you make the money. Let him be frank.

[01:37:33] Um, and so that movie has made money. Like, it made, uh, like, 80 mil domestic. Like, it was like a solid... And after that, I mean, I assume we're getting close to when this movie starts to be made. But there's Crossing Over, a.k.a. Woke Crash. Right. Uh, which, which went nowhere. That was also delayed for years. Right. Because Sean Penn was in it and he demanded they cut him out of it. There was a whole plot line with Sean Penn where he didn't like the politics of the final movie. Mm-hmm.

[01:38:00] And he said, he somehow had the power to get his whole story chunk, uh, removed. Bob, Bob, honey, do stuff. He was in the film, uh, Heartless, directed by the great Philip Ridley, which I've never seen. Which is sort of like the last time Ridley made a movie. This year, obviously, has the insane one-two punch of way back in Legend of the Guardians of the Owls of Gahool. He's the main voice in Gahool. Right. I mean, so, I mean, at this point, his agent is basically just imagining, like, how big, how big a vault will I need for the gold coins I'm going to be making off this guy?

[01:38:29] And then One Day with Anne Hathaway and Cloud Atlas are, like, the last two movies of what feel like the things that he got on after 21. And Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite movies and it's one of those things where you're like, oh, right, and Jim Sturgis. Yeah. You know, like all the other guys, you're like, cool. And then he's there too. Because then it's five years of movies you haven't heard. And then, like, Dean Devlin tries to make him the hero at the center of Geostorm. And then it goes back into movies you've never heard of. I think he's done some TV. Has he? Yeah. No way to know.

[01:38:57] There kind of is no way to know, but he was the star of Feed the Beast. Of course. On AMC. And then he was the star of Home Before Dark on Apple TV with Brooklyn Prince. Of course. And then he was the star of, uh, Jesus, Mixtape, which premiered on Binge. Yeah. Why are you saying things we all know? What the fuck is going on? You're wasting air time. Okay. So he cast Jim Sturgis. Like, that sounds great for him. It feels very, yeah, like Griffin says, it's like, if you need a guy of this age, he's,

[01:39:28] I'm sure 10 people passed on this movie. Right. But like 10 years earlier, it's, or not even, like five years earlier, it's Ewan McGregor or it's Colin Farrell or it's, you know. Yeah. Gyllenhaal. Yeah. With Farrell, as we often will hear about Farrell, I feel like they meet and Peter Weir was like, he's really fucking fun to talk to and hang out with. He had the, like, I was not going in thinking this was his part. He walked out with the part. He's relishing. It feels like this opportunity. How close is this to Eastern Promises? In terms of art. I suppose it's 07 maybe? Yeah, it is. Yeah, 07. Really? Yeah.

[01:39:58] I thought it was like nine or 10. It's seven. Okay. So tolerance for like tattooed Russian convicts is high. Through the roof. The Q score is immense. The public is demanding it. They're angry every time they show up in a theater and that kind of guy doesn't show up on screen. Where's a guy with like a weird knife that he talks to? This performance I found very subtle and moving. Oh, yeah? Ben. I do. I fucking love. What I love about The Way Back is that you're like, okay, then they're all going to die. And Weir's like, no, actually only a couple.

[01:40:26] And some of them will just kind of stop walking for other reasons. They're just like, you know what? I'm tapping out. Yeah. Farrell's just like, ah, Mongolia. I fucking love Stalin though. I was like actually bummed he didn't get a big dramatic death scene. Or just a big dramatic anything. Ben, this is a tattooed crazy convict whose best friend is a knife. He calls both. What did you think of this part of the movie and the general dryness of this movie? Well, it was a subtle performance. Best friend is a knife. His best friend is a knife.

[01:40:56] You know, it's like one of the few objects he has left. Yeah. So, of course, I understand why it's so important to him. Reminding him of, you know, before he became a gulag prisoner. If Farrell wasn't going big in this movie, it would be tough. Because like, you know, everyone else is pretty low key in this movie. Farrell getting the and in this movie. It starts immediately. Farrell has the juice. And I'm like, ugh, I'm going to hate it when he's out at the end of the first act. Right.

[01:41:23] Because he's so front loaded that the only reason he would get the and is if he has an early exit. And instead it's no Mark Strong exits in the first act and Farrell exits in the second act. Yes. Okay, but Russian prison tattoos are fucking awesome. And it was definitely something that went across my desk at one point in my life. There was like that book that was everywhere. Exactly. It was like Urban Outfitters on the Counter book of Russian tattoos. That's why you have those diamonds on your kneecaps. Right. Well, of course.

[01:41:53] Sir Sharonin, I mean, there's no, you don't need to explain casting her. Yeah. But as Peter Weir says, she's got an old soul. She's, you know, so talented. Blah, blah, blah. I mean, like, obviously you fucking cast her. Here was my experience watching this movie last night. You see her, just her frame off in the distance, right? The guys see someone walking towards them. And I was like, oh my God, yes. Here we go, Sir Sharon. Oh, no, wait. This is one of those movies where she's still a child. Right. Just immediately was like, oh, right. She's a little kid in this. Yeah. I mean, she's probably like 14 or 15.

[01:42:22] I think I was like, oh, no, I'm not going to be able to get a child. I'm going to be able to get a child. I'm going to be able to get a child. Almost definitely. She would have been about 15 or 16 when she made it. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, she's 15. When's Atonement? Isn't Atonement? Atonement's 07. Your favorite, the year you can't remember. Right. Yeah. And then Lovely Bones is 08 and City of Ember is 09. Well, everyone knows that. Everyone knows that. I haven't checked in with the City of Ember recently. Going great. So this film was shot in Bulgaria and Morocco. Some shooting in India, I think, right for the end.

[01:42:50] So the Bulgarian forest became the Siberian forest. Crazy. Morocco is the Gobi Desert. Crazy. Okay, cool. They weren't actually going to be able to film in the real Gobi Desert or Russia because of problems that would come up with doing that. Bulgaria obviously has old Soviet era studios. They're being used now. I mean, this is how you make fucking any movie these days. Sure. Yeah. And he had to shoot on location. It was an advantage visually. It was an advantage psychologically.

[01:43:21] I wanted to create true emotion for the audience to connect with these people. I mean, it's what you're talking about, Griffin. It's like they're all talking about this movie with so much integrity and so seriously. And it was so fucking hard to make it. And they're all giving these interviews, I assume, because these interviews are all from January 2011, being like, but it was all worth it to make the way back. I just want the listener to know that ARP has entered the bathroom.

[01:43:48] We just need to quickly, I think, give some space to make sure no toilets are broken. No oops are loudly uttered. I just want to, I just, we're a little bit on edge until we hear the flush, right? Just knowing the history of ARP in this bathroom. I was going to... I'm trying to find if there's any other, you know. There's nothing else that's like really that interesting about how they made this movie to me, honestly. It is... They shot on location. It was really hard.

[01:44:26] To approach casting the locations like he was casting actors because they couldn't film in most of the real places that they walked through. So then it's like which country is going to double for which other country. But this movie truly like had four months of filming across multiple continents. Right, right. And then the film exits production and doesn't have a distributor. Yeah. Like they can't find a register.

[01:44:54] Now it is like, it's post-recession, I guess. Like that's what Weir is saying. Okay, we're hearing a flush. We're hearing a flush. All good so far. Okay, the seat is down. Okay. But after, like it basically takes until they play at the Telluride Film Festival and New Market signs on. So that's in September 2010. Right. So like it really was like touch and go if this was even going to get released in 2010, I guess.

[01:45:22] Yeah, and I'm sure you remember it was just on all these lists of like, and maybe this is a chance for like an Eddie Harris career. There wasn't like a focus to a campaign. Colin Comeback, Harris career capper, Peter Weir usually gets nods. There's a Peter Weir movie that many people haven't seen, but like it might be able to score in a few categories. And then looking through it, it's like it basically got zero precursor noms anywhere, not even critics groups, and then just kind of got the surprise makeup nomination.

[01:45:48] You pointed out like both publicly and privately that even by this time, the strategy of like the Oscar hopeful movie comes out December 25th was just kind of cooked. It's a nightmare. Even then you couldn't. You couldn't do it. Put it in there that late, especially with like a distributor that's probably like at that point just one person sitting on the floor in an empty office answering the phone. Correct. Right, right. It's like if you're going to do that, you need to push like an incredibly major campaign to get it like in front of everyone. In this movie, it's like. No, but they walked.

[01:46:17] Their skin got so dry and people were like, uh-huh. Ben, I mean, you like the dryness, right? One of the drier movies. It's very dry. Because you were probably, because you're watching Mosquito Coast, you're like, this is the damp and muggy. I don't like this. Yeah. No, it looked really unpleasant. Way too buggy. Except for the mosquito part of this movie, which is fucked up. It's so fucked up. But I have to say that it looked unpleasant being in the desert.

[01:46:42] So you figured walking across the Gobi Desert by yourself with no possessions would be easy. But actually, it seems like pretty shitty. Yes. Now, Ben, you were saying that you ran out of your lozenges that you're fixated on now. Have you considered sucking on pebbles? Hot pebbles? Not just any pebble. Yeah. It'll keep your mouth salivating. Just get a little moisture out of it. You don't have to keep buying them. You can just find them and carry them around in your pocket. Yeah, you save money. Less sugar intake, too, by far. I kept thinking. You know, pebbles have almost no sugar.

[01:47:11] It's actually crazy we don't eat them all the time. I would surprise people if Ben came in one day saying, like, you know what I've started doing is sucking on rocks. I think I'd be a little alarmed. I didn't say you wouldn't be alarmed. I said you wouldn't be surprised. And then we find out he's selling bags of rocks. I become a rock influencer. It's my new diet trick. Yeah, rocks suck on rocks. I kept thinking. It works. I mean, everyone in this movie is shedding the pounds. That's true. Yeah. They're looking true. It'd be funny if, like, Gustav Starzard kept getting fatter. I'm like, how are you doing this? Like, there's one guy on the. He's got a stash of flufferno sandwiches. Yeah, he's like, yeah.

[01:47:41] Sandwiches around. Yeah. I actually found a cotton candy machine. I haven't told you guys. That's always a good bit. David, did you overall like this movie? I think this movie is pretty good. Yes. I was basically, like, dreading watching it a little bit. And certainly there are parts of it that are sad. And I was sad when people died and so on and so forth. But, like, the sort of procedural. I just felt like it wasn't too heavy on the, like, Revenant style.

[01:48:10] This was so punishing. Sure. You must be punished as they were punished. I had this thought many times while watching the film. Like, I definitely prefer this to The Revenant because it's not doing that. It's not, like, shoving your face into the dog shit. Yeah. And many a true story type movies can do that. Don't you understand, like, how bad this was? And I'm like, yes, I'm a fucking intelligent person. Maybe it's because I've already seen this, but I never thought this movie was that. Just because it was at a time where that wasn't really in vogue of, like,

[01:48:37] the point of this movie is a miserable experience. But my other fear, of course, was there's going to be kind of treacly of this sort of, like, ah, the human spirit and endures. Which it doesn't mean it's that at all. It's not that at all. Yeah. The end is truly, like, all right, see you guys. Instead it has, like, lovely little moments that I like of dialogue and, like, you know, character. There's such a, there's so much stuff in the middle of the movie where, like, just his eye is so great. Like, his, some of the, like, this is a guy, Peter Weir, you know he's making people wait around to get a 10 second shot at sunset. Totally.

[01:49:06] You know he's making everyone stand in one place for 45 minutes until the sun is perfect for a shot that serves no narrative purpose. And the shot is worth it. It doesn't feel like it's indulgence, right? It doesn't feel like it's sort of him self-stylizing. And Ed Harris is there, like, shadowboxing, being like, this is what we're here for. Like, just wait in the hot setting sun. I feel like everyone's on board in this way, right? Like, Farrell's like, yes, this is what I want to be doing. They like the focus. They like the discipline of it. Do you, do you like, like, survival?

[01:49:35] That's what I was going to ask these two. Prison break movies? Did you? Because you're talking about The Revenant, which doesn't occur to me at all. I'm watching this thinking, like, Papillon, Runaway Train. Sure. I'm thinking of, like, people who break out of jail and the movie is like, if you don't keep moving, you will get caught and you will die. Because you guys famously are outdoorsy people. I love hiking. I do love hiking. I was wondering how you related to that aspect of the film as well. I mean, I simply would not do this. That's not what I asked. How long would you survive? If I'm in the movie way back at minute five, I eat a bowl of bullets.

[01:50:04] I just swallow them. I did get- I'm in the gulag and I'm just like- I kept saying to Forky, like, I think by this point I'm dead. By this point I'm definitely dead. Like, dead here, dead here. Yeah. I think Griffin would do well in the gulag. I don't think you'd want to leave. That's actually not a bad thing. Being like, hey, I drew like a naked lady on a piece of paper. You know, three cigarettes, please. Three hots and a cot? I don't think they got a lot of hots or cots. It was pretty rough there. One cold and a floor? Yeah, it's kind of more than five. One and a half colds and a floor.

[01:50:34] I do like a mattress. So that's maybe where I'd be struggling. But I do think I'd make friends. I'm imagining you showing up to the gulag and they're like, what's your name? And you're like, just FYI, I do like a mattress. I feel like Griffin's role in- You can put that in my file. Yeah. His role in the way back is kind of Rob Schneider and Judge Dredd where you're just walking across the wasteland and everyone's like, this guy is still talking. That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me. If you were in the way back. Not in real life, but if it was life or death, I think that would be the vibe you bring.

[01:51:03] I think I'd be at the midpoint between that and Mark Strong. Okay. Right. Where it's like, this guy doesn't really want to escape. Right. I like that conception of his character. But he finds a way to keep himself entertained. You're that guy telling the story. That's the Mark Stronger. Right. He talks about escaping as a way to kind of get through the days. Or you'd be like Mr. Burns when it's the flying hellfish flashback and he wakes up on the cot and they're like, hey, you're not dead. Yes. Just to your movie. Papillon's a movie I find a smidge. It's a bit of a slog. It's got cool stuff.

[01:51:33] Runaway Train I like because one, it's on a train. Well, that's true. And two, that movie is bananas. It is cold. But I mean, that's something where Jon Voight was like, bigger? And the director was like, uh-huh. And Jon Voight was like, what if I went even bigger? The director was like, uh-huh. And that just kept going and going. Yeah. And Eric Roberts. He's insane in that movie. Have you seen Runaway Train? Yeah. Yeah. These movies are more alike to me. Because this is a World War II movie, but not really. This is why- Not barely at all.

[01:52:00] But it fits into our at-home syllabus of World War II. But even re-watching it, it's interesting because the Russian experience of World War II is entirely inscrutable to Americans. You're never taught it. It's not part of the history. I mean, it is. But it's not part of the history you learn. And the average person couldn't describe even vaguely what Russia was doing during World War II because they're both like- Average American, I would say. The average- well, yes. Not the average human on Earth. But like, it is very hard to understand. Yeah.

[01:52:29] And this movie is that. Yes. But it also- Sort of. I mean, well, I mean, literally, partially. But you know, it's a World War II movie in spirit. Okay. But it has no combat. It's not about the Eastern Front. And these are all enemies of the Soviet Union. Yeah. Which is why they're in the Gulag. But you know who else was enemies of the Soviet Union? Uh, Adolf Hitler. Yeah. See, that's why people get confused about this. They sure do. It's like, wait, if they were fighting against the Nazis, why are they imprisoning people who seem okay?

[01:52:59] And it becomes very confusing. And as Anna wanted me to point out, Russia was just basically in the middle of purging their entire population anyway. Right. And they were using this as a fine opportunity to continue their, essentially, reign of terror. And I like the setup. I mean, it's just, I guess, historically accurate, but that the Gulags at this point in time are like half criminals, half political criminals. Right. So you got guys like Colin Farrell alongside guys like Ed Harris, who's just like an engineer

[01:53:28] who moved to Russia for work and is now, right. That's subversive. And so he's, you know, and like Janusz, Jim Sturgis is Polish. And of course, the Soviets conquered Poland when they were allied with Hitler. His wife sells him out at the beginning of the movie. I mean, sells him out as strong. Assuming that he will. She's coerced into. Right. Yeah. Right. And then she thinks he will break. Right. Yes. In interrogation. I mean, I agree with you guys that this movie is good, right? Like, I.

[01:53:58] It's like pretty good. I mean, I did not think it was a masterpiece. I was like, I was sort of a little, you know, whelmed. But I had fairly low expectations. So I was like, right. No, this is a well-made movie and he's a good director. And what was I thinking? I just don't think he could fumble. I even know. Even with half the resources he wants, his eye, his instincts. Like, I hate this phrase. I hate when people are like, this director always knows exactly where to put the camera. It's like, so does everybody in front of the actors. Like, this is an insane sentence.

[01:54:24] But his instincts of like visual storytelling are so muscular, even in a drama, even in Dead Poets Society. He can't ever frame things in a way that you're not like, this is cool looking. This place feels real. These actors are in the moment and he's in complete control. And this movie is totally solid. Like, I'm not saying it's even, you know, it could only not be in the top five of his because his highs are untouchable.

[01:54:49] But I mean, the response to it or the new market dumping of it, its non-existence is totally undeserved. Well, it's a really strong representation of this exact moment in film history where things are just kind of like falling apart and no one knows, you know, like, is there a way to make these movies anymore? Well, that's why I found it fascinating and called it months ago. Yes. Just because it is that to me. And he's really just, you know, I mean, he would have been the top of anyone. I'm sure there was a time where he was ahead of Ridley Scott on people's lists. Yeah.

[01:55:19] I also, I think like, but he never made like, what's it like, you know, he didn't have a really terrible nineties. I mean, like in between Thelma and Louise and Gladiator, Ridley makes movies. Gladiator. What would you rather watch? White Squall or Master and Commander? It's tough. Master and Commander. Okay. It's a toss up. You're saying that's a toss up? Oh yeah. Both of these guys took to the sea. Sure. Right. But I think the better, largely similar results.

[01:55:42] I think the better, the better comparison is if Gladiator had performed, or rather if Master and Commander had performed the way that Gladiator did, both financially and at the Oscars, what do the next 15 to 20 years of Peter Weir look like? And I also feel like. Versus that was like the second win that like gets to the next 25 years of Ridley Scott being unstoppable. Peter Weir could have made Gladiator. Ridley Scott could not have made Master and Commander.

[01:56:11] I think Ridley Scott could have made Master and Commander. It just wouldn't have been this good. And I love Ridley Scott. Of course he could have made it, but it would have not been. Gladiator in Peter Weir's hands is, I think, an equally great movie. Yeah. This is my struggle with this film. And I think I put it at the bottom of my Weir rankings. The bottom? A lot of, look, I think the guy's never made a bad film. So I'm just rating. He's definitely putting it at the bottom. Things three and above. You don't like War. I don't like War. You're a real 4F. Absolutely.

[01:56:40] I'm flat-footed as shit. I got bone spurs in my arms. I got bone spurs in my brain. In your face. Yeah. Yeah, carry on. Carry on. I think what I was struggling with, and it's frustrating because I'm like, it is because Peter Weir has so much integrity, has such like control of the dial, and is like not compromising

[01:57:04] the story to meet the sort of like commercial demands of the moment that I felt like I was struggling to find a handle on it. I think this film is like impeccably made. I think basically everyone in the cast is like good to great. Like Sturgis is probably the worst, and he's solid. He just doesn't really register. And everyone above him is like shades of excellent. All the sort of stuff that could be seen as like bravado. We're going to go out here and struggle.

[01:57:33] I'm going to fight to get like a 10 second shot just to prove that I'm like this serious of an artist. Like all of that is on screen. None of that is like performative, chest-thumpy shit. But I kept being like, do I need this movie to have 10% of some Hollywood bullshit in some area? Do I wish this had like 10% more adventure? Because basically from the moment they escape, it's just we have a really long way to walk. They sure do.

[01:58:01] The conflict is, are we going to die before we finish this walk? But unlike the sort of prison escape movies you're talking about, there's not the kind of like we're being chased shit. I don't want Tommy Lee Jones on their back. But from the moment they escape, and the escape is not that much of a movie. Right? Then you're just sort of in like, is this a funereal march? Right? How many guys are going to die? How long is this going to go on for? The other thing is you keep thinking like, well, for example, will Colin Farrell turn on people?

[01:58:30] He's obviously the wild card, right? He can't be trusted. Well, Saoirse Ronan, she's introduced where it's like, what's this girl's deal? She's lying about her background. And the answer is like, she lies because like she wants to have a more sympathetic sounding background than my parents were political distance. Yeah. Like. No more lies, as Anna quoted. Right. But like, it keeps not doing the more dramatic swervy thing of like they fight with each other. Which I'm respecting. They betray each other, which I respect too. I'm respecting that it's not doing the endurance of the human spirit.

[01:58:57] They don't fucking come across like a bear that like tries to eat them. I respect it. Might have been fun though. Rawr. There's no. The wolves are settled really quickly. Yeah. Anytime it gives you something. Everyone is very respectful to her. Yes. Right. There's not like a creepy sexual element with her character. And her dynamic with Ed Harris is probably my favorite part of the movie. But as you said, these are all like really small, graceful character brushstrokes. Even the snake. These beautiful moments. You're right. Like the snake. It's a snake attack. He's actually following the snake to water. Yeah, because the water.

[01:59:26] Anna said, why does that look good to me when they're eating the snake? Like because when hungry people are eating in a movie, they make it look good. Yeah. But it basically. Also, those wolves look great. I mean, that scene happened. It's like even 2010. You're like, shit, he got real wolves. And it's like Peter Weir is not fucking around with CG wolves. Like it basically. He's telling the actors, like, keep your hands. Yes. Keep your hands where the wolves can see them. Totally. They're not trained. It refuses to like turn any of these things into like Roland Emmerich set pieces. Right.

[01:59:53] It refuses to like create like artificial interpersonal drama between the people. There are moments and there are tensions and whatever. And I just kind of kept being like, I'm having a hard time staying with this because it just feels like, yeah, this sucks. I agree this sucks. And it continues to suck. And I don't mean this backhandedly, but I kept thinking while watching this movie and then watching this fucking special feature of all of them talking about how difficult it was. And I'm like, that's not in vain. All of that is on screen.

[02:00:22] But I like flashback to being in an acting class in my 20s with the great Elizabeth Kemp, RIP, who was the best acting teacher I ever worked with. And there was a guy who wanted to do Long Day's Journey Into Night. Right. And in this class, rather than just like do the text of the scene, she'd be like work on the character and then present to us like a moment if it's a private moment or an improvised thing. But I don't want you thinking about how to say the dialogue right. I want you to try to explore your take on the character. Right.

[02:00:50] And so the guy just leans into playing the sickness and he's just sort of like curled up in a ball, sort of like an alcohol withdrawal, like shaking and crying. And we just watch this for like seven minutes. And I'm sitting there being like, God, this guy's a good fucking actor. This is crazy. I don't have this kind of like physical control and like emotional, like, you know, recall and whatever. And then she goes like, are you are you done?

[02:01:19] Do you feel like you've done everything you wanted to show us? And he's like, yeah, I guess so. And she goes. Good. OK, so now we know you can do that. Right. Yeah. What did you probably told this story before? What did you bring into this session? That's a good question. You rolled into a ball seven, eight minutes. I feel like I was doing Tom and Glass Menagerie. Hmm. But then I also remember I weren't allowed to, like, bring in, you know, like a monologue from the usual suspects or something. I think you could have. OK.

[02:01:50] In fact, I probably did at some point bring in some movie character. But I also ended up getting thrown into other people's scenes a lot where it's like that part of it is like, well, this this woman's working on proof. Can you be the Jake Gyllenhaal part? And I'd be like, great, I'm really good at improvising math. So what did you think? Who did you think was? OK, so now that we know you can do that in this movie, we're or? I think the whole movie has a little bit of that vibe where it was like, it's not that this is showy.

[02:02:19] It's not that this is, you know, hollow. This is like incredibly skillful and is like rooted in something really honest and like powerful. But then she said, like, we know you can do that. But like, now let's work on how can you actually tell a story? And it's not that I feel like this movie isn't telling a story. But I kept feeling like unlike The Revenant, which I feel like, as I said, is pushing your face in the dog shit and saying, like, can you believe how hard this is and trying to make you suffer along with the characters?

[02:02:47] I think this movie is maintaining a distance and is showing you the suffering that is mirroring what everyone was going through while working on the film. And I'm sitting there a little bit and going like, I agree. This is like very impressive that they did this. This is objectively insane to consider any human beings going through this. I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to take away from this. I'm not looking for like a G.I. Joe PSA at the end. Do you like Castaway? I love Castaway. OK, which is very schmaltzy, but it's very schmaltzy.

[02:03:16] And I'm not begging this movie to be a schmaltzy. But I do feel like Castaway has the kind of like Hollywood building blocks. He needed a Wilson. Yeah. Well, they had the knife. I mean, the knife is kind of the Wilson of the movie. Wilson. Yeah. Wilson. And truly like maybe. Did they send out promotional knives for this movie? I didn't send out promotional shit for this movie. Yeah. New Market was famous for their swag. Momento had some promo stuff.

[02:03:40] But I was like, if this has an electric young leading man, does it carry me through the whole thing? Yeah. I mean, I know Sturgis is really taking some hits from us today, but I do feel like he's. He's not bad in it. No, he's not. He's fine. But I think if you stacked up every Weir movie and you rank the lead performances, he's the bottom. No question. Only because that is literally Mount Rushmore. Right. He's a rare guy that really did not pop in the hands of Weir.

[02:04:07] I mean, even he launched the career of Napoleon in fucking Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. That's so true. You know what might have maybe helped? What? And this is a part of the book that was not included in the film. There are Yeti-like creatures in the Himalayas that they mentioned spotting. A pair of Yeti. It would be funny if like one hour and 55 minutes into the movie, they're like, oh, and by the way, we fucking saw the Abominable Snowman. Anyway, moving on back to India.

[02:04:36] And the snowman takes them inside his lair and they're tied up and they have to escape. That's what happens in Tintin and Tibet. Not to spoil it. Wow. But Griffin, in like, in the hopeless survival narratives, like the moment where they come to the gates of where they've been going. Sure. And there's like Stalin on the gates and they're like, oh, this is coming to us too. We have to just turn around. Yeah. Does that not satisfy the urge of like a tragic, ironic story beat? That beat is very interesting, but it's played very quietly.

[02:05:04] I really like that beat because I like them being like, fuck, like it's everywhere and we are enemies of this particular ideology. So we can't go like we can't settle here or whatever. This is where I am just personally struggling with the film and not making a larger indictment. Right. And then I love Colin Farrell being like, I like Stalin too much to go here. Anyway, I love it as well. But I'm like, this is a fascinating scene in of itself. I'm really engaged in this scene. The scenes aren't like building upon each other for me.

[02:05:33] And it's just the nature of what the narrative is, where the fact that it's like, oh, they get here and there's this like dramatic irony of, oh, now we have to like find another way. But also five minutes earlier, the movie lost Colin Farrell, the most interesting character, because he was like, I don't want to get to that ideological threshold. And now I'm like, OK, so now the movies like hit a cul-de-sac. And also we lost Colin Farrell, whose character bowed out of the movie because he thought this

[02:06:02] checkpoint was going to go differently. But now Saoirse Ronan kind of is stepping up to be like the third lead when he's gone. Which I think she's great. The two kind of Griffin beats that are when he suggests the tattoo should be on his butt. Yeah, that's really good. That'd be your move there. Stalin on his asshole. You'd be, you know, threatened with a knife. And the guy who just can't see and freezes to death. Well, that's who I would play. He has bad eyesight. Oh, there he is. He's frozen. What happened to Griffin? He slept in. He missed the escape.

[02:06:33] He couldn't hit his like alarm, which is just like a bunch of sticks. Oh, he hit it. But he hit the fucking snooze stick 80 times. It is nice to see Gustav Skarsgård, an actor I always enjoy, who obviously is largely, you know, mostly does Swedish movies. But yeah, he's really good in this. He's really good in Black Bag. Yeah. He was good in Oppenheimer. He's good. And yeah, he was good in Westworld, actually, to speak of Ed Harris's favorite role.

[02:07:00] So Griffin, you feel like the movie goes off a cliff when Farrell stays in Russia? I would say it goes off a cliff. It does slow down a little bit. It loses a lot of juice. Saoirse Dying is a really like well done scene. It's beautifully done, actually. It is. It's beautifully acted and done. Yeah. But I am like, yeah, I'm a little dead into the movie. I think Farrell's the spark plug. I think Farrell is the equivalent of adding you into the News and Deals group chat. Like, you need him there to create the, like, innate tension of, like, where's this guy gonna go? Yeah. Yeah.

[02:07:30] And I'm expecting... Yes, that is... I'll take that. Right. And I'm expecting that, like, as much as I'm going to be sorry to see him leave the movie early, it will come to, like, a head in a very dramatic fashion. There's nothing like that. No. Because the elements are like that. The sandstorm is that. The mosquitoes are that. Yeah. When she takes off her... I like the mosquitoes, the way they deal with it is they ask one guy, like, how do we deal with this? And he's like, easy. Put this shit around your neck. There's some guy wandering around Mongolia. Yeah.

[02:07:57] When Saoirse Ronan takes off her shoes and her feet are all fat, Ana just goes, I remember this part so well. Her favorite part. I was like, why? It is kind of striking because they're like, oh, yeah. And she's like, I mean, you know, I've been walking a lot. And everyone's like, mm-hmm. You're used to the blistering. Feet are supposed to look like this. Like, you're going to be fine. I'm used to the blistering sores of feet and stuff like this. You're not used to this weird kind of puffiness. And then someone else has it later. Yeah.

[02:08:25] Very, very well-earned makeup, Nam. Like, the makeup in this is incredible and it is so subtly done that you have to keep reminding yourself that it is makeup. From the mosquito bites to the dehydration. You just feel like you're watching a documentary. It lost, of course, to the Wolfman because that has a wolfman in it. Well, the Wolfman swept that year, I feel like. It was kind of the return of the king of those episodes. Picture, director. Picture. Rick Baker. Best supporting Wolfman. The goat. I have always disliked the look of that character in that movie. We've talked about this, right? Yeah. You're not a big fan of the Baker job.

[02:08:55] And that's sort of like one of his big, like, later in life jobs. It's his, like, kind of swan song. Right. To a certain extent. I think it's his last Oscar win. And he basically talked about the process of making that movie drove him so insane that he was, he had his own kind of Peter Weir, like, I guess I'm not aligned with this industry anymore moment. Yeah, right. Like, he still did Men in Black 3. Sure. He, like, fulfilled a couple legacy jobs. But he basically starts pulling back after Wolfman. Yeah. And he views it as, like, that was the last time I got away with doing what I wanted to do.

[02:09:25] And I've just never. Maleficent is the other one he did. But he didn't win for that or he did? Uh, he, no, he didn't even get nominated. Insane. He just, he just worked on the movie. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I don't get that design. So once the movie progresses, because it's, you know, it's, it's such a simple, literal movie. Yes. There's like, you know, there's very little, like, oh, what about this part? What about, it's basically like, what about the mosquitoes? What about when they find the water well and they all start drinking water? So removing the schmaltz from the equation, right? What about when the Mongols give them a sack of water? Like.

[02:09:55] And they say they're too poor for horses and they're just like, okay, well, we have no questions about why you people are wandering around out here. I like all of these moments. Cast away. I am a sap, a contrarian, and a goofball. Do you like Jerry? Yes. Oh, the Van Sant movie? Yeah. That's the best. That movie fucking rocks. I put this movie closer to Jerry than The Revenant. But Jerry is like abstracting everything to the millionth degree, which is so cool. I mean, Jerry rocks. So the, bring, bring back Jerry. Jerry too? Jerry's? Cast away comparison.

[02:10:24] Is Van Sant still on the, still on the board? Well, he's going up against your favorite filmmaker of all time, Chris Columbus right now. That's happening right now. Cast away has the structure of problems. Problem solving, which is what I think I like in this type of movie when I connect to this type of film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the fun of Send Help even, like any island movie. Well, also, I mean, this is insane. Chris Columbus is winning. Who the fuck wants this over a Psycho Remake episode? I would love, very much love to discuss the Psycho Remake, a movie I love.

[02:10:53] Um, but the other, like to us, like in the movies we like watching at home, there's like the two kinds of, this kind of movie you're describing is something like The Martian, which has a kind of identical problem solving structure. And then there's the kind of, um, like seafaring adventure shipwreck in the heart of the sea where it's just like another thing of like, can these people survive? But in the heart of the sea is one that nobody liked because that one's a much grimmer. Yeah. I think a lot of people like that movie. I think a lot of people find that to be like a really worthy, seafaring adventure.

[02:11:24] Yeah. Definitely. I think a very popular movie. There's like a whale is writing that right now. Like, I think a lot of people like that movie and want it to come back. Even like All is Lost, which is not my favorite movie and is similarly like very sparse. That's not your favorite movie? It's not, in fact, my number one favorite movie of all time. Sight and sound poll, number one. All is Lost. I know people think- Number two of the Muppet movie. Where you're like, I know these are unranked, but just to be clear, All is Lost is number one. All four slots on my Letterboxd floor? Yeah. It's not.

[02:11:53] Some is lost. No, it's All is Lost. You have to respect the All. I always thought that was your favorite movie. This is why I'm trying to correct the scurrilous rumor. Even All is Lost, which is not your favorite movie, please finish your thought. And it's so stripped down and obviously like mostly- Right. Wordless and whatever has that kind of like, okay, here's this one problem. He's got to solve this where I feel it stacking up. And I think this movie, I rewatched Day After Tomorrow recently. So did I.

[02:12:21] A movie that fucking rules that David's wrong about. Not a movie I like. But that is a movie where I'm always fascinated by its Hollywood junkiness where it's like- Very junky. We can keep escalating the type of natural disasters that happen. And then you feel two thirds into the movie, them go, fuck. There is no way to resolve this film. Right. They can't undo the weather. No. And there's nothing for them to conquer. There is no way for them to score a win. Randy Quaid can't fly a plane into those alien spaceships. I guess they have to fight wolves.

[02:12:49] I guess like Dennis Quaid has to come to him. I always forget how late in the movie Dennis Quaid- That's like right at the end, right? Even starts his journey. It's over an hour before he's like, fuck it, I'm walking. I'm going to do my own long walk. And then that's pretty expedited. And I feel this movie being like, Peter, we're pitching this to studios. Studios being like, cool. So can every 15 minutes something insane happen? The guys have to try to kill each other. There have to be like big kind of like conflicts that they can like score wins over.

[02:13:18] And he's like, no, that's not the kind of movie I'm making. And he has like- You're saying he's Costanzing it. Yes. And then he's overcorrected- No, no. Nothing happens. If I'm not making it with a studio, then I'm making it exactly the way I want. And I'm not going for any Hollywood bullshit artifice. And I'm like, I could use like 5 to 10% more kind of like, not wins. Well, I mean, what you're describing is the way Mosquito Coast is structured. Yes.

[02:13:44] Which is like a series of builds and activities and ice transports and little things that arise and sort of endless obstacles that he's facing. It's so focused in its bleakness. It's not like selling out the message of the movie and the integrity of like, you know, the character study and all of that. But it does have that kind of build that I think I was just kind of struggling to hold on to here. Every scene would happen. I'd be like, this is a good scene.

[02:14:11] And then the next scene would start and I'd be like, okay, this scene has to win me over again from zero. Where do you guys- Once we hit the monks is when I'm like, I'm parking my ass here. This is great. I want to hang out with you guys. Like, this is great. I don't want to go to keep walking. They leave at Harris there and I'm like, why are you not staying there with us? Because Sturges is like, I got to get home. Run. Anna was very- I got to get home to my fucking wife. Anna's comment at the end of our rewatch was, um, like, I did not know that the point

[02:14:39] of this movie was like this eternal love that he has to return to. I feel like they debut that notion pretty late. Even though it is the first scene in the movie. It's the first scene in the movie and then you have a couple times where it's sort of the vision of the door, which I like. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that stuff. I mean, Weir's just good at that stuff. He's good at that stuff. But they- There's so much of that in Truman Show, too. Again, because this movie doesn't have, like, over-labored kind of monologues of, like, guys being like, yeah, that's my wife. I love her so much. You know, like- The photos and the helmet. Right. It does take a while for him to be like, oh, no, by the way, like, we got across the

[02:15:08] Himalayas right fucking now. Even though, like, clearly the wisest man you've ever seen was like, not a good idea. It's the winter. Like, wait until spring. Yetis. Yetis. There be yetis. Yeah. This was another thing I thought while watching it. That was the missed opportunity. That's missed opportunity. For me. The other thing I thought was, would this movie benefit from starting one week earlier rather than starting in the interrogation room? Giving you, like, Sturgis in Poland being rounded up?

[02:15:35] Well, let's also say maybe it's a guy with a little more juice than Sturgis, right? Who is that? I mean, I don't want to go down this rabbit hole at this point. It's a really good question. In 2010. At this moment, it's tough. We can keep pointing to people. But this is also when, like, male actors started basically being hunted for sport. Who is new then? Yeah. Is that more interesting? Or do we shoot higher? Do we get, like, Matt Damon? You know, do we get, like, a very established actor?

[02:16:00] It's tough because it's, like, if it's 2000, the options are overflowing. Yeah, but then you could end up with, like, a Tobey Maguire. You could. Where you're like, I don't know what that looks like, you know? I don't know why I'm going to him, but he did occur to me. He's Sturgis-esque in his gentleness. I just think I realized too late in this movie, much like it sounds honored, oh, right, the thing that's driving him is wanting to see his wife again. Sure. Mm-hmm. Which this movie in its stoicness is not overplayed. I mean, what if it's fucking James Franco?

[02:16:30] Like, who made a survival thriller this year? Now we're talking. Yeah. Although, like, that's the better survival thriller for him to be in. It is. I'm not, you know. But you mean, like, a guy who's just kind of innately charismatic? Can be. Although sometimes, Franco, you're kind of like, did you forget to plug in today, buddy? But I think him at that time would put himself in the hands of a master like Weir, and he would rise to the assignment. One would assume. At this time. I do think he wants a certain emotionality in this role, though, right?

[02:16:59] Like, he wants a certain sweetness. But he also, but the script doesn't support that because there isn't any of those moments of like, what are you going to do? What's the first thing you're going to do when you get back? Right. Kiss my wife. What about you? Hug my mother. Like, there's none of that. That's why I'm like, does it need to start a week earlier so that there's some status quo of their relationship rather than it starting with him in the interrogation and her, like, setting him up? Sure. And him falling on the sword, you know? Well, it doesn't make sense, too, because, and I guess the characters at that time don't know this, right?

[02:17:28] That the war will eventually end. But even beyond the war, like, the occupation. Iron curtain will fall. Exactly. So he won't be able to go to, as we see right at the end. Right, right. So it's like the chance of him being able to go back and see his wife, it doesn't seem like it could happen, like, within his lifetime. The postscripts that, like, follow the fall of communism are very, it's like, wow, this is really consolidating decades of history into a series of title cards. With footsteps over them because it's like, oh, right, he hasn't gotten to the end of his problems. The war continues.

[02:17:58] I think a lot of prison movies, too, like, you gotta see some amount of their life on the outside before they go in to understand what they've lost. I don't think without exception, but I felt like I didn't have enough of a grounding in this guy to have him be the one driving the movie. I guess because we watch, like, 30 World War II films a year, kind of in a row. Yeah. I'm like, I know what he was doing last week. I know what happened to Poland. Sure, sure. I do know what happened to Poland. You've seen Schindler's List. You know what happened to Poland.

[02:18:29] I have. I have. Yeah. David? Yes? My name is Griffin Eamon and I love movies. What? That's not what you say. You say? Oh, my name is David Simpson. I love movies. Blanket. Blanket. If you love movies like us, you should be listening to the Eye of the Duck podcast named after the Eye of the Duck scene. Do you know about this?

[02:18:58] Isn't it David Lynch? He said every movie has a scene that defines the whole, the way the Eye of the Duck represents the duck. Every time we do an ad read for our friends at Eye of the Duck. You try to remember this anecdote. I do. But on each episode of their podcast, they explain the anecdote well and host Dom Nero and Adam Volrich, friends of the show, friends of my life, explore a movie by finding its most essential scene. And right now, Dom and Adam are celebrating the films of Studio Ghibli. You ever hear of them, David?

[02:19:27] I love those movies. And obviously, we've covered some of them on our show, but not all. Not all. And in fact, I will be going on their show soon to cover a film that was not covered in our series that I have never seen before. I'll be watching Pompoco for the first time. Yes. One of the most testicle-driven animated films ever made? Is that... What do you say? It's got a lot of balls in it. It's got balls in it, right? We will... I guess maybe one day we'll cover Takahata, but who knows? So it'll be very exciting to listen to that.

[02:19:56] This is their first series devoted completely to animation. I love that. And the work of a single studio. So join them as they enter the studio of dreams and madness. Yes. They're going long on masterpieces like Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies. And do you want to take this one? Yoshifu Miyazaki's Whisper of the Heart, which we covered way back when. We did. We did. Great movie. Country Roads, Take Me Home, etc. Begins a series beginning with the 1984 classic Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind.

[02:20:26] Continues all the way through Miyazaki's final question mark film, The Boy and the Heron. Who knows? Maybe he'll make another one. And for listeners who want to go even deeper, Adam and Dom are expanding on that lineup over on Patreon. I have the duck after hours. Five bucks a month. You can get exclusive coverage of pre-GBL works like Lupin III, The Castle of Cagliostro, hidden gems like Hiroyuki Morita's The Cat Returns. Great movie that I have seen 100 times. My daughter really likes it. Wow. And Studio Pono X, Mary and the Witch's Flower. Not as good?

[02:20:56] It's a pretty interesting movie. That's from a Miyazaki acolyte, you know, from a trainee or whatever, like an apprentice. That's all you get from subscribing to After Hours. You also hear weekly analysis of industry news, thoughts on new releases in film and television, recommendations for it to watch or play. Yes, even video games. Yes. I've been on the show several times over the last five years. They've explored a lot of franchises that we've covered on the show. I've gone on specifically to cover some movies that we haven't in those franchises. So when they did Toy Story, I did a Lightyear episode for people who ask,

[02:21:26] why no Lightyear on Blank Check? You can listen to that. Dial of Destiny I did with Connor Ratliff. They've also done the Alien franchise, Mission Impossible, Evil Dead, Jurassic Park. And they also will catalog movements, things like 80s dark fantasy, cyberpunk space films, and movies about UFOs. Yes. So you can explore the scenes at the heart of your favorite movies and follow Eye of the Duck wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday. Brought to you by the Morbid Network.

[02:21:55] I like saying Morbid Network in such an uplifting way. Brought to you by the Morbid Network. The Morbid Network. Do you like those movies? I love Schindler's List. Do you like the Spielberg treatment of a World War II? Well, he's only seen St. Peter and Prevarei at one time. Gave me a fucking panic attack.

[02:22:25] I had to stop that. But I do own the Steelbook. I own the 4K. Thank God. A commitment to re-watching it at some day. Do you fuck with Fury? I like Fury okay. Fury's all right. Anna said last night after this, first of all, so excited to re-watch it. Then she goes, man, what a great movie. Really comforting. I could see watching this once a year. And I said, really? Once a year? She goes, yeah. I mean, it's not like really intense. It's something that's hard to watch like Fury. And I said, Anna, you watch Fury all the time. She goes, okay, well, not Fury, but like something that will be more intense than Fury.

[02:22:53] Like two months ago, I texted you, Arp, I want to make a pitch. What if we put you on? And I named a bigger movie. Well, you'll probably have announced that by now. In the next May. We'll announce at the end of this episode. Oh, okay, great. You can announce it in the middle so that people have to listen. And then you were like, why would I not be doing The Way Back? And I was like, well, I assumed you only put your finger down on Way Back because of the like most irrelevant movie in a filmmaker's career. And you were like, you're forgetting that I like... War Season. You don't know about War Season. Well, you do know about War Season.

[02:23:21] Can you share with the listener? So basically like 15 years ago, we were driving up to Vermont for the weekend and we bought some DVDs at a gas station as one did at the time. One of those DVDs was Ed Zwick's Defiance. Uh-huh. A film we had not yet seen. We go to a snowy cab and we watch Defiance. Turns out it's a masterpiece. Just fucking incredible. I mean, that's a movie like this also. Just like... The Ed Zwick movie? Yeah. It's incredible. Defiance for me is a perfect example of Oscar nomination morning, Defiance gets zero noms. I go, what a relief. I never have to watch that.

[02:23:50] Drag to recycle bin. It is better than... If that movie came out last year, not last year, but two years ago, it would be like, well, this is the best movie of the year. If it came out last year, would you put it above or below Nuremberg? Above. Okay. Defiance is an excellent film that is really well made with three incredible performances from Craig Schreiber and Jamie Bell. It is such a good... It is what you are saying you want from this movie. Maybe I should watch it. It is an endless slog of hopeless survival set against inhospitable elements, but with

[02:24:18] that Hollywood sheen and the melodrama layered over it with romance. So we watched that and we were like, this fucking rules. Defiance is great. We go home. Our neighbors ask us to cat sit. We're feeding their cat. We look on their DVD shelf. Two things there that we're interested in. Schindler's List and Showa. Uh-huh. Take them upstairs and we watch them in the week that they're gone. Sounds like a fun week. So now we're thinking this is Holocaust season. So then we spend like five years... To be clear, my head is in my hands. We spend like five years in the dead of winter.

[02:24:48] Ben, can we commission a shirt that says, and now we're thinking it's Holocaust season? Now, wait a minute. With a cartoon depiction of ours? Well, Holocaust season is sort of the prologue because then... Wearing a slayer. So for like five years, every February, March when it's just the worst out. Gray, cold, hopeless. And you've been in winter for months. Every year we're like, okay, so let's do like, you know, five, ten Holocaust films. Yeah. The Holocaust of seasons. Winter. Eventually we run out of Holocaust films. Uh-huh. Or at least, you know, the ones that you need to see or revisit.

[02:25:17] So then we say, now it's war season. We've expanded this. This is now an entire season devoted to World War II in cinema. Mm-hmm. Now there's... We could do this for the rest of our lives. We wouldn't run out of movies. There are a lot of World War II. And we do this every year. Or World War II adjacent films. I take it very seriously. I put together a sort of dossier. Mm-hmm. Not a check, JJ style dossier. But a one sheet. Yeah. That I make our list on every year. Right. And... Is it always fresh films every year? No, no. There's stuff that's been on there forever.

[02:25:46] Like there's stuff that it's like, we just watched Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Okay. And I was like, this has been on the list since before I started printing them. Oh, but... I have handwritten pieces of paper. I mean, are they all blind watches? No, no. Are you throwing in rewatches? Oh, no. We always rewatches are a very important part of it, such as The Way Back. Uh-huh. On his birthday was a few weeks ago. So it's the night of your birthday. Anything you want? What do you want to do? And she goes, Schindler's List. I was like, this is fucking great. So we watched it. We watched half of it. The next night, we finish it.

[02:26:14] And I was like, you know, the finishing night was like an hour. Yeah. We watched like two hours. And I was like, what do you want to do? It's only, it's still a little bit early. She goes, feels like we should watch an episode of The Pacific. I was like, this is unbelievable. Her commitment to it exceeds mine by a thousand percent. But Anna loves nothing more than World War II. I was about to say, it's very much World War II that... Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like the thing I always say is, this was on like an SNL where, I think it was like a Five Timers Club sketch where Tom Hanks was talking to Andy Samberg. He goes, you know what? I love Andy.

[02:26:42] And he just goes, World War II? That is pretty good. That is on a to a T. And we curate war scenes. Like I start working on the list like in the summer where I'm like, oh, there's this new movie. Like I, or whatever. I'll be like at a film festival and I send her a picture of some poster for a Norwegian film with a swastika on it. And I'm like adding it to the list. Like it's got to go on the list. And we end up putting together like a really diverse collection of war films that tell

[02:27:10] the totality of the story from the Eastern Front, South America, after the war, this, and like, like what did we just watch? Music Box, the Costa Gafras film. Oh, sure. Which I'd never heard of. And I think either came up when I was reading something about it was just an accident or it came up on like a Cinematrix with, what's her name? Jessica Lange. And I was like, what is this movie? It has a swastika on the poster. I also feel like Wesley Morris brought this up in a recent Big Picture app as like, this

[02:27:37] is the exact kind of movie we don't make anymore that used to be important to the ecosystem. It came into my brain somewhere. Now, obviously it wasn't on my printed list because I printed that list in January. Yeah. So we, but we were able to squeeze it in any way. Is that her dad is a Nazi? Yeah. Or is being accused of having been a commandant. Yeah. Have you seen number 24? Um, wait, is that the, is that the. It's the Norwegian. Yeah, we watched that last year. That was like, what made you watch that? I don't know, actually.

[02:28:03] Other than I was looking for something to watch on a flight. Yeah. And settled on. It's about the formula for heavy water. Is that right? This is about a guy who was part of the resistance in Norway. Oh, the resistance fighter. Oh yeah. And then it's like kind of a docudrama. And there's like scenes of him talking to students in it. Yes. Yeah. Cutting between that and his like various experts. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Something I find very interesting and unheralded in like the endless morass of Netflix slop

[02:28:29] is that every year Netflix will drop like 10 international films about World War II that I've never heard of. And you watch them and they're all like solid. And you look. It was great. You look it up and it's like, oh, this was this country's submission for the Oscars. Didn't get released. Never heard of it. David Sims never saw it. Basically, All Quiet on the Western Front was the only one of those that punched through. Yeah, but they put up five. But they have like 10 of those a year. 10. Yeah. Now there's one, you know, Will. There's one called like Blood and Gold.

[02:28:55] There's one, the photographer of Mathausen that was like a Spanish concentration camp movie. Occasionally still get a good new Holocaust. Did you see David? It was a TIFF movie. Irina's Vow. No, I've at least heard of that one. But that's from a couple years ago. Highlighted this year's war season. Fair enough. Total like classy surprise of like really, really good movie. Have you seen, I wrote a piece about Stellan Skarsgård and I've never seen this film. Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg. No.

[02:29:23] This was a Stellan Skarsgård breakout movie. It's a big movie in Sweden where he plays a famous Swedish figure, a diplomat who is instrumental in saving the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Never seen it, but it looks like the kind of sort of handsome Oscar submission that was big in its country, but not really big outside of it. So many of those, even still. Anyway, that's all. Yeah. But this is a very important part of our viewing. So we were happy. I think we initially watched this movie as part of that. And as just Peter Weir fans.

[02:29:53] But man, we love war season. It's almost over, but we're in it. We're still in it. Anything else? Any other watches this year? I mean, yeah, we've been doing it for months at this point. Are we almost pulling out of war season? Yeah, yeah. It's getting a little too warm. Yeah. But then when it gets warm, you can watch things that are, you know, like that take place in the jungle. You can kind of migrate to the Pacific. Do you pin the end of war season on a calendar date or is it? Yeah, Memorial Day. Okay. We can drag it out to Memorial Day, but not consistently.

[02:30:23] Yeah. We can, like, I think one year we saved Midway for Memorial Day. You were so excited when Midway was coming out. Yeah, I was so excited that I waited like two years to watch it at home on Memorial Day. Anyway. But I feel like in those two years, you were constantly texting. That movie is, I guarantee you, an eight out of ten at the worst. And it was. It was a very, very solid movie. Is that the one with Glenn Powell or was that a different one? That's Devotion. Oh, that's right. That's right.

[02:30:49] Which stars Glenn Powell and Weird, the second actor above the title has disappeared. Oh, who was that? Jonathan Majors. Oh, dear. Midway was Patrick Wilson. Patrick Wilson. Dennis Quaid. Dennis Quaid is, um, is he MacArthur in it? I couldn't tell you. He's high up. He's brass. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, we watch hundreds of war films. Yeah. And I can throw this on and be like, well, of course, this guy was rounded up in the communist purge and he's being accused of being an enemy of the state.

[02:31:19] And we're off to the races. And it's kind of fun to continue the conversation of expanding the conflict of the war and never needing to, like, pause or take a break from it. Because you can kind of just jump into whatever and know. Because the thing that you're missing in this movie that is, like, really what makes good war films great is that great war films can distill the essence of the entire war into a single moment. Yes, that's a good call. Often either the beginning or the end of the movie. Schindler's List does this. The opening statement, Private Ryan.

[02:31:49] It distills the essence of World War II into a scene. Right. Two soldiers meeting in the middle of the battlefield from opposite sides, both tending to a war horse. And this movie, well, sure. And this movie doesn't have that scene. It doesn't have the moment. That is a good call. That stands in for, like, and that is what it was about in Russia during World War II. I also think everyone in this movie you meet is so thoroughly broken already that I, just

[02:32:16] me, with this not being my chosen genre, I think I usually need the emotional in of here's what they lost. And what is hanging over the movie emotionally is them trying to get something back. Do you like old, because to us, like, the history of, I mean, obviously they started making World War II films, like, before the war. During World War II. Yeah. Like, but the kind of first wave, the men on a mission movies, which are just pure action films. Yeah. Do you like those movies at all? I don't prefer that.

[02:32:44] I feel like this is something I can't picture you watching because you're not like a dad in the 70s. Yeah. I mean, I watched them. That is not my favorite kind of war movie because those do tend to have a little bit of a formula to them, but they're fun. Like, I mean, do you, yeah. This is the tough guy. Yeah. This guy's kind of the smart guy. Do you like Dirty Dozen, Great Escape? Do you like him? I like those two movies. Yeah. But I'm like. Heroes of Telemark and Force 10. I'm like doing in my head, like, what's my favorite war movie? And I'm like, oh, my answer is like Best Years of Their Lives, which is a post-war movie.

[02:33:14] Oh, a war romance is a very important part of War Season. Best Years of Their Lives is an incredible war. An incredible film. But I think, like. But it is obviously. And Gallipoli, like, truly has shot way up on my all-time war list. Just watching it for the first time. That's what we're one. Saw it at Walter Reed with Peter Weir in attendance. Yeah. We just. Another war season won this year was the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. Speaking of Glenn Powell. That is a movie that is weird. You know, it got brought up. You're like, oh, this will be really chilling. It's like, no, it's a better volume than not seeing. Yeah.

[02:33:43] But it's actually quite fraught. But it's important to have for us, like, you don't want to watch this movie every night. You don't want to watch, like, an action-oriented movie every night. You have to mix it up. So to have the occasional wartime romance, which are often, you know, quite nice. And then, like, did you see Beasts of War, the, like, Australian shark World War II POW movie? No. It just came out. It's like a Shudder original that came out. It was maybe at festivals last year. It's a true story. It's like basically a bunch of Australian fighter pilots were just on a plane.

[02:34:13] And then it goes down roughly 15 minutes into the movie. Does this even have a Wikipedia page? No, it doesn't. I was surprised. It didn't have a Wikipedia page. It's like a legit movie. Wow. And, you know, it's like this, but on a boat, but with a shark. Yeah. I would say this looks a little less Tony than... No, no. So that was like a Saturday night, we're tired, we're moving. Sure. Sometimes you need something that's, like, horror or action. Yeah, no, of course. This is why you're like, this is... When you come on the podcast, we want to make it count.

[02:34:42] And if the schedule lines up where we can have you a couple times in one year, that's it. But I'm like, I'm sitting here and I'm just like, thank God we got you on this one. We want to see a fucking way back episode, which is just us otherwise being like, I mean, this is well-made and handsome. It didn't really resonate with us. It seems cold. You know what's a stink... Sometimes hot! But hot! Can we get Bombas to sponsor this one? This feels like one to really target getting the socks. Oh my God, you're so right. Bombas gave up on us. Really? Come back, Bombas. They, um... Yeah, it's been a minute.

[02:35:11] What if for every one ad read we do for them, we do an ad read for a shittier business? They should have. They should have done a promo for this. You know it's a bad World War II movie that you guys might do someday. What? Although it seems not likely with the way voting goes, is Miracle at St. Anna. Like, a Spike Lee movie no one has seen. I've seen that movie. I've never seen it. I've seen that movie. It is... Oh, I mean, Defy Bloods is like one of my 10th. Well, Vietnam's a whole other thing. Right. No, but that movie is a failure.

[02:35:39] I haven't seen it, and I like Spike Lee, but it's one of his most, like, misshaped movies. It has interesting stuff. Yeah. It's not, like, without merit, but it's odd. It is nearly without merit. Yeah, it's not very good. I can't really defend it. We were motivated to watch it years ago. Well, because you're like, how could this be that bad? Like, this must be interesting. It must be something. Yeah. But, you know, stuff like that can still get made, at least at this time. And as a real... Well, even that's 2006. That's him casting his Inside Manchic. And that's the Inside Manchic? It's like 9 or 10.

[02:36:08] Like, the difference between... That's when he got in a fight with Clint Eastwood. Yeah. He was like, I'll show you, Clint. Shut the hell up. Sure. But that's, like, the shift of, like, he's one of the last guys who, A, like, Inside Man is enough of a blank check to make that, and B, they let you make that under any conditions in the studio. Do you like the two Clint movies he's making that response to? I really, really disliked Flags of Our Fathers. It's a good movie. And Iwo Jima, I, like, respected. Iwo Jima is an incredible... Would it surprise you...

[02:36:38] Yeah, I was like, I get this is good. I don't enjoy watching this. Would it surprise you for me to say that I really like Flags of Our Fathers and think Iwo Jima is a very bad movie? Wow. It would surprise me a little bit just the second part. Flags of Our Fathers is a good movie. Letters from Iwo Jima... Yes. It is, I think, the worst looking movie I have ever seen that is made with any budget. Well, it did not have much of a budget. No, but I'm talking, like, yes, you could show me a $2,000 movie that looks worse. Whatever digital technology was being put in front of him at that time, it is the worst

[02:37:07] looking movie that I think has been, like, made by a major Hollywood studio with a major director. He just comes in late. You know, you're like, is Alex out of hot takes? And he's like, one more. It's strange because it was made concurrently with a movie that looks entirely different. See, I remember feeling... I think you're being a little hard on Iwo Jima. I also, I remember feeling that way about Flags of Our Fathers. I remember seeing that in theaters and being like, I hate the way this fucking looks. This movie is, like, so blunt, over the head, restating every thematic point six times. I thought, like, across the board, most of the cast is bad.

[02:37:37] Like, I felt like it was basically wall-to-wall bad performances. It has a little bit of the Clint cast faces problem where it's like, yeah, not all the actors are that good. And the script is so unsubtle that it would need massaging to bring the performances down to something specific. And instead, you got Ryan Phillippe, like, kind of walking through it. They kind of got railroaded, though, those guys. Yeah, a little bit. Those guys got railroaded a little bit. Very solid film. Yeah. But I have it mid to low on my Clint list. Yeah.

[02:38:05] I mean, I'm just realizing in this conversation that every war film that I would say I love is a movie that basically, by narrative design, obfuscates the war to some degree. But you like Vietnam movies. Or abstracts it. Well, do I like all Vietnam movies? You like all of them. Yes, you're right. I like all Vietnam movies. We all know that my favorite movie of all time is All Is Lost, and I like all Vietnam films. It's too bad you'll never cover any of them on this show, thanks to people voting down on all of them.

[02:38:33] I mean, obviously, if Faller vs. Stone won, we would be covering half of all Vietnam movies. I don't love Vietnam movies. That is one of my less favorite war genres, but there are some great Vietnam movies. I think there's... It is likely we cover Spike eventually. I'm trying to think who else has a Vietnam movie we haven't covered. I mean, do we do... Forrest Gump's a great Vietnam movie. We could do Michael Cimino. Do Forrest Gump again? Not doing Forrest Gump again. We could do Gump. No, but his movies as a director. Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course.

[02:38:59] The interesting thing about a lot of these World War II tropes is like, they stopped making celebratory drama. People weren't in the mood. Men on a Mission movies went away. Coppola. I've heard of him. De Palma is in... De Palma. Yeah. Yeah. But De Palma, to me, he's another one of these guys weird that the ignominious end of his distribution and his opportunities is just such a bummer. Yeah. De Palma's tough. I mean, supposedly he's working on something now. Would it be good?

[02:39:29] I don't know. Like, how can he go from Mission Impossible to not being able to get a movie made? It's hard to end a series on the ward. You know, it is a thing you try to avoid. I think this is as good of a final film as my vague recollection of every final film you've covered. If you're saying definitively final ones. Yeah. Yeah. And like a guy sort of choosing to call it. No one's going to stand up for this movie and be like, actually, that's Peter Weir's secret masterpiece.

[02:39:58] But, you know, the basement on final movies in the miniseries is quite low. Operation Dumbo Drop. I'm looking through a list of Vietnam films. We do need to cover that. And who directed that? Was that Orson Welles? It was Orson Welles. No, of course it was Simon Winsor. Oh, yeah. Ben and Operation Dumbo Drop. Yeah. Never seen it. This is the best thing about Ben. They got a drop in elephant. Ben's choice that Ben hasn't seen is like my, that's a miniseries, perhaps, like a Patriot. We have, Griff, I will remind you. This came up when it was revealed Ben had never seen Bushwhacked. We've covered a Winsor.

[02:40:27] We've covered one Winsor. Yes. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. He did go to Los Angeles. When there's a movie that is so. And we might cover the Phantom one day. So Taylor made for Ben. And he just, for some reason, missed it. It is bizarre that he didn't see Bushwhacked. How'd you miss Dumbo Drop? Dumbo Drop is good. I don't know. Do you know, do you want to know what, Dumbo Drop is the big three. I think we're going to play the boxers. Danny Glover, Dennis Leary, and Ray Liotta. And their job is to get an elephant across. I've never seen it. Don't look at me. I have seen it.

[02:40:56] It's kind of the way back with an elephant. They're like walking the elephant by foot. And then at a certain point, they're like, this is taking too long. We got to get the elephant in a plane and then drop the elephant with a parachute into its final landing spot. Yeah. It's, uh, where is it? It's probably one of the five best movies I've ever made. The recent Vietnam movie that I didn't see was the, uh, the Farrelly one. The Greatest Beer Run. Oh, sure. I'm surprised you haven't seen that. Uh, don't be. Really? Uh, yeah. Don't be surprised. I haven't seen that. Why would I see that?

[02:41:25] You like war movies. You watch them endlessly. No, no, no. If that movie was about world. You just said that you watch war movies all the fucking time. No, no. World War II movies. Fair enough. I am not encyclopedic about Vietnam. You don't fuck with Vietnam. I do, but we certainly don't favor those movies. There's way less variety in the. I agree. There's so much less variety. They tend to be one to two kinds of movies. Yes. And the sort of, but you know, similar to World War II, I think one of the better genres of the Vietnam movie is the soldier after Vietnam, which is what you like, Griffith. Well, that's a good one. No, but what I'm realizing. Yes. Yes.

[02:41:55] It's exactly what you're saying. I'm looking through the Vietnam list here and it is like, I like PTSD movies because that's an emotional story in the wake of war. Yeah. Even if it starts with active warfare. What's my favorite war movie? I don't know. I love war movies so much. I'm like Alex. And I like any movie that makes me Google ship. Yeah. Now, do I need every movie to be like that? No. But the way back where I can be like, and how many people do live in Mongolia? Like I love to do that. That for me gets into what Ben would call a homework movie.

[02:42:24] But this is the interesting thing that we love splitting the difference on of curating War Season is like, there's movies that, like Nuremberg, that you're like, this is one to one. This is a Hollywoodized version of everyone in this movie is a real person. And then there's stuff like this where it's like, these are, this is sort of based on a thing. And what really went out of vogue kind of post Saving Private Ryan for a long time,

[02:42:51] even though that movie is fictional, was making these big ticket war movies of like, no, we just made this up. Yeah. It became much more popular in the 2000s to really like, be like, this is a true story. Based on true story. We're adapting a memoir. We're adapting something true. Whereas prior to that, Schindler's List was almost like an outlier. Yeah. Where a lot of these movies, even music boxers I just watched are like, well, it's kind of inspired by this thing. But like, mostly we're just trying to tell a good story. And then it becomes like- Did Schindler fully turn it? Because it was like the profundity.

[02:43:20] There just weren't World War II movies before that for a long time at this level. They were being made in other countries and there's a lot of good foreign war films in the 80s and France was making a lot and they sort of tried to grapple with their horrible history. America just, Vietnam was in vogue for over a decade, kind of until Schindler's List made World War II big business. Well, it's also the generation starts to shift and like, boomers want to watch World War II movies because their parents served in World War, you know, like it's just, that's

[02:43:48] how one day maybe we'll get more. We're probably like 10 years away. More films about the Clone Wars now that cyclically it's kind of coming back. Well, it's like, it's like anything. The distance between these things started getting really short. I mean, nothing for that? Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's not a joke. That's a great statement. Okay. Thank you. Very astute. That's what I wanted. I wanted profundity points. But to us, we do love David's Googling of like, what is this movie based on? We do love David's Googling. Thank you. Because we enjoy like kind of comparing like, oh, so I looked it up.

[02:44:17] It turns out like, like Charlotte Gray, the Cate Blanchett movie. Like, you know, where it's like, this is a true story. This is like some remarkable figure who needs a biopic versus the ones that tend to be like, this is a kind of interpretation of life during wartime in fill in the blank. Just to be clear, Charlotte Gray is not about a real person, but it is based on the novel. Wait, what's the other one? There's another one with a nearly identical title. Veronica Guerin? Yes. That's the IRA movie. Yeah. Right, right.

[02:44:47] She's a journalist. But I'm getting those confused. Okay. What am I talking about? My favorite war movie of all time is Small Soldiers. Yes, of course. And that's based on a true story. The War of That Kid's House. Alan Abernathy. January 21st, 2011. These are going to be rough. This is a terrible test. That's why it's a fun box office game. The Way Back is opening. January 2011. Okay. Number one. Number 15. It's not a great show.

[02:45:16] That's a third of a black hat? It makes it's about a third of a black hat. What is a black hat? Six five? Yeah. Yeah. It makes 24.1 worldwide. So it's a little better overseas. Unsurprisingly, I guess. Civilized countries. I still appreciate it. But number one at the box office is kind of like... Was that its widest? Did it go beyond 600? That's a good question. Is it like immediately down 270? Because I feel like they're like, okay, we'll expand it. And then it's like, no, we won't be expanding it. That was its widest. 678 screens. Damn. Theaters.

[02:45:44] So number one is, I would say, a film that's like kind of tonally very similar to The Way Back and, you know, has the same kind of energy. I think he's joking. I'm joking. It's a comedy. Okay. It's opening number one to $19.6 million. Right at the start of January, America's like, we want to laugh. We're ready to laugh. And we want to see some romance. It's not a Freiberg seltzer. No. It's a romantic comedy? Much classier than that. It's a romantic comedy from a very well-known director. Is it a Gary Marshall? No.

[02:46:13] But, you know, sort of like an old hand. It's an old? Not quite as old as Gary Marshall. But he only had one more film left in him after this one. He only had one more film left in him after this film. Tell me about the stars of this picture. Well, first, who's the distributor of this fine film? Of course, it's from the great people at Paramount Pictures. Okay. When was this director most active? The 80s. An 80s director. An 80s director who's only got one left in him. And tell me about the stars of the picture. Well, there's a lovely lady and a handsome young man.

[02:46:43] Now, the lovely lady is about to win an Academy Award. Okay. Interesting. This threatened to be her Norbit. This is no strings attached. That's right. With Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher and Ivan Reitman, of course, would then make draft day and be so exhausted by the ego of one of the stars on that movie that he retired. That was his way back. That was his way back. He was like, I can't deal with Griffin Newman asking me endless intern questions. Yeah. Saying, we have to stop for five minutes so I connect to the office.

[02:47:10] I had to take a long walk down that hallway and try not to spill coffee and I failed. Congratulations on being able to differentiate No Strings Attached and whatever the other one is. Friends of Benefits. That's a summer release. That's the other one, but the reason is everyone sort of remembers. Everyone just thinks they're both called No Strings Attached. No Strings Attached is the title people remember. It's a better title. It's also the better of those two films. It's a good movie. It's pretty fun. Yeah. Pretty fun. Oh, and I have presents to give Griffin before we wrap up. Oh, no. Don't worry about it. Don't think I've forgotten about that.

[02:47:39] Number two at the box office is a film that came out a week earlier, so truly at the top of January. Opened fairly well. It's an action superhero movie. Did okay. What is the origin of the superhero? Is it The Green Hornet? It's The Green Hornet. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That was a January release. Yeah. Like a January, like, second release. That was, right. That was a big thing was it had a summer release date. Then they announced they were pushing it back six months in order to put 3D, post-conversion

[02:48:07] 3D on it, and release it in January. And people were like, oh, fucking dumping ground. Is this thing like... Then it did pretty good. And then it did well. Yeah. Made $100 million. Would that be... Wait, you didn't do Pulp Heroes yet? No. No. Would that count? But that's like TV, you know? Yeah. Pulp Heroes is like fucking radio and comic books. It's Shadow, Phantom, Dick Tracy. I put Green Hornet in that. Well, also, we all remember who directed Green Hornet. Michelle Godfrey. Right. We're not doing his ass anytime soon. Speaking of being broken... Do you want to do Macrobing Gasoline?

[02:48:37] The We and the I? Come on, David. The Pod and the Cast. Mood Indigo? These are heater episodes. I just want more, like, of the energy of Ben getting to do, like, the 90s comics and I listened to the Mortal Kombat episode. Like, that's just such a... We're offering a lot of energy. Absolutely. I would not worry. Yeah. Uh, number three at the box office is another comedy. Okay. Uh, star-driven from a big director. Is it a holdover from December? No.

[02:49:07] It's a January release. It came out, it came out, uh, I guess, a week before. Okay. It opened against Green Hornet. Yeah. It's a big director. Yeah. It's a January comedy. Yeah. Distributor? Uh, Universal. It's Universal. And this director usually works with Universal. This director usually works with Universal. Especially this time. This time. Especially at this time. Yeah, I think his production company was sort of... Comedy director? Or Jack of all trades? No, well, he made a lot of comedies, but no.

[02:49:37] But he's, at this point, a prestige director. I know. Say no more. It's Ron Howard's The Dilemma. That's right. Which was a bit of a flop. It was a bit of a flop. It's a bad movie. But, um... Kevin James had hit so hard with Paul Blart in January that they were trying to make him the king of January. Yeah. And this was a hot project. The cast of that movie is so bizarrely stacked. James, you wearing? James, you wearing. You've got Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Channing Tatum, Queen Latifah. Mm-hmm. How could it be bad? I think it's definitely bad.

[02:50:05] As Sean Fentasy would say, it is, in fact, quite poor. Quite poor. Um, but, uh, and just one of those things where the poster is just like, Kevin James... Wait, wait, wait. Is there a guy on the poster? Does Vaughn have his hand over his head? Both of his hands. Both of his hands. Yeah, he's like, I don't know what to do about this. I've got a dilemma brewing. That had an ad above my subway stop. Yeah. Like, that they just left up. But it's like, Kevin James is just smiling like an idiot. Yes. Like, Kevin James looks like he was born two seconds ago. I mean, do you guys remember what the premise is?

[02:50:34] And Vince Vaughn is like, do I have to tell... Yes, he sees his wife kissing... He sees his friend's wife. Yes, Kevin James' wife kissing somebody. The entire movie. Yes. And like, do I tell him or not? Kevin James is married to Winona Ryder. Right. Winona Ryder is having an affair with Channing Tatum. Vince Vaughn witnesses it. And the whole movie is him being like, do I tell my friend or not? Oh, my God. It's going to make him feel bad. And it's one of those things where you're just like, fucking tell him. This isn't an interesting conflict.

[02:51:03] Stop talking about it. I want to... Either way, go away. Which do you think is the better act as a friend? Decide that and stick to it. Quite a dilemma. No, it's a dilemma. You'd never do, Howard. It's so long. It's so long. Yeah. Let me pause just to keep the games... Let me pause the game so people have a reason to keep listening. Yeah. So I am leaving these... This is going to be like a reverse... A memento kind of story. I'm going to leave these Blu-rays for Tracy Lutz. Oh, yeah. Of course. Right, right, right. So we're recording with Tracy. So it will have happened.

[02:51:33] This will have paid off, hopefully. I'm leaving three sealed Blu-rays, two of which are reference quality of my own films, to contribute to... Less because I think he'll watch these, but more like it's almost a badge of honor to have these in the archives. So this is Vinegar Syndrome, Her Smell, and Pavements. Vinegar Syndrome, Pavements. And then the British Eureka Masters of Cinema, Listen Up, Philip, which is the only Blu-ray release of it ever. And that's a Blu-ray DVD combo pack? Oh, yeah. Dual format edition. Contains both Blu-ray and DVD editions.

[02:52:02] And because of rights issues, this can't be issued on Blu-ray in America. You've been trying to work this out, right? Can't be done. Do you know what Ben has purchased for Tracy Lutz? No, I'd like to know. I think Ben might go three for three. Well, I'm definitely going three for three. I'm going to write him a nice note, too. I'm going to toss this goodie bag to Griffin. Great. And you know what half of this is, but it'll still be fun. But, um, so I bought for Tracy... Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Steelbook. Oh, yeah. 4K Steelbook. A recent release.

[02:52:31] Spawn. Nice. Arrow 4K. Sort of. And that's Ben, like, sharing his culture with Tracy. Yeah, sure. And then, um, of course, naturally, Trash Humpers. Nice. Which maybe Tracy has that one. It's the one I think he's most of the best. Feels like he would have open contempt for the work of Harmony Korean. I might imagine it's not his cover. When you give him Spawn, make sure he's looking at future Spawn. Right. I'll have it... But yeah, this will... This will hopefully not have paid off in, like, shame and confusion. Yeah. This bit that I'm now contributing to.

[02:52:59] Because one of my favorite razzings of Sean is in the, like, YouTube clip of Big Picture when Tracy was like, what's the name of the director with three names? And Sean, without pausing, just goes, Paul Thomas Anderson. And he goes, no, no, the one who's on your show. David, do you think you're going to have a chance to buy discs? That's my plan. Okay. Yeah. Why? Do you want to just leave it to Ben? I don't know. I'm trying to sneak there. No, no, not about Tessa. I was trying to go yesterday, but then I realized they're closed on Monday. Where would you go? Night Owl. Oh, right, right. In Williamsburg. I see.

[02:53:29] But yes, even to contribute to the archive of his would be hotter. I'm still gaining my pictures. It's like getting to lay a commemorative brick on a wall. I mean, I can also dig around in my collection because I have a fair amount of dupes, but I'm like, I think it has to be sealed. I think it has to be sealed. This is like one of my all time worst bits, which is the bit that King Size Candy is an

[02:53:55] offering to the king from his subjects, which I, you know, like that's kind of what we're doing here. This offering to the true emperor physical media. Yes. And you make an offering. You can't give him your used collection. Just to finish. Yeah. Just to finish. And then Griffin can open this. I mean, to be fair, Tracy shows up with like his dupes and throws them at Chris Ryan. It's okay for him to do it. Of course. And I think most of his dupes are sealed. Yeah. Yeah. These are sealed. I imagine. These are offerings from other subjects that he has no need for. The king can throw his scraps.

[02:54:24] Speaking of the king. Well, before the box office wins best picture in a couple months. The king speech. That's right. And number five. What's it up to at this point? 57. And it's going to make it to 130? 135. 35. Has Epstein gotten his DVD of it yet? By this point, do we? When was that email sent? Number five at the box office. I think he has not gotten it yet. It is crazy to consider that it's still. In January, he used to have a thing that was 80 million away from its eventual box office total. Oh, that's fair. Because of a best picture bump. I thought you were going to talk about Jeffrey Epstein and I was about to pick up my stop sign.

[02:54:55] The New York financier? Yeah. Number five at the box office is a film from Alex's favorite directors who he said such lovely things about on this episode. Their biggest hit ever. Or also a 2010 Best Picture nominee. Their? True Grit. I gave it away. I think maybe my favorite Coen Brothers movie. Incredible movie. I love this movie. Yeah. You've also got Black Swan, as mentioned. So Natalie's got two. I'm excited for people to respond to that take of mine. I love... A true grit is your favorite? No, no. Just the earlier thoughts. Yeah. They'll be really, really even-handed.

[02:55:24] Just that I think Fargo is like good. Number seven. What is Black Swan up to at this point? Black Swan's up to 83, so it's also got some run to go. The Little Fockers are on their way out of the theaters. Oh, those troublemakers. So much comedy. Number nine. So much comedy. So much comedy. Although, undeniably, not Hollywood's best comedies. Well, none of this is- When you're like, I wonder why Hollywood stopped making comedies. And you're like, The Dilemma. Little Fockers. Like, oh boy. Little Fockers makes it to a soft 100 domestic. Yeah. No, no, no. Little Fockers made 148 domestic.

[02:55:54] That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. Friends with Benefits makes it to like 80 or 90 domestic. Are you talking about No Strings Attached? Fuck yes. I got it right the first time. That made it to 70 domestic. Okay. 150 worldwide. Okay. Yeah. So like, okay. Yeah. And The Dilemma, which obviously was a bomb, made 48 domestic. Yeah. So that's flop territory, but only because of the big- We would have killed for that on this film. Yeah. Also, like most studio comedies would kill for 48 domestic now, and that was seen as a disaster. I can't believe how little money The Way Back made.

[02:56:24] It's crazy. Number eight is The Fighter. I can't. Nobody wanted to see that shit. And I liked it. Number eight's The Fighter. Number nine is Yogi Bear. What's Fighter at? Fighter is at 72. And it makes it to 110? Yogi Bear is at 88. Fighter makes it to... Does Fighter stay at 90 something? 93. 93. And number 10 is, of course, the comedy of 2010. Number one, Tron Legacy. I love that movie. My digital jazz, man. That's right. When are you going to splice in the rankings? If you do them. I'll tell you when we're going to splice them in.

[02:56:54] Right here. Here are our rankings for Peter Weir. Okay. This is the pickup on our ranking now that I've rewatched Master and Commander, and we have recorded all the episodes. David? Yes. Do you want to go first? This is a very hard one. I don't know if you found that, Griffin. Incredibly difficult. Because it's a lot of great movies, a lot of movies I admire for different reasons. And like centimeters in between these positions. Yeah. A hundred percent.

[02:57:23] It's basically interchangeable. Did you include The Plumber or not? I included The Plumber. Okay. So, my list is, and really, it's tough. Yeah. Because, yeah, a lot of these are fun. Number one, Master and Commander. That was not tough. Sure. You're going from top down. One to top. One to down. Number two, The Truman Show. Number three, Witness. Number four, Picnic and Hanging Rock. Those three are all movies I just think are sublime.

[02:57:51] And they all felt a little interchangeable. Number five, Fearless. Number six, Green Card. Number seven, Mosquito Coast. Number eight, Last Wave. Number nine, Year of Living Dangerously. Number 10, Gallipoli. Those are all movies I think are pretty interesting and tremendous. Yeah. I'm sure your list is different from mine. It is. Although, you know what's interesting? I mean, Master and Commander is unsurprisingly lower for me, but then our rankings are the same. For the next couple. That's interesting. Okay.

[02:58:19] I have Truman at number one, Witness at number two, Picnic and Hanging Rock number three. Agree with that block you just established. Then I have Fearless at number four, which is the same as you minus Master and Commander at the top of that list, right? Where do you have Master and Commander? I have Gallipoli at five. Jesus, this is so fucked up and insane. Mosquito Coast at six, Master and Commander at seven, Last Wave at eight, Green Card at nine, Year of Living Dangerously at ten.

[02:58:45] And then I have my last four are Way Back at 11, Plumber at 12, Cars That Ate Paris at 13, Dead Poets Society at 14. Wild. So yeah, I have a totally different order there. I have Cars at 11, Cars 2 at 12. Cars 2? No, I have Cars That Ate Paris at 11, Dead Poets at 12, Plumber at 13, Way Back at 14. I would say the top ten are all degrees of excellent for me.

[02:59:12] And Cars That Ate Paris, Dead Poets, and Plumber are all very good. And the only movie of his I don't enjoy is The Way Back, but I also don't think it's a bad film. I don't think he ever made a bad movie. No. But that's it? Yeah. That's it. Now we cut you back to that episode. Wow! Oh my God, I can't believe it. The Way Back number one for everybody. Across the board, we really changed our minds.

[02:59:41] Debuting in theaters this week is also The Company Men, the John Wells film. A film I hate. What if the bosses had a tough time? It's actually one of my least favorite movies. I don't remember what that is. It's about a bunch of like... Middle managers or whatever. C-suite executives. Yeah, no, maybe they're executives. And how much they struggle in the recession. These guys used to have... Who are the executives? Costner, Affleck, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones. These are some guys. I know. This sounds watchable. Yes. This sounds very watchable.

[03:00:11] Kevin Costner is non-executive. This sounds very watchable. Costner is a Joe the Plumber who hates Ben Affleck, his brother-in-law, who's never worked a real day in his life. These guys used to play golf. It's got a point. Yeah. It's a terrible movie. It's written and directed by John Wells. That's right. I believe... ER's John Wells. ...is August's O.S.A.G. ...Counter later? Yes. Like, is that... Yeah. And then he gets burnt. Well, you know who can answer that question for you? Who? Tracy Lutz. Good.

[03:00:41] Now, of course, he's back on The Pit, right? Yeah. Thank God he's off our movie screens. Yeah, making good TV for us again. He was like my least favorite middle brow director. It's interesting because I also actually associate him with ER's decline and then I associate him with the West Wing's decline because he took over the West Wing. But like, he obviously was important at ER, but he becomes too powerful later in ER and he starts to infect with too many special episodes. It's fine. It's fine. But The Pit's good and he's great, I guess. He's my best friend.

[03:01:12] So next week on the podcast, of course, we're going to talk about Disclosure Day. Ah. Because that's going to be pretty new. Yeah, brand new, I think. That's coming out on the 12th. But then, Griffin, what are we going to do? Then we're going under the sea. Yes, we will be looking for someone. Who could we be looking for? We'll be trying to find Nemo, an episode we offered to ARP. I was offered finding Nemo.

[03:01:37] You said something to the effect of, I don't really have any relationship to finding Nemo. I've seen it twice. Finding Dory, I've obviously seen 25 times. Astrid's preference is finding Dory. Your daughter. By a wide margin. Also my daughter's preference. Why is that? Because Dory's so cute at the beginning with her big old eyes. I guess so, but I mean, most of it's in an aquarium. My daughter also, well, but my daughter loves the aquarium because she loves the septopus. Yeah, well, I like the beluga whale with the vibrating crane. Who's going to be? It's got good characters.

[03:02:07] Yeah, I mean, it's a fine film. It's got good characters, damn it. I just don't know why she gravitates towards that. I think just because it's like, it's the classic kid thing of like, well, Dory's the best character anyway. So like a movie with more Dory. Yeah. It's just like more for me. It's frozen in the pants. You solved my only issue. I just didn't think I would have that much insight. It's a neurotic father. Alex? Neurotic? Neurotic. He's not neurotic. No, but no. Even killed. This was the best episode we could have gotten you on. But yes, in two weeks, we start our series. Talking the Walk.

[03:02:37] A secret side talking the walk. You did say this. This is kind of a talking the walk. We'll replay this. Oh, so you're doing Andrew Stanton. We're doing Andrew Stanton. Sorry, I didn't want to cut off your actual promotion so people can be excited. His first three films are the cleanest distillation of a blank check arc we will ever cover. Finding Nemo. Big hit. So he makes his sort of more ambitious animated film, WALL-E, and then uses that to make something crazy. The action film people have tried to make for 100 years in Hollywood.

[03:03:06] The biggest scale imaginable. Does it have a cool title from the books? Sounds good so far. John Carter. End of title. A title only John Wells would come up with. Now, wait a minute. Where's the rest of the title? The title's over. You won't learn where he's from. Basically, the definitive... Is Mars called Mars in the movie? No, it's called Barstum, of course. Oh, okay. Arguably, the definitive bounce of the last 15 years, the last 10 years. The most. Most definitive. It is the shorthand. It has replaced Waterworld.

[03:03:35] It is the one of our era. And it destroyed Disney, in a way. It kind of... Absolutely broke Disney. He changed everything. Then he rebounds with Finding Dory. He has this cushion that he can go back to his most successful film. And then in the year 2026, he returns with two films. In the blink of an eye, a Hulu original that came out months ago. Everyone knows this, yeah. We all know this. And then what is guaranteed to be another one of the highest grossing films of all time,

[03:04:04] Toy Story 5, coming out this summer. A thing I was loathe to cover on main feed, but David twisted my arm, and I conceded, maybe it is time to do Andrew Stanton. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I really had to bully you into this one. I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about it. Thanks for having me on this one. Of course. Or Griffin has his gift bag. Okay, I'm going to open my gift bag. Let's see. It's a lot of stuff you know about. What's your number one Peter Weir movie? I mean, if it's not Master and Commander, it's Mosquito Coast. It was definitely Mosquito Coast for a long time. Sure. And then... Very Alex movie.

[03:04:35] Rewatched Master and Commander when we did like a C series during the pandemic. And I always liked the movie. I was like, oh, I forgot this is like one of the 50 canonically greatest films ever made, period. Like by hands, by human hands. I have a bumper sticker that says, please stop honking. I'm trying to watch the 2025 major motion picture pavements. Much appreciated. I've got a lot of merch here. It'd be funnier though if it was like Trumbo or something. These I've been asking you to hold on to forever.

[03:05:02] These are movie promotional stickers of my face from Pavement. Oh, nice. These are bags I got. Are they the full band or are these just me? There's the full band, but I brought the ones that had you in the front. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I just want to shout out with the bumper sticker that today I pulled in right after Arp into the parking garage. And I knew it was him because he had the pavement sticker. I put that sticker on my car, inherited the car from my grandmother, and I covered up the Biden-Harris bumper sticker that I couldn't take off with a pavement bumper sticker. Good call.

[03:05:31] Pavements hat, pavements ball cap, the Tick vs. Arthur VHS collection. Oh, it only has the one episode. It's a classic 21-minute VHS. Yeah, that's right. But you found this, and I immediately realized this is quite a pricey VHS on the second-hand market. Well. This tends to be going for over $100. It goes for over $100? Yeah. That was a dollar when I bought it. It's crazy. Yoked up Arthur carrying Carmelita, his love interest that we never got to in the live action show. I've had that waiting for you for nine months.

[03:06:00] All of my love interests were not human on the show. And then, of course, the Buddy Christ. A scene in the hit film Dogma. You guys are benefiting from me getting all the stuff from my dad's storage locker. I really appreciate this. All these sealed toys I forgot about. And you know what? We're going to take pictures and post it on social. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All these fun presents. It'll be part of the carousel. What was the other thing you said you wanted in the carousel? Ben's Spawn. Oh, Future Spawn. Yeah. Arp, thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks. Hey, you had two movies last year. Yeah. Both of which people should watch. So, four this year?

[03:06:29] Zero. Oh, interesting. For now. For the year. I'm calling my shot. You're calling your shot? Yeah, much like Peter Weir. This is no movie. I'd rather explore sunken World War II submarines than get out of bed at 6 a.m. to go be yelled at. Well, I believe you do probably get out of bed at 6 a.m. to be yelled at, given that you are a parent of a young child. Not by like an AD. Right. Yes. Yeah. Well, Video Heaven's on Criterion Channel. That's the only thing I care about, people watching, because I benefit directly from it. Well, but Pavement's is on movie, I see.

[03:06:59] Pavement's on movie, but I'm not going to see a dime there. But Video Heaven, like, that's my movie. Yeah, right. You own the movie. Yeah. Outright practically. Can you give the quick pitch to people who don't know? Because if you listen to this podcast, it's true, real nerdy shit. If you've made it to Cusp of Hour 3 in a podcast, you would probably enjoy a three-hour essay film about the history of videotape as a medium and video stores told entirely through clips from movies and television depicting video stores as physical spaces. Yes.

[03:07:29] I made this movie. It has 180 film and TV show clips in it, accompanied by a essay read by Maya Hawke. And if you're hearing this and going, well, this sounds a little, a little... Yeah, I don't know if I can listen to three hours of blank check and watch a three-hour movie at the same time. A little educational, a little dry.

[03:08:13] Okay. Fuck, I don't know if it can arrive in time. Because that's Lionsgate Limited. I don't know what their quickest shipping option is. He's coming here in like three days. Okay. I was looking at overnighting some Amazon stuff. And Freaky Tales doesn't have a wide release. From upstate, there's the Lionsgate Studios on the Hudson. Uh-huh. I'm sure you guys have seen this, David. It's like near Yankee Stadium. You ever seen the Lionsgate Studios? It might be past Yankee Stadium. Um, probably. We had to actually send one of our hats to that location because they're the production

[03:08:43] company that's involved with the Jon Hamm show. Did that ever come out? It's coming out soon. I literally got a text from a friend today watching a screener being like, are you guys aware Jon Hamm listens to your show on this show? I know, that's why I'm in. That's what we should plug. You're in an upcoming episode of Our Friends and Neighbors. Forget about this. Your Friends and Neighbors? Passion film that I spent 10 years on and love dearly. Watch this Apple show. I love Video Heaven. Yes. I love it too. And it's on the Criterion channel for the foreseeable future. Great. It's excellent.

[03:09:11] But, um, people are really watching it on there. It's great. That's great. They kept sending out there like, what's popular these days? And it was always up there. It's highly recommended. And I just want to clarify that fat cocked gentleman thieves in New York City are always listening to the Halloween episode of Blank Check featuring Alex Ross Perry as depicted in the Apple Plus series. So Blank Check fans can say they were there first. Yes. And yeah, people are always like, wow, that movie, it's two hours and 50 minutes. That's insanely long.

[03:09:39] And I'm like, guys, if you listen to Blank Check, if an episode of that length drops. I remember when you told me, you're like, it's going to be about three hours. And I was like, oh, it's pretty long. And you're like, I figure anyone who's watching this is cool with watching it for three hours. If a Blank Check episode comes out that's 2.50, people are like, I guess David had to be somewhere that day. This is a crazy amount of time to not spend marinating in the love of cinema. I wanted to point out to you that we are about to hit three hours. So we are done. I also feel like we wrapped up half an hour ago. We wrapped up a fucking hour ago. I looked up, it was 2.30. I felt good. Ben agrees.

[03:10:09] I felt the exact same way. And now I feel less good, but I feel okay. I think we're doing great. And I think everyone's going to be really good. But David, look on the brighter side. There's more toys. There's more toys. That's what I love. For sound insulation. This is his new thing, by the way. It's justifying that he's adding stuff. He suffocates us. For sound. It's absorbing sound. So tune in next week for Disclosure Day. Hope that rocks. And then we're doing Andrew Stanton. And then we're doing whoever won March Madness. I assume Chris Columbus. Yeah.

[03:10:39] Do you want to claim one of those episodes now? Bicentennial Man. If he wins, I will tell on mic the story I'm about to tell you guys about why I find it so aggravating whenever you're like, and he's the nicest guy in Hollywood. Can't wait. I'll tell this story privately right now. And then I promise if he wins, I will come on and make people feel bad about this victory. There's no chance he's going to win. No, I don't think so. Maybe he wins. You've given me an idea here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

[03:11:07] Tune in next week for Disclosure Day. Thank you all for riding the high seas of Peter Weir with us. Absolutely. And Arp, I'm going to read you a deadline announcement that just happened. Ben, can we bleep out the announcement? And I just want to get Arp's reaction to it. Good, good. Okay? So bleep out what I'm about to say. Right. And then get Arp's reaction. B- brings B- to direct B- and B- to script B- spinoff.

[03:11:35] I mean, this is going to get the shit back on track. This is what the people want. It's a real bummer. This is definitely what the public wants. When I think B- I think these three faces. Look at, I mean, I appreciate that all the progressive gains of the last decade have been erased by the current political climate. But this is a bridge too far. We can't let people like this run Hollywood again. End as always, or that was the end as always.

[03:12:04] Yeah, that's it. At some point there'll be a lag and I can start unboxing this bag of presents. I can't wait. I'm excited. Nothing for David, but what do you get for the man who has everything? A little bit, yeah. I mean, people are having this. I'm going to turn 40 in a month and everyone's like, what do I buy? Look at what he's got. This is what he's got recently. Is that the stop sign? Correct. And it's two-sided.

[03:12:34] Okay. This is to shut Griffin up, I think, is the idea. Sometimes he feels like the podcaster is going by too quickly and he needs to slow it down. Slow is definitely not something we really need to use. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon.

[03:13:01] This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

[03:13:27] Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.