Two Friends

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[00:20:27] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, and by the idea that he's done something horribly wrong

[00:21:30] and is like meticulously looking for every single piece of the peel to pick up. And he's sort of trying to like console the kid and then he brings it back to the car and the woman has now, in the time that she's waiting and being frustrated,

[00:21:46] peeled her own orange and thrown it out of the car and refuses to pick it up. That's like the whole thing. Would you give it the palm? The short palm? I would not, I would admit, I- You weren't into it. I was mildly perplexed by this thing.

[00:21:58] The other two shorts, I think are great. Okay, well, you know who also agrees with you? The Australia Film, you know, whatever, the guy with the Australian Film Commission, they were like, eh, this thing stinks. Don't bother finishing it.

[00:22:12] I didn't think it stinked, I was just like, this is odd. I don't totally, I'm not- They thought it was stank. Okay, well that's them. You know, and so anyway, but so she then makes, she collaborates with Gerald Reed on a movie called Passionless Moments.

[00:22:25] Yeah, so it is sort of what it sounds like where it's almost like this is like a series of like three panel comic strips of like awkward moments that people have. Odd things that don't seem to mean anything, like two neighbors on either side of a fence

[00:22:39] and the one guy stretching his arm because he injured it and the other guy thinks that he's waving, so then he has to commit to waving back, even though that wasn't what he was intending to do. And it's like black and white.

[00:22:49] As far as I remember, there's like no dialogue really, and it's sort of like a Ricky J. Magnolia-esque narration explaining like, then there's the story of blank blank who is stretching his arm, which is misinterpreted. It's just a funny sort of observational, it's exactly what it sounds like.

[00:23:05] It's like these moments that are sort of meaningless but are given some sort of meaning in terms of like they're these universal sort of odd things. Yes, it won an experimental film award from the Australian Film Institute. She co-directed that, right? She co-directed it with Gerald Lee,

[00:23:20] who she was living with at the time. I think they had a romantic relationship. I don't wanna tell any tales out of school. Her final student film is called A Girl's Own Story. Now this thing I think is a fucking knockout, and I don't know if this is-

[00:23:32] This is about teenage girls in the 60s. Yeah, I mean this is maybe my semi-controversial opinion. I liked this more than Two Friends. I think Two Friends is, if I'm ranking all her movies, is her worst movie. Sure.

[00:23:45] I mean it's got a lot of DNA, can't be in DNA, but right. I think Two Friends is like okay. It's okay. Story of a Girl is like 25 minutes, 27 minutes, something like that, and packs a lot more punch. And watching, I watched these four things

[00:24:03] in chronological order, and there was such a build to them where I'm like fuck, you see her getting better and getting more ambitious and getting larger. I was like, I'm ready for fucking Two Friends. And it didn't feel like a step back,

[00:24:15] but there's just like, Story of a Girl's a really kind of tight, powerful, impactful object. Right. But it's almost like, it reminded me a little bit of like Selene Sciamma movies. It is a trifecta of girls coming to terms with their own sexuality, teenage girls in New Zealand

[00:24:39] trying to parse interpersonal romantic sexual relationships both within themselves and their parents and their understanding of these things, each other. And it sort of has sort of like a series of weird ellipses. A lot of the big scenes don't happen.

[00:24:56] A crux of it is one girl getting pregnant, but you don't actually see the sex scene. Everything you sort of find out in an odd order. But it's just really, really fucking good. It's like incredibly well made and impactful, and you're really getting a sense of her

[00:25:11] as a visual stylist in this thing. It's very off-putting and alienating in an interesting way. A thing I read about it is that she wanted to cast Nicole Kidman, who was a teenager at the time. I was about to drop that. I'm sorry, then you can say it.

[00:25:25] Nicole Kidman turned down a role in the film over fears of kissing another girl on screen and being sexy, wearing a shower. Huge. They're part of a swim team. She did not want to wear the fucking- The cap? The cap. It was like rubber cap? Yeah.

[00:25:38] They were pretty annoying. She also had pretty bug nuts hair at the time. If you look at the big BMX bandits hair, she had this big curly hair. Cool. Yeah, she was a fucking badass. Have you ever seen BMX Bandits? No. It's a real Ben movie. Ben.

[00:25:52] You would love BMX Bandits. That sounds sick. That's a movie that would run on British TV all the time. Isn't that, what's his name? That sort of like really good- Orson Welles? The like Australian- Ryan Trenchard Smith? Yeah. Yeah, he is one of those guys.

[00:26:07] He's one of those odd- He's just one of these pros who is like, look, the promise of a Brian Trenchard Smith movie is it's gonna be a little better than it should be. I just make genre films

[00:26:17] but I try to make a little bit better than it should be. So, you've got Campion. She's making these little movies. She works on something called After Hours, another short that she made about workplace sexual harassment, which she speaks poorly of. She didn't like making it.

[00:26:34] It was made for like the government again and whatever. I don't know, she was whatever. She does not think fondly of that movie. She also worked on an episode of Dancing Days, a mini series about two sisters who leave the family pig farm

[00:26:50] to pursue dancing careers in the big city. That sounds cool. David, I'm letting you sort of parse the dossier and lead us into this because she's one of your favorites. This is kind of a little bit of a David's Choice series. So, I'm asking for your clarification here.

[00:27:07] I couldn't tell if it was just poorly written sentences, not in our dossier, but in other stuff I was looking at. Did Peele winning The Pom D'Or happen the same year that Two Friends was in competition? Okay, so it was all three of the shorts

[00:27:22] that are in the Criterion collection. The three that I watched all screened at Cannes the same year as Two Friends. Like she had four different things at Cannes and she won the short award. Okay, so that's like her huge fucking year where Cannes just sort of says like,

[00:27:38] your Two Friends is in uncertain regard, right? Probably. Let me look at it. 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Let's find out if the 1986, oh man. It sort of immediately legitimizes. A notorious Pom winner. You know who won The Pom? What year? 86. Notorious. I mean, not really.

[00:27:57] It's just like, it's not a bad movie, but it's insane that it won against some of these movies. Is it like, it's like a big studio film? It's sort of, it's The Mission by Roland Jaffe, which is like a movie that's like very, very pretty

[00:28:09] and has this beautiful score, but is like, you know, okay. And it's up against like After Hours, Down by Law. What are some other, you know, Mona Lisa. I guess it's sort of, oh, The Sacrifice, the Tarkovsky movie, you know? Yeah, that's a good year.

[00:28:25] It is, and there's usually, anyway. Uncertain regard. It sort of single-handedly makes Campion someone to watch, right? Yes. So let's say you have three short films in a TV movie that are all legitimized by the most prestigious film festival on the planet.

[00:28:38] Two of the shorts are in uncertain regard with two frames. Okay, they're screening together? The Astronauts' Moment and A Girl's Own Story. No, they're all separate. Okay. I mean, who knows? I don't know. I don't know if they all, maybe they all screen together. Yeah.

[00:28:49] Right, that would make sense. Yeah. And then Peel is in the short film competition and wins. That's weird. Yeah, well, you know what, Peel is weird. Making me think, because you're saying competition and it's sounding kind of like the Olympics.

[00:29:02] Do judges after the movie hold up cars with numbers on it? Yeah, they hold up, no, they don't. No, they go and they, I believe how it works at like Canada. Great question. Great question. They sit in a little box like Staten Island World

[00:29:16] or from The Muppet Show and the second the screening ends the lights come up and they hold up the- If they go like this, thumbs down, the crowd is like, ah! And then the stage opens up and they drop the filmmaker down.

[00:29:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you blind-see them. There was an episode of The Muppet Show where Staten Island World did that. It was really funny where they just start writing sketches like they're Olympic judges. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's how, holding up numbers is actually just always funny.

[00:29:41] I think it's just funny. Hilarious. Can you tell me who the jury president was in 1986? Oh, I'm going to say that it was, of course, Paul Hogan. He was doing everything in 86, wasn't he? It was the big dog, Sidney Pollock. Oh wow, okay.

[00:29:58] Some other big boys, Charles Aznavour was on and from Shoot the Piano Player, love him. Sonia Braga. Close to The Muppet Show, yeah, Sonia Braga. And back in the day when they had fucking film critics on the Cannes jury, Philip French, who's a fucking legend. Jealous.

[00:30:12] Isn't that cool? Berlin, I think, still will have one, but the others have dropped having a film critic, which is too bad because it used to be, like imagine, like, because you see the movies. I think it's like, I think every day you meet

[00:30:25] having seen probably a few movies, right? You're going to see 20 something. That's what it is. I think they have like daily meetings where they check in and like temperature, what do you think about it? There's like this woman at Cannes, I believe,

[00:30:35] who's like been doing it for years. She's there too and she writes down everything everyone says and it's sort of like, oh, so what did you think of Titane? And they're like, oh, I loved it, blah, blah, blah. You know, blah should be considered for acting, you know?

[00:30:46] And then so it's like when you finally gather at the end of it, she'll be like, well, you all said that Titane was the best thing like five days ago, so, you know, like she's there to sort of remind you. But it's like an evolving conversation

[00:30:58] over the course of a week. And then I think you get contentious horse trading of like, okay, if it can't be best picture, can we at least give director, you know, right? And you'll hear these stories about like,

[00:31:08] oh, everyone thought this was going to win the Palm door, but what it came down to is the president of the jury just didn't like it. Everyone else loved it and the president of the jury didn't like it. There's some things like that.

[00:31:18] Or opposite way around, you know, there's one thing they were pushing for really hard that no one else liked or whatever. Cunt should start letting a one podcaster into the jury. I think they should do that. Deport Moe. I think they should do that.

[00:31:30] And I think it's embarrassing that they haven't done it. Whatever's playing at them. No, whatever. All right. One bite reviews. I'm sorry, what? Okay, so two friends. Two friends. In 1986, ABC, not the American Broadcasting Company, but the Australian, like Australian TV. Okay. They've got a crew.

[00:31:50] Are they allowed to do that? You think they should sue? I think so. Now. They should swoop in? Yeah. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation had a crew available. They had an opening in their production plan. Okay. They had a screenplay by Helen Garner, who's a famous novelist.

[00:32:08] And they're basically like, there's a window. Do you want to do it? Yeah, it's also- Do a TV movie. Weird thing. I mean, time for TV movies, I think especially in other countries where it's like we need things to fill up broadcasting hours.

[00:32:22] That's how so many great British directors get their start in TV, because especially back in the day, I think it's the same in Australia and New Zealand. Like there was government money, you know, come and make an hour long drama. Come make a television movie,

[00:32:35] something like that about issues, right? You know, about like life. And you know, that's like, it'll be good for the culture, right? Not just have trash on television, it'll develop. Not just American trash. Fucking American. David, that's a very good point also is that in non-American countries,

[00:32:54] TV seasons do not last as long as they fucking do. And shows don't run for as many years. There's space. Where they're like, there's space. Our hottest show is only gonna run six weeks a year. You know? It's just wild. Get some fucking film school graduates

[00:33:08] and give them an issues drama or just a very small slice of life story that we can make cheaply. Right, but it's just wild as all, you know, we're all Americans here. It's just crazy to think about. We've all exclusively lived in the United States of America.

[00:33:22] And so this notion of like, my tax money went to some idiot who went to art school to make a movie? Like that was just never happened here. Yeah, wouldn't it be great if we could be seeing people outraged about that?

[00:33:36] If that was like a problem where it's like, yeah, fucking complain about the fact that our government subsidizes the arts. Right, yeah. Can only imagine. Instead it's like people don't wanna pay for fucking social like services, so. Right, people don't wanna not die.

[00:33:52] I wish the arts were the canard that they could complain about. I know, they still fucking complain though. They're always hauling like Big Bird in front of Congress or whatever. I know, it's fucking insane. You piece of shit! Yeah. I pay for this! Anyway, Campion loves the script.

[00:34:10] She liked the freshness of observation, the truth. And this is just like an original spec script? Helen Garner, who is this novelist and writer, she'd been inspired by the experiences of her daughter and one of her friends.

[00:34:20] Okay, but it's not based on one of her own novels or anything? No, no, no. And Campion goes and meets the girls that Garner's inspired by. The titular? The titular two friends. And you know, gets to work on this movie. Okay.

[00:34:40] And she has, I feel like she has a pretty simple camera style. Apparently she fought with the director of photography. I had to be very obstinate to impose my views. My, you know, I don't want to cast any judgment on this DP, but he might've been like,

[00:34:56] who is this young lady bossing me around, telling me how to set up a shot? She doesn't know. She didn't do a lot of takes. She didn't do closeups. This movie is really no closeups at all. Yes. It's kind of crazy. When you like start to realize,

[00:35:11] like we're always at a distance from these girls. I mean, I not to jump ahead here, but this is a movie where, and I think this is almost by design. I get it intellectually, but I found this movie very hard to connect to

[00:35:26] until the last like 20 or 30 minutes. I found it very alienating distancing, which I think was her whole idea. But it might be a little bit of a like, cut your nose to spite your face idea. Well, it's also got this, you know, kind of aggressive storytelling style

[00:35:40] starting at the end of their friendship and going backwards, which obviously is interesting. But the first four or five minutes, I was like, I cannot find my way into this thing. You know, Ben in House of Gucci, they, I think it's House of Gucci. Maybe it's licorice pizza.

[00:35:52] Some movie I just saw this item is in a house. Oh, nice. Which it's, this is David's talking about. My girlfriend has from her grandmother, this like sixties, It's got like a huge marble vase. Yeah. I think it must be in House of Gucci. Overhanging kind of like,

[00:36:10] Like. Ceiling light. Yeah. It's cool. I don't know. Well, I'll take a picture. Sound off in the comments. I agree with you. Sound off in the comments. Yeah. It has to be in House of Gucci because you and I got a slice together.

[00:36:20] We did get a slice together and it's not in licorice pizza, right? It's in Gucci. I'm stoked to fucking see that. I feel like everyone's just hyping it up. You gotta try a slice. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a pie.

[00:36:30] Yeah. You might want to order a whole pie. Yeah, man. I'm gonna get a whole pie. I'm going to sit down. You know what I mean? I'm gonna get delivered. Sitting down. Oh, you're not, you're not going to take out? Uh-uh. You're gonna sit at the bar?

[00:36:42] Dine in. One pie, please. Take, I'm taking a seat. I'll be sitting over there. Table 12. Get a look at my fountains, root beer. I'm gonna be sitting over here. Yeah. Nothing goes better with licorice pizza than root beer. Helen Garner, accomplished novelist. Okay.

[00:37:01] She wrote a book called Monkey Grip about heroin addiction that is seen as a very important text in Australian literature. Okay. She's written some nonfiction stuff, sort of true crimey stuff. That is a big deal. And I think she got into screenwriting

[00:37:18] as she put it, for the money. Interesting. There's some cash in it. Yeah, I mean. I mean, she likes it, but you know. It is an interesting, this wasn't her first screenplay, was it? No, and you know, she eventually works with Jane Campion here.

[00:37:30] Obviously she worked with Gillian Armstrong later, who's another famous Australasian female director. So she liked working with those people. She liked working with Campion a lot. I learned from Jane Campion to follow and trust intuition, no matter how alarmingly it swerves.

[00:37:46] I just think the conceit of this story is so novelistic. I'm surprised that she chose to write it as a script and not a book first. Yeah, you know, she probably was asked to write a script and she's a novelist and she writes it all novel-y. Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:58] I guess is the, but yeah. I mean, I love Jane Campion. Yes. And she is so good at intimate emotion, at like depicting it on screen, depicting the dynamics between people in ways that don't feel obvious, but you can like understand the nuances, what's happening between two people.

[00:38:19] So I hear there's like a movie she made about two friends. It's about teenage girl friendship. You hear it's about two friends. You're already on board, obviously. I'm interested. You're feeling competitive, but you're on board. Even though this was made like the year I was born. Yeah, territorial.

[00:38:36] And so, right. And then like, and to me, like female friendship, especially between teenage, you know, that's such a, you're already like stiffening up. You're like, oh, this is gonna be, you know, there's so much potential for hurt. We're both sensi boys who like movies about female friendship.

[00:38:51] Yeah, but you know, like, oh God, this is probably, and I was engaged by this movie, but I was not, I think I was maybe hoping for something that was really gonna feel like searing. Yeah, I was struggling to stay engaged until the end.

[00:39:05] It's a lot of like, you know, awkward little moments and sort of odd dynamics with the parents and things like, you know, like that it's well done. But I just wasn't, you know, getting worked up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, right.

[00:39:22] I think the idea here is that, and you really, I know you're gonna get this, but you should watch a girl's own story because it feels like the better execution of this in a lot of ways. And it's, I think the style and the craft

[00:39:36] and it's much stronger, but the dynamics are also a little more innately interesting to me. And she's, that's a movie where she goes from doing this kind of very distance obscured, almost like voyeuristic camera placement to doing like very extreme in your face closeups.

[00:39:52] And the balance of the two helps, I think, versus this thing that's putting you at her move on purpose. This movie is sort of like a tenant without the temporal pincer movements. Sure, just backwards. They don't go forwards at a certain point. At the end of the movie,

[00:40:06] you realize they were best friends, right? But it starts off with two people who seem like they couldn't have less to do with each other and are, you know, an icy remove from each other. And then slowly the intimacy comes in backwards

[00:40:19] and you start to understand how much things have changed over the last few years. And it's only set over the course of like a year. It's not even like, right. And you have title, inner titles telling you like, X months earlier, July, two months earlier, whatever it is.

[00:40:32] It's very clearly delineated, but yeah, I don't, I think, I don't know. I kind of agree with you that there's, it's just, I wanted to fucking love this thing. I have some news for you. Gilles Jacob, the infamous honcho of Cannes for many years,

[00:40:53] saw this movie and all her shorts, the whole package. And takes Philip Adams, chairman of the Australian film commission. My guess is he grabs him by the lapel. Yeah. And pulls him close. And he says, listen up, buddy. And he says, listen to me now.

[00:41:10] You must give her lots of money so she'll be in competition here with a feature in a couple years. He's basically like, this is the real deal. That's what it's all about. Honey up. That's the thing. To have fucking three shorts and a TV movie

[00:41:22] all play a Cannes in the same year feels like someone putting their foot down and going like, attention must be paid. We're calling the shot right now that this is a major artist. We've covered some directors who came out of the gate

[00:41:35] like pretty close to fully formed, right? Have just kind of like impeccable first films. Sure. But there's something fun about any time we get to go back to someone's first film that is really kind of like primordial like this. A loveless or trying to think of other debuts

[00:41:52] that feel that way. I mean, I don't like this movie as much but the Praying With Anger. Following, Praying With Anger. Following's a great example. Right. Where there is this weird kind of like time machine effect where it's like you're watching this movie

[00:42:04] that is a director trying to figure themselves out with the knowledge of the future, you know? So you're seeing it through the prism of like what does exist here at the earliest stages? What have they not figured out yet? I do always get that kind of rush

[00:42:18] every time we watch like a forgotten first film by someone who goes on to be someone major later. And if we're covering them on the show, they by default have become major to one extent or another. Yeah. I'm trying to think of things to say about Two Friends.

[00:42:37] It's got some punk in it. Ben, tell me about your viewing experience, huh? It's got some punk in it. It's got some punk in it. Yeah, so one of the friends is a little more punk than the other.

[00:42:43] Right, well I would say kind of more maybe new wave, right? To be more accurate. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. But that right away drew me in. And that she's like having this, like the movie starts off with her having this rebellious moment. Yes.

[00:43:00] And to what you were saying, David, I like how understated it is that this girl is making such a poor choice and you're kind of like how is everyone in her life letting her do this? But then again, as the movie goes on, you kind of really, yeah,

[00:43:18] you really come to understand it. Well, in the very end of the movie, which is chronologically the beginning, is like this girl saying, I'm like I'm never gonna do drugs ever in my life. I can't. Right. Yeah. I mean, it does, I'll say this,

[00:43:29] it does evoke that thing when you are a teenager and everything feels so high stakes. Yes. And things can change so radically over the course of a month. Yeah. And right, like you're just like, I will be friends with this person

[00:43:41] for the rest of my life in a month. Like you're like, I'm never talking to them ever again. And also that- And people go through weird phases and extreme life events and all that sort of shit. That's sort of foolish but, you know,

[00:43:52] understandable way that we act as teenagers where we're like every decision I make is really important. Poorly, yeah. You know what I mean? Like where it's like, this is, you know, I'm deciding on my personality here. Yeah. You know, like it's still exciting. Yes, yes.

[00:44:06] Now I'm like, I just wanna take a nap. David, mind taking a nap. Truly, the longer this show goes on, the thing that still rings in my head the most is Detective Dormer saying, let me sleep. Like of all the movies we've covered,

[00:44:20] I just constantly think about like him just lying, please let me sleep. Like at all times, my reaction to almost everything now is like, I don't wanna deal with this, just let me sleep. And you know, when I was a teenager and I saw Insomniac in theaters,

[00:44:34] I was like, he's so old. Yeah, this fucker. Of course he wants to sleep. Right. I'm like, I'm watching something, now you realize he's 35. Right now I watch it and I'm like, oh bitch, this is 20 years ago, but Geno's still kicking. Yeah.

[00:44:45] How scary would that be though if that's a movie where you realize like, he's 35 in this? Geno's my age in this? Right. The fuck? The fucking Homer Simpson, Tony Soprano thing. Oh man. How old is that character? I looked it up, Ben.

[00:44:56] I looked up what Ned Flanders' dad says. Okay. Oh man, Ned spilled ink all over my palms. He's a real flat tire, I mean a cube, man. He's putting us on the train to Squaresville. So it is to Squaresville, but he also calls him a cube. Nice.

[00:45:11] It rolls. Whoopsie doodle. Flanders, Flanders low key, one of the best characters of all time. Great character. What do you think of the later revelation that he has a giant dick? Remember when The Simpsons snuck that in like season 10-ish? We had a very heated conversation about this

[00:45:27] with the Doughboys. We did? Yes. About his big dick? In our tech circle, because I was trying to watch every episode of The Simpsons. Yeah, right, right, right. In the pandemic and then I slowed down because I got freaked out about what if I finish watching

[00:45:39] 32 seasons of The Simpsons before there's a vaccine? Is not unfucked, right. Right. Which, look, I was getting ahead of myself. America will never again be unfucked. But, Wiger was arguing it's a double beat. The dick? You already have the thing that Flanders is like surprisingly ripped, right?

[00:45:59] He's got the abs. They reveal his street car. And then like the fucking, whatever the episode is with the skiing. Super sexy Flanders. Right, right. And then the additional he has a big dick is like, you don't need it. Already the fact that he's like secretly cut.

[00:46:15] I agree with that. I agree with that. But I kind of like the idea of him being ashamed of having a big dick. I guess so. But I agree with Wiger that like, right, you already did the work. Like, and stupid sexy Flanders can't be top.

[00:46:26] Because it's funny because Homer is acknowledging that he's hot. Yeah. It'd be one thing if Homer was just like, ah, I can't stop thinking about Flanders. It's a stupid, sexy place. Yeah, no, it's perfect. First 10 seasons of Flanders characterization.

[00:46:39] It's one of those things where every time they add a new wrinkle or depth, you're just like, this guy just got more interesting. The fucking beatnik parents. When did they kill Maude? That's later. That's like. It's 12, 11 or 12. That was bad. Oh yeah. That episode is horrendous.

[00:46:55] And that's sort of a point of no return. That's a real, that's a real tough episode. That episode in and of itself is bad. Aside from that being a bad choice of a storyline, it's bad. Didn't they kill her because the actress left or died? Correct.

[00:47:10] But they justify his life. It feels like a way to mix up the status quo. And I'm like, you're never gonna carry this with appropriate weight. You're a show that doesn't care about serialization. And then the actress ended up coming back

[00:47:20] and now they've had Maude a couple of times as like a ghost. God, it's still on. Yeah. It's that weird thing of like The Simpsons premieres the year I'm born. Sure does. And I just can always track like, oh yeah, that's the exact span of my life.

[00:47:32] They've been making Simpsons episodes every single moment of my life. Yeah. And which one of us will die first? The Balenciaga thing too, I haven't watched yet. But I'm interested. I just also find it so fucking weird. What are you talking about? The Simpsons crossover with Balenciaga.

[00:47:51] You know, Homer wears a big jacket. Really? Oh yeah, you didn't hear about this. Did they do like a product line or they just did like an animated thing? Pretty sure that it's in an episode. It's in an episode, I think.

[00:48:03] It was like they used The Simpsons to debut their new. Correct. I'm looking here, there's a $995 Balenciaga Simpsons hoodie. Yep. And a $595 Balenciaga Simpsons shirt. So it does seem like they made some products as well. Can I say something Griff? Yeah. Worth it.

[00:48:25] There's also a key chain that costs $260. I don't think any of these items look good. Ben, have you ever been to a fashion show? Like a, like. I've never been invited. No, no one's invited me. You should go, you should do it. I would love to.

[00:48:37] It seems fun. Yeah, it does seem like a blast. But you know what? You wanna be on the first row, I feel like. Well, I got it. Yeah. I think that's pretty hard. I'm a first row guy. I think that's pretty hard.

[00:48:45] So if anyone out there knows somebody, you know, I'm like, I'm so open to it. These items are insane. They look like Tee public shit. They do, they literally just have like Simpsons shit printed on. Right, and like this key chain looks like something

[00:48:58] you would get from the Simpsons shop at Universal Studios. Except, like it looks like the fucking Krusty Land key chain that I have. Yeah. Except it costs $260. Yeah. It looks no different in terms of materials and it's just the Simpsons. Ah, it's probably pretty nice.

[00:49:12] Happen to be wearing Balenciaga on it. Better be. And Jane Campion directed this, that's why we're bringing this. Yeah, Jane Campion loves the Simpsons. Anyway. She's probably been on the Simpsons. Everyone has. Happy plus-iversary everybody. Oh God. Doughboys are on the Simpsons. They were drawn on.

[00:49:29] The fucking rules, man. That makes a fucking real point of pride. Mitch has voiced a character. Oh has he? There's an episode where Simpsons go to Boston and they cast Mitch as hometown boy makes good. But then they drew Mitch. Correct, they drew Mitch and Weigard

[00:49:41] non-speaking in an episode of Whoever Makes Podcasts. Sharpling and Worcester. Right, you know like a bunch of podcasters. Right, the Mount Podmore. Yeah, the big boys. Two friends. Yep. Chris Bedenko and Emma Coles. What's with the dad? Ooh, he's bad news.

[00:50:01] Because his whole deal is like he's so progressive that he's flipping the conservative dad kind of trope. Right, am I wrong on that? Yeah. Yeah, I'll admit I keep on in my head I'm running shit from a girl's own story and two friends in together

[00:50:18] because I watch them back to back. Girl's own story has one of the most bizarre parent dynamics I've ever seen in a way that's really fascinating. So the dadness stood out to me less because I was just coming off of the like,

[00:50:29] what's going on with that fucking dad? But yes, I feel like she's way ahead of the curve commenting on people who go out of their way to project a sense of liberalism. Yeah, right, to cover up for their shortcomings. Right.

[00:50:46] Just a reminder that things that people argue about is if they're new problems or things that have been going on for time immemorial and that we live in a cyclical society that just repeats the same shit over and over again every 10 years.

[00:50:57] So yeah, I mean like just to give the vague plot, I guess you've got Louise who's the more straight laced one. The David. Problem's true. But you see, I'm less straight laced than you in some ways. I don't know. In what ways? Yeah, I don't know.

[00:51:14] David doesn't wanna say them. Kelly. He's got curly laces. Yeah, I got curly laces. Kelly is the more punkish one. The Ben. Yeah. Yeah, kinda. Wait Ben, what's the deal with you watching this movie though? What's the subtitle thing? Oh yeah, you were telling us.

[00:51:28] Oh yeah, so I fucking watched. I didn't realize it was on Criterion. So instead I like watched through some really random film company that now I'm like hold on, let me see. Milestone? Yes. You rented it from their site or on Vimeo? I watched it through their site

[00:51:46] which is being powered by Vimeo. You can't watch it on Vimeo. Had no subtitles. Right, because their site is primarily the rentals are like do you wanna screen this for your film class? It's less meant to be like a storefront for individual movies. It's like for academic purposes

[00:52:01] here's the license to watch this movie. Okay, so you watched it there. No subtitles, so for me I was. You didn't understand most of what they were saying. I had no idea, yeah. The accents are heavy. I had to click those subtitles on real fast. I'm sure.

[00:52:14] Yeah, you were gonna have some accents, you know. And it's also like there's some teen slang that's now 40 years old. So it's like the subtitles are helpful. I'm sure, yeah. I was. It's also a low budget film where the sound quality

[00:52:27] isn't the best, it's a little muddled sometimes. Sure, right, the scan is not perfect. So what's gonna happen is Kelly is gonna basically by the end of the movie be like almost homeless. Yes. And like doing drugs.

[00:52:44] By the end of the movie you mean the beginning of the film. Exactly, sorry, by the end of their friendship the beginning of the movie, right. But right, but Louise is the one who actually has the sort of permissive parents who don't really cock an eyebrow at anything.

[00:52:58] Which I get, like the kid who kind of goes conservative to rebel against the permissiveness, like makes sense to me. I knew kids like that. That also makes sense from the campaign perspective. Not that she's conservative, but the idea of like if you have the loosey-goosey artsy parents

[00:53:13] that maybe you become a cerebral, you know, academic. I don't know. No, no, for sure. And like, you know, which is what I expected more from this movie, you know, there's the stuff with their like romances, they don't know how to talk

[00:53:28] about it with each other in different kinds of ways, right? Like, and just like that's to me so fundamental to depictions of team friendship is like it's so tough for team friendships to handle romance sometimes, especially like really tight knit friends.

[00:53:43] You know, one of them gets a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Even like hard to navigate that dynamic. Where puberty sort of hits. Right, you can hit people different. Like some people are, right. Early, you know, like early on and are going through.

[00:54:00] I was kind of, I guess early, yeah. Sometimes it hits very late. Like I'm hoping the next year or two. 2022 I think might be a big one for me. What about you, David? What about you? I was always tall. Well, right. How young did you crack six feet?

[00:54:21] Like 12. Okay. I think. And that is when you're like. I think when I was 12, I was six one. Jesus fucking Christ. And my doctor. I think when I was 12, I was four nine. Like I'm not even joking. I remember it being a big deal when I cracked five.

[00:54:37] I'm now trying to remember. It took a while. I may have been 14. I just remember there was some age, it was either 12 or 14. When I hit, I was over six feet. I was the same height as my dad. I was six one.

[00:54:46] And my doctor was like, you might be done. You might have like a little left. Wow. And I had two more inches to go. I think I may have been 12 and I like hit six three when I was 14 and that was that. I was like 19.

[00:54:59] My doctor was like, you might have another inch or two in you and I was like, come on. Let's go. I kept on being like. I had friends like that who added a few inches in like college. I know, I kept on hoping. Like yeah, it was funny.

[00:55:11] Like the kids who were very small and like they actually just were really late. I mean, my like mother and father. But like, I feel like my voice broke when I was like 13. Like I was a little late on some of that stuff. Sure. Yeah.

[00:55:23] What happened to me, I will say is that, so I'm a size 12 foot and basically just had that right away. And David is, he's putting his eyes, his eyebrows up and down. You have fucking clown feet? I have always had clown feet. Fucking Sasquatch over here. Yeah.

[00:55:40] So it's like, it was like a moment where I was like really clowning it out, walking around. Hey, hey, hey. It's like a stupid sexy Haslund. My mother and father are both very small people. They're small people. Your mother is comically petite. My mother is comically petite.

[00:55:56] And it is like a fucking porcelain doll. And then my paternal grandparents were small. I mean, my grandfather was stocky, but not particularly tall. My grandmother was tiny. My maternal grandmother was tiny. My maternal grandfather was like over six feet tall.

[00:56:16] And whenever we complain about the fact that we're short, my grandmother's like, I tried. I tried to put some tall DNA into the pool. Sure, well, it's there now. Yeah, he was like six foot one, bright red hair, and none of us got. No, no, you did not.

[00:56:31] No, no. What if you end up having like a kid and they're like on the basketball team and you're like dunking and you're like, at those games. Do you know what's the thing I'm actually dreading? Do you know what I'm actually dreading?

[00:56:46] I'm dreading the day that David's daughter is taller than me and how soon it's gonna happen. It's not gonna be that soon. It's gonna be pretty fucking soon. For people who don't know, Forky, David's wife, is also over six feet. He's six one.

[00:57:00] She's gonna be so goddamn tall. Who knows, maybe my daughter will be small. I hope so. There's small people in the family. I need something smaller. How tall is she now? Like three foot four? Nine months, three foot four.

[00:57:11] She's going to the doctor next week, so we'll find out. Get a, I've done, I just, I'm keeping track of how many inches I have on her still because I'm just like, it's not gonna last long. You should draw Griffin.

[00:57:21] By the time she's six, she's gonna be dunking on me. At your apartment, just like, you know, pencil in a little line. David, David, David. If I get a full-sized, full-scale cutout of myself, will you put it in the door frame

[00:57:35] so you can measure the balls, baby, against me to see which? Stop it. Crazy person. I think that'd be a fun way to track progress. Oh yeah, you think that'd be fun? Yeah. Is there any other sequences that stick out to you in Two Friends?

[00:57:48] I think the last 20 minutes of this are really good, which is when you get to like the honeymoon phase, the courtship, the sort of giddiness of finding a new friend. The passing notes sequence is really fun. That's really good. The letters themselves are really fun. Yeah, they're great.

[00:58:03] And there's the sort of, the dance sequence when they're all like singing and dancing along with the pop song that's really fucking fun. It also is interesting because, we'll talk about Sweetie next week. Great movie. But Alex Ross-Perry and I, a friend of the show,

[00:58:16] saw that together at Lincoln Center a couple years ago. We did some double feature of two movies at Lincoln Center together. And we saw something and we were like, Sweetie's playing after the, have you ever seen Sweetie? We should see Sweetie, right? That's like an important thing.

[00:58:29] And we both knew nothing about it and we're not prepared for how like, goofy and stylized Sweetie is. Very much so. Sweetie is a movie that very much has the aesthetics of Babe. It does, it's got bright colors. The other thing is Sweetie-

[00:58:42] And that sort of comedic energy. It has true first film energy of her being like, let me try this. Right. Like, let me try a lot of stuff. Let me put everything into it in case I never get to make anything ever again.

[00:58:52] The last 20 minutes of this have a little bit of that Sweetie energy. Obviously this was made on, I'm sure, a very tight schedule and budget. Yeah. She had less room to try stuff like that. But I don't want to be a broken record here.

[00:59:05] A girl's own story has more of this energy, not throughout, but interspersed. It's got the distancing, but it's interspersed with sort of odder sequences. I just found that film a lot more impactful. The last 20 minutes of this, for me, are what worked.

[00:59:19] I struggled with the first close to hour. It's a film that's only an hour and 18 minutes. It's like hour 20 minutes, yeah. I'd be curious. I'm not in an eager rush to rewatch it right away. I'd be curious to rewatch it to see if it plays better

[00:59:33] with the whole thing in your head a second time. Maybe. I mean, in a lot of ways, a lot of those backward movies worked entirely differently the second time you see them. But I do think the sort of oblique distancing from the characters at the beginning

[00:59:49] is an intellectual idea I understand that makes it a little hard to engage. When I turned this on, I knew it wasn't backwards. Yes. If you don't know that, I think the first 15 minutes are pretty alienating. It is. They're not friends. I think even so it's alienating.

[01:00:05] I was watching, I was like, who am I following here? Right, it's, yeah, because there's a lot of adults in the first sequence as well and you don't really know who's who. And everything's shot from a room move and the characters speak very heavy accents.

[01:00:17] And at the beginning, everyone's cold and dispassionate. And so it's, I get it. All of this is like, and I feel like Loveless is a similar thing where I'm like, I don't know if I enjoy watching this movie. I get it, I see what you're doing here.

[01:00:28] It's interesting. Passionless. They're compelling pieces. This seems like it has connection to Passionless Moments, you know? And I've seen Passionless Moments, but like a lot of mundane stuff. Like picking up on little details. Yeah, but Passionless Moments is like funny.

[01:00:43] It's got this weird comic strip kind of like energy to it. I do have a box office game for us. Oh, wow. Because this movie was released in New York City. On April 24th, 1996. So this fully fucking counts. If it got a theatrical release. We're talking 10 years later,

[01:01:02] it must have screened retrospectively. But still, April 24th, 1996, David Sims's 10th birthday. I'm actually in London at that point, but I am in New York. Wait, I'm sorry, what? Move there in 95. Stayed till 08. God, I had a bunch of follow-up questions that just were eradicated by this revelation.

[01:01:24] I don't even know what to say now. So I wasn't in town. I may have been in town, because I usually would come in town in April, Passover. But I did live in England. But it did debut there at that time. It's not on the chart.

[01:01:37] Not seeing it here. Not seeing it on the chart. Probably played at the Quad for like two days. The cinema, Billage. No, probably, come on. It was probably like Lincoln Center. It was post-piano. Probably some kind of Campion thing. Something cool like that. Okay. Right? Yeah, maybe.

[01:01:56] Sweetie and Angel at my table. So we can do that box office game. But yeah, is there any other? I mean, the boys wrote a whole history of Australian cinema in the dossier. The dossier is so fucking... This is the thing. Sometimes I read the dossier,

[01:02:10] and I'm like, is the show better if we just read everything they wrote verbatim? I mean, there's certainly enough material. The thing that's interesting and that they're sort of talking about is Australian cinema did have this early boom sort of centered around the wars

[01:02:25] and the depression and stuff. But by the 70s, by the time Campion's coming around, it had been like decades of dark ages. Like really not really making a lot of homegrown cinema at all. But then 80s are this boom revival period between Mad Max and Dundee.

[01:02:38] Yeah, Peter Weir and George Miller and all these, you know, she's a New Zealand director, but obviously she makes movies in Australia. Picnic at Hanging Rock and Mad Max are sort of the two movies that reboot the Australian industry because Mad Max, that's the ozploitation,

[01:02:56] trashy, and then Picnic at Hanging Rock, that's like the classy, artier stuff. Both of those directors crossover. They sure do, as do of course so many Australian directors and performers. It's a real powerhouse for acting, I feel like, right? So many great actors come out of it.

[01:03:16] I know he's another New Zealand guy who often gets miscategorized as an Australian, but someone was tweeting the other day, just a complete memory hole forgotten about this. When Al-Qaeda wanted to kidnap Russell Crowe to destabilize American culture pre 9-11. They did?

[01:03:35] This was like a People magazine front cover story. Like once I started digging into this, I was like, oh yeah, I fucking remember this. By the way, Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand, but I think he spent most of his life in Australia.

[01:03:45] He is more Australian than New Zealand in a lot of ways. And certainly worked more in Australia. Romper Stomper. You ever seen that movie? Romper Stomper, isn't it? Pretty good. Plays like a Nazi. Romper Stomper. Like a neo-Nazi. Like a skinhead. Bad. Stay away. No, don't do it.

[01:04:01] No, I didn't know about that, Griffin. I didn't know that Osama Bin Laden tried to kidnap Russell Crowe. I guarantee you knew this at the time. That was part of their thing where they were like, how do we fuck with Americans?

[01:04:09] What if we kidnap their most beloved movie star, Kiwi Russell Crowe? It speaks to how big he was in that one fucking moment where everyone was like, well, he's gonna be Charlton Heston, right? He will remain this iconic for 40 years.

[01:04:25] So in the 70s, obviously you do have people like Peter Weir, Gillian Armstrong emerging, right? But you also apparently are very popular. The Ocker Comedy. What? Which was this sort of like, kind of I suppose this sort of American Pie type movie of its day. Really?

[01:04:40] Celebrating male sexual exploits, vulgar, anti-intellectual, you know. Is this a subgenre or is the thing called the Ocker Comedy? Ocker, A-O-C-K-E-R. It's like a subgenre. It's like a sort of, you know, trashy lowbrow comedy. What are like the prime examples of that? Let's see.

[01:05:01] Let's see what are some Ocker movies. Like who comes out of the Ocker? Is this like Rick Mayall and Yahoo Serious? Ocker apparently recorded as a nickname for anyone called Oscar, the Australian comic strip Ginger Megs had a character called Oscar

[01:05:18] and that became the sort of term you use for like a youth, you know, who's up to no good. So it's like if we started calling, if we called like raunchy teen comedies, the Ziggy movies. Exactly. So you've got Stork, The Adventures of Mary McKenzie.

[01:05:35] Ooh, look out for this guy. Which is Barry Humphreys. Oh! You know, who eventually is Dame Edna and Bruce the Shark. Bruce the Shark and you know. Alvin Purple. Yeah, sure. Look at this poster. It's got people fucking feet together. So that's one kind of movie. Okay.

[01:05:54] There's also just soft core porn. Very popular. Very popular. Yeah. I guess this is. You could go to a theater. Well, cause it's pre VHS. No, I know. I'm just saying. You gotta go. Jack your hog in a fucking AMC. That's so wild. Yeah.

[01:06:11] It's wild to think about that. That was like. I guess you just sat there and then you were like, I'm going to jerk it later thinking about. That's the thing. I think people have a better imagination. That's the thing that's insane to think about is like,

[01:06:22] there was this moment where like going to a porn theater became like weirdly mainstream, but the rules were like, but don't masturbate. And people were like, I think I'm going to do it. And they're like, don't do it. Uh-uh. Right. I mean, and then, you know,

[01:06:34] they drop off and the thing becomes like, oh, if you go to a porn theater, there are going to be like three guys there. Like three weird guys in trench coats. They're definitely jerking off. Jack Nicholson from the department store. Jack Nicholson from the departed is there basically.

[01:06:47] Back to Australian cinema for a second. I'm kind of having fun with this now. You're having great time. So like something like picnic at hanging rock obviously gets the acclaim, but it doesn't make the dollars and cents. The dinero. Well, what is the money, the currency from Australia?

[01:06:59] The Australian dollar. You know, they just call it that. And you know their money, it's like plastic. Yeah, it does suck. It's so you can go in the water with it. I'm not joking. Really? Yeah, their money's like, it's like, it's not paper.

[01:07:12] It's like made out of waterproof material. I mean, it's an island country. Okay. It's a big fucking island. Yeah. I want to be sure that I'm saying that's always something that people talk about, but now I want to make sure it's not some like British stereotype

[01:07:26] about stupid Australians who goes swimming with their. And there's a fucking plastic money's in it. Yeah. Polymer. It's made of polymer. I just want to say, it's not just because like Australians like go in the water and they're like, oh, my money. Oh, it's gone.

[01:07:39] Like it's because it's, you know, more durable. It doesn't like, you don't have to spend money. Like, you know, it's better for the environment. I think it's the idea. Also you can throw it on the Barbie. You can throw it on the Barbie? You know that old catchphrase,

[01:07:50] throw another dollar on the Barbie. We probably talked about this a little in the Mad Max episode, but Mad Max is the moment where it's like, well, they never even considered going to the government because they knew the government would never give them money to make that, right?

[01:08:00] Yes. And it becomes such a huge hit that they totally reorganize the industry. And they're like, okay, the government's kind of out. There needs to be like private funding of movies because like this thing is commercial. That insane fact that like Mad Max

[01:08:13] was almost exclusively financed by doctors. It sure was. Like George Miller's medical school friends who had made a lot of money in successful practices. And we're just like, yeah, movie, why not? It's a safe business. Yeah, so the box office game for April 26th, 1996.

[01:08:28] Come on, let's do it. Okay, April 26th, 1996, okay. So there's four new movies at the box office this week, which is kind of part of the fun. Yeah. And one of this is April, and this is a dire box office. Really? It's some shit.

[01:08:41] Number one is an action film from one of the action stars at the time. One of the lesser ones, no offense to you. A lesser one. And I would say it's one of his lesser films. He directed it. He directed it.

[01:08:54] It's sort of one of those, you know, it happens with a lot of these guys like, as things are starting to get a little shaky, they're like, well, what the thing is that I should make? Is it Van Damme or Seagal? It's Van Damme.

[01:09:03] And I looked this up the other day and I forget which one he directed. So Seagal directed what, Fire Down Below? Is that the one he directed? It's the environmental one. Right. It's the masterpiece. Yes, that is. Yes. I'm sorry, he didn't direct it.

[01:09:17] But that is the one that's environmental. Maybe Seagal never directed a movie. Seagal did. Didn't he direct an environmental movie? Seagal directed a movie. He definitely directed a movie. I mean, there's, I mean, like, sorry. He definitely, he directed On Deadly Ground. Thank you.

[01:09:32] I'm sorry, I was about to pull the title. Yeah, there you go. Okay, yeah. What's this Van Damme movie called? It's called The Quest. Right. It's a movie where he's going to Tibet, I think. Yep, uh-huh. Not a good actor.

[01:09:43] And there's gonna be like a big fighting tournament in Tibet, hmm? Not a good actor. Jean-Claude Van Damme? Yeah, I would say probably the worst of the bunch of like 80s action stars. He's the worst actor of them. He's a kind of better actor.

[01:09:54] Right, he's actually, as he's aged, gotten a little grit to him. I mean, I- He's the villain in The Expendables 2, right? Is he the villain? Two, and I believe his character's name is Valaine. Well, Valaine means villain. He directed another movie in 2010. How was it?

[01:10:11] It's called Full Love, original title, Frenchie. But yes, I do feel like when he was at his peak with like Time Cop and Universal Soldier and all that, yes, he was, it was that he was acrobatic and he could do the splits and all that.

[01:10:22] Like yeah, he's not a good actor. I also feel like unlike Seagal, he has talked about the fact that he was like cocky and lazy and high on his own supply and that he kind of fucked it up for himself. Sure.

[01:10:33] And like you watch Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning, a film I love. Good movie. And he's got like an odd amount of gravitas in that where you're like, holy shit, like where did this fucking come from? I think when his career bottomed out

[01:10:46] on like a guy like Seagal who went further up his ass, Van Damme was like, I need to like appreciate what I have and work for what I want. He's not an asshole in the way that- He used to be.

[01:10:58] Right, he used to maybe be an egotistical guy, but- I think he's gotten mellowed out. So some of the other people in the quest, Roger Moore. Wow. James Reimar. I mean, this is the on deadly ground thing where it's like, now I'm ready for my serious statement.

[01:11:12] I want to make a serious movie. Jack McGee, love Jack McGee. Love Jack McGee. Anytime I can get some McGee, I want it. Yep. Remember he was so good in the fighter. So good and Moneyball, he's one of the- Great Moneyball, one of the scouts. Yeah.

[01:11:25] I watched that fucking first scene in Moneyball, not the first scene, but the first like boardroom scene where all the scouts are talking and Brad Pitt does the like blah, blah, blah, blah. I watched that scene like fucking five times a day. I'm gonna watch Moneyball right now.

[01:11:36] I'm gonna throw it on. So good. Number two, it's a Chick Flick. Okay. Rom-com of the 90s. Classic watching on a plane. Long title. It's not Roman Michelle's High School Reunion. No, that's a good movie. Right, that's what I'm trying to think of something that's lower.

[01:11:52] Yeah, but it's a long title. Yeah, long title. Truth About Cats and Dogs? The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Yeah. Made $34 million at the US box office. That was a reasonable hit. Yeah. Sort of a Cyrano-Bergerac thing from what I remember. Yes.

[01:12:09] At Sarah Thurman and Janine Garofalo, right? Right. Janine is the sort of Cyrano. And is this the same year as Jerry Maguire? Yeah, 96. Right, because Cameron Crowe said he wrote the Renee Zellweger part for Janine Garofalo and the studio wouldn't hire her unless she lost weight.

[01:12:26] That's the famous story there. But so that's sort of her like. Totally different movie with her. Jesus. I know. I mean, I love Janine, especially in this period. Of course, she rules. But I feel like that was sort of, not her consolation prize movie,

[01:12:38] but that was the like, fuck, I need to do one of these. I was told I was about to be like a rom-com star. Put me above the title. Right. I remember that movie being cute. I think I saw it on a plane. Yeah. Ben Chaplin, Jamie Foxx.

[01:12:49] Young Jamie Foxx is in it. Directed by Michael Lehman, the king. Is he Ben Chaplin's best friend? Is he the? I don't know. Okay. I don't know. Don't remember. That's the truth. There's a character called Ed. Oh. Don't know. Number three of the box office is,

[01:13:07] it was number one the week before. Okay. It's in its fourth week of release, and it spent three weeks at number one. This movie spent three weeks at number one. It is a legal thriller that got an Oscar nominate. The Client? No.

[01:13:22] When you hear that this movie was three weeks at number one, I know it's a different time in Hollywood. It's April, was not like. Primal Fear? Primal Fear. Yeah, it was a big hit. Three weeks at number one. It was a big hit.

[01:13:32] It was a pretty big hit. It was a pretty big hit. And you know, there's that, do you follow the Oscar Clips account? Yes. I forgot that Edward Norton's Oscar clip reveals the twist of Primal Fear. It is the last scene in the movie basically. Is it?

[01:13:46] I was, so I only watched Primal Fear for the first time in the last like two years. I guess it's not the scene where he reveals that he doesn't have the stutter. That's the first of the two twists. But right. Everyone's one of the two.

[01:14:00] He did it, right? But you're right. The question is whether his motivations are right. And which one's the dominant personality. But also David, by that point, Primal Fear is getting an Oscar nomination like 10 months after it's blown up at the box office. Right, it's like everyone's seen this.

[01:14:13] They know what the fucking thing is. Yeah. Primal Fear. That movie's not very good. No, it's not. And you throw it on, which I did a few years ago and it's like, Gere, Norton, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodard, Francis McDormand, Terry O'Quinn, Andre Brower.

[01:14:28] You're just like, ah! Yes, yes. Yes! And then it's like, it's kind of whatever and it's sort of long. It's like two hours plus. The fascinating thing with it too is like that's the movie where like fucking Edward Norton is like a drama school student

[01:14:42] who out of nowhere gets this fucking prime role and everyone in Hollywood is like, this is the new leading man. Academy Award nomination, anointment. You're the guy, right? Like two years later he's on the cover of Vanity Fair and it's like, is there any question

[01:14:57] Edward Norton is the actor of his generation? When he does the score with De Niro and Brando, everyone's like, of course, the three titans. Three generations, right? And you watch that movie now and the Edward Norton shit holds up the worst.

[01:15:08] That performance does not really work through modern eyes and at the time everyone was like, this is sort of embarrassing. Richard Gere got out-acted by Norton. Here's a Richard Gere vehicle and Norton's running circles around him and the Gere shit's kind of creaky

[01:15:22] and you watch it now and you're like, Gere shit's kind of good. Gere's solid. The thing with Norton is he's a good actor but the performances he's most famous for are the really gimmicky, over-the-top, tick-filled things. And also kind of synonymous with really toxic kind of stuff.

[01:15:39] There's a part of that but I think it's more than asshole. Fight Club to me is just like a thing that I was obsessed with in high school. You were into Fight Club? I don't want to talk about it, David.

[01:15:50] What, you wanted to make bombs out of soap? Don't make him talk about it. Don't make me talk about it. Fight Club is one of the trickiest texts to parse. Look, I think it's his performance that holds up great. I think he's great in that.

[01:16:03] I think the Norton performances that hold up bad are as you said, the very ticky actor showcases. Look at how I trained myself to do this fucking thing. David's doing a jerk-off motion, I kind of agree. Alison Wilmore wrote a really good piece about it

[01:16:14] when Motherless Brooklyn hit her. He sometimes fucking nails it. I mean, it's so funny. It's so good in People vs. Larry Flint when he's playing the kind of ordinary guy. Amazing. Also, I mean, Wes Anderson's been using him great. Sure.

[01:16:28] But Wes Anderson has gone totally against his intensity. He's so fucking good in Moonrise and in Budapest. I think he's great in Birdman. That movie is a pain in the ass, but he's good in it. That felt like him making fun of himself.

[01:16:40] Exactly, that's why it was fun and self-aware. Weirdly good at comedy. Yeah, you can see Death to Smoochie, man. And he's good playing normal guys. And if you give him a thing to play. What's it called? Keeping the Faith? He's very good at Death to Smoochie.

[01:16:51] Keeping the Faith, he's good? Yes. Keeping the Faith in that one. Yeah, but the big, can you believe Edward Norton did this? Those are just. I guess American History X is the magnum opus performance, which is compelling. I don't like that movie. I hate it.

[01:17:09] I haven't seen it. It's just so ugly and dark. Number four at the box office, Griffin. It's one of those movies that when I was a kid, I'm 10 years old, right? This movie comes out, I would see posters for it

[01:17:21] and I'd be like, that's a fucking grown-up ass movie. What is that? What's that about? Boring ass movie for grownups. It's a crime thriller, sort of a neo-noir directed by a New Zealand filmmaker in fact. Is it a Lee Tomahawke? It is. Is it Mulholland Falls?

[01:17:38] It's Mulholland Falls. Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chaz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Jennifer Connelly. Is Hedea in that or do I just want him to be in that? Bruce Dern, we got any Hedea? No Hedea, he should be in that. Oh, I thought you said Zendaya. What's Hedea's name?

[01:17:54] Zendaya. Yeah, Zendaya's in it. She plays Meechi. Malkovich apparently shows up. I still don't know what that movie's about. It kind of went nowhere. I just know it's like men in hats and there's crime. It looks so prestigious for a movie that no one seems to love.

[01:18:09] It's literally based on the Hat Squad, which was like a famous LAPD detective unit. I'm wearing a hat! Look at my hat. I'm gonna go fuck Jennifer Connelly while wearing a hat. You know, I don't think it cost a fortune. The budget here is $29 million.

[01:18:24] It's just back in the day, you know, it's MGM. They're like, yeah, sure, Mulholland Falls, that'll sell. This is the thing. People will be excited to see whatever that is. We fucking lost. Like, you know, I feel like when we play

[01:18:38] the box office game, it kills a lot of nostalgia for better times because you're like, shitty movies were always coming out. But there's a different type of shitty movie where you're like, a studio would just make a $30 million period crime thriller with like 10 good actors in it.

[01:18:54] That's not a thing anymore. It's not like I yearn for the Halcyon days of Mulholland Falls. Well, no, what was that HBO Max movie that everyone was raving about? Well, this is the point, it went to HBO Max. What's the movie? No Sudden Move? Yeah.

[01:19:09] Right, no, No Sudden Move rules, but sort of- Oh, it's good? Yeah. But he's been very open about the fact that he's like, the exact kind of movie I wanna make, which is like adult sort of genre exercises

[01:19:21] with great actors is only gonna get done at HBO Max. And it's only gonna get done because I know how to make things for cheaper than anyone else. And he's just got this deal now where he's like, if I can deliver you like one movie a year

[01:19:32] with like 15 names in it and I can get it done and I'm my own DP and my own editor and this and that and my dolly is a wheelchair and I shoot it in fucking four days, they're like, yeah, whatever, go do what you want.

[01:19:46] But they all get punted to HBO Max, which is a bummer. Number five of the box office news this week. It's a basketball film produced by Jersey Pictures, Jersey Films, the- It's not Blue Chips, is it? Not Blue Chips, sort of a forgotten film. I've never seen it.

[01:19:59] I know it because of its name. It's named after a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Some neighborhood in Brooklyn? And I saw it on the list and I was like, right, that is a movie. A basketball movie and you've never seen it? Never seen it.

[01:20:13] Sounds like it'd be in your fucking wheelhouse. Sort of like a tough, unconventional coach molds a bunch of young men type movie. I don't think I know what this movie is. The movie is called Sunset Park. Yeah, I don't think I knew that was a film.

[01:20:26] Now, you've got some- Well, I'm gonna tell you. You've got some actors you might recognize. Well, really just Terrence Howard is one of the young players on the team. I don't know, the Fredro Star or something. I don't know the other guys.

[01:20:39] The coach is played by Rhea Perlman. Wait a second. Who plays Phyllis Soroka, a PE coach. David, how have I never- Who, you know, turns these kids around, I'm assuming. I cannot believe, I mean, you know I love Rhea Perlman. Who doesn't love Rhea Perlman? But-

[01:21:00] Well, it's produced by DeVito. Yeah, no, I know. And he gets his wife in there. I'm just looking at the poster for this now and to have like Rhea Perlman standing arms crossed next to two basketball players and the top billing on the poster is the soundtrack.

[01:21:14] Yes, the soundtrack. Above the title is soundtrack featuring Tupac, The Dog Pound, Queen Latifah, Ghostface Killer. And then to have Rhea Perlman underneath that, Sunset Park and the tagline for this movie, you gotta represent. Gotta. How have I not seen it? How did I not produce this?

[01:21:29] I don't know much about it except for its name. Wow. I don't think it's well regarded, but it does exist. Wow, Carole Kane's in it? Carole Kane's in it. Is Rhea Perlman's best friend or sister? Fuck. Some other movies in the top 10, The Birdcage, great movie.

[01:21:47] Mike Nichols' The Birdcage. They get. James and the Giant Peach from Henry Selick. A movie I love that I hope we cover on this podcast if Henry Selick's new movie ever comes out. Yep, The Substitute. That's the, fuck, Tom Berenger movie? Yes. Okay, okay. Fear. Fear. Classic.

[01:22:08] There's a guy called Morgan Witherspoon? Yeah, you could be afraid of me, aren't you? Let me see the fucking door. Like when he does that. Yeah, when he flips out. I'm a creep. Very good. I'm gonna creep on you. And then an early Martin Lawrence hit,

[01:22:24] A Thin Line Between Love and Hate has the famous poster with the papyrus font. That's the one he directed, right? I did it in like five minutes. Yes, wrote and directed. Wow, wow. With Martin Lawrence and Lin Whitfield. Gina King, Bobby Brown.

[01:22:39] Real head cocked comedy face on the poster. What? There's a thin line between what? Yeah. So those are the hits of April, you know? April. Yeah. Two Friends. Go see it somewhere. Two Friends coming out 10 years later. New York City. Yeah. Mrs. Winterborn?

[01:22:55] Like what the hell is that? Celtic Pride? That feels like a movie you've seen. I have not seen it. Celtic Pride is a movie in which Daniel Stern and Dan Aykroyd are Boston Celtics fans and they are terrified of whatever the rival team

[01:23:09] is beating them so they kidnap the team's star players so that they start losing games. Damon Wayans. And it's one of Apatow's first screenplay credits, right? Yes, yes. It's co-written by Apatow and Bill Murray has always shit on it because he's like. It's written by Apatow. Yeah.

[01:23:25] He co-wrote the story with Colin Quinn. Right. Him and Colin Quinn were like, yeah, well, wouldn't it be funnier? Fucking you kidnap Ed Vaughn Davidson. Right. And Bill Murray's always shit on it because he's like, you can't cast Danny Aykroyd as a Boston guy. Sure.

[01:23:40] He's like a Chicago Canadian. Yeah. He is very Chicago. He's just always like, that's the worst casting I've ever seen in my entire life. Oh, he's Canadian. Danny Aykroyd? Yeah, it's terrible. I've never seen it. Mrs. Winterborne. You know what? I'm sorry.

[01:23:53] The reason he shits on that movie, it was like an Esquire article for their comedy issue where they interviewed Bill Murray about the state of modern comedy and they were like, what do you think about the new people running comedy like Judd Apatow?

[01:24:04] Didn't he write that crappy movie where he cast, he's like his beginning and end of Judd Apatow is like I never got over the fact that that guy at the age of 27 wrote a script in which Dan Aykroyd played a Celtics fan. I don't know from Knocked Up.

[01:24:21] We're done. He's irredeemable in my eyes. Next week, Sweetie. Sweetie. Sort of her first real movie. Yeah. And Wild. Ben, you are gonna be surprised by how wild this movie is. A lot of fun. Good movie. It truly is like the only thing I can equate it to

[01:24:39] in tone is the babe movies. And it's another film about female friendship. It's got the kind of manic cartoonish, very stylized, yeah. I mean family dynamics more, but still, you know, about being chaotic in your 20s. Right. I love that. So that's next week.

[01:24:56] This has been the podcastiano. The podcastiano. And it's fun to say, and it's only become more fun to say. And then if we could just get a little bit of piano music to play us out. Oh, sure. I mean, that's on you, Ben and AJ and Alex.

[01:25:10] Oh, wait, well, I actually forget that. David, we should just mention one of the great appeals of this miniseries we're about to get into. What's that? A lot of penis coming up. I think majority. That's my, I'm not, we're gonna have to count.

[01:25:25] I think a majority of these movies have penis in them. Can I make a request? Yeah. At the end of the miniseries, can you rate the peens? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah, I know, I'm pretty sure Sweetie has a peen. So we'll see.

[01:25:37] I think most of them do. I think most of them do. Most of them got a peen. Most of them fucking do. We're gonna get more than a peak this miniseries. That's right. Power of the Dog only has a peak. But there is a peak.

[01:25:47] There is a peak. I heard, Cumberbatch was talking about giving a peak, right? A peak. A peak. Let's not fucking throw a parade over here. It's a peak, but yeah. What are we seeing, neck? Yeah, exactly. You're seeing the top third. Peak of the neck? Yeah, exactly.

[01:26:01] That's fine though. I'm excited. I feel like sometimes- Kytel's hog? I mean, I'm like, right? It's Kytel? Kytel's, yeah. You're seeing that one. You're seeing that bad boy in two separate movies. Woo, baby! I've sometimes seen people say like- He's taking it out in like four movies,

[01:26:17] but like two Campion movies. I know you were mentioning Babe before, but I'm ready to see that hog. Oink oink. What were you gonna say, Griffin? No, I've sometimes seen people in the comments go like, what's this thing where Griffin and David

[01:26:30] spend too much energy talking about male actors being hot or showing dick on screen to show that they're not- I like to see a dick. Toxically straight. No, I'm toxic. They think it's performative. We talk about this a lot when the mics are off. I'm real toxic.

[01:26:43] These are real conversations that we have. I love seeing a dick. We're like, did you see that guy's dick in the movie? This is not for show. If anything, we tone it down on mic. We do, we do. Folks, thank you all for listening

[01:26:55] to what will be our most peen-filled miniseries ever and what an auspicious start. David's doing the pizza box, kissing the fingers. Italian chef. For the podcast? Yeah, I know. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Alex Barron and AJ McCann for our editing.

[01:27:13] Hopefully they're playing some twinkly piano music underneath this. Thank you to JJ Bursch, Nick Loreano for our research, Joe Bonepadd Realms for our artwork, Lee Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song you can still listen to extremely loud and incredibly online wherever music is found.

[01:27:31] Go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where of course we are testing just how good Bustin' makes us feel over a series of months, the four Ghostbusters films. Very true. That's what we're doing. You can't stop us. You can't. You can't.

[01:27:54] You can't, we're on our own now as Bobby Brown would say. And you can go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit. Tune in next week for Sweetie. And you know I just wanna say really some nerdy shit. Check in from time to time.

[01:28:11] It gets really nerdy. Yeah, but it's cool. I love it. I like that we've created a safe space where people can freak out over like the new poster just dropped. Let's analyze this billing block. It fucking rules, it's great. Yeah. And get in on it.

[01:28:25] People are really positive and supportive. I'll say Ghostbusters Afterlife billing is fucking weird and it's very different than what's on the posters. Yeah, yeah. It's weird. Is Slimer in Slimer? Can I say this? The movie will have been out for months at this point. Oh yeah.

[01:28:43] But you haven't seen it, Dave and I have. Yeah. Slimer is fully not in it. No Slimer. One of the better decisions they made. That new blue fucker. Muncher. But you know who is in it? Fucking everyone else. Yeah, everyone else is in it.

[01:28:54] They showed restraint in not bringing Slimer back and they brought every other fucking thing back. That marshmallow fucker. Of course, right? Yeah, I knew it. Ben. Knew it. Do you know what they do? No, let's not talk about it. It's like a bag of marshmallows or something.

[01:29:09] Yeah, there's like 80 of them and they're tiny. They're little minions. I mean, I do like when things are a lot. Oh, you like multiple, right, sure. A horde. You like a horde. You hate little things. What? You hate little. There's a bunch of them together.

[01:29:24] It's a horde, it's Griffin. So it's kind of like. They never like stack up on top of each other and become a bigger thing though. That would have been fun. That would have been good. I'm almost surprised that they didn't do that either.

[01:29:33] I don't know, listen, we'll spend too much time talking about that dog shit movie we were on Patreon. Say $5, you want to hear me rag on a movie that gave me an existential crisis. And as always. Thank you. What?

[01:29:46] I said, I'm thanking you for getting back on track. And as always, you're welcome. It's nice to see the two friends. That's what we all do. Maybe we weren't first, but we did it best. Oh, you want a moment. I want a moment. You need a moment now.

[01:30:09] I want just a. But David just said hit record Joe. I know he did. My name isn't Joe. No. It's Ben. That's why I needed a moment to recalibrate. I didn't know what to call you. But. But. We don't have to include any of this. Take your time.

[01:30:23] Well, I don't know.