Blank Check with Griffin & David - Barton Fink with Chris Weitz

Episode Date: August 3, 2025

Is John Goodman the devil? Is the studio system good, actually? Is it better to be the director of a bomb than it is to be the director of a film that doesn’t exist? Filmmaker (and part of a DGA-sanctioned directing duo) Chris Weitz joins us to talk about Barton Fink, possibly the greatest film ever made about the “art vs. commerce” divide inherent to the movie business. It’s not easy to make a picture, folks. Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank check with Griffin and David Blank check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is blank check Look but, bearing a preference we're're gonna put you on a movie podcast. Blank check. I say this because they tell me you know the poetry of the street, so that would rule out Westerns, pirate podcasts, screwball, Bible rum. Look, I'm not one of those guys who thinks poetic has got to be fruity.

We're together on that, aren't we? I mean, I'm from New York myself. Well, Minsc, if you want to go all the way back, which we won't, but if you don't mind, I ain't asking. Now, these people are gonna say to you, blank check,'s a B podcast you tell them bullshit. We do not make B podcasts here at Blank check productions. Let's put stop to that rumor right now. I You didn't hit it which is fine, but I didn't hear you're reading the long. Yeah chunk here But the way he says I mean I'm from New York myself

Well Minsc if you want to go all the way back which we won't if you don't mind and I ain't asking We're like, oh, he's suddenly like, you know, he's in his own track and he's like But I don't want to talk about that even though I just brought it up that to me is the epitome of Beautiful monologuing right where it's like now this guy is in a tunnel Like he's no longer even thinking about the guy It is a thing that I feel like the Coen brothers, it is where you feel the strongest influence, even in their dramas of like,

like Preston Sturgis and like Lou Bitch and Wilder kind of stuff. Where you're like these brief moments where a character starts to hint at a whole deeper life within themselves. It is a screwball comedy going on in life, basically. Yeah, yes. It's what I like about the city is that it makes me feel unimportant in a way that I think is valuable. Oh, by the way, have you guys seen

the clock that Christian Barclay is doing? Yes, I mean, not all 24 hours of it, but I've popped in. I went there. Some fair weather friend you are. Went there. Well, they closed the museum. Yeah. And I've always wondered, like, how do you see the nighttime clock?

They will occasionally schedule a 24-hour session. Fucking amazing to think about. Or you gotta go Ben Stiller mode. Work at night at the museum. Except it's a night at MoMA, so it's like, you know, some abstract artist like going around. Yeah, exactly. I gotta say, I went with my wife Mercedes there yesterday and

And it was a redemptive. It was a redeeming experience. It was really Amazing and I recommend I think it's going on May 21st. It's leaving mama, but you're around you get a chance It's leaving mama. Well, I mean this episode's coming out in whatever it's gone time from now So your message is being received by the three of us. It'll I mean this episode's coming out in whatever. Oh, it's gone. It's a long time from now, so it'll be gone. But your message is being received by the three of us. It'll, I mean I've gone to this iteration at MoMA, but it'll return, like it travels around the world, right? Like that's sort of the thing with it. Well, look David, you say that and yet the last thing we were talking about just before we started recording. Regrets! I've had a few!

Is that you were offered a chance to moderate a Q&A with the Coen brothers when they were promoting Buster Scruggs And you were like, uh, what a schlep and now here we are and you're like as of I mean this moment still their final film together, I we keep hearing they're gonna get back together, but you just Wait, where was the schlep to? Okay, well the schlep would have been uptown like to the Upper West Side. That's not why I turned it down really Okay, it's no it's like well and it would have been really. Okay. It's, no, it's like, well, and it would have been late at night. Neither of those are the reason.

I just was like, as I was saying to Griffin, they are, and this is our first, this is our first Coen's that we're recording, but we'll have probably talked about this a little bit already, but they're notoriously the worst interviews, right? Like, so, so tough to get talking, and the whole thing with those post-screening Q&As

is you don't wanna be talking because people don't wanna hear from like, hi, the moderator. They wanna hear from these directors who are popping in, but like they're known for kind of just like not giving you anything, right? And I was saying even beyond that, that even like mumbling, like they mumble all the fucking time.

It feels like they play dumb. Like it's what's going to be fascinating about this series Is that these movies are so deep and rich as tax and yet like JJ's job seems? More difficult than ever even coming off of like some movies that were hard for him to research because there's not that much information out there I'm cracking open the Barton Fink dossier, and I'm like this thing's gonna be a hundred and fifty pages And then I read it and I'm like, oh right. There's just like every interview they gave is just like I don't know They're not on the record, right? Don't don't talk about it, but they're just really cagey about it and they kind of play dumb and go like we just did that

Because we thought it was funny. It doesn't mean anything. It's not a metaphor Right and possibly they're hostile or possibly they just don't want to talk to you about it or whatever So I was just kind of like... And like I liked Buster Scruggs, like I liked that movie a lot, and I've only actually grown to like it more. Same. But it wasn't a thing where I was like, I fucking want to dig in on Buster Scruggs with these guys so bad. And I just was like, what if I have like a really disappointing experience, right?

You know, like a truly like, they don't like me or I do a bad job and then I have like a really disappointing experience, right? You know, like a truly like they don't like me or I do a bad job and then I'm like, what if I... You might've taken the blame for they're not saying much. Right, exactly. Because people, I remember doing it. It felt a little no win. Like the win, the opportunity for a true win of like, wow, I had a really meaningful half hour

with the Cohn brothers felt, it felt like a slim ass win. People might've blamed them splitting up on you. Just being like, look, there's not a definite one-to-one, but Sims moderated a Q and A and now they're apparently going separate ways. Well, you can't write that, that's the other thing, right? I broke them up. They were like, you know, we can't deal with this anymore.

Shit like this. The Clock, by the way, is a 24 hour movie, because I feel like I just referred to it without saying what it was, is a 24 hour movie, which is assembled just from references to time or actual shots of clocks within world cinema. And it is absolutely compelling. Like you want, you think you're gonna sit there

for like 15 minutes and you end up thinking like, I could go for 24 hours. It's just unbelievable to think even how someone would curate and find all the footage. Cause the way it lines up even to the minute, it's crazy. And it's a thing too, where as you're sitting through, you'll like check and it will line up. It's the time in which you are watching it.

Yeah, that is also the amazing thing. And even like with modern like internet databases and such, it doesn't feel like you can just Google like movie that features 6.13 AM. Nope. No. You know, like you can just Google like movie that features 613 a.m. No, you know like that's just like manual like grunt work in terms of like scrubbing Thousands of films to probably pull up all those numbers. Yeah friend of the show Caroline Framke went recently has some future guests Yes, and She went in the morning. I think they had like an early moment did like an early morning thing

so it was like 9 a.m. And she says like, it's all alarm clocks and shit. Like when you're, like it's like so much wake up stuff. See that sounds triggering to me. Right, and she's like, it's a little overwhelming, but also kind of intense. I was so annoyed, I wanted to go at 420

and it just didn't work out. Hell yeah brother. But I felt like that footage would have been pretty dank. Look at what is this? All the French doobie movies. The French doobie movies. The French Cheech and Chomp. Equivalent.

Jacques Aigean. Jacques Aigean. Jacques Aigean. Foumei. Folks, who are we? Where are we? What is this? What are we doing?

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. Uh, Fulme. Uh, folks, who are we, where are we, what is this, what are we doing? This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. He was prating himself for so long. I was looking at the moment. I was kind of like, now you were making me think. He's off his fastball now. Should I, one last sweep into the clock? And like, what time should I? I was just sort of thinking about it. I gotta do it. Look, this is a podcast about filmography

Not 24-hour movies about clocks, but perhaps someday Maybe that's a series Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects They want sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby This is a mini series on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen We are calling it pod country for old cast We sure are we sure there was a little bit of debate right before we recorded But we've settled on that and today we were talking Barton Fink which is

bizarrely their first guarantee It didn't wait did it win did it win the one the pump tour I'm putting this forward as a thought because they go from this to Joel silver saying I'm gonna bring you into Warner Brothers and give you a big budget and major movie stars And try to get you to level up and to some degree I think that was Joel silver having the aspirations of wanting to make a Higher class picture and viewing them as a vehicle to that

I mean they must have felt like they were living in a simulation totally but you're like this is a thing that Absolutely does not happen anymore, which is like a prestige Guaranter this movie loses money in theaters. It does not translate to the number of Oscar nominations as like Its critical reception would belie or its can reception or anything it does. Okay, right? But this movie it's so undeniable. I wouldn't say this movie did okay. It didn't really make much money. No it lost money, right? Yeah, it didn't it didn't have the like the mommy dearest effect right where it's like quietly They were blackballed from no, you don think Raising Arizona was their first guarantor? I think Raising Arizona was their first guarantor.

But Raising Arizona's not as much of a hit as you think it is. No, it's not. We'll have talked about it. I mean, it's not... I mean, that would be pretty good considering, you know, its stature. And I feel like Miller's Crossing is a bit of a first blank check. You know, like getting to do a sort of a costume thing. A little bit.

I mean, look, their career is interesting because it has a lot of like alternation between like missteps and hits that then get them the next one and then they have to recover and like make comebacks from like the swinging public reception to their films at the time. Now almost all of them veiged well, but it's going to be interesting to go back through these and see which ones were not well received at the time. I just think like this film has such an insane critical reception. Sure. And the Cannes thing that is historic.

The Cannes thing is a big deal. Right. To the extent that Cannes has to change its rules. To a degree where it's like these guys are such... I didn't know that. Cannes changed it so you can only give two awards to one movie. This film won Best Picture, Best Director, and best actor at Cannes. And it won picture unanimously.

Yes. And they, I mean, it sort of makes sense. Like they kind of were like, don't give the Palme d'Or and best director to the same thing. Why not spread the wealth? Which has become the thing to do at Cannes. The following year they apply the rule, the Barton Fink rule basically of one movie can only get two awards. Right, got it. Yeah.

And then they give the Palme d'Or to the best intentions from the worst Palme winners of all time. But anyway, that's not important. It just translates into Joel Solver swinging in and giving them the biggest budget they will have until True Grit? Hudsucker is their biggest budget. So it's 25 mil. Big Lebowski costs less. Yeah. That's one where I was kind of like, cause that might be sort of,

and Lebowski is kind of- O'Brother costs 26. Now with inflation, but you know, like it's like, they become these guys, kind of pretty much post this, but you know, maybe even starting a little bit with Mose Crossing where it's like, they can get a pretty good budget yes for a an elaborate ish movie like a period film or something like that they work pretty responsibly because they're really really well known for going like working on time and under budget and the other thing is they get an all-star cast of people who will work for below their

quote like it's just they always can get a sort of like actors a Cast that makes sense for foreign financing but I Very often I think in their career you have this like these duo relationships between movies of like far goes the guarantor for big Lebowski which then bounces so then they need to make a comeback from Lebowski, you know like this constant back and forth It's interesting how much that it like the big Lebowski's bouncing just doesn't matter anymore, right? It doesn't matter. Yeah, but it was a thing at the time It was seen as like it was a thing

It was just took these guys seriously and now they're fucking off right and making like a joke movie, right? They had just won their first Oscar and it was like we've anointed you guys and then what the fuck is this? Right. I'm kind of interested in like what your guys perception is of where they stand in the kind of the pantheon because to me I like they're the greatest living filmmakers because because of their sheer range you can argue about any yeah number of other things I'm kind of inclined to agree with you I I I do not dislike a one of their films and I don't know who else I can say that for who has made this many films Or even close to this many films certainly living today, let alone in history I also will say our guest today is Chris White's here. He is

Hello a renowned director and writer producer in his own rights renowned Previously and now once again Part of a brother team of filmmaking. Yes, we're back together me and my brother Paul but uh You've been Oscar nominated. Yes, that's true. You've had your hits. You had to take that away from me I've had I've been pretty bouncy. Actually, this is why Late I've been bouncing And actually that's part of why the Barton think of it all really appeal to me because today Tigger mode. Late I've been bouncing. You've been tickering a little bit. His ticker. Yeah.

And actually that's part of why the Barton Fink of it all really appealed to me because today, first of all, I'm back. You're back. Three years, three years away. Sorry. Three years in the desert. Four.

That's what's crazy. Three. Four. Are you sure about this? Yes. I looked it up just now. He was last on our show for Darkman in April 2022. Okay.

And it is now, it's April 2025. When we're recording this. But it will be about three and a half years between releases, yeah? Yeah, I was heading towards what I like to call the Yoshida line, where it's like 10 episodes. Yeah. And then I kind of fell off the face of the earth.

And I don't think it's, it's not you guys. It's like... You know, someone on the Reddit called it out and said, how has it been three years since Whites was on the podcast last? And I think we texted you and we're like, that doesn't sound right. Yeah. Like once we checked it, we were like, fuck, it has been three years. You have not been on since we recorded in Ben's living room.

That's right. In the living room area. It was very post, just post pandemic. Yes, just post. Like I remember I took a COVID test on the way there. Yeah, absolutely. Out of, you know, common courtesy back then. Yes.

But it definitely, it did not feel like that much time had elapsed. We still talk to you fairly. Oh, no, listen, I hear you guys all the time. Right, and you've done us some mitzvahs, you've submitted a question for our like, live mailbag and stuff. I think the question was, why are you guys so great? Well, it was very sweet. But here's the bigger thing.

It feels like you have been in a sort of a real kind of... A Barton Funk. A Barton Funk. Yeah. you have been in a sort of a real kind of... A Barton Funk. A Barton Funk. And you have sent a lot of like Dark Knight of the Soul texts to David Nye, not to be alarmist, but a real like, what is the point of doing this, pursuing this kind of career, this industry?

What is my life amounting to? Where David and I late at night are like, Chris, you're good. We had to get him back. You're good, Chris. So yeah, but this is like, I've been thinking about this episode for weeks, if not months of like, I'm gonna go there in terms of like inside baseball. And also I'm telling you guys to stop me

when it gets like two up my own. Never. But in terms of like, you know, this is sort of what's happening in my career and these are my reflections on it, my somewhat acid reflections on working in a studio sort of world, basically. But here's what I think is interesting,

important for the listeners to know. Maybe a little under a year ago, when your last movie, Afraid, Afraid. Afraid. Afraid. Afraid, which is originally called They Listen, correct? Even before that, actually the real name of this movie was Home, and we couldn't use it. And then it went through a number of-

You couldn't use it because there have been a lot of other movies called Home. Yeah, I think that's why. Yeah, sure. And then it got changed by various marketing departments and the studio to things where I was like, oh, fine, whatever. Well, sorry, you were saying.

I was saying that movie came out, we'll get more into it, but you had a long exhausting journey with that movie that really came out the other end of it being like, what am I even doing here? Came out the other end like the rectum of the studio system. A couple weeks after it was not really released, but escaped into theaters, you text us and we're like,

guys, I think it's time for me to come back on the podcast. And most specifically, the insight I want to provide is I am now someone who has made a movie that doesn't exist. Yes. And I would like to do a movie that doesn't exist that you guys are covering and talk about the road paved with good intentions that lead to these sort of weird non movies

Yeah, and then actually and then I start to think well, okay. What is the taxonomy of flop bomb movie that doesn't exist? Mm-hmm because our is afraid is not a bomb or whatever. It's more no offense No, it needs to be big enough to be a bomb. That's a little movie noticeable like hence bomb But I feel like a movie needs to have existed for you. It's a little movie that doesn't exist. Bombs are noticeable, like, hence bomb. But I feel like a movie needs to have existed for you to think that it doesn't exist. I disagree with that. Here's why I think it passes the movie that doesn't exist test.

Because if you say to someone, hey, do you remember Afraid? The John Cho, Catherine Waterston, Chris White's directed Blumhouse AI horror film? They go like, when's that coming out? Oh, Friends of Mine. Right. Would ask me. That's the movie that doesn't exist test, which is if you describe it to someone, they'd go, I would remember if that came out.

It's a Mandela effect kind of thing. Right. You're describing elements that would have made some impact. That's the movie that doesn't exist effect. So we were like, okay Let's keep our eyes open for the next right movie that doesn't exist Yeah, you're texting us during March Madness about who you're excited about, you know potential ideas What are the movies that don't exist in those filmographies then the Coen's win and David and I just immediately go We got to have Chris do Barton think yes

I know it's the opposite of what he said he wanted to do But it is kind of the movie about How movies that don't exist come into being in a certain way? Yeah, I mean, it's a very it's it's like maybe their most Estringent film right there is there is less joy in this movie Although there is like there's virtuosity, but I'd say like then so many other of their films I think this is one of the most sickly looking films I have ever seen. It is like disgusting to look at and it is the first Deakins movie. He's perhaps the greatest living cinematographer and this is the beginning of his like miracle run with them.

And yet the success of the lensing of this movie is that it makes me want to vomit at all times. And that look is a reflection of like the soul of the characters and the tone and the sound design. And yet, getting back to our original point, when you asked the Coen brothers about it, they were like, we've actually had like a really lucky run in Hollywood.

None of this is like based on our own experiences. We just thought this was like a funny structure to make jokes. That is the interesting thing, which that wasn't based on the experiment of being dicked over by the studio because they hadn't really they Hadn't become studio creatures. No, did they ever really they're like they're there. Oh, not really

I mean back to our point They sort of have always figured out the exact right size to stay at Where their movies seem like a bargain for the people writing the checks and they're like if you can keep it there and you can Put these ten actors in it then like yeah, do whatever you want. Yeah. It was more fun... I'm sorry, it was more... Not fun, it was more making fun of the classic art versus commerce... Yes. ...you know, sort of struggle of the golden age of Hollywood.

I feel like this movie is more than anything them reckoning with their own internal battle in their minds of who they want to be as filmmakers as their reputation is starting to get built. The you know, it is the writer's block movie like there's it's about other things too. But like no bet no movie better like tackles the experience of not being able to write a quote that blew my mind in the dossier that JJ pulled up is they were like, we have never, we have no unproduced screenplays in our drawer. Like at this point in time, now they do, and they have over time let other people direct

unproduced screenplays of theirs eventually. But they were like, at this point in time, everything we've written has gotten made. We have not gone through this wringer, we have not done writing for assignment. Yeah, it's wild. I feel like there's some original point I was gonna make when I... Barton Fink! ...said you're an esteemed filmmaker and I'll get back to it.

Chris Weitz is an esteemed filmmaker. He's an esteemed filmmaker. We have to admit it. He has worked in Hollywood for... 25 years? What are we talking about here? Like, I guess, was Ants your first Hollywood experience? That was the first credited screenplay, but my brother and I have been working for seven years before that. So I found out that I got my first gig on my 21st birthday.

So as long as I have been able to drink legally, I have been within the system. Did you have celebratory drinks that night? That night and every night. Well, interestingly, what it did probably was contribute to the sense that I had early in my career that I was a golden child, right? Like, oh, here's your birthday present. You get to be in this industry. And so I'm gonna start, begin the career story. So get to be in this industry. Yeah. And, you know, so I'm going to start, begin the career story.

Like, so, so get to work on... Give us that Chris White's feeling. ... on Antz before Woody Allen is canceled. So that was kind of a big deal. People love that. But hey, look, I say it all the time. Fantastic screenplay. Thanks, man.

Antz is very well written. People really like that. And then, so we had the studio meeting at Universal and there's this this movie that was eventually going to become American Pie. We didn't have any director experience, my brother and I, and they offered it us to direct. And like I didn't know anything. I'd never been to prom. Like David, I grew up in England, right? I went to to sixth form there. They didn't have prom. And I was like, I don't really like teen sex comedies, but I was like, okay, let's do this. Let's try to make it kind of interesting. It was like... No response from David for any of this. We just have to call his ass out.

It's retired. It's retired. Astounding. It, you know, it was this kind of unlikely hit, incredibly profitable. And I was like... The concept of franchise. There had not, like there's no... incredibly profitable and I was like there had not like there's no Is there anything in the water when American Pie is a big hit where it's like? Oh, we didn't see the teen sex comedy revival coming. You know what I mean? There was like because it was scream. It's like us lashes. Yeah, can I throw out my because like my take on it? She's all that's 98. I feel like that sort of gets credit for being like the start of the new wave of our teen movies back Right 98 is also something about Mary. Yeah, there you go Right, and that's like the saucy comedy American pie is sort of you guys synthesizing those two things together

Yeah, which kind of a mistake right? Yeah I mean they had both started the year before and you're at the right place at the right time to have the movie to capitalize on both things that were coming back. Yeah, in retrospect, it was just happenstance. But like that, you know, and it was like, okay, and then we were offered every single teen sex comedy for like a year.

Like I never want to do this again. Right, yeah. Yeah, I was like, this wasn't my thing, man. You don't do the sequels, right? Yeah I I I had never really seen many teen sex comedy Obviously the required like viewing if you're my age of like porkies and whatever blah blah blah But so then we're like, oh we got to not do this We got to do something different my brother and I so we did a movie with Chris Rock

And then down to earth the second one down to earth and like beyond that you remake heaven can wait You make heaven yeah. Yeah, we're calling it a Chris Rock movies Wait, Down to Earth is the second one? Down to Earth and then... Beyond that, you remake Heaven Can Wait. You remake Heaven Can Wait. Yeah. Yeah. Calling it a Chris Rock movie is like, underselling. That's like a, that's a big swing. It was a big swing. I, at the moment, you know what?

I thought I had a fantastic time working with Chris Rock and a good time working on that movie. I was like, I don't know that that's like exactly what I was wanting to do either. But then finally, like, About A Boy. So it does make sense as a sort of like, a fairly large scale comedy. Like it's a level up from American Pie,

but it's not like you're like, hey, can I make a movie with space aliens? Like it's really, they're like, we can trust you to make a comedy like that. It's a different tone. And Chris Rock was in that state where people were like, can anyone crack how to make him a movie star? Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, and it was like, I can remember how to make him a movie star? Right. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean, and it was like, I can remember, this is like a very Barton Fink moment, like our agent saying, this is a go picture, right? Yeah, right. And I was like, I don't know, okay. I like that film quite a bit as well. You also made it fast, I feel like. We did.

We were like, it also was younger then, so you don't think like, oh, this is gonna take up years of my life. Is that 2000? It's early 2000, it's Valentine's Day 2001. So, you know, like 18 oh, this is gonna take up years of my life. Is that 2000? It's early 2000s, Valentine's Day 2001. So, you know, like 18 months later or whatever. Then About a Boy, which is like, was like the sweet spot for me and Paul. We go away to London and we make this movie and nominated for an Oscar.

It's like, oh, great. This is like, okay, this is me from now. And not to smoke up your ass, but I truly think a perfect movie. Like a movie where everything is right. One of my ultimate comfort movies, I said this to you, but like day two of lockdown, I was like, what should I watch? That's good. And I like jumped to About a Boy immediately. I was just like, this is what I need to calm me down. That makes me very happy. I was just like, this is what I need to calm me down. That makes me very happy. I'm glad.

Yeah, and that was like, okay, here we go. This is, you know, I'm just gonna keep on, you know, getting nominated for Oscars until I win one and then, you know, we're gonna. To you guys at that point in time, you must have been like, we've cracked it. This is what we want to be as filmmakers. This is the tone, this is the final product,

this is how we want to be seen and received. Yep. Yeah, okay. And then I read, while we're shooting About A Boy, I read the Golden Compass, in English it's called Northern Lights, and I was like, oh, this is fantastic, I love this book, I love this author, I wanna live in this book for a while.

And so I get the gig of doing Golden Compass. First writing or no, it was like you were gonna direct then you left and then you were turning. It was to direct and then I dropped out because I really got the willies. I was like, holy shit, this is gonna be a huge movie and I'm not sure that I can handle the entire logistical load of this.

And so I don't know. I think a lot about a thing you said to me previously which was the best decision I ever made in my life was quitting the Golden Compass as director and the worst decision I ever made was deciding to go back. Kind of because, yeah, because look, it was a huge movie. It was the most expensive movie that had ever been made at the time. We had to work to get it down to a $190 million budget.

So I'm going for like... Yeah. And so like, I mean, so there was this gigantic kind of CGI element, huge production design element. And are you basically like prepping that? I mean, working developing that while you're making In Good Company? No, my brother was making In Good Company. So we kind of we went our separate ways because... So about a boy's the last one. About a boy's a Chris one. I'm sorry, I forgot that. We kind of, we went our separate ways because Paul- So about a boy's the last one until- About a boy's the last one.

Did you just kind of consciously go like, I wanna do this, I wanna do this, these are very different things, we're gonna do different things? Yeah, we were sort of presented with the possibility that one of us would have to force the other not to do the thing that they wanna do, and we're like, we don't wanna do that.

Now, this read Cohen's, and then we can return to your career. Of course, no, let's go back to Cohen. American Pie is directed by, credited don't want to do that. Now, this read Cohen's and then we can return to your career. Of course, no, let's go. American Pie is directed by, credited as being directed by Paul White. You are a producer on it. Down to Earth is credited to both of you, right? Yeah, so did you get DJ approval as a team at that point?

Yes. Famously the Coens do not get that until I think the Lady Killers. It's like somewhere in the mid 2000s, the DGA is finally like, we acknowledge that you are essentially a two-headed director. Right, they didn't like to grant that to anybody.

They still don't. I think the Coens helped break it down a little bit. There are brother, it's usually sibling teams. That's the thing. There's the occasional like Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Farris. I was gonna say, married couple is the other way.

Right. Like it's easier, I think. Is'm a boat and Ryan Fleck they're married They're not weren't they a couple they were a couple right now both married to other people They haven't been together romantically in over a decade, but they are obviously do there's the um the American Splendor team a pulchini Yes, Bergman, but this is right I think part of it is if you are bonded by blood or by law, it is easier to make your case to the DGA because they're like, well, you have a bond that is established in another realm.

Yeah. Well, you literally need to make your case. You go into a conference room and there is a council of elders sitting there and you have to explain to them why you should be a team and they ask you questions trying to poke a hole in your argument. And I remember one of them... Why do they like in a way you're splitting money. I've thought about this a lot.

Okay, it's because eventually it's because of the auteur theory. It is because of the DGA sort of position, which I appreciate, of course, because it's my union of like, you know, this is a very special role and the film is made by the director. You cannot split it up into various parts so that you don't have some like producer. Right, everyone will be trying to get a director credit. But it's quasi-religious because it leads you into situations

where things obviously don't really make sense. Yes. So like my brother and I can't be a director team again officially but you cannot we cannot divorce they said when I remember and I had forgotten this is in 20 Jedi Council shit to us right before we start recording I was like pin this save this cuz you're you have your show has just come out on Apple Plus at the time this episode's come out murder bot which is the first thing you guys have fully worked on together since About A Boy.

Exactly. Although you've produced things together and helped each other, this is like... This is... You couldn't get fucking credited for directing the episodes together. No, because apparently 20 years ago when we got the license to do it... About A Boy also directed by the pair of you. That's right, yeah. They said, would you ever split up again if you found things that you were interested in doing

separately, and we said, of course not. Because I don't know, the time didn't make sense, but they've held us to that. Why? We have, yeah, we have been cast out of the garden as a team. What a lot of teams do if they can't get the guild recognition is what the Coen's did for years, which is like, how do we divide and conquer?

And it's like, we co-wrote the screenplay, one of us is credit as producer, one of us is credit as director, we edit under a pseudonym, right? And like try to create a sort of like weird, how do we even out the positions and the power? A conceptual like intermeshing so that everyone really understands what's happening. Right. But then it's always the thing of just like, well they obviously just do the whole thing together, right? They're called the Coen brothers. Everyone refers to them that way. They don't talk about like Joel Coen. And even so it took 15 plus years, almost 20, for the DJ to finally go like, okay. Because does Joel get a solo director nom for Fargo?

Yes, absolutely. Right, which is so weird to consider. Yeah, I don't know, totally. And then obviously, if they had one best picture, that would have been Ethan's. Correct, if one best picture. No, Fargo is not, because Fargo's the only time this comes up, because the next time they get a best pick nom

Is for no country for old men, but yes like Nominated best picture right Ethan Cohen nominated best director Joel Cohen right? That's you know that's the no country year they they are united they share three Oscar wins together Correct the movie wins picture director screenplay and both of them have credits in both positions But that's right once again, as you said, a thing that had only finally happened. I think it's one movie before that they'd finally gotten the... So that's interesting, but now if you do work together again,

you're saying you will have to do a sort of like, technical year with the director of the series. Well, you did, right? We have to split it up. And by the way, I think, I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this, but I think DGA doesn't say that like, there are certain things on the set that only a director can do. And my God, maybe there are shit. Maybe't get in trouble for saying this, but I think DGA doesn't say that like, there are certain things on the set

that only a director can do. And my God, maybe there are shit. Maybe I'm in trouble. But like they don't really care if a producer talks to an actor, or if they act like a director per se. Well, there's also the other thing of like, there are things that a director can't do.

Well, this is the myth is that they can't talk to extras. And I'm not sure that that is actually true. But the myth is that they can't talk to extras. And I'm not sure that that is actually true. Because first ADs almost always end up directing background actors. And I had always assumed that was because of some weird guild guideline. This may be true. In Canada, that is not the case.

Maybe it is in America. And I think that there was like something where like if the director talks to an extra, they become... First of all, they get bumped up instantly and they're like... Oh, you can't talk to them because... Oh, sure, sure. The second the director is shaping their performance versus like the first AD talking to a crowd. Yes. Yes. And the moment that an extra says a word

that can actually be distinguished also, which, you know, the game is always that extras are occasionally trying to say things or to elicit a line. Yes. Because then I think you get into sort of sag stuff. Right, then you can, right, you become eligible. Right, so ADs are always saying like,

you know, you can sort of say the kind of thing that a crowd says like, you know, you can sort of say the kind of thing that a crowd says like, they can't say words that people would actually say. Right. Nothing can be like distinct enough to make out. Yeah. Okay, wait. So Golden Compass. Golden Compass. Okay. I, people just want to hear about the Cone Brothers and I'm sorry, but I'm just going to go there. Like, so, so, okay. I now have a theory that there was an original sin on the Golden Compass, which is that I knew that the stuff about the Catholic Church was going to be too toxic for New Line to want to deal with. And they told me that and I was like,

it's going to be fine, no problem. And then I sort of sneakily infused my cut and my film with all these things. And then in post-production, everything went totally wrong where they freaked out about this whole thing. Wanted to change the ending, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was eventually kicked out of the editing room. But, and I would like to say like, it's the typical thing of being hard done by a studio,

but I should have known better. And when I think about my latest movie too, I think there's an original sin there as well. But by the way, I want to say before I complain about studios, I love Blumhouse and I love all the people there. They're fantastic. They're great. So none of the things I say actually apply to these guys. They're the producers on this. But the people who screwed you on Golden Compass no longer exist. I mean, the people exist, but New Line, the entity that you dealt with yeah and

I basically The trailer for that movie i remember so distinctly is the ring from the lord of the rings Yeah, rotating in slow motion and then turning into a golden compass that was that was like an early promoting. Are you kidding me? No, but wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, sorry. That was my fault. Really? That was my fault. I was kind of, at the time,

like things were really stressful with the studio and I was like, fuck it, I know what they want. In 2001, New Life Cinema opened the door. Yeah. And you see a ring, yeah, wow. Yeah. I mean, to Middle Earth. I mean, it's a little I'm just gonna say it's a little on the nose. It is totally trucking. And I

think it was at a moment where I was like back on my heels. They were there like, how do I win back favor? Yeah, right. Making them feel I'm a team player. Yeah. But then that also, of course, like fucks you and putting even more pressure on the movie where now like, you're saying the quiet part out loud. That was always the design of this movie is the Lord of the Rings trilogy has ended. We don't have the rights to the hobbit. How do we find our next Lord of the Rings? And now you're like telling them to market the movie like we promise you this is the new Lord of the Rings. The pressure was always going to be there because they spent so much money.

You didn't create that narrative, but now you're underlining it and delivering Lord of the Rings. The pressure was always gonna be there because they spent so much money. No, no, you didn't create that narrative, but now you're underlining it and delivering it to the public. No, this is like, so a big movie like that where everyone is freaking out constantly messes with your head, and so you end up like kind of going slightly punch drunk and doing crazy things. Yeah, no, I get it.

I'm also like, I mean to your point of the original sin thing, right? Like, you're in this sort of catch-22 where it's like, okay, they go, we'll give you a green light butt. Yeah. And the condition they throw out to you is like anathema to successfully adapting this thing. Yeah. So you're like, what's your choice here? Yeah, do what they want and then you're making what? Fundamentally is a broken version of the movie in your eyes and that's correct. It would be broken Well, or you try to smuggle it in and get it past them But of course they then have the right to go you fucking tricked us and angry about it. Yeah Look, I mean the whole thing with the northern the Northern Lights of the Book is that it's plainly in

the text and it's less in the first book, right? Like the church stuff is way less in the first book. You have to sow the seeds. By the third book, they are truly, literally, spoiled little lutes for his dark material, killing God like they kill him. It's hard to soft pedal that one. But so by that point I think the whole trilogy had come out, you know, the books had all been... So it's like we know where that

Alethiometer is pointing. The whole pressure is you need to be able to make the sequels to this. We want this to complete the book series So you're gonna have to get there. Yeah. Here's a question for you. Mm-hmm so Getting to the moment of About a Boy where it's like, this is it, this is the movie that represents what I'd like to be as a writer-director, how I'd like to be seen in the industry. That's my question.

You had not made a film like Golden Compass, to some degree, is New Line like, oh, we want that Chris White's feeling. Is there an X factor you can bring to this, much like Jackson not seeming like the obvious choice to do Lord of the Rings at that time. Like is there a sensitivity is there emotionality? Yeah. Was there a thing they were quantifying or that you were trying to weaponize as like, here's my feelings. I think I had a

Barton Finkie feel, but there was a Barton Fink feeling at the time. Definitely like you there you definitely have pixie dust, right? Right. You made about a boy, right? Made about a boy and also like, oh, you made this like small movie or he and his brother made a small movie that made like 10 times as much as its budget. Like, let's do it. I feel like you also told me, I think it was maybe when you very briefly appeared on one of the interminable George Lucas, uh, pandemic live streams. And Connor and I only wanted to ask you questions about the clumps. Which I've never been on the, on the George Lucas. You have, it was really brief.

It was like early lockdown and we were raising money for charity and watching all the star wars movies. And we had you zoom in during rogue one. And then I think like five minutes into you being on something happened with one of your kids not too dramatic but you were like I'm so sorry I have to go and Connor for years was like did I piss him off? Because we had you zoom in while we're watching Rogue One and then we were like the funny bit is let's only ask him questions about Nutty Professor 2 The Plumps.

Which you are credited as right or wrong., you're on with various other people. There was a great moment at a Q&A, because you go on these Q&As when you get nominated for the Oscar, and people ask you questions, and they list your credits, and it's like, also nominated is blah, blah, blah, Chris Weitz, this and that, and Nutty Professor to the Clumps, and I was like, oh, God.

Connor and I were very united on this bit. And then you were like, gentlemen, I'm so sorry, but I do have to go right now. Connor was like, he's irate. And I was like, I really don't think that's Chris's vibe. But you said to us- Right, it seems like it'd be hard to really piss you off. We were like, how did you end up being a credited writer

on the clumps? And you said something to the effect of, at that point in time, my brother and I had a reputation for like we could take comedies and put a little more genuine feeling in them that without being saccharine that that was the whites feeling was a core of a sweetness and emotion that feels earned in theory that is that is what I still can do. I still have a heart. It's in there somewhere, folks. If you pay enough, you get it. So there's an original sin on my last movie, Affra-Aid, which is like, this movie was a paranoid thriller, like the Parallax View,

and the studio, which shall remain nameless wanted it to be a horror movie so much that there's a number of decisions that that you know get sort of jumpy or and a little more like more because the film which I've seen has anyone else seen a foray no it's um Griffey I I admittedly have not out of respect to the fact that I know listen I final film that was released was not reflected I am very ambivalent as to whether I whether I want people to see it or not They would like a long kind of pamphlet for me about like what I look watch it

But I haven't seen it for that exact reason I watched you had relayed that ambivalence to I watched it knowing that you had had a bit of a tough time making it, but not really knowing any detail at all and Right as it started. I was like, Oh, I can see what Chris is. I can see Chris here right away in the family and in how the movie is kicking off and stuff. But then, yes, it does have that sort of the first purge movie, not the movie, the first purge, but the, uh, the purge, the first of the purge movies where they're like, let's do our concept as a home invasion movie because that's

cheap and that's like a way to sort of suggest something bigger but still have like the sort of reliable horror of a home invasion movie. Yeah. We can, we can cut this out if I'm saying anything that I shouldn't say. No, let's go. I remember getting lunch with you. I was visiting LA and it was maybe only a month or two after you had wrapped the movie

and Megan had just come out, Mithregan. Mithregan, of course. And they had announced that your movie was being pushed back a year. And I was like, what's going on with this? How do you feel about this? And it was just sort of like, I'm told it's a good thing. They want more time. They might want to try some things, but there was already this sense of like, is

Mithregan being a hit, creating some expectation of what this movie needs to be or not be in relation to that Yeah, and I also remember you just talking about how pleasant a time you had in the initial production of the film Yep And being like I have been so burned out on the industry at frustrating heartbroken by these different things The idea of finding like a very personal story me telling an emotional movie about The way I feel about my family and keeping children safe, you know in a world that's a little bit terrifying. Yeah, and I can Disguise it in just enough horror movie trappings to get it through in a low-budget way Unencumbered and then like a year and a half later

Everything had gone upside down. Right. But you were sort of like, I think I've cracked the code. If it's this small, I have two marketable elements. It's this and that. The stakes are low enough that maybe they let me make my thing my way and get it out there. See, I thought I was clever. I thought I was smarter than the system.

But it is a playback that has been working. That has been like the most consistent way to get kind of emotionally Out there I think it really helps if you if you love the the kind of product that they want in the end as opposed To thinking I'm going to sort of sugar it with sugar this pill and like so the movie Started when like I was talking to my friend, Hani Abu Asad, wonderful filmmaker, and he was like, I was like, I don't know what to do next. And he was like, well, what's on your mind right now? As I talk to you right now, and I was like, well,

I guess you know that my kids are spending time on the screen and I worry because you can sort of try to take care of them as much as you like, but our home is next door to the internet, which is a really, really bad neighborhood no matter what. There's no way to protect people. And that's what the whole movie about is like, you cannot protect your children from, from the world.

Um, and then, you know, it becomes like a movie about a killer, uh, AI. And by, by the way, the year in which it was delayed, uh, um, it was, was, um, a year for AI to develop to such a shocking extent sure anything timely that it had to say about AI Was like already like yeah, we know but like you're not getting Hired to develop a Walter Berry AI thriller. You're looking in the mirror. You're talking to your friend You're gonna take this computer down right? Like it was once a breeze a real guy Ben like Walter Berry was like a classic burly 30s star B picture kind of stuff probably exactly what

Wallsbury yeah, yes, I'm sorry Wallsbury Walle Berry Yeah, I just it might sound like an unimportant distinction Oh, wow look at that guy, but the difference between between you getting hired to make an AI thriller and then going, what's the personal story I can smuggle inside of this versus going, what am I feeling right now and what is the way I can dramatize that into an idea that is sellable? Yeah.

It's a big difference. As it goes through the process of the way that studios put out movies, it just gets twisted along the way. And this is like no shit, but like, you go to like marketing screenings and one of the first questions they will ask of an audience is, was there anything

that you found confusing? Yeah. Right. And of course that is priming the pump because the moment like an audience actually has a right to be confused and to not feel as though everything is resolved and explained but but like Inherent to the system when this much money is spent is like a sort of deracinating of the original intent I have gone to

like friends and family screenings the roughest cuts right of folks just being like I just before we have to go to like Blind test screening sure I want I want someone to sort of, I want like 15 people who also work in the industry or friends of mine or whatever, cold audiences, but a warm audience, you know, at the same time. And the lights will come up and I've seen people make this mistake several times where they go like, so what do you guys think? Anything like jump out to you immediately that you bumped on or that you have questions about? Bumped on, yeah.

And people are sort of like, no, basically, this or that, or they might call out one thing of like, I missed that line or whatever it is. The second leading question is thrown out. The filmmaker expresses their anxiety about something they weren't sure would work. Go, hey, was anyone confused by this thing? Then suddenly every single person in the room goes,

now that you mentioned, I do actually think. You're fucked. And then starts offering their notes on what it should be instead. Yep, yep, you're totally created that way. You can't ask people that. No. So, Barton Fink then, his,

I think it's Barton Fink. It's in a way. The fourth Coen Brothers movie. It looks at the studio, right, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, like arrogant, he's unpleasant. So this is my favorite Coen Brothers film. Interesting. I think kind of without a doubt. I noticed for many. Sure. I love a lot of the great Coen Brothers movies, like Fargo and Serious Man and like, you know,

Raising Arizona and whatever, oh, No Country, you know, all the whatever. Sure. And you could kind of talk me into a lot of Coen Brothers movies and ranking movies is a little silly anyway, but this movie profoundly affected me when I saw it when I was like 19, I wanna say. Like I was in college and I was sort of,

I think like, well I've loved the Coen Brothers since I discovered them as a teenager, but like now it's time for me to watch every Coen Brothers movie I've never seen. Yeah. And I've only probably seen this movie like four or five times because Barton Fink is not a movie you're just all the time like, you know, hey, Barton Fink's on cable, right?

You know. It's like the Simpsons. Barton Fink! We have to, of course, acknowledge that moment in The Simpsons, which is amazing. That entire run of like the stealth runner of Simpsons jokes that are the kids getting excited in the wrong direction The entire run of like the stealth runner of Simpson's jokes that are the kids getting excited in the wrong direction for 90s art house movies.

Always funny. The naked lunch, I can think of two problems I have with that title. Very funny. I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda, it's a slightly different version of it. But anyway, I watched this movie a couple days ago to prepare for this podcast and I was like, I don't think I've seen Barton Think in years.

I put it on and I was like, I could close my eyes right now and I'd be fine. Like I know this movie so well. It is so impressed on me. It is one of the most influential movies for me in terms of just like mood and tone and the way its story works. I don't know how to describe this. It's also an incredible film analysis movie. Like it is a movie that is basically,

it isn't consciously designed to be studied, but it's like a fucking playground. If you're someone who has a mind where you wanna fucking break apart movies and try to figure out how to read them, you know, and like even, this was my second time watching it. I watched it last night.

I saw it probably around the same age as you, David. Sure, sure, sure, sure. There was, I guess 2008, 2009, MoMA did a comprehensive Cohen retrospective of all the movies. They made up until that point. And Barton Fink and Hudsucker were maybe my only two blind spots at that point they were playing on the same day I saw

Hudsucker in the morning where I got lunch at MoMA and then I saw Barton Fink. Hudsucker is my favorite Coen brothers movie that has to do so much with just my taste and my sensibilities I do not think it is one of their five best films it is a movie I've watched endlessly and it means so much to me. And I was just like, holy shit, that's Hudsucker? That's the one that people don't like? Obviously, I know and we'll talk about how dearly you love Hudsucker, which I also dearly love. But Hudsucker has your manic... It's my vibe.

Have you seen Hudsucker? Yes. When you... I mean, like, it's got Griffin energy up the wazoo. Definitely. The haunted hotel or the trapped in a hotel thing is my favorite thing in the world. We're gonna talk about this at length. And of course there are other versions of that.

What are other versions of that? Shining, of course. Shining, that's a great example, of course. Yes, duh, Jesus, David, what a genius I am. That's just my thought. I thought you were just giving me an easy one. Yeah, that's a layup. Finish your thought.

No, just that I was not disappointed by Barton Fink, but I was writing on such a high, by how much I loved Hudsucker and how much it surprised me, that in my mind, Hudsucker, the Hudsucker, for the first time experience, always eclipses Barton Fink. Sure, yeah, by putting them up the same day.

I've seen Hudsucker upwards of 10 times since then, but I got to see both movies for the first time on a big screen with a proper crowd, on a beautiful print, had not watched Barton Fink again until last night, and yet I had the exact same experience as you, where I'm like, yeah, I basically remember every single element of this It's pretty spare. I mean, yeah, right. It's not it's very primal in its own weird

egghead e way Well, I was thinking about David Lynch a lot When watching this I feel like it's a little bit in conversation with some of the aesthetic. There's a shot which feels David Lynch, like when just going down the drain. Absolutely. Right? And there's the hairdo, there's Barton Fink's hairdo, which feels eraser head adjacent. For sure. And just that sort of feeling of like everything is just a little wrong.

This is so immaculately made, it is so tightly controlled, you get the clear sense from the first frame to the last, there's not a single decision in this movie that isn't intentional. And yet some of it feels deeply inscrutable. And all of it conjures some feeling within you. Not that Barton Fink feeling, but this sort of like, what's wrong? What is this movie doing and why? Yeah, I think that may be what won it the the Pom-Dor, right? Because I remember when they won, it was kind of like, American boys bring home gold. I kind of had that feeling.

It was weirdly the third film in a three-year streak of American Pom-Dor winners, which was like an unusual swing. So Sex Lies is the year before. And then Wild at Heart. Oh no, sorry, it's Wild at Heart, then Sex Lies. Then Sex Lies, then this. And it is of course an incredibly exciting time for American independent cinema and whatever. By the second half of the 90s, the joke that Billy Crystal keeps making is that like the studios can't get a movie nominated for Best Picture anymore

You know like this is the start of the wave that by the end of the 90s is just like The American independent cinema is exciting is thrilling There's something happening here and audiences are engaged and then that dream sort of starts to die. Yeah, but Haunted hotels Griff. I mean, what else? I mean, I'm very dorky of me, but the- 1408. Well, of course 1408. Do not go in there.

Yeah. I think it's, I told you not to go in there. Me and my brother were- I told you! Me and my brother would always fixate on that moment in the trailer. Right. Samuel L. Jackson shows up while some shit is happening being like, I told you not to go in there. It's also like, look, it's not like they're ruining anything by putting that in the trailer,

but you're like, I don't need to see this scene. I can guess that Sam Jack's going to come back at the end and say, I told you so. Wait, which I see. 1408 is a mid-sized horror movie from the late 2000s, directed by, I want to say Mikhail Hofstrom. Yes. That is based on, you know, something Stephen King coughed onto a wall once or whatever. But it is kind of like...

It's a short story. Right. The pulpier, trashier midpoint between The Shining and Barton Fink in a certain way. For sure. It's a good movie. He like checks into a hotel to write a book. No, it's a guy... No, it's a guy who's like, I'm checking into a famously haunted hotel room because I'm

tough and scary and I know that's all nonsense and then The room's really fucked up. I love the next generation episode of the Royale for anyone out there listening from season two, which is about a Like they arrive on a weird planet that is just a hotel that they cannot leave Which is very like a Barton Fink stuff. Mike, I honestly may have been directly inspired by Barton Fink because it's just like a couple of years later. You're forgetting for really big. And is it, is it a space hotel or is this a hotel that seems like an old fashioned

to find out? Okay. It looks like a, it looks like an American hotel from the thirties, but there's all true. Yes. I'm forgetting, of course, but the hotel has a good vacation. Yeah, but it is, it is fundamentally a haunted hotel. You cannot deny that.

I'm not saying the movies are spooky. I suppose so. Is the hotel haunted? Yeah, by humans, by Johnny. That's true. What about Hostel? Or is that just the trial? I mean, Hostel's sort of there,

but I mean, Hostel, it's obviously quite naked, what's going on there, right? Yeah. Like, people don't really get to the Hostel and are like, this place seems like really comforting and inviting. There's almost like a richer history of like comedies kind of ripping on the trope, you know?

The like Abbott and Costello. Right. Right. I guess those are more like you have to spend a night in a spooky castle kind of shit. That gets more to Shining Haunted Hill. I love that too. Right. I guess like- I'm basically always pro this.

What is the difference between a haunted house and a haunted hotel? Great question. In terms of taxonomy, it's scary. Because it's the liminal space thing, which has become this, you know, internet sort of world, right? Where people are obsessed with what they call liminal spaces, these kind of like bland, anonymous sort of environments, like long corridors, samey kind of, right? Do you know what I'm talking about, Ben? It's a very big reddit.

I think something about the promise of the hospitality, you know, being like, you are here and you're being taken care of and yet something feels wrong, versus like I've just walked into a castle with a candelabra, maybe I shouldn't be here. Right, you know, there's some warning signs here, but it's like a hotel, it's like the idea of like,

I'm on a floor with 50 identical rooms, and it's one of 15 floors. Right. Your head starts to spin a little bit. Another great example recently, The Eternal Daughter, the Joy and the Hog movie, one of my favorite movies of that year. Which is also like, she and her mom are at a hotel that no one else is seemingly there, but everyone's kind of behaving like it's normal, and it gets weirder and ghostier. Very good movie if you've never seen it. It's not, I mean, it's not quite the same and it's only an aspect of the movie, but Neon Demon has a lot of like, what the fuck's going on in this motel? Weird motel shit.

There's a tiger or something, right? A Keanu. And there's a Keanu. But yes, I always find this very affecting. But this is the best version. I agree. I mean, The Shining is its own thing. Barton Fink could have stayed at a different hotel.

The studio wanted to put him up in a nicer place. So that was interesting because I remember thinking he's getting $2,000 a week, King's ransom. Right. But he wants to be with the people. Yeah. The hotel earl. This speaks to the movie having this sort of like, get a load of this fucking guy.

He thinks this makes him a greater artist. I think it's starting with the hair, like you mentioned, where it's like, he has that hair. Yes, it's to code him as Jewish, which he is, like in this way that, you know, like the Coens like to, you know, explore that kind of, like what is it to be like kind of loudly Jewish in these kinds of worlds or societies.

But also like, he thinks he can get away with looking like this because he's different and he's artistic. Right, and he's not the only Jewish character in the movie and there are other people who are maybe trying to assimilate more, but it does feel like to your point, he's like accentuating the Jewishness almost as an act of provocation.

Right. Like this guy is taking a stance on I'm trying to make him uncomfortable. Is provocative in this sort of like I'm not like you I'm not superficial and I'm not an intellectual and I'm not a Hollywood type right he has this attitude He's intellectual to every single person. He's talking to yes a quiet I'm not like you and it doesn't matter if a person is higher or lower status There's a really like is that that's the one guy that he briefly does seem to be quite entranced by, although, yeah.

We'll get to that. You're right, he wants Mahoney to say, you are the same as I am. Exactly, right. I mean, or at least, like, I too know your work and I, you know, whatever, like, admire you. There's actually, like, oh, I just said it. There's the use of the word actually

is really interesting in this movie, because there's when John Goodman, when Charlie asks him what he does, he says, I'm a writer actually. Yeah. Right? And I'm like, the actually is doing a lot of work, because it's like, just say you're a fucking writer. Right. But instead he's like, well, you're probably going to be amazed by this, but I'm a writer

actually. There's a little bit of like, isn't this charming? Yeah. David, we both would give Goodman best supporting actor this year. Right? Question. Let me take a look. I do think it's one of the most incredible performances, but I'm always forgetting, you know, what could its competition be? So 1991.

I looked at the field and I certainly would give him the win over the five nominees. Yeah. My five nominees, if you want them. Do you want them? Yeah. For 1991 for Best Supporting Actor. Are you interested in this at all? I would love this.

Please, David, please. John Goodman, my winner for Barton Fink. Keanu Reeves for, speaking of, Keanu Reeves for my own Private Idaho performance at your door. Barbara Patrick for Terminator 2. Larry Fishburne for Boys in the Hood and Samuel L. Jackson for Jungle Fever. Those are my five nominees, great five. 1991 is an incredible year for cinema because this film came out

and The Silence of the Lambs came out and these are two Potemac movies for me. There's a lot of other great movies I love. Where they'll get nominations in other categories but you look at the things that didn't make the best picture cut and it's kind of bananas. Like you have Singleton nominated for director

but not picture. You have This nominated for supporting actor. Two craft words, kind of insane. It didn't even get a screenplay nom. Inside baseball. I was at a discussion. Yeah, I think this movie was too niche, like for whatever, the Oscars.

I mean, I can look at the nominees that year. This argues in favor of there being upwards of 10 best-of-session nominees. Yeah, it would have made the 10. I was at a discussion in the director's branch of the Academy in our sort of conference room, in which... I might slot Barton Fink over Grand Canyon or Bugsy. I mean, no offense to those movies.

A huge offense to those movies. You're right, I think. You were in a discussion. We were discussing whether to expand the directors nomination thing to ten. For Oscar? For DGA. Oh, for DGA. whether to expand the directors nomination thing to 10. For Oscar? For DGA.

Oh, for DGA. Wait, for the DGA or for the director category at the Oscars? No, for the director category at the Oscars. I'm probably going to get kicked out of the Academy now. And Steven Spielberg says, no, I don't think so. I don't even think there should be more than five. Pick nominees. But that battle has been lost.

And I said, as someone who has not won Best Picture, I'm in favor of there being as many as possible, which obviously shows a lot of balls on my part. Like I should be so lucky. Was Spielberg amused by your little bum-mo? No, I wasn't joking. I mean, I was trying to dress it up. Was he amused by your... He didn't seem overly amused, but he didn't seem to want to sanction me either

He was very nice. I mean I also at the time It was framed as like the Oscars need to do this because they seem out of touch and things have trended to indie and they're ignoring Blockbusters and maybe the ten will make things a little more open I think there's the other thing which is just like it's good for the fucking industry In a time where it's harder and harder to get serious movies made, to let 10 movies brag about being best picture nominees. I also think the 10 thing has been an ambiguous success. I agree.

And I think the minute they moved it to, it's between five and 10, was less good. Putting it back at 10 has been better. There's rarely a true kind of like, oh, how the fuck did that get a nomination? Even the stuff I don't really like or whatever, I'm sort of like, oh, how the fuck did that get a nomination? You know, like even the stuff I don't really like or whatever, I'm sort of like, yeah, I can see, you know, where this thing support came from and all that. I think expanding director to 10 would kind of ruin that.

I do. Well, but there's a problem in amongst- And then of course, everyone's gonna start expanding everything to 10, you know, I mean, there is a snowball. That could happen, but in my branch, the problem was for the directors, well, are there movies without directors? Like, are you saying that there's gonna be somebody? But that's always how it goes

Cuz there are best picture nominees without a directing now if you have ten and ten It's still not gonna line up most no time like you're gonna have the weird like that would be that would be especially the true fix that is so clear, and I'm weirded out that the Oscars have never done it, is that a director should get a nomination for Best Picture no matter what. They should be included in the nominees. 100% agrees.

It's so obvious, and it's like, I don't know why the producers insist on like, I mean, I don't know what that discussion has ever been. Take it up with Yellow, Stock, and Bloom. Nominate the producers too, but tack on the director. That's what they do for documentaries. That's what they do for, you know, like the other feature film categories. So that's my take.

So the thing about, okay, the Academy and the problem with... Hear that, Aska? The problem with independent films, you know, kind of dominating nomination and the Academy thinking like, oh, we're not going to be relevant if like the number one box office film isn't nominated blah, blah, blah. Okay. We are in a country in which there is no public funding for film, right? And this is a big thing which Barton Fink has to deal with as well

Yeah, and that why it's different in France where the government will Consider film and actual art form that deserves support most other countries and here it is like that Yeah so here we are in this kind of capitalist setup and and I, I actually kind of realized like I sort of can't direct studio films anymore because it is impossible to skin the cat so that, I mean, this is, unashamedly, it is making movies for money, right? I get it. But then there's, art sort of is inherently crowded out, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Art sort of is inherently crowded out, right? Yeah, yeah. It's tough, it's, I mean, I saw Seth Rogen was on Stern, talking about the studio. A show that I am unsurprisingly loving, that feels like it was made for me. And when people had described it to me like a year ago, when it was being made, I was like,

holy shit, I can't believe they're giving them the money to make that that sounds like so scathing I will find this cathartic to watch assuming it was gonna be as acidic as like the player which is clearly a big influence on that show down to it like sharing a character name right and my surprise in watching the show is that it's like trying to hold the things that are great and the things that are terrible about the industry simultaneously and very close together. It's quite a loving show. Yes. Like, and it does more, I would say, nibble at the hand that feeds that like out and then right outright chomp.

Like it's about it's sort of about how people in that industry want to make good movies. Well, he's the characters kind of a Barton Fink figure who's like, I've done of about how people in that industry want to make good movies. Well, he's, the role in character's kind of a Barton Fink figure who's like, I've done it, I beat the system, I've somehow become a very young studio head, and what I'm gonna do is somehow sneak important movies back in. This guy thinks he can be Robert Evans. A bit of a buffoon. Original sin.

Right, and like, it represents his quest as Good like this is coming from the right place and yet you just watch this guy fuck it up And you're like dude This is never gonna work and he was giving this interview on Stern and he said like the thing that's great about the industry is There will be One movie that changes everything forever. In many ways. You basically get like one of these movies a year at least where you go like Barbie changed everything forever.

Right, or at least for a long time that's now what people are chasing. Change upon change upon change. What was it this year though? What would you say? Was it an aura? I mean, I, I love what you mean last year.

I mean last year. I mean, here's the thing. You could like, a month ago I would have said like Minecraft is the movie that's like changed everything and now sinners has already replaced it And by the time this episode comes out But you're like sinners is a movie that is going to change the way people have discussions one Sinners is the one changing things and not a Minecraft. You don't know These things can happen and multiple things can happen and he, the thing he said that I thought was really profound is that like, it's great timing for David as I'm getting to the big...

Just leave the door open. It takes this insane kind of hubris to think like, I can do it. I can beat the system. I can sneak the thing through and make it work and be lauded as a genius and change things culturally for the better. And that's so insane and hubristic to think, and yet people do it, they do it all the time. And if you're not chasing that kind of glory of like kind of slipping one past people and somehow like changing the landscape for the better, then why even bother trying?

I think there are some filmmakers who have the wind at their back, who are stubborn enough, who are talented enough to like, you know, actually sort of sort of do that. And then you given period, I think they're like five filmmakers who can work within the studio system. And you know, they are going to be able to have a really good shot at getting getting what they want done. Yes. You know, Scorsese, like still

yeah, Christopher Nolan, you know, there's a few. But people people lose it all the time. People win it back. People have it for a moment. I mean, it's like it's the whole fucking framing of this show. Yeah. That like it's not always

and a lifetime status. And also sometimes the movies that change everything aren't good You know they're not net positive But they do break a certain line of thinking in the way that like Barbie you're like Barbie is a triumph and it has felt Like the last two years you're watching with every deadline announcement all of the executives take all of the wrong lessons from it People are trying to get that right Barbie feeling and Barton Fink right, this guy who like does not want to work in the movies is almost disgusted when it's proposed to him.

They have to sort of like launder the pitch in this sort of credibility of like, you know this is like what all the other serious novelists and playwrights do. There's nothing like loads them about this and he's justifying it as like, this will help me build the theater of the people. And it's that contempt with which he comes to the thing, combined with his arrogance of I'm such a good writer I should be able to crack this and do it better than the swill that they're settling for. Right, and of course it's 1941, movies are not exactly new, but it is a younger industry.

But the industry has formed. It's a nascent art form. The industry has formed. It has settled into it's a nascent art form. The industry is formed. It has settled into a machine. Cinema is art. Yes. Obviously, it's not like nobody talked about cinema as art before the 60s or whatever,

but I do think it's the 60s is when people, or the late 50s, start to form proper, sort of theories and academic, like, sort of notions of what film is. Film analysis as we know it today. So yeah, the 40s, it was still kind of like, yeah, well this is, you know, this ain't the theater. This is swill for, you know, the working man.

Right, the possibilities. It's the studio system. So you're signing up to a system in which you're gonna be assigned pictures. Yeah, so you're on contract for one studio and you do what they want. I mean, it's interesting because Barton, so his agent says, you know, this is going to be great and everything, but Barton Fink is kind of, he doesn't really appear with any,

seemingly any kind of energy to want to do this. He's just kind of spaced out throughout a lot of the, this entire movie. The medium doesn't seem appealing to him and he doesn't even seem excited by the idea of what he could leverage the success into, really. He is in a fugue for pretty much most of the movie, like a weird kind of dreamy, the movie exists in a dreamy state, the latter half of this movie,

you know, could be called essentially a dream, like it's not like this is a movie where someone wakes up being like, wow, that was crazy. But, and he always feels like he's passive in a scene. You know, like even though he's passive in a scene. Yes. You know, like even though he's the center of the scene. Yeah, which is like a so not Sid Field three-act structure kind of thing.

This is such a watchable movie for a movie where not much happens and like, you know, much of its plot is inexplicable or like much of what's going on is sort of... Like, it's like not... That's what the Coens are so good at. Like, it's kind of a perfect screenplay, even though you would never be bananas to teach this screenplay as an example of anything to, you know, structure your movie as.

Like, it's so watchable and like every scene is kind of... You're kind of like leaning forward, like, what's this now? I went to McNally Jackson the other day and I saw that they had one copy of this which is Ethan and Joel Cohen Collected screenplays one so it's blood simple raising Arizona Miller's crossing Barton Fink It does not seem like they may be ever published Volume two or on that this is just the same one that I mean compilation

Like peave I hate when Ier and Faber publishes these things, but I hate that they're not in the format of a screenplay, that is to say, it's not a page per minute, which is like the general guide to like when you're going to be- They reformat it. Yeah. Yes. I'd be really interested in what the descriptions are in Burnt and Thing. This is the thing, and I had heard this from people, and I guess I've read excerpts when

people post like a page or two of some of their scripts. But I saw this and I was like, I wanna have this so I can fucking leaf through this, especially with these first four movies. They are so sparse. They really are just like the absolute least amount of information that needs to be conveyed to the reader.

Interesting. So like, cause I was thinking, the reason it's watchable to me, even when like it's kind of a punishing film in the way that this film I think kind of is, is a little bit, you never know when some funny shit is going to happen. So you're sort of always on your toes, right?

Or some scary shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, or there's going to be a great site gag, you know, and I think that they're really clever, you know, in that way, like they will resort to comedy in order to like, gag, you know, and I think that they're really clever, you know, in that way.

Like they will resort to comedy in order to like, sort of keep the artistic kind of arc of things going. Yes. Part of the thing, I'm opening the dossier because, you know, we should look at it. Famous story of its genesis that like a lot of Coen, because the Coen brothers are so discussed, but also just because they do because they do set their legend quite firmly, I feel like, with little anecdotes, because they don't get a lot of info out. Coen masterpieces come while making other plans.

Right, they're trying to script Millers Crossing, which is their third film, the film they made before this, and they get a bit of an impasse, because that's like a complex film about rival gangster, you know, mobs, and there's a lot of... The previous movie they had made up until that point. Right, and I think they find it a little boring. That's like a complex film about rival gangster, you know mobs and there's a lot of movie They had made until that point right and I think they find it a little boring They say like they were not blocked exactly but rhythm was sort of fucked up and they weren't having fun But that's a movie that had more concerned with mechanics where even if you're not like stuck in writers block

They get doing math and I think these guys They talk so much about that like when they have an idea for a movie They talk back and forth about it and work it out in their heads And then once they start writing they write pretty quickly And I assume it must have been really frustrating that for them for the first time to be like Doesn't make sense Have to go to the index cards So they get out of their problems with that story by thinking about another one. They take a vacation and the vacation is Barton Fink has two primary points of origin

one they wanted to work with John Totoro who is in Miller's crossing. But obviously they haven't made that yet. But he's a guy in there. They know him. He's obviously somewhat up and coming. He's worked with Spike Lee and stuff. But they also love this idea of the hotel more for before Hollywood, they have the hotel. Like our setting is a neglected hotel. Blood simple, right? They said they saw a hotel that was the worst hotel they'd ever seen.

In Austin. And they were kind of like, it's like motel hell, what if you could never leave? Right. They also had worked with John Goodman on Raising Arizona. More like John Greatman. It's very, very true. More like John the Bestman.

And come on, that was funny. We have made a really... Ten comedy points. And they certainly write this role for him as well. The most fascinating thing, I mean, it speaks to... the other day we were singing the praises of John Goodman. Things have gone well in blank check scheduling in 2025 and that we have a lot of Goodman to discuss. We discussed it before. That we had our live show and now we have a lot of Goodman in the Cohen series. And you were talking about how he is an actual undersung genius in his execution of characters.

Oh god, I feel like I've talked about this on the podcast before, but like that moment in the Flintstones trailer where his foot is torn. Oh, sure. It's so upsetting. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I just had to talk about that for a second. He's a genius. Always.

I'm trying to think of a Goodmans we've discussed before. Obviously we've done Razing Arizona at this point, Flight. Princess and the Frog. Sure, sure. I I mean we must ignore speed racer speed racer But he is pops racer, and he's wonderful in that is that it Possibly we're about to double that if that's we're gonna obviously do a bunch more But is there cuz he's been in there has so many movies something else I'm forgetting It was there have to feels like it not sure that there is.

No, no. At this point, they have worked with him and he has now been on Roseanne, right? And he is starting to be accepted as one of America's most lovable people. Right, and they like- Who can't love John Goodman. They like that, but then they like

his more menacing side. What I love is that they were like, oh, you know, it'd be fun as to weaponize that and use how much the public is just naturally endeared to John Goodman and pull the rug out from under them. And they said, the second they started filming, they were like, this guy is so proficient and nuanced and thorough in his work that he's finding ways to color in the menace even in the earliest scenes that we thought of this as a very like one to one later starts out sweet and adorable and then it's a surprise this guy turns out evil but instead he's playing this weird balance of like

unease and pity and arrogance and scariness and like pathetic it's it's and and to throw in the same way was like Guys, I like the way you wrote this character. I understand you've made him sort of an annoying pill Will you trust me to try to put a little more humanity into him? I would like to try to put a little more realistic feeling into this guy, so he's not just kind of a setup For a punchline. And he says that they gave him a degree of ownership of letting him deepen it, not by like changing the text, but changing the characterization a little bit. Yeah.

Wrote the script in three weeks, as they say, they tend to work quickly. So the film was ready, the script was ready, and so then when they go back to Miller's Crossing and then make Miller's Crossing, when it's like, okay, what do you want to do next? They were like, here's Barton Fink. It's ready, it's done, whatever we want to do. Same financiers and everything. They decide to set it in Hollywood's golden age. But obviously, as you pointed out,

they are not basing this on their own experiences, which had largely been pleasant. Like their movies are produced by Circle Films, the Cindy company, you know, their first few movies. So like, which is basically they'll be like, hey, here's this weird script. And Circle Films will be like, great, we can give you this budget. basically they'll be like, hey, here's this weird script and Circle Films will be like, great, we can give you this budget. And they'll be like, great, well, we'll use that

to make the movie. And their trajectory up until this point was just boop. It just was straight up. Like these guys are with each film proving that they're the real deal. I think you're kind of right that my framing was a little glib and that it really is Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink coming out

within a year of each other that is like a combined guarantor. After I think people thinking that Raising Arizona was a little silly and being like, okay, so these guys are really good stylists, but do they have anything to say? Is this all like genre riff lark stuff? And then Miller's Crossing and Barton were seen as like, oh, these guys have thoughts. But also, yeah, well, and since when did that mean that you get to make a big movie? That's what's crazy. Like, that's the thing that doesn't happen anymore

is like two movies that are so good that even though they weren't hits, the industry is like, fuck, I guess we gotta see what these guys did with a bigger budget. So, right, the 1941 setting is most important to them. They want it to be right as the war's about to begin. So then that informs the Hollywood thing, if that makes sense. They wanted this kind of the verge of madness,

and this idea of during that time when like suddenly the country empties out of normal people, like in terms of like sort of fit, you know, like 30, 20, 30 men. Like now it's like the country has a strange emptiness to it. Classically, as the Coens always say, like, we didn't do any research or anything like that. They always say stuff like that. And like when they're adapting a book, they're like, yeah, we read the book. And you're just sort of like, I just don't know whether or not I should take them seriously. You know, it's the other part of it, too, that JJ dug up is that they were like, no, we didn't really do any research for it.

We had, over the previous 10 years, read these 20 books. That's the thing, I guess they have books in their bloodstream already. There's a book called City of Nets, which is about German expatriates in LA in the 40s. They have the book called Faulkner in Hollywood that's about William Faulkner's experience working as a screenwriter, where he never drank to access.

I feel like they are just constantly digesting things and retaining it. And it feels like anytime they develop a new project, they're like, oh yeah, we have this followed away in our brain, all this accidental research we were doing. And then yes, there's this very superficial sort of resemblance to Clifford Odetz, who is one of the great like playwrights of the sort of red 30s, you know, like this great left-wing playwright, who then goes to Hollywood and is not like Barton Fink, and that he has success and also drinks himself like crazy.

But the character's look is modeled on George S. Kaufman, from the Marx Brothers movies and stuff, who looked like that. Right. He had the big hair and the glasses. People were like, oh, they're taking Odette's and exaggerating it. And they're like, no, we're just like doing Kaufman directly. Right. And they, you know, they're like, Barton's a shit, but we do love our characters. Which I think is just generally always true of the Coens.

Like, they love their characters even when their characters are in synthetic art. And it's a thing that I think now, like, going back to your earlier point, I think they've basically been accepted as undeniable now. It is funny to read the criticism of the first 15 years of their work where so many critics were kind of folding their arms and being like, not so fast. This sort of like, we shouldn't be so quick to like anoint a potential false god and treating these guys as serious filmmakers and there were a couple different like Strikes that would be thrown against them and one of them was they're so condescending You see this repeated They just have such contempt for all their characters their movies are just mocking all these people all the time isn't this exhausting

They can seem glib and condescending, but I actually, I do think they love their characters. I think they take great pleasure in them. Yes, I think that's always been a misread on their work. It's the same thing with Michael Lee. It's the same thing, people really struggle with people who write and create direct, and of quite unsympathetic characters,

but they're often sort of misreading it for, they're making fun or they're, you know, whatever, casting. They also love making movies about idiots, but I think their magic is that they dramatize idiots with compassion. Absolutely. Also understanding what's fun about having a stupid character driving your story.

Now, blood simple, JJ's pointing this out and he's right. Blood simple is a neo-noir film, very obvious. Raising Arizona is a cartoon comedy film. Like, it's a little, like, more outside of genre, like in terms of like, you're like, wow, I haven't seen something like this in a while, but it's a cartoon movie, right? It's Chuck Jones' chase picture, basically.

Miller's Crossing is a gangster movie. Like, you know, like, with all the sort of fucking trappings and fittings and all that. Barton Fink, I do not know how you describe this movie to anybody. Like, it's not really a horror movie But it's got sort of a horror stuff to it. It's not really a comedy. It's like a very black Sort of strange comedy. They always said their single biggest inspiration was the like Polanski one person going crazy Like called a sack right potion like which that makes on the sort of haunted hotel thing you were talking about. There are few things I am more just kind of innately in the bag for than person in some sort of weird state of isolation

slowly losing their mind. It is a thing I relate to way too hard and it just almost always works for me as a setup for a film. And then so people raise their hands and are like the movie reminds me of Kafka, right? Very very obviously. They're like, huh? I mean, I guess we read coffin in college, but like weren't thinking about him But it doesn't just feel like they're sponges and they retain everything that like they have a fucking library in their brains I also love that they whenever they talk about books. They've read it sounds like they're reading in tandem They always talk about like, you know, we were just reading no country and then at some point went like maybe this would make a good Movie and I'm like, so how's this breaking down? Are the two of you?

They sit together. They both go to the library together. Sleeping in a bed. Holding hands. Right. They present their two cards. Are you holding the same book? Do you have parallel books?

Are you like Burton Ernie? They get their own books. Brothers get their own copies. Obviously John Mahoney is cast because he looks so much like William Faulkner. It's crazy. They don't have to do much looks so much like William Faulkner, it's crazy. They don't have to do much to make him look like Faulkner. Faulkner was someone who occasionally enjoyed a drink. I cannot deny this.

He had more success in Hollywood. He was not self-destructive. Probably not. But they're just adjusting the dials, obviously. Mahoney is one of the great secret Brits. Unbelievable in this way. But no one knows he's fucking British, because he trained the accent out of him.

Yes, right, he's kind of fake British, right, because he was British, but then he came to America as an 18-year-old, because his mother, I think, was a war bride, and that was enough to kind of, yeah, to move him off. And of course, we've lost him, but he would always say, like, I trained it on my system and yet when I hear myself perform, I still feel like I hear the inflections and it drives me crazy.

Michael Lerner to me obviously looks like Louis B. Mayer, but it's kind of based on, I feel like, a lot of Jack Warner, like a lot of those... And had already played both Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer in other projects? He played Jack Warner and Harry Cone, two different studio guys in TV movies. I mean, he's a mashup. He is, but Michael Lerner is just, he's outrageously good in this movie. He gets its only Oscar nomination, which is only acting nomination, which is kind of crazy.

Not that he's bad, but it's just crazy that that was the one that snuck in. Also if you look at the precursors that year, it felt a little out of left field. He gets Lafka only. That was the one, the Los Angeles critics gave him best supporting actor and that was it. The spread is really weird because Goodman gets a supporting Globe nomination. It gets no other nominations from the Globes. I think it does get a Writers Guild nomination.

I can look. This is interesting that the Oscar, because I was talking earlier about Mommy Dearest right and how that that movie which savaged You know Hollywood legend and Hollywood in general turned its back on Faye Dunaway, you know Right, right. It was a very proactive and then had to be reclaimed decades later. But in this case No offense bad. It's not a good movie, right? It's very watchable and insane, but it's not like you're like, ah, a gem. You're like, wow, I can't believe it. No, it's his made. You're right.

Not only do people hate it, but they were sort of like, Faye Dunaway, how dare you attack your own. You are toxic, right. But with Barton Fink, you know, the guy who plays the monster, maybe because he's a fun character as well, or maybe it's like saying, well, we better own this. I'm trying to think of what the Oscar voter is thinking in that point. They're not saying like, you son of a bitch, could you despoil the memory? It is funny that, right, that they're like,

yeah, great job playing an evil studio exam. But he is also just a guy, learner, where they're probably also just kind of like, you know what, you're never bad. And like every scene you senior in in that movie Is funny and the his final scene is hysterical where he's in the fake military outfit sure But in terms of good men being a rising star and like America's favorite and whatever it seems like an obvious Oscar play and yet I think it speaks to people not totally I think

Let me say this it speaks to maybe the most successful people in Hollywood Ie the people who are members of the Academy especially at this point in time where it's a more selective group Being less receptive to this movie. You know he made one other movie that year in 1991 goodman Yeah, you know what it was the name King Ralph Ralph. Oh, yeah, so do you was King Ralph? We were thinking of giving you an Oscar number that King Ralph. Hell yeah. So was King Ralph his Norbert? Or was that a good year? Or they were like, we were thinking of giving you an Oscar number. That King Ralph movie. No, I don't know. I think they...

Maybe it split the vote, you know? That's why I didn't get it. I think this movie, even if they didn't find it offensive, probably made successful Hollywood people a little uncomfortable. I think Goodman didn't get a nomination because he's creepy and scary. And I think Michael Lerner is not to be reductive, but there's also just an aspect of like it's a skill piece performance He's got three monologues where he talks non-stop for eight minutes. I mean, it's you watch it You're like undeniably what this guy just did is like

Complicated and difficult to achieve on a technical level and the Coen's are so deliberate in their coverage that you're watching him Do it with minimal cuts. Yeah, I think it was just kind of like, well yeah obviously look at that guy he's acting. Film cost $10 million to make, was shot for 45 days and they filmed it at a hotel, Dennis Gassner, you know the great Dennis Gassner. Have you worked with Dennis Gassner? I've worked with Dennis Gassner on on the Golden Compass. He was nominated for the Oscar for that. Obviously, he's an A-tier, you know production designer. This guy art direction and costume, right? Yes. He's a member of my camp at Burning Man. I have to say shout out to Ashroom Galactica. Is he really? He is. I invited him to join my camp at Burning Man. Sorry, sorry. Oh, no, please, shout out.

And his camp is all, like, peeling wallpaper. A little bit. So, they find this weird art deco place that's falling apart. They use a lot of green and yellow, as we sort of mentioned, in the color of the movie to suggest putrefaction, you know, like, just kind of like everything is very flushing. Not to be hyperbolic, but it is just one of the movie to suggest putrefaction, you know, like just kind of like everything is very flashy. Not to be hyperbolic, but it is just one of the most viscerally rendered and realized locations in the history of movies.

It is incredible. Obviously Barry Sonnenfeld has heard the snap snap of the Addams family. His fingers are running very quickly along the floor attached to nothing but the rest of a hand. So they lose their iconic director of photography and they turn to Roger Deakins who obviously then works for them for 30 years basically, who I don't think at that point was much of a major name. Had done, Sid and Nancy was the biggest crossover.

Right, I mean another not so secret Brit. And yeah, I mean like his biggest credit before then is right either Sid and Nancy or if you want like a bigger budget thing like Air America but like not right that was kind of his only studio right yeah like and they liked his work on a movie called Stormy Monday obviously they'd also seen Sid and Nancy. Stormy Monday yes I actually saw that movie in the theaters. Do you remember how it looked?

It looked fantastic. Actually, I love that Roger Deacon shot Air America because in every great cinematographer's resume, there are movies where you're like, what? Right. It's like, what's the Vanilla Ice movie that was shot by Yanis Kaminsky or something like that? Yes, Cool as Ice. What's also just because basically from Barton Fink on, there is no movie you would be surprised

to hear was shot by Roger Deakins, right? Like Air America is maybe the last time where you're like, huh. Yeah, right. I agree on that. For every movie on from that point, he is clear, like an authorial voice in the film. You know what? He shot The Siege. That's surprising for me to learn.

Ed Zwick's The Siege. He did a lot of Ed Zwick movies, though. He did Courage Under Fire. Yeah, I don't know, man. Mostly, it becomes like, yeah, he shoots, you know, the kind of movies you think he'd shoot. Yeah. The shot of the drain. Stuck in the Mendesverse.

I think it's out of there. The only shot he had trouble with was the plughole shot that you referenced. Sure, was the trick again. Which Joel and Ethan say he made fun of them for, and then every time. Still makes fun to this day. Exactly, they're like,

okay, so here's something we wanna do with this weird shot. He's like, as long as you're not making me track down a plughole. For three decades, it better not be a plughole shot. Like that's still. I feel like the boys were a little on the nail there, going down the drain. It's early in their career. You still want to try stuff, too

It's just like the grossest version of that joke The new bemo vi porter mastercard is your ticket to more more perks more points more flights more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash viporter to learn more. So let's talk about the plot of Barton Fink. It's 1941, we begin with Barton having great success

on the Broadway, say, or off whatever, like Broadway. Just standing at the wings, making a picture for, making a picture for, yes, you know, I'm sorry, a play for the people. He just looks so fucking weasel-y. So satisfied. He's like, right. The expression on his face, which he maintains for the entire movie,

is the most unflattering, kind of gormless... You know, this pathetic, like, focus, this pathetic concentration. There are few guys who would have that, like, sort of, you know, whatever risk. Like, you know, like, John Ciccioli is so happy to play that. Like, Miller's Crossing is like that, Quiz Show is like that, where in Quiz Show, most actors would be like, I wanna make him a little more, like sort of straightforwardly likeable.

Turturro's like, no, no, no, I can do this. Like, I could be the most annoying guy in the world. Quiz Show is a movie where the premise is a real true life story that a network created. He's so fucking annoying. This guy's so annoying, we have to figure out a way to get him off this fucking show. The entire scandal

Is a byproduct of like people hate watching this guy on TV So funny he's so so good in this he's so good at yeah, that's kind of like gormless shit But you're just right. It's amazing how much he conveys wordlessly in these first couple of shots of just like this guy's sort of like self-obsession with his own work, his sort of like absolute on edge, none of this actually makes him happy, even when it's going well. That's right. He doesn't do the thing where you see him subtly mouthing the lines, right?

Which you almost have a screen memory. He does do it at the start of the... He's doing it very faintly. When it goes fresh fish? Yes, right. But he's doing it in a way where it feels like he's on edge worried they're about to fuck it up. You know? Like I've seen

directors do it where it's really charming because it feels like they're living their movie. Right. It's so deeply in them they're not even aware they're doing that. And he's doing this like in this very clenched way. Yeah. So pretty much right away,

we're at Capital Pictures, right? Like it's like he does the play and then he's meeting with Michael Lerner, and there's the great Michael Lerner scene. He's being wined and dined by these rich patrons of the arts who he's immediately like, you don't get it, I'm trying to do a service for the people the people's theater. It's a movement like this guy Just can't even accept a fucking compliment

It's a prick. Yeah, he gets talked into it. He yeah, he gets talked into this this Contract by his agent. I presume is this agent. Yeah. Yeah, obviously it's so much more money I guess was what lured everyone west, right? It's like you're not going to actually make any money writing plays on Broadway, even if they're sort of well received. No, and it was like for the first time, right, the Hollywood machine has been built up properly. The sound picture is an established thing. People want language in their movies.

Right. The transition actually... It was the beginning of this era of like, if you're successful, if you're a respected novelist or playwright, that's nice and all, but what you really do is you leverage that to go out to Hollywood to make some money, to keep doing your own shit.

Exactly, you have the money to keep doing your own shit. Right, the actual dissolve is, or fade, is to the beach, the rock, the waves up against the rock, and then to the hotel, this recurring motif of the beach, of like, what does it mean? You guys can, you know, throw your theories in. That's another very lynchy thing about this movie to me. Or maybe from Purgatory. Yes, go ahead. Maybe it's the other way around. Because it does seem like that's a very lynchy shot,

right? Yes, yes. And like, it feels like it's, sorry to interrupt David, but it's like in conversation with Lynch in some way. Who is first to certain kind of textures and feels? Because the hotel is very Lynchian, I think. Yes, I mean, anything with Chet, a tiny role for Steve Buscemi, where he's the bellhop, I love that, like, there is a wall of keys behind him, like, it's like fucking, you know, ten stories high, with so many keys in it, where you're like, are there other...

You never see anyone else there except for Goodman. Right, correct. And that's my favorite thing about any haunted hotel, like the implications, like, yeah, there's other people here, you just don't see them. But there's shoes outside the door. So it's showing that there are people, but you never see them. Correct. Which is a really smart choice on their part,

which is like a really clean visual language to let you know these other rooms are occupied. Oh, by the way, $2,000. You're hearing the voices, you're seeing the shoes, you're not ever seeing anyone else's face. $2,000 in 1941 is the equivalent of $41,510. So that's per week. That's per week. So he's getting paid shit tons. Can we unpack this for a second?

That is bananas. Yeah. And it's like, but what's the implication that he'll be doing this for a month, for a year? I wanna pack this because I feel like this goes into a point you started to set up a little while ago. The uniqueness of America not having any investment in funding its own arts, right?

Like an investment in cultural enrichment. I was talking to a friend of the podcast, Sam Clements, who works for the Picturehouse chain in the UK. And we were talking about the difference in financing and funding and films and how things feel weird in the UK and the things like the film lottery have started getting gutted and it's harder to get the things made and I was like I Think when I talked to my friends working American film industry We're so envious of there being any program like that and he was like isn't the Sundance lab kind of like that?

And I'm like the Sundance lab is that having to be created right is like a prize you win right as And I'm like, the Sundance Lab is that having to be created. Right, it's like a prize you win. Right, as, like being created by not a government, but a successful artist being like, this kind of thing should exist, leveraging his entire career to make that. It's like charities filling the gap. And then even then I was like, here's what it is.

It's like, you submit, you get accepted, you get this beautiful sort of like sojourn, staying with other artists, working with them, having actors at your disposal to workshop the scenes, getting all these mentors, and then you do a presentation, and at the end of it they're like, well, we hope that one of the people who saw this presentation wants to give you money

to make this movie. They do not help you make the film. And then the hope is if you find money for it, you maybe stand a better chance of getting into the Sundance Festival which would maybe then lead to distribution but all of it is still like you're having to piece it together so thoroughly right and in this country we just decided that we don't give a shit about this but the way the movie industry used to be run the studio system which was dissolved for a number of reasons and it was seen as a bit of a victory that now the power has gone

back to the artists. They control their own careers. I think long term, I've been thinking about this a lot, I think was maybe a fatal mistake that has fucked the industry forever in terms of eradicating the middle class artist. Yeah. Well, wait a second. I don't know. I feel about any of that, but okay. I mean, the studio system was largely eradicated because the biggest stars didn't like the lack of freedom and the biggest directors, the biggest writers, the people who had some level of clout, didn't have a time. It was not much of tourism or anything. That's the point. Studio directed all art. They were, and they controlled the theater. They did not feel

like they had agency and Not a feeling thing no correct they were bound to do what the studio told them correct But there was a model that sort of made sense There was steady employment There was steady Point you can't cut me off and then say you're wrong Okay, finish your point Sure point there was this holistic system of like we own the real estate. We own the machinery We own the equipment right called a monopoly, but yes going

There you went to to eat with all the other writers and directors and actors. There was a sense of community. The mess hall. That kind of thing is kind of cool. But it was also like they're sort of controlled costs because we own the means of production, right? We own you, we control you. Very Marxist.

You're under our salary. Right? I mean, this is a little bit what Hale Caesar's about. It's a lot what Hale Caesar's about. We'll get there. There's certainly much to discuss about this this in hail cesar which is more about the machinery of the studio And if you're a star or a director who's like proving yourself And you're like why am I still like subject to the whims of these people owning me you start to want to destroy this system What ended up happening long term is?

Basically everything collapsed and now it's like Warner Brothers loans out their sound stages to other production companies Which like becomes both a form of money laundering and a way of intensifying costs across everything same to their post-production facilities All these things but also no one in this industry has any fucking job security anymore, right? That's true There used to be this interest on the studios in exchange for them owning you which was basically they'd go to someone like a Barton Fink and say we're gonna pay you $2,000. $40,000 a week. And we have a reason to keep throwing work at you

because we're paying for you. Preston Sturgis was the highest salaried individual in America when he was at his height. A stat I love. And actually did have a certain degree of control because once you're compelling as a figure in and of itself. Right, but he's one of the only ones who... He figured out how to make himself a little more of a celebrity in a fan name.

...earliest writer-directors, and obviously most of these guys did not even get written, like, credit. Right. Yeah. Like, their names are not on the movies. There'd be fucking drama school showcases and a guy would get up and do a monologue. The whole point of Mank, the great film Mank, is Mankowitz being like, I think I actually want credit on this movie, I think it's good.

And Wells being like, that's not how this fucking works, ever. I am, and Mank's like, I want it, sorry, please, for the first time ever, I'll actually make that fight. You'd have like a drama school showcase, and someone would do a good monologue, and Paramount would be like, fuck, why don't we get that guy under contract? And now the impetus is on them to figure out

how to make this guy's career work. We're gonna put him in 10 10 10 movies we're paying for him And so we just need to throw them at the wall and see what fits and then they could just cut you loose They could look and you had no nothing to point. It was not a perfect system Yes, we are the problem Are not no people should be able to like have agency in their careers What happens now is that people don't work? It is I would say the big problem is that it is really fucking expensive is the most expensive art form in the world

That's and this is like oh Christ what you know, it is so is that there are less studios There used to be like like there were the majors in the mid majors Then there was you know, what do you call it, Poverty Row and all that. There was so much competition. Movies were desired by the public. The reason there are less jobs now is movies are not desired by the public anymore. Now, we can argue like, oh, no, they are and see how these movies do well, but it's like, no, they release most movies, people go to the theaters less.

There's way more competition for thing that you watch back then there was nothing else You could watch people lined the streets to go see movies. They would sit in movie theaters all day watching You know some good movies and a lot of garbage because it was like what else are you gonna do? Well, they also they gutted their own business model in a way that reduced the value of any single Project into a product that was part of a library to boast or like, but like, it's also television got invented and video games got invented and I also think there is a monopoly of fewer people controlling a greater majority of jobs

that has to do with a lot of removal of stigma of what is beneath you or above you and just certain people grinding so fucking hard and Like just being like I'll just do everything When people have a hot streak they just like run the fucking table and block other people out I also think but there's less demand but but I think to this other point It's like it is it is so expensive to do this work, right? In any sort of way, especially the work to prove that you're worthy of being paid to do this work, right? In any sort of way, especially the work to prove that you're worthy of being paid to do this work.

It is a pay to play industry, which is why. There's another reason it's more expensive. People are paid fairly because of unions that were created after this. But now the studios are doing anything they can to circumvent unions. There were no unions. People were treated like garbage and were paid poorly.

No, I'm even saying As compared to like poetry painting yes, you get some paint Capital is paper like inherently different. Yeah, it's really fucking hard to do For signing over your freedom to a studio The other thing they would do was fucking invest in your career and be like we need to spend the money Right to control your publicity and your fashion, your style and all this sort of stuff. Increasingly, when you read like fucking Sydney Sweeney complaining that she can't pay her mortgage and people are like, how is that possible?

You're like, in order to be Sydney Sweeney, you have to pay like 40 people out of pocket to do the things that the productions used to do for you. And that's the most successful way. And that's the most successful way. Where did Sydney S did you say that? She said that like two years ago. Well, I googled Sydney Sweeney mortgage. She recently paid off her mom's mortgage.

Hey! So Sydney Sweeney's doing alright now. I think she escapes the euphoria. That's nice. She's taking care of her mom. But, well, she didn't escape it, but she has more things going on. But it is another thing that is depicted in Mank. When he, or when his nephew arrives and you got this bullpen of like 40 writers who sit around all day

and are just waiting for basically like the lottery ticket to come and be like, you got to sign something, do a pass on this, do a treatment on this, you know? Mank is also about a man in that system who realizes that system is poison that is destroying America, that he works for capitalist pigs who will make art that prevents people from having political

thought. I think we replace- I mean, make is not a movie that's like, you know what? Yeah. Hollywood is working. That's a movie about a guy that ends with a barfing on the floor. I think we replace one broken system with a different broken system and the system right now functions less What you are talking about is late capitalism, which is what we live in and it is true of most industries now

And the industry I work into media where it's like people come to me and they're like, how do I? Yes climb this ladder. How do it? What's the path and I'm like There isn't one. Like, I mean, you can do X and Y and you can hope for the best. But luck is like more than ever a humongous. It's who you know. And it's that maybe, you know, ooh, something opens up right when you're lucky or maybe the, you know, sort of some stupid guy.

And this is true in movies too, is like, eh, maybe I'll like devote a bunch of money to something. And then after a while, he's like, eh, well, that money too, is like, eh, maybe I'll devote a bunch of money to something. And then after a while he's like, eh, well, that money's gone and didn't work, so I give up. Like, you know, you'll have little booms like that, which is sort of what the tech companies are right now. Which are good, but I also-

Yeah, but it's sort of Apple being like, oh, let's do it. And it's like, it doesn't hurt them to do it, but there may come a day where they're like, eh, we're more to do it now. When they lose interest, it's a fucking nightmare. But it goes back to- That will never happen. No, of course not. Of course not.

Cinema being an emerging art form, right? That America is able to sort of corner right at the beginning and decide, this is how these things are made, but from the get-go, we're deciding this is capitalist structure. This is machinery. In America. In America, that's what I'm saying.

Do you suppose that there will be a patriotic film fund? Right. Because it was announced that it was a Nell Gibson and Kevin Sorbo and something ambassadors to. But I don't think the government wants to do that. They like the idea of like people being able to set up something like Angel Studios and make money off of doing it. I think the only time America has ever been really interested in that is... Like FDR. The war. Right, right.

Obviously every other country does it, but that's because forever, or many other countries. But then it's also sort of like we are producing something that speaks to our country that makes it interesting for people around the world. Like an America doesn't need to do that because they you know, the American brand is so a depressing majority of our population Would have absolute iron disgust at the idea of their tax going to art which of course happens in Britain Where they're like, I can't believe my tax dollars paid for that crappy movie

Right people come on then swing in I kind of want to see the patriotic movie Like just like it could it be called the patriotic movie sure like yeah Yeah, another patriotic movie. I'm gonna say the sequel I'm in favor of seeing it as long as Trump writes and directs it himself. Well, that's what I'm saying I think I love the idea. Let's have him write him. Let me doesn't need to direct I think it'd be good if we got him out of the office for a little bit. Got him on a set, got him really hyper fixated on a project. But I love the idea. I mean, we are in a culture war, so it would be a sad movie.

It wouldn't be apparently we're being invaded. So it's like first there was the war on terrorism and now there's the war on culture. Yes. But there's it's like all the people you just listed off who would be involved, like everyone potentially who would sign up for that kind of project. It would be terrible. It would be absolute garbage. Cognitive function.

Top. And it would be exciting to then see that get released and then just have all the people who champion the, the film, the project, the ideas of the film, then just be like, Oh, this sucks. Yeah. Fuck. Or try to like maneuver. the film, the project, the ideas of the film, then just be like, oh, this sucks. Yeah. Oh, it's so good. Or try to maneuver around.

But I feel like- Actually, it's good if you really think about it. I feel like every time- I didn't like it the first five times, but now I think I get it. One of those movies gets made, like the Christmas, what was it called? War on Christmas, Kirk Cameron Saving Christmas.

Oh yeah. The one where it's like Michael Moore has a Christmas Carol happen. An American Carol. Oh, an American Carol where it's like Michael Moore has a Christmas Carol have an American Carol It's sort of like and it comes out and everyone's like this is bad, but it's just like well Let's never speak of this again, right? It's not like one of those things where people do try to be like no I'm gonna watch it I liked it like you know it's just kind of this is the fallacy every time right? But but people actually want to see sinners like everyone wants to crack

You know what I mean right and they not because of politics or any other other reason they're just like I don't know I heard it was good Yeah, I mean they go see it right there's so much of the media landscape has been dominated by this idea of like DEI initiatives are being rolled back and like the identity politics era of Hollywood is over and things are now gonna go back towards like catering towards the conservative, you know, J.O. Craddishon audience. And then you look at the box office and you're like three of the top six movies of the year

so far have predominantly black casts. I mean, it's like exponentially more successful than movies that in theory are targeting Trump's America. You can make a Korean animated movie about Jesus that's told by an animated Charles Dickens. Do you know there's another animated Jesus movie coming out this year? Yeah, I made it.

Okay, I'm sorry. It's called another animated Jesus movie. Okay. No, you can do that, and that might hit because people are like, well, the Nativity Store is a pretty big one. And if you release it Easter weekend, it's kind of a good name.

But sometimes then there are those more sort of like niche faith movies where they're like, you know, it's about the triumph of the human spirit and people are kind of like, pass. Whatever. You know when the thunderbolts are in town. CGI Jesus movie is just barely... A movie? Sure, but barely passing one of them days.

A movie whose success remains under discussed. Good movie. What is one? It was a comedy with Ciza and Kiki Palmer. Written by John Singleton's daughter, Saraya Singleton. It's a really, really good movie. And it's just the kind of movie they used to make more of,

which is a smaller budget, but studio comedy that's very, you know, kind of lo-fi and funny and good. To your point, David, My point. this is an era where the machinery of Hollywood is working so beautifully in the public cannot get enough movies it's all they got and the idea of what are they gonna do this on the wireless right we can afford to just have a room full of drunk writers yeah

who are just each pitching in a sentence or two and they presented to him is just like this isn't fucking rocket science This is one of the two wrestling movies. We have to make everything sign him a picture This is like, you know, it's like worth remarking on do you want a name or a kid? like there's a formula here and you decide like The the binary choose your own adventure path my screenwriter mind when they said is it about a day more? It was there a day more as kid? And my mind went both. And then Barton Fink goes both and they look appalled.

Yeah. Right, you need a movie to fit a certain formula because people are like, yeah, I wanna go see a movie about this. This will actually work. Right, and you want, it's beyond elevator pitch. It's just right. It's a wrestling picture. Great, I love wrestling pictures.

I like to watch wrestling on the big screen and the thing you get so much from Learners performance what I think he captures really well is you're just like this guy is overselling it so hard Yeah, he's laying he's laying it on way too thick of how much he respects artists, right? In a way, you know is first and you're just waiting for the shoe to drop and in reality What he really wants is like how a lot of our biggest budget franchise movies work right now Which is like we're gonna hire someone with a little personality so they can just hopefully put 2% personality on our formula, but by and large, let's just stick to the formula But it's also the implication I have from Barton Fink is he gets to do this.

You're gonna be treated well, put up in a hotel, paid a lot of money. Then he produces the first script. We don't see the rest of the movie, but the reaction to the first script is like, no, this is not what we want. This is way too arty farty. You need to learn how to make movies

the capital picture's way. And you get the sense that he will quickly be bumped down the ladder, right? Like it'll be a little more like, you need to go with the capital pictures way. And you get the sense that he will quickly be bumped down the ladder, right? Like it'll be a little more like. He doesn't know how to play the game. You need to go with the pigs, you know, in the slop and like learn your trade. Well, it's even like you will never be,

you're never gonna work on anything again. We just own you. You're gonna keep on drawing a salary, but nothing that you produce, I mean, this is by the end of it, right? You're talking about, yeah. Nothing that you produce is ever gonna be used. Right, which the Makoni character's kind of stuck in that sort of hell.

Which is why he, like, his every day is that he vomits, one assumes, black bile, and then it's like, okay, time to drink all day. Like, that's how he's dealing with life. And they like pay him with contempt to keep ownership of him. And you get the sense of this guy probably for the last five years has had one good idea a year. Like every year he gives them one dialogue exchange or one notion of how to fix a scene. Yeah, but yeah they're either being paid to keep their field fallow, right? It is basically the deal. I mean he didn't, Faulkner didn't write all of his most famous novels had already happened.

Sure. And famously, he got to Hollywood and was like, can I write Mickey Mouse? I like Mickey Mouse. And MGM was like, that's Disney. And he was like, I don't understand. But like, you know, like he didn't really get it. Give me a drink. And instead he did, you know, a bunch of movies.

Like he wrote like 50 movies or whatever, accredited or uncredited, that no one remembers. Here's what I want to say. Just going back to the plot a little bit, or not the plot, but the flow of the movie. He famously, Faulkner just want to say that he has a credit on The Big Sleep, which is one of the most incomprehensible screenplays ever written. Sure. Yes. It's a great movie. But also it's constantly cited as like, this script doesn't even make sense in the movie script.

Right. And that's sort of where we start to think about the other theory and bogey and but call and all that but there's a little bit of like nobody knows anything and I do not know right what the answer to the mystery is yes no one knows I think you can be told and even if you're told you're kind of like I don't understand it yeah yeah it started Casting Buscemi Having Buscemi play it as cheery as possible and not a fake cheeryness right? He's not going over cranked But it's like speaks to the Coen's Already at this point being so smart about how to use actors and their energies of just like just have Buscemi go straight down the middle

Put no creep on it and that will be unsettling Go straight down the middle put no creep on it and that will be unsettling Yeah, there's something about Buscemi just being kind of like quiet and kind that feels a little off and also just his introduction back to the shoes been his Introduction as Barton Fink walks in this fucking lobby that's empty and then like a trapdoor opens from the floor It comes from out of the basement with shoes And you're just like what the fuck is going on underneath this hotel? A thing that is never even touched on again. Like a mystery that is just sort of like quietly seated at the beginning

and then so much else happens and you're like is there a whole world of drama going on underground? The implication of the shoes outside the doors that these the residents or the transients are leaving their shoes out every night to be shined and polished and that he's going down there but you're like are there other people down there? Does Buscemi spend every night shining a hundred pairs of shoes? Yeah it's fairy tale. Right. Logic. And then he gets up to this room and immediately it's just unsettling. He is, so he's a schmuck because he's being paid $40,000 a year. Yes.

I mean, a week. A week. And he chooses to stay at a shitty hotel. Yes. But you don't feel as though he's scrimping and saving in order to start... He's not like making phone calls about how he's finally going to rent a theater back in New York.

He doesn't know what to do with money. It's not like Barton Fink's like, I'm about to go on a shopping spree. Like, Barton Fink's like, I want to see him in Rodin's trie. It would be fun. He gets turned away by the mean shop girls and later he goes back and asks them if they're, they sell on consumption.

Big mistake. Yeah. Thank you. Huge. It feels like A, this idea he has of like, I need to be amongst the common people. Michael Lerner's offering with Polito, get him a fucking mansion, put him up at the nicer hotel, put him in my guest room. He won't allow any of that stuff to happen. John Polito, of course, we love to see him.

The great John Polito. I mean, just the roly poly-ous little man. We'll have talked about him a lot last week. I mean, because Miller's Crossing is his, I think his biggest Cohen's showcase, right? Like obviously he made a lot of movies with them. I promise we won't give him the hi-hat in that episode. No, we won't. But Polito has been kind of edged out of the Louis B. Merrill role here, right?

Because normally he'd be the guy playing the Louis B. Merrill part. So there's actually something really, there's like real pathos to the fact that he's meek in this one. It almost... The late John Fletor, right? Yeah, that's right. It gives Lerner learners character a little more power Where you're like if I've seen the first three Coen Brothers movies to see Paulito be like nudged Simping to this guy, right? It's just like how fucking hot can this guy run?

But the other the other part of it with the the hotel thing But the other part of it with the hotel thing, beyond just whatever he thinks his artistic philosophical principle is of needing to be in a real place with real people, it's also, to my mind, the recurring imagery of the beach is just like, this guy wouldn't know how to fucking function on a beach. And he doesn't when he gets there. You put him on a mansion. He's in his fucking three pieces.

He's going to be miserable. He's wearing his shoes. So there's this idea of like... The Barton Fink action figure doesn't have other clothes. He's going to be miserable. He's going to be miserable. He's going to be wearing those shoes. So there's this idea of like- The Barton Fink action figure doesn't have other clothes. Right. He's got the one thing. The idea of looking at a picture of a beautiful woman on the beach isn't like that's the escape, that's the fantasy.

It's sort of like that's the idea of that being my idea of a fantasy. That a well adjusted person would look to an image like that as an idea of a serene thing to strive for. And for him, he would never be able to enjoy it. It's also a hilarious mocking thing to have on the wall of that dingy room, where they're like, but for a little color,

we'll hang that one picture. And it's just such a, I mean, it's what the Coens are so good at in their entire career. The more you look at it, it's like saying a word a thousand times. The more you read strange things into that weird cryptic anonymous image of the back of a woman on a beach. And then it is like the fulfilled prophecy thing.

This is like the David Lynchy thing again to return to where it's like, if you want to try to read into this, like what is the, it's not a time loop, obviously you don't want to like read like too much into it, but the girl at the end purposely adopts the the pose exactly yeah it's right you're mirroring everything I mean it when I saw this movie for the first time I guess well over 15 years ago I I and until rewatching last night had held on to my interpretation so strongly of oh He is in hell and John Goodman's character is Satan or he's in purgatory or whatever yes And I remember like feeling so strongly John Goodman's character is the devil or some equivalent and watching it last night

I did not feel that way you had All and I thought it is facts. I did not feel that way you I love this guy. I don't think I was yet this guy's maybe God I think interpreting him as a sort of demonic figure is perfectly acceptable sure I wasn't like what an idiot what a misread I had but it speaks to sort of the weird things like quality of this movie Yeah, you can watch it one time and go you know what it's a hundred percent this It's this and this and this is how these other elements support it. I do not make movies that way I feel right Misleads you know they're not like you miss the point they be like yeah do what you want It's so much a reflection of what you're bringing to the movie as well

Ben what do you want to say well what I wanted to share what changed for me is that the first time I watched this, I was so aligned with him and his pretentious perspective. New school poetry. Yes, yeah. I majored in creative writing at the new school. Watching it this time around, what really struck me is he's saying he's this like voice of the people. Yes.

And yet is not actually comfortable interacting or being in the space with these types of people. He seems to hate people. With anybody. He cannot handle talking to anybody. And then is incapable of writing a piece of work that is for those people. Correct. He's so above writing the wrestling movie. Right. And yet he's saying the whole time that he is,

like, you know, has the audience who would want to interact with that work in mind. His was so funny. To write what he thinks the people need rather than what they want. A polemical kind of dick, you know. This is the President Sturges thing. This is like, this is Sullivan's Travels, right?

It's the best moment in film history, but certainly in Sullivan's Travels. It's when they interact with simple, quote unquote, art and it moves them beyond anything. Preston Sturges is like one of the single biggest influences that the entire Coen Brothers filmography down to, Oh brother where Arthur being the death of the movie he wants to follow in his travels. But no, but did you have more? Oh, that's it, that's all I wanted to say. Although I did want to actually shut up

and get out of here. Hey, hey, hey, come on. A palate cleanser actually. Please. I want to tell you, because this is getting pretty heavy, did I ever tell you my story about meeting Brad Pitt the first time?

Brad Pitt. Bradley Pitt. Who you've never directed in a film. Never directed in a film. Okay, so my girlfriend at the time. You didn't direct Simbad Legend, The Seven Seas? I wish. Okay, carry on.

Seven Seas in that picture. My girlfriend at the time was cast as the, one of the neighbors in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Okay, sure. A film with many a neighbor. You are in that film as an actor. I'm in that film as an actor and here's how that happened. The cast Asian thought, oh, it would be funny if Chris, this is my girlfriend Heather at the time, who's going out with Heather, played

her husband. And then she, Heather was like, I don't think I want to be like playing second fiddle to the Angelina Jolie person I'm out of here. She dropped out right and I was like who replaces her Um, I forget her name lovely lovely Rachel Huntley What are you not a name? I know I'm still end up I was like I'm not leaving As Angelina come on, yeah So then this is the only movie that actor was ever in. Weird.

Oh really? Oh wow. Yeah, it's my only MTV credit. So there I am, right, on this set, and there's Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and I'm playing their neighbor, so I have a couple of scenes with Brad, which is pretty fricking funny.

I need to re-watch this movie, because I haven't seen it since it came out. It's really funny. It speaks to how much I have always been me, that I remember seeing that movie opening weekend and going, oh, weird, that's Chris Weitz. That is really intense. I immediately clocked, oh, wow,

that's the writer and director of About a Boy. Well, I would have known, I did see Chuck and Buck, not to bring up all your amateur credits, which you are a major role. You've now covered all my amateur credits. You were a titular character. I was. Okay, all right, so you're in a couple scenes with Bradie Pitt.

We're starting to shoot this scene with Brad, and of course it's like, it's fucking surreal, right? And I want to make it clear to him that I'm not going to be very good in this scene because I'm not an actor, I'm a director. Temper your expectations, Brad. So I go to Brad, you know, we were just shaking hands and I said, look, I just want you to know I'm not actually an actor, I'm actually a director.

And I can see him take it the wrong way. And the way that he is taking it is, oh my God, this guy is some kind of fricking lunatic who wants to give me his script, right? Right, right, right. You're like, really what I want to do is direct. Completely. I am an established director with credits to my name.

And I see his soul retreat into the back of his head, like it's clearly something that he has done before. And I realize that I have like lost this moment with Brad Pitt completely. I am now just a lunatic to him. And then we do our scenes, he shakes my hand and every... Actually, I see him one more time. I see him one more time, which is the year that Demian Beshear is nominated for Best Actor for A Better Life.

And he should have won, but... And he's like telling me what a great time he has. He's like, oh, I'm hanging out with George and Brad. Cause is that the Descendants Moneyball artist here? Correct. That is, yeah. Both George and Brad were nominated for Best Actor of the Year. But of course we had to make room for Jean Dujardin.

Yeah. And his big leading man career since then has proven that he deserved it. And so Demian, we're at the SAG Awards and Demian brings Brad by and like introduces us and I see it, I see the penny drop. The flicker. He's like, oh okay, okay. Six years later, he's like, oh that guy wasn't full of shit. Yeah, no, to his credit he was like, somehow remembered and he's like, oh yes, we've worked before. And I was like, oh god, somehow remembering. He's like, oh yes, we've worked before. And I was like, oh God, thank God. What's so funny too is that your like function, Mr.

Mrs. Smith is basically to be like, look how poorly these guys fit in with normal suburban couples. Right. And my memory is that you're sort of like talking at him trying to make like neighborhood small talk. Yeah, we're talking about golf. Right. And he's just like not really locking in. All right, that was the palate cleanser. That's fascinating. Your co-star kind of has a Christina Applegate

sort of styling and look to her, but I guess is not Christina Applegate. No, but I think that's, they're going to that trope of like suburban. They're married with children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Suburban. Interesting. Boothballs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, let's pick up back with the plot though. He's been instructed to the producer. Lerner basically just fucking monologues to him. That says so much. He's like walks out of there reeling, doesn't even know really what to do. It's not really until Shalhoub calls him in. Yes, that he'd even know what to do. But then we go to, I've got the movie running, go to the hotel, him struggling to write. He just has the ambient sound of traffic intro to his screenplay, right?

That's sort of the streets of New York. He's also writing the same thing he just wrote. Yeah, the sound of the streets. But here's the interesting thing. There's a really bad translate in the back of this set, right? It's not believable. And there is no traffic noise Yeah, right. So it's like that that's another weird thing about like horror ish thing about about the movie

Is that the the hotel itself isn't isn't set in any proper atmosphere when you when you say translate just for our listeners That's a translucent light back That is semi translucent so that you feel as though like light is hitting it properly, but it's a purposely bad one, I think. It's a little odd, right. And then Goodman appears. So Goodman appears for the first time

after the Lerner meeting? And it's almost like, you know, it almost could be like planes, trains, and automobiles or whatever, it's this kind of like garrulous working guy, guy He's an insurance salesman and he's got that kind of like Oh writer like oh, you know I wouldn't know about that right like, you know, and but he thinks of himself is like, oh, I'm here to you know Stir your soul and to understand you you and it's just perfect characterization of just immediately He's not listening to this guy. No. He's explaining to this guy why he cares about him, while ignoring everything he's actually trying to say.

And he's talking about how hard his job is. Yes. And then good for the mind. How painful the life of the mind is. Right. He calls him a working stiff. Yeah. That's so fucking rude. Right. And he thinks he's saying it with respect as,

I see you, don't think it goes ignored that you live a life of misery Nate condescension to everything he does and yet like not to jump ahead But there's such a good detail for me in him extending to good men if you're ever in New York City reach out to my parents They'll give you a meal, which is basically his one act of unambiguous kindness to this guy Yes, even if it's a little self-serving of like I want to be the kind of guy who offers this up and once again, I'm not offering hospitality I'm extending my parents to you for hospitality, but I do feel like it's like you'll have you'll have some kind of Welcome in right. I think it's also him being like I have cred

I have like working-class parents that you can run with. But that also feels like him saying that in that one moment is maybe the thing that stops Goodman from murdering him. Well, but he may have murdered the parents by the end of it, which is kind of interesting, right? Which to me, like, links up with No Country for old men, right? Which is that, you know, Anton Chigurh goes and kills the wife of the protagonist. Is that all real though?

Well, we can talk about it. We can talk about it. It's the rollercoaster of Goodman's performance where he's just vacillating so quickly between like charm and sadness and menace and like, you know, emptiness and gregariousness and all this sort of shit. But I do think the way he plays that moment of Barton Fick extending that to him, like Goodman really slows down for an instant. You see him really

process that and it's like he clocks it like, I have to remember he's one of the good ones. Obviously he's going to turn him by the end of it But I think so much the way Goodman plays this is this kind of like son of Sam This is a guy who is like answering to higher voices He is hearing right of what he feels like he needs to do and there are sort of these like moral tests He's imposing on people what you hear about from these sorts of like serial killers Where they're sort of like this is the moment that made me realize I had to kill this person Versus this is the moment that me realize I couldn't do it. Of course. My favorite serial killers Hannibal Lecter

Well, we love him with the lake great as mr. President Trump would call him late But you know what very kindly many other countries are sending all of their Hannibal Lecter's to us But what I love every day about Hannibal Lecter is that it is canonical and as the movie, the books go on more and more clear, they're like, he kills people if he thinks they're rude. Yeah, the free range rude. Right. He's just kind of like, you're fucking rude. I'm going to serve you up for dinner, bitch.

Did you do here? When you dig down like fucking serial killer rabbit holes, there's a lot of that. I don't like to do that They're looking for the excuse of someone doing something that they perceive as a social faux pas or rudeness And then saying like now I have permission to kill you, but I don't think he's a serial killer I think that's all fantasy or whatever we can talk about it Crucial image after Goodman leaves is the wallpaper peeling the weird red Kind of like

flesh-like wall beneath it, right? Behind it, you know? Like, the membrane and the thick sort of like... Right, everything's too gooey and thick. Like the hotel's alive, which rocks. The next thing is Shalhoub, who is the producer type guy. My favorite thing about Shalhoub, apart from everything, because he's so funny, is that when they have lunch, he's got whiskey and milk and he keeps forgetting which one to drink from first at the time.

It speaks to how like on fire this movie is and this era of like, Right, that Shalhoub is like the seventh best performance in it. I was gonna say. Right, he's rock star. And it's almost undeniably. And Shalhoub is one of my favorite actors in the world. And this is one of his best performances and yet Every time I'm like right fuck Shloob is in this movie Yeah, and he's great

But there's I feel like this era of like PTA was doing this and the Coens were doing this Where there was like a wave of filmmakers who all recognized like holy shit There is an incredible class of character actors who have been doing good like supporting work in studio films. And what if you just start building entire movies out of just these guys? Right, right. Not just use one of them, right? Have Mahoney, Shalhoub, Buscemi, you know, Judy Day. Well, Judy Davis, a little Michael Lerner, even Goodman. Yeah, 100%. The next scene is the bathroom where he meets Mahoney,

who is a William Faulkner, whatever type, a sort of a feat Southern, but a sort of like genteel Southern man with the bow tie and the handkerchief and all that. He meets him like puking and like writhing pain. The worst puking noises, maybe in cinema history. Amazing puking noises. Which the movie has already set up

like the chaos of the sounds of the people on other sides of his room in the hotel, the constant like the chaos of the sounds of the people on other sides of his room in the hotel, the constant like speaking of the haunted hotel thing, but just that weird thing. And you can feel this in apartment buildings as well, where you're just like, I'm hearing noises that are both too specific and too abstract. The line that gets me right first is that he's puking into the toilet and then you see him pick up the handkerchief from the floor.

But it's not that he says sorry about the noise, but he says sorry about the odor. And you're just like, what the fuck came out of him? So bad. But then of course, Barton recognizes him as this esteemed novelist. I'm always very distressed when people vomit in the movies and then speak closely to someone else. I feel like vomiting in the movies is one of the hardest things to get right. It happens all the time and there's the classic kind of, you know, tube next to the mouth, which has become almost like, it's like we accept that fake feeling as real.

Because you can't do it real. I've had to do it multiple times and it is... Have you always done the truth or have you also? Put stuff like something's in your mouth, and you kind of get it. I've done three different ways I have had three different big vomit scenes. I've had like fully rigged up I've had we're gonna come this in later a CGI Oh, and I've had your holding stuff in your mouth And you have to expel it which I would imagine holding stuff in the mouth is the best

But you can't get much out then whenever that whenever you see to expel it. I would imagine holding stuff in the mouth is the best. But you can't get much out then. And whenever you see that version of it, you're like, yeah, he had like, all that sense of the threat. It's the easiest to play releasing the thing. It is the hardest to play everything leading up to that, which to me is almost more important of like, how do you play the build?

I don't know why people always ask me to fucking puke on screen. Well, you look sickly. You look like you're on the... You know what? That's the answer. I'll call you out. You have vomited on BlankChat. This is true. As has Ben.

I have yet to do it, but... Decade of dreams! Decade of dreams. Like, who knows what the next ten years hold? During a national recording? Or you made it to the national recording? In the Patreon car ride episode. Ben did it on Mike in a car

No, I think Ben actually did I turn the recorder off right before it happened The only reason it wasn't on Mike was because Ben was fucking fixing it from the inside. I went to the bathroom I didn't script and exited and then returned with I just barfed You know I act grew up in Alex Ross Perry's car. Yes, Decade of Dreams the episode I vomited on in the car But sorry, I said like was it was it cleaned up like? Like a loose shopping Ben no no no no we had gotten Dunkin Donuts I was not in this you finished your iced coffee Then you removed the lid and puked into the cup and then put the lid back on and acted like you were gonna get away

With it none of us would notice. And I called you out. Even though there were like four to five of you in the car. That's pretty smooth. I was definitely, I was resourceful and I was not going to be like, doop, doop, doop, doop. I was going to be like, we need to pull over. You, Ben Griffin, you puked entirely in the cup. Your aim was good. Yeah. You made no other other mess was it like a venti I mean like and then I saw you kind of go like this and turn the recorders back on and I immediately said Ben I need to acknowledge what just happened I called it out before you know what Ben just he knew you had to be on mic he knew what you know exactly I just want to connect a dot here everything is

copy the episode where I puked I said hold on I'm gonna go to the bathroom I got up I went to the on Mike. You knew what exactly I just want to connect a dot here. Everything is copy. The episode where I puked. I said, hold on, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I got up. I went to the bathroom. I came back and I went, I just vomited. You did. That was our Starship Troopers episode. And that was the episode which was the episode which after which we met exactly because I love that episode. We did about it and said, this is a great episode about a great movie. And we were like, holy shit, Chris White's listens to this podcast. And we messaged you, if I hadn't puked in that episode,

we never would have met. That's beautiful. Full circle. After that, he meets Judy Davis, who was kind of, I feel like sort of her peak acclaim, like this is when she's just becoming such, like she's not an actor people talk enough about anymore, because her peak was the sort of early 90s.

I also think she had a notoriously big ego and there was a little bit of a- So do I. You know the great anecdote about her. No, what is it? It's one of my favorite Hollywood stories of all time that she's working on Passage to India. Early in her career.

Maybe her first film, certainly her first major. Not her first, but her first big movie. Right, and David Leen's come back after 20 years on the bench and they're having an argument over the way to play a scene. Yeah, and she said why should I listen to you? What have you done? And he said Lawrence of Arabia and her response was I mean, what have you done lately? Well, she had him there Yeah, it's one of the great burns of all I

Love that. She didn't take that lying down. She was like, I'm coming right back at you. Brief encounters old. One of the worst lines I've ever heard in a movie is from Sex and the City 2. Great movie. Laurence, I know what you're about to say. Please, go ahead. When, I forget which character. Samantha. Samantha sees a hot guy and says, Lawrence of Mylabia.

Yeah. But you thought Carrie said that one? No. You thought Charlotte busted out Lawrence of Mylabia? That's fair enough. The thing about Sex and the City 2. Ben, can you just do a quick note just for the edit? Christmas spoke, he said one of the worst lines I've ever heard.

I think he meant to say one of the best lines I've ever heard. The thing about Sex and the City 2 is you want to just toss me what the runtime on that movie is? I believe that one is a tight... Twelve years. One hundred and forty-five minutes? You were off by one minute. It's one forty-six, baby! Because Michael Patrick King was like, no, they need another minute.

Not two twenty-five, two twenty-six. One of the worst movies I've had to sit through in the theater is Sex and the City. Sex and the City one is a brutalizing experience. Right, Sex and the City one is not a particularly good movie but you're kinda like, yeah, you know, there's some stuff here for everybody, whatever, we're all drinking cocktail.

Sex and the City two is a little bit of a sort of like, yeah, slow cinema, like, art house punishing. I feel like that movie is. Bela Tarr. Push me into a depression, actually, watching that movie. Fair, fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you haven't exited.

Have you seen Sex and the City 2? I never have. It's not very good. I've only seen two episodes of Sex and the City ever. Well then, I think you shouldn't start with Sex and the City 2 if you want to return to the franchise. No, I'm gonna start with 2 and I'm gonna go backwards. You should know, you should start with And Just Like That and then keep...

Oh, you're right. That's what I should do. The That's what I'm gonna wait for it And just like that and then we'd back and then I'm gonna go memento style No frills delivers get groceries delivered to your door from no frills with PC Express Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. So yeah, it meets Judy Davis, who's his sort of... She's phenomenal. She's incredible in this movie.

Just to be clear, I think she basically never misses as an actor. Kinda didn't miss, but it's this era, it's like Georgia, Alice, Barton Fink, Naked Lunch, Husbands and Wives, like that's the ref she's amazing in. Husband and Wives people kind of thought she was gonna win the Oscar. And it is... Some stuff happened.

It is one of the most transparent on camera. An actress clearly is just miserable that she's lost. Watching Judy Davis' reaction in the telecast is amazing. But... The worst performance. I think I just... The worst performance. I think I just... The ref is kind of the end of Hollywood taking her very seriously, which maybe it's because

she was tough to work with. But then she'll show up in like two scenes in the breakup and be incredible where you're like, this is a nothing part, she's somehow making a full character. She's in Marie Antoinette. Oh, sure. Like, occasionally she'll still pop up. She's great in this, and she's Mahoney's wife or partner or whatever. She's his assistant, who's also his mistress.

But who's eventually revealed to be kind of his muse slash... She's kind of the wife from the movie The Wife. What if there was? Exactly, where she's kind of writing some of the stuff for him. Yes. I think part of what makes this performance so effective to me is the way the movie is set up. You're like, oh, here's the third lead, right? She's entered.

Yes. I assume the rest of the movie is going to be him ping ponging between these two other characters. Romantic drama, right. We'll play out there. Right. And then she dies so much more abruptly than you're expecting, but she somehow within only like three scenes

gives a full enough performance that you feel like she's wedged in your mind as like an important character, where it's that jarring when she's gone. Right, her role is mostly her going like, Mr, what's his name in the movie? Mr. Mayhew, Mr. Mayhew is indisposed while he's like, ah, in the background. Like he is the drunkest man ever in life. Yes, Mr. Mayhew. Mr. Mayhew is indisposed while he's like, the background.

Like he is the drunkest man ever. Yeah. Number one. I mean I scream for, for at one point he's saying, you know, the, the one where he goes and peas is he's singing the song. What's, you know, uh, old black Joe, which, what's, you know, Old Black Joe, which is like a folk song that's about being a slave. And like the joke is that he,

that's how he sees himself, right? Is that like, that's the sort of insane mental prison he's constructed. He's like, I'm enslaved to Hollywood, I can't escape. Shalhoub yelling about him being a louse and Barton continuing to say like, he's one of our finest writers, one of our finest louses

It's the kind of Cohen dialogue David lean situation won't drop it. Yeah, and by the way, yeah I mean these guys are like complaining about being enslaved all the system and everything like As I complain about studio filmmaking. I'm also conscious of the fact like I should be so fucking yes, of course Okay, I guess Into a binary thing But this is what I was trying to get out with the studio system thing of like it made perfect sense Why it need to be eradicated in the moment and now?

Look back and you're like fuck was that better off. I understand everything was broken about it But it's right this striving for like What would I give up in order to try to eke out a win in this world? What I am trying to say to you is that what you are really missing is an era where film was Unchallenged as a visual that was a huge part of yes a huge part of it. It's not because the studios controlled everything It's because there was no competition for movies none. Yes none for 50 years. There's no competition Yes, but here's the thing. Apart from a painting.

Well, I've heard, I've seen some good ones in my life. Not moving at all. Yeah, exactly. They don't move unless you kind of Mona Lisa style kind of, she looking at me. Or if you carve out the holes like Scooby-Doo style and make it. That's a Ben Hosley move, of course. Peep. It is probably Pollyanna-ish of me.

Right, to be like the golden age of Hollywood was a truly golden age! No, I'm like specifically a thing I wish that fucking happened. I'm not even saying this for me, right? Is that Netflix would be like, we're gonna sign fucking like 40 character actors to yearly contracts and just slot them into our projects into these small roles. But then she would be stuck in making, no offense to Netflix, maybe Chris wants to work

in Netflix one day, Swill! No one watches. David, how dare you? Big Swill! I've never worked for Netflix, but I personally, I take offense at that. I did watch a Fray Eid on Netflix. I just keep inserting over Swill like,

beautiful masterpiece great film Experienced on your phone or a smaller device pocket size your watch what you were saying is correct Sims But the reality is that people are begging to be cast in swill of course I mean because they're like no other jobs So if the systems based around swill at least make a system that like benefits the people Systems based around swill at least make a system that like benefits the people The other thing I must point out about the golden age of Hollywood is that people who were not white were not allowed to make movies basically at all And a movie that I like a lot is Babylon, which is a louder and more obnoxious movie than Barton Fink Yeah, you didn't you didn't notice that it had a bit of a sort of heightened yelly tone Babylon grip

I thought it was a silent picture. High energy. And that explores some of the interesting ways that Hollywood would try to make movies for black audiences back then, but there was so much racism in the way it was presented and the way they treated people and all that. And that is a movie about sort of what you're talking about of like, man, it kind of rocked back then and we were all kind of in it, you know, like making these fucking movies, but also it was a poison rotting away, you know, our souls and all that.

Right, right. Him watching Avatar at the end of the movie and being like, fuck, that's terrible shit. It's like movies rock, but the industry, you know, some notes, mezzo-mezzo. I think that hits me a little bit. Does Barton Fink watch Avatar at the end of this movie? No, but what's his name? Calvo watches it at the end of Babylon. Barton Fink should watch Avatar.

Barton Fink would love Avatar. The life of the mind. I have a question. Just talking about work, and you alluded to it earlier in the episode. I'd love to hear about how this portrays writer's block, the writing process. I feel like we haven't heard about that.

And I mean, I think everybody's writer's block is different. It probably portrays it pretty realistically as sort of a form of torture. And all the stuff about the life of the mind is like, yeah, yeah, that's kind of the deal, but I wouldn't talk about it in that way. You have also had a very interesting balance in your career of like getting to make personal things that are driven by your desire to tell this specific story and like doing assignment work.

And I feel like when I talk to you, as much as you sometimes have frustrations of, I took this assignment job but tried to do the best version of it and I'm unhappy with the final product, you do understand the difference in your relationship to the ownership and the emotional investment versus when it's your thing versus I did a job and then it was out of my hands. Well, I think it's, when it's for another director, like I do feel like I can disengage to the degree

that I feel like I owe it to that director as the director's medium, and so what they want kind of goes. That being said, I did have a modest proposal that I wanted to air on this podcast, which is that there's a little like QR code on the poster of every movie. And if you click on it, you get a PDF of the original script of the fucking movie that you just saw.

So that you know what has happened in the interim, not like anyone would ever read it. You a couple of times have sent that to us. Yes, I wanna send it in the interim. Not like anyone would ever read it. You a couple times have sent that to us. Yes, I wanna send it to the world. And it is very illuminating. I wanna force their eyes open with toothpicks. I just want you guys to know, this was the last thing that I handed in.

When my job was done, this is how it looked versus what you've seen. But this is like, so that it's perennial, right? This is the same crap that like is that Barton Fink feeling. It's part of why the movie resonates so beautifully. Well, also part of the beautiful pain of the shit is like, fuck, this movie sucks and it's not what I wanted it to be.

And I have no ownership of it and my name is attached to it forever. And now people will hold me somewhat Responsible for the sins of this film on the other hand. What's worse not getting the credit exactly To move us through the plot a little bit You know, there's another meeting with Goodman There's another meeting with Shalhoub where he's like still I have no idea Shalhoub has the hilarious idea of like go watch some dailies From a wrestling picture this game made right now so Barton Fink just watches like endless takes of a guy going like

Shalhoub's innate hostility immediate hostility to Barton Fink which is like it's a similar pitch to Michael Lerner But it's coming from the exact opposite direction Which is I'm so fucking angry this guy's taking a liking to you My job is to like two guys like you out. Right. And for some reason he's gotten fixated on you. Right. You're allowed to be bulletproof for a minute.

Right. And you seem even worse as a starting point than most of the guys that get handed to me. I love that they're also at a New York themed restaurant. Yes. Yes. They're right. They're at a faux diner. It's just these little things where it's like, he's like losing his mind.

And it's just, I love like, obviously he's feeling homesick, feeling out of sorts. And now he's at this like really pretend looking version of home. Right. And he thinks the Mahoney character is going to help give him guidance to sort of understanding here's how someone else has balanced these two things. And what he realizes is this man is- He's in hell. He's in hell.

He's not functional. He's not producing good work His life is in shambles Everyone's surrounding him views him with resentment and perhaps he's not even really writing most of the work that Barton Fink attributes to him Mm-hmm. He looks like shit too. He really they Captured like he really is going downhill, but it's what you're saying of like rates a system that only allows a certain type of Person to work on movies at all Here's Judy Davis whose life is like cleaning up this guy's fucking vomit and not getting paid properly to write all of his work You know like she has to basically like puppeteer this guy weekend at Bernie's style

Into getting anything published or produced And then when Barton Fink realizes that and puts it together at Bernie's style into getting anything published or produced. And then when Barton Fink realizes that and puts it together, he's angry at her. It's such a good choice from Totoro that he's like yelling at her in the hotel room. He's self-righteous about it too. Right, that he's calling her up to think that she can help him, but also because he's clearly got a bit of a crush on her, right?

And here's this scene where he needs something from her and wants something from her and wants something from her. And the second he starts to put together that maybe she's the mind behind his last 10 to 15 years of work, his responses, wait, admit it, you wrote all of it. Like accusatory, as if she committed a crime. Right. As if she's stolen something from him or whatever. But then he's also like, why aren't you taking credit? Like he's angry at her for not having pride in it. Well, he's not understanding not wanting the credit, I guess.

And also not understanding the system. Right, and not long after that is when she comes to his hotel. That is the scene. He yells at her in the hotel. Right, it's all part of the same scene. It's right before they sleep together. And then they make love. And the camera does go into the drain,

and Chris thought that was a little maybe over the top. It's good. Down the drain? And then he, in a nightmarish moment, wakes up. And this is sort of where you can start to think about the movie entering a more surreal zone. He calls her and begs her to come over. She says she can't because she has to do work with him. He falls asleep and then he wakes up to her knocking on the door

and she's there. I think if you want to believe that the second half of the movie didn't happen, it's in that moment that the transition happens. I would say just to talk about the whole of Barton Fink, the moment you can really point to is when the walls catch on fire and yet the hotel is not consumed, where you can start to be like,

Methinks reality is blurring in Barton Fink a bit. You know, like, but., but I argue it's a, it's a build from there. The idea that shows up, helps him, fucks him, dies. And then Goodman, you know, he gets Goodman to come in and get rid of the body and Goodman is alarmed, but also just does it. Yeah. And here's a great puke and off another off camera puke. Yeah. Here's another great detail of like weird snapshots of different eras of Hollywood culture. He says to Barton something to the effect of this is bad. Even if they eventually clear you in the court, you'll be ruined forever. Yeah. Which is clearly an analog to fatty

our buckle in this era. This is like the earliest days of Hollywood scandals were if you were accused of something Even if you won the case and cleared yourself in the court of law the public wouldn't touch you ever again You were forever soiled and now I think it's just an interesting counterpoint We're in this sort of an anti-cantor culture. Yes, and basically anytime anyone there is like released documentation of their crimes, you immediately see 8,000 people in the comments go, well, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? I'll wait until I hear all the evidence. Like you can, someone can be found guilty and they're still like, well, but we all know

the legal system gets things wrong. Whereas in that day, there was this puritanical nature of like we don't want to know too much of our stars the veil cannot be pierced and Especially if any idea is implanted in our head of them doing that something untoward Even if we find it's not the case. We're not getting that image out of our head. It's over There is this moment again when we're talking about dreams That whereby Barton opens the Bible to Daniel two, where he's reads a passage about Nebuchadnezzar's dream. You know, like it's not like as much as the Coen's like, I don't know, maybe like, you

know, it's like, obviously there's a lot of allusions to things. The camera zooms in on a passage in the Bible about dreaming. Yeah. Yeah. And then the first verse is his, the joke, but he goes to the Bible about dreaming. Yeah. Yeah. And then the first verse is his... The joke becomes like he goes to the top of Daniel Tewitt, it's Faited on a Tenement Building, you know, like it's his stupid fucking intro that he can't lose. I think the Coens are as good with sound as any one in the history of movies.

Without a doubt. It is like... I mean, we did just cover, of course, Lynch, who another master of that in a more loud, you know. But I think part of their magic is they always know how to like really put a focus on Foley work that is just 10% over cranked. It's just a little overstated and a little overly crisp, but every single movement and texture

needs to have a specific sound associated with it, which is so powerful in terms of evoking specific feelings in you, in a way that I think a lot of filmmakers undervalue, in terms of going for realism or saying, we don't need to hear every creak of the readjustment or whatever it is. But then they'll also, as you were saying, Chris, make these decisions of not hearing sound outside the window of the hotel. Where then, when there is silence or an absence of something in a Cohen's movie,

it's that much more unsettling of like, why is it this quiet? Yeah. Everything has been thought through. Nothing is by default. Right. Versus being able to hear the wallpaper. Um, this is also where Goodman's character leaves him a head in a box. Sorry, just a box with nothing.

You just hold onto that box for me. And then not long after the two cops appear, a classic kind of Hollywood thirties, you know, like guys in hats and jackets, you know, right? Like who are like, that guy's not who he says he is. He's a serial killer called Madman Mont. I also, I think we should even say though, that John Goodman basically does all of the hard work. Yes. Which is removes the

body. He does all of the like manual work, especially like, right. Like he gets rid of the body and Barton Fink is not even really that like thankful about it. I feel like you don't like this guy. I feel like you got a problem with Barton Fink, but also Ben. He's the voice of the people. He is not! I think he's trying! It's bad manners not to thank the person who's disposed of the corpse that you found in your bed. You should at least say thank you. At least verbal thanks.

If not a tip, like a crisp 20 in a handshake. But also, this is a key question of like, is he the one who murdered her? And is his helping a button thing helping to set him up? By the end, I got that. If you're gonna take it... That's the most straightforward kind of like... He's basically making a trap for him to incriminate him, part of which is him being that helpful. The way I sort of take Barton Fink, not again to be like,

sort of like, this is what the movie means, is I'm like, no. I mean, Charlie slash Carl is in his imagination and it's like initially It's this patronizing vision of sort of like yes. This is the kind of guy. I'm writing for the guy who's like Oh, well, I you know, I'm an honest Joe and I Roll your hair and then as he starts to curdle in madness and get you know hate that he's writing this movie He starts he's like those people are sick exactly like they're just like they're just you know, hate that he's writing this movie. He starts hate it. He's like, those people are sick. Exactly. Like they're just like, they're just monsters.

And only that like he's disgusting. He can't stop sweating. Right. Exactly. Before he literally becomes a serial killer and an embodiment of hell. And then right first it's the serial killer thing. And then he's right. He's a demon.

Like he said, he's a demon. I'm going to tie it to the kind of the film thing, which is like he's imagining an audience or a potential audience, like there's a subject and an audience, right? And like, when you go to these marketing screenings, part of the reason I think that, obviously they're asking the questions that they're asking of the audience in order to try to maximize the profit that you make of it.

But if you look at the questions, basically they're treating the audience like a bunch of fucking morons, right? And they don't say it, but it's like, how can we get money out of these fucking morons? Yes, yes. It is kind of astonishing. I mean, it's... A couple times I've done it, this question's basically like, did you get this?

Did this make sense? Did you track that this was happening in the end? Do you have a sense of cause and effect? My experience in TV was almost always having these conversations with executives where they'd say like, you try to argue for why you thought the integrity of a thing you wanted to convey a certain way, how you want to execute what you were trying to say. And then their response is always almost verbatim, something to the effect of, no, no, no, no, no, we get it. We love it.

I'm just worried about them. I have been shown movies by studios early, like well before the screening for press, in these screenings where they're essentially like, can you tell us if people will get this? Like, and we're not gonna take your on fact here, but like we're trying to see, we think people are not gonna get this. this they will usually show me a broadly appealing film

But it's not that hard to get The thing I find fascinating about the no no no of course we get it It was and they always had we and we know what she's going for we know what that guy wants But like does it make sense my experiences most TV executives while you're inside the belly of the beast right is like either it is Very clear that they assume everyone in the audience is an idiot and they're a genius assumption right right and they can't be making things at their own level because their level of intellect does not reflect the target audience of the product or

They clearly don't get it like they literally just don't understand. You get into these arguments sometimes where you're like, Oh, you actually just didn't get that's the same character. I mean, I that's only happened to me once, but there was a movie. I don't know if I should say it. I probably will just say it, which is the little stranger, a good movie. Oh yes. Where I had a conversation with someone who worked for some, I forget if, I honestly forget if it was a studio or for a publicity house,

where they were like, I had to explain the ending to them. Not no, but the ending was this, and they were like, ah, and I was like, oh, you don't know that that's, because the ending's kind of the whole movie. That movie got totally dumped for someone who had just directed a Best Picture nominee, and I remember you saying to me that you had had that conversation with them

and were like, I think it's good They were like really? Used News to me after The disposal of the body and all that there's a scene. I think first Barton writes the script He puts plugs in his ears and he writes a script He goes into a Cohen's s flow state and just vomits it out And then he a scene that's kind of pivotal is that he goes to celebrate by dancing

Uh-huh, and he had gets in this fight with these guys are about to ship out to the war Right and impossibly square-jawed man. Yes Like I hate these fucking you know jocks and you're like the guy says like hey, can I dance with her? I'm shipping out tomorrow Like you're like, oh, he's actually he's Right, yeah, but then he starts and he's like I am a writer right it is contempt for the audience And then that's where he's like I serve the common man and they all start beating him up Yes, worst thing to the other part of it is like throughout the movie, there have been a bunch of like,

anti-Semitic slurs thrown at Barton Fink almost always by other Jewish characters, right? It's like the self-loathing Jewish heart of the entertainment industry that is sort of like, we are trash and we need to have contempt for ourselves as we make art that reflects the goyum What we want to be right? And yet when these guys attack him the slur as it were that they are throwing at him is 4a Yes, right. No for not for f. I'm sorry that they're constantly mocking like you're as you were saying You're not gonna have to go to war this feeling that all the capable men are about to leave the culture Yeah, and we're gonna be left like with fucking self-loathing weasels like this guy

And then then the movie ends with its final You know long sequence of he returns to the hotel the cops are there They've read the script one of them kind of likes it, one of them doesn't. And then Goodman reappears, the walls catch fire, Goodman shoots the cops, and then monologues at Barton. Can you pull up in the dossier, JJ had a good section about how they execute the hallway gag. I can bring that up.

But that was a dangerous, it was probably a bit of shooting. Pain in the ass day in 1991 were like well Obviously we'll have to do this with CGI which I can't imagine how bad it would have looked at the time But they were just like I don't know how we could safely execute this Yeah, and it's why I want you to pull this up because it's just like astounding that they got it I was wondering how they did that I'd like yeah trying to find this is it it's in the dossier Yeah, so why are you looking at he says look upon me, right? I'm just wondering how they did that. I'm just wondering how they did that. I'm trying to find this. Is it, it's in the dossier? Yep. So while you're looking at, he says, look upon me.

Right, I was thinking about like bits that have been sort of taken magpie fashion by other movies. It felt like witness me a bit. Look upon me and I'll show you the life of the mind. Yeah. And then there's this weird moment where John Goodman's character says, Hile Hitler, right?

Before he shoots the second guy. But I do not think that this is the key to unlocks anything actually. No, but it's like that's what's happening in the moment is this monstrousness is creeping around the edges of the world. He also brings up the thing from their first meeting, which is that Barton complained about the noise. And like he's like saying like that he's still wounded by this now he did just shoot a bunch of people.

His sympathies might be, you know, but like that he's like, and you just complained about me making noise. Like I'm just, you know, right. Like he starts to speak aloud and castigate Barton. Like Goodman, you know. And he says, you don't listen. That's kind of cool. And Goodman's a character who's like ears are literally

like causing him pain Why am I not there's like goo like right out of his ears, and he's going to doctors He's trying to get this fucking thing figured out and yet like he's still trying to listen to Barton I mean It's it's real like acting is reacting shit where the shifts between Goodman doing his sort of like for both where the shifts between Goodman doing his sort of like, or Bose Cohen's runs, and then when he sort of pulls back, and you can just fucking watch Goodman process whatever flowery shit Barton Fink is going on,

there's such a universe of reaction within him. It's a freaking amazing performance. We said that at the beginning. Why can't I find this? Okay, let me look it up. Let me look it up. Yeah, maybe, I think you must have found it somewhere else I think it's not in the dossier. No offense to JJ. Maybe it's on America's most trusted news force Wikipedia

Possibly we skipped over the poolside scene Oh, yeah, the second learner scene where he's in the bathrobe and I wanted to shout out John Polito. We love him He's he's like has that guy ever had hair We love him. He's like, has that guy ever had hair? Yeah, he was born with a comb over and just kept it. Here's the great thing. And so pin not to talk about this in the Miller's Crossing episode, but we'll just do it here because you asked the question.

He's in six Coen movies. Yes. John Pleeto. We're going to have a lot of wonderful time with Mr. Pleeto. Yes. He did, I believe, a random rolls with the AV Club about 10 years ago before his untimely passing. He's kind of what that arm'm timely passing a perfect for subject for that and He said that he had known the Coen's when he was younger

Maybe they had gone to see him in a play Okay And he read the Miller's Crossing script and was like I gotta play this guy and have you seen Miller's Crossing before no That's sort of his biggest role you will have seen it last week But he's playing more the learner type in that movie Right, okay And he reads it and is like I gotta play this fucking part and has agents submit him and the Coen's respond like oh He's not the right type. That's not what we're looking for and to pull pull as Polito tells it in five years He had gained a lot of weight and lost all of his hair and he was like like his headshot saw me

I was a pretty boy and they thought of me as this like Italian hunk. Oh damn, he kind of was. And he was just like, I have so comfortably transformed into this different type of performer that I'm owning and loving and I have to sell the Coen brothers that I've become the perfect Coen brothers character actor. Which he sure has. But they were, they had him in their mind as like a pretty boy. So he did have that era, but yet, the second he started looking like John Pulido, that's

when he really started working in Neverstop. It is from Wikipedia, Griffin, but I'm sure this is true. They built an alternate hallway in an airplane hangar, putting gas jets behind the walls, obviously. And sort of incrementally with each passing step following him. Correct, as Guipman's walking through the hall, someone on a catwalk is opening all the jets. Just like precision timing.

Every take they had to rebuild everything. They had a second hallway ready for pickups. That is expensive. I was thinking about like the production. But my guess is like largely this production was not that expensive. Right. Beyond costuming, they're doing a lot of location stuff. The hotel isn't real. Right. They chose their targets. I'm sure Dennis figured it out.

I think he just made the argument, it's worth spending the money on this. This is where to put the money. And it sure is, because it's burned into my memory. It's a fairly compelling sequence. If this had 91 CGI flames, the movie would fall apart in the sequence. It would be a bit of a bummer. Yes. And so, or whatever post-production kind of like,

optic, I don't know what you would do. And it's not just that the imagery is so powerful, but it's also like watching Goodman crank his performance all the way up to the maximum volume while surrounded by real fire. Yeah. It feels so real because you're like, he's actually having to do this surrounded by real fire. It feels so real because you're like, he's actually having to do this,

surrounded by this level of heat. I'm sure it would have been a scary, it would have been, there would have been a long fucking safety meeting beforehand. Nobody would be quite sure if things were gonna blow up or not. Is the set gonna catch on fire? You'd be pretty, pretty amped.

Like miracle of movies that they got it. After Goodman's incredible monologue, he does something that I think is really cool, which is he pulls the bed spring apart, the bed frame apart, and the camera zooms in on his face in what's become sort of a meme almost, right? Like his training, yes, that particular image of him. Yeah, you're right

and Then he does say right he visited the family In New York and the package isn't his and he goes like this. Yes the end of him walks into the last line Isn't it Hale Hitler or it's right? No, he says Hale Hitler before he shoots the guy Oh, you're right. The last thing is the packaging of you lied. It isn't mine. And then he just goes like this Yeah, it rocks. He should have won an Oscar, right? I think he's too scary I that's my assumption is that the Oscars were like, I don't know what to make of this. It's too weird. Yeah Yeah, I do. I do just think the movie was a little too heady for them at the time It is a weird it just feels like this guy was like, we talked about how quickly, like,

Roseanne's season one, Springboards 2, always Springboards 2, the Flintstones, like, America just immediately was like, we're buying anything with this guy. He was clearly so beloved within the industry, it still is, but was right out of the gate. It just feels like an obvious, like, kind of... But he only makes one movie next year, which is The Babe.

But then I feel like by a couple years later, and obviously he's making Roseanne, his sort of, like, he's in a lot of stuff career start, right? Where it's like, Goodman's a pretty reliable, like, two, three, four movies a year guy. This is the era where they were like, I guess he has to be a leading man, right? I guess we have to construct vehicles around him. What's the right source material? What's the right projects? And then he, I think, like, transitions to an area

of flexibility, of like, I'll just do anything. I'm happy to play the lead. I'm happy to be in one scene. I'm happy to be the second guy. And the Coens always use them. I'll do comedy and indie and drama and action and yeah, he's just, he's fucking... Not only is he, you know, the classic Sims, when's he bad? When is he bad?

I was watching it last night and I was like, has this guy ever had a moment that is less than great? You know, I saw him on Broadway in the front page, which was this sort of all-star cast thing, where it was like fucking Nathan Lane and John Slattery and Goodman, where you're like, Jesus, any of these guys could headline a Broadway play. Right.

You know, like, what the fuck is going on? And it was that weird sort of phase in his life where he suddenly lost a lot of weight. Yes. And his energy changed a lot. He got sober. And it's not like sort of phase in his life where he suddenly lost a lot of weight. And his energy changed a lot. He got sober. And seemed kind of rueful. And it's not like he was bad in it, but I remember being let down by like he was a little

muted and it was sort of like, that's weird. In a play that's mostly people like screaming at the top of their heads or top of their lungs, sorry. I just, I... But I have certainly never thought he was bad. I have never, I've not seen every single thing he's done, but I have not in my mind consciously witnessed a false moment from him. What about Blues Brothers 2000?

I think he is good in it. I rewatched it recently. I believe you. You guys see everything. I want to say this. I've not seen Blues Brothers 2000. And I watched it like six months ago. I was like, it's time to reassess.

Well to an extent David, it's your job, right? So you always seem to see everything. Right now it is my job. I'm just sick. Doing great. But it's hard to keep up with movies with children and I sympathize David as much. Well, that's true, but you just have to... In my opinion when you're a parent, you do have space for kind of like one extracurricular thing, basically. It's kind of what it is that you pick, right?

I don't know. The final two scenes, Coda scenes are so, so good. Michael Lerner in his like Mussolini costume, where he's like had a general costume rigged up for him. That's when he's turned on Fink, where he's like, this is too arty farty. Good side gag when he turns around, cause you think he's in a tan suit

and that suddenly he's covered in metal. It's so funny. And in a daze after being chewed out for his whatever terrible script, he goes to the beach, he sees the lady from the painting. He's got the box and she goes like this, and that's it.

He says, you're very beautiful, are you in the pictures? And she says, don't be silly. the box and she goes like this you know and that's it. He says you're very beautiful are you in the pictures and she says don't be silly. And I had a false memory that what she says is don't be silly nothing good comes of the pictures. That would be way too obvious. Yeah. But that's what I took away actually. It is the takeaway.

Yeah. No I think this movie is about how writing is fun and easy, and pictures are easy breezy, and right? It's good, Hollywood. Yeah, I mean they... There's no business like show business. There's no business like show business. They talk about it, a lot of the quotes

that JJ pulled up in the dossier is they're just like, a lot of the stuff just comes out of us organically. Like it does feel like so much of their incubation process is they start to hone in on a couple things they find interesting and it's like, huh? That's an interesting historical moment. This is an interesting place. What about a character like this? I'm gonna work for this guy and then they get to a point where they have like eight elements they find compelling And then they're just like let's just see where it goes. Mm-hmm. And there's an episode of of course my favorite see where it goes. And there's an episode of, of course, my favorite web series, the Russo Brothers Pizza Film School, in which they have Josh Brolin on. This is the Russo Brothers have a show where they interview people who worked on movies and break down

storytelling and screenplays. And they are guys who think about storytelling in a pretty formulaic way. They are proud of how much they feel like they have figured out the scheme of how to make stories. But the first movie they ever made, Welcome to Collinwood, is a very, very straightforward Coen brothers-y kind of movie. Big deal on Madonna Street, really. It's very Coen-sy. Right.

And they're talking to, they didn't, unsurprisingly, the Coen brothers did not want to go on pizza film school, but Josh Brolin did, and they did a no country episode with them, and they were trying to apply their screenplay logic math, right? And being like, look, it doesn't seem like it, but if you actually break apart the script and you stop watch it, there is this very deliberate construction. And Josh Perlman was just like, look, I've worked with them a couple of times. I've talked to them a lot.

They do not think that way. They just like they start on page one and they get to the end and they write what's interesting to them And they are not thinking about What it would take to keep the audience invested or how you're swinging their alliances or any of these sorts of things I think so much of their magic is just they know how to make every single scene interesting Yeah, even with these movies that are oddly shaped does not feel have fans that are hard to identify They're able to just always isolate and circle what is the inherent drama and comedy of this scene

in a way that is really playable, that is surrounded by them working with the best craftspeople in the world, where you're just on board leading in, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Yeah, I agree I think they're organically and Multiferiously excellent. Yeah film was at 91 can

Big competition there. I would say is he's Slavsky's double life of Ron Hink our spawn treers Europa is Homicide the Mammo, which is really good jungle fever Bill Dukes of rage in Harlem. There's good movies. There's not movies boys in the hood played out of competition I mean obviously there's other stuff like that, but like it was in Tom and Louise was the closing film right it was a good year But it's not a lineup where you're like oh damn like it's a lineup where you look at you like well Barton Fink is the best movie of these now

We should acknowledge the Polanski was the head of the jury. He was. And this is a very Polanski-inspired film, and I think it's part of why there was this backlash unsurprisingly. But it was a unanimous jury victory. Yes, it was. And Lars Von Trier said thanks very much to the midget and to the rest of the jury, insulting Polanski. That's weird.

That guy never says off the cuff stuff at Cannes Film Festival. Film got made $6 million in America, released by Fox, which means of course Barton Fink will be in Avengers Doomsday. He's joining the cast. He's going to be one of the Spider-Man villains. You hear the strains of Carter Burwell's score as the camera pans over. It got very good reviews and three Oscar nominations, but certainly was most more polarizing, I would say.

Yeah, I mean, this is the rude era of Totoro kind of being snubbed for this and then quiz show really is what should have been his like makeup nomination. And in both cases of these movies, there's kind of like the surprise. Oh, they nominated this other guy instead. They nominated Michael Lerner instead of John Goodman. They nominated Paul Schofield instead of Totoro. Rosenbaum and Hoberman, who are the great critics of their era, both hated it. And sort of Hoberman sort of is, they both have this kind of like, what is this, Cohen's

self-hating Jew shit, you know, They're both picking at that very early on, which to me again, I'm like, get over it. And to be clear, I deeply respect those men and they inspire me to the work that I do. But I think they're looking at it the wrong way. The thing that always happens with sort of prodigiously talented filmmakers, which is like, oh, we get it, you know how to make a movie.

The craft is impeccable. But is that all this is? Some like whiz, we get it, you know how to make a movie. The craft is impeccable. But is that all this is? Some like whiz bang contraption, some like construction to impress us with your like knowledge of the medium? And it still happens to this day. It always happens when people come out of the gate hot and they have a couple successes in a row

and there starts to be a dialogue of like, are these people starting to make the case for entering the pantheon? There is always a percentage of the critical community Even more so now that it's just open to the fucking internet and social media Who just go like I need to take this guy down We cannot put this new person on the same tier as like it is Established masters a lot this year and yet to your point when you're like I feel like they are the greatest living filmmakers not you because you have always been so open with us, but like

Increasingly over the last four or five years We will hear about filmmakers We admire who listen to the podcast and we're like, holy shit that person listens That is crazy and we get in touch with them and the way we get in touch with you, part of it's the show's gotten bigger, they're more worried about there being more ears on it, but people will say, like, I kind of feel uncomfortable coming on

and talking about someone else's work. I don't want to shit on stuff. And the flip side is, I don't want to call dibs on a big movie because I'm expecting your guests want to hear an Alex Ross Perry style 20 page horror syllabus And if I don't know the whole movie backwards and forwards should I come on right? It has been interesting and who knows this is early in the series and things can change But we've like circled back to filmmakers who have been weary for the last couple of years and a lot of them are like

Oh, I'll do the Coen's they want to jump in. There is because they're unimpeachably great. No, I think really. Yeah. You can't say like, I'm looking down on this movie. They are endlessly talkable movies open to like endless interpretations. And it also feels like even though they are still alive and still working, whether separately or together, they are on a different tier. It feels like they're basically accepted as like living masters now

They're in the pantheon for sure not contemporaries in a way before we play the box-office game We must acknowledge that jokingly or not the Coen's did to Josh Horowitz bring up the idea of old think yes sort of semi jokey sequel Where they were kind of like he's in his it's at the 60s. He's you know, he's He's teaching at a liberal arts college. Teaching at Berkeley, and he ratted on everyone to HUAC. Right, right. And like, you know, and Brooklyn.

It's his post-HUAC shame. And he, like, Totoro has said, like, I'm down, right, we have talked about it, at least jokingly. About 15 years ago, both parties said, we can't make it until he's a little older. Right, now Totoro is having, not that Totoro is never not having a moment, but he is having a bit of a moment from Severance.

The Coens, it's time to get back together. It would be. There's multiple things where they've been like, let's make a sequel, but they're kidding. But this is the only one I'd actually want to see. Like Totoro, of course, made his own weird, his own weird big Lebowski side call that no one was asking for. Well, but that also was one of those projects that they would kind of joke about.

And the answer was, eh, we weren't really asking for this. Right. Bulls Old Think feels like a real movie. That doesn't feel like a dumb pitch. I think it's why everyone goes like, are they just fucking with us because they have a Tendency to fuck with the public in that way, right? Yeah, anyway, that's out there. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, but like I'm saying tutorials hot right now Irv We're all obsessed with Irv. I mean they are very perverse right? That's another thing. I love about them. Yes

They got sex stuff going on? Those are the sort of brains of theirs? I remember before I really knew, they worked that well like reading a foreword to, maybe it was that screenplay, but written by their editor, and I didn't know that they worked together under an assumed name.

Roderick Jaynes. Yeah, Roderick Jaynes. And Roderick Jaynes was kind of dumping on, like damning with faint praise, and being a bit anti-Semitic. Right, they created this fake character. One of their movies, there's a commentary track where they hired an actor to play Roderick

Jaynes, I think. Oh yeah, I think it was the... Blood Simple reclips? The director's cut of Blood Simple and Jaynes talks about how it's better because there's less boring stuff in it. That's the rare director's cut that is shorter because they went back to their first film and we're like we were fucking idiots We know how to make this better. No, they famously who knows if it's true or not When they got nominated as Roderick James for Fargo, we might bring this up on the Fargo episode They were like, what do we do?

Yeah Like Roderick James has been nominated for an Oscar and they wanted to dress up Albert Finney in like a weird costume and have him be Roderick James, but then they didn't go through with it. Yeah. But anyway, the box office. Do you remember when adaptation was nominated and they were presenting the nominees and they actually showed two Charlie Kaufman's on the screen? They created a graphic for Charlie.

Oh wait, that was my year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you were nominated. Who'd you guys lose to? The piano. The pianist. Sorry, the pian you guys lose to? The piano, the pianist. Sorry. The pianist. Yes. That's somewhat of a surprising win. Funny to imagine though, in the same category, there is like Chris and Paul

White's showing two real brothers and Charlie and Donald Kaufman showing a fake brother. It's funny because right, that people thought the hours or Chicago would. Definitely thought the hours. I tell you win. They definitely thought The Hours. I tell you who thought The Hours was gonna win, it was David Hare. Because he won everything up until that point. He had a Judy Davis moment.

Right, and adaptation about a boy, the two best nominees in that category were probably kind of a pleasure to be nominated or whatever. And then the pianist won, and that was the first sign of like, oh, this is, oh shit, you know, and then it won two other big awesome. There was a wild energy to that night where for like three minutes you were like, the pianist is winning Best Picture and it was shocking almost that it swung back to the presumed front runner.

And the guy gets up there and he's like, hey, Chicago! And you're like, I mean, Chicago's B plus, all right, I guess let's go home. A bunch of people gyrating in lingerie. How dare you? Chicago is pretty good. I think adaptation should have won that year. Well, it wasn't nominated. So that was the biggest.

For screenplay. It was nominated. Oh, for screenplay. It would be an amazing, obviously, for best adapted screenplay, adaptation would have been pretty cool. They've given it, this is about adaptation. It's freaking great.

He wins two years later for Eternal Sunshine, another good movie. Also very good. No, that's also the year that El Motivar wins original screenplay, which was also surprising and also rocked. Because they didn't give him, Spain didn't nominate his movie? Spain had not submitted him for foreign film because Spain gets in weird fights with him. But then he got the surprise writing and directing that was an incredible movie, one of his best movies. But then him winning was still shocking.

He did beat out Todd Haynes, which was a little sad because that was probably Haynes' shot. Who are the other three? Gangs of New York, which was probably not gonna win, Cox, Zalien, and Lonergan. Most adaptation. Yeah. Itumama Tambien, which was like a great nom.

I guess that was, Gaines was original? No, this is original, this is what I'm saying. Wild. Gaines was classified as original because the book it's based on is a big fact book. And I guess they pulled so much from different eras. They made a lot of shit while they read that book. My Big Fat Creek Wedding, Nia Vardalas.

I think there was some thought of like, will that get a win to acknowledge the triumph of this movie? But then I think everyone was like let's not be crazy like yeah This one came out August 23rd 1991 Seasonally appropriate I was gonna say you want it to be muggy. Yes, but not really when you want to release this movie I don't know when you release this movie, but it's these days would probably be more of a fall awards They were just fucking hot off the cans heatns heat. They were like, let's strike while the iron's muggy.

Cairns heat. But it's opening a limited release, obviously, so it's not in our top 10. Number one of the box office, I'm sure Ben's seen it. I'm sure Griffin's seen it. Perhaps Chris has seen it. It's a satirical film. But you jumped to Ben first. You think this is in the Hosley canon. Maybe. Satirical film but you jump to Ben first you think this is in the Hossley Canon maybe satirical 1991 he spoof of of you know famous Hollywood movies is the time it hot shots part two It's hot shots. Oh the first one. I've never seen the first one

That doesn't surprise me either that much like under siege and you know Whatever a lot you were like you got the sequel a lot because it was on TV more I definitely watch part two many many times and then I was like if this is part two I can't imagine how good the first one is and I was gonna be one half is good I had not seen Top Gun sure and hot shots part right hot shot. We're doing like just things It's making fun of every hot shots one is just a Top Gun I was like I don't get any of this. Oh, sure.

Hot Shots, it's pretty funny. I watched it for some reason. It's funny. But 2 is better. Yeah. Well, 2 is a little more like, let's just be ridiculous, I feel like. It's a garbage plate.

Right. In a good way. Number 2 at the box office. Chris, you don't care about Hot Shots? I haven't seen it. I didn't see it. Number 2 is a rom-com, movie star, I guess, rom-com.

It's not a bad movie, it's all right. It's a movie star, a rom-com, it's a classic formula. It's 1991, it's a classic formula. You know, it's got a bit of a TV vibe to it. It's not a, it could happen to you. No, but, which is kind of an interesting movie. Yeah, it is kind of an interesting movie. Yeah No You know, it's a what if a big shot kind of got taken down a peg, you know big city small town movie

Oh, it's not talk Hollywood. It's Michael J. Fox and dark Hollywood dark Hollywood Fun movie. It's just the classic like what if a big shots car broke down in a small town, right? That's This time it's big shot doctor ten years later He's got to become like the community doctor to like earn his way out ten years later They cracked out and they said we can't walk. I don't know. It doesn't there's a it'd make sense. Don't worry It's like cars is Doc. Holly fucking step fucking stepping on the joke I was gonna tip. I was gonna say that 15 years later, they finally cracked the formula.

And so get rid of the guy. Just make it car breaks down. And cars is Doc Hollywood. It's like he crashes into a fence and they're like, you have to be a doctor for 30 hours of community service to like pay off. The first cars is so one-to-one Doc Hollywood, it's insane. You know what, Ben? He kind of learns that like at a slower pace with more down-to-earth folk has got some appeal. Because you know who plays.

Before, he was a guy in Hollywood who had sunglasses, and he might kind of look down the sunglasses, perhaps at a lady. And he would be in a rush. He's in a rush. He's got a cell phone. But this is why cars are so smart, because what's faster than a race car the ultimate rush? Woody Harrelson basically plays the mater in that movie. Yes Wilson is that the folks who's the love interest? It's Julie Warner Julie Warner is playing sort of the Sally Carrera

Right did not have a gigantic career. Yeah, who's the Doc Hudson in that picture David Argensteiers? Oh, of course, who's fun? It's a fun movie. It's a classic TV movie. Who would you say is the Sarge in the film? Moving on to the third film. Who's the role? We covered a very popular action film. Uh-huh.

Been out for two months. It's a sequel. We certainly have. Is it Terminator 2 Judgment Day? That's correct. Yeah. Good movie. The highest grossing film of it too?

That is a good movie. Number four at the box office is a movie I have vaguely heard of. OK. It stars an Oscar winner. It's a drama. The Box Office is a movie I have vaguely heard of. Okay. It stars an Oscar winner, it's a drama. I think it's based loosely on like a real guy's memoir. Recent winner? He would have won in the 80s, yeah, probably the last five or six years,

but I think his career is starting to curdle. Okay. I famously, a bit of a tough cookie, this actor. This actor's a bit of a tough cookie. Oh, I feel like I know this. What is it? If you guess this movie, you'll get five bucks. No, I can't guess the movie, but is it George C. Scott?

No, no. George C. Scott. He's already. No, he's with us. I'm gone by then. No, no, no, George C. Scott's still with us, I think. Yeah, George C. Scott, his final film is Angus, which is later. Of course, he died in 1999.

No, no, this is an actor, he was a huge asshole. I mean, but he was a big movie star. But it's not Dreyfus. He's a good actor. Not not Trifus, but you're close. Who's the other one? It's not Trifus, it's not Hacken, it's not Pacino. Who's the other Oscar winner from that era who was a huge asshole. It's not John Voight. Who's oh is it William Hurt? Yes, the man robbed of the opportunity to play the Red Hulk by mortality

Poor Mr. Hurt and that's right. I'm gonna keep bringing up the Red Hulk. You can't stop me the film is the film is called listeners what I got you for your birthday you got me a It's sort of like a pez dispenser, but for lollipops in the shape of the Red Hulk. It's like a lollipop protector It's a plastic Red Hulk. I guess so Right store it away mindful you love sucking on a lolly but your least favorite part is that once you start you can't stop there's no pause points So true, and I said what if the skull of the roll we've been recording for so long could protect Lolly is called the doctor birthday present you still haven't said. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you're right Definitely said thank you

No, I give you day If I wasn't even that drunk on my birthday. How long are we running? Are we heading for record territory? Gentlemen's 310. It's a long time. Yeah, we're getting... Yeah, we're getting there.

The film is called The Doctor. Has anyone heard of this film? No. It plays like a doctor. I've never heard of that. What's it about? What if there was? It's got William Hurt, Christine Lottie, Patinkin's there.

Perk, Inns, Elizabeth that is. Adam Arkin? I don't know. Whatever, it's a movie. It's one of those things where it's like, the movie got fine reviews and made $40 million and you're like, $40 million for a movie I've never heard of that's clearly stupid?

In 1991, that's what it is. I've been going through this thing where like, fucking watched all the vacation movies because of doing European vacation with heckling, right? Really stupid in 1991. That's I've been going through this thing. We're like that fucking Watch all the vacation movies because of doing European vacation. Yeah heckling, right? I didn't I hadn't watched the gold scene daily when we had recorded that episode watched it after the fact What do you think I thought was okay? I really think the first 20 minutes you're like hell. Yeah, this is funny And then you just kind of lose their stuff. It's wonky and it's emblematic of a crisis point for Their stuff. It's wonky. And it's emblematic of a crisis point for studio live action films.

And I think of that movie as being seen as a big disappointment and like a big failure. And then you look up what it made. And then you look at it and you're like, it made a fucking 150 million dollars worldwide? Not bad. People were like pulling their hair out of the fact it only ended up at like 67 domestic or whatever? Number five at the box office. It used to be a proper cover. Is a neo-noir thriller.

It is a director who we could cover, but he's made a lot of movies at this point. Friedkin? No. Friedkin's dead, so he can't make any more movies. This guy's alive and well. Oh, oh, oh, well it's not Soderbergh. No, not Adrian Lyon.

That long of a career, not Adrian Lyon. The fact that it's a neo-noir is a bit of a trick. That's not his main turf. No, it's his second film. And I do feel like it's him being like, hey, I got more in me than what you think I do. But he did make a lot of more epic costumey stuff. Interesting, but he's also an actor.

And he's also the star of this film. Not Ron Howard. Made too many films at this point. He's also the star of this movie. He sure is. And he's made a lot of them It's not a Clint Eastwood. Obviously He says he's an actor director who's made a lot of movies. That's interesting because a lot of these guys were throwing out

Direct to infrequently he in the 2020s has already made four movies and he's got another one coming And does he still star in most of them or does he most step back? He is pulling back on starring in all of them. He did recently make a franchise for himself. He did recently. That he is the star of and he made three movies. He recently made a... This is mind-bending. And he directed all of those?

Oh, he sure did. Who is this guy? You know him. You love him. He recently won an Academy Award. He recently won an Academy Award. Probably with highest honor. Lead or support it. This guy you know him you love him. He recently won an Academy Award Lead or support it

Screenplay it's Kenneth Branagh Kenneth Branagh And it's dead again. The film is dead again with Emma Thompson This is a perfect example really good movie like a really fun Fun early 90s thriller that is a perfect example of everything you just described you're like this is impossible right no one possibly fulfills all the craziest thing is that brand is like I'm going to direct my ass off it and it's like and by the way I'm sneaking in those Poirot movies guess who the star is yeah like it Adam right you're the way very nice man I Incredible amount of energy as well

Him doing those monologues He's great. Do you know he was directing to poros while filming ten When he's doing phone calls Venice needs to be more haunted. I'll talk to you in ten minutes He's got like a little... He's having to cut to the nile of scenes. He's just cut around it. Venice needs to be more haunted. I'll talk to you in ten minutes. Dead Again, fun movie. Other movies in the top ten. We've got the John Claude Van Damme twin picture double impact,

which I've never seen. Me neither. Bet you it's good. We've got the Mickey Rourke sort of tail end of his movie star career, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. He always cites that as the movie that single handedly killed his career, to which I would say, I think there were a couple steps in that process. Yeah, there's a behavior as well that you might want to point to.

One bad movie and suddenly people stop picking up the phone. Maybe you were like, also the punches you were throwing. There is Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, another big hit of that year. Maybe you were like also the punches you were throwing there is Robin Hood Prince of Thieves another big hit of that year. There's a comedy I've never heard of called pure luck starring Martin Short and Danny Clover. Yes. Wow Like a cop comedy. It's a French director Yes, Nadia Tass had a bit of a Barton Fink experience and has spent the last 25 years 30 years being like this is why Hollywood Is bad relating everything back to her experience. I make my film pure luck no one understand yes I believe it's a buddy cop movie yeah looks like it or or Glover's a cop Glover's

a cop and Martin Shorts like a suspect or a witness or whatever he's a psychologist but the whole thing is that he's got like cosmically bad look that like cartoonishly bad things keep happening. Hmm. Uh-oh Number ten of the box office is a film called Defenseless, what is that? No idea 1991 film called defenseless directed by Martin Campbell starring Barbara Hershey and Sam Shepherd Legal thriller. Okay. I don't know got bad reviews. Oh because you need a defense Yeah legal defense if you are defense if you're in love and if you're your defenseless against that one's charms takes are high Yeah, very good. All done

I'll be again because we've recorded for so long I need to pee as well, and I've just been holding it in and I'm not looking for applause I just want people to know that Chris anything else Let me see do I do I have anything to add No, I'm just really glad to be back on the main feed. I just feel like you go through these cycles. By the way, always happy to receive these texts and give you pep talk, which are often just like, Chris, you're a good guy and you do good work.

This industry is frustrating. I don't think you should give up But but you will you will go through these cycles Well, they will both be in terms of like the nature of the industry and your experiences working on things But also you you have One of the strongest moral backbones of anyone I know I Mean that and you often will just text and be like I am just so disgusted by like this behavior I'm seeing or this attitude or this thing. And I just don't know if I want to be around these people.

I want to be in Hollywood, but not of it if possible. But yeah, let me see what actually, you know, when I think I've been in kind of a meta cycle of like 15 years ish kind of in the wilderness in a way of like trying to react to that, you know, kind of devastating experience of the golden compass and kind of always sort of over hyper correcting in some some other weird way. And I hear the one movie that that I really think like that is a good movie is is a better life. Yeah, the movie that Demi Bechir started, which which is unfortunately still relevant. And, and I'm like, okay, okay, that was a good one. That was a good one. But I love Operation Finale.

Thank you very much. You, it is part of what is so unique and fascinating about your exact position is you have spent the last 15 years in a very successful wilderness. Funk. Right, but it speaks to the weird reality of this industry, of like, you constantly are like looking in the mirror and going like, what am I doing? And yet, from the outside, because I know you're a real person who just like the mirror

kind of credits or like box office numbers does not make you feel good. It's right. You're striving for things and you have things you want to say and whatever. But it's like that that this is an industry that can make you feel like a failure when you're a success. And that forces failures to pretend their successes, you know? Right. No, it is kind of funny that way. And I, yeah, yeah, it's very strange. I think I think what I've come to is that in order to actually do the thing that I want to do whatever that may be It's probably gonna be independent and and very small-scale

And actually, you know, I had a call with Alex Ross Perry the other day He's very kind about this in terms of sort of who I only know via the blank check. So there's this kind of blank check Extended I remember when we did the big night commentary Yeah, you would we're leaving from doing the Rogue One commentary. And I didn't get to play the Keep role-playing game, which was a proper... Someday. Yeah, someday we'll get it back together.

He's someone I'm also having these fucking text conversations with all the time, where we're just like, we feel like we missed the industry. Like it's like the fucking Sopranos thing, of like you ever feel like you got in too late. Like the best of it was over, right? And as much as- Well, you wanna go back to the studio system.

Clearly. Apparently. Yeah, I just want the trains running on time. I'd like to go to the 70s maybe. That's where I really wanna be. I think that was the absolute right balance between the two extreme poles of what the industry has been. And there was a little bit of the best of both worlds, but it is I mean I talk about this with like all of my friends of sort of my generation where it's just like

We feel like we got in just in time to watch it all get gutted Mmm, that's the dream jobs. We thought we were aspiring to not even could we not get them, but they stopped existing Well, but you know I take a lot of energy energy from you guys and from this podcast, I gotta say. That like... All right, that's enough. We don't need any play. You don't want to share the deflating.

No, but the decade of dreams and like it's time for the, you know, members of the extended family to come back and, you know, and attest to... You're welcome back anytime. Anytime. Thank you very much. And hopefully you come back sooner. Anytime. Thank you very much. And hopefully you come back sooner. I would like to very much. Did you notice by the way?

Oh, he saw it. The application to retire bit is up on the wall. That's on the wall framed. Although I do feel like, I still feel really guilty about that. But we had to, I think I couldn't come up with any more cool shit for Night Eggs.

I was dancing as fast as I could. There are rumblings that Night Eggs might be going back redevelopment. Yeah, we'll see. But I think it was a good time to put it down and we could always pick it back up when the time comes. With the proper formalities. Chris, I believe by the time this episode comes out, the full season of Murderbot will be out there? August 3rd. Will it have all been seen by then? Yeah, it will have already been seen but binge away please. I really like it. I think it's good.

You very kindly invited Ben Nye to the premiere. And David. But I knew that he wasn't going to be able to. You know what's a crazy Decadic Dream thing? When we met you, you had three kids and David had zero. Now he's caught up. Catching up. Dead time. I know David is really against the great replacement. I had a dinner with you and your wonderful wife and Griffin.

Like the day before I was getting sleep training my first child. And it's a dinner that really lives in my memory because it was also, no I'm serious, because it was also an early COVID, I hadn't had dinner with people much. Yeah, we were outside. We were just starting to.

That was maybe my first dinner after having my fucking gallbladder surgery. Yes, right. You were in the news. Your gallbladder was in the news. It was the first night out, I remember, where it's like I can eat a variety of foods again And the other big thing I remember that night was I was waiting to get a message back from my doctor about whether or not

I was allowed to drink alcohol yet. And the word did the word came come in? It didn't and I was like fucking white-knuckling and I was like I can't look at the fucking four more days Before my system can process it Yeah, look at all the, it's a decade of dreams, memories. Look at the time. Look at the time.

But people should watch Murderbot. Ben and I got to see the first two episodes. It's very, I feel like it exists on a bit of Verhoeven. Uh-huh, there's a bit of that definitely. But with maybe a little bit of that White's Brothers feeling, a little bit more of that heart it does have some hearts Scar scar see is very good in it. He's quite excellent in it, and I will say this he's pretty good-looking guy He's fairly good. It was pretty absurd to watch him on a big screen and then see him in person and be like both

Yeah, make me feel like a piece of shit He is a specimen. Yeah, we must be done. All right. Yeah, this is in the top 10 longest episode Oh, yeah, I don't like that. That's a nice I actually think that the fat the fans appreciate it That's we do it for we do it for the common people For you don't the working stuff out there Chris. Thank you for being here. Thank you look forward to having on again Thank you everybody. Thank you all Look forward to having you on again. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Harga. Or no, I'm sorry, the Hudson Croproxy, my favorite, with guests 2BD. Yeah, and as always, we're just looking for a little bit of that BlinkCheck feeling. ["I'm Not a Man"] BlinkCheck with Griffin and David is hosted

by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Bursch.

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