Blank Check with Griffin & David - Benedetta with Marie Bardi

Episode Date: December 12, 2021

Alert the horny police, because we’re taking ourselves to a nunnery with the Dirty Dutch Daddy himself - Paul Verhoeven! The gang goes bonkers for “Benedetta'', and Producer Ben-edetta reveals that he has an almost-saint in his family - one more miracle, and Ben gets to go to the Vatican! We discuss the connections between “Benedetta” and Verhoeven’s previous films (Sister Benedetta is a bit of a Catherine Trammell, and not just because she likes the ladies), do a smelly deep dive into the history of Professional Flatulists, and say a few prayers asking God to let Verhoeven make a big Hollywood movie again. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

to the end you podcast that's right gonna podcast to the end baby gonna podcast. That's right. Gonna podcast to the end, baby. Gonna podcast all the way to the end. The end of 2021. True. We're done with John Carpenter. We gotta pay some bills here. Write some outstanding bills

on previous filmmakers we've covered. Sure, there's ledgers we have to write. Right, tax time, baby. Last three weeks of 2021, new releases. Oh! Been a little while since we've had a new release from a previous director, and it just so happened that three of them lined up in a row.

Been a little while. To take us out of this cursed, cursed year. This is the first one. This is, of course, Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Very fast. That's the in-person speed you get. Fucking Zoom, man. No Zoom delay.

You know what I don't like? Zoom? You're talking about the film, though. With Tim Allen? Right. What's that called? Zoom Academy for Superheroes or some shit like that? I mean, I just know it as Zoom, but yes. Poor man, sky high. Yeah. Courtney Cox. Chevy.

Kate Mara. Spencer Breslin. Yes. Who else is in that? Did we go through the whole list? Rift Torn is in it? Oh, yeah. Maybe it's good.

Rip. Alexis Bledel, uncredited. Willmer Valderrama. Devin Okoye. Aoki. Aoki. Aoki. Is this a real movie or is this a Disney Channel original?

It's a real movie. No, it was real. It's not Disney, right? No, this was theatrical. Sky High was Disney. This was Columbia. But Sky High was theatrical as well. I know.

It wasn't Disney Channel. This was Columbia. I think it's based on a book or some shit. No, it was based on this app that you could video conference with, but they took it in a weird direction. David.

Yeah, no, it was based on a children's book. Yeah. It's Tim Allen teaches a school of superheroes and it looked like dog shit. It's from the director of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and The Borrowers, which are good movies. Peter Hewitt.

Yeah. He also did Thunderpants. Did he do Garfield the movie? He did do Garfield the movie. See, this is the thing. Because I think Bogus Journey is a very stylish film. Bogus Journey is one of those movies where as a debut film, you're like,

is this guy going to be like a fucking Bertney kind of? And then he kind of just shit the bed. That's number two? Yeah. They brought on a new director for number two? Because they wrote the script and they were like, it's so visual what they've written here. We need someone who is primarily a visual stylist. And I think he was like a film

school guy where he had a student film where they were like this guy is insane because Bogus Dream has all the fucking hell shit the nightmares it's so good those sequences are like really really good and you're like this is like some young wunderkind director and then he just makes garbage cool it's yeah

and it's not it's not fucking Stephen Herrick territory Stephen Herrick had to go make the Mighty Ducks and Mr. Holland's Opus and all that. He becomes, weirdly, Mr. Disney. Totally. Straight down the middle. 101 Dalmatians he did. Right.

He did the Brat Pack Three Musketeers, which I saw in theaters. These are all Disney movies. Yep. What's the last thing Stephen Herrick made? He had a movie this year on Netflix called Afterlife of the Party starring Victoria former Griffin Newman co-star Victoria Justice. Hey. Right? Didn't you do a movie with her? I did. Of course you're talking

about Naomi and Eli's No Kiss List. That's right. You were on the No Kiss List. Bruce Won. He also did a movie called The Great Gilly Hopkins. Oh sure. Based on a classic children's book. That's an Ellen Burstyn. Try some. Thank you. No I That's an Ellen Burstyn Thank you No I'm not seeing Ellen Burstyn here

Kathy Bates And then Sophie Nisele I don't know I moved on because he also did a children's film called The Chaperone starring Triple H He's in front of a school bus going David's crossing his arms Looking sternly at me That's a Herrick?

Stephen Herrick. Wow. Starring Paul Lawrence, aka Triple H. Yeah. Paul Lawrence. That's his name? Yeah, his real name is Paul Lawrence,

which is funny because his, like, stage name is, like, Hunter Helms Hemsley, Hearst Hemsley, or whatever. Right, his character is supposed to be, like, a rich guy. He's supposed to be a fancy man, right. Yeah.

A fancy man who's, like, you know, 380 pounds it is funny though that's like here's his real name then we're gonna give him a fake real name and then a nickname based off the fake real name he was initially called jean-paul levesque and he was presented as like a french canadian aristocrat right right so funny okay they were like let's tone it down a little he's just a rich guy. Okay. I learned about all of this in the recent Vice documentary about China.

The wrestler, sure. Yeah, highly recommend. Cool. Very tragic figure. He's now sort of become, I mean, he's the Vince McMahon. He's genuinely on the business end. Right. He married Stephanie.

Yeah, but it was sort of like both a scripted thing and a real thing I can't remember which came first he's like he is within kayfabe he's both the guy

who's being groomed to run the whole thing and within kayfabe the guy who's being groomed to be the new head heel like in universe

McMahon right he's the new commissioner yeah it's fucking I mean I haven't really paid attention to wrestling since i was a teenager but when i was a teenager he was he was big deal as a wrestler

i just like watching documentaries about wrestling there are so many there's so many like you know dot com or whatever also you can watch like any documentary they've ever made and there's apparently like hundreds of them come on surely you liked wrestling yeah yeah okay maybe you didn't as much as you should have for you know considering you were a little menace listen I did

I definitely sent one of my friends to the hospital because we were wrestling in his living room there we go you know like ultimate warrior you know okay that makes sense to the hospital because we were wrestling in his living room. There we go. Ultimate warrior. That makes sense. I feel like you'd be a Jake the Snake guy.

Would you like mankind? I like the fucking guys with the fucking 2x4. Sure. Like a junkyard dog or whatever they were? That sounds good. I don't know about that. That sounds good. I like that. Wasn't that another league?, like extreme ECW? There was ECW. That was the one

that was really hardcore where they'd hit each other. But you know, they would always sort of eventually get sucked into it. Bam Bam Bigelow, that feels like a Ben guy. Did you like Mankind?

Come on. Yeah, Mankind was cool. He did bits. He did bits. He was weird. And he was like fucked up. Yeah, he was crazy. You were like,

is this guy really crazy? I had friends who were really into that stuff and they was like fucked up yeah he was crazy you were like is this guy really crazy I had friends who were really into that stuff and they would like throw each other onto tables and get really hurt

I didn't really get into that but I remember Mankind someone exposed me to like the scene where he's thrown

off the cage the top of the cage no what are you talking about it's like we've got he's broken in half I want to say

it's Japan okay where it's like really crazy and he like about? It's like... That's what we've got as my witness. He's broken in half. I want to say it's Japan. Okay. Where it's like really crazy and he like is like... It's like a barbed wire match or something really sick. Yeah.

He would do stuff like that. Yeah, that's fucked up. Anyway, our podcast today is about a director who hasn't made any movies about wrestling but kind of fits within that world. I made some movies

about naked wrestling. Sure. Bed wrestling. naked wrestling, bed wrestling, bed wrestling. Wait, bed wrestling is I like to call it. Oh yeah. Right. Once in high school.

Um, I, one of the classes, one of the homeroom classes put all their desks in a square, like to make a border. And then they did a Royal rumble where you had to knock someone out of the square to win. Did it get intense?

I think it got too intense. Yeah. And then they got in trouble. Yeah. But I remember like people like they're doing a Royal Rumble at like 4-H. And we were like, really? And we walked in there and I was like, they are. This is going down.

Anyway, if anyone at CLS remembers the Royal Rumble, I think it was 4-H. You know, get in touch. Tweet at us. Yeah. Any American students want to get in touch. Tweet at us. Yeah, any American students want to get in touch with us. Alright. This is a podcast about filmographies. Directors are massive success early on in their careers. They're given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products

they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. See, I thought you guys wouldn't have been fighting. Instead, you would have just been like challenging each other with facts about royalty. Right. We have like a Who challenging each other with facts about royalty. Right. We have like a quiz. Who's the Duke of something?

He doesn't know. Who's the Earl of Sandwich? I can look it up. Delta Terminal 2. Fuck, that is what comes up these days when you Google Earl of Sandwich. They're top thank you thank you present holder john here he is this is the fucking current earl of sandwich he was born ready for that role

john montague male on that guy's Living between two slices of bread Sandwich Wow Some years ago We covered the American Hollywood film career When was that? Paul Verhoeven I believe that was 2017?

No it's 2018 Yeah it's early 2018 Like January 2018 Okay I knew it was the beginning of a year. Yeah. But we covered his Hollywood films. And then we were like, fuck, we should cover Hell 2.

We never cover Black Book. No, we keep meaning to, but it's like, who has the time? We never covered his early films. But it is this weird career because this provocative,

transgressive Dutch filmmaker that makes this unlikely leap over to Hollywood, right? With like, Flesh and Blood is his bridge film. And then Robocop is like, oh, this guy's become one of the preeminent sci-fi action blockbuster filmmakers

of his generation. Throws two erotic drama thrillers in there just for good measure. Taps out on Hollow Man, which is kind of all three at the same time and then it's like i hate hollywood i'm leaving doesn't make a movie for 10 years uh maybe eight i forget when black book is i mean i feel like it's like 10 years between hollow man black book 10 years between no it's only six black book is oh six wow okay and then

he you know he did do that other movie. Yeah, that no one talks about. That no one talks about. That was like, wasn't that like. Tricked. Is that it? Yeah. I believe that was like a class he was teaching and it was a collaborative process with a

bunch of student filmmakers. Well, I'll just tell you it exists. That's all. It exists. It exists. But yeah. And then,

right. So L is 2016. Okay. So 10 years after that. So that's almost a longer break. Yeah. Between Black Book and 06. Surprisingly. Yeah. And then, and then, right, so L is 2016. Okay, so 10 years after that. So that's almost a longer break between Black Book and L. Surprisingly. Yeah. And then, you know, Benedetta, I feel like that was announced like two years ago.

It's been in the works for a while. He's been circling this one. He had a hip injury when it was like about to go, which is one of those things where you're just like, Paul, you're in your 80s. We got to get this done. We got to get this made. He kept getting announced at con with like increasingly provocative sales posters. And you were like, please God in your 80s. We got to get this done. We got to get this made. It kept getting announced at con with increasingly provocative sales posters.

And you were like, please God, let this happen. Don't fucking let this fall apart. I mean, the elevator pitch is just Paul Verhoeven non-sploitation. And people were so excited. They were. They were kind of baying for erotica, essentially.

Right. I tried to go into this as largely blind as I could and have avoided the trailers. I mean, because this is one of those movies where I was just like, look, it's not fucking no way home. I'm not going to get inundated with marketing, right? I can like stay pretty clean of this. And I know I want to see this. And pretty much what I knew about this movie was, okay, in my head, I've saved this for the last couple of years as Paul Verhoeven, lesbian, nun movie, right?

And then when it starts screening, everyone's like, huh, that's kind of reductive. That's not really what it is. If you're expecting that salacious, that's not really what you should be thinking. So like, that's all I had in my mind was like, I thought the movie was this. Everyone's telling me that's kind of not a great summation of what it is be thinking. So, like, that's all I had in my mind was, like, I thought the movie was this. Everyone's telling me that's kind of not a great summation of what it is. Right. Right. And then you watch it and you're like,

this is a movie about a lesbian nun. But it also is about, it's a lot more complicated. It's about the rules. It's about power. It's one thing I'll say. It's about power. Yes. Yeah.

It's a fascinating movie because it's kind of going, like, It's about religion kind of buying its own bullshit But also not Maybe You know like that weird Sort of like blurred line Look He's got a fire in his belly right now

He's announcing new movies Left and right It feels like he's trying To sneak some more in He's doing something with Neumeier Right From Robocop

Right Right And he was saying There was a Hollywood movie He's been thinking about making Coming back to the studio Shang-Chi 2 Yeah

He's been thinking about that For a long time Legend of the Eleven I can't wait to make coming back to the studio. Shang-Chi 2. Yeah, he's been thinking about that for a long time. Legend of the Eleven Rings. He's like, I can't wait to make it. Someone just needs to make Shang-Chi 1. And then they did and he was like, alright! I'm on this like right on the fly. Shang-Chi is a man who's very good at fighting and he has the ten rings, but for me, what if the rings were Nazis?

The ten Nazis just circling around him. One Nazi. This Verhoeven impression is really good. Well, we had fun with him back in the day. You know, bringing Paul out of bed. Here's my pitch for Sonic 3. You have the Sonic and the Knuckles and the Tails and they're the friends and they collect rings,

but also they use the rings to have sex with each other. Sex is a beautiful thing. And I'm the only one who shows sex the way it actually is. But yes, this is one of those movies where I hope he continues making films, but you're like,

if through poor luck this ends up being Paul Verhoeven's last film, you're like, this is kind of a pretty good summation of everything this guy stands to do. It is.

And it's also a nice way for him to do. It is. And it's also a nice a nice way for him to to discuss Christianity and Jesus. Which has been says kind of a low-key

lifelong lifelong academic obsession. Right. That's the thing. It's not even that much a part of his films although Robocop is

the American Jesus. Right. But he has this whole sort of like side career. Have I ever said that? Do you like that movie? I did. I watched it last night. I watched it again last night. Did you watch Benedetta or did you just sort of fire up Robocop?

No, I watched Benedetta. So Benedetta is about a robot cop. I watched Benedetta and I chased it with Robocop. But it's like I said, nobody has this sort of side career as this, like, one of the preeminent Jesus scholars in the world. But not just Jesus. The historical Jesus.

This is the thing. He's fascinated by Jesus as a historical figure, the man. The real record about this person. Right. It's not a theological study of the guy. And he's compared, he's written a book called Jesus of Nazareth. Yes. Which is, you know, an academic study of the god and he's compared he's written a book called jesus of nazareth yes which is you know an academic study of the historical jesus and he also has compared this historical jesus to someone like che guevara yes yeah as a sort of socialist right leader of the people a revolutionary

jewish revolutionary basically whose the myth got kind of altered and built upon and turned into more magical things over the millennia. Much like Robocop. It got distorted into Robocop 2, 3, the animated series. The remake. Right. There was a real man. There was a real man named Alex Murphy who was Robocop, and we've distorted his legacy. I do think there was at some point

a Jesus movie he wanted to make that has never come to fruition. He's always wanted to make his Jesus movie. He also wanted to tackle

the Crusades very famously in the 90s after Basic Instinct. He was going to re-team with Arnold to make his you know

big budget Crusades epic which one can only imagine unfortunately never happened yeah and so now with benedetta it is cool for us you know verhoeven heads to finally see him the thing that's interesting make a film about religion and it's pretty much angle at it because right because when you go like verhoeven an exploitation movie you're're like, is he just going to go fucking maximalist? Is this just him going like full sort of shock value or whatever?

And you're like, no, the spine of this thing really ties into so much of what he's interested in. And then there's sort of the Verhoeven salaciousness on top of it. We should mention, of course, our guest joining us here today is Marie Barty, Party Barty. Hey, guys and gals and non-binary folks. You went to Catholic school, correct? I did. Did you?

Yeah. Are any of you guys Catholic? No. No, but I come from a very Catholic family on my mom's side. But you were raised atheist. I've never been to church. You've never been to church. Nor do I know.

Were you baptized? Well, you tried to cross the threshold of a church once, and you were thrown out i've never been to church you've never been nor do i know were you baptized well you tried to cross the threshold of a church once and you were thrown out right by an unseen force yeah it's really weird it was kind of like i haven't thrown out just propelled back yeah exactly you were like i'll check out saint paul's cathedral like and then i just ended up in a trash can behind the church in an alley. It was crazy. And the church boomed. Cross not the door. Anyway, all right. Carry on. Sorry. You're Catholic. Your mom is Catholic, but she's a lapsed Catholic.

Well, yeah. So no religion in my household. Your parents raised you. It was an a-religious household. This guy would come to your house every Friday. This kind of short guy who created this TV show. You know, he had like a little goatee and he would tell you

about how God isn't real. What is this? Ricky Gervais. What? They'd be like, Ben, your religious education is about to begin.

Ricky? Yeah. Do you guys know how old Ricky Gervais is? Uh, 110. Take a real guess. Don't look it up.

Take a real guess. I'm guessing he's 58. 60. I just, it's one of those things where it's not surprising but you just do have to step back and go passage of time.

That guy is 60. I'm less shocked by that because when he emerged in Britain he was one of those guys who had been trying to emerge for a full 10 years already. You're like he's like 40 when the office happens.

He was like 40, yeah. Right. It just is a little bit fascinating to think about he's 60 and he's still acting this way. What way would that be? Speaking truth to power? Is that what you're talking about?

Courageous. He was the real Benedetta of our time, right? I hope he hosts the Golden Globes one more time, but in its press release form. Well, and I hope when he comes back to host it, he tells us how he hates it and he never wants to do it ever again. They didn't want him. And it's literally the last time.

They didn't want him. He didn't want to do it. Weird how it ended up this way. Come on. What's up? Oh, so anyway, so I don't know anything. You don't know anything about Catholicism? No, nothing.

I was not baptized. But then here's the thing. I'm talking to my mom about the frigging movie, right? She goes, hey, Ben, do you know that there's a saint in our family? What? right she goes hey ben do you know that there's a saint in our family what so i'm related to the guy who founded the knights of columbus how closely related is that saint columba his name is father michael mcgivney michael mcgivney this fella right here he's giving me a little haze oh sure he's he's a saint uh yeah he's beatified he's he's he's actually not a, he's giving me a little haws. Oh, sure. He's a saint? He's beatified.

Oh, beatified. He's actually not a saint. He's blessed. That's how you pronounce it. Blessed, you know. Right. He's on the road to sainthood. He's on the road to sainthood. Apparently, a second miracle will be required for his canonization.

So you just got to dig up one more miracle. I mean, guys, please start praying. Your podcasting career could be seen as a miracle I don't know if that that's true that's true it's kept going Ben I know your family has long long history deep roots in New Jersey was was this man a Jerseyan he's from Connecticut okay going to say, I'm surprised because I had heard there were many saints of Newark. All right, everyone. That's what I heard.

We're coming in hot. Okay. Yeah. He's, he's a Connecticut born and raised and died in Connecticut. And those in that fine, fine nutmeg States. I had to think for a second. What Connecticut is not, it's a nutmeg state

um so mcgivney that's his last name yeah so it's my your mom's side are you a mcgivney hosley well it's like the way she explained it was my it's my great great grandmother's sister's son sure okay whatever yeah but if he's like uh you know first cousin eight times son. Sure. Okay, whatever. I can go to the Vatican. They'll invite me to the Vatican, my mom said. If another miracle happens, family members get to go. Oh, okay, okay. We need one more miracle. This needs to happen.

Defensively yelling, waving his arms around. I can go to the Vatican. If there's one more miracle attributed to him, apparently, so the first miracle. Yeah, tell, so the first miracle. Yeah, tell us about this first miracle. It was under investigation and it was approved

by Pope Francis. He healed a baby in the womb after the baby was given a 0% chance of survival by doctors. Then giving a knowing nod. Oh, no,

but this is the whole thing. It's like someone, right, he didn't even do it. Someone prayed to him. Okay. And like the thing. It's like someone that, right. He didn't even do it. Someone prayed to him. Okay. And like the baby lived or whatever. And that's right. Yeah.

That's how it happened. I know. It's just, you don't become a saint when you're alive. Right. No, no, of course not.

That would be, so you're retroactively, retroactively, the credit is given when the prayer works. I guess so. Correct. But I mean like, yes,

but it's not like they're going back in history and it's like, oh, yeah, he like, this one time he turned water into wine. No. No one ever mentioned that? Can we chalk up like a recent miracle to McGivney?

We probably could. I mean, Nick Vallelonga has two Academy Awards. Is that? You think Nick was praying every night to the founder of the Knights of Columbia? Maybe he has a long list. I don't know. You think he just went,

I don't know. I think I got a good shot. I think that means Pope Francis has to watch Green Book. And he was like, who is this? He won two Oscars. So it's a story by credit. Holy Father.

They give it a separate award for screenplay. I know they do this. This one. But he didn't like type the script that they used, right? He did an early draft it was rewritten but he's grandfathered into the i'm 50 50 on this well it also won the golden globe for comedy for drama okay miracle miracle stamp oh miracle so ben can i tell you something really exciting that you might not know about saints. Sure.

So apparently their bodies aren't supposed to decompose. Oh, like if you went and checked them out? So that's like another way to prove that he's a saint is that his body and his coffin

should just be chilling. Unlike jeans, if you bury a saint, they will never Ben is looking around for a digging implement and I'd like him to stop. Things we know he has. I don't want him to get arrested.

This would be a really quick and easy way. Imagine how mad the local Catholics would be if Ben desecrated the corpse of the founder of the Knights of Columbus. Listen, I'm related to this friggin guy and then like in court it's like this man has been seen burying many objects on his

property another fun saint fact have you heard the term relic as it's used with saints the 90s movie the relic

well yes but if you have a relic of a saint do you know what that means no you have a piece of their body hell yeah like a chip of bone you'll go to some right you'll go to some church in italy and they'll be like well of course we have like ex-saints femur and it's like you know on display

and you're like okay well i growing up i went to catholic school for 12 years and we had a field trip once to go see the shrine of saint john newman who i guess is a conveniently located pennsylvania saint there he is yeah and in the center of the shrine it's just this dead body in a glass coffin and there's a mask a lifelike mask on him that approximates what his face would look like this This isn't a joke. This is 100% serious. No, no. When you were explaining that, Marie, the look on Ben's face, I could see the wheels turning of like

maybe I like Catholicism. You're finally selling him on organized religion. This is just all part of a long con for me to convert all of you guys. Collecting bonds? Are you a practicing Catholic? I'm not a practicing Catholic. I mean, I'm Italian. Sure.

So, like, it's connected to my ethnicity. This is my other question I was going to ask is, we know you went to Catholic school because it came up in our old episode. You went to the Wide Awake School.

Right. How much was that, like, a thing, how much was Catholicism a part of your family life versus just your education? Like, was it a thing that was upheld

in the home? No. It was just you had, Your mom is not Italian. No, my mom a thing that was upheld? No. In the home? No, it was just you had... Your mom is not Italian. No, my mom is Catholic. My mom's not Italian. My mom's Lebanese. Right, I knew that.

But they're both Catholic on both sides. I'm Catholic on both sides. But your parents themselves are not strongly... Were you confirmed? Oh, yeah. I got all the sacraments. I'm confirmed. My patron saint is Cecilia.

Nice. You haven't been verified yet, though, right? We haven't been verified. Do you have a blue check? I confirmed, but you don't have a blue check. I'm confirmed. I'm unverified. I have to, you know, update the blank check website to get us verified.

She's the patron saint of music, right? She's the patron saint of music and the subject of the Simon and Garfunkel songs, Cecilia, which is not about a girlfriend. It's about the patron saint of music. And how horny they are for her. Yeah. And well, down on my knees.

I'm begging you, please, he's waiting for inspiration. Sure. But as in that song and in the film Benedetta, there is a lot of overlap between sexual desire

and faith. I mean, look, you're thinking about these people all the dang time. Yeah. You're not allowed the dang time. Yeah. You're not allowed to do anything.

Yeah. Gotta wear burlap sacks. There's been a long history in Catholic art of saints and Jesus being like naked and muscular. Yeah, so hot. I mean, when you think about not just Jesus, I think Saint Sebastian is the most common. He's the one who's with all the arrows? he's the one with all the arrows he's the

one with all the arrows he's kind of an early gay icon whenever you're in like a european art museum and you're going through and it's like you see saint sebastian right like the fucking arrow guy yeah every hundred every 10 years someone's like i'm gonna draw the arrow guy. He had all these arrows. Yeah, it's a strong image. Yeah, yeah. But Catholicism, which was sort of like the dominant thing in life for the first, I don't know, like... For a lot of the... This is set in the Renaissance. 1600, 1700 years.

It was the original Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right. The thing that people built their lives around despite its inherent silliness. It was the dominant cultural product. It was the popular culture. Look, people get married and govern their sex lives according to the MCU.

It's true. It's a pretty strong comparison you're drawing there. But it was a way that people could express themselves. If you're an artist today, you can make art about whatever. But back then, you could kind of only make art about one thing. So they would...

Well, but Marie, once again, it used to be, if you were an artist, you could make art about whatever. Right, but now you can only make Marvel movies. It kind of has to be... Yeah. Right.

And Feige is kind of... The Pope? A little bit. Il Papa. I mean, look. Papa Feige is kind of... The Pope? A little bit. Il Papa. I mean, look. Papa Feige. Papa Kev. No, no, no.

I mean, but it's not just that it was the only... It was like, it's the only thing you fucking learned about in school. The only damn books you read were about... It's not like you could crack open, you know, the latest Jack Reacher back in the 1600s. It had to be like, okay okay i guess i'll read the bible again nowadays we call it the good book back then they used to call it the only book yeah come to the library we got one book you'll love it it's checked out okay david and i are jewish we should clarify i am jewish i have studied the bible as literature uh in college i love the bible i think

it's wild and wacky. And of course, you know, us Jews, we have the first half of your Bible too. Jesus was a Jew. There's a lot of overlap. He was a hot Jew, according to Paul Verhoeven. A hot, sword-swinging Jew. Yes. Were you raised religious at all?

I was taken to sort of high holiday services. As, I guess, a sort of half like my mom feeling guilty because she was raised religious although that kind of like 50s jewish thing of like we're americans right first and foremost we don't want anyone questioning that right we're gonna call our kids good american names and we're gonna you know like because all her uh older you know it's like shlomo and that's i mean my dad's side of the family is very similar to your mom's side of the family

where it's but all the new yorks it's like daniel roberts ellen you know these that's my mom you know like um but they were religious they went to yeah synagogue did you guys get bar mitzvahed didn't did not this is the thing i was the first of three kids. There was a fair amount of like high holiday tradition, but it felt like our Judaism was always

cultural, like trying to tie ourselves more to the past. Would you have a Seder? My parents giving any shit about this? Because we would have a Seder. We took Passover seriously. We would do Passover.

We would do... You'd go to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, you know. That's pretty much it. Hanukkah was a pretty half-assed celebration.

Hanukkah, you get presents, you light the candle. But we really went more for Christmas. Just for pizzazz. I can't think of anything else we celebrated. Why would you pass up the chance to have an awesome party? I don't want anyone making fun of me right now. Okay, I'm going to have a similar embarrassing story. I want to hear yours first.

No, there's a reason I don't. If I had stayed in New York, I think I would have, but I moved to London when I was nine years old. They don't have a lot of Jews over there, do they? Well, not to be...

Hey, sorry, I was just out of the room. What's going on? Not to cast... To paint in broad... I'll fill you in on the story as he goes along. Why are you covered in dirt? Don't worry.

Not to paint in broad brushes about British Judaism, but Do you have a bag that says bone chips on it? Sorry, David, go on. Relics? You crossed that out and wrote relics. We found in Britain that it was like

you're either going to be, if you're jewish you're either gonna be like super secular and really not doing anything quickly because i zoned out for a second uh in new york you found in new york when it's point where the story's taking place uh no this is in london what um no it's like uh you it it's like the Jews, the Jewish communities we found were fairly religious. We struggled to find a sort of quote unquote reform. Obviously they exist. They're much smaller.

We never really connected to anything that made sense for us to do a bar mitzvah. So we never really, I think if it stayed in New York, I would have done a classic kind of like reformed Jewish bar mitzvah. Have you thought about what your theme would have been? No, not really. That's a good question. What should my theme? Oh, I mean. Have you thought about what your theme would have been? No. Not really. That's a good question. What should my theme have been? Oh, I mean, I've thought about that. I'm not Jewish, but I grew up in a very Jewish neighborhood outside

of Philadelphia. And my sister, who went to public school, went to like 30 bar and bar mitzvahs since 7th grade. Many, many bar mitzvahs, yes. But I always wanted mine to be an Oscars theme. Oh, of course. Like, you know, a red carpet.

I guess a movie theme. Yeah. A movie theme would have probably been where I grabbed it. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing with bar mitzvahs, I'm sure you're like, some of them would be like the glitziest fucking of theirs.

Ice luges. Right. Where you're like, did the kid even get consulted? This is just like a really grown up party. Yeah. And others would be more like sort of fun and fancy free my parents went to a bar mitzvah once where just all the other parents were out doing like shots from an ice luge and like smoking weed behind the synagogue i was gonna say i recently had this realization of like oh fuck

i'm like 10 years away from getting to go to my friend's kids bar mitzvahs and i'm looking forward to that um that's interesting yeah i didn't think about that as oldest of three kids i think my parents were like the kids should have some sense of religion like it felt like neither of them cared but they were like i think this is what we're supposed to do and i just didn't give a shit but they like sent me to like uh hebrew. Like I had like once a week. But you went to Hebrew school, but you weren't bar mitzvahed. That's the whole point of Hebrew school. They were trying to get me into the idea of doing it.

I kept on being like, no, I don't want to do it. And they were like, you get to have a party and people will give you money in envelopes. You get so many presents. People like would clean. Right. There was one Jewish girl who went to my school. Her name was Meryl. And Meryl was like three years older than me but like rumors of her bat mitzvah trickled down to the fourth

grade and the big thing was that like i don't know in this game of telephone how wrong this was but apparently both sets of grandparents gave her those cool iMacs that were candy colored. Fuck. The grandparents didn't consult with each other, so they each bought, she had two iMacs for her bat mitzvah. So this is. You could have gotten two iMacs. This is my thing. And I don't, I was a very opinionated kid I'm not surprised and I had this

whole stance of just like I think it's kind of gross that I you're encouraging me to do this thing that I openly don't care about so I can have a party and get a bunch of presents were you also concerned about the whole thing of like becoming a man like you wanted to stay a boy forever well my thing Peter Pan no very valid question I think my thing was that i simultaneously was like the only thing i don't want to be as a teenager i'm happy being 12 i'd love to be 25 i do not want to be a teenager to make the jump this seems shitty everything i hear about teenagers sucks were your siblings bar no they didn't even make the effort with my siblings. They were just like, well. I feel like Romilly

would have had a great bat mitzvah. She would have, yeah. But it was that weird thing of just like, my parents made me do like all the fucking college admission shit too. And with my siblings, they were like, I don't know. What do you want to do? They should probably get back to Benedetta. But did you finish your story? I'm a very agnostic

person when it comes to all of this. And unlike David, I haven't studied the Bible as literature. But didn't you go to NYU? No. I thought you did. I went to Kell Arts. You went to Kell Arts and dropped out. I thought you were at NYU for like a semester.

Kell Arts. I just, I dropped out and then hung out with NYU people. That's probably why I got confused. Because at NYU freshman year, we all had to read the Bible. Yeah, no, never did. You had to read the Bible because you were told it was the truth. No. Kellerts, we all had to read

a book about Chuck Jones. Similar to Jesus Christ. Bugs Bunny is as you guys discussed in the Space Jam episode. Christ-like figure. Christ-like figure. Christ-like figure. Okay, so this movie, Benedetta. All this to say, I saw this last night.

Where did you see it? You watched Benedetta last night? It's a still processing review for old Griffey Nooms. You saw it at Lincoln Center? I saw it at AMC 42nd Street. Interesting. It's playing at the AMC 42nd Street. Interesting. It's playing at like six screens in New York right now.

It is. It's also at Alamo. I saw it at Nighthawk. Yes. I's playing at like six screens in New York right now. It is. It's also at Alamo. I got a Sunday. Nighthawk. And it's syndicated over in Bushwick. Right.

And it's playing at 42nd Street and it's playing at Lincoln Center. It's getting a somewhat limited release and is going on to is it already rentable now?

No. It'll be rentable next week. They changed it. Oh, they changed it. Yeah. Well, it was supposed to be day and date on VOD and now it's next week.

I've seen Benedetta twice. Okay. And you saw it first at the film festival a while ago? I saw it at the New York Film Festival. It was very exciting. There were

Catholic protesters outside with bagpipes. Like eight of them. There were eight of them. They also protested when we were voting for the Critics Circle and I was like, it's eight of you it's 80 you like what is and they're still like showing up outside of screenings at lincoln center today like fucking every day but it's less than 10 what are they mad

about lesbians oh okay they specifically have like a sign that says like no lesbians it'd be funny if it just said lesbian but isn't isn't that isn't this like there's like recorded history oh yeah it's based on a real story so what are they mad about i don't know why don't you go fucking i don't think they've seen the movie i was gonna say i was gonna say i did not know this was based on a real story until the final title cards came up right because i've been trying to keep myself clean of this i'm just like i want to see whatever fucking wacky paul's doing so at the end when i was like oh he's like pulling from real shit here i thought like if this is just from the twisted mind of paul verhoeven i'm like this must piss them off like crazy right well it's a real person much

like his studies of jesus he's just accounting for like look we can interpret whether or not these were real phenomenon but the person their actions were real. The outrage is kind of funny because it is sort of what the movie is about. Right. Although, the outrage has been muted. We don't have a Last Temptation or Christ situation. No. No one's really...

There's really only like one bagpipe player outside at this point. No. People are not nearly as angry as they were when the first Sonic design was released. Yeah, exactly. Right. That was 500 Yeah, exactly. Right. That was 500 times angrier. Right.

I'm still processing a lot of this movie and also trying to understand the historical significance of this in a lot of ways. So, Benedetta... Carlini. Ben saw it this week. David and Marie have

seen it twice now and had more time to digest. I saw it on a press screening. I rewatched my, I had a screener of it. So I rewatched that this morning. Benedetta Carlini was a real woman who existed in Italy in the 17th century. And she is interesting as a historical figure because she is one of the only women who was not an aristocrat who we have historic records of. It's similar to The Last Duel in that way, which is also based on a true story. Right, actually in the records.

Where we have court records of the existence of this woman's life. have court records of the existence of this woman's life um she was uh promised to a community of spiritual women it was not yet a convent okay so they weren't officially sanctioned by the catholic church right this movie kind of cleans that up just because it's too complicated um yeah and she uh was promised because when she was born it was a very difficult labor and they didn't think that she was going to survive and her parents prayed and she came out alive and her mother survived which was not always the case so she came into this world with Jesus on her side. And as she grew up and established herself as part of this community of spiritual women, she started to experience visions of Christ and people started to pay attention attention to her there's so much other shit too

like the nightingale right sing to her as a child right and she would talk to the nightingale and it would like obey her a dog came and tried to steal her away and they were like this dog is an asian of satan like and that's what's going on there right like stuff like that you know people are bored not to diminish and uh up until this point in the catholic church mysticism was a very common aspect of things that people were having a lot of religious visions they were bored they also yeah they're probably getting ill. God knows what they're doing out there. I mean, I don't know if lead paint was a thing. But this is what I'm saying. It's like, Selexa doesn't exist.

Right. So people, and mysticism, and these really elaborate visions of Christ. Sure, sure. Very elaborate portrayals of Christ in art. Are you reading this book that's full of magic? All kinds of wacky magic? Also, over and over again,

the entire culture is built around it. It's like one of the only things you talk about. It's hard not to have everything processed through. This must be this. This must be divine intervention. The most weird thing about religion where they're like, man, life used to be magic,

fucking beasts, and people transforming shit. It's like, well, why is my life so shitty? I live in a poop hole. And my kids are all dead. And it's like, well, why is my life so shitty? I live in a poop hole. Like, and my kids are all dead. And it's like, well,

just read the book. I come on. This stuff is really good. Benedetta would have these visions and she'd be very vocal about it. And people started to listen to her. And she probably would have continued being this mystic figure with a lot of respect from her community if two things didn't happen. The first being this history of mysticism within the Catholic Church was starting to get squashed by the Catholic Counter-Reformation. by the Catholic counter-reformation.

So you have the Reformation happening in Protestantism with Martin Luther and all that stuff that's sort of reforming that aspect of the church. Then in Catholicism, they were like, oh shit, we kind of have to catch up to that. So let's rein in the crazies. Let's not, you know, we don't want people thinking we're like a religion of loonies right right so let's tone down these mystical visions you can't just have every local freaking right so and so being

like jesus talked to me yesterday he said i get to eat three sandwiches right so so that was happening and then the real real Benedetta was, she said she had this vision where Jesus had asked her to marry him. And she wanted to stage an elaborate wedding to Christ. And she was very particular about all of the like supporting actors that would be in this kind of staged presentation of her wedding. It's her wedding. I mean, she's a bit of a bridezilla. Come on.

But that was just like a little too, she just kind of went overboard with the theatricality of it. And that's when people started to question her and start to try and bring her down. Flower arrangements. Have you watched any season of Tiny Day Fiancé and people freak out for the dress

she also had stigmata right she had the stigmata which originally was considered like irrevocable proof of her you know real relationship with jesus but you know after the wedding other people came into the picture And started to question Nuncio starts showing up Eventually they start asking questions As depicted in this movie Turns out she'd done some light

Fraudage with another nun I don't think the What level of historical record is that? Yes so Definitely was found There is within the uh bartolomea within the court records bartolomea who is the sort of young novice in the film and also existed in real life also really fun name to say both of these characters names incredible names benedetta

i would have thought they were made up if they weren't real. That's why I was just like, oh, Paul Verhoeven's making a lesbian nun film called Benedetta. It's funny. It's like Vendetta.

It's so lurid. Do you want me to read you the actual testimony of what they did? Yeah, because it's funny. Benedetta then, for two continuous years,

at least three times a week in the evening after disrobing and going to bed would wait for her companion to disrobe and pretending to need her and that's the real sin lying would call out bartolomeo would come over benedict would grab her by the arm and throw her by force onto the bed embracing her she would put her under herself and kissing her as if she was a man she would speak words of love to her and she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves.

Sort of a euphemism there that you got to catch all. Basically, she's behaving as a man is sort of the most. And the difference between the events in the film and what, you know, the actual court testimony, the court testimony. you know the actual court testimony the court testimony um benedetta claims that she was being possessed by a demon named spirito dello i think correct uh sorry splend splendid to dello splendid to dello another incredible horny demon yeah uh yeah she was like it was it was the that that guy did it right so in real, she said she was possessed in the movie. No, she's, she's all woman. This is the whole thing about the fucking movie.

But it's also kind of Jesus flowing through her. And he's hot. He's hot. This guy is H-O-T. What were you going to say, David? The whole thing about this movie. Well, it's like the whole time you're like, wait, does she believe her own bullshit? Or is she, you know.

That's the big question. Really, really smart. Shit. I mean, that's right that's what i find fascinating of course i'm not surprised that people are upset about this movie the very people who of course were destined to be upset about this movie will never ever even consider watching it or reading about what it's actually doing but as i said not knowing the actual story not knowing it was even based on a real story just seeing the fucking posters where i feel like it was like cleavage with a cross fucking yeah the original poster was like a little hint of nipple right it was just like non-habit he's just going full like fucking like what's it called devil's candy the fake movie at

the beginning of tropic thunder yeah yeah it felt to me like... Satan's Alley. Satan's Alley. I'm sorry. Devil's Candy's a real movie. I know. Satan's Alley. That's what it felt like where I was just like... And I would have been down for that. Like, just Paul being like, ah, fuck you.

I'm going to make them kiss each other a lot. But he does have a reverence for the subject matter, which is so cool. It's interesting about this. And I think he's really trying to make them, I think he's trying to contend with people's relationship

to religion, both individual and cultural. And he's doing that through a specific story and a character that really tests a lot of our beliefs. I don't know. and a character that really tests a lot of our beliefs. I don't know. I mean, there is

very interesting area for interpretation in this movie. Sure. And I feel like he does not really come down on... I prefer this to the other version where we're either seeing someone who just completely is, you know,

believes this is what's happening, or the person who is, we see her planning to stage her stigmata. Right, right. And instead it's like, oh, she had that thing. And were you doing something with that? And she's like, no. And you're like, okay.

Like, you know, I don't know what to make of that. Right, right. You know, like, it's just sort of planted. Fairhoven gave an interview with the New York Times recently about Benedetta. And when he spoke about what attracted him to this project, it wasn't just the... Hot Jesus. It wasn't just the Christianity angle.

Sure. He wanted to make another film similar to Total Recall and Basic Instinct, where you have... Can you believe this person? Is this real? Right. You have this unreliable narrative and an unreliable protagonist and there is no clear answer and an unreliable reality like right i mean it's so interesting religion is the ultimate unreliable reality like there is no faith is believing something without proof like there were the

scenes where she's sort of possessed where he's doing effects on her voice. Like what's her name in Dune? Yes. Rebecca Ferguson in Dune. She does the voice. Right. If she did that to me, I'd be like, ooh. Yeah. Absolutely.

But that's also where you're like, she could just be doing this herself. That's the thing. So it's like you can tell they put some sort of post effect on her in those moments. I assume so. But it's also not so heightened that it's like impossible that someone could do that with their voice especially if you're about to be thrown on a burning pie or whatever i'm like jesus said that you all suck and then you have scenes where there's like copious like cgi blood coming out via stigmata and you're just like well that feels like he's putting his thumb on the scale this has to be

taken as real and then people will like pull up shards feels like he's putting his thumb on the scale. This has to be taken as real. And then people will like pull up shards of clay and be like, I found this in your fucking pocket. But as something that you, because I just listened to the Total Recall episode that you guys did.

Very interesting. There's something you said about how that movie is like critic proof because no matter what happens, you can say, oh, it was in the dream structure. It doesn't matter that the narrative doesn't make sense. And her response to everything, even if she did cut herself with glass to create a stigmata, Jesus made me do it. Of course.

You can always go back to that. I personally think that benedetta believes her bullshit 100 i think the ending is probably the best confirmation where she's like i don't want to go back to the con because she gets yeah quote unquote gets away with it right right she has a clean break and she does not get burned at the stake you get to hang out in a farmhouse and fuck and she's like i'm gonna go back there and they're like they'll burn you it's like right but if they burn me i'll obviously live because jesus flows through the face and i think her religious visions as depicted in the film are genuine to her experience sure yes i get yes but there might

just been really cool dreams that she had i mean mean, there are really cool dreams. I wrote down, you know, like, I took notes during the movie. Jesus slashing snakes with sword. That's his first entrance, though. Yeah, I mean, that was really cool. Right. Also, Jesus does not have a penis. Did you guys notice that? I did, yes.

When she takes off his little loincloth on the cross. I couldn't tell if it was tucked away or just sort of not there. Yeah. Wasn't sure what to do. He was tucked, but I thought that was a cool little moment. Yeah. And then there's the other sequence where it's not Jesus. It's not Jesus.

It's a scary man. Yes. They don't talk about Jesus going to the bathroom, do they? In the Bible? Did they confirm? Did he sit down? Did he put the seat confirm? And then, like, did he sit down? Did he put the seat up? And then Jesus went number two

and he came out and he said that it was good. Yeah. I mean, and this... Or he was like, oof, don't go in there. Right. Something like that.

This movie talks about going to the bathroom. Yeah, this movie has got some great pooping, farting scenes. It's got a battle shit scene. Yeah. Okay, well...

I googled did Jesus poop what came up an answer on Quora from Peter Francis Joseph DeFazio sounds like a real

Catholic yes Jesus was like in all ways except sin he had normal human physiology so he ate

drank urinated and defecated like any other human being and in as unsavory a topic as this might seem

while jesus was a baby i'm quite certain the blessed virgin mary changed quite a few of his diapers oh that's kind of cute i think i gotta disagree with this raid you're out on this you don't think jesus pooped well no in my mind duke is the original sin so you think he's not without sin i'm saying either he was without sin or he pooped. But you're, what about like, this is like the proof of his, you know,

godhood is like, he pooped without sin every time it was an unsinful poop. Do you feel that when you go to the bathroom you're sitting? That's the deeper question.

Yeah, I do. It certainly feels like punishment. I know someone who, as a toddler, I feel like I have to atone afterwards. As a toddler,

would go behind the couch to poop and would just kind of stand there with diaper on with diaper on and it was like he didn't he didn't want anyone looking

like he would go yeah when my daughter poops she must just goes like and like looks at me she's definitely not ashamed she goes full bobcat gold

you'll be like why are you so wound up and then you're like oh you're pooping that's what's going on with you that really funny um okay this movie starts with her being it's a little kid she's a little kid and she's being she's she's paying her tuition essentially it's got the classic modern disney princess opening where you start out with a little version of the main character so you can sell merch of her right and she uh baby she talks back she's very bold with some local bandit types right but

they're just like look i'm telling you our daughter made for this shit you gotta take her uh rampling who by the way incredible just absolutely and one of those people where you cannot believe that she has not worked with paul verhoeven yet i mean the obvious answer is i guess he's only made three movies in the last 25 years, 20 years. Also, you can't believe that she's fucking English. People have almost forgotten that this woman is not

French or Italian. She's an English lady. She's got range. She's got range. But it's just, she's just such a fucking good bit for him. Yeah.

I also thought it was funny that like this opening sequence I was like huh I think he's doing some mild CGI de-aging on Brampling. Couldn't tell if it was

a lot of makeup or some CGI. It felt light. She's very smooth. I didn't notice it. There's sometimes the weird light reflection when people have been.

She's got a very smooth face. Right. So I like I sensed that and then I was looking at her parents and I was like are they de-aging them a little bit?

Because I assume they're going to be later. I think they make them look older. That's the thing. Yeah. So it's like, they cast the parents

at the age they are in only the first scene and for the rest of the movie they have prosthetics on. Right. And then Rambling, I think, was de-aged a little bit.

It's possible because that seems 20 years. Some light beauty work as we call it in the biz. Yes. Yes. But she also

looks incredible. Right. Looks incredible and just has such a credible presence. I guess the reason why I was just like, what a good fit for Verhoeven is just like, Charlotte Rampling can play judgment

better than almost anyone alive, right? Just the sort of like withering stare. She's got a good wither. Yes. But yes, okay, so she's gifted to them. Right. And Charlotte Rampling is the original abbess of this.

In the film, it's a straight up convent. It's a convent. They don't get into the gray areas. Did it become a convent later or was it always? So in the film, it is to Charlotte Rampling and everyone else in the town of Pescia's advantage that Benedetta become this mystic. Because that will legitimize them? They want to believe that she is having these visions because in the film, they're saying it will bring them fame and fortune. Because there is literally a line in the movie where they're like like you see what happened to a sissy after St. Francis

that was pretty cool we gotta get ourselves a saint she's like Rick Mackey hoping that the Williams sisters turn out well exactly Macy god damn it and I watched like a two hour video of the real Rick Macy the other night

who is weirder than Bernthal in the movie. Yeah, I was shocked. Bernthal was so good. But, yeah, it is. And that's an... So, I kind of want to talk about how Benedetta

has a lot of fallbacks to past Verhoeven films. Because when we get into this idea of the finances of the convent, of people wanting to believe that Benedetta is real because it will give them money. I mean, he's always had a history in his films with kind of being in, I don't know if I'd say so much an anti-capitalist, but obviously very critical of capitalism, and especially in America. Yeah, and I think the dehumanization that results, the prioritization of capitalism above life. Right. But what I think intensifies this all is that the plague

is happening. Right. Yeah. We have not mentioned the plague yet. The stakes are so high. I mean, people are,

like, they are showing just people strewn, dead bodies strewn in the street. Right. I mean, it is awful.

And then yet this man, this, you know, who we meet later in the movie, but I'll just reference him now. The nuncio. He's just eating food and just like a, his wife is squirting concubine squirting that fucking juxtaposition

it's so fucked up yeah and that is based in reality especially in italy at the time they're like the the popes were in like renaissance italy what wasn't one of them like a medici like yeah i think there was a lot of corruption within the catholic church at the time where like popes were getting married people were making bank off of their religious status it was a very corrupt environment um and this character the first company's hero. It's the first company. Yeah. Yeah, you know what? I mean, I don't know if this is... Are you going to go back to the Marvel thing? No, no, no, no, no.

I wasn't. A thing maybe that will garner even less excitement from the crowd, I'm about to say. But it was like a thing that hit me while watching this. We live in a time where there are increasingly people who want to build their entire identity around the idea that they're anti-cancel culture, right? And a lot of them are not even people who are ever going to find themselves in the crosshairs.

You see these people who are like proactively like cancel culture is the ultimate pox of our time. How dare we? This is inhuman, right? Which like the entire notion of cancel culture, which I don't think really exists, is essentially two phenomenons happen simultaneously, one of which is, like, a long-overdue cultural reckoning with things that we have never, ever asked for accountability on, right? Like, systemic issues that have always been sort of swept under the rug, ignored, covered up, what have you. And then also just the innate human behavior

to want to shame other people to feel better about yourselves, which I think social media has just lit a fucking flame under and given us like super weapons to be able to do. Right. And then you and people want to talk about this like this modern pox of our time, whereas like all human behavior is just fucking cyclical. We just keep on getting new tools and outlets to be able to do the same basic instincts we have, which are stupid fucking animals. And we're all just afraid we're going to die and we want to eat and have a place to live and all of that. And you watch this movie and you're like, there used to just be a guy like Christopher Lambert. And he just like Lambert Wilson.

Lambert Wilson. I made this mistake before we pressed record. There used to be like a singular guy like Lambert Wilson could just go like, I don't know, sounds guilty to me. And then you drag a person through a town and have everyone yell at them and fucking set them on fire. What else are you going to do that day?

But this is my point. Everyone's like cancel. And we just love watching these people suffer. Louis C.K. just has to sit in his $10 million apartment. Forget cancel culture. We're not talking about cancel culture. No, no, but I think that it is, I think it is part of this movie.

I'm not saying this movie is his commentary on cancel culture, but it is these basic human instincts. And what cancel culture is a manifestation of is like this purity test. We're always fucking doing, you know, of just like this balance of wanting to idolize people and being like, this makes you uncomfortable. Fuck them. They have to be taken down immediately. How dare you? And in this culture that is so dominated by religion, Benedetta is essentially doing the shit that they've all been prepping their entire lives to be able to witness, right? Like the core of Catholicism is like,

Jesus is going to fucking come back. He's going to come back for us and some magical shit's going to happen again. Like David was saying, I know like, oh, the book, you read all the magic and now we walk around and everything sucks, but someday the magic guy's gonna come back magical shit's gonna happen he's gonna save us all and then benedetta sure shows up and is like hey magical guy flowing through me here's some magical shit everyone's like fuck this so hard you know there's like such a immediate revulsion to everything she's doing there there there is a value judgment in the film which is that the sort of corruption that charlotte rampling and some of the other and the nuncio they are corrupt financially they're very concerned with money there's a whole thing

about how when benedetta is promised to the convent that her parents have to pay you know a a dowry fee and charlotte rampling is you know if if she was a normal bride you'd have to pay this much money but just because she's a bride of jesus you're gonna cheapskate me sure and uh so you know the money was a was a big thing and but and that was bartolomea what i'm fucking up her name but there's that similar scene because she bartolomea bartolomea is taken in because her name but there's that similar scene because she's Bartolomea Bartolomea is taken in because she's being chased

by her father who raped her repeatedly abusing her yeah and she's trying to escape right but but Rampling is like yeah it seems like

a bad situation but Ponto Dinero yeah this is a convent they're literally aligned this is a convent not a charity house which is funny right and then Benedetta

and her parents are both like come the fuck on no no no Benedetta's likeetta and her parents are both like come the fuck on no no no Benedetta's like that and the parents are like okay we'll pay your freaking tuition I guess we're getting

away from a rapist dad right so then like Rampling is negotiating what the prices she'll take and then once that deal is closed Benedetta's dad's like

come on you're not leaving me out of it right like they're gonna pay out everybody but that's that's sanctioned

of course within the world of the film that kind of corruption is fine. Right. Benedetta is, when she becomes the abbess, sort of replacing Charlotte Rampling in what I thought was a fun little connection to showgirls. Uh-huh. Replacing Crystal. Yes. That she is not so interested in the finances there's literally she literally makes

a point of hiding the dildo in the financial ledger of the convent they cut they cut out the pages of that book to hide the religious dildo. Yeah. So like she's, her corruption, corruption in quotes is sexual. And that is inexcusable. Well, right. I think financial corruption is fine,

but she's crossing a line by being queer and sexual. Exactly. Right. Her, her queerness, the, the sexual quote unquote impropriety of her behavior is the thing they're able to hang their hat up on and be like, see, dead to rights, come on.

How are you going to fucking defend this? But I also think part of what's interesting about this movie, and it is the ambiguity of, like, do we buy Benedetta? Does the movie believe in Benedetta or not? Is that you kind of go, like, the Ramplings, the Lamberts, Wilsons, are they more threatened by her because they think it's a put on or because if it was real

that actually threatens them because they know it's not real or they Grambling doesn't buy any of it but I'm saying both both ways are a threat to them no 100% if someone's fucking faking that's like that undermines their power but also if she's real then it's like as Rambling sort of later

says the movie like he doesn't speak to me right right so if he speaks to you then who the fuck am i rampling's running a business she's like you know she wants to just run a tight ship over here we get the money right we make the fucking what are the things the spools the the bobbins the bobbins we send out some bobbins you know everyone gets fed it's not like the end of the world. I'm top of the pyramid. You can't know more than I do. He can't be speaking for you. Rambling's character

doesn't have any delusions of grandeur is what I'm saying. Like, obviously, Lambert Wilson, he's the nuncio. He's like, he's the one I think

is more threatened by. Well, he's exactly like, they actually need to stamp a bandit out. Rambling is just trying to fucking, you know, not rock the boat over here.

She doesn't want the nuncio coming down and being like, yeah. Well, that is, is that is her fatal that's like her fatal sin is she brings the nuncio to this she brings a man into this predominantly female environment and he is immediately threatened which which is a theme in verhoeven's films by a queer woman who... An outspoken woman. An outspoken queer woman with power. A girl boss, one might say.

The original girl boss. And she's very comfortable in her power. Yeah, she is. I think... So, did you actually watch Robocop? Yeah, of course I did. Last night? Okay.

Because for me, I re-watched Benedetta and then I watched Basic Instinct, The Fourth Man, and Total Recall in prep for this. Okay. And I think that

I think the similarities between this and Basic Instinct are actually kind of they're surprisingly strong. That's interesting. Yeah. Because I think that Benedetta is a Catherine strong. That's interesting. Yeah. Because I think that Benedetta is a Catherine Tramiel type character.

Sure. Where you don't quite know what is driving her, where she wants to end up. Yeah. She is, again, she's a very powerful queer woman. Very open with her sexuality.

And also, she's creative. Catherine Tramiel is a writer. And the whole thing was like she became a suspect because she wrote a book right and that was the thing that michael douglas is consistently surprised by like why are you doing this she's like to learn about you for my book you're a character in my book i'm doing research and he cannot wrap his head around the fact that she's a writer. So is Lambert Wilson's purple robes, is that like Michael Douglas's sweater? Is that the parallel there? I wouldn't say their clothes are similar. I think they both kind of have these like, their skin feels very like thinly stretched over their faces.

They have this like, I wouldn't say it's an overtly macho energy in a traditional sense but it is like um it's a toxic masculinity in uh in benedetta that the toxicity is literal because he literally brings the plague to the convent um but i i i think that um when talking about katherine trammell as a a writer and a creator and something that's not being uh understood by the man in the film benedetta in real life and in the movie is very theatrical she's all she our first introduction to benedetta as a grown woman is in the middle of a play that she's that she's the star she's the best one she's good she's she's good people in the audience like she like my first reaction after seeing benedetta for the first time was like oh she has main character energy before realizing like she's

literally the main character in a movie like she's literally the main character in a movie like that's a stupid thing to think of nobody but she she yes she's has a flair for drama the whole thing about her like dig a grave for me i'm going to like resurrect myself on this she wants to be carried into the narrative the square that has been on donkeys like christ she's very theatrical and that is what gets her in trouble. You have the thing as a child where the statue falls on top of her and everyone

like 75% of the people are like a sign of blessing people are like a little convenient. Right. She's the one who has the statue

fall on top of her. Her being creative is one of one of the things that you know people want to knock her down for. Can we talk about this actress

for a second? Because I did some digging because I was like, Virginie Ephira. She's an L. She's an L. Which is kind of a fun movie.

Yeah, that was a good movie. I liked Sybil. But she was like a TV presenter. Yeah. She was like, she was on like the

Belgian or French version of American Idol or whatever. Weather Woman, like, yeah. She was on a the belgian reporter version of american idol or weather woman like yeah like she was on a children's show called megamic yeah she was like primarily like a very pretty tv presenter she's very pretty very pretty who then like in her 30s made a pivot where you have to imagine there was probably some pushback like oh she wants to do movies now to mostly like romantic comedies that were well received and people were like oh she's fucking winning she's getting like cesar nominations but that's like her zone she mostly does sort of like lighter i feel like adult dramas and romantic comedies romance based things she has the supporting partner l as the

the next door neighbor the wife of the next door neighbor you know the thing i'm about to say i assume i mean if you don't if you don't say it, I'm going to say it. David's giving me the knowing look. She is, of course, in France, the voice of Mavis in all three Holt of Transylvania movies. That's right. Wow. She's done a lot of dubs, I think.

Like, there's other dubs, like Garfield, apparently. That was her breakthrough. So that was before she was acting herself. It was like celebrity casting, who's a famous person, we can get to do the dubs for family movies and those are big enough that she started acting on camera again but this is like a very different role for her i think she's such fun casting i do too it's just like i was watching this i was like is this some like legend of french theater like who is this why she looked for mine i saw the l thing and i was working backwards from there. And I'm like, this is like if like.

Maria Menoudos suddenly got a supporting role in a Verhoeven movie. And then he was like, you're the star of the next one. And she went like fucking cam on it. Well, I think like my friend Kristen, after she saw this movie, her review of it was just to send this tweet from a while ago that was like some actors you can't buy in a period piece like jessica beal has a face that knows about text messaging i've seen a cell phone and so her problem with the film was that benedetta too modern benedetta she just looks too modern you can literally see like the roots of her hair from where she was blonde.

But my take, Benedetta had to be blonde. I agree. She has to be a movie star within this comment. I also think she has to be modern. I think she represents the threat of modernity.

I think she should feel a little like weirdly confident in a way that doesn't make sense. Right. Like there's the, she's this confident little girl who the fucking statue falls on and the girl's like,

hmm, does the Virgin Mary want me to kiss on her titty? Is that what she's interested in? But she has this supporting role in Elle where she's very good. She gets, like, a big last scene. That's her big moment. But her character in Elle, of course, is the one who leans over to Hubert and is like, you know, thanks for doing all that insane shit with my husband because I'm not really into it.

And Verhoeven is, like, prepping this movie, and he's just like, she impressed me in that last scene. I just gave her the part. He never tested her. He never auditioned her. He never talked about it with her. Well, he did. He called her up and he's like,

you want to be in my lesbian nun movie? She's like, okay. He's like, there's going to be a sex scene. She's like, cool. He's like, there's a dildo made from a statue of the Virgin Mary. She's like, dildo? Interesting.

Okay. He told her everything entailed. I guess the point I read in this interview with her was that like, she was like, he never talked to me about how I should play the reality of this. Right. What the opinion of the movie is, you know? Like, she was like, he gave me complete autonomy to make any of those decisions myself about whether internally I am playing this as a con or as reality.

And I decided to play everything with conviction. Which is the right choice, in my opinion. Yeah, but it's just you've got to give him credit for recognizing the ability for her to deliver this performance because it does not sound like it was an obvious pick in any way.

I think she's great. And I think everyone in this is really good. I think Rambling Rules, obviously. But I really like what her name is. Daphne Patakia. Who plays Bartolomea. She's just got that kind of like wounded soul thing going on. Yeah, very feral.

Right. I like mean old Christina. Louise Chevalier. Oh, we haven't talked about Christina, Louise Chevillier. Oh, we haven't talked about Christina yet. The mean girl. Which feels to me like a fun reference to... Oh my gosh.

Why am I blanking on the name of the movie? Black Narcissus. Oh, okay. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, that whole drama that's... That's my least favorite part of the movie which is sort of the second act that's sort of their power struggle

but it's still good I'm more into the first and last I mean the last act is where I was like this is a great movie this is paying off for me in huge, is Lambert Wilson being like you're still fucking lying but she comes back from the dead that's when the movie is like really cooking with gas

although I enjoyed the whole thing you're talking to me like the the overlaps with other Verhoeven works, right? It's like, it really is Catherine Tramiel for this because then you look at the other, especially within his Hollywood films, right? And it's like you have the protagonists who are like Robocop and Nomi and Showgirls are like innocents, right? Nomi and showgirls are like innocents, right? They are innocents who show up with a kind of purity and are punished for and then end up coming into their own power and sense of self and being able to

work things their own way. And then you have characters like Johnny Rico and Quaid in Total Recall who are kind of just idiots. Right. Who the movie like happens to. And they don't understand that they're pawns within a larger system whether or not they have any agency or any of that but like trammell is is that example of a character where

you just don't fucking know exactly whether or not they're on the level and whether it's on you for judging them or questioning them you know it's it's an interesting line and you think about how controversial that movie was when it came out. Right. How outraged people were despite it being a huge fucking blockbuster. It does make sense that that's the thing he's lashing onto. But I also think it's like his obsession with Jesus where it's like, I think it would be almost impossible for him to make the kind of Jesus movie he wants to make. However, you can pick a figure like Benedetto or similarly. make. However, you can pick a figure like Benedetto or similarly, there is historical records of some amount of things that happened

and you can show them on screen and then debate over whether or not this had any actual supernatural power behind it. Which is, I think, what he's into. It's also just like, how would we react if Jesus fucking showed up today? People have spent centuries just going like,

come on, he's coming back, he's coming back. And it's like, if he came back, people would probably be like, I don't know, fuck you. Let's fucking take this guy out back and beat the shit out of him. I don't buy it for a second. Most saints, especially back in medieval times

and pre-medieval times, were martyrs. Yeah. Because no one believed them. God, you got how much oil poured on you? Ah, shit. You could be a saint? Right. Is that clearing up at all

I know you're dead but like it's a lot of the black comedy of this movie is that like here's you're steeped in this world of like the obsession with the imagery right and the statues and the paintings and everything everywhere and that no one stops to like check themselves when they start to put her through the exact same

shit yeah the ending man this is what we can get to it if we want to get if we if you guys want to talk about other stuff that's not i just want to talk about lambert wilson we can we can talk about lambert it's just and for one i love the man obviously i mean he's the merovingian he's the merovingian he's in lots of other he's in what's it what's it called the um fuck what is it called griff help me out here the wolf movie yeah brother heard of the wolf isn't he in that maybe he's not yes

no I think he is are we wrong about that why do we think that he's in the Matrix Reloaded the Matrix Revolutions the Matrix Resurrection he is in those he's not in Brotherhood of the Wolf

what am I thinking he's in a De Gaulle biopic cool he played De Gaulle no I didn't realize he was in the new Matrix oh yeah he did yes he is oh yeah that's what a year I didn't realize he was in the new Matrix. Yes, he is.

Oh, yeah. What a year for him. I know. He's in Catwoman, of course. That's right. He's the villain in Catwoman. I guess Sharon Stone's the main one, but he's sort of the one who invented the de-aging cream

or whatever it is. I think he's the villain in the Marsupilami movie. I guess I really just know him from the Matrix. But I feel like there's some big french crossover babylon ad i'm like isn't there something pre-matrix sahara i'm just looking at all these sort of like paycheck timeline hollywood villain roles he took but i'm like what was the crossover movie i'm forgetting i don't know i don't know um but uh what was i gonna say um his whole character obviously you know comes in with an agenda is trying to take down benedetta

uh he's got this additional problem with the plague i mean the scene early when he's arriving and there's the sort of i am pagliacci scene where the guy is like i don't know what to do he's like go talk to your local priest he's like i am the local yeah well that's so funny obviously right yes um but uh but you know he tries to take her down he fails because she she does her crazy voice she's much more compelling than him in a lot of ways the craziest part of this which is like charlotte rampling goes and is like i need you to come fucking check this thing out. While they're gone, she dies. She dies. She straight up dies.

And then he shows up and they're like, bad news, she's dead. And he's like, what the fuck? I came all this fuck away. What am I supposed to do? Not only bad news is she dead, but bad news, you're not even allowed to come into the town. You're carrying the plague. Because Benedetta says, we're stopping the plague. Right.

And no one's allowed to enter into our city. Right. It forces his way through. says we're stopping the plague and no one's allowed to enter into our city. It forces his way through. Which is another just brilliant example of that sort of double-sided thing where it's advantageous to Benedetta that they not come in the town because they won't expose her.

But it also is politically shrewd. She really should not be letting people in they really should close the door sound guidance but what she's been dead for like three days he comes in it's like okay let me look at the body not three days it was the afternoon okay it's a while and then she's like i'm up baby who's this fucker right she's not quite like that but she's up she's talking right he tries to i don't buy it as you say, but she's up. She's talking. Right. He tries to... I don't buy it. As you say, of course, she's a political, powerful threat to him that he recognizes. But there's that insecurity, which is what I love about this movie that he and Rampling

have, where they're like, is Jesus actually talking to her? Yes. You know, wait a second. I just read a bunch of books and passed all my tests and sucked the right dicks and paid the right guys and that's why i'm the nuncio i didn't realize that jesus could talk to you right right we like in theory our power system is based on biding time until jesus comes back and then tells us what to do and the second someone's like hey just want you know i got a message from jesus here's

what to do they're like fuck let's just hold that for one second i don't want to do that though wait who told you like 15 years working up the rungs of the ladder i mean not to spoil but the man is stabbed to death at the end he's dying this is it yeah and she's giving him the whole like oh yeah i've seen heaven you're in heaven president future baby it's covered in plague boils by the way he's not looking good he's not looking good can we talk about how cool the plague is yeah yeah it's nasty you get like black bubbles on your body it feels very like total recall music yeah like i like how makeup it is yeah you know it's not realistic it's stylized but it's upsetting oh it's gnarly

yeah damn well and ben i know we have to talk about the farting entertainer we will don't i haven't forgotten about him that's like paul verhoeven right at the start being like don't And Ben, we have to talk about the farting entertainer. We will. Don't worry. The flatulence. I haven't forgotten about him. That's like Paul Verhoeven right at the start being like, don't worry. It's okay. Don't worry. There's a man dressed in a skeleton costume? There are three guys dressed in it.

Three skeleton b-boys and then a farting guy. We will devote many minutes. To me, there's so much pathos and the guy is fucking dying. He's like, okay, Benedetta, come on. Am I going to heaven? And she's like, yeah. And he's like, I heard you died. And when you died, you crossed over.

And she's like, I've seen it all. There's a past, present, and future. I know for a fact. Right. Good place, bad place. And he's still, even in his last movie, he's like, you're full of shit. Jesus. And now I'm dead.

Well, it's such a good part. He looks her in the eyes and tells her where am I going and she like has the moment where she does the math and goes like paradise and he's like you fucking liar cause he's like you may be either maybe you know it and you're lying to me or you don't

know it but I know where I'm going that's what I love about it the fucking Gordian nod of it is this whole time you've been telling me that you're touched and I think you're a fucking liar and then this moment of vulnerability as I love about it. The fucking Gordian nod of it is, this whole time you've been telling me that you're touched, and I think you're a fucking liar. And then this moment of vulnerability as I'm about to die, I ask you the one question, the one thing that can give me solace, am I going to heaven? And you get the sense that she says paradise to him out of sympathy in that moment, right? And he's like, see, I knew it all along. You're a liar.

But by saying that, he's admitting that she knows what the fuck she's's talking about but now she's lying about knowing the real shit to make him feel better oh you know yeah well i think he meant that you're you're lying that you know i interpret it the other way but i think once again this movie is wallowing in that ambiguity and no one fucking knows what i was wondering about him too hiding his uh that he has the plague and that in fact all the things that she's said is coming true right yeah like the motivation i felt like it was personal more than anything else to him that he just was like i've got to see this through even though i have a death sentence and i am bringing this upon all of the other people in this village he's like fuck Benedetta

I'm going to get her which is crazy because I think there's also definitely some gender stuff too going on there that she has so much power and is wielding it on him. Right he's supposed to be representing or acting on behalf

of some higher power and it's all so petty and personal for him. Well she has's supposed to be representing or acting on behalf of some higher power and it's all so petty and personal for him. Well, she has power and she's using it in a way that is different

from someone like Charlotte Rampling, which is acceptable power. Yes. She's not, yeah. By the book, you're doing the things

as our tradition. Right. So here's a question. The relationship, the romantic relationship, the sexual relationship, how much of that is sort of like

a Pocahontas-esque embellishing or expansion do we think? Because, I mean, David read that. They definitely, you know, three times a week.

But, but, how much do we know about her as a person? Do we know if she literally carved a penis out of a Virgin Mary statue? Do we know? No, I don't think. If there was a weird, entangled relationship outside of just the physical of it.

Like, we know that she fucked around with this woman. But do we know that much about the woman or the nature of their relationship beyond the physical act? No, there are not as many records about Bartolomea outside of the testimony in court. And they, I mean, this movie depicts them,

they, you know, get this testimony out of her by torture. Yes. Which I'm sure is how that went down.

The pair of anguish. That is. Which is a real thing. Grandis. I don't want any of that shit near you. But, which I'm sure

that's how it went down. They were always fucking, you know, compelling. Yeah, it's a real, it's one of that shit near you. But, which I'm sure that's how it went down. They were always fucking, you know, compelling. Yeah, it's a real, it's one of those, although,

they, the pair of anguish, they've like, found examples of it. Like, they have like literal versions of it. And then, I think historians,

like, have made an educated guess as to how it was used. Sure. But there's no actual record. There's no contemporary first-hand accounts of how to use this thing. Right. The Joan of Arc thing, too, where he's like, you know, Joan of Arc, we all agree, Joan of Arc, pretty fucking good, right? Pretty good.

Pretty good at what she did. Yeah. We love her. It's like, she just looked at these fucking devices and she gave in. You don't think you're better than Joan of Arc, do you? It is a good bit of reverse psychology. That's what I'm saying. There's this like cyclical logic to it where it's like we all agree it was fucked up that we tortured Joan of Arc because now with distance we all agree she was probably in the right.

She was probably in the right. Right. So you don't think you're better than Joan of Arc by pretending you are being persecuted unfairly. A hundred percent. Love it. Yeah. The torture stuff, the violence, and that's like a Verhoeven, right?

Yeah, he's got to put it in there. Brutal depiction of violence. Yeah, a lot of CGI blood in this movie, which is interesting to see from him. It has a very different nature to it. I feel like he uses it in a very stylized way, but you can tell as opposed to like Verhoeven previously being a guy who just had fucking gallons and gallons of syrup.

Right. Right. Word everywhere that there's more control in the arcs of these things. You know, it feels more matter of fact, like it was kind of in that time. I mean, like life,

we just, we, people didn't have the same concept of like this, like the preciousness of life necessarily. This is also the thing with Verhoeven. You cannot choose his

perspective on the world was hard-earned through a childhood of desensitization to everything. He served in the military, right? He grew up as a child in Nazi occupation. Yeah. He saw death around him

and dead bodies as he like, skipped to school and all this fucking shit. And he always tells that story about being inspired by the Bosch painting where there's a guy

like, pissing in the side and he's like, that's what I want to make as movies. And this movie feels like that where anytime they're walking through the town

there's just so much like, shit happening and no one's really clocking any of it and when the violence happens it's like, shocking and sort of just it's like, everyday of it and when the violence happens it's like shocking and sort of just it's like everydayness in a certain way even though it's like i mean

that's how i felt when i saw flesh and blood yes where i had not seen a film that took place in that time period that was so like gross and fucked up right he doesn't sugarcoat and it like it probably was disgusting back then. Absolutely. Flesh and Blood, which I like, despite being a wildly unpleasant movie, is pretty much, like, just that. Whereas here, I think he's found

a really compelling story that he's connected to where he's able to also put in that sort of, like, world around it. It's good. It's a good movie. I think it's a very successful film. I'm very happy

that he made it. I want to see it a second time very badly. I enjoyed watching it a second time knowing because I definitely the first time was sort of especially stuff like

her dying or whatever I was just like you know I kept kind of like freezing in my seat being like what? Like you know like there were a lot of moments where it's not like

where I was like I can't believe it I was just sort of like well that's definitely not what i thought was gonna happen i appreciated the humor the second time around there's a really funny part in this movie where uh when benedetta it becomes the uh leader of the convent and uh she is making her first like official request of charlotte rampling who has now been demoted and uh a another nun in the convent is dying and charlotte rampling is sitting by her side but benedetta's like um it's actually going to be my first vespers today and i want you to be there for it because jesus told me that you should be there for it.

And Charlotte Rampling's like, okay, fine. And then Charlotte Rampling's daughter, Christina, the aforementioned mean girl in the convent, was like, should I be there too? And Benedetta was like, Jesus didn't mention you. But like casting an actor who is more innately modern in that way allows you to sort of like have that commentary without needing to underline it or play it deliberately. Same thing. I mean, I feel like this debate was going on of like, is Will Smith to Will Smith to play Richard Williams, right? Like, should it have been a character actor? And I'm like, look, Coleman Domingo could have played that. David Oyelowo could have played that.

There are people who could have played that David Oyelowo could have played that their people could have played that but part of what you need to make that movie work is anytime this guy is saying the shit that sounds insane you're like fuck but he is the most charismatic man I've ever seen well I think there well I mean with King Richard I think another movie that I've seen twice

I think there are ulterior motives for casting someone like Will Smith to play Richard Williams a guy that was not well-liked or respected. Sure, but I'm saying— So it's like, oh, let's have a famously likable guy play him as a bit of reputation management. I think even beyond that, just in terms of functionality of the movie, and this is not a King Richard episode, but it's like, both are interesting examples of how you need to cast, like, a movie star to make a movie work versus casting an actor who can literalize the part,

right? Is just like, if you have a guy, you watch real interviews with Richard Williams, and the guy is kind of so unpleasant in so many ways, right? That you're like, if you cast someone to play this literally, you as an audience will never buy that he convinces anyone,

that anyone takes him up on the offer. The guy has to be somewhat likable in order to believe that he's able to convince anyone to bet on these kids. And it's the same thing with her where it's like, we as an audience need to be like, I kind of think she might be onto something because she's the person I recognize most in this movie. Her behavior seems the least alien to me, despite the fact that she's like speaking in tongues and

bleeding out of her hands and everything i don't know good movie good performance movie it's it's a movie filled with ideas which is not how i guess it was originally marketed in a very like yeah salacious way again as we spoke about earlier in film market i'm sure they were just like oh he's gonna make fucking showgirls with nuns right we know how to sell that you know um yeah which which this is the thing it's like what's funny about this movie is if you go into it expecting that you'll be like huh that's a lot more like sort of disciplined and uh restrained than I imagined. But then if you go into it off of that description, then you're like, this movie is horny as shit.

Right. You know? Right. It's like restrained only by Verhoeven standards in terms of your mind's eye assuming how far it could go. And it certainly doesn't feel like he's doing anything in this movie for shock effect. like he's doing anything in this movie for shock effect but i also think that's the weirdness of verhoeven and why no one is able to replicate him is i don't think he ever consciously is trying to be provocative i think there's the weird work area to his mind where he's i think he's he thinks a lot of it's funny but i also think he's just like i'm the only one willing to say it you know i i think people

like who try to make provocative movies right it feels more like okay come on i don't think he i don't think that provocation was at the forefront of his mind with this movie no which i think is interesting yeah especially considering the the danger he was going to find himself in covering anything close to this subject matter that people are just going to be like fuck you absolutely not get out of here Paul

well wasn't that like why he didn't end up making his Jesus movie years ago because of what happened to Scorsese in the last temptation of Christ and he's like hey I mean I can handle so much right but with something I do really care about like my

life's work as a scholar of Christ you's also wanted to get never gonna get a fucking fair shake there's gonna be a controversy that overwhelms whatever I'm trying to do with this movie people are

not gonna meet this halfway yeah he makes more movies what's what's's the one line on the Neumeier movie that just got announced this week? I'll look it up.

I remember it does. It sounded fairly compelling. Right. And then the thing like six months ago was he said, I'm like developing two movies. I'm developing a script

with Neumeier and then there's like a Hollywood thriller I'm considering. It's called Young Sinner, the Neumeier movie. Yeah. And he says,

Oh, it takes place in D.C. It's a political thriller set in Washington, D.C. Our heroine, a young staffer who works for a powerful senator, is drawn into a web of intrigue and danger. And of course, there is also a little sex. There's also a little sex. Of course.

And then he... Yeah, that's what he said. I don't know about the other thing. This is the one thing I know about. But I'd love him to make it. Someone give him money. I want to bring him back to America. I think he is one of our greatest critics of American culture.

He needs to make at least one last... It's good for him to be on the inside. I think he has to make a studio system movie. And I'll even count a Netflix movie or whatever. If that's what it takes. It takes him going to Hulu. I'll suck it down. I just want him taking money from like an American corporation again.

And going like, thank you very much. I mean, it's just. Sneaking away and doing his perversion. It's so funny watching. Do you know what this movie is about? The opening credits of Benedetta and seeing like 10 different production companies i mean he's just taking like 10 cents from like i know 20 different people right which is why you're like he just put a nipple poster out there the american film market which people haven't been

is like the basement underneath con and it's just the seediest shit in the world yeah I mean like seediest thing of con is like the yacht parties well okay then it's the American film market correct the layers of con maybe we should make a movie about the con film festival alright so if we're gonna I guess maybe be done with

talking about the movie there really is only one thing I think that really needs to be addressed which is that which is that when we first arrive to the village. Yep. Into what's the town called again? Pescia. Pescia. Pescia.

Pescia town. Yeah. You kind of get a sense of what's going on in the town square. I wish people could see Ben's body language right now. And there is a performance happening okay there is there is a gentleman with a he's holding like a flaming torch he's got a torch a lit torch right and with him and our bone men basically three men dressed as skellingtons uh-huh and they're seeming mikey day bobby moynihan right seeming to kind of come up and to attack him, if you will.

Well, what does he do to defend himself? He turns the torch around and he produces a fart, thereby making the flame bigger. They run away in fear. So this is what my father's favorite reference is when I was growing up around the house. There was the man named Lapita Main, which Mel Brooks takes the character name for the mayor.

He plays in Blazing Saddles. Say the name again? I believe his character, I believe that the man's name was Lapidomane. I might be mispronouncing. No, you're right. He was a famous French flatulence. How do you spell that? Flatulence around the start of the 20th century is L-E then P-E-T-O-M-A-N-E.

Right, yeah, okay, sure, sure, sure. so he was like the star flatulence of the beginning of recorded era you know where you were able to photograph he he like uh you know recorded it on a gramophone like he was like oh they're recording sounds now i got a sound it was a hit fucking greatest hits man etch this shit into a record. My point here is just, I was raised in a household. I feel bad for the guy who recorded that. Because, you know, he's farting. Maybe that guy was in another booth. I hope so.

Why do you think they started building soundproof booths for recording? It wasn't about the sound leaking out. It was about the smell. They were like, oh, the padding is for the noise. That's what's not in Get Back. It's like 80. Actually, I think they do rip some farts in Get Back. Ringo f not in Get Back. It's like 80... Actually, I think they do rip some farts in Get Back. Ringo farts in Get Back.

They should have like a Wet Hot style fart track on Get Back. My point here is that I grew up in a household. My father, it was very important. Religion was not important in our household. What was important was that my father made sure that my siblings and I knew that farting is a profession. That it has been held as a profession and celebrated within the arts. Did you not know before this

scene that such a thing as a flatulence existed? I 100% knew. I feel like I've known that my whole life for some reason. You just didn't expect it to show up in this movie. I did not. And I was really fucking excited. And here's the thing. It made me think

like, how entertainment how have we moved away from that? You're saying like, bring it back. Improv classes. Fuck. There should just be a class where you teach people how to fucking fart like on cue. That shit is funny. Everyone's sitting

at the UCB training center, a guy comes in with eight torches. He's like, everyone take a torch. All right. Now light them up when I tell you. No, like, listen, that's that is like, I'm almost like, is that where comedy peaked? Can I tell you about an entertainer who lived in 12th century England?

Please. He went by the name Roland the Farter. I like his style. Amusing amusingly his given name was george but i guess he thought roland just really worked with farting uh he was given a manor in suffolk and 12 acres of land in return for his services as a jester to king henry i II, every year he was obligated to perform unum saltum et stifulum et unum bumbulum, which means one jump, one whistle, and one fart at the king's court at Christmas. This is the thing.

These people used to be celebrated. They used to be held up as pillars of our community and of our culture. Like the fucking, you know, tax books or whatever. Fart joke is shorthand for hacky comedy where people are like, look, I'm not going to put fucking fart jokes in my thing. And it's like, these people used to be thought of as artists. Like, I see

the shit and I'm like, look what they took from us. Exactly. In our blank check text thread, Ben did send us the Wikipedia for Flatulence. He did um that's how i found yeah apparently saint augustine in city of god mentioned some performers who did have quote such command of their bowels that they can break wind continuously at will yeah it seems to

produce the effect of singing dom de louise this is the thing with lapidomane it seems like he could almost draw air in and then shoot it out. He was the best there ever was. He was the Michael Jordan of farting. I think Lapidomane had incredible control. Also noted here, Terrence and Philip are noted on the

flatulence list. Well, of course. Well, but of course. I don't know. I think a biopic is like the move for a fractalist. See, why do I feel like Peter Maine? I feel like someone was trying to make a Peter Maine movie. I feel like this is why my father would always talk about. Wait, sorry, Griffin.

I know that you're French, but did you know that Le Petit Men combines the French verb peter to fart with men maniac fartomaniac i'm just imagining translation like king henry at his fucking christmas dinner and like some vassal is like my lord you are so good he's like uh-huh uh-huh and he's like is rolling the farter here yet like when is when are we when are we getting that is that after dessert or before i just want to know i just want to know when i'm getting it he's looking forward to it it's a great performance and like if he's doing one fart a year is he like in training for months like eating all

kinds of develop new farts right wait there was an an italian film in 1983 called il petto mani starring ugo Tonazzi. All right. Well, I'll report back on that. Yeah, you should watch that. We should play the box office game. Yeah, we should play the box office game. Thank you for allowing me to just go off on that tangent.

Of course. He also, I'm sorry, he also apparently appears as a character in Moulin Rouge. I forgot about that. Lupita Mane? Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. I mean about that. Lupita Mane? Yeah. Oh, that makes sense.

I mean, you know, it's all going off then, right? There is a modern day flatulence. Mr. Methane. Mr. Methane. Birth name Paul Oldfield. He started performing in 1981. Briefly retired in 2006. Restarted in 2007.

He claims to be the only performing farter in the world today. He worked on the railways before focusing on his flatulence performances. Oh, okay. He wasn't farting on the railways. He was doing railroad work. This website. Is it not good? Oh, boy.

Does it have sort of Angel Fire vibes? Absolutely. Angel Fire vibes. Oh, this guy's kind of got like a Riddler look. He has an album. He auditioned for British. Britain's Got Talent. Should I buy a fart in a jar right now?

You can buy a fart in a jar. He has a DVD called Mr. Methane Let's Rip. Let's also say. He's dressed like a superhero. In 2004. See, Lapidoman has class. He's wearing. He's wearing a tuxedo.

Yeah. So he's holding the one finger up. Like he looks like a fucking conductor. Yeah. He will also make a short video of your ceremonial guffawing ritual, guffing ritual as I fill your jar with pure Mr. Methane ass gas. I see.

I don't like how goofy this guy is. Yeah. He should be, he should be coming in and like a cape, like a black cape. Classy. Like a tuxedo. Classy.

In July, 2014, saw Mr. Methane release a fart app for Android devices the app had originally been developed in 2010 for the iPhone but was rejected by Apple yeah see this guy is I don't mean to be rude about the Brits but like is this like the sort of like weird panto shit that you guys I don't mean to be rude about the Brits, but like...

Is this like the sort of like weird panto shit that you guys all like? Yeah. It doesn't translate over here. It doesn't. All right. Okay. All right. Cut the video.

Get Mr. Mathien out of here. He's bumming me out. I can't. Wait. That's one over. Hold on. Wait. He has a shit-eating grin on his face right now. I can't hold on he has a shit eating grin on his face right now he's red his face is red

let's all imagine he's he's so happy okay okay alright sorry this box office game is interesting I truly have no idea what's number one we're essentially talking about last weekend yeah Yeah. Right. It's December 3rd, 2021.

And as we're saying this. A light weekend because it's sort of a post Thanksgiving weekend. I think it's especially the box office has struggled. IFC's plans for Bandetta have shifted back and forth many times over the last couple of months. I think they ended up putting this on more screens than they. 200 and one screens. And they're also holding it there for a little longer than originally intended.

So this might end up making a little bit of a squirm. There were only like three people at my screening. I will say, I had a decent crowd last night at a 6 p.m. Times Square Thursday night.

How many teens were there to make out? None. No making out teens? I didn't see any at the very least. It felt like a very respectful arthouse crowd.

How many nuns would you say there were? 45. Wow. Yeah. How many little brown packages wrapped in string? That's not a music reference. Okay. Number one. What do you think is called again? The bobbins? The bobbins. That's a wild fuck. Weird scene. Yeah. Where Benedetta's kind of really nasty.

But that's also like I was watching and I was like this is everything I expected out of a Verhoeven lesbian nunsploitation movie, where that feels like a weird, like, early showgirls negging scene, right? That plus when Christina is forced to whip herself. Yeah, man. And then Benedetta and Bartolomeo

are both, like, turned on by it afterwards. Yeah. I was like, ooh. That was pretty Verhoeven-y. Yeah. Yeah. Those bobbins. Just let them boil.

Who cares? Get a slotted spoon. I don't know. Yeah. Um. You know. Yeah. Number one at the box office,

Griffin, is an animated film. Number one at the box office. I know what it is. I know what it is. It's, uh, Encanto. Encanto. Encanto. Encanto.

I haven't seen it. Has anyone? I hear. Yeah. It's out in the world. Encanto I haven't seen it Has anyone? I hear Yeah it's out In the world No but have you seen it Griffin? I Have seen it

Okay Jesus I'm gonna You don't have to be so fucking Like Dodgy about it No here's my thing I think I saw it

Maybe the day it came out I've been Working on a voiceover job that i still cannot talk about right and i had like a very long intensive voiceover session for this thing uh and have not been sleeping well and was just mainlining caffeine to keep my energy up to do the fucking silly cartoon voices right for like hours on end so like drank a bunch and then kept on being like can i get more caffeinated tea more caffeinated tea so then i get out of this like session and it's like 6 7 p.m and i was like i have like too much energy in my

body and i don't know how to come down right let me like have myself a little dinner glass of wine whatever and i was like i still feel too amped up. So I was like trying to get home with like all this adrenaline rushing through my body. I'm going to fucking tell this story. And I'm like in Times Square getting ready to like get on a train to go home. And suddenly I need to shit worse than I ever have in my entire life.

Been there. Right. And I'm like, I maybe have two minutes. Right. I was just like up against the clock and I was like, where's have two minutes, right? I was just, like, up against the clock, and I was like, where is there a fucking public restroom that I can physically get to in time? And I, like, looked, and I was

like, my only solution is I have to buy a ticket to go see a movie. I've done it. So you saw Encanto because you had to shit. Right, so I, like, go upstairs and have the worst shit of my life, and then I just... At the AMC, 42nd Street, or? 14th Street, 14th Square. square oh right i just have this like destructive shit i'm like what starts in 30 minutes right that was the first thing i was

like i don't really feel like seeing this right now i've just spent the day after this right but it's like i pay fucking 18 i'm like tapping the button i'm holding my butt i'm like running upstairs i get there horrible shit clean up the damage and then i'm just sitting. I'm like running upstairs. I get there. Horrible shit. Clean up the damage. And then I'm just sitting there. I'm like, now I got to watch Encanto. You don't gotta. I mean, I felt like I would feel sillier if I didn't watch it.

Okay. But so it's like that just happened. And I'm like crashing from caffeine. And the movie started and I was like, I can't handle this. This is stressing me out. The movie is like very loud and very bright and like very energetic. How dare it?

A children's film from Disney about life in Colombia or whatever. Right, which I don't hold this against it, but it's like more manic than most recent is.

It's Lin-Manuel, right? He wrote the music. Byron Howard, the Zootopia, one of the Zootopia directors is the director. I like Zootopia. It's an odd film and I

was watching and I was like, I think this doesn't work at all. And then I read some reviews by friends of ours, people who really like Bilga's review in particular. Bilga is a huge fan of it. Right. And I was like reading and I was like, the movie they're just describing sounds interesting to me. I maybe need to give this another shake. The thing he pointed out about it, which I agree

with, and I'm only going into this because someone on our Reddit thread was like, does Griffin hate this movie because I haven't had a chance to talk about it yet? I feel like I don't really have a fair opinion of it yet. The thing I found really fascinating about it, and Bilge called this out, but almost as a positive quality of it, I don't know yet, is it really feels like a stage-bound musical. The show, I call it a fucking show. The movie almost never leaves the fucking house. Like the whole thing takes place in the house. They never maybe go like

two blocks outside of the house. Are they ghosts? No. And it's like there's so many characters in a way that like in movies you're not used to

but in a Broadway show you're like, here's the ensemble and we name this person once and they have a costume and you never really need to develop them. And the whole thing kind of takes place in proscenium the songs are pretty much

sung straight to camera every character has a solo number that we're like here i am and here's my deal and then they like disappear you know or they just go back into the ensemble and it feels like it has like an act one that's just like world building and the stuff in the house feels like it would be like incredible stagecraft and then act two where you're like oh this is what it's about but the whole first act it's just kind of I don't know it's very odd it's narratively odd

Bilga made the argument that everything I think is odd about it is actually pretty interesting and daring which I'm willing to accept but watching it it did not go down easily for me it's a movie in which I say currently no opinion non-applicable non-compliant na yeah okay haven't seen encounter ben you saw it no okay feels like disney dumped it no it's doing okay but it's also going on disney plus in 30 days it'll be on by christmas

they they decided not to disney plus it in for like their sort of weird mysterious approach to 2021 where they're like this one is and this one isn't this one isn't this one everything's a trial balloon they put it out at Thanksgiving which is normal but then they didn't really give it a lot of juice I just felt like they I got invited to like one screening I don't know they were just not really

are they marketing it to children I don't know because sometimes I feel like I don't see any marketing for something but I'm like oh I'm not the target audience it has done fine I mean it's made a fair amount of money honestly it's made

60 million dollars what do you think so we brought up Disney Plus I'll make this quick I just I take back what I said about the Beatles whoa

you watched it it's pretty damn good my favorite movie of 2021 even though David says it's not a movie no it's a tv show or whatever doesn't matter rules still rules it kind of i got really into it yeah yeah they're pretty incredible bad energy honestly they're a bunch of crunchy chillers who's your guy oh come on i can't that's tough i don't know Ben's gone from fuck the Beatles to how could I pick a favorite

I love them all fuck that's what your parents said I feel like Ringo would be your favorite I do think Ben has a bit of a Ringo but I also think that as a producer Paul is the producer character but I should think in temper like I think Ringo is the one that Ben

would find the most amusing but I'm like George would probably be the one he liked the most as a guy I think Ringo is the one that Ben would find the most amusing, but George would probably be the one he liked the most as a guy. I think so. He kind of has John's sense of humor sometimes. I don't know. Is it like Sex and the City where everyone has a bit of Samantha, Carrie? I think it is.

Also, Carrie Bradshaw has a podcast. Everybody's getting into it. I's getting into it. I like Encanto more than I liked Raya, which I think I did not like, and I need to give Encanto a second strike. I will say it is interesting to me, having

done Musker and Clements earlier this year, who now are apparently out of retirement, ready to make a very, very different animated movie that's very exciting to me. There should be more fucking superhero adaptations in different mediums and different

styles rather than these fucking canonical interconnected universe shit. But I was going to say, it is interesting to me, and Kanto was the time where I'm like, man, for how much this new era of CGI Disney princess musicals was like, we're fucking modernizing these things, we're doing away with tradition, they have really boiled it down to a formula now where the structure of musicals was like, we're fucking modernizing these things. We're doing away with tradition.

They have really boiled it down to a formula now where the structure of these movies are like, the opening scene is always the main character is a little girl and an elderly relative

tells them the family history, explains the entire thing, and then it ages up and they're sort of like, I love everything, but maybe it's a show because maybe I'm actually frustrated about the life

I want to live. they start having visions of Jesus. they none of them have love interest anymore and they all have weird villains who like aren't really villains right at the twist is who the villain is right but then but then ultimately it's like they weren't bad they were just sort of misinformed and they understand that all kind of got to me a little bit which it's like it just feels like we're maybe at 1999 in the Disney renaissance of the 90s where it's like, okay, fuck it.

We get it. Come on. Time to revitalize this. How would you rank the Disney animated releases of this year? What's the other one? There's three, aren't there? Luca. I love Luca. I love Luca. I love Luca. I've watched Luca twice now and it really grew for me the second time. They sent me a Luca Blue. Luca. I got a Luca twice now and it really grew for me the second time. They sent me a Luca Blue. Luca. I got a Luca steelbook,

my friend. I think that movie is wonderful and I like how modest it is. I like the ambition to be like, we don't have to fucking make some profound existential, it's going to destroy you emotionally thing.

It does feel like a Studio Ghibli movie in that way, where it's just like, what's just a small story, a story well told? Yeah. Luke of Rolls. Okay.

Number two at the box office is... Gone. It's not House of Gucci, is it? No, House of Gucci is number three. It dropped. It did. Although it is far and away the highest grossing drama of 2021. Yeah, it's making, you know, some money. After one weekend, it had outgrossed all other dramas released this year.

Look, been a weird year. Yep. Gonna be honest with you. House of Gucci is number three, but number two is... New release? We saw it together. We saw it together. It's not a new release.

The only new release is number four. What's the thing that we saw together recently? Give me genre, please. It's a sequel action sci-fi children's adventure. You know, all that shit. It sounds like every... What did we see together? I was grumpy. Oh, oh that shit. It sounds like every... What did we see together? I was grumpy.

Oh. How telling is it that I've already blocked this from my memory? It's Ghostbusters Afterlife. Ghostbusters Afterlife. It's Ghostbusters Afterlife. I forgot that was a movie. I know. I was so angry about it for two weeks,

and now I've just forced it into a memory hole. Ghostbusters Afterlife. Look, we were debating before the movie. I was like, I think this thing is going to be a depressingly big hit. And you were like, I don't. I think it's going to land limp. And then after the movie, I was like,

you might be right. It might crawl to 100. It's a hit. By whatever current standards of box office success we have, which are obviously graded on a curve, the thing is working. I'm surprised. It's working by 2021 standards.

It's done well, making $100 million. By other standards, it's done pretty badly, I guess. But I think they're happy. I think everyone's happy. It cost half as much as Ghostbusters 2016, and we'll probably end up with the exact same numbers. Number four, the three same numbers. Number four. Number four.

Three is Gucci. Number four. Gucci's up to 30. 36 at this point, I think. Number four is. In this broken year. Yes. Yeah.

A faith film. Oh. Oh. It has a sort of surprise. Same title. Right? It does. It's called.

Is it the Kurt Warner movie? No. It's not. No. This is called like there's another one the blank colon blank for blank or something it's not that crazy but it's people basically seeing christmas films from the set of a movie uh called the chosen isn't there a subtitle to it there is so the film is called the chosen uh i guess that's like a faith movie

or no wait i don't fucking know look the movie's called christmas with the chosen uh i guess that's like a faith movie or no wait i don't fucking know look the movie's called christmas with the chosen colon the messengers christmas with the chosen colon the messengers and david said the title's not that crazy well yeah well it's pretty crazy i don't understand how those words relate to each other. I don't either. Artists perform new and classic Christmas songs. From the set of something called The Chosen. So it's a concert film on the set of... A Christian movie?

Right. Which I don't think that... The Chosen's a TV show? I don't know. There's 17 episodes of The Chosen, which seems like it ended three years ago? I don't know. I don't know of The Chosen, which seems like it ended three years ago? I don't know what the fuck is going on, but it was the number four movie in America.

Christmas with The Chosen. Christmas with The Chosen. Okay, The Chosen was a TV show about Jesus. It was the first multi-season series

about the life of Jesus and of course... Is this the thing that Roma Downey and the dude who... the producer that she's married to who did Survivor

did? No. Don't look at me. What's his name? He's like an Australian guy. It's Mark Burnett. Mark Burnett, yeah. Is it the Mark Burnett thing?

No. This is a guy named Dallas Jenkins who crowdfunded this. Sounds like a fake name. It was the most successful media crowdfund of all time. This is a guy named Dallas Jenkins who crowdfunded this. It was the most successful media crowdfund of all time. He's some bootstrappy.

His father wrote the Left Behind books. Oh, okay. And then he started a Christian production company. They've been making films. They've had a good number of films. They did a movie called Resurrection of Gavin Stone, which was WWE's faith-based film. So he's had a couple of these faith-based movies

that broke out a little bit. Then he self-produced through GoFundMe or whatever a two-season Jesus TV show, the second season of which came out this year. And then this is a special shot on those sets

with people singing the songs. Yeah. It's made $10 million. That's insane. And the chosen TV show, of course, is streaming on VidAngel, which is an American streaming video company that allows the user to skip what may be considered distasteful content. That sounds great.

Isn't it kind of insane that some of the best art that's ever existed in the world is Catholic art but like there's never been any good Christian art that's an interesting question I think there's been good Christian art but there's a lot of bad Christian art

like American Evangelical Christian art I know what you're talking about there has been no good Christian art Vin Angel is one of these companies that got sued by all the major studios

where they're like you're recutting our movies you can't actually just cut out all the swears and put're like, you're recutting our movies. You can't actually just cut out all the swears and put it on the platform. So now it seems like they've shifted to making their own content. That's how it always goes, baby. Everyone making content now. They had to pay $10 million in damages

to different studios for editing their things. A big part of their original content is they did 52 comedy specials as part of a lineup called Dry Bar Comedy. Yeah, I actually wrote that. Number five at the box office, I'm moving us off of this bullshit, is

a Marvel film. It is Eternals. It's Eternals, which is made quietly $400 million worldwide, even though everyone was like... Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a wet fart right if a movie yeah i really liked it i don't know what to tell you yeah i also like movies about weird

set robots i don't know what to do with them neither of you have seen it right no i don't marie doesn't really go i know i was i was so ready to be uh indifferent and i think that movie's really interesting. I think it's a mess. The thing I equated it, I mean, we were texting about it afterwards, and I was like, I think it's a shittier version of The Old Guard. I think The Old Guard accomplishes everything I find interesting

about that movie, by and large, in a far more focused way. Except for the one big thing the movie does that I think could only be done, like, 25 films into a Marvel Cinematic Universe that I think is pretty interesting. The thing I equate it to for you was like Tomorrowland, where I'm like, this movie is subjectively a fucking mess. But it has ideas that I think are so bizarre and the confidence in which it thinks it's going to get a mainstream audience to accept these ideas is hard for me not to be a little one over. I just think

it's so cool some dude i was on a set with recently was like trying to explain how the movie was like one big abortion metaphor and i'm like i'm not true i don't i'm just not not picking up that vibe i just think it's hilarious that marvel released the film this year that was sort of like you know a lesser known property still kind that's kind of exciting like it's not you know thor for right right it's from the holder of the current best picture best director trophies and marvel's like check it out never was like like through fruit, not only is it not the grand arbiter of our culture, but it is this is the stat I find astounding.

The first rotten Marvel movie in terms of Rotten Tomatoes ever. And you think about how many fucking wet fart movies they've released and all of them just got like, I don't know, this one isn't great. 80% fresh. And this is the first one where people are like, fuck this.

Well, it's because they set our expectations higher sure yes that was part of it i think that's part of it i think people got their knives out for it because they were like how dare you try to actually make something legitimate be like yeah chloe john made a movie for us and check it out you know like of course they're gonna lay on the mustard i think so many of the critics who style themselves as marvel haters you actually look at their marvel reviews and they give most of those films like, I don't know, 7 out of 10. Right. And then this one, it's like for all of its failings, it is trying to actually respond to

criticisms in some way and go like, you're right. Maybe we need to fucking loosen up this Marvel shit and try other stuff. And people were like, how fucking dare you? I'll watch it when it's on Disney+. When we finish recording, I'm going to tell you the thing I think is interesting about this movie that I don't want to ruin for people. But I think, David, you and I had both been like, we never need to do Marvel commentaries ever again. And then watching this, we were like, maybe we need to do this phase when it's done.

Because I'm very interested to see how they react to the negative response to this movie. Well, yes. I think going forward, it will be. What phase are we going into? Four, I believe we're currently i don't i i don't yeah i think i've seen fewer than 10 marvel movies period this is really still a lot of movies when i know right yeah which is it speaks to some of the other films in the top 10 number six resident evil welcome to raccoon city a film that i want to see but i'm just kind of like and like i'm a film critic right and i'm kind of like i can wait for that to be on whatever City, a film that I want to see, but I'm just kind of like, I'm a film critic.

And I'm kind of like, I can wait for that to be on fucking whatever. That's a failing. That's a failing if they can't get you excited enough. It's because all the reviews I read were like, it's very faithful to the video games, it's a little lifeless, but it's pretty entertaining. And I'm like... No, no, no, it's like a total reboot.

And so I'm just kind of like, eh. But I'll watch it. The thing it reminds me of is the fucking David Harbour Hellboy movie. It's like a total reboot. Oh, then, yeah. And so I'm just kind of like, eh. You know what's interesting? But I'll watch it. The thing it reminds me of is the fucking David Harbour Hellboy movie where it's like, we gave some weird stylist the chance to adapt this thing and they sort of turned it

half into their own thing, half into the original thing. And now we're rebooting it and we're making it just the way the source material was. And in theory, that should be like catnip. And everyone's like, I don't fucking care.

Yeah, agreed. We're just making the literal video game movie. I mean, I'll watch it. was and in theory that should be like catnip and everyone's like I don't fucking care yeah agreed we're just making the literal video game movie I mean I'll watch it I like the video games but I'm just not not removing my engine number seven 12th with the big red dog a movie I saw that is quietly insane sure well well yeah the dog is huge

and he's red there are so many classic beckerisms in this movie because like Alvin 4 the road trip I went to see hoping there'd be a little bit of that old dog's chaos and it's like it's not really there outside of the John Waters cameo. This has the thing where

every scene five things are said that make zero sense and are over explained and the way the logic stacks on top of each other is demented. It's no old dogs but it fits into the oeuvre. Eight is Dune, just sort of quietly still making money, even though you can literally buy it on the internet now. Nine is King Richard, quietly not making money.

I mean, I get why, because of the whole HBO Max thing, but that is a crowd pleaser. The HBO Max thing is crippling, Yeah. Obviously. That's the worst decision Warner Brothers ever made. But although they might be like, what do you mean HBO Max? But it is a little long. It's a smidge long. It's like two and a half hours.

It's like 220 almost. That thing could benefit from, you know, just a little bit of compression. The bonus act where it sort of becomes... And I like the bonus act. So I'm not like completely... But I do wonder, you know, it's just... I don't know. It's just a little flat.

Maybe... But whatever. Two hours, 24 minutes. I know. It's good, though. It's good. It's very fucking watchable. It's so weird.

I watched it twice. Yeah. Watched it first alone. Second time with my dad. My dad told me that he tried to King Richard me as an opera singer as a child and he failed

he tried to baby Annette you more like Marie's baby Annette costume was out of control it was so fucking good with the drones flying around number 10 of the box office I just want to ask you the second most successful film of the year the second most successful film of the year? The second most successful film of the year

would be No Time to Die or Venom 2? Venom 2. Okay. I think worldwide No Time to Die, but domestically

it's Venom 2. Right. Worldwide, it's No Time to Die. Domestically, it's Shang-Chi. Right. Right.

And then, yeah. Yep. Venom 2, huge, huge, big team hit. Venom's back?

Yeah. One ticket, please. Must see. Like, must fucking see. Venom 2 huge huge big team hit Venom's back? yeah one ticket please must see like must fucking see I hung out with my good friend and how did it go? it was great

and I look forward to seeing him again soon you will I know did you guys see that article that was kind of going around about

how sound mixing in movies has gotten more muddled I did. And one of the reasons they gave was literally Tom Hardy. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah, that rules. Constantly makes decisions to mumble his words and everyone loves it. Can I just say a thing about King Richard? Yeah.

Did you mumble it though? I don't know anything about King Richard. Can I say something to you about King Richard? That's my Berndthal. This house is not

well built. I don't know. Best supporting actor John Berndthal in King Richard. He's so fucking good. He's so good. I feel like

Warner Brothers is not even pretending that that movie has done well on HBO Max. Like they're kind of admitting like, yeah, I don't know. It definitely didn't live up to expectations.

They're bad at the Netflix thing of, like, you know, they tried it at first, but now they're just kind of like, it was also on HBO Max. Now, this is what I found interesting as a comparison point. After the first week or weekend, whatever it was, of Power of the Dog, Netflix was like, oh, this was watched by 1 million people. Which I believe as

a number because it's not 70 million in 24 hours. Whenever they lie about numbers, it's always in the same sphere. And it felt like they were genuinely just kind of like, this did better than we thought it would. And King Richard did worse than you thought it would. Has HBO Max ever released

viewing stats? They did it a couple times. Not maybe, but they've done a couple sort of like most watched thing ever on HBO Max for some of these. I feel like Mortal Kombat, they released numbers and Mortal Kombat was the one where they were like, this was watched by many more people at home than in theaters.

Like it was disproportionate. And that movie was... Probably logged about 100. I'm seeing a radiating hot zone in northern brooklyn what's going on here i feel like a lot of them the servers are overloaded they're like dune did well in theaters also did well at home like they've mostly been proportionate right and when people like when in the heights bombed and they were like well it's just because everyone stayed home to watch it they were like no they were like, well, it's just because everyone stayed home to watch it. They were like, no, they're pretty much even.

Like it's like high tide races. It underperformed everywhere. Both ships. Right. I do think there's this thing, and it's different with Netflix because people just fucking have Netflix as their homepage or their default app on their TV

and they check it and they see what the new thing is and they sample it or whatever. That like the destructive element of King Richard in particular being on HBO Max as opposed to maybe a many sense of Newark, which people are into because it's a TV show

that they're already watching on that app or a Dune or a Space Jam where it's like, I don't know, whatever, I'll fucking give this a shot, right? Is that like, I think people didn't go

to see it in theaters and simultaneously were like, oh, right, it's on HBO Max. I'll watch that at some point. It's not a Friday night fire it up kind of thing. It felt like there was no need to see excitement

versus Power of the Dog where I'm just like, that movie feels a lot less successful. That movie's getting like memed. Yeah, which I don't understand. I mean, I understand. Bronco Henry.

I mean, Bronco Henry is one of the greatest character names in history. It's the same fucking thing that happened with Marriage Story where I was just like, I remember going to my comic book store. Even Irishman, you know, solidarity! But I remember going to my comic book store, my local comic book store, when Irishman came out and all the employees, like, not Irishman, Marriage Story, all the employees were talking about Marriage Story.

And they were like, yeah, you know, I mean, I don't usually like watch movies like this. I'm with Scar Jo, I don't know know what about you who you signed with sort of saying like you know it's pretty good i don't usually watch movies like this but like it's on netflix and it's fucking kylo ren and black widow you know what i think helps for netflix the autoplay yes of course well that's their that's the thing butter baby whereas hbo max's autoplay is like i'm getting something for you that like falls over yeah no i mean i'm like you have like a fucking marvel actor in a netflix movie yeah you wanted sex in the city in portuguese right i got that so here's the thing with king richard the poster it's very hard to tell what it is when you're looking at

your tv screen because it's a very small image right i mean the and it's him and the kids so it's not it's not will smith face forward but you don't even know it's about venus has those changing posters yeah it's like david wants the power of the dog poster that's just clemens face that big sausage they're selling you like it's dr strange and mary jane in a western and this is taken seriously yeah like that's all they're saying to you is like this is a serious movie and people fucking sampled it. Yeah. And I,

you know, I love that movie but that was a movie where I'm just like people who watch that on Netflix and are not in the Tangford Campion

are going to be dumbfounded by it and it seems to be kind of working. Good movie. I like the two biggest fuck-ups by HBO. I mean,

well, of things they passed on Netflix and Mad Men. Oh, sorry. I mean, well, of things they passed on Netflix and Mad Men. Oh, sorry. Netflix and Mad Men.

Vinyl. And HBO's like, nope, feeling good about that one. They're like, no, I think we're happy we passed on that. It's like, I regret to inform you. We are close to a moment

where HBO's like, can we bring back vinyl? Like, that happens in a meeting where they're like, okay. Cause they just announced like they're rumored to be bringing back six feet under, which had one of the most definitive endings in television ever. Everybody's death.

How do they retcon that? Exactly. And clearly, I mean, they were like, you know what I love is six feet. Come on. We can figure out a way to get that back.

We brought back Dexter. Let's do the math on this, okay? Vinyl legacy, right? Or vinyl colon. Vinyl afterlife. Vinyl colon. 45 RPM. Or the CD years.

Yeah, vinyl laser. Right, right, right. Vinyl tube plastic. Yep. Kinovali's not coming back. No. Olivia Wilde's not coming back. No, she's busy. She directed books. June Temple's not coming back no Olivia Wilde's not coming back no she's busy

she directed June Temple's not coming back so you're saying that they have to shape the story around you I think I become number four yeah you think

it's just sort of like you're like you were secretary of transportation but now you're the vice president I think if they Romano is on the edge I think Max Casella

is up to maybe number two Casella is basic absolute his agent is like already buying a porsche all right and then let's say they bring in a new character adrian brody i mean yeah fits within the universe yeah yep maybe this is the thing is is roman comes in and he's like um i got a new pitch uh we buy american century records and logan's like american century it's a dead record company in the 70s and then I come in as the old man version of my character

who had three lines across ten episodes the vinyl revival is a backdoor pilot in succession and Brian Cox is reading this being like the fuck is this shit listen to music you pig fuck

okay cool sounds good I'm into it bring it back I'm just saying that HBO like 2024 they're like vinyl and tell me you love me you're coming back tell me you love me and that show about the kids selling jeans that's back

what show was that oh god I forgot John from Cincinnati. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the ultimate. That would be number one. Carnival reunion movie. Yeah, Carnivale is back.

We're going to explain it this time. We promise. Please, give us some more episodes. I swear to God, we're going to explain. And then three seasons in, they're like, look, I was fucking lying. We ran out of time. I don't know what to tell you. We were about to get to it when you cut us off. Oz is coming back right that's gotta happen yeah maybe an oz prequel i don't know

it is funny that just shows uh never ever stay dead now unless i was on them you're right then it's round yeah yeah well maybe they do an animated revival a A vinyl? Yeah, absolutely. I hope so. And a vinyl. And a vinyl. Yeah. And a vinyl maniac. I could see the Animaniacs running a record label. Absolutely. Yeah.

There you go. You're more of a wacko. Yes. I'm a yakko. Because you're tall. Yeah, I'm just more of a yakko. Although wacko's the one With the Liverpool accent He is That's true

When I watched that as a kid I was like So one of the Beatles plays him And I was like My parents were like No and I was like But then why does he talk like that That's only the Beatles

May speak this way Right I truly thought Like they have the rights to this And also Ringo Neri At a Shining Time station You were like maybe You know

My friend He was a two inch tall conductor He appeared on screen On camera Do you know what would be cool So for the Oscars In 2022 And you were like maybe My friend he was a two inch tall conductor He appeared on screen on camera Do you know what would be cool So for the Oscars in 2022 Before we got on mic

We were talking about the Oscars And Griffin and David really want Them to take place at a train station again Let's bring in Ringo Bring in Thomas He's hosting Mr. Condu conductor is hosting. I think that would be great.

Thomas brings in the trophies. Yes. Every time they're on, they're perched on him. Let's not make it Thomas. Every time. Percy does one. It's like Miss Golden Globe.

George, a new one. How many of these fuckers can I remember? Toby? I don't know. Are you telling me that you love Thomas the 10th? That is the origin story of my train upset.

Of course. My sister, when I was a little kid, bought me... You have a train thing? You don't know that about me? No. Yeah, I was a huge subway nerd when I was a little kid. I was a huge subway nerd. And I made my parents like in like 1990, I'd be like they'd be like, what do you want to do this weekend, Dave? You want to go to the Children's Museum? You want to go to the Central Park? You weekend Dave you want to go to the Children's Museum you want to go to the Central Park

you know you want to go experience the magic of New York City and I was like I want to fucking take the J train where does that shit go I'm trying to catch a

and they were like okay fine we'll take him on the J train should I call you the conductor now or the rail man you can call me whatever you want

I'm also the spread master after last night's episode you'll see oh boy you'll see. Oh boy. You'll see. Final episodes of the year are West Side Story and we're taking a break.

And then we're going to be dark on Christmas and then we'll be back the start of January with the Matrix Resurrections. That's what's happening. Wow. Which you haven't seen. I haven't seen it. I'm a Stefanski friend of the show. Just saw it and Which you haven't seen. I haven't seen it. I'm a Stefanski friend of the show. Just saw it and told me it was great.

I don't know. Do you feel like the way I felt before Toy Story 4 came out? Probably. Yeah. Sort of like where I'm like, it feels wrong that people are seeing it. I'm like, I'm a grown up. I can handle it. But I'm also like, what the fuck?

And also just like this is finished and you're not showing it to me. Well, that's the thing where I'm like, come on, Warner Brothers. And they're like, huh? What? You like? Oh, okay. I don showing it well that's the thing where i'm like come on warner brothers and they're like huh what right you like oh okay i don't care that you like the sequels who can no one cares the idea that's on a hard drive feels like unfair did you guys see that picture of keanu driving like his ferrari with a christmas tree on top of it yeah i mean just great great keanu photo santa Santa. Santa Neo. Can I end this episode by sharing a very quick Keanu story I heard? That's just an incredible what a guy story. The only kind of Keanu story there is.

Keanu, I know someone who's friends with Keanu. Okay. Humblebrag. Yes. Keanu was in New York City, part of the group going out to restaurants, right? They go to like four restaurants trying to get a table and get turned away. Just walking to establishments,

Keanu's not the proactive one. He's standing in the group. Someone goes, hey, do you have a table for six? No, sorry, no, sorry. They go to like four restaurants, and in the fifth restaurant they go to, they go, excuse me, do you have a table for five no sorry who's there sitting at the bar of the restaurant parker posey she turns around oh my god so nice to see you and then the matriarch is like oh oh

excuse me we did we did in fact find the table keanu reeves is so unassuming in life so unwilling and he's not gonna press the issue he's not going to press the issue. He's not going to be like, you know. And it wasn't even like, I don't want to make a scene. He just took it face value. I guess they don't have a table. They told us they don't have a table. In 2021 it's still going to be like, oh, sorry.

Yeah, they're booked up. Okay. Well, we should have planned ahead. Yeah, it's actually on me. Let's go to Pizza Hut. It took another famous person who clearly was like, Parker Posey for two to go like Keanu and have the guy look around and be like, that's actually on me. Let's go to Pizza Hut. It took another famous person who clearly was like Parker Posey for two to go like Keanu and have the guy look around and be like, that's Keanu.

That guy is not walking into this restaurant. Let's not say that. Maybe Parker Posey got on Rezzy and made a Rezzy. We don't know. I mean, she could have.

Parker Posey, a fiend on open table. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I know in movies she plays the kind of pushy person who might just get herself a table at the door. Sure.

I'm now questioning in my head, is it Parker Posey or Juliette Lewis in the story? But either way. Sure. Right. They both seem plausible. I think it was Parker Posey. Okay. Great story.

Thank you for being on the episode. Thanks for having me. I got to pee. You guys take it out. Okay. Bye, David. Yep. We should follow him into the bathroom

ben you have that 3d mic right can we place it in the bathroom and get sort of like spatial yeah yeah of course i already did okay great perfect so don't worry that's been sort of like a track that i've laid underneath this whole episode so yeah now you should be hearing david absolutely this episode that has to drop in 12 hours. Yep. Yeah. No problem. Just no problem. All together real quick.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and so much more. Even such a big help over the last year on this podcast. Jim McKeon, Alex Baron for our editing. Nick Loriano and JJ B Birch for our research, even though we give them a break at the end of the year on these new releases.

They're knee-deep in Campion. They're working on the Campion dossier, and they've pulled up some amazing shit so far. And we've already started recording these episodes. They're a lot of fun. It's fun to do. Thank you to Leigh Montgomery and The Great American Novel for our theme song.

You can listen to their new album, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Online wherever albums are listened to. Thank you to Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to our Shopify page for some

real nerdy merch including some new end of year specials that you will hear about in our Talking The Walk 2021 episode. Tune in next week for as we said, a West Side story. A musical

directed by Steven Spielberg. Oof. First Spielberg movie in like four years, I think. Yeah, since Ready Player One. We had a lot of them in a run. He's one of the guys we've been able to revisit the most. Because he did the post that same year.

He did the post, he did Ready Player One, he did... another one I'm forgetting. But yes, I'm very... BFG? We ended on BFG. I think BFG had come out when we did our miniseries. Gilbert?

Yeah. Yeah, three movies, right? It's we did our miniseries. Gilbert? Yeah. Yeah, three movies, right? It's post-Ready Player One. Or is it just two? This is the third. I feel like it might be the third. Went back to the wall one more time, but whatever.

No, I think that's it because it's been three years. His last movie was the excellent film, Ready Player One. Ready Player One honks. Fucking rules. I rewatched it like four times.

It's so good. David's been making this argument for months and I've rewatched it like four times. It's so good. David's been making this argument for months and I'm like, I'm going to have to fucking rewatch this thing. It's good. Griff, I bought this deal on eBay for too much money because it's not like available anymore.

I've had a couple of those mistakes recently. It happens. Yeah. Well, and then we've got another Spielberg coming up next year probably. Babelmans. Babelmans. I truly like, and you know, West Side Story is dedicated to his dad who died while he was making it.

Like, and it really is wild. Like, his dad dies and he immediately announces, like, I will be making a film that is, uh, but a young boy whose parents get divorced in Arizona. You know, like, where you're like, oh, you're making the dad movie, like, right now. And I'm writing a script for the first time in 20 years. Right. And like, and then it's's just it's just very interesting I can't wait

that's the only thing on the spreadsheet we looked at we got like six new releases from past filmmakers on the books for next year

as of now 2022 in general is incredibly loaded year as much as people are sort of bemoaning cinema or whatever like it's kind of wild we'll see

hey big year for blank check to some cool guests we've already confirmed yes yep that's true for champion end beyond Hey, big year for Blank Check 2. Some cool guests we've already confirmed. Yes. Yep. That's true. For Campion End.

Beyond. Enough. I don't know. Episode's over. Yeah. Well, just I need one miracle. So if you want to pray to Michael McGivney, just trying to get myself to the Vatican VIP style. I'm going to hype this up on social media so much.

Please do. We're going to get a hashtag. We're going to start a campaign. Ben needs a miracle. Ben needs a miracle. All he needs is a miracle. All he needs is you. And as always, David genuinely seems stressed out about the fact that he hasn't seen Matrix yet.

He is looking at his computer screen with intensity that I rarely see. Even though I don't think he's texting about the Matrix right now, maybe I'm wrong, it just feels like it has seeped into every fiber of his being. Okay. I want a good, clean podcast.

No funny stuff. Who's this guy? No swearing? Well, you can swear but don't get don't get carried away fuck can I take the lord's name

in vain how catholic are we getting with this jeez well I mean we'll determine that can I what's the word

blaspheme blaspheme blaspheme blaspheme us off yeah anyway do the quote we don't have to start it this way

no but you're going to put it at the end a little bonus not to give you editing work we don't have to put it at the end it can be the start maybe you got to put it ready