Blank Check with Griffin & David - Bright Star with Fran Hoepfner

Episode Date: February 27, 2022

You may as well call this episode “Ode to a Whishaw” because we love that gentle gent! Fran Hoepfner joins us (and joins the Five-Timers Club!) to discuss Jane Campion’s 2006 John Keats biopic ���Bright Star,” a movie that prompts Griffin to wonder if he, too, would die of tuberculosis if he took a long walk in the rain in 1820. Of course we talk about Hampstead Heath (David being canonically from London), of course we wonder what the hell happened to Paul Schneider (canonically incredible in this movie), and of course Ben is obsessed with Fanny Brawne’s epic Regency Era fits!   Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

If podcasting does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree, then it had better not come at all. One of his many fire lines in this movie. It's hard. Wishaw is so gentle, it's actually hard to do an impression. Agree with you, but... It's so incredibly gentle. I agree with what you're saying.

He's like an ASMR YouTuber. Hard to do an impression but i hear that voice obviously paddington is part of this but like i hear the voice and i'm like i know who that is that's ben w it's got very distinctive yeah he's been in the pocket for so long yes like he was kind of born in the pocket yeah i guess like i mean look i wasn't there but i wouldn't be surprised if he came out in a pocket well i was watching this and i was revisiting cloud atlas i was like oh he's so good and like laid off to early tens then i'm like he's still good he's still doing great work i remember uh like the two girls cool girls i was friends with in high school

saw him in a play so this would have been early 2000s was it hamlet i think it must have been because that was that was his big right yeah uh and we're just like upset they were like this is the most astounding guy in the world and that was when he started showing up in like tiny roles in movies like enduring love and stuff and they were like you don't understand this is the guy so the ben wishaw hamlet was 2004 i was 18 i saw it and it was like one of those things where when it was announced, it was like. Who's this fucking young whippersnapper that they're claiming is ready to take on Hamlet? That's the thing.

It's usually Hamlet is the role you get once you're the big boy. You work up to it. But then, of course, the director, Trevor Nunn, was like, Hamlet's not old. Hamlet is supposed to be in his 20s. And that was his thing. But it still was a statement to be like like we think we found a guy young enough with the clouts and the the maturity intelligence gravitas to be able to pull off an age-appropriate hamlet and it was the best production of hamlet i've ever seen wow um and uh it was one of those

things where it's like this will be a guy guy. Yeah. Even with all that said, I don't think, and like him playing John Keats, I could have seen that. Don't think I could have seen the fullness of Wishaw's run. Look, there are a lot of this'll be a guy guys

who don't pan out or it takes longer to pan out. Like, let me throw out two examples of people, okay? And we're going deep, so I should just say right up top as quickly as I can. This is a podcast about filmography.

This is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. David. It's about directors who have massive success early on in their careers who experience a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce. And this is a miniseries on the films of Jane Campion. It's called The Podcastiano.

and this is a miniseries on the films of Jane Campion. It's called The Podcastiano. And this is her final film before an incredibly rude 12-year break from being allowed to make movies. I say allowed. She took a soft retirement, I would say, or a long hiatus. She wasn't in any kind of director jail, was she?

No. This was self-appointed. I mean, In the Cut was the director jail. And this was sort of the director jail comeback, which critically, I think, was accepted as such. But we'll talk about this when it's released. It was released by a distribution company, humorously enough, called Apparition, that barely existed. That only existed for six months. barely existed uh that only existed for six months yeah this was one of like eight films they ever released before it disappeared and they never really understood how to get things out there

so the movie did not make that much of an impact and then she does the move that unfortunately feels like a lot of filmmakers are stuck into now especially of her generation where it's like your movies don't get made anymore do tv can. Can you tell me the Apparition movies? Yes, because I did this the other day. Sure. I'm not going to get them in order. Sure. There's seven total.

Right. Okay. Oh, you're lucky. It's like October to March 09 to 10. Essentially. Right? Yeah. Okay, the last one is The Runaways.

Yeah, that's the last major one. There were two ones after that that I've never heard of. Spider and The Square. Okay. Neither of which are The Spider spider or the square i would have gotten both of those and i resent you giving them to me sorry you said the last one is the runaways though and i was saying well i was wrong but i knew those titles so that's i always forget the name of it but it's that australian film collective that's like the two edgertons it's a nash edgerton's Michaud. It's a Nash-Edgerton joint starring Joel Edgerton.

Right. And then Spider is as well. They're part of that Australian group. They're both Nash-Edgertons, yes. You're right. And David Michaud, that guy. That's what I just said. Both Edgertons, Michaud.

The guy who directed Hesher is the one non-Australian guy in the group. And I feel like there's one other guy. You think they all make fun of him? Yeah, all the time. He's going in an Aussie. Whenever he's like, when I grew up in America, they go, what? Anyway, go on. Okay, so those two come out post-Runaways, which is wide release.

Bright Star. And then the other two are... Can you give me a hint? Keep them vague, though. One is a sequel to a cult hit. Right. Fuck. Oh, it's Boondock saints to all saints day correct one is a period piece much like bright star young victoria yes and one is a sort of genre you know parody comedy movie hmm it's a genre it's a a blaxploitation oh black diamond

right yeah uh anyway just a funny little funny little run i mean now i have to say this but apparition was bob bernie who just had like the two most incredible independent box office performances of all time in the early 2000s he's in charge of ifc films they released big fat greek wedding it makes 260 million dollars domestic it is still the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time by some metric, right? And then he leaves IFC and he starts New Market and New Market releases The Passion of the Christ, which for 20 years was the highest R-rated film of all time and breaks all sorts of other records. So there was that moment where you're like, Bob Bernie is a genius. He is the master of distribution. He can somehow turn these indie films into blockbusters that outgross big budget studio films.

And then he has a run after that that continues to this day where every couple of years he's like, I'm ready. It's my new company. We're going to recreate the magic. And every single time the company lasts for less than two years, releases six movies that pretty much fail to connect. He gets one maybe that's like a double or a triple. And the company goes under and it's like picture house was one of them apparition there was the one that released drive that i'm forgetting the name of that was supposed to be more sort of genre focused well i'm gonna get you that name right now he always has like funding from something and they put the money behind district must be so easy to start a

production company why don't i do it you should friend people just give you money and then if you don't do anything they're like well friend films friend films yeah why not yeah sure yeah 20th century fran yeah couldn't be good but do you want to be part of the 20th century or 21st century yeah what about 22nd century fran i'm not dying so that seems fine yeah yeah you're living forever yeah we know about you you are 23 years old you're six foot one and you're immortal that's right yeah 22nd century, Fran. I'm not dying, so that seems fine. Yeah. You're living forever. We know about you. You are 23 years old. You're 6'1", and you're immortal.

That's right. Yeah. Did I get those numbers right? I usually say I'm 5'8". But here's the thing, and we haven't talked about this. I do think I got taller during COVID, and I'm not doing a bit. I, for years, was one height, and now I'm a different height when measured. Look, I'm not trying to discredit you. covid you got some you got some hair height sure your hair's a little taller than it usually is i feel like i don't know but i feel like you're not like when

i stand up i'm like whoa too tall i think i got taller like you're sort of like yeah there's obviously another name you go by, which is Medium Chicago. That's true, yeah. Well, maybe it was moving to New York that made me tall. Maybe. Like I'll stretch down. Something in the New York water makes the bagels tasty and Fran tall. You notice I got tall.

Well, I haven't actually noticed, but I can check it out. Fran Hoffner is our guest today. Fran Hoffner is our guest today, editor of Fran Magazine, obviously. 22nd Century Fran. Welcome to the Five Timers Club. Thank you so much. Public enemies, aliens. The Hossleday.

Which one? The Hossleday. And what's the fourth one? The Great Mouse Detective. You want to know something else that's wild about Fran's run there? All of those four previous movies

are the movies that Ben got his nicknames from in those series. The Haunted Daily Ben, The Great Mouse Fart Detective, Public Benemies, Ailey Ben's with a dollar sign. So then what do we do about Bright Star? How do we work Ben into that one? Bright Ben isn't that good.

Okay. Do you think we can do better? Hold on. White, bright Benny? You want white in there? Oh, because like white hot Benny. Is Bright Star Benny kind of funny? Kind of funny? Yeah, sure. It's not bad. I'm just always looking for a different format or a different way to riff on it.

This is a movie that is about two things that Ben has pursued in his life, fashion and poetry. That's true, yeah. You had a big poetry phase. Absolutely, yeah. I went to the new school for I guess writing? I don't know. I don't know.

You don't remember what you went there for? You weren't focused on poetry at the time. I was taking a ton of writing classes, wrote a lot of poetry. You were going to poetry slams. This is the period that we talk about. No, I was going to poetry slams. You were slamming. I was never a ton of writing classes. I wrote a lot of poetry. You were going to like poetry slams. This is the period. No, I was going to poetry slams. You were slamming. I was never slamming. You went to deaf comedy jams.

You're getting confused. No, I didn't go to those either. They're basically the same. No, I would go to like, you know, poetry readings. Yeah, sure. Like open mic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Open mic poetry.

And you would come with a fucking pog slammer and you'd slam it down. Yeah, absolutely. I'd throw down hard. What would you call the heavy pog? Slammer. a fucking pog slammer and you'd slam it down. Yeah, absolutely. I'd throw down hard. What would you call the heavy pog? Slammer. It was a slammer? That was a joke I was making. No, I know.

I was like, that's it? It was called the slammer? It was called the slammer, right? I think so. I can't remember. I think so. I just remember when you got a good one, you were like, oh boy. Look, this is clearly a blockbuster episode.

We've established many, many threads here. We have. But can I circle back to wish off for a moment yes yeah so we're talking about this sort of phenomenon of like oh this is going to be a guy right if i could there are two other counterpoints of like dudes who like come out of the theater and it's like we're telling you this is a leading man this guy's got movie star potential right there's someone like tom hardy who very young gets like the Star Trek role. And they're like, look, this is a guy.

And then it takes sort of like eight years for him to figure out his thing. To come along. Right? Like he was established and he works after that, but it takes eight years until you're like, oh, that's who he is. He figured out his persona on screen, right?

And then not to be rude, but we were talking off mic in a recent episode about Benjamin Walker, who's a perfect example of like, oh, wait till you see this fucking guy. on screen right and then not to be rude but we were talking off mic in a recent episode about benjamin walker who's a perfect example of like oh wait till you see this fucking guy he's tall and he's handsome and he's a leading man and it just has never connected not not on film not on film obviously he was bloody bloody andrew jackson himself and then he was abraham lincoln vampire hunter his big marvel role was that although he was certain i mean he's marvel franchise movie right yeah guys they've taken over movies so

much that i'm calling movies marvel but he was supposed to play beast he was young x-men i believe he was first cast right it was yeah he was like literally he was now scheduling and then peters or the other way around turned it think he turned it down. No, it was Holt the whole time. Oh, it's Holt the whole time. Peters is Quicksilver. That's, okay. It was Frasier, Kelsey Grammer himself. I was like, oh, just the main Frasier.

And then it was announced as Walker, and then I think he left it to do Abraham Lincoln. I think he did, and then he was in the Ron Howard whale cannibal movie. He did a Nicholas Sparks movie. Yes. In the Heart of the Sea? In the Heart of the Sea. I gotta see that. I would love that.

You would love that. The choice, it's really unfortunately not good and really should be good. You know who else is in the Heart of the Sea though? Tom Holland. Yes, that's true. But do you know who else is in the Heart of the Sea? And which one?

As Herman Melville himself. That's right. Yeah, I was looking this one up recently. Because the whole point of In the Heart of the Sea The story is being told to him? Exactly. It's like what Yeah, I was looking this one up recently. Because the whole point of In the Heart of the Sea is- The story's being told to him? Exactly. It's like what Moby Dick was inspired by. So it starts with him visiting, I guess, Hemsworth.

I think it's Hemsworth. I think it's Hemsworth. Is old Hemsworth? Yeah, or whatever. Like one of them. I thought it was Holland. Tell me your story of whale. I think Holland's just one of the guys in the boat.

It might be Holland. I know, but I thought Holland since he's the kid is the one who's like, you've seen the story from who's relaying it to Wishaw. Am I wrong about that? You are correct. It is Holland. Okay, thank you. But the whole thing

with that movie is That's his fucking role in the film is that he's the young boy He's the survivor who remembers it all. I mean, the whole thing

with that movie is you're like they're hunting whales and you're like, I love it. Teach me how to hunt whales. And then the whale fucks their ship up

and then half the movie is them just stuck on the ship being like, should we eat each other? Yeah. And you're like, this is a bummer i wanted more whale you know anyway wishaw my point is just he's one of those guys where some of these guys it just doesn't translate to movies or they just don't get the right roles or whatever it is and wishaw went from being like theater hot shot we're pegging this guy as the next dude right to then like completely acquittaling

himself uh incredibly well in supporting roles small roles in indian for you know in the art house movies and then he just like every step he does properly like he then transitions to like leading roles in smaller films his two franch franchises are Bond and Paddington. He has somehow come out of this not having to pay his dues in some bullshit. Obviously, the Bond is a supporting role. I would argue that's sort of the best way to do it if you're Ben Whishaw. Of course. He steals every scene he's in.

He's in 12 minutes of those movies every single time. He's always perfect. He's in a role that doesn't stretch like outside of what he's good at. Yeah. He doesn't look silly. He's like in the pocket. Yeah. Paddington, he's in the pocket.

Yeah. He's working with like blue ship directors and actors. Well, I was going to say those two movies are also the only things he does or those, you know, franchises are the only things he does where he does not seem to be actively dying as sort of his character type. I'm like, oh, he's so robust in the big budget stuff. He is such a fragile man. He's withering.

My thing with Whishaw, I saw him in that Hamlet. I saw him with my friend Ollie, I'm pretty sure. I grew up in England. We're just going to get this right out of the way. Because it's going to be all over this episode. You guys don't even know.

But I did grow up in England. Sorry, I was just in the other room. What's up? Yeah, I'm sorry. I, from the years 1995 to 2008, lived in the country England contained within the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and Northern Ireland. You didn't even get to see the Olympics.

What? I didn't. I didn't. Whose eye? I don't understand the structure of this. That's what you just said. Is this a character? Is this David Sims in the room with us now?

I said, is this David Sims in the room with us now? Yeah, can we speak to him? Knock three times. It could be me. And I remember when Ben Whishaw then popped up in a show called nathan barley that some people may remember which was a chris morris if you know chris morris brass eye four lines right sitcom uh that was originally supposed to be called cunt that's just basically oh whoa sorry that's just basically about like the worst trust fund hipster guy ever right is nathan barley

ben wishaw does not play nathan barley i was gonna he plays like one of the kids at like the vice magazine type place he works called pingu who nathan barley's i was like what you know like mean too and we were like the guy we just saw like fucking smoke the house as hamlet is playing fucking pingu is this show good nathan yeah really funny well it sounds great it's abrasive but it's really i love morris uh and he was also in that thing griff if you remember perfume right the story of a murderer oh yeah right where he plays the damn perfume murderer you know right and it was like okay was on him early exactly yeah and so the vibe

seemed to be he'd also played keith richards in the movie stoned which is like a horribly bad what happened to brian jones yeah and it was like okay so this guy's gonna play like little squirrely weirdos right like that's gonna be his zone yeah he'll do british right and then he was in i'm not there and you're like, okay. The major directors are plucking him now. He was one of the Dylans. He's one of the six Dylans. I'm trying to remember which

time period. He's like the one who's like Arthur Rembode, who's like the poet. Right. Yeah, seriously. I haven't seen that movie in years that movie is i just watched that last year one of the many reasons we should do todd haynes you know what i mean he's many like weird takes on a blank check haynes was like my number nine for my quadrant of the bracket last year and i kind of regret not putting him on that's such a

good blanchett in that movie obviously blanchett's great but you know what i mean with which one is blanchett again she's sort of the like sunglasses you know yeah yeah you know the don't look back type right you know this is before i think ledger is unbelievable in that movie that's like one of his most underrated performances. Yes. I'll say this. That's maybe the most I've ever liked Richard Gere. I really like Richard Gere in general. So I think that's a little rude of you to say,

but I do love the Richard Gere moments. He's not my favorite movie star, but I think he's really good in that. He's really good. But you know what I mean with Haynes where it's like Velvet Goldmine. That's kind of a blank check yeah i'm not there absolutely and then wonderstruck of course there are such a weird you know he always will take his thing we love where it's just like every movie is a wild swing from the one before like all three of that like

safe is the guarantor that lets him do velvet goldmine right you know far from heaven like he goes so far from heaven that does well enough that it's like okay can i make this weird dylan movie right and then that does badly right and then carol again yeah they're like fuck haynes okay right what do you want to do i want to turn this children's book into a weird black and white kind of silent movie like again he'll he'll always take the swing i and i like all of his movies like i like all of this i defend wonder except for wonderstruck which i was like underwhelmed yeah i was not wonderstruck but maybe i'd like it on rewatch uh maybe and then what was the other thing i was gonna say about oh dark water just feels like one of those things where you're like 190 for hire is this like him

just fucking like taking a steady job yeah why is todd haynes making this movie right you're like oh that's a quietly one of the best directed movies the last five years incredible anyway that movie's so good that's what i remember his work on that is incredible i'm not there yeah is when i remember being like i guess wishaw is gonna level up he's not gonna just be right it's gonna work right you know it's gonna work and and when he does do squirrely he picks it well absolutely squirrely in james bond be squirrely cute that's gonna fucking help you and now you don't have to play like a marvel villain or whatever you know like he's got his fucking block and then paddington is one of those things where that movie was announced as colin firth and he was recast like

three months before it came out he was like a late change that I think both helps the movie tremendously. That film would not have connected the same way with Colin Firth as much as I like him. Probably not. Love Colin Firth. On paper when he was announced. Do we know why they changed? Like was it not working? So he was announcing.

You're like, that makes sense. He's polite. Right. Colin Firth. Lovely Englishman. And then they played the movie. And what's his name? The Harry Potter producer. David Heyman. Yes. Heyman just was like, look, we love Colin Firth. lovely and then they played the movie and and uh what's his name um the harry potter producer

david hayman yes hayman just was like look we love colin firth he's a wonderful actor he recorded this for us we played it we all watched it we all agreed it's weird when paddington sounds too much like an adult yeah i was gonna say he's too much for wishaw's voice he's too much of a man and and wishaw really helped us because his voice is so gentle. That light, gentle voice. Yeah. You know, it's like, obviously, Brightstar is sort of his big follow-up to, like, I'm not there. He'd been in that Brideshead Revisited remake that didn't really go anywhere. Right.

Apparently, he's in The International, another, as you say, Tom Tickford. Tickford always. Loves him. And he's got a small part in Hologram for the King. Your favorite movie. I love that movie. Have you ever seen that movie, Fran? No. Do you actually like it? Yeah, I do. Griffin is the only person on movie i love it have you ever seen the movie fran no do you actually like it yeah i do is the only person i'm the only god's green earth who's

ever seen that movie yeah and not only that i've seen it multiple times wow i saw in theaters i watched it again in pandemic because i was like am i crazy am i gonna rewatch this and i would watch hologram why not it's it's good is it better than the circle i've never seen the circle it has to be it's just funny that uh that tom hanks is in two dave eggers movies yes anyway hanks is also crazy good i mean that's the funny thing is like we talked about how hanks is still so proud of cloud atlas and you're like he comes out of cloud atlas and and and is like i want to work with ticker again right and then he does hologram for the king and he's like, I want to do Eggers again. And then he's like, maybe I should stop following this.

Okay, I get it. But yeah, when Hanks was on Bill Simmons and Bill Simmons was like, give me your three favorites. And he said Cloud Atlas as one of them. He's right. I know, but Simmons was clearly like, okay, oh, yeah, sure.

I was thinking more like Splash. But anyway, it was really funny yeah um love ben wishaw is all we're we all agree we all love him wishaw so that movie is all about they're trying to sell their like he's hologram build wishaw plays the hologram do you know that that's not true yes the premise of that movie is that they like work for some telecommunications company like some zoom skype it's it's hollow teleconferencing you'll see the whole person right and they're trying to make a sales pitch to like the king of saudi arabia exactly yes and so they set up this tent in the middle of the desert and the whole movie is sort of this waiting for godot thing of like once a day the person comes to the

tent and goes like the king will not be coming today. Sure. They have to be ready every day. He never comes. Right. And Hanks is just sort of on this like quixotic kind of mission to somehow get the king's attention. He can't go through the levels of bureaucracy. And they're in the middle,

this tent in the middle of the desert where there are just completely empty skyscrapers being constructed where they want development, but like no one's there and wishaw is the guy from like headquarters who's going to be the hologram in the presentation so he is in the movie for less than three minutes he gets and ben wishaw he better yeah and most of his role is like watching him do tests where they're like and throw the apple and then he catches the apple in the hologram like they just do but that's just for being like ben yeah we're getting you in there it's so good and at the end you see him go like thank you for our present watching our presentation you know he's

obviously the thing i'm not acknowledging which is right after bright star the titular role and pre um peddington is the hour which is uh this really fun bbc show yeah that show's great i did with ramallah Gary, which is about launching a current affairs show at the BBC in the 50s. So that's a big one. It was a big Tumblr show. People on Tumblr love to go crazy. It was sort of like

when people were crazy for BBC, Sherlock. It's a fun show. He sort of at this point becomes an early thinking woman's internet boyfriend. Absolutely. This is the other thing is I start to at this point in time hear every once in a while meet someone who

just goes like, he is my number one crush. He drives me insane. Like I cannot stand how much Ben Whishaw turns me on. I meet people over years who are just like, I know he's gay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I just am driven wild by him. He's a real cutie patootie. I want to say that's another unique thing about him is like he's sort of the first of that generation where it's like he comes out of drama school,

he's in plays, and he's not convinced to go back in the closet when he goes to movies and tv he's a very have you his he is a very thoughtful interview yes anytime i read an interview with him i uh just i'm very struck by how he's never giving like what feel like can dancers he just feels like a thoughtful dude he's married to of course the composer of this movie yes Mark Bradshaw right which is hot

like even guys like that who were like art house guys it was just like look when you come to Hollywood just it's don't ask don't tell uh you know especially then that's like on the cusp that's right on the cusp he's that beginning wave of just like I don't have to pretend or allude this at all yeah yeah um and uh you know he's carved out just such an

interesting career for himself and i love it he doesn't need to be obviously you know big star but he'll he'll pop up in a mary poppins which he, is he in... Oh. David and I both just like that movie. He sings this sad fucking song. Well, of course he does, yeah. He plays the grown-up Banks child. He's the grown-up boy. Oh, of course. He plays the little boy,

which is like, it's him and Emily Mortimer, which is really good casting. They both feel like grown-up Disney children in their Britishness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's got this one scene. David sees a screening

and he's like, I don't care for this thing at all, but Wishaw has one scene where he just goes like atomic you will not believe it suddenly he just fucking grabs you and it decimates it's like emotionally devastating and you cannot believe he pulled it otherwise like not really gripping you and i look my only issue is when i watch it and then i re-watched the movie at some point i was like what are kids getting out of this like i can't imagine much we're like fucking losing it um anyway love him i'm trying to think of any well i thought he was really fun uriah heap and david copperfield he's almost a little too big in that for me which is a crazy thing to say about him right heap though is such a big ridiculous i mean the funniest thing about david copperfield is like he's like who could be fucking with me and you're right he's

like i have no idea yeah yeah i think i mean this guy but that's another movie where i i saw that i sort of like that david copperfield but i don't know what the target audience is for because it's like a little too elementary for adults yeah i mean I mean, I saw it at Toronto pretty tired and was like, I thought that was cute and I like the spirit of it. Yeah, it's totally nice. And I haven't remembered it very well. It's just weird to see him go big

and it's sort of like the Hanks thing where I'm like, I don't want to see Ben Wishaw be bad. Sure. I don't want to see this. He's gentle. Don't do this to me. I didn't, Griff, I did not watch Fargo season, I want to say four? The Chris Rock season?

Three. I haven't watched it either. He's on that? He's in four. I keep forgetting that. It's Chris Rock, Jesse Buckley, Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishaw, and Jack Houston. Right. Three's McGregor.

Okay. Three's the Ewan McGregor twins and Carrie Coon. I've never seen Winston and Thoulas. Thoulas in naked mode. It is. We love. Really? Yeah. In season three, yeah, but that's awful. She means Mike Lee's nakedoulas in naked mode. It is, really. In season three, yeah, but that's awful. She means Mike Lee's naked, not that he's naked.

Oh, I was going to say, I forgot Dong in that. I mean Mike Lee's, he's twisted. He's scary, scary Thoulas. So right after Bright Star 2009, then it's like Tempest, and The Hour Starts, and then 2012, obviously Skyfall, Cloud Atlas. And then since then, it's like Zero Theorem. Yeah, well, he's really good in The Lobster.

Lobster, I was going to say, is really good. Suffragette doesn't exist. I remember him being good in The Danish Girl, a horrible movie. Right. He's Herman Melville, as I said. Right. He's in Mary Poppins. He's the hologram.

That movie Little Joe kind of was a festival movie that didn't go anywhere. That movie Surge was a festival movie that didn't go anywhere That movie Surge was a festival movie People liked that show with him and Hugh Grant Very British scandal And then He plays Rabbi Milligan in Fargo This is what I'm saying Can no one give me the Fargo report

Anyway, love Ben Whishaw Oh and he's doing the Iris Hacks movie now Oh good It's a perfect match Adele, Exor, Coppola Love her, miss her Franz Rogowski Ben Whishaw. Oh, and he's doing the Ira Sachs movie now. Oh, good. That's nice. Perfect match. Adele Exocopoulos. Love her. Miss her. Franz Rogowski. It's like a great fucking international hottie cast. What is this? The Avengers 5?

Yeah. That's my internet boyfriend right now. Two men who've been together for 15 years and what happens when one of them has an affair with a woman. He's cute. I want to watch those three people have sex with each other. Yeah, no, Franz Wachowski is amazing. You know, we have a saying in our family, use sports, don't let sports use you. Hi, it's Jeff Merrick from 32 Thoughts to Podcast.

Are you a sports parent, rep sports, travel sports, whatever you call it? If you're like me, you know that one of the great joys of having your kid or kids play sports is travel. You know, our families use sports to see different parts of the world, meet new people, and stay in a number of different places. Recently, we've started using Airbnb. The kids love it because it feels like a sleepover at a new friend's house, while my wife and I enjoy more space, a proper bed,

and mostly a washing machine. That really comes in handy for baseball trips. Trust me. In fact, it was on a baseball trip last summer when my wife sent me a text after the first night saying, do you think we could do this? Look, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you've probably wondered the same thing. Could our place be an Airbnb? And now that our kids have also discovered the joys of skiing, in addition to travel hockey and travel baseball, we're on the move even more. Well, our house just sits there. Why not make a little extra money to cover some costs, right? We have friends who travel south every winter and they Airbnb their place.

Why not? Look, if you want to make a little extra cash, and who doesn't need that these days, maybe your home could be the way to make it happen. Find out how at Airbnb.com. The other lead actors in this movie we have to talk about, one we've got, Abby Cornish, who when I see this movie, I'm like, She's amazing. This is going to be a big actor. Well, and let's acknowledge, she's in two Australian indies.

The first of which is Somersault. Yep. Directed by Kate Shortland, who goes on to, of course, direct Black Widow. Which has... A movie that was definitely directed by her entirely. Sure. And has her fingerprints all over. Somersault has Sam Worthington.

That's the other thing. So that's the movie that becomes Sam Worthington's calling card where people are like this is a sturdy australian man this is a new crow a new legend right and and here she is here's a new ingenue right both of them i feel like that's a calling card and tears after that she does candy which is like with ledger heath ledger going back to australia and it sort of double verifies her as like this is the new australian i've seen that movie it's like a drug addiction movie both those boys are good she's good in it both those boys are good and sort of what you think really good in both of them yeah and then she pops up in a good year she drinks some wine she pops up in elizabeth golden age she stopped loss yeah i never saw that one this is the period

of time where they're just like well she's clearly going to be a thing bring her around cast her in everything and she's one of those people where this often kind of dooms you where she's like being put above the title as like the fourth or fifth lead in movies because hollywood is so certain that she's inevitable yep and then none of those movies kind of connect yeah and it's and then this was the one where people finally like oh that's what she does and she's wonderful in this film i think yeah i think it's a great performance. Amazing performance. She plays Fanny Bryce. Fanny Braun. Sorry. I kept on in my mind the whole movie.

Keep on going like, it's Bryce, right? And post this, Ben, do you like her? I'm sorry. You seemed like you wanted to say something. No? I mean, those fits. Well, we're going to talk about the fits she's throwing. She's throwing.

But everyone continues to feel to know how to use her. She's in movies. She's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's. She's in movies. She's like, soccer punch. She's right.

Martin McDonough likes her. The McDonough one is almost the most offensive because it's like, he should write a good part for her. He wastes her both times. Twice wasted her entire. She hasn't been in any of his theater stuff. Has she? I don't think so.

I mean, it'd be one thing if he like made use of her on stage. It's just so frustrating because he clearly appreciates her talent. And both of those roles are so thankless her defining characteristic in three billboards is that she loves her husband's penis yeah that's truly like what's who is this one mics or tick she can't stop talking about how great her doesn't he have some line where he's like and you have a great vagina or something there's some like exchange like that where you're like i don't know if this was supposed to like go over but it just clunks well and she keeps the accent too and i remember like the 10th wave of discourse

on that movie is like why does he have an australian wife in missouri that's like but you'll find those those folks anywhere i'm like that's the last thing we should complain about is it a robocop remake yes which sucks that's like i think of that and obviously this is colored by my dislike of that movie overall but i think of that as like the prime example of just like abby cornish you were supposed to be a star you never totally connected you're still established enough that you're in the running for the reboots that aren't the top level but are c level and we pull you above the title and your role is completely thankless but but you're in it a lot, and it just nothing connects.

She's in Jack Ryan? For a season, and then I think she's gone. She was the female lead for the first season, and then I think that show got Noomi-pilled. Well, hey, it happens to us all. It happens to the best of us. She's in Geostorm. Right.

Oh, yeah. In which she's third build, sorry, fourth build. Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgis, Geostorm, Abby Cornish. We all know? Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgis play brothers. Really? In Geostorm? Great. Hello, brother. Is Abby Cornish the president's

daughter or is she the young environmental council person? Looks like she's playing a secret service agent. What else has Geostorm been in? Geostorm just did a great King Lear I don't know. Geostorm and Moonfall Day After Tomorrow. I would love

to meet. Yeah. Yeah. Geostorm and Moonfall I gotta say are just both evidence of like if those guys are gonna do these kinds of movies, scan them back together. Put them back together. They need to be. It hasn't been the same because the whole thing with moonfall is the special effects are kind of amazing he is incredible knows what he's doing yeah he knows everything else is such dog shit i know and you're like you

need i know devlin's a hack but you need devlin he at least knows how to put these pieces together has like the hack sentimentality down pat right and uh right and geostorm was one of those movies where like they it had like some of the most expensive reshoots ever because they were like you fucked up all the action stuff right because he doesn't know what he's doing you had to they had to bring in fucking second unit guys to come in and reshoot you forgot the geostorm right that's not like i just imagined some like al pacino with the cigar you know some old exec watching he's like where's the Geostorm? There isn't as much Geostorm in that movie as you would want.

That was the big complaint. Because they fucked it up. Yeah. And then like fucking Emmerich now like co-writes movies with his composer and shit. Like they're both struggling to find the collaborator. I don't know why they're doing it. Anyway, the third person I want to talk about just briefly before we get into this movie. Terry Fox.

Oh, Paul Schneider. I mean, Terry Fox, shout out mean perry fox shout out nice to see your lovely performance giving the performance of the decade giving in my opinion flooring performance yes incredible what the fuck happened here i i okay huge humongous sidebar because he is one of my guys for the he's amazing he's a genius and it just felt like it was build, build, build, build. All the real girls, right? He's one of the David Gordon Green collaborators. He's David Gordon Green, much like Danny McBride. He is a David Gordon Green classmate

at North Carolina School of the Arts who has no intention of becoming an actor. He wrote All the Real Girls with David Gordon Green. But Gordon Green puts him and mcbride on camera in george washington and both of them are so good that he gives them bigger parts than all the real girls he co-writes it with schneider and then that becomes a calling card and then it's like i know you detest elizabethtown but he is very good in that he's he's totally fine very good in family stone he's like building up he's good in cast. He's good in Jesse James. My friend, he is incredible in Jesse James.

Yeah, and then... He is so fucking good holding his own against people who are just like... I guess he's in Lars. So intense. He's in Lars and the Real Girl. He's great in that. Is he kind of the straight man in that? He's the brother-in-law.

Yeah. But he is so fucking... Like, that is such a good normal guy performance. That kind of thing I talk about being so difficult, where it's like, this guy is just fucking normal. He's just like a steady dude. He's good at that and then he gets cast on parks and recreation the year this comes out right and you're like wow this will be the thing that escalates him he's gonna be the fucking straight man on this the new office right but i just remember thinking when he got that role i was like damn parks got one of the like most

promising actors of the generation since then he's not given one film performance that's registered with me at all no now this is what's weirdest about it well i do want to say i did see him in straight white men on broadway okay uh which was with uh army hammer is that guy in the news recently and uh wasn't that is there was someone it was like one of those uh broadway dramas where they like they just built the cast out all famous to to sell tickets right um josh charles right right and he was really good and i was like paul schneider he's still good but he stopped being in movies now what do you want to say what i was gonna say is i mean first of all he uh you know when he's on this meteoric rise as a character actor is like, you don't understand.

I never intended to be an actor. This wasn't my ambition. I don't think of myself as an actor. I really want to direct. I'm going back to directing. 2008, he writes and directs his movie that makes no impact whatsoever. Yeah. It's a pretty bird.

I think it's called. Yeah. Right. So that's right before this and kind of concurrent with the Parks and Rec first season premiering. Right? Then Parks and Rec premieres. I am in a minority where I like the first season of Parks and Rec more than what the show becomes after that. That's quite the minority.

I'm aware. Although I'm not aware I'm going to go to Scott. Sam Donsky once wrote a great piece about that for Grantland. Great guy. About like. America's hottest writer. One of going to go to Scott. Sam Donsky once wrote a great piece about that for Grantland. Great guy. America's hottest writer. One of our great writers. Shout out Sam Donsky if you're listening.

Sam, you're so cute. I miss you. The best. From Twitter. But that really made me rethink it. That was like when Parks was hitting its stride also of like

being super nice core, getting a ton of viewership. Right. Late season three, season four. This is the thing. I just, I don't really care for what ton of viewership. Right. Late season three, season four. This is the thing. I just, I don't really care for what Parks and Rec becomes. No. I think it does feel too nice core and all this shit.

Whatever, right? Like, I like nice shit, obviously. I fucking love the Paddington movies. But like, I don't love what the show becomes. I don't think the first season is great. But I think by the end of it, I was like, huh, they're carving out an interesting thing here that's different than The Office. And he's great. And then I think they get, first season is great, but I think by the end of it, I was like, huh, they're carving out an interesting thing here. That's different than the office.

And then I think they get, and he's great. And their dynamic is really good. It's interesting in that first season. Really good. And then I immediately get sidebar. The show gets too nice. She becomes too competent,

too girl bossy, like all this sort of shit. Well, it's the Mike Schur problem of once he gets couples together, he's like, they're so nice together. I will do nothing to mess with this now. The show becomes like all sweet i don't know i know i i really don't like i never i don't care for it i'm not claiming the first season is a masterpiece but i like what

it was intending to do and what it gets close to pulling off and i like the schneider in it schneider does that first season season two he's clearly getting sidelined right he gets paired with rashida jones right and that's sort of like a write-off and now like chris pratt has been elevated chris pratt's breaking out his role is no longer rashida jones is like fucking ball and chain and he's becoming like break i start right bright star comes out he's getting like critic awards people are like he won the national society film critics circle right they're like can he be the guy we will into a Best Supporting Actor nomination

the nomination doesn't happen no they announce he's leaving Parks and Rec and the company line is you know his movie career is exploding now right

like this Bright Star thing is huge and it just we both agreed the opportunities he's getting he doesn't want to be kept here on this show he always will be part of

the firmament of the show we'll have him come back maybe he'll come back he's being transferred to different divisions yeah on this show. He always will be part of the firmament of the show. We'll have him come back. Maybe he'll come back. He's been transferred to different divisions. Right. And what happens is his film career completely flatlines. And when he does interviews years later, he was like, I was unceremoniously fired from that show

and they never once offered to bring me back. That was this weird company line where they said, like, he will still exist in the universe. He's transferred divisions. He'll come back in. There was never any overture at any point in time i would have done it right right right well but it is bizarre that he does do stuff yeah he's in stuff but you've done some tv why has no one known how to use him for the last 12 years i don't know i don't know he's so good

he's so good part of what's amazing about this performance is that it's sort of just a normal guy performance in a period piece which i think period pieces often forget to have or they forget that just like people in the past were kind of normal also yes and it's a part that people could that most people play so arch what is so disarming about it is that he absolutely avoids the archetypes of how this type of guy is played in terms of the narrative function right right yes the problem yeah right right it's it's it's a real like renoir like the great tragedy of the world is that everyone has question their reasons have you ever seen this movie before no i had not right i thought i thought i remember that this was your first watch correct but you were aware that paul schneider was

in it and you maybe heard me say that he like hits eight three pointers no and i knew that and it's like that i'm like you don't understand this guy just absolutely pounds it it had been like a stupid blind spot of mine especially because i was so such a paul schneider fan you were in decade plus yeah he was the biggest appeal for me and i don't know why I never got around to seeing it. Can I just say, like 10 years ago, whatever it was, my friend Kamen Volkovsky, former trivia teammate of ours,

who's a great AD, has worked with some of the best directors, works with David Gordon Green all the time and all sorts of fucking rad people. He was the AD on a movie this year that was insane and i forget what it was well i'm gonna look it up for you right now uh comments been doing like many saints of newark or halloween kills well he was second unit on those sure maybe it was both i don't know he he is great dead don't die he is pretty cool he does awesome stuff great but uh he was I'm going to go see Holy Motors with my friend. Do you want to come?

Sure. And I like go see Holy Motors as I often want to do. I am late and I get there right as the movie is like starting. So I like come in in the dark and like cozy up next to come in and watch this movie. You've done that to me multiple times, right? Right. That is like I believe that's how we met was me showing up late to a movie. And I slide in there. I watch Holy Motors. Fucking profound experience amazing movie lights come up and we're just like holy shit that thing is incredible and

i look over and the friend next to him is paul schneider oh my god paul yes and then paul schneider and i take the subway home together and talk about fucking movies and shit and it was just like this guy rules as much as i want him to i'm such a fan of his his entire perspective on acting and film and like his excitement over that movie is so infectious and i'm like this guy right this guy is the fucking best he's the coolest guy right and uh that's the only time i ever met him sure but even more so since then at that point time i was like huh weird that paul schneider has been kind of laying low for the last three years but then it doesn't seem so weird if it's just been a couple years since your last movie right yeah and then the last nine years i'm just like what the fuck's going on here yeah look if you look at his thing it's like he's been in some movies

although really since rules don't apply which i forgot he's in that right uh which is 2016 he's only done a couple of films he's done since then you know he, he was in that movie, that TV show Channel Zero. That was the sort of like, fuck, what's it called? Creepy Pasta show. Oh, is that what the Tooth Man? I always had to see the Tooth Man. They did Candle Cove. They would do adaptations of famous creepy pastas. I forgot the two things that he's in.

What was the other one you said? Candle? Candle Cove, which is sort of this idea of like do you don't you remember that we used to watch this disturbing tv show when we were kids and then like everyone's forgotten about it but it's some show we watch sure okay you know classic creepypasta i forgot that the two things he does after uh bright star slash parks and rec neither which connect but felt like they were on the path of his career as water for elephants where Where he's the superstructure. Yeah, he's the water. I don't fucking know.

The movie is told by, I believe, Hal Holbrook playing old Robert Pattinson, of course. Yeah. And Paul Schneider's the guy interviewing him. He's like the Bill Paxton of the Titanic. Hal Holbrook is actually a time traveler, and he is actually old Robert Pattinson.

Of course. Yeah. And then, Away We Go. He tended it himself. Sorry. Away We Go felt like, is actually a time traveler and he is actually old robert pattinson yeah um and then away we go intended it himself sorry sorry away we go felt like oh paul schneider's playing one of the fucking relatives like he probably kills it in three scenes and then that movie just doesn't exist doesn't connect yeah the only movie the thing that movie killed was quality but right he like does the baby maker smile okay he does the baby makers which is a jay chandrick sakaar was quality. Right. He does The Babymakers. Oh, okay. He does The Babymakers,

which is a Jay Chandrak's Sakaar movie with him and Olivia Munn. He does Flowers of War, which is that hugely expensive... Isn't it Johnny Moon? Yeah.

That doesn't connect. Christian Bale and... Right. Cafe Society, he's got a big role in. Ruse Don't Apply, he's got a fairly big role

in both of those movies are huge flops. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. got a fairly big role in both of those movies. They're huge flops. Yeah. He was in three episodes of Nos, Four, Two. Five episodes of Tales from the Loop. The license plate.

Sure, which we've talked about not existing. Two episodes of Assassination of Johnny Versace. It bums me out simply because I think he's a very talented guy and this performance is so special to me. Here's another thing about this performance. You're just like, and I had heard for over a decade

that he was amazing in this. You're just like, there's no way he's going to pull off the Irish accent. He's got such a specific southern drawl, Paul Schneider, and he can sort of shut it off and do like low energy like mid-atlantic right but you're just like irish is tough most american actors who have tried to do irish really embarrass themselves like it fucking demolished cruise and kidman who's australian

right his accent's so fucking good it's amazing his accent's great um so good but it's as fran said there is like something modern about his performance that maybe shouldn't work but totally does yeah because i mean he's playing a boorish character but he's also showing why some people like hanging out with boorish people yes he's not completely repulsive i find him pretty seductive it's like a trust fund kid he's a fairly good like not bad intention but he's mad he's the guy that when your friend is like you're like i know but you know he's fun he's like actually he's not a bad guy if you get to know him this is a movie about having a boyfriend with a roommate yeah and like that roommate could be anything so this movie movie, it's directed by Jane Campion.

She also wrote it. It's called Bright Star. After one of John Keats' poems. It's about the poet John Keats. Do you know John Keats? Died young. Died young. Who died young.

Famously died young. At the age of 25. He did live sad. He did die young. Romantic poet. Classic romantic poet. Probably the most classic in that he had this tragic life and death

there's Byron Percy Shelley also died super young too he's crazy he's a crazy guy that guy he died at sea which is quite romantic I was reading something that said he died holding on to a Keats poem that there was one in his jacket

that he kept with him always and then drowned with it. I will say. Was a poem in your pocket day when he died? Was a poem in your pocket day when he died? Yeah, it was a poem. Do you folks remember that? Did you ever do that in school?

What? No, I don't know what you're talking about. It's like, it's one of these things that I feel like whatever like poetry association has tried to make like an informal holiday for like 25 years and it's never really connected. Where they're like, you don't know

that April 23rd is Poem in Your Pocket Day and you're supposed to carry a poem in your pocket to reassert the power of poetry? I don't know. I remember my school pushing it on me once or twice. I went to a stupid school. So Jane Camp.

It's a heavy pocket. Let me give you a little. Obviously, she does in the cut and then takes a sabbatical from filmmaking. Partly wounded by the poor reception of the film. Just that it just doesn't really get a shot. It doesn't get a fair shake. But also partly because she's got a nine-year-old kid and she's like, I've been doing this. And apparently she got into meditation

uh she made a couple of short films something called the water diary that's in a series called eight okay i had like gaspar noe gas vancant i don't never heard of that uh and something called the ladybug which is part of to each his own cinema okay imdb entry classic where you're always like what's this other movie this director oh Oh, it's a massive anthology film. That's how she meets Greg Frazier and Mark Bradshaw, who she collaborates on this movie. Greg Frazier, obviously, who I think is one of the top directors of photography working today.

But this is his first particularly, this is his first movie, really. This is his breakout. Yeah. I mean, he'd made little movies before then. But this movie is so beautifully shot, of course. He shot Dune last year. He's shooting the Batman this year.

Like, he has graduated to, like, the DP everyone wants. Zero Dark Thirty, shot Mandalorian and Rogue One. Foxcatcher, which is a beautiful looking movie, killing them softly. Where's he? When she does, where's he? Bennett Miller? Not Foxcatcher. Chilling. Is's he? When she does, where's he? Bennett Miller? Not Fox.

Chilling. Is he chilling? Like a villain. We need him back. He was recently papped with Channing. They had lunch in Soho or something. Cool thing to do, first of all.

Seriously. We need him back. He has been working on, fuck, I looked it up. Because Foxcatcher was like 10 years in the making and the only reason he made movies sooner was because Moneyball got thrown to him.

But he takes a long time fucking developing. Just because we're on topic. One of my close friends back in Chicago once did one of the more deranged double features of Paddington and Foxcatcher. Just back to back. And he's always like, this is the weirdest day of my life. Cool thing to do. Benny Miller. He's one of those guys who's basically

like i don't like this enough to do it all the time like it's a lot for me so i think he's trying to get a christmas carol made right he's doing like a project right but i think he's doing like a very sober i believe that it would be a very realistic or something i don't know but anyway but it's one of those things that like god knows if he's actually still working on that or if that's just the last thing he was trying to make. I think he's also one of those guys who surprisingly does pretty anonymous TV commercials for a lot of money. Well, good for him.

Where you'd just be like, oh, he does the Lexus campaign? I hope Channing Tatum showed him Dog. Channing Tatum has a film called Dog coming out that he directed. And I recently saw a quote from Soderbergh that was like, I saw it. It's good. And one other tatum collaborator was like yeah i gave him some notes i hope he showed it to ben i'm excited i'm really excited but like i i like james gray does a weird amount of like revlon ads sure sure where it's just a movie star being like what's my secret

and you're like this is just shot by a photographer like anyone could do this there's no narrative i think ben miller does a lot of that type of shit and doesn't he date an olsen twin i don't know maybe i think he does i can look it up for you i think he dates the one who is not dated ashley olsen are they not still together not seeing anything post like 2014 about this so i don't know okay but they definitely did she was in her late 20s he was in his 40s his muse seeing anything post like 2014 about this. So I don't know. But they definitely did it at some point. She was in her late 20s. He was in his 40s. Sort of his muse.

She was his fanny pack. While she's making the cut, Jane Campion reads Andrew Motion's biography, Keats. So she says, I'm not like a poetry expert but I'm very drawn to this relationship he had and these letters they wrote

each other. Sure. With Fanny Brown, which are not published until after she dies for kids published. Right. Right. Um, so she's sort of like red that resonates with her.

Uh, so she's thinking about that. She wants to make a movie about younger people. That's interesting to her. Suddenly it's like, Oh, they're in their early twenties. That's why Greg Frazier is in his twenties. Markrews isn't it like she's collaborating with younger people

so maybe she's got a she's got a younger daughter reboot yeah yeah she's seeing things through a younger person's eyes again maybe yeah she's got her younger daughter who i believe she homeschooled at least for a little while uh-huh and she was in some of those short films i think possibly sure right that makes sense that's when she starts acting yeah um anyway ginger and roses the same year as this the year after which is alice's 2012 so it's a couple years later okay okay i have no sense of time anymore um anyway so she's doing tons and tons of research that's another reason this takes a while she did say i was drawn to percy shelly as well because he's got a crazy story um but uh with keats she liked that there's innocence and purity with his story that he was so sweet he was inquiring he was interesting

he was a passionate friend i think she was sort of interested in making a non-sexy movie that's still romantic but isn't it's sort of defined by its chastity right yeah uh that was uh not as daring in its sexual content um it's dongless i mean we should just say it is a dongless film um but basically you know i just feel like she's sort of semi-consciously semi-unconsciously swerving away from sure her last couple movies right now yes agree. Now, I just want to say, because I had never seen this film before. I am famously bad at time management, infamously bad at time management.

Wait, I'm sorry. I was just in the other room. What? What are you talking about? You? Did you watch this on 1.5 speed or something? No, I didn't. I did.

I did. I swear to God. It wasn't that bad, but my plan was to watch this on 1.5 speed or something no i did i didn't i didn't swear to god it wasn't that bad but my plan was to watch this uh last night okay i was gonna say all right okay so i said this to fran in the car while we were driving up i was so worried about this yeah because yesterday you and ben watched all four jackass movies we went to a jackass-a-thon where we sat in a theater the museum moving image and watched all four jackass movies and then i didn't ask griffin this yeah but i was thinking because i know you like to watch the movie i'm not blaming you but like it would have been wise probably oh face from fran if one of the two of you texted me on

tuesday or wednesday and said like you should watch this before the jackass marathon i'm not blaming you. Nor should you. It would have been to the benefit of the show. Because I watched four Jackass movies, then Ben and I got dinner, and then I went home and I tried to watch Bright Star, and I was like, I cannot adjust to none. Yeah, that's insane, Griffin.

No shit! Right, I had to watch Jackass 2.5 in order to fall asleep, because I was like, Jackass is the only thing I understand now. So then I woke up early and watched this. Okay, well, I mean, I was just afraid you weren't going to pull that off. I was assuming that was your plan all along. I did pull it off, but I was just like,

this is a dreamy movie. And I'm like watching it, drinking coffee, being like, okay, come on. You know, I like maybe was less alert than I wanted to be for a movie that very much lulls you. Here's my advice. Don't watch the movie day of.

I know you say that, but my fresh takes, the fresh takes. Anyway. But sometimes things like days later hit you in the shower or something. That's true. Look, I tried not to watch it day of.

I tried to watch it last night and I was like, where are the nut shots? What is, this is not a movie. This is not how movies work. We put a bunch of butterflies in a room. This is what happens.

Hi, I'm Keats. Hi, I i'm john keats i mean you look the butterfly farm in fact is one of campion's inventions okay she admits like there definitely was not a butterfly farm down there but he liked butterflies and wrote about them and i was like there should be butterflies cool thing to do um uh but but obviously this is also post holy smoking in the cut which are contemporary films her returning right to beautifully costumed films and boy is it beautifully costumed don't you agree ben absolutely i don't remember the name of the character only character but she's like a fanny is an incredible looks she does and people are mean about them. All these poets are like, oh, you make clothes.

She does look sort of like Mad Hatter, White Rabbit in that first scene and then it's kind of all normal from there. But the movie starts with her loudest outfit. I would say I do like her outfit. Her outfits are always 10% louder than what everyone else is wearing, especially the women.

You definitely are always noticing like, oh, she's like a little avant-garde or whatever. Her hat game. The hat game is crazy. I mean, you do always, in the way where I think all these characters are made to feel very normal in a period setting, I think having a friend who's always showing up in

one insane accessory, the Ben for instance, you know, that's a normal thing to have. She also, much like Ben does with his closest friends when she meets him is like you should really be wearing velvet and like a darker blue would look good on you ben is always trying to give you an eye fashion advice he wants to like restyle us i gotta tell you some news that just came down the wires it's really good news okay david lynch has joined the cast of steven spielberg's upcoming film the fablemans what isn't that cool that rules undisclosed guarded secret role wow anyway

isn't that the best isn't this movie gonna be the best and it's friday too that's true that's great tgif that just broke uh anyway okay uh Fanny does throw some great looks. We'll talk about that. So she puts the money together with Pat Bay. This is, of course, that's the only Oscar nomination this movie gets. It's sort of an undeniable Oscar nomination. It doesn't win, does it? No.

This is Janet Patterson's last credit before she passes away? Good question. We shouted her out in a previous episode, but most of her career is Campion. She does very few films outside of the Campion collaboration. She was both the costumer and the production designer of this film and was like fairly reclusive never did interviews never went to award shows she no she it's not her last film because she actually uh did the costumes for the wonderful far from the madding crowd oh yes

i love that movie that's my insane double feature where I saw that and Age of Ultron in the same day. Wow. She's going to have a stroke. I love that movie. She died in 2016, but obviously, as we said, she rarely worked. I didn't realize that.

Man in the Crowd reminds me a lot of this movie. Yeah. Oh, it's so good. A little bit. Well, I mean- Was that Goode and Schoenertz and Mulligan?

Correct. Goode? Matthew Goode? No, it's- It's Schoenert and Mulligan? Correct. Good? Matthew Good? No, it's Michael Sheen, Schoenartz, and then... Cary Mulligan. Cary Mulligan and then Tom... Oh, Tom Sturridge. Tom Sturridge.

Is Matthew Good not in that? Am I wrong? No. Not even a supporter? What am I confusing that with? Something else at that time. I don't know. You know Juno Temple, though, your favorite.

Oh, yeah. It's a movie about having three boyfriends. The young Victoria Sandy Powell beat it. I don't know. Juno Temple, though, your favorite. Oh, yeah. It's a movie about having three boyfriends. The young Victoria Sandy Powell beat it. Lame. Anyway. Weird.

Two apparition costume nominations. As I was going to say, this film... That's what crippled them. And they're out of business. Two costume campaigns they thought would

translate to box office. Pathé and BBC funded it. Apparition released it for some reason. This film... I was confusing with Brideshead Revisited. Anyway, that's the one that Good is in. Far From the Madding Crowd, one of the greatest

scores. Craig Armstrong. Oh, so good. Incredible score. I gotta re-watch. Anyway, Tom Hardy, just a bit more of a bummer. You know, he's... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Thomas Hardy. Not like Bane. Thomas Hardy. He's a great time. Yeah, he is a great time. He should do a Thomas Hardy adaptation, though. Hardy and Hardy. Not like Bane. Thomas Hardy is a great time. He is a great time. He should do a Thomas Hardy adaptation though.

Hardy and Hardy. I wonder if he has. He used to do BBC stuff for a second. Anyway, Bright Star. So I grew up in England. Beyond that. I grew up in North London. Beyond that. I actually grew up in Kentishondon beyond that i actually grew up in kentish town which

hilariously in bright star is the sort of slum he moves to when he can't afford the the old oh where he goes to die yeah he's like oh kentish town is all i can afford and i'm like damn kentish town cleaned up a good dying town i mean kentish town is a little more of a sort of like i mean these days i think it's pretty fancy, but when I lived there it was a little more, you know, sort of fringy, but anyway.

Got it. But Kenneshawn, very near Hampstead Heath, where most of this movie takes place. Sure. And a classic walk that I did one billion times

was you can go in the Heath and then it's like, where are we going to go? You can go to Kenwood, which is like a big old house. Yeah. You can go over there, South End Green,

and get a cookie, maybe. I would do that a lot. Or you could go to Kenwood, which is like a big old house. You can go over there, South End Green, and get a cookie, maybe. I would do that a lot. Or you could go to Keats' house. You say, you mean biscuit. You can go to Keats' house. You can go to Keats' house, which is where this movie takes place. Now, they did not shoot it there because it's too small, I think. Campion was like, this is like.

So they shot it actually in this estate, sort of just outside of London. But you can go to Keats' house, which is where this motherfucker lived and was flirting up a storm with Fanny. Sarah Fenowich and I once got lost in Hempstead Heath for like three hours. It's my favorite park. But like the sun had set

and we like really didn't know how to get out of it. Oh, it's a little nasty. You don't want to be in there tonight. No, and we could not find our way out. We're both very easily confused men. Yeah, I can only imagine. It's not great when we're together without adult supervision what were you gonna ask so when they're in hampstead heath and he's like i have to go into london for this how long is that taking them i think given that this film is set in what 18 18 or whatever i think back then you know like hampstead, obviously Hampstead now is basically almost inner London.

But at the time, it would have been like 20 minutes to half an hour in a freaking cart or whatever. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Astoria. Sure.

Yeah. Hampstead, obviously, very, very fancy neighborhood now. But yeah, back then, you know, it's like. Well, when they're just like, you know, he commuted back from London in the rain. It's like, okay, is this half a day he's spending in the rain or it's 20 minutes? I don't know how long it takes in a goddamn horse. This is the problem.

I don't have horse speed. And was he not under the covered part? Was that the issue? I think he walked. Oh, if he's walking, that's a pretty long walk. That's what I'm saying. If he's walking that, how much time? To central London?

Sure. That's a couple hours at at least walking okay i guess i'd get tuberculosis too but even if he was under i'm john keats and this is uh getting severely getting way too cold and also they're wearing all this like suede and velvet it's just sucking the water in you know like it's only just gonna mold you up right like hampstead heath so you've been in hampstead heath it's this gorgeous gorgeous like you know untamed park and yes london is massive right it's like it's like a wild kind of undeveloped central park it's so good yes uh and it's my favorite spot and it's so nice to see

it that's one reason i love this movie but i also just it's keats house it's worth visiting if no one's been it's lovely to visit and then of course if you're in Rome you can visit the Keats house there where he died have any of you ever done that? no no

because obviously he went there to you know supposedly warmer weather you'll convalesce and that's where he dies and it happens off screen in this movie

did that help in the past when they were like you gotta go to Italy to cure your disease I mean Italy seems like a nice place to go. Maybe a cheerio.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I've been rereading some like. You know, you needed to breathe, right? So maybe they were just, I don't know. I've been reading some Ferrantes and they love to be like, oh, you got to go to the beach and that'll fix all your issues. And I'm like, do we know that that works or is it just sort of like, yeah, go on vacation yourself. Look, I had a lot of, this movie triggered a lot of existential

sort of jags of thought for me. And one of them, and this is not the first time I've had this observation, realization, I should say. But watching this movie, I was like, right. Before Modern Medicine,

I would have been dead by 25. Oh, sure. Something would have knocked you off. Right, like John Cates, you're like, tragically dies at 25. What happened to him? Was there an accident? No, did you see this guy this guy was so fragile there's like knock him over with a feather right he is not like survival of the fittest this guy is not

built to be able to withstand the element we didn't know about hydration you don't you don't have fucking like uh i don't know north face jackets and shit you know i just want to reflect it's i was just talking about this with my wife last night after watching bright star for the like 10th time my point is just something like go get some sunlight is like i don't know that's a fucking it can't make it worse yeah yeah why not i want that doctor now who's like i'm sorry i have to prescribe you going to italy to fix what's wrong with you yeah you hand it to like delta and they're like okay all in order you're in first class like what can i tell

you um my mom i would walk with my mom in hampstead heath a ton because she whoa you know when i'm a teenager or younger yeah but you know it'd be like like let's fucking take a walk you know kind of her thing i'll just like come on like you're not sitting around the house all day right and i just think now and like i remember she'd be like where do you want to go and i would be like i want to go to hmv like because you could exit hampstead heath you could walk up the hill to hampstead and you could go to a record store they're like and she'd be like you know so sometimes maybe i get to do that but often we'd fucking go to keats house or something right, right? Sure. And I just remember when I was a teenager, I was like, I don't want to go to

the stupid poetry house for like the hundredth time. It's like a four-room museum. They're like, John Keats still lived here. Cool. No news. But it's a lovely little spot. Now I'm like, it's so enriching that I did. What a good thing for me to have done.

You know, to fucking... Look, did you proclaim when you were there ever? Did you go, oh, is this branch so beautiful? You know, like, did you... I should have done more of that, probably, instead of thinking about video games I wanted to buy or whatever. You and I both grew up with very cultural parents, right? Sure.

Who I imagine you similarly had a childhood of them constantly trying to like expose you to things. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I just, much like you, like it's

an absurdly privileged position, right? To live in a place where you have access to this and parents who like try to expose you to these things. And I also just had such fucking frustration

with like, you're making me look at some other fucking old dude's house again. I don't care about that. I mean, to be clear, I get to go to the toy store afterwards. Am I going to get to see Charlie's Angels after? I wanted to see. I also wanted to see.

Right. To be clear, I was a good boy and I would, you know, but I remember that I would be a little stick in the mud. Yeah. Yeah. I will say. And I love Keith's house in London and anyone who's in London should check it out. It's a lovely spot. But I just want to say,

Keith's house in Rome, where he died, is like maybe my like favorite or like one of those places that has had the biggest emotional impact. It is crazy. Really? Because it's so small.

It's in this gorgeous, it's right on the Spanish Steps. Like it's in a gorgeous part of the city. And you just go in there and it's so quiet. And there's this little bed where he died.'m like i'm feeling it just thinking about it and you're just like he thought he was a failure and he just died yeah it's so crazy like he just

was just like nobody gives a shit about me you know it's so sad and he was like the greatest yeah and you're just when you're in there and it's all content you're just like this is insane like that this happened this way and it's perfectly like maintained and shit and then they're like and when the nazis fucking invaded we had to hide all his shit so they wouldn't like burn it you know like it's such a good museum and you just think about john keats it's crazy i mean look i'm such a fucking sap yep and it's some of the corniest content in the world 25 years old i'm 35 i got 10 years on john keats what do i got a show for a podcast with griffin newman if you'd like that unbelievable uh but no i like it he might maybe he would jolly good that's what he'd say so i'm gonna listen to him he's walking back in the rain you know suffering laughing who

is qui-gon jinn i mean he probably loves kissing i mean he definitely does yeah um no i was just gonna say they're the two i think they're the only two and i think he were both of them richard curtis doctor who episodes the the van goff one and charles dickens yeah sure right where both of them he does the beat both times and both times it's effective where the guy's like nothing I do fucking matters and Doctor Who like tells them like you don't understand like the one like the Van Gogh thing where the whole episode's him and like they take him to the museum and it's like Bill Nye's like the curator he's giving the thing and he shows him like the appreciation for his work and Van Gogh realizes his life is not meaningless and with the Dickens one he like tells him he's like just tell me one thing like does my work last and

and doctor who gives him the fucking romantic curtis monologue about how much his work matters forever and in both cases it's like beautiful and this is a movie that is like full of profound tragedy of the guy just never getting to know, obviously. He doesn't know. Fucking Curtis wants to give you the corny doctor who thing where the guy gets to find out and doesn't die suffering. You know, I hope the Richard Curtis Dickens doesn't find out about the people in my MFA program in who were pitched reading Dickens who said, who gives a shit?

He's got to not find out about that. He doesn't find that out. Do you think Dickens would be into cancel culture? They, they came for him. You can't cancel me. I'm just trying to. It was one of the big fights. Him being on Joe Rogan.

These motherfuckers are trying to cancel me. I wrote all of her tweets. It was one of our big MFA fights with the poets and the fiction people. What is the point of still reading Dickens? Because it fucking rocks the house. It was an MFA fight that almost turned into an MMA fight fight right that's right i mean i love bleak house i'm a big bleak house stand rules the first detective story ever written inspector bucket yeah um anyway we're not here to talk dickens no no i i was just saying as much as this is a movie miniseries this is a movie that has

the cloud of the franchise this is a movie that has the cloud of the franchise this is a movie that has the cloud of the sort of like he's never gonna get to now right right absolutely of course and and this relationship is gonna remain unfulfilled and his life is all about you know i think for most people watching the movie you know that he died at 25 so the whole movie has this kind of like ticking time bomb so much of his legacy yeah and he's a sweet guy who's doing a silly dance for his pals for Sangster. Yeah. For Sangster. Giving Sangster some fun. Have you guys talked about

him on the show? I don't know if we've had a Sangster swerve. I wrote that in my notes. He was supposed to play Tintin which I feel is the only time we would have invoked him. Sangster section. We certainly invoked him briefly at least. Right. I love that guy. Well we have not yet been welcomed to the Scorch, but. No.

I don't know. Maybe we do that on Patreon. He brings up the Maze Runner so often. I've only seen the third one. Secretly kind of whips. Third one is the worst one. I know. You say that every time we talk about this.

One, two, three. Right. Scorch trials is where it's at. That's how I should rank more. It's not that you rank them in order. You just do a noise. Pyramid. Yeah. Really? My Jackass ratings are like one, two, three, four, you know, or whatever. rank more it's not that you rank them in order you just do a noise pyramid yeah really my jackass ratings are like one two three four you know or whatever yeah but four is still great no i think

i'm actually two three two four three one i think i might give three the slight edge but i do think one's the worst now but i don't know in retrospect did you watch three in 3d yes cool yeah anyway sorry uh yeah it was great to see it in 3d it is still for my money maybe the best top top use of 3d post avatar it's that and corlin anyway the other thing this movie is fundamentally about for me right there's the sort of like unfulfilled promise the tragic doomed romance all these things that are like cornerstones of, you know, period romance and these kinds of like, you know, unrecognized in their time, artist biopics and whatever. But the other thing I think this movie is very, very keenly tied into and it's much more like textually grounded in than most other films of this kind and i say this as someone who has benefited from countless forms of privilege of various ills and has been given so many career advantages because of that this is a movie about

how fucking difficult if not impossible it is to be an artist if you're born poor and without social status which is a thing that still is fucking discussed today in our culture where it's just like how do you have the room to struggle and find your own voice if you do not have the means to survive you know and it's like there are exceptions and then they become like sort of like heroic stories of like look you can do it you can come from dirt and build yourself and become a canonical artist but those people always do just have good luck on their side like they get the fucking lottery ticket at some point and here's a guy who had like a roommate who's essentially like a trust fund kid who's like i'm executive producer i'm like making shit happen i'm like working stuff and then his like heartbreaking scene at the end of the movie is like say it i failed keats well that's i didn't fucking think how to make him into a thing he wound himself i'm sorry i'm fucking sorry i have failed him even his

romance is fucking ruined by the fact that everyone's like there's no money here between the two of you you can't fucking do this yeah you can't fucking do this he can't waste his time in a romance that he can't support it takes away from his writing and he can't support you so it's a waste of your time to be with him and it's just like the whole movie is so wrapped up in the class struggle of just like everyone just being like look this is like nice it's a nice idea you have but like you're not gonna be able to pull this off it's such an anvil drop once they're like you can marry our fanny because it's like they all know where this is going right you might as well let him have this sort of like i don't know i guess just fucking go with it to get like you can struggle together um yeah and then even more so at a time where a guy like this just like

genuinely just cannot survive against the elements yeah against nature you know you're just like this guy's gonna fucking catch something at some point. He's going to go out for milk and fucking get gangrene, whatever. Poor guy. This movie is, I would say, fairly plot light.

It's kind of a hangout movie. It's mostly like, what if you lived in the same house as john keats kind of and wouldn't you fall in love with him or live near him at least yeah their their romance doesn't have like rom-com structure no to it it's really just a series of conversations where they seem genuinely curious and interested in each other there's the one moment early on where charles brown who's scottish by the way i had to triple check oh okay sorry sorry sorry but brown is always scott sure but he does he does a a feather light brogue yeah no for sure you know where brown gives her the the fake love letter yes and he's like well do you love him like

you know like you know that that's the only rom-com moment i suppose yeah the sort of where brown's like it wasn't just you know like i was just fucking with you read that as a joke at the movie i think that he is being who he is which is sort of a sort of like i'll just start some shit maybe she has a crush on me or maybe i always read that as earnest of him if he's like maybe i'll shoot my shot yeah but it's like earnest with the the caveat of like i can just say i was joking that's my vibe yeah totally yeah you know you know what i mean like you know i can just be myself like can be the excuse sure if it doesn't go over i don't know i mean it's also like they have their like awkward meet cute right she's like fucking spilling tea and they're

he opens the door too fast you wear that you know like all this sort of like but then the scene where he finally sort of takes a liking to her is when he notices the depth of her empathy and the grieving of his brother like the the actual sort of romantic connection moment is like oh you feel as much as i do to a degree that is almost a hindrance. That's, I mean, the John Keats story. Yeah. A man would see a fucking flower and lose it.

John Keats is the best. Fran, what do you think of Johnny Keats? He's great. He's amazing. He is the poet I responded to the most of the romantics. I love that. And I love his sonnets, which I think are incredible.

And I think sonnets are the coolest form of poetry they are pretty good i love i was they got that little rhyme at the end you never see it coming oh and they got it throughout but it's the couplet a little couplet a couplet what's better i mean i like when poetry i had to read a lot of poetry in school and i try to keep up with poetry but i love when poetry has rules because i love rules you prefer that than just like all right baby it's gonna be all over the place i mean that's me baby that's me baby i like a ton of stuff that's all over the place but i even love like an invented form of just like here's my own thing but i i think i always work best with some kind of constraint i mean you're david baiting right now yeah no you can't say I love rules on this podcast

without knowing what you're getting. This is probably why we're friends. Ben and I are loosey-goosey. We like fucking kicking down doors. I'm married to a poet. Tree major. My wife is a poet. Married to a poet.

Beat, beat, beat. My wife is a high school English teacher. Yes, yes. But she was a poetry major and she writes poetry to this day and she loves poetry.

Is that her favorite form to write now? Absolutely. It's the only form she writes. Because we of course know that your wife and I went to high school

together. I know her better than you do. I've known her for longer. We're much closer than you and her are. In terms of life.

That's cool. Right? Is that cool? Sort of modern, yeah. Yeah, it's very modern that I sort of said like you know what i think you two would be cute together oh i didn't introduce them they met organically but i was like no i approve of this um but yes we were in playwriting class together

your wife is an excellent writer but i didn't know poetry was sort of her that's your thing okay um so anyway uh but yeah keats but keats she's pro ke. She's pro Keats. She's pro this movie. I'm a real Keats hoe. I love Keats. You're a slut for Keats? I am. I haven't read that much. But what I've read I like. The one I feel like I read a lot of in college was Byron.

Yeah, you see him? I'm not well versed. He's kind of a dang ass freak, but not in a good way. He's like a downer freak. Yeah, I don't know. There's stuff that's been more recently exposed like about him being kind of a creeper. Oh, he's canceled.

Yes, he is. Byron? Yeah, he got up to some shit. Was he a member of that Thomas Middleditch club? What was it called, the Thomas Middleditch club? It's the dumbest name. What is it? It's not like the skull and bones,

but it's got like a name that's like performatively kind of like dark. Cloak and dagger. Obviously some of Keats' poetry is about Fanny Braun such as Bright Star and

several others. He also wrote many hundreds of notes and letters to her that you can read that are super romantic. You know, a lot of like, I cannot exist without you. You know, my love is making me selfish. You know, like all this kind of like very beautiful, overflowing stuff.

You know what's a thing I really like about this film? The muse narrative is, you knowone and often oh sure reductive yeah uh to to the women who are then pegged as the muse right where it's like your existence was solely to inspire great great from a boy right sure i feel like this movie gets across a clear distinction that it's like the muse was their relationship. Yeah, I wrote this note down. It's like the verb of their relationship versus her as

just an object. Right, it was the love between the two of them, which was a two-way thing, rather than, exactly, her as an object, which I think so often these narratives reduce these things. And it was like the process and the craft of their relationship informed the process and craft of his work.

It unlocked different areas of his understanding to be able to love someone that fully for a man who clearly had that depth and sensitivity of feeling but had largely been told or told himself

I can't have a relationship because I got to fucking hustle 24-7 to make these poems work because I don't have a safety net to fall back on. Yeah, Sonic grind set. Yeah. Right. It's like it's fucking hustle grind culture because you're just like, look, I didn't come for money. I don't have any connections. I got to fucking figure out my way in here. I don't have time for a relationship.

I'll do that when I'm successful. Yes. That's the tragedy of this movie the guy died barely getting to enjoy himself or because right or you don't have any affirmation because he should ever get affirmation any of these things because it was a time that was even more um defined by class i also love it would be easy to make a movie about a romantic poet and have it just be them i don't know running in fields and you know communing with nature this movie could have gone full malik exactly yeah i feel a little uh overwrought because people think of romantic poets as

overwrought i think right where they're just like god's beauty surrounds me or whatever right and i think this movie shoots nature so beautifully but like mundanely and like it's not indulgent yeah it makes those environments feel regular but also obviously inspiring and it also weirdly makes its like poeticism conversational yeah that's what i'm saying man guys mostly just hanging out a lot of writing is hanging out that's what i'm saying it's not he's not like you know which i mean another one of my favorite movies patterson is also very good about you love your fucking poet incredible movie uh is also about i know he's translating it you're making a little face not crazy about that movie.

I'm similar. There's nothing I dislike about it, but I went into it wanting to have the fucking transcendent experience that Ben and David did, and I was just like, yeah, it's good. I don't know if we're... You don't like the wife. I like the wife. I don't know if the movie wants us to be laughing at his wife or with his wife and her quirky little thing. I think that's a fair question.

I don't know if she's a punchline or not. But I love her. I think that movie is very tender about their relationship. She's cute and their dog is cute too. Great dog. And he knocks over the mailbox. Great moment. But I remember seeing that movie with Jordan Hoffman,

friend of the show, who has a sort of similar relationship with his wife that those two have except that hoffman's a little more uh a little more avunculated than battered that uh adam driver's character yeah i dig this but he was like you know he was saying like hey she's like you know and i was like yeah you know i get it yeah anyway hey uh fun fact uh my uncle ken drove the famed uncle from midnightnight Cowboy DVD fame? Correct, correct, correct.

He drove that bus route. That same bus route that's in the movie. Oh, shit. Wow. Because he's a bus driver in Patterson. If no one's seen Patterson. Patterson spoilers. Yeah, he had been a bus driver in Patterson.

Did he like the movie Patterson? He did. Yeah, I was going to say. He likes this show, by the way. Shout out Ben. He started listening recently because I told him I had a download podcast. Yeah. That's so nice. We made I was going to say. He likes this show, by the way. Shout out. He started listening recently because I told him how to download podcasts. Yeah. That's so nice.

We made his fucking DVD collection famous. Yeah. Yeah. Ben Griffin threw Midnight Cowboy at me when I invoked it on the walks episode. I literally chopped a Midnight Cowboy. A one disker at your head. Yeah. Anyway.

So you're talking about nature. Can we talk about the interior design? Did you guys not? Ben is looking at us right now like he's about to tell us a secret. Because I've been watching a lot of HGTV. Okay. Okay. Really deep into just interior design culture.

Yeah. This movie is so beautifully shot but the rooms man because the romantic time in my mind you can make it all like gaudy and candelabras but you can kind of tell they like have money but they're not it's not like extravagant they don't have servants sure so it's just like you get this kind of mundane kind of like portrayal of that time oh i get what you're saying that like most period films like this there's like such a kinetic energy to the home because there's a staff and there's the structure of the functions and right the routines and all that and this is right it's got more of a casual vibe but like her bedroom like

to me i'm like that is, that's a beautiful design. I like want that for my own home. Like my girlfriend and I the whole time watching, we're just like, this is like, this is so gorgeous. Like this is like, like shit you would like see like as far as like interior design porn on Instagram now. But they're supposed to, the bronze are what? Middle class? They're not upper class, are they? No. But they're supposed to, the bronze are what? Middle class? They're not upper class, are they? No. So this is like that sort of

pastoral middle class where I think even like, you know, Pride and Prejudice, the Bennets are sort of like, they're middle class. They live in a home. That looks amazing,

but it's like, they're not the wealthiest. No, right. This is sort of simple, but it's like, well, it's like you watch The Simpsons and you go, so you're telling me

this guy's 34, he has a three bedroom home, and we're saying he's middle class i mean it's exactly like that i'm not even joking actually it is one of those things i feel like homer being 34 is like been talked about the whole last year i think he's 36 i always one of those 37 but it's one of those things that's fine i'm still younger right i feel right and you're like i feel like homer's age they're supposed to be lower middle class and he like owns the house. They have two cars.

All that just now is no longer like you're like, that's impossible. He was 34 in early seasons, 36 in season four, 39 in season eight, and 40 in the 18th season. He has sort of a comic book floating timeline. Anyway, yes, exactly.

It was obviously you could get yourself a little pile of bricks when you were you know just sort of middle class back then there's a lot less people they're not gaudy i think no no ben is saying like even that simplicity sort of simple like country life is really enviable but like this point but still nonetheless like fanny is too fancy for john because he makes no money obviously like even though fanny is also you know uh brown is like mean about her because she's kind of like déclassé to him right and he's like you don't need to be she she just likes ribbons like you don't need to be hanging out with her right um but like that's one reason their

romance is so genuine i think is that like you know they they really loved each other it's not you know this was not some she was not angling for this guy's fame or money yeah he was not angling for her like the security she could give him like there was nothing in their union that would have produced stability for money yeah money means nothing to them in this relationship and it's like you know a pastoral is like a type of poem and i think this movie functions in that way also where it just makes their country life look like the most enviable perfect natural place to ever be fairly fringy the life he was living right yeah and also i no sorry the thing that he's fucking up by being in love with her is that she could be getting married to someone who could give her a nice future.

Yeah. And that's what he keeps saying. He's like, someone should fall in love with you who can like fucking set you up because I can't. Yeah. You know, and I feel bad being in love with you for this reason. Like, it's a bummer. Those dances, though, man. That shit is like corny.

Oh, you think it's corny? I'm sorry. I gotta say. Oh, I like it. I like it. And gotta say oh i like it and plus rules too you learn the step you learn the rules rules get out of here at those anyone can dance when someone touches your waist that's like the most intimacy you've ever had in your life at that point and i'm like that's cool you have to i love those movies when they have the big dance oh and the dance card oh when the dance card is full oh no i wanted to dance with blah yeah and then some like like danny devito guy comes over he's like my turn and you're like ah shit he's on my card what do i do i do wish like like my middle

school dances had operated with those like i would have had a lot less anxiety if there was a clear structure i think parties now you just fill up your card and then you don't have to talk to the people you don't want to talk to. You're like, nah, my card's full. I gotta go. I'm not a party. Right. The thing I was going to say is that unlike, you know, watching all these Campion movies, it is such a through line. This sort of constant battle in all of her characters, or at least often her primary characters, between their sexual impulses and their intellect

right and how often those two things are at odds with each other uh and when that drive overrides it and works against their better judgment for for better or worse and this is a movie where like their attraction to each other is not really given that sort of force of animal sexuality to it. Like there isn't that sort of like primal impulse. It is just this emotional connection that is so pure and outside of all of these structures. And it's not them fucking wanting to like rip bodices or whatever. They just want to be close to each other.

They just want to be close. Which I think is sexy in its own way. It's super sexy. Absolutely. There's just not a lot of movies like this. Yes. And usually if I'm coming to some fucking euro financer with a hoop skirt drama yeah i might be promising like some bodice yeah and you know instead she's like no man this movie's gonna be gentle like there's gonna be like very effective kissing and that's the extreme the most extreme end of it yeah um yes but you know

apparently one shot greg frazier set up what campion described as a sea of daffodils and campion was like too corny too disney she said and so she was like get these fucking daffodils out and they had to like stop filming and get all the daffodils pull them all up that's funny because there's the scene with either you know the lilacs or the violets where it's fanny and the two siblings just sort of laying in those i like that that's not too corny a flower yeah daffodils i agree are corny um i mean speaking about the class and their relationship just for two more seconds i think the keats estate sort of grew to kind of resent her and like the position that she had in his life and did a lot to try to

discredit her and one of those things i think was referring to her as immature all the time because they had a sort of like little age gap with them and i think one of the things bright start is effectively is like her immaturity is reflected in her optimism that they can pull this off it's not that she's like not worthy of him it's that she sort of believes up until basically the end that like we're going to be fine. But that's don't you think that's also a reflection of the obsessive the obsession the cultural obsession with like great artists just being like pure geniuses who spit gold like they were just perfect and everything they did was excellent. Like not to fucking wait into this thing. I swear to God I'm not going to fucking wait into this thing i swear to god i'm

not gonna fucking go down this rabbit hole but there was the recent fucking wave of star wars discourse where people were arguing over whether shit and boba fett resembled george lucas's vision or not right this is all i want to say this is all i want to say about it right and there was this argument now where it's like this constant fucking back and forth of like was george lucas your messiah or was he an idiot savant who fell into star wars backwards right yeah and this idea of like well but george lucas fucked things up like he had all these weaknesses and these other people save star wars and all this shit and it's like the thing that weirdly feels removed from the conversation of how we understand artists at a time where i think more people want to talk about the process of how things are made and who the people are behind them and all that sort of shit is like good collaboration is a sign of a great artist.

It's not like you're a better artist if you know how to do everything perfectly and no one ever gives you any notes. Knowing the people surround surround yourself with knowing when to take their advice and when not to which influences to take which happy accidents to observe like which things you pull from in your life or influences in other art like that's part of the soup and i think people are obsessed with this idea of just like they're touched with brilliance and they sit down and they're fucking they do a perfect work and look at them it all came out of their head perfectly realized and it's like no like part of being an artist is being a fucking person in the world and meeting other people and pulling from them and experiences and all this sort of shit so it's like this weird contradictory thing of like the obsession with telling stories about

muses that romanticize that but turn them into objects and then also like the scholars who uphold these artists being like but like let's not give too much credit to this fucking person he was just the best he just was a fucking great poet what he just sat down he wrote great poems and he died you know what a great movie about this is what the wife what david just made such a thing there was a two messing the wife the book is actually very much about this and unpacks it a little bit more because that's the whole idea is what if there was a wife he did have a wife and she actually wrote the books right like in the movie she's he's just copying

she types a document and then he puts his name on it whereas the wife the book is sort of about you know a writer who goes home every night and has a conversation with they have a shared process yeah and she's like why don't I have a stake in this? Which is a valid question. Drive my car? Sure, drive my car. The movie kind of turns him into Milli Vanilli. The movie turns Jonathan

Price into Milli Vanilli. Oh, I was like Bright Star. Bright Star turns Ben Whishaw into Milli Vanilli. I want to tell you some more trivia facts that JJ dug up. Please. As part of the casting process, Campion required every actor

to recite a Keats poem from memory. And she was worried it would be repetitive and was like, it was so cool. Everyone did things differently. Their personalities completely disappeared. So that's one thing. Once she cast Whishaw on Cornish, she would every day require them to perform small unfilmed tasks together like exchanging gifts flowers anything like that she wanted them to just have like

a little unspoken bond on set um sense memory too yeah sure um and uh she about her great quote about wishaw i don't know why but i love cats and when i first saw ben wishaw i thought oh my god he's a cat he's like the most beautiful back black cat you've ever seen he's got this mysterious quality yeah he's a bit of a cat isn't he yeah it's a great cat in this movie too yeah oh yeah and obviously uh the first kiss shaw talking about it we thought a lot about how that should happen how they touch each other how they're very sensitive to every physical interaction they don't jump all each other all over each other small gestures speak volumes which is very much the vibe of the romance in this movie right you know yeah i mean little

little moments celine siama has talked extensively about what an influence campion was for her oh yeah but especially like obviously portrait of a lady on fire escalates to being more overtly sexual but the same sort of studied of the micro gestures and movements and the sort of space between them or lack thereof and all that sort of stuff this movie feels like so uh attuned to campion's take on schneider he's like jack nicholson so original his instincts what comes to him comes from outer space like that so like he's like completely different energy on this this set of like cool and with shaw giving you know abby cornish some flowers you know what i

think that's why i'm so surprised he nails the accent so much because he is much like nicholson one of those guys who i just think is like so behaviorally fascinating and having not come from like an acting background it talks about being pretty instinctual where something like getting a fucking lilting scottish brogue down feels like the kind of thing that like a drama school person knows how to like study and break down and he just feels like a guy who just has like a good psychology for being in a scene and behaving and reacting and all that sort of shit uh yeah he's fascinating and i fucking miss him being a movie this is the this is the great schneider quote what a funny guy this guy clearly is you should write more yeah for crying out loud yeah you have this beautiful feline guy keats who drags a chair under a flowering tree and farts out

the greatest poetry of the 19th century the process through which brown eked out any poetry was like passing a kidney stone so he's saying like i'm kind of playing brown with a tinge of like sort of Salieri too, where it's kind of like, this guy is just, I'll never be like this guy creatively. Like I cannot believe how naturally it comes to him versus me.

I think that's why that character is so protective of him too with this relationship. It's like, I know I'm living with a brilliant person and he shouldn't be distracted. Right, right. Because he thinks it's sort of his responsibility

to help this guy become a great artist because what he lacks and sort of the natural instinct he maybe can make up for in like connections and stability and all that sort of stuff. Schneider said this thing to me, I remember when we took this fucking subway ride.

What train was it? It would have been, it would have been the one train. We're going to go get him. The one train. It would have been the one train. We saw it at Lincoln Center. It would have been the one we're gonna go get the one train it would have been the one train we saw it at lincoln center it would have been the one train downtown wow um yeah but uh i was you know at a relative career nadir at that point but common had you know uh introduced me as an actor and he was like talking to me as if i was like the fucking contemporary of like

experiences with acting and shit and because we've just seen holy motors you get like very existential about like oh this weird thing we do for a living pretending to be these people and i just remember having this comment where it's like you know it's a weird thing i think about all the time that i'm like not like very famous and i'm not a movie star but i've like done enough things that at any moment in time there might be like two guys sitting on a couch in a foreign country watching me holding a gun

on TV that it's weird that these things I do are just sort of like that that's an image where it's like I would never hold a gun in my real life you know it's bizarre that I did that for a job and it's not like i'm fucking clint eastwood that has some mythic power but yet that image sort of still ripples like i think he's

a very existential guy in that kind of way come on blank check paul yeah i have failed him that line just murdered me i remember it's amazing sobbing in the theater the first time i thought remain so fucking gentle the first time i saw it well it's very unsettling the way he dies off screen which is like absolutely how of course that would have felt emotionally to her that he just vanished the last 25 minutes of this movie are so brutal yeah when i first saw this i was like i'm not re-watching this again i i don't i i yes this movie is emotional in a way for me that i can't like throw it on you know yeah remind me can we talk about the scene when he's like saying goodbye to her essentially when yeah and they both are sort of aware of like he's gonna fucking die before he comes back here right he says as much

he's like i don't think we're gonna see it's a statement it's like it's it's not even like a probably it's like look come on yeah and then they have their like imaginary conversation of like let's like say what we'll do when i come back and their way of coping with like this being their goodbye is like play acting the life they're not gonna get to live together it's tough it's amazing that's i i re-watched this a couple weeks ago and then i started it again last night just to have it fresh in my head and then i stopped it right after that conversation i was like you know what i got it yeah oh and i watched i have failed john keats just because i mean i love when he says that well the way he says it where he's like at first trying to be like bravado dude like right he's like you want me to

say it i'll say it you know i'm not afraid of saying it and then once he says he can't stop saying it because he knows like how much he failed him. It's so incredible. Not to besmirch them, but I feel like most actors in this role would have turned that into a spotlight they all knew scene. Like they would have totally gone for emotional devastation, total breakdown. Yes. It would make it a little more Oscar clippy in some way. The stomp is so good yes it's so like human and real life tantrumy yeah i guess what you're talking

about griffin is also the oscar clippiness of like there's catharsis he admits it and instead it's like he says this and you're like okay i can tell obviously tell obviously how, uh, how brutal this is for him. But also it's like, what am I supposed to do with this? You know, that's the thing. It's not the catharsis. He's not playing it as catharsis breakthrough in this moment.

I'm self-destructing and admitting the thing that's been eating away at me. He's playing as like, yeah, I fucking know. Right. You want me to say it? I failed John Keats. I think about this every fucking minute of my life.

He fucking failed him. He fucking blew it. Charles. He blew it. I mean, like you think about this every fucking minute of my life he fucking failed him he fucking blew it charles he blew i mean like you think of i've abandoned my boy i guess that that's a similar thing where it's like he's saying it because he knows he's supposed to say it at first right and then the more he keeps saying it the more you can tell right oh it's break the dam is breaking inside him right and schneider somehow makes the scene emotionally devastating despite only playing the scene in the key of the first I Abandon My Boy. And that character is not, you know, redeemed, which a lesser movie would work to find some big understanding. But he's also not a villain. But he's not punished.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. This film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. Lost to the White Ribbon, which I think is a good movie. Oh, yeah, I think it's a very good film. But I prefer this film, personally. But obviously she had won the Palme d'Or before. And then who won the acting awards that year?

That's a good question. Let's find out. Did you like the way I said that? Yeah, because these are two performances that feel very Cannes-ish. I mean, I totally agree. Let's see. So the jury president back that that uh year was isabelle

upair ruining ruling i'm sure so an iron fist and a velvet glove i can only imagine was haynes some director had like a falling out with her during a can jerk oh he he says that in a way james gray is funny yeah in a way that I think sometimes doesn't read in interviews. But whenever you see videos of him, you're like, oh, this guy's joking. He says that in a way that feels more jokey than maybe it comes out. Did they disagree about whether or not to put mustard on corned beef? I don't know. I mean, obviously, I'm going to say this is a wild jury because you got James Gray.

You got Lee Chang Dong. You got Robin Wright. You got Asia Argento. Asia Argento? I forget how you say her name. Yeah, a lot of Hanif Qureshi. You know, a lot of interesting cats. Best, the Palme d'Or goes to the White Ribbon, which was a mild surprise, I guess.

No, maybe Han Hannah had won before. No, he wins again for Amour. Am I wrong in thinking he's won three times? Has he won three times? Win for Piano Teacher? No, Piano Teacher won Actress or something.

It makes sense that she would go for her guy, though. Doesn't it? I just remember when like when he won he won the grand prix for piano teacher okay so no he had never won the okay because more is one of those things where it's like we just gave it to him but this is kind of undeniable like it was one of those things where they're like fuck yeah uh the grand prix went to a profit okay good movie yeah um best actress went to charlotte gainsburg for antichrist isabelle

what are you up to and best actor went to christoph waltz for inglorious bastards which was the first sign of like who is this fuck he's in the tarantino movie and he won can cool for her to do right definitely well but then also obviously then he just becomes the story of that movie right but good segue into me saying that quentin tarantino who was in competition against jane campion wrote her a letter saying dear jane bravo bravo bravo bravo four exclamation points sorry three exclamation points i want to correct myself my favorite film of yours i don't like period pieces like that i loved this never has heartache been so realistically and movingly

portrayed harp like it feels good in a place like this uh so heartbreak tarantino adores bright star yeah it's the best film i've seen since uh three musketeers 3d um it's always funny seeing his year-end list where it's just like oh it's clear that Tarantino weirdly only sees six new films a year right he sees like did he do a 2021 one I don't think he did come on Tarantino I know get with it let's see

I feel like he didn't though well what's this hmm no no this is some other shit yeah no he should do one anyway um and the movie got good reviews right i mean like it was well received i think it was like a critical darling that was hamstrung with a distributor that did not know how to properly release this and there was more vitality to the indie distribution world at this point.

Like this could have become a minor crossover hit. And I think it was just felt like apparition doesn't know how to make these things work. You know, it's that funny Oscar year where it becomes Avatar versus. Hurt Locker. Hurt Locker. Right. Which are these sort of. Right.

David and Goliath exes. But like both obviously. You know, and like obviously Inglourious Bastards. But like both, obviously. And like, obviously, Inglourious Bastards is a big movie that year. And Education. Education, right. Precious, District 9. Precious is a really big deal that year, right.

Up in the Air is a big deal. Yes. It's kind of a loaded Oscar year, but obviously... And that's the first expanded field year. That's the year where they make it 10. Yes, because the year before had been The Dark Knight. Right.

But obviously, it's a little sad this movie didn't get and i guess it's just because it's so quiet and gentle is also part of it it's i don't know that this would have broken through i think look i don't think it could have just because it can't be and i would have thought you know maybe i don't know i don't think it may could have majorly broken through but this movie made like less than a million dollars domestically. No, no, no. It made more than a million, I think. Let's see. I just feel like a Fox Searchlight or Universal Focus could have gotten this movie like two or three steps further.

It made a healthy $4.4 million. It made $17 worldwide. That's better than I remember. It pretty much doubled its budget worldwide. Like it didn't hurt anything anyone's feelings but yeah i agree with you that in the hands of a sony pictures classics or whatever probably would have because i even i feel like young victoria did better than this and that had the benefit of even though being released by apparition it had like a bigger star and it had

a more conventional like oh it's one of these it's like they're big it's bigger i just worry that that's a bigger and like i feel like the period pieces that were doing well at that time yes are like that's more traditional ones which are pretty big and yeah that kind of thing i mean young victoria it's just like we all know victoria and everyone's like old always old old lady big black dress and the guy's like you know what a lot not a lot of people know is that victoria used to fuck her husband 18 billion times a day and had like 20 kids and did you know no one knows this but uh steve from blues clues actually wrote the theme song for young victoria go right ahead that's a joke for two people yeah i've got to say i don't i don't know it he did the fucking theme song for young sheldon and people love to throw that out as a digital someone is speculating that lynch is playing john ford in

this movie i mean if that's true oh i mean i don't know what this movie is how how deep into spielberg's like career it's gonna get but Ford is the guy he meets Ford's one of the first people he meets God can you imagine David Lynch wearing an eye patch on screen you know what I can

can you imagine how much that's gonna fucking rock shall we play the box office game is there any more bright star we want to get to fran i love toots just want to say it i love this child yep i think she's so sweet she's so cute let me give you a quote about her actually but no sorry go ahead oh i just think campion's so great with kids and the kids feel so perfectly kid-like and hasn't done that many movies with kids but but always gets incredible, naturalistic performances from them.

Like, my favorite sequence in this movie is when Toots is sort of escorting them back from when Fanny and Keats have gone to make out. And that every time she turns around, they sort of freeze to kind of fuck with her a little bit. And I think it's such a gentle, jokey thing to do with a child. And I love when Toots tells John that she loves him. We've also talked about this a lot David but that like that's one of those movie star tests where you're like are you good with kids it's one of those things you kind of can't

fake where it's like oh you have good chemistry with kids you're either gonna be good at this or bad right your craft is adaptable enough that like kids act in totally different ways like any director who's good with kids talks about like you got to meet them where they are you know let me both of them are so fucking good with the kids let me read this quote as a perfect underline please that she was a champion on edie martin the actress point to it she was wonderful because she was such a baby she got frightened she'd say she had tummy aches i calmed her down by showing her how to create a bubble for herself it's easy you stretch out your arms and that excludes all the people who are making you nervous.

My job was just to help her relax and be herself. I told her to forget about the camera and then I left her alone. But I just love this image of Campion being like, make a bubble. That is so fucking sweet. Isn't it? I'm like really touched by that.

Griffin's moved by that. I'm really moved by that. There's that great Tom Hardy profile and maybe Esquire where like they run into like a father and toddler and Tom Hardy tries to speak to the toddler because I guess he like loves kids and the kid is immediately afraid. And Hardy has this great quote of like, I can see I frightened you and I'm walking away. It just immediately excuses himself. It's like, I see what I've done here.

I'm removing myself from the situation. But that weirdly shows you that he's good with kids. Absolutely. Absolutely. He's like, I'm not salvaging this. I came on too strong. I came on with venom. And I'm sensitive enough that I want to defer to you.

He's like, I can see I've upset you. I give you a high ground. Maybe it's like, I will disappear or something. It's so good. God, that's so good. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. Anyway, let's play the box office game.

This movie came out September 18, 2009. Not a good release date, in my opinion. Don't dump this movie there. That's that kind of zone where it's like... Right after TIFF, early Oscar. And you're like, is this going to be a slow burn? Do we need to long play it because it's not going to pop until November, December?

We've got to just keep it burning until then. And Apparition didn't have the strength to keep it going that long. It looks like they did this all wrong. It's unbelievable they were actually called Apparition it burning until then and apparition didn't have the strength to keep it going that long it looks like they did this all wrong yeah they opened it's unbelievable they were actually called apparition and that they were just like uh they put it on 19 screens that feels wrong putting on either like two or 200 like i don't know like anyway it opens number 33 okay i mean it's a small release obviously but this is a four out of five new movies week.

Wow. Okay. In the top five. So it's September 2009. Correct. And the first, the number one film of the week is an animated film that you're very fond of. It's not Hotel Transylvania. No.

2009. It's not Coralagna. No. 2009. It's not Coraline. No. 2009. Dude, you keep saying 2009. Yeah. No, no, no. Because I'm trying to think.

Animated film. The best animated film nominees in 2009 are Up, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Secret of Kells. Good movie. And was this movie nominated or was it snubbed? Let's find out. Animated feature film of the year. I'm like, is this the fifth

that I'm forgetting or was it really snubbed? It was not nominated. The fifth nominee was The Princess and the Frog. But this movie probably could have deserved a nom, but that's five good nominees, so maybe not. It's a comedy. It's based on a children's book. It's a comedy that's based on... What form book it's a comedy that's based on uh what form of animation is the cg 3d cg i might know go on is it cloud with a chance of meeple sure is

of course it's a great movie yeah it's a wonderful film but do you put it in those five i would i mean you know i'm not very fond of princess and the Frog, which you think is rude. I don't like Up. I also, Up is near the bottom of my pretty ranking. I think Up's pretty flawed, but there's things about Up that are impressive. I like Up. I just think it is very flawed, almost intrinsically flawed, in a canon that I think includes

double-digit perfect movies. Sure. But I guess I'd keep Up in. I'd put Cloudy over Princess, david would say rude rude uh number two at the box office is a based on a true story film from one of our great directors okay other three movies in that five are obviously undeniable bangers oh it's core line of film sure yeah absolutely go on um kind of like a satire comedy, black comedy,

physical transformation. It's The Informant. Matt Damon is The Informant. Yeah. A movie I'd like to rewatch. I've only seen the one time. Never seen it. Matt Damon.

He's The Informant. Yeah. There's that great Paul F. Tompkins bit about Matt Damon eating the cube. Yeah. One of my favorite Paul F. Tompkins stand-up bits of all time where he talks about being at a dinner with Matt Damon and Matt Damon eating the cube. Yeah. One of my favorite Paul Tompkins stand-up bits of all time where he talks about

like having like being at a dinner with Matt Damon and Matt Damon eats like a blue cube and Paul Tompkins is like why is no one talking about this? Why is he eating a cube? He shot it. It's like some weight loss thing that like only rich actors know. He shot it like sandwiched

in between two Damon action movies. Yeah or like an Ocean's End. Right. Like he had to look like Matt Damon right before and right after with no time. And there was this cube that somehow stabilized his weight. It's like a blue cube. You just have to listen to it because there's this moment where Paul Hopkins is like, what about the cube? Anyway, it's really good.

That's the movie. And I feel like this is a trick he has used a number of times since then. He certainly does it in Magic Mike and behind the candelabra and fucking the laundromat and all these movies. But that's a movie where like everyone in the supporting cast outside of Damon, Bakula and Melanie Melanie Lenski is primarily a comedian. Right. Yes, absolutely. It's like Joel McHale and the Smothers Brothers and Tom Papa and Paul F. Tompkins and all these fucking people. And I was just like, why is he only pulling from comedians? And he's like, in movies like this

where you have a lot of bureaucrats and government agents and these characters who are functionaries and have a lot of exposition, it can get so dry that I find if you hire comedians people who are innately funny and tell them to play it entirely straight it still gives it a little more energy than dramatic actors who try to turn it into something and i just think it's always interesting now where i look for that in those sorts of roles where it's like oh cristella alonso is like the cop in this because she'll just

give it a little something uh smart director that's a smart way to use i love him i'm excited for kimmy kimmy out next week kimmy kimmy number three is a tyler perry film okay 2009 would it love how it's a tyler perry film there's just such a vast amount of no but i think i might be able to get this is it is it madea Goes to Jail? Nope. Fuck. I think that's 2010. He's doing two a year. He's mostly doing about two a year. This would be a non-Medea, right? This is a Medea movie. Fuck.

Okay, but that makes me think she's not in the title. She sure isn't. Okay. It's not... Is it Meet the Browns? No. It's not Family of Praise. No. I don't think Medea's in that one. No, I don't either. That's why I said it's not is it meet the browns no uh it's not family of praise no i don't think medea's in that one no i don't either that's why i said it's not uh stupid stupid to even stupid dumb dumb dumb fucking idiot um okay stop stop don't fight this on the title stars an oscar nominee oh it's i can do bad all my life i can do bad all by myself good title i

shouldn't know that because the apartment i lived in in 2009 we got that poster when they threw it outside a movie theater we put it on those the thing with i love it came into the apartment that are like that that are like a flower with a face in it that are impressionistic versus the ones that are just like medea and she's like kind of just whatever doing something some of those posters are so fucking good the guy who was like the graphic marketing guy for lion's gate was like a genius and released like a coffee table book of all this work which is like really underrated in terms of how much he got lion's gate like stole like 10 percent of the market share of the u.s box office for those years just through posters and like billboards and shit and this is the poster i'm referring to

every tyler perry movie love it pretty much had two posters one of which was like sort of abstract poetic teaser and one of which was the comedy poster but it wasn't even necessarily that they be teasers they'd have both of them up simultaneously and just hit different markets this is the sort of main poster which is also still fairly dreamy and impressionistic it's the least but then you're forgetting with this that there was also a third poster that is a parody of the straw dogs poster right uh medea's they'd always like right they'd always do that like even going back to diary of a mad black woman like the main poster is a flower and then the second poster is like madea holding a gun to camera that's right um all right number four at the box office is one of those movies where i'm like i guess i remember what this is

oh fuck it's a romantic drama with two actors who i feel like at this point should be riding high yeah and it's kind of a star of how these actors really needed to be with other stars to with two actors who I feel like at this point should be riding high. Yeah. And it's kind of a star of how these actors really needed to be with other stars to be stars. This is a movie that like seems, it has the title and tagline of a fake movie in another movie. It's not Time Traveler's Wife.

No, no, no. That's way too good. Right. But this is a movie no one remembers. Uh-huh. This is a movie like in a movie, like a fucking Don John gets dragged to is a movie like in a movie, like a fucking Don John gets dragged to see this movie by Scarlett Johansson.

It's like, I hate chick flicks. I like porn flicks. It's not definitely maybe. That's what he would do. But it's like a definitely maybe adjacent film. Is it like a Sparks thing? No. Okay.

Is it based on anything? No. Huh. I believe the man is playing a widow. It's not Knights and Redanthe, is it? Okay. Is it based on anything? No. Huh. I believe the man is playing a widow. It's not Knights and Redanthi, is it? No. Okay. Good movie that Fran watched recently, right? I watched on a play.

Yeah. Well, my thing I want to say about it is a spoiler. Yeah. Well, don't spoil it. Okay. I fell asleep and I woke up 10 minutes later and the stakes had drastically changed. I was like, what the hell? But I love Richard. It's about a widower it's about a widower who's a good florist it's about a widower who dates okay

i'm gonna have to give you more clues um the star the male lead had just been in a huge superhero film the previous year okay 2009 it's robert diney jr no 2008 there was a huge superhero film yes and what's it called right so there's a big night the dark night yes he's in the dark night he sure is who's in the dark night oh oh oh oh is this the fucking aaron ecker jennifer aniston it sure is and what's it called love happens and what's the tagline sometimes when you least expect it love happens he plays like a motivational speaker correct he's a self-help author who is a widow yeah widower sorry and uh jennifer anderson is a florist and guess what they did this i was gonna say i've definitely never seen this martin sheen judy greer i think i've maybe seen this well

love happens it's opening number four but holy shit it's still beating number five a beloved cult classic that put its filmmaker and director jail will probably do her one day it would have to be it could be nothing but jennifer's body jennifer's body which could not even topple love happens no in its opening weekend this was its opening weekend number five opening it to six million dollars uh you've also got nine remember nine the italian no the other one the the the animated two nines in 2009 that was sure this is not the italian this was numeral nine this is the animated one correct it was like a student film that fucking tim burton and timor whatever his name is who did i do remember the fucking what

are those movies called the vampire night day yeah uh day watch night watch right yeah uh they were like this is the new guy and he's got a whole fucking world we're gonna make sequels and that movie came out and when focus was like releasing like a movies and like maybe we can release mid-budget animated films yeah and. And it made very little impact. That guy has like never done anything ever again. Shane Acker. I believe you. Yeah. Nine. Nine. I just remember seeing that trailer like

way too many times. Shane Acker. Yes. And it's got like Elijah Wood, Jennifer Colleen, Christopher Plummer. It's like all high-class. No Fergie, right? No Fergie. Be cool. You've also got Inglourious Bastious bastards i was gonna ask still in there still in there uh you got all about steve's because this is the sandra bullock flop hype year you know where yeah uh you've got sorority row uh don't remember that no that's a

that's like a 70s horror remake right with uh i want to say, Rumor Willis. Correct. I believe Carrie Fisher plays the headmistress or something. You're right. Yeah. And The Final Destination. Is that the fourth? Fifth? Yes, right. Because then they make Final Destination 5 after that.

It is such a box office. The was, yeah, it was like a slight reboot, right? It was kind of been a few years. It was supposed to be the last. They call it The because they were like, we're done right they run out of steam and then they add 3d on this one and it explodes overseas and then they're like jk jk final destination 5 it was supposed to be full finale that's getting rebooted your top 10 for bright star wow we're done. Fran, wow. We did it. Yeah. Wow, we did it.

Can I plug some poets that I know? Poet time, baby. I complained about poets a lot when I was in my graduate program because they lived around the corner from me and drove me insane. But the fact is that the economy of doing poetry as your job is basically the same now as it was in 1818, except there are more types of jobs people can have that they can do while they're doing poetry it's it is funny that this like there's this idea of like you should be able to make a living doing poetry and now all poets are broke and you watch this movie you're like that's never been like a booming industry no it's like even now it's like maybe there are three professional full-time poets

you gotta get the laureate yeah, the laureate and then two guys who should have gotten the laureate. Right, the runner-ups. But I went to school with a lot of great poets who I loved. And I just want to sort of, if you want to read books, Tracy Fuad has a great book called About Blank.

Anna Portnoy Brimmer has To Love an Island. Ananda Lima has Motherland. These are all books that came out. If you're like, I want to read an 80 page book, which is a great length of book to read. If you're like, I feel bad that I don't read more books. But then Spencer Williams, who does stuff at Bright Wall, Dark Room with me is an amazing poet. Sydney Jin Choi, Weston Ritchie, Walter Ancaro, Emily Luan. You could Google any of these people with poet and you're going to find a bunch of their stuff and these are like poets who I think are amazing who are all working

in different forms and doing stuff that excites me when I see and hear about it and it's tough because I think what makes poets now not unlike then is getting the book deal but that is a really really hard thing to do so most of them publish online and for free. Free for you to read. It's the one benefit that it is easier to distribute poetry these days. Absolutely. It is no easier to monetize it. Right. And I think poetry is deceptively accessible, too.

And I like the way, you know, she writes Keats explaining, like, when you dive into a lake, the goal is not immediately getting back to shore. It's being in the lake. And I think people are like, I don't understand poetry. Poetry makes no sense. And it's like, I think that's because you're looking for like a three act structure in a poem when they don't have that.

Whereas poetry, almost more like it's a quick bite of content. Like I don't even know how, what word I would use to describe. Oh my God. Wow. I can't believe, I can't believe you would summon it.

That's what Katzenberg should pivot to. $100 billion for poets. Do you think kids want to read poems while taking a shit or waiting for a bus? Maybe. Maybe they do. Poetry's good. Who am I to say they aren't? I love poetry.

Shout out to Edgar Allen Poe. Sure. He needs it. Poe's been hurting. That's true. He does need the attention. Actually, you know what? Poe, he's a great...

You can visit a ditch in Baltimore where they found him. There you go. Is that true? Ditch history. Ditch history. Rich history, ditch history. Yeah, fair enough.

Fair enough. Fran. Fair enough. rich history ditch history fair enough fair enough Fran fan Fran you're Fran I'm a fan you're fantastic

you're fantastic thank you thank you for gracing us with your presence and kindly gifting us with another Fran bump happy to do it

ready for for our Brightster episode you guys need it suplex struggling podcast I know you do pop culture happy hour we're just gonna fucking give him a pile driver this week this is one of my

favorite movies had to have fran i was saying this is probably the best movie i've talked about on here not to discredit aliens but uh i mean you've talked about some good movies you've talked about some pretty good movies you're lucky about the holiday skibbity do you i know that's a perfect movie sort of in another class well public enemies is. What about the holidays? Well, that's a perfect movie. Sort of in another class. Wow. Public Enemies is like the worst movie you've covered and it's a pretty fascinating film.

Totally, yeah. Right. Yeah. And look, you so kindly and generously plug some of your favorite poets, but you should plug your own work that people should read.

Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine.

Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine.

Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine.

Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine.

Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine.

Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. Fran Magazine. read fran magazine fran magazine.substack.com it's so good guys i'm having a lot of fun with it i'm ready to get bought out though after three weeks um someone should right oh yeah katzenberg katzenberg if you're listening um i would take the wordle deal oh i would take low seven um

yeah fran magazine.substack.com i'm on twitter and letterbox all under my own name bright wall dark room always has great stuff i haven't done anything with them for a sec but i'm editing and i'm helping out yeah uh you you you were very involved in the margaret issue right no i wasn't involved in the margaret issue because i only just watched margaret probably three months ago for the first time and had a meltdown yeah it does that to you huh yeah um and i was like i can never sit through this again but that issue is incredible yeah is it amazing stuff no i wrote for um best of 2021 on the souvenir part two perfect movie uh which which cut of margaret did you watch

i watch what was whatever was on criterion when it was on there so i think directors okay is that the good one? I disagree with some people, but I also just think it's interesting to watch both of them. I want New World style five cuts of that movie circulating. And there are other cuts that just have not been released. That movie unsettled the shit out of me so much

I can't think about it too hard. But in four years, I'm going to come back to it and watch it three times in a week, and then I'll be like, I'm in. Uh-huh. Can he make another movie? His Howard's End is so good. Can I plug his Howard's End?

I need to fucking watch that. Oh, Matthew McPhagen. Yeah. Folks. We love him. And we love our friend. We do. Thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song, Alex Barron, AJ McKeon for our editing, JJ Birch,

Nick Loriano for our research. We have a website now. There will be a website now by the time you're listening to this. I mean, I think it's happening. Yeah, I think it'll be... So just check social media for our website,

which now contains all the things I used to have to spend 25 to 45 seconds plugging individually. But we should say that if you go to patreon.com slash blank check, you can get blank check special features. We're about to go back to the matrix. Yes.

Back to where it all started. Back to the matrix. Have you ever gone back to the matrix? I have. David's giving me the wrap it up fingers. Next week, power the dog. We fucking caught up to present day. Arf, arf.

Woof, woof. Oh. Off the leash. Excited, excited, excited. So, yeah, tune into that. And as always, Pulk Night or come back. But every time we tell the story every fucking time. But in the early days of the show, we went in for a meeting with a big podcast network.

And they were looking at our numbers. And they said, who is the guest on this episode? You really do say this every time. It's so funny. And he was like, this is embarrassing to me now. I have no job. Where is this man? I want a job. I want to say something that's new.