Blank Check with Griffin & David - Chosen - The Hire

Episode Date: September 27, 2018

Griffin and David review the Ang Lee directed short film, [Chosen](https://youtu.be/Z6azAviqGvs), created as part of the BMW film series "The Hire," rank Lee’s filmography and briefly examine Clive Owen’s career trajectory in 2001\. This episode is sponsored by [Storm of Spoilers](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-storm-of-spoilers-a-pop-culture-podcast/id952917333?mt=2).

Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check BMWFilms.com presents A podcast! Okay That makes it sound like they're supporting this which they are not but if they want to give me like a roadster you know i'll take it yeah and i'm afraid of cars hello everybody my name is griffin newman i am david sims uh this is blank check with

griffin and david uh it's been pointed out to me that there's probably a direct relationship between uh my fear of cars in real life and my love of car movies oh like it's like how you like to walk up to the edge of the cliff but you know and go like oh right like that right right that it's almost like for me watching like really weird gonzo porn or something where i'm just like i can't believe anyone would do this you know right you know that's why you like a car chase my fast and furious my my my mad max is okay uh cars which i don't know if you've heard this but cars three makes cars cars two makes cars three you can't remember the joke it's that cars two makes cars three look like cars one that's what it is so that's saying that cars choose the worst correct. Correct. So 3 is better. Correct.

And 1 is the best. Correct. It's really just a way of you saying, my Cars films ranked by preference are 1, 3, 2. You guys want to start over? No, keep it going. Oh, I think, I mean, this is going to be the one. Yeah, keep it in, double it.

This will get us all the listeners. This is the one. Yeah, exactly. This is our first, I mean, look, I got to say, the game has changed because this is our first podcast post the envelope bit oh and it does feel like the whole the axiom is like you know honestly i listen back today and even though it's great on audio it almost doesn't capture how crazy i felt when that happened that was my fear was that it wouldn't translate we are basically just sort of

like pushing away from the desk kind of like holding our head in our hands a lot of non-audio audio bits. I think it's still it still works. I realize I said the axiom has changed when I meant to say the axis changed but I do feel like it's one of those things where people

think they get it. Sure. Like I see our listeners going like that's the greatest bit in the history of podcasting which it is but we have to be those assholes who are like it was even better live. Sure. Like I see our listeners going like that's the greatest bit in the history of podcasting which it is but we have to be those assholes who are like it was even better live.

You know it's like you watch the Woodstock film and you're like well made captures the spirit and you're like you had to be there baby. Right.

You had to take Woodstock. At least like you had to be near there. Right. Kind of hanging out dealing with your dad and shit.

Right exactly. Bleaching the pool. Yeah. Charging for towels. Dealing with your dad. Around there. Right. Exactly. Bleaching the pool. Bleaching the pool. Right. Yeah. James. Charging for towels. Yeah. This is a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and give a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy and flashy projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. Yeah. And this is our bonus little wrap up episode on our buddy Ang Lee. And it's a short film that he made called the chosen uh yes and it's part of a series called the higher uh part of the first season yes and this was kind

of a landmark thing in a lot of ways i mean this is like the first big example of like branded content where it was like a company putting millions of dollars into giving artists a blank check. Sure. Sort of, sort of, sort of a BMW blank check. Right. And looking at it and going like,

we will get the positive associations of being the benefactors of this thing. And I, I, to some degree think there's a future where 20 years from now, most of our content is made in this way like it's like i'm so excited to make this movie with uber and like it's a great movie about all this and then yeah at one point someone's going to take an uber like or or even less of an association maybe that it's just like coca-cola makes fucking tv shows and you just have

to go to coca-cola's website and they never mention coke in the show but at the beginning in the end there's a coke ad and you're just like well i guess coke's a pretty cool company like i feel like it correlates with like people not judging the platforms they're watching things on and companies how selling out like isn't a thing and companies realizing that people are smart to advertising now and that they know all companies are evil, that the only way for them to look good is to be like,

oh, this company like bankrolled like the lost city of Z? I guess they care about the art, you know? Bankrolled it but then released it

in April? Yeah. You know what I'm saying though? I do. But this was early 2000s. 2001. Yeah. And BMW hired like five of the best filmmakers

in the game people at different levels of their career i mean john frankenheimer yes in a raw two who was kind of on the up and up at this point he's post demore as peros that's it i think for him yeah uh ang Lee who was coming off of crouching tiger so he's sort of at like his p and then yeah wong kar-wai coming off of like in the mood for love right so like beloved art house yeah uh hong kong film director but not i guess it as big a name in america and then it was joe carnahan was the last one no no that's season two season two is when they hired all high octane filmmakers john woo joe carnahan and tony scott right and all of those shorts are like extremely sort of buzzy and expensive. Yes. Whereas these tend to be a little quieter.

Yes. Yeah. And then they tried to start it again in 2016. Correct. Neil Blomkamp did one and then no one paid attention and that was that. Right? Like I didn't even know they'd done it. Yeah.

I only found that out through the Wikipedia entry. I didn't even know they'd done it. Yeah, I only found that out through the Wikipedia entry. But the first one kind of made a really big splash because they were not commercials. They were shorts centered around a car, but you have Clive Owen who at that moment was like, this is the next big movie star. That was a lot of it, I think.

A lot of it. The Clive Owen thing. Right, that he had been sort of this British breakout in Croupier. And everyone was like, oh. And the Gosford Park this year park this year right someone's gonna make him into a big thing he i forgot was the odds on favor to be james bond like you forgot that the newspapers no i remembered it at the time but i guess you didn't live in england because i know all right shut up don't stop no don't cut it out look in england like literally especially when it's of time, like as it is now for a new Bond, it's like, it is so heavily discussed.

Like the sort of five to 10 people. I do know that the culture in England is, they will like, the papers will be running as if it's like a competition for that and Doctor Who now. I feel like they do the same thing. Yeah, Doctor Who a little bit too. But so that's a TV role and this is a movie role. They list the odds though.

Like I remember like before Peter Capaldi got announced, it was like you know like two to one odds that chihuahua telegia for gets announced as doctor who yeah there would be those things where like people would start betting and the odds would sort of respond to that and so suddenly people would jump up the odds and people oh do they know something but then often it would just sort of be some weird speculation boom like yeah but craig was sort of seen as like dark i'm saying craig was seen as the dark horse dark horse clive was seen as the obvious one layer cake sort of changed it a little bit but people are still like he's blonde he's a little too rough around the edges he's too scary not hot enough like those were which is sort of funny to think about now but those were the hits on him and people were furious

James Blonde was like the big rag people are always so stupid and the crazy thing is when they announced that it was him they released a promo image of like him wearing a tux with a gun and they tried to make him look a little more classical James Bond and in the promo image they like photoshopped his hair dark

right I remember the picture just to talk about this more like craig was the first time like they would always hire the guy who was always kind of the second choice for the role to begin with like that's who roger moore was yeah that's who timothy dalton was and that's who pierce bros was definitely and then it was like pierce like they had tried to hire him right exactly you know and like so when they would hire them it'd be like oh yeah okay that's logical craig was the first time where it was like they had tried to hire him. Right. Exactly. You know? And like, so when they would hire them, it'd be like, Oh yeah. Okay. That's logical.

Craig was the first time where it was like, Oh, well, like I didn't, I didn't think they were going to do that. It was Clive Owen. There were like two, I mean, Henry Cavill.

There were a couple other like obvious guys who were sort of just like handsome. Yeah. Englishman look good in a suit. Right. Just we're sort of, Hugh Jackman was heavily rumored at the time. It was never going to happen.

That was nonsense. That was, that was never, but he was apparently was heavily rumored at the time. It was never going to happen. That was nonsense. That was, that was never going to happen. But he was apparently campaigning for it very hard, but it was never going to happen. But yeah, the Craig thing was surprising and it ended up being sort of a statement of attempt.

But at the time, Clive Owen was seen as the heir apparent. Yeah. And I think, I've never understood, I think he's probably reporting as to why he didn't get the role. Maybe it was just that he was too obvious. I read a recent interview with him.

I was going down this rabbit hole the other day online, and he was like, I never had any conversations about it. Maybe I was being discussed a lot internally with them, but I never had any talks with anybody. Barbara Broccoli makes that call, you know? And I don't know how much she meets with people before she makes that call or any of that, right? But anyway,

this was sort of seen as a stepping stone for Clive Owen, who then does Born Identity, has like a big supporting role. He's the villain. And then proceeds to always flop whenever he's the leading man. Has one of these careers where you're just like, oh, I guess that guy is poison?

He gets that Oscar nomination for Closer and I think people are like oh and then he doesn't really capitalize on that he's one of those really fucking good actors who also has movie star qualities and it's never totally clicked I feel like Josh Brolin was kind of in a similar position until his big

year of the Brolin but every time Josh Brolin was the lead in the movie it would bomb so fucking hard yeah and people were like this is such a good actor and he's a movie star why is this not connecting um but this is like clive owens position they get all these big directors and they're like all you gotta do is he's the wheel man and he's like delivering shit which then friend and goran viznich are the others who were in the mix that's in. In the serious mix. So weird. It is weird.

Goran Viznic makes almost no sense. He's very handsome. Very handsome. Very bizarre. Yeah. Luc Besson openly ripped off this concept for The Transporter. The Transporter movies are just the hire. What if you could just hire a guy to drive a thing to another place and the thing is, ooh, weird.

There's something interesting about the thing. And it's a cool, chilly British man with a sly sense of humor. My bone's actually Irish, but yes. Is he really? I think so. I'll look it up. Wow. He's one of those guys. One of those stealth, you know.

He's one of those guys where when i was like growing up and women were like oh my god he's so handsome i'd be like really that craggle face guy with the round nose i take it back he's not irish i just made that up thank you fucking liar i mean pierce bronson's irish maybe i was just thinking that anyway yeah uh but now you thought he was too craggy face i thought he was crag i i thought he was so sexy when i was a kid i could not see handsomeness in Craig faces. Daniel Craig was the same thing for me. He's got a weird face. People find him attractive.

He's got a bit of an odd face. I saw him come on a taxi TV recently. He's the spokesman for something. I was like, I fucking get it. He's handsome. He's just charming as all get out. The hire. These don't really have a chronology these first this is interesting the first season is produced by david fincher and the second season

was produced by redley and tony scott and that also perhaps explains the sort of shift in tone i think so because uh fincher went off to do panic room right and then they become more sort of conventional action shorts. Yeah. Although I like the Tony Scott one I remember being, it's funny and weird. I kind of liked all of them. Yeah. They mostly existed on their website at the time. This was like pre, you know, a YouTube, anything like that.

In England, they would play them in front of movies. Really? Yes. Yeah. I saw them all the time in front of movies. That never happened here. Yeah. England loves pre-roll.

The pre-roll is like long. cut that out um but uh yeah no i do miss that kind of stuff i wish more uh pre-roll existed like that um there is sometimes when you go into the movie they're like a bottle you know sprite has sponsored this short film after short film competition it's a short film about like how you enjoy a bottle of sprite right the other thing that i that's gone on over time is so short films have gotten shorter and shorter where now they're literally 15 seconds 15 second sprite ads like they used to be like here's a 90 second like little gag like a little skit that ends with a sprite placement and now they're just like uh one sprite please and then that's the end credits and you always feel so sad because it's like

two film students who are like hi I'm Jack Tomlinson and I'm Tom Jackinson and we made we won the competition and then you cut to it and it's like make it two sprites and that's the end and you're like that's your prize is you got to make that

sprite is a delicious lemon lime doesn't even finish. What was the second fruit? But, like, yeah. I like that in other countries you actually get some shit. Like, I have Sea Center in New York

will play little documentaries. Pixar obviously does it. Disney Animation now does it. But I always thought it was cool when it seemed like Marvel was maybe going to move

in that direction. Actually, wasn't Lava technically one of the higher movies? Well, I lava you. Okay. I love my curvy volcano.

So these didn't play in theaters here. You could watch them on the website. Yeah, you could get a DVD. But this was the big thing. You went to a BMD dealership.

They like ran the fuck out. Like they make them as an incentive for people to go to a bmw dealership and then people would buy them and flip them on ebay and they started going for like a hundred dollars a pop they like would run out immediately yeah so then they produced more um but uh forrest whitaker is in the one car why one i want. Correct. And he banned it from being on the first DVD. Because, well, no, the first DVD, the first printing, it was on there.

And then he executed a thing in his contract that said that it would only be shown on the internet. So then they didn't have them on the DVDs anymore. So then the ones with the Forrest Whitaker one became really valuable. Then they eventually did a DVD with them back. i guess they figured it out with him and now these shorts are available again because they're a thousand video but there was like a period where these were really hard to watch and fine the one car y one is excellent i think they're all pretty

good the one car y one is yeah that's the best one uh this one is fun and uh frankenheimer one i don't remember very well. Tony Scott one's really good. The thing that's really interesting about this one, The Chosen, is that... Oh, the one that's directed by Guy Ritchie. I forgot about that one. That's the other one. Yeah, that sucks.

Yeah, that one blows. That sucks. Blows chunks. Yeah. The Ang Lee one was interesting because it felt at this moment like, oh, maybe Ang Lee has remade himself as just an action director. Right, so this is post-Crouching Tiger, pre-Hulk. Yeah.

So when you just hear, okay, you just did Crouching Tiger, which was like an arthouse action movie, but then played like a blockbuster. Now he's going to make a big action film for Universal, us and our naivete assuming that Hulk was going to be a conventional action movie, we were like, maybe he is now a John Frankenheimer. Maybe that's his new mold now. So it felt like, okay, this is him

playing in that zone. And now you watch this and you're like, I don't know if you had this reaction, but watching this short made me more excited for Gemini Man now. Because I'm like, he hasn't played in a pure action space. I know.

He hasn't just made like a fun genre movie. And we talk so much about how fucking good the action is in Crouching Tiger. And a lot of that's the choreography. You have to give your credit, right? Oh yeah. But that movie is, he has such a good understanding of how to construct an action set piece.

Sure. In terms of coverage, in terms of editing, and even sound mixing and score and all those things. And then this is another short where it's just like his fucking car chase is just so clean and sparse, you know, and economic and effective where you're

just like, I kind of want to see him shoot guys punching each other again. Like, I want to see if he's still got this... Punch guys shooting each other. I'd love to see him punch guys shooting each other. Ben liked that. Hey, Ben, did you watch this little short movie? No. Cool.

Cool. So you would say you did not choose it? No. Hey, David. Yeah. I got a quick question for you. Okay, okay. Do you like diving deep into a director's complete filmography?

Absolutely. I've actually been known to do that once in a while. But certainly not on microphone. No, no, no, no. Well, okay. More important question. Can you quote Kevin Bacon's best film, Tremors, word for word? Sure.

Probably. I mean, because you are a Kevin Bacon fan, right? You like to put a little bacon on the dish? I like to put a little bacon on the dish. That's right. David, I got great news for you. Yeah. Because those are two things you like doing.

Yes. And because you have no outlet to do them on your own podcast, what if I could recommend a podcast for you to listen to? Okay. The Storm of Spoilers podcast is for you, David. Oh, I know the Storm of Spoilers podcast. Look, it started out as a show about Game of Thrones. That's true.

Much like every show started out as a show about Game of Thrones. That's true. Much like every show started out as a show about Game of Thrones. Or some other extended franchise. Right, or a serial parody. But it's become a podcast that now covers all of your pop culture obsessions. From Star Wars, a thing we never talk about on this podcast,

to the complete works of Cary Fukunaga, something we probably won't have reason to talk about maybe four or five years from now. Yeah, give him a couple more. Yeah, and then we can talk about him. Some podcasts take several episodes to cover director's filmography. Lame.

Sounds too long. Ugh, extended. Unsustainable. Your hosts at Stormer Spoilers have been known to cram it all into one. Saves time. Saves money. It's like listening to a podcast at ten times the speed.

It's like the Geico of podcasting. the speed it's like the guy called podcasting right here's the thing david i'm gonna tell you this very secretly okay the name storm of spoilers is a pun on george rr martin's book oh yeah a storm of swords i read it much like logan's a western and while the show does like to dig into behind the scenes info it's not an all spoilers podcast anymore it's a good storm now okay like oro monroe ah the best storm master thief yeah not not like these hurricanes they're bad like ruben carter no no matter what wait a second storm of spoilers host neil miller joanna robinson joe roe friend of the show and dave gonzalez are always unflinchingly honest in their coverage

of the film and tv you can't live without sometimes they cheer and sometimes they denounce b i feel like the person who wrote this might have liked our show a little bit i have no idea what you're talking about it's available now on itunes stitcher and wherever you're already downloading podcasts like blank check with griffin and david yeah oh yeah that's a good one the bmw 540i is the car featured in this film because in the second season it's all the same car but in this one i think each movie had a different car they had to showcase them yeah yeah and they really don't like besides the fact that these are centered around like car chases or car stunts it's not like there are scenes where it's like oh i love this leather

interior no that's the thing that that was't do. That was what was revolutionary. There's not some scene where suddenly they're just driving for a bit, like in between scenes. Yeah. And Clive Owen's like, yeah, you know, this is power steering. You see him use the different features. Like the car is really just sort of like a central prop. It was a good idea. Whoever thought of this idea is smart.

Who said their sales so fucking high? Because, right, it was just basically the the memo is like cool people drive bmws right also this is the time when bmw sponsored james bond yes and so pierce brosnan pierce brosnan's bond drives a bmw for three bond movies which in britain was seen as basically like a national embarrassment really yeah fury that he was driving a german car it was like so bad and when he the aston martin came back i think for in die another day people were like oh thank god like oh britain really was on the rocks there and did did uh bmw still made his ice parasol for yeah i think bmw got uh yeah got bumped down to

parachute ice parasol but isn't that what he does does he like windsurfs on the ice i think no he windsurfed because remember it's like there's ice and then there's this sun laser that like vaporizes the ice yeah and so he like yeah ejects and he rides like a tsunami with a parasailing thing right but that was my joke but it's like the cgi is him you know a little dot and then you cut to pierce bras and just sort of going like yeah like this. Like it'd be clearly like one day at a green screen, just like wobble around. And you're also like,

oh, he's 60 now. He's an older man. Yeah. Yeah. It's easier, I think, to film older men doing practical fight choreography because they can make it

part of the character that they're moving a little slower. But when you have them do crazy CGI stuff, you're just like, my dad wouldn't do that. Brosnan is the last Bond and he is the same. All Bonds

until Brosnan were this way. He's just a person. Craig is the one where you're like, oh, it feels like if I punched him, my hand would shatter. He's made of iron. He's sort of built. It's probably only going to get more so the other part of that is that like um craig kind of plays him like a psychopath

which makes him scary craig has cold dead eyes right the other bonds were not scary no connery is scary i would say he's quite scary the others are i would say he's threatening versus scary no connery is a psycho connery's crazy uh like the thing where he tosses the toaster in the bathtub i mean he does that's he does shit in those movies that's crazy and he's just like oh and you're like oh my god the difference is that he like sort of like raises his eyebrow at the end a little bit right the camera gives dreamworks more is quite quite soft and lovely you know and not so scary yeah mr prickly pants rosin mostly is is just quippy but he does have moments where he's a little nastier and you're like oh you forgot

mr prickle pan uh dalton yeah yeah he's he's he's intense he was before craig he was seen as the steely bond right yeah because mostly because he made that movie where he just murders people yes license to kill zod Zodiac, right. Let's just talk about James Bond. Yeah. This movie, I don't know. It's like, yeah, it's a Mason Lee, Ang Lee's son. Right.

Plays a little like Dalai Lama-esque, you know, chosen boy. Daniel Craig drives him around. I mean, Craig fucking Clive Owen. Right. Which is, this feels like the one that may be transporters ripping off the most. Because the first transporter is theive Owen. Right. Which is, this feels like the one that maybe Transporter is ripping off the most. Because the first Transporter is the young girl. Right. And that juxtaposition makes it a little more interesting than the other ones where it's like you have a kid in there. And he's sort of like not really suited to be dealing with a kid.

Kid gives him a small box. It's going to be important later. It's going to be important later. And then, but the kid is some sort of new spiritual deity, a Dalai Lama. Right. Drops him off and sees that the guy he's handing the kid off to. There's a car chase first.

Right. I mean, it's hard to describe a car chase, but it's good. Well, there's that one thing where the guy shoots the one bullet, I guess. That's kind of cool.

But it's like good, clean, practical action filmmaking. And then, right. He takes him to the guy and the guy's like, oh, thank you, but can't fool the driver. Right notices that the the boots are off right he's wearing

like cowboy boots right yeah and he's like something odd's going on here so then the driver after what feels like that should have been the happy end sort of cases the joint realizes they're about to inject the kid with purple goo yeah i mean these things are light on plot yes light on detail very very little dialogue like they're stylistic because the idea is the driver barely talks right he's almost silent right he does say a little bit right he saves the kid but in the process his ear gets nicked he's rescued the kid he goes back to the car he opens up the box what's inside the box hulk band-aid and angley's like by bmw goodbye yeah i made definitely millions of dollars to do this goodbye but that's why i'm saying this feels like a statement of intent where it's like here comes angley fucking action

filmmaker i'm staying in this lane baby i'm using an action short to to point to the rafters babe ruth call my shot here comes another beloved action classic and then it's like familial sins of the father psychodrama you the hulk's a great movie it's a great movie yeah um i just i just sort of love that but i i do think like because we've said like what the fuck is Gemini Man? Not in a derisive way, but why is he doing that? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, apart from the appeals of the tech, like the de-aging. And also, I got a scoop, which I shared with you guys recently,

that I'm not going to say on mic because it's private information, but I have heard now some intel about the shit that Ang Lee's... That makes a little sense. Let's just put it this way. Ang Lee's up to his old tricks. He's not dropping his crazy tech anytime he is up to good i actually what um i didn't really like uh read anything about gemini man what does it have to do with horoscopes i honestly maybe it has a lot to do with horoscopes i really don't know what if it's it's actually just a romantic comedy about the guy who writes the horoscopes?

I'd be into that. Yeah. I just think, like, oh, after Billy Lynn, if he still is on this kick of trying to revolutionize filmmaking, maybe the way he gets to do that now isn't in a blank check way where he can apply

the technology to whatever he wants. Maybe he has to sign on to big studio package films and then use that as a vehicle to push his shit. Which, to me, I just go like, I feel a little bit of a sense of loss

of a, this is a man very connected with a place, Ang Lee, into the, this is a man who's trying to shatter the window of cinema angley right because i do think he was one of the great i don't mean to put it in the past tense but is capable of being one of the great like evoking a real sense of place and feeling david is turning around i'm aware no i was gonna say speaking of yeah yeah uh you know i'm saying that like my my one semester of film school,

semester and change. Sure. James Benning, who's like a- I can't imagine you in college. Really? I was so bad at it. How were you at,

like, showing up to class? So good at it. Really? So I did- On time? I did, yeah.

I did a full first semester, right? What happened? And I killed it, and at the end of it, I was like, I'm losing my mind. Called my parents, was like, I'm dropping out. They were like, eh, not so fast. Right.

I came back home for the holidays, then went back for another semester and was there for two months and was a disaster. Like, then I was a disaster. Didn't show up to class, stayed under the covers, like watching Bob Newhart show and drinking Mike's Heart lemonade. And I was just like a fucking mess. Watching the Bob Newhart show and drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade and I was just like a fucking mess watching the Bob Newhart show so not Newhart

the Bob Newhart show the Bob Newhart show the therapist one yeah it's good the better one the better one drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade correct

just drink lemonade or vodka no sir that's just poison that's a real grift don't put sugar in the mix no it was a real griff drink this was sad 19 year old griff yeah um but i was yeah i was a disaster then i couldn't imagine you like writing a term paper here's the thing so what about a the beauty shop thing oh jesus all right

yeah i blocked that out completely i had a class where we had to write a paper every single week. Oh. And I was so good at them. But it was like I had the free period right between lunch and back class. And I would literally write it after lunch. Like I'd just be like, you have 35 minutes. Nice. And I would write this like three-page paper.

And I got like really fucking good grades on them. Like better than this is the one thing you have to understand is I like came to school and everyone was like you're good.

Like I got there and all the teachers were like you're you're you're good. And I was like oh shit

I'm like the golden boy. And then I bottomed out so fucking hard. Yeah. Um but I wrote like four different term papers

on the whiz and got like A pluses on all of them which was like my big point of pride but the thing I was going to say was there was a class I really wanted to take

and they wouldn't let me take it because they were like we try to save this for juniors and seniors and I was like I don't know if I'm going to be here this long but you know James Benning

right? Yeah Right who's like an experimental filmmaker, and his big thing is he'll make a movie like RR, which is his railroad movie, and it's just a series of shots of train tracks that are interrupted by the train coming.

And it's like repeated setups, and you don't know how long you're going to have to wait for the train and stuff like that. And he used to teach a class called Looking and Listening. That was, he would take the class and bring them to a location and they would just stay in that location for like two hours and no one could speak my god and you just had to look and listen to everything like i'm gonna take you to a mountaintop and i was always like i kind of love that that's a class at a film school is one of the things that made me want to go to this school that i shouldn't have gone to in the first place sure was the idea of like it's just as

important as the technical stuff to have a really strong sense of a place an environment and a vibe and all of that and really make you like focus in on that and ang lee up until he started becoming crazy with technology was like one of the best living filmmakers at that love the space right and like you go to brokeback and you're, I feel that fucking mountain in the same way that you like. Coogan's doing a lot of lifting there. Steve Coogan. I mean, that's a great performance,

but I'm saying he knows how to shoot that performance. I'm not letting that dumb joke die. In the same way that like the houses in Ice Storm feel like very well observed and the countryside's a sense of sensibility. And I feel a sense of loss in him going into a very digital world because something like life of pi it's like him creating an environment rather than him being able to really feel an environment and know how to capture it um but who knows who knows who knows where we go i'm very excited for gemini man partly the angley it all, but partly just like I'm so thirsty for like a

successful Will Smith project. Me too. We love Will and we haven't got to talk about him much on this show. No. Apart from after Earth. Is that the only one? And we talk about Men in Black 2 all the time. But that might be the only movie of his we've covered. And I think

A. Well, we're going to have more chances soon, I bet. Winky winky. Always excited for a potential Big Willie comeback. covered and I think A. Well we're going to have more chances soon I bet. Always excited for a potential Big Willie comeback and Suicide Squad. I knew there was another one. And also it's exciting

when there's a big budget original action film. It's so rare. Which used to feel like a Will Smith thing. Even if it's based off a short story it's something that doesn't have a built in fan base. Where you get to build something. The supported cast is cool. Is Clive Owen in that? I believe so, yes. And Mary Elizabeth Winstead? Yes.

It's got cool people in it. People like to work with Ang Lee. Right. Gemini, man, let's see, it's October. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong. Who doesn't love Benedict? We should get him on. We met him once.

We met him once. He weirdly, here's a fact that will blow everyone's mind. One of our least liked episodes, Talkin' Mall, recorded live at the party space at the Upper Existence Brigade Improv Festival, the worst place to record a podcast. Not great, yeah. Benedict Wong was in the audience. He was. Hanging out.

He was with old buddies with The Witch, Peter Serafin serf and a witch okay my big blue friends yes uh and uh yeah he just like came up to us while we were getting ready yeah it's just like oh and i'm right you know like gave peter a big hug like let's go get sushi he was filming infinity war in atlanta yeah and he had a ride on downey jr's private jet he was like filming infinity war in atlanta yeah and he had flown a ride on downey jr's private jet he was like anyone else want to go to new york he just pitched yeah apparently downey jr was just like hey i'm going up to new york uh who wants a ride right right it was like him and ruffalo and a couple other guys on the downey express and then we just talked to him for a bit afterwards and we were both like so starstruck because that's our favorite kind of

character actor we love him i love him i've loved him since sunshine i think is probably the first time i've noticed him in a movie he'd been in things like look around you like little british comedy things he made up and the serf and which well no the way they know each other the star trek they did star trek live they did like star trek on the on the west end in england he was sulu and i think peter was kirk no he was the head klingon. Oh, that's right. Peter was the villain. Because he's so tall. And Bandit Wong was Sulu and they've been friends since then.

It was so funny because Bandit Wong was just like, we were like, what's the Avengers? How is that? And he was just like, oh, crazy. Oh, it's great, mate. It's great. Oh, running around. He's literally stroking his long Wong beard. he's got the long Wong

like chin beard what a good time that was yeah okay so he's gonna be on our next episode let's get him on Gemini Man

he's our guest on Parent Trap okay so let's before we wrap let's do our Ang Lee lists yes you got yours

figure it out okay I'm gonna let you go first and I'll have my list my Ang Lee there's 13 films I believe

right naughty 13 dangerous 13 number where should I go bottom to top or top to bottom let's go top to bottom

okay number one Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon wow number two Sense and Sensibility unsurprising number three

Eat Drink Man Woman number four Brokeback Mountain number five The Ice man woman number four brookbeck mountain number five the ice storm okay number six hulk i'll take it number seven wedding banquet number eight ride with the devil number nine life of pie number 10 lust caution all of those are movies i love sure you know i mean like maybe like ride pie lust cautioner movies i like a lot sure number 11 pushing hands number 12 billy lynn's long halftime walk bringing up the rear taking woodstock wow okay number one hulk wow what a surprise stunned something You like that movie? A little bit. A little bit.

Number two. I'd go Brokeback by a hair. Sure. By a hair. But then Crouching Tiger. I mean, those are maybe almost tied for me. Okay. Number... Oh, no, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I go Hulk, then Ice Storm. Yeah, I thought Ice Storm would be your number two. Yes, I'm sorry. It's Hulk, then Ice Storm, then Bro Ice Storm would be your number two yes I'm sorry it's Hulk then Ice Storm then Brokeback then Crouching Tiger

sure then I go Eat Drink Man Woman sure then I go number six I go Wedding Banquet sure

you like that one then Less Caution which really has grown for me since we watched it outrageous above Sense and Sensibility then I go Sense and Sensibility Sure. You like that one? Then Less Caution, which really has grown for me since we watched it. Outrageous. Above Sense and Sensibility. Then I go Sense and Sensibility. Then I go...

I go Life of Pi. Sure. Then Ride with the Devil. Sure. Then... You know, then you got your grab bag at the end there. Right. I think my order for the grab bag...

Grab bang. Jesus Christ. Oh, boy. I think my order for the grab bang Jesus Christ. I think my order for the grab bag Stop grabbing me. Meow, meow, meow. That was funny. Yoink.

I think my order is pushing hands then Billy Lynn then We have the same bottom three. Right.

You have to give Billy Lynn some credit for at least being a crazy experiment. I agree. Even if it doesn't necessarily work that much better dramatically although the good moments in billy lynn are better than the best moments in taking what's taking what's like has no highs taking what's like is the obvious bottom right

billy lynn at least has big swings and they're the couple moments that really work i agree billy lynn is too interesting to be bottom yeah taking what stock suffers from a lack of interestingness yeah and pushing hands gets the top of the grab bag because it has the scene where the grandpa plants himself in the kitchen and won't move yeah it's a pretty good scene it's a good bit pushing hands gets blotted for just being a movie with like a beginning middle in it like you know like it has that over billy lynn where you're like yeah well i mean i know what happened in that movie and it all made sense and it was fine do you know that if you don't turn off the the dvd for billy lynn it just literally goes on forever really yeah what do you mean at the end of the credits it just starts up with the next day in billy lynn's

life and it just keeps on billy lynn is like space it's literally just infinite ever expanding yeah ever expanding do you yeah your dad so buy Talking The Walk talking the walk shirts your dad created we've sold dozens I don't understand this I think we're

at the point right now we're like starting to get to the too big to fail moment where we're just gonna start farting out shirts at everything and then there's going to be the one humongous collapse yeah i'm sure we'll figure out a way to fail um but but for the time being we got we got some things in the hopper for the holiday season yep we're going to time it out with one of the uh the t public sales yes because they'll do big like holiday sales so we'll have a bunch of new shirts coming out at a time where it will be affordable and you can buy them for the blankies in your life we got a couple good designs I think

people once people have been asking for for a while yeah the great Joe Bowen he's not the father of blankies but he's the father of his daughter well I don't know maybe blank that out or maybe keep it in double

but big congratulations on becoming a father Joe Bowen big congrats to him I should say her name. Yeah, maybe blank that out or maybe keep it in double. But big... Yeah, congratulations on becoming a father, Joe Bowen. Big congrats to him. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again. People like Joe Bowen, people like Ang,

who have been working for the show forever, they get a good, healthy cut of those t-shirt sales. We wrote up a contract and we were like, this is a revenue source

for us to be able to keep paying them. Yeah. So just know if you buy merch, you put money in Joe's pocket, you're helping send his daughter to college. The blank check millions. Now next week. Yeah.

Is it confirmed? I think let's confirm it. Okay. We're going to do two. Two specials before we get to Nancy. I know everyone's thirsty for Nancy. There was a lot of hand-wringing about the order of these things because we have two things we want to do and we just figured we've done that in the past let's get back to that nancy will be uninterrupted other this way right

otherwise we're gonna have to interrupt her yes uh first off the final sibling choice episode my brother feeling excluded, has demanded a blank check episode. Yes. So we'll be doing a Jamesy's Choice, in which I probably would not call him

Jamesy on mic because I think he's embarrassed that I call him that so much on this podcast. Right. James has picked the movie Space Jam. Yes.

Which was sort of the one movie we thoroughly agreed on as children because he likes basketball and I like Bugs Bunny. We'll talk about Space Jam. We'll talk about Space Jam. A lot of context talk on that one. You think I'm joking?

A lot of context talk on that. I'm shuddering at the idea. Okay. It's not going to be some nostalgia critic fucking circle jerk. No. We're going to do a hard probing look at the crass commercialism of Space Jam.

Okay. And then the following week, we're doing a new release. We haven't done one in a while. And usually we only do them for our franchises, our old director friends. But then sometimes we just do a Jack Reacher episode. Right. And there's a film here that you feel like it's important to talk about. I think so.

And it's a rare debut blank check. I think so. Yeah, we got to talk about it. We're talking Star is Born, baby. We're going to do a whole episode on Bradley Cooper's Star is Born, the film that you predict is going to win him the Oscar for Best Actor. I do. I stand by that.

Davey on the record. Yep. A good call for you to make before you saw the film, and now you're looking more and more correct. I'm looking good right now. You're looking real pretty. Yeah. Your bags are glowing.

Uh-huh. So, next week, Space Jam with James E. Newman. Yep. Following week, Star Is Born. Week after that, The Parent Trap, and then we're off with Nancy. Mm-hmm. Nancy. Anything else you want to say about Ong?

No. I've enjoyed living in his films oh it's been great but it's been a long long run with on it's been a long run and it's been even longer because we sort of took a big break for filming in between we recorded like 60 percent yeah that's true so it took us a while to get him we started recording on in like march yeah which is crazy and now we're in sept, coming up the end of September. And we're just finally putting him to bed. But it's been a pleasure. I mean, what a weird fucking filmography.

David's smiling. He's great. I love him. I'm glad we did him. I knew he'd be fun and he was. He's probably more fun than I thought he would be. Yeah. And we always wanted to.

Yeah. Should I announce this here? I don't know. Our live event? he's probably more fun than i thought he would be yeah and we we always wanted to yeah um should i announce this here i don't know our live event or do we feel like it's not officially been announced let's just say we have a live event in the works yes related to the angley miniseries and we're excited to announce that as soon as we can right keep your eyes posted on social media yes yes but a lot of a lot of blankies. Keep on asking about when we're going to do live events again. When we're going to do this. When we're going to do that. We got something I'm

really excited about coming up. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. So look forward to that. Buy your Talkin' the Walk shirts. Tune in to Talkin' the Walk 2019. You can look forward to that a year from now. And I don't know. Anything else to say, Ben?

Ben, final thoughts? I tried, well, yeah, I tried to write some more fake advertisers. Oh! Oh! They're not good, though, but. Let's hear them. Let's hear them. Okay.

Guys, we got some sponsors we shouldn't forget to mention. Because the sponsors love to advertise on the bonuses. Yeah, of course. So guys, there's BeKeep. BeKeep? Yeah. Are you trying to find local beekeepers in your area? This makes it so easy

to find them and to get them to your home or your place of business. Bees? No, the keepers. Oh, the keepers themselves, right. The keepers of the bees. Although the bees might follow.

You have obviously, and I think about how many promos Ben has had to listen to, not just our show, but yeah. We recorded a bunch of ads right before this, and Ben said we had just hit the 50 mark, doing 50 ad reads. Wow. That's insane.

So then you think about like, for Snooki, she must be up to 4,000. Yeah, it's a lot. Okay, what else? What are other sponsors Well, of course then guys Of course. You're at the bar

you're short on money and you're thirsty. Classic situation. What are you going to do while with Sipper you can connect with people who have drinks. No E I assume, right?

S-I-P-P-R S-I-P-P-R Two P's. And now also it's a beta but there's a new uh sort of like offshoot called bumper and that's more of like for illicit substances that's to get a bump how do these apps work they hook you up with people who can sound illegal like sipper you're sitting at a bar i just want to investigate the internal logic you're sitting at a bar you have no cash nothing you take out your phone you download sipper, you're sitting at a bar. I just want to investigate the internal logic of this. You're sitting at a bar. You have no cash. Nothing.

You take out your phone. You download sipper. What happens next? Then you find someone in the bar who will let you take a little sip. Just a sip. So you get a sip. So the app tells you other sipper users who are at the bar. And if they're on the app, it means that they're willing to let anyone else come and take just us

and then you seamlessly give them like a dollar of course a dollar per second I mean it's actually not a bad economy yeah good little microtransaction

yeah right okay okay what else we got what else we got our final sponsor is HEMT so thank you all for listening please remember to rate review subscribe

David's left the David yeah I'm'm just hanging out just actively, full body email checking really putting his shoulders into it

thanks to Antford Goodall for our social media Joe Bone and Pat Rounds for our artwork Lane Montgomery for our theme song go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit check out our merch on TeePublic and as always be funny in demand Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Check out our merch on TeePublic. Yep. And as always,

Beachbody on Demand would have been a better one to say. Wait, what? Beachbody on Demand. Oh, how about Beefbody on Demand? Oh, yeah, see, that's good. Okay. Beefbody on Demand. You can turn your body into beef.

Thank you for calling the Burger Report hotline. 802-8-BURGER. Please leave a message with your FAMO type of burger and location, and we will try to put it on the podcast if we can. That's 802-8-BURGER. Hey, I'm calling to leave a burger report. This happened on July 22nd of this year, 2018. Steve Harwell of the band Smash Mouth happened to come into the restaurant where I work, the Orchard City Kitchen in Campbell, the Orchard City of California.

He came in on a Sunday morning for brunch and ordered himself our Loco Moco, which is technically, it involves a burger patty. It's a burger patty served over rice with egg and mushroom shallot gravy. It was a lovely meal. He came in, tipped well, nice guy. It was a good time. And, yeah, he came in, he ate that burger patty all good. It was effectively like a protein-style burger.

Yeah, it was a good day, good time. Thanks for keeping this open. Have a good day. Hello, my name is Alejandro Villarreal. My burger report goes back 20 years. My family and I were vacationing in Los Angeles and we dropped into this 1950s restaurant that had the burger theme. Now, mind you, this was 20 years ago, so I don't remember the name, but we saw Chris Rock, and he was dressed to the nines in a sharp suit with sunglasses

indoors. He was with a friend, and he looked like he was having a good time. Now, I just want to mention he had just presented at the Oscars. He presented the special effects Oscar for Titanic, and I only bring up that detail because Griffin had mentioned it in the Titanic episode so yeah 1950s burgers wild hey I don't know if this is the right number

but I am currently watching Amelia Diaz, the Blankarican, eat an excellent-looking burger at the Kiff Bell Lightbox Bar. Bye-bye.