Blank Check with Griffin & David - Eraserhead

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

In heaven (and in podcasting), everything is fine. Welcome to TWIN PODS: FIRE CAST WITH ME, a series on the films of David Lynch - former Eagle Scout and totally normal human man. With his 1977 debut feature ERASERHEAD, Lynch burst on to the scene somewhat fully formed as an artist, confused by normal social interactions and motivated by a seething hatred of Philadelphia. The last part of that sentence is only partially a joke. Join us as we discuss where Eraserhead fits in the pantheon of first features we’ve covered on Blank Check, where this film ranks in the “Dang Ass Freak” canon, whether we first watched this movie in a basement or on a “night porch,” the stress of parenthood, the origin story of McDonald’s mascot Grimace, and much more. Oh, and obviously - the Lady in the Radiator makes an appearance. You are not hallucinating, she is really there. This episode is sponsored by: Harry’s (harrys.com/check) MUBI (mubi.com/blankcheck) RocketRx (CODE: CHECK) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! 

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack 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 Blackjack I'm gonna go to the bathroom. The In podcasting, everything is fine. In podcasting, everything is fine. In podcasting, everything is fine in podcasting. Everything is fine. You've got your good things and I've got mine. In podcasting, everything is fine in podcasting. Everything is fine. You've got your good things.

And you've got mine. IMDB I think has an error. It says in you've got mine. I don't know if they do change the line. The last part or someone is just a fucking idiot. On IMDB. I don't know. Great way to start the mini-series.

Absolutely. Complaining about that. In podcasting everything is fine. It looks like it changes according to the lyrics I see posted elsewhere. It does today too, they do change. What do my hats off to IMDB? Oh!

Oh! I doff my chapeau to the crowd-sourced editing of IMDB. Did we get the tune of that song right? What do you mean the tune of it? It's a hard, I'm like, it's like a little atonal. This is great material right now. It's Lynchian. What this is, David, is Lynchian.

Devo covered that song as part of their live act for a while. It was the penultimate song they would do. Monas Mouse, Pixies. The Meteors would do it. A lot of people have done, yeah, the Pixies is on one of the John Peel records, I think. You know who else covered it? You know how they do the Peel sessions.

Yeah. I think the lady in the radiator covered it. I've seen her do it live a couple of times. You don't want to see that lady. That's not a good thing to be seen. I see her. I like her cheeks. I see her way covered it. I've seen her do it live a couple times. You don't wanna see that lady. That's not a good thing to be seen. I like her cheeks. I see her way too often. I like her cheeks. I just feel like when she shows up,

it's not because things are going well for you. You know what I mean? I don't know. She keeps showing up and telling me that things are going well. Yeah. I like her cheeks too. How do you solve that one? She's not a bossy round face.

No. But she's got a round face. Sort of. Lumpy face? She's not a bossy round face. No, but she's got a round face. Sort of lumpy face. She's got round things on her face. She's got a couple really round things on her face. That's definitely true. She's squirrely. Yeah. Is this the first movie covered that she's in?

Yeah, what's her body of work? Yeah, one of those interesting where you're like, huh, we've never actually done Nicholas Cage on main feed That's still true. Well wild at heart is gonna break that And likewise finally the first time we're covering lady in the radio. She's in the man who knew to She plays his sister at law Did that actor actually ever great question anything else great question. Is the bigger question. The lady in the radiator. I'm seeing here as herself.

No, her name is Laurel Near and she has no other credits. That's what I thought. She's a one of one. Yes. David, what is this? Who am I? Where am I? My goodness, this is Blank Check Podcast. Oh my God, with Griffin and David, I'm Griffin. Wow, I'm David. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography.

It's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. And today we are starting a new mini series as voted on by our listeners in our March Madness competition.

Today we're talking about David Lynch. Who? David Lynch, David God damn Lynch. Wow. I thought you were gonna do your thing. Which thing? Where you set up a new mini series. And then I'd say there's like a ticker tape creator.

I was thinking, what is that? Do I hear steam and clanking in the distance? Did someone just go, ah, ah, ah? Some weird guy. Did a bumpy, lumpy man just pull a lever? With like a teapot in his torso, just goes like, thunk.

What's this mini-series called? It's of course called, Twin Pods Firecast with Me. That's what you've decided to call it. Don't make it sound like I have strong arm with the situation. If you have a better idea, feel free to speak it right now.

Lynch is the one we haven't settled, but I think it should be Twin Pods Firecast with me. Was that my text? Correct. A very well written text. It's really just kind of jumping off the screen god fucking energy on that text I think we should have called it the straight podcast that's what you said no I didn't say I said that sounds fine

both Maria and I were like yeah sure whatever who cares gives a shit I had someone asked me a friend the other day about like which parts of doing the podcast have become annoying or tedious versus which parts I still enjoy. And he was like, the coming up with the sweaty nicknames must be a thing that's like a burden. Not for this guy. That's the fucking juice. That's what I'm in it for.

It's the most exciting time of the year when I get to crack my knuckles. Where can I cram these words in? So a while ago, we had our March Madness competition where voters, listeners vote on what director we're going to, it was in March. Oh, right, March. Which director we're going to cover on our podcast. The theme of this year's bracket was people who had never been in a bracket before and There was a conversation much like the year that we included Kubrick for the first time Yes, I've just like is that unstoppable is this putting jaws into the the tank into the aquarium?

Well people just sort of automatically go for this one and in both cases the answer was yes and in both cases we went we're putting them on there because we would happily do that series. Yes, that is true. Yes, I mean, we would not have included these directors if we didn't want to cover them. Now, was covering Stanley Kubrick a giant chore? Yes.

Yeah, but Lynch is gonna be easy. I think this is gonna rock. I mean, watching all the TV is sort of exciting but hard. Everything else, I'm just like, this is gonna be great. Yeah, and Lynch fans are famously normal. Yeah, but I'm a Lynch fan, Griffin. And you're the most normal guy there is. You're proving my point here.

And so we are going to begin this mini series. God, get the energy. In a really unusual way. By covering the first film he ever directed. I know it's weird guys. We're gonna do it. That's the kind of lynchian thing we wanna do this week is cover the movie Eraserhead.

Now David. Which he directed first. He wrote and directed and produced it. David, I don't directed first. He wrote and directed and produced it. David, I don't want to be passive aggressive here. But when Ben and I were here in the studio, ahem, early... You can't brag about being here early because you watched the movie here. That's called doing high. I'm just saying, exactly.

That's regular. You can't brag about it. It was regular as hell. We were having the world's most regular time sitting in a dark windowless room Watching fucking a racer head and I mean a lot of people have watched a racer head in Basements with their friends at parties and this place is not technically a basement, but it's like one. Yeah We recreated that sort of vibe. Yeah, I threw out to Ben I said and we've had this type of conversation before but I liked the idea of doing a formal accounting of it

to be somewhat reductive. We cover all these first films on the movie, the nature of the very podcast we do, and I'd say they generally fall into two buckets. One is rough draft for basically who that director is gonna be, what type of film they're gonna make and perfect later. And the second bucket, which I was saying, surprisingly at this point,

we've covered a lot of movies. I would classify this way. Masterpiece on the first time out. I'm looking at this list. So you have, you and Ben have put a list together of the debut films we've covered on blank check. I think a couple of the things you have as masterpiece are a stretch. Okay. I do think there is a third bucket, personally. Like for example, in here, under masterpiece,

you have Pushing Hands, the angry movie. That is not what I said. Ben wrote that down wrong. I said that was rough draft as hell. All right, okay, so let's take Pushing Hands out there. Ben, not to put you on blast. No, it's okay, I made a mistake. Okay, you have, fine, there's other examples.

You have like the Castle of Cagliostro by Miyazaki. Now, I love that movie, it's lots of fun, but that more feels like it's like, you know, strong out of the gate. Masterpieces to come, right? But not, you know, George Miller's Mad Max, that's not a masterpiece. Like that's where it's just like, yes,

he had all the tools right away. Whereas then you also, some of these other ones such as like Piranha to the Spawning, you know, only a fool, that's James Cameron's first film, would call that a masterpiece. That's a classic rough draft. Pushing hands to rough draft. Pushing hands. The loveless to rough draft.

Yes. But I'm like, thief, Guy arrives fully formed. There are so here are the ones that I would agree with you. The Wachowskis bound. Cameron Kors say anything. Sure. Absolutely. James Brooks is Terms of Endearment. I mean, possibly his best movie and it was his first. And broadcast news.

I agree. But I'm just saying possibly. Uh, Iron Giant Brad Bird. Yes. Parent Trap Nancy Meyers. I might quibble, but it's a very entertaining movie. I don't know if I call that a masterpiece. They were, you know, Nighthawk Theatre of Williamsburg has been doing like weekend matinee brunch screenings of Disney movies. Yeah, because they can't do that at the process of Williamsburg because of insane Disney rules about first-run Disney movies. Yeah, because they can't do that at the process of work with these programs because of insane Disney rules about first run Disney movies.

Correct. And so those movies so rarely play rep screenings and Nighthawk Williamsburg has been a run while with them, which has been great. And I took my two little cousins to see Parent Trap semi-recently, eight and a half year old boy, four year old girl, took him to see Parent Trap, fucking wrapped attention. Yes, it's a good movie. It's an masterpiece. I don't think a four year old being at Wrapped Attention is an automatic confirmation of a masterpiece.

I'm not saying that is my entire argument for it being a masterpiece. It's not a masterpiece. It is. No, it's not. It is. It's a good movie. It's maybe her best film.

No, it's not. But it's It's a good movie. It's maybe her best film. No, it's not. But it's your easiest film, if that makes sense. Easiest film to dub a masterpiece. Right. Okay. Pee Weeswig Adventure, I'm with you. Yep. Michael Mann's Thief, yes. THX 1138, no.

Rough draft. No, that's a really good movie. That's a really interesting movie, and it's a really formally adventurous movie. I do not interesting movie. And it's a really like formally adventurous movie that I would, I do not put that in the same bucket as praying with anger. I'm, I'm being, I said this general. I have three buckets that goes in bucket three. This is okay.

Also coming in with this angry third bucket. I think this is great because this is a living document. Yes. All documents are alive. I, I, if you delete a document, document, you're hurting its feelings and it dies. That's my next pixel. I put this together and some of this, I even want to say we, we kind of got into some business talk, so I added some of this stuff and made some of these calls.

So, so by all means, make changes. And when you say living document, it's living in the same way that Eraserhead's baby is. Yeah. It's this ungainly creature. And when you say living document, it's living in the same way that Eraserhead's baby is. Yeah. It's this ungainly creature. And it's crying. Hey! Mad Max, I think that's my favorite bucket, bucket three.

Love and Basketball, I'll put it in the masterpiece. Give it a name. Boys in the Hood, sure. Give it a name. Dark Star, that's a tricky one. That's a really tough one. Because it's such an important movie. Yeah. I don't know if it's a tricky one. That's a really tough one. Because it's such an important movie. I don't know if it's a masterpiece,

but I also, I don't really want to fuck with Dark Star. Evil Dead is kind of the same, where it's like, obviously the man made more accomplished films later. But it's raw and ready and interesting. I think Dark Star you could call a rough draft even though it rules. Dark Star's pretty rough. Yeah. Darkstar's rough. Yeah, admittedly so.

Sweet Charity, I wouldn't call that masterpiece. That's in Bucket Three. Nightmare Before Christmas I would put in masterpiece. Yentl, I think you like more than I do. Really? But I would put in Bucket Three. Yentl's good. Well, we are famously the two most barbestration-obsessed men in the world. Perfect Blue, yes.

Yes. Going in style, I'd probably Bucket 3. It might be a lowercase m, but I think... I... I... It's a really good movie. It's good as hell. Dances with Wolves... Now, this is the most interesting one.

But he won Best Picture and made a gigantic hit. I don't know what to do with that one. And people will probably be yelling at us about that episode for years for 18 different reasons. But I'm like, I look at that and I'm like, this is a rough draft for what he fucking figured out later, even though the world responded to it at the time as a masterpiece. Well, the rough draft category just now, because I think listeners, this is a terrible way to start this mini-series, but who cares? Praying with Anger, Mimic, Chalmah, and of course, that's rough draft category just now, because I think listeners, this is a terrible way to start this mini series, but who cares? Praying with anger, Ram Night Shyamalan, of course, that's rough draft.

Piranha too. You put Christopher Nolan's following in there. I think that's fine. The Loveless, Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat or what, you know, the Corman movies. Christopher Macquarie's Way of the Gun. Sure. Fear and Desire for sure. That awful Park Jenwick movie.

Oh, for Transylvania put in the masterpiece bucket. No mads. The McJurner movie pushing hands for sure. And then you had this is my life for Efron. I mean, that's that's in Bucket 3. That's Bucket 3. I want to hold your hand. Same great mouse detective. Same New Leaf.

I would put that in. That's a two friends. The campion sort of TV drama. Put that in Bucket 3, I guess. I would do rough draft for that. but I won't argue with you. Yeah. Shallowgrave. Shallowgrave. They put him in a shallowgrave. That's a third bucket. I think that's a third bucket.

Pretty close, though. It's close, but I think it's a third bucket. Alien three? I don't know, man. I don't know where you go with that one. Well, he would say... He'd say put it in draft bucket four. The fire bucket Light it on that. I think it's got to be a middle bucket just because I agree how complicated

The birthing process three ages the Keaton movie. I would put that in the third bucket I'm like the guys really good already. That's a middle, but he's got ways to go. Nonetheless They put him in a shallow. I think I want I want someone, James Austin Johnson should do Trump describing the plot of Shallow Grave. You'd like to hear it? We should ask him to be on the podcast and then just say, Just be like, but what would Trump, how would he describe the plot of Shallow Grave?

He's like, yeah, I love this movie a lot. I saw it when I was in high school and we were like, but when did Trump see it? I think what he's trying to say with the lady in the room is she's sort of like, you know, she's helping him accept the terrible things he's done. And we're like, yeah, but like, it's a shallow grave. He's putting nails through the floor.

The lady in the radio, very crooked. I don't know where that, that voice went somewhere else. It was somewhere and then it was very much somewhere else. It was like, very crooked. I'll say, I'll say. So we're here to talk about racer, racer head as I call it. You said this is a great way to start off the episode and you were being facetious, but I do think this is one of the key bolt from the blue, holy shit, who the fuck is this guy, fully arrived masterpiece.

Now obviously he will iterate. His next movie is like, let me try to make something far more narrative. You know, he'll make better films. But this guy's entire career. Some people would disagree with you. This. Well, that's a good point. And also his entire career is just like, holy shit, who the fuck is this guy?

He's this. What do you mean who is this guy? He's David Lynch. He was born, of course, in Missoula, Montana. How silly of me to ask. He went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I mean, there's lots of things. I have a whole dossier I can open for you.

We will in a second. We're going to talk about David Lynch. We're going to talk about his film, Eraserhead. Before I open the dossier, I wanted to ask you guys, when you first saw the film, Eraserhead. I think I probably saw it when I was about 13 or 14, rented it from TLA Video, my local video store. David's doing a nice face. It's cool. I got on DVD, which infamously this was no, I'm trying to wonder if I watched it in DVD or VHS. It was infamously not on

DVD for a while. And then Lynch sold it himself off of the absurd a website and it came in a weirdly shaped box. Oh boy! That guy can't do anything normal! It was like a big square box Ben and then inside there was just like a loose sleeve with the disc in it. He probably f**king did it himself. He just had to do everything in a weird way. But I either... TLA was like a weirdo video store chain, the Sir and Philadelphia, they had a Lynch shelf, I rented it. It was absolutely a movie that I felt, oh, if I'm going to be a proper film nerd,

I need to see that. And that was placed in my mind largely from how many cool older teenagers I looked up to. Correct. With cool taste. That's right. Who wore- That's why I asked this question. Who wore the t-shirt? Yeah, and just would talk to you about this movie

like it was something they had found in a gutter, right? It was to me, one of the ultimate VHS movies that your cool friend had seen. And they were like, there's this thing in it, and you don't even know, it's maybe a real dead alien. And certainly. You don't even know how he got it The point in time where I'm coming to it. I'm hearing all of that, but it's also like

David Lynch is one of the most feted filmmakers at that moment Shh, I guess by the time you are seeing the film, Mulholland Drive has come out. Yeah, right So he's kind of hot hot and stuff again, Right. But it still was like, I feel like even decades later, when he is beyond established, when young people discover this movie, it is still almost experienced the way as it was when it first leaked out, where people are like, you won't believe this fucking thing.

This thing came from Mars. My friend Colin, who was like, maybe the one I looked up to the most of the hip older teenager friends, had a shirt that was Eraserhead the soundtrack. And I was like, this guy's seven steps ahead of me. I'm looking up to the kids wearing the Eraserhead shirts and he's like, no, no, the soundtrack.

Ben, my best friend growing up, his name was Tim, his older sister, Lisa, who was like, so Gen X, like that's how I remember her in my mind. She was so cool. I had a huge crush on her. She showed us this movie or rather she didn't watch it with us. She would never do that to herself. Too cool. Way too cool. What would have made you respect her less? Yes. But she she gave us this to watch VHS.

Yeah. In the basement. Yeah. I porch. How do you watch the port now at night? This is a tough day. Yeah. I was going to say daytime on the porch. It's a night portrait. It's got to be. This was a night porch. Yeah. Yeah. Because I saw this movie in a basement, 100% in a basement at like a house party

when I was 13 or 14, whatever it was. And someone being like, what if we like put on a racer head? What? Now here's the question. OK. Because I feel like often with me and my friends, we would like talk and have commentary. You're not just sitting quietly. We were all little. Oh, blowing whistles.

We were all little. Slide whistles. We had smoked maybe a little bit of the yes, just the pasta. Yeah, the devil's lettuce. And we were just silent the entire time. Just like awestruck. Right. Right. Yeah, I had. It's also not a movie where you can be

like, where's this guy going? Walking down the street or weird. You know, like you can't do dumb commentary quite. Yeah. No, I have a very visceral memory You can't do dumb commentary to it quite as easily. That's gotta hurt. Yeah. No, I have a very visceral memory of my off-referenced 12-inch TV VCR combo in my bedroom, watching this late at night when I probably should have been sleeping on a school night, less

than a foot away from the screen. You know, feeling the static of the screen against my face and just being like, this feels like I'm watching a transmission straight from hell. Watched alone. You watched in a basement that silence with friends at a party. Oh, I watched in a basement friends of the party. I'm not sure that there was dead silence. It wasn't a James Wan movie down there.

OK, one comedy. Thank you. But Ben apparently watched it in Dead Silence. Other than when a car would drive by. Right, like a semi, maybe, like a rumbling. Which probably helped. And I'm sure on the porch, the beautiful soundscapes of this movie were not really coming across maybe in the midnight air. Probably not.

No, but that's a good way to watch it. not really coming across maybe in the midnight air. Probably not. No, but that's a good way to watch it. I just, that's why I asked, because I do think of this movie as even when we were kids. An activator. You know, when it's years, years, years past its initial cult status. Yes.

It is forever the cult VHS movie you watch in a basement. Remain mythical. Now obviously you watch the 4K Criterion. Excuse me, it's a 4K restoration, but in fact, they've only to date released it on a Blu-ray disc. That's fair enough. You're right. I mean, there is a certain point where I'm like, I'm not sure everything needs to be on a 4K disc.

No, I was just watching the disc here. There's only so much upscaling you can do for these movies. Well, upscaling is rude. I mean, sometimes it is a pure just 4K scan, even an 8 or a 12K scan. But I was watching this and it's like, it is weird that this movie now exists in a form that looks this good. Looks wonderful.

I cannot imagine it looking better. Right. But it's not like it looks like cleaned up in some bad way. It looks it looks perfect. It looks wonderful. I mean, a film shot in an entirely different way. It was shot on 60 millimeter reversal, which is like the most... I think it was shot in like a bug. You don't know what I'm about to say. I was doing a joke about, you know, how David Lynch does stuff weird.

Yeah, he does stuff weird. I was watching George Romero's Martin, a film I'd never seen before. I've been on a Romero kick. Never seen Martin. A fascinating movie. Is it about Martin Lawrence? Yeah. It's a... I'm sorry, I didn't finish the title. I. A fascinating movie. Is it about Martin Lawrence? Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't finish the title.

I was watching George A. Romero's Martin Lawrence run till death. Thank you. Martin, it's the vampire one, yes? Well, a very weird version of a vampire movie. Someone thinks he's a vampire. Yes. That movie was shot on 16 millimeter reversal stock,

which is one of the most limited analog mediums imaginable that has been remastered for 4K recently. And everyone's just like, I mean, they did what they could. It's on a 4K disc, but like, you're basically looking at the most high quality scan of a terrible raw image versus this movie is like impeccably shot. I'm pretty sure he shot it on a bug to do my joke again. A bug that was going.

Are you going to demand another point? No, I don't need points. I'm not in it for the points. I've never counted. If someone wants to count, I would tell them not to do that because that's not what you do. Excuse me, it's the first rule. Exactly. If you're keeping track, you lose all the points. So, Eraserhead.

We all rewatched it. You have a good time? I did. Me too. Here's what I found fascinating, just to front load the conversation. When I watched this as a teenager, I had all usual, what the hell is this guy smoking?

Where did this fucking come from? This guy's a dang ass freak. I appreciate the craft of this, but this is just like, this movie is just insanity. And then watching it again today, I hadn't seen it in a while, and certainly not at this level quality of image and sound. I was like, oh, this movie feels incredibly coherent to me

and wildly autobiographical. This thing is such a straight line. I would agree. I, yes, I do not think of this movie as hard to follow. No, when I was 14, I processed this as if it was the Cree master cycle. I completely understand because the way he presents images when you're new to it, it does feel like,

it almost feels like a parody of a surreal film. Totally. I suppose. But I think the stickiness of this movie is that it is not that, even if you're at an age It almost feels like a parody of a surreal film. Totally. I suppose. But I think the stickiness of this movie is that it is not that, even if you're at an age where you cannot quite decipher that part of it, you can tell that there is an intelligence and emotionality behind it that isn't just like, check out some weird ideas I have. And I was like, this is like his fucking Edward Scissorhands.

This is his like, the whole world makes no sense to me. Everyone views me as a freak. I think you're all the freaks. All of this is overwhelming. And Edward Scissorhands, Burton hired a fucking screenwriter to make it into a presentable studio film that children could understand. And this is him just doing the pure raw expression version

of basically the same idea. Like this is my relationship to existence and the world. That's interesting. That was my read watching it again today. Okay. And for those who are at home, just so they get a full grasp of how affected Griffin was by watching the movie, his hair sticking straight up in his hair.

Wow. It is pretty cool how his hair sticks up in the air like that. I'm like five inches taller. David Keith Lynch. Keith, this is middle name. I didn't know either. And this is why we paid JJ the big box. To tell us something that is unknown to anyone who has never

looked this guy up on Wikipedia. David Keith Lynch, born 20th of January 1946. Hey Griffin, David, I've taken 25 books out of the library. I think if I get through all of them, I'll figure out what his legal name is. David Keith! Yeah, we don't even. I call him David!

There's like 20 pages in this thing. I'm not going past Keith. Born in Montana, of course, Missoula, Montana. His parents, Donald and Edwina, everyone called her Sonny, met at Duke University. They each served in the Navy during World War II, got married in 1945. Then Donald's, you know, dad, Donald Lynch becomes a research scientist

for the US Department of Agriculture. So they moved to Montana. So you got David, you got second son, John, you got sister, Martha. But son John, you got sister Martha. But what were their middle names? I don't know. Then JJ is FIRED. He's FIRED.

He's never been more FIRED. They live in Missoula for a couple of years, they moved to Idaho, then they're in Spokane, Washington, and then Durham, North Carolina, back where the Dukies met, and then they moved to Boise. So Lynch was really all over, but a lot of it is up there in the northwest.

By all accounts, lovely parents. David says he had a really idyllic childhood. He says the only thing that disturbs me is that many psychopaths say they had a very happy childhood as did he essentially. It was like a dream. Airplanes passed by slowly in the sky. Rubber toys floated on the water. Meals seemed to last five years and nap time seemed endless.

And the world was so small. He's describing the life of a baby right now, I will say. My childhood was great. Bottles filled to the brim with milk. He's just like he's talking about bath time and shit. Crib walls as far as the eye could see. Of course we're gonna have much fun doing David's voice on this podcast. Goo goo gaga as I shook my rattle. The parents encouraged him to pursue his passions such as painting, drawing. His mother wouldn't give him coloring books, didn't want to restrict him, right?

Into coloring inside the lines. God, what then? Beautiful dramatic irony when Dune the coloring book came around. Very true. And his life was full circle. So he says I would draw ammunition and pistol and airplanes. The war was just over, the war was sort of in the air.

I had an army belt in the canteen and wooden rifles, things like that. He didn't go to the movies much, says it wasn't really a big part of his childhood. He said maybe I'd go on Saturdays or whatever, but more he liked music. He liked Henry Mancini and Sandra Dee. He liked to watch soap operas. It's weird, all these things you're saying, I don't see any of these influences in his work They seem to have not entered his bloodstream and he's definitely not someone who kind of like soaked in American ideal and then reflected it back in us weird ways or anything like that He was a popular kid at school. He was a little league first baseman He swam and he was famously an Eagle Scout Which I feel like when I was a teenager and I got like the

Mulholland Drive DVD and it said like David Lynch, you know, had like a little, you know, author photo essentially, and it just said like Eagle Scout, you know, and you're like, it is far and away the funniest thing about David Lynch. What? That he was like a nice boy who like was on the little league team and was an Eagle Scout? Yeah. And he basically always is just like, I'm normal and boring.

And everyone's like, are you lying or are you correct? And that's the weirdest thing about you. He's he's no, he's correct. He just figured out a way to talk about what's in his head. That's a little different and interesting. And and thus he gets a blank check mini-series about him the ultimate the pinnacle of art pomdor more like palm dork Academy Award nomination no win though more like scab

I mean a board nomination spelled s h. He got an honorary Oscar. I don't think he has gotten one yet, which is kind of wild. Let's see. Let's find out. You know, those slip those bias these days. Jackie Chan, Steve Martin. He's been nominated for four Oscars. His career, three as director, Blue Velvet Elephant Man, Mahal. And and then screenplay nomination for.

Which one? Which do you think? For certainly one of his most popular with the Oscars. Mulholland? No, Elephant Man. OK. Mulholland Drive got a sole Oscar nomination for best director. It's a pretty cool thing. Wild. Yeah. And no, he did win an honorary Oscar in 2020. OK. Nothing else was going on then. Yeah.

He remembers going to visit his maternal grandparents in New York and New York making him feel fearful. The subways weren't real and the sounds. So, you know, he, he's that, New York is kind of like crazy to him. In 1960, they moved to Alexandria, Virginia. That's where he spent his high school years. Popular at school, lousy student, good looking guy,

part of the fraternity, charmed his way through everything. He's not an outcast. No. That's never been his role, says Peggy Revy, who's someone who worked with David Lynch. It is a thing that does get discussed enough, in my opinion. What?

Bizarrely handsome man. Who's married to David Lynch, I should be clear. He is a good looking guy, yeah. And if you look up young David Lynch, you're like, yeah, this is like, you know, this is a square jawed American kid. Credible head of hair. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. In college, where does he go to college? Well, he goes to AFI later. Yeah, I'm not talking about that. Well. I'm just telling you what I know. This is a fucking disaster. This episode? No, this dossier. JJ?

The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C. Interesting. Was he going for fine art? Art school, exactly. Gets to know some people, meets Bushnell Keeler, a fine art painter who's the father of one of the students he was with. And it changed his life.

He says, Toby, who is the son of Bushnell Keeler, did two things. He told me his father was a painter, which completely changed my life, and he stole my girlfriend. Well. Sorry, Toby. Okay.

I went to visit his father's studio in Georgetown. His father was very cool. He was on his own. He wasn't really part of the painting world, but he was devoting his life to this and it thrilled my soul. This is basically him seeing a model of a professional artist for the first time in his life.

Correct. And he's saying just like a bomb went off in his head. It's like, you can do this. Like be a painter. The other big friend that he makes in high school, Jack Fisk. Hell yeah. Production designer, of course. All time legend. All time legend.

Plays, as we all know, plays the man in the planet in Eraserhead. Sissy Space X, hot husband. Yeah. One of the fucking greatest production designers in history. Still has rudely never won an Academy Award. What did he just he got another nomination last year right which is he built a fucking town yeah but they had to give it to poor things I can't remember there was poor things was that what if steampunk but fucking that movies that good I have no problems with that I'm not I'm not objecting to that

what's that voice I feel you're just doing the Verhoeven voice I guess I don't know cuz I bailed on it as I was saying cuz I didn't want to sound like I was Being snarky about the movie. What is steampunk? What fucking? It was just one of those things where I was like, well Jack Fisk nice nomination But certainly he's won before realized he had and then was so irate that he didn't win So he studies a little bit of Corcoran as as I said. Then he moves on to study at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Jack Fiss starts going to Cooper Union, but he drops out and goes to see Lynch and Boston.

Both are feeling kind of disillusioned by school. They're not that into it. As Lynch says, school is like a house. It's the people in the house that can be a problem. I was not inspired at all in that place. It was tearing me down because I had such high hopes. So we went off to Europe. So they chaperoned a trip of like girls to Europe, like rich high school girls.

Like we're going on a trip to Europe and Lynch and Fisk kind of like hitch a ride with them and then they go to Salzburg and they're going to take some classes. And then they return to the States without having taken any classes. J.J. I'm not sure we need every single fucking part of the itinerary. Yeah, but now I'm just imagining like young Jack Fisk and David Lynch in basically what you just described, which sounds like a national lampoon movie set up. It's like carry on fine arts.

It's a British comedy. David, I knew what you were saying and I'm giving you five comedy points. Then they eventually end up at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Partly they want to avoid being drafted because there is the Vietnam War, but partly they're just kind of doing stuff. So Fisk stays there. Lynch, it seems like just keeps bumming around, he takes odd jobs, does weird, paints people's houses and stuff. Worked as a janitor, worked in an engineering firm, what? For half a second here, can you name Jack Fiske's only three Academy Award nominations? This is vaguely ascending to me.

Go ahead, just tell me them. 2024 Flower Month. Twenty sixteen The Revenant. Two thousand eight there will be blood. Done. Yeah. Well, he builds you nice, cool wooden structures outside. But he's been doing that since the fucking seventies. And they've only nominated him three times.

Yes. The thing with Jack Fisk is like he was, you know, he stopped working. Well, he started directing more. Exactly. Like, so it's like in the 70s, he's got all these amazing credits like Carrie and The Day of Heaven and The Paradise. But it's like, you know, those movies that are too cool for the Oscars back then. You're right. He takes. And then it's like he's gone until Malick resuscitates him

for Thin Red Line. Yeah, you're right. Which a little crazy that he didn't get The nom for that, but I think war movies that are set outside. They're like, what did you do? Yeah, right? Down some jungles. Yeah Alright girlfriend, be quiet for a second while I speak. I, David Sims, am now speaking to tell you about... I don't know. I feel ripped off all the time when I'm online shopping.

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Okay, so Lynch and Fisk, they hook back up together again. And Fisk is like, you gotta come to Philadelphia. Like I'm actually, this is actually good. Like this is the first time I've been in a school where I feel like thrilled and excited. And this city has a community of artists. So that's exciting. So Lynch was apparently, he talks about,

so I've always thought, Eraserhead is his Philadelphia movie, right? It's about his time in Philadelphia. And it's about living in a shitty neighborhood. He talks about it all the time, that he lived in like... Look, if you want to hear about Philadelphia being a great place to live, don't talk to David Lynch, because every quote is him being like, we lived in a real bad area. All of Philadelphia is a bad area, really. There's a couple of nice areas, but a kid was shot to death half a block

down the street and our house is broken into twice and the window was shot out and our next door neighbor had windows kicked in. You know, like it's the late it's like the mid seventies in Philly, I guess. So there's like that. But I think it's also just like Lynch clearly true or not has this like, you know, image of his life in his mind of, like, I lived in Paradise Americana until I grew up, and then I had to live in, like, this scary city that was so weird.

I was going to say, it sounds like he has this particular access to grind with Philadelphia, but this also just feels like his city movie. Like, this is him processing, like, how do you people live this way? Right? Yes, but the other thing that happens, this, I said 70s, but actually this is him processing, like, how do you people live this way? Right. Yes. But the other thing that happens, this I said 70s, but actually this is the late 60s. Sixty seven. Peggy Reevey is classmate slash girlfriend. Gets pregnant. They get married really early. They have Jennifer, who, of course, director in her own right,

is the director in her own right, and is involved with a lot of Lynch's movies. And she Jennifer was born with like clubbed feet. She had like You know a lot of corrective surgery they had to do when she was young and all this stuff To me this movie is just very much about like having a child you can't take care of absolutely sick, right? Yeah, I don't know if you guys grasp the metaphor of the weird alien. There's pretty complex You're saying that the baby in the film is a metaphor for a baby. I know this sounds like really warped and surreal, like the thing that's crying and is like weird and small and that she gives birth to when she's pregnant.

That's supposed to be kind of like the baby they had. Right. Because in the movie, Eraserhead himself is a father. Right. And that is a metaphor for the fact that David Lynch was a father. Did he confirm that they had sexual intercourse? I don't think so. He never confirms it. That's true.

For all we know. He's a big cock. And he should be played by Jason Clarke in the film. Yeah. Clarke would be good actually. Clarke actually could play Lynch. It'd be great. Clarke could play Lynch. He could do it the film. Yeah. Clarke would be good actually. Clarke actually could play Lynch. It'd be great. Clarke could play Lynch.

He should do it right now. Yeah. So around the same time, David Lynch then, at some point joins the AFI. Well he enrolls, you say joins. I'm trying to remember. David's brow is furrowed. Well I'm trying to clarify, no I think he's still in Pennsylvania

when he makes six men getting sick Yeah, six times that is his first first proper short film. It's a one-minute film Of these like weird casts of Jack Fisk's head throwing up. Well, we'll be doing a little about this shorties Episode on patreon. We'll probably say a lot of them are weird. Yeah spoiler alert We'll probably say a lot of them are weird. Yeah. Like spoiler alert.

I know. We are now, but what if I say they're normal? Well, that and that's of course, the weirdest kind of shit. Like that's the kind of shit that the fucking Joker would do. And if you keep saying shit like that, then they're going to give you a goddamn Oscar. So each Barton Wasserman, who's a former Academy student, likes this and gives Lynch a thousand dollars to make another movie. And... Sounds like a good time.

Right. For the American arts. Where you could make a fucking film of plasterheads vomiting and people would be like here's a thousand dollars, do another thing. That leads to The Alphabet, which is another Lynch short film that's really interesting, which we'll talk about.

These are kind of pre-verbal films, he thinks of them as, right? Like there's not really script to them, obviously, they're just images. Visual experiments, explorations. He submits this stuff to the AFI, the American Film Institute, if you will. And the AFI gives him $5,000 to make the grandmother.

Okay. And that is sort of a big break in his life. That's another Lynch short film, We'll talk about that too. And he uses that to apply to AFI Center for Advanced Film Studies. And then moves to the sunny Los Angeles, right? Yes, all the films you have just cited are on the Criterion Eraserhead disc.

Yeah, and I feel like they were on whatever. There was like this disc maybe that was like David Lynch short film that I had. Yeah. Yeah. But what shape was the packaging? Normal. Maybe. He was just always doing weird shit and selling it from his website at a time

where that seemed off on guard with his own media releases. Anyway, go on. He was he was very DIY with it in his his charming lynching way. Well, and this fascinating aspect of Lynch, which is like quietly, he's kind of a mogul. He's been really smart about controlling the rights to a lot of his stuff. He's business minded.

In a way you wouldn't expect. Right. Yeah. So AFI, Martin Brest attended AFI a few years later. And he talks about it as a pretty put together place. This is like early weird sort of shabby AFI, few years later. And he talks about it, you know, as a pretty put together place. This is like early, weird, sort of shabby AFI, I would say. Tip of the spear. Right. You know, people make it movies as like something you get, go get to go to

school to study, that's still pretty new. So Lynch starts working on a 45 page script called Gardenback, which is based on a painting he'd done of a monster. I like that. Caleb Deschanel. You heard of him? Absolutely, the big D. The cinematographer wants to shoot this film.

Okay. So they somehow get in touch with Fox. And Fox is like, we'll give you 50 grand if you want to turn this into a feature. This is what it's like to fucking listen to this time. I know. Where you could do some weird shit and people would be like, why not? Here's a little money. Do some more weird shit. We'll see if it ever pans out. And but Fox is like, but you know, this is 45 pages long.

You would need to make it longer if we're going to make a feature. And Lynch said, quote, this hurt his head. And he didn't understand that concept. And, you know, people are saying to him, Frank Daniel, who's a teacher of his at AFI, is And, you know, uh, people are saying to him, Frank Daniel, who's a teacher of his at AFI is like, you know, the film will need like scenes where people talk to each other, for example, right? Just to kind of fill it out. And Lynch is just like, what would they say?

And I'm sure everyone at AFI is like, I don't know, man. Fox is trying to make your movie. This goes back to my read of eraser is trying to make your movie. This goes back to my read of Eraserhead being the movie of his perception of trying to engage with the world at large. Yes, people talking to each other. That there's things that people do and say where he's like, I don't understand and this hurts my head. Jack Nance looks like his head hurts the entire movie.

Is that fair to say? Yeah, for sure. That's his pained grimace. But not grimace from McDonald. No I mean, you could I spoil this what is the next miniseries we're doing on the show grimace the works of grimace We're changing format a little bit for year 10 What is grimace do? What does he do? Well, it's like the hamburger like steals burgers. This is grimace like clean a bit Like does he do anything?

grimace upon inception, was supposed to represent. He was like villainous, right? He was like a evil creature. I think so, but the other thing is that he is supposed to physically be a taste bud. Uh-huh, they apparently said that. Are you serious? Isn't that insane?

Apparently they said that later. His name's Grimace. Yeah. He initially, I'm reading now, he initially was introduced as an antagonist who would steal milkshakes. This is a genuinely good use of our Eraserhead episode. And then yes, later apparently some McDonald's spokesman

said that he was a taste bud, but that may have just been someone popping off without Ronald's approval or whatever. Here's the thing, I think that- I don't I think that guy looks like a taste bud to me. I think that's insane. But so the only thing more insane than that is there being no explanation for his physical form. What the fuck is he supposed to represent?

Why does he look that way? I don't know. Did he also start out green and then turn purple? I think is true. So, OK, you know, anyway, these people are having these meetings with David Lynch trying to be like, hey, could your movie have like a script and stuff? And he's like, I don't think so.

So Lynch tries, he says, but what he says, what he wrote was pretty worthless. And he knew he'd watered it down. So he's feeling very frustrated. So instead he starts work on Eraserhead, which he'd been thinking about in the summer off from school. Here's feeling very frustrated. So instead he starts work on a racer head, which he'd been thinking about In the summer off from school. Here's Lynch's story on the first day of second year The old fellows came in and met the new fellows. This is AFI

He's graduated the second year the end of this meeting they assigned different groups to different places to kick off the new year And I was assigned to a first-year group and in my mind This was a humiliating thing and I didn't understand it and I got really upset So I stormed up to Frank Daniel, his teacher, and I screamed and I said, I'm out of here, I quit, I'm out of here. And they went down to Hamburger Hamlet and started drinking coffee.

And I went home and Peggy said, what's going on? His wife, what's going on? They've been calling every 10 minutes and I said, I quit. And she was like, well, they wanna see you. So the next day I Went up and they were like we must be doing something wrong because you're one of our favorite people in Europe set What do you want to do and Lynch says I don't want to do this piece of shit garden back It's been wrecked and they said well, what do you want to do?

And he said I want to do a racer head and they were like fine do a racer head this is this is a This is a great way to treat David Lynch in my opinion, because in my opinion, he seems like a pain in the ass. I'd be like- Neg him into making a masterpiece? Right, exactly.

Yeah. So what is a racer head? He says, it was my world. It was a world between a factory and a factory neighborhood and a little unknown twisted silent lost spot where little details and torments existed and people were struggling in darkness, living in those fringe lands.

They're the kind of people I really love. I mean, this sounds great. He says, it came out of the air in Philadelphia. I always say it's my Philadelphia story. It just doesn't have Jimmy Stewart in it. Good, pretty good line. Great line. I just wanna say, I need to apologize for grave error.

Grimace was always purple, but he originally had four arms and a mean face. Oh, Grimacy, his cousin who represents the Shamrock Shake, of course, is green and he's a seasonal character. David, please go on. I just needed to cut that off at the pass before it became a whole scandal for us. Lynch. That was a really close call. A 21 page script for a razorhead.

He said he felt it. He didn't think it. I think this is a commonly noted sort of. Trick that he played, maybe inadvertently, maybe not, where people read the 21 page script and were like, it's a short film. Sure. Then he goes off and makes a feature takes way longer than expected he kind of snuck it past people in a way yes well this is so much because it's 21 pages because no one really talks in it yeah but he had always conceived of it as being feature length it's also so much the legend of this movie like you know we talked about the way you get

exposed to it at first when cool older kids are whispering about it. And then if you're the kind of person who starts to get more seriously interested in film, the next level of understanding on this movie is like, and do you know he basically shot this on weekends intermittently across years? Right. And that's the next fact that becomes kind of mind blowing. Christopher Nolan following debut film in the rough draft bucket that we covered many years ago, made his film in a similar way.

And I don't know if he's ever cited Lynch being the inspiration, but I do feel like he became a guy for people who have limited resources and are working with people who have difficult schedules, right? To like piece these movies together over years of like, I have actors who have day jobs. That is how he did this a weekend whenever we get the chance. Whenever you build up enough money to buy a new roll of film, you shoot another day or two. He worked every day for a year, then he'd run out of money. And he, and then we'd be down for like a year and who knows what's going to happen. And then they would pick up again.

Mary Fisk. So his first marriage does not survive the first year of production on Eraser Head. Peggy says, our friendship continued. I just quit the job. It's a lot of work being with David Lynch. Look, a thing that's very much in the text of this movie and a thing we'll probably talk about across these episodes. But David Lynch is always like, I don't understand why these people keep trying to marry me.

I keep telling them it's a bad idea. I think Mary Fisk, his second wife is Jack Fisk's sister. It seems like it. Right. Yes. But anyway, around this time is when David starts pursuing transcendental meditation, which is obviously a very important part of his whole deal. Right.

Maybe quieted the radiator clinking that was in his brain all the time. Exactly. Yeah. He says he had a lot dark times making this movie, obviously. He showed the film eventually whenever it's complete in some form to a guy named who is friends with Terrence Malick, his financial backer. Terry was trying to help me get some money. What was his name? Is the name listed there? Nope. Obviously, Jack Fisk has worked with Terrence Malick.

Double fired JJ. Well, he may not. He don't think he said. So they show this guy some scenes, and this man was trembling, he said, and he stood up and he screamed, people don't act like that, people don't talk like that,

this is bullshit. So, not everyone is buying what he's selling. He's sort of not really working at studying at AFI anymore, but they don't kick him out. You know, the AFI sort of like soft helping him in a way. This is ostensibly thesis film. I guess so.

Yeah. But he's, you know, it's years, right? So he's sort of like, pseudo graduated. All right, Jack Nance. he's sort of like pseudo graduated. All right, Jack Nance, let's get to Jack Nance. Nance, like they were suspicious of each other at first, apparently. Jack Nance, obviously the lead of this film and a major collaborator throughout Lynch's career, who's very impressed by a wooden rack that Lynch had put at the back of his Volkswagen.

And he said, Nance says, I said, boy, whoever built that thing must be on the ball. And Lynch said, thank you, Jack. I did that. You're hired. Great shit. We are genuinely just going to have such a good time talking about this guy for months. So I guess they give Lynch this, they give Lance the script and he's like, so I

got to this scene where there's a giant baby head and it kind of made sense to me because I'd had like weird fever dreams and it spoke to that. Right. You know, so Nance, I guess, just sort of gets the idea pretty quickly. Henry, obviously, the character he's playing in this is a total blank, is how Lynch puts it. So he just keeps telling Jack, like, no expression. The more you can empty out out the closer we're getting You know what I mean? Like just funny cuz I'm like he has this very specific expression the whole movie

He is not right, but he is whatever he's doing is right is what Lynch wants him to look like yes It's just also funny because I think of Nance in the later movies that he's in and in Twin Peaks as a very Fun over-the-top kind of cornball. Like, he's really fun, but he's not a subtle actor at all. No, I think it's easy for people to write him off as like a Lynch-found object. Like a Lynch mascot or whatever, right, yeah. But also just like, is this some sort of like reclaimed

sort of work of, like a piece of driftwood he turned into a coffee table just by recognizing this guy's weird energy and getting it on camera? But I think watching this movie in relation to what he does in the other Lynch movies makes it clear that he was a real actor. There was a very specific sustained, maintained energy across this film, especially when you consider that he was shooting it off and on for five years. And he keeps the hair? Yeah.

For all these years? Wild. You know, and they would work out all these little details together. Initially hired to shoot the film Herbert Caldwell, who had done a lot of industrial films. After a year in, he decided he wanted to make, I'm reading here, a living wage. So he exited the production and in comes Frederick Elms,

who's obviously a major Lynch collaborator, shot Blue Velvet, he shot Wild at Heart, works with Ang Lee, he shot a little film I'm pointing to right now with my finger. We have the poster in our office. And like Lynch says, he was a genius who helped him understand everything about making movies. Like he knew how to light what he did.

He understood development and printing and building mechanical things. And I don't know, like, he's, oh, no, he's like, well, he's talking about herb there. Oh, interesting. And then Fred, no, Fred's just an AFI guy who's obviously a genius. I guess Fred comes on board, Lynch shows him whatever they've got. And Fred's just like, I was immediately hooked right from the beginning. And Lynch is like, I'll give you a percentage of the profits, I have no money. And obviously this film was immensely profitable. It was.

In like, in the long run. It's one of the early sort of, midnight movie sensations. It really is. And it's one of those movies that ran for like a year, you know, at like the quad or whatever, you know, like at some, you know, smaller theater. Lady and the Radiator, originally not in the script.

Then she just came out of the radiator. Well, he was trying to build out a cinematic universe. It was like, can we backdoor her in this? And then, no. He said, I was sitting in the food room one day and I drew a picture of her and I didn't know where it came from. And then I saw the radiator in my head.

I mean, Lynch talking about his process is always gonna be like this. He's not really gonna be like, so what she represents is Harry's desire to do that. You know, like he's never gonna talk like that. It's a little bit more like, no, I had a weird dream or I saw a guy or someone said something to me. So he wants the radiator to be built

and that becomes a new thing in the movie. Obviously, as everybody knows, he won't really talk about how they made the baby or what it's made of. But it's obviously made of like weird, you know, organs and shit that they probably got from the butcher and stuff. Also goo. Yes. All the hard prosthetic effects in this movie are pretty cool. That's the thing. I mean, it's just like all of the craft is at the absolute highest level. And it's not just about a Lynch being developed as a visual stylist,

but it's also just like for how stretched the resources were, how much this movie was made by people who were like moonlighting, you know, picking up work intermittently. It is crazy how well executed every single element of the film is, which probably has a lot to do with like, he was lucky enough to find the right collaborators at a very young age. He built the community like basically off the bat. But I think he's also helped by he himself being someone with a real clarity and

singularity of vision. That yes, but to go back to our buckets conversation, right? So many of the rough draft movies, you're like this person has a clarity of vision and they lack the resources to know how to execute it or the sense of just the hard tax of like day to day production or whatever it is. This is a movie where everything is just like perfectly executed. Every shot is perfectly in focus. The sound is good, like all these things that are classic first movie traps. And he's doing a lot of interesting stuff, like he's aided in a lot of ways by

not taking a conventional approach to most of these elements. But it still is astonishing watching just like how tight and pristine an object it is. Should we talk about the plot? Yeah. Of the movie? Yeah, so Eraserhead is a guy. Henry? He lives in like a perpetual state of pain, I would say.

Yeah, he lives in sort of an industrial city of some sort. But is constantly like a he looks pained by things like having to talk to people or walk around. Yes, right, right. Any act, any interaction. Just the mere process of like being alive. A puddle. Yes, ruining his sock, right?

Where is some people people who are, let's say, psychologically well adjusted, look at a puddle and go, this would make a good t-shirt. Right? That's the kind of like healthy brain of a person who knows how to perceive the world, interact with it. Right. Perhaps the puddle resembles an extraterrestrial. Yes. But Eraserhead- A gang-ass freak, if you will, a race, for it himself is kind of the anti Ben Hosley is that he sees a puddle and he basically starts crying. But he's grimacing in a way.

Well, and can we just sidebar quickly to the character of Grimace? Ben. I have this thought while watching it again today. Where does this movie stand in the DAF canon? Fucking high up. I'm not even talking just like the the the Hosley canon, but I'm saying like if we're trying to define what in cinema represents what do you call it? The artistic movement, the philosophy, the theology of being a dang ass freak. Is this

the key text where you're like, it's a movie about a dang ass freak in a world of dang ass freaks made by a guy who's arguably a key dang ass freak. Right. Yeah. But everything in this film feels like the vibe that you're trying to define whenever you talk about. I like this. And you know what? I think this is like, this is something that I'm going to build upon, but you're right. Yeah. Everything about it visually, how it sounds, everyone who is in this world. Yes.

Freakery. Right. Here's this movie is very funny though. I would say, right? Like even though obviously it's not playing for laughs, like. But that's why it feels like. It was successful. Yes. And I'm not saying it's funny that you're laughing at freaks, like, you know, Larry David and John McEnroe.

My favorite moment of like Curb ever. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? No? Oh, well, there's an amazing episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry goes over to John McEnroe's house and has, they have a book of freaks, like you know, like Coney Island type like classic freaks. And they're just looking at the book and going, laughing so hard and everyone's getting so mad at them.

And it's really funny. I forgot. But it's not like that. It's like this weird old silent comedy kind of like this guy in these situations that are surreal and funny. The mom asking him obviously if he's had sex like things like that is the most like obvious forms of it. But everything, the puddle, everything, it's like he's a put upon schlemiel of a, you know, man. No, but you're right. He's like a nightmare version of like a Buster Keaton character or whatever.

And he's in that sort of. He's really funny in this like mad cap way, but he is in this like weird Frankenstein. But in a way, yeah, similar to the other like silent film greats, it's like here's a guy with a distinctive silhouette and energy that is maintained. He lives in a world that seems to constantly be at odds with him. Yes, yes.

It's heightened to a much more nightmarish, realistic state, but it's very similar to like any of the Buster Kate movies we talked about of just like this guy basically is trying to go through his day and shit keeps happening to him. This is definitely a movie about how life happens to you. Yes, sure. I mean, he is a passive character. He is not someone who really takes a lot of action

on anything that's happening to him. So yes, he finds himself with a baby and a wife. And then- And worms. Right, other terrible things. And he never really seems to know what to do about it. Even when a good thing, quote unquote, happens to him, like the lady across the hall wants to make out with him, it feels like it's just kind of happening at him.

He's not really even enjoying that. This is... I... Not to harp on this, right? But the guy's been married a number of times and has had other very long lasting relationships. Many of them are people he also worked with creatively. And he has said as much where he's just like, I tell these women that if they marry me, I'm not going to like be normal. Like, I'm not going to be emotionally available. I'm like married to my work, you know, I have my monastic way of living and they all think I'm going available. I'm married to my work. I have my monastic way of living.

And they all think I'm gonna change, and then I don't and I feel bad that I've disappointed them. And this movie's whole relationship to women is very similar to that, where it's like, here's this odd guy who is very confused by the way that everyone else is behaving,

and then women just keep on coming to him, and he's overwhelmed by it. He him and he's like overwhelmed by it. He's sort of unnerved by it, but they flock. Obviously there is his wife played by Charlotte Stewart, Mary, and then there is his wife's mother played by Jean Bates, who is the one who's accosting him. And then there's the beautiful girl across the hall played by Judith Roberts, who is the villain in Dead Silence, a film I referenced on this episode. Kind of fun to think about. And then there are situations that I think are plainly funny and also plainly nightmarish,

such as like cut this meat, this chicken, right? Carve this chicken and the chicken is alive and starts like oozing blood everywhere. That feels like a social situation taken to some extreme, right? That we have all like been anxious about. Does this make sense? Meeting the parents and the dad being like, well, you know how to cut a chicken, right? And you're like, just any chicken, David. Yes, go ahead.

This is new little damn made meat, manmade chickens. Yes. About the size of a fist. Going back to my central take, right? I was moving my hands around. We haven't had chicken advancement in a while. This is how I used to feel as a child sitting at a dinner table where someone This is how I used to feel as a child sitting at a dinner table where someone like brandishes a big knife and cuts into a dead creature and like blood and like various liquids are oozing out of it and everyone's like, yum, ready to eat. And I'm like, what are we doing here? What is this?

But that's just right. It's just that feels like. So this is like the movie before or during him going through the process of connecting to transcendental meditation that gives him some sense of peace within the world. But this is the movie of like him sort of purging his relationship to all of these things. That is like, it's weird that we just fucking eat things like this, right? I suppose it is. That you like stab them and like noises and sounds come out and we just like lick our lips.

This sounds a lot like something a certain someone has said to me about eggs. Thank you. Please go ahead. They are gross. Griffin is not an egg enjoyer. No, and that's your, you're kind of right. When you point it out and you think about it, we're just eating a chicken embryo. Yes.

But that's like, you're like, where the fuck did this imagery come from? And I think for Lynch, it's like, they're so good though. I'm hating this thing by 10%. And that 10% is just underlining the reality of what we kind of just don't talk about. Well, you can't talk about it because if you every time sat down to enjoy some kind of animal product and thought about like this thing was alive at one time and think about, you know,

how it was potentially. I'm hyper fixating on one specific element of this film, but it's just beyond that where it's like, if you think about anything too deeply, everything is weird. Human behavior is weird. It is weird that we have all agreed to these like rules of how we build a civilization, how we function. And this is the movie of just a guy who feels a little bit disarmed by everything. I relate to this as an only child.

Being pretty much quite a loner, and my parents really did leave me to my own devices a lot. I definitely felt like I would just be off of my own trying to make sense of things. Couldn't help yourself, could you? I'm doing nothing. I'm sitting here in my chair reclining. Hello. Who's this? It's our friend the Mubi. Have I met this guy before? Absolutely. It's our friend, the movie.

Have I met this guy before? Absolutely. It's been a while. I'm so sorry, Mr. Mooby. You remember the movie is the bee who gives us the buzz on the hottest things happening in the world of movie. Right. Because the sinny ass cow just

got too big to school. They kind of do rotation, keep things fresh. What's up, Mooby? Well, did you notice in the movies, tiny little bug legs, they are holding the latest issue of the notebook. Oh, the movie notebook. Can't believe you didn't clock that immediately, because it's basically like quite large.

One percent bug, 99 percent notebook in terms of what just flew in. I just thought the bug looked like a magazine, honestly. A print-only magazine devoted to the art and culture of cinema created, repaired, and published by Mubi. And I hear people are buzzing about it. Yes, they always are. Your early subscription is going to give you two beautiful issues of the Mubi notebook, and they always come with an exclusive surprise gift.

Mm-hmm. And shipping is free wherever you are. Okay. Yes. So that's cool. I feel like I got, there was like a postcard set of the dogs of Aki Kurosmaki movies. Oh, hell yeah.

Last year, which was like a nice little, I think that's the kind of surprise gift you might be getting, but these are lovely volumes. These are handsome volumes. These aren't any sort of floppy rags. This issue, I believe the John Wilson, the great John Wilson of how to design the front and back covers.

You've got an expansive essay by Genevieve you on intersection, the intersection of racism, regional history and Hollywood moviemaking and the California foothills. There's some cool things about Yodorowsky's Dune with like never before seen illustrations that I was working to. Good stock. They're on good paper. You can subscribe to the magazine now for 30 pounds a year. What? Pounds? What's going on in this ad copy? Suddenly it's drinking a spot of tea.

30 pounds and I assume if you're buying from another country. Sad copy. Suddenly it's drinking a spot of tea. That's what the bee was drinking. 30 pounds and I assume if you're buying from another country. Bee had a tiny saucer and a tiny teacup. Yeah, that really came across. You can find out more at moobie.com slash magazine and you can find issue five, which is the current issue in select stores around the world. And yeah, it's got all kinds of cool stuff in it. And you know, Moobie of course generally, it's for lovers of great cinema,

it's a great streaming service. Bees like it, cows like it, the bees and the cows. And as always, you can try MUBI for free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash blank check. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free. I'm kind of remembering why we haven't invited the bee here in a while.

He doesn't really pop. I like this film. I think it's good. I think it's funny when he tries to cook the cut the chicken. Reminds me of when I was at my friend's house when I was a little kid. OK, yes, you're being him right now. The dad just smile. And I was asked if I wanted a leg or a thigh or a wing, I guess, something like that. Right.

And I just knew drumstick. Like, as a kid, I was like, I eat drumsticks. Like, that's what I eat. But I didn't want to say that because I was like, I guess you can't be saying drumstick. Clearly, they're not. It's on the menu. Clearly, they don't say this word. Yeah.

So I was like, then like sitting there there being like so which of those things sounds like it would be a drumstick And I said wing and they were like you want a chicken wing you want the wing you sure and I was like yes And then they gave me the chicken weekend. I was like fuck Then I have to eat this I didn't know what to do From like a roast chicken, you know, they weren't giving me like buffalo wings. They were going to be the wing because that's the part to that mostly is like, but it really reminds you of like this thing was alive at one point. Yes. But even beyond just the shout out to Sam's parents digging into a major

setup for your birds and shot of the bones. Well, big time outside of just even like the cognitive dissonance of like either choosing to ignore, not actively think about the fact that these things were living creatures or obviously people who build their lives around like I refuse to eat meat because I can't get this out of my head or whatever. There's also just the basic like if if you actually look at a chicken, that is like gross. You look at the way a chicken is cooked, it is weird that we find that appetizing, you know?

There's some like transmutation of just like, well, we know what the taste is. I mean, if you get a whole chicken, you gotta take the hearts out. Yes. Yeah, that's strange. Like what we're thinking, it's strange that there are a bunch of fucking bones in this thing.

Even if you're not thinking about what that represents, that's just odd texturally. And like the whole conversation he has with Mr. X, where he's going through the story of his arm. Oh yeah. You're like, well, this is a fucking insane David Lynch nightmare conversation. And then you're like, wait a second, you talk to anyone who's like 80, and this is what they talk about. You know, he's like adjusting the tone of it.

Ten percent. All of this stuff is like so much less heightened than I think it's easy to sort of pretend it is because all of it's coming from a very clear base of like, I mean, obviously, the root of it just being the birth of his daughter. And when there are like, yes, physical issues, as you said, from the time of birth that make you hyper aware of these things, that certainly underlines it and causes like a fixation. My best friend just had her first child recently. I went over to visit. This kid is like five days out of the womb. Sure. He's adorable. I like him a lot.

I think he's a really good guy, but it was weird to be like you. I'm holding a creature that less than a week ago lived inside of someone else's body. I mean, this is old news to me. I'm not breaking news here. I'm not attempting to crunk. I understand what you're saying. What are you? Hold on. What?

The stork didn't bring it? All right. We were going to have to have this conversation sooner or later, David. I know we've been trying to avoid this for years. I know that when you saw the film Storks, your favorite animated movie, you thought that was a documentary. Yeah. It was real.

Yeah. But no, the stork didn't bring it. It's so weird that people think the stork brings it. That's so weird. Right? Especially for how little we engage with storks. That's what I'm saying. It's like who's like, you know, ah, yeah, you know, you're, you know, you always see storks around. That's because they're delivering babies. That's the thing. If you're trying to tell a kid, oh, babies, they come from storks. You're just opening up a whole new conversation of what the fuck is a stork? It's a kind of bird.

How is it different from other birds? I don't know, it's kind of tall and thin. Looks goofy as hell. Long ass legs, yeah. Perfect for tucking in a bundle with which the baby. We all know that storks live in a cloud, turn the cloud into a baby, swat the baby in a bundle, tie it cloud into a baby, swat the baby in a

bundle, tie it into a little knot, put it in their beak. Well, they wear a hat too, let's not forget, to indicate that they are delivering. I suppose that's true. They wear kind of a male hat. Yeah. And male, I don't mean gender because storks don't believe in gender. No, MAIL like Kevin Costner's, the postman. But also so confusing where it's like, what's this fucking mythology? it's like what's this fucking mythology half the time they're delivering babies half the time they're delivering pickles

They deliver pickles isn't the Vlasic stork isn't that uh we are down a road I've never been down before I don't know what you're talking. You don't know the Vlasic stork. I'm right. Yeah He is right you guys respond to this is if I yeah here and he does right about that. Yeah, he is right. You guys respond to this as if I was. Yeah, here it does have a hat. Yeah, this is what I'm saying. He's a delivery guy. And apparently he speaks in a Groucho Mark style voice. He has a whole little.

I think he used to have a cigar, and now he holds up a fucking pickle like it's cigar. He does one of these kind of. That must have been an easy day for them with like, we have to lose the cigar smoking smoking can't really be an advertisement anymore They're just like what the hell we're gonna do it. So far shaped thing in his hand The easiest change in the history of advertising It makes more sense than he holds a pickle Does he take like a cutter to the pickle does he like snip off the end? He has a pickle. Does he take like a cutter to the pickle? Does he like snip off the end?

He has a pickle humidor. He takes them out of there. I want to get a humidor, but not for cigars because I don't smoke cigars. Maybe for like baseballs or something. It's just like a cool thing to have. You want to get a humidor for baseball? It's the only other thing I know of

that gets stored in humidor. Baseballs get stored in humidor for baseball? It's the only other thing I know of that gets stored in humidor's. Baseball's get stored in humidor's before games. I don't know why. So wait, are you going to... Extra crispy, I guess. I don't know why. It's just good for them, I guess. To keep the hide, I guess, real conditioned.

Yes, I think so. They're real fresh. We were talking about David Lynch and his wacky DVD packages, right? The literal packages. Mid-2000s, when it's like peak DVDs, DVDs were printing money. Every studio is like quadruple dipping, reissuing every big film once a year with new features or new collectibles to entice people to rebuy it. And Scarface is obviously one of the biggest movies. This is like 2006, 2007.

Do you know where I'm going with this, David? And Universal was like, we are reissuing the ultimate collector's edition of Scarface. OK, it costs a thousand dollars. Great. Everyone's like, what? Why does it cost a thousand dollars? It came in a wooden humidor with a Scarface logo. That sounds stupid.

And it was like peak. Like, oh, we're about to experience a financial collapse. America is about to fall apart at the seams. Well, but then when you watch the movie, you can tell how humid it is. Right. That slip cover is crisp because it was housed inside a humidor. So to get back to Eraserhead. Yes, the movie starts. I was about to say we should touch on the start,

which is a floating. Sideways. Creature, a sort of sperm-y. Oh, the first version. Yes, yes, yes. And then the man in the planet, of course, there's a guy sort of covered in spots. Yeah. How would you describe him?

He's lumpy. He do be lumpy. He's like face down in craters, like puddles of water. Yeah. In this weird, right, in this weird sort of moony planet, right. And he pulls a lever now and the creature off the creature goes. Now obviously, this is just fucking, in my opinion. It's just David Lynch being like, this is what happens when a man loves a woman.

I will also say, watching it now, and this is the first time I've seen a racer head in a few years, I was like, right, this, Twin Peaks The Return, which I know you guys haven't seen yet, but like, this just does stuff like this. It's the same, he's still doing this stuff. And I'm not saying, it's so beautiful that like he still has this way of relating experiences

or emotions, you know, and you'll, you guys will see and it rocks. Which by the way is the perfect way to say it because that is what other filmmakers struggle to pull off that he is so good at is he is somehow able to figure out how to cinematically communicate the emotion he feels tied to these images. They are visceral, you know? Even when they feel abstract, you watch this movie and you're like there is such an immediate feeling to it and it is in the imagery, it is in

the soundscape, it is in the pacing, it's in the length of the shots, when he cuts and when he doesn't, where you're just like, it immediately locks you into an emotional state like fucking dreams, which people like to make dream-like movies, but they rarely actually have the effect on you of what it feels like when you are experiencing your own dream.

It's so painterly too. Yes, it is. But it says so much without you being able to read into what exactly it is. It's why you can't imitate it. You can like parody David Lynch with ease, but you cannot actually just try to copy the way he presents things. No, because the only way to actually like be influenced by him is to figure out the pipeline to express your own thoughts and feelings the same way, which would be different than his. The reason his movies work is because they're an honest expression of his brain.

If you're trying to imitate him, then it's just a fucking, it's a posture. Can I say something? Please. I think the AFI logo sucks. I think it stinks. It's like, it's AFI in red letters, and then behind the A is, the A is casting a shadow of a star. It looks like I made it in Wordart.

Hold on, I'm looking it up, I'm looking it up. And it's like, it's always been. Oh wait, it's giving me results for the band AFI. Okay. American film. Go on, David. Have you found it? It's just always been this logo for years. I'm just, I'm trying to really look at it. And it's just like so cheesy.

Like, can't they do better? This is terrible. Yeah. I agree. Do you remember the AFI awards? Of course. The one year they did the televised? Not just that.

As an osteoporingnosticator at the time. So it was 2000, I think it was 2001 because I recognized me. Watts got a nomination. I think they may have done it for two years or something. It was very brief. The thing I very distinctly remember is what's your name? Deirdre O'Connor got one for AI. I think she got a best supporting actress nomination.

You mean Francis O'Connor? I'm sorry. She got, yes, correct. She did. There were a bunch of nominations like that that were like the things I was fucking stumping for. Right. Yeah, it was just, you're right. It was just that year. On TNT. It was the 2001 year. And I remember like watching it in the living room and being my dad, like, you're not going to sit down and watch this with me. And he was like, this doesn't matter.

He's correct. This're not going to sit down and watch this with me. And he was like, this doesn't matter. He's correct. But it's never going to last. But they were hoping they could edge in to the sort of precursor conversation. They did a TNT televised special where they were doing 10 best picture nominations. Yep. Lord of the Rings, Fellas for the Ring one. Anyway, just interesting to think about. I think I might have to take the slinky from you. This I got. Anyone could have called this.

I was hoping I could roll it over to you, but you know, it means steps. It does. This kind of it's all check the record, I called it. You did. But it was gifted to him on a Patreon episode and who knows where the fuck that lands compared to when this episode comes out. It's hard to track.

Not to go too far afield, but these nominees are arguably better than they were good. That was why people wanted them to last. They nominate Billy Bob and Shalhoub for the man who wasn't there. They nominate Naomi Watts. They nominate fucking Bushemi for Ghost World. Tanenbaum, Hackman nomination, Brian Cox for LIE, like these are like good fucks. That's what I'm saying everyone was like I take these over the sags of the Golden Globes. Francis O'Connor, Cameron Diaz, yeah. And instead you know

it's like it's not you know we don't have any good precursors now really. No. Anyway. And Nolan won Screenwriter. Yes. A lot of people thought he was gonna win that Oscar. Yeah. But Julian Fellowes won for Gosper Park a great movie Nolan recently won an Oscar for Oppenheimer. Are you sure best picture best director? What he won an Academy Award correct in which category? I just literally just said best picture best director just two seconds ago feel like I'd remember that so the best director just two seconds ago. Feel like I'd remember that. So Henry is at dinner.

He goes to dinner with, well, he brings groceries home to his apartment, which is filled with dirt and stuff. It's just so hard to explain. Not to be a really literal about this, but also in all the stuff you just said about the man, the moon and the craters and all that sort of shit, we're just cutting back and forth between

those images and him sideways. Yeah, he is. He do be sideways because he's fucking. I'm sorry to be so crude about it. Well, but the way you're he's fucking he's not in fucking position. He got it. He got it. You know, open your third eye sideways in a way. I'm just saying it's like Silicon Valley. I'm like this guy. I I mean you could fuck that way This is true you could fuck anyway

But during this horrible dinner with his girlfriend's parents. Oh, so you're jumping all the way I'm sorry. What am I jumping over? Well? I want minutes of him walking and being uncomfortable. Yeah, we got into that I want to talk about the neighbor that he lived in. Yes. It seems really nice. Like a gorgeous place to live. Exactly. Probably cost fucking $12,000 a month now

to live in that exact alleyway. No, it's like truly it's a factory. He just lives in the industrial part of this place. Yes. And he has a hot neighbor who he, I guess, thinks is pretty. She seems very quintessential David Lynch type of things in here. Kind of like, like scary, but like hot, hot, dark haired woman. Yes.

I also just remember that she's the mother and my beloved. You are never really here. I feel like she's had a very interesting, yeah, she works all the time. Lady career. Yeah. And it doesn't just feel like people using her as a totem at the woman from a raise her head.

Sure. I gotta see that. But there is an additional juice. Yeah. That movie's a fucking mess. And I'm waiting for us to just do her. Which we'll do as soon as her new fucking movie happens Stop, you know, you don't have to call it a fucking movie. Okay, but I'll tell you who is fucking movie

Harry in a racer head so he goes to dinner with her with his girlfriend's family And his mother yells if they've had sex or not. He won't answer but she is pregnant Oh, no, she actually had the baby already if they've had sex or not. He won't answer, but she is pregnant. Oh, no, she actually had the baby already. She's very quickly like dealing with what almost feel like seizures. Yes, she will stop and right. Like hit her head repeatedly and scream. And everyone treats it kind of is like, OK, you know, whatever.

This family strikes me as like the kind of family that doesn't really like to talk much or acknowledge things. I've dealt with this. You've dealt with it, I'm sure. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The dad loves pipes and he makes some good points. OK, such as? People think that pipes ruin their houses.

I disagree. More pipes, please. More pipes. Now look at my knees. Just had to make sure that that was mentioned. Good job. Thank you. But you don't want like pipes like coming out of the walls, do you?

Oh, you do, okay. Well, we have got a lot of pipes in this. We have two pipes, which are, you know, this sort of sprinkler system. Yeah, but it's it's highly visible. Yeah, just like Ben likes it. I suggest instead of a dinner bell, a clanking pipe. How important is David Lynch to you, Ben?

It feels like there's a lot of this is my fucking guy. Right. There's a lot of wavelength. Yeah. Yeah. Compatibility. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm so ready to just go on this ride. Yeah. But even just like in his apartment building, you have the styling of this building is very similar to a lot of the Red Room stuff. And when peaks that fair to say the sort of like almost hallucinatory

repeated pattern of the floors, the tiling. I would say the way the Lady and the Radiators stage works feels like that too. That whole set, yes, the floors, the curtains surrounding it. It has like an era to it too that I can't necessarily place, but that feels like of a certain time. It's very 50s, 60s, like this sort of dark hitch. And I think it is also like these things he is obsessed with of just like, what is the unspoken weirdness or darkness that is directly under the surface, which everyone has just seemingly agreed to ignore. And like, he's very obsessed with that within suburbia, his own sort of idyllic suburban life We'll talk about in the blue velvet episode, but he had this very like important formative

Experience as a young child that movie basically springs out of a raised her head is him clearly Dealing with the same things the idea of people living in a city But also the relationships like with women adult sexuality being a father all these things that are sort of unspoken and then the other part of it, which I think like the lady in the radiator is really riffing on is like the weird sadness to all, like most of art and entertainment, the tragedy of the people who make them,

the process of making them, whether they are successfully like attempting to help us deal with emotions cathartically, or they are meant to just be superficial entertainment, but there is some sort of unspoken Kenneth anger darkness underneath it. I think that whole era of like, you know, he is obsessed with these sort of like, 50s 60s swooning ballads. He is and they recur obviously the is a Roy Orbison type music recurs throughout his uh this is an original song. This is an original one but very much echoing the vibe. And it's like these songs were like deeply tragic. You

had very emotionally vulnerable people singing these songs that basically were meant to. You could argue. Heart on sleeve ballads about being depressed or being upset or sad. And perhaps a very culturally repressed time in America. A more repressed time. People would go see these very weepy movies. I mean, listen to these songs. I would say where I grew up, it was so repressed, right?

And then the guy who owned the diner painted this big picture in the window. And then I got so mad and I threw a chair through the window. Of course, we all grew up in a black and white town. Right, and it was black and white, but then I could start to see color. And then what I did was I taught my fake-to-come mother how to masturbate and then the tree caught on fire.

The tree caught on fire. And what I did was I was on a trial about my feelings and then I made JT Walsh turn color. You gotta make the judge so angry that he turned color. You ever seen pleasant film? Do you get what we were saying at all? I truly was like, actually, like, am I now in a lynch? And did truly react to us as if we had started speaking alternate reality?

Yeah, that movie is I think incredibly good Comes a little short of being a masterpiece because can't quite figure out how to resolve itself comes close But it is insane to describe that movie like we just did Yes, it is Absolutely, it teaches his mom had a masturbate and then a tree catches on fire to the swelling strings of Randy Newman. Yep Good movie. I like it a lot. I will say, I think I said it on this podcast. I rewatched it during the pandemic and was for the first time like, Oh, okay.

Yes. It's very, very, very on the nose. And I suppose that meant more to me as a teenager generationally, we both were of the age where we were just like, how is everyone not like bowing and recognizing this as a masterpiece? And my mom was like, okay fucking cool It that's exactly it's not perfect I had the same thing the last couple years rewatching and I'm like I will accept that this movie isn't airtight For the first time I am opening up my desk for criticisms of the film pleasant

Well, but I still think it's very good Erase her head. So, okay, so she's given birth to a baby or a creature. She's like, we're not even sure if it is a baby. And obviously it came very quickly because, you know, the mom's like, did you even have sex? And he's clearly uncomfortable at the very question. One of the great existential terrors,

finding out there is a child of your own that you were not even aware of, that now it's just done, it exists. It's now a thing to contend with. Of course, the kind of existential terror that an entire movie like Old Dogs is built off of, times two. We should also say he's feeling, I think, awkward about the fact that Mom is kissing him

on the neck. Yeah. Whatever. Right, the mom seems to... Roll with it, buddy. the neck. Yeah, whatever. Right. The mom seems to- Roll with it, buddy. Both absolutely abhor sex. Right. And is so fucking horny for him.

Want him. Yes. But they are gonna get married. Right. He's found out his entire life has changed. Exactly. They're gonna raise this baby together in their shitty house. They're gonna get married.

The baby is this, you know, thing. I mean, how does it's the baby from eraser head. It's the eraser head baby. Yeah, if I had to describe it, I would say eraser head baby. Yes. Yes. I mean, like it's sort of, it literally is a visual shorthand for like a weird tentacled thing that you cannot define. I was just trying to think of something I could compare it to and anything I would compare it to is something that is probably Inspired by this. Yeah, I mean the thought that comes to mind is alien Sure, Giger loves this movie. It's our Giger loves this movie says it's one of his like, you know

big eye-opening moments in his life and Tried to work with Lynch once and Lynch was like you stole you stole all my ideas. This is what Giger said. Yeah. But that slimy animatronic, however this thing is made, we don't exactly know. But I feel like things like Alien and the Carpenter films certainly the thing,

Cronenberg, later in the 70s and 80s, there is this peak of like just gooey rubber and robotics that this movie might have been the first to properly synthesize. I guess so. I wish I had a better handle on like surreal filmmaking of the 70s to understand. Like, obviously I know this movie was seismic. But right. Like what what was already out there

in terms of like weird avant garde movies? Obviously, there's like Stan Brakage and all that stuff, you know, like, but like stuff like this, was there much? My guess is not really. But there's a creature feature elements to this, right? Right. So like feel not drawn from art, but from pop culture. Which makes it a little more accessible to audiences as like, what is this weird fucking object? And the other thing is you said is that it is funny.

It is funny. Not obviously slap on your knee kind of funny, but it's uncomfortable and strange and funny. And he knows the ways in which it's funny and it becomes a thing that people are like, I guess we gotta go fuck and see this movie. It's in town. What's his funniest movie?

I think there was an argument for being this. What's his funniest movie? It's probably this or wild at heart. Yeah. He did big mama's house too. As well. Or that it's that's up there. Jasper's spirit of beginning.

That movie's not funny. It's very sad. Oh, you're right. I've never seen the elephant man. How does that not funny. It's very sad. Oh, you're right. I've never seen the Elephant Man. How does that not funny? You've never seen it? No. Well, you're going to see it soon for this podcast.

Yeah, but I'd say that one's not funny. I'd say your sides will remain intact. Yeah, that one's very sad. Your ribs will be untouched. Watching the Elephant Man's a deeply tragic film. Quite beautiful, but it's not really funny. Put that one in the masterpiece bucket, but not a laugher. So this child creature rejects food, cries all the time,

the mom goes crazy and basically runs away. Goose come out of it. Goose comes out of it, which hey man, raising a baby. David? There be goo coming out of him. This is what I'm saying. Like you can just imagine real life David Lynch looking at his young daughter and being like, what's all this stuff coming out?

Oh, great. Now you're sick. Yeah. There's, right, right. There's that sort of crucial moment where he's like, wow, you really are sick. Cause she's like covered in sores. She I mean, I don't really, you know, it whatever. It doesn't really have a yes.

And I would say the lady in the radiator shows up around this point, too. And I think what she represents is when there's a lady in your radiator. Right. That's a very clear metaphor, not to sort of dissect the frog and all of this. The The In heaven, everything is fine In heaven, everything is fine You got your good things I got mine Heaven, everything is fine in heaven Everything is fine in heaven Everything is fine

You got your good thing I've got mine. I mean, obviously, looking for meaning in Lynch films can be a bit of a facile thing to do, you know, where you're like, this means this and this means this. I do think Eraserhead is one of his more easy to grapple with tales.

Well, by the nature of it basically being a character study. It's about one person really, and it's about a thing that happens to him. Yes, and just his relationship to the world and his circumstances. The lady in the radiator, she sings songs. She's got chubby cheeks. She's got this peroxide wig that's like a throwback wig, and she feels

like this sort of affirming comforting I was gonna say angel of death he's like a hypothetical grasses greener right yes but she's appearing during terrible times right and she's sort of reassuring him the siren of like escapism yes because he will eventually stab his baby thing to death. Probably kill himself. Well, you can sort of take what you want from the ending, but it sort of seems like he's either dying or- Transcending.

Exactly. Something like that's happening. She's sort of hugging him. So yeah, you know, she's not, I'm just saying if she shows up, you shouldn't be like, things are going well for me. But David, you say this and yet my experience has been very different. OK. You have the lady in the in the central heating. Yeah. You know, you don't have a radiator.

Things are like under your building. Famously going great for me. You're going fine. You're doing so good. That's what I'm saying. I agree. You guys have loud radiators at any of your apartments? So my old apartment, the not big nice. Yeah. What was the middle one called? Little nicer or whatever. Little nicer.

Had those classic fuck off early 20th century, like Spanish flu radiators that just would go like bang, bang, bang, bang. In the middle of the night when they came out, they were so annoying. radiators that just would go like bang, bang, bang, bang. In the middle of the night when they came out, they were so annoying. And then they would get as hot as the sun. I was gonna say more than anything, this movie feels like, and it makes sense why it was such a phenomenon amongst like college students

and such, that it does feel like a movie about living on your own for the first time. Totally. And just being like, wait a second, am I supposed to solve all of this? Yes. I'm in a room where weird things are happening. You're paying for the smallest room imaginable.

Yeah. And you could barely afford it. But also it's just like a noise starts happening. The temperature changes, something weird happens. And you're like, what is this? Who's in charge of this? Why is this happening? I've never felt more powerless.

This is now scary. It's the kind of thing that's actually becoming unsettling. And I'm overwhelmed by even trying to acknowledge it. He does have a sexual encounter with the beautiful girl from across the hall. Yeah. Mostly a make out sesh I would say. Let's, let's, let's say it.

What? I raised her head. What? I'm a razorhead box. And the legendary stick man. He sure I mean, he truly has at his bedside pile of dirt with a stick stuck in. So that what do you think that represents? Huh?

Look, when I say my man gets strange, Ben's doing a finger in the hole. I mean, it literally You mean strange like. Strange things happen to him and his experiences in life, but I'm also using this sort of like colloquial way that people hit the space bar, you know, mark where to cut it with. have sexual encounters with various people you barely know. Getting strange. Marie?

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I didn't, gotta be honest, I didn't know you were still alive. Didn't Bob Newhart just die? He did. Yep, my dear friend Bob, he did just pass away, sadly. Anyway, I'm here because my last name, Peter Bonners is spelled B-O-N-E-R-Z. And historically across my career,

my illustrious career in show business, when my name would come up in opening and closing credits, people would laugh. They would guffaw, children would point, and mockingly make jokes that my name was Peter Boners. Oh, I'm sorry. Which of course it's not, it's Boners. Uh-huh.

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Quote-unquote plot wise with a racer. Yeah, I'm I got the I got the criterion up in a browser right here So I'm trying to like scan through if there are major segments we haven't talked about his head is taken to a factory. Well, and then sort of a fine. Yes. And I know kind of like the baby comes out of his next on the baby's head or at least a facsimile of yes. Correct.

Yes. Um, and he gets turned into a racers, which is where they get the title from. Sure. Now one could argue that from the get-go, even before that point, long before that point, the height of his hair makes it look like he is a pencil. And in fact, his hair is the eraser. That's very true.

That was my very literal reading. That's why they call this guy fucking Eraserhead. I just thought it was a really cool name. Cause he kind of sounds like a weird like indie superhero to. Yeah. Eraserhead. Yeah. But actually, he's just a sad fucking guy. Yeah. Well, no, he does have a superpower. What's that? Being a sad fucking guy.

Yeah. Being a weirdo. And miserable and fucking shit up. So he goes and he stabs his child to death. His child just being a head and a bunch of weird organs. And then, you know, things go crazy and the planet kind of shows up and there's crazy clouds and there's weird sperm puppets and there's the woman in the, uh, the lady in the radiator and there's Jack Fisk pulling levers in the planet and you know, it's all over for him.

Yeah, I mean, this shit rules. 10 out of 10. There's some moment, I think right before he attacks the baby where he sees the lady across the hall. She's with another man. With another man. So that's not working out for him. He's clearly very alone.

He's very alone. He's frustrated. I don't know. I feel you, Eraserhead. It's a tough week for you. Have you ever seen... It still takes place over a week, Rick. David.

Yes? Have you ever seen I Don't Know Jack? No. The documentary about Jack Nance. No. I've played You Don't Know Jack, the popular 90s quiz show, Computer Game. Well, then I will accept that as an answer. No, I've never seen it.

I do. I know what you're talking about. I'm curious to watch it. I don't know how watchable it is now. I remember a TL Leigh video having it on the shelf next to a racer and always being curious about it. Because he is... My guess is it's a bunch of cool motherfuckers talking about how great Jack Fisk is, right? No, it's about Jack Nance. Oh, it's about Jack Nance?

Yes, and it was made shortly after he passed away. Here's my guess. It's a bunch of cool motherfuckers talking about great Jack Nances. I think it is. I think that's exactly what it is. I'm seeing Dennis Hopper here. Yep. Seeing the log lady. But he's...

Brad Durif. It was a Lynch sort of approved, presented, produced... Yes, David Lynch presents. Yes. You're right. And I don't know if it's like watchable anywhere now, but I've always been curious about it because he is such a... You watch this movie and you're like like who the fuck is this dude? He died sort of tragically young. I'm just looking to see if it's like literally on like YouTube or something

We will cover him in many other films to come we will not seeing it on YouTube We're seeing like trailers and stuff. And of course, I'm seeing the great Al Pacino film. You don't know Jack Yes, there's a $100 DVD for sale on Amazon. It's a lot. It's a lot of money for something that's probably not that involved. No, but I'd like to find a way to watch this thing. Jack Nance, a lovely guy by all accounts. Yeah, I just think this is like an incredible performance. A true performance. Yes, I think he had, I think he had a difficult end of his life. Yes, I think he had.

I think he had a difficult end of his life. Yes. Which but you know which we can talk about later. We will. He's amazing in Twin Peaks. You've never seen Twin Peaks, right? I've only seen the pilot. He's the one who says wrapped in plastic that you know if you've seen the pilot. Yes, I've seen him in that. Wrapped in plastic. Yeah, yeah, raise your heads good.

Like you said, 5 stars, 10 out of 10. No real notes here. I, for example, would not stand up and say people don't talk like this This is bullshit or whatever that guy said. In fact, I watched this and I go yes. Thank you This is what everyone talks a little bit. Someone's getting it right. I'm like waiting for you. You're coming so close But short of doing the full David like I don't know. What do you want me to say? It's a racer head There's a lady in the radiator. He steps the baby. Yeah, that's what happens It sounds cool. It looks cool. I think it's great. What do you want me to say? Hold on I'm email criterion

I know they don't usually do pull quotes on the cover, but they might want to reissue a racer head with on the cover, but they might want to reissue a racer head with sounds great. It's cool. I'll tell you that Lynch tried once this film was done in around 1976. You have to make a sequel to race or had no tried to get into can directors, Fortnight. People came and looked at it, which is sort of like a, you know, entry level can festival. Side festival. Correct.

And then Lynch says, they said some nice things, but, you know, didn't work out. He gets a more formal rejection from the New York Film Festival. Then Los Angeles Film Exposition, AKA FilmX, which was a sort of indie festival at the time, premieres it. It gets a bad review from whoever was there in Variety.

And Lynch then cuts about 20 minutes out of the movie. The film's about 90 minutes long. So like, I can imagine that this longer would be an even bigger trial for someone who'd never seen it. Right. You know, like it's, it's definitely like, I think he got to the exact right. Exactly. It's definitely as it should be. I would say, I mean, it's a classic example of the,

the fucking Danny Boyle like nine minute blood pack thing of like certain movies with certain style and certain subject matter. 90 minutes is the exact length of time the audience is going to tolerate before they hit a wall, even if you're doing the best possible version. Now, Ben Barinholtz of Libra Films, who is a midnight guy, you know, like an iconic midnight movie kind of guy. This is the 70s or when that's really starting to boom as a model of theatrical distribution. He had distributed like Pink Flamingos, the John Waters movie.

He sees the film and immediately taken with it halfway through the screening, he gets on the phone and is like, buy this movie. And you know, that is how it begins its reputation is this film just plays in like 1520 cities around the country. Just endlessly word of mouth. Yeah. This was, I mean, what we're talking about, the rise of the midnight movie was these very experiential,

you have to be here. This is an event turned on young people being like, here's a portal into a different thing. Now, it's really hard to do a box office game for a racer head, because it doesn't really have like a single premiere date. More of a road show roaming. I'm picking the date. Its release strategy was very similar to the way in which it was made.

That's right. I'm picking the date that INDB has it listed as just a general premiere in the US, which is in February, 1978. What year, what date? I'll give you the exact date. First, it's my birthday. Well, I don't think it is because I think your birthday is later in the month

and IMDb has it listed here as premiering in America on February 3rd, 1978. One day off for my mother's birthday? Wow, which way? Fourth, would have been nice. Number one at the box office is a film that came out in 1977. And was a large hit and nominated for best picture. Star Wars?

No. Not Star Wars, which is number nine at the box office. Because everything I said did just in fact match what you said. Exactly. But Star Wars of course came out in the summer. This film came out in November. It is also a science fiction film. Is it Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Of the Third Kind, the Steven Spielberg film, about aliens who play the keyboard.

And bad dads who love those aliens. Right. And- Potato. He makes a potato aliens. Right. And potato. He makes a potato thing. Right. And if Richard Dreyfuss wants to do a special screening with Blank Check Ever, where he introduces the film and talks about his feelings on like current events or politics, look, we are ready for that.

I don't want to blow our shot. I know there's we get a lot of juice from people sort of anticipating trying to game out where they think the show is going to go. We did this episode without a guest, as we often do for the first episode of miniseries. We are doing something a little bit off the usual format. For the rest of the David Lynch miniseries, Richard Dreyfus will be the guest on every episode.

And he'll tell you everything you wanna hear about the current state of the world. Number two at the box office is another huge hit of 1977. It came out in December. Okay. December. An iconic film. It's, was an Oscar player.

It was nominated for best lead actor. Okay. And that's it. Saturday Night Fever. There we go. John Badham's Saturday Night Fever. Great movie. An old dog's pretty cool. It's a good movie. Yeah, it rocks. Yeah. Yeah's Saturday Night Fever. Great movie. And Old Dogs pretty cool.

It's a good movie. Yeah, it rocks. Yeah. Saturday Night Fever rocks. And a movie. It's a huge bummer of a movie. That's the thing. It's a movie.

Because everyone realizes when they watch it. There are few movies where there is greater... Disconnect between like public perception. Yeah, no, it's so true. The experience of actually watching the movie is very different. This movie is about a loser. That's how we sort of have used this movie as cultural shorthand for decades. Yeah, the fucking soundtrack and he's eating the pizza.

You're like, no, it's about toxic masculinity and a fucking loser. A movie that basically gets reduced to like three images in four minutes. But it's awesome. And eight songs. And Travolta's amazing. Yeah, great. Number three at the box office. Now, here we go.

Is a film I don't know. It stars a big star of the time, but a TV star. I would assume this is one of his many kind of attempts to become a movie star, which never really panned out for him. He's still with us. Alan Alda? No, similar though.

Okay, sitcom guy? Yeah. Yeah. Who is it? 70s. Didn't totally work, sitcom guy? Yeah. Yeah. Who is it? 70s. Didn't totally work, but he's still with us. He's still with us. He's a, everyone loves him now, you know,

and he wins Emmys and he's doing great. It's not Bob Newhart. No, he's really old. I mean, I love the man. So this guy's a little younger than that. Yeah, this guy's in his 70s. It's a Henry Winkler picture. Correct.

So, cause I- Is it Heroes his 70s it's a henry winkle picture correct uh so is it heroes no it's not heroes so because happy days ends when like 1907 oh no it ends in the 84 right so this is like right in the middle of happy days he hasn't even put the skis on the shark isn't even in sight for him they might be coming the shark might be coming uh But this is a college comedy, or it seems like it starts at college. It's from a big comedy director. Is it the wrestling movie? No. Well, there's the one Henry Winkler comedy that they did on the video archives podcast. It might be a wrestling.

This are it's not called like the one and only. It is called the one and only. Yeah, that moves. Yeah, you're right. He eventually tries professional wrestling. Yeah. Creates a character known as the lover Henry Winkler Kim Darby

Who I best known from true grit? Directed by Carl Reiner You you say he's a guy where he tried to make the jump to movies and it never really happened He is one of those guys. I'd say Alan Alda is the same way where you're like if you actually look at the math They were kind of movie stars for like a decade. Right, there were a lot of movies that they were in. And they all did well enough. Yeah, I would say Alda has that more.

Alda has like a pretty solid film career. And he directed a lot of them too. Right, and whereas it's like with Winkler, it's basically like Lords of Flatbush is sort of like, hey, you know, these, I mean, everyone in that movie is going, hey, but like, you know, it's like, oh, here we go. Like he's cooking, like the, and then that movie Heroes that you referenced, and then this, and then four years later, he does Night Shift. Yeah. And that's it. Which famously, I mean, obviously that's Ron Howard, who gets his buddy to, you know, sign on to a movie, which basically becomes the guaror to her getting to make a studio film but the story was that he had seen Michael

Keaton for that movie early loved Keaton went to the studio and they were like this guy's a fucking unknown you cannot hire him and when he got Winkler they were like we are so thrilled that you've nabbed Winkler that you can hire anyone else you want. Shelly Wong's in it as well. Right. Yeah. Like Winkler was like big enough that he covered the whole budget. Well, guess what the next film he acted in after, obviously he, uh, like, then starts directing a couple of movies, but the next one he acted in after Night Shift was Scream. That's crazy.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So it's a short run. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, uh, so that's number three. It's opening at number three. So probably not like an amazing opening, but whatever

Number four another 77 film a big Oscar nominee More forgotten I would say more forgotten. It's not Breaking away. That's the wrong year. No, it's not breaking away. But like in that category is paper chase not paper chase I feel later. Yeah Breaking away is about bikes. I'm yeah more so this film is also about like a thing an industry a world I love that description It's helpful. What drama would you say? Is it like a drama? It's like a big it's a proper drama star driven drama about ladies a thing, but? It's a big drama. It's a proper drama. Big star driven drama with ladies.

A thing. But then there's a breakout young performer in a supporting role. Huh, it's not Norma Rae. Supporting role. Who's the breakout? And it got Oscar nominations. 11.

Who? 11 Oscar nominations. One zero. One zero. Because it's in 977, so everything goes to Annie Hall and Star Wars. Yeah, is Merrill in this? No. No.

Who would the breakout be? It's not Sissy. I'm trying to think of people who are like, bubbly. The breakout is a man. The breakout is a man? Yeah, the two leads are women. Well, that's kind of rude, actually. I agree.

Stealing. The two... Thief. The two leads... Is it... It's not Julia? Leads are women. Well, that's kind of rude, actually. I agree. Stealing the two. The two Leans is it's not Julia. No, it's about a thing. That's that year. It's I know it's about like a world. It's about a world like Breaking Ways in the world. Yeah, this is in the world of Huck. Who is the distributor of this picture? 20th Century Fox.

20th Century Fox. It's a film directed by Herbert Ross. Okay, fuck. Not that helpful because he directed lots of movies. Is it The Turning Point? It's The Turning Point. There we go. And Bancroft and Shirley MacLean,

but this film is set in the world of what, Griffin? Dancing. Ballet! Mikhail Baryshnikov! Going from dancer to actor, getting an Oscar nomination. On pointing his way. And you see it's like the turning point of their careers, but also that's what you do when you are balleting.

Turning point of his foot. Oh! Yeah. He's getting on those tiptoes. He's marching his way over to wherever they used to hold the Oscars at that point in time. Yeah, I don't know. Some big theater.

Now, number five is this is sort of why I like this box office game. It's a satirical comedy. OK. Got to give me more than that. You're stroking your chin. I don't think I do. I think. Look, you don't have satirical comedies in the 1970s. Mel Brooks? Correct. Is it Silent Movie? No. Silent Movie was No. Fuck.

Silent Movie was the film made before this. It is High Anxiety, it's a parody of Hitchcock movies. I think a pretty sloppy movie that has incredible stuff in it. It's got some funny stuff in it from what I remember. And it also like, it is, it's got some of the best examples of Brooks making cinematic jokes. That's that's why I remember High Anxiety because right,

he's copying the shower scene down to the editing style and all that stuff where you're like, that's cool. It's a movie where the camera gag is funny. He's giving him paper. I mean, it's ink. And you're kind of like, OK, yeah, right. Yeah. But like, but the way it looks is cool. There's stuff in it that's great. Madeline Khan's great in it.

It's also have you seen High Anxiety? I have not. Are you a big Mel Brooks guy? Or are you just like the hits? But, you know, I've seen all the big ones. Look, I love Mel Brooks. I think he's great. I think he's one of the funniest people ever. That is sort of infamously the movie where he was like,

I clearly. Right. his people ever. That is sort of infamously the movie where he was like, I play the lead. Right. And they like went through the motions of him offering it to his usual guys and they passed and he was like, oh, I guess I got to play the lead. And he was so big that they couldn't say no. And you're like, who's going to work better when you got like a Gene Wilder at the center? Well, because I feel kind of good as a side dish, obviously, you know, like producers, blazing titles, young Frankenenstein. Yeah, those movies are good. Yes. Then silent movie, high anxiety history of the world.

He's the lead in all three. Yeah. But. The memory, the other two are really big ensemble pieces. Right. He's like, so he's really a trio. Right. And history of the world is on somebody. Also, it's a sketch movie plays different characters. High anxiety is like I am the leading man of this movie. Yes And it's hung on me and you're like, oh you realize the the value of having someone like Gene Wilder Who has greater facility as a dramatic actor?

To be able to create a little bit more of a spine in the through line even in a silly movie of this is a real guy, I guess even spaceballs, he's a lead, but not really. Plumusly. Yeah, exactly. That's like Spaceballs and then Robin Hood. It's like, right, it's like, bring in your face actors who are funny. I can't remember if it's before this, but like, he...

Leading into this movie, whatever company it was, RENTRAC or whoever used to do the like top ten box office stars He, leading into this movie, whatever company it was, RennTrack or whoever used to do the like top 10 box office stars every year where they would poll the public. And he made like number six on the list. Sure. Even though he had not been the lead of any of his movies. Funny guy.

He was so big as a figure. Yes. And then his movies are so popular, the people were like, my six favorite movie stars, that director who makes cameos in his own Movie and he would like go on Exactly shows and all that so I think like he carried that as like well look why couldn't I be the lead of my movie? He's not wrong in that those he's not these are

Liked and remembered it does they are obviously not it does feel like the central feeling of that movie I would love to do Mel Brooks on there. I think we'll do him someday. Yeah, put it on the Brooks. Number six of the box office, speaking of our favorite cultural commentator, it's the Goodbye Girl starring Richard Dreyfuss. Number seven is something called The Late Great Planet Earth,

which seems like it's being narrated by Orson Welles, and it's an adaptation of like a hit, you know, book about like end time prophecies or whatever. You know, it's back in the day, these fucking things just get made. They all sound awful. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Yes. Okay. Number eight is a film called Across the Great Divide, which is a Western. Don't really know it, starts Robert Logan. Number nine is some piece of shit called Star Wars. And the number 10 is the Adventures

of the Wilderness Family. Heard of it? Never heard of it. No, neither have I. Let's see what it is. It seems to be a big family adventure movie starring Robert Logan. Wow, this guy's everywhere.

What the fuck? Who is this guy? He's just number five. One spot ahead of Brooks. He's just one of those guys who made like classic kind of family friendly adventure movies where it's like they see a bear, and you're like, it's a real bear. Yeah.

And you're like, whoa. Well, okay. But it wasn't part the bear, my friend. Yeah. It was Bruno the bear bear and you know what? They probably saved a lot of money getting Bruno in there first quote was huge Bruno was out of control though Bruno the Baron who is best known for being gentle Ben Oh, so he probably actually commanded a pretty big paycheck himself. He played the bear. He was a bear

Well, hey, excuse me that was not wrong He commanded a pretty big paycheck himself. He played the bear? He was a bear. He was a bear. Excuse me. Ben was not wrong. You responded to him with a tone of correction. I just said he was a bear. And what did he play? What did he play in the movie? Did he play an otter? I don't fucking think so.

I mean, I haven't seen the film so I can't confirm, but it looks like he played a bear. I'm gonna go on a limb and say that Ben was correct. Y'all ever seen a bear? Up close. Yeah. I still wanna know high corns. I try to stay so fucking far away. You know, actually, I was at like my uncle's house

in Pennsylvania and there was a rash of bears and one came really close. And it was scary. They're scary. They're too big. Yeah. Yeah. It's got to shut it down. It's a black bear. Yes. See, I've only ever seen a grizzly bear like in a reserve. I haven't seen those in the wild.

I have seen black bears. You tell me that bears are outside. I'm going to stay the fuck inside. That's you. That's you, baby. Yeah. All right. That's the end That's your baby. Yeah Alright, that's the end of eraser head next week elephant man Absolutely top to bottom perfect episode say this is Voted for us saying that David Lynch movies are good Lynch is good and weird

Mel Brooks sidebar What's the way supposed to say it was it's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit.

It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit.

It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. I would love to have had that experience of walking into a midnight movie, hearing that you're going to see something really strange and seeing a racer head with little cultural context.

When I saw a racer head, I knew there was going to be a weird organ baby in it. Like I already knew, I didn't know much, but I knew there was a weird lady in a radiator. Yeah. With cheeks. But I knew there was a weird lady in a Radiator yeah with cheeks like the imagery had been spoiled for me right, but yes It's not like it didn't still have a big effect on me. No, it's not really like I'm like I'm trying to think of but I cannot imagine what how fucking cool I've been I can't either to just go see this movie probably high on grass Can't either to just go see this movie probably high on grass. Well, like this guy was wacky tobacco

And then go have like a weird threesome with you know, your neighbor or whatever people did in the 70s Yeah, like this guy. Yeah high on grass and loons And then go like vote for Ed Koch. Yeah, like this guy over and eventually become a banker Fred Koch. Yeah, like this guy over here. And eventually become a banker. Like a fucking guy. Seventies guys. Fitting them to a T. Abandoning their radicalism. Selling us down the fucking river. Like it's all Ben's fault. You. No, come on. No, not you.

I agree with you that that absolutely sounds like the best possible way to have experienced this movie. And yet I do think this is a mental exercise. The fucking 40 year old movies kind of a mental exercise. I agree. It's like a fucking psychological treadmill. I think the 14, I think the 14 or 15 year old weirdos who are discovering erase her head now, right?

The pipeline to get in there is probably a lot different because it's not a cool kid with a t-shirt or someone on your fucking Campus telling you they're going to a screening. You might be getting hit with the fucking gifts and such Sure, the letterbox logs and whatever right you're watching it in 82 parts on tik-tok, but this is my thing I don't think this movie can be spoiled No, it can't be spoiled as much as me. It must have been a fucking mind blower if you go in knowing nothing, I also think this is a movie where even if you've gotten all the pieces through cultural osmosis, there was something about it as an object where all of it within its own context, the wavelength that creates and sustains, is still a transformative experience.

Yeah, even though it's like really obvious what it's about, he lost his keys. Okay. That's what it's about. So if you just check my website, I'll tell you how it's actually about how he lost his keys. And folks, if you want to buckle up and stay on the ride. I'm gonna have reads like that on all of these movies.

The next four or five months of Blank Check. I'm like, I think this guy lost his keys again. Let's set our objective. He's forgetful. The goal of this mini-series is to solve every David Lynch movie. And on each episode, we will come out with the key, clear answers. Just feel like if I had like endless time on my hands and a really malevolent streak, I would like set up websites where I'm like, let me explain to you

how it's about how he lost his keys. Have you like I just like have lots of images and I'm just driving people crazy. Did you write anything up when you logged this movie on the rewatch on Letterboxd? No. Should I? I think you should. Lost his keys. Yep.

Do it right now. I rebooted the computer but... So. I wriggled out of your jam again. I just always like the bit. Just like Slick Donny, who I assume by the point that this has come out has wriggled out of the current jam that he's in. I like the bit where we like fucking write a letterbox log in real time

and then people read it and they're like, what the fuck does this mean? And then they get to the episode months later and it feels like Whoa, it makes sense. Season four of Arrested Development. The most satisfying television of all. Exactly. Oh, man, I remember people tying themselves and not being like, this is actually brilliant. I'm like, no, this is actually people's schedules just didn't line up.

Yeah. You're telling me they weren't in the same room. Stupid shit. What was that? What happened in the fifth season? There was another season, right? Yeah. What happens in that one? They're all together, except Portia de Rossi didn't want to do the show anymore. So early in the season, she's like,

I don't want anyone to see my face. She puts a blanket over her face. What? I'm not shitting you. And then for the rest of the season, she's like dubbed over. Like she did do ADR. And I think until the last episode,

then she finally takes it off again, maybe. But they were just like, we took the time, we weren't going to do a fifth season unless everyone's schedules matched up and we could get them the same episode, except Portia who said she doesn't want to do the show. It's not very good. I watched it in Deep Pandemic. I had given up on it when it came out at first. I think a lot of people have.

And then I think in Deep Pandemic, they did the recut of season four. And I was like Is this a good excuse? Oh and Jessica Walter died and I was like, let me rewatch the three great seasons that's fun to do right and then I was like, let me see what the Season four cut together as normal episodes is like that was her mid as hell And I was like, no, this is brilliant. Well, then why are the jokes funny? How it's all part of the bit. That's like the. And then season five, I watched for the first time,

and the only thing that's kind of interesting about it is that like Michael Sarah really does become the lead of the. I remember that and then he was good and he's really good. And it's from the era where he's not doing much. We'll talk about him later. We will. He's in between two peaks of the return. But that's the era where you're like any Sarah we can get is a gift because the guy doesn't like doing anything other than Lonergan plays on Broadway. Yeah. Yeah, what he wants to do. Yeah, he rolls just Dustin guy defa movies

Yeah, he's got like three people Sebastian Solva Kenny Lonergan Speaking of poor show some other guests to look forward to in this series. Ellen DeGeneres, Eric Clapton. Now, to be fair, I just told Eric Clapton that he should just play cocaine over and over again. I don't want him to talk. Right. You also told him to do cocaine over and over again. You said, you know, we'll set that brain straight.

Right. You also told him to do cocaine over and over again. Yeah. You said, you know, set that brain straight. OK, some of the devil's. I had a slow hand on on cassette. OK. And I remember I would listen to cocaine and be like, wow, this is like a grown up song. Yeah. What was this band before you went solo? The Birds? No, it was like a trio. Oh, you mean cream? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I Oh you mean them cream. Yes. Yeah

Cream record good. Yeah Yeah, crunchy Is so over episode has never been so true. I'm just waiting for the computer restart I got it is this but we got a fucking log the thing. Why did he restart it? It told me I needed to and I was like the episodes older. I guess overall guess I'll do it now Okay, it is older. I'm gonna try to do the outro and let's see if the computer successfully reloads. I'm gonna go to the bathroom. You do the outro.

Well no, that's rude. But I do it all the time. Yeah, but I don't like it. Because I think- No, that's why I keep doing it. You're treating it like it's not a valid part of the podcast. I gotta tell you this Slinky, it's so tempting. Ben, this is, I, you know I love you, and I think you're a very smart man,

and this is the dumbest shit you have ever done in your life. You have described to me so many dumb experiences of mistakes you made in your youth, and this is the worst decision you've ever made. Yeah. I called it. No, you absolutely did. You were like, I'm gonna buy him a slinky. And I said that shit better be plastic.

It wasn't. I got the metal one and you went, well, metal's more funny. And I went, yeah. And guess what? You're going to have to spend so much goddamn time cleaning that audio up because my guy's never going to stop playing with that shit. Well, it's been retired. Ben says, as he plays with the slinky directly in front of the microphone.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Murray Barty for helping to produce the show. Hey, big thank you to AJ McKeon, who are going to be spending months trying to remove slinky noises from episodes. Thank you to J.J. Burch for being fired and writing our dossiers. Thank you

Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you

Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you than you were acknowledging how fired you are. Of course. Right. Wow, I'm back on this. After saying I wouldn't do it anymore. Yeah, it's a good bit. Thank you to, I think that's everyone, right? Great. Did I say everybody? I don't know.

Go to blankcheckpod.com for some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, blank check special features where, as we said, we'll be doing an episode on Lynch short films. Can I make- Many make the ones discussed today? Yeah, you can do whatever you want them. A brief suggestion. Please.

Can we also talk about his music? We'll talk about this later. This is a huge conversation to drop in the wrap up of an episode. He has so many things that he does. I know. He's got a lot of things. He draws cartoons. He makes weird sitcoms about rabbits.

Do we do an episode on coffee? He just has such a weird body of work when it comes to music. We will... With the short films, those will be quick so we can put other things in there. Maybe we drink coffee during that. We drink the coffee. Yeah, drink the coffee. Like we do a commentary for like Six Guys Getting Sick where we're like,

Ugh! Ooh! Nasty! Wow, it sounds like you got to sign up for the Patreon where apparently we're doing everything. Yeah. We're doing it all. It's all gonna be about how these guys just do not know where their fucking keys are. Yeah, and just alternating between that and like, battleship.

You're right, whatever else. Just a very consistent vibe over on the Patreon feed. So yeah, sign up for that. And as always, tune in next week for the elephant man of course with our guests Donald J. Trump and Michael Cohen reunited at last we're getting friends again They call him... Pfft! In heaven, everything is fine.

In heaven, everything is fine.