Blank Check with Griffin & David - I Could Never Be Your Woman with Karen Chee

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Amy Heckerling and Paul Rudd stars as ????? in a totally normal movie that might actually be a voodoo curse made against Amy’s enemies. Oh, also Saorise Ronan makes her FILM DEBUT. What a picture! The incomparable Karen Chee joins us to talk about 2007’s I Could Never Be Your Woman, a movie that was financed by a French scoundrel, released directly to Blockbuster, and features some of the most dated cultural references we’ve ever come across. Is the film good? No. Is it fascinating? We sure think so! Watch A Man on the Inside on Netflix  Listen to Yo-Yo Ma Check out Paul Rudd’s trick Follow Karen on Letterboxd  Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 What's so great about natural? What? Think about it. Tobacco is natural. Prozac's unnatural. Earthquakes are natural.

Podcasts unnatural. Natural sucks. Now, here's the thing that's interesting about this movie. Okay. I was quoting lines that are recited by Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah. Academy Award nominee. Not a winner though.

Iconic movie star. True. Playing a character who is the show runner of a TV show about teenagers. A very clear standard for Amy Heckerling. The writer and director of this film. The character she's speaking to is Mother Nature. That's right.

You followed that, right? If you, the listener, have not watched this movie and I can't imagine this being a film you skipped watching before listening to the episode. It's on Peacock! You're hearing that conversation, go what? Is this her talking to a friend, a doctor? No, a physical human embodiment of mother nature

played by Tracey Ullman, and what I will say is one of the most normal movies we have ever covered on this podcast. So, did you watch it with my wife this movie? Because I watched it with my wife. Did you watch it with my wife? Remember, okay, so. Karen, did you watch it with my wife? I? Because I watched it with my wife. Did you watch it with my wife? I don't even remember. Okay, so... Karen, did you watch it with my wife? I watched it with your wife.

Okay, cool. Did she also ask you every 10 minutes, is that character a ghost? Is she with, can anyone see her? Why is she there? Who is she? I feel like only in the last 10 minutes of the movie does Michelle Pfeiffer go, you're a figment of my imagination.

And I mean, and I had to go to Wikipedia and see that she's listed as Mother Nature and go like, oh, well, it doesn't make sense now, but at least I sort of, I have some idea of what's going on. She says it, she self identifies within her opening monologue, but in a way that is so confusing that you assume she's making a joke. Yeah, I figured she was just her hippie friend

and then I'm like, no, no assume she's making a joke. Yeah, I figured she was just her hippie friend and then I'm like, no, no, she's a ghost or, right, the embodiment of a natural person. This movie opens with footage of animals, nature photography. That's right, I forgot about that. Of animals attacking and fucking each other. And then cuts to Trace Yolman seemingly filmed on the cameras they shot Jackass on

in the middle of a forest, monologuing directly to camera as Mother Nature. She's in, like, a white dress with, like, some leaves in her hair and stuff. And they've got this really soft green kind of glow around her. And then it just cuts to, like, we're here making a teen TV show. And you don't... You have no... Within five minutes, you're like, I have no bearings on what this movie is Ten out of ten perfect film. Thank you all for listening. Please remember

Okay, it's blank check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin I'm David I was like is she gonna remember to do that Oh my god Welcome. Yes podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And then sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce, and sometimes they give you a check and then you find out the check is like half of what you thought it was, and you have to make it under very weird circumstances. And then it sits on a shelf for three years and goes direct to Blockbuster. That's what this... Do you know? I will tell you, Karen. That's what happened to this movie? Yeah.

To my knowledge, this is the only instance of this in history. This was Blockbuster being like, fuck, Netflix is starting to gain a little... Yeah, it's when Blockbuster isn't exactly booming. How do we compete with them? I was gonna say, in 2007, did it go to one Blockbuster? There were a few. I just wanna say this.

This movie was filmed in 2005. It had planned theatrical releases from two different distributors canceled in 2006. Then someone new buys it, plans a release, cancels it again in 2007 and then in 2008 Blockbuster is heavily promoting that this is a only at blockbuster film this film does not exist In in any physical form at that point in time other than you can rent it on a physical disk You cannot stream it. You cannot rent it. This really you can rent it on a physical disc. You cannot stream it, you cannot rent it digitally,

you cannot buy it. Now it is like available on other channels, but Blockbuster had the exclusive rental rights for this movie. Well, it'd be weird if it was still only available at Blockbuster, you'd have to go to like that one that's in Oregon or whatever. This movie would already be fascinating to talk about

because it's unhinged and bizarre. And then you read just a little bit about the story of how it got made, and it's three years like. Is it Oregon or Oregon? The state? Yeah. I say Oregon.

I say Oregon. Oregon, okay. What were you saying, Oregon? No, I said Oregon, but I'm like, I know people have a whole thing about how you say it. Yeah, it's Aragorn. Aragorn, and when he kicked the thing, he broke his foot. Yeah.

You know? I always thought it was Portland Strider. That's pretty good. Thank you. That's like an okay joke, right? Today we're talking about Amy Heckerling's 2005, scratch that 2006, scratch that 2007, scratch that 2008 release. I could never be your woman.

You couldn't. You couldn't. You could never be your woman. You couldn't. You couldn't. You could never be my woman. A movie where the title references a song that's good, but so old that I bought it on cassette when it came out. White Town's Your Woman. Yes. In 1997, I was like, I'm gonna get my free pubescent ass to Virgin Megastore to buy this hot single on cassette.

Griff, I own it on cassette. It is, was it a cassingle or was it the full album? It was a cassingle. Yes. It had like one B side. That was a cassingle. We were just talking about right before this, David was mocking guests who were quiet

during the levels check and then get really loud and now within five minutes, David is yelling cassingle at full volume. That's right. I had the cassingles. It's a good song, you know that song? No. For crying out loud. Wait, was the song in the movie? It is in the movie. Quite late.

Never be a woman. I can never be a woman. Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it's based on. We are at the 20th anniversary of this film being shot. Right? And when it finally came out in 2008, there's an incredible Entertainment Weekly article and heckler and co-writer, It's on title. That's crazy. It's the 20th anniversary of this film being shot, right? Wow.

And when it finally came out in 2008, there's an incredible Entertainment Weekly article, and Heckerling says, like, this was my nightmare. This film is coming out three years late and all the references don't make sense anymore. Right. And I haven't tried to be a hyper-topical filmmaker in my life, but there are like 15 jokes that specifically now are meaningless. So then anytime there was like a music cue, I'd be like, okay, so was that a new release song at the time she was filming this?

And you look it up and like a lot of them are 1998. So you're like, it's a movie shot in 2005 with a lot of pop culture references from 1998 that then came out in 2008. It's like two levels of disconnected. Look, we're gonna talk about it. Karen, you'd never seen this movie. Oh, who's our guest? This is a miniseries on the films of Amy Heckerling. It's called Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast.

And our guest today returning to the show is Karen Shee. The great Karen Shee. I forgot to ask if you want any specific introduction. But you introduced yourself. I refuse to be introduced. Queen Karen Shee. Queen Karen. Queen of the Bits. I don't know.

So wait, I'm surprised you didn't rent. I could never be your woman from Blockbuster in 2008. No, I should have. What was I doing? Well, what were you doing? How old were you in 2008? I was 13 in 2008. Okay, so you could leave the house. Yeah, I was allowed to leave the house.

You were spending money probably, right? You were like Sasha age. You were practicing slut shaming parody songs in your right? You were like, Sasha age, you were practicing slut-shaming parody songs in your premiere. You're Frank calling Henry Winkler. I was being a slut and Frank calling Henry Winkler. Yeah. Being a slut and making fun of pop stars for being sluts. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like taking lessons from your mom on how it would be a more effective slut. I think their relationship is good in this

movie. There's a lot of things in this movie that I was like, -"Ah, we're close." -"I agree with you." -"We're close to cooking." -"I agree with you." And like, I feel a way about this movie that I wish I felt more about, like, let's say late period James L. Brooks, where I'm like, I can see it. Now, Karen, wait, I don't wanna blow up your spot, Karen.

Okay. So I won't, so I'll be quiet. So last time you were on this podcast was for... I'm a cyborg, but that's okay. The Bong Joon-Ho comedy, tragic comedy, whatever you want to call it. When was that, Griff? Like two years ago? Yeah, that's right. Bong Joon-Ho, what am I saying? Park Chan-Wook!

Jesus Christ. That was very offensive. Hansel David. And you were like, I'm not a huge movie person. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Now you are a movie person. Oh, the transformation has happened. I have become deeply movie-picked. Karen joined Letterboxx and she is logging.

Karen is every week, there's two or three new logs. And like, broadcast news... I love broadcast news! ...is something Karen logged. And was like, where's this movie been all my life? One of the best movies I've ever made. One of my favorite movies. But I don't know if you've seen the second half of his career.

I don't know. I don't... Probably not. I'm still not sure what it means. Well, I mean, I understand what it means. I just don't know where in his career it falls. I mean, the real follow-up, Spanglish is a film that Ben adores. Spanglish. Yeah.

Thank you for your contribution, Ben. Karen. You're welcome. How do you know a Paul Rudd film? Another kind of Curse production. Reese Weatherspoon, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson's final film. He's got a new film coming out this year. Oh.

Oh, James L. Brooks. Yes. It's called Ella McKay. But like, broadcast news is so perfect. That like, my standards are so high every time he finally makes something new. And I watch it and I'm just like, the faintest glimmers. I can see it there, but how did this guy lose it? This feels like you can fully see the successful version of this movie.

It's just, like, surrounded in mania and chaos. But it's not even like, oh, fuck, that's, like, half a good scene. It's like all of the threads, that's like half a good scene. It's like all of the threads kind of make sense from a distance. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think the biggest issue for me with this movie is that I think it would have worked better if Michelle Pfeiffer were less hot. Right?

Look, Michelle Pfeiffer should be less hot, Paul Rudd should be less old. God bless Paul Rudd, I love you so much. Yes. Love you dearly. But I love you so much. Yes. Love you dearly. But I have to imagine she needed a movie star to get this movie made, and she knew Paul Rudd very well, having made another movie with him, and that's how that all happened.

I'll open the dossier and look to find out more. But certainly a movie where Michelle Pfeiffer stressed out about how young Paul Rudd is should not feature a seasoned 35-year-old Paul Rudd. Like, I just, I love Paul Rudd is, should not feature a seasoned 35-year-old Paul Rudd. Yeah. Like, I just, I love Paul Rudd. Well, here's the crazier thing. And he's the best part of this movie, and he's a funny, funny man.

Here's this movie, if anything, if there's a central hook to this film, it's successful divorced woman in her late 40s falls for Hot charming up-and-coming struggling actor in his late 20s and they navigate can this relationship work? Despite the age difference and us being in different places in our careers, right Michelle Pfeiffer Ages beautifully. She's a gorgeous woman. She had aged beautifully at that time. She's a stunning, luminous creature.

Right? But so in a movie where she's like, ugh, everything's falling apart. You're like, God, what I would give for things to fall apart. Instead, my wife and I are for 20 minutes like, how could she have been married to Lovitz? What's this situation? Lovitz!

Carry on. Paul Rudd in this movie is supposed to be 29. That's like a twist. Oh my God, you're even younger than I thought. Maybe 28. Right. Yeah. We all like to joke about Paul Rudd in this movie is supposed to be 29. That's like a twist. Oh my God, you're even younger than I thought. Yeah. Right. We all like to joke about Paul Rudd being immortal and aging so well, but he was 35 when they shot this.

He was 38 by the time it came out. There is no part of him that feels like a 29 year old. And like most brutally, this movie comes out six months after Knocked Up, which I think there's a dividing line there of like once Paul Rudd has been reframed in a movie as like he could be a family man. Yeah, that's actually fascinating. Right? What a weird career. Was shot two years before.

But like when you've seen him raising Judd Apatow's children, you're like this guy's not a boy. Yeah, for sure. And but that also just reminds me that when Paul Rudd was in knocked up a very good performance The line on him was still like no one's figured out what a movie star this guy is and it's like a year later that we get like role models and Then I love you man, it's tough and it's like, okay, we finally realized like Hollywood's finally big part of that I mean like appaow sort of saw it, and then Knocked Up finally gives him the juice

to start like developing his own movies and co-writing them. I think that's the other big part of it, is him not being slotted into shit, and like working with his own collaborators, or like helping make the movie. Oh my God, there's so much to discuss. This film, you know in Spain, where this film was first released?

This film was called El Novio de mi Madre. Spain was, I think... My mother's boyfriend, is what it was called. Spain's the only country where I think it got a theatrical release? Wait, what? Why? It was where it first got a theatrical release. Not only, yeah.

But a year earlier, in 2007. In 2007, it was released in Spain, because the Spanish love, you know, industry comedy. Like, insider sitcom, just axe grinding and shit like that. They were all tracking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. I bought a Dutch.

And this movie does have the overlit insanity of an Almodovar movie. Well, we're going to get to that. I bought a Dutch Blu-ray of this movie because I believe it was the only country in which it was released in. And the tariffs meant that was like $48. I got in pre-tariffs. Right, good job. The benefit of us planning the show for in advance. But it's like I'm the dork who wants the physical media

of the movies we cover and I'm like, look at the history of our show kind of way. I remember this. And it's used Blockbuster DVDs or Dutch Blu-ray. Nothing in between. Yeah, everything about this movie is fascinating. Karen, I had heard people referring to you as Kenny Chi recently, and I was confused as to why you had gotten that nickname.

Oh, wait, who said that? But it's because your logins on Letterboxd are through the roof. I didn't realize you'd become such a movie fan. Wait, as Kenny Chi? Kenny Loggins. I was thinking that's the nickname of Kenny. This just did the worst joke of all. Because you're doing Loggins.

I'm circling back to something David said 10 minutes ago. Here's the shocking thing is that my dad's name is Kenny G. Is he really? Yeah, I was like, who is calling me that? My dad loves Kenny G so much that when he immigrated to the U.S. and South Korea, he named himself Kenny. Wait, whoa! He took the name Kenny in honor of Mr. G?

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What does he do? What's your dad do? My dad works in cargo for an airline company. Hell yeah. Yeah, cool guy. One of my sons just did a big poop. Oh, thank you. I should read it aloud every time I get those texts.

I get a text every time my children poop. Not my daughter, at this point. I do too weirdly and I keep hitting unsubscribe. I keep getting them. So what was I gonna say? I could never be your woman. So Karen, you're coming. Karen's like, oh, I'm gonna come them. So what was I gonna say? I could never be your woman. So Karen, you're coming. Karen's like, oh, I'm gonna come back to the show.

Kenny Loggins. Kenny Loggins, yeah, Karen Loggins, yeah, yeah. Karen's a cinephile now, is the point. You love cinema now. You were on, you were like, here are the types of movies I'd love to come back on for. And you were throwing out a lot of children's films. Right, which is fine.

I love kids' movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you were like, when's the next animated thing? Yes. Like, are you gonna do Paddington on Patreon? Yes, yes. That's what you were pushing us towards to keep you in mind for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I texted you, oh, we're doing Hackerling. She's done a lot of rom-coms and stuff, I imagine. You know, and you're like, oh, Paul Rudd, you know, we'll do this movie that no one's ever seen. And you love Paul Rudd. And Karen, you watched the Bakery Girl of Monceau? I did.

Isn't it so good? Yes. You gotta watch all those. You gotta watch them all. I gotta keep going through. You're having to... Look at these logs. She's got True Grit, Saving Private Ryan.

What's the reason you watch Saving Private Ryan? Here's what happened is my mom went back to school like a year and a half ago and she's taking a US history class and on her syllabus, Saving Private Ryan was like a recommended watch. Oh yeah, sure. So she came home, I was visiting home, she came home from school and to my dad was like, oh, like, do you guys want to watch a movie? And we were like, yeah, cute movie night.

She went, we're watching Saving Private Ryan. I mean, I like Saving Private Ryan. It's just not the chillest watch. No, it was really intense, I would say. And I, yeah, we all cried. It's maybe the most stress I've ever felt watching a movie. Yes! Yeah.

Yeah. Great movie. But I mean, just look at this. You know, this, this, Aaron Brockovich. Yeah. Conclave. Chantal Ackerman's News From Home. Yes!

I like it when a curveball like that pops up. This is so fascinating because the streets kept on whispering the name Kenny Chee, and I said, Karen's dad? Who works in cargo for airlines? And they were like, no, don't you know that's Karen's nickname now, because she belogged it. That's a really good joke. That's a really good joke.

Sometimes you just have to beat it and take a second pass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't smart enough the first time. I told you. No, no, no. I just, I hit a level of truth I didn't understand, and I had to reframe the joke around it. You're right, you're right. So, I told you we're gonna do this movie, you watched this film.

What did you think of I Could Never Be Your Woman? Just, just, you know, initial impression. That's all, I just wanna hear that. It was so bonkers. I guess I have three initial impressions. One is it was so bonkers. Two is Saoirse Ronan was incredible. She's really lucked in. It is kind of one of those things where like, damn, you lucked out with this

casting. Like, 99 out of 100. I know. I know. And it's like as wild and bonkers that this movie must have felt in 2008 with every passing year and the evolution of Saoirse Ronan's career, it becomes that much stranger that it's, that's her, she's this good. Yeah. She's so charismatic. Like, so fun, so charming. She's great. She's great. Saoirse Ronan is in this film. But absolute disconnect from everything else for the rest of, like, she does this and then she immediately does Atonement and the Lovely Bones.

Wow! Like, she does two child performances that are like, yes, this is representative of who she will be as an adult actor. She gets an Oscar nomination for Atonement as a child. But this is her most ladybird-coded performance of the three? Yes. She wants to be called a different name.

That is true. She does debut that late in the film. It doesn't come up with it. She's like, I want to be called Drew. Weird Drew. Yeah. She's doing, like, weird Al stuff. Yeah. Anyway, so those are your first impression was bonkers. Second impression was, Sersha, we're not so good.

What was your third impression? The third impression was I was like, Amy Huckling must have just watched Peep Show and been like, I want those people in my movie. That was a true, my brain started, where I was like, oh, it's funny, there's an English actor, Sarah Alexander, I know her. And then like, it keeps happening where I'm like,

why is everyone English? Like, is this like a trick? With Olivia Colman in it with no eyes. David Mitchell, obviously, you know, Graham Norton. Like, but like, and then you learn, okay, a lot of it was shot in Britain and that helps you understand? Believe, because I was trying to watch closely.

I believe this was shot entirely in Britain other than like second unit exterior. Well, and there's that, they're on the lot that one time, where I'm like, they must have gone to the lot for that. I think they got a day on the lot in between sound stages. And then every other exterior shot of LA you don't see actors in.

Right. Any shot that is clearly real LA. But all the sets which were so finally constructed and well lit, they were locations, right? They were real places. Your letterbox log, and for a second, I thought I was looking at Karen's page, and I said, is it at Kenny?

But... No, keep bringing back, it gets better every time. Yeah, I don't know if that one tracks internally, but you said this film was lit by Satan. Yeah. I mean, it's just insane. And, you know, again, my wife who is less, you know, she's watching a film for story and dialogue and, you know, character.

But even she was sort of like, why does it look this way? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. But I was saying to her, like, Clueless looks incredible. Like, obviously, the great Bill Pope shot Clueless. Great cinematographer. Yeah, but do you know who shot this? Brian Tufano, who has shot Trainspotting and a lot of Danny Boyle movies. And shot, like, Mike Lee and Ken Loach films.

Wow. So I don't know what's going on. My only theory was that Michelle Pfeiffer was like, you must bounce stadium lighting off my face at all times. I think that is some of it, but I also think this speaks to sort of like the weird mania around this movie, the bonkers feeling, right? And it's just like, this is the kind of shit that like fucks up careers, right? She's got the script she wants to do.

Every studio is like, it's a comedy about a woman over the age of 40. Who wants to see that? You know? She's like, I got Michelle Pfeiffer. They're like, Michelle Pfeiffer? She hasn't been on a movie in five years see that? You know, she's like, I got Michelle Pfeiffer. They're like, Michelle Pfeiffer, she hasn't been on a movie in five years. We don't know if she's valuable. Some weird eccentric guy who we'll talk about deeply

in a moment, once we get to the dossier, he's like, I love this script, I'll give you $20 million to make it right now. This is true. Provision. That is why it got made. Whoa. You have to film the entire movie in Great Britain. Wait, what?

And you get to these turning points. No, but clearly he found some tie in of like... He probably got a tax break or something. And this guy was later, was convicted for financial fraud both right before and right after this movie. Jeffrey Epstein. It was Jeffrey Epstein. No, this guy who we'll talk about. It would be really, really, really weird if it was Jeffrey Epstein. That would be quite

a twist. That's the one thing that could make this movie more insane. Is if Jeffrey Epstein financed it just because he liked the script. About a movie about older women. These moments that define someone's career where they're like, here's the great news. Twenty million dollars, you can make your movie. Stipulation. You have to film the whole thing in Britain.

And you're like, huh, it's a Hollywood industry comedy that takes place mostly on backlots. It's true, this is not the best student. I mean, Britain has sound stages, but it is true that it is an LA comedy. They don't call it sunny London town. And so I do feel this sense of a great cinematographer who didn't generally shoot in

LA, but also like didn't shoot like broad comedies He's got a movie star who has like a lot of stipulations probably about how she's lit and framed And then they're just like we need to overcompensate for shooting in a fucking drab Foggy town Let's direct the Sun at them. I mean, the full sun. It's like the space laser from Die Another Day is on now. But it also then you have this entire supporting cast that's like all British actors because it's clearly like,

okay, Amy Heckerling got to pick her like six regulars who they would fly over, right? And then every other part is played by someone from the UK. It's five. I think she gets she gets Pfeiffer Rudd, Stacey Dash from Clueless. Have you seen Clueless? I have seen Clueless. Yeah. You know, one of her more successful films. Stacey Dash is the best friend in Clueless. She plays the star here. John Lovett and Fred Willard.

I feel like those are the five of them. You're forgetting Wallace Shawn. One great scene of Wallace Shawn. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. But you have like, right, Twin Caplan on the couch, non-speaking. I think she was a producer on this. She produced the movie. But that's about it. Even Tracy Ullman, as much as she's a Hollywood figure, that's a Brit.

It's why Sersha ends up in this movie, I have to imagine. Of course, because of child labor shit, right? It's why the whole supporting cast is like, she has enough taste to be like, if I'm filming in the UK, who are like the 10 funniest on-the-cust people of British comedy television? That's true. But it lends a very weird air to this movie where you're like, everyone just sounds a little off.

Do you like Britain? Yeah, yeah, sure. Have you been? I have been. I was going to say, I wonder, because everybody is doing an American accent except for David Mitchell. David Mitchell, who I think probably just cannot.

Yeah, I was wondering, I wonder if there's like an audition tape somewhere where it's him trying his best to sound like he's from LA. Hey guys, like he's so English. I just cannot imagine him pulling that off. His voice is so English. Like, yeah, if he were nasally, LA wouldn't work.

He has a detective show now. You know how like in Britain, if you get nasally, LA wouldn't work. He has a detective show now. You know how like in Britain, like if you get to be, you know, you hit your sort of late 40s, early 50s, you're in the mix for like a show where you go to some like gray beach and you're like, oh, you know, they killed the old mayor or whatever, right? You know, you got to solve a crime. He's got one now. Does he have a hook? Is there a gimmick? I hope he has a hook hand. That'd be fun.

That'd be a good gimmick. It'd be called Detective Hook. Uh, Detective Show. It's just so... It's called Ludwig. Ooh. Uh, and he's, uh... Yes. What? Who else is in it?

He's a reclusive puzzle maker who publishes puzzle books under the pen name Ludwig. This sounds incredible. Oh, my God, wait, this has way too much business. He has an identical twin brother who goes missing. Played by him as well, I assume. And so he has to pretend to be his brother. What? And then he gets it, bro, this sounds very, very basic.

Keep it going. More. Oh my god. Because you know, it's always like, oh, Richard Griffiths plays like a meat pie maker. He runs a pie shop. Right. He's a retired detective who runs a pie shop. Right. He's a retired detective who runs a pie shop and people keep luring him back in for one more case.

Or there's this show, there was this British TV show called Rosemary in Time, with Felicity Kendall and Pam Ferris, two lovely old lady actors, who were gardening detectives. Incredible. Like, they were like full-time gardeners, part-time, oop, someone's dead in the bushes, we gotta solve the mystery. Wow! This is what all Britain has to offer.

There's also, I just saw, like, new release stills of Thursday Murder Club that's coming out later this year that's also just like a cast of the cutest old British actors just solving a murder mystery together. Here we go. It's Helen Mirren, isn't it? Mirren Brosnan, who you just have to rattle pennies in front of that guy and he will sign on.

I swear to God. Ben Kingsley. Can I sing? Will you let me sing in this one? Fucking hell, Jonathan Price. This sounds good. It sounds amazing. I'm sure we're gonna love this.

Chris Columbus directed it. Who directed it? Chris Columbus. Director of Home Alone. We're here, and in Christmas Chronicles too. And Christmas Chronicles. And one of the Harry Potter movies. The first two Harry Potter movies.

The first two. Wow. He did open the Chamber of Secrets. Yeah. Oh. Because he speaks Parseltongue. It's a little joke. ["The Christmas Tree"]

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Exactly. And you're putting all this stuff together and you're like, is this going to work? And then suddenly you get that magic moment when you're stirring and you're like, wait, this looks like a meal. Yup. You know, this was a bunch of stuff before and now this looks like something I want to put in my mouth. I know that feeling and that experience. And HelloFresh is really good at that mm-hmm at putting together these quick

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item in every box. HelloFresh.com slash check 10 FM one per box with an active subscription. Free meals are applied as a discount on the first box new subscribers only varies by point. subscribers only varies by point. There is a universe in which they go, hey, you have to film this movie in the UK. And she goes, well, Britain has a big television industry. I can make it about British people making a British show or one American woman running a British TV show. But it feels like she has this movie is so much her grinding

access with L.A. culture in particular and the nature of the American show business complex that the moment they're like, hey, we'll make your movie if you agree to film in a place that will never look like L.A. Yeah, it will not really vibe, yes. Right. I just think she should have put her foot down. Now the tough question is, if that happens, does the movie never get made?

The movie probably never gets made and she's probably like this, like you're sort of saying, this thing's already gonna feel out of date soon. This is me going through my experiences of the late 90s. Let me talk about it a little bit in the dossier so we have the appropriate context. So Amy Harkling's a filmmaker, American filmmaker, Karen,

has made Fast Times Ridgemont High. Look who's talking, Clueless. Then she makes Loser with Jason Biggs and Mina Suvari. It's not a big hit. And most relevant to this film, after the success of Clueless, she launches the Clueless TV show that runs for three seasons.

I didn't know there was a TV show. And it's fairly successful. You don't know that because we all agreed to forget about it. It did okay. It was a TGIF show. It had one season as part of the TGIF lineup, and then it moved over to UPN for two more seasons. Bumped to UPN, which was a network back in the day that things would get bumped over to.

Stacey Dash reprised her role. Yeah, some of the Clueless cast returned, most of the stars did not. But then she makes Loser, which is a box office disappointment. And then Heckerling gets attached to a bunch of stuff. She was in negotiations to write a pilot for Tori Spelling. That didn't happen. Probably good. She was in talks to remake the serene fucking Japanese masterpiece Afterlife,

the Koryada movie. Stunning discovery from K-2. Which is a movie you would like if you've never seen it. It's a movie about when people die, they go to a waiting room where they have a week to figure out what memory they go to a waiting room where they have a week to figure out what memory they wanna take with them into the afterlife, basically, by making a little movie. It is so cool.

Wait, do you know off the top of your head what memory you would take? No, what the fuck? I need seven days! Griffin, what about you? I need eight days! You're screwed, Griffin! My memory is of this taping.

Hey! What if that was it? Ben loves it when we do applause bits. I just, I want to throw out, well, A, it's so funny because you're just like, why was she going to remake, like, Afterlife? And then when you describe it, like, give it the five-second pitch like you did to Karen right now, it does sort of make sense to go, like, there is a wildly different version of that movie. For sure. There is, like, an ability to take that log line and turn it into, like, there is a wildly different version of that movie. There is like an ability to take that log line

and turn it into like a 90s studio comedy. I think so, like a sweet comedy. And its own thing. And its own thing, but that doesn't, Fox was attached with it, it doesn't happen. At one point she's announced to be doing a comedy pilot at ABC that was gonna be kind of a love boat type show

with like a lot of celebrity guests. She was announced in 2003 as the director of a film called Sweat, which was gonna be a sort of shampoo style movie set in the world of personal training about like a Thario who beds his clients. That never came together. Then she and Vince Vaughn are gonna make a movie

called No Place Like Home, where Vince Vaughn was gonna play, oh, a cocky character, that's interesting, who's upwardly mobile and has the world at his fingertips and a diva version to his parents, but he breaks up with his girlfriend and has to move into his family home in Long Island. Okay, whatever. Anyway, so that doesn't happen either.

So instead, she's thinking about this movie that she makes while she's working on the first season of Clueless and raising her 10 year old daughter, Molly, on her own in the mid nineties. Amy Hackling was a single mom and she's ambivalent because she's like, I'm working on this show. It's promoting these unrealistic standards of beauty. It's a bad show for young girls or whatever.

Like, it's a bad, you know, image. And I've got this kid. So she should, that clash is what's animating her here, okay? Which isn't an interesting setup for a movie, right? Like someone who is professionally continuing to perpetuate a fantasy version of high school life, then also going home and dealing with a real child. Where I'm like, that's actually the most interesting, unique kind of angle this movie has

and like a very personal experience where you're like, oh, she's the person right that no one else could tell this story. It does feel like that is kind of the least developed aspect in the final film despite the fact that search is really good I also just want a snapshot because I just I think it's kind of Interesting like clueless is so big right? It's like a surprise hit and then when it goes on video it sells like through the roof. It keeps getting bigger They get this TV show on the air really quickly versus like Baby Talk,

the Look Who's Talking show that she wasn't involved in and Fast Times, which only ran for like eight episodes. This is her third movie spawning a TV show and she's more involved in this. Right. She is. She is. And so she like only directed episodes in the first seasons, but like remained an executive producer on this, remained involved in it. Which means that like in a way, she is kind of losing the cachet from the success of Clueless by focusing on the Clueless movie or the series.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like having success and that she's running her own TV show, but she's also kind of letting the heat dissipate from the fact that she's coming off a hit movie. So by the time she cashes in and she's like, I'm ready to make another movie again, she makes Loser, it's a bomb. And now it's like the early 2000s and you're like,

well, she's not totally dinged because she's made enough hits that she can keep attaching herself to big shit like this. But suddenly she's in this position where it's like, oh, Amy Huckling hasn't had a hit movie in almost 10 years. Like it's just kind of... The air is all out of the balloon, you know? I'm gonna skip all the Chris Kattan stuff.

It's way too long. I'm not doing that right now. We have to discuss this move. And also, just people can Google the Chris Kattan stuff. Amy Huckling denies all the Chris Kattan stuff. Chris Kattan has his... You guys gotta denies all the Chris Kattan stuff. Chris Kattan has his... You guys gotta just read that yourself. It's too much for me to get into, especially because it has nothing to do with this movie.

People theorize that this movie is about Chris Kattan, and I strongly do not think it is. What would it... Oh, like Paul Rudd is supposed to be like Chris Kattan? Interesting. I don't think so. No. Well, I don't know. What do I know? Can I just say the 60 second version of it? Very briefly, yes. Chris Catan and Amy Heckerling had an affair during the filming of A Night at the Roxbury, which she was executive producer on.

That is uncontested fact. Whoa, okay. What is contested is Chris Catan's book claimed that he was pressured by Lauren Michaels and the studio to have said affair in order to encourage her to direct the movie rather than just produce. And Amy Heckerling and his daughter have a very different series of events and that he had an affair where he was cheating on Jennifer Coolidge, what his at the time long-term girlfriend who was also in Night at the Roxbury with Eliza Donovan of Clueless, no of with Heckerling and then che's on Heckerling with Eliza Donovan, so he's sleeping with three different women

of the production of this movie. And that the whole pressure thing doesn't really make sense because she was already working on the film, but they didn't really actually start to get to know each other until after the film was already in production, what have you. All of this is just important to say. Amy Heckerling's response was, ugh, he's a nut when she was asked about all this. And she was just like I'm not gonna comment I don't like what are you talking about?

There's just a lot of information out there. I'll let people get on the rabbit. It would be funny if Lauren Michaels is official statement was Like he called the times it just needs to be acknowledged because this movie being such a like odd hidden object Yeah, just sort of ignored when people started being, what is this thing a couple years ago? A lot of people jumped to the conclusions that's about her and Katan, cause they had an age difference. I don't think it is. So she writes this movie, nobody wants to make it

because it's about an older female protagonist and Hollywood isn't really that interested in it. But Michelle Pfeiffer gets her hands on it. Michelle Pfeiffer's career has also been slowing down. I would say post What Lies Beneath, she doesn't really have a big hit, right? She does What Lies Beneath, she does I Am Sam and White Oleander, which were both sort of meant

to be Oscar plays for her that didn't get her nominations. She's good in White Oleander. Yeah. But it's not a good movie. And she's good in I Am Sam, and it's not a good movie. I think she's good. She's fine. I mean, I always liked her.

Is she Sam? No,'s not a good movie. I think she's good. She's fine. I mean, I always like her. Is she Sam? No. No, no. No. I Am Sam is the movie where Sean Penn plays a mentally challenged person. Oh! Who is raising Dakota Fanning, his daughter, and she's now getting to the age where they think she's...

She's intellectually... Progress beyond him intellectually. And Michelle Pfeiffer is the lawyer who's trying to fight for his rights to retain custody. This is so devastating. It's a weepy. It's not good. It's very bad. And Sean Penn's performance in it is one of those things where you're like, oh my God, like,

who allowed this to happen? But he got an Oscar nomination, and it's the movie that, like, presented Dakota Fang to the world and made her, like, the child star. So Michelle Pfeiffer kind of gets no bump from that movie. Gotcha. Well, she's also playing a of gets no bump from that movie. Gotcha. Well, she's also playing a character

that she plays a lot in the 90s on, which is the sort of leggy, pantsuited lawyer or workaholic lady who's like, I'm so gorgeous, but I'm so busy, and no one will touch me. She's trying to hold it all together. You know what I mean? Like, oh, it's so hard to be me. Like, I'm doing this because she's always, like,

throwing cell phones and bags and stuff around because she's so busy. Rolling her saucer eyes. Yes, and so after those two movies. But then why don't Leander was meant to be a bit of a make-up for her and it doesn't really go anywhere. And then she takes several years off.

Several years off. And this is the next movie she makes. And she wants to make this movie, obviously, because it's a very big role, meaty, interesting, probably themes that appeal to her. Amy Heckerling's a real director. Uh, Philippe Martinez, a French producer, uh, has a bit of a checkered past.

He had served time in prison for fraud. Oh, whoa. In France, though, where you get, like, baguettes and stuff. Oh, hey, cool, cool. I don't know if you actually get baguettes. Uh, and he has a $200 million line of credit, so he claims, I'm not sure if he does, so he greenlights this film for a $20 million, like, budget.

Yes. But Heckerling does send some red flags. They basically, this guy gets out of French prison, shows up in LA in a chauffeured Bentley. He's got a big cigar. Smoking cigars, like storming into meetings saying like, I have $200 million to spend. People show me scripts. Wow. And this is like one of his first big moves.

And Heckerling's basically said that as the movie was filming, she kept getting told that the budget was lowering. She was like, this guy said he had $200 million and was giving me 20 comfortably for this film and suddenly the number keeps going down week by week. So like the movie is shrinking as they're making it. He makes them film it in London, which is a problem. Indeed, he does keep saying the budget is going down. Wait, sorry, so it started off being $200 million?

No, he said he had $200 million to put towards film finance. Then he started saying he had $100 million, which is less. It is less. Still a lot. By the time this movie finally came out, he said he was $100 million in debt. Oh, no. So somehow within three years, he went from, I got $200 to spend to, can someone borrow

me $100 so I can get back to zero. So Michelle Pfeiffer's paid $1 million. Which is below her quote. Which is below her quote, but she will also get between 10 10 to 15% of the film's first dollar grosses. Which is very unusual to be giving them actual money versus profit. But this is a bit of a problem later. A movie financed entirely by some maverick outsider who's willing to do that in order to secure a bigger star who usually would maybe like,

would probably take that budget to $30 million on her own. If they're paying her full salary. Packaging is also promised on percentage. This later becomes the beginning of the end for the whole movie. This is going to be a huge issue. Yeah. The film is then put on the shelf. Apparently tested well.

I'm not sure where they tested it. No offense. And then they're like, we're not releasing this if that's, if Michelle gets 15% of the gross. They screen it, MGM agrees to acquire it, then they find out about this deal, they crunch the numbers and they're like, we estimate the movie's gonna make this amount.

And if we have to give away Michelle Pfeiffer that much, we won't. Then we don't wanna do. So they just hand it back. Oh my God. They spend a year trying to find a new distributor. At that point, Mr. Martinez has no money, if he ever had any money. He's got negative money now.

So he sold the DVD rights to the Weinstein Company, a normal and good company that does normal things. But he does that first while trying to find a new theatrical distributor. Then he finds this company Freestyle Releasing that was very much kind of the ketchup entertainment of its day Where it's like do you just contractually need to get a movie out in theaters? We're like a distributor for hire They agree to do it. They announced a release date in 2007 It's gonna be released on 1,500 screens freestyle release and then like weeks before it's gonna come out. They pull it off the schedule Correct because they found out that they didn't have DVD rights,

which hadn't been told to them. And at that point, DVD is still really big. And they're like, if we don't have DVD, then we don't wanna fucking release this movie. Hackerling calls it like cutting the legs off of a baby and then being like, take my baby. It's still cute. Just kind of a gruesome thing to say.

So instead it came out in Spain. Ando! Was it really in Spain? It grossed $9.5 million globally. Okay. Which isn't very good, but it's not often. Yeah, I wouldn't say no to that amount of money. Well, lucky for you right here,

I have a check here for you for $9.5 million. He's been waiting for someone to say that they wouldn't say no. He's had the check on the desk for years. And so it came out direct to video in 2008. Weinstein makes the blockbuster deal. And that is the ultimate fate of this movie. Yeah.

And Paul Rudd said, he felt bad. It's a real shame. He was afraid some of the jokes would feel stale if it got... Was right. Yeah, sure. The's right? Yeah. Sure. The film got poor reviews. And it is forgotten, I would say.

Until a little podcast called Blank Jack decided to focus on it. I was gonna say, it's hard to say it's forgotten if most people never knew it existed. Sure. It's not really known. It's not really known. Nathan Rabin did a piece on it for his My Year of Flop series years ago. What did he give it? Fiasco, flop, or secret success?

I believe he gave it a secret success. Sure. And said, like, this is much more of a movie than I thought it would be. You can see the kind of shape of it. This is Amy Hackerling. She's like a personal filmmaker. Wow. It's not perfect.

Yeah. But there's like stuff in it, which is certainly how I feel. Like I don't know if I can say this movie is good. No. But it is frustrating how much good stuff there is in it. There's a lot of stuff in it that I thought was a good idea. Yes. And even like things that are executed well, but then there's stuff where you're just like,

the lighting alone is knocking every single element of the movie down a star at every moment. It's tough. Execution is lacking here, I would say. The film lacks... There's an execution issue, Griffin. Things like Tracy Allman's character Mother Nature, who is never explained, serves no plot purpose, doesn't really jive with the story. I don't know.

I need to correct myself. The opening credits sequence goes from nature photography and then just hard transitions to plastic surgery. Yes, you're right. That's right, because it's like, ah, these days everyone's getting plastic surgery. I'm Tracy Ullman, I won't explain anymore. And then, ah, dah, dah, dah.

Old ladies are worthless, fuck you. And then she's not like, let's meet our, I, I, I, Right, you expect her to be- Because there could be kind of a Greek chorus-y, you know, like, oh, right. The narrator's rap before. You know, let me, I wish everyone could be like me

covered in leaves, but instead here we are in L, yes? No, I was gonna say, no, sorry, go ahead. No, I'm listening. Oh, I was just gonna say that... One of the weirdest parts of the... Sorry that I said yes so aggressively to you. No, it was really supportive. I really appreciate it. Really?

You call that supportive? Vincent Price stuff. Yes! Um, Tracy Ullman, the weirdest part of the Mother Nature bit is like there's no consistent visual vocabulary, I guess, at one point when she shows up, everybody else then freezes in time. Whereas before that, when she showed up, they were still continuing in time.

Right, and it's more like she's a great gazoo no one can see or whatever. The rules of her function within the movie change basically every scene. As you said, sometimes she is Zach Morris powers can freeze the whole movie and comment on it. Sometimes she is narrating just to us, the audience down the lens.

And then sometimes she talks to Pfeiffer. Other times she's like Pfeiffer's like fucking Paul Bettany in Beautiful Mind where you're like, is she having a mental breakdown? Where does she get those damn chips? Great question. So she's eating chips. Does she go to the store? No one can see her.

Do you think a bag of chips is floating next to Pfeiffer? And she's like talking to him? The imaginary supermarket? I wonder if she can digest stuff. Thank you. But yes, it is. Can she digest stuff? Well, let's send an email.

Tracy at Ullman.com. You're like any one of those three things could work. No. Could, I guess. Could. Yeah. It is very confusing when it's jumping back and forth between them and you don't get what it is.

The extent to which this lifts out of the movie. The movie's 97 minutes long. Feels long. You lose Tracy, we're getting closer to 90 minutes. Just get her right out of there. It almost feels like she has this idea and then Tracy Ullman will do it. And then there's this sort of obligation of like, I got Tracy Ullman.

Like she's, you know, even though it's the late 2000s and Tracy Ullman isn't quite as hot as she was, it's still like, oh, you got Tracy Ullman. You got to use her. There's also famously a movie we've covered on the show, Death Becomes Her, where Tracy Ullman had a major subplot and 25 minutes of footage and they just went, bloop. Like there are other movies that have straight lifted Tracey Ullman.

Maybe she was so sensitive about getting lifted out of a movie. She had a no lifting clause in her contract. I can't lift me. Yeah. It's called the dead weight clause. Do you like Tracey Ullman? Does Tracey Ullman mean anything to you? I don't think I really know much of Tracey Ullman. I'm gonna be honest, like, I don't either.

Because her peak... A little interesting, as someone who grew up in both New York and London, that Tracy Ullman means nothing to you. Well, you're a target audience. Yeah. Well, but I'm a little too young for her. Like, I think her sort of like TV show, like the Tracy Ullman show and Tracy Takes On,

that had all peaked by the time I was a kid. We both came after our peak. And she was still around. That's the difference. I think when we were young, she was still around. And Karen, you're just enough younger than us that she basically doesn't exist in your purview. Gotcha. HBO kind of treated her like they treat Bill Maher now.

I'm not talking in terms of politics, but in terms of they're like, she's in the HBO family as long as she wants. Whatever she wants to do. If she wants to take a shit on stage, we will run an Emmy campaign for that. Like it is whatever she wants. If she wants to take a shit on stage, we will run an Emmy campaign for that. It is whatever she wants. Right. She had 10 years of HBO free reign combined with she was still popping up in

movies at that time. She would pop up in a movie. But then basically, I feel like by the year 2000, she really slows down. But it was one of those things like the Tracy U Allman show, which I've never really watched. The Simpsons came out of the Tracy Allman show famously, it was the animated... They were like, oh, we should do a... They were like, we should have animated interstitials on this sketch show.

Wait, and that became The Simpsons? Matt Groening was like, I don't know, Homer? Like, literally it was kind of that. It's all part of the lore. James L. Brooks, everyone's trying to like make an American sitcom for Tracy Allman. And James L. Brooks was like, no, she needs an old school variety show. Fox has just started. He marches in. He's like one of those legendary TV creators.

He's like Tracy Allman's sketch show. They surround her with like an all star cast, including several voices from The Simpsons. Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, and they're like, we want to make this variety show, it should have animated segments. There are two of them. The other one was Tracy's pick. I forget what it's called, but was a flop.

And then James L. Brooks was like, I like this weird cartoonist from Oregon. -♪ Eregoard. -♪ This is true. And Tracy Olman was like, I don't like this Simpson shit. And The Simpsons immediately like hit and turned to a spin off. She didn't want to voice one of the Simpsons because she was like, I don't like this. And then years later, she sued. Because she's like, I am.

A percentage of the Simpsons profits. Right. I assume she didn't get it. She did not. That's incredible. The thing about Tracy Ullman. That is a sort of like changing of the guard moment where it's like, the Simpsons are the biggest things in America now, and Tracey Ullman gets to do her stuff on HBO.

I want to say this with all due respect to Tracey Ullman, who I understand is a bit of a pioneer and a trailblazer for women in comedy, and I guess women are allowed to stay in comedy. Not if I had my way. Oh, okay. Boo! And I think Traceye Elman is funny. I have seen her be funny in things.

Robin Hood, Ben and Tide, she makes me laugh. Yeah, she's really funny in that. Whenever you watch those kind of comedy talk show, clip show sort of like retrospect where they're like, oh, and the Tracee Elman show is so good. Like, you know, and she had her character like, you know, Mrs. Whatever. And then she's going like, ah, it's me!

And I'm just like, was this funny? Like, this doesn't look that funny. I'll say this, too. You know, sometimes I watch old comedy and you're like, brilliant. Like it works. And then sometimes they're like, oh, mind your feet. And you're like, Jesus, she plays. Is she funny? Just tell me.

I think she's funny. OK. I think she is. She's really big, right? Like Tracy's like huge, unsubtle energy. And I think that when it's five degrees off, it's like insufferable. I think when Tracy Ullman misses, it's rough. I don't like watch classic Tracy Ullman and like... It's funny that we're talking this much about a character who's in the movie for five minutes.

That is not relevant. I don't watch classic Tracy Ullman and like fucking Rafflecopter on the floor. But I do, I do think she's funny, but I'm also like, I've seen her like strike out. And especially in things like movies where you're just like... When she had her own TV projects and she could build an entire universe around her and it's just

showcasing her you're like this is impressive as like just a style of performance and then sometimes when you drop her into a movie like this and you're like she is not harmonizing with anyone else she is just doing her own thing in a very specific register. I don't think she's bad in this, but like it just adds to the chaos of this movie where you're... The element is so strange. She does not matter to this movie. The movie is about a character called Rosie, played by Michelle Pfeiffer,

who's the showrunner of a bad sitcom called You Go Girl, where the joke is that all the actors, Ben hated this movie so much. Oh my God. Look at his face. Ben is crying. No look who's talking now. Stacey Dash plays the lead actor and the joke is like, everyone's too old, right?

Right. Stacey Dash was 29 when they shot the Clueless movie. So she's on the Clueless TV show into her early 30s And then this movie is almost 10 years after that so the joke is right. She's like 40 But she's it's now it's it's sort of the same thing. Look. She's actually too old Like you're watching this you know like who on earth would think stacey- could be a teenager like and I sort of get the joke I've like oh, it's heightened I guess But I wasn't it couldn, I couldn't really get there.

Also, is it the other guy? It makes the whole thing feel like a dream you're having like on drugs. There's no grounded reality. There's no like consistent reality to it. Even though it's supposed to be about this sort of grounded thing of this woman's trying to claw out some romance and life

and she's mothering and it's hard. But then it's like she lives in cuckoo land and I feel like I'm on fucking Xanax watching this movie or something. Because everything's just kind of like vibrating and everyone's a little off. It is a weird fever dream movie. Like it has that kind of like old dog's chaos to it. A great example being when Paul Rudd's character is introduced, so Paul Rudd plays Adam, the young actor they cast

in a guest role, who becomes a sort of breakout star, and then she starts kissing him. He comes into the audition and then he, like, is jerked sideways like a cartoon. Yes. And they all go, how do you do that? And then he comes back in, but it's like... But it's not a dress.

It's a Johnny Dangerously gag in... Right But it's like, but it's not a dress. It's a Johnny Jane Dursley gag. Right. It's like this crazy sort of out of proportion physical humor. But nobody even says if that was, did she imagine that? Does he actually do that? Doesn't seem possible. Paul Rudd is an incredible physical comedian. Very funny physical actor. And he can do shit like that in a movie and be like, this is this character doing this. It's not betraying the laws of gravity in this film, right? This is a guy who can do goofy movements.

The way that moment plays out in the film, he is clearly rigged by wires. It is not something a human being could do. It also, when it first happened, I was like, oh, this is going to come back in some satisfying way. Right. Right. He never. Because they call it out. It's like this guy has a superpower. They call it out like, how, this is gonna come back in some satisfying way. Yeah. It never mentions it. Because they call it out as like, this guy has a super power.

But they call it out like, how do you do that? And then they don't ask him or talk about it again. Yes. And it's a great example of what I'm talking about in this movie where you're just like, I feel like someone needed to figure that out. You know what it is? Is I feel like this movie, it reads as though,

you know when you're like filming something and you do the take as written and then you're like, you know what, just do one for fun. And then they just stitched together all the four fun takes. It's heavy and sometimes, sometimes it's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like look, the highlight of this movie is something that has lived on in gift form

to audiences that don't know what it's from. Zero idea. Which is Paul Rudd dancing around like a lunatic at the bar, which is so funny out of context because Paul Rudd dancing around like a silly guy, it feels like Celery Man or whatever. Yeah. From, I think you could leave.

There is. What's it called? Jesus, Tim and Eric. Yes. I think it was for... Were you like him just going like, you know, is funny. Yeah, I think it was for... Were you like, him just going like, you know, is funny? Yeah, I think it was either for role models or I Love You Man. And as you're saying, the 2008 year where like, Paul Rudd figures it out.

He figures out his movie star leading man thing. Where he went on Conan, Paul Rudd's Conan appearances, of course, just like all bangers. But they play whatever music, I think they play Badlands to his entrance. And Paul Rudd just like rather than sitting down, the couch starts clapping and then starts dancing and he and Conan dance for like three minutes. That's so charming. And it's so charming, it's one of my favorite clips.

And watching this film for the first time, I was like, oh, five of the moves he does in Conan are direct quotes of this. Where it almost felt like he knew, I did really fucking dancing in that movie and no one saw it. I gotta find a way to reproduce those dance moves in a medium that people will actually see. But it's, yes, the dancing is incredible.

It's really funny. Can we talk about Paul Rudd a little bit in a focused way? Yes we can, but first I want to ask about the dancing. So I see that and I want to fuck him. Like, and I'm saying, like, I want to get him naked and have sex with him. I'm not saying, like, oh, I want to fuck him like I'm on Twitter. Like, no, it's hot. Yeah.

Would Michelle Pfeiffer want to fuck him after watching that? Because in the movie she does. But Michelle Pfeiffer still almost feels a little too classy to be like, oh, you goofball. I'll repeat an anecdote I said just like two episodes ago. My gay friend was testing how straight I was, thinking that he could maybe talk me into hooking up. And he said, like, you don't find any guys attractive?

Like, if you could fuck one guy, who would it be? And I said Paul Rudd and he went, oh, you are straight. Really? But I had the same thing where I'm like, Paul Rudd is a... In my mind, I'm like, that's the most attractive guy. And that is exactly what I wish I could look, sound, move, and think like.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, well, that's the masculine ideal, is Paul Rudd. I actually bet Michelle Pfeiffer, I bet that did turn her on. Yeah. Because it's supposed to. Also, because he's just so loosey-goosey silly guy.

So loosey-goosey and so inviting and so doesn't care about social norms. Yeah. But I also think this movie makes him kind of dumb in a way that is weird. Like, I think when Paul Rudd... Oblivious. Like mega oblivious. Here's the thing that I think Paul Rudd is really good at. Is like certain comedy stars who then need to have a love interest.

And you're like, this beautiful actress would not be attracted to this guy. Even if he looks like a movie star. Because he's behaving like a maniac. Right? Like if Maura Tierney has witnessed the way that Jim Carrey behaves in Liar Liar. She can never see him as a sexual creature ever again. Now, it's a broad comedy and it doesn't need to be based on that sort of reality, but you're just like, ehhh, I don't know if she sees him as like a viable option, right? Paul Rudd can do shit. It probably has to do with the fact that like,

he became a comedy star in a moment when the broad high concept comedy was going away and things became more relationship and conversational whatever. But something like the slapping the bass scene in I love you man, which is so funny. And it's just Rudd doing a riff for like four minutes and moving weird and making weird voices. I watched it and I'm like, I still think Rashida Jones is going to fuck him in 30 minutes. He is a goofball. But in a way where you're like, this is the way that like people pick people up at bars. You know? Like this is the way where people are like, man, women love a guy with a sense of humor. Like if he looks like Paul Rudd and he can commit to the bit this hard, and he's this affable,

and he gives the smile at the end of it, you're like, fuck, it's kind of hot, right? This movie makes him dumb, though, in a way where when he does those sorts of bits, and I think part of it's probably the disconnect of him being 35 and playing 29, and if he was 29, it would register as just kind of like puppy dog cluelessness. And then at 35, you're just like, is this guy a moron?

Right. Karen, what do guy a moron? Right. Karen, what do you want to say? Oh, I was going to say, well, it was weird because when he, the first or second time he shows up, he like throws a jelly bean at the assistant woman's butt. He does. That's another sequence that I was like, is this a dream? Yeah, why? It was so off-putting

that I think if he had been even 5% less handsome, I would be like, I hate this guy. But he only gets away with it because he's Paul Redd, and you choose to forget about that scene. But it doesn't really track with how the character later made his moves. Exactly. That's what I mean. He's kind of a gentleman for the rest of the movie. Yes! He's so thoughtful.

I think that is an example of a scene where, like, the last take they did, he's like, this is gonna be funny, I'm gonna do it. And they're like, we're gonna keep this take for the movie. Or they're like, we have to roast low-rise jeans. Like, we must. And so this scene's gotta make it in. Ben?

Maybe he made the jelly bean on the first shot. Because it's impressive. It is impressive. It absolutely has to be rigged. This sequence has, like, five setups in it. It's not just, like, he walked into a wide shot, threw a jelly bean for fun, and was surprised. And goes over the fence and taken and there's like 18 cuts. Right. That's what I'm saying.

I'm like, this was like a thing that they had like a stunt supervisor come in. They had storyboards. Yeah, a jelly bean coordinator. Like, this is a constructed sequence. And then she stands up and you think the joke is like, oh, she's got a jelly bean in her ass crack and she's not even aware and she turns around and is like, next time aim higher. Or it's like...

It makes no sense because she was turned around so it's like, next time aim on your back? Like, what? You're... What? It's so strange. And despite that, she then is so desperate to fuck him, she resorts to multiple Photoshop crimes. Yes. Sarah Alexander, who's a wonderful actor. So Sarah Alexander...

And in this film is playing the role of Thanos. She's not very sympathetic in this film. This is like, maybe... I know we covered Schindler's List very recently on this podcast, but I'm going to say this is in the top ten least sympathetic characters we have ever had to discuss on this show. sympathetic characters we have ever had to discuss on this show. The GMC employee pricing event is on now. Get a big cash purchase discount of up to $12,300 on the 2025 GMC Sierra 1500 and the 2025 Sierra HD. With Sierra 1500's premium interior and advanced tech or Sierra HD's impressive power and

capability, you'll have everything you need to get from work to play with confidence this season. Hurry in. Employee pricing is on for a limited time. Visit your local GMC dealer for details. Sarah Alexander is a very big part of my life because I grew up in Britain. I forget if Karen knows that, but I do. I did grow up in Britain and she was on, you know, Smack the Pony and like Greenwing, and Coupling was her big thing. She was kind of the British Jennifer Aniston.

Is that it? No? Well, the whole thing that happened with Coupling, which was a sitcom that aired on the BBC, was that everyone was like, this is the British Friends, and it's going to be brought to America, and they'll do an American Coupling so that like we'll have a new friends

because friends was coming to an end, speaking of Paul Rudd. And famously the American version tanked and lasted like two episodes or whatever. But Sarah Alexander was sort of the Rachel of coupling. But coupling was never a friend size thing. And I would say stuff like smack the pony and green wing. I know when you say smack the pony, you truly do sound like a stereotype of someone talking about Britain.

When you say Smack the Pony and Greenwing. Yeah. Greenwing is good. You would say both of the credits. You would really like Greenwing. Greenwing is really funny. I believe that. By the way, I think she's a great actor.

I'm a big fan of hers in everything I've ever seen her do. She's very funny. She's very funny. Smack the Pony was a sketch comedy show spearheaded by the great Sally Phillips that was... I mean, again, it was one of these women do comedy now. Experiments. Greenwing was a more sort of focused thing. Sally Phillips is also in Greenwing. That was sort of a sitcom set in a hospital

but had like a lot of surreal elements. Very, very good. She's not, yeah, Sarah Alexander, I think, a bit undersold by this movie. A little, you think a little bit... A little one-dimensional as a character. And it is one of those things, not to talk about women writing things or whatever. Go on.

Where I'm like, you're creating this sort of three-dimensional character in Michelle Pfeiffer that's about your experiences, right? That really has flaws and is interesting. You know, that's the idea. But then, there's literally an evil shrew, young bitch character who's so evil that they grab each other's hair and have a cat fight for a second where I'm just like, is this sending us back a little bit with your complex female protagonist to have her around?

Like, is this good, Amy? It feels like the Bridezilla assistant moment in Jurassic World. Sure. Your favorite moment. Where I'm like, someone did something to you. Yes, I felt the same way. Yes, it does get a little axe-grind way. Everything about this character is you settling some score. What was your take on Sarah Alexander's character, Jeannie? Well, it was weird because I felt like Michelle Pfeiffer's character

was set up to be a person who would be looking out for her assistant. Sure, would be like, hey, you want to make stuff. I'll help you. And then it kind of seemed like that in the beginning, but then immediately they just became enemies in a way that felt very stereotypy. Here's the quickest overview of this character's quote unquote arc, right? I believe we are first introduced to her shooting a line of dialogue for the TV show. So I'm like, oh, Sarah Alexander is playing an actress on the TV show. Then the next time you see her, it's Michelle Pfeiffer walking to her office and saying,

hey, bad news, they cut your line of dialogue. And you're like, oh, this is her secretary who's trying to get a leg up, get in front of camera, and she's been foiled again. Then the next 20 times you see her, she is pulling reverse parent traps, doctoring images, playing games of telephone to trick people into thinking that everyone's cheating on everyone else and saying bad things about everyone else and trying to seduce everyone into her web. It takes Michelle Pfeiffer the entire movie to figure out, hmm, maybe she's a bad person. Yeah. She does in a sequence that's like Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes. Like, we literally go inside her brain.

And her synapses fire, and she replays all the moments in her mind. Like, she's figured out who Kaiser Soze is. And then, yes, they, like, pull each other's hair after she walks in on her. And Fred Willard is, like, hot. Yes! I forgot about that. She do be blowing Fred Willard. She walks into Fred Willard's office and says, you need to fire her right now.

Fred Willard stands up from his desk, buckles his pants and goes, oh, well, that's going to be difficult. And she goes, why? Unclear why she can't just fire her. Why she's asking the head of the network to fire. It's her personal assistant. Yes. And then Sarah Alexandra comes out

from underneath the desk in a cat fight. Yeah. And Fred Willard is turned off. It does feel like somebody who... Amy Heckerling tried to once help wronged her, and now the moral of the story is never help any woman younger than you. Never. They'll just Photoshop your ass. Wait, but so good at Photoshop. I was genuinely impressed.

That's the thing. Someone should take advantage of this person's skills. Yeah, she should be in Graphic Design. Exactly. Get her over to some other department. She can Photoshop Paul Rudd in your car, in a traffic cam or whatever. She hates Stacey Dash, presumably because she's the lead on a TV show instead of her. Sarah Alexander, you mean?

Yes. So she starts Photoshopping her head on less flattering images. Right. First, she's doing that, that's right. Just making like printout memes for fun and showing them to people, being like, huh, look at this mean Photoshop I made. Then one day she is sitting at her desk Googling naked pictures of Stacey Dash.

She finds a porn like nudecelebrities.org website. Which I think is not, well, who knows, whatever. It looks like a fake website, an image that is clearly photoshopped where she is not naked, right? Where it's just Stacey Dash holding a towel, but clearly her head photoshopped onto a different body. Then she notices that Paul Rudd has left, or the props guy comes in and goes,

I accidentally took Paul Rudd's real phone. Sarah Alexander takes out her... His flip phone takes a picture of the screen so that Michelle Pfeiffer will think that he was in bed with her. I'm not yawning because this is so boring. Why was she on the website in the first place? I don't know!

I don't know. It's not very, very clear. And it also kind of could also lift out of this movie, because the movie's real conflict is whether or not... I guess whether Michelle Fiver can handle dating someone who's a lot younger than her, is it the start of his career versus where she's in her career, she's got a kid, whatever. This is the sort of rich emotional content of the movie that he's mostly not addressed.

Also, just like you watch this, you're like, there's actually no movie I can think of that actually kind of represents what like being a TV show runner is like. Right. And it does do a good job of all the bullshit she's getting asked about. Yeah. Sure. There's enough to work with there. But here's how the movie mostly addresses the age gap. It's kind of them in the car. Yeah.

And Michelle going like, how old are you? And he's like, how old are you? She's like, I was kind of young! Like that's basically it. That's it, yeah. And Sarah Alexander will like perpetuate lies,

will like trick him into trying to fuck other people, tell Michelle Pfeiffer that he's trying to fuck her, try to convince him truly to fuck her. Like, she's working, like, 20 angles. It's weird. Just an absolute agent of chaos. Yeah. Yeah.

If we just had the two things where it was like, the A plot was her and Paul Rudd, and the B plot was her and her daughter, that would've been a great movie. Whole movie. And obviously, regular check-ins from Mother Nature herself. You may be every more of her every two minutes. She's like, I'm still here! That would have been a great movie. Whole movie. And obviously, regular check-ins from Mother Nature herself. You may be every four of her, every two minutes.

She's like, I'm still here. All right. I got Fritos this time. Right. So, the best stuff in this movie is her and her daughter, for sure. That is the stuff that basically all just, possibly because it's very lived in, because she raised a kid at that time who was this age, it just feels like not cheesy. because it's very lived in, because she raised a kid at that time, who was this age.

It just feels, like, not cheesy. Yeah. The daughter's interests feel, like, sort of appropriately, kind of in that blurry, like, pubescent, kind of like, she still likes some kid shit, she likes, you know, she's starting to get interested in more grown-up shit. Sure, sometimes she dresses like my chemical romance. Sometimes she dresses like Avril Lavigne.

She dresses like David Foster Wallace. That's also true. Lost my mind. The bandana and the... Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, I hope my daughter has a David Foster Wallace face. This is another thing I... Just fashion-wise. Yeah, good clarification.

Really bad at writing. Yes, I hope she stinks at writing. Unlike David Foster Wallace. Thank you. Um, yes. No. Saoirse Ronan plays her daughter, of course, whose name is Izzy,

although later she wants to be called Drew. That is not explained. Okay. What I was going to say... What were you gonna say? ...is that... Tell us. What were you gonna say? Tell Karen first and then tell me.

And then tell Ben. Karen, relay this to Ben and David. I think the thing that feels very specific in this film that I like, and Hectorlings talked about this, is like she was this dark, cynical, pessimistic New York girl who made Clueless, which was this sort of experiment for her, starting out writing these people in a way that she thought was satirical. But Clueless is for, can I make a sunny movie?

And then she starts to like fall in love with these characters. And she's like, this is so far off from me. I like the thought experiment of imagining being this optimistic, this positive, this sunny, this bright, and then likes living in that world. She moves to Hollywood. She's a Hollywood player, right? But now she's raising a young girl who is more like her, who is this kind of like oddball alternative dark girl, while she is spending her days making like the most candy coated teen show possible. So it's not just that there's like the reality of the difference of the two.

It's also like them being on a very similar wavelength, what she does for a living being on a different wavelength, and her trying to balance these two notions of what a modern young woman is. All of that's interesting on paper. Yeah, there was a scene that I thought could have potentially been incredible. The beginning of it really tugged at my heartstrings

where they're trying on clothes at the store and the daughter, Izzy, is like, oh, this doesn't look good on me because I'm ugly. I'm ugly and you're a beautiful mom. And I was like, I bet this is a real thing. And I feel like as a young girl, I always thought I was the ugliest person in the world. And it's a conversation that girls have with their moms often.

Because that's the intimate setting of the mom dragging you to the mall or whatever. Right, or feeling like you're compared to your mom maybe subconsciously. And then instead of doing anything with it, Michelle Pfeiffer just goes, no, I'm ugly, look at me, I'm hideous. As she's like sitting with perfect posture

looking gorgeous. Which is kind of funny, but you're right that we're exiting any deeper resonance. Because it is also funny when Sir Sheronin is like, my stomach is so fat and Sir Sheronin is like, my stomach is so fat and Sir Sheronin is like... What? ...fey little child. Unbelievably adorable.

But that's funny and appropriately a little darker. Yeah, I also think like, Amy Heckerling is someone who by the time her movie career started, had her look really figured out. Oh, I didn't know that. It was kind of like dark alternative lady making it in Hollywood. But like, the way they styled Michelle Pfeiffer in this, outside of like her being blonde and Heckerling being like darker haired,

raven-haired, is very similar of the sort of like suit jacket and the wide collar shirt and the loose tie and the hair with the pen in it. Like that's Heckerling's look in all these things. And like here's someone who's been like the weirdo girl and has figured out a way to like make it into success. I also think there's something interesting to that of like, yeah, the kind of shit that kids would mock you for

when you're 13 and everyone's worried about being normal ultimately can become an asset and become your like defining characteristics and a thing you can own. And Sersha dressing kind of similarly to her mom and looking at her and being like, -"I'm ugly and you're pretty." And it's like, no, it's more a reflection of the different stages of life.

Like, there's shit there. But then, yes, it turns into Michelle Pfeiffer complaining about, like, my face is falling. But there is funny stuff there. Like, too, like, right, like, my face is falling. Yeah. But there is funny stuff there. Like, too, like, right. Like, Sersha, a running plot in the movie is that she has a crush on a boy, and she's always describing to the mom

the harebrained schemes that she and her friend are cooking up to, like, get her to go on a double date with the boy or get her in the same room as the boy. And they're playing a video game because they know the boy likes the video game, so they have to learn its secrets. I totally did that. Which video game? I'm actually realizing it wasn't a video game because they know the boy likes the video game. So they have to learn its secrets. Which video game?

I'm actually realizing it wasn't a video game, but I had a crush on this guy in middle school who loved Invader Zim. And then I was like, I have to go home and watch Invader Zim. I wasn't that into Invader Zim. Okay. All right. All right. It always seemed pretty funny to me. Yes.

But there were people who made it their entire personality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it might have been more like his entire personality. That's what it's like. If you had to watch it in order to get his attention, that sounds like an entire personality. He also one day like offhanded was like, oh, you should join the tennis team.

I play tennis. And I was like, yes, I will. Did you join the tennis team? Oh, yeah, I did. And I actually, the nice takeaway is I still play tennis. That's great. We should play tennis this summer. Every year I'm like, I'm going to play tennis this summer. I used to play tennis. Ben?

Our Fast Times episode came out. The great Marie Barty asked, hey, can you guys share high school photos so we can share them on social media? It's like a fun flashback-y thing. We're doing high school movies on the podcast. You pulled up your, was it your senior page? And tennis was listed as one of your main interests. I don't know, it was one of your extracurriculars or whatever. But you only listed two, it was like band tennis. That was the only two things that I participated in. You talk about band a lot.

We know you rocked that tuba. Yeah. And were you still on the tuba by senior year or had you switched off tuba? I had dropped the tuba for a joint of marijuana. Well, wait a second, that's not a musical instrument at all. Jazz cigarettes. No, where were you playing in band?

I played a lot of different instruments, but the main instrument was the trumpet. Okay. Gotcha, I could see Ben being very cool in high school. Well, here's my take on Ben. Kind of more of a stoner kid. I think Ben was kind of like a cute stoner He looks like he's kind of doing his own thing

Maybe but like if you hacked away at it, you could get his attention, but maybe he just wants to What did you want to do? Like if we were from like let's hang out senior year What do you what are you gonna want to do smoke weed smoke weed? All right, but I'm gonna take me somewhere Take for a ride. Oh, my God. I slow ride, baby. I feel like I have never heard you invoke tennis. Yeah. You still talk about your band days a lot. And I didn't know you were a tennis kid.

I played tennis all four years. I love tennis. I still play from time to time. How's your you know, what's your game like? Your baseline guy has your drop shot. I mean, I'm really rusty. What's your, you know, what's your game? Like you're a baseline guy. How's your drop shot? I mean, I'm really rusty. What's your handicap? Are you good at three pointers?

But no, I was like, I was like third position in singles. Like I was a pretty good player. Yeah, you were great. I don't know what I would say my game is. My game is getting angry and like screaming at myself. So you're kind of a John McEnroe type. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I loved racket sports because I was better at them than I was at hand-eye. Like I wasn't kicking the ball while running. You're not supposed to do that in tennis. You're not, but in soccer you are. Right. And I really struggled to kick that ball in a way that was, you know, with force and accuracy and all the things you want in soccer.

It wasn't really my thing. In high school, in terms of sports, I'm checking my notes here, I excelled at physio ball. Wait, what? That big rubber ball that you use to do, like, stretches. Uh-huh. You mean like a medicine ball? Like a yoga ball? Oh, you were like lying down on top of a ball?

Yeah, or like bouncing on top of it and stuff. Sure. Okay, that's awesome. I almost failed it. Karen, were you an athlete? I did play a lot of soccer. And I did a lot of taekwondo, which I think is why I'm always like kind of ready to fight somebody,

but nobody will duel me. Well, I would duel you if I knew any taekwondo, but I don't. What was your soccer position? I was right wing. I was forward. Yeah, I would your soccer position? I was right wing. I was forward. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would be really small and then just running.

Running down the wing. Yeah. Were you a good crosser? I think I was. I actually think I was pretty good at soccer and then I got diagnosed as concussion prone and I couldn't play soccer. Concussion prone? So you can't have balls hitting your head.

Yeah. But how do they identify? They're basically, they can diagnose that you are more susceptible to getting concussions. I think basically I got two concussions in three weeks. Okay, so you'd already been getting them. By the time I'd hit my head, I just sort of like lurched a little and then gotten a concussion. So they were like, you actually should not be moving. You're hypersensitive.

Oh no, you're not allowed to move. No, but then I couldn't go on roller coasters for a while. Fuck. That old shirt, that does seem, if you're lurching and getting a concussion, you don't get on a roller coaster. Can you go on them now, or is it still? I can go on them now.

What happened? Now I won't stop. I'm on one currently. Rides! Wait, what changed? I think at one point they were like, hey, I think your brain tissue has completed development. Oh, okay, you're like, your head kinda, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ben got a concussion recently. My head is huge now. What happened? I was throwing a snowball at a 10-year-old. Wait, what? Now he knows the 10-year-old. He does.

Yeah, Karen, before you get your nemesis. Now this 10-year-old, I will say, lives rent-free in that concussed brain of his. But he does know him. Karen, before you get concerned, he knows that 10-year-old very well because that 10-year-old is his mortal nemesis. The 10-year-old owns his ass.

This is years of rivalry between him and a 10-year-old. He instigated a snowball fight with me, so I came back at him hard, okay? And I was jumping up to be in his ass. Now, I'm seeing your age here is 10, right, Ben? You're also 10. Oh, okay. 11. I'm in my late 30s.

My very late 30s. Just imagine the latest you could be in your 30s. This is where Ben's at. Also, you said nemesis for years, which means you started this when he was like six? Absolutely. I think he's been in your head a couple years. I think he's had this a couple years.

No, it's been going like a couple years. So since he's been about eight. Okay, yeah, yeah, a fully grown man then. He famously took a look at my earring. I got my ear pierced at 38, very cool. Yes, I remember this, yeah. And he said, oh wow, that's pretty basic, man. And the thing about that, when he said that,

is it bounced right off of Ben. It didn't affect him at all. He doesn't remember the wording. He's been talking about it. I wasn't bothered by it at all for days. He wrote Ben a mean birthday card that we have here in the office. Somewhere around here. I forget where it is. How do you know this?

He is the son of our editor on the podcast. Incredible. Okay. But Ben, just to be clear, Ben did not get a concussion because this kid hit him really hard with a snowball. Ben got the concussion because he threw a snowball so hard at the kid that he threw off his own center of gravity and fell. Well, it was, it was, I, I, so I'm in the air.

I throw the snowball, I come down, I immediately lose my footing. Like I slipped on ice. He did like a jump throw and like spun his whole body. And so with all the momentum of like me coming down from jumping, I slip and then fall on the back of my head. Oh my God. We've made him tell this story like five times

on the podcast and I swear it gets funnier every time. I mean, I feel bad because he did hurt his head. No, I don't feel bad at all. This is a joy. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Yeah, I have to go get an MRI soon. Oh, wait. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Yeah, that's right. I got your ass, Karen.

And just to be clear, Ben, she's got more concussions than you. She's concussion prone. I have two now. Wait. In my lifetime. So the second one, the one with the snowball, are you currently concussed? Well, when do you stop? Wait, when did this happen?

It was a while ago. It was like... It was like three months ago. Yeah. Oh, you're fine. Yeah, yeah. We can hit you on the head again. Just don't be a quarterback or whatever.

Yeah, I can avoid doing that. Exactly. And Ben, just to be clear, when you fell to the ground and hit your head, of course, this 10-year-old boy came to your side and helped heal you. No, he fucking Nelson from Simpsons my ass. He's laughed at you.

This is amazing. I know. It's so good. I'm obsessed with this kid. Oh, he's cool. I want to Venmo this kid some money. Sure. I'll give you his Venmo for you too.

He's really funny. He's going to love hearing this. I've got to be honest, I'm imagining just like a younger version of Griffin. He's not, he's honestly, he kind of looks like Dennis the Menace. Like he's kind of got like an American Dennis the Menace vibe. Amazing. Like not the British kind. We went out to dinner and he, we got like chips and he made a double dipping joke.

And I was like, oh have you ever watched Seinfeld? He goes, no, what's that? And I go, what's that? And I go, it's really funny, you'd actually like it. It's like, that's where the double dipping comes from. It's a show made up of like observations like that. And he went, I don't know, who's on that show? That's so sweet.

And I was like, Jerry Seinfeld. He went, no, that's not who I'm thinking of. He meant to, like, he wasn't trying to be funny. No, of course. I'm thinking of someone else. Wow. Here's another thing I like in this movie. Oh, right.

On paper. We're talking about like her coaching her daughter through like how to engage. Boy trauma. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Trauma. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That it speaks to this sort of loop I'm talking about of like,

the weird edgy girl made good, come into her own, where she's sort of with reflection now applying the knowledge of like, no, this is how you actually get people interested in you. It's not like the dumb shit that like peer pressure tells you you need to do in order to like rope in a boy or like Catch his eye which is just such an interesting contrast to her day job being that she's writing a show about teenagers That is like very boilerplate and is caught up in sort of like 90210 style like drama, right? That there's this sense of like like, Amy Heckerling, her success is so much that she was, like,

able to relate to the perspective of a teenager that she could reactivate it for 20 years out of high school and make these movies and TV shows that, like, really connected with the younger generation, but even still knows, like, that's different from reality. And, like, to my daughter, I'm telling her the things I wish I had known at the time. Which is mostly like, be funny.

Right. Don't try to like play dumb. Don't like, you know, flatter him or whatever it is. Yeah, when she like encourages her daughter to sing out at the end, I was like, that's very sweet. That feels like a good take away. They have a good relationship. Can we also just say that her accent is impeccable?

Oh my God, it's amazing. I mean, this is the whole thing. Clearly it's like, okay, we have to make this movie in Britain. We need a British, well, she's Irish, but we need a UK and Ireland child actor. So I guess we're going to have to get like the best one available because they're going to need to do a killer accent. And so that's how they look into, they're like, you have to get me number one. You have to get me the person with the 100 rating.

They successfully identified. It's like, yeah, we dug up this future five-time Oscar nominee story. One of the best actors in the last 25 years. It's an astounding discovery. She got passed over for playing, I don't know if you actually care about Harry Potter. I made the parcel tongue joke earlier and nobody laughed. I didn't know she was... She got passed over. I made the parcel tongue joke earlier and nobody laughed. I didn't know she was...

She got passed over for Luna Lovegood. Oh! She was the runner up and obviously makes a lot of sense for Luna Lovegood. But probably good that she didn't get it, because then she would have been stuck making those goddamn movies. Also that actress is very good who plays her in movies. But also basically gets stuck as Luna Lovegood for the rest of her life? Yeah.

And so instead she gets this role. This is her first role, but of course, it's not released until after Atonement. Have you seen Atonement? Yes, I read and watched Atonement over the winter. It's a great book. It's an incredible book. But that's a pretty good movie. Yeah, that's exactly how I felt.

By the time this movie is on Blockbuster Shelf, she already has an Oscar nomination. That's nuts. That's bonkers. Yeah. That's insane to consider. By the time this movie is on Blockbuster Shelf, she already has an Oscar nomination. That's nuts. That's bonkers. Yeah. That's insane to consider. She should have gotten an Oscar nom for this movie. Kind of? Yeah. She was phenomenal in it, I thought.

So, it would be the 2008 Oscars, right? It was when it was finally... Who would she have been up against? ...DVD release. The Oscars are like, we're making an exception. DVD of that movie is allowed. Well, the winner of that year of course

was Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. A film, a performance at the tone of I Can Never Be Your Woman Sometimes. Amy Adams in Doubt. Viola Davis in Doubt. Taraji Henson in Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Marissa Tomei in The Wrestler, kind of a funny five. Five perfectly good performances.

It is, yeah, huh. Tomei? Well, I'm dropping Adams, I'm sorry. That movie sucks. She's totally fine in it. I think she's very good in it. She's good in it, like, but I just, whatever. I don't care for that movie.

Yeah, you, it's weird. You've never invoked it in a negative way. I don't care for that movie. Yeah, it's weird, you've never invoked it in a negative way. I have such doubts about that movie. My Five, do you wanna know My Five? Yeah. Totally different. Who would your, your winner from that five would be? It would probably be Penelope Cruz. I think that performance is fucking hilarious.

But I think Tomei is really good. And I'd be like pretty satisfied with Tomei. Tomei's pretty excellent at that. The thing with Tomei is really good. And I'd be like pretty satisfied with Tomei. Tomei's pretty excellent. The thing with Tomei is it's kind of like, yeah, she's good. She's fucking Marisa Tomei. I guess when she was in the wrestler, it was a little bit like, Marisa,

we haven't seen you in a second. Like, it's nice to see you. My five were Diane Wiest and Synecdoche New York, who's my winner. An amazing performance. Rosemary DeWitt and Rachel getting married. An amazing performance. I do have Tomei, Adele Hanel and Water Lilies, which is an amazing performance.

And I guess I, I guess I'll just toss in fucking Saoirse Rona. No, Beyonce Knowles was my fifth. For Dreamgirl? No, for Cat Like Records. She's amazing. Yeah, that's a good five. We are. These are your top five performances by women by that year?

Yeah, supporting actresses. I have an Oscar back. For every single year of what she would nominate in every category. David! Going all the way back. Down to craft awards. Going all the way back to 1930s. How he earned the nickname the Spreadmaster.

Gotcha, and that's what everybody calls him. Yeah. Only in bed. Right. No, I've never had sex. I made the spreadsheet in sex. When he's on a subway car, those knees are tight together. He never man spreads. No.

Yeah. I was the spread master when he opens up Google Drive. I love to wedge myself into that, you know, the L seat on the subway, the window seat. I love that. But my legs are always too long, so I'm always like sitting like this. Oh, interesting.

I have too long legs. I've never had an issue where my legs were too long. You're a little shorter than me. Yeah, barely. Can you guys stand back to back? Yeah, can you tell us apart? Do you know about that? With the shoes on?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Karen is in one foot platforms right now. Yeah. Karen's dressed like Bart is in one foot platforms right now. Yeah. Karen's dressed like Bart Simpson in the Radioactive Man episode. So many dogs. That's why I'm one foot taller than David. Yes, exactly. So what other things should we talk about from this point?

It's... Well, oh, here's the thing I want to say. Please, please. So like, Saoirse's accent is... Very good. ...Maculet, right? If she had never acted again, you would just believe they found some American kid. They found some Valley girl or whatever.

Right? And she has like shown herself basically, I think she can do anything. Like she's basically as versatile and I think... She's a very good actor. Yes. I'd love her to make a really good movie again. Same. A lot of the actors in this, like Graham Norton, who has such a distinctive Irish brogue, right?

Like sounds like a little leprechaun. What he's doing is interesting. This is what's fascinating. Is he shows up, I'm like, oh my God, they're gonna make Graham Norton do an American accent. This is not gonna work. And then he starts talking and I'm like, huh. He's kind of just tweaking it 5%.

This is what I think I finally landed on, because I was like, what's going on? Something is unnerving me. And I'm like, I think he's actually, on a technical level, doing a pretty spot-on American accent. The problem is, he still is speaking with the musicality of his Irish accent. So it's like he's going like, well, I don't know,

we gotta get you out of that outfit. There's like this weird like, I love Graham Norton. And like you watch the clips of him on the talk show and like talking mile a minute. And he's like, taking all the Irish inflections out. But he still sounds like he's like, you'll never catch me in my patsy girl room. It's pretty much his only

film role as a knot as Playing himself for a voice. He's quite good in soul Sure, that's right. He's he's good in soul. Yes where he is allowed to use his natural voice. Yes I grew up with Graham Norton. He hosted a well first he was on father Ted, which he's very very funny on He's no furlong. He always jokes how terrible he was on Father Ted, which he's very funny on. He's Noel Furlong. He always jokes how terrible he is on Father Ted, but he's very funny. The joke is he's the most annoying person on Earth.

But it's like David Letterman always shitting on his own acting work. Yeah. Right. And then he hosted So Graham Norton. Did you grow up... No, no one else grew up with Graham Norton. They played on BBC America. There you go. Yeah, I watched him. I was like, well, watching him on YouTube.

That's the thing. Now, once YouTube hit, his stuff is like everywhere. Yeah, I watched him. Yeah, I was like watching him on YouTube That's the thing right now once YouTube hit his stuff is like everywhere Yeah, yeah, and it was but he was truly one of those guys I'm 12 and I'm just like this is one of my guys Yeah, I'm gonna follow this guy to the top and then he went to the top and I was like, I'll just leave him at the top He seems to figure it out by itself and it's not like I dislike Graham Norton now But now I only digest him in YouTube clips that come across my it's not like I dislike Graham Norton now, but now I only digest him in YouTube clips that come across my... It's not like I sit down and I'm like, I want to watch all of his interviews, like, front to back.

But man, the clips are good. No, he's very good at... They're very good at their job there, like getting the big long stories out of the actors and all that. So many American talk shows have ripped him off in the last ten years. So who's ripping him off the most? I mean, I think Gordon ripped him off the most. Sure.

Because I think Gordon came from the UK to American offices and was like, oh, they won't know what I'm ripping off because they haven't seen this. And the whole like couch with multiple guests at the same time and being like, I'm just trying to spark them into having interesting conversations with each other. Like that is whole-cell Graham Nord. You're right. You're right.

Malini. No, Malini is doing something. Malini is doing something. Bizarre. Yeah, because he's also doing like Dick Cavett. Right. And he's doing Bill Maher in the 90s. He's doing also doing cable access.

Yes, he's doing this weird grab bag thing. Yeah. And the thing about that show as it's gone on that we're talking about is Netflix show is you're watching it come together. Because the first couple episodes, it lurches from thing to thing, and you're like, no one has figured out the connective tissue. And so instead he's like,

all right, we're gonna go do this now. And you're like, okay. And he sits down, a bunch of people is like, cruise ships, what are you thinking? They're like, I don't know, we've never been on one. And you're like, did anyone talk to anyone? But I think that's what he's really going for. Which is like chaos.

Yeah. Watching old talk shows from the 70s or watching cable access shows and being like, oh, they haven't figured all of this out. They didn't prepare. Shit just can happen. And there's that danger of a bit might just fall or a conversation might just end versus I think Graham Norton. The one where Pete Davidson is on it and he just doesn't want to talk

and fucking Lunel is like, I want to fuck you. He's like, I don't want to do that. Sorry. I've been kind of obsessed with that show because it's interesting. It's just so funny that Graham Norton in this is like, it feels like he is specifically playing like a queer eye. Yeah, he's right. He's a fabulous costume designer. But it's also like Carson Creasley, like very specifically of that moment.

Yeah. And you're like, maybe just let him be Irish. It was a moment though where, because he's such a cheery, positive guy, that as I was watching, I was like rooting for him as an actor. I was like, yeah, like, do it again. Karen, I had the exact same feeling. Right? I'm like, you're doing it great.

You know what? You're crushing it. You know, basically makes sense in this movie. It's not incongruent. But it speaks to, there's like, they're having fun. I have the exact same feeling. I'm like, you're doing it great. You know what? You know, it basically makes sense in this movie. It's not incongruent. But it speaks to there's, like, something just a little weird. He's not doing anything wrong. It would be fine if there was just one. It's just the fact that every five minutes, there's another person from a British sitcom.

Every conversation's like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we see Pemberton shows up and then he's gone. He's a really funny... Mackenzie Crook has that one scene. Yes, randomly and then never comes back. Never comes back and that scene kind of stinks and doesn't make any sense.

What's the name of the League of Gentlemen guy? Steve Pemberton. And he's so funny. But again, I'm just sort of like, hi! And then he's gone and I'm like, I'll see you later! It's nice to see your face, I guess. I wonder if they were filming on set in Britain, on a stage, and they're like,

oh no, we haven't cast this role. Who's around? Go, go, go over there! Mackenzie Crick's on a break. Bring him in! I want to put something forward. And I'm just gonna say this as broadly as I possibly can, right? I knew that people mapped the Katan thing onto this. Had never seen the movie. I'm watching it.

Now, you're saying Chris Katan, not Settlers of Katan, which, of course, has a map. Immediately what I thought of. I knew, I knew, of course, that there was, and I could never be your woman edition of Settlers of Katan. Of course, of course, yeah. I'd never played it.

They released it, but it weirdly sold quite poorly. No one understood. I also knew that people projected that this, in some way, was inspired by the Catan relationship, right? And I'm watching it. And obviously, like, people can make auto-fiction in which they're combining and compressing events from different points of their life, pushing it all into one space to make a movie more exciting. But I'm like, the intricacy of this narrative feels so specific in the like she discovers a guy on her show

as her show is kind of declining and he starts to pop and then he gets more successful than her and is like going off and being pushed ahead by the network head who is starting to dismiss her and her writers are jumping ship over to this guy. So I just started digging into like, male guest stars on the Clueless TV show. And I'm not going to make any direct accusations or guesses. Cool. I'm glad you're not making any accusations.

I just found a couple guys who were, several. Who kind of like broke out after Clueless? Who not only like, out after Clueless? Who not only like were on Clueless and then got fed strongly into the TGIF lineup right after Clueless gets dropped. Okay, who are we talking about? All right, who you got? From TGIF.

I mean, the specific one I thought was interesting, the guy who plays Josh, the Paul Rudd character on the first season of Clueless. Before they write him off the show. They write him off the show when the show is dropped by ABC and moves to UPN. That guy then immediately gets fed into Sabrina the Teenage Witch. David Lash.

Becomes the new love interest on Sabrina the Teenage Witch for three seasons. And a bunch of the writers and producers of Clueless jumped over from Clueless to Sabrina. Yeah, so if you... Did you watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch? No. So later in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, she shifts from she's in high school learning to be a witch

and a high schooler, dilemma, to she runs like a coffee shop? She works at a coffee shop. I guess she were, and she's in college now. But there's like a central perky kind of... And they replaced the adorable Harvey Kinkle, her high school boyfriend, with the incredibly boring Josh, also called Josh. Oh, his name is still Josh?

Yeah, they didn't even bother to change his name. That's amazing. Very poor, very bad. Sabrina's only good when she's in high school. IMO. Yeah, I agree. I just thought it was interesting. David only likes girls when they're still in high school. Sorry, Griffin. On the record.

Girls, women shouldn't get jobs. They should never grow up. They shouldn't be in comedy. They shouldn't be in comedy. There were just a couple other guys I found who also fit. That's the main one. But I was just like, if you look at the timing of that, in terms of this movie having the axis to grind of like,

the network thinks I'm not hip anymore, people I'm discovering are jumping off, they're threatening to cancel my show. You know, I was just like, I think this movie is truly about her experience working on the Clueless TV show. Yeah, sure. Of course it is. And I think the romance I want, I imagine is also based on experiences within that. Maybe, or at least having a crush on...

I don't know. I don't know. She claims to be 37, and then she admits she's 40. Michelle Pfeiffer, I think, was more like 45. Michelle Pfeiffer is 11 years older than Paul Rudd. I looked it up. Michelle Pfeiffer is 11 years older than Paul Rudd. This movie, Michelle Pfeiffer, I guess, is supposed to be more like...

20, 19. No, I guess, is supposed to be more like... 20, 19. No, I guess if she's 40 and he's 29, it's supposed to be like the correct age gap. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, she plays essentially his mother. What? I mean, like she plays the mother of the Wasp. Believe, I did not until this moment connect.

I halfway into the movie, turned to my wife and I'm like, wait a second, in fucking Ant-Man, she's, I mean, she's not his mom, but she's the lost mom. She's his mother-in-law. Yes, she becomes his mother-in-law. Yes. And she's got like gray hair. Now you have to marry your mother.

No one in this had a car with a wheel, didn't fling out of it. No good car ideas in this movie. And he's so telling of like Michelle Pfeiffer hit, whatever, 55 and they were like, Grandma! Like that's it, I don't care how old you are anymore. You live in the fucking quantum realm and when we pull you out, you're old.

That's it. Cause, right, Paul Rudd is now in his mid-50s and is still playing like a superhero. He's playing like 40s. Like it's like, it's kind of like, a superhero. He's playing, like, 40s. Like, it's kind of the hell of a dream, it's like, 40s. 40s. Right. But, like, Michelle Pfeiffer... And he can pull it off.

Michelle Pfeiffer is pointedly playing someone who used to be a superhero in the Marvel Universe. Michelle Pfeiffer is 13 years younger than Michael Douglas, who is her husband in the Ant-Man movies. Yes. It's just, there's... I'm not... I don't know, all I'm doing is saying people's ages.

This isn't like insightful, but it is just weird. It's just kind of like crazy how this happens. This movie is about like the, like when Mother Nature is coming in and being like, hey, Paul Rudd's gonna want to have a kid, you're not gonna be able to have a kid, like you're gonna have to deal with that, right? You know, where it's like,

and Michelle Fierf is like, oh yeah, shoo, Mother Nature. But you're like, yeah, no, these are interesting dilemmas for a woman that age. I mean, I feel like it's, Meryl Streep has the quote that the day she turned, the week she turned 50, she got three different offers to play a witch. She's got this on her.

Yes, I have. And she ends up doing Into the Woods. Yeah, that was her being like, I shall finally play a witch. This is the best witch. But she was like, and then people talk, like, actresses are like, the second I turn 30, I got handed five scripts in which

I'm the mother of a teenager. Yeah. And not like someone who had a teenager in high school. That's nuts. There's also, wait, what was that movie with Ann Hathaway where she was in love with a younger man? The Idea View? Yes.

God, that movie was so annoying. That also feels like this, but the same issue where it's like, but Ann Hathaway is so hot and beautiful that he would be so lucky to be with her. Correct. That movie's insane because Anne Hathaway is snatched in that movie and you were like, this is not a dilemma.

No. The fucking Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron movie, which is Pigswill, I can't remember what the name of it is. That one. Family Affair? Is that what it's called? What a gross title. I have not seen that. It's so bad. Yes, it's called A Family Affair.

It was on Netflix, I think. It's Joey King as Nicole Kidman's daughter, who's a personal assistant to Zac Efron. Correct. And he's like, you know, a self-absorbed actor guy. Right, and then he's like, that's your mama! Wugugugugug!

And that movie, I mean, that movie felt like it was directed by like, you know Malfunctioning AI or whatever Richard LeGravain a yes it is That one at least you're kind of like well Nicole Kidman's not a young woman like there's some kind of like yes She's old enough to be your mother. I suppose I don't know. I see, I see. I don't know. I mean, even that movie, I was like, can everyone... But the idea of you was ridiculous. Yeah, yeah.

Where she's like, oh, I'm just such an old bag. And I'm like, don't you're not. What do you want to do with me? The hottest woman alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, Hollywood's so broken. Can you fix it? You work in Hollywood. Oh, I should. I never thought about fixing it. You've been living in LA.

No, I will. You don't want to go fix it? Fix it. Go fix it. You got to. Pull your sleeves up. You're so smart. Jeez. But talking about this movie not needing, like, fake artificial outside conflict, right? Well, it's gotten a Photoshop conflict to begin with, but yes.

It doesn't need the Photoshop conflict. It sure doesn't. Yeah. There's... What I think is kind of the most interesting thing to work on. And I think like in theory on paper, this should be what is like kind of the source of driving her like, I don't know if we can be together kind of thing is. She's being told basically that her career's winding down.

Right? Not just that like society- You're gonna lose this show and that's kinda it. Right. That she's already dealing with this sort of like, I'm of an age where society starts valuing women less and starts ignoring us or belittling us. But I'm someone who's always focused on my career

and my independence and I'm a single mother and I'm doing it all and I don't need the approval of men. And now it's sort of like, your show maybe isn't hip anymore. And here's this guy she discovers, and everyone's like, you're the future. And he's at the beginning of what's probably going to be a decades-long career. All the offers are starting to come to him, and she's in a world where she's starting to make concessions and having to scrape and cut.

You know, he says, like says the show isn't hip anymore, and she went, yeah, you can keep cutting the budget. When you cut the budget, the first two things to go are wardrobe and soundtrack. And now the show isn't cool anymore, right? And she's fighting to stay cool and relevant. That is a really cool idea for a movie. Because I feel like we're now seeing women

who had the choice to, who were able to choose career over family. Yes. And it's sort of like, okay, but once your careers are taken away from you, who are you and what is your life? That could have been this movie. Totally.

For a guy whose career is about to, the movie seems to set up like, go like a rocket ship, right? Like even if he ultimately doesn't pan out and become like an A-list movie star, this guy probably has five years of getting work through the machinery of everyone being like an A-list movie star, this guy probably has five years of getting work through the machinery of everyone being like,

he might be a star. And to be in a relationship with someone who's at such a radically different point in their life is to me more interesting than the literal like, age difference. And that's there, it's set up in the movie. And instead, the two characters don't talk to each other for 30 minutes because Sarah Alexander like, tricks her into thinking

she has a photo of a traffic jam. It's true. Just as this movie is kind of building to a head in there, like, should we, how serious should we be conflict? Yeah. She's like, yeah, I'm gonna stop talking to you because, right, I saw the weird Photoshop's of you. And then it's basically a thing that's resolved the second she asks him one question.

Yeah. Well, I mean, so annoying. And then they make the joke where he's like, how do you know I wasn't lying? And she went, because you're not that good of an actor. And you're like, why didn't you have this conversation two months ago? Yeah. There is this sort of, you know, the final plot thing

is that Hugo Grigas canceled her terrible show. The show looks like dog shit. It does look really bad. Yes. And he gets a spin-off show called The Schizzle. It's like, again, these are all jokes. It's true that even by 2008, it feels stale, would have felt stale enough in 2005. Right. Like, funny people's the year after this,

and Yo Teach feels like a much better version of this. Right. But even Yo Teach is a little bit like, right, you're knocking on earlier kind of sick. Yeah. And the Schizzle, you know teaches a little bit like right you're knocking an earlier kind of sick. Yeah and This is a little you know Fred Willard's like, oh, you know, it's what's hip. It's what's now. He's gonna get the show and He insists on Michelle Pfeiffer being the writer like he right stands his ground No one in the industry is giving her credit for discovering this guy

but this guy doesn't want to work without her and It just it's like the whole second half of this movie is like based on misunderstandings, miscommunications, or the lack of one conversation where you're just like, why not just like call him up and ask him this directly? Why not? Why not? There's this whole notion that like, is he lying to me about getting set up for this success and is he hiding it from me because he's just using me as a stepping stone?

And then you find out that like he thought they told her. Right. I forgot about that. There's stuff like that where it's just like these characters, I mean, she certainly seems emotionally intelligent enough in the way she talks to her daughter about how to relate to men you're interested in, that I don't buy that she keeps on falling for the dumbest shit in the world. Yeah, you're right. That's so true.

Also, why does her ex-husband just walk into her house all the time? Her ex-husband is John Lovett. He keeps getting work done. One joke is right. Initially, he has something on his forehead and then he's getting a chin thing. He's getting a chin implant because if you make your face longer then you don't need a facelift.

Incredible. There are like good little jokes in there. Yeah, I mean, Love It's Fine. He's doing what's asked of him. I was looking at the IMDb quote page trying to pick out what to read and like you read the quote page for this movie and like there are some things that are deranged.

There are, okay, there are, there's no consistent style of humor in the movie. But there are some things that are deranged. There are. OK, there are. There's no consistent style of humor in the movie. There are like four line exchanges where I'm like, that's funny and well written. If I'm just reading that, that's there are some funny jokes, but right. It ranges on jokes. They all feel like they're plucked from different screenplays and put into one movie. I agree with you, which is also fascinating because this doesn't feel like a movie that got like

noted to death. It's like she made it independently. She is the only writer on it. She's the director. Like it's always the kind of thing I find more interesting is watching like one person's calamity versus a movie that's bad because it was made by committee where you're like, well, this sucks because too many people got involved and like no longer the ideas. It's like mashing different puzzle pieces together, but something like this, where you're like, this came out of one person's lived experience and like

thoughts and hopes and dreams. And then it just all ends up feeling odd and disjoint it. Um, just looking at the quotes page to see if there's anything that's making me laugh. Yeah, not really. I did like when Paul... Smiling. A lot of things that are funny are like when Paul Rudd danced.

When Paul Rudd does an extended bit about the Home Alone poster. Uh-huh. I was doing my, you know... He did the face. Face thing. Yeah. You did a really good job for anybody listening. It was good.

That's it. I mean, I think it's cute at the end when, when Saoirse sings her anti-Bush, Alanis Morissette, ironic cover. But it's not funny. It's just kind of cute. And then it's cute that she, you know, the boy, I think it's funny that the boy, that Dylan, the boy she has a crush on, introduces himself by saying, hi, I'm Dylan and I'm alcoholic.

That actually made me laugh. She's like 11 or whatever. I don't know. If like, if I'm like in the, you know, the audience, you know, with the parents, I'm like, ah, it's funny. But then like, okay, Sir, Sir Sheronin at one point in the movie, they cut to her in her bedroom mirror singing,

oops, I got a career by shaking my rear and making guys leer, Oh, baby, baby. Oops, I'm going to sing more and dance like a whore. I'm just not talented. And then the movie basically cuts away and you're like, what the fuck was that? Yes. And then they set up later, much later that she's working on these parody songs. Right.

And then she wants to perform them at the school talent show. But also there is like a hostility in that song towards Britney Spears. But there was a hostility at the time. I understand that was in the culture, that that was just a fucking thing. But it also is just like that jumping in, in a movie where Sarah Alexander is like twirling her mustache and being like, I must destroy older women. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like she's making a film about her own insecurities and then she keeps on being like, but these young women are the actual problem, which feels very like, I don't know, ungenerous? And kind of beside the point. Yeah, you could totally lift it out of the movie and it would be better for it. Yeah. Yeah. There's a movie, a sort of calmer, more confident movie that's better. You know, like that's about...

But like no one's gonna make that movie, I guess, would be her argument. Or just make that movie for no money. You know, like make a five million dollar movie, like make a, you know, a true indie about like being a show... I mean, I don't know. No, but that's an interesting thought that like, she's writing this screenplay trying to imagine

the version of this movie that a studio will greenlight because that's what her whole career was about, right? Yes, it's like, I'm making a studio rom-com, like, give me 30 million bucks. And trying to put big enough sequences in it and jokes and imagining that it's going to be bright and shiny and everything. Then every studio turns it down, this weird financial criminal comes and is like,

here's 20 million dollars, but you have to film in England. What she should have done by that point and is like, here's $20 million, but you have to film in England. It's monopoly money. What you should have done by that point is gone like, what is the $10 million version of this movie that is not even trying to be a studio comedy? Yeah, what did I actually really want to make? Right, like maybe I make the Nicole Holliff Center scaled version of this.

But that's kind of not what she ever did. No, she spent 20 years in the studio system. She only made one of the movie after this, she spent 20 years in the studio system. She only made one of the movie after this, Amy did, Karen, called Vamps, which was also a bomb. And also barely got released. Also barely released starring Alicia Silverstone and Kristen Ritter. It's like a vampire rom-com. I have not seen it.

It's a post-Twilight vampire rom-com that we'll be talking about next week. It was a post-Twilight vampire rom-com? Yeah, it was called Vamps. That's nuts that it wasn't huge. Dan Stevens is the love interest, I believe. From Downton Abbey? I know the things. One of his first post-Downton things, though. I love him.

I love him, too. Sigourney Weaver's the villain. Cool. I'm excited to watch it. I'm excited to watch it, too. But was that also made at a sort of studio scale? I know it was a bomb. That's the only one I don't have the answer to look I have a lot of people

Say that movie is kind of a hidden gem in a way that has me excited to watch it But everyone's ding on it is the one big issue is you can tell she didn't have the money, right? That it clearly like should be a 20 million dollar studio comedy and she had to make it for like six but that's like a higher concept genre comedy but that's also like makeup and effects your stunts and shit but it's the one time we've been tries that in theory no it doesn't yeah yeah I don't know I'm gonna we're gonna play the box office game now this one wasn't released in theaters okay but we're gonna play it anyway I guess can

we do the Spain weekend what do we do do we do the weekend goes to blockbuster I think we do the weekend it goes to Blockbuster? I think we do the weekend that goes to Blockbuster. Okay. Don't you think? Yeah. I mean, here's an interesting question. I love interesting questions. Is it possible to find what the top rental or home video sales were the weekend it went to Blockbuster?

Ooh. I mean, I don't know. Can we play the home box office game? Ben is looking at me so angrily. Ben keeps crying the whole time. Offended by this pitch. I don't think so. I don't know where to find those.

I just think respect the idea. I don't mind the idea. I just would need, I think, to prep for that because I have no idea how to. It was a really cute idea. Thank you, Karen. Oh my God. Yeah, applause break.

Participation trophy society. I'm gonna pat myself on the back, literally. So this film came out on DVD in America in 2008. On February something, right? I'm gonna look it up. February, come on IMDb, don't let me down. I'm not talking about when it premiered at the Maui Film Festival, February 26th.

Okay, one week after my birthday. Ooh. Yeah. So you could have gone to see it if you wanted to. Well, I could have gone to see it, if you wanted to. Well, I could have gone to rent it. There was a Blockbuster near my dorm at CalArts. I was still there at the time. Or at 2008.

How old are you, Karen? I was 13 and I know one movie that came out in 2008. You know one movie that came out in 2008. Well, I mean, I'm trying to know more, but the one I know for certain, well, actually now that I say it, I don't know if it's true. Throw it out there. Is it Mamma Mia? I think Mamma Mia came out in 2000.

Yes, it did! Yay! It did, but it didn't come out, it didn't grace our screens until July. Of course, it's a summer film. It was counter-programming to the dark night. It's a pre-Mamma Mia world. So instead, we're going to do the weekend of February 29th on 2008.

A new film this week is a comedy, kind of a bad comedy, a sports comedy. It's new this week. It's not Semi Pro. Is it like Air Bud 5? It's not Air Bud 5. It is Semi Pro, opening to $18.9 million. You know what I'm realizing? What's that? I dropped out of CalArts the day before my birthday.

So this is the first week of me being back in New York. My brother and I went to see Semi Pro and I'm like, I'm back seeing movies in New York multiplexes. So did you drop out because your birthday was approaching and you were like, I can't turn 19? I dropped out because I was violently depressed. And then I was just like, I'm setting the date of February 18th to get the fuck out of here

because I want to go back, returning to New York for my birthday. Multiplexes as we say. Right. High-fiving people. Uh-huh. And then people were like, what's your plan? I was like, I don't fucking know! Who knows?

Well, you went to see Semi-Pro, which just isn't that good. Yeah. I just had to adjust my mind, because I was thinking what movies would I have seen at the Fulensia Ten Center 8, but now I'm realizing... But what's your opinion of Semi-Pro? It sucks. It's really weird. Yeah, it's not good. What's weird about it is, it is... Have you seen Semi-Pro? It sucks, it's really weird. Yeah, it's not good. What's weird about it is, it is...

Have you seen Semi-Pro? No, did I? It's based on a true story, no. Oh, okay. Loosely. Incredibly loosely, but it's in that vein of the Will Ferrell comedy vehicle of the 2000s. The Will Ferrell sports comedy was reigning supreme.

You're kicking and screaming, you're blades of glory. And they were like, here's the next one in that great lineage, S semi-pro, Will Ferrell with an afro doing 70s basketball. And the bizarre thing about the movie is that Woody Harrelson is second build and is like the lead of the movie. And he's playing kind of like a right, like a washed up NBA guy who's fallen into this sort of the ABA.

Right, but he's kind of playing it like a real guy and he's sort of doing like in a more grounded like sports dramedy And then they just interweave it with like will ferrell hijinks where he's the manager of the team who's also a player But he's bad. Yeah, and he's like kind of just an attention whore And so he does all these stunts to get people in the crowd so then there'll be like a big with will ferrell set piece and then it's like Woody Harrelson going to his ex-wife, Maura Tierney, and being like, look, I know I fucked up,

but I'm trying to make good again. It's a very strange movie. Not a good movie. Not good. Ben, did you see Semi-Pro? No. Okay, number two at the box office is a political thriller.

February 2000. An ensemble cast. It's not Vantage Point, is it? It is Pete Travis's Vantage Point, Griffin. You are so sick and weird. Thank you. How many Oscar winners are in the cast of Vantage Point? You've got...

Two... Of course, what occurs? Zoe Saldana. Oh, that's right. Zoe now has an Oscar. Three Oscar winners. Those two plus William Hurt. And then, of course, Sigourney Weaver's in it. Just a multiple nominee. Dennis Quaid.

Never got a nom. Snub for Far From Heaven. Yes, snub for The Parent Trap. Snub for The Parent Trap, of course. Because they didn't have the hottest dad in the history of movies category yet. Best winery. That you guys should have me on when you do an episode about all the hot dads in cinema. We did Parent Trap years ago.

I know, it's really upsetting that I... It's a tragedy that you weren't on. I gotta do it again. My sister, who I think is about the same age as you. Yeah. We took our little cousins to see Parent Trap at the Nighthawk recently. And Dennis Quaid came on screen and my sister turned to me and she was like,

I'm realizing this performance kind of fucked me up for the rest of my life. Yeah. I haven't really processed it until this moment. It's true. There are actually so many dads like that. Where you go back and you... Captain Von Trap. Kind of the original of that. The dad in Totoro absolutely fucked me up. Okay, but the dad in Totoro is a different vibe. And original. The dad in Totoro absolutely f**ked me up.

Okay, but the dad in Totoro is a different vibe. And I love the dad in Totoro. That's sort of like bookish, warm, you know, sweetie pie, hot, jacked, naked. Karen just like starts taking us down this road. I'm like, he's so sweet with his kids. And Karen's like, yeah, sweet in a hot way. He's in a hot tub.

He does get, which was for a long time, I found my mother, I don't know what my mother thinks in total, my daughter's favorite part of the movie was when they were all in the tub together because they yell. That's so cute. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she likes how they yell because they're trying to scare off the script.

But wait, who else, Karen? Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. No! Santa Claus II. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus III. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus III. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. No! Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and Jungle to Jungle. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus.

Tim Allen voicing Buzz Lightyear. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. You see a chin on that guy? Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Tim Allen and the Santa Claus. Vantage Point.

Have you seen Vantage Point? I've not. It's like a Rashomon-esque thing. Like there's an assassination attempt and we learn all of the Vantage Points. We keep seeing it from different Vantage Points. Haven't seen it. Neither have I.

Okay, well, we're gonna move on then to a costume drama that is... The Other Belin Girl? Horrendously bad. Other Belin Girl? Justin Chadwick's The Other Belin Girl. Oh my gosh, I'm so impressed. In which Natalie Portman plays Anne Belin

and Scarlett Johansson plays that hussy Mary Boleyn, who we all forget Henry first had the affair with, before he changed his sights on Anne. This is a period of releases that I remember so vividly. Eric Bana, at the end, tail end of his movie star career, like stomping around as Henry VIII fucking embarrassing himself. I had like spent like six, seven months in a suburb outside of California where I could take a bicycle to the one multiplex

and only see things that were playing there or I had to talk to someone who's driving me to a theater if there was something else I wanted to see. And this is like the first week I'm back in New York and I'm like, I have autonomy. I'm riding trains, everything's playing. So I remember every fucking movie that came out in this time period.

Wow. Have you seen the other Bollin Girl? No. Do you care to learn about British history, Henri Vier, and all this stuff? I love, like, Wolf Hall. Exactly. So stick with that. I would say The Other Bollin Girl isn't gonna offer you more shading.

No, I'm just saying Wolf Hall is a little more humanist, realistic. That's good stuff. Is it gonna make sense if I haven't seen The First Bollin Girl? Oh, boy. Now you want to tell me about The Other One? A pause break. Thank you, thank you. No. Number four at the box office is an adaptation

of a young adult fantasy series. Inkheart? No. Is it in the 10? No. Is it in the 10? Is Inkheart in the 10? No.

When did Inkheart? Oh, but I love Inkheart. Thank you. I think Inkheart came out January 2008. Yeah, and like, so you thought Inkheart made it all the way to late February? That thing fell out of theaters. Okay, so you thought Inkheart made it all the way to late February? That thing fell out of theaters.

Okay, so I look foolish. It came out January 2009, so it's not out till next year. No, no. This is sort of similar to Inkheart. Inkheart, though, I feel like has the page master's... It's not Spiderwick Chronicles, is it? He doesn't let me finish. The Spiderwick Chronicles is the correct answer.

Mark Waters is The Spiderwick Chronicles starring little correct answer. Mark Waters is The Spiderwick Chronicles starring little good doctor himself, Freddie Highmore, never seen it. David Strathairn, Mary-Louise Parker, it's got a weirdly good cast, I've never seen it. Yeah, Seth Rogen's in it apparently. He must be a voice of some kind of creature. I'm a goblin.

Something like that. Yep, he's a bird-eating hobgoblin called the hog squeal. That was incredible. Thank you. That was such a great, yeah. Have you seen Spiderwick? No, I haven't. You haven't opened the Chronicles?

No, I haven't, but you know what? I have opened the other Chronicles of Narnia. Hell yeah. A bigger deal. A bigger deal. What about Riddick? You heard those tales? No, wait, what?

This guy can see so well in the dark, it's nuts. Wait, okay, random. Do you guys, did you guys ever read Charlie Bone? Charlie Bone? I was trying to describe this to somebody, and it felt like I was making it up. That sounds like you hit your head at one of your famous concussions

and then came up with the young adult series. My friend was like, are you trying to describe... Children of the Red King, a series of ten fantasy books. Yes, and when I was describing it out loud, it just sounds like someone mistakenly, like having a bad memory trying to recall Harry Potter. It's like- 10 year old Charlie Bone discovers he has a special power.

So far we're in Harry Potter land. He goes to a magic school, but it's a weekly school where he comes back home on the weekend. Dude, this sounds good. It's amazing. Bloor's Academy? Yes. Mr. Ominous and his three magical cats?

Is it good? I loved it as a kid. They never made a movie of this stuff, right? I don't think so. So Griffin's not aware of it. Well, I'm seeing on Wikipedia, the film adaptations tab, let's see. In 2023, Amazon announced that it was in the works,

Joseph Fiennes, Carmen Ejogo. Okay. Who knows what's come of it since then. Series or film? Film. I was gonna say, this is the era, 2008, where it's like everyone trying to identify what the next Harry Potter is,

and all of them either basically tap out at two or the first one bumps. There's a lot of these. And then I feel like 10 years later, it becomes, we're gonna do it for TV instead. Yeah. But the sort of like, Percy Jackson hits a wall at two. Yes, I loved Percy Jackson.

Mortal instruments, that never gets off the ground. Right, Artemis Fowl. Artemis Fowl, that's a long time. There's a lot of these though, you're absolutely right. Right, the Seeker. Aragon. Aragon. Wait, I recently...

The whole thing with Aragon was that it was like, a child wrote this, and you're like, don't brag about that. It's fine for adults to write, we don't need to hand them over to children. Also, I recently realized that Aragon is just Dragon but the first letter swapped and I was so upset. Yeah, you know what that sounds like? Something like a 10 year old would come up with it

and be like, just print it! This shit sells! This book was written by a teenager, you'll never believe it, but he was homeschooled? Yeah, checks out. Oh my God. Makes sense. So, but no one's ever done the tripod trilogy. There's like, there's certain young adult shit I read

as a kid that has never been done. Bruce Coville has never been done in a proper way. Right, you love. I fucking love those books. You talk about those a lot. But they did them for TV. They did a TV movie once or whatever. I think they did a couple of them.

But it's like, come on. There's still stuff on the vine. Ben looks so upset at me. Okay, number five, couple of them. But it's like, come on! Like, there's still stuff on the vine. Ben looks so upset at me. Okay, number five is the box. I like the tripod trilogy. Tripod trilogy's cool. It's awesome. It's spooky.

You hear they're doing a gender swapped holes? Oh, I did hear about this, but I was excited because the main character is one of the girls from the babysitter's club. Look, they announced good people. I did have a little bit of a, what are we doing here reaction. Where I'm like, was this a leftover memo from 2018 where they were like, I don't know holes but girls

But the thing with holes is it's like the books good and the movies good must we right? That's a good question. I don't know like it's like we kind of did it right, right? We all agree that holes is good quick roundup of David's points during this David's points during this thing. Karen's about to nail me to the wall. Some of those are jokes! The only good women are high school girls. No gender swapping. Keep the boys boys. Women can't dig holes.

I'll say this, I've never read holes. I know it's well loved. And I liked the movie, I only saw it one time, but I know it's beloved. People still talk about that movie fondly. But yeah, maybe. What does it mean, dig holes? They're like in a correctional, like it's like a kid's kitchen.

I don't wanna spoil holes, but the plot threads come together very well. It's like told cross-cut between that and the stories of this like old West outlaw lady. Right, and then all the threads come together in a very satisfying way. But it is, right, it was an excellent book. I feel like it's one of the most kind of like now below

classic long-form children's books. It's like The Giver. It's on that, it's on the top. It's kind of on the immortal list. And then they made a movie where everyone was like, wow, pleasantly surprised. They adapted this well. They hired good people.

And you're like, just doing it with girls instead doesn't feel like, oh, we have a really new inn. Karen roasted us. I feel like we should just support it. We should just say it's good. Old girl boss gang. Fuck. Remember when they made a movie of The Giver and it stunk? That was so annoying.

Yeah, but they tried to make The Giver in the style of all the movies we're talking about. I know! They were doing like a young adult fantasy sort of... They did it as if it was like Divergent. It's... really interesting. Because in the givers. Meryl Streep is in it and Jeff Bridges. Like they got.

And Taylor Swift is in it. Wait, what? But they aged them all up to like teenagers so it could be more like post Twilight, moody drama, romance. Look, what's important is that. Fifth of the Box Office is another book adaptation, kind of young adulty, a little more mainstream action, kind of franchise-y.

It's not Jumper, is it? It is Jumper. I mean, how the fuck are you doing this? I told you this is a very distant pure point. You were leaving Crawledge, it was a big moment in your life. I was leaving Crawledge. You were leaving Crawledge.

I made the bad choice to go to University of Crawling. I was just like, why am I going backwards? I already learned how to walk. I was living in Paris at the time. Whoa. I was dating none of these ladies. This is the sexiest period where he went to Paris. He lived in Paris and he was a bartender.

Yeah, we have to be understanding because in Paris they call college crawledge. Crawledge. I go to crawledge. Yeah, jumper, which is also bad. Really bad. Yeah, Doug Liman's Jumper. Have you seen Jumper? No, I haven't seen him.

Hayden Christensen plays someone who learns to teleport. And our friend Jamie Bell plays a bit of a Rapscallian Jumper. He's another Jumper! Named Griffin. The other thing with that movie, it's the same fucking thing as The Giver. The characters in the book are like 12. They announced it, it was cast with 12-year-olds. And then like a month before filming, the head of Fox went to Doug Liman.

And he's like, 12-year-olds aren't cool. Oh no! Don't you want this to be a blockbuster? Cast older. And they dropped the whole cast. It starts the first 15 minutes with them as 12-year-olds. And then it like jumps ahead. And then he was like, Hayden Christensen, his box office gold. Rewrite this for Hayden Christensen and I'll give you an extra $20 million in the budget.

Jesus. And the movie sucks. Yes, and Hayden is not good at it. But it's stuck in a weird zone between being like a YA thing and trying to be like a cooler, edgier, like matrix-y thing. Right. So that's the top five. Number six of the box office is Step Up to the Streets. Oh, I watched that.

Harry Shum Jr. was in it and I thought he was so handsome. Harry Shum Jr. is a very good looking guy who's a very good dancer. I think I was just really excited to see like an Asian person and then I don't think he had any lines. Well, I mean, lines aren't really the point of the Step Up movies. It's not really about what they're saying. That's a really good point. The steps.

And you know what? He did. He did. One of the greatest titles of all time. Step Up to the Streets. No colon. Yes. Number seven at the box office is the...

That's what makes it good. No colon. I never thought about that. Yeah, yeah. Because you're like, oh, what? It's called Step Up to colon the Streets? No, it's a command. Wow, it's Step Up to. But it kind of makes you think about having a colon.

I'm asking you to step up to the streets. Yeah. Yeah. Number six of the box office is the flop-ish, vague flop, Fools Gold, with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson in there searching for treasure. You know what's funny about that movie? What? It's...

Nothing. They speak unrepentant dog shit who made it it's Andy Flickman I want to say Andy Tennant fuck I get Flickman and Tennant okay numbers he also do how to lose a guy in 10 days I feel like it was an exact reteam yeah sure Andy Flickman's the guy who did the one where like the Rock Place football or whatever oh right... Oh, right. The game plan. Number eight at the box office is New Country for Old Men. Ooh!

Now that's quite a good film. Which of course is about to win best picture at the Oscars. We will be covering it soon on this podcast. That's also true. That's also true. Um, and number nine at the box office, new this week, is the, um... Christina Ricci sort of Sundance hit mega flop Penelope. Oh, she's a lady with a pig nose.

Right, that's what that is, right? Is that really what it's about? The plot of that movie is Christina Ricci has a pig nose and she has to wear a scarf over her face so that people don't judge her. And James McAvoy is her love interest and I think Reese Witherspoon plays like a badass biker lady.

Okay. Never seen. Reese Witherspoon produced it a badass biker lady. Okay. Reese Witherspoon produced it. Yes, she did. And number 10, The Box Office, which I did see this one, I think I saw it in France, but I'm not sure. My scene in England was the somewhat charming romantic comedy, Definitely Maybe, by Ryan Reynolds. Pretty charming.

And Rachel Weisz, and Elizabeth Banks. Wow. It's kind of cute. I haven't seen it, but it sounds like something I would really like. It's kind of like what we, you know, Reynolds at his most calm. Okay. Still doing a little bit of his like bullshit, but not at the top.

I was so all in on Ryan Reynolds and I was like, what do I have to do to get the public on board with this guy as a movie star? I wish and I dream and now I live in a hell of my own wishing. I don't like anything he does anymore. And we've like lost like this era of like Just Friends definitely may be fucking adventure land. You would just as best performance.

Just saying this in a group chat of ours. They were like, just friends is coming out on Blu Ray. And Alex Rossary was joking like, who is going to buy this? Who could ever buy this? And I was like, I've been writing letters to Congress for years. Right. You were like, I dreamed of a world

where this was the kind of thing he did in Alex and I dreamed of a world where he doesn't exist and never did. I thought it was a good rejoinder. It was a good rejoinder. How do you feel about Ryan Reynolds? Oh, I think I always forget he exists. And then when I relearn about him, I'm a little bit annoyed. There you go.

That's a great way of talking. That's how I felt when he popped up on SNL 50 where I was like, oh, and then I was like, all right, can we be done? Yeah. Can we shh? You like Ryan Reynolds? He's your favorite actor, right? You told me that recently. No. Ben is currently wearing a Ryan Reynolds t-shirt. Yes, he is.

And it says like Deadpool. It's him crossed out. Oh no. Oh no. You've also got Juno still hanging around in the box office. Yeah, what's Juno up to at this point? $135 million.

So it's still gonna make another 30. That's crazy. You've got the Martin Lawrence, or is it Martin Lawrence? Yeah, Martin Lawrence film, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. Oh yeah. And you've got Be Martin Lawrence, is it Martin Lawrence? Yeah, Martin Lawrence film, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. Oh yeah. And you've got Be Kind Rewind.

Yeah, my most anticipated movie of 2008 did not live up to expectations. Not a very good movie. Now an interesting curio, but at the time I was like, Michelle Gondry's gonna make a fucking Jack Black most deaf movie. Wow. Where they have to remake all the most popular blockbusters in the last 50 years.

It did, I mean, look, it kind of... It's a great premise. It's a great premise and like it does have the lasting legacy of people doing the thing. Yeah, whatever. Rewinding. Making your own like low budget cardboard shot for shot recreations. Yeah. Even that feels kind of out of date.

Yeah, but it lasted for a couple years. Karen, what's up with you? What should we plug? Oh, nothing. What? Yeah. What have you been in LA doing? Oh, I have been working on a show.

Right. And it was a lot like this movie. Yeah. I worked on a show called A Man on the Inside. It's like a sweet, a little mystery comedy starring Ted Danson. He's having a pretty good time. It's on Netflix, right? Yeah, season one is on Netflix.

I've been working on season two. Right. That one hopefully will also be on Netflix. Champion your will be weird if it wasn't. I, yeah, it would be strange. But I would love to plug, I think I would just love to plug Yo-Yo Ma. Ugh.

He's amazing. That guy doesn't get enough. It's actually rude we've never had him on the show. Yo-Yo Ma. Ugh. He's amazing. That guy doesn't get enough. He doesn't. It's actually rude we've never had him on the show. It is. Yo-Yo Ma's funny. Yeah, he's really funny. Anytime Yo-Yo Ma does a little cameo or a little talking head thing, I'm like, Yo-Yo

Ma's funny. So charming. Does he like vamps? Has he seen vamps? Yo-Yo Ma, you like vamps? My friend was at Carnegie Hall recently and he said the cello cases or the cello, the things holding cellos are orange now. Oh.

And he was disturbed by this. Was he at the Yo-Yo Ma concert on Thursday? I think he was. Wow. Incredible. I don't know. He was talking to me about this. Wow.

But it was, I don't have enough for you on this. I'm sorry. Wow. That's okay. We can cut that out of the episode. No, keep it in double at that. That's a really good trick. Can I share a little Paul Rudd story?

Please. Was he at the Spotted Pig one time? I don't think so Rudd story? Please. Was he at the spotted pig one time? Um, I don't think so. Okay. Fair enough. Uh, my friend Nate, who has been helping me out with getting to the gym. Shout out to Nate. You've been working.

Are you saying Nate's your trainer or you've been working on it? It's more, it makes me sound like Nate's sort of like. He's like a, a, a, a, accountability buddy, but he also knows his way around the gym in a way where like, I'm so rusty and just like, I feel out of sorts. So I just need someone to be like, do this. And what's the address of your gym and when do you go there? I just want to say, Ben says, I have a story to share.

I look over at Karen, Karen mouths to me, I have to go. I'm so sorry. And it's like comically, Ben starts telling the story in the slowest way possible. The calendar said we'd be done at four. I'm sorry. Our podcast is built on lies. That's okay.

Can I use the bathroom? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. So you use the bathroom, we'll tell you whether or not the Paul Rudd story is worth hearing when you get out. Okay, finish the story. Nathan's been keeping you accountable at the gym. Yes.

And so, Nate used to work for for Stuttering Association for the Young. Paul Rudd is really involved with that nonprofit. He had like a role, like a Broadway show, Three Days of Rain, and got involved with the organization. Which were Roberts and Bradley Cooper. One of the most tech Broadway cast ever, weirdly. And so he now does an annual fundraiser where he basically has like a bowling event and like get celebrities to come out.

And so Nate was running that event and got to hang out with Paul Rudd a bunch. And he sucks and is really mean. No, he's like the best fucking guy. He usually has pretty good stories about Paul Rudd. So Paul Rudd though showed him about this bit that he's been doing. Is it the finger thing? Yes.

Do you know about this, David? All right, so I'm texting- I know he has a bar. The group thread. Well, he's got like this- It's like an invite only bar. It's not like an actual business. It's like he's built an Irish pub

in the basement of his house, which I've heard is rad as hell. I'll go there. That's awesome. So he has this bit that he's been doing where he holds his finger up of his house, which I've heard is rad as hell. That's awesome. Yeah. So he has this bit that he's been doing where he holds his finger up in front of the camera of the cell phone in just the way where it looks like a butt. It looks like a butt with, and then he has a modified version of it where he can make it look

like you're seeing the back of a ball sack underneath the butt. And so to bring up Graham Norton, he tells the story on the Graham Norton show. Right. Yes. I remember seeing him on some talk show give the walkthrough of how to do it. Yeah. But I sent over a couple of pictures

that Nate illustrated how you do it effectively. Yeah, yeah, we can post those to social, of course. Okay, well you text this one with Ben's face to Karen right now? I'll text it. And then this is gonna be, right, without context because you missed the story. Let's just see how you respond to this.

Karen, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's such a joy. Sorry we kept you so long. No, it's okay. Do you wanna drop that letterbox handle or are we trying to keep that private? Oh my gosh, no, it's just my name.

My name is Karen and my last name is Chi. Pretty sure it's Kenny Chi, but that's right, because you'd be logging. Right, right, right, right, right. I should change it's just my name. My name is Karen and my last name is Chi. Pretty sure it's Kenny Chi, but... Right, because you'd be Logan. Right, right, right, right. I should change it to I be Logan. Absolutely. We just sent you a picture of Ben doing a finger trick

that looks like a butt. Don't give it away! Oh, I'm sorry. Wait, what do you want me to look? Just look at the photo. Just look and smile. It's a Paul Redd thing. Oh, what?

That's why I was preparing her. It seems a little aggressive to text it out of context. It's a trick where you hold your finger in front of the lens and it looks like there's a butt. Oh, you know what? That's why I was preparing her. It seems a little aggressive to text it out of context. It's a trick where you hold your finger in front of the lens and it looks like there's a butt. Oh, you know what? This doesn't really look like a butt. Yeah, I don't know how well-bended. Okay, well, those are just examples.

Paul Rudd, I'm sure, is like a pro at it. Yeah, he's the best at everything. You want to do another round? Do you want to try it again, but be nice about it? I'm so late to meet my aunt though, I do have to go. Thank you, I love listening. It is so funny that you have a busy schedule today, that it's your aunt's, and you got to go see your aunt.

So get out of here. Big ups to Karen's aunt. Thank you for having me. Tune in next week for Vamps with our friend Caroline Framke, return to the show for the first time in way too long. And as always. Fuck. All right. Don't say all right. Return to the show for the first time in way too long. Way too long. And as always. Fuck. All right.

Don't say all right. Help me out here. Kenny B. Loggins. Kenny B. Loggins. Kenny B. Loggins. The butt story was worth it. Okay. So worth it.

So worth it. I mean glad to hear he's a nice guy. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas. And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J. Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Olly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, BlankCheck Special Features,

for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.